#i was spiraling into insanity trying to figure out how to end the story

[ja-lin]

About 45500 words, and 6 episodes later, I’d like to announce that the first draft of episode 7 and the epilogue have been finished. I had a tough time finishing the editing for episode 6 because some lore had to be cemented properly before episode 7. 

There are millions of possibilities, and my alternate universe fanfic is only one way to handle it. Sadly I couldn’t fit the warehouse fight into my story. So, there will be a special side story later from Ranza’s PoV for the warehouse explosion.

Anyways, enjoy this tiny excerpt from episode 7 while I go drown in coding and drawing.

Yvette “It’s off the books. You aren’t obliged to go.”

Ripley “Dorran, stop being such a poop face. Yvette needs help.”

Dorran “It just sounds like a trap…”

Gage “And, that’s exactly why Yvette needs us as backup.”

The entire troupe agrees, but I’m on the wire about going still.

[writers-potion]

I'm writing a story where a major character is slowly spiraling into madness where small details kinda hint into the downfall right before the bigger details appear and then it the floodgates open. Is there anything I should avoid? Anything that I should keep in mind? Anything that I should research?

1st vs. 3rd POV For Mad Characters

This may sound irresponsible for someone who gives out writing tips, but the best method to figure out the best POV character is to test 2-3 out (just try writing the first chapter) to see if it works the way you expected it to. 

Here are some factors to consider when you’re writing an MC who is mad: 

The extent to which you want to capture their internal world

The extent to which you can afford to “warp” descriptions of the external world (while not getting your readers lost)

How much you want your readers to sympathize with the character 

What you feel comfortable with. How much you actually know about the mental condition they’re going through will be REALLY important and easy to tell in 1st person POV. For 3rd person POVs, there’s more wiggle room.

First Person MC POV

The POV that takes the most research and careful balancing between actual description and the “insane” descriptions. 

Since the reader cannot see beyond a mad character’s head, it can be difficult to tell what’s “actually happening” at times.Many writers have used this as a major plot twist, given that it comes with careful structuring so that enough evidences are left for the readers which all come together at the end. 

Be ready to make use of side characters who are more capable of telling readers the truth

If the focus is more on the process of going mad, this is the best POV to fully explore how a character can live in their own bubble. 

Third Person Omniscient

Even when writing in third person omniscient, you’ll typically follow a main character from whose perspective you follow the story. 

It’s more convenient to jump into side characters to let the readers know what’s reality from the madness-induced beliefs of the MC. 

If the MC’s madness is one that is hard to justify(criminal mindset), it’s easier to use 3rd Person to distance yourself a little 

First Person Observer POV

Whether you can have an effective 3rd person observer at all will depend on the kind of madness your MC is falling into. For sociopathic insane characters, it doesn’t make sense to have someone who can follow them closely enough to provide description.

Think about why and how this narrative character will follow the MC around

I think 3rd person observers work best when you explore how mad characters are judged/helped by those around them throughout their journey. 

This may come more naturally to us since we are technically observers who will watch this character go mad. 

My final rec: start with 3rd person observer POV, then try out one other POV for the first chapter to decide.

[incarnadinedreams]

Hot Take Time #2309209 (edit: actually this isn't a hot take it's lukewarm at best. it's a room temperature take) but I really don't understand the argument "mo dao and gui dao are different and therefore everything WWX does is completely fine!"

Like, yes, it's a difference that plays into the public discourse vs. real truth themes of the novel to a degree, and I of course absolutely appreciate all the explanations and meta around the nuances and differences. But like. What he actually does with it is... still not good whether it's mo dao or gui dao? And there are many very significant reasons that gui dao is still not great? (Which I won't get into here because there are other people far more qualified with cultural/genre knowledge who have written about it way better than I ever could anyway)

Like y'know. The several hundred people he tortured to death, the thousands of desecrated graves, the mini-harem of pet zombie girls he kept after the war for purely entertainment purposes...? Like, those behaviors aren't inherent to the method (well, except the method sort of uniquely facilitating the keeping of pet ghosts), but they're not... good...? (Note: 'morally good' is completely different than 'fun & sexy, having a great time torture-bonding with shidi, etc'.)

I just cannot agree that keeping a little harem of pet ghost girls nor anything that happened with the Wens is being "gentle with the dead, empathetic and respectful". Even WWX thinks his past self was kinda cringe with it and went way too far!

I do think there's meant to be a significant amount of ambiguity about what elements of his downward spiral are caused by the corrosive nature of his method vs. the trauma of the Burial Mounds and his own, internal, homebrewed mental crisis. The alcoholism, rapidly shifting moods, anger and inability to control his temper, before and after the war. How much of it is Wei Wuxian and how much of it is the impact of the resentful energy he's using, and the use/proximity of the Yin Hu Fu?

I do think there's a reason why there's just as much brutality carried out by characters using orthodox cultivation methods. But in the end, his behavior was a problem, and the novel hints that the methods were impacting his mental state, and it was overlooked because of his usefulness to the war effort, but it did significantly damage his credibility leading up to the parts where he is in the right, which is also part of the point of the story. And you know. The subject of Jiang Cheng's whole 'the flower that blooms alone' monologue in the cave.

Anyway. 'He's using gui dao not mo dao and there's a difference' is super not the same thing as 'Wei Wuxian is morally justified in every action'?

Anyway this book is a lot more fun to me when you approach it from 'look what absolutely insane things these boys will do when they go absolutely feral for each other, it's so cool' with a side of 'look how fucked up he is now, that's hot' and not, like, trying to somehow figure out how to make pet ghost girls into a moral ideal.

So much of the story, for me, is about what desperate, wild lengths a person will go to for survival and revenge when pushed, and then what do you do after? When the danger is past and the revenge is done, what then? How do you come back from that?

[pumpkin-genocide]

Hey you, you should check out “Abnormal Nights in Gotham”!!

Hey guys, I’m Roy, one of the main producer behind my new DC story podcast called “Abnormal Nights in Gotham.” Honestly, every night is an abnormal night for Gotham but you want to know what’s even more abnormal? Our production team!! No actually please someone save me they have so many eyes and legs I think my production team actually are monsters someone help me-

For people who aren’t so sure of if they’ll like this story, here’s a quick summary for you to get a taste of what we are all about!

“Terf Day” is coming up in Gotham. Every year, on New Years Eve, all the criminals drop their territories and fight for new territories. This keeps peace between them all, and anyone who goes against this system usually end up dead. This year, there seem to be some changes. All the gimmicked criminals are loose, Arkham Asylum is almost fully empty, and alliances are being made between criminals.

28-year-old Dr Ernest Ruby-Blu is a new psychologist at Arkham Asylum, wanting nothing more than to help the criminally insane. But he soon finds out that’s not how things are run in Gotham. Most believe they can’t be cured, and Arkham Asylum has just became another corrupt jail. He is now dead set on a mission to show Gotham that these people can be redeemed and he will go any lengths to prove that.

Meanwhile, a familiar face shows up into town after an absence in the criminal field for over 7 years. Elijah Clystone, aka “Ellie”, isn’t exactly a new criminal. He is known more as an urban legend, a man who knows too much and asks for bloody favors as payment for said information. No one knows exactly what his intentions are, but rumors around town say he has some new plans for Gotham.

Former district attorney Harvey Dent is battling against Two Face, being business partners with Oswald Cobblepot (more known as the Penguin) for more than 3 years by now. Harvey still wants to help Gotham after all these years, as Two Face wanting nothing but a false sense of harmony through violence.

Edward Nygma’s (formerly Edward Nashton and now known as the Riddler) spiral into madness continues and his hatred towards Jervis Tetch (now known as The Mad Hatter) only grows. He doesn’t know how long he can keep his peace with Oswald and Harvey, so he starts looking for new allies with others such as Dr Jonathan Crane (formerly a Arkham Asylum employee now known as the Scarecrow) and Julius Day (now known as Calendar Man).

Catwoman, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, and Vicky Vale seem to have their own plans for Gotham. A new act called “Feldzeig’s Follies” comes into town at the cabana in Chinatown. Killer Moth is back into town as well? Scarecrow has been absent for a while. Allies are formed, schemes take shape, and betrayals are planned every day. Terf Day is coming up fast, how will Ernest prove to Gotham he can help the infamously unredeemable? Who will survive? Who will fall?

I’ll be making more posts about our crew and the podcast in general, but I hope you all enjoy our little show! In the end, we are just a couple of buddies who are having fun and voicing some characters! (Also if my grammar is wack and this all kinda sucks, I’m really sorry I’m still trying to figure out tumblr and I literally suck at writing things without making 1027202729 grammar mistakes 😭)

[physalian]

Could you make a post about a character slowly losing their humanity while trying to hold onto it? It's a main theme in my current WIP and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to go about it.

Losing their humanity like “The Fly” or “Metamorphosis” where it’s a curse/transformation/sickness, and is both quite literal and mental? Or losing their humanity as in, a character has done unspeakable things and is spiraling into psychopathy?

There’s so many directions you could go here depending on what your genre, rating, and tone is. First, you have to define what humanity means to you as an author and what it means to your world and your characters. Murder might be the worst crime in one novel, and a casual occurrence in another. So, at what point is your character no longer “human”?

This is incredibly specific to your story and advice here is definitely not ‘one size fits all’ so I’ll do my best and I’ll use a very popular movie to back me up: The Dark Knight.

Harvey Dent goes from saint to savage in less than 3 hours, about… I think three weeks maybe in-universe? The movie pulls this off in a few ways:

Right off the bat, there’s hints that this character has a loose circuit somewhere. Comics fans know he becomes Two Face, but layman audiences are still thrown a bone with Harvey’s rather quick rise to prominence in infamously-crime-ridden Gotham. So, he’s not starting as Mr. Rodgers.

