#never have i ever had to draw that many pride flags on a drawing.. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

Celebrities use Tumblr as well.

#never have i ever had to draw that many pride flags on a drawing..

hiiragi7 · 11 months

Text

Exercise: Exposing intersexism in yourself

Perisex (non-intersex) people please take time to work through this. I'd also appreciate if you reblogged, even if you don't have time to do the exercise.

When you think of an 'intersex body', what comes to mind?

-Do you think of a stereotypical "hermaphrodite"? (Ex. a penis + vagina, a penis + pair of breasts, a very feminine person with a beard)

Do you, or have you ever, used one of the following arguments;

-Intersex people are living proof that trans people exist/that gender/sex is not binary

-Intersex existing disproves everything TERFs/transphobes believe in

-Cis kids with hormone issues are allowed to take HRT or participate in sports, which is hypocritical against trans people

-Nobody is forcing kids into sex reassignment surgery or hormones, that isn't a thing that happens

-Any kind of argument which uses intersex people as a statistic, whether that is framing intersex people existing as either "common" or "rare"

Do you, or have you ever, said any of the following statements;

-Technically I'm biologically intersex now because I took HRT/had surgery, which makes me biologically nonbinary aka intersex

-I tell people that I am intersex/have a hormone condition to avoid discrimination

-I wish I was born as/could become intersex, it would help my dysphoria a lot

-Intersex people are so lucky because they're already biologically nonbinary, they don't even need to transition

-This animal was born with a mix of sex characteristics/without a sex/developed characteristics of the opposite sex over time, which means they're nonbinary/trans

When it comes to sex, do you;

-Believe that sex is binary

-Believe that all intersex people are infertile

-Believe that all intersex people produce both sperm and egg

-Fantasize about intersex bodies, or consume or create porn that displays either intersex bodies or exaggerated stereotypes of hermaphroditic bodies

-Ask invasive questions about what genitals or reproductive organs an intersex person has

-Treat AFAB/AMAB the same as "[non-medically-transitioned] perisex female/perisex male", such as saying "AFAB anatomy" when you really mean vulva, vagina, uterus, ovaries, breasts, and so on

-Believe that HRT/surgery makes you intersex

-Believe that intersex only covers certain types of variation in sex and not others (Ex. Counting ovotestes, CAIS, and CAH as intersex but not counting PCOS or Klinefelter's)

When it comes to creating (artwork, writing, videos, etc), do you;

-Wish to include an intersex character, but do little or no research on how to write/draw them

-Fail to consider how your work will affect real-life intersex people consuming your work

-Ask random intersex people to help you create an intersex character

-Wish to include an intersex character because you personally think intersex people are interesting, or because you are seeking to include as many marginalized identities as you can

-Create intersex characters because you personally find them sexy

-Refer to characters as "hermaphrodites"

-If you create pride artwork or sell pride artwork, if you include a large variety of other LGBT+ identities but do not include intersex, why is this?

When it comes to advocacy work, do you;

-Fail to bring up intersex issues in conversations which should directly involve them, such as the Kansas bathroom bill

-Attempt to push intersex people out of queer spaces by saying that they are not queer

-Fail to recognize or acknowledge how many anti-queer and anti-trans arguments are inherently also anti-intersex arguments

-Say that intersex people are just "collateral damage" or "just caught in the crossfire/targeted by mistake" when it comes to discussing discrimination

-Never think to bring intersex flags or pins or similar to pride even as an ally, contributing to pride being vastly void of intersex pride

-Never attempt to organize protests specifically for intersex rights, or never bring intersex issues up in LGBTQIA+ support groups or resource centers or online

-Never educate others on intersex issues or lift up intersex voices

-Believe that intersex people have more rights than other marginalized groups, or that they are not discriminated against for being intersex

-Believe that all intersex people who are discriminated against are only discriminated against because people believe that they are transgender

Now, not all of these will point towards you being intersexist; however, if you find yourself hitting several points listed here, you do likely have some internalized biases and intersexism to unpack.

#intersex #intersexism #lgbt #lgbtqia #queer #lgbtq #transgender #trans #nonbinary

2K notes · View notes

askthefamous8 · 2 years

Note

A question for the Fat Controller himself, in honor of the season, what is Pride like on Sodor? Is it a big parade or a much quieter celebration? Do the drivers decorate their engines with their respective flag colors?

MANY thanks to SeaSwine9 on Twitter for her help drawing the engines!

"So, to answer your question in a word: colourful. Now, on to some of these other questions."

"My, my, I don’t think I’ve ever had this many just for me!"

"Thank you! I must say, I wasn’t expecting it to be so popular. I got it from the Knapford Station gift shop. Only 2.99!"

"Thank you very much, I do find it to be terrifically ‘cool’, as it were."

"Luckily, we don’t get too much trouble here. Sodor’s a fantastic place and most people are wonderfully kind and accepting. That’s not to say we’ve never had problems, of course. If an employee of my railway causes those kinds of problems, they’re promptly sent away in disgrace. As for our passengers – we may be a business but we do reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. And have done, I might add!"

@foultaleglitter "Oh, we have all sorts of events and activities, for children and adults. We try to avoid anything too competitive, as some take it rather too far and it all ends in tears and hurt feelings. We don’t normally have any problem with the children, though."

"Naturally – Duck took charge of all that very quickly."

"Now you’re asking. Well, generally passengers from the mainland will transfer onto the NWR at Barrow, from a Northern or Trans-Pennine service. Depending on the current agreements we have in place with them, they’ll sometimes come through to Vicarstown – but it’s all rather dependent on the vagaries of National Rail, I’m afraid.

"Thank you all very much for your questions! I hope you enjoy the festivities and have a happy Pride!"

207 notes · View notes

nightingale-bloom · 8 months

Text

I got very lazy. Any pride flags I snuck in are purely headcanons, but I always do it nonetheless. Please don't come at me, I forgot who Brink's patron was and will not be listening through the entire podcast to find the one mention of them I'm just about 34% sure there was. Kinda just assuming it's Dia for now. Characters are from Tales from the Stinky Dragon, a DnD 5e actual play podcast. Art under the cut.

If it's deepfried on your end too, I apologize.

I did Meld first, not too many headcanons for her. Did most of the drawing without ever having seen her canon design, and I gotta say she kinda reminds me of Little Lad from that one Berries and Cream Starburst commercial. Only thing I changed after looking her up on the wiki was her skin, as I originally had her really pale because I'd assumed her mother, Sadatte, was a high elf because of her hair color. Honestly just forgot the moment it's explicitly said she's a wood elf, but it's been fixed. Also managed to forget her cloak. I was going to do an alternate version with it- and have her pride patches on the cloak- but then upon looking at my drawing again, immediately decided it would be too much of a pain.

Got a lot more headcanons for this guy. At the moment, I am under the assumption that his patron is Dia,- I don't have easy access to the info right now and it made a fair bit of sense to me- so a few of them are based on that. I headcanon Brink getting his snake, Hannibal, as a gift for his sixteenth birthday. Upon making a pact with Dia, his first request was for Hannibal's life to be extended. She did as he asked, and now the little guy's all rainbow n' stuff. I also think he wouldn't know how to hold a mug properly, he'd hold the handle instead of wrapping his hand around the mug itself and would be yet to realize most people don't nearly spill their coffee every. Single. Morning. As for the pride pin, I headcanon him realizing he was queer at thirteen years old and swearing he was bi for years before realizing he was never into the girl he dated back in school. Or any girls, actually.

Additionally, I chose the symbol on Brink's spellbook because it looked a bit like a firework, and I know Dia would love them because she's all about them colors.

#fantasy #cartoon art #my art #stinky dragon pod #tales from the stinky dragon #tftsd #meld tftsd #brink tftsd #tftsd headcanons #fanart

16 notes · View notes

babblydrabbly · 2 years

Text

Day 11 | Rick Flag x Reader

a/n - @flufftober which I am probably going to finish by December lmao

prompt - poetry/art/music/craft

fluff - 750 words - warnings: nudity. implied relationship. scars mention. food and drink mention. one smooch. canon divergence post-suicide squad 2016.

“This is how you see me.” His soft tone is laced with something you can’t place. Confusion? Disbelief?

A heat creeps up your face as you shift in your seat. Rick’s breath is soothing against your cheek, but you can’t help fidgeting as he reaches past you; feel his chest touch faintly to your back as you let him examine your work up close.

Rick posed still and stoic as ever this evening, his pinched brows accentuating his expression thoughtfully for twenty minutes at a time. The community center’s spacious art room, normally cold, was warmed to combat the unexpected frost outside. You smiled at Rick kindly from the back of the room as the other artists doted on him before the session- making sure he was comfortable with the room before he would have to work poses for an hour or so.

You dragged your pencil gently across the canvas as he sat. Gently, but with thrumming intention. The other artists in the room did the same in silence as they drew inspiration from the man on the small platform.

You didn’t want to be a cliche. To be a painter with more than just admiration for their muse. But Rick Flag had captivated you. He was one of three or four regular models who volunteered their time to your group, but there was something about the way Rick gazed off into the distance as he stood bare before you.

You expected him to only try it once and never return. He told you after his first session that he’d never done anything like this before. And while it wasn’t stage fright that made him question his place here, it was the peace he had experienced while posing for you that had affected him in a way he didn’t expect.

You knew now, after nights of spending time alone with the ex-colonel, that this volunteer work was suggested to him through a therapist. And it filled you with pride that your studio was what made him feel welcome.

You tried to fight the way Rick inspired you to paint, but how could you?

“This one’s a little more…” You reach for a different piece laying flat on your desk. Propping it up on the easel over tonight’s sketches, you feel emboldened now that he seems to like your work.

Rick throws his brows up at the oil painting. You normally did landscapes, but Rick’s body, twisted and held in a sculpture-like stance, is the centerpiece here.

His skin tone is a little more golden, to compliment his summer tan that’s been fading as the months grew colder. And instead of making his many scars subtle, you’ve highlighted them. Scar tissue reddened and embossed in their own layer. As if to say Look. Look right here. And here.

Rick turns his head to look at you instead. He conceals the quiet storm of thoughts behind his eyes well. With a light-hearted scoff he stands up straight again, his hands retreating to his flannel coat pockets.

“You sure make me look good.” He smiles dryly.

You flash him one in return as you stand from your chair. “It’s a life drawing class. I just… copy what I see.”

The man shakes his head. Reaching up, you brush back the long tufts of honey blonde hair that have started to form a handsome swoop at his temple. Rick tilts his head a fraction as his eyes flicker down just past your eyes, sending your stomach into flips.

“Are you in here, Richard?”

The two of you quickly step away from each other with awkward smiles. But not quickly enough. Doris, a fellow painter, enters the doorway with a knowing smirk.

“I thought I’d find you here. Will you be joining us next week? I’m bringing a tray of my special pumpkin blondies and coffee for snacks.”

“Tuesday and Thursday, Mrs. Halloway.” Rick chuckles. “I’m not missin’ blondie night.”

Doris disappears back down the hallway to leave you to your goodbyes. Rick reaches a hesitant hand up to caress your face for a moment. His callused touch is a pleasant, electric feeling across your cheekbone. “See you in class?”

Listening to check if the coast is clear, you quickly push up on your toes. Rick’s lips meet yours halfway with a firm kiss before you’re both pulling away again.

You grin at the look in his eyes- the one that’s considering more than another chaste peck.

“See you at home.”

#flufftober #flufftober 2022 #day 11 #dceu #rick flag #rick flag x reader #rick flag x you #mywords*

54 notes · View notes

polarisbibliotheque · 2 years

Text

Shall Never Surrender Project

Hey there, little stars! Hope you are all doing ok!

Like I said some time ago, I want to organize a project Devil May Cry related - and thus, Shall Never Surrender Project is here!

(do apologize eventual mistakes, I'm typing on my cellphone)

What is it?

The Shall Never Surrender Project is for people to request me full illustrations tied to the Devil May Cry series and something personal to them - as something to give them strength to keep going, no matter what.

DMC has given me strength and hope when I had none - and I know how, sometimes, we need something visual to remind ourselves of our inner power.

The illustrations will be allowed to be used as tattoos, stickers, wall arts, notebooks, mugs... Whatever the person who requests it needs!

The only requirement: at the end of the day, they need to have a deep meaning to the requester. Something that will inspire and warm their heart ^^

What's the motivation behind it?

Devil May Cry is really important in my life - it has helped me with some really heavy stuff, and I want to give it back to the people who need it too.

13 years ago, Dante helped me understand my depression and isolation, being the friend I needed and never had. Some time later, Nero appeared and held my hand, helping me push through pain, without ever surrendering. And now, Vergil is walking by my side, teaching me to endure through failure and reclaim my name.

I know how important some stories and characters can be to some people - and how, sometimes, they are the only strength we have during rough times.

How it works?

If you're struggling with anything - for example, depression, self-harm, PTSD, anxiety, shortage of money, family issues, toxic relationships and many other issues (I can't list everything here, but it's open to other things too!) - and Devil May Cry is your comfort place with your comfort characters, I want to help you.

There isn't much I can do - but I can illustrate something for you!

You want a sticker of yourself with Dante having strawberry sundaes? You got it.

You want a lockscreen of Vergil with a part of the lyrics of Bury the Light to remind you of your strength every day? Done.

You want Nero holding your hand and crossing through Angelos screaming that none of you will ever surrender? Sure, I'll do it!

You need a tattoo saying "no hiding in the shadows anymore" with your pride flag? No worries, I'll help design it.

What to know before requesting?

This is to help and inspire people to survive and never give up. I want you to remember someone in the world cares and wants your heart to stop suffering.

Therefore, the requests must have a meaning to you.

