#south barrie go

[gov-ontario-transit-official]

TW: Loud as hell noises. Constantly. I thought it sounded nice but it's a crossing with the lights and bells going and then the train passes by. So just lower your volume by 66%. Took this video on sunday. Hope you all like it! Also voice reveal I guess.

[rafesfavgirl]

two graves, one gun — r. cameron

sad rafe fic bc i just got my period and i'm feeling extra emotional :')

series: every few lifetimes

❝ so long, london stitches undone two graves, one gun you'll find someone ❞

pairing: bf!rafe x fem!reader

context: after another night of getting coked out and passing out on barry's couch, rafe realizes you deserve better than him and decides to let you go.

words: 1.3k+

warnings: drug addiction, break-up, might make you cry, ANGSTY asl

the sole of your heel taps anxiously against your living room's hardwood floor, as you stared at the time on your phone's lock screen, which lit up with a photo that wheezie took of you and rafe sitting at one of the tables at midsummers last year, looking at each other as if you were the only people there.

8:30 p.m.

your heart aches at the realization that he had forgotten your date again, but the nerves that settle in your stomach win over, as you think about where he probably is.

pushing your weight off the sofa, you grab your car keys from the hooks on the wall, and dial rafe on your way out the door.

straight to voicemail. fuck.

you skip down the steps in front of your house and unlock your car in the driveway to get in, immediately starting the engine to get on your way.

you dial rafe again as you pull into the road—to no avail.

"damn it, rafe," you mutter, eyes switching between the road and your phone as you type him a message.

you: where are you???

when the message doesn't even go through, you let out a frustrated groan. either his phone's dead or it's switched off. you step on the gas to speed up, zigzagging between cars to get there faster.

you pull to an abrupt stop in front of a beat-down house on the south side, and switch the car off before hopping out.

"mrs. country club, what brings you to this side of the island?" barry stands from the porch when he sees you walking towards him, fuming.

"oh spare me the fake hospitality, barry," you tell him. "where is he?"

"where's who?" he shrugs—but you knew he knew what you were talking about.

"don't play dumb with me," you spat, attempting to walk past him. "i know he's here."

he steps to the side to block you from going any further. "maybe so, but it ain't a pretty sight."

"ugh," you manage to walk past him and proceed into the house, with him on your tail. "rafe!"

barry catches up to you and blocks your way again. "hey, i told you-"

"barry, you're really testing my patience here, alright?" you say, refusing to back down. you weren't scared of him—okay, maybe a little, but you weren't about to let him see that. "rafe!"

you push past barry again, and make your way further inside, immediately rushing to rafe, who was passed out face-down on barry's couch.

"oh my god, rafe!" you crouch down beside him, not missing the un-sniffed lines of coke on the wooden table in front of him, and pick up his head in your hands. "baby, baby," you gently pat his face with your hand. "can you hear me?"

"told you it wasn't a pretty sight," barry leans against a wooden post and watches you, making you roll your eyes.

"rafe," you try to wake him up again. "babe."

thankfully, his eyes flutter open, relief washing over you as you let out a sigh. "oh thank god."

"y/n?" his voice is barely above a whisper when his eyes lock with yours. "shit!"

you move aside when he suddenly sits up, searching the couch cushions for his phone. "what time is it?"

"rafe-"

"no, fuck!" he shouts when he realizes his phone is dead, and looks up at barry. "i told you to wake me up if i knocked out!"

"i'm not your keeper, cameron," barry shrugs. "just take your shit and go, a'ight?"

"baby…" rafe turns to you kneeling on the ground beside him, his voice much softer now. "i swear i set an alarm— i was just— i didn't think my phone would die and-"

"hey," you place your hand on top of his, squeezing it lightly to make him look at you. "don't worry about it. let's just get out of here, okay?"

he nods, and you stand up, dusting yourself off as you do.

"i'll meet you in the car, doll," he tells you. "i just gotta take care of something."

—

the car ride back to your house is almost completely silent, until rafe breaks it.

"you look beautiful, by the way," he says, eyes shifting to you.

you glance at him, a small smile on your lips. "thank you."

"god, i'm such an idiot!" he groans, clearly frustrated with himself over the situation. "how many missed dates is that this month?"

"rafe, i told you not to worry about it," you tell him. "it's okay, i get-"

"y/n," his voice is stern now, his eyes burning holes into your skin. "how many?"

you sigh, turning the wheel towards the curb to park the car in front of your house. "four," you answer, switching the ignition off. "that was the fourth one this month."

rafe scoffs and shakes his head, eyes averting away from you. he just couldn't look at you anymore, because he knew that even if you didn't show it, you were disappointed. not only at him, but maybe even yourself for putting up with him.

"hey," you place a hand on his knee, and he glances down at the gesture, before finally looking at you. "it's okay."

"how is it okay?" he asks, eyebrows furrowing. "all i do is disappoint you."

"baby, that's not true," you try to reassure him, but he doesn't buy it.

"it is true," he tells you. "and you don't deserve it."

not knowing what to say, you just glance down at your hand on his knee. "rafe…"

"no," he cuts you off, and places his hand above yours to slowly push it off of him. "i can't keep doing this to you."

letting out a sigh, you adjust yourself in your seat so you're looking at him. "okay, rafe, before you saying anything else— i love you, alright? there's nothing you can do that-"

"and that's exactly the problem, a'ight?" he snaps. "you're never gonna walk away from me yourself! even when i bought this shit from barry after i told you to wait in the car." he reaches into his pocket and tosses the small bag of blow in between the two of you. your eyes shift from it to him, the uneasiness in your stomach only getting worse.

"i have a problem y/n," he tells you. "and it's not the kind you can just 'fix' with love."

"then we'll get you help. we'll do any-" you try to reach out to him, but he resists.

"no," he says, motioning a hand between you two. "this has to end."

the words you dreaded hearing comes out of his mouth in one fell swoop, your heart shattering into a million pieces.

"what?"

"i'm never gonna be the guy you need me to be," he shakes his head at you, and if it weren't so dark outside, you swear you'd see his eyes watering. "and since you can't let go, i have to do it for you."

tears brim along your lower lashes as you speak, "no. that is not your choice to make."

"god, y/n, can you stop making this harder than it already is?" he pleads.

"can you stop acting like it's so easy?" you retort.

"you think this is easy?" he asks, taken aback by your accusation. "it kills me to do this."

"then don't," you say, voice cracking as you reach out for his hands. "we can work through your addiction together, rafe. we'll-"

"that's not your responsibility," he shakes his head at you. "if i'm gonna get better, i need to do it on my own."

you sob, "i— i don't want this to be the end.”

rafe glances down at your hands, before bringing his hand up to cup your cheek.

you lean into his touch, and a single tear rolls down your cheek—one that he wipes away with his thumb.

"i love you so much," he says, eyes closing as his head tilted down against yours. "i'm sorry."

his lips place a soft kiss on your forehead, and just like that, he's gone.

part 2.

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[thevoidstaredback]

An hour after sunrise and all trails had been dead ends. Well, all but one.

Superman and The Flash had regrouped outside of Amity Park, both reporting their lack of findings. No one was thrilled and frustrations were only heightened. Constantine and Zatanna had reported much the same, though they only increased their efforts to find the ghosts.

Cyborg was looking into Amity Park's Mayor, but he wasn't expected to have any results for another ten minutes at the soonest. Robin and his team didn't have any headway on the Missing Person's case.

Everyone was anxious.

Batman's first course of action was to send The Flash and Superman out again, though he wanted Kid Flash and Impulse to go with Flash while Superboy went with Superman. That would leave Robin, Wonder Girl, and Red Huntress in Amity Park. They'd have to make due.

"Flash, take Kid Flash and Impulse and to another run of the country. Superman, you and Superboy are gonna search everywhere else again. Be meticulous."

The Flash groaned, crumpling up the empty wrapper he now held in his hand before stashing it in Batman's utility belt. "We were meticulous before," he said. He was quick the call both of the speedsters before running off to start again, going from Washington State and moving East.

Superman was quick to do the same, though he didn't like the idea of working with Superboy, he'd do so for the sake of the world. The feeling was mutual. Superman started his search in Asia while Superboy started in South America.

Batman quietly wished he had his bike with him to make the trip faster, but he didn't complain as he walked the few miles to Amity Park. Robin and his team hadn't been able to get to the Fenton Portal, as he was now calling it, so he was going to get there himself. Hopefully, Cyborg will have information about the Mayor ready for him so that he can hit two bats with one stone.

***

Barry was even more meticulous as he ran back across the USA. He had taken Alaska, the Western and Southwestern States; Wally was checking the Midwestern and Southern States; and Bart was in the Mid Atlantic and New England States.

He didn't know their time limit, but he knew there was one. They all knew it, they just didn't know what it was.

Turning over every stone he could find in the West and Alaska took up the entire first half of the day. There was so much empty space everywhere, but the cities were packed tightly together and overflowing. It wa hard to find any one specific thing, especially while trying not to tip off civilians about the crisis.

He had yet to see any ghosts anywhere. He'd even spend some time in places that were rumored to be haunted, but those all seemed baren of anything other than dust. Though, there were signs of something having been there recently, but no signs of anything being there currently. It freaked him out.

High Noon was an ironic time to end up in the Southwestern United States.

If Barry thought the West was full of space, the Southwest had it topped by barrels. Cities were far apart, but closely packed with people. The space between cities was dotted with towns and ranches an animals. He decided to needed a very detailed map of the US because this was just ridiculous.

Again, Barry took time to check places that were supposed to house ghosts, but they all came up empty. Every ghost town was very lacking in ghosts! If he hadn't seen swarms of them- hell, if he didn't occasionally work with a ghost, he'd think he was wasting his time. As it was, however, the haunts he was visiting were so much more eerie now that he knew they were empty when they weren't supposed to be.

His mind wandered back to what Deadman had said. The US Government had taken a child. A ghost child, but a child all the same. They'd been operating under the nose of the Justice League for who knows how long! And they were only just nowhearing about it.

It made him feel horrible.

Not for the first time, he wondered how people could be so cruel.

Anything could be happening to that ghost child and they'd have no clue about it until they found him. Hell, if Deadman hadn't brought it to the JLD, who brought it to the JL, then none of them would've had a clue at all!

It made him sick.

Focus! He needs to focus on the task at hand. He can dwell later when the kid is safe with his people- safe away from the government that hurt him.

Had the kid been a US Citizen before he died? Probably, right? It would make sense. Phantom - that was his name, right? - had probably been a citizen of Amity Park before he died. How long had he been dead? How had he died? Who would be careless enough to let a child die? Had it been an accident? Had it been on purpose? If so, who could be heartless enough to murder a child in cold blood?

Barry isn't religious, not like some of the other heroes, but he knows that most religions view children as pure; incapable of committing wrongs. Hell, almost everyone in the world holds those same views! So how could someone, in clear conscious, hurt a child in any way?

His eyes blurred slightly at the thought.

Focus, Barry! You need to focus!

He forced his mind to stop wandering, not allowing himself to stray anymore from his objective. He was almost to the border of Texas and Louisiana. He'd double back as many times as it took to find Phantom.

The sun set over Illinois, USA.

Tick Tock...

Part 5 Part 7

[fatehbaz]

When you tag things “#abolition”, what are you referring to? Abolishing what?

Prisons, generally. Though not just physical walls of formal prisons, but also captivity, carcerality, and carceral thinking. Including migrant detention; national border fences; indentured servitude; inability to move due to, and labor coerced through, debt; de facto imprisonment or isolation of the disabled or medically pathologized; privatization and enclosure of land; categories of “criminality"; etc.

In favor of other, better lives and futures.

Specifically, I am grateful to have learned from the work of these people:

Ruth Wilson Gilmore on “abolition geography”.

Katherine McKittrick on "imaginative geographies"; emotional engagement with place/landscape; legacy of imperialism/slavery in conceptions of physical space and in devaluation of other-than-human lifeforms; escaping enclosure; plantation “afterlives” and how plantation logics continue to thrive in contemporary structures/institutions like cities, prisons, etc.; a “range of rebellions” through collaborative acts, refusal of the dominant order, and subversion through joy and autonomy.

Macarena Gomez-Barris on landscapes as “sacrifice zones”; people condemned to live in resource extraction colonies deemed as acceptable losses; place-making and ecological consciousness; and how “the enclosure, the plantation, the ship, and the prison” are analogous spaces of captivity.

Liat Ben-Moshe on disability; informal institutionalization and incarceration of disabled people through physical limitation, social ostracization, denial of aid, and institutional disavowal; and "letting go of hegemonic knowledge of crime”.

Achille Mbembe on co-existence and care; respect for other-than-human lifeforms; "necropolitics" and bare life/death; African cosmologies; historical evolution of chattel slavery into contemporary institutions through control over food, space, and definitions of life/land; the “explicit kinship between plantation slavery, colonial predation, and contemporary resource extraction” and modern institutions.

Robin Maynard on "generative refusal"; solidarity; shared experiences among homeless, incarcerated, disabled, Indigenous, Black communities; to "build community with" those who you are told to disregard in order "to re-imagine" worlds; envisioning, imagining, and then manifesting those alternative futures which are "already" here and alive.

Leniqueca Welcome on Caribbean world-making; "the apocalyptic temporality" of environmental disasters and the colonial denial of possible "revolutionary futures"; limits of reformism; "infrastructures of liberation at the end of the world."; "abolition is a practice oriented toward the full realization of decolonization, postnationalism, decarceration, and environmental sustainability."

Stefano Harney and Fred Moten on “the undercommons”; fugitivity; dis-order in academia and institutions; and sharing of knowledge.

AM Kanngieser on "deep listening"; “refusal as pedagogy”; and “attunement and attentiveness” in the face of “incomprehensible” and immense “loss of people and ecologies to capitalist brutalities”.

