#will be using the tag witching hour and keeping anything relevant there!

[bethfuller]

“Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild...”

✤ introducing Witching Hour, my first comic. all 40 pages soon to be published by the amazing @quindriepress and coming to kickstarter this may! ✤

[thirdhandidiot]

Trans obey me hours bitches

(Main Post) If you were fortunate enough to avoid the first one, I recommend reading it first, but you don’t need to dw! guys keep hitting me up with obey me stuff in my inbox– I just wanted to finish this before I started anything else, but I love seeing your sexuality HC‘s amd can’t wait to talk Abt it!

I recon that it’s difficult for certain characters to go ‘unnoticed’ as trans for whatever reason, so here’s my thought, ask box is always open for obey me thoughts, especially if you think I’m representing anyone incorrectly or get anything wrong xx

•Lucifer would be one of the only brothers to go completely under the radar. Very few would ever imagine that he isn’t infact a cis male, and none would dare mention it to him. It’s a known fact that it’s practically impossible to catch lucifer in any state of undress, and whilst he’s unhappy with the attention thats brought towards it, he’s glad that no one has succeeded. Lucifer has scars on his chest, and whilst he’s taken good care of them to ensure optimal healing, they never completely left, the discoloured strip lighting up his already porcelain skin. Most days he’s able to completely forget about them, but occasionally he’ll see himself in the mirror and it’s stings, the reminder that hell never truly be what he considers perfect. On particularly bad days he will shut himself into his study only leaving for meal times (setting a good example to the others of course) and for classes, which isn’t too different from usually, but he shouts less, and the others can’t help but feel bad for taking advantage of Lucifers bad days, instead opting to maybe just, leave the fight for tomorrow yea?

•Mammon probably suffers pretty badly from dysphoria. His demon form requires him to expose the scars across his chest and as a result, quite a lot of people have a hunch. Anytime anyone asks he laughs it of with another story ‚attacked by huge bears!‘ ‚human witch tried ta kill me!‘ ,I battled diavolo and won!‘ but no one really believes his stories and he knows it. He appreciates that no one bothers him about it too much, but he doesn’t really like people knowing, it feels like they have something over him, like black mail, and we know how often mammon is blackmailed. Despite that he’s a successful model, having done plenty of shirtless shoots, and he’s noticed that the scars are never in the final picture, edited out in favour of flawlessly smooth skin, amd whilst he wishes he looked that way, it still feels wrong to see himself without them, especially when no ones brought it up to him.

•Levi absolutly has the worst dysphoria– due to his lungs being unlike any other demons (his demon form seems to have gills?) it’s dangerous for him to get surgery (not to mention he’s probably terrified of the prospect). As a result he just accepted a long time ago that he’d always have to bind. Considering how he’s almost always in his room, it’s not like many people know, but sometimes he’ll be in a raid and his voice will crack just one too many times when he’s mad, or he’ll get too defensive over someone else being attacked for being LGBT that there’s a few rumours online that he might be trans. He ignores them solidly in hope they go away but on bad days he can’t help but read them all– see complete strangers pick him apart and it hurts. Unable to bind for too long (for the fear of his brothers wrath) Levi often opts to wear huge clothes when in his room, which is part of the reason he makes people wait before entering, quickly changing into a binder, regardless of who’s at the door.

•Being neither Male nor female, it’s obviously impossible for Satan to go under the radar. Using they/them pronouns means that they’re often made to come out to people pretty soon after meeting them, given that they didn’t already know. Sometimes they just don’t have the energy to go through the gruelling task of listening to people stumble whilst trying to talk to them and will just leave, but being the avatar of wrath apparently has some advantages as very rarely does anyone try stop them. No one deliberately misgenders Satan twice, often meeting their timely end as they won’t hesitate to tear into anyone who has the disrespect to purposefully try hurt someone that way. Satan probably keeps an updated ‚LGBTQ+‘ book directory for any younger students, and has become something of a rolemodel completely unbeknownst to them, just for being an openly queer student (probably has a few admirers too).

•Asmo has a complicated, yet perfectly simple relationship with gender, whatever’s right is right. Usually using any pronouns, but occasionally making a request usually in the form of ‚I’m a princess tonight‘ or ‚i think I’m Daddy, don’t you?‘ and whilst the Brothers find it somewhat strange, theyre supportive and accustomed to the avatar of lusts mannerisms. Usually unbothered by strangers critiques, asmo is no stranger to being the centre of attention, be it a party, shoot or gossip blog. However this doesn’t mean that sometimes their body just feels wrong, like they can’t quite be comfortable whilst everyone’s talking to or about them, however sometimes fearing speaking up, feeling that they might be cut down for being over dramatic or fragile, which usually wouldn’t bother them, but in a more personal matter, it doesn’t always work out that way. Asmo is treated very much like any other human world celebrity that comes out as gender queer, often ignored by the press unless it’s relevant to the story

•Beel Is one of the brothers who passed stealth almost immediatly, having always been more muscular, much taller, and with a more subdued personality that no one questioned. Despite that, at first there was a fear that eating so much would cause him to gain weight on his hips or thighs, but he quickly found a love for working out that he hasn’t shaken since. Members of Beels gym are mostly aware that he’s trans, he doesn’t have a problem with people knowing, as long as they continue to show the same respect for him. He probably continues to post shirtless pics, not caring about what people think of him, and a lot of young queer people look up to him. He’s always happy to talk to anyone who comes up to him and asks for help, always willing to help others feel more comfortable, to give them that little boost.

•Belphie always struggled next to Beel. Of course they never told him that, and to this day belphie feels bad about keeping it a secret, but it’s better than upsetting Beel, right? Belphie didn’t really feel like anything. Definitely not a woman, but not a man? Non binary and gender queer never felt right, more like wearying a sticky name tag with your name spelt backwards where everyone pretends to understand it, when you know it’s wrong. Belphie took hormone replacements for a few years, wanting to remove the association with their birth assigned gender, but after a while, that started to feel wrong too, it was too much. A lot of people ask Beel ‚what Belphie is?‘ and when he told Belphie, they just told him to shrug. If Belphie doesn’t know, why would they? But a lot of people think they know, telling them ‚oh you must be agender!‘ ‚oh so youre Demi gendered?‘ but why would they know? Why do they feel entitled to their indentity? It’s draining.

[recurring-polynya]

This is very random but I love the cast of random side characters that you made up (like Seike and Ohno) -- so much so that i am sometimes surprised when they dont actually appear in Bleach?? Anyway love that kind of consistency...would love to see it in my own writing someday skjfjsjsj

Ah, thank you so much! You are a great writer, and this is a very achievable goal!

Ha ha, believe it or not, Seike is actually canon?? I am pretty sure his name only appears in We Do (Knot) Always Love You, but I have always assumed it’s this guy:

Anyway, here are some tips for creating side characters! It’s way easier than you think!

I hate making up characters. I hate it. Much the way all great programmers are very lazy and therefore work to minimize the work they have to do over their entire lifetime, I work very hard to never have to make up anything about my characters.

Here’s a tip for names: I am not Japanese and coming up with Japanese names is hard for me and makes me nervous. If I am naming an important character, I will go to the trouble of giving them a meaningful name and working out the kanji, etc etc (by which I mean I go drop hours of my time into https://japanese-names.info/). If they are a side character, I will look up the Wikipedia article on “Japanese entomologists” or “Japanese Olympic figureskaters” and pick one surname and one given name that have the right “ring” to them. I will usually do a quick Google to make sure that name isn’t the name of an important character in some other anime/video game I wasn’t aware of. Bam. Done.

You can also cheat by naming everyone in Squad 6 Kuchiki, Ohno, or Gotou because they are all Byakuya’s relatives, or having there be six guys named Maki in Squad 11 (there are already semi-canonically 2). If you make a joke about it, everything thinks you’re a very funny person instead of just incredibly lazy.

I keep a spreadsheet. Every time I make up a detail about a character, I try to log it so I don’t have to look it up later. Here’s what the Squad 6 tab looks like:

Be minimalist. The less you make up, the less you have to remember later. Every time you bring in a character, say to yourself, what are they here for? You really don’t need to go much further than that. Ohno and Choei got introduced in one of my first fanfics, because a) I needed some exposition, and b) I wanted to show how Renji interacted with his squad. What I wanted to convey was that most of Squad 6 is lazy snobs who enjoy the benefits of nepotism and Renji’s presence is really cramping their deal: hence, Ohno. However, Renji is very likable, and I also wanted a contradicting voice that thought Renji was cool and fun and livened things up: hence Choei. I made them the 3rd and 4th seats because he would work with them a lot, and I would be able to reuse them. Ohno should be kinda important, so I made him the heir to the largest Kuchiki branch family, which explains why he’s snooty, but also always angling for Byakuya’s approval. Choei’s basic characteristic is his chill bro-ness and lack of ambition, so I made him an extraneous fifth son. He’s on the futsal team, because that gave him additional reason to like Renji. He’s openly gay because gay people are cool and I felt like it. That’s it. Two characters that I have gotten incredible mileage out of. Every story or so, I add another detail if it makes sense to. Ohno is, surprisingly, fond of dogs. Choei’s zanpakutou is a warhammer. Ohno’s dad is a huge bitch, which explains a lot about him without me having to explain anything.

