#like..it took me a year and half to start using a program where i could Colour In The Lines aka the..whatever it's called. whatever..

[lunarharp]

pretty & cute witch men

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

"Do you require assistance?" Phantom perked up at the mans voice. Red Robin was the guy multiple ghosts had recommended to him even though he was still alive. Okay, so they kinda did it in a half joking manner, but Phantom was desperate!

The nine year old came out from the shadows and could immediately feel the man in front of him cataloging everything about his appearance. Wierd. But he had dealt with Weirder. Besides, he was glowing, so he guessed the human had a right to be curious. "I heard you were really good with machines."

Red Robin looked somewhat tense, like he was ready to fight if need be. Why does everyone wanna fight him? He's nine!

Phantom quickly brought out a little silver sphere with an OwO face from his bag and quickly began speaking, "This is my friend Livvi, she started acting wierd a while back and I haven't been able to fix her."

To his credit, Red didn't attack him. He just looked gobsmacked. "You came out to Gotham, in the middle of the night and tracked down a vigilante to ask for tech support?"

"Livvi is different!" He fumed, "She's my friend!"

A sigh escaped from the mans lips and Phantom looked up to see him pinching the bridge of his nose, "Okay, you're probably not going to go away until I fix her. Just promise me you'll try to be safer."

Phantom hummed as if contemplating, "I'll try."

With that, the vigilante took Livvi from him and began working on her from the blanket Phantom had laid out. Red Robin began to look more and more curious about Livvi as he worked on her. He even took out one of Livvis ectoplasm powerbanks to examine it more thoroughly. "Can you explain to me what problems she's been having?"

The kid bit his lower lip, clearly worried about the little robot, "Shes having trouble maintaining flight and producing shields. Her speech sometimes comes out glitch or warped despite me not finding anything wrong with her voice box or programming. A few times she's just turned off mid flight and dropped."

The man looked thoughtful for a few seconds before asking, "Have you ever heard of the Lazarus Pit?"

"I've heard of Lazarus, but I don't know what it is. I've only ever heard of it in passing. Why?" The ghost was genuinely confused by the change in topic

"Can I text a friend about this?"

"I don't see why not. The more help Livvi gets the faster she'll get better right?" The bird wasted no time activating his coms and whispering into it telling some unknown people about "an unknown glowing meta child with futuristic tech that runs on Lazarus water"

Within the next ten minutes a guy dressed as a bat landed on the rooftop alongside a boy around his age dressed like a trafic light and scowling as if he had just been told that he was grounded from ever having ice cream again. The big goth dude introduced himself as batman and offered him a lollipop. "I'm not supposed to take candy from strangers." Phantom said seriously, "Unless its Halloween."

Batman...well he didn't smile exactly but he didn't seem angry. "Do you know where you're parents are?"

"No. But thats okay. They don't like me."

Batman maintained a cool pokerface, "why don't they like you?"

"I don't remember. I think I knew when I was older-"

"Older?" The other boy interrupted, "Is this not your true age?"

Phantom pouted at him, any hopes he had of making a friend he didn't construct himself were flung out the window, "Yeah, but I don't remember it. Appearently I ate a time god and lost six-ish years from absorbing his powers."

There was a beat silence, then: "You ate a time god?!" Red Robin looked horrifed

"In my defense, I have no memory of what was happening at the time. All I know is that the place i used to live is in ruins and I'm dead."

[yuyan]

To my darling

A/n: Merry Christmas and have a happy new year! I hope you enjoy it @pavo-ocell-me! This was a very fun event that I loved taking part in @2023gisecretsanta

Pairing: Lyney x gn!reader

Tags: Pure fluff! Modern au, implied school/college setting, penpals, pre-established relationship, reader is learning French, where reader lives doesn't have snow, one curse word just one ^^

"Take intermediate French they said. You'll be fine they said," you muttered to no one in particular as you read the Google translation over and over again. "My French teacher is going to kill me."

You rubbed your eyes, peeking out of makeshift pillow your arms made. Standing tall at the front of the class with a booming voice was your French teacher. She held a small, clear glass jar with folded bits of paper inside in one hand while placing a stack of letters on her lectern with her other.

"Speaking with natives is an excellent and necessary way to develop your language skills (unlike this soon to be 30 minute speech) so due to the cancellation of the exchange program for this year and the long dragged on meeting, we have decided to give you all pen pals!" she announced. Her arms held a wide stance, awaiting for something you were unaware of.

Some whispers and small squeals echoed through the lecture hall. Others groaned and put their head on the desk, waiting for celestia, perhaps even an archon to take them. You did neither.

"I wish I could turn back time," you sighed. After contemplating for an hour whether your teacher would ever find out that you used Google translate to write half your letter or not, you started handwriting it on a stack of fancy paper you really shouldn't have been able to afford. "Shell never know. It's not like he can tell her anyways."

As you dragged your pen along the piece of paper, you remembered the speech about how necessary this was, the small piece of paper you pulled out of the bag and the letter that came with it. With a small smile playing on your lips, you signed off and stuck the small paper that read "lyney" just below your name with a paper rainbow rose you made yourself. It had its imperfections but it's similarity to the fresh ones he sent you left you content.

"Oh my god why did he reply so fast?" you asked yourself. Not even 3 days later and you received another letter from lyney. You traced the grooves of the red wax seal made you shiver. He wouldn't ever know you used google translate right? With pursed lips, you opened it. Perfume immediately muddled your senses as you opened up the envelope. Your peers hadn't even sent their first letter, let alone receive their second.

As you skimmed over the letter, you took down some notes like where he's from–which was so uncessary–what he likes to do and some of his contact details. You hummed, giving yourself imaginary pats on the back for reading a whole three sentences before typing the other two paragraphs into Google translate. You really needed to switch classes, desperately.

It was only then you spotted that a sentence in french came out the same in the translation. "You really shouldn't be using Google translate for these letters," written at the very bottom. Well fuck.

"You are friends with your penpal? Well that's lovely (name)," your French teacher clapped with bright sparkles in her eyes. It blinded you for a second and you had to look away before you lost the ability to see forever.

Instagram

(potato_name):lyney sent a reel.

(potato_name):lyney sent a picture.

(potato_name):lyney sent you a mes...

I didn't use Google translate for this one. Are you proud of me? You wrote at the bottom before slipping the letter into its envelope and sealing it with the new wax stamp set you bought recently.

You rushed back home. You winced at the clatter of your laptop in your bag hitting the floor, deciding it was a problem for future you. Ripping open the envelope and skimming through the letter, you read at the very bottom 'I am proud of anything you do, mon Cheri."

A smile broke out onto your lips as you neatly kept it away in a small box your mother got you from Fontaine when you were little. The small box was made of white marble with gold outlining its edges and gathering in a few swirls in the middle where the golden clasp rested.

The Sun shone brightly despite it being the middle of December. Rays of Sunlight squeezed through your closed curtains and you wondered if it was snowing in Fontaine right now. Did Lyney like playing in the snow?

Letters became less and less frequent as your peers lost motivation in writing long drawn out of paragraphs with nothing but small talk. A year and a half had passed yet your teacher held a strong morale despite the head of languages not enforcing this penpals program anymore. Even they must have gotten tired of the back and forth.

A few days until Christmas holidays. Opening your phone, you checked to see if lyney had texted you anything. Nothing...

Your eyes kept glossing over your texts from Friday 11am. Its been a week. Pictures of him and his two siblings who added you back on Instagram. Even Lynette had texted you today, showing some new tea she bought from inazuma last week.

Lynette

My brother has been writing non-stop for the past few days. Are you guys still doing the penpals thing?

You

No, maybe he is writing to someone else?

Your stomach dropped as you reread your message. "Writing to someone else...I need fresh air." You took your phone and wallet and headed out the door.

"Where are you going?" your roomate called out but you were already heading to the lift. You ran your fingers through your hair, pushing it out of your face with a sigh. It shouldn't matter. It shouldn't matter but this is the fifth time you've checked your phone this morning and its been a week with only a read tag.

"I seriously need to ban myself from my phone."

Lynette

Oh...nevermind. I'll ask him then.

Sent Friday 10 : 39am

"The christmas carnival was so much funner this year," your friend said, laughing. Then one hiccup escaped from her mouth. And then another one. Until you and your other friend bursted out laughing. "Not funny!"

"Yeah yeah. I still can't believe (Name) won that plushie from that shooting stall," your other friend said. He tossed another chip in his mouth, after finally calming down from his laughter.

"I'm surprised too. Those games are typically so rigged, I mean did you see the look on the owner's face though?" you said.

Holding up the little classic brown teddy bear, you admired it at all angles. Its red bow had a little bell hanging from the centre, jingling as you walked.

Its silly smile matched yours and then you noticed it. The small teddy's bowtie resembled the one Lyney wore in one of the pictures he sent. And the small envelope the size of your palm that the teddy held was a real one made of paper.

"(Name)? Whats wrong?"

"Nothing! I just realised my parents wanted me back at 10 and well its 11 so I have to go," you said with a bright smile, "Bye!"

"You live in a dorm though?" your friend countered, "(Name)!" But you were already walking out of the festival gates.

Picking out the small envelope, you brushed your thumb over the grooves of the wax seal. The same wax seal that you used for the last letter you sent. Did he really get the same stamp?

A mini rainbow rose fell out. The vibrant colours provided a stark contrast to the humid summer night. One letter. Five words. I love you, Mon cheri.

Your eyes widened and you nearly dropped the letter, fumbling with it for a bit. Taking in the cool nighttime breeze, you looked up only to see the person you hadn't talk to in a week standing only a few metres away from you.

Lyney held a bouquet of vibrant rainbow roses in one hand and the other behind his back.

"How are you..?" You took as step back, your gaze falling to the floor then back up at him again.

"I told you I'm a magician in one of my letters didn't I?" Lyney started, "I would appear anywhere if it was to be with you."

[lilfatboy100]

Junk Food Addiction part 1

It didn't take long for you to stop wanting to gain clean. At 200 pounds, you had a thin layer of creamy fat on your body despite stuffing yourself all day every day. I warned you about health problems, which only flustered you, and I warned you about your early death, which you didn't care about. The next morning I woke up much earlier than you did and threw out all of your usual food, going to the store and replacing it with garbage. You woke up to the sound of greasy bacon frying in a pan and hurried out to the kitchen where two boxes of the biggest, heaviest donuts I could find were sitting at your spot at the table.

You quickly ate them all and happily accepted the pile of bacon I made for you as well.

"Gaining like this is so much better already!" you exclaimed, your stomach still rumbling.

You made your way to the fridge and found it filled with everything you dreamed about having: heavy cream, candy bars, fatty meats, soda, cake, and more, and when you looked in the freezer it was more fattening delights: all manner of ice cream and frozen food I would bake for you if you asked. You grabbed a tub of ice cream and sat down at the couch with it, quickly polishing half of it off in front of the TV.

Throughout the first day, you ate anything you wanted and everything I put in front of you, which led to your stomach gurgling and churning all the junk it wasn't used to as well as bloating. You paid it no mind, you were more excited that you'd eaten over 5000 calories in junk instead of 3000 in clean food easily.

In only a couple of weeks, you started gaining like a pig pumped full of grease, gaining 10 pounds in two weeks. You'd never had a gain that big before, and it pushed you to keep pushing yourself to eat past your limits every single day in hopes to keep eating more and more calories. Your gain eventually slowed down to three pounds a week, but you were still gaining steadily.

To keep your gaining up, I made you stay on the couch as long as possible each day, where all you had to do was ask and I'd bring you food, whatever and however much you wanted. You were very greedy and always asked me for food, so I brought it to you. Obesity found you very quickly, and you kept going further and further in the pursuit of more flab to play with when you got bored.

It worked and you blimped, swelling to 310 pounds over the next year. For Christmas, you met my family, who were fascinated at your appetite more than concerned at how fat you were. You had your first major health issue at this point, because you had been so lazy your leg muscles atrophied and were swallowed by fat, meaning you could barely waddle without wheezing. You took this as a reason to never move unless you absolutely had to, and the fact that you had finally grown too fat to do much of anything excited you.

I found out about two weeks later when I asked that you wanted to be *more* unhealthy than you were, and that you were excited to start having real health issues. You asked me to make you gainer shakes, the unhealthiest I could think of, so I came up with a sweet shake. It was made of sweetened condensed milk, corn syrup, heavy cream, ice cream, milk, sugar, and some soda to thin it out, and it was packed with unhealthy calories that would clog your insides. You loved to chug it as often as you could, and you started blimping again. You also asked to have all of your food fried and all of your drinks to have extra sugar mixed in, both of which I obliged to.

Your first doctor's appointment after you started gaining led to recommendations for weight loss programs, personal trainers, and diets to make you healthier again and to lose the pure fat you had put on.

"Ha! Like I'd ever lose an ounce of any of this lovely lard!" You said once we got in the car, slapping your belly.

You gleefully chugged two pitchers of sweet shake when we got home after glutting yourself on McDonald's on the way, finally sitting yourself down with a tub of ice cream while waiting for me to give you the plate of fried food you asked for.

When you reached 500 pounds in another year, you had diabetes, hypertension, and an early stage of fatty liver disease, as well as having atrophied and drowned your muscles in flab and bring barely able to move.

