#like i find it weird how my recent fic got a relatively
Text
20 Questions for Fic Writers
I haven't been tagged in this one (yet) but I'm in a major procrastination mood this morning so answering tumblr questions is currently way more appealing than actual writing so let's do this XD
How many works do you have on AO3? 67 1/2 - the 1/2 is because I have a very little Obidala-ish thing which is currently sitting in my files waiting to be published when I find an extra minute (like right now, for instance, except that I'm doing a survey instead oops ;))
What's your total AO3 word count? Ummm...let's just say if I had a dollar for every word of fanfic I've ever written, my bank account would be very, very happy.
What fandoms do you write for? Mostly Game of Thrones. But my full fandoms list has 25 unique fandoms, some major, some minor, and some where the entire tag is owned by me.
What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Île Aux Ours, Jamais T'oublier, Sunrise on the Jade Sea, La Nuit Venait, The Heir of Riverrun which are all Jorleesi fics except for THOR, which I'm pleasantly surprised to find so high in the rankings (although to be fair there's Jorleesi in that one too :)). And just because I was curious, my top five excluding any Jorleesi content are: New World Symphony (Vicbourne - oh I loved them so, history be damned), Dreams and Dragonglass (Viserys x Alicent from HotD), A Girl, A Drowned Man (ahem, Jaime Lannister x Arya Stark - don't even ask XD), over time and tide and death leaping (Obidala4Ever <3), and Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed (Siegfried x Audrey from the new All Creatures Great & Small - S5 is our season friends, I can feel it)
Do you respond to comments? Yes, all of them (except for the obvious trolls). I heart my readers and have had such good times in the comment section <3 Speaking of which, I'm behind with replies again. Just know my inbox is glaring at me.
What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Ummm, that's a hard one because I usually reach for the fluff endings with both hands. But I suppose...right now it's got to be my Hunger Games fic, and she gained the willow tree. I mean, it's intensely angsty, even more so than the source material, and may remain that way forever (at least until I update it and fix what I broke lol)
What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Almost all of my Jorleesi fics have unabashedly happy endings but I think Île Aux Ours edges out the others just because basically everyone (spoiler alert: except for Viserys, Rhaegar and the Night King) live! And all my ships survive! And House Mormont is flourishing! And the Seven Kingdoms are at peace for once! (at least until I write the sequel ;))
Do you get hate on fics? Only on the Game of Thrones fics, and relatively speaking, very, very rarely. It was slightly more common right at the end of Game of Thrones (people had feelings) but it's almost completely died off in recent years...which is a relief. Because trolls are easily ignored but they don't make anyone's day brighter.
Do you write smut? Again, rarely. But, ya know, sometimes things happen ;)
Do you write crossovers? Yes, but usually it's not what I would consider a true crossover. More me adapting one film/series to the setting/plot/characters of another. The only true crossover I've ever written is, I believe, this one: light goes the weather-wind and the feathered starling (where Tom Bombadil and Melisandre of Asshai meet up and make a trade - sometimes writing brains are weird)
Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not to my knowledge?
Have you ever had a fic translated? Again, not that I know of? Although I had a reader request permission to translate a couple of my Jorleesi fics into Russian so that may have happened and I just never received a link from them.
Have you ever co-written a fic before? Ohhhh, yesssssss. My forever partner-in-Jorleesi-crime is @salzrand <3 9 fics and counting :)
What's your all-time favorite ship? Based on my writing activity over the last 5-6 years, I think there's really only one correct answer here and it's the lobsters. A bear and his dragon-girl. A princess and her steadfast knight. They're perfect, they're dreamy. And forever inspiring. I cannot. But other than Jorleesi, I have to give top billing to Jane/Lisbon, Obi-Wan/Padme, Dickon/Mary, Jean Valjean/Fantine, Christy/Neil, Lexie/Mark because these are ships that have stayed with me for at least a decade or longer and are part of my DNA at this point.
What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Ugh. Don't talk to me about unfinished fics. They judge me with their Chapter 1/? eyes. They glare at me disapprovingly each time I log into AO3. And I know that there are a few that have been waiting on an update for a long, long time (and some of you have probably given up hope that I'll ever return to them), but never say never...at least until I'm dead XD
What are your writing strengths? I think I have a flair for writing scenery and believable multi-generational family dynamics. I also think I'm fairly good at fixing canon disappointments with some fun and unique twists (it's the soap opera training, I swear XD). I try to keep dialogue very natural, characterization at least partly canon-based and do a lot of research for my fics on time-period details, with mostly successful results...lol well, that's the hope anyway. And I think another strength that has made me successful in writing age-gap ships especially is that I can write character relationships in a way that might go beyond the whole attraction thing and touch on deeper connections (or something).
What are your writing weaknesses? Endings. Aren't they everyone's? Titles. And my pacing can be off sometimes. I think I get away with it in fic-writing for the most part but I have a few fics that aren't as "tight" as they could be. There are a few words/phrases that I rely on too much. And I'm sure I have a bunch of others that I'm unaware of.
Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I haven't done this much and I really don't venture outside French if I try it. I rely on friends who are native speakers to make sure I'm not saying anything off the wall.
First fandom you wrote for? Titanic 😍 I had to save Thomas Andrews. He looked so sad and despairing winding that clock at the end. I should have probably saved Leo too but let's just assume in my version, Kate scooched over let him share the door XD
Favorite fic you've written? Impossible to choose. I love them all. Okay, okay, Sunrise on the Jade Sea. But only because you're forcing me to answer <3
Tagging: @clarasimone @gettingovergreta @toas-tea @bridgr6 @crushermyheart @heatherfield <3 Or be like me and tag yourself ;)
#fic writing#tumblr survey#game of thrones#acgas 2020#jorleesi#obidala#obi-wan x padme#siegfried x audrey#vicbourne#all my ships#i need to make a proper list at some point#tag games#procrastination#it's my middle name#okay actual writing time#but this was fun#<3
8 notes
·
View notes
Note
more writing asks!! 5, 9, 28?
5. What's a tag you never want to use for your works even when it applies?
If you asked me this a few months ago, I would have had a different answer for you, but I recently feel like I got over some of my weirdness about tags! For a long time, I was super picky about my tags because I didn’t want to overwhelm anyone like I’ve been overwhelmed scrolling through my feed and having to keep scrolling and scrolling through a fic that tagged absolutely everything the author could think of. So while I would sometimes include personal notes like “I don’t know how the Isu work and I don’t care,” which fyi that applies to all my fics, I wouldn’t necessarily tag all the major characters or even all the ships. I didn’t tag any ships for the Children of Kephallonia until a few months ago because I was worried doing so would make it too long, but I got over myself eventually.
I also don’t really tag genres like angst or romance or fluff, although all of my fics tend to be majority fluff, but I think that’s because I don’t think any fic is just angst or just romance or just fluff. There’s always so much emotion in a fic because the author had to have a lot of emotion to write it, and so searching for one specific genre just feels like a disservice to the author a little bit. And tagging it sorta feels like a disservice to me if that makes sense?
9. Thoughts on cliffhangers.
I have a love/hate relationship with cliffhangers, which I’d argue is the norm lol. I think they’re hard to get right though, and while I’ve definitely read some stories that do cliffhangers so well, a lot of times I feel like they’re just mean and done for shock value rather than to add anything of value to the story.
For me though, I don’t feel like I use cliffhangers in my work that much. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that I don’t really see them as cliffhangers? I like to have each chapter tell a relatively self contained story, so any cliffhanger I might have feels less like a cliffhanger and more the natural end of one storyline and the jumping off point for the next, at least to me. Plus I don’t think my work is that groundbreaking or full of twists, so I feel like it’s pretty obvious that whatever trouble the characters find themselves in will be resolved pretty quickly lol.
28. Any writing advice that works for you and you feel like sharing?
Not going to lie I think these are all pretty weird but they work for me 😂
First off, I act out a lot of my scenes, albeit in my head so my dog and husband don’t look at me weird, kinda moving around the space as I run through and refine dialogue in my head. Like I will legitimately stand on one side of the room pretending to be one character and then go to the other side of the room pretending to be the other. I think it helps me figure out people’s vibe and mannerisms and visualize the scene before I put it onto paper.
I also draw a lot, although I don’t finish a lot of my drawings to the point of being comfortable posting them, but those are more to force me to think about character relationships. For example, for my drawing of Kassandra, Barnabas, and Herodotos all hugging, I sat there for a long time thinking about how they would hug each other, and there’s a lot of symbolism in like the ways their arms are wrapped around each other, at least in my opinion. Down to explain that in the comments if anyone’s interested but that would make this way too long and it’s already too long lol.
Lastly, and I’m not quite sure how to say this without sounding like an asshole, but I literally just write until I can’t write anymore. Like whenever I find myself stuck, whether I’m stuck on a specific line or a transition or even an entire scene, I write XXX and either add a short note or a little drawing about what I’m imagining and move on. And then I’ll go back later and search for every instance where I wrote XXX and fill in the gaps. Or if I’m unsure about which direction I want a scene to go, I will write brief snippets of all my options. Sometimes they aren’t very brief - for example I have five different half written versions of the Arkadia arc of my fic the Children of Kephallonia because I know how I want that storyline to end but I just keep changing my mind about what should happen in the middle RIP.
But if I’m just totally stuck on a story in general, I will literally open up another doc and work on that one, and I do that again and again until I am all out of time or creative writing energy. I’ve talked before about how I have way too many WIPs, but those are also just the ones I talk about. I have a bunch of stories that probably will never see the light of day but are fun to write, like a super weird modern AU or ridiculous crossovers that make no sense or just a bunch of random unconnected scenes of various Kassandra ships. So if I’m stuck on all of my actually published or planned to be published fics, I go work on one of those until I become unstuck on one of my real fics or need to close my laptop/put my phone down for a while. Probably why I’m pretty slow at updating but it works for me!
Imma be honest this doesn’t read overly coherent to me, but I’m really tired and I have a lot going on this week too and so I will probably continue to be tired. So I’m not going to edit 👍🏼 If you would like to read more my semi incoherent ramblings about my fics, more prompts can be found here! These are always fun to do and I could definitely use the mental break this week.
7 notes
·
View notes
Text
20 Questions for fic writers
I got tagged by @thetragicallynerdy, thank youuu <3
1. How many works do you have on AO3?
57 since 2018!
2. What’s your total AO3 word count?
494,281, the vast majority of which is from the last year and a half.
3. What fandoms do you write for?
Currently just Our Flag Means Death, but previously Schitt’s Creek.
4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
to wild homes we return to (Schitt's Creek) (5,943 words)
an atypical emotional response to common sounds (Our Flag Means Death (TV)) (6,612 words)
Made With Love (Schitt's Creek) (8,942 words)
What happened in Vegas? (Schitt's Creek) (1,000 words)
actually, the markup is very good (Schitt's Creek) (1,166 words)
I started writing Schitt’s Creek fic when the fandom was relatively small, so I suspect that accounts for the prominence here. Funny enough, the one OFMD fic in this list is the most recent thing I posted. The stats on that thing blow my mind a little (not that ever do, like, big name fan writer numbers).
5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
I reply to every one if I can. Sometimes when people binge-read a multi-chapter fic and leave comments on several chapters I find it hard to come up with something to say in reply to all but the last (or specific things mentioned in the comment), but I love when that happens!
6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?
Gotta be in a time trap, an efficient little 5+1 not-exactly-a-fix-it OFMD post-S1 timeloop fic where Stede keeps waking up with Chauncey’s pistol in his face.
7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?
Skipping the Schitt’s Creek fics, because those are largely happy fluff to begin with… Probably the most uncomplicatedly upbeat happy endings are found in Disruptors and We’re Gonna Live In The Trees.
8. Do you get hate on fics?
No one has ever said anything unkind to me on AO3.
9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
Oh, god, I’m fucking TRYING, and it is a TRIAL. It is NOT my default, but it’s personal shit I wanna work on, so. It’s generally not mlm, though ‘an atypical emotional response to common sounds’ is the one exception. Currently pushing myself to improve throughout the t4t tealoranges climate apocalypse fic the way things are going (with deep gratitude to tragic for their support and advice).
10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?
Heh, my first attempt at writing smut was a Schitt’s Creek/The Good Place crossover, Wine Tasting! Eleanor helps Stevie explore her bisexuality as a kind of soul-saving thing (look, I don’t know). I’ve written a few other things that are heavily inspired by other things, or rewrite/twist something into the current obsession (OFMD, always OFMD), but no full-on crossovers.
11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Not to my knowledge. That’d be weird.
12. Have you ever had a fic translated?
Nah, though a few have been recorded as podfics. ♥️
13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?
Yes! Ask Me Anything: A TealOranges SMAU was totally co-authored with @thetragicallynerdy, of course. I also like to say that Kitchen Mistakes & How To Avoid Them was in many ways a collaboration with my friend rose, who was muuuuch more than a beta reader, even if they won’t claim it as such. And oh no I’ve dropped the ball on this (it takes effort) but several pals in one of my group chats were co-writing a silly thing together, Public Relations: An OFMD Celebrity SMAU. I really enjoy collaborating on creative projects and would do it again! Though, uh, probably no more SMAUs. 😂
14. What’s your all time favorite ship?
tbh ships in and of themselves are not my main approach to enjoying things, though I realize that’s the structure a lot of fanworks take (including my own). I really do love writing Jim/Oluwande and Ed/Stede. I know, boring ol’ canon ships, but whatever. Those guys can fit all kinds of wild AUs and personal shit!
15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?
Ehhh, honestly, if I abandon a WIP, it’s probably dead. I have at least one thing that might look abandoned because I haven’t updated it since August but I swear it isn’t. Probably. Ennhhh.
16. What are your writing strengths?
I think I’m good at picturing/researching the setting enough to shade in the details and make it feel real for the story. Dialogue, because I hear it in my head and rewind and play it back and write it down. Internal monologue/complicated feelings.
17. What are your writing weaknesses?
Oh god, smut. Smut is SO hard. Describing bodies/clothes and probably to a large extent facial expressions, too. Em dashes. Tagging.
18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?
I’ve really only done tiny bits of Spanish dialogue in fic. I took Spanish in school ages ago, but have never ever ever been fluent, so it’s pretty minimal and uses reference sites/translation tools to do my best that the phrases make sense in context, etc. If it were more than that, I’d want to confer with someone who’s a native speaker or has a lot of direct cultural experience, but generally I don’t think I’m ambitious enough to try to write outside my own experience in that particular way.
19. First fandom you wrote for?
Schitt’s Creek, unless you count what might be considered songfic back when I was obsessed with Smashing Pumpkins and Radiohead in high school in the late ‘90s.
20. Favorite fic you’ve written?
Hmm, an impossible question, really. Maybe all that i need is you and the sea (an accidental time travel amnesiac love story told in five parts), because it was perhaps my first experience with something that bananas taking over my head and just flowing out of my brain over the course of several days, and it touches on all kinds of themes and issues and jokes I include in other fics. I learned a lot working on it, too. I just think it’s neat.
---
Tagging some writers I <3 here who might've already been tagged (i will never catch up with tumblr scroll) or simply don't wanna, so feel free to take this as a friendly wave hello if anything: @emi--rose @epersonae @ghostalservice @bktrashcat @sassygwaine [am i currently re-reading ALTWSS? yes] @petrichorca or really anyone <3
8 notes
·
View notes
Note
ooh ooh ooh writer ask! 6, 12, 18, 29, 39!
Hii!!
6. Single or multiple POV?
Multiple POV, apparently. I recently realized that I enjoy playing around with POV a lot while for different reasons. I feel like there are lots of reasons why I change POVs, but I find myself enjoying the change.
12. Describe your perfect writing space.
I had to think super hard about this one when I got asked this before, so I’m copying and pasting but adding a lounge chair to both the outside area and the inside area. I want one right now, so badly, and PIP in all my video options because I don’t like switching browsers just to have it there.
I tend to need different stimuli when I’m writing different things or at what stage I’m editing. I think somewhere that had easy access to being outside, had a computer with a large screen with a wireless keyboard and mouse, and a good stereo system. That way I could watch something or listen to some music while I write or take my phone outside and write if it's nice. Maybe some different seating options with different blankets. It would be very eclectic to say the least lol
18. If you could collaborate with anyone, who would it be, and what would you write about?
I think I would be thrilled to work with anyone that has the same vibes as far as concepts and storylines. I find it very enjoyable to create an idea or concept with someone else and expand on it and let it grow between you. Maybe my bestie, she helps me a lot with brainstorming concepts and just talking about abstract things. I love feeding ideas to her and working through them. I think making a comic of some sort with her, if we ever had time, would be super fun. We would probably write something with horror overtones, some dark humor, maybe some lessons being learned along the way, definitely some strange involved.
29. Favourite villain
Oh man, I love a good villain. I feel like most of my favorite characters throughout time could be defined as a villain at some point. But I don't feel like I generally have many villains I write about, I guess Cannibal Sam is a villain and I do love him dearly. I love a villain that doesn't see that they may be a villain.
39. Weirdest character concept you’ve ever had
Ah… I honestly don’t know. I think most of my stuff is weird, so it's kinda relative. Maybe Cannibal Sam? I feel like he would be considered weird. It’s weird to have him be so cruel and bloody, but still so moral, driven, polite, and how he handles his relationship with others. He just continues to gain all of these powers through magic and becomes this other thing that I personally think is glorious, but I admit that in general he is weird. Personally, I think the tentacle sex thing I wrote at like 4am is weirder. I really just wanted to write tentacle porn with Gabe, and getting there was a creation of strange. The whole thing started with the concept of archangel’s being both physical when in a vessel and incorporeal, and that Gabriel was very good at making his true form both. That grace could be made into a shape and feel solid while being capable of changing its shape, and yet still only really consisting of waves of light, sound, and cosmic junk. It was a lot of blending head cannons and reconstructing a species to fit an idea for the sole purpose of writing a 2k smut fic. I think it's weird, enjoyable and fun, but weird.
Thank you so much for your questions! Those were good picks, I really had to think about them. <3
For the Writer’s Ask Game
#thank you so much for the ask#these were so good#i feel ready to write again#writer asks#asks and answers
5 notes
·
View notes
Note
💘💝🌿🌈
💘Is there any posted fic you want to rework/re-edit/re-write?
I don't know if I'll actually rewrite it but I probably would choose my recent MASH fic Sometimes The Bullet Hits The Ground. I don't think it's bad, but I wrote it for the @mashficolympics and (because I'm the way I am) I didn't do any prep and wrote it all the night before it was due for the event, so things may be a little more rushed than I'm used to writing/posting
💝what is a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?
A while ago I started writing/posting small chapters to Watch Out: Witcher Online, which is a Witcher modern AU twitter fic (fic formatted like a series of tweets for those unfamiliar). I'd never done one before and I wasn't even sure if it was funny/entertaining at ALL, it was kind of a weird premise and didn't have a lot of continuity (or in my mind great characterization) but people LOVED it??? Like to this day it's still the fic that has the most people subscribed to it out of all my fics, and anytime I whip up a quick new chapter and post it people love it
🌿how does creating make you feel?
already answered!
🌈is there a fic that you worked *really fucking hard on* that no one would ever know? maybe a scene/theme you struggled with?
I feel like it would probably be easy to tell but I worked REALLY fucking hard and spent SOO much time on my longest fic ever, an Arctic Research Vessel/The Terror AU of Red Valley called all i need is to remember (how it was to feel alive). I spent a hefty chunk of last summer writing, editing, rewriting, making a companion playlist, and just generally making it the best thing it could possibly be! I still consider it my magnum opus of fic so far! The only sad part is I know Red Valley is still a relatively VERY small fandom so it doesn't get a lot of attention but hopefully as the fandom grows more people will find it, especially with Red Valley season 3 coming out soon!
2 notes
·
View notes
Note
Do you have any advice for newer Stranger Things blogs just starting out? I just recently started a blog and I want to utilize it but I'm really new to Tumblr so I don't know what to post or how to promo it. Especially because my blog is centered around a specific ship. I'm in the process of writing stuff on AO3 but I haven't posted anything yet so I don't have any fics to post about until then.
I love your blog so I figured maybe I would ask you, but it's totally fine if you don't really have an answer. I just don't know who to ask or how to look for the answer if it's already out there somewhere.
First off, I just want to thank you for loving and supporting my blog. I feel like I'm a relatively small presence in the community, so I'm flattered that you chose to come to me with your questions.
As for how to start out, I'm not sure if there actually is one correct way to do it. I had no idea what I was doing when I first started this blog last summer, and a lot of the time, I feel like I just got lucky. The first fic I ever posted only got 30 notes because it never showed up in the tags, and I'd maybe throw myself a party if my current series ever got that many notes since cheerscoops is such a niche ship. But here are a few tips I have that I wish I'd known when I started out. I'll use cheerscoops as an example throughout this since you said your blog is for a specific ship, and then you can just replace my ship with yours when making your own posts.