My OC’s are primarily there for my protagonists to bounce off of! Like Plato’s shadows in the cave, they really, really, do not need to have a richer inner life than what our protags see of them.

One of my characterizations of Renji is that he’s very personable and knows everyone. When I’m doing his POVs, I name almost any character he comes across, and often include a fact about them. Conversely, when I’m writing Byakuya, who doesn’t notice people who are beneath him, I will frequently not use names, even on people whose names he should really know, like referring to Kira as “that dour fellow from 3.″ It’s also really interesting, particularly in the case of Squad 6, to examine the way Byakuya interacts with his underlings vs. the way Renji does.

One of the things having bit characters does is to make your world feel bigger. A related thing you can do is to casually namedrop places-- invent a name for the restaurant your characters like to go to, or refer to different parts of your setting like you are describing them to someone who lives there (”up near the art musuem” or “that noodle place north of the Eleventh”). When I write about the Seireitei, I am always thinking about my Local Large City, and how I would describe where things are.

Reuse bit-part canon characters interchangeably with your own! This works very well in confusing your audience as to who you made up and who is canon! As I mentioned, Seike is actually canon, although we don’t know much about him. Ichigo’s lesser-known classmates, like Ryo and Michiru are similar. I tend to think of characters in tiers: in my stories, the protagonists are Renji, Rukia, and to a slightly lesser degree, Byakuya, so that’s my A-tier. The B-tier are the other Bleach characters they interact with the most-- Izuru, Momo, Shuuhei, Ikkaku, Yumichika, Hitsugaya, Ukitake, etc. The C-tier are characters that are of lesser importance in the canon story, but I like them, or they are relevant to the story, so I use them, like Hanataro, Akon, Rikichi, Kiyone and Sentaro, etc. There are also the characters that are important canonically, but just aren’t as important to my stories-- Soi Fon, Kyouraku, etc. Then, there’s the D-tier, which should contain both throwaway canon characters, like, Seike, and your made up cast. If you can keep them at the same level, you’re doing the right thing! If you use any character enough, they can move up a tier! There’s also an E-tier for characters that are just a name and some minor details. It’s good and okay to have these, too! You can think about this in terms of tags, as well: your primary audience is clicking on your story for your A-tier characters, and many people may be clicking on it because they are thirsty for content of your B-tier characters, so try to scale their roles according. You’re trying to make the C-tier characters happen, and your audience is just gonna have to deal with it, so it’s your job to convince people that they are Good, Actually. D-characters are there for flavoring, and I guess if you can make people like them, that says something about you (me, I guess?) as a writer.

When I wrote Between Tides, I cut my protagonists off from their main cast so I *had* to introduce some OCs at the B/C-tier and I hated it and rolled around on the floor wailing about it for 3 months. I have gotten so many compliments on Rukia’s intense, overbearing boss, Sunadori, and Renji’s no-nonsense cooking mentor/witch friend, Mrs. Kuwashima. I have no explanation, except maybe all the anguishing did something. I think I invented them more by feel than anything else-- Sunadori’s role was to get Rukia used to the idea of being a vice-captain, and Mrs. Kuwashima’s role was to let Renji be someone’s soft son for a bit. This is more important than any particular bit of backstory. Mrs. Kuwashima didn’t even have much of a backstory, now that I think about it, and the only reason Sunadori had one is because it tied into the plot.

Also, I am a dialogue-ist, and I let my characters establish themselves through their own voices, rather than trying to enforce personalities from above.

Ha ha, I think that’s long enough. Thank you for this opportunity to bloviate about my own writing. The upshot is, worldbuilding is not just magic systems and fantasy governments, it’s also deciding that the lady who goalkeeps the Squad 6 futsal team is also Byakuya’s cousin who once pushed him in the mud as a child.

[buckyreaderrecs]

Bucky Barnes and the Girl With Too Much Power: Chapter 4/?

Summary:  Nobody knows about your power. You’ve never really wanted to use it, let alone hurt someone with it. But, someone has figured you out, and now they’re following you. There’s only one place you can go for help - The Avengers. Good news is they’re good people. Bad news is your power is entirely relevant to soft, sad, recovering, broody Bucky Barnes. Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. 

Chapter 4: You have to leave behind the life you knew. 

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Reader Characters: Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov, Sam Wilson, Tony Stark, Wanda Maximoff, Peter Parker Additional tags: Bucky needs a hug, recovering Bucky, mostly canon compliant (Infinity War and Endgame didn’t happen, Stark Tower still exists), angst, possible future smut (who knows, not me), mutual pining, reader has powers / enhanced!reader, she/her pronouns, more tags/characters to be added with future chapters

Notes: I haven’t updated this fic in months and monthssss. Let me know if there are any continuity errors, and if this is still a fic worth me plugging away at. Thank you for any and all support! xo Rhi

Bucky Barnes and the Girl With Too Much Power Chapter 4/?

There was nothing comforting about having Stark-employed agents tailing you. Logically you knew that besides maybe a well-placed and patient sniper, nobody would be able to get close enough to hurt you. Not with spiders and witches and falcons watching over you. Certainly not with the last remaining Howling Commandos on your side.

Although you couldn't see him, even when you tried to covertly spot him, you could feel Bucky. You could feel him watching you and you knew it was him because it wasn't like before. It didn't make you feel sick with dread.

All of that was probably in your head though.

More tangible aspects of the situation were the beads of sweat rolling down your spine and pooling in the small of your back. Very real was the awkward pace you were keeping - definitely faster than a casual walk but a solid attempt to appear calm and normal.

It had been decided that you would walk the entire way home. It was doable, but you'd usually catch the bus. The people who wanted you would have to see the future to know when and where you'd catch a bus, but that wasn't outside the realm of possibility. Not anymore. So, you walked for 40 minutes.

…

Unless he wanted you to see him, Bucky Barnes was invisible. He'd always been good at camouflage, but programming by Hydra included 'how to disappear 101.' And under your power, it was like that again. Not a single soul saw Bucky as he followed you block by block. There wasn't even a gust of wind left in his wake to alert people that someone… something, had gone by.

Entirely focussed and keen eyed, Bucky watched your strange gait. If there was no power clouding his mind, he would have smirked a little; even Hydra couldn't take the sass out of him.

After he climbed through an unlocked bedroom window and landed on the floor behind you, Bucky stood up straight at attention. You were on your hands and knees, pulling things out of the bottom of a closet. There was a duffle bag in there somewhere, you were sure.

"Yes!" you whispered to yourself, standing and spinning around. The yelp that escaped your mouth sounded through Bucky's earpiece to the other Avengers situated in, on, and around your apartment building.

"Buck?" Steve asked, muscles already poised to move.

"Package is safe," Bucky replied, no emotion in his voice. The lack of it went unnoticed by Peter Parker - who was still too new and in awe to know Bucky beyond reputation and limited interaction. He didn't mean to, but Bucky had avoided Peter; he reminded him too much of pre-serum Steve. However, Wanda, Sam, and Steve all heard the tone, and all frowned to themselves from their respective positions. Nobody did anything though.

"You scared me," you said as soon as you yelped. When he didn't move, speak, or even shrug it off, you were reminded of your spell. A small, sad, "Oh," was uttered. "Stop. You can stop your… mission," you ordered him.

It didn't work. Maybe it wasn't specific enough. Without a lot of practice, you really weren't good at using your power when you actually needed to. You realised that you shouldn't have given Bucky a complex and prolonged order in the elevator.

"Ah… Relax. Be yourself…?" you tried. Bucky's blue eyes simply remained fixed on you and he went to speak, but you cut him off. "Oh! Ignore my previous order. Do not… feel compelled… to… Fuck. What did I tell you to do?"

"Make sure I get to my house safely. Help me get what I need, and bring me back here," Bucky said, repeating your command word-for-word. It was unnerving.

"Yeah… Don't… Don't do that. Unless you want to. Only do that if you want to."

When his posture gave (by only the slightest amount), you breathed out. It had worked, but you weren't sure exactly which part.

"Bucky?" you asked gently. Bucky smiled and it felt like rain in a drought. "You okay?"

He nodded, being much more used to giving non-verbal responses. Sam's voice was in his head though, encouraging him to speak, pushing his recovery forward faster than Steve's love alone could do. "Yeah, I'm fine…"

You could hear it in his slow drawl- that slight cognitive lag people sometimes experienced after your power left their minds and they were free again.

"I'm sorry,"

"No, darling', you don't have to keep saying that. It's alright,"

"But-"

"Please," he interrupted. He shook his head slightly, but it was enough for you to see he didn't want to talk about it. "You did good,"

"I just… walked," you replied.

"Yeah, but that isn't easy when you think someone's about to kill ya,"

"Wow. Reassuring. Thanks," you said sarcastically, moving around him to put the bag on the bed.

Bucky chuckled, then sat down next to the bag.

"Aren't you gonna, like, check the cupboards and stuff?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Christ, how unprofessional do you think we are?" From the dresser you were digging through, you looked over at him and shrugged in confusion. "Stark had people in here as soon as he figured out where here was,"

"Guessing that was pretty quick?"

"Yep," Bucky replied, popping the P sound purposefully.

"So, random people have been going through my stuff?" Looking around, nothing seemed out of place. It was unnerving, actually.

"Not random. People Stark trusts,"

"Do you trust them?"

But he hesitated and he saw that you'd seen. He couldn't but smile a little. "I don't not trust them."

