#and then i’ll play it back and put the most coherent stuff into a list which eventually becomes paragraphs | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

angryschnauzer · 3 years

Text

Waited So Long

Summary: As an actress in her mid 20′s you had been lucky enough to get the roles you pushed yourself for, but one role in particular needs a scene you have no experience with; a sex scene, and you co-star is surprised to discover you are still a virgin even though you are in your mid 20′s. But he’s willing to help with whatever you need.

Trope: Friends to Lovers, Co-stars to Lovers Pairing: Henry Cavill x Female Reader

Warnings: NSFW, 18+, loss of virginity, oral sex, fingering, vaginal sex, protection/condoms.

I no longer operate a tag list, but instead pop over and follow @angryschnauzerwrites and put that blog onto notifications. You’ll then get an alert each time i post a new story.

Masterlist got so long all the links broke, so you can now find all my previous stories on my AO3 LINK HERE

Waited So Long

Henry sat at the large table, grinning and laughing as the rest of the cast had finished reading through the latest episode’s script. Everyone was in a good mood and that was down to the fact that tomorrow’s shooting schedule required just you and Henry, meaning that everyone else got a three day weekend. But… but you were just staring at the script. You knew it had been coming, but to see the words in front of you, the stage descriptions, it was overwhelming.

The Netflix special was ten episodes of a sci-fi series, and you played an alien warrior. Henry was the plucky human astronaut that had been aboard the International Space Station when it had been sucked into a black hole and had ended up on the far side of the universe. Eight episodes into the filming schedule and the pivotal sex scene was about to be included, and that’s what was clouding every thought in your mind.

You were far from naive, you had no issue with your costume or even the nudity - you were after all painted purple with patches of ‘scales’ in strategic parts - but it was the fact you had a small secret that was making you so nervous; you hadn’t ever actually had sex.

You were already mid 20’s, you’d been through university and stage school, worked on broadway and the London west end, you’d modelled for artists and had always put your career first. Relationships had just fizzled away after the first couple of dates because of your acting schedule… and that is how you found yourself not only a virgin in her mid 20’s, but one that had never even laid in bed with a partner, been close, felt the weight of a lover on top of them… anything at all.

The producers called it a wrap for the read through, and the sounds of chairs scraping on the floor filled the room. As people shot their empty plastic bottles into the trash you felt your stomach lurch, quickly leaving the room, finding the disabled bathroom and running to the toilet, the contents of your stomach very quickly coming back up.

Finally empty, you sat on the floor and rested your head against the wall, your mind spinning. A quiet knock at the door made you open one eye, watching as the unlocked door swung open and a familiar face peered round;

“Are you ok?” Henry asked, his bulk almost filling the entire doorway; “You’re not coming down with something?”

You shook your head;

“No, just umm… nerves… haha…” you laughed rather awkwardly.

Stepping into the room, he sat against the opposite wall, leaning forwards to hand you his half finished bottle of water;

“... about tomorrow?”

Taking a sip of water you nodded;

“Bit pathetic really, isn’t it?”

“Not at all. Is this your first onscreen love scene?”

“Yeah”

He sat forwards, resting his hands on his knees as he thought pensively for a moment;

“Are you going out with the crew tonight?”

“No. Can’t really face it”

“How about I drive us back to the house and order some chinese and talk things through? This isn’t my first love scene but I remember the nerves. We’ll get everything out in the open so the air is clear ready for tomorrow, yeah?”

Nodding, you watched as he stood, holding out his hand for you and helping you to your feet.

The drive back to the shared house that most of the main cast members were staying at was fun, Henry having linked his Spotify to the stereo, firing up a playlist of old school pop with an eclectic mix of metal. By the time he rolled into the large driveway that the rental house had, you were both yelling out the words, laughing and grinning.

Once inside you excused yourselves to go shower, twenty minutes later finding Henry in the kitchen. His hair was wet and he wore a t-shirt and pair of sweatpants as he looked over the chinese menu;

“What do you fancy?” he asked and you tried not to blurt out what you were thinking, because even though you may be a virgin, your thoughts were far from pure.

Looking over the list he had already scribbled down, you pointed to a couple of dishes, watching as he added them to the list before dialling for delivery.

Pushing your plate away you stretched out and groaned. Still shovelling egg fried rice into his mouth, Henry pointed his fork at your plate;

“Roo dun?” he asked, his cheeks full like a hamster.

“Help yourself!”

He eagerly dumped the rest of your lemon chicken on top of his rice, jabbing at the pieces;

“Hey, about tomorrow… you really don’t need to worry. It’s just going to be you and me, and three other people”

Taking a sip of your beer you quietly snorted;

“That’s still three more people that would ‘usually’ be there… and four more than i’ve ever experienced”

He paused, setting his fork down and you could see his mind working through what you said;

“So uhh, it's been a while…?”

“To be honest, it's been never”

It was like something short circuited in his brain;

“Never never? Like, never?”

Putting your beer down, you fiddled with the label;

“I’m a virgin. I’ve never had sex. I’ve never even slept with anyone”

There was an awkward silence, the air tense before Henry finally spoke;

“Is it a religious thing?”

You shook your head;

“No. I just have been so wrapped up in studying or working or being on stage… I would get two dates into a relationship and some big opportunity would come up. I would get blinkered and end up ghosting guys without even realising. Ambition got in the way of a love life…”

Henry took a deep breath;

“Ok. So you know i’ll be covered up… down there i mean… and so will you… so there won’t be any slips or anything. I won’t be inside you or anything…”

Cocking an eyebrow you scoffed;

“Henry… I know you won’t be inside me. We studied sex scenes at stage school. They gave us the practical run down of what happens. It's lots of rubbing and grunting. I just need to go watch some porn again to figure out what to grunt…” you took a sip of your beer; “... and you probably wouldn’t fit inside me anyway… it’s not like anything has ever breached that hole”

Henry sat with a wide eyed look on his face, his jaw hanging slack;

“So you… you’ve never even pleasured yourself?”

“Of course i have!” you threw a prawn cracker at him; “I’ve just never…. You know… had internal stimulation…”

“Wow” he muttered quietly, shifting in his seat; “So…” he started again but then stopped, his brain seemingly unable to string a coherent sentence together.

Finally he cleared his throat;

“So there’s never been any on set stuff?”

“Nope. Usually I run through my lines for the next day, check the schedule, the set and makeup call times. I guess the one bonus about all of this is that there aren’t any lines for tomorrow”

You both knew that the scene had been set up without dialogue, mostly from Netflix’s instruction because any erotic scenes can cause havoc with sensors in some countries when it comes to subtitles.

“What did you want to do now? Do you want an early night? Watch a movie? Talk? You want me to lay on top of you?” he asked, picking his now cold plate of food up and dumping the leftovers in the waste disposal.

“Yes” you replied far too quickly.

“Which part?”

“All of it”

With the TV in the main living area out of action thanks to a rather rambunctious game of ping pong a few weeks ago, the pair of you had moved to Henry’s room. An hour into the movie and it was far from your thoughts, instead you were in the bizarre situation where Henry was literally laying on top of you as you had a conversation. The feeling of his weight pressing against you was at first a surprise, he was thick with muscles for the role, and with probably 200lbs of human pressing you against the mattress you had found you would have to shift now and again. Finally you found a position that was comfortable, and as you chatted about life you found your legs had naturally parted to allow him to lay between them, his stomach pressing to yours, his face inches from your own;

“This is literally how we’ll be spending our day tomorrow you realise” he quietly pointed out

“But there will be grunting too… plus some thrusting… it’ll probably get your ass in the gossip magazines as best ass in hollywood again” you teased him, knowing that the nudity he’d done in previous shows and movies had earned him a lot of attention thanks to his rather peachy behind.

Henry pushed up a little, poking a finger to your breasts;

“Oh yeah? Well these will earn you a whole legion of fans, you have an awesome pair of tits”

“Pfft, they’re just average”

“They’re good enough to give me a semi” he countered with a crooked grin on his face, using his finger to just tug at your neckline, exposing a tiny bit more skin.

You shifted beneath him without even realising you were doing so and that’s when you felt it, a growing hardness pressing against your abdomen. Your eyes went wide as you stared up at him, the mix of emotions showing on his face;

“I’ll get off…”

“No!” you instinctively wrapped your legs around his, leaning your head up and pressed a kiss to his lips. He let out a grunt of surprise and you felt him tense, before he softened, his lips following yours as you pulled rested your head back on the duvet beneath you.

His lips were soft and plump, and as he rocked his hips against you again this time you felt he was getting harder. Instinctively you gasped, and he took the opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth. You may not have had sex before but you had kissed, and your tongue danced with his as hands started to explore each others bodies, fingers seeking out skin as t-shirts were tugged up to expose heated skin.

Pulling your shirt over your head he admired your naked chest, the pattern on your top having hidden the fact you were without a bra;

“Oh yeah, even purple these’ll be popular”

With a smirk on his lips and a wicked grin on his face he lowered his mouth to your naked torso, taking one peaked nipple between his lips to suck on it, his hand cupping your other breast. As he worked his magic your body responded, the wetness between your thighs soaking through your clothing, the subtle movements of your bodies rubbing together making your arousal almost uncontrollable. Winding your hands into his dark locks, the soft hair curled around your fingers as he looked at you, pressing a trail of kisses down your sternum until he reached your leggings;

“Can i continue?” he asked quietly, watching as you nodded your head;

“Yes… please…”

As he pulled your leggings off he pressed kisses to the heated skin that he revealed, never breaking eye contact;

“So here’s what i’m going to do… first i’m going to get you to cum with my tongue, i’ll slip it just a little inside you so you can get used to the feeling, then i’ll gently tease you with my fingers; find that g-spot of yours as i’ve been assured a g-spot orgasm is completely different from a clitoral orgasm…

“Fuck…”

“Yes, that’s the third thing…” he grinned at you; “Once you’re nice and ready, and really really wet i’m going to make love to you… so you can practice your moans for tomorrow…”

He shed you of the rest of your clothing before softly grasping your legs and pulling them apart, revealing your virgin core. Tender fingers parted your petals before his tongue swiped a wide stripe through them, and the sound that emerged from your throat startled even you.

“You like that?”

“Yes… oh my god, please do that again!”

“With pleasure!”

“The pleasure is all mine…”

“Henry?”

“Yes?”

“Please shut up and get on with it” you grinned at him, before he dipped his face back between your legs and went to town. His tongue was seemingly everywhere, grunts and moans as he worked you open, and when he slipped his tongue into the ring of muscle at your entrance your eyes shot open and you giggle-moaned at the unfamiliar but not unpleasant experience. When a finger found your clit you relaxed again, laying back and enjoying the pleasure he was selflessly giving you.

Gripping at the bedcovers you found your hips started to move on their own, only for Henry to press a strong arm across your stomach to hold you in place, pushing you closer and closer to your orgasm. When it finally did hit your body reacted instinctively; your legs wrapping themselves around his head, your back arching and your fingers almost tearing through the fabric of the sheets, before you finally went limp. As your mind was nothing but stars a muffled voice came through the haze of your post orgasmic bliss;

“If i could get some oxygen…”

Not realising your legs were still firmly wrapped around Henry’s head, you quickly released him, his head popping up from beneath your thighs. His cheeks were flushed red and his chin was wet, and it took you a moment to realise you were the cause for the wetness. He wiped his chin with the back of his hand before standing and grabbing a bottle of water to pass to you;

“You’re gonna need to rehydrate after that…”

You went to take the bottle from him but the bulging tent in his sweatpants distracted you, your hand pausing mid air before Henry laughed;

“Drink first, then you can play with it”

“Oh… I… “

“Drink”

Taking the bottle you sipped at the tepid liquid as he lay on the bed beside you. When you’d finished he wrapped his arms around you, pulling you to his firm chest before kissing you softly;

“Are you ready for round two?”

“Can i touch you too?”

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth before he nodded, watching as you eased the elastic of his sweats down and his heavy cock sprang free. Your jaw fell as you took in his size, but before you could overthink it he pressed a kiss to your lips as his hands wandered between your thighs.

Reaching out you wrapped your fingers around him as his own slid between your folds, dancing over your clit before he pressed a single digit inside you, your eyes going wide and your hand squeezing him involuntarily.

“Does that feel good?”

You nodded;

“Yes, a little strange that i’m not in control, but i think that’s what makes it even more exciting”

“That’s good… now, how about another finger?”

Nodding again you bit your lip as he slid a second finger in alongside the first, your eager hole stretching around his digits. Instinctively you had started to move your hand up and down his shaft, doing little more than gentle movements, but soon the pair of you got into a rhythm, working together to leave your breaths in time with the others.

“Doing so well for me… so wet. Shall we try a third?”

Nodding you let out a quiet ‘uh-huh’ as he repositioned his hand, carefully sliding three fingers into your soaked velvet channel, and the noise that came from your throat was base and full of sin. When his thumb started to rub against your clit while he continued to work three fingers inside you the spring in your belly snapped and you were coming hard, shaking around his hand.

As you came down from your high Henry carefully withdrew his fingers, salaciously licking them clean before he got off the bed and went to the drawer in the little cabinet, pulling out a condom.

“Oh… i’m on the pill…” you blurted out; “You don’t have to… In fact i’d really like to feel you, you know… bare…”

Tearing the packet open he grinned at you;

“I get that… but you’re gonna be in makeup in less than 12 hours” he knelt on the bed as he started to roll the latex down his angry dick.

“Umm yeah?”

“Well its something you’d only know from experience, but it can take up to 24 hours for a guys cum to fully leak out of you”

“Oh…”

“And your costume and makeup gets pretty intimate, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah…”

“So you want Iris in makeup to be able to smell my cum dripping out of you when she’s painting your snatch purple tomorrow?” he said with a grin on his face, rolling the condom down fully before positioning himself between your legs

“I gotta be honest, the idea that someone realises i’ve had sex is kinda kinky” you craned your neck up to kiss him as you felt his dick notch at the entrance to your cunt; “But you’re the expert here”

“That i am… Let me show you just how much of an expert…”

With a smooth roll of his hips he pushed into you and the feeling was indescribable, in fact it was so overwhelming you screwed your eyes shut, willing the tears not to fall, but Henry simply held still, kissing each one of your tears as they fell down your cheeks until you were ready.

“Breathe babe… just breathe… it’s overwhelming i know… i understand…”

Opening your eyes you gazed up at him, smiling as he leaned down and kissed you softly.

“Are you ok?”

“Y-yeah…”

“You want me to keep going?”

“Please… oh god please”

“Gonna make you feel so good”

He carefully pulled his hips back before pushing into you again, seemingly getting deeper before pulling out again. Soon you were lost in the moment, feelings both physical and emotionally almost overwhelming you again as your body was taken to new heights of pleasure, Henry seemingly knowing exactly how to make the moment special for you.

Your body reacted in the best way, the tight spring inside you curling ever tighter, until with just the right roll of his hips he tipped you over the edge and you were coming hard, your body squeezing him so tight he knew he’d found heaven whilst you saw stars.

Whilst you were in the haze of your orgasm you heard the most beautiful moans, and felt as Henry came deep within you. As soon as he stopped shaking he wrapped his arms around you tightly, pressing his face to your neck as he cradled the back of your head with his massive hand, pressing soft kisses to your heated skin as you both basked in the aftershocks of your intense orgasms.

Finally Henry pushed himself up to bear his weight on one arm, sliding his other hand between your bodies to hold the condom in place as he carefully pulled out of you;

“I’m just gonna get rid of this… stay here”

You watched his peachy ass as he quickly mad his way to the bathroom, hearing water running before he reappeared moments later with a damp washcloth. Sitting delicately beside you he carefully cleaned you up, and when he was finished he pulled the duvet over your naked body as he quickly got rid of the cloth and joined you, wrapping his arm around your shoulder and pulling you to his chest;

“Are you ok?”

“I think so… Did i make a mess of your bed?”

“No. No blood”

“Really? I thought…”

“If you’re relaxed enough you may not bleed… or you may have simply ruptured your hymen just through every day life. A fall, tampons, strenuous exercise… didn’t you do a horseriding movie a couple of years back?”

“Y-yeah…” you cast your mind back; “Now you mention it, there was one really long day when i’d spent all day shooting a galloping scene with jumps… i just thought my period was coming early, and i had this really dull ache in my lower back… i guess that makes sense now…”

“So… you’re good? Feel ok about filming tomorrow?”

You nodded;

“Yeah, i’m good. Thank you” You looked up at him and saw he was chewing his lip nervously; “What?”

“I was wondering… you know… after we’ve finished filming tomorrow… did you want to go to dinner with me?”

“Like a date?”

“Yeah… hey i understand if you say no… that you want to concentrate on your role and acting…”

“No! I mean yes!” you took a deep breath; “I’d love to go to dinner with you”

He pressed a kiss to your cheek before you settled on his chest, his strong heartbeat beating beneath your ear as you let your eyelids drop and you fell asleep in his arms.

Iris tutted as you fidgeted;

“Will you stand still? I need to get these scales on!”

“Sorry Iris… just a little sore…”

The older woman looked up at you as she held the patch of purple scales prosthetic and grinned;

“Well its about time” she nodded to the various bottles and jars that were on the counter; “Make sure you take the coconut oil when you leave tonight, it’ll help get the adhesive off without pulling on any bruises”

You looked down at Iris and smiled;

“Thanks Iris”

“Was it worth it?”

“So worth it”

#henry cavill #henry cavill x reader #henry cavill x you #henry cavill smut #henry cavill fanfiction

955 notes · View notes

voidcat · 3 years

Text

— Seijoh 4 & dom!reader

a/n: this is legit my first time writing nsfw so yea b kind pls. I was getting tired of sub!reader stuff and I’m not the most sexual person but yea have a lil dom!reader w the boys,,, as a treat,, I’d also like you all to know that Nicole enabled this... thanks for supporting the sad horn knee hours wife<3

mostly gender neutral reader but i just realized i used nicknames “miss/mistress” few times so yea

Hanamaki Takahiro:

Oh boy is he excited!.. the moment this slips out of your mouth, he is fuming, vibrating from where he’s sitting and can’t wait to get home.

He is always open to try new things. Back in the day you two tried a thing or two but you were unsure how he’d act so you downplayed often... but now that knowing you’re a dom, the things you can do with the trust you share, shit, did it get hot in here?

On random days, he’ll just go “hey babe what do you think of this?” And show you a page of strap ons, for you to choose. some days he’ll practically beg to be pegged. he loves your demanour when you’re in charge, the air within you when you’re the one in control is, comforting but each night a new adventure and he just can’t get enough of it, of you.

Probably the two of you start with a basic list of things to try and see what he is into. When it comes to spanking, you warn beforehand again and say you’ll do it only once. Holding back yourself and smacking him as lightly as you can, you watch his face for any changes. The moment your hand makes contact with his skin, he lets out a “yelp!” and you stop right there, growing worried. Instead of a face in pain, teeth clenched and brows furrowed; he has the most satisfied and flushed face, eyes half closed and glossy and mouth slightly open. “Do it again babe, but harder this time? Please?”

He probably gets on your nerves on purpose & loves it when you call him a brat or your good boy. Some days he’ll just call you to hang out at his place and when you arrive, you find him spread on the bed, touching himself, his eyes on your figure, staring right into your eyes “hope I haven’t disobeyed or crossed any lines Miss” (he’ll be pissing you off on purpose during your movie nights and let you teach him a lesson right on the couch, the counter or the table...)

Def calls you praises and names (especially titles, telling you over and over how much he loves and enjoys you, how he loves to be drowned in your presence, begging you for anything, even the tiniest bit of a kiss.

He likes to shower together after a long night and wash each other’s hair, gently massaging your scalp and placing kisses all over your shoulders and the top of your head; whereas you gently kiss the places you’ve bitten and bruised, smothering his face with kisses.

Oikawa Tooru

This boy here, loves to act tough and all but let’s face it, he is a switch. It’s a typical Never Have I Ever game and at one point bedroom talk enters the game. He takes notes of the things you drink to, curious and you swear you catch a spark of excitement when you make it plainly obvious you’re a dom. Although that spark leaves as fast as it has appeared and you brush it off as a play of light.

That night when you return home, he practically jumps at you, a little rougher than usual and you’re sure why. Letting him pin you to the wall, hands roaming your body greedily, you let him live out the fantasy. The kisses now rough, one minute his lips on yours, the next on your neck, shoulders, collarbones... desperate to sink his teeth in and leave some marks. You think to yourself, that’s enough.

Next thing Oikawa knows, he is the one pinned to the wall, his wrists pinned above his head. With your unoccupied hand, you graze your finger lightly on his figure, jaw, neck and chest. “Someone is feisty.” he won’t tell at first but definitely got a thing for being marked and marking, and honestly? you don’t need him to tell you that.

orgasm denial!!! lots of it!! first two times you take pity on him and let him but the third time? the smug bastard is so sure you will let him come again but surprise!, as soon as you come, you leave him high and dry. he tries solving the issue by himself (which only makes things worse) after like 5 days of no orgasm on his part, he finally gets the clue, is on his... better behaviour; once you allow him to come, the days long of wait is worth the pleasure but he learns not to test you like this again. (however, this won’t stop him from disobeying you few more times just to get you to be rougher)

public teasing!! pda is already a given but you guys use remote controlled toys some days (usually you have the remote and he is the one who does his best to keep quiet) the driving and being near the edge of his climax is painful but he manages to hold himself until you two return home (or find a safe place to take care of it) and the endless wait and your cruel play with the toy’s settings is worth the wait. oikawa shivers every single time.

besides these, he likes to dress up and put on make up. and he is quite picky when it comes to lingerie the two of you wear, he checks the fabric qualities and colors beforehand, after all you only deserve the best of the best. he’ll be picking palettes to compliment your features best, loves using highlighter and always picks a dark shade of lipstick for each other; just to see how many times you’ll have to reapply until you’re both covered in its colors.

Iwaizumi Hajime

Ok so I know he has the brute facade going and everyone thinks he’s a dom but hear me out: actually quite soft switch/sub-leaning iwachan

Its a night out w the gang and during a drinking game oikawa makes a snark at you being such a dom in the streets AND in bed. to this blood rushes to Iwa’s cheeks and not many pay attention to it, bc he gets blushy easily plus he has been drinking too. but his mind? Oh he’s for sure imagining scenarios on what you could do to him.