When it comes to tagging and promoting, make sure you have the correct ship name in your tags. If you're not using the most common name for your ship, people might not see your fics and other creations because they're not looking in the right spots. Cheerscoops is a weird one where people can't seem to decide on one specific ship name so I tend to tag things with cheerscoops, harringham, steve x chrissy, and chrissy x steve just so it reaches more people. Occasionally, I'll also throw in a tag like stranger things fic or stranger things fanfic to reach a broader audience. My most successful fic didn't have a ship in it and was just an exploration of the bond between Eddie and Wayne, and I used character tags like eddie munson fic and wayne munson fic for that one. Tagging specific characters is a good way to reach anyone who is looking for any fics involving that character.
However, it's really important to only tag the characters who are the main focus of the fic if you do this. If your fic is about Steve and Chrissy, but Dustin, Will, and Robin appear as secondary characters, only use Steve and Chrissy's tags. No one goes into the will byers fic tag looking for a cheerscoops fic, so if the character you're tagging isn't the focus, you run the risk of upsetting people by putting irrelevant stuff in their tag. It's just common courtesy to not spam the tags with things that don't apply to them.
If you want to attempt to build up an audience before you post anything, I recommend finding other people who ship the same things as you and interacting with their work. If you read something and enjoy it, reblog it and let the author know! We thrive on interaction with our fics and moodboards and other creations, and a reblog is the only way to let other people know what you're interested in. I feel like I gained the majority of my followers because I also ship hellcheer and steddie, and I was reading and reblogging a lot of steve x reader and eddie x reader fics when I first started out. If people know they can find things that they like on your blog, they're going to be more willing to follow you.
If it's something you're comfortable with, post sneak peeks of your writing on your blog. Get people excited for your fics by posting small snippets of what's to come as early promos. I participate in a lot of WIP Wednesday type tag games and challenges to get me writing more and to get my friends and followers excited about the things I'm creating.
Basic housekeeping stuff for your blog would be making sure your blog isn't blank!! Most people will automatically block you if you don't have an icon, a header image, or a bio because blank blogs are treated as bots. Make it obvious that you're a real person. I also recommend putting your age in your bio - or an age range if you're not comfortable sharing your actual age.
This one isn't necessary, but my bestie @quinnkeerys runs a discord server for Stranger Things rarepairs. If you think the ship you're making your blog for qualifies as a rarepair and adheres to the few ship rules the server has, I highly recommend contacting them about joining! We're a really small group, and we all multi-ship and share headcanons there. It's a super welcoming and supportive environment, and I feel like making friends in the community and supporting other creators is so helpful when you're first starting out.
I hope this helps! If you have any more questions, feel free to reach out again! I'm always happy to help <3
2 notes
·
View notes
Note
Hi there! I’m the anon who asked about why you don’t consume any Marvel content anymore. Thank you for answering, and your answer made total sense!!
I’m a new stucky fan (got sucked into this ship back in March after I fell in love with Sebastian Stan in the Fresh movie), and I’m still feeling my way through the fandom. I’m in a bit of a weird place because I just left a fandom that I’ve been a part of for years because the tumblr environment got toxic and honestly a bit racist so for my mental health I had to peace out (it was a real person fandom too so it had a bit of a different dynamic).
So I found stucky during a time when I really just needed comfort, and honestly this pairing is just so beautiful. They literally fought across space and time to be together and I just… ugh. Everything about them gets me right in the feels. I’ve been reading stucky fics on ao3 and loving every second of it (the sheer amount of fics, the different tropes that fanfic creators have established like shrunkyclunks etc.), I’ve bookmarked close to 100 fics already. I’m a bit apprehensive entering into the fandom because I just want to have fun and consume content and make friends but my previous experience in a fandom ended so poorly. But blogs like yours have really helped me get a feel for what the fandom and the people in the fandom are like! And everyone seems so lovely. I’m just a bit intimidated entering it because this is already such a HUGE fandom (cause duh, stucky is superior), so I’m kinda just looking around nervously like ‘hello!’
Aahh hello!! Thanks for coming back and telling me a bit more about yourself <3 You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear that you're new to the Stucky fandom and found the ship by way of watching Sebastian in Fresh! That's like double awesome, because Sebastian did such a brilliant job in that movie, and because it's just wonderful to know people are still joining this fandom anno 2022!
Honestly, I think in a way you're lucky to only have found this ship and fandom now, because that means you have avoided most of the drama and the heartbreak and you can just enjoy the good stuff now <3 As I think is the case in any fandom, this one also has its issues, but I genuinely believe that overall, the good by far outweighs the bad in the Stucky fandom. There are still so many wonderful and incredibly lovely and talented people around, so if you find those and stay close to them, you're going to be golden!
I completely understand why you might be a bit apprehensive and intimidated to actively join the fandom because of how established and still relatively big it is (and because of your recent experiences in your previous fandom), but when you feel up to it, please do jump in and join us in the fray, because we really do have so much fun together. The more the merrier ❤️
So yes, I really hope you have the best time possible shipping these to beautiful boys - but do prepare yourself, because this is one of those ships that grabs you by the throat and won’t let you go (but personally I think that’s the best thing ever)
15 notes
·
View notes
Note
Ok 2 things, ones a delightful rant and the others an actual question~
So I’ve recently finished catching up with all your ZaunFam Omegaverse posts and I love them all (shoutout to that Mylo and Silco bonding mini fic~) but what really got me cackling was that question on if Jayce was the Omega and Viktor was the Alpha~ I just love the idea that Viktor’s like that nerdy guy at school who was looked down on (not physically bullied as his family would destroy you~) for being physically weak though really smart, that then comes back years later extremely successful with a hot piece of eye candy on his arm (Jayce~) and everyone is just flabbergasted!~ Even more sweet/funny if you add the fact that Jayce has never considered himself conventionally attractive by Piltover standards (Makes me wonder how the ‘Golden Boy’ thing would change with that reality~) and doesn’t get what the fuss is about~
Also even better if Jayce’s pregnancy goes extremely smoothly, like through the whole 9 month to birth is a relative breeze (as much as a pregnancy can be~) and Silco’s just seething in the corner cause even though he’s happy to have a healthy grandchild he’d have liked Jayce to suffer like he did~ Oh the pettiness~
And now with my actual question~ I noticed that most of the post about ZaunFamily revolve around Silco/Vander’s relationship or raising of the kids/Zaun’s independence OR Jayce/Viktor’s relationship and generally terrorising Jayce to some capacity~ Which is all great btw~
So I’m wondering if you’ve thought of any interesting titbits or stories about the rest of the ZaunFam as people and their relationships?~
Omega!Jayce does really let you play with the whiplash of the Golden Boy - he goes from being seen as a bit plain to suddenly the most sought after omega in the city. But by that point Viktor already has won just by recognising Jayce's potential first (Mel also sits in that space of course but that's a separate verse/idea).
Unfortunately, it really give Viktor the vibe of the weird guy in highschool that comes back to the reunion with his arm-candy to upstage everyone. Which isn't what happens at all but... there are some in Zaun who think that. Especially seeing the whole 'wealthy family' thing.
When it's Viktor having it easier than Silco with his pregnancy Silco's envy is a bit more tempered because that's his son and he's seen Viktor have to deal with physical limitations his whole life. When it's the privileged (by comparison) Jayce he's more likely to get the kind of toxic mentality of you're supposed to suffer for your children. Even if healthy grandchild is definitively something he's happy with.
About the titbits or stories about the rest of the ZaunFam as people and relationships the answer is yes just they tend to either be
really tight moments (like 10 lines MAX) that I forget to write down (or are scribbled down somewhere really unhelpful and easily lost) because I'm waiting for them to find a home in another idea (often happens) - the Mylo & Silco bonding ficlet is a good example of that; the "she's not really my sister" exchange and the "what the siblings are good at" exchange both just sitting in my head for a bit and then when I got the "Silco in his full Act 2 style outfit with Mylo’s head in his lap" idea they combined to make that ficlet.
half-baked ideas that I'm waiting to either combine with something else or just generally continue fermenting into something complete - the example above also kind of sits here but the sick!Powder one is probably the better example, I knew I wanted to do something with both them caring for her it just suddenly gained A Form while sitting in that conference hall.
It's the reason why generally if you poke me about something I'll tend to spit out 5 rambly ideas pretty quick. They've been floating in the head void waiting for the right home. Or if you notice in a prompt I seem to have added another really strong theme/image - that idea fit nicely with the prompt so it finished it for me.
#Zaun Family#Ramblings of the Goddess#Q and A with the Goddess#Anon Question#Arcane mpreg#mpreg#Arcane omegaverse#Omegaverse#Arcane#Viktor Arcane#Jayce Arcane#You can see that writing/thinking habit all over my stuff#I've had Viktor was born breach since I watched the damn show#then this AU finally let me combine it with other ideas#to give it a home#Hell Silco as Zaun Representative has been a half-baked thing#for ages a well#it fit here so here it went
16 notes
·
View notes
Note
Oh! I did message you in instant messages. I can't always remember who I message someone. And I know that I send long messages that not everyone likes. So there's also that reason too.
Yeah. The High&Low franchise came out eight years ago. So you wish there was more people who still created content for the H&L fandom.
Which is bizarre to me? Because High&Low was a popular franchise when it came out, but now there seems to be nothing for the fandom. Especially because there are similarities between High&Low, Worst and Tokyo Revengers. Pretty boys who are delinquents. [I've only ever seen the Worst crossover movie with High&Low, not even the original series. So I can't comment much on Worst.]
Chimknj also wrote another High&Low story. Well.. There story would be a one shot, a one chapter story. Not that you have to read it. But it is a smutty story between Rocky and his girlfriend (original character) - during the events of the first movie.
And, I think, there is a person who's under the name FireOfJudgment on here. They have H&L stories, and AIB stories too. But I don't know what characters or ships they write for though. In case you may want to search their work. They might be an option for you.
It's best for me to write notes for ideas to stories, and characters, and who knows what else while being involved in the fandom. Because if I try writing when I'm not in any fandom, then my thoughts and ideas... I became fickle and scattered on what I want to write. It's a problem.
Being in a fandom makes me more focused to write for that fandom. If that makes any sense.
I mean.. The color coordination to my characters was accidental for me. Because I tend to go for a specific appearance for my characters, I was very adamant about using those people for my face claims but I wasn't sure for what fandom - and I probably will use them for a lot of other fandoms too. Most likely. But not sure which other fandoms yet though. Anyway. Anyway.. But one person's favorite color is blue, one is orange, and another is red which eventually became their signature colors. So I unconsciously connected them to their respective gangs, which is kinda funny because their personalities actually seem fitting for those gangs too. And since the High&Low cast of characters have been predominantly men, I wanted more female characters involved in the story. But there have been a few things I've been stick on lately.
i am just hella awful at answering my private messages. i’ll be like ‘ill reply to that in a bit’ and then completely forget.
it’s just weird. like fandoms used to stick around for longer and h&l is still relatively recent. like 2016 wasn’t even a decade ago yet! everybody go watch h&l and feel emotions you didn’t expect about a pretty boy gang show. the song ‘break into the dark’ literally got me F*cked Up, everybody go watch the unofficial music video.
i will absolutely go read a smutty fic, that’s half of what i’ve been reading lately anyway. love me an explicit fic. and rocky has grown on me, do really like that dude.
i used to be really good at writing short original stories, but now i find it a bit harder. need that high school inspired brain back. fanfics do come a bit easier for me, but i also second guess myself a lot and some stuff i don’t end up posting or even finishing. which is a shame bc it’s supposed to be a fun hobby. i definitely need a fandom to obsess over or i just go totally blank in the brain.
im so bad at colour coordinating my ocs, i can rarely ever decide on what colour suits them best. idk if anyone’s noticed how many light blue or pink characters i have ahsjdl. my own h&l oc kinda started as an oya oc and then developed into something more and got switched around a bit, i think i’m mostly happy with where she’s at rn tho. im having a lot of fun with her.
h&l is definitely lacking in the female character department. like even the strawberry milk girls don’t get a whole lot of screen time like i thought they would, which is a shame bc i think they’re cool and i love pink. i think naomi got the most screen time out of all the girls and even that wasnt a whole lot. n-e-way yamato’s mum and the bartender lady are, like, definitely gfs tho, that’s my hc.
#tj answers#writers bc like ‘its not gay!’ and then have no women in sight#there is no bechdel test passing here#long post //#long post anon
0 notes
Note
hi mel, i hope you're doing well! 🥰 im sorry if im bothering you, i just wanted to tell you that i love your blog and that you seem like a really genuine and sweet person! im relatively new to the fandom and i’ve been a long time lurker, but i’ve never really mustered enough courage to just come out of my cage and share some stuff because i was too nervous or my shy ass wouldn’t let me do it. but then i’ve seen how much supportive of each other you are in this community and how y’all seem genuinely cool, kind and really creative people, and this last thing in particular has inspired me a lot recently and it encouraged me enough to think that maybe i could give it a shot. i really don’t know how to do this or how to reach out and interact with anyone here and i was wondering if you had any advice you could give me to make the first move?
i hope this doesn't sound too weird or anything and i wish you a wonderful day/noon/evening/night, whenever you'll read this! 💘
hi beloved! this is so sweet. thank you for being here and welcome! i love this space and these people. i met my best friends here and i truly love chatting with every single person i come across. we have an astoundingly thoughtful, creative, and kind community. we aggressively love on each other all day long and it warms my little heart. i am so glad you're here and i look forward to chatting with you!
when i was new and lurking around (ages ago at this point! funny how time flies), the best way i engaged with people was through their creations! i reblogged everything i could find and added my thoughts and encouragements in the tags. i read everything from fics to shitposts, reblogged gifs and art, and just heaped love and conversation wherever i could. here and on ao3! i still do this as much as i can. that's why we're here, yes? to talk about this thing we love and find connections. people started reciprocating this and bit by bit, i got braver! i started showing up in people's inboxes to chat about their work or their posts, and soon enough we were popping in to wish each other happy days or share random thoughts.
i find that people here are so receptive to whatever you might be thinking about - even beyond shameless! and i love that people match each other's energy. if you're excited, they're excited!
and i love the care that people take with each other's thoughts and work. they are deliberate and thoughtful in their responses. we kinda run the gambit from goofy headcanons to serious meta, and no matter what you want to share, you will find that people return this energy.
it's also useful to use the basic tags - shameless, gallavich, etc. people often use these tags to find people to talk with! and of course user tags are great as well. you can share your posts and works or whatever you want! like i track #gardenermel, and i am so thrilled when someone wants to show me something 🥰
lastly, there are so many great initiatives going around to keep people engaged! try out @gallacrafts or @galladrabbles, and @gallavichthings runs some great fandom events. you can also join the gallabitches discord server and talk about anything from fics to music to books. these are some great places to start! but please know that you do not have to create or share work to be welcomed here. we just love to talk and make friends!
#please feel free to come by anytime!#i would love to get to know you#anyone else have advice? please chime in!#mel answers
53 notes
·
View notes
Text
Waiting for you - Harry Styles
❄️ FANFICmas 2020 ❄️
Read more about FANFICmas here!
i wrote it over like a month ago, but kept it for today, i hope yall will like it! it’s a cute bestfriends to lovers fic, so yeah... happy holidays, hope you are having an amazing time!
word count: 13k
masterlist
Harry Styles has been a household name around your home, but not for the reason many would think. While for the rest of the world he was the famous singer, former member of One Direction and recent solo artist, the guy who performs at the biggest arenas, wins awards and sings his heart out through the radio, for you and your mom he was the goofy, curly haired boy who lived across the street with his mum, sister and stepdad.
You still remember all too clear the first time you met him. You and your mum just moved into your new home after the nasty divorce of your parents, ready to start a new life. You’ve barely turned twelve, it was quite the awkward stage of your teenage years, you were still trying to find yourself on the rocky road of growing up. Moving to a whole new town and switching schools were terrifying and you had quite a few nightmares about possible outcomes of being the new girl in the neighborhood.
You and your mum just finished unpacking the dishes in the kitchen when the doorbell rang. She rushed to answer it and you wandered behind her, curiously peeking at the guests under her arm as she held the door open.
“Hi! We saw the trucks and thought we would say hi! I’m Anne and this is my son, Harry,” the nice woman greeted your mum and stepping aside she gestured towards the teenage boy standing next to her.
His green eyes fell to you almost immediately and you forgot to breathe for a moment. You were not the kind to crush that easily on guys, well, not until you laid your eyes on Harry. He smirked at you, nodding in your way in such an easy-going manner and you could feel the heat crawling up your neck to your cheeks and ears.
Anne and your mum quickly became good friends. She was the rock your mum definitely needed after such a bad year behind her and you were glad she found support in such a wonderful woman as Anne. Their newly funded friendship got stronger day by day until the two families just… simply felt one.
Growing up the Styles siblings and Anne came and go in your home as if they lived there too. On many occasions you came home from school only to find Anne in the kitchen while your mother wasn’t even home. Anne always knew when your mum was working the night shift at the hospital where she was a nurse and always made sure you had a warm dinner on those evenings, often inviting you over to just stay at theirs while your mum was away working. Birthdays, graduations, Easters and Christmases, they were all spent at either yours or at the Styles home, strengthening the bond between the two families.
You have always had a strong friendship with Gemma, but maybe because you were closer in age or for something else, but you became the closest with Harry. Two peas in a pod, as your mums liked to call the two of you. You weren’t just neighbors or good friends, it was clear to anyone and to both of you as well that you were the best of friends. You were there for each other at the best and worst of times, before and after Harry’s launch to stardom. You were there with him all along, sometimes physically, sometimes just through text messages and reassuring calls when he just needed a piece of his home away from home. Late night calls and talks were your usual when he was on the road and he made sure to only talk about his life after you’ve told him everything about yours, even if the most interesting thing was that you were able to buy three socks for the price of two. Harry listened and cared for everything that happened to you, not letting you think even for a moment that he would forget about his best friend when he is on the other side of the planet.
The two of you grew up together and while his life consisted of concerts, screaming fans, telly appearances and award shows, your mundane everydays went on the same was as any normal young girl’s: you graduated from high school, went to uni and then started a career for yourself. As time was moving it became a little more and more complicated to stay as close as you used to, though, both of you terribly busy with your own personal lives, so the calls, texts and meetings became less frequent, but you were always able to pick up from where you left, it was as easy with him as it could be.
Maybe that’s why you grew to love him in a more than friendly way through the years. Slowly, but surely you started to realize what an amazing man he really was –is. It was impossible not to fall for him, however you valued your close friendship more than to just ruin it with dropping a bomb on Harry. You always thought he doesn’t feel the same way, so you were sadly left with your daydreams and fantasies about him only your bedroom walls heard.
This year it’s gonna be the tenth Christmas you get to celebrate together, quite the anniversary. There were only two years when you didn’t see each other during the holidays, the first one because you and your mum spent it in Canada with some relatives that live there, and the second one was because Harry couldn’t come home a few years ago, having a too tight schedule. But this year, everyone made sure to make it back home in time. Harry called you three month before Christmas to check in if you are still gonna coming home.
“Would be an idiot not to. Can’t wait to stuff my head with cookies!” you chuckled.
“Have you found your sweater yet?” Harry questioned, the muffled noise of the traffic around him broke through the line as he was on his way home when he called.
“Not yet. But I’ve been looking. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna win this year,” you smirked in victory.
“Oh, not so fast with the assumptions, little girl!” he warned you making you laugh.
The two of you had a kind of tradition. Every year, you go on mission to find the ugliest Christmas sweaters one could find, and then perform a chosen song at the karaoke machine after dinner, entertaining the rest of the family. Those performances are the best memories you nurse. Your absolute favorite one was just a couple of years ago when Harry’s sweater was filled with weird looking reindeers in quite inappropriate poses, he even added a glittery pair of sunnies and he sang I Want To Break Free from the Queen. Everyone was on the floor laughing as he took the living room by storm as if it was the Maddison Square Garden filled with thousands of screaming fans, while it was just the five of you.
He won that year, Hell, even you voted on him, giving him the cleanest win of all times, but you swore to live up to that performance and you really feel like this year is gonna be your chance to live up to that promise. You have quite some tricks up your sleeves.
These past couple of years you were anxiously waiting for the holidays to roll around, because you knew you would get to spend so much time with Harry and through the year, even with several occasions of the two of you meeting, you missed him dearly. Sometimes you selfishly wished he would have just stayed the boy across the street so your lives could take tracks that run at least close to each other, but you always reminded yourself that his work was his life and you would have never taken away his true passion and happiness. Besides, you love watching him perform from time to time, that was just one of your favorite sides of him, see his eyes shine so bright as he sang to his fans. You used to envy the fangirls, it always seemed like he had a special connection with them, but you realized that you were one of them. You felt the same excitement when he stepped on the stage, you bought all his albums, even though he made sure you’d be one of the first people to get your hands on it. You had a second copy of them, because buying it gave you the extra jolt of happiness and the feeling that you were a tiny part of his success too. You watched all his music videos, knew the lyrics to his songs and cheered on him whenever he won another award. Difference was that at the end of the day you could call him and tell him how proud you were of him and he stared back at you with that beautiful grin, his dimples digging deep in his cheeks, telling you that he wouldn’t be here without you. You always knew he just said it to make you feel special, but he insisted it was the truth.