Thinking for a couple seconds, you decided on, "Probably fair…"

Bucky nodded, and you continued to pack. He decided it wasn't worth telling you that in the very early hours of the morning, after the city was asleep and just before the sun woke up, he'd gone to your apartment too. Clues in the cupboards. Secrets under the seats. Anything really. Steve had been awake when Bucky slipped out. He'd thought maybe Bucky was checking for Hydra. Or possibly, Steve hoped, his best friend was driven by the fact that you looked a lot like a couple of the girls Bucky had charmed before the war meant anything to them.

Bucky followed you as you went room by room, filling the duffle, then a backpack, then an empty shopping bag.

"You planning on never coming back here?" he asked, mostly joking. When you stopped, moving like a deer in the headlights, Bucky realised. "Oh…"

"Am I? Am I coming back?" you asked, on the cusp of hopeful. The glimmer of it in your eyes killed Bucky.

"I don't know," he answered, voice a little too soft to be comforting.

Looking around your apartment, you tried to look brave. "I guess… it doesn't really matter. Hadn't really built much of a life anyway,"

"Of course it matters, Y/N."

Before you could say anything else, there was a loud knock on your door, followed by the shrill voice of your neighbour. "Y/N?! Did I just hear ya come home?! Where've ya been?!"

You and Bucky turned to each other at the same time, both expecting the other to do something.

"She's not gonna go away," you whispered.

"Make her," Bucky said.

"I don't want to use-"

"No," Bucky interrupted. "Just talk to her…" His tone implied the 'obviously.'

As soon as you swung the door open, Barb went to step in.

"Ah, sorry, Barb. Bit of a mess in here… Did you need… something?" you said, stopping her.

She eyed you suspiciously, tried to look past you. "You didn't come home last night,"

"Stayed at a friend's,"

"That's lovely… Which friend? That nice Lisa girl?"

"No, um, new friend. James."

Bucky almost laughed.

"A boy? I didn't realise you were dating." She emphasised the last word like it was taboo.

Normally, you'd be better at dealing with Barb; she meant well, but was incredibly nosey. Normally, you didn't answer all her rapid-fire questions immediately, but you were nervous.

"It's not like that. He's just a friend,"

"That you spent the night with,"

"Barb, it's 2020. We can be friends with guys now,"

"So defensive, Y/N! Must really like him," she said with a knowing smile.

"I'm just on my way out, actually,"

"Such a social butterfly all of a sudden. I was just coming over to see if you're alright,"

"I'm alright. And I appreciate it. I really do. I'm just… a bit busy right now,"

"Alright, alright," Barb said, holding her hands up in surrender. "I know when I'm not welcome-"

"No, Barb, it's not-"

"No, no, it's fine." She took a step backwards.

"Barb-"

"When will you be home then?"

Fuck.

You tried to look over your shoulder into your apartment as casually as possible. Glancing at Bucky, all he could offer was a shrug. You realised then that you would have to lie, really lie.

"Actually… Might be gone for a while. Got family upstate that need me."

Barb was quiet for a second, searching through everything she knew about you. "I hope everyone's alright," she settled on. She wanted to say that she didn't know you had family upstate… or any family at all, for that matter.

You'd lived in the apartment complex for five or so years. Barb had always looked out for you, especially since her kid went off to college. She'd met a couple of your friends, heard about work, but never once had you spoken about family. Barb hadn't pressed, although she very much wanted to. Something inside her was keeping her from doing so.

"Yeah, yep… They will be," you replied, nodding.

"Okay… Well, you'll have to come over for tea when you get back?"

"I will. Thanks, Barb."

She left.

Bucky watched you close the door, lock it out of habit.

Your eyes were full of tears. "I can't come back here," you whispered to him. "If someone is after me, I can't bring them here,"

"They probably already know where 'here' is," Bucky replied, almost immediately knowing it was the wrong thing to say. "But," he quickly added. "If they were gonna do anything, they'd done that already."

Bucky didn't believe that to be true at all. More likely, the people following you, upon discovering your sudden disappearance, would try to draw you out. If they knew Barb was a friend - it could make her a target.

You watched Bucky's expression. You read the lie. You didn't need to force the truth out though. You let the fact that he was trying to reassure you, reassure you.

"We'll keep surveillance here."

You nodded, moved slowly to continue packing.

Bucky stayed quiet, watched, tried to remember all the details of your apartment. Maybe they'd come in useful at some point.

"Okay, I'm ready," you announced.

"There's a car downstairs waiting for you," Bucky said.

"You're not coming?"

"I'll go out the way I came," he answered. When you didn't move, he added, "You'll be okay… Steve and everyone… they'll look after you." He wasn't lying that time. "Go."

Slinging bags over your shoulder, you nodded and left Bucky Barnes in the apartment you would never return to.

What would happen to the rest of your stuff? Would Stark pay for a storage unit? Pay your rent? What about work?

By the time you got to the car, you were again, on the verge of tears.

Upstairs, from a window of your apartment, Bucky watched you leave. He made a note to tell someone to teach you not to get into cars without checking if it was safe first. You hadn't even asked to see the driver's ID.

"She's aboard," Bucky relayed into coms.

"Copy that," Steve's voice came back. "Buck?"

Bucky was in his head.

For longer than Steve liked.

Chapter 5 is coming soon...

Tag list for this fic (open): @animegirlgeeky @brighteyedmichelle @howthehellisbucky @bitterstar88 @thatweirdwalangpake

Tag list for all my work (open): @bubbabarnes @browngirlmagic @lookalivefrosty @aynaraxas @vibraniumwitch @the--sad--hatter @fairislesheets - still won’t let me tag you?

[shipaholic]

Omens Universe, Chapter 11 Part 2

Link to next part at the end.

(From the beginning)

(last part)

(chrono)

---

Chapter 11, cont.

Crowley purred upon seeing the Bentley. It was a little obscene, but he didn’t care. He hadn’t had a day off in ten years. Going for a drive was one of Earth’s greatest pleasures, as far as he was concerned,[1] and he’d been sorely neglecting it. He stroked the door lovingly before letting himself in.

“Don’t get anything on the seat,” he told Adam.

“Er,” Adam said, peering through the back window.

Crowley leaned back to wave him inside and saw somebody already sitting in the back seat.

“Hello,” she said.

Crowley’s mouth dropped open. “Who the Hell are you?”

Aziraphale leaned his head in through the passenger door. He blinked at the woman in the back, as if unclear whether Crowley had left her there by accident.

“My name is Anathema Device,” the woman said.

She was wearing a dramatic green coat and prim, thick-rimmed glasses. Despite the Wiccan-ish aesthetic, there was something stern and school-teachery about her. Crowley had the impression he was about to be told off.

“You’re two minutes late,” she said. Ah. There it was.

Adam decided he might as well sit down. He slipped into the back beside Anathema. She smiled at him.

Crowley made a decision there and then. No more tagalongs. Whoever this person was, she could get lost.

Anathema leaned forwards, business-like. “I’m here about the Antichrist.”

Adam looked offended. A lot of the people he’d met today seemed to have spoken to his mother.

“Nope. That’s it. I’m done with this. I’ve already processed everything I’m willing to hear today. Whatever revelations you’ve got, you can keep. I’m content not knowing everything, I don’t need whatever you’re selling. Get out of my car.”

“You’re going to want to hear this.”

“I definitely won’t. Angel, get in.”

Aziraphale got in the passenger seat. He gave Anathema a polite smile. “Hello, my dear.”

“She’s not your dear. She’s a woman who’s broken into my Bentley and spread patchouli everywhere.”

Anathema sighed. “Please. I didn’t break in, it was unlocked.” At least, it wasn’t locked very well.

“I don’t lock it for a reason. Because nobody touches my car.”[2]

“I remember you,” Adam said to Anathema. “You came round the house. You were trying to give us magazines. You talked to the head of security for ages. Most people don’t get that far.”

Anathema brightened. “Um, actually yes. I was trying to speak to you.”

“Oh. I was round the corner on my Gameboy,” Adam said.

Anathema had spent an interminable forty-five minutes keeping the security guard talking, hoping to catch a glimpse of Adam. “...Oh.”

“I read the magazines, though. They were cool.”

“Oh! I’m glad.”

“We’re actually in a hurry, if nobody minds,” Crowley said, to no-one in particular.

Anathema straightened up. “Right. Allow me to explain. I’m here to prevent the End of Days.”

Crowley and Aziraphale exchanged glances.

“Oh, that’s not a real thing,” Adam said, confidently. “That’s just stories an alien told me when I was a kid.”

Anathema looked up, sharply. “An alien? There are aliens in the Book…”

She hefted a much-thumbed, elderly tome onto her lap and flicked through it. Aziraphale’s bibliophilic senses rang a faint bell.

“Yeah, I like books with aliens,” said Adam. “This alien was real, though. Actually, there were lots of them. They kept telling me I was going to grow up and destroy humanity and burn the planet to a crisp. And then Hell would defeat Heaven and blah blah blah. I was a bit worried about it all.” Adam scratched his head, near his gem. Anathema’s eyes zoomed in on it. “But it all makes way more sense now I know it was aliens.”

“Oookay. This is pretty big, actually,” Anathema murmured. She was staring at Adam like a rare specialist who had just made the find of their career. “I wasn’t positive, even after everything… but it’s really you, isn’t it?” Her eyes shone with various emotions. Awe was in the mix. So was fear.

