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tundrainafrica · 4 years ago

Text

Title: Copycat

Summary:

""Shitty four eyes and clean freak? Would you know what those words mean?" The teacher asked.

Hange and Levi exchanged knowing glances. A parent teacher conference wasn't at all the right place to explain nicknames. Really though, when would it ever be the appropriate time to explain them?"

Levi and Hange learn the hard way that children like to imitate.

Link: AO3

Notes: This has been on my WIPs for a while and I have a few other prompts for domestic verse pieces so will probably focus on them first hehe. Anyway, feedback is very much appreciated!

“Levi Ackerman and Hange Zoe…”

The teacher was looking through what could have been the class list. No, it definitely was a class list. They were in a parent teacher meeting, what else could it be.

With the way she was holding it though, it was difficult for Levi to sneak a peek at its contents. Eventually, he gave up and let his mind wander, his eyes soon followed. He spared a glance at Hange to see she had cocked her head just a little bit to the side. She was definitely as curious if not more curious about the contents of the piles of paper.

The teacher, Ms. Wilde had a smile on her face and it had been that way since Luke had started school. Her expression then wasn't too far from her usual smile but her eyes were too wide, her mouth too flat of a line especially when she bit her lips. And when she ran her eyes over documents, she seemed…. Stiff.

Uncomfortable? DIsturbed maybe? Levi was expecting the worst.

“Commander Hange Zoe and Retired Captain Levi Ackerman…” Ms. Wilde corrected, clearing her throat.

“No need for any formalities. I mean you have been taking care of our son…” Hange held one hand out for a hand shake, obviously trying to ease the tension in the room.

“Yes, he’s a pleasant kid,” Ms. Wilde added, nodding her head. The discomfort on her face still did not waver.

He is a pleasant kid. Levi was with that kid 24/7. He brought the kid to school and back home, he cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner and he taught him all chores possible at the ripe age of two. Levi was almost certain that along with it, he had taught the kid basic manners.

Levi had to admit though, he himself wasn’t the most diplomatic either. The kid though was glaringly much nicer than Levi was and on top of that, he had picked up some of his other quirks from Hange. The boy didn’t have to be exceptional though. At the least, Luke should have been a functioning member of the kindergarten.

Not enough to make a teacher squirm as she spoke about him. Right?

Most days… And as Levi reflected on it, he started to dig deeper into the past few years, the almost negligible cracks in between their routine. Was there anything he failed to teach Luke? Hange could have been asking the same thing, she looked at Levi questioningly.

Ms. Wilde cleared her throat and in her own way, she had broken some of the residual tension. “Apologies… I’ve been stalling.” She turned to Hange. “Commander Zoe…”

“Retired… Commander Zoe,” Hange corrected.

Was Hange stalling? Or just deliberately looking for a way to alleviate whatever tension had blanketed the room. Hange’s own corrections though were only delaying the inevitable, stretching the tension for longer than necessary.

“I wanted to talk to you about your son," Ms. Wilde started.

No shit. “Go on….” Levi said softly, not loud enough for her maybe. He subtly moved his hands in some signal to continue, as if that could have been communication enough.

Ms. Wilde stared for a bit longer and when Levi squinted, focusing on the paper underneath, he could tell it was a drawing, the crayon ink, visible from just behind the paper. She then put that same crayon art on the top of that stack of papers. “Shitty four eyes… and Clean freak?”

The words sounded strange from anybody else’s mouth, particularly a teacher who had attempted to say it with so professional of a tone and with emphasis on syllables and on words which made it sound unintelligible to anyone less familiar.

“Excuse me?” Hange asked. She had said those words a little too fast. With Levi thinking the same thing though, it had sounded clear enough.

Ms. Wilde flipped the paper open and down on the table.

There were two stick drawings, one with glasses and brown hair, definitely Hange and one with an apron and a bandana over his head and an unimpressed look on his face. That second one was definitely Levi.

Just below it, a caption which Levi had to squint twice to read

Shut tea for ice clean freek. It was straight out gibberish.

Ms. Wilde preempted it. “Would you know what this means?” She looked back up at them expectantly. “Your son… he tried to explain it to me and he said, you two would say… Shut tea for ice and clean freek.” She had said it with unexpected emphasis on some syllables and it was starting to sound like a glaringly familiar cluster of phrases.

Enough for Levi to freeze in his seat and start to dig for some sense in his speculations.

“Don’t get me wrong… Your child being able to spell at this age… It’s admirable, remarkable really,” Ms. Wilde continued. Was she consoling them or admiring them? With that soft and gentle of a voice, it was difficult to tell.

If Levi hadn’t been too busy trying to make sense of that last phrase maybe he would have at least attempted to read through her body language. The teacher had already presented a problem though and naturally, he found himself attempting to get to the bottom of that initial issue.

Luke had Hange’s brain. With Levi on top of that child most of the day, he was perfectly aware of what Luke would usually be playing with. He had gifted Luke letter tiles and had played with him multiple times, at Hange's suggestion of 'something more educational.'

He could have sworn the other times Hange had gotten off work and had played with those tiles with him before dinner, she had been teaching him herself. Although, some words were strange and unfamiliar, she never thought him any of those words. Never.

Levi looked back up at the teacher, forcing himself to meet her eyes. What was the best thing to say?

These are our nicknames. Nope. Should they be divulging something so personal in a professional meeting?

Maybe he could break that awkwardness by complimenting Luke’s work. For a three year old, Luke did a good job with the coloring. Or maybe Levi was just hyperaware about his dad status and somehow everything their little human made seemed almost surreal, almost beautiful even if it was just a bunch of stick figures.

Hange held the drawing between her fingers, her eyes wide with what looked to be the same wonder Levi was holding in. “We’ve been teaching him how to read,” Hange said. “Read and write.”

“But, would you know what ‘shut tea for ice’ means?” The teacher asked.

“Levi here… He really likes tea,” Hange said calmly. “And he likes it with ice.”

“What about clean freak?”

“He cleans with me a lot…” Levi said.

The teacher sighed. “Apologies for the misunderstanding but those words…” She leaned over, cupping her mouth, to soften to a whisper just for the three of them. “It sounds pretty vulgar to me. If you could talk to your son about it, so he could stop calling the other kids names… That would be very much appreciated.”

“Wait, our son, he’s calling people names?”

The teacher shrugged. “I heard him talking to one of the kids just recently… He kept calling her ‘shut tea for eyes.’ and just the other day, when we were cleaning up the locker… then he called her a cleen freek.” She sighed. “It might be just my imagination but it sounds to me like bullying if you know what I mean?”

“Bullying? How?” Hange asked. The knowing look in her face betrayed such a question.

“Well you see, Sarah wears glasses and she likes keeping her cubbyhole neat so… I can’t help but think he might actually be saying….”

“Shitty four eyes?” Levi repeated it again, with a familiar manner, all the emphasis on the right tones. He could almost taste the sweet venom that laced it every other time he said it before.

“And clean freak?” Hange repeated.

The teacher put her hands up in defense. “But that might just be my wild imagination. If ‘shut tea for ice’ is really code in your family, maybe you could spend some time explaining to your son what it actually sounds like?”

***

Shut tea for ice.

Levi could have been in denial. The first plan of action as soon as he got home was to open and close the cupboard a few times over and stare at the box of tea bags every single time. He was deep in thought, still trying to come up with any other reason for those words to roll so easily out of his son’s mouth.

“You want me to make dinner?” Hange called out from the living room.

Levi instinctively turned behind him and towards the voice, craning his neck to look past the kitchen counter. Hange was sitting cross legged on the floor, a toddler Luke right next to her.

The letter tiles Hange had scattered on the floor were an eye sore.

An eyesore which Levi tolerated. After all, Hange had done amazingly at making Luke one of the smarter toddlers in his class.

Experiment… Titan… Omnivore...Carnivore… Whether the child needed to know how to spell those words at that young of an age, Levi wasn’t too certain. At least if ever the classes shifted to topics on history or science, Luke would have the upper hand.

Or so, that was what Levi consoled himself with as he looked back at the cupboard, trying to erase that picture of a mess in the living room. His own experiences with playing with those blocks had been teaching Luke words like clean, broom, breakfast, lunch, dinner. For a second, he wondered which Luke enjoyed more.

“I’ll make it,” Levi said. “You’re at work most days. I’d rather you spent your free time bonding with Luke.”

Hange didn’t respond and the next few minutes passed with the clacking of the wooden letter tiles on the floor. And then an exchange which Levi felt almost compelled to insert himself in.

“When the creature eats both vegetables and meat…” Hange started.

“Omnivore,” Luke answered.

“And meat only?”

“Carnivore.” He had learned to repeat those words clearly very quickly. Levi had to note as he tipped the tea, Luke had always learned to pronounce the more complex words within a few repeats.

The inquisitiveness and the natural genius came from Hange for sure. And Hange was only nurturing them. Soon, the conversation shifted to animals, and then to titans and why the fuck was she talking about her goddamn experiments?

Even when half listening, Levi never understood what the hell that one experiment after capturing the titan and burning through its hair actually did but Hange was suddenly talking about follicles, roots and some catalytic reaction.

Would Luke know what a catalytic reaction is? Levi attempted to answer it for himself by first asking, what the hell a catalytic reaction was. Whatever slate that had appeared in his mind remained blank and he asked another question. Should a child really be learning those words?

“And you know what a dinosaur looks like?” Hange asked.

“Dinosaur!”

A rustle of papers. Hange muttered something about a pencil.

Found one! Then the sound of scribbling on paper.

Levi was only starting to boil the soup, when whatever conversation on whether dinosaurs were omnivores or carnivores slipped one ear and out the other.

The padding of socks on the carpeted floor, Hange’s hums and just Luke’s high pitched voice lisping at some words, saying lines which could have started with Rs or Ws were faint and Levi found himself passing the time just listening to them as he stirred the soup.

He bent over, pulling out the tray of baked chicken from the oven. “Hange,” he called out.

Hange took a second longer than necessary to respond. “Hm?”

“Set the table,” Levi said. “It’s almost dinner time.”

No response. No clicking of plates, no slamming of utensils on the table.

“Hange?” Levi asked.

“Wait, just this last page,’ Hange said louder.

Levi closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Hange was murmuring, words Levi couldn’t make sense of. And the lisping words, the mispronounced Rs and Ws and garbled syllables were telling. Luke was reading something out loud.

“That’s right! So, the plants eat through photosynthesis," Hange said.

“Hange, set the table,” Levi said.

Hange sighed in response. There were footsteps then the clack of plates.

Levi soon confirmed for himself that Hange had stood up, tiptoed and pulled a serving plate and a bowl from the upper cupboard. He transferred the roast chicken and the soup onto the plates. While it cooled, he took the bread basket and dropped it on the table, raising one eye at the view in front of him.

“Hange,” Levi said, louder this time.

Hange was back in the living room, cross legged once again, an open picture book in front of her. Luke had shifted to half lying down position, stomach down on the floor, propped up by the elbows.

“Are dinosaurs real?” Lukei asked.

Hange nodded. “They were alive a long time ago,” she said.

“Hey, you two. I said, let’s eat.” Levi found himself looking away as he noticed Luke’s mouth twist into a pout.

Hange sighed in disappointment. “Alright Luke, let’s stand up.” She carefully pulled her son up and guided him back to the table. She moved sluggishly towards the dining room table and it looked very much like Levi had virtually twisted her arm just to get her up.

To make things clear though, he didn’t. There were more pressing things at that moment than making sure the food he worked so hard on was eaten. Levi stared at them then back at the scattered letter tiles on the floor. Then back at Hange again.

The years might have just made it easier for Hange to pick up the silent question just with a few glances. “We’re gonna go back after we eat,” she answered,

“And you’re fine leaving a mess like that there,” Levi said. “What if someone trips on that?”

“Well, we won’t. Luke and I know that it’s there and you can just watch where you’re going right?”

“It’s still a hazard,” Levi argued.

“A negligible hazard.”

“Can’t you just clean it up then bring it out again later?”

“It takes time,” Hange answered nonchalantly as she walked past Levi.

For a retired commander with a full-time job rebuilding Paradis, time felt like a luxury more than disposable income did and Levi had only ever silently acknowledged that. The moment he looked back, he realized there wasn’t much he could have argued about. Hange guided Luke to his chair, and she started to pour the soup into his bowl.

Levi sat next to Hange and served Hange first then himself, a pressing distraction, long enough for Levi to need not look back at the mess on the floor.

“Luke, chickens look a little bit like dinosaurs,” Hange said.

Levi rolled his eyes. Most of their meals usually ended up as a science lesson.

Luke seemed to be enjoying it though. He clapped his hands excitedly. “We’re eating dinosaurs?”

In response to that, Levi shoveled more of the soup into his mouth, enough to give any excuse not to speak up. That wasn’t his conversation. It was Hange’s and Luke’s.

“Technically yes,” Hange said.

What the fuck is she researching this time? Hange did too many jobs at once that Levi never could catch up to her theory or vernacular wise.

“Like the book! The dinosaur looked like the book!” Luke said excitedly.

“Yes! You remember!” Hange mirrored that same excitement.

“Are dinosaurs like titans?”

“Technically no… They can be the same size... “

“Are titans omnivores?”

Hange hummed. She dropped her spoon and put one finger to her chin, a very climactic sequence of motions that could have meant she had something interesting to say. To the disappointment of everyone in the family, she returned the question with one word. “Maybe.”

They don’t eat. Levi added to himself silently.

“Do titans poo?” Luke pressed.

Hange opened her mouth to speak. “They don’t…”

And Levi only had a split second to note the glimmer in her eyes, then the wonder that could have come from reminiscing nights worth of experiments. Then the familiar excitement and passion he had seen so many times before in the barracks over tea.

Oh no. He looked back at the soup, a mixture of beans and tomatoes, the green of the vegetables sticking out at very strategic places.

What the fuck.

And Hange’s tirade only continued, and naturally Levi’s mind made sense of the words having had too many direct experiences with titans to last a lifetime. If he looked at his own soup from the right angle, with the right vegetable bits in the right places and the right lighting from just above them, he realized it looked just like vomit.

He was in a frustrating position, hungry but with no more appetite. He pushed himself up. “You two just keep talking. I’m gonna clean up.”

Hange stood up. “Wait, Levi where you going?”

Everything was just suddenly pissing Levi off at that moment. “I’m cleaning up your fucking mess.”

“That’s not a mess!” Hange retorted, an incredulous look on her face.

“I told you, just bring it out after if you wanna play again!” Levi bent over, and started to mix the blocks amongst one another. Words like carnivore, omnivore, photosynthesis, follicle suddenly mixed among one another. The tiles were suddenly gibberish, letter soup. And the more he mixed, the worse it became.

It became easier to put them into the basket.

“We were planning to go back to it after dinner. You didn’t have to clean it up,” Hange chided.

“Well, you two might step on it,” Levi said.

“Really?” Hange raised one eyebrow. “You can’t watch where you’re going?”

“Listen Hange, I’m the one who cleans this house ninety percent--- hell, a hundred percent of the time. I decide what messes we can leave around.”

“Well, it takes a kid a while to pick up the words, we were supposed to practice reading.”

“Hange a three year old does not need to know what photosynthesis means.”

“Three and a half,” Hange clarified. “A child his age does not need to live in an immaculate environment.” Clean. Hange definitely meant clean. The way she had said the word ‘immaculate,' the fact that she had chosen such a heavenly word, an almost self righteous sounding word felt almost mocking. “Why do you have to be such a clean freak about this?”

“Why do you have to be such a nerd about this. He’ll learn how to read big words at his own fucking time,” Levi said. He noted the way Hange had put one hand to her chest, seeming scandalized at whatever insinuation Levi had brought up.

When he was dealing with the someone who couldn’t bat an eye at hygiene and clutter, who suddenly thought the pursuit of knowledge was a must have for a poor four year old, Levi wasn’t feeling too guilty at offending her, at least not too much. He opened his mouth, only intending to let it out as a release born from quiet anger. And during moments of heightened emotions, sometimes he lost a little control, and sometimes, he’d fall back to very familiar habits.

Shitty four eyes.

Hange could have heard it, but they had said it so many times before, that she didn’t open her mouth to speak. He couldn’t be too sure either that he had said it out loud.

“Daddy? You want tea with ice?”

Levi only realized then, when the silence broke and a young Luke went in between them a mug in hand.

No hot water, no tea bag. A look of confusion on Luke’s face. ‘Daddy, shut tea for ice?” The words were stilted, the syllables garbled against one another.

Levi and Hange had both looked at Luke with the same surprised look, surprised but very very understanding of the current situation.

***

Shitty four eyes.

Luke didn’t have a potty mouth. Or at least, he wasn’t supposed to.

Levi was with Luke the most among everyone. The heavy responsibility of 'main provider' on his back, he found himself thinking back to every single ‘alone time,’ the two of them had since Luke had been old enough to talk. It had been a year at least since Luke had started to seem more like a companion than a responsibility. When Levi looked back at it though, he thought the moments to be countless and consequently, he had found it difficult to point out the exact point in time where Luke had thought it a good idea to blurt out the words ‘shitty four eyes.’

Coming up with no conclusion, he desperately grasped for a glimmer of an explanation. “Luke’s a nice kid, he wouldn’t call people names,”

“I don’t doubt that,” Hange responded, seeming not at all bothered by the chain of events.

“Hey, we’re still gonna have to explain that to Luke?”

“You tried a while ago, right?” Hange asked “What did Luke say?”

“He just kept repeating it… Shut tea for ice. Shut tea for ice.” Levi whispered in response, letting it get softer and softer on his tongue. It had been just an hour before they had put their son to bed. The conference, the incident just a while ago suddenly had self conscious about how loud they were talking and how close the bedroom door was to the living room. He turned to the sofa and sat a few more feet away from the door, as if that could have done anything to make their conversation more private.

“So Levi, what do you think that means?” Hange asked. She had moved next to him, as if she understood Levi’s intention with switching seats.

“He didn’t seem hostile,” Levi said.

“So he doesn’t think what he’s saying is bad right?”

“He called you shitty four eyes too.” Levi turned to Hange.

“And shitty four eyes has never been an insult to me. You’ve been calling him that since before,” Hange said.

“So what do you suggest?” Levi asked.

Hange was in deep thought for a second, one hand to her chin. She turned to the phone on the kitchen counter. “Calling someone more experienced maybe.”

***

Historia had a child, a good few years past the terrible twos and threes. Naturally, she seemed almost nonchalant about that problem.

“Imitation,” Hange said so confidently, yet so abruptly that morning as she sipped her coffee. She turned to Levi and grinned in the same exact way she would have dropped a research-backed theory many years ago when she was still a titan researcher.

“Titans used to imitate right?” Levi said. Mentioning the magic word ‘titans’ could be enough to pull any good ideas out of her.

“Yes, I know,” Hange said matter-of-factly. “And titans and humans are a little different… It would be easier to have a peaceful conversation with titans. Luke understands me almost perfectly. And you too. I think we can talk to him first about why using nicknames is bad.”

“You think a three year old can understand a convoluted explanation by Hange Zoe?”

“Three and a half,” Hange clarified again. If he can tell omnivores and carnivores apart, I’m sure he can tell the difference between calling people names and respecting people right?” She propped her mug on the dining room table and looked expectantly at Levi.

Levi averted his gaze. “Hange, do you think a three and a half year old will get it?” He dropped the tea bag into the mug and watched as the darker liquid consumed the water, touching the rims of the mug. He walked back to the dining table, settling himself on the chair right in front of Hange.

Hange chuckled. “Worth a try right?”

“Daddy! Shoes!” Luke was painfully demanding. And of all moments, it had been then that Levi noticed that Luke had picked up some of their attitude.

Right. Although Luke could easily get ready for school himself, tying shoes was still something Levi had been in the process of teaching him. “I’ll just help him tie his shoes first.”

“I’ll go ahead.” Hange gulped the last few drops of coffee. “Gonna be late for work. You think you can handle this?”

“Talk to Luke right?” Levi asked. “About the importance of respect?” He had put emphasis on those last three words, as if to hint to Hange that introducing such an abstract idea to a three year old seemed like not so good of an idea.

“Worth a try right?” Hange responded as she stood up and slung her back over her shoulder.

“And if it doesn’t work?” Levi pressed.

By then, Hange was already closer to the door than the dining table, far from hearing range of Levi’s naturally soft voice. Levi felt it pointless to say it louder, especially since by then, Hange had already slammed the door behind her.

And he had bigger fish to deal with, like a frustrated son, who had knotted the laces of his shoes enough times that Levi struggled to find the tips. “Luke… Why… Did you do it like this?” Levi had to resist the sweet temptation of inserting a ‘fuck’ somewhere on that question. After all, it wasn’t Luke’s fault he was just a three year old who was still learning the ropes.

The process of unknotting a very tight knot though was painful, frustrating enough for Levi to sit down crosslegged in front of his son. It was taking longer than a few seconds, enough to have a conversation.

“Luke… The school told me about ‘shut tea for ice’”Levi started and when he started to pull at the top most knot, he felt some sort of release with it, some extra reserves of patience he could easily tap at.

“Shitty four eyes! Clean Freak!” Luke responded happily.

When Levi looked up and met his son’s eyes, he couldn’t help but be somewhat bothered by the knowing and confident look. “You shouldn’t call people names Luke.” He put one finger right in front of Luke’s face.

Was that how to tell a kid off? Levi had been working with Luke long enough though to know, Luke didn’t understand what he was saying. Or maybe he didn’t understand what Levi meant.

What would Hange say? When Levi reflected on that though, the only thing he could salvage were her rants on photosynthesis and titan experiments. If their son understood those, he should understand a lecture on respect right?

“No.” One word Levi had learned as a parent. “No calling people names,” he added, his voice softer that time.

Luke pouted.

Levi had a soft spot for his son’s pout and consequently, he did what any sane parent would have done in that situation. He stared at the clock. Fifteen minutes before class starts. He stood up and took his son by the hand. “Come on Luke, let’s go to school.”

On the way to school, he allowed himself another session for self reflection. Imitation huh? Levi thought to himself. He had to admit, he may have called Hange ‘shitty four eyes’ more often than not and in return, he may have brushed off a few ‘clean freaks’ from Hange as well.

They could try to wean Luke out of it right or at least find out why Luke had been using it at school? He could leave that to Hange though, and maybe consult a bit with their teacher.

Levi took a deep breath, a loud one, particularly when they passed through one of the less saturated parts of town on the way to school. He was sure he had enough reserves at his already scarce social battery to deal with asking advice from teachers.

***

Same advice as Historia.

Children were master imitators. And whether a three year old (or a three and a half year old according to Hange) would understand such an abstract concept as respect, that was one thing they weren’t sure of.

So when dealing with a toddler, play with their imitator side, not this belief that they might actually understand an abstract concept.

Levi had repeated those same words to Hange. By that evening though, he had forgotten half of it, and he had hoped that was the message she got.

“So, we should change how we talk to each other then…” Hange leaned back on the sofa. “But when do you think Luke heard us say it?”

Levi shrugged. “When do you say it?”

In return, Hange shrugged and let out a short laugh. “To be honest, I don’t remember calling you a clean freak either.”

“When we fight?” Levi suggested.

“Or when we don’t?” Hange put her hands up. “Anyway, the important thing is, he hears us say it. That kid won’t get shitty four eyes or clean freak out of anywhere. So we watch ourselves okay? No using bad words in front of our son.”

“That’s easy.” Levi narrowed his eyes at Hange and sat back on the sofa. “I’ve been doing that ever since Luke was born.”

***

With a little more self-introspection and blatant awareness of his surroundings, Levi started to realize it wasn’t as easy as he had expected it to be. He had stopped himself enough times that his throat had been sore from the many times he concealed his own penchant for vulgarity with a dry cough.

“Luke, make sure to put your bag back in the room,” Levi said from the kitchen as he pulled an apple from the fruit basket. It was just like every other day before, pick Luke up, prepare an afternoon snack. Very routine, very predictable and the only thing that made it a challenge had been the heavy awareness that Levi did curse on a regular basis.

Or maybe just the fact that he had to watch himself, had him very very heavy, as if every move had to be cold and calculated.H e was a little more careful than usual with cutting the apple. And he was terribly terribly slow. By the time, he turned back to the kitchen counter, sliced apples arranged neatly on the plate, Luke had already settled on the seat in front of him, looking expectantly at the plate on Levi’s hands.

How long he had been there? Levi didn’t want to ask. “Are you hungry?” he asked instead.

Luke nodded. It was a stupid question, but at least his son was too young to judge his ineloquence.

He dropped the pile of apples in front of him and made himself comfortable on the seat next to his son. “After this, you wanna play with the tiles?” Levi offered.

But never freak. Levi told himself as even the prospect of teaching his kid was starting to weigh on him.

“Let’s play with the tiles!” Luke clapped one hand on the table, and he shoved one of the apples into his mouth.

“Okay, I’ll bring it out later,” Levi said. He took one apple from the plate and started to munch on it, only interrupted by the sound of the phone ringing a few seconds later.

Most days, the phone ringing was a nuisance, peppered with conversations with salesmen, customer service. Having grown up with a place with no phone, but too many scams, it was only natural that Levi would detect the opportunity for scams in that new fangled piece of technology.

There was one voice which always made the process of using the phone though, bearable, if not pleasurable.

“Levi! What’s for dinner tonight?”

“Four eyes, you’re out from work early.”

There was a pause, a pregnant and awkward pause. Then Hange spoke up. “Is Luke with you?”

The silence and that one question spoke for him. Levi spun around to see Luke, staring right at him. “Four eyes… Shitty...Four eyes?” The young boy repeated. It sounded rehearsed the first time around, then confident the second time.

There was a lot he had to teach the kid.

“Just take out food for dinner. Luke and I will have a long talk,” Levi said.

***

Levi’s mind was a blank slate. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing though.

Whatever he was supposed to say to lecture Luke on proper respect lasted at the most, a few seconds in his muddled brain. It went into one ear and quickly out the other.

Somewhere along the way, Levi had given up. He had mentioned words like ‘respect,’ ‘not nice.’ When he didn’t even believe half of what he had spewing out of his mouth, he ended up unable to blame Luke for wearing such a blank expression.

Would Hange have done a better job at teaching Luke? Maybe.

Levi had never been the most diplomatic person, having sat at the sidelines every time Hange had been negotiating trade contracts and war treaties. Besides, he didn’t believe it completely necessary either to teach children not to curse.

There were bigger fish to fry, like rebuilding a war torn country, eradicating poverty and starvation, income inequality and terrorism.

Having lived like a soldier his whole life, dealing with something so mundane as a teacher’s request to teach his child not to curse, seemed almost mundanely unnecessary.

When his son was insulting other children, when a teacher was telling his son off for it, Levi didn’t necessarily find it horrifying. School rules were school rules though and their new society made compliance for three year olds a big issue. Maybe he could leave that educating to Hange though, and just focus maybe on teaching the young boy how to read.

He rearranged the letters and a few times, he gave free rein to his son to form words himself.

There were easy words like ‘dog,’ ‘cat,’ and ‘cow.’ Although Levi had been surprised that Luke had independently put together more complex words like ‘broom’ and ‘clean,’ he started to accept anyway, that it was only natural that the young boy would know them. After all, Hange had been teaching him more complex words like ‘photosynthesis,’ ‘omnivore’ and ‘carnivore.’

Luke had been spelling all those words on his own while Levi watched silently. And when Levi started to scramble the pieces again, just to watch what his son would create, he started to notice some pattern.

Shut

“Shut!” Luke screamed. He didn’t completely open his mouth though, and it started to sound more like another cursed word. Levi wasn’t going to mention that though.

“Shut…” Levi explained. Like ‘Shut up.’ ‘Shut up’ wasn’t the most diplomatic expression and it was probably better not to teach his son that at such a young age. “Like shut the door,” Levi added a second later. He mimed the act of slamming a door closed, suddenly self conscious of how rude it probably would be to slam a door. Was Luke going to start slamming doors if he made his movements too forceful?

Ice

“Ice!” Luke read aloud.

“Ice…” Levi paused for a second, racking his brain for the best way to explain it without having to go for the refrigerator and risk making a mess on their matted living room floor. “The cold thing…”

Four

“Four!”

“The number,” Technically there were two words ‘four’ and ‘for.’ What do you call those filler words? How do you define the word for? Levi realized then, there were only too many ways he could explain what words like ‘for,’ ‘to,’ were used for. He could just leave that to the school to explain.

Tea

“Tea!”

“Te---”

“Daddy likes tea!” Luke started. His face fell. “Right?”

In shock, Levi didn’t even notice he had frozen still, his hand dropping the tile. He nodded. “Yeah I like tea.” He allowed himself a tight lipped grin as he adjusted the letters just to make his son’s final product a little neater. “I really like tea.”

“Shitty four eyes?” His son said again, his excitable tone from a while ago unwavering.

That’s a bad word. Levi wanted to say. That’s disrespectful. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything else though. After all, his son was a bundle of innocence, a bundle of excitement. Did Luke even know what the hell he had been saying?

Levi was pathetic. He was weakshit. And he couldn’t even bring himself to disciplining his child on something he personally didn’t even believe in. He continued to reflect on it as he rearranged the letters again. Then he further wallowed in whatever guilt settled in him as he stood up and walked towards the kitchen. As he prepared dinner, then washed the dishes.