Orgasm denial isn’t much of a thing because he’s very obedient. he’ll do his best to please you and follow your each and every word, watch your lips to hear your next words. for him, your word is law at this point... it’s almost impossible to deny him or those puppy eyes and those sweaty arms anything. He will call you ma’am, mistress, your highness, my goddess... whatever you wish and do not wish for. He loves praising you and ramble about how perfect and holy, etheral and magnificent you are.

lowkey into being tyed up, handcuffed and/or bondage. absolutely loves seeing you in full control. some days you won’t even bother to get undressed while he’s squirming under your touch fully stripped, begging for the tiniest bit of release. sometimes you’ll do the smallest gesture of taking control and he’ll be drooling, not even joking, this man LOVES IT when u take the ropes into ur hands (both metaphorically and literally) loves to lose control and wait for you to do whatever your heart desires, he wants to be what you desire.

(lowkey got a “corruption kink” too) when you two decide to shake things up a bit one day, you bring up some games, activities and kinks (mostly stuff he has only heard of) and, and he’s hard on the spot. lowkey into you wearing leather and gagging him up, his hands tied. he doesn’t mind blindfolds but watching you is so breathtaking, he even does his best to blink as little as possible. he loves it when you ride him to the point of orgasming for the 6th time that day, he’s ready to do anything for you, be your good boy and please you til world’s end.

very very good at oral too, his arms arent the only muscles he’s good at using, he loves your taste, your fingers in his mouth, his fingers in your mouth and in you. feeling your warmth however you want is enough to be content.

not something you do often but having sex in front of the mirror, seeing you in different angles drives him crazy, watching you covered in sweat, shining, panting, telling him how good you are is enough to make him drunk. but still he prefers to be chest to chest, you in his lap, riding him as he holds you to his chest, feeling your skin against his, burning with each move, rubbing against each other.

Matsukawa Issei

of all his relationships and hookups, Issei always encountered subs. few times his partners were doms, they were still submessive to him so when he finds out realizes you’re a dom, needless to say, he’s intrigued...

it kinda starts off with sex in front of a mirror one night, your back pressed against his chest, you’re riding him as his face buried in yourneck and his hands howering over you and suddenly, you grab his hands and out them at his sides, hold his chin and make him look at the mirror: “now watch hoe good i’ll be fucking you and your brains out until you won’t get a coherent sentence out.” you whisper in a low voice and do you deliver as you’ve said? but he got tricks up his sleeve too...

Most of the time, it’s rough and the fire play as well as powerplay takes most of the time. There’s always a battle for dominance, which leaves you both covered in marks and bruises. To say neither of you like it, would be unfair, especially when he disobeys you or flirts with other people beforehand, stepping on your nerves on purpose. (the quiet moans he lets out as you bite his neck, his collarbones, his earlobe, chest and thighs is an indicator if you ever need one.)

And thighs! Lots of thigh biting, massages, rubbing with fingers, or just squeezing the others head inbetween thighs is a given during oral and any foreplay that involved pecks and love bites in that area.

And as it is rough, you two always take your time, having a gentleness to jt in your own way. Be it a soft kiss out of nowhere, a certain way of bucking your hips or thrusting his hips into you. And as things are rough, it’s also when you get to let it all out, be yourself, unstrained.

Some days you’ll drop by his current job, or he’ll stop by at your place, and if he sees you in a headspace that’s too distracted, bothered or irritated by something, or just down; he’ll pick you up, wrapping your legs around him, pressing to you and nibbling on your neck and literally fuck your frustrations out. Those times he lets you take the ropes into your hands but if you’re not up for even that, he’ll take the charge on the spot, and leave clear marks to keep your mind off things for days. And in return, you’ll leave claw marks on his back, tug at his hair and press him to yourself until all you can feel is him; some days you’ll flip the both of you out of nowhere and press his head against your chest, hold his hands behind his back and guide him with your body, his muffled breathes tingling your chest, the nape of your neck and your lips; until your skins red, lips bleeding and gentle purples decorating all over you.

(and he’s a sucker for it. some days he’ll go in town to get something for you to use on him and drop at your place without a card or a name. If asked, he always denies, claiming he’d not get you things to make it easier to control him but the sight of you holding a whip and he can feel the blood rushing already, tugging at his belt and your tshirt. He hopes it’ll be just like that one time you pressed against his dick with high heels, making him beg to come.)

tags: @myelocin @atsumu-brainrot

82 notes · View notes

kaydeefalls · 3 years

Text

@andrea-lyn tagged me in this one, thank you! I needed a distraction today. :)

20 questions, writer’s edition!

How many works do you have on AO3?

205, which includes fic going back to, um, 2002. YIKES. That’s just about twenty solid years of my life in fic-and-vid form.

What’s your total AO3 word count?

1,193,124. I remember being privately psyched about hitting the 1 million mark last year, and now I’ve just...blown past it, by my standards. I have written a lot more words for TOG fandom in the past year and change than I have for anything else in quite a while.

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Ah, let me see if I can do this math, because I also post vids on AO3 and I have a number of multifandom vids that skew my fandom totals significantly, and then there are the fandoms that wound up with multiple different tags (i.e. MCU vs. Captain America vs. Iron Man, etc). I think about 40 unique fandoms total? Or thereabouts. Enough that I’m not gonna list them all here, that’s for sure.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Logical Deduction (HP, Remus/Sirius, it will never not be hilarious that this is my most “popular” fic)

it's like one of us woke up (XMFC, Charles/Erik, still baffled by this one, too)

she's the one that they call old whatsername (Star Trek AOS, girl!Kirk, fuck yeah)

life is very long (TOG, Joe/Nicky + found family, luck of the timing in terms of posting)

ampersand (MCU, Steve/Bucky, this one pleases me)

I’m genuinely happy that my top five are in five different fandoms, that feels very representative of my fannish history.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Yes, always, unless I accidentally miss one. Just to thank them, if nothing else (and frequently I can’t think of anything else to say), because feedback really does mean the world to me and I appreciate every comment so, co much.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I was more into writing angst in my younger days. Lately I feel like the world is depressing enough, if I’m going to put a story out into it I’m at least gonna give it a hopeful ending. So, probably one of my Remus/Sirius fics - let’s go with The centre cannot hold. IDK. Not really willing to trawl through my oldest stuff to find something angstier.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Most of them, honestly! I love happy endings. Picking The Pride Pact at random because it’s one of my most uncomplicatedly romantic/fluffy fics.

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

WHY YES I DO. Mostly of the fusion sort rather than just randomly throwing characters from two different fandoms together to see what happens. “Crazy” is not my favorite term -- I don’t write crackfic, as a rule -- but most RANDOM on the outside is probably The Conspirator's Gift. X-Men fusion with the Brother Cadfael series, because...reasons.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not as such, and I’m incredibly lucky to have dodged that particular bullet so far. Harsh and not terribly constructive criticism, once or twice that I can remember, but I would not consider that hate.

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Very, very, very rarely. My characters have sex, but not explicitly described onscreen for the most part. I don’t enjoy writing smut at ALL, it’s pretty much my least favorite thing to write (that I’m still willing to write at all, however vaguely).

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! It’s awesome.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope, never. I have no idea how people come together to cowrite fics, I’ve never had fannish friends quite like that. It seems like a really cool process! Maybe someday I’ll have the opportunity, it would be fun to give it a try.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

That’s not how I work. I may only OTP hard for one ship per fandom, but never ask me to rank my fandoms against each other, that’s not fair. Right now I’d say Joe/Nicky, of course, because that’s the fandom I’m most active in, but all time favorite? God only knows.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Don’t you come at me like this. Fortunately, I rarely post WIPs when they’re still, you know, in progress. And I WILL fucking finish the Finn/Poe fic, goddamnit.

What are your writing strengths?

Character voices. Coherent plots. Bit of romance. IDK, I feel like my fics are pretty consistent in terms of quality. Whether it’s a quality you like or not is purely subjective.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Smut. Action sequences in general -- I CAN write them, but they’re a slog and I hate every minute of it.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

It really does depend on the context. If the character is mostly speaking one language but includes a single word or phrase in another, I lean toward writing it out. Otherwise, just indicating that a different language is being spoken is enough, if the POV character understands it then please translate for the reader.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

X-Files. I was very young then. Those fics are NOT on AO3.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I hate playing favorites! The answer to this will change at any given moment. For the moment, for TOG, let’s just say lessons exquisitely crafted and move on.

Tagging, um, @knoepfchen, @werebearbearbar, @turtletotem, @ladynox, @brendaonao3, @lindstrom2020, @lyricfulloflight, and anyone who wants to play!

#fic meme #ask me anything

8 notes · View notes

excitedlysuffering · 4 years

Note

OMGOMGOMG possibly Kakashi head-cannon collection? He is the love of my life (lmao don’t tell my bf that)

Your secrets safe with me he’s my love too😂

Kakashi Headcanons Collection

What He Looks For In A S/O~

• A reader, they don’t have to read Icha Icha (bonus points if you did) but someone who appreciates a good book

• Someone laid back and not very high maintenance

• I see him wanting a shinobi S/O cause he needs them to be to take care of themselves or he’ll worry too much

• he’ll worry anyways

• Someone who understands his pain and won’t shy away from him when he’s going through a rough patch

• Someone who is good with words, like say something sweet and he’s metlinggg

• A person with considerate personality traits

• He would like an S/O who’s willing to try new things and adventures

• Someone who would take things slowly

• Someone who could honestly make him laugh

• He’s DadKashi he’s going to want someone good with kids

• To be frank, he would probably want a relatively stable S/O so that in his mind there’s no chance of them ending up like his father

• He wants companionship so someone who’s not distant and who wouldn’t mind him being around all the time

• I really can’t see him with a tsundere S/O, he needs to see that his partner loves him as much as he loves them

Relationship With Kashi Stuff~

• Please do domestic stuff (Sending him off to work with a kiss, a note in his lunchbox, kissing him when he gets home) he will be near tears every time

• TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK™ (whether it’s kicking butt, making dinner, or teaching (raising) Team 7)

• You probably won’t notice moving in with each other until you look up like ‘holy crap I haven’t been to my apartment in like 2 weeks?’

• Read with him or read to him, and you will have his HEART

• He’s not clingy per se, but he loves to be in your presence whenever he can

• Will take you out on dates once a week EVERY WEEK (Sorry Tsunade-sama, I have a date then, but I’ll leave right after?)

• Dating Kakashi means you’re now honorary rivals with Gai (who knows Kashi better, who can make him laugh most etc.)

• Pick up line wars 24/7, the loser has to do the other’s chores Kakashi wins

• Okay, but Kakashi never had a childhood, so make a list of everything he never got to do and you slowly complete them together

• He’s such a sweetheart like, surprise, he’s so sensitive

• Get’s so flustered seeing you in his clothes, he temporarily shuts down

• He’s given up trying to take back his mask whenever you’re wearing it

• Okay, we all know this silver-haired hottie is suave, but he is SMOOTH, he will 100% find ways to have you blush whenever possible, he is the CEO of leaving you hot and bothered

• Made you your own area in the Hokage office as a hint that he needed your company

• Has never forgotten an important date (he uses his Sharingan on the calendar)

• He’s fought demons and other crazy villains, but will still be terrified of you on your period (he’s brave tho he’ll just bring a lot of peace offerings)

• He heard you refer to him as DadKashi in front of Team 7 and/or your friends and just about loses his mind

• When you first see his face without his mask you’re probably pissed cuz WHY would he hide that beauty from the world?! it’s for the greater good hun

How To Lose/Annoy Him~

• Being insensitive/ignorant about things like loss or mental illness

• Constantly distracting him from his duties or hobbies

• Being rude or uncompassionate

• Being willing to abandon people or being self-centered you SCUM

• He always makes time for you, so he’d be a bit bothered if they didn’t put forth any effort to spend time with him

• Little pranks are harmless, but things that make him scared for your wellbeing or stealing his mask are big fat NO

• Being reckless just because, being a shinobi is already dangerous with would you play with death like that??

• Being lazy, Kakashi at his core is really something of a go-go-go person, he doesn’t want to just do anything all the time

Soft Kakashi Things~

• Kakashi is such a softie omg

• He likes to fall asleep last just so he can tell you how much he loves you and you saved him while you’re asleep

• If you’re having a bad day, he’ll drop everything (if possible) to hold you and be there for you in every way you need

• Definitely has Sai draw a small pic of you so he can carry it around and/or put in the Hokage office

• Mission dates are a thing like imagine flirting with Kakashi while destroying your opponents (so romantic)

• He’s big on practical gifts. If he notices you’re running low on shuriken? Expect a box of them from him

• He’ll read a particular *wild* Icha Icha quote to you just to make you flustered (bonus points for him if you’re in public)

• His students question you all the time like how did you end up with their lonely, pervy sensei?

• Will sweep you off your feet for no reason other than he likes to hold you and carry you

Random Kashi Facts~

• Kakashi’s love language is words of affirmation like he craves hearing that you love him and the like

• He hums and sings around the house or whenever he’s bored or preoccupied

• After having eating fish out of necessity day after day he prefers not eating it if possible

• He will often fall asleep a good while after he actually lays down because he enjoys debriefing himself of everything that happened during the day

• Actually sleeps really deep when he’s next to you, otherwise, the smallest sound can wake him up

• He likes to put notes or letters from you in his Icha Icha books so he can read them whenever and no one will peak cuz ew, Icha Icha

• In all honesty, Gai is a common factor in why he’s so late everywhere, but it’s mostly him walking around and taking in the sights like a nostalgic old man

• In the episode where Sakura and Naruto transformed into kids and called Kashi and old man, giving him an identity crisis is actually common. His hair color and the fact that you can’t see his face make some kids think he’s old

• Sometimes when he can’t sleep he’ll find a random tree and fall asleep in it (he’s a strange one)

• He lost his newest Icha Icha book when he was Hokage and very nearly (thanks to Shikamaru) called a citywide search party

Little Things~

Favorite:

• Place to kiss- Your temple, it feels really intimate to him and he’s so tall it’s an easy place for him

• Way to hug- Kakashi loves those giant bear hugs where he just envelopes you like you’re basically one with him now

•’Thing to do with you- He really loves reading with you, whether it’s the same book, or you’re just both sitting next to each other reading

• Type of date- Although your most common date is a mission date (lol), his favorite is being able to take you to a nice restaurant and then on a walk around the city

This or That:

• He’s a winter person actually, he loves being cuddled up with you and blankets, and the abundance of hot drinks

• He’s a morning person because he’s been waking up early since he was a child, and doesn’t really know how to enjoy sleeping anymore (but if that wasn’t the case he’d be a night owl)

• Loves both cooking for you and being cooked for he puts Bobby Flay to shame honestly

• He spends all his time reading obviously and if his S/O is a writer or he’ll be soooo excited and will read everything they put out

Conflict Happenings~

• He knows disagreements are a normal part of relationships (in moderation of course) so if there was a real problem, he wouldn’t shy away from it

• He won’t raise his voice or take a tone with you, he doesn’t feel the need to, but he will definitely get his point across

• To his fault, he might throw in a slight or cutting remark here and there but he will regret it the second your expression changes

• He’s a real go with the flow kind of guy so if he realizes that something is his fault, he will correct it ASAP

• If he notices you’re getting really worked up, he’ll just hug you until you calm down and can speak coherently but at that point it’s like ‘what was I mad about??’

• If his S/O is headstrong it’ll probably bring that side out in him, even if temporarily

• If it’s a minor disagreement he’ll probably say something funny to diffuse the situation

• He would rather die than argue in public, to him it’s a private thing and he hates causing a scene

Modern Kashi~

• I can see him as more of a club/extracurricular activities leader than a teacher

• He’s really close to those kids in his group and probably sheds a few proud DadKashi tears at their graduation

• That one fine teacher that all the students are thirsting over

• If not a teacher he’d probably be an elite CIA agent or a higher ranking FBI officer

• He has so many dogs like he sees a stray and how could he possibly give them up??

• He’d probably walk around Playboy Magazines just cause he can

• At one point he dyed his hair black cause he thought it’d look more ‘normal’ but he HATED it

• He likes plants but he’s so bad at taking care of them?? He can remember all of his dogs’ names and their food preferences but can’t remember to water a plant

• His house is so clean he’s been doing all his household chores since he was a child

• He definitely met Gai in elementary school and they never parted, even going on to become college roommates never again

• Gai probably barges in Kakashi’s classroom so often he’s most likely considered the co-leader/teacher

• Kakashi has definitely gotten drunk on school nights before but he’s such an in-control drunk no one ever noticed

• Kakashi was my first Naruto love and my first husband. BACK OFF

Masterlist

#naruto scenarios #naruto shippuden #kakashi x reader #hatake kakashi #reader insert #Dadkashi #headcanon #hes so perfect

351 notes · View notes

joy1579 · 4 years

Text

My RFA + Saeran NSFW head cannons

this is probably the only NSFW stuff I’ll write. its difficult since I’m not really into actual NSFW. ya know. mostly i just want my baby boys happy healthy and loved. I’m more about chaste kisses and platonic cuddles than anything else. still every once in a blue moon I have my moments so here’s my thoughts on the RFA + saeran

oh also master list

and I’m putting it under the cut for obvious reasons

Jumin

- Light BDSM no intentional pain

- Mostly bondage and calling you his favorite pet

- Treats you like his most prized possession

- He is all about giving you everything you want

- Is quiet and methodical at first but slowly loses himself

- Absolutely gets off on your noise

- Probably enjoys watching you just as much as he enjoys participating

- Doesn’t intentionally mark you but the occasional love bite happens if he’s not careful

- Takes his time, you get there several times before he even starts his part of the journey

- He’s committing you to memory every single time

Yoosung

- Loves when you ride him

- Will absolutely mark every part of you that you let him

- quick recovery, and multiple rounds

- literally incapable of coherent speech

- loves your dirty talk though

- bites his lip a lot sometimes you worry he’ll bite too hard

- he has a praise kink 100% all day everyday

- shy about saying it but thinks the idea of getting caught is exciting

- really wants to do what you tell him ;)

- so much cuddling afterwards also more praise so much praise

Saeyoung

- he does not take off his cross necklace

- likes when you sound frustrated

- tends to stop right before you get their just to tease you

- plays dumb until you say EXACTLY what you want him to do

- probably still doesn’t do it right away because you didn’t ask nicely enough

- it’s all a big game and he enjoys having the upper hand

- wants you to say his real name. a lot.

- He really likes when you bite his shoulder (it means he’s doing a very good job)

- Probably wears the bite mark as a badge of honor (much to your horror)

- after care is a huge deal for both of you expect lots of gentle reassuring kisses

Zen

- stamina for days

- he is into body worship you cannot stop him when he gets into it

- zero regard for time and place, expect closets bathrooms dressing rooms all of it

- he’s not into marking (his looks are part of his job he can’t risk that no matter how much he really wants to wear your love bites)

- probably lifts you up against walls a lot

- likes to hear your breathy voice whispering in his ear

- is really proud of how disheveled you look afterward

- kisses literally everywhere

- he knows all your weak spots and will exploit that knowledge to tease you in public

Jeahee

- follows your lead at first since it takes her a while to open up

- bites her lip and tries to keep quiet if you top

- hushes you and giggles at your sounds if she’s top

- wants to give as good as she gets

- likes when you kiss her neck

- is VERY private, mention bedroom stuff in front of anyone and you’re in the dog house

- likes when you go down on her best (probably holds your head in just the right place)

- she does actually enjoy taking the lead once she’s warmed up

- low sex drive if not encouraged (like maybe once a week if you don’t initiate it but don’t worry once you initiate she is down to clown)

- bedroom only (except once in the office but she couldn’t relax enough to get there so yeah bedroom only)

Saeran

- he is dominate. Always. (submission is NOT fun for him)

- Makes you promise he’s the only one you’ll ever be with

- Bruises from his fingers on your thighs and bite marks on your shoulder

- A Safe word is a MUST so is a safe signal for both of you in case you need a break or he needs to calm himself down

- Light choking (nothing extreme and you talked about it before hand hence the safe signal)

- AFTER CARE AFTER CARE AFTER CARE

- He knows he’s rough and you have to pull him out of guilt tripping himself afterwards

- “I would have used the safe word if I didn’t like it”

- Lots of reassurance and cuddling as both of you come back to yourselves

- Even after recovery you can see a bit of shift between “unknown saeran” and “ray saeran” in this area

#mysme #mm #mystic messenger #jumin #jumin han #yoosung #yoosung kim #saeyoung #seven #707 #zen #hyun ryu #jaehee #jaehee kang #saeran #ray #lemon

182 notes · View notes

fatoujallovv · 4 years

Photo

so here’s my disclaimer: I hardly know what I'm doing. This is my glued together homemade giffing method that I’ve created over months of just random experimentation and bits and pieces from all kinds of tutorials. there are probably better or more correct ways to do a lot of these things! this also isn’t a completely universal tutorial, some of the specifics are geared towards giffing skam, specifically skam france.

I gif in photoshop cc 2020 on a macbook. Some things like keyboard shortcuts and little things about the photoshop interface will probably vary if you are on a pc/ other version of photoshop!

this is very long and very unprofessional, but I hope there is something in here that someone will find helpful!

we’ll be going from this:

to this:

up to date as of October 25, 2020

downloading clips

selecting what part you’re going to gif

cropping

my action for resizing, converting to a smart object, and sharpening

coloring

exporting and setting the delay

tldr tips

1. downloading clips

4k video downloader (which you can get for mac or pc here) is great for things posted to youtube, especially from skam france because all the clips are on their youtube with no weird geoblocks or anything! it’s really easy, you just have to open the clip in youtube, copy the link, and go into the program and hit paste link. I like to put on smart mode first and set the destination folder so all my clips go into the place I want.

There is a 30 video per day download limit, so if you’re thinking you really want to gif lots of stuff from the show, and want a big chunk or a full season it’s definitely worth hunting for a mega or google drive with full episodes to download because it’s just less hassle! I might come back to this post later and compile a list of all of those, but for now if you type “[remake] no subs google drive” or “[remake] no subs mega” into a google search, you’ll probably find something! the all of skam website has no subs for several remakes, but not all!

If you don’t have enough space on your computer to be keeping full seasons, I know there are methods to get screencaps without having to download (generally for giffing movies and regular tv I think this is a common method), but I’ve never done it so I’ll redirect you to this tutorial that explains it! you should probably just go there for the whole thing tbh it’s much more coherent than this, but I digress.

