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kris-mage-fics · 9 months

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So I've been a stressed bunny the last several weeks, and it's all because of this little nugget:

Okay, it's not Jade's fault that she fell ill. I've just been very worried about her. But thankfully after multiple tests we've found what was going on are are working on treating it. While it isn't curable, we should be able to slow the progression. It's been a little over 24 hours since she started medication and there are already clear signs she's starting to feel a little better. Though I'm probably going to be anxious until Jade is fully stabilized, and I don't know how long that will take.

(I know this isn't important, but I'm slightly annoyed by the colors being off in both of those pictures. The first one is too yellow, and the second one is too blue. Not annoyed enough to be motivated to do anything about it, just complain about it, lol)

I'll put more under the cut, in case some folks don't want to read about a kitty being sick for a while. And fair warning, I'll mention drugs quite a bit. As a former pharmacy technician the differences between human and veterinary medicine is interesting to me. Also this got long because I don't know when to shut the fuck up and used it to work through some of my emotions.

In late spring we switched Jade's food to try and get a handle on some digestive issues she's been having. While the new food treated the issue, it made a new one. And then she started to eat less and lost weight. Concerning when she was only about 4kg/9lbs to begin with.

So we took her in to the vets on Monday, they did some tests and called with the results after she was home. (Jade is an anxious cat, and when the vet wanted to keep her overnight we declined. She'd eat even less in an unfamiliar place than at home.)

The tests made it clear that she has renal disease (kidney disease). Obviously that isn't good. But it's at a stage where it's treatable, so we should be able to slow it's progression and get her feeling better. She went back to the vet yesterday for more tests, and she also has a UTI (there's no way we could've known this, she wasn't showing the typical signs). So we have to treat that as well.

We are switching her to kidney-friendly prescription food, and have antibiotics for the infection. I have to give her anti-nausea medicine for the next few days. And medication to stimulate her appetite. The vet gave her some of the anti-nausea medicine and the appetite stimulant yesterday, and she's already eaten a lot more since then!

(More detailed drug talk, feel free to skip. I'll note when it's over.) First off I always forget how expensive veterinary medicine is compared to human medicine. I see the names of some of these drugs and think "that's an old drug and it's pretty cheap" then I look at the receipt and my eye twitches! There are a couple of reasons for this, even if a drug is made for both animals and humans, some of it is made by different manufacturers. And veterinary medicine is used less, so higher costs. Also, there doses and formulations that we don't use for humans. Since that's more specialized it also drives the price up. (That said, if there is a medicine prescribed for your pet that's also used in humans - get it at a regular pharmacy, it's way cheaper! Check drugs.com to see human drugs and doses.)

The anti-nausea medicine is a pain in the butt because it's a small tablet that I had to cut into quarters. Now I have lots of experience with cutting tablets into quarters, and it almost never goes well. Sure enough, it partly crumbled and broke into five pieces. *sigh* (Halves are usual fine, especially if it's smaller and already scored, you can break it with your fingers.)

What's amusing to me is the appetite stimulant is mirtazapine, which is an antidepressant for humans! When I saw that I was like "wtf, why are we giving her an antidepressant?!" It's also weird, because instead of a tablet, it's a creme/lotion (which isn't even available for humans). And I have to put 0.05ml on the inside of her ear and rub it in while gloved. The placement makes sense, lots of capillaries in the ear to get it into the bloodstream, not much fur to get in the way, and it's easy to get to. It's such an interesting delivery method that I never would've thought of.

It's interesting the different doses between humans and cats. So for mirtazapine the dose for humans is 15-45mg once a day. The dose I'm giving Jade is 2mg. Considering the huge weight difference between the average adult and cat, that's a lot! But most drugs have to be given in much higher doses per body weight to cats than humans. (Drug talk over. Let's get back to our regularly scheduled post about our little Jade.)

We should be able to get the infection cleared up, and the other medications and diet change should keep her feeling a lot better. Though the vet said we might have to use the appetite stimulant on and off because renal disease can really nerf their appetite. But at least it isn't giving her a pill. I have lots of practice at giving cats pills, but Jade makes it so hard. Baby, please I'm just trying to help you!

Thankfully we are in a position where we can afford all these tests, medication, and special food. That wasn't always the case. Though if things get bad enough she needs dialysis, we won't be able to afford it. I looked it up and it's very expensive. Plus we'd have to travel at least an hour away to get to the closest place that even does dialysis for animals. I'm hopeful we can stave that off for quite a while. Though I'll be honest, there is part of me that worries that this won't work. I'm trying very hard to ignore that part and not get bogged down by negativity. Once we get her stabilized I'm sure I'll be doing a lot better, but for now it's a bit of a mental/emotional struggle.

Before all of this Jade was a happy and healthy senior cat. She's a very sweet, silly, and loving kitty. Even though she's least 12 she still played with toys, and chased her tail. We are going to do everything we can to get her back to that.

#sorry if this is kinda a mess - I couldn't bring myself to proofread it #and sorry for this being so long and going off on a weird tangent about drugs for 4 paragraphs!#but I think in a weird way focusing on things like the differences between human and veterinary medicine helps me cope #we are doing everything we can for Jade and it will probably be okay #just in the meantime while she still isn't feeling well it's hard and I can't help but worry some #I'm trying to stay positive and hopeful #sick cat #Jade

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luveline · 8 months

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jade if I’m not too late and requests are still open, can you write bombshell!reader and spence’s first kiss? secretly I think it would be funny if the team saw a hickey on her neck or something that she didn’t expect but oh how I love how soft she is for spence

ty for your request ♡ fem, 1.2k

"It's classic, comfortable anger-excitation," you say, hitting the flat of your ballpoint pen against your fingertip, a repetitive tap. "But his geographical profile is everywhere. No one place is untouched, but if he's as practised as we think he is, he'd kill away from home."

"Then he's not practised, he's an expert," Hotch says in the seat beside you. "He knows to divert our attention."

Your tapping increases. Spencer takes a few steps back and puts his hand over yours. You glance up at him. He mimes a deep breath for you to copy. You do it without complaint.

You're so focused on being perfect that sometimes you forget to breathe. You're very good at being perfect, in Spencer's opinion, perfect hair, perfect face, perfect frenetic hands. And you're doubly perfect at whatever this is, smiling at him with an unquantifiable emotion in what's probably the prettiest set of eyes on planet Earth.

Spencer puts your pen on your notebook and goes back to his board. The locations of each murder are tacked into a map. You weren't kidding when you said everywhere.

You're in one of the poorest places in America, and the police station reflects that. There's no conference room for you guys to work undisturbed, and the beat cops and deputy alike can hear and see everything you're doing. Most have the manners to leave you alone, but you're you; you tend to draw attention.

You've taken up the pen again, clicking and unclicking incessantly. It's an annoying sound but you're not aware that you're doing it, too determined on cracking the case before anything worse happens. Your team knows to ignore you, or even to disarm you. Emily snags the pen from your hand with a friendly laugh. "Jesus, you're tightly wound today."

"Mm," you murmur, struggling to pull yourself from your notes. A few more seconds and you look up with a blinding smile, "That's because Spencer skimped on my neck massage last night."

"Come on, pretty boy," Morgan says, though his heart isn't truly in it, "I thought you knew better."

Spencer shakes his head. You and Spencer had very separate hotel rooms and no sensual touching occurred, but he loves how happy this running joke makes you, so he stays quiet.

"He knows everything," you say, backtracking, "That's why he's gonna make me a cup of coffee. He knows exactly how I like it."

He leaves to make you a cup of coffee, but he was heading that way anyway for his own. He's thinking to himself that coffee is a bad idea and that he wishes he was better at saying no to you when you follow him in, your arms already open as you close the two or three steps to his chest and hug him over the shoulders.

"You didn't say anything when you left," you worry, your embrace overwhelming, sweet and soft and with a loving squeeze to round it off. "I wasn't being bossy, was I?"

You can be, but not this time. "Shut up, you know I'll make you a cup of coffee whenever you want it."

"That so?" you ask.

There's an excess energy you haven't managed to kick today racing through you. He can see the restlessness in your smile, no matter how glitzy.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

Spencer's poorly kept secret is that he's obsessed with you. You dote on him, you tease him, you torture him, but Spencer wants all of it and more. He likes being the centre of your attention, loves how your fond flirtation has changed to plain affection, and he would do anything you asked him to if it meant you were gonna kiss his cheek at the end. He thinks you're beautiful and electric and a thousand yards out of his league, and he thinks you're the nicest woman they ever made under all your bravado because not once have you encouraged that line of thought —you like him for him. You don't want him to change. You don't need anything from him he can't give to you.

His simple question transforms you, your glossy lips perking immediately into a smile. "Why wouldn't I be okay?"

"You seem tense. I've never given a massage before, but I can actually try," he offers.

Your hand cups his cheek, your voice aglow with a saccharine quality, "You're lovely, that's why. Maybe I'll take you up on it later–"

"It's not like–"

You'd been attempting a sweet thank you, and Spencer was brushing it off, but somewhere in the middle of it you'd gone up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. Spencer —idiot, uncoordinated, inexperienced, is going to hate himself later Spencer— turned away from your touch to argue with you, directing your lips against his.

Soft, sticky, pretty lips pressed to his.

You set back on your heels quickly. Your eyes are wide, beautiful but flared in shock, a sheepishness tugging your brows together as you say, "I'm so sorry."

"It's my fault," he says quickly, braceleting your wrist in his hand, "I'm sorry–"

You both lean back in for a second kiss at the same time. Spencer's head angled down and your chin tipped ever so slightly upward, you close your eyes as he closes his, completely silent. It's not often you're quiet. Spencer doesn't mean to, but he kisses too hard, too much, forcing your hand from his cheek as he grabs you either side of the head to keep you in his reach.

Your breath comes out in a huff that lights his nerve endings on fire, the barest hint of your voice tacked to it like a sigh of relief, like you're taking the edge off in the circle of his arms. Spencer's hand slides behind your head to hook you in, your lips parting at the seam from the pressure. You feel the heat of him and respond with vigour, your hand a nagging demand at the small of his back, pulling him closer, closer, as his other hand trails down your arm.

Your elbow bumps the coffee mugs, it really is his fault, and you spring away from him like you think you've been caught. Smiling, a kid with her hand in the cookie jar, you throw your gaze around the room to check you're still alone before stepping forward to laugh against his mouth.

That's a good sound. A great reaction. You have more patience than Spencer, dotting kisses thick with lip gloss up into his top lip, your mouth just open enough for him to feel faint.

"It was really an accident," he says between shorter, kinder kisses.

"I know," you murmur, words smushed. You steal a last rather frantic one before you stop, breathing funny, hands smoothing down the hair you'd mussed initially with sorry tenderness. "Was that okay?"

He puts his hand on your hip, refusing to gratify what feels like a silly question with a response when you can't not know he's been wanting to kiss you for weeks. Maybe months. "Are you sure you're fine?"

You smile at him like you know something he doesn't. "I'm sure, Spence. I think I just needed to do that."

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid oneshot #spencer reid scenario #spencer reid drabble #spencer reid fic #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds #criminal minds fic #criminal minds x reader

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relaxxattack · 8 months

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Piggybacking off the last anon, what is it you like about Jane so much? I find my feelings on her kind of mixed but I lean towards positive.

okay i haven’t read act six in probably like 5 years so bear with me here. *cracks knuckles*

jane is sooo so interesting and it’s really a shame people miss like everything fun about her.

pre-scratch she used her detective work to literally succeed at tearing down the crocker cooperation, to the point that HIC has to fucking abandon ship and head into another universe to have another shot at her evil empire. pre-scratch jane is also fucking hilarious! if you didnt enjoy her antics with john as nannasprite you must just have no heart

meanwhile HIC breaches a new universe, and her FIRST fucking order of business is to NEUTRALIZE JANE CROCKER because of how goddamn detrimental she was to HIC’s plans the first time around.

not ONLY does HIC pump subliminal messaging and brainwashing into nearly every aspect of jane’s life, she also tries to straight up mind control her basically whenever possible! she ALSO sends assassination attempts after jane 24/7! (people will seriously try to say that jane lived a safe normal life… as if she wasn’t almost killed by walking into her backyard.) this is because HIC is fucking scared of jane, as she very well should be!

jane is also NOT a boring weepy annoying crybaby like everyone and their mother complains about. jane is literally the most fucking supportive friend and emotion-repressing dumbass you could ever hope to meet. jane combines john’s emotional repression and jade’s intentional cheerfulness together into one of the most fucked up cases of emotional repression in the whole comic

act 6 suffers from a LOT of shitty writing choices, but it’s not jane’s fault the whole act turns into a soap opera— and she’s ALSO not the only one who acts all soap-opera-y either! literally all of the alpha kids suffer from this, people just like jane the least so they project it all onto her. despite the fact that she did her very fucking best to NEVER talk about her feelings, to the point where she ONLY started telling people about shit when she was mind-controlled or took mind altering substances to make her do so! and you can say “ohhh that’s stupid she shouldn’t repress things in the first place how dumb” but, one she’s sixteen, and two, everyone eats that shit up when it comes from like. literally any other character.

people (cough hs2 writers) act like she would actually be “pushy” with a relationship on jake— as if she wasn’t literally the one who helped him make the decision to explore dating dirk?? because she thought it was the right thing to do???

jane is incredibly thoughtful and mature and people really throw all of those traits out of the window with preference for a version of the story where she Comes Inbetween Their Fave Gay Pairing as if she wasn’t, again, the one who got them together. jane is also extremely interesting in terms of queerness; she’s got the makings of a really interesting arc, not to mention she’s the only human girl that dresses mainly masc! there’s a lot there that people just don’t care to explore.

people just have less patience for the prospit kids in general. not to mention homestuck fans love to be misogynistic and berate jane for stuff they love the men doing, or claim she’s coming between them when she’s not, etc etc. and then because no one was writing fun meta posts about her, nobody ever rereads the comic to grab little scenes or lines to expand the online discussion about her! and then because there’s no discussion about her, people assume she’s boring and don’t go looking for bits to start discussing, which cycles on and on forever until we have the ripple effects we see of that misogyny today. which mostly consists of, “oh i hate jane because she was a villain is hs2”, or, “i know hs2 isn’t canon but i still don’t care for jane because she doesn’t do anything that interests me.” (and she’s only not interesting because of the cycle i mentioned before causing NO ONE to have meta discussion about her).

idk, it’s been a while since ive read so i could be talking out my ass but that’s what i’ve got.

TL;DR: jane is fucking COOL, she just suffers from intentional fandom ignorance. and she’s also a canonically hot, fat, masc woman, so i don’t know what else you could possibly want.

#oh god i didn’t mean for this to get so long #lol i hope this helped????#jane crocker #homestuck #op #hsmeta #long post

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rggie · 2 years

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when you ignore them but you’re actually upset. p.1 p.2 ￫

characters: leona, kalim, vil, idia

summary: you ignore the housewardens, but it’s not a joke, or a trend. you’re actually upset. | requested by anon, sequel to this!

cw: mild language, sfw, a little bit of hurt/comfort, crack & fluff, established relationship, gn! reader. wc: 550+

leona kingscholar

• if you’re ignoring him, and you’re actually upset?? i suggest to go into hiding instead. a search party of beastmen are already looking for you regardless of whether you’re mad at him or at something else. you forced yourself into his life, so now he’s going to force himself into yours. that’s fair, right? he misses your presence. he’s really worried but at the same time he won’t approach you straight away because he’s stubborn. he’s frustrated, but not with you!! he’s mad at himself for upsetting you. ends up taking the anger out on random dorm members. glaring at everyone like (≖､≖╬)

• jack, genuinely confused: leona’s angry? isn’t that just his normal face?