If you request something just because you want a free DMC drawing, I'm sorry, but this isn't for you. There are SO many artists, much more talented than me even, who can do something amazing for you!

But if you request because you want something as a reminder, something that gives you that motivation you need every day to keep going, then I'll be more than happy on working on it for you!

What I do and don't do?

I don't work with NSFW/sexually explicit art, nor will I do anything Spardacest related.

Regarding gore, I don't do crazy heavy gore - but I'm ok with scars. I know some of them are important.

*Do remember these are motivational. I won't depict someone actually getting hurt, but I will deaw Kyrie tending to their wounds, for example.

I will do self-insert, original characters, characters from the series and such.

But if you request Agnus or Mundus I will severely judge your sanity.

What info should you send me?

I need to know a few things:

Why does this matter to you? What's your story? How does DMC help and what can I do for you? The more detailed the description of the illustration, the better. Feel free to send me references, pinterest boards, parts from the game... Everything! Don't worry about "talking too much", there's no such thing in this household. You're not annoying me, I find it endearing;

What will you do with the illustration? I need to know so I can choose the right dimension and quality of the file. Will it be a lockscreen? A sticker? A print? A tattoo? A shirt? A mug? A notebook? Something else entirely?

Is there a quote you want to add? Be mindful, it's only DMC universe related (manga, games, novels, songs... Poems for good ol' Verge and V);

Where do you prefer to contact me? I prefer tumblr or instagram, but feel free to choose whatever you prefer. I'm not available on astral projection at the moment though, my energy is a little off;

Where can I send you the finished file? Email? Drive? I'll need to know it, so keep it in mind.

And after the request?

I'm currently ill and low energy (think V dragging himself around everywhere, that's literally me) and this is a personal project, so it might take a while. I will do it whenever I can, but sometimes I spend whole weeks on doctors and hospitals - with some patience, we will get to your final illustration!

I might take a week or a month. It will really depend ;)

After it's done, I'll love to see what you did with it! Feel free to post on social media and tag me or send me a picture - it will be yours and I hope it will brighten your day!

Questions & Answers

What if I want to request but I don't have a clear idea on what I want? Feel free to message me! If you have a general idea, we can chat about it and I can sketch some samples to see if you like. Do research a bit on some artworks on pinterest and such, of many styles (art nouveau, classic painting, modern art, manga covers, manga and manhwa artworks, instagram artists, traditional tattoo, fineline, game concept art... the options are endless!) it could help you find something that suits what you want;

Does it NEED to be DMC related? Yes, it does. It's the whole point of the project;

Do I need to send you a quote or lyrics? No, it isn't obligatory. Although, I think it can add a lot of motivation to keep going!

Can I request couple interactions? This is a tricky one. You might, if it really matters to you. For instance, you and your favourite character hugging in the rain and such, but I wouldn't say the same for character ships;

Would you refuse a request with characters' ships? Well, I don't see how a drawing of, let's say, Dante and Lady kissing would help your rough days. I know it can be an escape and quite endearing, but I want to do something with deep meaning for you, not just something anyone could've requested with no special meaning. But if it REALLY means something to you having some characters as a couple (as a teen, I'd picture me as Trish, so I'd always ship her with Dante back then), please, do explain to me so we can think about it!

So, if you're drawing couples, can you draw them kissing? I'd prefer not to. Holding hands and hugging is the most I can do right now - kissing and beyond is not on my art skills at the moment;

Any other question that didn't show up here? Send me an ask and I'll answer you!

I see the Devil May Cry as this place we all eventually call home. We're all on different roads, doing our own things, but every once in a while, one of us drops by the shop, spending some time with Dante and the crew - and now, with each other, even if just a little.

And I want you to remember that, no matter what you're going through, you'll always find support at the Devil May Cry - with Dante, the crew and us.

I've been looking for some voluntary work, but currently I don't have much physical strength or energy. I can draw, though, and I want to do something with it - so far, for now, this is what I can do!

I hope I can help you guys to keep fighting. And I hope this will be the light so many people are needing to remember that we shall never surrender 🖤

*I don't think there'll be too many requests, but I'll eventually open spots if there are too many at the same time for me to handle ^^

#devil may cry #dmc #dante sparda #vergil sparda #nero sparda #dmc crew #devil may cry fanart #fanart #illustration #fanart request #art request #shall never surrender project #mental health #I know it isn't much #and I know it isn't the most exciting thing on earth #but it's what I can do to help ^^#maybe as the project grows we can think of new things to do!

35 notes · View notes

call-me-double-trouble · 10 months

Text

Old Art

Hi, all! To celebrate my 1-year anniversary of this blog, I decided it’d be fun to show some of my first, never-before-seen drawings of Double Trouble. All of these are traditional, as I hadn’t gone digital yet. Some are also unfinished, and many were sketches at work that weren’t really meant to be “good,” just something to entertain me when I didn’t have any tasks to do.

I’m going to poke fun at some of them, as I’ve improved a lot since drawing them, but I'm not trying to encourage artists to be overly-critical of their past works. Recognizing your mistakes and flaws in your old work only shows how far you’ve come, and I just want to have a good giggle about how silly some of my old sketches look.

Art under the cut because this list goes on for awhile

Here’s the first drawing of DT I remember doing:

I used a reference for this one, hence why it looks better than some of my later entries in this post. Unfortunately, it suffers from Long Head Syndrome, a mistake I still often make with traditional art because at the angle I’m seeing it while I’m drawing, it looks perfectly fine. But then you hold it at eye-level, and uh...

Also, what the heck kinda hairline did I give them? It’s like it meets at a point, but not in the middle of their head.

Next up, these two:

Will the Long Head Syndrome ever cease??? As you can tell, I liked the sketch I did at work, so I traced it onto watercolor paper, made a couple changes, and painted it. This one’s not too bad, though it does look like their eyebrows missed the memo as to what angle their head was at.

This next one may be the worst:

Like...WTF is that? What is that hair poof? Why is one eye so much smaller than the other? What’s going on with that mouth? This is why references are important, kids.

With this next one, I got bored and wanted to color DT in with Sharpies:

So bright! My eyes! The hair poof is too small, but at least it’s not wiggly like the last one. Also, here’s a magnifying glass to help you see those tiiiny eyebrows.

Here’s another I did with fine line markers that I keep on my wall like a sticker:

I messed up on the smile, so I made it a frown. Now their eyebrows are too big, and so is that one ear. (Also, my walls aren’t that bright in real life, they just showed up that way on camera.)

Next up is--

Oh.

WHAT IS THAT

And next we have one of my favorites!

The little menace themselves, cute-ified. (We don’t talk about hairlines, no, no, no~)

And here we have one I turned into a digital drawing, but you may notice...

the ears are too fucking small. DT went from rulers on the side of their head to kid-sized ice cream cones. A real downgrade.

This one’s an unfinished (and will never be finished) drawing:

What even ARE those hands. Ok, yes, they were guides for drawing in fingers later, but...ew.

Here’s the first full-body, colored drawing of DT I ever did.

I had drawn them meeting a character from the book I’m writing, hence the speech bubble, but cropped that character out because spoilers! Anyway, this drawing was done with several references and looks much better than some of the others on this list. The main issue is that they’re standing at an angle. Why are they slanted??? Why can’t I draw a straight line??? *sees ace pride flag* Oh yeah, that’s why.

And lastly, here’s the first time I used the DT doll base from @sheblah :

Since this was before I had my iPad, I had to trace the doll base to use it, though I decided to draw the face myself. Oh, asymmetrical eyes, how I loathe thee.

Well, that’s all of the old traditional drawings of DT I have! As you can see, I’ve come a long way since then, but it’s always fun to look back and see where you’ve come from. I hope you enjoyed these silly doodles!

#double trouble #spop double trouble #she ra double trouble #spop #spop fanart #my art #mine #long post

6 notes · View notes

rosella-writes · 2 years

Note

Happy Friday, here is my heart on a platter. Do with it what you wish: Felassan &(/) Solas, after Valor falls. Sex-as-therapy? Destroying something together? Tears? Philosophy? I can't imagine how that goes down, there's simply so many options!

So this didn't go AT ALL how I expected... and I might save it to write another approach too, because I'm sure they spend all kinds of time recovering. Thank you 🥺

for @dadrunkwriting

Rating: T

Pairing: Pride (f!Solas) x Hope (Felassan) with past Valor (she died)

