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nev3rfound · 3 years

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someone i once knew : b.b - p.4

with Fury denying Bucky the chance to stay to monitor you, he and the rest of the avengers are forced to go on a mission leaving you alone. if only they new the dire consequences that decision would enforce. (2.3k)

(anything in bold/italics are flashbacks/memories!)

masterlist / permanent taglist

- i also have an etsy shop and will be releasing wandavision themed items real soon! -

PART ONE . PART TWO . PART THREE . PART FOUR . PART FIVE . PART SIX

(also thank you again and again for the love and excitement for this series - i am loving the writing process and there are now two chapters left!)

“Look, you’re all going, no excuses.” Fury states as he stands before the Avengers all sat around the conference table with furrowed brows.

Bucky sighs to himself, thinking about you sat down in that lab alone, still unsure of what is even happening like everyone else.

“But Sir,” Steve speaks up, all eyes turn to him as Fury raises a brow as to whom is questioning him. “Y/n isn’t just someone, she needs protecting.” He reasons, but Fury exhales deeply.

“Mr Rogers, let me make this clear,” Fury steps forward. “I don’t give a damn.”

“You should.” Bucky mutters under his breath as his arms remain crossed over his chest, barely able to stop his leg from bouncing up and down.

“What was that, Sargent?” Fury quips.

Lifting his head, Bucky coldly stares at Fury, ignoring Steve’s silent pleas for him to back down. “You should care who she is, as she matters to me.” Bucky bluntly states.

“As I said, Sargent, I don’t give a damn.” Fury reiterates his point. “Stark hired her, she went through every background check there is. She’s perfectly fine here, do I make myself clear?”

No one dares to speak up as Fury turns his attention to Maria Hill standing beside him.

“Get the jet ready, they can finish briefing on the way.” Fury tells Hill.

Maria nods as she places her earpiece back on. “Yes, Sir.” She walks out of the room and Fury follows.

“We can talk more about this situation when you return.” Fury comments before exiting the room, leaving the team sat in tense silence as the thought of you lingers on all their minds.

“So that’s it?” Sam asks as Tony rises to his feet, not daring to look up at Bucky or Steve.

“You heard Fury, we’ve got a job to do.” Tony explains, knowing there’s no use trying to argue any further. “Come on, the sooner we go the sooner we can get back.”

Sitting in the lab, you wish someone was around to keep you company. The last time you had any form of communication was with Bruce before he left last night for a mission with the rest of the team.

All you can hear were his lasting words of advice; "Don't leave this room."

You were bored out of your mind, stuck in the confined space surrounded by cameras and monitors as you remain hooked up to various machines; yet no one will explain what they all do or what is exactly happening to you.

“Hey, FRIDAY?” You call out, desperate for something to do as you lean against the glass wall, flexing your feet.

“Yes, Ms Y/l/n, how can I help?” FRIDAY asks and you exhale deeply, what can an AI do to provide any assistance whilst her creator is keeping you trapped in a lab?

“Any chance Tony mentioned my dinner plans?” You chuckle, having all the facilities beside a kitchen at your disposal.

“I’ll arrange for dinner to be provided by an Agent, Ms Y/l/n.” FRIDAY responds, and you nod to yourself, sliding down against the glass as you lie flat on your back.

“Thanks, FRIDAY.” You mutter. “God, I’ve truly lost it, talking to an AI for company.” You groan, covering your eyes.

It has been a few days since you had a ‘memory’ or a snippet of one. It’s as if your brain has gone dormant the moment someone finally was willing to listen and provide help.

Yet, your mind always ends up wandering back to the ever-present thought of Bucky Barnes. You’ll never forget the way he screamed your name before he was forced to the ground, thrown out of sight from your point of view. There was something about him, the way he looked at you with so much pain lingering in his eyes, even when you first met him.

“Come on, seriously where are we going?” You giggle, following behind James as his hand remains in yours, guiding you out from the bar filled with soldiers.

Glancing over his shoulder, Bucky smirks at his best girl, still amazed that you’ve stuck with him through all this. “Somewhere special.” He tells you, quickly turning to kiss you sweetly before carrying on.

After walking for around ten minutes, Bucky guides you toward the old hall you used to go to during dances.

“This is somewhere special, huh?” You joke, resting your hands on your hips as Bucky fiddles with the lock, tearing it off with ease much to your surprise.

Releasing the chains, Bucky pulls the door open and motions for you to walk inside. Without hesitation, you quickly slip in as Bucky follows behind.

Your footsteps echo in the empty space, having barely been used for months since the war worsened. There are still banners from the last dance you attended with Bucky, dust lining the stage and the various blown out bulbs.

Bucky hovers near the entrance of the dim hall as the moonlight shines through the broken roof, illuminating your figure as you look around. He tries to ignore the screams that ring through his mind, the horror he witnessed mere weeks ago.

“James?” Your voice brings him back to reality as your hand cups his cheek. “It’s okay, you’re right here, with me.” You softly remind him, having experienced countless nights of cries and screams of terror leaving his lips as he flails around, wishing for it to all end.

Leaning his head against your hand, tears form in Bucky’s eyes as you move closer, wrapping your arms around him and hold him close.

“It’s okay, I promise, it’s okay.” You whisper, running your fingers through his hair as he buries his face in the crook of your neck, his shoulders rising and falling. “It’s over, James, you’re safe.” You remind him, but his sobs subside as he lifts his head, resting his hands around your waist.

“Doll, there’s something I’ve gotta tell you,” Bucky admits, knowing it’s going to be more painful to tell you he’s leaving again. “I, Steve’s got a plan, one final mission.” Looking up, Bucky can see you trying to remain composed as you bite your lower lip. “And then we’re done, it’s over and I’m all yours, forever.”

“That’s it?” You breathe out. "One final mission?"

Nodding in response, Bucky guides you toward the moonlit spot in the middle of the hall. “That’s it, and then I’ll be here, by your side until you get sick of me.” He jokes, and your gentle laugh fills his ears.

“Won’t take long, but I’ll put up with it if it means you’re here, with me.” You tell him before tearing your eyes from his as you look up at the birds perching on the rails above you, cooing back and forth.

Bucky admires your smile, the sincere look across your face and he knows it’s now or never.

“Y/n?” Bucky asks, and you hum in response as you lower your face, your eyes practically sparkling brighter than the stars. “Do you remember the last time we were here?”

You smile at the memory. “Of course, we danced until everyone else had left.” You remember it vividly, dancing in the silence of the hall together before Bucky walked you home and slept by your side until the sun rose. His lips lingered over your skin as the sunlight beamed through your curtains, burning his eyes with the reminder he can’t stay.

“There was something I never got to say that night, and throughout everything I, I went through,” Bucky trails off.

“Hey, I’m right here,” You softly mutter, gravitating him back to the present.

“I, I always thought of you, my darling Y/n who has been there through thick and thin. I’m in awe of you, I think I always have, ever since we first met. Your defiance for both Steve and I is unmatched, and you’ve weaved a piece of yourself into me and I don’t want it to ever disappear.” Bucky explains, glancing up to see tears forming in your eyes.

“What’re you saying, James?” Your voice cracks as tears begin to fall down your cheeks whilst Bucky lowers himself down onto one knee before you.

“I’m asking if you, Y/n Y/l/n will do me the honour of being my wife, my doll and best friend forever.” Bucky can feel himself going as you bend down, level with him as a watery laugh leaves your lips.

“Yes,” You respond, looking at the beautiful ring that you recognise from his Grandmother. “you and me, James, forever.”

Gasping for breath, you sit upright clutching your chest.

“FRIDAY?” You yell, but there is no immediate response.

Uneasily you stand up as your body shakes, the memory replaying on your mind as the soldiers face is becoming clearer, his name ghosting your lips, but still refuses to leave them.

Looking across to the monitors, you notice they’re all down. Nothing is operating.

With uncertainty, you remove the various wires and pads covering your skin before stepping toward the glass door and pull it open with ease. “Strange.” You mutter under your breath as you walk out, half expecting a series of alarms to blare, but silence follows as you reach the elevator.

As you press the button for the elevator, you watch as it rises from the ground floor. Yet, the closer it gets the sound of voices near.

“FRIDAY, who else is in the compound?” You call out, now backing away from the elevator as it’s two floors away from you.

Silence ensues yet again, and now your heart rate increases as the elevator pings.

Backing away as the metal doors slide open, you rush back into the lab and hide beneath one of the many desks as a series of men yell orders to one another.

“FRIDAY, please,” You whisper to the AI who remains unresponsive as you close your eyes, wishing to remain unnoticed. “emergency protocol seven.” You add as the glass door shatters open, followed by several footsteps crunching across the broken glass.

Lowering your hands from your face, you can see three pairs of feet from where you’re hiding, weapons hanging in their grip.

“Get anything you can whilst the systems are down.” One man instructs, and you can feel your heart sinking further into your chest; you’re on your own, truly, defenceless.

“How long do you think we have?” Another speaks up, his Russian accent thick as the previous man sighs in annoyance.

“Twenty minutes at the most, now don’t waste time.” He spits before turning around nearing the entrance but pauses.

His feet crunch into the glass as he slowly walks back to the other men.

“Do you hear that?” He asks, holding his hand up to his ear as the two men look at him cluelessly.

“Hear what?” The Russian dares to question whilst you bury your body further into your hiding spot, covering your nose and mouth with your hands to suppress your unsteady breaths.

“The elevator stopped here before we planned which floor to go to, so, who called it here?” Your eyes widen in fear as footsteps approach the desk you’re hiding beneath. “Neither of you notice these tubes and wires connected to the monitors?” The man scoffs.

Within a split second, the desk is flipped over, revealing you curled up to the three men with twisted smiles across their faces.

“Hello, Miss.” The leader bends down and kneels in front of you, he extends his arm, revealing a tattoo across his forearm which you recognise from the many files you’ve read. “You and I are going to have a little game, and I can assure you, it’s going to be fun.”

Boarding the quinjet alongside Sam, Bucky wipes his lip, ignoring the throbbing sensation as fresh blood lines his fingertips.

“I told you, we’d be in and out.” Tony comments as the jet door closes behind him as he remains almost unscathed, unlike Steve and Bucky who are slightly worse for wear.

“You didn’t have to go off course like that, Tony.” Steve sighs, sporting a black eye as he takes his seat beside Natasha who wraps her wrist up with Bruce’s help.

Shrugging his shoulders, Tony picks up his phone. “Yeah, well, it’s done now and we can carry on with our little mystery back at the compound.” He mutters, briefly looking to Bucky whose thoughts have remained consumed by you ever since he left. “Hey, can we leave right now? We have to get back to the compound!” Tony rushes toward the pilot with a level of urgency in his tone.

“Tony, what’s going on?” Detecting the change immediately, Steve rises to his feet as he walks toward Tony.

Glancing over his shoulder, Tony can see Bucky still staring at him. “Protocol Seven was activated.” Tony explains in a hushed tone, but he should know better considering there were two super soldiers on board.

“What’s protocol seven?” Bucky speaks up, noticing Natasha tense beside Bruce. “What is it?” He repeats, trying to suppress his panic as Steve clenches his jaw.

“How long do you think we have?” Steve asks.

Rubbing his face, Tony sighs. “Maybe forty minutes, FRIDAY will lock the building, but with the systems hijacked it’ll take longer than normal.”

“Stark,” Bucky tries to remain composed as the plates in his metal arm whir, his fist clenching tightly. “what is protocol seven?”

Turning away from Steve, Tony faces Bucky with a heavy heart. “A security breach within the compound, the systems have been hijacked and FRIDAY is on back up mode.” Tony explains, but Bucky can tell he’s holding something back.

“What kind of security breach?” Bucky dares to ask, stepping closer whilst Natasha lowers her head whilst Clint remains sorrowful opposite the Black Widow.

"I'm so sorry, Barnes." Tony softly responds, looking down as FRIDAY's systems begin to reboot, the security camera's slowly reactivating.

“HYDRA, Buck.” Steve states. “HYDRA are in the compound.”

P A R T F I V E

(thank you to the following for all the love so far! if you’d like to be tagged in this mini series do let me know)

@mellmellmell12@theofficialzivadavid @fandom-princess-forevermore @lokilovefoever @vivalakatee @chgevorgian @captainwinterwriter @carliewinchester @spn-obession @buckysquad @shower-me-with-roses @basicgukk @yasminwashere @sunfouler @feminist-fan-girl @stealapizzamyheart @soccer-100000 @sunflowerbunny2 @kickingn-ames @choerriesmotion @why-thats-just-delightful @officialfictionalwreck @romanoff-nataliaalianovna @hersilencedscreams @b-r-stark @dezzxmx

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shinahbee · 3 years

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December favorites 2020!

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GREETINGS

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Hello,

So we have finally reached another year happy 2021! let's all hope this year will be kind to us, as I have mentioned in my previous favorites post, I finished my work term and now will be working on my art more

so please look out for more art coming soon!

also this maybe a little too early to think of but I was thinking of opening an etsy store to sells stickers/ keychains, this was a project that was on my mind for many years actually, but I have never really considered starting it

Please let me know if any of you would be interested if I do start one.

I would also like some ideas as to what type of characters from what show would you like to see merchandise from. I know there are some franchises that are not well known and most people wouldn’t be able to find so much as a fanart of that particular character/show

so if you could all let me know what you’d like to see in the shop I will highly consider it, with that being said I don't have any anime recs this month, mainly cause I was very busy in the month of December and have not watched any dramas or anime in a while,

so just a heads up, that part will not be included this month. The only thing I was watching is bunch of end of the year award shows, so like the drama awards and melon music awards and MAMA awards...haha that seems really boring to discuss so i'll skip that.

My friend and I were discussing and thought that they should rename these music awards as the BTS awards because they won so many lol.

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MANHWA/MANGA/WEBTOONS

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This section of the favorites is on fire! you don’t even know how far deep the rabbit hole i`ve dug myself into.

I finally was able to save my progress and crawl back up to list a few of my favorites/ updates of the old favorites and a special segment to ones that triggered a raging response due to utter frustration

Let’s start with a review of the manhwa I have read and discussed so far

Recap:

1) Whose baby is it? (ongoing)

2) Social temperature (ongoing)

3) Salad days (ongoing)

4) To be or not to be (ongoing)

5) Path to you (completed)

6) Here u are (completed)

7) BJ alex (completed)

8) No way, vampires don't exist (ongoing)

so some updates on the previous ones that I have listed out so far, with the exception of the completed ones.

1) Who's baby is it? ; last time I read up to chapter 72 and now they have up to chapter 126 and I have to say so much more has happened in terms of story and relationship development and I especially love the development between

yi yun and his relationship with jinyao, they are acting more and more like a married couple without even knowing it. You see a gradual change within the two of them that shifts from being very comfortably being able to talk about their problems to one another to

physical touches that would make them both nervous, I don't mean physical in a sexual way...it's not at that point yet, it's just holding hands and being near each other makes them, nervous and as an audience I felt that nervous energy

and it makes as the audience appreciate the development even if it is slow, it becomes more realistic over time.

Needless to say, I am still a giant fan girl of this author and her story and I can't wait to see this week’s chapter

2) social temp; I said that I have read the novel so I pretty much knows what happened in the new chapters that were just out, this manhwa is updating a little slow so I have to wait to really comment

When they go further, there is a scene soon that will be the turning point of their relationship so I am excited to see that in the manhwa

3) salad days; There is also a slow development here as well in terms of relationship building, so far they are working on their careers as professionals and dealing with bullying and jealousy from their peers

But it's all part of life so I appreciate that the author included these aspects as an important part of the story and not just focusing on romance alone.

4) To be or not to be; you'd think a person who had studied Chinese for 8 years would be able to read the raws....nope,LOL

So far the story is going into a good direction so I'm hoping to see how this new development will play out in their relationship

5) no way vampires don't exist; I have and fanart and long post dedicated to this alone, so please refer to those for more details. I am happy this is updating again and hopefully all of it will be translated in no time for others to enjoy

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Welcome to heaven

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Okay so that is all for the old ones that I have read, I will include updates throughout my favorites now and then if it is still ongoing.

now let's look at some new ones that I have found this month, these are just a few of the ones I selected out to talk about, but I have read much more as I have said and these were the ones that were the most memorable

1) Unintentional love story- "Wonyoung gets unjustly suspended from work after getting caught up in a corruption scandal. But when he accidentally discovers the chairman's favorite artist Yoon Taejun living under an alias, he is tasked with a tricky new mission. Could this be Wonyoung's chance to get his job back?"

This is the summary from the licensed lezhin website, and it pretty much sums up the story, it is still ongoing right now so I can only comment on how I feel about it so far.

I really like this story its really straight forward and focuses mainly on the two characters and how their relationship went from business partners to eventual lovers

it has minimal drama and works on moving the relationship buildup between the two main characters and I really appreciate that, it makes me less frustrated, since you know there is always that one a-hole that will never take no for an answer

i will discuss that later for the other ones I plan to discuss. But so far the story is straight forward and cute, and I really like wonyoung he is really adorable. This is a manhwa but not in the form of a webtoon, so it's black and white and read in traditional manga style

if you like a straight forward story and development please give this a read, you will enjoy it.

2) Karasugaoka Don't Be Shy!! - "Sou Izuhara, the leader of the crime prevention group "VOICE" that protects east Karasugaoka, realizes he's in love with the man he keeps butting heads with and leader of the rival group "Karasukai," Tetsuji Shinba...!?"

omg finally a manga recommendation? lol. you have no idea how much trouble I had remembering the title of this manga, I didn’t save it into my bookmarks and I usually did that if I was going to talk about it in the favorites.

I went through 5 websites to figure out the name but at least it was found. This story is both comedic and cute and it was a perfect break from the dark stuff I have been reading, I don't believe it has been updated in while so I'm not sure if it will ever be picked up

but there is a decent amount of chapters to get started on. But as the description says that it is a story about two crime prevention group leaders, they look like thugs but they prevent crimes from happening, so like an anti bullying campaign that recruits volunteers. two of the leaders from the largest groups apparently doesn’t get a long

on the surface but one of the leaders Izuhara really in fact admires the other leader Shinba. they start to get along after shiba went to izuharas territory to take care of some suspicious activity on that side and accidentally discovers a whole new side to izuhara due to the fact that he wasn’t wearing his glasses and didn’t know he was talking to shinba

and invited him to hang out together for that day. lol. You probably know the direction this is heading; it all starts from interest in a person right?

anways, I never recommended a manga yet so this would be a good one to read,it has a balance of a good romantic comedy.

3) Semantic Error- "Computer science major Chu Sangwoo is the epitome of an inflexible and strict rule-abiding person. While working on a liberal arts group project with freeloaders who don’t put in any effort, Sangwoo reasonably decides to remove their names from the final presentation. But he didn’t imagine how involved he would become with the person whose study-abroad plans were messed up because of that project. The involved person: the campus star who everyone knows, Department of Design’s Jang Jaeyoung. He has everything from skills, looks, family background and good relationships except for 1 big problem: Chu Sangwoo. What happens when an engineer and an artist whose personalities are like oil and water have to work together? Jang Jaeyoung is like a semantic error in the perfect world of Chu Sangwoo. Will Sangwoo be able to debug this?"

this has got to be one of the most accurate portrays of an antagonist relationship start off ever, it was really comedic and relatable at the same time, if you are in current group assignments and are or have suffered the same as sangwoo, please let me know cause I know I have.lol.

there’s only 16 chapters so far and I believe it hasn’t been updated in a while either so I don’t know if it is discontinued or not.

I can't wait to see the development between the two male leads, because their relationship right now in the manhwa is really hilarious and worth the read.

side note, not that this will ever be considered as a k-drama but I would like to see sangwoo being played by kim soo hyun, because he looks like him in the drama it's okay not to be okay.

