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soulmate-game · 3 years

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Not related to the other two Bio!mom Harley AUs that I did. Just... similar. I wrote this instead of sleeping, as per the usual.

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“I need your help.”

No accent, no threats of violence, no beating around the bush (figurative or otherwise). No fighting or unconscious bodies.

Just Harley Quinn with her hair down, no makeup, and completely serious, in the center of the Bat Cave. Even though her usual exaggerated Brooklynn accent (circa 1950s) had become a pretty inseparable part of her personality over the years, every now and then she forcibly stuffed it down and used her mostly unaccented voice. The one reminiscent of days with less colors on her face, a high bun, and a pristine white lab coat.

Every single one of the Bats and Birds present, fresh from an interrupted patrol thanks to her, could count the number of times they had seen Harley like this on one hand. Bruce would have the most recollections, but everyone else would have plenty of fingers left on said hand. So they all knew, especially when Bruce willingly pulled down his cowl so he could look Harley in the eye, that this was the start of something they were not likely to forget. And maybe their chances of survival were slim too.

“Harley,” Bruce’s voice was still gruff, seeing as he was still mostly Batman at the moment, but his eyes were soft. “Maybe you should tell us what you need help with first. And sit down. You look exhausted.”

Sure enough, there were dark circles under Harley’s eyes. She let Bruce-man lead her over to one of their debriefing tables and sit her down. She let out a huge sigh, her fingers tangling in her loose blond locks.

“I have a confession, and it isn’t gonna leave this cave, capiche?” The slight return of her accent relieved a little of the tension, but not much. Taking this as their cue, the rest of the bats spread out into their usual seats at the table. Bruce stayed near Harley, keeping a hand on her shoulder in silent support. Harley didn’t continue talking until he gave her a solemn nod in agreement. She gulped— an action that immediately returned the tension.

“... fifteen years ago, back when I was still with Joker, I disappeared off the Gotham scene for a few months. I’m sure a few of you remember,” she looked up, and a couple of the older vigilantes nodded. Really, Jason has still been Robin back then. But the memory stuck out in his head now that he was thinking about it.

“Yeah, you were breaking away from him a little bit, which was weird at the time,” Red Hood mused aloud, arms crossed. “I think you helped us out a couple times and did some of your first team ups with Ivy before you vanished. Then a few months go by and you were back in action with Joker, so we mostly ignored it as you just being you.”

Harley nodded. “Ah, my Ivy’s a lifesaver, even back then. She helped cover up the timeline by keeping me in action for longer than I should’a been without putting me at too much risk.”

“Timeline…” Red Robin spoke up, eyes huge even behind his mask. “You don’t mean—“

“Harley,” Bruce breathed, having also caught on. “You were pregnant?”

The air went still. Harley sniffed, eyes watering even as she smiled.

“Oh yeah. Shouldn’t have been possible, ya know? Me ‘n Joker being dumped in that damn acid should have made us both more sterile than an operatin’ room. But I knew I couldn’t raise a kid, so after she was born—“

“You kept her?” Damian interrupted, earning a gentle cuff over the head from Dick. Harley just snorted.

“Yeah. Not gonna lie, I thought about abortion. But the baby didn’t do nothin’ wrong, and I was still in love with Joker back then so I was ecstatic that I was able to make something new with part ‘a him in it. Still, I knew a baby didn’t deserve to be raised in Gotham. Especially not my baby, not with my enemies and history. Not with who her father was. I knew he’d never want her, never let me keep her. So I spent the last five months of my pregnancy lookin’ around for the best possible family to take her in. And I found them in Paris, France. A sweet couple, both of them bakers. Sabine, she’s both adorably sweet and super kickass. Comes from a Chinese family that is crazy about teachin’ their women martial arts. But nothing shady about it, I triple checked. Just bonding through kicking people in the face. Which is perfect, I wanted my baby to know how to defend herself. I knew she’d need those skills eventually. And Tom, that’s Sabine’s wife, he’s a gentle giant. Same size as Bane, but as harmless as a puppy and makes the best croissants ever. Seriously, the best.”

“Harley,” Bruce gently prodded, but there was a tiny grin on his face. Seeing her behaving so… so normally, so proud and reminiscent, was a rare treat. Bruce would be lying if he said he wasn’t proud of how far the woman had come. How she had freed herself and become a better person, mostly on her own.

“Right, right. The point,” Harley took a breath, rubbing her forehead. “I came clean to Tom and Sabine, but apparently they knew who I was the whole time. They just didn’t care— did I mention they are perfect? Anyway, once I explained everything, they agreed immediately to adopting my baby. They’d been wanting kids, but it would’a been too risky for Sabine’s health. That’s how I found them anyway, they were in the market to adopt. We named her Marinette. She took Tom and Sabine’s last names, hyphenated. We decided Quinn would be her middle name. And after that, I came back to Gotham and told myself that she was in good hands and I needed to forget about her. Cuz I was no good for her. I knew that. I went back to my old tricks. And then…” Harley chuckled, but it was self-depreciating.

“Then a few years passed, and I started breaking away from Joker for real. Then we broke up, I blew up Ace Chemicals while you guys were outta town doing Justice League and Young Justice shit. I started dating Ivy. And—“ she smiled softly at the table, clearly seeing something the rest of them couldn’t. “Then Ivy convinced me to go see her. Visit my baby, see how she’s been. And I did. Marinette was seven years old, but damn it to hell she was gorgeous. And say whatever you want about me and Joker— most of it will even be true— but neither of us are stupid. And she inherited all of our intelligence. All of it. She got my blue eyes. But she got his hair, which meant Sabine teased me relentlessly about ‘are you sure she isn’t that Wayne’s kid?’ And don’t make that face Bruce, you’d be lucky to have a kid half as beautiful as my Mari-pie. No offense, Damian. Anyway. Anyway, this is the important part. Or part of it.

“She sat there and listened to everything I had to say. Everything. A little seven year old, who could barely understand English at the time, and she listened without interrupting once. She never threw a fit, she wasn’t angry or confused. I told her about the things I’d done in the past— well, G rated versions— and she didn’t care. She called me Momma Harley right away, said she wanted to meet Aunt Ivy sometime soon, and started telling me everything about her that I’d missed. From that day on, she became my sunshine. The light of my life, and I still call her at least once a week every week. When I disappear for a few days out of the city? I’m visiting her—“

“You’re banned from international travel, Harley,” Dick scolded, but he sounded way too amused for it to work. He knew she had her ways, anyway. Nobody could actually stop Harley damn Quinn from doing whatever she wanted.

“—Ugh, she tells me the same thing every time! Disappointed glare and everything. I don’t know how I gave birth to such a goodie goodie, but somehow I did. Not important though! The important thing is, I’m always the first to hear when something new happens in her life. And we had decided that she wouldn’t visit me in Gotham until she was at least eighteen, but apparently she disobeyed me— which I should have expected honestly— and entered you guys’ WE international scholastic competition.”

“Oh no,” Bruce pinched the bridge of her nose. “Marinette Dupain-Cheng? The contest winner?” He finally pulled out a chair and sat down. “The winner gets an all-expense paid trip to Gotham for them and their whole class.”

“Exactly!” Harley threw up her hands. “Mari told me last week, and I’ve been trying to talk her out of coming ever since. But she’s inherited both of our stubbornness too, and she isn’t budgin’ a bit. ‘Momma Harley, I wanna see you and Auntie Ivy though!’ And ‘Momma, Gotham’s nothing I can’t handle,’ or my favorite, ‘Maybe you’ll finally get to see me dropkick someone three times my size then, and I’ll prove it.’”

“So that’s what you meant by you need our help,” Tim said as he leaned forward over the table. “Joker just broke out of Arkham yesterday. You want us to protect her.”

“I’d prefer if one of you was with her outside of the mask too, as often as possible,” Harley confirmed. “I can’t stop her from coming here anymore, but I also don’t trust Joker for a second. As soon as he sees her, I’m afraid he’ll make the connection.”

“She looks like him?” Damian asked, scrunching up his nose at the ugly mental image of Joker as a teenage girl. Harley shook her head, solemn.

“She looks like a dark-haired mini-me,” she corrected. “She even keeps her hair in pigtails as her way of showing support for me. And I know Marinette can kick ass, Sabine’s trained her well. But Marinette inherited more than I’d like from me,” Harley ran a hand through her hair. “I didn’t notice it until she was thirteen. She got a crush on a classmate, and it was almost like watching videos of me back during the early days of— well, of Harley Quinn. Just without the crime and insanity. She didn’t even realize that she was almost stalking the poor kid until I pointed it out, and luckily I was able to put my doctorate to good use and we nipped that right in the bud ASAP. She never meant it that way, anyway. As soon as I explained things to her, she was horrified and immediately asked me to help her learn how to have a healthy relationship. That was a fun discussion,” Harley grimaced. “But she still gets attached to people really, really easily. Once she grew out of her crush on that boy, she adopted him as her unofficial brother. She already calls Selina “Auntie,” even though I’ve barely mentioned her to Marinette. She gets attached fast, and deeply. And I’m afraid that even after all the warning I’ve done, all the stories I’ve told her—“

“You’re afraid she’ll get attached to Joker just like you did,” Bruce finished for her, closing his eyes. “Because she knows he’s her father.”

“Yes,” Tears were slowly dripping down her face already, her hands curled into fists so tightly that her knuckles were paper white. “You know how he is. If he finds out she’s his biological daughter, he’ll immediately try to take advantage of that. And he’s far too good with his words for people like me and Mari. I’m worried outta my mind. Please. Help keep my baby safe from him.”

“We will,” Jason no longer had his helmet on, or the domino mask that he usually wore underneath it. All of them knew masks were merely formality with Harley nowadays. And he needed to look her directly in the eye so she could see how serious he was. “I can sign up as a bodyguard for the class. It won’t be weird, seeing as they’re tourists and this is Gotham. They also have several rich kids in their group if I remember right.”

Bruce nodded, agreeing with Jason. “That’s a good idea. I can lead the class on their tours of WE personally. That’ll serve the purpose of keeping an eye on her and shutting up the investors that keep begging me to make more public appearances for the sake of the company. Marinette’s name is already released to the news as the winner of the contest, so we can’t keep her out of the spotlight long. Tim, you’ll have to keep an eye on any and all pictures of the class. Try to erase or doctor the images with her in it well enough that connections between her and Harley can’t be easily made. Dick, you and Damian will be in charge of keeping an eye out for any activity from Joker. The slightest hint, and you notify all of us. We’ll decide on a case-by-case basis who is necessary to stick with the class and who goes after the clown.”

“She’s gonna sneak out of her hotel to stay with me and Ivy,” Harley admitted, bringing the (now slightly judgemental) attention back to her. She raised her hands up in surrender. “She didn’t tell me that, and I didn’t approve or suggest it! I just know my baby too well to not realize that that’s her plan. Could ya provide an escort?”

Bruce sighed. “This is gonna be an eventful month.”

#maribat #ml x dc #mlb x dc #soulmate-game #bio!dad au #bio!mom harley quinn #bio!dad joker #maribat fanfic #maribat fic #platonic Harley x Marinette #platonic Ivy x Marinette #platonic brucinette

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rinarecommends · 3 years

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Serotonin - Sero x F!Reader

Serotonin is thought to regulate mood, anxiety, and happiness in our bodies.

italicized text is meant to be spanish, however, I don’t speak spanish, and I didn’t want to try to google translate and it be wrong. Latin sero is KING though.

Nobody ever wants to be a cliche, right? But here you were being one. You became roommates with Hanta Sero a little over a year ago, and you slowly fell in love with him, irrevocably in love with him, but you were determined to suffer through it because you were sure that he would never feel the same. He was a HERO for crying out loud, a damn good one. He could have anyone he wanted, with his neat quirk that may or may not bring about not so safe thoughts, at times, and his spanish accent that would make any man or woman drop their pants, especially when he was mad, but it wasn’t just that. He was caring, always trying to save the day and people. He would give someone the shirt off his back if they needed it, it’s just who he was. He was loving, especially towards his friends and family, if the pictures hung all over the two bedroom apartment that you guys shared were any indication, even if one of those friends was a blonde asshole who was the epitome of anger in human form. He was everything you wanted, and all the things you never thought you needed all wrapped up in one person. It wasn’t really a problem, living with him while being in love with him. He didn’t date because he was too busy with hero work, so you didn’t have to see him with other women, or even think about him possibly being with someone else, until today.

Today, you woke up like any other day. You ate the same breakfast. You did the same morning routine, except when you walked out of your room, you walked into sero arguing with someone over the phone, in spanish. You could tell it was an argument because of the language his body was using.

“I know his ideas are normally bad, but I can not think of any other viable option, Kirishima. I need these feelings to go away, look at her and look at me, she 's perfect and she deserves someone just as perfect.”

He angrily hung up the phone and drug his fingers through his hair in frustration, and that’s when you decided to pipe up to let him know that you were in the room with him.

“Hanta, are you okay?” You said making him jump in surprise, and he turned to you, forcing a smile on his face, but you could tell it was forced.

“Everything’s fine. I was just talking with Kaminari and Kirishima, and they said something stupid that set me on edge, that’s all. Anyways, Goodmorning Sweetheart.” You felt your body flush at the usual pet name that he gave you, it always made your heart flutter. You smiled brightly at him.

“Goodmorning Cellophane.” You teased at his hero name. He rolled his eyes and scanned the room, searching for something. You could tell he found it when his eyes lit up like a christmas tree. He sighed in relief, picking up the hero belt that he had finally found after searching for it the whole time while he was on the phone, but it was just his luck for it to be hiding in plain sight.

“I’ll be out later tonight than usual, so we won’t be able to watch movies like we usually do on friday nights. Sorry Sweetheart.” He said with his back turned to you. Your heart dropped to your feet. You always looked forward to the movie nights that became a ritual for you and him. If you didn’t know better, you’d consider them dates.

“Oh? Work Event?” You asked with curiosity, wondering what could drag him away from movie night, knowing it had to be something related to work.

“No, not this time. Kaminari has set me up on a date with a girl he knows, and I told him I’d go. Give dating a shot, y’know, get back out there in the field.” He rambled out, but you weren’t paying any attention. As soon as the word “date” left his mouth, your heart crumbled after each word thereafter. You forced a smile onto your face while your heart broke into a thousand pieces while screaming at you to stop him, tell him how you feel, but you let it break and silenced its screams, letting your brain convince you that it was not a good idea. Letting him know you had feelings for him could mess everything up, and you loved hanta, loved living with him, loved being his friend. You didn’t want to ruin that.

“That’s great, Hanta. I am so happy for you.” You were not happy. You knew you should be. If this was what he wanted, you should be happy for him, but you weren’t. You wanted him to want you, wanted him to love you.

“Yeah. I think it might be a good thing. Everyone needs someone to love them and be loved in return, right?” Yes. Yes they did.

“Right!” You said with enthusiasm that you could only hope sounded genuine. He smiled at you one last time before he walked out the door, headed to work as a hero.

Once you knew he was gone, you sighed, but it came out shaky and before you knew it, you were crying, sobbing really. You felt this sharp pain through your heart as if something was squeezing and would not let go. You knew in that moment, you were experiencing real heartbreak, and the only thing to do when you’re heart broken? Call your best friend.

It rang twice before she picked up, and if you weren’t so upset, you’d smile because you knew you could always count on the ever reliable Mina Ashido.

“Yo Bestie.” She said as she answered, her typical nonchalant greeting for answering your calls. You opened your mouth to say something to her, but all that came out was a sob.

“I’ll be there in ten.” She said without you having to say anything, hanging up the call quickly to get to you. You let your phone fall out of your hand, clattering to the floor. How could everything go to hell so fast? You were living peacefully with the man you were secretly in love with, with no problems in sight, now he was going on a date, and it felt like the end of the world.

She made it in eight. She came into your apartment with you on the couch sobbing, hardly able to catch your breath.

“What Happened, Y/N?” She asked, quietly, needing to know what the problem was, so she could hopefully fix it, hating to see her best friend in this condition.

“H-h-he’s g-g-going on a-a-a da-a-a-te.” You stuttered out between your sobs. You didn’t say a name, but you didn’t have too. The thing was that your feelings towards Sero was evident to everyone but him, and apparently Kaminari who kept trying to set him up with girls, and his feelings for you were evident to everyone but you.

“He told you that?” She said to you, all you could do was nod.

“And you’re letting him?” She asked, making you look at her. What did she mean letting him? You didn’t have a choice in the matter of whether or not he goes out on a date. You weren’t his girlfriend, just someone that was hopelessly, desperately in love with him, who happened to be his roommate. It was like she could read your mind, and maybe she could, you had been friends since you were kids, friends throughout highschool, even though you weren’t at UA or in a hero course. She’s the reason that you were able to score this roommate when you were desperate to get out of your family home. She’s the reason you were able to meet Hanta at all.

“N/N, you have two options here, and I am going to tell you what they are, honestly, with no sugar-coating bullshit. You can let him go out on this date, ignore your feelings forever, be insanely upset as you watch him maybe fall in love with this nameless, faceless girl, or maybe he won’t, but then there will be another one after her, and another, until he finds “the one,” and you can wallow in all the “what if?” scenarios you can come up with about your feelings towards him and how it might’ve played out if you had just said something, or you can open your eyes, and see that you are “the one” for him, and say something to him. Tell him how you feel. Then nothing has to change. He will either let you down gently because he’s not an asshole like our neighborhood #1 hero that is also an angry pomeranian, he’s SERO for crying out loud. He’s either gonna let you down gently, or he’s gonna return your feelings, but it’s a chance that you’re gonna have to take because I know you. You’ll regret it, in the long run, if you never tell him.” She took a deep breath after that monologue. Your tears continuously dried up as the words poured out of her mouth, and you felt silly. Why were you so scared to begin with? Was it rejection? She was right. Sero wouldn’t be harsh if he didn’t return your feelings. Was it the fear of change? What would really change if you confessed? You’d still be friends, if he didn’t feel the same, and you’d still be roommates, even if it’d be awkward for awhile.

That’s when you decided. You were going to tell him how you felt. You were going to take a leap of faith and just go for it. Mina was all about living carefree and with no regrets, and she was right, when you thought about it. You would definitely regret not telling him.

You nodded at her and gave her a small smile.

“I’ll do it.”

She sat down beside you.

“What’s the plan then?” She asked with a mischievous smirk on her face, and seeing that, you couldn’t help but match it with one of your own. Sero was certainly the love of your life, but Mina was undoubtedly your soulmate, two halves of the same hole.

“So here’s the plan…” You told her what your plan was, and she nodded along with you, agreeing with your plan, piping up when she thought something needed tweaking, and you two had a solid, doable plan almost an hour later. She left you to your own devices because she was on hero duty tonight, and she needed some semblance of rest to be able to protect the citizens at full potential.

You got dressed for the occasion and watched the clock until you knew he was almost due to clock out, and you called him.

Ring. Ring.

“Princesa. Are you okay? You never call me when I’m at work unless something is wrong.” He rushed out, answering after only two rings. Your heart soared when he called you a princess in spanish, and then it twisted in horror thinking that if you didn’t do this, that he’d call someone else that, or at the least, cease calling you that because what girl wants their boyfriend calling another girl “princess?”

“... I’m actually not okay, Hanta. I know you have a date, but can you come home before you go? I really need you.” You inhaled and exhaled slowly, trying to keep your breathing even from all the nerves in your body standing on edge.

“... sure, princesa. I can come home before then. I’ll be there in 20. I just have to turn in paperwork and stuff. Will you be okay till then?” You nodded even though he couldn’t see you and breathed out a “yes” to give him confirmation that you’d be okay for twenty more minutes.

You hung up with him and stood up, started pacing back and forth while looking at the clock. You were actually gonna do this. This was a pivotal moment. After this, there was no going back, only forward.

Pacing back and forth, time seemed to only drag on making those twenty minutes feel like an hour, until you heard hanta’s keys jingle in the slot, unlocking the door.

“N/N? Where are you?” He said as he opened the door, not noticing you in the small living room. You looked at him, and your heart clenched, in the best way. He was so beautiful. He looked tired from a day of hero work. His hair was still wet from taking a shower at the hero office, like he always did, hating coming into the apartment smelly and sweaty.

“I’m right here, Hanta.” You said making him snap his gaze to you. He looked you up and down, probably checking to see if you were physically okay, and when he noticed that nothing was physically wrong with you, he gave you a curious look.

“You’re not hurt?”

“I am. It’s just not a wound you can see.” you replied to him, trying to strain a smile, but not quite making it work.

“I don’t -” He started but you shook your head.

“Do you know her name?” You asked, words tumbling out of your mouth without you really being able to think about them.

“Who?” Sero said, clearly not realizing you were talking about the girl he was supposed to go out with tonight.

“Do you know what she looks like? Is she prettier than me?” You asked, making his look grow even more confused.

“I -” He went to say something, but you continued on with your tirade, not being able to stop the words coming out of your mouth now.

“I sat here today, and I just thought, how has he not noticed? Has he, and just chose to ignore it, but you’re not that kind of person, you wouldn’t blatantly ignore someones’ feelings. You’re a hero, acknowledging people and their feelings is a part of that job, but then you told me you were going on a date today, and my world stopped. It literally stopped because I was okay with it being unnoticed as long as nothing changed, but you dating changes everything hanta because I can’t just stand by and watch the man that I am hopelessly in love with, who just so happens to be my roommate, go on a date with someone that’s not me. Not without telling him how I feel. I don’t want to live the rest of my life with unanswered questions and thoughts about what could happen.” You sighed. Taking a breath, looking at him as you did, seeing him with wide eyes and an open mouth. He opened and closed his mouth as if to say something, but you could tell he wasn’t sure what to say.

“I love you, Hanta Sero. I love the way you care about people in your life and people you don’t even know. I love the way you try to make sure I am okay when you get home, even though you’re the one that is out there saving lives every single day. I love the way your eyes crinkle and you have a little dimple when you smile, and I mean really smile. I love the sound of your laugh. I love the way you smell when we cuddle on the couch while watching movies because I get cold so easy. I love the way you play with my hair when you think I’ve fallen asleep during the movie, when the truth is that I just pretend because I don’t want you to stop. I love how smart you are and how you continue to surpass everyone’s beliefs about you because you’re so great and no one ever sees that, always doubting you. I see that though. I see you, Hanta, and I love you just the way that you are.” You were so into your thoughts and feelings that you weren’t even aware of the huge smile that had made its way onto his face. You just kept talking.

“I know I’m not the greatest. I get upset easily, and I’m not the smartest. I’m not athletic, and I’m a decent cook, but nothing noteworthy, and there are probably so many people that would be better for you, who could love you better, take better care of you while you’re out there saving the world, but instead of dating someone that you don’t even know, that KAMINARI picked out, is it so far fetched that you never even consider dating me, when I was right here, all along? Was I not even a thought? No matter. I’m here. I’m pouring out my feelings, despite my intense fear of you rejecting me, and I’m asking you, pleading with you to pick me. Pick me, hanta. Choose me. LOVE ME. If you just do that, if you just choose me, I’ll spend the rest of my life showing you that you made the right decision, that I’m worthy of your love. That I -” You were cut off by the feel of lips slamming onto yours, words dying in your throat as the band that was stretching so tight, finally snapped. You had kissed guys before, but it had never felt like this, no one’s lips had ever felt like they were made just for yours, but his did. They fit together with yours perfectly, in sync, as the kiss went on and on, and you never wanted it to end, but it did. He slowly pulled his lips away and took a breath.

“Please. Stop talking. I wouldn’t want to choose anyone else. How have we both been hopelessly in love with the other and never noticed each other’s feelings?” He breathed out. His words made your stomach flutter with butterflies and instead of tears or sobbing, laughter, unadulterated laughter, flew out of your mouth, making him laugh along with you.

“I guess we’re both blind when it comes to feelings, huh?” You asked, smirking, and he nodded as he leaned in to kiss you again, and everything melted away, your brain flooding with serotonin.

#Rina Writes #rina speaks #Rina recommends #sero hanta x reader #Sero Hanta #latin sero #bnharem collab #bnharem #fluff #slightly angsty #please dont hate this #bnha fic #bnha fanfiction #sero fanfiction #reader insert

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crossdressingdeath · 3 years

Note

I went to reread the Soup Incident (chapter 69, a flashback in a flashback near the Phoenix Mountain kiss). There were several things I had forgotten!

