#it actually took a lot of debating o see if i actually wanted to post myself or not lol

[lullibunny]

ignore my messy room but guess who’s eating and feeling better 😋😋

also i think a belly piercing would be so cute!! ^_^

[sattorntempura]

:) i would really appreciate it if you gave my oc a chance. If not, it's okay. *cries*

Hey, peeps. Lately, I've been going through this uuuuugly artblock for my main project. (This is my first post, scary, lol.. really nervous)

So, a few months back, I drew a Devil May Cry OC. The images are under the 'more' tab, but i would really appreciate it if you read this first. With this art block going on and the urge to draw something other than my main/serious project, I decided to make a small comic of my OC's childhood and how he ended up meeting the main/canon characters/crew.

And if you're new to the DMC world, hello, welcome! I hope this little comic will encourage you to check out the official games, it's pretty fun!

Try to guess who I ship him with... Hey, don't look at my pfp! That's cheating!

So yeah, there's going to be some sketches/panels of this ship. Dw, nothing too explicit/graphic. It's fluff, lol. I think that's what they call it? There's going to be more information regarding the dmc - oc comic in a future post.

I know there's a lot of different opinions when shipping an oc with a canon character, so that's why I added this little 'more' tab/bar below so in case you're not interested, you can scroll away :) for those who choose to stay and continue on, thank you.

My oc's name is Ezra. He was created when a cool friend of mine invited me to RP the DMC5 storyline with them. I was kinda nervous at first since it was my first time to ever RP with someone. I got the hang of it, though! And it was fun! (The next/future post will provide more information of that if anybody is interested. Since it's kinda the reason why Ezra exists in the first place.) I am not sure if I will include the RP events in this comic, since like I've mentioned, it took place in the DMC5 storyline, and its quite a lottt. Just like the canon game. So I might draw the day (i mean the in-game time) after the Qliphoth was taken down. Or summarize the DMC5 storyline. There's still a lot of time to think about it since I'm going to start off with the background of this character, then when he becomes an adult, and then when he meets the crew.

☝️ This is how the cover of my oc's DMC comic will look like. The title is blurred out because I am still debating whether I should change it or not. Lol, it's kinda edgy, I might keep it that way.

☝️These right here are adult/present Ezra and a few panels of Vergil. I am still experimenting with the way I draw Vergil since I want to have him look a little closer to the game than the way he looks in manga. (Which is hard since I prefer drawing the exact style of any series official art... Because if I do it in my own version, it never looks like the character. So yes, this is a challenge.)

The drawing with Ezra's full body is supposed to be Ezra holding his scythe over his shoulder, but I gave up on finishing it since I didn't like the way his coat looked. You can even tell from the different coats he has in the other panels/images...

The image with Ezra getting food poisoning was from eating Dante's food. This idea stems from all those memes with Dante creating unidentified matter, whereas other characters like Vergil make decent food.

The first image and 3rd image are actually linked together, hehe. I wonder if any of you know the tilted towers reference? Lol

☝️Another Vergil sketch. He is laid next to Ezra in bed. (You can see the pillow that Ezra is cuddling with peeking in that image, lol). This moment is related to Vergil's nightmares.

☝️ The first image out of the two is one out of the 2 closest friends BEFORE the DMC5 events. I think you will really like them. They've put a huge impact on Ezra's life and are the very reason for the way/who he is today. I still don't have a design for the other friend, that's why it's not provided here.

The second image is just baby Ezra, not having a clue what the adults are talking about. The adults definitely didn't call him that...

☝️Lastly, this is my reaction once I created this DMC OC and decided to ship him with Vergil. I have no clue why Samsung does this to my images once edited, lol.

The same friend mentioned before also had me create an OC for a game that they play, and I failed to not grow attached to this character. (What!? I created them. They're like my own children now!) I might show u guys how he looks like when I finish his design.

If you guys have any questions, feel free to hit that, uh, *checks profile*, Ask me anything button, I will try my best to respond. If I don't respond, it's because I am still a boomer to this app and don't know how to operate it. Another reason is because the answer to your question may be a spoiler.

Like I've mentioned before, information about the comic itself will be explained in the next post. I don't spam post, so don't worry about getting lost in my profile trying to look for more information. I will try to have a pinned(?) post, if this app allows me, where I can add links like the way I've seen other users on here do it.

Haha, I add lazy watermarks (even though my art ain't that worthy) because I've seen small artist get their art clapped by a-hole users without permission. This has also happened to me, but it was yeeeaaarrrsss ago. This is why I don't post much of my art nowadays. Especially with the "art" bot-stealing going around. I need to find a better way to not let it happen to my art ever again.

Thank you for taking the time to view this, I really appreciate it! If you are interested in my OC's journey in the DMC world, feel free to follow me. You might even see my art growth/process between the very start of the comic to the very end of it! I hope it gets better... lol, watch it get worse- they slowly transform into stickmen HAHA

[astrologycharts242]

Me exposing the Astrology versus Christianity debate

I created a video on the situation I didn't know I could upload videos to Tumblr. I'll still provide a written or transcript version.

I constantly see a post about an ex astrologer that has met Jesus. Anyone that has read my first Tumblr post can see how I mentioned having to deal with lots of christians who went against astrology in my journey.

What I didn't mention was that I would always win those debates. Although I barely read the bible or knew anything in it. I had to find a mechanism to prove astrology is legit so obviously I then had to study lots of inaccuracies within the bible. Old or new testament but this video is focusing on the new testament and Jesus.

It's a photo of Jesus in the oldest Ethiopian bible. Well first Jesus came from a Jewish sect that used to study astrology and implement it into their lives. This Jewish sect is known as the Essenes. They lived in many places but frequently occupied the Judean desert or the dead sea. Hence why mainly the dead sea scrolls talked about them.

It was a part of their routines to study the cycles of the moon. My own personal beliefs are that they knew what the ascendant or rising sign was. Acts chapter 2 kinda referred to this daily routine. Pay attention to the nine o clock statements.

Compare what historian Josephus had said about the Essenes and that act verse.

9 o'clock is important. I can't remember how it goes but I think the ascendant or rising sun is most visible at that time. Anyone into astrology already knows the ascendant or the 1st house deals with body structure, skin color etc. Well the Essenes knew this too so they would determine things like if someone will grow up to have a "patchy beard."They had a serious infatuation with the moon in Taurus because they thought that would be a great time for money to flow greatly in Israel.

I could be wrong maybe it's them using the sun sign like how many use it today. For example I made a video on this but if you look at someone that has a sidereal sun Taurus. You would notice their face or head shape looks very similar to that of a bull. On the flip side the Essenes used terms like the "foot of the bull."

What comes to my mind when I hear that are constellations and nakshatras but who truly knows.

The Essenes had their own calendar and holidays even that was separate amongst the common Israeli. Jesus was actually the leader of this communist like Jewish sect called the Essenes. Jesus position was a guardian or a master. Which meant that he had full control over an organization that studied astrology. The guardian used to train new members of the Essenes (disciples.) This means Jesus taught astrology as well.

As you can imagine this organization is very similar to Freemasonry.

Since it was mainly guys and barely any women were a part of this Jewish sect.Of course the new testament diminishes this Jewish sect a lot. Seemingly because apostle Paul took over and wanted to change the narrative.

Paul even dissed vegans and called them weak. The Essenes were strict vegans.

Nope the pharisees didn't question Jesus because he ate meat. They questioned why he didn't follow the tradition of washing hands for a meal. Jesus's interpretation was that if the food is clean then his dirty hands won't make the food a person eats unclean. Jesus was questioned by the pharisees because he wasn't a part of that sect. Definitely he wasn't a Sadducee because the Essenes were poor. Historians like Josephus mentioned Jesus's disciples like John the Baptist being an Essene.

You may have read about Jesus protesting in a temple. The Essenes were against sacrificing animals. You know what they did in the temples? They sacrificed animals. Jesus may have came across as a vigilante. It's because supposedly one of his proteges

Was the owner of a protesting Jewish sect called the zealots. Although I can't confirm if that's the Judas discussed in the bible or if Jesus was affiliated with that organization. It's worth noting though because the Essenes were supposed to be docile but their master Jesus seemed very forceful at times.

Follow me on the other apps I'm out.

http://linktr.ee/astrologycharts

[highwaywhump]

Would you be up for writing a little piece about kill shelters, from the pet’s POV? I saw that you said you wouldn’t write about pets actually being PTS - completely understandable! - what if someone were to come in at the last second with the news that the pet’s original owner had been found? I’m so curious on what the process would be for the shelter handling this- since it would technically be murder, how would it be done in a way to remain ‘legal’? And what would the pet be told? Would they tell them what was going to happen, or just ‘get on with it’? :o

TW/CW: A CHARACTER THAT IDEALIZES DEATH/HAS SUICIDAL THOUGHTS. to be clear, he doesn't die, but another character does (this comes through very vaguely - never voiced outright). brief and vague mention of a gun, talk of scars, low self image, talk of collars and chains and cages/kennels, description of a hit and run victim (still alive), brief description of a dislocated hip, talk of restraints, talk of syringes and needles.

i know our community has suffered these past few days, and i was seriously debating whether i should post this piece or not. in the end, i figure that writing has been my way of overcoming difficult feelings for many years now, and i have been dealing with a lot of them lately, including intense stress and depression. if anyone feels i am doing something wrong in posting this piece, please let me know and i'll see what i'll do about it.

i am also painfully aware this ask was sent over a month ago (in reference to this ask), but i had to sit down and think about how i wanted to go about it. BE AWARE that the following piece features a character that idealizes/wishes for death - please sit this one out if you are struggling with such thoughts. i'm putting everything under a read more so that you can avoid reading a single word if you don't feel comfortable. my dm’s are always open if you want to talk about anything. <3

this character might seem familiar to some. spoiler, this is how poker from this piece ended up. he was about 35 when joey met him and he’s a few years older in this piece. and i'm sorry but there’s just something about men in cages… (also, let’s ignore that i add a bunch of details here that weren’t present in the first piece with him. also also, i don’t know what happened to the verb tenses in this one. it’s the middle of the night. roll with the punches i guess)

-

It might’ve been months since the guard dog saw his owner last. He doesn’t know. He’s stopped counting. 

Well. 

He never really started. 

He doesn’t remember much about him. He’d lost another fight, the last one in a long row of losses. He’d been pulled into the back of a car by his thick collar afterwards, dazed and hot and sputtering blood all over the leather seats. They’d hit him in the ribs for it and he knew he’d deserved it. 

Whoever was driving had been given orders in his owner’s rough voice. 

“Go down to the docks. Get rid of him.” 

He knew there was a lethal piece of metal stuck down the waistband of the driver’s jeans. 

He’d been taken a few hours outside the city instead, deposited on the wet asphalt outside of a brick building and chained to a drainpipe. The driver had gotten back in the car and sped off. 

The guard dog had leaned against the hard brick, watching as the brake lights disappeared. He didn’t think much, other than okay. As if he had anything else to say about his situation. 

His surroundings turned into a shapeless blur from there. Hands touching him, cold and unfeeling and clad in blue rubber. A couple were soft and took their time to stroke his hair, scratch the hard to reach place between his shoulder blades. He savored those moments, and tried to remember the hands and the face they belonged to, but none of it lasted. 

Nothing ever lasted around him, it seemed. He couldn’t keep an owner for more than a few months, never more than a year. Couldn’t keep winning. Couldn’t keep anyone safe, even though that was the thing he was made for. The only thing that kept, were the scars. 

And the fucking tattoo on his wrist. Not even the facility that had made him, wanted him back when the shelter called them about him. Too old. They had no prospects who would want someone like him. 

That was what the visitors said too, few and far between as they were. Too old. Too big, too many scars, too scary, too ugly, too old, too dumb, too old again. They talked about him as if he wasn’t even there, huddled up in a corner just on the other side of the chain link. 

He knew it was his fault. He should be, or at least seem, happier to see them. Smile. Wait at the kennel gate, like all the others did whenever somebody stopped by. 

But to what end? Another owner who would put him in the ring again, just to be angry at him when he loses? Or someone he can take bullets for again, even though he isn’t quick and bright enough to anticipate them anymore? 

He doesn’t dare hope that anyone else would want him, not in his condition. It’s true, what they say. He’s old. Scarred, slow. There are sunshine stories of even the most unwanted of pets, expenses in every way, who somehow end up on the couches of kind people who just want a companion, their head resting in their laps, petted by soft fingers.

Those people get platonics, though. Domestics. Even the occasional romantic can adapt to such a lifestyle. 

But not an old ex guard dog, like him. 

He’s no use to anyone, not anymore. 

