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jobean12-blog · 8 months

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Rooted in Love

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader (Plant!Dad Bucky and he's beefy!)

Word Count: 1,740

Summary: You and Bucky run into each other (literally) while plant shopping.

Author's Note: So a few days ago a friend shared the amazing art done by @nalonzooo and I immediately fell in love with her plant!dad bucky! Please go check out her page, it will just make you so happy! Her art was the inspo for this story and will be for the rest of this Universe- which I already plan to do more of! Thank you all so much for reading and thank you @nalonzooo for sharing your beautiful work! And thank you to my lovely friends @witchywithwhiskey @vonalyn and @biteofcherry for your support and help! ❤️❤️❤️Divider by the lovely @firefly-graphics thank you Daisy!🥰

Warnings: Fluffy sweet fluff, plants and Alpine!

You hand the money to the cashier with a smile and gently cradle your new plant to your body before walking off toward the car. You’re not paying attention to where you’re going because you’re looking down and cooing over your new friend, a spider plant, whom you’ve aptly named Spidey.

Suddenly the sun goes out of view and a shadow falls over you just before you walk straight into what feels like a wall.

“Oof, shit,” you mutter, juggling your spider plant and thankfully managing to hold on to it. “I’m sorry!” you quickly add, now looking up.

You can barely see the person behind all the green leaves and fronds but you do hear a deep voice say, “no doll, I’m sorry! I can barely see where I’m going and should probably have gotten a cart. Are you ok?”

Your giggle escapes without warning but you assure him you’re fine.

“Um, do you want some help? I only have one plant so I can take one or two off your hands.”

He stands there for a moment, clearly contemplating you’re offer. “You know what, that would be great!” he says finally. “Can you grab the two smaller ones here.”

His body shifts so you can take two plants that are resting precariously on his forearm.

“Sure!”

You reach over and carefully take them from him, revealing something you were not at all expecting.

There’s a fluffy white cat curled up in the crook of his arm, it’s blue eyes peering at you with curiosity.

“Oh how cute!” you squeal.

Plant guy chuckles. “That’s Alpine. He’s very friendly so you can say hi if you want.”

Your hand immediately shoots out to rub Alpine gently on the head and then scratch behind his ears.

“He’s so sweet and handsome,” you gush.

After several moments spent doting on Alpine you realize poor plant guy is still standing there holding way too many plants.

“Oh shit,” you mumble. “I’m sorry! You’re totally standing here waiting to go to your car and carrying a whole forest and here I am just petting your cat like it’s nothing.”

“It’s really ok doll,” he says. “I appreciate the help and Alpine loves the attention.”

You try to peek around the large leaves to get a look at this guy’s face but you can’t really make out more than a black hat and the outline of a dark shadow of hair lining his sculpted jaw.

But when he says, “my car is just over here,” and he starts walking to the parking lot you get a better glimpse of the rest of him and can’t help the way your breath hitches.

“Damn…” you whisper to yourself.

He’s tall, with long thick legs and broad shoulders and an ass you already want to grab hold of.

“Well,” he starts. “My keys are in my back pocket and uh…”

You put the plants you’re holding down onto the pavement and hold out your hands. “Here give me a couple more this way you can free up a hand.”

“Good idea,” he says with a chuckle. “I was about to ask you to reach into my pocket but that wouldn’t be appropriate before at least a date right?”

You bite your lip to stifle your laugh, thinking that you wouldn’t have minded at all.

As you take three more plants from him you get a clear view of his face and you can’t help but stare.

Sparkling blue eyes meet yours, framed by long, dark lashes and as your gaze sweeps over the rest of his face you realize he’s literally gorgeous.

“Hi,” you say far too breathily.

“Hey doll,” he answers with a megawatt smile but seemingly oblivious to your obvious appreciation as he opens the trunk and starts to place the plants down.

As he’s lightening the load of foliage Alpine starts to crawl up his arm until he’s settled comfortably on his shoulder.

Once his hands are free he extends one to you. “I’m James, but you can call me Bucky.”

“Bucky,” you repeat, then give him your name. “How did you get that from James?”

He huffs out a laugh. “James Buchanan Barnes is my full name and my family shortened the middle and stuck with it.”

“That makes sense then,” you say lightly.

“Thanks again for the help. I’d probably still be wandering around the parking lot looking for my car if it weren’t for you,” he admits, his cheeks turning a light shade of pink.

“Glad I could help,” you say, meaning it. “You must have a lot of space for all these.”

You sweep your arm out, motioning to his trunk full of plants.

“Yeah, well…I mean sorta. It’s kinda gettin’ like a Tetris game, but I’ll make it work.”

He looks down at your feet, just now noticing your plant.

“I see you got a spider plant,” he says. “New plant parent?”

You nod before starting to bend down and pick it up. He stops you with a soft hand to your shoulder. “I’ll get it and let me walk you to your car at least.”

He grabs the plant and you see Alpine cling tighter to his shirt and shoulder. A few strands of hair fall loose from his hat and around his ear and when he stands again Alpine starts batting at them.

You cover your mouth, hoping your giggle won’t be heard but Bucky narrows his eyes playfully before explaining, “this cat is a menace.”

“Does he behave around all your plants?” you ask. “I bet they’re fun to bat around.”

You start to walk toward your car which is on the other side of the parking lot, chatting as you go.

“Actually, he does. I rescued him when he was just a kitten and started collecting plants around the same time so he’s used to them and knows he’s not allowed to mess around.”

You reach up and give Alpine a soft pat, cooing at him before you continue.

“I really hope I don’t kill this one,” you sigh, now glancing over at Spidey. “I love plants but they don’t love me.”

“That was me too,” he tells you. “It actually took me two spider plants before I got the hang of it. I still feel bad about the first two.”

“This is my third,” you say quietly, making a face. “Third plant. Not spider plant specifically. But to be fair the first two were definitely not starter plants. I don’t know what I was thinking…well, I do. They were really pretty, with these beautiful flowers- I love flowers- and I wanted them so…”

“I get it doll,” he says, “we all like pretty things.”

He looks at you, holding your stare and when you smile knowingly you see the pink creep along his cheeks again.

“So how many plants do you have?” you ask with a smirk.

“Umm,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Let’s see…I mean there’s the kitchen and that’s probably one, two, three, four…and then the living room…one, two, three, four, five…” he continues on, talking mostly to himself as he counts and lifts his left hand to finish.

You notice he’s wearing a leather glove and when he’s done getting his final count he looks from you to where your eyes are focused.

“So if I’m counting right that’s over twenty-five plants,” he says sheepishly. “And uh…old war injury.” He twinkles the fingers on his left hand at you with a lopsided smirk.

“A plant connoisseur and a war hero,” you say, hoping your tone comes off as genuine as you mean it. “And you have the best cat!”

He brightens at your words and tugs Alpine from his shoulder, cradling him in the crook of his arm. His tight Henley does nothing to hide the bulge of his bicep and the best you can do is try to focus on how cute the cat is so you don’t blurt out any of the lascivious thoughts racing through your mind.

“He is the best cat!” Bucky boasts.

Bucky leans closer to you, as if he’s telling you a deep, dark secret, his voice low. “I have this plant on my balcony that attracts a lot of butterflies and he’s so good that he won’t even try to swat at them. He just sits on my chair and watches them all afternoon! But never goes after one.”

“Best. Cat. Ever.” You proclaim, scratching under Alpine’s chin. “And I bet they are beautiful to watch.”

“If you love flowers you’d love the plants on my balcony!” he says excitedly. “It’s like a rainbow. And I have this indoor desert rose plant that’s just incredible and my gardenia’s not only look amazing but they smell amazing too.”

Your smile only grows as he continues chattering on about all his flowering plants but he must realize he’s been rambling because he suddenly trails off and his eyes get wide.

“Oh man,” he stammers. “Shit, doll. I’m sorry. That was a lot.” He shifts his weight from foot to foot.

“I don’t mind at all,” you tell him honestly. “I think it’s wonderful. Actually, I’m hoping you can give me some tips to keep Spidey alive.”

You pat the plant pot and then delicately rub one of the long, thin leaves.

“Spidey,” he says with a big smile. “I love that. And I name mine too.”

“Phew,” you say. “Thought I was going to be the weird one on that.”

“Tell you what,” he says. “I’d love to help you keep Spidey alive but only if you agree to meet me for coffee this weekend.”

You tap your finger to your chin, pretending to think it over. “What do you think Alpine?”

The cat blinks at you then meows loudly.

“He said you should,” Bucky interjects. “That was definitely a yes.”

“In that case, definitely a yes,” you say.

“That’s great doll!” Bucky replies with a grin. “How about Saturday?”

“Sounds perfect.”

After you exchange numbers and agree on a coffee shop between your two apartments you say goodbye.

“Thanks again for your help and I’m really looking forward to our coffee date,” he says, then clamps his mouth shut.

He stares at you with wide eyes again. “I uh…I didn’t mean date…what I meant was…”

“It’s ok,” you say softly, stepping closer and kissing his cheek. “I’m looking forward to our date too.”

@randomfandompenguin @book-dragon-13 @hiddles-rose @sebstanwhore @goldylions @littleseasiren @kmc1989 @lookiamtrying

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x female reader #beefy!bucky x reader #bucky barnes x y/n #beefy bucky #plant!dad bucky #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes imagine #plant!dad bucky x reader #sebastian stan #sebastian stan x reader #bucky barnes au

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straykidsholicleigh · 1 month

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okay, roomie (teaser)

pairing: roomate!jisung x fem!reader

genre: smut, fluff

summary: jisung is ur roomate who which you have a huge crush on. one night, you and him watch porn together which leads into something that takes your relationship to the next level.

warnings: so far it's cunnilingus & kissing

word count: idk yet

important: this is a work of fiction. the characters do not act this way in real life.

a/n: this a teaser the actual fic will be posted like uhhh.... probably when I finish 💀 I will most likely finish it in like two-three weeks bcs uni hates me-

credits: dividers by @cafekitsune ♡

Living with Jisung was honestly hard. He never cleaned after himself and was almost half naked whenever you saw him around. His cooking was horrible and his favorite hobby was annoying you, but you would say that the most difficult part about living with him would be your growing crush for him.

It was his apartment first before it was yours and you moved in with him because nobody else was willing to live with you. Your best friend, Minho, recommended him to you so you obliged. For the first few months it was easy and you got along well with him, that was until you realized you had a huge crush on him. It started off small, smiling and blushing over small things until it grew into something a bit bigger. Being around him was difficult because you had to resist the urge to grab him by his shirt and kiss him.

You wanted to be able to love him and fuck him at the same time, but that was gonna be difficult due to the amount of girls he'd bring home to fuck. They weren't loud, thank god, but it made you jealous nonetheless. You were jealous because they got to feel his lips, they got to feel his body and that made you burn with jealousy. You just couldn't help it.

It was a saturday night, the sound of rain outside ringed throughout your ears as you tried your best to focus on your book. You huffed, flipping the page as your eyes scanned through the words written across the book.

Her sister, though comparatively but little removed by matrimony, being settled in London, only sixteen miles off, was much beyond her daily reach; and many a long October and November evening must be struggled through at-

“Y/N!” Your room door was swung open as you looked up with a 'are you fucking serious?' expression. He caught your reaction, rolling his eyes as he jumped onto your bed, opening his phone as you scoffed. “What do you want now ji?” You asked, closing your book as you looked at him. He looked up at you, pursing his lips together. “I'm about to show you something.” He warned, pressing his finger against his phone before bringing it up to your face.

'Fucking my girlfriend against the kitchen counter while she screams for me to stop'

You visibly gasped, looking at him with a horrified look as he laughed, bringing his phone down and locking it. “Did I scare you?” He asked, smirking as he lay down comfortably on his stomach. You glared at him, mentally screaming as you slapped your palm against your forehead. “What did you get from showing me that?” You asked as a wide grin spread across his face.

“Because I want you to watch it with me.”

#stray kids #stray kids hard thoughts #stray kids smut #han jisung #skz han #han smut #han jisung x reader #han jisung x y/n #han jisung x you #han jisung smut #skz x reader #skz smut #han jisung imagines #han jisung hard thoughts #han jisung hard hours #issa teaser 😅

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undertheorangetree · 6 months

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Snowed In

Summary- A snow storm leads to an opportunity.

Warnings- MDNI 18+ NSFW. Female reader. Modern Aemond. Cat Vhagar is modern AU canon. Friends to lovers vibe. Thigh riding. Blowjob. Cunnilingus. P in V sex. Safe sex practices for once. Probably ooc Aemond cuz he's experiencing joy.

Author's Note- Yes all of my fics take place in the winter what about it?? That's my business that I am now involving you in link to full fic below :)

dividers by me

"They've just closed campus."

Her head pops up from behind her laptop, staring at Aemond in wide eyed disbelief. Already, there is a sympathetic wince on his face, the kind that is only ever present when he knows she is about to get upset, but even then she refuses to believe him.

"Closed? What do you mean closed?"

"It says they had to on account of the weather."

"No, they haven't. Let me see."

He spins his laptop screen to face her, forcing her to push her own down in order to see properly. His email has been left open on the page and her eyes rove over the message she had so desperately hoped he had made up. There before her in big bold letters are the words URGENT- CAMPUS CLOSED followed by a brief explanation blaming a snow storm and apologizing for any inconveniences the decision may have caused.

She lets out a groan, leaning back in the library's old chair, a pleading look on her face as if Aemond is the one responsible for making such decisions. He may as well be, with his family being such heavy contributors to Oldtown University's alumni fund, his last name plastered across the front of one of the many building on campus. She has half the mind to ask him to go speak to whichever family member is on the chair committee to convince them to reverse the decision and allow them to go back to finishing their final papers, though somehow she doubts that would be likely.

"The storm wasn't supposed to start until tomorrow. It can't already be that bad, can it?"

He reaches over toward the blinds they have long since closed, both of them having agreed that the glare from the sun was too distracting hours ago, only to be met with the sight of a now white campus, the snow blanketing near everything in sight. It's evident now why they would have shut down campus - it must have been snowing for hours- but she still feels something close to dread work its way up her spine.

She sucks in a heavy breath, turning to face Aemond once more. "Do you think they would have shut down the buses too?"

She knows it's a lost cause even as she asks it. The university is located away from the port, standing alone at the top of one of the mountains. It's a steep drive even in idle conditions and she knows that with the snow on the roads, the chances of her being able to commute back to her apartment are slim to none.

Just as she suspects, he simply looks at her, face contorted in a way that clearly implies that she already knows the answer. She bites out a curse, half slamming her laptop down before dropping her face into her hands.

The last thing she wants to do is spend the night on campus. She doubts that they were the only two caught unaware and trying to find a place to camp out for the night is going to be hell. Not for him, of course. Aemond's family connections came with seemingly endless perks and he had been set up with a beautiful flat on campus, less than a five minute walk from the library. He has lived there ever since she has known him and she had been there more times than she could count. Since first befriending him during orientation week in their first year, she had spent countless nights eating take out and studying for finals there. With their joint history major, they had taken nearly every class together, making last night studying near second nature at this point, so close to finishing their degrees.