• as soon as you both agree to talk his scowl is no more. his anger? dissipated! just like that! so please talk to him. he’ll even make the first move. when it comes to comforting he’s a man of few words—he says what he needs to, no beating around the bush. he’s nudging your arm, a silent request to touch you before grabbing your hands (his are clammy. he was anxious, don’t mention it otherwise he WILL walk away.) to take you somewhere secluded so you can make up cuddle the bad feelings away.

kalim al asim

• at first, he doesn’t even realise you’re ignoring him. he literally just thinks you’re busy, so he’s just peachy ^_^ until jamil asks if the two of you are arguing. his smile falls, and jamil regrets everything instantly. kalim, now tearful: “oh no. are we??”

• he thinks he’s neglecting you. he might fly over on his magic carpet in the middle of the night to apologise dramatically, waking everyone in the vicinity up. crowley starts fake sobbing into a tissue, lamenting how it’s the most romantic thing he’s lived to experience before giving you a detention mercilessly.

• if he can’t find you, or you refuse to talk to him, you might find him sleeping outside your dorm … he doesn’t wanna intrude, but he also wants to make sure you’re okay, so this is as close as he’ll get! jamil is not pleased. why do they have to camp outside now? he hates bugs.

vil schoenheit

• you’re seriously mad at him?? it’s not a joke? he doesn’t even know why you’re ignoring him. to be quite frank, he’s offended. so he ignores you. his logic is: “it’s not ignoring if we’re both doing it. it’s just a mutual agreement to not talk.”

• thinks you want something. “is it the jade roller?” no vil, it’s not the goddamn jade roller!

• things stay silent on both sides, until epel points out he’s snappier than usual. he caves in. he wants to talk to you again. if you refuse to see him, rook might end up sending arrows to your window to get your attention. (vil did not order him to do that, rook did it of his own volition). when you finally speak to him, he’s shocked to hear himself apologising first. the words just tumble right out of his mouth. please don’t question his behaviour as he fusses over you. have you been crying? your eyes are reddened and glossy. vil is immediately coddling you. all whilst he has a stress induced break-out that he’ll definitely blame you for the next day.

idia shroud

• his initial reaction when you brush past his tablet is: wtf??? lol. maybe you didn’t see him. he gets ortho to adjust his position and honestly, you’re a funny sight to see, having a robo-boy and a tablet trail behind you. he realises you’re ignoring him pretty fast after that, and is so ashamed the tablet switches off. goes to his priv twitter to cry about it (he has to softblock you)

• he’s overthinking. he’s probably sent you about 50 messages on imessage, he’s pinged you on discord and he’s currently checking your activity status on your favourite game. are you AFK-ing irl? then he gets embarrassed at his own texts and deletes some, but then he worries that you think he thinks he doesn’t care, and—oh no, was the wholesome meme he just sent outdated?!! do you hate him now?? he blames himself really badly. starts biting his fingernails anxiously. ortho forces him to venture out, find you and apologise. because he misses you, too! (ᗒᗣᗕ)՞

#twst fake texts #twst texts #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #twst #leona kingscholar #leona kingscholar x reader #kalim al asim x reader #vil schoenheit #vil schoenheit x reader #idia shroud #idia shroud x reader #🐾・/ rggie twst

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scoonsalicious · 2 months

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Unwanted: Chapter 9, Unselfish - Pt. 2

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Fem!Reader

Summary: When your FWB relationship with your best friend Bucky Barnes turns into something more, you couldn’t be happier. That is, however, until a new Avenger sets her sights on your super soldier and he inadvertently breaks your heart. You take on a mission you might not be prepared for to put some distance between the two of you and open yourself up to past traumas. Too bad the only one who can help you heal is the one person you can no longer trust.

Warnings: (For this part only; see Story Masterlist for general Warnings) Language, Jade Carthage (now officially a warning!), petty behavior on both sides, oblivious!Bucky, jealousy, insecurity.

Word Count: 2.1k

Previously On...: While on a cute little coffee date, you gave Bucky your seal of approval to start training Jade. You trust him and his love for you. This is definitely not the worst decision you've ever made in your entire life that will probably end up haunting your nightmares. Nope, not at all.

A/N: If I was Pocket, and this was real life (ah, if only!), I don't think I would have made it this far with Bucky (let's be real, though, no one in my real life is that good looking, or that seductively tragic). I would have washed my hands of him all the way back in Chapter Six, but! this is fiction, and fiction needs drama. Welcome to The Drama. We're glad to have you here. Mainly so that we don't have to suffer alone. All that to say, I definitely don't advocate for putting up with the kind of behavior Bucky will be displaying from this point forward. Toxic behavior is acceptable only in fiction, and only when we can recognize that it's toxic, and not something to emulate in real life.

Banner By: The absolutely amazing @mrsbuckybarnes1917!

Thank you to all those who have been reading; if you like what you've read, likes, comments, and reblogs give me life, and I truly appreciate them, and you!

Taglist: (Please let me know if you’d like to be added!) @jmeelee @cazellen @blackhawkfanatic @les-sel @marcswife21 @buckybarnessimpp @mrsbuckybarnes1917 @erelierraceala @hayjat @capswife @itsteambarnes @jupiter-107 @marygoddessofmischief @sebastians-love @learisa @lethallyprotected @rabbitrabbit12321 @buckybarnesandmarvel @fanfictiongirl77 @calwitch @fantasyfootballchampion @selella @jackiehollanderr @wintercrows @sashaisready

You weren’t going to admit it, but you regretted giving your okay to Bucky training Jade almost immediately. If she wasn’t asking him for extra training sessions, she was calling him with some stupid request or another.

First, it was that the lights in her room weren’t working:

“It was weird,” said Bucky when he’d come back from looking at them. “All the bulbs in her room were loose. Only thing I needed to do was tighten them.”

You kept your mouth shut, simply arching an eyebrow at him and hoping he genuinely believed that.

Next, she was constantly wanting to eat with him. “She’s lonely,” Bucky had told you when he’d left to have breakfast with her for the fourth morning in a row. “She hasn’t made many friends here yet. I’m just keeping her company.”

You let it slide; it was just breakfast following training, after all, and you were usually already at work by then. You still had lunch and dinner with him everyday.

Until she started sitting next to him at dinner, as well. At first, it wasn’t that big of deal; she was just a body at the table, and you could ignore her with no problems. But she slowly began monopolizing Bucky’s attention throughout the meals, asking him questions about combat training, protocols, any and everything innocuous and Avengers-related that made you feel like you couldn’t speak up against it without coming off as irrationally jealous.

After three evenings of being completely iced out of their conversation, you started engaging solely with Steve. It wasn’t your classiest move, knowing how Steve felt about you (and how Bucky felt about the way Steve felt about you) and using it for your own advantage, but he was still your friend, your family; it would have been weirder if you hadn’t spoken to him, at all. Of course, Bucky noticed this, and in seemingly no time at all, dinner returned to its normal dynamic, though you felt guilty about your behavior and tried to include Steve more than you had before.

But soon, she took lunches, too, and you couldn’t really find away around that.

Then she was complaining that the Tower was so boring and could he show her around the city? At least Bucky always insisted that you accompany him if he was going to go somewhere with Jade. It wasn’t your ideal way of spending the diminishing amount of time you had with Bucky, but you tried to make the best of it, though she went out of her way to make jabs and backhanded comments at your expense.

“It was so generous for Stark to have paid for your college education,” she cooed when you were all walking around Central Park together. “I can’t imagine what you must have done to warrant such generosity.”

“I’ve paid him back tenfold by working for him,” you told her through clenched teeth. You were usually able to brush off these disguised accusations with ease, but there was something about Jade’s insinuation that your relationship with Tony had some sort of seedy beginning that filled you with white hot rage.

“Oh, I’m sure you’ve worked very hard to get where you are today,” she oozed. “I bet Stark had you practically crawling on all fours to get you in your position.”

You felt the blood rising to your cheeks as anger flowed through you. You shot Bucky a glance, looking for him to tell her off, to defend you, something, but if he noticed the hidden barb in her words, he gave no indication of it.

“Pocket’s a genius,” he said instead, beaming at you and kissing the crown of your head. “Stark knew she was the best of the best, so it makes perfect sense that he would do whatever he needed to do to get her on his team. What was it you said, sweets? He got a good return on his investment in you.”

From outside of Bucky’s line of sight, Jade rolled her eyes, not pleased that her subtle attack hadn’t had its desired effect.

“Oh, Sarge,” she cried, grabbing on to his arm and tugging him away toward the pond, “look at the ducklings! Let’s go see them!” Now it was your turn to roll your eyes as Bucky turned to you with a shrug, as if to say “what can I do?” as he let Jade drag him away.

Annoyed, you chose not to follow, instead, walking along the path to buy yourself a hot pretzel from a nearby vendor.

“Hard being the third wheel when your friends are on a date, huh?” the vendor asked with a chuckle as he handed you your drink order.

“Excuse me?” you asked, pausing in the process of putting mustard on your pretzel. “That’s actually my boyfriend.”

The vendor looked taken aback. “You sure about that, honey?” He nudged his chin in the direction of the pond, where Jade was hanging onto Bucky’s arm as though he were a life preserver and pointing enthusiastically at the ducklings.

“Yes, I’m sure,” you snapped, grabbing your items and turning away from the rude man. You found yourself a bench where you could observe the two of them from a distance.

You had finished your pretzel and your iced tea before Bucky seemed to notice you weren’t alongside him. You crossed your arms over your chest and watched as he looked around for you, his face beginning to show panic when he couldn’t find you right away. Jade seemed to try to calm him down, but he wasn’t having any of it.

There was a small part of you, not so deep inside, that you weren’t proud of, that was glad to see him freak out at not being able to find you. Serves him right for ignoring you for her. You watched as Bucky jogged back to where he had last seen you on the path, calling your name, Jade following behind him.

“She probably just went back to the Tower,” you heard her say to him. “Why don’t we just enjoy the rest of our day, and you can meet up with her later? No point in letting her ruin our fun,” she added.

“Absolutely not,” Bucky snapped at her. “She wouldn’t do that! Fuck. I shouldn’t have gotten distracted.” He pulled out his phone and you knew he was going to call you.

You answered the phone before your ringtone could even begin. “Yes?” you asked, your voice cold.

“Baby! God, where are you?! I turned around and you were gone! I was worried sick.”

“I’m exactly where you left me half an hour ago, Barnes,” you said. “The two of you looked so fucking cozy; I didn’t want to interrupt your little date.”

You watched as his head shot up, scanning the path until he saw you sitting on your bench. When your eyes met, the relief on his face was unmistakable. You disconnected the call and sat waiting for him to make the next move.

He ran toward you, getting down on his knees in front of you before throwing his arms around you and pulling you into him.

“God, doll,” he murmured into your hair. “You were right behind us, and when I turned around after a second, you weren’t there, all I could think was that something terrible had happened to you.”

You glanced behind his shoulder to see Jade, hip cocked and arms across her chest, looking annoyed. “I didn’t mean to make you worry; I just got a pretzel. But that’s the thing, Buck,” you said as you pulled back from him, “I didn’t follow you at all and it took you thirty fucking minutes to notice.”

His face fell as the realization hit him. “Thirty minutes? Fuck. ‘m so sorry, Pocket,” he said, sincerity lacing his voice as he ran a hand through his hair. “That was shit of me. I don’t have an excuse.” He took your hands in his.

“See,” Jade said as she came up behind him, “she’s fine. Just being dramatic. I told you not to worry about her.”

“Vix,” Bucky said without looking at her, “go back to the Tower.” His voice was low and gruff as he spoke to her.

“What, like, by myself?” she asked, shocked that he would suggest such a thing.

“Yes. Alone.” Bucky said. When she made no motion to leave, he turned to look at her. “Now!” he growled before turning back to you.

“Fine, I’m going,” she said as she started to walk away, but not before sneering at you and flipping you the bird.

Once he was confident she was out of earshot, Bucky stood up and came to sit next to you on the bench. “This is the kinda shit you’ve been worrying about, isn’t it?" he asked you.

You didn’t respond for a while, just looked at him, trying to get your words in order. “I told you that I’m not going to control who can or can’t be friends with, Bucky,” you said eventually. “And I do still mean that. I don’t control you– no one controls you. But no girl is going to love seeing their boyfriend go off with someone else and completely forget about them.” You took a deep, sad sigh. “It hurts, Buck. It makes me feel like… like you only brought me with you out of some kind of obligation, and you’d rather I wasn’t here.” He tried to say something, but you kept talking. “I’m not saying that was your intention; I know it wasn’t. That’s just what it feels like. And maybe I’m being irrational, overly jealous. Maybe I’m being selfish. I don’t know. I’ve never done this before, this relationship thing. Ever. I’m just kinda… flying blind here.” You blinked away some tears that were threatening to fall. “Maybe I am too dependent on you. Maybe you’d be better off with someone who has their shit together and doesn’t freak out whenever another girl gets near you.” You shrugged your shoulders, feeling defeated.

Bucky fiercely wrapped his arms around you, squeezing you to his chest. “Stop,” he said, his voice almost a sob. “Stop saying things like that. It’s not true. I am begging you, never think that’s true. Pozhaluysta, lyubov' moya.” Please, my love. Bucky’s voice was raspy, as though he were choking back tears of his own. “Ty — vse, chto ya kogda-libo khotel. Vse, chto mne nado.” You are everything I ever wanted. Everything I need. “You make me so damned grateful that I fell off that train,” he whispered.

You pulled your head back, studying him in surprise. “Buck, you don’t mean that. You can’t mean that, not after everything—”

“It’s the truth,” he told you, hands coming up to cup your face, making sure you were looking at him, really looking at him. “If I hadn’t fallen, I’d have probably died in a German trench long before you’d ever been born, and the idea of it makes me sick. And everything—everything-that happened after, all of that led me to you. I can’t resent a single second of it, because it brought me here, now. Do you understand how fucking precious that makes you? How fucking special you are?”

You stared at him, stunned at his revelation. Bucky took your silence as an opportunity to pull you into him in a bruising, desperate kiss. If you’d been more self-aware, you’d have pulled back, embarrassed at being so brazen with your affection in public, but all you could do was kiss him back with every ounce of love you felt for him. And it felt so absolutely right.

Far too soon for your liking, you both had to come up for breath. Pressing your foreheads together, Bucky sighed contentedly. “What do you need me to do? I’ll do anything you need, you know that, right?”

You nodded, the movement of your head bringing his along with it and you both giggled. “I know,” you said. “Maybe no more outside-the-Tower excursions?” you asked timidly, hoping it wasn’t too big a request. “Or, if you still want to do them, maybe I don’t come with you? Being around her sets me off. It’s too much ”

“Consider them ended,” he said, without hesitation or pause. “Not even a question. I wouldn’t even consider going out of the Tower with her without you with me, and I’m not going to force you to spend time with her.”

“I’m so sorry,” you said softly. “I feel like such a controlling bitch.”

“No, baby, no.” He tucked your head under his chin as he held you to him. “That is the exact opposite of what you are.” You believed him, you really did, but it did nothing to quell the disgust you felt with yourself.

<- Previous Part / Next Part ->

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky x you #bucky x reader #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky x female reader #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes fanfiction #james bucky buchanan barnes #james buchanan barnes #mcu bucky barnes #james barnes

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companionjones · 1 year

Text

Love is in the Air (Why Didn’t You Tell Me?)

Pairing: Beck Oliver x Fem!Reader

Fandom: Victorious (Nickelodeon)

Summary: Based on the episode of Victorious “Beggin’ on Your Knees,” where you take the place of Tori. Some things are changed.

Warnings: None that I can think of

Y/n=Your name

W/n=Wrong name

*******

Love was in the air at Hollywood Arts, and you absolutely hated it. You sat on the stairs in the main hallway and watched all the main couples of the school go about their day.

Trina came into view. She was running after Jade. “Babe! I said I was sorry!”

Jade’s jaw tightened as she turned back around to her girlfriend. “You walked in on my auditions!”

“I’m sorry! You know how I get! I see an opportunity and I just gotta take it. Y’know?”

Her words didn’t soothe Jade’s anger. “My audition isn’t your opportunity!”