Harvey’s job puts immense pressure on him to perform with a lot to lose if he fails. This makes his room for error to avoid catastrophe very narrow and raises the stakes for every action he takes. In essence, any one mistake can be devastating, making catastrophe more believable in the story.

When he starts losing, he loses a lot very quickly. Harvey is bombarded with the mob gremlins trying to escape the law, the Joker running around blowing up holes in the justice system and raining chaos everywhere, his wishy-washy girlfriend who’s hesitant to accept his proposal, and increasing pressure to hand over his hero, Batman, to a maniac, to stop the murders, and he can’t do much of anything about it. Even with small victories, it’s one step forward and three steps back and he’s being fundamentally and existentially thwarted at every turn.

He’s desperate, afraid, and powerful, three *very* bad traits in combination. His slippery slide into madness gets a little steeper when he kidnaps a criminal and screams through an interrogation, then it drops off a cliff when Rachel dies instead of him in a so-called game of chance.

“Chance” here, and Harvey’s ability and presumption of control, is his whole identity. He’s Two-Face. He’s got a double-headed coin to rig his bets. When Rachel dies, he’s lost control over everything, and he just shatters. She dies and he lives and he abandons his core values to embrace Joker’s vision of absolute anarchy, because what’s the point in trying to fight fate?

All of this works despite this monster of a plot, where he’s not even the main villain, because he had so far to fall, and the world of Batman lends itself to insanity coming on quickly. Joker even says that “madness is like gravity, all you need is a little push”.

So without having any details on your WIP I’d have this to say:

Figure out what moral code or person or object your character holds most central to their identity

Circle the drain of destroying it, forcing the character to grow desperate enough to protect it, going to ends they normally wouldn’t with the best of intentions

Destroy that thing

Let them crumble in the aftermath as they can no longer reconcile their core beliefs with the world they live in, and lash out as the wounded animal they’ve become

[intertexts]

Oh wait

You like fucked up towns?

Do you perhaps have any thoughts on towns and how to make them more fucked up? :]

(^^ words of something trying to make a small town map that’s fucked up)

OH. HUH. FUN QUESTION. i feel like. i am a terrible person to ask for thoughts on things like this because the extent of my writing is like, gay ass character studies & shit. but. i do have a ton of thoughts on fucked up towns.

the most important thing, i personally think, is having your town be grounded in a real regional place and it has to be a place you love. it's so difficult to make that shit up from scratch and still carry a real weight. and the horror or strangeness or sadness of the town should come from the reality of it.

picking a few of the easiest examples: welcome to night vale, night in the woods, h.p. lovecraft's miskatonic county. the fucked-up-ness of all of them springs from the nature of the place itself. they're not interchangeable, and they all have different emotions linked with them.

night vale is, very loosely, a satire of unbothered american suburbia in the face of-- well. all the horrific shit that post-9/11 unbothered americana ignores! and the strangeness and beauty of the setting comes from the easy and pleasant and mundane way that its citizens interact with the horror. it's day-to-day, it's chill, it's normal. yeah the faceless old lady who lives in your home is running for mayor. yeah the angels who work the community garden and live with josie finally won the case for their existence we can acknowledge them now cool. (& also of course night vale is a southwestern desert town & it doesn't let u forget that!! it's hot and sunny in the day and cold at night and there's sand dunes out by the edge of town and beaches with no lakes and it is very grounded in its setting!!)

possum falls from nitw, on the other hand, is a love letter to to those old, death spiraling pennsylvania rust belt mining towns. it isn't as heavily supernatural of a setting (outside of the old god in the mines the elders are sacrificing the most vulnerable members of the community to for nothing but the continued hollow, wheezing survival of something that should be allowed to die) but it's very grounded in the reality of those places-- the omnipresent forest, the dinky grocery store, your old high school classmate sitting out on her apartment steps at sunset, the feeling of being out in the autumn cold at dusk and the empty subway station and the weathered, half-hearted historical remnants of local pride and the ghost of the closed mine over it all. the type of dead-end, black hole, potholed main street town that you know you're gonna live and die in because it's what your parents did and what their parents did and god knows how you'd even make it out.

lovecraft-- i mean, mandatory disclaimer on his insane racism of course. up to u if u wanna read of his work, a lot of his short stories r very short etc. but crucially, for what we're talking about here, lovecraft was fucking in love with new england in the way that people who r born and raised in new england r insane about it. his lovecraft country/miskatonic county/arkham county is set in massachusetts, and he's very clear about why everything's set in mass: bleak, lonely, ancient, haunted by the sea and the lingering ghosts of twisted puritan ideology. his fucked up towns are the dark hidden backwoods, the port towns, the wretched things brought by settlers who have been a parasite upon the woods and the rocks and the fields for hundreds of years, etc, the feeling that something has gone wrong and perverted here and it's far too late to fix it.

so like, tl;dr-- don't try and make somewherw generically weird. figure out what place makes YOU go crazy go stupid. pinpoint Why it specifically makes u go crazy go stupid, as opposed to everywhere else. crank that shit up to 100!!!!

[freeuselandonorris]

how do you deal with overwhelm while writing?? i think i’ve bitten off more than i can chew in regards to how long my current wip is going to have to be to actually play out the way i want it to (depth, character development, build up etc). i can’t even come up with scenes anymore, because the scope of the whole story just paralyses me - especially now, given all the things that have been happening irl (landoscar insanity fuel/lando’s win/hug etc) that i want/feel make sense to include, my brain is scrambling to figure out how to make it all fit.

i really enjoy writing when i can get into the kinda flow state but i haven’t been able to do that. have you ever had this happen and what did you do??

xoxox an adoring fan

heyyyy sweet anon thank you so much for messaging and i'm sorry you're having a frustrating time with your piece!

i have absolutely experienced this many many times before (especially with longer pieces) and so i can tell you with some confidence that the reason you can't get into your usual flow state is because you're freaking yourself out by trying to look at the entire piece rather than what you need to write next.

under the cut because i ramble like fuck when i'm talking about writing~

the writer anne lamott has this great technique she calls the 'one inch picture frame' which i find invaluable. basically, when you are sitting there spiralling like, oh god i have so much to write and i need to make sure the middle is snappy and the ending builds appropriately and i get all the characterisation in and oh god what about the world-building... you just tell your brain to shut up, and then you pretend that your story is a huge elaborately painted canvas or a view from a window or whatever, and you think about what you could see of that painting/view through a one-inch picture frame. then you describe that.

in practical terms, here's what that looks like for me. i'll use monday as an example. around the beginning, i wrote myself a vague season outline up to that point - key races, key moments i knew i wanted to include, etc. i added dates, locations and so on in brackets. i put this in a section at the top of my gdoc and then started a new section (i recommend using the title formatting on gdocs so it gives you a clickable link in the outline area) so it was there for easy reference but wasn't like, staring me in the face the whole time. if you're really freaked out though, you might want to put it in an entirely different document. then, as i wrote those bits, i would cross them out using strikethrough so i had a vague idea of where i was at. otherwise, i would IGNORE THAT OUTLINE.

(side note in reference to the overwhelm you feel just coming up with an outline: this thing can be basic as fuck. the good thing about writing motorsport RPF is that we already essentially have a structure in place, i.e. that of the season. that's what i used for monday: i listed all the races, then removed the ones where nothing interesting happened landoscar-wise (the race reports on the mclaren site are invaluable for this!). then i went through the mclaren socials/youtube and slotted in all the insane moments i wanted to capture in roughly the right place in the timeline. and honestly, there were loads of bits i'd put in the outline that i didn't end up using and vice versa. don't worry about being too beholden to the overall shape of the narrative just yet.)

every morning (i write in the morning) i would open the document to my last bit of writing and reread the last paragraph or so to remind myself where i was up to, and i would think about what i could see through the one-inch frame. so for instance, in the chapter where they have the argument in the hotel room after monza, i knew i wanted that argument to happen but where/how/when? i'd written them in the debrief, but i didn't want the argument to happen at the track. so, okay, they're in the corridor of the hotel. they're tentatively speaking to each other. write that. now what? move the frame over a little. now they're in the room, but they're still pissed. write that. now oscar's realising he doesn't want to argue, but he doesn't know how to say what he does want. write that. etc.

this is all a mental game you play with yourself. you go and look at your outline and you look at what scene or plot beat comes next, and then you put on your blinkers and ignore the fact that you're trying to write a long piece. it's not happening, la la la. you're writing one scene. you're writing the next sentence. you're not thinking about what comes after that. i mean, obviously if you know you want to reference x thing in chapter 2 so it can play a bigger part in chapter 3, you can think about that! but you're not thinking about it in the sense of OH GOD THERE IS STILL SO MUCH TO WRITE AND I AM JUST ONE PERSON.

a final tip i find useful to force myself not to overthink and get back into that flow state is timed writing sessions. set a timer for 25 minutes and put your phone on silent, and write as much as you can without stopping to edit. (if you want to carry on after that, knock yourself out. but don't stop to fiddle about with it.)

good luck anon! you haven't bitten off more than you can chew, you just need to take smaller bites 😘

[shatterstag]

This is the best question ever because Indi is Literally The Coolest Character Ever. Like, I love Bellamy, I love him dearly, so much of my personality has been shaped by him in the past 7 years, but I genuinely think Indi is my favourite character from anything ever even if he is an oc lol

OKAY SO FIRST Indi isn’t my oc, I’m kind of like his godfather, Indi belongs to my best friend and housemate @jacobin/Salem​!! In our original dnd name, he was Bellamy’s god he was in thrall too, because Bellamy was basically a warlock with a cleric bandaid slapped over his chest hole LOL

(this one drawn by salem) There’s a long story behind how Bellamy ended up in service to him, and it goes kind of something like ‘man who has no idea who the gods are and WHERE they are desperately contacts Anything out there to help try and save his plague-dying daughter,’ but unfortunately, the ritualistic sacrifice he committed ended up summoning The Hidden One... this terrifyingly Other deity of the unknown, the void, the moon, knowledge, snakes, darkness... OOPS. The fun thing about this was that I, as the PLAYER, didn’t know who his god was actually going to be in game until he was able to summon him (with locally sourced hearts and brains and blood :)) Since then we’ve spent the last several years designing and rewriting our own original story and world for them! Indi is an absent god. He has few worshippers, is absent and incredibly mysterious, and is referred to Exclusively as the Hidden One. Only his closest worshippers are able to learn his true name, and... not even the Hidden One himself knows it. He’s still the god of the unknown, and the gods in this universe work much more similarly to cold and rigid AI programs designed to control reality and their shattered floating world than anything even close to human consciousness and personification.

