#which are better simply because they remove some of the elements that piss me off in the base design

[starburstgalexies]

I once again have Opinion

(Disclaimer: Diluc is only better than base because ponytail diff)

[whereforarthur]

The Green-Eyed Monster: Part 1

Requested by @slutforthegubes​: smut fic that's mgg x female reader, maybe something where he is on set of a movie and he has to film a sex scene and she gets really jealous. then they go back to his trailer and have some rough sexy times.

A/N: This is my first time ever writing smut so hopefully you guys enjoy and this is also my first request! And please let me know what you think and if there were any warnings I forgot to mention also going to post a part 2 later in the week since this one got away from me and is already at 2k words.

Taglist: @slutforthegubes

Requests are open!

Category: SMUT (NSFW)

Couple: Matthew Gray Gubler x Girlfriend!reader

Warnings: Smut, cursing, chocking, degradation, oral sex, penetration, Daddy kink.

Word Count: 2,018

******

“Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.” 

- Erica Jong

You loved whenever Matthew invited you to set for Criminal Minds especially when it was for the episodes that he directed. Those were his favorite, you loved to watch his eyes light up as he told the actors what emotions they should be expressing for this particularly scene and when he told the cameraman to pan the camera down as the actress wept and fell to her knees. You loved to see your boyfriend in his nature element, he was born to be an actor and you were there to support him in every single acting job and adventure that he embarked on.

But this, you did not love to see.

Matthew had just invited you on set for a Netflix movie called Horse Girl that he had a small role in, you loved to see him work so of course you agreed to go with him, without even knowing what scene he was about to make you watch.

He knew you were the jealous type, right, RIGHT?

You knew the struggles of maintaining a relationship among actors, you being one yourself, but after 3 years of dating you had gotten use to the crazed teenager fan girls for the one and only Dr. Spencer Reid. Though you never experienced the feeling of jealously whenever you visited him on Criminal Minds because Spencer didn’t have many sexy scenes that you could have gotten jealous from.

But this ohhh, you had the slightest of inklings that Matthew knew exactly what he was doing when he invited you to set that day. You knew that he wanted to watch you squirm. Push your buttons to where you were at the point of walking off the set, but your legs betrayed you as you couldn’t help but watch the scene that unfolded in front of you.

That chain, That Stupid Fucking CHAIN

He just had to wear it to set that day. You watched it dangle back and forth as he relentlessly pounded into Alison Brie, his co-star, a sight that you were accustomed to. (Although it was always you that he was pounding into not some actresses) You would usually tug on it as he pounded into YOU, curses slipping from your lips as you felt his fingers rub circles on your clit, begging you to “come for daddy” which you did like the good girl you were for him.

You think that that’s what pissed you off most about watching the sex scene. The thought that you should be the only one to see him like this, the only one privileged enough to watch him as he experienced euphoria, the only one able to make him come undone.

You couldn’t stop yourself from raking your eyes up and down his shirtless torso, a sight that you swore you could never get enough of. You lifted your eyes back up to look at his face, loving the way his stubble perfectly accentuated his chiseled jawline. The one that you would tease him about, telling him that he was like a work of art, joking that his jawline was sculpted by Michelangelo himself. And those lips that you told him were gifts from Aphrodite herself.

You adored this man

As soon as the director yelled “CUT” you smiled gently at Matthew and gave him two thumbs to tell him that he did a great job, too good of a job in your opinion. You turned on your heels away from the sound stage and began to walk to Matthews trailer.

You were ashamed of yourself for getting jealous from his acting but also by the fact that you were extremely turned on right now. To the point where you could feel your arousal through the thin fabric of your leggings. You began to mumble curses at yourself as soon as you entered the trailer, slamming the door shut behind you. How were you going to explain yourself to Matthew when he asked you why you practically ran away from set?

Oh, I’m sorry that I”m acting like the spoiled little brat that I truly am

I’m the only one you should be destroying, not her

Not Her

Knocking you out of your thoughts, was a gentle hand being placed on your shoulder, who you immediately recognized as your loving boyfriend Matthew. Which only made you feel worse about running off of set. You turned to face him, your cheeks flushed from both embarrassment and arousal, you couldn’t place the look on his face, but as soon as your saw his plump lips turn into a smirk and you locked eyes with him. You saw how dilated his pupils were, you knew exactly how he felt.

Turned on

It was like you two didn’t even have to communicate with words, because just with a couple of seconds of staring into each other's eyes you knew exactly what was in store for you.

You began to choke slightly as he applied just the right amount of pressure against your throat as he pushed your front against the trailer door. Releasing his grip on your throat, he raked his hands up and down your torso till they landed on the curve of your hips.

“Jealousy is an ugly color on you” he whispered in your ear as he roughly thrust his impressive bulge into your backside leaving you a whimpering mess as he bought one of his hands up from your hip back to your throat, squeezing tightly exactly like he knew you loved.

“Do you know how embarrassing it was for me to see you run off of set, getting questioned by Alison, wondering why you didn’t want to meet her,” he began to shout into your ear, tears beginning to prick at your eyes as his hold on your neck tightened. You couldn’t even muster out a response (even though you knew that whatever you said wouldn’t dissuade him from giving you the punishment that he had in store for you) before he spoke again.

“No, of course you don’t because you were just acting like the selfless, fucking brat that you are! Isn’t that right y/n...” Wanting you to respond he softened the grip on your throat just enough so you could whimper out those words.

“Yes, daddy”

“Good girl at least you know how much of a fucking brat you are.” He lowered his voice this time now gently saying this into your ear as he bought his right hand up from its position holding your hips in place to stroke your hair before he removed the hand from your throat to spin you around so that you were now facing him.

He began to wipe the few tears that fell from your eyes and gave you a gentle peck on your lips raking his eyes up and down your body with concern, making sure you were okay before he continued his assault.

“Now are you going to be a good girl for daddy or am I’m going to have to punish you” he simply stated as he made direct eye contact with a glimmer of lust and darkness in his eyes.

“I will be a good girl for daddy” you gladly said back to him. Even though you did love his punishments. Right now all you wanted to do was worship this man, to tell him that no other women could make him feel as good as you did.

“Good choice princess, now why don’t you get on your knees and put that pretty little mouth to good use.”

Before the last word even came out of his mouth you were on your knees massaging the outline of his cock through the fabric of his jeans. Licking your lips you could feel how hard he was, which turned you on even more.

He began to undo his belt before you even got the chance to, you are way to entranced in stoking him through his jeans. As soon as he got his belt undone he tossed it behind him, not having a care in the world where it landed.

You helped him push his pants down to his ankles not caring right now about taking them off.

You brought one hand up to grip his shaft while the other one was pressed against his thighs. You licked your lips once again before you began to kitten lick the tip of his cock, the grunts that fell from his lips were the only thing you needed to hear from him that told you that you were doing a good job.

As soon as you brought your mouth directly on his tip, finished with teasing him and licking up his pre-cum, his hand was on the back of your head making a makeshift ponytail with your hair.

He roughly forced you to take him down his throat, clearly fed up with your teasing. Which only allowed you to moan against his length as you began to choke on his cock. He released the hold on your head slightly as you began to bob your head up and down his length, stroking whatever length couldn’t fit into your mouth.

You opened up your eyes to gauge his reaction and a moan fell from your lips when you were might with the sight of sweat beading on his forehead as he threw his head back in pure bliss. Another moan fell from his lips as you gagged on his cock. He bit down on his lips in between every moan. He was absolutely breathtaking.

Matthew began to set his own pace as he began to thrust into your mouth, you slacked your jaw to allow him to fit better and rested both of your hands against his thighs. Your eyes met as he threw his hand forward to look at you, a whimpering mess with tears streaming down your face and spit running down your chin. But to him, it was one of the most beautiful sights he had ever seen. Upon making eye contact with more groans fell from his mouth, and the grip on the back of your head tightened, signaling to you that he was close.

“Now that’s my good girl letting daddy fuck himself with that pretty, little mouth.” With every word muttered he thrust deeper into your mouth hitting the back of your throat every time.

But before he came Matthew pulled you off of his cock, grabbing your hands from their position previously gripping his thighs which left crescent shape marks at which he giggled at.

As you stood up wobbling a little bit from the numbness of your legs after being dormant for so long, he held you in place as you wiped the spit from your chin. When you were finished cleaning your face up, he once again brought one of his hands up to rest against your neck, like the necklace that you could never leave home without. He roughly kissed you with so much dominance and passion.

You were aggressively making out, you let him win the battle of your tongue's fight for dominance as his hands made their way behind your knees as he picked you up and sat down on the little couch that the trailer had.

Since you were straddled on his lap you began to grind your clothed pussy against his bare cock, moans began to fall from both your mouths as you threw your head back a slight giggle falling from your lips of how good this felt.

Before you could even try to get yourself off he gripped your hips holding them in place and stopped your grinding. A whimper fell from your lips as you pouted, which would have normal pissed him off but with how turned on he was now he couldn’t even think of punishing you. 

He brought your lips back up to his and muttered into between kisses that you were both wearing too many clothes and that if you were going to cum it was going to be with his cock buried deep inside of you and when he commanded you to.

Part 2 coming soon!!!

[imaginesupply]

Homecoming - Chapter Five

(Gif’s not my own.)

Summary: The day has arrived, Captain Syverson is going home. For good, this time. He is going home to a civilian life he can hardly remember and a wife he barely knows, with memories of the war still fresh on his mind. Love might not be able to heal everything on its own, but it’s a good start.

Genres: Romance, drama.

Story warnings: Smut (always fully consensual), mentions of PTSD and nightmares and mental health, angst, hurt and comfort, fluff, mentions of war (minor), mentions of cheating (minor), mentions of pregnancy (very minor), police appearance (very minor), violence (very minor).

Notes:

It’s my first time writing for one of Henry’s characters and I’m unsure I did Sy’s character any justice.

This is a Capt. Syverson x OFC (Ada) story, written in 3rd person POV but OFC’s physical description is very limited so it could also be read as Capt. Syverson x Reader, I think.

English is not my first language, so there might be some mistakes. Proofread, but not beta’ed. We die like men and all that.

Timeline is a little wacky: The movie takes place in 2003 and the U.S. forces were withdrawn from Iraq in 2011, but I never set a precise date because I don’t think it’s essential for this story. However, some elements might not be realistic because if we set this story in 2003: Phone cameras quality was not as good as it’s now, but for the purpose of the chapters, I will need you to imagine you could film great videos with your flip phone haha. Plus, it says Sy is coming back after being deployed for more than three years which makes no sense unless we set this in 2006 or later. I am asking you disregard any time inconsistencies.

Also: I am not American. I only lived in the US for six months and it was in the Midwest, not Texas so please bear with me if I write something stupid.

Finally: This will be a Christmas fic and I intend to post the last chapter (there will be seven in total) on or before Christmas. However, religion is never mentioned in this story and the Christmas-sy elements of this story are limited to family gathering, gift giving and tree decorating.

Chapter Five starts after the cut. (Chapter Four can be found here.) Let me know if you wish to be tagged in future chapters or if you wish to be removed from the tag list.

A/N: I am aware of the neutral, perhaps positive, portrait of the police I painted in this chapter. I am fully conscious of the recent (and not so recent) instances of police brutality happening all around the world, many – if not most – of them motivated by racism and other despicable ideologies. With this chapter, I did NOT mean to express support for the police forces. I simply had this ‘plot’ idea come to my mind and decided to write it. There is no ulterior motive.

While all my personal experiences with the police have been positive, I am aware that my ethnicity gives me privilege and that many people are not as lucky as I am. This both angers and saddens me. It has to change.

Black lives matter. Minority lives matter.

Chapter 5

Chapter warnings: Cockwarming, irresponsible driving (kind of), car accident (not serious), police (but no police violence), very mild violence, language (perhaps a little bit worse than in previous chapters but nothing you don’t hear in real life, I guess), mentions of mysogyny.

Ada yawned with Sy quickly following suit. “You can drive my car if you want, Sy. It’s not that new anymore, you know.” She offered, gracing him with the most angelic smile she could muster. It was the first time she was granting him the opportunity to drive her car.

Sy laughed next to her, his left hand moving over the center console to rub her thigh. He had that stupid grin again, that looking endearing with his current droopy eyes. “It’s your car, darlin’. Besides, you’d kill me if I ever so much as got a scratch on it.” He chuckled, suppressing another yawn. “And I know you’re only offering because you want to sleep.”

His wife gasped, a look of mocking offense on her features. “They’re your nephews!”

“But you were the one who said yes,” Sy countered, his eyes closing again as he made himself more comfortable on the car seat. The drive home was only about one hour and a half, but it was the perfect length for a nap.

“What the fuck was I supposed to say, huh?” Ada laughed, gesticulating wildly as was her habit. “Yes, Joshua, I understand you’re taking my pregnant sister-in-law to the hospital. No, I will not look after your kids for the night. It’s our date night.”

Next to her, Sy grimaced. She did have a point, even if he had been looking forward to going bowling with her: Ada was a sore loser which always ended with lots of fun for him. At least, his sister and the baby were okay. Just a normal case of Braxton Hicks, apparently, whatever that was supposed to mean. Perhaps it was good thing Ada didn’t want children because he’d freak out if she started having contractions four months in. “You fell asleep on Luke’s bed at one in the morning when you tried to get him to sleep for the third time and I had to spend the whole night entertaining them with tea parties because they wouldn’t tire!”

“Hey! That’s not cool!” She protested accusatorily, her eyes on the road as she switched lanes to take the next exit. “I didn’t know you couldn’t give kids sugar after a certain hour!”

Sy huffed, shaking his head. They’d had the great idea to bring donuts because according to his dear wife, sugar always made you feel better when you was anxious or down, and the kids had been aware something was off with their mom. “We suck at this parenting thing.”

“You don’t say!” Ada laughed, before loudly cursing at driver who’d just cut her off, something which never failed to make Sy smile. “The nap’s going to feel heavenly once we’re home.”

Sy hummed in agreement, his head falling back against the headrest as he drifted off, hiding his eyes from the sun with his cap. Ada glanced sideways at him, shaking her head. Part of her wanted to shake him awake. If she had to suffer, so did he. But he was right, she had slept more than him and he looked too peaceful to disturb, especially with some leftover glitter still on his cheeks.

Suddenly, there was a mild thump and the car stuttered before stopping, startling Ada who jumped on her seat.

"Shit!" She cursed. "Did I just...?" She began to panic, her eyes moving to the red car in front of them, too close. She had bumped it while she had been distracted by her husband’s stupid, sleepy face!

"Yes, yes you did," Sy laughed next to her. Ada was a good driver and she loved driving, but she was easily distracted and Sy never failed to tease her about it. This time, however, he could tell she was scared from the way her chest was heaving with her shallow breaths. "Want me to deal with it, darlin'?" He offered, tilting his head at the other driver who had just come out of the red, broken-down car.

"No!" Ada protested all too quickly, taking off her seatbelt and grabbing the necessary documents from the glovebox, accidentally hitting his knees in the process. "I am an independent woman who don't need no help," she muttered, trying to convince herself of her own statement. In the eight years since she’d had her gotten her licence, she had never given any of her cars a single scratch, let alone gotten into an accident.

Sy grinned at her antics but tried to hide his amusement, not wanting to make it worse. "All right. I'm here in case you need me, okay?" With a determined nod in his direction, Ada stepped out of the car and attempted to summon the Annalise Keating or the Olivia Pope inside her, whichever she could find in herself.

The man from the red car, who seemed to be in his early forties and balding, was already inspecting his vehicle for damage – looking mighty pissed as he did so. Ada approached the impact point from the other side, noticing the bump on the man’s old car. It didn't look too bad, she sighed with relief. Her own car barely had anything. Ha! She would have to use this as an argument next time Sy and her started discussing cars. Her black Citroën DS5 was sturdy and not just fancy looking, unlike what he said.

"Hello, sir," she said calmly, the man instantly looking up at her. Damn! He really looked furious, seething even. "I am so sorry for this. I was a little distracted- Anyway, it doesn't matter. My insurance will cover whatever repairs your car may require."

"You stupid little bitch!" The man shouted, out of the blue.

Ada gasped, backtracking. The muscles in her jaw twitched. What the fuck was wrong with him? "I understand your anger, but there's no-"

"What were you even doing behind that wheel?" He snarled, gesturing at her car, her baby. "Who the hell lets women like you drive cars like that?!” The man cursed, aggressively waving his hand in the air.

She just stood there, still in shock. Did... did he just bring misogyny into a fender bender situation?! "Women like me?!" She repeated, quite stunned.

"Aye! Bitches like you have no business driving-”

Ada flinched at the man’s words. He was starting to breech the distance between them, moving too close to her. Ada jumped again when she felt a warm hand on her shoulder before realizing it belonged to Sy and letting herself exhale slowly. Thank God he didn’t listen to her and stayed in the car!

"I get that you’re pissed, but that's no way to talk to a lady. You should to apologize," Sy told the man, making it sound very much like an order and very little like a suggestion. The driver huffed before coming closer, his face about as red as the car as when he started laughing. Ada instinctively hid under Sy's arm, though she aware of the ridicule of the whole situation.

"That's your whore? You let your whore drive your car?!"

Okay, this was going too far. It left her lips before she could help it, "that's my own goddamn car, you wanker!". Maybe it was time to stop borrowing insults from Tom.

Ada could almost hear how his jaw clenched when she felt Sy's whole body tense up against hers. "Call her a whore one more time and you're gonna wish she had run you over instead."

This was escalating. Ada bit her lower lip. She was going to have to be the bigger person here. "Look, I'll just go grab my phone from the car and call the police. They'll deal with this." Ada announced, dislodging herself from Sy’s grip before turning around to get to her car.

Her hand had just wrapped around the car door handle when there was a clouting noise, quickly followed by a loud thump, this time. Ada immediately turned around at the sound. The angry driver was out cold on the ground, blood rushing out of his nose and forehead, with Sy looking down at him, the same blood tainting his fist.

"Oh shit!"

°°°

A lanky guy, smelling heavily of pot, was thrown inside the almost full holding cell by the same officer who had arrested him. Sy was amused at the sight until the guy, after a full survey of the room, started walking him up to him before sitting down on the bench far too close for his liking.

Exhaling through his nose, Sy tried ignoring the smell and closed his eyes again. He didn’t expect the nap he had been looking forward to, to be in a stinky cell with stinky men but it would have to make do. At least, after the man sitting closest to the entrance had commented on the leftover pink glitter that still shone in Sy’s beard, nobody had bothered him anymore – not after he quite literally made the man piss himself with just one stare. That man wouldn’t have survived a single day in Baqubah.

"It's cramped in here," the new guy commented nonchalantly though his eyes were fixed on Sy. Out of politeness - damn Ada and her insistence on good manners! - Sy acknowledged his useless statement with a noncommittal hum.

"Name's Ben, by the way," he said, stretching out of his hand but Sy didn’t move a muscle. What was it in his current posture - crossed arms and spread legs - that made him appear friendly enough for a chat, he wondered, rolling his eyes behind his closed eyelids.

"And you are...?"

Sy groaned out loud time. "Not interested."

Ben didn’t get the hint and proceeded to ramble off about how he got caught selling pot near the university. Sy was actively working on drowning out his voice when the sound of fast and angry clicking heels on the concrete floor caught his attention. He smiled. Ada. Apparently, she hadn’t changed and was still dressed for date night, wearing a dress and stilettos, even though they had only meant to go bowling and eat at a steakhouse.

Somehow, everyone in the holding cell must have been intrigued by the same sound because all conversation suddenly stopped, the men all hoping to eavesdrop.

"I am here for Syverson. I wish to talk to him."

"Ma'am, I apologize but we are not allowed to let him out of his cell."

"Not a problem. Just give me the keys and I'll let him out myself!"

Every person in the holding cell laugh with Sy grinning quietly, amused at how she sounded distinctively more foreign when she was mad. He was used to her accent in more intimate settings, but he was enjoying the sound of it during her current outburst which was followed by an uninterrupted string of curse words and insults alike, all coming from her delicate mouth. First, in English, then French. Spanish. Portuguese. Italian. Sy frowned at the last one, he didn’t recognize it. Was it German? He'd have to ask her.

"What a woman, huh," the guy next to him deadpanned, still not giving up on a conversation.

Silence fell again as everyone attempted to listen to the rest. “I swear to God I’ll hang your heads up in my living room if –“

Sy only huffed, leaning back against the cold wall. "You can't even begin to imagine."

"You know her?" The pothead quipped up.

"Yeah," Sy replied. "She’s my wife." He said it loud enough to make sure everyone was able to hear it.

“Oh,” came the nasal voice next to him just as they heard heavy, resigned footsteps become louder.

A different policeman stopped just behind the door, a colleague just behind him as he fished out the right key from his pocket. “Syverson,” he called out loudly. “There’s a woman here for you.”

Sy got up at once, unable to hide his smug smirk. Ada always got her way.

°°°

“What the fuck were you thinking, Sy?!” His wife blurted out as soon as she was let inside the interview room, the young officer locking the door from the outside. Then, turning around, she caught sight of her husband handcuffed to the table and her shoulders instantly slacked, her anger vanishing almost instantly. “What you did was disproportionate,” she sighed, her voice calmer as she took a seat in front of him, the cold iron table separating them.

"He called you a whore, I just punched him!" Sy protested, leaning back on the chair. "My response was disproportionate - disproportionately small."

"You knocked him out cold!" Ada reminded him, her voice pitching higher than usual but the only response she got from Sy was a smug grin. "He might press charges, you know. It's battery."

Sy rolled his eyes, sitting up straight. "He’s an asshole."

Now, it was her turn to roll her eyes although she knew he hated it when she did that. She took a deep breath, hoping to calm down. Sy was looking entirely unbothered, but she was freaking out at the situation. "I'll try to convince him not to press charges and offer to cover the medical bill on top of the car repairs in return."

"Medical bill?" Sy asked, cocking his eyebrow.

"Yes. After the police took you into custody, he was brought to the hospital. From what I heard, he has a broken nose, needed stitches on his forehead and got a concussion." Sy only huffed with a smirk. "This is not funny, Syverson!"

