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ynmnrmt · 7 months

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You & Me & Rhea Makes Three: Chapter 6

rhea ripley x m!reader x m!reader's girlfriend

word count: 3,831

warnings: explicit sexual content, themes of domination/submission, dubiously consensual nonmonogamy, nonconsensual sex

a/n: So, I could flannel and wring my hands here and claim there's a grey area, but I'm not going to - this chapter contains an explicit rape scene which I am presenting as erotic material. I'm not fucking around here, I'm stating this clearly for the benefit of you the reader, if you don't like the sound of that do not read on. If, on the other hand, you do like the sound of that, then SMASH THAT KEEP READING

(The story so far: chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, chapter five)

Jennifer is away for work. Another dreary training seminar in the middle of nowhere. She always apologises as she recounts it all for how boring it all is, be it a word association game about customer retention, or sitting in a circle to pass a ball back and forth which somehow represents customer satisfaction, or even attempting to collectively manifest customer relations.

“It’s the ball one again,” she confesses, framed awkwardly in your phone, so that it looks like she is looking up at you from the upside-down world. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take, I need to find something better than this.”

“You’ll be back by the end of the week,” you say, in a cheery hand-on-the-shoulder way.

“And I know we said we were going to have phone sex,” even having negotiated it at length you do have a little tingle of surprise to hear her say it, “but they booked us all double rooms. We’re all fucking paired up, I don’t have a minute to myself.”

“I wish,” you say, and mean it, “I could reach through the screen and hold you in my arms and make everything better.”

In the background as you say this, the door rattles and Rhea walks in, glowing from her run. “Is that Jen?” she mouths – then, without waiting for a reply jumps into view next to you. “Hey, sexy,” she waves hello, then sing-songs “missing you” and pulls your phone up to her face to give the screen a sloppy wet kiss.

“Hey, Rhea,” says Jennifer, still downcast and tired. “God, I wish you guys were here. We’d find a way to fit in a double room, obviously.” You and Rhea both chuckle at that. Her arm is pressed against yours, damp with sweat, it is all too apparent she has been for a run – and it makes your heart beat faster, remembering the long hot summer when the water and electricity were off. Then Jennifer is distracted. “Oh hell, I’m sorry, I have to go. The counting mung beans workshop just started. I’ll speak to you soon. Try not to have too much fun without me.”

“Love you,” you say.

“Love y-” adds Rhea, but then the call cuts off. “Oh, poor thing.” She plucks at her neckline, takes a whiff of herself, and jerks her head back. “God – excuse me!” And she repairs off to the shower, even though you don’t mind at all and tell her so, the dark stains on the back of her shirt define the muscles underneath so beautifully it doesn’t even occur to your lizard brain to look at her ass until she’s already out of the room.

Try not to have too much fun, the words rattle in your mind. Jennifer has gone off to this tedious seminar, leaving you alone with your other girlfriend, and worse still is being so impossibly nice about it all. You clench a fist and pound the couch – you don’t wish you were there with her, you wish she was back here, happy and safe. Yes, and you also wish you earned enough that constant horrible work outings didn’t have to be part of her life.

You resolve to have all the things she likes waiting for her on her return, a great elaborate gesture, anything to try and show the depths of your feelings. All the pillars and domed roofs of your grand design turn into fog when Rhea emerges from the shower, fresh and pink in just a towel, to skip through to her room. That image, her shy little smile as she clutches the towel to herself, remains burned into your consciousness long after she comes back through, dressed now, and flops on the couch next to you to cool off.

“I wish we were there with her too,” she muses, head back on the cushions. “We could cheer her up. Not like that,” she adds, and gives you a playful shove, even though you neither said anything nor changed your demeanour in any way.

“They don’t make you go on any awful training days, do they?” you ask.

“There’s enough health and safety shit. It’s not like it was.” Yes, there’s one you can nod sagely at, because nothing’s like it was. She’s spread out next to you, still warm from the shower, and you try not to let it distract you, but through the material of her quite conservative shorts, you can make out the shape of her vulva. “Ah, I can’t wait till Jen’s back – although I do like it when it’s just us. Sometimes, it’s sort of like we’re cheating on her.”

“Yeah,” you reflect.

“But we’re not, obviously.”

“See, sometimes I worry about where exactly the lines can be drawn, and-”

“Oh, I think I pulled something,” groans Rhea, and plops her leg in your lap. “Would you rub my calves?” It would be rude to say no, that’s what you tell yourself, but you barely need the prompt to put your hands on her. And when you do it’s not even a rub but more of a squeeze, a grope, hungry grabs at her body and her tattooed flesh – but this seems to do the job, because she swivels around in her seat to throw her other leg over you too.

“Look, Rhea,” you say, now doing something to the muscles of her calf that’s between a massage and a gentle pull, trying to get back to the point, “Jen’s really special to me, and-”

“And to me!” Rhea sits forward, in wholehearted agreement. “If she was here, you could take a leg each, instead of you having to do them both yourself.” You can’t even object to the simple purity of the idea. “You know I would never do anything to hurt her, right?” And you nod, there’s no polite way to question that. “So obviously I’d never cheat on her, just like you wouldn’t, but, um, sometimes it’s fun to pretend, you know? I hope she’s thinking about us right now, I hope we can at least cheer her up that way.” Her legs are like an unimaginably comforting blanket, right over your lap.

“I hope so too,” you say vaguely, as you try to shift so she doesn’t notice your hard-on, then you make the complete wrong move and bump it into her.

“See,” she says, as if she’s about to share a secret, “I know how much you love her, you’ve got a boner just talking about her.”

“She’s very special,” you reply, wanting to hang your head in shame.

“She’s perfect,” says Rhea, now she’s got her arms around you, she’s crept closer so it’s her thighs across you, but she’s not actually sitting in your lap and you really have your doubts that would work. As your erection tries to winkle its way between her legs, she muses on “I’ve honestly never been happier, than I have with you guys...and I was proud to wreck that guy who tried messing with you.”

Immediately you feel awkward, far more awkward than you did simply poking at her. Three of them, there had been, and Rhea went for them without a second’s hesitation. “I’m sorry I didn’t do anything there,” you say, and squeeze her thigh like a child, hoping for forgiveness.

“Oh, sweetie, no, you don’t need to be – look,” she says, she sweeps her legs down and comes forward to look you in the eye, “I know when most people say this stuff, they’re just saying it, but I genuinely don’t believe you’re obliged to act in a certain way because of your gender. I really don’t.” And she gives you the sweetest smile, for a moment you cannot bear to meet her gaze. “Besides,” she adds, “I get a bit of a thrill showing I’m stronger than men.”

“Oh,” you react, unable to even try and conceal your own excitement.

“And the thing is,” she says, gently taking your hands in hers, “it’s for exactly all those reasons that I say I reject, all those gender conventions – which I guess makes me the biggest hypocrite in the world.”

“No, you’re not,” you insist, for reasons that have nothing to do with the actual question. “And – and I hope you never feel anything less than perfectly feminine.” Which is probably the wrong thing to say, but you squeeze her hands, and she squeezes yours back and beams – and then she grips them hand and brings them up over your head. You fall back and now she’s on top of you.

“One of the things I always felt was really unfair,” she husks, the cloud of her hot breath making your head spin, as she gets both your hands gripped firmly in one of hers, “is how, in a lot of places, legally speaking women can’t rape men – which is just nonsense.”

“Yeah, i-it’s just stupid,” you agree too quickly, and it’s true, you always thought that was profoundly unjust on the face of it, though any outrage you felt was eclipsed by the little twinge it gave you imagining yourself in that scenario. Your cock is still pressed excruciatingly against her legs, but now it’s from the front, and again you squirm to try and make it better and make it a hundred times worse. It was a crazy thought anyway, it was hardly even a thought, obviously there’s no escape from her goddess-thighs – and if there was, could you bring yourself to take it?

“And I imagine the worst part is when they do get an erection,” she says in an irresistible, candlelit voice, “and they worry that on some level they did want it – which is bound to get really confusing if, like a lot of people, they have secret fantasies about someone they like doing that to them. I know I do.”

“I would be happy to help you with that,” you say immediately, any filter between mind and tongue long gone. She giggles affectionately.

“How about you?” she asks, as she dances from side to side on her hands and knees over you, swaying gently from left to right and back again. “What if Jen just grabbed you and held you down sometime?” You daren’t answer, but then you don’t need to, not when you dig further into her thigh. “And obviously, she,” Rhea’s lips brush along the length of your face, it seems like it’s random, yes, and your erection is probably completely random too, “if you really wanted her to stop, she would, because she loves you.”

“But I couldn’t bear to ask her,” you casually confess, “not by that point,” and Rhea laughs in understanding fashion in a way that makes you laugh along with her, yes, neither of you could stand to deny her, not in that situation. Then, showing amazing skill with her one free hand, she’s unzipped your trousers and takes hold of your cock. “Wait,” you say, not saying no, just asking her to wait, “wait, Rhea, Jen’s not here-”

“Oh, I know,” she sympathises, as she eases down her shorts that barely concealed anything anyway, “but let’s pretend she is.”

“Rhea, seriously, wait-” and now she kisses you, properly, not an ounce of force behind it, just her mouth against yours. You squirm, you burn internally, in this moment you don’t love anyone quite as much as you love her. You even try to break out of the iron grasp of her hand around your wrists, you know she’s stronger than you, and maybe you didn’t really want to anyway. Then she moves and then you are inside her.

“You make me so wet when you wriggle,” she says, and she’s telling the truth, all you can see is the devilish delight on her face and the halo of light around it. Her next forceful kiss is a lick at first, up across your cheek while she fucks you, but your lips end up locked with hers all the same.

“Please,” you say, when your mouth is free of hers, “stop – help -” and all the while her hips bang against you, as if drawing poison from a wound, you do not want to call it rape even in your own head because it feels so good. The way she presses down on you, the way she squeezes you, of course you don’t resist.

“Oh fuck – oh fuck,” Rhea wails, her lip draws against your face with the worlds, she’s hardly even holding your wrists any more. In fact, she gives up on that and just takes hold of your arms with both hands, because “I love holding you this way – doesn’t it feel so sensual?” As she keeps going you hear something break in the couch and her vulnerability makes your heart run liquid, you feel bad at having resisted at all.

“Rhea,” you try not to choke, “I don’t want this-”

“Oh sweetie, I don’t want it to end either, I’m so close already – please, hold out a little longer for me, please do that for me,” it seems like every word is punctuated with the light headbutt of her kissing you again. Because you love her you do hold on, as best you can without use of your hands, you bite your lip and project mental energy in any other direction, you feel your spine warp, and when she cries out with joy you can no longer resist and go off, torrential inside her. But her magnificent form doesn’t stop moving, the way she goes up and down your cock isn’t even slowed, perhaps it’s sheer momentum but more likely every lap she’s run and weight she’s lifted paying off. And as she keeps riding you and keeps enjoying it, the pain of her using a part of you that doesn’t want to be used, that, that is the finest feeling in the world.

You lie together afterwards, Rhea’s still on top, she sewing-machines the side of your neck with tiny pecks that are gentler than seems possible from her. “You’re perfect,” she confesses, in her post-sex flush that makes her seem flawless herself. “And the best part is, we know this is all okay. I know you worry about this, but Jen isn’t going to mind, not really.”

“Mm-hm,” you say, still not really convinced and muffled by Rhea’s hair anyway.

“I still feel all tingly thinking about it.” Yes, to be sure, you do too. “Obviously if we didn’t want it, that would be monstrous – but we did, so it’s just a fun, sexy thrill. I mean, if I thought I’d hurt you or something, I couldn’t forgive myself. Not for that.”

Immediately you conceive of this as the cruellest sort of manipulation. But deep down, you know it isn’t, not really, because you had wanted it, maybe not with a completely clear conscience, but you had, you’d burned for it. You squeeze her big, fabulous body, and for a moment you see her smile, as if she is blocking out the sun. Then she rests her head on you, between your chest and your shoulder, a gesture at normality that must have her long legs hanging off the end of the couch.

There’s a noise, a twinkle. It’s your phone. With Rhea on top of you, it’s some struggle to get your fingers into your pocket, but eventually you manage it. When you see Jen’s name pop up on the screen, there’s the familiar dread, the feeling that finally the other boot is about to drop. “What does our girlfriend say?” Rhea asks sweetly.

When you open the message, Jennifer hasn’t actually said anything. The message is a picture, her naked in striking moody light, the tangled bedsheet nearly covering one of her breasts. She hasn’t shown any of her face above the mouth, a sensible precaution, but at least now she looks as if she’s enjoying herself. You look at her arms, her stomach, soft and rounded where Rhea’s is hard, and not for the first time you wish she was here.

“Hello, hello,” says Rhea, you can feel the smirk twist her face. There’s another twinkle, and a text from your girlfriend pops up reading maybe you can pretend I’m there as well. God, how you’d love to. “Aww...she might just break my heart one day,” and Rhea’s lips are so close to yours that when she says it, your mouth moves too.

“She’s so pretty,” you say longingly, perhaps this moves Rhea’s mouth as well, and you want to cry but know you cannot show that weakness.

“Maybe, um, maybe we should go again? For her?” Her fingers rest lightly on your chest, but there’s no way in hell you could move them.

You had thought, an entirely theoretical but perfectly plausible grand plan, that you would greet Jennifer with a smorgasbord of all the things she likes. There would be the white chocolate cookies, and beer on ice – not wine, she feels faintly obliged to drink that on special occasions but you know what she’d choose given the chance. You’d have queued up one of those documentaries on Bigfoot hunters, yes, of course you and she would show up in the viewing figures the same as a genuine nut, but the craziness is still fun. And you’d have wrapped her up in a blanket and ordered in whatever takeout her little heart desired.

When Jennifer opens the door, she sees you on the couch, slimy with sweat and gasping for breath, wearing a t-shirt but no trousers or underwear, that least dignified form of nudity. She barely has time to put her suitcase down before Rhea creeps up from the side and snarls “You have no idea how much we missed you”, and grabs the front of her shirt. There is one sharp tug, the buttons spray everywhere, and for a moment she looks scared, horrified even – but that only lasts until Rhea bows her head and rubs her face in amongst Jennifer’s breasts.

“Oh!” flutters Jennifer. “Oh, Rhea…” And she shoots you the same sort of guilty glance you know you’ve given her more than once.

“And I missed these, too – come on, come sit with us,” though there’s no real request about it, Rhea scoops Jennifer up in her arms, and it seems as if they share a long slushy bonding look – but scarcely a second in Rhea throws her down on the couch, and you manage to scrabble out of the way just in time. Then you clutch her, protectively, though there’s no kind of protection you know how to offer that could stop Rhea as she flops her whole weight down on Jennifer’s other side.

“I’m glad you’re back,” you tell Jennifer, and for a while she doesn’t stop saying how much she loves you – pressing her face into your neck, as if something’s wrong. “H-” you gather yourself a little, “how was the – thing?”

“I’m fucking sick of it all,” she says, still nestled within you. “The whole time I was just thinking about being back here. With you.”

You find her hand and hold it tight. “You’re safe now,” you say gently.

“Yeah,” adds Rhea, “we’ve got you.”

“Have – have you two just been fucking, the whole time I’ve been away?” asks Jennifer. There’s no judgement in it, just curiosity, but it still goes straight to the black pit of your stomach.

“Not the whole time,” teases Rhea.

“You sent that picture,” you say, “it set us off,” and while this is true as you say it you know that it is a lie. And now you have the painful realisation that you never even sent a reply – but Jennifer giggles in response.

“There was one thing,” she adds, immediately you are in that intense, bottomless state of not knowing where this is going. “I did think – well, we’re not, Rhea, you don’t want children, right?”

Rhea runs a hand over her rock-hard stomach, as if imagining it swollen by pregnancy, and shrugs “Could be a novelty act, I don’t think it’s been done before.” Then she thinks, and says “There’s a reason for that, of course.”

“See, I just think,” Jennifer falters, she’s looking at you now, touching your chest, eyes full of hope, “I really wanted to – would you not come in her, any more?” And a nervous glance to Rhea with it.

“Yes!” you blurt out, faster than you’d meant to. “I mean, sure, if that’s what you want.”

Rhea gently takes Jennifer’s hands in hers, the muscles bulge in her arms but you can tell she’s not using any force here. “I have to ask,” she says, “is this about you wanting it all to yourself?” For a second, Jennifer is frozen. Then she nods, violently, all of her hair shaking with the motion. And Rhea’s expression softens, and she says “I’m so glad you said that. In fact, never mind that, I’m proud of you, I’m glad you’re setting a boundary. This whole time I’ve been worried that you’re just going along with all of this but really you haven’t actually liked it.”

“O-of course not!” insists Jennifer. Rhea smiles gently down at her, and kisses her gently on the cheek, another thing you really wish you’d done.

“Are you sure?” you ask her, and she gives you the same shaky, exaggerated nod she did before, but it’s the expression on her face that really gives you the answer.

“That’s good,” says Rhea, and brings her hands up to Jennifer’s shoulders, and starts to rub them gently. “Because in that case, I’ve got a surprise for you.” And she pulls Jennifer down, face-first, into her vagina, because of course she is not fully dressed either. “A nice sticky treat for you.”

Jennifer gives a little blocked “Hmph!” of surprise, but that gives way to the sloppier sounds of her tucking in to Rhea – and, yes, what Rhea took from you about half an hour ago. You goggle at them, not knowing what to think or do. Rhea looks fondly back at you, and with one hand in Jennifer’s hair reaches out to you with the other.

“I think she’d really like it-” Rhea begins – and then a little start, a flush, that shows Jennifer’s tongue has found a particularly soft area. She gathers herself and tries again, “I think you should do her from behind. Since she wants you so much.” And down between her thighs, there’s that frantic nod again.

You climb around behind Jennifer, and ease down her underwear – but before you do anything more you lean over her and whisper in her ear how much you love her, and how you want this to be good for her. Even when she says something that is of course muffled by Rhea’s vulva but sounds a lot like “fucking stick it in before I burst” it feels as if you are taking advantage.

#rhea ripley x reader #rhea ripley x you #rpf #rhea ripley fanfiction #rhea ripley smut

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hollyethecurious · 5 months

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CS WIP Wednesday Challenge - Week 2

Week 2

👵 Your oldest posted WIP (can you even remember what year it was when that one first went up?)

So, when I read this week's challenge... I cringed.

Why, you may ask?

Because my oldest posted WIP is one I've pretty much given up on. In fact, I have two unfinished WIPS that, at the moment, I have pretty much written off and have resigned myself to the probability of never finishing. I completely lost steam on them and have zero intentions of trying to muster up any inspiration for them when I have other stories I am actively passionate about.

You have no idea how much it pains me to say that, but that's the truth of the matter and I'm really sorry to disappoint any of you who were hoping I might get back to them during this challenge.

That said... I do have one unfinished, posted fic that I am actively working on and that I focused my efforts towards updating this past week.

Pan Says...

I am thrilled to report that the next chapter is finished and is currently being looked over by my betas. As soon as they've gone over it, I will share it with all of you.

I also wanted to share that in addition to Pan Says... I've been hard at work on my CS Grimm AU for the @cssns, and added roughly 11k words on it this week! I can't wait to share it with y'all!

I want to thank @captainswanwipwednesdays once again for putting this challenge together, and appreciate all the love, support, and patience y'all have shown us struggling authors.

Enjoy this snippet from Part Nine of Pan Says... and be on the look out for the full chapter, which will be posting soon!

“I don’t know who you are, or what sort of game you’re playing at, but this isn’t funny!” Emma glanced at the monitor overhead, the timer quickly counting down the minutes she had left to try and convince David that she was really Emma, that she was alive, and in need of his help. “David Robert Nolan, shut the fuck up and listen to me!” she yelled over the receiver. “What did you just call me?” “I called you by your full government name,” she said. “David Robert, after your father, Nolan. Or would you prefer I call you Charming like Mary Margaret does?” “How do you know--” “Because it’s me, David! It’s Emma! I’m alive and I need your help!” “Emma?” he questioned over the line, the hope she knew he wasn’t sure he should dare to feel leaking into his tone. “Is it really you? How? Where are you? Where have you been? Who did they pull out of the--” “Just listen, okay?” she interrupted as the time rapidly dwindled. “I don’t know who that woman was or how he faked my death, but I was abducted three weeks ago by someone who calls himself Pan. I was taken from outside the police station after dropping off a skip. I was tasered. I’m here with a man named Captain Killian Jones. He has a brother named Liam, who also was led to believe that Killian was missing for reasons other than kidnapping. I need you to find him. He’ll be trying to get a hold of you, because Killian just called him, too, and let him know what’s been going on.” She flicked her gaze to Killian, still looking shell-shocked from the emotionally charged conversation he’d had with his brother. He’d wanted to stay by her side whilst she made her call, but she’d told him to go sit and take a moment. They’d be there for one another later. It was why they’d chosen to wait and make these calls before turning in for the night. So they could just lay in bed and hold each other in the aftermath. “What has been going on?” David demanded, bringing Emma’s focus back to her brother. “Why would this Pan person take you? What has he… are you alright? Has he hurt you? Did you escape, is that why you’re calling now? Do I need to come get--” “No, we haven’t escaped. We… we sort of… earned a reward. Look. It’s too much to explain right now. I’m going to give you some specs of the place we’re being held in. Write them down so you can give them to the police.” Emma waited as David searched for a pen and paper, her heart thudding wildly in her chest as the timer continued to draw closer to zero.

My ao3 | ff.net | buy me a coffee | add to tag list | Curious? Come Ask Me!

#wip wednesday #cs wip wednesday #wip writing challenge #pan says... snippet

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flameswallower · 2 years

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SELF PROMO POST #2

In this short novel inspired by the Mountain Goats & John Vanderslice concept EP Moon Colony Bloodbath, three indentured, memory-wiped laborers at a crumbling storage facility make some unexpected discoveries about the genetically engineered mutant bodies they tend each day. Sex, drugs, violence, cannibalism, psychic powers, a catgirl (sort of)…Body After Body is the lurid, dreamlike, amoral queer/trans sci-fi trash literature at least four or five people have been waiting for.

