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lovebugcody · 4 years

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i can’t draw but i can write, so here is what i have for the mcyt/dream smp fandom. (inspired by a lot of fanart i have seen)

3k words baby. i was going to do a second half but i’m tired so i’ll write it tomorrow

anyway here is dadza collecting his boys

Philza had always known he wanted to be a dad, but with adventures and quests, he hardly had the time. So he made the difficult decision to wait until one day he had the time to properly care for and raise a child (or children) of his own. But circumstances and his own paternal instinct seemed to decide for him when was the perfect time for him to finally become a father.

The day he found his eldest, he was passing through an abandoned village. They were common in the parts of the world where Philza was known for exploring, which created a sad but beautiful landscape. Philza had always had an appreciation for the forgotten towns, so he made sure if and when he saw them, he travelled through. While he felt a touch of guilt when rummaging through items that were forgotten in a haste and deemed disposable, that never stopped him from opening every house and chest to find goods. There were occasions where he forgot a small home, or didn’t see a chest or two, but that day was not one. Philza was being careful and made sure to open every door.

A quiet shuffle and the tiniest whimper caught his attention, and he poked his head around the corner. Curled up, as small as he could, was a boy. Dressed in a dirtied, no-longer-yellow sweater, with a holey maroon beanie over long curls. He tried squeezing behind a chest next to him, and Philza could feel his heart break as the small boy started to cry.

“P-please, don’t h-hurt me.” His voice was tiny, broken, and one again Philza felt his chest tighten. This tiny thing couldn’t have been more than 4 or 5, and already looked terrified of the world. Philza quickly hid his sword in his pack, taking off his helmet to reveal his own hat and hair in need of cutting.

“It’s okay, little man. I promise I won’t. My name’s Philza.” He squatted down, and reached a hand out slowly. He quickly retracted it though when he remembered he had an apple in his bag. He swung his pack to be in front of him, unzipping it. “You hungry?” The small boy slowly looked up, wide and teary brown eyes watching as Philza moved to pull a bright red apple out. He nodded rapidly, curls falling out of the front of his beanie into his eyes. The boy crawled over to Philza, then sat cross-legged in front of him, patiently waiting for the apple. Philza let out a soft laugh, before handing him the apple.

“Thank you, Philza.” The words were muffled by the apple already in his mouth. Philza laughed again before dropping his own butt onto the ground, to mirror the boy.

“What’s your name, little man?” Philza had his own apple in hand, moving to bite into it.

“Wilbur.” The young boy looked proud as he said his name, promptly taking another bite of the apple.

“Well then, Wilbur,” the decision was made almost immediately, as soon as he saw the young boy really, “would you like to come adventure with me?” Wilbur visibly sat up straighter, excitement in his eyes.

“Hell yeah!” Apple was spat out as Wilbur scrambled to his feet in excitement.

It only took three months for Wilbur to start calling Phil “dad”.

---

His second child was under far more surprising and saddening circumstances.

An seven-year-old Wilbur bounced along in front of Philza, swinging his iron sword pretending to be defeating zombies. As he swung his sword, he once again recounted how he battled three zombies in the cave earlier that day.

“I know, Will. They were no match for you!” Philza laughed as he spoke, watching with unmatched joy and pride for his son.

“I’m the best monster fighter, dad!” Sword held above his hair, Wilbur spun to look at Philza. “I can even help you fight some zombie pig guys in the nether next time!”

“Pigmen, Will.” Wilbur rolled his eyes at the correction. “And we’ll see.” Punching their air and continuing to bounce forward, Wilbur didn’t notice the ruined step and tripped over it. Immediately, Philza rushed forward to catch his son.

A quiet pig-like snort caught their attention, and Philza, hand still holding Wilbur’s arm where he caught him, whipped his head around, other hand reaching for his sword. He had expected to see a pigman - maybe even a zombie one - to have somehow made it into the overworld and gotten lost, but instead saw a cardboard box. Scrawled across the front of the box in a dying sharpie was the word “FREAK!”. He pushed Wilbur, who was gripping his sword tightly in both hands, behind him as he took a careful step forward.

A tiny face popping up, giving both Philza and Wilbur a fright.

“Dad?” Wilbur’s voice was small, giving away his fear despite the confident aura he tried to portray.

“Stay here, okay?” Philza didn’t give Wilbur a change to reply before he continued to move closer to the box. The small child within the box stood up slowly, his features becoming more clear. The snout and ears were piglin in nature, but other than those and the pink complexion, it was clear to Philza that this was simply a scared child. Much like when he approached Wilbur those years ago, Philza moved slowly, crouching in front of the box and child contained within, peeking inside to see if there was anything else within it.

In the box, being stood on by the child, was a manilla folder. It looked as though at one point it had been official, but had been muddied and chewed on periodically. The small child looked up at Philza with tears in his eyes and hands gripping the side of the cardboard box with white knuckles. Philza noticed that one of his ears was stood up, the other - a yellow cattle-tag with the letters “TB” in faded black written on it was pierced through it - was hanging, exaggerated by the fact that the small boy had his head tilted to that side.

“Can you pass me that folder, bud?” The boy in the box blinked once before looking down at the folder. He squatted down and his stubby fingers picked up the dirtied paperwork. He stood slowly, then held it out proudly. “Thank you.” Philza smiled softly as he accepted the folder from the tiny boy. He sat in front of the box and carefully read over the words written on the cover. As he sat, Wilbur moved forward and sat next to him, watching the child carefully as he placed his sword next to him.

The top of the folder read “Experiment #14 [unreadable] -lin and human genetic cross- [unreadable]”, with a large red “failed” stamped across the middle of the entire cover. Philza glanced at the boy sadly. An experiment, a discarded experiment, that was all he was deemed to be. He shook his head in disapproval as he opened the folder. He didn’t want to read the majority of the papers within the folder, but he wanted to at least know how old this boy was and what name he had been given.

Technoblade. It was an odd name, undoubtedly, but if that was the name he was given, who was Philza to argue. He looked at the apparent birthdate, and quickly counted back in his head to calculate his age.

“Four?” The word was barely a breath, but Philza just could not believe that this tiny boy stranded in a box was only four years old. He had been experimented on, tested, and disposed, marked as a freak and a failure. He slammed the folder closed, turning to Wilbur. “What do you think?” Wilbur blinked, tilting his head.

“What?” He hadn’t looked away from Technoblade since the boy had poked his head out of the box, but he finally turned to look up at his dad.

“Think he could be your new brother? Come on adventures with us?” Just like when Philza had asked Wilbur if he himself wanted to travel with him, his whole body lit up with excitement.

“Really? That would be awesome.” He was bouncing again. Philza breathed a laugh at Wilbur, before turning back to look at Technoblade.

“What do you think, Technoblade?” He tilted his head the other way, glancing between Wilbur and Philza. “Want to come with us?” The tiny boy thought for a second before nodding, holding his hands up to Philza, indicating he wanted to be picked up. Philza happily obliged, moving to his feet and reaching down to the excited boy, who now had a huge smile that showed off tiny tusks growing from his bottom row of teeth. He placed Techno on his hip, offered a hand to Wilbur to help him stand, and the now-trio walked away from the broken cobble stairs.

As they walked away, Wilbur began to ramble about all the adventures he would have with his new brother, and telling him about all of the adventures past.

It took Technoblade a month to finally start talking to Philza and Wilbur, and only four more for him to start calling him ‘dad’.

---

Dealing with two teenagers was not something that Philza had ever prepared for. Granted he had not even planned for children, but instead found the two boys that now called him dad. This meant that, of course, he never had to mentally fortify himself for any of what he was dealing with.

Wilbur and Technoblade were constantly trying to fight mobs, and when there were no mobs, each other. Twelve and fifteen, and so much energy. Although Wilbur was slowly starting to lose that youthful energy that Techno still gripped on to. However, the day they found the third of Philza’s boys, he began to learn that some people are always fueled by a youthful energy.

Just as Philza always passed through villages old and new when he travelled alone, Techno and Wilbur had been taught to develop that same habit. Philza had sent them down the centre of the ruined village, going around the outskirts himself. He figured that while they had been travelling with him for a while, fighting mobs in the overworld and nether alike, it was better to be safe than sorry, and so decided on sending them off alone for the first time through an empty village would be best.

Philza skirted the village, picking up crops that had grown on their own and checking small buildings the excited boys would have no doubt skipped over. He knew that the two of them together would be looking for a fight, but would also keep each other safe. They had grown very attached to each other in the eight years they had been with Philza, referring to each other as brothers. It always warmed Philza’s heart when they called him ‘dad’ or each other as brother - they had bumped into a young man with a creeper mask on his own adventure a couple of years prior and Wilbur had introduced Techno as his little brother, a memory which still makes Philza smile.

He had made it to the centre of the village, trailing behind the boys, when he heard a scream. Less of a scream but more a shout of surprise, but Wilbur had an unfortunate voice crack in the middle of the cry and it sounded as if he had let out a short scream. Immediately, Philza sprinted towards the sound of his son’s voice, hoping that both were still together and alive. He skidded around a corner and paused.

The sight in front of him was rather amusing. A small boy with matted blonde hair and a formerly white and red shirt was blindly swinging a stone sword while shouting and swearing, while Techno had his iron sword held in front of him in both hands, and Wilbur had his by his own hanging limply by his side. Both of Philza’s sons were wearing very confused expressions.

“You aren’t stealing my shit!! Go away!” The small boy pushed the oversized helmet resting on his head back as it had slipped in front of his eyes. “This is my house!”

“Dude!” Technoblade attempted to calm the shouting child, but the boy was having none of it.

“Don’t ‘dude’ me. Go away!” Though amused, Philza decided it was probably time to step in between the children before someone actually started swinging a sword with the intent to seriously injure the other party. As he walked forward, Techno kept his eyes locked on the blond boy, but Wilbur turned to look at him.

“We didn’t do anything, dad. He just… jumped out at us screaming.” The boy on the steps finally turned to Philza, who was nodding in understanding at what Wilbur said.

“I know.” He stepped in front of Techno, after pushing his hands down, forcing him to lower the sword. “Hey bud. What’s your name?” The stone sword had finally stopped being wildly swung, but was still pointed (though it was clear that the boy was struggling with the weight of it).

“My name’s Tommy.” He finally gave up on holding up the sword. “What’s it to you old man?” Philza scoffed. This kid was ballsy and loud and needed somewhere to channel his energy. He took another step forward and slowly reached forward. Tommy’s grip on his sword tightened again, but even though he wouldn’t show it, his arms were clearly sore and exhausted from the wild swinging, so the sword remained with it’s tip pressed into the step. Hand on either side of the large helmet engulfing Tommy’s head, Philza lifted it up and tucked it under one arm, ruffling the blond locks with the other hand.

“Well, Tommy, my name is Philza and do you want to fight mobs with us and go adventuring?” Philza didn’t know for sure if this young boy was alone or not, but he was hanging out alone in a village ruin defending a tiny shack, so it was a safe assumption.

“Dad.” The ‘a’ sound was dragged out in an exaggerated groan from Techno. “Does he have t-” He was cut off but a ‘thwap’ sound that resulted from Wilbur smacking him upside the head.

“Shut up.” Wilbur hissed, hoping that for once Techno would listen.

“What? The kid tried to slice me!” Philza whipped his head around and glared at the boys, and they both quickly straightened, pretending to do nothing wrong. He turned back to look at the boy who was sticking his tongue out at Techno.

“Tommy?” Just like with Techno and Wilbur, Tommy straightened his posture and pretended to look at his feet. “Are you coming?” The boy held out his sword for Philza to take, which he did, before turning and racing inside. Sounds of rummaging came from behind the door, before Tommy reammerged, a much-too-large backpack strapped on.

“Let’s do this!”

In a matter of days, Tommy was calling out ‘dad’ to get Philza’s attention.

--- (original post that inspired this part) ---

Campsites had gotten harder to find with three boys. Each had developed their own ideas of “safe”, and none of them wanted to listen to Philza. The only solution was to allow them to take turns. Tommy had decided that forests were best, while Techno and Wilbur at least agreed that underground was safest. Unfortunately for the eldest pair, it was Tommy’s night to decide. So the four of them had to march through a thickly wooded area in search of a clearing for the night.

“Here!” It was barely a clearing, but it was enough space to pitch tents for the night. Tommy spun in a circle with his arms out wide after dropping his backpack, while Wilbur and Technoblade looked at each other.

“Alright, you three set up camp, I’ll check the area.” Philza dropped his bag beside Tommy’s and retrieved his sword, bow and quiver already over his shoulder. He knew that the boys would be safe, and trusted them to keep each other safe, so he had already turned his back and was already on the move.

“Don’t forget to call out if you find anything!” Techno’s voice echoed slightly in the empty area, and Philza waved his empty hand above his head, indicating that he heard and would do so.

Checking every possible hiding spot was important to do during the day, to make sure that there were no mobs during the day when they would burn that would later add to the number of mobs that night. Places like the hollowed out trunks of trees.

Philza had ducked into each as he moved and only saw the occasional spider, with one exception.

He had reached what he had decided was the last tree he would check, and bent down to duck his head inside, only to be met with a curled up figure with a faded yellow and grey striped sweatshirt. They had their arms wrapped around their knees and there was what looked like dried blood in their matted hair.

“Hey buddy.” The figure looked up, and Philza saw more dried blood on his face and sweatshirt. “Are you okay?” The boy shook his head.

“My dad…” His voice broke at the end, and his eyes began to water.

“It’s okay, you don’t need to tell me.” Philza held out his hand, which the boy cautiously took. “What’s your name?” The young boy wiped his eyes with the end of his oversized sleeve.

“Tubbo.” He snuggled slightly and looked up at Philza with wide eyes.

“Well, Tubbo,” Philza still hadn’t let go of Tubbo’s hand, noticing that Tubbo simply adjusted his hand in Philza’s to hold it better, “do you want to come eat with my and my sons? I think my youngest is the same age as you.” The small boy wiped his nose on his sleeve and nodded. “I’m Philza, by the way.”

---

#mcyt #dream smp #char writes #tubbo #tubbo_#philza #ph1lza #wilbursoot #wilbur soot #tommyinnit #technoblade #dadza #sleepy bois inc #sleepy bois inc + co #dream smp headcannon #dream smp fic

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obsidianfr3sk · 3 years

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true colors

@renegadesnet event 10: pride

↪ [ “But everything was temporary. And pain was one of those things. Well, except love. Everything but love was temporary. Or that was what he liked to believe.” ]

Summary: Two years after the supernova, after Tamaya notified them the gearboxes that contained the lights had gotten soaked and that she needed the money to buy more before the next day (June 1st), Simon realized they were not enough for him anymore.

Simon wanted a bigger flag.

No. He wanted two. The biggest pride flags he could find.

AO3

Hello, friends!! I hope you’ve been having an excellent pride month and have been eating a lot rainbow cake and pissing off a lot of conservatives with the mere fact of your wonderful existence:’) As my contribution to this month and the event organized by @renegadesnet, I decided to write a fic focused on my favorite gay dads and their sons (bc I’m me, and you should have seen this coming.)

Before you read, I want to give a trigger warning: at the start of a fic I talk about a homophobic attack, which is not graphic or violent per se (it’s someone in the middle of the night taking away the flag they put outiside the house), and I do discuss about internalized homophobia during some parts of the story. If you read it and are sensitive to this kind of stuff, proceed with caution and take care of yourself <3

Also, this entry is a collaboration with my talented mother @healing-winston-pratt, who is going to be uploading some fanart of this in a near future, so keep an eye on that👀 she’s the best skjhkjds thank you for accepting to collaborate, I feel this is a great bonding activity and I hope we can do this more often✨

I need to update my tag list because a lot of the people who were included are not active as active as they were before/changed their URLs. But I’m going to tag @the-wee-woo-rita @lackadae @all-weather-is-bad @chiyuki-hiro bc you guys are the only ones who are still active users who I had on my previous tag list lol

With that said, I hope you enjoy this fic. I think that despite the angsty parts, it came out really fluffy and domestic, it was fun to write. And to all my queer silbings who are reading this: I am very proud of you.

But I see your true colors shining through.

I see your true colors, and that's why I love you.

So don't be afraid to let them show.

Your true colors,

true colors are beautiful like a rainbow

Simon couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t know he was gay.

There was a time when he didn’t know he was gay, of course. He was probably too young to even comprehend the meaning behind that word. And there was also a moment in his life when he felt embarrassed about it, and sad, and angry, and really, really scared, and probably thought that no matter how hard he tried, he was never going to be happy living the life he wanted to live.

That the pain was never going to end. That he was going to be miserable for the rest of his existence, and that maybe, there was no point in existing if he was going to stay like that until the day he died.

But everything was temporary. And pain was one of those things.

Well, except love. Everything but love was temporary. Or that was what he liked to believe.