There's a faint burn of envy in her gut at the thought of his flat- warm, isolated, cozy- but it's quickly snuffed out by her nervousness, fretting over where exactly she is meant to camp out tonight. She doubts she will actually sleep, not while she’s alone on campus, but she still wants to be at least somewhat comfortable. A padded chair would be ideal, though she knows they will be difficult to come by if she doesn’t act quickly.

Shoving her laptop back into her bag, she begins collecting the handful of papers she had sprawled out across the tabletop. "I guess I should go and try to find somewhere to sleep. It's going to be a blood bath trying to find something with decent cushioning."

He scoffs. "You're not going to be fighting any blood baths. Just spend the night at mine."

Read the rest here

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navstuffs · 7 months

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Secret Admirer

Pairing: Leon Kennedy x GNLibrarian!Reader

Summary: It is fall, and Leon Kennedy has a secret admirer.

Warning tags: ROOTH TOOTING FLUFF, college au, leon wears glasses, shy!reader&leon, leon self depreciates a bit

Author's Notes: hiii. though where i live fall doesn’t exist (i swear, we are all being cooked alive at this point), im happy to write something to welcome fall! dedicated to @sarahs-secrets2 whose birthday is tomorrow! happy birthday, my friend!! thank you for being such an amazing friend to me, you are the best!! also i won't lie, i might be working on a small drabble for a smutty second part (flannel shirts, all im saying). dividers by @firefly-graphics. images found on pinterest and edited on faceapp.

leon's masterlist

It all starts right at the beginning of fall.

Leon Kennedy never considered himself the type of guy someone could deeply fall in love with. In his own opinion, he has always been an average kind of guy. A little shy, with a pair of black glasses in front of his eyes since he couldn't see long or short distances.

Since entering college and breaking up with his first (and only) girlfriend, romance wasn't clearly in his plans. He had to focus on his studies to become a lawyer and pass the bar exam. Unlike his colleagues, who partied every Friday, Leon was busy with his head inside books—most of the time.

There is also another weighting factor: Leon had a merit-based scholarship. It is not something he would tell someone, but it meant he had worked his ass off to get there, prove himself to stay there every semester. He couldn't waste his time with anything, especially with romance.

Leon enters the already chilly Friday, his scarf close to his face. For some reason, fall had arrived earlier, and he couldn't be more grateful. The library is almost empty, except for a few students here and there. He goes to his usual spot, between two tall bookshelves, a seat at the very end, hidden from the rest of the world. Before he can get there, a smiling familiar face carrying a few books in their arms appears in his path: you, who worked in the library and was always ready to help students whenever needed.

"Back already?" You joke, whispering. Leon feels his blush spread, smiling back.

"You know me, can't stay away too long."

You giggle, seeming equally flustered. There is a moment of silence where you two stare at each other, saying nothing else. Then, you handle Leon one of the books from your arms.

"Here. This just arrived today. I hope it can be helpful."

Before Leon can answer, you leave, waving, without looking directly at his face. Leon walks to his usual spot, removes his jacket, and hangs on the chair before placing the book on the table. He sits, opens the first page, and finds a yellow post-it with something written on it. Leon then takes his glass case out of his backpack, changing his distance ones to the reading ones. Yeah, he was one of those blessed ones who couldn't see far away or close. There it was, written in blue ink:

"Hi! I hope I don't scare you by writing this, but I just wanted to let you know you are adorable!"

Leon's eyebrows raise as he looks around. Most students in there have their heads on their books. You had given this book to him earlier, so maybe? No, Leon realizes. So many other students have probably read it before. Wait, but didn't you say the book just arrived today? Well, it could have been a donation, and someone left it there.

Without making much noise, Leon gets up to look for you behind your front desk. You seem focused but promptly raise your head when you see Leon coming.

"Hey. Something wrong?" Your face is blurred, and Leon suddenly realizes he didn't change into his long-distance glasses.

"Yeah. Someone left this note in the book. Just wanted to give you a heads up."

"Oh." Leon handles the book for you, and he can't quite figure out your expression due to the lack of proper glasses. "I guess it came with the donation."

"Yeah. Probably." You whisper back in a strange tone. Leon gives you a slight nod before returning to his usual spot. Well, that was odd, but he didn't have time to think much about it. He needed to remain focused anyway.

Next Friday comes, and the temperatures slowly start dropping, which comes with a relief to Leon. He hates the heat, despises how the Earth is warming up, and nobody seems to give a damn about it. The view to the campus Library looks so pretty now: straight out from a book, orange leaves on the floor, crunching as Leon walks over them. It was one of his favorite Autumn activities when he was a kid—that and carving pumpkins. The only problem with the sudden chilly weather was his glasses getting fogged, but hey, it seemed like a fair trade.

He arrives near the library's building, finding you outside. You are wearing a deep green sweater with some trees drawn on it. On the top of your head, a cute black hat protects your ears. Leon can't help but smile when he notices you rub your hands and arms.

"It is not even that cold yet." Leon teases as he gets close. You look back at him, startled but happy to see him.

"Says the one with the heavy jacket and a scarf!"

"Hey!" Leon complains, pretending to be insulted. "At least this is better than the heat we had before, right?"

"Yeah."

Before Leon can walk in and leave you alone, he asks, his curiosity peaking.

"Hey, so what about that note from last week? Discovered where it was from?"

"Oh." You seem taken aback by his question before shrugging, "I don't know. I threw it away anyway. Nothing important."

Leon nods before waving and walking into the warmth of the library. It is as empty as last week, which Leon prefers. He goes to his usual spot, noticing the yellow post-it on top of his table. Leon rushes to grab it and read. It is written in the same blue ink as before.

"Just wanted to wish you a good week. I admire you from afar, hoping you achieve all your goals!"

Leon's first reaction is to look for you, show you the new note, and believe again this is a mistake. But then he ponders, his curiosity speaking louder. No, he isn't interested in romance, nor does he have time for it. But, if those notes are really, really meant for him, why? He isn't that special or someone who should have secret admirers. Leon has always been curious, so he places the note in his pocket.

In the weeks following, he ends up receiving more and more notes. They are on top of his desk, under the desk, near the wall, always visible so he can find them. And since the first two ones, they have started to come signed with "Your Secret Admirer." It can't just be a coincidence at this point.

"You are doing amazing, and I hope you continue to do so! - Your secret admirer."

"I wish I could say how much I admire you to your adorable face! - Your secret admirer."

"It makes me so happy to see you pursuing your dream; it gives me the courage to pursue mine! - Your secret admirer."

"One of these days, I will gather the courage to invite you out, but until then, I keep thinking about you as I look at the stars."

Leon's suspicions are towards someone inside the library, of course. His first thought is you, but it simply can't be. You are too bright, too cute, too funny for him. Deep down, Leon wishes it was you; he might have harbored a tiny crush on you since the first time you helped him, but he knows it can't be. His other suspicions are the other people in the library, but he barely knows them, except for an eventual nod or "hello" here and there.

It is finally time for the first week of exams, and the library is getting crowded. Leon arrives earlier that Friday and, for a miracle, can find his spot empty and, sadly, no note this time. He tries not to concentrate on his disappointment, focusing on his studies when, in the corner of his eyes, he comes into the corridor. You look dressed for a freezing winter, rushing toward Leon with something in your hands. When you see him, you stop in your tracks, your eyes slightly going wide. Then you turn around, leaving in the other direction.

Much later that night, Leon walks to the front desk. You look busy but still manage to give him a tired smile.

"Getting crazy over here, huh."

"Yeah. It is time for the tests, so people can go a little crazy." You explain, shrugging. You look anxious, but Leon presumes it relates to the agitated week. "Hey, do you mhm like pumpkin chocolate brownies?"

"Sure?" Leon's stomach grumbles as you pull out something from your drawer. He hadn't had something to eat since he came to the library three hours ago. Two small pumpkin chocolate brownies, probably from the candy shop near the campus. "Thanks, I haven't eaten anything today."

"Just don't eat here, okay?" You wink, smiling.

Leon holds them, staring at your table as you return your attention to your work. A pile of books is nearby and more on the other side of the table. His attention is drawn to a small yellow paper folded so many times. He gathers his courage and opens his mouth to finally ask you what he has been dying to ask you this whole time.

"Hey, is it you my—?"

"Excuse me, can you help me find this book?" A female student calls your attention, interrupting Leon. You didn't seem to have heard anything, Leon asked, excusing yourself to help the stressed lady.

Leon watches his surroundings. He shouldn't think about that, but his body works faster than his mind. Leon grabs the yellow folded paper and runs away without looking back, his whole face red. Did he just steal something?

When he is out of the library range, he stops near a street light and frantically opens the post-it, his hands shaking, not due to the cold. Could it be you? Could it be really you? Leon reads it once. Then twice.

"Hey, I know you have been studying so hard. Here, have some pumpkin chocolate brownies to sweeten your night and give you some luck for the tests!- Your Secret Admirer."

So, it is you. Leon re-reads the sentence over and over again, thinking of different possibilities. It could have been an accident, right? Someone else could have brownies for him, some other secret admirer. But so specific like that?

"Stop. You are overreacting." Leon whispers to himself, placing the note in his jacket pocket. He looks back towards the library, half of him demanding for him to go back in there and face you. Wasn't Leon that wanted to have been you this whole time? Keeping all the notes even though they might not be for him? Wasn't he even considering opening an exception for this rule just because of you?

Leon will make a decision. Not tonight, no. Tonight, he will enjoy the feeling of knowing you are his secret admirer.

Two weeks pass, and you don't see Leon. You wonder where he is since the last time he almost caught you placing the brownies and the note on his desk. You should have known he would arrive earlier since Leon has been so responsible about his studies (something you admired about him). Not coming for two weeks? You wonder if he was sick. Or maybe Leon chose to study in his dorm since the library had been so crowded lately.

After helping an agitated first-year who couldn't find a Math book, you walk back to your table and find a Pumpkin bookmark there. You turn it around, finding a sentence in beautiful handwriting: "Some say Autumn isn't the season of love, but I disagree when I have Fallen for you. - Your Not-So-Secret-Admirer?"

You feel your cheeks heating up, immediately thinking about Leon and finding him right before you, his entire face red as a tomato. You open your mouth and close it, unsure what to say.

"Sorry. I hope that didn't scare you."

"N-no! You didn't!" You reply loud enough to get some "sshhh." You shut your mouth, looking apologetic towards Leon, who smiles.

"Would you like to go out with me? There is a harvest fair nearby, and I was wondering if we could..."

"I would love to." You rush to answer, whispering. "If I don't disturb your studies, of course."

"Nope, not a problem."

Some might say nothing grows during Autumn. The leaves fall as the plants prepare for another winter until spring gives them life again, and the cycle repeats. Well, some things can bloom during Autumn, as Leon Kennedy's smile to you is enough proof of that.

#leon kennedy x reader #leon kennedy x you #leon kennedy #leon s kennedy x reader #leon s kennedy x you #leon s kennedy #leon kennedy fanfic #leon kennedy fluf #leon s kennedy fanfic #leon s kennedy fluff

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chubsonthemoon · 1 year

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Last Binderary book is DONE!!!! This is the incredible Maybe sprout wings, by @moorishflower.

This post is going to be a doozy, so gonna just skip straight to the cut!

INTERIOR

INTRODUCTION

I really wanted to model this bind after my own copy of the Odyssey, (which is all highlighted and bookmarked and annotated to hell from my Great Text courses in undergrad ehe, so this bind was such a fun trip down memory lane!). But beyond just the cover/general aesthetic, I also wanted to give the book a similar feel to these kinds of editions of classics--there's usually an introduction, translation notes, and other supplementary materials, right? Like, a physical manifestation of the work of many, many people, all having conversations with one another across time and space.

So that's what I did! I wrote a short introduction (I will also probably post it to my AO3/my blog as well, in the name of preservation etc. etc.) and began reaching out to folks in the fandom who I knew had created art and meta for the fic. The result? 18k words of analysis, comments, and meta, and nearly twenty pages of art!

And this is what I love most about this bind, I think! This book is the work of several people--truly a collaborative work by the fandom--all of whom I will now be shamelessly calling out below :D

CHAPTER HEADER ART

First and foremost, this book would not be what it is without the gorgeous header art by @fancy-rock-dove! Thank you so much Dove for letting include your work, and for being so supportive and kind these past few weeks about this bind <3 You in particular have contributed so much to this book (which I will be getting more into in the next section ehe), and I'm so psyched I get to hold your art and words, too!

NOTES ON THE TEXT

This section was divided into four parts: Asks and Answers, Meta, Selected Comments, and Chapter Heading Art: Process

For Asks and Answers, I trawled Heather's blog for meta she had written in response to questions and other meta about the fic. Asks came from @fancy-rock-dove, @quillingwords, @kulapti, and myself! (I THINK I got all of them--tumblr's search function is finnicky even on its best days, so so sorry if I missed something T_T) I first got hooked into reading this fic because of one of these asks, so I'm very fond of this section in particular :D

For Meta, I included two wonderful essays written by @pastrypuppy (also known as @kulapti) about Hob as an author figure and the Disrupted Fisher King narrative in MSW. Her analyses were so fascinating and I just had to include them in the book! (And thank you as well for your permission, friend!) (also hello fellow Renegade comrade 🫡)

For Selected Comments, I owe everything to (once again :3) @fancy-rock-dove, whose insights are the epitome of transformative fandom at work. I'd look for their comments after I read every chapter to see what their takes were on this or that element of the story, and every single time I would go "!!!!! I didn't even realize!!!" or "OOOOOOOH I hadn't thought of that!!" It was like being in a lecture hall and always whipping your head around when one of your classmates raised their hand, because you knew they were going to say something fascinating that you hadn't considered before.

Aside from one of my own comments, Dove's comments make up the entirety of this section (for which I owe you my life--your long-form responses to fics are a gift to this world) but GOSH was it also so much fun going through the comments section while typesetting and seeing all the keyboard smashing, yelling, and crying from the other commenters. Communal nature of storytelling and ongoing meaning-making of fanfiction, babey!

And finally for Chapter Heading Art: Process: once again Dove coming in clutch with some wonderful insights into the design of each of the chapter heading art pieces! This kind of stuff is honestly my favorite: meta about art for a fic which is, in turn, a transformation of an existing story (not even to mention that The Sandman is its own kind of fanfiction of existing mythologies and histories)--I just!! Think it's all really, really neat :'D (for more coherent/polished thoughts on this pls see my introduction asjdfkls)

ART

The art gallery!!! A million thanks to @fishfingersandscarves, @honeyseller, @jazzpsych, @doctor-rainbowfoxey, and (HI AGAIN DOVE) @fancy-rock-dove for granting me permission to include all of your beautiful pieces!

As usual for artworks in my binds, I printed each piece out on specialty photo paper to really make the colors pop, then sewed each page separately to the text block! Behold, everyone's beautiful beautiful pieces!