In the middle of the Sunshot Campaign, the YunmengJiang Sect had been to the Langya area to assist the LanlingJin Sect. Because they were short of hands, Jiang YanLi went to the battlefield along with them.She knew that her cultivation wasn’t high, so she did what she could, busying herself with the meals of the cultivators. In the beginning, neither Wei WuXian nor Jiang Cheng agreed, but Jiang YanLi had always been adept at cooking. [....]Although he really enjoyed the soup and felt grateful for the cook’s intentions, Jiang YanLi had never left her name. Nobody knew that another low level female cultivator had seen all of this. The cultivator was a servant of the LanlingJin Sect. Since her cultivation wasn’t high, she did the same job as Jiang YanLi did. She had fair looks and knew to take opportunities. Out of curiosity, she followed Jiang YanLi for a few times before she was able to guess what was going on. Keeping her composure, she loitered outside of Jin ZiXuan’s house after Jiang YanLi brought the soup, purposely letting Jiang ZiXuan see her shadow.Jin ZiXuan had finally managed to catch the person, so of course he was going to ask questions. Cleverly, the woman never acknowledged anything, but instead denied it ambiguously, her cheeks flushed, making it sound as though she was the one who did it, but didn’t want Jin ZiXuan to know how much trouble she went through. And thus, Jin ZiXuan didn’t force her to admit it any longer. However, in action, he had began to respect the cultivator. He began to pay attention to her, even raising her from a servant to a guest cultivator.For a long time, Jiang YanLi didn’t realize that something was wrong. This went on until one day, after Jiang YanLi brought the soup, she ran into Jin ZiXuan, temporarily there to pick up a letter. Naturally, Jin ZiXuan was going to ask what Jiang YanLi was doing in his room. Jiang YanLi didn’t dare say it in the beginning. However, hearing that his tone sounded more and more doubtful, no matter how anxious, she had to tell him the truth.Yet, somebody had used this reason already.One could easily guess what Jin ZiXuan’s reaction was after he heard this.And so, right then and right there, he ‘exposed’ Jiang YanLi’s ‘lie’. Jiang YanLi hadn’t expected something like this to happen at all. She had never been the type of person to show off; not even many people knew that she was a daughter of the YunmengJiang Sect. In the short amount of time, she couldn’t find any strong evidence. She tried to protest, but the more she did, the more she felt cold at heart. In the end, stiffly, Jin ZiXuan told her, “Don’t think that just because you come from a powerful sect that you can steal and trample other people’s feelings. Some people, even if they come from poor backgrounds, their character are much better than the former’s. Please watch your conduct.”Jiang YanLi could finally tell a few things from Jin ZiXuan’s words.From the beginning, Jin ZiXuan had never believed that a maiden like her, born from a noble sect but had low cultivation, could do anything on the battlefield or help with anything at all. To put it simply, he thought that she just wanted to find a reason to approach him, that she was just here to add to the trouble. Jin ZiXuan had never understood her, and hadn’t ever wanted to understand her either. Due to this, of course he wouldn’t believe her.[....]Afterward, although Jiang YanLi continued to work at Langya, she only did her own things. Not only did she stop bringing Jin ZiXuan soup, she wouldn’t even give him a proper look.

(At the end of the flashback is the measuring snakes. JYL doesn't want to hang out with him, and he goes to grab her when she leaves. WWX hits him in the chest and JZX pulls his SWORD? and attacks, which ends up being blocked by LWJ.

So she does seem to have an actual job in the camp, and one that a servant cultivator does as well. The unnamed woman and JZX are apparently... not worried about poison?! Either being implicated as potentially poisoning, or worried about being poisoned. JZX enjoys the soup and even thinks positively of the maker's intent. (How did you survive this long in Koi Tower JZX? THAT COULD HAVE BEEN POISONED!?) Since JYL is not even widely known as being YMJ's remaining clan how much extra privilege would she really get at camp, beyond whatever was involved with making the soup? I do think that recent fic rec and what you have posted are very interesting points and much of it makes sense but not all of it fits what the text actually says.

...Ah, yes. I had forgotten that JZX is somehow naive enough to eat soup that someone has apparently just left in his room. Which is. creepy as hell, by the way, I thought she'd been leaving it outside but apparently it was in his room? What the hell was she doing in his room? They're not friends, they barely know each other, if she got caught they'd both be in trouble despite him not wanting her there and having no knowledge of her presence, and he never gave her permission to be in there. That is insanely fucking creepy. I believe this is another one of those things that everyone would find incredibly off-putting if JYL was a guy and JZX was a girl but apparently is fine when it's the other way around.

Anyway. First off, just because not many of the soldiers knew she was the only daughter of the Jiang sect doesn't mean it wasn't known. Everyone of high enough rank to offer any sort of benefit would also be of high enough rank that they would for sure know who she was. The rank and file not knowing a noble on sight doesn't mean people didn't know she was a noble! Also, so... JYL was doing a servant's job? When the sects would've brought plenty of servants? Note that the woman taking credit and doing the same job was a servant until JZX chose to raise her to guest cultivator status. And servants would be doing things other than preparing meals as well. So... JYL came along to do a job that other people could do just fine and that those other people would be doing as well as other things and also almost certainly was stealing food from the camp to give extra to her personal favourites and was breaking into a sect heir's room on a regular basis. Sounds like a waste of resources that would be better spent feeding and housing another servant, honestly. Or, since she's making extra food for her brothers and JZX, four extra servants. Also I love how that last bit is phrased like her in a way punishing JZX by refusing to even look at him when... yeah, that's what he wanted the whole time? All he wanted from her was for her to leave him alone. Nice of her to finally get the memo! Only took her a decade or so!

I also find it hard to feel anything for JYL when JZX stops her from leaving at Phoenix Mountain so he can talk to her, because like... you have been being a massive creep about this guy probably since you were children, you can deal with being kept in place so he can talk to you one time. JZX shouldn't have drawn his sword, but like. I do find it hard to feel bad for her regarding the slight discomfort of a man who has never shown any desire to hurt a woman in any way beyond "get the fuck away from me I want nothing to do with you" (which she then ignored) not immediately allowing her to leave when she wants to so that he can explain and apologize for his actions and give her what she always wanted. Like... oh dear! Did someone ignore your clear discomfort and insist on staying around you when you made it clear that you didn't want him there? Well, maybe you'll think twice before inflicting that on him again!

#mdzs #lotus sister #jin zixuan #asks #anon

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allhailthecoffeegods · 3 years

Text

A lonely kitty in Gotham

Chapter 1

Tired... Marinette was extremely tired. All she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and sleep but instead she sat staring at the wall of her office in her small apartment she had bought and was now living in because her parents kicked her out.

Why was she staring at the wall you may ask? Short answer, she had finally done it! She had finally tracked down Hawkmoth and Mayura after 3 years of fighting she now knew both of their identities (Gabriel Agreste and Natalie Sancoeur) and not only that but she had an entire file filled with proof. Now all that was left was to take back their miraculous and hand them over to the police (not before cursing them first... obviously).

Unfortunately it’s not going to be as easy as it sounds. You see Marinette or Nettie which she goes by now was alone, completely and utterly alone.

No Parents, no family and no friends.

Three years ago Nettie had all of the above she was happy, she had a best friend Alya and a group of many friends from her class, she had two loving but slightly distant parents who ran the most popular bakery in all of Paris possibly even France and her amazing grandmother Gina who traveled the world and told her all about the crazy things she did (some of which she promised not to tell her parents about because it may have been considered breaking the law but nothing reallllly bad).

But all of that soon changed over the first year Hawkmoth terrorised Paris with his akuma and was later joined by mayura with her sentimonsters. Slowly she lost everything including her partner in fighting crime Mr.Bug holder of the ladybug miraculous.

Nettie is in procession of not only the black cat miraculous but also forcefully became the last remaining guardian of 18 other mini gods that are bound to jewels (excluding the butterfly and peacock (not that she would ever give them up because they are basically her family now and she will do absolutely everything to protect them)). How?

Running late to class 3 years ago she saved a (very) old man (186 years old to be specific) from being hit by a car, and for some reason that was enough for him to “gift” her the black cat miraculous as he saw her true chaotic soul and aura (it didn’t matter that she was only 13 YEARS OLD!) he thought it was a brilliant idea to turn her into a child soldier fighting a war against two supervillains more than double her age.

After and introduction to the one and only God of Destruction, who by the way is OBSESSED with the stinkiest of cheeses, she became one of Paris’ main superheroes Kitty Noir alongside her partner Mr.Bug who she guessed to be around the same age as her at the time. It was easy to deduct that he was going to be more of a problem instead of a partner due to his obsessive and intense flirting and lack of skills other than some possible fencing training, all in all he didn’t have a clue how to fight. He was also apparently extremely reckless... like more reckless than her pouring 2 energy drinks into coffee before downing it and has died so many times in a fight she now also has a close relationship with tiki the God of Creation having had to end the fight herself (honestly why did the old guy pick him because it seems like he didn’t even do a similar ‘oh help save me’ situation like he had with her otherwise the old guy would already be dead!) Even though she wasn’t that much better to begin with she did have some hand to hand combat training curtesy of Gina and her ‘friends’ (let’s talk about those later). And she was now training in martial arts and going to the gym to build more muscle and become better without the enhanced supersuit just incase (she also sticks a domino mask on before transforming because she’s paranoid okay and if she is ever forced to detransform she doesn’t want anyone knowing her identity right of the bat to use against her, okay!)

Alongside that she was also extremely smart (like genius level) great with technology and quick to come up with some absolutely insane but brilliant plans. This all resulted in her taking on more of a leadership roll whilst fighting akumas. Mr.Bug only got worse as time went on and her civilian life went downhill, it took 8 months for the old man (previous guardian of the miraculous and temporary mentor for 2 of the months) to become compromised and pass the roll onto her. And the first thing she did was take the ladybug miraculous back and erase the holders (Adrien Agreste her former friend) memories of being Mr.Bug.

The only problem with that was the battle Miracle queen where master fu (the old guardian man) was compromised, and so were all 8 of her temporary heroes except Viperion, holder of the snake miraculous, who had started to tour around the world with his farther Jagged Stone) this ment there were two consequences of taking The ladybug back, the first being she was now alone against two superpowered terrorists but also that she had to switch transformations at the end of a battle to be able to purify the Akuma and cast the miraculous cure to fix everything and yes that did include... resurrection of people who died in the cross fire.

Anyways, back to how Nettie is alone. Only a few weeks after the first attack, an exchange student transferred to the the newly dumbed Akuma class *sigh*. At first she seemed nice and had and was telling the class of her interesting life, her mother was a Italian diplomat and she’s traveled the world.

But Nettie had a bad gut feeling about Lila Rossi which unfortunately was correct. On her third day in the class she started gushing over how kitty noir aka Nettie dearest (obviously unknown to everyone else) saved her from and Akuma attack and they became “best friends”, to say Nettie was left speechless and confused at the lie is an understatement.

Regrettably Nettie was unable to prove her story was a lie because how would she know said superhero didn’t save her without revealing her secret identity.

But the girl carried on creating more and more outlandish claims, such as how she saved Jagged Stones cat on a jet runway (like come on seriously what airport would allow a CHILD of even a cat to run out onto the tarmac). But pointing this out was apparently a mistake which Nettie soon discovered in the girls bathroom after class. Lila sauntered in with a sickly sweet smile that was soon dropped when Nettie refused to give into this girls bullshit.

Hence she was pinned against the wall and threatened, that if she didn’t go along with lie-la’s lies she would lose everything she loved before leaving so she wasn’t caught. Not believing her Nettie continued to point out inconsistencies and facts that contradict her story’s but no matter how much proof was presented to the class lie-la was able to turn it around (meta theory coming into her head: maybe she wasn’t affected because of the miraculous magic) and plant the idea that Nettie was a bully into all her friends heads which apparently all share one brain cell ( or so she thought until Adrien confirmed he knew they were lies to but he was taking the ‘high road’ because nobody was getting hurt, it’s definitely not like lilas ruining all there future careers by promising favours and opportunity’s that will never come and convincing them they no longer need to put in any effort for their futures *insert eye-roll* ).

So life continued and her friends started to turn on little Nettie the scattered brained, clumsy girl who bent over backwards to protect and make sure they were all happy. It hurt more than words could describe the day Alya her BEST FRIEND led the class to turn their backs on her and declare they no longer want to be friends with a jealous bully anymore.

Luckily Nettie wasn’t akumatised but she came very close to it. The only things keeping her going were her duty to Paris and her family.

But as a consequence to that good luck, bad luck hit like a truck. She didn’t know for a few weeks until a guy named Jason called her parents to inform them that her favourite person in the whole world her amazing grandmother Gina had passed away in a accident somewhere in the United States. And if that wasn’t bad enough Lila also managed to place a seed of doubt in her parents around the same time. Life fucking sucked. She wasn’t able to process and grieve due to Hawkfuck still being around so instead she threw herself into creating her own business (NeTi Designs) doing commissions, did I mention she’s a talented fashion designer... no, well now you know. As well as diving head first into a very thorough investigation on mothfucker in between fighting Akuma, helping in the bakery, plus training and patrolling the city of lights for two hours each night.

Atleast she didn’t have to make excuses to not hang out with her ex-friends anymore heh heh *cough*.

Eventually this resulted in her parents questioning her on her disappearances from her room after randomly checking in one night while she was out patrolling and the conversation sort of went like this.

“Marinette, where have you been?! I just checked your balcony and you weren’t up their. It’s 2am” Sabine exclaimed when she dropped back onto her bed moments after detransforming. “Mamma I swear I was up there and I fell asleep in the corner near my pillows behind the deck chair. I just woke up from the cold and I thought I herd movement and panicked because ‘oh my gosh!’ Is it an Akuma but it wasn’t it was you mamma” Nettie responded with dramatic waving of her hands and a fake smile.

Sabine was NOT impressed and most certainly knew it was a lie but it was 2am and she couldn’t deal with this right now so she glared at her daughter whilst leaving her room through the trapdoor.

This continued for two weeks with both her parents randomly checking in. Nettie had to eventually relocate her research into a small apartment a few streets away from the library (which she paid for with commission money that nobody but her knew about especially since her business was doing well and she didn’t put it past her class to try and destroy that if they ever found out) and say she was studying to not be caught doing deep background checks on all her suspects, making files for every Akuma and tracking the butterfly’s on a app she created that has multiple resources available to the public ranging from an alert for attacks that can be activated all the way to videos she made in her hero persona showing things such as meditation or basic self defence that should only be used if they’re unable to get to a safe area away from the Akuma or to buy time to then get away depending on the powers of said Akuma. (Could also be useful in regular crimes like attempts at mugging)

This lead to longer disappearances to the point all her stuff that had any value to her or was related to business and miraculous matters (so basically everything) she was practically living there already. Not that she realised since she got maybe 5-6 hours of sleep and week? She was so enclosed in her little world when her parents decided they had enough (after multiple accusations of her sleeping around with older men and doing drugs (all tests came back negative because her choice of drug was caffeine) which where definitely lilas doing) her parents yelled at her to get out and never come back... so she did the only thing she had to grab where her pillows and fairy lights and she was out of the door, the situation was dubbed a future Nettie problem because ya know suppressing your emotions so the world doesn’t end.

(Authors note: I have plans on making this a series. Hope you guys like it 🙃)

#miraculous ladybug #marinette dupain cheng #chaotic marinette #sleep deprived thoughts #timmari #tim drake #batfam #batman #red robin #red hood #bruce wayne #jason todd #dick grayson #damian wayne #mlb fandom #mlb x batman

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okay-victoria · 3 years

Text

What do people think of Tanya? AKA: Actually, a lot of people agree with Lehrgen

Summary: WHOOOOO BOY. You know it’s going to be fun when my subsections have to have their own subsections. Briefly, there is the Good [people who like Tanya both personally and professionally], the Bad [people who like/love Tanya professionally but not personally], and the Ugly [people who ideally, Tanya will never speak to, look at, send mail to, or be in the general vicinity of ever again].

I would say most people fall into the “Bad” category - they recognize her value as an officer, sometimes to a worshipful degree, but on a personal level range anywhere from thinking she’s a creepy child to actively disliking her. Unfortunately for Tanya, the people that fall into the Ugly category are as a rule higher-ranking than the ones in the Good category, and most people in the Bad category seem to like her specifically in her military role, and it is questionable they’d want her as even a coworker outside of that, let alone as a friend.

The Good

People who’re in here: People who have only ever heard of Tanya in the context of the Silver Wings award, people she interacts with in the Imperial Navy; rando soldiers; someone kinda high up in the later-war Eastern Army command; Ugar

People who only know her from Silver Wings:

V1/C1

Describes the nice aura people would see in someone who wins the Silver Wings.

The Navy

V3/C2

A naval officer does assess Tanya as having a predatory look, but doesn’t seem to think particularly badly of it, he just notes it, and then says “Degurechaff was a fellow soldier he could be proud of, which was why he extended his hand in utmost seriousness to wish her well.”

Rando Soldiers

There’s no real good single quote on this, but over time Tanya comes in to reinforce various units and leaves behind various impressions, ranging through Good, Bad, and Ugly, but anyway, there almost have to be low & middle ranking officers and soldiers who are presumably nothing but grateful to Tanya for rescuing them, even though we never get much of anything from their perspective.

Others

A superior officer of Tanya’s in Eastern Army command, in V5/C1, gets a transfer request for Tanya’s unit and reflects he is sad to be losing her.

Ugar - I don’t have down any specific pieces, but IMO it comes across in the LNs that Ugar is generally well-disposed to Tanya and doesn’t have the positive professional/negative personal thoughts that most other people close to her do.

The Bad

People who’re in here: Tanya’s academy/war college instructors, the 203rd battalion & later Kampfgruppe, Zettour, Rudersdorf, Generic Superior Officers, Romel, Lehrgen’s professional opinion

Tanya’s Academy & War College Instructors:

V1/C1

Tanya’s zeal during academy scares her instructors.

V1/C4

The instructors scrawled “abnormal” across the top of Tanya’s file.

“In the academy, we were told over and over – and, for some reason, over again – to love our troops. Weirdly, now that I think about it, I feel like they emphasized this the most when talking to me.” <= Tanya...you’re...you’re so close.

V1/C5

Mentioned that some teachers in the academy are on Lehrgen’s side of the What The Fuck Do We Do With Tanya debate.

V3/C5

Romel’s summation of her personnel assessment notes that at least on paper, the academy and the war college gave good overall evaluations of her.

203rd Battalion:

V1/C3

[Visha] “The moment she turned her icy cold eyes on us like we were objects to be appraised, I shrank from her in spite of myself. People might laugh at me for being afraid of such a little kid, but those eyes reminded me of the way a cat looks when it’s playing with a mouse, which creeped me out”

[Visha] “I was different from Lieutenant Degurechaff, who could calmly nail fleeing soldiers in the back with optical sniping or explosion formulas. I was relieved because I wouldn’t have to shoot.”

V1/C5

[Visha] “Was she an agent of the devil or of God? It had to be one or the other. Ahh, I can’t believe I have an ally more horrible than the enemy. She’s not human. I would bet my life on it. Me and a few others saw it once. During training, one of our teammates dropped like he was dead. The captain gave him a good kick, and before we knew it, she was back on his feet. I had been staring into the abyss of death myself…the captain heaped abuse on me. But I know, I saw it: she charged into the avalanche to save me. Even after my friends told me that she tossed my busted body aside like a used rag, I believe. She is definitely a good commander, even if I’m not sure about her as a human being. Of course, we all laugh and bad-mouth her…if the captain is an apostle of God, then only the devil can possibly exist.” <= in good news, Tanya, you are currently winning on your quest against Being X and mostly making people believe that he’s the Devil for allowing you to exist!

V2/C1

[Weiss] also refers to Tanya as a vampire

[Weiss] thinks Tanya is arrogant

[Visha] “her thought is That’s so low, Major.” <= this is in response to Tanya pulling out her child voice to announce they were going to bomb Dacia’s factory.

[Weiss] “Weiss has only known her for a short time, but even he can pick up the displeasure his superior doesn’t bother hiding. Her mood is as dangerous as nitroglycerin. When Weiss quietly takes a step back, everyone discreetly follows suit. Nobody wants to be so close to Major von Degurechaff when she’s irritated.”

V2/C5

[Grantz] “If the devil exists, it has to be our instructor, the commander of the 203rd Aerial Mage Assault Battalion, the legendary Major von Degurechaff. The way she smiled. The way she looked at us like we were maggots. The way she seemed thirsty for blood. I’d believe she had tried to kill a rebellious underclassman or crack his skull open. If I screw up on the battlefield, she’ll definitely kill me. That’s how threatened I felt by the instructor who just had to also be my advisor…I wanna cry.”

[Grantz] “This was the major who had once said during a speech at the academy that deadweight should be killed…This is crazy. No one said it aloud, but it was the look on everyone’s faces. This was a nighttime mission to abduct enemy soldiers…Magic Second Lieutenant Warren Grantz realized he was shaking. My survival instinct was screaming. I wanted to avoid the war, the combat, the killing. I was hesitating. But one glance from Major von Degurechaff was enough to subjugate that instinct. She was far more terrifying…I was so terrified I hardly felt like myself anymore…How could the major just calmly sing a hymn?”

[203rd banter] Visha asks if anyone wants to trade places with her so she doesn’t have to be with Tanya all the time, and Weiss and Grantz are not itching to take her up on the offer.

V2/C6

[Grantz] Is really, really bothered by how chill Tanya seems to be about Arene.

V2/C7

[Weiss] Reflects on all the horrible things Tanya has put him through, but ends his reflection on the note that he understands why it was necessary to prepare them for war.

V3/C5

“Apparently, the troops serving directly under her thought she was a great field officer” <= Romel re: Tanya’s personnel file

V4/C5

“‘Please have the 203rd be part of your Kampfgruppe. All of us in the battalion wish to continue serving under you.’”

Tanya doesn’t get what she wants, is then pissed, and it gives off weird abusive-parent vibes where all her children try to flee and not be present, and for the ones who have to be (Weiss & Visha), they take it by flinching, cowering, praying to God for Tanya not to explode, etc.

V5/C4

[Visha] “Reality is far too unreal. She’s crazy. There’s something strange about her...The colonel cackled – no, she giggled, smiling like a child. It was positively surreal to see her eyeing the enemy with her tender gaze and licking her lips. She snickered, but what was so funny? She was terrifying...Dripping red liquid. Pink things that used to be humans, flying everywhere. And opposite that scene was a beaming little girl. It was so surreal, it made more sense for me to suppose I had gone insane. No, maybe I really did go insane. The sight of my superior officer nodding with satisfaction and beginning a confession of her faith was horrific. I didn’t get even a glimmer of madness from her beautiful, innocent eyes. They were the eyes of a stubborn servant of logic, full of pure reason. But that’s what was horrific: those eyes stuck on that doll-like face.”

V5/C5

Tanya has some good banter with her Kampfgruppe soldiers and it seems like everyone’s getting along.

V8/C4

T: ‘Are you saying you throw yourself into the slaughter purely, justly – sane and sober? Don’t make me laugh. That’s a broken man talking. Going to war after downing some liquid courage with a grimace is much more human.’ He frowns for a moment, perhaps thinking to argue back, and then whines, ‘So are you drunk, then, Colonel?’ <= yes, a random officer from Tanya’s Kampfgruppe just asked if she was drunk and that’s why she’s always throwing herself into battle so excitedly.

V8/C5

T: ‘Glad you’re safe, Lieutenant.’ V: ‘Thank you, ma’am. That said, I would have rather you spared me from getting caught up in that attack.’ T: ‘What choice did I have?’ V: ‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Serebryakov puffs her cheeks out in a pout, which is surely a sign that she’s feeling better. <= Tanya, Visha wanted you to apologize, not excuse yourself, damn!

Zettour

V1/C5

“He doesn’t know whether they should praise her original ideas or call her insane.”

“Apparently, she hasn’t forgotten that she once said she wanted a battalion. She, a first lieutenant, to a brigadier general…something liable to provoke antipathy? She’s already done that.”

“The smirk on Tanya’s face reminds Zettour of some unpleasant rumors he’s heard about her.”

V2/C5

Zettour both remains horrified that Tanya was able to speak so frankly about a world war, yet he is sympathetic to the fact that she could do it because she understood what would happen.

V4/C3

Tells Rudersdorf that he “unwaveringly trusts” her military decisions.

V4/C5

Tanya comes to Zettour to request better units than he’s given her. He finds the request beyond arrogant, seeing as how pressed they are for men, especially for the fact that this is shortly after the Moscow situation and her battalion has “gone too far and been a handful”.