“Nanny was definitely an alien,” Adam said, darkly.

Anathema’s eyes flicked down to the open Book on her lap. They fell onto prophecy 1011, And the devile dide saye: we doe notte have time for alle this nonesense.

“We don’t have time for all this nonsense,” Crowley said.

“I know who you are,” Anathema blurted. “Agnes says you’re going to take the Antichrist away. The family don’t all agree where, there are a few different readings, but the important thing is that you won’t succeed. Listen to me. Armageddon will happen here, at this house.”

Crowley and Aziraphale exchanged tense looks.

“No human prophecies have come anywhere near predicting any of this.” Aziraphale craned his neck, trying to get a glimpse of the Book. “Did you say Agnes, my dear -?”

Crowley didn’t like this. Who cared what a prophecy said? He didn’t need strange women popping up and putting him off before they’d even set out.

“You two are in this whole batch of prophecies. You can set things right if you just listen to me and don’t leave. Your only hope to save the Earth is if you do exactly what I say -”

Crowley snapped his fingers. Anathema vanished.

“Crowley!”

“She was wasting our time. And we haven’t got much of that left.”

Crowley gunned the ignition. The Bentley sputtered to joyous life. He jerked the steering wheel and veered out onto the road. He almost took out a pillar box that mysteriously leapt into the air and settled safely a few feet down.

Aziraphale shook his head. “All her things are in the back seat. What if she needs them?”

“Should have thought of that before she touched my Bentley.”

Crowley took a corner at an alarming speed. He mumbled something about the emotional violation.

“I’ll be very cross if you’ve sent her somewhere bad.”

Crowley waved the concern away. He tore down the street. It had been too long since he’d done ninety in central London.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

Aziraphale finished crossing himself and clutched the roof of the car in the apparent hope that he could jimmy himself in place in the event of a crash.

“My old bookshop, if you would be so kind,” he said.

In the back seat, Adam picked up the Book and flipped through it.

~*~

Newton Pulsifer, Witchfinder Private, perched on the edge of the discoloured sofa belonging to his employer, Sergeant Shadwell. He was just starting on his third hour of daily newspaper clippings when a woman tumbled out of the air and landed on top of him.

There was chaos. There was screaming (mostly from Newt). There was shouting (from Shadwell). There were accusations of foul sorcery and witchcraft (from Shadwell; for once in his life, he was spot on).

Eventually, things calmed down enough that Newt noticed the woman was rather attractive, and that she seemed annoyed but not surprised to have teleported to a first-floor flat in Tower Hamlets.

Her name was, apparently, Anathema Device. Well. Why not. Newt recently learned he had an ancestor called Adultery Pulsifer. He wasn’t about to judge.

Anathema surveyed her new lieutenants in her stand against Armageddon. A cigarette-charred man with an ambiguous regional accent and a scowl that could cut rocks. A nervous young man who was vaguely threatening her with a pair of scissors, but who was obviously likelier to injure himself with them than her. And some kind of “painted strumpet” (not Anathema’s words) across the hall who hadn’t shown up to the proceedings so far, but who they could tag in later if things went badly. Not a promising start. Lieutenants might be too strong a word. Sidekicks, then.

It frustrated her, leaving all her possessions behind in the car. Losing the Book would have devastated her, but Agnes had predicted it, so Anathema was prepared. She had compensated for its loss by memorising the remaining prophecies that seemed relevant.

“OK, guys. Is everything clear so far?”

Shadwell glowered. He held something that was apparently a Thundergun. It slightly resembled a bass trombone. He made no move to shoot her, and she doubted anyone had reloaded it any time in the last century, so his grip on it seemed to be for comfort. Newt had put down the scissors as a gesture of magnanimity.

“I think I’ve followed so far,” Newt said. “The world’s going to end. Um, there’s a boy called Adam Dowling who’s the key to everything, but he’s out of range now and there’s nothing anyone can do about that - er -”

Anathema nodded encouragingly.

“- And our job is to take care of stuff here, and hope that the people with this, er, Adam do their part, because otherwise the Earth is doomed,” he finished. Luckily, he’d passed through the barrier of absurdity and into the vista of calm that lay beyond.

“That’s about it, yeah,” said Anathema.

“So - what should we be doing now?”

“Now we need to stop the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

“Great,” Newt said, weakly.

Anathema nodded, satisfied. It was coming together. She hoped.

It was the two men, or men-shaped-beings, with the Antichrist she worried about. They had to do the next part on their own. And if that went wrong…

She’d known there was no genuine hope of diverting them from their course to escape… wherever they were planning to escape to. But Agnes said she would try to stop them, so she had to try, no matter how vain the attempt. She had hoped to see more evidence that her words were sinking in before the goth one banished her from his equally goth car.

What they did next was out of her hands, so there was no point in worrying. She turned to her new sidekicks. There was work to do.

---

[1] Specifically, speeding.

[2] Crowley got pretty far, normally, assuming that no-one would dare break into the Bentley. He was mostly correct. Witches, however, were unimpressed by demons.

(Link to next part)

[hopewritcs]

the prodigal sister. six.

pairing: familial byers fam x reader, romantic paring tbd

word count: 2.3k

summary: y/n is the middle sibling of the byers brothers. she’s just ten months younger than jonathan, making the pair “irish twins”. except when her father and mother got divorced, lonnie got custody of y/n and took her away from the rest of the family.

notes: time for part six. this chapter is a bit shorter, kind of a “filler chapter” ( even if i absolutely hate using that term because it’s still relevant to the story but it’s not the main core plot ) the next chapter will include going to school on monday and having some quality time with someone.  

other chapters: masterlist

tps tag list: @irreleventmoonchild, @rockyrocket15, @the-fae-child, @bucky4cap45, @pinklyrium,@girlycakepops, @qtmeryr, @noodlebread303, @virtualsheepeat,@acidrain707, @trashblackrainbow, @sadhwstudent, @unprofessional-inhumanbeing, @laneygthememequeen, @wanna-be-idle, @smh-writings,  @httpakasha ( if you wanna be added to the tag list just let me know ! )

It was the first morning in February when a couple of big delivery boxes arrived on the Byers’s front step.  Courtesy of an overnight shipping label and the tape was already looking as though it was peeling off.  Apparently Lonnie finally got around to shipping out his daughter’s things, if you could even call it that.  It looked like he just tossed the boxes out and waited for something to happen to them.  There were six boxes total, filled with about what Y/N would classify as “everything in her room except the bedding”.  

With the boxes looking worse for ware, and Y/N having caught up on her school work quickly, Joyce decided to let Y/N stay home from school and unpack things into her old bedroom.  The mattress they’d gotten, second hand from an old family friend, had also arrived the night before so it was finally time for Y/N to get off the couch and into her own space.  

Her brothers complained that she got to stay home from school.  “It’s not fair, it’s the weekend.”  They’d groaned and shook their heads at the breakfast table, but Joyce shut them up with one of her stares.  Of course, Y/N wasn’t going to argue with the thought of staying home, but she managed to keep quiet and simply waved her brothers off when Joyce handed Jonathan the car keys.  

The problem was, Lonnie wasn’t exactly thorough or careful with the pack job he’d shipped.  Things were thrown about in the boxes with little thought or care.  One of the pictures he’d tossed in there, a framed family photo pre-divorce, had broken against the packaging and Y/N pulled her hand away scratched with the shards of glass.  

It took Joyce and Y/N all their effort to get the dresser and mattress and everything situated in her room first.  They then went about making the bed and putting clothes away ( or tossing them in a needs to be washed pile ).  For Y/N and Joyce it was good to focus on doing all of this, with a little music playing from the stereo in the living room, and talking about everything.  Both of them were feeling like they had missed out on so much from being away from each other for all these years, and Y/N had just really missed her mom.  

It didn’t go unnoticed by Joyce that Y/N avoided discussing time at Lonnie’s house, except for a couple of random comments about her father’s utter lack of cleanliness and his inability to prepare a meal for himself.  Oh, and that his “girlfriend Stacey is a total witch, acts like she owns the place.”  But that was that, and Joyce didn’t push much.  She knew how Lonnie could be, and could only imagine how he was when it was just the two of them in the home.  He was arrogant and selfish and stupid.  

And it was then, more than ever before, with her daughter in the room putting up some poster on the wall that Joyce’s heart ached for all those missed years.  

“Are you still in touch with your old roommate, Natasha?”  Joyce asked, folding a pair of jeans over as she looked up at her daughter.  Joyce had taken over folding and putting clothes away while Y/N was getting her room set up just so.  

“I sent her a letter explaining that I wouldn’t be coming back to school and I hope her roommate this year Francesca is neater than I was.  But we were never really the best of friends.”  Y/N shrugged, playing with the binding of one of her books as she found it a spot on the shelf.  

“And she’s how you met Billy, Max’s step-brother?”  

“Yeah, they used to go out.  But neither of them were really reliable.  Sometimes Billy stood her up.  Sometimes she stood him up, even if it was just for retaliation for him missing a date.”  Y/N turned her head to look at her mom.  She sighed as she rubbed her dust covered hands over her borrowed pair of pants.  “Do you think he’s as bad as everyone’s told me?”  