That was the reason why, the first year after the Day of Triumph, he told Hugh they should get a rainbow flag for their house. They went to one of the first stores that opened at the mall (that had just been remodeled after twenty years of being abandoned) and bought one at a not so affordable price. Simon offered himself to install it on one of the fence pillars and had to spend thirty minutes listening to Hugh telling him that maybe he should let him do it, that the ladder Kasumi had lent them was ratty, and that Simon was going to fall.

Fortunately, Simon didn’t. He did almost fall, though, when he was about to pass out from stress because seeing Hugh getting all anxious, made Adrian cry and he started to basically beg him to come down, given that now he was convinced he was going to fall, and hearing his dad saying “Look what you’ve done to the kid, Simon” didn’t help at all to make Adrian (or Simon) feel better.

That night, there was a thunderstorm and Adrian used it as an excuse to sleep on their bed. As soon as he cried himself to sleep, two hours later, after their dads did everything in their power to calm him down, hugging him, giving him kisses, and assuring him his aunt Tamaya wasn’t going to let the storm hurt them, Simon raised his hand to high-five Hugh and tell him that they were amazing parents, just to realize he was already asleep. Simon silently judged him for sleeping so soundly while his son was having a crisis instead of sleeping.

When he woke up (at five in the morning) Adrian was looking out their window, with the Baby Indomitable blanket on his shoulders. The sky was still cloudy, but it wasn’t raining anymore.

“Darling, what are you doing?,” Simon told him. “Today’s Sunday. Let your daddy and I get some more sleep—”

“The storm took our flag,” Adrian blurred out.

Hugh was already awake too. “What?”

“You said the storm wasn’t going to hurt us,” Adrian said, turning around to see them, “but the storm took our flag.”

Simon got out of bed, looked through the window...

And, yes, the flag was completely gone.

But for some reason, Simon knew it hadn’t been the storm.

“Why would the storm do something like this?” Adrian asked.

Simon didn’t know how to answer that. Luckily, Hugh did.

“Because the storm is homophobic, son.”

Adrian laughed out loud and then asked his dads if they could have pancakes for breakfast. He had already forgotten about the storm and the flag.

They didn’t. Neither of them ever forgot about it.

While Simon and Adrian ate their pancakes, Hugh went to his office because, according to him, he needed to check something. When Adrian finished his breakfast and went back to his dads’ room to watch TV, Simon stayed in the kitchen, doing the dishes, and Hugh finally came downstairs. He was pretty quiet, and Simon thought that it probably was because he had told him to eat the burnt pancakes he didn’t dare to throw away, but after he finished them all, he said:

“I lied.”

Simon threw a glance at him. “When did you lie?”

“When I said the storm was homophobic,” Hugh answered.

“Well, of course, you lied, love. Storms don’t have strong political opinions about gay people.”

Hugh didn’t laugh. “What I mean is— that it wasn’t the storm.”

Every joke Simon’s brain could come up with disappeared at that moment. So he continued doing the dishes, and Hugh, thinking he hadn’t made himself clear, continued talking.

“It was someone else. It was a person. I saw them on—”

“I know,” Simon interrupted him. “I know. I’ve always known.”

But even if Simon knew, he still told Hugh to show him the footage because four eyes were better than two (especially considering that the owner of those first two eyes needed to wear glasses). It was all useless, though; the storm made the image all blurry, and the only thing they could see was someone taking it and running away in the middle of the night.

Simon wanted to think that it was just some dumb teen whose friends had challenged him to do it. But when it came to things like those one never really knew.

On Monday, they had promised Adrian to take him to the park that was a few blocks away so they could teach him how to fly a kite, but the thought of going out made him feel as if something bad was going to happen to them if they did, so Simon told Adrian that he and Hugh were feeling sick and that they would stay in their room to get some rest. Adrian asked them if they minded that he stayed there too because he was in the middle of watching a movie he had never seen before.

“Only if we can watch it with you,” Simon answered.

It was a weird day to be alive. They really just stayed there, watching silly cartoons with their kid and listening to him ranting about the weird proportions those characters had.

During the afternoon, Adrian told them he was hungry, so Simon went downstairs to look for something they could eat. He was thinking that maybe they should order something from that Chinese restaurant Tamaya had taken him the other day, when Hugh entered the kitchen and told him Adrian had asked him if he could bring him water.

Simon felt his hands were trembling while he looked inside his wallet for the paper where he had written the restaurant’s phone number.

“Do you want to get another flag?” Hugh asked him.

And something hurt.

Something hurt inside of him. Something started to cry, and to scream, and to flicker, trying to make him invisible to the world.

And it told him, the same way Adrian had told him he was hungry, that someone had taken him by surprise and made a deep cut on his chest.

But Simon didn’t allow it to come out.

He just said: “No.”

And Hugh answered him: “Me neither.”

He called the Chinese restaurant to order some food, while Simon went to their room with Adrian again and cuddled with him, trying to tend to the wounds of that something that was bleeding out inside of him.

Little Simon was crying, and screaming, and flickering, and needed adult Simon to take care of him.

The next day, they talked about the incident with the rest of the Council during their lunch break. It was one of those few occasions the six of them were together in the same room during their work hours. Tamaya was furious about the flag situation. She ranted for a good five minutes without anyone interrupting her about how fucking horrible people were and that she was going to find that little piece of shit and cut his hands off. Kasumi nodded in approval while drinking some horchata she had bought for herself, probably thinking about how to ask Tamaya to let her join her revolution (something she didn’t need to do, since Tamaya always included Kasumi in everything she did). Evander, on the other hand, was very quiet, something that made him feel a little bit relieved because he was not a sensitive person and Simon didn’t want him to... Evander the situation.

He didn’t say anything insensitive that day, though.

In fact, he said something… helpful, even.

“What about a flag made of light?”

Hugh rubbed his eyes and Simon knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth.

Because he said that phrase constantly.

“Shut the fuck up, Evander.”

But Evander didn’t shut up. “Dude, think about it. No one would be able to take down a flag made of light.”

And everyone realized that, now, it was not only one of those strange occasions when the six of them got together to have lunch during their work hours; it was also one of those strange occasions when Evander had an idea that was actually good.

So after spending another hour discussing how they were going to make it work, they decided they were going to lit up the building in rainbow-colored lights.

Tamaya and Hugh were the ones in charge of almost all the operation because Evander said he had already given them the idea, so he didn’t need to do anything else (and then got mad at Hugh when he told the media he was the one who came up with it). Kasumi helped them, but was especially insistent about putting a trans pride flag somewhere in the building, and after they agreed with her, she personally hung it on the main entrance of Headquarters.

They started turning the lights on each night of June since that yeat.

Hugh and Simon still didn’t get a flag. Three nights after they told their friends about what had happened during the thunderstorm, Simon was woken up by the sound of someone crashing against the trash cans and almost jumped out of the window with his dagger on hand to slay whoever was trying to break into their house, but when he peeked out to see what was going on, he realized the “robber” was Kasumi, who had put a bunch of small pride flags on some pots they kept on their porch and started crying as soon as she realized Simon was watching her, not because she was upset the surprise she had for them had been ruined, but because now she was covered in trash.

(That week was like a sign Georgie was sending them from the afterlife to tell them they needed to install a better security system.)

Those were the only flags they kept around the house. They were small and discreet, and, most importantly, no one had taken them away. Why? Well— because they listened to Georgie’s sign and installed a better security system. Not because there weren’t any more homophobes out there who were willing to do it.

Until that moment, those flags (the little ones Kasumi had given them in a rather unconventional way and the one made of light that Evander had come up with) had been more than enough for them. But, two years after the supernova, after Tamaya notified them the gearboxes that contained the lights had gotten soaked and that she needed the money to buy more before the next day (June 1st), Simon realized they were not enough for him anymore.

Simon wanted a bigger flag.

No. He wanted two.

The biggest pride flags he could find.

***

That was the reason why, after having pancakes for breakfast (because it had rained during the night), he took the car, took the other three people living in that house with him, and after he was able to read the map, they arrived at a store that, among other things, sold flags like the ones they were looking for.

“I want one too,” Adrian told them when they were at the flag section of the store. “For my room, you know. And I want to get ones for Danna and Nova because I don’t think they have any. They would’ve told me.”

Usually, when Adrian asked for something Simon hadn’t agreed to buy him, like some candy, an action figure, or a pair of sneakers, he would turn around and ask him if he had the money to buy any of those things himself, which would anger him so much he would stop wanting that certain thing.

But that day, he felt like buying them everything they wanted. As if money grew on trees (something he always told his kids didn’t happen.)

“Of course, darling,” he answered, “get them everything you want. It’s pride month.”

“It’s May 31th,” Max said. He was inside the shopping cart Hugh had grabbed the second they entered. It was something he always did, even if they weren’t going to buy a lot of things because, according to him, it felt weird and wrong not to.

“It’s almost pride month,” he corrected himself.

“So can I get something for Nova?” Adrian asked again, just to make sure.

“You can get something for Nova,” Hugh assured him, smiling a little bit.

Adrian quickly turned around and started looking for the flag he wanted while texting Nova about something Simon couldn’t read (not like he was trying to, anyway).

After making sure Adrian stayed on the same aisle as them, they started walking around, gazing at the flags and posters available. Simon felt pretty progressive because he was able to name every single sexuality and gender they were supposed to represent. He imagined Hugh was doing the same thing, but with a lot more difficulty than him. He kept his eyes fixated on each flag longer than Simon did, as if he were trying to remember what they meant, and when he did, he pushed the cart (with Max still inside of it, playing a game on Hugh’s phone because he had forgotten his tablet at home), and the cycle began again.

But suddenly, Simon saw ones that he didn’t recognize.

After three seconds of standing in front of those little flags, someone hit him in the butt with their cart. He turned around immediately, ready to say a really threatening “Hey” to whoever had done it.

Hugh was the only other person who was there. He had been the one who had hit him with the cart.

Suddenly, Simon felt a little bit stupid for thinking someone else had done it.

The two of them maintained eye contact for a couple of seconds until Hugh started looking at his own hands grabbing the cart’s handle.

“Simon.” Before Simon could ask him what happened, he added, with a deep voice: “Move.”

Simon didn’t move. Instead, he hit the cart with his hips, just out of spite. Hugh hit him again with it, making Simon feel the unexpected need to grab the cart with his two hands and use his own weapon against him, but Max was there and they couldn’t act like kids in front of him. So he just hit the cart with his hips again, a little bit harder than the first time, and left it there.

He realized he was just going to be wasting his time asking Hugh if he knew what that flag was supposed to represent.

“Cherub,” he called Max. “Do you recognize this flag?”

Max looked up from the screen. He usually didn’t like it when he called him “cherub” in public, but this time, he didn’t seem mad about it. “Um… no? Ask Adrian—” and continued playing.

Adrian came back with a basket full of pins, and for a second, Simon almost asked him if he really was that naive to believe he was actually going to pay for all of them. But then, he realized that it was only the basket where they kept all of the pins they sold and that Adrian had taken it to show them to them.

“Look, they have so many pins here—” he started taking random pins “—this is the aromantic flag… this is the genderfluid flag—”

“Interesting,” Hugh interrupted him, “but which flag is that one?” and pointed at the one Simon didn’t recognize.

Max took a random pin from the basket and started looking at it with curiosity. Adrian almost didn’t pay attention to it, and after a few seconds, he said: “That one’s yours.”

Simon frowned and took one. It was a handheld flag with green and blue stripes, with a white one in the middle. He touched the polyester with his fingertips as if that was going to give him the ability to communicate with it.

“But we don’t have a flag,” Hugh told Adrian. “I’ve heard of the lesbian fl—”

Adrian took a pin of the lesbian flag. “This one.”

“Yeah— but gay men don’t have one.”

“The rainbow is ours,” Simon said, without taking his eyes away from the blue and green flag he was holding. “Like, it’s for all queer people.”

Hugh directed his attention to Adrian again. “You’re messing with us.”

“I do mess with you a lot,” Adrian admitted, “but this time I’m not because if I do and you get mad, you won’t buy me all the stuff I want to get.”

“Huh.”

Simon knew Adrian and Max were a lot of things, but "dumb" wasn't one of those. And Adrian was especially intelligent when it came to convincing his parents to buy him things.

So he decided to believe him.

“Well, I like it,” he said. Then, he asked Hugh: “Do you like it?”

Hugh grabbed one and observed it for a while. “I like that it has blue on it,” he finally answered, nodding a little bit.

Simon noticed Max was spacing out while playing with the pin he had taken, so he waved the flag on his face, making him laugh and sneeze because the damn thing had a lot of invisible dust Simon didn't notice at first.

“Oh, sh—”

“You know? Maybe we should get two of these,” Hugh said, waving it too, but in his case, not on the face of one of their kids. “For our offices.”

“Matching flags, very romantic.”

Max rubbed his nose. “Why don't you get a big one for the house?”

Simon quickly started to look everywhere on that aisle, and he saw a lot of big versions of the flags he had recognized before (and some of the ones Adrian had mentioned), but there were no gay flags in sight.

“Maybe next year, I guess,” he shrugged. “I don't think they have them here yet.”

He grabbed two of the rainbow flags that were there, inside their respective plastic bags, gave them to Max, and he put them on his lap, still holding that pin. Simon made a quick mental note to remind his future self they needed to pay for that (he didn’t know if it had to with the fact that Max had been spending a lot of time with Maggie, Nova’s sister, but he had developed this weird habit of stealing the most random objects one could think of. Luckily, he limited himself to stealing things from his dads and, one time, from a store.) (Kids went through weird phases when they were Max’s age.)

(Because… it was a phase, right?)

Adrian received a text. “Danna says that she already has a flag, so I’m getting her a pin,” he said after reading it. “And Nova says she wants one too.” Then, his whole face lit up. “And I could get one too so we match.”

“Copycat,” Simon accused him, jokingly. “Your dad and I got matching flags, and now you want to get matching pins with your girlfriend.”

Hugh shook his head, disappointed. “I cannot believe you have betrayed your own family like this.”

They stayed at the store another 30 minutes to buy some other things they needed for the house, and from time to time, when he or Hugh grabbed something, they pretended they didn’t see Adrian and said: “Um, but the copycat may be listening” to a point he told them to stop, and refused to forgive them until they agreed to buy him the flag he didn’t intend to get anymore, but now was going to.

He got the last bisexual flag there was at that store.

***

The first time the four of them were together in their room was last June. Something went wrong with the A/C system of the entire house and the only room where one could stay without having a heatstroke was theirs because their A/C hadn’t broken down for some reason. Adrian and Max were sleeping on the air mattress until Simon (who hadn’t been able to sleep lately) heard that one of them woke up and asked Hugh something. He sat down on the bed, at the same time Hugh moved a little bit to allow Adrian to lay down between the two of them.

Then, in the middle of the dark, his eyes met Max’s.

He looked tiny. Young. Pretty young.

And far away.

Simon couldn’t remember who did it. He didn’t remember who talked that night. It could have been him, even. But he was sure that, at that moment, someone whispered:

“Get in here, kid.”

And Max obeyed. He crawled, raised his arms towards them, and Hugh grabbed him carefully by the collar of his shirt and placed him between him and Adrian.

It was a peaceful night. The bed was big enough for the four of them, and Simon was able to sleep and actually rest for the first time in weeks.

At least until their A/C turned off with a weird sound, and the four of them woke up at the same time, sweaty, uncomfortable, and almost at 11 AM, not because they weren’t necessarily willing to stay there longer, but because the heat was starting to get unbearable and suddenly the bed was too small for three adults and a little kid that was not that little anymore.

“This isn’t a room, this is a— a freaking oven,” Hugh said, while Adrian tried to push him out of bed to get the hell out of there and seek comfort on the air mattress he had abandoned in the middle of the night.

“And we are the... cookies,” Max giggled.

“The turkey,” Simon added.

Max turned around. His whole face was red and his hair was a little bit wet. “The lasagna.”

Simon grabbed him by the cheeks; a discreet way to check if he had a fever. “The cake.”

“The ham.”

“The—”

“Dad. Move.”

Later that day, Simon called someone to fix the A/C, and that was the end of the story.

When they arrived at the house, Adrian wanted to hang his flag as soon as possible, on one of his room’s walls, but Simon insisted that they should iron it first so it looked nicer. Hugh said that he was planning on ironing the ones they had bought for the house and offered Adrian to do the same with his, but when he insinuated that he didn’t trust him enough not to mess up his flag the same way he had messed up his favorite shirt (the one he wanted to wear to take Nova to a nice place during her birthday), Hugh reminded him that the only reason he kept doing that for him was that Adrian didn’t know how to iron yet, and decided that he was going to use that moment as a teaching opportunity. Max made the mistake of laughing at his brother when he thought no one was paying attention to him, but Adrian was and dragged Max into the teaching opportunity with him.