Bellamy, as a revenant in thrall, ends up becoming hatefully close to the Hidden One, and for the first time in 10,000 years........... he realises that this god is broken. The Hidden One is glitched. Something has happened to him, some unknown thing that even this god HIMSELF isn’t aware of, and he’s slowly coming apart at the god-code seams.... because the truth is, Indi was never created as a god, was never born as a god. He was a mortal who achieved horrific apotheosis, and in doing so, went insane, completely unable to partner his emotions and existence and individuality with the rigid incomprehensible program of godhood.

As the god of the unknown but equally the god of knowledge, Indi is a black hole of information. He has the power to make knowledge of something unknowable, to erase it from existence and from the collective memory and timespan of reality itself. When he went insane as a newly birthed but incompatible deity, he was forced, in punishment, to consume the part of himself that was once mortal, ripping out his core identity and mind in the process and leaving behind a barely functional broken program of a god. 🥰 10,000 years later he has an an allconsuming hunger to fill something empty inside him, but as a god, his consciousness is unable to even REGISTER that he could be anything but divinely perfect. Even the concept of him being incomplete and flawed is enough to send him spiraling in a glitch breakdown. Especially if, say, his naughty little ghostman, who refuses to cooperate, appeals to a sick sense of affection or perhaps, even.... love....

So anyway it turns out that when Indi ripped his identity out he created an open bleeding wound, slowly corrupting this shattered planet into a boiling toxic storm of a gas planet, leaking from the black hole tear he created 10,000 years ago that holds the floating broken continents together, a bleeding wound that NOBODY in the entire universe, especially himself, is able to acknowledge or comprehend because the knowledge that he Actually DID That To Himself has ITSELF, BEEN ERASED FROM EXISTENCE.

And it takes Bellamy to figure the truth out, as they slowly, irrecoverably, fall in love.

[darkstalker1247]

Hydraulics AU: Part 9

This was strange. 

Steve’s mind was racing, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Here was this giant creature who’d been feral even minutes before and was suddenly tame, curled up in the corner, away from him, as well as another person talking to him. What was this place? He’d just seen another world that looked like it was made of paper mache, and he looked and felt like a zombie. Even this strange new person he was talking to looked somewhat human, despite the whole being made of ink thing. He seemed like he knew what he was doing, however, so Steve rationalized to trust him for now. After all, he’d gotten him out of what he now described to be a literal hell hole. 

“I know you probably have a lot of questions,” Sammy breathed. “Lucky for us, the gentleman who runs this place stocked up plenty of ink and paper, so ask away.” He set a piece of paper on the floor in front of Steve; their only way of communicating. Steve pondered over what he should ask first. After a moment, he scrawled one particular question he settled on:

What happened to you?

Sammy went quiet after reading it. He rubbed his fingers together; Steve figured he’d struck a nerve. After a long silence, Sammy spoke up. “I wasn’t exactly forced into this, not at first.”

“It started off normal. I was antisocial as per usual, kicking everyone out of my department as soon as I could, just trying to get some peace and quiet. Those songs of mine never wrote themselves, after all. They started giving me a new type of ink to write with, and after the Machine was put in, we’d get trapped in the department sometimes. The ink would overflow and block the exit. Our boss’ answer was more distractions for me, which only made my work harder and my mind spiral more often than usual. It’s always been a problem, but it got just that much worse after… after the Ink Demon was made.” He paused for a moment, glancing at Bendy itself, who was seemingly alert, watchful. Then he continued. “I started hearing voices. They told me to do things I’m not proud of, like drinking that.” He paused again, this time pointing at the little inkwell sitting next to the paper in front of him. “It only made things worse. Not only did the voices come and go, I swore I started seeing things. Normal things for people around the studio, but I was seeing them in my sleep. I used to joke about how Bendy and his little cartoon friends would drive me insane…” 

The Demon snapped its head in their direction, recognizing its name. The two ignored it. “It got to the point where I was convinced that the Ink Demon was some kind of god, and that I needed to appease it in some way. When the Cycle ended up starting, I decided to try some kind of sacrifice. I basically screamed at the ceiling until I’d finally caught its attention, but when I tried to get it to accept a few people I’d stumbled upon as an offering, it just pushed me into the ink.” He moved his mask out of the way of his face and pressed his hand to his forehead. “It was a mistake. I knew it was a mistake. Susie warned me about getting too deep into my work…” 

Sammy had stopped, rubbing his head and trying to calm himself. He seemed finished with his story. Steve was very confused. Sammy’d mentioned some names that Steve recognized without knowing how or why. The Machine, the Cycle, even the name Susie was very familiar. He had a picture of the Machine in his mind; it was complex on the inside but had a simple purpose, to create an endless supply of ink. Strange. 

He couldn’t think of anything to say next, so he simply wrote underneath the question: I’m sorry. Sammy stared at this expression of sympathy for a minute before sighing. “Thank you,” he near-whispered, “Do you have any other questions? Anything at all?” 

Steve felt the need to write down something else, to clear this strange air of grief and regret. He scrawled down another query as fast as he could without misspelling anything. His black hands, still a horrifying surprise to look at, were shakier than usual. He managed to write out:

What happened to the Ink Demon? 

The two looked over at the Demon itself, who was fiddling with its fingers, clearly very bored. “Bendy,” Sammy called out, “He’s asking about you.” It snapped to attention and stood on its back legs, slowly thudding over to where they were talking. Steve noticed it left behind a giant puddle of ink where it had been sitting. It dragged its huge claws along the floor as it walked, and its heart beat slowly from wherever it was. It flopped down on the ground again behind Sammy, like a dog switching spots to be in the sun. It looked intently at Steve, but he wasn’t sure why. “That’s both an easier and a harder question,” Sammy said in a calmer, more purposeful tone. “The owner of the animation studio that the… place spawned from wanted to do something basically impossible. He wanted to make living cartoon characters. I’m not sure if he was actually the starry-eyed idiot he always pretended to be or if he was a money hungry monster, but he wanted living attractions. We don’t really mention him too often.” He glanced back at the Ink Demon behind him, indicating why. “Anyway, he wanted to make living cartoons. He experimented on that Ink Machine with some guy named Thomas Connor, and eventually they came up with something. The owner’s first experiment was his main character, Bendy.” He pointed behind him. “As you can see, it didn’t go so well.” 

Oh, that actually makes sense, Steve thought to himself. Money-obsessed business owner plays God and gets kicked in the ass for it. 

“After Bendy came out deformed, J- I mean, the owner locked it in some secluded location, away from us. It drove it mad, and uh… this is what we have now.” He seemed to stumble over his words. The Ink Demon grumbled. It sounded almost like it was in physical pain. It has emotions, then, Steve pondered again. Sammy sighed. “I know, buddy, I know… it’s over now. He can’t hurt you.” It whined and settled down, burying its head in its giant hands. 

Sammy looked back over at Steve. “Anything else?” 

Steve decided to write down one last question.

What was your boss’ name?

Sammy didn’t say anything. He motioned for Steve to hand him the pen he was using, and then wrote down something. His handwriting was really neat, all things considered. 

Joey Drew. 

Steve nodded in regards to Sammy. That’s all, he was trying to say, and thank you. 