Words: 677

~~~

She had no life in her after Valor fell.

Pride went through the motions, kept up her mask, but Hope could feel her flagging. And when he found her at his door one evening with a box in her hands and tears on her cheeks, he pulled her inside without a word.

"I want to begin," she said.

"Very well," he replied.

"Will you help me?"

"Until you send me away."

Hope took the box from her trembling hands and sat her down at the bench beside his smudged bedroom mirror. He pushed her hair back from her face — she hadn't even braided it lately, instead binding it into a lank bundle at the nape of her neck — and cupped her tattooed cheeks. He traced Mythal's dark lines with each swipe of his thumb.

She could have done this herself with magic. Hope could as well, and nearly did — it would be faster, less humbling. But something in her eyes stayed his hand — something steely in the pain, something determined in the anguish. He stood firm against wave after wave of it and offered hope in its wake.

Without a word, he opened the box and lifted out a curved knife.

The first draw of the blade against hair raised gooseflesh on his arms and the back of his neck. The first lock of red that fell was like a baptism — she closed her eyes, as if expecting a douse of water over her face. And when it was all cropped close to her skull and the floor was painted crimson with her pride, Hope retrieved soap and water and began to draw that knife flush against her skin.

When he was done, he took her hand and raised it to her scalp. Her eyes fluttered open.

"Thank you," she said.

Pride glanced at the mirror and did not wince. She straightened her shoulders — what plain clothes she wore, Hope thought — and stood. She suddenly seemed very tall, and Hope tipped his chin up to look at her.

"I have studied this and pondered this," she said with a shuddering breath, offering him a smile that faltered, "and now that the moment is here, I am afraid."

He took her hand and pressed her knuckles to his lips. He looked up at her with naked trust on his face. "If it works? You will be the first. Think of how many this could help. Everyone we have smuggled out of Arlathan could be safe in the knowledge that they will never be pulled back against their will. The ones who have returned to the Beyond will not so easily be forced into bodies again."

She squeezed his hand so hard that the bones ground together. "I know. This is important."

Pride glanced at the mirror again. "I thought," she went on, "that by sacrificing my vanity this part would not be so difficult. I was wrong. But how silly it is to fear disfigurement when so many have suffered for so long."

"If Valor —" He choked, swallowed, then tried again. "If Valor were here, you would not falter. Think of the bravery she could give you. I'm sorry hope is all you have."

"No." It was just a whisper, choked by more tears. She shook her head and drew near enough to press a kiss to his forehead. "No, my Hope. Her courage lives in me, but it is you I need now more than ever."

He let her draw away then and take a deep breath. She kept her eyes fixed on his for one heartbeat — two — three — then closed them with a sharp inhalation through her nose. She raised her spidery hands up to cage her own face.

And when blue light sprang from between her fingers and her hands began to shake, it took all Hope had not to leap forward and drag them away. He kept his hands immobile at his sides, nails digging into his palms when she hissed out a pained sound, then a whimper, and finally a ragged, bitten-off scream.

#dadwc #no refuge so sure as valor #pride x hope #pride x valor #arlathan au #solas #felassan x solas #solas x felassan #felassan

21 notes · View notes

illatreal · 2 years

Text

Heartstopper, an essay by me that probably no-one will ever read. (Spoiler alert, obviously, if you haven’t read or watched the series)

(PART 8)

So it’s been a really long, shit week at work and I never got around to part 8. Frankly, I don’t think I have the energy to write much - I just want to curl up in a ball and watch ‘Heartstopper’ over and over until I feel human again. So here are just some thoughts jotted down without any real structure or expansion

Teachers, Parents, Siblings

Mr Ajayi (Fisayo Akinade) - everyone wishes they had a teacher like this. Always there with an open door and a friendly ear. Willing to give out advice even when it’s not what you want hear. Doesn’t ever push Charlie to tell him more but just creates a really open, supportive environment so that when Charlie is ready he knows that Mr Ajayi will be there for him. Wears the pride flag on his uniform so any student knows that they have his support

Coach Singh (Chetna Pandya) - strict but caring. Looking forward to hopefully being able to see the scene between Nick and her if we get a second season where she talks about meeting her partner through rugby and offering support if anyone gives him shit about his relationship with Charlie

Nick’s Mum, Sarah Nelson (Olivia Colman) - ICONIC. There is great chemistry between Olivia and Kit in the sweet scenes between Nick and his mum throughout. Such tender motherly concern and affection. The kind of supportive parent any kid wants and such a beautiful reaction to Nick coming out: “I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like you couldn’t tell me that!” *hugs* “You don’t have to say you like girls if you don’t” “Oh, I love you!” *hugs*. Love that Joe Locke has on his instagram bio that Olivia Colman is his mother in law - I mean, the dream right?

Charlie’s Dad, Julio Spring (Joseph Balderrama) - protective, sweet, there for his son. Worried about Charlie because he knows how hard things were for him at school last year and just wants his son to know that he is supported

Tao’s Mum, Yan Xu (Momo Yeung) - such a sweetie. I definitely want a cup of tea, thanks Mrs Xu. Just adores Elle and is the biggest shipper of Tao and Elle together (Keep the door open *wink*)

Charlie’s Sister, Tori Spring (Jenny Walser) - great energy and, for lack of a better word, vibe. Always a fan of deadpan. Sibling teasing but with genuine affection, love and care thrown in. Tori knows what’s up: “I don’t think he’s straight” *Charlie and Nick get together* “Called it”. There for Charlie at his lowest point: “And I just feel like maybe I do just ruin people’s lives, and it would be better if I didn’t exist” “You’re not ruining my life!” *sister hug* - such a beautiful, poignant scene and so beautifully acted by Joe and Jenny.

Nellie (Echo) - what a little sweetheart. Emotional support dog. I’m sure Echo got all the love and attention. Joe is totally jealous that Echo loves Kit more. The best doggo who deserves all the pats

Miscellaneous

Supportive friends and the concept of found family - just so important to see represented for young people. Find those who lift you up and make you shine with their love.

Rainbow motif - some of my favourite examples include: Nick and Charlie’s first meeting (camera catching the light), Tara and Darcy’s kiss at Harry’s party (lights from DJ + confetti), Tao and Elle’s sports day moment (camera catching the light), Nick and Charlie’s beach date (rainbow behind the train station), Alice Oseman drawing Nick and Charlie on the train (rainbow on her back pack)

Graphic novel elements - used to provide insight into the characters emotions/feelings throughout e.g. hearts (yes Elle, you do love Tao); butterflies (yes Tao, you do love Elle), flowers, leaves, sparks (just hold his hand, you know you want to); framing (pink for happy fantasies and black for darker imaginings). Love that even though the storyline is stretched out and rearranged a little bit (to add drama and to add a bit more realism to Nick’s journey of self discovery) there are still so many scenes that are practically shot for shot from the web comic.

Music choices - what an incredible soundtrack. The music really suits the style of the film and always helps to create the right atmosphere instead of detracting/distraction from the fabulous actors. The whole cast seems especially supportive of Baby Queen who wrote ‘Colours of You’ specifically for ‘Heart Stopper’ and who’s other music is featured throughout.

The realisation that I have the haircut of a teenage boy and I’m not even mad about it. Not a rugby lad although I do enjoy an oversized sweatshirt from time to time.

This was still really long. Sorry

Everyone deserves happiness and our differences should be celebrated!!!!!! <3

P.S. If Stephen Fry is the principal of the all boys school, does that make Sandi Toksvig the principal of the all girls school?

#heartstopper #alice oseman #charlie spring #nick nelson #lgbtq

14 notes · View notes

yelena-bellova · 3 years

Text

Safe Haven: tftaws!Bucky Barnes x fem!reader - Chapter Eleven (final chapter)

chapter ten - Chapter Eleven: Safe Haven

Series Masterlist

Plot: Y/n and Bucky enjoy their time off in Brooklyn and make decisions about their future.

Warnings: FLUFF, very little angst for once, talk of torture, reference to suicide, open ended plot twist that I'm not sorry for...all the fluff, seriously...

Word Count: 7.3k

A/N: Here we are...part of the journey is the end, and we've arrived. Even though there's another a/n at the bottom (with an important announcement so don't tap out too soon) I want to iterate just how thankful I am for the response I got on this series. I had the most amazing time writing it and loved getting to meet and connect with so many of you through it. ENJOY!!

----

It had taken all the strength Bucky had in his soul to knock three times on Yori’s door. He didn’t know what reserve he had had to tap into to actually make his long-hidden confession but once the words had fallen from his lips, he felt both freed and all the more burdened. Watching his friend’s eyes become overtaken by heartbreak, the desperate, confused utterance of ‘why…?’ By the end, Yori wouldn’t even look at Bucky. Bucky didn’t blame him, he was surprised that the man wasn’t yelling him out of his apartment. Instead, he calmly told Bucky to leave, surely holding back the majority of his emotions until he was by himself. The door shut on their friendship and Bucky was by himself on the other side of the door once again, drawing the shaky breath he’d held while he was inside Yori’s place. Out of every person he’d gone to see, every heart he’d had to crush, this one had hurt the most. In the dauntingly long hallway, his eyes sought out the gift the universe had given him, so undeservingly.

His guiding light.

Bathed in the blue light that flooded through the dirty windows of the aged building, Y/n stared down at her feet as she paced. For as open as they’d become with one another, Bucky found himself unable to ask her to accompany him to his last opportunity to make amends. The two of them had become so skilled at reading each other that with one look in his saddened eyes, Y/n had squeezed her phone into the pocket of her jeans and stood by the door waiting for him to ready himself. Bucky was starting to make peace with his past, but he still didn’t know what he had done in his wretched life to have such an angel in his life.

“Hey,” she greeted soothingly, turning to face Bucky as he approached her, “How’d it go?” Bucky wasn’t ready to speak yet, he wasn’t even sure how he could describe what had just transpired. He simply sighed and allowed Y/n to wrap him in her arms in the embrace that was quickly becoming his favorite place to be.

——

As I woke with a groan, stretching my arms over my head, I was immediately aware that one side of the bed was cold. I blindly reached a hand over and felt around for Bucky’s missing body, sitting up when my search was unsuccessful. I blearily scanned the bedroom, our suits laying in a pile that had been kicked to the corner of the desolately furnished room. The few articles of clothing I had gone to the nearest department store and purchased for my impromptu stay in New York still lay folded on top of Bucky’s dresser. It didn’t dawn on me until that moment that I was beginning to spread across Bucky’s apartment without even trying.

It had been four days since the Flag Smasher’s final stand and while the world may have been spinning, mine had never been more steady. Bucky and I hadn’t left his apartment for more than running necessary errands. Other than that we’d spent the time enjoying our slice of domestic heaven learning about one another. I had discovered that Bucky was a good cook but only when it came to breakfast food. He had found out that I needed to sleep with the windows opened slightly for background noise. I had learned that his Spotify consisted strictly of music from the ’40’s and nothing else, contrary to what he’d told Sam about diving into Marvin Gaye’s discography. He’d learned that I got cold easily which led to both me stealing his hoodies and being on the receiving end of many bear hugs. We could tell what the other would do in combat or how they’d handle a concerning matter, but it was finding out the little things about James Buchanan Barnes that made me fall a little bit harder for him with each revelation.

The unlocking and opening of the door followed by quiet footsteps alerted me to his presence. I heard a few muffled noises before the floorboards outside the bedroom creaked, the door opening directly after. Bucky was careful and nearly silent as he came into the room until he saw that my eyes were open. We shared a lazy smile as he approached the bed.

“Did I wake you up?” he asked.

I shook my head in reply, he came to kneel at my side of the bed and pulled the hand he’d hidden behind his back out revealing a bouquet of daisies. “Just when I thought you couldn’t get any cuter,” I chuckled, reaching out to grab the bouquet, “I don’t think anyone’s ever bought me flowers.”

“That’s a crime,” Bucky said as he stood up, shedding his leather jacket as he walked around the bed, “In my time, you always brought a girl flowers on the first date. It was just what you did.”

“I guess we can consider my little extended stay a first date,” I dipped my nose down to smell the flowers, “Although I’m pretty sure in your time you wouldn’t allow a girl into your bed so soon.” Bucky snickered to himself, “A gentleman would never let a lady sleep on the floor. And selfishly,” he tugged his second layer, a grey long sleeved shirt off over his head, and looked down on me lovingly, “I sleep better with you here.”

It was true. He’d told me how he’d only used the bed once since he’d moved in, having slept on the floor instead. I was familiar with the phenomenon, Sam had gone through the same thing when he’d returned from the service. I’d told him that if he had a nightmare and needed to move out to his living room, I’d join him with no hesitations. Shockingly, it hadn’t happened yet and we’d slept in a peaceful tangle of limbs each night that I’d been with him.

Kicking off his boots, he slipped under the duvet and sat up against the headboard, looking over at me and patting his jean clad thigh. I set the flowers down and crawled over to him, sinking down onto his lap and sliding my hands around his neck.

“I like this,” he complimented me with a smirk, tugging at the material of his henley that I was wearing, “Looks better on you than it ever would on me.” “Clearly you’ve never seen you,” I scoffed, I’d also learned that the man had no idea just how attractive he was, “What were you off doing?” “Grocery store,” Bucky answered, gesturing to the sidelined bouquet, “Florist. Dr. Raynor’s office…” “Oh, I didn’t know you had a session this morning.”

Bucky took a deep breath, his hands firmly secured around my waist and his thumbs rubbing at my hips. “I didn’t,” he answered, “I, uh, I crossed off all the names in my book. Thought I’d drop by and let her know.” I gave a breathy laugh, “All of them?” He nodded, “All of them.” Surprised and proud, I placed my hands on his cheeks and pressed a sweet kiss to his lips. “I never doubted you for a second” I said softly, our lips almost touching, “I’m proud of you.”

Bucky gave a small smile, not yet ready to take as much pride as I could in his recovery. I could tell that he was lighter, while his personality was silent and stoic there wasn’t as much sadness lurking beneath it. To those who knew him, the difference in his behavior was visible. The days that I’d been in New York were the happiest I’d seen Bucky since I’d known him.

“So…” I sighed, my hands sliding down to his shoulders, “No more therapy sessions, no more battles to be fought…What do we do now?”