When Hange came home, he at least had been ready enough to speak. “I think he’s too young to understand,” Levi said.

“Well a three and a half year old would have a hard time understanding abstract ideas right?”

“Says the parent who’s teaching a three year old science.”

Hange pouted. “Science is not an abstract concept.”

“That’s not the point,” Levi said firmly. He knew if he didn’t interrupt Hange there, she probably would have gone on another tirade. “Do you have any ideas? On how to deal with this?”

“I have one,” Hange said. “I was talking to Historia just today, and some other parents…” She propped her chin on the palm of her hand. “Have you considered… Aside from just laying off, the shitty four eyes first? And I’ll lay off the clean freak? I mean, the kids apparently, at this age, they like to imitate and if we just be more careful about what we’re saying and try to say something nicer, more positive as nicknames. He should stop right?”

“We’ve been calling each other for years,” Levi commented.

“But, not in public right?” Hange said. “You never really said it during meetings.”

“Well those were meetings.”

“Think of this as a meeting, except this time, our son is probably listening to us every single time.” She frowned, wrinkled her nose and looked behind her. Just on the other side of the wall was Luke’s bedroom. It was late at night and he probably was asleep.

But with their conversations and Luke's tendency to pick things up, it only proved that the walls may have been too thin and their son may have been very observant.

Levi raised his eyebrows. “So you’re saying…”

Hange nodded. No clean freak. No shitty four eyes. AT ALL. She spelled out those nicknames slowly and carefully, just so their son wouldn't’ pick the words up, taking in the small possibility that he was awake.

Levi sighed. “Fine.” He wasn’t fine. Their home was supposed to be their private space. Luke would be a sponge for information but a stranger to logic and abstract concepts for the next two years.

Letting go of such an intimate habit born through years in the survey corps just to please the teachers and to make it easier for their son fit in, seemed almost unfair. He sought solace at least in Hange’s forced grin. She didn’t want to do it either.

We suffer together. Levi thought to himself. With a quick glance at her, Levi was sure Hange understood. Making it an issue of pride and misery made it all together a more bearable challenge.

***

It was bearable at least. And it took a little more careful introspection to pick up those few moments he had called Hange 'shitty four eyes' or ‘four eyes’ and he started to realize, it had been more difficult to point out than his own abrasive choice of words and his own vulgarity.

Shitty four eyes after all, never seemed like a string of curse words or insults. It was a pet name, so invisibly embedded in conversations that Levi felt strangely incomplete not peppering his dialogue with it.

Hange seemed to struggle as well. Clean freak. She used to say. She had started to replace it with something more diplomatic. “You really like cleaning huh?” A few syllables longer but it felt terribly, terribly unnatural. And Hange always accompanied it with the widest and most cringe inducing grin.

Every single time, Levi would look away, to stop himself from laughing or grimacing, one of those. Hange must have been doing the same though.

Shitty four eyes.

He had replaced ‘shitty four eyes’ with the closest thing he could come up with. It had taken some strict observation from other couples to pick up the best one. “Yes honey, I really love cleaning,” Levi admitted. He put enough emphasis on the pet name, hoping that would at least teach their child about proper pet naming conventions, the importance of ‘not cursing’ and just conventional diplomacy.

Hange was only making it harder to take the challenge seriously, a sardonic grin constantly plastered on her face. Every single time, he had called her honey, she looked away and cleared her throat, or let out a wracked cough, a good disguise for what he guessed had been a laugh.

A shoddy disguise but somehow, it seemed to work. Luke would watch them every time, his stare far from blank. He had on the same face he made every single time he would form those words with the blocks. Luke was deep in thought. “Shitty four eyes! Clean freak!” He said a second later.

Luke would then repeat that many few times over dinner or breakfast.

Imitation. Levi would tell himself, will himself to ignore Luke’s words. As painfully uncharacteristic as it was. Levi would trod on with his mission. “Honey, you want more bread?” Levi tried to make that one word seem as sweet as it sounded. He never got the practice though, so he wondered if he ever had the innate ability to make any words sound sweet.

“Thank you honey,” Hange responded, her grin much wider. A split second later, she looked away, seeming ashamed with herself.

Levi couldn’t blame Hange. It was a painful rendition, her tone seemed very much rehearsed. And when it was common knowledge between them that she was naturally more eloquent than he was, Levi found himself wondering how bad he sounded.

As long as Luke learns. Levi willed himself to swallow whatever embarrassment and stifling sensation came with the slow and excruciating weaning process from very intimate habits.

Luke eventually picked it up. “Ho...ney?” he repeated as his eyes darted between his two parents.

Yes. Honey. Levi nodded.

Luke’s face fell, his expression shifted from something curious, then something confused. Ending with something that could have been a hint of crestfallenness.

Levi couldn’t be too sure though. The boy looked down at his food and Levi couldn’t bring himself to crane his neck and sneak a glance to confirm it. The drooping shoulders of his son was enough to get his stomach turning though.

How long would it take for him to get used to it? Three weeks? Months? Eventually Luke should get used to it… Right?

It was one of those rare days where Hange had decided to work from home. Her piles of paperwork took up more than half their dining table and food would seem more like a hazard than a necessity.

When Hange was only present during weekends, Levi at the least, tolerated it.

On one condition, he was allowed to straighten out the almost two foot tall pile everytime he passed by the dining room in between household chores. When Hange was deep into hundreds of pages worth of reports though, she didn’t look like she minded Levi’s silent interruptions.

“What time are you picking Luke up from school?” Hange asked.

Levi looked at the clock. “He gets out of school at two today,” he answered. It was eleven, and half his mind was already looking into planning lunch.

“Okay,” Hange said, her focus fell back to the paperwork.

It wasn’t anything new, even on weekends or any other day Hange was home, Levi did most of the cooking and cleaning. Hange’s presence did manage to take some of the load off household management off of his shoulders.

Answering the phone was no exception.

Most days, Levi was capable of doing it on his own. When the vegetables were boiling on a pot, the pasta heating in the oven just below it, Hange offered to answer the phone.

“Zoe residence… Speaking…” Hange had always been better at answering the phone anyway. “Luke?”

Levi’s ears perked up at that. He lowered the heat of the stove, as if that would have done anything to make the conversation clear.

“What? Why? No… We’re not.” Hange’s voice was racked with surprise. “....You’re right. We’ll get there soon… We can leave now… We’re not too busy….”

Hange? Not busy? Levi had turned off the stove. Lunch never was the most urgent thing. “You’re going to school?”

“It’s about Luke.”

No shit. “I can tell that much from the conversation,” Levi said. “What happened?”

“He just started crying apparently…” Hange said.

Levi sensed the urgency in the speed at which she pulled her coat over her and retied her hair. “Crying over?” Levi pressed. Luke rarely cried and just that thought had Levi’s heart pounding.

“When the teachers were explaining… Luke was crying about… his parents… About us?”

“Your son said, you two ‘’didn’t love each other anymore’” the headmaster explained. It had been just them in the office but with the way the headmaster had explained it, it looked like she could have been quoting Luke word per word.

Levi surreptitiously flashed Hange a look of confusion, a glance just to see if she knew anything.

She seemed as lost as he was. “Can we talk to our son?” Hange asked.

“Before that, I just wanted to discuss the family situation first… See if we could do anything to support Luke through this?”

“Through what?”

“Through your ‘separation?’”

Levi turned to Hange, his eyes wide. We’re separating?

Hange furrowed her brows at him, an incredulous look. She turned abruptly back at the principal. “Who told you we’re separating?”

“Your son said you two have been fighting a lot. And he seemed very affected...”

“Fighting?” Levi asked. Are we?

No we aren’t. Hange’s expression said it all. “If there’s any misunderstanding, we can explain it to Luke ourselves.”

“You have to understand. We have our students welfare in mind. If we believe that your son is being raised in an unsuitable environment…”

“Excuse me?” Hange put one hand to her chest. Her tone was slipping to something with more emotion than any attempt at compromise.

“Just let us talk to our son,” Levi said. The echo of his own voice sounded unfamiliar in that small voice, especially since Hange had done the talking the whole time.

“We’ve been hearing as well about the vulgarities your son has been spouting...” the headmaster said.

“Yes, we’ve been working on it,” Levi said firmly, with every intention to interrupt the old lady.

“I’d like first some verbal commitment from both of you at least to work on this? We treat every child here like part of the family. With the case on Luke’s word usage and his suddenly bursting into tears in school… It looks like his home environment might not be ideal.”

“Can you let us talk to our son please?” Levi said. He turned to Hange. The brunette had fallen silent yet she seemed very much deep in thought.

“Could you please explain though from your end the debacle about the ‘shitty four eyes’ and the ‘clean freak?”

“We’re working on it,” Levi repeated. Somehow, it was getting harder and harder to sit still.

The condescending look in the woman’s face, the accusing glare wasn’t making it any easier. “But have you been working hard on it? Can I ask what is causing you to employ such vulgarity in your own home, in an environment for children?”

Since when did schools in Paradis get this vigilant about children’s home lives? It was a welcome change at least but Levi was in no mood to ponder the benefits of such an arrangement. “With all due respect ma’am, that’s none of your goddamn business.”

Levi could have just made it worse. And Hange said so herself, in between a stifled grin and a stifled chuckle.

If his own treatment of the very snobby principal could have done anything to convince the whole school that they were shitty parents. He was confident at least, Luke would defend them.

I mean a three year old should be capable of defending their parents right?

A three and a half year old. Hange’s words echoed in his head. If the ‘half year’ of living did anything to make Luke anymore aware of what exactly was going on, he prayed it did work.

Whether it was because he was three and a half or he was merely three, he seemed to have understood. A flash of recognition as they locked eyes along the hallways, Luke still let go of the Ms. Wilde's hand and ran towards them.

By some instinctive need to prove something maybe, Levi clutched Hange’s hand. She gripped back.

Luke seemed to have noticed it. “No fighting?”

“Fighting? Who said we’re fighting?” Hange bent down and patted her son on the head with her free hand.

A wide grin on his face, Luke turned to Hange. “Shitty four eyes.” Then to Levi. “Clean freak.”

Levi bent down, right next to Hange. “Yes, this is my shitty four eyes,” Levi said as he put one hand on Hange’s head, pulling her close.

“And this is my clean freak,” Hange pointed a finger to her left, towards Levi.

Something felt natural and intimate and something tasted sweeter than honey when he was saying those words again, words he had kept nill for months.

The grin in Luke’s face only made the release all the sweeter. “Shitty four eyes and clean freak!” Soon, he was running back to the teacher that had called out to him. He still had a few more hours of school.

“I guess we’ve been pretty careless about the nicknames huh?” Hange whispered wryly. “He’s probably just too young to understand what ‘shitty’ or what ‘freak’ could imply in any other situation.”

Levi stared ahead, at the young boy who was talking to the teacher in whatever childish babble the three year old could manage. “You know, the nicknames never felt like an insult to me.”

“I mean, we have been using them since we’ve met right? It just slips off our tongue every now and then,” Hange said as she let out a soft chuckle.

Every now and then. No a lot more often, than every now and then. To the point that Levi never felt it when it happened. Yet the absence of such words were painfully glaring.

“What are we going to do now about Luke’s language?” Levi averted his gaze, perfectly aware that if Luke had learned anything, it had probably been from his father.

“Have you ever taught him what the words ‘shitty’ or ‘freak’ meant?”

“Never,” Levi said.

“Then maybe we don’t have to think too much about it?” Hange suggested.

But it continued to nag. After all, the teachers continued to stare, probably whispering. Levi and Hange spent the last few hours before school ended just sitting by the courtyard of the school and they had more than enough evidence by then to be sure, teachers were talking.

When the bell rang, they found themselves attempting to brush away whispers and glares from the teacher, instead focusing on the hallways which were starting to fill with toddlers and kids.

And eventually, they found Luke, next to him a young girl in pig tails, with glasses. She wore a blouse and a skirt without a single crease on them. “This is my shitty four eyes… And my Clean freak!” Luke said. The girl next to him waved her hand, a wide grin on her face, not at all fazed by the words ‘shitty’ or ‘freak.’

Levi exchanged a knowing glance with Hange. No other words were shared between them but somehow they both understood. Maybe adults were just overthinking that very simple thing called language.

#levihan #levihan fanfiction #fanfic

72 notes · View notes

theulfat · 3 years ago

Text

How to Start a Blog – A Complete Guide for Beginners (2022)

Under WordPress, click Select.

Starting a blog can be beneficial to your personal brand or business. It’s an excellent outlet for self-expression and can increase online visibility, connect you with your audience, and become an additional source of income.

This article contains a comprehensive beginner-friendly guide on how to start a blog. We’ll discuss finding a niche, setting up a blogging platform, publishing content, promoting your blog, and more.

How to Start a Blog in 8 Simple Steps

If you’re looking for a quick guide on how to start a blog and make money online, here are the eight steps you should take:

Choose the niche for your blog. Go for something that you’re passionate about. Ideally, it should be a topic that will interest others as well.

Get web hosting and a domain name. Purchase hosting that best suits your budget and needs. Then, come up with a custom name for your domain, check its availability, and register it through a domain registrar.

Set up a platform for your blog. Choose a platform and set it up so you can start publishing content.

Create your blog with WordPress. We have chosen this platform as it is the most popular one.

Design and customize your blog. Change its design and functionality to your liking.

Publish content. Familiarize yourself with the available publishing tools and start planning, writing, and posting articles on your blog.

Promote and grow the following of your blog. Strategize and execute ways to promote your blog to increase its traffic and gain loyal readers.

Monetize your blog. Once you have sizable traffic and readership, implement methods like ads and affiliate marketing.

In the upcoming sections, we’ll break down each step in the journey on how to make a blog for beginners and provide more details.

1. Choose Your Blog Niche

A niche is a specific topic that your blog will focus on as well as determine your target audience. Moreover, it’ll help you pick out the name for your blog and develop a focused blogging strategy.

Examples of blog niche ideas include writing about books, travel, gaming, photography, and food.

It may be tempting to cover a broad range of topics when starting a blog page. However, trying to master every subject is incredibly difficult and unsustainable. You might pull off a few successful posts, but your audience will be scattered, making it hard to maintain a loyal readership.

That’s why it’s important to stick to a niche that can get you a devoted following. A dedicated audience will look forward to your next piece of content, giving your blog a steady stream of traffic.

To find the perfect niche for a successful blog, keep the following tips in mind:

Pick a niche that you like or are passionate about. Writing about a topic you enjoy will always be more fulfilling instead of forcing yourself to write about something you’re uninterested in.

Think about your hobbies, interests, or topics you’d like to learn more about. If possible, make them more specific.

A good example would be a book blog that is focused on reading on a budget.

Pick a niche that has audience potential. There should be a level of pre-existing interest in your chosen topic to make sure that you’ll have an audience to write to.

Use Google Trends to find the search volume of specific keywords related to your niche and determine whether people are talking about it on social media and community forums.

Doing so can give you blog post ideas to write about to boot.

You don’t have to be an expert to profit off a niche. Being an expert brings a certain authority with it that many readers look for, but it’s not a requirement. What’s more important is having a unique perspective and the willingness to learn.

For example, you might not be a professional photographer, but you can still start a blog about getting into photography as a beginner.

If authority seems essential for your idea, you can feature interviews with experts on your blog.

2. Get Web Hosting and a Domain Name

Once you’ve settled on a niche, it’s time to start preparing a website for your blog. Two of the most important steps for getting any blog online are securing web hosting and a domain name.

Web hosting is a service that allows you to publish a website and all of its files online, making it possible for people to visit it. Purchasing hosting means renting server space by a hosting provider, giving you access to an allocation of resources needed to build a blog and run it.

Most web hosting companies, including Hostinger, offer different types of web hosting for blogs. Let’s take a look at two of the most popular hosting plans for blogs:

Shared Hosting. The most affordable type of hosting, wherein users share the resources of one server between multiple websites. It’s excellent for small websites like personal blogs. Shared hosting plans start at $1.99/month.

WordPress Hosting. A type of shared hosting that’s optimized for WordPress websites. If you plan to use WordPress for your small blog, this plan is a perfect choice, starting at $1.99/month.

Every plan offered by Hostinger comes equipped with a free SSL certificate, 24/7 live support, and is eligible for a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Expert Tip

The big things I look for in a host are:

1. Convenience. Let’s say you’re on WordPress – can you install it with one or two clicks of a button?

2. Speed. If a host is fast, then your site’s gonna load faster, and that’s gonna help with your rankings and your traffic.

3. Great support, because it just makes it easier whenever you have a problem.

After hosting is set up, it’s time to get a domain name. A domain name is what visitors have to enter into the address bar to reach your site. For example, hostinger. com is our domain name.

To secure a custom domain name, purchase it from a domain registrar of your choice. Some web hosting companies, including Hostinger, double as domain registrars. Therefore, it’s possible to buy web hosting and a domain at the same time.

If you buy hosting for one year or more from Hostinger, you’ll receive a free domain name for one year as well.

When choosing your domain name, try to make it memorable and as close as possible to your blog name. To help with brainstorming domain name ideas, try our domain checker. Using a unique domain extension such us .xyz, .online, .club will also make your blog address stand out, thus easier to remember.

Opt for .club domain if you have membership subscription or if you want your followers to have a sense of belonging. Consider Hostinger as a domain name provider to register your domain in no time.

3. Set Up the Blogging Platform

Once you’ve purchased a hosting plan and chosen a domain name, it’s time to decide on the blogging platform that your new blog will run on.

Hosted or Self-Hosted?

Depending on which platform you choose, you’ll either opt for a hosted or self-hosted solution. It’s essential to know the difference between the two.

Hosted platforms are all-inclusive. They usually include all the tools needed to build a blog. There’s no need to purchase hosting and a domain name separately.

Examples of hosted blogging platforms include website builders like WordPress.com, Zyro, Squarespace, and Weebly. Be careful not to confuse WordPress.com with the self-hosted WordPress.org, however.

Here are the pros and cons of choosing a hosted platform or a website builder for your blog:

Pros

Quick setup. Hosted platforms are often all-in-one website-building solutions. There’s no need to purchase hosting or a custom domain name separately before building your site.

Exceptionally beginner-friendly. Using a hosted platform is easy, even for complete beginners. As a result, setting up your blog and publishing your first post is possible with just a few clicks.

Dedicated support. Many hosted platforms have a dedicated support team you can contact over live chat, email, or phone.

No maintenance work. The security and backup of the site are handled by the platform – you can focus on publishing and promoting your blog.

Cons

Limited control. You must abide by the platform’s rules and restrictions. Exercising complete control over your site and hosting resources isn’t possible.

Limited ownership. Your blog and all of its content are stored on the platform’s server, so you don’t fully own them.

Inflexible. Most hosted platforms are built on a closed-source system. The templates and add-ons are usually limited to what the service officially offers. Additionally, migrating to another platform is often impossible – you may need to remake the website from scratch.

Difficult to scale. Hosted platforms aren’t designed to handle massive websites. If you have plans to grow your website, consider using a self-hosted platform instead.

Alternatively, you’ll have to purchase blog hosting separately if you decide to go for a self-hosted blog. Examples of self-hosted platforms are content management systems such as WordPress.org, Drupal, and Joomla.

A content management system (CMS) is software that allows users to build a website and manage it through a graphic user interface. It enables people to create websites without having to code them from scratch.

Here are the pros and cons of having a self-hosted platform or a CMS:

Pros

Complete control. You’re free to adjust the settings and manage the resources of your hosting – it all depends on the hosting plan you have chosen.

Seemingly endless customization. With a self-hosted platform like WordPress, you’re free to choose from thousands of WordPress plugins and themes from the official directory or third-party sources.

Complete ownership. You fully own your blog and all of its content because you’re renting the space they’re stored in.

Built to scale. Self-hosted platforms can sustain websites of any size as long as your hosting provides sufficient resources.

Cons

Steeper learning curve. Even though using a self-hosted platform is significantly easier than hand-coding a website from scratch, it still requires some technical knowledge compared to website builders.

Requires some time to set up. Unlike the instant setup of most hosted platforms, self-hosted platforms require extra steps like purchasing web hosting, registering a domain, and installing the platform’s software.

No dedicated support. Most self-hosted platforms don’t have customer support. However, WordPress, being the most popular website platform, has large community support. Many hosting providers also offer CMS-related customer support.

Must be on top of security and maintenance. You’ll be responsible for keeping your blog secure and properly maintained. This means installing security add-ons, setting up regular backups, and installing software updates.

If you own a small website with a limited amount of content, such as an online portfolio, using a hosted platform is the better choice. However, if your blog has a lot of content and you expect it to grow, a self-hosted platform is the better long-term solution.

If you opt for the self-hosted platform, choosing the right web hosting company and plan is very important. Make sure to select a plan from a reputable hosting company that suits your budget and offers a high uptime guarantee, advanced security technology, and comes with all the features you need.

Hostinger is an excellent choice if you’re looking for secure and reliable web hosting, including CMS-optimized solutions, at an affordable price. We offer layered protection against DDoS attacks and a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Our hosting plans start at $1.99/month.

4. Create a Blog with WordPress

As we’ve discussed, there are numerous blogging platforms to choose from. For the most well-rounded experience, however, we recommend starting up a blog with the WordPress self-hosted CMS, so in this section we will discuss how to start a WordPress blog.

WordPress is one of the best CMSs available and an excellent platform to build a blog. Even though it can power almost any kind of website, it was initially designed for blogging. As a result, WordPress has numerous blog management tools and features.

Even though WordPress has a steeper learning curve than most website builders, there are many available resources to help users learn how to become a blogger quicker. Once you get the hang of WordPress, its daily management will become much easier.

The first step is to install WordPress on your blog site using the auto-installer provided by your hosting provider through the control panel.

Here’s how to do it on Hostinger’s hPanel:

1. Navigate to Website -> Auto Installer.

2. Under WordPress, click Select.

3. A new window will pop up. Fill in the form with the correct details: Check whether your domain name is correct. Type in the Administrator Username, Password, and Email. This login information will be used to access your WordPress dashboard or admin area. Enter your Website Title. The blog name is usually written here. It can be changed later from the Site Identity settings on the WordPress dashboard. Choose your preferred Language. Select Always update to the latest available version to get the latest features and security patches.

4. Select Install.

5. Publish Content and Grow Your Blog

Once the installation is complete, log in to your WordPress admin area. Here, you can begin to make changes to your new blog.

This section will focus on how to design and customize a self-hosted WordPress blog. We’ll cover WordPress themes and how to customize them. We’ll also go over plugins and the setup of pages that your blog should include.

Pick a Blog Theme

A theme is a pre-made design template for WordPress sites that can be customized further. There are both free and premium options available in the WordPress library and third-party sources like ThemeForest. Over 8,400+ are available in the official WordPress theme directory alone.

With premium themes, expect to get access to dedicated support, regular updates, and premium plugins bundled with your purchase. Free WordPress themes might be enough for some successful blogs, but they usually include little to no support, making premium themes worth the investment.

When looking for the best theme for your blog, consider these crucial factors:

Pricing. If you’re eyeing a premium theme, make sure that the theme is worth its price. Compare it to other similarly priced themes.

Appropriate design. The design of the theme should fit the content of your blog. When in doubt, always prioritize simple designs that elevate your blog entries.

Features. Check whether the theme you want includes features like a drag-and-drop builder, premade layouts, and customer support.

Responsiveness. Use a responsive theme that’ll adapt to any screen size – over half of all website traffic comes from mobile devices.

User reviews. Before getting a theme, read whether people have had a positive experience with it.

To install a theme from the WordPress directory, log in to your dashboard and navigate to Appearance -> Themes -> Add New. Hover over the theme you want and click Install. Once the installation is complete, Activate it.

To install a theme from a third-party source that you’ve downloaded, select Upload Themes, upload the .zip file of the theme, and then install and activate it.

Design Your Blog

After activating your chosen theme, it’s time to adjust the website design further.

The rule of thumb is to aim for simplicity. Remember – the main selling point of a blog is the content. Therefore, make sure that the reading and browsing experience will be sufficient for your visitors.

Consider applying these tips to achieve the best look for your blog:

Install a drag-and-drop page builder plugin like Elementor or Beaver Builder for a more intuitive designing experience.

Pick color combinations, layouts, and fonts that contribute to an enjoyable user experience.

Add an image gallery to make your blog content more engaging.

Incorporate a logo to solidify your blog’s brand. You don’t have to create one from scratch or hire a graphic designer – there are many free logo makers available.

Use icons in place of text when appropriate. They make your site more visually appealing. Social media buttons are a good example.

Study resources on web design inspiration if you’re feeling stuck.

If you wish to delegate the task of designing your blog, you can hire a web designer.

Install Plugins and Tools to Extend Functionality

A WordPress plugin is a piece of code that extends the functionality of a website. Plugins provide extra features and can be installed, adjusted, and removed quickly. Managing plugins requires no coding knowledge.

Different plugins serve different purposes. Some increase site security, others perform backups, receive contact forms, moderate comments, or add Google Analytics.

We recommend you check out the following essential plugins:

iThemes Security. This plugin extends the security features of a WordPress site.

UpdraftPlus. Use this plugin to simplify backups and site restoration.

WPForms. With this plugin, you’ll be able to easily create forms.

Akismet Spam Protection. As the name implies, this extension helps combat spam.

MonsterInsights. This plugin links a site with a Google Analytics account.

Just like with themes, there are free and premium great WordPress plugin options. Premium ones usually offer extra features and support. Some plugins are freemium – this means there is a free version with basic features available that can be upgraded by paying for the premium version.

Before choosing a plugin, make sure to check its user ratings and reviews first. Some plugins lack regular updates, essential features, or have been coded poorly. It’s safe to assume that a plugin with a high rating and a large number of downloads will work well.

We recommend installing only the most necessary plugins, as having too many of them may slow your site down. Keeping all of them updated will also be tougher. If you use shared hosting, try to have up to five active plugins at a time.

To install a plugin, log into the dashboard and go to Plugins -> Add New. Browse or search for the plugin you want, then install and activate it.

Uploading a third-party plugin file is similar to uploading a theme – simply select Upload Plugin.

Create the Necessary Pages

Website pages contain the static content of a site. Unlike posts, pages require little to no edits or updates. The most common types of pages websites have are the following:

Homepage. It is the introductory page of a website. This is what your visitors will see when they enter your domain name into their browser’s address bar. The homepage should include snippets of your best and latest content.

About page. It’s the section of a site where visitors can learn more about a website or brand. It may include a bio, the objectives of the site, and representative pictures.

Contact page. This page contains information on how to get in touch with the website administrator. A contact page usually includes an email address, a phone number, links to social media profiles, a contact form, or an address with its location on Google Maps.

Different types of blogs may need specific types of pages. For example, if your blog features an online store, you may need to add product pages to your website.

To create a page, open the dashboard and go to Pages -> Add New. You will be taken to the WordPress text editor. Use it to write and format the copy of the page and add relevant images, videos, or forms.

6. Pre-Launch Campaign and Publish Blog Content

Before you start blogging, it’s essential to take care of the pre-launch campaign. A well-planned blog is more likely to succeed. You’ll have to make decisions regarding the kind of content you want to publish and its posting schedule.

To develop a successful content strategy, follow these recommendations:

Specify your goals. Avoid setting abstract targets to track your progress. Instead, aim for concrete milestones, such as “1000 newsletter subscribers by the end of the year.”

Identify your target audience. Get to know the common characteristics of your demographic – their personalities, needs, anxieties, and hopes. Check out online communities where your target audience meets up. For example, if your blog is about books, check out r/books on Reddit. If you are able to put yourself in your readers’ shoes when writing, your content will resonate with them.

Find your competitors. Find out who the main competition in your blog’s niche is. Read and analyze their most popular posts, find out what works for them, and try to find areas where your blog can perform better or offer a unique perspective. This will help you stand out from other blogs.

List the topics you will write about. When choosing them, consider every piece of information you’ve found regarding your target audience and your competitors. Perform keyword research to find out the level of interest and the competition for each chosen topic. There must be a strong, data-driven reason for why each topic was selected.

Schedule your posts. The key to building a loyal readership is consistency. It’s better to stick to a regular schedule rather than churning out a large number of posts and disappearing for an extended period.

Expert Tip

You should try to write and post content at least three times a week. Eventually, you should try to get to once a day at least.

Try to post in the mornings within your time zone or whatever time zone that you are targeting people, it tends to do better.

So if I’m targeting people in Europe, I would do it in the mornings, maybe like 8am time in the UK. That way you can get the email traffic and social shares.

With the pre-launch process out of the way, it’s time to start thinking about how to write a blog post. Here are some tips to make each new post count:

Be clear and concise. Use easy-to-understand language and keep sentences and paragraphs short. Avoid large blocks of text that may intimidate readers.

Use headings, subheadings, and lists. They help readers find the information they need faster.

Add images and graphics. Visual content makes your posts more engaging. Sometimes, they are necessary – especially if you’re writing a how-to guide, for example.

Apply SEO best practices. Use tools like Yoast SEO to incorporate search engine optimization into your writing and publishing process. It can dramatically improve your blog’s visibility on search engines.

To create your first blog post, log in to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Posts -> Add New. You will be taken to the WordPress text editor – the tool for writing and formatting your content.