Lisa Lowe on "the intimacies of four continents" and how British politicians and planters feared that official legal abolition of chattel slavery would endanger Caribbean plantation profits, so they devised ways to import South Asian and East Asian laborers.

Ariella Aisha Azoulay on “rehearsals with others’.

Phil Neel on p0lice departments purposely targeting the poor as a way to raise municipal funds; the "suburbanization of poverty" especially in the Great Lakes region; the rise of lucrative "logistics empires" (warehousing, online order delivery, tech industries) at the edges of major urban agglomerations in "progressive" cities like Seattle dependent on "archipelagos" of poverty; and the relationship between job loss, homelessness, gentrification, and these logistics cities.

Alison Mountz on migrant detention; "carceral archipelagoes"; and the “death of asylum”.

Pedro Neves Marques on “one planet with many worlds inside it”; “parallel futures” of Indigenous, Black, disenfranchised communities/cosmologies; and how imperial/nationalist institutions try to foreclose or prevent other possible futures by purposely obscuring or destroying histories, cosmologies, etc.

Peter Redfield on the early twentieth-century French penal colony in tropical Guiana/Guyana; the prison's invocation of racist civilization/savagery mythologies; and its effects on locals.

Iain Chambers on racism of borders; obscured and/or forgotten lives of migrants; and disrupting modernity.

Paulo Tavares on colonial architecture; nationalist myth-making; and erasure of histories of Indigenous dispossession.

Elizabeth Povinelli on "geontopower"; imperial control over "life and death"; how imperial/nationalist formalization of private landownership and commodities relies on rigid definitions of dynamic ecosystems.

Kodwo Eshun on African cosmologies and futures; “the colonial present”; and imperialist/nationalist use of “preemptive” and “predictive” power to control the official storytelling/narrative of history and to destroy alternatives.

Tim Edensor on urban "ghosts" and “industrial ruins”; searching for the “gaps” and “silences” in the official narratives of nations/institutions, to pay attention to the histories, voices, lives obscured in formal accounts.

Megan Ybarra on place-making; "site fights"; solidarity and defiance of migrant detention; and geography of abolition/incarceration.

Sophie Sapp Moore on resistance, marronage, and "forms of counterplantation life"; "plantation worlds" which continue to live in contemporary industrial resource extraction and dispossession.

Deborah Cowen on “infrastructures of empire and resistance”; imperial/nationalist control of place/space; spaces of criminality and "making a life at the edge" of the law; “fugitive infrastructures”.

Elizabeth DeLoughrey on indentured labor; the role of plants, food, and botany in enslaved and fugitive communities; the nineteenth-century British Empire's labor in the South Pacific and Caribbean; the twentieth-century United States mistreatment of the South Pacific; and the role of tropical islands as "laboratories" and isolated open-air prisons for Britain and the US.

Dixa Ramirez D’Oleo on “remaining open to the gifts of the nonhuman” ecosystems; hinterlands and peripheries of empires; attentiveness to hidden landscapes/histories; defying surveillance; and building a world of mutually-flourishing companions.

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson on reciprocity; Indigenous pedagogy; abolitionism in Canada; camaraderie; solidarity; and “life-affirming” environmental relationships.

Anand Yang on "forgotten histories of Indian convicts in colonial Southeast Asia" and how the British Empire deported South Asian political prisoners to the region to simultaneously separate activists from their communities while forcing them into labor.

Sylvia Wynter on the “plot”; resisting the plantation; "plantation archipelagos"; and the “revolutionary demand for happiness”.

Pelin Tan on “exiled foods”; food sovereignty; building affirmative care networks in the face of detention, forced migration, and exile; connections between military rule, surveillance, industrial monocrop agriculture, and resource extraction; the “entanglement of solidarity” and ethics of feeding each other.

Avery Gordon on haunting; spectrality; the “death sentence” of being deemed “social waste” and being considered someone “without future”; "refusing" to participate; "escaping hell" and “living apart” by striking, squatting, resisting; cultivating "the many-headed hydra of the revolutionary Black Atlantic"; alternative, utopian, subjugated worldviews; despite attempts to destroy these futures, manifesting these better worlds, imagining them as "already here, alive, present."

Jasbir Puar on disability; debilitation; how the control of fences, borders, movement, and time management constitute conditions of de facto imprisonment; institutional control of illness/health as a weapon to "debilitate" people; how debt and chronic illness doom us to a “slow death”.

Kanwal Hameed and Katie Natanel on "liberation pedagogy"; sharing of knowledge, education, subversion of colonial legacy in universities; "anticolonial feminisms"; and “spaces of solidarity, revolt, retreat, and release”.

[gingernut1314]

Confidence: Sanji

Sanji x F!Reader

Summary: Sanji is taken with you from the moment he lays eyes on you at the beach. And when you come up to him at the small tiki bar, flirty and all so confident, he can't help but become fully enamored with you. You hitch a ride with the Straw Hat crew and grow ever closer to their chef, but will you let go of all the things that keep you from giving in to his enamored feelings for you?

Warnings: tiniest bit of angst, some fluff, some alcohol use, mild talk of age difference (like mild, mild--also everyone in this fic is 18+), smut (p in v, oral (f!reader receiving))

Word Count: 4.0K

A/N: Here is the first part of the four-part, requested mini-series I couldn't just keep sort and sweet lol

(@fanaticsnail I couldn't help but add in his tongue piercing cause you've brought it to my attention and I can't not unsee it and I need it in my lifeee!!)

↞ to Confidence Masterlist and original request | to One Piece Masterlist | Request Rules | Blog Navigation ↠

It doesn’t take much to get Sanji falling head over heels for you.

A beautiful lady in a bikini all stretched out over a beach towel for all to see??

He’s dying to know you in an instant--to wine and dine you with a meal prepared just for your delicate and, obviously, refined taste buds.

He hasn’t even spoken a word to you and he is imagining his life with you by his side.

His crew mates are less than love-struck. 

They grumbled and repairman him before Nami was grabbing him by the scruff of his collar, dragging him away from your beauty. A beauty which shone as bright as the sun you bathed in. Shone maybe even more so bright than the sun.

Your attention was pulled away from your book upon hearing a forlorned shout, looking up just in time to watch a flash of sandy hair and black fabric disappear into the seaside town. You gave a little shrugging humph before returning to your romance novel.

That night, you made your way into the tiki bar that boarded the beach you had reluctantly left once the sun had set, it a crowded mess of tourists visiting from the other side of the island and locals of this town.

You weren’t local, neither from the town or the island it was on, but had been here long enough to learn a few names and have a few learn yours.

You were a traveler. Someone whose broken heart drove you from your home in the South Blue to brave that of the Grand Line. 

It was a feat you were proud of in itself, having made it with no harm to your person and with just a few less berries to your name. A few thousand barries you had paid a pirate crew to bring you here, only for them to leave you stranded on this island, whose people never left and never had any reason to sail the seas. 

“Pirates.” Was the first thing the bartender you had gotten to know all too well said.

Pirates. It was very rare anyone came to this island, let alone pirates. So rare that the last time a pirate had stepped foot on this island, it had been to dump you here. 

That had been a year ago.

He pointed out two standing at the other side of the bar, one green-haired and brooding while the other was blond and flirting up a storm with Mia, the second bartender, who smiled and nodded at whatever he was saying.

The rest of them sat by the back of the tiki bar, waiting for their friends. Two were a constant stream of words and bouncing energy, while the girl looked very much unamused at their shenanigans. 

They were too--young. Too happy looking. Too un-pillagey. Very un-pirate like in your opinion and experience. 

You took your chances with the two at the bar, thinking the green-haired one looked the most captain-y.

You grabbed your drink before walking over to the two, running a hand over the blond’s broad shoulders and leaning against the bar next to him in one fluid motion. You pulled your most playful and flirtatious smile on your lips, taking hold of the curly straw in your drink as he stopped his conversations with Mia to look upon you with sea-blue eyes, one of which hid behind a lock of his blond hair.

“Hello, handsome.” You all but purred up at him. He stared down at you in something like shock. Shock that quickly turned excited and, if you weren’t just seeing things, all but enamored. 

Sanji was enamored by you. By your bright smile and voice and utter confidence as you stood next to him. A confidence he gravitated towards like you were the center of his universe.

“It’s you,” Sanji said, his breathy voice accented in a way you adored. “Such a beauty I had thought lost to me.” He continued, taking hold of your hand in his own.

“We’ve met?” You questioned, watching as he placed a soft, warm kiss on your knuckles that had your cheeks heating.

A kiss your skin burned through Sanji’s lips like the hottest of fires--a kiss he yeared to place on your lips. A kiss he wished to press along every inch of you skin you had to offer. 

“Unfortunately not madam. I saw your stunning glow on the beach upon our arrival. I’m Sanji.” You thought back to the beach. To that shout and flash of sandy hair you had seen. 

Him. It had been Sanji who you had caught a blurred glimpse at.

“Y/N. And how unfortunate indeed, right when I was in need of some help applying lotion to my back. I’m all burnt to a crisp now.” Sanji’s eyes widened as he scanned over your body, which still wore your bikini top and now a tie-on skirt. His cheeks flushed at your comment making a giggle spill from your lips.

“Forgive me. How could I have allowed such a thing happen to skin as fair as yours?” He was quick to say back in a flirty tone to match your own.

My oh my was he handsome and charming and--young. He was young. It was a fact that had you pulling your hand away from his despite the near heartbroken, puppy dog-like look he gave you.

“Allow me to make it up to you,” Sanji said, moving just the much closer in your hand's absence--needing to be closer to your glorious smile and confidence. 

“Allow me to rid myself of this horrible situation.” Sanji’s green-haired crewmate gruffed, pushing off the bar with two beers clutched in one hand, a cocktail in the other, and what looked like a glass of milk tucked against his scarred, exposed chest and the crook of his elbow. 

“I am actually looking for your captain.” You spoke quickly before the green-haired one could rush away. He narrowed his eyes down at you suspiciously. “I assume that must be you?” Sanji scoffed, gaining your attention once more. You watched him grab up the wine he had ordered, his half-obscured blue eyes returning back on you in seconds.

“That old mosshead? I think not.” The green-haired one huffed, thoroughly annoyed, before walking off towards where the rest of their crew sat. “Our captain would be one who ordered a chilled glass of milk.” He said with an amused chuckle as you watched the green-haired swordsmen hand out drinks. The milk went to the bouncy, straw hat-wearing boy who looked the youngest of the bunch. 

That was their captain?

“Come, I’ll introduce you.” Sanji introduced you to his captain, who had been very excited to meet you. You sat, drank, and bartered with their navigator for passage off this little isolated of island for the rest of the night. 

A good handful of berries had won her over and the next day you had been sailing off aboard their ship; The Going Merry.

And two months later you were still sailing with them, despite the various islands you had come across. None had felt right. None had been as full of adventure and fun as it was on the Merry with the Straw Hats. 

It had been two months you spent helping Sanji in the kitchen. Two months of dishwashing, food prepping, and constant flirting back and forth with the crew’s chef. 

Two months Sanji spent pining and pining after you. He had done everything to try and win your affections. Flirting, cooking meals, buying you gifts. But nothing. Nothing besides a thank you and a sad little look as you pulled away when he started trying to confess such feelings for you. 

But Sanji was determined to win your heart. To win your playful smile, your kind soul, and your electric confidence. To have you be his. 

So, on a night when your brightness had been overwhelming and the kitchen was all cleaned up and empty, he confessed his feelings for you. Confessed them quickly and all too rushed for his taste, but it was necessary when he knew you would be quick to shut him down--to laugh it off as more filtrations. 

“Y/N, sunshine--I am deeply and utterly enamored by you.” You stared up at him. Stared up at him as your face grew more and more panicked. A panic he felt himself become as well. He grabbed hold of your hands, holding them gently as he pulled you closer. Holding onto them as if they were a lifeline. He leaned down so he could look into your eyes--eyes that had crept into his dreams. Eyes he wished to look into until he turned to dust and returned to the earth. 

“You are who I wish to spend my days and nights with--and I mean it. You are stunning--and kind and confident. You give me the strength to find my own confidence.” 

“I--Sanji…” His heart beat painfully in his chest as you hesitated. As that panicked look turned near saddened--hurt. It was an old hurt, he knew. A hurt you had told him little of. Just enough to know you had been hurt horribly, it sending you from your home to wonder about the dangers of the Grand Line. 

“I can’t--you don’t mean that.” He pulled your hands to cradle them to his chest, where his heart beat like some drum. 

“I do. Every word.” You swallowed against the dryness in your throat. Because you wanted to accept his words. You wanted to allow your feelings to rush free to meet Sanji’s own feelings, but you couldn’t. You shook your head, feeling your eyes burn. Sanji’s face stayed so--loving. So ready to give you everything he had to give. 

“Tell me why? If you feel even an inkling of what I do for you, please, please tell me why?” Sanji pleaded--begged you. 

“Because…Sanji, you deserve someone better than me. I-I’m broken. Too old and too hardened by past mistakes and loves. And you--” You gave a sad little sigh, looking into those blue eyes of his. “You’re bright and shining and so full of life and love. You have your whole life ahead of you--dreams to keep you going and I--”

“How could I ever possibly wish to achieve my dreams without you by my side every step of the way? How could I possibly even dream if I didn’t have you near?” You shook your head to disagree, but Sanji was quick to take your face in his warm hands. Hands you grabbed onto, squeezing your eyes shut. 

“Too old, too hardened, too broken.” He said with a shake of his head, thumbs brushing over your cheeks. You reopened your blurry eyes to look up at him, to find a small, comforting smile on his lips. “Hardly. Not when you make me feel so alive. When I wake up excited to see your smile and hear your voice and bask in your utter confidence I could never get enough of. You make me feel alive--you make me feel everything you think I am without you.” 