“I’m telling you. It you weren’t with me I would have gone crazy already, pulling a Justin Bieber or summat. Don’t think you are any less than what you are, that’s just daft.”
Every time he said something along those lines those damned butterflies in your stomach went crazy and you tried your best to ignore them. You didn’t always succeed, but the effort was there.
Now it’s two days before Christmas and you are already standing in your old room after coming home from London, leaving your small but cozy little apartment empty until the next year. The walls are still the same lilac color you chose when you were fourteen, a twin bed is pushed against the wall under your window, the wardrobe’s door is littered with old pictures from high school and ones you cut out from magazines. You just never got around to take them down and after a while it brought you a comforting sense every time you came home. A warm nostalgia took over you when you saw them, so they eventually stayed.
Your suitcase is lying on the floor as you unpack some stuff you’ll be using often during your stay, but you don’t get far in the packing when you hear an all too familiar voice coming from downstairs. Leaving your stuff as it is you rush down and throw your arms around Anne from behind, who is standing in the kitchen with your mum.
“My sweet angel! How are you?!” she cheers turning around in your hold to hug you back, giving you a tight squeeze before she pushes you away so she can have a good look on you. “Swear you get prettier every time I see you!”
“Stop it, my head’s gonna get big,” you chuckle feeling yourself blushing a little.
“Never gonna stop praising my daughter,” she smiles and gifts you with a cheeky wink.
Anne was never shy to let you know that she thought of you as a second daughter and you still remember how it felt when she called you that for the first time. It felt nice to know that you could count on her no matter what.
The three of you chat in the kitchen, Anne asks you about your job and how things have been going, she hasn’t seen you in a while. You missed the times when you could just go across the street and have a talk with her whenever you wanted, but since you’ve moved to London, Harry wasn’t the only one you didn’t get to see as often as you would have wanted. Your job and life overall got you so busy sometimes, you barely had time to call your own mum.
“Harry is arriving this evening. Wanna come with us to fetch him up at the airport?” she asks you and of course you say yes. You wouldn’t miss the chance to greet him with a bone crushing hug just after he lands.
However, as the time nears when you’d have to leave to the airport, Anne calls you up and asks if you could go on your own.
“I didn’t finish cooking and Gems is in an online meeting. Would you mind if you went alone?” she asks and though it sounds a little made up, you don’t question her.
On your way to the airport you are nervously drumming on the wheel, the thought of seeing Harry excites and worries you a little. It’s been months since you last seen him in the flesh and though you’ve talked plenty of times on the phone and in video calls, it’s just not the same. You find yourself wondering if he still smells the same, if you’ll fit the same way into his embrace as before. When you were younger you often liked to think about the two of you as two pieces of legos when you hugged. Your frame just fitted so perfectly against his body, he was your absolutely favorite person to hug.
Standing in a corner at the terminal, you keep checking the board until his flight’s status changes to landed. Then your eyes are glued to the sliding glass doors, knowing well it’s gonna take him some time to get his bags and walk out, but you are just way too excited to finally see him again.
People start walking through the doors and your head perks up every time you see a slightly tall frame, only to realize it’s still not him. Until it is.
You can’t bite your growing smile back when you spot him, a beanie and the hood of his hoodie covering his mop of hair, sunnies hiding his eyes, but you’d recognize him even from just the tiniest detail. You push yourself away from the wall as you see him look around, probably searching for his mum and sister, because he was already on his way when Anne decided it’s gonna be you who fetches him up, so he doesn’t know about the change.
“Excuse me, can I get a picture?” you ask teasingly walking up to him and for a moment you can tell he believes it’s a fan who recognized him, but his face quickly changes once his eyes land on you.
“Fo’ fuck’s sake, you had me for a second,” he breathes out, his arms already reaching out to pull you against him and you gladly envelop yourself into his hold. “What are you doing here?” he mumbles tightening his arms around you, and you don’t mind it. As you face is pressed into his shoulder you smile when you realize that he still smells the same. Like home.
“Your mum asked me to come and get you because she didn’t finish cooking. But if you ask me she just wanted to surprise you with me. You happy to see me?” you smirk up at him letting your head fall back so you could look into his eyes.
“Always,” he grins before placing a soft kiss to your temple and letting go of you.
The two of you leave the terminal before anyone could recognize him and packing his stuff up into the car you head back home.
You hand your phone over to him once you hit the road so he can be in charge of the music and it’s no surprise when he starts playing Christmas music straight away. Grinning to yourself you glance over at him and see him scrolling through your camera roll like the nosy little gremlin that he is.
“Hey! I did not give you permission to snoop around my phone!” you warn him, but don’t try to snatch it away from him, there’s really nothing he shouldn’t see, besides, half of those pics have been sent to him through messages.
“Just tryna catch up w’ you,” he mumbles under his breath, continuously opening up photos he is interested in. “New couch, eh?” he asks showing you the screen for a second.
“Yeah, bought it a few weeks ago. You like it?”
“Looks comfy. I should try it out sometime.”
“You never sleep on my couch, what are you talking about?”
“Right, you always drag me t’ your bed,” he snorts and you gasp at him, smacking his chest gently.
“That’s so not true! You always just arbitrarily make yourself comfortable in my bed and I don’t have the heart to kick you out,” you correct him.
There hasn’t been many times when Harry crashed at your place, but when he did, he always slept in your bed with you, and the two of you have shared a bed a few other times prior too. It’s nothing new, though it does have a deeper meaning for you than for him, you think. Waking up with Harry snoring lightly next to you, admiring how peaceful and beautiful he is in this intimate state, you just wish you could see him like this all the time.
Harry smirks at you cheekily, scrunching his nose as he chuckles.
“’Cause I wouldn’t want to sleep anywhere else, Love,” he says before turning his attention back to your phone while you try to ignore the butterflies in your stomach at the nickname.
It’s quite late by the time you get home, you’ve run into some traffic, but it just meant more time with Harry. You gladly listened to his stories and you are happy you got some alone time with him. Parking up to your driveway you help him unload his bags before locking the car.
“Wanna go to the Christmas market in the morning? Promised Gemma I’d go with her and Michal,” he asks, slowly walking down the driveway towards his home.
“Uh, sure,” you nod smiling. Not that you had any other plans, the holidays are reserved for family and the Styles’ are family.
“Great, I’ll be here at ten. And thanks for the ride,” he smirks waving goodbye and you watch him cross the street before he disappears in his home and you do the same.
“Y/N? Is that you?” your mum calls out when you walk in.
“Were you expecting anyone else?” you ask, hanging your coat before you join her in the living room.
“Not,” she smiles giddily. “Was everything alright at the airport?”
You throw your legs over her lap and she squeezes your ankles playfully.
“Yeah, everything fine.”
“How is Harry?”
“Cheeky and smug, as always,” you huff smirking.
“Can’t wait to see him. I feel like I haven’t seen ‘im in ages.”
“When are they coming over tomorrow?”
“Anne said she’ll come around four to help me cook, the rest I don’t know. Dinner will be done around seven though.”
“I’m pretty sure Gemma and Harry will be here along with Anne,” you snort, knowing well they wouldn’t miss a chance to come over, especially Harry. He has been talking nonstop how he’ll be glued to your hip once he is back home, making up for all the time you’ve spent apart.
“They surely will,” your mum chuckles before you both turn your attention at the telly.
You go to bed way after midnight and finish up the packing you left abruptly when you left to get Harry. Shuffling around in your room you glance out the window and see that the light in Harry’s room is on too. Peeking out you lean against the window’s frame, thinking about the times when the two of you sat in the window, talking on the phone after curfew, keeping your voice down so your parents didn’t wake up, sharing secrets and your silliest thoughts. With Harry, you never felt like you had to keep anything back, he would have never judged you for anything, you could be your true self around him and vice versa.
A tall figure appears at the window and as Harry glances out his window he is quick to see you sitting on the window sill, your head resting against the frame. The two houses are not far away from each other and you see him grinning as he sits at the window as well, pulling out his phone, a moment later yours starts buzzing on the nightstand. You quickly grab it, and go back to the window.
“Creeping on me, eh?” he hums into the phone and you roll your eyes at him.
“Was just admiring the street lights, don’t flatter yourself, your head is getting too big,” you huff, but you can’t push your smirk down.
“Admit it, you were hoping to see me roam around naked, weren’t you?”
“As if I haven’t seen you like that before,” you snort making him laugh too. It’s true, Harry has never been shy to get rid of his clothes and he also doesn’t bother to draw the blinds whenever he is changing. You once saw him butt naked when he was nineteen, and when you told him to close the blinds next time he is changing, he just shrugged with a smug smile.
“’M not ashamed of anything, Love,” he told you and you had to turn away because you were blushing for sure.
“Right, you’re a fan of putting yourself on full display when you’re naked, almost forgot,” you chuckle shaking your head. “Millions of girls have the picture of you, lying naked on their walls.”
“You one of them?” he cheekily asks.
“Nah, doesn’t go well with the vibe of my apartment.”
“Shame. Though I think it would definitely look amazin’ above your bed, Love.”
“Now would it? I don’t know about that.”
“I’ll get you a copy framed,” he smirks and you can see it clear even from the distance. “Y’ know what? I’ll make you an exclusive one. One that nobody else has, how does that sound?”
“I can’t believe you, Styles,” you chuckle shaking your head. “I’m not gonna answer this, just gonna head to bed. You should too.”
“So we’re not sharing any secrets like we used to? Thought you’d have something fo’ me.”
“You know everything, Harry,” you sigh with a soft smile, though your heart skips a beat. He does know everything, except one big, fat, heavy secret you’ve been carrying around for way too long, that will probably stay with you forever.
“Right. Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Night, Harry.”
“Good night, Love,” he murmurs and you know he is smiling, thought he steps away from the window as he says goodbye and you do the same before ending the call.
***
“Hey! That’s mine!” you protest as Harry steals another roasted chestnut from your little paper bag, but you can’t stay mad at him when he is smiling at you so sweetly.
“Sorry, tastes better when it’s someone else’s.”
“Sure,” you snort and just let him get as many as he wants. You wouldn’t have eaten it all anyway.
It’s quite cold out in the town, but at least there’s no rain or storm, so the weather didn’t try to ruin your little trip to the Christmas market.
Gemma calls out for Harry to show him something and you just keep wandering between the booths, enjoying the atmosphere quite a lot, you have no idea when was the last time you got to come to the market, though you always loved coming when you were younger.
Finishing up your chestnuts you throw the paper bag into a trash can and turn around to find the rest of your little group, spotting Harry and Gemma deep in discussion next to a booth that offers handmade ceramic mugs. As you walk closer it almost seems like as if they were having a fight, which is just odd, they rarely do that.
“Just get your head out of your arse!” you catch Gemma telling her brother who only groans in frustration before he spots you, a smile plastering across his face.
“Hey, there you are!” he beams.
“Everything alright?” you ask looking at them.
“Sure, just Gemma is being a little nosy, is all,” Harry waves in dismiss. You glance over to Gems, but she is already back in discussion with Michal so you decide to drop it. “You ate all the chestnuts?” Harry asks offended, throwing an arm around your shoulders.
“Well, it was mine, so of course I ate them!”
“Selfish,” he narrows his eyes at you, but you both know it’s just a joke.
You walk further down in the aisle, occasionally stopping at some of the booth when you spot a place that offers hot chocolate in cute little mugs that you can take home with you if you’d like, or just take it back and get your money back.
“Oh look!” you gasp excitedly and head towards the hot chocolate booth. The old lady smiles brightly at the two of you as you take a look at all the choices. “Oh my god, they have caramel flavored!” you cheer, basically already drooling at the thought of a good, caramel flavored hot chocolate.
“What can I get for the lovely couple?” the lady smiles warmly at the two of you and you freeze at her assumption.
“Oh we—“ you start, but Harry cuts you off.
“A caramel flavored and a plain one, please,” he orders, without even batting an eye about how the lady just called you a couple. You can feel your cheeks heating up at the thought, but you try to calm yourself. He probably just didn’t want to get into explaining that you two are not an item and let her think what she wanted.
The nice lady hands you your mug and you take Harry’s as well as he pays for both of them. You would try to argue with him and pay yours, but you are already used to how stubborn he is and he never lets you split anything, it’s always on him.
“Thank you, have a nice day!” Harry calls out to the lady before the two of you leave. You peek at him handing him his mug, looking for any clue that would give away if this little scene got him just as bothered as it did you, but he looks perfectly fine and relaxed, so you decide not to bring it up. You’re sure he didn’t think much of it.
Your little stroll stretches into the afternoon, the four of you decide to have lunch out there too, then you just opt for a walk in town as Gemma wants to do a quick last minute Christmas shopping, so by the time you get home Anne is already over at yours helping your mum with dinner. Tonight you are all eating at yours, then tomorrow it’s the Styles’ turn to host, this is how you agreed this year.
“Woah, it smells amazing!” you call out walking into the house. The delicious smells fill up the whole place and you hear the two women giggling in the kitchen.
“Hi Honey, how was the market?” your mum greets you, a glass of red wine in her hand and the same goes for Anne.
“Great, we have a new mug,” you say holding up the emptied out hot chocolate mug. Stepping to the sink you wash it quickly and drying off you put it away in one of the cabinets.
You stick around in the kitchen and not so much later Harry comes over, the two of you leave your mums alone and get comfortable in front of the telly.
All channels are filled with holiday movies and you don’t mind, really, you like them all even if you’ve seen them a million times, you still find them funny and cute. Harry feels the same way, so when you settle on Love Actually he doesn’t say a word.
What startles you is that he grabs your ankles and pulls your legs over his lap, a small shriek escaping your mouth since you weren’t expecting him to do that. You’re sitting sideways, your legs are bent at the knee and Harry is kind of hugging them as his eyes are glued to the screen.
You find it rather hard to focus on the movie when Harry’s fingers keep fidgeting on your legs, they keep running up and down, sometimes he lays his hands flat on your knees, there’s no spot he hasn’t touched since you started watching the movie.
About an hour into the film he turns to you and you look at him in question.
“’M in the mood to cuddle,” he announces and starts moving around, not even letting you protest as he basically crawls to your lap, resting his head on your stomach as the two of you lay on the couch.
“Am I now your personal pillow?” you ask chuckling, but you wouldn’t want him to move for anything. Feeling him weigh down on you just feels so warm and simple but amazing.
“The best one,” he mumbles, bringing a hand to your side as you let your fingers comb through his curls.
You keep massaging his scalp and he lets out soft moans when you go over a soft spot, you can’t help but chuckle as he melts under your hands. His fingers start drawing circles on your side and the movie is long forgotten by you, all you can focus on is how great it is to have Harry so close to you. He is known to be a physical person, you are used to hugs and touches, but it seems like he is a little needier now than the usual.
You don’t mind it though, you just try to enjoy the moment, because it can end anytime.
Gemma and Michal come over a little before seven, and while your mums finish up the cooking the four of you set the table. You grab the crystal glasses and start placing them to the table, Harry lending you a hand. Once the table is all set you shuffle into the kitchen to see if there’s anything you can help with, Harry following you behind, placing a hand to the small of your back.
As you stand and wait for you mum to finish up the meals so you can help carry them to the table you feel Harry’s hand wander over to your hip, giving it a squeeze as he stands closer, so his chest is pressed against your back.
“Harry?” you ask a little out of breath.
“Hm?” he innocently hums.
“What’s with you today?” Turning your head to the side your eyes lock with his, but he just shrugs smiling.
“Guess I just missed yeh a lot.”
“You’re weird,” you chuckle shaking your head, but don’t make an effort to push him away. His touch feels way too good to put an end to it and you just want to be selfish a little longer.
His hands leave you when the two of you help to bring the food to the table, and you almost wish they would just return, but you gotta swallow the thought.
The food is amazing, as always. You all sip on some wine, just having a genuinely good time, enjoying that all of you are back at one place, something that rarely happens now that all three of you kids are all grown up.
At one point Harry rests his arm on the back of your chair, no one seems to notice but you. All these little things have been driving you crazy all day and your mind seems to be playing a nasty game with you. There’s no way Harry thinks of these details more than what they are, a friendly gesture towards an old friend of his.
When Gemma is telling a story about some weird guy she met at work Harry reaches up and pushes your hair behind your ear, his finger lingering over your neck a little longer than you would have expected. Turning to face him you give him a questioning look, not sure what to think about his needy and touchy self all of a sudden.
“What?” you mouth him, but he just smiles at you absentmindedly, curling a strand of hair around his finger, playing with it for a moment before letting go of it and going for another lock. You reach up and pull his hand away, feeling yourself heating up from his touch, but when you are about to let go of his hand he grabs yours, lacing your fingers together with yours as he rests them on his thigh.
“Harry…” you breathe out, glancing at the others, relieved to see that they are not paying much attention to the two of you.
“What? Am I not allowed to touch you?” he asks with a smug smirk and you roll your eyes at him.
“As I said, you’re weird,” you mumble under your breath looking down at your now empty plate. Harry gives your hand a squeeze.
“But like, the good kind of weird, yeah?”
“Shut up,” you chuckle shaking your head at him.
You try to tell yourself he is just needy because it’s been so long since you last saw each other. It can’t be more, you push even the smallest thought to the back of your mind, though it surely lingers there throughout the evening.
He helps you with washing the dishes, you stand arm to arm at the sink as you scrub the plates and hand over to him for drying. He gently hums to himself all along, swaying his hips, bumping against yours. At first you resist it, but then you catch the rhythm and start moving along, so your hips meet in the middle before swinging to the opposite side.
“What’s the song?” you ask finishing up the last plate.
“Just something random,” he shrugs smirking over at you. You hand him the last plate, he is still singing, making up gibberish lyrics to his song and once he puts the plate down he throws the kitchen cloth to the counter and easily grabs your waist pulling you against him as he starts swaying with you to his impromptu song. You let out a small shriek at the sudden movement, but eventually melt into his hold. The humming slowly turns into an all too familiar melody as Harry starts singing Sweet Creature into your ear, slow dancing in the kitchen while you hear your mums and Gemma laugh outside somewhere.
Your hands run up his arms and stop behind his neck as you lock your fingers and let him hold you close, his palms are pressed to your waist, fingers gently stroking you through the fabric of your shirt. You take a deep breath and his cologne fills your nose, one of your favorite scents, sometimes you just wish you could spray it on your pillow so it would always smell like him.
“Sweet creature, wherever I go, you bring me home…” he softly sings, leaning back just enough for your eyes to meet. It feels like your heart is about to burst out of your chest, it’s not the first time you feel so intimidated by him, like you could pass out any moment, but this is a little different. As if his eyes were telling you another story, but you can’t completely make up the words.
“Sweet creature, when I run out of road, you bring me home, you’ll bring me home.”
He finishes the song, hums the closing melody and you watch him in complete awe. Your lips part when you catch his gaze move down to them and you swear you see him leaning closer, as if he is about to kiss you. Your breath gets caught in your throat, he is so close, just a few more inches and you’d taste those perfect lips of his, the ones you’ve been dreaming about for way too long.
It almost happens, it seems, but just when that last push is about to set in Gemma waltz into the kitchen and you step back faster than light, pushing him away even though the sudden lack of his touch is more painful than you were expecting.
“You guys—Oh, what’s up?” she asks stopping at the door and you feel yourself getting redder with each passing moment, the heat crawling up your neck, ears cheeks, right to the top of your head. What were you thinking? You let yourself believe Harry would ever kiss you, this whole scene was nothing more than just a friendly moment the two of you were sharing.
“I’m—sorry,” you breathe out making your way out of the kitchen, right up to your room to have some well needed space.
“Way to ruin everything,” Harry snickers at his sister.
“You joking? You wanted to kiss her in her mum’s kitchen?” Gemma snaps at him in disbelief.
“We were having a moment,” he mumbles rubbing his face with his hands. “Up until you stomped in with your big mouth.”
“Well, if you were havin’ a moment, just make it happen again.”
“As if it’s that easy, Gemma!” he scoffs throwing his hands in the air.
“Man up and tell her how you feel, don’t have to complicate it too much,” she shrugs before walking out and leaving her brother alone. Harry growls in frustration, the gears in his head turning wildly as he is trying to figure out how to come clear to you about his feelings.
Meanwhile, up in your room you get out your laptop and busy yourself with checking up on messages and emails you’ve been ignoring, hoping that the uneasy feeling in your chest will ease very soon. Your hands were shaking when you locked yourself up in your room, but as you get focused on other tasks you slowly gain your balance back.
You kind of even forget that the Styles’ were over, you only realize that you abruptly pulled yourself out of the evening when there’s a soft knock on your door.