"It wasn't funny when he called you a whore either," Sy countered. He was right. It was also very pleasant to see that dickhead in pain, but she wouldn’t tell him that.

"Look, my friend, Gale, who's a lawyer, is on her way. I'll get you out of here tonight. He’ll either agree to drop the charges or I’ll bail you out."

The corners of his lips twitched. He moved his hands as much as the chain allowed, to grab hers and squeeze them in his large ones. "Are you worried about me, darlin'?"

What a teasing little shit he could be! Of course, she was worried about him! He was in a cell! Feigning innocence, Ada smiled, running her thumbs over the back of his hands. "I am not. However, seeing what you did to that prick just got me really horny and I would like to have you back in my bed tonight," she whispered, watching as her husband’s smug grin slowly disappeared as she got up and grabbed her purse, heading to the door.

"You better get me out of here quickly!" Sy called after her.

°°°

He was returned to the holding cell, the officer uncuffing his wrists again once the bars closed behind him. There were two new faces, but he also recognized that at least three men had left already. Unfortunately, pothead was still there.

“I saved you your spot,” Ben smiled wildly, gesturing at the vacant portion of the bench next to him. “The guy in the red shirt was going to sit here but I told him it was occupied.”

Sy merely hummed, taking the seat that had so generously been saved for him. Hopefully Ada would get him out quickly because he didn’t know how much longer he could deal with his chatty neighbour.

“Was she mad?” Ben asked, whispering loudly and defeating the entire purpose of a whisper in the first place. “Did she yell at you?”

Despite his closed eyes, Sy could feel Ben’s stare on him as he awaited an answer. “No.”

Ben nodded thoughtfully, shaking the uneven bench as he did so. “If we go to prison, I want to share a cell with you.”

If Ada didn’t get him out of there quickly, he was soon going to get charged for battery again.

°°°

Sy stood by the counter, his attention on the ugly Christmas decorations he hadn’t noticed when they brought him in hours earlier. Somehow, he had managed to forget all about it. And fuck, he still needed to get Ada a present!  

“Here are your things,” the young officer told him as he slid over a transparent plastic bag.

With a curt nod, Sy ripped it open and fetched his wedding band first, before looking for his wallet and belt. He was already heading to the door when he turned around at the last minute. “Did Mrs. Syverson post my bail?”

“No, the charges were dropped.”

Huffing with amusement and a hint of pride, Sy zipped up his coat and headed to the front door. He swiftly descended the stairs in front of the precinct, his face illuminating at the sight of her. She was still wearing the black dress and the fancy shoes, her makeup now lightly smudged around her eyes.

As soon as he was close enough, his hands moved to Ada's waist and he leaned down to kiss her, only for her to pull away at his touch. "Not so fast, big guy," she teased, a glint in her eyes as she grabbed something out of her coat pocket he couldn't yet identify. "You're still in trouble."

Sy threw back his head, his laugh booming through the night sky as he finally saw what she was holding up in front of him. Handcuffs, and not the fluffy ones either.

"Now gimme your hands," Ada demanded, making him cock his brow at her authoritative tone.

With a chuckle he obeyed, presenting her his hands. "Yes, ma'am."

Sy watched keenly as she fumbled with the cuffs to get them around his wrists, and then seized the right opportunity to take the upper hand, easily taking the cuffs away from her small hands.

With a shriek, Ada found herself bent over the black hood of her own car, her cheek pressed up against the slick surface and her husband's body pressed up against hers. She could hear the smirk in his voice when he spoke. "Mrs. Syverson, you're under arrest for unlawful teasing back in the questioning room." Ada scoffed, the sound weakened by his heavy weight on top of her. "You have the right to remain silent. Everything you do say can and will be held against you in-"

"Your dick!" Ada suddenly blurted out, a little too loud given where they were, and Sy immediately stopped, clearly surprised, but she quickly felt him laugh against her back.

Before she could join him, Sy smacked her ass, effectively silencing her. "Guess I'll have to fuck that attitude out of you," he grunted before pulling away and fastening the cuffs around her wrists.

Ada kept complaining as he carefully dragged her inside the car. Despite her struggling, Sy easily opened the right backdoor and threw her on the backseat, mindful to fasten her seatbelt before closing the door. Her eyes widened and her mouth went agape when Sy sat down behind the steering wheel and proceeded to push back the driver’s seat and readjust all the mirrors.

“Are you shitting me?” She exclaimed, leaning forward on her seat as much as the belt would allow. He was messing up with all her settings and the grin on her face made it very clear that he was doing it all on purpose just to get her riled up.

“Language, darlin’,” he chided, turning on the engine. “Didn’t you ask me to drive earlier, anyway?”

Ada groaned in response, shutting her eyes tightly before opening them again. “You know very well that was-“

Sy didn’t let her finish, the tires squealing on the tar as he sped out of the parking lot all too fast. Ada involuntarily cringed at the noise. “I’ll make you pay for this!”

“We’ll see, kitten. We’ll see.” He was entertaining by her determination even though her eyes were already closing.

As expected, Ada fell asleep within five minutes despite the handcuffs keeping her arms in an uncomfortable position. Her head lolled before it finally came to rest against the window. He watched her though the central mirror, an adoring look in his blue eyes as she sighed contently the very moment she had fallen asleep. While he had managed to rest while in the cell, though not as much as he had hoped, he knew Ada had been up all afternoon trying to sort everything out and get him out. Sy had noticed her exhaustion as soon as she started fumbling with the handcuffs, her movements uncharacteristically clumsy.

He stopped at a junk food drive thru on their way home – night had already fallen and he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. He doubted she had either. Her eyes didn’t even flutter under the bright neon lights and once he parked the car on their driveway and went to carry her inside along with their food, after undoing the cuffs, her body was completely limp in his arms. It was only when he accidentally let her shoulder hit the doorframe as he tried to lead them inside their bedroom, that she woke up again. “Ouch!”

“Sorry,” Sy murmured and kissed her forehead before laying her down on the bed and setting down the bag on the mattress next to her. Her nose wrinkled as she sniffed the air even as he helped her out of her coat and dress, and then the shoes. “Did you get us food?”

“Tenders and fries.”

Within an instant, she had ripped the bag open and was clutching the bucket of chicken to her chest, moaning as soon as she took a bite. He smiled knowingly at her– she had been hungry after all.

Hurriedly, Sy took off his clothes and slid in bed behind his wife, wrapping an arm around her waist to pull her closer to him. They hadn’t slept together the previous night as they babysat the kids and he had missed the feel of her soft body against his. A content hum escaped him as his already partially hard cock nestled against the roundness of her ass.

Ada chuckled at his reaction, the vibrations of her body sending sparks of pleasure to his growing erection. “I have an idea,” she whispered, her voice becoming seductive again as she started rubbing herself against him.

Sy groaned deeply and tightened his grip on her waist, forcing her to still even though he was no longer sure for what he now hungered more; food or his wife. “We’re both hungry and exhausted,” he reasoned with her, his fingers moving some hair away from her neck so that he could kiss her there.

“Let me,” she insisted, a grin audible in her voice. Her hands disappeared under the bedsheets and she slid off her panties before retaking her initial position as the little spoon. Behind her, Sy groaned as her delicate fingers took hold of his cock, giving it a few pumps before guiding him inside her warmth. He muffled a soft moan against neck at the snug feeling of tight her walls, his arm tightening around her again. She let out a quiet gasp at the stretch, it hurt a little despite her still being sufficiently wet from when he had pushed her against the hood of the car. But once he was fully inside, Ada sighed at the pleasure of being again. “Now we can eat.”

°°°

There are two more chapters to go! Next chapter will include Christmas tree decorating. I am running behind on schedule so I cannot guarantee the last chapter will be posted by Christmas but I’ll do my best.

°°°

@colourmeinblue​ @hail-horror-queen​ @youthought-iwasa-nicegirl​ @kmuir1​ @madbaddic7ed​ @coffeebreathy​ @purplelove75​ @summersong69​ @helenaellie​

[lucas-koh]

Stitches - Bryce Lahela x MC VIII

Parts 1-7 linked in my bio!

Doesn’t exactly follow canon, but elements of canon. FWB.

Song: Waking Up Slow (Piano Version) - Gabrielle Aplin

Rating: M, implied sex, sexual language, swearing

Word Count: 3738

Taglist: @lahellacute @lahamseiroshoe @anotherbeingsworld @fuseboxmusebox @choicesficwriterscreations @bubblelaureno @bratzlahela @eleanorbloom @bryceslahela || please let me know if you would like to be added to or removed from this list

Chapter Eight: Whiplash

So there Suki was again. Rushing down the hospital corridors in an attempt to out power-walk her thoughts. Step-step-step-step-I like her body-STEP-STEP. Suddenly the day didn’t feel so hopeful. And she found herself questioning why this was bugging her so much; but even more so, why she suddenly wanted to avoid Bryce at all costs. She didn’t want to look into his eyes and think about his face as he said those words. Those dark, enigmatic mahogany eyes, probably smirking knowingly. But she definitely didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that an offhand comment like that had affected her. Not after all the lengths she’d gone to to assure Bryce she was unaffected by things like this, at least where he was concerned.

This was what she signed up for – she knew that. But still. When the only nice thing he could say about her to someone else was about her body - how it looked, what it did – well, it wasn’t exactly a confidence boost in terms of who she was as a person. And she’d thought after the fact they’d all been hanging around together as a group so much that they all gelled well and were friendly. And yeah, the other person had been teasing Bryce about having a crush on her, which he obviously didn’t, and she didn’t want him to, but he still could’ve replied saying she was a cool girl or something.

Luckily for Suki, they barely ran in the same circles at work so avoiding him was fairly easy. She only saw him in the halls a few times, and would focus her eyes on whatever chart or equipment she was holding. Every time she caught a glimpse or thought about Bryce (much more often than she cared to admit), Suki felt uncomfortable and upset. And then silly for feeling as such.

For two weeks she’d managed to ignore his texts, and the group hadn’t had time to meet, either. Part of her wanted to cave a few times, but Bryce had given up after the third nose went unanswered, clearly getting the hint. He hadn’t texted anything other than that.

Finally, she felt like she couldn’t avoid it any longer. It was consuming her thoughts too much to not do something about it. She’d just have to get over herself and either suck it up and accept she was just a warm body to Bryce, or break it off for her own sanity. So that was the plan as she texted Bryce mid-December. Which way she was erring towards… she’d figure out when the time came. Either way, she wasn’t planning on making it easy for Bryce, because whether she had the right to be or not – Suki was pissed.

Unfortunately for her, Suki was also soft and awkward and indecisive and far too forgiving. But she was going to try her best.

Santa Fe: 👃be here in 15.

Scalpel Jockey: yes ma’am 😳 

When Bryce arrived he texted to let her know, since knocking would only make someone else answer the door. Suki waited until she couldn’t hear anyone in the living room and snuck over to let Bryce in. The door opened to his habitually grinning face, but Suki didn’t return the favour, instead just setting off to her bedroom and waiting for Bryce to follow.

Once Bryce had shut the bedroom door behind him and could be sure no one else would hear, he finally greeted her:

“Hey, it’s been a while…”

Well, maybe by their standards.

But Suki was already unbuttoning her blouse and shimmying her trousers down her legs. Bryce laughed, she was simply looking stoically at him as she unclothed and she hadn’t even said a word to him yet. But okay. If that was the plan.

Bryce stripped down to his underwear and perched at the head of the bed, uncertain and waiting for Suki to make the first move.

“So,” she stood at the foot of the bed in her lacy black underwear, hands curling around her waist, “do you like how I look today? How my body looks right now?”

But Bryce didn’t notice the hint, he was too enraptured by how good she looked. And by how sexy her forwardness was; first that text, then the jumping straight in. It was certainly something and Suki could tell Bryce liked it.

“Yes, I definitely do.” He crawled down the bed to her, pulling her in between his legs. That smug grin was all over his face, all through his eyes as they raked up and down Suki’s body. All in that tongue which stuck out to moisten his lips. God. That’s gotta be exactly what he looked like when he said he liked my body.

And she was pissed again, seething for god knows why, so she turned her head to the side when he moved to kiss her.

“Oh?” Bryce questioned just before he would’ve collided with her cheek.

“Actually, I’m kind of tired right now.”

“Uh, yeah, okay.” He dropped his hands from her waist and let her step back a bit. “You do realise you texted me, right?” He laughed a bit, trying to bring his usual easiness to the conversation. He was sitting at the end of the bed, legs spread and leaning back on his hands. It was proving incredibly difficult for Suki not to admire his physique, his pose, his ambience. And uh, something very obvious right in the centre of her view.

Damn it. Why did he have to be so understanding? She wanted to piss him off. She wanted him to push back a bit. Actually, she wanted to shout at him and ask him why he wasn’t fighting her on this, why he wasn’t being the asshole she had assumed him to be when she’d eavesdropped. She just wanted some strong emotion to spark, to be able to stoke the flames. Because right now it was like the chemicals in her brain had abandoned all logic or sense and the plethora of emotions whirling inside it were confusing.

But, that wasn’t the sensible thing to do.

“Yeah, I changed my mind.”

“That’s okay. I’ll just head out,” he gave her an understanding smile – for fucks sake – and stood from the bed.

She stayed where she was, crossing her arms over her chest this time and watching as Bryce dressed.

He gave her that smile again as he pulled his jeans on, but there was a slight crinkle to his brow as though he were concerned. He looked like he was biting his lip from something to say.

Suki felt bad, now. He’d been there maybe five minutes and she was already sending him home because he hadn’t even reacted in the way she’d wanted.

God Suki, grow up. You’re a twenty-seven year old doctor who is having a tantrum because her fuck buddy doesn’t vibe with her? It’s laughable. Definitely not where I thought I’d be four months ago.

He let out a concealed puzzled exhale as he looked back at Suki, and checking the coast was clear slipped out of her bedroom with a ‘I’ll see you soon?’. She didn’t see him out.

So Bryce left – even fewer words spoken between them, and Suki slumped back into bed with a long, dramatic sigh.

—-

A few days later, Suki was just coming back from delivering some good news to a patient, and was wandering down corridors. As she looked up to be sure she wouldn’t walk into anyone, Suki saw Bryce at the other end of the corridor, passing over a lady in a wheelchair to a doctor. Technically, she’d still been avoiding him for around two weeks since their last meeting barely happened. She felt the heat in her cheeks and immediately swivelled on a heel to go in the other direction.

But it was too late, moments later she was confronted by the very thing she’d been avoiding.

“Suki!” Bryce called from behind her. Immediately Suki felt herself freezing up at just the sound of his voice. But they were in public – sort-of – so she couldn’t ignore him this time.

“Hey,” she didn’t quite meet Bryce’s eyes as she turned to him.

“Are you doing okay?”

Like you care.

“Yeah, fine,” she shot out ice cold.

Bryce crinkled his brow in that same way he had before, and Suki had to scream at that little voice in her head which told her it was cute.

“Have you been avoiding me?”

Yes, yes she had. Pretty definitely.

“So what if I have?”

“I mean. Why?”

“I’m just not in the mood to see you.”

“Did I- did I do something? The other night you seemed… I don’t know. Please tell me if I upset you.”

He looked so concerned that she melted on the spot and the edge in her voice immediately disappeared.

“Look, I just- I realised it’s weird because we share a friend group but we’re not even friends.”

“We’re friends.”

She furrowed her brow, his words from before running through her head. “We are? Since when?”

“Somewhere between the list making and spending so much time as a group - I don’t know, but I like to think we are.”

Hearing him say that had made Suki pretty much forget what she’d overheard. Maybe he had been worried about her. Maybe she was overreacting and assuming or maybe she should just let herself go with the flow. After all, he’d never, ever, been cruel to her. So yeah, Suki liked that Bryce said they were friends. Agreed with him.

In fact, her heart fluttered a little at him recognising her as more than just a body.

“Upgraded from Fuck Buddy to Friend With Benefits – I like it.”

“Me too,” Bryce grinned and brought a hand up for a high five. Suki obliged. She wanted to leave her hand there, feel his beneath it, but she couldn’t. “So, we’re cool?”

And then she knew she couldn’t leave this conversation without some answers. Even if it made her look like a gigantic idiot.

She hesitated. But it was better to be upfront. And it would keep bugging her if she didn’t get the truth. Hard-ass Suki was now tucked away in a cupboard and the usual awkward, nosy, bumbling Suki was back in her place.

“There is… one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I swear I didn’t mean to but the other week I was coming in and I heard you talking with someone else and you told them that you only like me because of my body and like that’s fine of course you’re not obliged to like me as a person but since now you’re saying we’re friends I don’t know I just wanted to like ask you since it would be weird to be friends with someone you only care about having sex with and–“

“Breathe!” Bryce cut her off with a laugh. Suki inhaled a big breath - she had a tendency to ramble when she was nervous.

“Look,” he gave her a comforting smile, “that was Ben, another surgical intern. He’s a dick. I’m not going to go round telling him anything about myself if I can help it. But I suck at lying so it had to be at least somewhat truthful.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah. That makes sense,” she nodded like a car accessory. So obviously he’d known about the surgery too, since they were in the same field. She felt stupid for jumping to conclusions.

“You’re my friend,” he reassured.

She let out a heavy exhale and a gentle laugh, wow she’d been silly. “Cool.”

“So that’s why you’ve been avoiding me, you were hurt?”

But she didn’t answer him. She didn’t need to let him know she’d been overthinking the entire thing. So she simply stepped back from him and as she moved to leave said:

“Come over after work.”

And with that Suki flounced off down the corridor to her next patient.

But she didn’t hear Bryce as she retreated, muttering: “I’m so sorry I hurt you.”

—-

Clambering up the last of the stairs to her apartment floor, Suki spotted Gia and Tommy on their way towards the stairs.

“Hey! You two doing okay?”

“Yes! Tommy’s missed you two.”

“Aw, Tommy! We miss you too!”

“When can I see Byce?” Tommy asked the two women, not quite having worked his way around ‘r’ sounds yet.

“I’m not sure hun! He’s very busy.” Suki smiled, it was nice to see Bryce had made such an impression.

“You’ve got a good man there, Suki.” Gia said.

“Oh he’s not- um- we’re not.”

“Ha, okay love. We should be off now, anyway.” She pulled Tommy up onto her hip and began to make her way toward the elevator before turning and saying softly with Tommy’s ears obstructed by her hand and chest, “he looks at you like… like I wish Tommy’s father looked at me.”

Suki’s breath hitched as the elevator doors shut on Gia’s bittersweet expression and left her alone in the corridor.

She didn’t realise until she heard the elevator coming back up to their floor that she’d been standing there for a while. Thinking about everything yet nothing.

As though in a daze, Suki floated over to the apartment and let herself in.

It had to be a desire thing right? Bryce looked at Suki like he wanted to push her against a wall at any moment – she knew that. Maybe Gia and her partner didn’t have that anymore if they ever did. That’s gotta be what she meant. In any case, she’d only seen them together very briefly when she’d picked Tommy up, so her opinion wasn’t based on much evidence. Or so Suki thought.

Before Suki even knew it – too consumed by overanalysing that one sentence – she got the text to let her know Bryce was there.

—-

Suki and Bryce laid on either side of the bed post coitus as he was telling her about a surgery he watched. There was still no mention of his assisting, but, Suki figured she’d work it out eventually.

“No way that happened. Patients don’t just ask for surgeons because they think they’re hot.”

“Oh yeah? Then how come it did happen?”

“I call bullshit.”

“You gonna try and tell me I’m not the hottest surgeon at Edenbrook?”

“I dunno… Dr Tanaka…” Suki sucked in a breath through her teeth.

Bryce looked mock offended then said: “I can’t blame you. He’s a very sexy man.”

He scooted over from his side of the bed and hovered over her, taking her jaw in his large, precise hand. He leaned down to kiss her, Suki immediately giving in and roaming her hands across the muscles on his back and shoulders. Basking in the fresh mint of his lips, the smell of his familiar cologne and a faint hint of cinnamon permeating all of Suki’s senses, she felt a little lost.

“But I think it’s safe to say this speaks for itself in terms of your preferences,” he whispered into her lips.

“Have you been baking?”

“Hm?”

“You smell like cinnamon. You usually smell more citrus-y, freshly washed towels – or is this holiday edition Lahela?”

Suki didn’t even realise she was thinking out loud until it popped out. That citrus-y, freshly washed towel scent and the peppermint on his lips was incredibly familiar to Suki. She’d thought about them in moments she probably shouldn’t have been thinking about them. She associated them with sex, of course, but also a warmth and an easy comfort. His cologne was gorgeous, it smelled expensive and perfectly balanced, mixing with the pH of his skin artfully. But there was something extra special about that underlying natural aroma. Less sexy, more familiar. Homely?

But it made her feel slightly uncomfortable in the pit of her stomach that she remembered these details so vividly, that she focused so specifically on them; even more so that she’d spoken them out loud.

“Well, I do roll around in my clean orange-scented towels just before I see you purely so that you can smell it under my expensive cologne,” he mocked.

She swatted him playfully as he began to kiss down her neck, pinching the skin with his teeth. It was just enough to be a perfectly balanced mix of pleasure and pain.

“What does Dr. Tanaka smell like?” She teased.

“Cigarettes and B.O.,” he muffled into her collarbone.

Suki’s laugh tinkled around her bedroom like chimes. “Now I know he smells sexy.”

“He’s not the one whose scent you seem to have memorised so I’m okay with that.”

“Hey! We see each other in close quarters, I’d be a bit worried if you didn’t know what I smelt like.”

“Moon lilies and cotton. Also antiseptic and that coconut hand sanitiser you use.”

Suki laughed again, as Bryce tried to hide the shock in his eyes that he’d actually just said that. But then he just grinned cockily like that was the intention.

“Well I’m glad it’s not cigarettes and B.O.”

“But to answer your question: No, I don’t bake, or cook, at all.”

“Seriously?! What do you eat?”

“Takeout, whatever’s in the hospital cafeteria, ramen.”

Suki just looked at him with horror. “Any… vegetables?”