The WordPress text editor allows you to add and edit blocks or sections of different types of content. Blocks may include text of various formats, media, design elements, widgets, and embeds. To select and add a new block, simply click on the + button located at the top left of the editor.

If you want to include a predesigned template in your new blog post, browse the items under the Patterns tab.

Once you’re done writing, formatting, and adding content to your post, make sure the settings are correct before publishing it. To access the post’s settings, click the Gear Icon located at the top right of the editor.

In the settings sidebar, you can choose whether you want to allow comments, add tags, set the post’s categories, or upload featured images.

Before you publish the post, Preview it first to make sure it looks exactly the way you want. Go back and edit the post if needed. Once you’re satisfied, proceed to Publish the post.

7. Promote and Grow Your Blog Following

The next step is to get people to read your blog. Even if you have high-quality content, it won’t matter if it doesn’t reach your target audience. That’s why blog promotion is vital.

Optimize Your Blog with SEO Practices

Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to a set of techniques used to increase the ranking of a website on search engines.

Getting a website to rank high on search engine results pages (SERPs) is essential. According to BrightEdge, 53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic searches. If you have posts and pages ranking high on search engines, your blog will be more likely to enjoy a steady stream of organic traffic without having to purchase advertisements.

Here are some of the most common tips for blog SEO:

Keyword research. To have a better chance of ranking high on SERPs, target specific long-tail keywords with low competition. Use tools like Google Trends, SEMRush, or Ahrefs to gather keyword-related information.

Sign up for Google Search Console. It’s an essential tool for tracking your website’s performance on Google. It will let you know which keywords bring you the most traffic and which websites link to yours.

Install an SEO plugin. If you run a WordPress blog, Yoast SEO is one of the most popular SEO plugins. Some website builders, including Zyro, have built-in SEO features.

Apply on-page SEO best practices. Some essential on-page SEO tactics include optimizing images, adding meta descriptions, and changing permalink slugs.

Increase website performance. Faster page speeds positively affect SEO. Make sure to follow website performance guidelines to speed up your website.

Build Your Blog Audience on Social Media and Online Forums

Promoting your blog on social media and online forums is an excellent way to find your audience and connect with them. Your goal should be to find the communities in which people interested in your niche gather and then lead them to your blog to drive traffic.

97% of bloggers use social media to share their posts. It’s a popular method to generate traffic, but this figure also means that the competition is high. Therefore, focusing your time and energy on a well-strategized social media strategy is essential.

The first step is to ensure that you incorporate social media into your blog. Readers who find your content interesting or valuable will likely want to follow your social media accounts and share your content with others.

If you run a WordPress blog, there are dozens of social media plugins available. Installing them will give you access to features such as social media icon widgets, sharing, Facebook like buttons, and more.

The next step is to pick the social media platforms to promote your blog on.

Each social media platform has its unique characteristics, and not all of them will be suitable for your specific niche. Therefore, researching each platform’s demographics before you start promoting on social media is essential.

Here is some information about the most popular social media platforms that can help grow successful blogs:

Facebook. The biggest social network with 2.89 billion monthly active users worldwide. Men aged 25-34 make up 18.9% of their user base, making them the largest demographic on the platform. 98% of Facebook users access it via mobile, so make sure your blog is also mobile-friendly.

Twitter. There are 206 million monthly active users on Twitter, and male users dominate the platform by 70%. It has earned a reputation for providing real-time updates on various topics, with over 59% of its users admitting to getting their news from Twitter.

Reddit. The social news aggregation and discussion platform has over 430 million monthly active users. Reddit’s most popular age demographics are adults aged 25-29, followed closely by young adults aged 18-24. Reddit has over 100,000 active communities for almost any niche, making it a great platform for finding your target audience.

Instagram. This photo-sharing app giant has around 1 billion monthly active users. Instagram users’ gender demographics are nearly balanced, with 51% of users identifying as female and 49% identifying as male. Adults aged 25-34 and young adults aged 18-24 dominate the platform with 32.8% and 29.6%, respectively. If you have visually appealing blog content and your target audience skews younger, Instagram is an excellent fit.

Pinterest. The popular social image-sharing platform has over 478 million monthly active users. Female audiences dominate Pinterest, making up 76.3% of its user base. Additionally, the US leads Pinterest usage by a substantial margin. It’s a worthy option for blogs whose audience is predominantly American women.

TikTok. Crowned as the fastest growing social network ever, the video-sharing app TikTok has collected about 689 million monthly active users. Gen Z dominates the platform – 41% of its user base being teens and young adults aged 16-24. If your blog content targets young adults, try promoting your brand on TikTok with bite-sized video summaries of your articles.

Expert Tip

There is no one social media platform that is best for finding and building a community. You have to look where your audience is.

I’m in B2B, so LinkedIn and Twitter is great – same with YouTube. Some people are in B2C – direct-to-consumer brands – so maybe Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat is better for them.

Develop an Email Marketing Strategy for Your Blog

Email marketing refers to sending emails to a group of people to promote your blog. Even in the age of social media, email marketing remains an effective way to retain blog readership.

It’s worth noting that it is also known to have the highest ROI compared to other marketing methods.

Many hosting providers offer custom email accounts to their clients. If your website platform doesn’t come with email, consider purchasing separate email hosting. This will allow you to create a professional email account like [email protected].

Here are the three critical steps of email marketing:

Choose an email marketing tool. An email marketing tool will simplify the management of your email marketing campaigns. If you have a WordPress blog, there are many newsletter plugins to choose from.

Build an email list. On your homepage and individual posts, always encourage new readers to sign up for your email newsletter. You can offer incentives like exclusive content and free ebooks via email to convince them.

Send high-quality emails. Make sure to offer real value in every email you send. Craft engaging subject lines that reflect the content of the email. Add call-to-action buttons, such as “Read here,” that link to your blog post.

Try Out Guest Blogging

Guest blogging or guest posting is publishing content for other websites. The general idea is to gain exposure for your blog by getting published on websites with a large following. It’s also an opportunity to include backlinks to your blog, which can have a positive effect on SEO.

Be sure to only choose websites that are relevant to your niche. That way, you’ll make sure that you write guest blog posts that will attract your ideal target audience.

When pitching an article to one of the websites you’ve selected, make sure that the topic fits the theme of the website.

If your pitch is accepted, begin writing the guest post. In addition to providing backlinks to your blog, use internal links that direct readers to other posts on the website. Avoid blatant promotion of your blog.

Once the guest post is published, remain in contact with the webmaster you worked with. If the guest post does well, your future pitches are more likely to be accepted by other bloggers.

8. Monetize Your Blog

Once your blog has taken off, there will be opportunities to make money blogging. There are many ways to go about monetizing your blog. Here are some of the most common methods:

Affiliate marketing. By becoming brand affiliates, bloggers can earn money using affiliate links. Every time a blog visitor makes a purchase using the affiliate link, the brand affiliate will earn a commission rate of around 5-30% of the product’s sales price.

Paid ads. Bloggers can include ad space on their website by signing up for an ad network. Ad networks like Google AdSense help bloggers connect with brands relevant to their audience quickly.

Sponsored posts. Reach out to brands to get paid for writing about their products. Before you do this, make sure your blog has a considerable amount of readers and traffic.

Digital and physical products. Create an eCommerce site for your blog and sell physical and digital products related to your content. For example, sell digital products like online courses and eBooks that cover your blog posts in a more in-depth manner. Selling physical merchandise is worth considering as well.

User subscriptions. Create exclusive content that visitors can unlock with a subscription to a separate membership site or a section of your blog. Maintain the value of the subscription by regularly offering unique, high-quality content.

Expert Tip

Once you build up an audience – five, ten thousand visitors a month at least – then you can start monetizing. The thing I would do is I would collect emails in the short run and create a lead magnet.

If I had a blog on yoga, I may end up having a lead magnet on 101 ways to do advanced yoga as a beginner, and then I can start collecting emails and test out promoting courses, eBooks, affiliate products, and AdSense ads.

Why Start a Blog?

The reasons for starting a blog will vary from person to person. However, if you’re looking for an extra nudge, here are some reasons why you need a blog:

Self-expression. A blog is a medium to write and share your thoughts on a specific topic. This process is exciting and therapeutic for many people.

Connecting with people. Running a blog allows you to reach new people, build a blogging community, and make friends. If you’re a professional, it’s a great way to network with other experts within your industry as well.

Making money. There’s no denying that blogging has become a lucrative online business. It’s a flexible and mostly risk-free idea for a side hustle.

Learning new skills. By building a blog, you’ll improve your skills and learn new ones, including writing, marketing, SEO, and web development.

How Much Does it Cost to Start a Blog?

It’s possible to create a blog today without spending much money. The following is an estimation of how much it costs to start a self-hosted WordPress blog using Hostinger as your hosting provider:

Hosting. Hostinger’s WordPress Starter plan is an excellent choice for small blogs powered by WordPress. The starting price is $2.99/month.

SSL certificate. An SSL certificate lets your readers know that your blog is safe to visit. Hostinger offers basic SSL certificates for free.

Domain name. Hostinger offers a free domain for one year. Renewing a .com domain costs around $10/year.

WordPress. The self-hosted WordPress core is open-source, which means WordPress is free to use any way you see fit – including downloading and modifying it.

A theme. Although there are many well-made free themes out there, they usually lack features, customization options, and support. Instead, we suggest purchasing a premium theme for around $60.

Plugins. Many plugins are also available for free. However, you may need to upgrade to the premium version of some plugins to gain access to additional features.

Having two premium plugins installed will cost around $150/year. If you buy more premium plugins, adjust this figure accordingly.

Marketing and SEO. The costs will depend on which methods you focus on and which tools you use. However, if you’re just starting out, it’s possible to market your blog using free tools like MailChimp and Google Trends to avoid spending any money.

Maintenance. Most WordPress maintenance such as software updates and backups can be done on your own using free tools. However, WordPress can be prone to technical problems, so it’s a good idea to set aside around $100/year for maintenance.

With these figures, the total cost of the first year of blogging amounts to $363.37. Keep in mind that your expenses can be lower or higher depending on your needs.

We suggest making a list of what you need and setting a budget to avoid overspending. If your budget is limited, you can always start with more affordable or free options and upgrade them later once your blog turns a profit.

Conclusion

Starting a blog has many advantages for your personal and professional development. Additionally, successful blogs are great way to earn extra money or even create your own business. The good news is that it is now easier and more affordable than ever to begin your blogging journey.

In this guide, we’ve broken down each step of how to become a blogger – from figuring out “what should I blog about?”, picking and setting up the platform for your blog, publishing content, to promoting and monetizing your blog.

We hope that this article has helped you learn the process of building a blog. If you have any questions, let us know in the comment section below.

How to Start a Blog FAQ

In this section, we’ll answer some of the most common questions people interested in starting a blog have.

Is Blogging Still Profitable?

Yes. As long as people still look up information on the internet, it will remain possible to run a profitable blog. If you work strategically within your chosen niche, you will be able to make a lot of money

How Much Can I Earn from Blogging?

This varies from blog to blog. According to a ConvertKit study, the average revenue from blogging is $54,108 per year. There’s also a significant gap between how much professional and hobbyist or new bloggers earn. The same study reports a yearly revenue of $16,267 for non-pro bloggers.

Should Blogging Be a Full-Time Job or a Side Hustle?

Generally, we recommend blogging part-time when starting out. You should only consider making your blog a full-time endeavor once it has started growing considerably and you can rely on your blog income to support you.

What Are the Most Profitable Types of Blogs?

Many blog niches can be profitable if you’re strategic and publish consistently. Some of the most profitable niches include food, beauty, fashion, finance, and home decor. These types of blogs are easily monetized through sponsors, affiliate links, and exclusive content (eBooks and online courses).

Click Here To Start With Hostinger

#earn money fast #earn extra money #online #marketing #blog tips #start a blog #make money online #make money blogging #make money as an affiliate

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dracosaurusrex · 5 years ago

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Notebook - Draco Malfoy x reader

Here’s Part 2!

Summary: In which admiration takes the form of notebooks, handwriting, and smiles

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Gryffindor!reader

A/N: I caved into an attempt to write this after reading so many fanfics haha. That being said, this is my first fic. Tbh, I’m not exactly satisfied, but I hope it brings you joy anyway. Feedback is very much appreciated! Thank you!

Draco Malfoy was known for many things. To the vast majority, it was his menacing behavior, characterized by his high pride and brash comments. You were aware of this. You even witnessed him in action when he and Harry would clash. Did you approve of it? Definitely not. However, you also took notice of small moments where slivers of kindness were shown by the platinum-haired boy, and for a short instance you saw a warm heart behind his notorious reputation. Because of that, you couldn’t help but reserve a soft spot for him in your heart.

With the exception of being paired for several assignments in the classes you shared, you weren’t particularly close to Draco. This, however, didn’t stop you from admiring him from afar. It was a known fact that he was one of the most attractive guys in Hogwarts. Despite his questionable personality, he actually had quite the number of admirers. How could he not? His chiseled features were emphasized by his alluring eyes and a handsome smile to match. You would consider yourself lucky to be present whenever a rare laugh left his lips. It made your heart skip as you catch yourself smiling privately in response.

This was the case for potions today: Crabbe had mixed up several of his ingredients, resulting in the concoction exploding in front of him. No injuries occurred, but the incident drew attention to him as a thick layer of soot covered his shocked expression. After a pause, you turned at the sound of Draco and Blaise releasing a laugh as the rest of the class followed. You couldn’t help but laugh out loud yourself once the situation had registered completely. Your gaze, which was initially focused on Crabbe shifted to the blonde boy behind him. Your eyes locked. He stopped laughing, but his smile remained plastered on his face as he kept his sight focused on you. The class eventually calmed down, but you felt your heart beating rapidly against your chest as the connection lingered on for a few more seconds.

Your good friend, Hermoine, took notice of your dazed expression, and waved her hand in front of your face.

“Y/N! Earth to Y/N! Are you okay? What are you even looking at?” She turned her head so it was directed toward the same angle as yours. You snapped your head forward as you tried to hide the blush that spread across your cheeks.

“It’s nothing! Let’s get back to work, shall we?” You frantically said as you took her shoulders to turn her around. You didn’t want her to know about the feelings you had managed to keep well-hidden.

Your attention went back to completing the potion at hand, hoping that she didn’t catch on to your behavior. However, you couldn’t stop thinking about the boy and the slight interaction you both shared.

‘It was nothing. That was insignificant.’

You were constantly reminding yourself to keep your emotions in control, oblivious to the fact that the sound of your own laughter and the sight of your sparkling eyes had tickled Draco’s heart as well.

The scene continued to rewind itself as you tried to carry on with your day. After your classes, you found yourself studying in a secluded part of the library, trying to refine your notes for potions. You could keep up with the class just fine, but it took you more effort to do so in contrast to your other subjects. At least it was interesting and challenging enough to make you enjoy it.

You were 20 minutes into your study and your mind was desperately trying to make sense of the text in front of you. Your senses became overloaded. Your knee bounced up and down, you began to twirl your quill in between your fingers, and your eyebrows furrowed in hopes that it would make your brain do a better job in processing the information. The feeling of frustration soon built up, and to add to that, you couldn’t seem to get Draco out of your head. Controlling your feelings had never been this difficult before.

Throwing the thought of him to the back of your mind proved futile, as you heard a chair screeching beside you.

“Too much tension in your face is going to give you wrinkles, Y/L/N.” Your eyes widened at the familiarity of the voice. When you looked up, you were met with platinum blonde and the scent of mint. Draco was smirking at you.

“Draco. Can I help you?” You spoke out, trying to sound annoyed while you allowed yourself to submerge your face into your hands. The beating in your chest was quickening just as it did in potions. ‘Why is he here?’ you thought to yourself.

He shrugged, “Probably not. Besides, I don’t think I’m the one who needs help.” His eyes scanned your workspace. Pieces of parchment were scattered everywhere, and your book was filled with make-shift tabs along with paragraphs decorated with desperate markings and annotations. It takes you a second to realize what he was talking about as you lifted your head to follow his line of sight.

You rolled your eyes and sighed. “If you’re here to pick on me, right now is not the time.” You mentally slapped yourself as the words rolled with harshness out of your mouth. In your defense, you really were trying to make sense of everything. The conflict between your feelings and your studying was not helping you at all. You proceeded to cover your face with your hands again.

Suddenly, a green notebook was plopped on top of your scattered mess. You peeked in between your fingers to examine the object.

“I don’t care whether you use it or not. Just give it back before our next class.” You looked up to see him walk off, stunned that he gave you any attention at all.

Once he disappeared from your sight, you picked the notebook up gingerly, running your fingers across his name, which was debossed on the cover. Draco was also known to be exceptionally intelligent, only falling short of Hermione. This thought made your heart race even more all while the heat began to fill your senses again. You couldn’t help but feel relieved, happy, and intimidated all at the same time. ‘Oh great. I’m swooning again.’

Your features softened as your fingers traced its edges, keeping the thought of the owner in mind. ‘This is his notebook.’ You smiled as you mentally embedded the recent scenes into your memory. With a grateful heart, you began to flip through the pages. You were surprised with the neatness of his penmanship, even more so with how thorough and organized the information was. More relief overtook you as you came to the pages that had the content you were frustrated with. You began comparing the content in your textbook to the notes in front of you, finally making sense of the topic.

“Oh!!” You exclaimed in triumph, happily writing down your newfound understanding into your own notes. The feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment had replaced the frustration you felt earlier as you finished up your studying to head to dinner. As you packed up your belongings, you glanced at the green notebook before picking it up. Suddenly, an image of his focused expression filled your mind as you pictured him writing on the surface of the paper. You envisioned his piercing silver eyes and slightly furrowed brows, accompanied by slightly parted lips. His perfect posture, you pictured, was emphasized by the sleekness of the familiar black suit. His fingers were slender, wrapping themselves delicately around a quill. You silently thanked his mother for giving birth to the work of art that is him. Another blush rushes in and thoughts of Draco started to invade your mind again, but this time you happily granted permission for them to engulf you. With another smile, you placed his notebook in your bag.

Once you were gone, Draco came out from one of the shelves, closing the book he was using to hide his face. He glanced at your retreating figure then turned his gaze back to the table you were sitting at. He took a seat and placed his hand against his chest, feeling himself fall for you more as he recalled the loving expression that was plastered on your face when you caressed the notebook. He couldn’t wait for the next time you had potions.

Part 2

A/N: I originally had 3/4 of the fic written out, but after reading it, I just wasn’t satisfied with the way things were going. I felt that this was a nice stop for now, so that I can think of something more...sufficient for the vibe. Thanks for reading! Once again, feedback is very much appreciated! <3

#draco malfoy #draco malfoy imagines #draco x reader #draco x y/n #draco malfoy x you #draco malfoy fanfiction #slytherin #slytherin imagines #gryffindor #gryffindor imagines #hogwarts #hogwarts imagine #harry potter imagine #harry potter fanfiction

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kitaychan · 4 years ago

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We need to talk

Summary: After a breakup, Ivan realizes his life was not as fullfilling as he had thought. Reaching out to old friends might prove to be a slow task with interesting outcomes.

Chapter preview: Yao sighed, peering over to the kitchen, he gasped and hurried inside. “How did you set my teapot on fire?”

Ivan could hear Arthur’s alarmed voice and the water tap running. “I don’t know.”

He approached the kitchen, the smell of smoke was stronger and he found Arthur frowning alongside Yao inspecting the blackened teapot.

The brown haired man huffed, leaving the teapot on the sink. “Stop burning things, Alfred is not around, so you can quit gaining his attention.”

“It was an accident and I asked for help, neither of you seemed to notice, are you deaf?”

“You are banned from my kitchen, now. Go and commit arson on your boyfriend’s house, he can manage the fires quickly.”

Ivan let out a laugh. “I am totally going to tell Alfred about this.”

Scrolling down memes on his phone, Ivan glanced at the hour, he had spent at least half an hour just looking at his phone, on the back of his head, deep inside, he knew that he was delaying the inevitable.

He typed out a simple ‘hello’ before erasing it, why was it so hard to start a conversation? Alfred would just send him a random picture and they would talk about it or start a string of random pictures, but now, Ivan found it difficult to send a simple greeting to Yao. What should he say? What if he was busy?

He managed to gather enough words to form a coherent greeting alongside the question of ‘What are you up to?’

Dread invaded him instantly after he sent it. Perhaps that was too vague, or too informal. He sighed, setting the phone aside, it was done and he couldn’t take the message back, that was better, he’d be overthinking the whole day anyways.

This day, he was less worried about the nonexistent alarm that set off in his mind in the mornings, and more focused on the little pang of guilt that told him that he was wasting his time.

He took a breath, reminding himself that he was on vacation, he had nothing to worry about besides his cat and trying not to be a burden to Katya, whom unlike him, had left earlier to give off her classes.

He played for a while with his cat, the entertainment was short as Boris decided it was better to lie on his side instead of hunting the toy, Ivan poked a bit at the fluffy cat to make him move again but it didn’t budge, wiggling its tail.

The day passed rather slowly, Ivan had tried not to go out, not wanting to spend the time by himself in the park again, though the prospect of finding Yao again crossed his mind, he figured the man would be working just as Katya was.

Of course he was, that was probably why he couldn’t answer. Ivan sighed, why did he have to keep worrying about it? this was what he hated about being alone, his thoughts would be nagging at him, he had to find something to do or he would be anxious about a message the whole day.

He sighed, focusing on the lonely plant by the window, he searched around the house, finding some paints. It was time to stop delaying his task and deliver that child’s project.

The base was fairly easy if he remembered well, the background was mostly blue with some clouds around. What worried him was the boat, as he wasn’t used to painting at all, and well, he’d never made a decent boat.

He left the pot aside so the blue paint could dry, perhaps he could ask for help with it later.

Ivan glanced at the clock again, time had passed and Katya would probably arrive soon but he couldn’t help but feel a bit annoyed at the passiveness of his day.

His phone buzzed, taking him out of his thoughts. The short message displayed made him pause.

“Hi, sorry, I forgot my phone, I’ve just headed back from work. Do you want to come to my house?”

Ivan had to double check his phone.Firstly, to make sure that it was in fact a message coming from Yao, and secondly, to process the question.

Another message appeared.

“Are you busy?”

Ivan smiled, it’s not like he had anything better to do and at this point he’d be delighted to busy himself with anything.

Feeling less awkward he replied. “Not really, I was trying to paint the boat on the flower pot but I am failing at it. Anyway, yeah it’d be nice to talk”

“In that case, bring it with you, I’ll help. Let’s meet at the park, I have to see Arthur there.”

Ivan pondered for a moment giving out an affirmative reply, he wrote a note to Katya so she wouldn’t worry, grabbed a coat, the flower pot and left.

Once in the park, he went to buy some pastries, it would be mean to present himself empty handed, right? He even got another bottle of wine, to replace the one from yesterday. The cashier handed him everything on a paper bag that he carried quite difficulty.

He sat outside on the same bench, it was indeed a nice place. He could see Arthur and Yao approaching, both of them were wrapped with scarves and heavy coats, the latter was holding two cups of hot coffee.

Yao handed him one of the cups. “I’m so sorry, How long have you been waiting?”

Ivan shrugged, taking the beverage. “Not much.”

“For real, you can be as petty as you want, it was Arthur’s fault that we were held back.”

Arthur, groaned, taking a sip of his own drink. “I only said that they didn’t know how to make iced tea, I thought it was obvious.”

“The barista didn’t ask for your opinion.”

“If they want to make iced tea, they have to make tea, let it cool and add the ice. Not use that horrible mix with water.” The Englishman frowned, observing his drink. “At least they make good coffee.”

“Not really.” Yao let off a huff, ushering them to follow. “Anyway, let’s go upstairs, it is freezing down here. Aren’t you cold, Ivan?”

“I’m a bit used to it, it’s more chilly where I live.” Ivan paused, the englishman seemed to notice his hesitation, taking the paper bag and allowing him to finish his coffee and carry the plant.

Ivan walked with them, taking short steps. They questioned him about the city, about his work, his coworkers, Ivan had to suppress his frown at the last topic.

Yao’s apartment was warm, Arthur stepped in casually, making a beeline to the table while Yao took the flower pot from him so he could take off his coat.

Ivan fumbled a bit with his scarf, leaving it on and approaching the table. There were a few stocks of papers and books scattered on it.

Yao laughed nervously. “Sorry for the mess, I was revising some exams last night.”

Arthur rolled his eyes, setting the bag on the table, the Englishman raised an eyebrow and stared at him. “Yao, did you cook Francis’ recipe yesterday?”

The brown haired man nodded, placing the plant on the table. "Yeah, it took me some time and I had to buy wine because he would not leave me alone until I did."

"You let the frog get away with his quirks, he drinks wine with everything. I hope the dish was worth the expensive wine."

"It totally was." Ivan said, regretting his words as Arthur's expression changed into amusement.

Yao retrieved the books from the table, shaking his head. "Stop staring like that, we met at the store and I invited him."

"Sure… that's why you still have exams to grade, right?" The Englishman taunted, holding out one of the papers.

Yao hummed, fumbling with the papers. “You have delayed exams too.”

"True but why did he bring wine?” Arthur smiled, turning his stare at Ivan. “Are you following Francis’ advice or something?"

Ivan tensed a bit, at this point everything he'd say would be used by Arthur to tease them. “It is polite to bring a present when you visit someone’s house.”

“How dare you speak to me about proper manners,” Arthur chuckled, collecting papers from the table. "Yao has a good collection of books and I need to complain about it, you will help me out, right?"

"Not my fault that you burnt yours to get a date." Yao retorted, laying some brushes and paints on the table and taking a seat beside Ivan.

Arthur gasped. "If you keep that cocky grin on your face, I will kick you out."

Ivan watched in awe as Yao took a pencil, tracing swiftly the sketch of a small boat on the flower pot. "This is my house, you can't kick me out. What books do you need?"

The Englishman stood up, observing the books displayed on the shelf. He turned around with a serious expression on his face “Ivan, have you read ´War and peace’?”

“Uh not really, I have a copy laying around but I don’t think I ever finished it.” Ivan shrugged, toying with a brush.

“What keeps you from reading it? Is it the french parts of it?”

“I am actually fluent in french so...” Ivan saw how Arthur’s smile changed into a grimace, had he said something wrong? He quickly added. “I just hadn’t taken the time to actually read it.”

Arthur grabbed a couple of books, taking a seat. “I remember you once delivered a paper about The great Gatsby, it was very interesting though quite weak at the end.”

Ivan glanced at Yao in an attempt to ask for help but the grin the brown haired man held on his face told him that he wouldn’t get any. He laughed nervously. “I barely remember what I ate for breakfast, I don’t think I will recall something I wrote on highschool.”

Yao’s laughter filled the room, Ivan couldn’t help but stare at him, it was not rare to see the chinese smile, but it was certainly pleasant to hear his laugh, he found himself laughing too, Arthur joining as well.

They shared a glass of wine and devoured the pastries, Ivan painted slowly the small boat and answered more of Arthur’s questions, Yao praised his patience every now and then until Arthur left him alone in order to make some tea.

Ivan watched closely as Yao traced details on the little boat skillfully, silence enveloped them as he finished.

Turning back, he could hear Arthur pacing around in the kitchen but he could not see him.

He took a long breath before leaning over the table, just a bit, in order to gain Yao’s attention, the brown haired man set aside the brush, arching an eyebrow.

“When you invited me over, I didn’t think it would end up like this.” Ivan admitted, smiling sheepishly.

Yao tilted his head, a small smirk gracing his face. “Why?”

Ivan fidgeted with his scarf, he didn’t know how he was able to hold his gaze, he felt his face almost burning with embarrassment but he had already dug his grave so he might as well just die on it already, he reached out to take Yao’s hand, and lowered his voice. “Well… for starters, I didn’t think that Arthur would be acompaining us.”

Ivan considered the idea of not coming back to the town when Yao retreated his hand and chuckled, this was like highschool all over again but perhaps ten times worse because he had hoped to be on the right track just once, and now, he dreaded his sole existence.

No matter how much he tried to shrink on himself, to hide under his scarf, he would not disappear from the situation.

His train of thought was stopped or more accurately, smacked back to reality by a soft hand caressing his cheek. He could barely register Yao’s words. “You are fun to tease.”

Ivan nodded slowly, he was doomed, wasn’t he? He wanted nothing but melt on this man’s hands, he knew he was blushing, but this time, he didn’t mind it.

He gathered enough courage to lean forward, barely brushing his lips with the other, Yao’s hand moved to the back of his head, pushing him lightly so their lips met.

“Bloody hell!”

They both flinched back, Ivan had forgotten about Arthur’s existence, a sense of self awareness flared up in him but it didn’t manage to overcome the annoyance he felt. The Englishman was nowhere to be seen.

Yao sighed, peering over to the kitchen, he gasped and hurried inside. “How did you set my teapot on fire?”

Ivan could hear Arthur’s alarmed voice and the water tap running. “I don’t know.”

He approached the kitchen, the smell of smoke was stronger and he found Arthur frowning alongside Yao inspecting the blackened teapot.

The brown haired man huffed, leaving the teapot on the sink. “Stop burning things, Alfred is not around so you can quit gaining his attention.”

“It was an accident and I asked for help, neither of you seemed to notice, are you deaf?”

“You are banned from my kitchen, now. Go and commit arson on your boyfriend’s house, he can manage the fires quickly.”