The dreaded question that we’d been avoiding since we’d isolated ourselves from the outside world. There was no doubt as to whether or not I wanted to make it work between Bucky and I, but we hadn’t even discussed what “it” was. What should have unfolded over the course of a couple months had happened as a crash course over two weeks. I didn’t regret it, I just needed to know where Bucky’s head was at regarding our future. “Look,” Bucky averted his gaze downwards, “I’m not…I haven’t done this in a long time and I can’t promise that I’m gonna be good at it. I can’t even promise that I’ll know what I’m doing some of the time. But,” he shyly raised his eyes to meet mine, “I want this. I want you.”

His earnestness was so genuine, I thought my heart might burst from the emotion in his ocean blue eyes. “Bucky, I don’t want perfect,” I said, “And I’m pretty sure that a 106 year old with a robotic arm and a girl who can fly using blue energy from inside her wouldn’t even know what to do with perfect,” I earned a single laugh out of him, “Whatever we have right now, that’s what I want. I want to fight with you by my side and make a difference in the world, then I want to come home with you and teach you to cook something other than pancakes.”

He furrowed his brow, “What do you got against my pancakes?”

“My point is,” I giggled, my hands drifting back up to each side of his neck, “I want you exactly as you are. I haven’t done this in a long time either, I thought that after my dad died I was too broken to ever let myself be happy like this and you know that I’m coming in with more baggage than before. You’re not the only one who doesn’t know what they’re doing. But there’s nobody else I’d rather figure this out with than you.”

The long stare he gave me was reminiscent of the first moment we’d been alone together, standing before the 200 foot drop in Munich. It was the first moment I’d appreciated his beauty, maybe it was the first seed planted in what was now a full-blown relationship in the making. This time, instead of sassing me with those hardened, slightly amused eyes, he surged forward and kissed me, cradling the back of my head in his Vibranium palm. I returned the kiss with just as much fervor, gripping the tight blue t-shirt tightly in my fists. Unlike the kisses we’d shared at 1AM in the kitchen of my house, this one carried a different weight. It was a promise of a future. Movie nights introducing Bucky to the classics that he’d missed. Lazy mornings in bed turned passionate as our bodies surrendered to one another. Protecting each other on whatever battlefields we’d inevitably end up on. Frustrating fights over something we’d inevitably admit was stupid to argue over. Whispering soothing affirmations to help Bucky come down from a violent nightmare. I could taste it all, the good and the bad, in that one kiss and I wanted every bit of it.

“Two weeks…” I said after we’d parted, shaking my head in amazement and laughing, “That’s all it took.” “Crazier things have happened,” Bucky reassured me with a smile, running his hands up and down my back, “My folks always said they knew in a week and they were together for almost forty years.” I bushed my lips against his softly, basking in the euphoria of knowing that the two of us belonged wholly to one another. To think that I’d been willing to throw all of it away mere days ago, I was ready to deprive myself and Bucky of the love we’d craved all our lives. I thanked God that my resolve to stay away had weakened long enough to let Bucky in because now, wrapped in his strong arms with his lips begging for a deeper kiss, I knew that I had something truly spectacular in my hands.

“Well, since this is official,” Bucky said, a little breathless, “There’s something you should have.” He took his hands off of my body and reached behind his neck, pulling off one of his dog tags. Understanding what he was doing and the significance of it, I moved my head to allow him to place the necklace over it, the cold metal of the ball chain settling against my neck. The tag fell between my breasts, I picked it up and read Bucky’s name, his service number, the name of his sister, their address and his birth place. He’d given me, a part of his future, a piece of his history.

“Bucky…” I whispered, not trusting my voice enough to come out steady.

“A lot of soldiers gave one of them to their girls before they shipped out,” he recalled, watching me examine the piece of metal, “At least I know if I ever do ship out anywhere, you’ll be with me.” I bit my lip and smiled, looking up at him with misty eyes. When the first tear fell down my cheek, Bucky was quick to wipe it away and did so with a smile of his own. After all the pain we’d both suffered through in life, we were finally allowed tenderness. Our hearts were scarred, our bodies worn, but no amount of trauma could lay a hand on the way we felt about one another. There’d be many more fights, some with forces bigger than the ones we’d spent the last two weeks taking a stand against. But at the end of the day, I had Bucky, my safe haven to come back to.

“It’s getting late,” I observed after a few minutes of sweet silence, the morning hours were slipping away from us, “Are you hungry? I can make us something.” “Yeah, but,” Bucky’s hands found my arms and he rubbed his palms against them, “Let’s stay here just a little while longer…”

A grin spread across my face, one that I was finding only Bucky could bring out in me. “Okay,” I replied, settling my face in the crook of his neck and resting against his chest, the only place I wanted to be.

——

A FEW DAYS LATER

“You ready, Barnes?” “I’m ready.” “This is the most dangerous mission we’re ever going to face.” “I wouldn’t have come if I couldn’t handle it.” “Then why are you sweating?” “I’m not…sweating.” “Well, at least I know you’ll never lie to me. You suck at it,” I smirked just before smoothing out the shoulders of his jacket, “Follow my lead, you’ll be fine.”

Bucky blew out a breath, his cheeks loosing their puff as he exhaled, “Here goes nothing…” I gave three sharp knocks on the door before entering, seeing the familiar face waiting in a chair by the window. “Hey, Mama…” My mother smiled deeply at the sight of her daughter, alive before her. “Baby,” she whispered as she slowly rose to embrace me, “Oh, you’re here.” “I’m here,” I smiled, trying to fight the tears threatening to fill my eyes. My mother had been my first call after the battle in New York, realizing that my face was flashing across every news channel in the country alongside Sam and Bucky. This was the first time I’d seen her since before I’d left Louisiana with Sam.

“And you brought someone?” she asked over my shoulder, pulling away to wipe her cheeks.

“I did,” I turned around and looped my arm through Bucky’s, who was looking vaguely nauseous, “Mom, this is James.”

Bucky stuck out his gloved hand towards my mother, “It’s wonderful to meet you, Mrs. Y/l/n.”

“Wonderful to meet you too, James,” she responded, shaking his hand and looking over to me, “I’ve been waiting a long time for Y/n to bring somebody home.” I forced a chuckle, “Thanks, Mom…” “Well, I’m honored that I’m the one she chose,” Bucky beamed, his bright eyes seeking mine out.

“Well, sit down,” my mom gestured to the two free chairs in the room, “I want to hear all about how you two met.”

Bucky and I exchanged a nervous look as we pulled up our seats to join her by the window. How were you supposed to explain that you’d fallen for a 106 year old who just happened to have once been the world’s deadliest assassin? “Um…James is one of Sam’s friends from the military. He came with us to Munich and things just sort of,” I slipped my hand into one of Bucky’s that sat in his lap, “Happened from there.” “We didn’t like each other much at first, but,” Bucky chimed in, rubbing his thumb over the back of my hand, “She definitely snuck up on me.”

“Oh my,” she looked at me amusedly, “How’s Sam taking this? Has he threatened you yet, Bucky?” “Yeah, I, uh, got a text from him the other day, and it read something like ‘I’ve got access to government weapons, don’t make me use them.’”

I covered my mouth and snorted as my mother got a good laugh herself, “You didn’t tell me that.” Bucky shook his head, a small smile on his lips, Sam and him had been getting along swimmingly since his last visit to Louisiana. But no friendship could eclipse Sam’s overprotective nature when it came to his family, it was only a matter of time until Bucky was on the receiving end of its ugly side.

“Truth is,” Bucky turned his gaze to my mother while keeping a soft grip on my hand, I could feel his nerves radiating through his touch, “I’m crazy about your daughter, ma’am, I think she’s the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.”

Mom sighed, an ear-to-ear grin painted across her face. It was the same one I’d seen when my sister had first brought her now husband home to meet us. “I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to hear that, James,” she replied, “I’m looking forward to getting to know you more.” “Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” I questioned, “It’s been so long since the whole family was together.” “I wish, but I’m a little too tired to make the trip there,” Mom answered, settling into her seat a little more, “You don’t need an old lady there slowing you down.” “That’s ridiculous,” I gently pushed back, “But since Sam and I are back home for a while, we’ll make sure to bring everybody up one of the weekends.” “I’d like that,” she smiled. A phone buzzing interrupted the conversation, Bucky let go of my hand to reach into his jacket pocket. “It’s Sam, probably wants an ETA,” he announced, rising from his seat and looking between both me and my mother, “Sorry.”

Both of us shooed him out of the room to take the call, turning back to one another once he was gone with shining smiles. “Honey…” “I know…” I tried to hold back a giddy laugh threatening to erupt.

“He seems wonderful…” I shook my head, semi in disbelief that things had turned out the way they had. “You don’t even know the half of it, he’s just…I’m crazy about him.” “That much is obvious,” Mom gestured to my face, “You haven’t stopped smiling since you walked through that door. I’ve never seen you this happy. Just one thing…” I furrowed my brows as her smile turned to a knowing smirk, “Did you honestly think I wouldn’t know who he is?” I sighed, leaning forward in my seat and propping my elbows on my knees. “We weren't trying to hide it, he just doesn’t like to advertise it. Once people know, they usually can’t look past what he was. But, Mom, we’ve been glued at the hip for the last two weeks and I can promise you, what you’re seeing is what you’re getting. I wouldn’t be with him if I thought there was any chance he could hurt me. He saved my life and so many others last week...” “Sweetie, you don’t have to try and sell me on him,” Mom said soothingly, reaching out to touch my knee, “I trust your judgement and I also know what happened to him, it was tragic. The fact that he has a second chance at his life makes me happy, especially since it’s with you. Watching the two of you, how at ease he is with you…And those eyes,” she stopped to chuckle, “The way he looks at you is something special, it’s something magical. The two of you fit.”

Eventually I would tell her the whole story of how Bucky and I came to be, but it was better saved for another day. If she only knew how challenging it had been to get to something so simple and how Bucky and I valued each other all the more for it. “He fought for me, Mama,” I said with tears brimming, letting out a laugh, “Literally and metaphorically. And I just couldn’t let him go, he’s everything I’ve wanted but what I thought I could never have.” Mom placed a hand on my cheek, “You deserve him, my love. After everything you’ve been through, you deserve happiness.” And for the first time, I believed her. I believed that through my suffering, I had played a small part in helping Bucky through his. We deserved something more than what had happened to us and we had found it in one another.

“Your father would be proud of you,” Mom said, her face flashing with a different emotion than joy for a brief second. “I’m not sure about that…” I mumbled, dodging her eyes in favor of staring down at my hands, a different reaction than I’d ever had when talking about my father.

“Sweetie,” she coaxed me, tapping at my hands until I looked back up at her, “Do you…do you know something?” My heartbeat started to quicken as I struggled to contain the information I was withholding from my mother. It was taking everything I had not to tell her that her husband had been a part of one of the cruelest organizations the world had ever seen. The pain must have reflected in my expression. “Yeah,” she whispered, biting her lip and closing her eyes, “You know…” “Mom?”

She sighed, sitting back in her chair and supporting her head in her hand. “I didn’t know anything about that part of your father’s life when I married him, he didn’t like to talk about his time in the ‘service’ and I never pushed it…It wasn’t until the night that he died, before he left the house, that he sat me down and confessed it all.” “He…” I moved to the edge of my seat, “He told you?” “Mmhmm,” she nodded, a distant look in her eyes like she was transported back in time to that very moment, “I didn’t know how to process any of it, how could I? This man who I’d shared my life with and he’d made his living off of inflicting pain on innocent people. Hours later, he was gone and any chance to delve deeper into it was gone too. It’s taken me a long time to come to terms with everything, but I made it. You’re free to draw your own conclusions, Y/n, I’m not telling you how to feel. All I’ll say is this,” Mom drew a breath before continuing, “Your father’s guilt over what he did, to Bucky specifically, overwhelmed him. He told me how HYDRA manipulated him, a young and ambitious man, into coming to work for them, lying and telling him they were creating a better world with their work. He thought he was fighting for what was right…I’m not making excuses for him, believe me, I’m simply telling you what he told me. Do you remember when he’d wake up from a nightmare?” I nodded grimly, the shrieks of my father’s always strained vocal cords still haunted me decades later. “Do you remember what he used to cry when he woke up?” Mom asked.

I silently shook my head in reply, when I’d be awoken by my fathers blood curdling screams as a child, I’d always bury my head under my pillow in an effort to block it out, shedding tears at knowing I couldn’t help him. “Soldat…”

My head perked up, the word was familiar to me after hearing Zemo call Bucky the same thing when we were undercover in Madripoor. “Of course by the time that your James was free, your father had been dead for over a decade but,” Mom paused, looking out the window as memories hit her, “Your father’s guilt over what he did ate away at him every day. As far as you went, he told me that the reason he wanted to keep your powers hidden was because he was afraid HYDRA would come for you. It’s the reason I moved us to Delacroix after he died, I didn’t want to take the chance of somebody finding you. Dad didn’t want them to make you a weapon the same way they made one of James. But honey,” she took my hand, “He believed you could do great things, truly. One of the last things he said to me was that our family was the one good thing he’d done in life.”

Everything that I’d thought and everything I’d never thought had been revealed to me. My father’s crimes could never be erased, but some part of me felt satisfied knowing that he knew what he did was wrong. He’d been haunted day and night by Bucky, the man who I was completely head over heels for. In some way, it felt poetic that Bucky and I had ended up together. I couldn’t magically heal his trauma, but for every bit of torture my dad and countless others inflicted upon him, I was now there to shower him in the love and safety he deserved.

“Have you…forgiven him for what he did?” I hesitantly asked.