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Wow! My first novel, and (from one point of view) the longest fan fiction I've ever written by about 50,000 words! "Sci-fi body horror inspired by a not-super-popular concept EP from 2009, with an entirely trans cast of characters, sections of formally experimental and psychedelic writing, extremely graphic sex scenes every couple of chapters, and a plot largely driven by orgies, fantastical drugs, and cannibalism" is a tough sell, and it's always going to be a tough sell. I knew that when I wrote Body After Body during lockdown in 2020; I figured I would be lucky if anyone who's not a personal friend of mine read it, and if anyone at all particularly liked it. That was okay by me, since I pretty much wrote it entirely for myself.

In the two years since its release, I've been surprised and touched by how many people are, in fact, just as into this hyper-specific shit as I am. It's not a LOT of people, but then, it was never going to be. Body After Body seems to have successfully reached the couple hundred misfit weirdos it is emphatically "for", and that's all I could possibly ask.

Maybe you, reading this, are thinking you might be one of those couple hundred people. If so, I strongly suggest giving the novel a spin! It's free to download on itch.io (although you may pay for it if you can afford to and are confident you'll enjoy it; I'm not gonna say no to $5).

The cover art you see here is by Tom Horstmann.

As per usual, content warnings under the cut, I cover "the big stuff" (eg. things that would earn a movie an R or X rating, like graphic sex and violence, and things that are common sites of trauma or psychological vulnerability, like child abuse and eating disorders) but not every topic or incident in a story that could plausibly upset someone. If you prefer not to have aspects of the novel's plot spoiled before you read it, I suggest skipping these.

Content warnings: Cannibalism, self harm, medical experimentation, organ harvesting, brainwashing, institutionalization/imprisonment (of a sort), dubcon sex and relationships, LOTS and LOTS of graphic sexual content, extreme violence and gore, verbal/physical/emotional abuse, drug and alcohol use, addiction, societal and internalized transphobia, societal and internalized ableism. One major character used to be an underage survival sex worker, and this is touched on or alluded to in a few flashbacks.

#self promo #queer literature #trans books #nonbinary books #queer books #queer sci-fi #queer horror #trans horror #moon colony bloodbath #catgirl #author on tumblr #lol i feel like such a dip with all these tag spams but nobody's gonna promote my stuff FOR me so

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protagonistheavy · 2 years

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Watching a "movie" of Dragon Age Origins because I am never gonna have the spine to play through the whole game myself. And wow I see why this franchise earned so much hype at release! The story is so strong, I'm regularly impressed at how full every part of the story is. Segments of the game feel like they could pass today as full story modes by themselves -- maybe that's just a sad state of things currently, but it really does feel like a WHOLE adventure game, where the chapters leading to the climax really feel involved rather than just tacked on. I can only imagine the messy work it was keeping track of writing this story and all the different ways some subplots will go.

I'm especially impressed with how many dialogue options/choices you get. It's something I think modern games have phased too much away from, and mostly because they insist on having a voiced protagonist -- which means that every dialogue option needs its own recording from the protagonist. Most AAA games nowadays seem to opt for fewer choices for exactly that reason, to budget on how much they have to record lines for, and to avoid issues where a bunch more recording/re-recording has to happen because of some slight story adjustment. But you skip over all that hassle with unvoiced dialogue options, and having so many choices really pays off, since you actually feel like a real influence in the story rather than just picking which railroad to be guided down. Looking at the wiki for some of these story moments reveals to much how complicated everything can get, with outcomes changing wildly based on whether you, the player, did enough to actually learn about the story -- or if you were just making quick decisions. I bet a LOT can be missed even by veteran players.

The only thing I can't judge too much of is the gameplay itself, the action, which the "movie" largely skims through. From a glance the battling does seem a bit outdated and simply, but I'm sure there's tons more depth to find out, and there might be a lot behind the scenes going on stat-wise that might be making the action more involved. I will say that a lot of battles just seem like unorganized half-ambushes, where encounters kick off with a bunch of guys just getting the jump on you at the end of a dialogue tree. But I don't think any of this takes too much away from the experience, especially back in the day where RPGs were simply slower. Surely even DAO seemed sped-up compared to those other games, and still managed to have a mostly-well-aged graphical look as well as dynamic, flashy scenes.

It makes it more of a shame to see how DA2 and DAI came out, the former more than the latter. I can only imagine the disappointment that, in the same year Skyrim comes out, DA2 releases with so little content comparatively. DAI at least has a lot of modern sensibilities, but even there and my limited playthrough of it, I can tell a lot of the original spirit in DAO that captivated people really isn't there as much. It's more... streamlined, which definitely has its benefits. And I speak from a very privileged position, being able to enjoy DAO as a streamlined playthrough lol. So take that as you will.

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nukenai · 2 years

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Me on sunday: I’ll aim to beat a chapter of Live a Live every day! And I’ll finish it by the end of the week!

Me, my third fucking day into Twilight of Edo Japan:

#NON-LINEAR MORE LIKE SUCK MY ASS YOU PURPLE HAIRED EMO TWINK FUCK #I'M A TIRED OLD BITCH I JUST WANNA SEE MY FUCKIN BACKWARDS BASEBALL CAP GLASSES WEARING SPACE DORKS #i could skip to that chapter but i'm making myself earn it. i am earning it.

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cocastyle · 4 years

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Robin — ONE

Pairing - Joel Dawson x reader

Word Count - 5,047

A/N - this chapter was so much fun getting to write! I wanted to introduce you guys to the dynamic of our two characters before they take off into the world. they are just a super close pair which is definitely going to cause some interesting scenes throughout this movie, especially with Joel being in love Aimee at the moment and Y/N being in love with Joel. but no matter what, it’s their friendship that makes them Y/N and Joel and it’s just the cutest thing.

also, I just want to say, take note of the little letters Joel writes to Aimee. they are definitely going to show growth in Joel’s character as the story goes on :))

if you would like to be added to the tag list, let me know!

R O B I N

Robin Series Masterlist

⭒❃.✮:▹ ONE ◃:✮.❃⭒

Dear Aimee,

I am wide awake. I've just gotten good at not really moving or breathing.

Being stuck in a survival bunker with a bunch of people who have all found their soul mate is less than ideal.

Karen and Ray got together a few months ago, so they're still kinda in their honeymoon phase. It is super physical. Good for them, you know. They're both very attractive and apparently quite flexible.

Hey, life's short. Especially down here.

After Tim's parents were eaten by a warm of termites, he and Ava became inseparable. In every way.

So pretty much everyone's coupled up down here besides me and Y/N. We're the singles of the bunker and I don't know how I would survive by myself without her. Having your best friend stuck down here with you helps a lot.

Our first baby was born last winter. It was super emotional. Welcome to the apocalypse, kid. The food sucks. At least you'll never know what you're missing.

Kala and Connor got together after Carol died. Carol was a cow who ate a box of laundry detergent and now we only have one cow. Her name's Gertie. Gertie is great. Y/N named her actually and every time someone uses the name she gets this goofy grin on her face that's hard for anyone to not smile back at.

Gertie's not our only food source. We actually have a hunting party that brings back whatever they can from the surface. It was easier in the beginning, you know, before we ran out of bullets. Facing down one of those things with a hanky handmade weapon is no walk in the park. Or that's what Robin tells me. I-I don't go on the hunting parties. They need me in the kitchen. I'm kinda the, uh. . .the chef of the bunker. Everyone likes my minestrone.

Me and Y/N being the only single people in the bunker has its perks too. We get to hang out with Mav1s. Of course, she's not much for conversation anymore. Her core battery's shot, just like every other Mav1s, I'd imagine. Actually never seen a working one.

Other than that, it's become our favorite pass time to mess with the other couples. Or at least that's what Robin does. I kind of just cheer her on.

Sure wish you were here, Aimee. I'd love for you to meet everyone and become closer with Y/N. Maybe we could do a little target practice together.

It's kinda my thing.

- - -

Y/N had been in the middle of dreaming about killing a monster when something began poking her face and pulled her from her slumber. Letting out a groan, the girl turned her head towards her pillow in an attempt to hide her face, but the person was persistent and instead began poking the back of her head instead.

"Joel," Y/N whined in annoyance earning a soft chuckle from the boy as he continued to poke her head. "Joel, I swear if you don't stop poking me right now I'm going to drag you out of this bunker and feed you to the nearest cold-blooded creature."

The poking stopped instantly and she slowly turned her face and let her eyes flutter open for a second to see Joel smiling at her in amusement. "Seven years underground and you still aren't a morning person," he mused.

Y/N groaned and fell further into her pillow as she closed her eyes once again. "I don't think I'll ever be," she muttered, her voice trailing off a bit at the end as sleep tried to take over once again.

"Hey, I just woke you up. Don't go back to sleep," Joel insisted as he reached out to poke her again. However, Y/N was quick to grab ahold of his finger and stop him without even having to open an eye.

"Don't poke me," she told him before letting go of the boy. "I'm tired, Joel. I don't have to see the sun to know it's still shining on the other side of the world. It's too early."

"Actually, it's not too far away from dawn," Joel said earning a groan from the girl because it was in fact too early. The boy frowned and gently nudged her as he rested his head on the edge of her bed. "Come on, Robin. I can't sleep and as my best friend it is your job to keep me from doing anything stupid while I'm awake. You can't exactly do that while sleeping, can you?"

"Joel," Y/N complained.

"Y/N," Joel mimicked. Y/N frowned slightly and Joel sighed before looking away as he got lost in thought. Finally he let out a small gasp and nudged the girl again, a smile appearing on his face, "I'll make you breakfast."

Y/N peeled open an eye at that, flickering her gaze over the boy's eager face before hesitantly saying, "Throw in a piggyback ride all the way to the kitchen and you've got yourself a deal.”

"Deal!" Joel exclaimed as he reached out to grab her hand and shake it. Y/N let out a soft sigh, knowing she was going to regret waking up, but pulled herself up out of bed and let out a yawn. Joel was practically bouncing from foot to foot due to his impatience and Y/N just ignored it as she sat up for a moment longer before looking to Joel.

"Okay, I'm ready," she said and the boy quickly turned around. Y/N lazily got out of bed before slowly getting onto Joel's back. He made sure she was on securely and waited until she had her arms wrapped around his neck and her head tucked into the crook of his neck before he was practically running out of the room.

"Woah! Slow down!" Y/N exclaimed as she almost went toppling off of his back from how bumpy the ride was. Joel slowed to a walk and looked back to her with an apologetic smile while she just rolled her eyes. "You're lucky you're my best friend," she muttered, propping her elbow against the boy's shoulder in order to keep herself up right.

"You know you love me," Joel retorted and Y/N let out a soft sigh for she knew the boy was right. He just didn't understand the kind of love she had for him.

The two were about halfway down the hallway when they suddenly passed a door that was wide open. "Hey, Joel! Hey, Y/N!" a fellow colony member of theirs named Ava greeted.

The best friends turned their heads and instantly looked away, their faces red while Y/N hid her face against Joel's neck once again. "Oh. Hey, Ava," Joel said, coughing awkwardly as he held onto Y/N a bit tighter and tried to ignore the fact that he just saw Ava and her boyfriend Tim being intimate.

"Ava," Y/N greeted.

"Joel. Y/N. How's it going?" Tim asked.

"It's going good, Tim," Joel responded, attempting to hide his small smile as Y/N just shook her head, obviously embarrassed. "How are you. . .How are you doing?"

"Yeah, good," Tim replied.

"Good," Y/N muttered as she sat up a little more and just leaned against Joel's shoulder. "Uh, we were just. . .um. . .heading to the kitchen. Joel here couldn't sleep, so now here we are." She let out an awkward laugh and Ava and Tim returned it.

"Yeah, we know the feeling," Ava told her and both Joel and Y/N made a face.

"Yeah. Probably not for the same reasons," Joel muttered. "Y-You guys's, uh, door's open. Is that. . .did you know that?"

"Yeah," Ava admitted at the same time Tim said, "Yeah, we know."

Both Y/N and Joel didn't move before Joel muttered awkwardly, "Okay." A silence fell among the group after that and Y/N could just feel herself growing more uncomfortable by the second and it was obvious Joel was too.

"Batman, away!" Y/N exclaimed, pointing towards the direction of the kitchens in hopes that they could get away from this situation as quick as possible. Joel chuckled softly and shook his head before bolting off down the hallway making the girl yell at him.

Joel didn't slow down until they were in the kitchen, setting the girl down in a chair before moving across the room. "This better be the best breakfast you have ever created after putting me in that sort of position," Y/N told him. "This is why you sleep at night, so you don't have to see or hear what the others are doing when the lights are out."

Joel just waved her off with his hand and Y/N craned her neck in an attempt to see just what he was doing, but the boy merely moved his body each time so that she couldn't see. "Joel!" Y/N complained, but the boy was already turning around, his hands behind his back as he grinned at her.

She fell silent almost instantly, the grin making her heart skip a beat while she watched him stop on the other side of the counter. "You ready?" he asked and Y/N nodded her head eagerly, her stomach growling at the thought of food. Joel's smile widened and he quickly took his hand out from around his back and slammed an apple onto the table in front of her.

Y/N stared at the apple with a blank look on her face before scowling up at her friend. Joel just smiled and leaned his arms on the counter before he shrugged, "I never said what I was making you for breakfast."

"You didn't make anything," she pointed out, grumbling softly to herself as she grabbed the apple and took a bite out of it. "You tricked me."

"Hey, but look on the bright side," Joel told her and the girl raised an eyebrow. "Now that you're up, we can spend more time together and I don't have to be alone!"

Y/N made a face before looking to her apple and chuckling as she took another bite. "Well, joke's on you because today's planning day," she said, her words making Joel frown because he knew that planning day meant she would be with the hunting crew all day and not him.

"But planning day was last week," Joel complained.

"It was actually last month, but nice try," she replied with a smug smile on her face.

"Can't you skip it? I was wanting you to help me with my aim. I'm using the tips that you said, but it would be different if you were actually there to help," Joel said.

"I'm sorry, Joel, but I have to go. I have to pull my weight somehow," Y/N reminded him.

"Then at least let me help out. I don't do anything around here except make shitty minestrone," Joel sighed, running a hand through his hair in frustration and not noticing the way Y/N’s eyes seemed to follow the action.

Y/N set the apple down, rolling her eyes slightly when Joel picked it up and angrily took a bite out of the other side. "First of all, your minestrone is heaven, so never refer to it as shitty ever again," she told him. Joel just looked away and Y/N sighed before reaching out and setting a hand on top of the boy's arm. He hesitantly looked her way and she offered him a small smile. "I know you may think you don't do anything to help out around here, but you do, Joel. You help out in more ways than you may think."

Joel looked away and bit into the apple again. "You're just trying to make me feel better and I appreciate it, but we both know I don't do anything," he muttered. "Not anything important anyways."

"Joel," Y/N began but the sound of someone yelling her name made her fall short. She glanced in the direction of the voice, putting together who was calling for her and why. It was planning day after all and those days always started at dawn so that they could get some training out of the way before mapping out their next hunting trip.

Sighing, Y/N looked back at Joel and gave his arm one more squeeze. "That's my cue to leave," she said, pulling herself up out of her chair. The girl began to make her way towards the door before pausing and looking back at Joel who was just staring at the table with the half eaten apple in hand.

Before Joel knew what was happening, Y/N was jumping on him from behind, her arms wrapping around his frame for a quick hug as she kissed his cheek and said, "Have a great day, Joel. I'll see you later for lunch, okay? Love you." She then slyly stole the apple from him and winked in his direction before running out of the room as her name was yelled out once again.

Joel couldn't help but smile as he watched the girl leave, ignoring the way his heart seemed to skip a beat which was unusual for him.

"Love you too," he whispered.

- - -

Y/N stared at the map in front of them with a contemplating look upon her face. She was resting her head on her hand and gently tapped her finger against her cheek while her eyes flickered over the marks they had already made.

"Why don't we try over here?" Y/N suggested, pointing towards the section that they had already marked off as 'Do Not Enter.'

All eyes turned to her almost immediately and Connor shook his head. "Y/N, you know why we don't go over there," he told her, referencing the incident where half of their hunting squad got killed, but the girl was persistent.

"That was back when we were just beginning our second year down here. We're more prepared now," Y/N told them. "Every time we go hunting, we stay close enough that we can run back to the bunker if needed. We can't keep living like this. I mean, aren't you guys a little bit curious as to what it's like out there?"

There was a unanimous, "No."

Y/N frowned and looked back down at the map, her fingers now brushing across the small area she had been pointing at while the others all watched her. “Y/N," Anna Lucia sighed, walking over to the girl's side and placing a hand on her shoulder. "There are so many unknowns out there and you know that. What if we go out there and our whole hunting party gets eaten by those monsters? What would the others do?"

"Live off Joel's minestrone," Y/N suggested before sighing and looking towards her friend. "But what if we don't die? What if this opens up a whole new world for us?"

Anna Lucia squeezed the girl's shoulder before whispering, "We can't risk it."

Y/N frowned and looked away while Anna Lucia let her hand fall back down to her side. "Anna Lucia's right except for the being able to live off Joel's minestrone thing. I'm pretty sure he'd be out there trying to avenge you before even thinking about making minestrone," Tim spoke up.

"He wouldn't be stupid enough to do that," Y/N assured them.

"He'd be reckless enough," Connor retorted. Y/N gave him a look and the man sighed, "Seriously, Y/N? When are you two just going to grow a pair and tell each other how you feel?"

Y/N blinked in surprise, a light blush taking over her features as she looked around at her friends who were all smirking. "W-What?" she whispered.

"Gosh, you're insufferable sometimes," Anna Lucia muttered jokingly. "It's obvious that you like him and he is your best friend who is also the only one that's still single down here."

"Joel and I—" Y/N hesitated, the thought of actually being with Joel like that making her heart flutter. "We're just friends," she insisted before giving them all a sad smile. "We won't be getting together."

"It's only a matter of time," Anderson smirked making the girl glare in his direction. However, she didn't get a chance to say or do anything because they all were frozen in place as the lights to the bunker flickered on and off before turning on once again.

"What was—" Anna Lucia began, but Y/N could already feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end and had a sneaking suspicion of what was happening.

"Breach," she muttered at the same time someone yelled out from another room, "There's been a breach!"

They all ran out of the room, a few of them scanning the perimeter before they made their way to the main room where everyone was waiting to help them get ready. They hurriedly put what armor they did have on their bodies and Y/N was pulling her hair back into a ponytail when she noticed Joel stumbling into the room with all the weapons in hand.

"Guys! Guys! I got the weapons," Joel announced before proceeding to hand them out to the hunters that walked by.

"Stay," Anderson told him as he took a crossbow.

Joel blinked in surprise, "What? What's happening? What's going on?"

"We've been breached," Y/N explained while she waited for Anna Lucia to grab her weapon so that she could finally reach Joel.

"Breached?" Joel asked. "What do you mean? Like, inside the bunker breached?"

"That's what 'breached' means, kiddo. Y/N, come on," Connor demanded causing the girl to sigh in frustration as him and all the hunters left the room. She turned to Joel who was still trying to process what was happening.

"Joel," she said and he quickly turned to her.

"Right. Right. Here," he muttered as he held out a back holster with two katanas strapped in. She had taken them off of a guy back when the apocalypse had first begun. He had been dead and it wasn't like he planned on using them anyways, so she had taken them in order to keep herself alive. They were her weapon of choice, but she was also one of the best shooters they had so she tended to use a crossbow when necessary. "And here's this," he told her before handing her a crossbow as well.

"Thanks," Y/N told him before nodding her head at him and running out of the room.

"Wait!" Joel yelled, but the girl was already gone. "Breached," he muttered to himself in shock before running after his best friend. By the time he made it to where everyone was, Y/N was already inspecting the gate to the sewers with a frown on her face and her crossbow at the ready while some others worked on getting it open.

"Anna Lucia, Y/N and I will engage," Connor directed. "Anderson and Tim, flank us."

"Flank 'em, yeah, okay. Where do you guys need me? The rear, or. . ." Joel trailed off causing them all to look his way, including Y/N.

"I thought we were past this, Joel," Tim told him as they all looked back to gate.

"Past what? You need help. I can help," Joel insisted. "In case you've forgotten, Robin and I are a duo and I know she goes on the hunting trips and I don't, but this I can help with. Let me help."

"You gonna make me say it?" Connor asked.

"Say what?" Joel questioned.

"You can't handle it, Joel," Connor told him.

"You're shook," Tim added.

"Okay, yeah. So, you guys don't get scared ever?" Joel asked them.

"We get scared."

"We all get scared, Joel, but you get really scared."

"We're not trying to make you feel bad."

"We love you, Joel."

"But you're unsafe."

"You're a liability."

"Even on supply runs."

"Guys!" Y/N exclaimed glaring at the men while Joel looked between them a bit confused.

"Okay, why did that speech feel so rehearsed?" Joel questioned.

"He's got a point," Y/N muttered, turning back around while she nervously fidgeted her hands against the crossbow. "If you're going to tell him something like that at least be sincere instead of rehearsing in your mirror beforehand."

"We did not—" Tim began, but the sound of a growl and something banging against metal made them all tense while Joel jumped back a good foot from where he originally was.

"Connor, Y/N," Karen said as she handed a device to the man. Y/N quickly stood up and hurried over, her eyes flickering over the screen where she could see a blue dot making its way through the sewers towards them.

"Shit," she muttered before standing up more and cracking her neck. She got an arrow ready in the crossbow and jumped in place for a moment to get her nerves out. "Let's do this."

"Okay, 30 meters out. Let's move," Connor directed.