Joyce stopped mid fold and looked over at her daughter.  She shrugged, shaking her head as she continued her previously forgotten action.  “I can’t say I’ve actually met him, so I wouldn’t know.”  

Y/N nodded her head, a bit deflated in that.  It was hard to put the Billy she’d known in California to the asshole step brother of Max she’d heard about.  Because, sure, the Billy she’d known in California was a dick.  He slept around and did what he wanted, but he wasn’t too terrible.  Billy had been reckless ( like a lot of people were ) and he thought the world was his and his alone and made no point in hiding that.  But that wasn’t all there was to him either.  She had seen him in softer states too, in a less “big man in charge” state of being.  

Joyce must have taken note on the fact that Y/N was lost in her thoughts as she had made her way to her daughter’s side undetected and put a hand on Y/N’s shoulder with a soft smile as her daughter jumped to look at her.  “I think they’re just worried about you.  And I know you can take care of yourself, but with everything that’s happened,” Joyce paused, her head dropping down as flashes of what they’d been through popped into her mind.  It was her daughter taking her hand that brought her back from the thoughts and she spoke again, “but you can’t blame them for being worried.”  

Y/N nodded slowly and sighed, “I just hope that the next time I say anything about him they won’t jump down my throat again.  I get it at this point.”  

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”  Joyce said softly, pulling her daughter into a hug.  She wished she had a solution to what was going on, but she didn’t.  There wasn’t really any advice she could offer except just wait it out and hold out hope that her brothers ( and the others ) stopped talking about it with her after some time.  “Just give it time, I’m sure something else will come up.”  

A couple of hours later the school day was out and Y/N and Joyce were in the living room watching some after school special and laughing together over some popcorn as the Byers boys walked in the door.  

“We had to go to school while you two just sat and did this all day?”  the way Jonathan said it was much more teasing than angry or annoyed as he took a handful of popcorn and sat down on the couch next to his sister and leaned forward to talk to Joyce.  “Can I borrow the car tonight to take Nancy to the movies and dinner?”  

“So long as you take Will to the Wheeler’s house on your way.  The kids are having a game night.”  Joyce said, turning her head to her kids and smiling.  Simple moments like this, all four of them cramped onto the couch, were what she was most excited about now.

“Hey, did you bring my homework from class?”  

Jonathan shrugged, “Teacher’s said someone else got it before I did.”  

Jonathan had taken Will to the Wheeler’s and gone to pick up Nancy not too long before another car pulled into the drive.  Joyce had been preparing dinner for her and Y/N, so Y/N answered the door.  

“Hey Robin!”  Y/N smiled, opening the door for the other to enter.  

“Hey Y/N.  You weren’t in class, so I grabbed some notes for you and the homework.  Plus, we’ve got to run lines for Monday’s class so I figured it would be easier if I had all the rest of your stuff too.”  Robin said, holding out a folder full of papers toward Y/N.  

“Oh, cool.  Thanks.  My mom’s making dinner, did you want to stay and we can run lines after we eat?”  she put down the notes on the coffee table and turned around to call for Joyce, who popped her head away from the stove.  “Mom, is it okay if my friend stays for dinner?  We’ve got to run lines for our drama class.”  

“Of course it’s alright!”  Joyce exclaimed, wiping her hands off on her pants before coming into the living room and holding out her hand, “It’s nice to meet one of Y/N’s friends from school.”  

Robin had her coat half shrugged off, so she quickly finished shrugging the fabric off her shoulders and into her arms before shaking the older woman’s hand.  “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Byers.”  

It was surprising how comfortable it felt to have a friend in the house.  Y/N had rarely had friends over growing up, until she was away at boarding school where it was easy to get together with other girls in the dormitories for sleepovers, or going out for dinner.  And she’d worried about having friends over, even if she felt comfortable with Will and his friends ( who were over quite a lot ), she wondered what it would be like to have her own friends over.  

The three women made their way to the kitchen and Y/N finished setting the table as Joyce continued to stir at the pasta on the stovetop.  Robin was filling Y/N in on what she’d missed at school that day, talking mostly about the class they shared together and how the drama teacher had almost lost the assignment sheets and had to leave the classroom twice before she remembered where she put it.  

The whole conversation throughout the dinner was easy and it made Y/N feel even more at home than she had been feeling.  Joyce seemed happy too, excited that her daughter had made a friend in school with only being there for a short period of time.  It was nice that she got along with someone and it wasn’t just the people who she already knew.  

Robin had been nervous about going over to the Byers house to give Y/N her homework, having made a last minute choice to go to the attendance office to get Y/N’s schedule and go looking for her classes impulsively at the end of the day.  But she’d still done it, and she was glad she did since the dinner was nice and she didn’t feel nervous after the first couple of questions.  

The girls excused themselves from the table when Joyce insisted they go work on the homework, and Y/N grabbed the folder from the coffee table before heading back to lead Robin to her bedroom.  Flipping on the light, she hopped onto her bed.  “I know, it’s still a bit messy but my father only just sent me everything.  You’re like the first person to see my room.  I wanted to ask to paint it a different color but I figured we’d already done so much.”  Y/N rambled a bit as she shuffled through the papers and found the drama assignment.  Looking up she spotted Robin still standing in the doorway.  “Come and take a seat, Robin.”  she laughed.  “You need to tell me what we’re doing anyway.”  

Robin nodded and sat down on Y/N’s bed, peering over her shoulder and looking at the assignment sheet.  She pointed to one of the scenes noted on the paper, tapping as she spoke, “We’ve got this one, A Doll’s House.”  she hummed and took the paper out of Y/N’s hands effectively taking control and Y/N watched as she flipped through the packet to get to the correct scene explanation before turning around and grabbing her copy of the play from her backpack.  

Y/N looked over the packet and nodded.  She was familiar with the play, enough to know what it was about but she had yet to read it through.  It had been one of the plays her school had put on, and she’d helped with some behind the scenes work.  “I gotta be honest, I’m not really a center stage kind of person.”  Y/N said with a laugh, shaking her head.  

“Me either, but ‘least it’s not in front of everybody in the school.”  Robin said, holding out her copy for both of them to read from.  

By the time they had the entire scene nearly memorized it was later than they expected and Joyce had to poke her head in to tell the girls it was time for Robin to go home.  Though she did say that the girls should get together another time for an actual sleepover, Joyce insisted she didn’t feel right with the last minute arrangement since she didn’t know Robin’s parents well enough.  

The girls said goodnight, Robin left and Y/N went back to her room to work on the rest of her homework before she went to bed for the night.  She had to admit it was a bit weird sleeping in a bed rather than on the couch as she had been.  It was far more comfortable, but it was weird.  She was back in her childhood home, in her childhood room, though it looked different than she’d expected it to look.  It felt different, both in a good way and a bad way.  

Good to be home, and she felt comfortable.  But she was still dealing with all the news she’d been told that first day she’d come home.  If she were having nightmares and wandering thoughts about it all and she’d simply heard the tales, she couldn’t help but wonder what her brothers, their friends, her mother, all thought since they’d all lived through it.  

She worried that something might happen that she wouldn’t be prepared for.  But, how exactly could you prepare for something supernatural like they’d explained?  

You can’t.  

[bladekindeyewear]

HS^2 bloggin’ Patreon Commentary Catchup 2020-03-29

I know I’ve been sitting on half-a-dozen asks, but I’m gonna sit on those a little longer because after I’m done catching up on ALL the commentary I’ve missed I’ll probably be a little exhausted.

First the commentary on Chapter 5: YOUR 3Y3S H4V3 B33N CLOS3D.  I skimmed this before, just so I could leave a comment about what I’d been told about the suicide feeling / Jaspers funeral when she was “eight” being way too late on the timeline.  They still haven’t made any corrections to that HS^2 page.  Hm.  Are they just feeling the general vibe and tags to help the fandom guide things?  I’m wondering if anyone came to any of them specifically with that, since Patreon commentary doesn’t seem to cut it.  (Which I might be grateful for, from another point of view, because why would they favor paid methods.)

Sketches and Commentary: Chapter 5, "YOUR 3Y3S H4V3 B33N CLOS3D"

Starting commentary on why they played with the medium by opting for a Longpage with that update.  Unsurprising and understandable~

Ooh, they included the commission/sketch instructions for the image they asked from Xam.

I don't know what we did to deserve Xamag.

Yeah few people dispute Xamag’s awesomeness.~

Much of this conversation was written before they launched HS^2′s first chapter, huh?

With the "primary" version of its original protagonist dead in a wallet,

Did... did Terezi or someone else put John’s body in his wallet after he died?  I forget.  *checks back*

(Meat 35) That’s definitely a fair question. But I have one that’s much more important for her to answer. Terezi, are you seriously just going to leave the body here? “TEREZI: HUH?” Of course not. Terezi’s a practical girl, after all. She digs the wallet out of her blood-stained pants, and captchas the corpse. She holds it close to her heart, like a secret. Like John’s stupid last words: a confession whispered for her and no one else.And then she starts walking home.

(Meat 36) Terezi’s jaw tightens. She’s not ready to hear any words that remind her of those few hours with John. Her hand goes to her pocket, where she’s keeping the wallet. She traces the contours of it with her thumb and forces a smile.