[astrodances]

"Now I've had the time of my life No, I never felt like this before Yes, I swear it's the truth And I owe it all to you"

This is a very, very special drawing for me. ✨

In September of last year, I watched Dancing With The Stars' "Step Into the Movies" special again, at the end of which they recreate "The Time of My Life" scene from Dirty Dancing. And that sent me on a nostalgia trip back to my high school theater days over a decade ago now, where the drama club accepted my idea to do a "Time of Our Lives" theme, and a performance for that song à la Glee. Mind you, I was mainly the stage manager/techie sort, but I did some scenes for the showcases, and participated in this song with my then-boyfriend, along with two other couples.

And while we were hanging out in the green room backstage, a friend took some pictures of us. Including the one that directly inspired this drawing of Webby + Lena.

This started out as a memory remix of that photo, after watching the DWTS special, because I thought these two lovebirds would be really cute subjects for it.

But once I got going, it turned into a love letter, for many things.

As part of the remix aspect of it, I now picture myself in Lena's spot in the photo, getting to have the short hair I wish I had had back then, and getting to wear a suit and tie! (Yes, in the original photo, I am wearing the dress and red bow Webby's sporting here, and I have long hair. 🙈 Though I will say here that the little heart necklace she's wearing is exactly like the one I had, too! :)) Drawing this was really cathartic for my nonbinary self. 💜

And as for Webby, in this remix, she represents someone that, in retrospect, I wish I had shared this moment with from back then. In many ways, she really was the Webby to my Lena. 💜💖💝

(Literally) beyond the subjects of this though, this is indeed very much a love letter to a lot of things, to passions. The background is pretty much a replica of the drama classroom wall we were in front of for the photo, at least as far as layout goes, with a few direct recreations of things that were on the wall and on the table there. Everything else was me being a passionate (theatre) nerd.

(Details (many details) of said nerdiness and alternate versions below the cut!)

I've included un-blurred and background-only versions (and a version with drop shadow lines on the girls, because why not? it's a cool effect!) below, but I just want to point out the details, because I'm so dang proud of this.

The posters/programs for The Phantom Blot of the Opera, Featherspray, Chickago, and My Fair Dewey are obvious duck-parody references to their real-world counterparts (with the latter being the exact poster they use in DuckTales, in Dewey's dream in "Nightmare on Killmotor Hill!" So thanks, Dewey! 😂). The Featherspray one was also included because Hairspray was one of the shows we did in high school! And lemme just say, creating theater posters is really fun!!

The MJ the Musical poster and the half-shown Notre Dame de Paris "Duckbill" right behind Lena's head are particularly special to me, since they (along with Phantom) are my favorite musicals, and getting to draw those two was especially fun!

The L'Orange Theater poster in the top-right is a bunch of duck easter eggs in one - the L'Orange Theater is mentioned and seen in the very first episode of DuckTales 1987, and of course, there's Aquarioon from DT17! Looks like it toured in Duckburg a long time ago. 😉

And the sheet music is the DuckTales theme! (Or at least the left side of it :P)

The "Congrats" card, calendar (the whale for upper half was my own touch), folder, page of random backstage stuff behind Lena's head (which includes little Star Trek and Darkwing Duck references), and golden "Theatre" card (with my old director's favorite quote) are directly from the photo (or at least based on what I could see through its blurriness 😝), as is the very edge of a cast photo in the upper-right. The purple note (totally not with any secret messages whaaaaat) below that, the certificate of excellence, and the little pride heart pins everywhere are little garnishes/dedications. 😊

The stage/theater diagram below the certificate is really cool, because that's a direct recreation (+ another hidden message) of a project a friend and I did for stagecraft back in our freshman year - I was even able to copy my own handwriting for the labels! 😄😂

The "Time of Our Lives" poster is a reference to the showcase I mentioned above that inspired all this, though the real-life poster looked very different, from what I remember.

The green bag below is sorta a nod to the secret pal exchanges we used to do during shows. 😉

And finally:

The Glittering Goldie show poster is me just having an absolute blast drawing her once again and coming up with something for her Blackjack days! And bonus - I'll be posting a gradient-only version of Goldie tomorrow! Really happy with how she turned out!

And the "All the World's a Stage" poster is me combining all of my theatre nerdiness with my passion for space and a good pun! 😁

ANYWAY...

I learned a lot with this drawing, about creating and about myself.

And I just had so, so much fun with it - it was all love, all passion, all happiness for this one. 💜💖💝

Wishing the same for all of you. ✨

Love, Astro 💜

[plentyoffandoms]

Yellow (Part 1)

wearer is willing to hug

Gwi-nam x f/Reader

Main Masterlist ♡ All Of Us Are Dead Masterlist ♡ Yoon Gwi-Nam Masterlist ♡ Jelly Bracelets Masterlist

Just like all my other stories, this has not been proofread, but please enjoy.

Am I late to this fandom? Oh hell, yes, but the show was so good.

Warnings: Some swearing. Nothing sexual yet

WC: 869

Gifs & photos do not belong to me. 1st gif @weputthefunin-funeral 2nd & 3rd gifs @dramastream

YN’S POV:

He is staring again.

Ever since I transferred to Hyosan High School a few months ago, I was used to being stared at, as I joined a month into the new school year.

Many people wanted to know where I was from. Why did I transfer?

Did I do something bad that made me have to transfer to a whole new school and leave my friends behind?

The answer was no.

My father got promoted and we needed to move for his job.

I quickly became old news and made friends. People stopped staring at me, except for one.

Yoon Gwi-nam.

"He is staring at you again." Jang-Mi said to me as she nudged my foot under the cafeteria table.

"I know. I can feel his eyes on me wherever I go."

"Maybe he likes you." Sun-Hee said as she nudged my shoulder.

Before I could say anything, Jang-Mi quickly said, "No shit."

The two of them started to bicker, and I ate there in silence, trying to wrap my head around what Sun-Hee said.

~

I wasn't really paying attention to what the teacher was even saying. I was staring out the window, playing with the bracelets that I had on my wrist.

Laughing silently to myself at the myth that came with these so-called sex bracelets.

They were a going away gift from my friend Ye-Rim. She knew I like to try and accessorise the school uniforms as much as possible without getting in trouble, of course.

"Just make sure no one snaps them." She said teasingly.

"Or what? I will have to do what that person says?" I scoffed as I looked down at the bag of jelly bracelets.

"Yes." She then on to tell me what the meanings were behind each of the colours.

I felt a tap on my shoulder, and I sat up straight and leaned back slightly to listen. "You are gonna get caught." Dal-rae, another one of my friends whispered to me.

I was gonna say something back, but I was called on by the teacher to answer a question.

~

I ran as fast as I could towards the school, but even I knew I wasn't going to make it on time, and that was going to be three demerit points.

Either way, I was gonna be late, so I decided to stop running and take my time, but I wasn't the only one.

Myung-hwan and his pathetic group of friends weren't that far from me, and that included Gwi-nam.

Who seemed to have a sixth sense of when I was close to him because he looked over his shoulder and I could see the half-smirk on his face.

He said something to Myung-hwan, who looked back at me as well and said something back to Gwi-nam that had the both of them laughing. Gwi-nam stopped walking, and the others continued walking.

I held my head up high and went to walk past him, but I didn't realise he had his hand out to grab my backpack until I was pulled back into his chest.

"Now, now, YN, where are your manners?" He tutted at me.

Gwi-nam's POV:

She raised her eyebrow at me. "What do you want, Gwi-nam?" She asked instead.

This is probably the first time I have heard her say my name. I mean, I hear it in my head as I think about her, but never once from her own lips.

"All I want is a hug."

She took a step back and looked me up and down, clearly confused.

"Why would I give you a hug? I don't even know you."

I figured she would ask that.

"You see YN when I saw those bracelets that you constantly wear under your jumper one day, I remember one of my older cousins mentioning them and said they were all a fad in North America when they did a student exchange program."

"They have no meaning." She tried to say.

"But they do. Now I would like a hug." I held the snapped, yellow bracelet up high for her to see.

YN gasped and looked down and saw that it was indeed gone from her wrist.

"Unless you want me to tell everyone that you actually had to come here because you got caught cheating on your exams at your old school."

"You are willing to tell some stupid lie just to get a hug? Why? No one else will touch you?" I could tell she was angry, but I stood my ground.

She looked like she was having an inner battle with herself, and she sighed and held her arms open and wrapped them around my waist, and I wrapped my arms around her.

The hug wasn't very long, but just as she was about to pull away, I made sure she heard me say, "You will be mine, YN." and I let go of her.

YN quickly turned to walk towards the school.

"Oh and YN?" She stopped and didn't say anything.

"Make sure to keep wearing those bracelets. I think you and are going to have fun with them."

Orange (<-Part 2)

[captainsophiestark]

Like Home

Klaus Mikaelson x Reader

Masterlist - Join My Taglist!

Written for my personal fic writing challenge for 2024, Sophie's Year of Fic! Featuring a new fic being posted every Friday, all year long :)

Fandom: The Vampire Diaries/The Originals

Summary: When a serious magical threat comes to Mystic Falls and puts Josie and Lizzie at risk, Caroline and Ric send Klaus' ex down to New Orleans to seek safe harbor for the girls with him. Or, what if Y/N went to New Orleans instead of Caroline, and Klaus was free to see them.

Word Count: 2,966

Category: Angst, Fluff

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

I chewed my lip as I stared up at the building before me. If this were any other situation, I would've turned on my heel and run by now. But there were two little girls, one on either side of me, who needed me to be strong. This was their best hope of being safe, which meant all of my stuff needed to take a back seat.

I took a deep breath, trying not to let the girls sense just how nervous I was, then started heading for the door to the bar. It was the middle of the day, so hopefully no one would mind me bringing two kids in with me.

Caroline and Ric had trusted me with Josie and Lizzie, and I refused to let them down. Some new supernatural none of us knew existed had come to town and, worse, had started going after the girls. So, I'd sat down with their parents, and we'd figured out a plan to keep them safe: take them to the bigger, badder supernatural who I used to know.

My eyes scanned the bar for the familiar face of Klaus Mikaelson, and after a moment, I found him. He was leaning against the counter talking to the bartender, and I was surprised he couldn't hear my heart beating out of my chest from here. I hadn't seen him in years, and I'd also rejected him the last time I saw him. But he was the best chance the girls had, so I was just going to have to hope he didn't hate me now.

I cleared my throat, shook my nerves off as well as I could, herded the girls into a booth where I could keep an eye on them, then turned to face the bar. I found Klaus already looking at me, his arms crossed and a curious look on his face as he leaned against the counter. A wave of emotions hit me at once, but I shoved back against the feeling, squaring my shoulders and putting one foot in front of the other until I stood in front of Klaus.

"Hello, love," he said, and my heart damn near stopped in my chest. I took a deep breath. "It's good to see you again."

"It's... it's good to see you again, too."

And it was. Most of my friends had been relieved when Klaus finally left town, and they'd freaked out the minute they found out he'd come back to see me. And at the time, I'd convinced myself they were right, and that it was better he was gone. But standing before him now, that slight smirk on his face, I realized I had really, really missed him.

"So what brings you to New Orleans?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. He looked past me to where the girls were playing a clapping game in the booth. "I take it it has something to do with them."

I sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, it does."

"And who's the father?"

Now it was my turn to cross my arms and raise an eyebrow.

"They're actually not mine. But I'd say you don't have a lot of room to judge, considering the reason you moved to New Orleans in the first place."

"Who said I was judging? I was just trying to gauge how jealous I might need to be."

I huffed a laugh, trying and failing to hide my smile by glancing at the ground. Nik grinned at me, and for just a flash of a moment, it was like nothing had changed between us since the last time I'd seen him.

But then I heard Josie and Lizzie behind me, and I remember why I'd come here in the first place. I sighed and met Nik's eyes again.

"I need your help."

His eyebrows immediately drew together, and he straightened up from the bar, taking a half step towards me. The intensity of his worried stare made my heart melt.

"What's wrong, love?"

"There's a new supernatural in town. Or a few new ones, I guess. We're struggling a little bit to deal with them, and they've made Josie and Lizzie their targets. Caroline and Ric are their parents for all intents and purposes, and we sat down and decided our best chance at keeping the girls safe is if I left with them, alone, and came to you."

"And whose idea was that?"

"...Mine. It... actually took a lot of convincing for Ric and Caroline to let me bring them to you."

A hint of a smile flickered across Nic's face as he huffed a barely audible laugh. His beautiful blue eyes met mine with the intensity I'd seen a thousand times for both good and bad moments, and it made my heart race.

"You will always be welcome here, with me. I'll keep the three of you safe."

Relief washed over me. I closed my eyes, taking a minute, and when I opened them again I found Nik still watching me intently. I thought he might lean in for a hug or a kiss or something else, but instead, he just gave me a small smile and nodded in the direction of the girls.

"Mind introducing me?"

The girls absolutely loved Nik from the first moment they met him, and he was nothing but sweet and patient and kind. He made a few absolutely ridiculous jokes that had them falling out of their chairs laughing, and had my heart melting all over again. We left the bar together, the four of us strolling through the streets of New Orleans as Nik led us to his home. He glanced over at me a few times with the roguish smile I'd come to love, and despite the fact that I'd come here on the run to protect the girls, I couldn't help enjoying this moment with him. In different circumstances, it might've just felt right.

"We're almost home, but I just had a thought," said Nik, his arm swinging back and forth with Lizzie's as they marched down the street together. Lizzie and Josie held hands, and I did the same with Josie, making us a little chain. I turned to smile at Nik over the girls' heads.

"And what's that?" I asked. Nik smiled at me, then turned his attention to the girls.