Simon joined too. Just because.

And suddenly, the four of them were in their room again.

With the A/C on, of course.

He didn't know if Hugh had noticed, but he had been so invested in his own explanation, that after he finished ironing the two rainbow flags, he started ironing Adrian’s without realizing it. Adrian, instead of giving up and stop pretending he was paying attention, was looking, kind of mesmerized, how he opened the bag of his blue, purple, and magenta flag, and proceeded to put it on the ironing board, now telling him that when Georgie had tried to teach him how to iron his clothes, she accidentally burnt Evander.

Simon was half-listening to the story, half-listening to the music video that Max was watching on the TV. He was sitting on a big and old ottoman they had bought a long time ago but had never found the perfect place to put it and just stayed there for years until they forgot about it. Max was in front of him, sitting on the floor and resting his back on the ottoman, while he covered his blond hair with small butterfly hair clips he had found at the store and bought just because he thought they were cute (who knows, maybe Nova wanted them for Maggie, or Kasumi could use them for herself, she loved them when she was little).

When all the hair clips were on Max's hair, he took a small mirror they kept in the bathroom (but Simon borrowed it for a minute) and gave it to him so he could see the final result.

“Look at me,” Max exclaimed, laughing. “I look so pretty.”

Simon grabbed one of the hair clips and pulled it a little. “Butterfly hair clips are a popular trend this time of the year.”

“This is definitely going to make me the most popular kid in the playground.”

“Definitely.”

He leaned forward to start taking the butterfly hair clips off Max's hair and was putting them on Max’s open hand when he noticed that he hadn’t let go of the pin they bought him at the store.

(Simon did remember to pay for the thing, but if he hadn’t done it, Max wouldn’t have said anything.)

“That was really nice of you,” Simon said.

Max looked at him, confused. “What?”

“Getting a rainbow pin—” he took his other hand and started putting the hair clips on it so none of them would get lost “—to show support.”

Max didn't say anything and Simon continued with what he was doing. After the music video finished, and another one started playing, Hugh gave Adrian his flag and told him he could go and hang it in his room, and as soon as Max heard that too, he gave Simon the hair clips and followed his brother out of the room, asking him if he could help him with it.

Simon, after realizing the bag where the hair clips came in had been destroyed by Max punching holes in it with the pin, took one of the empty pill bottles he kept in his drawers and put them there.

He closed the pill bottle and realized Hugh had been gazing at him during all this time, slightly leaning on the ironing board. “What?”

“That’s my pill bottle, Si,” he told him.

“Ah—” Simon pressed his lips “—can I have it?”

“No.” Hugh smiled at him. “Yes, you can.”

“So funny. Come here—” and patted the bed mattress.

Hugh, being extremely careful not to touch the flags he just ironed, lied on the bed and sighed.

“Do you want me to play with your hair?” Simon asked him with a soft voice.

He closed his eyes and nodded.

After a while of the two of them just being silent, he said, “Hey… I heard what you told Max, by the way.”

“The butterfly hair clips trend?”

“The pin thing.”

“What about it?”

Hugh opened his eyes, just a little bit. “Just don't tell Max I told you, all right? Because he told me he wouldn't tell anyone else until he was sure, but… I think it's important the two of us know,” he explained.

Simon was starting to feel his palms get a little bit sweaty. “Okay— but just tell me, please.”

He checked overhearing their conversation one last time, and that the kids were still at Adrian's room. “Max told me a couple of days ago that he has been thinking about… what he likes.”

He stopped playing with his hair for a second. But then, he continued.

It was his way of coping with the feeling of his stomach twisting inside of him. “What he likes?” Hugh nodded again. “Huh. And has he— does he has an idea or—”

“No, he doesn't,” Hugh answered. “He just knows that he doesn't like girls. Or that's what he told me.”

Simon raised his eyebrows and scoffed. “That sounds like a lot of things. Not liking girls.”

Hugh scoffed too. “That's what I told him. And that he can take all the time he needs to figure it out. Because he can—”

“Yes. Yes, of course, he can,” Simon assured, with determination. “Life is longer than we think it is.”

They stayed silent again. And Simon couldn’t help but feel relive inside his head the moment he called Max an ally, feeling his stomach twisting even more at every second it passed.

“I feel bad.”

“Why?”

His palms started to sweat again. “Because I called him an ally.”

“It’s all right. You didn’t know.”

“I shouldn’t have assumed anything.”

“You didn’t know,” Hugh repeated.

But Simon didn’t listen. “Si.”

Then, Hugh grabbed him carefully by the wrist, and, a little bit surprised, Simon tilted his head. Hugh usually didn't interrupt him when he was playing with his hair.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

“No, what’s wrong with you?” he deadpanned

Simon knew him well enough to know he wasn’t trying to be rude. It was just his way of asking things. Especially when he was genuinely worried and didn’t think about modulating his tone so it It fitted the situation better.

He sighed. Because he didn’t want to lie to him. “I assumed Max was straight.”

As soon as he said it, he realized how silly it had sounded phrased like that. But he also noticed his voice had broken and he had to put a hand on his mouth so he didn’t start crying.

And Hugh, instead of saying the encouraging phrase he expected him to say…

He smiled.

And for some reason, that made him want to cry even more. “Ew, why are you smiling?” he asked.

Hugh took his time to answer him. “Oh, it’s nothing. I think I'm just… happy.”

“Well, I’m not.”

Hugh smiled more. “I know, love, I know… It's just one of those things…” he tried to find the right words this time. “One of those things I didn't think we were going to go through together,” he kept saying. “Like… we're going to be together when Max finally discovers who he really is. Like we did with Adrian. And like other people did with us. And that makes me happy.”

Simon wanted to tell him to shut up and let him cry and be dramatic as much as he wanted because he considered he deserved it. But he tried to do it, the only thing that could come out of his lips was almost imperceptible “Yeah…” and then, a small tear started running down his face. Hugh quickly noticed this and wiped it away with his finger. Simon scoffed and looked away, rubbing his nose.

“Hey…” and he moved aside so Simon could lay beside him.

The space they had was a little too small but he didn’t mind because now he had an excuse to be closer to him.

And there it was again. Little Simon. Little Simon was there again with them.

Just that this time he wasn’t crying, or screaming, or even flickering. He was just… existing.

And all he wanted to do was to exist.

When Hugh held him that way, sometimes he felt as if it was the first time he did it. Which made Simon (and the sad, angry and scared part of Simon) wonder if there was a sad, angry and scared part of Hugh that also craved that comfort and validation, and if it was the one who hugged that younger version of Simon until they convinced each other that everything was fine.

That there was nothing wrong with neither of them.

Because sometimes it was as if people didn’t remind them that as many times as they needed. So the only option they had was to be there for the other, and tell him that it was okay to hug, to kiss, to touch, and to share until the one who was talking ended up convincing both of them.

Love wasn’t temporary.

And their love was as powerful as they wanted it to be.

Those younger versions of themselves wanted to stay like that forever every single time. But their adult versions knew they couldn’t do it because they had other responsibilities that they needed to attend.

Installing those two pride flags that were next to them, for example.

Their younger versions were excited to do that, but they also asked them if they could rest together a little bit longer. And neither of them had the heart to tell them no.

Hugh started to play with a lock of Simon’s hair. “We’ll be there to catch him.”

He knew he wasn’t talking about either of them. Even if, with his eyes closed, he could see little Hugh and little Simon holding each other’s hands and throwing themselves into the world, a little less sad, and angry, and scared than before, without being sure if there was going to be someone down there to catch them if everything went wrong.

“Together.”

And Simon agreed. “Together.”

***

“He’s going to fall.”

Simon rolled his eyes.

“No, he’s not,” Hugh told Max. “I’m here.”

“But what if—”

“Done,” Simon announced before Max could even finish his sentence. “Now, let’s just hope these things stay there as long as possible, because this ladder makes me anxious. I was trembling while putting the first flag.”

Max clicked his tongue. “It’s a windy day. The wind could have pushed the ladder or something.”

Now it was Hugh’s turn to roll his eyes. “Take my hand.”

Simon went down the ladder without letting go of his hand. Then, while Hugh took it and quickly went inside the garage to put it there, Adrian pricked his little brother up with his own rainbow flag pin, and in response, Max punched him in the stomach with all his might (which wasn’t that much). Adrian laughed and pretended to be hurt, but immediately asked him if he wanted him to help him with his pin.

Simon noticed that Adrian had already put his pin of the bisexual flag on his clothes, and watching him pull Max a little bit closer so he didn’t prink him again (now by accident), while Max gazed at his hands, trying to memorize his movements so he could do the same thing when he wanted to wear that pin again, made his mouth curved into a smile.

When his husband came back from the garage, he thought he was going to tell them to stop blocking the sidewalk and get in the house so they could continue with their day. But instead of doing that, he walked towards them and looked at their waving flags, flying on their mansion for the first time in years.

Adrian grabbed Max by the waist and carried him on his shoulders so he could have a better view. And he realized that there would be a day when they would throw themselves into the world completely alone, without knowing how people were going to act and aware that two of them were brave enough to take whatever blows that they were going to throw at them.

But they weren’t going to do it alone. Because Hugh, Simon, and their hurting parts weren’t going to spend a day without reminding them that they were going to be there, ready to catch them every single time they needed it.

Simon started to look for Hugh’s hand just to realize, Hugh was already looking for his too, and when they found each other, he couldn’t contain himself and stood on his tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. Then, Hugh smiled and kissed him back, this time, on the corner of his lip.

Simon felt proud of what they were.

He was really proud.

And he hoped they were proud too.

#renegades #archenemies #supernova #renegades trilogy #hugh everhart #simon westwood #adrian everhart #max everhart #everhart-westwood family #the warden and the captain are sitting in a tree #obsi's writs #i should get an oscar for the homophobic storm joke

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0willowwisp0 · 3 years

Text

Oh shit I got a idea for a oneshot (or fanfic) plot.

Sort long post so I’m putting a read more here!

So we all know about the four horsemen? And if you don’t go read up on it, it’s cool but also terrifying (in my opinion)

I’m going off the Pestilence, Famine, War, Death concept but I added something at the bottom for Conquest.

What if in MHA universe something like that happens, like the four horsemen have been watching Earth for many, many generations and is slowly getting…bored with what is going on the planet so they start to devise a plan.

And it’s basically a series of events,-

First Pestilence sends out their hoards (kinda like that one Prince of Egypt scene) to start destroying crops across the world, making most people get confused and somewhat freaked out.

Next come Famine, bringing in blizzard and heatwaves, making it almost impossible to farm and gather resources (there’s on a few months in between these events where people can get resources) and now people are starting to panic, asking the heroes and governments all over the world what they should do next.

Thirdly, War breaks out, people are desperately fighting for limited resources, people are creating small to large groups mostly consisting of people with powerful/useful quirks, people with non-useful quirks are left to fend for themselves or are taken in by smaller groups.

Lastly, Death. Bodies are now littered across the blanket, making the once busy planet a wasteland. Groups still exists but are constant getting smaller and smaller because of lack of medical treatment and food, some groups have banded together to try and help each other get back on their feet while others simply choose to stay away.

And now Death is sweeping their dark blanket across the world, killing anyone that tries to hide, fight, or run..mercy does not exist in their book.

I see this going down a few different paths.

One of the four horsemen could possibly change their attitude towards this whole “Hunger Games” like situation.

A horsemen could tell the people about what is about to happen so they have a early start.

A full out war could happen with the people against the horsemen and possibly a horse could join the humans side (maybe not) and I see all the horsemen appearing in different spots like 1 could be North America, 1 could be in Europe, South America, etc.

The horsemen eventually get bored of the game and go back to…whatever (hibernating!?)

Conquest shows up outta no where and questions wtf is going on.

And lastly the whole world just burns and the world starts anew with a new batch of humans. (They have like spare hidden vials in some random closet, kinda like sperm vials. Don’t make it weird 😕

This all happened because of my maladaptive daydreaming ass has been thinking about these amazing art pieces!

https://m.webtoons.com/en/fantasy/hooves-of-death/list?title_no=1535&page=1

https://ex0skeletal-undead.tumblr.com/post/642856463862218752/the-four-horses-of-the-apocalypse-conquest-war

https://undeadchestnut.tumblr.com/post/172970986057/the-four-horsemen-of-the-apocalypse-have-been-one

Also if you want to add a little more to this go ahead go in your reblogs and notes!

Also if you use this idea tag me in it I would love to see fanart and oneshots/short stories/long stories of this idea!

Ignore the spelling mistakes I was in a rush to get this finished.

And tag it with Horsemen!AU so I can see it! 👀

I’ll 100% be making art for this (not of the humans cause I can’t draw people) because this is a AU I’m actually excited for and really want to make a story for! (I’m still working on my 2 other ones, one I’m having to rewrite cause the prologue was horrendous!)

Anyways that it for my rambling, I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day/night!

#fantasy #mha fantasy au #Horsemen!AU #bnha #izuku midoriya #shoto torodoki #katsuki bakugou #denki kaminari #ejirou kirishima #class 1a #bnha x reader #bnha story ideas #bnha plot ideas #mha plot ideas #mha fanfiction #mha headcanons #bnha headcanons

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optimistic-dinosaur-nacho · 4 years

Text

Annoying

Johnny Storm x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Langauge, One Pick-Up line Summary: Ever since you got powers from a space mission, you’re stuck with your team who are figuring out how to get rid of your powers altogether. But your one teammate decides to plan things out to make a little money. It’s getting out of hand when he only annoys you.

A/N: @just-one-ordinary-fangirl is making me too obsessed with Johnny Storm. The perfect match, she says and I’m a little scared because I can see it. This is gonna be a disaster and we need more Johnny Storm on my list.

Not everyday someone wakes up with powers and always gets told that they make a room not heat up. Out of every super ability you can have, it was ice powers. How stupid is that? Sue had the best one, you wanted to be the one to leave a conversation so easily by disappearing. But it doesn’t seem to be great when you have to strip bare.

Not your ideal of having, so you just had to go with your own. You were told so many times how much yours weren’t horrible. You couldn’t say it in front of Ben. Everyone knew why.

A walk in Central park, you were relaxing in the summer air. Seeing dogs run down the grass, people on bikes riding down or people walk down. You can hear someone pant and call out to you. Turning, you see a man who was running. “Hey, can you help me with something?”

You look at him in confusion and nodded, “Yeah, sure-” He shoves his water bottle into your hand and he kneels down on one knee to tie his shoe, “Thanks.” You couldn’t help but grip the bottle in irritation. The man stands up with a sigh, “Thank you.” He takes his water bottle and opens the cap. You look at the bottle and your eyes widen.

The two of you stared at the bottle that was now frozen. He stared at you, shockingly, “You’re...” The man stuttered and you can’t stand making a crowd if he ever bursts out in excitement. With a turn of your heel, you walked away. “Wait!” You hear him shout, you reached your hand out and the ground becomes frozen as you sprint walk. You hear the man slip and fall so you take that chance to run.

Heading back to the tower, you shoved your hands in your pockets and made your way through the doors, greeted by the front desk. The elevator dings and you see two people walk out. “Hey!” Johnny jumps at you, hiding something behind his back, he grins a little too big. “I have something, you might want to see.”

“I’m not in the mood, Pretty Boy. Now move before I give you a frost bite.”

You take a step to the side till Johnny mirrors your movement and holds his hand out. “Come on,” He tilts his head at you, “I promise you, you’re gonna love this.” You stare at him stupidly to have him just show you and leave you alone. He pulls it out and grins, “Ah, isn’t it cool?” You gawk at the horrendous toy. “It’s you!” He says.

You can see the blue outfit that your team wears with the number 5 on it. He looks at the toy, “And looks it’s got this!” He lifts up the arm and pushes a button. “Johnny, I-” You get cut off by a squirt of water hits the center of your face causing you to look deadpan.

Johnny kept a smile on his face like a five year old. Your eyes were still closed as the water drips down your face, “Johnny?”

“Yeah?” He asks, waiting for the most fantastic response from you. You reach up to your face and wipe away the water, you sighed, “I don’t have water powers.” Johnny looks at the toy, “But ice is water.” His shoulders drop, “Come on, I’m trying here.”

“You’re not even trying, Johnny. These aren’t things we should be happy about. We’re freaks now. And I don’t want... a toy that looks like me,” You say, “Besides these won’t sell.” Johnny lowers the toy and smirks, “Well, I saw these in every store. By tomorrow, we’ll be like the Kardashians.”

You roll your eyes and slowly thought of something. “Can I see the toy, I actually think these are cool.” Johnny hands you the toy with a cocky grin. You smiled at the toy and your hands grow colder. Johnny’s face drops, “Woah. Hey! That’s the prototype!”