Trina paused for a moment. “Well, yeah. I know that now...Listen what if I buy you those new scissors you wanted?”

That seemed to immediately resolve a lot of Jade’s resentment. “...The ones that are diamond encrusted?”

“The very same,” Trina nodded. “Do you like me again?”

Jade took a step up to Trina, took her hand, and kissed her cheek. “Maybe...”

The two walked off together.

“Whatcha doin’?” Beck was suddenly looming over you.

You turned around to look at him. “Wallowing in my loneliness.” You turned back around and rested your head on your hands.

“...That sounds like fun,” Beck responded, not knowing what else to say.

“Robbie!!! Robbie!!!” Cat burst onto the scene by running down the stairs and screaming bloody murder for Robbie. She reached the middle of the main hallway and released her loudest scream yet. “ROBBIE SHAPIRO!!!”

The boy came sprinting into view on Cat’s right. “What? What is it? Everyone’s telling me you’re looking for me, Cat. Is everything okay? Are you hurt?”

“No,” Cat answered, much calmer than before.

“Then what is it?” Robbie asked, still very concerned.

Cat’s response was simple: “I missed you.” She then leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Robbie’s torso.

Robbie let his head rest on top of hers. Probably to equally revel in her cuteness and insanity. “I...I missed you too, sweetheart...But next time, maybe try calling me on the phone...” His voice trailed off as he and Cat walked away.

“Hey, guys.” Tori approached you and Beck, hand-in-hand with André.

You immediately rolled your eyes. “Here we go. Yet another couple to rub their happiness in my face.”

“I’m sorry?” Tori wasn’t sure if she should’ve apologised for her happiness.

“What’s with the sour attitude?” André wondered. When he and Tori came to a stop, he traded holding hands with her with putting an arm around her shoulder.

“Nothing’s up. Right, Y/n?” Beck answered for you. Before you could respond to Beck, he asked the three of you, “You guys wanna get lunch?”

Both Tori and André nodded. “Sure.”

Beck grabbed your hand. “You’re coming too. C’mon.” He dragged you along with him.

Outside, you were mainly focusing on your food, which was why you didn’t notice, at first, a guy walk up next to you. When you did notice him, you saw that he wasn’t just a guy, he was Ryder Daniels, a senior. A really hot senior at that. He was talking to you.

“Hey. It’s W/n, right?”

“Y/n.” Beck corrected without looking up from his meal.

Ryder cleared his throat. “Y/n, right. How are you doing?”

“I-I’m doing okay...How are you?”

Ryder smiled at you. “I’m good. So, Y/n, I was wondering if you wanted to go out sometime?”

You felt your eyes widen. “With me?”

Vaguely, you heard Beck go, “With her?”

Ryder gave a weird look to Beck. “Yeah...” He turned back to you. “What do you think?”

“Uh, s-sure.” You had to physically push the word out.

“Great.” Ryder grinned and walked away.

“Great!” you called after him, then turned back to your friends. “What just happened?”

Tori was the first to answer. “What do you think just happened? You got a date!”

Your heart was beating out of your chest. “Really? Are you sure?”

“Yes!” André congratulated you. “Be happy, Y/n!”

You were pretty sure that was what you were feeling. Your heart wouldn’t slow down to tell you anything else.

That night, you had just finished a pretty fun night with Ryder. You couldn’t believe it, but you were pretty sure you had just fallen into your first relationship.

There was a knock at your door.

You walked toward it, confused. “Ryder? Did you forget something?” You opened your door to find not Ryder. “Beck?”

“I don’t like this.” He came marching into your home.

Your confusion only grew. “Don’t like what?”

He jumped onto another subject. “How was your date?”

“It went fine. We’re doing the Full Moon Jam together. Is this what you’re upset about?” you wondered.

Beck’s jaw clenched. “Maybe.”

“Why?” You were flabbergast.

He thought for a second. “I don’t-I don’t know, but I just don’t like the idea of you with someone else--”

“Are you kidding me?!” you shrieked. “All this time, I’ve been alone, Beck. So I swear to god, if you tell me you like me now--”

“I don’t like you!” he shouted back. “I just don’t want to see you with him! I don’t want to see you with anyone unless it’s m--” Beck immediately stopped talking as realisation dawned on his face.

“...Get out,” was all you had to say.

Beck hung his head as he followed your order.

And just like that, you were left alone.

The next day, you were excited to see Ryder again. You were excited to see anyone that could distract you from Beck. You decided to meet Ryder at his locker.

You were about to round the corner when you heard Ryder talking to one of his friends.

“Hey, Ryder. Congratulations! I heard you’re dating that one girl--What is it--W/n?”

“Yeah. Only until she gets me an A on this Full Moon Jam assignment. Then you can have her.”

That was all it took to have you booking it in the other direction.

You weren’t sure how many hours you spent in the janitor’s closet, but you were pretty sure you’d heard the bell ring three times. You weren’t willing to do the math.

Suddenly, the door to the closet burst open. “There you are!” Beck called out, relieved. “Jesus, I’ve got everyone looking for you, y’know...Y/n?”

“He’s using me,” you tearfully informed, “He’s using me to get a good grade on the Full Moon Jam assignment, then he’s gonna dump me.”

Beck didn’t know what to say, “Oh, Y/n.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” You sprung to your feet.

He thought you were talking about Ryder. “I didn’t know--”

“Not about him. Why didn’t you tell me you liked me before all this mess?”

Beck was ashamed. “I didn’t know about that either until Ryder asked you out.”

“Why didn’t you tell me--?” Your sobs cut you off. You started crumpling into yourself until Beck enveloped you in a hug.

For some reason, life didn’t seem so bad anymore. You hugged him back. The tears kept falling.

“I’m never going to let anyone hurt you again,” Beck whispered, “Whether I have you or not. No one will ever treat you like this again--”

You kissed him.

It was an intense kiss. Beck roughly backed you against some drawers, and you forcefully ran your fingers through Beck’s hair.

Eventually, you two had to part for air, and you just smiled.

“What’s the smile about?” Beck asked. His expression matched yours.

“Oh, a few things,” you answered teasingly. You kissed him again. “I think I know how to get revenge on Ryder, and I’m gonna need your help.

“Anything,” Beck promised you.

“Good,” you grinned, and kissed him again.

*******

Author’s Note: Thank you so much for reading! Fill up that heart and reblog if you liked it. I would also really appreciate a comment, if you have the time. If you would like to read more, check out my masterlist. Have a nice day, night, or whatever time it is for you!

#beck #beck x reader #beck oliver #beck oliver x reader #victorious #victorious nickelodeon #avan jogia #companion jones #love is in the air (why didn't you tell me?)#love is in the air #why didn't you tell me

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frostgears · 6 days

Text

We Who Will Not Bow

It had been a difficult night.

"You're not an Academy mage. You're her," the injured guard said, defiant. "Bree the Bodiless. Bree the Banished. Bree the Bloody… go on, then. Kill me. Get it over with."

"And what purpose," she said, frustrated, "would that serve? Gods, they've been telling tales about me in my absence, I see. Hold still, I think I can fix this."

She opened a module drawer on her left arm, pulled out a silvery metal module marked with a quincunx of green jade inlay, snapped it into the socket on her left palm. Thin tentacles ventured out from an aperture, tasting the air, dripping with orange ooze. The guard shrank back against the side of the checkpoint tower.

"What are you going to do to me? What is that— aaaahh!"

Bree clasped her hand over the bolt wound on the injured guard's arm. Tentacles sank into flesh, writhing between her jointed porcelain fingers, probing under skin.

"Don't squirm, that's a burrowing bolt head, we don't want it burrowing any deeper. And these are preserved regeneration glands from a nesting bog kraken. They guard their eggs, did you know that? For up to two months. But the Great Bog is a miserable environment. There's parasites, and fungi, and necrotic plague, and so the damn things evolved these organs to channel mana into their eggs and young, almost like healing spells, to give them a fighting chance. Not against me, though. I killed this one and took its regeneration glands and doomed its clutch, just to get back one more thing I used to be able to do before that fucking archon took everything away from me… okay, wiggle your fingers…"

The guard's fingers moved. Bree took her hand away, satisfied. The tentacles retracted into her palm. She held an evil-looking bit of spiraled and fluted black metal between thumb and forefinger, rotated her wrist with a series of clicks, turning it around to inspect.

"Got it. All of it. Regrowth forced it out."

Her chest plate slid open. A lurid orange glow splashed across the burrowing bolt head, the hand holding it, and the face of the guard. She squeezed the bolt head, and it crumbled, not bending as mundane metal might, but falling to dust. The glow flared brighter.

"Gotta feed the furnace. Saved your arm, paid the cost; let's go, sweetheart, I need all the help I can get. Pick up your crossbow and follow me."

Her chest plate clacked shut.

"I'm not following you anywhere, traitor!"

Bree shrugged, then held out a hand. Her other one. No disembodied organs in the right hand, although anyone who'd actually seen what she could do with the thing built into its palm would no doubt prefer to hold the left.

"The bastards who killed your mates were Crimson Vanguard, the Crimson Pact's commandos. Real dickheads even by Pact standards. Drink to your squad's memory tomorrow that you all gave nearly as good as you got, because they don't normally leave any survivors. Plus, the Vanguard always sends a backup team. So, way I see it, either you come with me, and you might live, or you run and you probably don't, and really, which one of us is the traitor then, right?"

The guard glared at her through narrowed eyes, but took her hand. Bree hauled her to her feet. And then the guard ran for it.

"It's you! You're the traitor!" Bree yelled at the guard's rapidly receding back. "In case it wasn't clear from context!"

Her voice in this body was beautifully clear and melodic, but not particularly loud; it hadn't been built for yelling, and it didn't satisfy. Not that it would stop her from trying.

Something twanged behind her. A projectile of some kind bounced off her back.

"Nice try," she said, spinning around and folding her right hand down to reveal a hand-length metal spike nestled in a cavity in the mechanism of her arm, "my turn now." An internal spring released. The spike shot out, and did what it might be expected to do to a human skull.

She wiped fresh blood off her faceplate, afterward; tasted the crimson spatter with the tip of an intricately jointed porcelain tongue. It didn't taste like anything. It never did. Nothing did.

"You didn't have to come here," she said to the headless Vanguard commando at her feet. "Any other town. Or better yet, stay home, and don't murder anyone, and I could return the favor. But you came here armed, and it lives here, and I have this little compulsion to take care of it, yeah? 'HER TASK FOR THE TIME BEING SHALL BE TO SAFEGUARD AND PROTECT HER MOST RECENT VICTIM, UNTIL AND UNLESS SAID VICTIM MAY RELEASE HER FROM SERVICE, SATISFIED'," she said, in a low, mocking tone. "Lyric's horrified to even look at me, so I doubt satisfaction and release are on the table any time soon, right?"

No answer was forthcoming.

"Well, fuck you too, buddy. Time to go find your friends."

She sped along the main road, each step a leap, her torn and patched Academy cape flapping behind her. Everyone trying to get into the town had fled when the first Vanguard team set fire to the checkpoint, with their wagons if they could, on foot if they had to. She passed several wagons that stood abandoned, stopped briefly at another to shatter a yoke with her fist and free two terrified oxen.

Then she saw what she was looking for: you'd have to be an idiot to keep driving your wagon towards a burning guard tower, unless you were the rest of the second Vanguard team, with a wagon full of bad news.

Bree knelt in a ditch by the side of the road, screened from view by a thicket, and swapped out the regeneration gland module with another set of pickled arcane beast parts in a can, which did another thing she'd been able to do on her own before her body had been taken away.

The wagon was almost to her, close enough that her upgraded senses could clearly see the outline of a crossbow beneath the driver's plain black cloak. She tickled the stolen sun-serpent pyrosis organ with an internal actuator, and flame bloomed in the night again.

They came scrambling out, firing back, the snap of bows audible over the screaming of the horses. Disciplined, she had to give them that. Bolts hit her in the face and chest.

Not to much effect, of course. She'd once been Lyric's twin, an almost peerless servant automaton frame, built by her old business partner to last, but fundamentally also built to serve tea and look good in a maid outfit. It wasn't enough. It wasn't her. She'd made Coda upgrade her again and again, until Coda's own restorative compulsion had hit its limits, and the artificer told her there was nothing more she knew how to do. By then, she was strong. From there, she'd upgraded herself.

Three of them rushed her with swords. Close enough, Bree thought; she raised her right hand, opening the palm shutter, and whispered, "Nis zerat volut, ghran."

Her soulcatcher, the glowing point of twisted light in her right palm, was, in some sense, the reason she was here, stuck in this patchwork body with its almost nil astral presence. It was an instrument of more subtlety than power and it still worked for her when the rest of her magic had died. She'd upgraded it too. Now it didn't need a soul to be loosened from its mortal shell first.

Ghostly purple light streamed over them, and a moment later, they were down. She fed their torn-off souls to her furnace. Apparent time slowed to a crawl, the high ticking of her main escapement dropping to a steady thud, thud, thud. She snapped blades, broke bones, ripped through the remaining commandos with accelerated fury. The details were messy and irrelevant, forgotten as quickly as they came. The last two Vanguard were carrying a box. She took it from them and opened the lid.

The shock broke her concentration; her time sped up again. "Titan voidwasp larvae," she said, almost reverently. They'd been covered at the Academy, briefly, not something anyone was expected to encounter. The shiny purple-black grubs were from somewhere far, far away, and their eventual monstrous metamorphosis drank souls, just like she did now, but on a colossal scale. They were city killers.

"Here's the thing, little guys, even I don't trust myself with shit like you. Sorry. Protect and safeguard, you know how it is."

She fired her spike, retracted its cable, fired again, into each one in turn, until nothing was left but ichor and chitin splinters. Then she teased a last fractional burst out of her pyrosis module, playing a jet of flame across the mess, just in case.

That was it. There didn't seem to be much else to do. She checked for Vanguard survivors. One of them wasn't quite gone.

"Who… what… the fuck… are you?"

"Just somebody's discarded doll," Bree told him. "When the Pact interrogates your ghost, tell them Bree said not to come back." She dispatched him, as cleanly as she could.

For an indefinite time, there was no motion on the bloodied road, except for the dying flames, and the wind teasing her cape and her hair.

Silver radiance kindled beside her.

"Oh no, not you, don't you fucking start with me—"

"JUSTICE."

"—can piss up a rope!"

She ramped up her speed again and tried to strike the figure of a burning haloed skeleton with fire and the soulcatcher, both at once, but hit nothing but empty air. The archon was only as tangible as it wanted to be. She'd find a way to get at it someday, but it seemed today wasn't going to be that day.

"CEASE THIS."

"Get fucked."

"IT MAY INTEREST YOU TO KNOW THAT THE SUMMONING OF THE CHOSEN HERO HAS YET AGAIN FAILED."

"Not my fault the archmages can't get it up."

"THE HERO IS SUMMONED TO SAFEGUARD THE KINGDOM. THAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE RITUAL. THE INVOCATIONS BESEECH THE DIVINE TO FILL A NEED AND PROVIDE A PROTECTOR IN THE TIME OF CRISIS."

"Okay, I don't care."

"IF A PROTECTOR IS ALREADY INCARNATE, THE DIVINE FEEL THEIR DUTY IS DONE. EVEN IF THE HERO IS UNAWARE OF THEIR ROLE."

"I jacked the Chosen Hero's soul and sold it to Coda and put it in a doll, right, I was there. So what, you're saying they can't do it again because Lyric's already here, even if it's a doll maid and not a hero? Tough shit, I guess. You met it, you know it isn't exactly hero material."

"YOUR ASSESSMENT IS CRUDE BUT CORRECT. IT IS NOT, AND IT WILL NOT BE. IT IS CONTENT TO SERVE AND TO ENJOY ITS NEW FORM. AND YET A HERO EXISTS. SOMEONE PROTECTS THE KINGDOM ALREADY, ALTHOUGH THEY DO NOT THINK OF IT IN SUCH TERMS. THEY DID SO AGAIN, THIS NIGHT."