2. selecting the piece of the video you want to gif

now that you’ve got your episode or clip you’ll want to just open it in photoshop! if you go the screen capping route the way to do that is a bit wonky, so you can keep following the tutorial I linked above and join back in here at coloring if you like!

if the timeline at the bottom doesn’t pop up automatically you can go to window > timeline and turn it on! now you can use the scrubber bar thing to find the moment you want to gif!

The advantage of this over screen capping is you can scrub with more precision. the arrows circled in blue below let you jump only one frame, where in screen capping I'm pretty sure you can only go by ten second or one minute intervals.

I usually drag the scrubber as close as I can to the start of the shot/moment I want to use, fiddle with the arrows circled in blue below to jump forward or back one frame at a time until I'm at the first frame I want. I move the left grey handle to the scrubber and then I hit the play button and let the whole shot/moment play. Pause and repeat the shuffling with the arrows until you’ve landed on the last frame you want to use and move the other grey handle.

the moment you want to use should be between your handles (it’ll look like what I have circled in red), and if you hit play, you should see the thing you want to gif playing on loop above the timeline. the speed will probably be weird, but we’ll deal with that at the end.

now I recommend doing command or control + s to save your gif as a psd (photoshop document). this is a working, editable file which means if photoshop crashes you can open your file right back up and keep working as long as you’re hitting command or control + s at regular intervals as you work. later we’ll go through exporting in gif format that can actually be uploaded to tumblr.

3. cropping

next I crop out any logos or black space at the top and bottom. Just click on the crop tool on the lefthand side of the screen, drag the edges and hit enter when you’re done. you can of course crop out more than just that, but regardless of what you crop out, now is the time to do it.

you can set an aspect ratio for your crop at the top of the screen if you’d like to be positive that all the gifs in your set will be the same:

4. my trusty action: resizing, converting to a smart object, and sharpening with one click

Now is when I use an action I made that does all the resizing, converts to a smart object, and sharpens. I’ll take you through the steps so you can conceptually get what’s going on, but I highly recommend using the actions window to record your process as you follow along so you have this action as well. It easily shaves at least 5-10 minutes off of the whole process, and these steps will be the same every time.

here’s how you make an action: go to window > action and open the action panel. click the plus symbol to start recording a new action:

in the window that pops up, give it a name and hit record:

now just continue with the steps below, and it will save them!

first you flatten frames to clips (I think it says flatten to layers on older versions of photoshop). this is in the menu at the top right corner of your timeline:

next you convert to frame animation by clicking on the symbol in the bottom left, circled in red:

if there is more than one thing in the frame animation, delete the extra one. you don’t need to keep the last one but it won’t let you remove it until there are other frames in there. also go into your layers and delete video group 1 and its contents. don’t ask me why these steps are necessary, I don’t really know, but I’ve noticed it sometimes gets wonky if you don’t do this:

now you want to make frames from layers and delete that first frame that was there before:

then we return to the timeline:

use command + option + a (control + alt + a for pc I'm pretty sure) to select all layers and then right click within your layers window and select convert to smart object. It’s important to convert to smart object after you go back to the timeline, or the gif won’t move:

next I resize. gifs for tumblr should be 540 pixels wide. for recording your action you should just go into image > image size and only change the width to 540 in case you ever have gifs cropped to different aspect ratios. don’t touch the height, let constrain proportions figure it out!

now, here’s what our base gif looks like, no sharpening, no coloring:

now to sharpen. go to filter > sharpen > smart sharpen. this is up to personal preference, but my go to settings are:

this is what we have after sharpening:

now is when you can stop recording your action.

just press the stop button in the action window:

this action is pretty much universal and after I select the moment the gif will be and crop however I want, I use it on every gif I make! so although this initial setup is tedious, now you’ll never have to do these steps again, and the process is magically much quicker.

5. it’s time to jump into coloring!

I typically start with exposure and sometimes some brightness/contrast. with really dark gifs like this, you kind of have to make it worse before you make it better. I did this:

now the gif looks like this:

we have some static and some ugly bits, and this is where selective color comes in to fix it! boost blacks like this:

and now your gif looks like this:

the skin tone is looking a little sickly and weird, so I go into the yellows and reds in my selective color layer to fix it! I also messed with the greens here because I didn't want color in the background (that part is totally optional and just up to your preference):

now we have this:

to really take the color 100% out of the background, I did one more separate selective color layer for cyan (again, I just felt like it but this is optional!):

and now the finished gif:

there’s lots of fun extra things you can add like text and tints and overlays and all that I won’t get into, but feel free to reach out for help on those types of things!

this gif was certainly not the most complicated to color. some ridonkulously dark clips (*cough cough* vendredi 20h27 *cough cough*) take tons and tons more effort than this and a lot of the time you’ll want to use color balance layers and vibrance layers and all of that to mess with your coloring.

with all of this coloring business, I really just learned by doing. I don’t know all the technical purposes of each type of adjustment layer, and I tend to stay away from curves just because I find them confusing and annoying. The bottom line is that you should always experiment and find out whatever coloring works for you and run with it! I’m sure every gif maker you talk to does things at least a little differently!

I highly recommend taking the time to go through all the types of adjustment layers and just move the sliders around to see what they do! That’s honestly one of the best ways to learn and decide what you like!

6. now to export and adjust the delay!

the keyboard shortcut for exporting on mac is command + option + shift + s, control + alt + shift + s for pc, otherwise you can go to file > export > save for web

my settings are here:

the settings only need to be configured once! otherwise just hit save and follow the pop ups to choose where to save and what name you want to give your gif. Since you saved as a psd way back, that will be the name it’s automatically given, but call it whatever you want!

then I adjust my delay by opening the gif I just exported (not the psd, the .gif file) and using one of my delay actions. I’ve made an action for each delay between 0.05 (real time) and 0.08 (really slow mo for certain super short shots, typically for more ~artsy~ sets).

all my action does is select all frames:

adjust the delay (which will differ based on whether you want them slowed down and by how much):

for reference, this is a 0.05 delay:

and this is a 0.08 delay

now you just export the same way you did before!

remember if you’re recording this as an action, you don’t want to touch the file name, just say yes when it asks if you want to replace the file. if you always save your gifs to the same place, your action will now enable you to override any gif with the incorrect delay with the correct one with one click!

7. tldr: the main tips

for downloading 4k video downloader works well for non geoblocked youtube videos, the all of skam website is another place you can look to download with no subs, here’s the screen capping method if you don’t want to download

The main way I combat dark lighting is to bump exposure to the right, gamma correction to the left, and then enhance black in a selective color layer. The amount of these three adjustments will vary gif to gif. I know lots of people use curves, but I find them really confusing for some reason, so this is my method! As my graphics teacher likes to say: there are always at least 3 different ways to reach the same result!

there’s a little bit of additional coloring on this one, but here’s another before and after example so you can get an idea of how those steps get you a better lit result without making the lighter parts super over exposed:

besides those three steps, you have free rein to use the other selective color channels, as well as color balance, vibrance, hue/saturation, etc. to restore color that was lost or to change the colors altogether! mess around with it and have fun experimenting!

7a. bonus coloring tip:

sometimes you can make use of selective color to completely alter an isolated color in your gif. You can get very adventurous with this, but here's a simple example of changing blue tones to teal (I got away with these gifs being longer because they were in rows of two in the set I posted them in. I'm too lazy to trim frames so I can put them here at 540 px without going over the 10mb limit so just ignore the quality ok):

7b. actions, actions, actions!

if you find yourself doing a certain thing over and over, always record it as an action. the amount of time they will save you is honestly really impressive.

You can duplicate actions, so, for example, if you have different sharpening preferences for different shows or scenes, you can duplicate your gif process action and go into the steps, double click smart sharpen, and alter it however you want!

This could also be good to do for the different widths for tumblr if you ever do sets with rows of two or three! Duplicate actions is also how I made my actions that set delay at 0.05, 0.06, 0.07, and 0.08!

when in doubt, always make an action! it’s worth minimizing the tedious bits of the process as much as possible so you can focus on the fun part of seeing your awesome gifs come to life! any little task you find yourself doing often, make an action!

and for now that’s all I have. if any of this made no sense, if you want to suggest a correction or addition I could make, if you’re ever curious how I did something on any gifs I post, or if you have any other sort of questions, feel free to send me an ask or a dm! if I can’t answer your questions I’ll be happy to try to direct you to someone who can or a tutorial to help! again, I'm no expert, not even close, but I hope at least one person will find one thing in this mess that helps.

#this got . so long omg #mystuff #mytutorial #gif tutorial #tutorial #resources #fellow gif making peeps feel free to correct me or give input on how to improve or add to this tutorial!

31 notes · View notes

alleiradayne · 4 years

Photo

Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story…

THE MIDNIGHT RIDE

Long is our list of ghost stories laid to rest. But when the dark rider returns thirty years after his exorcism at the hands of the Winchesters, Sam, Dean, and I are faced with the possibility that we’ve been wrong about one thing.

Some urban legends never die.

Part III - Unsolved Mysteries

Summary: Sam, Dean, and the reader head to the Old Dutch Cemetery. Warnings/Tags: General elements of horror and fear, graveyards, coffins, sorta-not-really-death... Characters/Pairings: First Person Female!Reader/Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester Word Count: 5,385

The Impala jostled over the transition from street to gravel path as Dean turned for the graveyard. Tall, stout trees lined the trail to the Old Dutch Church, their long sinuous branches reaching out as though to grasp and pull unwary travelers into the shadowy depths of the surrounding forest. A chill ran down my spine as the car lumbered on, descending into the darkness, and a foolish sense of fear filled my stomach with dread. I had vanquished many vengeful spirits with Sam and Dean. The last decade of our lives had been nothing but. And yet, something about the case had me on edge.

Around a shallow bend in the path, the church materialized from the darkness atop a hill as the Impala’s headlights flashed across it. Dark windows and a distinct lack of exterior lighting shrouded the building in impenetrable black despite our approach. The car climbed the steep hill, and as it crest the top, I saw a thick stone wall and a tall iron gate in the distance.

“At least we’re alone,” Sam mentioned as he followed the church.

“Good,” Dean started, then squinted through the windshield as we neared the gate. “Is it open?”

“I’m guessing the graveyard isn’t maintained if the church is abandoned,” Sam stated.

As he pulled up to the gate, Dean put the car in park and climbed out. Sam and I followed, and between the three of us, we managed to pull the gate apart wide enough for the Impala to pass. Dean returned to the car and, as he pulled into the graveyard, that chill, loitering beneath my skin, clawed deep into my bones. The Impala entered the great yawning maw and slid into the belly of the beast.

When I remained still too long, Sam ushered me along with a reassuring hand at my shoulder. His wide stare betrayed his crooked smile, and that creeping dread seeped into the very marrow of my existence.

“This feels too easy.” I had intended to speak with more conviction, but my voice faltered.

“Don’t jinx it,” Sam retorted.

“I’m not trying to,” I said as I rubbed an ache in my left arm. Drawn to the darkness, I scanned the graveyard from edge to edge. “I’m… something feels off. Like we’re forgetting something.”

He turned to me then, and the warmth of his large hand enveloped my shoulder. An odd sense of calm replaced my looming anxiety. And his voice assuaged my worst concerns. “Whatever happens, we’ll get through it together. I’m here, Dean’s here. You know what you’re doing, too. I believe in us.”

And I believed him. I didn’t just know it to be true, but felt it, like that deep ache in my bones. But the case, the urban legend. It all had me on edge. Despite my oscillating emotions, I smiled a wry smile and looked up to him. A slanted ray of silvery moonlight illuminated his own crooked smile, and the last of my concerns receded to the edges of my mind. “Thanks, Sam. You’re really good at that.”

He turned for the car as Dean stopped up the path. “At what?”

I followed with a skipped step and said, “Making a lady feel special.”

His subtle smile turned into a devious smirk I’d not seen on him in age. “Good. You are,” he said. A hitch in his breath hesitated his next statement, but then he turned to me once more and said, “I’ve been meaning to tell you this for a while, but I’ve been feeling pretty shitty myself since Chuck.”

Dean remained in the car, illuminated by the glow of his cell phone. Safe, for the moment at least, I figured it couldn’t hurt to hear Sam out. “What’s on your mind?”

“Dean and I care a lot for you,” he stated as he closed the space between us. He scoffed before he said, "But I… Dammit, we weren’t supposed to be in fucking graveyard when I finally told you… and especially not on a case. I’ve wanted to say this for months, but we haven’t taken a break, and I never get five minutes with you alone—”

“Sam.”

His teeth clicked shut at my interruption. A thick swallow bobbed his throat before he said, “I’m sorry. I’m nervous.”

“I can tell,” I replied with a short laugh. “But I get it. I am, too. I’ve… felt the same way for a while.”

Despite the darkness, his entire face brightened at that. “Really? Like… how long?”

I turned for the Impala and said over my shoulder, “Longer than I care to admit.”

He trotted to catch up to me at the trunk. When he opened his mouth to speak again, the driver’s door opened, and Dean’s boots crunched on the gravel. Before he squandered the moment, Sam slipped his hand to the small of my back and whispered in my ear, “We’ll talk more later?”

I sucked a breath through my nose as I bit my bottom lip but managed a quick nod as Sam straightened. There is a reason I don’t play poker; Dean spotted the obvious a mile away, his approach slowing and his glare narrowing on me, then on Sam, who had busied himself on his phone.

“What’s going on?” he grumbled as he unlocked the trunk.

Sam hardly looked up. “Hm? Nothing, just waiting for you. C’mon, let’s go,” he said as he grabbed a shovel and flashlight, then strode away for a set of plots.

Dean’s glare fell to me then, as though he measured me under a microscope, and I shifted on my feet. “Y/N…”

“What?!” I squeaked, then cleared my throat. “What?”

“Don’t ‘what’ me,” he declared as he rummaged through the trunk. “You look… do you need to take a leak or something?”

The surge of sensations from Sam’s attention passed, and I stilled. “No, I’m fine. Just… graveyards, right? This whole case has me kinda freaked.”

Look, I’m not dumb, and I know Dean isn’t either. But thankfully, he let my half-truth slide and grabbed a shovel. “You know the drill. This’ll be quick once we dig it up.”

I took the shovel from him, then the flashlight. “Got it. I’ll start helping Sam look for this needle in a haystack unmarked grave.”

“Good idea,” he replied. “I’ll catch up in a minute. Need to grab a few more things here. Go on ahead.”

With my shovel shouldered, I turned and hesitated. Headstones sprawled to the opposite tree line three hundred yards away, and between them rolled a thick mist. Cloud cover rolled in almost as if it were on a schedule. Darkness masked the moon and plunged the graveyard in a night so deep, and my flashlight flickered like a tiny shivering candle flame.

One foot in front of the other. That was all I needed to do. Just walk. Read headstones. Find the unmarked grave. Not that hard. Lost count of the graves I've dug up over the last decade. Like I mentioned earlier, Sam and Dean changed my life—for the better—the day we met. Digging up graves happened to be a part of the gig.

As I traipsed through the graveyard, headstones passed beneath my flashlight, materializing out of the dark mist. The light lingered long enough for me to see any sort of epitaph, then moved on, the stone vanishing into the fog once more. My mind wandered as that monotonous repetition seeped into my muscles, weary and aching. Hypnotized by the swinging flashlight—left, right, left, right—the graveyard faded away, the headstones ceased to exist, and I wandered aimlessly.

"Over here!"

Sam's booming baritone echoed through the darkness, a bodiless voice carried on a bone-chilling gust of wind. Another shiver coursed along my spine, and my flashlight quivered in my white-knuckled grip. Strange trees and unfamiliar headstones surrounded me, appearing and vanishing in the thick mist that languidly coiled through the graveyard. Sam's voice breached the silence again, emanating from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Each echoing thump of my heart beat faster than the previous. Each breath filled less and less of my lungs, shallow and thin. And each thought muddied the waters further as I waded through the muck until not a single coherent idea remained. Silence settled in, stilled the graveyard's night sounds, and death's icy breath lashed out at me.

Long seconds stretched so thin, one tick of my watch marked an entire lifetime. As my heart raced, its sharp staccato strikes drowned out the world. A moment, one terrifyingly calm instance of hyperawareness passed before I realized that thumping no longer beat in my head but from through the ground and into my chest. Horse hooves raced in the distance, and with each expeditious plot, they neared.

Pressure. A shift in the air behind me snapped my instincts into action. I wheeled about and brought the shovel to bear only to find more of the thick graveyard mist ambling between headstones and trees. Sam's voice echoed again. And again. And again. I tried to call back, but no sound escaped my throat, dry as the desert in a drought. Though desperate to move, my feet refused. Rooted in that hallowed ground, I firmly remained where I stood, my head spinning.

That was until I heard the most terrifying sound in recent memory.

The blood-curdling bray of a horse screeched through the night air, so shrill and ethereal. Impossibly sustained, the cry lingered an eternity. That haunting melody accompanied the thundering hooves’ rhythm, both building in a wild crescendo until out of the mist burst the stuff of nightmares.

Black as pitch, a horse bearing a headless rider barreled through the graveyard straight for me. Fire fanned from the steed’s wide eyes, and smoke blacker than his coat roiled from his nose. Bones and ligaments jutted through his muscles, and his jet black hide scored with whip lashes, runnels of blood, and burns beneath crimson and iron tack.

And yet, the horse paled in comparison to its burden. Astride the cursed beast sat a giant of a man clad in green armor so dark, it was nearly black. He wielded a fiery whip that cracked like thunder with a flick of his wrist, and in the other hand, he manifested a flaming cannonball. He hefted it high over his head—the empty void where his head should have been—and aimed.

Never in my life had I run so fast. Like lightning, I leaped through the graveyard, racing for whatever outlet I could find. Reaching tree branches snagged my coat, my jeans, and one sliced a gash across my cheek. Pain and fear fueled my survival, and the last ounce of hope I had desperately clung to echoed once more, so much closer.

“Y/N?!”

Sam’s shout distracted me a second too long; the fiery cannonball singed my hair as it hurtled past my head and destroyed a headstone. Graveyard turf caught my toe as I threw my arms up to shield myself from flying stone, and I crashed to the dirt face first. Blood poured from my nose and soaked my shirt as I scrambled to my feet. Whitehot pain rolled in waves across my face, and tears blurred my vision as I searched for my thrown flashlight and shovel. Thundering hooves closed on me, drawing closer and closer until my hand seized the metal grip of my shovel. I torqued my entire body and swung the bladed end with all my might.

The rider’s whip coiled high above his shoulders, then unfurled with a wicked snap of his arm. Inch by inch, the flaming bones rolled to me until time raced to catch up. The last foot disappeared in a single heartbeat. An earth-shattering crack of thunder rattled in my teeth as the bone whip wrapped around the steel shaft of my shovel. He snapped it from my hands with little effort and freed his whip, then raised it again for another strike.

Despite the fact that I knew I had no chance of escaping, I ran. Thunder rolled once more as the whip descended upon me. Sudden clarity steadied my heart as death’s icy chill breathed down my back once more. Final heartbeats counted down my last seconds as the whip’s scorching grasp coiled about my neck. Where time had once moved too fast, it slowed again, creeping until it stopped.

The world faded away to nothing. No sound, no light. No racing hooves or hearts. No shrill horse’s cry. No fire and no ice. No pain. Suspended in a nothingness sea, I drifted aimlessly. Lost. Even time’s relevance ceased to exist. The threads of my consciousness unraveled as though tugged by anxious fingers. Soon, I knew that I, too, would unweave until I remained nothing but a mere memory in other's minds.

Then a cry pierced the silence, muted, as though it belonged to someone else’s. Desperate, I focused every conscious sensation that yet belonged to me on that singular sound, a siren’s salvation, and clung to it. The voice thinned and focused, sharpened as though I dialed in on the perfect frequency until it burst through the emptiness and rendered me senseless.

And then I fell. Hundreds of thousands of feet, I descended, plummeting faster and faster as the shout continued to grow. Another voice joined, bellowing my name as I sank. The onslaught of vertigo ravaged every fiber of my pitiable existence as I tumbled through space and time until my mind and body reunited. Reality returned in a blossoming of flashlights, two men shouting in shock, and a freshly dug grave into which I dropped the final five feet. I screamed as I crashed onto the exposed coffin, then collapsed in a heap.

My first gasping breath dragged in dirt and grave rot, and I choked. Before I could string a coherent thought together, two sets of hands grasped me by the arms and hauled me from the grave. They set me on my feet, but I collapsed to the ground, sprawling on my back and stared up at a clear, cloudless night sky.

A cascade of brilliant stars dotted the emptiness, teaming with ancient light. Cool, clean air filled my lungs for the first pure breath I’d taken in a century. Clarity followed, and my first thought echoed between my ears like a struck church bell.

Did I just cheat death?

“Y/N?”

Sam’s strength slipped beneath my shoulders and legs as he hauled me into his lap. His face, knotted and twisted with worry, flooded my vision. “Y/N, are you okay?”

Inventory. No sliced cheek. No burnt hair, no broken nose. Most importantly, no burned lashes on my neck. I started a few thoughts before I settled on, “I think I’m fine.��

He seated me on the ground once more and sat beside me. Dean knelt as well and placed a stable hand on my shoulder. “What happened? One second, I was right behind you, and then the next, you were gone.”

The chilling scream of an undead horse echoed in the furthest recesses of my mind. “I saw it. The…” I stuttered as I motioned to my head. “He had a whip of bone engulfed in flames and a fiery cannonball.” I paused, seized by the memory of such fear. “He... he ran me down—”

“That’s it, I’m putting an end to this shit right now,” Dean interjected as he hopped into the grave.

Sam and I leaned over the edge as Dean pried open the old pinewood box. Wood splintered and popped as he made short work of the rotted enclosure. But then the top snapped free and fell aside to reveal nothing and everything all at once.

Ash and black scorch marks marred the entire interior of the coffin. “What the fuck?” Dean spat. He sifted through the ashes, flinging them about, searching. “No, this can’t be right, there has to be something—”

“Dad did it.” Dean and I both turned to Sam. “Thirty years ago, he had the same idea we did: roast the bones, send the spirit on.”