“Somehow, he didn’t think there could be that many damaged kids in the Empire like this young teen back from the battlefield. And actually, regardless of how he felt about it as a soldier, personally, the idea of interacting with them was terrifying.”

“But Degurechaff was unfazed and inquired about their experience with killing people. She saw people as products, and she was asking if they had been tested – that was the nuance. Could such a completely utilitarian view of people even be taught? Certainly, the army is an organization that pays attention to individual functions. Substitutability and cost consciousness are two factors hounding everyone. But can you really judge a human being by those criteria alone?...That innocent face and her straight back made her look something like a surreal doll. Doesn’t…Doesn’t anyone think this is strange?”

Zettour is mentioned to have originally had the same doubts about Tanya as Lehrgen, but after her performance he claims he is ready to “swallow any pill, no matter how bitter” (I think working with Tanya being the bitter pill) to win the war.

Zettour gives Tanya a little discretion to commandeer some equipment, she takes a lot of discretion. Zettour sort of laughs at off saying “this was Degurechaff” but does also mention that Tanya’s actions “amounted to a borderline interference in Supreme Command.”

V8/C4

Zettour is impressed with how Tanya has trained Grantz and thinks that if she wasn’t so good in the field, he’d put her in education.

“Sure, Degurechaff may have been broken, but not as an officer.”

Rudersdorf

V2/C1

Rudersdorf says that Tanya has a “distinct” [read: probably means difficult] personality, but if he just divided people into useful and not useful, she was useful.

V4/C3

Zettour and Rudersdorf debate Tanya, and he mentions that he only thinks she is talented in the military realm.

Generic Superior Officers

V2/C5

Tanya has a misunderstanding with her CO on the Rhine front. He wants her to train some new recruits normally, she mistakes it as saying “well, kill as few of them as possible, but do what you gotta do,” she gets kind of reprimanded over it.

V3/Intro

“Performance Evaluation: Major Tanya von Degurechaff:

Counselor’s Notes on character and conduct [this is printed normally]: Abundant loyalty and excellent fighting spirit. Follow regulations to the letter. Devoutly religious.

[this part is handwritten] Has a bad tendency to take matters into her own hands. Competent but as difficult to handle as a mad dog.”

V3/C1

“Some of the officers even added another thought in the back of their minds: Major von Degurechaff might actually be able to wring out even better results.”

V3/C3

Tanya goes wild on her base commander when he won’t let her sortie to Brest to prevent the French army from evacuating. <= Oddly, IIRC, no one ever like, apologizes to Tanya for not believing her, which is kinda rude, so mostly the incident reflects negatively on her instead of being a balanced: ok she did violate some rules, but...maybe if we’d listened to her we’d have avoided the rest of the fucking war, so seems like it might have been called for?

V3/C5

“The most important evaluations during a war are the ones from the battlefield, and those were all over the place.” <= Romel, re: Tanya’s personnel file

“The second was that although the evaluations were contradictory, she had achieved enough that she was considered an outstanding soldier. Awkwardly, regardless of how she was as an officer, as an individual mage, she was thought very highly of. Her number of kills was among the highest on the Rhine front.”

“In any case, strictly as a mage, she was unrivaled. As an officer, too, she was by no means incompetent. So they must have been giving her to him as reinforcements and as an excuse to get her out of their hair. Honestly, he felt like they were foisting off their problem on him. ‘They’re telling me to take a mad dog out on a walk with no leash?’ He let slip a complaint. Maybe it was just prejudice, but that wasn’t what it felt like to General von Romel. After all, he was basically being asked to bet on a bad hand.”

V4/C2

Everyone on the General Staff realizes the huge amount of fallout from Tanya attacking Moscow. The backstory of this is that when Tanya asked for permission, the General Staff thought she was just going to do a fly-by and freak them out, not attack the city. It pretty much kills any opportunity they had to negotiate a quick settlement with Russia in the cradle.

Romel

V3/C5

Romel’s first meeting with Tanya pretty much goes: “so arrogant it’s invigorating...unbelievably insolent...in addition to her self-important attitude, it exuded heavy sarcasm...not only was she arrogant, she was clearly horribly warped.”

“Any commissioned officer would understand just from hearing her make that one comment why the Northern and Western Groups couldn’t control her. Having a mage battalion drop out of the command structure was almost like losing a whole division” <= ie, Tanya’s previous superiors must have really disliked her to give her up.

“She simply decided she would be a patriot if it was good for the nation. In short, she’s a capable lunatic, but the bad part is she doesn’t realize she’s twisted…She’s crazy. And competent. And more sincere than anyone I’ve ever known.”

“Without a doubt, she’s going to end up being the most horrible person I know. And she’ll probably also be one of my most reliable friends on the battlefield.”

V3/C6

Romel reflects that she is a mad dog, and that she is an ego-crushing entity for the average officer. <= while Romel never brings this up, this has a *ton* of important real-world implications for Tanya, especially assuming men still have more than a little trouble listening to women outside the military. Even if you believe the best rumors about Tanya, you still might not want to hire her because she’s going to be better than you, and most people hate that feeling.

V4/C1

Tanya goes to the Eastern Front, and Romel reflects that he is sad to lose her and that once you got used to her, he found her easy to work with.

The Ugly

People who’re in here: Lehrgen’s personal opinion, Some wartime randos, OG Eastern Army Command, OG Northern Army Command, Imperial Government, people who mostly know Tanya from her Arene reputation, Western Army Command; Implied Future View of Tanya

Wartime Randos

V1/C5

“Some of those who had been on the front lines had a strange reaction to the name [the 11th Goddess] we picked. They claimed it was the worst joke they’d ever heard.” <= ie, Tanya was the Devil, not a goddess

V2/C1

Tanya is happy that Dacia has zero airpower. She displays her happiness by smiling maniacally and skipping around her tent. Everyone thinks Tanya is happy that they just got invaded again and the war is growing and she can go kill people.

V2/C5

A kinda random infantry guy is still having nightmares about Tanya in like, 1960, and reflects back on how he felt when he heard Tanya casually call for friendly fire to go right through where her men are flying. He questions why anyone listens to her.

“But when I replay the memories in my mind, I can’t help but shout, You monster! A hero, a star, and outstanding magic officer. You, ma’am, were a great officer. To all of us imperial soldiers serving on the Rhine lines, you were a god...Yeah, she’s a god – an immensely powerful one who presides over life and death. Her words, brimming with a spine-chilling anger, swept over the area as if she was planning to attract all the enemy hostility like moths to a flame. Major von Degurechaff had bared her fangs. It invited a violent reaction. The Republic wanted to hunt the devil. In other words, they devoted all humanity’s wisdom to killing the god of death. Gods don’t die, but those of us next to them? …They were right to call her a god of death. She killed the enemy, and the enemy killed our men. Then the noble major, with a glance at all the dead in the mud, took her leave. Fucking hell.” <= and you thought Lehrgen hated her. But, again, real-world implications of this could very well be that post-war, Tanya is a total persona-non-grata as someone that had a high degree of influence on how rabidly everyone fought against the Empire, and how the Empire was treated in the aftermath. I don’t make it out quite that bad, but it could be really rough if someone wanted to make it that way.

V4/C5

“The Guard Division had been on many assignments dealing with formal events, so we had experience…But what is that? That absurd, expressionless, doll-like creature was giving orders to people who appeared to be bloodthirsty mages just back from the war zone.”

“Could it really…could it really be possible for a child to wear such a smile?...Her hands were soft and would have looked more natural holding a doll, but instead, this odd, human-shaped creature spread her arms as she delivered a welcoming address. No one. None of the high-ranking officers present could raise an objection to this thing. The veteran mages all obeyed this inhuman being in the form of a person.”

OG Eastern Army Command

V1/C5

“The members of the eastern army had been openly angered by her annoyed look until days before, but now their faces were pale. She said exactly what she thought: ‘Incompetent, pitiful, lazy, arrogant, unprepared, mentally disabled, inattentive, no powers of observation’ and her conclusion was that ‘all mages of the Eastern Army group require reeducation’”

“The ranking officers from the regional field armies who had come to protest ended up bearing the brunt of the General Staff members’ critical glares.”

OG Northern Army Command

V2/C3

“With no idea when Colonel General von Wragell might explode in his seat at the head of the table, Lieutenant General and Chief of Staff von Schreise was inwardly annoyed, but at the same time, the atmosphere was so tense he wanted to bury his head in his hands.”

“Schreise couldn’t be the only one thinking that he would have thrown her out immediately if she weren’t a representative of the Central Army’s view.”

“‘You’re very humble, aren’t you?’ one of the staff officers murmured, curling the corners of his mouth into a smile that was more of a sneer.”

“Schreise had never seen a major with such a big head without making light of him…without hesitating even a little, she – a mere battalion commander – matter-of-factly gave her opinion to the staff and even had the audacity to disagree with them. Even with the sacred, inviolable General Staff’s power behind her, she was nearing an inexcusable challenge to authority. A head could be allowed to swell only so far. There’s a limit to what can be tolerated, even for recipients of the Silver Wings Assault Badge!...the major, though still rather new, was readily crossing a line of which all graduates from the war college should have been aware.”

V3/C5

“There was a pile of especially severe criticism from the Northern Army Group. They said she was transferred after voicing a clear objection to those in authority.”

Imperial Government

V2/C5

Tanya sinks a Commonwealth vessel, she is court-martialed, the military says she did nothing wrong [which I agree with], but the diplomats want to punish her to appease the Commonwealth. After the not-guilty verdict, Tanya’s smug-ass smile makes everyone go: umm...should we really have let her get away with this??

V4/C2

She then further makes the diplomats hate her over her Moscow raid.

V4/C3

Rudersdorf warns Zettour that Tanya going overboard is earning Zettour criticism from the government.

V4/C4

During her second court-martial, Tanya doing the most in Moscow manages to fracture the relationship between the government/supreme army command & the guys more in charge of the day-to-day war, like Zettour & Rudersdorf.

International Post-Hoc View on Arene

V2/C6

“They gunned people down like they were so many targets in a firing exercise. They got ‘points’ for shooting people. People had blocked themselves in, so they used heavy-explosion formulas to bombard whole districts. Those are all painful memories of the tragedy being shared today. Even counting only the confirmed deaths, the city of Arene lost half its population that day. In order to avoid the heavy responsibility for each soldier that would result if they went into the city and had to visually confirm their targets, they aimed to cause widespread fires via artillery bombardment from positions surrounding the city. A portion of the documents shows that they had chosen targets that were likely to spread the flames as proof-of-concept for firestorm.” <= the reporter doesn’t know this, but Tanya is the person that comes up with that proof-of-concept for creating a firestorm, as well as the person that creates the case to make it legal to repress a civilian revolt with a military. To me it seems like Arene is presented as the Tanyaverse Bombing of Dresden, except how it would be viewed if Germany had won WWII.

Tanya thinks about how if the Empire loses, her reputation is in the toilet if it becomes known that she did this.

Western Army Command

V2/C6

[The Lt. General or above that is in command of the Western Front] “A terrifying report or a proposal from hell. The one who thought of this was either a lawyer so cunning the devil would invite them to join forces or a criminal. This way of thinking is practically inhuman. Only a devil who forgot their reason and conscience in their mother’s womb could come up with such a tactic. That someone would equate having the technical capabilities for an operation with actually doing it…Are they deranged?”

“Luckily, an army corps commander summoning a mere major is extremely rare. Exceptional though it was, it meant there was a chance he might have to summon this monster again someday…Doing his best not to look directly at the monster straightening her posture in front of him, the army corps commander accepted that it was for work and met her.”

“The principles behind the actions of this major in front of him were impossible to understand using anyone’s logic or emotions. Her inorganic eyes compelled you to conclude that her thoughts, her frameworks, her way of being were all warped.”

This guy keeps going on and on more than I have here, tbh he’s one of Tanya’s main haters. It’s fine Tanya, it’s only the guy in charge of Western Army Command, who listens to him?

“I hope no one noticed that I just flinched, thought the army corps commander, sensing that he was distinctly afraid of her…No worries about what? He deeply wanted to ask what she was planning to do, but he held back. He told himself it was surely better not to know…But there is probably no one more suited to being a soldier than you. Perhaps you feel at home in hell on the Rhine front.”

V3/C5

“The Western Army Group declined to evaluate her, saying her good and bad points neutralized each other, so it was difficult to rate her. Furthermore, she had attempted to resist orders.”

Implied Future View of Tanya/The Parable of the Salamander

V4/C5

“From what I heard, the Salamander is adorable and very clever. If you show it affection, it’ll get attached to you. Like a German shepherd, it can become a trustworthy member of the family. Sometimes it begs or plays tricks, but apparently, everyone ends up overlooking these things. Of course, Mrs. Legen grew angry and screamed that it went too far, but…Well, in the end, everyone doted on the Salamander. Because when it’s even more reliable than a German shepherd, how could you not? At some point, though, the Salamander’s requests and pranks grew to be too much. But what do you think happened when no one was sympathetic to dependable Mrs. Legen, who had continued to angrily scold it the whole time? That’s right. No one was able to stop the Salamander! Of course, the Salamander loved and cherished everyone. But sadly, there was no one to teach it right from wrong. So the Salamander never realized that everyone disliked it. Soon it had exhausted everyone’s patience.” <= for reference, Tanya commands the Salamander Kampfgruppe; this is told as a cautionary tale that Andrew says circulates throughout the future Empire.

Your Author’s Take on Tanya’s Reputation vs Reality

The above should have real-world implications for Tanya’s personal life as far as friends, and for her career both within and beyond the military once the war is over, because, you know, people talk. Anyone who phones up an old pal because said old pal had some quality time with Tanya and they’re curious what she’s like is probably not going to receive a glowing personal recommendation, and the higher up those people are in society, the worse it is likely to be.

Even for people who think she has a genius applicable beyond the military sphere, outside of extreme circumstances people generally don’t want to employ anyone, no matter how smart, who is known for being unpredictable, uncontrollable, arrogant in the extreme, abusive towards coworkers, manipulative, possibly just straight up evil, etc etc. Within the military, after the war I would expect her to be hampered by the fact that a lot of people won’t want to work with her unless there’s a really pressing reason they need her skillset.

I can’t believe I’m bringing this show up from years past, but she’s sort of in the same position as Dr. House from the TV show - famously talented; famously toxic in the workplace; only one place will employ him, and at a much lower salary than his reputation should command, and even so, thinking that he could get away with that in real life is pushing the suspension of disbelief for the show. The same goes with friendships - very few well-adjusted adults are willing to befriend The Cool Asshole in real life.

When it does happen IRL, those relationships usually aren’t healthy & happy, and can easily end up with borderline-emotionally-abusive undertones because the follower is afraid of losing the leader, and molds themselves to fit what the other person wants so as to be an unchallenging, uncritical presence in the life of their idol.

For a story about an adult man reincarnated as a young girl fighting in magical WW1.5, YS manages to put a surprisingly interesting twist on the Main Character is a Cool Asshole Without Consequences model, with Tanya getting away with it in the present due to extreme circumstances, not realizing that the war is the only reason she’s getting away with it, and facing many implied future consequences for it.

While it’s entirely possible and often completely necessary to handwave Tanya overcoming this for storytelling purposes, as you can’t go many places story-wise if Tanya is as screwed as it sounds like she’s going to be, standard reality is that she’s gonna need to do some serious legwork to dig herself out of the hole she’s in, both personally and professionally.

I appreciate that the crux of a good Tanya story is often Tanya thinking normal reality will apply to her but then bypassing normal reality to end up somewhere she never intended on being, much to her chagrin, and readers therefore may feel adhering to realism violates the reality of Tanyaverse.

For the purposes of this story, I have chosen to stick with where the preponderance of evidence leads and apply a good amount of normal reality to Tanya, because that is exactly what allows me to proceed along a different avenue of Tanya misunderstanding things and ending up somewhere she never intended on being, keeping to the spirit of Tanya stories. Plus, Tanya doesn’t seem very intent on growing as a person in the absence of consequences and I need my character growth drivers.

...and I can’t avoid admitting I still end up handwaving some portion of those consequences for Tanya, since, as stated above, it’s...hard to go anywhere with a story if you don’t.

#LN Reference

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sweetestlamb · 3 years

Text

Still, I Rise

Summary: Damn teenagers and their angst.

Author's Note: Back with another chapter, if you didn’t already know it I will be revealing our mystery character from the last chapter LOL please put down the bats and weapons (jk take them out it’s hilarious!) With this chapter we are getting closer to the “climax” and I am so excited to write the fun chapters I have planned ahead, one scene that I am really looking forward to writing is the camping trip, I had so much plans and events that I wanted to see that didn’t because TVN woke up and chose basic, we hate to see it. I can’t wait to rewrite history honestly also can’t wait to just move to onto regular schmegular teen problems, I swearrrrrrr.

"Don't you dare embarrass me this time. You aren't ugly why can't you get these damn little rich brats to like you? Are you truly this useless? Don't come home if you can't make this one fall for you!"

Those had been his father's final words right before his hand split his lower lip open with a razor sharp blow that made his head whip in recoil. His father's footsteps faded as he walked away leaving him crumpled on the ground, anger and embarrassment raging in his blood. He hadn't chosen this life at all, never wanted to be a bargaining chip for that despicable man. First with Eun Dan Oh and now this new girl, Kang Sujin.

She'd initially stood him up and he had felt foolish sitting in the lavish restaurant by himself, checking his phone but no calls or messages arrived.

His father had been livid that night, more vicious than usual his stepmother's weak screams served as the soundtrack for his brutal beating. Why couldn’t she just be quiet? Did it make her feel better when she acted as if she actually gave a shit about him? His brother coming into his room after with those pathetic weeping eyes and a bandage had only made him angrier, he shoved him away slamming the door in his face, refusing his help. He didn't need anyone, nobody could save him from his horrible fate.

It hadn't taken much research to find out her school and on impulse he'd gone there without her knowledge, watching from afar at first. A tiny girl with short hair framing her face had ran giggling into a taller girl with long dark hair and a classically beautiful face, they walked side by side smiling and laughing and that's when he'd heard her call out , "Sujin we should get something to eat!"

It wasn't love at first sight or anything ridiculous and disgustingly romantic like that, but he felt a connection to the girl for some inconceivable reason as if they were kindred spirits or something, maybe it was the remnant of a bruise he saw on her wrist hidden beneath her sweater.

It seemed they had more in common then he had initially believed, it was a grim similarity.

He'd gone home feeling less burdened than before, and his father's smile had been terrifying when he'd told him that he would work hard to win the girl over, only because he knew how quickly that smile could evaporate and his father could become the monster he was accustomed to. He tried not to flinch as the older man clapped him on the shoulder, his body already in fight or flight mode.

His father had merely smirked at his apparent fear.

Bastard.

So he'd taken to following the other girl around, she was going to be his fiancé anyway so he saw nothing wrong with it. And that was how he learned about the other boy, a tall slender boy who looked like someone that would grace an idol magazine cover. They were together more often than he liked, and it seemed more than platonic if the glances and subtle touches were a sign.

He wasn't jealous per se, but this would be a roadblock in his plan that he couldn't afford. He was getting used to not being beaten.

The day he'd followed them to the hospital presented another challenge for him, he hated hospitals and what they represented with every fiber of his being. He'd spent too much time in them growing up and then again for a girl who couldn't care less about him, she was another reminder that he wasn't worthy of love. He had thought he loved her but still hurt her whenever she disobeyed him, he knew he was no better than his father.

Unexpectedly Sujin had burst through the hospital doors, surprising him and forcing him to hide lest she spot him, peeking out from his hiding place behind a tree he saw her distraught and near tears running the opposite direction. He stood in shock merely watching and waiting to see if the unknown boy would follow her, but thankfully he never came.

Pushing down his own wariness and discomfort he walked into the hospital immediately feeling a cold chill on his skin, he refused to call it trauma that made it sound like something was wrong with him. He was fine and he could do this.

Thankfully the nurses were too busy and nobody noticed him walking by and he froze when he spotted another man who was capable of making him flinch. Doctor Kang, he looked anything but approachable in his gleaming white lab coat and he remembered watching the man laugh with his father as they both sold their children without remorse. Instinctively he hid watching the man glare into a hospital room, he almost feared for whomever was the recipient of the ice cold gaze.

Minutes melted by before the doctor finally walked away, his steps clipped and echoing on the linoleum floors and he finally let out a sigh of relief when the other man disappeared around the corner.

Stealthily he rounded the corner and took the doctor's abandoned spot, peeking into the room through the small window in the door. It was that boy again, the idol wannabe but this time he wasn't alone there was a young girl with a bouquet in her arms and a older woman lovingly patting him on his cheeks.

His mother.

A loving one, at that.

His blood seared watching the domestic scene, jealousy ripping through him like a tornado. There was no way he was letting this asshole have Sujin too, he already had too much. More than he, Baekyung would ever have.

The motorcycle roars under her thighs as they whip down the road. It only serves to remind her of the first time she was on a bike with another boy, his cologne and the scent of leather infiltrating her senses and making her heart jump through hoops. This time she feels nothing but annoyance and extreme frustration, barely holding onto the stranger in front of her as she leans forward to yell above the engine, "Pullover!"

She knows he heard her based on the immediate tension in his body but he continues to ride ignoring her request demand. With a grunt she grabs onto his waist only to bodily drag them to the side not caring if they both crash at this point she cannot stand another second on this bike with him, instantly he straightens them before skidding to the side and finally pulling the brakes bringing the motorcycle to a halt, the moment the bike stops she hops off in a frenzy.

Thrusting the bottom piece of his helmet up he screams at her, "Are you insane? You could have hurt us!"

She bares her teeth at him, ready to unleash her full anger on him now without an audience.

"Who the fuck are you? And why did you come to my school?" She bellows glaring poisonously at the strange idiot who had single handedly upended her day.

Moving calmer than she's feeling, he dismounts finally pulling his helmet off and then squeezing it under his arm looking down at her.

With a condescending look he stares at her, "You know exactly who I am, don't play dumb it's beneath you."

He's right. She does know who he is although she had never seen him or known his name, she had truly thought she could ignore him and he would disappear. Just like with her father that was proving to be an erroneous dream that would never come true.

"But I'll formally introduce myself since we are going to be engaged soon after all, Baekyung. You can call me oppa though."

Engaged soon.

Her head spins from his words, she feels terror shift over her like a thick suffocating blanket.

"You don't even know me. Why would you even agree to this?" She stares at him in disbelief, at a loss to his acquiesce to their tragic fate.

The look in his eyes haunt her, it's like staring in a mirror and gazing back at the person she was months ago. Somehow without her knowledge or consent she'd changed, grown even and therefore started believing that her life was just that, hers.

"You act like we have a choice. Don't be stupid, we have to just do as we're told. It's easier this way for everyone." He repeats those words that she herself had uttered to Seojun not so long ago, a sense of deja vu washes over her.

"How is letting ourselves be used easier? Don't you have your own dreams or aspirations? Isn't there someone you actually like?" She knows the error of her argument immediately as she says it, his eyes narrow into thin enraged slits and she can practically feel the anger vibrating off him.

"Don't pretend to care about me. This is about you and your little boyfriend," he spits the word like acid and immediately she remembers those chilling words he had whispered in her eyes earlier, "Do you think he'll be safe?" That was all it had taken for her to go with him, he couldn't get hurt she wouldn't allow that to happen ever. She had no idea what those ominous words meant and how this boy could pose a threat to Seojun but she knew she had to hear him out and protect Seojun anyway she possibly could.

"He's not the only one you should be worried about." The smug bastard continues with a humorless grin on his face and suddenly the dots connect, her father outside of Ms. Han's hospital room and that calculating look on his face. Her stomach drops.

"Leave them out of it!" She screams embarrassed at the urgent plea in her voice but she can't help it, she's so scared more than she's ever been for herself.

"Well that all depends on you doesn't it? Your dear father will have no reason to do anything to them if you listen like a good daughter and date me as expected."

She stands frozen once again feeling helpless, it kills her inside all her growth slipping down the drain in a matter of seconds.

"Why are you doing this?"

He stills at her question, his cold mask dropping and leaving something numb and unreadable in its place. It feels familiar to her, she awaits his answer with bated breath.

"I want to live, even if I have no control over it. I'd rather be alive."

Thunder clashes above them, the previously sunny day shifting into a gray dark distortion, heavy storm clouds ominously loom above them and the first raindrops land perfectly on her cheeks, crying the tears that she refuses to let fall. She has no more left to cry.