Hot tears escaped your eyes as you reached your hands to brush over the skin of his cheeks. To brush his face gently down closer to your own, which he did eagerly. 

Noses brushed, then lips, until Sanji was closing the microscopic distances between you two. He kissed you soft and sweet. Kissed all the sweet, sweet words he had spoken into your lips. 

You kissed him back just as sweet. Just as soft. A kiss you pressed all the devotion and love you held for him into. A kiss you deepened by allowing his tongue access to your mouth--a tongue that a bit of metal was pierced under. A piercing he had shown you after you had playfully teased him about being too much of a goody-to-shoes. He said it was his own little bit of rebellion. 

Sanji’s hands moved over your back until they came to rest on your hips, grabbing you closer to him. You allowed your own hands to roam over his strong body, feeling the muscle hidden beneath his blue and white striped shirt--muscles you had seen on the special occasions he decided to train out on the deck. He grabbed your wrists just as your fingertips reached his belt.

He pulled away, looking so cutely flustered with his lips all swollen from your kiss, breath coming out in short puffs, and face almost as red as a tomato. 

“Here?” He questioned.

“Unless you wish for an audience? Then in that case, let us pick a room--” You teased, turning to walk towards the exit.

“No.” Sanji grit, cutting you off before you could keep agonizing him. He gave your waist a small little tug back into himself. “Only I get to see you--devour you and your beauty.” That playful smirk of yours pulled to your lips in a way that had Sanji’s stomach twisting and heart nearly stopping at its beauty. 

“Oh? Is that so?” You continued to tease, making Sanji’s flush deepen. You brushed your fingers over his cheek, feeling the warmth of the flush you had put there. “Then that must mean you’re only mine to see?” You traced the heart-shaped curve of his upper lips on feather-light fingertips. “To devour?” Sanji nodded--nodded in a rush that had you chuckling. 

“Yes.” He said, his voice as low and as breezy as a whisper. 

“Good.” You said just as whispery low and breezy before gently pulling Sanji back in. Back into that soft, devotion-filled kiss that sent warm strings of warmth flowing from your lips throughout your entire body. 

Sanji’s grip grabbed for your waist again, holding you close once more as he turned and guided you backward until the backs of your hips hit the island you had just helped clean. Before you could protest against dirtying it once more, Sanji was hosting you up to sit on its gleaming surface. 

“Sanji, you prepare food--” You started, but he silenced you with another warm kiss. 

“You were the one who suggested the kitchen, sunshine.” He said, kissing down your jaw and throat. Your fingers brushed through the bits of blond hair on the nape of his neck. “And I will be having one last meal for the night, so it is only reasonable I prepare it here.” 

You hummed as he kissed over your collarbone, hardly registering what he had truly said. Words that processed in your brain as he placed an open-mouthed kiss over the swell of your breast. Your fingers tightened in his hair as he licked a wet strip over your cleavage. 

“Yes. Only reasonable.” Sanji paused, those beautiful blue eyes flicking up to meet your own.

“Really?” You nodded in a yes that had that charming smile, which had stolen your heart the moment you had first laid eyes on it, cross his features. A smile that made him look all that much more bright and handsome. You felt his hands move from your hips downward over your legs, which you had wrapped around his waist. 

“You know,” You said, voice faltering the slightest bit when his hands found the bare skin of your legs, running right back up them. The feel of his warm palms and the cold metal of the ring he wore on his middle finger sent goosebumps rising over your body, their tingling only spreading and staying. “most men wouldn’t be so…eager to suggest such a thing.” 

“Most men waste without a second thought.” He said, fingers finding the edge of your underwear. His eyes lit with the same excitement you saw in him when you would compliment his meals using specific cooking lingo you had learned from listening to him talk about it. “May I?” You nodded on a breathy yes that lodged in your throat the second he began pulling the thin fabric down and off your legs. 

He placed them on the countertop with a care that you knew wasn’t needed but was grateful for seeing as those were your favorite pair. It only added to your ever-growing liking of the chef, now placing one of your ankles over his shoulder, blue eyes filling ever more in that excitement as he gazed upon your needy pussy. 

“So beautiful, sunshine. So perfect.” You couldn’t help the little whimper that spilled from your lips at the words. Words that had your body zapping and singing in need right alongside your core. 

You leaned back on your elbows as you helped along the process your pussy was begging to end. A process of trailing kisses up your inner leg and fingers that traced shapeless figures into your skin. 

“Sanji--please.” You begged, lightly tugging at him with the foot lying behind his neck. Sanji's breath brushed over your throbbing core and made another whimper fall from your lips. 

“Yes--yes, of course.” He grabbed your other leg and wrapped it over his shoulder where you hooked your legs together to pull him ever closer to your pussy, which begged right alongside you. 

Sanji placed another kiss to your inner thigh--then to the bit of skin that connected your core to your hip before running that pierced tongue through your all but dripping folds. He moaned against your taste and you felt your body burn from it. From just the mere knowledge that he was enjoying tasting you. 

He did more than taste you. He sucked and licked and devoured you like he was eating his favorite meal. 

He ate you in a way that had your heart beating fast against your chest and your body squirming in his sold grip around your hips. Ate you in a mind-numbing, pleasure-rolling way that had you moaning his name so loud you had to slap a hand over your lips to keep from alerting the rest of the crew. 

That pleasure built and built in you until it was pouring out of you in a viciously electric wave. 

Your head fell back against the countertop as you finished, chest heaving up and down rapidly.

But Sanji didn’t stop. He dipped that pierced tongue deep within you, collecting all you had given him into his mouth before attacking your clit once more. 

“S-Sanji--oh my gods--” You whimpered out as you grabbed hold of his writs, which hardly faltered under your weak attempt to pull him away. It was too good--too much for you in your recent, post-come state. “Holy--I’m gonna come again--” You whined out, feeling that electric pleasure begin to build again. An electricity that zipped and zapped around your body before releasing it in a shaking flood. 

You didn’t hold your moan back as you came yet again on his tongue. 

Sanji pulled away then, looking as if he had come himself--his eyes lust-glazed and lips puffy from use. 

“F-fuck Sanji.” You breathed, reaching for that soft face of his. He let your legs fall from his shoulder as he leaned into your touch. 

“I’m sorry, sunshine…” He said sheepishly, his nose brushing against your own. “You just tasted too good to let go.” You gave a low curse before claiming his mouth against yours once more. A mouth you could taste yourself on--a fact that had your body buzzing again.

Your hands roamed over his strong neck, over his broad shoulders, and down his chest and muscle-ripped abdomen before finding their home at his belt. Your fingers made quick work of undoing his belt, which you placed just as gently on the countertop as he had done for your underwear, before going for his button. 

“Are--are you sure, sunshine?” He asked, pulling away enough to look into your eyes. 

“Yes. I want to repay you.” Sanji shook his head the slightest bit.

“You don’t need to repay me for anything.” You kissed his chin as you unbuttoned and zipped down his pants, loosening them around the erection that had been trapped beneath them.

“But I want to.” You kissed his chin again as you slowly pulled his pants down. “Unless you wish to stop?” Sanji’s grip around your hips tightened the slightest bit. 

“No. Not unless you wish it.” You smiled, running your finger over the edge of his underwear. 

“No. I want to have you in every sense of the phrase.” A small little noise sounded in his throat that had your smile widening. Had you slowly pulling his underwear down and allowing his cock to spring free, its warm skin hitting your hand. You bit your lips as you looked over the wonderful sight, it twitching under your gaze. 

“So beautiful, sweetheart. So perfect.” You said, mimicking his earlier words and meaning every one of them. He kissed your temple.

Wrapping your fingers around the smooth bit of flesh, you gave him one, gentle pump that had Sanji all but gasping for air. He fell forward, face burying itself into the crook of your neck and hands clutching at your dress for dear life. 

So sensitive You thought as you kissed the shell of his ear. If he was this sensitive against your hand, you were eager to see his reaction to being inside you. You pumped him again as you scooted yourself closer to his awaiting cock. 

“Ready, sweetheart?” You murmured into his ear, your other hand coming to run through his hair in comfort. He nodded, kissing your neck. 

You hummed as you ran the tip of his cock through your folds, lining him up perfectly against your entrance, allowing him to easily sink into you. Your hum turned into a moan as your pussy stretched and flexed deliciously around his cock, allowing him to sit within you comfortably. 

“Darling--sunshine--gods you feel so, so good.” He huffed against your throat, making you wrap your legs fully around his waist to pull him deeper within you--so that his hips pressed against yours in a way that had him gasping for air all over again. 

“So good, sweetheart.” You praised back, letting him adjust to your warmth. You nudged his face with your own, kissing at his cheeks so that you could claim his lips against yours again. Lips that, once molded against yours, spurred him to move within you. Move in small thrusts that kept him close to you. Kept every little bit of skin that was exposed to the world covered and touching. 

Breath became heavy against each other's lips. Lips that parted and allowed your tongues to dance with each other in a wet dance of passion. 

You tugged lightly at his hand to unravel itself from his white knuckle grip on your dress so that you could direct him to your clit. 

Sparks shot through your body as he began to rub circles into it. Circles that copied his shallow thrusts making your mind spin with it. 

Sanji moaned a warning into your mouth about his quickly approaching end. You nodded, wanting him to come whenever he needed to--wanting him to feel no pressure when it came to such a thing because he had already given you more than most ever would. But he held out. Held out until you were moaning your own warning, the walls of your pussy fluttering around his cock until that build became unbearable to stop. 

As soon as you came, Sanji buried himself deep and spilled strings of come into you. 

Your body slumped against Sanji’s body, which slumped right back against you. Your panting breaths melded together and filled the once more quiet kitchen. 

“Sun-sunshine?” You hummed in acknowledgment, running your fingers up and down the back of his neck. “I think--I think I might love you.” Your heart fluttered like some caged bird in your chest at his confession. 

His second confession of the night. 

“I…” You started as your mind thought of the reason you had even come to the Grand Line in the first place. A reason that had whispered sweet nothings in your ear before tearing you down on the next breath. 

This--Sanji--was not them. Sanji was different. It was something you had come to know early on. Sanji was someone you could laugh with and be around without feeling less than yourself. Without having to prove yourself worthy of his attention. Of his love.

“I love you too.” You confessed back.

Tags: @writingmysanity

[cal-flakes]

please write more dealer!rafe idc what it is about i love that dynamic it was so cute !!!

you’re so real for this. i am LIVING for dealer!rafe right now. eeeeeeek

╰┈➤ saved by dealer!rafe

warnings: drugs, violence, weapons, death. possible tw; implied sa (no description as it doesn’t actually happen)

summary: doing a favour for dealer!rafe takes a dark turn.

“wait, can you run me through it again? please? just one more time?” sighing, rafe cupped her face. “princess, you really need to remember this for me, okay?” y/n nodded, the innocent look in her eyes almost making rafe feel bad for asking her.

“barry here..” rafe pointed “is gonna take you with him to a deal, all you gotta do is sit and be extra pretty, okay?” he explained, his patronising tone going straight over her head.

y/n thought hard about what he said, nodding her head as he spoke. “okay!” she beamed.

“alriiiight, come on little girl, gotta be there on time..” barry sang from the corner of the room, sighing as he stood from the couch.

“yes sir!” she squealed, not really understanding the danger of what she’s about to do.

rafe squeezed her tight as she wrapped her arms around his neck, planting a few kisses to his cheek.

loosening his grip, he peered over her shoulder to adjust her skirt, disgruntled by the short length.

she pulled away and followed barry to the door, a pep in her step.

“man i swear, if you let anything happen to her i’ll fucking kill you” rafe stated, pointing a threatening finger at his friend.

“chill out man, i’ll keep your little princess safe” barry mocked him, holding his hands up.

y/n situated herself in the passenger side, wincing slightly as her thighs stuck to the leather. the drive to the cut was comfortably quiet while y/n wracked her brain for what rafe wanted her to do.

barry glanced at her through his peripheral, sniggering to himself as she looked lost in thought.

“you forgotten already huh?” he smirked, mocking her. bowing her head, she nodded to the ground, picking up on his tone.

“all you gotta do, is sit there. okay? you sit there and don’t say a word, you’re just here to sweeten the deal. if they say anything to you, just be nice..” barry stated, gesticulating as he spoke.

“okay, just sit there..” y/n muttered to herself as they closed in on the porch.

the house, or shack, wasn’t anything y/n was used to. she wasn’t particularly stuck up, she had just never spent much time on the south side of the island, and that was set in stone once she got with rafe.

barry knocked a couple times, the look on his face was almost nervous, a small frown settled on his lips.

a disheveled looking man opened the door, ushering them in. y/n followed closely behind barry, avoiding the man’s prying eyes. the living room was a mess, she struggled to step over the countless empty bottles littered around.

“so, you got my money bare?” the strange man rasped, standing in the doorway sheepishly.

“yeah man, i got your money, but i wanna see the goods first..” turning his head, the man nodded to someone in the hallway.

narrowed eyes closed in on the pair as eerie footsteps sounded around the room. another man, just as strange looking, appeared in the room, duffel bag in hand.

the bag was placed on the table roughly, the silence in the room becoming awkward immediately. y/n picked at her nails, away in her own little world.

the men swapped bags, barry counted the pile of little packets while the other two counted the money. they whispered amongst eachother, their words muffled by the rustle of baggies

suddenly, barry perked his head up, his eyes meeting the knife that had been pointed at y/n. her breath hitched as she clocked it, failing to back up any further against the couch.

“hey man, what the fuck are you doing?” barry snapped, standing up without hesitation.

“you’re missing two-thousand dollars barry..” he sighed, throwing his head into his hands, mentally cursing himself for not double checking rafe’s bag.