"Wait."

"YOUR ACTIONS PRODUCED A HERO."

"Oh gods no."

"THE GODS WATCH. THE SKEIN OF DESTINY IS RE-COILED, A TANGLE REMOVED."

"I can't be—"

"JUSTICE MAY YET BE DONE. GOOD LUCK TO YOU."

Bree roundly cursed the archon in her annoyingly pleasant and musical voice, until it disappeared, and then another fifteen minutes for good measure, in case it felt like coming back. When it didn't, she started walking.

She looked back, once, to see the lights of the town. Somewhere back there, Coda and Lyric lived in their little shop. Lyric didn't sleep any more than Bree did. Maybe her once-twin was leaning out the window, one of its cute dresses ruffled by the night breeze. Maybe it was even looking this way.

"Well, let's face it, Bree," she said to herself, resigned. "You wouldn't have been a very good maid." □

---

prev: We Who Serve

next: We Who Are Far From Home, ch. 1: Bree 1

#dollposting #microfiction #we who

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starburts-addict · 8 months

Text

Okay so, this idea was not 100% my idea, but I was allowed to use it, so let's go!

(I'm also using an idea from a manhwa so)

Also also, I usually do gn reader, but for the sake of hijinx, the reader is fem.

OKAY LAST THING, LILIA AND ORTHO WILL BE WRITTEN AS PLATONIC

You were a normal human on earth. Just another anime fan, you liked Twisted Wonderland, nothing out of the ordinary. That was until you died. Your life wasn't to be happy about, but you didn't think it was that bad.

You woke up. That entire dream was your past life! You woke up crying and your two older brothers came to check up on you as you slept in the same room. Your parents came to check up on you. You now know who they were. They leech family from your favorite game, but… why do you exist? You were never mentioned as a character, there was never any mention that the twins had a younger sibling, let alone a sister.

Growing up, you always questioned your existence, but you tried not to think too hard about it. Maybe it was just the celestial being's way of apologizing for your untimely death. You got to meet Azul the year you went into the equivalent of middle school. The year Jade and Floyd met Azul. You've met him before and you helped him! But after a very small handful of meetings, Jade and Floyd had purposely tried limiting your time with him. Sure he was odd as a younger version to the version you're used to seeing, but he wasn't that bad! Every Time you tried to hang out with Azul with your brothers, something always came up where you couldn't. It was strange, but you decided not to question anything. What's the point if it can ruin your happiness?

We were fine not being able to attend Night Right College, you were happy with your life! Besides you were a girl, it's impossible for yo- Your parents bribed the Headmaster to allow you to attend as a student? That's new. You never really expressed any desire to go to the school. Although Jade and Floyd do complain about not seeing you as much, must have been on their request. You didn't mind, just caught off guard. Besides! You get to see the cast! Upon realizing you needed to prepare for the story. The plot except the arrival of the protagonist was the only thing you couldn't remember. Drats, you remembered when you were younger, but now, you don't remember one bit. Guess you were going in blind.

When the time for the entrance ceremony arrived, everything went upside down. Not only was the protagonist one of the protagonists with a face, Yuuka Hirasaka, but everyone's eyes were on the both of you as the only girls on campus. You know this school is an all boys school, but did they have to make a huge deal out of it? At least the main cast didn't seem to mind too much, although Azul's eyes on Yuuka and you were unnerving. (He was looking at Yuuka too right?) You knew things were going to change the second Yuuka and grim have been deemed students and we're under your care. You may not remember the plot, but you remembered details on the main character. Like how they were not granted the position of student as soon as they arrived. Especially the fact that they were supposed to be the dorm leader of Ramshackle, not you.

When you and Yuuka left after the conundrum called the entrance ceremony, you felt like you had become prey despite being a predator. Especially with the eyes on you.

As the school year went on, you recognized that almost everyone's behavior was, even your brothers, but for different reasons. They kept driving you away from the main cast. Yuuka and Grim were the only normal ones. It wasn't until after the Heartslabyul incident that your dorm mates had revealed the reason for your brother's weird behavior and left you with more questions for the others. Apparently everyone in the main cast has been asking about you.

Was your presence in this world so impactful? No, it probably wasn't that. It was probably the difference between you and your older twin brothers. Their curiosity should calm down especially with the fact they don't even really know you.

…. Right?

Tags: @bubbles-lounge

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absolutebl · 6 months

Text

This Week in BL - I Gave a 10/10 to a BL... me!

Organized, in each category, by ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

Nov 2023 Wk 3

Ongoing Series - Thai

My Dear Gangster Oppa (Thurs iQIYI) ep 4 of 8 - I love this show. I adore Tew's the simple backstory. No frills. No fuss. He got dragged in the way many do and he can kill so they kept him. They aren’t trying to make it needlessly complicated (which is rare for Thailand). That said, the pacing is way tf off, the emotional arc is rushed and then sappy out of absolutely nowhere. Before you ask, the kiss is not at issue, we halfway through they should be kissing, but the romantic life changes - too soon. But I don’t care. Finally, they left us this ep reminded of 2 v important things,

this pair kisses beautifully

in BL all mafia be gay

Fun fun!

Last Twilight (Fri YT) ep 2 of 12 - It's official, I love this. It’s a classic caregiver/bodyguard trope where one of them is opening the other one up to the world, but sweetly. I’m enjoying the softness of JimmySea's take and I hope GMM TV takes its cues from the success of My School President and doesn’t push this particular show into rough or edgy territory. Stay on target GMMTV. Don't mess with my bias again!

Twins the series (Fri GaGa) ep 3 of 10 - Finally, our adorable side couple has emerged! This show remains engaging without losing pace (despite the main couple being slow burn), which is all I want from a Thai pulp, and more I could ask for currently from a sports BL.

(Note: when I dictate the computer always puts "Thai pope" instead of Thai pulp - this is hilarious to me.)

Pit Babe (Fri iQIYI) ep 1 of 14 - I guess they didn’t strip the omegaverse out of this. Unfortunately, I’m not an omegaverse fan, so I find its presence extremely off putting. (But it’s kind of amazing that somebody finally put one on our screen.) Unsurprisingly, it’s a lot of alpha posturing and hyper masculinity, because that’s what this kind of worldbuilding is an excuse for (lazy writing and lazier characterization). This means I don’t like Babe AT ALL except that he’s smell orientated and a bit verse. Way is lovely tho, because Nut is a great soft screen presence amongst the testosterone haze.

Middleman’s Love (Fri YT & iQIYI ep 2 of 8 - I’m not gonna lie (when have I ever bothered to lie to you all?) I’m struggling with this show. The sound effects are getting worse. That is not allowed. Still I found this installment slightly more bearable than the last last, probably because there was more of the cast in play and less of Jade being too cringe to live.

Absolute Zero (Weds iQIYI) ep 8 of 12 - AKA temporal paradox of pain.

My Universe (Sun iQIYI) Friends Forever ep 13 of 24 - Ooo it’s a bit of a teacher/student (coach/player) thing. Linguistic negotiation and kinkification of phi. Also actually kinky. But not consensually. Gonna get dark. Bummer.

Playboyy (Thurs Gaga) 1 of 14(!) eps - Whines. Must I? Gaga doesn’t have a skip ahead button. Sad sack main characters really do not work for me. But this was better than I expected. I wasn’t expecting much.

Look: This is helmed by Cheewin (shudder) with screenplay by Den (Only Friends - shudder the second) under Copy A Bangkok (they deserve not my shuddders). It's gonna be a shizz show people. It's Thai dark War of Y style - my least favorites. Apparently, there is meant to be a "plot" but when has Cheewin ever bothered with plot?

On a completely different note does the blond look like that Korean actor/idol from At a Distance Spring is Green & Wanna One to anyone else? Or is it just me? (Park Ji Hoon)

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

A Breeze of Love (Korea iQIYI) eps 3-4 of 8 - I like it a lot. Dongwook is so obtuse and socially awkward and reserved and needy and Dohyun is so gay over and simultaneously wildly confused by this behavior. Fantastic. A bit stiff, even for Korea, btu I'm okay with it since everything else I'm watching right now is decidedly NOT stiff.

I finished it!

Let's Eat Together Aki and Haru AKA Aki wa Haru to Gohan wo - Japan BL movie 1.5 hr

Best friends life together during university - cheerful sunshine loves to cook, grumpy tsundere loves to eat. Aki is a bit manic pixie dream boy for me (not my favorite archetype) but they’re cute and it’s one of those Japanese slice of life pieces like Our Dining Table that isn’t really a romance in fact it’s barely a drama. This isn’t friends to lovers because they’re basically already in a relationship (which everyone around them knows) they just aren’t fucking. I did spend a lot of time worrying that they weren’t eating any green things whatsoever. In the end this isn’t my thing when there’s no kissing at all, and this was a bit too dull even for JBL. Sorry Japan, one cannot trade on cute and cheese alone. I know, you want to. But that's not a BL or a personality. 6/10

I Cannot Reach You AKA I Can't Reach You AKA Kimi ni wa Todokanai (Japan, maybe coming to Netflix) 8 eps - This classic friends-to-lovers BL is everything Japan does best. Angsty. Emo. Aching. Driven by real thirst. Yamato is deeply in love with his childhood bestie, Kakeru, and has been for ages, unable to hide his ungainly damaging high school need. He wants Kakeru in every way possible and it oozes off of the screen. Kakeru is silly and a little simple, but not frenetic or overly camp about it. He is earnest, and genuinely wants to keep Yamato in his life which means giving a romance (and gayness) a fair chance. We watch him realize his affection and what form it can take in a truly authentic way. This show was impossibly kind to both of its lead characters and I felt honored that I got to watch something so lovely and rare play out on my screen.

I LOVE LOVE LOVED THIS. IT'S SO GOOD.

10/10

Let me be perfectly clear: I have watched 646 BLs and only handed out nine 10/10s.

I talk more about why this one made the cut, here.

It's Airing But...

One Room Angel (Japan Gaga) 6 eps - adaptation of Harada’s manga (which I did not like) about a clerk who's stabbed, nearly dies, and returns home to find an angel waiting for him. With only 5 eps and a good chance this won’t end happy, I'm gonna wait and let you tell me how it goes.

SHADOW (Thai Gaga) 14 eps - I'm not wild about Thai horror (or horror at all) even one featuring Singto and Fluke. I'm holding off on this one and if told it's good I'll binge later.

Beyond The Star (Weds iQIYI) 8 eps - House of Stars meets Boyband. I was NOT impressed. Waiting to be told if I should bother.

What Did You Eat Yesterday Season 2 AKA Kinou Nani Tabeta? Season 2 (Japan Gaga) 10 eps - I find this series more fun to binge, so I'm waiting until it completes its run.

Next Week Looks Like This

STARTING

11/20 Bake Me Please (Mon Gaga) ep 1 of 6 - trailer here, stars Ohm (of OhmFluke) opposite Guide (bestie from IFYLITA). This looks like an actually gay version of Antique Bakery (play it again, BL). I'm intrigued, it looks HELLA pretty.

11/22 7 Days Before Valentine (Weds ????) ep 1 of 10 - trailer here, horror-esk. Adapted from y-novel of the same name, directed by Tu (180 Degree) stars Jet (Why You… Y Me?). When you want your old love again, but fate sends you a reaper instead. All he can do for you is kill people. I'll likely give this a pass and wait to binge if safe.

11/24 VIP Only (Taiwan Fri Gaga) ep 1 of 10 - Screenplay by Lin Pei Yu (WBL) about a chef who courts a shy writer with spicy beef noodles.

11/25 The Sign (Sat ????) ep 1 of 10 - trailer here, horror-esk, but with a suspense and adult characters. Special investigators who loved each other in previous lives reunite in new bodies. Stars Billy Patchanon (BillySeng) & Babe Tanatat (new). Includes other SCOY favorites as a special investigation team. I may give this a try (depending on distribution) because I'm into the non-horror bits.

11/26 The Whisperer (Sun ????) 1 of 10 - trailer here. Thai horror BL that ALSO involves cheating (what joy is mine). He has dimples (My Ride) but I don't think even that gives me the will. You can tell me how this goes.

11/26 Cooking Crush (Sun YT) 1 of 12 - OffGun are back, trailer here. Adapted from the novel “Love Course! เสื้อกาวน์รุกเสื้อกุ๊กรับ” by iJune4S this is about Prem who runs a not-so-popular restaurant with 2 friends. About to go on a cooking competition with a huge reward, Prem gets involved with Ten, a stressed-out med student who wants Prem to teach him to cook.

Still Coming November BL

11/30 For Him (Thurs ????) ep 1 of 10 - high heat trailer, I suspect iQIYI will scoop this one up. From the people who brought us Unforgotten Night (please no) based on a y-novel, man nursing a heartbreak has a one-night stand, but the other boy didn't want it to end. It looks terribly trashy so I'm in! Maybe I'll do a trash watch?

Nov 2023 line up with screen caps here. Not kept updated.

Original 2023 forthcoming BL master post (see comments, some are inaccurate, NOT KEPT UPDATED).

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

To be fair this was last week but I did get the screen shot until now. (You are Mine)

I Cannot Reach You serving all Japan's favorite tropes plus some very un-Japan decent kisses.

(Last week)

#this week in bl #bl updates #bl review #I Cannot Reach You #Japanese BL #You Are Mine #Taiwanese BL #Let's Eat Together Aki and Haru #Let's Eat Together Aki and Haru review #2023 bl #upcoming bl #My Dear Gangster Oppa #Thai Bl #Last Twilight #GMMTV #Twins the series #Pit Babe #Playboyy #A Breeze of Love

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raccoonbatz · 1 year

Text

Can I tell you a secret?

[Robbie Shapiro x F!Reader]

A/N: Hi! This fic is inspired by the gif above :) I've only seen a handfull robbie fanfics and I am still completely in love with that man so I wanted to write one myself :) oh and english isn't my first language! so sorry if some words are weird lol

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

Summary: Robbie finally confessing his feelings for the girl he's been in love with for the past months.

Warnings: None, just extreme fluff.

It was the big night, the cow-wow dance was tonight and Y/n was pretty excited. It was her first schoolevent at Hollywood Arts.

"Earth to Y/n?" Jade said as they walked towards the school. In the 5 months that y/n attended HA Jade became her closest friend. Sure, she can be bit mean but for some reason she took y/n under her wing and since then they kinda became inseperable.

"Sorry, I'm just kinda nervous I guess?" Y/n said as she fixed the bowties in her ponytails.

"Nervous? for what? Sinjin in a hula?" Jade snickered

"No- no, not that." Y/n chuckled. "Even tho it is something I should avoid." She said.

"For what are u nervous then?" Jade asked once again. They finally arrived at the school and everything was very well decorated.

"I- eh-" Y/n stuttered but before she could finish her sentence, someone yelled her name.

"Y/n! Y/n!" She heard a familliar voice yell. She turned around and locked eyes with the cute curly haired boy. She smiled, but her smile faded quickly as she saw that he was with an unfamiliar face. Jade saw her smile fade.

"Ur finally here!" He said as he approched her.

"Yea, uh- we had some stuff we still had to fix-" She said but he interupted her.

"This is Gabriela, my date!" He said proudly and smiled. Gabriela looked up and gave Y/n and Jade a small smile.

"Hey" She said, a bit cold.

Y/n gave a weak smile and looked back at Jade, who was just staring with an angry look on her face.

Robbie didn't really knew what was going on as he looked at the girls confused.

"Well.. Okay, Im going to get something to drink for Gabriela, u guys want something?" He asked a bit hesitant.

"Yea s-" Y/n said but was interupted by Jade.

"We can get it ourselves." She said annoyed. Robbie shrugged and took Gabriela's arm as he wandered off with her. As they walked off Beck arrived, sneaking an arm around Jade's waist.

"Hey you guys, what just happend?" He asked as he took a sip of his drink.