Confusion is an understatement to express Su-ah's true feelings following the mysterious boy on the motorcycle, when she finally gets Sujin on the phone the other girl is quiet and mumbling, evading all her questions and as soon as she mentions Seojun, Sujin shuts down hastily ending their conversation with some nonsensical excuse.

That was not going to be the end, Sujin might want to play dumb about the true nature of their relationship but she wasn't part of the circus. She was no clown, she had eyes and it was clear that they liked each other and it was only growing the more time they spent together. She wouldn't let her best friend sabotage something that could be great for her, she deserved happiness and Seojun made her happy. So it was truly that simple.

Stomping up the slight incline to school, she huffs and puffs determined. She was going to talk some sense into the other girl.

Those thoughts come crashing all around her when she sees Sujin coming out of a car, a car that she has never seen before and her questions are answered when the boy from yesterday steps out after her. Every eye in a ten mile radius is watching them, captivated by this new school scandal. Girls already squealing and giggling, envious of Sujin and doing very little to hide their true feelings.

“Why is he with her? She isn’t even that pretty. He should be with me.”

The lies people told themselves to sleep at nights, sad.

Accidentally knocking the gossiping girl to the side with a rough shoulder check, ignoring her dramatic cry she sprints the rest of the way, once again pushing through the crowd to get to Sujin.

Immediately their eyes lock and she begs Sujin for a answers, What happened? Why are you doing this? What’s going?, she flinches at the cold emotionless stare she gets in response. She watches in dismay as the tall boy bends down as if to hug Sujin and that's when a loud grumble fills the air, she turns around to the all too familiar sight of Seojun on his motorcycle. He revs the handle bar causing the crowd to part like the Red Sea, then he rides slowly until he's right next to Sujin bike inches away from touching her.

With a practiced motion he tugs off his helmet, those sloping feline eyes already on Sujin in a hard stare.

The tension is insurmountable and cloying and Su-ah watches transfixed before Sujin breaks the impasse, tugging her bookbag over her shoulder she stomps into the school without a word to either boys. But then the interloping boy calls out, “Have a good day. Princess,” and Sujin stops immediately at the word, turning around with a ferocious look in her eyes, “Don’t call me that. My name is Kang Sujin to you. That’s all.” Su-ah sees the way that Sujin’s eyes almost subconsciously seek out a certain cat eyed boy and feels like she misses an entire conversation between the two before Sujin finally walks away.

The mysterious boy glares at her retreating back before shooting a cold glare at Seojun and then promptly hopping back into his car, the backseat as he's chauffeured away.

"Oh my god! That was so hot! Princess?”

"Who is that? Does Kang Sujin have a boyfriend? Wow, she’s mean to her boyfriend too. What a bitch.”

Why do you think Seojun looked so angry?"

"Maybe he's worried about losing his bad boy title!"

The crowd erupts around them in loud voices, all curious about what they've witnessed and already creating rumors to appease their curiosity. Suddenly a loud motorcycle screech causes them all to jump silence falling over the crowd before Seojun rides away, the tight clench in his jaw visible even from her distance.

Lunch is a step above awkward, bordering into painful. The easy conversation that used to be a staple of the table is all but decimated, instead everyone eats quietly chilled by the cold air permeating from both Seojun and Sujin. They only speak when spoken to and avoid all eye contact, especially each others. It's painful to be a witness to and she notes regretfully that neither are eating home made lunch today, opting for the school lunch instead.

Sujin had never officially told her but she knew that they were making food for each other, their smiles watching the other eat made it too obvious.

This was serious. Looking at them now they looked like complete strangers, everyone was too nervous to question the elephant in the room. Everyone except poor Chorong.

"Why is everyone was so awkward today? What did you two fight or something? Why do we all have to suffer because of your lover's quarrel? Just kiss and make up already."

The table all looked on with opened mouths except Suho and herself who both looked worried instead.

And people thought she was slow, how had they all not realized what was happening? It was clear as day.

She flinches at his well-meaning words that are evidently not well received by either teen, watching them both glare at the table unmoving and the silence drags out painfully before Seojun breaks the stalemate. Standing without preamble he glares at Chorong before placing the stare on Sujin, it does nothing to change her unaffected stare. With a loud sigh he stomps away, despite his friends dismayed shouts of his name.

She continues to eat her lunch, watching Sujin in her peripheral.

She looks like she has the weight of the world on her shoulder and Su-ah for the first time in their friendship has no idea what to do.

But when they all start to funnel out of the cafeteria she follows the other girl anyway, tugging her into an enclave where they are hidden from the rest of their classmates Sujin cries out at the sudden jerk but loses her defensive stance when she realizes it’s just her.

“What?”

“What’s going on? Why are you letting that punk bring you to school and why are you and Han Seojun acting like you broke up before you even started officially dating? Sujin-ah, please tell me what’s going on.” She pleads latching onto the other girl’s arm peering up at her with puppy dog eyes, they have never failed her before.

“I can’t tell you yet, I’m sorry.”

There’s a first time for everything and she frowns at Sujin feeling like there is a mountain between them. She can’t help the hurt that she feels knowing the other girl doesn’t trust her enough to tell her what’s going on. She thought they had moved past all the secrets and hiding but obviously she was wrong.

“I really am sorry. But I will tell you everything soon enough.”

She releases Sujin’s arm, ready to walk away. She hates being in the dark. But before she can walk away, she feels Sujin hand on the bottom of her sweater tugging her backwards, she looks back with a perplexed glare.

“Do you trust me?”

She stares at Sujin and the soft tilt of her head as she asks the question, and her answer is easy, although she has no idea what’s going on and none of this makes any sense to her she doesn’t have to think about that answer.

"You shouldn't do this to him. It's too cruel." Suho expects a biting retort or even a call for him to mind this damn business, so he's shocked breathless when instead the other girl smiles at him, a tiny almost indecipherable thing that makes her lips thinner.

"You two have come a long way." Sujin responds unexpectedly shaking her head and walking over to the couch, before beckoning him over too.

He stares feeling suspicious but ultimately he follows, curiosity winning.

"I think I'm ready." Sujin expels a deep breath, twisting her hands nervously in her lap. Before he can ask her what exactly she's ready for she continues, "I want to tell your father what happened if you really think he'll help me."

He's too late to swallow the strangled gasp that escapes from his lungs and he leans back in surprise. He wants to continue his conversation about Seojun but he’s scared to do anything to make the other girl retreat or change her mind now. That conversation will have to wait for another day.

Sorry Seojun.

"Are you sure? You're really ready to do this?"

There's a long pause and he watches a myriad of emotions run across Sujin's usually expressionless face until something that looks suspiciously like hope blossoms making her glow brighter than the sun.

"Yes. I want to try living just for me."

Blinking away the moisture in his eyes, he pulls out his cellphone sending his father a message.

Please come over.

It only takes seconds but it feels like an eternity before his father replies, he smiles at the message.

On my way.

He stands up to put the kettle on the fire, he knows that tonight will be a long night and he needs something to keep his hands occupied.

When his doorbell rings he's shocked when Sujin stands up looking at him with a serene gaze, "I'll get it." He only nods at her in reply, watching as she greets his father and man recovers quickly at the unexpected visitor, smiling warmly at Sujin before pulling her into a warm embrace.

Even more surprisingly Sujin doesn't flinch, allowing herself to be wrapped up.

His father embraces him as well, patting him on the back and again on the head when they break apart. He can feel Sujin's eyes on them and he moves away guiltily. Now isn’t the time to rub his burgeoning relationship with his father in her face.

"Have a seat Dad, thank you for coming so quickly."

His father lifts an eyebrow at the sudden serious tone of his voice but he follows his directions nonetheless folding his hands on his lap and looking inquisitively between the two teenagers.

"Is there something you both want to tell me? Perhaps you two are....." His father motions vaguely between them and he stares back not comprehending until his father smiles slyly and Sujin beats him to it, protesting ardently.

"No! No, it's nothing like that. There's someone else...I mean no. That's what what we wanted to talk about."

He raises an eyebrow at Sujin's slip and his father chuckles at her stuttering and the red blaze across her cheeks.

His father waves his arms in appeal, apologetic grin on his face. "Sorry I didn't mean to embarrass you both. I just always hoped you two might one day. A father can dream."

He scoffs at his father, "Give up on that dream she's like family to me. We would never see each other that day."

Sujin nods passionately in agreement and his father shrugs easily, now looking even more curious than before.

"So what did you want to talk about?"

Sujin stills on her spot on the couch, the determination in her bones seeming to melt away with every passing minute. He fears this won't go as planned and he has no idea how to motivate her.

Then a loud vibration rumbles from the couch and it takes Sujin a moment to realize it's her phone, he watches curiously as she looks at the message and then a single tear runs down her round cheek. The determination curls back around her like armor, he watches in amazement as she sits taller turning to look at his father with newfound courage or maybe it wasn’t newfound but suddenly uncovered by whatever she had seen on her phone.

“Suho asked you for help for me. I’m really the one who needs your help.” He can hear the slight quiver and hitches in her words but she gets them all out and instantly she has his father’s undivided attention, he even turns his body to fully face the girl. Pride swells in his chest at the sight, he was worried his father would only be adamant about helping him directly as a way to get closer to him but now he can see that he was wrong about the other man. Genuine concern fills every line and wrinkle of time on his face.

“What is wrong? What do you need help with and why can’t you tell your parents?” It’s a innocent question, and logical too but he fears Sujin’s reaction, when she feels like she is backed into a corner in the past that has led to her lashing out with dagger sharp remarks, he watches with his heart lodged in his throat.

“Because they are the ones hurting me.”

His lungs deflate releasing all the air that was trapped in the sacs, she said the truth without hesitation and he turns to glance at his father watching him process the bomb that she has just dropped on him. His father opens and closes his mouth several times, before finding his voice it is but a whisper when he responds to Sujin.

“That time you needed a doctor.” The statement is directed to Suho and with a sober nod he confirms what his father already knows, with a loud sigh his father sinks into the couch quiet rage on his face. “I should have known, you always seemed so scared of him but I thought it was just his parenting style I never thought...never expected that he would....I should have done something!”

Sujin laughs, it is pained and small but he hears it and immediately turns to look at her, “He sounds just like you like father like son I guess,” Sujin directs that at him and he blushes in memory, he can’t deny the claims. Then she turns back to his father with surprisingly soft eyes, “Don’t blame yourself, just help me now if you can.”

“I will use all of my resources to make sure he spends his life in jail.”

Suho jumps in his seat looking over at Sujin, that is way more than they had ever discussed that was what he truly wanted for the monstrous man but it always seemed like too much to ask for but here was his father saying it as if it was completely plausible.

“Jail? Do you really think he can go to jail? It would be his word against mine, I never took any pictures. I was stupid.” Sujin berates herself, and before he can dismiss the self inflicted insult his father is already moving closer and putting a large hand on her trembling shoulder, only then does he realize how the girl is shaking like a new leaf.

“No, it will be my word against his. I will also get that report from Doctor Kim, that could be used as evidence. You’re just a kid and a victim, I’ll handle this you don’t need to do anything else. You’ve handled enough on your own, we got you now.” His father looks over at him as if waiting for his approval and he moves onto the couch with them both, after a moment’s pause putting his hand on Sujin’s other shoulder.

“We got you.”

Jukyeong glances over nervously at Seojun the aroma of coffee thick in the air as she sweeps up the beans she had clumsily spilled on the ground, she waited for Seojun to playfully scold her as he often did when she messed up at work but the reprimand never came and when she glanced over at him he had been staring longing at his cellphone.

Su-ah had been the first to notice how weird him and Sujin acted around each other and despite not having a lot of experience with relationships, especially those of the romantic kind she could see that they didn’t hate each other as much as Sujin tried to drive the deceptive point home. They were always teasing each other and Seojun found any excuse to be near Sujin and soon he wasn’t the only one, they just seemed to naturally gravitate to each other at times bickering so much it was like they were the only two people in the room.

But all that had come to an abrupt end with the sudden appearance of the boy on the motorcycle, the entire school was in a uproar over him, Baek Kyung, she had heard the other girls whispering his name. On paper he seemed very similar to Han Seojun, same bad boy persona and affinity for motorcycles and glares. But the biggest difference she noticed was Sujin's reaction to them both, she had heard from some gossiping girls how vehemently Sujin had declared that Baek Kyung not call her “princess”, a moniker she had commonly heard Seojun use to refer to the girl. Sujin never stopped him these days, instead rolling her eyes and speeding up to escape from him, he would chase after all calling her the sweet nickname all the way.

When Seojun would use it to refer to her in passing such as, “Are you gonna eat that princess?” Those were times that Sujin didn’t react at all, simply handing him whatever food in her container had caught his eye that she had ignored.

They were casually domestic in a way that they never seemed to realize and she couldn’t help but categorize. Seojun liked Sujin that was becoming clearer and it seemed like the feeling was mutual, even if the girl wasn’t yet ready to admit it.

Which was why this new development came as a complete shock to her, why was Sujin suddenly giving her attention to someone else?

“Did you guys have a fight? Just tell her you’re sorry.” She offers out of the blue, and Seojun turns to her with a puzzled look drying a mug with a cloth, “What are you talking about now clumsy?”

Thankfully the shop is empty, she quirks at eyebrow at him folding her arm when he continues to play dumb.

“Sujin. You guys clearly had a fight, you’re both so hot tempered. Her temper is probably worst than yours though so just apologize okay? It’s better than fighting.”

He stares at her with a blank face before turning away, rubbing firmer at the mug in his hands and she worries for its safety.

“Why should I apologize when she’s the one who’s with another guy? Don’t worry about me, I will be fine. Clearly this was one-sided. She doesn’t like me.”

She openly laughs at him now, looking at him like he has two heads. “What are you talking about? If she didn’t like you then why did she follow you to your mom’s hospital? She tried to be all sneaky but Chorong told us everything. Plus she always gets jealous when other girls give you food at school and don’t think we don’t all know that you guys make food for each other!”

He whips around looking at her with huge eyes, “Wait you all knew? So when I said that someone special made it for me? You knew?”

She smiles brightly, “Yep. It wasn’t subtle at all.”

He sighs in annoyance, turning away to hide the pink on his face.

“I’m not apologizing. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

She sighs at the boy’s words, knowing that this fight might go on longer than it needs to and she wishes she could just shake some sense into both of them, why were they choosing to suffer like this?

Damn teenagers and their angst.

Grumbling she goes to take a customer’s order, glancing over at Seojun with a final sad smile.

Hopefully they can figure this out without falling apart.

Time seems to move slower than usual today and he almost pumps a fist in triumph when he sees that it’s finally eight and they are free to leave.

“Do you want to me to walk you to the bus stop?” He offers Jukyeong out of politeness but she shakes her head no, telling him that she is going to meet with her older sister for dinner running out before him and hailing a cab, he smiles at the sight that’s one girl who loves to eat.

Turning off the lights in the shop, he turns over the “open” sign and locks the door behind him. The cool spring night air brushes against his cheeks and he makes his way to his motorcycle, mounting in one motion and sighing as it purrs to life before he speeds off his destination already in mind. He bobs and weaves through traffic, smirking at idiot drivers who blare their horns at him when he inches too close to their precious car but even they are not enough to rain on his parade.

When he finally arrives, he bounces off the bike throwing the helmet onto the handlebar carelessly before bounding over to the figure he sees waiting.

He can’t help the smile that tugs against his lips, ultimately setting it free as the figure turns around at the sound of his boot stomping on the ground.

“Did you wait long?” He asks moving closer until he can feel the heat wafting off the body in front of him.

“No, I only just got here too. Why are you smiling like that? You look deranged.”

He smiles wider, feeling mischievous after what a certain klutz had revealed to him with a smirk he leans closer to her, grinning harder when she leans back looking at him with a confused glare.

“I heard from a certain birdie that you followed me to the hospital and that you get jealous when other girls give me food. Is that true princess?”

Sujin growls at him, shoving his shoulder hard before stomping away to the park bench. He eagerly follows after her, throwing his arm over her shoulder smiling at her wearing yet another one of his sweaters, this time a black one that reaches the bottom of her knees and completely hides whatever she is wearing underneath. She looks equally sexy as adorable and it makes his blood boil in a way he has been trying harder and harder to suppress around her.

“I knew you would try to milk the situation. This isn’t why I told you everything.”

He smiles recalling what Sujin is referring to.

Just a day go.....

He stares angrily at his phone in utter disbelief that she would have the gall to call him after what had just happened. She had left on another boy’s motorcycle even though he had asked her not to, he didn’t know what was going on but seeing her leave like that, he wished he knew how to turn off all his feelings for her. No other human should have this kind of power or control over him but here he was ready to burst because she had picked someone else over him.

“What do you want?” He barks out answering the call with a hard press of his finger and immediately he starts to lose some of his fire when he hears her soft staggered breaths on the other line.

“Seojun, can you meet me somewhere?”

He wants to say no, to bitterly hang up on her and tell her that he has someone new too but that would be a lie and he desperately wants to see her and hold her and find out why she decided to rip his heart out and stomp on it.

Feeling pathethic he answers her with a sigh, “Where are you?”

Songnisan park. It’s not too far from their school and he hangs up without answering hopping on his bike and riding to her. Maybe it’s stupid but he can’t turn his back on her just yet, he still wants to hear her out even if she’s going to break his heart.

By the time he reaches the park it’s raining, pouring down in sheets despite the warm weather and he immediately sees Sujin sitting under the downpour while other park goers are running and using picnic blankets as makeshift umbrellas.

The scenes feels all too familiar and he wonders if this will be their end? Would life be that poetic to have them end the same way they became?

Sighing he tugs his sweater off, walking quickly to close the gap between them before sitting beside her and thrusting his sweater above both their heads, protecting them from the rain.

She turns to him with a gasp and he realizes how closely they are sitting beside each other, he can feel her breath when she exhales and it washes over in an intoxicating breeze. He has to forcibly put some distance between them before he does something that he knows he shouldn’t, especially not now.

“My father knows about us. He saw me at the hospital and I’m scared he saw your mother and sister too. I don’t think I should visit anymore.”

He pauses to process her words and he feels his chest tighten with anger at the mention of that sub-human, if he ever tried to harm a hair on his family’s head that would be the last thing he ever did. But once the rage passes by he thinks of the rest of Sujin’s sentence, my father knows about us.

They were an us.

There was an us for people to know about?

“Us?” He replies stupidly, unable to stop his heart from fluttering.

With a sound of exasperation she looks over at him, “How is that the most important thing that I said?” The pretty blush on her face does not go unnoticed but he responds to her statement staying focused, “My mom was discharged today. They said it was just a scare and nothing serious. He can’t do anything to us, if he tries I’ll kill him.”

He means it, every single word falling from his lips.

He’s not prepared for Sujin to sob and drop her head onto his shoulder, he drops their sweater umbrella at the sudden pleasant weight feeling the rain drench his hair and shirt instantly.

“I’m so happy to hear that. I was so worried about all of you.”

A bubble of happiness explodes in his chest and he’s so close to just letting go of all his anger and holding her, seeing her so worried about his family is almost enough to undo him.

But, he can’t forget the image of her riding off with someone else. His heart will never forget that ache, that indescribable pain.

“So you care about me now? Is that why you left me like that today? Because you care so much?”

He is being petty, he knows that but he can’t stop the jealousy that is fueling him right now. His green eyed monster is raring its ugly head.

“That’s the guy you told me to stand up, remember? That’s the guy my father is trying to sell me to. He’s been following us and he knew about you, he threatened you. I did what I had to, I have to do this until I speak to Suho’s father. I think.....No. I’m ready now. I’m going to tell him everything and ask for his help.”

His heart is pounding erratically in his chest, he can barely hear the rain over the loud thumping of the organ and he can’t believe he ever doubted her, feels guilt twist around him but he pushes that aside to take in everything she has confessed to him, without saying the words she has all but confirmed everything Jukyeong carelessly exposed to him in the coffee shop, she cares about him too enough to want to protect him at any cost. But most importantly she was starting to care about herself, she no longer saw her life as expendable and was willing to ask for help even at the expense of revealing her darkest secret and getting her hopes up.

Fuck she was the bravest person he knew.

Without thinking he tugs her into his arms, wrapping her in a tight hug before he realizes what he’s doing but by the time he starts to move back she’s already hugging him back, her arms tight around his shoulder and her head in the dip of his neck and it’s too perfect to stop now. Absently he strokes her wet silky smooth hair and when they finally draw apart, the barest amount of space between them he takes another risk, glancing at her eyes pleading and then smiling when she nods, giving him permission even without knowing what he plans to do, simply trusting him, he leans forward and plants a soft butterfly kiss on her forehead, she hisses in response but instead of moving away she latches on to him tighter.

“I’m so proud of you baby.” He kisses her again, firmer this time putting all the love and pride he feels for her in that gentle kiss to her brow.

He expects a lot of things in response to his bold move and the new nickname, a punch, a kick, her loud denial and rejection, he is emotionally prepared for any and all of those reactions, but instead she steals his breath away when she smiles up at him, looking into his eyes and he realizes that she’s looking for permission too and he nods, nervous and anxious to see what she will do.

With a moment’s hesitation she tugs him down and he goes easily, his heart in his chest and he closes his eyes as her face draws closer to him, his heart is pattering now a crazy thundering mess filled to the brim with anticipation.

He feels her plush lips against his cheek, the rain making the skin slick and he hums in encouragement as the kiss lingers before he opens his eyes and immediately they are lost in each other’s eyes and he can feel their faces moving closer as if opposite ends of a magnet and he waits for her to stop them, to push him away and run off but she is just as lost as him, moving closer too and when only centimeters separate their lips, a loud crash of thunder booms high above their heads making them jump apart, both flying to opposite ends of the bench.

“We should...um get out of this rain before we catch a cold.”

The ride home is awkward and he can barely breathe with how tightly she’s holding his waist but he smiles through the rain, taking care to move carefully on the wet streets not wanting to hurt Sujin and then they are in front of Suho’s apartment, much too fast to his disappointment.

They both sit unmoving for a few seconds before Sujin releases his waist from her death grip and gets off the bike.

“Let’s talk over there for a minute.” He states dismounting too and walking over to the scaffold so they can escape the torrential rain for a moment at least.

They stand awkwardly shivering from the cold in their wet clothes, it’s obvious that Sujin is embarrassed about what happened- their kisses-but he can barely contain his joy, if he were alone right now he would be doing backflips.

This day as made a complete 180 turn for the better.

“I have to pretend to date him. We already agreed to come to school tomorrow. He agreed to stop following me if I let him take me to school and go on dates. He has to put on a show for his father too.” She says talking so fast that the words slur together and he wonders absently if she’s nervous? And if so, why? Was she nervous about his reaction?

He nods in understanding, “Okay. I forgot to say it earlier, but thank you for telling me and not leaving me in the dark. I appreciate it.”

That’s the logical part of his response, he knows what it took for Sujin to involve him in her plan and how huge it is that she hadn’t wanted him to misunderstand her feelings and motives. But she’s still the girl that he likes and he can’t help the illogical things that flood his mind too.

“Not on his motorcycle though.”

She looks at him with a deep searching stare and he simply stares back, nonplussed. He knows what he sounds like, a bargaining jealous boyfriend. That’s exactly what he wants to be so he sees no reason to attempt to explain himself, whatever she’s thinking is true and he isn’t the least bit ashamed to admit it. At his unabashed stare she crumples looking away with a barely hidden smile, “Okay. Not on his bike. Even though I never told you that you were allowed to have conditions, this isn’t a negotiation.” She complains but the sting is gone because she has already agreed to his request, he flashes a smile at her.

“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow. I will have to act jealous, that shouldn’t be too hard.” He winks at her and this time she does try to punch him, he barely dodges her fist.

Such a violent little thing.

“I never said you had to do anything.”

He shrugs, “It makes sense. I like you so it would only make sense that I would be jealous if I thought you were dating someone else, plus he will probably want to see that too.”

She’s as red as a strawberry as she sprints away from him without another word, waving at him over her shoulder.

He smiles all the way home, before falling into bed after a much needed warm shower, his toes and fingers were like ice chips when he finally got home.

Remembering one more thing, he grabs his phone shooting a quick text message.

Don’t let him call you nicknames. Only Sujin.

Reading it back he determines that the message is a bit too...commanding and if he wants to keep a certain boot out of his ass he better fix it so he swiftly adds:

Please.

Present time....

“I didn't do anything. She just suddenly started telling me how much you adore me and how you can’t live without me and that I should just forgive you and take you back.” He sniffles dramatically watching amused as Sujin rolls her eyes, before angrily pulling out her phone, he laughs suddenly worried for Jukyeong so he snatches the object from her hands, much to her chagrin.