The sewer door was pulled down before the hunters began making their way inside. Y/N was about to follow when someone grabbed ahold of her wrist. She looked back, her eyes locking with Joel's as he held on tightly and whispered, "I can help, Robin."

Y/N let her eyes flicker over his face while her mouth opened up to say something. However, she found herself unable to. All she could imagine was Joel getting attacked by whatever creature was in the sewers at that very moment. She couldn't let him go in there, no matter how badly he wanted to. This was the first time a breach like this had ever happened. Who knew what awaited them down there?

The girl rushed forward, hugging the boy tightly and making him stumble back a bit in surprise. She didn't give him time to react before she was pulling away. "I'm sorry," she whispered, quickly turning around and climbing into the sewers. However, she didn't disappear before she yelled out, "No one let Joel follow!"

Joel's eyes widened. "What?" he exclaimed before attempting to rush forward, but Tim was already there to stand in his way. "Tim, you got to let me go with her. I can't let her go alone. I-I can help."

"She'll be fine, Joel. Y/N’s a survivor. She won't let whatever creature this is take her down," Tim assured him before reaching out to grab the curtain. "You heard what she said. Now go with them." He then pulled the curtain between the two, effectively blocking Joel's view of the tunnel and leaving the boy standing there with a numb feeling coursing through his body.

"Robin," he muttered in frustration before turning on his heels and running to the room everyone was in. The door was locked behind him and Joel quickly shoved his way to the front so that he could watch the monitor with Karen and Kala.

They could all see five yellow dots moving through the tunnels near a bigger blue dot in the center of the screen. "They're getting close," Karen muttered, a silence falling upon them all as they noticed the five dots stop not too far away from the creature. Before anyone knew what was happening, the blue dot lunged out and grabbed ahold of one of the yellow dots.

"Shit."

"Oh, my God."

"It's got one of 'em."

"What about the others?"

The lights began to flicker while Joel felt his heart drop to his stomach. "Y/N," he whispered, his voice making everyone look his way. He was pale, his hands shakily holding onto the crossbow in his hands.

"We don't know if that's her, Joel," Karen tried to tell him. "She could be fine. She—"

"I'm going after her," he said before turning and running for the door. Everyone's eyes widened as people began to make a move towards him, by the boy was quick and already had the door open.

"Joel!" Kala yelled.

"They need help. My best friend needs help. I'm going," Joel insisted before running out the door and slamming in shut behind him.

Joel spun around quickly, crossbow in the air while he nervously looked around the bunker. It was like he was walking into a foreign place, the usual warm feeling of the bunker being replaced with nothing but an eerie feeling and a coldness that shook him to his very core.

His breathing was shaky as he began to walk forward, his eyes flickering around his surroundings while Joel tried to keep himself calm. The only thing keeping him from collapsing in fear was the knowledge that Y/N was out there possibly hurt. He had to get to her. He had to.

The lights flickered as he slowly made his way back towards the tunnels where he knew he had his best access to the others. It was a deafening silent as he walked into the room, so quiet in fact that his ears were ringing.

He nervously looked around and adjusted his hands on the crossbow. As he grew closer to the curtain Tim had pulled out earlier, a new sound filled his ears while his feet slowly stepped in the new puddles of water and blood that were on the ground. The sight made him feel sick to his stomach, so Joel did his best to keep his eyes staring straight ahead.

A lightbulb exploding behind him made the boy jump and spin around, his eyes wide in fear before he realized what had happened and turned back around. He could hear Tim and Connor's words replaying over and over in his head.

We all get scared, Joel, but you get really scared.

You're unsafe.

You're a liability.

Joel walked forward and took in a shaky breath as he attempted to push the voices from his head. His eyes continued to survey the area and he hesitated at the sight of a figure on the other side of the curtain. It almost looked like—

"Connor?" Joel questioned, his voice barely above a whisper. When there was no response, Joel furrowed his eyebrows in confusion and lowered his crossbow just a bit. "Connor?"

It was at that moment that a loud hissing sound came from the other side of the curtain and Connor's body limply flew across the room before being shoved into the mouth of whatever creature was over there with him. Lights from the other side shinned their shadows against the curtain and Joel's eyes widened in fear as he slowly took a step back.

Joel's whole body was shaking, his eyes tearing up a little as he feared for not only his life, but Y/N’s as well. If the creature had done what it did to Connor with Y/N. . .well, Joel didn't even want to think about what he would do.

It seemed he wouldn't have to because at that moment the monster finished up eating Connor and turned its attention towards the curtain. It made a noise that Joel swore was able to rattle his bones. The crossbow was back up in position once again, but his hands were shaking so badly that he knew if he didn't get his fear together he was going to be the monster's dessert to the meal it just ate.

The monster began to stand up on the other side of the curtain, its shadow growing bigger and making Joel gulp. He shakily got the crossbow ready to fire before freezing at the sight of the monster appearing over the top of the curtain.

There were tears in his eyes at this point and Joel couldn't even move as he watched the monster tear the curtain down before moving towards him. A few tears slid down his face and Joel felt the fear and panic coursing through his veins.

He closed his eyes as the monster grew nearer, his face confronting in pain and fear as he felt the monster's breath fanning his face and heard the growls rattling in his head.

Then before he knew what had happened, he heard the sound of something flying through the air and then the monster cried out in agony. He felt someone rush by him and opened his eyes to find Y/N standing above the monster's dead body, one katana dripping with blood in one hand while the other protruded from the center of the monster's face.

"D-Did I kill it, or did you?" Joel whispered, her eyes flickering between Y/N who still had yet to turn around and look at him, Tim, and Anna Lucia.

"What do you think?" Anna Lucia asked.

"Robin," he muttered for he knew she had been the one to save him, his eyes flickering back over to his best friend. It was then that she turned to look at him, her whole body shaking as she breathed heavily and attempted to calm herself down. Joel inhaled sharply at the sight of her, her face covered in dirt and blood while a scratch ran down the length of her arm from where the monster had no doubt tried to grab ahold of her.

Joel began to break at that, tears rolling down his face even more while Y/N pulled the other katana out of the monster's head before shoving them both into their sheaths. She moved forward in an instant, her hands grabbing ahold of Joel's arms while she looked to him with a worried gaze.

"Joel, are you okay? Are you hurt?" she asked earning a slow shake of his head in response. "What were you doing? What were you thinking? You could've gotten killed!"

Joel slowly lifted his gaze to her, his whole body still shaking as he whispered, "You-You were in trouble, Robin. I—"

Joel was unable to finish what he was saying, his words being cut off as he closed his eyes and more tears fell. It was obvious he was holding back a sob due to the fact they were in front of other people and Y/N felt herself soften almost immediately.

She was wrapping her arms around his neck without a second thought, pulling him in for a hug which Joel quickly accepted. His arms were around her waist and he held onto her tightly while he shook, his tear filled eyes flickering to the ground where the monster that had been seconds away from killing him laid dead on the ground.

- - -

Oh, and I have a pretty severe freezing problem.

But I am working on it.

- - -

Tag List

@simplybarnes

@spideysimpossiblegirl

@bookdorkfangirl

@katemusic

@eternallyvenus

@juliebean247

@trustfundparker

#love and monsters #love #and #monsters #dylan o’brien x reader #dylan o'brien #joel dawson #joel dawson imagine #joel dawson x reader #joel #Dawson #Aimee #Clyde #minnow #boy #apocalypse

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charlotte-lavender · 3 years

Text

Spring Blossoms, as does Love (pt. 3)

📷

Summary: Three months after the events of Part 2, Kuroo suggests taking the next step in his and Y/N's relationship. However, with how vehemently unkeen Y/N is about the idea, could he be hiding some insecurities from Kuroo?

A/N: Hey y'all! This series was originally going to be left off at just Part 2, but I'm excited to announce that this series will be a mainstay on the page for a while! (I'm hoping for at least ten parts) Anyway, this particular chapter is an angst -> fluff covering some more of Y/N's backstory and traumas. As always, remember I use British English, and enjoy the small time skip story! Stay safe!

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Three Months Later...

"I'm sorry Kuroo, you want me to WHAT NOW?!?" I said, raising my voice at the end of my sentence to prove a point.

"I want you to move in with me... It's hard for me to be so far from you all the time." He says, foregoing the usual suggestive tone for a more quiet mutter. Kuroo has been driving between his apartment and my house in the country nearly every day, which is at least forty-five minutes. He had recently moved into a larger apartment and was now trying to convince me to leave my shop and land for the city life.

"Please, Y/N. I want to be with you so bad but I don't have the flexibility with my job to live so far away."

"I don't know, Kuroo. I've worked hard for what I have, and I'd have to give it all up in order to be with you? I love you, but what if this whole 'relationship' thing doesn't last between us? I don't want to have everything to lose it all again, Kuroo."

"You could open a shop in the city-"

"Kuroo, just stop. I'm gonna go to bed, and you should hit the road. I don't want to talk to you about this anymore." I stand up from the chair, walking my glass to the sink.

"Y/N... okay. I love you, babe." He says, moving to give me a hug from behind. I turn around, pushing out of his arms and walking to the stairs.

"Yeah. Goodnight, Kuroo."

He gives a sad look to me as I climb the stairs before I turn my back and disappear into the dark. I hear his feet pad on the floors to the door; it creaks open and slams shut, the lock twisting as it cranks closed.

**POV SWITCH**

When I get to my car, I smash my forehead against the wheel. I knew talking about that would make Y/N angry, and I did it anyway. He must think I'm so selfish. As I pull onto the two-lane road back to the highway, I rethink the conversation, and something catches my attention that didn't before. He's worried about our relationship lasting. Pulling off to the side of the road, I turn around and drive begin the drive back to his house. I won't let this go over something as menial as moving in together. I'm above that.

**POV SWITCH**

Laying in bed, my phone buzzes. It's Kuroo: "I'm coming back. I'm sorry I left on bad terms, and I want to acknowledge some of your insecurities about our relationship. Be there in five." Just as I finished reading the text, the low rumble of an engine and the crunching of gravel alerts me of his arrival. I climb out of bed and plod down the stairs, taking my sweet time to answer the door for him. And there he is. He instantly sweeps me into a hug, planting a kiss on my forehead. "Let's go sit down and cuddle. I want to talk about this." He whispers to me. He scoops me up bridal-style and walks inside, firmly planting us on the sofa with me still in his arms.

"Now," He begins. "tell me about why you are convinced that our relationship won't last and about your fear of losing control of what you've built for yourself." I instantly tense up, freaking out. "How has he read me that well? Seriously, this guy is talented like WTF." I think to myself. "Y/N? You in there?" He asks concerningly.

"I'm fine, just...frightened. I love you a lot, and I feel that if you spent more time with me, or we took the next step together, I'd screw something up and lose you."

"Oh, dear. There is nothing you could do that could jeopardise my love for you."

"Thank you Kuroo."

"Just one final thing: what did you mean by 'you were scared to lose it all again'?"

"Oh. That." Should I tell him the truth, or... yeah, he's earned the truth from me. "Kuroo," I begin. He hums in acknowledgement. "I haven't always gotten along with my family. When I said I was scared to lose it all again, I was referring to my life before my parents split up." Kuroo's eyes widen at this revelation. I continue, "We had always had that perfect family image, and my parents worked hard to keep that up. I never told you this, but I grew up reasonably wealthy, and when my parents split, my dad lost it all—literally everything. My mom showed up with a moving truck and emptied the house, only to sell it all before she sued my father for the home and sold that too. Then, she dumped my brother and me off at the motel where my dad was living and took off, moving to California. I was only fourteen." At this point, I was crying, so Kuroo rose and walked up the stairs, gently placing me in bed before crawling in on the other side of me and pulling me in closer to him.

"I have you now, Y/N. And I want to build a life with you. I want to get married, have children," I giggle at his display of affectionate language, as well as his suggestive eye movement when he was talking. "and stay with you forever. I completely understand that you aren't ready yet, and I will wait forever and a day for you. I would move heaven and earth for you, Y/N." He pulls me tight up against him, slotting his head above mine. "Now go to sleep, baby. I'll be here when you wake up. From now until the end of our time here."

**POV SWITCH**

Feeling Y/N's soft breaths against my chest was enough to lull me into sleep as well. I can't believe how lucky I am to have someone like him. "I've decided," I think to myself, "to leave it all behind. He's my world. And seeing my world sad is like watching it end. I won't allow it." I'm going to move in with him, not the other way around. I wonder what he'll make for breakfast?

#male reader #x male reader #hq x reader #haikyuu!!#haikyu x reader #haikyuu x male reader #kuroo tetsuro x reader #kuroo x you #hq kuroo #kuroo x male reader

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peachcitt · 3 years

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okay, so style reference you say? I'm 👀

YES STYLE REFERENCE I SAY

this is going to be. a very long post i think with probably a lot of tangents and probably with a lot more thorough explanation than you could ever want but. here we go

because all of my theory/explanation posts end up So Long, i like to organize myself by keeping myself to a structure, and i also like to think if i put stuff in sub categories with bolded titles, people reading can skip ahead to the stuff they want if they're low on time or don't feel like slogging through everything. so here's the structure of the official Peach Style Reference Narrative

1. Early Days - how i started writing, my early inspirations, origins

2. Current Days - discussions of current style references plus examples and comparisons, discussions of original content versus fan content

3. Future Days - where i expect my writing to grow, trajectories i want, conclusory thoughts

without further ado, let's get into it!

1. Early Days

like i mentioned on the discord server, ive been writing creatively for. a very long time. i just turned 20 (like. literally today. we love to see it) and that seems very young, but i remember writing creatively when i was maybe six or seven, and before that i played with dolls a lot, which meant every day i was creating little narratives for myself. in addition to this - and this is probably why i started writing so young - i was (and am!) a very avid reader. i was that little jerk in elementary school reading chapter books and going into the older kids' section in the school library because i'd already mentally surpassed the books in the section meant for kids my age. so, basically, ive been writing for maybe 13 or 14 years at the least.

when i was young, my favorite books that i remember trying to copy in my own stories were: the magic treehouse books, harry potter, and percy jackson.

the magic treehouse

i honestly could not tell you which magic treehouse book it was, but i remember reading a specific magic treehouse book where the magic lady that left the treehouse for the kids sends the kids (jack and annie??) a note in distress, and she didn't get to finish signing her name because whoever had gotten her had interrupted her. it had been printed in the book with the ink on her name running.

i could not tell you anything else that happened in that book, but i can tell you that at some point in time soon after i read that book i started writing a story with an interrupted letter just like that. i loved the drama, the mystery of it all. i wanted to do something that was a little scary like that, a little exciting.

harry potter

harry potter isn't much of a style reference, but it was a huge impact of my childhood. truth be told i kind of hated the books when i was really young because i grew up watching the movies, and when i tried to read the books when i was in elementary school, the teenage angst that hits about book 5 simply Did Not make sense to me. i also find the language of harry potter to be super cumbersome, and sometimes it feels to me like the books are long just for the sake of being long. they have a huge cultural impact, but i feel the same way about harry potter's style as i do about dickens. cool and interesting, but, like, could you get to the point already? (and also my opinion of j.k. rowling has steadily been growing worse and worse over the years, for obvious reasons. harry potter is nostalgic for me, but i can't look at it now without thinking about it critically, which really lowers my opinion of it)

however, you could probably call my first fanfiction a harry potter fanfiction. i started it when i was maybe six or seven, and it was a rewrite of the chamber of secrets with my childhood best friend as the main character (she didn't know about it, i just had her as the main character because i thought she was cool). i of course never finished it, but harry potter probably did a huge part of planting that seed of magic in me. everything i want to write included some form of magic - although my perspective on what can be considered magic has steadily expanded over the years.

percy jackson

of all my childhood "style references" that still influence me to this day, percy jackson has got to be the biggest. for starters, it's magic. second, it's main themes are about friendship and family - things that i like all my stories now to always include. third - and most important - is the narrative voice.

in terms of narrative voice, percy has a huge personality. he's witty and snarky, but also very thoughtful and poignant. a lot of my early writing was in first person, and it's probably because of percy. also, percy jackson was the first fandom i really got into, and it was the first media that i started officially writing and posting fanfiction for. percy's voice is so clear and hooking, and i wanted to be able to write something funny and real like that.

also - chapter titles. the original pjo series is famous for its weird and hilarious chapter titles, and even though i didn't really start writing fics or stories that were long enough to need chapter titles until a while later, i loved the idea of putting in a chapter title that would make a reader laugh, or maybe even make a reader feel a little apprehensive about the events to come.

but back to percy's narrative voice. i loved that style, almost conversational, so much that i started thinking like it. when i wasn't doing anything, like walking home in middle school, i often found myself narrating my life in my head like percy would, trying to find that humor and spark in my every day surroundings. i still find myself doing that very often, but not necessarily in the classic pjo style. now i narrate everything in my head a little differently, but that practice narration in my early days really helped my shape my voice, i think.

other series i read when i was younger include: a a series of unfortunate events and the name of this book is secret. i don't remember seeing a lot of influence in my early writing from those books, but i definitely think the styles of those books hit me a little later, which i will talk about in the next section.

but, yeah. these were the big three of my childhood. i also read a lot of ya romance, children's mystery books, princess stories, and various types of fantasy, which i think you could probably tell from the genres i like to stick to now. except i don't write a ton of mystery because, as much as i admire the complicated plots, im not sure if i'd have the patience to plan all that out.

in terms of the rest of the genres, a ton of my earlier writing included classic ya romance and fantasy tropes - chosen girl, love triangles, angsty overpowered teens, etc etc. even though those kinds of stories are not necessarily the kinds of stories i want to write or read now, i think my early writing of those kinds of things was really valuable. it's kind of a dirty secret with finished or unfinished works generally considered 'cringe' - often that writer is a new writer, or they're trying something new, or they just haven't found their voice yet. all of those things are perfectly okay and normal, and a lot of people in the writing community preach that kind of thing, but i don't necessarily see people cutting new writers slack in actual practice. writing "overrused" tropes isn't cringe, it's normal, and, besides, what trope isn't overrused? people have been writing and telling stories for thousands of years - nothing is really new. what matter is that someone new is telling the story, and that's what makes it valuable.

so, yeah, a lot of my childhood writing is cringe to me now, but i wouldn't be where i am without it.

with that being said, let's actually look at where i am now

2. Current Days

im going to break this section down into two parts, sort of: original fiction and fanfiction. because i think both of these things have become really important to me, and i don't believe i personally could exist as a writer without one or the other. it's a symbiotic relationship.

we'll start with fanfiction.

my relationship with fanfiction is relatively positive in online spaces: i write what i want to see from media that i like, and i have fun doing it. i also get some comments on my fics by lovely people that detail exactly what they like - some even go so far to talk about narrative style, voice, or tone - and that's really helpful. generally, i see fanfiction not only as a fun hobby and vent space for my strong positive feelings about certain media, but also as a place for me to try new things, experiment, and earn positive feedback.

i don't often share my original fiction online (and if i do, never at the same scope as my fanfiction), so i don't get that same opportunity to see what "works" with readers. fanfiction gives me the space to see that, and i apply new knowledge ive learned to my original fiction. that's what i mean by a symbiotic relationship.

in terms of specific style references for specific fics (which is what i know you probably most want to see), i'll try my best to pick them all out and give specific examples.

those benevolent stars and i am the messenger by markus zusak

in my favorite book list, i saw you mention tbs, so i'll start there. to be honest, i had no idea what my style reference for tbs was when i first saw your tags, and i almost didn't think there was anything specific. style references are a bit sneaky like that - if you've been referencing for someone for a long time, it becomes less of an intentional reference and more of just a you think, so it gets harder to tell.

lucky for this post, i just finished doing my yearly reread of zusak's i am the messenger, and as i was reading, i noticed a few spots where i was like wait hey i remember doing that.

for starters, iatm has been my favorite book for about six or seven years now, so i would say that some aspects of my style certainly comes from zusak because of how much i love iatm but also his other books. zusak has this huge talent for writing short, punchy sentences that convey so much in just a few words, and i think i've ended up trying to do that in my own writing. often, in my writing you'll see fragmentary sentences such as "He stopped. Blinked. Looked at her." that's not from anything specific, but i know ive written something like that maybe a million times over. zusak doesn't do the same thing - often his fragments are jam-packed with imagery in a way that mine aren't - but there's a thoughtfulness in his fragments that are in mine, too. a sort of pause. a hint that there's thinking happening in the narrator or a certain character. for example, i did a quick flip through of my copy and we have:

"We stare across the table.

Just briefly.

At each other." (I am the Messenger, p.144)

so you see how my common sentence fragment of "he stopped / blinked / looked at her" tracks with a fragment like this? i like the way zusak broke up sentences to make you dwell on them a little longer, consider the importance of each section, so i started doing that wayy before i wrote tbs i think.

also, at the time i wrote tbs, i think i was in the process of, or had just finished doing my reread of iatm, and, like i said, zusak loves imagery. tbs is a very imagery-heavy fic. tbs was influenced by a lot of music - a lot of the scenes have very specific pieces of music that i wrote imagining the tone and vibe of. iatm also references a lot of outside media sources, mostly music and films.

there are a couple of scenes in tbs that i think i wrote specifically mimicking or accidentally referencing from iatm. for example, we have this scene in tbs:

"It was almost like he could feel Marinette’s eyes on his back, steady and gentle. 'But you still love her.”

'Yeah,' Adrien said quietly, 'I still love her.' His eyes moved along a streak of purple that bled into a dark blue. 'I hate her a little bit, too.'

Marinette was silent.

He turned around, giving her a smile." (Those Benevolent Stars, chapter 3)

and this scene from iatm:

"'Do you hate me, Ed?'

Still stupid with bubbles and vodka in my stomach, I answer. Very seriously.

'Yes,' I whisper. 'I do.'