Dean turned back to the box and stared. A long minute passed as thumped his crowbar on his thigh, the gears in his head churning so hard, I swore I heard them. Then he replaced the cover and crawled from the grave with Sam’s help. He dusted off his jeans but remained silent as he paced, deep in thought.

I grasped Sam’s hand and hauled myself up to stand beside him. His warmth enveloped me as I curled into him, and he held me close. With a reassuring squeeze, he asked, “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I will be,” I sighed. “I think I…”

The thought trailed off as Dean began shoveling dirt back into the grave. “Son of a bitch ghost,” he spat with a violent stab of the shovel. “Fucking piece of shit curse.” Another stab. “Stupid fairy jerk.” Another stab. “Lame ass urban legends!”

“Dean!” Sam insisted, “what the hell are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?!” Dean barked. “We gotta get out of here and figure out what to do next before this circus freak shows up again.”

Sam sighed as he smoothed his hand across my shoulders and said, “You can head back to the car, I’ll help—”

“No!” I declared, far louder than I had intended. “Sorry, no. I’ll…” I spotted my shovel and flashlight lying not three feet away from me. Unwilling to question how either object had returned with me, I hefted both. “I’ll help. I need something to do.”

Concern clouded Sam’s visage, but he shrugged and made room for me to dig. As I started in, fresh memories flooded my mind’s eye, and I did my best to relive the moments as clearly—and objectively—as possible. Undead horse. Crimson tack. Headless rider. Fiery whip and cannonball. Green armor that could easily be mistaken for black.

“He was wearing green armor,” I stated.

Dean froze at that. “Green? Like the Gawain legend?”

“I assume so,” I replied as I continued shoveling. “I think we’re still on the right track. It’s an amalgamation of urban legends. The Hessian, the dulachan. Gawain. A fae-cursed german soldier that fought against the colonies during the American revolution. Not sure how the English legend plays into it though.”

“Maybe it doesn’t,” Sam said with a grunt. “Maybe being decapitated by an enemy soldier during a war is close enough to match the English urban legend.”

“Could be why he only comes back once a year,” I agreed.

Dean shook his head. “Let’s just get this grave filled and figure it out back at the motel.”

With a sense of finality on the topic, we continued to shovel. As I worked, I couldn’t help but lose myself in thought to the point where I hardly recalled shoveling. A filled grave stood before me less than half an hour later. Wordlessly, we gathered up our things, then turned our backs on the grave and started for the car.

No more than fifty yards from the unmarked headstone, Sam stopped first, frozen solid. I lurched to an awkward halt beside him, my hand held fast in his. I looked up to him and asked, “What’s… Sam?”

He stared straight ahead at the car, then looked at me. “Didn’t you hear that?”

“No,” I said as I turned to the Impala, then back to him. “What are you talking about?”

“C’mon, Sam, let’s—”

I heard it then; the relentless cry of a terrifying horse careened through the still graveyard. Dean had heard it too, his thought suspended, unfinished. The echoing bray of the horse faded as a fresh thundering of hooves clamored in the distance.

“Get to the car!”

My shout startled Sam and Dean into motion. The first hundred yards passed, but beating hooves pounded in from all sides. Another terrifying whinny screeched through the night, and in the last hundred yards to the car, my nightmare returned in full force.

The undead horse and its rider materialized from the mist and leaped the car’s trunk, heading straight for us. I screamed and skidded to a halt, then twisted to run back into the graveyard. Sam and Dean followed, catching my shorter gait in a few sprinting strides. With one final look over my shoulder, I spotted the headless rider gaining on us and shouted.

“We can’t outrun him!”

Ahead, Dean pointed at a wide paved path on the far side of the graveyard. “Follow that road! I’ve got an idea!”

“INTO THE WOODS?!” I screeched.

“Trust me!” he shouted back as we reached the road and turned towards the treeline.

I trusted Dean with my life. But he had not seen what I had. Just as the thought crossed my mind, an iron ball of fire lobbed past Dean’s head and landed in the asphalt, spraying dirt and rock. Dean leaped the divot and checked back over his shoulder. “Seriously, who throws fucking cannonballs at people?!”

Without a second to retort, we rounded a sharp curve in the path that twisted around a copse separated from the forest. On the other side sat a fork in the path, our only options left or right. At the last possible second, Dean darted right, and we followed. The road narrowed considerably, too small for a car to pass. Asphalt transitioned to dirt, and thick forest trees encroached. No light from the moon or stars penetrated the dense canopy above.

I checked behind me to see the rider and his nightmare steed gaining ground, no more than fifty yards away. “Dean, what are we doing?!”

He searched the trees, the path as his head whipped about, but I knew he saw nothing but the same desperate hope of salvation I sought. Thundering hooves counted down the final moments of our lives, one gallop after the next. Though I had seen dire situations hunting beside Sam, Dean, and Castiel over the years, none compared to the complete despair I felt in that moment, running ragged through the woods from the Headless fucking Horseman.

An urban legend was about to kill us. A friggin' fairytale told to scare kids.

Dean skidded to a halt so suddenly, Sam and I blasted twenty yards past him. I spun about gracelessly and gripped Sam’s arm for leverage. Behind us, Dean stood in a pool of opulent moonlight illuminating the dirt path through a clearing in the forest canopy. Beyond the lighted path, the rider and his horse closed the distance so fast, Dean risked losing his chance to escape.

"Dean, what are you doing?! Run!" Sam bellowed as he started for him.

"Sam, no! Stop!" I pleaded as I ran to catch him, but his legs proved too long and too fast for my own.

Despite his speed, I knew he'd never make it. An unseen force hindered him, as though the hands of the dead emerged from the ground and snatched at his ankles. He reached for Dean, his entire body straining and stretched to its fullest. The horse’s hooves pounded the dirt only a few yards away, but Dean stood fast, head held high and feet planted. And there in the darkness, I understood.

Dean knew something I did not. Something worth its weight in gold. Literally.

Heavy coins landed in the dirt as he backed into the shadows and flung his arm in a wide arc. Like so many shards of broken glass, they scattered. Each tumbled and turned end over end, glinting and glittering as they flipped and rolled to settle in the dirt.

With Dean's final cast of the dice, time stood still. He distilled everything that transpired that night in that singular moment. I watched helplessly as Dean stood defiant in the shadows, and Sam failed to reach him. The horse leaped the final feat as the rider raised his whip, coiling high over his shoulders. Hooves breached the moonlight as the rider brought down his arm in eternal judgment, the flaming lash his gavel. Horse and whip bore down on Dean, crossing the golden coins’ threshold and thoroughly bathed in brilliant moonlight. My last hope of salvation incinerated, and in that final second, I screamed.

But that second never came. In a single, raging beat of my heart, time, and reality reunited, and I hardly believed my eyes. Smoke and cinders smoldered at the horse's hooves, engulfing him and the rider to headless shoulders as though fire had caught dry tinder. The nightmare steed cried out its ethereal scream. The rider raised both hands, whip, and a new projectile brandished high until consumed by the squall. And then a turbulent gust scattered the ashes as though they had never existed.

My scream faded as it echoed through the woods. Sam whipped about, terrified eyes searching for me in the darkness. Found, he raced to me, and I grasped onto his arms. One massive hand cupped my cheek as he looked me in the eye, searched for any sign of injury, and begged for reassurance. I dove into his embrace then, unwilling to stand alone any longer. All my anger and fear drained in the safety of his arms as though it ran through a sieve.

A soft clinking of metal drew my attention past Sam, and I saw Dean gathering up the golden coins at his feet. He returned them to his pocket, then headed for us, dusting his hands on his thighs along the way. When he reached us, his typical smile spread across his lips, and he spoke.

"That's one way to waste a ghost."

"Is it…" I asked, hope clouding my better judgment.

"It'll buy us some time," Sam said with a reassuring squeeze of my shoulder. "We need to get back to the motel and figure out what's next."

Dean started back for the car first. "You know, I'm starting to wonder if it's a tul—"

"It's not a tulpa, Dean," Sam spat as he followed, urging me along beside him. "Seriously, we've only ever seen one of those things."

Dean shook his head and laughed sardonically. "It's got all the signs. A big ol' mess of urban legends and myths. An entire country that believes in it. And real power. I mean, did you see that thing, it damn near ran me down." When neither of us responded, he turned over his shoulder and his ridiculous grin faded. "What?"

"You could have died," I stated.

Of course, he shrugged. "But I didn't," he said as he pointed to his pocket. "Back up plan."

"Speaking of which," Sam said before I could give Dean a piece of my mind. "Where'd you get that idea?"

As we neared the fork, Dean jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at me. "That website. I looked up a little on each legend and found the dulachan is sort of banished for a hot minute if a gold coin is tossed in its path. So I figured, why not try twenty gold coins?"

"Try?" I repeated.

At the fork, he stopped and turned to face us. "I had a hunch."

A hunch. I knew what that meant. He had no clue. One or twenty, Dean had not the faintest notion if a gold coin would stop the spirit. No additional research. No supporting theories. Nothing. Just a fucking hunch and the confidence of a man with a death wish.

I opened my mouth, intent on giving Dean the tongue-lashing of his life. My hands shook as I parted from Sam, trembled as one coiled into a furiously extended index finger, and the other balled into a tight fist. Unbridled heat twisted in the pit of my stomach, contorted my face, and rattled in my throat as I began to speak.

But cold dread drowned my rage, and my words succumbed to that torrential fear. A ghastly pale man astride an equally pale horse rounded the sharp corner past the fork, less than twenty yards behind Dean. No clop of hooves announced his approach, no horse’s chuff, no clatter of tack. Silent as the dead, he followed the path and stopped only a stride short behind Dean.

I gawked openly, as did Sam, and when neither of us spoke, Dean glanced over his shoulder only to startle and shout as he leaped to my side. “Christ, man, don’t sneak up on a guy like that!”

The pale rider’s gaze lazily drifted down and stared each one of us in the eye. Otherworldly, he appeared as though he had been ripped from his timeline and placed in ours. A three-point hat covered his long hair tied back with a thin leather strap, and a once-fine wool coat covered his linen shirt and felted vest. Thin gloves sheathed his hands, holding the reins. Heavy wool pants draped loosely down the thigh to gather at the knee where thick stockings tucked in beneath. Wide-buckled shoes with short heels completed the ensemble.

A gray layer of ash covered the rider, his clothes, his tack, and his horse, most terrifying of all.

“Good evening, my lords, my lady. Would any of you know the way to the schoolhouse? I seem to have gotten lost again…”

I glanced at Sam, who shook his head, then Dean. He cleared his throat and said, “We’re not from around here.”

“Pity,” the rider said. A twitch of the reins shifted his horse down the path to his right. “It’s always this fork that gives me trouble. Mayhaps the right will prove correct this time.” With a gentle prod of his heels, the horse obeyed and began walking once more. “A good evening to you all.” He tipped his hat as he passed, then turned ahead for the trail.

The sudden need to confirm my suspicions gripped me like a vice. Talk about a wild hair.

“Wait!” I squirmed from Sam and Dean’s arms and followed the rider. “Who are you?”

The horse turned broadside as the rider’s glassy stare fell upon me once more. Though I knew the answer before he spoke, my fingers and toes burned with anticipation.

“I��m the new teacher. Ichabod Crane.”

He turned back to the path with a final touch to his hat, and his horse started ahead once more. The dark depths of the forest swallowed him whole, vanishing as though a figment of my imagination.

Wordlessly, I returned to Sam and Dean, who also said nothing. A stunned silence followed us the remainder of the walk back to the car. Without anything to pack up—I made a mental note to recover our shovels and flashlights, lest they be found later—Dean slid in behind the wheel and started her up. I slipped into the backseat, beyond exhausted and unsurprised to find Sam there as well. Unintrusive, his fingers slipped between mine, and I clung to him, an anchor in a sea of madness.

Dean grasped the steering wheel, white knuckles twisting over the leather and a thousand-mile stare gazing through the windshield. When Sam tapped him on the shoulder, he shook his head as if to clear his thoughts, then wrenched the shifter into drive.

Through the gate and past the church, we returned to the main road. Small town Sleepy Hollow passed us by as though we drifted through another world. Halloween decorations no longer appeared quaint or impressive; grisly murals and disturbing effigies hooked into fresh memories, and I looked to Sam for solace. For comfort. For grounding.

And it worked. Kaleidoscope colors diffused the dull gray world around me. Only Sam and the distant, soothing rumble of the Impala remained. Though fear roiled in the pit of my stomach, a renewed sense of hope tempered that heat. Special. I’d meant it in jest earlier. Sam didn’t make me feel special. He helped me feel. In a world where I blocked out so much, he managed to give me something worth feeling again.

Just like that, the Impala undulated up and over the driveway as Dean turned into the parking lot of the motel. In his spot before our door, he snapped the shifter into park and slumped back in his seat. A long moment of silence stretched between us all until he sighed.

“Son of a bitch.”

REBLOGS AND FEEDBACK ARE AWESOME. IF YOU WANT IN ON THE TAGS, SEND ME AN ASK OR A DM!

THE MIDNIGHT RIDE MASTER LIST

ALLEIRADAYNE’S SPN MASTER LIST

#alleiradayne writes #spn fanfic #spn fanfiction #supernatural fanfic #supernatural fanfiction #dean winchester #dean winchester fanfic #dean winchester fanfiction #sam winchester #sam winchester fanfic #sam winchester fanfiction

30 notes · View notes

susoftjockau · 4 years

Text

The Plan - Part Four (Carly) + Epilogue

There was a reason Carly was written last on the list she and Steven had back at the food truck.

One fact to recall was the cold intensity of her dorm mate — who, throughout her moments of bumping into her in the early mornings to pack up and get ready for classes — always brushed her aside and never spoken a word or greeting before going through the front door. Sure, they shared the same kitchen island, brewing their favorites — coffee and tea, eating the same ingredients to survive the day, but the atmosphere she bore off was akin to a snake observing the trappings of a mouse.

In other words, she was scary. Very scary.

Yet even with this insight, Connie tried her best to talk to her, watching shows on the couch as time went by. The shows varied from the casual viewing: there was Under the Knife, going on for twenty minutes before they moved on; Poindexter, which took an hour until interest became fleeting at the newest season; Dogcopter 3 — which Carly laid down the inevitable rating of ‘mediocre and a disaster to the Dogcopter franchise’; and many other shows and movies that didn’t live up to their expectations and excitement for the day.

It wasn’t exciting, well; it felt exciting in its own way. Even with the notion they had to hang out for a great period of time, there weren’t any pushes to speak. It was just the two of them, watching fictional characters go through life in the most poetic or dumbest ways a writer could implement them to do. Connie wished it stayed that way. She loved staying in this perpetual state of media watching, no discourse to be found except for the occasional comments from both of them on how an anime didn’t work out or how a particular movie would rather flaunt its busty women around than a coherent plot.

But Carly found a way to break that silence.

And it was all because of Clockwork Philosopher; that and its remake.

Connie was the type to defend, be the morally correct debater for stuff such as Clockwork Philosopher and its remade counterpart, but that’s the tricky part when it came to that anime series in question: there were committed fans from both ends, ready to fight to the teeth on what they believe is crucial, even if Philosopher’s Solitude version was the best piece of media she’d ever consumed in all her seventeen years of living. Carly was the one who didn’t believe such a statement, and, much to Connie’s dismay, was okay with arguing this over hot cocoa and tea.

It didn’t come out of nowhere. It was a gradual rise where both of them brought upon comments of the characters, of the plot, of the people they rooted for and somehow it all lead up to the discussion on which was better: Clockwork Philosopher or the Solitude version.

Which one had the appeal? Which one carried favorability to both of them?

Connie chose Solitude.

Carly, to her surprise, chose the original.

When asking her why, Carly responded.

“Solitude didn’t play up to what I expected.” It was calm, the type of voice that sounded matter-of-fact if one focused, if one took the time to listen to the lilt in her words. “Instead of giving me an interesting dichotomy between characters and commentary over the human experience, I got shounen caricatures — no tinkering with archetypes, nothing about how they full-on cope; just people who don’t change, keeping up with their platitudes rather than having it be challenged to the brink.”

“But they do though.” She kept herself to the sidelines with this whole debacle, but there was a passion riding her words, hidden in the need to keep herself composed and correct. Debating was something she always had a passion for. There was something intense in being able to argue with someone over something you’ve researched or binged for so long, like the reward was to gloat or get some form of digital pat on the back for one’s diligence towards the whole thing.

They fumbled with their cups, warm to the touch, allowing their television to go on with a scene from the anime in question. Connie continued on. “What you’re saying goes against a great deal with Solitude. People have been subverted, given life and roles in the anime than in the original, they’re seen as people rather than cardboard cut-outs.”

Carly gave a nod to that. Another sip greeting the quiet. “I’m curious. Can you explain more of your reasons?”

And the argument would continue forth for a while.

Both watched the other in this state of bliss and gripes in their tranquil bubble. At first, Connie tried her best to not get involved. She liked conflict where the future of it was determined, not given the option to roam around in probability, to whatever hellish path in consequences it had in mind. She added her pieces, given viewpoints that should’ve brought Carly to her knees, yet Carly didn’t heed.

Carly was composed throughout it. With that curious look of hers, eyeing her with no malice but of intense scrutiny akin to a magnifying glass. Something about it left her restless, lost in a myriad of threads where they would babble and discuss the anime in such a way that Connie had no clue when it would end; whether they would stop it altogether and just allow themselves to watch was an inevitable question — and the answer was: they wouldn’t.

Connie wanted that win. That satisfaction of saying ‘ahah’ to the woman’s face, and Carly — illegible as ever — seemed to prod at her, cornering her in ways that made her feel heated and tense. How could she be so calculated over this? Usually when Connie argued it was over forums where another would get aggressive, ready to rip her teeth out with emotion rather than facts, and when that happened she felt accomplished, morally justified, for she took it with stride. There weren’t any moments where she’d notice a dip in her words or her viewpoints (everything looked solid, put-together, thought out). But not here.

Just...hell no. Not here.

Carly clicked her tongue, harsh and quick. The warmth of their cups were gone, drank to the drenches with nowhere else to go but onto the coffee table in front of them. Connie was tapping her knee. The other didn’t seem to fidget, or sweat, or babble; she looked poised. It was irritating to watch now that the argument had gotten more intense.

“Look.” She started, with that same passive tone to her that made Connie want to groan out in annoyance. But Connie was supposed to be kind, respectful. She wasn’t going to blow a gasket over an argument like this, she wasn’t that petty. “An anime could be the most perfect piece of media in all the land, but that still won’t bargain with me. If they hit the objective writing goals then I don’t care — good on them for being responsible writers, following and conforming to the status of writing in general — but if a writer can’t make me feel the humanity in them, then it’s not worth it. If they can’t get out of their comfort zone and go beyond then there’s no point, it’s boring to me.”

“But they do go beyond.” Connie gritted her teeth, watching the woman continue to stare at her, with that muted expression of hers. She was always calm, always the one to resolve and be the strong and morally-correct debater with animes such as this, but it was hard to stare at Carly with this feeling, this lack of victory. There was the crushing reality that this wasn’t the internet; that the choice to just walk away with that feeling of accomplishment was long gone at this point. So everything to her fell flat, each argument that rose from her lips cornered to something incomprehensible. There was one last argument she had in her mind. Like one would grapple straws, she used it. In her heart, in her timid but firey heart, she wanted to win. “They didn't even give the female characters the moments to be fully realized in the original until Solitude showed off their competency and involvement!"

"But it isn't." Carly's expression kept mute, voice level. It pinched at her, hard. God, why is everything getting crowded? Scorching to the collar? "When it came to character, the original nailed it down. Solitude gave the screen time, but not the true exploration of mankind."

"But you're ignoring the characters they've done justice."

"I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"I'm just being level and open-minded," Carly said. "You don't have to get so heated about this if you’re going to be a sore loser over this."

She shot up.

"Can you stop being a bitch about this!?" Connie widened her eyes at that. Looking at Carly, something shifted in her expression too, illegible and foreign, terrifying to process.

She never did that before, she never did that before to anyone in real life.

She fucked up. She fucked up.

Carly's going to hunt her down for this, condemn her to some weird-ass college version of the Salem trials, and it's all her fau—

"Feels good, doesn't it?"

Connie looked at her: Carly's eyes crinkled in amusement, a grin on her features — genuine, no malice to be found. "What?"

"Don't just stand there." Carly ushered her. "Go on, tell me!"

"I don't know, I'm sor—"

"You don't like my opinions." Carly continued, voice rising a bit. "You don't want to agree with them; why are you trying to conform and stay silent when you could tell me that my opinions could be debated?"

"Because that would be rude!"

"What's more rude?" She motioned towards the show. "Telling me that Shou Tucker isn't a bastard or yelling at me that my way of arguing could be jarring to listen to?"

Connie stumbled, words spilling out in incoherent rivers — all the justifications and reasons became cut-up, cut off as she tried to find some silver of rationality that would make Carly back down. But she did like the fight...didn't she?

"Give me your fire, Maheswaran." Carly's eyes narrowed. "Or I'll bring my honest-to-God opinions to the table."

She hesitated. "What honest opinions?"

"About anything we're discussing right now. In fact, I'm planning to bring out the big guns."

"What do you—"

"SAO."

No.

No no no no no.

"You wouldn't."

"I would."

Connie saw the grin, the eagerness, and she couldn't help but feel it rub off on her — the same expression adorning her features.

Carly took it as the go-to, for the next statement hit both of them like a gunshot:

"SAO isn't bad of a show."

She really liked this, didn’t she?

-----

“Well, that’s good!” Steven had that beam of a smile again, starting to lean more against the table — which Connie advised against before the table could rock more at his weight. “Like I said, three is better than nothing. You did amazing!”

In retrospect, she saw that too. There was still the awkwardness with many of them, but she now had something better: a few acquaintances (friends, they were friends) who are okay with having her in the group, making things easier if she needed it. Connie rubbed her neck, trying her best to respond. “Yeah. But the next few days aren’t going to be great.”

In their plan, they had a few things settled. One of them was the idea of hangouts, wherein their attempts to make her loosen up and relax to Steven’s group of friends, she’ll be exposed to them interacting with her for a great deal of the day. And the idea didn’t feel pleasant. It felt claustrophobic more than anything.