They remove him from the kennel one day. For a moment, his heart beats a little faster. He can’t tell if it’s fear or excitement, but it turns out neither is warranted. He’s taken to another room, a chain attached to his collar, the other end pin shackled to a ring in the wall. Another pet, younger and prettier, is put in his kennel. He can see them through the frosted glass on the door. 

He turns away. 

He doesn’t cry. 

Visitors don’t come through this room, he realizes, and for the first few days he’s happy for it. Nobody talks about him now. It’s quiet and the cold linoleum floor is almost comfortable on his joints. The only bad thing about this room is the other pet, chained to the wall opposite of him. The man is curled up, breathing shallowly through dried blood in his nostrils, and the sound is annoying. He’s younger than him, and he was probably very pretty once, but now his face is bruised and swollen, and bloody in the crevices even though they washed him with a damp cloth when he came in. Hit and run, somebody had said in passing.

That was four days ago. The guard dog watches him, mostly because there isn’t much else to look at in here. His leg is in a weird position, he’s noticed. It’s as if the thigh has rotated where it attaches to the hip. He wonders if it’s supposed to be that way. It doesn’t look very comfortable. His stomach is weirdly distended, too. It looks out of place on a body that is otherwise slim and smooth. 

Two workers descend on him one day, kneeling down beside the misshapen figure. They talk to him, sweetly, as they gently lift him over on a gurney and start wheeling him through another door. “You’ll feel a lot better when you wake up,” one of the workers say, a vinyl clad hand patting his shoulder. The one part of him that isn’t broken. 

The guard dog catches the faint smile visible through a swollen cheek as they pass him. The other pet is happy they’re coming for him, making him feel better. Finally. 

Maybe twenty minutes have passed when the workers come back. One of them wipes their hands on their worn jeans. “Glad that’s over,” he mutters. "Should have been done when he came in," the other says. The guard dog meets his gaze as they pass. Neither of them say anything. 

They’d come for him a few days later. They wear the same smiles and the same gloves as they did with the other pet, but he doesn’t need the sweet talking. He goes with them willingly. He’d stopped eating a while back and his muscle tone had disappeared a long time ago, so it was easy for them to help him up to his feet. He’s taller than them, still, and keeps his head down the way he’s always done. 

He’s known cold. Heat, pain, pleasure even, in small stints. Grief, fear. Rage. As he places one bare foot in front of the other on the beige linoleum, obediently following the worker in front, he knows he will soon know death. 

And he isn’t afraid. 

“You won’t feel a thing,” one of them says as they help him sit on the steel table in the next room, as if anyone has ever cared about how he’s feeling. 

“You’ll feel much better after,” the other worker says, without specifying exactly what was supposed to be better, as they gently lay him down. The table has leather straps hanging down the sides, ready to restrain its more unwilling cases, but he doesn’t move and they don’t use the straps. In the corner of his eye he can see two syringes on the counter. One of them is skinny and filled with clear fluid. The needle is small and will slip into him easily. He’s had many needles before. This won’t feel any different, he decides. The other syringe is larger, the needle too big to be used on somebody who was awake feel it. 

It doesn’t matter. He’ll feel better after. The guard dog refocuses his gaze on the bright light overhead. He closes his eyes. 

“Small pinch, now,” one worker says, and he can feel a pinprick at the crook of his elbow, the cold liquid fanning up his arm as it is being pushed in. His heart beats a few more times before the serum reaches it. He can feel his pulse, docile to begin with, calm down even more. He feels sleepy, his body heavy, as if he’s being pushed into the table from above. The hard metal digging into his joints doesn’t matter anymore. He knows he won’t even notice the other syringe. He knows he’ll feel better soon. 

A grating ringtone interrupts his silent mind. One of the workers picks up, speaking in a low voice. Sleep tugs at the edges of his mind, and he wants to follow. Right before he goes under, the sound of hard plastic hitting metal and a few words make it through the fuzzy walls inside his head. 

“No trouble at all. You’re just in time, sir.” 

--

to answer your other questions, anon: in the legal sense it wouldn't be murder, as the pets aren't people anymore, they're only human at the biological level (again, in a legal sense). it's necessary :) and humane :) euthanasia :). the pets aren't told anything/they're gently reassured and told they're going on for surgery, or something similar. i think "you'll feel better when you wake up," is a classic in these circles. i'm sure some understand what is about to happen (hence the restraints on the table), but the majority goes quick and silent. i have no idea what happens to them after though so don't ask me about that :)

[edai-crplpnk]

Hey hey! So i havent fully read ur fics (its on my to read list but uh..... Im really bad at actually reading stuff on there djdndn one day i shall read ur entire fic list) but ive liked what ive seen so far so ur really high on my to read list and i saw u post the new chapter for the smell of the rain and i didnt see it was a multip chap at first so i just started reading it sjsjsjdj and this line specifically took me out so bad that i couldnt finish the chapter the day i started reading it bc i just kept laughing every time i went back to read it.

"he had always thought of himself as the kind of person to be able to make rational down-to-earth decisions no matter what – which was a delusion already, Kankurou’s memories of his first exchange with Shino are definitely infused with a lot of acting on impulse and out of spite –" like this is just fucking gold its so hilarious hello? Anyway. This has made me eant to read all ur works like right this second so expect a lot of kudos ig?? Idk what the point of this was i just wanted to let u know how much that line made my day and it felt awkward leaving it as a comment when i actually hadnt fully read the series. Hdjdjdd so ye. But im loving what ive read so far! The way u characterise is really fun! Hope u have a good day/night ty for sharing ur writing with us!

No judgement, I am bad at getting myself to read things too haha

I just love the idea of Shino being like- this guy that really imagines that he is calm and not emotional and not the type to make decisions on impulse and everything (not like a certain somebody) (kiba) when he is truly easily overwhelmed by emotions and generally not great at dealing with them.

And it doesn't help that a lot of people do see him like that too. He's the nerd with the monotonous voice that you can always go to to ask a question and is always available and will answer even you don't listen to him 9 times out of 10. He serves that role both within the konoha 13 and within team 8 between Kiba's impulsivity and Hinata's shyness/emotional sensibility. He's meant to be the down-to-earth guy and he's not.

He repeatedly gets angry and frustrated in the canon but it's barely ever listened to because he's not good at expressing it in a way that sounds serious enough. And also I think he's not great at handling irrational and unanticipatable things, like his own emotions. He needs to be able to rationalise and makes sense of things and have explanations and justifications. And on the one hand, it does help because he spends a lot of time thinking his choices through and explaining them, but on the other, when he is faced with an emotion that is too strong or unexpected to be able to be channeled through reason, he as absolutely no tools to deal with it and he's just overwhlmed.

In conclusion, yes, I think he's the type of guy to make implulsive and maybe misinformed decisions because he's horny and he has a crush and the whole time he is internally staring at himself thinking "god why the fuck am I doing this???" lmao

Coincidentally, for the "why is Shino a teacher in Boruto where did that come from" crowd (I'm not judging, I get it), I think this why he's both good and bad with children. He's good at containing people and providing a cohesive and explained framework, justifying rules and letting space for them to be debated reasonably so that things make sense, and I think that's valuable for a lot of kids who often get assigned random rules and you have to follow them because that's what rules are for and adults decide. But also, children have many emotions often, they can be chaotic, especially a group of them, and, once again, when being consistent and fair and justifying himself does not suffice to make this manageable, he is probably quite quickly out of other options.

Anyway, I love him!

Please enjoy my 135k words of KankuShino as you please, I hope you'll have fun!

(another time maybe o can write about how, coincidentally, makes him both very similar and the opposite to Kankurou haha)

[genderqueer-karma]

so, i got to thinking about my life + the headcanons i have about the vk family. i have one i'd like to share with you (safe)

let me preface this by saying that i'm not physically disabled, but i have had issues with my legs for as long as i've been able to walk (so basically my entire life) which has led me to limp when i walk. more recently, i've experienced pain in my legs more frequently than i used to, and it got me thinking that i might need some type of mobility aid in the future. of course, i don't necessarily want that to happen, but if it does, i won't cry over it (probably).

***

anyway, that got me thinking.

a lot of people believe that manfred began to use his cane after some injury, or they believe that he just has it for vanity's sake. i personally don't see either of those making sense (though if you do, that's totally cool! i'm not the authority on any characters, especially not him).

personally, i feel as though if he had the cane as a walking stick purely to show off his wealth, he would've gone for something a bit more... ornate? it's not as though my guy's a minimalist by any stretch of the imagination; if he does something, it's big and dramatic, which is all well and good. cheers.

as for the injury headcanon, i honestly can't say i personally see it. it does make a lot of sense, but i feel like canon somewhat restricts this from being possible? since he never took vacation days besides after dl-6 (and probably rarely took days off for injury or illness. the only times i imagine he took days off were the births of his children, and legally he basically would have had to with leave and all that).

getting injured, especially the most common way i see people hc that he would've gotten injured, from an accident while riding horseback, would definitely be something that doesn't particularly fit with his characterization, imo, considering that he would most likely take as many safety precautions as humanly possible to avoid getting hurt. (in my mind, he's actually quite anxious and just a generally neurotic person and as a result tends to consistently think worst-case scenario, leading to him over-preparing for just about everything.)

so what exactly is my headcanon?

**

i believe his cane usage was the product of hereditary chronic pain.

in my mind, the vks all kind of have this chronic hip and leg pain that starts manifesting as young as 20 or so and really kicks in around the mid 30s to early 40s. ultimately, this pain requires the use of mobility aids or (worst-case scenario) surgeries that may not actually be effective. of course, i don't actually know much about surgeries, so i am taking a small liberty with this aspect, but nevertheless:

in manfred's case, i think the chronic pain kicks in when he's about 38, and it absolutely wrecks him for the the first six months or so. he rarely goes anywhere other than work (sometimes church, which i also have other hcs about. maybe i'll post about those one day.) and home. he spends a lot of time sitting and debating with himself on whether or not he wants surgery, ultimately to decide that he doesn't because the success rate is too low for his tastes (perfectionism) and recovery time is awful.

because he has to use the cane for the rest of his life, he experiences a lot of internalized ableism. this leads him to do many things that were unsafe for him, and generally caused more angst than anything he might've thought it "solved".

for example (and i'm aware this is a movie specific thing), after being caught for his crimes in dl-6 and after his meltdown, instead of using his cane to walk out of the courtroom, which probably would have been more comfortable and more safe, he walks without it, opting instead to carry it: "maintaining his dignity", so to speak.

***

of course, with this problem being genetic and passed down from generation, his biological kids (for the most part) are affected by it. since only franziska is named in the series, i'll focus primarily on how this affects her. (i debated making this section a separate post, but honestly, fuck it)

as we know, franziska basically disappears from the aa series after aa3/aai2. (capcom please let her out of the basement... that's my daughter and i miss her) this plays perfectly into my headcanon, actually. since we get no information about her whereabouts beyond a very basic "she works with interpol and stuff", i can't help but feel that explanation is incomplete.

so, that also made me think: what if she was affected a bit earlier than most? earlier in this post i mentioned that the chronic pain can manifest as young as 20 years old... which happens to be around the age she is when she all but vanishes from the narrative. basically, i think that the pain, which she inherited from her father, caught up to her.

now, there are other implications to this. after deliberating with a mutual and friend of mine, @bucket-of-hyperfixations i concluded that she would most likely want/prefer to use traditional crutches. (i did also consider that she might use a wheelchair, but then i thought about how wheelchair users are treated and thought hard about how that'd be a no-go)

this is what i ultimately landed on mostly because considering her character and the distance she wants to create from her father (using a cane would probably remind her as well as other people of him, which was a huge thing that she railed against, especially in the third game), as well as the fact that she would most likely want to maintain the freedom to use her arms so she could use her whip, which forearm crutches, another option i considered for her, wouldn't provide.

***

of course, there's a lot more i could add to this, but i think that this is enough for now. i personally like talking about the vk family and making up headcanons about them, considering how little information we actually get in canon. that being said, i accept criticisms of my headcanon and don't think that other interpretations of what we are presented with are inherently wrong, even if i sometimes disagree with them.