The art gallery also satisfies the certain "oooh shiny" part of my brain that always activates when I see pictures in a book, so am also very fond of this section :3

CONSTRUCTION

And now on to the nitty gritty stuff! I used the German Bradel binding technique again, my second time using it. Even though it's more complicated than the case bind, I really love how it gives you the full board space for the cover designs (~it's free real estate~). Keep it a secret but I kiiiiiiind of made a small goof in the last few steps (I did the turn-ins a step too early and so had to paste an extra sheet of cardstock to secure the spine to the boards, whoopsie), but it's a pretty small difference, aesthetically speaking, so it wasn't the end of the world XD

Edges are once again fake gilded, but this time I tried something new with the colors! I did two layers of acrylic paint--one watered down shade of red for the base, then one metallic gold on top of that. I really like the red/gold effect! I'll have to keep experimenting with this kind of layering:

ALSO. Y'ALL! I think I'm finally getting the hang of endbands!!! Many thanks to the folks at Renegade who hosted all the endband workshops last month--I'm still working through them, but even the few sessions I've seen have been TREMENDOUSLY helpful. I learned that tension is Very Important, as well as thread thickness, so I tried doubling my thread and keeping a Very Close Eye on how I was holding the threads while doing the beads. And behold! I still have a ways to go (and one day I would LOVE to do the fancier designs), but I'm v happy with the progress I've made so far!

And finally the covers!! ARCHIVAL MOD PODGE MY BELOVED. I printed on the same matte presentation paper that I used for the art, then did several coats of archival matte mod podge + a pass of gloss mod podge over the title strip to make it ~shiny~. Then once those had dried and I'd adhered them to the boards, I sprayed two layers of matte clear acrylic sealer (also mod podge!) to finish it off. I had some issues with the paper tearing when I handled it before it was fully dry, but luckily the blemishes were small enough that it was easy to do spot corrections with my black acrylic paint. And now I know to be more patient next time LOL

(some non-photoshoot shots that show the shine a little better!)

FINAL THOUGHTS

I had a lot of thoughts while I was binding this book--about Sandman fandom, about Dreamling fandom, about the Odyssey, about storytelling, about fanbinding, about Binderary, about Renegade, about my friends--but really what came to mind the most was gratitude!

Simply put, I'm so grateful to everyone I've met both in this fandom and throughout the years I've been active online--this is SO fun, y'all. It's so much fun to love stories together--to talk about them, to write them, and of course to bind them! I hope I've adequately conveyed that gratitude.

But of course, this book would not exist without the wonderful words of @moorishflower. Heather, thank you so, SO much for sharing your stories, thoughts, and time with us--it is always a happier, better day when I get an email notif from you and when I see you on my dash. I love your work so much, and I'm so happy I finally get to put it on my shelf! So thank you so much again, for everything <3

and OKAY THAT'S IT FROM ME FOLKS!!!!! Binderary 2023 is officially a wrap! I had SUCH a blast--will probably write up a reflection post on it uhhhh after I take a very long nap ajslkdfjslk _(:3」∠)_

all my love! <3

#the sandman #dreamling #Moorishflower #Maybe sprout wings #binderary2023 #bookbinding #fanbinding #ficbinding #not my fic

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monzamash · 8 months

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it's impossible to win — daniel ricciardo

daniel ricciardo x you (femreader) | 2.5k summary – when you buy concert tickets with your ex but break up a couple of months before the gig, do you go or cut your losses? rating – mature (sexual references, coarse language) a/n – this was inspired by a lovely ask i received during my 2k celebration and based around the band alexisonfire x masterlist

just sent you the AOF tickets.

i told you to keep yours. you love them as much as i do. read

The glow of your phone was too bright, too harsh and so was the reality you didn’t want to face any time soon. You couldn’t keep them. How could you when the reputation of being the ‘notorious ex girlfriend of Daniel Ricciardo’ – man of the people, loved by millions shadowed you everywhere you went?

He was loved more than most and certainly more than you.

She was never good enough anyway; a parasite, they said when the news broke on the petty gossip pages, exposing that you and Daniel were no longer together, itemising every little detail of your downfall for the world to see. Those years of memories, years of loving privately disappeared and in its place were painful ones to heal. They were the best years of your life, or so you thought – blissfully unaware of the distance slowly growing between you and the man you loved more than most – but it wasn’t enough.

You weren't enough to fight for and especially not enough to love more than driving around a racetrack eight months out of the year. He was never there, out of sight and out of mind, leaving you battling for his attention. You weren’t cut out for it, simply put by him while on the other side of the world. It started as a late night phone call to ease the ache in your chest and to keep him close but he couldn’t have been further away. Physically and emotionally. Drifting.

“Babe, this is what you signed up for.”

“No, it’s what I tolerate – it’s what I sacrifice to love you.”

You broke down, knowing this was the end of your relationship and the only thing you could genuinely put your name to. You had lost yourself completely to his life, no longer something you could call your own. Abandoned dreams and forsaken friendships all so you could be there for him; drawn in to his world, naively consumed by his safety and the promise of a life lived together, not divided by oceans – lost to the fishes.

That was until you re-emerged from the lavish hotels and the private planes, sans Daniel – sans your soulmate. The day you ended that phone call, you knew he would be the hardest one to let go of; eternally the one that got away and the one relationship you would have to tell future boyfriends about. And they would probably gasp and ask, not the formula one driver? and you would have to nod and quash their insecurities because everyone loved Daniel.

But nobody loved him more than you do – did. Not even close.

“He said you should use the ticket and honestly, I don’t even think he’ll show up. He hasn’t come to anything we’ve organised since you two broke up – he’s not the kid we knew back in high school anymore… That’s why you dumped his arse, right?”

Right, but you couldn’t say that.

“I didn’t dump him. I just…” Just told him that he’s wasted the best years of my life chasing him around the world.

“… Said that if he couldn’t be there when I needed him or spent more than two seconds a year with me then I couldn’t do it anymore. And that’s it.” Well, not exactly.

“Sounds like a dumping to me and rightfully so. Look, I love Danny but he’s hard to be friends with, let alone pretending to be in domestic bliss with…”

Yes, but you respected Daniel too much to admit that. Hannah was his friend too, all of them were. You were kids all grown up, now adults wading their way through the treacherous seas of the real world, pretending like they had it all figured out. Ungracefully and riddled with anxiety but finally immune to bullshit and aware of what to expect out of an adult relationship.

The standards were higher now than when you were young and in love. Daniel was your childhood best friend, after all. Or more accurately, the boy you met on the first day of high school, all crooked teeth and bundles of frizzy brown curls. You were acne-ridden and shy, the weirdo girl, they called you until you became friends with Danny. He knew everyone and was loved by everyone – that was the one trait that had followed him through life.

He was the class clown and a cute distraction from the torture of high school but you weren’t the only one who thought so. Lunchtime quickly became your favourite part of every day because you got to sit beside him and eat your Vegemite sandwich, knowing all the other girls in your year seethed seeing you with him. 'That weird mole and Riccardo being friends doesn’t make sense' they’d whisper thinking you couldn’t hear them. But you could and they were right about one thing – you were only friends.

The slightest scent of a spring breeze reminded you of the hours you spent sat under the shady gum trees, watching him playing footy with the other boys while you fiddled with your walk-man and scratched the discs beyond repair as you changed them out, battling with the Sony aux chord that was hanging on for dear life by a slither of duct tape. You were fifteen when Daniel handed you a burnt CD with a hand-drawn skull in the shape of a heart and the letters AOF written in bold black sharpie, smudged from his impatience.

“What’s this?” You asked with squinted eyes, looking up at him and the blistering sun.

“The best fucking album you’ll ever hear.”

He told you years later that he was so proud of himself, thrilled that he was showing you new music. His competitive streak wasn’t exclusive to the karting track – no, it snuck its way into everything he did, specifically when it came to album recommendations and especially with you.

“It’s called Watch Out by Alexisonfire… you know, that punk band I said you would love. Give it a try. I promise it’s better than that fuckin’ Offspring album you won’t stop listenin’ to.”

“Well even if I do like it, I wont tell you now dickhead.”

But he was right. So infuriatingly right. You loved it, maybe because you loved him. He was your best friend, your closest confidante, your twin flame – all cheesy grin and beautiful brown eyes. Lips so full that whenever he spoke, you couldn’t look away. Dangerously entranced by your best friend. A label that haunted you every time it slipped from his tongue and one you desperately wanted to rip off like a band-aid.

You thought those feelings would be the kind of ones you'd painfully bury and take to your grave, heartbreakingly unrequited – until you found a hand-written note crumpled up at the bottom of the ripped CD sleeve. The blotchy blue pen and creases in the lined paper made it hard for you to read his distinctive, yet messy boyish cursive.

song 4 – side walk when she walks (made me think of you)

The sound of frantic clicking bounced off your lilac coloured walls as you skipped to track four; a spinning screech filled the anticipated silence before the sound of a melodic guitar filtered through the muffled headset.

Dressed to kill, you look so right I am drunk with lust tonight Your wounds are opening wide And they might be just my size

Warmth rushed to your chest, your neck and up to your cheeks when you realised what it all meant. And it wasn’t the last time Daniel made your body feel like it was on fire, sitting on his messy bedroom floor and kissing until you couldn’t breathe, the soft sounds of your new favourite band playing on his stereo – heart beating so fast you could’ve died, happily in his arms.

But you weren’t horny teenagers anymore and that memory was blurrier now than it had ever been. It had been muddied with all the sad ones, the fights and the tears – the irreversible emotional damage that you had done to each other. You weren’t a saint, god knows and you took full responsibility for your part and so did Daniel. But that was where it ended – in a seemingly amicable split.

No love lost, only misplaced for a while.

It felt like all eyes were watching you as you walked into the small club, ears already tingling with the reverberation bouncing off the blackened walls – if only they could talk. Musky bodies and the hint of cigarettes filled the air while your combat boots stuck to the floor with every step you took into the lion’s den, making your path to closure hard fought. Maybe it was a sign to turn back; anything could’ve convinced you to swing by the exit on your left until you saw him.

He was dressed head to toe in black with a cap securely pulled over his eyes, hiding away from the curious ones. In any other crowd it would’ve been a piss-poor disguise, so obviously him but he blended in with the dark walls and the growing crowd, all wearing the unofficial uniform of an elder emo – baggy sweater, ripped skinny jeans and torn up Vans. And you were no different.

"You made it!!", a friend greeted, pulling you into a rib-crushing hug while you took in the circling faces. There were a few you never thought you would see again, people who were only your friend by proxy and ones he’d picked up along the way. And it was clear by the way everyone greeted you that he hadn’t dragged your name through the mud, maybe he kept the details of the break up quiet like you.

But the reality for Daniel was that he was too broken to even process what had happened. He came home to an empty apartment after a double-header with no way to contact you, to make things right. Years and years of loving someone doesn’t disappear over night and he wasn’t entirely convinced that the couple of months you’d been apart was enough either. And he was right. The sharp pain in his chest and the way his hands shook when he saw you confirmed it. He was fucked.

“Fuck,” Daniel groaned and turned to his mate, “What am I doing here, man…”

All he could do was let out a soft laugh and pat his friend on the shoulder, “You’re an idiot.”

Daniel readjusted his cap and let out a strangled, “I know.”

You promised your friend that you’d be fine, like water off a ducks back. All the side glances and murmurs meant nothing to you anymore, the insecurity you had now was nothing compared to when you were actually dating Daniel. Consumed in his bubble, unable to escape the crushing scrutiny. Another wag bites the dust, they said, gone with no explanation other than your obvious absence in the paddock.

It didn’t matter anymore; nothing could hurt more than losing him.

But you still felt it, bubbling away in the pit of your stomach. Years and years of loving someone doesn’t disappear over night, especially when you thought it would last forever. Nostalgia won the battle against the wound in your chest for a moment, still festering without treatment – knowing the only person who could heal it was miles away emotionally but was now in your line of vision. Seeing him in the flesh hurt more than you’d anticipated, more than you could’ve ever imagined. You still loved him, after everything.

The bubbles of excitement quickly dissipated and twisted into knots when you thought about what you had lost – a wave of anxiety washed over, churning away at any ounce of courage you’d mustered to even turn up to this stupid fucking show. You were cursing yourself, cursing your friend who had convinced you that he probably wouldn’t even turn up and that the odds were in your favour. She was so, so wrong.

“Ignore him and come dance.”

She was in damage control, dragging you away from the small gathering of friends and Daniel, who couldn’t tear his eyes away. His warm stare burned holes through your leather jacket as he watched you walk off into the crowd – and away from him again. It was becoming a habit of yours that he loathed. The house lights felt like a spotlight on your bruised ego but you pushed through the warm bodies, putting as much distance as you could between you and your past. The support band sounded great, mostly because it drowned out the soul-crushing thoughts swirling in your mind and brought you some much needed reprieve from your pity party.

You didn’t feel like yourself at all – you were the shell of the woman you used to be and you certainly weren’t the woman you wanted to show up as either. Strong, independent, single and thriving – you were none of those things, entirely the opposite in every way, so you had to dig deep and fake it. And you were a great actor but not tonight.

Not when you felt a gentle poke to your bicep. The lights rotating and strobing above made it impossible to see who was standing beside you, hand offering an icy bottle of Corona with a wedge of lime. It nearly slipped from your shaky fingers when you grasped it, whispering a soft thank you as the house lights went down and the swell of the surging crowd rumbled under foot.

“I wanted to have a chat but…” Daniel pointed to the stage, yelling over the drummer that had taken his rightful place behind his kit.

“Maybe later?” And you nodded yes, sending him a reassuring smile as the band began to play.

You could be diplomatic and hear him out – you owed yourself that at least and deserved closure from all the unanswered questions.

Daniel kept his distance, knowing he was in the wrong and that letting you go was the biggest mistake of his life. And it wasn’t long until his heart stalled in his chest when he heard that painfully recognisable guitar riff filter through the thick air, the one he couldn’t listen to without thinking of you and he could see the way your eyes glazed with tears when you heard it; the opening chords to the song he had dedicated to you all those years ago on that stupid burnt cd.

Maybe you missed him too.

“This ones called side walk when she walks.”

You reached down, without even looking and grasped his hand that was hanging loosely between your stiff bodies. Daniel interlocked his shaking fingers with yours and squeezed them as your head dropped to his shoulder, resting there while you both swayed to the music. You felt safe for the first time in months, comforted by his presence.

Of course you missed him. He was your person.

And this was your band; the band you shared together for over half your lives, their songs played while you fell in love with one another. They were the band you lost your virginity to, humming softly in the background and wishing that feeling would last forever. You remembered blasting ‘to a friend’ in the car on the way to your graduation and Daniel nearly getting pulled over by the cops, laughing until your sides hurt. And they were the band you would always save for your road trips along the coast, both there in Los Angeles and back home.

These were the songs that soundtracked your life with Daniel.

They were your band – and they’d brought you back together.

a//n – this was wildly self indulgent so if you hated it, let me know lol but also lmk if you liked it because i loved writing it x masterlist | askbox

#daniel ricciardo #daniel ricciardo imagine #daniel ricciardo one shot #daniel ricciardo smut #daniel ricciardo x reader #f1 writing #formula 1 imagine #f1 imagine #monzamashmasterlist #monzamash

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jennamoran · 3 months

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The Far Roofs

So today I want to talk a bit about what this game wants to be. In particular, I'm going to go over its key technical and artistic goals.