“I might have exaggerated about what she said, a teeny tiny bit.” He demonstrates the small amount with his fingers and she glares at him biting out, “Liar,” before snatching back her phone and stuffing it in her pockets with a grumble.

Getting serious he turns to look at her with anticipation, “How did it go? Were you able to tell him everything?” She is staring out at the horizon, despite him boring a hole in the side of her head begging for eye contact.

“I hesitated. I lost my confidence.”

He can hear the defeat in her voice and without a pause he opens his mouth to comfort her and tell her how strong she is and explain why this is just a minor setback but next time they can go together and if she needs him to he will hold her hand the entire time and give her every last drop of his support and--

“But then I got a message and it gave me courage. So I told him everything and he agreed to help me. He wants to send my dad to jail, not just emancipate me.”

She did it.

She really did it.

He smiles at her wider than the ocean.

“You did it, Sujin.”

She stares at him in palpable shock, he immediately knows why it’s not often he uses her name and he expects her to be happy that he isn’t calling her the nickname she is always dismissing, she’s always so adamant that she is not a princess much less his princess.

“Don’t call me that.” She says finally turning to meet his eyes and he stares back confused because he had only said her name, why was that a problem? Wasn’t that what she had been trying to get him to call her since the first time he dubbed her princess?

“What do you want me to call you then?”

He is truly asking but the look she gives him makes him feel like the dunce in the corner of the room and realization unfurls in his body like a slow moving tsunami and he smiles unbridled at the epiphany.

He hasn’t wanted to get his hopes up by making assumptions about what this is but maybe it’s time that he have some confidence now, he was someone important to her. She had already proved that in so many ways these past days.

Taking her hand in his, he smiles brightly at her.

It’s the first time that he has held her hand, and he can feel the damaged skin in his own smoother hand. His heart aches for only a moment, her hands are just like her they might look bruised and pitiful at first glance but beneath the broken surface lurked unimaginable strength and power and just like the rest of her, they were imperfectly perfect. He never wanted to hold another hand, this was the only one he needed.

“Good job, you did it Princess.”

She smiles up at him, looking gorgeous-heart stoppingly so-and he can’t help the way his chest constricts as if he didn’t know it already he knows it now unequivocally .

He, Han Seojun belongs to Kang Sujin.

#true beauty #bmtl #han seojun #kang sujin #extraordinary you crossover #baekyung #lots of povs #another rollercoaster chapter #junjin #true beauty fix it #true beauty kdrama #I had mini heart attacks writing this

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obx-saltlife · 4 years

Text

S A V A G E

Absolutely nobody asked for this. I listened to Nicki Minaj’s ‘Get on your Knees’ (feat. Ariana Grande) the other night and thought it could be a good start for a mild sub!Rafe fic. This kinda got away from me a little bit and it was too late to reign it in.

Warnings: Smut, obviously. We’re talking like real filthy language, oral sex (female receiving), mild dom/sub undertones.

Word count: 4.8K+

Rafe x Reader smut.

If you like what you read, request something maybe? Come talk to me, idk. Also, full disclosure, the GIF is not mine. Credit to its original owner.

“Take off your clothes,” he murmured after kissing you chastely. “And crawl to my bed.”

You’d been introduced to Rafe Cameron three months ago at an Outer Banks party. You knew who he was; you ran in the same circles but never had you been introduced outright. You both hailed from Figure 8, you’d seen him around the Island Club a few times too. He was ever the charismatic, beacon of attention that exuded confidence wherever he went. It was honestly what attracted you to him in the first place, like a moth to a flame.

But this didn’t feel like that. “What?” you asked.

Rafe had called you the day after that party to ask you out. He’d been very sweet and you’d even dare to say that he had been a little nervous. Your nerves were off the wall. You agreed to meet him the next day at the Island Club for lunch. You walked around the golf course and just talked about everything. He told you about Ward, about the insane pressure he felt from his dad and the massive expectations he had for Rafe. You talked about his sisters; he even shared a bit about his mom at one point.

“Crawl to my bed,” he repeated slower this time, but his voice was deeper somehow.

“No.” You recoiled in reply, angry that he could think to order you around that way. Like you were beneath him. “What the hell is wrong with you? Are you high?”

He barely moved except for his hand coming to wrap around your arm just above the joint of your elbow. He brought you closer to him and you put your hands up, bracing yourself against the planes of his chest.

“No, I’m not fucking high. I just want you—“

“Oh, no, I heard you the first time, Rafe. But we don’t do that shit unless we negotiate it first and you know that.”

His face scrunched. “There’s nothing to negotiate, I want to watch you on your knees and I want to fuck you on my bed.”

“And I’m saying no!” You crossed your arms in defiance.

He yanked you forward this time, his grip barely bruising but still pretty strong. You could sense he had every intention to kiss you but before he could, you reached your palm up to his lips and pressed your hand against his mouth. He kissed the inside of your hand instead, like that made anything about this better.

Your first kiss with Rafe had actually been kind of sweet, like a lot of things between both of you. You’d been overlooking the grounds at the club and it happened just as the sun was setting. You’d both been enjoying each other’s company. It was hot, you were both covered in a slight sheen of sweat. Rafe’s hair was falling in his face due to his lack of hair product. It was slow and easy and kind of perfectly timed, if you were being honest. Almost like Rafe could read your mind, you were just that in sync with one another.

He smiled back at you and asked you “What?”

You stared into his mesmerizing blue eyes. “Why do you want me to crawl, Rafe?”

He shrugged and mouthed at your fingers. You let your hand drop and rest on his chest. He stared down between you, his hair on the loose again.

“Rafe,” you whispered. “Do you do this with all your girlfriends”

You weren’t naïve; you knew there had been others before you. You and Rafe were nearly 20.

He shook his head, not really looking you in the eye. “Not all of them.”

“So, most of them?” You asked him, cocking your eyebrows and making him look you in the face.

He lifted a shoulder in somewhat of a half-assed confirmation. It didn’t surprise you, to be honest. Rafe Cameron was someone who was used to getting what he wanted. Especially in the bedroom.

You shook your head at yourself and at him. It had already been a long night. You were out at a party with him, more his crowd than yours really. Not that you’d stayed by his side for the whole thing, Rafe’s country club groupies had figuratively elbowed you clean out of the way and you didn’t want to seem like the clingy, possessive girlfriend. You let him have his fun while you mingled with those you did know, dancing and drinking with them as you pleased.

Topper had approached you at some point, noticing the lack of boyfriend by your side. You’d gotten a drink with him, even shared half of a joint until Rafe interrupted both of you. The smile he used was more reminiscent of an angry dog, baring his teeth. It was tense and weird and even though jealousy was often a good look for Rafe, it was certainly not the case tonight. Especially not on the way back to his place, which is where you currently were.

“You know what? I’m gonna go. We’ll talk tomorrow.” You backed away slowly. “Or whatever.”

He really had no right to be jealous. You had only talked to the handful of people that you knew and he had left you alone for most of the stupid party anyway. He’d had his proverbial country-club dick sucked while ignoring you. Maybe even his literal dick sucked too, who even knew anymore. You didn’t keep track of him.

“Wait a fucking minute! I didn’t do anything wrong!” Rafe reached for you again, and you dodged his hand. “I just asked for what I wanted!”

You pointed a perfectly manicured finger at him. “You want to control me, Cameron.”

He swat at your hand and you tugged it away, or at least tried to. Before you could slap him, like you actually wanted to, he got closer. Too close to get much leverage and even though it didn’t really seem like it, Rafe was much stronger than he seemed.

You stomped on his foot with your wedged platform and fisted his Polo shirt tight around his neck with your free hand. You think he barely noticed because in turn, he wrapped his arm around your waist and pinned you to the wall of his bedroom.

“Don’t go,” he added softly.

“It’s not like I can now, can I? I’m trapped here.” You snarled back at him with a small roll of your eyes.

He studied your face, blatantly stopping at your lips. “You’re so beautiful.”

Rafe leaned in to kiss you again, but you reached up to the back of his head and fisted his hair, wrenching his head back. He gasped in return and arched his body against yours. It was like caging in his animalistic urges, all predatory reflexes and hard muscles as he clutched at you. You suddenly felt like you could do anything to him.

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. He was so vulnerable; you could see it in his eyes. They weren’t the usual stormy blue you had been accustomed to. They were shining pools of blue like the Caribbean in the winter. His tanned skin shone in the moonlight that seeped in from the window. You could smell his expensive soap as you mouthed at the skin at the base of his throat. You could bite him, leave a mark for everyone to see and you kind of wanted to, you liked the idea of that. You could bite him until he bled. Mark him like he wished you could do to you.

You dug your teeth a little harder around his neck and he moaned. You felt him rock his growing erection against your stomach. His grip loosening on your wrist.

“You bring me back to your room and order me to my knees, “ you spoke against his throat. “As if you own me, Rafe Cameron.”

His hands moved south, towards your hips. “I’m sorry.”

You pulled his hair again and he practically whimpered in need. “How sorry are you?”

“Very! I’m so sorry!”

“You are sorry,” you agreed. “A sorry, little boy who plays at being the tough guy, huh?”

Really, you had come to know Rafe as something else entirely. He was insightful, funny, mature and intelligent when he wasn’t losing his temper like a child or coked out of his mind. You talked your entire first date, which ended after a long ride on the back of his bike. He’d been so enthusiastic about you, beamed at you with his cheeks pink from the sun and you had smiled right back. Dishing it all out as good as you were getting it. You felt yourself falling for him right then and there.

He’d taken you home, hugged you and planned to leave. He had made you feel heard, seen and wanted for the first time in a long time. He’d felt right in your arms and he smelled so good. And god, his hair; you could go on about his hair forever if anyone let you.

Taking advantage of his silence, you continued. “Such a shame, I don’t want that side of you. If you’re feeling insecure, tell me. If you want me on my knees tell me about it. Don’t play stupid games with me.” You released his tresses and smoothed it back. “I want to be with you, but not like that. You know that.”

His eyes were filled with all kinds of emotions, different tones of blue fighting to make their way to the surface; as if the internal floodgates had been opened. He looked like he was about to yell or cry or maybe a little of both. You didn’t fell much different than that.

He spoke with a rough tone of voice. “You seem like you’re done with me.” His teeth almost clenching as he said it.

“I can be mad at you and still want you.”

“You’re not leaving,” he half-questioned.

You realized then, what he had been doing. The trademark Cameron push-away. Apparently, Sarah was notorious for it too. He was sabotaging himself and the relationship, and you couldn’t exactly figure out why.

You shook your head and looked at him. “Not unless you want me to.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“Then I won’t.”

He hesitated delicately, as he moved in to kiss you. You didn’t stop him this time; you didn’t want to. You held his face and tasted the remnants of some hard liquor on his tongue. He kissed you with more desperation than you expected. It wasn’t like the giggle make-outs you were mostly used to. Where his hands went to your ass and he squeezed it before making a honking sound and while his lips still pressed to yours. There was a new sense of urgency to his kissing now. It meant something else entirely.

Rafe pushed a thigh between yours and rubbed himself against you. He was solid and strong and hot. His lips were soft and felt ready to pout at a moment’s notice but still, he kissed you like he couldn’t get enough.

He ran his hands down your sides and almost pulled you away from the wall to touch all of you. He rolled his lips expertly and groaned against your mouth. You could feel how hard he was.

“I want to fuck you – make you cum over and over – all the fucking time,” he whispered, his lips barely leaving any space between yours as he did. “I watch the way you move. How you act when you think nobody’s watching. I like your ass.” His hands squeezed your hips as he swallowed. “And I just…” he continued, “I want you to myself, all the time, always.”

You looked at his closed lids. “And you want me to crawl to your bed.”

“I think about getting you on your knees and rubbing my dick all over your pretty face.” His hands moved upwards to cup the side of your chest as he opened his eyes and looked at you. “I wanna slide it in your mouth until you’re choking on it.” His hands kept going until they found themselves under your jaw. “I want to fuck your mouth until you cry.” He tilted your head back a little and kissed your chin delicately. “And then I want to push you to the floor and slide right between your tits. I want to cum all over you.”

You grinned a little, liking the fact that he was actually telling you want he wanted. “We can do that.”

“I want to bend you over my armchair,” he nodded in the direction of what you vaguely recalled was a leather armchair in the corner of his bedroom. “I want to spank you until your skin’s red all over and your pussy’s dripping wet for me.” He pressed his forehead to yours. “Fuck, I want to take you like that. Shove you into the bed so you can’t move, finger you, fuck you harder than I’ve fucked anyone ever.”

“All in one go?” you teased and pet the muscles in his lower back with a raise of your eyebrow.

“Whenever you’d let me.” Rafe shrugged.

You could tell he was slowly slipping into a better frame of mind. No longer was he barking out orders. He was talking about permission and mutual satisfaction, which was definitely turning you on now. You decided to ask for something you’d like.

“Can I tie you up sometime?” You smirked.

He nodded and rolled his hips. “Fuck yeah, ride me, scratch me, bite me, I don’t care.”

“And you want to be my good boy, don’t you Rafe?” You reached up again and tousled his hair.

“Only if you’ll be my good girl.”

“Uh-uh, that’s not how this conversation is going, Cameron.” You warned him.

He definitely pouted right then. “What do you want?”

“I want you to let go. I want you to trust me.” You leaned into his warm hands at your throat to offer a kiss.

His eyes clouded with unshed tears and he kissed you. He pushed his fingers into your hair and held you as he sucked tightly at your bottom lip, your tongue. You couldn’t stop the train of noises bubbling out of you. You held onto him and gave it back just as good. You had to be vulnerable too if you expected him to be. After all, soft Rafe was your favorite Rafe ever.

He broke the kiss with a moan and pressed his wet lips to your cheek. “I want you so bad.”

“I want you too.”

“Let me fuck you. I’ll be good for you.”

You smiled and closed your eyes with a sigh. He was always good for you. He knew how to use his body, there was no doubt about that. His mouth, his hands; you’d come more times with him than on your own – which was a first. The chemistry between you was undeniably there.

You drew your bottom lip between your teeth as you had a thought. “Take off your clothes and lie in the middle of the bed for me, Rafe.”

He straightened to his full height and cradled your face. “Are you going to fuck me?”

“If you do what I ask.” You replied, cocking your eyebrow.

In a silent reply, he stepped away and pulled off his Polo shirt. He kept his eyes on you as he moved backwards towards his full-sized, unmade bed. It was a nice start. The moonlight bounced off his naked torso and glinted lightly off of his hair. It highlighted the angles of his jaw, his pointy but muscled shoulders. The planes down his chest were hidden in a shadow but you followed them down to the front of his khaki shorts.

The sight made your mouth water but you had to maintain control. You slowly advanced, step-by-step and Rafe backed away at the same pace. Further into his bedroom, he unbuttoned his shorts. With another few steps backwards, he unzipped them.

You knew he wanted you to undo the ties on your crop top but he kept silent. Somehow, that made you proud and want to reward him, even if it was just a little.

“Touch yourself for me,” you commanded, your chin raised in an authoritative manner.

He adjusted his cock in his boxer briefs and cupped it. He drew his fingertips up the thick vein on the underside of it, the tip of it wet the fabric and pulled at the waistband.

As soon as he was at the foot of his bed, he sad and got his Sperry boat shoes untied and off. He yanked his socks off and threw them in the generation of the closet without a care in the world. He sat there with the summer moonlight coming in through the window and waited.

You couldn’t make out much of his face but you felt him studying you, raking his eyes over your still clothed body.

You leaned casually back against the door. “The rest of it.”

He wiggled out of his shorts and his briefs, tossing them in the direction of his socks. He held onto the edge of the bed as his toes curled into the carpet.

“Turn on the light.” You said, and nodded to the lamp at his bedside.

He did as you asked and scoot onto the center of the bed, where he stretched out on his back. His golden skin was perfection in the soft glow. A blushed peppered his skin as you looked on.

His cock hardened further too. A glossy line of sweet, sticky precum on the trailed underside of his length. You couldn’t wait to tease more out.

You toed off your sandals and slipped out of your denim shorts. From the corner of your eye, your saw Rafe wrap his hand around the base of his hardened erection. You straightened and walked to bed, your crop top and lace panties the only things on display.

You tsked with your fingers in Rafe’s direction. “Get your hands off. That’s only mine to touch.”

He let go and writhed on the bed. His legs spread and his hips pushed into the air. “Fucking touch me then.”

“I will, when I’m damn well ready, Cameron.” You move forward to put a knee on the matress. “Hands about your head now.”

He obeyed and moved to grab the pillow under his head. You crawled close and bend to kiss a gentle line up his chest towards his neck. He sighed in pleasure and turned his head for you. His skin was clean, the mix of soap and cologne that you loved always present. You took in his beautiful profile and traced his lips with a finger.

“Why did you want me to crawl, Rafe?” you whispered in his ear.

He groaned your name and flexed against the bed. You dug your nails into his chest and scratched down his torso hard. His eyes went wide as he let out a delicious “aaah!”

You reached the skin of his waistline and gentled your touch. “Tell me why.”

“I don’t know,” he breathed and shook his head.

You hummed and took hold of his cock. He moaned and shoved his heels into the plush mattress. His cock was hot in your hand and so hard, almost painfully so. He was probably ready to blow any second.

You stroked him once and settled on just holding the wet head in your smaller fist. You watched him struggle and bite his lip. You ran your finger slowly through the underside of the head.

“Tell me.”

“I…Fuck.” He squeezed his eyes shut.

You shuffled down the soft bed and got between his legs. You pushed the further open and stroked the length of his thighs slowly. His thighs were smooth and silky, untouched by the sun mostly, unlike the rest of him.

Rafe looked down his body. “What’re you doing?”

Without replying, you leaned forward, bracing yourself and licked at the trail of his precum that had previously pooled there. His head flopped back with a groan. He was salty and thick on your tongue.

“Tell me,” you repeated.

“Fucking Topper,” he spat.

You made an interested noise and placed open-mouthed kisses down his shaft.

“He was – he was flirting with you.”

Ah, so that was what this was about. Topper keeping you company at the party.

“And?”

“He’s…he’s a good guy.”

“Uh-huh”

“I don’t want…”

You teased his balls with your tongue before pressing it against them tightly. He pushed down to your face and raised his ass a little off the bed. You pulled away and then stared straight up at him.

“Fuck, come on!” He pulled at the corners of the pillow. “Give me…” He groaned and rubbed the sweat from his upper lip with his bicep.

You almost had him. You hovered over the line of your spit and his precum on his cock and gently blew air on it. His reaction was immediate. He thrust upwards at your face and growled.

You backed off again and shot him an expectant look. Your eyebrows raised again, so Rafe definitely knew.

“I don’t want you to –“

You kissed the skin over his hipbones and that joint of muscle. You slid your palms over his sides, your nails raking over his skin. You came close to the erection laying on his stomach but never touched it.

“Fuck me, please.”

You hummed and kept peppering kisses over his tanned sking.

“If you don’t fucking fuck me…”

You sat up at his tone and placed your hands on your thighs. It was a punishment for him, yes but also it kept you from losing your focus. He sounded so needy, you were ready to give up this entire charade and just give into him. You were definitely aware of how your underwear clung to the wetness between your thighs.

“Fuck!” He bellowed. “What do you want?”

“Tell me the truth, Rafe.”

“I want you to want me like I…” His face scrunched up and he bit his lip. “I want you to only see me.”

“And what about me?” You toyed with the flimsy tie on your top. “You ignored me for most of the party.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“I don’t give a fuck if you didn’t mean to. You intentions don’t mean shit to me, Cameron.”

“I’m sorry, okay?” He almost lifted himself on an elbow but thought better than to do it. Which was good, it meant he was learning. “Let me make it up to you, baby. Please?”

“Oh, of course you are.” You got on your knees and pulled your underwear down. “I’m gonna fuck your face until I come.”

Rafe twisted on the bed with a loud moan. His cock visibly throbbed and your thighs clenched at the sight. You wanted nothing more than to slide down his dick and use him like he was the best, most realistic sex toy ever made.

But no, Rafe hadn’t earned that. Had he?

You kicked off your underwear and crawled over him. You sat on his scratched pink chest with your knees spread wide and rubbed yourself on him. He whimpered and stared at you with darkening, sweet eyes.

“I won’t let you go again,” he offered as his hands mangled the pillow under his head. “I won’t get distracted.”

You leaned forward just a touch to grind your clit against him. You let out a soft sigh and rolled your hips. You were conflicted between coming exactly like this and leaving him wanting and taking you sweet time with Rafe.

He glanced between your legs and licked his lips. “I can make it up to you. I won’t hurt you. Ever again. I promise.”

“What else?”

He floundered for a second, utterly lost in pleasure. “I was stupid. I let people –“

“Other girls,” you corrected.

“—I let other girls sidetrack me. From you. You’re the most important thing to me, I swear.”

“Keep going.”

He made a frustrated noise. “I don’t know what you want, babe.”

“Do you care about me? Do you want me in your life?”

“Jesus Christ, you have no idea. I learned to fucking Paddleboard to see you at the Island Club every day.”

You couldn’t help but laugh.

He smiled so beautifully, your absolute favorite smile. His unashamed 100% real, Rafe smile. “God! I’m so into you!”

Your heart lurched in your chest, and you shuffled down just so you could kiss him. He made a hungry, desperate sound when your lips met. He leaned up to kiss you harder. He got your mouth open and tasted you, licked and sucked at your tongue. You almost forgot yourself for a minute. His kisses were ravenous and eager, ranging between sweet and downright bratty.

You finally pulled away to catch your breath. His panting breaths fanned over your lips. You held his face and he leaned into your touch.

“I’m really into you too, you know.” You murmured.

“Good, now come sit on my face.”

You raised your eyebrow at that.

“Please?” he added cheekily, flashing you another knee-weakening smile.

“Good boy.” You kissed his nose and told him to scoot down.

With a bit of adjustment, you found yourself hovering over Rafe’s blushing face. You allowed him to hold your ass to support you at first. It also helped in keeping his hands from wandering and going to his cock.

His voice was a dark rumble: “Oh shit, yeah. Let me taste you.”

You put your hands on the wall in front of you and slowly lowered yourself. He met you halfway, his tongue already out of his mouth. His nose pressed into your mound and he moaned. His tongue was warm and slick, you cursed under you breath.

He didn’t seem to mind the pressure at all. He pushed his tongue in deeper, licking languid stripes up your slit. Each pass over your sensitive clit had you jolting at the feeling. His lips dragged against your slick folds.

It started out slow and easy. You didn’t want to rush it. His mouth felt too good, his tongue so strong and his lips plush. Plus, his stubble scratching at the sensitive skin of your inner thighs felt incredible. He kissed your clit, and your legs involuntarily quaked against his ears.

He kept going, focusing on his clit. You found your hips rocking against his tongue. He encouraged you to move with his hands, pushing at your hips and his jaw moving beneath you.

You rested the side of your head against your upper arm and really rode his face. After all, it was exactly what you wanted. You moaned as his nose repeatedly bumped against you. He moaned in reply. Each hard sway of your hips, every lick to your clit was escalating a deep, straining tension that needed to be released.

You knew that release was coming. It was coming faster than you would’ve liked.

“You’re gonna make me come,” you groaned. “So good.”

In response, he spread his hands over your ass and pressed you harder against his mouth. The growing pleasure suddenly sharpened and moved up your spine like lightening. You pushed a hand into the loose strands of his hair and fisted it as you fucked his mouth.

Like the waves crashing around outside Rafe’s bedroom window, your climax drowned out everything else. It pulsed through you in a repeating, punishing beat. You hips kept hunching forward, stimulating your already over-stimulated nerve endings , your orgasm relentlessly going and going until you felt like you were sure you were about to cry.

You tried to slow down, but Rafe sucked at your clit again. It was too much and you were already stunned from the first round. The second one punched you in the chest, as you collapsed against the cool wall. You were weakened by pleasure, you orgasm literally striking you into silence.

You felt his warm, needy breath between your legs and realized he was barely holding on too. You let go of his hair and angled your pussy away from his mouth. He groaned with a yearning, but het you drop down to the side and lie on the bed.

“Oh fuck,” you gasped and spread a hand on your lower stomach, under your top.

You were quivering, like really quivering all over. You insides were still pulsing with the last traces of your orgasm. Your heart was hammering in your chest. You felt sticky and buoyant and frankly, fucking invincible, like every other time Rafe had made you cum.

He trapped your calf against his chest with a sweat-damp hand. “Pretty good apology, huh?” he commented, his voice scratchy with a light chuckle.