“Yeah I always order vegetables. And I have an apple every morning.”

“Is that to keep me away?”

“What would be the point in that?” He leaned down to kiss her lips again, and once more Suki got sucked into the moment.

“Okay, okay, you should go now.”

“Probably,” Bryce looked up to Suki’s clock which read 11:08pm. “It’s later than I thought.”

They’d lost track of time talking about the most random topics, but secretly neither of them minded. —-

Five A.M. the next morning found Suki stumbling out of bed and blinking her way through her routine. Bryce had stayed way longer than he should’ve, again, and now Suki was paying for it.

She sighed as she looked at herself in the mirror, she didn’t look her best. As she crooked her neck in a stretch she felt a sensitive spot on the left side. Moving closer to the mirror to inspect and blinking more sleep from her eyes, she saw the rough purple mark. Shit.

“Bryce… what the fuck?!” She whisper-yelled to herself. “He is so getting shit for this.”

She had two options. 1. Leave it as it is. She didn’t really have time to do a botch job of covering it up and she was a doctor, she just needed to get on with the job no matter what. 2. Cake it in layers of concealer, colour corrector, and foundation so that instead of a hickey, it looked like she had a weird rash.

Given Suki’s intense aversion to anything even slightly humiliating, she went with option two. She’d forgotten how much these things actually hurt – it had been years – and Bryce had gone deep. Mottling from a deep-blackish-purple to a lighter, but still intense pinky-lilac, Suki’s neck looked pretty bad. Thankfully the area itself wasn’t too big, and so she got to work covering it up. She made sure to snap a picture first to show Bryce the exact damage he’d done.

The first few hours of work went by as usual, diagnoses, charts, tests, discharges. She knew she had to talk to Bryce about her, ahem, problem, but she wasn’t going to let something so silly take precedent over her job.

When she spotted Bryce in the atrium later she luckily had a few moments to spare. He was leaning on the desk talking to the receptionist.

“We need to talk,” she muttered behind him, pulling him along with her to somewhere more private. He rushed out a wave to the receptionist as he stumbled along after Suki. She pulled him over to the side of the atrium under the stairs. Not the most private place, but better than nothing.

“So…” Bryce said searchingly.

She huffed and moved her neck under the light, making it obvious that it was caked in cover-up. But Bryce was a typical man.

“What am I looking at? I mean, you have a very nice neck but…?”

Then she pulled out her phone and brought up the picture she’d taken as insurance this morning.

“Oh,” Bryce snorted, and actually zoomed in to the photo to get a better look.

“What are you – 16?!” She snatched her phone away as she chastised him.

He laughed, not seeming at all bothered. “It was an accident, relax. I’ll be sure not to do it again.”

Accident, my ass. You were sucking on there like a pacifier. Then again, I probably should’ve stopped him…

“Fuck you,” she was actually frustrated about this, but the words came out more lighthearted than intended.

“That can be arranged.”

“Bry!” Almost as soon as it came out of her mouth Suki wanted to kick herself for the cringey nickname. Where the hell did it come from?? And why! She was meant to be mad at the guy not giving him cutesy nicknames.

But Bryce didn’t pick it apart, simply winking.

“Think of it as an early Christmas present.” He teased as he moved away from the corner. She huffed again as she watched him leave, flashing a cheeky grin back at her. What a fucking douche.

Maybe I *should’ve* tried propositioning Dr. Tanaka, at least he would be more careful.

She was annoyed at the actual thing, sure. But she was more annoyed that rule number five: no visible marks, had been pretty astoundingly disregarded. It wasn’t the hickey itself, it was the principle. The meaning behind the hickey. And the struggle of having a serious conversation with Bryce Lahela.

She found herself asking why she hadn’t brought the rule up, why she hadn’t called him out for ignoring their very clear rules put into place for exactly this reason. Perhaps she didn’t want to stop blurring the lines, even if they were advancing into dangerous territory. Recently she’d been letting him come to hers more often, the threat of roommates not feeling so worrisome anymore, and the thought of sneaking around was sexy. And the relief, the joy she’d felt when it turned out Bryce didn’t only like her body was far from casual.

She didn’t want to be so careful anymore, and that scared the shit out of her.

[dontcare77ghj]

Simplicity

Steve x reader x Natasha

Date Night series 

Just a quick note thank you so much for all the sweet inboxes I received after my last post. They were all so sweet and made my day, thank you all so much. I love you all. 

The three of you weren’t extravagant people. It simply just wasn’t how you were raised. This trait followed with you all as you grew into the people you were today. You didn’t care for fancy dates, cars, clothes or anything of the sort. All you cared for was that you had a home and love.

And that was what you gad. You had a home with the Avengers, who had become the family you all needed, and you had love. The three of you loved each other more than you had ever loved yourselves. Anyone could see the love you held for each other, it lit up the room and your faces simply when you were around each other.

Because the three of you weren’t extravagant people, the things you did together weren’t extravagant. But it was in their simplicity, others sought to interrupt.

“Nat, this smells divine.” You complimented, wrapping your arms around her waist as she stirred a pot on the stove.

“Not as good as you do.” She smiled, leaning over to kiss you on the cheek. “Go find Steve for me please? Make sure he’s not on the phone.” Natasha asked, making you laugh.

“He almost threw his phone out the window before, I highly doubt he’s on it.” You mentioned, kissing her on the side of her head before walking towards the bedroom. “Stevie, you better not be on your phone.”

“No, that thing is evil, I threw it far away.” Steve said, walking out of the bathroom with only a towel around his waist.

“It’s a cell phone, Stevie, that’s all it is.” You smirked, wrapping your arms around his waist.

“It started speaking, doll. It’s evil.” He repeated, securely wrapping you into his warm embrace. “I told Tony to lock it up.”

“I bet Tony pissed himself at that.” You laughed. “Big bad Captain America, scared of some modern technology.” You added, making Steve gently push you onto the bed.

“I can show you big and bad, doll, if that’s what you want.” He smirked, hovering over you. Before either of you could move further, Natasha strolled into the bedroom and looked at you both with a wide smirk.

“Steve get dressed. It’s dinner before dessert.” She said, moving over to the bed and taking your hand in hers.

“You’re no fun sometimes, Tash.” You pouted as you both walked over to the table that she had set.

“You know that you love me either way.” She said, leaning over to kiss your pouting lips. “Now sit.” She told you, tapping your ass before she moved over to the kitchen where dinner sat.

As you sat down Steve exited the bedroom, fully dressed, and moved over to the chair next to yours.

“This looks amazing Nat.” Steve complimented as Natasha placed the plates onto the table. “You’ve outdone yourself.”

“Thanks, med.” Natasha said, taking a seat. “Cooking is so peaceful, I wish I had had more opportunities to do it before.”

“Well with the two of us, I think you’re going to need to do all the cooking.” Steve smirked, causing you to narrow your eyes at him.

“I can cook.” You said, still holding a forkful of food up to your lips.

“No you can’t, dorogoy.” Natasha shook her head. “That’s not us trying to be mean, it’s just fact.” She added, smirking over her wine glass.

“Maybe next date night we can go to a cooking class together.” Steve suggested, looking at you both with a smile.

“Sounds like a plan.” You said, finally taking a bite of Natasha’s cooking. A moan escaped your lips at the flavour. “Yeah okay, Steve, I agree with Nat’s doing all the cooking from now on.”

“You’re not going to eat much of it if you keep making noises like that.” Natasha said, watching you with lust in her eyes.

“Save it for after dinner, Tash.” Steve smirked.

“You know what, Rogers,” Natasha started, pointing her fork at the blonde man. Before she could continue her sentence a loud thud echoed through the tower and shook the floor.

“Captain Rogers, agents Romanoff and L/N, it seems mister Stark has caused a code green.” F.R.I.D.A.Y said as you all heard a roar.

“Looks like we’ll have to have to finish this some other time.” You sighed as Natasha and Steve rushed to grab their weapons.

“We’ll be finished in no time.” Steve assured as you all rushed towards the elevator.

“Good because I was looking forward to eating that.” Natasha said, strapping her widow bites on.

“You were looking forward to eating a lot of things.” You smirked as Steve strapped his shield to his arm.

“We’ll get to that too.” She said as the elevator arrived in the labs where the growls and roars of The Hulk became nearly deafening.

Looks like date night would have to wait.

“Steve we all know we haven’t left the building I don’t know why you had to blindfold us.” Natasha sighed as Steve led the two of you to your mystery date location.

“Because it’s all about the element of surprise, darling.” Steve said, his voice a riddled in mirth as Natasha continued to complain.

Out of the three of you, Natasha simply could not handle surprises. You weren’t sure if it was because of the surprise factor or not being in charge of it, but she really didn’t like surprises. Usually, she refused to go along with surprises and would use her skills to find out what was happening, not this time though.

“It won’t be a surprise when someone falls over.” Natasha grumbled.

“Let’s be honest that’ll be me.” You said, shaking your head slightly. You would freely admit, you were a bit of a klutz, okay a lot of a klutz.

“Trust me, I won’t let either of you fall.” Steve promised before stopping the two of you. “Okay don’t move I need to finish setting up.”

“Rogers you know I hate blindfolds.” Natasha sighed, shifting next to you.

“Really than what was what happened last week?” You snorted, making Steve chuckle deeply.

“Keep it up you two and the blindfold will be the least of your worries.” Natasha assured, grabbing your hand in hers. Though you couldn’t see, you knew the woman was smirking deviously.

“Alright, it’s all set up. You can take your blindfolds off.” Steve said. Without another word, both you and Natasha removed your blindfolds in one fluid motion.

“Oh Stevie.” You breathed out. “You’ve outdone yourself.”

He really had. The three of you stood atop the Tower on the roof patio Tony had renovated. Steve had set up strings of soft twinkling lights, both along the roof top and the low picnic table he had set up. Blankets and pillows surrounded the low-level table which was laden with food and wine.

To anyone else this would be considered simple and normal, but to the three of you it was almost extravagant in its simplicity.

Natasha didn’t say anything as she moved forward and wrapped her arms around Steve’s waist. Even after all these years, she still struggled with emotions. You didn’t hesitate to follow her and embrace your two lovers.

“Love you Steve.” Natasha murmured; face pressed into the blonde’s broad chest.

“I love you too darling. I love you doll.” Steve said, placing a kiss on top of each of your heads. “Now let’s eat.” Steve said, pulling away. He grabbed both your hands and led the two of you over to the table.

While Steve wasn’t the best cook out of the three of you, he certainly was a good one. The three of you sat under that sky until it turned from dusking to darkened. 

“No Steve!” You shrieked as Steve yanked you onto his lap, your wine spilling onto your lap. Natasha laughed heartily as she watched the blonde hold you tightly to himself.

“You started it.” Steve smirked, burying his face in your neck.

“Did not.” You protested, attempting to turn in his lap.

“Did too.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Did not.”

“You really did start it, med.” Natasha smirked, watching the two of you in amusement.

“You’re lucky I love the two of you.” You grumbled with a pout as Steve pressed a kiss to your temple.

“Aw we love you too sweetheart.” Natasha cooed sweetly. She moved closer to the two of you and laid so her head was resting on your lap. The three of you sat there, you in Steve’s lap and Natasha’s in yours, simply watching the sky above you. All was silent until it wasn’t.

“Rogers.” Tony’s obnoxious voice echoed from his metal suit. “You know Fury has been looking for you for an hour, right?”

“Tony tell him I’m busy.” Steve said, looking up at the metal man.

“Can’t tell him that really. You’ve got a mission.”

“Go.” Natasha said, standing up and pulling you with her. “Go save the world, we’ll be here when you get back.” She promised as you helped the blonde up.

“I’m so sorry, dolls. I’ll make it up to you when I get back.” Steve promised, pulling you both individually into his arms and kissing you both sweetly.

“We know.” You said, cupping his cheek. “Now go save the world. We’ll be here when you get back.” You reaffirmed as Steve said one last goodbye before running towards the stairs.

As you stood there with Natasha’s arms around your waist, watching as Steve left, you could only think one thing.

Date night would have to wait.

“Okay I have the popcorn.” Steve announced, placing the large bowl onto the table. “Doll, shouldn’t you be sitting down?” Steve asked, watching as you picked up a pile of DVDs.

“Steve I’m not an invalid, it’s just some movies.” You said, setting the pile by the DVD player. “You’re such a worry wart sometimes, sweetie.” You smiled, putting one into the player.

“It’s because I love you.” Steve told you, sitting down as you sat next to him.

“You gotta stop being sappy Steve or Y/N’ll start crying again.” Natasha commented, walking into the room with her arms full of chocolate covered snacks . 

"I can't help it, my emotions are out of wack." You complained, happily taking a bag of chocolate covered pretzels out of Natasha's hands. 

"We know, dorogy, and we don't mind the mood swings or the weird cravings. They'll all be worth it soon." She said, sitting next to you. 

The three of you sat on the couch, contently watching the movie you had picked, until you had to stand up abruptly. 

"Shit." You cursed, looking down. "I liked these pants and now they're ruined." 

"Oh shit is it time?" Natasha asked, eyes widening as she jumped from the couch with Steve right behind her. 

"Yeah, it's time. That was my waters breaking." You said as Steve took your hand in his. 

"Let's get you some new pants. Nat can you grab the hospital bag?" He asked. 

"On it." She said, leaning over and kissing you on the cheek. "She's finally coming."

"And she's already a cockblocker." You joked as Steve helped you to the bedroom. 

She was finally coming. Your daughter was finally about to be born. 

"Thank God she takes after you and Romanoff Y/N." Tony joked as he rocked the tiny pink bundle in his arms. "No offense Capsicle."

"In this case, Tony, none taken." Steve said, holding your hand with a gentle smile on his face. 

"You know you're never going to get to have time again, right?" Clint questioned from Natasha's other side. 

"That's okay." Natasha said as Tony handed her little Sarah. 

"It's all worth it." You added, smiling at your wife and daughter. "It's all worth it for her." 

Looks like you wouldn't be having date night for a while. But again, it was all worth it because you had little Sarah. You had a family. 

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[wolfandwild]

My Shadowlands Wish List

Now that we’re getting closer and closer to pre-patch and the inevitable launch of the expansion, I thought I’d rattle off a wish list of things I hope we get to see in Shadowlands, largely from a lore/story perspective. (Or rather, my stupid foot was hurting so badly I couldn’t concentrate on writing my fic properly, so I decided to ramble off some not-so-hot takes, honestly they’re pretty mild in the grand scheme of things). I was in the first alpha wave, so I’ve had a pretty good opportunity to play the game as it is thus far, and I did want to make it clear up front that I’m fully aboard the hype train. Shadowlands is looking like a great expansion for a number of different reasons, and while I do have a few areas of concern, on the whole I am currently feeling very positive. Please also note these are just my random, late-night personal musings - your mileage may vary, and that’s a-okay.  Mild Shadowlands spoilers below the cut.

You Get A Customisation! You Get A Customisation! Everybody Gets A Customisation! This one is pretty much a no-brainer. I don’t necessarily think Blizzard need to have absolutely every possible character customisation ready to go before launch, but I’d like them to continue adding further options over time. I move in a couple of different circles in Warcraft - I’m obviously involved in the writing/lore/character aspect of the game, but I’m also GM of a raiding guild and closely follow the gameplay/competitive side of things too - and customisation is one of those few things that gets everyone excited, regardless of their reason for playing the game. I’m looking forward to seeing a much more vibrant, unique and diverse Azeroth come Shadowlands pre-patch. (Mostly irrelevant side story - when Wrathion returned in the Patch 8.3 cinematics, my Twitter and lore Discords were basically going berserk with excitement, meanwhile there’s a hundred very confused dudes in my raiding guild who don’t read quest text being all, “What the hell is a ‘Wrathion’?”. I live in two different worlds, honestly). Another reason I’m excited about customisation (and I’m probably in a very small minority on this one) is because I actually really dislike allied races, and I think it gives Blizzard an option to add more flavour to character creation in the game without always having to cobble together a new race. I honestly think they should have simply gone for sub-race customisation from the beginning, to avoid having to ass-pull allied races out of nowhere. Using customisation over allied races also makes it far simpler to give something to both factions (e.g. high elves), or to add something for one faction without necessarily having to always add something to the other faction to keep things in balance. Giving an extra hairstyle to humans but not orcs generally isn’t going to cause that much of a fuss, but if one faction were given an allied race and the other wasn’t because there wasn’t a logical racial option, there would be a shitstorm of epic proportions. So you end up in a situation where one faction* gets saddled with a really random, sucky allied race just to be ‘fair’. *The Alliance. It’s the Alliance. Leave Britney Arthas Alone Arthas has never been a personal favourite of mine, but I respect that he has a fantastic story, and that he’s a cornerstone of Warcraft lore. His story is both satisfying and complete, and that’s exactly why they should leave him the hell alone. I don’t mind if he’s visited in flashbacks (like the Bastion cinematic), or if we explore how he affected still living characters (e.g. Jaina, Sylvanas, Bolvar), but I think it would be a mistake to try to make him a central character in the expansion. In contrast, someone like Kael’thas is an excellent choice for an additional arc, because his original story was a bit all over the place and there is still plenty of room for his character development. Arthas doesn’t need it, and I don’t think the minute potential gain is worth the risk of retroactively making the rest of his story worse. On a similar note... Warcraft III Was Released Nearly 20 Years Ago, It’s Time to Move On The Warcraft RTS was a landmark series of games, and was obviously without them we wouldn’t have the World of Warcraft. However, I think the future health of Warcraft’s lore depends on the ability of the writers to grow the story outwards and upwards, not to always default back to the same handful of characters for nostalgia’s sake. While characters like Jaina, and Thrall, and Sylvanas are great, they can’t carry the narrative forever. Shadowlands represents a unique opportunity to build up the next generation of characters and to blow the cosmology of the universe wide open. From what I’ve seen on the alpha/beta, Blizzard are definitely taking a step in this direction, and I’m hoping that’s what we get instead of Patch 9.2 - Oh Look, It’s Thrall Again. On an additionally similar note... Sylvanas Is Crazy, And She Needs To Go Down (I don’t actually think she’s crazy, but one should never miss the opportunity for an Avatar reference). One of my complaints about the recent lore developments in Warcraft its that it’s starting to feel a lot less like the World of Warcraft, and more like the Sylvanas of Warcraft. She’s playing 469D chess; she’s behind everything; she’s the sole driving force of the narrative. I don’t think that works in an MMO that’s meant to tell the story of an entire expanded universe. It makes things feel small. And before I get eaten alive, I want to be clear that I don’t dislike Sylvanas as a character - in fact, I think she’s very compelling and on a night when my foot wasn’t killing me so much I’d be happy to get into an argument as to why she’s actually one of the most consistent and well-written characters in the World of Warcraft. I don’t necessarily think she needs to die, either, but I think it’s time for her narrative to come to a close to make room for other characters in the story, and I don’t think Blizzard are going to get a much better opportunity to give her a satisfying ending than in a death-themed expansion. Justice for Tyrande (Or Vengeance, Whatever Uther Wants to Call It) Tyrande got done dirty in Battle for Azeroth, probably more than any other character. I’m not a massive night elf fangirl by any means, but their entire race was basically used as grist for the mill in Sad Orc Dad’s story, with no next to no narrative follow-up besides a cool cinematic that went absolutely nowhere in game. Outside the game, her character then got subjected to the cacophonous misogynistic crowing of the fanbase that occurs whenever a female character dares to be angry in the World of Warcraft. Much like Jaina, she’s decried for being ‘crazy’ or ‘irrational’ for, you know, being pissed that her people and her homeland were wiped out in an act of wildly disproportional aggression. I don’t know about you guys, but that would tend to make me a wee bit testy, but maybe I’m crazy and irrational too. In any case, I want to see her go off in Shadowlands. Fuck ‘em up, girlfriend. You Get One Villain. If You Drop It, I’m Not Buying You Another One I think most people will agree with me that the two weakest expansions (at least from a narrative perspective) were Warlords of Draenor and Battle for Azeroth. There are a few reasons for this, but for me one of the biggest issues was that they were chop-and-change expansions. Both were advertised and started off with narratives and themes that were wildly different from where they finished up. Warlords was part Iron Horde expansion, part Legion expansion; BFA was part faction war expansion, part Old God expansion... and that’s exactly the problem. Both times, I felt like we got two half-done expansions, instead of one single, cohesive narrative experience.  If you look at expansions like Wrath of the Lich King and Legion, both of which were very well received, a lot of their success hinges on their presentation of a consistent narrative with a clear goal for players within the story. The Lich King, for example, was a consistent and very present villain. He menaced you throughout your entire journey, and so his eventual defeat on top of Icecrown Citadel was meaningful and impactful. Defeating N’Zoth, by contrast, felt pretty hollow, as we hadn’t had enough narrative build up to really care about taking him down. Part of the reason I’m excited for Shadowlands is it looks like we’re getting a nice, focused story development that builds up to a logical and satisfying villain in the Jailer. Why Can’t We Be Friends? Look, I bleed blue. I love the Alliance... but the faction war should not continue to be a driving narrative element in the World of Warcraft. I don’t want the factions to be removed, I think they’re a core part of the Warcraft experience and I’d be pretty sad to have to let them go entirely, but the cycle of hating one another then teaming up in an uneasy alliance in order to defeat a bigger bad, only to go back to being at one another’s throats the next day is... tiresome.