“You know, after all these years, I’m still not sure what forgiveness looks like in a situation like this,” she admitted with a small shrug, “We weren’t affected, yet his past put us in danger, especially you. And now, seeing the man that he was paid to hurt and how much joy he brings you, it’s bringing up a lot of emotions I thought I’d buried. I know he regretted what he’d done with his whole being and I believe that, but I still question why he didn’t leave sooner. I wish I could give you a better answer but-“ “Mama,” I squeezed her hand and pushed back my tears to help her, “I’ve had this information for a week and I’m still spinning, I can’t imagine what it’s like to sit on it silently for this long. I was hellbent on keeping this from you but I’m actually relieved that I don’t have to hide it…” I took a trembling breath, “Dad did a lot of things wrong in his life, but I have a chance to do a lot of good. I’ve talked to Sam and I’m going to keep working with him, I’m done living with my hands tucked under my legs. I want to make the difference in the world that Dad thought he was making.” “I think you’re off to a pretty good start,” my mother replied, “I was terrified watching you fly around New York, but I’d also never been prouder of you.” A knock on the door followed by Bucky sticking his head through it broke us from the topic. “Am I interrupting?” he asked, his eyes widened slightly as he worried. “Not at all,” my mom said cheerily as she slowly rose from her seat, “I don’t want to keep you two any longer when you’ve got somewhere to be.”

I tightly embraced her and placed a kiss on her cheek, “Love you,” I whispered.

“Love you too, sweetheart,” she replied, gesturing afterwards to Bucky who made his way over to her and allowed himself to be hugged by her, “Take care of my girl, James.” “I will,” Bucky promised, pulling back to give a nod full of conviction.

Once the two of us had shut my mom’s door and were back out in the hallway of the nursing home, Bucky noticed the slight puffiness of my eyes. “Happy tears or sad tears?” he asked as we walked down the hall.

“‘I don’t know’ tears,” I replied with a small smile, weaving my fingers between his gloved metal ones. “But well done, Sergeant. I’d consider that a successful mission,” I finished, receiving the laugh I loved so much and a kiss to the side of my head. I pressed my lips to the place on his shoulder where I knew underneath his layers Vibranium met his skin, one of his favorite places to be kissed. My phone went off then, alerting me to a text, I pulled it out of the pocket. “Bucky…” I muttered, stopping in the middle of the hall. “What is it?” he asked as he stepped back to join me, I held my phone out for both of us to read the ominous words displayed.

The world’s seen what you can do, come to Madripoor when you decide to use those hands for something worthwhile.

- The Power Broker

“How did they get my number?” I asked in surprise, letting Bucky take my phone to examine it closer as if he could find something I couldn’t. “I don’t know,” he answered, handing the device back to me, “But we’re changing it immediately, you need to show this to Sam soon as we get to the house.” “They’re not actually threatening me, seems more like a job offer than anything else that’s only going to be declined. Plus, they’re all the way in Madripoor,” I stuck the phone back in my pocket, “I’m not going to let this ruin our day.” Bucky frowned down at me as I took his arm once again, “You’re a little too relaxed about this.” “I’m a mutant who can make things move with her mind with Captain America for a brother and a Super Soldier for a boyfriend, I’d love to see the Power Broker try to mess with that.”

——

The dock was exactly how I loved to see it, packed and filled with joy.

Sam and Sarah had invited the whole town to the celebratory cookout, people of all ages flooding our corner of the bayou as Bucky and I pulled up. Sam had loaned us his truck for the duration of our stay and I was having the time of my life showing Bucky around Louisiana and there was nothing more Louisiana than a cookout with the entire community.

Bucky parked near the end of the dock and hopped out, carrying the ice cream cake that we’d picked up on our way. He crossed around the front of the truck to open the door for me, taking one of my hands and helping me hop out of the passenger side. After a dozen more reassurances during the drive that the text I’d received wasn’t worth freaking out about, he’d begun to relax. For once, he wasn’t trying to hide his emotions. I could see it plain as day on his face, he was genuinely excited to be back in Delacroix and even more excited when the familiar sounds of AJ and Cass hit our ears.

“Oh! There he is!” Bucky greeted as the boys ran up to us and began throwing fake punches at my boyfriend who willingly played along, dramatically dodging their imaginary hits. He raised up the hand that held the cake over Cass’ head and yelled to which I quickly threw an energy shield underneath his arm to protect the overly expensive dessert.

“Aunt Y/n! Can you make us fly?” AJ came up to my side and begged.

Cass backed his brother up, “Yeah, can we? Please?” “No,” I replied, retaking Bucky’s hand and letting him lead us through the crowd, “But you can follow us with your two perfectly functional legs.” My nephews both groaned and laughed as they fell in step behind Bucky and I. “Where is everybody?” he asked as he set the cake down on one of the picnic tables set out and removed his sunglasses.

“Uncle Sam’s taking pictures with people, Mom’s cooking and Aunt Mel’s at one of the tables,” Cass answered, his face lighting up as he got a good luck at the dessert.

“After dinner,” I said, quickly having switched back into aunt mode, “Now lead the way.”

I extended my hand toward the boys and raised them up a few inches above the ground, receiving laughter and praises in return as I moved them ahead of us and through the crowd. Along the way people kept patting me on the back or sneaking in quick hugs, they shook Bucky’s hand and thanked us both for what we’d done in New York. The only thing that confused me was how people weren’t calling me by name. By the time we made it to Sarah, I had questions.

“There they are, America’s Power Couple,” she announced, coming out from behind the booth where she’d been chopping to hug us both. I pulled back to lower the boys back to the ground, “Do you know why people I’ve known almost all my life are suddenly calling me ‘Sapphire?’”

“Did you not check the internet at all when you were in Brooklyn?” she raised an eyebrow before pulling out her phone from her back pocket and pulling up Instagram, “Ever since the night of the fight, people have been referring to you as Sapphire. People are posting pictures of you, trying to get interviews with you, kids are even dressing up like you!” “Oh my gosh,” I mumbled as I scrolled through the hashtag containing the name, seeing all the proof of Sarah’s words before my eyes. Dozens and dozens of various types of photos displayed my signature shade of blue, “Bucky, look!” He took the phone out of my hand, a smile spreading across his face soon after. “That’s my girl,” he said proudly, handing the phone back to Sarah.

“You wanted the superhero life, you got it,” my sister laughed before returning to what she was doing, “Sam’s doing pictures and there’s already been people asking if you were gonna be here so I imagine they’re gonna want some with you.”

Bucky grabbed my hand and led me around to where a line had formed, spotting Sam as the destination. As soon as he caught a glimpse of us, he held up a finger to the crowd and broke away from them. The three of us exchanged hugs, me internally laughing to myself at the fact that two weeks after saying they never wanted to see one another again, they were now brothers in arms. Sam took my hand and tugged me towards where everyone was gathered, “Lotta people have been waiting for you, Sapphire,” he smirked.

As the day went on, the three of us did meet and greets with nearly everybody. At one point I found Bucky casually talking to Sarah with AJ, Cass and other neighborhood kids hanging off his vibranium arm. People had gathered around me as well asking to levitate them, something that provided entertainment for everyone. We ate, we laughed, at one point I caught Sam and Bucky watching the sun set over the Louisiana waters. I couldn’t resist the temptation to sneak in between the two and was received with an arm around each of my sides. We’d fought a shared battle along with our own separate three and now that they’d all been put to rest, we could take a minute to enjoy the freedom we’d worked so hard for. The future was unknown, but I knew that if we’d made it through the mess of a week we’d had together, there wasn’t a whole lot that we couldn’t make it through.

——

When the sky darkened, the dock lights went on and the party kept going. Someone had brought out a Bluetooth speaker and there was now a section of the dock that acted as a makeshift dance floor. I was seated at a table with Melanie watching the show, baby Alexandria fast asleep in her arms. “So…Bucky,” my sister said teasingly teased.

I let out a loud sigh, “Bucky.” “He’s perfect for you,” she smiled, “I’m glad you brought him home.” “Me too,” I scanned the dock until I spotted my boyfriend, engrossed in a conversation with Sam, “He fits right into the family.” “I’ll say, the kids love him. Max and Sophia have been following him around all day, I’ve never been able to get the baby to sleep as fast as when he held her…” I chuckled, “Yeah, just when I thought he couldn’t get any more attractive, you stuck a baby in his arms.” Mel snickered at my reaction, “Yeah, pretty sure every woman on the dock snapped a picture of that.” The two of us burst into laughter before hushing ourselves as to not wake the sleeping infant. “Hey, Sapphire,” she nudged my shin with her foot, “I’m proud of you.” “Well, that’s a far cry from how you felt last week,” I commented, remembering the fear in my sister’s voice from our phone calls in Riga.

“I’m always going to worry about you, but once I actually saw you do your thing,” she breathed, “I was just in awe of how you would risk your life to save all those people. It would be a waste to not put your gift to good use.” I leaned my head against hers and brushed a finger over Alexandria’s thinly haired head, appreciating the sweetness of the moment. Once a slow song came on the speakers, I watched as Bucky stepped away from Sam and made his way over to our table. “Can I steal your sister away for a dance?” he asked Mel. “Steal? You can keep her,” I shot my sister a faux smile while she watched on with a grin as I took Bucky’s outstretched hand and let him lead me away. “Gonna show me some more Madripoor moves?” I jested as we walked across the dock. “That was not dancing, although I did enjoy it,” Bucky replied, giving me a wink that could have melted me into a puddle, “I’ll show you what real dancing is.” I recognized the song as a version of ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ and realized Bucky waited until now to show off any moves in his arsenal because it was probably the first song he recognized on the playlist. He encircled my waist with his flesh arm and took my hand in his Vibranium one, pulling me so close that there wasn’t any space left between us. He began to sway us slowly to the beat of the song. I rested my cheek against his, breathing in the scent of him mixed with the bayou evening air. As far as I was concerned, dancing in the arms of the man I was somehow lucky enough to call my own in the place I loved most in the world was the perfect end to a perfect day.

“Alright, I give…” I relented softly, close enough to his ear that I barley had to speak louder than a whisper for him to hear me, “Your version of dancing is better.” He gave a gentle laugh, the sweetest sound, and rubbed at my waist, “It’s more about the partner than it is the actual dance, think I’ve got the best one.”

“You certainly know how to make a girl blush, Sergeant Barnes,” I replied just before he spun me out of his arms and back into his body, “When’s your flight back to Brooklyn?” Bucky cocked an eyebrow, “Already tired of me?”

“Never,” I shook my head with a genuine smile, “Just trying to soak in all the time I can with you before you go back.” “About that…” he trailed off, turning his gaze to the various other couples dancing around us, “I was thinking of maybe extending my stay. I mean the scenery’s nice, good food,” he looked back to me, “Decent people.” The grin that I was fighting was starting to make itself very apparent, “What are you saying?” “Well,” Bucky shrugged and looked away again, “I mean, I’d need to find a place, hopefully nothing too expensive or else I’d have to find a roommate and even then, it’d be hard to find someone I like enough to live with…”

“Bucky…” I’d ceased our movements to show just how serious I was, searching his face to try and tell if he was joking or not. “What do you say, doll? You think you can put up with me a little while longer?” he asked with a smirk. I exhaled happily and pulled him down to my lips, kissing him with all the excitement that filled my veins at the prospect of him staying. When we finally pulled away, I cradled his cheek in my hand. “I will put up with you for as long as you want,” I beamed, pecking his lips once more. “I’m glad,” Bucky kissed my temple, “It was either telling you this or the other thing…” “What’s the other thing?” I asked, thinning my eyes at him in expectancy of another surprise.

Bucky drew a breath, taking a few seconds to steady himself for whatever he was planning to say. “Well, I was going to tell you that I love you but,” he clicked his teeth, “Now that I think about it, it’s probably better saved for another time,” The earth ceased to move and spin at a dizzying pace all at once, his blue eyes never more truthful than they were in that moment. “I think you’re right,” I said over the lump in my throat, holding back the tears that had come all to quickly, “Best to save that for another day, wouldn’t want to make a hasty declaration or anything...” “That’s what I was thinking,” Bucky replied plainly, continuing our charade. I gave him a watery smile, bringing one of my hands up to run through the hairs at the base of his neck. “I love you too,” I whispered.

Both of Bucky’s arms wrapped around my waist, clutching me as tight as he could without actually injuring me as our lips met. I encircled his neck and relaxed into him completely, feeing aglow with the love that I could finally admit to feeling. Both of us smiled into the kiss, feeding off of the mutual joy of what was unfolding before us. Was it crazy to commit in the ways I was committing to a man I’d known for only two weeks? To some, yes. But ‘some’ hadn’t formed the bond that Bucky and I had over the short span of time it had taken for me to fall in love with him. We had seen the best and the worst of each other, rising and falling with one another’s waves and learning what made the other tick. I wanted every part of him, the good, the bad, the traumatic and the pure. The quick decisions that would raise eyebrows made sense to us, and that was more than enough reason for me to see each one through.

“Thanks for not giving up on me,” Bucky said softly after we’d parted, pulling back to admire me. “Thanks for not letting me give you up,” I returned, staring up into the eyes that had first captured me. The eyes that I’d get to stare into each and every day.

Since the night we’d connected on the jet ride to Berlin, there was some way Bucky had made me feel that I couldn’t put a name to. Something I couldn’t understand at the time but I was fully aware of now. Bucky felt like home. And with our bright future ahead of us, wrapped in his arms dancing underneath the Louisiana stars, I’d never felt more at home.

----

A/N: I'm not crying, you're crying. GUYS. IT'S OVER. WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH MY TIME NOW? I want to thank every single person who liked, commented, reblogged, sent messages and asks and supported this silly little fic I thought up one day after watching TFATWS. As someone who is super insecure about their writing, seeing it well received was a boost to my confidence to keep running with this. I've loved getting to write this and give it to you all and can't wait to write more for you. I'm adding my new taglist link for anyone who would like to be added, it's separated by the characters I write for and you can choose which ones you'd like to follow. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU A MILLION TIMES AGAIN. I LOVE YOU ALL 3000!!

Safe Haven taglist: @tanyaherondale @wanniiieeee @asoftie4bucky @edencherries @i-reblog-fics-i-like @ttalisa @gcfty @withyoutilltheendofthismess @rinaispunk @weirdowithnobeardo @felicityofbakerstreet @godlyhufflepuff @eternalharry @voguesir @mizz-kraziii @okayline @smellmymisunderstoodfluff @wanderin-stories @nicklet94 @intricate-melody @aesthethickks @stumbleonmywords @simplybarnes @21bruhs @lostinwonderland314 @superbookishhufflepuff @kaelyn-lobrutto24 @zozebo @fandomxreaders @kittengirl998 @sarai-ibn-la-ahad @i-know-i-can @x-judyjude-x @thebi-valkyrieofvalhalla @buckverse @living-that-best-life @haphazardhufflepuff @citlalireedus @lindseyrae20 @missstef23 @qhbr2013 @sebby-stann @bluemoon-icecream @iixbella @lets-love-little-me @abitofeverythinggg @itsnottilly @sltwins @mads-weasley @hart-failure @natdrunk @nctma15 @obsessedwithjustaboutanything @patdsinner33 @rosebucketbarnes @tylard-blog1