The toy began to freeze up like an icicle and you dropped it on the ground, shattering it to pieces. You peer up at him, sadly, “Oops. Cold hands.” You hear the elevator ding and that gave you the chance to walk in like nothing happened. Johnny stood there like you just insulted his mom.

With a grin, you waved at him like a high school girl and fake grin in the world as the elevator doors close.

The next day, you hadn’t seen Johnny since morning. Sue and Reed were already gone and left on a date. Ben was in his own room while you sat in the kitchen, eating whatever you made from the fridge. You hear the phone ring and you made your way to it and picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Ah, Miss L/N. I have a package for you.” You furrowed your brows to your doorman in the lobby. You never ordered a package, but if it was another of those fanart from kids, you couldn’t refuse. “Alright. I’ll be down there in a bit.” You hung up and made your way to the elevator. Pushing the Lobby floor, you waited in the small room, stopping to let a fellow person into the small room with you.

His small grin winked at you as you forced one onto your face. He shivers, “Brr. It’s a little cold in here, is it?” He asked. You rolled your eyes at him and sighed, “Maybe next time don’t wear short sleeves,” You say. The man looked over his shoulder at you, awkwardly.

You obviously were the problem but you didn’t care one bit.

Once the doors open, the man was the first one out and you met up with your doorman and he handed you the small box. “Ah, here you go, Miss.” You nod once at him and hear someone laugh.

“Look who it is. DQ Blizzard. What’s got you down here?” Johnny asks, leaning on the desk. You turn away and headed straight for the elevator. “Listen, Pretty Boy. I’m not in a good mood.” Johnny trots behind like a child, “When are you not in the mood? Look, I know yesterday with your own figurine was... too much. But in all honestly, it was sick.”

You turn toward the opens doors, “Keep talking, I’ll make you into a popsicle. Now shut up.” Johnny quirks his brows up as a ‘Got it’ and never spoken again. You two stood there in silent, finally being in a peaceful room with one of the most annoying people on the planet.

The elevator opens to a woman and she comes in with a small grin. Johnny nods at her and she faces away from you two. The woman sighs, “Strange. You guys feel hot and cold?” She asked.

Johnny glances over at you before turning to the woman, “No. Not at all,” He spoke. Seconds, you could see Johnny steam up a little. You hear the woman let out a gasp, “Didn’t they fix the vents last time? Whoo. It’s hot,” You watch as the woman began to take off her suit jacket and Johnny watched her slowly. You found a way to stop him, kicking him in the shin causing him to yelp.

The elevator dings and the woman leaves glistening with sweat and the doors close once again. You shook your head slowly, “You’re disgusting.” Johnny shoves his hands in his pockets and grins. “Come on. Enjoy it. You were hot, too, admit it.”

“Actually I wasn’t. Maybe try a little harder because you can’t get to me that easily,” You say, leaving through the doors once they reached your level. Johnny followed behind with a grin. “Oh, come on. I get to you all the time. Even when you’re 0 degrees below, you still heat up in the cheeks. Admit it, Snowflake.”

You turn around, “Don’t call me Snowflake.”

“Hey, you call me Pretty Boy, what’s wrong with Snowflake?” He asks, he glances at the box in your arms, “I wonder what’s in the box.” He smirks at you in a bad way that gets you thinking. What was this jerk planning? You ripped the box open and saw plastic wrap. You pulled it open and saw what looked like Johnny. As a toy.

“What the hell is this? Did you get me this?” You asked, Johnny glance into the box again and so did you. A letter inside made you read it instantly.

Push the button on the back.

You look at the doll and pushed the button on its back. “Enjoy your new room.” You furrowed your brows and glared at Johnny. You raced to your room and pushed your door open, your mouth gapes at the scene. “What the hell, Johnny!” He comes in casually with his hand in his pockets. “What? I actually like it.”

“I don’t! Everything is...” You turned to the bed sheets that had his face on it, “You!” Toys of Johnny in his Fantastic Four suit were all over the place. Your curtains were blue with the number four on it. Johnny even added your figurine around the room.

“Where the hell did you get this stuff?” You asked, pacing around the room to gather all the merchandise. Johnny looks around like a proud guy. “Well, you know people get creative with us being top trending people, and I am the hottest guy here while you... hottest girl on the team as well, they made things for us. And I had a few people I know. It’s an early birthday gift.”

“My birthday was a month ago.”

Johnny pauses, lifting a finger up, “Okay... late birthday gift. But, hey...” He smiles like a child, pointing at you, “You are my biggest fan.” You grab the pillow case that had his face on it and threw it at him. “You’re so annoying! I hate you!” YOu shout.

Johnny laughs and catches it. “Come on! It’s amazing! It took me hours.” You throw another object at him and he blocks them with the pillow. “Woah! Hey!” You throw more things, “You! Are! So! Annoying!” You say, you began to run over to him till he takes your face in his hands and your lips crash onto his. Your fighting stops and your hands go over his. Your lips relaxed on his and he pulls away.

You open your eyes to see his blue hues, his grin tugging his lips. “What?” You asked. Johnny still rested his palms on your cheeks, “You’re as red as I am on fire.” You stomp on his foot causing him to hiss and reach for his foot. “I hate you,” His back hunched over to grab his foot with his hand till you kiss him again and his head lifts up to kiss you back again.

The kiss lasted for another second and you pulled away.

“Now clean up my room. I expect it to go back to normal,” You say. Johnny looks around the room to see your obsession with him and it made him grin. “I think it is normal to have a room filled with myself all over. That bed sheet isn’t gonna be the only Johnny in bed.”

“Ugh, you need to work on your lines.”

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thereddeadredeemed · 4 years

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An Ironwood meta that just randomly popped into my head.

So I’ve been skimming over a lot of the observations on RWBY from @bionic-jedi and aside from the glurge of absolutely adorable Nuts ‘n Dolts stuff (Which I appreciate, I ship it now), the part that really got my attention was all the shit going down around Ironwood. I don’t watch the show anymore, not that I hated it or anything I just sorta lost interest in the show itself, decided it ultimately wasn’t really for me and mainly just enjoy it through fanart and shipping now, but from what I gathered from bionic-jedi’s Let’s Watch Ironwood sounds absolutely fascinating in all the ways that I don’t think was intentional by the CRWBY but is still pretty awesome that it’s there.

Forgive me if I get the details wrong since I haven’t kept up with the show and all my info is coming second hand from @bionic-jedi, but from I could gather Ironwood comes across as a man who:

- Is an experienced veteran fighter who individually is very badass with a proven tactical record on the battlefield

- Has the natural charisma to instill genuine loyalty and belief in his cause into his subordinates (To paraphrase Mass Effect 3 for a bit, you can pay a man to fight, you can pay him to charge up a hill, but no amount of money in the world will ever convince a man to believe in you), and does possess a genuine care for the troops under his command

- Will nonetheless still engage in abusive behavior if a subordinate is not performing in a way he believes is proper for their duty (Yeah I would consider forcibly hacking a sapient being to count as that)

- Carries around a very cool badass revolver as a signature weapon

- While brilliant tactically, possess horrible long term strategic assessment skills that if allowed to be acted upon could have/did end in disaster

You know what that sounds like? Ironwood is almost a perfect RWBY equivalent for George R. Patton (with maybe a bit of Bernard Montgomery thrown in).

Like, I think that the CRWBY may have accidentally written a scenario that asks “What if Patton was the Supreme Commander of the Western Front instead of Eisenhower?” And the results are an absolute clusterfuck unfolding in real time, but I feel I gotta clarify this.

Patton is one of America’s most celebrated and respected generals, and for good reason. Dude was a badass with a keen sense of armor tactics and mobile warfare that proved repeatedly that he could beat the Germans at their own game. His personal bravery could also never be called into question, having proven his mettle in direct combat during both the Hunt for Pancho Villa and WW1, as well as putting his own life in danger being very close to the front lines numerous times during WW2, one time even riding a tank into a German-occupied village to inspire his men. He also did genuinely care for the lives of his men, only ever seen openly weeping when mourning for the lives of his fallen soldiers, treating his wounded troops with the highest respect, and properly giving praise when they did a good job.

For all of Ironwood’s faults, his own mettle is certainly not into question given he suffered such grievous injuries that half his body is now cybernetics, and the man for sure knows how to fight and fight well, so that’s one similarity with Patton. He has also inspired real loyalty in Winter and the Ace Operatives, and in turn he does seem to actually care for them, and he had no real reason to give Yang a new prosthetic arm (and rather quickly fast tracking her an incredibly advanced one at that), so he’s not completely heartless or devoid of empathy.

However, Patton was a man focused on the tactical short term in lieu of long term strategic planning, and possessed with some horrendous character flaws that bit him in the ass on several occasions. One of them being the, even by the standards of the 40′s, deplorable manner in which he treated soldiers wracked with what we in the modern day would diagnose as PTSD. The man flat out did not believe PTSD was a real thing, thinking of it as cowardice and...you know what? I’m just gonna let the Wikipedia quotes say it all, I bolded some choice quotes for convenience:

Private Charles H. Kuhl, of L Company, U.S. 26th Infantry Regiment, reported to an aid station of C Company, 1st Medical Battalion, on 2 August 1943. Kuhl, who had been in the U.S. Army for eight months, had been attached to the 1st Infantry Division since 2 June 1943. He was diagnosed with "exhaustion," a diagnosis he had been given three times since the start of the campaign. From the aid station, he was evacuated to a medical company and given sodium amytal. Notes in his medical chart indicated "psychoneurosis anxiety state, moderately severe (soldier has been twice before in hospital within ten days. He can't take it at the front, evidently. He is repeatedly returned.)" Kuhl was transferred from the aid station to the 15th Evacuation Hospital near Nicosia for further evaluation.

Patton arrived at the hospital the same day, accompanied by a number of medical officers, as part of his tour of the U.S. II Corps troops. He spoke to some patients in the hospital, commending the physically wounded. He then approached Kuhl, who did not appear to be physically injured. Kuhl was sitting slouched on a stool midway through a tent ward filled with injured soldiers. When Patton asked Kuhl where he was hurt, Kuhl reportedly shrugged and replied that he was "nervous" rather than wounded, adding, "I guess I can't take it." Patton "immediately flared up,” slapped Kuhl across the chin with his gloves, then grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to the tent entrance. He shoved him out of the tent with a kick to his backside. Yelling "Don't admit this son of a bitch," Patton demanded that Kuhl be sent back to the front, adding, "You hear me, you gutless bastard? You're going back to the front."

Corpsmen picked up Kuhl and brought him to a ward tent, where it was discovered he had a temperature of 102.2 °F (39.0 °C); and was later diagnosed with malarial parasites. Speaking later of the incident, Kuhl noted "at the time it happened, [Patton] was pretty well worn out ... I think he was suffering a little battle fatigue himself." Kuhl wrote to his parents about the incident, but asked them to "just forget about it." That night, Patton recorded the incident in his diary: "[I met] the only errant coward I have ever seen in this Army. Companies should deal with such men, and if they shirk their duty, they should be tried for cowardice and shot."

Private Paul G. Bennett, 21, of C Battery, U.S. 17th Field Artillery Regiment, was a four-year veteran of the U.S. Army, and had served in the division since March 1943. Records show he had no medical history until 6 August 1943, when a friend was wounded in combat. According to a report, he "could not sleep and was nervous." Bennett was brought to the 93rd Evacuation Hospital. In addition to having a fever, he exhibited symptoms of dehydration, including fatigue, confusion, and listlessness. His request to return to his unit was turned down by medical officers. A medical officer describing Bennett's condition

And yet another incident like this:

The shells going over him bothered him. The next day he was worried about his buddy and became more nervous. He was sent down to the rear echelon by a battery aid man and there the medical aid man gave him some tranquilizers that made him sleep, but still he was nervous and disturbed. On the next day the medical officer ordered him to be evacuated, although the boy begged not to be evacuated because he did not want to leave his unit.

On 10 August, Patton entered the receiving tent of the hospital, speaking to the injured there. Patton approached Bennett, who was huddled and shivering, and asked what the trouble was. "It's my nerves," Bennett responded. "I can't stand the shelling anymore." Patton reportedly became enraged at him, slapping him across the face. He began yelling: "Your nerves, hell, you are just a goddamned coward. Shut up that goddamned crying. I won't have these brave men who have been shot at seeing this yellow bastard sitting here crying." Patton then reportedly slapped Bennett again, knocking his helmet liner off, and ordered the receiving officer, Major Charles B. Etter, not to admit him. Patton then threatened Bennett, "You're going back to the front lines and you may get shot and killed, but you're going to fight. If you don't, I'll stand you up against a wall and have a firing squad kill you on purpose. In fact, I ought to shoot you myself, you goddamned whimpering coward." Upon saying this, Patton pulled out his pistol threateningly, prompting the hospital's commander, Colonel Donald E. Currier, to physically separate the two. Patton left the tent, yelling to medical officers to send Bennett back to the front lines.

As he toured the remainder of the hospital, Patton continued discussing Bennett's condition with Currier. Patton stated, "I can't help it, it makes my blood boil to think of a yellow bastard being babied," and "I won't have those cowardly bastards hanging around our hospitals. We'll probably have to shoot them some time anyway, or we'll raise a breed of morons."

There were serious cries for Patton to get sacked after theses incidents, his reputation and job only saved because Eisenhower knew his tactical command abilities were simply too valuable to give up and so was only temporarily relieved of duty instead. Point I’m trying to make here is that while Patton could definitely hold sympathy and understanding for his men, it was contingent on them acting in a way he believed was properly honoring their duty. If they erred from his ideals of a how a proper soldier behaved, he could lapse into some seriously abusive behavior disturbingly quickly.

I can’t be the only one that sees some parallels between this and Ironwood hacking Penny am I? A man who cares for his troops but as soon as Penny acted in a way he deemed to be out of line, immediately sought to violate her autonomy and rights as a sapient being to force her back into line and back into his ideals of how a proper soldier should behave. Perhaps he wasn’t as violently physically aggressive about it as Patton, but arguably what Ironwood did was ethically much worse than slapping the shit out of and threatening people.

Patton also wasn’t the type to worry about the long term consequences of his actions. Before he died in a car accident shortly after WW2 he was unceremoniously sacked from his job after making one too many aggressive comments towards the Soviet Union, potentially nudging towards a potential Operation Unthinkable, and carelessly allowing former Nazis back into political power. Both of these were unthinkably horrible for obvious reasons.

There is one key difference between Patton and Ironwood however. Eisenhower was keenly aware of Patton’s potential shortcomings and he was kept on a leash and out of the highest levers of power, thus preventing him from ever being in a position where his worst traits would allow him to truly fuck up. Ironwood however I feel got Peter Principle’d hardcore and was promoted way above his level of competence (Always a risk for men who gain a reputation as “fightin’ generals”, see: John Bell Hood), where his positive qualities of personal physical bravery, combat skill and tactical leadership is wasted and his worst qualities of hyper-focus on short sighted tactical victories over long term strategic goals, paranoia and distrust leading to an excessive need for control, and moral cowardice are allowed to flourish.

And we see the consequences of it. He may have started with solid pragmatic ideas, but his insanely one-track minded obsession with short term strategic goals like making sure he has control over the Winter Maiden is costing him big long term strategically by burning bridges with potentially valuable allies and isolating himself and his command. Valuable time and resources that could have been spent coordinating forces against Salem wasted on various shenanigans involving Penny, RWBY and JN_R. Especially devastating given that Atlas is the only industrialized military power worth a damn in this world and isn’t reliant on mostly independent and unorganized Hunters and Huntresses (individually skilled but too few in number and takes far too long to train each one to reliably stop a Grimm invasion), and he’s just wasting the resources of the world power best able to hold the line against the Grimm.

Next part is a bit of a non-sequitur and really long so I put it in between the dotted lines if y’all ain’t interested and want to skip on over to the relevant Ironwood parts.

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Getting a feel for the strategic situation in Atlas, I get a strong sense that what Atlas needs more than anything else right now is a Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower the the exact man needed to lead the Western allies, and I can’t see anyone else doing as realistically as good a job as he did, this is a hill I’ll die on. It wouldn’t look like it at first, the man had never once commanded a unit in battle (a fact that made many of his “actually seen combat” rivals bitter), and his softer, more easy going disposition would seem at odds with the alpha-male take charge image cultivated by men like Patton and Montgomery that would be stereotypically expected of a general, much less a Supreme Commander.

However, that calm exterior hid a man with a sharp eye on the necessary strategic goals needed for victory, expert resource and personnel management skills, the humility to listen to his subordinates and admit his own mistakes, and most importantly, both the smooth negotiating skills and the iron will necessary to deal with larger than life figures.