Ideally, the war would have ended after Legion - it was the most logical place to do so, and I think it was a big missed opportunity that they ran with Battle for Azeroth immediately afterwards. Unfortunately, I think this means the Alliance is going to just have to forgive and forget, which doesn’t really make a lot sense at this point given everything that happened in BFA, but for the sake of the overall story, it might be a necessary sacrifice. That said... I Am Once Again Asking for Alliance Narrative Agency I know there are a lot of (valid) complaints to be had about the Horde storyline, but the one thing the Horde has always had over the Alliance is that they actually get to drive the narrative forward. The Alliance are pretty much exclusively reactionary, and in a lot of ways are side characters to the main Horde storyline. I’ve made this argument elsewhere, but it honestly wouldn’t be too hard to remove Anduin’s part in Saurfang’s storyline in Battle for Azeroth and have it turn out more or less exactly the same way... which says a lot about the importance of the Alliance in the overall storyline. In short, the Alliance are secondary players at best, and downright irrelevant at worst. One of my biggest hopes for Shadowlands is that we’ll actually get to see some Alliance narrative agency. To be clear, however, this does not mean a simple rehashing of Horde conflicts with a blue coat of paint. Alliance stories are not Horde stories, and nor should they be. Having an Alliance leader turn into a genocidal despot is not the only way to create conflict or agency in the story - there are plenty of opportunities for character growth, development and conflict on the Alliance side without having to have one of our leaders do a heel turn (e.g. Tyrande as the Night Warrior, Anduin dealing with his experience in the Maw, Jaina confronting the fates of people like Kael’thas and Arthas, Taelia meeting her father, etc.), and I really hope we get to see some of those narrative threads come to fruition. I Want to Mount Everything Add a hundred new mounts. Two hundred. A pot plant with googly eyes, the four hundredth Alliance horse, your mum. I’ll ride anything; I don’t even care. (Please note this is the most important opinion I have).

[gunnerpalace]

hey there! so i used to be a huge fan of bleach, and loved ichiruki, and i was reminded of them today but i haven't been involved with the fandom since the series ended. however, i've heard of different variations of why the series ended/ships happened the way they did, and was wondering if you knew or could direct to me a post that explains that? i apologize if i'm bringing up bitter feelings, but i've always been curious if bleach's ending was a big FU from kubo or if he always intended rr/ih

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a post that really goes over it structurally in that kind of way (from a shipping perspective). I’ll get back to what you actually asked me after some asides, because it’s not so simple to just analyze the ships in a vacuum.

I’ve had my own post about why the ending was a fuck you moment, thematically, because it failed to resolve any of the themes and momentum of the series in a way that would be appropriate (either internally or in the context of the supposed genre of shounen.)

I would also say that the ending was a fuck you moment in terms of lore, backstory, and mystery, because all of the historical and political dimensions (i.e., things involving the Soul King and Great Houses) were unceremoniously shuffled off to Can’t Fear Your Own World. Not that any of those things were ever brought up properly in the manga to begin with; the proper and natural time for that would’ve been at the conclusion of the Soul Society arc, when Ichigo and co. spent a week there, which we saw none of. So I would say that everything in CFYOW is basically retconned bullshit hung off prior convenient plot hooks, and that the same was true of TYBW and LSS/TLA/Xcution as well. There may have been some notes and forethought, but it’s about as “valid” as Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert’s Dune works are compared to the original Frank Herbert ones; it’s second-hand, at best.

(This is setting aside that Bleach was clearly made up as it went along. For example: Noriaki literally admitted that he didn’t know who had killed Aizen in Soul Society until he realized that Aizen not being dead was the most shocking answer; the clear baiting and abandonment of Kisuke as the villain hinted at through various means such as his unclear and later retconned reasons for being exiled, and so on. Bleach was very much a J. J. Abrams-style mystery box work that was made as it went with, at best, rough notes, which is why its themes and focus change, for the worse. I also have a post about why it stopped being special, which is part of a running series I intend to write on how to rewrite it to fix and preserve that)

The best recent thing to compare it to is, really, HBO’s adaptation of Game of Thrones, wherein D. B. Weiss and David Benioff openly admitted to removing or deemphasizing story elements, and ignoring themes in adapting the work. The difference is that Bleach was not being adapted from anything; it degraded due to its own creator not understanding what he had created.

(To put it very simply, because this would be the point of Hyperchlorate Part II and would take a whole post to explain: the ending of the Soul Society arc did not properly establish and flesh out Soul Society as a place with a history, space, and purpose. Instead, the Arrancar and Hueco Mundo arcs decided to be a thematic inversion and deconstruction of the Karakura and Soul Society arcs. This again had an ending that did not establish or flesh anything out after Aizen’s defeat, with an even greater diffusion of focus onto ancillary characters. The Xcution arc tripled down on this by addressing something entirely new and retconned in, only to abandon it midway through in favor of going back to invoking Soul Society. And Thousand-Year Blood War took all of these problems to 11. tl;dr: Noriaki tried themes, people hated it, and so he just shoved in more and more dumb sword fights between people nobody cared about, half of whom hadn’t previously existed.)

So, let’s get back to your question. Let’s talk about ships. I’ve clicked a lot of keys and spilled a lot of ink on this subject over the years, but I no longer particularly feel like searching my own archives (really ought to go back through and organize them better) beyond this post and my own follow-up to it about the chronology of IR interactions, so I’m just going to repeat myself.

First, let’s say that Bleach was not ever a manga about ships.

I’m not disavowing that what Rukia and Ichigo had was special. That was called out multiple times through the focus of the art, the dialogue, and by the characters themselves. (Directly by, for example, Orihime’s outright statement to the effect in Soul Society, and her later jealousy regarding it. Indirectly by, say, Uryuu’s acknowledgement that him saving Rukia first would piss Ichigo off. In fact, the biggest indirect indicator doesn’t even involve Ichigo and Rukia; Shunsui asks Chad why he’s there and Chad says he wants to save Rukia, Shunsui calls bullshit that two months isn’t enough time to risk your life for that, and Chad agrees and says he’s there because Ichigo wants to do it. Shunsui moves on, but his argument is left hanging: why was two months enough for Ichigo? Because, as Orihime will later say out loud, Rukia is special.)

What I’m saying is that that was never the focus. It was explicitly constructed that way.

How do I know? The Grand Fisher fight. The Grand Fisher fight is emotionally charged, bringing up both Ichigo and Rukia’s greatest traumas, and is their one real moment of not understanding each other for a time. It was a triumphant moment that made them truly glad to know one another, and you can see it in their reactions afterward (Rukia thanking Ichigo for not dying, Ichigo asking Rukia if he can keep being a Shinigami). There was a lot to unpack there, and you can see it in the way they look at each other.

What happened immediately after the Grand Fisher fight? Noriaki skipped a whole month. We go from June 18th of 2001 to July 17th of 2001. He deliberately skipped all of the emotional impact of that event, and Rukia being around for Ichigo’s 16th birthday. Just never happened. We never hear about it. Wasn’t his focus as a writer.

Now, I’m convinced that was because he was scared of what he had on his hands. He wasn’t willing to commit to either a couple’s battle shoujo or a shounen with male and female seemingly-heterosexual co-equal deuteragonists who clearly had a strong emotional bond. More specifically, he wasn’t willing to make Rukia a centerpiece of the manga despite having designed her first, having made her the moral and philosophical core of his manga, and having based Ichigo entirely around completing and complementing her. But hey, that’s just my opinion, right? Except it kept happening.

From the Grand Fisher fight onward, the name of the game in the manga, structurally, became keeping Ichigo and Rukia apart.

The moment she was taken back to Soul Society, her prominence dropped. We got emotionally charged scenes of them regardless. Right at the conclusion, after yet another emotionally heavy set of Ichigo and Rukia interactions, we again skip almost a month, from the end of the first week in August of 2001 to September 1, 2001. (Due to some completely unnecessary timey-wimey bullshit with the Precipice World.)

In the Arrancar and Hueco Mundo arcs, they have roughly a day together over the course of three months. What happens after every meeting? They’re shuffled apart and split up, and we cut away. This time, for over a year!

Ichigo and Rukia again have a very emotionally charged meeting in the Xcution arc. And what happens at the end of that arc? We skip ahead another month to TYBW. (Xcution ended sometime in May of 2003, TYBW starts June 11, 2003.)

And in TYBW, Rukia and Ichigo barely meet up at all. Indeed, the focus is scarcely upon them.

In CFYOW, neither of them even appear, let alone have any relevance to the plot.

The implication, in my opinion, is pretty obvious: Noriaki was deathly afraid of dealing with the outcomes of their interactions, and that ultimately became him being deathly afraid of allowing them to interact at all to begin with. Why? Well, as I said in one of the last linked posts:

As an author, sometimes you will find your characters will do things you didn’t anticipate or plan for, and you’ve got two choices: you can go with the flow and do what’s natural and deal, or you can fight it and try and impose your vision anyway.

He refused to let his art take the direction it needed to go in.

Now, some people might say he got bored of them, or of having them together. I say that’s bullshit. And the reason I say is down to three things:

He didn’t ignore them, he did his best to keep them apart. I outlined this above.

He did not emphasize anything or anyone else instead. His focus was all over the place. While, admittedly, Ichigo’s prominence also declined, so did everyone else’s.

It would have served him well to focus on their interactions to expand his universe and explore its lore. The things that were detailed in the databooks and CFYOW could’ve been presented naturally and easily if they were together. But that came with a cost of shifting the focus. A cost he refused to pay.

Let’s talk more about (2) and (3) now.

Regarding (2), Chad and Orihime are inextricably linked in Bleach, because they essentially have the same relationship to Ichigo. “But Orihime loves Ichigo, and Chad is his no-homo bro!” someone proclaims. So what? They’re presented as equal and parallel at every step.

They both gain their powers at approximately the same time.

We are told they gained their powers due to the Hogyouku (in Rukia at the time) interpreting their wishes (and no one else’s, such as Tatsuki, Keigo, or Mizuiro), meaning they probably had the same strength of desire.

They both go to Soul Society “for Ichigo.”

They both utterly fail against Yammy and Ulquiorra.

They both spend most of the Hueco Mundo arc doing nothing.

They are both featured prominently in the Xcution arc, and both fail to see through Tsukishima’s powers despite their love for Ichigo. (Meanwhile, Byakuya coolly tries to murder someone who he thinks is his mentor, in Ichigo’s name.)

They both get sidelined in Hueco Mundo with Kisuke in TYBW, doing little to nothing.

They both are utterly ineffectual in the final fight in TYBW.

They are often portrayed together, they are often as effective as one another, and they are equally as developed in their relationship to Ichigo going forward, which is to say: not at all. The loss of focus on IR did not come with an attendant rise of focus on IH, any more than it did with the sudden rise of IchiChad. Nothing was built in IR’s place. There was no emotional or human content which filled its gap.

This is where the IH ending coming “out of nowhere” stems from: it indeed came out of nowhere, because Ichigo was never shown to have any interest in Orihime in all this time, nor an especially close relationship with her. He never hangs out with Chad or shows a bond with him either. He never hangs out with anyone, in fact. (Indeed, “friends” in Bleach do not do any of the things that friends actually do in real life. Nor do parents. You might say that interpersonal relationships and communication largely don’t exist in Bleach. But that’s its whole own topic.)

I would honestly say that more time and emphasis was given on Ichigo’s pseudo-surrogate mother relationship with Ikumi than was spent on him interacting with Orihime. (I would say Noriaki has serious hangups about relationships of any kind, be they romantic, familial, or friendly, and also has some severe hangups regarding mothers and fathers, but that is also its whole own topic.)

Regarding (3), Noriaki apparently wanted this big, Game of Thrones-style world with a long history and political machinations and so on. This is the whole point of TYBW and CFYOW. Trouble is, early Bleach was successful because of its small-scale intimacy. So how do you go from one to the other? You have to lay the foundations at every step. And Noriaki steadfastly refused to do so at every step. Having Ichigo and Rukia interact, and focusing on Rukia while Ichigo was sidelined without powers, would’ve permitted that organically. Indeed, if RR was the endgame, it would have given time to establish that, were it his desire. (Because Rukia never showed any interest in Renji, and frankly Renji always seemed way more preoccupied with Byakuya.) It didn’t serve his goals, but he did it anyway.

It’s much simpler to say he lost focus, and that he started to hate the manga as a whole. Why else would you have Mayuri fighting a giant hand when that achieved nothing, and Kenpachi fighting Thor when that achieved nothing? It became empty. Hollow, you might say.

But that takes us back to the question you posed: where did the ships come from? Nowhere. IH, RR, and fucking TatsuKeigo weren’t established anywhere. They just appeared. Why?

Well, why did every single character wind up doing the exact opposite of their intended and stated goals in the end?

Why did Soul Society revert to its previous attitude and rebuild the Sokyouku?

Why did nothing get resolved?

Why did nothing change?

Why was it all revealed to have been completely and utterly pointless?

In my view, it’s because that ending was a giant fuck you to the readership and Shueisha. There is no other way to interpret an author pulling a 180° and completely nullifying their characters’ arcs, and their work’s themes. Aizen’s little speech at the end is the cherry on top. I read it as Noriaki saying that he’s showing “courage” in telling us all to fuck off.

As to why? That’s an open question. His relationship with Shueisha was contentious, so maybe he was mad at them. (They gave him a deadline once he was dragging his feet, and reclassified Bleach as a joke manga.) His readership was on the decline after the Soul Society arc ended, so maybe he was mad at the audience. I don’t know. I also don’t really care. What I am convinced of is he decided to blow up his franchise and to not leave a single stone unturned when he did so.

That’s where that “ending” comes from, which is why despite it featuring IH and RR, both are thoroughly unsatisfying and without setup: it was the only way to piss absolutely everyone off, including people who wanted that outcome.

In a way, it was his greatest success since the early days of the manga.

Anyway, this was messy, but it’s not a simple topic to address. The tl;dr is that Bleach was a trainwreck from the very beginning that only succeeded on the merits of its characters, and that Noriaki deliberately avoided the promise it had to be something unique and grand. The ships are just a part of that, and cannot be understood in isolation from it.

[inspector-montoya-fox]

here’s why, in my opinion, Apollo Justice doesn’t suck

first and foremost, it has the best animation out of the entire series. the trilogy’s pixelated characters and backgrounds were suiting for its cute feel and its perky aesthetic, but weren’t like masterpieces or anything (even the HD version of the trilogy just added some gloss over the original models, nothing more). but Apollo Justice delivered. the game gave us polished, shiny character designs and refined backgrounds (Guy Eldoon, Lamiroir, the doctor’s office from Turnabout Corner, the dressing rooms from Turnabout Serenade). i could literally replay the game just to admire the artwork. it’s so perfect.

my flatmate straight-up hates the game because of what they did to Phoenix and it’s understandable because she grew up playing the trilogy. i can imagine that if you’re reading this and you too grew up playing the trilogy, you’d be miffed that i’m defending a game that turned the main character into a drunken tramp, basically. it’s like when i read posts that defend Thieves in Time (although that game has absolutely no defense whatsoever). and i get it. i was pissed off too. i get even more pissed off when i think that Capcom backed down from their initial idea of moving onto a new defense attorney’s story and then have Phoenix return for Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice, which, let’s be real, weren’t masterpieces. actually, i think Dual Destinies is the worst game in the series because it tried salvaging what was left from Apollo Justice’s catastrophic take on Phoenix’s fate as a lawyer and turning Apollo into a mere sidekick. all this being said, i’d much rather they stuck to their initial idea.

as i said in my previous essay, Trials and Tribulations wrapped up the trilogy masterfully. as such, it didn’t leave any room for a sequel. i don’t think Apollo is an interesting character. hell, i’d even say he’s boring. but, i respect the idea of moving onto a new character and his own story. i understand why they did a seven year jump and their focus on how the law has changed. it’s actually interesting to see how the respected court and the law all comes crumbling down due to the rise of wrongfully accused people and fabricated evidence, as well as how this paved the way for the existence of the jury in Turnabout Succession. and i think they could have evaded all the hate the game got by simply removing Phoenix. portray him as a living legend but don’t have him actually show up. have him rise to the ranks of Edgeworth, a respected defense attorney or chief of something. don’t turn the office into a magic shop, and don’t go behind the fans’ backs and have him adopt a daughter and then conceal the truth. it just felt like i was being disrespected for all the emotional investment i put into the trilogy. and most importantly, don’t back down from your initial idea. use Apollo Justice as a starting point, where you sow the seeds for another epic trilogy. have an Apollo Justice 5 and 6, where the events transpire into something huge, continue with the Gramarye backstory. but i guess Capcom got scared because of the backlash, so we got Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice instead, which have diluted, watered down narratives in comparison to the trilogy’s story arcs.

i know it seems like i hate Apollo Justice, but i don’t. i want you to view it as a solo game. it had four awesome cases with interesting characters, unbeatable animation, awesome music and an interesting overall story. i might think Apollo is a dull character, a blunt version of Phoenix, stripped of the fun comments and thoughts, but he’s the yin to Trucy’s yang. Trucy is an excellent assistant. and the final reveal about the two makes their relationship even more fulfilling for the character. the combination of the two characters feels refreshing, especially as the story progresses and they start getting familiar with each other. as for the rest of the cast, we get a rockstar prosecutor who is charming as hell and his psychotic brother who turns the tables on everything we’ve come to know about the series by being both a villain and a defense attorney. the defense attorneys were supposed to be the good guys..... the Gramarye stuff is also rich in lore, and the untimely death of Zak Gramarye really adds a darker tone to the game. Turnabout Succession delves deep into the seven year gap and the truth by allowing us to play as Phoenix and time-hop around. although the digital jury system felt cheap and kind of like an anticlimactic layer to the story (which was never brought up again in future games) it was the right solution for the law’s problems.

Turnabout Serenade is my favorite case from the game because Daryan Crescend’s dick-looking hair is so hot the setting is so spectacular, the hidden passages feel so Scooby-Doo-like (the Hex Girls Mystery Inc. episode!) and the motive surrounding illegal imports of miracle cocoons is so absurd it might as well feel real. honestly, the world has changed in the seven years since we played as Phoenix and it feels kinda future apocalyptic but future apocalyptic chill. it gave me Teen Titans or Loonatics Unleashed vibes. and even so, the cases feel both nostalgic and fresh. there’s just something so Phoenix Wright about murders happening real-time whilst you’re at the scene (Turnabout Serenade) or a search for stolen panties turning into a full-blown mafia story about the mob’s doctor and his blackmail (Turnabout Corner). as for gameplay, Apollo’s ability to detect lies is a great replacement for Phoenix’s magatama. the game hones the trilogy’s best elements and even adds to them, by having Ema Skye (an annoying but finally competent detective) bring back her various forensics tricks and even allowing the player to zoom in on specific areas of the locations.

so, i think the hate Apollo Justice got was undeserving. i understand why it got so much of it, but it ultimately made things worse for the franchise. sure, we got Phoenix back, but it never felt the same again. and Athena Cykes is a better Apollo, but still dull. maybe she could fix the problems caused by Apollo Justice but she didn’t. we never got to meet Apollo. Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice both tried to add some backstory to the character but failed. ok i can understand Apollo’s best friend being Clay Terran and his love for the space centre, but how the hell did he end up in Khura’in after Lamiroir abandoned him? honey, it just doesn’t work... but whatever. Apollo Justice is a great solo outing, and an even greater wasted opportunity... tragic, tbh.

[onebloodsoakedlion]

AKA: I put cyanide in your tea, but it’s not enough to even make you sick.

When anti-vaxxers start screaming “MERCURY AND ALUMINIUM!” it really pisses me off. Why? Because the mercury and aluminium in the vaccines aren’t dangerous at all. It’s not even pure mercury OR aluminium in vaccines. Both are simply PARTS of other chemicals: thimerosal (which is now removed from some vaccines) and aluminium salts respectively. So why does that matter? Because when elements such as mercury and Aluminium become parts of chemical compounds, their properties CHANGE. Aluminium, for starters, changes from a solid metal sheet to a powdery precipitate when it combines with Phosphate (which is already a combination of Phosphorous and Oxygen) to become Aluminium Phosphate. So, if the properties of chemicals change when they combine, it is quite very possible that the products become less toxic (I freaking LOVE Chemistry).

So when you anti-vaxxers start screaming “MERCURY AND ALUMINIUM”, it is one of the weakest arguments ever. Honestly, you’re gonna have to do better than that! This argument is like telling someone you put cyanide in their tea, but neglecting to tell them it wasn’t enough to hurt them. Fun Fact: Apple seeds have cyanide in them, but again, not nearly enough to make you sick. You need to eat many apple seeds in order to actually poison yourself.

EDIT: I accidently wrote mercury instead of thimerosal. What is wrong with you, brain!

More examples under the cut:

- Sodium explodes in water, Chloride is a toxic chemical weapon. Add them together and you get something we put on our food, either as a nutrient or to add flavour to our chips: Salt!

- Oxygen is one of the three things fire needs to burn. Hydrogen is a fire accelerant and highly reactive. Add them together and you get a liquid that you not only drink but use to put out fires.

- Hydrochloric acid is a very strong, corrosive acid. Sodium hydroxide is a stong base and cleaning agent. Both are toxic. Add them together in equal concentrations and you basically have salt water.

[lygerastia]

fool’s garden (Draco Malfoy

Summary:

Draco Malfoy has a slightly on and off relationship with you; but he can`t deny his growing feelings after you being there for him at the right time in the right place. Problem is, he is not sure if you like him back or not.

As a result, he makes it all confusing after an incident regarding butterflies and Herbology tests. 

But don't worry; the twins are there for you to make it all right—again.

Warnings: none (cliche, if that counts). 

Chapters: 1 [completed]

Words: 5,849.

READ IT ON AO3.

**There she is.

That fucking beautiful [Your House].

Draco Malfoy can’t help the small sigh that escapes his lips—and can’t ignore the tumble of his heart any longer. His palms feel clammy as he’s spying on his crush for so many years. Only lately has he finally realized his feelings, the two of them stuck in an unspoken rivalry.

Or, at least, they used to. 

It was all fun and games before, affection showed through glares and competitive hums; now, he noticed every little quirk of hers. The way she kept on pushing back that stray curl of hers, how her eyes absorbed the sunlight, how her lips moved—and the sensible urge to kiss her. He kept thinking of how her hand greatly would fit in his, and how that would make him feel: joy, comfort, finally giving him the peace of mind he kept on seeking. Draco was never one for romance. He wasn’t one to waste time with silly little stuff while Lord Voldemort’s rising was nigh—he had so many things on his mind, fighting with his heart to stay on the right path...

Today, it gave up.

[Name]. A simple (yet amazing) [Your House] who often shared classes with him—and who always seemed keen on outsmarting him. He had no idea why: he would’ve barely notice her if she didn’t make her presence known so loudly. But she won a Quidditch match against him once and it pissed him off; especially when she offered him a pitying smirk as he was (grudgingly) congratulating her team’s victory.