“Come on in!” you call out and a moment later Harry’s head pops in, eyes softly falling on your sitting figure on the bed. “Hey,” you smile at him faintly.
“Hey. Thought you were sleepin’s or summat.” Coming inside he closes the door behind him then sits on your plush rug in the middle of the room.
“Just… sorted some work related things out,” you sigh.
“Working during the holidays? Tha’s not healthy.”
“I know, I’m done,” you smile shutting the laptop down and putting it aside. “Sorry I disappeared, I just—“
“No worries,” Harry shakes his head. “Mum and Gems went home, they thought you were sleeping too, tha’s why they didn’t say goodbye.”
“Oh, alright.”
“But I thought we could have a sleepover,” he peeks at you with a boyish smile.
“What, like we did in middle school?” you chuckle.
“Yea, thought it would be fun.”
“Well, I don’t think my bed would fit us comfortably and we don’t have the mattress anymore that you used to sleep on,” you tell him looking around.
“Nonsense, I’m not tha’ big,” he insists hopping to his feet and throwing himself on the bed, ignoring that you’re already there. His body takes up more than half on the bed , limbs wrapping around you as he brings you down to the mattress next to him, you can’t help the laugh that leaves your lips.
“You’re like a gigantic baby, Harry!” you laugh as he keeps you down on the bed with his arm.
“It’s perfectly fine for two people,” he mumbles with a smirk, closing his eyes as his head sinks into your pillow.
“Do you ever get no as an answer?” you ask looking at him in awe. You can never get used to seeing him so up close, like not many get to.
“No,” he huffs in satisfaction, his arm bringing you closer to him and you just giggle at him.
“I’m not sleeping just yet, gotta have a shower first.”
“Do what you want, I’ll be here,” he mumbles but you snort at him.
“You’re not sleeping in my bed without having a shower,” you tell him before you grab your pajamas and head to the bathroom.
You have a quick shower and get done with all your evening business. Returning to your room you find Harry sitting on the floor, his back against the side of the bed as he is scrolling through his phone.
“Does mum know you’re staying over?” you ask him as you throw your used clothes into the hamper, moving around the room while feeling his eyes on you.
“Yeah. ‘S all good.”
“You need a towel?”
“Yes please,” he says pushing himself up from the floor.
“Clothes?” you ask with an arched brow. He just grins at you and it’s enough of an answer. “Here,” you give him the shirt and sweats he has left at yours quite some time ago, along with a clean towel.
“Thanks,” he smirks before leaving to occupy the bathroom.
He doesn’t take long in there, you’re lying in bed already when he returns, smelling like your shower gel, strawberry and melon.
He throws his clothes to the chair in the corner and then lies beside you on the bed. You scoot over to the wall to give him space, but he is quick to bring you closer to him once he has made himself comfortable. You lay your head on his shoulder as you are both scrolling through your phones.
When you had enough, you throw yours to the nightstand, and stay cuddled up to his side.
“Do you remember the last time I slept here?” he asks tossing his phone to the nightstand and bringing his arms around you.
“Mm, was it at my twentieth birthday?”
“Yeah. You were so wasted,” he chuckles and you smirk to yourself
“But you took good care of me.”
“I did. You were so cute, rambling about how much you love me when I took you home from the pub.”
You bite into your bottom lip. You still remember that night vividly. Your birthday party had gone a little wild and you had gotten drunker than you intended to. Luckily, he was there to bring your home and he stayed in the bathroom with you as you threw up everything you ate and drank that evening. Then he made you take a shower, got you fresh clothes out and helped you get into bed. He slept next to you that night, holding you in his arms, gently caressing your back and upper arm as you fell into your drunken slumber. In the morning you told yourself he just did what any other friend would do, helping you out when you were clearly knocked out, but he made you breakfast in the morning since your mum was working all night and morning and he stayed over later the afternoon to make sure you were alright.
What you told him in your drunken state about loving him, it wasn’t just your friendly side, it was your drunken self coming clear to him, telling him that you are in love with him, but he didn’t take it seriously and you were too ashamed and awkward to even bring it up to him after that, so it was all forgotten very soon.
Following that you planned on telling him how you feel, several times. You even wrote a little speech you planned to give him when the time comes, but you couldn’t do it. The fear of losing him if he doesn’t feel the same was stronger than you expected and every time you had the chance to come clear, you chickened out. The thought of losing him as a friend is way worse than having to push your feelings down... forever. You just can’t imagine your life without Harry in it and you can’t risk losing him.
The two of you talk for quite a while, laughing about the good old times, until you both fall asleep. Sometime in the middle of the night you wake up and feel Harry wrapped around you, his head lying on your chest as he is snoring softly. He truly is like a big baby, an arm thrown over your stomach, his legs tangled with yours. Good Lord, how amazing it feels to have him so close to you!
Reaching up you tangle your fingers through his hair gently so he doesn’t wake up, his soft curls glide between your fingers easily and lifting your head you kiss the top of his head before letting yourself drift back to sleep.
When you open your eyes the next time the situation is the opposite, you are the one cuddled up to Harry’s side who is scrolling through his phone with one hand, keeping the other one on your arm.
“Mornin’, sleepy head,” he chuckles softly when he sees you awake.
“Mmm, what time is it?” you ask letting your head rest on his chest a little longer.
“Quarter to nine. You can sleep a little more if you want, it’s not that late.”
“No, I promised mum I’d help her wrap gifts,” you sigh rolling over to your stomach as you push yourself up to your elbows to look at him. “Love the double chin you got going there,” you tease him sleepily and he just smirks.
“Yea? Quite cute, right? Worked a lot on it,” he jokes running his finger over it before letting out a chuckle. “Ready for our battle today?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be. You are going down this year, Styles,” you tell him pushing yourself up into a sitting position. Harry only pushes himself further on the bed enough to rest his head against the headboard.
“Oh really? I wouldn’t be that sure about tha’,” he warns you, but you are feeling pretty confident about your performance this year. There’s no way he can top it.
“We’ll see. Alright, I need a coffee. Want something for breakfast?” you ask him crawling out of the bed.
“Yeah, that would be nice.”
Your mum is already in the kitchen, sipping on her morning coffee while reading the paper. She doesn’t find it even a bit weird that Harry spent the night at yours, it’s been quite the usual for you. Harry helps you make eggs and bacon and the three of you eat together, having a lovely time and you genuinely feel like it’s just like in the good old times when you were still living home and Harry wasn’t Harry Styles, but the boy from across the street.
He goes home after breakfast to help his own mum with the cooking for tonight’s dinner and you don’t do much for the rest of the day, just spend time with your mum, watch movies and relax. It’s nice to unwind after such a busy year behind you.
Not long before five you go to take a shower and get ready to head over to the Styles’ and you pack everything you’ll need for the evening: gifts, ugly sweater, accessories. Harry is going down this year for sure.
It’s a little past six when you and your mum walk across the street, Anne’s Christmas lights are putting the little town house into the spirit for sure. You don’t even ring the bell, just walk straight in, like you always do. The Christmas tree stands tall in their living room and the table is already nicely set. Gemma and Michal are snuggled up on the couch while Harry is helping Anne in the kitchen with the finishing touches.
“I’m rooting for you this year,” Gemma winks at you when you set down your bag in the corner that has everything you’ll need for your performance.
“He’s gonna lose this round,” you smirk proudly, very sure in yourself.
Harry greets you with a bright smile and a tight hug when he walks into the living room, as if you didn’t just see each other a few hours earlier.
When the food is ready you all sit down to eat, and though you’re trying your best to focus on the conversation, you’re getting excited about tonight’s karaoke battle.
“Anxious much?” Harry asks you quietly.
“Why are you asking?”
He doesn’t answer, just places a hand to your thigh stopping it from shaking, making you realize you’ve been probably bouncing it all along. He smirks at you as you just roll your eyes at him.
“’S okay, you can handle one more year of losing,” he teases you and you give him an arched eyebrow.
“Don’t be so full of yourself, Harry,” you warn him, but he just squeezes your thigh again before bringing his hands back up to the table, leaving you a little breathless with his touch.
You all help clean up the table after dinner and when it’s done, you gather in the living room to open gifts.
When Harry’s career launched, the first few years you felt anxious about gifting him, because you felt like you couldn’t give him enough. He had all the money and bought everything he needed for himself, there wasn’t much you could give him. But when one time, you admitted to him this struggle of yours he assured you that it doesn’t matter what you give him, it’ll always be precious to him.
“You thought about me, you took the time to buy something for me, and that’s more than enough, Y/N,” he told you and though it took you time, but you got used to it. Especially when you saw the same excitement in his eyes every time you gifted something to him, you slowly but surely realized he wasn’t expecting a Gucci suit, but a thoughtful gesture.
Gathering in the living room you open the presents one by one and just as always, everyone was quite creative with the gifts. You can’t help but still feel a little anxious when Harry grabs his gift from you. Giving you an excited look he unties the little bow on the top and tears the wrapping paper off.
“Y/N!” he breathes out, eyes softening as he pulls the knitted cardigan out of the box.
“I always saw you wearing all sorts of cardigans and so I finally had a reason to learn how to knit, so I thought I would make one for you,” you ramble as he holds up the baby blue cardigan that has little daisies all over the front. It took you an entire week to just make the daisies, you worked on the whole cardigan for more than two months, usually in the middle of the night, staying up until unholy hours to finish in time.
But Harry’s smile is worth it all, he is beaming, clearly so in love with what you made him, so you breathe out relieved. He then puts it aside and wraps his arms around you pulling you into the tightest hug.
“Thank you, I love it so much,” he mumbles and kisses your temple and you breathe in his sweet scent, burying yourself in his embrace, hugging his waist.
When you part, Harry reaches for a box from under the tree and hands it to you, a nervous smile tugging on his lips. You can tell he wrapped the gift himself, the silver wrapping paper is a little uneven, but the huge rainbow colored bow on the top is the perfect touch that makes it like a piece of him.
You carefully tear the paper off, peeking inside you just see a plain box that doesn’t give much away. Glancing up at Harry you see how he is anxiously biting his bottom lip, even though you’d be happy with a gift as small as a candle. It’s the thought that counts.
“I-I wasn’t sure if this was the one you mentioned to me, so I hope it’s gonna be alright,” he mumbles, eyes fixed on your hands as they open the box, while you try to think back what you have told him about that caught his attention, but you just can’t recall what you wanted to get so badly you told Harry about it.
As you open the box you don’t process what it is immediately, the plastic wrapper making it hard to figure it out, but when you carefully pull out the object, you gasp in surprise.
“Harry!” you breathe out as you pull off the plastic of the old, vintage polaroid camera. It’s not one of these new types you can buy in stores easily, this is a classic, must have quite a history behind it.
Now you vaguely remember talking about longing for an oldschool, vintage camera, but it was months ago and you’ve forgotten about the whole thing since these devices cost a fortune because there aren’t many left from them. But now there’s one in your hands, because Harry not only listened to you, but he remembered and went out of his way to find you one in amazing condition.
“This must have cost a fortune!” you huff, your heart pounding in your chest, though you already know it doesn’t matter to him.
“This face is worth every penny,” he smiles at you softly before you throw yourself at him for another round of hugging. This man surely knows how to have you wrapped around his fingers.
The two of you sit on the floor as you figure out how to make the camera work, Harry bought everything needed, so you have a few packs of films as well. When it’s all done you bring it up to your face and aim it at Harry. It takes him a moment to realize that you’re about to snap your first photo and he tries to snatch the camera away, but it’s too late, the flash goes off and the device pushes out the undeveloped picture.
“You wasted your first snap on me?” he protests rubbing his eyes after the flash blinded him for a little.
“It’s not a waste,” you tell him as you patiently wait for the picture to finally appear.
Slowly, the colors start to show and in a couple of minutes Harry’s face appears, his hand reaching in the direction of the camera, looking out of focus, only his face appearing clearly. He looks so delicate, his eyes dazzling as a soft smile plays on his lips. This moment now will live forever not just in your mind, but on this photo.
Harry goes out with his karaoke performance this year for sure and you’d be actually anxious about him winning if only you didn’t have the absolutely best performance right in your pocket.
His sweater this year features some really ugly looking penguins and a horroristic reindeer on the back, it’s really ugly and you can’t even imagine who thought it would be fine to make it and then sell it. His choice of music is also excellent, he has a great eye for songs you’d never imagine him perform and then shock everyone with it. This year, he chose Rude Boy by none other than Rihanna, and it’s fantastic, no one can make it through the song without crying. Harry makes sure to put on his best show, even dancing and twerking unapologetically, trying everything to win the battle and you are amazed by his effort. Above all the fun and jokes, he nails the song, that’s undeniable. It always baffles you how he can just slay any and all genres, even the ones that stand a million miles away from his style.
When the song is over, you all cheer for him, because he truly deserves it. He grins down at you in victory, but you just give him a challenging smirk.
“You can just give up now, if you want,” he teases you as you stand up from the couch and the two of you trade places.
“Oh, I think you should be the one to worry about losing,” you warn him grabbing your bag. Stepping to Gemma you whisper into her ear, instructing her to put on your song when you call out from the bathroom, since you are planning on do a grandiose entrance. When she hears what song you’ll be singing she gasps.
“Oh my fucking God, no way!” he looks at your with wide eyes.
“What? What is it?” Harry asks, dying to know what you just told his sister, but you shake your head at him.
“Patience,” you tell him before locking yourself up in the bathroom.
This year, you didn’t find the sweater, the sweater found you. On one of your thrift tours, you were digging up a huge pile of clothes when you came right across it and you knew what you needed to do.
Putting on the sweater you fix up your hair quickly before putting on your party glasses, the one that lights up if you switch it on. You take one last look at yourself in the mirror and smirk at your reflection knowing well you’ll have everyone dead when you walk out.
“Gemma! You can start it!” you call out with your hand on the doorknob, waiting to hear the music. Gemma quickly starts in and you haven’t even stepped out, you can hear a round of gasps.
Best Song Ever blasts through the speakers and you walk out trying your best to imitate a younger version of Harry, wearing the absolute ugliest Christmas sweater ever, that has the faces of One Direction all over it, filling up every inch of the fabric, and all of them have poorly photoshopped Santa hats on, it’s just literal trash and ridiculously perfect for the battle.
You grab the mic and start singing as everyone screams in the room. You jump, sing and even do the dance moves the boys do in the original music video, and when you look at Harry you see him staring at you in disbelief and total defeat. Everyone knows you won, nothing can top this performance ever and you could burst from the sweet feeling of victory.
By the end of the song everyone is up on their feet dancing and singing with you, a mini party forming in the middle of the living room and you all scream the last lines as the song comes to its end.
“I think we don’t even need to vote this time,” you say when the music stops, everyone screaming in agreement while Harry stares down at you, trying to hide his growing smirk.
“Where did you even find this?” he asks chuckling as he takes a better look at the sweater.
“At a thrift store, it called out my name, knew it’d be perfect.”
“It really is ugly, if I’m being honest,” he sighs, his eyes meeting yours again. “And the song… I accept defeat, you earned this victory, Y/N,” he tells you bowing and admitting your victory.
Later that night everyone is so keen on watching Holiday, you agree to stay even though you feel your eyelids heavily weighing down, threatening to close with each passing moment. You let your head rest on Harry’s shoulder and he presses his cheek against the crown of your head.
It’s not a surprise you fall asleep halfway into the movie, but what you weren’t expecting is to wake up and find yourself not on the couch anymore, but in Harry’s bed. It’s dark, only the moon is shining through his windows and as you turn to the right you see that he is sleeping peacefully next to you on his back, one arm spread next to him, hand hanging from the edge, the other one resting on his stomach, rising and falling in a slow rhythm.
Squinting your eyes you look at the digital clock on his dresser, it reads 3:23 am so you’ve been asleep for quite a few hours now. You don’t even remember him bringing you up here, but you’re definitely not mad that he didn’t bring you home, just up to his room.
Rolling to your side you give yourself a moment to adorn his beauty without fearing he would catch your wandering eyes. Everything seems so perfect about him, the line of his nose, his cupid’s bow that delicately rolls into her lips. The crease between his eyebrows, his soft skin on his cheeks, down his neck that runs into his broad shoulders and inked, strong arms. You truly think there’s no man that could compare to him and you are lucky enough to live your life so close to him, be able to touch him, hear his voice whenever you miss him, see his smile and share a connection with him.
It’s so silly, but you think of him as your personal ray of sunshine in your life. Just the smallest things about him can brighten your worst day, he’ll always have a special place in your heart, no matter where life takes the two of you.
Watching him sleeping you allow yourself to break free from your doubts and fears and scooting closer you shyly curl up to his side, your head resting on his shoulder, but you can’t even make yourself comfortable before you feel him moving under you.
Sucking on your breath you think he’ll push you away, not wanting you so close, but instead, he pulls his arm from under you, curling around your frame as he pulls you tight to him, almost making you lie on top of him. Your whole body is pressed against him and you mingle a leg between his long ones under the soft sheets. You let out a long huff at the warm touch of his body against your skin, completely lost in him.
“You alright?” he mumbles in his sleep laced voice, his eyes remain closed.
“Yeah. Is this okay?” you nervously ask as you lay your hand flat on his stomach. He brings his hand that was hanging from the bed on his other side and covers yours, as he squeezes you tight to his side.
“’M all yours,” he breathes out, his words sending a shiver down your spine. You’re sure he didn’t mean it like that, but it warmed your heart to hear it from him and you let your mind play with the thought that there was more behind his words than a friendly manner.
Nuzzling your head into his chest you close your eyes and listening to his steady heartbeat you let yourself fall back asleep.
Your morning is filled with coffee, pancakes, laughter and great company. Harry doesn’t let you leave without having breakfast with them, so you sit with the Styles family and laugh about the craziest stories from your teenage years.
“Remember when we tried to run away?” Harry grins at you, his red mug that had white polka dots all over it in his hands as he eyes you.
“Oh, how could I forget that?” you huff and Gemma turns to you with surprise in her eyes.
“Wait, I didn’t know about that!”
“Because we didn’t get too far,” Harry laughs. “We were, what, like fifteen?”
“Yeah, it was a few weeks after my fifteenth birthday,” you nod smiling.
“I had a fight with mum about God knows what, then stormed over to Y/N’s and talked her into running away. So we packed our backpacks and left.”
“Where did you go?” Michal asks with an amused grin as he listens to the story.
“We didn’t want to go into town, running into anyone we know, so we thought we would just go straight out to the meadow that’s there,” Harry says gesturing towards the window. The edge of the town is not so war, and a huge meadow lies there, a little stream running across it. “We walked for quite long, but then it started to get dark and we had nowhere to go, so we just ended up coming back home. No one even noticed we were gone, they thought we just went out to bike or something,” he finishes laughing.
“You knew about this?” Gemma asks Anne.
“Yeah, he came clear the next day, thinking he would piss me off with it, but I didn’t care, he came back for dinner, so it was alright,” Anne explains laughing.
It’s been so long since it happened, but I still remember it vividly, only that it was a more dramatic memory back then, now I can only laugh at it.
“We should go for a walk today,” Harry prompts to you.
“Wanna run away again?” you tease him.
“Always,” he chuckles.
You help cleaning up and agree with Harry to meet outside in an hour to take a walk to the meadow. Going home you take a shower and wash the dishes your mum left in the sink when she left for her morning shift. You put on a pair of boyfriend jeans, a warm sweater and your jacket with your trusty boots and you walk out the house right when Harry steps out as well. He grins in your way as the two of you meet in the middle of the street. He holds his arm out for you.
“M’ lady?” he smirks as you link your arm with his and the two of you head out for your little walk. It’s a gloomy day, might rain later as well, but it’s dry so far, so you’re just hoping to get home before it starts raining. Your runaway attempt wasn’t the only time the two of you came out here, it was kind of your place when you felt like having a break from everyone else. You biked out here, brought your favorite snacks and just ran around, enjoying the stillness.
However it also holds a bitter memory as well.
A little further down among the trees happened Harry’s first kiss and you witnessed it, feeling your heart break to a million pieces when you saw him lock lips with someone who wasn’t you.
Debby Hamilton was a friend of yours in sixth grade, you’d say, your only friend beside Harry and the three of you often hung out together around that time. Debby was a delight, you always desired to be more like her, boys liked her and she knew it damn well, but it didn’t make her cocky and egoistic. You always thought Harry had a crush on her, why would have he? They kind of looked cute together.
It was a Friday afternoon and Harry asked if you wanted to come out and listen to his new cassette he got for his old Walkman he refused to get rid of as technology was evolving. You figured he’d want Debby there as well so you invited her along, but didn’t tell Harry. He never made a move on Debby and you thought he was just looking for the right time.
That afternoon, you were supposed to meet them out there at five, but you didn’t leave until half past five and it takes about twenty minutes to get out there. Though you gave them the alone time technically, it still startled you when you found them under one of the oak trees, Debby leaning her back against the tree as Harry stood in front of her. She was smiling up at him sweetly, saying something to him and you were just about to call out for them and apologize for being late when Harry ducked his head and kissed Debby right in front of your eyes.