#bucky barnes x fem!reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #sam wilson x platonic!reader #sam wilson x reader #marvel imagine

163 notes · View notes

wagner-fell · 3 years

Text

I am still very new to this website and I don’t know how link a post but this fic is based on a post by @sandersgrey

(If someone reading this knows how to link a post please either explain it to me or link it in the comments because that post is *amazing*)

“Hmmm,” said Tessa, depositing Mina into Kit’s waiting arms and examining her buzzing phone critically. She shot a quizzical look in his direction.

Jem looked up from his novel. “What is ‘hmmm’, my love?”

Kit mimed vomiting but stopped dead in his tracks when she replied, “it’s Astrid’s mother. You remember her from parent teacher night, don’t you, my darling?” Kit swears they were being extra insufferable just to mess with him but he didn’t have the time to be annoyed when Astrid’s. Mom. Was. Calling. Tessa.

To understand why Kit was panicking as much as he was, you must know that Astrid’s mom was incredibly chill. She never got mad. The worst punishment she’d ever given her daughter was taking away her iPod for a week so she couldn’t listen to Mitski.

Was she calling about last night when Astrid, Mari and Kit threw eggs at the Shadowhunter’s that were giving Mari’s pack a hard time for no reason? No, that couldn’t be it. She’d given them the eggs.

Could the call be about the day before yesterday when Kit and Astrid got distracted doing homework and ended up snapping the coffee table clean in half while battling gladiator style with pool noodles? No, that wasn’t it. She’d just handed Astrid a twenty and told them to go to Kevin’s parents' shop and get a new one. Was she pissed because they ended up spending the money on ice cream instead? No, they ended up finding a table for free in the rubbing bin outside a fancy hotel.

Kit clutched his sister to his chest and prepared for the worst.

“Seo-yoon! What can I do for- Oh, hello Astrid!” Tessa paused briefly, presumably to listen to Astrid speak, and Kit sighed in relief.

“Kit is occupied at the moment but I can relay the message.” Another pause. “Oh don’t be frightened of me. I’m a tots rad mom. Your secret is safe with me.” Kit felt his face flush red as he heard his best friend’s laughter echo across the living room. “Okay! I’ll let him know. He has to get Mina to sleep before he can leave though. Lord knows he’s the only one who can these days.” Tessa chuckled at something Astrid said before wishing her good luck in her endeavour and ending the call.

She turned her attention back to Kit. “Astrid needs your help breaking into your teacher’s home to retrieve her cell phone.”

Kit blinked at her, dumbfounded. “You aren’t mad I’m going to go break the law?”

Because of course he was doing it. Astrid’s dad had bought it for her and he was extremely cautious about money. That was one of three things Kit knew about her dad. He was cheap, he lived in America and he loved the movie Fight Club.

Tessa ruffled Kit’s hair affectionately. “Please. I’ve raised two other Herondales. At least I know about this particular adventure beforehand.”

Mina began snoring softly and Kit handed her back to her mother. He grabbed his bag and started his journey to the door when Tessa added, “she also told me to say hi to a ‘daddy Kit’. Are you ‘daddy Kit?’”

‘Daddy Kit’ closed his eyes and wished for the sweet release of death.

“Why is Kit a daddy,” Jem asked, genuinely confused. “Aren’t I the daddy?”

Kit swung the door open so fast not even a speed rune could have aided him. But not before I heard Tessa reply, “Lily Chen certainly thinks so.”

Mrs. MacNamara clapped her hands together. “Why don’t we all go around and say a few things about ourselves?”

Kit buried his face into his hands. He’d been relieved when no other teacher had fulfilled the Disney channel stereotype of making every student introduce themselves to the new kid. But Mrs. MacNamara didn’t even seem to realize what she was doing.

All Kit’s fellow classmates groan. Expect one. Her hand shot up immediately. She was short, like smaller than Clary short. She wore a baggy pink shirt with the words ‘Queen Glimmer of Etheria’ sewed on with purple sequins and tight black jeans. Her colourful, choppy hair was in a low ponytail and she flew a few strands out of her eyes as her hand wiggled in the hair.

Mrs. MacNamara pointed at her. She stood up and smiled at Kit. “Hi. My name is Astrid. My hobbies include making my little cousin’s girl Barbies kiss, as it should be, and watching television shows where everyone is a terrible person so you can love all of them!”

“And what shows might that be?” asked Kit, already in the process of pulling out his phone and opening the Notes app.

“Grey’s Anatomy, Glee, Grey’s Anatomy again because it’s seventeen seasons as of right now. And to be fair it practically became a different show when they killed off Mark Sloan.”

“That’s enough, Miss Yang,” said Mrs. MacNamara. Astrid sat down and winked at Kit. Then she took out her phone and airdropped him a complete list of all her favorite shows, along with her number.

After Blessica’s pre-birthday birthday party, they went to Cirenworth and stayed up till four A.M. binging them.

They met outside a queer dry bar called Aries Not Welcome, the unspoken gathering place of the Merry Hoes. It was run by a poly lesbian couple in their mid-thirties. Quinn, Sydney and Aliyah may not have served alcohol but at least they were open 24/7.

“Did you bring the shit?”

Kit gave her a look. “The shit? How conclusive.”

“Shut up. You know, the shadowhunter thing.”

“The shadowhunter thing?”

“The, the, the glow stick that you draw with.”

“The glow stick that I draw wi-“ Kit closed his eyes briefly. “Do you mean a stele?”

Astrid snapped her fingers. “That’s it!” Kit shook his head in exasperation, smiling fondly. “I borrowed a torch from Quinn, let’s move.”

“Should I be worried that you know where Mr. Smith lives?” questioned Kit as he followed Astrid’s lead through the park.

“Should I be worried that your mom was fine with us breaking and entering?” she shot back playfully. Kit pushed Astrid and she fell off the path, laughing all the way.

“You called me ‘daddy’ to my mom’s face.”

She just laughed harder, slinging her arm around Kit’s shoulder. “It was over the phone, Christopher. And as I should.”

“Pffffttt. Why did you get your phone taken anyway?” She put her hands into her jumper pocket and looked at the ground. “Astrid.” She remained silent. “Astrid?”

She mumbled something under her breath. “What?” asked Kit.

“I WAS READING NINEJ FANFICTION!” she shouted.

Kit gasped. “I thought you were a die hard Kanej shipper,” he whispered.

“I’m a multishipper, okay?!” she replied, equally quiet.

“Does Blessica know?”

She shook her head. “And she will never find out.”

Kit saw the opportunity and he seized it. “She’ll never find out as long as you never call me daddy in front of either of my parents.”

She removed her arm from his shoulder and guided them out of the park, in the direction of the many apartments that lined this side of town. “I hate you.”

“Well, so does Mari. You're not special, Ast.”

She rolled her eyes. “You know Mari doesn’t actually hate you, right?! They’re just still in the enemy phase of your enemies-to-lovers romance. She only dislikes you because they feel something for you but they don’t know what so she interrupts it as loathing. In reality, her inner soul knows you’re hot and shmexie.”

Kit didn’t know how to process this so he just nodded and follow Astrid in silence to Mr. Smith’s house. (Plus, he was kinda glad that, according to his best friend, he had a little more time for Mari to ‘discover their true feelings’. If Kit screwed this up, he was out of countries to run off to.)

“Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me.”

“What,” asked Kit, turning around to face Astrid and closing the drawer he was rifling through. “Did you find your phone?”

“Yeah. But I also found Blessica’s. She was Snapping Kevin. Platonic my ass. But he took the fucking trans flag out of her phone!”

Kit snatched Blessica’s phone out of her hand to examine it for herself. She was telling the truth. Where the glitter pride flag usually rested was just a clear purple case. Kit couldn’t believe his eyes.

“It’s one thing to misgender her every day.” Blessica had forced all four of the other Merry Hoes to sign a contract saying they wouldn’t do anything to harm him because of it. “But this is the last straw. You know what we have to do.” Oops.

“Yeah, but we don’t have any spray paint.”

Kit eyed Mr. Smith’s pink sofa, blue bar stool covers and white picture frames. “I think I have something better in mind.”

It would have been easier for both parties to just zip off the sofa cushions and tape them to the wall but by ripping them off in strips, they ensured he would have to buy new ones. And judging by the car he drove and the fiji water in his fridge, Mr. Smith could definitely afford it.

That reminded him, “I’ll finish up with this. Go put all his fiji water into my bag.” Astrid saluted him and ran off. “Wait.” She stopped and looked at him. “Steal all the remotes you can find.”

“How is he not awake?,” asked Astrid as they ripped the fabric of his seating from the stool.

He shrugged. “Don’t question it.” He shoved the bundle of cloth into her arms. “Glue this above the pink. I’ll handle the frames.”

“Say the magic word,” she sang.

“Please?”

“No. Lesbian. Come on, I thought you knew me better than that.”

Kit laughed quietly. “Can you lesbian glue this above the pink?”

She grinned at Kit. “It would be my pleasure.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hello! Sorry I haven’t written anything in so long. School just restarted and it has been…a lot.

@adoravel-fenomeno @thechangeling @the-blackdale @the-wckd-powers @thomas-gaypanic-lightwood @im-not-ruined-im-ruination @ithurielkeepsgettingkidnapped @noah-herondale-lightwood @arangiajoan @shelvesofgold @maxboythedog @book-dragon-not-worm @hardlymatters

Very sorry if I forgot anyone. Lmk if you want to be addEd/removEd from the tag list.

#mari the werewolf #mari machado sotomayor #mari machado #kit rook #kit herondale #astrid yang #blessica reyes #Kevin chu #tessa grey #jem carstairs #lily chen #mina carstairs

46 notes · View notes

letitrainathousandflames · 4 years

Photo

(click for better quality!) 

AO3 Link 

Cody places the chest plate over his sternum, allowing the magnetic clasps to attach the piece to an equally plain one over his back. It feels strange, the lack of protection over his lower body. His midriff remains unprotected under the overshirt.

 “This feels… unsafe.” he grumbles “Too Exposed.” 

Rex hands him the kama with a small grin, the little di’kut. Of course he and Wolffe had mocked him over it, how he was finally gonna wear one like they did. While Cody ties the thing in place, Rex points a finger at him. 

“Listen, senator Organa told us to keep it simple. You’re not headed for battle, vod.” 

“He might just be.” Wolffe quips with a low growl, handing Cody his belt “There isn’t one kriffing person in there that’ll be happy to see a clone in the senate floor.” 

Cody sighs with the belt in his hands. Again, too simple. No thermal detonators hanging from it, much less his holstered blasters. Just a plain strap of leather shielded by plastoid plates. 

He reaches for the arm guards over the table, running his finger over its grooves. The senate. How much did they know about the soldiers fighting and dying for them off-world? How did they feel about their existence? Senator Organa said they might listen to him, but what are the odds of him being forcefully escorted out like a droid speaking out of turn? 

What if he is actually putting them all at risk? If the kaminiise start thinking that even their Marshall Commander is starting to sound like a traitor, how long before they arrive to the conclusion that the clones were a failed experiment and that it would be better to terminate every single one of them? 

His eyes drift over to the carefully folded cape, to the names that he had personally embroidered on its inside, thinks about how no cape, no flag, no amount of fabric would be enough to actually get all of them, thousands upon thousands of men lost to this endless war. Rex walks up to Cody, glances at him to then gently bump his hand guard to the commander’s. 

“Me'bana, vod?” 

Wolffe steps over to his other side brushing his shoulder to Cody’s, and the three of them stare at the names on the fabric as Cody unfurls the cape, spreading it some over the table. The three of them look at it in silence, reading and associating each name to a face, to a voice, to a personality. There are some of Wolffe’s men, lost to the Malevolence’s attacks; some of both Rex and Cody’s men, all lost in Umbara, several of them to friendly fire. And many others, as many as Cody could manage to fit in such a small space. 

That piece of fabric is the only concrete form of remembrance for these men without graves or monuments. Clones can only trust their memories to keep the history of their brothers alive, and it makes Cody’s heart ache. 

“Ni chaabar.” Cody says quietly, and it was only in their Mando’a that he could find it in himself to explain his feelings “I could end up getting us all killed with this.” 

There is a small moment of silence, and then Wolffe sighs.  “We are already getting killed. Every time we fight we lose dozens, hundreds, sometimes thousands of our vod’e in battle, or we watch them die in the medbays.” 

Cody turns to face Wolffe. The commander, as many other clones, was never fond of speaking more than strictly necessary, especially about the bleak conditions in which they all lived and fought in; Maybe it was to protect himself, maybe to protect his men. Maybe it was just his way of managing to cross the tightrope of war without ever looking down. But now he speaks - and Cody listens. 

“They’re keep lowering the age of drafting.” Wolffe traces with his gaze the embroidered name of a wolfpack trooper lost to the Malevolence weapon “First it was by a few weeks, then months, and now…”

Cody notices him poking his cheek with his tongue, shaking his head almost unnoticeably. Wolffe continues:

“I was nine when I was sent out to lead my battallion. I was scared but I was grown and ready.” Wolffe continues, eyebrows creased in a weave of confusion and barely-hidden anger as he turns his eyes to cody “Last week I received word of new batches coming out, most of them eight, a couple of them barely there. The kaminiise are sending out a bunch of still-growing kids to fight before their standard training is even done. We already have accelerated aging to fit the needs of the Republic, but this? This is just sick.” 

“And we can’t say a word about it because we aren’t a people, technically.” Rex adds sheepishly “We can’t say a word about being forced to work overtime. Can’t say anything about being paid in ‘special GAR’s credits’. Or about the overcrowded dorms, or the need of longer breaks, or mental healthcare, or entertainment, or a life outside the army.” 

Rex runs a hand over his cropped blond hair.

  “We are loyal in a way most governments only dream of.” he continues, eyes sharp at Cody “We live and breathe and fight and die for the republic, and we are all proud to do so. But we need to believe that we receive back at least half of the high regard in which we hold the Republic. We aren’t asking for much, and the Republic has denied us the right to even ask.” 

And, after a small pause, Rex swallows down, and his tone shows how much he knows he’s risking just to say it. 

“Do we risk death for our freedom, or do we continue to live as slaves?” 

“Rex.” Wolffe says in a warning tone  

The two of them know of Cody’s loyalty to the Republic. When the idea of having him speak against it in the senate even came up, Cody’s first response was to accuse them of threason. It had taken long enough to convince him to find the narrow path between his fear-based respect for the Kaminoans, his dedication for the republic and the jedi, and his love for his brothers. 

Cody frowns to then run a hand over his face, rubbing his eyes and speaking between his teeth.

“I’m not a slave. I love my duty. I love the Republic!” 

Maybe he should just give up on this. It was all a huge mistake, he had allowed Wolffe and Rex to drag him along with this nonsense. He could just turn his back on this and get back to the barracks, to his armor, to his command, where he belonged… 