“Maybe next time you can beat me, Malfoy.”

From then on, he kept a close eye on [name]: who were her friends, her favorite places, how she studied, what was she doing. He wasn’t doing it intentionally—after that fateful Quidditch match, he kept on bumping into her. As if fate’s door finally opened and started spawning her continuously. He noticed her at the cafeteria, eating with her friends and laughing at their jokes. He noticed her in the library, quietly studying and looking in her element. The way the light fell on her—even then, he couldn’t help but think she was beautiful, with her lips parted in thought, and a crease above her eyes. He’d shake these thoughts away, not wanting to be fooled by one thing: that she wasn’t as sweet as she wanted to make you believe.

Because, when she was on the field, her personality did a 180. She got competitive and brash and cocky, not taking shit from anyone—and clearly knowing how to play. Despite himself, Draco admired her for her skills and how she could take a loss: with a smile and a ‘Well, you had me. Good game.’ That redeemed her in his eyes, but still—the competition between them grew with each match, each year. She was the Seeker, she was the star; and he couldn’t take a beating without muddling his family’s name.

A thing that he couldn’t allow.

It went on, back and forth, bitter and teasing words thrown whenever they met. Their relationship was a source of amusement for the others, betting on whether they’re gonna shag later or not. Most believed that they’ll end up together—which they vehemently denied, of course. Gradually, they grew up as persons, Malfoy falling deep into his dark feelings, while [name] focused more on her career. They didn’t have time to insult each other childishly, even if they missed their innocence. Now, they tolerated each other’s presence like normal people, in quiet, as humans. Some could even say they were ‘friends’, greeting each other on the corridor.

Maybe, even daring to compare notes...

Everything was stale and boring for a period, both lost in their own worlds. People around were regretting their separation, but there wasn’t anything they could do about it. Those fun times were over.

Yet the thing that reconnected them...

...was when he broke down in the bathroom one day, crying his heart out, and she stumbled upon him.  “Malfoy...?” she said, carefully approaching him. He turned around, afraid and embarrassed someone spotted him in his weakest of moments. And her, of all persons—he was known throughout the school as fearless, no one dared to talk back to him. He had a reputation to maintain. However, when he noticed the warmth and gentleness in her [e/c] eyes and crumbled underneath that gaze.

“I’m lost,” he mumbles through chapped lips, trembling like a leaf in the wind.

Draco expected her to laugh, to make fun of his weakness; instead, the [h/c]-haired girl simply and confidently steps towards him, arms open.

“You don’t need to explain yourself.”

She waits for his cue; and, not surprisingly, he takes it. He embraces her, holding tightly, burying his nose in her hair. He inhales deeply, the soothing aroma calming him. His tears dry out as he crushes her to his chest, never wanting to let go. All this time, she has been his anchor. She came at the right time and he’s grateful for it. Especially since she’s showing more emotion than any of his Slytherin comrades ever did. She caresses his back, not daring to whisper anything of comfort; he did not need words. He needed someone to be there for him.

And she was.

Lucky him. Without another word, they parted, [name] letting Draco recompose himself. She asked for no explanations until he was ready—yet he never will be. The matter of Death Eaters was rather delicate. He could never say that out loud and she won’t understand. But there’s one thing he says to her, the next day when they meet in a rather secluded place.

“Don’t tell anyone about yesterday, got it?” he barks, trying to look menacing. He’s not going to show any weakness, especially not to her. So he reverts to his old meanie self, despite being a gentle soul deep inside.

She grins as a response, “Only if you become my friend.”

The request took him by surprise, but he accepted (with butterflies in his stomach) nonetheless. If that would shut her up, then so be it. He could tolerate her presence and smile; and all the things that made him like her.

That’s the story of how they got close, studying together and sharing jokes. Caring about each other’s feelings, even if Draco never shared what was bothering him. She bragged about her dreams of being a Quidditch player to drag his mind away from his problems. He snorted more often than not, acting as if he didn’t care; but she didn’t seem to mind any longer. He secretly supported her and he’d probably do anything to help her reach her goals. She deserved it for that moment of compassion she showed after how shitty he acted before with her. He’ll never be able to repay her.

Not in a million years.

**

She was silly. And he liked it.

At the same time, she was fucking annoying him. Why her? She was no one special, a half-witch with no prestige. The Malfoy’s were pure-bloods with a reputation to uphold. That was how he was raised to believe. But now, with [name] around, his beliefs were shaken to the core. He wanted to have her; but was he allowed to?

Her positiveness told him that he could. His mind—

“Why are you standing there for, Malfoy?” Her voice, serene, warm, wakes him from his daydream. He forgot where he was. Today, they were about to study for Herbology; and what better place than the school’s own garden?

“It’s a date,” she joked around, mostly trying to cheer him up. He hoped it meant more, his heart aching for that big step in their relationship. Sometimes, he even felt she liked him the same way he did; but then she’d crush those feelings when she’d hang around the Weasley twins. It made him seethe with anger and green jealousy. He could never compare to those red-heads: she’d laugh more often, she’d joke and flirt and throw them romantic glances.

But she didn’t look at them with the same warmth as when gazing at Draco—and how she listened to his stories…

He wanted to believe.

“Yeah. It’s a date…” he tried to joke, but there was no humor in his laughter.

“Something wrong, Draco?”

The blonde boy liked the way his name rolled off her tongue—he enjoyed the transition from Malfoy to Draco. It felt intimate; and this affection-starved lonely boy relished in that feeling.

As a response, he could only nod.

There he was. Or rather—there she was. The girl who owned his heart stayed on a bench under a tree, shadowing her from the stinging sun. She had a book in her lap, her [color of the House] cloak discarded right next to her. She has been reading until he arrived; now, her beautiful eyes were trained on his figure, a tiny smirk gracing her mouth. She uncrossed her legs, arranging her skirt (making sure he wasn’t going to sneak a peek). Sleeves of her shirt up to her arm, she runs a hand through her locks—so familiar of her.

“You ok? You’re kind of spacing out,” she looks worried. “If you’re not feeling well, we can do this another time. The test is in a few weeks, anyway, and it’s not like it’s my forte—”

“I’m not going to let you fail this.” Draco scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest.

Surprisingly, he was confident in Herbology. And he couldn’t pass this chance to spend more time in her presence. “And I’m fine. We’re doing this, like promised.”

“A Malfoy always keeps his promises, huh?” she chuckles.

He responds while walking toward her, “Something like that.” He stops in front of her, staring down. “Move.”

“Ah, yes!” she removes her cloak and bag, wedging it between her and the armrest. Then she pats the empty seat. “There you go.”

He tries hard not to blush as he sits down on the designated spot. He opens his bag, getting his books ready, advising her to do the same.

“You’re direct, huh?” she jokes, not bothering to bend down and get her manuals.

“We’ve wasted enough time and we got a lot to cover,” he explains, opening the tome at where he believed was the right place to start.

“Relax, Malfoy.” He looks at her as she’s staring up at the cloaked sky, a soft smile on her lips.“We should enjoy nature a bit more.”  He’s not really an outdoor person, but he stops for a second and looks around at the lush foliage. He had to give credit where it was due: Hogwarts had an impressive collection of plants (mostly not-dangerous). Not to mention all of the harmless creatures feeding on the greenery—

Then there were the colorful and oh-so-normal butterflies.

All of a sudden, he feels serene and the weight of the world lifts for a moment off his chest. Draco lets out a small sigh, wanting for this moment to last forever. He feels [name]’s warmth next to him, her hand slightly touching his unintentionally, and he feels at home.

What if he did actually deserve nice things?

“That’s more like it. You’re finally relaxed.”

His heart swells with affection and love—at that moment, he was ready to confess. But when he looks at her, he remembers why he didn’t do it until now in the first place. He’ll needlessly put her in danger. His family will never accept her. He doesn’t deserve an awesome and kind person like her.

In his mind, it was all true.

All he can do is ignore her statement, “You finished, then?”

“Fiiiine, you grouch,” she laughs—like crystal bells—finally bending over to pick her books. “Let’s do this.”

**

It was quiet—too quiet.

A while has passed since they’ve started studying and, at first, [name] couldn’t stop flapping her mouth about useless stuff. Draco had no idea what got her so excited today; she talks way more than usual. Was she nervous? She had no reason to be. She’d acted just fine until now.

What was wrong with her?

He wanted to know the answer, but he doesn’t dare to ask. She probably won’t tell him, either way. So he listened, impatiently, while also trying to divert her back on track; they were here to study, not to have a fancy little chat over Butterbeer. After a while (and after seeing he was getting rather pissed off by her attitude and he was this close to leaving), she conceded and they started properly studying. This time, he patiently explained whatever she didn’t understand until she had enough: she was going to study on her own. He shrugged at her dismissive attitude. After all, he didn't mind getting lost in his thoughts; it gave him time to think about her, about the proximity between them, how she breathed, how she spoke, how—ugh, EVERYTHING.

He got so lost in his daydreams that he didn’t notice the silence until it was too late. It unnerved him.

Time for a break.

Draco closed his book—then yawned.

“[name]—”

Oh.

His heart took a tumble and he felt his temperature rising in his cheeks. [name] was asleep—of course she was, this was a cliché story. She was clutching the book to her body, but it was at risk of falling. A light breeze was ruffling some loose strands of hair; but the one thing that caught his immediate attention was that her rosy lips were slightly parted—and so tempting. He’d only want to touch them with his own, just bend down for just a small taste. Was that too much to ask?

Fuck, she was beautiful.

A small butterfly flew over her head, circling. Draco watched it with interest, trying not to disturb it. He held his breath as the little insect perched itself onto her nose. His eyes widened, staring at the combined beauty: her sleeping form and the colorful wings of the butterfly warmed his heart. It was a picture he couldn’t describe in words, only in feelings. If she were awake, he’d probably spill it all out.

But she wasn’t and he had no reason to ruin their relationship. Even if he’ll lose her to another.

More butterflies make their way toward her, settling on her brow, in her hair—covering everything. He wasn’t going to allow that, despite what he was feeling at the moment. He gently hovers a hand over the cloud of color—and they immediately disperse, leaving her warm and serene. Just how he liked her best. The butterflies now dance around him, undeterred, attempting to land on her again—the blond-haired boy stands up, brushing his hands around to disperse the crowd. They’re obstinate, though: they keep on fluttering about, touching her skin. It was getting rather frustrating. He huffs in annoyance: what was going on here? These creatures were acting crazy: have they been enchanted?

“Hell—” he curses, not afraid to bring his wand out. He waits, though, too distracted to think—or hear the approaching footsteps. It’s too late to dodge out of the way now; and, obviously, Draco doesn’t even realize what happened and who were the culprits. All he knows is the second he feels someone push him forcefully forward. The next thing, he’s holding his breath as he’s losing balance, the target in front of him obvious: her. He can’t stop now; all he can do is brace for it, arms outstretched. He doesn’t want to wake her and he does his best to avoid an impact. His palms land heavily on the back of the bench, and he winces; he can’t stop his body completely and he’s lurching forward, eyes closed.

“Shit,” he mutters under his breath, making sure he was perfectly balanced above her before opening his eyes.

He finds himself staring into a [e/c] hue.

“Dra—co?” [name]’s voice is tentatively innocent and shy—her pink spreading blush on her cheeks wasn’t helping. But she regains her composure soon enough, quickly putting on her usual confident (and cheeky) mask. “What are you doing?” There’s amusement (and embarrassment) in her voice, but the blush wasn’t going away.

And his wasn’t going away either.

“Some guys—uhh, there were some butterflies, enchantment—” he trails off, at a loss. He can’t focus with her so close—if he leaned forward a bit, he’d kiss her. The desire rings in his mind, like an alarm—just…

…one…

He was the one being enchanted, surely. “The butterflies were—”

“I don’t see any?”

‘Of course not’, he thinks. It always happens when it’s convenient. The butterflies were gone, and he doesn’t need to look around to know that. Whoever planned this (he had no doubt there was a conspiracy here) came prepared.

“Well, um—there were! And someone pushed and I fell—” his eyes widened, filled with emotions. His heart is ready to burst. “I fell for you.”

Her mouth opens in surprise, her blush intensifying into a dark red. He can't believe he actually said that. He was such a fool. But it was out on the open now and it was up to her to grab the opportunity. She smirks, though, playing it cool and confident, as usual.

Hiding. 

“You mean, fell on me?” she chuckles.

Draco realizes how stupid he sounded and the waste of him trying to confess to her indirectly. He didn’t know what he should’ve—it didn’t work out. So, slightly hurt, he does what he knows best when he’s defending his feelings: he lashes out.

With indignation, he pushes himself up, missing her perfume and her soft breath against his mouth. He gives her a glare and a scoff, brushing invisible threads of his collar.

“That’s what I meant. Wash your ears.”

[name] blinks, confused then slightly pissed, “You don’t need to be rude.” She pouts. “What got you so angry?”

“Nothing,” he snaps, huffing dejectedly. Of course she doesn’t like him. He was stupid to believe that she was interested in a Slytherin with problems like him. His heart is broken—and he doesn’t like to feel miserable. He wants to get away. “I think this session is over, seeming that you fell asleep.” Quickly, he grabs his stuff. “See you next time.” With that, he pointedly turns on his heels and stomps away, ignoring the pain in his chest.

“Wait, Draco—What did I do?!”

But he’s gone before she could get an answer. She sighs: well, this has been a disaster. Sure, [name] clearly heard Draco saying he fell for her. But a part of her didn’t—couldn’t­—believe he was interested in her. Their relationship has been rocky from the start (mostly because she has been crushing on him since the first year?)—she didn’t mean to antagonize the boy. It’s just that she couldn’t handle her emotions very well. Luckily, now they were on speaking terms and rather close.

So what did she do to fuck it up?

It was just that—she sighs again, running her fingers through her hair—she didn’t want Draco to play with her feelings. What if he wasn’t telling her the truth?

Doubts crept inside her heart, biting her nail as she was thinking. It’s not as if she didn’t want to kiss him: it was very tempting. But—

But—

“What the hell, [name]?”

Fred. George.

Two of her closest friends, of course. They came from the bushes where they were hiding with displeasure written all over their faces. This whole ‘study-date-confession-plan’ has been their idea.  She agreed, albeit reluctantly, but she had her doubts. It took her every ounce of courage to do this—and guess what, she failed.

She crossed her arms, defensive. “What? It didn’t work,” she pouted, acting indifferent. “Told you it was a bad idea.”

The twins rolled their eyes. “I heard him tell you he fell for you,” Fred comments.

“A trick—”

“You’re an idiot, aren’t you?” George sighs, shaking his head in hopelessness. “You should’ve just answered—”

“Oh, Draco Malfoy, I love you too!” Fred cooed in a high-pitched voice, putting his hands together. “Kiss me, you handsome stud!”

He then proceeded to purse his lips and make kissing noises. She rolls her eyes, but there was a smile on those lips of hers.

“Stop it,” she says eventually. He does so. “Draco doesn’t like me. I know that now.”

“Weren’t we part at the same conversation?” George shakes his head.

“He sounded pretty interested to me,” Fred adds.

“That was not a proper confession.” She feels bitter. “I expected something else...”

“He didn’t do anything cause you scared him away.”

“Yeah, he got angry because you acted like this was a joke.”

“You think Draco liked that?”

“Bruised his manly ego.”

“...”

She felt bad, even if doubts kept creeping in. She couldn’t get rid of them. [name] had a hunch that he may have been attracted to her (to some degree), but she couldn’t believe a guy like him would like—her. Still, she felt as if she should apologize to Draco.

“You’re not very suave, miss [name],” the twins laugh in unison.

“Shut up!” she barks, standing up and gathering her stuff. “I’m going to go find him.”

And she’s off without another word. The Weasley twins look at each other.

“This won’t do.”

“This won’t do at all.”

**

She didn’t find him anywhere. Not in the Great Hall, not in their secret place, not in bathrooms, not outside—nowhere.

With a strange feeling in her chest, she resigned for the day, knowing that he won’t be found if he doesn’t want to. [name] goes to her bed, spreads on it and stares at the ceiling, heart heavy. She didn’t want to upset him, yet she did. If what the twins said was true and if he truly liked her...

“Dammit, [name]…"

What did you do?

**

After a sleepless night, she makes her way downstairs, into the Main Hall. Yawning, she blindingly makes her way towards her House’s table and sits down. Still slightly woozy, she puts food on her plate, uncaring of what she ate—she picks up the fork, puts something in her mouth, when two figures join her on either side of her.

“We don’t want to make your day bad, but—” One starts.

“—Look at the Slytherin table.” The other finishes.

“Whas’mfgoing’n?” she says with a full mouth. Then turns her head around anyway. She chokes on the grub when her eyes land on Draco—on Draco and another girl. She was an unknown Slytherin, blonde with a bubbly attitude; and she was latching onto Malfoy’s arm as if she owned him. The problem wasn’t with the girl (he had lots of fans and it wasn’t abnormal for them to fawn over him), but with him: he was giving her attention. She was witnessing another side of Draco—one that actually flirted back. He was smiling at the blonde girl and talking to her, his gaze warm.

(at this point, her imagination was probably running wild)

She swallows, then asks, full of jealousy, “Who’s her?”

Fred complies, “A Slytherin by the name of Wanda.”

“I see.” She pouts, giving her the stink eye. “Since when were they friends?”

“Since yesterday, probably,” George steals a tomato off her plate, but she doesn’t mind. “You really broke the poor boy’s heart, didn’t you?”

“I—I did not! He—He’s overreacting. She’s probably—” he leans over to her, whispering something in the blonde’s ear. “The audacity!”

“Calm down!” Fred holds her by the shoulder (she was attracting unwanted attention) as she wants to just stomp there and—and nothing. She realizes the futility of it all.

“You did it to yourself,” George only rubs salt into her wound. Fred punches him in the arm.

“All these years...” she sighs. “For nothing.” 

“I don’t think he moved on that easily.”

“I was just a silly crush if it was ever true.” She shouldn’t feel sad, but she is. What did this girl have that she didn’t? She honestly didn’t want to think that yesterday was the fissure in their relationship. “Aaagh, I’m so stupid...”

“Talk to him.”

“He won’t like that.”

“Go on.”

“He’ll like to see you interested.”

“I—” Fred doesn’t take shit from her and pulls her up gently. [name] takes a deep breath and calms herself down, putting on her usual confident mask. She was good at that, even if her heart was usually hammering all the time with anxiety. “Ok. I’ll just apologize like I wanted to.”

And ask him on another study date, to make it up for it.

[name] purposefully walks over to the table, ignoring the stares she was getting. She had no reason to respond to them or give them attention; they were just jealous that she was kicking their ass at Quidditch. That, she was very proud of. All that the other kids could see was a cocky girl who knew her worth; when, in fact, she just wanted someone to give her affection and take the burden off her shoulders. She stops in front of Draco and Wanda, adjusting the bag on her shoulder. Draco notices her—of course he does, he was aware of her ever since she came into the room—but makes sure his face is impassive and uninterested.

[name] clears her throat, “Hey, Draco!” She’s trying to sound as cheerful as possible. The boy’s blonde companion turns around, still not letting him go ([name] grits her teeth in annoyance), and glares at the unwanted guest. The [h/c]-haired girl continues to stare at the blond boy.

“[name],” Draco responds, at least giving her that. But nothing she could say could mend his broken heart.

“You ditched me yesterday,” [name] laughs, her joke falling flat.

“We were finished, as far as I remembered.” Draco, feeling rather self-aware, removes his arm from Wanda’s. Ok, so he was acting rather childish after yesterday. He should’ve known better, that [name] won’t like him ever—but he couldn’t help but lash out when he was hurt. He had to show her what she was missing out on. It was a little thing he could do; and it helped him ignore the tiny hope that was in his heart that, when she sees he’s ignoring her, she’ll be the one that will seek him out.

Seems like it worked? Was she jealous?

He hoped.

“OK,” she inhales deeply. “I’m really sorry for that!” she announces, looking serious. “I—I’m sorry I fell asleep and—umm...” she can’t say it. Not in front of so many people. “Can we meet later and—talk?” 

Fine, she wanted to just end this and figure things out. If he really meant something more romantic...

Draco stands up as an answer, sneering. “I think not. I have other plans.” He glances at Wanda, who smiles beautifully. She follows his lead, standing up and clinging once again to his arm (which he rejects, afraid that’ll only anger [name]). “Maybe some other time.”

He goes past her, keeping his chin up (it takes a lot of self-control not to fall at her feet and accept her apology, like any normal human being). Wanda follows, giving [name] a glare and a triumphant smile.

“Ok, see ya...” she waves sadly after them, feeling stupid for even trying.

Oh well. Time to go to her comfort zone for a while.

**

“So, what do you want to do, Draco?” Wanda is trailing to his side, acting all cute (and clearly trying to get into his pants).

He’s not impressed, and he drops the flirtatious act, “We’re done.”

“What?” the blonde whines, confused.

Draco Malfoy simply leaves her there, ignoring her calls (and threats). He had only one thing in his mind, pondering it over and over with a fluttering heart: she came for me. It didn’t seem like a big step, but he was confident it was going in the right direction. Sure, he still had his doubts: he wasn’t convinced she had feelings for him. But there was something there. He could feel it in his bones. He just had to ignore her and act distant for a few moments (too much and he’ll lose her forever) and she’ll run into his arms, crying.

At least, that was how he imagined it. Will it work?

Maybe. He didn’t plan on this happening. He was hurt and she used another girl to cope with it, thinking that he’ll eventually forget his big crush. It was a start. And he wasn’t going to wallow in his despair any longer; he had other problems he needed to face and [name] was not going to be one of them. He found Wanda quickly, a long admirer of his. He struck a conversation; he didn’t imagine [name] will come up to him as soon as she noticed what was going on. It made his heart beat faster with ‘She cares’ and all thoughts of revenge and hurt were pushed aside. This didn’t seem healthy and he felt as stupid as a puppy.

But he couldn’t help himself. He was in love with [name].