4) Tied up in twins- " The story starts off with three friends Jiwoo, sohee and woojung who had been friends since high school began to developed complicated feeling towards one another, woojung had been in love with sohee and sohee had been in love with jiwoo who was in love with woojung, things turned for the worse when jiwoo got drunk one night out and decided to confess his feelings to woojung by going to his apartment, he found 'woojung' standing outside and invited him to go drinking, he finally was able to let out his feelings and 'woojung ' accepted them without hesitation. Jiwoo felt like he was on cloud nine at the moment and slept with 'woojung' that night after thier feelings were made mutual. Turns out 'woojung ' was not actually woojung himself but his twin brother sarang, not knowing this fact he spots sarang with a man from his past eunji that used to bully him during his military service which made him confused and angry that 'woojung ' might be playing with his feelings. Sarang then confessed that he is the twin brother of woojung and both of them decided that that night was a mistake and that they should just forget about it as it didn't happen. Of course fate had other plans as they keep running into each other during difficult times and decided to become friends. It didn't take them long to be attracted to one another which lead them to end their previous relationship, sarang especially was suffering from his cheating boy friend's abuse and jiwoo with his one sided feelings for woojung. After a series of events sarang and jiwoo found that their feeling for each other were mutual and started to dating, which poses a lot more obstacles than either of the two had bargained for...."

This is actually my very own summary since I can't find one for this manhwa, I also did and fanart and discussed why i really like this story in that fanart, so please check out my art for my thoughts on it! Shameless self promo....

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Welcome to hell

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ooo now it's time for the fun part.LOL. Now let me just say that there is sometimes a fine line that defines what shounen ai and Yaoi are, sometimes stories is listed as both because one story that starts off like shounen ai will suddenly become yaoi

I define yaoi as a story that includes all the things that i'm uncomfortable with, which is emotional trauma from sexual abuse, sexual harassment and rape, physical abuse, suicide etc

these stories usually include some or all of the listed above and could make you uncomfortable in many ways, so as a warning if you are bothered by any of that even a little please don't read the ones I’m about to list, because there is a lot of it and there are situations that made me really sick while reading them. on the upside there is a lot of whole heartedness from the love scenes between the two main characters, although it’s like pages of sex scenes, you know from reading that it is between two people that love and trust each other.

so you have been warned, i'm not going to spoil it in terms of story but there is something these ones i chose out have in common and that is a SICK A-HOLE THAT EVERY PERSON WANTS TO KILL.You should have seen all those comments about calling sangwoo (killing stalking) to kill theses mofos and I could agree more, these disgusting human beings made me sick.

so let's begin...btw these are in no particular order, I was going to list these from the least worthy of dieing to most worthy of dieing but you know in the end they should just all die...lol.

1) My Suha -"A skillful secretary by day and choosy cruiser by night, Suha is a young professional who’s in search of some no-strings-attached action. He hasn’t had much luck lately, though, since a handsome face doesn’t always match what’s in a guy’s pants. This might be why he finds himself wondering about his dreamboat boss, Director Park Jiwoon. But there’s no way he can mix business with pleasure… That is, until Jiwoon and Suha run into each other in the gay bar bathroom."

so where to begin, um this pretty much includes all those listed above but it mainly focuses on the relationship between jiwoon and Suha, and it is not abusive and very loving in fact,I'm glad that they show the contrast between how suha's previous realtionships don't work out because of his trauma

and how jiwoon despite being an unwanted heir in his grandmother's eyes was able to give love and protection to the person that matters to him the most. So there's this scum bag...I even forgot his name but the red haired dude in this story he`s the legitimate heir to the family, who is the absolute worse and not only sexually abused Suha when they were younger and also emotionally scar both jiwoon and suha

making them feel incapable of being loved. I didn’t get a good feeling form him when he was first introduced and I was right...lol. But at least the comments section was in agreement; let me sum up my feelings in the form of this gif alone...

you get the point...

I heard it was going to finish soon so hopefully these emotional scars can be resolved and that suha and jiwoon stick together to get through it all. That would be a good ending for them after everything they have been through.You really need to read it in order to under stand why these events happen the way they do but please remember that suha`s inability to feel love stems from the all of his previous relationships not lasting long yes...but started with this red haired mofo. I am never going to let this dude live, let`s just say that.

2) Crash into me- " Seung-chan is stressed. He has enough on his plate with the long hours at work, and now he can’t even get any rest at home! Every night, the lustful moaning and violent banging from the apartment upstairs keeps him awake. Just as he’s at his wits’ end, he chances upon the gorgeous, enigmatic Hyesung outside his building. Surely all those filthy sounds couldn’t be coming from such a pretty mouth? But as Seung-chan soon finds out, there’s a lot more to Hyesung"

from that little description you’ve probably figured out what’s going on with the neighbour next door keeping seung chan awake right? well no surprise sexual abuse, after hyesung was forced to suffer from a ordeal that wasn't his fault the brother of the person that died made it seem like it was his fault and sexually assaulted him

and so this ongoing sexual abuse progressed for several years which lead hyesung feel like life is meaningless and he should just die, until he locked eyes with seung chan walking back to the apartment and thought of jumping out the window, because he had a strange feeling that seungchan who he has not met before would catch him if he did.

I just almost cried from what I just wrote...to think there’s is some a-hole out there that would drive a person to suicide like that just to satisfy his own needs or whatever...i don't even know cause it’s still ongoing...i don’t think any amount of back story will justify any kind of sympathy for this person..

from what I have read so far it seems so be going ending soon so i hope seungchan and hyesung will be able to get through all this and live in peace because of suengchan, hyesung was able to love again and find his worth and is able to fight for himself and I’m sincerely glad that he had met and trust him whole heartedly.

3) Dine with vampire- "Caught in the clutches of an abusive relationship, Sooin longs to escape. A vampire who finds human blood repulsive, Chi-hwan only drinks the blood of other vampires. When chance brings the two together, Chi-hwan makes Sooin an enticing proposal. Chi-hwan will help Sooin get out of his living hell, and in exchange… Sooin has to let Chihwan drink his blood. Will this proposal change both their lives for the better?”

y'all don't even get me started on the mofo in this story....I’ve never felt so much rage from staring at a 2D character on my screen, the amount of times I hissed at him...you don't even know

like I have mentioned before ever since my twilight phase I didn’t consume anything vampire related in a while, I don't really care much for the vampire aspect but I guess it's still important over all

once you start the first chapter you will immediately know why I hate the harry potter a-hole in this story..he is despicable and that’s putting it lightly...but you know he doesn’t last long cause vampire tsukiyama (lol, not his name but they look alike) shows up and kills the mofo

and saves sooin who is the person who harry potter had been sexually abusing...to the point where you guessed it, he wanted to die.

chi hwan agrees to grant any wish sooin wanted in exchange for his blood because being vampire by nature he had not been drawn to anyone’s blood for some reason and had only consumed the blood of other vampires.

of course it was a small price to pay for sooin considering all the misery he had gone through. slowly sooin discovered that love was not abusive through the many times chi hwan...lmao i almost called him tsukiyama again...and he had sex, he discovered that it was safe and gentle and enjoyable

nothing that he had ever felt before, and so they became drawn to each other more than they thought they would to the point where they genuinely care for one another, though of course chi hwan knows that one day sooin will die and he will have to live on forever alone, thus the fate of his vampire blood.

but here’s the catch..it's not a spoiler really cause you knew it was too easy when main villain dies in chapter 4...and he’s on the front cover...which means yes harry potter mofo is back...ugh...he should have burned his body...WTF and as a vampire no less..

i'm like great now look what happened, you should have chopped him up and threw him into the incinerator!

you know that saying " mistakes were made..."

anyways, now he's back meaning shits about to do down and i'm not ready to see it happen, right now they are going through his back story and i’m like sorry author...whatever you try to feed me there’s no way i can have any sympathy for this dick...

so that's all i'm going to rant about for these yaoi titles...i had to go back and read some it again to know what i'm going to write about and i revisited a lot of things i’d rather not.I think the rage I felt was ignited again all of a sudden and I felt utter frustration to finish reading it again, what I am trying to say is, ya`ll need to read this once and that`s it...these aren`t stories you`d want to revisit.lol

so if you like this hell segment let me know and i'll continue it cause there’s an endless supply of content for this genre, I have a few more but i'll save those for next month.

and i'll probably come across more in the mean time to discuss, but I guess this is where fiction and reality divides, cause you know in real life if this crap exists absolutely no one will take this bull crap!

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MUSIC

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I have been listening to the Start up soundtrack and found a lot of songs i like from it, I don't like the drama and have not finished it, but the soundtrack is bomb

I have also been liking some old pop songs and went down the rabbit hole of 90`s pop songs...Britney spears especially

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so that is all I have for this month, I'm sorry its manhwa and manga focused, i'll have time to watch anime that I need to catch up on and start some drams now so i'll have more

to discuss in the next month hopefully, so please take care of your selves in the new year as well!

take care,

sheena

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SOCIAL MEDIA

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INSTAGRAM: shinb_art

TUMBLR: shinahbee

DEVIANTART: she-be.deviantart.com

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#monthly favorites #shounen ai #yaoi #manga review #manhwa review #manhwa #manga #my suha #dine with a vampire #crash into me #karasugaoka don`t be shy #tied up in twins #unintentional love story #korean manhwa #anime and manga #semantic error #manga recommendation

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cosplayinamerica · 3 years

Photo

ARTIST ALLEY : BurntGreenTea

Here at Cosplay in America, I am expanding who I interview to those in the convention scene. Today we will talk to BurntGreenTea who I met in artist alley at Ikkicon, an anime convention in Austin, TX. BurntGreenTea is from Northern California and as stated on his Deviant Art “Hey, my name is Nelson! I like to draw waifus”

EJEN : My first question is why BurntGreenTea?

BURNTGREENTEA: That’s actually my second handle I came up with, I had an embarrassing name before so I wanted to change into something more ironic and more “me” in a name. so I’ve been going as BurntGreenTea ever since. I do drink matcha alot!

EJEN: Tell us how you got started in artist alley, what was your first one and what was that experience like?

BURNTGREENTEA: I started getting interested in doing artist alley at my first Fanime Con back in 2007 as a one day attendee when I was still in high school.

I went with my best friend at the time and it blew my expectations of what a convention was, especially the artist alley since it completely opened my mind that there’s artists actually selling fan art. But I didn’t commit to it until 2012, just when I was in my 2nd year of college.

By that time, I had enough digital art and felt confident that I could do it. Fanime still had the application process of first come first serve (meaning those who apply the earliest will get a spot), so I was fortunate enough to apply fast enough to get a table!

For a first time experience it was nerve-wracking before, during and after the con. But there was something to it that really sparked my interest; and I think there were people that legitimately liked my work and bought them.

EJEN: Was there a point that you went “yeah, this could work” and you made the jump to traveling out of state for artist alley?

BURNTGREENTEA: It was about one and half years after I graduated from college, between that time I worked in a job that was soul sucking but I had many of my colleagues working at, and then after I was applying to animation studios, gaming companies, etc while I was doing commissions and artist alleys at the same time.

It went on like this for almost a year. By this point I felt like I really hit my lowest and felt a great shame that I couldn’t find “stable” work. My parents didn’t really support me doing artist alley during this time since it’s not legit work and it’s more like a fun hobby I can do on the side, all the while I have colleagues and friends who have jobs in the animation or gaming industries. I felt extremely lost, and wasn’t sure the direction I wanted to go in life, so my parents encouraged me to go back to school to get a “safe” degree or trade.

But there was something I knew in the back of my mind that I couldn’t see until I had a meet up with an old friend. She was confident, happy, found her dream job that paid well and she enjoyed the work, and she was completely honest and blunt. When the topic came up of me being lost in life, she asked me, “what did you want to do then?” and I told her honestly, “I really just want to do artist alley and make that work.” “Then just do it.” So I did.

EJEN: After all the time you spent in artist alley, what’s the most important factor that an artist must understand to do decently in sales

BURNTGREENTEA: Research research research. It’s basically “knowledge is power” but breaking down as knowing your audience, yourself (what you enjoy, your strengths and capabilities) and learning new trades while breaking old habits.

EJEN: Can you go more in detail about research, research, research?

BURNTGREENTEA: So this reflects back on my previous answer, so know the convention you’re going into, what you can offer, what’s your budget, everything that would make your experience at the convention you’re getting into a great experience.

I have heard many stories of artists not breaking even and even I had bad experiences due to inaccurate/outdated information or inexperience. For example, there was a first year event that had a $1000 table price tag and promised to bring in 5000 attendees.

This was going to be my second event/convention to table at, so I had no idea what it was going to be like and decided to go for it. It ended up having less than 100 attendees, and I lost a significant amount of money. So now I have to get as much info as I can get to make the convention viable to go to.

EJEN: How do you describe your style and how has it changed if any over the 14 years you’ve done art? What were some of your earlier influences.

BURNTGREENTEA: Right now I can say it’s pretty much anime style, but I can say there were several phases I went through. Looking through my Deviantart gives a great timeline all the way back to middle school until recently.

When I initially started I was getting into anime thanks to friends, so I was very much influenced by Naruto, Full Metal Alchemist, and Gurren Lagann. Then in high school I started to do more digital art, eventually creating artwork bigger and grander just like the artists from Fanime I admired.

When I finally started my education in my art program in college, I started getting the proper training in lighting, form, and composition. This time period my pieces were more western-influenced, like more realistic faces and body proportions, but there was something missing in it that I wouldn’t understand until after I graduated. It’s around the same time when I wanted to do artist alleys full time that I was more true to myself in the style and got more flashy, more colorful and composition.

EJEN : How do you decide what Alley to apply for. What’s your personal criteria for conventions to do artist alley at?

BURNTGREENTEA: Local cons are usually easy for me to decide to apply for due to the cost being low(transportation, housing, etc). If there’s anything that involves flying out of state, I have to factor in much more information about the con, personal experiences from other artists, and if it is viable for an anime fan artist to break even and also turn a profit. Usually big conventions like Anime Expo and Otakon are the must go to conventions for their huge attendance numbers.

EJEN: Describe to me a typical day in the Alley!

BURNTGREENTEA: Due to the times right now, it seems like almost a dream to be in an artist alley, haha. Here’s a usual day of being in the Alley: Waking up early to get ready, getting breakfast and caffeine before heading inside a convention.

Usually getting there early, either me or some art friends would walk around the Alley and check out other artists before it’s open to the public. There would be some art friends I made along the way that I can catch up with briefly, chatting about the next shows or projects. I would have probably stayed up kinda late working on physical commissions and would need to go back to my table to continue finishing them up.

When the Alley opens up, it’s mostly engaging and talking with familiar customers or friends, while also working on commissions during the down times. Friends would go on food or snack runs, and I would get an hour to go shopping during the day somewhere as a break.

By the time it ends, it would have felt like it had gone in a flash. But with heavy eyes but our hearts full with a day accomplished. If we had the strength, we would check out an event or explore the convention hall abit more to absorb the atmosphere. Getting dinner with friends after a job well done, while we have another day to look forward to spending time with fans alike.

It’s really nostalgic to reflect on a typical day to be in the Alley, and having to have that all stop for almost a year now.

EJEN: Since the pandemic, how are you coping with this change both personally and business-wise?

BURNTGREENTEA: I was honestly hoping conventions would come back around at the end of May, but that never happened so I had to approach things differently. Luckily I had a freelance gig that I was working part time, so I had a semi-regular income on the side while I applied for virtual conventions and commissions.

It was tough since I wanted 2020 to be the year I would do the most conventions ever but that plan derailed. I also focused on my online shop and my social media presence, which so far is paying off!

Like everyone this year took a mental and physical toll, but I also ended up working on more projects and digital work to help keep me distracted.

EJEN: What are your plans for the future, what are you working on?

BURNTGREENTEA: My goal is still to go back to doing conventions, but at the moment I’m going to give that a pause. Currently I have a contract job that’s ending soon, and I have something that’s NDA that might come up, crossing my fingers! That’s the near future, but for the time being I want to refocus on learning new things and refining my art since I’ve gotten rusty.

EJEN: Finally who is your waifu?

BURNTGREENTEA: My waifu is Lucina from Fire Emblem!

Visit BurntGreenTea’s Etsy!

#artist alley #artist alley interview

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wiener-soldiers · 4 years

Text

the imperfect bubble - steve rogers

summary: y/n looks at bucky barnes like he’s the sun and the stars; bucky looks at y/n y/l/n like nothing more than his best friend. steve looks at peggy carter like she’s a divine angel; peggy looks at steve rogers like he’s nothing more than the remnants of a college romance. y/n looks at steve rogers like he’s a mirror; steve looks at y/n y/l/n like she’s the only person left that he can confide in.

words: 10.2k (you read that right)

warning: angst, unrequited love, the slowest slow burn you can possibly fathom, okay maybe not a slow burn but more like an oh shit that happened, minimal editing

a/n: im?? back?? i really enjoyed writing this one tho

masterlist | add yourself to the taglist! | faq

Leave your grievances at the door.

It was no longer an unspoken rule; when Steve and Bucky stepped into Y/N’s shared apartment with her college—and by association, their—friend’s Natasha and Wanda for movie night, they found the saying printed on the doormat inside their apartment.

It was a tradition that Steve, Bucky, and Y/N started their freshmen year of college. Steve and Bucky were best friends since childhood and have been through thick and thin together. So it was no surprise that despite the two attending different colleges, they still made it a habit to spend every waking moment together.

The two left their beloved Brooklyn to attend schools in Manhattan—Steve at Columbia pursuing his history degree and Bucky at NYU pursuing his engineering one. It was Steve’s turn to make the trip downtown and hang out with Bucky, but to his surprise, upon arriving at his dorm, he met eyes with a slightly wine-drunk girl hanging upside down Bucky’s bed while he tried to throw popcorn in his mouth.

It was quite the first impression, but Steve learned her name was Y/N, she went to NYU for journalism, and that she’d be sticking around a lot.

That night, instead of going out, Steve joined them in Bucky’s dorm, watching shitty Netflix reality shows, getting drunk on cheap wine, and their weekly tradition lived on ever since.

The doormat saying was one Y/N jokingly said to Bucky in their sophomore year of college. Y/N had moved into a new apartment in the East Village with Natasha and Wanda, two girls she bonded with over mutual hate for a certain TA. Despite Steve and Bucky’s place being decently big after deciding to move into a place together, the girl’s place was decidedly better decorated and more suited for movie nights.

Bucky had come in complaining about how a girl in his class flirted with him just to steal his notes and eventually best him during their midterms. Granted, it was a thrilling tale, but Y/N has jokingly told him to, “Leave you grievances at the door, Buck. This is movie night; we are going to chill and get drunk.”

The unspoken movie night rule stuck ever since.

So, when Steve and Bucky (now juniors) kicked their shoes off upon entering the girl’s apartment, the let out an audible laugh, alerting them that the muscle of the group was here.

“You like it?” Y/N calls out from the kitchen, followed by several ‘pops.’ The smell of buttery popcorn wafted through the air as the two followed the scent into the living room. Natasha was already occupying her seat on the couch. Wanda sat on the floor, in between her legs so to let Natasha braid her hair, as she scrolled through her Netflix queue for movies to watch.

“Looks great, doll,” Bucky smiled at her, giving her a kiss on the cheek. Steve notices a red blush crawl up her neck and smirks, sending the girl a wink. Y/N’s blush extends even further.

“Where’d you get it?” Bucky asks, sauntering into the living room and hopping over the back of the couch to land beside Nat.

Wanda giggles, “I custom ordered it on Etsy. I thought it would be funny.”

“You’re not wrong,” Natasha replies before the three of them fall into easy conversation about their weeks.

Steve stays behind the kitchen, observing Y/N as she observes Bucky. He smiles amusedly at her before saying, “I take it he still doesn’t know.”

Y/N rolls her eyes, “He didn’t know last week. He didn’t know last year. He didn’t know since we were seventeen. You think I’m gonna tell him now?”

Steve shrugs, routinely helping Y/N gather the snacks and drinks for their movie night, “I think you’d be cute together, s’all.”

“Yeah? Tell that to the man himself,” Y/N says sarcastically.

“You could always tell him,” he counters, “Guys find it hot when girls make the first move.”

“Whatever you say, pal.”