He opens up his eyes, and the very first thing he sees is one of the names in aurebesh in front of him, drawing in his gaze like a trance.   Waxer. How could someone with such a kind, gentle heart be so deadly in the battlefield? Cody remembers him, the eager cadet that would always be seen hanging out with his batch brother Boil. Waxer had a heart soft enough to make him adopt a lost child in the middle of a war zone, to pet and feed stray animals and let them in their cover when it rained. He would make such an amazing parent, Cody could almost envision him holding a tiny bundle in his arms, just like Jango would do with his own. He would love his kid with all his heart…  

If he had lived to have them. Instead, Waxer died in a dark world, fallen to a brother’s blast, crying in pain and fear as Rex had reported it.

 Wordlessly, Cody puts on the vambraces, then the arm guards. Lastly, he takes the cape, brushes his gloved thumb over Waxer’s name. He owes it to him. To them, all of the Clone Army of the Republic. He owes it to them to at least try. Cody throws the cape over his shoulders, securing it in the straps on the inside of his chest plate.

 His brothers look at him with pride, and it makes his heart swell. His comlink rings, and Bail Organa’s voice comes through it:  

“Commander Cody, are you ready?”  

Cody looks at Rex and Wolffe, draws in a deep breath.  

“Yes.”  

“I’m about to announce you to the senate. Remember - keep your opening statement short and fast because we don’t know what will be their reaction. And, from personal experience: if they try cutting your speakers up there, just carry on by shouting the rest of your statement. Good luck, my friend.”  Cody chuckles, pressing the comlink.  

“Good thing that us commanders are good at shouting.”

 Mando’a translations:

 Di’kut - Idiot

Me'bana, vod? - what’s the matter, brother? 

Ni chaabar - I’m afraid

Senator Cody picked up from several bits of headcanons across tumblr. I highly recommend checking the #senator cody tag on @transmikecrew‘s blog bc it’s honestly the best and his writing is *chef’s kiss*

#senator cody #concept art #my art #i'm VERY proud of this one #pls rb #my fics

1K notes · View notes

fuzziekins · 2 years

Text

Disney Say Gay Pt 2

Continuation of this post. I wanted to keep doing my part to make #DisneySayGay. It seems like they’re taking some steps to do better but they still have a long way to go. And i know this isn’t much at all, hell it’s probably the bare minimum. But Disney needs to do better. And until they push it further i’m just gonna have to keep finding ways to make Disney gayer. So here’s another batch of queer Disney drawings.

Cass isn’t one for physical affection. But she doesn’t mind when her girlfriend Rapunzel hugs her from behind. Especially when she knows it’s a thank you for the pan-colored frying pan barrette she found. Cass is recolored to mimic the lesbian flag and, while there are hints of the pan flag in Rapunzel i wanted to make sure that was just as prominent as the lesbian colors, hence the layout of the flags in the background, and also a balance of the flags with their respective partner. I was also happy there are so many 2d references because the style of Tangled the Series/Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure is incredible. Thank you @snowqueenofmyheart for suggesting this pair to draw, especially when i needed more ideas and i was so happy to have an excuse to use Rapunzel!

There’s a reason Merida is the only one who can tell her siblings apart…. And somewhere in the distance Fergus is cheering that he has one of each. The latter is what gave me the idea to use Hamish, Hubert, and Harris even though it was hella hard to find decent 2d references for me to use and i’ve never drawn them before (pay no attention to the fact that i obviously can’t draw two eyes the same and that’s why i never draw anyone facing forward). The triplets don’t fit into the gender binary and that’s what makes it that much more fun for them to pull pranks on everyone. After Florida officially passed the Don’t Say Gay bill i knew i had to incorporate gender identity as soon as possible. These are the people the bill affects most; little kids who are being told they can’t explore who they are and, if they already had, they’re not allowed to talk about it. Kids are smarter than a lot of people give them credit for and they know what they are even if they may not have the words for it. They deserve to have the chance to grow into the people they’re meant to be and the sooner they can express that and people can accept that, the better off the kids will be and the better the world will be.

Ryder can’t stop thinking about a certain nice blond man he met in the woods and he doesn’t know why. Kuzco, on the other hand, is secretly plotting all the ways to break it to Ryder, “Oh honey baby sweetie you are so gay!” It was a spur of the moment to decide to draw these two. All i knew was that i could picture Kuzco in all his sass (despite the fact that i could never fully translate that to paper) trying to break that to someone. I ultimately ended up with Ryder because of the support of him and Kristoff as a pairing and, while i love and adore Kristanna, i can totally see it as a possibility. I opted to keep this drawing simple and not change anything since this was my first time drawing both of them, and also stick with the rainbow pride flag which is not only the general flag for the community but also because i decided to leave Kuzco up to interpretation and have Ryder as not realizing yet that he’s not straight. It’s the first flag that anyone can recognize and, regardless of what specifically your identity is, everyone in the LGBTQ+ community has a right to this flag.

Cinderella spends so much of her life working her butt off, romance was never really something on her mind. The closest she ever came was a connection she had with Charming. But that begins to change when she meets Aurora and they hit it off. She wonders if there is something there after all. And it looks like Aurora may feel the same way.... The fact that Cinderella does spend so much time working and never really thought of romance, circumstances aside that she was never able to, felt like a very aro vibe to me. I opted for grayromantic, which in lamest terms means rarely feeling romantic attraction or maybe feeling it under specific circumstances. It’s not necessarily obvious. The idea of that felt very true to Cinderella. And i ended up pairing her with Aurora because i kept thinking back to this one Tumblr post, where the OP was at a Disney park and was talking to Cinderella; when Cinderella asked with OP was there with a prince she said she preferred princesses. Cinderella looked towards Aurora nearby and confessed, “me, too”. And i wanted to do my part to continue to immortalize that post because i love it so much and i still think about it how many years after originally seeing it.

Just a couple of aces being awesome. That’s it, there’s no other story here. I found out that International Asexual Awareness Day is in April and my friend told me, i think that night or the day after. So i went with the two obvious and most popular ace headcannons.

Stitch brought King some flowers on his trip to the Boiling Isles. King is very happy that he met someone who also enjoys causing mayhem and chaos and decides Stitch would be a good partner for him. “You,” he decides, “you will rule this playground - i mean kingdom - by my side!” King is the one primarily in charge, of course, and makes it clear that he would have also accepted proposals of crowns or minions in the form of plush toys. Stitch wags his tail and nods “ii”, meaning yes in his language, and is very happy with where the relationship is going. Stitch is my favorite Disney character, but it wasn’t until my friend and i were spam texting about The Owl House that i just then realized that both Stitch and King are cute and fluffy and i decided i wanted to see them together. And since Stitch is the original cute and fluffy, it only made sense to stick with the original rainbow pride flag behind them. Also, yes, those are the same flowers that Luz magicked up with her plant spell.

🌈

I know there’s so much more i can do with these. There’s so much more that Disney can do and they should do. And until they make better on their promise to do better and make strides to be inclusive as well as help protect the LGBTQ+ community, i’m gonna do my best to do this one small thing and continue drawing Disney gay. We deserve to say who we are and see ourselves in the characters we love so much. And if there’s any characters, any identities anyone would like to see, i’m open to suggestions and would like to continue trying. For my queer friends and the community, i give these to you. And please, sooner rather than later, #DisneyDoBetter.

8 notes · View notes

lumini-317 · 3 years

Text

Hello!

This will be my official “introductory” post!

My real name is Erica, but I go by many names. My nickname repertoire includes but is not limited to: Lumi, Lumini, Cricket (I have a habit of rubbing my feet together, lmao), Jinx, Eri, Er, EriJoy, Sunbaeby, and Aceir (my real name but in alphabetical order).

This is my first ever Tumblr blog. I’ve had it for a while but have rarely posted anything, that along with the fact that I’m on mobile is kind of a mess so I apologize for mistakes and all that.

I have 3 older brothers, an older sister, and a younger brother.

I’m an ambivert. Sometimes I love hanging out with bigger groups of people, other times I dread it.

I’ve taken the “16personalities” test 4 times and all 4 put me in the “Diplomat” category, however I got “Advocate” (INFJ) 2 times, and “Protagonist” (ENFJ) and “Mediator” (INFP) 1 time each.

I am LGBTQ+. I’m asexual, aro+panromantic flux, and while I feel like I’m genderfluid, the changes are very subtle and so I sometimes just go with agender, gendervoid, or neutrois. It’s a lot less complicated that way. I’m ambiamorous, and also pronoun apathetic!

I love whump. I’ve loved it for as long as I can remember but only found the whump community maybe 3(?) years ago.

I also love K-Pop, C-Pop, J-Pop, and Asian dramas, mainly K-Pop and K-Dramas, though.

I’m a HUGE multistan. ATEEZ, SKZ, TBZ, EXO, BTS, Red Velvet, SHINee, iKON, MONSTA X, TWICE, TO1, WANNA ONE, SuperM, X1, MIRAE, Ciipher, Golden Child, Purple Kiss, BAE173, SF9, IU, ONEUS, ONEWE, The Rose, PIXY, LUCY, STAYC, WEi (which I pronounced as “way” for an embarrassingly long time), Dreamcatcher, Brave Girls, TXT, ENHYPEN, SNSD, KARD, AKMU, SHAUN, Gaho, NCT, GHOST9, 1team, SE7EN, Cross Gene, D1ce, AB6IX, CRAVITY, BLACKPINK, CIX, VIXX, f(x), 4Minute, CLC, YEZI, B.I, Wonho, (G)I-DLE, EVERGLOW, SEVENTEEN, BROOKLYN, Ha Hyunsang, DAY6, GOT7, Teen Top, BAP, TREASURE, UNIQ, etc! It goes on, far longer than I can list. I am also very much against fanwars, they disgust me.

I’m also a HUGE animal lover, and a big softie. I can’t even squish insects. I don’t care that they can’t feel pain and don’t experience emotions, I just can’t bring myself to. I make it my mission to save any type of animal I come across. I find toads in our koi pond and immediately pick them out and take them to a safe place. I help turtles across the road. I got a mouse out of a puddle and revived it, releasing it when it was healthy enough. I saw a snail on a piece of wood that was going to be thrown on a fire and carefully pulled it off and put it somewhere else. So far I’ve found 5 stray cats (Piper, Toothless, Felix, Kai, and Kit Kat—all were found as skinny, sickly kittens) and took them in, raising them as my own. I rescued a chipmunk from certain death-by-cat. I’ve even saved a few baby raccoons, ducklings, lizards, spiders, and snakes in my time. And I’ll keep doing so for as long as I live.

I love writing, drawing/sketching, and painting, however I’m not confident that I’m good at any of those things, lmao. I mean, I don’t think I’m the worst, but my finished “works” often leave me unsatisfied with my “skills”. But of course, that won’t stop me from trying to improve!

I’m a maladaptive daydreamer. This can cause issues in some places while helping me out in others. On one hand, it makes doing chores and such kind of difficult. Like one time I had to take care of my dad’s pigeons while he was fixing our shed and one time he pointed out how slow I was with the chores. His words were something along the lines of, “I’m already almost done with what I have to do and you’re still working with the pigeons.” Also, it (and maybe ADHD if I do have it?) made school a nightmare for me. But it’s also helpful because then during church it’s really easy to keep myself occupied while the pastors go on about their Magical Sky Daddy™’s son throwing a tantrum and killing a figtree because it didn’t have any figs and how that story should “challenge” us or something.

The characters in my daydreams are weird, though. They merge and separate with each other to make different characters depending on the situation. Most of them don’t have definite genders. Only a handful of them have names because they’re always merging and separating like some kind of Shadow Clone Masters or something. Stuff like that.

One of my characters is for sure a demi-boy, though, and his name is Kyler.

I brought this up because I was watching The Andy Griffith Show and Andy was giving Opie a lecture on how many poor kids there are in the world and used the ratio “one and a half boys per square mile”. Opie then says that he’s “never seen a half a boy before”. Kyler just sort of pops into (fake) existence, jumps off the couch, and throws his arms in the air while saying, “Half a boy, right here!” I burst out laughing. Thankfully it didn’t seem weird, since my parents started laughing at Opie and thought that I was just laughing at it, too.

Any-who.

If I daydream while I’m standing, I’ll often pace and gesture with my arms while moving my lips. Sometimes I’ll even whisper. If I’m sitting down, I usually fidget a lot (such as pick at my shirt and rub my feet together), stare into space, and move my lips or whisper. My family sometimes ask me, “Why are you whispering?” Or, “What are you grinning about?” And I just shrug because I don’t know how to explain it to them without risking them calling someone to pray over me, lmao. I mean, I wasn’t even allowed to have imaginary friends because that was “evil”. When I was about 7, I told my parents about my imaginary unicorn friend and they gave me a lecture and “prayed over me”. It was embarrassing and awkward for me.

I’m suspicious that I might have ADHD, but don’t have the money to actually get a professional diagnosis. I’m also too scared to ask my parents about it.

Speaking of which, my family and I don’t see eye-to-eye. I mean, they don’t know it because I’m good at hiding it, and they think I agree with mostly everything they do but boy, is it a mess.

You see, they’re evangelical conservative Christians. “LGBTQ+ people are going to hell”, “ThE LeFt ARe eViL AnD ARe TrYiNg To BrAiNwAsh OuR ChiLdrEn”, “Trump was sent by God”, “Intersex is fake”, “Women must submit to men”, “You should get married no later than in a year or ‘the temptation’ to have sex might become too much”, the whole bit.

Meanwhile I’m over here with my (imaginary) pride flags, just existing as an agnostic leftist who wants everyone to have equal rights, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation, and would rather redo my horrifically atrocious kindergarten closing program role than pray to a god who (if they/he/she/it/whatever exists) gives cancer to kids and killed millions of innocent animals and people in the Bible.

But they have no idea that this is how I feel and now expect me to be baptized within the next month to show that I have “accepted Jesus Christ as my savior”. Yeah...that’s gonna be an awkward discussion...

Anyway, that’s just some things about me. Sorry that I got sidetracked a few times, lmao!

I look forward to posting more and maybe even making friends!

Thank you for reading (:

82 notes · View notes

bosspigeon · 3 years

Text

a space between the shadows

My VERY last-minute prompt fill for @wayhavensummer, which turned into YET ANOTHER character study of my Sad Werewolf Detective~ Prompt: 🌈First Pride, Belonging Pairing: Adam/Male Detective, Bonus Found Family Vibes~ Words: 2137 Summary: Arlo has some... complex feelings around his identity, his relationship with his closest friend, and who he is supposed to be in a place like Wayhaven. CW for allusions to homophobia, slurs, and implications of religious trauma/bigotry