You barked out a laugh. “Oh baby, you’re not done yet.”

His head shot up, his hair sticking up in all sorts of crazy directions. “What?”

You dragged your leg out of his loose hold and planted your foot on the bed. “It’s your turn now, Rafe.”

A deviant smirk spread across his lips as he leaned towards you. “Oh, fuck yeah…”

#obx #outer banks #obx netflix #outer banks netflix #rafe cameron #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron smut #rafe cameron imagine #outer banks imagines #outer banks fanfiction #obx savage #obx fanfiction #jj maybank #john b routledge #topper thornton

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vegalocity · 3 years

Note

Comforting Hugs and (platonic) kiss on the cheek. Min Yi falls and gets a boo boo so Huntsman has to Comfort her, much to his discomfort. Cause what you wrote with Uncle Goliath was adorable so now it's Uncle Huntsys turn. - Pixel Anon

Affection meme

4. Comforting hugs

8. Kisses on cheek

Whoops i tripped and it turned into feels how'd that happen

Huntsman had never wanted kids. He didn’t like kids, he didn’t trust kids, Kids always seemed to be more of a pain than they were worth.

Which was why he wasn’t particularly excited when everyone found out that Syntax had a kid. Some little wannabe detective whom was barely old enough for grade school yet somehow believed she was capable of solving any mystery handed to her but still needed to hold hands with a grownup while crossing the street.

Another thing he didn’t like about kids, they didn’t even have the skills to back up their egos.

The only positive thing he could scrounge together about Syntax's Daughter for a long time was that she seemed to be a rather tough kid. Always tripping and falling and scraping herself up in ways he was (pretty sure) a lesser child would have stopped everything to cry about, brushing the dirt off of her clothes and going back to whatever she was doing. At times Syntax or her aunt needed to pull her away and tell her to bandage up her injuries first and she’d protest over it.

So he’d give her that. She was tough.

That in no way meant he was alright with babysitting just because he was the only one without any plans tonight.

He’d be completely fair and say that he expected it tpo be a quiet night. The brat was in between ‘mysteries’ and was quietly working on one of her arts and crafts projects. He’d figured they’d have no real reason to interact until she’d tell him it was about dinner time and they’d… order in or something, he didn’t know what kids liked to eat.

But that didn’t mean he was okay with it just happening to him to be stuck with the brat all night until Syntax got home from whatever tech-related insanity the Monkie Kid and his ilk had pulled him into.

Though when he heard a yelp of surprise and pain, he’d assumed it was something like, the little gremlin tripping on her own socks or something and falling face first onto the floor or whatever. So he didn’t give it any mind as he continued to sharpen his lucky blade.

Though he didn’t hear any grumbles of annoyance as she continued on with what she was doing, or even laughter at her own clumsy actions. Then she was a little blur of black hair and pink jacket as she darted from the kitchen area to the bathroom, passing by as quickly and quietly as possible.

Now… That was… probably something….

The bathroom door shut with a thud, but he could pick up on sniffling and upset whimpering noises among the sounds of bottles clattering, every so often punctuated by more yelps of pain.

Then he smelled burning. It was coming from the kitchen and sure enough there was a skillet that had fallen to the ground, and a pair of eggs half sprayed along the stovetop, some parts very quickly turning to charcoal.

What had happened put itself together rather quickly and he cursed under his breath at the idiocy of children.

When he returned to the bathroom the whimpering had ended and was replaced entirely with the sniffling, and the rummaging of bottles was replaced with the running of the faucet.

“What are ya doing in there?”

“Nothing!”

“Bull. Open the door kid.”

“It’s okay! I’m okay!”

“Open the door before I break it. Minyi.” The child’s name felt weird on his tongue, but she had to know he was serious.

There was a pause, and then the door creaked open. The kid stood there, moving her hand from the doorknob to wipe at her eyes, the other hand held behind her back.

“You’re really gonna be a stupid kid and hide it from me?”

She rocked back and forth on her heels, her glasses were missing, probably dropped them when she ran in here, so she couldn’t hide her face like she usually did.

After another long pause where Huntsman debated what sort of threat he could make to a six year old without her father finding out about it and finalizing those vivisection plans he was sure he had squirreled away somewhere but constantly denied, the brat relented and held out her hidden hand, and sure enough the sleeve was rolled up to the elbow and the outer side of her hand front he base of her pinky all the way down to her wrist was an angry red.

“Dumb kid.”

She whimpered again and a fresh set of tears began to bubble out of her eyes and he rolled his. “Sit down. I’m not risking your Aunt’s wrath by not patching you up after you did something stupid.” The kid quietly did as instructed and sat on the edge of the bathtub as he opened the medicine cabinet. The burn cream was far too high up for her to have been able to reach.

She had started to cry properly now… Stupid kids crying their eyes out over dumb things.

“Please don’t tell Daddy or Auntie.” she squeaked out when he finally crouched in front of her, holding out a hand for when her own was placed in his.

“Why? You scared of admitting you burned yourself trying to make your own dinner instead of being the rational and smart kid they both keep saying you are?”

The brat kept crying as he finished wrapping up the wound until the entire area was covered over her left hand.

“I can’t cause any problems…” That… gave him pause.

Sure kids want to be good. They might be little shits but they rarely WANT to be bad kids. So if she’d said that she ‘wanted to be a good girl’ or whatever that would have made sense. But… ‘cause problems’?

“What are you on about?”

“Daddy and Auntie have enough problems, and I can’t be one too!” she looked up at him then, sniffing pathetically and hair falling in her face at her vehemence “I gotta be no problems at all! Cuz Cuz… I’m a trooper! And clever, and a delight to have in class!”

….damn here he thought obsessive perfectionism wouldn’t kick in until teen years.

“You’re six years old is what you are.” UGH… he knew what adults were SUPPOSED to do around crying children.

Didn’t mean he had to like it.

Huntsman offered his hand to the kid again, and she didn’t hesitate before sliding her uninjured one into his. He tugged her forward, and she stumbled until her little body collided with his. And to keep her from escaping he placed his other hand on her back. “Who ever told you you ain’t allowed to be a damn kid, huh?”

“Nobody…”

“Kids don’t just pick up ‘delight to have in class’ from nowhere, I'm guessing it was a teacher?”

“No!”

“Then who's messing with the development of clan young? It’s been decades since this clan has had any young, and if our only child in thirty years has had her development messed with…” the kid let go of his hand and wrapped her arms around his neck.

“...Nobody has to… people are always sayin' stuff about how scary it is that me an’ Auntie are the only humans in our family… that you an’ Uncle Goliath eat people… That Daddy used to be handsome but now he’s just….i forget the word… The teachers wanna keep an eye on me, they keep saying that ‘demon behavior’ might rub off on me. And it’s stupid!” She pulled away to look at him again and she’d stopped crying, her face pinched in a pout. “It’s stupid cuz you an Uncle Goliath are super cool! And Daddy is Daddy! But they’re all scared and they shouldn’t be. But…” she looked away again and Huntsman took the opportunity to lift her into the air to steadily walk them back out into the living room. “But if I start bein’ a problem then they’re gonna think its your guys fault. It’s not, but they'll think it. And they're gonna do bad things cuz they’ll think they gotta and It’ll be my fault because I made problems and I can’t make problems!”

….huh….

“Maybe I should show those grownups how right they are about how dangerous I can be, if it upsets you that much.” The kid looked back up at him and he made sure to bear his fangs properly. She’d probably get scared too and he could remind her how he and Goliath were actually in fact quite dangerous, and while her father would never dream of hurting her, those ladies probably had the right idea, too.

And then the little shit laughed at him.

“You’re silly.” But just like that her mood was better. She leaned in and before he could tell her to buzz off or drop her she pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Thanks for bandaging me Uncle Huntsman. But I messed up the eggs still so I gotta make another dinner.”

“If you really don’t wanna cause problems-” he dropped her, she landed on the couch harmlessly. “-Just tell the grownup in the room that you’re getting hungry. Don’t just assume you know what you’re doing.”

She fingered the bandages on her hand again when she sat down properly in the seat. “Okay. Sorry Uncle Huntsman.”

“Just because you don’t want to cause problems doesn’t mean you have to do everything yourself. You’re literally a child.”

“Okay Uncle Huntsman.”

“Now out on one of your damn movies while I see if there’s anything edible left in this place.”

“Okay!”

More rebound than a beach ball apparently, that kid. Observant too, if she could connect probably idle chatter that… either teachers or parents of friends… would whisper about to not only her and hers, but also deduce the danger of her family being considered ‘scary’ and what she should do to combat it (whether it was a good idea or not)

He wondered how many of those scrapes she acted like she didn’t even notice were just her putting on a brave face because being seen as weak was suddenly something she thought she couldn’t afford to do.

… Minyi really was a tough kid, wasn’t she?

Send me stuff!

#lmk OCs #lmk Huntsman #letters to vega #Vega writes stories too #affection meme #I slightly edited the prompt bc Min Yi's a little tougher than that #but sheis still 6 and thus inherently stupid #OC: Minyi

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halothenthehorns · 3 years

Text

All in the Family

Chapter 118: Christmas on the Closed Ward

The walls were the same shade of amber as her eyes. The duvet on the bed was a faded unicorn pattern from her childhood she should have been embarrassed at everyone seeing.

Potter was admiring her poster of The Three Toads he'd landed in front of, grinning in surprise they had at least similar taste in music it seemed.

Regulus was prodding a lava lamp her dad had gifted her, but she couldn't even watch the blue and yellow goo go up and down.

The bedroom was opulent, none of them even landed within arm's reach of each other, Remus noticed gratefully as he quickly brushed at his eyes and was grateful he'd gotten himself together.

The carpet was solid gold, and very fluffy, as Padfoot landed on it with only a huff.

Instead she was gasping, shuddering, and generally falling to pieces as it caught up to her where they'd been trapped. 'You're being ridiculous,' her mind coolly informed her. 'You didn't even flinch when you found this out, why are you crying now?'

Because being told she was insane in this future and not having contact with her son was different than being trapped in that ward like they'd just been! They were out now, she kept telling herself, but it didn't feel like it. They were still trapped in this mess. They couldn't go to their next class and keep whispering or passing notes like there was no world outside the school, or go hunt down Barty Crouch Jr., Bellatrix, Rabastan, and Rodolphus Lestrange right now to cease this from ever being a possibility. Stuck in this limbo, it really hit her she didn't want to be strong anymore. She just wanted to cry.

Had Frank's mother refused to bring Neville there, or brought him every other weekend to people who didn't even recognize him? Which was worse? What of her mother and father? Every detail of that place felt burned into her brain as she once again found herself stuck on the fact it had been Frank's family photos about, had she any family left that hadn't all been killed in some gruesome way, or in the bed next to her?

"Alice, darling, what-" Frank tripped over himself trying to get to her, pulling her tight to his chest as his mind floundered why she'd be having such a severe reaction to Harry Potter's dilemma. Yeah, being possessed by You-Know-Who was awful in its own right, but she'd been the most vehement since the beginning this wasn't a future set in stone for any of them.

He pulled gently until they were sitting on the bed which Lily quickly vacated, having landed on it and studying pictures on the ceiling in surprise before she realized what she was seeing. Alice and a woman who must be her mother, the two in matching dark pigtails and laughing. Alice and a man with her amber eyes trying to lick ice cream from their own noses.

Now she was forced to watch as tears kept falling from her eyes with no clue what had caused it any more than Frank's wild look around for some sort of cause.

"Guess it wouldn't help her to feel better if I said I think her room looks cool," Potter offered, rubbing the back of his neck.

Lily wanted to hex him, making a joke at a time like this, but instead she ignored him and went on her other side, trying desperately to think of anything to comfort her like Alice had done for her countless times since this had started.

To her utter surprise though, Alice tried to laugh. She was nuzzling into Frank's side and holding Lily's hand, but actually trying to sniffle back the sobs and look around like she was just noticing it all for the first time like them.

"What happened darling?" He begged, brushing at her short hair desperately as she tried to get herself under control. They'd been stuck in that room the whole time, she'd even been trying to get him to come look at something before they were vanished away. Had there been a cursed object in there that had hurt her?

"I," she hardly wanted to say the words, like leaving him ignorant would be some saving grace. She wouldn't hide this away though, she'd never hid anything from him and she wasn't going to start now. The words caught in her throat regardless of her intentions, she didn't know how to say it. "That room," she tried again, but then she just kept seeing that baby picture of Neville in Augusta Longbottom's arms, like it was the last thing she'd ever seen before she lost her mind, and she couldn't say it.

Frank felt like a miserable friend, let alone boyfriend, he still wasn't getting it.

"Did you want us to leave?" Peter offered quietly. He was by her door, which he'd cracked open to find the rest of her house available.

"If you'd like," she tried to hide the fact she was wiping snot off on her shoulder by passing it off as a shrug. "There's three bathrooms, one down the hall in mum and dad's room, the other across the hall, and the last down under the stairs. You can help yourself to anything you like in the kitchen."

They all trailed out slowly, each wishing they could say something, but though she'd been kind and gentle to all of their troubles, they couldn't think of a word to say back at the moment either. Lily hesitated going last, giving her hand a questioning squeeze, but Alice just held tight back, she could stay of course, she really wasn't trying to hide this.

The lack of the others didn't really help Alice order her thoughts any better, she hadn't a problem speaking this to any of them, but she was still trying to put how to say it in her head in the least brash way possible for several moments as James started reading.

That same chill lodged back into place when she heard the chapter title. Arthur was still in that hospital. Somehow, someway, Harry was going to find her and her husband in there. "Oh Frank," she finally forced it out, she wanted him to hear it from her before then. "I, think- no. We were just on the closed ward, that's why it wouldn't open."

It only took another moment for it to click in him, and he went rigid in shock.

Lily gasped and tried to pull her into a hug, but Frank pulled her to him entirely and whispered, "glory, I, didn't even notice, how, what-"

"I saw, our, I mean, the, things around those beds," her voice died by the end, and she was grateful he didn't ask her to elaborate. She didn't want to keep trying to refer to that place, it would only make it more real.

"Oh Alice," Lily's hands were flitting desperately for any kind of comfort, and settled for patting her on the back. It was always Sev comforting her, he didn't like talking about his problems much at all. "It's not our future, you told me that. This will not be happening to you, either of you!"

"I'm not so sure anymore," she whispered, explaining Percy's room to her.

"That, that doesn't mean," Frank stopped and started as if in physical pain. "What, you think when we're done with Harry's seven years we'll travel through his whole life and be stuck in here forever? Or that we'll go back to school and lose all memory of this? I, no, I cannot believe, this has to mean something!"

"I'm so sorry," Lily whispered in horror. "This is all my fault, I've never forgotten that fact, but I'll, I'll do anything to fix this. We have to end up back in that Potions room eventually, and I'll, I'll fix this, I swear!"

"Lily no," Alice said at once, finally almost wriggling free of Frank as she turned to face her, though he still had his hands on her hips. "I don't blame you, nobody does! It was a stupid accident, it happens in a magical school."

At least Alice finally seemed to feel a smidge better as she smiled at the two, hugging them both firmly before getting up and heading towards her closet and determinedly brushing the last of the tears from her eyes. She certainly was going to take this time to get out of her days-old clothes.

Frank watched her go with a fire lodged in his chest. He would stop this from happening to her, no matter what.

Lily sighed and brushed at her hair as she thought it all over again anyways. She knew she could remake her half of the potion without a problem, it was Lupin's part that would be the experimental phase. It's what her and Sev had spent so much of their free time doing, but these past two months it was practically all they could stand to do together without arguing. Her stomach clenched uncomfortably as she wondered if she'd just make it worse by trying something again, she seemed to have that effect on everything.

Padfoot went limping out of the room last, and had to crane his neck all the way up to see Remus and James thanking Peter for something, both things a spectacle in themselves. Remus held his hand out and took whatever from him, and the other two went down the stairs while Moony tapped him on the nose. Regulus hesitated at the top of the landing, but didn't follow them in as Remus closed the door.

"Come in here you," he whispered gently, going to the door across. The bathroom was apparently under some kind of remodeling. The floor was solid concrete, but the double sink was marble white and had shiny new taps in place that must not have ever been used and more counter space than really should have been necessary. The multipurpose shower bath steam cubicle was sectioned off by a tempered glass door and looked big enough all eight of them could have fit in there as another squashed space.

Remus closed the toilet lid and patted it expectantly, but when Padfoot just looked at him, he quietly asked, "like some help?"

Every last dignity in him wanted to snap no, but really he'd only hesitated because he had no idea what Moony was up to. Lingering worry for him back at the hospital had been the only thing getting him this far in rather than going downstairs for food. He looked perfectly normal, but there was still an aura of guilt surrounding him. He played along if Remus wanted to finally put all that Madam Pomfrey fussing to his own use and check his wounds, which he assumed was going on here. He didn't like his chances much under the fur.

He went over, and made the small hop up, rather glad he wasn't human for how badly that burned his muscles like new and clenching his jaw instead to hide a whimper. Remus's gentle fingers went carding through his fur, but he'd guessed right, he was barely getting down to the skin, let alone getting a good look at the new scars he'd have.

He sighed in defeat and pocketed a little jar, but before he could jump down, Remus got down on his knees so they were on eye level, and held his head carefully like he was made of spun glass. "I'm so sorry," he whispered, and Padfoot was stunned to see tears in his eyes.

Sirius almost broke his promise to James. He would not let Remus beat himself up over this, it had been his decision! Remus would hate himself though, possibly even dangerously so, if he killed them any more than he'd almost done to Longbottom or even Snape. Comforting Remus like this was also the most perfect answer, so he instead leaned forward and used the side of his long snout to nudge against the back of Remus's head, pressing him into his chest. He couldn't actually hold him, but it should have been all that was needed regardless. They'd known full well what they were getting into when they became Animagi, and he didn't regret a single second of it.

Moony's arms came up and circled him tight, and Padfoot hummed in pleasure and let his tail wag just for show, getting the slightest chuckle out of him.

James reading the book didn't even make them spring guiltily apart this time, Remus's hands stayed in tight fists in his thick fur until his breaths finally evened back out to normal, but as Harry's fear ramped up to paranoid levels and he started taking advice from Phineas Nigellus of all paintings, the two finally eased off of each other and went to go check on him, Sirius didn't even lick his neck just to gross him out.

They went down the stairs to see their friend being plenty distracted though, Peter was trying in vain to stop the two dark haired boys lopping bits of their own skin off as they investigated a potato peeler.

"-I'm impressed they've even got this here," Peter was saying as he showed them properly again.

"We'll have to ask her," James agreed, alternatively reading a sentence and attempting this, and scraping against his thumb again. He cursed and dropped the whole spud in the trashcan amongst his half-peeled, now blood flecked flesh.

"I swear you and Padfoot share a brain cell," Remus sighed as he went over to show him again. "You're going to be out of fingers before we're done with this."

The injured digits from his long-ago electrical burn were not as faded as they would have liked, though everyone else's injuries had mostly gone with time. He wondered if it was the electrical component to the injury that stopped it healing amongst the several healing charms they'd used on themselves by now.

Padfoot barked in protest while James shared a sad grin with him. He was already missing his idiot brother's stupid commentary, though perhaps it was best he couldn't show his face during the bit where Harry had to be pulled out of his depression by his friends rather than his godfather even noticing, that stung all of them quite a lot. This future version of Sirius seemed so cold in comparison to his brother, he'd only ever seen Sirius that distant when they'd been arguing, he couldn't imagine why he was acting this way towards Harry. He turned quickly back towards the book, they had no answer except this one regardless.

By the time the other three came down the stairs, detailed Christmas presents were being given, and Peter had finished prepping enough sandwiches for several more stops.

"Alright Prongs, I'm done, stop trying to lacerate yourself already," he called, but when he didn't come over to place the preservation charms on them to keep them good while he wrapped up the last one, he glanced up to see Evans had once again caught his eye.

She must be wearing some of Alice's things, the redhead was much taller than her so her midriff showed in the silver top she wore and the billowing green skirt still showed a bit of her ankles.

"Hey Alice, why do you have a potato peeler?" Remus asked. She had on new clothes too, a wooly beige jumper and sweatpants.

"My dad works in the Muggle-Worthy Excuse committee," she shrugged, "he can't say it's a foolproof excuse if he doesn't test out a few theories himself. He remodels the house all the time for different scenarios, and we've a bunch of Muggle stuff hanging around, though not as much as Arthur I'm sure."

"How'd giving Sirius that stuff go?" Regulus directed at Lupin. Peter had told him that's what they were still upstairs doing, but he'd been so fascinated by the little whirly device he hadn't even seen them come in.

"Fur's too thick, just like his head, can't get the stuff on," Remus sighed.

Padfoot huffed in indignation, and they all looked down as they wondered just how much of an earful they were going to get from him when he finally changed back.

Remus just smiled in anticipation of that and turned to smack Prongs. He reluctantly dragged his eyes away as Evans went over to Peter and offered to do the Charm, it really was his weakest class so he let her without protest.

When Hermione announced who her last present was for, they were all very familiar with that rumbling growl from the grim-looking dog, and when they got down to Kreacher's room, and his shrine, there was a nasty silence even he couldn't drown out.

Regulus winced, wishing he could hide his house-elf behind him. Kreacher didn't know any better, just like he hadn't when all this started. His servant had been his only friend in that place these last three years while Sirius had been at school and ignoring him at home, surely if he just explained to his elf things had to change he'd go along with it, and burn those particular artifacts.

He took an uneasy breath, and stopped Potter as he shook himself and tried to keep going.

"I'm sorry for him, I won't let him keep those," he told them both sincerely.

Frank didn't seem sure how to respond to that other than smiling awkwardly and trying to wave Potter on, the less they dwelled on it the better, but he went to go sit at the table with the lot of them to prove there were no hard feelings. Alice sat on his lap and reached over to give the kid's arm a squeeze in thanks, quickly drawing her hand back so he wouldn't notice it shaking as the lot made another trip up to the hospital.

She swallowed painfully and sat back against Frank's chest as it all started not a page later. Arthur tried some Muggle experimental way to heal himself, and the kids all bolted from Molly's shouting. They got turned around, and ran into Lockhart.

Even Lily burst out in surprised, and a tad righteous laughter as they all thought this was great fun and payback, but Frank's skin was already turning sallow and Alice was half-tempted to excuse them back up to her room so they wouldn't have to see the others' faces when they realized.

They were delayed as James sat gazing at her long after her laughter had subsided and she rolled her eyes at him, she'd been hoping the Slytherin colors would at least minorly deter him. Then she shot Alice a stern look, trying to tell her he was always like this and it didn't mean anything, but really caught sight of them.

Alice denied herself the getaway as she glanced at them, and the fear that flashed in her green eyes said she'd already put it together. They couldn't leave now, the last thing either of them wanted was this group whispering pitifully about them and dragging this out further.

She couldn't bring herself to offer to take the book though as the trio and Ginny reluctantly followed their old DADA teacher in, and the recant of a much more lively version of the place they'd waste away in was described. A part of her wanted to do it to make this go faster, pretend she couldn't feel any pitying gazes she knew would be coming, but again the words jammed up in here before she had the chance.

Frank wasn't doing much better as the truth slowly sunk into the rest of them. To Potter's credit, he only hesitated a moment before glancing at them and putting together what must have been going on when they'd been alone. When both just nodded, he plowed on in the same diligent way he had been reading through his own son's life that he cared for so much, a soft, but steady determination.

This was not the future any of them would have chosen, but James still wanted it all to be true on just the smallest level, that he and Lily were destined to have Harry at the same time as Alice and Frank would have Neville. They'd go forward remembering every heinous detail, and fix every one of them. Their boys would grow up happy and never knowing what had almost been.

#Harry Potter #fanfiction #Reading the books #HP #The Marauders #OotP #Wolfstar #Jilly #James Potter #Remus Lupin #Padfoot #Sirius Black #Peter Pettigrew #Alice Smith #Frank Longbottom

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actuallylorelaigilmore · 3 years

Text

TATMILB, CHAPTER 2

Penelope spent her life writing love letters, which didn’t seem like a terrible idea until the letters were mailed out and Schneider received one of them. Hoping to fool their exes, they agree to fake a relationship. But are they lying to everyone around them, or to themselves? aka my To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before-inspired AU.

Penelope x Schneider, ODAAT. available on ao3 with extra author’s notes.

Chapter 2: Penelope is confronted by Nikki, who accuses her of having feelings for Schneider. Alex’s high school drama hits too close to home. Schneider joins the family for dinner; hijinks ensue.