[baked-bread]

Anime North 2023 - Haul

Total cost: $335 (all prices are in CAD)

Figures:

Total cost: $185 + 150

Love Live! Sunshine!! - Mari Ohara - Super Premium Figure - The First of Aquors (SPM) - $30

I think that she's so cute! I was having a difficult time deciding between a few Mari prize figures, but I definitely like this one a lot. :)

Fate stay/night - Saber - Nendoroid (#250) 10th Anniversary Edition (Good Smile) - $60

I bought her at the Nominoichi! I've never owned a full-size Nendoroid so I'm really happy to own her, especially at this price. :) She hasn't been unboxed in over 10 years... The seller was originally selling her for $70, but I was really happy to see the price drop near the end of the night, and that's what ended up cementing my decision. I love Saber so much and I'm really happy about this one. :D

Hatsune Miku - BiCute Bunnies - ~White Bunny Baby Pink~ (FuRyu) - $50

She's so cute.... and also now the largest figure I own. The stockings are made of real material (which is a cool touch), but the fabric pills a lot in the back. I don't think the stockings were executed well at all. Regardless, I think she's adorable and I absolutely love her. >_<

Hatsune Miku - Noodle Stopper Figure - Sporty Maid Ver. (FuRyu) - $45

I absolutely love the noodle stopper figures that have released recently. I love maid outfits, so I'm so overjoyed to have this one. >_< She's so cute.... it makes me want to buy cup noodles on purpose so I can take a picture of her with it. For now, she sits quite nicely on the edge of a shelf. I think I actually prefer this style a lot over figures with stands.

Manga:

Total cost: $20

From top to bottom:

Persona 3 - volumes 8 and 9

Persona 4 - volumes 7 - 10

Steins;Gate 0 - volumes 2 and 3

The Beguiling's stand at Anime North has select volumes of manga for 4/$10 every year, and I always look forward to it! I already own volumes 1-6 of both the Persona 3 and Persona 4 manga from their stand in 2019 (the last time that I attended the convention), so I'm up to 10 on P4 and I'm missing 7 on the P3 one! I don't own volume one of the Steins;Gate 0 manga, so I'll end up pirating it online. Overall, I'm always really happy to get them so cheap, especially since most of the manga I've accumulated over the years is actually from them at this price.

Artist Goods:

Separate page for full artist links is located here: ♡

Total cost: $120

From left to right:

NIJISANJI - Millie Parfait - acrylic charm (moecinna) - $15

NIJISANJI - Yugo Asuma + Millie Parfait - acrylic charms (NIKOORIN) - $25

I love these charms a lot! I was so excited to see one for Yugo. :O There were a lot of artists selling Nijisanji merch, but OP was the only one with him. >_< I have moecinna's charm on my keys and NIKOORIN's charms attached to the backpack that I take to work! They're all so cute! I put moecinna's charm on the lanyard with my badge, and I got some compliments on it while waiting in line for a panel, too. :)

Project SEKAI COLORFUL STAGE! - Nightcord at 25:00 - print (Nemururin) - $20

Her art was so pretty! I really wanted the Luxiem print, but it was sold out by the time I decided on the purchase. :( Spent my last $20 here! I was debating on whether or not I'd get her Wonderland x Showtime print or her Nightcord at 25:00 print, and Nightcord won out. If I ever see the Luxiem print up for sale again... 👀

Ichigo Magazine Tee - shirt (Ocean In Space) - $50

I absolutely love her art! I saw a post online a week before the event saying that she'd be there and I was so excited, except I couldn't find her in the artist alley. It took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize that her booth was in the dealer's room. >_< The shirt itself is really comfy, and the fact that it's mostly polyester is a godsend to me! (I have a lot of texture issues with cotton and don't wear it unless I'm leaving the house.) I normally wear a medium, so I bought that, and it definitely does come really oversized! I think that makes it even more comfortable, honestly. It was an intense debate on which shirt to buy, but I'm really happy with this one and I think it's so cute. ^^

Sanrio - Cinnamoroll - phone grip (uukipi) - $10

(Phone case not included, LMAO.) A ton of artists were selling phone grips this year, which was super cool! I've never used a popsocket-type phone grip, but it's actually pretty nice. :O All of the phone grips from uukipi were super cute, too, which makes me really happy. :)

Miscellaneous:

Total cost: $30

Love Live! μ’s x SNOW MIKU 2016 (Bellplans) - clear file - $3

I wasn't aware that this collab even existed! I really like Love Live! and I really like Vocaloid, this is like a collab made in heaven. The file's still in it's original packaging (which I haven't removed), so it was a bit difficult to get a good picture of it! I'm surprised that I got it so cheap at the Nominoichi, but I'm really glad that I did. :)

From top to bottom/left to right:

Code:Realize - Cardia Beckford - rubber strap - $2

Diabolik Lovers: More,Blood - Ayato Sakamaki - deka keyholder

Love Live! Sunshine!! - Yoshiko Tsushima - acrylic keychain

Love Live! Sunshine!! - Kanan Matsuura - acrylic keychain - all keychains for $5

I can't even explain how much joy I had when I found Code:Realize merch! :O I love the keychains so much, too... The girl running the table was really nice, and a lot of things were discounted right before the end of the Nominoichi, and the keychains on the bottom were 3/$5!

From left to right:

Pokémon Scarlet/Violet - lanyard - given to me by @form-sweet-form! Thank you so much!

Café Delish 2023 - Zelda heart pin, rubber bracelet, maid café ticket - $20 (for admission to the maid café)

This year, I attended the con with someone that I'd met in a DMMd server! She was super nice and it was so fun hanging out with her. :D Her cosplay of Aoba Seragaki was so good, too... She gave me this lanyard when we met up with each other! I had to wait in line for an hour and a half to get tickets for Café Delish for the both of us... it was so worth it though, it was so fun! ^^ I should've shown up even earlier, we couldn't get tickets at the same table by the time I made it... As souvenirs, I have a pin, a rubber bracelet, and a Polaroid with the maid at my table (which I will not be posting on Tumblr, as I'm not exactly eager to post my face here). I definitely wish to buy tickets for Café Delish again, and I hope to see her in the future as well!

Bandori! - 8th live - mini file map

Everything here and below were free goods given at the Nominoichi for whoever wanted them!

From the same Nominoichi seller that sold me the keychains: a whole bunch of goods given for free (originally $2 each) at the end of the night! I took a lot of them, so I ended up handing her some money (separate from the keychains LMAO) as thanks. I didn't realize until I'd gotten home that I accidentally took two of one of the envelopes. >_< If anyone happens to want the spare, I don't mind mailing it as long as you can pay shipping. Interestingly enough, the back of them has the 7-Eleven logo? These envelopes are made of plastic (clear file material) and super cute. :)

From left to right/top to bottom:

Tsukipro - Yaegashi Kensuke - Alive & Growth fan club card collection

Uma Musume Pretty Derby - Mejiro McQueen - tin

Senran Kagura - Yumi - acrylic keychain ver. A

Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai - Kobato Hasegawa - mirror

Ocean in Space - sticker

Pins:

Fire Emblem Awakening - Tharja, Gaius, Henry, Chrom

Fire Emblem Fates - Xander

Dream Daddy - Damien Bloodmarch

DRAMAtical Murder - Clear, Virus, Trip

(Pin artist - unknown. If anyone can find out who drew any of these, please let me know!)

Everything from the top (except the sticker, that one came free with the shirt purchase) is from the keychain seller! All of the pins are from another seller that had a box of pins they were giving away for free. I actually don't know much about the shows and games that they're from... I think that I want to look into Tsukipro especially! I do think that all of the goods are super cute, though. :) I was especially surprised when I peeled off the backing of the Kobato metal and found out that it was a mirror, I didn't expect that at all. :O They had other DRAMAtical Murder pins, too! I gave the Aoba and Koujaku to Raphaela (from form-sweet-form), since those were the only ones that she wanted. :) The other DMMd pins are over here, in her Anime North post! Especially happy about the Clear, Virus, Henry, and Damien pins, since I love those characters especially. :)

From left to right:

Akuyaku Reijou wa Ringoku no Outaishi ni Dekiai Sareru - postcard

5-Toubun no Hanayome ∬ - postcard

(I have no idea what the third one is from. If anyone knows, please let me know!)

Postcards! I think that they're super cute, so I picked these up from the keychain seller as well. I've never heard of any of the medias that they're from, though. The maid one is especially adorable.... I'm such a huge fan...

Overall, I had so much fun attending Anime North, and I'm really happy about the merchandise that I picked up from the convention! I've never had the money to own larger figures (over the many cons I've been to, I have two prize figures, one of which was a gift), so I'm so happy that I can actually collect them now! There are so many Miku figures that I want... Going to a convention as an adult with a job is such a freeing experience. I hope to go again next year, check out more panels, buy a lot, and hopefully go with a friend or two again!

[dead-set-goat]

Hello Tumblr!!!

I’m back!!! Yay !!! So I’ve been gone with an Erasmus+ programme! If you live or study within the EU you might have heard of it, anyhow I've included some helpful links here!

Overview (Basically...)

What countries are part of the programme

Opportunities

Long story short, I've taken part in a training course centered around intercultural youth work! Together with participants from other countries (such as Spain, Bulgaria, Greece, Portugal and more) we stayed in Klaffer at Mühl-fun-viertel, a super cool house for families. (A really heartwarming place with really good food too :> and the scenery was very art inspo :O)

Here’s some photos + activities took part in!! I want to commemorate the moments here on Tumblr since this is my fave and the only valid social media bye + writing and reading long posts on here is actually fun, no matter how incoherent they get...

Here's a view from where we stayed, it was kinda' cold so we mostly did things indoors, although we had a LOT of walks and a LOT of opportunities for great conversations. There was this public storytelling activity I was tasked to speak in on behalf of our team... I was so nervous but we took a walk around the lake and talked about things until I was all calm and quite excited to publicly speak???(which deathly scares me btw)

We took part in a lot of learning activities. The circle was king, after almost every fun game, we'd gather 'round to discuss different topics. It was really surprising to see how apparently lighthearted activities could lead to such deep discussions, huh. I'm mostly satisfied I got to hear so many points of view from people of wildly different backgrounds!

This here is a highlight for me. A for-and-against debate regarding the building of a mosq in the very christian town of SleepyVille. Although we all personally wanted to see it built, some were, by the rules of the game, supposed to try and oppose it by making up all kinds of reasons to sway the opinion of the public. It was such an engaging debate, watching the "political parties" and "NGOs" fight. The people had not been swayed by the conservatives though, had a good laugh, a few shocks, SleepyVille got its mosq!

Oh, we also visited the Optical Illusion Museum in Rohrbach, it's a SUPER artsty (and sciencey) place! It had so many puzzle-toys too, so funny seeing everybody trying to solve them. Grew up thinking adults don't like having fun like this. Although 18 I was the youngest and some of the paricipants were over 30 and many were pretty established, I felt a gap at first but everyone was so kind and open to all kinds of talks! This plus the psychology courses (especially this thing called transactional analysis) had helped me greatly reduce those feelings of tension and alienation I used to get with adults heh.

This is another highlight, a poster a friend on my team made for our own little workshop! We were taught to manage a project, we were given the tools and were tasked to organise our own workshop for the others to take part in. It was... a little stressful, oh my gosh, but so rewarding at the end of the day, proved it is definitely not impossible so I'm definitely attempting to collaborate with my local museum for something similar to be done with the children here. We are sitting on a treasure-trove of neolithic culture here (shameless self-promote), so this shall be a fun way to teach but also have fun!

AAAND this is us! I could ramble all day about the things I've seen, the great things I've learned, the fears I layed to rest and the hopes I rekindled but... well I'm sleepy.

[angelicimagines]

(Regular Ask | Any Mod) Post-Game Hajime, Nagito, Gundham, Sonia, and Akane dating the Ultimate Enologist who always plays tricks on them with swapping their drinks (innocently). Like; Hajime being asked to taste their new concoction, and it's literally just orange juice/favorite drink with no sweetener/additives, LOL.

Hello there Anon. This reminds me a lot of those "potions" that we all made when we were kids but they were really just soap and some other stuff mixed with water. I also took some creative liberties with this one cuz I had to mix it up a bit. Here's your request. In other news tumblr crashed on me in the middle of this and deleted a whole ass section. I am ready to fight god with only primal rage as my weapon. -Mod Shuichi

(Post–Game) Hajime Hinata, Nagito Komaeda, Gundham Tanaka, Sonia Nevermind, Akane Owari with a playful Ultimate Enologist!S/O.