The Far Roofs focuses on immersive hidden world fantasy adventure. It's intended to offer the experience of a grounded, emotionally real base world attached to an idealized, fantastic "hidden world" setting.

One might say, the streets and buildings and houses of the game's world are basically our own. Above us, though, is a stranger, more idealized, and more fantastic place. It's hard to get to. It's dangerous. It's less grounded. It's full of wonder.

Those are the Far Roofs.

This divide exists to make the game feel as real as possible, if you want to go that way. That's part of what hidden world fantasy is about, after all---the idea that magic is here. That it's not in some distant alien land or mythic future or past.

It's here, if you want to reach for it.

(Now, the game is flexible enough that you can play "protagonist" types instead of realer people, and many traditional gaming groups will probably prefer that, but that'll mean getting less of that immersive effect.)

The mood the game is interested in is that feeling you get when you take a huge risk---move to a new place; try a new thing. The feeling you get in those times in your life when everything is alienated and wondrous and terrifying but there's also so much more *hope* than there was in the still times before.

It's a mood of being swept up and called forward.

This is, among other things, meant to be a game for people who've been beaten down or exhausted by the ... everything ... to feel that sensation of moving forward again.

To remember what it's like, why it's worth it, how to reach for it again.

It's meant---and I do understand that I am finite and flawed and this can only go so far---as a tonic and refreshment to the soul.

Rules

The Far Roofs uses a 5d6-based dice pool system for day-to-day task resolution. It's relatively traditional and optimized for fast, fun dice reading. There's a loose consensus I've seen in RPG design circles that dice are for when outcomes are uncertain and both options are interesting, and I don't disagree ... but there's also this thing where rolling dice to decide is intrinsically interesting and fun, where it's fuel for a certain part of the brain.

This game tries to get as much out of that side of dice as it can.

You'll also collect letter tiles and cards over the course of the game. This is for bigger-picture stuff:

To answer big questions and to complete big projects, you'll either assemble representative words out of those tiles, or, play a poker hand built out of those cards. Word and their nuances express ideas and shape how outcomes play out; poker hands, conversely, just give a qualitative measure of how much work you do or how well things will go.

In keeping with this, the campaign is represented principally in the form of questions or issues your words and hands can address. Player/GM-created campaigns would be the same.

Physical and Electronic Product

I wanted to put the print version within the range of as many people who might need that tonic as possible. That means that for this particular game, I wanted to cover the full territory that I'd normally cover in a two or three volume set (core rules, setting, and campaign) in a single 200-250-page volume.

In practice this means there's a guide and examples for constructing the setting, rather than a deep dive into a fully-detailed world; that there's a bit less in the way of whimsical digression and flourish than in the writing I'm known for; that there's minimal "flavor" text on abilities; and that the campaign presentation is pretty fast-paced.

Conversely, it means that the game should be easy to absorb and to share with other possible players, and, that the game and campaign in this one relatively small volume should provide enough content for five or six years of play.

The book will be 8.5"x11" with grayscale art, available in a limited hardcover print run and a print-on-demand softcover form.

On the Rats

You'll see a lot of talk from me and others about the talking rats in this game. They're one of the jewels of the experience, and I think they're probably a significant draw just for being talking rats that are core to the game.

... but I'm going to hold off for now, because, to be clear, this is not a game of playing talking rats. It's just a game where talking rats and probably one of the top three most important setting elements.

I couldn't get that feeling I wanted of ... the base world being grounded realism; of the hidden world pulling you up and out and into a world full of magic ... with your playing rats, with your playing something so distant from the typical player.

So this is not a game of playing them.

They're just ... I like rats, and so I made the rats in this game with love. They're great ... whatever the equivalent is to "psychopomps" is for a magical world instead of for death ... and a way of talking about how in the face of the world, we're all pretty small.

I'm really excited about this game; the playtest was lovely.

I hope you'll enjoy it as well!

#the far roofs #jenna moran #rpgs

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ownedbyfictionalwomen · 1 year

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big questions

student!bucky barnes x fem!reader

when bucky's crush comes to him needing his help with school, he ends up aiding her in more ways than one. not before she can ask him a question or two (specifically about his muscles). fluff + smut! 18+ 2.8kwords.

!protected p in v sex, a lotta nerves, some nervy fluff! divider: @firefly-graphics

So beautiful. That was the only thought in his head as he watched you laugh with your friends on the other side of the cafeteria, your head was thrown back in friendly ecstasy and your eyes were glowing with joy. Sometimes he wished he could be the one to cause that reaction in you.

But you and Bucky didn’t talk much: you were in different crowds, belonged to different labels, and had different interests. Whilst you spent your time socialising with anyone that you could and being that welcoming smiling face for everyone to rely on, Bucky preferred to study in the library or hide out in the art classroom with his paintbrushes and canvases.

Although you were all the things that he could ever want personified, he was still very intimidated by you and liked it better when he was just admiring you from afar and not embarrassing himself in front of you by tripping over his words.

Distracted, he stood up and threw his half-eaten sandwich and empty bottle of water into the bin, swinging his backpack over his broad shoulder as he made his way towards the exit, on his way to class. He managed to force his eyes away from you as his hand met the cold oak of the cafeteria door, pushing it open and out into the busy corridor, filling with other students on their way to their lessons.

Bucky shared some of his classrooms with you, and in this one, he was lucky enough to be sitting right next to you. Just as he was flipping his notebook to the next available page, you wandered inside, multiple pairs of lips singing a “hello” as you pulled out your chair next to Bucky’s.

“Hey, Buck.” You said, a cheerful tilt to your words. Bucky replied with a tight-lipped smile, knowing that if he spoke it would be just above a whisper and probably littered with a voice crack or two.

He hoped he didn’t come across as rude or unamicable, but he would much rather take that over having to live through the humiliation of trying to talk to you and having only silence come out of his mouth. But, honestly, you liked the quietness that came with Bucky and how he would nod, chuckle or even just smile at you when you were going off on a tangent in class, silently asking him to be the listener you so desperately craved.

So, although Bucky had never actually spoken a word to you before, he had learned an awful lot about you just through being present and offering an ear. That’s what made you so comfortable around Bucky, and now English was the lesson you looked forward to most, just because he was there with you.

Bucky expected you to start talking as soon as your backside hit the seat, but you remained quiet as you dug through his pencil case and took a pen for yourself, writing the date in your book and waiting for the teacher to arrive.

Five minutes ticked by and you still hadn’t said a word. Very unlike her.

Slowly, Bucky’s worry wrestled with his fear of shame until he brought his fist up to his mouth and cleared his throat, readying his vocal cords for use and putting off all the awkward possibilities of how this could go.

“You okay, Y/n?”

Your eyes met his as he finished his question, slightly wide and confused as you registered that he had been the one to speak, as well as… how sexy his voice was. It hit you deep in the pit of your stomach, a feeling no one else had really managed to erupt in you, and yet here Bucky was doing it so easily.

“Umm… not really. Just school stuff though, it’ll be okay.” You said, still managing to grace him with a happy smile as you turned back to your paper, mindlessly flicking the corner of the page.

“I can help you study or something if you want.” The offer left him before he had time to think about it, he was just acting on instinct and trying his best to save his pretty girl from distress.

“You would do that? Really?” You asked, your eyes lighting up with hope as your hand latched onto his arm, checking he was still real. You were in anguished need of a little aid right about now- with two papers due at the end of the week and your hold on motivation slipping, Bucky was your only hope.

The guy in question could only nod his head slowly as the heat from your palm radiated through his arm, distracting his thoughts and turning them into mush. Fuck, she’s touching me.

“Great! Is today after school okay for you?” You asked, releasing his arm and turning back to the front to pay attention to the class that was just starting. Bucky could only manage a quiet sound of agreement before he too turned around, trying his hardest to focus on the information being thrown his way.

You were trying to concentrate, the feeling of Bucky’s hard bicep still present in your hand as you crossed your legs and squeezed your thighs together, trying to dispel some of the tension. Whilst you worked on taking down some notes and ridding your mind of anything inappropriate, you started workshopping some more ways to get Bucky to talk again.

So, you decided to throw caution ot the wind and feed your curiosity and ask a question that had been on your mind for quite a while…

“Hey, Buck.” You started, grabbing his attention,” you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to but, how did you get so big?”

You squeezed that bicep of his for good measure, letting him know that you were talking about muscles and not anything else…

Bucky’s pen slowed as he focussed his attention on your question and the answer he would inevitably have to give to you. He had spoken once today already, he could totally do it again. At least he hoped he could.

“My… my dad works in construction and I help him on the weekends, that’s all.” He answered quietly, giving you another glimpse of that deep voice you were quickly becoming addicted to, whilst also trying to use his long hair as a shield to hide his blush.

“Makes sense. Do you ever work shirtless?” You questioned, unable to stop the cheeky giggle from escaping you at the sight of his eyebrows raising.

“Sometimes, when it’s hot.” Bucky replied, logical as ever. He wasn’t blind to your flirting, but he had convinced himself that it really wasn’t what it seemed to be- a stunning girl like you had no interest in him. There’s no way.

You laughed quietly at him, finding his analytical answer to be cute and endearing, far from the images circulating your mind; mainly Bucky’s abs. But you managed to push through until the end of class, walking out and into the hall with him on your way to his car. He pulled the door open for you when you reached it, making you swoon at his chivalry as you sat in the leather seat, your eyes trained on his ass through the windscreen as he made his way to the driver’s side.

Bucky’s hand was itching to hold onto your thigh as he drove, he had seen the romantic gesture in films and with other couples and longed to do it with you. Maybe he would at some point…

His back was leaning comfortably against the side of your bed as he sat on the floor, the soft mattress supporting his shoulders as he typed on his laptop, helping you come up with a plan for one of your essays. You watched his fingers dance across the keyboard, his forearms flexing and installing more pictures inside you.

The horniness had gradually been building up, starting with a small throb in your clit but now you feel your slick wetting the cotton of your underwear as you lay on your stomach on your bed, looking over Bucky’s head. Bucky was, unaware of your movements as he gave all of his attention to the screen. Your hands started at his shoulders, moving down slowly to lay on his hard chest, giving his pecs a little squeeze.

“Do you wanna take a break, Bucky?” You asked, bringing your lips right up to his neck and placing a little kiss on his soft skin. He didn’t know what to do or how to react, so he just froze and kept his eyes straight, worrying that if they ventured he wouldn’t be able to control himself.

“Sure.” He managed to whisper, closing the lid on his computer and sliding it off his lap.

You climbed off the bed as gracefully as you could, making sure your short flowing skirt wasn’t revealing too much to the gorgeous man sitting beneath you. His eyes trailed the skin of your bare thighs, imagining the sight that he would see if he just reached forward and lifted up the material covering you.

He had dreamed of that moment more times than he could remember: the feeling on your soft body perfectly moulding with his, the adorable moans and whimpers you would let out, the way you would wrap so tightly around him. Of course, Bucky had never had a chance to put these plans into motion, with anyone, as his perpetual nerves limited his opportunities of talking to girls.

You were the only one he wanted anyway.

As you sat down between his legs, close enough that you could lay your hands on his thighs, both of your heartbeats picked up to an uncomfortable pace- you had never been so nervous. Bucky kept his hands locked on his tummy, trying to dispel the urge to touch you as you looked at him subtly, picking at a loose thread on your rug.

“I have another question,” you asked quietly, moving your hand so it was resting on his knee, “and you have to promise to answer.”

Bucky nodded.

“Do you like me?”

His head shot up, eyes wide and full of tension, not managing to hide the truth like he so desperately wished he could. He was never good under pressure, always managing to let his truths and feelings be shown through his blue eyes, it was like a by-product of the anxiety.

You giggled to yourself, looking back down at the floor as you processed the information, trying to think of the best way to let him know that you felt the same way. Straddling his lap and lacing your hands through his hair seemed way too forward, so you settled for getting up on your knees and leaning towards him, your faces inches apart.

“I like you too, handsome.”

The kisses started on his cheeks, leaving behind glossy pink lip prints all over his face, as he basked in the glory that your lips pressed into him, feeling almost as cherished as he wanted to make you feel. You had every intention of staying knelt in front of him, but that subdued confidence started assembling in Bucky again, to the point where he reached forward, a hand in between your thighs, pushing them apart and pulling each one towards him until you were straddling him, the way you thought about earlier.

Laying your hands on his pecs again, unable to stop yourself from squidging them one more time, you laughed as he flexed them under your fingers beforeyou moved your attention to his biceps, tightening your hands on those too.

“You’re so big.”

“Just you wait.” He laughed, not realising he had actually said that out loud until your wandering hands stilled and your eyes met his again, his brain racking with worry.

“And you’re funny too.” You said, chuckling at his innuendo, letting your hands drift down his stomach and closer to his crotch, itching to get your hands on him. But you knew there was a huge possibility that Bucky wasn’t ready to go that far, so you stopped what you were doing and looked up at him again.

“Do you wanna have sex, Buck?”

“Yeah.”

With confirmation safely in your hands, you reached under his shirt, grabbed the hem and pulled it up and off of him, watching the way his muscles moved. You had no time to oggle him, as Bucky went for your shirt too, tugging it over your head in one swift motion, before reaching behind and unclasping your bra.

The two of you were a mess of desperation, clothes finding themselves on the floor before you had any idea they had even come off your body, Bucky’s hands ripping the cotton from you in a deep excitement to have you.

“Condom?” He asked against your lips, bringing you back to sit on his naked lap, his throbbing cock laying comfortably against his tummy. You hummed, acknowledging his question and reaching over to your bedside table from your place on the floor, pulling out the unopened box.

“Never done this before so…” You explained, signalling to the sealed pack you were struggling to rip into. Bucky laid his hands on yours, stopping your floundering and easily popping it open and taking one out.

“This is a first for both of us.”

You smiled at that, a morsel of nervousness leaving your head as you relaxed into his chest, one hand of his grazing up and down your back as he used his other and his teeth to open the condom. Your head was resting on his shoulder, giving every inch of flesh you could reach a kiss.

Whilst you were feathering smooches across Bucky’s chest, he managed to work his way around the protection, struggling for only a second, before he was sliding his tip through your folds, making you shudder.

But as you were about to lower yourself down on him for the first time, he held your hips up, stopping you, as he pushed himself onto his feet, turning around and facing the bed, laying you gently on the mattress. Shuffling backwards into the middle of the bed and watching as Bucky climbed up with you, laying himself in between your legs and grabbing the base of his cock, you smiled sweetly at him.

“Do it, Bucky.”

He slid inside with one smooth thrust, his thickness opening you up tenderly as he lowered himself down on you, holding himself up on his forearms which were laid on either side of your head. You whimpered with every movement, every loving plunge of his cock, every bump of your clit against his front, every soothing kiss he placed on your forehead.

“Shit… You feel so good.” He groaned, weakening his actions in order to drag it out for longer, just nudging that special spot inside of you with his tip and gently teasing your walls open. “Does it feel good for you?”

“So fucking good.” Your eyes were closed tightly, ensuring that the feeling of him entering you had no distractions, as you gripped his shoulders and wrapped your legs around him, driving him in deeper.

“Oh my God, Bucky.” You whispered, a sentence littered with whimpers and happiness as he sucked a bouquet of little hickies onto your neck.