“I got a call about a packet I needed?” Penelope asked the receptionist while she waited for Alex to get out of his last class. “I think it’s for my son’s baseball season. Alex Alvarez.”

The woman at the desk nodded and walked away, leaving Penelope alone in the silent office. Every visit to the school made her feel vaguely guilty, echoes from her own youth. Or maybe today, it was the knowledge that she’d taken time off work to run errands. She wanted Alex to be able to do things like baseball, but missing the hours felt irresponsible.

Scrolling idly through social media, Penelope took a second to consider her schedule for the rest of the day. Pick Alex up since she already had to come here, grab groceries on the way home...homework for the kids before dinner but also for her...hopefully time for a movie, if she didn’t crash first. Her school schedule had her worn out lately. She was so close to the end of it.

With her eyes on her phone, she didn’t see Nikki walk up, though she heard the click of sharp heels on the floor--and the sharp clearing of her throat.

“Penelope!”

“Nikki.” Ugh.

She couldn’t seem to get away from Schneider’s not-girlfriend lately. Though they had broken up three or four times by now--Penelope had lost count, not that she was really keeping track--their hookups were back on again, as nauseating as ever.

Penelope had no idea what Schneider saw in her, even for meaningless sex. She was just so...Nikki. And after Homecoming, Schneider had been really upset. The most genuinely hurt by a woman that Penelope had ever seen him.

She had tried her hardest to be sympathetic in between hovering at her Mami’s bedside and mourning her own breakup...but then a month later, Nikki was back in the picture.

As Schneider’s best friend, she couldn’t be expected to say nothing about that. It was insane. A terrible idea.

Apparently so was telling Schneider the truth about the situation, because during his next fight with Nikki, Penelope’s words found their way out of his mouth. Now Nikki was even more venomous than she used to be whenever they crossed paths.

It wasn’t like she’d told Schneider not to go back to hooking up with Nikki, Penelope thought in her own defense. She just hadn’t been in favor of it.

“Are you signing up for extra volunteer hours this year?” Nikki asked, a little too close as she leaned against the reception desk next to Penelope. “You know you’re running behind again, and the St. Bibiana PTA always needs...dedicated parents, who really care about the success and future of their kids, to help out here.”

Penelope sucked in a breath and silently counted to three. “I’m sure that’s true,” she replied. “Just like the world needs dedicated nurses to help out those kids and their parents when they get sick.”

As if being a working parent was a bad thing, she thought, furious. As if Nikki was giving so much to the world by sitting on her butt during charity events and hitting on other people’s husbands while she volunteered.

“What are you up to today?” She asked, instead of getting into any of that. You do not fight with a snake, she could her Mami advising her, with the wisdom of a woman who’d dealt with plenty of them in her long lifetime. Unless you want to get down in the dirt with it.

“Oh, just checking on the Prom committee’s budget. The kids have started planning, and we want to make sure they have the most fun ever, don’t we?”

“Of course.”

She remembered Prom fondly, but now that she was a parent instead of a teenager sneaking booze in her bra--especially since she used to be a teenager who did that sort of thing--Penelope’s thoughts on Prom were much more along of the lines of please God don’t let my son have too much fun.

“Are you going to be a chaperone this year?”

Penelope checked the time, wondering what was taking the receptionist so long. Once she got the forms turned in, it would be easy to make a quick exit. She could wait for Alex in the car.

“I don’t know. I’ll have to check my schedule when we’re a little closer to the date.”

“Well, don’t wait too long to decide.”

“I’m not planning on it.”

Nikki’s tone slid from bossy to patronizing. “You know, if you don’t get those hours in, there’s a fine.”

“Yes, I got it!” Penelope snapped back. “I have no intention of skipping out on my volunteer hours this year, just like I haven’t missed them any other year.”

“Jeez, Penelope.” Nikki tossed her hair, victorious at the show of temper. “There’s no need to get upset.”

“Oh, don’t tell me how to feel, thank you. I don’t even know why we’re having this conversation.”

“I saw an acquaintance, a fellow parent,” Nikki’s tone dripped faux affection, making Penelope’s fingers twitch. The urge to remove her earrings was strong. “I wanted to say a friendly hello, because anything else would just be rude, wouldn’t it? While we waited here, in our kids’ school? But you know, Penelope, it’s not my fault that Schneider likes me more.”

Her jaw dropped. “What?”

“Your crush on your landlord. It’s painful to watch, and it makes it hard to try and get along with you. Maybe you should talk to someone about that...the fact that you have a thing for Schneider.”

She took a full step back, trying to digest Nikki’s accusation. Did the idea somehow come from Schneider? If he thought she had a thing for him, wouldn’t he have said something to her instead?

“You’re crazy.”

“No, what’s crazy is the way you tried to weasel between Schneider and me after we had one little fight. I thought you didn’t understand what we have, because you’re such a conventional, old-fashioned person...but that wasn’t it. You wanted him all to yourself, so you tried to get rid of me. It didn’t work.”

Penelope shook her head. “Schneider and I are friends. Who he’s with has nothing to do with me, whether I think it’s a good idea or not.”

Obviously, she added silently, glaring at Nikki. Since he’s with you.

The receptionist came back, forms in hand, and Penelope almost expressed her relief out loud. She settled for a slightly louder thank you than was necessary, as she took a seat to fill them out.

Nikki became background noise then, grating but ignorable background noise. Penelope assumed she got what she’d come for as well, because she clicked her way back down the hall without further unpleasantness.

Something must have really gotten under Nikki’s skin, though Penelope couldn’t have said what--there was no reason for her to pick a fight in public over Schneider when, as Nikki herself had pointed out, they were back together.

Shrugging it off, Penelope went to her car and waited the ten minutes it took for classes to let out. Alex was easy to spot as he left, surrounded by his friends. It still amazed her sometimes that she had raised such an outgoing kid. He got that from Victor, she knew. She’d had friends in school, but not quite so many.

“Hey, Mom.” He slung his backpack onto the backseat as he settled in.

“Papito.” She ignored the urge to kiss him on the cheek, aware that parental PDA was worse than death now that her baby was half-grown. “We’re stopping at the store on the way home. How was your day?”

“Good.”

She glanced his way before pulling out of the lot. “Phone down, Alex. How about you give me more than one syllable, since I took time off just to make sure your extracurriculars are all set?” And got kind of attacked in the process.

He rolled his eyes, but slid his phone back into his pocket. “I don’t know, Mom. Things are good. What do you want from me?”

“Details. How are you doing in that science lab? How are your friends? What’s happening in your life?”

She stretched out the last word to make him laugh.

“Alright. The lab still kind of sucks, but Maddie helped me out today, so it wasn’t so bad. She’s in a fight with Casey this week.”

“That must be hard for your friends, huh.”

“Not really. We’re all used to it. They’re, like, always fighting. And it’s why she’s helping me--she wants to make him jealous.”

“So she’s using you?”

“She’s improving my science grade,” Alex replied, the duh heavily laced through his words. “And with Maddie all over me lately, Chloe’s trying to get more of my time, so I’m not exactly complaining.”

“Hold up. Are you saying you’ve got these two girls fighting over you? I don’t like the sound of that at all, Papito.”

“Come on, Mom. It’s just the price of being popular. Everybody wants my time.”

“I don’t care. You know I didn’t raise you to be that kind of guy, playing with girls’ feelings or pitting them against each other.”

“I didn’t ask them to be into me!” He protested. “What am I supposed to do, pretend I hate it? I thought you raised me not to lie.”

“Nobody’s saying you should lie. But you can pay attention to their feelings, not just your own. Being a girl is hard, you know--competing for a boy, worrying about whether he likes you back.”

And even when you’re not competing, other girls will believe you are, she thought. Clearly, not everybody grows out of that.

“My point is, you can enjoy the attention and still be honest. If you’re not into Maddie like that, don’t let Chloe think you are. It’s not fair to either of them.”

“Okay, okay. I get it.” Alex slumped a bit behind his seatbelt, shutting down the conversation.

Being the voice of reason led to so many sullen silences now that her kids were teenagers. She couldn’t claim to enjoy that part, but it also couldn’t be avoided. Who would talk to them about this stuff, if she didn’t?

The last thing she wanted was for Alex to grow up to date women like Nikki, directing their insecurities at innocent bystanders. Even though she knew Schneider would never have encouraged today’s bizarre attack, his continued involvement with Nikki made it possible. It took her the rest of the drive home to shake her irritation.

****

Schneider joined the family for dinner that night, like he had most nights since Elena left for Oxford. His presence didn’t fill up the space her daughter left behind, but Penelope welcomed it--at least he never ran out of lighthearted conversation, and always offered to clear the table when they were done eating.

Alex chatted with Lydia in the far corner of the kitchen while Schneider took over cleanup; her youngest had a knack for avoiding chores that she almost admired. No amount of cajoling or bribery had managed to affect it, so Penelope was pretty sure it was a lost cause by now.

Still, there were standards to uphold. She offered up a halfhearted “Papito, at least dry a dish,” but Schneider shook his head at her as he grabbed the last plate.

“I’ve got this, don’t worry about it. I like pitching in.”

She decided not to protest further. Let the rich white guy clean her house for once, Penelope thought, amused at all of them.

With her Mami and Alex discussing dessert options in the kitchen and Schneider at the sink, she got to the TV first--that never happened anymore. She picked something mindlessly entertaining on Netflix and settled in, happy to relax after dinner.

“What are we watching?”

Schneider was done cleaning up a lot faster than she would’ve expected. He took the other side of the couch without an invitation; not that she minded, really. The invitation was implied at this point.

“A documentary about submarines,” Penelope told him with a straight face. Why did he even bother asking? The show’s title was branded in the corner of the screen.

“Interesting,” Schneider said, playing along. “There’s an awful lot of cake-decorating going on here for an undersea adventure.”

“I guess so.”

She smiled at him and returned her attention to the screen. As soon as the others came to join them, her mom and Alex would team up to outvote her choice in programming. Until then, she would enjoy her silly food competition show in peace.

“Since when do you like reality TV?” Schneider asked, pulling her back to the moment.

“This isn’t reality TV,” Penelope shot back. “It’s not like the Real Housewives or something.”

“It’s literally listed as reality TV under the title, Pen. I’m not judging, just wondering.”

“It’s people making cake, okay? I like cake. And I definitely don’t have the energy to make cake. So I’m watching them do it.”

“You don’t have to get defensive,” Schneider said. “You’re allowed to enjoy mindless entertainment as much as the rest of us.”

It had the effect he probably intended, making her want to argue with him even more. Penelope was about to retaliate by bringing up his fascination with zoo livestreams, but her Mami’s lilting “Lupe, do you want me to make some cake?” distracted her long enough for Schneider to steal the remote and switch to a sitcom.

“Give that back--no, Mami, I don’t need you to make us cake--Schneider, you have terrible taste,” she said, all in one breath. “Hand it over before I make you.”

“Tough talk,” he replied, as she stood up to retrieve the remote he was holding out of her reach. His arms were longer than hers, but he also knew her well enough to stand when she did, wary of the damage she could do.

“Oh my god, are you twelve?” Penelope was seriously considering a gut punch now that Schneider’s height had her at a disadvantage.

She heard laughter and shot her mom and Alex a look over her shoulder. “Traitors.”

“I like this show,” Alex pointed out, unrepentant.

“Schneider washed all my dishes,” Lydia chimed in.

“Face it,” Schneider told her, shifting away whenever she moved in his direction, until he'd put the couch between them. “I have awesome taste, and you’re outnumbered.”

“I did more work today than you’ll do all month,” Penelope said, relaxing her stance. She watched him do the same. “You can play reruns at your own house whenever you want, Schneider. Let me have my cake show.”

“Take back what you said about me having terrible taste.”

She nodded and dropped her gaze to the carpet. “I take it back. You’re right, you have excellent taste.”

Seizing her moment while his guard was lowered, Penelope dodged the couch and snagged the remote. She grinned at him.

“In friends. You have really, very good taste in friends, Schneider.”

“Ha, ha.” He sat back down, ignoring the teasing coming his way from the kitchen.

Vicarious cake tasted even sweeter now that she was triumphant, Penelope decided, settling back into her own spot with a firmer grip on the TV remote.

“I’m rooting for the guy with the bluebirds,” Schneider decided, eyeing the last two contestants critically.

“What were you saying about having good taste?” She pointed at the screen when the camera switched to the waterfall cake. “That one is so much better. Your guy could barely pipe his flowers.”

Their debate as the episode wound down was comfortable, a return to normal that was especially welcome after such a weird day. She’d made the right call, she decided, in not telling him about what happened at St. Bibiana’s. It would have only made things awkward between them.

Nikki thinking that she was threatened by who Schneider chose to have sex with was so stupid, Penelope thought. It just showed how little Nikki understood about either of them.

Their friendship was better than anything he and Nikki could possibly have.

#alvareider #one day at a time #odaat #penelope x schneider #to all the men i've loved before #penelope alvarez #schneider #lydia riera #alex alvarez #nikki finn's mom #alvareider fic #odaat fic #my fic

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cultofbeatles · 4 years

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beginners guide to the members of led zeppelin (kind of)

a disclaimer before anyone starts reading: we all know led zeppelin is shady as hell and we hardly ever get anything confirmed or denied around here. so some stuff is up for speculation. everything in this post are things i've read in books, heard in interviews, or got from some other source. when it comes to “facts about led zeppelin” sometimes you gotta take it with a grain of salt. but honestly it’s led zeppelin we’re talking about, anything is possible. also this is all in good fun and giggles. with that being said, let’s get started with introductions to the members themselves.

jimmy page

james patrick page

born on January 9, 1944

he’s a capricorn sun, cancer moon, and scorpio rising so you just know he’s a crazy motherfucker

was an amazing session guitarist and basically everyone wanted him

went to art school bc he’s just talented at everything i guess

if you didn't know already he played the guitar for Joe cocker’s ‘with a little help from my friends’

declined his first offer to join the yardbirds but later decided to join

was the last member to leave the group

basically was the leader of led zeppelin

was gifted a telecaster guitar by his friend jeff beck and he adored it

and he painted a cool dragon design on it

played on it for the first led zeppelin album

when he was on tour one of his friends painted over his dragon design and ruined the guitar

he produced all of led zeppelin’s albums and is responsible for the remastering of those same albums

paid for led zeppelin’s first album to be produced with his own money

deadass would have whips and handcuffs around with him on tour for the groupies

but was apparently an amazing lover and cared for the people he slept with

one time he got naked on a food cart thingy, put whip cream over his body, and had john bonham push him into a room with groupies in it

has such a small and soft voice

was fascinated in aleister crowley and his work

would collect crowely memorabilia

even bought crowley’s boleskine house

had a bookstore at one point so he could get books easier

struggled with addiction to drugs for most of the seventies

went on a liquid diet late seventies and refused to eat solid food

he got really skinny bc of it :(

miss pamela (one of his girlfriends/lovers) once said that jimmy cried on the phone to her over her playboy photoshoot lmaoo

once flied pamela’s pet raccoon in first class

allegedly had a relationship with lori maddox who was about 15 years old

laughed as two of his girlfriends were fighting each other

was kind of constantly nervous about his and the band’s image

has amazing guitar solos and improvisation but damn sometimes they drag on foreverrrr

deadass scared the shit out of david bowie so much that he had his house exorcised and would avoid jimmy at parties

we love demons

zoso

he’ll never tell us what zoso means and I'm mad

had two people die in his home. one was a friend who died from a drug overdose, and the other was john bonham when he died from choking on his vomit.

has been accused for the deaths of john bonham and robert plant’s son karac bc of that stupid “curse” rumor

deserves critiques for several things but doesn't deserve hate for that

has been through a lot and come out pretty okay

produced his current girlfriend’s, scarlett sabet, spoken poetry vinyl

check out scarlett’s work bc it’s amazing

would probably always be down for another led zeppelin reunion

robert plant

robert anthony plant

born on august 20, 1948

this is the most attractive man ever. do not argue with me.

nicknamed percy

wasnt jimmy’s first pick for a singer

jerry reid suggested robert to jimmy. and when jimmy asked what he looked like jerry said, “like a greek god.”

jimmy thought something was wrong with robert when he first found him bc he was such a good singer and hadn't been signed yet

after a practice together jimmy knew he had his singer

he would call robert “the young guy with the powerful voice.”

he thought about leaving the band early on bc he was so nervous about being in it

convinced john bonham to join the group bc they were the bestest of buddies

he’s not credited on the first album bc he was still under another contract

started song writing for the second album by jimmy’s memory

it didn't take long for him to gain confidence and start owning the stage

once when he was performing a dove flew in his hands

there’s an audio of him singing john bonham happy birthday and it makes me so happy

he would call himself a greek god

would party with john bonham a lot

kind of the hippy of the group

moans moans moans and even louder moans into the microphone

would wear women’s shirts and looked amazing in them

nurses do it better

not to mention his super tight jeans

we all know his dick is huge and he’s just showing it off

has the prettiest, fluffiest blonde hair

and the sweetest smile

can you tell that i find him attractive yet?

has a fear of earthquakes

also supposedly had some sort of a relationship to an underage groupie named sable starr (14)

also has a fear of led zeppelin nowadays

either fear or amnesia

it’s likely that he’s the reason we’ll never get another led zeppelin reunion

though a close friend thinks that if the show went to charity robert would probably do it

robert loved john bonham too much to play in led zeppelin without him

and i respect that a lot

no matter how much he’s offered for a show he turns it down every time

in 1975 he got in a severe car crash and ended up being in a wheelchair

still went on to record zeppelin’s album

once while recording on crutches and started to fall and jimmy apparently zoomed in to save him. robert never saw him move that fast before

his five year old son (karac) died from a sudden stomach illness while he was in america on tour

absolutely crushed him

was deeply upset that neither jimmy page or john paul jones reached out to him during that time of his life

john bonham was there for him though

robert apparently never forgave them for that

a car he was working on fell on top of him and crushed some of his ribs as well

late seventies was not a good time for robert plant

but he got through it all like a champ

hates stairway to heaven with a passion lmao

one time he paid a radio station a shit ton of money just to make sure they'd never play stairway to heaven again

almost didn't sing stairway for the 2007 reunion but ended up agreeing to it after all

he said he breaks out in hives when he has to play that song

he and jimmy made their own symbols. robert’s is the feather inside the circle

in 2007 he won beard of the year

john bonham

born on may 31, 1948

nickname is bonzo

oh boy, there’s a lot of stories about bonzo

he was known as the nicest and sweetest guy ever

unless he was drunk

he drank a lot :/

denied jimmy’s offer to join the group and continued to deny it until robert convinced him

once flew the starship (led zeppelin’s plane) even though he didn't have a license to

hated touring so much

he always missed his family

so he drank

he was so damn crazy when drunk that the other members would book rooms floors above where his was so he wouldn't disturb them

tore about his hotel rooms like no other

he has a son named jason bonham who he loved a lot

bought him a nice drum kit when he was younger

jason is just about led zeppelin’s biggest fan next to jimmy page

one time bonzo broke a girl’s vibrator when drunk

also punched a girl in the face when drunk once bc she waved at him

partly responsible for the famous mud shark story where a girl was apparently fucked with a dead shark by him and zeppelin’s tour manager

liked cars a lot

really really loved his family. cannot stress it enough

was irked that john paul jones got out of playing shows during the christmas holiday and he didn't

punched robert in the face once too

him and john paul jones equals the best rhythm section ever

jimmy would call it magic how well him and bonzo got along

bonzo could handle anything jimmy threw at him

he wasn't really a part of it, but he had to go to jail bc peter grant and two other dudes almost killing a man (long story omfg, but apparently the doctors had to put the dude’s eyeball back into his socket)

was there for robert when karac died

they were really good friends

there’s an interview with them together where bonzo is laughing at robert about his little farm

gave good hugs apparently

played drums like no other could and knew he was good

but still sometimes got insecure and got upset when someone he looked up to said his drumming wasn't all that special

his symbol is the three rings and he picked it out of a book like john paul jones did his

he died in jimmy page’s house (not the crowley house btw)

he had to drink the equivalent of 40 shots of vodka and choked on his vomit in his sleep

led zeppelin died on the same day

nobody can replace john bonham

his son filled in his role for the 2007 reunion show and did an amazing job of it. the whole show is on youtube, go check it out

john paul jones

john richard baldwin

born on january 3, 1946

nickname is jonesy

was also a session guitarist like jimmy

they had worked together before

when he found out jimmy was forming a group he called jimmy and was basically given the spot immediately

not only was the bassist but also the keyboardist

and could play the recorder

insanely talented. put some respect on his name

he talks in italics i swear to god

i don't have mainly crazy stories about jonesy bc he wasn't about that life

deadass he would go on stage, perform, walk off stage and go to a whole separate hotel from the other

he would only tell one person where he was at and told them not to call unless for super urgent emergencies

pissed peter grant off so much lmao

wasn't really super close to anyone in the band tbh

but bonzo was probably his greatest friend in the band

jimmy and robert kind of leave him out in my opinion

or they use to

when he found out that jimmy and robert were making their own symbols instead of picking out of a book like he was he said “of course!” and laughed

was pretty much left out of the live aid show

he had to squeeze himself on the stage and wasn't even able to play bass. he had to play the keyboard

“and thank you to my friends for finally remembering my phone number” -savage as hell john paul jones

he was one of the two people who found john bonham dead

it’s sad to think about

is actually quite funny

he has this kind of dry humor?? idk but it’s amazing 10/10 content

when john paul jones walks into the room interviewers break into a sweat

managed to look like a completely different person every year throughout the seventies or is it just my eyes?

has an Instagram account now go follow it for cute throwback photos lol

that’s all i really have for generic useless information about led zeppelin members for beginners. i hope it was somewhat entertaining. i'll make some more beginners stuff for led zeppelin. i will make y'all stan them lmao. i'm tagging @babygotblueeyes bc i know for a fact you want to get into them <3

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tomeandflickcorner · 3 years

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Falcon And Winter Soldier Episode 5- My Thoughts

Oh boy, this one might be a bit longer than usual. There’s a lot to go through in this episode. As always, spoilers under the cut.

It immediately picks up after Walker brutally murdered Nico in that crowded square. We see he’s taken off running, and ends up in some deserted warehouse of some kind. For a moment, you almost think he’s starting to grasp the gravity of what he’s done, but he’s then plagued by memories of his time with Hoskins, which only leads to him further slipping into insanity and convincing himself that he did what was necessary. That’s when Bucky and Sam enter the scene. They quickly figure out that Walker’s off his rocker. Particularly when Walker tries to justify his actions by claiming that Nico was the one who killed Hoskins, even though it was clear that Karli was the one who killed him. They do their best to try and help him realize that revenge is not the same as justice, but Walker isn’t willing to listen. Sam, slipping into councilor mode, attempts to calm him down. Unfortunately, if his words were having any affect on Walker, it all went downhill fast when Sam told Walker to hand the Shield over to them. Because Walker firmly believed the Shield was his rightful property, so he was not about to willingly give it up. So Bucky and Sam have no choice but to take the Shield back by force. At one point during this fight, Bucky gets momentarily dazed upon getting thrown into some sort of circuit breaker box, which also seems to briefly cause his vibranium arm to short-circuit. Of course, Sam can’t really hold his own against a crazed Super Soldier one-on-one for long, and Walker eventually has him pinned to the ground. He even destroys Sam’s Falcon wings. But just before Walker could actually kill Sam- yeah, he was actually about to kill Sam there!- Bucky recovers and rejoins the fight. Together, Sam and Bucky manage to pry the Shield away from Walker’s tight grip. Though they have to break his arm in the process. But even then, Walker isn’t backing down. Because he still firmly believes HE is Captain America. It takes a pretty awesome combo move from Bucky and Sam to take Walker down. Because not even a Super Soldier can withstand getting swung into a jet-packed fueled blow from the Shield. With Walker defeated, Bucky pretty much places the Shield at Sam’s feet, effectivly giving it to him once again, before walking off without a word.

So, after that pretty epic battle, the episode allows the characters, and the viewing audience, a chance to catch their breaths. Karli and the Flag Smashers have pretty much gone underground, making it impossible for anyone to locate them. Not that the government doesn’t try, as they conduct raids to all the GRC facilities that housed them, and even arrest the people that offered them shelter. But still, no sign of Karli anywhere. So Bucky and Sam decide there’s not much more they can do, particularly since they’ve been benched by the government officials. Even so, Sam still wants to do what he can in seeing this whole thing to the end. So he asks his friend and associate, Joaquín Torres (who we haven’t seen since Episode 2), to keep him posted. Although, Sam also leaves his broken wingsuit with Joaquín. Which is probably a reference to the fact that Joaquín took up the mantle of Falcon after Sam in the comics.