The western allies were made up of many different nations and factions and filled to the brim with what I would call (to put it lightly) strong personalities. This was an organization that involved:

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

- Winston Churchill

- Charles De Gaulle

- Bernard Montgomery

- The aforementioned Patton

- Occasional dealings with Stalin even

All of them larger than life personalities, all of them strong willed and possessed of their own ideas of how to win the war as well as their own political/personal motives, and all of them vying for dominance in the strategic decision making of the Western Allies. It was like herding a clowder of cats, but all the cats had frggin tanks and bombs. Eisenhower actually managed to cut through the bullshit and resist all the arm twisting and actually got all the different countries, armies and leaders together to act upon a united plan. He did this while still being able to control his subordinates worst impulses and (mostly) was able to resist the shitty plans put up and embrace the good ones (for the most part, Montgomery did manage to convince him to approve of Operation Market Garden, and it was the last major German victory of the war mostly due to Monty’s mishandling). Tactical battle ability was largely irrelevant for Eisenhower’s role, and his ability to see the big picture clearly and being able to maneuver through the internal politics meant everything to his success as a Supreme Commander.

If Eisenhower or an Eisenhower-esque figure was in charge of Atlas during this latest season, you’d probably get a drastically different turn of events. An Eisenhower would not be so quick to drastic action as Ironwood was. An Eisenhower would probably sit down with their subordinates, hear out all their arguments for why or why shouldn’t a specific action be taken, then calmly consider their actions. An Eisenhower would probably then say “Working with an enemy agent to hack into the Winter Maiden is a dumb idea” and proceed to create plans on how to coordinate all available forces in Remnant to best fend off Salem.

Atlas as a whole doesn’t really strike me as the type of organization that would raise an Eisenhower though. Militaries are always offshoots of the cultures that create them, and I don’t believe it to be a coincidence that a Supreme Commander like Eisenhower would be American. The country was literally founded on democratic ideals and it was enshrined very early into its history that the military would always be subordinate to the civilian government. This precedent makes it necessary that anyone that rises high enough in the military must be able to respect a strong civilian presence and be able to work with both internal and external politics. Any general that rises high enough must be half-general half-politician by necessity (there’s a reason why former military often do have successful political careers after retiring from service, including the aforementioned Eisenhower who eventually became the 34th President of the United States).

Atlas just doesn’t strike me as having that same sort of cultural framework. If anything the Atlas military strikes me as having a cultural framework closer to WW2 Germany where tactical efficiency and high tech weaponry/tools is prized above all else, often at the cost of long term strategic goal setting. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan never set realistic goals for themselves and predictably got steamrolled eventually. Occasionally you’ll get an online thread asking “What if Germany/Japan had smart top leadership during WW2?” But that’s a trick question. A WW2 Germany/Japan with sensible leadership...just isn’t WW2 Germany/Japan at all, it was intrinsic to the identity and character of those nations in that time period. Similarly, I just don’t see an Atlas military that sees a potential Eisenhower in their ranks and thinks to promote them to High Command as opposed to just shuffling them off as an aide to some random officer and never consider them for higher promotion. An organization that prizes short term tactical victory over long term strategic goals just isn’t the type of organization to do that.

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Thing is though, I think just from what I gathered, Ironwood just shot up to be my favorite RWBY character because of how frigging fascinatingly horrible he is. He’s not an entirely awful person (at least not at first), but his own paranoia and fear combined with his habit of confusing short term tactical advantage with long term strategic goals leads him down the path of utterly despicable actions while convincing himself that it’s all for the greater good. All while being an idiot and wasting the legitimate game-changer resources of having an actual army when everyone else is still dicking around with hunters and huntresses as their only defense.

Smart money is he’s gonna die, it seems to be where he’s heading. If CRWBY’s writing staff has some serious cajones however, it’d be really cool if they pulled a Catra on him and see how low they can make him sink before making him hit rock bottom, realize his mistakes and force him to work hard for a redemption arc. I dunno, maybe I’m giving him too much slack but I actually do feel for him a little bit. The dude was clearly an alright guy that had the world fall down on him and just wasn’t suited for the massive responsibility that circumstances forced on his shoulders. He’s still a soldier that genuinely wants to protect Atlas, he’s just too short sighted to see how his actions just aren’t what Atlas is gonna need in the long term. Maybe a harsh talking to by Glinda would do him some good (I still ship IronWitch don’t @ me). I dunno, I just think that a redemption arc would be a lot harder to write than just killing him off, and thus would be that much more satisfying to see it pulled off right like what Noelle Stevenson did with Catra’s character in She-Ra.

#RWBY #bionic-jedi #ironwood #rwby meta #long post #george r. patton #dwight d. eisenhower

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it-is-the-hannah · 4 years

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Have you ever had a piece of media come into your life at exactly the time you need it?

I started listening to The Magnus Archives in February 2020. I had seen people talking about it on Tumblr, but didn't know any of the details beside the characters' names and that this one person on my dash Really Liked that Jon fellow.

I was looking for a new podcast to listen to on my commutes home from class, and so I had downloaded a few episodes, but I didn't get around to listening to them until one foggy afternoon drive.

On a good day, the drive from my house to the university is 40 minutes. The day I started listening to TMA was not a good day. There had been an accident, maybe, or the weather was making people a little more cautious, maybe, or maybe a few too many people were just traveling in the same direction. Whatever the reason, that overcast afternoon, traffic was at a standstill, and I was bored, and I turned on MAG 001-- Anglerfish.

I didn't know how to feel about the violins. I thought the narrator was awfully posh. I was cranky and tired and less than inclined to give something new a fighting chance that afternoon, but for some reason, the story sucked me in.

And then it ended. The Magnus Archives is a Podcast, the narrator said to me for the first time, and I hit play on the next episode.

And then the next.

I was still driving to class four times a week, back in that cold February. Hours in the car, that for those last few weeks, I actually looked forward to, because it meant I got to listen to Magnus. I saved the episodes for my time in the car, and eagerly listened to the plot unfold as I gasped and clutched at the steering wheel when things turned, and sat in my car an extra few minutes in the driveway to let an episode end.

Lockdown hit just as I got to the end of Season 1. I listened to the siege of the archives lying on my bed, trying to ignore the emails from my university about next steps, about these unprecedented times.

At that point, two things were true: I had suddenly gained an ungodly amount of free time as I couldn't leave the house, and I was absolutely hooked on TMA.

I sped through the next three seasons in the span of a month. It was a horror show, yes, but so was the rest of the world at that point, and something about the fictional horror became oddly comforting. The way TMA put things into a framework really helped me put words to the world around me, and beyond that, it was nice to have something that I could follow when everything else felt stagnant, and it was nice to have something that was a my own, that none of the rest of my family listened to, when I was suddenly spending far less time in my own than I was used to.

I finished MAG 160 the week before season 5 dropped. It was April, and spring was finally showing its face to my northern corner of the world, so when the new season premiered, I started listening to it outside. That whole summer, I lazed about in the sun every Thursday to listen to the new episode. It's a horror show, yes, a tragedy, yes, but it's also fun to listen to in a way so many things sometimes aren't. I've never walked away from an episode of Magnus wishing I hadn't listened to it, even when they're sad, or terrifying enough to make me sleep with the lights on.

The community, too, has been wonderful in a way I can't quite describe. Fanart, fanfic, communal screaming online whenever an episode drops, it's just been really cool to be a part of for this past year.

The Magnus Archives is unlike anything I've really gotten invested in before, and yet somehow, it has been exactly what I needed.

I'm writing this before the finale drops, in those last moments of anticipation. And before it all ends, I just wanted to say that even though I am preparing myself to cry a whole bunch, I am so happy to have found this amazing podcast.

#adventures with hannah #the magnus archives #tma #rusty quill #i am experiencing a lot of emotions rn so here have a sappy pre finale feelings post

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keichanz · 5 years

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Sneak

hey @heavenin--hell remember when i said i wanted to write something about that cute Inukag fanart you drew?

welp. i did the thing ;lajdfajfadjkfaldalf

came out a little longer than intended (big shocker there i know pfftt) no seriously i wanted to keep this short and sweet without so much detail in between, but then my stupid brain went “oh Idea™” and then this happened. whoops.

anyway i hope you enjoy this little ditty that your amazing fanart inspired! <3 i love your art so much please never stop i will cry if you do okay not really but still it’s awesome lol

unedited because it’s late and i’m lazy.

“Inuyasha, dinner’s ready!”

Satisfied the hanyou would heed her call and come running at the promise of food, a smiling Kagome ducked back inside her little hut and bustled about, cleaning up a bit of the clutter and retrieving some dishes for their meal as she waited for her ever constant companion. She was confident he would hear her wherever he was in the village, although she suspected he wasn’t that far away. It was something she’d learned earlier on after her return; Inuyasha was never too far away, and though he may be out of sight, she knew he was reluctant to put much distance between them, and she felt the same exact way.

Setting the wooden serving tray on the floor before the fire, a beautiful housewarming gift from Miroku and Sango when she’d officially “moved in” into the hut that had previously belonged to a now deceased elderly man, Kagome sat back and stared thoughtfully into the fire, still smiling as she took a moment to think back on all that had happened since her return nearly four months ago.

Never in all of her life could Kagome have ever possibly imagined she’d be as happy as she was right now without any of the modern conveniences she’d grown up with. If someone had told her before she’d fallen down the well on her fifteenth birthday that three years from now she’d be living with no hot water or plumbing and call it paradise, she’d think them gone completely daft. Someone like her? Whose favorite pastime was taking hot baths living without hot water and being happy about it? Get real!

But then, as fate would hate it, funnily enough this was her paradise. Breathing in the fresh, clean open air, having her friends that were as close as family here with her, and sharing it all with the man she loved. It all sounded too good to be true, and sometimes Kagome did wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, fearing that her nightmares were a reality and she was still trapped in the darkness, never to see her friends or Inuyasha again.

But then strong arms, familiar arms, surrounded her in a comforting embrace as a low voice rumbled assurances in her ear and she was able to breathe once more as blessed reality came rushing back. She’d cling to him, crying her relief, and he’d hold her tight, whispering to her, telling her everything was alright much as he had her first day back.

It was a day Kagome often thought back on with a fond smile, because not only was it the point in which her life changed forever, but it was also when she realized her hanyou wasn’t the same stubborn, temperamental boy she’d involuntary left behind three years ago. They’d all be in Kaede’s hut, celebrating her return and swapping stories of how their lives have gone thus far when, her emotions finally catching up to her, Kagome had without any warning completely broken down. Her entire body had shaken with heart wrenching sobs, her face was wet with endless tears, and no matter how hard she’d tried, she couldn’t stop.

Her relief had been so intense, her joy of being reunited with those she loved most was so great, so incredibly strong she’d been unable to contain it and it had overflowed in the form of relentless crying. She’d been unable to answer Miroku and Sango’s concerned questions, only managing a stuttered apology, but then, surprising everyone in the room, Inuyasha had wordlessly stood up, settled himself beside her, and then scooped her up into his arms before cradling her in his lap, holding her as she broke apart.

Kagome had clung to him desperately, not even bothering to question his very uncharacteristic display of affection. When she’d calmed down enough where she wasn’t a total mess, she’d turned around, held out her arms to the friends that she’d missed so much, and for the next few minutes the five of them had simply held one another, rejoicing in their loved one’s permanent return.

And then the twins, wanting in on all the affection too, had joined in, Kagome laughed, and the atmosphere considerably lightened. She’d gotten introduced to Miroku and Sango’s children then, immediately bonding and falling in love with them, and they’d been able to fall back into conversation like she’d never even left, comfortable, easy, familiar.

The entire time she’d remained seated in Inuyasha’s lap with his arms draped loosely around her and they’d looked so happy no one had the thought to tease them about it.

Kagome blushed, remembering how she’d slept through the night in his arms. She was extremely pleased to say that their relationship had grown by leaps and bounds and while neither of them had truly confessed their feelings yet, they were no stranger to physical intimacy. It wasn’t anything serious yet – just mainly hugging and a few chaste kisses here and there – but Kagome was happy with where things stood between them. There was no rush, after all; she was here to stay and they had all the time in the world now that they didn’t have some great evil looming above their heads twenty-four seven.

Her blush deepened and despite herself a giggle erupted from her mouth before she could stifle it. Well, she wasn’t in a rush at least. While Inuyasha hadn’t pushed her for anything or even hinted that he wanted more, he had been the one to kiss her first, just a few short days after her return. It had been slow, gentle, incredibly sweet, and he’d simply held her afterward, claiming that he’d wasted enough time with her before being an immature, emotionally stunted asshole – his words, not hers, and her laugh had made him grin – and he didn’t want to wait anymore to show her he wanted to be with her.

Kagome had been able to do nothing but drag him in for another kiss but he’d heard her message loud and clear. Ever since then, every once in a while Kagome was able to surprise him by brushing a soft kiss to his lips, but more often than not it was that devilish man that liked to catch her off guard by sweeping her into a kiss without warning and she knew he only did it because he thought the heavily blushing and flustered state he left her in was funny as hell.

Despite this, however, and even though she did often chase the cackling hanyou through the village while shouting various threats of dismemberment, she never asked him to stop.

She did have to admit, however, with that familiar fluttering sensation in her tummy, that it was getting increasingly more difficult to resist the urge to either crawl into his lap at night, or ask him to join her in bed. Not because she wanted to tempt him or take their relationship to the next level, but because she wanted him to hold her as she fell asleep, to be surrounded by his warmth in the hopes that perhaps he would be able to chase the nightmares away.

Kagome suddenly bit her lip in thought and glanced toward the futon, her flush deepening at the direction her thoughts had inadvertently taken, however the small smile that curved her mouth was cautiously hopeful. Maybe…maybe it was time she finally stopped pussyfooting around her feelings and asked him to join her. Hell, maybe she’d even do it tonight. He practically lived here anyway; it’s where he ate, slept, and Kagome didn’t want him to feel like he had to sit sleeping against the wall in his own home when the futon was plenty big enough for both of them—a generous gift from Kaede who’d handed it over with a knowing smile that Kagome hadn’t understood at the time.

Now, though… Kagome sighed and shook her head with a chuckle. The old woman always had been rather perceptive and rather sly, to boot. She sent a silent word of thanks to her dear friend, her decision made. Yes, this was their home, Kagome loved it, and though he occasionally complained that it smelled like old man, she knew he liked it, too.

A giddy sense of excitement welled up inside her and Kagome released a few girlish giggles, allowing herself just a brief moment ridiculousness as she squirmed about where she sat, her face flushed, but her smile bright. She was fairly certain Inuyasha would agree; even if he hadn’t said it in so many words, she knew he cared for her – perhaps even loved her – and really, it wasn’t like he hadn’t done it before, except only this time it wouldn’t be because he was comforting her from another nightmare.

Kagome sighed wistfully, then frowned, gaze swinging toward the door. Speaking of which, where was that man? He should have been here by now.

Getting to her feet, she ambled over to the door and swept aside the reed mat. “Inuyasha? Dinner’s ready.” A pause. “Inuyasha?”

When still she heard nothing but the gentle breeze rustling the trees and saw neither hide nor hair of her hanyou, Kagome sighed and ventured out to go find him. It was possible he was taking a quick dunk in the river to wash off the dirt and sweat of the day, or he could be entertaining the twins at Miroku and Sango’s. He had a soft spot for those girls and they adored him in return, and watching them interact never failed to bring a smile to her face.

Kagome smiled and absentmindedly put a hand over her stomach, biting her lip as she imagined it round with their child. Though it was true she was in no rush in terms of their relationship, she would like to get there someday, and she hoped Inuyasha felt similarly. Of course, knowing her hanyou like she did, she also understood it could be a very long time until he felt ready enough to cross that step, but she was content to wait for however long he needed.

She just really hoped he wouldn’t make her wait too long.

Inwardly snorting but with a little smile curling her lips, Kagome started towards their friends’ house – even if he wasn’t there, they might have a clue as to where he is – however, she’d only taken just a few steps before she spotted the very person she’d been intent on searching for.

Cradled in the roots of his favorite lounging tree, relaxed and utterly dead to the world, Inuyasha hadn’t heard her because he was indulging in one of his recent favorite pastimes, hands behind his head and even snoring lightly. The damp hair and open kosode and suikan suggested he had indeed taken a brief dip into the river before deciding to take a nap and Kagome crept a little closer, being careful not to wake him.

Her expression softened and she knelt down, crossing her arms over her bent knees as she regarded him with a loving smile. If someone had told her three years ago that Inuyasha was napping somewhere, completely oblivious to everything, she wouldn’t have believed them. She’d known him to always be restless with pent up energy, unable to sit down and do nothing while Naraku was still out there destroying lives and collecting Shikon jewel shards. So to see him like this now, so peaceful and without a worry in the world, it was truly refreshing and a sight to savor.

She couldn’t really blame him for developing a fondness for naps. Before they had never had any time to just sit down and rest, to kick back and relax because there had always been a new enemy to fight, a shard to find and purify, and napping was damned near impossible when there was a despicably evil demon constantly looming over their heads, power hungry and hell bent on their destruction.