At one point, Bucky really started to torture you; sitting back on his knees, holding your legs up and apart, putting your perfect little pussy on display and watching his cock split you open over and over again. The change of position was sweet torment, hitting parts of you that made you have to bite down on your lip to stop the screaming… until Bucky slid his thumb into your mouth for you to suck on.

And that’s how you came: drooling on your man’s thumb imagining it was his cock in your mouth, whilst he instead pushed into you, changing his pace from time to time just to tease you.

It made your legs drop open even wider, a rush of wetness pouring out of you as Bucky finished too, an almost-pained moan leaving him as his hands hugged your hips tightly. He kept ahold of you as he pulled out, leaving you momentarily to get rid of the condom before coming back and laying down next to you and pulling you onto his chest.

“I’m gonna ask you another question,” You said, a few minutes later, after your breathing had returned to normal, “can we do that again?”

#bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x fem!reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x female reader

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cherryfennec · 5 months

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Okay I love your most recent art work of Mario and Mr. L!!! I’m just curious how on earth did you draw their hats so well?? Especially the brim of their hats?! Hats are the one thing I struggle with when drawing them! I can’t make it look believable!

Hi! First of all thank you for the kind words, I'm glad you like the art! Now as for hats (more specifically Mario and Luigis type) there can be different ways you might go about drawing them.

(I should probably mention at the beginning that I am not an expert and sometimes struggle myself as well. Despite this I'll try my best to explain how I usually approach it.)

Let's start with brims because they seem the most problematic (as I see it.)

What I'm going to talk about might already be intuitive for a lot of people, including myself, however I thought it'd be a good idea to break down the mindset so everyone is on the same page and those who have trouble seeing it can hopefully understand stuff better.

First it's obviously the idea. No real details, just the general idea. With it we'll be able to establish the basic rules for what you're drawing, most importantly the angle and perspective.

Now this is going to be pretty self explanatory but: if I'm drawing a character looking up I know that the bottom of the brim will be visible, if the characters looking down it won't and etc. An easy way to check which parts of the brim will be visible from a specific view point is to imagine it as a slab.

Now this isn't anything mind blowing, I know, but saying this out loud can be handy and save you some overthinking.

Alright, let's talk about the hat itself now!

In most of the pictures I could find of the bros hats they're divided into two parts: the front, which is taller and slightly spiked up, and the back, which is noticeably shorter. Now this kinda goes back to the idea of simplifying shapes:

At some point it unfortunately becomes rather difficult to explain why some stuff is drawn the way it is because it's kinda justified by: "that's how the real life counterparts act". Above everything I highly recommend references, both irl and ingame ones. It's not embarrassing to use them, trust me, no one will criticise you and they'll help!

Now that we got the brim and the hat, let's put the two together!

There isn't really a strict order of how you should draw things, everyone has different preferences and processes which should be taken into consideration. For example, I personally like to draw the entire head before I touch on the cap:

(I added the hair and colours for the sole purpose of this post, this process is usually done during rough sketching.)

This way I have a point of reference where the brim ends (right before the ear for me) and where I should place the middle line on the cap (it's a bit of a stylistic choice than anything but it also lets me know where the fold will be). You can find your own way and make your own rules and with time the process will get much easier! I hope this somewhat helps.

Just practice, have patience, experiment and most importantly: have fun!

#super mario #mario #luigi #mario bros #wario #waluigi #mario tennis #myart

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friendofcars · 1 year

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I finished my data analysis for POV distribution in TRC! Figure captions are in the alt text. Other observations, discussion of the analysis and results, and some supplemental figures are under the cut. This is perhaps the most self-indulgent project I've worked on <3

Other observations: I went into this analysis with the hypothesis that each of the four protagonists would have the most chapters and/or pages in the following pattern: Blue for TRB, Ronan for TDT, Adam for BLLB, and Gansey for TRK. This mostly held true, although Blue had more chapters and pages than Adam in BLLB. This trend was more significant in terms of page distribution compared to chapter distribution. Mean chapter length differences were infrequent and did not follow the expected pattern, although I did see trends towards shorter chapters for antagonists not grouped into "all others."

There is a relative lack of back-to-back chapters for the same POV character, although this does occur in all books (twice for Blue in TRB; once for The Gray Man, twice for Adam, and six times for Ronan in TDT; five times for Blue [two of which are back-to-back-to-back], once for Gansey, twice for Adam [one of which is back-to-back-to-back], and once for Greenmantle in BLLB. I mention all of this to say that in TRK, this occurs once for Ronan, once for Blue, once for Adam, and thrice for Gansey- but in one of these instances, Gansey has SIX chapters in a row. Nine of the chapters from 48 to 58 are from his POV. The Raven King indeed!

Analysis notes:

For each book, I counted how many chapters each POV character had and how many pages each POV character had. Page numbers are based on the UK paperback editions of the series. In the figures, I show raw # of chapters and pages, as well as the proportion of chapters and pages attributed to each POV character over the total number of chapters or pages. I also compared POV characters’ pages/chapter ratio and tested for differences in mean chapter length with a one-way ANOVA with multiple comparisons.

For most measures, in cases where chapters had multiple POV characters in sequence, I divided the chapter by # of characters. For example, chapter 44 in TRB starts with Adam, switches to Whelk, and ends with Blue. This chapter counted as 1/3 chapter for each character. In BLLB, only the prologue contained multiple discrete POV sections (Persephone, Calla, and Maura) and Piper only had her POV featured in the epilogue so I grouped these two chapters as “All Others” and excluded them from statistical tests. For TRK and TRC, I did include the "All Others" category in the analysis. (“All Others” includes chapters/pages with ambiguous POV (Kavinsky’s text in TDT- are we reading it from the sender or the recipient’s POV?), mixed/omniscient POV (the Gray Man’s tarot reading in TDT – we get internal thoughts and feelings from multiple characters), and in TRK, any character aside from Blue, Gansey, Adam, and Ronan.)

In figures that represent raw counts of chapters or pages, the dashed horizontal line represents the expected number of chapters or pages per POV character if the distribution was equal. The p values on these figures represent the results of a Chi-square test to test whether the actual distribution of pages or chapters was different from an equal distribution.

For the pages/chapter ratio data and the Chi-square tests, I did not apply this calculation and counted each discrete POV as a full chapter because I needed counts and sample sizes to be integers for the statistical analysis (Gansey having an n = 8.5 was not making GraphPad prism very happy with me). I had to do a bit of rounding to the nearest number which was not ideal, but I did this as little as possible. (There is probably a workaround for this, at least for the ratio data, but I am not a statistician). To at least approximate what results would look like without the skew towards a lower pages/chapter ratio, I also ran the ANOVA only with chapters containing a single POV character, which is why you’ll see two figures for the pages/chapter metric for each book (except for BLLB).

I am considering p values < 0.05 to be significant; I have included non-significant p values on some figures to provide additional context. If there is no p value on a given figure, you can assume I found no significant differences amongst POV characters’ chapters and/or pages in my analysis.

If you have questions about the analysis please let me know! :)

Supplemental figures: TRK data shown for all unique POV characters (these figures do not have captions in the alt text; the four on the left depict distribution of chapters and pages across the 19 different POV characters in TRK; the vast majority of the chapters and pages are attributed to either Blue, Gansey, Adam, or Ronan. The two figures on the left show mean pages per chapter for all characters, with no clear/statistically significant trends across the data. The demon's chapters are noticeably short.)

#rchl #trc #trc data #the raven cycle #the raven boys #the dream thieves #blue lily lily blue #the raven king #this was sooooooo fun btw do we want setting data next maybe?#im also working on a more language driven project about usage of camaro vs pig #also i have reached self parody by including a supplemental section like that is truly absurdly me

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navybrat817 · 2 years

Text

Once Upon a Time

Pairing: Librarian!Bucky Barnes x Female Reader Summary: Happily Ever After begins in the subway. Word Count: Almost 1.7k Warnings: First meeting, swearing, unwanted advances, slight fluff, protective Bucky Barnes (he’s a warning, okay?). A/N: I need another AU like a hole in the head, but Nix's edit inspired me. @11thstreetvigilante, @sweeterthanthis , @dreamlessinparis , @musingsinmoonlight , thank you for helping me bring him to life. ❤️ Beta read by the beautiful @whisperlullaby (thank YOU as well!), but any and all mistakes are my own. Edit by Nix, divider by @rookthorne and banner by yours truly. Poem by the lovely @maladaptivexxdaydreaming from these prompts.

Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog for new fics and notifications and please reblog or comment as it means the world!

You met Bucky Barnes on an ordinary night in a quiet subway car.

There weren't many people around, which gave you a chance to sit on an empty bench and enjoy the relatively quiet ride after the long work day.

It never bothered you to ride alone. The restaurant you were meeting your friends at was only a few stops away and it was cheaper than a cab.

Your mom told you more than once that it wasn't safe, but you argued that neither was walking home by yourself at night. Plus, you carried pepper spray.

"If you had a boyfriend to walk you home, I wouldn't worry so much."

While you understood her reasoning, your last relationship fizzled almost as quickly as it began and that was over six months ago. You didn't need a reminder that you were single.

You briefly glanced up from your phone and reminded yourself to at least be aware of your surroundings. Which was how you found yourself staring at a handsome man standing a few feet away.

He was tall from what you could see and broad across the chest. From a casual glance, you made out that he had blue eyes behind the glasses perched on his nose.

The brunette turned the page of the book he was holding and you couldn't help but stare at his massive hands. The leather glove that covered his left hand matched his jacket.

You had to smile when you realized he was leaning against the door which specifically said not to. The leather and relaxed stance added to the allure that maybe he was the kind of man to break the rules.

The book of poetry in his hand that you recognized, however, suggested that he was a thoughtful, deep man. Maybe he was all of those things.

If he noticed you staring, he didn't say anything. That gave you a few more seconds to ponder on how soft his short hair was before you looked away.

You couldn't remember the last time someone grabbed your attention so quickly. He hadn't even spoken to you.

Dream on. Happily Ever After doesn't begin in the subway.

If not, why did you look up to find him gazing at you? And why did he have a small smile on his face?

Don't say anything. A man that handsome probably has someone at home waiting to feel that scruff between their thighs.

"I have that book," you said before you could stop yourself.

I hope that didn't sound like a line.

"My heart beats slowly when you look at me. When your eyes meet mine, my breath stops."

Though you were only quoting a part of a poem to him, the words rang true: You felt like you couldn't breathe as your eyes met.

His small smile stretched into a grin and you found yourself smiling back before the subway lurched to a stop.

Whatever moment transpired between the two of you faded as the door closest to you opened. You also noticed the smile on the stranger's face faded quickly as a man stumbled in and over to the empty spot beside you.

"Hey, sweet thing," the guy smirked as he threw an arm over your shoulders. "I'm Blake."

The man had an athletic build and was good-looking, but the alcohol on his breath and leering gaze created a pit in your stomach.

"Hey yourself," you said. You carefully removed his arm and scooted away until you hit the end of the bench.

The guy didn't take the hint and he inched closer. "Nice dress."

You smiled, not wanting to cause any trouble. "Thanks."

"Bet it would look nice on my floor."

Those lines don't work on me, buster.

"It looks better in my hamper, trust me," you said as you grasped the pole beside you and stood up before he could put his arm around you again.

"What's the rush, sweet thing?"

"My stop is coming up."

"If you need help getting off, I'm happy to lend a hand."

"No thanks. I have two of my own," you smiled.

The handsome stranger either snorted at your joke or found a funny passage in his book.

Blake, on the other hand, didn't seem to take the joke well as he got to his feet. "I'm just being friendly. No need to be a bitch."

The sound of whirring metal distracted you from the insult. At least, that's what you thought the sound was.

"I'm not being a bitch. My stop is-"

"Coming up. Yeah, yeah, yeah," he said, nearly falling into you as you tried to back up more. You had nowhere to go. "If you're so nice, let me walk you home."

"No, thank you," you said with a grimace as he gripped your hip to steady himself. "Maybe you should sit back down."

"Only if you sit on my lap," he smirked, making the pit in your stomach grow. "C'mon, sweet thing. You can miss your stop."

"I said 'no'," you said louder, reaching into your bag for your pepper spray.

Mom, if you can sense this or if I ever tell you this story, don't say "I told you so".

"Sit down."

The low tone from the handsome stranger made you and Blake look his way. You felt like you couldn't breathe again when you saw the anger in his eyes.

"This doesn't concern you, asshole," Blake snapped.

"She asked you to sit down. I suggest you do as she says."

Blake let go of your hip, but didn't get out of your personal space. "Fuck off."

The stranger sighed as he closed his book and pushed himself away from the door. "Sit. Down." He said, his voice lower than before.

"Or what?"

You didn't speak as your knight in leather jacket armor removed his glasses and tucked them in his pocket. "You wanna find out?"

Oh, shit. Please, don't fight. And why is it making me swoon that he's defending me?

Blake wasn't small by any means, but he didn't carry the power that your hero did. He took three steps forward and that was enough for the jerk to back away.

"Whatever. Bitch probably doesn't put out anyway."

"Excuse me?" you asked. Why did turning someone's advances down make you a bitch?

"Do you mind holding this, please?" the man's voice warmed as he held his book out for you. Once you took it from his hand, he turned his attention to Blake.

"What the fuck?" he shouted when the brunette grabbed his hand, the one that gripped your hip, and twisted.

"Apologize," he ordered, twisting a bit more to make Blake yelp. "Now."

"Fuck, I'm sorry! Let go, let go!" Blake cried.

"It's fine," you said as the subway began to come to a stop. "Really, I'm fine."

The stranger let go of Blake's hand and shoved him back onto the bench. "Next time someone tells you to back off, listen. And you better not get off at this stop, you understand me?"

"Got it," he said, not making eye contact as he rubbed his wrist.

The door opened for your stop and you wished you had a little bit longer to talk to the man who defended you. "Thank you," you said.

He took the book from your hand and you couldn't help but shiver as your fingertips touched his. "It was nothing."

"Sorry, this is me," you said, gripping the bag on your shoulder as you turned to get off.

I wish I didn't have to go.

"This is me, too," you heard behind you as you stepped off the train.

"Oh," you smiled when he walked beside you. Though he was tall and clearly strong, he didn't scare you. "I really do appreciate your help."

"It was nothing," he said again, putting his left hand back in his pocket. "I saw you reaching into your bag for something, so I'm sure you could've handled him."

You nodded, thankful that he paid attention. Most would've ignored the situation. "Pepper spray."

"He would've deserved it," he chuckled.

"He would've," you giggled as you got to the top of the steps.

"I'm Bucky," he said.

You smiled and introduced yourself, falling into a comfortable silence as he walked beside you toward the restaurant. "Thanks for waking me here."

"Oh," he sounded disappointed, but nodded. "Have a good rest of the night."

Take a chance. Say something.

"Bucky?" you asked before he could walk away. "I know you said it was nothing, but I'd like to repay you somehow for stepping in."

"You don't owe me anything."

"I want to," you said, not wanting to say you just wanted a reason to see him again. "Please?"

He took his wallet out of his back pocket to get you a card. "You wouldn't happen to have a pen, would you?"