That was your first and probably worst heartbreak and you were only twelve. You felt betrayed, hopeless and naïve to think Harry would ever have a thing for you when there were girls like Debby. You left without letting them know you were there. When Harry asked you later why you didn’t come you told him you felt sick to your stomach, which wasn’t a total lie, you had quite the nausea after seeing Harry with Debby, but he didn’t have to know all the details.
He later told you about kissing Debby and you pretended like you didn’t know about it. However they never dated and not long after their kiss Debby drifted away from the two of you. Not that you minded, you had a bitter feeling every time you had to look at her after that, jealousy raging in your chest knowing that she got Harry’s first kiss.
He didn’t bring it up after and you weren’t keen on talking about it, but you still know which tree they were standing under and now as you near the area you see that it still stands tall near the tiny stream.
Peeking up at Harry you see that his eyes are focused on the same tree, but then he catches you looking.
“Memories?” you innocently ask, feeling your chest tightening. You don’t even know why you asked. It’s been over a decade since that kiss, you are both adults, but you still can’t help the sadness that washes over you at just the thought, why would you want to get him talk about it now?
“’S just… that’s the tree I kissed Debby when I was twelve,” he mumbles with a shrug. Biting into your bottom lip you look at the old oak tree nodding your head and before you could stop yourself, you speak up.
“I know.”
“What? How would you? I never told you,” Harry asks stopping, a puzzled look pulling on his face.
“Well I… It doesn’t matter,” you sigh, regretting ever opening your mouth.
“It does. Tell me!” he pleads standing in front of you.
“I know it, because… I was here.”
“You what?”
“I came, I was just very late. And when I arrived you two were standing there and I saw you kiss. I thought I shouldn’t interrupt whatever was happening so I went home and let you two be,” you explain, changing it up a little bit.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why is it important that I saw it? It doesn’t change anything, right?” you ask with a smile that you intended to look innocent, but deep down it’s filled with pain.
Harry opens his mouth as if he wants to say something, but then remains silent and you are done talking about it, so you just quietly keep walking, Harry catching up with you a few moments later.
It’s awfully quiet after your revelation, it seems like Harry is deep in his thoughts and though you’re dying to know what’s occupying his bright thoughts, you’re kind of afraid you’d hear something you didn’t want to.
The two of you soon head back home and slowly, but you forget about the whole Debby thing. Harry starts talking again, but he looks a little keyed up still when you reach your street.
“Wanna come over later?” you ask standing on the pavement in front of your house, it’s just an innocent question. Harry nods his head.
“Sure. Is your mum working?” he asks glancing at the house, though he knows she is, the car is not on the driveway.
“Yeah. She’ll be home around six.”
He nods again and you want to ask if he is alright, but you decide not to. You share a quick hug before he heads over to his home and you do the same. The house waits for you in silence and when the door clicks behind you, it weighs down on you heavier than you were expecting. You hang your jacket, kick your boots off and throw yourself to the couch, covering your eyes with your arm as you huff out in frustration. You feel silly for getting upset about such a small thing even after so much time, but you just can’t help it.
You barely realize the sound of the front door opening, taking your arm off your eyes you see Harry walk in, eyebrows furrowed, a worried look on his handsome face.
“Harry—“
“I was waiting for you that day,” he simply says as you sit up with wide eyes, confused about what he is really talking about.
“What?”
“That day, we agreed to meet out there to listen to my new Stevie Wonder cassette, but you didn’t show up, Debby did even though I didn’t invite her out there.”
“Well, I did, thought you wanted her there too,” you explain, startled by the situation.
“I would have invited her if I wanted her to be there, but I wanted to be with you. Only you.”
“I-I’m sorry?” you breathe out, not seeing where he is going with it.
“Y/N, you don’t understand,” he huffs and he is right. You don’t. “I wanted to meet you, but you never came, or at least I thought. Then Debby showed up, I was frustrated that you weren’t there and she was being all nice, telling me how cute I looked when I was worried and it all just happened so fast and… I didn’t even want to kiss her.” He looks properly upset telling you the story and he takes a deep breath before his eyes meet yours with a hard stare. “I wanted to be with you,” he repeats.
“Harry, I’m sorry, I didn’t—“
He shakes his hair, not even letting you finish, because he knows what you wanted to say and that you still don’t understand the meaning behind his words.
“Y/N, I wanted to kiss you,” he then finally says and you suck on your breath as he continues. “Well, not right then and there, but I’ve been meaning to kiss you, I just didn’t know when. I thought that if we have a moment that afternoon I’d do it, but you never came and I was mad and disappointed. I hated myself for kissing Debby, because I didn’t really want to, it just… happened. I wanted to tell you, and I intended to do it when I told you we kissed, but you acted so happy, I figured you didn’t feel the same way about me as I did for you. So I didn’t tell you the rest, but…” He sighs in defeat, looking for words, but he ran out.
“Why are you telling this to me now?” you ask a little out of breath, your head feeling heavy at the new information you just heard.
“Why didn’t you tell me you saw us and why did you go home without a word?” he asks ignoring your question.
“I… don’t—“
“Don’t try to lie.”
Gulping hard you lick your dried lips as you stare back at him.
“Because I was… jealous.” Your voice comes out only as a whisper. Harry’s lips part as he takes two steps closer to you.
“You had feelings for me?” he asks and you just nod your head, not trusting yourself with your voice. “Do you still have feelings for me?”
“I do,” you whisper your answer and Harry lets out a sharp breath as he leaps across the room in your way. You jump to your feet, thinking that he’ll lash out on your for keeping it a secret and you open your mouth to explain yourself, but you never get to speak up because as Harry reaches you, one hand snaps to the back of your neck, the other one to your waist, yanking you against him as his lips crash to yours.
You gasp in surprise, but it doesn’t take long to kiss him back, your numb mind blindly reacting to his sudden action. Your hands snake up to the back of his neck as you pull him closer, returning his hungry kisses. His soft lips feel so smooth and warm against yours and when his tongue runs along your bottom lip you whimper letting your tongues meet in the middle.
He is intoxicating and it doesn’t help that your adrenaline level is up in the sky, you’ve fantasized about it way too many times, and now that it’s happening your body is burning in flames. He kisses you all over and over again, his body pressing against yours hard and when he even leans in making you lean back, you lose balance and the two of you fall to the couch, both of you gasping as you are forced to part your lips.
“Fuck,” you chuckle as Harry is basically lying on you, holding himself up on his arms, but you feel him everywhere.
“’M sorry, I got a little carried away, but I’ve been dying to do this since forever,” he admits chuckling as he lifts his head and looks down at you with those bright green eyes of his.
“Really?” you breathe out, only slowly processing what’s really just happened.
“Y/N, I’ve been in love with you since I first saw you hiding behind your mum.”
“Idiot, you were just a kid, you weren’t in love,” you chuckle, running up your hands to the back of his neck, your fingers playing with the soft curls. He smirks and nuzzles his nose against yours.
“Oh, I was, I just didn’t know it yet.” Leaning down he pecks your lips softly. “I’ve been meaning to tell you so many times, but I didn’t want it to ruin our friendship. Though I was growing impatient these last few years.”
“Yeah?” you chuckle.
“You can’t imagine,” he huffs shaking his head. I almost kissed you the other day in the kitchen, but Gemma completely ruined the moment.”
“I’m sorry I ran away, I was just—“
“No need to apologize. I guess it all played out well after all, right?” he smirks and you can’t help but chuckle.
“I guess,” you breathe out and the smile slowly fades from your lips. “And now what?” you ask quietly, staring up at him.
“Now… We’ll try to make things work. Test the waters. I’m very serious about this, Y/N,” he tells you. “I’ve been waiting for this my whole life so I’m not gonna let go of you now.”
“You have no idea how happy this is making me,” you choke out feeling the tears forming in your eyes.
“Oh Love, please don’t cry,” he begs and leaning down he kisses your tears away. “I’m right here, with you. Sorry it took me so long you get here, but I’m here now.”
“I know,” you huff blinking away the tears as you pull him down and press your lips to his. “I love you, Harry,” you whisper against his perfect lips. You feel him exhale sharply as he keeps kissing you before he lifts his head so your eyes meet again.
“I’ve always loved you.”
Thank you for reading, let me know what you thought about it!
#harry#styles#harry styles#harry styles fanfiction#harry styles fanfic#harry styles au#harry styles oneshot#harry styles fluff#harry styles one shot#harry styles x reader#harry styles xyou#harry styles x y/n#harry styles imagine#fanficmas2020#fanficmas 2020#watchmegetobsessed fanficmas#watchmegetobsessed fanficmas 2020
2K notes
·
View notes
Note
honestly any kind of chase davenport fic is good maybe even a little jealousy involved
DO I WANNA KNOW?
chase davenport x GN!reader
request: yep!
note: inspired by the arctic monkeys song
warnings: cat's language, arguing, implied that reader has anxiety
word count: 1.1k
recently things in your life had been going downhill, and fast. family members getting sick, pets dying, you name it. all of this stress had caused you to become a lot more dependent on your best friend, leo, than normal. however, a certain other man in your life wasn't too happy about that. it was no secret that chase davenport had romantic feelings for you; in fact, you seemed to be the only person unaware of it. now this really irked him, all he wanted was to be able to call you his and that was the one thing he couldn't do. ever since you'd been seen clinging onto leo every time you had the chance, chase started growing distant and you really couldn't understand why. it was really bumming you out since you considered him to be your second closest friend, only being beat by leo by a close margin.
you arrived at school at your normal time, and for the first half of the day you were completely silent; not speaking, or looking, at a single person. when lunch time came you headed to the cafeteria, sitting in your normal spot between chase and leo. but this time, chase got up and asked bree to switch spots with him. for you, this was the final straw. he'd been such an ass to you recently and it really wasn't helping the already trashy mental state you were in. you leaned over to leo and whispered in his ear, "do you have any idea what his deal is? he's been acting super weird recently and i'm worried" you made sure to be quiet enough that no one other than him could hear you, you weren't looking to start anything. in fact, that was the last thing you wanted to do at this point. "honestly, i have no clue man. everyone's noticed but we're too scared to ask" he shook his head and went back to eating. you didn't bother responding, you wanted to save the already very little amount of energy you had. you went through the rest of the day barely being able to focus on your work, all you could think about was chase. you cared about him so much and seeing him act this way hurt far beyond what it should.
after a very long day, you went home to drop your backpack off in your room. ignoring your family, not ever bothering to look their way. you didn't want them to see you in such a pathetic state. putting in your earbuds and turning the volume up all the way, you texted leo letting him know you were on the way to the davenport residence. the trip there was relatively short but it felt like hours. tears pricked your eyes as you reflected on the recent weeks. watching one of your best friends drift away was horrifying, and all you could do was think about what you did wrong. "was i a horrible friend? did i put him through the same pain i'm going through?". those were just some of the questions racing through your mind. your breathing started to pick up pace as you entered through the doors of the mansion. you quickly found leo and engulfed him in a tight, desperate hug. he wiped the tears away from your face and encouraged you to go talk to chase. "shh, it's okay. whatever happens we'll conquer it together!" you gave him one final hug and headed down to the lab.
the elevator ride down was absolutely gut wrenching. your heart sunk into your stomach and you were shaking more than you ever have. the doors open and you stepped out, meeting the hazel eyes of the man causing your racing heartbeat. "hey, chase... we need to um- talk" you fidgeted with your hands, not able to look at his face. "what is there to talk about? i don't think anything needs to be said" his words were harsh, piercing through your chest in a way that you'd never really felt before. you fought back tears and tried to continue the conversation, "i'm worried about you, really... you've been, how do i say this- uhm distant? recently... i guess" you started rubbing at the ends of your sleeves, something that you'd been known to when thrown into situations like this. "i don't know what you mean" he sarcastically threw out, working on something you couldn't quite see. "listen i really- i just want to know what's wrong" you felt defeated, you weren't sure why, but you did. "what's wrong? you want to know whats wrong? well i'll tell you what's wrong, i've loved you for MONTHS, i've put in so much TIME and EFFORT trying to get you to notice me-" he felt himself getting worked up, he truthfully couldn't believe he was saying these things out loud "-and all i get in return is seeing you latch onto my GODDAMN STEP-BROTHER of all people! i don't understand why you don't just get with him at this point- it's so obvious you like him!" he ran his hand through his hair, hoping to calm himself down. you were left speechless, it had never even crossed your mind that he might like you. you'd never thought of him in that way, simply because you didn't think it was possible for him to feel any way other than platonically for you. you didn't say anything, you couldn't even if you wanted to. words refused to escape your mouth, you felt tears rush down your face and you didn't try to fight it because you knew couldn't. "i don't even WANT to know what you're thinking about saying, i think it's best if you just lea-" he was about to finish his sentence when he felt a pair of arms wrap themselves around his waist. he was thrown off, his mind scrambling to find any conclusion he could come to. everything made sense to you, why everything he did made such an imprint on you. why his words hurt you so much more than they would if they came from anyone else. you sobbed into his chest, you couldn't hold anything back anymore. it felt like a train of emotions just hit you, like a wave swallowing you whole. he pulled away from the hug, confused but no longer angry. "chase i-" you hiccuped "everything makes so much sense now i... i feel the same" you mustered up a weak smile, looking up towards him. he didn't say anything, he just cupped your cheek in his hand and placed a small kiss on your forehead before he pulled you into a deep hug. that night you stayed at the davenports, not wanting to leave chase's side.
#drabbles#fanfic#fluff#headcanons#imagines#reader insert#scenarios#writing#angst#angst to fluff#angst with a happy ending#lab rats#disney xd#gender neutral insert#gn reader#fem reader#chase davenport#adam davenport#bree davenport#leo dooley#disney x reader#sad fic#jealousy#request#new writers on tumblr#new writer boost
259 notes
·
View notes
Text
Favorite Sherlock Holmes fics from 2020
Usually I put a bunch of explanations and disclaimers on these lists but you know what, it was a weird year and I’m not going to try to justify or apologize for what I read or didn’t read so here are my favorites that were completed last year, in descending order of length:
and your very flesh shall be a great poem by CaitlinFairchild (151K, E, Johnlock)
After a tragic confrontation with terrible consequences, Sherlock and John follow Mary as she flees to America.
Drawn to Stars by Silvergirl (107K, E, Johnlock, Sherlock/OMC)
After the Culverton Smith case Sherlock is clean, working, and looking for a romantic partner—since John has told him that’s what he needs. Shame John didn’t mention he was interested in that role himself, before Sherlock went off to Rome with a gorgeous Italian copper to try to fall in love and become a complete human being. (This one is very slightly cheating because it was finished on 30 Dec 2019, but it didn't make it onto my 2019 list because I didn't read it until after I'd made the list. And it deserves to be on a Best Of list, so here it is.)
Thermocline by J_Baillier (83K, M, Johnlock)
John "Five Oceans" Watson — technical dive instructor, dive accident analyst and weapon of mass seduction — meets recluse professor of maritime archaeology Holmes. As they head out to a remote archipelago off the coast of Guatemala to study and film its shipwrecks for a documentary, will sparks fly or fizzle out?
Do No Harm by Calais_Reno (79K, T, Johnlock)
In 1923, Dr John Watson is on trial for the murder of his lover, Mary Morstan, a writer of popular mysteries. If convicted, he will hang. Sherlock Holmes sets out to prove his innocence, but finds himself more and more infatuated with the handsome doctor, and deeper and deeper inside the bohemian world of London's painters, playwrights, and poets. Will he uncover the evidence needed to acquit him in time?
To Be Human by ohlooktheresabee (78K, NR, Johnlock)
There is a serial killer on the loose with a penchant for collecting the brains of his victims. Sherlock, John and Scotland Yard are on the case, but something about the chosen victims has Sherlock on edge. While they piece together the clues that will lead to the killer, John begins to realize that the way his best friend thinks may sometimes be more a hindrance than a help….
immediate and inglorious by simplyclockwork (72K, E, Johnlock)
Bodies are showing up in back alleys, with no sign of a struggle, no trace of drugs. If not for the strangulation bruises on their necks and the scythe carved into their left shoulders, they could have died peacefully, in their sleep. With New Scotland Yard dumbfounded by the Grim Reaper Killer case, Sherlock is called in to consult. The more he investigates, the deeper Sherlock finds himself drawn into the work of London's newest serial killer. As his views of good and bad begin to blur, he risks losing himself to a darkness he never imagined. And, even more pressing: where does John Watson, grieving ex-boyfriend of the Grim Reaper's latest victim, fit into all of this?
Curtain Rising by tiger_in_the_flightdeck (61K, E, Johnlock)
A disgraced television star is the target of a series of death threats just after a theatre production’s adaptation of The Sound of Music is announced with her as the lead. The suspect list is a mile long and growing, Rosie Watson is in the spotlight, and Sherlock might be getting too fond of his time on stage to focus on the case. With opening night approaching, can he and John figure out who wants their client dead before her final curtain rises?
The Fire Finds a Home by fearfully_beautifully_made (61K, E, Johnlock)
After Sherlock and John decide to give having a relationship a go, this is how their relationship starts to develop. There a little bit of plot, if you squint, but it was mostly an excuse to write John and Sherlock having sex in a lot of different ways and learning to love each other.
Borrowed Ghosts by DiscordantWords (57K, M, Johnlock)
In the aftermath of the Culverton Smith case, John spent one painfully stilted afternoon hanging out with Sherlock. He counted the minutes, finished his tea, and left for home without ever clearing the air between them. And once he'd left, he found it very hard to go back.
You Might Just as Well Be Blind by ArwaMachine (56K, E, Johnlock)
When a serial killer starts targeting couples, Sherlock and John must do what they have to do in order to get to the bottom of things. Unfortunately, John already has a girlfriend. Surely pretending to be in a relationship with Sherlock won't pose any problems with his relationship, will it?
The Broken Tether by J_Baillier (54K, M, Johnlock)
Maybe he thinks that you only enjoy his company because of the Work, because of the way his dazzling intellect shines when he's in his element, but the truth is this: it is when he is at his most human, most bare, that you feel closest to him.
how the light gets in by subtext-is-my-division (Quill_A) (54K, E, Johnlock)
Red wine always makes him tipsier than usual and he finds himself saying, the words slurring a bit. “You know, I’ve got to ask. Do you always shoot cabbies for people you barely you know?”
John meets his gaze over the rim of his glass, and there’s something there that Sherlock can’t pin down. “Not for everyone,” he says, meaningfully, pointedly, his smile all teeth.
Erosion by saintscully (53K, E, Johnlock)
Sherlock’s father falls ill, leaving the surviving family members broken and rudderless. James Sholto shows up in London unexpectedly, his intentions unclear. John has to navigate the consequences of crime, illness and death and their impact on his frayed relationship with Sherlock.
Hold You Like a Weapon by MissDavis (52K, E, Johnlock)
Eurus shows up at 221B Baker Street in labour. Things go downhill from there.
Chances Are by Berty (51K, M, Johnlock)
Sherlock is spending some time in his mind palace - so far, so normal. But why is John there, why do things keep changing and why are there only two exits from the sitting room at 221B, neither of which seem to go anywhere useful? It's a case like no other for Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.
Sine Nomine by SilentAuror (45K, E, Johnlock)
As Mycroft reviews the footage from Culverton Smith's morgue, he revisits his original question: whether John Watson would be the making of his brother, or make him worse than ever. He's come to a conclusion, but decides to give John one last chance. So he gives him a choice.
Cockaigne by HollyShadow88 (38K, E, Johnlock)
When John’s contacted by an old uni friend about problems in his new art exhibition, he doesn’t think it will be worth Sherlock’s time. After a glance of the crime scene, however, they’re both pulled into the project in ways John didn’t expect. Will a week of erotic performance art finally be enough to bring them together in the way they both secretly hope? (Spoiler: it’s a tropey fic, of course it will)
Written in Ashes by 88thParallel (37K, M, Johnlock)
Sherlock becomes the prime suspect in a homicide case, and recently unearthed memories of his childhood are complicating matters. It's up to John to track down answers — can he help Sherlock before it's too late?
A Desperate Indulgence by LollipopCop (34K, M, Johnlock)
John thinks it's 2012 after waking up with amnesia, having no memory of Mary. Sherlock, exhausted from years of tension and hiding his love, pretends they got married instead.
Inhale With Ease by Vulpesmellifera (25K, E, Johnlock)
In the years after Vivian Norbury's capture, life seems to work out just as John planned. He's got that respectable job at the surgery and goes home to his wife and child. He joins Sherlock on cases a couple times per week. It's a rhythm he can live with - just enough adrenaline highs to balance out the drudgery of a normal bloke's life. Until a pandemic, and Victor Trevor, arrive in London.