---

As it turns out, Steve was right. And as much as Y/N hates to admit it, Steve was right about most things.

A few months after some mutual pining, Peggy Carter, the hot British international student that’s studying political science at Columbia grew more balls than Bucky and Steve ever could and asked the latter out on a date.

Y/N liked Peggy. She had gorgeous brown hair that was somehow always perfectly curled, warm eyes, but always wore seductively red lipstick. She looked like a drug, and if she wasn’t dating Steve, Y/N was convinced that she would ask the woman out herself.

Steve had stumbled into the girl’s apartment after their first date. Peggy had taken him dancing in a place in the East Village that played swing music and turned a blind eye when college students with sketchy looking fake IDs ordered cocktails. It’s not like they could do much harm anyway, most college kids who went there hopeless romantics who want nothing more than to dance with their dates with a little liquid courage.

As opposed to hopping on the subway slightly tipsy and potentially falling asleep before he reached in Midtown, Steve stumbled into his friend’s apartment, tipsy and high on the drug that took form in Peggy Carter.

“Hiya,” Steve said with a dopey, crooked smile. Y/N, Wanda, and Nat looked between themselves and Steve with widened eyes.

There were red lipstick stains all over his face.

Natasha smirks at him, “Looks like you had a good time with the missus.”

Steve points at Y/N, his eyes slightly lidded from drowsiness, “I told you it was hot when girls make the first move.”

Y/N lets out a snort. “It’s hot when Peggy Carter does anything, Stevie.”

His enormous grin widens. “Well, you got that fucking right.”

The three girls collective gag at the picture of Steve defiling the girl as Steve rolls his eyes at them, plopping down on the grey IKEA couch the girls were occupying. The couch was a moving in present from him and Bucky and despite how cheap it looked, they refused to allow the girls to get rid of it. If they were being honest, the girls didn’t have the heart to do so anyway.

“Do you mind if I crash here tonight?” Steve mumbles into Y/N’s lap.

“I’m staying at my brother’s tonight anyway,” Wanda says as she reaches over and runs a hand amusedly through Steve’s hair, “You can take my bed if you want, Steve.”

“No, s’okay. I’m comfy here,” he says, voice muffled by Y/N’s thighs.

“You’re a big fucking baby, you know that?” Y/N jokingly says, slapping Steve’s back. He screeches an ‘ow’ but doesn’t move an inch.

Nat smiles at them. Before she met Y/N and Steve, she would’ve been convinced they were dating. But, her heart is just as full knowing the incredibly wholesome and healthy friendship the two share. She reaches down to stroke Steve’s head before saying, “Y/N, I’m gonna go ahead and use the bathroom first—you seem occupied. Goodnight Steve.”

“Nighty night, Nat,” he murmurs. With Wanda, then Natasha stroking his head, sleep comes a lot faster than he intends.

“Steve?” Y/N asks him. It was her turn to slowly stroke his head.

“Mmhmm?”

“Did you let Bucky know you were staying over?” she asks, Mom-mode activating.

She feels her thighs rumble with Steve’s laughter. “He’ll live,” he tells her.

“He’s your best friend, hon. You gotta keep him updating on this kinda stuff.”

“But you’re my best friend too,” he sighs sleepily and Y/N’s heart swells with pride.

The corner of her mouth quirks into a smile, “Really?”

“Yeah, ‘course you duffus. ‘Sides, he probably thinks ‘m getting laid or somethin’.”

“You’re gross.”

“Eh, you love me.”

She did indeed. She let him fall asleep like that with a slight smile on his face, thinking about how well his date went. Y/N slowly slide out from underneath Steve, placing a blanket on top of him. She placed a glass of water and a bottle of Tylenol on the coffee table for him when he woke, along with a sticky note saying:

Gonna be up early tomorrow, lover boy. Take whatever leftovers you want from the fridge. Also, invite Peggy to movie night :)

---

Per Y/N’s request, Steve did ask Peggy to come to movie night with him. To which, she excitedly agreed.

And against Steve’s assumptions, Y/N seemed more excited to have her over than he was.

Steve and Peggy entered the apartment hand in hand, with Steve carrying a takeout bag and Peggy nursing a bottle of white wine. Bucky trailed in behind them, carrying a pack of beers.

“They have a cute place,” Peggy comments, slipping her shoes off and following Steve into the living room.

“Don’t tell it to their face, though. One compliment and they’ll fall in love with you and you’ll never be allowed out of their sight again,” Bucky jokes from behind them, wandering into the kitchen to set the beer down.

Despite their five-person gathering being a six-person one that night, Peggy fit right in. Over cheesy horror movies, glasses of wine and swigs of beer, and copious amounts of takeout, the bombshell of a Brit felt very at home with Steve’s friends. To her surprise, none of them were jealous of her—Steve was incredibly attractive and the perfect guy, so she was sure it was impossible for him to have female friends without them throwing themselves at him.

She was wrong.

She really got a full understanding of their friendship—especially Steve’s friendship with Y/N—when she wandered down the hall to find more blankets. She heard two voices quietly discussing in someone’s room. She would’ve walked away because she didn’t want to eavesdrop until she heard her name.

“Peggy seems to be really enjoying herself.” She recognizes the voice to be Y/N’s.

“God, I hope so. Thanks again for inviting her.” Steve’s voice this time.

“You were the one who invited her, jackass,” she hears Y/N say sarcastically.

She hears Steve groan, “Don’t even start with that. What I meant was…thanks for giving her a chance.”

Softer this time, she hears Y/N say, “Steve, you’re my best friend. I didn’t like your other girlfriends because they seemed like shitty people. Peggy is…Peggy is good for you. Like, really good.”

“Okay now…” he laughs.

“No, I’m serious. If you didn’t ask her out, I was really fucking close to taking her for myself,” she finished before she hears a yelp followed by a soft thud and mattress springs squeaking. She can’t help herself and takes a peek inside the room to find Steve tickling Y/N on the bed. Peggy smiles to herself at the closeness of the friendship.

She’s about to walk away when she suddenly feels the feeling in the room shift.

“Steve, I think I’m gonna ask out Bucky.”

She hears an excited gasp, “Fucking finally! I’ve been saying you guys would be great together for years!”

She hears Y/N shush him, “He’s in the other room Steve, shut up!”

Peggy hears Steve laugh, “Sorry, sorry. Why now, though?”

“Dunno. I guess I just like seeing you happy with Peggy. And I don’t know, it makes me think that I deserve that happiness too,” Y/N says softly and Peggy’s heart melts.

“I’m proud of you, Y/N,” she hears Steve say. Despite not knowing Y/N that long, she’s proud of her too.

“Thanks, Steve.”

---

Y/N doesn’t get a chance to ask Bucky out.

As Y/N, Nat, and Wanda were preparing brownies for movie night when they got a text on their group chat:

Bucky: Can’t make it to movie night

Nat: got a hot date or smth?

Bucky: ;)

“Y/N…” Natasha calls out.

“Mhmm?” the girl calls out. “Gimme a second, I gotta take the brownies before they burn.”

Natasha sighs and walks into the kitchen to find Y/N gingerly setting the pan of brownies onto the counter. Wordlessly, Nat shows Y/N her phone with the group chat open.

The smile immediately falls from Y/N’s face.

“Y/N…” the red-head starts before getting vehemently cut off.

“I should be happy for him, right? My best friend just scored a date—”

“Y/N—”

“I was happy when Steve started going out with Peggy, why can’t I be happy Bucky found someone too—”

“Y/N!” Natasha says, more firmly this time.

“Why did you show me this, Nat?” she hisses, whipping her head and staring accusingly at her.

Natasha narrows her eyes at her, “You fucking know why. This was on the group chat, but I wanted to be there if you needed me when you saw it.”

Y/N’s eyes soften, “Nat, I’m sorry—”

Natasha cuts her off and immediately envelops her in a hug. “Don’t be,” she whispers, patting her head comfortingly, “You’re too good for Bucky, anyways.”

Y/N scoffs into her shoulder, “That’s my best friend, asshole. And Steve always said we’d be good together.”

“Steve has no fucking clue what he’s talking about.”

Y/N laughs a little harder, forcing the tears she was trying to keep in slowly stream down her face. Natasha immediately notices, and wipes them away with her thumbs, “Don’t cry, sweetheart. And don’t think about Bucky. ‘Sides, it’s movie night and—”

“—I need to leave my grievances at the door, yeah I know,” she finishes with a sad smile on her face. Y/N shakes her head, “That saying is kicking me in the ass, isn’t it?”

Ten minutes later, Wanda emerges from the bathroom, screeching in frustration from Bucky’s texts in the group chat. Y/N tries her best to tell Wanda that she’s over it, but Wanda is strangely good at reading people (it doesn’t help that she’s also a psychology major). The girls usually love Wanda’s weird sixth sense, but Y/N couldn’t help but find it quite inconvenient at this very moment.

Half an hour after that, Steve arrives at the girls’ apartment, this time without Peggy. The first thing he does is wrap Y/N in a bear hug, despite her protests at everyone making a big deal out of it. Steve doesn’t care, only hugs her tighter.

The four of them huddle around the TV, watching whatever movie was next on their queue and catching up on life. They tried really hard to ignore the awkward tension and the lack of the Bucky-ness the group had. It was movie night, after all. The perfect bubble that was their movie night felt a little different than it normally had.

---

Bucky misses movie nights for the next few weeks.

With the end of junior year approaching, the group of friends rarely had time to socialize outside their study groups except for their weekly tradition. With Bucky gone doing whatever Bucky was doing, Y/N didn’t see him for weeks on end. The only interaction they had was the occasional meme being sent to the group chat or like on Instagram.

She missed him. But deep down inside of her, she wasn’t that all surprised.

What did surprise her was Bucky’s sudden appearance at their last movie night before the end of junior year.

They were halfway through their first movie—Wanda was teaching Peggy how to braid a flower crown, Steve had agreed to let Natasha paint his nails a red and blue ombre while he played a game of Connect Four with Y/N, all while a random movie played on the screen—when they heard the front door unlock.

“Sorry I’m late!” called a voice. It was distinctly Bucky’s, but the female giggle that followed was not.

Bucky and an unnamed blonde materialize in the living room and everyone looks at the pair in shock. Y/N could feel a few of her friend’s stares be redirected to her, but she can’t seem to overt her eyes from the blonde.

Her hair seemed like it was literally golden as it flows down her light-green sundress. She was wrapped around Bucky’s arm—the arm with his tattoo sleeve on it, the arm that she loved tracing the patterns of the tattoo with during movie night.

Peggy breaks the ice first, “Hi, Bucky.”

“Oh, you have an accent!” the blonde squeals and Y/N can feel her eyes roll. Wanda scoffs beside her.

“Bucky, can I talk to you for a sec?” Y/N asks, more like demands, as she stands up abruptly and walks briskly past Bucky towards the hall, away from the view of the living room.

Once they were out of earshot from their friends, she hisses, “What are you doing here?”

Bucky laughs almost mockingly, “What do you mean, ‘what am I doing here?, It’s movie night, isn’t it?”

Y/N sighs tiredly, “Bucky, we haven’t seen you for weeks. Then, you show up with some blonde girl that we’ve never met?”

“I’ve been busy. What, am I not allowed to be busy anymore? The world doesn’t revolve around movie night,” Bucky snarls at her.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, that’s not what I meant and you fucking know it,” she growls back. “You’ve been radio silent for weeks—you pretty much ghosted all of us. Hell, if it wasn’t for Steve living with you, we would’ve thought you were fucking dead! But we gave you space because we aren’t helicopter-friends. But then, you show up after ignoring us for weeks with some chick I’ve never seen before at my fucking house on fucking movie night?! Can you see why I’m a little pissed off right now?”

“The British chick is here! Why the hell can she be here but not Dolores?” Bucky bites back, his voice rising.

“Because Peggy was invited to my house and Dolores fucking wasn’t!” Y/N says aggressively, her voice nearing a shout.

“This isn’t your tradition, Y/N. You want to control everything about this friend group and trust me, sweetheart, we’re all getting sick of it.”

“Oh, you can’t fucking do that.”

“Do what?”

“Talk like you’re still a fucking part of this friend group.”

“What, you’re gonna kick me out of your clique because I’ve been busy? Because I have a life?”

“No, because you’ve been a shitty fucking friend!” Y/N shouts, chest heaving, and face red.

Bucky’s eyes widen in shock. Sure, they’ve had points in their friendship where they haven’t communicated in a few days, but never this long. And Y/N had most certainly never been this angry with him before.

That seemed to knock some sense back into him. “Y/N—”

“Get the fuck out, Bucky.”

“Wha—”

“I said get out,” she says, eerily quiet.

So, he did. Bucky stormed out of the hallway and grabbed Dolores before marching out of the apartment. When Y/N sat back down with the rest of their friends, she could feel their stares burning into her face, but all she did was reach for the remote and continue playing the movie.

---

After Y/N’s argument with Bucky, he stops showing up game nights. They even make a new group chat without Bucky in it (because apparently, kicking him out of the apartment was fine but kicking him out of the group chat was too mean). Despite not really knowing what exactly was said, everyone understood what happened that night. To be frank, they were all waiting for someone to snap. A confrontation with him was long overdue.

The friend group is different without Bucky’s presence. Not better, not worse, just different.

It was clear that there would be awkward tension among the friends immediately after the argument. Wanda and Nat immediately sided with Y/N and clearly wanted nothing to do with Bucky. Steve was a trickier subject. Wanda, Nat, and Y/N all understood that they couldn’t force Steve not to be friends with him, so they all accepted him as their neutral party.

After a few months, their different was starting to feel normal.

But Y/N still missed Bucky. Despite her years of pining, Bucky was still her best friend. He was still the guy who walked her to her morning lectures after his run and got her wine drunk after a guy rejected her. Y/N missed that version of Bucky—she just wasn’t sure if he existed anymore.

Based on periodic updates that Steve gives her, Bucky is still with Dolores. “He’s happy,” Steve tells her. “Different, but happy.”

After a few months of living without Bucky in her life, she starts to blame herself. Had she been overreacting? Most probably. Did she really need to kick him out of her apartment? No.

“Was what you did justified though? Definitely,” Steve would always remind her. Some days she believes him, some days she doesn’t.

Still, her life begins to reach some semblance of normal. Movie nights are still once a week, but they’ve changed from a place where they have pseudo-therapy sessions lead by Wanda while a cheesy movie plays in the background.

It was about halfway into their senior year when Steve drops something on them during one of their movie night conversations.

“I might move to London,” Steve says out of the blue.

“What?” Y/N turns to him in shock.

Steve stares blankly at his lap, fidgeting with the nearly empty glass of red wine. “Peggy wants to move back to London after we graduate,” he says softly. “She wants me to go with her.”

It was Wanda’s turn to ask, “Well, why doesn’t she stay here with you?”

“Her family’s in London.”

“And your family is here, Steve,” Y/N replies softly, “We’re here.”

Steve sighs and runs a hand over his face before releasing a frustrated cry, “I don’t know what to do, guys.”

Natasha looks at him sympathetically before grasping his hand tightly, “Have you talked to Bucky about this?”

“Not yet…he’s got a lot on his plate right now,” Steve starts, warily looking at the girls sitting around him.

“What do you mean?” Natasha presses.

“Bucky proposed to Dolores a few days ago…” Steve sighs.

“Well…” Y/N starts, trying to find the right words, “Congrats to them.”

“Yeah,” Steve replies lamely before downing the remainder of his red wine. “I love Peggy, I really do,” Steve starts, “but I don’t know if London is right for me.”

Y/N raises an eyebrow at him, “What do you mean?”

Steve sighs again, “I don’t know how to explain it but…lately it feels like our relationship isn’t real anymore⁠—like she’s using me as a prop. It feels like she’s dragging me along because she feels like she has to. I really do love her but going to London with her just doesn’t feel right.”

“And what does feel right, Steve?” Wanda asks him gently.

Steve answer in a heartbeat, “New York. With you guys.”

Y/N offers him her kindest eyes. She murmurs softly, “Steve, I think you have your answer then.”

---

Steve stayed in New York.

He was a little heartbroken by Peggy’s reaction though; she simply acknowledged him and went straight back to packing, not even bothering to fight for their relationship. Maybe there wasn’t a whole lot to fight for after all.

Bucky also married Dolores.

After their graduation, Bucky and Dolores eloped. They didn’t want the pressure of an actual wedding, so they got on a flight to Vegas and got hitched in their graduation gowns. The reassured everyone (especially their parents) that they would have a real wedding for everyone else afterwards.

Y/N, Wanda, and Natasha finally got their own places. Wanda was moving in with her brother, Pietro, into an apartment in Morningside Heights. They were both starting their master’s at Columbia (Wanda in psychology and Pietro in exercise physiology), so they wanted to live closer together. Natasha was finally moving in with her boyfriend, Bruce. They were a very private couple, so they weren’t at all surprised when they told them that they were moving into their own place in Park Slope, close to Bruce’s research job and Nat’s marketing firm.

Y/N was really close to downsizing to a studio when Steve rolled his eyes and told her, “Don’t be an idiot, I’ll move in with you. That place is too nice to give up. Besides, Bucky and Dolores are looking for a place to move into.”

So, what was once Y/N, Wanda, and Nat’s apartment was now Y/N and Steve’s.

Not much changed about the apartment: Y/N kept her old room and Steve moved into Wanda’s. Natasha’s room had the most natural light, so they turned it into an office. Steve, Y/N learned, was the ideal roommate—his stuff was never messy, he helped run errands, and he was a delight to be around.

If it was possible for the two best friends to get any closer, they did.

Y/N fell into an easy routine with Steve, almost like it was second nature. After both taking the summer off, Steve started his law degree at Columbia and Y/N started her job as a Staff Writer at the New York Times.

They woke up at around seven and Steve got started on breakfast while Y/N used the bathroom first. As soon as she got out, breakfast would be waiting for her, so she got started on making coffee for her and Steve. Steve didn’t usually take long in the bathroom, so they ate breakfast together, enjoying each other’s company before their day started. After they both got dressed, they both walked to the subway and rode the L train before they had to split ways: Steve Uptown to Columbia and Y/N to the New York Times building. Steve usually got out of classes first, so he usually ran some errands for the place or studied in a café in the Village somewhere so to let Y/N get home before he did. She loved making dinner, so Steve usually came home to her blasting music and cooking.

The funniest part about their arrangement is that it was barely an arrangement: they didn’t really agree on splitting up their day this way. It just sort of…happened. It was natural but it felt right to the both of them and that’s all they could ever ask for.

The arbitrary lines of being roommates slowly began disappearing as well.

Four months into living together, Y/N and Steve started sharing a bed.

It wasn’t romantic, but more like a necessity. Steve had walked by Y/N’s room when he heard slight whimpering. He immediately swung open the door and found her lying on her bed, clutching her stomach in pain with tears streaming down her face.

Steve immediately lost his composure, “Y/N? Are you okay?!”

“It fucking hurts Steve,” she mumbles, “Why does bleeding out of your vagina fucking hurt so much?”

Steve’s eyes immediately soften and he lets out a low hum, “Y/N, I thought you were dying.”

“I am dying. This heat pad isn’t doing shit!”

Steve laughs and makes his way to the bed, lifting the covers and sliding beside her. Y/N immediately shifts so that Steve can be more comfortable. He wraps his arms around her, making sure to put his palm flat on her stomach. In the mess of tangled limbs, they fall asleep like that and take the most relaxing nap of their lives.

Steve shares a bed Y/N that night. And the night after that. And the night after that.

Soon, Steve barely slept in his old room anymore. It got to a point where it didn’t even make sense for him to have his own room: Y/N’s room was bigger, closer to the bathroom, had a comfier bed, and Y/N was in it.

The two spend a weekend clearing out Steve’s new room and moving all his stuff into Y/N’s. They turn they put the grey IKEA pullout couch inside along with an array of painting supplies and camera equipment, effectively turning it into a home studio. They like the apartment better this way.