Ivan let out a laugh. “I am totally going to tell Alfred about this.”

Arthur groaned. “From everyone you could have chosen to embarrass me in front of, it has to be with the one person Alfred has a direct line with, you are the best of friends, Yao.”

Sending pictures of a burnt teapot to Alfred wasn’t the way Ivan thought his night would end but he was delighted by today’s happenings.

Not only could he get another kiss from Yao before leaving, he had asked him out on an actual date, much to the Englishman's amusement, the remarks the latter made after they left Yao’s house weren’t embarrassing anymore.

Ivan had entered a state of sheepish acceptance, if he had to take on Arthur’s teasing in order to date Yao, then so be it.

#hetalia fanfiction #hws russia #hws china #hws england #rochu #hws rochu #my writing #hetalia

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lesbiandanhowell · 4 years ago

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taylor swift numerology dump

Life Path Number

indicator of what is important to you, how you act and react, and how you process life

a number that represents the path you are on in this lifetime

reveals the person you are destined to become and the challenges you may be faced with in order to learn and grow into that person

understanding its meaning helps you see why things happen the way they do and gives you the power to move through any situation with purpose and intention

Taylor = 7

purpose in exploring the mysteries of life; very inquisitive people with an insatiable need to delve into any topic in search of answers and truths; tend to be solitary creatures who have a lot to learn about relationships and vulnerability

born as natural detectives; gifted with a very keen sense of observation along with strong intuition assisting them in analyzing situations; great thinkers and can evaluate a situation accurately and with ease; efficient when it comes to work, almost to the degree of perfection; has high standards, yet affectionate and peaceful creatures but usually wary when it comes to others due to their ability to detect even the slightest hint of insincerity or deception quickly

usually a bit reserved, and some of them are loners which means they prefer spending time alone rather than surrounding themselves with others

Karlie = 5

life is an adventure; curious individuals who crave variety and thrive in upbeat social settings; need to learn commitment or need to change their situation may ultimately lead to an unfulfilling life

very progressive approach when it comes to life; always striving to look at everything from a perspective that is new with an overall goal to make this world a much better place; enjoy freedom, and they are adventurous and versatile, continually evolving and changing

associated with people that are incredibly devoted and loyal in their relationships; this number is also linked with restlessness

Compatibility of 5 and 7

5 people are incredibly social and adventurous and enjoy exploring everything that piques their curiosity; make exciting and adaptable partners, but relationships can be short-lived; needs variety and can't handle being tied down, so they tend to be unreliable and unable to commit.

Best matches: 1, 3, 7

7 people tend to live in their minds and are not afraid to explore the depths of life; curious and have many interests but aren't especially social creatures; may find it hard to meet new people and can tend to hide who they really are, making it difficult to forge authentic partnerships

Best matches: 4, 5, 7

In Numerology, Life Path number 7 and Life Path number 5 form a combo that is not only one of the most ideal for long-lasting relationships, but also a match that promises growth for both partners

two numbers feed each other on a spiritual plane (many famous intellectual and artistic couples were 5 and 7s); greater than the sum of their parts: 5 has a quick, flexible mind spiced with a wicked sense of humor; 7 has a dry sense of humor and a deep way of thinking

problems if 5's tastes seem too over-the-top or shallow, or if 7 becomes too hung up on spiritual concepts but 5 and 7 have such a powerful, positive influence on each other that these disagreements rarely kill the relationship; the 5 keeps the 7 loose and able to enjoy life, while the 7 is able to show the 5 a deep, serious thirst for knowledge.

attract events and circumstances related to expression of a personal sense of freedom and interest in the workings of science and the spiritual realm; a lot of compatibility there, as energies of both numbers are highly interested in experience: type of experiences are somewhat at odds, one being for experience and the other for learning

Expression/ Destiny Number

influences your personal strengths and also your challenges; helps you identify what you're best at and where you struggle, so you know where to focus your energies

Taylor = 4

organized, down-to-earth, and hardworking, the 4 Expression gives you skills that make you incredibly capable and constructive; master at managing projects and teams and others rely on you because you follow everything through to completion; honest, patient, and loyal (to a fault); carries a stubborn, rigid energy that can make you so fixed in your ways unable to grasp new, better ways of thinking, doing, and interacting

leave behind something that is valuable and others will find to be beneficial in day-to-day life; focused on building things that offer lasting value

could include a family of their own, an enterprise or a business; all about security and stability; hard workers and the pillar of a community and very successful in business; ability to become stellar business or marriage partners; life purpose revolves around hard work and practicality; keep order and thrive on security and stability

Karlie is also 4

Compatibility of 4 and 4

partners tend to have characteristics related to a practical point of view and solving problems with proven methods; energy represented by the number 4 tends to do things that have worked for similar goals in the past; situations are likely to relate to building or maintaining security for the future

Personality Number

side of yourself that you show to the world is reflected by your Numerology Personality number; similar to Ascendant in Astrology; doesn't represent every aspect of your personality, but the traits that you choose to share with others; reveals the type of first impression you make and how other people perceive you

Taylor = 8 with y/ 1 without y

(8) very successful when it comes to business when success is reliant on a time-frame which allows these things to unfold; can see the “bigger picture” and trends and ride waves to their most significant gains; also know when to retract from an engagement, and their sense gives them an insight into cyclical natures of events and things

Karlie is interestingly also 8

Heart’s Desire/ Soul Urge Number

what your heart yearns for and what motivates your ideals, your decisions, and your dreams; Soul Urge is something closer to your heart that you share only with those who are worthy

in numerology one primary desire; govern our purpose and help to direct individuals to their true motivations and intentions; direct influence on all that we do; able to give us essential clues when it comes to shapes and themes of each person’s life

Taylor = 3 with y/ 5 without y

(3) the number three’s have the desires to express themselves through their passions, their creativity and what they stand for; very positive people and usually, have a very active social life; deep emotions and thoughts and finding the right outlet will always be beneficial for this personality type; tend to be driven when they feel inspired, yet in some instances, their energy can become scattered, and this is when they find it challenging to remain directed; one purposes of the three’s is to express their emotions through work and personal relationships

(5) love adventure in every aspect of your life; always yearning for excitement and freedom; don’t enjoy routines for very long, and continuously need change to make sure they stay interested; versatile, adaptable, and have active imaginations: trait that makes these people highly creative and fast thinkers; can struggle when it comes to responsibility along with order; purpose while on this earth involves learning to find the freedom you crave through the things you are committed to

Karlie is also number 5 which I think fits her more than Taylor

Birthday Number

carries energy that influences a person's natural gifts; can tell you about a certain talent you are blessed with that is of great benefit to yourself and the world; gift meant to help you on your life path

Taylor = 13

you are a conscientious worker with a knack for coming up with creative ideas and turning them into something real; optimistic but practical outlook keeps you determined and on track as you work steadily toward your goals

Name Numerology

Cornerstone

first letter of first name; represents your approach to life; it reveals your overall outlook and the ways you react to both opportunities and upsets

Capstone

last letter of first name; how you find closure and follow through on projects and commitments; together, the Cornerstone and Capstone show your ability to both embark on and accomplish your goals

first vowel

represents the essence of your soul and what you hold most dearly; it's a part of you that you wear on the inside and that most others will never see; reveals the real, personal reason behind all your motivations

Cornerstone T

sensitive energies, highlights importance of harmony in relationships and teamwork

Capstone R

hardworking energy dedicated to supporting and uplifting humanity; represents great power to do great things

first vowel A

represents confidence, independence and proactivity, influences people with both motivation and leadership

#highlighted some things I thought interesting #taylor swift numerology #numerology #take from this what you want #thought this was worth looking into #since we know taylor likes numbers #taylorswift #this is the longest post I will ever make tbh #karlie and taylor #kaylor #taylor swift #gaylor #gaylor swift

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yandere-daydreams · 6 years ago

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A Yandere!Momo/OC commission for the wonderful, perfectly-named @lesbiansportsanime! I went a bit,,, absolutely crazy,,, with the flower metaphors and her OC’s background, but I couldn’t help it. Ren was just so fun!

Word Count: ~2.1k

TW: Implied Stockholm Syndrom, Toxic Relationships, Kidnapping and Implied Trauma.

Poppies were an odd choice, for this time of year.

Momo couldn’t help but focus on the black and yellow flowers, intermittently dispersed throughout an otherwise unnoticeable bouquet. It was a rare sight, especially in the summer heat, the flowers already starting to dry-out despite the over-filled vase they’d been placed in, the container alone nearly blocking the sight of the girl across from her. She had to peer around it just to see Ren, a problem not helped by the girl’s apparent disinterest in her company. Instead, Ren chooses to occupy herself with the delicate petals, running her thumb over the closest black-spotted poppy, hardly noticing when the mug in front of her ran empty. Momo was the only one who minded the set-up, apparently.

But, Ren was the one who’d chosen this cafe. The least Momo could do was try to enjoy it, all things considered. Already, the guilt ate at her nerves, biting and tearing and burning at whatever it could reach, her resolve the only thing standing between her current mindset and a complete breakdown. It’d taken more time than it should’ve to fix her make-up after the last incident, only hours before her and Ren were supposed to meet. Momo’s reputation would never recover, whether or not she was in costume.

Hands encircling the ceramic tea-cup in front of her, Momo attempted to peer over the poppies, breaking the silence proving to be harder in practice than it was in theory. “Have you been doing well, Ren?” She paused, after the question, smiling despite herself. She could never help it, not when she remembered how passionate Ren had been after graduation, her internship already having guaranteed her a rescue-based career. She’d been vague about the details, but Ren had been happy, so Momo was happy too. “I haven’t heard much from you, not since your new job was finalized. You know how worried radio-silence makes me, I can never trust you to take care of yourself.”

There was a heavy sigh, Ren straightening her back and leaning into her chair, tearing herself apart from the bouquet with quite a bit of effort. “I’ve been… busy, that’s for sure,” She started, shaking her head. “I’m not great at making plans, you know that. But, my agency decided to give me more solo-missions and leadership roles, and… the change was a little forced, I guess.” There was a lapse, a laugh, a timid fidget as she tugged her jacket’s sleeves over her hands. “I don’t think I realized how much it would bring back, but I’d like to say I’m handling it. As well I can, anyway.” Suddenly, Ren’s gaze focused, flickering from the table to the girl in front of her. Momo went stiff, automatically, but the response was quickly covered by a calm smile. “What about you, Yaoyorozu? You look like you just ran over a puppy.”

Now, that was her Ren. As blunt as she was observant. Momo’s smile widened, her hands coming to rest in her lap. "Are you still using such a formal name? I thought I was ‘rozu, to you.”

“Are you still avoiding the question?” She mocked, rolling her eyes before leaning forward. “Be honest with me, ‘rozu. You could never hide it, not when you’re planning to do something terrible. What is it? A new, morally-dubious mission? Is Creati taking on a vigilante persona? Or…” Ren drummed her nails on the tabletop, smiling conspiratorially. “Or, did my favorite heroine slip a little something into her tea, recently?”

At this, Momo couldn’t help but cringe, her expression faltering for the blink of an eye. Still, Ren didn’t miss the nervous tick, her grin fading as a frown took its place. She opened her mouth again, but closed it just as quickly, the chuckle Momo let out clearly catching her off-guard. “I’m sorry,” She mumbled, hesitantly, averting her eyes. “But... it wasn’t my tea, Ren.”

She only had a fraction of a second to express her shock, moving to say something before her features relaxed, muscles losing their constant tension as she made an attempt to stand, only for her knees to buckle as soon as she put her weight on them. There was an attempt made to scream, but Ren lost the ability to before she had the chance, collapsing and colliding with the table, knocking over that hideous vase along the way. Flowers scattered, water spilling, the resulting crash drawing the attention of the cafe’s other customers. But, it only took a flash of her Hero’s License and a few disconcerning waves to dismiss the forming crowd.

Momo could only hope no one noticed how careful she was while lifting Ren’s body, how she did her best to hide the blonde’s face from anyone who got too curious.

She never really could disguise how much she hated it when people looked at someone else’s property.

Ren was never where she was supposed to be, when Momo came home.

Momo hadn’t told her to... be anywhere specific, no, that would be too cruel. Ren was her lover, not her pet, her treasured jewel meant to be looked after and maintained until its caretaker was no longer capable of doing so. Still, her room had been set up in a way that would let Ren comfortably sprawl out in bed or sit at her vanity or lay on the love-seat without straining her tether, and yet for the past week, Momo’d been met with the sight of the damn thing taunt and tangled, it’s wearer leaning into the windowsill on the other side of the room.

Escape wasn’t a concern. Every exit was locked, the glass was bullet-proof, and the aforementioned chain was firmly attached to Ren’s ankle, its cord unbreakable, even against Ren’s Skism. Not that she could use it, of course. The quirk-canceling bracelets had been difficult to find, but it’d be worth it. No one should have a power that self-destructive, as far as Momo was concerned.

And with Ren, Momo was always very, very concerned.

Regardless of her skepticism, she took a step into the room, stopping to admire the collection of houseplants on Ren’s bedside table. Despite her reservations, she’d been caring for them meticulously, even the most recent aloe (the poor thing had been half-dead when Momo brought it home) green and thriving under such an angel’s care. But, in Momo’s presence, Ren didn’t look away from her fixation, not until there were arms wrapped around her waist, the Heroine’s head resting on Ren’s shoulder, trying to spot whatever had Ren so anxious. "You’re here every time I check on you,” She explained, when Ren moved, trying to get a better look at her captor. “Is something wrong? I’ll fix it for you, but you’ll have to tell me, first.”

There was a shrug, a deep breath, but no verbal reply. Ren hadn’t been speaking much, lately.

Momo sighed. “I know you don’t like it here, and I’m sorry about that. If I could keep you safe willingly, I would, but… you’re too determined, Ren. If I tried to tell you the world was dangerous, you never would’ve listened to me.” She let herself pause, checking for any signs of acknowledgment, but if Ren could hear her, she certainly didn’t seem to want to. Unperturbed, Momo continued. “There are people, out there, bad people. Terrorists and murderers and Villains, not that I need to tell you that. All I want to do is keep you safe, from yourself as much as everyone else. You understand that, don’t you? I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I let anything happen to you.”

Holding her breath, she waited, closing her eyes and digging her nails into Ren’s tank-top and waiting, until tears had begun to form. Momo knew this was necessary, she knew she had to do this, but… fuck, she didn’t know if she could, not if Ren was going to be miserable because of it. One dark thought led to another, the plans she’d tried to repress resurfacing. Terrible, awful ideas, rope and riding crops mixing in with Ren’s smiles or her screams, whichever Momo managed to rip out of her first. It wouldn’t be hard. Ren was helpless, here, weak and fragile and moldable, if Momo put her mind to it. It would only take a few days, a few hours if she used the right-

Just as quickly as Momo’d begun to spiral, she was pulled out of it, perking up as Ren turned, shifting, repositioning herself until Momo’s cheek was pressed into her chest, Ren’s fingers starting to card through her hair. It was comforting, caring, more so than she deserved. The affection was cold, joyless, but Momo leaned into it nonetheless, content to nuzzle into the gesture as much as Ren would allow.

“You’ll keep me safe?” She asked, quietly, her voice hardly audible. “Promise, ‘rozu? Don’t lie to me about this.”

Momo didn’t hesitate, she didn’t even think.

“I promise.”

The orchids were a little much, honestly.

They were nice in theory, their majority being the only requirement enforced when Ren asked for a greenhouse, but the sheer number of bleeding red and white petals, of dark green leaves. of hanging pots that were so easy to walk into was damn-near overwhelming, some days. She’d tried to suggest bring in a spike of gladiolus or lavender, but Ren had dropped the topic once Momo’s enthusiasm wavered. It hadn’t taken her much time to catch onto her captor’s… temperamental streak.

Either way, the orchids stayed.

Now, she cared for them dutifully, doing her best to ignore the shock-collar wrapped snuggly around her neck. The humidity had been perfected, a complicated ventilation system keeping the shed from overheating, and Ren had spent so much time watering each individual plant, she was afraid they’d start to wilt from the attention alone. The boredom wasn’t what bothered Ren, she’d gotten used to hours of nothingness when he was in charge of looking after her, but she couldn’t fight the emptiness that captivity left, nor the irritation that came with Momo’s constant buys for her favor.

It was something that lingered in her mind as she leaned down, taking a better look at the greenhouse’s corners for the third time that day. Tiny sprigs of forget-me-nots could be seen emerging from under the walls, eating away at the cement floor as they found their way into the greenhouse. Ren wasn’t sure why it irritated her so much, she just… couldn’t stand to look at them, for whatever reason.

It was the light blue, how harsh it seemed, she supposed, grabbing at the stems and jerking them out of the cracks they’d filled. Their eyes, too, brown and black and dark, like they’d never seen a ray of sunlight in their lives. Even after the visible portions of the infestation had been ripped up, Ren couldn’t help but stare at the weeds, glaring down at them. Why were they still following her? She was safe, now, why couldn’t she forget them? When were they going to leave her mind and, more importantly, when were they going to stay gone?

When was Shigaraki going to stop hurting her?

Before she realized it, the flowers were on the floor, torn apart and crushed as Ren’s heel ground them into the pavement. She used more force than she had to, determined to rid her world of something so disgusting, pulverizing the plant and its repulsive, obedient leaves under her foot. Ren was tempted to glare, to spit or do something to show his disrespect, but she managed to pull herself out of her rage, clenching her fists at her sides and forcing herself to take in a breath, if only to calm herself down.

Luckily, the greenhouse door took that moment to swing open, Momo having undone the locks quietly enough to avoid drawing Ren out of her thoughts. The blonde didn’t waste time, spinning on her heels and rushing into her partner’s arm, hardly even taking notice to the light sparks running down her spine as she got closer to the door. She slotted herself against Momo perfectly, hugging her as tightly as Ren could manage, a surprised giggle only encouraging Ren to force herself closer, to fall deeper into strong, secure, safe arms.

“Someone missed me,” Momo laughed, her hands finding Ren’s back, rubbing small circles into her rigid shoulders. “Everything alright, princess?”

She forced herself to look up, biting her cheek at the slightest of separations. “I… can you stay here, for the rest of the day? I don’t want you to leave me so soon.”

There was another laugh, another soft touch, one of her hands coming up to cup Ren’s cheek and tilt her head back. The kiss was sweet, delicate, everything Ren wanted from a protector.

She almost managed to ignore the fact that Momo hadn’t answered her question.

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type-writers-and-rose-petals · 5 years ago

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Fix it, Fix Me #1

Freddy Newandyke just wanted to help people. He wanted to be like the superheroes in the comics, he wanted people to be proud of him. That’s how he ended up on the L.A.P.D task force, that’s how he ended up as an undercover cop on a jewel heist. He had expected a lot of things, but he never expected to fall for the mysterious man known as Mr. White. It suddenly felt like his life was crumbling, as he found himself faced with two options, either betray Mr. White’s trust and put him behind bars, or confess and get killed.

Trigger Warnings: Blood, Mentioned Sexual Assault, Mentioned Car Crash, Mentioned Child Death, Graphic PTSD Episode, Cursing, Alcohol/Drugs. Let me know if I missed anything.

Freddy Newandyke knew he was fucked up. He was beaten down, used and abused his entire life. He thought maybe becoming a cop would make him worth something, but he was proven wrong when on his second week when he was dragged into the interrogation room, beaten, fucked, and humiliated, reminded just where his place was in this godforsaken world.

He hid scars behind smiles and fabric, a facade built to hide the broken pieces of his mind he so meticulously tried to hide.

After years and years of hiding, he found he was good at deceiving those around him.

That could have been why he was chosen to be the undercover rat for a diamond heist. Or maybe it's because the rest of the P.D saw him as disposable.

After all, he had no family, no friends, no one who would miss him, or care. It was basically a suicide mission if the thieves found him out, so why not send him?

Freddy could care less if he died or not. He had nothing else to live for. So he took the job.

He expected many things to come from it. What he didn't expect, however, was to fall for the tall, mysterious man known as Mr. White.

Mr. White was an older man, he had maybe ten years or so on Freddy, who had just barely turned twenty four.

But God, was he gorgeous. Tall, well built, with deep brown eyes and a surprisingly kind smile for a hardened criminal.

If things were different, Freddy might have tried to pursue him. If he wasn't closeted, if it wasn't the nineties and the aids crisis was in full swing, if he wasn't a fucking cop trying to get him arrested.

So he made the decision to avoid him, avoid making an even bigger mistake than he already had.

Of course, it couldn't work out that way, could it? Of course, he was paired with him.

He was in his car now, gripping his steering wheel, his knuckles white. Mr. White was in the passenger seat, and if he noticed how tense he was, he didn't say a word. Mr White had decided to stay with him, since he had been recognized at the motel he was staying at.

"So, kid, you're awfully quiet. You nervous?" Mr. White asked, glancing over at him with an amused smile.

"What? No, I- I'm just quiet sometimes. I'm not nervous."

It was a lie, and Freddy knew it, he just hoped to whatever God was listening that White didn't. Truth be told, anxiety was eating away at him, he felt like at any moment his heart might explode. He was way in over his head, and there was no turning back now.

The rest of the ride to his shitty little apartment was silent, thankfully. He brought White inside, face flush with embarrassment at all the superhero memorabilia scattered around the cramped space. He should have redecorated, he should have done something, but he didn't think they'd be going back to his apartment.

"Nice place." Mr. White said with that same damned amused smile.

Another lie, but at least this time it wasn't from him. He was sick of lying, but he wouldn't dare tell the truth.

"Oh, uh, thanks man." Freddy said, wanting nothing more than to drop the topic of his decorating skills. "You can take the couch if you want."

Like hell he'd be letting a criminal in his bed.

"Thank you." White gave him a nod.

"Yeah, sure." He muttered. "I need to, um, use the commode."

He walked away, leaving him in the living room.

He locked himself in the bathroom, locking the door and slumping against it.

"Holy shit… how am I going to do this?" He quietly groaned to himself.

He just… needed to avoid him as much as possible. That hadn't changed, it would just be a bit more difficult.

He could do this. He had to do this, even if he had no other choice.