"Robbie happend." Jade said annoyed as she took the drink from becks hand and took a sip herself.

"It's fine Jade, Really.." Y/n said a bit sad.

"No, it's not okay." Jade said and looked at Beck.

"We got work to do." Jade said and Beck just nodded.

"No, Jade, please. It's fi-" Y/n tried to say, but before she could finish her sentence Jade and Beck were already on their way. Y/n sighed as she walked towards the drink booth and took a cup of whatever. The first big event at her new school and it was already a shitshow.

"Hey y/n/n." She heard from behind her. She looked around and saw Andre and Tori walking up to her.

"Hey guys." Y/n said a bit devistated.

"What's wrong?" Andre asked a bit worried.

"I don't really know, I'm feeling all these things that I didn't knew existed until now." Y/n said as she took a sip of her drink.

"U wanna talk about it?" Tori offered.

"Not really, sorry." Y/n said and gave a weak smile. "Thanks tho." She added.

"It's no problem." Andre said as he looked at the time.

"Shit, we have to go on in like 10 minutes-" Andre said worried and Tori looked up.

"Sorry y/n, we gotta prepare for the show. But after that, we're going to hang and make the best out of tonight. Okay?" Tori said and y/n nodded.

"Thanks guys" Y/n said a bit happier and hugged them both.

"Imma cheer u guys on the whole show, u know that right?" Y/n chuckled and they nodded.

"You better!" Andre said as they walked away. Y/n was alone, again. Jade and beck were nowhere to be found, Robbie was probably dancing with that girl of his and cat? Cat was also nowhere to be found. Y/n decided to sit on one of the picnic tables in the corner of the parkinglot, still sipping her drink. Everyone was having fun time, why couldn't she?

In the meantime Robbie was being harassed by Jade.

"What did u do, shapiro?" Jade asked angrily as she grabbed the collar of his button-up.

"I don't know! What did I do?" Robbie asked confused, looking pannicked back at Beck.

"I have no clue my friend, but u better fix it now." Beck said, trying not to intervine with what going on.

"Jade- please. Tell me what I did wrong so I can f-fix it, please?" Robbie asked and Jade loosend her grip.

"You hurted Y/n, stop playing dumb." She said annoyed as she let him go.

"How- You know I would never ever hurt her on purpose!" He said, still a bit panicked.

"Did I hurt her..?" He added, now a bit worried.

"Are you fucking blind?" She basically screamed.

"I mean, kinda? I have pretty strong gla-" Robbie said but got interupted by Jade.

"She likes you!" Jade said while facepalming. Robbie's eyes wident.

"She didn't even have to tell me and I already knew by the way she acts around you. How can you be so incredibly dumb?" Jade added and sighed.

"Where is she?" Robbie asked in a hurry.

"I don't know, probably around here somewh-" Jade couldn't even finish her sentence or Robbie was already gone. Jade looked at Beck who was still just standing there.

"Let's get something to drink-" Jade said.

"Yea, good idea." Beck added as they walked away.

Y/n was still sitting on top of the picnic table, listening to the music. Her feet were dangeling off the side.

"There you are-" She heard a familiar voice say.

"Oh, hey Robs." She said without looking up.

Robbie sat down next to her and gave her a cup with something to drink. She took the drink from his hands and looked up.

"Thanks-" She said but looked confused.

"Where is ur date?" She added and looked confused. Robbie chuckled.

"I don't know, haven't seen her all night." He said as he placed down his drink next to him.

"I have a small feeling that we gotta talk" He said as he turned his head towards her. Y/n felt her cheeks heat up a bit.

"Okay- I don't know what Jade told u-" She started and looked down again but he interupted her.

"Look, Y/n," He paused for a second. The look on his face gave away that he was struggeling to find the right words. Y/n got a bit anxious, because most of the times when people are looking for the right words it's not positive.

"Can I tell you a secret?" He finally said and smiled a bit.

'Sure" Y/n said, still looking at the ground.

Robbie got close to her ear, as if he wanted to whisper something but instead he stopped, slowly raised his hand and slowly turned her head with his finger and gave her a soft, sweet kiss. She was taken a bit back at first. Butterflies exploded in her stomach as she melted away in the kiss. Robbie then pulled away, not breaking eye contact.

"Now I still don't know your secret-" Y/n said to break the silence. They both chuckled.

"I've liked you since the moment i've met you, y/n." He said softly which grew a huge smile on Y/n face.

"Well, good to know. Because I like you too, Shapiro." Y/n said and Robbie smiled.

"That's good, because it would've been weird if I kissed you and you didn't." He said and the both laughed for a bit. Robbie took y/n hand and sat closer to her. Y/n looked up again, stealing a quick kiss from him.

"Couldn't resist, sorry." She said and they both chuckled again.

"You can steal all the kisses you want from now on, no need to worry." He said and smiled. Y/n leaned her head on his shoulder.

#robbie shapiro #victorious #robbie shapiro x reader #jade west #beck oliver #andre harris #tori vega #cat valentine #victorious x reader

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luveline · 11 months

Note

JADE THE EDDIE ZOMBIE AU WITH SHY!READER IS EVERYTHING I COULD HAVE WISHED FOR! could I request eddie cuddling the reader for the first time? maybe shy!reader gets an infection from her injuries or gets sick and he has to cuddle her to keep her warm??

thank u! eddie zombie au —you and eddie get to know one another and share a shy cuddle. fem!reader, 1.4k

tw throwing up/ vomit mention

You're in the kind of pain that makes you nauseous whenever you move, and medication isn't making it better. Eddie —your saviour, and your new friend— keeps you doped up generously, but you're terrified to take the strong stuff and he's not eager to give you anything too sedative anyhow.

"I don't want you to think I'm being selfish," he says, laying on the floor next to the dusty couch that makes for your sick bed, "but I don't know what dose is right, especially when you've had half a bottle of Tylenol in two days. And you had that rum. I should not have let you drink that."

The rum numbed the pain quickly, but mixing alcohol and painkillers is a terrible idea. You'd been in agony and couldn't have cared less at the time, meanwhile Eddie's adrenaline wore off and he confiscated the bottle. Two hazy days later and you're not feeling any better than you had. It's concerning.

"I think I feel sick," you confess.

Eddie sits up. When he looks at you, it's with all the care and concern of someone who's known you for years rather than days. "How sick?"

"Just… sick."

He holds up his hand carefully. "Can I?" he asks. You nod, and he presses his knuckles to your forehead, moving it an inch lower as he feels for your temperature.

Eddie frowns. "Alright, not great."

He eases your shirt up your hip. You're shy, sure, but his touch feels disarmingly intimate, his fingertips barely touching you as he peels the medical tape away from your gauze. He's already changed it twice. Your wound is messy even with his frankly impressive stitching.

How come you're so good at them? you'd asked him.

Well, I– I played this game with my friends and we made costumes, sometimes. Guess it came in handy. You know, it's funny, I had to give myself a couple of stitches a while back and it was Shelley-esque.

Maybe 'cos you couldn't feel them… How are we going to take them out? you'd asked.

His easy smile abated. Um. Well, we'll figure that out.

Eddie peels the gauze from your hip. "Don't look."

"What?" you ask, looking down.

Eddie puts his hand in front of your face. "Don't look, I don't want you to panic again."

"Is it worth panicking over?" you ask.

"I don't think it is, but if you see it you'll panic because it's your cut. I think I'm gonna wash it again, okay? Does that sound cool?"

"I can do it," you say.

"You don't do it, that would require looking at it."

"I can't look at it," you insist.

Eddie does the strangest thing, a short line stroke against the uninjured skin beside your wound. He's trying to comfort you, you realise.

This is why you wouldn't mind being friends with him. If he was going to murder you, he probably wouldn't have bothered saving your life, and he's been really friendly, even when you puked up your dinner yesterday and he had to help you change, too weak from blood loss to do it yourself. He made you more dinner afterwards, too, heating up a can of something on a camping butane fire.

He's a nice person, you think. A good person.

Eddie washes your wound with water warmed and then left to cool over the camping fire. He pats it dry with a cotton pad, shushing you sympathetically when you whimper. "I have an antiseptic," he says gently, "a real one, not just the rum. We'll put some of that on and let it breathe, yeah?"

"Whatever you think you should should," you say.

"Okay. Sit tight. It might hurt again."

The antiseptic is cold, and it stings for a few seconds where the warm water hadn't. When he's done, Eddie wipes his hands clean and folds your shirt up to keep the cut unmarred.

You relax, Eddie diligent at your side. He unveils a pack of goldfish snacks he'd been saving for a special occasion and won't listen to you when you refuse them, opening them and pouring a splash of them onto your chest. "They're birthday cake flavour," he says.

"Don't give me your nice food," you say.

"Why not? I'm happy to do it. Just eat them. Unless you don't like them? I'm eighty percent sure I have twinkie, and there's a tiny Hershey's bar. Do you like chocolate?”

You eat some of his snacks and reject everything else he offers you. You only get up to use the bathroom (a bucket you'd rather not talk about). Eddie brings you some more warm water and a cloth when the sun sets to wash and sits in the kitchen of the pizzeria to offer you some privacy.

The staff room feels scary without him. You've known him for not even three days, and already you're worried he's going to run off without you. Considering you'd probably die if he left you now, it's a typical reaction, but he's being so nice. You'd been fucking tired of dragging yourself from one place to another; having someone else waiting on you is a miracle.

A reprieve.

"Eddie?" you call.

"You okay?"

"You can come back. I'm done."

"Awesome," he says, quick to turn the corner. He checks that his wagon and bike are still connected before rolling them to the back of the room. With everything done for tonight, he secures the room, hooking a chair under the door handle, and pushing a half filled water tank in front of it.

"Need anything else?" he asks, crouching in front of you.

"No," you say gratefully.

"Okay." He sits down on the floor, laying back, your bodies in line and apart. "Tell me if you do."

You puked on his blanket, too, and he hadn't been able to wash it. He took all the gross stuff, your ruined clothes, blood and vomit covered, and chucked it outside far from the building.

"I'm really sorry about… making such a mess," you say, turning as onto your side as you can manage.

"Don't be sorry, you couldn't help it."

"Did you–" You lick your lips quickly. “There's room up here. Not a lot, I know, but you don't have to sleep on the floor. It's getting cold."

"I don't wanna squish you," he says.

"I can handle some squishing. You've done so much for me, I don't like that you're on the ground." You clear your throat. "If you want to. I don't mind," you mumble.

"I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

"It's okay," you say, shifting as far into the back of the couch as you can. It's nice and wide but he'll have to lay on his side to fit. "It might be nice. It really is cold."

As soon as you've said it, your skin flushes with heat. Embarrassment has you staring resolutely at the wall, more eager than you want to be as Eddie sits on the couch and eases onto his side, legs straight, arms tucked in. It's never going to be comfortable.

"You can touch me," you say. "It's fine."

Beyond his grazing fingers, you haven't been touched with anything akin to kindness since before the apocalypse began. You want it badly, so badly that his arm pressed over your waist makes you cringe at first.

"Kinda awkward," he says.

"I don't remember the last time…"

You turn your head toward his but close your eyes. Eddie sighs, his body heat already seeping into your side where he's cuddling into you. His arm relaxes over your front, and you relax in turn beneath him.

"Me neither," he murmurs. "Don't let me hurt you, okay? Push me off if I get too close to your hip."

You agree. Things are strange for a while, the nerves of being close to him strangling any pleasure, but eventually Eddie falls asleep, his face falling into the slope of your shoulder, and you wrap your arm around his waist to keep him from falling on the ground in his sleep, and the strangeness melds to bone-deep relief.

It's very, very nice to be held by someone.

Eddie's curls tickle your face. He snores in his sleep. You try your best to ignore it.

#eddie zombie!au with shy reader #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson oneshot #eddie munson scenario #eddie munson drabble #eddie munson fic #eddie munson fanfiction #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things #stranger things fic #stranger things x reader #stranger things 4

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ryuichirou · 23 days

Note

Okay I know you made this art like AGES ago but the womb tattoo Idia lives rentfree in my head and I wanted to ask if you had any hcs connected to that, like which character would love it and breed him nonstop, who'd find it hot in theory but not actually want to knock him up, who'd just make him get rid of it to not even risk it... or maybe someone would just make him a public breeding stock?

Hi again, Anon!

I am so happy you liked that one; I randomly remember that idea from time to time as well. We definitely should revisit it, and I should draw it again, but for now I’ll use your ask as an opportunity to talk about it!

First of all, “public breeding stock” is a phrase that feels so wrong yet so right when you apply it to Idia… thank you for putting this image in our heads. Ah, the way he should be treated 😔

As for the boys, I think none of them would want to get rid of the tattoo in an easy non-sexual manner; maybe it’s because of magic, maybe it’s horny monkey brain, but the moment they see it on Idia’s stomach, they’ll go ballistic lol

I also think that the majority of the boys we ship Idia with wouldn’t actually want to knock him up BUUUUT there is some nuance to this whole thing, so let’s go through the list of our main Idia ships…

Azul – this one actually has some hcs, since the original comic is Azul/Idia-centric! The moment Azul learns about the true meaning of the tattoo, he’ll play the “oh how dare you, did you want to use me for your own satisfaction, Idia-san?” card, of course being very obviously fake about this heartbreak and betrayal of trust. And he would completely ignore the fact that Idia wasn’t planning on doing that at all… and he’ll keep talking about it, while having sex with Idia, completely ignoring Idia who is trying to explain that this isn’t the case. The fact that Idia’s mouth starts smiling involuntarily due to how good it feels doesn’t help his case at all.

Azul doesn’t really buy the breeding thing, but he’ll still get overly horny simply due to how much power he has over Idia in this state, especially as the tattoo lights up with his every move and how Idia exhales whenever the dick leaves his body. They’ll break the spell, but Azul will definitely use it in the future. Controlling Idia by having the one thing that he wants sounds like too powerful of an idea to ignore it. Azul is on his way to learn how to cast it! (he’ll also try not to think about how much he genuinely loved seeing Idia looking like this and desiring him…)

Jade and Floyd will get super into in this exciting new thing that Idia did to himself. It’s like a fun toy just got upgraded into the best toy! Idia is already pretty easy to chase and freak out, but when he’s barely running because his body actually wants him to get railed by these two, even though his mind isn’t… it’s perfect. It also feels like when Idia is scared of them, his sexual frustration gets even worse, so by the time they finally get tired of playing around and pin him down, his tattoo would be so bright and hot and his hips would move on their own because he’s desperate. These two would really push the tattoo’s effect to its absolute limits before they even get to touch Idia directly. So of course they’ll comment on how pathetic Idia looks, and of course they’ll play with him for hours!

While they probably won’t be very interested in the breeding part, they would love how Idia begs them to stop but also keeps clinging to them. They’ll also love how his belly is getting filled and stretched as they finish inside for the 5th time both, and Jade would be the one to not only comment on that, and then Floyd would put pressure on the belly to make Idia squirt out everything he’s been storing inside for the past two hours. His tattoo almost started disappearing, too..! But now that Idia is empty, it’s bright and hungry again.

Ortho – Of course he’ll help his niisan/niichan out! Isn’t it for the best that they can do it together and Idia won’t have to embarrass himself in front of other people? Not to mention, they’ve read a hentai manga just like that about a younger brother who helped out his older sister in the exact same way! What do you mean Ortho shouldn’t have access to this type of literature? Too late! Anyways, he’ll ignore Idia moaning about how wrong this it because he’s too busy enjoying how the tattoo colour changes whenever he changes the settings of his robo-dick.

Ironically, I can picture him of all people kind of wishing to knock Idia up, both as AI Ortho and as actual human Ortho. Not only he’ll say it while fucking the living daylights out of Idia, he’ll also make sure that by the time of his third orgasm Idia would start agreeing with him while crying of pleasure. This would’ve instantly became a cringe memory that Idia could’ve easily brushed off (he wasn’t really himself, it was the tattoo’s fault) when the whole thing is over; but Ortho would say that it’s a bummer that actually knocking Idia up is impossible… Ortho, please, you are the one person who SHOULDN’T think about it!