We both smack the sudden silence with laughter." (I am the Messenger, p. 233)

obviously there are differences, and i don't think i did it on purpose, but the interaction is very similar. i love the gentle intimacy of that scene in iatm, that weird complication relationship between the main character and the person he loves, the hurt, the brushing it off with laughter. so i wrote a scene that incorporated those things

zusak is also really good at writing moments of quiet into his books that aren't necessarily important to the plot, but are still important. if you've ever read that ghibli meta post talking about the 'quiet' between scenes in studio ghibli scenes, meant to give both the audience and the characters space to breath, it's like that. nothing in iatm is not imporant - it all serves a purpose, even the quiet moments, and i try to do the same thing. there's moments like that in tbs i think, like:

"Marinette gave him a small smile before turning back to her ice cream. Adrien tried to eat his ice cream a little faster, licking up where it had dripped onto his hand.

They were quiet for a while longer, and Marinette finished her ice cream. She leaned back on her hands and looked up at the dark sky, littered with stars.

He could see them all in her eyes, too." (Those Benevolent Stars, chapter 3)

and in iatm, you get scenes like:

"Our feet dangle.

I watch them, and I watch the jeans on Audrey's legs.

We only sit there now.

Audrey and me." (I am the Messenger, p.120)

so i definitely think tbs is a very i-am-the-messenger/markuz zusak-inspired fic. there's a lot of zusak's quiet, and there's the pieces of zusak's style that i've picked up along the way that really shine in tbs

tomorrow and this body's not big enough for the both of us by edgar cantero

ive talked about cantero a few times recently, but, as you've probably noticed, in relation to my fic called 'tomorrow.' i wrote tomorrow pretty soon after reading this body's not big enough for the both of us, and i used tomorrow specifically to experiment with cantero's visual writing style. in all the books by cantero ive read, there's this kind of hyper-awareness of a film gaze - how a certain scene would be shot on a camera, dialogue as script writing, and other things like that mixed with prose. i thought it was fascinating, and after finishing this body, i really wanted to play around with that idea. so i wrote tomorrow keeping in mind a "film gaze." for example:

"Two figures sitting on a rooftop, silhouettes. The moon hovers over them carefully, a crescent afraid to break the silence. One of the figures takes a breath, looks up into the sky at the hesitant moon, and he sighs. He closes his mouth again." (tomorrow)

versus in cantero's work, where we get descriptions like:

"And then, like a high-heeled coup de grace, she arrived.

She paused briefly outside the door, her hourglass silhouette cast upon the glass panel with the fresh shiny vinyl letters" (This Body's Not Big Enough for the Both of Us, prologue)

the tone of the two excerpts are very different, but there's a very visual sense to both of them, like they are being described from a shot in a movie rather than a regular work in prose. in tomorrow i also work a lot with specific camera imagery - saying where the camera goes in the scene, what it focuses on - and this body doesn't do this too much, but cantero's meddling kids does at least once that i remember.

regardless, after finishing this body, i wanted to try my hand at the visual structure that cantero uses in his works, so i really leaned in to the idea.

chat noir's white french man hit list for feminist purposes and grasshopper jungle by andrew smith

this is, as of right now, the most recent fic on my ao3, and i started it the literal day i finished grasshopper jungle. i think you might be getting a theme here - i read a really good book, and then immediately after i start writing something. the easiest way to get inspired as a writer is to read.

chat noir's hit list is a fic that is very much aware of the fact that it is a story being told - you don't know by who or for what real reason until the end, but it's a self aware sort of story. it's also very snarky and sarcastic, and it expands past just the confines of its own story; it's about chat noir and his hit list, but it also talks in depth about emilie agreste, chat noir's relationship with ladybug, and his relationship with himself. this is very much the kind of thing that you would find in an andrew smith book - grasshopper jungle is a story being told to you, and it's also about more than just the original pieces of the plot. the narrator tells the story that expands past regular confines of the story he means to tell - he's telling the 'history' of his life and his town, but he also talks about his great-great grandfather, the origins of the ketchup his girlfriend's dad eats, and what's happening in other parts of the country as he and his best friend are hanging out. the line in chat's hit list of "stars exploded, the sun did not, life continued on" was very much a grasshopper jungle and andrew smith-inspired line.

at the end of adrien's narration in chat's hit list, he says:

"It should be mentioned at this point in time that this story is not over, although I’ll stop telling it here.

So that’s the story of Chat Noir, who is also Adrien Agreste, who was very much a normal boy, except for the fact that he wasn’t. It’s a sad story, but it is also a happy story, and it is highly confidential. I’m sure you understand." (Chat Noir's White French Man Hit List for Feminist Purposes)

and at the end of grasshopper jungle, as the main character is closing out his narration, we get:

What I have written here is not the history of Eden. It is the history of the end of the world. All real histories will be about everything, and they will stretch to the end of the world.

The end of the world started when Andrej Szczerba slid into the cold sea as his boy, Krys, watched and wept and drifted closer and closer to the United States of America.

Nobody knew anything about it." (Grasshopper Jungle, p.382-3)

It's not overtly similar, but the structure is the same: recognition of the end, short summary of where we started and left the story, tag phrase that was used prior in the work. when i was writing the end of adrien's narration, i didn't mean to mirror grasshopper jungle so closely, but sometimes things just happen that way - honestly, so many of the things i do in my writing aren't intentional, they're subconscious. when i make a conscious choice, it's related to plot or to a new strategy im applying to style or voice that i'm not used to, but a lot of the things i do fly under the radar in my brain unless im purposefully trying to piece them apart like i am here.

i will say the meta-story of chat's hit list was pretty directly inspired by grasshopper jungle because i love meta stories, and i like using opportunities to put them in. i just love the idea of reading a story of someone telling someone else a story, which is what the two books by andrew smith i've read have been, and i think that's just fascinating, which is why i used it here.

ive gotten a couple of comments on chat's hit list that liken the narrative style to pseudonymous bosch's the name of this book is secret and lemony snicket's a series of unfortunate events, which i thought was really interesting, because i was purposefully trying to make the voice an impression of andrew smith's voice adapted to the tone of ml, but i could definitely see their reasoning.

andrew smith, like i mentioned before, likes specifics - what exactly people were doing at certain times, where a specific bottle of ketchup came from, etc. from what i remember of the name of this book is secret and a series of unfortunate events, i remember the descriptions included in those books chock full of highly specific, snarky details that aren't truly necessary, but do a whole lot in terms of adding a certain flavor to the narration. i won't try and look up examples from unfortunate events and the name of this book, but here are a couple examples:

"See, the thing about Emilie Agreste, formerly Emilie Graham De Vanily, is that she was what could be generously called a ‘radical.’ Born in 1969, like most amazing and world-altering things, Emilie Graham De Vanily grew up in London alongside her twin sister, who is a nice enough woman and who is not really that important to this story, and she was raised with the firm and gentle hands of people who had witnessed war and cruelty and had found that they did not like at all. Emilie Graham De Vanily grew up learning about the true history of England, which is not a very nice history, truly, and she grew up knowing that people with white skin like her were historically not all that great. That, historically, was a very radical thought." (Chat Noir's White French Man Hit List for Feminist Purposes)

from chat's hit list, and this:

"In 1905, being seventeen years old made you a man. In 1969 when hungry Jack fought in Vietnam, seventeen years old was a man. My brother, Eric, who was somewhere in Afghanistan, was twenty-two.

Krzys Szczerba came across the Atlantic with his father. They planned on working and earning enough money so Krzys's mother, brother, and two sisters could come to the United States, too. People who did that were called Bread Polacks. They came here to make money." (Grasshopper Jungle, p. 68)

from grasshopper jungle. once again, obviously very different, but you can tell im playing around with that same feeling of giving a surplus of facts in my narration in the same way that andrew smith does. you can't really tell in the grasshopper jungle excerpt, but oftentimes the surplus of 'facts' serves almost a comedic effect, which is definitely something that you can feel in chat noir's hit list.

[REDACTED] and six of crows by leigh bardugo

as a reward for sticking around through this, i'll give out something fun here. the current long fic that ive been working on recently has proved to be very bardugo-inspired, particularly six of crows-inspired.

in six of crows, bardugo gives us action right off the bat and then integrates flashbacks into lulls of action so that there's never truly a dull moment. i found [REDACTED] to be a fic where i wanted to use flashbacks in a similar way, so that i would get something like:

"She doesn’t stay for the whole parade, but she stays for enough of it. Nothing unusual happens, just like always, but she still makes cursory patrols around the city, ending up at the Eiffel Tower, just like always. She sits on the railing way up at the top, and she crosses her ankles, swinging her legs back and forth and humming softly to herself as she watches the sun set.

'Little kitty on the roof, all alone without his lady,' he used to sing when he’d gotten back to their meeting point from patrolling his half of the city before her. It was just a silly little song, one that he’d clearly made up for himself."

It didn’t hurt until he’d been akumatized, and she’d seen that one version of the future - the one where he’d destroyed the whole world because of Gabriel Agreste. She’d seen him then, a lonely figure in white, humming his little song to himself. Who knows how long he’d been like that before she’d been transported to him, how long he’d been really and truly alone. (REDACTED, chapter 1)

and in comparison, we get a lot of scenes in six of crows like:

"Kaz leaned against the ship's railing. He wished he hadn't said anything about his brother. Even those few words raised the memories, clamoring for attention. What had he said to Geels at the Exchange? I'm the kind of bastard they only manufacture in the Barrel. One more lie, one more piece of the myth he'd built for himself.

After their father died, crushed beneath a plow with his insides strewn across a field like a trail of damp red blossoms, Jordie had sold the farm. Not for much." (Six of Crows, p.205-6)

bardugo uses most of the flashbacks during a time in which the main characters are on a long sea voyage, which means they have a lot of time to reflect on their pasts and what brought them to these situations - it's a smart way to fill the empty space of the sea voyage and to really dwell on how important the voyage is. in a similar way, i chose to use the flashbacks in dull or lulling moments in the events of the story, ones in which marinette lets her mind wander or sees something that makes her remember something specific.

however, here's a situation where you can see me adapt the style into something that makes more sense for me, personally: in my excerpt, the tense changes between the current events and the flashback events, while in bardugo's excerpt, the tense stays the same at a comfortable past tense. when i was writing my fic with the flashbacks, i thought the constant, sometimes abrupt, switching would get confusing, so i made sure to always have a clear line using the past and present tense that readers could consciously or unconsciously take notice of.

so there are a couple of instances within some fairly recent fics i have that have specific callbacks to specific books. there are a whole bunch more, i think, but these are the ones that ive played around with intentionally the most recently or the most often.

3. Future Days

based on my recent rapid experimentation in fics (the most recent four fics on my ao3 have been very experimental in comparison to most of my works), i really anticipate a lot of growth in my overall style. ive been having a lot of fun experimenting and throwing in things that a few years ago i would've never even thought of, so im really excited to see where that might lead me, style wise.

i think as a writer there's always room for growth and learning, and that kind of growth and learning comes from not only practicing writing, but also reading. i cannot stress enough how valuable and impactful reading is on writing. considering ive been trying to read a lot more than i have been in recent years, it makes a lot of sense that ive been making a lot of weird decisions and learning more about what i want to see in my own writing.

honestly, if you ever want to know about any of my other fics, or you want to see how this kind of thing translates to my original works, just shoot me an ask! this post is already long enough, so i think i'll go ahead and end it here, but just know you can always ask questions<3

thank you so much for asking me this question and letting me indulge, and thank you for reading!!!<3<3<3<3

#ask #miabrown007 #writing #writing meta #writing style #writing style reference #my writing meta #this took. actually i will not say how long this took because i do not want to hurt myself that way #just know that this took a while. did it need to? fucking no absolutely not you didn't ask for something this long i did this to myself #this is why i didn't answer this for a couple days btw i wanted to take time to actually sit down and write down a thorough post like this #for you and i didn't have the time when you first sent it #technically i should not have had the time today but that sort of thing doesn't count in the middle of the night #happy birthday to me im giving myself a super long meta post where i info dump about some of my favorite things #also you did not. you did not ask for writing or life advice and yet i also gave that. im sorry it just happens i don't know how to stop #im so tired. i have class tomorrow (today) my cat's being a little piece of shit. we love to see it #thanks so much for asking this and i seriously mean it when i say you can ask any time #i obviously didn't go over the majority of my fics and most of this was done off of memory alone #(in terms of my own fics. the books i had to flip through to find the quotes i wanted)#so if you have any more questions about a specific fic don't hesitate to ask!! that goes for everyone btw #anyway now i have to pay attention to my cat and then go to sleep goodnight love y'all

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sacredmouche · 4 years

Text

Pavlovian Conditioning | Kageyama x Reader

Word count: 1.8K

Warnings: none

Genre: Fluff (?), College!AU

College!Kageyama x College!Reader

"Damn you, Kageyama! I've been doing this for TWO FUCKING MONTHS, and you haven't fall into my obvious hints that I like you!" is what you wanted to tell him for a long time now. You have been dropping hints to him and he doesn't seem to notice. Helping him with his homework voluntarily, asking him to eat with you during lunch (coz boi he eats alone all the time), and writing his notes when he falls asleep during class, those are some things you do for him that obviously say "I like you, Kageyama!" but you don't know what is wrong with this boy. Is he that stupid or just numb? You don't know but what you know is that you are not going to give up until he realize that you like him and make him like you.

Another day, another stress brought to you by being a college student with Kageyama not taking your hints on the side. What a great time to be alive!

Today is one of those days when you feel like not dropping hints to him, you're tired and you have something big carrying on your shoulders. You’re a leader of your research group for fuck sake.

"We're only freshmen but why the fuck do we have to comply with all these activities?" you whispered with unbelievable look in your eyes. A day in university just come to an end and you are in your favorite cafe with all your school papers on the table, waiting for the barista to call your name and sip on that delectable coffee you just ordered. Studying in this cafe is relaxing and the ambiance is perfect for you to focus, so it is a part of your day to stop by here and study.

"It's because you're a college student, stupid" a familiar voice made you raise you head and it was your childhood friend who study in the same university as you.

"Oikawa!!" calling him with tears in your eyes, nope you're not sad you're just happy to see him.

"Hey hey, don't tear up cry baby!" he pulled the chair in front of you and sat down, looking all the papers scattered on the table then looking at you in disbelief.

"What in the hell- this is a lot" you looked at him and gave him a look that says "I fucking know, right" then letting out a big sigh.

"Yes, great king this is a lot, but that's not all! I have a quiz on my major tomorrow, and I need to study three chapters," you complained, pulling your untied hair into a messy bun.

Oikawa did not speak but you still feel comforted with his presence, but then he opened the topic you really do not want to talk about.

"So how's it going with-"

"For customer y/n?" the barista cut him off mid sentence, great maybe he'll forget talking about him. Goddamnit Oikawa, y u gotta bring him up?

You stood up and went to the counter to get your order, doing everything slowly so he'll forget what he was about to say a while ago. But it's Oikawa we're talking about, he'll never stop until he knows the answer to his curiosity.

Reaching you seat and as soon as you sat down, he asked "So anyway, how's it going with Tobio-chan?"

You gave him a look that throws knives that could kill him.

"W-what? I'm just asking, just wanna know!"

"well... I don't fucking know what is wrong with him! He doesn't take all my hints and I do not want to tell him directly. Is he that stupid?" Oikawa laughed and you raised your eyebrow making him stop.

"Yes, he's stupid. You're a Psychology major why don't you use psychology instead of doing common things that common girls do. Then, bye! I gotta go, good luck with school... and with Tobio-chan!" then he made his way out leaving you confused and thinking.

Use psychology?

You shrug it off for now and just start working on your school papers that is due tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.

"I'm home!" you announced your arrival as soon as you stepped inside your house, going straight in your bedroom and changed into a pair of pajamas and comfortable shirt.

You set up your study table with your psychology book in it, a notebook, and some pens and highlighters.

You've been studying for half an hour and you just started on the second chapter out of three chapters, you don’t really mind sleeping late if you go to school with confidence that you’ll ace your quiz.

"Hmm, Classical Conditioning... by Pavlov. Okay okay. Hmm okay I understand" you muttered while reading the textbook definition of the term. Studying the three types of learning as indicated on your Psychology book, an idea – a brilliant one – came to the magnificent brain of yours. A smile forming in your lips as you continue your studying.

I bet this one will work so be ready Kageyama.

------

“Good morning Tooru-chan!” you cling your arm to your friend who’s giving you now a disgusted look, but you just gave him a wide smile.

“What’s gotten into you? Why do you look happy? Why are you happy? Are you okay? And why the fuck did you call me Tooru-chan? I’m older than you, you know?”

“Woah easy boy, eaaaasssy. Why flood me with questions? My mind is already flooded” flooded with thoughts of Kageyama.

“Flooded with thoughts of Kageyama” he said that earned a laugh from you, he looked down on you and furrowed his brows.

“It’s because of you that’s why I am thinking of him more than usual, idiot. You’re a genius. I complimented you, take it or leave it” You sassed and walked faster.

“Why? What? What are you talking about?” he asked as he ran to close the big distance between the two of you.

“You’ll know it, I’ll tell you when the time comes. I have 10 AM class, I gotta go. See ya!” You left him there, this time he is the one who is confused and thinking. Why is she so happy? Why did she call me a genius? Not that I do not think of myself as one, but why did she call me a genius?

Making your way to your classroom, you stopped by to a vending machine, buying two cartons of milk. This class is your major and Kageyama is in that class too, so it makes you extra excited to reach the room. This subject last for two hours but you don’t really mind since learning is everything, right? And you’re a flirt and seeing Kageyama for two hours is too much to make your heart go boom boom.

After the quiz, there was some time left so a little discussion took place until it’s time to wrap up.

Lunchtime. Okay, this will work. I trust you, Pavlov. Don’t let your bitch down!

“Uhh, Kageyama–”

“Damn!” his loud voice made you jump; you were stoned in your place. Heart beating faster with a little bit of pain, thinking that he was irritated by you. You are about to tear up and take your leave, but he spoke.

“Hey, you were saying something? I’m sorry, it’s just that I forgot to bring my milk” your eyes sparkled. Heart skipped a beat. You’re in cloud nine, thanking the Gods.

“Yes, uhh let’s eat lunch together and here, wait a sec” you rummage through your things to get that extra carton of milk you bought on the way here.

“Good thing I bought two milks, it must be destiny” you laughed and handed him the milk and it’s his turn for his eyes to sparkle, he was so touched because it’s milk, duh. He wouldn’t share his milk with everyone, but you shared yours. Now he thinks of you as a goddess… of milk, who give free milks to those who needs it.

“Let’s eat lunch” he announced. I am not going to let this opportunity slip, a goddess asked me out. He thought.

Yo what the fuck? He agreed! Yes, this is it. A love story will emerge.

The two of you made your way out of the classroom and walked towards the university cafeteria. Now, what to do? You don’t really know what to do now, you both are eating in silence.

Come on, brain I need you please don’t leave me hanging!

But your brain is not cooperating with you, lunchtime ended and you both parted ways. It’s okay, you feel contented, you ate lunch with him and tomorrow you are going to ask him again because giving up is not on your vocabulary.

You are so eager to make him like you, so you are pulling Classical Conditioning at him to make that happen, all thanks to Oikawa for giving you that idea.

-----

It’s been seven days since you started using classical conditioning. Giving him his daily milk, you bought at the vending machine, watching as his eyes go sparkle.

You noticed the changes of him. Whenever you showed up, a big smile is forming on his lips just like the smile you see when you bring him his milks, his face painted with happiness just like when he is drinking his milk, and how his eyes sparkled when you give him his milk.

You rummage through your things just like the past seven days and give him his carton of milk. You stretched out your arms and handed him the unopened carton.

“Here you go, Kageyama. Your daily dose of milk” you said as you sip on your own milk.

He eyed you and took the milk

“You don’t really have to do all this for me to like you” your eyes widened at his words. Shocked. Wondering if he knew it all this time.

“Huh?” is all you can say

“I know you’re pulling Classical Conditioning on me to make me like you, did you not realize that I am not going to like you if you do that?” Oh. It hurts. Pavlov, you let me down. I hate you. You thought. Standing there in front of him, waiting for him to say another word even if it pains you. He is so straightforward it hurts, right there in my heart. But what the fuck? I thought he was stupid. He understands what classical conditioning is when all he does is sleep in this class!

“How long have–” he cut you off mid-sentence

“You associated yourself with my favorite milk, it’s not you who makes me excited, it’s the milk” he continued. Why am I still standing here? Every word he’s saying hurts.

“But that will be the scenario if I don’t like you,” Huh? You looked up to him, teary-eyed. A confused look emitted through your eyes.

“But I already like you, your presence alone makes me excited. With or without the milk. So stop.” he confessed and all you gave him is a wide smile that is filled with pure delight.

Thank you, Pavlov. You did not let me down.

THANK YOU TO MY FAM @teentitannns and @gaydistriss!! I couldn't choose which character suits the plot and they helped me. Luv u.

#hq x reader #anime #haikyuu #sports anime #haikyuu!!#haikyuu x reader #hq #kageyama #kageyama tobio #kageyama x reader #kageyama tobio x reader #fluff #tobio x reader #college #college!au #college!kageyama #college!reader

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forkanna · 5 years

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[AO3 LINK] [EF LINK]

CHAPTER FIVE

~ x JUDGMENT x ~

"That's enough."

Makoto smirked. "What's the matter? Too awkward for you?"

"Yes," Sae half-snarled, slamming her hand down on the table again. "I really have no desire to hear about my little sister's sex life. You don't need to go into so much gruesome, sordid detail!"

"Oh, I think I do." Her smirk slid off, replaced with an angry, defiant look. "You wanted this. Remember? Said you had to know the whole story. I asked you not to pry, to let me have my privacy - but it was more important you get the facts. So now you don't have any choice. I'm telling you all of it. All of it, and you will just have to figure out how to be okay with that."