Hajime Hinata🍊

🍊 Is immediately suspicious of you. You served him a glass of your new "concoction" but it just tasted like orange juice. Does he look like an idiot to you? 🍊 Begins "interrogating" you about the drink like you're in a trial. You must be the ultimate actor because your acting skills were top notch during the questioning. 🍊 He's out of truth bullets, shit. You got lucky this time, he has his eye on you. 🍊 He is also a massive hypocrite. 🍊 He loves watching others' reactions to your "concoctions". You usually pull this trick when they have already tried some of your original work, so they definitely don't expect to taste lemon juice in what is supposed to be a glass of your newest work. 🍊 Tries to hold in his laughter because then it would look suspicious, like you two were up to something. Maybe in the future though. 🍊 Back on track, he just knows you're paying tricks on him and wants to confront you about it, but… 🍊 Man's a simp. You're just so happy whenever someone falls for your tricks and you genuinely have a passion for creating and pranking and who is he to stop your fun. 🍊 When you do pull the trick on him, y'all have a back and forth debate on whether or not the drink is actually a new creation or apple juice. 🍊 You insist it's a new concoction and he goes "NO THAT'S WRONG!" Oh shit, he's onto you. Rethink your strategy stat! 🍊 You gave him something actually original and said it was "orange juice". 🍊 He drinks it, blinks a few times, and then glares at you. You apparently have a deathwish because you lean closer to his face and feign innocence, batting your eyelashes at him while asking what's wrong. 🍊 You expected another interrogation or maybe a "listen here you little shit", not a kiss on the lips. A surprise to be sure. 🍊 That was the start of a routine. Everytime you played your tricks on him, he'd pull you in and kiss you. You didn't know why he did that, but it was a fun way to get kisses. 🍊 If you ask him, he'd say he wanted you to taste teste your new drink <3

Nagito Komaeda☘️

☘ Very conflicted on how to feel. On one hand, he is sure what he is drinking is not the liquor you said it was; but on the other, who is he to doubt an ultimate? ☘ Plays along and congratulates you on your drink, saying it was very tasty. Bonus points if you do this trick in front of others and they're saying it's plain juice and not whatever fancy name you had said. ☘ Lowkey loves when others argue about your drinks. He always takes your side and it's hilarious. ☘ "I'm telling you that's not wine, it's cranberry juice!" ☘ "It's wine, if the Ultimate Enologist says so then it's wine. Did you spend years studying wines and their craft?" ☘ "I'M NOT AN IDIOT THAT'S CRANBERRY JUICE!" ☘ After a few more tricks he figures it out. You're playing a prank on him huh. ☘ He lets you know by saying thanks for the juice instead of whatever it is you said it was. ☘ You almost dropped the glass you were holding. He thought it was due to his luck, but he let it pass. Your face was just too funny to let the opportunity pass. ☘ Even though he knows, he still plays pretend from time to time. One because it makes you happy and two because you have to keep the illusion going for the others. ☘ You bargained with him over that last point. You promised him cuddles (after lot's of convincing that he did deserve them) in exchange for him acting along when you pulled your trick on others. ☘ Now he gets your cuddles, free drinks, and gets to witness your funny moments when you pull the prank on others. Man he really is lucky. ☘ If you name a drink after him or if one of your drinks is inspired by him he'll cry. Will refuse to drink it himself. ☘ You also share a drink that you say it's a new wine but it's really just dyed water. Others are confused by your couple ritual but y'all are happy so who cares. ☘ Nothing makes him happier than hugging you while you work on your drinks though, it fills him with hope <3

Gundham Tanaka🐹

🐹 Is convinced you're working with dark magic. You made wine taste like orange juice, what type of sorcery do you practice? 🐹 Asks you to see the process to check for magic. Oh no, you're fucked. 🐹 Or so it seems. When he's not looking you swap the drinks and keep the illusion going. He has yet to find out. 🐹 You sometimes pretend to add blood (red food coloring) to the decorations of the glass you serve your drink in and pour a special wine into them to make it look like blood. 🐹 People are convinced you two are vampires because of this. 🐹 You make non alcoholic drinks for the Devas in exchange for protection and a special place in his dark realm. You can also pet the devas free of repercussions. 🐹 Is insulted when someone even dares to suspect your drinks aren't really anything new. How dare they question the work of his soul's chosen companion sorry Hajime. 🐹 Very confused as to why others argue with you over your drinks. He is certain the contents of that glass are not apple juice, it's your new concoction inspired by the Devas. 🐹 The day he finds out your secret is the day the apocalypse began (not really but it felt like it). 🐹 You were preparing your drinks for the trick and waiting for him. He decided to surprise you by showing up a bit earlier and that resulted in him catching you mid switch. 🐹 Kept staring at you and the drink back and forth repeatedly, until the information was processed. 🐹 He's been tricked, sabotaged, and quite possibly bamboozled. 🐹 Began to doubt your status as a mortal and started having a crisis. In front of two perfectly fine drinks but ok. You came clean after that and he feigned betrayal. Even got the devan in on it too. 🐹 Both of you acted like it was a scene from a telenovela while trying to hold in y'alls laughter. You eventually got to the part where you begged for forgiveness. 🐹 Will forgive you on one condition, you pull that trick on Souda <3

Sonia Nevermind👑

👑 Before you even got to pull your tricks on her you were already her own personal enologist. Only the best for a princess. 👑 Does notice that your concoctions taste strangely like every day juices you can buy from the store, but she decides to give you the benefit of the doubt. 👑 Loves it when you do it to others though. She might not know what is happening but watching you argue with Fuyuhiko over what you just served him is hilarious. 👑 Gets whiplash whenever you pull your trick right after a formal event. You serve a magnificent cocktail never seen or tasted before and the next second you serve her what tastes like pineapple juice. 👑 You come to her for inspiration on what drinks to do next, it mostly involves references to the occult disguised as fancy people drinks. 👑 Does she find out about your secret? Yep 👑 She was looking for you to spend quality time together when she say you pour a glass of peppermint lemonade and label it as "new drink". 👑 Someone walked up to your stand and asked to try said drink and you served them the lemonade. They were extremely confused and from there a discussion started. 👑 She scurried away before you could catch her, equally as confused as the poor customer you just served. 👑 The next day, she asked to try some of your drinks and they all tasted like normal drinks. What happened to your awesome concoctions you served during parties? 👑 She's on a mission now, she's gonna get to the bottom of this mystery. 👑 One time, while you weren't looking, she snuck into your storage room to confirm her suspicion and found you working on your new wine (legit this time). 👑 You didn't seem to mind she had snuck into your storage room and invited her over to see the process. After that was done you offered her a glass as a taste test. 👑 She took a sip and it tasted like…mango juice? When she looked at you with a confused expression you laughed and offered her a glass of the actual drink. 👑 In that moment she realized she doesn't mind your tricks that much, if it makes you smile that brightly she'll always for for it <3

Akane Owari🤸

🤸 She would gulp down anything that you "concocted" for her because she loves you and you make killer drinks. 🤸 Would probably "get drunk" on whatever you decided to give her because of placebo effects and whatnot. 🤸 It is very fun to give her something like lemon water and saying it's a new type of tequila and you want her to do the honors of taste testing it. 🤸 Gladly does it and comments that it takes a bit like lemon. Then gives suggestions to other flavour you could add in your "tequila". 🤸 Others have tried to convince her it wasn't a new concoction because after the ntheenth time she had fallen for the trick it got a bit worrying. 🤸 She denies it every time. 🤸 One time you were serving her a glass of your new "drink" that was really just apple juice dyed to look like fine wine. 🤸 "Thanks for drink S/O, it looks delicious!" 🤸 You try to supress your giggles as she drank the whole thing and gave you back the glass. 🤸 She did comment that it "kinda tastes like apple juice" but that theory was dismissed due to the color of the drink. 🤸 Your plan fell right into place, good for you. Though the cheering had to be reserved for another time. 🤸 That time would be when you were cleaning the dishes because it gave you some alone time to cheer on your victory and you had a bunch of glasses to clean. 🤸 As you left with her empty glass in hand to get started on the dishes, Akane smiled to herself and lighty chuckled at the recent exchange 🤸 Plot twist, she knew that you were just messing with her. She played along with you because you always had the brightest smile whenever serving her a drink and she loved seeing you happy. 🤸 She just wants to see you happy, plus she gets free drinks <3

[sunnyrosewritesstuff]

This one worked out surprisingly well. Masterlist for these drabbles here. Check out the original post/prompt list. And feel free to send me requests if there are any specific combinations/pairings you want to see.

Drunk/Night Out + Driving Instructor + "Maybe you need to focus more on your life and less on mine!" + Bagginshield

Bilbo really hadn’t planned to get this drunk. Some mates of his from uni had decided to meet up. He didn’t even really want to go, but thought it might be fun to catch up with Hamfast at least. Only, the man had to leave early, which he didn’t begrudge him with four little ones at home. It had just left him in the company of his…less responsible friends. Hence the double vision and uneven steps. He looked mournfully at his new car that he had just learned how to drive, and at least had enough decision making skills to realize how dumb that would be. 

He opened up his contact list to text his cousin’s husband, Drogo. He would probably be the kindest about it anyways.

I’m druk and ned ride. U up?

He leaned up against the side of the bar, making an effort not to close his eyes for fear of passing out right there against the building. It took a few more minutes before the reply dots appeared.

I am now…where are you?

Bilbo texted the address, and Drogo agreed to come pick him up. With that settled, he went back inside to get a water hoping to appear semi-sober for him. Bilbo had been known to have a sharper tongue when drunk. He went back outside waiting in the parking lot when a car pulled up and stopped in front of him. He frowned. That didn’t look like Drogo’s car. The passenger window rolled down.

“Bilbo?”

Horror coursed through him. It was his hot driving instructor. It had been all Bilbo could do to focus on the lessons, reminding himself of the autonomy he wanted with being able to drive, and not the tall, dark-haired, handsome man beside him giving very bland directions. Finishing Thorin Durin’s course had been such a proud moment of achievement as the man was a tough but fair teacher. Then he realized he was most likely never going to see him again…except for this rather unfortunate mishap.

“Thorin!” He greeted, way too loudly. “Th-Mr. Durin, what brings yooooou here.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “You texted me.”

Bilbo was going to throw up. He glanced down at his phone. Yep, son of a bitch, he clicked “Durin” instead of “Drogo” in his contacts.

“O-Oh. I thought I had been talking to my cousin’s husband.” Bilbo explained fighting the slur as much as he could out of his words.

“Well that’s starting to make more sense at least.” Thorin smirked.

Bilbo stood there laughing at the misunderstanding as well while hoping for the ground to open up under his feet.

“So, do you still need the ride?” Thorin finally asked.

Bilbo blinked. “You mean?”

“I mean, you got me up. Besides, as your former instructor I would advise you not to get behind the wheel right now.”

Bilbo rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t going to.”

There was another awkward moment as Bilbo debated on what to do before he finally moved towards the passenger door. He could not believe he was actually about to get a ride home from his crush while drunk off his ass. He just needed to maintain a level of sobriety, or else Thorin was sure to think the worst of him…more than the fiasco this has already become at least.

“You’re going to want to make a left at…”

“I remember.” Thorin cut him off.

Bilbo tried to fight down how flushed that made him. He had been riding with Thorin for three months after all. He pressed his forehead against the window hoping the cool glass would help with his rapidly forming headache.

“Did I sw-wake you?” He finally murmured.

“A bit.” Thorin grumbled. “But the munchkins were especially difficult to get into bed tonight so I suppose it all worked out.”

“You have kids!” Bilbo gasped with fake enthusiasm while trying to fight off the break in his heart.

“My nephews.” Thorin answered.

Bilbo thought his sigh of relief had been subtle, but Thorin’s answering snort was proof to the contrary. This was the worst car ride of his life. 

“So how was your night?” He asked with an edge of teasing.

Bilbo blew a raspberry in the most unattractive way possible. “Five ou-of ten. I was reminded why I don’t interact with these guys much an-ny more.”

“That bad?” Thorin questioned.

“The remin-rema…catching up about the ol’ days was fine. They just haven’t grown up much since uni. The last time they ditched me…!”

“Wait!” Thorin interrupted. “They just…ditched you?”

“Not malice-ly. Malice-ly? Mal-cious…”

“Malicious?” Thorin offered.

“Right!” Bilbo cheered. “It wasn’t mean. We just all got a little too drunk…”

“You guys didn’t even have a DD?”

“Hey!” Bilbo finally snapped. "Maybe you need to focus more on your life and less on mine! I happen to do rather well for myself. You drive cars for a living."

Bilbo’s jaw clicked shut at that point. He didn’t want to say that. Why did he say that? The silence was answer enough for Bilbo on where he stood with Thorin at this point. So he wasn’t expecting much as Thorin pulled into the driveway. Bilbo quickly opened the door to get out only to trip and nearly fall on his roses.

The car was turned off as Thorin got out to circle the car. His hand was a firm presence as it gripped his upper arm, hauling him back to a standing position.

“Ya don’ have to do this.” Bilbo grumbled more than a little embarrassed.