___

it's been a bit hasn't it

ngl I'm really proud of the characterization in this one

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[murdergirlfriend]

rant about a gross artist and her disgusting story with censored names cause i don’t feel like having 100 people in my notes defending their favorite barely hidden domestic abuse fetish art

***’s art is the only thing that’s good about her dumb fucking story god i hate it why add a dark skinned girl literally just for her to suffer then die horribly for the sweet little yt passing girl to be sad over for a while and why try and make us feel bad for a murderer and attempted baby murderer he’s a fucking monster don’t give him backstory OOOOH IM NOT TRYING TO MAKE YOU SYMPATHIZE WITH HIM UUUHHH HE’S A COMPLEX CHARACTER I WUV HIM SOOOO MUCH why the fuck would you do that if everytime you bring him up it’s only to say how fucking terrible of a person he is oh i forgot your pathetic excuse for his backstory and piss poor ‘explanations’ for the way he is. i actually like his shitty ex cause she abuses him cause he fucking deserves it wtf. oh yeah and ****** only has rape in her backstory for shock like yeah that’s messed up and it adds to her character i guess but what does she add to the story she adds nothing and her story does literally nothing so why make her a rape victim unless you’re just making up more terrible shit to masturbate over? why the fuck is ****** okay with assassin shit when she first gets into the business btw assassins are overplayed and you are not doing anything new with the trope. yes she killed her dad in a rage so what? should we feel sympathy for her or no? why doesn’t the family turn her in for the murder of *****? cause they would get in trouble cause they’re all assassins? why don’t they just fucking kill her? why don’t they do that shit from the beginning? oh apparently now you don’t have that storyline going anymore you’re adding some new shit to the story by the way the new storyline is fucking incomprehensible, makes me even less sympathetic for ****** for being pathetic and a fucking weirdo plus it’s not meaningful i don’t give a shit it’s more barely disguised fucking torture porn. i honestly think she’s the worst character in the fucking story and i would only feel that the story ends well if she ends up killing herself cause she’s such garbage. and you think you’re so fucking smart holy shit how do you not break your neck sucking your own cock? you’re so clever omgggg every piece you make is so PACKED with MEANING oh it’s so fucking MEANINGFUL OH BOY I WONDER IF MY AUDIENCE CAN FIGURE THIS ONE OUT PROBABLY NOT CAUSE IM THE NEW FUCKING DAVINCI. HOLY SHIT IM SO SMART. but don’t give me even the slightest criticism cause i’ll flip my fucking shit and go on for literal stories full of fucking text about how IM RIGHT AND YOUR WRONG AND YOUR SOOO DUMB. OBVIOUSLY you can’t see everything going on past the surface cause i don’t post everything well yeah fucking obviously if you don’t give proper context to your own bullshit it’s not gonna come across the way you intend so why try and crucify me for taking it the wrong way you stupid cunt. plus ‘*** *** ****** ********’ is a dumb fucking name for a story which if it was anything else i would forgive it but it’s honestly the straw that broke the camels back on top of the dumb fucking pile of horse shit that is this stupid fucking story you dumb asshole. fuck you. MAKE GROSS TORTURE PORN BECAUSE ITS CLEAR THATS WHAT THIS STORY IS AND WHAT YOURE DOING. WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE US FEEL BAD FOR CHARACTERS IN YOUR MASTURBATION BAIT. I HATE YOUR FUCKING ART SO much i honestly think im going into a spiral or some shit if someone finds this and finds out what it’s about hiiii your favorite story is fucking terrible and i might be going slightly insane about how i can’t say shit because if i do she’s gonna flip her shit and probably send her dumbass fans after me lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol

[iridescentprxdigy]

3/21/23 2:16am

How did I get here.?

______________________________________________________________

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything. 

It’s been a while since I’ve even had the thought of writing anything.

It’s really hard to get myself to focus and actually put my thoughts into words. I have always talked about writing stories for concepts I have in my mind but I could never figure out how to start and execute them in ways I want.

It’s March 2023 now. I think the last time I ever sat down and did something like this it was back in 2020 maybe even 2019. 

I was quite literally in a whole different space. A whole different person really.

It’s hard for me to want to summarize it all. I feel like if I start it just will spiral into so many things that I don’t feel like reliving. I might even just do separate posts of those certain things later but for now I will do my best to simplify the past 2 years. 

______________________________________________________________

2020 was quite literally one of the worst years ever. For everyone honestly, it’s really insane to think about how we all collectively just had a bad time. At the same time. 

Pandemic ruined everything, yeah yeah yeah.

But even before the pandemic I was having a bad time.

Terrible relationship that felt like it was going nowhere no matter how hard I felt like I was trying. I was burnt out with school. I hated myself and my body.

Existing really was just something I really didn't feel like taking part of. Crazy to think these feelings really ruled who I was for the next two years.

I had 2 suicide attempts in the span of those 2 years. Thankfully neither were successful. Thankfully I continued to heal and start learning how to love myself.

______________________________________________________________

Things stayed pretty rough and stagnate until late summer of 2022. I was stuck in a place where I hated where I was. Not so much in a literal sense but where I was as a person.

I was constantly being asked what was I doing with my life by my family.

When are you getting a real job? Are you going back to school? When will you stop being lazy?

It really was heavy on me everyday. Thinking back on it now makes me really sad for past me. They felt like they were helping me, feeling like they were pushing me to move forward. When in reality they were really just pushing me to the edge.

It felt as though they thought I wasn't thinking the exact same things to myself. Did they really think I wanted to be there at HomeGoods constantly just barely scraping by? Did they really think I wanted to keep myself locked up in my room?

Not at all. I know they meant well but it was rough for me at the time.

But with all that in mind I was constantly searching for new opportunities to get me outta the stagnate place I was in.

That's when I found a listing for my photography job. It felt too good to be true honestly. I thought it was interesting but I ended up shrugging it off at first. I shrugged it off because it scared me. The thought of finally putting myself out there to getting a job I would actually enjoy?

I was afraid of the possible rejection.

I thought to myself, what if I applied and got really excited just to be turned down?

My fragile mental state really almost lost me an amazing life changing opportunity. Thankfully I couldn't stop thinking about the job and an even bigger thank you to my phone for sending me the second notification for the job.

To make a long story short I stopped being a pussy and applied for the job and passed with flying colors! The manager really liked me and I got the job.

_____________________________________________________________

I really feel like this was a turning point for me. I was nervous but as soon as I got through training I feel like it really helped start building back up my confidence.

I started to meet awesome new people every single day and was put in new situations every single day I had no choice but to grow as a person.

I was healing and I was gaining newfound hope.

______________________________________________________________

Fast forward to me starting to put myself out there. Found a silly little anime game which and started to play it pretty frequently.

I made friends and was invited to join their discord group. I really was iffy about it because I really kinda keep to myself and have had bad experiences before but I eventually gave in.

I will admit at first it was super fun and I enjoyed myself.

But people can be vile.

I can get into the whole situation another time if I feel like it but at this point it's all silly to me.

Not only did this era show me I can put myself out there and have a good time but it showed me you can't trust everybody you meet and not everybody is gonna like you and be your friend. And that's okay.

______________________________________________________________

I think despite the fact the fun kinda turned sour in the end, I was gifted with something much more then I could've ever expected.

His goofy ass.

Someone so outta the blue, if it wasn't so cringe to say, I'd say was fated to slip into my life.

I really wasn't even looking for someone. It was at the point where love really seemed so superficial and unobtainable to me. Considering how much of myself and how much of my love I put into my past person just to ultimately fail and end up with nothing but trauma? Yeah, I didn't want to deal with that typa thing ever again.

But I guess that's the weird thing about love, it finds you, you don't find it.

______________________________________________________________

Enemies to Lovers some would call us.

It all really just brewed from us interacting every now and again and everyone suddenly just shipping us. I'm pretty sure we were both shocked and confused. But hey, it was goofy and fun to shit on each other and get reactions from everybody right?

The shitting on each other would gradually become more flirty.

We really didn't talk individually for awhile other than in chats. But it was inevitable right?

It would all lead up to the moment readers would be waiting for, when the two prospects would end up in a VC alone together, casually playing some Minecraft.

They'd talk to each other as usual with the normal talking shit energy then kinda address the elephant in the room and just laugh about it with each other.

"Why did we suddenly become this conjured up ship?"

"Idk man but it's been kinda fun huh?"

"Yeah I guess so."

As the conversation progressed it just kept getting weirder and weirder. Weirder in the way that there was so much in common between us it didn't feel real.

Come to think of it, we fell in love that night even if we didn't know it yet.

I could go more into detail but I'll save that for a future post :)

______________________________________________________________

I wonder if he knows how much he's helped me.

Fast forward to now he eventually rizzed me up enough and made me his girlfriend which I am insane grateful. My tramuatized ass really fought so hard against it because I didn't want my heart broken again but the thought of losing him scared me even more.

I literally spiraled and cried because

When I came to realize that it was like I couldn't even turn back.

It's crazy how much your eyes can be opened up just by being with someone who loves you.

[duckielover151]

THE ONE PIECE DIARIES

Episode Count: 367

Oh man. I literally just made an update post, but I couldn't not talk about this episode.

367 was really, really great. I've been kind of complaining about how the Straw Hats are all strong individually but we rarely get to see real teamwork from them... So seeing them all team up to take down Oars here... starting from the very moment they're all getting back on their feet and trying to remember Oars's name as they walk up to start that battle... This was everything I've been asking for for a while now. Just absolute satisfaction, even if the crew was missing a few members.

And then I might as well mention the little shock I got at the end of the episode. It's around this point that I'm spoiled on a few big things in the story. Like, I know the basics of Marineford and that Ace doesn't make it out of that conflict. And I recognized Kuma as the sort of central figure who kicks off that downward spiral towards the tragedy. (That is not the voice I thought Kuma would have. That's... interesting.) Which means they're all about to be split up, right as they've finally come together as a real team... I just didn't realize it happened this soon.

I was kind of hoping there would be a little mini adventure-- I don't even care if it was filler-- properly cementing in Brook with the crew... The way I feel like Skypiea was an important experience to have with Robin, rather than jumping right into Water 7 and the insanity with CP9 and Enies Lobby... But damn. I guess this means we're gonna keep going at full throttle for a while. Which... I guess I can't complain about.

[chaosciara]

how to "get shit done": uni work addition

hi loveliest people so this is a sort of guide to how i get through uni work without going completely insane (make no mistake there is still some insanity present). I hope you find it helpful, or at least entertaining,

(disclaimer cause this is the internet: these work for me, they may not work for you)

table of contents:

a. date it

b. set reminders

c. how to stay on top of it

d. how to get on top of it if you aren't already

e. learn when your brain needs a break

f. uni is a full time job, treat it as such

A. date it

okay the first thing i do at the beginning of every semester is put uni dates in my calendar.

Term dates: when your term starts, when it ends, and your holidays. this is not just for information purposes but also so you have something to look forward to. additionally, it helps later on when you have to plan out assignment and test dates.