For a moment, it looked like Sae might not respond at all. Then she frowned and clenched her hands over and over. "Makoto… I can't believe you're being so cruel to me just for doing my job. Trying to protect you."

"That isn't why. But you might as well just let me finish now, since I will whether you like it or not."

"That's… that isn't…" Sighing in defeat, she nodded and waved for Makoto to continue.

"Good." Brushing down the front of her skirt again, she began, "So…"

~ x The Priestess x ~

Miss Kawakami's delicate feminine hand was between my legs.

Every part of that mental sentence baffled me. It was my teacher. She was a woman. And she was wearing a French maid costume, pressing her fingertips gently against my very warm anatomy through my costume trousers. Anyone doing that was something I was totally not prepared to experience yet, much less her! This whole situation was insane and I was reasonably sure I was having a mental breakdown.

Meanwhile, there was something else to deal with.

"Oh." Miss Kawakami moved her fingers experimentally, I couldn't completely stifle a quiet moan - and her hand shot away. "Oh my GOD."

"U-um…" It was all I could get out. I mean, someone had just fondled me for the first time in my entire life, so I think I had a good excuse!

"Wh-what I mean is… oh my God, you…" Frantically scrambling for a better reaction, she petted my thigh again. "Oh my God. My master is a very, very special boy."

"Huh?!"

"Of course, I've never done this for somebody who's a- who's special." Licking her lips, she tried for a smile, but it didn't hide any of her anxiety at all this time. "But, well… I, um, I want to try! If Master wants me to."

One of my hands came up to clamp down on her wrist, to keep her hand from moving higher. "Please don't. I… it's very interesting, but I'm…"

"Master, it's okay," she told me earnestly. "That's not something that matters to me. Alright? But… if you really don't want me to, I promise, I won't go any further. Really."

That was more like the teacher I knew and respected. She had been trying to encourage me to open up, but when I looked too afraid to try more she let it go. Easily. I could have hugged her, except it would give her the wrong impression - and probably also give away my secret identity. Such as it was.

"Do you not have the money?" she asked in a whisper. "I think, since you're so special, I could… offer half price?" The awkward smile told me she was mostly trying to make me feel better rather than to earn more money. Though it was both.

"Please, I, u-um… could you draw me a bath? Maybe after a bath…"

"Of course." She patted my leg, then stood up and towered over me, hands on her hips. I could almost see up her dress… which I had no idea why I cared about. I didn't, did I? "I'll get to it right away, Master!"

Once she was gone, I managed to crawl my way up the side of the bed and onto the mattress. I wanted to cry, I wanted to throw up… but I ended up just huddling there, staring at the wall while I listened to the sound of running water.

The worst part was, I didn't even know which part was the worst part. That I was here with my teacher? That she had molested me, and it was because I had deceived her into doing so?

Or that one simple touch from her had actually turned me on? I had never been aroused before; not really. A little antsy once or twice, but only from small things, like sitting on the edge of a chair wrong. No person had ever been attractive enough to me that my interest would spark such a reaction. So why now, with Miss Kawakami?!

Because she was beautiful? Because I felt drawn to her out of sympathy for her situation? Because she was interested in me - even if it was false interest, part of her job? Because it was an intimate touch I had never experienced before?

"The bath is almost ready, Master!" she chirruped as she skipped into the bedroom. Now she was back to her usual self; it seemed the break from me had given her time to recover her professionalism.

"Thanks," I croaked, still lying there like a dead fish.

"Master…" Sitting on the edge of the bed, she rested a hand on my arm. "Everything is fine. If you really want me to leave, I will, but… I hope you'll let me make it up to you. Anything you want; name it. As long as it's not… that, it's on the house."

My eyes widened. Now she felt guilty enough to offer me a free lap pillow or tucking-in? That wasn't right. This whole situation was my fault. I owed her, not the other way around.

"Here," I said, handing her a ¥5000 note. Cup ramen for a week was in my future. "W-we can say you did help me. With, um… 'Health Massage'? That's what that means, isn't it?"

"Oh. Well, yes, but I didn't really do-"

"It's fine. Um… and you can keep the other ¥5000 for the other hour. I'm just going to take a bath and… and forget I did something this stupid. But there's no reason you should lose time and money because of me."

"You're sending me away?"

"Yes. A-and now you can use the other hour to do another job for someone who… deserves you. Who isn't useless."

For a long moment, she simply sat there, staring at me. She was going to start reassuring me, or petting over my body, or trying to come up with something else she could do to make me feel better. And I couldn't take it. This was all my fault, and she was being wonderful. Maybe that was her job, but it didn't mean her intentions weren't genuine.

Except what she said was, "Wait. I know that voice."

"N-no, you don't," I said, back to being unnecessarily gruff. Damn. At some point, I had forgotten to pitch my voice low enough to disguise it.

"Yes, I do." And I was powerless to stop her as she reached down and pulled at the mustache until the adhesive gave out and it left my identity a lot less obscured.

"Um…"

"Niijima-san."

"I can explain," I began nervously, sitting up and facing her fully. Even though I really didn't want to. "This wasn't-"

"Still following me, huh?" The anger was slowly bleeding through, and I averted my eyes. "You have a lot of nerve. Do you have any idea what you've done?"

"Yes. I do." My throat worked for a moment before I started blurting out, "I'm ruining your life. I wanted to help, but now I know too much, and… and your life is already hard enough without me complicating everything."

That seemed to undercut her anger a little. "Well… yeah. That's pretty close to what I was thinking, to be honest."

"You can go. I will never tell anyone about this. That's a promise."

"How can I trust you?" she asked weakly, shrugging as she stared down at the bedspread. "You already said you would stop prying into my life. And here you are."

"I tried! But…" Might as well clear the air. "I was behind you."

"Behind me?"

"When you left school today, a-and took that phone call. For your client. I didn't mean to be there - I mean it this time. It really was an accident." Her cheeks flushed a little, and I rushed ahead, "But I already know why you do it. I know it's not just for 'fun', it's because of those people, asking for more money. That you don't have a choice. S-so I know you don't care what I think, but I'm not looking down on you, o-or… or judging you for any of this."

Kawakami mulled that over for a few seconds. "But you pity me."

"Of course. Someone is hurting you."

"They aren't. I hurt myself." Sighing, she turned to sit down more properly. "Takase-san was counting on me to tutor him; he really wanted to learn. But I let others convince me that it was doing more harm than good, and told him I couldn't tutor him anymore. That was why…"

"That was why?"

"That was why he got into that accident. He was distracted by what I had told him, upset about that, and got ran over. And now he's gone. I ended a student's life because I couldn't pay attention to what he really needed, instead of what I thought he needed. It's my fault."

My lip trembled for a second before I whispered, "You… have no reason to listen to me. But unless you were driving the car that hit him, I'm pretty sure it's that guy's fault."

"But… he's gone. Nothing can bring him back, how am I supposed to live with that?"

"How am I supposed to live with the fact that I got so hung up on finding out whether or not my teacher was abusing one of her students that I completely violated her privacy? I don't know. Maybe we just have to do it. Figure it out as we go."

"Abusing?" After a second or two, she closed her eyes and nodded. "Amamiya-kun. You thought we were sleeping together."

"I'm still not totally sure you weren't, but… now I know it was never any of my business. And I'm sorry."

"You really thought I was capable of touching a student that way?" Suddenly, she was staring right at me, the color draining from her face. It took me a moment or two to figure out why.

"Listen-"

"I can't believe I did that. Put my hand right up there and-"

"You had no idea it was me," I reassured her. "If anything, it's my fault for not revealing myself earlier. I tricked you, and it's all on me. I refuse to let you take any of the blame."

Her hand pushed into the side of her face as a shiver of disgust ran the length of her spine. Whether that disgust was at me or at herself, I couldn't be sure. "My own student. I should have been more careful, I… how stupid can I get? That mustache is obviously fake, and your hair is obviously under that hat."

Finally, I took the fedora off. It served no purpose now. "Pretty lame, huh?"

"Why did you do it?" The hand fell away, and I could see her eyes were glistening with unshed tears, but she was trying to focus on the moment instead. "Why didn't you just confront me in class, in front of everyone? I just don't understand why you set up this… this sting operation, or whatever it is. Is the potato hiding in the closet?"

"You should probably stop calling the principal that," I laughed quietly, and she did crack a half smile. "But… you were so angry and hurt when I accused you of having an affair. This time, I couldn't make any assumptions. I had to find out for sure one way or the other."

"Guess I can understand." She stuck her legs out in front of herself, staring down at her uniform. "Look at me. What a mess! Maybe I'm fooling myself. I was never cut out to be a teacher. Outsmarted by the student council president, caught being a Delivery Health maid by two students now…"

After biting my lip for a moment, I reached over and picked up her laminated card. "Well, going by this, I would say you're more maid than Delivery Health. It says right here the only two of those services you offer, you might even refuse."

"God!" she burst out in exasperation, snatching the card away and stuffing it into her pocket. "I'm sorry I ever handed you that! You have no idea the hands that thing has touched!"

"Oh? Um, is it really that unsanitary?"

"I disinfect it before every shift. So not really. But the idea of it…"

Fighting down a creepy crawly feeling that was trying to make its way up my arms, I reached out to lay a hand on her forearm. "I'm sorry. About all of this, about tricking you, following you… it's all my fault and I will apologize every day for the rest of my life."

Kawakami shook her head. "That's not necessary. I deserve this for having both of these jobs at the same time. They really don't go together, do they?"

"Not really. But I am sorry, anyway."

"Well… I forgive you. You did the wrong thing for the right reason; trying to protect Ren. I'm no better than you, I guess."

"Huh? Oh… I didn't come to the Rabuho for him. Even though I'm still not sure how close you are to each other, I know now that I was wrong about you hurting him like that."

Now her eyebrows hiked, and again I was struck by how different she looked with all that makeup, the wig. "Huh? Then, uh… why are we here?"

"Because I wanted to see what this job of yours was. I'd already seen you in the maid outfit, and I was worried… this is stupid."

"No, no, go on."

"Fine. I was worried you were a prostitute, and… those people were making you use your body like that just to pay them off. And it wouldn't matter why; that would be wrong. So even though… this is… not ideal, I guess I'm glad the job isn't as bad as it could be."

She pushed both hands into her face. "I'm so embarrassed. You'll never be able to look me in the eye again, will you?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Because I'm an old slut."

"Hey! Don't say that. Come on, I know you, Miss Kawakami, and… and I don't believe you really do that very often. Do you?"

Lowering her hands, eyes empty and dead, she said, "More than I want to admit. But… I normally do refuse the Health Kiss, unless I feel really comfortable with the client. Even then, it depends on the day, and my mood. It's been a while since I did that."

So she did touch them. Just not with her mouth. My stomach curdled but I tried to ignore the reaction - to focus on my teacher. No… this woman in front of me, whose life was troubled because of something she had little control over.

"You have nothing to be ashamed of," I whispered as I moved closer, resting my hand on her back. Her eyebrows raised, and she looked over at me.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh… s-sorry." I took the hand away. "I don't know, I was trying to help."

"No, no, it's alright. You're fine, Niijima-san." Pinching the bridge of her nose now, she added, "I poked your nose with my toes - oh wow, I made you take off my tights! You probably hated doing that, didn't you? Why was I so stupid, why did I assume you wanted that?!"

My laugh was a little bitter. "Why was I so weird that I let you believe I wanted it? That's the question. But… it wasn't that bad. Really, I mean it."

"Having my foot in your face?" I shook my head. "Huh. Maybe you're a weird kid and I'm a weird adult."

"Or maybe we're both weird adults. Come on, I am eighteen; I could even get married if my sister gave her permission. I could even play pachinko, or vote for the Diet… and I can do other things."

The blush was back. I was making my teacher blush, and the crazy thing was, that wasn't my goal at all. Why did I keep making this situation worse simply by trying to reassure her?

"Do you need to see the card again? Because… I know we know who each other is now, but I'm on the clock. If you wanted something-"

"No, no," I chuckled nervously, playing with the hem of my sportcoat. "You shouldn't finish that thought. And you said you could refuse any requests if you don't want to do them, so… I wouldn't even try with those two, anyway.."

Cheeks getting redder, even through the makeup, she whispered, "I was going to say maybe I could massage you, I… seriously, if you asked for me to… do that, with my hand… I can't. You're my student."

My eyes went wide. "If I asked for a massage, you still would? Really?" Her expression was mortified, but she did nod. "Oh."

"Sorry. You're freaked out, maybe I should go to the bathroom and get out of your hair for a minute." Then she straightened up. "Oh! Or you could!"

"What?"

"The bath is still ready! And there are bubbles, and scented oils…" She smiled cautiously. "You should take a bath, let yourself relax. Give yourself some time to think without me being in the way."

"Ohhhhh. I get it now. But what if…" I bit my lips for a moment, then forced myself to finish - even with her staring at me, curious. "What if I wanted you to help me with my bath?"

To Be Continued…

#Queen Of Temperance #persona 5 fanfiction #p5 fanfic #niijima makoto #kawakami sadayo #forkanna writes #jess the writer

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matchboxguns · 2 years

Text

TW: eating disorders, bullying

Day #17: Bones, Young Guns (2012)

2015 for me started promising and ended with me crashing and burning. I think I'm still yet to experience something as bad and as life-changing as 2015.

2015 saw me ending my third year in law school. Some failing marks under my belt, developing some bad habits (skipping classes, crying in bathroom stalls, binge eating), but it wasn't all bad. Madonna released Rebel Heart in February. I rediscovered my love of reading, and by extension, my love for science fiction. I was friends with my roommates. I was losing weight.

One of my roommates then was a member of our campus paper, and he told stories about it all the time. Staff members for the paper were 90-95% undergrads/late teens. My roommate then was a senior studying Journalism. It wasn't all great (as I would find out myself), but to me the idea that I could spend time writing and being surrounded by writers thrilled me. I had notebooks with all the words I strung together. I was – and still am – have a healthy judgment over my ability (which is that I am not made of the right stuff to be a writer), but at that time it seemed a fun idea to do. My life was monotonous, if I could call it mine – I woke up at noon, tried to make sense of the law, felt devastated at each end of the day. I only ate when my knees start to tremble, and I had to get through three flights of stairs and two blocks to get my favorite snack (peanuts and chips, boba or fries when I feel like I deserve it). My life was monotonous, and I needed something to make my life worth staying.

I signed up to be a staff member for the paper, and boy did I prepare for it. Said roommate said the selection process was very intense: two rounds of writing exams, then an interview by a panel. Application only happens once a year, during the summer break. He had to apply three times.

I took nothing to chance. I checked out The Elements of Style from our library. I read one chapter, then wrote about any topic applying the lessons of that chapter. I remember listening to Unapologetic Bitch and Devil Pray while reading about the use of active voice, or about omitting needless words. I remember wrapping my writing notebook with a Barbie gift wrapper because I liked that shade of pink. I remember writing about how the music industry treated Madonna, and the literary merits of studying dystopias. I did not major in Journalism or in Communication Arts or in Literature or in English. And I was older than everyone else. I had a degree in politics but felt it no match against people whose careers rely on actually writing good work. I was a hateful, depressed grandpa, up against young writers with their bright futures ahead of them. I had to prove something.

We had to submit an application and everything, including our transcript. I was not ashamed of my grades. Quite the opposite really I would eventually become one of those pompous jerks who would say, “I earned my degree with Latin honors from a prestigious school when I was 18.” I submitted my application early. My tag was W5 – for “writer”, and probably because I was the fifth one to apply out of I think thirty people from the entire student body. I remember getting a text for the schedule for the first round. I was nervous, but I knew I had a good chance of making it.

And would you believe it, sweet one? I made it. I made it each round. The first one was to write any three articles on the spot, from a list of topics given to us. We were all in one room (I remember the room being warm, but not uncomfortably hot. It was summer.) What I wrote about on the first round I don’t remember now, but I recall feeling competent, and ready. I felt the same going to my Civil Procedure midterm: you could not tell me I was going to score below 90, much less flunk it. I got another text, saying I made it to the next round.

They called the next round specialized exams. We had to pick our specialties: whether we want to write news articles, or features, or sports news, or about culture, with corresponding writing prompts for each one. As I felt I was more suited to literary writing, that was what I chose. And I felt I had an interesting insight to contribute, too: speculative fiction was then thought of as separate, and therefore lowbrow, by the literati. One of the prompts was to write a book or story review. I wrote about Ray Bradbury’s The Million-Year Picnic and second chances. Another prompt was to write a poem. I wrote one (a very very bad one), mimicking instructions and procedures given to assembly line workers on how to build a human woman (the point was misogyny). There was another one, but I’m afraid it’s lost to time now.

I made it again. I had to face three people in the field: one was a lawyer, one was a celebrated icon in our country’s literature, one was a journalist (who now has a public following). I wore the best clothes I owned. I spent thirty minutes on my hair. They were intimidating, but they asked fair questions. I did not feel out of place, nor did they play to my insecurities. One of them even joked with me, that I was only applying to get close to one of our university’s campus reporters (a conventionally attractive lady). I shut that down immediately and outed myself. I realize looking back now that that was the first time I ever admitted to anyone that I was gay. Not to my family, not to my closest friends, not to a therapist. To a panel of interviewers for a writing gig I was holding on to. It’s funny, in a way. Not because I found more comfort in strangers than in friends, but only because I felt that the truth about myself needed to be told.

A couple of days someone from their staff (who would end up being our Editor-in-Chief). I officially made it. I get to write for the paper’s Literary section.

We had pitch meetings, where editors of every section brainstorm and the paper adviser (a professor) would say yes or scrap the idea. Turns out, pitch meetings were every Tuesday, and our literary editor (effectively my very first boss) had review classes and thus unavailable. I can’t say I was forced to do it, because they had two writers working for them at the literary section, but saying no could mean more negative marks against me, to be used as ammunition during a “staff retreat in December,” which to me sounded like (and was alluded to by everyone in the senior staff) hazing. So every Tuesday afternoon there I was and never complained about how I had a review class of my own (about labor laws which I looked forward to because the course was interesting and the professor had a laidback demeanor) and two more classes. I mean I complained about everything, but not about that one thing.

This was also where I came out to a bunch of people for the first time, and also where I had sex for the first time. I kept hearing reassurances that that was a queer-friendly space (and to an extent it was), although what was said about me when I was not in the room I have no idea. Although, there was this one person (not from the senior staff) who kept pushing stereotypes and kept calling me not gay enough. They bullied me constantly, called me pretentious, undermined my work ethic and poked fun at my overall existence. I felt powerless. I was made to feel less than. After all, they were the walking stereotype of a fem gay person who’s really, really funny and really, really outspoken and adored by everyone because they were really, really funny and really, really outspoken. And not for nothing they play volleyball too. It was a queer-friendly space, of course, in the sense that queer people are not discriminated against as a matter of principle. You just had to be the right kind of a queer person.

It was through this group that I also met a guy. He was a Journalism major. Although it felt like I was so much older than him (I was a senior in law school, then), he was only two years younger than I was. Long story short, we went out twice, and we had sex in my dorm room twice. I thought it was love, and having no one to turn to, I told everything about it to my bully and their friends among the staff. It’s stupid, right? How can I run to them after everything that happened. Turns out, if you have very few queer people in your life (much less friends of any sexuality), your bullies become allies. And that I overshare at the slightest prodding. Also said bully/ally ran they mouth and told everyone (us queers love gossip), including the guy.

With the emotional rollercoaster that was my first intimate queer interaction, and the fact that I was bullied because I wasn’t the right kind of gay (which the silence of the rest of the staff about it, after I repeatedly relayed my concerns to my editor, equating permission), I resigned in November of 2015. I tendered my very first resignation to a Journalism undergrad, who was our Managing Editor. She shed some tears although I did not know why. I only knew that I put in good work – I never had an article or a story or a poem scrapped by our adviser who had very high standards especially when it came to literary pieces – but I was not made of the right stuff. I burned bridges, because I saw no point in staying friendly or keeping in touch with them. I messaged with one other person until summer of 2016, but that ran its course as well. I think I met with and bumped to three or four people shortly after, and even talked to them at length. But there was no point. I was hollowed out.

The next year, after seven tortured semesters in law school, I finally quit. I lied to our faculty secretary, and told them I needed to work and earn money and don’t even think about it, Sir, I’ll be back when I have enough money because wouldn’t it be a waste, I’m only 30 credits away from a law degree and I’ll be a lawyer like you! I actually love property laws! It was Valentine’s Day of 2016.

When I left everything, I was so defeated. I quit everything that I knew then. Even if everything I knew, I knew in my heart was not only bad for me, but harmful to my being, it still stung. My failures felt final. With no job prospects and nothing to keep me busy, I retreated inwards. I stayed off socials and talked to no one, not that I was using it regularly to talk to people to begin with. What I went through, I brought all the way to June of 2016 when I had my first job. I manned our store for 12 hours, from six in the evening. I had time on my hands for The Cracked Podcast, and Stuff To Blow Your Mind, and Wisecrack, and The Atlantic, and The New Yorker. Hours stretched. I discovered Spotify, and Wolf 359. I stayed awake and ate my feelings. I watched Asia’s Next Top Model.

I got hired in June of 2016. My first real job involved mailing court documents for a family court, in a city three hours away from me. Even if I spent eight years commuting, this one was brutal. I woke up at 4AM, to be on time. We clocked out at 4:30 PM, but I get home at eight in the evening because of traffic jams and the sheer distance. I was bone-tired each day. I spoke to no one unless I was spoken to, although my colleagues found it funny when I laugh (I have a high-pitched laugh and I scare easily when startled). My replies to conversations were quick and hurried, compared against my wordy and convoluted stories when I was at our campus paper. I shared nothing about my life aside from the basics: parents, siblings, if any. Age. Single or dating. Where I lived. Where I studied. If I play a sport. If I had any plans. A workday would pass by, and no one would hear me say a word. No one knew how I washed my face in the men’s bathroom so it looked like I wasn’t crying because I could not stand insurance laws. No one was confused when I explained how the mazurka scene in Anna Karenina was a literary masterpiece, and that Kitty's love story is much better than Anna's, actually. No one knew I was gay. As with my life until now, I turned to songs and podcasts for company. When it got really bad I started gorging on potato chips and donuts and chocolate milk until it felt like I’m out camping with ten of my best friends.