[...] Here we both are. It’s a beautiful day. You’ve got your dead boyfriend in your wallet. And we’ve already managed to strike such a nice metatextual rapport. So hear me out. [...]  I ease the throttle back a bit, just enough so that I’m not whispering directly into her ear when she slips the wallet out of her pocket. She clutches it so hard in her palm that she’s digging dents into the leather, and bites her lip.

God damnit, that was an important fucking thing for me to forget.  I hope she preserved his corpse in a better way than just “wallet”.  And why the FUCK did Dirk think it was so important to bring him???? That’s not good, is it.

Back to the commentary, going to how the Dirk crew’s conversations especially cover the meta question of why continue the story at all...

This is actually a similar question to one explored by a series that shares a lot of Homestuck's creative DNA, Steven Universe.

Oh god damnit, what timing, huh?  And then they go on about what constitutes a happy ending and what’s supposed to happen after, how work might not be done, et cetera.  Hopefully these authors take a page from how SU:F finished, because Steven Universe managed to pull it back to uplifting pretty well.

These are two dangerous women, confined together long enough to learn all of each others' weaknesses, and sharp-edged enough to exploit them.

True enough.

Dirk, unfortunately, cucks the audience from seeing the scene's "true resolution." What an asshole. I've never been madder at this guy than I am right now. I bet he didn't even provide a warranty.

Pff.

On to the next commentary:

Sketches and Commentary: Catnapped, Part Three

Catnapped is some of the most fun I’ve had while writing, because Jasprose is just so goddamn fun. Cats don’t plan, they live in the moment. She’s always existing in that moment of pushing a glass off the table.

We can all agree with that I think.

Plenty they talk about here, but I’ll just quote part of anything about characterization... 

First, I actually really appreciate getting a lot at Jane's genuine sympathy for Dirk here. There was quite a bit of mutual fondness and care between the two of them – but, at the same time, they enabled each others' worst tendencies.

Hm!

Swifer remains the closest thing to a "straight man" this story has. (Not in the sexuality way. In the comedy way.)

Yep.

There was no universe where we left this story without Jasprose saying "owo what's this". You know it, I know it.

Jesus Christ, I didn’t catch that.

God, Problem Sleuth just has the worst commuting luck. He should put some of his rug money into a permanent locksmith. Checking back in with these scenes is always a delight. It probably took PS like two hundred off-screen panels to get to this point. Miserable.

Wait, that’s right, Catnapped 28 is shown before DDD 12, but AFTER Dad is shown marching up handcuffed in Catnapped 26.  And yet in DDD 12, Dad and DD come fetch PS from out of his office, when the handcuffed thing hasn’t happened yet in DDD.  You can’t DO that, authors!  It only makes RELEASE ORDER sense, not any sort of OTHER sense?  What about when people come to catch up or read this later!  Come on, that’s sloppy.  Unless they’re going to leave PS behind to stay trapped in his office MORE, which I wouldn’t put past them.  (But, wouldn’t make sense since the bullethole from C28 is already there in DDD12.)  Andrew knew more of how to be responsible telling an out-of-time-sync story, believe it or not.

Commentary ends with a few sketches, like Jasprose doing a The Mask impression, appropriately.

Sketches and Commentary: Chapter 6, "A Conversation Regarding Relevance"

Oh, it’s Jade time.

On alt!Callie’s starting Space rant:

I wanted to impress on everyone just how vast it is, and also to remind the audience that alt!callie has them at the same mercy that Dirk does. She can force us to listen to her pontificate endlessly if she so chooses. She’s slightly less insufferable than Dirk, if only perhaps because her text isn’t orange. 

Yep, mostly.

So here she is. Jade. We find out that not only is she conscious inside her own head, she is also incredibly chatty. And not too thrilled with her current situation. I know most of the audience isn’t either, considering the fact that Jade having no agency has basically become a meme at this point. 

NEVER. AGAIN. PLZ.

As Callie told us in the beginning of the chapter, it isn’t natural for people to behave like narrative devices. Even within her own thematic framework, Callie has a habit of defaulting to behaving like a person after all. 

Even alt!Callie still became a story nerd, not just original Callie -- she just became a different, more insufferable type of story nerd.

Plenty more discussion I don’t need to touch on...  keep in mind I’m omitting large parts of this in most cases, again, to respect the paywall.

A remark on Dave and Karkat being two emotionally-constipated early-twenties Bernie Bros, which... I mean.  Fair.

She definitely does love them, and she wanted to be with them, but also...Jade has a lot of other prospects. She’s actually the one character who seems to be enjoying her time on Earth c. Hitting up interspecies raves and getting around. We just haven’t seen any of that because none of those other people she boned are main characters. 

Maybe that’s why alt!Callie was so blind and dismissive of it?  Offscreen experience being less in the Light, therefore less relevant to her, even though that’s the exact attitude she’s ostensibly at war with?

Anyway Jade’s consciousness is huge.

Yep.

It’s been a while since we’ve had any sort of serious meta talk about classpects. Mostly because there’s really no use for classpects outside of the game, unless, for instance, you go around referring to everyone as the Prince or the Witch because you are a dramatic alien in a hood. It does make sense that a Witch’s powers would be more useful than a Sylph’s to a Muse. 

Aaaand that’s all the classpect mention we’re gonna get isn’t it? ;P

(Yes I know, the author told us to dial it back.  They ARE going ahead and prepping to answer some outstanding questions, though.)

Honestly, the Jade Situation is a tough one. To be sure, she has been sacrificed to the plot again and again, something that probably began as a coincidence and then later grew into a theme. Space players are destined to be huge, cosmic forces in the universe. Big movers. [...] But usually when we hear the story of big, god-like beings, we don’t think about the personalities behind them. What was it like for god to create the universe? Was he lonely? Did he regret it? Did he wish he could live in it instead? 

And Jade WAS too powerful not to sideline, by a certain point in the plot.  And before that, maybe trapped in a bit of a character arc where she had to get over some notions to step into the action.

I actually think Jade could have been okay with this. With being A Force For The Narrative. [...] But then Callie makes it personal.

Agreed.  If alt!Callie hadn’t been so shitty about it in general, they could have worked things out more meaningfully; but the immense resolve and effort it took to dominate Caliborn in her origin timeline has tainted her perception ALMOST as bad as Dirk’s.  Much of HS^2 is probably going to involve her gradually learning how to get over that in the background, the balance she needs to take ala the Ultimate Riddle’s lesson.

(Tangentially... it was said that it would have been nearly impossible to make alt!Callie dominate, even across ALL timelines.  What if alt!Callie had her timeline’s origin explained in HS^2 by a Third Scratch at this late date with the likes of Davebot running around to do it???  That would probably make me fucking mad.)

Back to the commentary.

Admittedly these last few chapters have definitely been “girls beating the crap out of each other” heavy, and I hope that’s okay.

PFFFFF

Callie and Jade aren’t really sure who makes a decision on what is considered “just” or “heroic”. Plot twist, it’s us. We do. But also the alpha timeline does.

Hmm.

More gorgeous Xam art. Initially we were going to make it more ambiguous whether or not she actually ate the peanut butter, but we decided to have it be a decisive moment of triumph.

Really?  Well, you could have made it visually clearer that the candy dropped.  A lot of people visually missed that.  This is a consequence of the back-and-forth artist-isnt-the-author art-commissioning going on, in part... Andrew was MUCH better at conveying what he wanted to convey BETWEEN panels than this crew, like comic book panels and their composition together; you can see that when comparing Homestuck proper’s sprite animation to that of fan adventures that used sprites, for instance.  These guys are at something of a disadvantage due to their disconnect.

Commentary on the Commentary

This commentary uses "she/her" to talk about the alternate Calliope possessing Jade, while the "other" Callie (remember them?) uses they/them. This other Calliope, presumably, has a much different relationship with her gender – and her brother – than the Callie we saw discussing the subject with Roxy and John. One of my favorite things about this update (I can say that, because I'm a second person who didn't write it) was that subtle hint about how different her Caliborn must have been to allow her to predominate in the first place. I'd be really interested in fan works exploring more about her (and his) past.

Hhhhmmmmmmm.

Not sure what else to say to that, but it does make me hmmm.

Sketches and Commentary: Diamonds, Dames, and Dads, Part 1

Probably not much plot-relevant here...

Oh pff.

They had full drawings of them going in for the kiss on standby.  They couldn’t resist making them.

Real talk, I have been looking forward to writing this story the most out of any other part of HS^2. Finally I get to combine my passions. Cheesy noir bullshit and old men making eyes at each other. 

Pfffffff.  Yes.

...the next three or four pages of this writing go on to describe how sexy this is and these characters and setting are.  I can’t fault a word of any of it.

The dream team is assembled. Nothing can possibly go wrong. 

Wow, I caught up on all this commentary quick.  See you next time.

[coeurvrai]

Nadya wakes up and tries to reach out to Marzenya, but is denied, and starts panicking. Honestly, I was expecting this to happen much sooner considering her goddess should care about how much she wants to and is making out with Malachiasz, but whatever.

Was this something the Vultures had done to her? Was she being punished for the power she used trying to escape? This was a different kind of quiet than before. This was worse than the veil. This was emptiness.

Calm down, she told herself. Figure out where you are. A stabbing pain went through her as the silence remained, the gods now more than just out of reach, but turned away completely.

Maybe she would never hear another quip after an errant prayer again. She shivered. It couldn’t be that. The gods wouldn’t have abandoned her. Not for a few doubts, not for kissing a heretic—not even that.