“you wanna go get us our money barry, or this one’s not getting out of here alive..” the man motioned towards y/n with the blade.

“nah man, leave her out of this” he uttered, holding a shaky hand up.

“call your buddy, get us our money” the other guy demanded, reaching forward to pull y/n out of her seat.

she let out an ear piercing scream as she was dragged out of the room. barry groaned as her shrieks were muffled by a closed door, having been taken into the bathroom.

“balls in your court bare, get cameron down here with our money, and neither of you get hurt”

barry dialled furiously, “c’mon man, answer the fucking phone” he murmured into the phone.

“rafe! you gotta get down here, right now man” he whispered, “they’re keeping her hostage man, they know about the missing money”

“fuck!” rafe yelled.

“please! let me out!” a high pitched plea erupted from the bathroom. “shut the fuck up bitch!” their voices could be heard through the phone, igniting a burning feeling in rafe’s chest.

barry leapt from the couch, lunging at the man in the room, taking him down with a thud. heavy fists we’re thrown as the two men scuffled around the room, destroying furniture in their wake.

the screams and shouts went on for a while as barry struggled against the man.

the front door burst open as a shaking rafe stood in the door way, chest heaving. “barry! help me! please!” y/n yelped again.

without hesitation, rafe kicked the door open with a crazed look in his eyes. the man had y/n pinned to the wall, trailing a knife along her neck.

from what he could see, she hadn’t been physically injured, but the thought alone was enough for rafe to snap.

he lunged forward, dragging the man to the floor, knocking the knife out of his hand. y/n wailed as they struggled on the floor.

“gun! y/n grab the fucking gun!” rafe bellowed, startling her. nodding through the tears, she pulled the gun out of his waistband.

he stuck a hand out hastily, reaching for the gun in her shaky hands. quickly cocking it, he didn’t give the man a chance before putting a quick bullet in his head.

y/n’s hand covered her mouth as she wept, in a heap on the floor. breathlessly, rafe hurried to her side, scooping her onto his lap.

“i’m gonna get you out of here princess, c’mon angel..” he breathed, lifting her into his arms.

“you good bare?” he shouted, stopping for a response. a sweaty barry appeared in the door way, unconscious man left behind. “all good here bro, let’s fucking go!”

rafe placed y/n in the car carefully, wiping her tears. “it’s okay princess, i’ve got you now, it’s okay..” he cooed, meeting her glassy eyes as he spoke.

arriving back home, he carried her through the house, placing her on the couch. “stay still for a second angel, im gonna clean you up” he said soothingly, rubbing his forehead as the guilt set in.

“rafe..” she let out a shaky whimper. “yeah?” he stopped in his tracks. “please don’t, sit with me..” she cried.

“whatever you need baby, i’m here now, you’re safe with me” he whispered, pulling her into his side.

[beybaldes]

my first, my last, my everything

summer sleepover masterlist

roy kent x gn!reader

summary : “i could be your family” requested by the loml @onceuponaoneshotfanfic <33

content warning : readers family are a little mean because they are moving away from home, set pre-ted lasso era.

an : what a cute prompt :(((( domestic roy is something so personal to me :(((( title is based on the song of the same name by barry white !!

It was well known by anyone that had even heard of him that Roy Kent was ‘one tough cookie’ (as Ted had called him in a interview once when he first came to Richmond), and the sentiment had seemed to stick. But back when Roy first asked you out, you knew you were in for a world of romance.

Based on his ‘I don’t like anyone or anything’ aesthetic alone, you figured he’d be a secret softie and the worlds most hopeless romantic - and you’d been totally right. The evening of your first date, he’d shown up with 2 dozen red roses, kept his hand on your thigh the entire car ride, opened every door for you, pulled out every chair for you, and complimented you at every opportunity. When he walked you back to your door, after a night of being a perfect gentleman, he gave you the most searing and passionate kiss of your life, leaving without another word.

After spending half an hour sat in bed debating if his silence after the kiss was his way of letting you down gently, you searched to see if there was any meaning behind the 2 dozen red roses he’d given you.

The traditional romantic message of 24 roses is that of complete devotion, or “I am yours.”

You had no doubt you’d been seeing Roy Kent for a date, and getting kissed by him like that, again.

4 years later, almost each and every day of it spent together, Roy asks you if you’re willing to move across the country with him if the bid from Chelsea goes through and he gets transferred. When he asks, head hung low and his hands in tight fists, you can tell he expects you to say no. Expects you to explain that while you love him, and you’ve loved these last 4 years, that you can’t - won’t - leave Sunderland. He is ready for this to be the biggest heartbreak of his young life and have it ruin every other partner for him.

You say yes in a heartbeat, and seal it with a kiss just a searing as the one he gave you after your first date.

The move down south is long and tiring, but so worth it. You’re closer to Roy’s mum and sister, he gets to play for his childhood team, your work seamlessly transferred you to it’s sister company, and you were living in a beautiful house with the love of your life (who had an incredibly sexy shaggy mullet going on). Life couldn’t have been better.

Except for the fact that your family hadn’t stopped bombarding you with text messages about your move all week. You still had boxes left to unpack and they were already making you regret your decision. Not the decision of moving in with Roy, you’d go fucking anywhere with Roy, but they made it so hard to allow yourself to feel like you’d made the right choice when they were constantly telling you you hadn’t.

Every single one of them was telling you Roy would leave you sooner or later, for some model, footballer, actress or one of the spice girls. One of your uncles even had a bet going with one of his mates from the pub that Roy would fuck all five before then end of his career. To say it made you feel like shit would be an understatement.

“Sunshine, I’m home.” Roy shouted from the front door, kicking it closed behind him and then kicking his shoes off. He’s been doing press about the transfer all day, and he feels terrible having left you in the new house all alone to unpack, but he knows it’s just part of the move, there’s ultimately nothing he can do about it. Still, the only thing he wants to do before he has to go out for another full day of press tomorrow is curl up in your arms, have you run your fingers through his hair, and whisper sweet nothings in his ear about the new life the two of you are going to build together in London. Instead he is met with what seems like a cold and empty house. “Babe? You here?”

You’re sprawled on the couch Roy had insisted was way too big, but looked small now in the middle of the gigantic living room, lazily covered in a throw blanket and only wearing one of Roy’s Sunderland shirts. Even though you’d heard him come in, you didn’t have the strength to call out to him, especially not when your phone was still frantically buzzing against the coffee table every 10 seconds.

“Sunshine? What are you doing in here?” Roy places something down on the kitchen counter and you can hear it thanks to the main rooms open plan, and you can tell he’s getting closer to you because you can hear the soft padding of his feet against the wooden floor. “You okay?”

Even though he wants nothing more then for him to crawl into your arms, he knows you need it more then he does right now. So, before you can resist him, he pulls you into his arms, sitting the two of you upright on the settee with you in his lap, his hand in your hair. “What’s up, buttercup?”

“Nothing Roy-o, just tired. Missed you.” You hid your head in the crook of his neck, hoping that if you burrowed deep enough into his mix of warmth and aftershave, you could hide from the constant buzzing of your phone. “It’s a big house, I feel so small without you here to share it.”

“Give me a week, sunshine, then I can be here all day every day until preseason. And then we’ll be on a pretty similar work schedule.” Roy pressed a kiss to the crown of your head, ghosting a kiss against your temple and the another against the shell of your ear. “It’s going to be perfect. You. Me. Here. It’s all going to work out, sunshine.”

For a moment, you believed Roy and it felt like everything was going to be okay, that you’d made that right choice, and that you and Roy were taking the first step towards the rest of your lives. Then your phone buzzed.

“Fucking hell, babe, you got a fan club or what?” When you didn’t laugh, Roy’s concern only grew, leaning forward and picking up your phone to see what all the commotion was. As he scrolled through message after message from family member after family member, his brow grew tense, and a scowl settled on his face. “What a fucking joke.”

“Roy.”

“No, seriously, they can say all they want about me. I don’t give a fuck. I never have. But about you?” Roy scoffed, wrapping an arm around you and pulling you with him as he leant against the back of the sofa. “You’re fucking related to them and this is how they’re talking to you? It’s a fucking joke.”

“They’re my family, Roy-o, they’re just trying to look out for me, that’s all.” One of your hands moved to run up Roy’s chest, tracing around the embroidered material of the Chelsea badge right over his heart. God, did he look good in blue.

“Some fucking family, to treat you like that.” Roy ran a hand over his forehead, pushing his curls of out his eyes. You loved his hair like this, grown out and curly like in the pictures you’d seen of him as a kid. Maybe one day you’d convince him to push it out of his eyes with a headband. He’d look sexy in a headband. “I could be your family.”

Roy’s hand cupped your jaw, turning your head slowly to face him. When your eyes finally met his, he pressed a soft and long kiss to your lips. You melted into it, the stress of the week and of the messages from your family melting away under Roy’s loving touch. “You’re already my family, Roy. It’s like you said, me, you, here. Besides, you have been since you wormed your way into my heart on our first date with those 2 dozen roses.”

“Funny you’d say that.” Roy whispered, nuzzling his nose against yours, pressing a chaste kiss to your lips then pulling away with a smirk. “Thought the new house could do with some greenery.”

As you turned to look at the kitchen counter, you saw what you could only assume was 2 dozen roses already in vases. It must have been what Roy brought home with him, and suddenly you wished you’d been feeling happier and could’ve appreciated them more when he first walked in the door.

“The traditional romantic message of 24 roses is that of complete devotion, or “I am yours.”” You repeated under your breath, a warm smile brightening your whole face. Roy’s eyes widened, as though he hadn’t necessary expected you to know the meaning behind 2 dozen roses, but he loved you even more for it.

“I am yours.” Roy repeated, voice filled with complete and utter earnest. “And one day I’m going to put a ring in your finger to prove it.”

an : Mwah!!!! Love you guys thank you for reading so far <333

[wrishwrosh]

hey, i find your posts about historical fiction pretty interesting, do you have any recs?

anon this is the most beautiful and validating ask i have ever received. absolutely of COURSE I have recs. not gonna be a lot of deep cuts on this list but i love all of these books and occasionally books do receive awards and acclaim because they are good. in no particular order:

the cromwell trilogy by hilary mantel. of course i gotta start with the og. it’s 40 million pages on the tudor court and the english reformation and it will fundamentally change you as a person and a reader

(sub rec: the giant, o’brien by hilary mantel. in many ways a much shorter thematic companion to the cromwell trilogy imo. about stories and death and embodiment and the historical record and 18th century ireland. if you loved the trilogy, read this to experience hils playing with her own theories about historical fiction. if you are intimidated by the trilogy, read this first to get a taste of her prose style and her approach to the genre. either way please read all four novels ok thanks)

lincoln in the bardo by george saunders. the book that got me back into historical fiction as an adult. american history as narrated by a bunch of weird ghosts and abraham lincoln. chaotic and lovely and morbid.

the everlasting by katy simpson smith. rome through the ages as seen by a medici princess, a gay death-obsessed monk, and an early christian martyr. really historically grounded writing about religion and power, and also narrated with interjections from god’s ex boyfriend satan. smith is a trained historian and her prose slaps

(sub rec: free men by katy simpson smith. only a sub rec bc i read it a long time ago and my memory of it is imperfect but i loved it in 2017ish. about three men in the woods in the post revolutionary american south and by virtue of being about masculinity is actually about women. smith did her phd in antebellum southern femininity and motherhood iirc so this book is LOCKED IN to those perspectives)

a mercy by toni morrison. explores the dissolution of a household in 17th century new york. very different place and time than a lot of morrison’s bigger novels but just as mean and beautiful

(sub rec: beloved by toni morrison. a sub rec bc im pretty sure everyone has already read beloved but perhaps consider reading it again? histfic ghost story abt how the past is always here and will never go away and loves you and hates you and is trying to kill you)

an artist of the floating world by kazuo ishiguro. my bestie sir kazuo likes to explore the past through characters who, for one reason or another (amnesia, dementia, being a little baby robot who was just born yesterday, etc), are unable to fully comprehend their surroundings. this one is about post-wwii japan as understood by an elderly supporter of the imperial regime

(sub rec: remains of the day by kazuo ishiguro. same conceit as above except this time the elderly collaborator is incapable of reckoning with the slow collapse of the system that sheltered him due to britishness.)

the pull of the stars by emma donoghue. donoghue is a strong researcher and all of her novels are super grounded in their place and time without getting so caught up in it they turn into textbooks. i picked this one bc it is a wwi lesbian love story about childbirth that made me cry so hard i almost threw up on a plane but i recommend all her histfic published after 2010. before that she was still finding her stride.

days without end by sebastian barry. this one is hard to read and to rec bc it is about the us army’s policy of genocide against native americans in the 19th century west as told by an irish cavalry soldier. it is grim and violent and miserable and also so beautiful it makes me cry about every three pages. first time i read it i was genuinely inconsolable for two days afterwards.

this post is long as hell so HONORABLE MENTIONS: the amazing adventures of kavalier & clay by michael chabon, the western wind by samantha harvey, golden hill by frances spufford, barkskins by annie proulx, postcards by annie proulx, most things annie proulx has written but i feel like i talk about her too much, the view from castle rock by alice munro, the name of the rose by umberto eco, tracks by louise erdrich

[thepunkranger]

Resident Evil Characters - A Summary

Note: This is entirely my own opinion and said with a heavy dose of humor

Please enjoy

Chris Redfield

OG

Started as a twunk

Became an angry gorilla man???