A few months later, the two get a dog together. The mini Australian Shepard has a gorgeous coat, different coloured eyes, and a scar that stretches across his face, a reminder as to why they rescued him in the first place. The renamed him Mando (because his face reminded them of the Mandalorian helmet) and he was like their child. He was full of energy, so Steve loved brining him along for runs in the park. But he was also quiet, reserved, and sensitive so Y/N adored cuddling with him on the couch.

It was their own little family. Steve, Y/N, and Mando.

Movie nights were still a weekly occurrence, but it wasn’t always at their place anymore. Almost six months after Steve moved in with Y/N, they hosted movie night at their place again.

It wasn’t as if Wanda and Natasha hadn’t seen Y/N and Steve since then, but it was the first time they really felt the changes in their old place.

“You redecorated,” Nat commented with a smile. She noticed there were more pictures up: some of their entire friend group, some of just Y/N and Steve. There was also a hanging shelf above the TV (something that Y/N had always talked about installing but never did) that housed some pottery and other knick-knacks Y/N and Steve have collected over the years.

Wanda notices the dog crate and bed in the corner of the living room, along with a basket of toys for the dog. She asks, “Where’s Mando?”

“Steve took him when he went to get the takeout. He likes to cuddle if that’s what you’re asking, Wanda,” Y/N answers amusedly.

“Whathcu do with our old rooms?” Nat hums as she takes a seat on their new couch. She wondered where the grey IKEA one went; it was unlikely that Y/N had the heart to throw it away.

Y/N sits down beside her holding three wine glasses and a bottle of red wine. She pops the cork and pours them all a drink before saying, “We turned your old room into an office and Wanda’s into an art studio slash guest bedroom. That’s where the grey pullout went.” Y/N finished her sentence absentmindedly, almost like she didn’t realize the implication she made.

Wanda and Nat smirk at each other.

Nat takes a sip of her wine before nonchalantly saying, “You know, I always knew you and Steve would end up together.”

Y/N chokes on her wine, “I’m sorry…what?”

Wanda chuckles at her, “You live together, you share a bed, you got a dog.”

Y/N hums nervously, “We’re not dating.”

“Seems like you’re already married if you ask me,” Wanda counters with a smirk.

Before Y/N could get any more embarrassed, the front door opened and Mando came bolting inside, followed by Steve who laughed as the dog jumped on the couch and licked its occupants.

“Oh, Mando you’re so cute,” Wanda gushed before she immediately became occupied and played with Mando.

Natasha looked on with a knowing smirk as Y/N watched Steve approach, both wearing matching smiles, and Steve presses a kiss on her forehead.

“I got Lo Mein if that’s okay. I tried to make it to the pizza place, but I guess Mando likes the smell of Chinese,” Steve says quietly to her before setting the takeout on the coffee table beside the glasses of wine.

She smiles at him, “That’s okay, thanks for grabbing it anyways.”

“I figured you wanted time with the girls to catch up,” Steve shrugs before hopping over the back of the couch to sit next to you.

As the movie started and everyone started eating their serving of food and wine, Y/N assumed the natural position of leaning against Steve’s chest with his arm thrown around the back of the couch. The smell of his cologne is so synonymous with safety to Y/N, so she naturally leans closer to him.

Halfway through the first movie, Y/N catches Nat staring at her and Steve with a smirk. Nat sends a wink her way which sends Y/N’s face in a red flush.

She averts her eyes and looks back at the movie. We are not dating, Y/N thinks to herself, this is just natural.

---

It was about a year after Y/N and Steve started living together when they both got invitations to Bucky and Dolores' wedding.

Their group chat was blowing up with questions like ‘should we even go to the wedding?’ and ‘won’t it be awkward for everyone involved?’

Steve already knew that he was going. Despite everything, Bucky was still like his brother. They still saw each other almost weekly and although he wasn’t Dolores’ biggest fan just through negative association, he was happy that Bucky was immensely happy.

Y/N, on the other hand, needed more convincing.

“Jesus, I wish he never invited me to his goddamn wedding,” Y/N complained, her head buried in Steve’s shoulder as they sat on the couch, “Is this his version of a punishment? The anxiety of choosing whether or not I should come to his wedding?”

Steve rubbed her shoulder comfortingly, “Y/N, he did use to be your best friend.”

“Before I told him to get out of my life and that I never wanted to see him again,” she states bluntly. “God, I was so fucking stupid.”

“Hey,” Steve says firmly, “The both of you were acting pretty stupid, we’ve established that. But you’ve grown up. Bucky did invite you, which means he wants you to come.”

Y/N stays silent as Steve continues, “I know you miss him, Y/N. And clearly, he misses you too. Maybe this is your first step at mending your friendship.”

“If there’s anything left of it,” Y/N says pathetically.

“You won’t know if you don’t go to the wedding.”

So, she ends up going to the wedding.

The actual ceremony went by in a blur. Dolores was wearing a beautiful gown with gorgeous floral lace and Bucky in a wonderfully fitted velvet suit. Y/N thought the first time she would see Bucky in years would be filled with melancholy, but Y/N just felt better that Steve (from beside the groom) was sending her reassuring smiles the entire ceremony.

The couple was technically already married, so they didn’t have a licensed officiant. Instead, they had an array of friends, including Steve, the best man, say different parts of the pre-made script. It was fun, lighthearted, and had Bucky written all over it—something that Y/N missed about him the most.

At the reception, she took advantage of the open bar. She spent her time socializing with Natasha, Wanda, and Sam, a mutual friend who became an Air Force officer straight out of college. The night was still young, so Steve spent most of his time with the wedding party, occasionally sending Y/N texts like:

Steve: Miss you!

Steve: How many drinks have you had so far?

Steve: You made sure to lock Mando’s crate, right?

Steve: Did I tell you that you looked rlly pretty tonight?

Steve: I can’t wait until everyone gets drunk so I can hang out w you :)

“Texting at my wedding? I thought you loved parties, Y/N,” a recognizable voice says amusedly.

Y/N’s head snaps up and she’s met with a face that she hasn’t seen in years.

“Bucky—”

Bucky cuts her off, “Before you say anything, I’m sorry. You were right, I was being a really shitty friend and I didn’t have the right to ignore you, yell at you, or just bring random people into your home like I owned the place. I just…really missed you. You’re my best friend and my life hasn’t really been the same without you.”

Y/N is rendered speechless. Her mind blanks as she stares into Bucky’s watery eyes, begging for forgiveness. She says nothing and instead wraps her arms around Bucky, pulling him close. The man immediately wraps his arms around her like they’ve never left.

After the wedding, Bucky starts to show up to movie night again.

It takes a whole lot of coaxing to let Natasha and Wanda allow Bucky back into their lives, but eventually, they come around. It wasn’t like college though, but it was nice, nonetheless. One night, Bucky revealed that movie nights are when he feels the most like himself again. The rest of them smile wordlessly at him, but confusion does seep into the back of their minds.

A year since the wedding, the group finally fully accepts Bucky back into their lives as if he never left. He catches up with Natasha during impromptu lunches, takes Wanda to dinner if she’s ever in Midtown, watches the Yankees play with Steve to take his mind off of law school, and drops lunch off to Y/N at the New York Times building if he’s in the area.

Bucky truly misses his friends, but somewhere deep in his heart, he misses Y/N a little bit more.

The rest of them also notice how little Bucky talks about Dolores when they’re together.

They found it strange at first; normally, husbands loved talking about their wives. But Bucky never brought her to their outings, to movie night (despite everyone insisting that they’d be happy to have her over), and rarely brought her up in conversation unless asked.

Y/N found it especially strange. In a mature attempt to move on from her college crush on Bucky, she tried to make amends with Dolores. Turns out, the blonde was an adorable girl from Brooklyn that absolutely adores Bucky. She’s sensitive but hilarious and Y/N loves spending time with her.

She also noticed how much Dolores talked about Bucky. It was clear how much she adored him, so it was almost unfathomable to her how Bucky didn’t talk about the wonderful woman nearly as much as she talked about him.

“Don’t you find it a little weird?” Y/N asked him as he was brushing his teeth. Steve was concentrated on her face despite toothpaste foaming around his mouth. Y/N sat on the bathroom counter, feet swinging as she absentmindedly played with an elastic.

Steve spit in the sink before speaking, “I mean, you know Buck. He’s a pretty private guy.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t shut up about crazy stories he’s had with you and Bucky loves you. I just find it a little funky that he doesn’t act the same with Dolores,” Y/N explained.

Steve sighs and gargles the rest of the toothpaste out of his mouth. “I guess I never thought about it that way… They have only been married for a little over two years though. Maybe they’re still figuring out the ropes of their marriage?”

Y/N shrugs with a sigh, hopping off the counter and stripping off her shirt and pants. Steve tries his hardest not to stare but he can’t help but stare at the curve of her body as she reaches to slip on one of his hoodies she likes to wear for bed.

Steve isn’t really sure where his relationship with Y/N stands, to be honest. It’s funny to him—they act like an actual married couple, minus the romance. Acting domesticated with her just feels so natural to Steve, but he’s scared putting a label on anything will change the dynamic, so he stays silent and cherishes the domestic moments he has with her.

“You’re right, I’m probably overthinking it,” Y/N mumbles before slipping past him, “I’m headed off to bed. Don’t take too long.”

Y/N doesn’t notice Steve’s hard blush as he scrambles to put on some pyjamas to join her in bed.

---

“I’m nervous.”

“Jesus, Steve. You’ll be fine! You’re the top of your class at fucking Columbia, so there’s no way you failed the bar,” Y/N cheers on excitedly from behind him. She rubs his shoulders as he stares at his inbox, too afraid to click on the email titled ‘New York State Bar Exam Results.’

Steve’s foot taps incessantly, “I’m still too scared to look.”

Y/N reaches over his shoulder and kisses his cheek. “Fine,” she says, “I’ll look for you.” She clicks on the email and scrolls down, searching for Steve’s exam number.

After a few seconds, Y/N hesitantly asks, “Steve?”

“Mhmm?” he replies, his head in his hands.

“What’s your exam number again?”

“S-24601,” he replies quickly.

Y/N squeals and hugs him from the back, pressing kisses all over his neck. “You fucking passed, Steve!” she squeals.

“I did?!”

“Of course you did, dummy!”

Steve laughs in excitement and disbelief, grabbing Y/N by the waist and spinning her off the ground. Mando barks excitedly, jumping up happily against Steve’s thighs.

“You did it!” Y/N smiles down at him, her cheeks hurting from all her laughing.

The two celebrate by hosting movie night at their place with extra food, desserts, and ridiculous amounts of alcohol. Wanda brings Vis, the high school chemistry teacher she’s been seeing, Nat brings Bruce, and Bucky finally comes around and brings Dolores along for the celebration. Even Sam, who happened to be off duty, was able to come to the celebration.

Despite it technically being movie night, most of the night was spent trading funny stories about Steve, emptying bottles and bottles of wine and beer, and finally letting loose for the first time in a long time.

Around ten in the evening, the board games came out and the group of twenty-somethings started playing games with a drinking twist. Y/N had been attached to Steve by the hip all night (largely because he always seemed to have his arms around her), but she couldn’t complain. The several glasses of wine she had did make it easier for her to ignore Wanda and Natasha’s smirks.

It also made it easier for her to be ignorant of how awkward Dolores felt at the gathering. Y/N sincerely like the girl, but she was unaware of her discomfort until around one in the morning. Most people had left, and it was just Steve, Y/N, and Bucky cleaning up.

“Y/N, I’m gonna take a quick shower,” Steve calls out to Y/N as she washes the dishes with Bucky picking up trash in the living room. “Goodnight Bucky!” Steve calls out before disappearing.

“Goodnight, Steve,” Bucky shouts back before walking into the kitchen. He leans against the counter and watches Y/N as she does the dishes. Y/N notices his presence, then notices the lack of someone else’s presence.

“Hey Buck, where’d Dolores run off to?” Y/N hums, drying the last of the dishes.

Bucky shrugs, “Took an Uber and went home early.”

Y/N turns around to face him, “Shit, Buck. You didn’t have to stay—”

“Nah, I wanted to. She’s probably fine,” he answers nonchalantly.

“Probably?”

Bucky doesn’t respond.

Y/N takes a deep breath and fiddles with the dishtowel in her hands before saying, “Bucky, why is this the first time in three years of marriage that Dolores has come to a friend get together?”

Bucky’s jaw unhinges a little, “What do you mean?”

Y/N sighs and sets the dish towel down. She takes a deep breath before saying, “We’ve asked you to invite her to come over for years, but you always make excuses for her. You don’t nearly talk about her as much as she does about you, and I know that for a fact because I’ve hung out with Dolores on multiple occasions. Bucky…is everything alright between you and Dolores?”

Bucky stares intently at her for a few seconds before his resolve crumbles. His eyes lose its intensity and are replaced with tiredness as he drags his hand across his face. “Dot and I…” Bucky starts, “are going through a bit of a…rough patch.”

“Bucky—”

“I made a mistake marrying her,” he says bluntly.

“What?” Y/N says in shock. Every time she’s spent time with Dolores, she had been nothing but lovely. She’s perfect for Bucky—she doesn’t understand where he’s coming from.

“I love Dolores but I…”

“But…?”

Bucky doesn’t say anything. Instead, he crosses the kitchen floor in two long strides and grabs Y/N by the face, kissing her fiercely.

Y/N freezes and her eyes widen in shock. What the fuck was happening? was the only thing her brain could possibly register at the point.

Bucky pulls away but the grip on her face doesn’t fade, “But I’m in love with you, Y/N. And I know for a fact that you love me too.”

He leans in for another kiss, but Y/N pushes him away. “Bucky stop!” she says, harsher than she intends, but she doesn’t regret it.

Bucky stares at her, dumbfounded, but she continues, “That was a long, long time ago. And Jesus, Bucky you’re married!”

He shakes his head, “I don’t need to be forever—”

“—And you’re drunk!” she explains in exasperation.

“But I know some part of you still loves me. And God, I love you too. All those years without you and it finally got through to my thick skull,” Bucky argues.

“But what about Dolores?” she whispers.

“Fuck Dolores,” he says. Bucky reaches for her again, but Y/N steps away.

“Bucky, I can’t,” Y/N cries. “Maybe there’s some part of me that loves you, that may always love you. But there’s a bigger part of me that loves what I have right now. Bucky, I’ve never felt so safe before. So happy, so cared for, so loved. I know it’s selfish, but I can’t give away the happiness and security that I deserve to explore what my life would be like with you because I love—”

Y/N stops abruptly, her voice catching in her throat.

“Because you love who, Y/N?” Bucky asks. She notices how his eyes have become glassy and how his shoulders had slumped slightly.

Because I love Steve, Y/N thinks. But she doesn’t find the courage to say it. Bucky can see it in her eyes, though.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” Bucky doesn’t have to say his name who she’s talking about.

Y/N is silent, her heart thumping so loud her she’s afraid Bucky can hear it.

Her silence is enough for him, “Ah.”

Bucky waits a few more seconds before saying, “When did you know?”

Y/N gulps and lets out a shaky breath. When did she know? She racks her brain but can’t think of a specific time. Part of her thinks that she always knew. She was so natural around Steve. So safe and carefree. Steve was there when that perfect bubble of her friendship with Bucky popped, and he even stayed with her after. He was the one that helped her mend her heart and, in the process, built himself a spot inside without even realizing it. Her imperfect bubble, her lens of the world, may have been broken, but Steve was inside, and Y/N knew that it’s all the really mattered.

I love Steve, she confessed to herself. She felt like she was Cher in Clueless, with the fountain of her emotions erupting inside her. Bucky could clearly see it on her face as he smiled sadly.

“Did I ever have a chance?” he whispers.

“Yeah... A long time ago,” Y/N answers softly, not trusting her voice.

“Will I ever get the chance again?”

Y/N shakes her head softly, “Don’t wait for me, Bucky.”

Bucky smiles sadly at her, a tear escaping his eye. She reaches for him, but Bucky shakes his head, “See you around, Y/N.”

And just like that, he’s gone.

Y/N feels like she’s on autopilot. Adrenaline is still coursing through her system; coupled with alcohol and a whole lot of courage, her feet bring her to the bathroom before even realizing. She doesn’t realize that she’s turning the doorknob or stripping completely. She barely registers her stepping into the steamy shower before and she definitely doesn’t fully register her tapping Steve on the shoulder, reaching up, and kissing him fiercely.

He pulls away first, “Y/N?”

She kisses him in response. This time, he responds but pulls away a few seconds later, “Why are you doing this? Are you drunk?”

“Yeah, it’s not why I’m doing this though,” she says, voice raspy.

“Why then?”

“Because I love you.”

“Oh,” was Steve’s response before kissing her again. The two sloppily make out like teenagers discovering sex for the first time before Steve pulls away again.

“I also love you, you know,” he says lazily against her lips. He feels her smile.

“That’s good,” she replies before kissing him once more.

The night lasts a lot longer than both of them intend. But it wasn’t like they were complaining.

---

Life had a strange way of playing out sometimes.

It seemed as if Y/N and Steve blinked and the rest of their lives fell straight into their laps.

When they meet new people, they always ask them how long they've been together or when they started dating.

“A lifetime ago,” Steve would always say, his eyes lighting up and his face flushing slightly.

After the night that Steve learned he passed the bar, Y/N and Steve’s relationship didn’t change all that much, mostly because they acted like they were married in the first place. They already help hands in public, gave each other kisses on the cheek when their friends were around, and they acted more domesticated than a lot of actual married couples only months after they officially started dating.

In fact, most of their friends didn’t even realize they had started dating until almost six months later, Y/N made an off-hand comment about how Steve was secretly really kinky in bed.

The really didn’t have an engagement either.

After two years of dating, five years of living together, and nine years of knowing each other, Steve just decided to get straight to the point.

“You wanna get married, Y/N?” Steve asked her. He had just come back from his job as a corporate lawyer. He honestly hated it but needed the experience and the money to pay off his student loans. His grand plan after he was no longer drowning in debt was to become an Assistant District Attorney.

Y/N stopped cutting the vegetables and turned toward Steve who was leaning against the fridge, suit jacket slung across one shoulder and top button his dress shirt undone. She raises a brow at him, “Pardon me?”

“You wanna get married?” he repeats nonchalantly.

“Now? I’m making dinner.”

“Whenever you want, doll.”

She sets the knife down and slowly walks towards him. “This isn’t you proposing, is it?” she cackles.

Steve shakes his head and laughs, meeting her halfway. “No, I thought of this while I was riding the subway back home. I don’t even have a ring, honey,” he explains. “If I’m honest, it feels like we’ve been married for the past five years, so I kinda forgot that we aren’t.”

Y/N purses her lips in concentration before saying, “That’s fair.”

Steve stares at her for a few more seconds, “So…?”

“Do you want to get married?” she asks him this time, stepping forward and grasping his hands.

“I mean…yeah,” Steve says with a grin, “Telling people you’re my wife is a lot cooler than telling people you’re my girlfriend. Besides, if I ever commit a crime, you have the right not to testify against me because of marital privilege—”

He’s cut off with howling laughter and Y/N burying her face into his chest as he wraps his arms around her. Steve’s tired, really tired, but coming home to her was what he reminded himself he was working for.

“Should we do the whole proposal thing, too?” Y/N asks him after her laughter dies down.

“I don’t mind proposing if it’s something you want to do,” he tells her, pressing his lips to her head.

“Meh. I don’t really care,” she says cheekily before pressing her lips to his.

After their wedding—just like Y/N and Steve predicted—their lives didn’t change all too much. The only noticeable changes were that they were being addressed as Y/L/N-Rogers in the mail, but their lives were pretty much the same.

Their friends found it fascinating: when they had gotten married, they felt that their relationship dynamic had changed a little. But then again, they supposed Steve and Y/N had been acting like they’ve been married since the ripe age of twenty. It’s almost like they skipped a few steps in their relationship and went from friends to acting like they’ve been married for forty years.

The biggest change in their relationship came three years after their wedding when their twins, Avery and Jameson Y/L/N-Rogers were born into the world.