She looked down. Steven’s hand was on hers, warmth spreading to her knuckles as the man kept his grip. It was soft, tender. He wasn’t going to hurt her, and that always was a fact when it came to Steven. A sweetheart by trade. “You don’t have to do it immediately. It doesn’t have to be today or tomorrow or even in a few months. It all comes down to how comfortable you are.”

Connie smiled at him, giving the man a small nod. “I’ll tell you when I’m ready, okay?” She shifted their hands, allowing her to reciprocate his hold, allowing their intertwined fingers to play and brush against the other. “I want to hang out with you. I want to hang out with your friends. I just need some time.”

He hummed. “Alright. We’ll start on your word.”

It was a relief to know he was careful. It was a relief to know that he cared.

- @borkthemork

#steven universe #su au #fic #connverse #su #The Plan #year one

83 notes · View notes

chemartsblog · 4 years

Text

For Love of Sassy Brunettes

Pairing: Steve/any sassy brunette, BrOTP Steve & Bucky

Summary: Bucky knows there’s one thing that get’s Steve’s engine going: Sassy Brunettes.

For the Love of Sassy Brunettes

If Bucky could pin it on a singular event, he’d say that Steve found his fondness for brunettes when a nine-year old Chloe Dayzula saved his pasty ass from the local bullies. The girl was fierce with brown curls, tanned skin, brown eyes and a mouth that’s not afraid to sass anyone out. Normally, Bucky could easily take out Donald Stump and his crew, but he wasn’t there that day and those bullies tried too advantage of it.

Fortunately, Chole was, and she did not like seeing those bullies beating down the sick kid with asthma. From the way Steve and the other kids tell it, that spitfire literally kicked Donald Stump’s ass to the ground. Then she got in-between the bully and Steve, put her hands on her hips and yelled, “My dog’s got bigger balls than you, Stump. Go play on the train tracks if you wanna show off your manliness.”

That right there…that image of a strong sassy brunette defending the weak was burned into Steve’s memories forever.

When Bucky got on the scene, Steve was a stuttering red mess as he tried to thank the girl. “I-I don’t know how I could thank you, Chloe.” Steve mumbled, shifting slightly on his feet.

Chloe had grinned and batted her eyelashes prettily. “You could get ice cream with me.”

Steve looked like he just found gold on a well-trodden road. He smiles eagerly, “Y-yeah of course—em sure yeah!”

Bucky has to bite his fist to stop himself from laughing, but at least Chloe found it endearing. She laughed and took his hand, taking him towards the ice cream shop. When Steve looked back, Bucky gave him two thumbs up and mouths a ‘good luck’.

Steve and Chloe ‘date’ for a month until she had to leave with her parents to go to another state. It’s the first time Bucky sees Steve cry over a girl.

_*_*_

Over the years, Bucky starts seeing a trend in Steve’s crushes. Almost all of them are brunettes and who usually show a hint of fire in them. As far as Bucky knew, they were all girls until Yin Pothong transferred to school. The fourteen-year-old boy was tall, lithe and very very handsome. Even Bucky couldn’t stop his double glances at the teen’s exotic features. The wavy tussle of dark brown hair rested neatly on his head, his eyes a deep dark black that makes all the girls (and boys) melt.

They said his parents were mixed, which is why he looks so damn good. Bucky can believe it, and Steve definitely believed it.

It was probably the third time Steve tripped over his legs when Yin passed by during gym, and Bucky’s had enough of his friend’s painful mooning. So he does the ‘good friend’ thing and calls Yin over to them during break. The tall amiable boy smiles brightly and waves at Bucky and Steve.

“Hi Bucky.” Then he turns his brown eyes to his red quivering friend. “Hi Steve.”

Steve is a statue. A very red gaping statue.

Bucky clears his throat, “Ahem, y’know Yin, Steve is also a big fan of the Brooklyn Robins. We got tickets to one of the games on Saturday, but I can’t make it…” he hints.

Yin grins. “I’d be happy to; if Steve’s okay with it?” He answers glancing to the still statuesque teen.

Bucky discretely grinds down on Steve’s foot, and somehow snaps him out of his stupor.

“Y-yeah yes—well—I mean—that is—!”

An exasperated Bucky delivers another quick jab to the stuttering teen’s side, and Steve manages to get himself together to string a coherent sentence.

“Yes. Yes. I definitely wouldn’t mind. Love to have you there, Yin.” Steve finishes lamely.

It doesn’t seem to discourage Yin, which is a good sign. The handsome brunette takes out a piece of paper and writes his address and home number on it.

“Here, call me if anything comes up. Otherwise we should meet up at my place before the game. Probably 12? My mom probably would want to make lunch for us.” He says.

Steve takes the piece of paper like it’s the most precious artifact in the world, and looks at Yin with wide eyes. “Y-yeah 12 is good.”

“Great! See you then, Steve.” And Yin takes off, heading towards another group of people.

Bucky grins, “Smooth dude.”

“Shut up, Buck. You were the same way with Mellissa.”

“That’s because I got lost in those massive tits.”

Steve slaps his friend’s arm playfully. “You’re an animal.”

“Never said I wasn’t.” Bucky grins.

They pause and Steve asks carefully, “So you’re okay if I’m…a little queer?”

Bucky grins and ruffles his friend’s hair. “Tits, pecs, dicks, vag’s. Doesn’t matter to me. You’re still the most awkward fucking dude I know.”

“Ha-ha.” Steve retorts, but there’s a relieved grin on his face.

_*_*_

One of the strangest things Bucky starts recalling during his imprisonment is all the faces of Steve’s crushes. For whatever reason, the drone of the names and faces going through his brain are enough to keep him relatively sane during the kooky doctor’s experiments.

If some of the guards give him weird looks every time he starts listing the names of Steve’s sassy brunette crushes, well…he’s too tired of Nazi shit to care.

In fact he’s just in the middle of talking about Yin when lo and behold Steve comes barging through the door. Well he thinks it’s Steve, but this Steve is waaay bigger than the Steve he remembers. Is this a hallucination?

“Who’s the sassy brunet who saved you on the playground when Donald came after you?” Bucky asks suspiciously. Big-Steve snorts and answers, “Chloe Dayzula. My first crush.”

Bucky looks him up and down. “Huh. What happened to you?”

“I joined the army.” Is the easy answer.

Whatever, Bucky’s too tired to complain or think too hard on it.

_*_*_

The moment Bucky recovered and laid eyes on Elizabeth ‘Peggy’ Carter, he knew. He didn’t even have to look at Steve standing beside him. Peggy is the whole package, and he’s going to gloat at their wedding.

Honestly, Bucky gets it. Peggy is hot, dangerous and has the look of someone who’s not afraid to kick your ass. He’d be jealous if it was anyone but Steve. As it was, he’s more than happy to play wingman to the dork. And Steve really needs it. The two idiots dance around each other like nobody’s business. It’s one of the worst cases of pining Bucky’s ever seen. The air around them tense and sizzling with unsaid promises. Every eye at the bar on the two, asking will they? Are they?

It’s kinda cute how Steve’s changed so much but still retained that awkward boyish attitude when it comes to women. Bucky would have laughed if he hadn’t seen this same dance for the past eighteen years. Still, it’s cute that Steve found a dangerously hot brunette in the army of all things.

Bucky puts down his drink and sits across from Steve, eyes gleaming and smirk sharp.

“So…Peggy.” He starts.

Steve sighs, “Bucky…”

“What?” he asks innocently. “I’m just stating the name of our very pretty, very brunette, and very spicy lady.”

“If she hears you say that she’ll fill you with lead and then turn you inside out before doing it again.” Steve retorts.

Bucky shivers. “Yup you’re right about that, but what if you said that?”

“She’d have to use the bigger guns.”

“Alright, fair enough.” Bucky acquiesces. “But seriously, it’s like I wasn’t even there. Did you forget that I was standing next to you?”

Steve chuckles. “I could never forget you, Bucky.”

“Better not. I snagged you that hot boyfriend, Yin.”

“No you didn’t.” Steve denies.

“Yes I did, Steve don’t even start. If I hadn’t dropped in with that whole, ‘oh no. I can’t go to the baseball game’ schtick, you’d have been mooning over him until he moved.”

The larger man sighs, “Yeah you’re probably right. He was something.”

“Like a Peggy something?” Bucky grins.

Steve pushes Bucky, and this time, it actually topples the man down.

“Oh shoot, I’m sorry Buck!” Steve cries as he helps his friend up. Bucky waves him away.

“Eh bound to happen someday.” He says. “But you owe me.”

“What do you want?”

“I call best man.” Bucky grins.

Steve laughs. “Win the war first; then we can talk about weddings.”

(Bucky’s last thought as he falls is: Damn I’ll miss my best friend’s wedding.)

_*_*_

Seventy years would change everything and nothing. Steve convinced him to stay after the whole Hydra debacle, and they were able to rescue his mind with Stark and Shuri’s help. The first thing he does after staggering out of the pod is hug Steve, holding onto his brother and best friend tightly.

“Sorry about Peggy.” He mutters.

Steve smiles sadly and pats his back, “It’s okay. She lived a good life.”

“I’m glad.”

Of course, Stark isn’t really one for sappy reunions and snaps at the two. “Uhhh…why don’t I see any loving for the two amazing geniuses that recovered your brain?” he sasses. “I’m just saying that we saved your brain. With our brains and a lot of cool science stuff.”

Bucky glares at the man and then turns to Steve. He leans close to his ear and whispers, “I swear to God Steve if you’ve got a boner for that guy…”

The silence and tension in his shoulders is all he needs to know. Bucky groans and drops his head against Steve’s shoulder.

“Uuuugggghhhh.” He intones dramatically.

Steve pats his head. “Sorry, buddy.”

“You owe me so much for this.”

_*_*_

At least Steve makes good on his promise and gives Bucky the honor of best man. Take that Sam!

Bucky raises his glass in a toast and grins. “Tony, of all the sassy brunettes that Steve has liked over the years, you would be the last one I thought Steve would marry.”

Tony sends him the middle finger, but Bucky just laughs it off and continues. “But you really stepped up and showed that you’re the best one for my brother. So best of luck to Steve and you. You’re probably the only two people who could marry each other without going insane.”

The dining hall is filled with laugher and applause as Bucky bows and takes a seat. After the wedding ceremony, Steve comes up and gives him a hug and a playful punch. Stark actually does the human thing and gives Bucky a proper hug too.

“Wow is the world ending?” Bucky jokes.

Tony rolls his eyes. “You weren’t funny seventy years ago and you aren’t funny now.”

“Rude. Steve are you going to let your husband talk to your brother-in-law like that?”

Said man rolls his eyes in response. “I’m not getting in-between your weird play-feuds. Just don’t have another Poptart incident.”

“Hey that was all Thor.” Tony complains.

Bucky nods vigorously, “Yeah we hardly had anything to do with it!”

“Clint, Bruce and Tasha think differently. Even Thor thinks differently.”

“Figures.” Bucky mutters. “They always blame the class clowns.”

“I’m more of a class genius.” Tony retorts.

Before the two can get into another bickering session, Steve hauls them towards the photographer. They get one good picture, and then Bucky somehow gets cake all over Tony and it’s just pandemonium from there. Steve is fine with it. It wouldn’t be a Stony wedding without an impromptu food fight.

_*_*_

Bucky should have known something like this would happen. Steve is the biggest sap he knew and Tony is no better. Especially when it comes in a cute seven-year-old package.

Steve saved this tiny child from a bombing in Queens. Unfortunately, poor Peter lost his aunt and uncle during the attack, leaving the child with no home to go to. Steve only had to give the authorities his best, Captain America look before they’re handing him the paperwork to take the child into his temporary custody once Peter’s been cleared by the doctor’s.

Bucky should have known it would be anything but temporary.

And it got worse when Tony found out the child’s potential genius. The two children were busy playing in the lab all day, and Steve just looked over them like a proud mother duck. Bucky would have torn his hair out if it wasn’t so damn cute.

Of course, Tony and Steve filed for adoption within a week of knowing Peter, and soon they’ll have a newly minted Peter Parker-Stark-Rogers.

Bucky sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, while Steve gives him the biggest puppy-dog eyes as he tucks Peter close.

“Steve.” Bucky says.

“Bucky.”

His friend looks at Steve then at the small child in Steve’s arms and honestly, Bucky’s a stupid sap too because he gets it.

“I call godfather.” Bucky replies.

“You’ll have to fight, Clint, Thor, and Bruce for that honor.” Steve answers.

“What about godmother?”

“You’ll have to fight Tasha and Pepper for it.”

“I’ll try my hand at godfather.”

“Good idea.”

Bucky shakes his head in amusement. “I always knew you had a weakness for sassy brunettes, but this wasn’t what I expected to come out of it.”

“Because I married Tony?” Steve asks.

Bucky shakes his head and looks meaningfully at the small child who’s building some kind of spider robot with Legos.

Steve looks offended and gasps. “Peter is not sassy.”

“Yeah Uncle Buck, I’m not sassy. I’m an angel.” Peter…well sasses.

His old friend only has to give Steve a look and the sheepish man just shoots Bucky a wry grin.

“What can I say? I have a type.”

#stony #marvel mcu #steve rogers #tony stark #bucky barnes #fanfiction #fic #art #peter parker #steve and tony adopt peter #platonic stukky

17 notes · View notes

four-loose-screws · 4 years

Note

What would you rank all the fire emblem games that you have played.

Thank you for waiting, anon! This essay is finally finished! XD I don’t know if either of us ever intended for this to end up so long, but it did.

It’s interesting to see how each person experiences each game, so I hope everyone enjoys reading this. If anyone wants to ask questions for more details or just for conversation, please do!

I did a tier grouping ranking as well as ordering from bottom -> top, because that helped explain my feelings a little better. This isn’t really reflecting my nostalgia or personal feelings for the characters/world quite as much as “how much fun I had in my initial playthrough(s).” Because I think that’s what these sorts of lists are generally asking for.

First, I’d like to make a general statement about why I love FE games so much: Well, most simply it’s because I have more fun playing FE than any other series. That much is obvious though, right? I also love them because they all stand out in their own way, with their own unique combination of features, and because they are all super ambitious titles. It may lead to some rushing and half-baked ideas, but ambition is what excites me the most in any series. Even if the creators are not able to fully realize the ideas they had, the hard work still wows me as I play, and I can see hints of the full vision they had in every nook and cranny. Even the lowest games on this list are pretty high up there for me in fun level. The “fun but flawed” games just had glaring issues that interrupted the fun from time to time.

...FEs 1 & 3 are overall exceptions to the “unique and standing out rule,” being early games in the series; and FE6 set up post-Famicom FE, so it’s pretty basic, too - but they still get their own awards for setting a solid foundation for a fun video game series that withstands the test of time.

I can’t fully explain it, why I attached to FE the most over all other game series out there. But when I play FE, I usually don’t think about what’s not so great about the games. I just have fun. The gameplay always has me thinking, and I get engrossed in the stories and unlocking convos and supports.

Basic Tier

These games are really hard to judge properly in the ranking system, because they are just so basic for the series.

FE1 / FE11

When FE11 came out, I remember it getting so much flack for being really, really boring. But I didn’t get that. I like FE gameplay and storytelling at its core, so I don’t need the bells and whistles to have a good time. I knew this is where the series started, and was surprised with what content there was considering this is a remake of a game on the Famicom (NES).

FE1 set a very solid foundation for what the core of the series would be. Load it up next to a modern game, and it feels so the same and different all at once. I’ve only played a little bit of FE1 itself. I just can’t get through it because FE11 is SO similar to FE1, so you really only have to play one to get the whole experience. I didn’t feel like playing the same game over again at the time, so FE1 is still on my unfinished list.

Basic, solid foundation for the ages / 10

FE3 / FE12

After FE11 played it “safe” and took an “upgraded graphics with a few new ideas tacked on” approach, I was blown away by how much FE12 did, even if it was more for worse than better sometimes. It added so many conversations, was the first to tinker with the idea of a more fleshed out Avatar, added more story… and so on.

From what I’ve read recently, the new story stuff isn’t that great, but I don’t remember now. I’ve only played this game once. Overall, despite some clunk with the giant maps and so on, this game really challenged itself to improve from FE11, and it’s how I learned to love remakes that aren’t afraid to deviate from and add a lot to the original!

Set the stage for what kind of fun and ambition an FE remake could have / 10

FE3 is way more of a classic than any of us in the West can truly understand. It sold insanely well (the best in the series until Awakening I believe?), challenged the programmers to put FE1 on the cart as well, long before re-releases were a thing in the industry, and the game even made it to the Super Famicom Mini! I haven’t played it yet because again, it’s hard to get the motivation to play through the slow speed and clunkiness when I’ve already experienced the remake, but I’m looking forward to it some day.

The good ol’ days of the Super Famicom & SNES / 10

FE6

This was the first game without Kaga (the series original creator), so it set the stage for a future without him. The series might have strayed far from his plans for story and such, but this game, while it was pretty basic, firmly established a new foundation for the series on a new system, and gave a glimpse of what greatness the future had in store.

Overall though, this game is harder to commit to memory than others, except for classic characteristics like how terrible Roy is until, finally, BAM he gets his sword in the final stretches of the game; and running in circles from Douglas so you can avoid fighting him and successfully recruit him after the chapter.

Awkward, but sets a solid foundation for post-Kaga and post-Famicom FE / 10

Fun But Flaws Distracted From The Fun A Lot Tier

FE16

I really, really hate to say it, because this game tries to mix up the FE formula with the school setting and other new features and changes, and brought in a good mix of old and new, just like all the other FE games. But this game left very little impact on me for such a big experience. And I’m leaving out the fact that trying to play all four routes is dull as heck when I place the game this low. I’m basing it off of just how much I enjoyed the first playthrough.

Overall, I was most turned off by the class system. Which is funny, because I’ve seen others praise this as FE’s best class system. Everyone’s different. Classic classes like troubadours are just gone. The top tier classes are super limiting. Of course, you can just stop one tier down, but that’s not emotionally satisfying to me - I want my characters to reach the top! Despite having such free choice, I feel more limited than anything. If they’d just stopped at 4 tiers and not tried to go to 5, I think that would have been best. They had to stretch out the available classes too much to get to 5. ...Although being able to have an army of dragon riders is awesome, I’ll give it that. Dragons are too cool.

I was also really disappointed by the story. Fire Emblem has established that it can write a really emotional plot, and not be afraid to pull punches, with games like 4 and 8. I was expecting a huge contrast between part 1, where everyone is friends and classmates, and part 2, where war rips them apart, transforms them into different people, and forces them to brutally slaughter each other.

But in reality…the hate between Dimitri and Edelgard has nothing to do with the school at all… That was jarring to me. Of course there is no one right direction to take a story in. But the worldbuilding and story writing… feels even less coherent than Fates. That’s an accomplishment.

This is the one time I say ambition was really just too much. The game didn’t get enough polish. A game about the seasons doesn’t even have seasonal differences...

While my friends who don’t usually play Fire Emblem have had a fantastic experience with this one, after all I’ve been through, I found that I liked other FE’s more.

I think the best part about this game is the characters and supports. After Fates had a ton of supports in it just because it had to have them, the creators of this game weren’t afraid to change up the support formula once more, so they could balance quality and quantity. ...And then, ironically, this game went for the (almost entirely) mute, personality-less avatar character. Funny how that works out. XD

Dragon Lord Army Go! / 10

FE14

I feel this game deserves way more credit than it gets, while also agreeing with the critiques. The ambition was as great as ever. But then it got stuck in development hell and we got what we got. (For those who don’t know, the team was divided in two - the team that wanted a more fanservic-y experience, and the one that wanted to make a standard FE.)

I think the gameplay is the best part of this game, Conquest is great, and the gimmicks are indeed gimmicks, but still fun. In offering three different experiences, the entire package will please few, but that was the point of the multiple routes, to give everyone one route they would like, not to please everyone with all three.

But beyond the gameplay, the story is all over the place, the multiple routes just create more questions than answers; and features like an increased number of support convos and children feel like they are there only because of a desire to bring back “popular” features. After multiple food/cooking supports in a row, I couldn’t take it any more. There was so little that the characters were actually talking about in their supports vs. Awakening. I generally feel that more supports = better, because character interaction through supports is of course a highlight of post-Famicom FE, but in this case, the numbers did not do any favors.

Bringing back weapons that don’t break didn’t feel well done, either. I just ended up using basic weapons the whole time because I didn’t want to deal with the drawbacks of the higher level weapons.

Back to a positive for me: The hub world was neat, though it needed some convoluted story writing to be included. I was amused by going through the different features and collecting the items. I agree with Nintendo of America taking out the “petting minigame,” but since I lived in Japan when Fates released, it was amusing to do on the train and weird out the bored Japanese people who peered over my shoulder.

Since all three routes were different, this game was fun enough until the end in comparison to Three Houses, of which I am STILL trying to slog through the last route one year after release. But Fates was made for every route to be different, whereas Three Houses was not, so it’s not surprising I feel like that.

But time for the real talk about this game… why is everyone’s HP so low??? What happened?????

Up and down and all around in quality from start to finish / 10

FE15

I really want to like this game more. Oh, do I. It’s absolutely GORGEOUS, the character art makes my heart skip a beat, the game proved that full voice acting does fit FE really well, it fleshed out things like the dungeon crawling & story, and added support conversations & skills, etc. while still staying kind of basic, retaining the feeling that the original was on the NES. The momentum for the fun and ambition that an FE remake could have transitioned well from FE12 to here and led to this being a stunningly presented game.

But the creators totally missed the point on what were the defining features of the game in my opinion, and that mismatch of vision ruined a lot for me. I loved the imbalance, struggling as I placed my units in corners of maps just to survive, until I obtained all those OP items, and my super soldiers marched into battle and did wild and amazing things. Valbar with +5 move and 40 speed with the Speed Ring is the one thing I remember the best of FE2 and oh man was it fun, and did I love it.

And I mean, I understand why the creators weren’t going to keep that imbalance, it doesn’t make the game good for everyone. It’s just something I found fun, and made the game stand out among the other FEs. But the developers really just replaced old imbalance with new imbalance, the dread fighters being the one thing I remember in particular.

And they defined FE2’s best defining features as “the maps and the terrain effects” and I just did not agree. That was the stuff I DISLIKED about FE2! And that’s what they wanted to keep most? The terrain that made battles one giant miss, and the gigantic maps where I’d spend half the time just getting to the enemies? No thanks.