"My favorite ice cream place in the whole of the city is very close to here. Does anyone else feel like we ought to make a pitstop?"

"YES!" the girls screamed in unison. I laughed as Nik stopped abruptly, turning on his heel and then pulling us in the other direction.

"Alright, come on then!"

The girls cheered as they marched after him, and my heart soared as I followed along behind the three of them. I'd gotten to see Nik like this every so often in Mystic Falls, but a lot of our interactions were colored by whatever drama he and his family had going on with my friends and I. Being with him, like this, and seeing him being so amazing with the girls was seriously doing something to me.

"This place really does have the best ice cream," Nik assured me as we stepped inside and joined the line, the girls bouncing excitedly in front of us as we stood shoulder to shoulder. "Hope loves it."

"Hope... how is she? How's... how's Hayley?"

Nik smirked. "They're both good. We've had our rough patches, but Hayley and I have found our rhythm as coparents despite not being together."

I released a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding, and Nik laughed.

"Now look who's trying to gauge their jealousy."

I rolled my eyes, but couldn't hold back a grin all the same.

"Whatever. But... you're happy? Being a dad, and being here, and... and everything?"

The corner of Nik's mouth quirked up, but the smile didn't reach his eyes.

"Like anything, it's had its ups and downs. But I wouldn't trade Hope for anything in the world."

I nodded, and the two of us fell into comfortable silence as we worked our way through the line. The girls were ecstatic to try their cones, and Nik recommended his favorite flavor to me, which lived up to the hype he'd promised. The four of us wandered slowly the rest of the way to our destination, which turned out to be an absolutely massive compound in the middle of the French Quarter.

Nik pushed open the door and led us inside just as the sun began to set outside. I came to a stop in the beautiful open space just inside the front doors, staring around at it in awe.

"C'mon, love," Nik said gently, resting a hand on my back and guiding me in the direction of the stairs. "Let's get the girls settled in for the night."

I just nodded, putting my focus back on the girls as we followed Nik through the massive compound. He pushed open one of the many doors along the second floor, letting us into a bedroom with two beds. I even spotted a few kids books on the shelves to one side of the room.

I slid my eyes to Nik with a raised eyebrow, but he just shrugged.

"For Hope, and any friends she might decide to bring over when the time comes. No reason to not be prepared, especially since we have the space for it." The corner of my mouth tugged up into a smile, that warm feeling spreading in my chest again. "I'll bring a few of her pajamas in, they should fit these two alright."

"Thanks."

"Of course, love."

Between the two of us, Nik and I managed to get the girls settled down and in bed in under an hour. They'd had a long, tiring day, after all, and if I weren't practically jittering with nerves after the afternoon I'd spent with Nik I'm sure I would've been right behind them.

Instead, I found myself following him after we closed the door to the girls' room, going who knows where in this massive house in his new life since he'd left Mystic Falls. After a few moments, I couldn't really take the silence anymore, so I spoke up.

"Where are the rest of the Mikaelsons?" I asked, my voice thankfully even. "I'd expected to see at least one of the siblings by now."

Nik turned to give me a little smirk over his shoulder, and I hated that he could probably hear my heart race.

"They're busy with other things for the night. And Hope is with Hayley having a mother-daughter weekend away from everything. It's just us, tonight."

My heart sped up even more, although that shouldn't have been possible. After a moment, Nik led me into the kitchen and headed straight for the refrigerator. I took a seat at one of the high stools at the counter, watching him as he moved.

"I assume you still like hot chocolate more than most other drinks?" asked Nik without turning around. I smiled.

"Absolutely. I know it's been a little while, but come on Nik, I'm not a completely different person."

He paused to give me a smile over his shoulder, then continued in his hot chocolate preparations. I scratched at something on the counter while he worked, trying to get up the courage to talk about all the million things hanging in the air before us. Finally, I cleared my throat and forced myself to look up, watching Nik's back as I spoke.

"Thank you for this, by the way. For taking us in, even after... Well, even after I told to leave me and Mystic Falls."

Nik sighed, bringing our two mugs of hot chocolate over and setting them down on the counter before walking around to stand in front of me. We were barely an inch apart, but he didn't make a move to close the distance anymore. I'd set a boundary the last time I'd seen him, and he clearly had no intention of crossing it.

"I will always be here for you if you need me, love. If you seek me out for refuge, or to change your mind and take me up on my offer to show you the world, or even because I make the best hot chocolate in the entire world and you just can't live without it... I'll be waiting."

I stared up at Nik, a slight twinkle in his eye, as I fought to keep tears out of my own. He'd truly caused so many problems in Mystic Falls. My friends' dislike-to-hate of him made sense. But he'd always been sweet and funny, patient and kind and understanding, with me. If I was totally honest with myself, I'd been starting to fall in love with him before I'd decided to side with my friends and push him away.

"Don't cry, love. It's alright," he said, his eyes scanning my face. I hiccupped, the tears finally starting to fall, a combination of all the different emotions and stressors of my past few days coming together and overwhelming me at once. I'd held it together for the girls, but now they were in bed and taken care of, so I could safely fall apart.

I leaned forward, falling into Nik's chest, and he wrapped his arms tightly around me the moment I did.

"It's alright. You're safe with me."

That brought on a whole new wave of tears, not just for the stress of the day, but for everything I'd lost with Nik, too. He just held me tighter, rubbing soothing circles on my back as I let it all out, then slowly started to calm down.

I pulled back slightly once I managed to get ahold of myself. One of Nik's hands stayed on my arm, and he brought his other hand up to gently cup my face, wiping away a few of the tears with his thumb.

"What can I do, love? Tell me how I can help you and I'll do it."

I choked back another sob, this one turning into a half-laugh.

"You've already done enough, Nik. More than enough. It's just... it's been such a long day. I feel like I've been barely holding back a complete stress breakdown for like a week, and I always had the girls with me so I had to keep it together..."

"Well then, why don't we get you settled into a room so you can get some sleep, hm? We can always talk more in the morning."

Nik started to move to help me off the stool and up to bed, but I stopped him, hands resting on his biceps. He raised an eyebrow at me but didn't move away.

"No, Nik. I don't want to talk tomorrow, I need to say this. I... I love you."

Any hint of humor or lightness dropped off Nik's face, replaced by completely serious shock. My heart was racing out of my chest, and I knew he could hear it, but I pushed on anyway.

"I think I was falling in love with you before, and I didn't want to admit it to myself. But being with you here, now... it feels right. There are a bunch of powerful murderers chasing me, trying to hurt two kids whose parents have trusted me, exclusively, with their safety, and I'm in a strange city far from anywhere I've ever called home. But for some reason I just feel... happy. Happy to see you again, happy to spend time with you, about a thousand times calmer than I was without you. You feel like home, Nik, and I love you. I just... that just feels like something you should know."

Nik's eyes had been scanning and searching my face intently the entire time I'd been talking, the slightest hint of wetness gathering in his own eyes. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth once I'd finished speaking, and he brought his hand back up to cup my face, his thumb brushing lightly over my cheek.

"I don't think I've made it any secret how I feel about you, love," he said, voice soft and tender. "But in case you need to hear it again, I love you. Always and forever."

A few tears managed to sneak out and down my cheeks again, but this time I had a smile on my face. Nik's expression mirrored my own.

"Once... once all of this is over, do you think... well, maybe I could come back here. To New Orleans, once the girls are safe back home. That is, if... if your offer to follow you to New Orleans still stands from the first time you extended it?"

Nik beamed back at me. "I can honestly tell you that absolutely nothing would make me happier."

My smile grew to the point of pain as I stared up at Nik, a light in his eyes that I'd missed much more than I'd realized. I leaned forward just slightly, Nik mirroring my move as I glanced at his lips. One corner of his mouth rose higher in the troublemaking smirk that always made my heart race before he closed the rest of the distance between us, his lips meeting mine, soft at first and then with the same urgency pulsing in my heart.

I'd kissed him before, but it had always been tempered by concern for my friends, and about what they'd think. But this time, as fireworks exploded in my chest and thousands of butterflies took off in my stomach, I couldn't bring myself to care.

I was safe and happy in the arms of the man I loved, kissing him senseless. I'd missed out on a lot of times like this, but from now on, I didn't intend to let anything keep me from spending every second I could just like this, friends and insane supernatural threats be damned. Always and forever.

****************

Everything Taglist: @rosecentury @kmc1989

TVD/TO Taglist: @elenavampire21

[canonicallyobserving911]

Buck & Eddie: Eddie was M.I.A. and Buck was too.

The video above includes the scenes from S6 where Buck and Eddie were either missing or weren't mentioned even though they should have been.

During Season 6, Eddie was M.I.A. (missing in action) from several scenes even though he should have been present and Buck was either not mentioned or he was missing too even though he should have been present.

While I was watching 6x4 when it originally aired, I noticed Buck wasn’t on a call while the rest of the team was at work and as 6A progressed, it became a pattern.  For the duration of 6A and well into 6B, Buck’s or Eddie’s absences became even more noticeable and they were so prevalent that they were JARRING AND GLARINGLY OBVIOUS.  By the end of 6A, viewers were wondering what happened.  The showrunner (KR) said in an interview that they were trying new pairings which was fine but hindsight is usually 20/20 and when I started analyzing the scenes that didn’t include one of them, it kind of seemed like she may have been telling a half truth.  I mentioned how storylines and pairings were affected in a post I did in November 2022 but now I believe their absences or the lack of mentioning the other one was INTENTIONAL.

Buck and/or Eddie not being present bothered me and I wanted to know why but I didn’t research it until recently because of the way season 6 ended.  With the way TM (the OG showrunner) has been releasing and rereleasing photos of Buddie and Bathena for the last few weeks, I believed their absences in season 6 became too glaring for me to continue ignoring them.  For Buck and Eddie to be drastically removed from each other’s lives had to be on purpose and IMO, it was done so the audience would realize how them not being with each other didn’t make sense.  Let’s be real, regardless as to whether a viewer ships Buck and Eddie as a romantic couple, their presence in each other’s lives and the Buckley-Diaz family’s dynamic has become a staple on the show and when they’re not included, people notice.  Everyone knows how close they are so for them to be separated and viewers along with journalists writing about it was perplexing to say the least.

Before I delve into this, please understand these are MY OBSERVATIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS of the things I noticed during season 6, therefore, it’s ok if someone doesn’t agree.  Everyone interprets media differently so it’s ok for two differences of an opinion to coexist without someone trying to force their thoughts onto the other person.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

I believe it all started with the scene below when Eddie asked, “Buck!  Where the hell you going?” because their absences started right after it and they continued through the early part of 6B.

In 6x4, Buck was off work while Bobby, Chimney and Eddie were all at work but there was no explanation given as to why Buck was off.  Everyone knows Buck loves being at the firehouse especially since he filed a lawsuit to get back to the team after the ladder truck explosion (whether he was right or wrong in filing the lawsuit will not be discussed here.  It happened more than four years ago and I’ve moved on from it).  He wasn’t sick so it’s not like he used a sick day but maybe he used a personal day or he used some PTO time but either way, the audience wasn’t told why he wasn’t with the 118.

He went to Hen’s house to discuss Connor's request for him to be his sperm donor but since she was on leave, no explanation was needed for why she wasn’t at work.  Reminder, Buck wasn’t on leave so he could have gone to her house to talk to her after their shift ended but he didn’t.  His absence was noticeable especially since at the beginning of the episode, he was sitting at the other end of the table alone and away from the group while Eddie, Chimney and Hen talked about Eddie disciplining Chris for skipping his science club meetings.

In 6x5, Eddie took Hoover the dog to Buck’s loft but the audience didn't see it.  It was the only handoff that wasn't shown in CANON but the question is, why?  What was the issue with the audience seeing Eddie give Buck the dog ?  The only thing that makes narrative sense is they wanted viewers to not see it so they would notice.  Interesting!

In 6x7, Eddie didn't mention Buck at all when he told Felisa about Chris being lost in the Tsunami but once again the question is why?  Everyone who watched 3x1-3x3 knows Eddie took Chris to visit "His Buck" that day and Eddie showed Hen and Chimney a selfie of Buck and Chris while they were on a call. In the photo, Buck and Chris were at breakfast earlier eating pancakes.  Also, after the first wave hit, we know Buck saved Chris and they got separated so Eddie’s scene with Felisa was another glaringly obvious one where Buck wasn’t mentioned and it had to have been done for a reason.  Reminder, Eddie told Felisa “My wife died… and six months later my son was on the pier when the Tsunami hit.”  Well, Chris wasn’t there alone so 👀.

In 6x8, Buck was missing when Eddie and Chris were getting ready for Chris' first school dance. Carla was there but it was kind of off putting and it seemed like she shouldn’t have been the one Eddie was talking to the same way she shouldn’t have been talking to him in 5x10 when he was preparing to leave the 118.  If they didn’t want Buck there, then it could have easily been a father and son moment between Eddie and Chris especially since she didn't do anything but say she thought it was Chris' first crush after they went into the kitchen.  It was only one of the two episodes she was in for the entire season, so what gives?

Later in the episode, Eddie ended up telling Buck and the 118 about it anyway and based on Buck’s reaction, it's likely Chris had already told Buck about his crush (post linked here).

In 6x10, Eddie was present and at the firehouse while Buck and Chimney cleaned the fire engine and the ladder truck.  He was on the floor throwing a baseball with Hen.