Ok, maybe he acted a bit too like a jerk—he shouldn’t have blown her off. But he felt satisfied when he told her he had other plans with another girl. Her pained face—

No. Actually no, he didn’t like that. It wasn’t her fault he blurted that thing out with ‘I fell for you’ and that she didn’t know how to react. It wasn’t easy to confess and be confessed to out of the blue. He should’ve taken a better approach and didn’t act so butthurt.

He regrets it all.

“Dammit, Malfoy...” he grits his teeth and walks faster.

He had to make amends.

**

He got restless, he can’t deny it.

She was nowhere, not in the Great Hall, not in their secret place, not in bathrooms, not outside—nowhere.

Where was she?

He stops for a few seconds on the stairs, thinking about places he didn’t think about before. He could think of none. As much as he tried, nothing came to mind; and he was getting rather desperate. Where would she be? What does she usually like to spend time? The library—but he already tried there. And the Quidditch field—he didn’t think he’d waste her time there. Plus, she’s not exactly allowed there if there’s no practice. So where could she—

Butterflies.

OF COURSE!

He has no idea where the colorful creatures with their beautiful wings came from, but he thanks whoever conjured them. That was one place he didn’t search; and he was 99% sure she was there. Duh. Why didn’t he think about it earlier?

It all makes sense.

He makes a run for it. He had to find her. He has to know and he can’t wait.

This is the day Draco Malfoy will confess to the beautiful [Full name].

**

She sighs for the hundredth of time today. She should really stop doing this. So what if Malfoy rejected her offer of peace today? It didn’t mean he hated her—he has other friends other than her. If she could call herself ‘a friend’. Nevermind that now. Wanda’s intentions were clear, but maybe Draco wasn’t aware of them. Or, who knew, maybe he really was interested in the blonde.

Who knew?

She’d keep positive for now.

“[name]!”

“Hm?”

Footsteps, someone running, pants—she turns her head to the source of the noise. No one knew she was in this part of the garden; this was probably her favorite place to hang out (and think). It was a rather isolated place, not a lot of people wandering around. So she was surprised—no. She wasn’t. Because there was one person who knew about this place.

“Draco?” she calls when he sees him coming through the foliage after he fought with a big leaf for a few seconds. She chuckled at that. “What are you doing here?”

“Shut up,” he breathes out, bending over to catch his breath. “Let me—”

“Alright,” she shrugs. Despite that calm exterior, she felt butterflies in his stomach. He came to her. She thought he had plans with Wanda—seems like...

He came to her. She was glad.

“Ok,” he finally catches a bit of breath and stomps toward her, sitting cutely on the bench. The light fell on her face, brightening up her gem eyes. The blonde stops for a few seconds, admiring her. He couldn’t wait to touch her a lot more often from now on. He’s confident (ignore the doubts, ignore the doubts, ignore) that this will work and that nothing could go wrong. “This—You—”

“Relax, Draco,” she pats the spot next to her on the bench. “We have plenty of time to talk.”

As if they didn’t know what about.

He straightens, exhaling one more time to give himself the necessary courage. He doesn’t take her advice; instead, he walks purposefully in front of her. She lifts her eyes, smiling. The way she cocks her head to the side—cutely—makes him act recklessly. He leans over, grabs her face—

“Mhm—” she lets out a squeak of surprise as their lips clumsily mash together. Despite her initial reluctance, she melts under Draco’s passion, calmly resting her hands in her lap. Draco’s mind is electrified by the smoothness of her lips—it was better than he ever imagined. And fuck yeah, he was finally kissing her, exceeding his expectations. His heart was aflutter and he was quickly losing his breath. He was overwhelmed and soon, he has to part from the sweet fruit of her mouth to take a deep breath and stop his mind from dizzying.

“I should’ve done this a long time ago,” he whispers, dazed.

“Why didn’t you?” There’s a large smile on her face, shrouded by sadness; the same could apply to her. She patiently waited—for now, at least. She’s not ready to unleash her full affection.

Instead of an answer, he leans over and kisses her again to shut her up. This time, the kiss was slower, each enjoying what they missed until now. A warm fuzzy feeling rises in his chest, spreading over to his chest; he could feel her doing the same, [name] holding her breath. He parts, looking at her through half-lidded eyes.

She remains with her eyes closed, not ready to face him.

“I don’t want this to end,” the girl whispered, mesmerized.

“It won’t.”

The blonde Slytherin sits down next to her on the bench, not-so-shyly grabbing her hand in his. She giggles, embarrassed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“I’ll kiss you again,” he tells her, aching with want.

She nods. “Go ahead.”

They kiss softly, they kiss passionately, they kiss in whichever ways they want—all while butterflies danced unaware around them and two sets of chuckles could be heard from somewhere around.

Good.

–

[masterlist]

[katedoesfics]

Shadows of the Future | Chapter 4

Seven Years Later...

He stared down at the body at his feet. He felt the panic start to rise in his chest, causing his heart to race and his stomach to twist sickeningly. He tried to speak, to yell, to cry, but when he opened his mouth, nothing came out. The world was silent; all he could hear was his pulse in his ears. He shook his head, stepping away from the body. He didn’t need confirmation from anyone, for he knew that he had killed that man. He was bad, just like they had said. He had proved that, to them, to himself. He didn’t mean to do it. He didn’t even know how he did it. But now, that man was dead, and he would be next. They would hunt him. They would find him. And they would kill him.

He stumbled over his own feet in panic, falling backwards against the wall. He tore his gaze away from the body, then scrambled to his feet, hurrying out the door and into the cold, dark night. He ran as far from the house as he could, across the grass and into the nearby woods. But as soon as he stepped into the treeline, the darkness became too great, suffocating him. He could hear voices; their voices. Her voice. Voices he couldn’t possibly begin to explain, or even understand, for her voice was in a different language completely.

Despite it all, her voice was soothing. He wanted to find her voice. He thought he would be safe with her. But just as every other time he found himself in the woods, he only got lost searching for her, and eventually, the darkness swallowed him completely until he heard nothing at all.

That was when he was supposed to wake up. He had had the dream so often that he learned to recognize that he was, in fact, dreaming, though this never changed the terror he felt. But he was still there, dreaming, stuck in a dark, soundless void, and that only caused his terror to grow exponentially.

But her voice came to him again, and this time, he understood her.

“Have faith in me like I have faith in you. Your son will be the Chosen Hero, but you are destined for greatness, for he cannot succeed without you. Only you have the courage and strength to do what needs to be done. Do not run; let me guide you. Let me give you the life you deserve.”

Rusl awoke with a start. His pillow was wet with sweat and his heart was racing. But he was used to this. He didn’t wait for his body to recover, but threw the blankets off of him and quickly jumped out of bed. He practically ran through the sleeping house until he was outside. He didn’t stop until he reached the paddock fence where he leaned against it to catch his breath.

After a moment, he was able to steady himself, and still leaning on the fence, he moved his gaze to the horses standing quietly in the paddock. They were no longer sleeping, but had their curious eyes turned toward him, annoyed that he had disturbed them.

“Psst. Hylik.”

Rusl glanced over his shoulder. He watched as Regan stepped out of the barn. A cigarette hung from his mouth and he was pulling twine from around his arm.

“Whadda ya doin’?”

“Not having a good a time as you, apparently,” Rusl muttered.

Regan grinned. When he reached Rusl’s side, he stumbled forward and used the paddock fence to steady himself. He offered the twine and a needle to Rusl, but Rusl shook his head.

“Your loss,” he said with a shrug.

Rusl turned his gaze back to the horses. Some had drifted back to sleep, while others opted for a midnight snack, grazing quietly on the grass.

“So, whadda ya doin’?”

“Nothing,” Rusl muttered. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Yanno what helps with that?” Regan didn’t wait for Rusl to answer. “A good blow job.”

“I prefer women.”

“Ha.” Regan brought his cigarette to his lips. “You’re a funny one. Real funny lookin’ with those stupid ears of yours.”

Rusl sighed softly through his nose. He was too tired to deal with Regan’s shit. He turned and leaned his back against the fence. “What are you doing?”

“Gettin’ fucked up,” he said with the cigarette in his mouth. “The fuck’s it look like?” He pulled the cigarette out and spit on the ground. “Hey. So, has she said anything to you? You know. ‘Cuz she talks to ya. That’s what’s with the ears, right?” He grinned and pressed closer in an attempt to taunt him. “She tellin’ ya to live ya best damn life, hm?”

“Fuck off,” Rusl muttered, pushing at Regan’s shoulder.

Regan snickered. “I mean, if you can’t hear her, then I guess it’s all a bunch of bullshit, in’it?”

Rusl shrugged. “Probably.” He stepped around Regan.

“Hey! Where ya goin’?”

But Rusl didn’t respond. Though he wasn’t anxious to go back to sleep, anywhere was better than dealing with Regan’s Hylik shit.

Rusl did manage to catch a few more hours of sleep before his alarm went off at the ass-crack of dawn. In his groggy state, he managed to dress and trudge downstairs to help himself to some toast before he made his way outside to begin the morning’s chores.

Feeding the animals came first. He was so familiar with the routine, that he usually did it half asleep, not completely waking up until he was finished. His body moved automatically as he first tended to the horses, throwing them their hay for the morning and giving them their grain. As they ate in their stalls, he continued on to fill the cucuos feed and water, throwing them a few fresh flakes of straw, before moving on to the goats, sheep, and pigs, repeating the same process. When this was finished, he turned the horses back into their paddocks, and opened up the coops for the cucuos, allowing them to wander around the property and peck and the bugs in the dirt.

By this point, it was mid-morning, and he helped himself to a stray apple in the feed room before making his way to the hay barn. Most of the hay had already been gathered and baled over the last couple of weeks, which meant it was ready to be stacked neatly inside, protected from the elements until it was ready to be used. To his surprise, Regan was already in the barn, tossing bales around without a care as to where they ended up. More often than not, Rusl was the first in the barn, Regan usually not showing up for an hour later.

But Regan was not alone, a young boy at his side. They were arguing with one another until Karsen opted to end the shouting with his two middle fingers, and Regan laughed. Karsen stormed away, climbing up the hay bales and to the highest point he could.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” Regan said as Rusl made his way over to him. “It’s about time you show up.”

“And why are you here so early?” Rusl asked.

“Got an early fix in,” Regan said simply

“Is this where you hide your stash?” Karsen was climbing the hay bales, peeking between them with a grin. He reached his hand down, then frowned when he found nothing.

“The porn stash or the drug stash?” Regan said casually. He threw a hay bale carelessly over his shoulder.

Rusl glared at Regan, but Regan ignored him. Rusl placed the bale properly with the other bales as Regan continued to fling them behind him.

“Get off of the bales,” Rusl growled at Karsen.

“The fuck you gonna do about it?” Karsen sneered. He was high above them, but was beginning his climb down, jumping from bale to bale. As he neared the bottom, the bales were looser as the two older boys stacked them. They shifted under his weight, causing him to lose his balance. He stumbled forward, losing his footing, and promptly fell between the bales with a yelp.

Rusl reached a hand between the bales and pulled the boy out from between them. He gasped and kicked and pulled himself out of Rusl’s grip.

“Hey, fuck you, I didn’t need your help.”

“You’re fucking eight years old,” Rusl hissed. “Stop talking like that, you little shit.”

“I’m fucking twelve!” Karsen corrected him.

“Don’t you have fucking shit to do?” Regan sneered. “Or do I have to tell Telma you’re fucking off?”

Karsen fumed quietly, but without argument, he left them alone in the hay barn.

Rusl turned back to his work as another hay bale came barreling towards him. He steadied himself on the pile as he caught the bale and put it into place. “Will you cut the shit?” he sneered at Regan.

“What are you gonna do about it, Hylik?” Regan taunted. “Strike me down with your Hylia-voodoo?”

Rusl lept down from the hay bales and promptly shoved Regan against the barn wall, his hands around his friend’s neck. Regan choked, but grinned, and quickly snatched the knife that Rusl kept in his back pocket. The blade flipped out as Regan pressed it against Rusl’s neck, and Rusl’s grip loosened.

“How the fuck you get this back?” Regan said, pressing it deeper into Rusl’s flesh until it started to bleed slightly.

“I took it,” Rusl sneered. He did not pull away.

After a moment, Regan removed the blade, folding it back into place. As he did so, Rusl stepped back, moving his hands from Regan’s neck. He snatched the blade out of Regan’s hand and slipped it back into his pocket. He turned back to the remaining hay bales and continued to stack them.

“Telma’s gonna kick your ass,” Regan said with a tone of disinterest. He, too, resumed their work.

“You gonna rat me?”

“I’m not a bitch.”

Rusl grinned. “That’s news to me.”

“I’d rather be a bitch than a Hylik.”

“Go back to Termina, prick.”

“Why don’t you just go to the city where all your little friends are? You’re not wanted anywhere else.”

“Look who’s talking,” Rusl grunted.

Regan grinned. “I don’t need a fucking family to fit in with the rest of the world. You freaks are dying out.”

“Then what do you care?” Rusl sneered.

Regan shrugged. “Because it pisses you the fuck off, and I like it.”

“You’re just mad because you don’t have Hylia-voodoo.”

“Nice try. You don’t, either. Only the Shik do, and they’re just as bad as you Hyliks.”

“Say that to a Sheikah’s face.”

“I’d rather not even be within five miles of one.”

“Scared?” Rusl grinned.

Regan wiggled his fingers in the air before tossing another bale at Rusl. “I wouldn’t be so proud if I were you.”

Rusl’s brows furrowed. He picked up the bale and put it in place. “I’m not.”

“We could fix that, you know.” Regan pointed to Rusl’s ears and made a sawing motion.

“Fuck off.”

Regan grinned and shrugged. “Fortunately, I don’t have to look at your stupid face for much longer.”

Rusl snorted. “I’m sure I’ll see yours in jail soon enough.”

“At least I won’t have to pay rent.”

“That’s your plan?”

“What’s yours?”

Rusl hesitated. He turned and met Regan’s gaze.

“Telma only owns your ass until you’re eighteen. Did you expect to stay here forever?”

“What do you care what I do?”

Regan put a hand on Rusl’s shoulder and grinned. When he spoke, he spoke with a slight twang, mocking Telma’s accent. “Because we’re troubled souls, and we gotta look out for each other, man. If we don’t learn how to be better people, what’s left for us?”

“I’m a delight,” Rusl said with a tone of heavy sarcasm. “Compared to you, I’m the Queen of fucking Hyrule.”

Regan shrugged. “At least I never killed a guy,” he said.

Rusl pulled his shoulder out of Regan’s grip. He looked up, catching sight of Telma as she stood in the doorway of the barn. Her expression was serious, yet soft.

“Rusl, can we talk?”

Rusl hesitated, glancing over at Regan for a moment before leaving him alone in the barn. He followed Telma as she walked around the barn and toward the back paddocks where the horses were grazing quietly.

“What?” Rusl asked simply when she stopped walking.

Telma regarded him with sadness in her eyes. “Rusl. I got word early this morning that your father died.”

Rusl stared blankly at her. He waited for her to say more, but when she didn’t, he responded in the only way he knew how. “Okay.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Telma asked carefully.

Rusl considered her offer for a moment. “How?”

Telma hesitated. She searched his eyes. “He overdosed.”

Rusl grinned, then laughed. Telma’s frown deepened.

“Rusl -”

“Of course he fucking did,” Rusl said. “Did anyone really expect anything else? The guy’s a fucking straight up addict. He had it coming.”

Telma opened her mouth to speak further, but Rusl cut her off once more.

“I don’t fucking care, Telma. He’s been dead to me for years. They both have. My mother got out of jail years ago, but you don’t fucking see her reaching out. No one knows where the fuck she is. She’s probably dead, too. They got what they deserved.”

Telma regarded him carefully. When she spoke again, her voice was serious. “What are you going to do when you turn eighteen? What do you want in life, Rusl?”

Rusl blinked at her. “Nothing,” he said after a moment. “What’s there for a Hylian to do except die?” He shoved his hands in his pockets and left Telma standing alone.

Rusl did not return to the hay barn to finish his work. Instead, he trudged around to the front of the property, stopping besides one of the farm trucks. He paused to peer through the window. As he expected, the keys were in the ignition, waiting for one of the older teens to take it across the ranch for the evening’s feeding. He looked around quickly and, once he determined there was no one around to see him, he slipped in behind the wheel, started the engine, and left the ranch.

[eternityunicorn]

Love Me Apocalyptic: Part Four +18

Author: eternityunicorn 

Genre: Romance/Drama/AU

Pairing: Elijah Mikaelson x OC

Warnings: Violence, Smut (*Smut chapters marked +18)

Summary: AU of an AU: Elijah Mikaelson and Eternity had been lovers centuries ago. Betrayed, he had thought that he would never see her again. However, in present time, she has returned with a purpose, intertwining their paths once more. Elijah hates Eternity for the past, but finds his addiction to her is still as profound as it had been before and he cannot fight it, leaving him in a complicated relationship with his former lady - in an apocalyptic love.

NOTE: OC and original elements are from my up and coming novel series!

———————————————————————————————————

When Elijah awoke the next day, he found himself alone. 

Eternity had gone.

It was for the best, he told himself, ignoring the nagging sense of disappointment and sadness that tried to well up inside him at her absence from his bed. He snorted at his pathetic and rather frustrating behavior. In fact, he was completely repulsed by his weak will. That he would give into his desire so easily, especially considering he despised Eternity for what she did, was abhorrent, to say the least.

Or...so he tried to convince himself.

Irked, Elijah quickly removed himself from the bed and went for the shower. He needed to rid himself of her sweet scent that coated his skin. He didn’t want the reminder of what had transpired the night before. 

Yet, as he scrubbed his body clean, the memories came flooding back, swirling though his head, making him vividly remember it all. He could feel her lips on his skin, her hands as they trailed over him, the sting of her nails as she violently clawed his back, the wonderful sensation of her wet warmth wrapped around his cock. Her moans, her screams, her chants of his name all echoed in his ears. It was all there, haunting him.

He didn’t want it! He didn’t want her! Yet....

In an act of frustration, Elijah reached impulsively and punched the ceramic tiled wall of the shower stall, cracking it under the force he used. Realizing he had lost control, he reigned himself in quickly, appalled by how easily he had slipped up, acted so much like...Niklaus.

Having decided that he needed something to clear his head, to distract him, he made the choice to go to Marcel’s gym to work his frustrations out of his system with a little...exercise. Getting out of the shower and drying off quickly, he dressed in a pair of sweatpants and tank top with a pair of fingerless gloves. Then he head out at vampire speed.

Arriving at the gym Marcel had set up, he found the younger vampire himself there doing some training with a few of his followers. He was already in the ring, sparring with one of them, when Elijah came strolling in. Upon seeing him enter ready to spar, the former King of New Orleans smiled curiously at him through the wire fence. 

“Well, well, look who it is?” Marcel greeted him, as Elijah opened the door to the ring and entered. “Come to show these newbies what’s up, Elijah?”

“Something like that,” he replied with a slight grin as he stood right inside as the door shut behind him. “Care to dance, Marcellus?”

The other man chuckled, “Sure.” 

Then the underling was dismissed from the ring. The new vampire looked ready to bolt at the sight of an Original and had no qualms in vacating the arena. In fact, he didn’t even bother looking at Elijah as he moved past him and exited. 

Elijah gazed at the young man with smug amusement, before turning back to Marcel. “Whenever you’re ready,” he nodded curtly.

Immediately, the two engaged each other. Marcel lunged at him, executing a series of punches that were tight and quick, but not enough to hit him with. He managed to block all of his strikes and returned with a series of his own. To his mild surprise, the younger man managed to block his as well, except for the last one that landed across his jaw and knocked him back into the fence. 

“Damn, Elijah,” Marcel quipped, holding his jaw. “That was harsh! Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

“Perhaps,” shrugged Elijah, gesturing for the other man engage him. “Come.”

For a good hour, they sparred, exchanging blows on nearly equal footing; though that might have been because the Original was holding back. Regardless, this exercise had been exactly what he needed. He felt more relaxed, more himself again. For the moment, he didn’t see her face, didn’t feel the ghost of her touch - didn’t feel anything, other than the exchange of punches with Marcel. 

However, his moment of peace was suddenly sabotaged.

While engaging the younger vampire, Elijah saw the flash of white out of the corner of his eye and was immediately distracted by it. He had been doing well in keeping his opponent on his toes, but in that moment, Marcel managed to land a particularly hard blow, sending the Original spinning into the fence. 

There was a collective cringing response from the vampires whom had been watching their fight, but also from the new arrival - the bane of Elijah’s existence.

As he took a moment to recover, he heard the door to the ring squeak open, then close again, and knew she had entered. He turned sharping to see her standing there with a hand on her leather clad hip and an amused smirk upon her pink lips as she gazed at him directly. The fury that oozed off him didn’t seem to bother her, which angered him more.

“E?” Called Marcel upon seeing Eternity.

The ethereal woman turned and smiled warmly at the younger vampire, “Hello, old friend.”

The other man laughed joyously and rushed to embrace the tiny woman, enveloping her in his embrace, while Elijah watched on in hostility. After a moment, Marcel pulled away and held her at arm’s length as he said, “I can’t believe it! It’s been so long! How’ve you been?”

“I’ve been well,” replied Eternity. “In fact -.”

“Forgive my rudeness, but leave us, Marcellus,” Elijah called out authoritatively, causing both of them to turn and look at him; Marcel annoyed by his barking order and Eternity amused by it.

Yet, the younger man didn’t argue or protest. He simply dismissed his people and then excused himself with one last glaring look toward the Original. 

Once the others were gone from the old church, Elijah moved with vampire speed and went to grab Eternity in order to slam her into the fence, to demand why she had come. However, she wasn’t in the mood to be bullied it seemed and she anticipated his movements flawlessly, grabbing one reaching arm with an even greater speed and then roundhouse kicking him in the gut, sending him flying backwards. He skidded to a halt on bare feet, the pain of it nonexistent as he stared in momentary surprise by her.

Eternity only grinned with her arms folded across her silk covered chest. 