"Oh, yeah," you said, digging one out of your bag to give to him.

"I work at the Abraham Library," he explained as he held the card and wrote something down that you couldn't see. "We could always use volunteers."

"I love to read and I'd love to help out," you promised, glancing at the front of the card with his name, number and email address after he handed it to you.

"I'll make sure it's a shift where I'm working," he said, giving you back your pen as well.

"Perfect," you smiled, gesturing to the restaurant. "I should go. I hope you have a good rest of the night, too."

"Hope to see you soon, doll."

You smiled as you headed toward the door and looked back over your shoulder. He stood there with a matching smile and didn't walk away until you went inside.

You felt light on your feet as you went to the hostess station. As you told her the name for the reservation, you looked down at the card still in your hand and flipped it over with a gasp.

"The night I beg you not let the sun rise."

It was the next part of the poem you recited to him.

Maybe this is the start of my Happily Ever After.

We'll see the new lovebirds again in Far, Fary Away. Love and thanks for reading!

Masterlist ⚓ Bucky Barnes Masterlist ⚓ Ko-Fi

#navybrat writes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #librarian!bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #librarian!bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes au #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan x female reader #sebastian stan x you #sebastian stan

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m1ckeyb3rry · 28 days

Text

I LEAVE YOU

Synopsis: “Mispronounced words. He had mispronounced one of the simplest words in the English language, and it had led to all of this.” (Also know as Inumaki Toge Tries To Tell You He Loves You, But It All Goes Terribly Wrong)

JJK Masterlist

Pairing: Inumaki x Reader

Chapter Word Count: 5.3k

Content Warnings: crack fic, secondhand embarrassment, miscommunication, mentions of sex toys/fetishes (non-explicit), megumi deserves damage pay, probably not lore-compliant, not at all to be taken seriously, characters are probably ooc tbh

A/N: i posted this literally two years ago on ao3 and it just occurred to me to put it on here LMAOAO anyways i obv wrote this a long time ago and it’s the most unserious ridiculous thing ever so please don’t judge me based on this fluffy goofy silly cracky nonsense i promise I’m better now!!

divider credits: @/benkeibear

The first emotion that spiked through you when you heard that the second years were back from their mission was relief. None of them were dead; anything else, you could deal with.

You had rushed to the infirmary, ignoring Nobara’s snickers. She alone knew who you was sprinting to see — your feelings for a certainupperclassman were highly secret, of course, but somehow she had found out, and of course she had, because she was Kugisaki Nobara, and nothing could really be kept secret from her for very long.

She had been urging you to do something, to make a move, citing that it “wasn’t like he had a lot of girls interested in him, anyways,” but you had always been too shy. You weren’t sure that you could handle a rejection, and it was hard to tell whether he was interested in you or just polite.

But your fear did not stop you from skidding to a stop in front of Shoko, giving her a wide-eyed stare, patiently waiting for her to tell you what was wrong with your friends.

“Did you need something?” she said. Obviously, her cursed technique had nothing to do with reading minds, but you still scowled at her for not knowing what you were thinking.

“The second years. Are…are they alright?” you said. She frowned, and this was your first clue that there was something less than alright going on with the trio.

“Well, they’re not permanently hurt, no,” she said. You sighed in relief — this was more than you could’ve hoped for. The curse that they had been sent to fight was obviously a strong one, and more than that, it was wily, with a rumored arsenal of techniques far beyond what you could even comprehend.

“That’s good,” you said.

“It is. They’ll all make a full recovery; Maki and Panda were barely impacted, anyways,” she said. Your blood ran cold at the name she didn’t mention.

“And Inumaki?” you said. If something had happened to him…you weren’t sure what you’d do. Probably cry. A lot.

“He’s fine, just a bit shocked. See, the curse managed to take his cursed energy from him, so until that’s been replenished, he’s just a normal person,” she said.

“Huh?” you said. “What does that mean?”

“Why don’t you just ask him yourself?” she said, ushering you into the infirmary, “I know that’s why you’re really here.”

Maki and Panda were nowhere to be found, and Shoko groaned, muttering about irresponsible children and telling you she’d be back with her patients in tow once more. This left you alone in the room with Inumaki Toge — at once your biggest dream and greatest fear.

You did not speak for the first few moments, far too nervous to open your mouth. He was buried in a mountain of pillows and blankets, soft blond hair falling in his violet eyes as he flipped through the pages of a book. His zipped up collar was nowhere to be seen; he only wore a plain white t-shirt, leaving his snake-fang seals visible. You had always thought they were pretty, so then your nerves were overtaken by infatuation with the elegant markings. The end result was the same: when Inumaki looked up, it was to you awkwardly standing in the room and watching him read.

“Hello,” he said. This made you pause and think.

“Hi?” you said.

“How are you doing?” he said. Now you really were confused.

“Not that I’m complaining, but can’t you…not speak?” you said. He set his book on his nightstand and sat up with a heavy sigh.

“Normally, I can’t. But as of right now, I can. That’s the effect of that curse we fought. I have the most cursed energy out of the three of us second years, so it drained mine, which means I’m unable to use my technique until my energy’s built up again. Shoko estimates it’ll be about a week,” he said.

“Oh!” you said. So Inumaki had one week of talking normally before he would be back to his usual limited speech. You wondered what he would think to say.

You had met Inumaki on your first day at Jujutsu Tech. He had helped you find your dorm room and then, via text, warned you about Gojo’s antics. Your crush had been born the very same day. He was so beautiful and kind that it was almost a no-brainer, really; though he could only speak in rice ball components, you didn’t even care. You found solace in swooning at him from afar, and every conversation you had ever had with him since then was filed away in a special corner of your mind, played on repeat whenever you were bored.

Nobara thought you were crazy when she found out, asking you if you had an ingredients fetish and then teasing you for a solid day by moaning tuna in your ear whenever she saw you. She only stopped because you started crying and begged Fushiguro’s Divine Dogs to chase her away if she got too close. The dogs were friendly enough and obliged, though you had had to buy Fushiguro several bags of candy for his troubles.

You could hear her voice in your ear right now as you stared at Inumaki, though it was thankfully not her moaning ingredients but rather her insisting that you say something. It was so easy; now, at least, he could reject you properly, with words instead of helpless frustration and a long-winded text about how you were nice, really, but he just thought of you as an annoying friend who didn’t leave him alone, and anyways, why would he ever like you?

“Can I tell you something?” he said before you could ask to do the same. Privately, you were relieved at this, for it meant you could procrastinate your confession a little further.

“What’s up?” you said, a small, childish hope arising in you that maybe, just maybe, this was it. Maybe he’d confess first, and then things would be very simple indeed. You allowed yourself to feel excitement building at this prospect.

“I…oh, man, how do I do this?” he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, a flush rising over his pale cheeks. “Ah, shit, I’ve spent my whole life wishing I could speak and having so many things to say but not the words to say them, and now that I finally can talk, I just don’t even know what to say.”

“It’s alright. You can take your time, I don’t mind,” you said politely. And you didn’t mind — whatever he had to say, you would wait around for years if you needed to in order to hear it. He ran a hand through his hair.

“I’ll just come out with it, then!” he said, nodding determinedly before locking eyes with you, “I leave you.”

It suddenly felt like you were underwater, ears ringing. Your throat choked, and pathetic, childish tears blurred your vision. He was leaving. Inumaki, for whatever reason, was leaving. And not only was he leaving, he was leaving you in specific.

“R-really?” you said, forcing a smile, though you knew it was awfully unconvincing. “Did I do something wrong?”

“What?” He seemed embarrassed, now, averting his eyes, “No, why would you think that?”

“Well, you just said…” you trailed off helplessly.

“Oh. I thought you would be happy,” he said, his voice quiet, small, ashamed. He looked almost brokenhearted, though why he would be feeling hurt about this development, you could not be sure. He was the one making the choice to leave; you were the one fated to stay behind.

“Why would I be happy about that?” you said. He was dejected when he spoke next.

“Never mind. I don’t…I don’t know what I was thinking,” he said.

“I’ll still support you,” you said, steeling yourself to flash him a watery smile, “I hope we can still be friends.”

“Yes! Yes, please, please, I know I messed up by telling you this, but I don’t want us to stop being friends,” he said.

“I’m glad you told me, though. I’d rather not be left in the dark. Have you told anyone else yet?” you said.

“No, though I’m sure Panda suspects it,” he said before shifting uncomfortably to pull his blankets up and hide his face, “Can you, um, go? I want some time alone.”

“Right,” you said, “I’m glad you’re not hurt permanently.”

As you left, you thought you heard sniffles coming from the lump under the blanket, but if he really was crying, he gave you no other indication of it. You thought of lingering, of comforting him and asking him to comfort you, demanding he tell you the reason for his departure, but it was not your place. So, biting the inside of your cheek to hold your tears back, you marched towards Nobara’s dorm.

“He told you he’s leaving you?” she said, ten minutes later once you had explained to her the entire story. “How odd. And he hasn’t told anyone he’s transferring yet? Not even Gojo or Principal Yaga?”

“No,” you said, finding solace in her warm embrace, the scent of roses that wafted off of her skin, “I just don’t understand why he’s going.”

“It’s so strange. I mean, I really thought he liked you! Although, maybe he does. Think about it, you’re the first person he’s told, so clearly he trusts you a lot!” she said.

“You don’t have to lie to make me feel better,” you said, “Regardless as to his reasons, it remains that he’s leaving me. At least he said we can still be friends, though.”

“Wait!” she said, and there was a conniving smirk on her face that spelled trouble, “I have an idea. Let’s throw a surprise going-away-party for him! Even if you don’t confess, at least it’ll show you care about him. And maybe we’ll be able to figure out why he’s leaving and where he’s going, too.”

“We have to do it before the end of the week, then, that’s when Shoko estimates his cursed energy will be back to normal and he won’t be able to talk anymore,” you said.

“I doubt you’d be complaining about that, Miss Ingredients Fetish,” Nobara said.

“I don’t have a fetish for ingredients!” you said, wriggling out of her hug and glaring at her.

“Oh, really? So you won’t get all hot and bothered if I say ‘salmon,’ right?” she said.

“No!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Nobara, I’ve never been surer of anything in my life,” you said.

“Salmon,” she said, panting dramatically and clutching her chest. You threw a pillow at her, knocking her off of the bed in a fit of laughter.

“You suck,” you said.

“You swallow,” she shot back.

“Ugh! You’re hopeless!” you said, throwing your hands in the air.

“I’ll text the group chat to make plans for the party!” she said. You gave her the finger and stomped out of her room to go sit in your own and mope about the fact that Inumaki was leaving.

Really, this was probably a good thing. After all, with him gone, you didn’t have to worry about him accidentally finding out about your crush. And maybe you’d even be able to move on, though you had no idea who at this school would measure up to Inumaki.

Nobara’s plan was sound, though. A going away party would be perfect to wish him one final farewell — provided, of course, that you were able to keep it a secret from the boy. This was easier said than done, but you were determined. You would make Inumaki’s party an occasion to remember, but this meant you had to call in some help.

The first thing you did the next day was video call Okkotsu, who was currently in Africa, training with a sorcerer named Miguel. You had to track down Maki and beg her for his number; she had been very confused but had given it to you anyways.

This left you staring at your phone screen, praying he would pick up. Inumaki and Okkotsu were best friends, so it would be wrong to not tell the black-haired sorcerer about your plans. He also might have some insight as to where Inumaki was going and why he was leaving.

“Hello?” Thankfully, Okkotsu picked up, looking extraordinarily confused. There were dark circles under his eyes and a katana strapped to his back. Despite the fact that he looked battle ready, he was just sitting on a couch and shoving chips in his mouth. “Who is this?”

“Okkotsu, sir! This is Y/N, I’m one of the first years at Jujutsu Tech,” you said.

“Okay. Don’t call me sir, it’s weird and I’m only a year older than you. Is there a reason you’re calling me?” he said.

“Yes, there is. See, Inumaki —” you began before he cut you off.

“Ohhh, you’re that Y/N! Yeah, yeah, I completely approve,” he said.

“Did Nobara already tell you?” you said.

“No, Inumaki’s been telling me about this for months now! Who’s Nobara?” he said.

“Months? But we didn’t even start planning until yesterday,” you said.

“He’s been dreaming of this day since the beginning of the year, even video called me and everything! I don’t think I’ve heard him say ‘salmon’ as many times in a row ever before or since,” he said. Unbidden, you remembered Nobara’s actions from yesterday and shivered before shaking your head to clear such thoughts from your mind.

“Do you know why he…you know?” you said. If Inumaki really had been planning on leaving for so long, then certainly Okkotsu would know why. The boy hummed and nodded.

“Yeah, for sure! But it’s a little weird if I say it, you know? Against the bro code or whatever, and it’d feel a bit too much like I was trying to slide in, which I’m not! Just ask him, I’m sure he’ll be delighted to tell you. God, he must be so happy right now! I wish I could be there to see it,” he said.

“Well, that’s actually why I called you. I’m throwing a surprise party in honor of the occasion, and I was wondering if you’d be able to come, or at least video call in,” you said. Each word Okkotsu uttered was like a stab in the heart, further reinforcing the fact that Inumaki really, really, really didn’t like you. Why else did he make plans to leave the literal day he had met you? You only wished he would’ve gone sooner so that your feelings did not build up and compound from a simple admiration into something greater, something beautiful and untouchable yet twisted and cruel.

“Sounds like a great time! Just video call me, I’ll be sure to pick up. And I’ll try to send something along as a gift, too! Damn, I know it’s not my news to be excited for, but it feels as though my heart’s going to burst!” he said, popping a final chip into his mouth before hanging up. You stared at the phone’s black screen for a second, marvelling at how this short conversation had made you feel even worse about the status of your relationship with Inumaki.

Before, you had believed that the two of you were friends, at least. You both had gotten along well enough — you would train together and slip each other notes with book recommendations. He had told you his favorite restaurant and described exactly the meal you should order, and you had introduced him to your favorite television series. Yet with the latest revelations that your discussion with Okkotsu had brought about, it was clear that all of this was Inumaki doing the bare minimum to tolerate you until the day he could leave.

Maybe he was glad that he could speak, if only for a short time. It allowed him to tell you in no uncertain terms that he was going away. If only he had elaborated back then! If only he had said that he felt such a way about you from the very start instead of leading you on with candy-sweet platitudes and feigned affection.

With Okkotsu’s presence now confirmed (and a gift apparently on the way), you moved on to the next thing you had to do in order to prepare for the party: recruit the other second years.

You decided to start with Maki. Though she was seemingly brusque, she was also a caring girl, and you knew she’d be thrilled to help throw a farewell party for one of her closest friends, even if she had not known he was leaving until just now.

As expected, she was properly enraged upon hearing the news.

“He’s leaving? Leaving where, exactly? The only place he’ll be going is hell, because I’m about to punch him so hard that that’s where he’ll end up!” she said, balling her fists, a vein popping in her forehead.

“Woah, hey, Maki! I don’t know where he’s going, but please don’t confront him. I don’t think he wants people knowing, and I want the party to be a surprise. He might get suspicious if he realizes that you know,” you said.