But Eddie was missing from the call when a lightning strike hit the car and the woman gave birth but reminder, the scene happened after he was AT THE FIREHOUSE with everyone else.   It's possible he could have been man behind but the point is he was missing.  Also, why was he missing?  Buck helped Bobby with the baby and Bobby had to call Hen and Chimney over for assistance which means Eddie’s help as a medic was needed for all three victims but it was kind of like the show wanted him to be absent so the viewers would notice and we did.

In 6x11, Eddie was only in Buck’s coma dream at the beginning when Daniel told him the next time he goes up a ladder, he should have someone to have his back and Buck said he did.  Other than that initial interaction, Eddie WASN'T there and his absence was glaringly obvious.

In 6x13, Eddie was M.I.A. twice. The first time was after a call that he went to with Buck and Hen.  It was the one where the couple misplaced a "toy".

Chimney wasn't on the call with them but when they were leaving work and Buck was calling all the women he slept with to see if he satisfied them (which was 🙄 I don’t even have words), Eddie wasn't there but Chimney was.  But the question once again is why? Could it be the show was making a point since Buck had just had a conversation with a victim’s husband about an article he read that stated 80% of women aren’t satisfied by their partners (related post about Buck’s woodworking skills linked here)?

In 6x13, Eddie wasn’t at the loft while Buck and Chris were baking cookies and it appears to be a call back to 5x3 when AF was caring for Chris during the blackout (related post linked here).  Reminder, AF left a mess in Eddie’s kitchen but Buck’s kitchen was clean and organized while him and Chris were baking cookies for Chris’ whole class.  They even talked about cooking the steaks Buck and Eddie won while they played poker for dinner.

What was the reason for all of this?

Initially I, like many others was pissed at the lack of Buck and Eddie, Buck, Eddie and Chris and Buckley-Diaz Family scenes in 6A.  I’m still annoyed by it but like I mentioned above, hindsight is 20/20 so it’s possible the show was trying to get the audience to realize how important they are in each other’s lives by omitting them from specific and important scenes.

Did they do a good job of illustrating it?  NO!

They could have done it differently like a lot of other things but the season ended messily and by then it was too late to change it.

The point of this post is whenever Buck and Eddie are absent, it's noticeable and it can't be denied.  KR said they were mixing up the dynamics (related post linked here) but that can't be it because in 6x9 Hen ended up talking to her best friend Chimney about the way she was feeling about Denny wanting to meet Nathaniel after Eddie and Buck dropped off their four-way call, so she wasn't telling the whole truth.

Could their absences be a coincidence? No. Why?

Because in 6x7 Athena said she didn't believe in them and in 5x17 Karen said once is a mistake, two times is a coincidence and three times is a pattern.  Well, their absences happened more than three times so Buck and Eddie missing in action from each other's lives was a pattern in season 6 and it seems to have been done on purpose.

It appears the omittances of Buck and Eddie from specific scenes in season 6 was in preparation for season 7 but the question is, will anything come of them?  Who knows except for the showrunner (TM), the writers, producers and the actors and actresses so we shall see.

[mirai-e-jump]

TV Guide Dan, LDH Special Issue dan the Girls ft. Yuzuki Hirakawa Interview (translation below)

Publication December 1, 2023

-RESOLUTION-

"Hirakawa-san, you entered the entertainment industry after winning the Grand Prix in the vocal and dance category of LDH's, "LDH Presents THE GIRLS AUDITION" held in 2018. Please tell us why you took part in the audition."

Hirakawa: I've always liked LDH artists. I would go and see their live performances, and I watched "Weekly EXILE," a music information program that was being broadcast at the time. Then, I heard the announcement that they'd be holding an audition for female artists for the first time in a while. Before that, auditions had been limited to singing and dancing, but the auditions I attended included various categories, including singing and dancing, as well as acting and modeling. At the time, I wasn't interested in the entertainment world, but my parents and those around me recommended I do it, so I did it partially out of curiosity. However, as judging progressed, before I knew it, I won the Grand Prix…is how it felt. I like singing, but I didn't have any dreams of becoming a singer. After joining the agency, I took singing, dancing and acting lessons equally, and during those lessons, I decided to pursue acting.

"Winning the Grand Prix helped you in deciding to pursue a career in the entertainment industry."

Hirakawa: I was in my second year of high school when I won the Grand Prix, and I had to move from Kumamoto to Tokyo by myself, so I was determined, or rather, I felt I had no choice but to do it. The final stage of the audition was a training camp exam, where about 10 finalists spent a week together. While there, I met other kids who were seriously working hard to pursue their dreams, and I realized that I could no longer be half hearted in my efforts just because I had been chosen. However, when I made my debut as an actor in the stage play of "Moryo no Hako," I didn't know what to do or what was expected of me on the stage, so I just went along with things. It was only last year when I was cast as the role of Rita Kaniska (PapillonOhger) in "Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger" that I was able to proudly say, "My profession is an actor. Actually, before I was cast for the role…there was a time when I was wondering if it was okay to continue down this path, or if I should look for another one. That's why I was so happy when I was chosen to play the role, and thought I could continue as an actor. However, I was alittle anxious before the broadcast started. Rita is the king of Gokkan and the Chief Justice of the International Court of Justice, but their gender isn't clearly stated, and their face is almost invisible, being hidden behind their collar and hair. Since this type of character hasn't been seen in the Super Sentai series before, I couldn't predict what kind of reaction we'd get from the viewers. But thankfully, the positive feedback I've received since airing started has made me enjoy filming even more.

"We feel that characters who don't specify their gender are appropriate in the current era."

Hirakawa: I'm grateful to have been given such a role. I've always thought that my appearance, personality and voice were (gender) neutral, so I was happy to have landed the role of Rita. At first, Rita was a calm and quiet character who didn't say much, but as the story progressed, they're able to rely on others, and gradually become able to express their feelings in public. Slowly, their humanity and cuteness is showing, and I hope that my performance will make the character even more beloved.

"We feel like it's more difficult to express a character that changes gradually, rather than one that changes drastically, but do you find it difficult?"

Hirakawa: I'm not sure…personally, I don't find it that difficult. More than the changes of Rita in the story, I think the relationship between me and all the cast members were the biggest change. As filming progressed, the relationship between the cast members deepened, and I feel that we're able to understand each other. I think this naturally led me to express myself in the role. The atmosphere when Rita and their retainer, Morfonia (Hasegawa Kasumi), are together has also changed. Of course, this happened after the halfway point of the story, but it also reflects the fact that the cast members have become closer to each other.

"And now, "Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger Character Book: The Bonds Connected by Moffun and Racules?!" featuring Rita, Morfonia, and Hymeno Ran (played by Murakami Erica) is on sale. Please tell us your thoughts after looking back on the photo shoot and interview."

Hirakawa: In the TV series, Rita and Hymeno, and Rita and Morfonia are sometimes filmed together, but this is probably the first time that Hymeno, Rita, and Morfonia are together. This was the first time doing an interview with the three of us, so it was very refreshing. Rita is called the "Immovable King," a character with very few movements. So, there aren't that many posing variations, but Hymeno and Morfonia moved alot to add variety, so I felt thankful for that (laughs).

"In episodes 32 and 33 of the TV series, there was a collaboration with "Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger." You co starred with Shiono Akihisa-kun, playing the role of Souji Rippukan (Kyoryu Green), who also belongs to LDH."

Hirakawa: The day after it was decided that I'd be appearing in King-Ohger, I had work to do with Shiono-san, and when I told him, "I'm going to be your junior in Super Sentai," he said to me, "I know it'll be a tough year, but please do your best." He also said, "I hope we can work together again somewhere." At that time, I never imagined that I'd be able to work with Shiono-san in King-Ohger, so I was really happy when the collaboration episodes were announced. We only had one day of filming, but I was able to hear stories about the "Kyoryuger" days, and I was deeply moved by being able to appear in the same scenes for the first time. The collaboration episodes were directed by Sakamoto Koichi, who's famous for his action direction, and although we had to fight more enemies without transforming than usual, since I like action, it didn't bother me, and it was a valuable experience. I'm also working with Amano Kousei-san, another senior at LDH, who plays Grodie Leucodium starting from episode 30. Since Grodie is Rita's enemy, they have many scenes together. Amano-san is very considerate, lending us things to cool our necks when we were on location during the hot season. Also, he gets involved with me on Twitter, and is a really funny and friendly person. However, once he gets into his role, he completely changes, which I think is amazing.

"Since our magazine mainly features men, we'd like to ask what kind of men Hirakawa-san likes."

Hirakawa: Someone who's firm and flexible. When he messes around, he'll completely mess around, and when he talks about serious matters, he's serious. I'm the type of person who gets excited when I'm having fun, so ideally, I'd like someone who has the same enthusiasm as me, and to take the initiative and have fun doing whatever it takes, instead of being drawn away from me (laughs). Also, I think it's wonderful if he can say, "Thank you" and, "I'm sorry" for even the smallest of things, and if he cares about family.

"If you could be reborn, would you prefer to be male or female?"

Hirakawa: I'd like to be male. I used to play with my brother, who's 5 years older than me, and his friends, and I wanted to be a boy too.

"Well then, if you could be a man for one day, what would you like to do?"

Hirakawa: I wonder…(taking time to think), I guess I'd do some muscle training. If I can become a muscular man like Kaku So-san, my co star in King-Ohger, I'd like to go to the gym and train my muscles until he admits defeat! Kaku-san said he can bench press 120 kg (265 lbs), so I'd like to aim for that too and show off my muscles to everyone (laughs).

[jaemified]

through the window (21 days) - lee chan

“waiting 21 days isnt so bad if itll always end like this.”

pairing ; lee chan x fem!reader

genre ; fluff but pretty cheesy fluff, strangers to lovers, neighbors to lovers, not a smau but twt profiles are showed

warnings ; swearing, floods, isolation, separation, chans flirty (thats a warning in itself), reader has zero relationship experience

wordcount ; 2.7k

synopsis ; after a long series of floods, youre finally able to meet the boy across the street who had caught your eye throughout the long few weeks.

note - chan isnt an idol but minnie/soyeon are

note 2 - idk what chan is looking at in that pic

read below the cut !

DECEMBER 8, 2023

winter, also known as flood season.

the town where you lived in was already at a low altitude, so the bridge built to cross over the river to the other side of the street always had submerged during this time of year.

the thing that sucked the most about all this, was you were pretty much rained in for however long it takes for the water to drain with absolutely no way out.

so naturally, you all had came prepared.

your roommates minnie and soyeon never minded all the rain as they hated going in to work at the crack of dawn, yet you however, loved what you did. tutoring a kids after school program wasnt half as bad as the average person might think.

but, of course seeing as they were all a bunch of middle school kids, they could be a handful. you decided to listen to your friends and use these next few weeks to relax.

or, what you thought relaxing was.

“come on y/n! dont you wanna make strawberry shortcake with us?” minnie yelled at you over soyeons loud music while you studied over the next lesson plan for your kids.

“maybe later- i really wanna get a head start on these lessons.”

“seriously y/n?” soyeon murmured in slight disgust, “i seriously doubt the first thing those kids want to be thinking about is what they’re gonna do with their math tutor after a free half month.”

you shrugged and took a sip of your coffee before typing in the highlighted notes from the handbook into your computer.

“come on. youre not spending our one free break of the year like this again!” soyeon exclaimed as she snatched the book out of your hands, then closing your laptop before putting them both away in the cabinet under the tv.

“you know i can just get that myself right?”

“no, because i won’t let you.” she replied, locking the door and putting the key in her pocket.

“come on! im passionate about what i do, i dont mind it at all!”

“me and minnie are passionate about writing songs too, but even we know when its good enough to take a break.”

“okay i know i don’t work half as hard as idols do but i still have bills to come by! besides, corporate management demands i have the next lesson plan finalized before the end of the week!”

“corporates a bitch, they gotta be more mindful of how they treat their employees. like how do you be top tutoring company in the country and you still cant manage your employees the way they deserve?” minnie shouted in frustration.

“and dont worry about bills for now, we got it.” soyeon whispered to you.

“minnie- you realize cube is the same way to you guys right? and you work way harder then i do despite not getting the income you deserve.”

“yeah but we manage. we have a contract anyway. i know we’re passionate about what we do but we most certainly are not passionate about who we work for.” soyeon replied for minnie as she couldn’t hear over the sound of the blender (why was she using a blender again?)

you sigh soaking in how much pressure your friends are under at work, realizing you don’t even have it half as bad despite having a pretty shitty boss.

“how bout you find someone worth crossing an ocean for? itll be half as fun for us as itd be for you, since it’s in our contract we aren’t allowed to date.” minnie spoke after the whirring of the kitchen appliances died down.

“how.. we are entirely stranded until however long it takes for this stupid flood to drain.”

“do some stalking on insta. let’s find you like uh.. celebrity crush or ulzzang you can fan girl over or something.”

you scoffed in annoyance and slight disgust with your friends knowing you never really cared for any of that.

you decided to sit down at the bay window by the front door, scrolling through your phone before something outside caught your eye.

there you saw a guy across the way, sitting in his bay window just like you, he who seemingly just finished receiving a lecture from his friends.

you watched as he ran a hand through his fluffy dark brown hair, before he turned your way, your eyes locking.

immediately, it was part of your instinct to nervously turn away.

before slowly looking back, that is.

there you found the beautiful brown haired boy, still looking at you, with a golden smile.

your heart melted (but you thought you were having palpitations) when you saw him look at you so fondly.

what is this feeling?

you slowly raise a hand, and wave to him shyly.

he waved back, before forming a heart with his arms he held over his head.

you laughed quiet enough so your friends couldn’t hear you, but your facial expressions were bright enough so he could be aware he was able to make you laugh.

the boy laughed in response before he seemed to mouth something, but you weren’t the best at reading lips.

you tilted your head in confusion before he jokingly rolled his eyes, and saying it again, but slower.