Sebek – no thoughts head empty; after figuring out what kind of curse this tattoo implies and yelling at Idia for being so obscene, he’ll get consumed by the desire to breed him. Maybe fae react to this type of tattoo stronger? Maybe it’s just a Sebek thing. But the moment he stares at the tattoo for longer than 2 seconds, his pupils will dilate and he will get super horny. He might get a vague desire to actually impregnate Idia, and it’ll keep his hips going like crazy, but it wouldn’t go further than that. Even though for a moment there he really would feel like Idia’s body is capable of handling fae eggs or anything else for that matter… Still, Sebek will fill Idia with to the brim and just keep creampie-ing him until both of them pass out.

Lilia – he is the one guy who is actually aware about the tattoo and what it represents, and he would be very impressed by the fact that Idia managed to do this to himself somehow. This is absolutely the first time Lilia witnessed someone doing it on accident… He’ll scare Idia with stories about how some infertile fae casted this spell on themselves and pumped out like 5 babies that year in one go, and how the tattoo means that Idia won’t go back to normal until his body is properly satiated with thick and potent seed. Idia could just ignore it of course, it won’t kill him, he’ll just feel incredibly horny all the time and start feeling the urge to shove anything even remotely phallic inside his ass—this is where Idia would beg Lilia to stop talking and making everything worse lol

Lilia will fuck Idia alright! And he’ll feel him good, while still talking about how Idia’s body will start changing whether he wants it or not. Idia will be completely terrified but also too horny to think about anything because Lilia would feel way too good.

But ALSO. When Lilia himself is done (grandpa can’t go 10 rounds like he used to…), he could actually do the “making Idia a public breeding stock” thing and just invite all the Diasomnia students to have their way with Idia. He’ll stay there the whole time, holding Idia’s legs and patting his head playfully while Idia completely loses his mind because both his hair and his tattoo would go absolutely crazy because of how overwhelmed and horny he is. He wouldn’t remember just how many guys he took that day, but thankfully, they left plenty of autographs on his body with a marker that Lilia found somewhere.

#replies #headcanons #azuide #shroudcest #lilidia #jadidi #floidi #sebeide

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spyskater · 1 year

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The quotes I believe are every characters' thesis statement in Willow (2022) and why. Elora: I believe that love is the most powerful force in the universe. Kit: You're afraid. So am I. But you know what? My fear, it doesn't get to decide. It doesn't get to, to define me. I'm not giving it the power. I'm giving it to you. I have never believed in anything my whole life. I believe in you. Jade: Yeah, and when you love someone and they need you, yes, you jump off the edge of the world to go and get to them. Graydon: One day you and I are gonna be in charge. And when that day comes, we don't have to do things the way our parents did. Boorman: I finally figured it out. This isn't my story. It's yours. You're the one. And all you gotta do is believe in yourself, and you'll be unstoppable. Willow: You know, it's taken me a long time to learn, it's okay to fall, to make mistakes. I've made lots... The trick is to embrace your defeats as well as your victories. You pay for both in the end. Be decent. Be fearless. And know this, wherever the adventure leads, I'm with you. Airk: You know, defend the realm and just be the best brother, and husband, and father, and son that I can possibly be. Because that is what you do when you have honor, right? Scorpia: All we have ever wanted is our freedom. That our children would not have to live in fear. They'd serve no master... We have no barrier to hide behind, no army to defend us. All we have is the fear our masks evoke, the determination to survive, and each other... Freedom, rebellion, passion, joy. To the break of dawn! Sorsha: Everything I've done, I've done to protect the people I love. It costs a lot. Madmartigan: It was the hardest thing I've ever done. But love is sacrifice. You've gotta be willing to give up what you want for what you believe in.

Elora's is extremely obvious. As the heroine and chosen one of our show, her quote not only represents who she is and what she believes, but the most important message that the show wants to leave us with. At the end of the day, love above all things. Let that be your guiding force. It's what all of our characters come away with. Jade lets go of her ideals of duty to follow her heart to Kit. Kit learns to love and gains courage through it. Airk is saved by Kit through the power of love. Graydon becomes who he's always dreamed of, partially due to his love of Elora. Elora is able to fully grasp her power through her love of Graydon. And Elora tells us throughout the season that love is the most powerful thing in the universe, at first taken as a joke by Airk, Kit, and the audience and evolving into the hopeful statement we're meant to latch onto.

This is Kit's big moment. She spends the entire season having everything she thought she knew stripped from her. When you have nothing left, it'll make you reevaluate what you truly want and what you believe. We know that all Kit has wanted is to be brave and loved and I would argue that quote is part one of the thesis of Kit. It's Jade's love that gives Kit the bravery to take the leap of faith. As she stares at the edge of the world, she's probably at her most fearful. But she's spent her whole life giving into fear, fear of loss, fear of rejection, fear of abandonment. She knows what it means to give fear power, so she chooses to give the power to Elora, to love, to hope, to finally believing in something greater than herself. And by choosing not to give into fear, she also inspires Elora to do the same. Fear no longer gets to control Kit and we shouldn't let it control us either.

Like Kit, Jade is completely stripped of everything she knows about herself. Her honor, her duty, her history, her beliefs, her identity, it all comes into question. But she had to lose all of the things that she thought made her Jade Claymore in order for her to truly follow her heart. You don't jump off the edge of the world out of duty. You do it out of love. Jade does it for Kit. Graydon does it for Elora. Elora and Kit do it for Airk. And while I don't think Jade fully knows what any of what she's learned means for her and her future, the one thing she does know for a fact at the end of the season, which was the only thing that she was uncertain of at the beginning, is that she is totally, ridiculously, desperately in love with Kit and that love is returned. It's like Elora said, love is the most power thing in the universe and Jade now knows that.

Graydon's quote, I find, is one of the most important quotes of the show. This is the story of the next generation learning from the previous one’s mistakes and trying to do better. All of our younger characters are forced to confront the mistakes of their elders, especially Willow, Sorsha, and Madmartigan’s. Kit as Elora’s protector and learning that love comes before dutiful sacrifice (her parents). Jade learning love before duty and honor (Ballantine). Boorman facing the mistakes he made with the older generation and making the better choice with the younger one. Going on this adventure with the others, Graydon is able to find his true self and make his own choices. Just because his father wants him to be one thing, doesn't mean that Gray has to be that. He gets to be his own man. You get to be who you want to be, not what your parents want.

Boorman desperately wants to be the hero of the story and that’s probably the source of a lot of his bravado. He feels shame for leaving Madmartigan for dead, for lying about his escape from Skellin, because it’s not a heroic tale. He was a teenager/young man when he went after the Cuirass with Mads. He was Jade once upon a time, a squire in service to Tir Asleen royalty. The problem is that Boorman thinks the cuirass is the only way he can be a hero and being a hero is the only way to make up for his mistakes. But the cuirass is not meant for him; it’s not his story. The way for him to come full circle and become whole is to make up for his sins against Mads by giving the cuirass to his daughter. He’s not the hero of this story, but I do believe he’s the hero of another.

Willow gives us another important message of the show that we've seen throughout the season. Our mentor's journey over the course of the season is to let go. Willow can't seem to accept the consequences of the past. The loss of his wife. The departure of his son. The loss of Elora. The fact that he never became the sorcerer he thought he was meant to be. All of this causes him to be incapable of training Elora with any sort of true openness or understanding. Where Elora needs freedom and a safe place to fail, Willow only provides restrictions and pressure. The world can't afford for Elora to fail. And if Elora fails, she dies. But in the end, it's only his ability to accept his failures and victories that allows him to help Elora grow to become the hero she needs to be. And it's an important lesson for us.

Airk is a character that could have easily played into his own trope of charming playboy prince without a care in the world, but this quote helps separate him from stereotype. In episode one, I'm sure we would all admit we all believed, like Kit, that Airk didn't know Elora's public name. But he did. And throughout his time resisting the Crone, Airk proved time and time again that he truly was honorable and that all he wanted was to be good. Madmartigan's departure and Kit's future ascension left Airk looking for his purpose and trying to prove to his family that he was everything his absentee father couldn't be. He does everything he can to be a good boyfriend, a good brother, a good son, a good diplomat, and, in episode seven, he does everything he can to be a good man.

Scorpia is an inspiration. She has lost so much, but still finds the strength to care deeply in the face of her grief. She's lost her mother, father, and several brothers and sisters, but finds it in herself to keep loving. She may be mostly concerned about her people, but it's their philosophy of life, of freedom and liberation (another analysis yet to be written) that sends her on a crusade to save all of those people in Skellin. Not just her people, but all people. And I think that will be important in the war to come. As much as Scorpia will want to avoid war, her belief in freedom for all and rebellion will convince her that it's necessary. The entire Wildwood episode shows us the joy and passion and freedom that's a stake, what's worth fighting for. There is no freedom under the Wyrm and Scorpia will not accept that.

I think it's important to discuss Sorsha and Madmartigan's quotes together, because they explain their mistakes as well as layer them with complexities. One of the things that kind of irritates me is when people paint Mads as saint and Sorsha as awful, because they're cut from the same cloth (Kit, I love you, but I blame you for this). At the end of the day, they were willing to make the hard sacrifices if it meant protecting their kids and saving the world. Neither one of them could have foreseen the harm that their choices would have, but they did what they thought was right. They are one and the same, united in their cause and parenthood. But every single choice also cost them so much sacrifice, the biggest one being their chance at parenting Elora, and I think a lot of people forget that, especially when it comes to Sorsha.

#willow 2022 #willow #kit tanthalos #jade claymore #elora danan #graydon hastur #thraxus boorman #airk tanthalos #venoma scorpia #sorsha tanthalos #madmartigan #willow meta #meta #watch me write essays for most of these

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scoonsalicious · 2 months

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Unwanted: Chapter 12, Unlucky - Pt. 4

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Fem!Reader

Warnings: (For this part only; see Story Masterlist for general Warnings) Language, mentions of violence.

Word Count: 1.2k

Previously On...: You learned the extend of Rhodey's condition and, based on Sam's testimony, Carthage is to be held responsible. When Tony ripped into her, Bucky came to her rescue. Much to your embarrassment, Tony called out his penchant for being there for Carthage over you in front of the entire team. Sam overhears how you want Carthage gone; he suggests you, he, and Natasha talk.

A/N: Some interesting information is revealed. Interesting information indeed. This is a scheduled post, so I hope I'm having a good time in NoLa right now! lol

Banner By: The absolutely amazing @mrsbuckybarnes1917!

Thank you to all those who have been reading; if you like what you've read, likes, comments, and reblogs give me life, and I truly appreciate them, and you!

Moments later, the three of you were holed up in your room, as it was on the floor closest to the med bay. You and Nat sat on the couch while Sam, who had quickly rinsed himself of Rhodey’s blood in your shower, and was now wearing your terrycloth robe, sat in one of your armchairs. While passing Jade’s room, you’d put an ear to her door and heard her still crying, the low thrum of Bucky’s voice as he tried to reassure her.

“Spill,” said Nat eagerly. “Who knows how much time we have before Barnes gets back.”

“Yeah, on second thought, this might not have been the best place for a clandestine meeting,” Sam said.

“Just talk!” you urged him.

“Okay, okay!” he began. “So, I think we were set up.”

You and Nat both gasped simultaneously. “You’re not suggesting–” you said, just as Nat said:

“You think Carthage faked the intel?”

Sam shrugged. “I can’t prove it, but none of it adds up,” he said. “To be honest, she was pretty useless on the entire mission. Didn’t come up with a single piece of intel until that final night, and it just so happened to point to an abandoned Hydra base? Come on, man, what are the odds of that?” Sam scoffed.

“We told her protocol dictated we report it back to command, then wait for back up if the intel was deemed worthy of investigating. She got real insistent we check it ourselves, told us it was probably nothing, but even if it was something, it’d just be an abandoned spot. Said her source told her it had a motherlode of dirt on Hydra operatives in positions in international governments. If we could bring it home, we’d be single handedly exposing the very inner workings of Hydra, and how could we not do that? Rhodey wanted to go interrogate her ‘source’ himself, but Jade wouldn’t give it up; said he just had to trust her.” Sam snorted. “Girl, please. You’re a fucking snake.” You couldn’t help but giggle at that; you’d had essentially the same thought, once upon a time.

“Everything we do to try to convince her to hold off, she fights us on. There was nothing we could say to get her to let go of the idea. But we’re thinking Probie just wants to prove herself in the field, right? We’ve all been there. When she took off, we followed her. Figured we’d at least have her six if something went screwy, and we weren’t going to get reamed out by Cap and Stark if something happened to her out there. But here’s the thing:” Sam scootched forward until he was sitting at the very edge of his seat. “She went in there well before us. By at least three, maybe five minutes, okay?” You and Nat both nodded. “So, my question then becomes, ‘how come the shooting don’t start until after me and Rhodey go in?’ ‘s almost like she went in first and gave them the signal to start firing.” You and Nat stared at each other, wide-eyed. It was speculative, true, but…

“And she don’t come out with a scratch, or a drop of blood on her.” Sam continued. “Plus, I checked her clips when she was sleeping on the flight home. Girl didn’t fire a single shot. Me and Rhodey are in a shootout for our lives, and she doesn’t fire one bullet? Almost like she knew she didn’t need to defend herself.”

“Or you,” Nat added thoughtfully.

“Sam,” you began slowly, “I hate her more than everyone else in this building, but you’re making a really heavy accusation. We would need real, hard evidence in order to do anything about it. She could just really be that incompetent.”

“That’s why I’m comin’ to the two of you,” he grinned. “Computer genius and a super spy. Shouldn’t be hard for the two of you to help Ole Sammy out.”

“Ugh, I hate it when you refer to yourself as ‘Ole Sammy,’” Nat bemoaned. “But I’ll reach out to some of my old KGB contacts. See what they drum up. Pocket, can you go through the Tower’s systems, see if she’s tried to access anything she shouldn’t have? Anything that sets off alarm bells?”

You nodded. “Yeah, that’ll be easy enough.”

“Good,” said Sam, standing up. “In the meantime, this stays between the three of us. Pocket, you gonna be able to keep this from Tin Man? He’s a little too cozy with her for my taste.”

You snorted at that. “Yeah, mine, too. Don’t worry, I won’t say a word.”

“Neither will I,” Nat promised.

“Alright then, ladies, meeting adjourned.” Sam said as he walked to the door. You followed him, wanting to see him out. As you opened the door for him, you met Bucky in the hallway, leaving Jade’s room.

“Hey there, Buck,” Sam smiled cheerfully before giving you a peck on the head. “Thanks for the chat, Baby Girl. I’ll see you later.”

You and Bucky watched him walk down the hall before he turned to you, eyes narrowed. “Care to tell me why Big Bird is coming out of our room wearing nothing but your robe?” he asked carefully.

“We’re obviously having an affair,” you said dryly, walking back into your room, him right at your heels.

“Well, if it walks like a duck,” Bucky’s voice was angry as he entered your room.

“Are you serious with that right now?” you asked.

“In that case, you’ve been quacking like a duck for a long time now, Barnes,” Nat said from her spot on the couch.

“Oh, hey Nat,” Bucky said, relief washing over his features at knowing you and Sam hadn’t been alone.

Nat stood up and made her way to the door. “I’m gonna head out, let you two work through your ducking issues. See you later, Pocket. Barnes; nice projection work just now.” With a nod, she was gone.

“Listen, Pocket,” Bucky, blatantly ignoring Nat's jab, began, “about earlier…”

“I get it, Buck,” you said, sighing. “You were just trying to protect your friend. I’ll be honest and tell you that I didn’t love the way it looked, and it was embarrassing. But I’m not holding it against you. How can I when you wherefor looking out for someone you care about, even though I really wish you would care about literally anyone else but her? Sorry– that was petty.” You sighed. “Tony made it worse. He’s the one I’m furious with, not you.”