He couldn't let his damn feelings get in the way.

~~~

It was official. Freddy was fucked.

He had done everything to keep himself from falling for Mr. White, he had done absolutely everything he could think of, and yet he still found himself left with butterflies in his stomach any time Mr. White touched him.

He was currently sitting on his couch, some shitty old movie playing on his cheap TV as he and White drank lukewarm beer.

He was starting to get buzzed, as he told White some bullshit story about nearly being busted for drugs.

White listened intently, a grin plastered on his face, his deep brown eyes sparkling with amusement.

“And so then- hic- then he wanted to pat me down! Now, I only like to be frisked by a certain type of person, if ya get what I mean.” Freddy chuckled, his words somewhat slurred.

White laughed, and good god, it sounded like music to Freddy’s ears. He felt his cheeks go red, as he watched him.

He had to stop this, before it was too late.

But the fact he was having a good time, and his liking for White won over. So instead he stood up, grabbing the empty beer bottles from the table.

“Want another drink, Mr. White?” He asked him.

“Sure, sure. Oh, and please, call me Larry.”

Freddy froze up at that last part. He… he hadn’t been expecting that, at all.

“But, uh, but sir, Joe Cabot said we wasn’t supposed to say our names.” He said, swallowing thickly as he quickly sobered up.

“Oh, fuck what Joe said. I hate those stupid names he gave us.” White- no, Larry- huffed.

“Oh…” Freddy frowned. It was hard enough already, why did he have to go and make this harder?

"You can keep calling me White if ya really want. Just thought something more casual would be nice." He said upon seeing him frown.

Freddy shook his head. "No, it's alright man, if you wanna be called Larry, I'll call you Larry." He said, before walking to the kitchen.

He threw the bottles away and leaned against the counter with a heavy sigh.

The hell was going on in his life? He felt like he was in a car with no brakes, speeding downhill. It was going to crash at any moment, he would die if he stayed in, and he would die if he got out, and the best thing he could do was just close his eyes and wait for the inevitable crash.

"Hey Orange, did ya get lost in the kitchen?" White's voice came from the living room, full of amusement and mild impatience.

"Hold on one sec, Larry!" He called, as he got the beers out of the fridge.

One slipped from his hands, crashing to the floor as he cursed.

He knelt down and quickly tried to pick up the broken glass.

"Shit!" He hissed, drawing his hands back quickly. Blood seeped from the cut on his hand, burning from the alcohol.

His eyes widened in panic when he saw the blood.

The metallic stench filled his nostrils, as he stumbled back. It was overwhelming, all he could smell was the blood, assaulting his senses. He fell back against the counter, choking on his breath.

He could hear the yelling. He could hear the screams, smell the acrid smoke pouring out of the crumpled car, the blood leaking onto the pavement.

So, so much blood.

He clutched the counter for support, blood pouring over the old linoleum floor. He tried to tell himself it wasn't real, it was in his mind, but he couldn't.

He couldn't breathe, he couldn't move, he couldn't do anything except stand there, paralyzed and trapped in his mangled mind.

It was Larry who tore him from his dissociative state.

"Orange? Kid, what's going on? Shit!"

Upon hearing Larry's voice, Freddy looked up, eyes glazed, panic spreading in his chest.

"Kid." Larry snapped his fingers in front of his face. "Kid, can you hear me?"

He became a little more focused, managing a nod as he glanced around the room. There was no blood on the floor, just a broken bottle with its contents spread across the linoleum.

"Shit man, you're bleeding. The fuck did you do to yourself? All you were supposed to do is get booze." He muttered, his voice more concerned than anything.

Freddy let out a shaking breath. "I-I dropped the bottle, and it- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…"

Larry carefully took his hand. He swallowed nervously, looking up at him.

“May I?” Larry asked, gesturing to his injured hand.

He wanted to ask why, but the words got caught in his throat. He gave him a wary nod instead.

Larry ripped a few paper towels from the roll, and wet them, before pressing it to his cuts.

“Be more careful next time, tough guy. Don’t want ya bleeding out on your kitchen floor, now do we?” He said, trying to lighten the mood.

Freddy just nodded, his words lost on him.

Larry frowned and continued to clean up his hand.

Freddy felt like such a goddamn disaster. Here he was, standing in his kitchen, too out of it to patch up his hand, and too clumsy to clean up the mess he made. At the first sign of blood he panicked, he wasn’t supposed to panic, he was supposed to stay calm and collected. Not to mention the one patching him up was a criminal that he was supposed to rat out. Why the fuck did Larry have to be so nice? Why couldn’t he have just kept away?

Larry eventually broke the silence. “So… you wanna tell me what happened inside that mind of yours just now? Why you were standing here all panicked and dazed?”

He winced. He could either tell the truth, at least part of it, or he could lie again. And god, was he sick of lying.

“A few months back I saw a car crash… It was bad, man, real fuckin bad… The car was on fire and crushed like a soda can, but the people inside were still alive. There were fuckin kids… I could hear them screaming, and I couldn’t do anything to help, and there was so much blood…” His words grew shaky and uneven, as he drew in a breath. “It, uh, it messed me up pretty bad. Felt pretty fuckin helpless for a long damn time. Blood just sets off the memories I guess.”

Larry paused. “And you saw it happen?”

He nodded.

“That’s… that’s rough kid. I’m sorry. Shit like that you don’t easily forget… have you talked to anyone about it?”

Freddy let out a halfhearted scoff. “What, like a shrink?”

Larry shrugged. “A shrink, friends, family, significant other. Anyone.”

He shook his head. “I don’t got anyone like that.”

“Really? I find that surprising. I’d think the ladies would be all over you.” Larry said, an amused smile playing on his lips.

“Ha, yeah right. No lady wants me.” He muttered.

“Any guys then?”

Freddy almost choked. “What!? No- I-” He stumbled over his words, unable to get them out.

Larry chuckled goodnaturedly. “I’m just joking with ya. Seriously though, you got no one to talk to?”

He shook his head, face flush.

“That’s a damn shame. You’re a nice kid.” He said with a sigh. He finished cleaning the cuts on his hand and removing the bits of glass. “You got any bandages?”

“Yeah, they’re in the bathroom cabinet.” He answered.

“Stay right here. And no more tryna pick up broken glass, okay? Don’t be a dumbass.”

Larry left him leaning against the counter.

Why was Larry being so nice, so caring? Why didn’t he just laugh at him and make him pick the glass up on his own, regardless of the cuts? Why was he doing any of this?

Freddy had a feeling he would be asking why a lot in the coming weeks. And frankly, he had no idea what to expect from Larry.

All he knew was that this wasn’t going to end well for him.

#reservoir dogs #freddy newandyke #larry dimmick #creamsicle #larryxfreddy #reservoir dogs fic

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thosequeenboys · 6 years ago

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For the sake of autonomy (John Deacon x Family)

Summary/Author’s Note: This is a family drama and coming-of-age story, focusing on the familiar scenario of students returning home during holiday break and family relationships readjusting. The father is modeled after John Deacon, Queen’s bass player. The depiction of John’s family members is purely fictional. Any likeness or perceived likeness to his family – or their family dynamics - is unintentional and coincidental. Wishing everyone gentle and joyful holiday reunions! This is chapter 1! The title and topic were inspired in part by this article: Carl E. Pickhardt, Ph.D,. A Detachment Theory of Parenting Adolescents.Psychology Today, December 9, 2013.

Warnings: Depictions and emotions related to a difficult first semester away at college/uni, sibling rivalry, separation, parent-child relationships, cursing

Chapter 1

John ambled up the steps for the third time that day. This time there was nothing to carry upstairs, nor chores to be done. No need to make the trip, really. Everything was ready. With his wife Claudia and their middle son Mark at the market picking up some last-minute staples, he wanted just a few moments in that space. The room’s occupant, his youngest son Dan, was returning home soon having completed his first semester in college. As John ducked into Dan’s room, the mid-afternoon sun lit the wood floor to a golden hue, giving the room a warm glow. He smoothed the bed, recalling how the day before he had unfurled the striped blue sheets, warm from the dryer, tucking and smoothing them to remove all the creases. He had slid the crisp blue pillowcase over the pillow and plumped it.

Now, he sat down on the bed gingerly, eyeing the remnants of a childhood and adolescence: photos of friends and celebrities plastered the walls, some faded with age and light; souvenirs from family and class trips held their place in between favorite books in the bookcase. Old school notebooks, folders and other flotsam and jetsam of past academic and youthful endeavors lay scattered in piles on the dresser and desk surfaces. John took a deep breath, and a smile glossed over him as he warmly anticipated the room cluttered with new trappings of a college life. He wondered what that life encompassed and how his son was changing.

The front door opened below and he heard Claudia and Mark head into the kitchen. He took a deep breath, stood and smoothed the bed. He stopped into the bathroom and dug into a drawer on the vanity, retrieving and plugging in the nightlight. It couldn’t hurt, he figured, just in case Dan needed to get his bearings on this first trip back home, the symbolism not lost on him.

Then John proceeded downstairs to help with unpacking. His middle son Mark was in his senior year in college and had been home a few days, his exams having ended earlier than Dan’s as a first year.

His oldest son Chris was expected for dinner that evening to help ready the home for Christmas. Chris graduated a few years ago and was working as an analyst for a financial firm. It was a good job, and after learning the corporate ropes, he was now up for a promotion.

This was the happiest time for John. With the arrival of the holidays, his closest loved ones surrounded him and the house took on a refreshed and festive air. In a few days, the extended family would gather for Christmas. Past memories would be remembered and new ones created.

‘Well, we are set!’ Claudia said. “I’ll start lunch.”

John joined Claudia at the island counter and started to peel and chop the vegetables Claudia had placed next to him. They worked in tandem to prepare the meal, as Mark sat at the kitchen table reading the newspaper.

John checked his watch anxiously. Ten minutes to two. Any minute now. Mark eyed a crime story in which someone was robbed on the street and no one responded to the screams. He spoke about the Bystander Effect. John half listened; under different circumstances he would be fully engaged, but his eyes kept darting toward the window in anticipation. Suddenly, a vehicle pulled into the driveway. Immediately, John put down his knife and left the kitchen without a word, headed to the foyer and opened the front door.

“Well, good I got in a few days with Dad before the star of the show arrived,” Mark said bitterly.

“Oh, Mark, try to understand. Dan hasn’t been home in months. It’s his first semester away. Dad doesn’t mean to dismiss you.”

Mark resumed reading the newspaper, clearly annoyed.

The car came to a halt. Standing between the heavy wood door and the clear storm door, John watched the two occupants conversing in the front seat.

“Have a good break. Things will be better next semester. It gets easier,” Lily said soothingly from the driver’s seat. Dan and Lily had been friends in high school and now attended the same college. Lily was a year older.

Dan felt a rush of anxiety course through him at the mention of next semester, though he appreciated his older friend’s support. “Thanks, hope you have a good break too. I’ll see you in a month. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” she said. They hugged as Dan thanked her for the ride and got out of the car. Dan hoisted the suitcase and duffle bag out of the trunk as the door rose slowly and then slammed it shut.

The house door opened and John emerged. “Hi, Love, let me get that for you,” he said quickening his pace.

No, I got it.” Dan said. The car pulled away and he and his dad waved to Lily.

“Ah, laundry,” John said, eyeing he duffle bag, “I’ll take it. I know you didn’t have time to do it with your exams.” John moved toward Dan and tried to ease the duffle bag strap off of Dan’s arm, reaching out with his other arm to bring Dan in for a hug. “Don’t touch me. Please.” Dan said as he stepped back.

John hid his confusion and disappointment. He always shared an abundance of affection with his sons.

They walked side by side, “How was the trip?” John asked.

“Good.”

“ Lily? Nice she was there to show you the ropes a bit, yeah?”

“She’s good.”

John sensed tension between them and distance emanating from Dan. He tried to keep it light. He felt like he was dancing on the tip of a needle and not maintaining his balance very well. John held the door for Dan, and upon entering the house, Dan stopped and took in the home, enveloped and calmed by the familiarity. The living room was to the left and kitchen and dining room, to the right. Even if his eyes were closed, he could envision every item in each room: the carved wood birds on a side table, his mom’s hand-thrown pottery displayed on the mantle among graduation and family photos and his dad’s Gold Record plaques hanging above the fireplace. The walls of home were lined with framed prints from museum collections they had visited during their travels and some smaller original paintings and collages from local artists. Many lamps dotted the rooms, emitting warm and soothing light. Lamps with bronze and ceramic bases resided on tables. Others stood elegantly on the gleaming wood floors, their arms stretched over comfortable couches, easy chairs and the game table.

“Danny!” his mom joined him in the foyer, breaking his gaze. “Hi, Mom.” They hugged. “Come, have lunch,” she said as John headed into the kitchen. We made your favorites-chicken salad with dried cranberries, potato salad, fresh bread and brownies from…”

“Thanks, Mom,” Dan cut her off. “But I’m not hungry. I just want to be horizontal. I’m tired.” Dan said, as he peered into the kitchen where his brother Mark was gazing at the newspaper on the table, holding a sandwich on thick slices of bread.

Mark looked up. “Hey,” he said, trying not to be pissy in the first five minutes of his younger brother’s arrival.

“Hey, Mark. I’m going to lie down-see you later.” Dan called out, before he headed to the back of the foyer up the staircase clutching his suitcase and duffle bag.

John peeked out from the kitchen and looked at the figure climbing the steps, wanting to help him with the luggage, wanting even more to accompany him up the steps, tuck him gently into the carefully made bed and ruffle his hair. Instead, his eyes brimmed with tears and he willed his longing to subside.

Claudia must have read his mind. “Let him go, John,” she said softly. “He needs to rest. Give him time-and space. You remember what we have to do during this time.”

John nodded, Claudia’s words led him to remember the experiences of his two oldest sons. It was a transition marked by a parent’s excitement to see a child’s growth and newfound independence -- and the inevitable separation that comes from the child making his way in the world. The child’s reliance on his parents starts to slip away as autonomy emerges. The relationship noticeably shifts.

Dan entered his room, which had been cleaned and organized since he exited four months ago, leaving behind abandoned clothes and other things that didn’t make the cut for college in a whirlwind. He dropped his luggage and collapsed onto the bed, yanking down the neatly tucked covers. He tore off his sneakers, eased out of his jeans and flannel shirt and scooted under the blankets. As he stretched out under the soft sheets warming the cold spots, he watched the shadow of the bare winter trees dance against the wall, the low winter sun leaving orange-yellow squares on the wall, its finale before setting. He closed his eyes, and before he could form a thought or feel an emotion, he was asleep.

When Dan woke, the sun was long gone. The room was black, save for a sliver of hallway light shining through the door set ajar. He stretched, not ready to wake up, feeling disoriented. He heard footsteps on the stairs and suddenly the door opened, letting in bright light. He cringed and flipped toward the wall.“What time is it?”

“6:00,“ came the reply. “Did you have a good nap? Do you feel better?”

“Groggy…”

“How about some dinner? Steve’s here. He’s staying over to help get the house ready.“

“Ok, give me a minute.”

“Sure, Love,” came John’s response, as walked out and shut the door, trying to give Dan space, remembering what Claudia had said.

Dan flipped on his bedside light, threw off the covers and dressed slowly. He looked around the room, conflicted by wanting to be there and thinking he should want to be back at school in his dorm. He grabbed his toiletry kit from his suitcase, went to the bathroom, and threw cold water on his face as a first step to waking up.

He went down the steps, where the family was seated at the large kitchen table. His wise and sensitive oldest brother Steve rose to greet him.

“Hey,” Steve said softly, smiling, as Dan leaned in to hug him. Steve had been his rock during the last few months. The recipient of many late-night phone calls, Steve talked him through panic attacks about schoolwork, helped him to organize his study schedule, guided him through the intricacies of making new friends, shored him up as his confidence dipped and eased his frustration about how FUCKING HARD everything was in these ‘best years of his life.’ He wouldn’t have made it through the semester without Steve.

The two of them hugged tightly, and once again Dan let Steve take his weight and with it, all the emotions that hovered at the surface.

And an emotional grab bag it was: There was his desire to distance himself from the painful remnants of the semester, but a motivation to embrace his identity and life as a college student, however fraught it was. And he felt a tug to distance himself from his family, but also a pull to slip back in the comfort and caretaking he knew and was lucky to receive at home.

Steve and Dan broke apart and Dan looked away, concerned that his emotions might show. He felt his father’s eyes on him.

“Let’s eat!” John called, breaking his gaze from his sons, as he moved serving bowls and platters to the table and the three boys sat at the table, Mark entering from the hallway.

“How was your semester, Mark?” Steve asked, grabbing a platter of roast chicken, taking some and passing it to Dan.

“Great,’ Mark responded. “Made the Dean’s list again. Can’t believe it’s my last year. My frat brothers and I - we have a great time in the house. I’m starting an internship next semester at an engineering firm-really excited about that. And, Shawna and I are still dating. I’m taking her away after the holidays for a weekend. Yeah, overall, it’s great. I’m really gonna miss college though.”

Dan took some chicken and placed the platter on the table while trying hard not to roll his eyes. Everything came so easy to Mark: school, friends, girls. Dan looked down, focusing on his food, well, focusing on pushing it around. He prayed the discussion would not come around to him. Steve, of course, had his back, knowing what had transpired his first semester. And he felt he had pushed his dad away enough to create a barrier to discussion. Perhaps Mark had his back too, because he turned the conversation to global warming-not a cheery topic by far, but certainly a good distraction.

When Claudia added to the conversation, John looked at Dan seated next to him and quietly said, ‘Are you feeling ok? Can you eat a little, Love?” Dan raised his head and glared at his father. “Stop FUCKING calling me that!” he yelled. “And, you don’t need to watch me eat. I’ve been eating for four months without you.” He dramatically pushed his chair out and stood with his arms braced on the table and stormed off to the family room. “Danny, don’t use that language with your father.” his mother called after him, clearly upset.

Dan’s emotions created an explosion in that moment: Anger, sadness, anxiety, jealousy, for starters. He collapsed into a chair and clicked on the TV, turning up the volume, watching mindlessly, as his heart pounded.

Meanwhile John sat stunned at the table. “I don’t know what’s with him,” Claudia said. “I’ll speak with him.”

“Let me go, Mom,” Steve said, standing up and proceeding toward the blaring TV. He entered the room, shut the French doors gently and turned down the volume slightly wanting some background noise. He sat down in the chair next to Dan and leaned toward him.

Steve took a deep breath. “You know…you don’t have to be a complete asshole to him. He basically has a part-time job of loving you.”

“I didn’t ask him to take on that job. He’s always in my business, treating me like a child. Wanting me to…need him. Calling me that name he gave me when I was a baby.”

Steve swallowed, thinking about his response. “Well, Your birth changed him-brought him back. To us.” Steve said softly. “Look, he cares-he always has. He senses you’ve had a tough time.”

“Did you, did you tell him anything?” Dan asked nervously.

“No, of course not, but he knows you. And, sometimes it’s what you don’t say that says it all.”

“It wouldn’t be so bad to tell him what your semester was like. You’ll probably feel relieved, and he’ll be supportive.” Steve urged gently.

“Yeah right.” Dan huffed. “Like Mr. Perfect would understand. Mr. O levels and A levels and honors degree. Mr. Electronics Guru and World-famous musician and songwriter. Mr. Finance Expert and… UGH, Mr. Fucking Perfect. In Everything. I see where Mark gets his perfection. And you too, while we’re at it.”

Steve chuckled. “No one is perfect, and everyone-including me, Mark and Dad have had our challenges. Guess you don’t remember Mark’s first semester, when he was tasting freedom for the first time and partying too much? Almost flunked out. And, dad…well you don’t remember a lot of it, but he’s had some challenges emotionally….”

Steve switched the topic. “Give Dad a chance. It doesn’t have to be as a father. More as a coach, a friend, even. My relationship with him shifted when I went off to school. You know, it’s ok to need sometimes. We all go through the autonomy-dependency thing. It’s a process. These are tough years. No one goes through this period unscathed.”

Dan raised his eyes and glared at this oldest brother. “No.” he said stubbornly, turning his focus to the TV.

Ever-patient Steve was at this wit’s end. “Ok, now you do sound like a child. I want you to think about what I’m saying. At the very least, we all want to have a nice holiday. Please curb your anger, and stop being a dick to dad.” Steve rose and walked out, closing the doors roughly behind him, fighting to hide his own anger and frustration at his youngest brother as he walked back to the kitchen.

Dan listened to the doors rattling from the abrupt closing and the droning TV. He stewed in his potpourri of emotions. Eventually, he let his thoughts disperse. He realized that he had a choice. And, the issue wasn’t his dad, really. It was him. He knew Steve was right-his dad meant well and would be helpful and supportive. He had to move beyond feeling like a failure from this first semester. For now, he envisioned different scenarios to rejoin the family. He knew that he deep down, he wanted – and needed - to feel the connections - and to let himself be loved.

Tagging: @warriorteam1924 @deakysgurl @im-an-adult-ish

#john deacon #john deacon fanfiction #john deacon x reader #john deacon x oc #family drama #coming of age #college life #uni life #holiday break #family reunion #independence #autonomy #coming of age story #family life #adulting

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ghostsray · 7 years ago

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(Merry Christmas Truce, @purpleillusn ! You asked for something wholesome with Dani and/or Jazz, and, well, I hope this is good enough.

Warning: Slight body horror I guess?? because of Dani melting)

Word count: 3038

Jazz’s grip tightened around the book in her hands as she tried to drown out the sounds of her parents arguing. Last Christmas, the two adult Fentons had agreed to forget about their yearly arguments over Santa Clause. Unfortunately, they somehow moved on to arguing over Santa’s elves, which meant that the Christmas tradition of fighting over useless topics persisted, much to the exasperation of their two children.

She could tell that Danny was trying his best not to be a Grinch after the events of last year, but after listening to around five minutes of how there was no way elves could survive the freezing north pole’s weather in those silly costumes of theirs unless they had fur or blubber, he eventually made the smart choice of spending the Christmas day out with Tucker and Sam. Unfortunately, since she had no close friends of her own, Jazz was unable to experience the same freedom. That was why she was in the living room now, sitting on a couch by herself with a book in her hands as her parents argued away.

It became evident, once she had to reread the same sentence for the fifth time, that reading in the same room as her parents was impossible. She sighed and left the room, heading toward the stairs. She would have made a comment to her parents, but she doubted they would hear her when they were so invested in their debate.

Halfway up the stairs, a sudden indoors breeze made her shiver—then something cold and wet landed on her shoulder. Of course, it couldn’t be snow because she was indoors and there didn’t seem to be any ice ghost around. Confused, she turned her head to look at what could have touched her shoulder. A small lump of glowing green goo greeted her.

She jumped in surprise, nearly tripping down a step, before quickly wiping the substance off her shoulder. A green stain on her sweater was left in its place. She flapped her hand to shake the glowing goop off, and it was then that her eyes caught another stain on the stairs a few steps down. As her eyes traveled farther, she saw more and more green blotches roughly leading to the kitchen.

She didn’t have to be a genius to figure out that this substance was ectoplasm. Why it was dripped in a trail inside her house was another matter entirely. From her experience hunting specters, she had seen only two forms of ectoplasm which leaked from ghosts. The first kind was in the form of saliva drooled by animal ghosts (which was unlikely to be the case, since there didn’t seem to be any canine phantom around). The second kind was in the form of a ghost’s blood.

She felt a weight settle in her chest at that thought. Was this Danny’s blood? Did he get injured in a fight? But he said ghosts won’t attack on Christmas. Could he have been wrong? She cast a quick glance to the living room at her parents, but they seemed unaware of the ectoplasmic stains on the floor. Bringing her focus back to the stains, she bit her lip before deciding to follow them to the kitchen.

Nothing was there, but she did see two more blotches on the floor. It was hard to tell because they were spaced apart, but they seemed to lead toward the basement, so that was where Jazz went. As she reached the basement’s door, she thought she heard clattering coming from below, and she hesitated, wondering what its source was doing. Steeling herself, she finally pushed the door open before cautiously stepping inside.

Since nobody used the lab on Christmas, the lights were switched off. However, that didn’t mean the place was completely dark. Neon light came from the various ectoplasm in the lab—from the portal behind its striped blast doors, from the ectoplasm-storing weapons, from more stains scattered across the lab and from the thing these stains led to, which was…

Jazz had to swallow back the bile that rose up her throat. There was a ghost in the basement, but a ghost of what, she wasn’t sure. It looked like it may have been humanoid at some point, but it was melting. Drops of bright ectoplasm fell from parts of its body which it failed to hold together, staining the floor where they hit. The melting ghost was frantically searching through her parents’ inventions, throwing metal scraps off tables and shelves, and Jazz realized that was the reason for the clattering she heard from the kitchen.

She didn’t realize that her body was moving down the basement stairs until she accidentally skipped a step. She caught herself, but a loud sound echoed from her footstep as she did, alerting the ghost to her presence. It whipped around to face her—

Jazz had to catch herself after seeing the ghost’s eyes. Though green eyes were not entirely uncommon among ghosts, there was something about the vivid, lime glow in this one’s pair that reminded her greatly of Danny. And they seemed scared. But before she could confirm if this really was her brother or not, the ghost vanished from sight.

Jazz blinked. It was difficult to see in the dull glow of ectoplasm, so she reached for the light switch and flipped it. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling overhead turned on, giving her a clearer view of the mess that had been her parents’ lab. The girl turned her head in every angle in search for the disappeared phantom when a soft plop snapped her attention to a corner behind a shelf. There, another small blob of ectoplasm had fallen. More drops joined it in a small puddle of green; they were dripping from what appeared to be nothing, becoming visible as soon as they left the ghost’s main body.

Slowly, Jazz made her way toward the spot. A smear in the green puddle told her that the ghost had moved, so she swiftly held up her hands in what she hoped was a placating gesture. “It’s alright,” she said. “I won’t hurt you.”

There was a brief silence, and for a second Jazz wondered if maybe the ghost had left. But after a while, she heard an echoey voice ask, “You won’t?”

It was a girl’s voice—a young one. She even sounded a bit like Danny when he was younger. Jazz turned to where she thought the voice came from and gave a gentle smile. “Just because I’m a Fenton doesn’t mean I’m as impulsive as my parents. If you want to talk to me, I’ll listen,” she told her. She wasn’t sure why she was being so gentle with a ghost—maybe it was because she reminded her somehow of Danny, or maybe it was because of the fear she saw briefly when their eyes met—but she had a feeling that this ghost was innocent and just wanted help.

Another beat of silence. Jazz could almost feel the hesitation coming from the young ghost. Finally, the phantom let herself become visible again and floated in front of Jazz.

Now that she was right in front of her and wasn’t disappearing from sight, Jazz was able to observe her appearance; and she found even more traits she shared with Danny, or at least a younger version of him. It was hard to pick them out at first due to all the melting, but she saw, in addition to the glowing green eyes, snow white hair and a faint splash of freckles across her face. She also wore a black-and-white suit akin to Danny’s, although her design was slightly different.

As Jazz wondered why this ghost looked so much like Danny, a memory clicked in her brain—a story of one of Danny’s adventures which he had relayed to her one day. She remembered how she felt so fussy over her little brother after hearing what happened to him, and how angry she was at Vlad for having done such a thing. But her brother had shrugged it off and said that, on the bright side, at least he had a likeable half-ghost “cousin” now—the same cousin, Jazz was sure, that stood before her now.

“I know, it looks kind of bad,” Dani said, pulling Jazz out of her thoughts. She had a sheepish smile on her face, although it looked like only half a smile since the other half was literally melting—which, by the way, her face was melting and yet the girl seemed fine by it. Jazz watched as she brought a hand up in a ‘wave it off’ gesture, and she had to swallow back bile when it caused ectoplasm to spray from her hand as she waved. “But don’t worry,” the ghost girl said, ignoring the amount of substance her body was losing, “I’ve totally got it.” Jazz didn’t seem convinced.

“You’re melting,” Jazz pointed out, still horrified by the sight before her. The younger girl chuckled and brought a goopy hand to rub at her neck.

“Yeah, I guess I am,” she admitted with a shrug. “…Okay, so maybe it is pretty bad. I’ve kinda been hoping I could find something here to fix me.” Quieter, she added, “Danny did last time.”

“‘Last time’?” Jazz questioned, having heard her sentence. “So it’s not the first time this happened to you?”

Dani looked away. “I’m…unstable,” she said after a moment. “Normally, I can keep myself together…but apparently not forever.”

Jazz felt a surge of sympathy for the young girl, who currently seemed to be sinking lower into the ground as her body spread across the floor. Right. She was still melting. “You said Danny helped you last time,” Jazz pointed out. “How did he do that?”

Dani scrunched her face (or what was left of it, anyway). “He used something called…Ecto Dejecto, I think,” she stated. “It sort of un-melted me.”

Jazz nodded. Ecto Dejecto. She knew where that was…right? She always tried to pay careful attention to all her parents’ inventions in case they ever use it on her brother, but lately she’s been focused on prepping herself for college, so she wasn’t as attentive as she used to be. Her brows creased with worry as she tried to recall what Ecto Dejecto was and where her parents may have placed it. From the corner of her vision, she saw of Dani, who was more puddle than person now. The sight made her heart quicken its pace. She had to find this Dejecto thing now.

She walked in big strides to one of the shelves and scanned the things sitting there. It was then that she realized she still didn’t know what the thing she was looking for looked like, so she turned to Dani (ignoring the churning in her stomach when she saw her) and asked, “Do you remember what it looked like?”

“It was a liquid, in a needle,” she helpfully supplied. “Could you find it quickly, though? ‘Cause…” She didn’t need to finish her sentence.

Jazz’s eyes zoomed past the entire shelf, but there wasn’t any needle she could find. She was missing something, she knew, but what? She shut her eyes, trying to remember anything about this Ecto Dejecto—and she did.

With a bright glint in her eyes, she rushed toward a box in the corner of the lab where her parents dumped all their failed experiments. She rummaged through its contents, and when that took too long, she dumped them on the floor then rummaged through them again. There! A needle with a tape on it labelling it as Ecto Dejecto. She picked it up, hurried to where Dani was, felt startled when she saw that she had become no more than a green puddle, shook away her fear, and pushed the needle’s contents into the puddle that was Dani.

At first, nothing happened. Then the puddle started to bubble. It continued to bubble, and Jazz began to fear that maybe she got the wrong needle in the dark—or, worse yet, that her parents might have perfected its original purpose of dissolving ghosts. But just as her heart was pounding and tears were beginning to form in the corners of her eyes, the green liquid began to rise, shaping itself into the form of a small girl. Jazz let out a deep breath she didn’t know she was holding, and the tears in her eyes did fall, but out of relief.