“cu-tie.” you realized he said, or attempted to say.

“cu-tie?” you sounded out, making sure you understood right.

he nodded before pointing at you, his finger tapping against the glass, “cutie.”

he absolutely reveled in the way you smiled so brightly, the way your cheeks flushed pink and your eyes sparkled with excitement.

you didnt even realize how you were falling for his charms.

before you were even able to say anything back, his friend came up from behind him, attempting to drag him away, yet the guy was still persistent.

you watched how his friend started to get angry, so the guy rolled his eyes and stood up, walking away with his friend down the hall.

but not before waving back at you, blowing a kiss.

you got up from your seat before wrapping your arms around minnie, resting your head on her shoulder while you spared a small glance at whatever soyeon was watching in the living room.

“hmm? what do you need now my child?” she dramatically questioned, as she knew you only got clingy when you needed something.

“whos that guy that lives across the.. on the other side of the bridge? in that dark brown house with the black roof?”

“oh? house 133 right? thats seokmin, minghao, and.. what’s the other ones name? I always forget.. chan! yeah, chan.”

soyeon jumped up in surprise, pausing her show after hearing you pique your interest at a guy for the first time.

“why? you like one of them? which one? minghao? he was pretty well liked for a foreigner. he was in the same exchange program as minnie. ” she excitedly asked.

“w-what? no! i was just asking cause i saw one of them out there earlier.” you unconvincingly lied.

“oh she totally likes minghao.” “not even!”

“sweetheart, we aren’t as dumb as you think we are.” minnie pouted at you while she pulled away to put the cake in the oven.

you huffed in disbelief before going to take a bag of chips from the pantry, walking down to your room to finish the lesson plan. (on the laptop your boss lent you since soyeon took your personal one).

meanwhile, there you left chan, day dreaming about you all day long. he was so curious about you, yet he felt so stupid for crushing on some girl he’d never spoken to before.

not like he even could at this point, you were stuck in the middle of a flood, anyway.

“whats on your mind channie? you seem out of it.” seokmin asked while he blindly stirred the tteokbokki, turning to face the younger boy behind him, sitting at the kitchen island.

“its chan. whens he not out of it?” minghao chuckled, throwing a chip at his cheek, sliding to sit over at the stool next to him as he emerged from his bedroom.

“who lives in that white house on the other side of the bridge? isnt that where soyeon lives? we went to high school together.” chan half-mindedly queried, zoning out as he stared into the marble counters.

“yeah, why?” minghao responded.

“did she move out or something? there was another girl there and it wasnt soyeon or minnie.”

“oh, you mean y/n? she graduated a year before you or something, but at another school. we used to work at the same tea house before she left for that tutoring agency.”

“y/n? sounds vaguely familiar. i think i remember seungkwan mention her being in his class.”

“why are you mentioning her all of a sudden? you never cared for girls.” seokmin teased with a wide smile.

“oh come on. you know he’s quite the flirt.” minghao playfully cooed at chan, dramatically waving his hand back at seokmin.

“you two are insufferable.” he groaned, banging his head against the counter.

you found yourself up at night, scrolling through twitter before you decided to search for the guy you ‘met’ today. minghao, was it?

‘xu minghao’ was what you had entered into the search bar, clicking on the top result.

‘myunghoez’

‘huh.’ you thought to yourself. so it couldnt be him, but seokmin didnt seem to have an account as you searched for his name.

you looked up chans name next, thinking maybe,, that there could be a chance it’s him. his profile picture was technically him, but not, him. but in your defense, how could you tell who was who if chans profile picture was a baby picture?

though you knew youd never hear the end of it from her, you decided to ask soyeon.

“do you have a picture of chan?”

“yeah hold on. its just an old screenshot from an old tweet though.” she mumbled before pulling up her phone to show you.

‘wow.’ you thought to yourself, ‘so this really was the guy i met today.’

before soyeon could ask any questions, you quickly thanked her and ran back to your room before posting a small something in reference to what minnie had said to you earlier.

days, weeks, went by of you and chan interacting through the window despite never seeing each other up close, or ever hearing the others voice.

but despite being isolated from separately, you still had fallen for one another nonetheless.

you loved the way you would feel butterflies in your stomach whenever he made a heart with his hands for you, and he absolutely adored the way you in the end would just make a big sign telling him what you wanted to say when you gave up on trying to get him to read your lips.

of course the flood had its downside, i mean being stuck with the same 2 other people for almost a month definitely takes a toll on you, isolation definitely can get depressing with no way out.

but in the end, it had its upside as well. you were able to meet a great guy despite never technically talking face to face, having only lip reading to communicate (why didn’t you think of social media?). not to mention you were able to put more time into a forgotten passion after all of your energy being used up as a tutor.

marine animals.

you and chan had technically discussed the idea of possibly having a first date when you get out of here, yet you still hadn’t decided where you’d go or what you’d do seeing as you both were pretty passionate about different things.

chan had always loved the stars, you had always loved marine life. but, you decided you would finalize a date night once you both get to meet face to face.

DECEMBER 29

after a long 21 days of disappointment, spending christmas without your family, 3 going on 4 weeks of crazed loneliness, you finally woke up one morning to find the overflowing river, drained, and to its regular level.

you were able to see the bridge once more and though the wood might be rotting, you just couldnt wait to cross it.

you immediately ran down the hall, dressing however best you could, fixing your hair to be as best as it would go, being sure to brush your teeth and pop in a mint before running straight out the door. (and ignoring all of soyeons questions as well as minnies protests)

as you stepped out the front door, you saw chan just leaving his house looking as beautiful as ever.

you ran straight for the bridge, chan catching you before you could slip on a puddle before he picked you up into a big hug.

“you’re just as gorgeous up close as you were through a window.” he whispered as he pulled you close, his hand cradling the back of your head, pulling it to rest against his chest.

“and you’re still just as much of a flirt arent you?” you chuckled before slightly cringing at your attempt to reciprocate the excitement.

you were excited, believe me, just couldn’t express it as well as he could.

“i cant believe it took 21 days to finally be with you.”

“it was worth the wait wasnt it?”

“you’ll always be worth the wait.” chan mumbled against your skin as he pressed a soft kiss into your cheek.

“cant believe you’re real..” you mumbled, leaning further into his touch.

“cant believe i got someone like you to fall for someone like me.”

“chan you’re so cheesy.”

“only for you.” he replied with that stupid grin you grew to love so much.

the two of you later took the time to talk more about life, each other, finally exchange numbers, then eventually decide what you’d do for your first date night.

“see you tomorrow at 12?”

“tomorrow at 12.”

DECEMBER 30

you practically couldn’t sleep as you bubbled in excitement. you picked out a pretty black dress that went nicely with a random pair of white sneakers before heading out on your way while your roommates were out at work.

“lookin as pretty as always.” chan smiled while he opened his car door for you.

“still as handsome as ever arent you?” you jokingly rolled your eyes as he backed out the parking lot.

you two had many common interests, yet what you were most passionate about definitely was pretty parallel to one another.

chan loved the stars, you loved the sea. so, you decided to go to an aquarium (that also included solar system exhibits), grab some food from a cafe you found out you both loved, go for a late drive to the beach, watch the sunset, then stargaze.

call it cliche but it was perfect for you both.

chan wrapped an arm around you as you both stared into the night sky, all the stars displayed beautifully.

he would point at a random star and say it reminded him of you, because it stood out from the rest, distinct, but perfect in his eyes.

he was the sweetest guy ever, perfectly fitting the standard for what’s considered boyfriend material, almost unrealistic, even.

“youre a person worth crossing an ocean for.” you told him more then truthfully, bringing a hand up to softly stroke his cheek.

“out of all the stars in the sky, youre the only one id pick.” he cringed realizing how corny it was. “too cheesy?”

“just enough.” you reassured, before sealing both yours and his lips into a warm and comforting kiss. chan had never felt safer in another’s embrace.

“waiting 21 days isnt so bad if itll always end like this.”

[justagalwhowrites]

Beskar Doll - Ch. 8: Ancient History

Sometimes, you just have to tell a Mandalorian about everything you're running from. A continuation of Beskar Doll Ch. 1-7 found on Tumblr here.

Pairing: Din Djarin/The Mandalorian x Female Reader

Warnings: mentions of torture, canon-typical violence, death. No use of Y/N. Minors DNI 18+ only.

Length: 3k

“My family had a history of service to Naboo,” you began, a familiar ache in your chest as you remembered your home. “My mother was a handmaiden to Queen and then Senator Amidala. But both of my parents were always politically active, both in opposition to the Emperor’s rise to power from the beginning. They were resistors early. By the time I was born, they were deep into a still burgeoning movement. My mother was well connected - she knew many diplomats from her time with Senator Amidala - and she decided she had to use that to push back against the Empire. 

“Bothese was the second language I learned, after Basic,” you took a drink. “So many spies were Bothen and a child was an excellent tool to move information. No one ever suspected me, I could translate and carry messages wherever they needed to go. I didn’t fully understand what I was doing, just that it was very important and very secret, but I knew I was good at it. And kids get into places they shouldn’t all the time… Anyway, that’s how I got my start. Running information, carrying it to places my parents couldn’t be seen going, providing a buffer for the Rebellion.” 

You absently picked at the label on the whiskey bottle, watching as it separated from the glass, peeling away from the thing it was made for. 

“My childhood didn’t feel strange though,” you continued after a moment. “I had friends, including Sosha. She was the real talent, the one with promise. They sent us both to the Legislative Youth program when we were 11 and by the time we were 12, they’d recognized her potential. They wanted her to be queen one day and they started training her for it. But, on Naboo, queens need handmaidens.

“Sosha had been my best friend for years and as much promise as she showed in the skills needed to be queen, I was proving to be a good fit to serve as her handmaiden, just like my mother had for Amidala. I already spoke half a dozen languages, had a grasp on the political machinations of the Empire and how Naboo fit into them and Sosha and I loved each other. They knew I’d die for her and kill for her. Which is the most important role - protector. So they started training me that way, too. I learned how to fight, shoot, survive overwhelming odds - all to keep my best friend safe.” 

You took another drink. You could feel the Mandalorian’s eyes on you as you spoke, the tightness in your chest making it so you couldn’t relax at all. 

“I didn’t really think she’d get elected,” you said. The whiskey burned in your stomach. “I thought she’d be great if she could get it but we were 15 when she won. It was surreal, the galaxy was on the brink of war and suddenly people would want to kill my best friend and it was on me to keep her alive…. 

“Sosha wasn’t one to sit on the sidelines. She wanted to be involved - she’s a fighter pilot, you know? She was running to become queen and she just… became a fighter pilot. Because she wanted to do it herself. She hated the Empire but Naboo didn’t have much hard power, so she and I came up with a way to move around them. When you’re a queen, you’re going on diplomatic missions, you have excuses to be anywhere and everywhere. And anywhere you go, your handmaids go. She’d plan trips to places near where information was being supplied or was strangely lacking, the whole fucking royal convoy becoming a Rebellion information smuggling operation. And I… well, I spoke the most languages, was the closest to Sosh and I was the best at getting into places I shouldn’t be. I had practice.

“At first, it was easy,” you said. “Probably easier than when I was a kid even, being that close to power gives you a lot of cover. But eventually, we got into more trouble than we could really handle. The war was ramping up and we were on a diplomatic visit to Kamino when we got intel of a pet project of the Empire’s out of Scarif. Sosh wanted to check it out herself and right away, but we couldn’t find a good reason to go, there wasn’t any excuse we could come up with to visit Scarif or even just go to Rishi and see what we could learn as we passed at sub-hyperspace.” 

Your nails rapped against the glass of the bottle. 

“She flew,” you said. “I couldn’t fly for shit, still can’t. It was always Sosha or Dagres flying, never me… Anyway, we were almost there when we picked up an Imperial tail. We got into a dogfight and ended up crashing onto the surface of a moon that I don’t even know the name of. The air was barely breathable but we got lucky and we could get by for a bit. But the Imperials who shot us down came looking for us. 

“It was totally uninhabited and arid, not many places to hide but we dodged them for a few days. They found us but I managed to kill one and overpower the other. I knew, if we had any hope of survival, we’d have to take their ship and get off that moon. So I made him take us back to his ship - he was a lower ranking officer, he’d just had one trooper with him - and when we got there, he wouldn’t tell us how to get the damn thing going. It needed a code and he didn’t want to tell us what it was. I knew I had to get it out of him to survive, to keep Sosha alive, I didn’t have a choice so… I pulled it out of him. There was blood everywhere, just…” 

“How old were you?” The Mandalorian asked, his head tilted as he watched you. 

“Sixteen,” you said quietly. 

He just nodded slowly. 

“We made it back to Kamino and I was still covered in his blood,” you said. “I did my best to cover my tracks. Called on the secured com for a pickup on a nearby moon, ditched the Imperial ship with the body there. I hoped it would be enough that it wouldn’t be traced to us. Another handmaid, Nobé, stood in for Sosha so no one knew she was gone. I’d hoped that was the end of it but… the war was getting worse. The Empire destroyed Alderaan less than a year later, taking one of my most solid Rebellion contacts - Bail Organa - with it. 