I mean, they are deities, Nadya, and deities are known to be petty and act in a way that is incomprehensible to humans, sometimes. It would be very typical for them to punish you for lusting after and making out with Malachiasz, especially when it is your divine mission to kill Tranavians and bring Tranavian under the gods’ rule again. Especially when your patron is the goddess of sacrifice and death, and that’s supposed to mean something.

Nadya tries to get up from where she’s laying and is met with a lot of blood and nails and glass shards. She manages to get off the slab, but falls to the floor, in a lot of pain.

She tries to find a way out.

Even if it was locked, she would feel less like she had ceased to exist. She had become nothing but the blood slicking the floor and blinding pain.

Edgy.

Nadya starts seeing things in the darkness watching her and coming towards her and tries reaching out to the gods again.

Anguish and a rage too fluid to fully define washed through her and she wanted to scream. She reached for the prayer beads she did not have and found nothing but Kostya’s necklace. She yanked it over her head and threw it across the room. She heard it hit the wall with a feeble, metallic clang.

“This isn’t fair!” she cried, to no one and to nothing because she was alone. Entirely alone in the kingdom of her enemies. Her best hadn’t mattered.

I hope Nadya doesn’t want that necklace back, because it’d be tough shit to find it again in the dark.

Also, this is hardly Nadya’s best. Or if it is, it’s sad and piss poor. She didn’t even last a hour before she got thrown into a life-or-death situation after their plan hinged on her not drawing attention to herself and fucked up that entire plan.

Then she blamed Malachiasz for Felicíja’s murder even though it was arguably the right thing to do in the moment, she had put herself in that situation in the first place and arguably Felicíja would still be alive if she hadn’t insulted her back and accept her duel, and Felicíja is her enemy and she’s supposed to kill Tranavians and has already killed Tranavians within the first five chapters of the book.

“I have only ever done what was asked of me,” she said, her voice feeble and broken.

Your god-given mission is to kill Tranavians and you kept making excuses for not killing Malachiasz, and then proceeded to act on your attraction to him. So, I wouldn’t say you’ve only ever done what was asked of you.

A line in a history book would half-heartedly mention the cleric who had tried to save Kalyazin but only managed to be forsaken by the gods. There would be no canonization after death for Nadya, just a quiet passing of the cleric who had failed.

Well considering there’s like 90 pages to go (dear god there’s 90 pages to go), I’m not holding my breath. Also, at least that way you’ll keep your promise to Anna that you won’t end up in the Book of Saints.

Nadya tries to pray to Marzenya again for something, anything.

Please don’t let this end here. If she cried out with everything left within her would she get an answer? Or would she have nothing but the ashes of the only thing that had ever made her life worth living? Zhalyusta, Marzenya, eya kalyecti, eya otrecyalli, holen milena.

Her plea went unanswered.

Nadya says a prayer that means nothing to me. Man, wouldn’t it’d have been cool if we had found out more about the actual religion stuff outside of the gods and how that work? Like how religion affects the lives of everyday people?

No? Okay then.

Anyways, Nadya notices a light in her peripheral and she went towards it, realising the light is coming from the necklace that Kostya had given her.

Some gods require blood.

She swallowed hard. Taking the pendant in her fist, she let the blood soaking her hands drip into the ridges.

She held it closer to her face, peering at the soft, almost eerie light.

“You deserve to know the truth about the beings that chose you.”

Oh for fuck’s sake, we’re going in this direction, are we? Anyways, so she suddenly hears a voice in her head, much like how the gods speak to her.

Nadya inhaled sharply, hit with a sudden barrage of images. The wave of pain that slammed into her nearly knocked her out.

Creatures with knotted joints like the whorls of a tree, faces enshrouded in fog, four eyes, six, ten. Beings with eyes on their fingertips, mouths at their joints. Iron teeth, iron claws, iron eyes.

One after another after another. Sinuous wings, feathered wings black as tar. Eyes of light, of darkness. And blood. So much blood.

Because that’s just it. It was always, always blood.

Feeling sick, Nadya dropped the necklace. The images stopped. She was panting, fighting for air.

Is it weird I’m being reminded of the Children of the Forest? Because I’m being reminded of the Children of the Forest for some strange reason. Also the volcra.

Anyways, it obviously has something to do with the Vultures. And I just cannot get over the fact that the Vultures sound so much like the Ironteeth witches, it’s quite unbelievable.

Especially because I know Emily Duncan is aware of Maas. Also, for someone who has been critical of the editing of Maas’ books in the past, her and her editor sure haven’t done much better. 

When she picked up the necklace again, she was careful to not touch the spiral ridges but apparently any contact was enough. When the cool silver touched against her skin all her senses were flooded with white light. Purity with rivulets of blood staining it all. It fell in tiny droplets, from her fingertips, off her arms. There was nothing but the blinding white and the blood.

Like this paragraph, for example.

“When the cool silver touched against her skin”??? Just say “when she touched the cool silver” or some shit, at least that way it isn’t so awkwardly worded. The rest of it makes me wanna roll my eyes and grab a sandwich.

Anyways, she tries talking to this ~mysterious~ voice and the voice answers back.

What is this? What are you?

“Does that matter?”

She was surprised when the voice—unusually high, like reed pipes—responded.

Are you … one of the gods? There were gods she had never spoken to, was this one?

There was a long silence, leaving Nadya suspended in the blood-soaked white space. She was vaguely aware her pain was only a dim buzz now. It surrounded her like a fog, barely noticeable.

Then: “Once upon a time, yes.”

This is totally related to that story that was briefly mentioned about a human or some saint that supposedly was able to obtain godhood, isn’t it?

And once upon a time that answer would have terrified Nadya. A few short weeks ago, the girl in a monastery who believed so wholly in her gods and her cause would have looked upon this with horror, disbelief. She would have written it off as hallucinatory heretical magic. But now …

Now she had allowed herself to doubt. Now she was tired. Now she had been forsaken and abandoned. She sat down, crossing her legs underneath her, conscious of the floor wet with blood beneath her. There was nothing left to do but hope for answers.

She literally believed in her fucking gods and shit like half an hour ago, and I just- this is what I mean about how nothing feels believable, that I can neither believe in Nadya’s supposed hatred and xenophobic tendencies to the point of wanting to conquer Tranavia and essentially prepared to participate in a crusade against them nor her supposed doubts in her gods and her cause with actions like sparing Felicíja and being attracted and caring about Malachiasz.

Nadya doesn’t have a proper character arc because Emily Duncan can’t be bothered writing out a character arc for Nadya properly.

She asks the voice how it can no longer be a god and the voice replies:

“How does a human girl become something divine and feared by the gods that gave her the power she wields?”

Oh, so we’re bringing the book’s tag line into this, are we?

I mean, it’s not like unfeasible that the gods might be afraid of a person they have given so much of their divine magic to - after all, I’ve fucked with God of War - but one) that magic is totally dependent on them giving it to her and ttwo) then why did so many of the gods grant her their blessings instead of just Marzenya especially since Marzenya is her patron?

Also, even if the magic that Nadya possesses all by herself makes her a threat, why did Marzenya even tell her about it in the first place? That seems counter-productive to me.

Anyways, Nadya asks the voice more questions and receives more answers, even if they’re not the answers she wants.

Where am I? What do you want? The being never answered her first question, but she held back asking again in hope she would receive some answers.

“Where you are is as irrelevant as it is immaterial. What I want is better answered by the question of what you want.”

Can I see you?

“You do not want to.”

Nadya flipped the pendant between her fingers. It had come with her. Had she been carrying this being around her neck all this time? Where had Kostya—of all people—found this? Why had he given it to her?

That’s a good question. Too bad Kostya’s greater relevancy to this book was left behind in Chapter 1.

Also, can I just say, carrying bits of/entire beings around with you attached to or inside of objects is a very specific niche of mine and I’m not afraid to say it. It’s literally one of the main points of one of my D&D characters.

Nadya remarks that she doesn’t know what she wants.    

“You think they can take your power away from you?”

I see someone has been watching the first season of Winx Club. 

Nadya states that they can because they’re the ones who gave it to her in the first place. The voice tells her that that’s not true.

“Our time together grows short. You must make a choice, little bird. Do you continue on with your wings clipped or do you fly?”

Darkness plunged back around Nadya—abrupt and severe—as the necklace slipped out of her hands and pain crashed back down onto her.

Oh dear fucking lord, is this thing connected with goddamn Malachiasz?! Is that what’s going on here? Because Malachiasz calls her little bird or whatever. Ugh. Thanks, I hate it and I want a refund.

Anyways, that’s the end of that chapter!