As she watched, green turned to black, white, and tan, until Dani was once again herself, in one piece and fully solid this time. The ghost girl looked down at herself, flexed a hand experimentally, and when she was sure that it worked, a large grin broke out on her face. “Thank you!” she cried to Jazz, and she seemed to hold out her arms for a second, but then she hesitated and dropped them by her sides. Sensing her wanted embrace, Jazz smiled and pulled the girl into a hug. After a moment, the girl hugged back.

“I’m just glad you’re fine,” Jazz said, “Danielle.”

Dani pulled out of their hug to give her a surprised look. “You know who I am?”

Jazz laughed. “Of course I do! Danny told me about you.”

“Oh,” Dani said, then smacked her own forehead. “Right. Of course he did—you’re his sister.”

Jazz giggled, enjoying the dumb expression on Dani’s face. “But hey, I guess that makes us sisters, too, right?” she said once her laughter died down. “I mean, Danny said you’re his clone, and I’m not an expert on genetics, but…”

Dani thought about this and smiled. “Yeah…I guess we are,” she replied. She let a ring of light form around her waist, which then split and traveled up and down her body, turning her hair black, her eyes blue, and replacing her monochrome suit with a colorful hoodie and shorts. Jazz found herself faced with an almost-exact copy of a younger human Danny, wearing a smile that reached her eyes. “Sisters. I like that.”

After getting over the surprise from her sudden transformation, Jazz smiled back. She understood, now, why Danny was willing to forget what Vlad did back then as long as it led to the creation of Dani; though she only just met her, she could tell that Dani was a sweet girl. Then Jazz broke their eye contact to look around at the lab, and she winced at the sight of scraps and gizmos scattered across the floor. “Yeah, we might have to clean this lab up pretty soon, or Mom and Dad will want to know what happened.”

“If we’re sisters, then does that make them my mom and dad, too?” Dani asked excitedly, still wearing that grin on her face.

“Well, sure, genetically,” Jazz said. That must have been a wrong thing to say, because Dani’s smile faded. Realizing what she said, Jazz quickly amended, “We could get them to adopt you, though! Just think about it. We could be real sisters, and you won’t have to live without a home anymore.”

“Did Danny tell them his secret?”

Now both the girls’ smiles were gone as that question sunk in. Of course, if they wanted to adopt Dani, then Jack and Maddie would want to know who she is, and there was no way they could answer their questions without revealing Danny as Phantom. Silence hung heavy around the two girls.

Dani broke it with a shuffle of her foot and a saying of, “I can clean the lab. I’m the one who messed it up in the first place, after all. You should go back to your parents and celebrate Christmas or whatever.”

At this, Jazz scoffed. At the confused look Dani gave her, she held up her hands and said, “Sorry, but no one would want to be around Jack and Maddie Fenton on Christmas. They argue all the time this day over nonsensical subjects.”

“Huh,” Dani said. “That explains the yelling I heard when I came in…but I thought Christmas was a time for family bonding.”

“It is, for most families. But the Fenton family isn’t like most,” Jazz informed her with a sly grin. After a second, her smile receded, and she observed Dani for a moment. “…Have you ever celebrated Christmas?”

Dani shook her head. Then, smirking, she pointed at herself and said, “This baby is only a few months old. Today is literally the first Christmas ever in my life.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” As her arms lowered to her sides, she looked away and said, “Not like I have anyone to celebrate it with.”

Jazz frowned. Then she set her face into a determined expression. “That’s not true,” she announced. “You have me. And Danny.”

Dani looked up at her. “But what about your parents?”

“I already told you, no one wants to be around them today. Besides, we see them every day. I’d rather spend the day with you.”

That seemed to put the smile right back on Dani’s face. But then she looked around uncertainly. “What about the lab?”

“Oh, that.” Jazz took in the sight of the messy lab, then turned back to Dani and shrugged. “I can just say a ghost came in and destroyed it.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be a lie,” Dani responded with a smirk as she allowed herself to transform again into her phantom form.

Jazz’s smile stretched across her face once more. Then she got up and held out a hand to Dani. “Coming?” she asked. “I’m thinking about finding Danny and forcing him to celebrate Christmas with us against his will.”

“Isn’t that kind of rude?”

“Hey, it’s a sibling’s job to be rude. You’ll learn soon enough.”

Dani laughed. “Alright,” she said, taking hold of her older sister’s hand. “But we’ll have to sneak past your parents.”

“I don’t know. I bet they’re still arguing over elves and what they should wear to work.”

“Wow. Those really are nonsensical topics.”

Laughing, the two made their way up the basement stairs. “Oh, and Dani,” Jazz said, catching the younger girl’s attention. “You can call them your parents, too.”

#purpleillusn #christmas truce 2018 #Danny Phantom #fic #mine #jazz fenton #dani phantom

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cheddarlight · 8 years ago

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give me both your hands to make it up to you

“it's my sister's wedding and seeing all these happy couples is killing me and all I can think about is how this was almost us” AU (bonus: “i know that it’s three in the morning and I'm a little (a lot) bit drunk but i couldn’t stop thinking about you, also can i come in it’s freezing out here”)

It’s a heavy kind of feeling, one that truly settles as Kara glances around the room— happiness exuding from every corner, her sister at the centre of it all, her arms wrapped around Maggie as they sway to the music. Kara sits alone, a sad smile on her face as she tries not to think about the reasons why. She knows its best not to think about it, she’s done nothing but think about it, about Lena for weeks. Losing herself in the regret and the crippling need to undo.

It doesn't help ease the pain, it doesn't help her forgot.

She remembers everything, from the sorry words she’d used to the broken look on Lena’s face as they were slipping out.

It doesn't help.

Still, Kara can’t seem to stop herself, she’s addicted to the suffering that comes with reliving each and every moment, the ones that still held good, the moments before everything starts to turn sour, before Kara had decided to let it all go.

She wasn’t supposed to be here alone.

The thought itself only serves to induce more sulking, more memories, more regret, more half-hearted lies claiming it was the right thing to do.

“I see you’re doing yourself no favours.”

Kara’s sad smile lightens at the interruption, gratefully for the opportunity to pull herself from her swirling despair she’s entirely responsible for. “And I see you managed to make it, after all, Director Lane.”

Lucy shrugs, her attendance never really in doubt. “Weddings aren’t usually my thing, but I figured if Supergirl could take the evening off, then so could I,” she says, lifting her glass and nodding towards the happy couple, watching as Kara does the same. It’s a strange sight to see, the reporter noticeably devoid of sunshine and more than a little tipsy.

Kara doesn't say anything, she doesn't have to, there’s a mutual understanding there, one that allows for a little pinning from afar and some self-inflicted misery.

“You should go see her,” Lucy’s eyes remain fixed on the newlyweds, her voice a soft tone of sorrow and bliss and Kara thinks if anyone knows what they’re talking about it’s Lucy, “before it’s too late.”

Kara shakes her head, her sad smile back in full force, only this time it’s reserved entirely Lucy— well, mostly. “She doesn’t want to see me.” It’s one thing she’s sure of as the picture of a broken Lena Luthor plays on her mind. There’s absolutely no way that Lena would welcome her, want her and Kara’s done enough. She’s caused enough pain, the last thing she wants is to cause even more because she can't keep her feelings in check.

“How can you be so sure?”

Kara gets the sense that it’s less of a question and more of a challenge and for a moment she wonders if Lucy knows more about her situation than she’s letting on. “I just know.”

Lucy doesn't say anything at first, simply stares, sizes Kara up. There are so many things she wants to say, piece together an inspirational speech about how Kara should go and get the girl but mostly she just wants to remind Kara how stupid she’d been to let her go in the first place. “I think you’re wrong,” is what she settles on, concise, straight to the point and nothing to misconstrue. She watches the flash of hope skirt across Kara’s features and maybe if she can’t get her happy ending then at least she can help someone else get theirs.

“You think?”

Lucy smiles a real smile, the hope that’s seeping through the question alone is enough to have her confirming such. “I think you should give it shot.” She sees the way Kara nods to herself, as if she’s made herself a promise to make it right. There’s something in way Kara fiddles with her glass, the way her gaze drifts to the crowd of dancing couples that makes Lucy curious. “Tell me about her?”

Kara looks confused for a second but it doesn't take her long to catch on and when she does, there’s no stopping her, the alcohol making her lips loose and her words honest, completely uncensored as she loses herself in the compelling topic that is Lena Luthor.

To her credit, Lucy listens to it all, she smiles as Kara animately gushes about the youngest Luthor and the little things she does that Kara can’t help but love. She listens to every word, her half-empty glass firmly clutched in hand as she lets the alcohol dull the lingering pain of heartache.

Kara’s just finished telling Lucy about the way Lena’s nose scrunches when she finds an apparent error in the mountain of research papers that she has to go through, when it hits her. She doesn't think she’ll ever be able to get over Lena Luthor.

Kara can’t help but feel that her apartment is missing something, that it lacks its usual warmth here and there. Sure, her place looks lived in, evidence of life scattered throughout but it just seems a little off to Kara, a little cold despite the warm summer night. Even if she’s not ready to admit it to herself, Kara knows what it is.

Despite the break-up, there’s still little pieces of Lena dotted about, things Kara couldn't quite bring herself to throw out. She runs her hand over the old sweater that’s draped over the chair and without thinking she presses her face into it, the faint scent of Lena’s perfume still clinging to the fabric. It’s somehow both comforting and painful when she pulls it on and wraps her arms around herself.

There’s a small framed photograph placed face-down on the shelf, Kara flips it over, runs her finger over Lena’s smile as she remembers the exact moment it was taken. Lena’s eyes and smile falling solely on her girlfriend, completely unaware of the lens focused on them, captivated by nothing but Kara as Alex mutters something about no couples at game night. The photo itself only dates a few months back but for Kara, it feels like so much longer.

An unfinished book gathering dust in the corner, an old ticket stub used as a makeshift bookmark, the crisp turn of a page corner signally Lena’s eagerness to jump straight back in.

It’s a cruel kind of self-imposed torture really, to have so many reminders, to hold on to things that Kara never really had to let go of in the first place. A tangible regret of the one moment she wishes she could take back.

With one last look around her apartment Kara moves to her bedroom, decides that sleep is probably the best course of action. She firmly believes that a solid nights sleep can work wonders, maybe a broken heart is a stretch too far, but she’s willing to give it a shot.

Kara’s met with cold sheets and space. There’s so much space, she has room to sprawl and toss and turn without the grumblings of another, yet it’s still impossible for Kara to get comfortable.

She’d spent so much of her night talking about nothing but Lena that she’d half convinced herself that Lena would be there waiting for her, tutting about the time all while desperately fighting off sleep just so she could bid Kara goodnight.

Lena Luthor has never been much of a sleeper, never quite managed to nail down a suitable sleeping schedule that accommodates the life of a busy CEO. Still, even she’s not oblivious to the fact that she’s been sleeping less than usual lately, her office hours steadily increasing. So, it comes as no surprise that she finds herself wide awake at 2 am with nothing but a glass of wine for company.

It’s by no means as bad as it sounds, Lena, for the most part, enjoys the quiet that comes with a late night and an empty home. She’s had more than enough experience with being alone, grown fairly accustomed to the feeling of it.

Still, she had hoped, she’d hope that feeling was a thing of the past.

She tries not to think about that particular hope too much, about the why Kara had ended things out of nowhere, about how the only explanation offered came in the form of a teary apology and a quick exit.

She has her suspicions, of course, not that she’d been given the chance to make Kara change her mind. She’d thought about reaching out, about asking why, asking about Kara. As difficult as it was to resist the urge to bombard the reporter with a host of questions and generally just checking in with her friend, Lena knew how hard it would be to do the exact opposite. She’s painfully aware how exhausting it would be to revert back to how things had been in the very beginning, to simply ignore her feelings and pretend that she didn't know what it felt like to have more. To forget, painful doesn't even begin to cover it.

So, she did what she thought was best. She kept her distance, gave herself time to truly digest the ramifications of it all, threw herself into to work and pretended not to notice her old habits creep back in.

She let Kara have her space, she didn't call to chase her up when Kara had failed to turn up to their regular lunch spot on the Monday after their break-up.

The stubborn sentiment of righteousness doesn't help in stopping Lena’s thoughts from wandering to what she’d be doing if Kara hadn't decided to end things between them. The elegant blue dress hanging up in her closet serves a tangible reminder that her night was supposed to play out a little differently.

She was supposed to be spending her night dancing with the woman she loved, singing along to music she didn't know the words to and drinking more wine than her lone bottle would allow. The image itself leaves a bitter taste in her mouth, and Lena does her best to wash it away with another sip.

Alex had been quite vocal in attempts to make Lena aware that she was still very much welcome, but Lena knows a bad idea when she sees one. That wedding bliss and Kara all in the same room would be far too much for anyone to handle.

Instead, Lena sits with her knees tucked to her chest, glances around her empty apartment and thinks about the dress she’d picked out for Kara and how she’d made her girlfriend swear to wear it, insisting that Kara didn't wear nearly enough black. She thinks about Kara smiling and surrounded by friends, about the way that very dress would sway as Kara no doubt danced with someone that wasn't her (another stellar reason her decision not to go was the right one, watching Kara move on might be the last straw)

But mostly, Lena thinks about what she would have she would have done if she’d known what was coming, if there was something she could have done differently, if there was one thing that could have changed Kara’s mind or if her departure from her life was just an inevitable formality. It’s the path that she always seems to end up on in the early hours of the morning, one of logic and reason— a poor misguided attempt to mask just how much she longs for the life she has just a few short months ago— one filled with infinitely more sunshine and countless shy smiles that were reserved solely for her.

When Lena hears the soft knock on her door, she doesn't think too much of it, takes it as a sign that she’s probably had enough to drink for tonight and that may be an early night wouldn't go amiss, the recent lack of sleep is finally starting to catch up to her.

It’s not until the sound comes through again, a little stronger, the cause a little more determined that she starts to pay attention to it. She glances at her watch and frowns a little when she notices the time— there really has to be some universal rule about not disturbing someone at three in the morning.

Despite her (justified) irritation Lena stands and shuffles towards the door, cautiously opening it to see who is on the other side. It starts with a peak and then Lena is pulling the door a little wider in an attempt to get a better look, to assure herself that her eyes aren't hazy from the alcohol she’s consumed.

Sure enough, the second take confirms what Lena had first thought. Standing at her door at three in the morning is none other than Kara Danvers.

The Kara Danvers, that walked away exactly two months and fourteen days ago and left Lena scrambling to pick up the pieces of her heart.

The Kara Danvers, who (annoyingly) still very much held the power to piece everything back together.

Lena’s first thought is not to question it, to just accept, but then she remembers the last two months and how she’d spent the better part of her days not questioning, and giving space, and the pain of it all.

“Kara,” She says, her voice commanding and weak all at the same time. Lena shakes her head, her gaze meeting Kara’s eyes for the first time, the look only lasts for a split second before Lena’s tearing her gaze away— her grip on the door tightening. “What are you doing here?”

It’s a fair question, one that Lena thinks she knows the answer to, but she asks it anyway.

Kara’s hands ring together, a nervous move that Lena has long since figured out how to detect. Lena stands firm as she waits for some kind of answer. She watches as Kara begins to toy with the ends of her sweater, seemingly searching for the right words and… hang on a minute.

“Is that mine?” Lena asked, completing abandoning her initial question.

Kara looks down at the offending garment that Lena is enthusiastically pointing at and shrugs, a far from remorseful look of guilt cascading her features. “it was too cold,” Kara says as if its reason enough, as if Lena knows she’s not talking about the need to shut out some pesky draft but her desire to feel closer, to turn back time.

Lena nods but Kara not quite sure that she gets it.

“I’ve been meaning to give it back to you,” Kara promises and Lena gets the feeling that she means it. “I just—”

“Haven’t had the chance.” Lena fills in the lie with a bitter laugh and a nonchalant wave of the hand. As much as she’d like to pretend, Lena doesn't see the point in dancing around things. “What can I do for you Kara?” She asks once more, her tone a little firmer this time, “It's late.”

“It is.” Kara agrees, although she’s not sure she has the answers that Lena’s clearly looking for. “Can I— maybe— can I come in?” She asks, even though she knows she’s got no right. But then Lucy had made some good and Kara had had another glass and here she was standing on the other side of Lena’s door and bracing herself for the resounding no that she deserves.

Lena knows her answer should be no, that the last thing she should be doing at 3 am is letting a slightly tipsy Kara Danvers waltz back into her life but then again, Lena’s never been overly fond of things she ‘should’ be doing. Besides, it’s cold and Kara’s clearly had her fair share of alcohol tonight, it’s the right thing to do— Lena Luthor may be heartbroken but she’s not heartless.

Despite herself, Lena’s grip on the door loosens, the gap widening a little as she prepares to let Kara into her apartment.

Kara doesn't hesitate in crossing the threshold and Lena receives as grateful smile when the door clicks shut.

Once inside, Kara moves freely, with the kind of comfort that only comes with time. She flits around the room, her eyes landing on the wine glass that Lena had held in her hand not too long ago.

Lena can’t help herself, thoroughly mesmerised by Kara’s movements and how natural she seems in a place she hasn't seen in months. For a moment, it makes Lena feel uneasy, the thought that things could fall back into place so seamlessly if only Kara would let them.

“How was the wedding?” Lena asks as Kara takes a seat on Lena’s overpriced sofa. She’s not usually one for small talk— but in this instance, she warms to it, welcomes the chance to avoid the elephant in the room for a little longer.

Kara gets a faraway look in her eye and for a second Lena thinks that maybe this line of questioning wasn't the best choice. “It was beautiful,” Kara smiles and Lena doesn't doubt it for a moment. “maybe a little lonely.”

The admission takes Lena by surprise and she tries her best to not read too much into it, she doesn't need the pain that comes with just a little bit of hope. “What? No pretty girls to dance with?”

Kara’s answer comes in the form of an outstretched hand and a hopeful question,“Dance with me?”

Despite the initial temptation, Lena makes no moves to take Kara up on her offer.“Just how much have you had to drink?”

“Less than you.”

It’s said with a cheeky kind of smile that feels so familiar and yet so foreign. Lena hates that she is not really in a position to argue with it. That she doesn't really want to argue. “There’s no music.”

“Lena,” Kara chides, “there’s always music.” And just like that Kara’s on her feet, determined as ever, she offers her hand to Lena once more. Lena looks sceptical, stares and Kara’s hand with a level of disbelief that Kara’s not used to seeing.

The seconds seem to stretch but Kara doesn't budge, her confidence doesn't fade and it’s that ever so sure smile— like all of their problems can be solved by one simple dance— that undoes Lena in the end, the last of her walls crumbling as she gives in to the urge to feel Kara’s hand in hers, the feeling of moving as one to some non-existent beat.

She’s never been particularly successful when it comes to saying no to Kara, anyway.

Kara doesn't look overtly smug but Lena can practically feel the way her smile grows wider as Lena’s hand falls into to hers as she’s pulled to her feet.

It feels strange to dance with nothing in the background, no cascading beat to drown out Lena’s equally enthusiastic heart. Still, Lena can’t deny that despite the oddity of it all, she’s enjoying herself, a laugh erupting as Kara pulls her into an elaborate twirl. And it’s just so easy, ridiculously easy for Lena to overlook everything that went wrong.

The minutes pass and Kara’s movements become less lavish, more controlled as she slows them down to a side shuffle and allows Lena’s head to rest on her shoulder as they sway in the silence.

Lena not sure how long they stay like that and when she does eventual pull away she definitely does not think about the fact that her sweater still smells like the perfume that Kara had given her for her birthday or the way Kara tucks herself into it when Lena slips from her grasp.

And really this is not helping Lena with whole ‘moving on’ thing

“Lena, I—”

“It’s getting late,” Lena cuts in, her gaze downcast as tries to stop Kara from making promises she can’t keep, confessions fuelled by romantic slow dances and the haze of alcohol— It’s not the way she wants it, she wants to be sure that the words are real, that they’ll still be there in the morning.

Kara gives a solemn nod in response but doesn't offer up any protests as Lena takes a step back. “I guess, we should probably sleep, huh?”

Lena’s not sure there’s much point to it now, she’ll barely be able to get three hours in before her title of CEO comes calling but she nods along anyway. “I think we probably should, yeah.” Lena keeps her eyes to herself, the slight scuff on the hardwood floor suddenly the most interesting thing in the world.

It’s not until she hears Kara’s soft footsteps heading towards the door that she looks up, the image of Kara retreating in an attempt to make a quiet exit all too familiar for Lena, a painful reminder of the way Kara’s last stop by had ended. It’s that unwanted flashback that has Lena croaking out a plea, “Stay.” Her voice is not nearly as desperate as she feels, “It’s late,” she adds because apparently, that’s the only valid reason her mind can conjure up at any given moment. “It’s late and you should stay.”

“I should?”

Lena nods and instinctively takes a few steps towards Kara, a conscious effort to stop her in her tracks. “If you leave now, I’ll only worry about you making it home in one piece.”

Lies, Lena’s never been particularly good at telling them despite the fact she’s been told so many.

Kara regards her for a moment and Lena knows Kara isn't completely sold but she doesn't call her on it. “You’re sure?”

Lena nods once more, “I’ll take the couch.”

“No. Lena you can’t, I’ve already imposed so much already.”

“I don’t mind,” Lena is quick to clarify and it’s true, she’s spent more than enough nights on the couch — one more really isn't going to make a difference. “I know how much you hate that thing.”

“Yeah, well. Just because it’s expensive doesn't mean that it’s comfortable.”

“Right, then it’s settled. I’ll take the couch,” Lena says; taking the opportunity to usher Kara away from the door.

“Lena, I’m not kicking you out of our own bed.”

“You’re not.” Lena carries on despite the stern look she receives in response, “I’m offering.”

“And I’m declining.” Kara halts in the middle of the room, at a standoff over sleeping quarters. “Maybe… maybe we can just share,” she offers the compromise hesitantly, “I mean, it’s not like we haven't done it before, it wouldn't be weird or anything.”

Lena’s not sure if Kara’s trying to convince her or herself, regardless, she begs to differ. Sharing a bed with an ex she’s still hopelessly in love with? Yeah, she thinks that might warrant the label weird. Still, it’s a compromise and maybe it’s the late night or maybe it’s the look that Kara’s giving her, or maybe it’s just because she’s incapable of saying no to the reporter; Either way, before she can talk herself out of it, Lena’s agreeing.

They’ve barely even settled in before Lena comes to the resounding conclusion that this might just be the worst idea she’s ever had, or at least, the worst idea she’s ever gone along with. It’s not that it’s weird per se, it’s just… different.

And really it shouldn't come as surprise to either of them that things feel a little different, the uncertainty surrounding what’s acceptable and what’s not. Far too much thought put into the appropriate amount of space to leave between them. Lena had played it safe, positioned herself on the far side of the bed, her back to Kara and ocean of space between them.

It doesn't help though, the distance does nothing to stop the familiar comfort that comes with having Kara next to her. The overwhelming urge to reach out still so palpable, sleep so hard to find. If the lack of light snoring is anything to go by, she’s not the only one having trouble.

The minutes pass and both are seemingly content to just lay side by side in the silence. Neither willing to acknowledge the obvious cloud of awkwardness, as if saying it out loud would make a blind bit of difference.

“I miss you.” Kara’s the first to cave, her words coming out in a low whisper as if she’s just admitting to herself for the first time.

Lena wonders if it is possible to simultaneously yearn for and fear a simple phrase. Honest and oh so soft words escaping from equally soft lips. She closes her eyes, takes and deep breath replays the sound them. Tries her best to ignore the way they seem to settle in her stomach, the urge to turn over and face Kara almost too much to resist.

Almost—As much as she wants to, she can’t do this again, she can’t dive back in without reassurances that Kara won’t break her for the second time.

“You’re the one that left, Kara.” Lena’s words aren't harsh, they're warmer than Kara thinks she deserves, a question without actually asking one.

Lena feels it before she hears it, the soft dip of the mattress as Kara turns and shuffles closer towards her, tentative in her movements. Still, Lena doesn't turn, her eyes remain fixed on the wall ahead.

“I’m sorry.” It’s still the only explanation that Lena’s ever had and it’s not that Lena doubts their sincerity, it’s just that apologies aren't enough. She deserves more than handful of ‘I’m sorry’

“Kara,” Lena doesn't intend for it come out so desperate, but that’s the way it escapes, a plea wrapped in Kara’s name because as much as Lena knows she deserves more, she knows she’s willing to take less. That a simple sorry, whisper enough times will wear her down. “You can’t just show up, and tell me you miss me. It’s- you’re… you’re not being fair.”

Kara knows. She’d known it back then, and she’s more than aware of it now. The last thing she wanted to do was cause more pain. “I know, I’m sorr-”

“You keep saying that.” Lena snaps, her frustration showing for the first time and with it her restraint vanishes, she turns to face Kara for the first time since she’d agreed to share her bed. It’s a mistake, of course, to look Kara in the eye that it. To see the fresh tear in her eyes and this time Lena doesn’t resist the urge to comfort, to reach out and wipe away the stray tear making its way down Kara’s cheek.

“Do you miss me?”

The thumb tracing Kara’s cheeks stills and Lena resists the urge to laugh, the mere suggestion that she’s done anything but is enough to have her breaking her own self-imposed rules. She leans forward, her lips brushing against Kara’s, slow and savouring, a sigh emitted as Kara’s hand moves to her jaw and then her waist and soon enough Lena has lost herself in Kara, in the warm frantic touches that accompany each shallow breath. Lena returns each one, Kara’s touch far more intoxicating than her classy bottle of wine.

“I had to protect you.”

Lena almost misses it, the small confession that gives way to more questions than answers. If she’s honest with herself, it’s the kind of thing she’d expected Kara to say, the explanation she’d been waiting for. Her suspicions all but confirmed by a soft whisper into the night. “Kara, darling, you’re not making any sense.” She says, half because she is and half because this is the closest Lena’s gotten to anything in over two months of searching.

Kara’s hands have stopped wandering now, as she concentrates on stringing some words together that make sense. Her head rests against Lena’s and she enjoys the moments for just a few seconds longer. “They would have hurt you to get to me. To get to Supergirl. I - I couldn’t let anyone hurt you. I’ve lost so much, I couldn’t lose you too. I can’t lose you.”

Kara’s crying again and Lena’s right there to wipe the falling tears. Things are still a little hazy but Lena thinks she gets the gist of it. Kara’s reasoning falling into place. Lena’s not sure if Kara’s aware that she’s just effectively confirmed her status as National City’s resident hero or If she’s aware that the news comes as no surprise to Lena — she’s not the only one that’s terrible at lying.

“I knew what I was getting myself into,” She says, watching as Kara’s eyebrows knit together. “I’m a little offended you’d think a bit danger would scare me anyway. Do you have any idea how many assassination attempts I've survived.” It’s intended as a joke, something to lighten the mood but Kara doesn't smile.

“Nine.” Kara says in all seriousness and the number itself catches Lena off guard, the fact that Kara had keep track. “and the last two were entirely Supergirl related. My fault.”

“I’m fine, Kara. Nothing happened.” Lena does her best to reassure, takes Kara hand and place it on her chest, heart racing as Kara’s palm falls flat against it. “I’m okay.”

Kara listens intently to each beat. “What if next time I’m not quick enough?”

Lena doesn't have an answer immediately. She doesn't have one. Kara’s fears are real enough and Lena doesn't have a guarantee for her. “Is it a risk worth taking?”

“Your life? Never.” Kara doesn't miss a beat

Lena shakes her head and attempts to clarify. “Being with me,” she says, “Because, I want it all, Kara. You, the suit and whatever risk comes with it. I want you… I want to be with you, I don’t care how many bullets I have to dodge.” Kara goes to respond, the words on the tip of her tongue, but Lena gets there first, steals them with the soft press of her lips. A token reminder of what Kara would have to give up. “I’m still going to want this in the morning. I’m still going to want you a month from now, a year from tomorrow. I’m still going to want you, even if you decide you don’t want me.”

“I want you.” Kara sounds so sure, despite the apparent ‘life-threatening’ obstacle she still wants Lena. Still needs her. It’s why leaving had been so hard, why she’d had to cut ties completely, it was the only way. Clearly, she’s not very good at it though.

“Then it’s settled,” Lena says as if she’s just closed a major business deal.

Kara disagrees, she may want Lena but she wants her safety more. “Lena, I can’t—”

“Kara, watching you walk away hurt me more than any assassination ever could.”

Kara’s overcome with the need to apologise once more, as if the words help in the slightest, as if they make up for the pain she’d caused. “I need to keep you safe. I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you.”

“So you fly a little faster, fight a little harder,” Lena shrugs, as if the solution is really that simple, “and I’ll start doing press conferences behind a bulletproof screen,” she adds, nudging Kara a little in the hope of relieving some tension and is satisfied when she receives the huff of a laugh in return, a kiss pressed against her forehand. “I love you, Kara Danvers.”

“I love you, Lena Luthor.”

It’s not over yet, not by a long shot, but it’s a start. Something for Lena to hold on to and god knows she’s in it for the long haul.

#supercorp #supercorpedit #supercorp fic #supercorp fanfic #My fic #kara x lena #kara danvers #lena luthor #fanfic

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head-and-heart · 8 years ago

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The Head and Heart Controversy - Parts 1 & 2

I’ve seen lots of mixed opinions on the whole head vs heart analogy in relation to Bellarke and I realized that, for someone whose Tumblr URL is literally “head-and-heart”, it’s kind of pathetic the lack of meta I actually have on this topic. I do reference the analogy quite often in my posts, as many of you would know, but I’ve never actually dedicated a post simply to discussing this analogy and analyzing it and pulling it apart to point out the reason that it’s important to me, why I love it, what I find intriguing about it, and how it continues to be a major theme from season to season.

Often when I see people who aren’t quite as fond of this analogy, they talk about how they think that it oversimplifies Bellamy and Clarke, and makes it seem as though Bellamy is dumb and reckless whereas Clarke is stoic and heartless - neither of which are true. For me, that’s never how I have viewed the analogy (nor what I think was intended by Jason when he first mentioned that particular dynamic) and whenever I think about it, it seems much more complex than just those two ideas.

The original quote (in fact, the first post ever posted on my blog, fittingly enough) is as follows:

"Without Clarke, Bellamy doesn’t function as well. Clarke doesn’t function as well without Bellamy. The complete each other in a really nice way. She’s the brain and he’s the heart. Without one, the other doesn’t survive. Together, you’re awesome. Together, you’re going to be okay. But individually I think they’re not as strong as they are when they’re together.”

I like this quote, I do, but for me, when I think about the head and heart analogy, it has expanded far beyond whatever Jason was ever thinking about when he said these words. This quote is ... what - two years old now? Since then the metaphor seems to have developed a life of its own and evolved into something far deeper and complex than whatever it’s initial meaning (at the time it was said) was ever meant to be. It is built into the fabric of the show, in fact, it has almost become the core of the show - 4x13 made that clearer to me than ever before. So maybe I’m not a year and a half too late to make this post, maybe I’m right on time.