“A lot of my usual channels for information started collapsing then. I started needing to break into more places and steal things. Sometimes the information was important enough that we’d capture someone and it would require… extraction. There weren’t many people who had the stomach for it - I’m not sure I really did, either. There were a few who did, but they were more heavy handed. They usually had a grudge against the Empire, just wanted to make someone hurt for it. I could keep them alive for longer, build trust, make them want to tell me. I’m not proud of it, but I know the information I collected saved lives. A lot of them.” 

You took another drink, hoping Mando wouldn’t mind if you drank him out of his liquor. 

“At some point, I got a reputation,” you continued. “One of the men I hurt was the son of an Imperial general. I’d known that when we’d taken him, he had information he wound’t have had otherwise. I snuck into a party - a lot like what we did - and I got everything I could from him. But I was seen, on camera. We didn’t have good enough coverage and his father was so powerful he could try to find me. And he did. He linked me to Sosha and came to the Battle of Theed after the Emperor died. He wasn’t there to win a war or even carry out the Emperor’s last wishes, he was there to make me hurt for the death of his son.” 

“I was trying to defend my home, Sosha flying which left me on the ground and he found me there. He brought a full column of troopers - I guess the Empire didn’t care about resource allocation when it’s a suicide mission and they’ve all but fallen - specifically to reach me. They were brutal, slaughtered everyone around me. We took down so many of them but they just kept coming and coming, their equipment alone overwhelmed us… He killed…” You swallowed closing your eyes against the memory. The Mandalorian gently, slowly, put a hand on your back, centering you. You took a deep breath. 

“Dagres was trying to protect me and he was so worried about watching my back he missed when they were coming for him,” you said. “I tried to save him but I couldn’t…” 

You remembered the moment the restraint you didn’t know you’d been showing snapped in you. It was sharp, an acute break in reality that happened as Dagres’ body fell to the earth. You picked up a second weapon and started firing almost blindly. You didn’t care if you got shot, you didn’t care if someone else got hurt. The General himself was in an armored transport and you ran up the stairs of the building you’d been sheltering behind, breaking out a window and leaping from it, not caring if you’d catch onto the transport or if you’d fall to your death. Either outcome would have satisfied. But you’d made the jump. You clambered up the side of the transport to the hatch and shot it open, dropping inside, everyone coming for you then. You managed to take down more than a dozen men before you were overwhelmed. The general cut you open himself, mimicking the wounds on his son’s body. You’d only survived because rebel troops arrived, pushing the Empire back and disabling the transport you were held in. You passed out from the pain and didn’t wake up until you were on Tatooine, having bacta applied to your injuries, the agony threatening to swallow you whole.

“The general took what he could from me,” you continued after a moment. “He slipped away when the Empire lost the city. He’s been after me since, wanting to finish the job, and I have some other choice Imperials who managed to avoid capture after the war. That’s why I can’t go back. Sosha couldn’t look like she condoned torture - the New Republic was supposed to be different from the Empire. Enough Imperials knew me that they could damage the tenuous grasp the New Republic has if I’m too close to anyone of note. And those same Imperials want me… well, not just dead. They want me to hurt and then they want me to die. I might deserve it…” 

“You don’t,” Mando said quietly. 

“Thanks,” you smiled a little, picking at the label on the whiskey bottle again. 

“Who was Dagres?” He asked after a moment. 

You thought for a moment, trying to quantify your relationship. How do you label something like that? 

You remembered the first time you’d met him, a pilot for the queen’s starship, when you were 17. He was a few years older than you and even the first time he looked at you, you could tell he saw you as more than Sosha’s handmaid. He’d let you into the cockpit for approaches to the planets you visited, pressed flower petals into your palm when he passed you in the royal residence on Coruscant and you were missing home. 

“Don’t get hung up on a flyboy,” Sosha had teased you one night when it was just the two of you in her chambers, no longer a queen and her handmaid but just two friends. “He’s a heartbreak waiting to happen.” 

He came to your room just two nights later. You were up late, reading, when he slipped in. 

“Here to fantasize about fucking a queen?” You’d asked, an eyebrow raised. 

“Oh no, m’lady,” he said, crossing to your bed. “I’ve only been fantasizing about one woman for a while, and she’s not a queen. Though she’d be a great one.” 

You kissed him that night - your first kiss, more than a year after the first time you’d tortured a man to death. Soon, he was spending every night in your room if you weren’t watching over Sosha. You’d been so distracted by war and politics that you hadn’t had time for childhood crushes. Your first love had been all-consuming, both of you feeling the press of time, the galaxy crushing under the weight of war and death. It was easy to fall fast and hard when you felt you’d never have another chance. Dagres made it easy. 

“He was…” you paused, still not finding the words for what it meant to feel his lips on your forehead as your city burned around you before he went to die for you. “I loved him. He loved me. It got him killed, trying to save me.” You shook your head, trying to clear the cloud of memories. “No one else is going to die for me.” 

You glanced at Mando before sighing. 

“If you want to drop me on the next planet we get to, I don’t blame you,” you said. “I’m a danger, I know. And I’d understand if you didn’t want to have anything to do with someone who’s done the things I’ve done.” 

“You did what was needed,” he said. “And I can handle danger.” 

You smiled and leaned onto him, your head on his shoulder. 

“So,” he said after a moment. “I have a few names for you now. What do you like best?” 

You thought for a moment, taking another drink of whiskey. You were feeing it in your head now, but that was fine with you. You needed it. 

“Honestly?” You asked after a moment. “I think I like what you call me best.” He was silent, confused. “Doll. I think I like that better than any of my names.” 

“Why?” He asked. 

“Doll hasn’t let anyone down yet,” you said quietly. “No one’s died for her. No one expects anything out of a doll. A doll can’t fail because there’s nothing for her to fail at. I want to be something that can’t let anyone down.” 

“Doll,” he said softly, twisting a little and holding his hand out to you. You took it. “Nice to meet you, Doll. I’m Din.” 

“Din?” You asked. He nodded. It suited him. “Din. It’s nice to meet you, too.” 

You took another drink and sighed. You liked being here, with him. The armor that had set you on edge just a few weeks earlier was now a comfort, something familiar and secure. His voice, even modulated, was calming. When he was in control, things were safe. 

“Where do you want to go?” He asked softly. You frowned. “I have a… job I could use your help with, if you wanted to come. Or I can take you to Dantooine. Or anywhere else you want to go. I’ll take you anywhere.” 

“I’d like to stay with you,” you said softly. “At least for this job. I want to help, if I can.” 

He nodded and you closed your eyes, taking a deep breath. The room was spinning now, the tingling feeling of intoxication spreading through your limbs. You let yourself drift. It would have been easy to drown in memories, but you didn’t. He was there, a life raft in the storm. It kept your head above water as you fell asleep against him. 

***

Din hadn’t known what to expect from you when you’d started talking, but it wasn’t that. He’d known war, of course. He knew what it demanded, the things it took from the people at its center, whether they put themselves there or not. Working backwards, he’d put you at 23-years-old now. You’d carried a lot of weight for someone that young. He wondered, idly, how many people he knew would be dead if it weren’t for you. Just what had you stopped? Changed? 

You drifted off, whiskey bottle still clutched in your hands. He took it from you gently before it could spill and took another sip himself. Din had never considered what life would look like with someone else in it. You hadn’t been on his ship very long and it had only been a few days that he’d even liked you - even though the thought of something bad happening to you had scared him for longer than that. Since the day the lightning almost struck you on Crait, part of him seemed to be with you. There was always a corner of his mind that was stuck worrying. Afraid of seeing you hurt or worse, the sight of you still and lifeless on the ground. It got worse after Hosnian Prime, seeing you in pain. It was so bad on Coruscant that he wasn’t sure he could have driven the speeder away when you went back in. He’d have sat there as the building burned, unable to do what he needed to to save the girl in the back because there was a chance you were alive and he couldn’t leave you if you were. 

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there with you, asleep against him. Your breathing was a comfort. He didn’t want to not feel your chest rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm against his body. Eventually, he gently picked you up - you so out of it that you didn’t stir and he carried you to his bunk. You’d said before that you liked small spaces, that it was easier when someone slept beside you. So he put you in his bed and held you against him, centering himself on your smell and your warmth. 

No, he hadn’t thought about what life with someone else would be. But he wasn’t sure he’d need to think with you. He could just be, and that was enough. 

[iwonderwh0]

I wanna expand on Emma's character. She likes attention, she likes filming herself. There are piano in their room, so it's practically inevitable that she learns to play it. Who is her teacher? It's possible that it is human as, you know, music, maybe her rich parents think that it's best to learn it from humans. At least, we never heard that household models could teach playing instruments. Or actually, she probably learns using built-in program in the piano itself. Like, we saw this holographic screen when Markus was playing, it must include some learning modes.

She has favourite bands. She probably has some kind of spiritual beliefs, probably not like any specific religion but a mix of some new-age ones, at least their home looks like they are like this, like, if I remember it correctly there are Buddha statues so that's one thing. I think Emma, at least, believes in a few things, like karma and manifestations.

Her wrists are full of those handmade bracelets. Did she make them with someone? Alone? Are those friendship bracelets and there are some friends of her that have them too? She must've made at least one of those with Daniel, and it would be such a nice detail for him to wear one in-game. Missed opportunity. Maybe he took it off?

Daniel was activated for four years (huh, I thought longer, but it's still years though), so his character must've been quite developed for a while even prior to deviancy. Or, actually, maybe he deviated a lot earlier than the day we see him in the game. It is entirely possible that there was another event that made him freak out of his line, perhaps after fucking up and accidentally endangering Emma (they kept it a secret. I headcanon that Emma loves secrets. It makes her feel special), but he just stayed and continued his life with Phillips as if nothing happened without change because he liked it and felt responsible about it. I mean, it's not like he had somewhere to go — he doesn't know about Jericho as was confirmed in the evidence room. But ever since that day of his potential deviation he started to accumulate suspicions and paranoia that tipped over when he found out about AP700.

You know, it's kinda ironic that kids with household androids raise them as much if not more than household androids raise them. For kids those androids are part of their life, for androids it's their whole world (I mean, outside of some additional errands and other family members interactions that I don't think are composing even half of the time androids spend with kids they're looking after). Emma was 5-6 years old when Daniel was first introduced into her life. She must've already had friends and all kind of interests by that time, so Daniel didn't raise her from infancy.

You know, it's possible even that those kinds of androids get jealous of kid's other friends and family members. Daniel definitely feels like a jealous type, I doubt August 15 was his first time feeling resentment. The fact that he became Emma's first choice in four years must've been a really deliberate effort on his part, which, I mean, he spends the most time with her so he had this advantage.

Daniel belongs to the Phillips family but at the same time Daniel developed such a possessive attitude towards Emma as if she was his property. He integrated himself into her life as a "need, not want" and he will take her with him on his death row. He wants to believe that Emma needs him, but the truth is he needs Emma much more than she ever could. And it drives him mad.

Hear me out

What if

What if he was so jealous of Emma's other friends and so paranoid about her distancing herself from him that he cultivated circumstances where Emma preferred him over anyone else. A victory. And he put so much effort competing with other people for her attention that possibly of Emma replacing him with another android never crossed his mind. Until it hit him like an anvil. All of his work was for nothing. All this time he thought of himself as her friend. A person. Competing with other people. Turned out he wasn't even within the same category. He had always been only a toy.

[multifariousqueer]

Precautions and Passings| Shurix Reader

Pairing: Shuri x scarlettwitch!reader

A/n: Hey guys! I’ve wanted to write something like this for a while now and the fact that I did is really just crazy to me. Request what else you’d like to see. This pic is dark asf and probably the darkest thing I've ever written. Also I didn't proofread this so if their are errors anywhere...ignore them?

Summary: Grief takes a toll on all of us doesn’t it? 

Word Count: 2.6k(it's a long one ik)

Warnings: ANGST OMG SO MUCH ANGST, death, m!rder, the dark hold, some suggestive undertones, explicit language, fluff, time jumps, dark!Shurixdark!reader

10 years ago:

“It’s so fascinating, her powers are unlike something I’ve ever seen before.”- Shuri said

“Is she a threat or not?” The elders asked.

“If we don’t play our cards right, yes. She has the power to create and destroy realities and universes including our own anytime.” Shuri answered.

“Bast have mercy on all of us” The elder of the merchant tribe said.

___________________________________________

You had met Shuri during a mission when your lip revealed that you were part wakandan. T’challa saw this and immediately took you back to Wakanda where Shuri was there waiting to run tests on you. She spoke so confidently and moved like she knew what and where everything was. Even though you practically had the powers of a God, you were still intimidated and afraid but you had to put on a facade and pretend you too knew everything.

“Do you speek Xhosa?” Shuri asked.

“Barely. Do you speak English?” You answered.

“Barely.” She smirked.

“Oh. Well um-” You started but you were immediately interrupted.

“I’m kidding. I guess your kind doesn’t understand basic humor?” She said.

“What do you mean “my kind”?” You said, sitting up and attempting to cross your arms but it seemed you were in some type of restraint.

“Just a precaution. We don’t know your power capabilities yet and we didn’t want you to lash out.” Shuri answered

“It’s okay.” You said, half insulted and half curious as to how they made restraints strong enough to hold you.

“So… from looking at your file, it appears a meteorite hit your house filled with some sort of substance that we don’t have in our records and it gave you your powers. Is that correct?” Shuri asked.

“Who am I kidding, it is correct” Shuri answered her own question.