Assignment/ test dates: scour through the course outlines of all your courses and put every single date into your calendar. every assignment, every test, anything you have to submit goes in. that includes things like "weekly quizzes". make it a recurring date and chuck it in there.

B. set reminders

so i usually do this in my calendar but if you have a reminders app, or prefer other ways to set reminders then use that.

these reminders are not to make you feel bad for not doing work, it's to hold you responsible for your work. if you know you spiral at the idea of seeing a reminder when you haven't done work, this strategy may not work for you. don't give up, something will work. keep trying and have patience with yourself

if you know something is approaching it's easier to plan your life and your tasks around it. if you never know how long you have or you're always scrambling to figure out when something is due your mind is so focused on the dates it has no time for the work

Assignment reminders:

2 weeks before // 1 week before // 3 days before // 1 day before // 10 minutes before // on time of event

Test reminders:

1 week before // 3 days before // 1 day before // 1 hour before // on time of event

I know this may be excessive but if you're someone like me who constantly forgets things, it is very helpful to keep yourself on track

okay trust me you got this! i promise it's not as bad as it looks. right onto readings and assignments.

C. how to stay on top of it

do one reading per course per day: this is non-negotiable. trust me it is the easiest way to get through readings for a week.

if you have four courses of five readings each you will end up doing four readings a day from Monday to Friday. it is workable and you can do it. uni is fucking difficult and everyone has a story about why they're there but i promise you if you're there, the selection processes decided you were capable enough to handle it. and you are. if you can, start a week earlier so you're a little ahead otherwise it's totally okay.

2. start research for assignments 2 weeks before it is due. this will give you time and space to sort through what is relevant, useful, or should be discarded.

i have a folder for each assignment where all my research goes. within this folder there are three other folders: a. done and dusted b. too long/ not relevant c. could be helpful if i cared enough

and as i go through each paper/article/etc. i sort it into one of the three folders

while i am doing my research i also have a google doc open (shortcut that saved my life btdubs: "doc.new" directly into the browser search bar) that i write notes on.

a. things i think will help support my arguments b. things i found interesting c. themes that keep cropping up in the literature (advantages, disadvantages, limitations, concepts, theories, future directions) d. things i disagree with and will either argue against or find some way to bitch about (seriously have fun with your assignments) e. statistics

3. study notes should be your understanding of the topic:

it is beneficial to write the heading and then write as much as you can on what you know even if it's random words muddled on a page. then fill in using lecture notes, anything in your readings you found helpful, and obviously your course sources like textbooks.

the most important piece of advice i can give you for study notes is: MAKE THEM FUNNY AND WITHOUT FILTER you do not have to sound professional, you do not have to sound like you're writing a textbook. i am dead serious:

here's an excerpt from my clinical psychology study notes in 3rd year: Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder: set a boundary between what we would consider to be normal and appropriate grieving behaviour and what we could consider to be disordered or inappropriate grieving behaviour. (literally the dumbest thing i've ever heard? Who are we to tell people they’re grieving wrong????)

D. how to get on top of it if you aren't already

If you’re already behind but you’re attending class, leave the work you’re behind on in the past. (yes that was meant to rhyme).

Spend one weekend going through lecture slides and lecture content only. Don’t worry about the readings for the lectures, just leave those. If you don’t understand what’s happening then go and do readings. Skim the abstracts of those readings and if they look like they’re not going to help you don’t do them.

Reach out to your lecturer or tutor or supervisor and say:

“Good day [name/honorific] I am struggling to understand [this topic] despite working through the lecture notes and readings on it. Please may I have some guidance as to how I can better understand this. (alternative: please can I see you during your office hours for a brief explanation and further resources to help me better understand the topic) Hope to hear back soon! [sign off]”

then apply all this to the above on assignments and study notes.

E. learn when your brain needs a break

sometimes you really just have to shut down. sometimes your brain is saying "if you don't give me a break right now i am going to do it for us and it is going to get ugly". please listen. do whatever you need to.

a. sleep for an entire day, hell an entire weekend.

b. binge watch something

c. read something

d. go out

e. go on a hike

f. stay with a friend

g. visit your parents

F. uni is a full time job, treat it as such

i cannot stress enough that uni literally is a large, possibly the biggest part, of your life. it is very difficult to sideline it without getting overwhelmed.

however, that doesn't mean you don't deserve time off. give yourself insurance, free healthcare, an understanding boss. you are not a robot. you are living, and alive, and you need many things to keep you that way. work alone is not going to help. but play alone is not going to help either. find the balance that works for you by listening to yourself. and then stick to the balance.

goodluck beautiful beans. i believe in you wholeheartedly <3

if you have any questions my ask box is always open. and if you want more detail for anything let me know!

[3vocatio]

the thing abt one of the most <3 solomon scenes being copied word for word for diavolo is just so. it's not even insane or unbelievable to me it's just extremely irritating like these are genuinely such wonderful characters in a wonderful setting how are the devs messing up on the writing bit THIS bad.

idm the fan service because like... otome game & all that but also that doesn't mean that they can't have a compelling plot and good writing to go with it????? especially in events like clearly they keep trying to include every single character and it just. doesn't work. and there are just SO MANY events too like if you're playing for non-plot purposes it's still so goddamn annoying because let the players breathe 😭

idk i just wish the writing quality in the game would improve at the very least. like it's fine if it's 'cringe' or wtv at least come up with original and decent plots instead of just repeating the same things over and over again yk?

sorry about the rant i've just been really pissed about this lately in the game 😭

oh my GOSH raaz solomon is the last person the obm devs haven't messed up (+ the new side characters, specifically mephistopheles) and i'm so terrified of the obm devs ruining him like they did everyone else...

in this new steampunk event, the locked route is SPECIFICALLY being catered for whales. unlocking the chapters was easy to build up to, but now you need 15 keys off the bat to continue, and i feel like it's heavily reflective of how indifferent the devs are towards actually doing their own characters justice. everything is meant to serve their whales, bring in more revenue, and sit comfortably even when they know they're angering their own fanbase by rubbing salt in the wound (i.e. making satan self-aware of his cat obsession, solomon outwardly expressing discomfort for the erasure of his humanity from other characters).

the devs are growing to completely disregard their own story, slapping together some fanservice in the main story when most of their fanbase can't even reach that point. why not serve your veterans & those who financially support you with consistent & cathartic story arcs? why not balance everyone, everything?

so i share your frustrations: obey me has been spiraling down in quality for a long time. i think that the last time i've been satisfied with the story was during season 2, when the fandom wasn't as big, and people were invested in figuring out what'll happen next because everything was cleverly panning out to a huge event: the dagger scene with lucifer. people didn't know what to make of simeon's play, and i remember when people theorized that the play would parallel a huge event near the end of the season... and we were right! and so many people were genuinely happy with the story being able to keep their interest and keep them on their toes.

now, there is a severe lack of anything reminiscent of holding anyone's interest, even the veterans, even me. i would woefully log onto tumblr as season 4's lessons rolled around every week, and would share everyone else's disappointment when we gradually accepted the fact that the story was easy to predict given how lazy the devs had become. i want them to take their time so badly, to give us quality over quantity, but with solmare now becoming so big with their new cash cow, obey me, compared to their previous cliche otome games, i think they've allowed the success to get to them.

thoughts of “it's an awful game, i hope no one plays it” and “it's a nice game to play, i can't wait to share my thoughts” are two things that can coexist, albeit shaped into something more along the lines of “it's a horrendous game that i can bond over with friends” once you find yourself being sucked deeper into it.

i don't think i'll stop playing anytime soon, because as i told someone in the past, “[it has] flavor in all of its terrible, atrocious glory”. i'm able to use concepts & ideas that the story gives me and, in my eyes, i get to make it better. i get to share my thoughts with like-minded people like you, and everyone jumps on the inspiration bandwagon. people bond over the same failures that makes us frustrated, and that's one of the few reasons i have any semblance of gratitude for obey me.

[atlabeth]

nightmares - mike munroe x reader

summary: It was a deal made by two almost-friends in the early hours of the morning after the worst night of their lives, when they realized that all they really had left was each other.

a/n: so this is once again. not my normal content but ive been on an until dawn kick lately and fell in love w the characters all over again. i dont know if anyone still reads or writes for this fandom but. here u go. enjoy

warning(s): lots of cursing, canon typical violence, mentions of graphic violence/death (but nothing too descriptive), mentioned depression, insomnia, and alcoholism, some heavy themes but its hurt/comfort so it ends in fluff

wc: 4.8k

You were running.

You were running, and it was freezing — fuck, it was freezing.

You knew your surroundings; how could you ever forget? Every fucking moment on the goddamn mountain was engraved into your mind for what you assumed would be the rest of your life, an assumption that had since been proven correct.

And now, against your will, you were back. Of course you were back.

A shudder ran through your whole body as that all-too-familiar screech rang out behind you, each second of it like nails on a chalkboard in the worst way. Your lungs burned like all hell but you couldn’t stop — if you stopped, you were as good as dead.

Some part of this fucked up thing was almost funny. Humans were always boasting about how they were the top of the food chain, how they were the height of evolution. There was nothing to keep an ego in check like being hunted by a supernatural creature.

Any thoughts of bullshit philosophy were dashed from your mind as you took a hard right, nearly falling over from the sharp curve of the mountain but just able to catch yourself. Your heart was thundering in your chest, the beats nearly lining up with your sprinting. You felt an intense urge to turn around, try and gauge your chances, but the thought of slowing down for even a second terrified you. It’s not like you needed to anyways — you knew exactly what was after you.

You were nearing the end of your road, both literally and figuratively. You stumbled over a tree root, your hands splayed out in front of yourself at just the right angle to keep your momentum going and, in some feat of luck, stay upright and running.