But now that Naraku was gone, they didn’t have to worry about any of that. They could finally just breathe, take naps, sit down and smell the damn roses and hell, have a freaking cup of tea while they were at it. The point was, they had the time now, and Kagome didn’t blame Inuyasha one bit for taking advantage of it when he could.

As a matter of fact, it was awfully temping to join him in peaceful slumber, to snuggle up against him and doze off for a while, but dinner was over the fire at home and she didn’t want it to spoil. She bit her lip as she stared at him, tilting her head to the side in thought, and then smiled.

She knew exactly how to wake him. She didn’t get this rare opportunity often and she didn’t want it to go to waste.

Fighting back the urge to giggle as she oh so slowly inched closer, Kagome managed to prop herself up over him without, miracle of miracles, waking him up and she was smiling broadly now as he hovered her face above his own. He slept on, none the wiser, and biting down on her lip to stifle a giggle that welled up, Kagome started to lean down—

It happened so fast Kagome couldn’t even draw in the breath to gasp. One second she was leaning in to wake him up via tender kiss, and the next Inuyasha had captured her mouth in a heated kiss that had her toes curling and something warm to pool in the pit of her belly. This kiss was different from all the others they’d shared; this one was slow, languid, and incredibly hot, his tongue slipping past her parted lips for a deeper, more thorough taste.

Then suddenly it was over as quickly as it had begun and Inuyasha lied back, his eyes still closed, but the smirk that curved his mouth upward as she sputtered and blushed above him was all kinds of satisfied male arrogance.

With an inarticulate noise of flustered embarrassment echoing in her throat, Kagome flopped down against him and buried her hot face in his shoulder as he chuckled beneath her.

“It was a good try, Kagome,” he rumbled, his smirk widening at her muffled shut up. “I heard you leaving our home and coming this way, but…”

“Shut up,” Kagome repeated in a peevish mutter and weakly slapped his chest, wondering if her burning face would ever return back to normal. Probably not.

“Ten outta ten effort,” Inuyasha continued and laughed at Kagome’s audible groan. “I already told you, wench.” He turned his head and he felt her shiver as he growled in her ear.

“You can’t sneak up on me.”

did you like what you read? please consider buying me a coffee to support me! c:

#sneak #inukag #inuyasha #kagome #fanfiction #heavenin--hell #keizfanfiction #oneshot #inspired by fanart #because i just love so much aaaaa

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lei-sam · 4 years

Note

Hello you art is amazing! Was wondering if you have any fic recs for good omens? Or fav authors?

Hi there!! Thank you so much! I really appreciate the comment!!

Oh wow! I feel really honored, no one has ever asked me about my fave fics, but I’m more than happy to oblige! Here’s a list (in no particular order) of some of my all-time favorites!!

Flowers From The Grave Of Our Friendship by WaitingToBeBroken

Summary: Crowley is very good at temptation, not so good with what comes afterwards. Aziraphale knows demons don't love so he is happy to take anything Crowley would give him. Both of them are too blind to realize the thing they want is right in front of them. ______________________________________

Slow Show by mia_ugly

Summary: In which temptations are accomplished, grand romantic gestures are made, and two ineffable co-stars only take four seasons of an award-winning television program to realize they’re on their own side (at last, at last.) ______________________________________

The Stars Walk Backward by Beckers522

Summary: The year was 1926. Anthony J. Crowley and his wife were in need of a tutor for their young son Adam. Dozens applied for the job, but only one stuck out above the rest - a kind bookshop owner from Soho. It was impossible for Anthony to know during their first meeting how much of an impact Ezra Fell would have on his family or, more importantly, how much of an impact Ezra would have on his heart. He wasn’t certain of much anymore, but one thing was for sure, Crowley knew he would never be the same again. _________________________________________

Car Trouble by summerofspock

Summary: Aziraphale’s car breaks down so he takes it to the first mechanic he can find. From there, his mundane life changes drastically as he finds himself befriending the man fixing his car. _____________________________________________

Angleterre by Scusi

Summary: 1793 - Aziraphale hadn't always been so cautious of loving Crowley. For the longest time Crowley excuses himself for the simple fact that he's a demon. After Armageddon, well, it has been a long time since Crowley has regretted it all. ______________________________________

how big the hourglass, how deep the sand by bibliocratic

Summary: After the Apocalypse, and with characteristic slowness, both Crowley and Aziraphale think there might be something they need to sit down and talk about. And then Aziraphale disappears. ______________________________________

The Sandford Flower Show by Mussimm

Summary: Crowley had waited six thousand years, kept it all in check. But this was the slipperiest slope he’d ever set foot on and as soon as he’d indulged in a few discretionary acts of kindness he was falling face first into pining, tumbling into flirting, about to dislocate his knees on the sharp rocks of intimacy. Was this really it? What he had waited six thousand years for? A stupid flower show? Aziraphale wasn’t pulling away from him. Maybe… maybe this time he wouldn’t? Maybe they’d hold hands again. Maybe tonight with a bottle of merlot in them he’d finally work up the courage and just kiss him and he wouldn’t pull away. The very moment he’d thought it he spotted the problem at the flower show. _________________________________________

Flowers for Anthony by Atalan

Summary: Crowley didn't look up immediately when he heard the shop door open; he was just in the middle of finishing off a complicated bouquet, and the blasted ribbon was being difficult about things. "Just a sec," he said, scowling as the end slipped away from him again. There was a pause. And then a voice, softly, "There you are." An unusual customer walks into Anthony Crowley's flower shop with a very specific request. AU, series, complete, angst with a happy ending. ____________________________________________

Whatever a Moon Has Meant; Whatever a Sun Will Sing by Beckers522

Summary: There was a photograph, torn down the middle. Pieces scattered as far as the East is from the West. Thousands of kilometers separated them now, as the world fell to pieces around them. And yet, if someone were to look closely, if someone were to traverse the space between them and lay the folded and worn parchment flat on the table, if someone were to line them up just so, they might realize that the two pieces fit together like the pieces of a puzzle, Like the gears of a clock. Like a nut and a bolt. Almost as if they were made from the same stock. This is a tale of love and of loss. Of heartache and of hope. Told in three parts, follow Aziraphale and Crowley as they navigate the hardships of growing up, the horrors of war, and the miraculous wonder of finding love in the most unlikely of places. __________________________________________

So Hey, I Drew You In A Coffee Shop Before Christmas, You're Welcome by ServantOfMischief

Summary: Aziraphale decides to go to the coffee shop right by his bookshop just to relax a bit and read a book, even doodle a little bit if inspiration struck him. And inspiration just walked in the door in the shape of a redhead with the most ridiculous shades. ____________________________________________

Time is the Longest Distance by Beckers522

Summary: Six months had passed since the world hadn't ended and life was good. Life was more than good. It was more than nice. Life on Earth, here in his little corner of London, here with Crowley by his side was absolutely wonderful. Until the day that it wasn't. Until Aziraphale walked into Crowley's flat to find his best friend mysteriously discorporated with both Heaven and Hell staying silent on the matter. With Crowley trapped in Hell and Aziraphale unable to reach him, the pair set off to find their way back to each other. They will have to fight against Heaven, Hell, and Time itself to make their way back into each others arms once more. _______________________________________

A Curious Case of Miracles on Marlborough Street by akfedeau

Summary: After stopping the apocalypse, Crowley and Aziraphale finally take the next step in their six-thousand-year friendship. But when a spate of miracles sweeps across Soho and Mayfair, they realize their amorous escapades may have an unintended side effect. As they scramble to restore balance and an archangel arrives to investigate, Heaven and Hell’s messengers learn that you can never have too much of a good thing.

(That last one has some of the most beautiful fanart I’ve ever seen!!! it is top notch!!)

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prettyboyporter · 5 years

Text

Based on this NSFW harringrove fanart by ky_rosh. Go check him out on Twitter -- Kyle’s art is top notch.

By the time late November rolls around, Billy feels sure of two things: he’s recovered fully from his injuries, and that Steve Harrington is his friend. Over the months, Steve keeps Billy company, sticks around when Doc Owens is there and helps out with Billy’s physical therapy exercises. Helps rub cocoa butter on Billy’s scars muttering you look fine, Billy, they look like a Judas Priest album or some shit, stop being such a big baby. He’ll brings board games, movies, cards, whatever. It’s been a gradual shift into friendship, into teasing and healing wounds, both literal and figurative.

So one day Steve shows up with a paper bag, sits down on the couch at Billy’s tiny apartment with a smirk. He pulls out four skin mags and lays them out on the coffee table between them. Steve’s blushing and stammering. "Seems like you’re feeling better and I like. I dont know, I thought that you might want. Like. Might need something like this. Thought you might like these, yknow. Since you're not driving yet I thought I'd bring the smut to you. I mean, I know Max isn’t gonna bring you this stuff so. I thought I”d be a good buddy."

Billy claps Steve on the shoulder. “Titty mags, Stevie? You’re an officer and a gentleman.” He leans forward with a smile and jokingly flips them open, women with giant tits and wide eyes looking up, legs parted, bending over, touching themselves. And they both start looking, laughing like this is dumb but they keep looking anyway. Steve gets a little too breathy though, and his laugher is too forced, more like a huff, and Billy feels like the air's been knocked out of him when Steve reaches down, palms his own crotch, says, "fuck" and he’s not laughing anymore.

And Billy gives a little huff too, and licks his lips. "Mi casa es su casa. Help yourself." He leans back to cup himself. Steve rubs a himself a little harder.

Steve makes a little sound, mmm , dips his fingers below his waistband. Is teasing himself a bit, Billy's eyes are fixed on the mags, trying not to look over, but can see in his peripheral vision that Steve’s touching his dickhead, rolling fingers over the tip -- but when Steve dips his whole HAND inside, Billy can't help but flat out watch.

BIlly sees the bumpy outline of Steve's hand shifting under the fabric, can see the hard line of Steve’s dick, and Billy's eyes are transfixed. He can't look away, doens't even realize he's rubbing his own dick on top of his shorts.

Steve starts stroking himself in earnest now. He slides his hand up on Billy's thigh, squeezes, shoves his shorts down with the back of his hand so now his whole dick is out, and Billy reaches over and fists his hand in Steve’s shorts. "Fuck, Stevie,” he pants.

Billy's seen steve's dick in the showers, and he knows what Steve's packing. But he's never seen Steve hard before, and, fuck. Billy's got his hand in his own shorts now, jacking himself, and Steve leans over, kisses Billy's neck.

And now that Steve's lips are on Billy's skin, its over. Billy pulls back a bit to catch Steve's lips in a kiss, and he's shaking, god he's shaking, and he comes all over his own fingers, says Stevie as he's coming back down to earth, feels Steve next to him shudder and still, huffing as he comes with his lips pressed to Billy’s.

Eventuallly the titty mags get shoved back in the bag because.

Because Billy doesn’t need them -- not when he’s got Steve’s dick at his lips. Not when he’s got Steve Harrington in his bed.

#harringrove #lemon #my fic #my writing #fanart appreciation #kyrosh #fic inspired by fanart

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janaikam · 4 years

Text

Adrien Protection Squad

HAPPPY BIRTHDAY APS!!!! I love all of y’all so so much! Thank you for all your help and support in my writing and my attempts at art! I hope you enjoy this little fic I wrote for you all!

Thank you @macaronsforchat for betaing!!!

Summary: Alya discovers a fun little website and decides that she wants to share it with her friends.

Read on AO3

“You will not believe what I discovered last night,” Alya said, sitting down at the bakery’s table.

The ‘Fab Four’, as the school called them, had planned on spending the Saturday together, meeting up at the Dupain-Cheng residence.

Marinette had been surprised when she was not the last one to the table her parent’s reserved for them. Usually, she was late because she underestimated how long it took her to get ready.

When Marinette had come down earlier, Adrien and Nino had just been casually talking. They were sitting across from each other with a plate of croissants in between them.

Marinette had taken the seat next to her boyfriend and grabbed a croissant for herself.

It didn’t take much longer before burst Alya in.

“What did you find, oh wise one?” Marinette asked sarcastically.

“There is an Adrien Agreste Protection Squad Blog.”

Adrien, who was mid-bite of a croissant, coughed, choking a bit on the pastry. Marinette patted his back in an effort to help.

“Why is that such a surprise? We already knew our dude Adrien had a fan club,” Nino questioned, winking towards Adrien.

Marinette noticed how Adrien flushed, his face becoming even redder.

“This one’s way different. Like it’s almost obsessive, but not in a creepy way if you get what I mean.” Alya pulled out her phone, loading the webpage for them to see. “It’s like one big chat room. There’s a section for general chatting, admiring anything you’ve been in, there’s even fan art and fan fiction.”

At the disgusted faces of the group, Alya quickly added, “Nothing inappropriate. It’s all pretty well moderated and contained. Surprisingly there aren’t a lot of self-inserts.”

“Alya! Did you read some of them!?” Marinette couldn’t decide whether she wanted to know more or stop Alya from talking. It was all weird to her.

“Only a few.” Alya waved her hand dismissively. “Apparently you fans think you’re some super suave guy or you’re just a weeb. There’s no in-between.”

“Well they’re wrong. He’s both,” Marinette said, kissing Adrien on his cheek. Adrien leaned in a bit closer to her, resting his head on top of her head.

“What else is there Als? Why is this place so unique?” Adrien questioned.

“They aren’t just admirers. There’s a lot of other stuff beyond making stuff about you. There’s a page dedicated to chaos called, Xhosa. There’s one talking something called, sult, which I think is supposed to be a sock cult? Probably has something to do with that floating sock in one of your pictures. My personal favorite though is the one named, Gabriel Agreste has no rights.”

“Glad to know they have a page dedicated to the truth,” Nino commented, leaning in closer to Alya’s phone.

“Yup! It’s pretty neat. They practically bash him because he’s a trash parent and ya know the whole supervillain thing,” Alya explained. “They go about it such a detailed manner and from what I can tell most of it was before Ladybug and Chat Noir stopped him.”

Under the table, Marinette squeezed Adrien’s hand. Everything with his dad was really complicated since he had just been arrested a few months ago. The trial hadn’t occurred yet, which officially left him under the care of Gabriel, but Adrien had been bouncing between staying with Marinette and Nino until things were finalized.

“These seem like my kind of people! What’s this xhosa tab?” Nino clicked on the link, which brought them to a chat room type place. Compared to some of the other pages they had seen this one seemed to be really disorganized.

Based on the name in the chat, it seemed like everyone was pretending to be a knock off of some other person. Marinette couldn’t really tell who because the chat was moving so fast.

“This chat is always like this from what I can tell. I think this is what they call an apocalypse, where they change their usernames to be something similar. Honestly, it’s all really confusing, and this page gives me a headache every time I see it.”

Alya clicked on the fanart tab, which had lots of art of Adrien. Some pieces had pictures with Marinette in them, while others had the Fab Four. Marinette couldn’t help but stare in awe at some of the different art styles on the screen.

“Woah,” she breathed.

“Yeah, it’s really cool,” Alya scrolled down the page a bit, stopping at a familiar piece of art. “Remember that person who vamped up that self-portrait you did?”

Adrien nodded.

Marinette remembered it really well too. They had just been passing some time with a fun little Instagram tag game and someone had taken Adrien’s cute little self-portrait and turned it into an amazing piece of art.

“That girl is on this site too! She had some other stuff too, but I have to say the collaboration was on point!”

“I’m honestly still surprised someone thought to make that for me. It was a really nice surprise.” Adrien squinted his eyes a bit. “Hey what’s that events tab?”

“It’s just a few things that they’ve done collectively as a blog. A secret Santa, an Easter event, blog birthday. Things like that.”

“What could they have possibly done for Easter?” “Ooh, when was their birthday?”

Alya ignored Nino’s question in favor of Adrien’s. Probably because there was a lot an Adrien server could’ve done for Easter.

“Their birthday is in a couple of days actually. Wanna do something?”

XXXX

Marinette gave Adrien a thumbs up as she pressed record on the camera.

Adrien had decided to make a video for the people of the fan site.

Marinette thought it was a great way to show appreciation to them, so she was helping Adrien create his video.

They had set up a little recording area in her room, and all that was left was for Adrien to record the video.

“Uh, hi there...It’s me, Adrien. Oh, wait you probably knew that already.” Adrien laughed nervously, pausing in his speech.

Marinette gave him an encouraging smile and thumbs up. Adrien smiled softly, thanking her through his eyes.

Taking a deep breath, Adrien continued, “I wanted to say thank you for creating this amazing website dedicated to me. I can really feel all the Adrien appreciation, and I love how you all seem like an inviting community. I’m so thrilled to know that I have indirectly contributed to creating such a wonderful community. Thank you. And just know Adrien loves everyone on the Adrien Protection Squad!”