“Stupid idiot, won’t even tell his own classmates that he’s going,” she muttered, “I’ll keep your secret. But I will be committing violence at the party.”

“Please don’t!” you said, distressed at the thought, “I want him to have a fun final memory of Jujutsu Tech.”

Her eyes softened when she looked at you, and she nodded begrudgingly. “Alright. Your secret, and your party, are safe with me. I won’t tell a soul! Although, you know…a surprise farewell party would be a great place to confess your feelings.”

“How — how do you know about my feelings?” you said.

“Firstly, you’re not exactly subtle, the others are just really oblivious. Secondly, Nobara mayyyy have let something slip,” she said.

“I’m going to kill her,” you said.

“Don’t,” she said.

“No, I’m seriously considering it,” you said.

“If you do, I’ll ruin Inumaki’s party,” she threatened.

“Fine!” you whined like a child, “I’m going to go talk to Panda.”

The large bear was asleep in the sun when you reached him. You nudged him with your foot in an attempt to get him to wake up; thankfully, he did, blinking his beetle-dark eyes open sleepily and sitting up when he saw you.

“Panda, I need your help,” you said seriously once you were sure that you had his undivided attention.

“What’s the matter?” he said.

“Inumaki’s leaving, so I’m throwing him a party,” you said. Panda furrowed his brow, clearly trying to process this development.

“He is?” he finally said. You nodded, a small frown tugging at the corners of your lips.

“Yeah, he literally told me as much! He was all like ‘I leave you,’ and it was kind of upsetting, actually,” you said.

“How interesting,” he said finally, and now there was mischief in his expression, “And you need my help with hosting a party?”

“I don’t know how much of a party it’ll be, exactly, I mean it’ll only be the first and second years, but yes, basically,” you said. He chuckled, rubbing his paws together menacingly.

“Excellent. Yes, I’d love to help! And it’s a surprise, right?” he said.

“Yes?” you said. He looked almost evil at this point, baring his teeth in his version of a smirk.

“Even better.”

With the second years thusly recruited and the first years taken care of by Nobara (you wasn’t sure what, exactly, she had over Fushiguro to convince him to join in on the festivities, but judging by the sour expression on his face when he RSVP'd to you, it had to be something), the guest list was complete. Panda assured you he’d get Inumaki to come without being obvious, and you were happy to entrust the task to him.

This left you to go shopping for party supplies, using Gojo’s credit card (Fushiguro had told you where it was hidden). You had convinced Nobara to stay behind, claiming that she needed to hold down the fort in your absence and get started on cleaning the room you’d use for the party. That was a lie, of course — you actually just didn’t want to take her shopping with you. If she came, you wouldn’t be back before midnight, and the party was supposed to be tonight.

“Where are you going?” Inumaki said. You almost screamed at the sound of his voice; you hadn’t expected him to just manifest out of nowhere, and especially not when you were trying to sneak out of the school in order to buy things for his surprise party.

“Shopping!” you said.

“Can I come? I feel like things were kinda left off weirdly last time we spoke, and I hoped we could try to fix them,” he said. You were unused to hearing him speak so many words at once, and you were mesmerised for a second before you mentally slapped yourself out of it.

“No! You cannot come. Sorry,” you said, feeling bad. You wanted nothing more than to talk with Inumaki, to talk and talk until your throat went dry and your words ran out, but if he saw what you were shopping for, then he’d catch on to the plan.

“Oh. Is it because I told you — ?”

“Absolutely not!” you yelped, cutting him off, not wanting him to get any ideas, “I’m shopping for personal things. Like tampons.”

“I don’t really mind that,” he said shyly, “I don’t think tampons are gross. I mean, they’re only plastic and cotton. I just really want to talk with you.”

“Sex toys!” you said.

“Um, what?” he said, taken aback. Your face was hot with embarrassment, but you needed him to understand that he was not allowed to come shopping with you. So you locked eyes with him and tried to repeat yourself.

“I am going shopping for, uh, you know…I mean, you heard me!” you said.

“Right!” he said, and he was so completely red you almost called him Clifford, “I’ll leave you to it, then! I guess we can talk later.”

You gave him a fake smile and a thumbs up, staying frozen in place until he had disappeared from sight. Then, with a wail, you called Nobara.

“I fucking told him I was shopping for sex toys!” you said, not even waiting for her to greet you like usual. There was a long silence on the other end of the line before someone cleared their throat.

“This is Fushiguro,” he said. You promptly hung up and cursed your luck. You should’ve sent Nobara to do the shopping. You really, reallyshould’ve sent Nobara.

That evening, as the sun set over the horizon and Panda distracted Inumaki, the rest of you decorated the room that Nobara and Yuji had cleared earlier in the day. Maki and Nobara were too busy whispering amongst each other to actually help, though, and you were hiding in the corner, too terrified of his reaction to even glance in Fushiguro’s direction. For his part, he did an excellent job of ignoring you, leaving him and Yuji to do the majority of the setting up.

When anxiety made it difficult to breathe, you began to fiddle with the projector, where Okkotsu’s face would be shown once he called in to the party. The green light was blinking, which meant that it was ready to go and was only waiting for you to connect your phone to it.

“It’s going to be fine,” Nobara soothed you, placing a hand on your shoulder, “I think he’ll be thankful you planned something like this at all.”

“And I still think you should confess your feelings,” Maki said, adding her unwanted opinion, “Seriously! If he rejects you then it doesn’t matter, because he’ll just be leaving soon anyways. I think you should consider it.”

“She’s right,” Nobara said, “Here, maybe this’ll motivate you.”

She leaned in until her lips were barely brushing against the shell of your ear, cool breath tickling against your neck.

“What are you doing?” you said, unamused. She pitched her voice lower before speaking.

“Bonito flakes.”

“You little — stop doing that! I do not have an ingredients fetish!” you shouted, hitting her shoulder repeatedly. She burst into raucous laughter, tears of mirth gathering along her lash line.

“I’m going to have to request you to please stop talking about your intimate life in front of me, please,” Fushiguro said uncomfortably, “I already know far more than I ever wanted to.”

“Fushiguro, it wasn’t like that, I was shopping for party supplies! I only said the other thing to throw Inumaki off the trail,” you said.

“Okay,” he said, obviously not believing you but allowing you to pretend, “Whatever you say.”

“Shh! Panda and Inumaki are on their way!” Yuji said, interrupting the conversation by hushing all of you obnoxiously, “Everyone, positions!”

You all ducked behind various pieces of furniture, and one of Fushiguro’s Divine Dogs hit the light switch, plunging the room into darkness before it melted into the shadows once more.

A second later, the door creaked open, revealing Inumaki and Panda’s silhouettes standing in the frame. From beside you, Nobara began to giggle, and you pinched her in an effort to get her to shut up. It worked, although it did have the unfortunate consequence of her pinching you back.

“What’s going on here?” Inumaki said, turning the lights on. As soon as he did, you all (with the exception of Fushiguro, of course) leapt out at him. He fell backwards in surprise, staring up at you through thick lashes.

“Surprise!” Yuji said.

“It’s not my birthday?” Inumaki said.

“Do you see a cake anywhere?” Nobara said, “This isn’t a birthday party, it’s a farewell party!”

“A farewell party? But who are we saying farewell to?” Inumaki said in confusion.

“You. Did you think we wouldn’t care about your departure? You idiot, we’re going to miss you so much!” Maki said, sniffing and wiping away a tear.

“Let’s all go around and share our favorite memories with Inumaki,” Yuji said. Inumaki seemed dumbfounded, so Nobara took the initiative to respond.

“That’s a great idea! I’ll go first — I really enjoyed the one time he let me paint his nails,” she said.

“I don’t have any good memories,” Fushiguro deadpanned, “But if I had to pick a tolerable one, it would be when I convinced him to use his Cursed Speech on Nanami.”

“I remember that!” Maki said, howling in laughter, “And I can’t pick a favorite memory. We just have too many good ones.”

“Same!” Yuji said, and he was bawling now for some reason, “You’re just so cool, Inumaki! I’m so sad that you’re going!”

“Y/N, what about you?” Maki said.

“Confess! Confess! Confess!” Nobara chanted, not even trying to be subtle about it anymore.

“Be quiet!” you said.

“Do it or I’ll do it for you!” she said. You looked around at the audience; they all seemed interested, even Fushiguro. Though you wanted to talk to Inumaki in a bit more of a private setting, Nobara and Maki were right in that this was the perfect time to say something. So, taking a deep breath, you faced the boy.

“Inumaki,” you said, “I know that I’ve been acting weird recently, ever since you told me you’ll be going, but that’s because I don’t want you to. See, the truth is that I love you. I think I have for a while now, and I’m going to miss you, and I don’t want you to go, so please don’t. Please stay.”

He blinked. “Huh? What do you mean? I never said I was going anywhere.”

“Yes you did!” you said, pointing at him accusingly, “I remember it! That day in the infirmary!”

“I didn’t say I was going anywhere, I said I leave you!” he said.

“That’s the same thing!” you said indignantly, “You’re getting upset about semantics when I just confessed that I love you, idiot! Doesn’t that even mean anything to you?”

“No? I’ve never heard of that word before!” he said.

“Love? You’ve never heard of love before?” you said. He shook his head.

“Nope,” he said.

“L-O-V-E. Love. That rings no bells?” you said. His face suddenly went snow-white.

“L-O-V-E is pronounced…love?” he said.

“How the hell else would it be pronounced?” you snapped, feeling far too bewildered and irritated to soften your words. How could he have treated your feelings so flippantly? How did he just not understand love?

Inumaki suddenly found the floor incredibly fascinating. “...leave.”

“What?” You said.

“What?” he said innocently.

“OH MY GOD!” Nobara squealed, catching on far quicker than you, “You both are idiots!” Finally, you began to understand, and then you were inclined to agree with her.

“So you’re not going anywhere?” you checked.

“No, I’m not,” he said.

“He hasn’t been able to speak for practically his entire life,” Panda said, shoulders shaking with laughter, “Can you blame him if he mispronounces a couple of words now and then? It’s not like anybody’s ever corrected him before.”

Mispronounced words. He had mispronounced one of the simplest words in the English language, and it had led to all of this.

“You’re not leaving,” you said again, drawing closer to him, “You’re not leaving me.”

“I won’t ever leave you if you don’t want me to,” he said, wrapping his arms around you in a warm hug.

“Don’t,” you said, “Please don’t.”

“I love you. That’s what I meant to say all along,” he said.

“I guess I threw this whole party for nothing, then,” you said, hiding your face in his shirt.

“Is this what you were shopping for earlier? Not…the other things?” he said.

“Yeah. It was just a surprise, so I didn’t want you coming along,” you said, feeling bashful at how entirely silly the entire affair had ended up being. He let out a warm, gentle laugh that caused his chest to vibrate against your cheek.

“It’ll be hard, you know. Once this week is over, I’ll be back to only speaking in rice ball ingredients,” he warned.

“That’s probably for the best. Less room for misinterpretation,” you said.

“Plus, she has an ingredients fetish!” Nobara chimed in. You withdrew from the safety of Inumaki’s shirt to scowl at her.

“Enough with the ingredients fetish!”

A knock at the door interrupted the tense showdown; Panda opened it to reveal a delivery man, who was holding a package and fidgeting, probably out of fear, considering he was face to face with a giant, sentient panda.

“I have a package from an Okkotsu Yuta, addressed here?” he said. You slapped your forehead.

“Shit, I forgot about him! Thank you,” you said, accepting the box and then quickly calling Okkotsu.

“Hey, guys!” he said cheerily. His phone must have been set up against the wall of a building or something, because it showed him busy using his katana to exorcise curses and not even breaking a sweat, “Sorry, this isn’t a great time, but congratulations on getting together! I hope you like your present — hey! Stay away from the iPhone!” The screen abruptly went dark as a curse swiped at Okkotsu’s cell phone, knocking it down while the sorcerer snarled.

“Open the present!” Yuji said excitedly.

Inside of the box were two bright pink t-shirts. Both of them had white lettering on them — one said I’m Okkotsu Yuta’s Best Friend Foreverand the other said I’m Okkotsu Yuta’s Girlfriend-in-Law.

You all stared at them, expressions varying from amusement to delight to horror. You didn’t even question how Okkotsu had known that you and Inumaki would confess to each other. Clearly, he already thought you both were together, so it was really just divine timing in that sense.

Somewhere in Africa, Okkotsu finished exorcising the curses and sheathed his katana, casting aside his jacket to reveal a bright pink shirt that said on it in white lettering, I’m Okkotsu Yuta.

“Maybe they’ll let me third wheel,” he mused to himself, “I mean, they had better, considering how hard these shirts were to find at the thrift store.”

#inumaki x reader #toge x reader #inumaki x y/n #toge x y/n #inumaki x you #toge x you #inumaki #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #toge #reader insert #canon au #i leave you #m1ckeyb3rry writes

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indigostudies · 10 months

Note

What are those apps you usually post in your productivity updates?

hi! here's a breakdown of apps i use, as well as websites and other resources i've used/use for my learning (mainly chinese, though some of these resources can be used for other languages as well).

apps i use every day:

dot languages: this is a chinese-specific app where you select your hsk level, and then read articles at that level. there's a pop-up dictionary, an option to show pinyin, post-article vocab practice (audio, matching, translation, and writing), and the option to have your articles either in simplified or traditional.