But your luck had just run out.

Your senses were proven correct as the harrowing cliff edge came into view, and a thousand things screamed in your mind at once as your demise stared you right in the eye. You barely managed to catch yourself, very much aware that the snow falling into the void could’ve just as well been you.

That fucking screech again, even closer than before, and you whipped around as you took an instinctive step back. Your hands patted around everywhere, searching for something to defend yourself, but you had nothing. No gun, knife, even the ground around you was devoid of rocks.

You had nothing. You had nothing to defend yourself from this goddamn nightmare creature, and you were going to die.

Your eyes darted around wildly in an attempt to find something, anything, to save yourself, but there was nothing. You took another step back and felt your foot slip, your breath catching as you barely managed to save yourself with a twist and a lunge away from the edge. The shock of the ground and the cold against your skin was just enough to remind yourself that you were actually alive. Another pile of snow mimicked the fate that seemed imminent as it trickled over the side of the cliff, and you screwed your eyes shut as you tried to shut your mind up.

Think, goddammit, if you wanted to get off of this fucking mountain you had to think—

The screech that pierced through the night sky was far too close for comfort, and as your head snapped back towards the woods you swore that your heart stopped beating.

It had caught up. You were out of time you were going to die but you didn’t have anything and you were going to fucking die—

A flash of white pushed off a tree and lunged towards you, teeth bared as it emitted that horrible screech. You didn’t even have time to scream, completely frozen in place as one clawed hand reached your neck, and you braced for the moment of release.

You shot up in your bed, breathing rapid and unsteady with a barely contained cry on the edge of your lips as your hand instinctively flew to your neck. You heaved an almost strangled sigh of relief to know that your head was still attached to your body (it might’ve seemed obvious, but… your head wasn’t exactly on straight at the moment, all jokes aside) and collapsed against the headboard.

You ran your hands across your face as you tried in vain to calm yourself down, ultimately having to turn on your lamp to ease your troubled mind that there was nothing going thump in the night.

It had been this same routine almost every night — horrible nightmare, wake up crying or screaming or both, and start the day at 3 am because you couldn’t fall back asleep.

It was exhausting. You were exhausted.

You knew you couldn’t go on like this, but what choice did you have? Therapy had been mandated by the police for a certain amount of time after the incident, but… it’s not like it had helped. How could it, when no one truly knew what you had gone through?

Well… that wasn’t completely accurate.

One person knew what you were going through, and you hadn’t said as much as one word to him since that night. You didn’t really… know what to say.

Hey. I know we’re not all that close, but I’m sorry your girlfriend and all your friends were killed by a Wendigo and that I made it instead. Hope you’re not going insane with grief. I’ll send you a card at Christmas!

...yeah. You had no idea what to say to him after months of no contact.

The relationship you had with Mike Munroe was a strange one, to say the least.

None of you were the same after that night on the mountain. The horrors of the mines would be forever entrenched in your head, flashes of the Wendigos appearing every time you closed your eyes. You and Mike were the only ones who made it off, and the guilt you carried everywhere was a burden you knew you couldn’t shoulder. And even after the physical scars had faded, you knew the mental ones never would.

Sometimes you wondered how you had even managed to get involved with the group in the first place — bonds that had been made in your freshman and sophomore years had somehow managed to stay strong enough throughout the rest of high school, strong enough to cement your spot in the friend group and the yearly lodge visits. You liked them all well enough, enough to go up to an isolated mountain with them for a weekend or so, but… yeah. Sometimes you did wonder what the hell you were doing with them.

But now?

Now, you would give almost anything to hear Sam’s laugh or one of her compliments, or tease Ashley and Chris about their very obvious feelings; hell, you found yourself missing Matt’s useless football facts. And even though Emily and Jessica weren’t always the nicest, you still had managed to worm your way into their hearts. Knowing that you would never get Emily’s brutal but helpful advice or get dragged to a football game by Jessica again?

If someone had told you the difference between life-long trauma and a completely normal existence was that blonde girl with the braids in your biology class, you might’ve thought a little harder before accepting that party invite.

The days after you were rescued from the mountain passed in a daze, questions and interrogations from police never sticking for too long. And it didn’t even feel like it mattered, the way none of them seemed to believe you.

They kept you separated from Mike throughout the whole process, and you were only able to catch glances of him when you were being transferred to different rooms throughout the long process. It really was like something out of a horror movie — a group of teens go up to a lodge in the woods, and only two return with a story of unspeakable horrors — and rather than try and work out what had happened, they seemed intent on pinning the deaths on you and Mike.

As if you weren’t dealing with enough after watching your friends get murdered by the monster of another friend, the people that were supposed to be helping you were instead trying to charge you with them. If it wasn’t so fucking infuriating, it would’ve been laughable.

The worst part? You could hardly blame them.

When you took a second to listen to yourself, to what you were spouting to the police, you sounded insane. If you hadn’t witnessed it all first hand, you wouldn’t have believed yourself.

You told them to go down to the mines. That the thing that killed your friends would be down there, and they could see it for themselves.

You didn’t know if that was the right choice. Hell, you might’ve been sending those cops to their deaths. But it was the only way you could think of to get them to believe you.

(You doubted they would go down there anyways. What was the word of two crazy college kids over actual logic? Not much, you imagined.)

You were in that damn interrogation room for what felt like forever until you were finally taken to a hospital to get your wounds treated. But even in the hospital bed, police were by your side asking about what happened every day of your stay. After your discharge, you were forced into custody until they got information that they deemed satisfactory.

By some miracle, you and Mike weren’t charged with anything. The news might’ve gotten hold of your story, but you didn’t know. You didn’t want to know. You didn’t ever look at the news after the tragedy, too afraid that you would see the smiling faces of your friends staring back at you, or pictures of you and Mike with news anchors trying to talk about how involved the two of you were.

If there was one thing worse than going through hell, it was other people trying to make a profit off of your spiral.

Your friends’ families offered their condolences, but not much else. You didn’t hold it against them. Your survivor’s guilt was strong enough to know exactly why they didn’t reach out further.

(You blame yourself for their deaths, after all. Why wouldn’t they?)

It was the same situation with Mike.

Maybe you had purposefully drifted apart from him, trying to build up walls of your own so that he wouldn’t be able to spring it on you first. You assumed he hated you after what had happened, and he had every right to. You might’ve helped each other through the night, but you had no other option. Now, everyone else but you was dead — people he cared about more than you — and you just couldn’t face that.

But as you stared at yourself in your bathroom mirror, you realized that you might have to.

You looked awful.

Weeks of sleepless nights were catching up to you, appearing in the form of

hollow eyes and dark circles, along with a slight discoloration of your skin. The scars from the mountain had mostly healed, but there was a particularly nasty gash on your cheek that was still showing — it wasn’t doing you any favors in the ‘looking completely normal and sane and not severely sleep deprived’ department.

You splashed some water in your face to try and wake up a bit, but the slight drowsiness that followed you everywhere seemed to be a permanent part of you now.

(It was almost funny, in a way. You were so paranoid and alert all the time, unable to fall asleep, and yet it was all you could think about in moments like these. You wondered when irony had become such a staple in your life.)

You had tried talking to therapists, your friends, your family, even searching the internet for advice on what to do after a life changing traumatic event. Nothing had worked.

The simplest solution had come to mind more than once, but you had pushed it aside with the determination to work through this on your own. But now, staring at yourself and seeing how much you had deteriorated…

You had to go talk to the only person who would understand.

~

You had considered turning around more than once on the drive over.

Because, really, what the hell were you doing? Showing up at his doorstep in the middle of o dark thirty because— because what?

Because you had a nightmare?

He had gone through the same thing you had, probably even worse. Losing Jessica right in front of him, having to cut off his fingers to get free, spending countless hours alone, dealing with the nightmare that was the sanatorium, and then…

Well, you had been in the mines with him and Josh when it happened. There was no doubt in your mind that the scene replayed in his head endlessly, just like it did for you.

Showing up… it was going to be a mistake. You knew it was.

For all you knew, Mike had moved on already. He was stronger than you, he always had been. Maybe your presence would send him spiraling once more, or maybe it would just earn you a verbal beating like no other. Mike had always been nice enough, but the trauma you had endured was enough to turn a saint into his own worst enemy.

You didn’t know what would happen. You didn’t know anything, and as you turned down his street you regretted more than ever not keeping in touch with him. Maybe then you wouldn’t be in this situation, scrambling after your last hope for salvation after slowly killing yourself over the past few months.

But there was no chance to turn back now, because before you knew it your knuckles were rapping against his front door.

The pause between your arrival and a response was so long that you considered leaving and pretending like this never happened, but just as you began to step back the door swung open.

You didn’t really know what you were expecting, but… he was there. The only other testament to the horrors of Blackwood Pines, and maybe the only person that could help you through this.

“...hi,” you murmured, swallowing the sudden lump in your throat as you looked the personification of your shame in the eye.

Mike blinked a few times, whether to try and wake up a little or out of surprise from his visitor you didn’t know, but it was a few seconds before he responded in kind. “...hey. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you around.”

You chuckled dryly as you nodded. “Yeah. Sorry for the sudden arrival. I’m, uh… I’m kind of surprised you even opened the door.”

He huffed out a short breath in a facsimile of a laugh. “Not getting much sleep these days.”

“That’s something we’ve got in common.” You crossed your arms across your chest and let out a loose sigh, eyes wandering around in an attempt to think of what to say next. It should’ve been so easy, but… but for some reason, it just wasn’t.

“Guess so.” That awkward silence stretched out once more, neither of you knowing how to fill it. Thankfully, Mike continued to take the plunge, but it wasn’t without a slight barb. “What are you doing here?”