I overheard one of my co-workers talking about me to our new colleague (I think they're friends in law school), I heard them say I was guarded. Which was true at that point. It was an overcorrection. I shared everything to a group of people, longing for acceptance. And I had dirt thrown in my face. I thought if I worked even harder it would change. It did not. I remained a straight-playing homo with an oversharing problem and who complains a lot.

I lost my confidence in 2015, which is something I’m still struggling with, seven years after the fact. It’s strange. Studies on smart kids would usually point to burnout and crumbling at the weight of expectations as one of the factors. My case is different. I know exactly where the moment I lost my idea of my own self. My interactions with my current colleagues never breach anything outside of surface pleasantries. And I’m good at faking it, so they think I’m a really nice person. Every time I hear news about law students passing the exams and becoming lawyers, I still feel envious and sad. It is true – and it will always remain true – that I don’t want to be lawyer (I never wanted to be), but I still see as not finishing law school as a humiliating failure. I feel unloveable, and undesirable. I feel other men only want me for sex. I still live with an eating disorder, which no one aside from an ex-boyfriend knows about (I present as a judgmental eccentric who is very picky about food). When my clothes don’t fit anymore I feel devastated, and then I turn to food.

I’m better. I’m rebuilding. I have a good life and a job that pays for everything I want. Sometimes, though, I remember 2015. It hurts less as I get older, but the hurt is still there. 2015 is a long time ago, my memory even agrees. But I remember everything that I felt. I remember everything.

Favorite Lyrics:

I'll never let go again

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk3vjIDuy9w

Acoustic version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEZ4CXVk8JA

#soundtrack to your life #young guns #bones #eating disorder

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the-writing-bird · 6 years

Text

Happy Ending

I was always told growing up that I should never fall in love, my heart would always be broken. There would never be someone worth putting the time of a relationship into. It’s not like I really could in the first place, it almost seemed like my parents moved us to a different area of the country as soon as I started to settle in.

That is until we moved to Brooklyn. For reasons I would later know of Brooklyn was the place that we actually stayed at. I was fairly young when we moved in, about the beginning of my teenage years. We were in a small apartment near the center, easier access to every exit I was told.

Eventually, I was forced to go to school after the many years of homeschooling by my mother, I didn’t question it. After the first few days, I noticed that there were the same two boys who walked the same path I did. I would go talk to them but I’m not exactly the most outgoing of people, more the opposite. I was always told to hide in the shadows and not draw attention to myself.

After a few weeks of quietly walking behind them by a few feet, usually reading a book and just following their loud noises towards the school and taking the occasional glance towards their feet to be sure I was still with them. When one day I heard the words I never wanted to hear, “Are you following us?”

This one question forced me to begin to interact with these two boys. I looked up from my book to get the first look at their faces, I mean I have been following them from behind. One was fairly average looking, brown hair blue eyes, the other a little more on the scrawny side with blonde hair and blue eyes.

“In a way, yes, but it’s not like I have a choice.” I mean, I kind of have to get to school too, and this was the only route.

“What does that mean?” Man, this one with brown hair has questions on questions.

“I have to get to school somehow it’s not like I can fly or teleport.”

“Then why don’t you walk with us? It’s not like we bite.”

“I know you don’t, just didn’t want to intrude on anything.”

“You can’t intrude on anything when the past few days we’ve mainly been talking about you… okay, that sounds a little creepy…” Which was followed by a head slap from Blondie, who spoke for the first time.

“What my friend meant to say was, we’d like you to walk with us. I’m Steve,” while he held out a hand for me to shake, which I more just looked at since both my hands were full.

“And I’m James, but I prefer Bucky,” said the other one while shoving Steve’s hand down and sending a full grin towards me.

“I’m Dolores.”

And off we went on the first of many not so lonely walks to school.

It’s now been a few years since I met Steve and Bucky that one morning. It took me a good few weeks to get used to being part of the conversation rather than just occasionally listening to it, but I grew used to it, and it would probably be weird not to hear it every weekday that we went to school. And today would be the last day that we would walk this route, it was our final day of high school after all. Well, technically Steve and I’s, Bucky was a year ahead of us and graduated last year, the lucky son of a gun. Truthfully Bucky and I just wanted to skip out on going back, what all could they really do to us if Steve and I missed the last day? But with Steve being the goody two shoes he is insisted on going in, and neither Bucky or I would let him go alone.

Steve has been talking about going into the military when we graduate, and Bucky decided to join him. With both of them heading into the military, I didn't really want to be left here all by myself, I decided to join them in enlisting, much to their objections.

"Tomorrow is the start of a new chapter," I said as we were walking, kicking a stone along with me, "No more orders from teachers, just orders from Generals."

"Who are basically our teachers," and there is the ever so often smart ass reply from Bucky.

"Touche"

Steve just walked with us, chuckling at our arguments, which happened more often than it would seem, but they were all in good fun. Steve and I went through our last day of high school, while Bucky was off somewhere doing god knows what. Actually, probably off flirting with some girl. Wait, does that make me god? Nah, I don't want this mess in my hands. The final bell echoes through the school and a wave of relief and joy washes over everyone in the building. I met up with Steve and we headed out to meet Bucky at the nearby recruitment post. Yeah, Steve didn't want to waste any time enlisting.

We spotted Bucky leaning on a wall flirting his ass off to some poor girl, and me being the horrible friend that I am, decide to ruin his chances once again. I make a quick turn away from Steve so I can have a good running start, and then I begin a full-blown sprint. When I'm about ten feet away, I scream at the top of my lungs,

"STABLES," and jump onto Bucky's back, followed by tumbling over almost onto the girl, who saw me coming and moved. So I'm just laying on the ground smiling up at Bucky who had a pure look of defeat on his face as the girl speed-walked away.

"One day you will regret doing this every chance you get."

If only I knew then I would.

After I had gotten up from essentially tackling Bucky we all entered the recruitment post, Bucky, and Steve heading off for their evaluations, while I went to talk to some of my friends who were posted here for the day. So, I should explain this, I'm learning from Agent Carter, and I would be lying if I said we haven't become close. I was recruited for a new experiment, which I'm not allowed to talk about. I haven't been able to help that much, but hopefully, it'll pick up.

About an hour has passed so I figured I would see if the boys were done. Waving bye to my friends I head outside to see a slightly angry Steve talking to a Bucky who was holding some papers. I cautiously walked up to the two and just kinda stood next to them, thinking about the new fighting skills Peggy had started to teach me when I catch my name, "You agree with me right, Dolores?"

"Huh?" I look back at the guys to see each agitated and looking at me, "Sorry I wasn't paying attention."

"Steve shouldn't go try to enlist someplace else under a different name just so he can get in, right?"

"Well..." I know there is no way in hell I can stop either of them from doing what ever they want to do, so time to play both sides, "Steve shouldn't go do that, it is kinda wrong," there is a happy face on Bucky and a more enraged Steve, "but I can't stop Steve from doing what he wants," and there goes Bucky's smile and Steve perks up a bit, "So unless you two are going to figure this out fast, I'm just going to go home."

And then, they just looked at each other and said at the same time, "We'll talk about this later."

...

Totally not creepy at all... whatever, "Okay then... how about we go get some ice cream or something, yeah?" Both boys looked at me smiled, nodded, and started towards the parlor we usually went to... okay if they don't stop acting like Siamese twins I'm leaving.

It's been a couple weeks since Bucky enlisted, and Steve won't give up on trying to enlist. Bucky has tried to talk his version of sense to him, while I just kinda watched and decided to let Steve do what he wanted, I can't control him or his actions. The Stark Expo is tonight, and I was thinking of going to it, but I don't really want to go alone, so I'll have to find a time to ask the boys if one will go with me, maybe guilt them into it by saying I'll need someone to keep the flirts away.

I was walking down a street towards my apartment after having a session with Peggy when I heard a couple of grunts and whacks from an alley, and me being too curious for my own good, decided to go see what was happening in there. And I was ready to throw a couple of punches myself when a bully that I've seen beat up on Steve a couple times went running out past me, away from a broken Steve and perfectly fine Bucky.

"What in the world were you two up to this time," I considered screeching but decided to say almost calmly, don't want any unwanted attention, or scare two of my three friends off.

"Steve here decided to pick another fight with another bully twice his size, I just came to help when I saw him," Okay, so it wasn't unwarranted, good, I don't have to pummel one of them for being an idiot and starting a fight in an alleyway... actually Steve did start a fight... okay let me rephrase that, I don't have to pummel one of them for abnormally starting a fight in an alleyway, there that's better.

"Alright, I'll take it. Now Steve let's get you to my place and clean up those cuts, Buck you can tag along, I don't care," then off I went down the alley back towards the street, hoping the boys would follow me, and they did, with smiles on their faces.

We arrived at my apartment, me immediately going to get the first aid kit to patch up Steve a bit, leaving the boys in the small living room looking around, because I haven't exactly ever had them over to my apartment before. I never really had a chance with all the training I've been doing with Peggy.

"Sit," I directed with a finger going from Steve to a chair at the small dining table, and Steve followed. I started cleaning Steve up and subconsciously blocked out what the two were talking about, just keeping myself focused on getting Stevie here patched up.

"DOLORES!" That scream could break my concentration though.

"Huh?" I looked up with wide eyes and a confused face, earning a chuckle from each of the boys.

"Do you want to go to the Stark Expo?" Well... that was a little unexpected coming from Bucky, I would have figured he found some poor girl and didn't want me within the state.

"Of course, I was trying to think of a way to ask if you guys wanted to go anyway," and with that, I was finished cleaning up Steve as much as I could, I mean I wasn't exactly medically trained.

"Perfect, should we be here around, say, seven to pick you up?" Well that won't work, I'm supposed to go meet someone, that no one will tell me about, around five, and I don't know how long it will take, I don't want them to know about the whole "agent" thing yet, they would both be pretty angry.

"How about I meet you there? I have something happening just before that, and I don't want you guys to miss out because of me," nice save me, thank you me.

But I missed the slight drop in both of their smiles while they said it was fine.

*whistles a little bit*

I'm off to see someone, who can do certain stuff, da da da-da da da-da da da da da da-da. I'm not lying, I'm off to see a mysterious person who is important, I was just told to go to an antique store and say that the weather is lovely but I always carry an umbrella, but I didn't need an umbrella. Whatever, I don't get to choose the code words.

I get there and say the code phrase, and this old lady just makes a door appear, which isn't weird or creepy at all. But it's kinda my job now to go through this mysterious door and see what's behind it. I start down the stairs to discover a lab, with plenty of people in it. I make my way towards the middle and just kind of stand there, whoever wanted me would hopefully know what I look like or can tell by my complete confusion and lack of working.

"Dolores Caines?" I turn to meet a man with a dark beard and graying hair, which is a bit of a sight.

"Yeah, that's me, who are you?"

"I'm Dr. Erskine, I wanted to ask you if I could run a few tests."

*Time Skip brought to you by the hunky men of Marvel ;)*

Now, I'm off to see the boys, who are absolutely crazy, da da da-da da da-da da da da da da-da. Knowing them with it being around ten at night they either think I'm not going or dead. We shall see when I sneak up on them in the crowds.

I arrive and begin searching the large crowds looking for either of the idiots that I call my friends after I get myself some cotton candy, because cotton candy. It takes me a good half hour to discover a Bucky with some ladies attached to his arms, which isn't a surprise. Now for me to decide how to scare them off... I can't do the catapult, not enough space to land... I don't want to stick my cotton candy to his head, that would be a waste of good food... and then it hits me.

I begin to walk towards them, slowly putting on an angry face and stomping my feet, and trying to hide the growing smile on my face from what I'm about to do to my poor friend. I walk right up behind Buck and begin my screaming.

"JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" And there is that look of horror, regret, anger, and confusion that I love.

"YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO MEET ME HOURS AGO FOR OUR TWO YEAR ANNIVERSARY DATE, AND YOU NEVER SHOWED UP!" And cue the girls looking at each other and running away. As soon as they were defiantly out of sight and never coming back I let my frown slowly turn upside down, especially when Buck turns around to confront the girls only to see no one there. He turns back around with a look of just anger and... I think happiness? But before I could finish my thought I catch his sentence and start running.

"You'll pay this time Ms. Tickle-ish."

Buck chases me for a good half hour before he is winded, hunched over the side of a bench. making my way back towards him at a light jog, smirking without a hint of tiredness in me.

"Done already Barnes? I thought you were a soldier." And cue the glare that I seem to see more often than not.

"Or I'm faking you out." And there's the cue for my eye roll. "Keep doing that and maybe you'll find your brain."

"Then I should keep torturing you, you can roll your eyes and find yours too. Wait, where did little Stevie go? Or been."

"He said he was going to the bathroom about half an hour before you ruined my chances with those pretty girls." Is that the sound of sadness I hear in Buck's voice? I think it is.

"Is Stables sad he lost another two girls? Because I'm pretty sure there are at least another twenty here ready to get in a line for me to scare away."

"Is there going to be one girl I'll ever meet who you won't scare away?"

"We both know that every girl you try to get with will be scared away by the face of Dolores Caines."

"Damnit." Smirking at my small victory I begin looking from my spot for Steve, let Buck here get another few minutes of heavy breathing in before a search for Steve begins.

And then I saw it, a sign advertising a recruitment post at the expo.

"I know where Steve is, let's go before he does something stupid and gets arrested, but it's Steve, so we're probably too late."

As quickly as I could I went over to the recruitment post, hoping I'm not too late to stop Steve from getting into trouble with the law. As I was approaching I saw Steve walk out really giddy, well looks like there isn't any trouble with the law at least, but I'm still going to give him a stern talking to.

"How many cities have you used now? Ten? Twenty? Thirty? You'll be lucky if they don't catch on." While I did have the motherly glare happening, I stopped myself from shaking my pointer finger as well.

"Except this time I was excepted into the military, mother." Wow, a smirk, this is new from fairly quiet Steve.

"If I'm going to be called your mother, then I'm going to do so much more to you when we get home." And then just behind Steve I see Dr. Erskine leaving the recruitment station, oh no, oh no no no no no, this will not be happening anytime soon, not under my watch at least, "hold on, I just saw a friend that I need to go have a word with, I'll see you guys at the entrance, it's getting kinda late." And without giving them a second to respond I sprint off trying to catch up to Erskine, there is no way I'm letting Stevie get dragged into this.

*Time skip brought to you by Moreos, and for the one guy against it, OreosTM*

Alright, so it is going to happen on my watch, in two weeks I'll be secretly going with Steve to evaluate all the recruits for the project. But first Steve and I need to send Buck off on his train. Well, if things go how I want them to go, Steve will be here seeing the return of Bucky, rather than with Bucky, though knowing what I do about Erskine, that won't happen.

"I guess this is good-bye." Oh, you are not getting off that easy Bucky, not on my watch.

"Don't you dare say goodbye, that implies permanent, it is a see you in a couple months or years." Yeah, I don't have a lot of confidence in this war ending anytime soon.

"Okay, I'll see you in a couple months or years, mother." Okay, I honestly should have seen that one coming, I kinda put that one on myself.

"I'll be at the courthouse legally adopting the both of you then, heaven knows you can't take care of yourselves. I did literally make you both breakfast this morning, and you Mr. Leaving Us couldn't iron your own shirt," Crossing my arms halfway through and giving a slight glare to the both of them, mostly to Buck, "I don't know how you plan to live without me."

"Who said I was?" If he doesn't wipe that flirty smirk off his face, so help me god I will wipe it off for him.

"You, who signed up for the war?"

"Now as much as I enjoy your old married couple fights, by the looks of it, Buck here needs to get going or he'll miss the train." Thank you, Steve, for stopping us from going until dark.

"Alright, you got to get going or they'll think you were trying to duck out on them, now I get a hug," I said while walking forward spreading my arms.

"Before we all leave each other, I do want to say one more thing to you in private before I head off Doll (A/N: I know, my name picking is great)," I hate that nickname, "but I'll give Steve here one so he can get going." And cue the bro-hug, one of the most awkward things in this world.

"I'll see you at the entrance Dolores." Thank you, Steve, for not using that horrid nickname, giving Steve a little wave I turned back to Buck who looked really nervous for some reason.

"Alright, I'm just going to get this over and done with, you can't say a word until the end, okay? This is hard enough as it is," Buck took a deep breath, "Dolores, I really like you as more than a friend, almost to the point where I may even call it love, you are just so amazing, your sarcastic comments and how you aren't afraid to be yourself, every day since we first met I've fallen a bit more in love with you, and I know this is sudden and at a horrible time, but if I don't make it back I wanted you to know that I care about you so much, and if I do come back will you at least go on a date with me?"

I just stared at Buck in shock, one of my best friends loves me, in a romantic way? What? I figured I was doomed for crazy cat lady, but here is Bucky, surprising me with this. "Uhhhhh," what are you supposed to say?

"Is that really all the ever talking Dolores Caines has to say?" Yes, yes it is.

"How else should I respond? I don't know if I feel the same way, how I should even react to this information, or if I even want to yes or not," on my own behalf, he did drop a bomb on me, I mean, he was with TWO girls at the Stark Expo.

"How about this, you think about it, and if I come back you tell me your answer?"

"That I can mentally handle, now it's hug time because I think you now have five minutes to get on that train," with a smile I walk forward and give Bucky a hug, but it doesn't exactly feel the same as it has in the past, I can't put a finger on how, but it just doesn't. When I pull away I give Buck a closed mouth smile and give him a small shove towards the train, "Alright, time to go, don't forget about us back here."

"How could I with what I just said to you?" Buck said walking backward with a smirk.

"Stevie is here too!" He better not forget about Steve, or I will never let him live it down, or maybe even just live.

With a laugh, he got on the train, and I walked to the entrance, spotting Steve trying to look all cool leaning against a wall right by where I left.

"So what did Bucky have to say to you?" Oh if only I could tell you, Steve, if only I could, but it's something I want to handle alone, Steve has his own problems to face soon.

"Just that he'll miss our banter sessions," hopefully that'll keep him satisfied.

"That's understandable." Wait... does Steve know how Bucky feels about me?

Now the time has come for Steve to go to his training, and me to sneak to the back of the train since I'm going as well, and Stevie doesn't need to know about that. We were on the same platform that Bucky left, "Deja vu, huh?"

"For you maybe, but last time I was facing that way," Stevie chuckled while jabbing a thumb behind him, "And this time I know that I'm the one who is going to leave rather than my friend."

"Well, smartie pants, for me it feels the same, saying goodbye to one of my only friends for them to go fight in a war where they might die, and my last words to them would be a gosh darn train platform."

"I can promise you that I will try my best to not die, thank you for your faith in Bucky and me," thank god I'm going with you Steve, wait he doesn't know that, now to act it up a bit to sell it.

"Doesn't mean I won't worry about you two," okay, now for some tears, dead puppies, dead puppies, oh god that is horrible, dead puppies, okay now I'm tearing up. "Okay, you need to get going, don't want you to be late," or I want to make it onto the train, "give me a hug and get going," opening my arms wide.

"It will be an early death for me if I say no," both of us chuckling, "And don't worry too much about Buck and me, we will be coming back."

"You better, or I will find you two and kill you both myself."

"Now we can't have that happening now, can we? You enjoy yourself here, perfectly safe and sound." And with that Steve started to walk towards the train, while I stood on the platform waiting for him to be far enough away that I could get lost in the crowd and get onto my car.

*Time skip brought to you by Peggy Carter's fists of steel*

"Recruits, attention! Gentlemen, I'm Agent Carter, and this is my student Agent Caines. I supervise all operations for this division," time for Steve to find out that I am here, yay! He totally won't be angry that I'm here rather than back home in Brooklyn "safe" and "sound," he really should have seen something like this coming.

"What's with the accent, Queen Victoria? Thought I was signing up for the U.S. Army," this won't end well, for the soldier, for the rest of us this will be great.

"What's your name, soldier?"

"Gilmore Hodge, your Majesty," and he definitely crossed the line there. Peggy is someone who demands and deserves respect, that's for sure.

"Step forward, Hodge. Caines, stand in front of him." Oh, so that's where this will be going. Figured Peggy may take the privilege herself, but I guess not.

"Put your right foot forward."

"Mmm... Are you going to let us wrassle? Cause I got a few moves I know you'll like." With my eyes glanced to the side I see Peggy give me a slight nod. And then I decked Hodge in the face, and the force caused him to topple to the ground. That was kinda fun, I don't really get to do that often. As I returned to Peggy's side I saw the look on Steve's face, and it would be an understatement if I said he was surprised, his eyes were about to exit his skull.

Yeah, the old Dolores is gone, she's gotten a little tougher.

*Le Timeskip brought to you by Marvel being a tease*

"Wait, are you saying Steve is the one who managed to get the flag? I bet the other guys were ready to beat the pulp out of him."

"Oh yeah, he just walked up and pulled the pin, everyone was in shock and he just strolled up to the car and hoped in like it was nothing," Peggy stated while taking a sip of her drink, "it was amazing."

"Sounds like Steve, breaking all expectations you would have of him."

*Another time skip brought to you by the lazy writer*

I was standing back as I watched Peggy drill the recruits by some of the cars, "Faster, ladies! Come on. My grandmother has more life in her, God rest her soul. Move it!" Wow, Peggy is really laying it on them today, she must have had a really rough night. Colonel Phillips and Dr. Erskine walked up on the other side of the car, just within my hearing range.

"You're not really thinking about picking Rogers, are you?" I hope he picks Steve, he is basically the perfect candidate for this.