TOFU learn: a blend between flashcards and writing, you can find decks for various things, including hsk level-specific decks, and you learn new vocab with the stroke order and then write each new term three times—once with an overlay (so the term is visible), and then two times from memory. there's also a review function, which helps you practice terms you've already learnt, and each term has audio that goes with it. i use it for chinese, but there's decks for esperanto, french, german, italian, japanese, korean, norweigian, portuguese, russian, spanish, swedish, and turkish.

the pleco dictionary app: my favourite chinese dictionary app; allows you to translate from english to chinese or chinese to english, has options for writing, radical, vocal, and keyboard entry, and has both traditional and simplified characters.

ankiapp: this one's not particularly complicated; it's a flashcard app, where you can make your own decks or download decks other people have made. it uses a spaced repetition system to help you remember terms—you rate yourself from worst to best on how well you remembered the term, and that determines how many times it'll pop up afterwards. it also gives you an overall grade for each deck, which is a nice way to measure your progress.

duolingo: probably my least favourite of all of the apps i use; the chinese course isn't the best, and now that they've removed the notes/grammar information option, there's no way for people who aren't already fairly familiar with the language and its inner workings to learn them if they exclusively use duolingo. it's okay for maintenance practice, though, but i'm already almost finished with the entire course and i would say it barely reaches to lower hsk 4, so i wouldn't say it's a good tool if you're more advanced.

apps i have but use less often:

readibu: this is sort of like dot in that it's an app for reading in chinese with a pop-up dictionary. however, that's where the similarities end; readibu has novels, short stories, and articles aimed at children, and each of those are further split into genres. readibu also lets you add your own web-pages and read them on the app, so you can use its pop-up dictionary with them. it's aimed more to intermediate and upper intermediate learners, with hsk levels ranging from hsk 4 to hsk 6. the only reason i rate dot above readibu is because dot has a larger range of levels (hsk 1 through hsk 6 i believe? but it may go higher) and exercises built in to help you learn the vocab.

the chairman's bao: also a chinese reading app, though if you use the free version, you only get one sample article per hsk level (hsk 1 - hsk 6). i believe that every so often you get a new sample article for each level, but i'm not sure what the interval on that is. it also has a pop-up dictionary and a flashcard option for saved vocab.

du chinese: another chinese reading app; it has articles divided into newbie through master (six levels in total, though they don't line up perfectly with the hsk in my experience), and new articles are free for a certain period of time before becoming locked behind a paywall. there's a pop-up dictionary and a vocab review/test option for vocab you save.

memrise: flashcards with audio, depending on whether you're using an official course or a user-generated deck. decent, but it can get repetitive.

hellotalk: not exclusively chinese, but i believe it started off mainly aimed that way. you set your language, and then your target language, and then you can talk to native speakers who have your language as their target language. potentially incredibly useful, but if you're like me and extremely introverted you may have a hard time using this app, since it requires a lot of one-on-one interaction.

slowly: i haven't actually gotten around to using this, but it's sort of like a digital penpal app, as i understand it. you can learn more about it here.

websites and other miscellanea:

this massive mega drive by @salvadorbonaparte (languages, linguistics, translation studies, and more).

this masterpost by @loveletter2you (linguistics, languages, and language learning books/textbooks).

this masterpost on chinese minority literature by @zaobitouguang

the integrated chinese textbooks by cheng and tsui, which are the textbooks i use for self-study—there's textbooks and workbooks, as well as character workbooks (though these can easily be cut out without suffering from the loss).

mandarinbean: graded readers, hsk 1 - hsk 6, with a pop-up dictionary and the option to read in traditional or simplified

chinese reading practice: reading, beginner through advanced (three levels), with a pop-up dictionary and some additional notes included on vocab and language-specific things non-native speakers might struggle with or not know.

hsk reading: graded readers, hsk 1 - hsk 6, divided into three sections (beginner, intermediate, advanced). does not have a pop-up dictionary, but does have an option to translate the text, post-reading quizzes, and notes on important vocab with example sentences.

my chinese reading: reading from beginner to advanced (four levels); has a pop-up dictionary, the option to play an audio recording of the passage you're reading, notes on key words, things that are difficult to translate, grammar, and post-reading comprehension questions.

the heavenly path notion website, which i would say is one of the best resources i've ever found, with a massive number of guides, lists of chinese media in a variety of forms, and general resources.

chinese character stroke order dictionary: what it says on the tin; will show you the stroke order for a given character.

hanzigrids: allows you to generate your own character worksheets. i use this very frequently, and can recommend it. the only downside is if you want to create multiple pages at once, you have to pay; however this can easily be circumnavigated by creating only one sheet at a time. you can download the sheet as a pdf and print it out for personal use.

21st century chinese poety: a resource i only came across recently; has a massive collection of contemporary chinese poetry, including translations; much more approachable than classical poetry, which can often be incredibly dense and hard to parse due to the writing style.

zhongwen pop-up dictionary: if you're reading something in chinese on a website that doesn't have a pop-up dictionary, this is a must. i've never encountered any words that it doesn't have a translation for so far, including colloquialisms/slang. i use it to read webnovels, and it's been a fantastic tool. you can also save vocab by hitting the r key when you're hovering over a word/phrase, making it easy to go back and add terms to your flashcard deck(s).

chinese reading world: a website put together by the university of iowa; split into three levels (beginner, intermediate, and advanced), with thirty units per level, and ten modules per unit, as well as multiple proficiency tests per level. each module is split into three parts: a pre-reading vocab quiz, the reading with a number of comprehension questions based on it, and a post-vocab reading quiz. it also rates you in relation to someone with a native proficiency based on how quickly you read and answer the comprehension questions, and how many vocab questions you get right.

jiaoyu baike: an extensive chinese-to-chinese dictionary, put out by the taiwanese ministry of education. you can find an extensive write-up on it here, by @linghxr.

social media etc: see this post by @rongzhi.

qianpian: another chinese-to-chinese dictionary; @ruhua-langblr has a write-up on it here.

this writeup on zero to hero by @meichenxi; initially aimed at chinese learning, but now has expanded greatly.

music rec's: this masterpost by @linghxr.

tv/film: youtube is a great place to find chinese tv shows and films, and they often have english subtitles. if you can't find something on there, though, you can probably find it either on iqiyi or asianvote, which have both chinese and other asian shows and films (though you'll want an adblock if you're going to use the latter). i use these a lot to watch things, and have discovered a lot of media through these, and then novels through those when i went searching to see what they were adapted from.

polylogger: a website for logging the amount of time/type of language study you do. has a wide variety of languages, and the option to follow other people. still, it's a fairly basic site.

#chinese langblr #chinese language #chinese learning #langblr #chinese #mandarin #langblr resources #resources #汉语 #indigostudies #inbox #indigo ink

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bastila-s · 5 months

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Baldur's Gate 3 Screenshot Tutorial

Hi, I decided to make a more in-depth guide for my twitter followers, as I'm super limited in characters and formatting options over there.

For this tutorial, I'll explain how you can enhance your screenshots. I'll divide it into five parts: ReShade, making your screenshots high resolution, camera mods, photography basics, and post-processing. By the end of following all of these steps, you should have something way better than the start!

I recommend going through this tutorial downloading things step-by-step for the first three parts, as it'll help you to quickly identify where you've gone wrong if you have any issues.

1. ReShade ReShade is a post-processing tool that allows you to change the look of a game with an array of different effects and adjustments to use. It can be a lot to wrap your head around at first, so I recommend starting off by finding a ReShade preset that speaks to you from this page if you're not already familiar with using it. The mod authors should explain how to download it. I find 22:20 of this YouTube video to be helpful to introduce ReShade if you're completely new to it. This video is for the Sims 4, but ReShade typically works the same across different games. Now that ReShade is downloaded, we can get depth of field working within the ReShade. This step is optional. Depth of field refers to what will be in focus in your screenshot, and what will be blurred. It's essentially simulating shooting with a camera, like so:

To get this effect working, you need to follow this tutorial within the ReShade menu.

2. Making Your Screenshots High Resolution Typically, Baldur's Gate 3 is ran in 1920x1080 resolution, or standard HD (unless you have a higher resolution monitor and are running the game in 4k, in which case, you can ignore this step if you'd like). This is definitely an acceptable quality, but if you'd like to capture any detail, you're not going to get much out of this. To get a better quality image, there are two ways to achieve this. The first method is through hotsampling. Hotsampling is briefly running a game in a much higher resolution than your monitor supports, allowing you to capture screenshots with incredible detail, then bringing it back down to a native playable resolution. To hotsample, you'll either need to use the BG3 camera tool, or SRWE. For either of these hotsampling tools, it's important that you've downloaded ReShade, or they will not work.

Once you have either of these downloaded, make sure your game is running in windowed mode. If you have more than one monitor, you need to change your display to show only on one screen. Or again, this will not work.

Next, you're going to want to make sure you have a key set for taking screenshots in ReShade, as well as making sure you like the folder where your screenshots are set to be saved. You can find this in the settings tab. Once you have those set, you're ready to take really HD screenshots!

To do that, you want to set your game's resolution to 2x, or even 3x what it's currently displayed as. Once it's set, your game screen is going to look giant and probably run way off your monitor. This is a sign it's working! Once it looks like this, press the screenshot key you set earlier within ReShade, and there you go, a nice big screenshot should be in the folder you set!

If you don't want to do hotsampling, and if you have a Nvidia graphics card, you can download their their app, which can take resampled screenshots. It won't be as high quality as hotsampling, but still better than standard HD.

3. Camera Mods

There are two camera mods that I know of for BG3. One is paid, the other is not.

The first one is the Native Camera Tweaks mod. This mod allows you to move the camera around more freely as you're traversing the world, but in cutscenes you'll still be stuck.

The second one is the paid one, but it allows for total freedom within the game, even during cutscenes. This tool is also very helpful for hotsampling. Within this tool, it's very useful to configure your own controls for moving the camera around in game, as well as setting a key you'll remember for pausing the game so you can set up a screenshot. I changed the movement keys to be wasd and the keys to change the angle of my camera side to side/up and down to the arrow keys.

4. Photography Basics

Taking screenshots in a game is a lot like doing photography irl tbh lol, same rules mostly apply. You of course want to do the basics like making sure your subject is in focus, it's not too dark or too light. But some other tips for people not very familiar with taking photos to take note of are:

Make sure if you're taking a photo of a person, the top of their head is within frame

Try and either make sure someone is front and center, or in the rule of thirds

Pay attention to the lighting, sometimes it's too bright or too dull. Sometimes it's unflattering in certain angles. Lighting will always make a huge difference

5. Post-Processing

You can now leave your screenshot as is, or edit it further with a photo editing software! I recommend using Photopea, as it offers basically everything Photoshop does without the insane price tag. From here you can do whatever you feel is best to enhance your image.

And that's all! If you have any questions, feel free to ask, and if you get stuck anywhere in this tutorial, don't feel bad. A lot of this stuff is just trial and error, but if you're very persistent with it, I promise you'll get these working. Also I would just like to mention that a lot of this stuff applies to taking screenshots in a lot of games! So you can take this knowledge with you elsewhere <3

If you happened to follow all this, please send in an image of your Tav you took!

#baldur’s gate 3 #bg3

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rosewine-5 · 2 months

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𝑽𝒊𝒓𝒕𝒖𝒐𝒖𝒔 𝑨𝒅𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 (3)

Billy the Kid x b!woc reader

Being the pastor's daughter meant you had to always be on your best behavior, never stepping off the right path, walking the straight & narrow path, and her eyes towards heaven. That was until a certain outlaw rode into your life, and taught you sometimes it okay to have a taste of hell with a little bit of heaven.

AN: readers last name is Bennett.

Word count: 1.1k

Here's the link to Part 1 & Part 2

(GIF above made by felixscatton

divider made by saradika

If the devil was Billy, you had to be Job, because he was putting you through hell and back. You finally had a day off from work and farm chores, and he just so happened to knock on the door, wanting a “study session”. “Honey, your friend is here!” Your mother called. You came downstairs, confused, “I’m not expecting company.” You said and then saw which “friend” was at the door: Billy. “Good afternoon Ms. Bennett.” He said, taking his hat off. “And a good afternoon to you as well, Billy. She’ll be out in a minute.” Your mother smiled.

You went to grab your shawl, but your brother Michael, draped it over his head. “Oh, Billy! Kiss me under the shining sun until my face is as blue as your eyes!” He teased, falling dramatically on your bed. “If you don’t shut up.” You shushed, grabbing at the shawl. “Let me ride away with you into the sunset! I love you so much!” He yelled, holding it over your head. John came in, and looked between the two of you, “Are you two done?” He asked, taking the shawl from Mike. “Our sister has a little crush, Johnny, she’s in love, can’t you see?” He said, spinning around him.

You then saw a glint of mischief in John’s eyes. “I hate you both.” You said as you took the shawl back and draped it around your shoulders. You walked down the stairs and gave your mother a kiss on the cheek before you walked out of the house. “Shall we, little Bennett?” He said, following you as you began to walk to the church. “Come on, Billy, I’d rather get this over with.” You said, looking behind you. He smiled, “Don’t mind me, I’m just admiring the view.” He said, looking at your bottom and then back to your eyes.

“You’re only looking at me.” You said, turning back to the church. “I know.” He replied. The rest of the walk was in complete silence until you got into the building. “Well, what did you want to touch on today?” You asked, opening the Bible before looking up at him. “Well since you asked-.” “I meant touching on the word, asshole.” You interrupted, knowing what he was going to say. “Did the pastor’s dove just curse, what would your father say?” Billy teased. “What would he say if he heard what you said,” You replied, “I think you’d have the worst of his rage, not me.” “Billy only chuckled with a grin on his face, “Well, you may be right.”

You chuckled in response, “I know I’m right.” He then sat beside you, “I actually know what I want to talk about for this session.” You looked up and held the page you were on down with your thumb. “Well then, what’s the subject?” You asked. “For today, lady Bennett, temptation.”

You could’ve killed him. You wanted to choke him, but given his attitude, he’d probably like it. His eyes were full of mischief and he had a grin to match it. “Didn’t know the word was even in your vocabulary.” You said in an annoyed tone. “There’s a lot of words in my mind, honey, especially for you.” Billy said, running his hand over your shoulder, making you shy away from him. “I have some for you too.” You responded. “Really?” he asked, his voice suddenly getting deeper as his hand skimmed over yours. “Yeah, the term asshole is in there somewhere.” You snapped, hitting the back of his hand with the Bible.

He only chuckled, letting his hand fall back, “You’re so fun to mess with, little Bennett.” He then looked deep into your eyes before speaking again. “I didn’t follow you here to learn about the Bible today.” He said, moving closer to you. “Then what did you come here for?” You asked, a nervous tone almost peeking through your voice. “You know, you act like you’re so innocent, but I see you, little dove.” Billy chuckled. “You could’ve had the lesson in your own home, but here you are, in the church, alone with me at last.”

You sat completely still, starting to recognize your actions. And you couldn’t deny your thoughts about him, pure and impure. He then took the Bible out of your hands and held it in his. Your heart was starting to beat faster, the feeling of his hands touching yours making your soul soar. “I don’t know if I’m overstepping your boundaries, but I have a feeling you this as much as I do.” He said, getting closer to you, leaning closer to you.

His hand then scaled up your arm and held your cheek in his hand. Billy’s thumb ran over your cheek a couple of times before his eyes drifted to your lips, and then to your necklace, the one holding your purity band. “I know you wanna be so pure, but even the saints had their sins, honey.” Billy whispered, his face inching closer to you. “Why deprive yourself of something you want and wants you in return?” He asked.

You couldn’t find an answer, the urge to argue now gone. His hand felt so warm against your cheek, putting you in his trance. The offer was in front of you, now all you had to do was take it. Billy was staying still, giving you a chance to turn him down, tell him off, curse him out, and leave. He was probably waiting on it from the look in his eyes. They were going in between your eyes and your face before locking in with your stare. In response, your eyes fell to his lips before looking into his eyes, your mind made up.

Your brothers got to do what they pleased, it was your turn.

One moment your shawl fell down your arms, the next your lips met Billy’s for a kiss. His hand brought your face to his and yours found the back of his head as your eyes closed. The rush of the moment along with the setting of the place made it more thrilling to you. Here you were, your father’s “perfect daughter” giving her first kiss to a criminal. His hand left your chin and found your waist, pulling you in closer by your hip. Your fingers began to run through his hair, making Billy let out a low groan in response.

One of his hands found the back of your neck as your lips moved against each others, and then grabbed onto your necklace. Billy pulled on it, forcing your head forward and a short gasp from your mouth. You finally pulled back for air, cracking your eyes open. You looked at his amused expression and a smile found its way upon your face, “Holy shit.” Billy let out a short laugh and threw his head back, “Well, temptation ain’t so bad after all, is it darling?” He asked, you shaking your head “no” in response.

He then tilted your head towards him and kissed your forehead. “You’re mine now, Bennett,” Billy whispered, “ ‘can’t wait to show ya what you’ve been missing.”

Let me know what you think!

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