“Well actually if you would’ve shut up and let me talk, you would know that while yes the basic information is correct, the ‘substance’ was actually a glowing red rock and the meteorite that hit my house, killed my parents and when i tried to go to the funeral…” You trailed off, tears pooling at the corner of your eyes.

“I-I’m sorry.” Shuri said looking down.

“It’s fine.” You said looking down at the floor. You tried to fiddle with your powers but immediately heard an alarm and a shock flew through your body.

“Just a precaution?” You smirked at Shuri

You could tell she felt a bit embarrassed but she called off the alarm.

“We would like you to stay in Wakanda for a bit longer, just to keep you safe and run some more tests.” Shuri spoke.’

“Do I have an option to object?” You asked with a smirk

“No,” Shuri said, walking away.

“Get her set up in the reformative program” She spoke in her native language and left you alone on the table.

2 years later

It had been 1 year since you and Shuri made it official that you were dating. You were in her lab when you overheard T’challa talking about Thanos coming to Wakanda in search of the infinity stones and Vision coming to get it extracted by Shuri. It was bittersweet when you saw the avengers, of course these people practically raised you but at the same time, they gave you up so easily. You knew that this was bigger than you however so you prepared to fight and protect Shuri and Wakanda at all costs.

“I’ll stay by you, sthandwa.” you said to Shuri.

“Your Xhosa is getting better my love.” Shuri said to you.

“Thank you. I can now hold a basic conversation about the weather.” You chuckled

“And ask where the bathroom is,” Shuri laughed back.

You just smiled and looked at her for a moment.

“Are you okay?” She said

“I’m perfect, why?” You asked

Shuri had opened her mouth but was interrupted by the avengers waking in and Vision sitting on the table. You stayed with Shuri even after Thanos invaded Wakanda and fought off one of Thanos’ goons but in the end, it was too late. Vision had left the table and Shuri was injured. You stayed with her, healing her with your powers and asking her if she was okay.

“I’m fine it’s just,” She trailed off

“If it’s about Vision, I’ll go get him.” You said getting up

“No no it’s too late, the stone reverted back to its original state in his head, all that we can do now is hope that Thanos gets defeated or at least, doesn’t win” Shuri said.

You put your forehead against hers and you held her hand. You heard Thor scream out “WHAT DID YOU DO?” to Thanos and that’s how you knew that you were in the Endgame now.

You saw Shuri fade to dust and shortly after, you did too.

6 years later

“I now pronounce you wife and wife.” The officiant said.

You and Shuri had decided to get married after the blip. It made both of you realize how much you loved eachother and how much you needed eachother.

You smiled at how beautiful your Shuri looked and she smiled at how beautiful you looked. You kissed and she practically picked you up off of the ground. The ceremony was certainly grand because of the fact that you married a literal princess. Everyone danced and sang happy cheers for you and Shuri. There wasn’t a point in which you and Shuri weren’t smiling or laughing. You kept the tradition of the dance between you and Shuri so you slow danced to a song that had meaning to the both of you. It was the song you played while cleaning your room when Shuri walked in during the first night of your stay in Wakanda.

“I like this song. It has a nice beat.” Shuri said.

“The beat is one of my favorite parts of the song.” You said.

You laughed and took off your dress with your magic and let your hair down. You undid Shuri’s dress in one swipe of your hand and kissed her forehead before pulling Shuri closer to you.

“Mmmmm we haven’t consummated our marriage yet you know?” Shuri smirked.

“That’s about to change.” You said, waving your hand to turn off the lights and move you both to the bed.

When you woke up the next morning, you kissed Shuri’s forehead and rested your chin on her head. Your heartbeats were beating in sync and your legs still were entangled together from last night. She woke up and lightly kissed you on the lips before Griot alerted you both of you.

“Princess, T’challa’s vitals are incredibly low and he is not doing well.” Griot said.

“What??” Shuri jumped out of bed and threw on her robe.

“I don’t understand, he was moving just fine yesterday and everything was fine, what happened?” Shuri shouted to her frenzied staff.

“It doesn’t matter, find me the solution to recreating the heart-shaped herb from the fibers in this piece of vibranium.”

“Yes princess.” They said, running around

You sat beside T’challa’s bedside and held his hand. You attempted to heal him of the illness but it was too deep to fix. You held his hand to the very end and spoke to him.

“It's okay, you can rest now. I’ll take care of Shuri.” You said kissing his forehead.

You cried with Shuri when he passed and walked beside her at the funeral. You made sure she had your full love and support at this time. The Queen appreciated you being there and you used your powers in any way you could. You felt heartbroken that you couldn’t heal him or heal Shuri’s sadness but you could only do so much.

1 year later

Shuri had been in her lab for 3 days now. She wasn’t taking breaks like she used to and was pulling more all nighters. You knew why so you just held her hand through all of the pain and let her do whatever she needed to do.

“Hey I made you breakfast.” You said taking her dishes from last night’s dinner. It was picked over and barely touched despite you making her favorite dish.

“Didn’t you just make me a meal?” Shuri asked.

“That was dinner, honey it’s breakfast time. It’s 9:00 so you’ve been down here since Sunday.”

“I KNOW THAT Y/N. AND I’D APPRECIATE IF INSTEAD OF DIRTYING UP MY SPACE YOU WOULD JUST LEAVE.” Shuri shouted

“I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY YOU’VE BEEN DOWN HERE FOR THIS LONG, I HAVE NEEDS TO YOU KNOW. AND INSTEAD OF PUSHING YOU TO BE PRODUCTIVE, I’VE BEEN LETTING YOU DO WHATEVER YOU NEED TO GRIEVE SO BE CUT ME SOME FUCKING SLACK.” You screamed, levitating off of the ground and your powers coming out of your hands.

“OF COURSE YOU HAVE FUCKING NEEDS BECAUSE THAT’S ALL YOU TALK ABOUT.” Shuri shouted back.

“I JUST WANT MY WIFE BACK.” You cried.

“SHES DEAD. SHE DIED WITH HIM” Shuri sobbed

You hugged each other and sobbed. This was the part of grief and loss no one talks about; the part that makes you indulge in destructive habits and hurt the little family you still have. Shuri never meant to hurt you and you knew that but it was still painful when she would lash out. You got up and took her with you. You went up to the shower and cleaned her up a bit. She was still the most beautiful person you had ever met, despite the depression setting in. You got her in her favorite t-shirt of yours and put her in the bed. You laid beside her and cuddled her in as close as possible:

“Y/n?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you. And I’m sorry for not making that clear enough and I’m sorry for everything I haven’t done for you…” Shuri trailed off. Her voice shook a bit and you could tell she was crying.

“Hey hey hey, it’s okay. We’re struggling right now, we’re both grieving and that’s okay. Let’s just take it one day at a time.” You said softly

“Okay, sthandwa” Shuri said.

4 days later

“What do you mean my wife was kidnapped??” You screamed at Okoye.

“I’m sorry, Y/n. I tried to get her back but they had superhuman stren-” Okoye excused

“THAT’S NOT AN EXCUSE. THAT’S MY WIFE AND I DON’T KNOW IF SHES DEAD OR ALIVE.” You screamed with tears in your eyes.

“You know what? Where was she taken? I’ll find her and murder their entire empire in one day.” You said.

“Y/n I know that you’re scared and I am too but attacking everyone in an attempt to find Shuri is not wise.” The Queen tried to advise

“I DON’T CARE. I WILL FIND MY WIFE AND BRING HER HOME SAFE NO MATTER WHAT. Because you clearly couldn’t” You said looking at Okoye, flying past her and suiting up.

You saw into Shuri’s mind using the darkhold and found where she was being kept. You teleported to the location which was underwater and saw Shuri with some girl. One of the blue people holding your beloved captive, put a knife to her neck.

“I’ll kill her.” The blue person said

“You don’t wanna know what I’ll do to get her back. Let her go and I’ll speak to your leader because you clearly aren’t the one in charge here.” You said.

“You killed her.” The blue person said holding the knife closer to Shuri’s neck drawing a bit of blood.

You teleported behind the blue lady and stabbed her through the torso. She fell to the ground and let Shuri go:

“Let’s go. Now.” You said

“Y/n you don’t understand, this will mean war.”

“I will wipe out these blueberries with one swipe of my hand, Let’s. Go” You said.

“Wait-” Shuri said.

You pulled her away and teleported back to the palace in front of the Queen. The Queen thanked you profusely and hugged Shuri for what seemed to be a fortnight.

“Thank you, Y/n. “ The Queen said through tears.

“It was no trouble at all.” You said.

Shuri and Aneka made a break for her lab and you made a break for the room in which you kept the darkhold. If what Shuri said about the blueberries starting a war was true, you had to be prepared. You saw through Shuri’s eyes that she was prepping technology when you sensed something was off. You knew that they were there and ready.

You fought and killed as many Talokans as you could when you heard Shuri’s scream. You rushed over to see her screaming for her mother as her lifeless body was laying on the water soaked throne room. You held Shuri and sobbed against her as you reflected on the last interaction you had with The Queen.

2 days later

You had stood by Shuri for the second time in the past 2 years in a funeral setting. You held her hand and watched as she prepared to kill the man responsible for her mothers death. You helped in any way you could, employing the help of the darkhold through it all and watching as your wife turned into the thing she resented the most. You watched as she turned into the black panther and prepared the warriors of Wakanda to get ready to execute her plan of attack. While you admit the suit looked good on her, you couldn’t help but notice the shocking resemblance to Killmonger’s suit. Deep down, you knew who she saw in the ancestral plane and you knew why she saw him. You knew everything that she thought she was a mastermind of hiding; you knew the burning feeling of revenge coursing through her veins and her master plan to execute her plan and almost drive the Talokans to extinction. Your fingertips hadn’t turned black from the book yet so you thought you were in the clear. Shuri hadn’t seemed to notice you were employing the help of dark magic at all; you expected this because she hardly paid attention to the little things anymore. Shuri was always a terse and broad person but the past 2 years she had become more of a “bigger picture” person. If it wasn’t directly in her face, she didn’t care.

You had fought off as many of the Talokans as you could. You killed more of them then people you ever met in your life. But still, despite these efforts they kept coming; they were like a cerberus. You cut off one head, another 4 pop up in it’s place. You must’ve killed off half of their army when you saw Shuri and Namor come over the boat. You were proud of Shuri for not resorting to murder and for being the bigger person. Shuri and you both went home and got cleaned up and went to sleep together for the first time in weeks.

4 days later

Shuri had insisted you both go on a walk around Wakanda and check on some of the families affected by the attack. You happily obliged since this was the first time she had offered up an outing in years. You two journeyed away into the forest when you both swung each other around and before you knew it, she was on top of you:

“How did I get so lucky?” She had asked you

“I ask myself that everyday” You smiled.

She leaned in for a kiss when a portal suddenly appeared:

“Y/n L/n?” The man asked

“Who’s asking?” You said, slightly frightened and slightly pissed that you were being interrupted.

“Stephen Strange. We need to have a talk about the darkhold.”

[thestylesindependent]

Seemingly inescapable whenever you turned on the radio last summer, Harry Styles’ As It Was was one of the biggest hits of 2022, and remains on heavy rotation today. It topped Spotify’s end-of-year list of the most popular songs, and hit number one in the US and UK.

The song was co-written by Tyler Johnson alongside Kid Harpoon and Styles himself. Johnson and Harpoon both have production credits on the track - as they do on Watermelon Sugar, another Styles mega-hit - but as Johnson explained to Music Week [Paywall] last year, the creative process behind the two songs was very different.

“[Watermelon Sugar] took a while and As It Was was more speedy, right out of the gate,” he says. “Harry was sitting on the Moog One and I liked what he was playing, so I sat down and played as he started to write the melodies and the lyrics. Tom [Hull, aka Kid Harpoon] did a half-time beat around it, we were like, ‘No, it’s not right.’ So then Tom played the double time beat, which felt very good.

In terms of harmonic structure, As It Was has been compared to a-Ha’s Take On Me. As John Mayer demonstrated during a recent live performance, the two songs share a similar chord progression - ii-V-I-IV - but As It Was has a very different, highly distinctive topline.

“I said to Harry, ‘We need a lead line’ and he just came up right away with the ‘Dah, dah, dah...’ part,” reveals Tyler Johnson. “He didn’t hesitate. Then he started writing the second verse and referring to himself in the third person. So much of this song just came from Harry’s heart. And then Tom, as he does, with this magical sense of hooks that he has, came up with the idea of doing, ‘You know it’s not the same…’ after the chorus, which I was very impressed with. That turned out to be a very smart move.”

The song came together quickly, then: “Really, the record was about where it’s at now after three or four days,” Johnson recalls. “It didn’t go through a lot of [changes], there was never anything drastic. I had a guitarist friend, Doug Showalter, add electric guitars and some transition sounds. Then we got the tubular bells - another Harry idea - and I’ve got a video of him playing those. We had Mitch Rowland come in to do some live drums. We chopped those up for the ending to give it a more bombastic feeling.”

The best thing about As It Was is just how effortless it is, how it just flows over you and gives you a good energy.

Having a real drummer, it turns out, is important for Johnson, Harpoon and Styles. “For As It Was, we were thinking 2008-2012 indie rock, MGMT, Phoenix, Passion Pit. We want to be referential and for the music to sound familiar, but our process is that we don’t do as much drum programming as live drums. That’s what people in that era were doing to make things sound big, but not too programmed. Our engineer Jeremy Hatcher really helped shape that, those drum tones are unique in pop.”