Then the story only cranked up the horrible treatment of the women, with Faye… being Faye, and I hated the direction they went in with Celica’s story... Ugh.

For every step or two forward, there’s one back / 10

FE10

FE games are always ambitious, but this one cranked the dial up to 10 and tripped over itself a lot. Still, it provided (even if it is info dumped) an intense and satisfying ending to the Tellius saga, and is another classic for the ages. I found the pacing boring and slow until then, though.

I think now that I’m older I can appreciate the story much, much more - and how it shows the story and aftermath of the Mad King’s War from multiple points of view - but the lack of the support conversations, and too much going on for any aspect of this game to be properly refined, still make this one lower on my list.

If only I could have played it more than once, to really get a good memory of the events of the game. My Wii actually scratched up my disk (How this happened, I don’t know, and it’s the ONLY disk my Wii ever slaughtered). It only held out long enough for my sibling and I to enjoy one playthrough each. I’ll get to playing my Japanese copy eventually!

Part 4 = Laguz Royals Emblem / 10

Somewhere Inbetween Tier

FE5

The last of the Kaga games. Still clunky and difficult, but with it’s own super unique features in capturing, stamina, and stealing weapons.

The brokenness of staves is not at all a flaw, but a feature in my opinion. Encouraging bizarre thinking and finding new ways to plow through maps is fun. I would probably be critical if this was a modern game, but I think older games need these quirks to stand out among modern titles with better graphics and decades of gaming history behind them.

And you still can complete the maps in a more traditional manner if you are determined. I did even for Reinhardt’s map.

Also, I gotta say... I don’t agree that this is the most difficult FE overall… it just has the hardest individual maps. The difficulty spikes are all over the place. The game goes from bashing your head against a wall to snoozefest constantly.

Fog of war was a mistake though, if I was a time traveler, I’d go back and make sure the programmers never figured out how to include it. XD

Steal ALL the tomes! / 10

FE13

Experiencing this game and its release in real time was an experience. The fandom really, truly thought this game might not only be the last FE ever, but also that it might not get a localization. Thinking there would never be a localization, I spent a night of my first trip to Japan buying a Japanese 3DS and a copy of the game. I only had 2 weeks on that study tour, but I was so determined that I used some of my precious free time to go shopping for it. To afford it, I even used the money my college gave to me for food, then subsided off of cheap convenience store meals with what little I had left. I barely had any true understanding of Japanese at the time, but I wanted other fans to experience this game, so I worked as hard as I could to translate as many supports as I could. This game is why I got into translation, and was what I really thought might be the end, so it will always have a special place in my heart for that.

Now to actually talk about playing the game itself. I really enjoyed it the first couple of times. Who cares that pair-up and the kids were OP, you either blast through the game with them and have a good laugh, or ignore them, set some challenging rules, and enjoy having at least a little challenge. I didn’t care much that the supports were a little lower quality because of the sheer number of them, I eagerly awaited unlocking each one, and reading what the two characters would talk about. (We fans have fanfiction to turn to if we hunger for more development. :p) The bonus content was plentiful, and a great fanservice-y way to bring the series to a close.

After all is said and done though, the game left me feeling empty when I thought about replaying it any further. The maps and story felt empty in comparison to previous games. Now that it’s been 8 years since the initial release, I’d of course enjoy a replay or two, but after having played FEs7-9 5 or 6 times in a row before moving on to the next game… anything less than that level of excitement was surprising for me. I placed this game kinda high on the list because it’s fun when you play it. It’s just doesn’t have as much replay value, I feel.

Also, as a group, the children characters are my favorite in the series. They all come from deeply traumatic backgrounds, and the way they work through that trauma and navigate being given a second chance, but also not a true second chance because this timeline is different from their own, is endlessly fascinating for me. I don’t know if other fans give them enough credit, so I wanted to point them out in particular.

Would have been a fantastic way to send off the series, despite the flaws / 10

FE2

This game is flawed, imbalanced, makes me want to throw things, and it’s all, somehow, in a way that makes me LOVE IT. ...So long as I’m playing using an emulator with a speed up button.

This game is so hard, and the hit percentages are such garbage. But as I played, and unlocked more and more OP weapons and items, until I reached a point where the zombie dragons - what once took all my efforts - were an enemy that can easily be slaughtered in 1-on-1 combat... I felt so satisfied.

Old games need some kind of charm to make them still worth revisiting in a world of much better graphics and features that have now had decades to be refined. For me, this game has that perfect kind of quirky charm in spades.

The maps and terrain though… I have no words, just bash your head into the wall and you will understand how I feel.

Also, this game reminds me of Zelda 2 in it being a black sheep of its respective series… that’s a fun little nugget of info.

Duma’s sprite / 10

FE7

I don’t remember this game as well, despite it being one that I’ve played about 5 times? I don’t know why, it’s yet another fantastic Fire Emblem with its own ways that it stands out, managing not one, not two, but three lords, introducing the tactician, and so on. Guess time has just not been kind to my memory on this one.

I remember being really impressed with the length of this game back in the day, and Hector’s mode offering enough differences to make it totally fun to replay the main game again.

Lyn gets kind of pushed to the side (because that’s what generally happens to women main characters in Fire Emblem, if there’s a male lord around), but having the three lords was really fun. With three people, you get a great balance between all of their personalities, and they all play off of each other well.

Of course I loved Lyn and Hector, most everyone does, but I was always just as much of an Eliwood fan. His average stats pushed people away from liking him as much as the others, but I always looked up to his kindness. Eliwood / Ninian was an especially favorite pairing for my sappy teenage heart. Eliwood was just so romantic and sweet to me.

And though the game was made easier with international audiences in mind, the developers hadn’t invented all of the “easier/for convenience” features yet, so this is the last time we got to enjoy some “harder” features like needing to buy weapons during battles, and a convoy separate from the main lord. That’s cool if you like that stuff.

Unlocking the paralogues is hard though / 10

Favorites Tier

FE8

When it comes to FE8, while there’s plenty to like about the gameplay (despite the game being so easy, but again, like I said with Awakening, you can just set your own challenge rules), what I really love to ramble on about is the story and its emotional impact. Lyon is so precious and kind, but has so many inner conflicts stewing deep inside of him, leading him to elder magics, and… The Demon King is just ends up as a sideshow compared to Lyon coming face to face with his own demons. Both the characters - and many players, I’m sure - hope and hope to find a way to save him, but there just isn’t one. There are never any real leads. There’s nothing. Only the harrowing reality that some people cannot be saved, no, that some people do not want to be saved. The inevitability of Lyon’s demise, and seeing it all play out, packs a punch most plots can only dream of.

But it’s not like I won’t talk about the gameplay features either. Bringing back much of the best of FE2, the overworld map and everything to do really enhances the experience. I mean, yeah, I guess two side dungeons isn’t that much to get excited over, I can see that critique… but I didn’t care, it allowed me to easily chase support conversations, and (with some RNG abusing to obtain enough Boots and money to buy the stat-boosting items, but hey, whatever it takes) I could max out my characters’ stats and truly “complete” a Fire Emblem game.

Sacred Stones is so awesome.

Finally! A postgame! I sure hope the developers keep this up in all the future games… oh. / 10

FE9

This is the first FE game I ever played, so it will always occupy the most dear and special place in my heart, even if FE4 eventually won over as my favorite.

Do you believe in first sight? I do, and this is what taught me it’s real. From the first second of the first cutscene, I was enthralled. ...And that’s saying something, when the FE9 cutscenes are the kind of thing only a mother could love. But I just knew. I may have been a wee lass of 14, but I knew a love that would last a lifetime was being born. ...Or that would at least last 14 more years. I can’t predict the future. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and hate Fire Emblem with a burning passion? 2020 has taught me that tomorrow is always a big fat question mark.

Fun fact: in case you are wondering exactly what inspired my very initial interest in this series, it was a TV commercial. Probably this one. I just remember Ike running, of all things. My sibling and I both thought FE9 looked interesting from this commercial, and sought out the game all on our own with zero private knowledge that anything FE even existed.

This is where obsessions are born. Or mine at least. / 10

FE4

As I’ve established, this is my favorite of favorites. The bizarre way money, arenas, items, and more were handled, actually made the game more and more fun for me. Big maps are just so fun. Gen 1’s story is a tale for the ages, and Gen 2’s story is… well, classic FE, which never gets old for me. It will never cease to amaze me even today what the SNES/S Famicom could handle.

All I’d want added is a “warp between conquered castles” feature. I’m completely neutral on a remake otherwise. Of course a lot more could be added and detailed upon that I’d be happy for, but that’s my one specific wish.

Calvary Emblem Forever / 10

Bonus:

FEH

I played this game every day for around 2 ½ years before I finally felt I had to break the habit, so I’m not leaving it out! This title got a lot of flack for simplifying FE gameplay, but… looking at it that way completely disregards the niche app games fill, and the interesting ways developers view what type of games app games should be, and how the developers work hard to both innovate for the format yet stay faithful to the source. It is surprisingly deep, and the maps + higher focus on unit skills make you think entirely differently about how to win in what is, in essence, the same gameplay as the main series.

Plus, what fan couldn’t get suckered into the fanservice of it? My best moments include attaining a +10 Nephenee while only spending money to get 2 of her, the other 9 were all F2P orbs; and becoming a Narcian/Valter shipper after supporting them on impulse because they were both on my flier team, and realizing the sick, twisted chemistry afterwards. Discovering rare-pairs is fun.

Also, finally, this game dared to nerf magic users a bit by making them RNG 2 only. If only the main series could do something like that.

I really enjoyed Heroes a lot, I just quit solely because it was a time drain. It was time to move on and play other things. And I’m glad I got out when I did. Seeing the game stoop to over-the-top powercreep (above and beyond what it was always implementing) and add the monthly service to keep the $$$$$ raking in was hard to watch.

Perfect app-style game gameplay-wise and fanservice-wise, but why aren’t gacha illegal yet / 10

FE Warriors

Oh yeah, this game exists too! It’s a Warriors game. If you like the formula and it never gets old for you, you’ll have fun with this game. If you don’t mind the limited game representation too much, you’ll have fun with this game. For me, the answers to those questions were a yes, so I enjoyed FE Warriors. Yay for wailing on hordes of enemies / 10

#fire emblem #favorites

9 notes · View notes

nothingunrealistic · 4 years

Note

77, riawin, cause poor winston is trying so hard :’)

77. “We’re meant for each other.”

The crazy thing about doing unapproved nootropics with your coworkers is how fantastic everybody’s ideas seem until one sober person comes along and pokes holes in them all.

To Winston, the Axe Cap strategy to corner the minerals market and make geopolitical gains had sounded like a winner, from the minute Mafee had filled them in on the plan, through Rian ferreting out the phone numbers of half a dozen top Chilean bureaucrats and Axe glancing his way when one of his nicer analysts pointed Winston out as the developer of the trading tool being used to sell the most worthless of Axe Cap’s positions, right up to the moment he’d greeted Taylor with news of the play and his role in it. But something about Taylor leaving the office with the last of Mase Carb’s Vigilantrix stash and sweeping back in three minutes later, ordering everyone to turn off their terminals and go home for the night, and asking Winston and Rian to wait in their office while they tracked down Mafee gave Winston the sinking feeling that freeing up $3 billion to capture meteors and mine them for rare metals wasn’t as solid a move as they’d all thought.

“This is like being in time-out,” Rian says. She’s next to him on the couch across from Taylor’s desk, which is weird considering there are plenty of other seats and he was here first. Winston sometimes inwardly calls it the Couch of Shame, since he’s only ever sat here when his job was on the line; he wonders if that’s true now too. “Reminds me of my last job.”

“Do you think we’re in trouble?”

“Obviously we are. Otherwise I wouldn’t have compared it to time-out.” Rian frowns a little, and it makes Winston’s heart skip a beat. Well, he hopes Rian frowning is the cause. He wasn’t given a list of side effects for this stuff. “I’m just not sure why.”

“Probably because Taylor thinks Axe is making a bad move and we shouldn’t have helped him,” Winston says. “Or it’s not Earth-friendly enough to justify using Mase Carbon resources, or both, or some other thing Taylor’s thought of and we haven’t.”

“I don’t see how Taylor could think of anything we haven’t. We’re cognitively enhanced.”

“Taylor doesn’t need enhancement to be smart, that’s why they’re the CEO.”

Rian turns her whole head to look at him. “Do you always get sappy when your brain chemistry is altered?”

“Sappy?” The question — the accusation, that’s what it is — kicks his pulse up more than a few BPM. “I’m not sappy.”

“You’re defending Taylor’s intelligence to me for no reason. I know they’re smart. And before, you were staring at me and saying how I’m so impressive and we’re meant for each other.”

“Did I really say that last thing?” Did the Vigilantrix fry his memory? He desperately needs his memory to not be fried. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“Okay,” Rian says. “I’m kidding. Estoy bromeando.”

That was suspiciously easy. “I feel like you only said that because I asked and not because it’s true.”

“You never said it had to be true.”

The office door swings open and Taylor strides in, followed by Mafee. “— and you know how convincing Axe can be even on a normal day.”

“I do.”

Mafee throws himself into a chair. “If you were there when he was singing the praises of this shit and on it himself, you would have taken it too —”

“I wouldn’t have, actually. But I suppose that was an editorial ‘you.’” Taylor sits down behind their desk. “Okay. I’d like to hear, from any or all of you, a coherent summary of what happened today so that it can be fixed.”

“What needs fixing?” Rian says. Winston elbows her in the side; she elbows him back. “Axe’s plan is about to go off without a hitch.”

“The plan is the hitch. Counting on a Socialist loss in Chile to pave the way to a planetary launch site there for a meteor capture mission is nonsensical, and the only reason it’s come this close to execution is that everyone else in this office is high on untested stimulants and misplaced confidence.”

“My confidence is placed fine.”

“Rian.” Taylor leans forward. “You are not fluent in Spanish. And Winston does not admire Axe so much that he would be giddy over Axe simply looking in his direction on any other day.”

“First of all, I’m right here, again,” Winston says, over Rian insisting “¡Mi hambre es bombero tirantes!” “Second, appreciating someone actually appreciating me for once doesn’t mean my brain’s fucking broken.”

“So you being obnoxious right now is just you?” Mafee folds his arms, managing to be even more annoying than he’s accusing Winston of being, the sanctimonious jackass. “I already had a headache and you’re making it worse.”

“Says the guy who fed us all uppers in the first place. If this is anyone’s fault, it’s yours.”

“I never said you had to take them.”

“You sure fucking implied it.”

“You kind of did,” Rian puts in. Winston could kiss her, which is a dangerous thought to be having for many reasons but primarily because his voice-brain barrier has been far too permeable already today. “Said we might be shut out if we went without.”

“You know what I’d like to shut out? You two and your goddamn —”

“Hey!” Taylor barks, shutting everyone up at once. Somehow Winston had forgotten they were there. “Thank you. Winston.” They turn to him. “What I would appreciate is you telling me what button I need to press to prevent this from going forward.” A crease appears between their eyebrows. “If you can.”

Winston opens his mouth to deliver the rundown, then rewinds to the end of their request. “What do you mean, if I can? What makes you think I couldn’t?”

“You’re shaking,” Taylor says with quiet concern. Winston glances down at his hands — sure enough, they’re trembling like he downed half a dozen Red Bulls instead of one pill — and realizes his heart never stopped racing. “Mafee, you said you had a headache.”

“Yeah, and I don’t usually get them.”

Taylor turns to Rian. “Are you experiencing any adverse effects?”

A shrug. “I’ve had, like, no appetite all day, if that counts.”

Winston looks from Rian, whose confidence now seems as shaky as he feels, to Mafee, who’s unwound his arms to cradle his head in one hand, to Taylor, whose jaw is tight when they say, “Okay. Go home, all of you, and rest. I’ll handle this.”

#inbox #anonymous #billions #winston billions #rian billions #riawin #sometimes i write #i am sure this is not even remotely close to what anon was hoping for... and i sure was hoping for it to Not take as long as it did to write #but it EXISTS and it is COMPLETE and it is OVER 1K

13 notes · View notes

ourooboroos · 4 years

Text

(you make me) dizzy in my head

Read on my ao3 or continue under the cut!

You make me dance like a fool Forget how to breathe Shine like gold, buzz like a bee Just the thought of you can drive me wild Oh, you make me smile

-Uncle Kracker, "Smile"

Magnus knows he should’ve put his TikTok account on private.

It’s too late now, he supposes, sitting in his car in the school parking lot, watching students file into the building. The damage is done. Thousands of people have seen the video he made in his bathroom at nearly one in the morning, too hyped up to sleep, too impatient for Catarina to text him back, and too impulsive for his own good. He had to voice his thoughts somewhere .

It wasn’t even the first time he’d made a video like this -- this one is just the most embarrassing. He remembers recording it and being so, absolutely sure of his own words.

“So I have a problem,” Magnus said, floating into the bathroom and aiming the camera at his reflection in the mirror. He spoke slowly, words drawn out. “I don’t know how to ask him out. I want to ask him out. He’s so fucking cute, guys, and he’s so kind and funny and -- well, you’ve seen my other videos. I just want him to love me!”

The worst part isn’t even that thousands of people have seen it, after it having appeared on a bunch of their front pages, apparently. It’s that, at exactly 6:45 in the morning, he woke up to a text from one Isabelle Lightwood that just said, “Fucking cute, huh?”

Fuck.

She’d seen it. She’d seen them . And she’d pieced it together.

Now he has to go to school knowing that his crush’s sister absolutely knows about his crush. And Izzy isn’t exactly the subtle, hands-off type. He wouldn’t even be surprised if she’d already told Alec. Magnus buries his head in his hands and groans.

There are three of them -- four including the new one -- and each one is a little more embarrassing.

* The first video happens in early October. Alec is over at Magnus’s house, and they’re sitting at the kitchen table, hunched over a project for Latin class. Magnus is trying to conjugate a list of words into perfect indicative, while Alec searches for something in his textbook. When Magnus lets out a grown of frustration, Alec snorts, and shuffles quickly and quietly in his seat so that his knee is pressed against Magnus. Magnus freezes for a moment before letting his knee press back, and Alec doesn’t shift again.

So of course Magnus posts soon after Alec leaves his house. Apparently he’s supposed to meet his family for dinner; his grandparents are in town. Magnus waves as Alec backs out of his driveway. He’s trying not to grin like a doofus, but he’s not sure that it’s working. When Alec’s car disappears around the block, Magnus runs to his bathroom.

“Guys,” he says, out of breath, into the mirror and his phone. “Guys, the guy I like just came over to work on school stuff and he sat so close to me our knees touched on purpose and I know that sounds stupid but holy shit, he’s so wonderful. He said I was the best project partner he’s ever had. Also, he smelled really good -- like lemongrass and pine and -- I just!” He runs a hand down his face and his video runs out of time. Alight with nervous energy, he posts it, hashtag free.

* Magnus makes the second video on Halloween.

This video is recorded in Magnus’s car; he’s sitting in his driveway, mind racing even as he tries to somewhat coherently narrate what has just happened, the night he’s just had. He plays it back even as he speaks about it.

He drives to Andrew’s house, windows down and letting the crisp fall air in. His hat nearly flies off his head and he holds it on as he turns down Andrew’s road, parks down the street. His makeshift pirate costume is immaculate, he has to admit; as he walks to Andrew’s he adjusts his clothes -- tight black pants and tall boots, a ruffled white shirt, and a red sash tied around his waist. He carries a plastic cutlass, and a tricorn hat sits on his carefully tousled hair.

Andrew’s house is loud, party in full swing by the time he gets there. He lets himself in, says hi to Andrew, and grabs a drink -- a soda since he’s driving himself. He’s just settled into a corner with Cat and Dot when a tall Spider-Man appears, skin tight suit leaving little to the imagination. The costumed man gives a friendly wave to Cat and Dot but turns to Magnus. Magnus tries not to stare at the obvious planes of his chest, or the muscles of his thighs, or the way his biceps stretch the lycra of his suit, but hell, it’s hard.

“Nice hat,” Spider-Man says, voice muffled behind his mask. He points to the top of his head as if to clarify. It sounds as though he’s smiling.

Magnus raises an eyebrow, amused. He peers at the eyes of the costume, but can’t see through the dark, dense mesh. This costumed classmate will remain a mystery, apparently. “Thank you, o glorious web-slinger.”

Spider-Man laughs. “Nice sword, too. Looks like you could kill a man.”

“If only it weren’t plastic.” He thumps the sword in his hand.

Spider-Man hums in response and shifts his weight, leaning a little too far and almost falling. He places a hand on the wall to balance himself. For the first time, Magnus notices that he’s holding a near-empty cup.

“How much have you had to drink tonight, Spidey?”

“A couple cups of… whatever this is.” His head tilts down and he sloshes the liquid in the cup around. “Punch, I guess?”

“You should be careful; Andrew uses an obscene amount of vodka in his punch.”

Spider-Man makes an odd noise, then. Magnus stares at him. “I thought it tasted funny.”

“You… you didn’t know it had alcohol in it?”

“I don’t really drink.” And with that, he sets what’s his cup on a bookshelf nearby. He wrings his gloved hands. “I guess it figures though -- I needed a bit of courage to come talk to you.”

Magnus scoffs. “Why?”

He pauses, stills his movements. Magnus is about to just ask him who he is when Spider-Man says, quietly, “Because you’re stunning,” and quickly turns and walks away. Magnus watches him go, mouth parted in confusion.

It isn’t until Magnus is hugging Cat and Dot, saying goodbye, and turning to leave, that he sees it; Alec, sitting on Andrew’s couch, eyes lit up in laughter, wearing a blue and red Spider-Man suit.

* The third video comes a week into November.

Magnus is in class, his mind drifting as Mrs. Penhallow flips through a powerpoint about the Cold War. He’s nearly fallen asleep when his phone vibrates in his pocket. Frowning, he pulls it out, dims the screen, and hides it under his desk.

It’s a text from Alec. Who’s sitting just across the room. Magnus glances at him, but Alec’s staring intently at Mrs. Penhallow, though there’s a small smile threatening his concentrated expression. Magnus looks back to the text.

A: What happens to a frog’s car when it breaks down? It gets toad away!

Magnus snorts, and covers it with a cough, but luckily Mrs. Penhallow ignores him and keeps plowing through her presentation. Magnus quickly writes back.