Clarke being “the head” doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have a big heart, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel - it means a whole lot more than that (which I am going to explore in parts in this post). And Bellamy being “the heart” doesn’t mean that he is only capable of following his emotions and acting impulsively, it doesn’t mean that he never thinks. In fact, I would even argue that it’s the opposite, but that will all make sense in time.

Clarke being the head and Bellamy being the heart as core characteristics of who they are has to do with a lot more than just the way that they make decisions. It affects all sorts of different aspects of their lives and extends itself into areas of gray that are far more complex than the black and white discussion a lot of people like to make it into, in my opinion.

In order to explain my personal interpretation of this analogy - which is to delve way deeper than Jason ever did in his original quote - I’m going to split the head vs. heart analogy into four main parts regarding how it translates itself into Bellamy and Clarke’s unique intuition, the way they lead, how they apply themselves to each of their personal relationships, and - the one people seem to talk about the most (both when praising and critiquing the metaphor) - what it means for each individual character’s internal struggle throughout the show.

(Please note that this meta became far too long for one post so I had to split it into two. In this one I will cover the first two sections I mentioned - intuition and leadership - and in the next post I will talk about the remaining two parts).

If any of that sounds of interest to you at all, please feel free to keep reading under the cut.

Part One: Intuition

The first thing I want to talk about in this post is the intuition category. We know that both Bellamy and Clarke are highly intelligent, in many different ways, but how are they different from each other? Clarke, as the head, is often recognized as being the clever and strategic one, but from what we’ve seen from Bellamy, we know that he is also very strategic and can quickly improvise his way out of sticky situations. (Eg. the way he destroyed the acid fog in Mount Weather, tricking Pike into walking into the Grounder trap, purposefully injuring himself in 4x11 to convince Abby to help him, etc, etc)

We also know that Bellamy and Clarke have typical book smarts/school smarts - as shown by the Oppenheimer conversation, Bellamy’s many references to Greek mythology, the oxymoron conversation, and Bob’s comment at some con awhile ago that Bellamy and Clarke were both at the top of their classes, among other pieces of evidence scattered throughout the series.

The reason I bring this up is that it is a personal pet peeve of mine when people talking about the head and heart analogy simplify the meaning of the “head” to mean that Clarke is very logical and strategic. She IS, but I think it’s a lot more complicated than that, because we have lots of canon evidence to suggest that while Clarke is, indeed, very smart, so is Bellamy. What I’m getting at, is that if you only look at that one trait - intelligence - to decide who is the head and who is not, it wouldn’t make sense to say that Clarke is smarter than Bellamy.

This is why I used the word intuition instead of intelligence.

Both Bellamy and Clarke are very intelligent, but they have separate intuitions. Bellamy’s intuition is heart-focused, and Clarke’s intuition is head-focused.

Bellamy is the heart (in this specific intuition-based sense) because he understands other people’s hearts. He’s people-smart, if you will. Clarke is the head because she understands other people’s brains.

Sound vague? Allow me to elaborate.

There’s a reason that Bellamy is so good at inspiring people, as Clarke likes to say, and it’s because Bellamy is very good at reading their emotions - he is incredibly emotionally savvy. For this reason, he can predict not just what someone might do, but why they might do it - what personal motivation or particular emotion is driving them to react to things in the way that they do. It is easy for him to empathize with others in a sense that extends itself far beyond basic comfort and sympathy (as most people). He can mentally and emotionally place himself in other people’s shoes (in their heart, if you will) to understand what they are going through and how to help them, what they need to hear to keep going. This also makes Bellamy incredibly skilled at manipulation, if he were to choose to use that to his advantage (as we saw at the very start of Season 1, although he doesn’t use manipulation as a tactic so much anymore - he doesn’t particularly need it).

Anyway, I’m edging into some territory regarding leadership that I intend to explore later, so I don’t want to go too in-depth into that idea.

Instead, I ask you to consider something: it is no coincidence that, while we know Bellamy was good in school, it is very obvious that he excelled in the humanities rather than math/science (not that he didn’t do well in those courses, but it’s clear he had a passion for something else). Why? Because he understands people. Who they are at their core, and how that shapes their actions, not just how their responsibility or their external goals determine their actions (which is a more head-focused kind of intuition).

More on that later, but now that I’ve expanded somewhat on what I mean by “heart intuition”, I should probably talk about the other end of it (”head intuition”).

Where Bellamy can almost effortlessly figure out what role a person’s heart plays in a person’s actions, Clarke is extremely good at understanding how someone’s brain and personal reasoning/strategy might lead them to make certain decisions. She understands the logic behind people’s actions and can often predict moves that the other side might make before they do (for instance, in 4x10 when she teamed up with Jaha to take the bunker - she clearly predicted the outcome that would happen if Octavia were, indeed, to lose the conclave, and reacted accordingly).

Decisions made from a place of pure, sometimes cold, logic? Clarke can understand that very easily. It’s what made her understand L.exa in a way that Bellamy - who is more focused on the emotional side of decision-making (something L.exa was very careful to stifle) - never could. I might add, that Pike - like Bellamy - was also a master of emotions, which is one of the traits that made Bellamy decide to follow him: he could relate to him in that sense, and understand his position, whereas Clarke thought he was out of his mind. L.exa and Pike were people in Clarke and Bellamy’s journeys that served a similar purpose. They represented opposite extremes - L.exa in Season 2 mentored Clarke in a way that favoured her head over her heart, and Pike in Season 3 mentored Bellamy in a way that favoured his heart over his head.

But I digress.

Clarke is a master at understanding the pure logic and pragmatic reasoning that would inform a decision one of her opponents or colleagues might make. Bellamy is skilled at deciphering people’s emotions to understand or predict (and in some cases, manipulate) a person’s actions.

This is a difficult concept for me to articulate, although I can envision it clearly. In order to best illustrate this idea I’m getting at, allow me to bring up an example of these different types of intuition at play in the show.

In 2x09, “Remember Me”, Gustus poisons L.exa’s cup in order to put an end to the newly formed coalition because he distrusts the Sky People.

There were two people involved in piecing this together: Clarke and Bellamy.

Clarke (with the help of hallucination!Finn who, I might add, is actually just a figment of Clarke’s own conscience, which means that anything he “pointed out” was really just Clarke) was able to use her head-focused intuition to figure out that it wasn’t, in fact, the alcohol that was poisoned, but it was the cup.

And how did she figure that out? Because Clarke understood that many of the Grounders weren’t happy about the coalition, and that poisoning the cup to frame the Sky People would effectively dissolve the new alliance. It was a conclusion she came to simply by thinking about the situation, and coming up with possible solutions that her opponents might think of.

Bellamy, on the other hand, was able to determine that it wasn’t just any Grounder who poisoned the cup - it was Gustus. He knew this because he read Gustus (someone he had barely interacted with) like a book, and easily figured out his sense of protection over L.exa, that his core values were linked to his strong sense of duty to keep her out of harm’s way. Bellamy used his excellent understanding of human nature to figure out that the poisoning of the cups was a desperate attempt of a man who would do anything to ensure the safety of a woman he feels responsible for.

In this case, Clarke asked herself the question “what might a Grounder do in order to break up the coalition and how might they make it possible to achieve that goal?” Bellamy asked himself “why would someone break up the coalition, and what emotions are driving those actions?”

Clarke’s head-focused intuition led her to the conclusion that the cup was poisoned. Bellamy’s heart-focused intuition led him to the conclusion that it was Gustus, L.exa’s righthand man, who committed the crime. Both of these pieces of information were important. If they didn’t figure out about the poison in the cup, the alliance would have been broken and Raven would have been killed. If Bellamy didn’t figure out who did it, chances are that Gustus would never stop trying to evaporate the coalition and it’s very likely that - eventually - he would succeed.

In short, Bellamy and Clarke are both very intelligent people in similar ways, but when it comes to their most instinctive understanding of other people, they approach the situation in different ways (head vs. heart).

Part Two: Leadership

Bellamy and Clarke are both - undeniably - leaders, but the way that they lead is very different, as they excel in different areas. For this part of my meta, I would like to talk about how the head and heart analogy translates into those two different styles of leadership, and how their different types of intuition guide them in that area.

To put it simply: Bellamy is a man of the people (a war chief or military leader), whereas Clarke is a diplomat.

Season after season, we have consistently seen this dynamic at play. Bellamy leads at the front-lines, fighting alongside his people and offering words of encouragement to inspire them and keep them going even when it feels hopeless. Clarke, on the other hand, is the one who – for the most part – holds together the political landscape and works behind the scenes making pragmatic decisions to save their people.

In Season 1, we see that Clarke takes up the more political position by going to negotiate with Anya on Unity Day and trying to build an alliance with her in the latter half of the season and through her interactions with Jaha and the rest of the council members over the radio. Bellamy, on the other hand, acts as a leader by working alongside the delinquents and gaining their trust and faith in him - it is this that inspires them all to work together in the final battle of the season.

In Season 2, Clarke once more fights for her people’s freedom first through her interactions with Dante, and then later uses her diplomatic skills to work alongside L.exa and negotiate an alliance. It was her job to keep that alliance together as Bellamy was in Mount Weather. Bellamy’s role in Season 2 was to go to the front-lines, as I stated, and lead the Grounders from within the Mountain as well as his true people (the delinquents) by fighting alongside them.

Season 3, in many ways, was about Bellamy and Clarke’s loss of agency (through their relationships to Pike and L.exa/other Grounders in Polis). But even still, we see Clarke attempting to negotiate with L.exa, Roan, etc to save her people while Bellamy once again fights alongside them as Pike’s second man. The second half of the season was largely about regaining the agency that Clarke and Bellamy lost in 3A and learning how to work with each other again, and we see Bellamy leading their people against the chipped people in the final moments of Season 3 while Clarke goes into the City of Light and is guided by the spirit of the Commanders.

In Season 4, we again see Clarke leading through her interactions with Roan and Jaha and by making politically-based decisions for the Sky People, whereas Bellamy’s form of leading was more specifically linked to his connections with individual people and through inspiring them (eg. Riley, Octavia, Raven, Echo, etc).

These an example of how their respective positions as leaders arise from their different types of intuition that I talked about.

Because Bellamy is so empathetic and understands the way other people’s hearts work so well, he is able to get all of these people to fight alongside him in a way that Clarke has never quite succeeded at to the same extent. He walks among them, because he can reach them. One of Bellamy’s greatest qualities is that he can feel the struggles of other character’s so deeply that it’s almost as if they become a part of him. It’s like when he saw the slaves in Farm Station and was unable to leave them behind because he felt their pain - he experienced what it was like to be chained up and treated like an animal in Mount Weather - and so he couldn’t leave them behind. He became one of the people. Their heart became his heart.

I really cannot emphasize this idea enough. Bellamy is not the heart because he is only capable of making emotionally-based decisions; he is the heart because he understands other people’s emotions so deeply that he can effectively empathize with and inspire them to follow him.

And so he doesn’t just emotionally place himself in his people’s shoes, he literally does it, fighting alongside them as though he is one of them. And Bellamy is really the only person who can do this in such a way because he relates to people in such a personal manner that they grow to trust him and depend on him enough that they would follow him into the depths of hell and back if that’s what he told them was the right thing to do.

That’s why Bellamy is the war chief/military leader. He holds the people’s hearts in his hand.

He brings out their courage when they are afraid.

He offers them hope when they’ve given up.

He reminds them of what they are fighting for when they lose sight of the cause.

That’s why Bellamy is the heart.

it’s not cause he’s dumb you imbeciles

And Clarke? Clarke’s way of leading is lot more quiet, a lot more tactical and a lot less personal. As I stated in the first part, Clarke is a master at predicting other people’s strategies and understanding the kind of logic that drives their decisions. While this makes it difficult for her to sometimes lead people and connect with them on an emotional level, as we see in 4x04 in the aftermath of her and Bellamy’s list, it makes her much better suited as a diplomat.

If you look back at the way that Clarke has lead in the past, it has almost always been through her interactions with other leaders. She can negotiate because she very clearly understands the goals that motivate other leaders’ decisions and the strategic means they might use to accomplish those things. This is why, beyond her relationship to Bellamy and her mother (the people she loves most), most of Clarke’s relationships we have witnessed that are offered the most focus are with her political adversaries/partners, such as Anya, Dante, Cage, L.exa, Roan, and eventually Jaha.

And what do all of those people have in common with each other? They are all - for the most part - “head” types. They speak the same language, Clarke’s language.

And it is exactly that ability to speak that kind of language that would inform the decision to allow a bomb to drop on hundreds of a leader’s own people just to ensure that their battle strategy would not be revealed to their adversary.

Clarke’s ability to understand the way other peoples brains work helps her work with other leaders, but even when she is not working with them, it also helps her successfully predict the moves that they might make and lead her people accordingly. For an example, revisit the Gustus situation I talked about in Part One.

Think about 4x10, where Clarke stole the bunker with Jaha because she knew that if Luna won, everyone would die, or if anyone but the Sky People won, the Grounders would not be able to run the ship. Clarke is always thinking ahead, always looking at the big picture and searching for the logical outcomes to inform her present decision-making. Sometimes this causes her to overlook the emotional costs of those decisions (like with Tondc or with the way she handled the people’s anger over the list in 4x04, answering all their concerns with cold logic, or in locking the bunker door in 4x10, sentencing 800 people to die who might have lived instead, etc).

It doesn’t mean that Clarke doesn’t feel pain over the decisions that she makes or that she is heartless; it just means that she has the ability to recognize objectively strategic “solutions” to save her people that often require a sacrifice of some sort.

In short, Bellamy is a heart-focused leader through his ability to empathize with his people’s emotions and inspire them to follow and believe in his cause. Clarke is a head-focused leader through her savvy when it comes to understanding the strategic thinking of her political adversaries, which enables her to work alongside them or effectively oppose them by building plans based on her understanding of the way that they think.

Both kinds of leaders are required to be successful, which is why Bellamy and Clarke work so well together. A politician is nothing if they have no followers, which is why Bellamy is so essential. Likewise, no alliances can be formed if there isn’t someone there who can effectively negotiate/deal with political rivals/allies, and that’s where Clarke excels.

Obviously, I’m simplifying their roles as leaders for the sake of summarizing, but those are the main points that I want to get in for this section.

Now that I have explained my thoughts regarding the head and heart analogy in relation to intuition and leadership, I have gotten through all the topics that I wanted to for the first part of this post (of two). In my second part, I will talk about how it affects Bellamy and Clarke’s personal relationship to each other, and their internal struggle/overall character journey. The next chapter will be a lot more focused on Bellarke’s relationship, as I mentioned, so if you’re looking for some Bellarke heavy meta, it should be right up your alley.

I hope you enjoyed! Stay tuned for my next post.

#the 100 #bellarke #bellamy blake #clarke griffin #the 100 meta #posts by moi #otp: maybe together will be our always #bellamy blake: he's the key to everything #clarke griffin: i am become death #meta: what all great things are made of #the head and heart controversy

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phynxrizng · 8 years ago

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DAILY ASTROLOGY REPORTS AND HOROSCOPES FOR, 9-30-17

Astrology Cafe Daily Astrology ABOUT TODAY DAILY MONTHLY CHART You are here: Home / Daily Astrology / Astrology of Today – Saturday, September 30, 2017 Astrology of Today – Saturday, September 30, 2017 Sep 28, 2017 by Annie Leave a Comment The Moon is in Capricorn until 12:40 AM, after which the Moon is in Aquarius. The Moon is void until 12:40 AM (since yesterday at 8:15 PM). The Moon is waxing and in its First Quarter Moon. The First Quarter Moon occurred on the 27th and the Full Moon will occur on October 5th. Mercury spends its first full day in Libra (Mercury transits Libra from September 29-October 17). Times are EDT. Horoscopes Aries Aries Mercury, the messenger planet, is now transiting your partnership sector, dear Aries. Until October 17th, you’ll have the upper hand in negotiations with the brilliant intelligence of Mercury on your side. But the key is not to score intellectual points now. Instead, your ability to consider the other side of the coin strengthens, and this not only helps endear you to others, but it also allows you to enjoy a whole new perspective. Decision-making, however, may not be as easy since you see things from different angles! You’re leading up to big epiphanies about relationships this month. Today, a Venus-Jupiter influence suggests you should watch out for practical details as they’re easy to miss. In your relationships, you may be seeking out “proof” that someone cares, or someone is doing the same to you. When it comes to work or chores, you might feel you can take on a lot, but keep in mind that energy and time may not match your optimism today. The Moon moves into your social sector today, harmonizing with the Sun and boosting your relationships. Taurus Taurus The Moon’s move to the top of your solar chart early today stimulates a desire for more order and purpose in your life for the next couple of days, dear Taurus. You now have Mercury moving through your work and health sector, where it will transit until October 17th. This is a time for focusing on procedures and methods, perfecting projects, getting chores done, and organizing your living and working spaces. It’s a perfect time for updating skills and for learning topics that help improve your work and health. This is also an active cycle for re-organizing and attending to the details in your daily life. Work can involve particular attention to detail and communication. Watch for a tendency to fret during this period, however. Today, try not to count on plans that appear to be a little too unrealistic, but do stretch your mind and entertain bigger ideas and plans. You are craving more time to get creative, but work and chores also call strongly. Consider finding a balance between work and play rather than overdoing one or the other. Gemini Gemini The Moon moves into your spirit sector early today, and this opens your mind to opportunities and possibilities, Gemini. Mercury is now transiting your solar fifth house until October 17th. This is a good cycle for self-expression, socializing, and spontaneous conversation or learning. There is an easier flow of communication and a mental focus on pleasure, fun, romance, entertainment, and creativity. There may be some scattering of energies today, as it can be difficult to truly know what you want, although it would be a good idea to try to uncover the source of any discontent you feel now. You can be on the fence about whether to play things safe or to take a personal risk. Check in with yourself to understand whether your impulses are based on real need and not just boredom! The good news is that you’re pulling out of a week of mostly uncertain energy. Cancer Cancer Your responses to others are generous today, dear Cancer, and while this is wonderful on many levels, there is a tendency this morning to overstate or exaggerate. This can happen quite sincerely in the moment but may be based on restlessness or an overestimation of your needs. The best advice now is to think things through before making commitments. Mercury is now transiting your sector of heart, home, and family. Until October 17th, it can be particularly busy in the home or with family, and some of you will be doing quite a bit of work or study at home during this period. There can be valuable learning lessons through contact with family, or about family. There can be considerably more than the usual preoccupation with personal and domestic matters now, especially with the Sun also in this area of your solar chart until October 23rd. Leo Leo Mercury, the messenger planet, is now transiting your communications sector, Leo, and this boosts and speeds up your daily affairs until October 17th. This is a pleasant position for Mercury and can feel like a fresh breath air, although there can be times when it’s difficult to concentrate. This is a good cycle for detail work, easy and pleasant communications, and the generation of new ideas or development of new interests. Learning, speaking, writing, and transportation matters are in focus and in good shape. You more thoroughly enjoy taking in information and relaying it as well. Today, however, a big part of you wants to settle in and enjoy a slower pace, but your curiosity and some emotional restlessness can stir the pot now. While some woolgathering can do you well, it might also be a form of procrastination when time might be better spent focusing on current practical needs. If you can tame these unproductive tendencies, the day can be wonderfully positive. Virgo Virgo Mercury is now transiting your solar second house, Virgo, and influences this sector of your chart until October 17th (the Sun is already here until October 23rd). Mercury in your sign for the past several weeks has helped you sort things out and get your mental priorities straight, but now you’re more preoccupied with practical affairs and are looking to build and see tangible results for your efforts. It’s a great time for thinking about improvements to business pursuits and for organizing your finances. You can feel raring to go today, but remember that a little circumspection and strategy can go a long way now. You have a real zest for action, but not necessarily a solid plan to go by. Watch for taking things too far, particularly when it comes to spending and indulging, but also with regards to speaking too soon about a matter. Look for new ways to get creative. As the day advances, you’re focused, and priorities are easy to identify. Libra Libra Mercury is now in your sign, Libra, where this planet of communications will transit until October 17th. The cycle ahead is a busy and especially engaged and on the ball one. Your words have more impact and decisions come more readily and spontaneously now. With Mercury in your corner, you can enjoy improved decision making, more alertness and curiosity, and a greater ability to talk about your plans – and others are listening! Of course, with others listening so attentively, you should be a little more careful with your communications. Today, watch for a tendency to buy into speculative ventures or to make promises that can eventually be difficult to keep. Dare to dream, but don’t overlook the fine print in the process! As the day advances, you’re in a great position to work on a problem behind the scenes or sort out a domestic issue with great success. Scorpio Scorpio Mercury is now moving through your privacy sector, Scorpio, and will be its guest until October 17th. This transit closes up a communications cycle, and it makes a lot of sense to review, assess, or re-assess recent projects, interests, and studies. It’s also a good time for tying up loose ends on a project or study or for wrapping up a project. You might often look back or behind you for answers during this cycle, and you might take extra time for contemplation, meditation, research, and behind the scenes study or work. Decision making can be a longer, more careful process during this cycle. Today, however, energy and confidence can lift up very high and then dip, much like a sugar high. As such, it makes sense to be moderate with commitments or promises. Remember your limits. As the day advances, you become more focused. Sagittarius Sagittarius Mercury is now transiting your solar eleventh house until October 17th, Sagittarius, and this can take some of the recent pressure off to perform, and also improves your social skills. It can be a strong time for inventive new ideas, sharing ideas with others, and successful (or at least happy) networking. Valuable learning experiences can result from your association with friends, associates, or groups. Today, your responsibilities can be pressing, however, but a fair part of you would prefer to go your own way. It can be difficult focusing on priorities now, as much as you’d like to, but this changes dramatically as the day advances. In the meantime, look for balance rather than trying to push either one drive or the other. Distractions aside, you can be feeling quite optimistic now. Capricorn Capricorn Mercury is now moving through your career and reputation sector where it will transit until October 17th, Capricorn. This is a period for taking care of business, showing off your skills or getting attention for your abilities, and for packing a stronger punch in your communications. You may be a little more guarded about expressing yourself, as you sense that others are really taking notice of what you’re communicating — and they are! This influence brings much interest and thought to career and business matters, and your career may demand more of your communication skills. Today, aim to be moderate and avoid going over the top in the morning, when judgment may be off. However, as the day advances, you’ll feel a gentle wave of certainty and determination come over you, and this feels particularly refreshing after several days of uncertain energy. Aquarius Aquarius Mercury is now making its way through your adventure sector, Aquarius, where it will transit until October 17th. This is a good cycle for communications and broad thinking. You are a little more hopeful and optimistic than usual, and you’re especially spontaneous and free with your ideas and thoughts. You might discover a new interest, or you could be pursuing a particular topic with more vigor during this cycle. Let your imagination go this morning. The finer details may need attention later, but it’s a good time to stretch your mind and entertain possibilities. Your opinion may be sought today. While judgment is a little off this morning (the tendency is to go overboard), you’re pulling out of a several-day period of uncertainty now. Pisces Pisces Mercury enters your shared resources sector today, dear Aries, where it will transit until the 20th. In some way, you may have felt that others were in the driver’s seat in your life. However, others have provided valuable learning experiences. During this new cycle, you’re inclined to read between the lines and strategize more often. You may be doing some valuable research or investigation. This is a good time for bringing more common sense to finances. It’s also strong for deep, interesting conversations with others, and for self-discovery as well. * Remember to read horoscopes for your Ascendant sign and Sun sign. If you don’t know your Ascendant sign (and you know your birth time), you can look it up here. If Your Birthday is September 30th, If Today is Your Birthday full horoscope here. Astrology of Today – The Details: If you’re astrologically inclined and interested in the details of the Astrology of today, here are some of the factors considered in the forecasts (for the astrology of the week, see This Week in Astrology): Date & Time: Sep 30 2017 0:40 am Event: Moon enters Aquarius Description: The Moon in Aquarius This is generally a good time for social pursuits, group projects, trying something new, joining a group, and networking. A change of pace refreshes. Hobbies, clubs, and groups may demand attention now. It is time to build networks and cooperate. Humanitarian pursuits are highlighted. Date & Time: Sep 30 2017 0:40 am Event: Tr-Tr Mon Cnj Aqu Description: Transiting Moon Entering Aquarius This is generally a good time for social pursuits, group projects, trying something new, joining a group, and networking. A change of pace refreshes. Hobbies, clubs, and groups may demand attention now. It is time to build networks and cooperate. Humanitarian pursuits are highlighted. Date & Time: Sep 30 2017 1:22 am Event: Tr-Tr Mon Tri Mer Description: Transiting Moon Trine Transiting Mercury Ideas flow freely. We express feelings with clarity and thoughts with sensitivity. An excellent time for cooperative projects. A good time for taking tests, writing, promoting, public speaking, and studying. We are alert, observant, and our memory is good. Date & Time: Sep 30 2017 2:10 am Event: Tr-Tr Mon Sqq Mar Description: Transiting Moon SesquiSquare Transiting Mars We can overreact and exhibit impatience. However, this can also be a time of self-motivation. Date & Time: Sep 30 2017 4:53 am Event: Tr-Tr Mon Opp Cer Description: Transiting Moon Opposition Transiting Ceres We may feel unsupported or uncomfortable about supporting or nurturing others. Alternatively, we might be frustrated dealing with neediness in others. We could be insecure, fearful of rejection or separation. Positively, we might discover our own needs, fears, and comfort zones. Date & Time: Sep 30 2017 12:56 pm Event: Tr-Tr Mon Tri Ves Description: Transiting Moon Trine Transiting Vesta We can derive a nice feeling of satisfaction and fulfillment from tending to our responsibilities, work, or other commitment. We are more able to make sacrifices or put our emotions aside in order to get something important done. Alternatively, we can bring more sensitivity to our practical affairs. This can be a good time to commit fully to something – especially health and healing matters. It’s also a strong time for taking care of domestic matters. Date & Time: Sep 30 2017 2:53 pm Event: Tr-Tr Mon SSq Sat Description: Transiting Moon SemiSquare Transiting Saturn We could feel burdened, restricted, or limited during this brief influence. We could be feeling a little down on ourselves, excluded, or lonely. There can be some awkwardness or stiffness and difficulty showing affection and feelings. Patience is a virtue right now; otherwise we might succumb to feelings of frustration and sadness. All good things come to those who wait. Date & Time: Sep 30 2017 4:05 pm Event: Tr-Tr Mon Tri Sun Description: Transiting Moon Trine Transiting Sun There is a nice feeling of harmony and a cooperative feel to this time. Better decision making. We represent ourselves well now. It’s easier to attract support, favorable responses, and positive experiences. We are less fearful and less defensive. This is a harmonious time. Date & Time: Sep 30 2017 10:16 pm Event: Tr-Tr Mon SSq Chi Description: Transiting Moon SemiSquare Transiting Chiron Hurt feelings may be opportunities for healing. Now is the time for building bridges, not burning them. Date & Time: Sep 30 2017 9:24 am Event: Tr-Tr Ven SSq Jup Description: Transiting Venus SemiSquare Transiting Jupiter We are easily distracted, craving pleasure or leisure. We may be overdoing things, overselling ourselves, or overstating our affections. Date & Time: Sep 30 2017 9:43 am Event: Tr-Tr Ven Tri Pal Description: Transiting Venus Trine Transiting Pallas We deal with one another in a balanced, fair, and peaceful way. The platonic elements of a relationship may be emphasized now. This can also be a very creative, artistic time. Date & Time: Sep 30 2017 10:57 am Event: Tr-Tr Ven Cpl Nep Description: Transiting Venus ContraParallel Transiting Neptune Date & Time: Sep 30 2017 4:53 am Event: Tr-Tr Chi Pll Ves Description: Transiting Chiron Parallel Transiting Vesta Date & Time: Sep 30 2017 7:05 am Event: Tr-Tr Ves Sqr Jun Description: Transiting Vesta Square Transiting Juno Strong Signs, Elements, Modes BALANCE OF SIGNS VIRGO STRONG Meticulous, discriminating, pure, practical, health conscious, hard working. Can be hyper-critical, petty and perfectionistic. LIBRA STRONG Even-handed, harmonious, artistic, diplomatic, balancing, strong sense of fairness. Can be over- compromising, appeasing, judgmental. AQUARIUS STRONG Humanitarian, innovative, group conscious, progressive, serving others. Can be rebellious, eccentric, aloof, emotionally superficial, overly extroverted. BALANCE OF ELEMENTS FIRE WEAK We are not very goal-oriented right now, or motivation to pursue our goals may be waning/lacking. Changes feel overwhelming. Enthusiasm may be low, we argue less, and we think more than we take action. AIR STRONG We tend to favor rational, objective thought over emotions, impulses, and feelings at this time. We are more intellectual, fair-minded, and logical in our approach, Ideas flow easily and quickly, we are more communicative and guided by principles, and also somewhat dispassionate or impersonal. WATER WEAK There may be some insensitivity or lack of empathy now. We may be out of touch with what we’re feeling or with our emotional needs. We may be tougher than usual now, and more inclined to follow mental or practical considerations than we are to listen to our intuition. BALANCE OF MODES The modes are balanced. LUNAR PHASE: FIRST QUARTER Moon from 90 to 135 degrees ahead of the Sun. We are motivated to take action, perhaps due to a clash, conflict, or stress, as we are more aware of problems and differences now. Plans are beginning to take off or turn a corner. We should watch for pushing too hard. The following aspects (major only) and positions are at noon (EDT) on September 30th: Note that when an aspect is applying, it has not yet happened but is within orb – it’s pending. When an aspect is separating, it has already happened/perfected and is moving away from the aspect. Depending on the speed of the planet/body involved, the aspect will have perfected–or will perfect–in a matter of hours (often the case with the Moon), days, months, and possibly years in the case of the very slow-moving outer planets and bodies. Note that the Moon moves at a rate of approximately one degree every 2 hours, so that if an aspect involving the Moon is applying and has an orb of 5 degrees, the aspect will perfect (be exact) in about 10 hours. If the Moon is separating from an aspect with an orb of 2 degrees, it has already formed said aspect approximately 4 hours ago (since the following are positions at noon today, then it would have occurred at about 8 AM today). **I suggest paying close attention to applying aspects. The energy of the aspect builds as it gets closer to exact. Once an aspect involving inner planets has happened, it’s over. Separating aspects are good to know for context, but in terms of energy that is with us today, applying aspects are most important. (This is the case for daily astrology influences involving inner planets, which pass quickly, and not natal astrology aspects, which are with us for a lifetime). THE MOON THE MOON IN AQUARIUS You feel secure with intellect rather than emotions. You may be aloof from emotions, or distrust emotions as irrational and unpredictable. You may have viewed your mother as emotionally erratic. 