#adrien protection squad #aps events #aps birthday #adrien #marinette #alya #nino #aps anniversary #aps first anniversary #my fic #my writing #miraculous ladybug

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stillebesat · 5 years

Text

White Lies (2/5)

Sanders Sides: Deceit, Virgil, Logan, Roman, Patton Sequel to Little Lies Blurb: Deceit has been stuck in his ‘role’ as Dilyn for almost a year now. It’s about time he changed that. Fic Type: Hurt/Comfort, Tiny!Sides Inspiration: From @yay-cats9‘s wonderful Fanart she did for Little Lies. <3 Again thank you for the artwork! I love it! Overall Fic Warnings: Deceit, Negative Self Talk, Panic/Anxiety Attacks

To Catch Up: Chapter 1

Such a child.

Dilyn rested his head against his knees, pressing his burning eyes against the soft fabric of the circus tent of a cape, breath hitching no matter how hard he tried to gain control of himself.

Such a fool.

Fresh tears welled, running down his cheeks as he sniffed, rubbing mucus all over his grown up uniform, shivering in the darkness.

He’d been an idiot to believe--believe that wishing on a stupid star of Roey’s making would--would change him back.

Some Gatekeeper, unable to tell your truths from your lies.

And hadn’t wishing on a fake star been one of the bigger lies he’d told to the others when they were younger?

Dilyn hunched his shoulders. He’d been a child too long. Been caught up in the act. Been--been believing that a stupid little wish would--would--

Thomas doesn’t need Deceit. That’s a Fact.

A soft whimper left his lips as he curled up tighter. He would--would need to head back inside soon. Get---get back to bed like--like the good Dilyn was supposed to be. Not Le--let--the others--th-they couldn’t kno-know that he’d--tried--tried this stupid wishing thing. He shouldn’t--

“Dilyn?” A familiar voice asked in a low tone. “What are you doing--”

Dilyn stiffened. Virgil. How long had he been up here?! He couldn’t see him like this!

He grabbed at the air in a knee jerk reaction to silence Anxiety. To get him to--

Idiot.

It doesn’t work for them.

Dilyn dropped his hand before finishing the gesture, his heart dropping into the pit of his stomach.

He hadn’t been able to silence the Big Four since--since---

Dilyn whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut.

Powerless.

Some Gatekeeper.

Useless.

“Dee?”

There had been a time when the barest hint of being willing to silence him would have sent Annie fleeing from Deceit’s presence.

Some Gatekeeper.

Dilyn choked back another sob, burying his head deeper into the folds of his cape. Those days were long gone. Annie rarely cowered since he’d joined the Light Sides. Since he’d been accepted by Thomas.

Thomas will never accept you.

You’ll be a child forever.

He tensed as Virgil sat down next to him. Why was he still here? Annie didn’t care about him. He only went along with disguising himself as Deceit in order to protect Thomas from the Others. He should be back downstairs celebrating the New Year with Roey, Morey, and Logie.

He should be celebrating that Deceit wasn’t there to terrorize and ruin the night. Ruin another year.

“You remember when we used to come up here as kids?” Annie asked as the banging of pots and pans below finally faded away.

Dilyn’s breath hitched, his fingers digging into the tent that was his cape. “No.” He lied, gritting his teeth to keep himself from saying more. If he didn’t talk to Annie then he would have no reason to stay and would leave him alone.

Virgil scoffed, tapped his fingers against the boards. “I’m surprised.” He remarked. “You were the one who brought me up here when we were…what? Five?”

Five? No. He’d tried to do so back then, but Annie had been far too entrenched in the subconscious to convince him that year. “Six.” He whispered.

It had been a nightmare getting the darkling up here. Each step had taken an eternity to take because Anxiety had been convinced that every shifting shadow was one of the Big Three descending on them to banish them back into the subconscious away from Happy Little Thomas.

“That was the first year I saw Creativity’s Star.” Virgil shifted, his arm brushing Dilyn’s as he settled more comfortably against the bars of the balcony. “You told me that if we wished hard enough, whatever we wished for would come true.”

Foolish.

Such Naivety.

Dilyn sniffed, rubbing his nose against his cape as he reluctantly lifted his head, resting his chin on his knees as he watched the last sparks of the star vanish. “I lied.” He whispered. Because that was what he--what Deceit did. Lied. Again and again and again. Telling the others what they wanted to hear, telling them what would give them hope because he too had been foolish enough to believe that they wouldn’t always be in the dark. Always be in the subconscious.

He knew better now.

Annie huffed a laugh, his tense shoulders relaxing as he slid down the banister, his head now more on level with Dilyn’s. “I don’t think you did. At least not as much back then. I mean, you wished on it too.”

It didn’t work back then either.

Dilyn choked on a sob, scrubbing roughly at his eyes. He’d known better back then, why had he--

Some Gatekeeper.

He’d been little too long, gotten sucked into the delusions children easily believed. “Imma fool. Wishes no come true.”

“Not all of them no.” Annie looked down, fiddling with the strings of his hoodie. “And the ones that do...don’t always…” He licked his lips, shrugging a shoulder. “...they don’t come true when we want them to, but when the time is right.”

When the time was right? When the time was RIGHT? He vividly remembered telling that same stupid sentiment to Annie right before he’d left them for the light sides. And now Annie, no now ANXIETY of all people had used those words to defy Deceit. To leave despite Deceit’s strong argument otherwise. And it had worked for him. It had WORKED and---not--not---

You’ll never be liked by Thomas. Admit it. He hates you. You’re no Virgil. You don’t get redemption. You get to be a freaking CHILD.

“NEVER.” Dilyn practically spat the word, tearing his too large hat off his head and flinging it at the balcony door.

Never.

Thomas will NEVER like you.

You failed.

Some Gatekeeper.

His eyes burned as fresh tears streamed down his cheek. “Never. NEVER. NEVER COMES TRUE! IT NEVER--”

Dilyn turned shoving his face into Virgil’s side, unable to keep it together anymore, he sobbed harder, clinging to Annie’s hoodie like the helpless pathetic child he was. “Nevernevernever.” “Whoa--whoa. Hey.” Annie wrapped an arm around him, holding him close. “Dee--”

“It’s Dilyn.” He bitterly corrected. He would always be Dilyn. He was nothing else to Thomas now. Not after a year! “Deceit’s gone. Powers bye bye. All unwant--”

Virgil inhaled sharply, holding Dilyn closer. “You’re lying.”

Lying?

LYING!

Dilyn growled, shoving away from Annie’s side. “I STILL SMALL!” He yelled, pushing to his feet, gesturing at himself. “I HERE A YEAR, VEE AND I STILL SMALL. TOMMY DOESN’T WANT ME. DOESN’T NEED ME.” He glared at Virgil, stomping his foot. “HOW IS THAT.” His voice cracked. “LYING?!”

“Hey.” Vee sat up, pulling him back into a tight hug, rocking him back and forth “Hey. No. Dee. No. It’s not like that.”

How could he believe that? HOW?

Dilyn whimpered, digging his fingers into Virgil’s jacket, shivering as the wind picked up, easily sending a cool gust through his oversized clothes. “Tis too.”

“It’s not. You don’t think….” Vee exhaled, rubbing his back. “That me wishing the same stupid wish every year was...pointless? You don’t think after ten years I had stopped believing Thomas would ever accept me? That all my work was for nothing?”

But it hadn’t been. Virgil had been accepted. His stupid wish had come true.

He’s better than you. Of course it would come true. Thomas likes him.

Vee, squeezed him, running his fingers through his hair. “Your wishing isn’t pointless. You will be yourself again, Dee. You’ll...grow up. Thomas will...will learn to--”

Learn to what?

Get rid of you. That’s what. Thomas doesn’t need Deceit anymore.

The lump in his throat grew bigger. Dilyn pressed his face harder into the hoodie. “He loves me.” He choked out.

“He hated me too.” Virgil said softly. “You know that.”

Yah. So?

“But look how that’s changed in the past year.”

Dilyn huffed a bitter laugh, curling up in Vee’s lap. Sure. Annie had changed a lot. Revealing his name, upgrading his clothes, changing the Big Three into the Big Four with the others accepting him as necessary to Thomas’s functions. But that was different. “That...you.” He whispered. “You...liked. All Tommy’s fans like you.” He’d seen the feedback in the videos. Seen the fans wanting Virgil to be loved by the others. The fans had loved Anxiety from the very beginning. While Deceit--Deceit--had-- “I’m...I just…” He raised a hand to his scaled cheek.

Hated.

Scorned.

What more did you expect from a Dark Side?

Only pure evil would pretend to be Morality.

You’ll never be liked by them.

Ever.

They hate you.

They always will.

Virgil pressed his warmer hand against Dilyn’s, rubbing his thumb gently against his scales. “You’re doing what I did when I first showed up.” He said. “Making a bad first impression. Thomas will come around. More of his fans will come around. I mean...you’ve convinced us as Dilyn that you’re not that bad of a guy. It just takes--”

He groaned, jerking his head away from Vee’s hand. “Time.” He practically spat, fingers clenching on the drawstrings of his hoodie. It just takes time. Just a little more time. Another day of being small, another month of being a child. None of the others had been small for this long though! How did they know anything? “How. Much. Longer. Vee?” He demanded. “How mucher more?” He sniffed, rubbing his nose against the cape. “I small a year! I wanna…” Dilyn dropped his voice, “I wish….”

Let Deceit Rise.

Just let me be…me.

Virgil reached out resting his hand against the scales one more, a small smile playing on his lips as Dilyn leaned into his touch. “That you were big? That you were Deceit again?”

He flinched, ducking his head. “It’s dumb.”

Virgil gently lifted his chin back up to meet his eyes. “I don’t think so.”

Truth.

Why--Tears again filled his eyes. “But you should.” He whispered, voice trembling. “I do.”

Vee exhaled, chewing on his bottom lip, dark eyes searching Dilyn’s.

Dilyn frowned, fidgeting under Annie’s stare. “What?” He finally snapped, poking him in the nose, unable to take the scrutiny.

Virgil wrinkled his nose, pulling back out of Dilyn’s reach. “Nothing.” He huffed, shaking his head. “No, you thinking something. What?”

“Just…” Virgil shrugged. “Your role as Dilyn. Maybe...it’s time to end it.”

End it? Dilyn scoffed. END IT? He could only end it if he was BIG again. And that was NEVER going to happen. He was powerless. ”Why? All clear. I small. Forever. The End.”

“Well…” Virgil moved him off his lap “I was thinking that I can’t make you big again, Dee.”

Dilyn rolled his eyes, hugging himself in an effort to stop shivering. “Duh, Annie.” He grumbled. If any of the others could have made him big again they would have already done it! It wasn’t like the Big Four actually wanted him around. They were just tolerating him to protect Thomas from the others.

Some Gatekeeper.

“But.”

Dilyn looked up, frowning as the night sky behind Vee seemed to waver. “But?”

Virgil smirked, raising his own hand in a similar gesture to Deceit’s silencing one, the inky darkness behind him surging forward as he completed the movement to engulf Dilyn in pitch blackness before he could blink. “You can still be Deceit.”

To Be Continued Chapter 3

Taglist in Reblog

#White Lies #stillebesat #Sanders Sides #Deceit #Virgil #Anxiety #Tiny!Deceit #negative self talk tw #Panic attack tw #anxiety attack tw #It's been a bit but hey look I'm finally updating! Woot!!

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penguiduck · 4 years

Text

The Relationship Between Online Readers & Writers: Motivation and Appreciation for Writers: Implementation

Introduction | Part 1: What is this Relationship? | Part 2: Creating Motivation and Appreciation for Readers | Part 3: A Day in the Life of… | Part 4: Creating Motivation and Appreciation for Writers: Perspectives | Part 5: Creating Motivation and Appreciation for Writers: Implementation | Part 6: How to Write the Best Feedback | Part 7: Where Does This Leave Us?

Previously, I provided some perspective on why writers require feedback and a sense of appreciation. I believe fostering empathy for the writing process is vital in this relationship between readers and writers online, so understanding why it’s important is the first step. In this chapter, I would like to discuss the implementation of how to show your favorite writers appreciation and provide them motivation so they may continue to update the work that you so enjoy. I will mostly be focusing on feedback in the form of comments or reviews, but will mention a few other alternatives.

First, I’d like to provide a quick breakdown of why leaving feedback should matter to you:

1. It’s polite. It’s common courtesy. If someone took time out of their day to provide you with content you enjoy free of charge, then you should take a few minutes to show your gratitude. For more information on why, refer to Chapter 5: Motivation and Appreciation for Writers: Perspectives.

2. If anything, it can only help the writer — as such, this directly benefits you, the reader. Feedback is essential to the writing process. If writers do not receive feedback, they may not feel any incentive to continue writing or, at least, continue posting their work online.

3. This is your currency, your contribution to the online community. One-sided relationships are not healthy or productive. To maximize benefits for both parties, writers and readers, readers must also partake. For more information about currency, please refer to Chapter 2: What Is This Relationship?

With that said, let’s continue with things you can do for writers.

1. Leave feedback. This can come in the form of comments or reviews, notes, or even Facebook chats. The medium doesn’t matter so much, though I have heard from some writers that they prefer their feedback to all be in one place, not only for their reference, but also so that others may see it.

Nevertheless, feedback should be personal, specific, and thoughtful.

When constructing a comment, the content of what you write is important. This is your opportunity to show how much you appreciate and admire a writer’s work. You’ve probably heard of the age-old adage “quality over quantity,” and it applies here. Receiving a comment that says “Great! I love this!” or “I like this! Excited for next update!” is nice, but these comments don’t really tell the writer anything. For all they know, these comments could be copied and pasted from one source to the next — there isn’t any evidence in generic comments that readers have even read your work.

Think about something that you love, a hobby perhaps.

Let’s say you’re an artist, and two viewers leave comments on your work:

a) Pretty! Love seeing your work!

b) Oh, wow! Your art is breathtaking. I really love the vibrant colors you use to paint the background. Your characters always have the most expressive eyes — they’re like a portal to the soul. You clearly put a lot of love and effort into this, and it shows.

Which one would more likely motivate you to paint again? See what I mean?

Or, let’s assume that you’re a dancer. You have a performance, and two friends say:

a) That was great!

b) Your performance was amazing. I thought you were absolutely stunning in that dress, and your music selection is spot-on — it really matches your personality. I’d love the opportunity to see your next performance!

Which one would more likely give you warm fuzzies?

All options above took me less than a minute to type, which is far less time than a writer would spend on creating content for you. I encourage you to put yourself in the writer’s shoes when providing feedback. If all you provide are generic comments, do you think writers feel special at all?

How often should you leave feedback? Well, that depends. If the writer updates often, as in multiple times a week, perhaps a comment every other or every few chapters would suffice — I’m sure you are busy, to0, after all, and while I very much appreciate and enjoy reading all comments (they are always so nice to open my email to!), I don’t expect them every update. Then again, if you tend to leave shorter comments that take you no more than two or three minutes to compose, could it really hurt to brighten a writer’s day? If the writer updates less often, once per month, perhaps, then I think it’s good practice to leave a comment each time.

Consider this: I have a fuel tank for my inspiration when it comes to writing. I can run on a near-empty tank, but it’s difficult for me to do, and I struggle with creating content. It’s far easier for me to write and put out quality work when my inspiration tank is full. Every piece of feedback I receive fills it with a certain amount of inspiration.

A quick “Hey, this is really great! Every time you update, I get so giddy!” perhaps adds one measurement of inspiration.

A more detailed “Wow, I liked how you wrote [character name] in that scene — it was spot on! I feel like his personality is so hard to get right, but you really nailed that thought process. His interaction with [character name] really proves that he’s a lot softer than most people think he is!” perhaps adds three to four measurements of inspiration.

Then, a thoughtful “You know, I’m always so impressed with your depiction of [character name]. The cogs in his mind are always turning, and he’s so introspective. I felt that you captured his strategic disposition well here, and I’m eager to see how he’s going to use this newfound information to approach [character name]. I would think that he’d be a little more soft-spoken, though I’m also eager to see him kind of angry and protective. Looking forward to your next update! Your writing is always a treat to read!” could add ten measurements of inspiration.

Ultimately, readers should provide feedback as often as they’d like, knowing that each comment contributes to that inspirational fuel tank for their writers in varying degrees. If you want high quality, muse-filled updates, this feedback is absolutely essential to contributing to that process. This is why writers ask for feedback and are overjoyed to receive it — it is a precious resource that can only come from their dear readers.

One struggle I often hear from readers is that while they appreciate and enjoy my work, they don’t know what to say. But fear not! In the next chapter, I will go into detail on how to write these personal, specific, and thoughtful comments.

2. Leave likes, kudos, loves, whatever the medium of approval is. I would argue this is bare minimum, equivalent to a “Thank you. I like this.” If you received any amount of enjoyment from someone’s hard-wrought work, you owe them this. It is literally a click of the button and will take a fraction of a second.