The House on Rue des Boulangers by Berty (24K, M, Johnlock)
After being invalided out of the army and without any other prospects, John Watson has relocated to a small town in northern France. Now he has to decide what to do for the rest of his life. One morning there's a mad stranger in his garden chasing a swarm of bees, and it seems John's decision is made.
High Mountain Tea Leaves by disfictional (23K, E, Johnlock)
A mountaintop robbery on a Japanese-occupation-era train where the only item stolen was a small case of mysterious tea leaves in a backpack? An ideal Christmas gift, two days late. Sherlock convinces John to travel for tea.
Detours by saintscully (22K, M, Johnlock, Sherlock/OMC)
During the better part of the first year following Mary's death and the events at Sherrinford, Sherlock and John are slowly rebuilding their lives and their friendship. All seems (relatively) well and John takes comfort in once again being a father, a doctor and a friend. An unexplained shift in Sherlock's behaviour catches John by surprise, and he begins to worry about his place in his friend's life. John has to examine everything he thought he knew about Sherlock, himself and their relationship in order to win his rightful place yet again.
hands full of matter by simplyclockwork (21K, E, Johnlock)
When Sherlock is captured in Serbia, Mycroft cannot afford to involve the British government in his rescue. Instead, he sends John. After two years spent thinking Sherlock was dead, John finds himself navigating not only Sherlock’s rescue but their fractured friendship as well.
The Victim Experience by J_Baillier (16K, T, Gen)
A case takes Sherlock and John deep into the seedy underbelly of the haunted attractions industry. With audiences craving more and more intense experiences, is a real murder the next logical step?
On the Fence by BeautifulFiction (13K, T, Johnlock)
The murder of the King's College fencing champion leads to revelations about Sherlock's past. Will it be the point that tips them from friends to lovers, or will they remain on the fence?
Plus bonus ACD era:
"Baker Street: The Sleep of Reason": A Memoir by John H. Watson, M.D. by Gaedhal (98K, M, Johnlock, Johniarty)
This is a Victorian Era story in the "Sherlock Holmes" (2009) Ritchie-verse. The main characters are Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson and is from the doctor's memoirs. It was written before "A Game of Shadows" so there are differences in this story and film canon, mainly in the person and backstory of one particular character.
The Taste of Truth by sanguinity (25K, T, Johnlock)
Two and a half years after Reichenbach, John Watson discovers the magical tree that caused Holmes to fake his death.
The Adventure of the Vatican Cameos by Garonne (18K, E, Johnlock)
How should one behave when waking for the first time in the bed of one's dearest friend? Holmes and Watson solve a case in Catholic London while navigating the turbid waters of their new relationship.
Hot Water by wordybirdy (13K, E, Johnlock, Watson/Gregson)
Dr. John Watson's libidinous affair with a respected Scotland Yard inspector abruptly judders to a halt when the former meets a certain Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective, for the very first time. The attraction between the two is strongly mutual, but misunderstandings only multiply and tensions abound, as all three men attempt to deal with the new situation.
519 notes
·
View notes
Text
You're Not Broken, Ya Hear Me?
Guardians of the Galaxy fanfic | Yondu x Reader, guest starring Peter and other Ravagers
Summary: Based off a prompt from my friend @giulscomix where Reader is coming up on a rite of passage involving having her first sexual experience and is very nervous because she doesn't wish to partake, because she's just not interested in sex at all. (i.e: Reader is Ace or Demi) She opens up to Yondu about it after he finds her hidden away and crying about it and he helps her with her problem, making her realize she isn't broken. Inspired by and using lines from this scene in Netflix's Sex Education series.
Author’s Note: Fic is SFW. Sex is talked about (obviously), but no sexual scenes occur. This also takes place in an AU where Yondu never broke the code (yet still has Peter, make that make sense lol) and therefore was never exiled from the other Ravager clans. Also, this is a long one, probably should have broken it into chapters, but here we go lol
Word Count: 10,189
The nervousness inside you grew with every passing day. You were almost seventeen- you should be happy about this! Not filled with dread about what turning that particular year would mean. You glanced at the calendar from your bed. Only three days left.
There was a rite of passage that every young man had taken before you, and would take long after you. They all whooted for joy when their time came, but you couldn't find the enthusiasm to do so, although you did your best to fake it. And as the day grew closer, the more you had to fake it.
Maybe it was because you were the only female Ravager on Yondu's team? Or maybe that had nothing to do with it. Maybe you were just... broken? Why couldn't you just be excited about this like everyone else? That thought made your chest ache as you pulled on your boots.
You didn't want to do it, this stupid rite of passage. No, it wasn't exactly like you'd be forced into a room until you "did the deed," However, you knew to refuse would be to cement your reputation as a lame prude who wouldn't know fun if it crawled up her ass. But still, you really didn't want to.
After all, who would want their first time to just be some random fuck for the sole purpose of "Becoming a man/woman" and an "official part of the crew."? Yes, you wanted more than anything to be accepted, like Peter or the others, but you wanted your first time to be with someone you loved and cared for. Now, this isn't to say that you weren't currently a respected member of the crew, but things were just... different. You knew things would change if the others knew you didn't want to go through with it. You'd be less "one of the guys" and more "the chick with the stick up her butt." You didn't want that.
You stood and took a deep breath, readying your facade before leaving your quarters to make your way down to breakfast.
As always, there were many other Ravagers also making their way from the crew quarters down to the mess hall. And, just how it had started happening the closer it got to that dreaded date, you'd encounter someone looking to congratulate you with a clap on the back, saying things like, "Ayy! How many days is it now? Bet ya can't wait, huh?" or more often, high-fives and fist bumps as your crew mates cheered you on for your upcoming "big day."
You took it all in stride, just like every other day. Big smiles, return the high-five, maybe throw in some finger guns, toss in an affirmative and that you "couldn't wait."
But each time you died just a bit inside. How long could you put on this charade? You knew you wouldn't be able to go through with it. What was going to happen then? What would the rest of the crew say when they found out? Normally it wouldn't be such a big deal for so long, when other guys came of age it was usually forgotten by the others after a few days. However, you were going to come of age the very day of the next scheduled shore leave, which was going to happen in just a few days, and for some reason this just bred excitement among your peers and they wouldn't drop it.
You tried to put these thoughts out of your head as you entered the Mess Hall and got your breakfast.
Today you got to eat in relative peace, the attention being taken up by the story Narblik was telling about his last job on an icy planet and how he hadn't been sure he'd make it back when the blizzard hit. It was when you got up to turn in your tray and leave when a few other's started back up again.
Scrote whooped when he saw you stand, crying out a "Get 'em!" at you and someone else shouted back that you were "Gonna be a man!" until someone shouted back at them "She's a girl!" earning an apology and a correction that you were "Gonna be a woman!" that earned some laughter from the others. You knew the laughter wasn't directed at you, they weren't insulting your looks. Some species on the ship just had a hard time getting genders right because the concept of gender just wasn't a thing on their homeworlds.
You passed Horuz and a young green man named Rahi who high-fived you with an "Ayyy!" as was becoming the custom greeting for anyone wanting to congratulate you on it being almost your big day. You returned the greeting. He had just turned 17 three days before along with another young man he often ran around with, and you heard him talking with some others (There were about 5 or 6 of you all either about to turn the big 17 or who recently had since the last shore leave 3 months ago. It was an abnormally large amount of young people coming of age this time around, which you suspected was further reason why some were making such a bigger deal about this upcoming shore leave.) about being excited for shore leave, as that's when they'd be able to 'become men,' aka, would be able to find a whore to screw. Younger crew often had more of the cleaning jobs aboard the Eclector, and unless assigned with an older crew mate, didn't get to go on many away missions where they could try and woo a willing partner, and even then, Yondu liked quick turnarounds on jobs so there wasn't a whole lot off "goof off" time without being reprimanded. There was no real rule about screwing crew mates either, but most avoided it just in case things got weird after. Easier to just bang someone random on shore leave and then get back to work. No muss no fuss.
Horuz teasingly asked if you had any studs picked out yet and you just laughed and said "Ha, one of these lot? You're joking!" as you put your tray away.
You heard Yondu playfully scold the two from a couple tables over, telling them, "Oh, leave the poor girl alone, yer embarrassin' her!" as he laughed. Horuz just shouted back, "Aw now, I didn't even get to tell her about Oblo here's first time!" This was met with Oblo, who was sitting nearby, choking out a "Hey!" and punching Horuz in the arm.
Kraglin laughed now, "I think she's already heard that one! Let's not ruin anyone's meal now."
You shivered. You had heard the story before. It involved a broken member and many stitches. You weren't looking forward to hearing it again. "I'm out!" you say, looking for a way out of this conversation. "Got work to do." With that you turned and started to leave the mess hall.
"That's what I like to hear!" Yondu laughed from behind you. "Some of you lazy gits should start acting like her, don't wanna work unless yer told to." He knew you were just escaping having to hear the story again, but he wasn't going to miss an opportunity to razz up some of his crew.
You finally make your way out of the mess hall and allow your grin to fall. You run a hand over your face, making your way toward the laundry where you had been assigned to repair one of the machines. You were grateful it was both early in the week as well as early in the day as you entered the room. Most of the crew waited until they were completely out of clean clothes to do their washings, which typically resulted in most of the crew crowding the laundry at the end of the week, so you were sure to have at least an hour or three alone to yourself.
You made your way to the back left-hand corner of the room towards the broken machine. It should be an easy fix, the complaint was that it wasn't draining properly, so you figured it was just a clogged drain hose.
Upon opening up the machine you found you were right. it was just a clog. You retrieved a plumbing snake from a nearby supplies trunk and got to work fishing it out. Unfortunately this menial task gave you enough time to dwell on your problems rather than engaging your brain enough to force them into the back of your mind.
You kept thinking the word "broken" over and over. You couldn't get it out of your head how you couldn't bring yourself to just be excited over something everyone else seemed to love.
Your chest tightened. "Broken.. Loser..." Why couldn't you get over it? Why didn't you have these feelings like all the others?
You latched onto the clog and worked to pull it out. "
Broken..." Why was this so hard? "Broken... Stupid... Wrong..." What was wrong with you? "Stupid... Broken..." Why couldn't you just be like everyone else?!
With that last thought you pulled the clog out with an audible "Pop!" that almost made you fly backwards. You looked at it in disgust and dropped it into the nearby trashcan before re-attaching the hose and sliding down to the floor. No one was going to show up to the laundry this early, might as well take advantage of this time to wallow in your own misery.
That's what you told yourself at least. In truth you could feel tears burning your eyes and didn't want anyone to see you cry. Better to let it happen alone than risk another crew mate seeing you and thinking you were weak.
What you didn't know was that Yondu was also well aware of his Ravager crew's laundry habits, and took advantage of the empty communal laundry room at the beginning of the week to wash his own laundry undisturbed. He made his way down after breakfast, actually having forgotten he had assigned you to fix one of the machines, and was therefore quite surprised to walk in on you sat in the corner crying.
"What d'we have here?" he asked, more puzzled than anything. He never once seen you cry, which now that he thought about it was rather surprising. He saw grown men cry at least twice a week, most of them Peter, but still. He tried to cover up any concern with humor. "Did Halfnut leave his dirty drawers in the machine again? Smell's bad enough to make anyone cry."
You had been startled when he first walked in and you were currently trying to quickly straighten yourself up. "Nothing. Sorry Captain." you said, not looking him in the eye as you bent down to pick up the plumbing snake. "Nearly done here." you say, unable to hide a sniffle.
Yondu plopped his laundry basket on one of the long steel tables running up the middle of the room and sighed, turning to walk towards the door.
You look up in surprise as you heard the lock engage.
He looked at you, arms crossed, and said, "Ya really think I'm gonna buy that? Yer not leaving here until ya spill it. Now what's wrong? Somebody bein' mean to ya? Yer feminine-ly cycle -or whatever it's called- hurtin' ya again?"
You blushed and gave him a sharp look before placing the plumbing snake back where you found it.
Yondu rolled his eyes as he moved his basket over to a machine and tossed his clothes in. "Fine, be that way. But I meant what I said. Ya ain't leavin' til we sort it out. Might as well talk or it's gonna get mighty borin' in here." He turned on the machine and hoisted himself up to sit on the table, patting the space beside him.
You begrudgingly approach, not meeting his eyes, and lifted yourself up to sit down on the table.
"Now what's wrong?" he said again.
You fix your gaze on your lap and sigh. "You're just gonna make fun of me." You say sadly.
Yondu smirks. "Maybe. Still wanna hear it though." Upon seeing your face fall further he elbowed you and said, "I'm jus' kiddin'! What's the long face?"
Your eyes remain down and you quietly say, "I... don't wanna do it."
Yondu raises an eyebrow. "What?"
"I don't wanna do it." you repeat.
"Ya dun wanna do... what?" he asks in confusion. He at first assumed maybe you didn't want to do your assigned morning task of fixing the machine, but it seemed like you had already finished it, so he had no idea what you could possibly mean to even begin to be angry for any disobeyed orders. Also, he doubted he found you crying over something as silly as not wanting to fix a washing machine.
"It," you say, "You know, IT." you make a crude gesture with your fingers, forming a circle in one hand with your thumb and index finger and inserting the index finger of your other hand in and out of it, to hopefully get the point across.
Yondu's eyes widen a bit. "Oh!" he says in surprise, before continuing in confusion, "I don't get it? Ya seemed just as excited as could be a bit ago?"
"I've been faking it. Don't want the others to make fun of me."
"Come now! They won't ma-"
He's cut off by you giving him another sharp look. He looks forward again and nods, sighing, "Yeah, yer right. They will."
The two of you were quiet for a couple moments before Yondu awkwardly broke the silence. "Ya mind if I ask why? Like are ya scared or somethin'?" he looks at you with a raised eyebrow, slight concern painting his features.
He remembered his first time. As a battle-slave he didn't exactly see much action; the Kree weren't exactly fond of the idea of their battle-slaves reproducing or having any fun; and by the time Stakar freed him he was in his twenties. It was shortly after when with some other young Ravagers that the subject came up and he admitted he had never done it, only for his mates to excitedly cheer that they were taking him with them on shore leave so he could "become a man."
He had been nervous, though he never expressed it out loud, not wanting to appear weak. He knew they meant well, but screwing a random whore just to fit-in and say he had wasn't something he had exactly been looking forward to, however peer pressure had encouraged him to go through with it.
It wasn't too bad, he realized, but even knowing that he himself had come to enjoy the act, he always remembered the knot in his stomach leading up to his first time, and hearing you say that you might be scared of doing it made a similar knot form, only higher in his chest and feeling more like... pity? No, that wasn't quite it. Empathy? Yes, that was probably more accurate. Damn sentiment.
"It's not anything like that... it's just... I don't feel anything like that. I'm not even sure I'd know what that feeling is. It's just not there. I'm not scared, or even disgusted, I just feel... nothing."
"I'm not sure I follow..." Yondu said honestly. He supposed you feeling nothing was better than you being scared, but he still didn't quite understand.
"Ok, like, imagine you're surrounded by a feast, with everything you could ever want to eat, but you're not hungry. That's how I feel. I just don't want any of it," you said. Your voice cracked as you continued, "...and it's just so frustrating. Everyone else gets to be normal, while I just don't feel... anything. I don't want to do it-with anyone. When I think about it I feel nothing- it's like I'm broken." You covered your mouth, still not meeting Yondu's gaze as you tried to hold back frustrated tears.
Hearing you say that you thought you were broken tore at Yondu's heart. He wrapped an arm around you tightly and said in a firm voice, "Ya listen here. Yer not broken. I don't wanna hear that again. Look here."
You reluctantly do as he asks.
"Yer not broken," he said again, his face stern. "Sex doesn't make a person whole, so how could ya ever be broken, girl?"
You inhaled sharply as fresh tears pricked at your eyes. You hadn't realized until then that that was exactly what you needed to hear. You quickly wrap your arms around him, burying your face in his chest to hide your tears.
Taken aback at he sudden gesture, Yondu patted you on the back comfortingly and returned the hug. Good thing he locked the door. He doubted that any of his crew would be bothered to wash their clothes this early, but still, it would halt the possibility of new rumors that he was "going soft on the Terrans." He honestly wasn't sure he'd sleep tonight if he had to scold you for crying to save face with his crew right now.
You pulled back almost as soon as you went in, straightening up and quickly wiping your eyes.
"Feel better?"
You nodded.
Yondu sighed, "What to do now..." he said thoughtfully. "Ya know, I never actually liked this whole 'rite of passage' thing, to be fully honest. Crew just gets too wound up. Yer not the first to have reservations 'bout it. Handful of lads have come to me over the years, confiding that they were nervous, but scared of being bullied by the rest of the crew if they didn't go through with it. I suspect there might have been more, but were too scared of lookin' weak to tell their captain. I guess I can understand that."
Surprised by this honesty, you asked, "What did they do?"
"Faked it. They'd go on shore leave, pay a whore to put on a good loud show, yelling and banging on the walls 'n stuff, then lap up the congratulations of the rest of the crew for 'becoming a man.'"
You were further surprised that any of the the crew would have been that open with their captain to admit faking it. "Really?" you ask. "They told you about it after?"
"Who d'ya think told 'em to do it?" Yondu said, huffing a laugh out his nose.
That makes you smile, though you aren't quite sure why. After a moment of thought you say, "If you don't like the whole thing, why don't you stop it?"
Yondu sighed. "I don't think I could if I tried. It's widespread over all 100 Ravager factions. Doubt it do well to tell one faction they couldn't participate. Enough of them look forward to it they'd probably riot." Yondu laughed sardonically. "Not that I haven't thought about trying to steer the culture around it in a different direction. I can tell some of my older crew have the same thoughts, even if they won't admit it."
"How do you know if they never said?" you asked.
"The way they keep passing off horror stories as funny tales to the younger crew. Or did ya miss the story about how Vorker-"
"Nope! Heard it!" you cut him off suddenly. "I remember! I don't need to hear it again, please!" You held up your hands almost as if defending yourself from hearing it again, eyes wide. You most definitely did not need to hear a retelling of the time Vorker caught something very nasty off a girl he met on a job and the details that came with it. There were some rumors that it was how he really lost his eye, but you weren't sure of the truth behind those claims.
Yondu chuckled, patting you on the back. His expression changed when he said. "That's prob'ly what ya should do."
You raised an eyebrow at him.
"Fake it, I mean." he clarified. "Ya should wait til ya want to do it, with someone ya want, if that should ever happen. Not just go through with it to fulfill some dumbass rite of passage." He stared off into the space in front of him. "I can't really see another way to go 'bout it." he admitted. "If I called out for a change among the crew now they'd no doubt see the connection, think I was going soft 'cause yer the only girl here, and then it'd blowback on you. I ain't gonna let that happen." He gave you a look that you understood without him having to explain further. He actually cared about you, in a way similar to how he cared for Peter. He didn't want to see you hurt or bullied over something stupid like this.
You nodded in understanding, returning your gaze to the floor.
"Next shore leave is in a few days. I'll take care of it." Yondu said, his words surprising you.
"What?"
"Consider it a gift." he said, lightly punching you in the arm as he said, "Don't say I never gave ya anythin'."
"I don't understand?" you say, lightly laughing in confusion.
Yondu dramatically rolled his eyes and said, "Guess I gotta spell it out fer ya... I'll arrange for a "fake visit" from a nice whore-bot for ya. It actually costs more for them to fake it, if ya can believe it."
You stared at him, speechless. "I- thank you?" you finally say, blushing. You give him another quick hug.
"Ya, don't get used to it." he replied in his usual gruff fashion when you released him, but you knew better. The old softie.
Just then the machine buzzed, alerting that Yondu's clothes were finished washing. He stood from the table to switch them into a nearby dryer. Once done he turned back to face you. "Well, ya probably got other duties ya need to get to. Better get on 'em."
You smiled, giving him a mock-reluctant, "Yeah," before following him to the door.
You weren't expecting what happened next.
Yondu opened the door and exited, you following out behind. The hallway was no longer empty, and you heard the same young man from earlier, Rahi, call out from a group of two other Ravagers, "Ow Ow! Looks like she finally lost it to the Captain!"
No doubt he thought he was being funny, but he really, really, shouldn't have done that.
Yondu's whistle pierced the air, his arrow quickly finding its way to rest against Rahi's throat. "Ya wanna try that again?" Yondu growled.
Rahi couldn't find any words, just babbled out incoherent nonsense as he nearly shit his pants. The other two Ravagers in the group weren't laughing, just cowering with their friend afraid they'd be next once Yondu finished with him. Other crew mates standing within the hall also stopped to stare in stunned silence.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't run my arrow through ya for speakin' to yer captain like that? Even worse offense for implying I'd screw around with a child." Yondu's eyes were dark and full of rage. Even you were a bit frightened, enough to almost let the child comment slide, and you weren't even the target.
"Dude! He's so old! Ew!" you shout over to the terrified young Ravager, hoping to help the situation by making it clear that nothing like that was ever going to be a thing. And, if you were to be honest, slight payback for Yondu calling you a child.