Alpha Male™️

Punches boulders

Wants you to marry his sister

Smoker

Hide yo kids, hide yo wife

Rude to wait staff

2/10 - Just a guy. Hit him with your car

-

Jill Valentine

Other OG

Arguably better main of RE1

Master of Unlocking

Bisexual Bob™️

Butch

Supercop

Once got mind-controlled into going blonde

Rocket Launcher babe

PTSD

Big Strap Energy

Giant anime gun

10/10

-

Albert Wesker

OG Baddy

Sunglasses

Thinks he’s cool

A little too into Chris

“What are we going to do this game, Albert?”

“What we do every game, Alex: try to take over the world”

Matrix jacket

Maybe a vampire?

Looks like my uncle (derogatory)

4/10

-

Barry Burton

Bear

A+ line delivery

Just happy to be a part of things

Wishes his daughter would talk to him

Comes through in a pinch

Got lost on his way to The Last of Us

Father figure

Not dead out of sheer dumb luck

8/10

-

Rebecca Chambers

Baby butch

Sees the best in everyone

Autism be damned, my girl can work a shotgun

Sporty

Mommy Domme/Babygirl switch vibes

Sweet coffee addict

Doing fine, thanks for asking

Awkward thumbs up

9/10

-

Billy Coen

Bad Boy™️

Never bothered to take off his handcuffs

Tattoos

Mullet???

Moral standards

Strong silent type

Whole situation could’ve been avoided by just talking about his issues but no

Queen fan

7/10

-

Leon S. Kennedy

If a golden retriever became a human and then got kicked every day of its life

Having a really bad first day

Into dominant women

Dumb 90s haircut

Uses comedy as a coping mechanism

Hair grows in direct correlation to his level of angst

“Hey demons, it’s me, ya boi”

Sexy

Dog lover

Certified Good Boy™️

Fucked up a perfectly good rookie is what you did. Look at it, it’s got depression

15/10

-

Claire Redfield

College student stuck in the zombie apocalypse

Soft butch

Humanitarian

Forced her brother to teach her how to knife fight

Really into motorcycles

Leather jacket

Rocket Launcher babe #2

Always has at least one adopted child with her

10/10 would ask to babysit

-

Ada Wong

Mommy. Sorry. Mommy- sorry. Mommy-

Grappling hook

Badass spy

Emotionally distant

Soft spot for cute cuddly things (Leon)

Femme fatale

Book lover

Chaotic neutral

Crossbow 😍

Could step on me and I’d say thank you

Rocket launcher babe #3

10/10

-

Sherry Birkin

Goosebumps protagonist

Worst parents ever tbh

Surprisingly good under pressure

Please someone get this girl some therapy

Supergirl

Smartest person here

One hell of a shot

The trauma is immeasurable

Somehow still doing fine

Loves her weird adopted family

8/10

-

Carlos Oliviera

Himbo

First POC main?

Went from three polygons and a white boy haircut in the original to actual gorgeous South American hunk in the remake

Lost his accent along the way for some reason

#1 Jill simp

If Dug from Up was a guy

Only trustworthy person in the whole series

Just wants to help

Gorgeous gorgeous hair

Loves strong women

Hakuna matata

Touch-starved

10/10 would peg

-

Steve Burnside

Twink

Who is this sassy lost child?

Hot Topic employee

Into Claire (she’s too old for you bud)

Choker

Thinks he’s edgy

Whiny

Daddy issues

1/10

-

Luis Serra Navaro

If Puss in Boots was a human

The Most Extra™️

Luscious flowing locks

Definitely into bondage

Used to work for Umbrella

Trying to make up for it

Don Quixote references

Bisexual

Good with his hands

Praying for a threesome with Leon and Ada

10/10

-

Ashley Graham

Basic white girl

Always getting kidnapped

Master of Unlocking #2

Razor flip phone

Ada Wong bisexual awakening (same)

Good with a wrecking ball

Makes Leon catch her every time she has to jump a ledge (also same)

Would like to go to Hot Topic, please

7/10

-

Sheva Alomar

Player 2

Second POC main

Bad AI

Too good for her game

Willing to go on a suicide mission with a guy she just met

Left handed

Deserves a better stylist

Only good part of RE5

Literally my girl got done so dirty just give her another chance please

10/5

-

Moira Burton

“It’s not a phase, dad!”

Probably gay

Weak arms

Skillz

Box dyed her hair at least once

Simple Plan playing in the background

Childhood trauma

7/10

-

Piers Nivans

Trying his best

Appreciates a good steak

Sick of Chris’ bullshit

Good with a rifle

Just a good man

German Shepherd boy

Self-sacrificing

8/10

-

Jake Muller

Wesker’s son

Daddy issues

Who invited Ronan Lynch here?

Quips for days

Bad boy

Loves the type of woman who can kick his ass

The Most Edgy™️

9/10

-

Ethan Winters

Husband of the year

Trusting

Surprisingly chill

The most basic white man in all of RE

Hands? What hands?

Functionally a lizard

Would still love you if you were a worm

Just casually knows how to craft bullets

Moldy

8/10

-

Mia Winters

Toxic girlfriend energy

Literally possessed

Dark sense of humor

Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss

Casually working for a bioterrorism organization

Does actually care about her family

Definitely doesn’t have a penicillin allergy

If you can’t be the girl of his dreams, you can at least be the feral swamp witch of his nightmares

2/10

-

Zoe Baker

Lesbian

Mold intolerance

Southern accent thicker than grandma’s gravy

Picked last on the playground

Somehow okay despite her brother being Like That

Joe’s favorite

Science skills

8/10

-

Lucas Baker

Jigsaw

Didn’t even need the mold

Probably got at least one true crime documentary made about him

Working for Mia’s bioterrorism organization

Left his classmate rotting in the attic

Just the worst

0/10

-

Alcina Dimetrescu

Mommy

Please step on me

Elizabeth Bathory vibes

Just fucking huge

Can turn into a dragon

Lesbian

9/10

-

Karl Heisenberg

Grimy

Tumblr Sexyman

When robotics majors get weird

Fights with his siblings

Doesn’t actually care at all about Miranda

In cahoots with the lycans

7/10

-

Rosemary Winters

Mommy and Daddy issues

YA protagonist

Badass

Childhood trauma

Into the Mold-verse

Alternate universe Sherry Birkin

8/10

[realfuurikuuri]

Goddamit, I want this little fucker to show up again

I want sequels to the Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog. I want Barry to work a series of odd jobs that always go south the moment Sonic Team gets involved.

Let him be the victim of the world's chaos.

[variouspolltournaments]

Submissions Closed

Next up is the Villain Protagonists Tournament. So long as the protagonist is, was or becomes a villain, they count here.

Submit a Villain Protagonist, along with where they come from and (if you want) propaganda through ask or submit a post.

Submissions will be closing on the 12th of June. Will be doing prelims on the same day, scratch that I'll be doing as many prelims as I can before submissions close, any left over will be done the day of the submissions closing. This is because there a few submissions I'm not sure about.

Top 4 submissions are the ones I submitted myself.

@tournament-announcer

Submissions in bold have propaganda, submissions not in bold do not have propaganda. Whether they do or do not have some already, you are still free to submit some. Those with a line through their name were eliminated in the prelims.

SUBMISSIONS:

Ellen: The Witch's House/The Diary of Ellen

Light Yagami: Death Note

Roxie Hart: Chicago

Alex Wake: Beyond Eden

Yato: Noragami

Koro-sensei: Assassination Classroom

Bucky Barnes: Avengers

Xeno Wingfield: Doctor Stone

Victor Vale: Vicious

Barry Lyndon: Barry Lyndon

Footsoldier D: Go Go Loser Ranger

Medea: Euripedes Medea

Taylor Hebert: Worm

Scourge: Warrior Cats

Tigerstar: Warrior Cats

Megamind: Megamind

Setsuna Higashi: Fresh Precure

Invader Zim: Invader Zim

Valkyrie Cain: Skulduggery Pleasant

William James Moriarty: Moriarty the Patriot

GoodTimesWithScar: Secret Life.

Shen Qingqiu: Scum Villain's Self Saving System

Nimona: Nimona

Ballister Blackheart: Nimona

Artemis Fowl: The Fowl Adventures

Vegeta: Dragon Ball Z

Hiei: Yu Yu Hakusho

Gru: Despicable Me

Dr. Horrible: Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog

Wu Zetian: Iron Widow

Magneto: X-Men

Catherine Foundling: A Practical Guide to Evil.

Nick: Anna and the Apocalypse

Elphaba Thropp: Wicked

The Batter: OFF!

HAL 9000: Space Odyssey

Anakin Skywalker: Star Wars

Darkstalker: Wings of Fire

Alastor: Hazbin Hotel

Zhou Zishu: Word of Honor/Faraway Wanderers

Mr. Wolf: The Bad Guys

Jafar: Twisted

Sauron: Lord of the Rings

Morgoth: The Silmirilion

The Witch of the Waste: Howl's Moving Castle

Dracula: Dracula

Hades: Disney's Hercules

Hannibal Lecter: Hannibal

Heinz Doofenshmirtz: Phineas and Ferb

Raistlin Majere: Dragonlance

Petey: Dog Man

Eric Draven: The Crow

Ainz Ooal Gown: Overlord

Harley Quinn: Harley Quinn 2019

Dexter Morgan: Dexter

Hector con Carne: Evil Con Carne

Mandy: The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy

Rick Sanchez: Rick & Morty

Rusty Venture: The Venture Bros

Eric Cartman: South Park

Utena Hiiragi: Gushing Over Magical Girls

Yuno Gasai: Future Diary

Lucy: Elfen Lied

Belkar Bitterleaf: Order of the Stick

Tomie: Tomie

Punie Tanaka: Magical Witch Punie-chan

Azazel: Yondemasu Yo! Azazel-san

Lucifer: Sin: Seven Mortal Sins

Venom: Venom comics

Ren Hoek: Ren & Stimpy

Demitri Maximoff: Darkstalkers

Sweet Tooth: Twisted Metal

Slappy: Goosebumps Slappyworld

The Warden: Superjail!

Herbert West: Re-Animator

Joker: Joker 2019

Patrick Bateman: American Psycho

Monami: Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl

Sagiri Tengai: Korokoro Soushi

Shion Sonozaki: Higurashi When They Cry

Ai Enma: Hell Girl

Johnny C.: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac

Lenore: Lenore the Cute Little Dead Girl

Takuyoshi Masuoka: Marebito

Deadshot: Secret Six

Catman: Secret Six

Scandal Savage: Secret Six

Ragdoll: Secret Six

Bane: Secret Six

Jeanette: Secret Six

Dennis Reynolds: Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Dee Reynolds: Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Frank Reynolds: Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Charlie Kelly: Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Mac McDonald: Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Zhu Yuanzhang: She Who Became the Sun/The Radiant Emperor

Baru Cormorant: The Traitor Baru Cormorant/The Masquerade

Penelope Akk: Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain

Li Hongzhang: Towards the Republic

Empress Dowager Cixi: Towards the Republic

Cao Cao: Three Kingdoms

Mapleshade: Warrior Cats

Quenthel Baenre: War of the Spider Queen

Jeggred Baenre: War of the Spider Queen

Pharaun Mizzry: War of the Spider Queen

Ryld Argith: War of the Spider Queen

Halisstra Melarn: War of the Spider Queen

Danifae Yauntyrr: War of the Spider Queen

Valas Hune: War of the Spider Queen

Victor Frankenstein: Frankenstein

Adam,Frankenstein’s Monster: Frankenstein

Zuko: Avatar: the Last Airbender

Horus Lupercal: Horus Heresy

Lorgar Aurelian Horus Heresy

Angron: Horus Heresy

Mortarion: Horus Heresy

Magnus the Red: Horus Heresy

Fulgrim: Horus Heresy

Perturabo: Horus Heresy

Konrad Kurze: Horus Heresy

Alpharius Omegan: Horus Heresy

Vorx: The Lords of Silence

Lucius the Eternal: Lucius: The Faultless Blade

Fabius Bile: The Fabius Bile Trilogy

Honsou: Iron Warriors series

Talos Valcoran: Night Lords series

Asdrubael Vect: Path of the Dark Eldar trilogy

Ufthak Blackhawk: Brutal Kunnin/Da Big Dakka

Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka: Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh!

Trazyn the Infinite: The Infinite and the Divine

Orikan the Diviner: The Infinite and the Divine

Cryptosporidium-137: Destroy All Humans

Han Jaeho: The Merciless

[socialjusticeinamerica]

Nimaratta Randhawa “Nikki” Haley anglicized her name and her entire life to gain acceptance from a racist, white supremacist, white nationalist, far-right Republican Party of grifters. Haley chose to become a useful idiot for the Republicans and to share in their criminal grift.

Don’t fool yourself into believing all people of color or all marginalized people are hand in hand in some grand coalition. Haley and others do not support African-Americans, just the opposite, they want to distance themselves from them to gain acceptance from autocratic right-wing Republicans.

This is egregious. Haley denies her heritage and then becomes irate when Trump calls her by her legal name. Curiously the Trumps switched from Drumpf themselves to sound less ethnic.

I’m going to beat this dead horse again. Republicans will always refer to Barry Obama as Barack Hussein Obama to make him sound foreign and menacing and make a not so subtle reference to Saddam Hussein and radical Muslims which they villainize. Saddam wasn’t a radical religious fanatic nor was he involved in 9/11 but that’s another can of worms.

Let us not forget Rafael Eduardo Cruz who has labeled himself “Ted”. Republicans at Trump rallies literally chant “send those sp-cs back”. Rafael and his Dominionist father Rafael Sr know the Republican oligarchs and political establishment won’t accept a Hispanic named candidate so the decision was made to anglicize himself to “Ted”. This makes him more palatable to racist redneck Republican douche bag voters. Another useful idiot changing himself to be accepted by white supremacists autocrats. Racially Cruz is white and his claim to being Hispanic are dubious since he was born and raised in Canada and the US and his papi only lived in Cuba for about 17 years. Rafael Sr’s parents moved to Cuba from Spain just prior to his birth. Racially they’re white. The hypocrisy is stunning as Rafael claims to be Hispanic at election time to garner Hispanic votes in Texas. In point of fact the name Cruz is typically Portuguese but is sometimes found in Spain. Ted ALWAYS calls “Barry” by his given name of Barack Hussein Obama with emphasis on Hussein. The name Hussein is actually one of the most common names in the Middle East and does not imply connects to Saddam like the Republikkkans would have you believe.