Of course, there’s still the loose end of Zemo. Bucky manages to track him down in Sokovia, at the memorial that was put up in honor of everyone who died there during the events of Age of Ultron. Which does make sense, since Zemo’s wife and children were among the casualties.

Now, I gotta pause for a moment to talk about something here. During the Previously On segment for this episode, we got reminded of a scene from a previous episode, in which Zemo seemed to be trying to shame Sam and Bucky for not ever visiting the memorial themselves. Maybe it’s me, but that seems kinda unfair. For starters, Bucky and Sam weren’t even involved during the events of Age Of Ultron. With Sam, I don’t think he was officially an Avenger at that point. He was part of the reserve team, if anything. And Bucky was in Romania, trying to reacquaint himself with his true identity while hiding from both the CIA and what was left of Hydra. Even if that wasn’t the case, when exactly were they supposed to visit the memorial? As of the events of Civil War, Sam was on the run as a fugitive alongside Steve and Natasha. And Bucky was in Wakanda, either in cryofreeze or going through mental rehabilitation. And then they both got dusted at the end of Infinity War, meaning they were erased from existence for the next five years. So when exactly could they have visited the Sokovia Memorial to pay their respects? Of course, I do get what the episode was trying to say, since the Avengers didn’t really do much in offering Sokovia any sort of relief efforts. (Though you could also argue that Tony should have been the one to handle that, considering the whole situation with Ultron was his own fault. And goodness knows he had the monetary means to do something, with him being the billionaire and all. But I guess that’s all semantics.)

Anyway, Zemo tells Bucky that the only way they can hope to stop Karli now is by killing her, but Bucky tells him they’re going to try to do things their own way. At this point, Bucky aims a gun at Zemo’s head. But it’s soon revealed that Bucky had previously made sure the gun was already empty when he shows that he’d removed the bullets beforehand. Which I guess was his way of showing Zemo that he was wrong about him. And that Bucky, despite being an enhanced individual (something that Zemo clearly hates), still chose to spare his life. At this point, the Dora Milaje show up, with the intention of bringing Zemo to the Raft, that prison we last saw in Civil War. Before Zemo is escorted off, he tells Bucky he took the liberty of crossing his name out of Bucky’s book, and that he doesn’t blame Bucky for doing what he thought was right. Wow, how magnanimous of him, right? Shame he couldn’t have extended this same level of courtesy towards the rest of the Avengers.

Still, I guess this means we’ve seen the last of Zemo. At least for now. Eh, good riddance, I say. I personally hope we never see him again, While I do sympathize that he lost his family, I still don’t like him in the slightest. On the other hand, I did like that Ayo indicated that Bucky is at least partially forgiven for helping break Zemo out of jail. Sure, she does tell him that he should still stay away from Wakanda for the time being, but she is calling him White Wolf again. Which indicates that their friendship wasn’t broken beyond repair. Before they part ways, however, Bucky tells Ayo that he has one more favor to ask of her.

Here, the episode begins to focus on Sam as he begins to head back home to Louisiana. But first, he makes a detour back to Baltimore, in order to sit down and really talk with Isaiah. Which enables us to really learn exactly what happened with him in the 1950s. Turns out, he didn’t get injected with the Super Serum knowingly He and a few other Black men were essentially used as guinea pigs, in which they were told they were being given tuberculosis shots or something when it was actually an experimental recreation of the Super Serum. But it seems that, for some reason, the other Black test subjects begin displaying some manner of unfortunate side effects to the Serum, which suggested it wasn’t stabilizing with them. Only Isaiah was able to successfully transition into a true Super Soldier like Steve Rogers. So when the other Black test subjects were captured behind enemy lines (because this was the time of the Korean War), the US government were simply planning to drop bombs on the POW camps, in order to prevent word of their little experiment from getting out. When Isaiah found out what they were planning, he took it upon himself to get those men out of there, in a similar manner to what Steve did in the first Captain America movie. Except he was rewarded for his bravery by being locked up like a criminal, with the US government conducting experiments on him to try and figure out why the Super Serum worked with him and not the other test subjects. They even told Isaiah’s wife that he was dead while making sure he never received any of the letters she’s sent him. In the end, Isaiah only escaped because this nameless nurse took pity on him and helped him escape by essentially faking his death. This backstory really is sad and tragic, especially when you realize it’s partially based on an actual historical event. Just try looking up the Tuskegee Experiment sometime. It’s really messed up. Anyway, Isaiah finishes his sad story by telling Sam that, regardless of what he might believe, the world hasn’t changed that much. And that not only will the world never accept a Black man as Captain America, no self-respecting Black man would even attempt to take up the mantle because of how America has always treated men like them.

With that advice still weighing on his mind, Sam returns home to rejoin his sister, Sarah, and his two nephews, AJ and Cass. So now we’re getting back to the subplot from the first episode, involving the failing family-run fishing business. It seems Sarah is still thinking it’s time to throw in the towel and simply sell their family’s fishing boat. The main issue with that is, because it’s all run down and in need of serious repair, nobody would even consider buying it. Fortunately, Sam has an idea. Remembering how their parents, who apparently died some time ago, had been long-standing pillars in the community and had often offered aid to their neighbors, Sam makes a few phone calls and gets the whole community to come pitch in and help repair the old fishing boat, thereby repaying the previous kindness of Sam and Sarah’s late parents. One of the neighbors even comes by with a brand new engine for the fishing boat. But then, just as Sam is wondering how they’re going to manage getting the heavy-looking boat engine off the back of the truck, Bucky appears out of nowhere, using his Super Soldier strength to effortlessly lift the motor up over his shoulders.

Bucky explains his presence away, stating he’s only there to drop off a crate for Sam, which clearly came from the Wakandans. It’s implied the contents of the crate have something to do with the favor he asked of Ayo. But then, Bucky ends up sticking around to help Sam fix up the fishing boat. Cue a boat repairing montage, complete with a song playing over the whole sequence. Bit bizarre we’re getting something like this in the penultimate episode, but it’s still pretty enjoyable. Particularly since we get to see Bucky and Sam actually bonding as themselves. And yes, there does seem to be vague implications that there might eventually be something between Bucky and Sarah. Although, I don’t know if I necessarily ship it. At least not yet. I’d need to see more of them interacting with each other besides just seeing Bucky saying ‘hi’ to her a few times before I make up my mind. Granted it would be an interesting thing to explore of course. Particularly since, to my knowledge, it would be the first biracial couple featured in the MCU. Unless you count Peter Quill and Gamora, of course. (And that brief thing that was going on between Peggy and Jason Wilkes in the woefully short-lived Agent Carter series.) At present, though, I think Bucky’s obvious affection towards Sam’s family seems more tied to his own memories of his life before WW2. When he wakes up the next morning on the couch (because Sam invited him to crash at the house instead of finding a hotel room somewhere), a genuine smile appears on his face when he catches AJ and Cass playing around with the Shield in the living room. Those of you who have read Bucky’s bio in the MCU wiki might remember that Bucky was the oldest child of four, so seeing AJ and Cass might be reminding him of how he used to play with his younger sisters. And interestingly enough, Sam’s sister’s name is Sarah. Which was also the name of Steve Roger’s mother, which is probably making Bucky feel even more nostalgia. (Side note- Bucky was actually sleeping on the couch. Which is a step up from where we first saw him in the first episode, where he was sleeping on the cold, hard floor. This is probably an indication that Bucky is starting to heal.)

Anyway, we then see Bucky helping train Sam in throwing the Shield around. They even set up an obstacle course of sorts, with mats being tied to a few of the surrounding trees. They briefly discuss the lingering issue of the Flag Smashers. There’s still no sign of Karli, but Sam promises to give Bucky a call when he gets a new lead, and Bucky promises that he’ll come back to assist Sam at that time. However, the main focus of the scene involves Bucky finally apologizing to Sam for giving him a hard time over the Shield in the first place, with him acknowledging how he and Steve didn’t really grasp what it might feel like to a Black man to be given the Shield. We also get an indication that Steve and Bucky did discuss Steve’s plans of retiring by staying in the past to live a life with Peggy after returning the Infinity Stones ahead of time. It was vaguely suggested in a read-between-the-lines sort of way at the end of Endgame, but it’s nice they confirmed that Steve didn’t just up and decide to do that on the fly. Bucky then starts opening up to Sam, admitting to him that the reason why he was so angry about the Shield in the first place was that, to him, the Shield felt like his last connection he had to Steve, who was the closest thing he had to a family. And that feeling has intensified now that Steve is gone. (Can we please get some clarification on what they mean by ‘gone,’ by the way? Did Steve actually pass away from old age offscreen? Up until now, it’s something they’ve only vaguely inferred to. Like maybe, maybe, maybe. But if that’s what happened, I wish they’d quit tiptoeing around the issue and just tell us straight out.) Anyway, it’s really cool that Bucky is talking to Sam about all of this. It does show that he truly does trust Sam. Especially more than he does that crappy therapist they forced on him. Just saying, Bucky was still denying to her that he was having nightmares, despite apparently having sessions with her for six months. But he freely admits to Sam that he is still having nightmares after only a week or so of them working together. If that doesn’t illustrate how poorly Bucky’s relationship with his government issued therapist was going, I don’t know what does.

As if getting how big a deal this is, for Bucky to open up to him like this, Sam once again slips into counselor mode. He tells Bucky that he shouldn’t put so much concern onto what Steve thought of him, because Bucky can’t let what others think of him determine his own self-value. Or something to that effect. He also advises Bucky to stop taking the easy way out in regards of alleviating his guilt over what he did as the Winter Soldier. Up until now, Bucky was only going after past Hydra agents to bring them to justice in an effort to make himself feel better. But if Bucky really wants to gain peace of mind, he should instead focus on helping the victims feel better. Which probably means that Bucky is going to go back and see that old man, Yori, from Episode 1 again and help him find closure by telling him the truth about what happened to his dead son. I admit, I’m really nervous about watching that scene unfold. Yeah, Yori does deserve the truth, but I’m scared about how he might take it. It would be understandable if he ends up blaming Bucky, sure. But at the same time, it’s kinda been rubbing me the wrong way how this show seems to be acting like Bucky is a reformed assassin who has to atone for what he’s done. No, that was what Natasha was. Bucky, on the other hand, was the world’s longest serving POW. Someone who was tortured and brainwashed by evil Nazi scientists who stripped him of his free will and autonomy. (And, if we consider the implications that Episode 3 gave us, we can also add sexual abuse to the list of things Hydra did to him.) Yeah, it’s only natural Bucky feels bad for what Hydra made him do. But that just indicates he’s naturally a good man with a good heart. I’m not exactly a fan of the idea that he should be made to feel like he should atone for anything he did. Because he was as much of a victim in all of that as the people Hydra sent him after. Still, if trying to make up for what Hydra forced him to do is what Bucky needs to do in order to forgive himself, then I guess I can support that. Do what you have to do to find closure for yourself, buddy.

Anyway, after Bucky leaves, Sam and Sarah continue to finish repairs on the fishing boat in preparation for selling it. But just before Sam is going to paint over the names of their parents, which is printed on the side of the boat, Sarah stops him. It seems she’s changed her mind about selling the boat, considering the boat is part of their family legacy. Which is something that Sam is relieved to hear, as he didn’t want to see the boat getting sold off, either. The siblings begin having a heart-to-heart, with Sarah telling Sam that, even though she’s always given him a hard time about the matter, she’d never thought he was running away from things whenever he went off to save the world and whatnot. She also tells him that she knows he’s been dwelling on what Isaiah said to him, but helps Sam make a decision involving the Shield. While Isaiah had good reasons for believing the way he did, Sam ultimately decides that the pain Isaiah went through would be in vain if nobody continued to fight for the future. And so, Sam decides that he’s now willing to accept the mantle of Captain America. Which leads to another montage. This time of Sam going through a self-training session with the Shied, with his nephews, AJ and Cass, helping out. The training montage ends with us seeing that Sam has become a pro at throwing and catching the Shield.

Of course, just when you start to think this episode is feeling like the series finale, with everything wrapping up and setting the stage for a future adventure, we get the reminder that there is still one more episode to go. It seems that Karli has been pushed over the edge after the death of Nico, as well as seeing all the GRC facilities raided and cleared out of refugees. And she is now out for revenge. Specifically, she plans to rally up what remains of her followers and attack the GRC headquarters, as they plan to vote on the Patch Act, which would force millions of people to relocate to their home states. To achieve this goal, Karli manage to join forces with Batroc, who had previously appeared at the beginning of Episode 1. Strangely enough, an earlier scene does suggest Batroc was actually hired to team up with Karli and the Flag Smashers by Sharon Carter, which only further indicates that Sharon is a bit shady. What exactly is Sharon up to? Is she a bad guy now? That would kinda stink, since she is Peggy Carter’s great niece or something. Talk about besmirching your family name.

Anyway, right when the Flag Smasher’s attack on GRC headquarters is about to begin, Sam gets a tip off from Joaquín, who had been keeping his ear to the grapevine in terms of the Flag Smasher’s movements. Apparently, the Flag Smashers coordinate their attacks via this coded cellphone signal, which Joaquín had figured out how to hack into. And he notifies Sam that the coded cellphone signal is now showing up in New York City. Sam seems to figure out what the Flag Smashers are about to do when he sees a news report on the TV about the GRC voting on the Patch Act that evening. Deciding to go and do something about it, he opens up that Wakandan crate Bucky had dropped off. The episode ends before we can see what exactly was inside the crate, though. They’re clearly saving that reveal for the final episode. Although, my boyfriend, who is also my viewing partner for this show, is a bit of an expert on what went on in the Marvel comics. (He even worked in a comic book/gaming store before we met.) It seems that, in the comics, Sam Wilson did end up getting a pair of Falcon wings that utilized hologram technology of some kind. So he’s theorizing that’s what it is. Still, we have to wait until next Friday to know for sure. Either way, it looks like this next episode will decide what happens with Karli and the Flag Smashers. I honestly don’t see how it’s possible to resolve things with Karli peacefully, though. She seems too far gone at this point. But I’m sure Sam will still try to talk her down, which only deepens my respect for him. And who knows? Maybe Sam will succeed, with Karli going the Coalhouse Walker route- agreeing to stand down in exchange for the promise of a fair trial, which would allow her to state her case. (Of course, I hope they don’t do things exactly how it went down in Ragtime. Because in that story, they pretty much promise Coalhouse that he’ll receive a fair trial, but the moment he surrenders himself, the police immediately open fire and shoot him dead. Which is not even remotely cool.)

Oh, and then there’s still the matter of Walker. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of him. Because even though Sam and Bucky effectivly took him down AND he received a dishonorable discharge by the US government, he still refuses to believe he did anything wrong. He’s convinced that he still deserves to be Captain America. While a small part of me does pity him, he really is displaying what appears to be a fragile White male ego. He even goes up to Hoskin’s grieving parents and sister and lies to them about how Nico was the one who killed their son, and that they should take comfort in the fact that justice was served. There’s also a mid-credits scene where we see he’s trying to make his own version of the Shield. Doubt its made of vibranium, of course. I Gotta say, I’m seeing a lot of parallels between Walker and Karli right now. Both of them have convinced themselves that they are 100% in the right, and everything they do is completely justified. Which naturally makes them both very dangerous. However, I’m mostly concerned by this mysterious woman. Contessa, or whatever it was she called herself. She approached Walker after his trial to tell him that he didn’t do anything wrong before giving him what appears to be a blank business card. (I’m guessing there’s some sort of secret decoded message on this business card that Walker will decipher later on.) I have no idea who this woman is supposed to be or what her goal is. I’m guessing she’s someone comic book experts would recognize, but my boyfriend/viewing partner, who is familiar with the comics, didn’t seem to recognize her name, either. So it’s a big mystery at this point.

Before I wrap up my thoughts for this week’s episode, there is something partially unrelated I should mention. For those of you who haven’t heard, Sebastian Stan’s latest movie, Monday, recently came out. And it seems that this movie includes Sebastian and his female co-star in a full-frontal nudity scene. From what I’ve heard, there have been some select individuals who have seen fit to criticize Sebastian’s appearance in this scene, because he wasn’t in perfect shape or something like that. If you were one of those select individuals who decided to body shame Sebastian after watching this movie? Grow up! Bodies come in all shapes and sizes. And to expect a male actor to have a completely chiseled physique at all times is extremely unrealistic, particularly when they’re portraying an ordinary person. The fact that people were acting like this is even more disgusting when you consider the fact that Sebastian Stan apparently already has some body issues. The fact that he was still willing to film this full-frontal scene despite those issues just illustrates his passion and dedication to his skill as an actor and the message this movie was meant to convey. He did not deserve to have his body objectified the way it was. Nobody does. So once again, this is me condemning the behavior of those select ‘fans.’

#falcon and winter soldier #falcon and winter solider series

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lockedstuck · 3 years

Text

how to make friends and influence people

March 2021

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you probably should have thought this through better.

Picture a thin blonde girl sitting by a phone, being watched by a woman in navy blue scrubs. The girl wears light blue hospital issue pants, and a white T-shirt with a pink cat on it. Her frustration shows clear as day, from her posture to her facial expressions. She yanks the phone off the hook and punches in a number with such speed that the gesture must be semi-unconscious. She puts the phone to her ear, waits a few moments, then swears loudly. Then, in a tense voice, she begins to speak.

“Mommy, this is the fourth time I’ve called you today… Please call me back when you can.”

Her bobbed hair bounces as she turns to face you.

“Oh!” she exclaims. “Did you want to use the phone?”

Yeah, yeah you did, to call your unceasing nag of a brother. He’s the reason you’re here in the first place, since he’s the fucker who called 911 on you. Therefore, he should have to bring you clothes. You grab the phone and dial Kankri’s number. He does not answer. You listen to his voicemail and grow progressively angrier. You mentally curse him and his next seven generations.

The weird blonde girl watches your frustration with a hint of amusement. This will not do.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” you ask her. She blinks, shrugs, and walks away.

Your name is Karkat Vantas, you’ve been in the loony bin for ten minutes, and you’re already pissed off. Score one, you.

Apparently you arrived just in time for morning meds, so all the fucking loonies are out on parade, including the blonde girl, who gives you a friendly wave. You scowl. Nobody has told you where to put your shit yet, or deigned to assign you a room. Not that you have much shit to put anywhere. Just the clothes you arrived in the psych ER with - a black turtleneck, and black sweatpants. They took away your shoes and gave you a pair of hospital socks.

Allegedly this is one of the nicest hospitals in the area. Go fucking figure.

Finally, after what feels like six hundred years, an orderly tells you that you’re in room 1224, on the men’s side.

Wait, there are sides? The psych ER wasn’t organized according to gender; you were stuck there with two homeless people (one man and one woman), an alcoholic, and some guy who had overdosed on alprazolam. Whatever, though. You shuffle your ass over to room 1224, which is about thirty feet away. You drop your stuff in the closet, take one look at your snoring roommate, and go back outside.

The blonde girl - having taken her medication - dashes back to the phone, dials a number, waits a moment, and then bursts into tears.

Great. You should have never written that note. Now you’re stuck in here with this chick. You contemplate trying to comfort her, and decide that you’d probably suck at it.

Another person saunters past her and stops. She’s a few shades lighter than you, and has these long Poetic Justice type box braids. Her green dress looks like it’s been immaculately pressed. She tugs the hem down to fully cover her thighs. She also has three eyebrow rings, a lip ring, and a full face of makeup. You didn’t know staff could have piercings. She offers the blonde girl a hug. You really didn’t know staff could do that.

This is not what you were expecting from the psychiatric ward.

“Roxy, why are you crying again?” the woman asks. Roxy sniffles and swipes at her eyes with the back of her arm.

“I had a nightmare and my mom won’t answer the phone,” she responds. “Where is she?”

“Asleep, most likely. It’s awfully early, isn’t it?”

“I guess so,” Roxy admits. She gives the woman a weak smile. “Did you go for vitals yet?”

The woman sighs and nods. “Yeah. 92/53. They’re telling me to drink more water since my pressure’s so low and my heart rate’s so high.”

Wait. That woman must be a patient.

She doesn’t seem like the type. She’s too authoritative, too poised.

You take a look at her again, scanning her for some sign of insanity. Maybe a few marks on her brown arms where the razor slipped. You search her carefully, not trying to seem like you are.

She has one thin, deep, healing scar down each wrist. Well, then.

She manages to pick up on you, because at that moment she turns to face you. She smiles.

“You must be the new admission to the unit,” she begins in a cool, pleasant tone. You’re reminded of a receptionist.

“Uh, yeah.”

She offers you her hand to shake. “I’m Porrim. Porrim Maryam.”

“Karkat,” you reply.

Trying to sleep in your room is an absolute trip. It goes the way everything in your life has been going, absolutely fuckawful.

“I won’t take it!” a high-pitched voice exclaims, all of a sudden, jolting you out of your light sleep. “Water you even playing at?!”

Oh, how you can empathize with that sentiment, furious as you are with whomever voiced it. Fuck the psych ward. With distinction. You peer out of your room, and watch a black girl in a purple onesie sprint down the hallway, yelling all the while.

Your roommate, who had heretofore been snoring with his mouth open fish-wide, starts to mutter things at the ceiling.

“Nurse Esther musta tried to give Clozapine to Fef again,” he says. “What an idiot.”

He looks at you and blinks. Fully registers your presence. He props himself up on one hand and stares some more.

“You must be my new roommate,” he says. “I think. Are you?”

You roll your eyes. “No, I’m just here for shits and giggles.”

He snorts and turns on the light. Apparently he’s got the front part of his blond hair dyed purple. You’d never do anything like that personally, but it looks okay on him. He gropes for his glasses and crams them onto his face.

“Christ, you look awful,” he says.

Where the fuck does he get off saying that?

“You don’t look so hot yourself.”

Your roommate curses and shakes his head.

“Nah, I didn’t mean it like that,” he goes on. “I mean, you look like you haven’t slept in days.”

“I haven’t,” you reply, thinking of the time leading up to your suicide attempt. Not even an attempt, really. More like… a contemplation. A contemplation that led you to telling Kankri you’d rather jump in front of the train than send one more month in your parents’ house,

“Well, you’ll get lots of sleep here. There’s not much else to do. The name’s Eridan, by the way. Welcome to 3 East.”

“Thanks,” you say. “I’m Karkat.”

“Nice to meet you.”

A few minutes later, someone starts knocking on your door. Eridan groans.

“If it’s Roxy, tell her to come back in half an hour. I got ECT today. I need my beauty sleep.”

“The crying girl?” you ask.

“Was she on the phone while she was crying?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s Rox, then. She calls her mom every four hours and then flips a shit if she doesn’t answer,” Eridan says. “Ever heard of Rose Lalonde?”

Before you started transitioning a couple years ago, they had you in the women’s unit for a week. Dr. Lalonde saw you twice over that seven day period and was probably the only clinician who reliably used your pronouns.

“The psychologist for the unit downstairs?” you ask.

“Exactly,” Eridan says. “That’s Roxy’s mom.”

Well, fuck.

---

A couple of days later, there’s a new admission. Kid looks comprised of a bunch of coat-hangers and duct tape, all angles and gangle. He walks up to use the phone, without realizing there’s a line for the phone already behind him. Gamzee just rolls with it, even though he was next in line. This dude is clearly a massive douche. He’s only on for a couple of seconds though - you assume whomever he was calling didn’t pick up.

When the good ugly fairy was handing out ugly, she must have dumped in almost as much for him as she did for you. He is by far the skinniest dude you have ever seen. And being that everyone in your major in college was hopped up on amphetamines, you have seen some truly thin people. If a strong breeze hit him, he’d fly clear to Canada.

Roxy asks him for his name, and when he replies, “Thollukth Captor”, with the universe’s thickest lisp, you can’t help yourself. A snort escapes your mouth before you can take it back. The dude looks at you with a narrow-eyed suspicion, and you raise your eyebrows at him in response. How does he talk like that and not expect mockery?

“And uh...” Roxy trails off helplessly. “How do you spell that, exactly?”

“What’re you, with regithtration, or thomething?”

“I was just curious.”

You won’t laugh, Karkat. You swear it. You thwear it, to use this man’s parlance. Unfortunately, though, you’re grinning. His eyes alight on you, and he gives you a quick, “the fuck are you looking at, aththhole?”

“Call me an asshole again and I’ll cram those glasses so far up your ass they’ll need a colorectal exam to find them.”

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