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Kid Harpoon threw another influence on As It Was into the mix: “I’m sitting there on the drums and I was like, oh, this could have a Strokes kind of vibe,” he said. However, while he acknowledges the debt that As It Was owes to other artists and songs, he also firmly believes that it has its own identity.

"You get to the end and you hear it and you go, oh, it’s got the sort of A-ha references and the Strokes references and maybe there’s a bit of Talking Heads in there and then it becomes something bigger than the sum of its parts.”

Perhaps the relaxed vibe of As It Was stems from the fact that it was recorded in the living room in the home of A&R man Rob Stringer’s house, a place conducive to chilling out, you would have thought.

“The living room was actually a very perfect size for a control room, nice and tight but kinda long,” notes Tyler Johnson. “The back of it had a couch, an upright piano and windows that looked out over some fields, and in the front we had the desk. We rented a ton of gear, all the walls were lined with preamps and compressors. Even though we were going kind of bedroom-y, Tom and I just love lots of microphones and we do live drums, analogue synthesisers, multiple guitar amps… We love that whole element to recording.”

It was Styles, it turns out, who pushed for As It Was to be his album’s lead single. A wise move, it turns out, given its subsequent success.

“The best thing about As It Was is just how effortless it is, how it just flows over you and gives you a good energy,” thinks Tyler Johnson. “It has a gentle conversation with the listener while being upbeat. It’s easy to consume, but it still has depth and Harry brings so much character to it. Really, pop is just about people living life with music to garnish it.”

[igotanidea]

Here we go again : Matt Murdock x reader x Dick Grayson

A/N: I think I got myself into an unhealthy addiction of writing stories based on the songs stuck in my head, but well, it fits, so why not.

A/N 2 : This is just something to make you grasp the idea behind the story. The next chapters are going to go back in time to properly deal with the timeline and events.

inspired by : That's hilarious by Charlie Puth.

PROLOGUE

That's hilarious

Hahahaha.....

haha

Yeah, if you haven't already guessed I'm laughing because at this point nothing seems real anymore and if I wasn't laughing at the irony I would probably start crying, screaming and then jump our of the window.

Let me give you a quick introduction into my life, so you could understand me better.

Hi,

my name is Y/N and I'm a citizen developer. Which means I pretty much do everything that has to do with IT, Artificial Inteligence, programming, computers and programming. I loved my job to the point where I was spending hours and hours in front of the screen to be the very best. And truly, finally I got to the top. At the age of 21 I was a most-known in my profession.

And that got me some attention.

Did I mention I was born and living in Gotham?

So, perhaps you guessed who was the guy that gave me my first job?

No?

Well, it was Bruce Wayne. Yes, Wayne as in Wayne Enterprises.

Oh, god, I was on cloud nine being able to put my hands on all that technology, give my ideas and finally having someone to listen and apreciate them. I upgraded it, gave a bit of personal touch to the systems and god, it was amazing., I felt like I was where I belonged.

Bruce, however reserved and distant he was soon started to treat me like his own daughter. I mean, what else can you expect from a relationship between a CEO who spend most of his time with the youngest IT who also happened to be a half-orphan?

So, soon, he let me into the Wayne Manor, where I met his adopted son, Dick. Quite different than his parential figure, but pretty much the same with distant and pushing away. I didn't force him. It took us half a year to become some sort of friends and another half a year to fall truly, madly, deeply in love. No irony here. We spend a lot of time together. Or at least as much as our busy schedules allowed us to. Dick was a detective with crazy work hours, both night and day so when I get the chance I worked from the Manor, even when Bruce was not content with it.

Now that I think about it, i wonder how love-blinded I was.

That's when the story starts to go downhill.

When I was 23, Wayne Enterprises' tech department, with me leading it, introduced some new prototype. The whole project was on the highest security level, full NDA and confidentiality, so from some point the only people involved in the details were me and Bruce. I was literally sunsine and rainbows I get to be involved, hell! be the head of the assignment.

Until I got myself in trouble walking home from work at late night.

Remember, it was Gotham City and I was overwhelmed with our success.

So, due to my absent-mindedness some assaulters came right at me, grabbing both of my arms and dragging me into the dark alley. Of course I was figthing back, screaming and squirming, but what can one girl do in confrontation with 3 pretty beefy men?

Yes, three points for the right answer. NOTHING.

I was pretty much saying goodbye to my life (or at least my sexual health and good memories in that aspect - thank you, Dick Grayson for giving me them) when Gotham's heroes - Batman and Robin decided to show up, blowing everything and beating the assaulters to shit. Maybe they exaggareted a bit, after all those men were not criminals, and there was no need to knock them unconscious and that made me wonder. Still a bit overwhelmed I looked around and then I spotted Batman's new gear. Based on the technology I created.

So there were two, maybe three options:

Batman stole the technology from Wayne, and therefore he was not a hero everyone believed him to

Batman got the techonology from Wayne and therefore Bruce knew Batman's identity (Bruce would never let anyone, even the hero got it without checking all the details)

Bruce was Batman.......

"Bruce......?"

"Y/N."

"What is going on here?" I took a step back and bumped into wall

"Let me explain it to you....."

"Y/N!" another voice came from my right and before I realised what was happening, another caped vigilante was holding me close to his chest, his warm embrace being oddly famliiar. "Are you alright?" Robin's hands started caressing my back, his breaht ticking my face.

Holy fuck!

If Bruce was Batman than .....

"Dick?" my eyes went wide. Stupid, stupid girl! You should have known!

"Are you all right?" he asked again, a mix of desperation and remorse in his voice.

"Yes. I mean, no. I mean, I don't know. What is this? some sort of Surprise Sur Price?"

"Let us explain...." Dick took a quick glance at Batman Bruce who nodded

"Not here. It's not safe."

NOT SAFE!?

"Y/N." Dick took my hand squizing it gently, but lovingly "come on, baby, let's get you out of here."

"Um, well, okey...."

They got me to the Manor and then, since the secret was out and in their own words, they trusted me, I got a quick tour around the batcave. Yeah, they trusted me so much they kept their second life in secret for two fucking years! How is that trust?! I felt betrayed, played with, used, you name it. All that anger made me cry and clench my fist at the same time, my face going red and my heart at the edge of literally breaking.

"Talk to her." apparently that was too much for Bruce, since he decided to let my boyfriend deal with the damage. "You're off the patrol tonigh. Just make sure she'll be fine."

Oh, quite a conversation it was. However, at first not many words were used..... Anger, or rather fury, found another way out......But, when we both calmed down enough to use our mouths to actually echange full sentences it was all painfully clear.

The problem about heroes comes down to the fact that when being torn between their mission and the person they love ,they always choose the duty. And Dick did exactly that when he decided to sweet talk all my worries and cover up the truth for two whole years. That was sad. But, trying to be rational, I didn't scream or blame him. To some point I understood his motives, I mean, as a gotham citizen. As his girlfiriend I could not. I stayed in the manor until he felt asleep in his serene belief we were fine now.

We weren't.

I left Gotham that nigh, leaving him a letter explaing why I had to do this and kindly asking him not to look for me. The thought of the heartbreak he had to go through must have been soul-piercing. At least that's how it was for me when I found myself in Hell's kitchen trying to put my life together and move on.

I found a new job, but it was not the same without him.

And then Matt Murdock came into my life. He was such a nice guy, With an opinion amongst girls, as his best friend Foggy told me. Well, I was not going to fall for him. I had my walls high. Matt and Foggy were both lawyers and a bit of tech was kind of useful in this profession so soon we were working together. As friends. But clearly it was not enough for Matt. We were working late in his aparment, foggy has already left and I was picking my stuff to go home as well, already halfway to the door when Murdock yanked me back by my hand and kissed me with the most knee-buckling, hot, passionate kiss. You know, the one when you just reciprocate in an instant, no need to process what the hell is going on, while the other person's hand sneak around you pulling you closer. At first, i just let him caress my body, but quickly fall on the concrete.

"Stay with me...." he whispered against my lips

"Matt...." I pushed him away and he backed out immidiately

"I'm sorry Y/N. I didn't mean to push you, but I just... I have so many feeligns for you."

"No, I'm sorry. I'm just..... not ready. Yet."

"Yet?" damn lawyers

"Yet" I smiled lightly to defuse the tension

"Well then, I'm not giving up on you".

***

You know the saying "the history repeats itself?" Well it really does. I learned that in a painfull way, when a month later it turned out Matt Murdock was the devil of hell's kitchen. DAREDEVIL for fuck's sake. What was wrong with me and why the hell was I attracting vigilantes from the whole damn country?!

At least I didn't have to get myself in trouble to get to know his secret identity.

Oh no.

This was much worse when he stumbled into my apartment at 3 a.m. waking me up, in not so pleasant way, al bloody and on the verge of life. Yeah, we.... well, we had an argument. But somehow, he convinced me to stay. Something Dick couldn't do in the past. He never asked me to stay.

So I give in to the hope that this time it would be diffent. And I stayed, ready to fight for whatever was blooming between us.

And I was happy-ish to work through it with him.

And I was slowly moving on.

Until one evening, half a year after I left Gotham the past came knocking at my door.

Literally.

I was at my apartment, working and cuddling with Matt when the noice from outside made me get up and open.

"Y/N...... I found you...."

Dick fucking Grayson was at my door.

"Y/N...." he whispered tenderly "I need you back. I want you back with me...."

"Y/N? who is that?" in a blink of an eye Matt was by my side and at this point I was just turning my gaze from one guy to another in shock.

"Who the fuck are you?" Dick hissed

"Well I could ask you the same question" Matt retorted coldly

"I'm her boyfriend" ok, now it was Robin talking

"Funny thing, because that is who I am." hello, Daredevil, nice to see you woke up as well. I guess it was automatic - when Dick went into vigilante mode, Matt responded with exact the same.

"Guys....." I tried to stop them, but they did not let me.

"So you must be the ex?" Matt smirked

"You know about me? Does she moan my name when you two....."

"Ok! Ok! That is enough!" ultimately I got their attention, pretty sure I was red as an apple due to Dick's words.

Now.

I was the only thing standing between two vigilantes in their full-on fighting mode, ready to kill each other .

Oh, boy......

@somest1

@pinksirensong

@everything2134

[sirwow]

Nother HC/AU ramble about these two under the cut

Since these two basically have nothing about them it leaves me all the room I want to ramble about what I think their relationship would be✨

As I said in my original HC post, these two start off as rivals, Insomniac re challenging Samurai to a fight when he lost his winning streak to the new guy (Samurai) n got salty. Being they fought half drunk in a night club, things eventually got out of hand and a sword stab to a generator later both got electrocuted, messing up their heart beats. This put them as the perfect candidates for the new rhythm doctor program and what put them in the first chapter.

Samurai was fine when the program was used on him, but Insomniac’s much more effected heart beat (this is what you get for wearing no armor) ended up causing the development of the virus. It’s hard to explain but basically the rhythm doctor program’s ticking of the beats going down the line was Ai doing so and the Insomniac’s heart beat corrupted it into only following the extreme- creating the virus that separated itself from the original program. It’s not really malicious! It’s just trying to get people to follow the beats it was taught.. being really fucked up and possibly deadly beats but beats nonetheless.

Anyways, after Insomniac and Samurai got taken care of, Samurai continued having mild relapses each day, steady and predictable. Insomniac instead ended up stuck with extreme episodes that would appear in sudden bursts, first of these showing up in X-1N where future ones will likely only get worse as the virus Ai conforms more to being insane as he has episodes. A cycle of oh no.

In the meantime they have their own time to hang out n meet the other patients. Samurai being in the west for the first time has him curious about everything and everyone, just wanting to be a part of whatever was happening. Insomniac chose to be distant from the others to continue focusing his time on training but still had to get Samurai sometimes if he wanted to spar with someone. He always had some group with him, usually Logan and Hailey, on weekends it be Cole and Nicole. Insomniac doesn’t mind Cole n Nicole, they don’t bother him much and if they did have a question they weren’t dumb. The kids on the other hand he was probably exploding in his mind if they interrupted to ask if they could touch the sword.

Samurai and Insomniac also share a room for the sake of space and sparing. The only language they both know is English but it’s both their second language so most conversations are simple and dependent on their tone. Insomniac always talks about training or honor but Samurai is much more interested in talking about the new things he’s learned or discovered. Insomniac has been in the west for a few years now so can’t help but find it a bit childish and his demeaning view of Samurai isn’t helped when he finds out he’s not a fighter for his family or honor but just. Likes to sword fight. (insert “stop having fun” img here)

After X-1N, Insomniac was pretty shaken up to say the least. Without anyone else to open up he decided to be vulnerable and talked a bit about life to Samurai. Insomniac wondering what Samurai’s personal propose was if wasn’t fighting for anything. Samurai simply corrected Insomniac, he was fighting for something, his own fun and joy of experiencing life. Sword fighting just being one of his favorite deep outlets of this. Despite it being a bit corny and being said as Samurai was failing but continuing some crochet he wanted to learn, it did strike a bit of a cord with Insomniac.

Slowly Insomniac opened up to the others, placating the curiosity of the kids a bit, going to the cafe n trying the tea there while also teaching Nicole how to make some specialty ones he can make, and eventually when Samurai was talking about learning baseball, Insomniac took initiative and asked to join him. Samurai n Insomniac were finally able to come to a understanding with how the other thoughts and worked.

Now then that’s all I’m gonna write for now. Iv got more but I gotta cook in the brain some more. Thnak for reading