I’ve seen notes from readers who say that they will never leave a kudo on AO3 content unless the work is finished. This thought process is asinine. I would compare this to you volunteering to help paint a friend’s house over a few days. You offer your labor free of charge, from the kindness of your heart, and your friend refuses to say thank you, buy you lunch, give you refreshments during the week. “I’ll only show you gratitude when you’re finished,” your friend says. This is toxic relationship. DO NOT do this. Give your writers the appreciation they deserve while they are hard at work, not just when they’ve finished. Do not be so emotionally deprived that you refuse to perform a simple task that can only make writers feel good about themselves and their work.

3. Bookmark, subscribe, and follow on social media. While this isn’t direct feedback, per se, each of these adds to a metric and can grant your favorite writer a following.

I normally wouldn’t say that bookmarks show appreciation because they’re more for the reader’s benefit that the writer’s, but I will say that I’ve seen some comments written on bookmarks on my works on AO3 that have really made me smile. Subscribing, again, is more for the benefit of the reader. However, adding to that number does denote a certain level of popularity for that piece of writing. Following your favorite writers on social media is much the same.

4. Fanart. If you are creatively minded, then perhaps you’d like to express your appreciation through artistic means. This goes without saying, but sending a writer a piece of art inspired by their work is flattering. 10/10 will give warm fuzzies. For me, I always welcome fanart and am thrilled to receive it.

5. Word of mouth and referrals. Market your writer’s content for them. You can tell your friends about it or recommend it via social media. It’s always wonderful to hear when new readers find and enjoy your work, and it’s the ultimate compliment, knowing that another reader referred them. If a writer has a Tumblr or Twitter, follow them and reblog or retweet their updates. I think this is a phenomenal way to show that you appreciate them and the hard work they put into their writing.

Of course, these are just a few ways for readers to express appreciation and motivate their favorite writers. If you have any other suggestions or practices, please feel free to leave a comment!

Next up is a tutorial on how to write quality comments. Stay tuned!

Also posted on AO3.

#Writing tips #Writing #writeblr #writers of tumblr #writing advice #Writing tutorials #writing help #writing problems #writing positivity #writing encouragement #writers and readers #readers #writers #currency #feedback #kudos

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taetaesbaebaepsae · 5 years

Text

Love Me Less

A/n: This was up on Patreon a week before I posted it here, I release fics around a week early over there and have some Patreon exclusive drabbles, fanart, so feel free to check it out at my Patreon. Commissions are also always open. I’m going to be doing profiles and such for characters here too, so stay tuned!

Summary: Jimin is an undercover cop, and you know he’s lying to you. But he’s trapped in a huge mess, and he doesn’t want you in the crossfire. Multifandom Mafia AU (BTS, EXO, Got7)

Warnings: Some violence, mention of drug use, angst

Word Count: 2892

Jimin winces when the door shuts too loudly, but it doesn’t matter anyway, because you’re sitting at the kitchen table and there’s a bag packed by your feet and his heart sinks to his toes. Suddenly he’s so tired he can barely hold his head up, and you’re looking at him warily and he can’t help thinking about how this all started.

Jimin couldn’t help but notice you bartending at this little place near the freeway, a dive bar called the Dirty Dozen and owned by Min Yoongi, who was well known for playing all sides of the game, letting certain gangs drink free depending on who owned the area that month. He’d been trying to blend in, trying to be just another thug ordering soju from you, but he couldn’t help catching your eyes when you brought him a drink in these little cut off shorts, asking you about the tattoo on the long line of your thigh.

It’s second nature, flirting with a bartender, especially one that looks like you, and your easy smile made the two years he’d already been undercover seem just a little bit lighter. It’s fun and casual and easy, and he tells himself it’s just for intel, buying you soju so that your tongue gets looser, maybe you’ll slip out something about Kim Yugyeom since he was always hanging around you at the bar.

A month later, he has a drawer at your apartment and he’s spending four nights a week there, barely making it out of the house to meet with Namjoon and Hoseok because he just can’t stop kissing your upturned mouth.

Hoseok gives him a wary look the sixth time he shows up with your nude lipstick on his collar, and throws a few pictures on the interrogation table. Jimin only glances at them, sees they’re mostly of you with those long thighs draped over his lap at the bar, and looks up at Hoseok expectantly.

“What? You gonna tell me you never got some strange while undercover?”

Hoseok shrugs, sits down across from him, slumped in the chair a bit, legs spread wide.

“Sure. But that’s not what this is, and we both know it.”

Jimin leans back in his chair, smirking a little, putting his hands behind his head. He hasn’t even seen Jung in a couple of months, not since he’d given him the poke and stick “Nevermind” across his ribs, telling him if he’d be telling people that he’d done time, no one would ever believe he got away without a mark.

“It’s not? You know something I don’t?”

“I know you’re spending an awful lot of time at her place.”

Jimin shrugs. “That Yugyeom kid from the Im gang is sweet on her. Sometimes he tells her stuff.”

“Yeah? You think he’ll keep doing that after you threw him up against the bar wall last night?” Hoseok says, deadpan, and Jimin laughs a bit.

“What can I say? I’ve always been a bit territorial.”

“Just tell me you aren’t getting too deep, Jiminie,” Hoseok says, softly, and Jimin loses his smile, sighs and places his forearms on the table.

“Maybe I am. I don’t know. It’s hard to tell, Seok. At first it was just a pretty smile and long legs and intel, but now… I’ve been in this what? 18 months now? It’s easy enough to believe a street kid from Busan chose a different path. Hell, sometimes I believe it myself.”

Namjoon comes in, then, with a huge file, and Hoseok groans.

“Fun’s over. Christ, look at that paperwork.”

“It’s good news,” Namjoon promises, throwing it down on the table with a thud. He looks as if he’d had one too many late nights, his white button up wrinkled and stained with coffee, hair mussed and too long at the collar.

"Good news?" Hoseok looks skeptical.

Namjoon slides a photograph out of the file and flashes them at Jimin.

"This is your girl, yeah?"

Jimin stiffens a bit. It's you, all right, piggybacking on this muscle pig's back, he'd recognize those legs anywhere.

He nods. "Who's the beefcake?"

"Lee Hoseok. He was high up in Hyunwoo's crew until he went ghost a couple of months ago. Everyone thought he was dead along with Hyunwoo, but turns out both of them have been in lock up over in Daegu. Turned themselves in, been ratting out all their friends for weeks. We just got the file."

Jimin groans. "So you're telling me the crew I've been trying to bust for a fucking year and a half just rolled over? Just like that?"

"Just like that," Namjoon agrees, but he's rifling in the file again and Jimin knows there's more.

He slides a photograph across the table to Jimin.

Jimin looks it over curiously. The guy is tall, lean but his suit is expertly tailored and there are muscles there, for sure. His first undercover stint had been in an underground fight club and he hadn't broken the habit of sizing people up. Probably not too strong, but fast, likely, well balanced. His hands look manicured so he probably didn't get his hands dirty, and that suit…

"New player? Family ties, I'd guess?"

Namjoon nods. "Good eye. He's Kim Junmyeon's cousin, and mostly we'd dismissed him because he stays quiet, to himself. Lately he's been seen with Do and Zhang, though, and the rumor is that he's up to take over for Kim."

"He looks young," Jimin muses. He's handsome, full mouth, charming smile.

"He's only a few years older than you. We'd expected Minseok for next in line but he's been in the spotlight so much, been arrested five times this year. This kid... Jongin... he's clean. No record at all."

Jimin throws the photograph down on the table. "What's this got to do with me?"

"Turns out he drinks at your girl's bar. Not only that, Min says he tips double when she serves him."

Jimin frowns. "Min's giving intel again?"

Hoseok snorts. "Yoongi would sell out his own mother for a few thousand won."

Namjoon nods, his eyes going wide and bright like he gets when he's chasing something.

"Your girl has all the connects. She used to live with this Lee Hoseok and now someone from Im's crew and Jongin have the hots for her? You've gotta stick with her."

"She's popular," Hoseok grins, and Jimin wants to punch him in his perfect teeth.

"So you brought me in to tell me to use my girlfriend for intel?"

"Oh, she's your girlfriend now?" Hoseok teases, but Jimin ignores him.

"She's got ties to three of the major players in Seoul, Jimin. You know how to pick em."

Jimin leaves soon after, popping the collar of his leather jacket against the wind. He's pissed off, having them tell him to stay with you as if he'd ever had any intention of leaving.

Hoseok was right. He'd been in over his head since the moment you'd smiled at him and now that he knew you lived and worked in a snake's den, it made panic claw up his throat to think that he couldn't protect you.

First, Kim Yugyeom with his predator's eyes and wolf's smile and now the fucking future head of the Kim crew?

Jaebeom and Hyunwoo were small potatoes compared to Kim, dabbling in carjacking and marijuana mostly.

Kim had his fingers in all the pies, heroin and cocaine smuggling, black market guns, whores, every crime you could think of, they were committing...and most of them got away clean.

Only a couple of them even had records and it was for petty shit like battery or simple assault.

Jimin would have stayed with you anyway because of the way he felt waking up with your long leg looped over his hip, the way you'd grumble and tuck your face into his neck in the mornings.

But now? He had to make sure you were safe, no matter what that meant for him.

It's less than a month later when everything falls apart for Jimin, and he can't tell you a single word of it.

Jimin manages to track this low level crew boss, a foreign kid, not even 21, goes by Lucas to an opium den.

He catches him outside the abandoned building, has the arrest warrant based on pictures and intel already. There's no one in the alley so Jimin cuffs him on the spot as he whines in protest. Then he hears a familiar verse and drops the kid on the ground, cursing.

"Well well well," Yugyeom drawls. "Park Jimin the piglet. I can't fucking believe it."

"Don't fucking try me, Kim. I could bust you right now."

"Bet you won't. Bet you won't want that pretty little thing of yours knowing how clean you really are, yeah? She wouldn't like you as much."

Yugyeom is grinning, eyes glassy from alcohol or weed or god knows what and he's getting closer to Jimin.

"Don't-" Jimin warns, already instinctively spreading his legs, in a fighting stance while barely realizing it.

"Baby likes it dirty," Yugyeom continues. "She likes to slum it, I should know."

Jimin's hands are itching to clock him, right on the chin because Yugyeom isn't protecting himself at all, too drunk or stupid to block, but he waits for him to get closer.

Yugyeom is tall and lean, has a higher center of gravity and the closer he gets the better, and they always do, the tall ones, think because they tower over Jimin they have the advantage.

But they're easy, always go high, swing wide without protecting their middle and when Yugyeom swings, Jimin ducks and punches him in the gut, a sharp jab that takes the younger man's breath.

While he's gasping for air, doubled over, Jimin grabs him, swings him around and puts a knee in his lower back, taking him to the ground easily.

Yugyeom is still laughing and Jimin presses down on the back of his neck, grinding his face into the gravel.

Lucas is staring wide eyed at them, having turned over on his side, but Jimin ignores him.

"What the fuck are you laughing at?" Jimin growls, and Yugyeom's snorts, blood spurting from his nose when Jimin presses down harder.

"Now I get to do whatever I want. You can't fucking touch me."

Jimin's heart sinks and he hauls them both into the station but of course, Yugyeom is right, he sings like a canary and now he's an informant and Jimin can't touch him with a ten foot pole.

Now instead of shoving him into the bar wall for palming your ass when he slips a tip into your back pocket, Jimin has to grit his teeth and ignore it.

Jimin buys a ring after nine months, keeps it in a sock in his underwear drawer because he can't get down on one knee when he's lying to you.

He starts to drink more than he should, stays out too late because he can't bear to come home and lie to you about where he's been.

The third or fourth night he gets home and you're already asleep, you wake when he plops down clumsily on the bed, turning over and trailing your hand across his chest.

"Baby," you murmur. "What's wrong?"

There's something stuck in his throat, all the secrets he's been keeping from you and he snakes an arm around you, squeezing you tight.

He can't bear to say "nothing" because that'd just be another lie so he tugs you on top of him and kisses you silent.

When he's got you flipped onto your back, buried inside you, he says the one thing he can, the one truth he can tell you, over and over.

"I love you, jagi. You know I love you, yeah?"

But of course, love isn't enough.

He ends up here anyway, with you looking at him with hollow, wary eyes.

"Jagi-" he starts, but you cut him off.

"Is there someone else?" You ask, your voice low and shaking.

Jimin scoffs. He's barely noticed other women even exist since you'd come into his life, but when he puts himself in your shoes, he supposes it isn't a far stretch.

"Not since the moment you smiled at me, jagi," he says earnestly, and your face softens.

"Then what is it? What's going on?"

You stand up, come around the table to wrap your arms around his waist and Jimin wants so badly to tell you everything, to pour out all the secrets that burn like acid in his throat.

"You're leaving me," is all he can choke out, his voice hoarse, and you sigh and rest your forehead against his chest.

"I don't want to," you admit, locking your hands at his back.

"Then don't. Jagi. Y/n. Please don't."

You shake your head against his chest and Jimin's heart cracks right down the middle when you look up at him, tears standing in your eyes.

"All you have to do is tell me the truth."

His throat works and you sniffle.

"Jiminie...please. I don't care what it is. We'll work it out just...just tell me."

He feels tears rolling down his face and he doesn't bother to stop them.

"Please," he pleads, and you release him, put a hand on your suitcase and Jimin wants to rip it from you, throw it across the room but all he can do is stand there and watch you, a sob catching in his chest.

He can't watch you leave, stands with his back to you, and when he hears the door close behind you, quiet and anticlimatic, something inhuman rips from his chest and he grabs onto the back of the dining room chair when his knees give out.

Jimin lets himself wallow, turning off his phone so that he doesn't call to beg you to come home, crying into your pillow because it smells like your shampoo, going only as far as the corner store to replenish the soju he replaces all his meals with.

It's Hoseok that finally nearly breaks down his door and Jimin stumbles to the door and jerks him inside, rubbing at the stubble on his chin and blinking at him blearily.

Hoseok looks around at the bottles of soju littering the table and Jimin gives him a look.

"Don't, Jung."

Jimin expects him to berate him, tell him he was stupid for falling in love and losing all their intel, but he doesn't.

Hoseok just puts a hand on his shoulder, pulls him into a hug, and Jimin can't stop the tears that are always so close to the surface.

After Jimin is sniffling instead of sobbing and Hoseok has gathered all the bottles to throw in the garbage, he sits down at the kitchen table.

"Jimin...I came to tell you something."

"Fuck," Jimin mumbles, rubbing a hand across his face and taking a long sip of the glass of water Hoseok had brought him.

Hoseok nods. "Jongin is spending four nights a week at the Dirty Dozen."

"Let me guess," Jimin says tiredly. "Only the nights Y/n works."

"Bingo. Joon has been going in your absence, he's gotten close to the other bartender. Y/n is living with her and Joon says…" Hoseok pauses and Jimin drops his forehead to the table.

"Just spit it out, Jung." He says miserably, keeping his head on the table.

"Joon says Y/n went home with Jongin a couple nights ago."

Jimin had been bracing himself for what his friend would say next but he hadn't been prepared for this, how it took the very breath from his lungs.

"No," he wheezes through the pinhole that has become his throat. "No, he's wrong, it's only been a couple of days, she wouldn't-"

"You've been mia over two weeks, Jimin," Hoseok says softly.

Jimin gasps in a breath, lifts his head.

"We've got an unmarked car following her. We'll watch out for her, you don't have to-"

Jimin barks out a bitter laugh. "Shut up. Just shut up, Seok. Of course I do."

Hoseok sighs and nods. "I told Joon you'd say that. Word of advice?'

Jimin looks at him.

"Shower first."

So Jimin ends up right back where he started, sitting at a table at the back of The Dirty Dozen breathing in the fog of tobacco smoke and the errant joint, watching you walk toward him with a bottle of soju and a shot glass.

"Hey," he says dumbly, and you give him a ghost of your easy smile that makes his heart skip.

"Hey, Jiminie. Long time no see."

You pout the shot and go to leave but Jimin takes your wrist.

"Ah, leave the bottle."

You frown at him, and he wants to tell you he has to stay a certain level of drunk so that he doesn't beg you to come home, break down when Jongin inevitably shows up and arrest him the second he smiles at you, to keep the steady ache in his chest just numb enough.

You leave the bottle, though, going back behind the bar, and sure enough, Jongin has already slipped in while Jimin was distracted, leaning across the bar with a big smile.

Jimin takes in a shaky breath and downs the shot, thinking he had a lot of long nights ahead of him.

#jimin x reader #park jimin x reader #park jimin #jimin imagine #bts mafia au #undercover detective Jimin #kim namjoon #jung hoseok #kim jongin #exo mafia au #monsta x mafia au #got7 mafia au

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