"I am more than just thinking about it. He is the clear choice." Reason number one of why I love Erskine, we think the same.

"When you brought a ninety pounds asthmatic onto my army base, I let it slide. I thought, what the hell? Maybe he'll be useful to you, like a gerbil. I never thought you'd pick him." Wow, got a heart in there Phillips? Because I'm thinking the answer is no. "You stick a needle in that kid's arm and it's gonna go right through him. Look at that. He's making me cry."

"I am looking for qualities beyond the physical." Like a heart, which Steve isn't lacking, I would know from the number of times he chooses to be a hero... it doesn't always make me happy.

"Do you know how long it took to set up this project?" No, Erskine, the guy who made the damn thing, believes this all started yesterday.

"Yeah, I know."

"All the groveling I had to do in front of Senator What's-His-Name's committees?" Oh, how I wish I could have seen that it would have made my life.

"Brandt. Yes, I know. I am well aware of your efforts." 'Efforts'

"Then throw me a bone. Hodge passed every test we gave him. He's big, he's fast, he obeys orders. He's a soldier." Meaning a weapon in your eyes.

"He's a bully." Just like every other buff guy in this damn world. (A/N: Sorry, felt right, not all buff guys are arseholes.)

"You don't win wars with niceness, doctor. You win war with guts. Grenade!" Sh*t, okay, cover, cover, car, behind it, oh dear gosh, why, why this? Someone will die from his need to prove he's right. After waiting a few seconds and nothing happens I peak over.

"Get away! Get back!" There's the Steve I know, one who is willing to do anything to keep people safe.

*Y'all know what this means by now*

Today is the day, the day that Steve is going to change forever. I came separately from Peggy and Steve, Dr. Erskine wanted to ask me a couple of questions before the procedure. I was going to help with the procedure since I helped Stark and Erskine with it a bit. I was focusing on completing a few more settings when I heard the door open and Erskine welcome someone in. It must be little Steve-o, well... soon to be big Steve-o. I'm drowning out all the conversations that were happening around me so I could finish up the last adjustments. I finished just as Steve was entering the pod.

"Comfortable?" Erskine... it's a giant metal tube... how could it be comfortable?

"It's a little big." It won't be big for that much longer if this all goes according to plan. "You save me any of that schnapps?" Woah, hold up, schnapps?

"Woah, Woah, schnapps? You do not need any alcohol in your system mister." I will go momma bird on your butt, Steve.

"Don't worry Dolores, I didn't take any. Erskine actually took my pour." Good, who knows what alcohol would have done.

"He better have. Now I'm going to get some of it." Erskine began his schpiel on what was going to happen during the experiment while Stark and I began to get our positions ready. Erskine signals to begin the procedure and Stark and I begin. The percentage slowly rises and Steve's vitals are looking okay. Then Stark hit seventy percent and all hell broke loose. Steve begins screaming probing Erskine, Peggy, and myself to push for the whole thing to be shut down. Then we all heard a distant scream telling us not to... and it was coming from the pod.

"No! Don't! I can do this!" So Stark kept raising the percentage, and when it hit one hundred everything overloaded. Slowly the pod opens revealing Steve... and when I said he was going to be big Steve-o soon I wasn't wrong, he used to be barely taller than me and now I'm at his shoulder, maybe. Then of course just as I was about to go talk to Steve a bomb goes off... sometimes this job sucks. Oh look, and there goes the guy that came with Senator Brandt with the last vial of serum. Again, sometimes, I hate my job. Just as I was about to run after him the son of a female dog shot Erskine... I hope he dies a painful death. Steve and I kneel down next to him, and he points towards Steve's heart, then collapses. Steve gets his frustrated look and goes running out the door.

"He's gone... right?" Erskine will be the death of me.

"Really? You faked your death?"

"Kind of, I am probably going to die soon, but I wanted to tell you, remember what you are, and don't forget it, keep the world in check." And with that Erskine drew his last breath, dying for real this time, while I sat there thinking about what he said.

*I know, I'm skipping around a lot, but Y'all should know what's generally happening*

Steve's become a dancing monkey, nothing like what Erskine wanted him to be. So it's not surprising when he feels disheartened when he's practically booed off the stage. The guys weren't exactly easy on him, I mean I saw it and they were ruthless. Knowing that Steve would enter a self-deprecating state I set off to find him, finding him sitting on a bench doodling a circus monkey, not far off what he practically is right now.

"Not bad, would be better if it were in a more natural habitat."

And a startled Steve jumps to face me a bit more, "Dolores? How did you get here?"

"What? Can't I come check on one of my only friends? So how is it being the poster boy of America?"

"Well, it generally goes better than that. Bond sales take a ten percent bump in every state I visit."

"That doesn't sound like the Steve I know, I didn't hear a thing about the war it's self." That earned me a chuckle, nothing like a sad almost pitty sounding chuckle. "For as long as this war has been going on I had to sit there and listen to you talk about going to fight for your country, now it may not be the way you thought you would be doing it, but you're here, and you never know what may come from it." Just as I finished my sentence two of the showgirls walked past us talking to each other.

"Isn't it sad that's all that's left of the one-oh-seventh? I don't know how their families can handle this."

"I know, I would never let any of my family come out here."

Steve and I just looked at each other, we were both thinking the same thing, "Bucky."

Steve and I both go barging into Colonel Phillips' tent, because who cares about respect? Colonel Phillips was writing letters while Peggy was not that far away talking to another soldier. Before I could get a word out Steve began talking.

"Colonel Phillips."

"Well, if it isn't the Star-Spangled Man With A Plan and the intern. What is your plan today?" Gee, thanks.

"I need the casualty list from Azzano." Peggy glanced over with a slightly confused face, slightly directed more towards me than anything.

"You don't get to give me orders, son." I'm getting just a little impatient here.

"Look, we just want to know if Sergeant James Barnes is alive, okay? Are we horrible people for that?" That earned me an angry look from Phillips and a small smirk from Peggy, she liked to see women stand up for themselves.

Phillips turned towards Peggy, "You better have a conversation with her or I will and neither of you will enjoy that."

"Please tell me if he's alive, sir. B-A-R-"

"I can spell. I have signed more of these condolence letters today than I would care to count. But the name does sound familiar. I'm sorry." As soon as I heard that my heart gained a couple pounds and dropped to my feet. I didn't know what to think, what are you supposed to do when you find out one of your only friends may be dead, it's definitely not jumping for joy.

"What about the others? Are you planning a rescue mission?"

"Yeah! It's called winning the war." Because that has been such a great plan for the past, hm, I don't know, couple years?

"But if you know where they are, why not at least...?"

"They're thirty miles behind the lines. Through the most heavily fortified territory in Europe. We'd lose more men than we'd save. But I don't expect you to understand that, because you're a chorus girl." Well, that one hurt more than one of us in more than one way.

"I think I understand just fine."

"Well then understand it somewhere else. If I read the posters correctly, you got some place to be in thirty minutes." Who put a stick up this guy's butt?

"Yes, sir. I do." Okay, hold on, is this really happening? Steve, Mr. 'I can do this all day' is backing down? Who is this and where's the real Steve? As Steve began walking out Peggy and I glanced at each other and followed him out to his tent where he started shoving clothes in a bag.

"What are you planning on doing? Walking there?"

"If I have to." I almost facepalmed.

"You heard the Colonel, your friend is most likely dead." Thank you, Peggy, for reminding me.

"You don't know that." And there is optimistic Steve.

"Even so, he's devising a strategy. If he detects..."

"By the time he's done that, it could be too late! I have to do something to help one of my closest friends..." Steve finished off much less fierce than when he started. "You gotta let me go."

Peggy looked a little conflicted for a second before she began speaking again, "I can do more than that, just let me make a few calls," then she left the tent and I began following her to start gathering a few things for myself, no way in hell I'll let Steve go alone.

"Hold on a second there, you are not coming with, you are staying right here in this camp." Wait, time out, not happening.

"No, I'm not staying here. Bucky is my friend too, if you think that I'm going to stay here counting the seconds thinking about how they might drag your body back here beyond repair or even worse dead, you are out of your mind."

"I'm not bringing you out there to die! Just let me go get Bucky and come back. I promise you I'll be in one whole functioning piece."

"You should know that I'm fully capable of holding my own in a fight! I'm going to help you whether you like it or not!"

"I will not let you come!"

"Why?!"

"Because I love you too much to let you die like that!"

What? I just stared at Steve blankly for a while as he turned his face towards the ground and drug his hand over it.

With a big sigh, he began again, "Well, guess it's out. I, Steve Rogers, have fallen in love with you Dolores Caines. I've grown to rely on your personality to help me through my days, even the ones where I couldn't physically see you I hear your witty sarcastic comments in the back of my mind. And every time I think about my future I can't see much without you by my side. I've fallen in love with you, almost helplessly."

How am I supposed to respond to this? It wasn't exactly all that long ago that Bucky confused his love to me, and now Steve is too. "I-I don't know what to say, Steve-"

"It's fine, you don't have to say anything, just let me go do this without having the constant fear of you dying in the back of my mind, I promise that I will return alive with Bucky, just stay here." Steve started up gathering his stuff again.

"A-Alright." And with that, I walked out of the tent.

After leaving Steve I walked to my tent and began to pack up everything. If Steve came back with a Bucky I don't know what I would do, looking at my two best friends who have admitted their love for me and acting like everything was normal? I wouldn't be able to do that, so I'm quitting and going home. It's not ideal but I need to get away for a while and think about the mess my life has become.

*Okay, so rest of CAFA goes the same just no Steve Peggy kissy, and we are now going past Avengers and into Winter Soldier 😈 and into Steve's POV*

"This is SHIELD."

"Maybe where it started." Natasha and Steve walked into a room with portraits on the wall.

"Why is Dolly in here? She wouldn't have been alive." Hearing Natasha's confused voice Steve turned his attention towards where she was looking to see a portrait of his Dolores up next to Peggy, Howard, and Phillips.

"That's Dolores Caines actually, I knew her."

"No, I know my best friend, and that is her. We can talk about it later Steve, but let's focus on this right now." And with that they both continued their search, later coming around in a few months.

*Alright, cool, so now to 'modern day' where we get the kicker*

With a sigh Steve and Bucky plop onto a couch after a long workout, Natasha walking up to them. "You old men might have another friend, had to dig a lot to find this, probably one of the most classified folders SHEILD has." And with that, she dropped the folder onto the coffee table with TOP SECRET written across the front in bright red. She left to let the two have some space for the world rocking folder they were going to open.

Steve and Bucky looked at each other, Steve making a move to open the folder, and when he did the first page was all the typical information that SHEILD would have; name, date of birth, height, weight, etc., except one this stuck out to Steve and Bucky, status read active.

"How could Dolores be active? Surely she would be dead or close to it by now?" With even more confusion Bucky flipped the page to show a stack of pictures, the one on top being of the three of them back in the 40s; pre-serum, pre-enlistment, pre-confessions, and they all looked happy. Flicking to the next one showed a Dolores who looked exactly the same but instead she was at the opening of NASA, at least ten years after the first picture. Steve and Bucky kept going from picture to picture, the 1960s: Dolores is walking next to Martin Luther King Jr. in the Selma March, the 1970s: Dolores with Bill Gates and Paul Allen at MITS demonstrating their interpreter, 1980s: Dolores at the Miracle on Ice cheering after the winning goal, 1990s: Dolores fleeing Columbine High School, 2000s: Dolores helping people near the World Trade Center on 9/11, all of them showing the same Dolores that they knew back in the 40s. Coming onto the final picture they see it was from just before Steve came out of the ice. It had a smiling Natasha and laughing Dolores next to each other.

Both men look at each other, and flip back to the first page, seeing just what they were hoping for, a last known address.

They both immediately stand up and walk towards their rooms, they were going to see Dolores for the first time since the 1940s tomorrow.

*Transfering to Dolores POV*

Another day, another mental crisis. It didn't help that Nat sent me a text saying that Steve and Bucky know that I'm still alive. I left before Steve woke up for a reason, I still can't face it, and now both of them will be trying to find me. It's two a.m. but I can't focus on anything other than how soon it will be before Steve and Bucky find me and I have to confront that issue again. All I have been doing is pretending that nothing had happened, but it's only come back to haunt me again.

When it's seven in the morning I finally decide to get started with the day. Stumbling out to get some coffee in my system, I was lacking in the energy department from the restless night. Soon after I turned on the coffee maker I heard a knock on my door.

Making my way over to the door I open it without checking, there lies my first mistake, standing behind it was Steve Rodgers and Bucky Barnes. I could feel my eyes widen to double the size and my first response was to slam the door, but one of them managed to get their foot in to keep it open a bit, so I went to the next logical solution, shove with all my might. After struggling for a few minutes I was finally able to get the door shut and locked. Sliding on my back down the door I began to go into another mental breakdown, they are literally outside of my door.

Soon knocks came on the door, "Dolores! Please, we know you are in there! We just want to catch up! Please let us in!" Sure, Steve, I'll just let the issue that I've been avoiding for the last 70 years walk into my apartment. They both kept knocking on my door and asking me to let them in for another thirty minutes. That's when it went quiet, they probably gave up. And then subconsciously my body just stood up and opened the door, and two bodies came tumbling backward into my apartment, Bucky and Steve were laying on their backs looking up at me.

"I don't know why I just did that, but I suggest you two get in here before I close the door again."

Within a second they were both on their feet inside my apartment... this will go well... not.

With a sigh I closed the door and turned around, Steve and Bucky were just looking around at my small apartment. "Alright, I need some coffee, do either of you want anything?" I got two head shakes as an answer. "So no words then?"

"It's just a shock that you're still alive, it's just you should be close to dead or already dead by now."

"Yeah, I'll explain that when I've had some coffee." So I went to reheat my now thirty-minute old coffee and went back to the living room to find both guys looking at all the pictures I had around the room. I scared them both a bit when I started talking, "They all span across the last 70 years, all the way back to the 40s till now."

"Yeah, we got to see a few before we came over, so care to explain how you're still so young?"

"If you agree to explain that metal arm there Buck, I know why Stevie here is huge and how you are both still alive, but the arm is news to me."

"Deal"

"Alright, let's sit down for this then." With a plop, I set myself in my favorite armchair while Steve took the other one and Bucky situated himself on the couch. Taking a final sip of my coffee I began, "So while Steve here got his powers from Erskine back in the day, Erskine said that the first test subject was Johann Shmidt and Steve was the next attempt, yeah?" Both nodded their heads, "Well that's where the main lie lies." I couldn't help myself, I just had to chuckle a bit at that. "Sorry, lie lies. Anyway, there was another person who was experimented on between Shmidt and Steve, and that person would be me. Erskine wanted to get another trial run in before the main event to be sure everything would work the way he wanted it too. I was asked to do it and I agreed, and I came out fine, but with some new enhancements.

"The main one was my cells started regenerating differently, they kept coming back exactly the same, meaning no aging. (A/N: No idea if this is true, don't trust my google science) I can still die from things like explosions and stab wounds, but I can't die of old age, which was a pain in the butt during the Civil Rights Movement, couldn't walk ten feet without finding some violent person with a weapon in the south. I also did get all the things Steve here got, they just didn't show themselves. So Erskine made some changes to the formula, fixed the anti-aging thing since he was unsure of who would receive it and had the recipient bulk up a bit more, Brandt would be more impressed and what not for more funding. And that's the jist of how I'm still here kickin'." I kept my eyes down the whole time, and when I finished I took another swig of my coffee. "Alright, Stables, story-time about the arm, go."

A slightly confused Bucky slowly started his story of the arm, "Uh, back in the 40s Steve and I were trying to get Zola when I fell out of the train into a ravine and my arm was torn off in the fall, that's when HYDRA found me and made me a puppet, adding a robotic arm."

"Huh, not as exciting as I expected, figured one lady would have been in that story." I chuckled as I took another sip of my coffee, god this is so awkward. With a sigh, I started up again, "Okay, look, I know it's weird, someone who wasn't frozen from the 40s is still here, but it's still me. I know I can talk a lot but I'm not holding the whole conversation on my own. If that's how it's going to be, please just leave."

"Then how about you explain why you left when you did without a trace? Cause I'm not sure why you did." Well, Steve seems a little pissy about that.

"Well, you said you loved me right before you left to save Bucky, and Bucky said he loved me right before he went off to war. Both of my friends had said they loved me, what else would you expect me to do?" They both looked at each other surprised, almost like they didn't know that the other loved me. "And don't think my life was always great after that, you both saying those words was just constantly in the back of my mind playing it's self over, and over, and over. I was left with no hope, or love, or glory. Happy endings gone forever more. I've just been living the rest of my life."

"You could have talked to us, we could have figured out something, you didn't have to leave Doll." I honestly slightly flinched at that nickname, I hadn't heard it in a long time.

"Yeah, bring up how I couldn't pick between the two of you and watch you both slowly grow to hate each other, no thanks. Look, I think that's enough for one day, I have some work I still need to do." They both slowly get up after I do and follow me to the door. "I guess I wish you well."

Just before Bucky walked off with Steve he turned around, "Can we pretend that nothin' ever went wrong?"

With I sigh I responded, "I don't think so Buck, too much just went wrong." And with that, I closed the door.

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And there is my fanfic based on Happy Ending by MIKA!

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galadrieljones · 7 years

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Hello. As I've told u, I'm currently struggling a lot with my ongoing chapter. (Context : It's my first fic !) I was wondering whether you had some chapters of the dead season that you absolutely hated, and did you manage to come to terms with it eventually ? Luv u, xo

Hey Amburu!! (*^_^*) xoxo

First of all: Yes, yes, yes. Writing can feel like a struggle sometimes, especially when just starting out. Part of this is because we just don’t always know what to expect out of our writing process yet, and so we’re often left wondering, “At what point will this start to feel right or finished?” It’s hard to trust ourselves, as writers, and this can be discouraging, but just like with any skill, we can’t get better unless we persevere. I like to think that writing improvement exists like a series of plateaus. It is not incremental. It’s like, you are on one plateau for a really long time, and then one day, you sort of hit critical mass. You’ve written so much, a pattern has struck. You’ve figured something out, even if it is not conscious, and suddenly, you’re just better. This process never ends.

Now, to your question: In terms of the writing process, it can take a long time and a lot of words to hit the point where you feel like you can actually trust your instincts. Or, at least it did for me. In fact, The Dead Season is my first project in which I feel like I’ve actually honed a writing process that works, and I have been writing fiction for a long, long time. Part of my writing process is experiencing a great deal of doubt, at some point in the week, as to whether or not the chapter is going to come together at all. This makes me anxious, as it would many of us, and certain chapters have made me more anxious than others. I wouldn’t say that I’ve ever hated any of my chapters themselves, but there are certainly chapters that have given me a lot of stress and self-doubt, and this is a feeling that I very much dislike.

For example, my early chapters, ie: about 1-7, feel super experimental and are very small. I’m not terribly happy with them by any stretch. But I have, over time, found small things that are working, and things that, in the long run, I actually like very much and would not change. For example, there are some rare, very strange and dark moments in the Fade, and we don’t actually go to the Fade all that often in TDS, so this is good. This is important. There are also some early seeds planted per Solas’s complex friendships with both Sera and Dorian, and Sene and Sera as well, plus Sene and Cole. These are big relationships that I was already investigating early on, and so while those chapters certainly aren’t perfect, I feel good about the fact that this has ALWAYS been a story about friendship, first and foremost, and that’s something I have not forgotten.

I’ve also accepted the fact that I was still new to the story back then and still feeling my way through and figuring out what was to come. So of course my early chapters weren’t going to be as careful and multi-layered as chapters that would come much later. This is a serial piece, which makes it feel, to me, a little like writing for TV, in terms of methodology. It took me a minute to figure out my formula, my process, my characters, but once I did, things started to take shape much more quickly and reliably.

Writing is hard, and it can be a struggle, but that is normal. The most important thing to remember, especially when writing more or less publicly, like for a fandom, is to not compare yourself and your writing to others and their writing. That is a toxic beast that we all fall prey to from time to time, but it will hamper your creativity more than anything. Also, and more practically, a lot of the time, when a chapter is causing problems, it might just be that you need to step back, locate the problem, and solve it in the quickest way possible so that you can move forward. Can’t get a transition to work? Then fuck it. Take the transition out and just put in a page break instead. Writing is sometimes just grunt work. It’s just problem-solving. Getting from point A to point B. The art we read on any brilliant page of any piece of writing we love takes many gruelling drafts to complete. It is a process. No writing comes out perfectly on the first try.

UNDER THE CUT: I go through some specific chapters in TDS that I really struggled with, mostly to give you some concrete perspective on the fact that YOU ARE NOT ALONE in your struggle to bring a chapter together. This is for anyone who’s interested!! (It was no bother and actually very productive!

Chapter 10: Hallelujah

I wrote that entire chapter while sitting on a bar stool at a cafe in my hometown in Wisconsin. I pulled a Patrick Weekes on this chapter, and it was hard, ie: For all the Fade stuff with Sene and then Sene and Cole, I adapted the meter of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, hence the title. Looking back, it’s a little precious, per my aesthetic, but I’m glad I gave it a try and somehow made it work. It was just a blatant nod to Weekes and his brilliant writing in DA:I.

Chapter 21: It’s Raining in Val Royeaux, Chapter 22 & 23: Man of Faith, Pt. 1 & 2

These chapters were logistical nightmares. This was also my first go at using the stakes and politics of the world, plus a quest in the game, to really propel the plot AND Solas’s character forward. At first, what was so difficult, was navigating Josephine’s plan and introducing the “game” in a way that felt like it was informed by Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts without piggy-backing it completely. This would be an innocent affair. No murder, only sly quips and earning the favor of the Comte and Comtess Berrande. Plus, romance. Also, this whole thing was me building toward Solas’s diplomatic charm, which is HUGE per his history with Mythal, and then I just had to get to that scene with Blackwall like…I had been working toward that scene for weeks. So a lot was at stake. All told this was a LOT of writing, and I had a really bad head cold when I did it, and I was very very worried about these chapters for a LONG time. I still have not gone back to read them. I assume they’re okay?? Lol.