“Thank you for understanding, doll.” He kissed your forehead. “Stark had no right to yell at her like that. He was way outta line.”

“Oh, I’m completely on Tony’s side about that,” you said, holding up a hand when he began to argue with you. “But you and I are going to have to agree to disagree there.”

The corner of his mouth turned up in a cute half-grin. “Alright, sweetheart.” He pulled you to him. “I’m just sorry your special day got overshadowed by all this other shit. I know!” He looked down on you, grinning. “Why don’t you pack a bag and first thing tomorrow, you and I’ll drive Upstate, find ourselves a nice little BnB, and spend the rest of the weekend celebratin’, just the two of us? Maybe we can drive out to the Catskills, find a nice spot to look at the stars. You always complain how you can never see them in the city.”

“Yeah, Buck,” you said, snuggling close to him. “‘S long as we know Rhodey’s gonna be alright, I would love to do that with you.”

<- Previous Part / Next Part ->

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i-guess-im-into-this-now · 1 month

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The Apothecary Diaries

S1E5 First Watch

Here's where I watch The Apothecary Diaries for the first time and give my thoughts, analysis, predictions, and occasionally I stumble into a joke.

If you want to start at the beginning:

Episode 1

My character cheat sheet

Basen - shirtless eunuch

Yinghua - pink flowers LIW

Okay we open with a dude panicking while looking at his diseased cursed hands. He isn't familiar to me but he is dressed a lot like Gaoshun, so he's probably a fellow eunuch in the rear palace. The office he is sitting in looks a lot like Jinshi's but maybe that's coincidental.

Oh yeah, the "eunuchs" are practicing sparring - shirtless! (What are the chances this ever gets a live action adaptation AND this scene doesn't get censored?)

The eunuch, Basen, is clearly not a match for Jinshi. Both are sweating but Basen is out of breath and using everything he has in this match. Jinshi on the other hand deftly avoids attacks, easily maneuvers around the yard, restrains himself to smaller more efficient motions, and doesn't bother with an attack until he can land a decisive blow. Jinshi is the superior swordsman and honestly I'd be disappointed if he weren't.

Jinshi easily beats this guy and they both know it, but Jinshi compliments him on his strengths and encourages Basen. We're seeing another side of Jinshi here. One where he is a capable, wise, and motivating leader. He's also earnest, not teasing or manipulative as we have seen him with Maomao.

As Jinshi has a servant lady wash his back, his first questions to Gaoshun are all about Maomao. How is she? How is her health? Do you think she misses me? Okay, maybe he kept that last one in his head. He's still captivated over seeing Maomao's righteous fury last episode and Gaoshun is not sure he likes it. The lady cleaning his back loves it. Everyone in the room knows Jinshi is simping for the apothecary, even if Jinshi thinks he's hiding it well.

Maomao's delighted to find some mushrooms but doesn't want to reveal her secret mushroom hunting location so she decides to meet up with her servant friend Xiaolan instead of going to the kitchen to prepare them. The time at Crystal Pavilion was really stressful on Maomao and she's lost weight. Everyone has noticed from Jinshi to the ladies of the Jade Pavilion. The latter of whom continuously ply her with delicious food. She's come a long way to developing relationships with the people around her. They notice details about her health, they care, and offer her support.

Palace gossip! A servant girl seduced a military officer who infamously hates women. In typical Maomao fashion, she doesn't care. But I do! Is Maomao the servant girl?! Is the rumor about her? Is Jinshi the woman-hating military officer? Military experience would explain his sword skills. Did the back washing lady spread the gossip? Probably not! But here's hoping! Oh, the servant girl in the gossip used an aphrodisiac to do it! Maybe it really is about Maomao!

How cute that Maomao has become such close friends with the doctor. And both of them are positively salivating over the mushrooms Maomao found. Another link in her support network.

The cursed hands mystery is solved as soon as the story is out of the man's mouth. Maomao truly is superior. The palace doctor boasts about her just as Jinshi walks in with an additional compliment. Jinshi has the doctor well trained to disappear so he can talk to Maomao.

Their interaction is a little different today. A little, I don't quite know, inauthentic maybe? Careful? Calculated? I blame Jinshi, he's almost certainly up to something. Maomao greets him politely, with only the barest hint of sarcasm, but she really can't maintain that level of civility with Jinshi because Jinshi is all ✨sparkles✨ today which means he wants something.

Jinshi: Isn't it all right if I just want to stop by and not talk business?

Maomao: Honestly? Absolutely not.

A hilarious riposte, but also very, very true! He's the palace master and it's not okay for him to simply drop in on a lower ranked servant for anything personal. It could easily land Maomao in trouble if anyone thought there were something going on between the two of them. And people do think that! With the rumor that is going around it is even more important that these two aren't found meeting up in any way that isn't absolutely proper.

Jinshi is momentarily disappointed but not deterred. He makes Maomao take a walk with him. Ultimately, she doesn't have a choice but to obey the palace master.

The guy with the burnt hands must have gone to Jinshi before visiting the doctor, because this is why Jinshi sought out Maomao. He asks for her insights on caustic chemicals. Maomao explains to Jinshi how they work then asks if he needs anything else. To which Jinshi asks her to teapot steam his? I don't know what this means. Is he asking her to make him one of the caustic chemical sticks? That doesn't seem right. Maybe something was lost in translation? Or maybe just lost on me. He also says, in a singsong voice:

I'm counting on you Apothecary

And she says:

He knew the whole time?!

And... it is now occurring to my slow processing mind that they are talking about those mushrooms.

I imagine that these wooden sticks are a secret way of sending messages in the palace. You get a stick that is seemingly nothing important, then in secret you burn it to see what color it is. It would explain why there was a set of ladies robes with burnt sleeves in the trash. She probably caught her sleeve on fire while trying to reveal her secret message.

Whatever it is, Jinshi sends Gaoshun to find everyone who has a recent arm burn.

And Maomao is on the edge of something dangerous now. If it becomes known that she exposed the methods of an illegal group, she could end up as a target. Jinshi didn't tell her what is going on, but he knows she is smart enough to figure it out, and he must trust her to handle the information confidentially. She knows this business is nothing good and wants to stay out of it. She really does try.

And I'm realizing why their conversation earlier was weird. Jinshi wanted to give the impression to any listening ears that he wanted to talk to Maomao privately about something personal rather than business related because he doesn't want it known that she is involved in this case. Which means it probably is something dangerous. And also that he cares if something happens to Maomao. Whether that is because she is a useful detective/doctor for him or if he has more personal feelings for her, who can say. Actually, we can. We've been watching this show and it's increasingly obvious that he totally cares about Maomao for all the reasons!

Oh sweet! The emperor is throwing a garden party and Maomao has to go! I am so excited for this, maybe not as excited as Yinghua, but close. We get the run down from Yinghua that the four highest ranking concubines and their retinues will be there. Lady Gyokuyou doesn't have as many ladies as the others so everyone is being called to battle attend including Maomao. And since there is food being served, especially Maomao.

Maomao worries that she'll run into Jinshi at the party to which I say - I frickin hope so! These girls are going to give Maomao a glam up and seeing how Jinshi responds to that is now my greatest desire from this show.

Maomao is nervous but goes through a list of the most likely things to irritate her at the party then makes a plan to mitigate what annoyances she can. Cooking up a medicinal remedy is a no-brainer, but she also sews warming pockets into her undergarments proving that her versatility in solving problems extends outside of medicine. The other ladies beg for her to help them too. This group is a team. They support and care for Maomao and she returns favors in a variety of ways.

But oh shit, how exactly did Jinshi find out about her sewing project? Now she's sewing for him? And... everyone wants them, including the emperor's seamstress and head chef?! That's the cost of being an innovator I suppose.

Okay, so what is the deal with Maomao's arm? Why is this the thing she can't heal? I feel like there is a whole lot more going on with this bandaged arm than simple experiments she tested in it. And oh... it occurs to me that maybe she hasn't been experimenting on her arm to injure herself and test poisons, but maybe she has been experimenting on her arm to try and heal it. Hmmm. Something to consider.

But speaking of harming oneself, Maomao has been working herself to exhaustion, and she's not quitting. *Sigh* Sleep is also an important preparation for the party.

The ladies of the Jade Pavilion are preparing on the day of the party. Lady Gyokuyou gifts jewelry to each of them and the ladies conspire to put make-up on Maomao. They wash her face and discover... she's been altering her appearance to appear less appealing? Uh-oh. That's probably not a sign of anything good. I wondered a few episodes back if Maomao had been sexually assaulted or something similar in the past, and this behavior would align with that. I do hope there is another explanation that I'm not thinking of.

Okay, Jinshi's looking pretty good in his party finery. He's also so excited to see Maomao. Gaoshun refers to Maomao as Jinshi's favorite toy. Not a flattering description. He then complains about how troublesome Jinshi is. So, I guess Gaoshun isn't going to help build this ship then. Unfortunately for Gaoshun, Jinshi doesn't need any help building his own ship.

And thank you Jinshi for giving me everything I wanted from this scene. He hops over to Maomao like a damn fool pretending that he going to look at the baby.

Now, to check in on the princess!

But he's staring at Maomao and trying to get her attention instead of actually going to the baby. He's trying to tease her I think.

And yes, stupefied is a new look on Jinshi. A very good one! It takes him a good long time to come to his senses after seeing Maomao in all her glory. He then asks a very inappropriate question:

Are you wearing makeup?

They then have a confusing conversation where Maomao wishes she would have simply lied to him instead of telling the truth while trying to withhold the truth about her freckles. She finally comes out with it, and unfortunately it's pretty close to what I feared. She managed to escape but men had tried to assault her before. The kidnappers that took her did so illegally and now Jinshi knows that (My thoughts and prayers to their families).

Actually Jinshi does pretty good in his reaction to this news. Taking it seriously, offering his sympathy. He regrets what happened:

If only we could have policed them better.

We? Is this issue something a rear palace manager has any jurisdiction in? Or are you talking on behalf of the empire? Where do you get the authority to criticize or offer apologies on behalf of the empire?

He does seem genuinely sorry that Maomao ended up sold to the rear palace. And Maomao... gives him an out?

I don't particularly mind now. A buyer can't tell if you were kidnapped or just sold off legally. They can't tell, and they really don't care.

And now we see something very genuine from Jinshi. He's a buyer, or he's at least in charge of the people who do the buying. He is culpable in what happened to Maomao and others like her, even if her couldn't tell she was kidnapped when she was bought. And he's especially culpable because he didn't care about the evils of human trafficking until this very moment.

He can't even meet her eyes in this moment. The guilt is so great. He asks:

Doesn't that make you angry?

Maomao, misreading Jinshi's emotional crisis, deals a critical blow:

Of course it makes me angry. But it's not your fault, and what can I do at this moment?

And Jinshi is overwhelmed. He takes a pained breath and you can hear the emotion he's trying to tamp down. He manages to get out a shaky "I'm sorry." And Maomao hears it as authentic. She's not understanding the full meaning behind Jinshi's reaction, but she knows it's real.

He pulls the hairpin from his own guan and puts it in Maomao's hair! And fuck me, I wish I knew the symbolism of that. I can guess it isn't a casual gesture between colleagues. After pausing the scene on the reactions of the people in the Jade palace, I can tell than not a single person present thinks that was a casual gesture either.

Jinshi blushes then promptly leaves. To cry. Or maybe order the execution of some slave traders. Maomao thinks it's odd to have received a man's hairpin, but the other ladies take it as a kind of declaration. Which, yeah. Even Lady Gyokuyou says:

It would appear that you are no longer mine alone.

Implying that Jinshi now has some kind of claim on Maomao. This is going to be troublesome for Maomao. And delicious to watch.

Maomao, flabbergasted, asks what it means. Immediately after which a drum is heard and Lady Gyokuyou says:

So it begins!

And boy, if I ain't ready! Ready for this party, but also ready for Maomao and Jinshi to take the next step.

This is absolutely delightful.

Want to start at the beginning?

Episode 1

Next episode

Episode 6

#the apothecary diaries #apothecary diaries #maomao #jinshi #jinmao

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weirdmageddon · 8 months

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OK OK SO!!

First off!!! Hello fellow davejade enjoyer i see you. Second off—what sort of things do you wish you could’ve seen with these two in canon :0. Could be expansion on canon scene, arc direction, or just a new scene entirely. for me personally I would’ve loved to see some genuine fighting collaboration going on. I felt VERY teased with all the magic combo’s in collide.

Third! I know they do a lot of music collaboration in canon, and I’ve seen some things with them making a band together post canon. What sort of sound do you think they’d have/what artist do you think they’d sound like?

Thank you :))

okay god theres so much i wish was expanded on in canon with regard to dave and jade

this post is swan dive into homestuck meta and took me over a day to write. so i would appreciate feedback or discussion on this if you'd like, reblogs appreciated!

despite this question being posed as davejade related, my answers here are actually relevant for anyone interested in homestuck meta as well.

it’s just recently come to my attention that there are a a handful of people on twitter who are vocal davejade dislikers. i didnt know it was actually disliked until i looked it up on twitter, i honestly thought it was a joke blown out of proportion but no they exist! it surprised me a lot to see people think they "lack chemistry". not only because knowing what i know about them thats a ridiculous insinuation, but also i haven't seen the vitriol on tumblr. probably because we can actually poast about it on here in an unabridged manner which thus enables better, deeper critical analysis and engagement with the media. i think also people forget that dave strider is canonically bisexual and are too yaoipilled + facing the consequences of the epilogues to even give davejade a serious look/analysis. (dave dates terezi and karkat in separate timelines, thinks jane is hot, thinks roxy is a babe but shoves it down when he discovers she’s his ectomom lmfao. davesprite—an extension of dave himself—dated jade! but i'm going to cover that in more depth in this post since theres a lot of misunderstandings about the nature of that relationship in fanon.)

(as a side note according to what some people have told me in inbox and what ive seen lol i think that ive been inadvertently been getting people into davejade. it's all in my davejade tag here in chronological order if you'd like to get a Whiff. be sure to read the tags on posts in there too!)

even though theres a lot in this post as it is, it doesn't cover everything ive talked about wrt davejade, and i think it would benefit readers to have complementary posts alongside this for the full picture with stuff it doesn't cover. there's a ton about why theyre cute and why i think they work well together in that tag.

here's some highlight analysis posts, but be sure to check the tag because there's a more in there:

post a / post b / post c / post d / post e / post f (← one of my favorite ask responses ive ever gotten)

i think a huge chunk of the issue has to do with how the narrative handles dave and jade. one of the most damning things to me is how glossed over their canon interactions were in act 5 despite them collaborating on one of the most important things in the story. i haven't talked about this yet but i'm going to do so here. because they’re put on the backburner by the focus of the narrative during act 5, people who don’t read carefully will miss the implications that are there all along in canon but easily passed over.

under the cut ive separated it into multiple parts

1. Jade’s Quest: What Frog Breeding Entails

this is an analysis examining apart exactly what jade and dave did while frog breeding. i wrote it while high which was extremely enlightening and it allowed me to comprehend it and hopefully explain it in an understandable way. i also discuss how shitty the lack of on-screen communication between jade and dave was for this part and the next.