Steve and Y/N were natural parents and they loved their kids. When the twins were three, they took them on their first road trip to the Adirondacks. They spent the weekend at a lakefront cabin, swimming, canoeing, and hiking. When asked years later, the twins would always explain that this was their first memory. At four, the twins started school, and to say Y/N and Steve were worried would be a huge lie. They knew Avery and Jameson would protect each other no matter what. At age seven, a boy on the playground called Avery an ‘ugly liar’, and Jameson threw sand in his face. Steve gave Jameson a scolding about how it was bad to throw sand at people and instead saying that if he was going to throw something, throw a punch instead.

Y/N had to step in and tell him not to do that unless it was a last resort.

At twelve, Jameson had his first real crush on a girl named Mindy. But, Avery knew that Mindy was mean and the daughter of an entitled Karen, so when Jameson asked Mindy if she wanted to dance with her at the school dance, Avery made sure to scare her straight.

“My daddy is a lawyer and sends criminals to prison and my mommy works for the New York Times. So, if you hurt James, everyone will know how mean you actually are are,” Avery threatened, which made Mindy back out of dancing with Jameson. Despite being mad when he was twelve, he was thankful years later when he saw firsthand what kind of teenager Mindy would become.

Now at sixteen, though the two twins were still thick as thieves, they matured into respectable, and frankly perfect kids.

That year, the Fourth of July (aka Steve’s birthday) fell the same night as movie night and the twins took it upon themselves to plan their dad’s party.

“Avery? James? You doin’ alright?” Y/N called from the upper floor of their brownstone in Park Slope, Brooklyn. When it was obvious that Avery and Jameson were at the age that they couldn’t share a bedroom anymore, Steve convinced Y/N to move back to Brooklyn. It wasn’t the difficult, per se, especially when Steve found a place close to where Natasha and her now-husband Bruce lived.

“Doin’ just fine, Mom!” Avery calls back. She was busy frosting the good-old Stars and Stripes cake while James finished the last-minute decorations.

Just then, Y/N heard a thud before some soft moaning. She gasped, already halfway down the stairs. “Are you okay? Do you need help? Screw your surprise, I’m com—”

“No!” James shouted, quickly sitting up, “I just fell off a stool, Mom. No big deal, you don’t need to come downstairs.”

“Are you su—”

“Yep! This is supposed to be a surprise!” James calls back.

“A surprise for your dad, not for me Jameson.”

Avery cackles from the kitchen and James rolls his eyes at her. “We’re fine, I promise,” he reassures her.

“Okay, just be done before everyone gets here. Bucky’s stalling your dad for as long as possible but I know he’ll want to come home soon.”

When Y/N is finally allowed downstairs, she’s impressed with their work. Red, white, and blue streamers are hung all across the ceiling as well as helium balloons that say ‘Happy Birthday America!’ except America is crossed out with Sharpie and ‘Steve Rogers’ is written in her kids’ handwriting instead. In the living room, several games are put out on the coffee table and a playlist full of patriotic movies is ready to be played on the TV. All her friends (minus Bucky and Steve) are in the living room, having a laugh at all the funny touches on the decorations. Their dining table was filled with food their friends brought for the potluck, and for some reason, James had blasted (and looped) a remix of the Star-Spangled Banner and Happy Birthday.

“Do you like it, Mom?” Y/N hears before turning around and facing her kids. Avery’s hand was grasped in James’ and her heart melts. How did I get so lucky? she asks herself.

She gives them a huge smile before enveloping both of them into a hug. “It’s amazing. Better than anything I could’ve done, that’s for sure.”

“Do you think, Dad’ll like it?” James mumbles into her shoulder.

“HOLY FUCKING SHIT!” a voice suddenly shouts. The three pull apart to find Steve standing at the entrance of the living room with a huge grin on his face. Bucky stands behind him, chuckling at his reaction.

Y/N’s smile widens at the sight of her husband. “There’s your answer, James.”

The party is everything Steve could have really asked for. The food was great, his company was even better, and the thoughtfulness of his kids was enough to bring tears to his eyes.

When the night gets darker, the party of people head to the roof of the building so they can watch the fireworks. As they wait, Avery has everyone engrossed in a story of how James followed her on a date with a boy she really liked, Peter Parker. Steve stood at the edge of the crowd, smiling at how happy his kids and his wife looked. He feels a presence beside him and doesn’t need to look to know who it is.

“You did pretty great, Steve,” Bucky tells him softly.

“With Avery and James?” he asks.

“With life, buddy.”

Steve hums contently as the two of them watch Avery cause a bubble of laughter to erupt from the group. James punches her playfully on the arm, but the smile is still evident on his face.

“How’s Steph?” Steve asks him.

“She’s good. She’s with her mom for the weekend,” Bucky answers quietly.

“And how are you and Dolores?”

Bucky is silent for a few seconds. He clears his throat before saying, “Talking. We’re trying to work it out for Steph’s sake. She doesn’t deserve to have a broken family.”

Steve puts a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, Buck. You’re a good father,” he tells his best friend.

Bucky remains silent. After a few minutes of silence, Bucky’s conscious drowns him in guild and he speaks up, “I kissed Y/N when we were younger. It was the night you learned you passed the bar. I told her I thought I made a mistake marrying Dolores, and shit…I don’t even know what I was thinking because I knew she probably loved you. I’m so sorry, Steve. I never told you because you’re my best friend and—”

“Bucky,” Steve cuts him off with a small, sympathetic smile, “It’s okay. I know.”

Bucky’s brows shoot up. “You know?” he asks.

Steve nods, “Y/N told me. Y/N tells me everything.”

Bucky exhales, “Ah.”

“I’m not mad,” Steve tells him.

“You’re not?”

“I am married to her and still best friends with you, aren’t I?”

Bucky chuckles and looks down. He doesn’t deserve Steve, Bucky thinks. But he’s damn grateful a guy like him is in his life. “I’m still sorry,” he says.

“It’s okay, Bucky. I mean it,” Steve says, giving his shoulder a squeeze.

The two stand in comfortable silence when the fireworks finally start to go off. The roof glows with red light and Steve can’t help but admire how beautiful Y/N looks with the glow of light on her skin. Avery has her head on Y/N’s shoulder while Jameson has an arm wrapped around her torso. Steve notices Bucky admiring his family too.

“You know,” Steve starts, “she loved you when we were younger. I actually thought the two of you would be great together and wanted her to ask you out. She was about to.”

Bucky looks at him. “Really,” he asks suspiciously.

“Mhmm,” Steve hums, still looking at the fireworks. “And did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Love her?”

Bucky is silent. He stares at Steve’s side profile; he’s still staring up at the fireworks without a care in the world.

Bucky sighs and answers honestly, “All throughout college, even when I was with Dolores. But guessing by your reaction, I think you already knew that.”

Steve finally glances in his direction, “I’m your best friend. Of course, I knew.”

“Did I ever have a chance with her?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, finally looking at Bucky, “once you did.”

Bucky sighs, “How’d you do it? How’d you find someone you love so naturally?”

Steve shakes his head, his eyes trained on his wife and his kids. They looked so happy, living in their own little bubble. Steve smiles softly before saying, “I stuck around.”

Bucky nods wordlessly before turning his attention back to the fireworks above. Steve continues to stare at his family when Y/N turns around and catches his gaze. Despite the night sky, her eyes are bright and filled with joy and love.

Steve smiles widely at her.

And in their own imperfect, but beautiful bubble, Y/N smiles back.

---

steve rogers taglist: @milea

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terminally-karkalicious · 3 years

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allow me to rant about the only thing that has been in my brain for the past two months and that is doll customizing babeyyyyy

i know there’s a 90% chance that you wont give a Shit about any of this but here we go anyways

SO first you gotta choose a doll. preferably one with a high range of motion to avoid creating new joints or having annoying limitations like not having elbow joints for some fucking reason. what the fuck mattel. give monster high dolls back their ball jointed shoulders and elbow joints. smh

the most common dolls ive seen used as bases are monster high and ever after high. most customs ive seen are highly stylized so the stylized face molds work well for those types of dolls but dolls like barbies are good for when you want a more realistic face-ups.

once you’ve got your base picked out you gotta wipe that bitch’s face off with like. acetone or nail polish remover or something strong like that. you can also use acetone to shrink doll heads which is cool as hell imo. n e way once the face is wiped you gotta chop off the hair and remove the hair plugs from the inside. ive seen this done several ways but the easiest and most common way ive seen is to dunk the head into boiling water for ~30 seconds until it gets squishy and malleable. once you’ve got the head back, you can use pliers (i think tweezers would work in a pinch) to pull out the hair plugs which are kinda icky because theyre covered in glue and other gross shit. ew

now you must decapitate the doll. dunk em back in the boiling water to soften them back up then just tug the head off. the neck pegs look funky and are usually a different color than the body so thats cool ig

once the head’s off, you can start the face-up which is basically just giving the doll a new face using stuff like watercolor pencils, acrylic paint, gouache, and a whole lot of other stuff. hell ive seen people use person makeup on these dolls.

next,,,,, hair. there’s about twenty million ways to do hair from gluing yarn wefts to sewing to rerooting with purchased nylon doll hair or yarn wefts but i’m gonna talk about the most common one ive seen which is rerooting and gluing.

before you can reroot, you need doll hair. which, as i mentioned, can be bought at stores like the doll planet or made at home with yarn in literally any color. have fun with it! make rainbow hair or something idk

to make homemade wefts, you take some acrylic yarn, cut it twice as long as you want the hair to be (keep in mind you can cut and style the hair once it’s been rerooted), fold them in half, and tie it to something sturdy like a wire coat hanger for the next step.

once you’ve got your yarn tied to your hanger, use a pet brush and brush the yarn until it’s wispy and looks like hair. then take a straightening iron and iron the weft flat. then remove from the hanger and boom. hair wefts. ta-da

to reroot the wefts onto the head, use a rerooting tool (which can be as simple as a needle with the eye cut at angle) (just google it please i’m shit at descriptions)) to poke small sections of the hair into the head. you can use the pre-existing rooting holes for your own reroot as they’re usually pretty reliable. to reroot, take a small length of you doll hair (about 10-15 strands), loop it in half, and put the middle of the loop into the reroot tool. poke the end of the tool with the hair on it into the pre-existing hole and remove the tool. the hair *should* stay in and fill up that plug!! also remember to plug thickly at the hairline and part of the hair where it's most noticeable. it doesnt matter as much in the center of the head as that’s not usually visible on the doll. once you’ve rerooted, squeeze in strong glue through the neck hole and squish around the head to make sure it covers all the plugs and secures them in place. then pour hot water onto the head to make the hair lay flat for styling later.

also, you can reroot yarn directly into the head to make thicker, more textured hairstyles. and since the yarn is thicker, you dont need to glue the inside of the head for the hair to stay in place!!

if youre not doing body modifications (which are also cool as hell) then it’s time for clothes but clothes are boring and i like body mods more so i’m gonna rant about them instead

the material ive seen most doll artists use is apoxie sculpt, which is like play doh on steroids. it comes in two parts which you gotta mix together for some reason. why dont they sell it pre-mixed. what was the reason. also once it’s dry it’s super super strong and you can sand it, drill into it, paint it, and all kinds of stuff. very nice and i want some for myself.

you can use hand saws and drills and shit to whack off doll limbs to make stuff like digitigrade legs or new joints. also dont be afraid to use other mismatching doll parts when customizing like heads and bodies and forearms and hands and shit. it literally does not matter if youre gonna recolor the doll anyways so have fun with it. make frankenstein’s doll if youre feeling spicy

accessories my beloved. stuff like tiny beads and clay baubles and shit will literally transform the entire doll plus they’re adorable and multi-purpose

i suppose i must talk about clothes now. ah well. you can find great clothing patterns if youre new to customizing on other customizer’s etsy shops and probably google although those will probably be lower quality than paid pattern pieces. and keep in mind that if it exists as clothing irl, you can likely make it doll-sized. there are literally no limits to your clothing options as long as you can execute your idea.

the once all your components have been made, you can assemble the doll again!! and finally see what all the parts look like together!! very cool 10/10 stars.

ight that wraps up my doll rant. i could really go into more detail on certain parts but thats a whole other rant for a whole other day smh. sorry for fucking flooding your inbox ender ahaha……………. you asked for this

little did you know that dolls have been one of my favorite things since like ever. if i can read a 25 chapter long fanfic i can read this B)

mattel definitely fucked up by completely ruining MH doll designs and just stopping EAH, alot of their profits most likely came from people who collect and customize dolls and by changing MH doll designs/Stopping EAH dolls they 1. most likely lost a small (or big if we're not jus talking people who customize dolls) part of their profit and 2. made it harder for doll customizers to make dolls/get commissions out rather quickly because they probably have to waste more time making joints or learning how to make joints.

EAH/MH dolls (specifically MH dolls) had AMAZING MODELS because there was so much variety with height, face shapes, etc (my favorite molds had to be the short/tall dolls and the cat molds because of the tails) and doll customizers really went all out with enhancing a molds unique features. The only "downside" abt MH dolls is that they (or atleast most)(from what i remember)) had slimmer faces but wider eyes while EAH dolls have wider faces with slimmer smaller which left a canvas for the face and not the eyes (and vice versa for MH dolls)

I've never seen any videos where a barbie is customized (maybe because i absolutely despised barbies at the time) so I'll definitely have to check those out but they seem to be good for realistic makeovers. I've seen like like semi realistic makeovers for EAH/MH dolls that were pretty good too tho (pretty sure mostly EAH dolls since yk MH dolls were used for creature makeovers while most EAH dolls weren't)

yeah i was always amazed by the head shrinking with acetone. honestly i still am?? idunno i have no idea how that chemical bullshit works. Ive seen a few of uh makeovers that just pain over the face (in multiple layers ofcourse) but that's usually when they're painting the entire body a different colour (again usually when they're turning a doll into a funky little baby man). I've also seen a few that just chop the hair off and take out the hair plugs yk without uuh like softening the head or just go straight for the hair plugs after taking off the head (i used to do that it was funny to me??). i always really liked when they used watercolour pencils or just colour pencils in general to draw/sketch on the face cause like wow ur drawing on ur doll without ruining it?? kinda epic maybe even poggers and pogchamp?? oh god my brain is failing wjshsmsj.

Watching them putting the hair back on the doll was, other than the face stuff, was the BEST part for me. Favorite type of hair was iuuuuuh was either thick yarn or brushed out yarn. Literally worship the people that would reroot the hair, theyre the most patience people on this earth!! it's literally insane but i guess that's what happens when you've been doing that for years? you guess kinda get used to it. when they put glue into the head does it just become stiff?? like it's just a clump of dried glue or does it like..hollow out again??

dude you literally cannot convince me most of the supplies used for doll makeovers. APOXIE CLAY LOOKS SO FECKING GOOD. its edible and i will die on that hill. The body mods are literally so amazing!!!!! it's so impressive how theyre able to imagine certain features THEN LIKE ACTUALLY MAKE IT LOOK ACCURATE TO WHAT THEY WANTED TO LOOK LIKE AFTER LIKE ON TRY (or many yk trial and error is very necessary for..everything). Absolutely loved when doll customizers would saw off a dolls legs and use different ones or just completely get rid of the torso to use a different one. it's like uuh that one big guy that's mismatched and sewn together. very cool. The accessories are so fun!! just small little details you seen really need but can add because it's your feckin doll!! I used to be absolutely obsessed over the doll clothes i would find on etsy, so much so that i started sewing shitty shirts and dresses for my uh "customized" dolls (they were absolute HORRORS idk WHY my mom let me feck up my dolls like that).

Thank you for this!! i haven't been able to talk about any of my interests for a while and this just really made me happy!!

Question fer u my fellow MH/EAH enthusiast: what was your favorite MH/EAH movie/episode and doll series. Mine was The fusion dolls (MH obvi) and that MH movie "Haunted" cause we got to know more about Spectra :D

#YOOOO LONG POST?!#long post #:) hehehe #this was very fun to read cant wait for ur next fanfic length ask #asks :D #theoreticallyjasper

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dstudiouk · 3 years

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Weekly Studio Spotlight - Carissa Tanton

This week, we’ve had the pleasure of speaking to Carissa Tanton. A super fun & creative artist & illustrator from North Wales. Carissa works traditionally, ink & paper, to create some beautiful illustrations inspired by the outdoors, her love of tea & the beauty in everyday life. You can use the links below to find Carissa on her social platforms as well as her website if you’d like to see more work from her or to simply show some support! 😊We hope you enjoy reading this week’s chat! ✌🏼

What are your biggest inspirations?

The natural world is my biggest inspiration, whether it’s the landscape, the details of the plants and flowers around me, or the cyclical natures in accordance with the moon and flow of the seasons. I’m also very inspired by the everyday, sitting to enjoy a cup of tea or coffee, or the simplicity of ones daily walk in the woods.

Credit: Carissa Tanton

How did you start your career in art?

I moved to Paris in 2012 after graduating with a degree in Psychology and English and no idea of what to do next. There I fell in love with art and drawing (and wine and croissants). I slowly started to develop my own drawing practice and when I returned to Wales a couple of years later I went back to college for a year to study art and design. Inspired by minimalism I simplified my practice to just pen and paper and have been drawing ever since.

What is your favourite piece that you have created?

I think it would have to be my continuous sea line drawing. I really love playing with line work, from drawing with closed eyes or my non dominant hand. Continuous line is a playful way to create too and I really love the way this came together and represented the continuous motion of the waves.

Credit: Carissa Tanton

What is your biggest challenge with your work?

I feel quite challenged by imposter syndrome as I am mostly self taught and my art comes from a place of playfulness, and sometimes I think I should be a bit more serious. The other challenge is prioritising time to draw, to create and develop my craft, as running your own business involves a lot of other, less fun, things to fill your time with.

If you could trade lives with someone for a day, who would you choose?

Elizabeth Gilbert. Her approach to creativity is so inspiring to me, and she seems to live her life very joyfully with an inspiring group of other creative, thoughtful and strong women as her friendship circle.

Credit: Carissa Tanton

What is the most important thing to you in life?

Peace of mind. We live in such a hectic world and our mindset affects everything.

Can you name one of your fondest childhood memories?

My dad is one of 5 children so we have a big extended family with lots of cousins. We used to spend every summer going away together in our caravans, a big group of us and we’d spend every evening sat around a fire and all day in nature, usually at the beach. I loved those summer trips, we’re all quite silly and I just remember laughing a lot.

What do you listen to / watch when you're working?

I love to listen to inspiring podcasts, YouTube videos or audiobooks when I’m working. I’m currently listening to Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer which is filling me with a love of nature.

Credit: Carissa Tanton

What would your dream house look like?

It would be very small (less cleaning to do!), filled with white walls, wooden furniture and a few treasured possessions. A huge garden and a beautiful view so I could admire my vegetables and flowers growing whilst I do the washing up or draw.

What has been your biggest achievement in life?

At 31 I still feel like I have so many achievements ahead of me. But so far I think having carved out a job for myself that I adore and means that I get to draw for a living is just magical and unbelievable to me most days.

Other than creating art, how else do you like to relax?

I’m a huge fan of meditation. If I don’t meditate daily then I just feel off. And then the other big love of my life is my garden, I find weeding to be one of the most relaxing pastimes.

Credit: Carissa Tanton

Biiiiiiig thank you again to Carissa for taking part this week & chatting with us. Absolutely loved it this week 😁Please do go and check out Carissa and her work on her sites (linked below) and show your support 💛

Carissa Tanton Website

Carissa Tanton Instagram

Carissa Tanton Twitter

Carissa Tanton Etsy Store

#Artists #ArtistofTheWeek #ArtistSupport #LocalArtists #Art #LineArt #Drawings #BowieArt #BowieTea #CuppaTea #UKArtist #SmallArtists #SupportingArts

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missmaxime · 4 years

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Mouth; room; close; keen

You really know what you’re asking, haha. I cherry-picked for the first three, because as it turns out I use those a lot. And fyi under ‘Close’ is a small excerpt of the Joan/Rio fic ;) 💕 MOUTH From ‘Shine a Light Now (This Time it’s got to be Good)’

“Apparently I am ‘overqualified’,” Beth complains dramatically, putting extra emphasis on it by adding sloppy air quotation marks. Phoebe starts opening her mouth to ask because she cuts her off with: “Find my Family a Pet, Season 5.” Phoebe sputters, grabbing a can of coke to rinse her mouth and spitting it on the pavement. “It’s animals, elderly ánd kids, the three circles of hell. Rookie stuff, damn sure you’re overqualified.”