“I—” you stopped just as you had begun, because you really didn’t know. You had come here for help, but could Mike really do that for you? He was the same as you — a fucked up teenager trying to deal with something so far beyond him.

“I don’t know,” you admitted as you made eye contact once more. “I… I really don’t know. I’m out of options, and… I can’t keep going like this. So I came here to talk, or— or to try and get some help. I don’t know.”

That same silence filled the air once more, the night ambiance the only thing in between the two of you. You missed when that silence used to be comfortable, but… you could only blame yourself for it.

“So— so, what?” he asked, the beginnings of a frown starting to crease his brows. “You just— we go through all that together up there, and then when we get back down you don’t say a word for months. And now— now, out of nowhere, in the middle of the night, you just show up and ask for help?”

“God,” you muttered. When he put it that way, it was true. It was ridiculous, to expect his help after the way you had just left him to deal with it all on his own for a reason borne of your own insecurity. “You’re right. This was— this was stupid. I’m sorry.”

You had already turned to go when you felt a calloused hand on your shoulder, causing you to stop in your tracks.

“No.” His voice was surprisingly soft as he sighed, stepping back with a shake of his head to make room in the doorway. “No, I—” Mike paused for a moment, as if he couldn’t find the right words to say. “I’m sorry. You can come in. Obviously, you can come in.”

Your eyes widened slightly as you tried to hide your shock at the gesture, but you weren’t about to turn it down. You nodded, and he stepped aside to make space for you to walk in. When you did, you were met with a mess not unlike the one back at your apartment, save for the beer bottles. Clothes were strewn about haphazardly on every surface, so you took a seat on a clean spot on the floor, leaning back against a chair and pulling your knees up to your chest. You actually preferred it this way — it was grounding, in a literal sense. Mike pushed aside a laundry basket and did the same, but pulled one leg up and let the other lay extended.

“Why?” he asked suddenly, breaking the silence that had been accumulating once more. “Why did you just…” he gestured around with his hands to try and get his point across but ultimately settled with a sigh. “You didn’t say anything. You didn’t try to text, or call, or write, or— or anything. Hell, I would’ve probably jumped to get a messenger pigeon from you. But it was just… radio silence.”

You picked at the dry skin on your thumbs as you tried to come up with an answer. “I… I don’t know,” you repeated. “It was stupid, and it was horrible of me to leave you alone. I mean… I don’t know why I did it. I know what I’ve been going through, and I know you’ve been going through the same. So I don’t know why I didn’t try to reach out and see how you were doing.”

He chuckled mirthlessly as his eyes swept over the empty bottles that had accumulated on the coffee table. “I’m not the best with alone.”

“I know,” you said quietly. “I thought…” you shook your head as you looked at the ceiling. “I thought that you hated me. I know that you cared about them all more, you were closer to all of them, and… and I thought you wouldn’t want anything to do with me. That I would just always be a reminder of what you lost. And… and, I don’t know. Maybe it was my way of trying to move on. Was a stupid fucking idea, though.”

That got a genuine laugh out of him as he ran a hand through his hair. “I guess I get that. I dunno why I didn’t try to talk to you either. Maybe since you didn’t say anything, I didn’t want to either. This whole thing fucked me up.” His gaze moved to you. “Fucked us both up.”

“You can say that again,” you muttered as you tapped your fingers on your knees. “I can’t look anywhere without seeing them. I mean, I see that fucking…” you grimaced. “I see Josh, and I see what that thing did to him, and I just— I’m right back to step one.”

He swallowed hard and nodded. “...yeah. That was seven layers of fucked up.”

“You can’t just keep saying everything was fucked up,” you said dryly. “It was shitty, too.”

Mike snorted, some kind of slightly masochistic humor going on between the two of you. “Nothing really gets the point across like fucked up.”

“Guess you’re right,” you finally conceded with a small smile. “This is… this is nice. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to… I don’t know, to talk to someone like this.”

“It is,” he murmured.

Another pregnant pause hung in the air, but the silence wasn’t as uncomfortable now. Trickles of what it used to be like, of your old life, were beginning to poke through.

“I never hated you,” he said suddenly. Your eyes flicked up to meet his, and it was like his brown eyes were piercing through you as he continued. “I never did. After it happened… yeah, I was mad. I was fucking pissed, but it was never at you. You were my friend too, y’know? Even though we weren’t that close, we were still… we were still something. And I’m glad you made it. I just wish you hadn’t convinced yourself that you had to go through this alone. Maybe things would’ve turned out different, these past few months. For both of us.”

You nodded, choosing to avert eye contact first because you almost couldn’t handle the sincerity. Your heart sank a bit at the sight of all the beer bottles, and you knew that he was right. Maybe things would’ve been different if the two of you had weathered it together from the start. And so you said that.

“I still can’t help but feel like I’m to blame for—” you gestured around at the mess with a sigh, “for this.”

“Look.” His voice was raspy as he ran a hand through his disheveled hair, and as he met your eyes once more you were able to see how truly exhausted he was. With dark circles that matched your own, scars that were still healing, and a certain hollowness behind his eyes… It was like looking in a mirror. And it made you realize how fucked up the two of you had really become.

Mike had always been good at holding himself together, putting up his signature egotistical-douchebag-jock act in the face of anything that threatened to tear him down, and more often than not he came out victorious. But not even class presidents were immune to the horrors that they had faced, and it was taking more of a toll on him than you had realized.

“It’s not your fault. You— you did everything you could; I know I’m still alive because of you. Besides, we were idiot teenagers — we still are — and none of them deserved to die because of it. Not Hannah, not Beth, not any of them.” Mike shook his head and sighed. “Not even Josh. Man was fucked up even before all of this, but he didn’t deserve what happened to him. He needed help, but instead he got his fucking… god. I can’t even say it. But he didn’t deserve it.”

You let out a breath you didn’t even know you were holding, the subconscious process having stopped because of the weight of his words. It was cliche, but you didn’t know how much you needed to hear those four words: it’s not your fault.

“Maybe you should be my therapist,” you joked weakly. But as you let your eyes trail back to Mike you bit your lip. He hadn’t included himself in that statement, and it wasn’t too hard to figure out why.

“Mike… it wasn’t your fault either. You’re not just saying bullshit to try and make yourself feel better, it really wasn’t your fault. What do they say? ‘Getting through your guilt is the first step to recovery’ or some shit? You deserve to be here just as much as I do.”

“But it was,” he insisted. “It’s easy for you to say that. You tried to stop it, I… I just went along with it. Fuck, I started it all. Hannah and Beth went missing because of me, Josh went out of his fuckin’ mind, and if he hadn’t brought us all back up there for his revenge plot then they wouldn’t have died. How is it not my fault? Why do I get to live when all of them died because of me?”

“Mike,” you sighed. “I… I don’t know. I don’t know why we made it back when none of them did, but it’s not your fucking fault, okay? You— yeah, that prank was fucking stupid, but— but how could you know what was going to happen?” You huffed a laugh that was only slightly unhinged. “People pull pranks all the time. Native American legend cannibal spirit things don’t try to kill people all the time. You can’t keep blaming yourself. It’s not going to help them, and it’s not going to help you.”

That silence stretched out once more as he took in your words. You didn’t know if he believed them or not, but you did. That had to be worth something, right?

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” he muttered, breaking the silence once more. “And I… I don’t know. I don’t know why it took almost fucking dying from those goddamn things, a— and seeing what happened to all of them...”

“I don’t know,” he repeated, leaning back against the foot of the sofa. “All the shit that happened, all of them dying — I don’t know how long it’ll take until we’re okay again. Hell, I don’t even know if we ever will be okay again. What happened up there was fucked up in the worst way, and the fact that no one believes us makes it a hell of a lot worse.”

You chuckled darkly as you cupped one hand in the other. “You can say that again.”

His lips twitched for a moment as if he wanted to smile but ultimately thought better of it. “I know we aren’t that close anymore, but the truth is we’re the only ones on this fuckin’ planet that know what really happened up there. We’re the only ones that will ever really understand what happened to us, and… and I think we’re the only ones that can really help each other through this shit.”

He met your eyes once more, something resolute in them. “So the next time this happens, because it will, if you don’t want to be alone… you can come here. Any time, any day, no questions asked. Just knock on that door, and I will be there. No more isolation, no more trying to get through this on our own. We gotta be there for each other, because we’re all we have.”

You nodded gratefully, a feeling of warmth slowly creeping through your body with his reassurance. “Thank you, Mike. You… you have no idea what this means to me.”

“I think I have some clue,” he murmured.

As you exchanged weary smiles, you saw a faint twinkle in Mike’s eyes. He was always the kind of person to help others, even if it was for the wrong reasons, and that was one thing that stuck with him after the disaster. And in that moment, a long lost feeling washed over you — safety.

You hadn’t felt safe in… well, it seemed like forever. Adrenaline and pure instinct were responsible for getting you through those twelve hours, along with an overwhelming wave of numbness and denial. But once all of that wore off, the nightmares had begun. Your friends, the Wendigos, the mountain itself — anything and everything that your mind could use against you, it did.

It was a living hell. You could hardly ever sleep anymore, horrific images always jolting you awake after an hour or two and keeping you awake for the rest of the day. It was no wonder Mike had ended up with a drinking problem — it was probably the only way he could sleep, the only way he could bring some form of peace to his mind. By some miracle, you had avoided that fate, but… you would be lying if you said you hadn’t come close.

But somehow, for some reason, you could tell that things were going to be different. Now that you and Mike weren’t avoiding each other anymore in the name of painful memories… you felt like things were going to be okay. Or as close to okay as you could get these days.

You weren’t alone, and neither was he.