Elijah returned her grin with an unamused one of his own. “What the hell are you doing here, Eternity?” He quietly demanded as he took on a defensive stance, feeling like a tiger ready to strike.

“I came with news, but in truth, this seems more interesting,” she replied cryptically. “Shall we?”

With the challenge set and without another word, she attacked. With a speed to match his own, she moved with a fury of punches and kicks, engaging him. He managed to keep up, blocking her blows well enough and hitting back with an equally powerful counter strike that kept her on her toes. They danced like this, on equal footing for a long while, neither of them letting up, neither of them slowing down. They were in perfect harmony - and that pissed him off even more.

Their perfection together, there in the ring, called his body to hers. The beauty of it made him want her. As always, he tried to resist it, the intense desire that consistently plagued him, whenever she was around. But as every time before, he felt his control slipping, sending him into a blind fury.

Elijah moved faster, struck harder, until he managed to get the better of Eternity. He landed a blow across her jaw in a misstep on her part and it sent her back into the fence. Not wasting the opportunity, he was on her before she could fully recover and pinned her to the wire fence with her hands trapped above her head in one of his larger ones. 

Inches from her face, he had to muster all his strength to not kiss her devouringly and instead growled threateningly down at her, “Tell me what you know.”

Elijah could see the lust that swirled in her sapphire eyes and it did nothing to help his determination to resist her. She gazed with her mouth agape. Then, she licked her lower lip as she seductively stared up at him beneath her lashes. 

“Those old friends I spoke of before are in town,” Eternity breathed, speaking quietly. “In fact, the first shall be visiting your Marcellus soon. The new threat is upon you and yours, Elijah. Be cautious moving forward, but know that I will be here this time to aid you all in what is to come. If only to make up for my past failings.”

“You speak in riddles, woman,” he hissed at her. “Speak plainly. Tell me what is coming.”

Eternity laughed lightly and smirked, “I cannot. I probably have spoken too much as it is. Besides, even if I did explain more plainly, where would the fun in that be, hmm?”

Angry and frustrated in his struggle to remain strong against her, as well as in her refusal to give him the answers that he sought, Elijah pushed away from her with a snarl. He turned away with his hands on his hips as he tried to calm himself.

“You know for what it’s worth, I am sorry about what happened and I am not referring to this era,” she called to him. “Though I am sorry for what happened with Gia too. I apologize for my betrayal. I never wanted to hurt you, Elijah. I loved you. Despite your supposed hate of me now, I still do. I never stopped. When I discovered the threat of the Hollow, I knew I had found a way to make up for it. So I came. I am here.”

Her words stirred up old emotions, ones he tried to keep buried, ones he didn’t want to recognize. Instead, he held on to his anger, his hate of her, as he turned back quickly and in a few short strides, was before her again with his hand around her throat firmly.

He stared down at her venomously and calmly raged, “You dare to speak of love to me! You betrayed everything resembling love between us, when you decided to act against my family, after I pleaded with you not to! With that one act, you destroyed everything - our happiness, our future. You broke my heart, gutted me completely. There is nothing but bitterness here now. Do you understand? I. Hate. You.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Elijah,” responded Eternity softly, unperturbed. “You and I both now you’re lying, mostly to yourself. Anyone who hold another so close, so secure, the way you did with me last night, is simply not hate. Far from it, but please, oh please, keep on ‘hating’ me. I find it rather...thrilling.” She laughed then, to provoke him.

He knew that. Yet, he couldn’t help but play right into her hands.

In blazing fury, Elijah lifted the ethereal woman off of her feet as if she weighed nothing and threw her across the ring effortlessly. He watched as she acted quickly and caught herself, skidding to a stop on the mat. She stared at him with an amused fury of her own, a grin upon her lips as she gazed up at him from her crouched position.

“Haven’t had enough?” She said as she slowly rose to her full height. “So be it.”

Once more they engaged each other again, exchanging blows with precision, trying to strike the other down, to gain the upper hand. Eternity remained as amused as she had been since arriving, while he remained ever furious.

Then in a miscalculation of his own, Elijah found himself the one being pressed into the fence with the ethereal beauty holding him there firmly with an arm across his chest. She stared at him with wildly lusty eyes and he did the same to her. 

Nobody moved, nobody spoke. The only sound was the pants of exertion that echoed through the silence.

The dam effortlessly broke within Elijah and his mouth crashed down upon Eternity in a fury of a different kind. His tongue pried open hers forcefully and dove inside, tasting her roughly. The second that she released him from her hold did he have her thrown down onto the mat with him hovering over her. He grabbed her jaw tightly in one hand and his mouth reattached to hers in fiery passion as soon as he was within reach. 

His hands wasted no time in tearing Eternity’s clothes from her body. The flimsy silk of her shirt went first, exposing her soft breasts to him. He took a moment to kneed one in his palm, as his mouth moved lower to her jaw and then her neck where he harshly bit along the column without care, wanting to give her a little pain. 

Eternity gasped his name in pained pleasure, enjoying the rough treatment, and it only drove him on in his madness. His hands swiftly moved down her body to grip the sides of the thick leather leggings she wore and tore them from her form as well. The sound of it was loud and echoing. 

Once they were deposed of, Elijah moved into place between her thighs, the scent of her arousal strong and intoxicating, calling to him. He reached down to touch her intimately, rubbing over her clit and then dipping two digits into her entrance, feeling the slick heat that was all for him - because of him.

He groaned at the feel of it, his eyes closing as he imagined her wrapped around his cock instead of his fingers. The need for that to come to pass was great in his angry passion; blind and animalistic in nature.

Therefore, Elijah didn’t waste time in reaching down to push his sweats and boxers down one handedly to expose his cock. For a brief second, he paused to gaze into Eternity’s flushed face, seeing the intense passion he felt reflected back at him. With a vicious growl, he withdrew his fingers from her depths and flipped her over onto her stomach, lifting her hips until she was on her knees with her backside in the air. 

Without further ado, he lined up with her entrance and thrusted into her violently. He gasped and she moaned loudly, in unison, at their union. With another growl, he moved without mercy, taking her as roughly as his superior strength as a vampire would allow. She was receptive, begging him for more, just as her hand reached back to claw at his hand on her hip. The searing pain of her nails digging in his skin drove him onward, taking her at a pace that would have killed a human, perhaps even a vampire.

It was rough and unforgivingly, animalistic and cruel. Yet, neither stopped. Neither of them wanted to. 

The end came quickly. Neither of them cared about that either. Both screamed with abandon as their orgasms took them - fast and hard...euphorically blinding. 

The second Elijah emptied himself and slumped against Eternity’s back did he realize what had just transpired. A roar escaped him before he could contain it and his fist collided with the mat right by her head. Yet, she did not flinch or move in any way. In fact, she remained perfectly still in that otherworldly way of hers.

“Why?” He growled quietly, just before he grabbed hold of her hair, twisting it painfully around his hand and pulled back on Eternity’s head violently. “What kind of sorcery is this?” He hissed into her ear. “What spell have you cast upon me? Why? Why can I not resist you? Tell me! Why?”

Eternity was as calm as ever. His rage did nothing to make her fear him nor did she wince at the pain he inflicted upon her. “No spell, no sorcery, no magic,” she replied softly. “It is not my doing, this addiction of yours, this weakness for me. I am not to blame for this. Perhaps instead of pointing fingers at others, Elijah, you should be examining yourself, eh? The answer is inside you.”

He refused to listen to her nonsense, chose to be stubborn like his brother Niklaus.

“But enough of this, you should hurry,” the ethereal woman, of whom he was still buried in, said. “Your friends are making their move. You should get going, if you are to discover the truth of this new threat unto you and yours. First, go visit your brother. He will have news in regards to this. Then you shall need to go to young Marcel’s loft. You’ll find more answers there.”

Elijah held onto her a moment more, before he heeded her words and sped away, but not before putting himself back together again of course. He stopped by his own loft to change into his typical suit and then sped away to the Mikaelson compound first.  

As she had said, he found his answer there or at least the first puzzle piece of it.

Just what kind of trouble were they in now?

To Be Continued....

———————————————————————————————————

Tag List: @elejah-wonderland @dendrite-lover @inmylifeilovedthemall @elejahforever @xanderling @hawaiianohana15 @missnmikealson @phoenix-potter-bailey @lolelijahishot @x-memi12 @iamaquarius2 @echosnowflake666 @scarlettsky0998 @zillahvathek @elijahandkollover @mikaelsonwetdreams @elizamonet @freshsuitcasewinnereagle @loulouisa @esclisa @fandom-princess-forevermore

[jeanjauthor]

Thanos vs. Ia

Okay, here goes.

I’ve been meaning to do this one for a while, but couldn’t bring myself to do it right after Avengers: Infinity War came out. (”Too soon, Executus! Too soon!!” *ahem*)  But with End Game drawing near...I figured we’ve all had enough time to heal and recover and the aches have faded.

So.

Ia (General Ia, “Bloody Mary”, the Prophet of a Thousand Years, Halfbreed Feyori, Massive Precognitive, Incredibly Strong Psychic, etc, etc.)

vs.

Thanos (General, Mastermind, Scourge of Souls, He Who Ended Half Of Life In The Universe With A Snap, etc, etc.)

...

I’mma put this in a cut so as to spare sensitive, delicate souls the gory details of this particular little matchup.

Yeaaah...this is awkward, but I gotta say it anyway:

Ia would work with Thanos.

“WHAAAT??!!”

*insert finger in ear, wigglewiggle, wait ‘til you’re done screaming...wait wait wait...sigh...waaaaait...unflinch*

Okay. Hear me out:

If she ever somehow wound up in some variation on the MCU Avengers universe, Ia absolutely would track down Thanos and send him a message stating that she would like to assist him in his quest, that she brings some very formidable powers and incredibly useful information, and would like to have a chat with him in a nice safe neutral location.  (...And no, he doesn’t get to wipe out half her crew, because that would defeat the entire wanting to help him succeed thing.)

And then of course she’d go into exhaustive detail postcognitively to demonstrate her powers, as well as a touch of precognition, all of it pitched in the absolute best probability-guided ways to effect the meeting.

And then she’d meet with him.

And not kill him.

“WHAAAT??!!”

*more patient waiting, sighing, waaaaiting...mkay, continuing*

Ia would genuinely want to help him.  However, it’s how she would help him that is vital to understand.  So here’s how it would go.

Ia:  Thanos, I deeply appreciate your grasp of the fact that too many worlds are overpopulated due to the level of resources that they can acquire and have shared, so on and so forth.  I understand where you’re coming from, that it’s a love for people that makes you see that this ruthless thing needs to be done.

Thanos:  Thank you for the compliments.  Yet why do I sense a ‘but’ in all of this...?

Ia:  Because you can sense that what I am about to tell you is the truth.  Your chosen methodology is inefficient, and will prove to be highly ineffectual in the long run.

Thanos:  ...What?

Ia:  It’s inefficient, ineffectual, and futile at best.  You’re trying to randomly slaughter half of everyone.  Randomly.  Cut any population in half, and you’ll still have the exact same problems of too many people and too few resources just a couple generations down the road.

Thanos: Yes, but I warn these people to do better--

Ia:  --Yes, yes, I heard the propaganda speeches.  They’re good speeches, but they’re not good enough.

Thanos:  If you think you can write a better speech--

Ia:  NOPE.  Wrong solution.  You’re still thinking about the wrong solutions.  The problem is not population numbers, Thanos.  It is who survives, versus who dies.  Pay attention, okay?  If you have a box full of fifty white eggs and fifty brown eggs--so a total of one hundred eggs--and you know that some of the eggs can cause the disease salmonella, if you randomly assign half of those eggs to die and half to continue to exist...then you’re going to end up with roughly twenty-five white eggs and twenty-five brown eggs...right?

Thanos:  Of course.  Fewer eggs means--

Ia:  Yes, yes, I know, but see...if for some reason, the salmonella disease is only found in the white eggs...you’re still going to have people suffering from salmonella poisoning...see what I’m saying?  ...Thanos, your plan to randomly kill off half the population in the galaxy is delightfully egalitarian, and coming from a participatory representational democracy, I truly appreciate that egalitarianism...but it’s still going to leave the exact same problem as before.  It’s not the resources that are the problem.  It’s not the overpopulation, either.  A shortage of resources and an overpopulation crisis are not going to be fixed by killing off half the universe.

[Please note that this is the MCU version of Thanos, not the version from the comic books where he was also courting Death. Do not try to engage me in an argument based on the comic book version, thank you very much.*]

Thanos:  Then what, exactly, is the problem?  People aren’t eggs with salmonella lurking inside.

Ia:  It’s not a perfect analogy, no...but the vast majority of problems with lack of resources versus overpopulation lies in excessive consumption by some people versus deliberately withheld scarcity for others, coupled with an attitude of ‘not my monkeys, not my circus, not my problem.’  Killing off half the universe randomly does not stop the haves from using up things so that the have nots suffer.  Killing off half the universe randomly does not slow down the rates of overbreeding leading to overpopulation, leading to deeper destruction of the resources needed for life to coexist peacefully and abundantly but not wastefully.  What you need is specific targets taken out.  You need to find all the eggs with salmonella, remove them from the box, and then raise the chicks to understand that being a parent is a privilege that must not be paired with the self-righteous attitude that they can breed and overpopulate without any concern for the next generation suffering the consequences.

Thanos:  ...Even with all of the Infinity Stones at my command, discerning and then targetting the exact individuals to remove would take me an eternity.  Why should I waste so much time trying to do that, when I can terrify everyone into compliance with a simple snap of my fingers, once all of the Stones are mine?

Ia:  Well, that’s why you need my help. I am capable of discerning and instilling that knowledge into a joint use of the Infinity Gauntlet, and I can have all the correct targets picked out by the time you get all of the Infinity Stones...which I know exactly when and where that will happen.

Thanos:  And how could you possibly know that?  I don’t see the Eye of Agamotto around your neck!

Ia:  I don’t need the Eye of Agamotto to command all the possible probabilities of Time. *grabs Thanos & drags him onto the timeplains, lovely little tour, and one very lengthy (on the timeplains) Q&A session later...*  ...See what I mean?  I can link all of that to you.  The end result will be a galaxy of people who manage their societies so that there will always be enough for everyone.

Thanos:  ...With this power...you could find the way to defeat me.  How do I know what you say is true?

Ia:  Because I, too, have slaughtered billions and trillions, in the effort to save my home galaxy from destruction...and it’s pissing me off that your plan is so blindly, stupidly ineffcient.  Now, we can work together, or I can just go gather up all the Infinity Stones on my own and do it myself.  But I’d rather help you, one weary, blood-soaked general to another, to get it done right.  You have more resources than I do in this universe...and I’m not quite sure what damage I will do to the Time Stone if I try to wield it directly.  I really do not want to piss off Nemesis if I break it through direct use.

Thanos:  ...If you know what Nemesis is...  You have convinced me.  Provisionally.

Ia:  Good.  I’ll leave you to get on with your work, and check in with you from time to time to set up a link to the correct knowledge-timestream-thread.  I’ll key it to trigger with the words “You should have aimed for my head.”

Thanos:  ...Excuse me?

Ia:  If you know anything about precognition, prophecy, and foretelling the future, then you know I can’t tell you too much, or it could veer everything wildly off course.  I’ll check in with you in about a week.

.A little while later, in Wakanda...:  *Snap*  ...Roughly 20% of all the people around them start disintegrating.  Thanos looks around in confusion.

Thanos:  This wasn’t half.  The people of this world are still suffering heavily scarcity--

Ia:  Nnnnope!  The people of Wakanda don’t suffer much from scarcity, because their leadership believes in sharing their prosperity at all levels of their society, and they are careful in how they manage their homeland’s natural resources, using up so much and no more.  Actually...the sheer numbers of people who have vanished from the face of this planet is maybe ten-ish percent?

Thanos:  Only ten percent??

Ia:  Yep.  Turns out that less that 2% of this planet’s population have hoarded about 90% of its resources, forcing people to pay exorbitant prices, refusing to pay them the actual value of their labor, denying social services, cutting funding for various programs that could end the suffering of billions worldwide...  Things like universal healthcare coverage, basic income, food for everyone--literally, the bastard oligarchs of Earth have been hoarding so much that they bribe governments to force farmers to let food rot in the fields, rather than use their money to ship it worldwide to feed everyone...and they suppress virtually all technological advances that could either prevent or completely and swiftly clean up all the pollution of the world cause by their corporations simply because it would cost them money...careful, that whole warship up there is dissolving, that’s gonna leave some nasty-flavored dust in the air for a while...

Thanos:  WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY STARSHIP??

Ia:  Well, if you’ll turn your attention to the missing among the fighters out there... you’ll note that the vast majority of those who vanished are your own forces...because war uses up far too many resources.  In fact, warfare is second only to obscene levels of oligarchic greed when it comes to using up resources out of all proportion to the needs of a population.  So by co-opting your ‘snap’ with the most efficient removal of the most wasteful or hoarding elements in every single society out there...I have destroyed everyone who currently loves war, and loves profiting from war...which is the only reason why Tony Stark is still alive, but he’s manage--

Thanos:  STARK IS STILL ALIVE?!

Ia:  Yep.  He managed to learn the lesson of don’t make weapons of war, fight only to defend...or avenge...and share the wealth.  He’s becoming quite the philanthropist, and I only see that improving as time goes on...because I took the near future and the middle future and the far future all into consideration.  Oh, and one more thing, Thanos, before you go...

Thanos:  --How can I leave? I don’t have a ship, and the Gauntlet is scorched useless!!

Ia:  Yeah, about that...  It turns out you’re the worst plague of wasted resources and overpopulation problems in this entire galaxy, Thanos.  Because you were an asteroid-sized idiot who should’ve focused on wiping out corrupt governments, encouraging basic income, food, healthcare, and encouraged sound ecological practices alongside high incentives and bonuses for undertaking voluntary birth control measures, family planning, all of that.  ...And I’ll take that now, thank you.

*accepts the scorched and battered Gauntlet as Thanos’ hand and arm dissolve* 

Ia:  Right then...Space Stone extracted...and... Hi, Tony! You don’t know me, but do try to believe me that you need to step up the philanthropy.  Extremely wealthy people who don’t give back generously will continue to drop dead for the next, oh...I dunno, generation or so, twenty, thirty years, maybe a little more...

Thanos:  You...what?

Ia: *eyes the half-dissolved purple alien general*  Yeah, turns out you can’t just snap your fingers and change people instantaneously.  You have to get them to understand...which will take decades, with repeated examples...that being selfish wasteful greedy hoarding hateful powermad assholes, is no longer wise.  No matter how finely crafted your army’s little speeches where when you rounded up people and slaughtered them, it was just one application of said speech.  The next generations wouldn’t feel the same impact, and have little incentive to change in the weight of centuries’ worth of cultural attitudes weighing down around them, demanding they return to the same old ways.  You see, Thanos...just like Tony Stark, here, some people can change their ways.  Unfortunately...you were going to try to grab this and undo all my work, because you won’t agree with me removing your army...so I had to snap you out of existence, too.

Thanos:  You bi...  *dissolve, flutter, vanish...*

Stark:  Uh...what just happened, and thanks for killing him, but why shouldn’t I kill you?

Ia:  I just ended the misery and suffering caused by oligarchic greed, corruption in government, hoarding of resources, rampant warfare for the stupidity of conquest and glory, and every single person in a position of power who refuses and will continue to refuse to correct all of the damage all of these things have done to their worlds.  In other words, gentlemen...nice to meet you, too, Peter...I have just ensured that the meek shall inherit the Earth.  *hefts Gauntlet*  And now I have to separate out these stones and make sure most of them get sent to where they need to go, to prevent the next awful crisis for this universe...  Let’s see. Vision will be needed so I’ll have to put back the Mind Stone and put a few protections on it...Wanda will need to stick around to keep an eye on that, plus I’m a sucker for romance...

Stark:  Ah...  Okay...

Ia:  Strange will need the Eye...buit nobody needs to find the Soul Stone or the Reality Stone for a long, long time...Power Stone will have to go where it’s needed, and the Space Stone will get it all there...and... *sticks her hand in the glove and after a second or so of glowy lightshow unlike Thor’s usual stuff as she absorbs a bunch of power...the Stones vanish from the Gauntlet...which dissolves like Thanos did*  Tell Thor his buddies on Nidavellir are back in business, but the plans to rebuild another Gauntlet have been altered in their memories just enough that they won’t be able to recreate it for a while.  Also...sorry, but among the many trillions across the universe that I brought back to life...I also brought back Loki.

Stark:  You WHAT?!

Ia:  *blithe shrug*  What can I say?  The universe needs tricksters from time to time.  Plus he and his brother are comedic gold.  And yes, I restored Asgard, and all the nice people of Asgard, though I did ditch Hela. She was way too Thanos-like for the post-Thanos world he needed to create.

Stark:  But, Loki??

Parker:  The Loki?

Ia:  Stark, I will remind you that he, just like you, can learn to be a better person.  He might find himself partially dissolving from time to time, though...so feel free to livestream it whenever you two cross paths.  With that said, I must be off.  Have a nice day, and manage the world better.  You got thirty or so years before the Snap stops having an effect...but you have only five years to fix Earth’s climate...and if you fail, it won’t be the snap that kills off half of humanity. It’ll be yourselves, killing all of humanity.  Have fun cleaning up the battlefield!

*turns into a Feyori mirror-bubble and flies away*

...

...And that is how Ia would help Thanos.  Because he’s a frikkin idiot who can’t think his way out of a closed paper bag, other than to set it on fire and burn half of it away, when it’s the staples holding the bag shut at the mouth that needed to be removed.

[kindabraveandlittlestupid]

Should be noted this post isn't about Shawshank Redemption (which was a damn good movie), this post is however about the term “White Privilege” but also about a less popular but still incredibly important term “Black Oppression”. If you’re not the sort to read a long post and just want the quick answer on how I (a Straight White American Male) feel about those words, I know White Privilege IS real. We see it both social interactions, how the police treat white men, how we are portrayed in popular culture, how we the courts rule in our favor when we break the law and all that doubly so when you start to include economic elements. On the other side, there are things that ARE NOT White Privilege such as voting in certain red states where policies are enacted that don’t uplift white voters but instead suppress black voters. This is where I think we need to use the word Black Oppression and differentiate the two things. Below I will provide some examples of White Privilege, some examples of Black Oppression, and some examples where there is both White Privilege and Black Oppression.