6TH DEGREE OF AQUARIUS Part of Body: Nerve of left fibula Sabian Symbol: A performer of a mystery play. ASPECTS OF THE MOON TRINE THE SUN Orb 1°55′ Applying We are supportive, cooperative, open, genuine, and more relaxed than usual. TRINE MERCURY Orb 4°35′ Separating Our hearts or emotional needs and our minds seem to be cooperating, and we are able to communicate effectively. It’s a good time for publicity, marketing, writing, and studying. THE SUN THE SUN IN LIBRA You are diplomatic, and have a strong need for peace and harmony. Beauty is important to you, and you could be vain. 8TH DEGREE OF LIBRA Part of Body: Nerve supply to kidney and renal pelvis Sabian Symbol: A blazing fireplace in a deserted home. ASPECTS OF THE SUN CONJUNCTION MERCURY Orb 6°31′ Applying Thoughts and communications about ourselves and our goals. We are expressing ourselves confidently, directly, and clearly. MERCURY MERCURY IN LIBRA You are a diplomat and peacemaker, often acting as a go-between in relationships. You a good communicator, putting others at their ease. Arguments may upset you, as you prefer harmony in communications. 2ND DEGREE OF LIBRA Part of Body: Renal cortex Sabian Symbol: The light of the sixth race transmuted to the seventh. ASPECTS OF MERCURY OPPOSITION CHIRON Orb 5°06′ Separating There can be insecurity about our own ideas or decisions, or we may not know who/what to believe. Words, or lack of, can hurt right now. There is greater sensitivity to what is being said, choice of words, and syntax. VENUS VENUS IN VIRGO This is a time when we express our love through practical means and gestures – running errands, doing detail work, or just being there. What we love, what we decide to buy and the types of entertainment we enjoy during this cycle are ruled by whether or not things make sense. 14TH DEGREE OF VIRGO Part of Body: Cystic arteries Sabian Symbol: A family tree. ASPECTS OF VENUS CONJUNCTION MARS Orb 3°01′ Applying This is a passionate, lively, expressive influence. Social relations are impassioned, and perhaps demanding or combative. We may also feel compelled to do something creative or artistic. We have a chance to express our needs, passions, and desires now in effective ways. Venus can act to soften Mars’ aggressiveness, or Mars can make Venus’ romantic impulses more forceful and pressing. Some level of competition is present in our interactions. Impulsive purchases are possible. OPPOSITION NEPTUNE Orb 0°49′ Separating We are easily seduced, impressionable, and ready to believe what we want to see. Wait for a better time to make important decisions, but pay attention to feelings that emerge now. This is a time for acknowledging imperfections in relationships. TRINE PLUTO Orb 3°50′ Applying We’re a better judge of value right now — who and what are important to us. We might see one another, and our relationships, in a different light. We could reconnect with someone or improve an existing bond. We could be up for a challenge now. Increased insight in relationships, with money, and in business. MARS MARS IN VIRGO You will pursue your personal desires in a practical and methodical manner. You may be critical if opposed. 17TH DEGREE OF VIRGO Part of Body: Abdominal muscles Sabian Symbol: A volcano in eruption. ASPECTS OF MARS OPPOSITION NEPTUNE Orb 3°50′ Separating This is a time for resting, escaping, or taking a break as we reconsider our needs. We might temporarily lose focus or direction. TRINE PLUTO Orb 0°49′ Applying Ambitions and determination increase to pursue our goals. It’s easier to see what we want and to devise a plan to pursue it. We may be focusing on redoing or reworking something from the ground up. JUPITER JUPITER IN LIBRA You have a strong concern for justice. You are a diplomatic teacher, and express your spiritual values in your relationships. 28TH DEGREE OF LIBRA Part of Body: Bladder Sabian Symbol: A man in deep gloom. Unnoticed, angels come to his help. ASPECTS OF JUPITER OPPOSITION URANUS Orb 0°36′ Separating You are keen to change things in this world as you see no reason to continue with the old traditions. You speak out against injustice, but may lack the patience and persistence to see through the changes. SATURN SATURN IN SAGITTARIUS Saturn in Sagittarius asks us to take on the responsibility of living according to our personal truths and principles — and to be loyal to these. This is a time for turning a critical eye to those beliefs and principles that don’t accurately reflect our authentic selves. (December 23, 2014, to June 14, 2015, then September 17, 2015, to December 20, 2017) 23RD DEGREE OF SAGITTARIUS Part of Body: Left trochanter Sabian Symbol: Immigrants entering a new country. ASPECTS OF SATURN TRINE URANUS Orb 5°03′ Applying You have a talent for investigation. You look at new ideas and are able then to put them into action. In business you achieve much in your own independent way. SQUARE CHIRON Orb 3°49′ Applying There can be fears now of not being competent or effective enough to meet our responsibilities, or we could find it hard to strike out on a unique path, again due to fears or insecurities. The desire to break from the status quo is strong, but we may not have the necessary confidence to do so. We may have difficulties empathizing with others and understanding ourselves. URANUS URANUS IN ARIES The urge to start fresh, to break free from restrictive attitudes or circumstances, to totally redesign an area of our lives (or even our personalities), and to gain freedom through independence is strong during this cycle. (May 27, 2010, to August 13, 2010, then March 11th, 2011, to May 15, 2018, then November 6, 2018, to March 6, 2019). 28TH DEGREE OF ARIES Part of Body: Fornix/parietal and occipital bones Sabian Symbol: A large disappointed audience. NEPTUNE NEPTUNE IN PISCES A long-term influence in which fantasy, imagination, compassion, and spirituality are in stronger focus. (April 4, 2011, to August 4, 2011, then February 3, 2012, to March 30, 2025, then October 22, 2025, to January 26, 2026) 13TH DEGREE OF PISCES Part of Body: Plantar artery of left foot Sabian Symbol: A sword in a museum. PLUTO PLUTO IN CAPRICORN Tests of our boundaries; breaking down and rebuilding structures and rules. (From January 25, 2008, to June 14, 2008, then November 26, 2008, to March 23, 2023, then June 11, 2023, to January 20, 2024, then September 1, 2024, to November 19, 2024). 17TH DEGREE OF CAPRICORN Part of Body: Condyle of left tibia Sabian Symbol: A person surreptitiously bathing in the nude. Chiron, Major Asteroids, and Moon’s Nodes: in Sign and in Aspect CHIRON CHIRON IN PISCES Strong awareness of our own vulnerabilities and humanity stimulates compassion for others. (April 20 to July 20, 2010, then February 8, 2011, to April 17, 2018, then September 25, 2018, to February 18, 2019). 27TH DEGREE OF PISCES Part of Body: Phalanges of right foot Sabian Symbol: A harvest moon. VESTA IN LIBRA You prefer to work with other people, rather than on your own. You like to share work resources and yet need to watch that you don’t become too competitive. You want to be recognised as an equal. 7TH DEGREE OF LIBRA Part of Body: Nerve supply to kidney and renal pelvis Sabian Symbol: A woman feeding chickens and protecting them from the hawks. PALLAS PALLAS IN TAURUS You have the ability to see the beauty in nature and the arts. You have much common sense and wisdom. You may become involved in either healing with your hands or healing the earth through environmental movements. 13TH DEGREE OF TAURUS Part of Body: Cervical and brachial plexi Sabian Symbol: A man handling baggage. JUNO JUNO IN CAPRICORN You want a partner who you can respect, and who respects you. You seek long-term commitment and may marry later in life. 7TH DEGREE OF CAPRICORN Part of Body: Left adductor muscle Sabian Symbol: A veiled prophet of power. CERES CERES IN LEO You feel cared for when other people play with you and praise you. You like to show others you care for them by encouraging their creative talents and sense of fun. 3RD DEGREE OF LEO Part of Body: Right coronary artery Sabian Symbol: A woman having her hair bobbed. THE NORTH NODE THE NORTH NODE IN LEO This a quest to develop your inner strength. You may find that you experience times of loneliness. These times are part of your lesson to forge your own creative life in order to give generously to the world. 24TH DEGREE OF LEO Part of Body: Papillary muscles Sabian Symbol: A yogi with transcendent powers yet untidy & unkempt. THE SOUTH NODE THE SOUTH NODE IN AQUARIUS This a quest to develop your inner strength. You may find that you experience times of loneliness. These times are part of your lesson to forge your own creative life in order to give generously to the world. 24TH DEGREE OF AQUARIUS Part of Body: Right tibialis anterior muscle Sabian Symbol: A man turning his back on his passions and teaching from his Experience. *** CONJUNCTIONS TO SELECT FIXED STARS *** Transits 30 September 2017 Aspects to Sat 22°Sg13 -22°08′ Cnj 22°Sg41 RAS ALHAGUE The desire to heal a wound. Aspects to Plu 16°Cp51 -21°45′ Cnj 16°Cp52 RUKBAT Steadiness and strength. Aspects to BMo 25°Sg35 -19°05′ Cnj 25°Sg58 ACULEUS Enduring attacks but success SHARE THIS: EmailFacebook1TwitterTumblrGoogleReddit Filed Under: Daily Astrology, Today Tagged With: September 30 « Astrology of Today – Friday, September 29, 2017Astrology of Today – Sunday, October 1, 2017 » Leave a Reply Search this website … Search Cafe Astrology Cafe Astrology Home Cafe Astrology Free Reports Recent Monthly Horoscopes – October 2017 Astrology of Today – Sunday, October 1, 2017 Astrology of Today – Saturday, September 30, 2017 Astrology of Today – Friday, September 29, 2017 Astrology of Today – Thursday, September 28, 2017 In this post Full Moon‌ First Quarter Moon‌ The Moon is waxing‌ The Moon is void‌ Previous Tags Jupiter Neptune transit Jupiter Uranus transit Mars-Pluto transit Mars Chiron transit Mars Jupiter transit Mars Neptune transit Mars Pluto transit Mars Saturn transit Mars Saturn transit Mars Uranus transit Mercury Chiron transit Mercury Jupiter transit Mercury Mars transit Mercury Neptune transit Mercury Pluto transit Mercury Saturn transit Mercury semi-square Venus Mercury square Jupiter Mercury square Mars Mercury square Neptune Mercury square Pluto Mercury trine Pluto Mercury Uranus transit Mercury Venus transit Sun Chiron transit Sun conjunct Mercury Sun Jupiter transit Sun Mars transit Sun Mercury transit Sun Neptune transit Sun Pluto transit Sun Saturn transit Sun sextile Jupiter Sun trine Saturn Sun Uranus transit Venus-Mars transit Venus Chiron transit Venus Jupiter transit Venus Mars transit Venus Neptune transit Venus Pluto transit Venus Saturn transit Venus sextile Uranus Venus square Saturn Venus Uranus transit Subscribe via Email Enter your email address to receive notifications of new posts by email. Email Address Email Address Subscribe Current Planetary Positions 9/30/2017 5:18:35 PM Sun 08° Libra 01' 20" Moon 10° Aquarius 00' 36" Mercury 01° Libra 47' 17" Venus 13° Virgo 25' 53" Mars 16° Virgo 14' 32" Jupiter 27° Libra 58' 05" Saturn 22° Sagittarius 14' 37" Uranus 27° Aries 16' 08" R Neptune 12° Pisces 10' 16" R Pluto 16° Capricorn 51' 19" Chiron 26° Pisces 01' 41" R TrueNode 23° Leo 24' 52" Subscribe to Blog via Email Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Email Address Email Address Subscribe Categories Archives September 2017 M T W T F S S « Aug 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Copyright © 2017 · Astrology Cafe by Cafe Astrology

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avenging-fics · 8 years ago

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Breathe ~ An Avenger’s Story (12/15)

AU Summary: Y/N meets an old figure from her past that she thought dead with evil intentions.

Notes: so yea this part’s a little messy because it seems like its out of context but trust me okay? it will all makes sense soon. im sorry for this crap but thank you for still reading it :)

Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13

MASTERLIST

“Did you or did you not fondue?”

“STARK!”

“Y/N, come on. Whatever you and Spangles did, I’m pretty sure I’m better than him.”

Y/N rolled her eyes and focused on getting in position inside the quinjet. Tony was being difficult when he found out about the date. They’ve been called for a mission and he just wouldn’t stop.

“Tony, drop the topic. Please.” she said, checking up on her weapons while Clint activates the jet ready for flight. Tony stood beside his suit with his arms crossed still looking at Y/N when Steve entered the jet.

“Ahh. Here he is. Mr. I-don’t-have-any-dibs-on-Y/N-but-I-still-went-on-a-date-with-her.” Tony sarcastically implied. Steve glared at him and shook his head. “The betrayal, Rogers.”

“Don’t, Tony.”

Y/N turned around to face them both. “Wait, you called dibs on me?”

Steve looked at her and opened his mouth to apologize but Tony pointed at himself and stepped forward.

“I did. I called dibs on you, Y/N. So that sweet sweet fondue should have been mine.” he said.

Y/N scoffed. “Are you being serious? Tony, this is ridiculous. And quite degrading actually.”

Clint laughed from the pilot seat. “I am curious though, Y/N. Did Steve ask you out and you said yes? Or was it the other way around?”

Then suddenly Natasha stepped in the jet and walked towards the co-pilot seat with Barton, sharing the same cheeky grin. “Either way, it just tells us you have a thing for Cap and that he’s actually capable of getting laid on his own.”

The two master assassins were enjoying this. Tony was jealous and they’ve never seen him this obviously and outwardly showing his emotions. It was actually quite hilarious. Then there’s the added bonus where Steve is this close to stuttering his words and basically become an extremely red ripe tomato from all the awkward blushing he had going. It was dumb but entertaining.

It was a nice way to start a mission. With a hearty banter and teasing. Things like these make the Avengers not a team but a group of extremely close friends. Almost like a family. Too bad the banter was around Y/N and Steve’s date.

“Alright, we did not…fondue.” Steve raised his voice, despite his cheeks and ear practically glowing red.

Y/N shook hear head. “What is up with the fondue? Why can’t you just say sex?”

“Cap doesn’t like that sort of language.”

******

The sound of gunshots echoed through the halls of the hotel building where the Prime Minister of Bosnia-Herzegovina was being held hostage. The poor man was kneeling on the floor with a gun pointed at his head as a guard stood in front of him.

“Premijer , mi ponestaje vremena. The Avengers are here so you better give me what I want now.” the man said.

The minister shuddered as the barrel of the gun was pressed further into his temple. “Molim vas. Molim vas. I cannot let you people take control of my country.”

“It is my country, too! MY HOME! And you’ve taken that away from me! All I want is to come back!”

“You are an evil man, Lud!”

The gunshots were getting closer and closer. HYDRA forces are falling back. The scientist, Lud, sighed audibly as he threw a blow to the Bosnian Prime Minister’s jaw, which sent him reeling back with blood spilling from his mouth. Another explosion from outside made them all turn around.

But not before Lud noticed the minister glance at something on the floor. He followed the direction his eyes went and saw an old pocket watch amongst the mess on the floor. The minister saw this and immediately, his eyes widened in fear.

“Ne! Ne—unghh!” before he can stand up and grab the watch, the minister was kicked down by the guard behind him holding the gun.

‘Don’t worry, Prime Minister. I’ll take care of our great nation.“ Lud told him maliciously as he stepped went to pick up the watch.

Then suddenly, the door to the room was blasted down by a huge explosion, causing the scientist to fall back to the ground and the guard going unconscious as debris fell on him. Then the Prime Minister opened his eyes and saw Captain America and Iron Man in the door.

"Sir, we need to get you to safety.” Captain America said as he ran up to the Prime Minister and escorted him up. But then Lud got the scattered fragments off of him and stood up preparing to shoot the minister with his gun.

“Rogers, look out!” Stark shouted but the bullet was faster than them as it hit the Prime Minister’s upper back.

That’s when Stark activated his repulsor beams in his armored palms pointing at the man who shot the minister. But before he could shoot him down, he was frozen solid again. Just like the time when Y/N controlled the metal suit.

“Y/N?! Let me move!” Tony shouted at his intercom.

“What? I’m not doing anything!” she responded back, knocking out a few more HYDRA agents towards the room Tony and Steve was in. When she got to the Hall where Steve was carrying the injured Prime Minister, Y/N went straight to Tony who was posed as if he was going to fire. But he was indeed unmoving when she reached him.

“Y/N?”

She looked in front of her and saw the scientist.

The same scientist who had experimented on her.

The person she called a friend for those 2 years of imprisonment.

“Emir?” She couldn’t believe her eyes. After all this time. “You’re alive.”

He had pain in his eyes and Y/N noticed the gray hair in his head and the wrinkles on his face. He’s gotten old so much. But he’s alive. Y/N can’t believe he survived. He shook his head at her and slowly walked closer towards Y/N.

“Y/N, my dear. What have they done to you?” he whispered.

“Y/N? What’s going on? Let me move.” Tony said, hoping to break this conversation.

But Y/N ignored him and focused on the familiar face in front of her. The same grey intelligent eyes from the old man that cared for her. She held up her hand and wrapped it around his. “Emir. How did you survive? The laboratory. It was blown in p—”

“I escaped.” he said. His voice hoarse. “They didn’t see me so I ran. I’m free now. I can do my job, Y/N.”

She narrowed her eyes and shook her head, confused. “What are you saying, Emir? You don’t have to work for them. For HYDRA.”

“Oh but I have to make it perfect.” he said. But before Y/N can say anything else a sharp pain went through her abdomen and she gasped. The scientist had stabbed her. “And you are nowhere near perfect, my sanguine.”

“Y/N?!” Tony shouted, still unmoving inside his suit. He tried moving his own body inside but the suit was like a statue. It was firm and resolute.

Furthermore, a black plane, similar to the quinjet, hovered across the window of the room. That’s when Emir looked down on Y/N’s kneeling and bleeding body in pain and smirked. “I��ll make more of you. Don’t worry.”

As he proceeded to lift Y/N up and bring her with them, Captain America barged in once more and used his fist to punch Emir. The force was so strong from the blow that the scientist flew out of the window, landing in the jet with a loud thud.

Steve looked down on where he landed and saw Emir getting on the jet with a young woman, no less that 16, looking up at Steve. Then she turned away and flew the jet away from the building. They were gone. Steve looked behind him and quickly went over to Y/N’s side.

“Sanguine’s hit! The attacker got away! We need medical evac now!” he informed the rest of the team using his comms unit.

That’s also when Tony’s suit started to move. “Oh Thank God.” he said, then he opened up his helmet and walked over to Y/N’s unconscious body. “Is she okay? Goddammit Y/N why’d you freeze up my suit?”

Upon seeing how Y/N knew the scientist on a deeper level, Tony suspected that there’s more to their new team member. Especially when they know the scientist was working for HYDRA.

But did Y/N really not used her powers on Tony? Can she be trusted further?

******

Dr. Emir Sead Lud. A local from Sarajevo. Top of his class. Presumed dead after the massive explosion that killed all other workers in the facility that he worked on. His dead wife who was also a scientist who worked with him on the HYDRA experiments.

Apparently, that damn bastard survived the blast, Fury thought, throwing the files down on his desk and breathed deeply. The Avengers would want more information about it and he doesn’t know if he can keep them any longer.

Sanguine was injured and Stark reportedly told him that his suit was stopped again by magnetic power. He said Y/N didn’t do it but who else could have done that except her?

“Sir, Agent Y/L/N showed normal signs on her vital tests and exams. She’s stable for now.” Agent Hill said as she went inside his office. Fury nodded and crossed his arms.

“How’s the Prime Minister?”

“He’s recovering in a guarded hospital room with teams surrounding the building, sir. We have their utmost confidence that he’ll be going home safe.”

“That’s good.” he muttered. At least there were some good news, even minor ones, today.

“But, Sir, should we really leave Agent Y/L/N in a non-barricaded room?” Agent Hill asked, still showing no signs of trusting Y/N.

Fury stood up and looked at his commander, “She’s still an Avenger. And I take care of my team.”

Maria nodded, knowing her doubtfulness towards Y/N is noted by the rest of the Avengers, even Fury. No one is just doing anything about it. Everyone is silently and mindlessly wary of her and her history with HYDRA.

“But if ever we come to a conflict, ” Fury told her, “Trust me when I say I have it all under control.”

******

Y/N remember’s the pain of being stabbed by an old friend. The feeling of the burn and entering the darkness. She doesn’t remember being sent back and admitted to a hospital.

Slowly, she opened her eyes and immediately noticed the music playing softly in the room. She recognized it as Chopin’s Nocturne.

“How are you feeling?”

Agent Romanoff stood by the door in front of her holding a tablet. She walked towards Y/N’s bed and sat next to it.

“I thought I only had a stab wound through the abdomen.” Y/N muttered, realizing that she’s still in her uniform, except there’s a large bandage covering the right abdominal area.

Natasha shrugged, “It was a direct hit to your internal organs. Severe blood loss. Plus the blade was poisoned.”

“Wow. He sure plays dirty nowadays.” Y/N replied, groaning as she sat up. “So what’s the report?”

Natasha offered her the bottled water and she willingly accepted it, taking a drink as Natasha told her about their mission.

“The Prime Minister is fine. He’ll be on a flight back to Sarajevo with trusted SHIELD agents. We’ve received his information regarding about the classified HYDRA files on their country stolen by Dr. Emir Lud. Any input on the guy? Since you two know each other?”

Y/N shook her head and looked at the Black Widow that became her closest friend on the team. “I thought I did, Natasha. Emir was the scientist in charged of the experiments on me. But they were nice and caring and did everything they could to take care of me. I didn’t even know it was HYDRA that was experimenting on me.” she said, looking down. “I practically volunteered to be enhanced because for the first time in my life I felt like a part of a family with them. And to think that after all this time, one of them isn’t dead as I thought he would be.”

“He’s different now.”

Y/N nodded. “He’s clouded with grief and hatred. He told me he needed to make it perfect. Whether it’s HYDRA or something else, he’s going to be dangerous. I know it.”

“We believe that Emir Lud will use the HYDRA data on Sarajevo to take control of the nation, making it an enclosed country where HYDRA is at it’s strongest. A whole country and it’s citizens as a giant HYDRA base. A stronghold.”

“I’m not letting him do that to his own country.” Y/N told Nat, ignoring the pain in her stomach wound and feeling determination. She’s going to stop him in whatever means necessary.

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sininensalo-a · 8 years ago

Text

MEET THE MUSE POWER HOUR! 🌿

━━ take a seat and REPOST this detailed little bio with criteria to introduce the world to your muse. no reblog karma or tagging ━ if you see this on your dash, feel free to partake in it!

Minä tulen milloin minulle sopii. Ehkä en tule ollenkaan, ehkä menen aivan toiselle suunnalle.

🌿 ━ B A S I C S .

NAME: Jaakko Heikki Järvinen → officially Suomen tasavalta / Republiken Finland / Republic of Finland. Or Suomi/Finland, simple as that. NICKNAME(S): Jaakki, Jaakka, Jaska, Muumipappa. AGE: Physically he’s around 25 years of age, his real age is unknown due to vague dating of the past, probably around 1800-ish, give or take a century. Probably less than that though. GENDER: Cis male, masculine appearing. NATIONALITY: Finnish.

🌿 ━ A P P E A R A N C E .

EYE COLOR: His eyes are blue and one would call them icy [ LF-01 ] has it not been for a certain warm vibe they send out. They’re not hollow, neither are they two voids embed in their sockets. They’re tired but certainly not washed out of feelings or emotions. His eyes truly are the mirror of his soul, deep and enshrouded with a mist of ambiguity and yet if you’re familiar with him it’s unnecessary to ask him how he’s doing – you can read it all in them. HAIR COLOR: It’s not platinum blond, neither is it blond of dark hue. It’s somewhere in the middle [ or “Beeline Honey” here if you require a full name ]. It’s a color very pleasant to the eye, reminiscing the fields scattered all over the country. HAIRSTYLE: To put it simple, it’s messy. It’s most usual to see him with his hair parted in the middle of his forehead and running down a cascade of split ends, grim reminders of his famous and somewhat magnificent dreads he wore in the late 70s until early 90s and the fact that he’s perpetually at odds with probably every single hairdresser on this planet. It’s just not easy to trust someone with a sharp object in hand working around your neck. HEIGHT: He’s not short but he’s not the tallest either. He stands at 178 cm (or 5′10″). It’s not difficult for taller people to underestimate him and his abilities to wreck some shit despite not having several inches more in his height number. This has been a fair warning. WEIGHT: Last time he checked it was something around 90-92 kg (198-202 lbs). He just cannot deny himself something good to eat every now and then and this beer is just a bit too tempting to say no to it. BUILD: Because of the reasons stated above Jaakko is chubby and his cheeks are pudgy. Sometimes he feels a bit self-conscious about his appearance but it does not happen often enough for him to particularly care. He likes to joke that he’s as round and soft as a Moomin and he’s honestly not too far from being right. TATTOO(S): His most prominent ones would be a bear on his right arm and a piece of forest on his left leg. He also has two smaller tattoos, a ‘sisu’ written on his left wrist and a Snufkin on inner left forearm. Jaakko’s not planning on getting any more tattoos. SCAR(S): This is a touchy topic for him and confronted about his scars he’ll withdraw into himself and just leer at the asker if they’re not close enough to him (but those are familiar with the meanings and reasons behind his scars so no conversation about them should occur). There’s one on the central side of his chest, leaning a bit towards left side, just about where his heart is. This one tells a tale of losing Karelia in Winter War. The other looks more terrible and represents the loss of Petsamo, or Finland’s Left Arm, to Soviet Union in the aftermath of Continuation War. It’s a long and writhing around his left shoulder – just where the arm connects with the corpus – scar that resembles the loss of his entire arm for several years to come. On the side of his neck there is also an ugly scar he bears after having been shot in artery what caused instant death on the battlefield (also during Continuation War). If one is a careful watcher they might also notice a shot scar on his left calf during Civil War of 1918.

They’re his relatively fresh scars, otherwise he’s covered in more or less faded ones, products of endless wars conducted on his territories in the past. He’s not certain where each of them comes from anymore, there’s too many, especially on his back and sides. There’s also several cut scars on his hands, he practiced the knife game on his hands very intensely. PIERCING(S): He wears them only occasionally but he has at least one eyebrow piercing and an industrial in right ear, alongside a few helix piercings on both ear flakes [ here’s a picture with explanations in case anyone needs it ]. There’s at least one pair in his upper lobe, too. He used to wear a lip piercing as well but he sort of forgot and he’d have to re-pierce it if he wanted to wear it again. PREFERRED FASHION: A disaster. He’s actually quite happy with his thrift store clothes, only slightly modified by his Finnish sister figure or human friend so they fit him better or embrace his personal style and taste a bit better. He’s either wearing checkered shirts with jeans, black band shirts or your local grandpa sweaters. All together with just tragic socks someone should get rid of immediately. And crocs. Jaakko can dress properly when he has to but it’s always an adventure as well. There’s this one suit he has but it could as well pass for a part of a museal exhibition. TYPICALLY SMELLS LIKE: It’s usually his aftershave, soap he uses during morning shower and cologne – if he doesn’t forget about it. His natural smell could be described as this earthy smell that lingers in the air after the tempest in a birch forest; smell of fields of grain rippling in the wind; freshly baked crispy rye bread; tint of licorice, sea salt with faint alcoholic breeze accenting the whole. OTHER: He has several moles on his body, not too many, and mostly located on his neck and back. His right arm is stronger and longer a bit than left one which gets weary much faster than its right equivalent. His eyebrows are rather thick but not overly so, he’s more likely to be seen with some facial hair than with none at all. He enjoys simple jewelry and wears pendants such as Ukko’s hammer or a bear claw pendant.

🌿 ━ P E R S O N A L I T Y .

POSITIVE TRAITS: || ambitious || alert || benevolent || caring || clever || conscientious || considerate || courageous || discreet || dutiful || earnest || educated || efficient || eloquent || faithful || focused || genuine || hard-working || helpful || insightful || intelligent || loyal || meticulous || painstaking || patient || reliable || scrupulous || understanding || well-rounded || NEUTRAL TRAITS: || disciplined || forthright || humble || independent || invulnerable || leisurely || manly™ || modest || observant || orderly || private || protective || secretive || self-critical || self-denying || sensitive || self-conscious || shrewd || shy || steadfast || upright || venturesome || NEGATIVE TRAITS: || aloof || anxious || asocial || clumsy || coarse || destructive || difficult || escapist || gloomy || hesitant || irascible || melancholic || moody || offhand || paranoid || petty || pugnacious || restrained || stubborn || sullen || tactless || LIKES: sauna, alcohol (beer!), Moomins, coffee, rye bread, hockey, hunting, sailing, swimming, walks in the forest, bears, dogs, firearm, metal music, licorice, chocolate, berries, mushrooms, herbs, books, alcohol (vodka!), sun, singing, playing various instruments, woods, bonfires, baking, stormy weather, old comedies, black humor, gardening, card games, knife song game, LOTR, sea, lakes, beaches, sweets, mämmi. DISLIKES: Ivan, mosquitoes, scorching weather, Too Much Snow, losing in hockey, nosy people, public speaking, narrow/cramped spaces, constrained movement, being mistaken for a Russian/Swede, small talk, awkward situations, effusiveness, poorly made horrors, being underestimated, being sick, hangovers, politics, crowds, mämmi. PHOBIAS / FEARS: Being ignored/forgotten by those he cares for/loves, being ruled over by someone again, hospitals, osmophobia (hypersensitivity to smells causing aversion to odors). HABITS: Drinking issues away, swearing, sauna time each evening, cleaning up the entire house on Saturdays, keeping a journal, shooting range time once a week, arms workout three times a week, walking his dog at least once a day (otherwise the dog’s in the garden). 🌿 ━ R E L A T I O N S H I P S .

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Pretty much (demi)bisexual. ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Demiromantic. RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Single. This one Estonian is really cute though.

🌿 ━ H E A L T H .

CHRONIC CONDITIONS: His entire left arm isn’t as strong as his right one. Fortunately he’s right-handed and therefore doesn’t use left hand too often. When he absolutely has to, however, the inequality in distribution of strength is quite visible. If this counts in here he also suffers from clinical depression. ADDICTIONS: Caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, salmiakki. ALLERGIES: N/A

🌿 ━ H O M E .

PLACE OF RESIDENCE: Helsinki/Helsingfors as of late due to his current occupation. He’d be more than happy to leave elsewhere however. METHOD OF TRANSPORTATION: Preferably a car, public transportation when he absolutely has to; trains, planes, boats/ferries. PETS: A mixed breed dog Musti.

🌿 ━ W O R K && E D U C A T I O N.

JOB: History lecturer at the University of Helsinki. SCHOOLING: PhD in History, MD in Agriculture. SPOKEN LANGUAGES: Finnish, Swedish, Russian, German, English, Estonian, (understanding of) most Finnic languages, Northern Sámi. SKILLS: Good at problems solving, perseverance & motivation, genuine devotion to work, ingenuity.

🌿 ━ R A N D O M .

QUIRKS: Clearing throat, nervous lips licking and fiddling with fingers, playing with hair, sticking post-it-notes everywhere in his house so he doesn’t forget to do some things he’s probably bound to forget, usually chores, doodling idly while talking on the phone. HANDEDNESS: Right-handed. RELIGION: eh Technically speaking he’s a Lutheran. Not exactly practicing but he tries to show up in the church every now and then. THEME SONG(S): Journey Man. BOSS BATTLE MUSIC: Darude - Sandstorm (I’m dead serious)

#░▒▌【 ᴍᴜɴ / ᴏᴏᴄ 】❛ ʙʀʙ ʀᴀᴋɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴇ ғᴏʀᴇsᴛ ❜#long post #hey what's good fam #i have more songs but im dying rn so #░▒▌【 ʜᴄ 】❛ ɴäʏᴛä ᴛᴏᴅᴇʟʟɪsᴇᴛ ᴋᴀsᴠᴏsɪ ❜

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