2. Jade & Dave vs. Jack Noir

ive discussed this one before on my blog so it's not as dense (see davejade tag). but i still sewed the gifs together and discuss how unfortunate this was to be be delegated to a banner at the top of mspa and the neglect of that whole arc despite the outcomes of it being reissued by characters thousands of pages later

3. Davesprite and Grimbark Jade

i get into davesprite's head here and try to make his motivations about the breakup clear to the extent that i can infer because jesus fuck i love these characters way too much ive known them for a decade i understand their core personality structures and why they think what they do and what is most likely to happen when extrapolating? i also talk about how grimbark jade changed the way the fandom perceives their relationship, leaving davejade on a low note instead of a high note. and then hs epilogues had even worse consequences for davejade but i wont get into it because it was character assassination all around and doesnt deserve my time or yours. but if you wanna know what i think, here

4. The music question

where actually answer this ask like it's an ask and not an essay

1. Jade’s Quest: What Frog Breeding Entails

i wish we could have seen what collecting frogs entailed for the two of them. what exactly were they doing? jade’s quest is one of the most interesting.

before i start i want to take a tangent and say the frog breeding reminds me of back in 2020-2021 when i would breed hybrid flowers in animal crossing new horizons to get a very specific gene sequence for these flowers to not only use to breed for hybrids, but to get known gene sequences that i could use to “check” the genes of other flowers. the goal is to get two parent flowers whose sequences when bred would make a specific phenotype 100% of the time.

this sounds complicated but here’s what i did for the lilies:

(“rare island” refers to one of the first acnh patches that removed a nook miles island from the pool that had hybrid versions of your native flower of very specific phenotypes for each color. i wrote out the breeding chains to get parents that would always breed that exact flower found on the rare hybrid nmt island that is no longer available.)

the cleanup ALL TO GET the white 2-2-2 lily looked like this. and after i got white 2-2-2 lily it was smooth sailing

after all that i could use the orange 2-2-0 lilies and white 2-2-2 lilies made in the black lily process and get rare island orange 2-2-1 lilies 100% of the time. in mendelian genetics these numbers (2-2-1) are quite literally RR-YY-Ww.

RR-YY-ww (orange) x RR-YY-WW (white) = RR-YY-Ww (orange: heterozygous Ww gene)

and all that effort into getting white 2-2-2 lilies enables me to get it over and over again now. i don’t have to repeat that process to get rare island pink lilies. all i need to do for the pink 2-0-2 lilies is breed two default bag red lilies (2-0-1) together. 50% will be red (2-0-1) lilies, 25% will be black 2-0-0 lilies, and the last 25% will be pink (2-0-2) lilies.

anyway sorry back to the main point. FROG BREEDING. it just reminded me of it. now that i think of it the frog breeding process also reminds me a lot of artbreeder back from when AI was only a fun little toy 4-5 years ago

ok so have a look at what kanaya says about what jade must do. this is the coolest quest imo because of how it progresses and how long it actually is

here’s how it works. remember back in act 2, when the wayward vagabond needed to tie a longer cable to descend down the ship (and refused to give up the ones that made up his mayoral sash)? he used the appearifier in the ship to appearify the extra cable across the gap to his location? that’s how the appearifier normally works when when it’s locked to the present. it’s very straightforward.

when jade appearifies a frozen frog, it shows us this exact thing. she appearified the actual frog itself (the same way WV appearified the actual cable across the gap) to her exact location. it can get the frog out of the ice in the way WV could untrap serenity from the amber. if something’s destiny wouldn’t otherwise be changed, it will not be paradoxified, it will just simply itself be warped to that location, with precise carving if it is somehow trapped inside of something else.

if you could appearify it to your location right now, you wouldnt be able to take it out the appearifier’s crosshairs in person later to alter its destiny because the object won’t be there at that time. it wouldve been with you the entire time. unless you decide to take the appearified item back to that location so that you could appearify it in the past, but that’s the most pointless time loop ever and doesn’t change its destiny.

for this icicle frog jade and dave weren’t capable of changing its destiny anyway, because it was completely encased in ice, and just didn’t bother to go after it. partially because it was with jade at the appearifier the entire time anyway and she can’t exactly put it back in there in the future. the point is, besides jade appearifying it to her location, the frog had no other possible routes of destiny. in that part of lofaf where she appearified the frozen frog from, the ice is too deep to get anything out of it (other than appearifying it) and i’m not sure the forge would have melted it in time before their reckoning ended anyway.

the goal of jade and dave is to target frogs on the appearifier screen and trust that their future selves follow through in altering the frog’s destiny. if so, then the frog’s paradox slime will appear instead and its genes would be collected in addition to creating offspring between multiple paradox clone frog genes. then, dave and jade would necessarily have to go out adventuring and find the frog so that they end up following through for their past selves.

if i understand correctly, jade is creating all the frogs on her planet that grow up with manually modified genes. these frogs must be genetically altered from their parents so that the frogs she creates don’t grow up to become one of their parents (as they’d be identical). the mutant offspring frogs “generation A” she ectobiologizes will eventually mature from tadpoles to frogs, assisted by dave’s time travel. then she will eventually target “generation A” with the appearifier to get their paradox slime to fuse with some other frogs’ paradox slime and create new slightly altered frogs “generation B” (and then follow through on altering the “generation A” frogs’ destiny so their slime and genes can be paradoxified by jade and dave’s past selves). repeat until the genes are fine tuned for the genesis frog.

this is why i compared it to my breeding in animal crossing. getting the genesis frog reminds me of the blue rose paths. i worked with the garden council back in the day and i used backwardsN’s “cesspool” method, except i honestly gotta say my white 2-2-2 lily thing was much more involved and carefully maneuvered in a way that i imagine frog breeding is more like. backwardsN’s “genepool method” was basically making a red-orange-black rose primordial soup and waiting for a blue rose to emerge out of it, just increasing the chances seeing a blue rose sprout the next day after watering with each generation of offspring. you KNOW my ass was using time travel, even if i happened to get lucky and got a blue rose without even finishing the big turtle plot. without time travel, most players (95%) will get their first blue rose before these # of days. (open up advanced tag)

there must be so many daves running around to help her going back in time all within the span of a few hours while still having their own linear, older timelines that are much longer than the “time stage” they’re actually functioning in. this sounds complicated but it’s not. think of this “time stage” as analogous to the 3 days until the moon falls in majoras mask. it’s the “time window” all the time travel takes place within, but link doesn’t become a day younger when he travels to a day ago. the timeline of his “self” is older but is kept within the confines of the 3-day timeframe. similarly, in tears of the kingdom, two master swords exist simultaneously for most of history, but the one on the light dragon’s head (who was above the cloud barrier before the upheaval btw) is further ahead on its own linear timeline: it starts as the other, pre-gloomed master sword → broken by gloom → sent to the past to be repaired → renewed over time, existing at the same time on the “time stage” as its own pre-gloomed past self but ahead on its own linear timeline

now imagine this but within the “time stage” of just a few hours within the same 24-hour period. kanaya says frog breeding ordinarily takes weeks. multiple daves can exist simultaneously because they’re operating in the same few-hour-timeframe but one can linearly be days ahead of another. it’s the exact same thing as breeding flowers in animal crossing for irl days but to your game it’s whatever date you have it set to. your irl progress isn’t lost if you go back a few days in settings. i’d often find a week in june to use as a “time stage” to loop through when it would rain at least one hour on each day of that week which would save me the hassle of watering my flowers every day before time traveling to the next.

it must’ve sucked for dave to hear jade say the same things over and over again. the novelty probably wore off pretty fast lol…… dave says he saw his future self fighting and dying to jack and knew that’s what he’d eventually have to do as well. every single dave at all points of his linear timeline understood that and it probably settled something horrible into his heart.

im imagining during the original run dave was thinking to himself: “im bored but cant alter anything about this without creating a doomed timeline. if i dont see my future self hugging jade then i cant hug her even though i really fuckin want to. note to future self: hug jade. aww shit look at me go guess i remembered. hell fucking yes cant wait for that to be me in a few hours” and gives a thumbs up

future dave pov, hugging jade and watching his past self give him a thumbs up from afar thinking to himself: “ahaha i remember exactly what i was thinking there” and gives a thumbs up

but anyway. goddamn. JADE AND DAVE. what did hussie do to you.

this is a goddamn atrocity.. what the hell man. i wish we could have at LEAST seen the text file jade sent to kanaya. we got to see ConversationWithAVeryStupidGirl.Txt but not daveisafunnyguy.txt?

i mean i GUESS the humor is delivered through this

and like, yeah that is pretty funny? but i feel like the single laugh this gives me is nothing compared to the joy i wouldve gotten out of seeing what dave has to say about the cloning apparatus for ants here and talking himself into circles about frog procreation enough to make not just gigglehouse jade laugh, but kanaya too

we spent so much time learning about the mechanics of the punch designix and hardly anything about creating the seed of the actual new universe. we learn about it through kanaya and karkat messaging jade, instead of dave and jade working that out through SHENANIGANS. even though this is JADE AND DAVE'S session. it’s fine that kanaya is helping them, as she should, but we’ve seen parallel pesterlog conversations before so i dont get why we didn’t get that here! jade and dave frog breeding is one of the most important events in homestuck, and yet it was terribly glossed over. everything in the story, their futures, are predicated on their success. not just in their unwinnable session, but the one they split up for 3 years and escape to.

at first i thought, maybe their lack of shown interaction has to do with hussie working out the intricacies of pesterlog/dialogue thing? as he once stated on tumblr:

shoshaumbay asked: In the intermission of act 6, it says that they get to talk. Does this mean that their guardians couldn’t talk to them before and that is why they left them notes all around their houses? The achievement badge only upgraded their ability to speak to each other as presented through the comic. I.e. it permitted them to speak to each other… WHILE WE WATCH! Do you think all the trolls were hanging out together, not talking at all? Or Dave and Jade were doing all that frog hunting without a single peep?? That’s ridiculous. On the other hand, abstraction weaves itself through the Homestuck reality, and it can be hard to pin down where abstraction is to be taken literally. The truth is, there is not much distinction between the layers of abstraction and the reality they are meant to stand for. John was both literally named on his 13th birthday, and not quite, because that’s silly. The guardians are both literally silent automatons, and not really, as there is indication through allusion they function as normal people too. And the kids went through a huge adventure, achieved immortal god status, and even then had to gain a few more levels just to gain the achievement of simple dialogue as a literal upgrade, as well as not literally, because that makes no sense. The reality is inseparable from the way the story is presented and the way the “game” is played. But those abstractions are also a facade for a more life-like reality beneath it as well.

then i realized, this is not only an arbitrary cop out that affects my enjoyment of the comic in retrospect because they wind up being able to talk later anyway and that makes me feel cheated in these moments, but also still actually awful within these parameters because hussie breaks his own rule here, proving he could have shown us dave and jade talking in person at any time regardless of needing the gift of gab achievement for us to watch them as readers. recall this is also the first time john and rose met in person (at least when rose wasn't asleep):

2. Jade & Dave vs. Jack Noir

this is where i take out my frustration over this being delegated to a banner at the top to the point where readers forgot it occurred.

(also i want yall to take a moment to acknowledge this ^)

youtube

i wish their time on lofaf frog breeding and fighting with jack was front and center and wasnt just in the banner at the top of the page. it makes it seem not as important when it completely was, considering that characters brought up what had happened in that scene multiple times.

it is significant because it is at that point that jack noir has killed all of the kids at least once. the only one left being jade who he refuses to kill due to bec’s loyalty

THIS IS WHAT THE REFRANCE (foreshadowing)

jack noir killed john on his quest bed which allowed him to ascend to god tier. then he killed john AGAIN but it wasn’t a heroic or just death so john was revived

jack killed grimdark rose. john smooched rose’s corpse, allowing her to take over on derse.

jack killed dave by redirecting jade’s bullets into dave’s body instead. jade smooched dave’s corpse, allowing him to take over on derse.

after jade shoots him through jack, he’s down for the count. she kisses him and he wakes up on derse; all he and rose have left of “themselves” in an existential sense are their dreamselves. they didnt know they were going to ascend to god tier delivering the tumor. they assumed they were just going to die like for real and not come back which is why dave went with rose since he didnt want her to die alone.

it was also an important point since her time spent with dave on lofaf is the first in-person contact jade has had with another living human since she was probably 4 years old with her grandpa.

for jack noir, we got [s] seer: desend and [S] ==> (3696) which were hella impactful. seeing jade and dave essentially go through the same thing but with an extended battle sequence honestly kinda warrants a flash in my mind. (the sad thing is that unite synchronization was originally written with those pages in mind (the track was originally called redshift) but of course malcolm brown couldnt have known what was going to happen unless hussie commissioned him for a specific track for a specific story beat, probably like whatever he did to coordinate cascade’s music with toby ahead of the 10/25/11 release of the flash and publication of volume 8 on bandcamp)

i think one of the worst parts is that entire conversations were referenced, but cut or never written.

this is a real forgotten homestuck fact: jade was completely freaking out after filling dave with bullets until karkat had talked her through it. very easily forgotten since even though it being referenced twice we never actually saw the conversation. (i overrode the black scratch background so it's easier to read)

wow thats so crazy i as a member of the audience dont in fact remember! would it have killed to write it my guy

and we find out thousands of pages later dave was thinking more about how it wouldve made jade feel to watch him die than knowing he was about to fucking die. if you even care btw

i wrote more about this here

3. Davesprite and Grimbark Jade

davesprite—an extension of dave himself—dates jade but breaks up because he feels inadequate at being the dave that he thinks jade deserves. NOT because they fought or anything. they were still on good terms. davesprite just felt inherently unlovable. john seemed more upset about the breakup frankly.

what davesprite did was because he thought it was in jade's best interest. there is nothing to suggest it was a fight / clash break up. they still seemed to be on good terms, davesprite asking where she went and all. jade says the breakup “is complicated” and “hes going through a lot of stuff”. given the context i think it's reasonable to assume that davesprite's thought process was: “we're coming up to the new session soon and youre going to meet up with dave again and i dont want to make shit awkward with you dating knockoff dave. you deserve to be with real dave instead so im gonna cut what we have going here in advance and distance myself from your life”

jade probably protested about saying how he's just as real as “real dave”, but davesprite made his decision already. im sure it wasnt easy for davesprite to break up either. with emotions running high (sadness, not anger) he probably just left to be alone and distance himself from jade, and seems to harbor guilt about it as we see in the log. that's probably why he wasn't at john's movie party. this is just speculation on my part but it doesnt seem in character for the breakup to be explosive because jade seemed more understanding than john. sad, but understanding.

i feel like a lot of people forget this. grimbark jade made it seem like davesprite did it to hurt her, or for this to mean that dave and jade are not actually good for each other, which is a wild mischaracterization of what happened but the one that stuck with the fandom nonetheless.

not only that, but davesprite's existence tragic and he's understandably depressed. after spending about a year in sburb (accounting for time travel) without john or jade, only to go back and give up your personhood to advance the alpha timeline and become forgotten is fucking crushing, and i think the breakup is also about davesprite coming to terms with that trauma, being okay with his existence as a sprite instead of being a bootleg stand-in for the dave that jade knew.

basically what vintagegamebro says,

it was such a tragic way for them to part for 3 years with no communication, and it was only proceeded by more tragedy because jade then had no one but davesprite to turn to, and davesprite needed anything but romance at that point

grimbark jade isn’t a good reflection of jade’s actual self. she pushed the mayor into lava for fucks sake which normal jade would never dream of doing, grimbark jade is straight up unhinged. i’m sure jade was hurt because all breakups hurt, but it was blown out of proportion (see how calm she was above a few days after the breakup?) because of Evilness. but also as @vintagegamebro mentioned it also felt somewhat … “off”? or out of left field? especially seeing what the nature of the breakup was from both sides in the above screenshots.

when dave says “theres no way i would have done that to you” i genuinely believe him. i have no reason not to believe him. look at him above asking for questions and clarification. thinking about how what davesprite did, a version of himself beyond his control and how it reflects on himself, i think it's obvious dave cares a lot about how jade feels about him

even after this confrontation in the game over timeline, dave laid down his fucking life to defend her corpse from the becs in he hope she could be revived by jane

and to think that after all this he still chose to save her, like always, probably knowing he had little to no chance, just because he cares for her, her life and who she is beyond this moment, really meant a lot for them. i really, really was mad that this would be the last time they would truly ever be together in a way that to me mattered

4. The music question

i wrote this post regarding instruments with this song in the back of my head if its anything. takes about 12 seconds to start after you press play for some reason

this too, closer to the “style”. i like imagining dave going apeshit on drums

#homestuck #dave strider #jade harley #davejade #homestuck meta #hs

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