This whole point of the post isn’t to challenge the concept of White Privilege but perhaps add some nuance and shift the way we view things between what is privilege and oppression. If only for us to strive for a more equitable and equal society as well as sharpen our wits for when we encounter white supremacists who rely on flaws in our beliefs, values, and logic to further their own hateful agenda. 

As always this is an opinion piece and if you have your own thoughts on the subject, take your time to reply with your own clear thoughts. I appreciate other points of view regardless of race, sex, orientation, political party or creed. I am always looking to expand my views, understanding complex social issues and develop a better foundation for my beliefs.

Medium

The first thing to discuss when dissecting this issue is the Medium, there are other words for this concept I am sure but basically, this is the expectation of how people should/expected to be treated in society. If you’re a registered voter you expect your ballot to be counted, if you run a stop sign you expect a ticket, and if you go into a store you expect to be able to shop without security following you. I am sure some might argue that certain groups of people have a higher expectation for their Medium such as wealthy thinking society is here to serve them but those people have an Economic Privilege and often White Privilege (though I have encountered a healthy mix of other races who enjoy that same Economic Privilege here in Silicon Valley... still mostly white).

No. the Medium in society is attributed itself to a social agreement, common sense and good dose of empathy of knowing how you would like to be treated and wanting that for other people. It’s why we observe lines the way we do and get pissed off when someone cuts deciding they are more important than anyone else standing there. It’s also why we take a little joy in seeing someone with Economic or Racial Privilege have to observe the social medium like everyone else. You know what I am talking about the lawyer who makes 400 dollars an hour saying her time is precious therefore everyone else should wait in customer service while she is taken care of first? Yeah... that was a real encounter I had once.

So once we establish that baseline we can start clearly identifying interactions that seemingly exceed what is expected in society (privilege) or what interactions are well under the medium (oppression). This seems like a good as a point as any to recognize that all these examines require the human interaction. Interactions plagued with prejudices and biases for our choices every day. Sometimes someone deviates a small degree over or under a medium because they are having a shit day. If we encounter someone who slips up, I always advocate forgiveness when someone makes a mistake.

Privilege

The problem with Privilege; be it economic, social or racial is that when you’re in it you don't always know it. Sometimes you’re so wealthy you're used to people waiting on you hand and foot, simply look to the Kardashians, Bieber, or Jaden Smith. These are some people who enjoy wealth so much that when they have a small thing go wrong they bitch about it all day on their reality shows.

As a White Male, I try to reflect on the privileges I might have enjoyed. I try to differentiate between moments where I received better service or social interactions because of my skin color (or gender). I realize there is a possibility that I could also be “blind” to certain privileges but it if makes you feel better if there are things I am enjoying that others do not, I have full intention of trying to pull other people up to enjoy that privilege so that it becomes the new societal medium. I am ranting a little...

The clear privileges I have enjoyed have not surprisingly been with police. Of the about dozen encounters I had with Police Officers about none of them resulted in a ticket. One incident resulted in a car being impounded but I was under 18 and didn’t have a license and even then I paid to have it unimpounded ($700 Dollars) and had the infraction removed from my record with a driving school class. You can call it luck perhaps but for the most part, I have never been given a ticket and when seeing how police treat other men my age who happen to be black with disdain, its easy to see why African Americans are pissed off and I can only have a vague understanding of how frustrating that might be for them.

Oppression

The problem with being Systemically Oppressed is that everyone living/existing on the medium seems like they are privileged. This leads to a fair amount of anger, frustration and pain in various communities. While the general topic is focused on Black and White, it does not take much imagination to project that same oppression on the gay/transgender community, women, other non-christ based faiths or other minority groups (Latinos and Middle Eastern specifically in the US).

I myself have had only small encounters with oppression myself, most of them taking place at the airport as my ass seems to get selected for extra security screenings. I am not sure what website I went to, if my beard is to thick or if that month in Indonesia has flagged me in the wrong way but that is a personal experience where I am observing social interactions below the Medium.

This post isn't about me though so let's give a clear example of oppression today. That example is voting in the United States. Many Red States have been adopting strategies to disenfranchise black voters by removing voting stations, requiring ID’s and limiting hours while keeping other voting locations (in white communities) open for normal hours. This isn't an example of White Privilege as this is how voting should be like that for everyone. No, this is white voters enjoying their right to vote, while the black community is being OPPRESSED from having a say in politics. Ok, there might be some white privilege in there but for the most part, its mostly Oppression that we are seeing, yeah?

We see other elements of Oppression in the courts, police interaction, and also pop culture, mostly in the film and television industry... which now that I think about it is also white privilege considering Asian and Indian actors are still trying to break through. 

Privilege and Oppression

Most examples share above tend to dabble in both Privilege and Oppression, and as I stated this goes beyond race as sex, economics, and other social qualifiers. I felt compelled none the less to point to politics as a system that both explores a great amount of Privilege and utilizes a great amount of Oppression. Leave it American Politics to show White Wealthy Male Privilege in its full swing while Oppressing Women, Minority Groups, and Non-Christians. It’s easy to see why people don't want to hear from a Straight White Male like me when all these douche bags represent the worst humanity has to offer.

Guess you can say I feel a bit bitter on the fact that I see so many memes on Tumblr telling me to shut the fuck up because I look like them *points to assholes in picture* even though I am on board for a more equitable and equal society. *Slaps Cheeks* Keep things in perspective, Mike!

Coming back to examples of both Privilege and Oppression, another prime example is the police. We look to cities where Stop and Frisk policies exist(ed) and you could see how civil rights were secondary to a police officers ‘gut feeling’ that a black man could have drugs or weapon on them. This is an example of Oppression, clear and simple. On the flip side, you have officers waving on white citizens letting them off with warnings which isn't a bad thing in itself but when the courtesy is ONLY given to fair skinned citizens then it is a problem, it becomes Privilege.

Conclusion

White Privilege is real as fuck. Economic Privilege is real. Social Privilege is real. Depending on your lot in life you might be enjoying a great number of Privileges while others might have lower income bracket, from the wrong ethnic background, and have darker skin having a much rougher go at American life. We, the good fair loving compassionate progressives, should aim to balance these issues out. We need to find the moments where someone is enjoying an unfair privilege (like me not really every getting tickets) and bring me back down so that I have the expectations as everyone else. We also need to find the oppressive interactions (often institutional) and correct them as well and make sure everyone enjoys the same quality of life.

If you enjoy privilege in some form or another you have two options. Either bring yourself down and be held to the same standard as your fellow men (and women) OR start bringing other people up to enjoy the same privilege you do so that it becomes the new medium for society and raises the quality of living for everyone. If you feel compelled to do neither then you might be the problem. Thanks for reading.

Regards, Michael California

NOTE: It’s important to measure subjects like this with data and not anecdotal evidence or experiences. I tend to add a few personal accounts to these sort of posts to better appeal to the emotional side of readers but hard numbers display more of the truth than my personal experiences ever could. Driving While Black is statistically proven in the data where White/Hispanic drivers are pulled over about the same rate but black drivers are stopped in excess. This is also true for Use of Force numbers, Stop and Frisk, Searching of Vehicles and even how the courts decide to process the cases. 

Black Men serve 20% longer sentences to their White counterparts charged for the same crime.

Black students make up 18% of preschool enrollments but make up 50% of suspensions.

Applications with ‘Black’ sounding names are 50% more likely to be passed up by employers compared to ‘White’ sounding names.

And this list goes on and on.

If you’re a white guy, who has had a few moments where you pulled over yourself. It is neither a logical or sound argument to say “I have had difficult encounters therefor my experience is the norm and therefore is no white privilege.” Always! Always look to the data and see the numbers for both the state you live in and the country as a whole. Anyone with half a mind to understand statistics can tell there are some major racial biases in our society.

[thatalfredpennyworth]

Why People Discard Parrots

This is something very personal to me as someone who has owned birds and worked with them since I was a kid. Nothing irks me more than unfair stereotypes. I don't have any issue with people being afraid of parrots, they are big and make a BIG entrance so it's understandable. I do however have a problem with people who unfairly stereotype parrots as loud, out of control, wild, crazy...you've probably heard the list. The saddest part, these labels often come from confused so called "animal rights activists" who would rather see the population of parrots in captivity die off than be loved and nurtured by someone who understands birds. Calling all parrots wild hazards is as unfair as calling pitbulls killers. There are ethical ways to keep parrots in captivity that don't involve cages and neglect. The first bird I ever formed a relationship with was a species that is known to be stereotyped as violent. His name was Delta, he was a blue fronted amazon in his 20's and he had quite a strong beak. He belonged to my grandfather whom is still one of the worst people I know. How this bird didn't develop aggression issues I'll never know but I was the only person who wasn't afraid of Delta and was willing to pick him up by hand out of his cage...and keep in mind I was four at the time. I'll be honest, my grandfather was abusive and one day, he threw me in his garage and slapped me after I refused to finish my entire waffle. He grew up in a military home so he was always told to ration and finish his plate. He had also tossed the bird in the garage as well and locked me in there for two hours. The bird waddled to me side and climbed onto my shoulder and leaned in for a hug. Anyone else would have backed away because they'd assume he'd be bluffing and planning to strike but I hugged back and that was when I decided birds really do have the capacity for compassion towards people. Delta was unfortunately re-homed due to my grandfather's time constraints, something that all too sadly, often happens to large parrots when owners don't know what they are getting into. Even now as I type this, I know Delta is still alive and hopefully, he found a forever home. The main reason so many parrots are discarded is not because they are terrible pets, but because most people are terrible owners. People see the cute videos and think that parrots are these cute talking sky dogs and they purchase one only to find out that isn't the case at all. Parrots are two generations removed from their wild ancestors and thus, they are going to act like they would in their own wild colonies. This is not to say that parrot ownership is something I'm against, that's what the animal activists want, what I'm trying to say is it takes a special kind of person to own a parrot. In the right hands, parrots are compassionate, fun, intuitive, inquisitive and even sassy, but most people are not equipped to handle owning an animal that needs 98% of your daily attention. Some birds are more picky than others. Here's the thing though, don't ever say a dog is less dangerous than a parrot simply because they are domesticated. A parrot bite does hurt, all people who handle birds will make a mistake and agitate their bird at some point, but a parrot's beak won't kill you. Parrots are smart enough to know how hard to press and most bites are warnings rather than true threats. Even if a bird tried to kill you, which they WON'T do, the worst they could do is leave you with some stitches on your arm. A dog that is large enough could actually kill you and some have indeed killed people. Animals are unpredictable domesticated or not, that's just a fact. I have been around birds long enough to know how compassionate they really are when we actually respect them. Luigi, a yellow naped amazon, is famous for his compassion for disabled children. It really takes a special kind of a person to own a parrot and most people are not that sub population. Birds only become difficult when they are not given their needs. Birds need to fly, they need to interact, they need to roam, they need to be like the element of air itself. As a bird trainer, I know what birds want from us. The more owners and trainers listen, the less birds will succumb to problem behaviors. Parrots don't have to be such a discarded pet, people just need to be better owners. This is something I had to vent because documentaries like Parrot Confidential are EXTREMELY one sided and biased. I love working with birds and it really does piss me off when people unfairly label them as bad pets when it is really them that are the bad owners. Stop clipping wings, free flight train them, let them explore, and trust me, your bird will be a much loved member of your family. 

Caique: Tinkerbell Galah: Ziva Blue Throated Macaw: DiNozzo Human: ME!

[octavejohn2-blog]

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We can wonder what modern-day workplace/organizational functions will certainly see comparable change gradually, as today's specialisms come to be tomorrow's really regular abilities had by every person. The slang 'big cheese' is a fine instance of language from a far-away or entirely international society locating its method into modern life as well as communications, in which the users have very understanding or admiration of its various cultural origins.

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While pregnant scans, low-frequency acoustic wave (between 3 - 7.5 MHz) are sent out by an ultrasound gadget over the mother's bump.

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As with slowcoach, slowpoke's rhyming quality enhanced fostering right into typical speech and also proceeding use. People like to claim points that trip off the tongue conveniently and, in a manner, musically or poetically. loose - careless, messy - messy originally meant putting on sandals or loosened footwear, from the earlier expression 'slip-shoe'. The careless/untidy significance of messy is stemmed from 'down-at-heel' or worn shoes, which was the first use of the expression in the feeling or poor quality. The very early reckless definition of loose referred to worn-out appearance. More just recently the expression's meaning has actually prolonged also to reckless activities or initiatives.

The uploading do with the pointer that an old Italian expression 'a tredici' meaning 'at thirteen' could be connected with the beginnings. offer the pip/get the pip - make weak or uneasy or upset - Pip is an illness influencing birds characterised by mucous in the mouth and also throat. The expression seems initially to have shown up in the 1800s, however offered its much older beginnings might quickly have actually been in usage prior to after that. Remarkably while the pip expression refers to the bird condition, the origins of the definition actually take us full-circle back to human health and wellness.

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weak breath/baited breath - anxious, expectant - the previous punctuation was the initial variation of the expression, yet the term is currently typically incorrectly damaged to the last 'baited' in modern-day usage, which mistakenly recommends a different origin. Many individuals appear currently to presume a definition of the breath being metaphorically 'baited' instead of the original non-metaphorical initial meaning, which just defined the breath being shortened, or stopped. The expression appears in Shakespeare's The Vendor Of Venice, which dates its beginning as 16th century or earlier. Words bate is a shortened type of abate, both bring the very same definition, and also initially appeared in the 1300s, before which the previous tense forms were baten and abaten. transform it up - stop it, stopped talking, no chance, quit doing that, I do not believe you, etc - Cassells Vernacular Dictionary recommends the 'transform it up' expression corresponds to 'stop doing that' and that the very first usage was as early as the 1600s.

According to Bartlett's, the expression 'Too try to find as needle in a container of hay' shows up partially III, phase 10. ' Container' is an old word for a bundle of hay, taken from the French word botte, implying bundle. Maker (thesaurus as well as alterations) lists the complete expression - 'seeking a needle in a container of hay' which informs us that the term was first utilized in this type, and also was later on adapted during the 1900s into the modern-day kind. Mum has absolutely nothing to do with mom - it's just a phonetic spelling and metaphorical word to signify shutting one's mouth, so as not to utter a noise. The same logical onomatopoeic derivation almost certainly produced words mumble, murmur and also mumps. Just as in modern-day times, war-time governments after that wasted no opportunity to overemphasize dangers and also dangers, so as to instill respect amongst, and to maintain authority over, the masses. So there you have it - mum's the word - possibly an item of federal government spin.

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The 'rock pip' would certainly appear to be a distortion/confusion of simply providing or obtaining the pip, probably as a result of misinterpreting the significance of pip in this context. Words pip in this expression has absolutely nothing to perform with stones or fruit. The pituitary gland is located in the mind as well as is accountable for specific physical functions, yet in the late midlifes, around 1500s, it was thought to manage the circulation of mucus or phlegm to the nose. Phlegm had actually long been believed to be just one of the crucial four 'humours' determining life equilibrium as well as character. So while the existing expression was based at first on a bird illness, the origins paradoxically associate with influential ideas of human health. Variants still discovered in NZ and also Australia from the very early 1900s consist of 'half-pie', as well as 'pie' indicating great or expert at something.

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Sadly this really attractive alternative/additional derivation of 'take the mick/micky' appears not to be supported by any type of main resources or referrals. If anyone can refer me to a reputable referral please let me recognize, until such time the Micky Happiness cockney poetry theory continues to be the most popularly sustained beginning. The loon bird's name came into English from a different root, Scandinavia, in the 1800s, and also arguably had a larger impact in the United States on the expressions insane as a loon, as well as also intoxicated as a crazy. The highly derogatory slang maniacal bin, referring to a mental home, initially showed up around 1910.

Nowadays, regardless of still being practically appropriate according to English dictionaries, resolving a combined group of individuals as 'promiscuous' would certainly not be a really suitable use of the word. pernickety/persnickety/pernickerty/ persnickerty - fussy, particular, fastidious - pernickety seems currently to be one of the most typical contemporary kind of this odd word. hifu Luton happen possibly because no clear derivation exists, providing no obvious reference indicate secure a punctuation or pronunciation.

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Dollar derives from thaler, which is an old German word for a coin, from earlier Reduced German 'dahler', whose vital root word 'dahl' implies valley. Dahler, later ending up being thaler, is a 500-year-old abbreviation of Joachimsthaler, a very early Bohemian/German silver coin. Words Joachimsthaler essentially referred to something from 'Joachim's Thal'. This was Joachim's Valley, which currently corresponds to Jáchymov, a spa community in NW Bohemia in the Czech Republic, near the border to Germany.

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The word appears initially to have been recorded in between in Jamieson's Dictionary of the Scottish Language, in the type of pernickitie, as an extension of a Scottish word pernicky, which is probably a better clue to its beginnings. This is all conjecture in the lack of trustworthy recorded beginnings.

On which aim a combination of words particular as well as picky may have been an element, specifically when you consider the earlier pernicky type. Odds implying the various chances of challengers, as used in betting, was very first recorded in English in 1574 according to Chambers, so making use of the 'can't probabilities it' expression might conceivably be very old certainly. Cassells and also other credible jargon sources say that 'take the mick' is cockney rhyming vernacular, c. 1950s, from 'Micky Happiness', rhyming with 'take the piss'. No-one appears to know who Micky Happiness was, which maybe shows a little weak point in the derivation. Conversely, and also maybe in addition in the direction of the fostering of the expression, a much less well-known possibility is that 'mick' in this sense is a reducing of the word 'micturation', which is a clinical term for urination.

Partridge states initially recorded regarding 1830, but implies the expression might have been in use from perhaps the 1600s. This is absolutely possible because board meant table in older times, which is the association with card games used a table. It was formerly bord, traceable to Old Saxon, also implying guard, regular with comparable international words dating back to the earliest beginnings of European language.

This table sense of board also gave us the board as related to a board of directors and the boardroom. slowpoke - slow individual or employee - slowpoke is USA jargon initially tape-recorded in print according to Chambers. Probably from cowpoke - words initially used to describe the males that pushed cattle onto slaughterhouse trains. Poke represented the photo of work, being based on an usual work activity of the times, as did punch.

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This to a particular level explains why a lot of English words with French beginnings occur in way of living and social language. Incidentally the word French, to define people or points of France and the language itself, has actually existed in English in its modern-day form since concerning 1200, before which it was 'Frensch', and also earlier in Old English 'frencisc'. This stemmed from Old High German frenkisc and also frenqisc, from as well as directly related to the Franks, the very early Germanic individuals that overcame the Romans in Gaul around the 5th century. The name of the Frank people is also the origin of the word France and the Franc currency. The most enticing concept for the ultimate beginning of words Frank is that it comes from a comparable word for a spear or lance, which was the favoured weapon of the Frankish people. whatever drifts your boat - if it makes you happy/it's your decision/it's your choice (although I don't always agree and I uncommitted anyway) - a fairly contemporary expression from the late 20th century with oddly unknown origins.

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In the late 1400s, silver ounce coins were minted from silver extracted at Joachim's Valley, Bohemia, by a regionally powerful household, the Matters of Schlick. These early local European coins, called 'Joachimsthaler', shortened to 'thaler', were basic silver in that area, which would nowadays expand into Germany. The high quality and also online reputation of the 'Joachimsthaler' coins consequently triggered the 'thaler' term to spread and also be made use of for more main generic variations of the coins in Germany, as well as elsewhere also. Later on, from the 1580s, the term was likewise utilized in its adapted 'buck' type as a name for the Spanish peso (also called 'piece of 8'). Clergy and clerics as well as clerks were as a result among one of the most able as well as extremely valued and valued of all 'workers'.

For such a well-used and also well-known expression the information of origins are oddly thin, as well as an usually not referenced in any way by the common expressions as well as etymology resources. Other recommendations describe feasible links with card video games, in which showing up a card would expose something hidden, or mark completion of a flow of play. It's specifically challenging to hypothesize concerning the origins due to the fact that the word 'turn' has a lot of different significances, specifically when combined with other very versatile words. If you can include anything to assist identfy when and also where as well as exactly how the 'turn it up' expression developed please contact us. The original wording was 'trend nor time tarrieth no male' (' tarrieth' suggesting 'waits on'). taxi/taxicab - fare-charging automobile, although taxi can be a fare-charging boat - taxi and also taxicab are words which we have a tendency to take for granted without thinking what the derivation could be.

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Actually the origin of taxi is the French 'taximetre' and also German comparable 'taxameter', integrating taxi/taxa and also metre/meter. Taximeter appeared in English around 1898, at which time its usage was moving from horse-drawn carriages to automobile. Taxi is an abbreviation of an additional French word cabriolet, which came into English in the 1700s, and also it appears in the complete French taxicab equivalent 'taximetre cabriolet'. Cab appeared in English meaning a steed drawn carriage in 1826, a steam locomotive in 1859, and an electric motor automobile in 1899. Chambers suggests that the French taximetre is really originated from the German taxameter, which surprisingly triggered an earlier similar but short-lived English term taxameter videotaped in 1894, applied to horsedrawn taxicabs. move the board - win everything - based on the metaphor of winning all the cards or money risk in a game of cards.

Mojo probably derives from African-American language, describing an amulet or witchcraft beauty, and also is close to the word 'moco', meaning withccraft, made use of by the Gullah of the United States South Carolina shore and islands. Words as well as the significance were popularised by the 1956 blues track Got My Mojo Working, first made famous by Muddy Seas' 1957 recording, as well as subsequently covered by just about all blues musicians ever since. The term provided the beginning for words mobster, suggesting gangster, which showed up in American English in the early 1900s. Hitch utilized in the feeling is American from the 1880s although the general hitch significance of action by pulling or jerking is Old English from the 1400s hytchen, as well as prior, icchen meaning action from 1200.