Yondu whipped his head around to you, and you caught a momentary expression of "You little shit!" before he said, "And don't ya forget it!"
He turned back to Rahi. "I'm waiting." he said, still glowering and crossing his arms expectantly.
Rahi was still busy freaking out. It looked like he was about to cry. He eventually managed to squeak out a, "I'm sorry!" among his pleas for Yondu not to kill him.
Yondu called back his arrow. "That's what I thought. For yer smart mouth you and the other two there are gonna wash the outside of the Eclector, and yer all gonna keep at it until the whole ship's clean." With a smug smile he added. "Guess yer all gonna miss out on shore leave."
This obviously didn't go over well with Rahi's friends, who were now glaring and smacking him at the back of his green head. The next shore leave after the upcoming one wouldn't happen for another 3 months.
"Ya heard me. Git going. And yer still all responsible fer yer other duties too." Yondu added.
The three young men begrudgingly started making their way past when Yondu stopped them again with an, "Ah, Ah, Ah." making them turn back, dreading what else he might have to add.
"I think ya better apologize to this young lady too, for thinking she'd want her first time to be with someone so old." He looked at you pointedly as he said this and you squinted back at him, a nervous giggle escaping your throat as you rubbed the back of your head. Shouldn't have spoke up and called your captain old, now he was going to have to make an example of you as well for mouthing off. "Yer gonna be cleaning out the brig for that one, missy." he said, loud enough for everyone else to hear. Had to make it look good, after all.
Rahi muttered out an apology before scurrying away with his now very irritated mates, but not before Yondu cried out after him with a, "I'm startin' to think some of ya are gettin' a lil' too wound up about this lil' rite of passage among ya young-ins. It'd sure be a shame if you were the reason I decided to put an end to it." He said this with a thick veil of warning. It was a threat, and one you hadn't expected to hear after the conversation you just had with him.
It was clear that no one else in hallway had expected to hear this from their captain either. Looks of shock were exchanged among the Ravagers in the hallway. Rahi and his buddies' eyes all widened in shock when his words finally sunk in and their scurry turned into a sprint to get away before they could make things even worse. That comment Rahi made had apparently pissed the captain off bad.
"What the rest of ya staring at?" Yondu said, startling the rest of the hallway dwelling crew into motion. "I know ya'll got shit to do, get on it!" He looked at you and cocked his head as if to say "Get moving." and you obeyed, making your way toward the brig to complete your extra cleaning duties.
Yondu did his best to hide a smirk as he made his way down to his quarters. He knew rumors would start spreading like wildfire about Rahi nearly causing Yondu to put an end to the rite of passage after that display. It was bound to piss more than a few of the younger crew off. He didn't care much for the lazy shit anyway, so it was better the crew think he was the reason for any upcoming changes rather than you, and if it succeeded in helping him end the whole culture around that particular thing, even better. They really did get too wound up about it.
***
The morning of shore leave came and you were nervous as hell. Yondu had pulled you aside the night before to let you know he had taken care of what he promised, and described the whore-bot he paid to help you fake it so you would know which one to accept. Still, even knowing it was taken care of you couldn't help the growing pit of nervousness in your stomach, though you did your best to hide it.
Since clearly the Eclector couldn't dock on the planet, being about a mile and a half long and all, Ravagers on shore leave would pool together on M-ships for the journey to and back, kind of like a funny buddy-system.
As per usual, you pooled in a ship with Yondu, Kraglin, and Peter along with Tullk, Oblo, and Horuz. Yondu and Kraglin sat up front to pilot, Tullk, Oblo and Horuz filled in the middle, while you and Peter got put in the back, as always.
While the older men laughed and carried on in front of you, you felt Peter nudge you in the arm. You looked over to see him looking at you with a raised eyebrow. "You ok?" he asked, having noticed how you were unusually quiet and fidgety.
"Yeah, I'm great." you lied, "Never better."
Peter rolled his eyes with a knowing smile. "Don't give me that. Are ya nervous?" he asked, obviously knowing full well what everyone expected you'd be doing on this shore leave. "You can tell me. I won't tell anyone."
You gave him a look, saying, "No!" before coming clean with a, "Fine. A little." as you turned your gaze down into your lap to fidget with your watch some more.
"It'll be ok," he assured, "I was a little nervous my first time, too," he admitted. Peter was a few years older than you at 20, and it was hard for you to picture him having been nervous about it, seeing as he now seemed to be trying to work his way through every cute girl in the galaxy.
"Really?" you asked, eyeing him skeptically.
"Yeah. I mean, I was still super excited, but I was a little nervous too. Those horror stories the older guys tell us really get to you."
You giggled with him, remembering what Yondu had told you the other day.
Peter continued, "But anyway, you're gonna be fine. But I did want to give you this." He pulled something out of his jacket pocket and handed it to you. It was a condom.
"Peter!" you whisper-shouted, blushing.
"Hey, if you're gonna do it, I wanna know you're being smart about it. Always use protection. Even with the Love-bots. Can't ever be too careful." He held his hand out more insistently.
You blushed harder and accepted the gift, even though you knew you wouldn't be needing it. "Thanks."
"Come on now, don't get all frowny on me. I'm just looking out for you." Peter teased, aiming a few pokes at your ribs, knowing it always got a good giggle or two out of you.
It worked. Giggles escaped your throat as you twisted in your seat and swatted at his hand, "Quit it!" you squeaked, but his mission was accomplished anyway, you were smiling now.
"There we go!" he teased, grinning at you.
"Shush!" you replied, sticking your tongue out at your friend and laughing when he flicked you in the arm for it. Soon enough the two of you were in a slap battle. You weren't really fighting, and neither of you struck with the intent to hurt (well, not much anyway) it was just how the two of you played sometimes. This carried on until you heard Yondu announce that you all had made it to your destination, and then the nervousness started to creep back into your belly.
Peter and you were the last off the ship. Yondu and the other men headed off, leaving the two of you to your own devices with calls to behave yourselves, but "not too much" *wink, wink, nudge, nudge*
You almost wished he had stuck around longer, but you knew he had already done his part. It would look weird if he stuck around to hold your hand, so to speak. You look to Peter, wanting to stall just a bit longer. "So, ya hungry?"
"Figured you'd want to get right to business," he teased. He knew you were probably stalling, but decided to go along with it anyway rather than abandon you straight away. You had been here before, but he knew this time was different. This time there was a pressure to do something new, and you had already admitted you were nervous about it.
"Uh, can't do it on an empty stomach," you say, forcing a smile.
He ruffled your hair. "Good point. I'm starving." He suggested you two grab some fries at the nearby bar inside the brothel (the whole place was the brothel, let's be honest) and you followed him.
When you both had finished you tried to think of something else to stall, maybe play some pool? However, you never got the chance, for a whore-bot with green hair and looking to be around your age came over to your table to greet you. It was the one Yondu told you to look for, and it asked if it could "show you a good time." You looked nervously at Peter who shot you a thumbs up while trying not to laugh. You glanced back at the bot and tentatively nodded, which Peter took as a sign to high-tail it out of there, leaving you alone. The bot asked for your ID, as you knew it would, and part of you wished you "forgot" it back on the ship, knowing that the bots were programed to refuse service to anyone under the age of 17 and required ID of younger-looking patrons to prove it.
After scanning your ID, the bot took you by the hand and flirtatiously led you across the room to a set of stairs. You began to hear some cheers as you ascended the stairs behind the bot and you were blushing too hard to even attempt to ham it up for their benefit.
Once in the room the bot turned to you. "I understand this isn't meant to be an ordinary engagement. Mr. Udonta left instructions to only perform counterfeit coitus, correct?"
You blushed and nodded, taken aback by the professionalism of the sex-bot, before wondering if you were being rude by assuming otherwise.
"Have you done this before?"
You shook your head, still blushing.
"It's alright. There's plenty of time to figure it out. I've been booked for three hours."
You sputtered. "Excuse me?!" you cried, trying not to be too loud. "Three-? What are we supp-"
The bot gave a laugh and held up its hand. "Do not worry, Miss. I was paid extra to deliver that joke. Mr. Udonta felt it would be very funny. I've only actually been booked for an hour, the standard amount of time."
You let a sigh of relief. You still felt that an hour was going to drag on, but at least it wasn't flarkin' three. "So, what do we do?"
The bot took your hand again and led you to the large bed in the center of the room. "Lie down here." You looked at the bot nervously and it clarified. "The noises will be more realistic if both our weights are on the bed."
You did as the bot instructed and it climbed over you. "I understand this may be awkward, but I'll ask that you trust the process. I will do this," the bot began to rhythmically rock its body back and forth, each rock ending in its hands hitting the headboard and making it knock into the wall behind it. "and then you can start making moaning sounds, you can repeat after me." The bot then started moan, encouraging you with a gesture of its hand when you were too busy blushing to follow the lead. You did your best to mimic the sounds. "We shall continue like this for 10 minutes, and then rest." the bot instructed, ushering you again with more hand gestures when you paused to give it a puzzled look.
After several minutes the bot prompted you to get louder, and then louder again still a few moments after. You realized it was coaching you to simulate you approaching the climax and you got nervous again, not knowing what to do when "that moment" was meant to happen. The bot read your face and told you to relax, just follow it's lead as it thumped against the wall faster and it moaned louder.
You followed its lead until it told you to make a last few loud "Oh's!" and then it began to slow its thumping before coming to a stop.
Whoops and laughter could be heard from the bar outside the door shortly after, and you blushed harder as the bot crawled off of you. "We will now have a few minutes of rest before beginning another simulation."
You sat up. "So we'll just keep repeating like this until the time's up?" you asked.
"Not quite," answered the bot. "We'll change things up a bit, different positions, different sounds, helps to keep it interesting."
"This seems like a lot of work?" you say.
"Yes, well we're paid to put on a show here. Might as well ensure it's convincing," the bot answered with a shrug and a smile.
You winced as you realized you could hear similar noises you had just faked coming from the rooms next to yours and then more whooping and cheering once they, too, stopped. "The walls are kinda thin in here, huh?" you say awkwardly.
The bot smiled sympathetically, "It seems that way, but not really. Only the louder noises make it out. Normal conversation levels are typically left unheard from outside the rooms, so you're clear to speak freely if that was a concern."
"Good to know," you say. You honestly had been a little concerned about that. "So, do we just sit around then?"
"I could give you a massage, if you'd like."
"That... actually sounds really nice. Sure, thank you." You accept the offer, realizing you could use a little stress reliever. "What's your name, by the way?" you ask, feeling a bit guilty for not having asked the bot's name before then and wondering if you should feel silly about that or not.
"You may call me Finn," the bot answered, not seeming fazed in the slightest. "Would you prefer to remove your clothes or leave them on?" The bot- Finn- motioned for you to turn around to give it access to your back.
"Um, clothes on, please?" you say, reaching for your zipper. "But I'll take off my jacket."
"Alright." The bot said, it's tone not caring in the slightest, and you supposed it very likely didn't care one way or another. It went straight to work, starting slow by gathering your hair and pulling it back and up almost as if it were going to tie your hair in a ponytail, but instead of securing an elastic it just repeated this motion a few more times. It was actually very relaxing, and it made you wish you had someone around to play with your hair more often.
With a final gentle tug the bot moved one hand to your forehead while the other worked at the back of your neck, kneading where the nape of your neck met your skull, making you close your eyes and sigh deeply.
To your delight the bot then threaded its fingers through your hair, scratching gently at your scalp. A soft hum escapes you as you stopped yourself from leaning into to touch out of shyness, and you almost let out a whine when the scratching stopped. However, you were soon soothed by the bot beginning to knead into your neck and shoulders.
You had just barely stopped yourself from moaning once when the bot then pressed into another spot that made it impossible to not make a sound, though you tried. Finn speaks up. "Let yourself relax fully," the bot encouraged. "It's alright to allow yourself to be noisy here, may even work to your benefit under the circumstances."
You giggled slightly and blushed. Finn was right, after all. If there were any time to just let go and relax it would technically be here and now. Before you could think much further Finn had dragged the knuckles of each thumb up each side of your spine with just the right amount of pressure to coax a genuine moan out of you, surprising you as it happened. You had never really realized before just how much stress your work as a Ravager took out on your back. You began to wonder if these Love-bots were also designed to be professional masseuses, because Finn seemed to know exactly what they were doing, and it was amazing.
Finn ended the massage a bit later by working back up your back and working their fingertips back into your hair for a last bit scalp massage.
You were almost disappointed when it ended, but when it was over you turned to look at the Love-bot. "Thank you, that was really nice." you say.
"Anytime." Finn smiled. "We still have twenty minutes left, shall we begin another simulation?"
You sighed. "I suppose. He paid for an hour, might as well act like I'm using it." You smiled, not feeling quite as bitter about the situation anymore after the massage. Finn really did have magic fingers. Or state of the art massage programing. Probably the latter.
"Indeed." Finn answered. "After all, there are no refunds."
You let out a slight chuckle at the bot's bluntness. "Alright, so what now?"
The next simulation involved you both standing on the edge of the bed with the wall to hold your balance as you bounced slightly up and down to make the bed squeak. The bot encouraged your to make similar noises as before, but to also throw out some curses, like, "Oh! Fuck!"
It even did the same, occasionally calling out a "Yes! Right there! Oh, yes!" that made you raise an eyebrow. You had to fight from giggling the whole time at the situation. It was pretty funny after all. You were both jumping on the bed like children.
When that simulation had finished you sat down on the bed and looked at Finn. "Do you guys... er...-bots?... feel anything?" you asked, referring to the language the bot had used earlier. "Or are you just supposed to say stuff like that as an act?"
"We don't have nerve endings, and therefore we don't really 'feel things' like you might, but there are certain sensors that can be activated during a session with a client and prompt a correct response. However, as this session is only a simulation, I suppose you can call my dialogue 'acting.'"
You half-grinned when the realization of the bot's words hit you. "Are you saying... you're like a 'sexy' arcade game?" you say, trying not to giggle, before becoming suddenly afraid that might have been offensive. "I mean- obviously you're not a toy- I mean- I didn't mean to offend you."
The bot chuckled. "There's no need to worry. There are certain similarities, one could see how you might draw that conclusion."
You blushed again and attempted to change the subject. "So... what are we going to do with the last simulation?"
"You have a couple options. We can simulate against the door, or we can simulate bending over the bed. We could also simulate oral, but the noises you made during the massage more or less already worked in its favor."
You blushed at that. You already knew the door was out of the question, as you had an admittedly irrational fear that it might pop open as you were faking the deed. "We can try over the bed."
"Very well. This one will require less movement of you, you may remain seated there." Finn said as they stood up and moved to stand with their legs between your own. "This one may also be a bit awkward," the bot warned, "as it requires thrusting into the bed on my part. Ready?"
You nodded hesitantly and the bot began a steady rhythm of motion against the bed, making it creak.
The bot was right. This was more awkward, and you were grateful when it was finally over with about five minutes to spare.
You stood from bed and grabbed your jacket. "Thanks. This wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be." you said truthfully. In fact, you really almost thought you'd come back if for no other reason than to get another back rub.
"You still have five more minutes, is there anything else I can do for you today?"
You smiled shyly and said, "Well, I won't argue if you play with my hair again..."
***
You were of course greeted with congratulatory cheers and high-fives when you exited the room along with the other few crew mates who had recently come of age... and had still been allowed to attend shore leave that is. R.I.P Rahi and his friends. (They hadn't died, but you can bet they were probably really regretting pissing Yondu off.)
A few fellow Ravagers bought you some congratulatory drinks and the rest of the night seemed to fly by.
Eventually you caught back up with Peter and shortly after that Yondu announced it was time to head back, which of course received some disappointed grumbling among the crew. However, nobody argued, knowing it might cost them their next shore leave if they got "fussy like toddlers" as Yondu would say.
You and Peter got back to the ship to find Tullk and Oblo already there waiting. Horuz showed up just after and sighed to see Yondu and Kraglin weren't there yet. Yondu and Kraglin were the only ones with keys to Yondu's M-ship, so you all had to stand outside and converse among yourselves as he took his sweet time getting there.
He was probably just paying the Sneeper woman who owned the place and would be there any minute, but 'any minute' still felt like forever when it was cold.
Eventually he and Kraglin did show up and unlock the ship so you could all get in.
Once inside the ship and mostly everyone had strapped in Kraglin called back to you from the co-pilots seat with tipsy laughter in his voice. "So d'ya have fun? Feel any different? Any horror stories to add to the list?" He looked teasingly at Oblo and Oblo flipped him the bird.
Yondu swatted at him, saying, "Aw, leave the girl alone," but there was also laughter in his scolding, so he wasn't that serious.
You answered anyway. "Ya. Had a blast, Kraglin. Smooth sailing. Just a little sleepy."
This made the other men chuckle, though you weren't entirely sure why, although you could guess.
Yondu piped up. "If she falls asleep Quill's gotta carry her in."
Peter scoffed with a laugh. "Why do I gotta?" he said, before turning to you to add. "You better not fall asleep then."
"Well if you fall asleep I ain't carrying you in! Probably break my back if I tried. You can just stay sleeping in the ship." you laughed back.
"Why you little!" Peter cried out with a grin, aiming to poke you in the ribs, but you dodged him, returning a swat of your own to his arm. And, like on the way over, the two of you were engrossed in another slap battle. The others just let you two carry on, busy with their own conversations and laughing amongst themselves.
Eventually you and Peter did tire yourselves out and Yondu chuckled to the other men when after docking the ship he noticed you had both fallen asleep, curled up in your respective seats. Oblo snapped a picture, cooing, "Aw look! Ain't that precious!"
"Send that to me." Yondu said with a grin. "Might blow it up, hang it in the Mess Hall." This earned a laugh from the others. He looked at Tullk with a grin before exiting the ship. "Ya better wake 'em. I'm sure as hell not carryin' them to bed."
***
The next morning Yondu was alone in his quarters when he decided to call up Stakar.
After a few rings Stakar's face comes up on the screen, and the two men give a Ravager salute in greeting before Stakar asks what's brought Yondu to call him.
"I wanna talk to ya about that whole coming of age and having sex thing."
Stakar raised an eyebrow. "What about it?"
"Younger crew just get too wound up about it. It ain't healthy." Yondu responded.
Stakar still looked confused. "What do you mean?"
"Ya know what I mean." Yondu said firmly. "They get all wound up like it's the most important thing in the world, and it's because everyone makes a big old deal outta something silly like that."
"It hasn't been a problem before?" Stakar said thoughtfully. "What's changed? It's that Terran girl isn't it? Of course. She just came of age." Stakar shook his head. "I don't care what you say, you're soft on her and Peter. You can't get attached and let them influence your judgement like that, Yondu."
"No, it ain't like that," Yondu said, trying to cover his ass and continuing before Stakar can interrupt him. "It's got nothin' to do with them. I just can't have my crew bullying their mates just cause they don't wanna fuck yet or lettin' the whole thing get to their heads makin' them all disrespectful-like. Almost had to keel-haul a few boys who suddenly thought they were big enough to start disrespecting their captain over it."
Stakar looked at him suspiciously. "No, we can't have that... What do you propose then? It's not like we can stop them. You tell young people they can't do something, they're only gonna do it more."
"I know that- Look. I'm not sayin' we do away with it entirely. I could care less what they do on shore-leave. But we can maybe make them realize it's not such a big damn deal. Ya know, slow-like. Maybe they'd stop getting so wound-up about it." Yondu said, quickly adding, "If they're less focused on that maybe they'd work harder."
Stakar thought for a bit. Yondu was right, he thought. He had noticed the younger crowd getting a bit wound up about it, and sometimes they did let the excitement get ahead of their duties... "Maybe you're right," he conceded. "If it's affecting their jobs maybe we should try and change the culture around it... I'll talk with some of the other captains and get back to you."
Yondu grinned and nodded. "All I ask."
***
You felt like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders. It was the day after shore-leave and no one had brought up how you "Became a woman" at all. It was as if the previous week's excitement had been completely forgotten, and you couldn't be happier.
You did notice in the following days that Rahi seemed to be getting a bit of flack. He hadn't been particularly well liked before, always trying to push his duties off on other crew mates or blaming others for things he had broken, but now he was practically a pariah. Even his buddies didn't seem to want much to do with him, though that could be because they were still mad that they had been dragged under into his punishment despite not having done anything to deserve it other than be with him at the time.
You almost felt bad for him until Peter explained that along with the 'written' rule that Ravagers don't deal in kids; harming or forming inappropriate relationships with children and teens (i.e: having sexual relations with younger crew) was also a HUGE no-no. Even worse if the offender is someone high-ranking. Rahi, though he just thought he was being funny, had more or less unwittingly falsely accused Yondu of breaking that part of the code with the joke he made, hence why Yondu had been so offended and pissed. Peter was honestly surprised Yondu had let him live after that.