From ‘Wild at Heart’ Chapter 5

Paul put the bag down, leaning onto the reception desk. “You don’t want to join me and Marissa for breakfast?” he asked. “I hear it’s delicious here.” Rio encircled his arm around Beth’s waist, squeezing it. He clacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Beth grabbed ahold of his hand, dragging it onto her belly. “Maybe we’ll join you tomorrow, Rio and I have an important appointment.” Rio stroked her through her coat, and Paul picked up on the hint.

From ‘If worst comes to worst, I left a note’

“Y’know what ya getting into?” he asks. She smirks. “Do you?” His eyes get darker and her attacks her mouth again, slipping his tongue between her lips. She circles her hand onto the back of his head, pulling him into her more. And, as much as she hates to admit it, it’s nothing like she ever experienced. Not with Dean, not with the two boys she kissed before, this is something more, and it’s frightening. Frightening, but thrilling.

From ‘The Kaleidoscope of Love’

And she surges back into him, claiming his mouth. Their lips sliding over each other, erupting sparks in her chest she can’t remember feeling. Their position frustrates Beth, sitting next to each other, so she takes it upon herself to pull back from him – the groan he releases almost embarrassing. She doesn’t let him wait long, climbing onto him so she can straddle him. The trail his warm hands leave on her skin as he lets them travel up from her knees to her thighs, before sliding them under her dress is mesmerizing. She kissing him briefly on the lips. “More,” she breathes, quite sure her pitch is quite uneven.

From (WT) ‘Come on baby, won’t you show some class’ [aka Mick locks Beth and Rio in a storage room because he’s tired of their shit]

Rio lets his fingers travel along her panties, feeling how wet she already is for him. He chuckles at that, increasing the pressure. “Yeah, you want me, don’t you darling?” He says, now slipping two fingers between her folds, feeling the heaviness of her wetness flooding his hand. He leans his head in, putting his mouth against her ear. “Don’t you?’ he asks, but sucks her earlobe in before she can answer, retracting a very repressed moan from her. That just riles her, and she tries to retract her bend leg from the table. But he grasps her ankle, keeping that leg in place. He reaches out with his other hand, buttoning open his pants, pulling down those and his boxers far enough to extract his lid. “Don’t, do, that,” he says, licking her face on one side in one long stroke. And she revels in it, against her better judgement.

From (WT) ‘Get Well Soon’ [or the S3 deviation I started writing before S3 aired - FYI Orla is the realtor the girls use to find a store]

The day went by in a blur at best. Beth and Ruby had been cleaning the worst of the storage rooms for almost the entire day. Next they had painted the front-side of the store all white, immediately changing the look of it from depressed to welcoming. And when Orla entered the store around two she even took of her mouth mask. “Look who got this place close to presentable,” she stated, looking around somewhat impressed. Ruby threw her paintbrush into the turpentine. “I’m sure it still smells like fish,” she sighed. “Well, yeah,” Orla admitted. “But at least now it’s thinly masked by chemicals. And as you can tell by my face that’s something I’m way more comfortable with,” she joked. Ruby laughed, kind of surprised by Orla’s sense of humor. “I did hear it’s a bad idea to shoot anchovies up your forehead anyway.” Orla shrugged. “I’ll try anything with a success rate of over 85%, so bring it,” she smiled as she put a bunch of papers on the counter.

ROOM From ‘Wild at Heart’ Chapter 5 (apparently I use this word a LOT in this chapter, Imma cut down on that one haha)

“No, we’re good,” Salazar answered. She exited the same way the game. “Got enough estrogen in the room as it is, right?” he said, grabbing his teacup and raising it to Rio. Who answered by raisin his own cup. Beth looked at him with disdain, she failed to hide it. She tried to separate this business Rio from the Rio she knew from the wedding, and even though she could fracture herself easily, breaking him up into different people was way harder. “Are you kidding me?” she shot at Rio. He gave her nothing. “We were in business before I was in your bed, you should give me some credits,” she said angrily. “My ass is on the line here too. And I sure as hell have more on that line than you do!”

From ‘If worst comes to worst, I left a note’

“Why didn’t you like me last time?” she asks. “Think you wouldn’t be interested.” Beth is taken aback by that, and it shows. “Why? You liked someone better?” she throws back. He laughs genuinely and shakes his head. “Nah. Just thought I’d was a bit out of your wheelhouse.” “Why?” she asks. But the buzzer goes off, and he wastes no time getting to the other side of the room to get to his next date.

From ‘The Kaleidoscope of Love’

Turner’s been on holiday with his boyfriend for a week in Bora Bora, and since he’s the only one who talks to the matches she doesn’t really have anything to do. She has already cleaned the front office and the break room and the cabinet with office supplies after two days, so now her most potentially productive activity is putting colorful post-its on her own face. Fortunately, just before she feels like her last braincells are dying off, the phone rings. And she scrambles to sit up in her chair, grabbing the horn. “Love Inc, Amber speaking, how may—” “Amber!” It’s Turner. He sounds agitated. “Well, hello sunshine,” she smiles, feel her own teeth crack at the faux sweet tone of it. “Cut the crap,” he orders. And she can’t really make out a lot of background noise, but the loud voices in the background, and actually – altogether chaos, don’t sound too promising. For him though, this sounds like all the opportunity for her.

From ‘A Tail to Remember’ [AU where Beth suddenly sprouts a tail that acts on her deepest desires]

“What?” she croaks, her voice still paralyzed by sleep. She rubs her eyes with the back of her hand, and when she can see well through the dusk of the room, she sees Dean laying face down onto the ground next to the bed. “You pushed me!” he’s upset, face crowded with angry splotches of red. And, did she? She looks at where she’s at; still very much on her own side, not even close to the middle. “How?” she asks confused. He’s being all angry-toddler about it, gathering his covers and dumping them on the airbed. “I’m sure you just had a bad dream,” she offers.

From ‘Get Well Soon’

Beth let the curtain drop back again and focused on the envelope, as she walked back to her room. She turned it around in her hands, there was no address, no stamp. She dropped onto the bed as she opened the crimson envelope in her hands, extracting the midnight blue card from it. In swirly silver printed handwriting it said ‘Get Well Soon!’ surrounded by differently shaped stars. Beth almost sighed in relief, recognizing the print from Lucy’s Etsy. When she opened it though, it felt like she was being doused in icy cold water. ‘Thinking of you lots!’ was staring at her, mocking her with a scarily recognizable handwriting even without the weird e’s he usually wrote. Without another thought Beth threw the card into a corner, dimmed the lights, and crawled into the bed, hoping it would swallow her while she would fight her nightmares that night.

CLOSE From the ‘Untitled Joan Holloway/Rio’ fic

“I did tell him I’d give him a dollar if Mick would be there in promised time. He lived up to expectations,” she explained. Rio turned his head. “Give him two,” he ordered Mick, before returning his attention back to Joan. She felt great with Rio ignoring the line of people waiting outside to get in, the bouncer opening the door without even giving them a questioning look. Inside was a whole different experience than the rundown outside gave. It was still kind of dark but the lighting and music gave it an intimate and welcoming feel. He escorted her to a booth close to the bar, looking out onto the dance floor. It was very obvious she was one of the very few white people here. “What’s your poison?” he asked, signaling a waiter. “Maybe some bourbon?” she asked. He ordered a bottle of the good stuff. She liked that. She turned her back to him. “Would you mind, taking the pins out?” she asked, her chin pushed against her shoulder as she looked at him expectantly.

From ‘Wild at Heart’ Chapter 5

Beth drops her bag, and moves in on him. “You know, I shot that window pretty good last time,” she says haughtily. “Yeah, when you were on your feet,” he says. Beth takes the gun from him. And she’s taken back to that one night Rio shot Dean in the chest. And by now she’s pretty sure he wasn’t totally honest about not knowing if that shot would leave him alive. Especially after what she now knows she can do with a gun, much less Rio, who has years and years’ experience on her. “So, did Sal get back to you?” she asks, while she takes a stand close to him, taking a hold on his gun.

From ‘The Kaleidoscope of Love’

It’s all he needs to fully attack her mouth. Entangling his hand in her hair, pulling her in as close as they can get. Their lips slandering, navigating to tend to each other’s needs, sucking and biting, both teasing and tending with conviction. She smiles a little when she thinks about the lipstick marks she’s probably leaving on his face, takes pride in marking him, letting everybody know what they’ve been up to. The thought makes her bolder, rocking her hips against his, a movement he immediately answers, groaning into her.

KEEN NOTHING (*le gasp*). Well, there is once, but it’s in the chapter of Shine A Light Now (This Time it’s got to be Good) where I’m working on now, and that’s just too rough of a draft.

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margridarnauds · 4 years

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XCalibur: My Review

So, it’s been a couple of weeks since XCalibur came out and, while I’m trying to sort out my own thoughts about this, I decided to do what I do best: Force everyone to read an overly long, barely coherent post.

First off: Let’s get this off the ground. The fact that we got to see this at ALL was phenomenal. This is really, really fantastic, as a step for KMusicals getting a wider western audience, and it’s something that I DESPERATELY hope that they will continue to repeat in the future. I’d have supported it if it was anything, simply because that would give a clear message that there IS an audience for this.

However...

[warning for spoilers, brief discussions of rape]

Overall Impressions: Look....it’s WILDHORN. Wildhorn and me....we go way, way back. Like, to 12 Year Old Rachel listening to Jekyll and Hyde. And the Scarlet Pimpernel. And....quite a few musicals after that. I CAN’T hate it. It’s WILDHORN + ARTHURIANA. Two of my favorite things in the world. But, that being said....this might very well be my fault, but I did find myself a little disappointed, in the sense that, listening to the cast album, I was expecting a much, much better musical than what I really got. Which was a huge order to fill, given that I’ve always considered Artus: Excalibur to be one of Wildhorn’s more problematic musicals. But, in all fairness, they DID kind of promise me more, given that they retitled the musical and said that this was the “World Premiere”™. The set is fantastic, the music is stunning, but it just felt a little hollow to me.

Sets/Costuming: I LOVED the Dark Ages aesthetic to it. The costumes really were great, Morgana’s in particular stole the show, but Guinevere, Merlin, Arthur, and Lancelot gets some nice looks as well, and it all serves to give this idea of the Middle Ages (albeit HEAVILY preying on the old stereotype that it was The Dark Ages, with a very dark color palette generally being observable throughout). This also serves to make it visually very distinct from the Korean production of La Legende du Roi Arthur, given the two of them showed VERY close to one another. (2019 was just the year of the Arthurian musical.) As a Celticist....it isn’t REALLY historically accurate, it’s still fantasy, albeit more Guy Ritchie’s Arthur VS The Crystal Cave Trilogy in terms of how MUCH fantasy it utilizes. LRA (and Artus: Excalibur) took the approach of it being PURELY fantasy, there is....nothing. Historical. In there. One thing that irked me about Artus was that it, in particular, had a CHEAP feeling, like it had roughly as much thought put into it as a 80s comic book idea of Camelot that they were going to slap on the back of a cereal box or something. (LRA, to its credit, was GLORIOUSLY anachronistic, but it was high budget and sleek. I loved it for that.) XCalibur is TRYING for a more historical feel, and, for the most part, it does succeed. Whether the set is a forest, a deserted hall, or Camelot in its prime, they SELL the medievalism. It’s a bit of a pity there’s no WELSHNESS to it, but that is me being nitpicky about my field not being in there. For an Arthurian adaptation, I’m not really going to ask for anything more; it gives what it promises and it does it well. (Though I will say that, every once in a while, one of those costumes would flash in the stage lighting and I would question whether I’d seen that gold fabric at a Ren Faire etsy. BUT in all fairness, those costumes weren’t designed to be viewed in close up like that, and this is probably me being needlessly mean. OVERALL, the effect was good.)

Music: It’s a Frank Wildhorn musical, so of COURSE I’m going to like the music. This is DEFINITELY a stronger musical than Artus, with several new songs (including “The Tempest”, “Let the Sword Make the Man”, and “If he were standing here”, both of which are highlights to me) that really stand out. Since settling himself firmly in the Asian market, Wildhorn’s stuff has developed a polish that wasn’t really there in his Broadway stuff. It sounds much more modern, much more streamlined, with Death Note, the Man Who Laughs, Robespierre, and Mata Hari all having a distinct SOUND that I’ve started to call Wildhorn 2.0. There’s this distinct energy that runs through this production that wasn’t really there in Artus, and I found that it makes the cast album REALLY a treat to listen to. As with Artus, “Celtic” (which, in this case, of course, means “Riverdance”) musical motifs are present in the instrumentals, but I found it MUCH less heavy handed than before, and it’s evenly balanced out by more traditional tunes. I didn’t feel like it was AS overloaded as before, where I routinely found myself napping in between swelling instrumentals.

As with all of Wildhorn’s stuff, there are certain songs that sound very similar to other musicals of his, if you know what to look for. “Why am I here?” for example is nearly a carbon copy of “Who do you Trust?” from Tears of Heaven and “Wenn das Shicksal dich ereilt” from Rudolf, which themselves form part of a distinct genre of his songs that can be traced back to “The Riddle” from The Scarlet Pimpernel and “You and I” from Svengali. “The Mark of the Wolf”, a new song, sounds very similar at points to “How Many devils?” from The Civil War. Etc. etc. I don't really consider this a BAD part, at least in the case of the former, since the songs in that genre, to me, represent the best of Wildhorn’s music. And, after all, with over 30 years on stage....the man can only come up with new music for so long until he starts producing SOMETHING that sounds similar.

Overall verdict? Strong music. Not my FAVORITE of Wildhorn’s stuff, but I’ve definitely spent a few hours listening to the cast album on its own merits, and definitely more energetic and polished than the German run to my ear.

Plot: So, a big draw for me was “Has the plot been fixed from the days of Artus: Excalibur?” and.....I have many mixed feelings. I DO feel like we got more of a solid musical, but I also feel like it had some really, really sour notes and, in some ways, the transition to a new musical feels only half-way done. Like, they HAD a new musical in mind, they went halfway through the process, and then they shrugged their shoulders, said “That’s good enough”, and left us with a Frankenstein’s Monster. (Oh, wait, wrong KMusical.)

One of the biggest casualties was Morgana. Morgan le Fay has been one of my favorite characters in anything, ever since I was 7 years old and developing one of my first crushes via The Magic Treehouse. Morgana is always the FIRST one I look to in an adaptation to see how they handle her, and her plotline in Artus always felt weak for me, ESPECIALLY her relationship with Merlin, which Wildhorn once described as something along the lines of a “bit of a romance” but that was painfully underdeveloped, especially on her end. We knew that he was weak for her, to his detriment, we knew that she wanted what he had, and that they do.....the do together, but there’s very little REAL development in there, and no sign, on my end, of that “little bit of romance” as opposed to just. Using one another. When I heard that that plotline had been revised, I was THRILLED. Now, I feel like it was a monkey’s paw situation.

(1) Morgana goes from more or less apathetic to Merlin’s situation to.......being totally obsessed with him, to the point where she says he’s the only man she ever loved? Like, she goes from someone HIGHLY motivated by what she believes is her rightful inheritance to being motivated by Merlin’s dick.

(2) The timeline. My God, the timeline. Making Morgana a child when she’s shipped off AND then doing the “Only man I ever loved” thing (and SEEMING to imply that Merlin did love her as well, but refused to say it) is.....it’s bad. No other way around it. They did NOT think that timeline through.

(3) I HATED Guinevere getting Morgana in the back with an arrow, but you know? That was yet another monkey’s paw situation, given that at least it wasn’t “Morgana falling for a very obvious ploy that she SHOULD have seen coming from a mile away if she wasn’t, as has been established, obsessed with Merlin’s dick.”

I will say that, reworking the plot so that Morgana’s obsessed with Merlin’s dick DID work out better in the sense that at least the Madonna/Whore complex with her and Guinevere isn’t really there: We no longer see Evil, Sexy Morgana VS Sweet Forest Maiden Guinevere, and Guinevere in this version of the musical is allowed to be much gutsier than her German counterpart. They did give her quite a bit of character as opposed to “Naive Girl who believes Arthur is The Best but finds out Wrong”. Now, that gutsiness flies out the window once she marries Arthur and is mainly confined to singing sad songs and stepping in between Arthur and Lancelot, but see above for Frankenstein’s Monster.

I will say that I did appreciate that this adaptation was willing to really give us a DEEPLY flawed Arthur; it’s something I’ve seen relatively little of post-White in terms of Arthurian adaptations, and it’s something I’ve missed. (Once Upon A Time’s Evil Arthur notwithstanding.) Arthur is really rarely allowed to BE a character in his own right, he has to be an Ideal™ or, if he’s a flawed character, flawed in an acceptable, palatable way; here, he’s an angry young man who’s shoved into a position that he’s not really qualified for and has to grow into it. He shoves people away, he shouts, he trusts Morgana too blindly, and he basically causes the Guinevere/Lancelot situation on his lonesome. It’s actually a little great to see.

BUT. But. Monkey’s paw. I LIKED seeing Arthur being a little bitch on occasion, but, for better or worse, he is our main character. And, outside of his bonding scenes with Guinevere and Lancelot early on, we really....don’t get to see that many scenes where he’s LIKABLE. There are a few moments (the scene where he tries to get Morgana to dance at his coronation is ADORABLE), but the first time we’re really introduced to him, he’s in a fight, he (understandably) snaps at Merlin, decides that, hey, being king might not be so bad, is fun for a little while, and then he spends a solid chunk of the second act being a dick because his father died. I don’t really know. I feel like this is going to be one of those things that I keep rolling over in my mind, as far as whether I REALLY like HIM as a main character, or whether I like those individual moments where he’s likable.

A part of me liked that we had, instead of the two siblings fighting during “Was Will Ich Hier”, we have Morgana and Arthur bonding. That sibling bond was, in my opinion, one of the more interesting possible dynamics in the show. But, unfortunately, the resulting conflict with Merlin felt very “been there, done that.” It’s more PLAUSIBLE than in cases where, say, the Enemy of the Week poses as a little girl and suddenly the main cast, who have known one another for twenty years, are suddenly slinging accusations against one another, but it STILL felt rather forced and predictable.

I was actually really grateful that we didn’t have the Morgana/Lot relationship in this particular production--Making Morgana an actual domestic abuse victim and then killing her off NEVER sat well with me, but as a result of that, now we have this situation where we have two more or less unconnected villains: Morgana and Wulfstan, and the plot only really needed one. Wulfstan, as a character, just....isn’t interesting. He’s a more or less generic “Barbarian Warlord” type who’s pissed Arthur killed his son and creeps on Morgana. I can’t REALLY say anything more there. Their plotlines intersect in the very beginning, when they capture Morgana and she guides them to Uther’s old castle, but other than that, there’s a general disconnect between them, and there’s no real PAYOFF to that. Instead, it just feels like it makes the plot needlessly busy.

One thing I’ve noticed, with both La Legende du Roi Arthur and XCalibur, is this pressure to fit as MUCH Arthurian in as possible, and as a result, the final musicals become rather crowded, so there’s no real time for DEVELOPMENT or substance.

“Okay, we have to have the pulling from the sword here!” “Right!” “Hm, Morgana le Fay is one of the most iconic antagonists, we probably need her there.” “Saxons?” “Sure!” “Everyone’s expecting Lancelot and Guinevere, we can’t not have them in there.”

I FEEL like XCalibur is LESS bogged down than LRA with regards to that factor, since the latter also threw in Maleagant as a secondary antagonist to Morgana and the Grail quest, but I still feel like XCalibur bit off more than it could really chew. Which is a pity, because there are Arthurian plot lines that have gotten comparatively little attention in recent days that you could include instead of going the “Paint By Numbers” route.