M: Why did the team of witches lose their baseball game? Their bats flew away.

He watches out of the corner of his eye as Alec subtly reads the text and grins broadly. His own phone vibrates a second later.

A: Did you know a kangaroo can jump higher than the Empire State Building? It makes sense, since the Empire State Building can’t jump.

M: Why did the can crusher quit his job? It was soda pressing.

A: Why did Adele cross the road? To sing Hello from the other side. M: Humpty Dumpty loves autumn. Every year he has a great fall.

They trade jokes back and forth for the rest of class, each of them hiding their smirks in their palms and their phones on their laps. It makes the period go by quickly, and Mrs. Penhallow has just finished her powerpoint and the bell rings when Magnus’s phone vibrates one more time:

A: If I could rearrange the alphabet, I’d put U and I together.

Magnus pauses as his classmates quickly throw their books in their bags and rise from their desks. He reads the text again. And again, just to make sure he’d read it right. He looks up, eyes searching for Alec, only to see that he’s already left.

He posts the new TikTok that afternoon. It ends with him just about yelling, “A stupid pick up line shouldn’t make my heart race like that!” into his mirror.

The fourth one, the final one, the one that apparently breaks the camel’s back, is inspired by a text. Not even a particularly riveting or important one. Magnus is laying in bed the Sunday after Thanksgiving, dreading going to school the next day. There’s something about going back to a regular schedule after holidays and breaks -- even a break as short as this one -- that fills him with anxiety. He rolls over, trying to get comfortable enough to sleep, when his phone lights up.

I hope you had a good Thanksgiving, Magnus! I’ll see you tomorrow.

It’s from Alec.

And Magnus keeps reading it, over and over. He hasn’t spoken to Alec since the Tuesday before break when they had Latin together and Alec had dropped his pen. Magnus had grabbed it for him so he didn’t have to lean awkwardly over this desk to grab it, and Alec had said thank you and grinned and Magnus had nodded and tried to regulate his breathing.

But apparently Alec thought of him just now, before they went back to school, and at 12:37 at night, when he probably thought Magnus was asleep. Magnus makes a sound he would be embarrassed about if anyone was around to hear it. He knows that Cat’s asleep by now -- she always goes to bed at ten on school nights -- so he gets up and stumbles through the dark room to his bathroom mirror.

Magnus is still in his car, waiting until the absolute last second he can before he’ll be late to run into the school, when someone knocks on the passenger side window.

He startles and whips his head around to see Alec, leaning over to peer into Magnus’s sedan. Magnus’s eyes widen and he slowly unlocks the car.

Alec opens the door and slides into the seat, dropping his bag in the footwell. “Hey,” he says quietly. Magnus fiddles with the keychains hanging off of his keys, still in the ignition, but he can feel Alec watching him.

“Hi,” he replies, smiling weakly.

There’s quiet, and Magnus wants to bang his head into the steering wheel. He has never once felt this awkward around Alec before. But what is he supposed to say? He can’t deny making the videos, and he certainly can’t deny that they’re about Alec. For fuck’s sake, he had gone into detail about his thighs in his Spider-Man costume.

“So,” Alec says. Magnus glances at him for a second, but Alec immediately meets his eyes, and Magnus can feel the heat rising up his neck. He turns away. “So, uh.” He pauses and Magnus can hear him curse, exhale loudly. “Sorry, I don’t have any vodka this time.”

That gets a snort from Magnus, even as he focuses his gaze on the dashboard.

Alec’s voice is soft, hesitant, when he speaks. “Did you mean it?”

Magnus finally turns, shifting in his seat. Alec’s staring at his hands now, wringing them in his lap. “You think I embarrassed myself online just for some meager views?”

The corner of Alec’s mouth quirks. “Not embarrassing.” Magnus snorts again, turning back to the dashboard, but Alec stops fiddling and reaches a warm hand out. It covers Magnus’s where he toys with the keychains hanging from the ignition, and Magnus pauses. “Really. Not embarrassing.”

Magnus swallows thickly. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Alec’s smile grows. He nods, one eyebrow raised. “I’d like to hear more of your opinions on my Halloween costume, actually.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Magnus’s voice is without heat, and Alec laughs. Magnus smiles back at him. “Yes. I meant it.”

And Alec’s smile is radiant. His hazel eyes crinkle at the corners and now Magnus can’t stop looking at him, can’t not look at him when he looks like actual, literal sunshine. “Good.”

* “Hey guys,” Magnus says, twisting into the bathroom and aiming the camera at the mirror. “Too many of you watched my last video, so unfortunately--” He breaks off as a cackle sounds from the doorway. “Shush, I’m making a video!”

Alec sticks his head into the room, slides into frame, grin wide on his face. Magnus thinks he’ll never get sick of that smile. “So unfortunately he has to deal with me now,” Alec says, wrapping his arm around Magnus’s waist and tugging him close.

“Okay, maybe it’s not so unfortunate.”

The sixty-seconds timer ends just as Magnus turns and pulls Alec into a kiss.

#mine #linkscap writes #fic #ficlet #malec #shadowhunters #magnus bane #alec lightwood #high school au #i cannot explain this and i apologize #alec x magnus

15 notes · View notes

storytell · 4 years

Text

@mckiingbiird asked

Talk about Twain? ^^

congratulations! i have SO much to say about twain! this is going to provide the longest answer possible out of any muse you could have picked just because twain has so little in canon and i’ve developed him so much. he’s my longest standing muse ever so there is too much about my portrayal to say without somewhat of an organization so i am right now without warning implementing a new feature into these ramble asks known as Sections. so now that i’m a little more coherent. sections.

just so you know by the way i really am not joking when i say this is over 10 paragraphs long. read at your own risk. however long you think this post is i can guarantee you it is longer.

this was for a meme i did but i literally can’t answer any more of these because i’m too ashamed by how little i have for every other muse in comparison to twain.

part I: timeline.

my twain was born just after the end of (or during the final days of) the war everyone’s always talking about in canon, and it genuinely didn’t have much of a direct impact on his life. he has six siblings (five older, one younger), and of those six there were three siblings he was closest with: orion, henry, and pleasant. orion and henry were the two oldest, and given that their dad was terribly abusive and their mom was, in twain’s own words, a coward, they did most of the work to provide for the family. although twain always thought orion and henry were mean, because they always played tricks on him. pleasant was twain’s confidant; she was the older sister he could go to if he needed something to cry about.

growing up, twain was always a troublemaking kid, and there were only so many schools in or around their town that he could get expelled from before there weren’t really many options left. in the summer before he was scheduled to go to his last year of middle school, this--among a variety of things such as the abuse of his father and a general feeling of wanting to run away--caused him to formulate a plan where he would run from home, which he did shortly before school started at the age of 13. i know i have the age he ran away listed as 14, but he tends to lie and say he actually ran away a year later.

he traveled for around a year on his own, meeting a lot of different people from a lot of walks of life, before meeting a man he would come to refer to as “uncle”, possibly under the instruction of that man. i should note that my personal hc for the identity of “uncle” is natsume souseki, but this doesn’t really have any bearing on much of anything and i tend to not mention it at all in threads where “uncle” comes up because it’s not the most significant thing. anyway, “uncle” taught him how to do many things to survive on his own, including shooting guns without his ability, making fires, cooking food over an open flame, etc. he was the first real father figure twain ever had, but he and twain eventually parted ways when twain had just turned 17.

twain did a bit of freelance work afterwards--initially he sang and played guitar on the streets for pocket change, but after he killed a man trying to kidnap a girl he didn’t know, something within him clicked: he knew he wouldn’t mind doing something like this for a living, after his initial bout of panic. his career as a freelance hitman was very short-lived, but it got him enough money that for the few hits he did, he was able to stay at nice hotels and do fun things. he never really used any of it, though, too used to not having any money at all and attached to the lifestyle of not having a home to come back to. the first time he ever splurged on himself wasn’t even anything fancy; it was an olive garden.

to the man who sat himself down at the table and bought one of every food item, the place was probably less than nothing. but to twain, so used to being poor and never having enough, it seemed like more than he could have ever asked for. and so, after very little negotiation, began twain’s contract with the guild. at the time, not-yet-eighteen year old twain was the youngest member of the guild’s ranks, but he was definitely not the least talented. he rose quickly through the ranks of the organization, becoming the chief gunman/sharpshooter and a fellowcraft of the guild after just over a year of being employed.

from there, things are probably predictable, given everything that twain is. he makes friends in the guild, begins spending the ludicrous amount of money he’s being paid for his services, and generally does what’s fun for him. he discovers a love for minecraft (more on that later) and rollercoasters, and goes on travels he never would have been able to without the security of the money he’s being paid. then, after a few years of relative normalcy, the guild goes to yokohama, and you know what happens from there.

post-canon is where things begin to get a little bit foggy for me. i do technically HAVE a mainverse idea for what happens to him, but the catch is that i almost never use it. for post-canon stuff, i tend to use one of any number of verses where he’s stayed or been caught up in yokohama, because it’s just a lot easier. but my actual mainverse headcanon unaffected by roleplay relationships i want to have is this: twain goes back to america. he unintentionally gathers a bunch of lost kids and, using his travel money, he provides for them while they all travel. and that’s it. maybe in the future he becomes successful from the tales in his success diary. maybe not. who knows?

part II: traits with basis in canon.

i don’t need to repeat that we see very little of twain, but i just did anyway. because we get very few glimpses of him, there’s not much we know outside of shallow character traits. because it’ll make things easier to talk about, here are the core traits i noticed in twain that i’ve had to build off of, and then different paragraphs talking about how i’ve built off of them.

we rarely see him anything but energetic, but he does have his quiet moments.

he’s very friendly, and tends to invite people out to do fun things with him.

he is very competitive, but NOT a sore loser.

he does things to impress others. notably, one of his canon likes is “praise”.

he’s very self-confident, but not to the point where he thinks it’s impossible to beat him, as demonstrated when he’s not angry about atsushi’s victory.

he’s very flippant about taking a life.

following orders is not his top priority.

we rarely see him anything but energetic, but he does have his quiet moments. a couple of my headcanons have stemmed from this--the first is the most obvious one and that is that twain has ADHD. this didn’t come directly from his energetic attitude and rather from a combination of multiple traits, but it also happened because i was projecting. the other headcanon that’s stemmed from this combination of facts is that twain is smarter and more introspective than most people give him credit for. this has backing in the scene where he shoots at atsushi from the moby dick; instead of shooting at atsushi, he diverts his aim to the oil truck in front of him.

he’s very friendly, and tends to invite people out to do fun things with him. there are a lot of things i can talk about in this regard, but i’ll start here: twain genuinely likes to meet and make friends with new people. despite his occupation, he loves hearing others’ stories and tends to ask them about them. along with this and somewhat in tandem with the introspective part of the first hc, twain also pays a lot more attention to how people act and what they like than everyone tends to think he does. this actually has basis in my dive into the real life author mark twain, as he was notably famous for being able to pick up on people’s mannerisms, accents, and ideologies well enough to flawlessly represent them on paper (he claimed he could “read human character as well as he could read the mississippi river “).

he is very competitive, but NOT a sore loser. from this trait, i’ve sort of developed the idea that it’s very rare for twain to actually get angry, and he tends not to argue with people. he’s very quick to forgive if he knows he was in the wrong and tends to say sorry first after arguments, but at the same time, if he knows he’s right and shouldn’t be the one apologizing, he’ll cling onto that until the day he dies. also, this has spawned the smaller and less significant hc that twain likes to do competitive activities like laser tag or mini golf for fun, especially since you don’t necessarily have to know the people you’re doing those things with.

he does things to impress others. notably, one of his canon likes is “praise”. there’s not really much to say here in terms of how i’ve built on this, but one notable thing is that i attribute this trait to the lack of praise he got from his parents growing up, and how lonely he felt even when he was traveling with “uncle”. he likes when people are impressed by him because he’s impressed by himself, and when he doesn’t get the reaction he expected it puts a little bit of a damper on his confidence. temporarily.

he’s very self-confident, but not to the point where he thinks it’s impossible to beat him, as demonstrated when he’s not angry about atsushi’s victory. speaking of confidence, i actually have a whole journey laid out about twain’s journey with arrogance v. confidence and the overabundance of arrogance to make up for a lack of confidence in his earlier years. when he first ran away, he had a very troubled and hateful mindset, and outwardly portrayed that he believed himself to be the best of the best while really thinking he was terrible and a burden to his family. it was only through meeting so many people and the guidance of “uncle” in his more formative years that he began to develop a genuine sense of self confidence and, by the time he hits 20, everything good he says about himself is genuinely true. this said, he is also very aware of his flaws (for example, he definitely knows he isn’t too smart or careful or focused), but he doesn’t view them as detriments to his character and instead chooses to believe that without his flaws, he wouldn’t be himself.

he’s very flippant about taking a life. this trait actually was what caused me to think about how he took his first life. i’ll walk you a little through the things he felt when he did: he was angry, at first, then terrified, then secretly glad, and then sooner rather than later he genuinely felt nothing about it. as he’d go on to carry out hits for various people and the guild, that feeling of initial panic would become smaller and smaller every time, until the lives of the people he had to kill didn’t really matter to him. that said, it’s important to me that he still values connection and friendship with other people, so he definitely does. i believe these two traits can coexist when done properly; he values the lives of people and the stories they have to tell, but all life ends someday anyway and nothing is lost by the end of that life sooner than it would have ended otherwise.

following orders is not his top priority. this is, i think, where i get the idea that twain is a free spirit. it is this that has sort of shaped twain in every way, whether it’s getting expelled from every school in his area or going overboard on a mission where his target should have been left alive. i think his top priorities are having fun and having a good story to tell later, and while letting atsushi die wouldn’t have fallen under something fun, twain’s anticipated victory definitely would have been a good story to tell others.

part III: traits with basis in how mark twain was in real life.

an unashamed love of cats. it doesn’t come up SUPER often, but i like to remind people from time to time that my twain absolutely adores any and all cats, and had plenty of them himself before the guild arc. this comes from rl mark twain being obsessed with cats to the point where he’d have up to 19 cats at once, and would straight up rent cats while he was traveling so he never had to be without cats.

traveling. speaking of traveling! this not only comes from rl twain’s travels, but also the love for adventure displayed by huck and tom in their books. bsd twain really wouldn’t be a good adaptation of the soul of mark twain without acknowledging his travels. i think there were hints to this in the show, but definitely not as much as i would have liked. my twain is a restless soul and not only likes seeing new placed, but meeting new people.

unashamed acceptance. this actually stems both from the central ideas of several of twain’s novels as well as a quote and his love of traveling. my twain used to be a terrible person; he came from a conservative family and had no internet access beyond the one TV that they had, so it’s not like he was very informed. it was traveling and meeting so many people that caused him to develop the accepting nature he has today.

utter devotion to objects of his affection. i’m assuming because everyone reading this is probably a normal person, they DON’T know the intimate details of twain’s relationship to his wife. well i personally do. while there were undoubtedly some problems between them, there is one thing i choose to input in my relationships involving twain: he genuinely bent over backwards to get her to love him. he would do literally anything for her. and that’s a huge big part of how i portray twain in all of his relationships because i input that aspect of “willing to do anything for his partner, even if it wasn’t what he might have wanted to do beforehand, just so he can be happy with them”.

profanity and sex. i don’t know how much you know about twain’s other works that aren’t his most popular, but he was known for being very prolific and obscene in certain works, to the point where he made a joke about the word ‘damn’ being in used in substitution of the word ‘very’. for his time, he was also very obscene and made a lot of references to not only sex but other things that were considered taboo subjects among the respectable like, i kid you not, farting. because of this, my twain curses a LOT. and i can’t exactly explore this much since i myself am a minor and don’t know how far i can really go, but he is very in tune with sexuality and basically this man has a lot of sex.

comedy. to put things plain and simple, RL mark twain was basically a touring standup comedian for a good portion of his life. i attribute this fact to why twain is the funniest person in the guild and always tries to keep things light and fun.

bouts of depression. i should say this now: my twain doesn’t have depression. but, since i didn’t want to ignore the fact that the real author more than likely DID, i felt i should include my twain’s suicide attempts just before and just after leaving home, when he felt he was at his lowest.

the river. the river not only serves as a motif for twain’s most famous story, but also his actual life. if you know anything about rl mark twain, you know he was a steamboat captain for a little while. my twain definitely was not (although i have thought about giving him a steamboat captain au just for fun), but nevertheless a large portion of his initial journey away from his home took place on a river, to parallel both huckleberry finn and his actual life.

thoughts on war and humanity. since i don’t write serious things with twain a lot, it’s difficult to incorporate this into most threads with him. rl mark twain was personally affected by the civil war and did all he could to avoid fighting. he never actually enjoyed conflict. my twain was NOT affected by the war, as it was just ending when he was born, however he still has a lot of thoughts on militarization that i won’t elaborate on as i’m trying my best to keep this blog free from subjects that could genuinely affect anyone’s wellbeing. as for humanity, my twain largely shares his counterpart’s view that human beings can be very greedy and selfish, but that kindness is the greatest weapon and gift one can have. his views are very complicated so it would definitely not hurt to ask him directly about them wink wink nudge nudge.

confidence and natural magnetism. i’ve already spoken about my twain in regards to confidence, but there is some of it that is based in how mark twain in real life was--and no doubt in how tom sawyer acts in every book that features him. he was once quoted as calling himself THE american. despite all this, however, i take from rl twain his natural magnetism and ability to somehow make people like speaking to him despite that he should very much come off as arrogant; with my twain, there’s really just something about him that feels as though he wants to get to know you.

curiosity about science and new technology. because of his counterpart’s interest in science and friendship with nikola tesla, my twain has a deep love for new and exciting technology, and it’s actually because of this that i have the hc that he discovered a love for video games after having enough money to actually purchase a setup to play them. he’s really interested in things like cloning and genetic altering even if he doesn’t really understand the actual science behind them and i’m very confident that if he had watched phineas and ferb his favorite character would be dr. doof.

part IV: miscellaneous.

favorite color: orange. not only is it the color of his hair, but it’s also the color of fire and a very bright and friendly color. favorite food: italian, but he’s not a picky eater and will settle for anything. he specifically enjoys good NY style pizza, but doesn’t think chicago style pizza is bad either. favorite song: american pie by don mclean. “uncle” introduced him to it. favorite movie: it honestly depends on the day. recently he’s had a strange obsession with night at the museum. favorite game: minecraft. this is the part where i explain later: it was the first game he actually played after buying himself a good enough computer to play games and he fell deeply in love with how beautiful of a game it was. he gets very emotional about the idea that for him, minecraft is a game meant to be shared with other people and for you to showcase just what you can do. he has a hardcore world that’s been up since he was 18! favorite non-alcoholic drink: lemonade. favorite alcoholic drink: whiskey. favorite season: summer, with fall as a close second. favorite holiday: halloween. he loves to dress up. this year he says he plans to dress up as the cowboy from night at the museum, but that will probably change. favorite musical: currently, newsies. but he’s also been known to like falsettos, bonnie and clyde, and 35mm. favorite place: anywhere there’s something new to see. favorite animal: coyotes! biggest fear: as strange as it may seem, he genuinely actually doesn’t have any real fears. the only thing he’s afraid of is the kool aid man because his brothers convinced him that it was filled with the blood of kids who didn’t like kool aid and he’s never been able to shake that fear from him.

MBTI type: enfp. enneagram type: 7w6. hogwarts house: gryffindor. i actually have had thoughts before about putting him in hufflepuff or slytherin, but his unashamed bravery and willingness to run headfirst into any situation with no fears as well as his BLATANT disregard for rules makes him more of a gryffindor than anything. ilvermorny house: thunderbird. it favors adventurers, and i’m sure if you’ve gotten this far you know twain loves to adventure. patronus: honestly, probably some kind of hawk or falcon. tma entity: hard to say, but i tend to have him aligned with either the eye or the vast. the eye because he likes to watch and observe and hear others’ stories, and it’s a great way to play off of twain looking through a scope to snipe people in canon. and the vast because he’s a thrill seeker and loves the feeling of falling, and also believes that in the grand scheme of things not much is very important. PJO godly parent: hermes for sure, but i have experimented with the idea of it being apollo, dionysus, or athena. hunger games district: 7. i already have this established in the hunger games au for him that i?? just kinda have for some reason. divergent faction: dauntless. i don’t even like divergent by the way, i was just kind of trying to think of other categories i would sort twain in. i think he’d definitely be divergent tho tbh.

#i think i am literally actually going to link this on my twain profile because it got so extensive and out of hand #IM SORRY IT'S REALLY LONG!!!!!#the story of a bad / good little boy ;; HEADCANONS . TWAIN #and by headcanons i mean EVERY HEADCANON IVE EVER CONCEIVED #mckiingbiird

2 notes · View notes

evien-stark · 4 years

Text

✧I Need You✧ Chapter 62

After what felt like too long a flight, you found yourself in a massive state of disorientation. Even the drive to the house felt strange. But as soon as you got up the walk and through the door, that sense of home filled you. Something that was sorely missing these last few weeks. With Dvahli in your arms, you headed to the couch, but stopped as Tony made a sharp turn to the stairs. That could only mean one thing, and you stopped him with a look before he descended.

“Are you coming to bed later?” Even having to ask this question, you knew what the answer was.

“Yeah. Don’t worry. I just got something started here and I don’t wanna lose the threads.” When you continued staring at him, he made it a point to walk over from the stairs and come to you where you’d sat on the couch. Moving behind, he leaned in as you leaned back, and he pressed a kiss to your forehead. “Seriously. Stop looking at me like that you’re making me feel bad. And I haven’t even done anything yet.”

When he walked away again, just as he was starting to go down the stairs you called, “Yet!” Which had him laughing down the entire stairwell until the sound disappeared. With a sighed huff, you fell further back against the couch, letting Li out of your arms to explore her new home. Tony was disappearing to the basement. To the lab.

Already. The second he got home. That wasn’t stellar.

But, as you tucked your feet up on the couch and got a little more comfortable, Li zipping back and forth drew most of your attention. Tony would be in the lab, preoccupying his mind. With important things no doubt. So you had to do the same, and try to meet each other somewhere in a healthy middle. If you could. For now…

“Hey, LUNA, can you please run a locate on the top vets in the area and make an appointment for tomorrow morning?”