“Can’t very well leave you to sleep out here in the garden.” Thorin grunted as he helped him to the door. “What kind of Uber would I be otherwise?”

Bilbo was rightfully ashamed, and immediately tried to stammer out an apology. Thorin waved them off.

“I thought you were a grocer when we first met, so I guess we’re even.”

Bilbo couldn’t even find it in him to be offended as he tried to focus on fitting the key in the hole. However, his fifth slip had Thorin gently taking over. 

“Why did you answer my text?” Bilbo finally blurted overwhelmed by the man’s kindness. “You could have ignored it. You probably should have ignored it.”

“Truth be told,” Thorin answered. “I was actually a bit relieved. I had enjoyed our sessions quite a bit, and wanted to be friends. In fact, my buddies and I meet up for a drink every month, and no one gets ditched…in case you’re interested.”

Bilbo blinked up at Thorin trying to find his blue eyes in the dark. Was he being serious? He wanted to hang out with Bilbo of all people?!

“I…I…I have to throw up now.”

With that, he was racing for the guest loo, making it just in time to empty his stomach in the toilet. Worst. Impression. Ever. When he returned to his living room, Thorin was gone. Which was…expected. He would have been more shocked if the other man hadn’t left. Bilbo went to flop on the couch finding his bed to be too far away when he noticed the pain pills and water on the coffee table. He furrowed his brow at the appearance of said objects when his phone buzzed from his back pocket. It took his tired eyes three attempts to read the message, but once comprehension kicked in, he found himself smiling warmly.

Left some stuff out for you on the table. Text me when you’re not staggeringly drunk. The offer still stands. ;) Goodnight, Bilbo Baggins

[lilosaur]

hi hi! okay so, i really like your work and i find them very fluffy and adorable— so! can i request a scenario (chifuyu, kawata twins, baji and mitsuya) where s/o comes out as non-binary and the boys are extremely supportive about it? again, i really love your work!

Aha thank youu! Yess! I hope u enjoy reading, this was fun to write. Also this was with 5 people but my limit is 4 so be sure to read rules next time (I just did one twin) :)

♡‧₊˚ Coming Out As Non-binary :*₊‧✩

⟶ ticket no. 12 ɞ

w/ Matsuno Chifuyu | Kawata Nahoya | Baji Keisuke | Mitsuya Takashi

ʚ Matsuno Chifuyu ɞ

You and Chifuyu were on a little coffee shop date, you had stayed up all night debating weather you should tell Chifuyu about you being non-binary. Once you successfully decided with yourself that your non-binary you wanted to keep it secret for a while but now it’s time to let it out. You were so nervous “what if” thoughts started to wander in your head. Would Chifuyu still view you the same? Would he start to test you differently? Maybe he’d just dump you on the spot and leave you in tears. No no you couldn’t think like that right?

So many doubts clogging your mind you only have one idea left, you had to blurt it out in one shot just break the ice and say it.

“Fuyu..I have something to tell you.”

Chifuyu's facial expression changed a bit he was now intrigued at what you had to say. His own mind starting doubting him too, we’re you going to break up with him right here and now? Did you not love him anymore? Both of you looked at each other worried about what you would both say.

“Fuyu I just wanted to let you know that I’m non-binary”

Chifuyu looked at you and his face was so much more calm now. You really scared him for a moment, honestly he didn’t realize what you said until a few seconds later after calming himself down.

“Oh, so wait does that mean your not a male or female right?”

“Yeah so..”

You continued to help educate Chifuyu on what exactly non-binary meant and which pronouns you’d prefer him to address you by. He's just an uneducated baby but he’ll understand as you explain more things to him.

When you feel insecure about it Chifuyu makes sure to step in and make you feel loved, sometimes he buys you a gift, someone’s he gives you extra cuddles or extra kisses. Once fuyu even bought you a little non-binary flag! He 110% supports you and wants to learn more about it, he doesn’t even view you any differently your still the same sweet Angel he fell in love with.

༚༅༚˳❃˳༚༅༚

ʚ Kawata Nahoya ɞ

You and Nahoya were watching movies and cuddling on a Saturday night, you’d debated ever even telling Nahoya about you being non-binary. You felt like he wouldn’t really understand or just be unsupportive of you. However you came to the conclusion that you have to tell him about it at some point.

“Uh Nahoya…can I tell you something..” You asked silently he could barely hear you.

“What’s wrong y/n?”

“Um…Nahoya I just wanted to let you know…but um I’m non-binary.” You mumbled it kind of whispering too he really just could barely hear you.

“Oh y/n wait I heard that before, what does it mean again?” He looked at you in confusion hoping you’d answer his question.

You took a little sigh of relief as you explain to him what non-binary means and how he could help support you and make you feel more comfortable. He was nodding his head along the whole time but you could tell he was definitely invested. The best part was he never once dropped his smile, which means he doesn’t view you any differently!

Nahoya still needs some practice as he may address you wrong but he’s still in his early learning stages of it all, he’ll always correct himself. Once you told him Nahoya gave you a nice cuddly hug and a kiss on the forehead, he told you he’ll love you no matter what because your still you!

༚༅༚˳❃˳༚༅༚

ʚ Baji Keisuke ɞ

You thought Baji might actually have a normal reaction, but when you called him to hangout and said you have to told him something your thoughts completely changed when you were in person about to tell him. You two were walking around town he was waiting to hear what you had to say, tbh your kinda scaring him..

You decided to just spit it out, no more holding back on him he has a right to know, right? You tried to calm yourself and mentally prepare yourself for all the outcomes of this situation but it’s barely working…

“Um so, Baji…we’ll I’m non-binary.” You almost mumbled it, your hands clung to your shirt messing around with your nails as nervousness began to break into your mind with his silence.

“Oh. Okay, what should I do to help support you y/n.”

Baji grew such a light and warm smile on his face now, giving you a look that seemed to be saying ‘don’t worry’

You explain to Baji what non-binary meant/is and he’s trying his best to understand and remember it all. Honestly he really doesn’t bring it up much he uses your preferred pronouns/name and always makes sure to tell other people your correct pronouns if they address you wrong. (With ur permission ofc.)

Baji's love for you will never change, your such a sweet person to him and you have a very special place in his heart. how cute

༚༅༚˳❃˳༚༅༚

ʚ Mitsuya Takashi ɞ

Mitsuya always showed how much he loved you, weather it was through gifts, actions, or words you always knew. So why were you in doubt of Mitsuya? Would he really just stop loving you? Ever since you made the final decision that you are indeed non-binary you’ve been terrified to tell anyone. At some point he’d need to know though, it’s scary even when you see him it feels like a big secret. You two already had plans to hang out tonight at his house, but was this good timing?

It was already too late to think about it, you found you and Mitsuya sitting on his bed just talking about your lives and what’s been going on. It hit your mind again, is this good timing? He literally just asked if anything new is going on in your life, how do you tell him though? Beat it around the bush or straight forward?

“Um y/n is something wrong.” I guess you were quiet for too long and zoned out a bit, his voice was so soft and gentle. Yes now is good timing.

“Um Mitsuya..I have something to tell you and it’s kind of big.” Mitsuya grew a worried expression once you said it was a big thing, so many possibilities filled his mind. Your both stressed out now.

“Mitsuya I’m non-binary.” As that sentence left your mouth you started to hold your breath, hoping, praying, wishing everything would still be the same without any change.

“Y/n! I’m so happy for you, that’s great!” He said with a smile on his face. You let yourself breathe now, he was okay with it? So bizarre but not really..

“Y/n I hope you know this won’t change anything though, your still the y/n I fell in love with.” His words broke through all the bad thoughts and endings you started to think of, Mitsuya really did accept you.

In fact Mitsuya has been questioning himself too, he’s been studying all kinds of pronouns, sexualities, and overall what he wants his identity to be. So he understand and you two will work with each other to help you guys find your true selves!

beep boop, aha I procrastinated this a lot bc of schoolwork so sorry for not posting for two days 😅 Anyways I hope you guys enjoyed this one! Remember you're all valid, don’t let anyone get you down your so special in this world no matter what you identify as or who you love. 🤎

[nagipops]

Hi! Can you do headcanons for Shikamaru with a S/O that’s as smart as him and really likes reading? Either way, have a good day!

SMART S/O HEADCANONS!

FEATURING: shikamaru nara!

we all know why shikamaru fell for you

no one else in the entire village could compare to the pure attraction he had for you, who could hold your own with your sharp mind and keen intellect

he catches you in the library a few times when the two of you were just getting to know each other, and it made his heart melt seeing how studious and intelligent you were

ever since then, he’s made very frequent trips to the library, because he definitely needed shogi books for dummies. definitely.

you caught him red-handed one day, as you noticed how often he just happened to walk by the area you were sitting at, and you beckoned him over

the two of you talked and really hit it off as the conversation started with small talk at first before quickly spiraling into a philosophical discussion about the meaning of life

it was intriguing, finding someone who could actually match your pace with quick-witted remarks and a sharp tongue, and the warm, excited feeling in your heart was proof

you two continued to meet at the library, always debating a new topic every single time

until one day, he proposed the topic of love

it took you completely aback at first, since shikamaru seemed to be quite a detached man who only focused on his work and shogi

but you were curious to see where the conversation would lead, so you bit

it was one of the most fascinating discussions the two of you had to date, learning about what he looks for in a partner, what you like in a man, if love was merely a survival tactic, if soulmates exist...

that definitely led to the two of you dropping some hints here and there

“well, you know... i like a man who can keep up with me. also, i’m a sucker for dark hair.”

“ah, i see... i think it’s cool when people read books. it tells a lot about what kind of person they are.”

the air was so thick with unspoken words and feelings, you could cut it with a knife

until one of you broke the silence

“hmm... how would you feel if, say, the person who you liked was... right in front of you?”

“well, i would say i like them back, of course.”

and the rest is history :)

as your loving boyfriend, shikamaru will always nag you to play shogi with him, since you’re the only one that can keep up with his impeccable strategy

but you’re just trying to read, so you tell him to leave you alone you just got to the good part!

he sighs exasperatedly, spouting his signature catchphrase:

“troublesome.”

he then flops onto the bed and beckons you to lie between his legs and read, since he definitely wants to read the good part too

he probably doesn’t, he just wants some cuddles with his braniac troublemaker

you comply, smiling in content as you get comfortable with shikamaru’s arms wrapped around you as your eyes flit across the pages

“oi, oi, slow down a bit! you’re turning the pages too fast,” he whines, his chin tucked in your shoulder

you giggle, reading even faster as you reach the climax of the story, and eventually shikamaru gives up, yawning loudly before falling asleep with his head perched on your shoulder and his arms wrapped around your torso

two braniacs in a pod make for the best relationship dynamic, one that is never ever boring!

if you enjoyed this post, likes and reblogs are much appreciated :) feel free to request here, and make sure to read the rules first! have a lovely day everyone <3

[princessofprocrastination]

I Messed Up, Didn’t I? (Dream)

MASTERLIST

PART ONE!

pairing : dreamwastaken x singer!reader

summary :  after the breakup, he sees that you’re growing as a singer, while he’s suffering alone, but you don’t think that about him, seeing he’s growing on youtube. (PART TWO)

a/n : aaannnddd here’s the final part! 

a full year passes. 

you thought the pain in your chest would leave after a while. but maybe it doesn’t work that way since clay and you were together for a couple years. 

you were kept busy with the voice each week, every weekday, you were told to keep working on a new album. 

but whenever you had time alone in your house, you couldn’t help but think about it all. 

the cuddles on his gaming chair whenever you felt lonely at times while he played his games. 

or when you’d care for him whenever he would get sick since he would act like a baby. 

or that time when you both went to get fast food at 4am in the morning because you craved something that would be bad for you. 

or the little banters or debates you two would have about politics. 

or when he’d dive on the bed on top of you when he was in need of cuddles. 

it all comes back to the reason you broke up. 

you didn’t blame him. you didn’t blame yourself. 

you didn’t know who to blame. you couldn’t blame the internet since you got your job from it too. 

you were glad that you found a job that was your hobby. whenever you were mad or sad, you’d write it down, and send it to your team, and suddenly, it would become a song. 

you are glad that you have such supportive team and found yourself amazing friends. 

speaking of friends, you bought tickets for your two bestfriends to come see you and live with you for a while. 

you told them that you needed the companion and that your house has too many empty guest bedrooms that are waiting for people to sleep in. 

they accepted the invite and offered to buy their own tickets since you were already giving them a place to stay, but you told them you had already bought them tickets and that they didn’t have to worry about it. 

you knew they could afford it, they were just too humble to say it to their fans, but you knew better. 

hours before you had to pick them up from the airport, you made sure their rooms were fully ready. you picked the bedrooms most closest to yours because why not right? 

what those two didn’t know was that you had bought full gaming sets for them, monitors, keyboards, a pretty nice gaming chair. it was a pretty nice gaming set up, if you say so yourself. 

you bought them because you knew that those two cannot live a day without playing games or streaming. 

at first, they were hesitant on coming since you told them to stay for a couple months. they both knew they had to stream and post on their channels. it’s their jobs, after all. 

but you assured them that you’d find a way and to not worry about anything, and just worry about getting on that plane on time. 

you saw the time, took a photo of the gaming set up as you took a photo of sapnap’s earlier and walked out of george’s room, grabbing your car keys and leaving for the airport. 

you parked your car in the airport carpark and quickly went to the arrival hall to find those two crackheads. 

you were almost jumping at how excited you were. you couldn’t believe that this was going to be your first time meeting them ever. 

you waited at the side, making sure you still had a view of the automatic sliding doors of the arrival hall. 

you heard someone calling your name from behind you. as you turn your head, you saw a masked man holding a camera that was pointed at you. 

paparazzi’s can be annoying at times but you actually knew this guy pretty well and he is definitely not annoying. 