This also really shows in how it deals with certain plot lines, which are either dropped (Wulfstan V. Morgana), or come out of nowhere. This is REALLY obvious with Lancelot/Guinevere, which is a pity because I found myself, against my own will, rooting for them more than any other pairing in the show. Lancelot goes from a cocky lady’s man to...suddenly being smitten with Guinevere.....and then suddenly, after Guinevere is sad about Arthur being a dick, the two of them are fucking. Now, it would be NATURAL, as far as “Guinevere goes to Lancelot when she feels like Arthur’s being cold to her”, but we don’t SEE that. We literally cut from her in the forest, singing a sad song, and the next time we see them, they’re postcoital. It feels like it comes out of NOWHERE. My investment in them, as a couple, is more due to the strength of the two actors involved than the actual WRITING, which thinks that because the BEDROCK for something is there (”Oh, Guinevere beat Lancelot in combat! Oh, she feels neglected!”) that that means the house is there as well (”Oh, Guinevere beat Lancelot in common....so NOW he’s totally in love with her and is never going to flirt with another woman again. Oh, Guinevere is feeling abandoned by Arthur.......so we don’t NEED to see her going to Lancelot.”) They jump from Point A to point D and the audience is left with a sense of whiplash.

Some things, like Merlin’s actions re: Igraine and Uther, as well as Morgana, are just not explored to a depth that I would really find is satisfactory. “Oh, I did all these terrible things....because of Fate!” is something that we’re REALLY supposed to pull behind, but, given the pain to everyone involved, ESPECIALLY the women (Igraine, Morgana, and Guinevere ALL suffer from Destiny™), you have to REALLY wonder if there was literally anyone else who could have done it.

...so, really. BBC Merlin. BBC Merlin.

MOVING ON FROM MY SALT...as a medievalist, I was actually relatively happy that for ONCE in an Arthurian adaptation, the conflict between Christianity and paganism (WHICH HONESTLY WASN’T EVEN THAT MUCH OF A CONFLICT IN TERMS OF THE CELTIC WORLD, BUT MOVING ON) was presented as being pro-Christian. I’ve dealt with WAY too much media, in my time, that treats, say, 8th century Catholicism in Ireland the same as 16th century Catholicism in Spain, and NO. They were VERY distinct. I am saying this as a confirmed, happy atheist. They were distinct. I do not need or want The Mists of Avalon 10.0 on my screen, no thank you.

That being said...Monkey’s Paw. Monkey’s Paw. I was NOT happy to see the conflict presented as “Christianity taking over is Destined and Good, the Old Ways™ have had their time.” There’s this rather ugly fatalism that runs through it, along with the idea that followers of the pagan tradition HAD to die for Christianity to take its place. It’s...not my favorite thing in the world. Perhaps I’m simply unpleasable in this aspect, but there has GOT to be some medium between the two. Maybe this is my Medieval Irish Bias seeping through here, given that, with what I’m used to, the druids were mentioned in law books through the 8th century. I own this. (”But Rachel,” you might say, reasonably, “This isn’t 8th century Ireland”, to which I would of course say, “BUT IT SURE AS HELL ISN’T 6TH CENTURY WALES OR CORNWALL EITHER.”) Medieval people, historically, while they didn’t REALLY have religious tolerance as we know it, didn’t always see it in stark terms of “PAGANISM IN ONE CORNER, CHRISTIANITY IN ANOTHER”: They were, as a whole, FAIRLY good at integrating aspects of both in, even when they didn’t really mean to. The entire thing is just mangled horribly.

Anyway. Celtic Studies Salt Over.

Actors/Actresses: I’ll be honest, I was expecting, primarily, Morgana, Arthur, and Lancelot to pull the plot along, mainly because they get, together, most of the primary numbers, and because, in the German, Sabrina Weckerlin essentially carried the show on her back. As it was, Kim So Hyang’s Guinevere was the one who REALLY, in my opinion, ended up carrying the show. She had a wonderful voice, strong voice, and her Guinevere was able to make a full, smooth journey between a young, bold girl to the troubled wife of a troubled king to a woman wracked with regret. I’ve seen her in a lot of things, but I don’t think I really NOTICED her until now. She did some truly phenomenal work here, I was really glad, actually, that I got to see and appreciate her Guinevere. (Though, as a Min Kyung Ah fan....I would have LOVED to have seen her Guinevere.) She had great chemistry with both of her leads, lending credibility to both relationships, more than the script itself might really give.

Kai isn’t really an actor I ever really LOOK for in a musical, I wouldn’t say that I’m a MASSIVE fan, but that’s only because I don’t actively search for his stuff. Every time I’ve seen him in something, he’s been solid, and I did very much like him in the press calls. It does seem a little unfair that he got both the press calls AND the pro-shot, but c’est la vie. I did like his Arthur, he had a steady voice to back up the role, his acting was solid. Arthur, as a character, doesn’t REALLY stick out for me, but that isn’t HIS fault so much as the script’s, really, and my pre-built in bias towards Morgana. I didn’t find him to be REALLY likable in the role, very angry and sullen, but.....well. See above for my take on Arthur’s general likability here. I do think the man did the best with what he had, though I also feel like he’s more natural in Arthur’s dorkier, more relatable moments, especially with, say, Guinevere, Morgana, and Lancelot. (Though I’m not sure if that’s because I like Arthur as a CHARACTER more there or if I’m reacting to his ACTING in the role. This is one of those times where I’d have really liked to see Do Kyum or Junsu’s take on the role, since that would help me iron out what parts are the WRITING and what are the actor, but, lacking that, I’m going to err on the side of generosity.)

Shin Young Sook....I WANTED to like her Morgana. I did. But, I’ll be blunt, even as far back as the press call, I was feeling Jang Eun Ah’s Morgana more, I was, definitely, feeling a little disappointed when the proshot cast list was announced. So, in some ways, the poor woman would have had to have done miracles to get me to REALLY warm up to her. And I didn’t really see miracles on the stage. Her voice remains reliable, she is a belter like few others on the Korean stage. I give her that. But her acting basically totally ruined the character for me. My issues with the role, as detailed in the “Plot” section, aside, I believe that the overall character COULD be salvaged, from an audience perspective, with a nuanced enough portrayal. But, when I saw this particular take on Morgana...I didn’t see MORGANA. I saw Shin Young Sook, Having Fun, instead of Morgana, as portrayed by Shin Young Sook. An actress having fun in a role can definitely be GREAT (Park Hye Na as Eva in Frankenstein is one role of hers I will cherish forever), but in this case, which required a lot of nuance to pull it off and make the villain sympathetic....it does clash when you can tell that she’s one step away from evilly cackling and releasing a final belt before running off the stage. There is a time to ham and there is a time to not, and this was one of the “not” roles. There came some point, perhaps during the song “Desire”, perhaps before it, that I actively started DREADING Morgana appearing on stage. I don’t KNOW that Jang Eun Ah would have done it better. She could have done it worse. But it is a tragedy of only having a single cast available that I will always wonder. I was disappointed here. I was really, really disappointed.

Kim Jun Hyun as Merlin was solid. It’s well known at this point that I have a soft spot for him, but for what it’s worth, on a comparative level, I feel like this role suited him much better than, say, Orléans in Marie Antoinette (where, personally, though still liking him, I found him a little too cold for my taste). He is appropriately distant and otherworldly, showing a human side and conflict as the musical continues. Is he enough to make me LIKE Merlin, as a character? Not really, given how many people suffer because of him and how little the narrative actually QUESTIONS it, but damned if he doesn’t try, and he does lend a subdued charisma to the character, to the point where I know that at least some people noticed him more than they did Arthur or Lancelot. I did think he had -40 chemistry with Shin Young Sook, but that could be because I was ALREADY attached to him and Jang Eun Ah’s chemistry in the press call, and that is not so much a failing on one actor’s side or the other’s (I want to emphasize this, because I do NOT have anything against Shin Young Sook SPECIFICALLY on this point), rather it’s something that can’t really be qualified. (And is entirely subjective, I’m sure that plenty of viewers saw NOTHING wrong.) For me, it did cause me to actively cringe at certain scenes, such as the “This is where your Arthur came from”......”seduction”.....scene.

“Lord....I actually have fewer problems saying no to this than you might think, nvmind.”

It COULD be that that’s the look of conflicting desire, but to me, personally, watching it, it rather looks like Merlin just realized that he forgot to turn the stove off at home. Which is a pity, because I was REALLY going in here expecting to like Merlin/Morgana more than the love triangle and instead found it to be very awkwardly handled. I haven’t ENTIRELY given up on it as a ship, in some abstract way that would involve another rewrite of the entire musical, but I can’t REALLY say that there’s. Anything I like about it either. And I think that if I was less stubbornly determined to find SOMETHING in it to like, I’m fairly certain I would be even more uncomfortable with it.

My final verdict: Watching this, despite some impressive visuals (though not QUITE to the same level as fellow Wildhorn musicals The Man Who Laughs, Dracula, and Mata Hari) and performances, I found myself continually wanting to go back to the cast album rather than actually WATCH the musical. Changes have been made since the German production, but I found that, while some of the changes definitely served to make a stronger musical, some of them actively weakened the show, and it's still a little too busy for its own good. I’m also not REALLY sure that the changes made really justified it being given the label World Premiere™, given the hype around it. If it was available for streaming again, would I do it? Yes, because it IS worth at least one watch and the industry NEEDS to do this more. If it was available to buy, even, for $20 or so, I would probably get it. But I’m not sure that, if it was for the~ $100 price that Toho musicals tend to sell for, I would seriously be able to say “Yes, get this”, and I’m not sure that, if an American/European tour of it was miraculously announced, I would REALLY bend over backwards to get tickets.

6/10

Tl;dr: “WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY SISTER?”

#xcalibur #artus: excalibur #arthuriana #excalibur crit #(For anyone who doesn't want this in the tags)#long post

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dominionleathershop · 4 years

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Dominion Leather Status - April 7, 2020

NOTE: Please understand I am NOT a great writer, so writing this type of message for me is EXTREMELY hard to get (in my head) right.

Dominion Leather has been around for a few years now. It has been a hobby for my hands. It has been a hobby for my mind. It has been a bit of an outlet for that kinky/erotic itch that needed scratching.

I started it honestly to look for a hobby (not a business), getting me off my ass and away from the computer (no I am not kidding, it all started to get me away from the computer). Well it worked. What gets in the way is my frequent moods and bouts of laziness as well as simple “creative blocks” that can sometimes morph into other things. For the last year essentially, Dominion Leather was on life support. The amount of orders in the last 14-16 months has been something near 1/3 that of the previous year. (no that is no an issue for me for business, as I still think of this as a “professional hobby” but more a reflection of me stagnating.) Until about 1 month ago, I just was having a hard time with the motivation to do anything in the shop. I mean ANYTHING.

Well a month ago I found my rhythm again, I don’t know where it went, but I found it. I honestly think the isolation forced on us by COVID-19 has been a mental benefit to me. It forced me into some cleaning. One of the things was all my gear I had in containers from the last convention I attended. I never put it up.

With me posting and getting comments on Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest, I just got some life. An order or two came in, and caused more...the snowball started rolling downhill as they say.

So where am I now?

Dominion Leather has had some new life breathed into it. I am first and foremost, no longer “keeping builds I have made” off Etsy. I will try to explain WHY things were not on Etsy to start, and how Etsy works.

Etsy charges me a quarter (that is 25 cents or 1/4 a dollar for those not in the US) for EVERY listing I put on Etsy.

This means if I had 100 pieces that were made by me in my shop, not for a person, but with generic sizes, ect, it means I would be charged something like $25 or so dollars to get them on Etsy. Alot of options to configure per item, etc...If you are interested in how this works, I can actually take screenshots of the Behind the scenes here.

I was afraid..or even too cheap (as I am still “on a shoestring budget”) to spend that money on items that may never sell, as they have sizes already on them.

I was also worried that these “premade items” would pollute the standard custom based items I had for sale. I don’t know how real this is, but I finally came to the realization, the 100 items made, are going to ROT in my totes in my house, loose me money and do noone any good.

I have made some items that is essentially clothing in nature. The harnesses, tops and bottoms. I will get these into Etsy, but it will take me a little more time as I need to word those correctly. Because the buyer of those needs to understand, there may be some adjustments that need to be made and I am willing to take those responsibilities on since I am new in “clothing like” items.

The last 4 days have almost been the single most busy ever for Dominion Leather. I don’t mean in the posts from me here...I mean the number of orders. I believe we have a little of the “I am bored at home and looking to buy something” sickness going on. I call it “a captive audience”. Here are some fun stats for the last 7 days:

The Last 7 days - Total Views - 701% Year over Year increase - Visits - 529% Year over Year increase - Orders - 300% Year over Year increase - Revenue - 427% Year over Year increase

Remember....I actually have a full time job too :)

Regardless all. I have been pulled out of the doldrums.

Back again

#DominionLeather #Status

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nev3rfound · 3 years

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someone i once knew : b.b - p.5

with hydra in the compound and you left to fend for yourself, now would be the worst time to start remembering everything, right? (2.2k)

(anything in bold/italics are flashbacks/memories!)

masterlist / permanent taglist

- i also have an etsy shop, i just released wandavision themed tshirts if you’d like to check those out! -

PART ONE . PART TWO . PART THREE . PART FOUR . PART FIVE . PART SIX

(also thank you again and again for the love and excitement for this series - crazy that there’s only one part left now ah!)

“Come on! You must know something!” The leader of the trio yells as he punches you in the stomach, watching you curl into yourself, falling into the broken glass as you suppress a cry.

With a shaky breath, you force your eyes up to meet the three men. “I, I don’t know anything!” You state the same thing you’ve been telling them ever since they found you.

“Sure you don’t, Princess.” One of the others huffs before stepping forward, picking you up by your hair causing you yelp, feeling various cuts form across your exposed skin. “Now, shall we try that again?”

Weakly, you look across the room to see one of the monitors starting to power up again; FRIDAY is coming back online. “Like I said,” You force confidence, despite feeling your body giving in. “I don’t know anything.”

“Wrong answer, Princess.” The leader sighs and as soon as he raises his fist, you close your eyes before his impact hits.

“You must have something, right?” Steve leans across the chair as Tony keeps his eyes glued to his phone, watching as FRIDAY powers back up and the security cameras begin to switch on, floor by floor.

Tony hums in response as he moves through the various rooms on each floor. “Come on, come on,” He mutters to himself, feeling Bucky watching him from across the jet.

“She couldn’t have left the lab, Tony, check the second floor.” Bruce calls out, still glued to his chair thinking about your question- “Do you think I’m evil?”

Bucky listens as Tony’s breathing halters upon finding the camera’s now active on the second floor. His eyes scan across the screen, watching as the cameras move across each room until they activate in the lab you’re in- or were in.

“Oh, kid.” Tony sighs, feeling his heart sink as he focuses on the screen seeing shattered glass covering the ground whilst you lie limply on top of it all.

“No,” Bucky speaks up, having stalked over behind Tony. “no.” Bucky repeats himself, shaking his head. “She’ll be fine, she has to be.”

“Anything?” One of the men speaks through their comms, swearing under their breath in Russian whilst you sit upright on the broken glass under close watch by the other two agents. “We have a hostage.” He states, looking over his shoulder to see you bruised and bloodied.

Yet, you spare a glance to one of the hidden cameras Tony warned you about when you first took on the job. One of the reasons why FRIDAY’s systems are so advanced is due to the cameras being barely visible to the naked eye. They’re fractions of dust that linger, capturing live footage without you knowing.

With the little might remaining in your system, you nod in hope someone somewhere might see it. Even if you don’t make it out of here alive, maybe they’ll at least know what went down.

“Head down, Princess.” You feel a kick to your side, wincing at the repetitive action adding to the bruises forming crossing your skin.

“My name is Y/n.” You spit out, defying everything your brain is telling you. “I’m not your Princess.” Lifting your head up, you smirk despite the cut on your lip tearing. “And you, you’re done for.”

A laugh escapes your lips as you’re forced back to the ground, a cocktail of cries and laughs leaving you as your surroundings begin to blur and your eyes roll into the back of your head.

“What did you do?!” You faintly hear the leader bark at the two men watching you as your eyes close, a familiar voice pulling you in and this time, you can’t resist the need for an escape.

Sitting on the bench with your eyes remaining shut, you enjoy the breeze twirling through your hair and the laughter from children running along the docks; their giggles igniting another bout of heartache for something you’ll never have.

You don’t have to open your eyes to know who the clicking of heels along the sidewalk belongs to before she sits down beside you.

“There’s still time to change your mind.” Peggy states, glancing down to notice you rolling your ring in your fingertips. “I just, I want to make sure you know what this means, the implications of this.”

“I know what I’m doing.” You tell her sternly, slipping the diamond ring back on your ring finger. “Is he ready for me?” Glancing up, Peggy nods in response as you both head toward the car waiting for you.

“Come on then, Y/n.” Peggy can’t hide the sorrow in her expression as you eagerly climb into the car. After all this time, you still can’t be dissuaded from this decision.

As you arrive, you’re guided through the corridors that you know like the back of your hand. You smile at the scientists, their assistants and even the cleaners whom you know on a first-name basis.

“There she is,” Howard claps his hands as you walk in, Peggy following behind you. “how are you feeling?” He asks, guiding you past the lab filled with technicians, adding the finishing touches to the machine in question.

“I’m ready.” You respond, walking into a small office as Peggy closes the door, leaving the three of you to talk in private.

“We’ll run this as planned, alright? You’ll be woken up in six months to ensure the machine is fit for purpose and then a year, and so on.” Howard explains, and you nod along. “No going back once you’re in there, kid.” Howard chuckles, catching sight of you playing with the diamond ring on your finger once again.

“He’d be proud of you, Y/n.” Peggy comments, resting her hand on your shoulder as tears form in your eyes. “Both of them would be.”

Sniffing quietly, you remove the ring from your finger and place it on the table, knowing it’ll be placed with the rest of your personal belongings.

“What are we waiting for then?” You ask, pushing the chair back as Howard opens the door and silence ensues as you walk toward the machine.

You remain still beside Peggy as Howard runs over a few things with his team. “I’m doing the right thing, aren’t I, Peggy?” Your lip trembles as you focus on the brunette.

Trying to hide the frown forming on her red lips, Peggy reaches out for your hand, giving it a light squeeze. “You know I can’t say whether it is right or wrong, Y/n.” Peggy admits. “But, if this is what you want and need to do, then so be it.” She adds, seeing a hint of the Brooklyn boy she loved in you as you step forward, volunteering for the unknown.

“I will be brave.” You mutter to yourself as Howard motions for you. “Thank you for everything, Peg.”

Standing in front of the machine, you watch as the metal door opens for you to step in. With a shaky breath, you lean back into the moulded space built for you.

Lying back, three scientists strap you down, asking countless times whether the straps are too tight or not, but none dare to look you in the eye.

“Well done, team.” Howard speaks up as the scientists back away, leaving you strapped in and now the reality of this is weighing heavy on your mind. “Now Y/n, you can back down, there’s still time.” Howard explains as Peggy hovers behind him, her hands closed into each other.

“I’m good,” You assure him with a smile. “I’m doing this for those we all lost.” You admit.

“Alright then.” Howard nods. “See you in six months, Y/n.”

Closing your eyes, you can hear muffled conversations between the team before an overwhelming cool breeze captures your ankles and works it way upwards.

“I will be brave. I will be brave, James.” You whisper with your last breath before passing out, unaware of how long it would be until you awoke once more.

“Okay, the Agents are inside the compound and there’s a specialist team on their way to help Y/n.” Tony explains as he projects the footage from his phone for all the team to see.

Bucky remains glued to the projection, unable to take his eyes off your lifeless body as the three HYDRA agents talk amongst themselves, ignoring the slightest movements from you whilst their backs are turned.