While on the subject of name games. Devin Nunes is 100% white European Portuguese. The name is pronounced “noons” but Devin likes to go by “noon-yez” to imply he is Hispanic. Why? Same reason as “Ted”. Rafael’s claimed home state of Texas has a large number of Hispanic residents. California similarly has a large number of Hispanic residents and Devin needed some of their votes to get into office. Devin has even gone as far as to claim to be Hispanic which he is not. No connection to Spain or any of its former South/Central American territories.

These may seem like minor or subtle points but remember that Republicans can only win by cheating or by counting on Democrats staying home. Races are increasingly coming down to the wire and being won by a small number of votes. Nikki has fooled the entire Republican base into believing she’s white and doesn’t want to Trump to say her parents are immigrants from India. The Republikkkan party is built on racism and hatred of immigrants and the truth could potentially cost Nikki millions of votes. Likewise Ted needs to be anglicized for the same reason. Ted goes a step further with micro-advertising to Hispanic communities to gain some of their support without catching the attention of racist and anti-immigrant Republican deplorable assholes. Devin takes a different tack by openly claiming in the past to be Hispanic while privately claiming to be white European in private. Devin is not a national figure and had only to get votes in a small Congressional district where the Hispanic votes were crucial to his election. Like Ted he doesn’t even speak Spanish, however he does speak Portuguese poorly.

Three double dealing useful idiots in service to America First white nationalists. Three immigrant backgrounds covered up. One hoping nobody notices she’s South Asian even though she’s become unrecognizable from her own childhood photos. Three Trump trash traitors to America using a heinous political propaganda machine created by Karl Rove and now in the hands of racist, nativist, trash.

[gosecretscribbles]

Rise August Day 2: Karai

“– and I thought Raph was going to back down until Leo mentioned his teddy bear collection.”

Karai frowned slightly.  “He…collects bears?”

“Yeah!  Stuffed animals, you know –” Mikey scribbled in the air with his fingertip, etching the outline of a teddy bear.  The bright orange outline shimmered in the dark space of their shared ninpo.  “He used to have over two hundred, but the Shredder kind of destroyed most of them.  He’s up to twenty now.  Anyway, Leo threatened to portal them all into the Hudson if we followed him on patrol tonight.”

Karai sighed.  “How illogical.  Wasn’t he the most injured by the Krang?”

“Yeah, but…”  Mikey shrugged.  “I think that’s why he wants to patrol by himself.  He hated the crutches.  I think he wants to test his limits without worrying about us watching.  Well – me and Raph watching.  I think he forgot that Donnie records, like, everything.”

A sudden shimmer of teal sparked over Mikey’s orange form.  He grimaced. 

“Aw, man.  I think that’s Barry.  I told him we could do an extra mystics lesson tonight since we don’t have patrol.”

“Hmm.”  Karai shifted uneasily.  “Mystical forces can be deadly.  Do not let yourself grow overconfident, Michelangelo.”

“Not you, too!” he huffed.  “I get babied by everyone in the family.  But I’ve got just as much ninjocity as any of my brothers and three times the razzmatazz.  I know what I’m doing and I know when to stop – and when not to stop.”  He held out both hands.  They were still crisscrossed with faint scars, but here in the darkness, the scars glowed a molten yellow. 

Karai placed her hands over both of his.  “You do,” she said gently, warmly.  “And I have little doubt you will achieve mastery beyond any Hamato before you.  I simply do not wish you to master too much too quickly.  Those with great talent are often called upon to bear terrible burdens.”

Mikey’s eyes softened even as he flashed her a cheeky grin.  “Don’t worry, Uncle Ben, I promise I’ll go slow.  For now.  Spider-Angelo out!”

He squeezed her hands and vanished in a crackle of orange fireworks.

She sighed.  Ninpo mysticism could translate centuries-old Japanese and modern English, but not cultural references.  Or perhaps her progeny were also part-spider…?  With the way Michelangelo flung his chains, she wouldn’t be too surprised. 

She stood and stretched.  The dark space of the ninpo began to fade.  The space around her filled instead with a green landscape of rolling hills, forests, and rivers, an echo of the Japan she had been raised in.  The afterlife could take many forms.  When she had been released from her self-inflicted prison, her dead descendants had been charmed by her descriptions of the original Hamato village, and had recreated it here.  With modern additions.  Electricity was a marvelous invention, as was plumbing.  Even so, the rice paddies in the south had been set up according to ancient and well-proven agricultural science.  No one needed to eat, but there was something deeply soothing about growing a food so familiar to every generation of Hamato.  Her keen eyes picked out her father leading a few children through the paddies.  Telling them stories, likely as not, to teach them about their history.

She moved to join them.  Then Michelangelo’s words came back to her.  Leonardo was patrolling alone tonight. 

But no Hamato need ever be alone.

Karai closed her eyes and rekindled her ninpo.  She let her senses stretch once again into the dark space where their mystic energy touched across generations, across the very boundary between life and death.  It only took her a moment to find him.  When she opened her eyes, the space around her was dark once again.  Leonardo was in front of her, his own eyes closed, legs folded in a traditional seiza. 

She nearly spoke.  Then she recognized the look of concentration on his face.  He was frowning slightly.  His blue outline flickered and fuzzed like a sputtering fire.  Ah.  So he was attempting to activate his ninpo to visit her.  It was a good try, and he was very nearly present.  But, just in case…

It took a moment of intense concentration.  Then Karai stepped into the mortal world.

She was merely a ghost here, dissolved from the waist down into pale green smoke.  But she could see and hear well enough.  Leonardo’s blue ninpo outline was superimposed over his mortal body.  She looked around.  He was sitting on some kind of tall structure, square, with a rattling metal box at the opposite corner.  The city stretched out around them.  She walked the perimeter of the…rooftop?  Was it a roof?  It was very high.  A good vantage point, she decided, and easily defensible.  She would wake Leonardo if danger arose.  Until then, the nearby structures and the streets below were empty, save for a few stray cats.   She returned to her position in front of her many-great-grandson.

“Leonardo.”

“Gah!”

He jumped.  His outline vanished for a moment, and in the mortal world he nearly fell over.  He righted himself and reappeared immediately. 

“Gram-Gram!  I – uh, didn’t think that would work?”  He grinned widely.  “You look good!  No surprise there.  Good looks run in the family, am I right?”

She raised an eyebrow and sat down.  “I doubt you ran off on your brothers solely to compliment your own face.”

“I didn’t run off on – wait – Mikey told you?  That little snitch!  That’s it, his oil paints are going in the Atlantic, I swear to pizza supreme –” 

His outline winked out again.  His mortal form bent over, panting.  She waited calmly.  His ninpo reappeared a moment later, flickering more so than before.  He smiled crookedly. 

“Sorry, Gram-Gram.  Just debating how many turtles are going to live to see voting age.”

“Was your trip tonight that important?” Karai asked mildly.

“Uh, yeah!” He gestured grandly to the skyline.  “I wanted to admire the view.  New, improved, and Krang-free.  I don’t, uh.  Did Mikey tell you about the Krang?”

“He did,” she said quietly.  “I then realized the true identity of the oni who possessed my father."

“Whoa, whoa, time out!”  He made a T-shape with his hands.  “That suit was Krang tech?”

The pink face of the grinning oni swam in front of her mind.  She suppressed a shudder.  “Yes.  I regret that you inherited such a terrible enemy because I was not strong enough to stop him.”

He spread his arms, grinning.  “No worries, Gram-Gram!  Anatawa hitori ja nai.  You aren’t alone, either!  It took a whole generation of Hamato 2.0 to bring him down.  Plus a heroic sacrifice by yours truly!  But, uh –”  He leaned forward, like they were going to share a secret.  “From one prison dimension escapee to another, how do I, like, not do that next time?  There were like, zero facial products in there.  The Face Man slash Leader would like to keep these supple scales intact!”

She searched his eyes.  “Leonardo,” she said slowly, “why do you think there will be a next time?”

“I don’t!  Krang Prime is not getting out.  Soon as my power’s back, I’m going to drop the key into the sun.  But if I’d handled the key in the first place –”  He seemed to catch himself and consciously relaxed, leaning back on one hand and twirling the other in the air.  “I’m just saying, I’d rather avoid the whole sacrifice play.  I don’t want my brothers thinking it’s their turn next if I can’t ‘Fearless Leader’ the problem away.”

“Sacrifices are sometimes inevitable,” she said slowly.  “But a good leader makes that choice wisely.  All actions necessitate a trade.  If you choose to strike, you choose not to defend.  Even doing nothing is a choice, if the cost to act is too great.  The best choices use the strengths and weaknesses of yourself and your team to minimize risk and maximize effect.”

Leonardo’s casual posture hadn’t changed, but his eyes were now steady and focused.  Even his ninpo was shining more clearly.  It made him look older.  She could see the leader he would become written in his gaze.  

She also saw the mark of the prison dimension.  Her own soul bore it, too.  Intense isolation, however brief, reshaped them into creatures of solitude, until it was both natural and inevitable for them to isolate themselves still further.  After all, her she sat, high on a hill and far from her newly established village.

“Good leaders,” she continued gently, “also stay connected with their family.  Breaking bread and sharing stories keep you attuned to their needs.  What do your brothers need, Leonardo?”

He tilted his head, thinking.  Then his face lit up.

“Pizza!”

She threw back her head and laughed.

“What?  They do!” he protested.  “It’ll suck Raph out of the gym and Donnie out of the lab.  I’ll even get a bunch of toppings on the side so Mikey can assemble each slice of pizza differently.  Then we’ll turtle pile in the living room to sleep it off.”

“It sounds wonderful,” she said warmly, wiping her eyes.  “Very well.  Enjoy your meal, grandson.  I had better help my father with the children.”

Leonardo grimaced.  “There’s dead Hamato kids?  That’s messed up.”

“The Krang are merciless in every iteration. Many of them passed at the hands of that cursed suit.  But they will have full lives here, free from further tragedy.”

“Here’s hoping the same for us.  Um.”  He leaned forward suddenly and wrapped his arms around her.  She froze.  She couldn’t really feel him, but she felt his arms, their ninpos buzzing pleasantly against each other.  “Love you, Gram-Gram!”

He vanished with a bright blue pop.  She exhaled sharply, releasing her mystical hold on both the mortal world and the shared ninpo space.  It had left her more exhausted than she expected.  She sat for a moment, breathing the sweetness of the clear mountain air, the warmth of the sunlight.  It wasn’t quite the same as the mortal world.  But it was grounding nonetheless. 

Well.  Time to take her own advice. 

She stood and began making her way down the hill toward the paddies.  Her father was acting out a story that involved great splashing, to the delight of the dozen or so children now gathered around him.  One of them saw her coming and waved.

“Obaasan!” she cried.  “Jiisan says you were talking to the kappa!  Do we have kappa brothers?  Can they swim with us?”

“One day,” she said.  “Would you like to hear more about them?”

“Yeah!”

She smiled and went to join them.  

[luffyrose]

Barry, Constantine, and the Kid

I was reading "I Just Wanna Talk" by foldingfacets and the way Barry interacts with Danny, and his whole misunderstanding just gave me a very very good fic idea.

Danny was Constantine's kid! But thanks to whatever ex had him, John had no idea who Danny was, nor that his kid had been put up for adoption. (I'm feeling a random one-night stand with some god-adjacent being so that Danny was already very much Other, compared to normal people). His not fully human blood had him survive the Fenton household, seeing as Jazz had radiation exposure since she was little basically so she'd survived thanks to that.

Danny kinda figured he was adopted. Sure his hair was black like Jack's and his blue eyes weren't anything abnormal, but his parents were both very very white. And he was much more tan, definitely Mideastern. Jazz actually confirmed it when he asked one time, but he still loved them all dearly. He tried to love them all, but it was hard when the only one he really remembers raising him is his sister. Until the accident happens and things just go south.

Like, Danny does his whole hero thing, and works things out with his ghosts because most of them were either messing around or didn't realize he was actually a baby ghost because he was so strong or smth, idk, they cooperate with him and just come to bug him and play fight when bored or needing to satisfy their core. All in all, he's King of the Infinite Realms now and he is not having a good time tm-

He's SEEN all the John Constantine things, but never bothered with tracking this guy down because hey! selling his soul to multiple entities to prevent ANYONE from getting it was really smart! Who was he to fault the guy.

It kind of all comes crashing down though when things go horribly ary with his adoptive parents. He overheard them talking, and even though they did love him, he learned that to them he wasn't just their kid. He was still the kid Jazz really wanted for a brother. After literally growing up in their house, he wasn't on the same level as Jazz. Simply because he was adopted, and neither had truly planned to adopt him.

And despite learning this, he tries so hard to still love and few them as his parents, because he's NOT their kid! They're right, but they still raised him no they didn't it was Jazz and he thought that they at least loved him more than that some part of him knew they never had. So when Jazz suggests they tell them, together for his own safety, he agrees for two reasons. 1, he loves and trusts Jazz and she really wanted to believe they were better than just ghost hunting. 2, he could finally know the truth, whether they would not believe him, hate him, or love him.

They don't.