He also added that no one wants to be around someone who thinks it's funny to make those particular jokes. Real accusations of that nature are taken very seriously among Ravager Clans, so if someone is found to just be flippantly saying crap like that, the general feel is that it makes it harder for real victims to be heard, so the crew will tend to shun the offender to make it clear that behavior isn't acceptable. And well, if the offender didn't learn their lesson pretty quick and get back into the good graces of their captain and crew, they'd quickly find themselves to be cannon fodder.
Even Ravagers know there's a line between raunchy and unacceptable.
There may have also been the matter that when Yondu had said "I'm startin' to think some of ya are gettin' a lil' too wound up about this lil' rite of passage among ya young-ins. It'd sure be a shame if you were the reason I decided to put an end to it." much of the crew, after the rumor had gotten twisted up a bit via game of telephone, had taken it to mean that Rahi had almost gotten shore-leave taken away from everyone- forever. And well, that just didn't sit right with a lot of folks. It was a final nail in the coffin, if you will.
However, what you didn't know was about Yondu's conversation with Stakar.
Stakar did go talk to the other captains, and more than a few did finally admit similar instances among their younger ranks after having heard through the grapevines about a giant stink a lad called Rahi had caused on Udonta's ship. They admitted to instances of bullying, pressure, and disrespect occurring and directly related to the particular rite of passage and collectively agreed with Yondu that a change surrounding the culture could be beneficial, much to Yondu's surprise, and also his relief.
He never did tell you about his conversation with Stakar, though he was sure you may start to suspect if everything went well and things started changing regarding that particular aspect of life. As long as no one else had to feel like he saw you feeling that night in the laundry, he'd be happy.
You had come to his quarters the day after the visit to Contraxia, knocking almost as soon as he had hung up with Stakar. You had wanted to thank him him for helping you, both with the advice and with the Love-Bot. You told him how you felt so much better after having that talk with him, and how you no longer felt broken.
He'd never say, because screw sentiment, but it warmed his heart to know he helped you realize there was nothing wrong with you, that you had never been damaged. You two parted with a hug and he let you know to not be afraid if you needed to come to him about stuff like that in the future, just not to make a habit of telling the others lest they accuse him of going soft.
You were his little girl, something else he never intended to say out loud, because again, screw sentiment. He felt a responsibility for your well-being, even if you could be a little shit like Peter sometimes.
Ah, fuck sentiment. He knew you two were his kids, and he was damn proud.
***
About a week after shore leave you and Peter happened across Yondu outside the Mess Hall doors as you were heading in for supper.
"Hey, look! It's Terran One and Terran two!" Yondu said, oddly loudly.
"Um, hi?" You gave him an odd look. "What's up?"
"Now why would ya think somethin's up? Can't a captain greet his crew outside the Mess Hall before dinner?"
'Something's definitely up.' you thought, sharing a glance with Peter who was clearly thinking the same thing. "Are we in trouble? Did we do something?" Peter chuckled nervously. He didn't know about you, but he had maybe definitely rigged a supply closet in the control room with some firecrackers, and he wasn't sure if some poor soul (probably Kraglin) had already fell victim to it, meaning he was about to be in hot water.
You were also grinning nervously. You didn't know about Peter's firecrackers, but you had also maybe definitely hidden some poppers under the cushion of Yondu's desk chair that morning when he was busy on the other side of the ship, but you weren't going to just turn yourself in without more information, now were you?
"I dunno, you tell me." Yondu said, smirking. "Are you in trouble? Ya'll got a guilty conscience?"
You and Peter shared a nervous glance. You both knew you both were most definitely guilty of something, however you two had a code. Never turn yourself in, and never turn your buddy in. You looked back at Yondu, suppressing a nervous giggle. "No? I don't think so?"
Kraglin then came outside the Mess Hall doors to stand with Yondu. Kraglin had a big shit eating grin on his face, almost as if he were trying not to laugh when he saw you and Peter there.
Yondu threw him a glance which Kraglin returned with a nod. You noticed this and you exchanged another look with Peter. Something was definitely up. This felt like a trap.
"Well, what're ya waiting for? Get in there and grab some supper!" Yondu ordered, grinning strangely. He opened the door for you- oh shit something was absolutely up here.
You and Peter eyed him suspiciously but obeyed, entering the Mess hall without a word.
Once inside you noticed the rest of the crew inside were all oddly quiet, all staring at the two of you with grins and some suppressing giggles behind their hands. You heard the doors shut behind you and turned to see Yondu and Kraglin standing in front of them, both donning the biggest shit eating grins of all time.
"Cap'n has a surprise for you guys, d'ya- do ya like it?" Kraglin asked, trying to suppress his own giggles.
You heard Peter exclaim a, "Oh hell no!" and you turned to see what had caught his attention, noticing the crew had finally broke out into loud raucous laughter around you.
Hanging high on the wall about 10 feet to the right of the Mess Hall entrance doors was a humongous blown up photo of you and Peter. It was the photo you guys didn't know Oblo had snapped when you returned from Contraxia. It showed the two of you each curled up asleep in your respective seats of Yondu's M-ship. Peter was sucking his thumb. You were cuddling one of Yondu's softer dash toys.
You both paled as you stared up at the giant poster hung high on the wall. Hung conveniently high enough that neither of you would be able to reach it to rip it down, although Peter made a few good attempts.
Your eyes narrowed at your captain as he approached you, his laughter matching that of the crew. He pulled you towards him and ruffled your hair as he asked. "What's the matter? Ya don't like yer surprise?"
You glared up at him as Peter was now climbing up on a chair in a vain attempt to reach and pull the photo down. "This so means war, blue man!"
"Don't pick fights ya can't win, pipsqueak." Yondu laughed. "Consider this payback for those poppers in my chair, and ya can tell Peter this is for those firecrackers in the supply closet."
You sighed and punched him in the arm, but he only laughed and pulled you in close to ruffle your hair again, "Oh lighten up! Ya don't really expect me to just let my kids have all the fun, huh?"
You jerked your head towards him with a surprised expression, and it seemed it was only then he realized what he had said. Grateful that no one else would have heard it over his noisy crew he attempted to backtrack. "Uh, don't read too much into it." he said, clapping you on the back and announcing to Kraglin that he was going to grab some food. Kraglin, who was busy laughing at Peter, who had seemingly given up his attempts to rip down the photo in favor of walking dejectedly back over to you, nodded and joined his Captain in obtaining some supper.
Peter and you turned to face the photo again, the laughter from the crew still not having died down. Peter spoke first. "This means war, right?"
"Definitely. I had already set up a dye pack in Yondu's shower earlier. He'll be a weird shade of purple by morning," you affirmed with a grin.
"Nice. We gotta get one on Kraglin too."
"Absolutely," you reply. "After supper?"
"Yeah. After supper." Peter agreed.
The two of you made your way to get your supper, ignoring the laughs and teases of the other Ravagers along the way and discussing further options of getting Yondu and Kraglin back for this.
He may be like a father to you two, but that didn't mean he'd get off easy.
#gotg#gotg fanfiction#guardians of the galaxy#yondu x reader#long fanfiction#yondu udonta#x reader#reader is a ravager#papa!yondu#daddy!yondu#peter quill#peter quill x reader#yondu udonta x reader#kraglin#ace#demi#ace!reader#demi!reader#sfw
151 notes
·
View notes
Note
I'm a Chinese, nationally and racially. Racial projection seems to be a common practice in western fandom, doesn't it? I find it a bit... weird to witness the drama ignited upon shipping individuals with different races, or the tendency to separate characters into different "colors" even though the world setting doesn't divide races like that. Such practice isn't a thing here. Mind explaining a bit on this phenomenon?
--
Sure, I can try. But of course, fish aren’t very good at explaining the water they swim in.
Americans aren’t good at detecting our own Americanness, and a lot of what you’re seeing is very much culturally American rather than Western in general. (In much of Europe, “race” is a concept used by racists, or so I’m told, unlike in the US where it’s seen more neutrally.) Majority group members (i.e. me, a white girl) aren’t usually the savviest about minority issues, but I’ll give it a shot.
The big picture is that most US race stuff boils down to our attempts to justify and maintain slavery and that dynamic being applied, awkwardly, to everyone else too, even years after we abolished slavery.
There’s a concept called the “one drop rule” where a person is “black” if they have even one drop of black blood.
We used to outlaw “interracial” marriage until quite recently. (That meant marriage between black people and white people with Asians and Hispanic people and others wedged in awkwardly.) Here’s the Wikipedia article on this, which contains the following map showing when we legalized interracial marriage. The red states are 1967.
That’s within living memory for a ton of people! Yellow is 1948 to 1967. This is just not very long ago at all. (Hell, we only fully banned slavery in 1865, which is also just not that long ago when it comes to human culture.)
Why did we have this bananas-crazy set of laws and this idiotic notion that one remote ancestor defines who you are? It boils down to slavery requiring a constant reaffirming that black people are all the same (and subhuman) while white people are all this completely separate category. The minute you start intermarrying, all of that breaks down. This was particularly important in our history because our system of slavery involved the kids of slaves being slaves and nobody really buying their way out. Globally, historically, there are other systems of slavery where there was more mobility or where enslaved people were debtors with a similar background to owners, and thus the people in power were less threatened by ambiguity in identity.
Post-slavery, this shit hung around because it was in the interests of the people in power to maintain a similar status quo where black people are fundamentally Other.
A lot of our obsession with who counts as what is simply a legacy of our racist past that produced our racist present.
--
The other big factor in American concepts of identity is that we see ourselves as a nation of immigrants (ignoring our indigenous peoples, as usual). A lot of people’s families arrived here relatively recently, and we often don’t have good records of exactly where they were from, even aside from enslaved people who obviously wouldn’t have those records. Plenty of people still identify with a general nationality (”Italian-American” and such), but the nuance the family might once have had (specific region of Italy, specific hometown) is often lost. Yeah, I know every place has immigrants, and lots of people don’t have good records, but the US is one of those countries where families have on average moved around a lot more and a lot more recently than some, and it affects our concepts of identity. I think some of the willingness to buy into the idea of “races” rather than “ethnicities” has to do with this flattening of identity.
New immigrant groups were often seen as Other and lesser, but over time, the ones who could manage it got added to our concept of “whiteness”, which gave them access to those same social and economic privileges.
Skin color is a big part of this. In a system that is founded on there being two categories, white owners and black slaves, skin color is obviously going to be about that rather than being more of a class marker like it is in a lot of the world.
But it’s not all about skin color since we have plenty of Europeans with somewhat darker skin who are seen as generically white here, while very pale Asians are not. I’m not super familiar with all of the history of anti-Asian racism in the US, but I think this persistent Otherness probably boils down to Western powers trying to justify colonial activities in Asia plus a bunch of religious bullshit about predominantly Christian nations vs. ones that are predominantly Buddhist or some other religion.
In fact, a lot of racist archetypes in English can be traced back to England’s earliest colonial efforts in Ireland. Justifying colonizing Those People because they’re subhuman and/or ignorant and in need of paternalistic rulers or religious conversion is at the bottom of a lot of racist notions. Ironic that we now see Irish people as clearly “white”.
--
There are a lot of racist porn tropes and racist cultural baggage here around the idea of black people being animalistic. Racist white people think black men want to rape/steal white women from white men. Black women get seen as hypersexual and aggressive. If this sounds like white people projecting in order to justify murder and rape... well, it is.
Similar tropes get applied to a lot of groups, often including Hispanic and Middle Eastern people, though East Asians come in more for creepy fantasies about endlessly submissive and promiscuous women. This nonsense already existed, but it was certainly not helped by WWII servicemen from here and their experiences in Asia. Again, it’s a projection to justify shitty behavior as what the party with less power was “asking for”.
In porn and even romance novels, this tends to turn up as a white character the audience is supposed to identify with paired with an exotic, mysterious Other or an animalistic sexy rapist Other.
A lot of fandoms are based on US media, so all of our racist bullshit does apply to the casting and writing of those, whether or not the fic is by Americans or replicating our racist porn tropes.
(Obviously, things get pretty hilarious and infuriating once Americans get into c-dramas and try to apply the exact same ideas unchanged to mainstream media about the majority group made by a huge and powerful country.)
--
Politically, within the US, white people have had most of the power most of the time. We also make up a big chunk of the population. (This is starting to change in some areas, which has assholes scared shitless.) This means that other groups tend to band together to accomplish shared political goals. They’re minorities here, so they get lumped together.
A lot of Americans become used to seeing the world in terms of “white people” who are powerful oppressors and “people of color” who are oppressed minorities. They’re trying to be progressive and help people with less power, and that’s good, but it obviously becomes awkward when it’s over-applied to looking at, say, China.
--
Now... fandom...
I find that fandom, in general, has a bad habit of holding things to double standards: queer things must be Good Representation™ even when they’re not being produced for that purpose. Same for ethnic minorities or any other minority. US-influenced parts of fandom (which includes a lot of English-speaking fandom) tend to not be very good at accepting that things are just fantasy. This has gotten worse in recent years.
As fandom has gotten more mainstream here, general media criticism about better representation (both in terms of number of characters and in terms of how they’re portrayed) has turned into fanfic criticism (not enough fics about ship X, too many about ship Y, problematic tropes that should not be applied to ship X, etc.). I find this extremely misguided considering the smaller reach of fandom but, more importantly, the lack of barriers to entry. If you think my AO3 fic sucks, you can make an account and post other fic that will be just as findable. You don’t need money or industry connections or to pass any particular hurdle to get your work out there too.
People also (understandably) tend to be hypersensitive to anything that looks like a racist porn trope. My feeling is that many of these are general porn tropes and people are reaching. There are specific tropes where black guys are given a huge dick as part of showing that they’re animalistic and hypersexual, but big dicks are really common in porn in general. The latter doesn’t automatically mean you’re doing the former unless there are other elements present. A/B/O or dubcon doesn’t mean it’s this racist trope either, not unless certain cliched elements are present. OTOH, it’s not hard for a/b/o tropes to feel close to “animalistic guy is rapey”, so I can see why it often bothers people.
A huge, huge, huge proportion of wank is “all rape fantasies are bad” crap too, which muddies the waters. I think a lot of people use “it’s racist” as an easy way to force others to agree with their incorrect claims that dubcon, noncon, a/b/o, etc. are fundamentally bad. Many fans, especially white fans, feel like they don’t know enough to refute claims of racism, so they cave to such arguments even when they’re transparently disingenuous.
--
Not everyone here thinks this way. I know plenty of people offline, particularly a lot of nonwhite people, who think fandom discourse is idiotic and that the people “protecting” people or characters of color are far more racist than the people writing “bad” fic or shipping the wrong thing.
But in general, I’d say that the stuff above is why a lot of us see the world as white people in power vs. everyone else as oppressed victims, interracial relationships as fraught, and porn about them as suspect. Basically, it’s people trying to be more progressive and aware but sometimes causing more harm than good when those attempts go awry.
167 notes
·
View notes
Text
@joanofarkansass Glad you liked my fic recs! Here are some more marvel + xmen ones:
Catch Me Through the Looking-Glass by ylixia
"It's like a recurring nightmare: Steve Rogers, trapped in a world that is not his own, new love left behind, and nothing to keep him going but questions."
This fic is one of the more popular ones for a damn good reason. A Steve Rogers just reflecting on his relationship with his own Tony AND another Steve and Tony's relationship and getting PISSED the whole time.
Conflict of Interest by NotQuiteHumanAnymore
"Tumblr prompt! alien-angel-orsentientpotato (AKA my firstborn, Cheyenne) asked "Okay so headcanon for x-men evolution. Despite Pietro and Kurt being on separate teams they have a weird understanding of each other as they are both fidgety. Pietro because everything moves so slow and Kurt because he's not used to sitting still or being in one place for long periods of time like school demands. So through this understanding they form a weird pseudo friendship thing in which they race each other, play tag, and see what pranks they can pull on each other without getting caught." And it became this 30k behemoth."
I will be real, I ship Peter/Kurt which is definitely a very rarepair lol, but this fic was very cute! It's based on the xmen evolution cartoon. Even if you don't know much about it, I'd recommend giving this fic a shot!
With a Child's Heart by Scarlet_Ribbons
"“Oh, god.” Steve whispers, sounding as horrified as Tony feels. “You’re so young. Tony, he’s so young.”
Spider-Man coughs once, a frail, baby-bird sound.
.
(They find his body in a Dumpster.)"
:((((( Vry sad but vry good
don't know why it took me so long to see by goodmorningbeloved (3799steps)
"“Oh, watch this,” Natasha says, propping her chin against her knuckles and turning a sweet gaze on him. “Tony, what’s it like dating a superhero?”
Tony bristles in irritation. “We’re not dating,” he snaps. “Captain America probably thinks he can get into anyone’s pants just ‘cause he’s got a mask, costume, and reputation, but not me, buddy. That shield? Gotta be overcompensating for something.” He adds, a bit petulantly, “Oh, and all that blue? Definitely more Steve’s color than his.”
-
In which Tony is a genius in all matters except recognizing his boyfriend past a mask."
A true comedy of errors lol. Tony doesn't realize that his boyfriend Steve is Captain America.
Idiot Control Now by @cygnaut
"Hank screws something up in the lab and everyone's powers increase tenfold. Not knowing how to control them like this, they all try to cope and not kill each other by mistake while Hank tries to find a way to reverse the effects. Charles has a particularly hard time of it."
I got distracted and reread this while making this list. VERY funny and also very creative in how their powers could fly out of control without devolving into crack territory. I LOVE cygnaut's fic and got distracted reading a bunch get ready for some more y'all
Adventures in Babysitting by cygnaut
"When Jean, Scott, and Ororo get in trouble and have nowhere to turn, they call on the last person they probably should—Magneto."
DADNETO!! I LOVE the way cygnaut writes the Erik and Ororo relationship, if I ever write xmen fanfic assume Erik is Ororo's dad in it okay I don't make the rules anymore only cygnaut makes the rules.
Blessed is the Match Consumed by cygnaut
""This isn't a concentration camp," Delta says, calm, like he's been rehearsing it. Erik looks at the gun on his hip, the guards behind him in the corridor, the bars between them.
He smiles with a lot of teeth. "I think I'd know that better than you."
AU in which the beach divorce didn't happen and Erik decides to stay and help Charles start his school. But despite their clean break, the government isn't ready to let the mutants disappear into hiding."
A brutal and really well-written fic.
Plausible Deniability by DragonBandit
"Kurt and Peter travel across mutant America to recruit for Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Kurt has a crush. Peter is oblivious."
Another nightsilver fic that I really like!
Clint Barton's Super Secret Snipers' Club by sara_holmes
"Clint Barton's Super Secret Snipers' Club. (Invitation and pending mental health evaluation required.)
"When Steve brings Bucky back to the tower for the first time, Clint’s first thought is that Tony Stark’s pride and joy is quickly becoming a less of a very tall and expensive ‘fuck you’ in the faces of investors who don’t believe in self-sustaining energy, and more of a superhero rehabilitation center."
Boyfriends, compromises and learning to like oneself."
SARA HOLMES WINTERHAWK QUEEN
Way Down We Go by @clarkestetler and @goosenik
"After being attacked and forcibly separated from Eddie Brock, Venom bonds to Peter Parker in order to seek both revenge on the LIFE Foundation and any evidence of his previous host. Peter Parker isn't exactly thrilled about this turn of events and turns to the Avengers for help managing his new symbiote."
I've recently fallen into the Peter/Harry ship and this fic quickly became one of my favorites! Very domestic and sweet but also scary and also Peter having a relatively realistic reaction to suddenly being possessed by an alien tickled me.
Turning Tables by @iamallyetnotatall
"Thanos knows if he leaves Tony Stark alive, that Earth's mightiest defender will find a way to undo all of his hard work.
So when he snaps and wipes away half the universe, he ensures that Tony Stark is one of those that fade to nothing.
I.E - a what-if series of ficlets where Tony is dusted and Peter isn't.
HAPPY ENDING GUARANTEED"
Very Good. Pepper and Peter and Morgan family bonding is great.
I Don't Want To Keep A Secret by DOA
"As their senior year begins, Peter Parker and Harry Osborn have a lot to figure out on their own.
Peter has his hands full with his Aunt dating again, college, potential romance, and being superhero with a secret identity that may be more trouble than it's worth. Then Harry, with a troubling father, an uncertain future, possibly unrequited love, a family secret, and an ugly green monster that he has no control over.
But what happens if their separate problems are more related than they think?"
A very cute and plotty Parksborn fic set in the Marvel's Spider-Man universe. It does have first person POV and has been incomplete for over a year which :( but I did enjoy what I read!
There you have it! Half of these fics are kind of Really Popular fics (which are popular for good reason) and fics that just happen to really personally appeal to me lmao
#marvel#spiderman#parksborn#nightsilver#avengers#stony#tony stark#peter parker#fic recs#fanfics#the burd squawks
100 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
shortyflorty
Untitled
xhxdy
Shady
acourtcfmuses
ACourtcfMuses
pommigranite
✨🌊 Pom Pom 🌊✨
k-kanehira
futuristic impression