He had saved your life on the mountain more than once. Now, he was saving you again. Just in a different way.

-

perm tags: @dv0412 @siriuslyslyslytherin @maruchan77

ud tags: @kwyloz

[the-bau-quinjet]

Shut Up!

Summary: request! Bucky and Y/N hate each other... or so they say.

Warnings: as Steve would say: Language!, but really it's just a bunch of fluff.

Word Count: 1798

a/n: Italics are thoughts in their heads!!

This request brought me so much joy to think about. Happy Birthday anon! Thank you so much for all the love!!! ❤️ 💕 💗 💖 💘

"BARNES!" You screamed, giving him the customary warning before throwing your least favorite knife at him.

He flung himself backward, catching the knife in midair.

Damn, that's hot. You shook the thought away, glaring at Bucky as he turned to look at you.

"Did you just throw a knife at me?" He asked, incredulous.

You rolled your eyes. "You deserved it. Plus, I warned you." You bit back.

"Y/N, you can't just throw knives at people." Steve sighed, tired of the two of you arguing all the time.

"I don't throw knives at people. Just Bucky." You said his name with disgusted expression. "And he deserved it!"

"What the hell did he do to deserve being impaled by a knife?" Sam chuckled, but only to keep the mood light.

"He wasn't impaled. I knew he would dodge it." You defended yourself, sneering at Bucky's smug grin.

"Not the point. What did he do?" Steve asked again, trying to clear the air despite it never working before.

You pulled the beanie you were wearing off your head, showing off your freshly bleached hair. It was nearly white, a stark platinum blonde contrasting your typical dark style.

"You know what they say, 'blondes have more fun'. I was just looking out for your social life." Bucky smirked, enjoying the rage.

She's so cute when she's angry. He thought as he stared at you.

Sam snorted, trying to hold in the laugh under your glare.

"How thoughtful." You quipped sarcastically, leaning in to threaten him. "I'm going to get you back for this." Your words were laced with venom, the anger palpable even in the vast gym.

"Looking forward to it! Thanks for the knife!" Bucky called as you stormed away, ignoring the thoughts lingering in his head. Not cute. Hot. So very hot when she's angry.

-

The next few days, Bucky heard nothing from you. He didn't think much of it, considering you were likely plotting. It wasn't until you started being uncharacteristically sweet to him that he grew nervous.

"Hey, Buck, Steve." You smiled as you walked up to him and Steve.

"Hi, Y/N." Steve greeted you warmly, glad to see you at least acting cordial after the stunt Bucky pulled.

"Hi..." Bucky hesitated, unsure of what you were playing at.

He's so adorable when he's nervous. You shook your head, getting back on track.

"I brought you some drinks!" You excitedly exclaimed, handing the drink carrier to Steve since Bucky seemed frozen in place. "Protein smoothie for Steve, chocolate milkshake for Bucky."

You walked away without another word, throwing a thumbs up to accept Steve's thanks.

Steve happily drank his smoothie, enjoying the energy boost. Bucky just stared at the milkshake before throwing the entire thing away.

"Buck! Don't be a jerk. She bought that for you." Steve huffed, annoyed with his friend's childish behavior.

"I can't trust anything she gives me unless I saw it being made." He shrugged as if it was obvious.

"Jerk, she's not going to poison you." Steve rolled his eyes.

"You don't know that." Bucky shook his head, walking into the kitchen. The idea of a milkshake made him hungry.

The next day, you were back with more treats. This time a cinnamon roll for Steve, something he said was his guilty pleasure, and a chocolate eclair for Bucky. You were grinning ear to ear as Steve thanked you profusely.

She's so adorable when she's this happy.

Once again, Bucky threw it away, ignoring the glare Steve shot his way.

The next days followed the same pattern. You would seek out Bucky and Steve, giving each of them some snack, dessert, or drink. Bucky threw it away every single time, not trusting your motives.

You didn't break pattern for a solid week, watching as Steve grew increasingly annoyed with Bucky throwing away all of your treats.

"I made cookies!" You walked into the living room where everyone was enjoying movie night. You handed out cookies to every member of the team, saving Bucky for last.

As you walked back into the kitchen to return the platter, you heard Steve whisper yell at Bucky.

"Just eat the cookie." Steve glared, thinking you would be upset if you saw him through it away.

"I can't! What if she did something to it?" Bucky whispered right back.

"Buck! She gave one to everyone! You really think she would purposefully keep track of one specific cookie just to get you back?" Steve rolled his eyes, completely fed up with the situation.

"Yes! I really do!" Bucky defended.

"Eat the damn cookie." Steve spoke between his teeth, elbowing him in the side.

"Fine." Bucky hesitated in bringing the cookie up to his mouth, but ultimately gave in.

As soon as he swallowed the cookie, he knew something was off. His whole body felt tingly, but there was a pleasant warmth to it.

A sudden bright flash of light had you walking back into the room, watching as Bucky turned into a cat.

"What the hell..." Sam turned, glancing between the small white kitten and Steve's shocked expression.

He's cuter as a person. You couldn't stop the thought from popping into your head, causing you to chuckle.

Steve suddenly whipped his head to you.

"Y/N. What did you do?" He sighed, exasperated but a little impressed.

A small meow followed the question, earning various "awws" from the entire room.

"I turned him into a cat." You shrugged nonchalantly, pretending this was a normal occurrence.

"Did everything you brought him this week have the power to do... that?" He gestured to Bucky, who hissed at Steve as if to say I told you so.

"Nope." You shook your head, laughing as Bucky wobbled across the couch, not used to how it felt to move as a feline. "I knew he would think I did something to them, so I didn't. Just plain old snacks."

Damn, she is so fucking smart. Bucky's thoughts came out as a purr, startling the room.

"How long is tinman stuck as a cat?" Tony laughed, enjoying the sight.

"Just a few hours. Long enough to think about why he deserves this." You gestured to your hair.

"Can we take pictures of him in cute cat outfits?" Nat questioned, always up for blackmail material.

You pulled a shopping bag out from behind you, pulling a series of Avenger themes costumes.

"I'm one step ahead of you." You grinned devilishly, swiftly scooping Bucky up from off the couch.

-

"You're evil." Bucky glared at you as soon as he turned back into a human.

"You deserved it. Plus, you were so cute as a little kitten." You pouted.

That pout is doing things to me. Bucky shook his head, trying to maintain the angry facade. He ran his hands through his hair, causing your own thoughts to spiral.

What I would give to run my hands through his hair when he wasn't a cat.

"You turned me into a cat!" He yelled, chasing you down the hall back to the living room.

"You died my hair platinum fucking blonde!" You screamed right back, turning on him once you made it to the end of the hallway.

"I can't stand you." Bucky spat, while simultaneously thinking if only she wanted to touch me not as a cat.

"Yeah, well newsflash! I can't stand you either." You glared right back.

The team watched on with amused expressions.

"Who wants to see pictures of kitty Barnes in cat costumes?" You turned to the room, a wide grin adorning your lips. Without waiting for an answer, you displayed your phone on the TV screen.

He is so damn cute. Cat or no cat. You laughed as you swiped through the pictures.

Bucky tried to grab the phone from you, not wanting to give you the satisfaction of enjoying this too much.

Her laugh is like music.

"Oh my god! Shut up!" Wanda suddenly stood up, pointing at the both of you. "You two pretend to hate each other so much, but your thoughts tell different stories."

Your mouth dropped open, shocked at both Wanda's volume and words.

Bucky wore a similar expression, eyes wide and heart beating fast.

"Wanda, you read my mind?" You tried to deflect the attention.

"No. You were just thinking so damn loud it involuntarily popped into my head." She grinned, trying to impersonate your voice as she quoted your thoughts

"Damn, that's hot. He's so adorable when he's nervous. He's cuter as a person. What I wouldn't give to run my hands through his hair when he wasn't a cat. He is so damn cute. Cat or no cat."

"And those are just from the past week and a half!" She yelled at you.

Bucky grinned smugly, forgetting Wanda also heard his thoughts. "Oh, doll. Why didn't you just say you cared?" He asked in fake sympathy.

You glared at him, ready to fight again when Wanda switched focus.

"Don't start with me Barnes. You think just as loudly!" Her voice took on an exaggerated depth as she impersonated Bucky, sighing dramatically between sentences.

"She's so cute when she's angry. Not cute. Hot. So very hot when she's angry. She's so adorable when she's this happy. Damn, she is so fucking smart. That pout is doing things to me. If only she wanted to touch me not as a cat. Her laugh is like music."

"I can't take it anymore! The two of you are driving me insane." She huffed, barging out of the room in an effort to hear nothing but peace and quiet.

Everyone else quickly followed, figuring the two of you could use a minute to talk.

"You think I'm hot." Bucky stated the fact. "That's embarrassing." He grinned, slowly walking closer to you.

"Not as embarrassing you thinking I'm smart." You countered, a matching grin on your face.

"You want to run your hands through my hair." He smirked, placing his hands on your waist.

"My laugh is like music to your ears." You leaned closer.

"Just kiss already!" Sam shouted from the hallway, but the two of you were in your own world.

"Do you want to get dinner with me? Tomorrow?" Bucky asked, his forehead pressed to yours.

"I'd like that." You smiled back.

The two of you moved in tandem, pressing your lips together, fighting for dominance of the kiss.

You pulled back, breathless and needing air. "I hope you know I'm not deleting the pictures of you as a cat."

"I wouldn't think so." Bucky chuckled, pressing another quick kiss to your lips.

"You know what this means?" He asked, an eyebrow raised.

You grinned conspiratorially while nodding. "We can team up on Wilson!"

"My thoughts exactly." He smiled, pulling you into another breathtaking kiss.

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