“what are you doing here?” the man asked you. 

“what do i look like i’m doing in front of the arrival hall, hm?” you sassed him a little, laughing towards the end of your sentence. 

“okay, who are you waiting for then?” he asked again.

your phone pinged a notification from the groupchat of you, george and sapnap. 

“just wait and see, they’ll come soon.” you told him, winking at the camera. 

you saw the two walk out of the automatic doors and you jumped slightly on your feet, waiting for them to come closer before you could give them the biggest hug. 

it didn’t take them long to spot you. you attracted a lot of attention, with the man with a very large camera next to you. 

as they came closer with their noticeably large luggage, you couldn’t wait anymore, running towards them to give them a bear hug. 

as you crashed into the two, they fell slightly back from the impact. 

you could hear the loud camera shutters as you hug two of your bestfriends. 

you three hugged for a while more before you moved off to answer some questions from the line of paparazzi’s.

you felt bad for attracting the crowd. people must be so confused on what’s happening. 

you three answered some questions, until you couldn’t wait anymore, you were excited to show them their room. the anticipation was killing you. 

“sorry, i think we need to go. i can’t wait to show them their rooms.” you told the line of paparazzi’s in front of you. 

a string of questions came out, asking what rooms and where and why was i so excited. 

“you’ll see soon, stay tuned on our social medias!” you told them before pulling your two bestfriends’ hands to walk out the airport to your car. 

they said their goodbyes and walked by you to your car, confused on why you had been so excited. 

george sat at the front with you, sapnap at the backseat. 

“dude, you own such a cool car.” sapnap said, admiring the details of your car. 

“close the door and you’ll see something cooler.” you told him. 

to which he closed his side of the door and waited. he looked up onto the car roof to see that there are stars on them. they light up as the car doors were closing. 

“holy shit damn.” george said, looking up as well. 

as you drove back home, you three caught up with each other’s lives. 

you found out that they still had been anxious about not posting anything for a couple months, but they’re happy to see you and stay with you. you smiled to yourself knowing how happy they’d be later. 

“i just can’t wait to see your house, honestly.” george said, from beside you. 

sapnap let out a big laugh, you and george soon following after. 

you parked in front of your house’ front door while the two stared in awe that their bestfriend lives in such a house. they’d often forget that they’re friends with such a rich singer. they only saw you as their friend, not someone famous. 

you laughed at the two, before exiting your car, to get their luggage from the back of the car. 

while they were still looking at your house, you took their bags out one by one, carrying some into the house. 

“you wanna come in or not?” you asked the two. 

they snapped out of their trance, taking their bags before following you to inside the house. 

“what the fuck.” “holy shit this is amazing.” were what the two said when they walked in. 

“so since we’re here, let’s put your bags into your rooms before we go get food. you guys can go shower too if you want, there are bathrooms in your rooms.” you told them, excited to see their reactions of the rooms. 

“there are bathrooms in our bedrooms? dude game over i’m moving in.” sapnap told you, still in awe of the house. 

you lead them to one of their room, telling them which room was which behind closed doors, not opening the door yet. you told them that your room was between theirs and if they needed anything, to ask you. 

you stopped at sapnap’s room, on the left of your room, and told them to wait. 

“before i open this door, i just wanted to say that i appreciate you guys dropping everything to come here. so here’s a little something for you two, i definitely didn’t forget about your jobs.” you explained to the two before opening the door. 

as you opened it slowly, you saw that they were confused. they still had no clue. good. 

sapnap’s gaming setup lit up as you opened the door, making the room look like a tiktok room. 

“holy- no way. you didn’t” sapnap said, turning to you, still in shock. 

“uh yeah i did, and there’s one of george in his room too.” you told them. 

“WHAT? no you didn’t.” george screamed in your ear. 

“go look in your room. i’m not lying.” you told him. 

he runs to open his room door, leaving his bags in front of sapnap’s room. sapnap and you followed to see his room. 

as george opened his door, his room too, lit up, just like sapnap’s.

“NO FREAKING WAY.” george jumped at his position in his room, staring at his set up in awe. 

“i had to, you guys dropped everything to be here. you still need to make videos. tell me what’s missing and it’ll come tomorrow.” you told the two boys, who were still in shock. 

“WHAT’S MISSING?, this is more than enough, thank you!” the two said in unison before running to you to give you the biggest hug. 

-

after that whole fiasco, the two boys got right into work with setting it up. you left them for the moment as you went to the kitchen to get dinner going. 

you thought since they just reached california after a long flight, they might not have the energy to drive all the way out to get dinner, so you just settled with making them dinner. 

while waiting for your pasta to cook and chicken to fry, you went on your phone. 

you weren’t surprise to see people shocked to see that sapnap and george flew to meet you. your feed was filled with photos and videos of your interactions in the airport. 

you smiled seeing the cute photos, screenshotting a few to post on your own instagram. 

you remembered the gaming setup photos that you took. you opened instagram to post them o your instagram story, along with videos of their reactions of seeing them. only in a matter of seconds, your tagged photos sky rocketed. 

now they knew that the two boys would definitely stay for longer. 

-

dream knew what was going on. he was tagged in a lot of the photos. your fans thought he was there too, for some reason. some knew dream wasn’t there but asked why he wasn’t there. 

dream was happy to see that his friends are happy with you. they might as well move in with you. 

dream knows that you hated staying at home alone. maybe that’s why you called the two over to stay with you. 

with the gaming setups, dream knew the two boys would stay for a while. he felt a pang in his chest. 

he wanted to meet you. he wanted to make things right again. not because he saw you happy without him, not because he saw how successful you have become, not because he saw how happy you were with his friends but not him, but because he felt alone without you. he needed you. 

-

you could hear george and sapnap screaming. you smiled, knowing that they were probably streaming or recording something, along with dream since you heard them scream “dream” a ton of times. 

they had to eat lunch so you brought it upstairs to their room, knowing they won’t end their gaming anytime soon.

you knocked on sapnap’s door first. seeing as he’s not using his facecam, you walked in and put his plate of food next to his keyboard, along with a bottle of his favourite drink. 

he thanked you as he told his chat what was going on. you ruffled his hair as you walk out his room, to george’s.

you didn’t bother knocking his door since you knew he was too deaf to hear it anyways. you slowly opened the door, not wanting to interrupt his stream and nicks.

he notices you coming in. “hi! come here!” he told you. 

you smiled at him, walking towards his desk, with the plate of food and bottled drink in your hands. 

“i just came to gave you lunch cause i know you too well.” you told him, almost sarcastically. 

“awh, oh my god thank you, this looks so good.” he thanked you just like nick did. 

“my chat wants to say hi.” he tells you. 

knowing he has his facecam turned on, you walked to him to stand behind his chair to wave at the camera. 

“so this is my favourite person in the world.” george said to his chat, pointing to you. 

you blushed and put your hand up to cover your mouth at how cute that was. roll in the ship comments. 

“i’m leaving you with the ship comments, gogy.” you told him as you walked to the door. 

-

a couple more weeks go by, and the two idiots are still living with you. they actually are thinking about staying here for good. to which they asked you if that’s okay. 

obviously you would let them stay here for good, you loved the company. 

they were your distraction to everything going on. the heartbreak, the hurt that never left your chest. they were all still there and you didn’t know how to get rid of them. but for now, your two bestfriends were there for you. 

lately you have been getting flower and chocolate arrangements to your doorstep. at first you thought it might be the boys trying to do something nice but they had told you that they wouldn’t have even thought about being that romantic. 

you laughed it off and set it aside. the flowers did look good in your living room, after all. unless it was from a stalker fan, you didn’t mind it. you found it a little romantic. 

-

george and sapnap knew exactly what they were doing. the moment they found out your address, they sent it to dream. they knew clay deserved everything that has happened to him. but at the end of the day, he is still their friend, and they can’t abandon him. 

everyday of the week. flowers arrangements came. you asked george multiple times if he knew what was going on. 

he was the only recent person you remember telling your obsession of flower arrangements to. 

at first, he told you he didn’t have a clue, and soon enough, he cracked. he told you he knew, but it was your task to find out who. 

the first couple days of knowing that, you tried brushing it off, making yourself busy with music or cooking for the two boys. but soon enough, you couldn’t run away from it anymore. you were curious. 

a full month after your first flower arrangement came to your doorstep, you heard a knock on your door. since you thought maybe you had a package, you didn’t think much of it. 

you were surprised to see the person in front of your front door. 

dream. 

it was your ex boyfriend. 

what was he doing here? you haven’t seen him in so long, that seeing him felt weird. he was on the internet but his face wasn’t plastered on his profiles. 

“what are-” your question was cut off by him. 

“just please listen to me first. i swear i will give you all the time in the world to talk later but please, for now, just listen to me.” 

your actions stopped. it was as if your brain stopped functioning. 

you hesitantly nodded to him, signaling him to continue. 

“i’ve waited so long for this. i’ve stayed in that house we first shared alone while you moved here, to pursue your passion. i saw you all over the billboards, all over my phone, my computer, even the flyers outside my house had your face on it.” you laughed at the end. 

“but i chose not to do anything just yet, i wanted to see you happy, happy with your career, even if it meant me not being by your side to support you. i am incredibly proud to see that you’ve grown into such an amazing and successful woman.” you goes again. 

“but i don’t think i can wait any longer. everyone thinks i’ve been happy with my own life, but how can i be happy, when i still live with the guilt of taking advantage of your kindness, taking you for granted. how can i live happily with the guilt of letting you go that day?” he continues again. you try to keep your face emotionless, trying not to cry. 

“i know it feels so sudden, me coming here. but i can’t live anymore not having you anymore. please, take me back?” he finishes, tears going down him cheeks. 

you started to tear up, almost sobbing.

“why did it have to take this long, stupid?” you whined, running to hug him. 

he moved back slightly from the impact, not expecting you to talk to him, yet touch him . 

you two heard your two bestfriends come down the stairs, laughing and faking their vomits from behind your backs. 

“i fucking knew it. you two are so sneaky.” you rolled your eyes. 

-

time flies by fast. a whole year has passed. one whole year since dream knocked on your door. one whole year since he has moved in with you and the other two boys. 

yes, living with three boys can be super chaotic, but you liked it. you absolutely love the joy it brings you, even if they often steal your snacks from the pantry.

oh yeah, you had to get a full gaming set up for dream too, for making him jealous with george. 

[my-emotional-self]

Toxic Love Chapter 5

Pairings: Steve Rogers x Reader, Bucky Barnes x Reader, Steve Rogers x Reader x Bucky Barnes

Summary: Finding out your soulmates were Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes was one thing.  But when someone from your past comes back to haunt you, you have to figure out if a relationship with two super soldiers is something you really want to pursue or if you’d rather go back to your comfortable single life.

Series Warnings:  18+, Swearing, Angst, Fluff, past mentions of rape, self-harm, attempted rape, domestic violence, stalking, death threats, possible Dark!Steve?, Steve will be an asshole a LOT in this series but I don’t know how dark it will get, explicit sexual content, mental health issues, kind of A/B/O dynamics but not really (no they are not actual wolves, more like the hierarchy), mentions of suicide, flashbacks to suicide.  

A/N: There will be no taglist for this story!  I apologize in advance!

Two long weeks it had been since you last saw Steve and Bucky.  They had to leave on a mission but they checked in with you regularly through texts.  It was rather cute that they were checking in on you and you liked that they were protective of you.  