“Help is on its way, Buck.” Steve mutters to Bucky, hoping to incite some form of reaction, but Bucky doesn’t respond. “Y/n will be alright, we both know she’s tougher than she looks.” Steve chuckles, picturing you chasing several bullies with a bin lid and a pocket knife you stole from Bucky after they gave Steve a split lip.

“I just,” Bucky uneasily raises his voice. “I can’t lose her again, Steve.”

Resting his hand on Bucky’s shoulder, Steve holds back the sigh from his lips as he watches the footage, noticing your body twitching. “I don’t think you will, look.” Steve motions and Bucky steps closer, eyeing the projection carefully.

“What’s happening?” Tony asks, looking up to the two soldiers as Bucky’s jaw clenches tightly.

“She’s remembering something.” Bucky states. “Come on, doll. Please, wake up.” He pleads under his breath, wanting to see you open your eyes, to wake up and be alright.

Voices rise with aggression around you as you begin to gain consciousness, the ruckus from before is only getting worse.

“No, we can’t!” One of the men yells whilst the other carries on conversing in Russian, unaware that you've woken up.

Remaining on the ground, you try to control your breathing as snippets of what you saw and what you said replay in your mind.

“I,” You breathe out as your cheeks become damp once more with a mix of tears and blood.

“And this is Bucky.” Steve nods to the taller brunette with the suave smile etched across his lips.

“James Barnes, but my friends call me Bucky.” Bucky steps forward, lifting your hand up and kisses it softly, never breaking eye contact from you despite the laugh of sheer disgust that left your lips.

“So what do I get to call you?” You ask, now crossing your arms over your chest whilst Bucky hums, taking the sight of you and the beauty you radiate in.

“Well, that’s up to you, doll.” He remarks with a wink before turning around, missing the sight of you rolling your eyes in response.

“You comin’ Y/n?” Steve calls out as Bucky walks ahead, expecting you like all the other dames in the city to follow him and hang on to his every word.

Yet, you stand your ground. “Not today, Steve. I’ve got more important things to do than pretend to be James Barnes’ play toy.”

Bucky turns on his heels quickly. “Oh?” He mutters, raising a brow to you as you simply nod. Unsure of himself, Bucky runs his fingers through his hair, combing his locks back as he tuts in bewilderment.

“Nice to meet you, James.” You salute the man before turning around yourself, hiding the smile forming on your face.

“She, she,” Bucky stutters over his words, a sight Steve struggles to fathom.

“Come on, Buck. I’m sure you’ll see her again real soon.”

“I remember.” You whisper, slowly reeling your hand to your mouth to hold back the snigger that dares to sound.

Echoes of footsteps rushing through the corridors pull you away from your own revelation as a series of Agents come into view with their guns are held up, ready to fire.

Within seconds, gunfire rings through your ears as you cover them, curling into yourself as the three men fall to the ground.

“Y/n?” Someone speaks up, and slowly you uncoil yourself. “Can you stand?”

Unsure of your own voice, you shake your head. “We need a medic, now!” Another calls out whilst you look over to the three men, crimson pooling around them.

“I, where’s Bucky?” You slowly ask, looking up at the Agent before you who blankly stares at you. “Where is he?” You repeat yourself.

The Agent rises to his feet and walks away whilst the medic rushes through, helping you onto a stretcher as you cry out in agony, whimpering for Bucky, your Bucky.

“She’s asking for him, Ma’am.” The Agent mutters to Maria Hill as they both stand by, watching as you’re taken toward the elevator, strapped into the stretcher.

Maria nods. “I’ll get Fury. See to the jet.” She explains before taking her phone and calling the last liable person for this. “Subject 359 is conscious, and has questions.” She simply states.

“And where is she now?” Fury asks through the line.

“Heading to the med bay. She was in bad shape by the time we found her.” Maria explains, passing by the bloodied shards of glass you fell into. “They’re all going to have questions, Nick.”

“I know,” Fury huffs. “and I guess it’s about damn time we answer them.”

L A S T P A R T

(thank you to the following for all the love so far! if you’d like to be tagged in this mini series do let me know)

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juliehader · 4 years

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( maya hawke, female, she/her ) have you heard about JULIE HADER? of course you have. they’re the 21 year old SOCIAL MEDIA RUNNER. i don’t know what their last job was, all i know is that they’re originally from LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA. carol in hr said that they’re kinda DETACHED and SECRETIVE but jessica in marketing insists that they are QUICK-WITTED and RELAXED. at the end of the day, this company would fall apart without them. i just hope their head doesn’t get too big with all the hype surrounding them. According to the latest Vibez quiz, their personality most closely resembles POCAHONTAS ( jem, she/her, 27, pst )

Hey everyone, back at it with my SECOND whole ass character. I’ll probably just stick to her and Max (Ross Lynch) for awhile, so give me all the plots!

Basic Information:

Name: Julie Marie Hader. Gender/Pronouns: She/Her Sexual/Romantic Orientation: Pansexual/Panromantic Age: 21 Birthdate: March 29, 1999 Occupation: Social Media Runner

Background:

TW: Physical/Mental Abuse to an adult and child, Drugs (Marijuana)

Growing up, Julie had what would be described as turbulent childhood. Her Mother Helen and her Father Daniel were High School sweethearts who got married too young. They found out they were pregnant when they were High School Seniors, and Helen - being from an old school type of family, wanted to settle down immediately. The idea of raising a baby on your own is daunting, and Helen had never truly been on her own before. Her relationship with Daniel was not a mature one from the start; they were teenagers and mind games were ever present since the moment they met at age 16.

He was Helen’s first love, and she wanted to believe she had it all with a husband and newborn daughter. Daniel got odd jobs and Helen stayed home to raise Julie. They struggled, because it’s hard to find a steady job when you have no experience and you have a baby at home. This led to more arguments between Daniel and Helen, and Daniel had always been on the quick to anger side - but as the years went on Daniel became increasingly more verbally (and at times physically) abusive towards Helen. As Julie became older, he would extend the verbal abuse to her too. Helen was dependent on him, and she couldn’t go stay with her parents. But it all came to a head when he lashed out at Julie physically. Helen decided then that it was finally enough, and in the middle of the night she gathered her and Julie’s things, and they left.

Daniel found them a couple of times, until they were able to file a restraining order. Julie hasn’t seen him since she was 18, when he tried to reach out to her on social media when she graduated High School. She blocked him, but there’s a part of her deep down who wanted to message back. As much as she says she hates him, that was still her Dad, and a part of her wishes things could be different although she knows that’s not how the world works.

Her and her Mom struggled to make it work, but from ages 10-14, it was just them. Julie and Helen became closer than ever, and Julie became increasingly protective of her Mom - especially whenever she brought home a new boyfriend. Helen would make crafts and sell them on the side to sustain them while also working a main job to keep them afloat, and Julie would always help her with it. It started as home made soaps, but then delved into home made jewelry. Julie doesn’t admit it, but she still holds on to those memories of just sitting around helping her Mom when it was just the two of them.

When Julie was 14, Helen met a man named George, and the two clicked right away. Julie did not like this bitch at first, because it was the first serious serious relationship her Mom had since her Dad. And Helen is the type to not like to be alone, so her suspicions were high. So naturally, she did not like it when they announced they were getting married and Helen was quitting her job in the process. She rebelled against it - typical emo teenager, but underneath it all, she just didn’t want anyone to get in the way of her and her Mom again or to hurt them somehow. Eventually, she learned that George was... a pretty decent guy. It took years, but she actually kind of sort of loves him, in her own way. She’s still always looking for signs of things to possibly go wrong, but she’s happy her Mom is happy.

She has a step-brother, Miles, who is about six years older than her, and a half-brother Joshua (the birth child of Helen and George), who is now about five years old. She actually bonded with them before she did George, and can’t really see her life without them around. Don’t tell them that tho.

Julie still has difficulty letting people in and trusting them fully, because she feels like she has to be cautious. Because of this, she tends to keep people at arms length, until she feels like she can trust them. That’s not always an easy feat, though.

Some mini-facts:

Julie is highly independent and has turned down money from George (her step-dad) to help her out. Although she does trust him in her own way, she never wants to be in the position of having to rely on somebody else.

She currently lives in a small lil apartment and needs roommates (connection ideas!) because housing costs are expensive damn.

She was originally an entertainment intern, having thought she wanted to pursue that field, but she fell into the position of social media runner instead. It’s a way better fit for her, considering she doesn’t entirely know if she wants to keep pursuing a career in the entertainment field.

Julie actually has an interest in computers and coding in general that started when she was in High School, and has been secretly saving up money to go to college for it. She has an app she’s been working on for a couple of years that she hasn’t told anyone out, because she feels like its not good enough yet.

She has TWO side hustles. Julie lowkey also has her own Etsy store making homemade jewelry (organic so it that bougie hippie shit), something she used to help her Mom with when it was just them. She also happens to sell weed, and is pretty good at networking to do that. She’s been doing that since she was 18, so a lot of people probably know her for it tbh lmao.

She’s super chill, and people can probably trust her to keep a secret because she doesn’t really care to blab peoples dirty laundry.

She’s probably friends or friendly with a lot of people because she tends to joke around a lot, but there’s probably few she’s genuinely close to. She believes in vibes pretty strongly.

She loves trash TV and if she had to pick a dream right now, it’d be to be the host for the next biggest reality dating show. Make it happen for Love is Blind Season 2, Vibez.

Possible Connections:

I have actually made a list of wanted connections here for Max, but they are just basic ideas and most could work for her too. I am open up to any ideas/plots/all the connections! If there’s something you’re dying to do, feel free to hop into my DMs. My discord can be found at Spammy Santino #9317.

#vibez:intros #tw abuse

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designsfromtime · 4 years

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Is the Customer Always Right?

If anything, I am guileless when it comes to offering all ya’ll a behind the scenes peek at what a “day in the life” of a historical costumer can offer. Sometimes I worry about coming off as ungrateful when I share a problematic situation, but I believe being honest allows me to embrace my humanity, and gives you all permission to do the same. It looks like fun creating all these gorgeous costumes, and it is! - - but there is an unfortunate ugly side to owning your own business: Dealing with entitled and difficult customers.

My career has taken many twists and turns over the last two or three decades. Before I retired in 2012 at 52 and began designing costumes full-time, I was a medical transcriptionist. I owned my own transcription service as well as working for a huge opthomalogical practice back in California. As such, I have taken many, many training seminars in customer service. It’s been drilled into my head that for every one person who is dissatisfied they will tell ten more people.

With those statistics in mind, I have endeavored to focus on customer service both in my tenure as a medical transcriptionist, as well as today in my costuming business. But the fact of the matter is that not every client will be a good fit for your particular business or your personality, but I do feel somehow I have failed clients even when they become overly demanding and, dare I say, self-centered, and I have to cut them loose.

Look, I get it! Plunking down 2K for an entire ensemble is a HUGE investment for any client! I don’t take any of my clients for granted - ever. I endeavor to give each client equally of my time and attention. As a general rule, I am extremely conscientious about responding quickly to messages and inquiries. I go to great lengths to explain my process and educate about cut, textiles, and construction of historical clothing and lay out what they can expect, even though I find myself repeating the same spiel over and over.

I’ve mentioned this several times before, but I have heard the horror stories from both clients and cast mates: costumers (even those touted as scions in the costuming forums) taking a client’s money and receiving their fabrics, only to ghost on them and not respond when the client tries to get them to honor the commission and actually MAKE the gown they paid for, or they do not respond to the client’s requests when asked to refund the money AND return their fabrics only to find this same “costumer” has not only ignored them but used THEIR fabrics for a gown which they put up for sale on Ebay. Another nightmare story is about some of the vendors on Etsy who promise to ship a gown by a certain due date, take the client’s money and when that date comes and goes and the client contacts them they LIE and say, “It’s in the mail!” - Only to learn that they haven’t even finished it! Worse, when the gown arrives it started falling apart the first weekend they wore it at faire and she paid $600 for it! Then there is the account of a vendor in the Ukraine who ran out of velvet to finish a client’s Italian gown and rather than waiting and reordering the fabric, they made the gown but SCRIMPED on the fullness of the skirt and shipped it as is without consulting the client. In THOSE situations I would agree that the customer is RIGHT. I haven’t found myself in the same situations as these “costumers” because I would NEVER treat a client with such disregard - but I have found myself in a nightmare scenario more than once that involves the client becoming difficult for no justifiable reason.

I’ve been fortunate that in the seven years since opening my studio here in WA I have only had FIVE clients who made me want to pound my fist against my computer screen and question why I am in this business. Yes, they were that frustrating! One of those instances I wrote about in a post called “When It All Goes South” I’ll spare you the details of the other four, but usually the common denominator has been that they didn’t respect my time and my busy schedule, or the efforts I made in the consultation process. That sounds very benign, but a to relate a situation that happened this week wherein I spent 1.5 months exchanging 70+ detailed and lengthy messages, and provided them with dozens, and dozens and DOZENS of fabric options and they kept asking for more, and more, hoping that one of them will fall into the Goldilocks zone, it became frustrating. We hadn’t even gotten half way through the consult process because the client was stalled on fabrics. I didn’t mention the fact that after she paid her deposit she changed the style of the gown multiple times. *face palm*

You may be reading this and shrugging your shoulders and asking “What’s the problem?” The problem in the case I just described is that choosing fabric is only the FIRST step in the design process, but also I have deadlines imposed by the clients. If they don’t comply I can’t meet those deadlines. Until a client chooses their main fabric I cannot begin to offer any ideas for the overall design aesthetic, nor can I choose a complimentary color for their sleeves and forepart, not to mention the embroidery pattern to be used, or sussing out whether or not they will need a trim that may take up to 4 or 5 months to ship - such as the case of a gold bouillon trim I ordered from India recently which she stated she was interested in using, not to mention it requires 4 to 6 weeks of hand tacking! The expectation of this client was that I would be an endless fountain of “options” - and because she was investing 2K I should spend as much time as she wanted footering around window shopping for fabrics while her timeline is ticking away. When after a month and a half I began to draw a boundary and tell her I need a decision if she expects me to meet her deadline because there is a ton more work I need to do on her consult, she felt I wasn’t giving her ENOUGH of my time and stated that because I was pressed on time for current engagements I could not offer any additional efforts to her as a client. This, after spending MORE time than is usual with this client, I am to blame?

I learned from an extremely difficult client in 2018 not to allow a bad situation to malinger and hope for the best. In that particular case it went from BAD to WORSE, and I had to dig in my heels and refuse to bend to her ever growing ridiculous demands. If I cannot work with a client in the consult phase, and I’m pretty damn patient ya’ll, then I have learned the actual construction process will only unravel further.

As a side note, normally by the time I’ve exchanged two dozen messages with a client, I have their fabric sorted, and I’ve sourced a complimentary color for their sleeves and forepart, found their trim and/or the embroidery pattern, sketched their gown, and presented them with a design board. Sooooo. . . I offered this particular woman a refund on her “non-refundable” deposit minus my consultation fee of $100 for the hours and hours and HOURS of research I spent over that 1.5 months offering her more and more options to consider. She was pissed that I was unwilling to allow her to take months to decide, and no amount of “explaining” the urgency or my time constraints seemed to sink in. No matter what I said she is convinced that “I” was the problem.

So, is that situation a failure on my part? Should I be willing to set aside another client’s commission to cater to this woman’s demands? What’s more, is the customer ALWAYS right?

There is an oft-quoted catchphrase in the business world that states: “the customer is always right.” I’ve heard that in many training seminars. Lalana showed me comic wherein it stated “The Costumer is always right.” I laughed, but there is a prevalent attitude that WE must meet the customers’ needs even if it means we often go to ridiculous extents to please them. However, treating customers like they are always right can be self-destructive for entrepreneurs like myself and here’s why.

In an article by “Entrepreneur” they offer FIVE reasons why the customer is NOT always right and why:

1. Businesses Have Limited Resources

Entrepreneurs like myself are not omnipotent, neither are employees - or in my case, my assistant Lalana. Most businesses, especially the fledgling ones, operate with limited resources including limited time, funds, and energy. Every business experiences its share of grudging customers, who, no matter what might be done to satisfy their needs, will continue to complain.

Feeling guilty and culpable for such petulance is actually unwise and it affects your business in a negative way. If the necessary steps have been taken to address the issues of a customer, then a business owner should close the matter and move on.

'Businesses are not dependent on individual buyers. It is actually immature to spend all the energy to satisfy someone who does not intend to be happy. It is important to address the requirements of hundreds and thousands of other regular clients, and also show solidarity with the employees,”

2. It Adds Misery to Employees

Any business will invariably have its share of malicious, rude, snappy consumers. Amongst 50 customers there will at least be 5 who will end up rubbing you the wrong way. Now, reacting to such folk with appeasement and guilt is utter naivete!

Making employees believe that the customer is always right, is tantamount to making them feel dejected. Between supporting your employees and taking sides with an intolerable, enraged customer, it is best to choose the former (the employee). Customers must get this message that though they are important they are NOT indispensable, while supporting employees always pays extra dividends.

"With constant support from the owners comes a sense of loyalty amongst the employees who then provide better service to customers. It's axiomatic that happy employees always go an extra mile to make customers happy."

3. Customers Are Not Omniscient

The creator of a business and the team that works with him know best about the product or service they offer. But customers are often upset because the products don't function the way they want them to - or in the case of my costuming business, they may have expectations around how much time I am able to spend in a consultation, or that through no fault of our own we cannot accommodate their specific vision they have of a particular gown. In the recent experience, the client kept asking for color combinations that are not available in the fabrics she insisted upon. All I can do is offer an alternative and try to compromise by offering options. But the attitude that a client knows best leads to an expectation that I be willing to go to any extent when they demand unrealistic or even ludicrous things.

Often customers will try to establish that they know better and try to share opinions or advice on how a product should look or work. Irrespective of the sector of the business, it is risky to give customers the liberty to think they cannot be wrong.

The key is to establish with customers, in a very amicable way, that the maker of the product is the final authority - In my case that would be ME. I go to great lengths to educate customers on my products and service in order to help them understand my expertise or why I use a certain procedure. I won’t take on a project that I am not passionate about, but more especially when my knowledge is discounted and they wish me to create something that doesn’t fit into my design aesthetic I will decline the order because there needs to be a state of sympatico between designer and customer.

4. It Pits Management Against Employees

The message that the customer is always right, is demoralizing, and results in bitterness against management and indicates that the organization favours the customers more than the workforce. In reality, taking the side of the employees generates happier customers because your employee, or yourself, will have a more positive attitude.

5. You Don't Want Every Customer

Not all customers are indispensable and businesses must accept that. It is better to let go of a persistently complaining and abusive customer who only end up creating stress amongst the employees (or myself). This is irrespective of the amount the customer pays for your product.

Disgruntled customers can wear away your spirit, involve a very high quantity of resources, and add to your stress levels. It is sometimes sensible to lose a customer for protecting the company and its workforce.

"To stay in business for a long time, entrepreneurs need to avoid unreasonably disgruntled customers. Getting rid of bad customers might cost a little profit, but it's healthier in the long-term goals of the business,"

The full article can be found here: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/308548

While these “talking points” are focused on the Management versus Employee relationships, they are valid across the board for a small business owner whether or not you have employees. All of the angst and frustration and demoralization felt by employees or managers who are forced to capitulate to an over-demanding or self-centered and entitled customer is just as keenly felt by me (the owner). It puts me in a grumpy negative head space and it effects my attitude in the studio, which in turn affects Lalana who has to put up with my grumpy ass, and wears down my energy to the extent it affects my usual generosity to the rest of my clients. 2K in commissions just isn’t worth the hassle!

So, while I’m still working through the guilt and the regret of having to cut loose a client as I did this week, I’m learning that my work will speak for itself, and for every ONE client I have a negative experience, I have MORE who actually appreciate me and are reasonable enough to understand I have deadlines and they are 50% responsible for the success of their commission. I may not be in a place of full acceptance that I could not have made this particular client happy, but I feel justified in drawing a boundary that just because a client spends 2K in my store, it does not give them permission to behave like an entitled premadonna.

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