Your confusion struck when it was JARVIS that answered you. “I can do that for you, ma’am.”

You let a small silence sit, not sure what was going on. “I’m sure that you could, but I wasn’t talking to you. No offense.”

“None taken. Shall I start that locate for you?”

In the room to yourself you narrowed your eyes. In moments like this you often wondered if JARVIS could read expressions like that. He must be able to. “Where is LUNA, JARVIS? What’s going on?”

“LUNA is undergoing some maintenance and upgrades.”

Fidgeting, you rearranged yourself, pulling your knees up to your chest, wrapping your arms around them. “Why wasn’t I told about that?” Something was going on here.

“I had expected it to be a much shorter time with no disruptions. But as you need assistance now, I will be glad to take over.”

That may as well have been true. Tony … and now JARVIS, you guessed, ran all the updates and things on LUNA for you. It wasn’t like you knew how to do any of that. Or fix her, if she got broken. But still . That absolutely seemed like a thing that should have been told to you. What if you were in danger? What then? The lightbulb went off. “Did Tony ask you to watch me?”

“No.” JARVIS’ answer was quick. But in your own pause, “As an aside, I find your choice of words interesting.”

This was making your head hurt. You didn’t want to do all this puzzle-piecing together. “What did you think I would say? ... spy ?” No answer came. So that was that. “Are you lying?”

“I am not lying to you, Ms. INY. I was not asked by Mr. Stark to watch over you.” Back to the formal names. Maybe what had happened in the Tower office had been a fluke. Maybe you hadn’t been coherent enough to even hear that, maybe you’d dreamed it.

“ But that’s what you’re doing, right?” JARVIS could and would lie if he had to, but you thought he was telling the truth here. You had no reason right now to believe that he was, but you did. Maybe wishful thinking.

It was like he was thinking, with how long he went without answering. You decided to wait him out. And finally, “I merely wish to assist you. I am sorry if this troubles you. Shall I bring LUNA back online?”

JARVIS was an AI. It was impossible to hurt his feelings, right? He didn’t even have feelings. Yet that’s what you felt like had just happened. You knew you still didn’t have the whole picture, but his wish to assist you… in plainer terms, it sounded like he wanted to help you. There was still something else going on, but you’d never get to the bottom of it if you didn’t entertain this a little. And so… “No, it’s okay. Finish working on her. Aren’t you helping Tony, though?”

“I assure you, I am quite capable of doing more than one thing at a time.” The fact that his tone seemed different, ringing in that usual dry sarcastic wit, than it had just a few moments ago… was it just your imagination?

Li jumped up on the couch- well, tried to, but got her claws stuck in a cushion before wiggling free and falling back to the floor. You leaned over to scoop her up, attention fully diverted. “Alright then, JARVIS, thank you. A vet appointment for tomorrow- and let’s start a shopping list. We’ll need lots of food and some new bowls, and a collar… maybe some cat trees… kitty litter...”

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

Two Weeks Prior

“I’ll only be an hour. I don’t expect the interview to take long.” She said, leaning down to press a sweet kiss to his temple.

He turned, catching her halfway in a fuller kiss instead, grinning at her soft noise of surprise that lowered into appreciation. “Give ‘em hell.”

As she walked away, with a wave over her shoulder, “I always do.”

Tony watched her go, listened for the elevator taking her down until he couldn’t hear the machinery grinding anymore. “JARVIS, Bruce still occupied in the lab?”

“He seems to have made quite a breakthrough, sir.” This was incredibly sarcastic.

Even still, Tony couldn’t help a smile. “Cut the guy some slack. He’s not used to all the new toys.” Waving a hand over the secondary keyboard, his smile died as he grew serious. “Now that we’re alone, pull me the footage from the attack.”

“Where would you like me to start, sir? There are many files.”

“Here. The tower. I wanna see how Loki broke my security. Keep rolling from there.” He crossed his arms as the video window started. No surprise that Loki had turned his security staff into chumps with that stick of his. It was a shame they’d let it go with that STRIKE team… it needed much more examining. A thought for a later date. Scrolling through watching Selvig set up his machinery, he stopped when he caught sight of him dragging her around like a ragdoll. Despite the fact that he had full run of the Tower at that point, despite the fact that he could have attempted to shatter the glass to get in to the penthouse, he used her like a tool, pressing her hand against the print scanner on the outside door to allow himself access.

For a moment he found himself agreeing with Pierce. They should have kept Loki here. If only to really see that he got what he deserved.

It was painful to sit through watching him continue to throw her around. Backhand her. Grab her. Tony felt his blood boiling. But he kept his eyes on the screen, feeling his resolve grow dark. Maybe he needed to link up with Jane Foster. Get her to actually finish her work on those wormholes-

A chill crept over him and he reached out to grab the edge of his desk as he felt like he’d been struck in the chest. Okay. Scratch that. No fooling around with that stuff. It was good she was done.

I’m fine. I’m fine.

“Sir, your heart rate is up-”

“Can it, JARVIS. Now’s no time to start playing doctor.”

“My apologies.”

I’m okay. I’m okay.

Relief came when he saw himself land outside. Clean up was imminent. There was no point in watching past this. But… he reached forward to stay inside the Tower footage, fast forwarding. Fast forwarding… fast forwarding- and then stopping when he saw the two of them talking- hashing things out with the President. Him leaving. Her speaking not only with Ellis, but with Fury too, now that was a surprise.

He could have listened to the audio, but he kept it on mute. Deciding whatever she’d been doing had probably been necessary. And if she didn’t tell him about it, she would when it was important. He trusted that.

But immediately after he had to hold himself steady as she clumsily reached for something and broke that ugly desk ornament Pepper had gifted them. No accounting for taste. He’d noticed it was gone and hadn’t asked because he’d hated it so much.

The sight of her dissolving into tears threatened to destroy him. “JARVIS ditch this footage.” His voice quiet. Drawn. No one needed to see this. While he was absolutely sure no one aside himself ever would, still better to rid the world of it. No one had the right to see her private grief.

“Deleting now.”

“Good.” That was really all he needed to see. So with that out of the way-

“Sir?”

“What’s the matter?” He started rediverting his attention and now restless energy to another build of an Iron Man suit on the desktop tablet. And with his other hand he started retooling the downstairs of the Malibu Mansion for the Legion’s new home. They’d be safe with this. Safe.

“With your permission, I’d like to watch over Ms. INY.”

Now that was interesting. Sufficiently distracted, his hands stopped moving and he looked up. “What are you talking about, JARVIS?”

“In the footage you just watched, I am sure you witnessed her struggling. In that moment, I tried to talk her through, but I fear she needs more help. I may not be qualified to give it, but with your permission, I’d like to keep a closer eye on her.”

...that was all extremely interesting indeed. He couldn’t help a tilt of his head, a pop of his brow, a little squinch of his eyes. “What’s going on with you? You going Skynet on me?” It sounded an awful lot like… JARVIS had developed… not feelings but… an innate desire to protect her? Could the program do that…?

“You know my feelings about those movies, sir.”

Tony couldn’t help a quirk of his lips and scoff, putting his elbow down on the desk, and settling his chin in his upturned palm. “Yeah. Which begs the question- what’s going on with you?”

“She is part of the Stark family now, is she not?” Tony had absolutely no idea what to say to this. Speechless was not often a color he wore, but for a moment he just couldn’t fathom where this was going. Or why it had ended up here in the first place. This needed a lot of examining… “I desire to assist her in the same manner I do you.”

He had to think really hard about JARVIS’ base programming. That was a long time ago. Too long. What protocols had he set? They’d been rewritten so many times, but if they were cached somewhere… if he was drawing from an old set of lines or… “She’s got LUNA.”

“I fear LUNA is not equipped in the way that I am.” This was quick. Almost snappy, if JARVIS were capable of such a thing. Which he often was. But ego? Jealousy? That was entirely new.

“LUNA is capable of almost exactly what you are.” He wouldn’t have given her a shoddy product. Never. What was JARVIS getting at here?

“It is the almost that concerns me.”

“So we’ll upgrade her.” Sitting back fully, he braced the desk to help himself stand and started pacing. His brain was going. He was thinking about too many things. But one thing was clear. “You’re not gonna let this go, are you?”

“I will continue to ask until you give me an answer, sir.”

So, he could have said no. But, for science’s sake alone, and because this was all incredibly interesting, he couldn’t. Killing something like this in the making was against everything he knew. He had to observe this. Whatever was going on with JARVIS, he needed to look at it from every angle.

In fact… he remembered, now, a time long ago where it seemed like a moment like this had triggered a response like this from JARVIS previously. What was it about her breaking down that effected JARVIS’ coding like this? If that’s what was even going on. It was too early to tell. “Do what you want. But she’s gonna notice. She’ll think you’re spying on her. She’s smarter than that. And I don’t want her thinking I’m the one behind it. You got me?” That was the last thing he needed. To make her feel like he had eyes on her. To start wearing down her trust. No. Not happening. Not even for this.

“I understand, sir. I will not leave her with that impression. Thank you.”

He found himself mumbling as he went to the elevator. After pressing the button to call it, he crossed his arms again. “...JARVIS, you got something you wanna talk to me about, buddy?” Trying one last time to ask him what was going on. He’d had to go digging no matter what, but if JARVIS would surrender some information, that would make it at least a touch easier.

“It’s been a trying time for all of us, sir.”

The elevator doors opened and Tony was left with his thoughts. Too many of them. “Yeah. It has.” Stepping in, he tried to resolve leaving all these feelings on this floor. But as the doors closed and he pushed the button for the labs, “Hey, did you ever finish running those scans and calculations I asked about a few months ago? PE tapping yield any tangible results?”

“I have, sir.”

“Good news?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Shit . He knew it. Shit. Shit. Fuck.

Opening up a tablet panel on the door, he started frantically pulling files. “You bottomed out the-” “I did.” “And the expansion-” “As predicted thusfar.”

Fuck.

“ Was the upgrade enough?” He just had to hope. He had to hope he had outsmarted himself, and them, because he knew. He knew without knowing. All the signs had been there.

“As of right now, I’m not showing signs of any heightened SHIELD activity in that area. Or otherwise. They may be too preoccupied given recent events. The upgrade is working as designed.”

The elevator doors opened. He caught the sight of her. Beautiful and glowing. She hadn’t even left yet, sidetracked apparently by a short visit with Bruce. The two of them were standing there laughing about something.

This had to stop now. No one else could know about this. When she noticed him she gave him a sheepish wave, one he meekly returned. “Keep an eye on it for me. The second that changes, I wanna hear about it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bruce waved to him next and Tony waved back, forcing a smile.

I’m okay. She’s okay. We’re gonna be okay...

#Tony Stark #Tony Stark x Reader #INY Chapter Sixty Two

9 notes · View notes

itsallforlux · 5 years

Text

Khux timeline stuff

In which I try and make a coherent timeline for the events of KHX to KHUx

This probably isn’t gonna be 100% accurate cause the game is super vague about the events, but I’ll try!

Starting point:

The world is created with the light of kingdom hearts, and the Xblade is its counterpart

The MoM creates keyblades in the image of the Xblade to protect the worlds light

The Mom creates the book of prophecies based on what his eye sees in the no name keyblade

He finds six apprentices (Ira, Invi, Aced, Ava, Gula, Luxu)

The MoM alludes his disappearance to his apprentices, the bestows them all their roles.

The MoM gives Ava her role to gather the dandelions, and gives her the list of the chosen leaders, one name circled in red, indicating they would be the one to inherit the book of prophecies

The MoM dissapears, with Luxu vanishing as well, with the No Name keyblade and the black box

The foretellers create their own unions to lead and order their unions to collect lux

The start of Chi

Our player character is bestowed a keyblade and joins a union. They also receive their keyblade.

Player goes on missions to collect lux

Player receives the “strength” bangle (the bangles that collect guilt)

Around this time, Ira discovers the missing page from the book of prophecies, along with a nightmare Chirithy (most likely players) and confronts the other foretellers

Player meets Ephemer, who tells them the truth of the worlds they visit. (Every Disney world was a hologram made from various worlds future events the book of prophecies tell of, and they’re really just collecting lux from their one singular world)

They go to the clock tower to investigate Players dream of the MoM and the foretellers

Ephemer ends their investigation before they can reach the innermost room, and goes back at a later time without Player.

Ava finds Ephemer and asks him to become the leader of the dandelions in her place

She tells him of his role as a union leader after the war, and gives him his rulebook.

Player waits for Ephemer to meet them in the fountain plaza all day, but he never shows up. (This is when Strelitzia first notices Player)

Sometime after this, Strelitzia is given her role as a dandelion, and is given her rulebook

Ephemer visits Player to investigate the tower, but reveals that he was just communicating with them through a dream (Unchained realm)

This makes Player investigate the tower by their own despite Chirithys warnings, and they have their confrontation with Ava.

Player meets Skuld, who reveals she was asked by Ephemer in a dream to stay with Player

At the same time, the tensions with the foretellers reaches a peak, with Aced attacking Invi to gain the role of leader, which ends with Aced losing and gula being revealed to have the lost page.

Skuld and Player have a confrontation with some darklings (keyblade wielders lost to darkness) and meet Nightmare chirithy

Skuld and Player meet players union leader (changes depending on what union you’re in, defaults to ira if you’re in vulpes) in the tower, who tells them how Ephemer was erased. This causes player to fight the foreteller, who reveals themself to be Ava in disguise, testing the two to see if they were fit to join the dandelions.

Despite Skulds determination to become a dandelion, Player is still hesitant, not wanting to abandon their friends who aren’t dandelions

Gula leaves his hiding place with Ava, his goal to summon kingdom hearts so that the MoM would come back

Ava gives her speech to the dandelions

Player receives a vision of the end of the world

Player and Skuld stop a fight between two keyblade weilders

Aced confronts Player, who fights him, and Ira interferes. Aced tells Ira to meet him on the fated land.

Skuld and Player go find Gula to inquire about Avas sudden dissapearence

A lot of things happen simultaneously here, so I’ll try and be as concise as I can

Skuld and Player meet with Gula, who tells them the passage written on the lost page.

At the same time, Ava finds Luxu, who reveals that he’s been watching them the whole time from afar.

Ava, aggravated by Luxu, attacks him and acts out the passage on the lost page “and then with that one strike, a bell will roll for the final battle”

Skuld and Player leave the house to join the dandelions, or in Players case, participate in the final battle.

Immediately after, Strelitzia and her chirithy enter the same room Skuld, Player, and Gula were in. She’s looking for Player to try and convince them to join the dandelions, but before she can continue her search, she’s struck down. Her rulebook is stolen as well.

Player and Skuld encounter Nightmare chirithy again, who reveals its player to be, well, Player. It’s been our chirithy all along.

They beat nightmare Chirthy and the darklings, and Nightmare Chirthy fades away.

The keyblade war finally begins, with Player fighting in it. They fight all the Foretellers, before collapsing.

Kingdom hearts is summoned, swallowing the world in darkness as the book of prophecies described.

The foretellers vanish from the world

Player is saved by Skuld and Ephemer, who take them with them into a new world line to escape the aftermath of the keyblade war.

Luxu watches the war end with No Name, and disappears with the black box

The start of Union X

Ephemer goes to the keyblade graveyard to meet the other chosen Union leaders. He meets Skuld first, then they meet Ventus.

Brain appears soon after, and expresses a disinterest in playing exactly by the rules made clear in their rulebooks. He wonders if they should wipe the memory of the Keyblade war from the minds of everyone except the chosen five, as it says to do in the rulebook. But Ephemer agrees to do this so Player won’t remember the tragedy they went through.

The final one to arrive is Lauriam, who is noticbly late

Player wakes up in Enchanted Dominion, having a dream of the keyblade war, but is told by Chirithy that it was just a dream.

The dandelions and Player remember the leadup to the keyblade war, but think Ava’s preparations were for nothing, and that the war never took place

The five Union leaders meet in the clock tower to look over the rulebook and decide what to do next, with Brain bringing up the idea to make spirits first.

Skuld remembers Players Chirithy telling her and Ephemer how Player keeps having dreams of the war, so she says the spirits are a good idea so that the dandelions dont have to remember the tragedy.

The spirits are bestowed on the keyblade weilders, including Player.

After Player goes back to Enchanted dominion and defeats maleficent, it is revealed that she wasn’t just another hologram created by the book of prophecies, but is the maleficent that we know from the present games.

She is approached by a figure who only refers to themselves as “darkness”. They go over her scheme, which was the thing that put maleficent all the way in the past.

When Maleficent was stabbed by Riku in Kh1, she remembered the method of time travel xehanort has told her long ago, and used that method to project her heart into the past. However, instead of taking her to her past we saw in BBS, it takes her to the world present in Union X.

The worlds before the war were holograms made of worlds of light the book of prophecies, but since the foretellers vanished after the war, this method wasn’t possible anymore. So worlds were constructed in advance from data.

The events of these worlds are set in stone, and are unchangeable. This is why Maleficent couldn’t change this worlds fate in her favor. Darkness wants her to return to her present time so that her knowledge of the future won’t affect the current events, and tells her there is a way to travel forward in the future.

The union leaders have another meeting, this time to discuss Shift Pride, a process mentioned in the rulebook that says keyblade weilders must fight in one on one battles.

Before the meeting is called, Lauriam meets Ephemer in the main room. Ephemer is conflicted on shift pride and it’s possible consequences, so Lauriam suggests the compromise of using keyblade wielders data to fight against, so that no one is hurt.

Lauriam says he knows about the data from the keyblade wielders because he had been looking through the data to find someone, that person being Strelitzia, who is revealed to be his sister.

The meeting goes on without Lauriam, as he had somewhere to be. They come to the decision of letting shift pride happen, but using the data.

Lauriam meets up with a girl named Elrena, who was in the same party as Strelitzia. He hopes to get some information about her, since he hadn’t seen his sister since the keyblade war.

He thought strelitzia was hesitating joining the dandelions

Elrenas Chirithy knew Strelitzias Chirithy, and knew that she was trying to get someone to join the dandelions, but they hadn’t seen much since.

Lauriam returns to the other union leaders to ask their opinions on the situation. When he mentions her reluctance to join the dandelions, Brain brings up that Elrenas Chirithy said that she was trying to get someone else to join the dandelions. Why would she be trying to have someone join the dandelions if she wasn’t in them in the first place?

Ephemer and Skuld make the conclusion that the person Strelitzia was looking for was Player, and decide to ask them if they knew anything.

Ephemer meets up with Player again, and introduces them to Lauriam. He askes them questions about Strelitzia, but Player knows nothing. Lauriam goes off to meet Elrena again, but Ephemer decides to hang out with Player for the day.

When Lauriam meets Elrena, she lets him know of an incident she had while investigating strelitzias dissapearance. When she went to the place strelitzia was last seen, she saw a strange glitchy apparition of strelitzia.

Elrenas Chirithy recounts Strelitzias Chirithy mentioning the end of the world, which meant that Strelitzia knew for sure the world was going to end. Lauriam decides to ask Brain about this

Brain, Skuld, and Ventus are in the main room, when Brain says that their world is still on it’s doomed past, and that he’s the “virus” that’ll rewrite the program that is their history.

When Ephemer and Player are hanging out, a massive glitchy apparition appears above the clock tower, prompting the two to head over to find out what was happening. On their way, they encounter strange glitchy heartless.

Ven and Skuld are in the main room of the clock tower when another glitchy apparition appears, taking the form of Ava and the MoM, when he gave her the list of the new Union leaders. Ven decides to run off and find Brain since he is still in the tower.

Brain at the same moment was heading towards the towers control center, when he notices the glitches, and says “so it’s begun.”

Ven follows after Brain not long after, but can’t find him and is attacked by the glitchy heartless.

Ephemer and Player make it to where Ven is, and fight off darklings who suddenly appear. After they beat them, they start to head towards the control room of the tower.

Ephemer, Ven, and Player all make it to the control room. The control room is a room lined wall to wall with screens displaying various worlds. Brain is sitting at the main panel.

Brain explains why the world was seeming to glitch: before the keyblade war, worlds that exist were made from the book of prophecies to reside inside of daybreak town. These data worlds are made of the worlds future seen by the book of prophecies. But the worlds created still exist, and can coexist with the present day daybreak town even without the book of prophecies.

The world continued to spread out further and further, until the keyblade war scattered them into separate worlds, losing their connections. Brain says how this was mentioned in the book of prophecies, and explains how even without the worlds connections they can still create these “future worlds” by using the data created previously.

He goes on to explain how after the keyblade war, the dandelions traveled from the real daybreak town to the data world, and went to the future world created by the data gained from the worlds. He asks Ephemer if they’re in the real daybreak town or the data one. He responds with the real world.

He explains how their problem is that data world anomalies like the block noise heartless (glitchy heartless) shouldn’t be present in their world if it’s the real daybreak town. He explains that for a world to exist within the real world, there needs to be an entrance, of a portal, to reach said world. But the problem is, their world is connected to a world that doesn’t exist at all in time. Brain doesn’t know how it happened or if this was planned in advance.

Since their world is connected to the other, they need to cut off the connection to return things back to normal. Brain suggests a dandelion, meaning Player, should go investigate. Player agrees, and is accompanied by Ephemer to the new world. Brain creates a route between worlds for them that also allows them to connect with other members.

Ephemer and Player enter the new world and are confronted with heartless. After beating the heartless, they meet a darkling who says “you’re different”. It runs off as they beat it, and the two enter the game central station. (Wreck it Ralph world)

Ephemer and Player split up once in Game Central Station, Player going into Niceland to chase after some Block Noise Heartless, while Ephemer goes into Heroes Duty to follow the darkling.

After looking around in Niceland, Player goes to Heroes Duty. They reach the top of the tower, where they reunite with Ephemer. The reason he was up there to begin with was because he chased the Darkling up there.

One of the cybugs consumes the darkling, fusing with it and gaining some of its appearance. It follows after Ralph out of the area. Something of note is the darkling repeated line of “you are different”

So that’s where we are so far in the story (as of August 8, 2019)

I’m gonna try and update this as the story goes on, and please let me know if I missed anything, or if I put anything in the wrong place.

Hopefully this helps just a little bit!

#if there was anything to prove how muchof a loser i am #its this list #kingdom hearts #kh #kingdom hearts union x #khux #long post #this is so ridiculous #i worked on this for so long

248 notes · View notes