But also during those two weeks, you had gotten another five notes either taped to your door or shoved under your door.  Each note had gotten worse and worse.  At first when you started getting the notes, you knew you didn’t have anything to worry about.  You had called the prison and they informed you that yes, John was still locked up and hadn’t gotten out.  And you kept doing that with each note, just to make sure for your safety.  You also knew his friends wouldn’t harm you.  No, that would only throw John over the edge and he would probably murder any of his friends who put their hands on you in any way.  Possessive asshole.  He was possessive in a way that was deranged.  Steve and Bucky were possessive in a more protective way.  In a way you felt safe.  

But these five current notes you got started to make you feel on edge.  You had debated with yourself for quite some time if you should come clean to Steve and Bucky about it.  Yet you decided not to.  They were too busy on their mission and you didn’t want them distracted.  Instead, you put the notes in your little box and tried not to think about it.  In a few short hours, you would be moved in to the Avengers Tower and you wouldn’t have any more issues.

Another thing was nagging at you and it was the fact that you had become much more irritable over the last few days.  You hoped, no you fucking prayed, it wasn’t your medication that needed a dose increase so instead you chalked it up to the stress of having to move.  

The following day Steve and Bucky surprised you at your apartment to help you finish packing. They had even rented a moving truck to help move things quicker.  Almost everything was already packed; you just had the drawers left in your bedroom and the furniture.  

Steve opened up the top drawer of your dresser and you could hear the growl that left his lips. Turning around, you saw him take out a few of your toys.  “What the fuck are these?” he demanded, brows furrowed as he threw them on your bed. Bucky heard the commotion and came into the bedroom, eyeing you, Steve and the handful of toys on your bed.  “I thought we agreed on a rule that you weren’t to touch yourself Y/N.”

“I-I know Steve.  I was going to throw them out today.  I wasn’t going to bring them along,” you replied softly.

“Have you used these in the last two weeks?”

Shit.  You were caught.  But to be fair, you thought the rules took place once you moved in. Letting out a sigh, you replied, “Ok, yes I did.  But I thought the rules only went into place once I moved into the tower with you guys. I swear.”

Steve’s fists clenched as he crossed his arms in front of his chest.  It was his ‘authority’ stance and if you were being completely honest, he looked damn hot.  

“Fine.  You get this one warning.  No more pleasing yourself.  Do you understand?”

“Yes sir,” you replied quickly, not realizing that the word ‘sir’ went straight to Steve’s groin.  He turned his back on you and walked out of the bedroom while Bucky helped you pack up the rest of your stuff.  

With both super soldiers helping you out, the moving truck was packed up in no time.  You rode back to the tower with Steve and Bucky, beating the moving truck there.  They wanted to show you both of your rooms before unpacking the truck.  

The first room that they brought you to was the hobby room.  Upon opening it, you cried on sight.  It was perfect.  Absolutely fucking perfect.  The walls were white but there was LED lighting around the bottom of the walls making the room light up in pink.  It was how you dreamed of your game room.  Not only that, but Tony had upgraded all of your equipment and there on a brand new desk was two brand new large monitors, bigger than you could have ever imagined.  White shelves ran along the opposite wall of your computer and they were completely spare; waiting for your knickknacks.  

“I’m speechless,” you breathed, your hand coming up to clasp over your mouth.  You never wanted to leave this room.  How you were only supposed to work two nights a week now was beyond you.  You would have to find a way around that.  

Both Bucky and Steve took one of your hands in theirs and they brought you up to their apartment. Correction.  Your apartment as well.  Your heart was pounding in your chest as the elevator door opened and they led you down the hallway.  They stopped in front of your door and let your hands go.

“We are going to let you go ahead and explore your new place on your own.  We will be in here soon.  The scanner on the door opens for us too, but it will only open for us under two conditions. One, if there is an emergency and F.R.I.D.A.Y will override the system to let us in.  And two, if we ask to come in and your voice states that it’s ok, the door will automatically open for either one of us.  We want you to know we value your privacy alright?”

You nodded at Steve, giving him a tight smile before he and Bucky walked back down the hallway and into the living room.  

Taking one more deep breath, you placed your hand on the scanner and the door to your new apartment opened for you.  

Again, you cried instantly as you took in your new apartment.  The kitchen stayed the same, you had no qualms with how it looked. Instead of the original hardwood floor, there was a light gray carpet.  You hated the hardwood floor.  It was always so cold on your feet and now the carpet would keep your feet nice and toasty.  

The living room was your dream living room.  The walls were now a dark gray and there was a black three person couch along with two black chairs on either side; a black coffee table sat between the couch and the television hanging on the wall.  It was dark, just the way you wanted it.  

Sure, compared to your game room that was all bright colors, that was for a job and you had a different personality on camera.  Something that the watchers wanted to see.  Now, in the comfort of your own home, you could be yourself.  You were drawn to the darkness, it was what made you feel safer.  The brightness of other rooms always gave you a headache.  Now, you had nice blackout curtains along the floor to ceiling windows that would keep the light out and if you did want to, you could easily open it up for some bright sunshine.  

Walking along the rest of your apartment, you came about your bedroom.  Inside there was a large king sized bed that lay atop a black four post iron bedframe.  The best part of it was the black tule fabric that hung like curtains to each of the four bedposts.  There were red satin sheets and a black comforter atop the bed, ready for you to lay down and relax.  Screw your game room, you never wanted to leave this bed!

Standing in the middle of the bedroom, you closed your eyes and took it all in.  Things were going to start changing and you were hoping for the better for once in your life.  Things seemed content and you couldn’t wait to start your life here with Steve and Bucky.

Just then there was a knock on the door.  “Who is it?” you asked as you made your way into the living room.  

“It’s Steve.  Can I come in?”

“Of course.”

The door opened up and Steve appeared before you.  God he was a dream.  Thick locks with a luscious beard.  You couldn’t wait to kiss him.  

“How do you like the new place?” he asked as he moved into the apartment.  

“Steve,”  you began to say, looking around at everything.  “This is honestly so perfect.  I couldn’t have asked for anything better.  Thank you so much for making all of this possible.”

A tint of blush appeared on his cheeks.  “It was nothing sweetheart.  Honestly. We just want the best for you.”

You couldn’t take it anymore.  Seeing the blush rise on his cheeks, you gave into your desire.  You walked the few feet to him, placed your right hand behind his neck and pulled him down to meet your lips.  

His lips were soft. So fucking soft against yours as his hands went to grip your waist.  Your fingers dug into the hair at the nape of his neck, holding him close, not wanting to let go.  His lips parted and you took the opportunity to nibble on his lower lip; his grip on your waist tightening and you reveled in the feeling.  He was a good kisser.  God he was good as his tongue brushed against your lower lip.  You wanted to tease him at first, but you quickly threw that idea out the window as you just wanted to taste him.  And taste him you did.  Your tongues connected and it sent shockwaves straight to your core. It was the most amazing feeling in the world.  

Steve broke away from the kiss all too quickly, much to your demise.  You wanted to keep going, to keep tasting him, but it was going too fast, too quick.  

“I don’t want to stop,” Steve’s breath fanned your face.  “But if we don’t’ stop now, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop.”