Chapter 25: The Mother We Share

This is the purple chapter, and I still think there is probably TOO MUCH purple and TOO MUCH mother imagery dumped in. This chapter took me FOREVER and was the moment I realized Solas had become too soft, and that he needed a shove in the other direction. So I had to introduce Abelas, and also, at this point, my stuff with Mythal/Flemeth disassociating began to take shape. Bleh. Thinking about this chapter feels like wading in molasses sometimes.

Chapter 30: Dust of My Dust

This chapter was hard, because it was transitional. I had to get us OUT of Crestwood, and Sene and Solas were in two different places, which had never happened before. Sometimes it is SO HARD to just get from one scene to the next. And so in the end, to save myself more pain, I ended up just splitting the chapter up into a couple separate sections and skipping the transition altogether. This was so useful that I ended up using the section format in multiple future chapters and will most certainly do it again. Half of writing is just problem-solving, it turns out.

Chapter 34: The Elves are Asleep

This is the chapter that comes after Sene learns the truth about Solas as an ancient elf, which comes right after he finally tells her about the miscarriage. This chapter was VERY hard, as it starts in the Fade, and then they come back hard to reality. Huge tone shift. Dorian is there, etc. I’m still a little unhappy with this chapter, especially the ending. It was difficult to find the thesis, ie: what is the ultimate goal? I knew it had to be something with Sene’s character, as this is when her flaws and fears truly start to take shape, but I just couldn’t get a grip on the ending. I probably wrote 14 different endings until I finally figured out what her state of mind needed to be and even still, I’m a little unsure, because I just couldn’t mess around with it anymore. I was going nuts. So I just published it and moved on. Moveon.org. Sometimes you just gotta. Bleh. Oh well.

Chapter 36: Hey, Morrigan. Spin me a tale.

THIS CHAPTER KILLED ME. Lol. Looking back, I am actually very pleased with it, but at the time, it was so much that I had to delay publishing, because I just could not get it right. In the end, it just ended up being a series of impressionistic, almost paratactic scenes, all with very oblique titles. Again, problem-solving. Though I love writing like this. It’s totally my wheelhouse. But to earn this kind of thing, I knew I needed to establish a really strong thematic drawstring to unite all the pieces. I had like thirty metaphors going at once with the knitting and the gloves and the hands, and then creating that sense of confusion in the end, between what Solas is experiencing NOW and what he is remembering–that was really fucking hard. This chapter took me two weeks to draft, and I remember publishing it at 2am and then dragging myself to bed like TIS FINALLY COMPLETE.

Chapter 38: Assassins

This chapter was another logistical nightmare. I don’t typically write a ton of consecutive, immediately chronological scenes, or scenes where the tension completely shifts based on real-time action. But in this chapter, I had to locate Sene’s state of mind with Mythal, coordinate the accidental reveal of Solas’s identity, then cue the assassins, trigger Sene’s response, locate Mythal’s state of mind, and then get everyone down to the brig. FFFFFF. Like this is NOT my strength as a writer, and so this chapter was a huge challenge and I feel like I actually learned a lot. Also, I remember I initially wrote past the ending of this chapter by like 2500 words, only later to realize I needed to save all that for later. So yeah. :deep breath: This chapter, in my mind, feels full of sharp knives.

@thevikingwoman, per your interests.

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forkanna · 7 years

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NOTE: "It's the CLIMAX!" - Haruko, FLCL (as in story climax; there are a few more chapters after this)

Actually, it wasn't Simon Lee. What I mean is, it was the crazy psycho evil Simon Lee from Scott's memories and from my annoying dreams on nights where I couldn't sleep. The real one was just this nerdy little Chinese kid I almost-kinda dated before I met Scott. Shortish, wearing thick glasses, kind of a dick but not really a threat to anyone.

This dude in the purple tracksuit was seven feet tall and limber, with gently-windswept brown hair and a much trendier pair of glasses perched on his smug nose. His hands were in his pockets, as if completely casual and disinterested in anything we had to contribute, but the fury in his eyes and the way he had shouted definitely said otherwise. Somehow, he wasn't that intimidating, despite the size and everything. I mean, Knives had just taken apart a monster much more huge than him all on her own, right? This chump didn't stand a chance.

"Surprised you remember," he spat back at me as he strode closer to the cage, laying a hand on one of the bars. To her credit, Princess Pine looked afraid of him; at least she didn't somehow find him attractive despite the fact that he was a douchebag. "After all, apparently Pilgrim wasn't good enough for you, either. Why such high standards? Gingers don't even have souls, much less a right to spurn the advances of someone as majestic as-"

"We don't have souls?" I cut him off, gesturing to my body. "What the fuck do you call this? Maybe you should just leave now, before it gets messier."

Sneering, he nodded at Knives. "You think this he-she will treat you any better? Pathetic."

Even while Knives's face was darkening with mingling anger and shame, I was curling my non-tangible hands into fists. "You… better not… say that again."

"Say what? That she's a freak who thinks owning a few skirts makes her a real girl? Not like you haven't thought it before. I know; I'm actually living inside your head, so there's no sense in trying to hide the tru-"

"NOPE. I meant it, you fucktard. Get out of my head. Now."

The bars of the cage were as solid as ever… but something was happening to Princess Pine. Most of her fear and her cowering had subsided, and now she was sitting on the floor of her prison, looking up at him with white-hot fury in her every pore. Neither one of us were happy with the way he was speaking about Knives. It pissed me off that I wouldn't be able to hit him the way I was, but that didn't matter. I was just angry and She-Hulk wanted to smash.

"Do you… really think I'm a freak?"

Instantly, I forgot about Simon and turned back to Knives. "No. God, no! I mean, maybe I did right when I first found out, but like, people think dumb shit all the time. When we first met, I also wondered if you knew kung fu and drank green tea. And like… you do, but there's also a ton more to you than just being Chinese, so like… you're Knives. Not just Chinese, not just trans, not just any one little byte of data in your profile. You're a whole person. I, um… I get that now in a way I didn't when we met, so…"

"NegaKim is right," the princess assured her, again trying to push her way out of the bars to get to her 'prince'. "We all have intrusive thoughts we cannot help. But that never stopped me from loving you."

"HEY!" I snapped. "That was my line to say! You don't get to steal my line, faker!"

Knives was looking between the two of us, barely paying attention to Simon. "Wait… you said- I mean, she said that you… I mean, do you?"

When I saw the other Kim opening her mouth to answer, about to beat me to the punch again, I rushed to blurt out, "YES! I love you, Knives, you idiot!"

"That wasn't a very nice way to phrase it," Princess Pine grumbled, annoyed at missing her opening.

"Maybe if somebody gave me a minute to get my thoughts together, I could have put a little more finesse on my declaration, you high-class hologram!"

Finally, Simon chuckled and tried to reinsert himself back into the conversation, arms now folded over his chest as he mimicked an imposing figure next to the cage. "Oh, she's no hologram. You really haven't figured out who she is, have you?"

"Shut up, Mr. Velour. Women are talking."

"Why you little-"

"Let me out of here!" the princess hissed. "I can help you defeat him! Together, we will, we must!"

"How ungrateful!" he burst out, turning to shout at her. "I gave you meaning again, drew the host's attention to you, and this is how you repay me? The thanks I get! Well, forget this! I'm bringing it all down!"

As I started to ask Knives if she could just cut him to pieces and we could skip this whole cutscene, he began to grow. Like, in a Power Rangers kind of fashion. Seven feet became eight, then nine, then about ten when he stopped, rippling muscles threatening to burst the threads of his tracksuit. In fact, the front did rip open to reveal his pecs and abs, which might have been attractive if I were a little straighter, and if they weren't bright red and abnormal. At the same moment, he reached behind himself to retrieve a giant golden axe, glowing with unnatural might.

"Fuuuuck me," I breathed.

"Quick!" my copy was hissing at us, reaching a hand through the bars. "Don't any of you have a bottle of Soft? It can turn these bars back and we can cut through them easily!"

"Why, what are they made of?" Knives demanded as she got both of her weapons back out, readying to do battle.

"Skin! I mean, where do you think you are? Everything in here is skin!"

Both myself and Knives exchanged a disgusted glance. But we didn't even have a chance to brace for impact, or to try to strategize further. Even as we looked on, a giant green pipe appeared coming out of the ceiling, and out fell…

Scott Pilgrim and Ramona Flowers.

Of all the people in the known universe, there they were, in my heart-chamber-thing. Scott was hanging onto a bright pink parasol and Ramona's arms and legs were wrapped around his front as they slowly drifted downward, eyes wide as they stared at the scene they had stumbled into. Ramona looked about the same, except half of her hair was pink and the other half green, which really looked kind of hideous but it would probably be different next week, anyway. Her fishnets were ripped in a few places, and her heavy-duty blue rollerblades were probably close to being retired, but otherwise she looked good, I guess. Whatever.

There was something else about Scott I noticed right away.

"Dude, you're bald."

"Hey to you, too, Kim!" he called down, and he actually sounded like his usual cheerful self. "What's new?"

"What's- Scott, seriously? It's time for a casual game of catch-up right now? Right now?"

Ramona cleared her throat and said, "I think she means the big purple-suited dude."

"Oh." They touched down with barely a noise, and Scott folded up the umbrella. "He must be the next fragment of the Gideonflux."

"The what?" Knives asked. But then she smiled and waved. "And hi!"

He nodded upward as he grinned at her. "Hey!"

"The Gideonflux," Ramona provided. I always admired her ability to actually focus, unlike either of those other two dorks. "The seven remaining pieces of Gideon Graves's telepathic mind that he left behind when we destroyed him a year and whatever ago. You didn't know about it?"

Myself and my 'prince' shook our heads. Princess Pine looked a little guilty, but she didn't respond; probably, she had figured it out, or Simon had been grandstanding and literally told her.

"Anyway, yeah, Scott and I have been trying to track them all down before he rises again. We're on… what is it, three?"

"Four, I thought," Scott answered, rubbing his hand over his oddly-bald head. Still freaking me out.

"Okay, there was the one in the mummy's tomb, the one in the book under that old castle… the one in the Krispy Kreme… what am I leaving out if we got four?"

Scott was thinking too. They were both having a hard time coming up with it. Then he snapped his fingers. "Right! You took care of that one on your own, you didn't wanna talk about it?"

Her lip curled. "Oh yeah. That was nasty. Think I blocked it out… yeah, nevermind, Scott's right; it's four. And Super Simon Lee makes five."

"Wait, how do you figure that?" I demanded. "What does Gideon have to do with Simon?"

"Nothing. Not the real Simon; he's still doing pretty well at his IT job in Vancouver. We had to find out, since the name was our only clue for the next Flux piece," she went on in an undertone, seeing how confused we both looked. "This was something Gideon did to both you and Scott to put you at odds. It didn't really work in Scott's case, since he's kind of a dope. But yeah, when I hopped the highway through his head and saw no sign of Simon, and since we already broke his hold over me a long time ago, there was only one other place we could think of to look."

While Scott pouted, Knives stepped forward and pointed her knife over at Simon. "So he's not real? I can defeat him and not feel bad for beating up a real person?"

"Knock yourself out. And hey, you look pretty good, Knives. Working out?"

"Oh, yeah! Training, you know, all that. Plus I'm using this new moisturizer, it's made from-"

"ENOUGH!"

Everyone turned to look at the clearly-furious fake Simon, who was heaving breaths and glaring icy death at his room full of opponents. Raising the axe high, he sneered at me, "If I can't have you, no one will!"

"Somebody get this asshole a line read," I snarked. "Can you believe what he's spewing? Makes Lucas Lee look like a Tony award winner."

"Let's get him!" Scott shouted. At that instant, a pale blue sword burst from his chest, and he pulled it free as a narrator's echoing voice said, "Scott earned the Power of Loyalty!" while plus-bonuses briefly appeared above his head. Ramona reached into her bag and pulled out her hammer, and Knives crouched down with her blades, ready to pounce on the monstrous inflated form of a former boyfriend that had been twisted by one of Ramona's evil exes into something to keep a piece of my soul trapped within a subchamber inside my chest cavity.

My life is abnormal.

Ramona struck first because he ended up being closest to her, driving the hammer into his knees; he barely flinched before batting her aside, where she flipped to race down the wall on her skates. Scott and Knives double-teamed him, Scott jumping at his back with a downward stab as Knives tried to dart in past his windmilling arms to get him in the chest or the ribs. All attacks thwarted. He didn't beat them back, but he managed to make them dance away to avoid getting hit. When Ramona got to him again, she went for an uppercut and caught a piece of him, but he barely staggered; he seemed more enraged than anything, and grabbed her by the leg, swinging her in a quick circle before letting her go, hurtling toward me.

"I got you!" I cried, opening my arms — and feeling her pass right through them. "I don't got you."

But she was fine, already popping up and motioning for Knives to hop onto her shoulders. She did, and Ramona started racing around Simon in a circle while Scott used the sword to block a few of the energy blasts he sent flying at them. When they got to his side for the fifth time, Knives hopped off and stabbed for his eyes, but he deflected her at Scott, who was just getting to the other side now, sending them both down. He just barely managed to roll out of the way of a foot-stomp, and flashed an upward swipe at the shoulder that managed to score him, but didn't seem to slow him down much.

The fight was going badly. Like, they were doing great, but Super Simon really did just seem impervious to most of the attacks. At this rate, they were going to lose because he would simply wear them out by outlasting their stamina reserves. We had to do something!

"Let me out!" Princess Pine was shrieking at me. "Please!"

"We're a little busy!" I snapped at her impatiently. "God, I'm glad you've been locked up, you whiny piece of-"

"No! You have to let me out, or they can't defeat him!"

Surprised, I floated over to her cage and leaned closer still. "Say that again?"

"Verily! Only through my body will you have the power you need to overcome his defenses! Without this, their efforts will be for naught! And he's already damaged your heart enough as it is!"

"Why do you talk like you're in fucking 'Twelfth Night' or something? And what do you mean, damaged my…"

But even as I said it, I looked around and noticed what she meant. There were several areas in the chamber that looked like they had been hastily repaired. Most of them sturdily, but a few were just a single wooden board pushed up against a gap and nailed into place. Now, there were a few new tears and fractures being made by this epic battle; things that would need fixing up once we defeated him. How did I miss that? Probably too distracted by the whole bizarreness of there being a chamber in my heart that would serve as the stage for the final battle.

"Fine. You're right, I'm an unholy mess. But how is me letting you out going to help? And how do you suggest I do that, anyway? If I can't break this cage, and you can't break it…"

"Trust me."

"I don't! You're trying to steal Knives from me, and you keep calling her a 'prince', and… and I think you're part of Simon's scheme! So thanks, but no fucking thanks!"

Finally, she started to look a little more panicked than simply distraught and angry. "We don't have time! You… you must, or… or we'll lose her!"

It did shoot a pang through me at the thought. But I had faith in Knives. I knew she could defeat Simon, I knew that the other me was totally off the mark. All I had to do was trust in the one who had given me a reason to trust her.

Except then I saw Knives's knives get knocked away, watched her skitter across the floor toward me. Letting out a yelp, I went to drag her into my arms as Ramona and Scott did their best against the behemoth, but it wasn't happening because my arms couldn't do anything. I was useless.

My uselessness was going to get us all killed. While fighting a figment of my imagination.

"I'm sorry," I breathed down at her, watching her dazed eyes trying to focus on my voice. "This is my fault… I couldn't figure out that something was wrong inside me, and now… you have to deal with it, when it's not your fight. Should be mine. Only mine, and only my responsibility to do the clean-up work. But I can't. I'm a piece of shit."

"No, Kim!" she assured me, voice still numb but getting stronger as she started sitting up a little, flashing me her best smile through a black eye that would look way worse in an hour or two. "You're not, don't say that! Nobody could have expected any of this to happen, y'know?"

But I was already feeling that vice-like grip of terror around my heart again. The same way I felt it just before I turned to stone for the last time. As I felt it, I watched Simon growing larger, spikes jutting out from his forearms and shoulders, and Ramona and Scott hopped back to reassess the situation…

And it kind of all clicked into place. The problem wasn't my inadequacy. Wasn't my saltiness or my fear of commitment. Well, the last one was a little closer to the mark: it was my fear. I was being a coward. Being selfish.

"Okay," I breathed, standing away from her and turning toward the cage. "Enough of my whining."

"Kim?" Already, I had drifted through the bars, curling my lip at the joyful smile Princess Pine was wearing. Using my face for that purpose was just wrong on so many levels. "Kim, wait, what- KIM!"

"If Scott could be big enough to do this… so can I."

Then I started merging with her. Letting my soul get consumed by the annoying, bleeding-heart version of me that I wanted to punch if I could have.

"Don't worry!" Scott was calling out as he leapt over a ground-pound. "It's not as bad as you think it'd be, trust me!"

And he was right. A few seconds later, I had a body again, and I felt almost completely normal… except a little lighter. A little stronger and more full of purpose than I had ever been in my entire life. My hands pushed outward against the bars, and they shattered, freeing me from the prison in which I had never truly been trapped. Only been convinced I was trapped by anxiety and depression, and a deep-seated uncertainty that I could ever fully trust anyone at all.

But I had to. Even if I only trusted Knives, I had to trust someone. And I had decided to try trusting myself for a few minutes, too. Take that for a test drive.

"NO!" Simon growled, then lashed out with his tail — must have missed when that grew in — and knocked away the hammer Ramona had been about to bring down on his head. Loosing a mighty bellow of rage, he initiated a spin move that was deadly from all the spikes, launching himself at Scott…

I called for a weapon. Somehow, I thought if I just made that same kind of self discovery Scott did, I'd get one. Maybe a gun; that'd be cooler than a sword, right? But nope. Nothing came. Still, at least I could help Knives stand up now that I no longer owned ghost-hands.

"Thanks," she whispered, then whipped out a few throwing knives from somewhere or other. "He's mine!"

And on the battle went. It actually took a while, but they seemed to be turning the tide now. Before, it had been a stalemate, but in some small way, I think me breaking out of the cage shook Super Simon's confidence. Or maybe the cage was some kind of energy siphon and me breaking out my other self really did lower his regeneration stats, which was why each hit they landed dealt more damage now. Whatever. The point is, a few minutes later, he was starting to stagger, his attacks were sluggish and dumb, and missed pretty often now. Somewhere in there, he managed to destroy Scott's sword and it turned into a dozen little ghostly dog bones before they vanished, but he grabbed one of Knives's daggers from the corner and tossed her the other one, and they made it work with those.

Finally, they had him on his knees, wrists tied with Knives's scarf and Ramona's hammer weighing his head down so he could only barely glare up at us. He looked even more demonic than before, teeth jagged and eyes blazing red. He chuckled darkly.

"You can't kill me, Kim." I was holding his own golden axe high above my head, ready to strike. "I'm a part of you now. I'll always be a part of your nightmares. Killing this form of mine will solve nothing."

"Maybe, maybe not. But I'm tired of looking at your fucking face!"

His head came clean off, spraying the same green blood everywhere that the other monster had, before his body burst into coins. We all glanced at each other, surprised at how sticky and nasty it felt. Scott was the first to laugh.

"Well, that was a thing."

"Doof," Ramona snorted, though it was clearly with a fond tone. Sighing, she turned to me and frowned. "Sorry about the mess. This has been some of the hardest resistance we've ever had to recovering one of these."

As she was saying it, I watched Scott stoop to the floor where the body had been to pick up a little triangular "G", like the logo on the doors of the Chaos Theater. It glittered an oddly sinister green, but I only had a second to wonder about that before he popped it into his jeans pocket and out of sight.

"Uh… yeah." Clearing my throat, I said, "This is probably asking a lot, but if you guys can help me clean up? I mean, otherwise it'd probably take years…"

"Sure," Scott said at once, pocketing some of the coins, as well. I noticed both Knives and Ramona already were, too. "Where's your mop?"

"Really? Just like that?"

Scott stood up a little more fully and shrugged. "Hey, I kinda owe you a little repair work. Especially here, since I'm pretty sure a few of these holes are my fault."

Had me there. Normally, I would have said that he was a dick, or just scoffed and turned away. But I found myself saying, "Yeah, probably. I have a lot of healing to do. It's hard work, Scott."

His smile finally slipped off. But he didn't do much else, only shrugged and kicked at a little blob of slime-blood. "Yeah."

"But I can do the repairs myself. Just help me clean up this mess and we'll go back to working through our own drama."

"Can do, Kim. But hey, if you ever need a hand…"

"Thanks, but…" I caught Knives before she could walk past, holding her hand up. "Already have one."

"Really?" he piped up, the smile springing back to full force. "That's awesome! Wondered if anything was gonna come of that."

"What?" Knives asked, shocked. "You mean, you knew about it? I didn't tell anybody!"

"Well, I kinda walked in on you guys," he admitted with a shy little laugh, scratching the back of his head. "At Julie's aunt's, we were all super wasted? Figured it was none of my business, though. But man, you were really making out! Like, a lot!"

Sighing but at least grateful that he wasn't making a huge deal, I glanced at the two of them before I said, "Get used to it, because… I'm in love with her."

The echoey voice said "Kim earned the Power of Love!" and a glittering pink spear came out of my chest, a little taller than me once pulled completely through and with a couple of wicked prongs on either side of the main spearhead. A magnificent weapon. There was only one problem.

"FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC!" I shouted at the world in general. "So now I get this! Where was it fucking ten minutes ago when we needed it?! UGH!"

To Be Continued…

#kim pine's precious little knives #forkanna writes #scott pilgrim vs. the world #scott pilgrim fanfiction #kim x knives #forkanna the writer

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