Seeing as someone actually bothered to submit paperwork this time, Arlo feels it’s safe to assume there will be no (or at least fewer) strange supernatural occurrences involved in this festival. Still, he’s not sure what to make of it.

“I don’t… have to go, do I?” he asks Tina.

Tina blinks slowly at him, as if he’s suddenly become the stupidest creature to ever draw breath. “Yes,” she says simply.

“I’m just a detective, and it’s Wayhaven, it won’t be anything crazy, so I don’t have to be there to keep things—”

“Oh, no, of course not,” she interjects, well acquainted with his nervous babbling by now. He’s barely exhaled his relieved sigh when she leans her elbows on his desk and grins in his face. “We’re going in a purely civilian capacity.”

“But I don’t want to,” he says quietly, and he knows he sounds like a pouty little kid, but he can’t help it.

Tina pouts mockingly right back at him. “I don’t care.”

And that sort of sums up their entire relationship, he thinks.

Adam, of course, is about as pleased as Arlo is. Unfortunately, Adam has not yet learned what Arlo knew by sixteen— that there is no force in the known universe more powerful than Tina Poname's stubbornness. She simply can't be defeated.

"She's a little bisexual juggernaut," Arlo sighs. He's annoyed, sure, but he can't keep the fondness from his tone as he watches her swan back and forth from the safety of the sitting room.

Naturally, Tina and Felix get on like a house on fire, and the two of them have commandeered Arlo's studio. The floor is a minefield of water cups, washable paint, and drying posters. Felix has Tina's flag tied around his neck like a cape.

Mason disappeared the second the first tube of paint was popped open, though his sharpy retort of "I like what I like" when Tina asked what his persuasion was (so that she could make him a poster as well) did launch her into her practiced dissertation on the intricacies of bi and pan identities, and how they mean similar things, how at their core neither are meant to be exclusive, and it is simply a matter of personal identity and choice which one suits an individual best.

"Have you been to a Pride festival before?" Nate asks, setting down two mugs of tea on Arlo's coffee table, carefully out of the way of the map of Wayhaven he and Adam are poring over. More for Adam's peace of mind than anything. It's mostly taking place in the local park, and while there will be a parade, the route is short enough to keep things contained.

"Yeah, once," Arlo says with a shrug, and he and Adam are sitting close enough on the sofa for their shoulders to brush with the motion. "When I was at uni."

Nate hums and sits down in the armchair across from them. "I assume it was… unpleasant for you?"

Arlo smiles, flustered, and rubs at the back of his neck. "It was fine. Fun, even. I mean, I went to art school, so the turnout was great. Nerve-wracking, yeah, because so many people, but seeing your anthropology professor riding a mechanical bull in little more than nipple pasties is one hell of a distraction."

He can feel the scandalized look Adam is giving him, but he knows if he turns to meet his eyes, he'll blush all the way to his hairline, so he sips deeply from his mug instead.

Nate tilts his head, lips pursed. There's a brief twitch of amusement to them, but it settles as his brow furrows thoughtfully. "I'm afraid I don't understand. If you had a good time at the last festival you attended, why are you so hesitant to participate in one closer to home?"

Arlo looks down at his mug, thumbing at a chip in the black enamel, exposing an ellipse of white ceramic underneath. The silence is heavy, and he knows if he lets it go on too long, Nate's going to start apologizing, so he sighs hard through his nose before he barrels on. "It's… it's different here. Back at school, I wasn't… I wasn't the Detective's weird brat. I was just Priestley, the weird performing arts major." He picks a little harder at his mug. "Might sound odd, but I didn't have to perform there, not the way I do here. I could just be Arlo. Not a shadow. Just… the fuckoff huge goth from your sociology lecture hall who just so happens to like men."

He doesn't look up, but he can tell Nate is chewing over the information. As he considers, Adam shifts on the sofa, closing the bare inch of space between them so their thighs press together. Arlo peeks up, and Adam's giving him that look. The one that makes him go all soft around the edges. "I know small towns can be… conservative," he begins, and his mouth twists distastefully around the word. "But I have never gotten the impression that Wayhaven was…"

"Anything but refreshingly progressive," Nate finishes for him.

Arlo looks up with a wry smile. "Yeah, no, it's great on that front. I'm damned lucky I didn't have to grow up with Rebecca's family. It's just…" He shifts his weight, and before he can sprout claws to really start menacing his poor mug, Adam plucks it from his hands and sets it out of the way. "There's a legacy for me here," he murmurs. "One I never asked for. Sure, I don't have to worry about getting called slurs," he chews his lip, "at least, not anymore after the whole Graham thing, but I'm still… I don't really get to be me here. People here don't look at me and see Arlo. They see Rook's kid. They see Detective Priestley the Second." He huffs out a laugh. "I didn't even get to come out on my own here. I honestly don't think I ever have outside of school. Everyone knows everything they want to know about me, because I've been a landmark since I was born. This month, it's just a landmark with a rainbow flag."

Nate is giving him that sad-eyed look he gets whenever Arlo and Rebecca get into it. The one that says he wants to help, but he's not sure how.

Arlo rubs his hands over the worn denim of his dark jeans, picking at a frayed thread. There’s a spiderweb of cracks forming in the fresh coat of black polish on his thumb where the nail has begun to thicken in response to his emotional state. He sighs a little, but he doesn’t have the time to sink too deeply into his own head, because there is a pale hand creeping cautiously over his.

“Why do it, then?” Adam asks, head tilted and brows drawn, as if he truly doesn’t understand. “Officer Poname cares deeply for you. I am sure she would understand if you were honest with her.” His lips twitch faintly, and the smile he gives Arlo is touching in its earnest, if stilted, effort. “Bisexual juggernaut or no. Though, she is only little to you.”

Arlo snickers weakly, turning his face away so he can hide behind the fall of his hair. Adam doesn’t let him hide, though, brushing it out of his face, knuckles skimming the detective’s cheekbone. Arlo can’t help but sigh and lean into the touch, eyes fluttering closed.

There’s a crash and a cry from the other room, but it’s Nate’s startled noise that makes the two of them leap apart as if burned, putting a few inches of space between them.

Arlo’s face flushes hotly when Nate smiles at them, and there’s a mischievous twinkle to his dark eyes. “I wonder what that’s about!” he exclaims, clapping his hands together and springing to his feet. “I’ll go check on them, shall I? Make sure they’re not causing too much trouble.” And before Arlo can even stutter out a… something—an explanation, or maybe an apology for third-wheeling the poor man—Nate is striding off towards the studio with a spring in his step the detective can’t help but find incredibly mocking.

He closes the door behind him with a parting smile and a decisive click.

They’re left on the sofa sitting guiltily apart like a pair of teenagers caught canoodling, and surprisingly it’s Adam who breaks the stalemate by huffing through his nose and turning to Arlo again, reaching out for his hand and tugging it between his own. “You were saying?” he presses gently, his thumb tracing ticklish lines alone Arlo’s palm.

Arlo tilts his head and sighs “I guess I just… Tina’s like my sister, you know? And we wound up going to different universities in different cities, and I didn’t really get to share any of those big milestones with her. She’s not the type to be jealous I made other friends or went and had fun without her, but it feels sort of… I want to be able to share this with her, since she was one of the first people who ever bothered to… to not just care about me, but to care about me enough to…” He furrows his brow and chews at his lip, trying to figure out how to make sense of the feelings he’s never really been able to express out loud. “Neither of us belonged here, really. Sure, I was born here, but I never really felt like I was supposed to be here. I just felt like I was filling a space someone more important than me left vacant.”

He looks down at Adam’s hands, sturdy and strong, tangled up around his freckled, long-fingered one. He swallows. “Tina’s the one who looked at that space, then decided it wasn’t for either of us, and she carved out one that was.” He smiles fondly, thinking of the way Tina bullied her way into his lonely life and gave it some much-needed color. “She made a space where we could both fit. It was messy, and awkward, and we were still outcasts, but we were outcasts together.” He laughs, and it sounds suspiciously wet even to his own ears. Thankfully, Adam doesn’t bring attention to it. “Christ, I’m rambling. Does this make any sense at all?”

Adam is quiet, thoughtful for a moment, but he squeezes Arlo’s fingers to draw his eyes up again. He’s smiling, a real smile, one that Arlo is seeing more and more these days. A man could get addicted to a smile like that. “It does,” he murmurs, bringing Arlo’s hand to his mouth to brush a kiss to his palm. It’s such a simple little touch, it barely lasts a second, but it steals all the air from Arlo’s lungs.

Adam shifts, and his face scrunches a bit. “While I won’t say I am looking forward to the chaos, I am…” He looks up at Arlo again, his brows drawn, his jaw set with the same fierce determination with which he stares down trappers. “I am honored to share this with you.”

It is really not fair, the way he can just say things like that, things that would sound trite and cheesy coming from anyone else, with such naked honesty. Arlo has no choice but to kiss him. He’s rewarded by a sweet, startled noise rumbling against his mouth, but he draws back before they can get too distracted, seeing as their friends are just a room away. If Adam is pouting, Arlo’s certainly not going to be the one to tell him.

“I guess, in a way, it’s a first for the both of us, right?” he coughs, just to ease the heavy atmosphere a bit. “My first Pride in Wayhaven, and your first entirely.” He pokes Adam in the chest. “We’ll have to get you a flag. You look good in pastels.”

“Are you certain the rainbow is not too at odds with your aesthetic?” Adam teases in return.

“Goth is a state of mind,” Arlo replies archly.

They laugh quietly together, shifting again to close the distance between them. Adam turns to face Arlo more fully, their shoulders bumping in a way that is incredibly comforting in its charming awkwardness. “What is wrong with Agent Priestley’s family?” he asks, keeping his voice low so as not to draw the attention of their companions chattering in the other room.

Arlo tries to smile, but it comes off as more of a tense grimace. “Catholic,” he snorts.

Adam’s expression mirrors his so perfectly, Arlo has to clap a hand over his mouth so he doesn’t bark out a laugh. “Ah,” the vampire says primly. “I understand.”

Arlo gives up and collapses against the vampire, snickering helplessly into his neck.

#the wayhaven chronicles #wayhavensummer #adam du mortain #a du mortain #tina poname #i hope this makes any sort of sense #i know i kinda went off the wall w the prompt #but my logic is that there's ANOTHER prompt that will be for the actual festival #so this is more an introduction to the First Pride????#fhdkjashdkjsg if its bad its bad okay #yeehaw #oc: arlo priestley #arlo's issues aren't with his identity so much as with the fact that his identity never really mattered to people in wayhaven #just who his parents are #arlo wants to be allowed to be himself without feeling like he has to live up to someone else first #and tina helped him with that #tina is the one who helped him feel pride #so he wants to be able to share this with her #its not directly mentioned here but naturally adam is trans yeehaw #pidge writes

56 notes · View notes

kenganparadise · 3 years

Text

Random headcanons and hot takes

Here are just some random HCs that I can’t stop thinking about.

• Julius and Nicolas are fans of Eurovision. Julius really wanted Verka Serduchka to win and 2007 and he has never recovers since. Nicolas cheers for France no matter what.

• Okubo, Hatsumi, Rihito, and Adam don’t spread their ass cheeks and let the water run in between them in the shower. They probably have skid marks in their underwear.

• Adam is a FuCkiNg Republican (though he does believe in ACAB) but he probably owns a MAGA hat. He probably has one of those flags that says “come and take it”

• Agito has natural dark circles but he also wears eyeliner sometimes. Sayaka probably has helped him.

• Matsudo is a father figure to Agito. Ag views Retsudo and Sayaka as his siblings. They are probably the closest thing to a family he’s ever had. To a lot of the body guards they view Matsudo as a father.

• Hatsumi has probably had every STD/STI in the book. This man has probably got the clap so many times. Okubo and Rihito probably have safer sex, hatsumi has not.

• though hatsumi, Okubo, rihito, don’t even come near to Muteba. That man has to be engulfed.

• Muteba probably has a few illegitimate children. Though he probably doesn’t know they exist (that’s debatable) if he knew they existed he’d probably visit them from time to time and send them gifts.

• Mokichi is pro-life and a very stereotypical conservative Christian, he’s also a born again virgin.

• Okubo and Lihito make thirst traps on TikTok. They don’t have many followers or likes.

• Himuro makes thirst traps on Tiktok. He actually has a pretty big following. Many people thirst after him.

• Hatsumi Sen is a pot head.

• Jurota, Carlos, Hayami, Wakatsuki, and Sawada are intersectional feminists. They genuinely care about the rights of minorities.

• Okubo, Lihito, Himuro, and Hatsumi all say they are feminists but only to impress women. They don’t really care about women’s rights or the rights of minorities.

• Hayami Masaki is the kind of guy who keeps menstrual products in his car/home just in case any of his AFAB friends have an emergency and need them.

• if Hayami had an S/O who is AFAB he’d be super chill about going and getting them period products. This dude would go and get them their favorite food/candy just because.

• Haruo likes to take Sekibayashi to Gaming/Anime conventions. Seki doesn’t understand it and he tries to be interested, but he goes just to see Haruo (aka his Adopted son) happy and having a good time.

• Sekibayashi does view Haruo as his son. Seki has always wanted a family, and Haruo was abandoned by his adopted father. Seki was also abandoned by his parents, so that has fueled him to want be a good dad. Seki wants to be a good teacher, role model, and father to Haruo.

• Sawada and Yoshiko go to pride together every year. Yoshiko herself is Bisexual, Sawada is a Non-binary Homosexual. They both share their makeup with each other.

• Sawada watches Rupaul’s Drag race but HATES Rupaul. I can see him really liking Sasha Velour, Shangela, Shea Couleé, Trixie Mattel, and Katya.

• It’s canon that Koga’s hobby is collecting vintage clothing. He LOVES going thrifting and to antique malls for clothing. He’s probably likes to post his finds on Instagram, he also has a TikTok as well.

• Agito is very artistically talented. During his time as a biker babe he probably liked sketching some of the scenery he saw. Drawing wildlife is his favorite. He’s got a sketchbook that he keeps with him. If Agito had an S/O he’d probably draw them the most. He’d had a couple sketchbooks just filled with their face.

• Mokichi thinks of himself as the “cool” youth pastor. His ringtone is “our god is an awesome god”

• Edward Wu looks like the kinda guy to drive a keep

• Okubo and Agito are pretty good friends. Okubo has tried to drag Agito to a cabaret club. But Agito got so uncomfortable he either left or hid in the bathroom.

#kengan omega #kengan ashura #kengan asura #hot takes #headcanons

95 notes · View notes

Last Seen Blogs

slowc5

Untitled

myoldchina

yawning with snakes

basement-critics

The Most Honest YouTube Commenters

skinresurfacing-blog1

Laser Resurfacing

abogadoshmi

ABOGADOS H.M.I