You agreed with a quick nod, knowing damn well that you wouldn’t be able to stop either if things continued.   The two of you worked together to unbox the rest of your belongings.

~~~

Later that night you were in your hobby room unpacking boxes; your mind on Steve and the passionate kiss the two of you shared.  You were surprised how turned on you were just from the kiss alone and your hopes were high in regards to being intimate with both him and Bucky.  

There was a knock on your door and by the time you looked, you saw Bucky opening the door.  

“Hey Bucky,” you said with a smile.  

“Is it alright if I come in?” he questioned.  

Your smile became wider as you nodded.  “Of course you can.”

Bucky began going through some of the boxes, taking out your funko pops and handing them to you as you put them up on your shelves.  The two of you worked together quickly; box after box disappearing out of your room. Before you knew it, everything was unpacked.

You took a look around the room, happy with the way everything turned out.  It was perfect and you couldn’t wait for your first night that you would be live streaming.  

“Thank you for all of your help tonight Bucky.  I really appreciate it,” you beamed.  

Bucky was standing right in front of you and it was the first time you realized just how large he truly was.  He was so close to you and his smell was impeccable.  He smelt of the forest, of woods and pine and cinnamon and you wanted to taste every inch of him.  Luckily for you, he had the same idea.  

His hand cusped your cheek as he leaned down and connected your lips together.  As cheesy at is sounded, it was as if fireworks were lit off the second your lips connected.  His lips were just as soft as Steve’s and you craved every bit of him.  

Gripping the hair at the nape of his neck, he teased your lower lip with his tongue and you opened hungrily for him.  Your tongues tangled together and it was such a wondrous feeling, you didn’t want it to end. His metal arm snaked around your waist, pulling you close to him and you could feel his erection through his pants.

Your core grew wetter by the minute as you placed your right hand on his ass, wanting to feel all of him but just like Steve, he pulled away.  The two of you were gasping for air; each other’s breath fanning your faces.

Bucky smirked at you, his eyes searching yours before he spoke.  “Let’s go grab some dinner doll.”

As he pulled you out of your room, you couldn’t help but smile.  First, because you finally kissed both of your soulmates and damn were they amazing kissers.  And second, you were easily turned on by just their gentle kisses; no violet fantasies were running through your mind.  Maybe, just maybe you would be able to have a normal sex life with them at one point. Right?

[saby-chan]

Why the ATLA comics fail when it comes to Zuko and his family

To whom ever took their time to actually stop and read this post, thank you in advance for not skipping my post and willing to stay and read my humble opinion! I hope I won’t disappoint you!

As a relatively newcomer to the ATLA fanbase since 2020, I’ve come across a lot of interesting debates, comments and rants about the show, characters and fandom in general, but nothing has captivated me as much as the dumpster-on-fire that are the ATLA comics, more specifically: The Promise and The Search. 

On one hand we have the hardcore fans who want them to be animated or serialized into the Netflix live action, praising the comics for the new views and subject matters they’ve brought into the show’s lore, while on the other hand we have the furious Azula fandom who is really angry for the fact that best girl didn’t get the redemption arc she rightfully deserved so much after the painful event that was the Last Agni Kai and the even more angry fans of the Urzai ship (yeah, the people who actually ship Zuko’s parents unironically) who hated the retconning of the show’s cannon since the comics basically took a huge fat dump on what was previously established as official cannon, when the Search entered the scene, but between these two sides, who has the more valid point? In the end, are the comics good cannon or bad written fanfiction?

Well... Here are my two cents on this matter since I myself happen to be an Azula and Zuko fan and had huge expectations from these comics (since I wanted more from my fave hot-headed fiery siblings duo) but ended up disappointed: the comics are indeed a huge mess and actually bad written fanfiction when it comes to Zuko and his family! Don’t click off yet, because I actually documented the reasons why exactly the comics fail in this area:

1. The author of these comics is not part of the BryKe duo

Yes, I would like to start with the fact that if you actually take a second to look up who in the heck took the time to write these two books, you won’t find Bryan, nor Mike, but a fellow man named Gene Yang. This is important because while the wiki of both The Promise and The Search state BryKe as the creators, that doesn’t mean that they were the actual minds behind these comics, but rather because ATLA is their “baby” and these comics involve their characters, over which they have copyright. Mr. Yang here is the actual brain behind the plot, as the main writer, which explains why we find huuuuge inconsistencies between the show lore and the comics, especially Zuko wise.

My main issue with Mr. Yang isn’t that he isn’t BryKe specifically, but because he did an unforgivable mistake in his writing process: He projected himself into Zuko’s character, based on the relationship Zuko had with his father. This is a documented fact from an interview in which he explains that he sees himself and his dad’s relationship into Zuko and Ozai and used that when writing their interactions and built Zuko’s character in the comics. And this is wrong because when you have an already very developed and complex character such as Zuko, you can’t just come in and be like “Oh, I was an angsty teen just like him in my teenage years, fighting with my dad and whatnot, so he must have the same thought process as me!”. NO! This is bad fanfiction writer behavior! Zuko has his own personality and philosophy, which he developed over the course of 3 seasons and is not defined by only 1 unfortunate aspect of his past, so you can’t just base his whole mindset and actions off of your own personal experience just because you had the same daddy issues he had!

2. The whole “Promise that you will kill me if I turn out like my dad!” nonsense in The Promise

Reason number 2 why these comics fail and go under the category of “bad fanfiction” is because they fail to convey the core essence of the source material. The whole point of Zuko’s redemption was that he realized the wrongdoings of his ancestors and his own mistakes. He outgrew his desire of gaining his father’s acknowledgement in favor of choosing his own destiny. Having him worry that he’ll turn into his father is utter nonsense and feels like poor angsty drama material for the sake of angst. At this point in time, Zuko has overcame that obstacle in his life a long time ago and should be at the level where he himself is the “Uncle Iroh” for other people and in no way someone concerned of becoming their own worst enemy!

Not only that, but the whole point of Aang’s journey and the story of the show as a whole was to teach us, the viewers, the importance of forgiveness, empathy and love in life. Aang didn’t spare Ozai, aka “the ultimate evil” just to flex in front of his pals or because he is a “ 12 y/o vegan pacifist monk kid”, but because he knew that killing someone, no matter of what they did or wanted to do, wouldn’t restore balance into the Universe, on the contrary, him killing the villain would have meant perpetuating the “endless cycle of hate” that plagued the world. So having Aang promise to kill his best friend in case “they turned into an evil maniac like their dad” contradicts Aang’s whole character and it’s a nonsense that throws into the trash what we’ve learnt throughout the entire TV series.

3. Azula deserved (and was supposed) to have a redemption ark

This might still be pure speculation, but I count it as a documented reason because I’ve heard quite a few people saying that there should’ve been a book 4 in the show, aka “Book 4: Air”, and no, it wasn’t The Search, but actually Zuko and Azula’s journey as Zuko helps his younger sister heal her broken mind by being her very own “Uncle Iroh”. Sure, they prolly were going to end up looking for Ursa, but the journey should’ve ended with them actually being happy and a family again and not the bs we got in The Search where a still very unstable Azula runs away and becomes the “Next Joker”! The only problem is that M. Night had to pop up and curse the world with his movie, which forced BryKe to delay the project (and eventually abandoned it in favor of Korra).

All in all, either if BryKe had this preplanned or not, it made sense for Azula to get a redemption ark, she deserved it because she was just a broken 14 y/o child! If Katara’s mom’s murderer deserved to be forgiven, so did this poor child who had no fault for what happened to her since she had a dysfunctional family! What Gene Yang did in his poorly written fanfiction was to just antagonize a broken child, turning her into a monster for the sake of friggin angst!

4. The Search is the worst of the two, being flat af character wise

And finally, getting to the point that I personally find the most annoying about these comics: The Search. This one... This one is a mess on a hella lot many levels, and just to list a few: characters are flat as fudge, being either black as vanta black (like Ozai and Azula) or pure white like Gene’s Gary Stue OC, Mr Ikem (or how I like to call him, IKEA man) and his ‘victim’ rendition of Ursa, Azula gets to suffer more for no reason (see reason number 3 to why I find this as a no no), Ursa’s whole character sucks ass (man, I could write a whole thesis on why Yang’s version of her is terrible and doesn’t match the strong woman we got in the show) and Zuko does morally wrong stuff (my man literally used his unstable sister to bribe their dad into spitting info about Ursa... Show Zuko would never do that!;-;)

Oh boy, as a person who’s seen a ton of anime and other media and read many books, I can’t begin on how much I despise this type of writing: flat characters are the worst!

 ATLA characters in the show are nothing close to being flat! What I mean by that is that none of them fall perfectly into pure white (aka goodest of good characters with no imperfections) or vanta black (aka lowest and darkest twisted monsters out there), each of them are various shades of grey (like Aang who is a very light grey because despite being a very kind and nice character, he still isn’t a “perfect hero” since he ran away from his duties, practiced tax fraud with Toph, had insecurities and even threatened to kill people on ocassions like with the sand benders who took Appa) and this is a good choice because that prevents them from becoming what’s globally known as Mary Sues and Gary Stues (aka those either “perfect” characters with no flaws and/or unlimited power, or the twisted monsters full of flaws).

And the other reason why many other people hate The Search: it literally negates previously established cannon. And here comes my short essay on why this comic fails Zuko’s family (since we’ve already talked enough about Zuko himself).

In cannon and even interviews with BryKe, it was clearly stated that Zuko’s family was “once happy”. Where is this “once happy” family in The Search? All I see is pain, deception, lies and betrayal, nothing close to anything that resembles happiness. Okay, some of you might come in and say that “It’s because it was never the case! It was only lies and Zuko trying to convince himself that he didn’t live in hell forever!” and here is WHERE YOU WERE ALL WRONG! And why? Because, my dear fella, where were depicted the flashbacks of Zuko’s “happy family” in The Beach? Ember Island. And what do we know and had been even quoted in the show?  "Like waves washing away the footprints on the sand, Ember Island gives everyone a clean slate. Ember Island reveals the true you." (direct quote from the show). Exactly, no matter who you are or how hard you try, you can’t hide your true self when you are on the Ember Island, best example being Azula, who’s impenetrable though shell cracked and revealed the true vulnerable child that was underneath. If Azula couldn’t resist the “spell of the island”, no one can. So this means that Zuko’s family was indeed happy once and yes, Ozai wasn’t always the douchebag we got to know in Season 3 (I have a whole nother essay on my theories regarding what could be his real past story and why he’s actually the “Zuko” of his generation, based on stuff I gathered from old wiki entries and character analyses I made, but that’s for another time, lemme know if ya’ll are interested).

And what I guess is the biggest proof why The Search did this family’s past trash is comics Ursa herself. My dude, if this woman were indeed the victim of years of endless abuse and never loved her husband, I guarantee you that she would’ve been closer to what we saw in Todoroki’s mom from BNHA and Zuko would’ve gotten that scar or even worse long before the Agni Kai, not from his “daddy dearest”, but from “mommy dearest” herself, because no sane woman would be soo affectionate and attached to a child that’s the perfect copy of their abuser, sepecially appearance wise (again see Todoroki’s mom’s case from BNHA because the stories are really similar) and in no way would’ve she been willing to sacrifice her life for said child’s sake. With this ocassion, I remind ya’ll folks that according to the ancient ATLA cannon wikis on Nick’s site, Ozai was designed with Zuko’s appearance in mind, being meant to be like a “grown up scarless version” of Zuko. So yeah, remember this with a grain of salt that whenever you simp over grown up Zuko, you involuntary simp for Ozai too.

So yeah, I guess this kinda concludes my “not so short” rant about why the comics fail and are bad fanfiction. Lemme hear your thoughts in the comments and if you agree, feel free to leave a like and even reblog.

Bye bye and remember that Momo is the true strongest character of the show!

 Saby out.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

25, Vivi to Arthur, post-reunion? :3c

25. “I’m going to ask you how you are and I would like you to answer me honestly.” (source)

Vivi watches from the couch as Arthur paces across the room for what feels like the hundredth time that day. She's not technically allowed to do much walking, between the concussion and the large gash in her side and the memory-fuzziness that's still making her feel faint at random times, so she's been stuck letting other people – mostly Arthur, if she's being honest – bring her things while she struggles to read over her notes about what the hell has been going on. She feels more than a little restless, but it's better than falling and hitting her head again.

The ghost– Lewis is off somewhere, probably in his room (his room, he has a room in this house because he was their friend– ). Trying to sort through his own side of this mess, freshly freed from his own memory problems. The only source of activity in the house is Arthur, who she's pretty sure hasn't stopped moving since he woke up.

–Actually, has he even gotten any sleep? None of them slept the night after everything that happened, there was too much to do and talk about and it would've only been a few hours' worth anyway, but the night after that, Vivi had crashed pretty hard, and she'd assumed he had too. Now that she was thinking about it, though, it... didn't seem very likely that he'd just gone to bed and been fine. It was much easier to believe that he'd pulled another all-nighter.

And now he was spending another day running around, trying to do repairs on the van and intermittent checkups on his arm and cleaning the house (because honestly it had been too long since they’d actually cleaned, they’d been too busy investigating) and grabbing things for her and making sure Lewis was still doing okay.

She closed her eyes briefly, biting back a sigh. You did it, she thought bitterly. You found Lewis and brought him home, and everyone's safe and the only thing left to do is let the dust settle and you still can't let yourself relax.

From behind the darkness, she heard him say as if on cue, “y’doin’ alright, V-vivi? Any- anyth-thing I can get you?”

She forced her eyes open, inhaling. “M’fine, just tired.” Then she blinked at him.

She wouldn’t be surprised if he’d been actively trying not to look at her, just so she couldn’t see what she was seeing now. The dark bags around his eyes, the pale cast to his face, the bruises on his cheek from– who knows, crashing the van or either of the long falls or getting tossed around by the monster that had taken over Mystery. For the first time, now that she was actually looking, she wondered if there were more bruises she couldn’t see. It seemed likely.

And even if there weren’t. The ghost– his friend– Lewis had almost killed him, and then he’d been chased and knocked around by a monster from his nightmares – and he’d spend the past few months running on fumes, barely sleeping or eating.

It had happened so slowly that she hadn’t noticed at the time, but he almost looked more dead than the ghost now. Like something had hollowed him out, drained him of all his life. He should be resting, as much as he could, not running around trying to make sure everyone else was okay.

All that went through her mind in just a few seconds while she stared at him, as he stacked up the cups and towels she’d left on the table. As he was standing up again, she finally decided to say something.

“Actually... can you sit down with me? Hang out?”

“...what f-for?”

“Just... I wanna have some company. For a little bit.”

“O-oh. Uh- I should really-” his eyes darted around the room, tension building in his shoulders. She could practically hear his internal debate – he wanted to do what she asked him to, but he didn’t want to stop moving – and it just made her heart ache more. Eventually, one side won, and he set everything back down.

“I-I guess? Just for- f-for a little- a little while.”

She waited for him to get comfortable next to her. He couldn’t seem to settle down and stop fidgeting, his eyes continuing to dart around the room. Eventually he focused on the books on the table.

“S-so- uh- how is this go- going? Do-”

She touched his shoulder, lightly tugging him back into the couch. “Arthur.”

He gave her a wide-eyed look, pulling back a little, his shoulders hunching forward. “Y-yeah?” 

“How are you doing?”  

“Fine.” The answer was almost immediate and very confident-sounding, which would have been nice if it wasn’t obviously entirely false.

She took both his hands in hers, putting them in his lap and forcing him to focus forwards, on her. “Okay. Let’s try that again. I’m going to ask you how you are, and I would like you to answer me honestly.”

He took a deep breath, seeming to shiver a little. “A-alright?”

“How are you?” 

“F-fine! I mean- I’m a little tired but- but I- I don’t-” his voice snagged and he broke out of her hold to put one hand on his face, shoulders shaking suddenly with a quiet “shit.” He sniffed and tried to start over, shaking his head, but it was increasingly less convincing because he couldn’t stop crying.

She leaned back and shifted, slowly, carefully, to ease him into her side. It took him a minute to accept, and then he leaned in and buried his face in her shoulder. She put her arms loosely over his shoulders, careful not to entirely encircle and trap him.

“I don’t-” he tried to say after a moment, “I’m s-s-sorry, I-”

“Don’t,” she said, trying not to let how much that hurt show in her voice. “Don’t apologize. It’s okay. You did great. Everyone’s safe, you don’t need to do anything else, just relax.”

He shuddered with a soft whine in her arms, and she pulled him in a little more.

After a while, he went quiet – not that he made a lot of noise when he cried anyway, but his breathing evened out – and she realized he’d fallen asleep. He was finally resting.

A small movement in the corner of her eye, and she turned to see the– Lewis standing there.

“Hey, Lew,” she said without thinking, and then was surprised a half-second later by how relaxed and easy the greeting was.

He seemed almost at a loss for words, looking at her and Arthur in turn. She had no idea what he was thinking, but she forced herself to not immediately assume the worst, that he was jealous or angry about it.

“You look... comfortable,” was what he eventually said. His voice was soft – maybe with some emotion, or maybe (more likely) he just knew he had to stay quiet or he’d probably wake Arthur up. Honestly, it was impressive he hadn’t the second someone new entered the room. He must be exhausted.

“Actually,” once again her mouth was moving before she processed the words, and she decided to just go with it, “do you think you could help me move him? This probably isn’t the most comfortable spot to take a nap.” Much as she would have liked to just carry him to bed herself, she was in no shape to lift anything heavier than a book.

“Oh- ah- sure.” He floated forward and knelt, easily scooping him up. She saw his hand move towards her for a second, and then he seemed to think better of it.

She reached out and took it, following him and leaning on him slightly as he stood.

He just stared at her for a moment. His eyes were wide, brow slightly creased. “...Vivi-”

“Shh,” she cut him off, “this is a very delicate operation.”

At that, he ducked his head slightly, the corners of his eyes crinkling with what she knew was shoved-down laughter. There was a small twinge in her chest at the sight, like long-dormant butterflies.

...Maybe she could get used to this again, after all.