Maddie and Jack both believe he died due to their creation. They don't doubt that for a moment. Jazz is thrilled at first, thinking that meant they would feel sorry, apologize, accept Danny, ANYTHING except harm him. But she was wrong as they tried to shoot him. She tried to stop them, and they told her even if he was Danny, that he was a ghost which meant it wasn't ever really going to be him again. And Jazz was horrified, asking how they could shoot their own son, ghost or not, and as if it was the simplest thing in the world, they say he wasn't their son.

And that was it.

Danny ran.

He hid in the ghost zone, and Jazz tried to come with. She ended up destroying the portal, outing Vlad, and running away with a voice recorder of their parents and the conversation they'd had. Sam and Tucker have to lay low, only messaging Danny to ask if he'd been hurt.

Danny didn't reply.

After a few months, his friends had gotten a reply a few days after, so had Jazz, saying he was fine and Fright Knight was watching over him, which was true but the Knight was more worried than anything, Pandora stopped by. She was kind of like an aunt, so she hated to see him sad. But she'd also realized something.

Halfa, as most VERY old ghosts and Ancients know, are rare to find. Vlad was an odd case, being Halfa-adjacent but not a true Halfa since it took 20 years for his powers to grow to what they were when it was normal for quick power growth like Danny. Not only does one need to die with a bunch of ectoplasm nearby, but they must have a few other requirements. Such as a bond with the supernatural, strong magic, etc. No mortal being without very strong and innate abilities would survive a full Halfa creation. So she'd always been curious as to how Danny survived when even heroes who'd been exposed to death would not near chance of being a Halfa.

Being a demi-god made it a lot easier. Even then, not all demi-gods would survive either, seeing as it would be rare for them to be within range of the ectoplasm needed to balance their god-like blood. Danny was an incredibly special case. Pandora had found out that Danny wasn't just a demi-god, but the human who was his parent was an incredibly strong magic user. So much so, that he'd tricked and tried his way through many many years of his life. Honestly, Pandora was amazed the human was alive.

Telling Danny of his father was not in her plan, though she did tell him of his demi-god blood. She also told him, that it may be safer with heroes.

So with a little time to heal, not really he was still bandaged up but at least he wasn't about to fall apart, Danny got Wulf and Cujo, the former opening a portal with a sad goodbye for the time being. (Really, Wulf would always know where Danny was.) Either way, Danny had planned to find this John Constantine, since seeing as he'd somehow avoided death all while dimension hoping, he was probably a good bet. Or at the very least could help him find a hero to help.

Falling through the portal with Cujo, he hadn't expected a giant room in what he could only guess was a secret base. There was a hero, he really should have looked up heroes, but most of his childhood hadn't really given him access to anything outside of his hometown, which was staring in shock at him.

And Flash meets Danny.

And instantly wants to adopt the kid. Sorry, Bruce! This one is his kid actually! But when he hears the boy's reason for being there, the poor kid looking utterly terrified and apologetic for barging in and trying to explain how Constantine's contact info had led him here, Barry is just crushed. He's keeping the kid entertained, panicking, and trying to contact John.

Wally ends up meeting him while they're waiting, and it instantly taking this kid as his own new brother. If his boyfriend gets a bunch of younger siblings so does he!

Either way, both speedsters are already filing adoption papers, not really as much as Barry wants to because he knows better than to take in an unknown even with how horrifying this child's accidental slips of his home-life was like.

So we have an MIA John, not like that's rare-, an unknown child who they really need to test DNA for but don't want to scare him, speedsters already mentally said kid's parent, and a whole lot of chaos. Danny had no IDEA that Constantine is his bio dad, Clockwork had Pandora hint him this way for a reason though...he got a dad one way or another and in some universes, he had 2. So. No loss situation to the Ancient.

They are not ready for this traumatized ass kid because he doesn't even realize he'd traumatized. Wait till he has a panic attack though, Danny, despite his apparent obliviousness to how fucked up he should be, will finally seem like the hurt kid he is.

And oh boy, wait till someone accidentally jostles a wound during that whole first meeting since Danny's hiding his wounds. Now that's a whole other bag of worms to open, like how'd he get them????

[bumblesimagines]

Midnight Beach

Part 7

Request: Yes or No

Attempting to do a taglist for this series but know that my memory is horrible and I might forget sometimes! Some tags may not work so apologies for that!

Taglist: @hyubg @nathan-no

~~~

Barry and Rafe's voices sounded muffled to him. Distorted and distant. They went back and forth, debating and switching plans. As if they'd done this plenty of times. As if they weren't planning on spilling blood. (Y/N) stared out the window, fingers slowly rubbing over the bruises that had formed on his skin. His thoughts both ran and remained still. His body felt numb and cold. The whole goddamn car reeked, strengthening the growing migraine in his head. Barry's dark eyes glanced at him through the rearview mirror, suspicious and pitiful. 

Was he about to be a bystander to a murder?

Was his friend truly the one who'd shot and killed Sherrif Peterkin?

Only one answer came to mind for both questions. Yes. Because Rafe Cameron was volatile, impulsive, and bloodthirsty. And he'd backed (Y/N) into a corner where his only choices were to risk becoming another skeleton in the Cameron's family closet or go along with whatever sick plan had morphed in their twisted heads. (Y/N) squeezed his eyes shut when the car slowed to a stop and he shakily inhaled through his mouth. Barry turned in his seat, his gun glittering in the moonlight shining through the windows. 

"Tranquillo. You feel me?" Barry spoke quietly, watching Rafe closely. He turned his head toward the back where (Y/N) sat and raised his brow at him, practically sneering. "You especially. Stay behind us and stay fuckin' quiet, aight? Let's be smart about this. I'd hate to break your face 'cause you switched up on us."

"He's cool, Barry. I told you already. I got him if shit goes south." The fuck did that mean? (Y/N) swallowed thickly and pushed the car door open, stepping out into the dark night. Looking down the path leading up to John B's place, he could see lights in the distance. Someone had to be home. A mix of hope and despair bubbled up in his stomach and the car doors closing felt like death sentences. Rafe nodded for him to follow them, tightly holding his gun in his hands. No matter how many times (Y/N) tugged his jacket closer to his body, he still felt so cold.

He followed the two up to the edge of the property and relief flooded him when he couldn't spot anyone in the front yard. Beer cans, used blunts, and random garbage had been scattered around the grass and the hot tub appeared to have been used so somebody must've been around recently. The two men craned their necks in search of the teenagers, whispering back and forth until Barry slipped away from Rafe's side and crept around toward a back door leading into the house. Rafe glanced back at (Y/N), only having to look at him to let him know he wanted (Y/N) to follow him into the yard. Rafe searched the yard, stumbling upon a firepit that'd been recently used.

(Y/N) stilled by the firepit, gazing around the yard until his eyes slowly crept up the large tree. Three familiar faces stared wide-eyed back down at him. JJ brought a shakey pleading finger to his lips while John B's features hardened into a venomous glare. But his attention didn't linger on the two. Instead, it focused on the blonde girl alongside them.

Sarah fucking Cameron.

Alive, healthy, and scared shitless.

(Y/N) looked forward again and cleared his throat, searching for Kiara and Pope's hiding places until he noticed he couldn't spot the HMS Pogue at the end of the dock. "Rafe, the boat's gone. They probably left to get more beer." Rafe turned toward the dock and squinted through the darkness, a curse falling softly from his lips. A glass broke and (Y/N) turned around, watching Barry angrily toss open the porch door and step out.

"Ain't shit in there, bro." He barked and Rafe groaned, rubbing a hand over his face.

"(Y/N) thinks they left to get beer 'cause the boat's gone," Rafe told him, motioning over to the dock and beginning to pace. "I mean, shit, they couldn't have gone far. Maybe they're coming back now. We just gotta- We just gotta..." Rafe trailed off and halted his pacing, staring at the trunk of the tree with knitted brows. (Y/N) stepped forward and turned, spotting the burnt writing on the trunk. A makeshift gravestone for John B. Rafe began giggling.

"So, your sister's a Pogue for life, huh, Rafe? Now who would've thought?" Barry snickered but his words made Rafe stop. His jaw clenched and his nostrils flared, muscles flexing slightly as he stared at the words written on the trunk. His breathing grew uneven and (Y/N) glanced at Barry before flinching and reeling away when Rafe lifted his hand and shot at the tree, the sound echoing in his ears. Barry sprung forward, quickly restraining Rafe's arms and scolding him. 

"You're gonna get our asses busted, bro! Let's bounce." Barry shoved Rafe forward and quickly took off in the direction of the car in case a neighboring house called the police to report the gunshots. (Y/N) walked forward, avoiding looking up toward the branches where the three were still hiding. Rafe spared one last look at the house before taking (Y/N)'s wrist and running into the foliage back to the car. (Y/N) yanked the car door open and climbed in, nearly stumbling onto the floor of the car when Barry stepped on the pedal and reversed down the path. He collapsed back and breathed a heavy sigh, eyes squeezing shut again. 

"Take me home."

"(Y/N)-"

"Barry, take me home or drop me off somewhere. I don't give a shit, just let me out of this fucking car!" (Y/N)'s eyes opened and he met Rafe's, jaw clenched and chest heaving. "I'm not going to snitch on either of you because I know what'll happen if I even think about it. Whatever shit you two have planned, keep me out of it."

"You promised, (Y/N)-"

"And you're fuckin' crazy, Rafe." (Y/N) shot back and took in another deep breath. His eyes met Barry's in the rearview mirror and the dealer silently pulled over, letting him get out of the car and onto the sidewalk before peeling off. (Y/N) pressed a hand against his chest, feeling his heart quickening with each passing second and his stomach lurching violently. Bile rose up and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't keep it down. His lunch and a mixture of fluids splattered on the sidewalk and he groaned, rubbing his mouth with the back of his wrist. He placed his hands on his knees as tears pricked the back of his eyes. 

"Fuck... Fuck, fuck, fuck." (Y/N) whispered, staggering back and falling onto the grass beside the sidewalk. He pulled his knees to his chest and covered his face with his hands, sniffling softly. His heart yearned for his parents. A desire to melt into their arms and cry until the tears no longer ran. But he didn't have the luxury. Instead, he allowed himself a couple of seconds to cry before getting himself together and making his way back home.

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John Booker Routledge had willingly handed himself over to the police after a brief chase through the marshes. Sherriff Peterkin's murderer would be brought to justice after a long month of waiting. That's what the radios and news stations claimed anyways. But the longer (Y/N) stared at the courthouse from the safety of his car, the longer he grew uncertain of who to believe. Ward's worried stares whenever (Y/N) hung around Rafe, the quiet conversations the father and son would have, Rafe's erratic nature growing more unpredictable after Peterkin's death. Rafe knew how to shoot a gun. He'd proven it the other night. He'd done it so casually and with ease. 

It'd been why he remained in his car. He couldn't walk into the courthouse and take a seat after what'd happened the previous night. He wouldn't be able to look Ward in the eye, not after everything Rafe had said and done. (Y/N) could still hear the gunshot, could still see the fear on JJ and Sarah's faces, could still feel Rafe's controlling hold on his skin. His eyes caught movement at the doors of the courthouse, waves of people exiting the old building. Most, if not all, looked beyond happy. They shared smiles and hugs, nodding to the officers present. Among the crowd piled out the Pogues with a mix of rage, disappointment, and sadness on their faces.

"Shit.." He breathed and looked forward, teeth digging against the inside of his cheek. His hands on the steering wheel tightened and untightened, breathing growing labored. Images of the previous night flashed in his mind, combined with the feeling of fingers on his throat. He tried blinking away those images and shakily turned the engine on, pulling out of the parking spot and driving aimlessly down the street. He knew everything, he knew everything. Would Rafe hurt him? Would he go after him? Would Ward turn on him? 

Turning into a random parking lot, (Y/N) stepped on the brakes, seatbelt digging into his chest as his body nearly flew forward from the force. His head dropped down onto the steering wheel, eyes closing as he tried calming his breathing. His mind continued to run wild, forcing thoughts and assumptions that made his skin crawl. Rafe's words kept echoing in his head. The treasure, John B, Peterkin. Had Rafe been lying to him about those things? Pain spiked in his head and he leaned back with a groan. 

Soft knocking came from his window and he turned, spotting the top of Topper's head peering through the window. He raised a bag of Cheeto puffs in one hand and a pack of beers in the other, bushy brows wiggling playfully. (Y/N) snorted softly at the sight and turned his car off, lightly pushing the door open and hopping out. Upon closing the door, Topper slipped out one of the beer cans and offered it to him before tucking the pack under his arm and opening the bag.

"I, uh, saw you peelin' in and you looked upset so I thought I'd share some goodies with you." Topper explained with a boyish smile, offering the bag next. (Y/N) sniffled and chuckled softly, digging his hand into the bag and taking out a handful of puffs. 

"I'm... I had a rough night yesterday. Rafe and I... I-I can't be around him anymore." (Y/N) told him, eyes falling onto the pavement. He shoved a puff into his mouth, feeling the setting sun warming his back. Topper's brows knitted and he nodded slowly, lips forming an 'o'. 

"What happened? Did you have a fight or-or was he high and did something-"

"I don't want to talk about it, Top. Not now." (Y/N) sighed heavily and Topper nodded again, this time more rapidly. 

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Just... let me know what you need and I'll be happy to help." Topper smiled widely and (Y/N) couldn't help but return it. He tilted his body slightly to peer over his shoulder, the sparkling water in the distance catching his eye. He nodded toward it and the two began walking, letting a comfortable silence fall over them as they shared food and beer. Despite having a habit of throwing tantrums and getting defensive, he knew how to treat his friends.

(Y/N) watched the sky erupt into shades of orange, yellow, and pink when the sun began dipping over the horizon. Once out of view, the sky morphed into a blue that darkened over time until all they had were the lamps from the harbor in the distance and the moonlight guiding them. The area around them remained silent, apart from the sound of voices growing louder and louder, turning into angered shouts and then into desperate pleas. (Y/N) halted, recognizing the voices in seconds. A mind-numbing chill ran down his spine and the last can of beer slipped from his fingers. His feet moved on their own, rushing toward the harbor with Topper at his heels just in time to spot Rafe holding a squirming and panicking Sarah in a large canister of water. 

"Rafe!" (Y/N) ran forward, grabbing the back of Rafe's jacket and shoving him back into Topper who immediately landed a punch to Rafe's jaw, knocking him to the ground. He quickly scooped the weakened teen out of the water, relief flooding him when she gasped for air and coughed, hands and arms flying out toward him. Her nails lightly scratched his arms as she practically climbed onto him, arms gaining an iron grip on his shoulders and neck. (Y/N) stepped back, keeping his arms secured around Sarah's waist. He turned his head and looked down at Rafe. He took each hit Topper threw, even when blood trickled down his nose and lip.

"Topper, come on. Sarah's more important than him." (Y/N)'s words snapped Topper out of his rage and he heaved, wiping his bloodied knuckles on his spots and backing up. Sarah buried her face in his neck, legs weakly wrapping around him. Her body shook and trembled against him, quiet sobs coming from her lips. (Y/N) spared the bloodied and bruised Rafe another glance before following Topper back to the sidewalk. He fished out his car keys and tossed them to Topper, motioning for him to go ahead and bring the car back toward them. Topper nodded and ran in the direction of the car as (Y/N) carefully lowered Sarah onto a bench and brushed wet hair out of her face.

"(Y/N)," She cried, lips quivering. Her fingers curled around the fabric of his shirt and she pulled herself out of the bench, arms wrapping around his neck again. Sighing quietly, (Y/N) slipped his arms around her waist, the familiarity of it making his head spin for a moment. Sarah pressed herself against him, breathing in his familiar smell and closing her eyes. Her shivering body relaxed and she nuzzled against his shoulder, inhaling deeply. Headlights appeared nearby and (Y/N) guided Sarah to his car, helping her get into the backseat before getting spare towels from the trunk. He wrapped them around her, rubbing them into her skin and clothes. 

Turning around in the driver's seat, Topper licked his lips and spoke, "I know a place we can go where you both can stay."

                    ✽        ✽       ✽       ✽       ✽       ✽

Sunlight draped over his eyes and made him turn his head. His face brushed against soft hair and his brows furrowed, eyes cracking open. His vision looked blurry and as he regained consciousness, he noticed his body was pinned under something heavy. Blinking away his drowsiness and adjusting his vision to the brightness of the room, he took in the small unfamiliar home around him. The heaviness on his chest and stomach shifted and his gaze snapped down, meeting a head full of blonde hair. His still groggy mind failed to replay the events of the previous night but from the fact he still had his clothes on, he assumed whatever had gone down had been innocent enough. 

"Uh," He cleared his throat and the person shifted again, head tilting up and revealing his ex. He froze and tensed, the fog in his brain lifting as the memories rushed back. Right, that's right. Rafe had tried to drown his sister and Topper had taken them to a small place he'd gotten for himself on the bank. Sarah's eyes remained closed with her lips slightly parted and a dribble of drool beginning to slip out. He almost chuckled at the sight. Sarah Cameron had always been such an odd person to watch when she slept. She'd sometimes contort herself into the weirdest of sleeping positions but still managed to awake without any neck or back cramps. She snored- something she always refused to admit- and almost constantly drooled onto her pillow, especially after long days. And yet, even with the drool and bedhair, she still looked near perfect in the mornings.  

"Morning, sleepyheads." (Y/N) glanced back at Topper when he quietly entered, balancing two trays of food on each hand. His eyes momentarily left the trays to look at him and flash him a quick smile before his lips pressed together and his eyes focused on the trays. He took quietly and carefully walked across the room to the counter and breathed a sigh of relief. He grinned triumphantly and nodded to himself. (Y/N) slowly tried dragging himself out from underneath Sarah without disturbing her, but his movements caused the girl to stir and open her eyes. Her lips formed a pout and she stared sleepily at him, squinting slightly. Her eyes suddenly widened and she scrambled away, falling back onto her rump on the other end of the couch.

"Sorry!" She squeaked and (Y/N) waved her off, shaking his head and swinging his legs over the edge of the couch. He stood up and adjusted his shirt, lips pressing into a thin smile. He averted his eyes from the blonde and turned toward Topper when he spoke.

"So, I got ya'll some breakfast." Topper picked up the tray with the orange juice, croissant, and scrambled eggs on the side. He gingerly set it on her lap and motioned to the phone on the tray. "I got you this so you can keep in touch with us in case of an emergency or if you just want to chat." 

"Thank you." Sarah breathed, licking her lips and eyeing everything on her plate hungrily. (Y/N) snorted quietly and sat down at the table across the couch, quietly thanking Topper when he brought him the tray with three pancakes, bacon, and sunny-side-up eggs. His stomach rumbled at the sight of breakfast. Topper brought him some syrup and proudly smiled when the two dug into the food he made. 

"I'll get the Malibu ready and we can head out once you've two eaten and caught up, alright?" Topper gave them a thumbs up and walked out, closing the door behind him and approaching his precious boat. (Y/N) licked some syrup from the corner of his lip and looked up at Sarah, watching her eagerly devour the croissant as if her life depended on it. Her eyes flickered over to his and she paused, pulling her face away from the croissant and wiping the crumbs off her face with the back of her wrist. She chewed and swallowed the chunk in her mouth, getting some orange juice and smiling awkwardly at him.

"It's good to see you honestly. I've had... a crazy week." 

"I had a crazy month thinking you were dead." The smile fell and she looked away. "Honestly, Sarah, I was expecting to bury an empty casket in your name by the end of the year. I... I thought you'd died out at sea after you rode into that storm. And then, fucking Rafe goes crazy with his coke and Barry and- and-" (Y/N) inhaled deeply and clamped his mouth shut, shoving his fork into the pancakes and rubbing his forehead. He finished the rest of his plate and stood, walking toward the sink and placing his plate inside. Arms slipped around his waist and Sarah rested her head on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything. For how things ended, for making you worry." She apologized softly, pressing her lips to his shoulder and kissing it sweetly. "And thank you for the other night. If you hadn't thrown them off our trail... Who knows what Rafe and Barry would've done to us." 

"I was doing what was right." (Y/N) muttered and turned around, leaning back against the sink. Sarah's arms remained loosely around his waist, staring at him with warm eyes he always found himself lost in. She smiled at him and stepped closer, her lips parting to speak but he pulled her arms from his waist and stepped around her, walking toward the doors and stepping outside onto the dock to help Topper with the Malibu until Sarah was ready to head back to John B's place. 

The ride back was silent, apart from Topper occasionally attempting to make light conversation. It took him four tries before he realized the two had no intentions of keeping a conversation flowing like they used to. (Y/N) stared out into the marches, watching large houses become trees and then become mobile homes and overrun houses. Among them, John B's place. The Pogue's had already been out on the boat and upon closer look, a familiar face was back with them. 

"John B? John B!" Sarah jumped to her feet, excitedly calling out to the brunette. (Y/N) shared an exasperated look with Topper and stood up, holding on while Topper stopped the boat by the HMS Pogue. Sarah sprung from one boat to the other, jumping into John B's arm for a tight embrace. "What happened?!"

"Uh, they dropped all the charges. I'm a free man, yeah." John B explained, chuckling as Sarah threw her arms around him again and laughed. He rubbed her back and sighed, grimacing and pulling away to speak again. "But listen, Sarah, they're coming after Rafe."

"Good." Sarah exhaled in relief. (Y/N) felt a weight lift off his shoulders. "He's completely unhinged. He jumped me last night. That's why I didn't come back." 

"Yeah, man. Rafe has completely lost his mind. First, I find (Y/N) all shaken up in a parking lot because of him, and then he tries drowning his own sister. I mean, thank god we got there just in time." Topper told them and Kiara's gaze jumped to (Y/N) instantly, her eyes zoning in on the marks on his neck. She frowned at him and it only deepened when he averted his eyes.

John B's jaw clenched and he scoffed quietly under his breath, tapping his thumb on the boat and nodding. "Well, I guess I owe you two, don't I?" He spoke through gritted teeth.

"It's all good. I mean, somebody had to rescue your girlfriend." Topper's lips quirked into a small smirk and (Y/N) grunted, rolling his eyes at Topper.

"That's funny because she's not actually my girlfriend, right? You wanna tell 'em?" John B turned toward Sarah with a smug look, quirking a brow at her. Sarah pursed her lips and ran a hand through her hair, staring at her boyfriend for an awkward moment before shrugging lightly and looking at them, gaze lingering on (Y/N).

"I'm- I'm with him." 

"Yeah, we gathered that." (Y/N) responded, nearly snickering at the way John B's face fell at her answer. Kiara sucked in a sharp breath and winced at John B's face, looking away from the couple and scratching the back of her neck. Topper laughed and nodded, basking in the embarrassment rolling off John B in waves. (Y/N) lightly nudged the side of his leg and Topper stepped back, snickers still leaving him as he turned the boat back on and prepared to leave. 

"Guys, hey, thank you." Sarah stepped forward toward (Y/N) and reached out, wrapping her arms around him. (Y/N) wrapped an arm around her waist and returned the hug, making eye contact with John B. The brunette watched them with a glare and scoffed again, tearing his eyes away when the two pulled away from each other. A prickle of satisfaction entered (Y/N)'s veins and he nodded to the other three. Kiara leaned forward, pushing the sunglasses up onto the top of her head and smiling at him.

"Since I'm sure Topper's busy-" Topper scoffed. "-We definitely have room for one more if you wanna hang, (Y/N)." Kiara offered, earning nods of agreement from JJ and Pope. John B whirled his head around to stare at her with wide eyes. 

"I appreciate it, Kie. But I'd rather be alone for a while. Maybe some other day."

[crossdreamers]

Dr James Barry, the Transgender Man who Became British Colonial Medical Inspector in 1822

The Vagina Museum tells the story of the transgender man who became a famous military surgeon in Britain in the 19th century.

Dr James Barry (circa 1789-1865) was a renowned military surgeon who is probably better known for the speculation about his gender than his illustrious career. So let's set the record straight about the work of this brilliant healer.

A famous surgeon outed after death

James Barry was assigned female at birth. This was only revealed after his death. The fact was made public as the woman who laid his body out after his death was disgruntled at not being paid for her work, so she ended up taking a story about his body to the press.

The story was somewhat newsworthy because in his lifetime, Barry was a famous surgeon, something of a rockstar in the military and surgical worlds.

It's hard to tease out details of Barry's early life due to posthumous speculation - once the news broke, several people claimed they'd known all along, or told stories about his supposed femininity, and the whole story was viewed through the lens of 19th century gender politics.

Even Barry's precise date of birth is not known - the likely date seems to be around 1789, but it may have been as late as 1799. Barry is known to have lied about his age, because his appearance was very youthful, and he sometimes passed himself off as younger than he was.

His life

Barry studied at the University of Edinburgh, and received his qualification as a doctor of medicine in 1812, when he would have been about 19 or 20 years old (or 10, according to his own account of his age!). After this, he studied in London and qualified as a surgeon in 1813.

He proceeded to join the British army, enlisting as a hospital assistant just four days after qualifying as a surgeon. During his 46 years of service, he gained huge renown as a surgeon and a doctor.

Surgeon in South Africa

In 1816, Barry went on his first overseas posting as an assistant surgeon. He was posted to Cape Town, and quickly became friends with the governor, Lord Charles Somerset. The friendship began because Barry treated Somerset's sick daughter spectacularly well.

Later in his life, in 1829, Barry went absent without leave from the army when Somerset himself became sick. He spent two years treating his friend until Somerset's death.

Colonial Medical Inspector

In 1822, Somerset promoted Barry to the role of Colonial Medical Inspector, which was an astronomical leap in Barry's career. Sometimes, though, the friendship raised eyebrows. In 1824, Somerset and Barry were accused of having sex with each other.

Barry's renown grew hugely during the ten years he spent in South Africa. He is sometimes credited as the first doctor to successfully perform a C-section in Africa where both survived, though that credit may better go to indigenous Africans

Throughout his long surgical career, Barry was posted all around the world, serving in the West Indies, Europe, America, and Africa. Following him was a reputation for excellence. Wherever he went, sanitation greatly improved, and soldiers and local people alike became healthier.

A bit of a jerk

Barry achieved all of this by being kind of a jerk. He was known to be quick-tempered, heavy-handed, argumentative and tactless. He rubbed his colleagues up the wrong way.

Barry's career wasn't a completely upward trajectory, because he sometimes got himself court-martialed or demoted due to his behaviour. He famously won a duel against a colleague, and shot the man's hat clean off his head.

Quarreling with Florence Nightingale

One of his most famous arguments was with Florence Nightingale herself during the Crimean War. When writing about it, years later, Nightingale doesn't specify the cause of the argument, but Barry lived rent-free in her head following it.

[Florence Nightingale  was an very famous English social reformer, a statistician and the founder of modern nursing.]

Loved by his patients

Barry's patients loved him, though. As well as being a talented physician and surgeon, he reputedly had a good bedside manner.

Barry's military career came to an end in 1859. He didn't leave, and he wasn't sacked for being a difficult person to work with. He was forcibly retired because he was old, and his health was failing. Six years later, he died in London, from dysentery.

In the century and a half since his death, discussion of James Barry has mostly focused on speculation about his gender. But that, perhaps, is one of the least interesting things about this remarkable doctor.

Top photo of Barry (centre), his dog and John, his servant, circa 1862, via Wellcome Images. Second photo: Portrait claimed to be of Barry, ca. 1820s

Thread from twitter (which we refuse to call X as long as Elon Musk is deadnaming his transgender daughter).