[jinxthequeergirl]

Not the villain (pt.4)

Crowley x reader

Summary: you are visited by a witch, your father dies the final week before your coronation, Haster takes action, and Crowley ends up missing

Warning: death/implied smut/otherwise nothing to dramatic

~~~~~

You had gotten up earlier than normal to return Bentley to Crowley. The forest was quiet and dim.

Only a few rays of the rising Sun shone through the trees lighting up the tops of the them. It was scilent except for the breeze in the trees and Bentley slowly trotting down the dirt road.

You took it all in breathing in deeply inviting the morning air in. Then bentley stopped momentarily. "Bentley? What's wrong?" you leaned forward to look at him but stopped when you heard an unusual snapping of twigs coming from the side of the path.

You tightened your grip on the rains.

"Your majesty!?" a girl ran out onto the track Bentley reared back knocking you to the ground and ran off. "Bentley!"

"Oh God I'm so sorry princess I didn't mean to scare you or your steed."

The woman made her way to you helping you up and dusting off your dress. "It's alright I'm not hurt what are you doing run into the middle of the path like that?"

The girl straightened herself out fixing her round glasses and bowed.

"Your majesty I am Anathema and it's very important that I deilever a message to you."

"Well Anathema you may rise. what is this message?" Anathman stood and faced you.

"You are in danger."

"Really?" you started walking down the path and she followed. "Yes the prophacy stated that....that the people you trust may be more than meets the eye.the one she's born from may pass and disaster will strike!"

"Well I'll keep that in mind but tell me Anathema how do you know this?"

"Well in all honesty...I..I'm a witch...and that prophecy from my grandmother who was also a witch and she had that directed to you!"

"Well thank you for the warning Anathema."

"You are very welcome your majesty."

You smiled and looked at her. "What else can you do?" anathema arched her eyebrow. "How do you mean?"

"I mean as a witch? Any special ability's? Things like that?"

She smiled and began to explain to you a few thing here and there as you both continued to walk down the path. The Sun rising now filling the entire forest with the earily morning glow.

As the two of you approached crowley castle Anathema slowed down. "What is this place?"

"My friend Crowley lives just up the hill in the castle...that was his horse who rode of."

"Well he's probably got the horse back by now...I don't like the feeling of this place..."

You both stoped. "Its probably just the castle...a lot of bad things have happened here before it was left like it is now." you did your best to eaise her thoughts. Before you could continue further Crowley appeared not to far ahead of you.

"Y/n!" he ran towards you scooping you up in his arms. "Your alright!?"

"Yes yes I'm fine!"

"Bentely came back frightened with out you on him so I thought something was wrong-"

You laughed at him and he stoped to look at you still holding you in his arms. "What."

"Nothing I've just never seen you like this." he smiled softly. "Its all the same as yesterday you've changed me...but you are sure you are alright?.."

You cupped his face in one of your hands and smiled. "I'm fine."

Crowley in that moment wanted to lean down catch your lips in his and show how releved he was but he stopped when he saw Anathema appear into view.

She looked him up and down in distaste.

"Y/n?.."

You turned and followed his gaze. "Oh! Crowley this is anathema...she...she walked me here after Bentley ran off. Anathema this is Crowley." you freeded yourself from his hold and excitedly introduced the two. "Pleaser...y/n Why don't we to in and have some tea?"

You smiled and took his hand. "Oh sounds great why doesnt Ana-"

"Sorry princess I have some where to be.thank you though." she sneered at Crowley one last time before turning and heading back.

You and Crowley spent the rest of the morning and afternoon enjoying breakfast and gardening.

You sat in the garden teaching Crowley how to make a flower crown when there was comotion at the front gate. "Your majesty!" you both stood up looking at one of the gauird from you castle.

"It's the king...Aziraphale sent us to get you." You looked at them worriedly and turned to Crowley. "Go I'll see you tonight.." you smiled lightly and placed the flower crown on his head. Before turning to the gauaird who helped you onto a horse.

"I'm sure everything is alright y/n..." you smiled and nodded and quickly rode off in haste.

By the time you had gotten to the court yard you where sprinting into the castle and up to the room where your father was.

"Dad!?" you ran to the bed side where Aziraphale already stood. "Daddy what's the matter?" you took his hand and held it. "Y/n My darling..." he coughed and you looked up at Aziraphale. "Aziraphale?"

"Y/n I can't hold on any longer..."

"Daddy no! please..." years where already down your face and Aziraphale watched with sadness. "I know you'll do good...I love you my princess..."

"I love you too daddy..please don't go!" he stopped moving and Aziraphale grabbed you pulling you away. "He's gone. He's gone..." you held onto him and sobbed into his shoulder. "I should...should have...should have spent more time with...with him!"

"No no he wanted you to be out you couldn't do anything..."

You continued to cry and he lead you out of the room to yours. "Come on lets get you cleaned up it's late and you should rest and take time to process everything..." he sat you on the bed. "I'll have a maide come in and clean you up for bed." you nodded running tears from your face.

You lied in bed in a new night gown curled up on the bed staring blankly at the moon light flooding the room. All you could think about was anathemas message and how you should have listened.

The door opened and Crowley stepped inside and sat on the end of your bed. "I'm sorry..."

Your eyes moved to look at him. "I know I don't know what it's like to lose some one like that...but I can only imagine...." you only looked at him as he attempted to make you feel better.

He sighed rubbed the back of his neck. "But I just wanted to check on you...make sure you where alright...but you should sleep." he got up and headed to the door.

Before he could even grab the handle you jumped up, grabbed his wrist, pulled him close to you and kissed him deeply. You felt the shock in him melt away for him to kiss back with just as much fource.

"Wait! wait..." he pulled away looking at you. "What are-"

"I think I'm in love with you! I know this is a weird time to tell you but I just..I just don't want to..to think about-"

Crowley kissed you again cutting you off. Your hands traveld to his face And you pulled away again slowly. Your hands reached for his glasses and you began to pull them off. He didn't want you to see.

Not yet. Not now. Not this way. He shut his eye's as you pulled them of and opened them slowly. Instead of his normal yellow snake eyes all you saw where beautiful brown eyes.

You smiled softly rubing your thumb just under his eye. He placed a hand over yours and whispered softly just for your ears only. "I'm in love with you too."

You smiled and leaned in again kissing him. His hands traveld down your back to the lace that held your night gown up. He pulled the string lightly letting it come undone. You peeled of layers of his outfit off letting your dress fall and pool around your ankles.

You both went over to the bed finishing what you where starting.

While in hell Haster and ligur prepared to finish the job Crowley was sent to do.

They approached the front gate the castle towering menacingly over them. "You sure he's here?"

"Yes the love of his life just lost her father he'll want to be there for her." he said in a mockingly sweet tone. Haster turned to his companion. "Ready?"

Ligur nodded and rolled his neck as he began to change from his normal ghastly appearance to you. "Ready."

Crowley had his arm drapped over your wasit as you slept. Or so he thought he did for when he was woken up you wheren't there.

Someone called his name from out front softly. "Crowley." he got up gathering a few layers of his clothes and made his way to the window.

You. Or an illiustion of you stood outside waiting for him. "Crowley."

He quickly pushed him self from the window and made his way down to her. All the while you did lay fast asleep in bed not noticing the absents of warmth from Crowley anymore.

He made his was down to the gate calling out to you carefully. "Y/n? What are you doing out here? Come back to bed." he inched closer to her and she turned around. "Sorry love... But your job here is done." and just like that Haster appeared behind him and bat him over the head knocking him out.

Ligur returned to his natural form. "Get em' back to hell I've got more work up here I'll summon you when it's time."

Ligur followed his order and grabbed Crowley before vanishing back to hell. Haster glanced at the castle one last time before stroling out to the forest whistiling a pleasent tune to him self. The Sun would be rising in a few hours now and the plan could finally set into motion.

°

°

°

Tagging:

@writer-of-camelot

@phoenixuprisingsstuff

@ibjessjess

@lemoncitrusgurl

@a--1--1--3

@dadzawas-eyebags

@sophiematskiv

[hp-rbiim]

The Significance of Moving On

Rating: G Word count: 2162 Tags: Aurors, Office Work, Domestic, Drarry

Read me on AO3

_______________________

Potter had said, “Let’s be friends.” He looked at Draco meaningfully, as if this was something Draco was supposed to naturally understand. _______________________ 

Potter brought him to the forest, once. The forbidden one where ‘it’ happened.

He told him what had happened there, but Draco didn’t really care, not in the way that someone was supposed to. It wasn't that he didn't care about Potter, because he did. He cared for Potter. The rest, however, Draco would rather remember less of. Except, the Dark Lord was hard to forget.

If anything, what this forest meant to Draco were of two different things than what it had meant to Potter: the first of which was the significance of his mother’s choice; the second was that this was the place Potter brought him in resolution of moving on from their school rivalry.

Draco had asked him why he was telling him all of this. It certainly wasn't of any particular relevance to what was then a bare-bones acquaintanceship for work.

Potter had said, “Let’s be friends.” He'd shifted his weight from foot to foot in that awkward way of his, one hand mussing up his hair. “We’re moving on. All of us.” He looked at Draco meaningfully, as if this was something Draco was supposed to naturally understand.

Well, Draco didn’t understand, not in the instinctual way he supposed Potter had meant. However, he’d been raised to act a certain way, so Draco agreed -- and that was that.

It’d been months now. Potter’s hair was still unruly as ever. He’d spent so much time just staring at the dastardly tuft atop a single Golden Boy that it practically communicated its own language to him.

“Potter,” said Draco. “Robards wants the papers on the recent potions trafficking case, get on it before he sends me back to you every hour like a blasted reminder remembrall.”

“What? As if I didn’t send those to him yesterday!”

“The proper papers, Potter. Not the brief summary of what you -- lead Auror on the case, mind -- believe to be relevant. The whole and complete thing.” When his fellow Auror failed to respond, Draco exhaled and stuck out his open hand.

“I don’t have it right now,” said Potter, unmoved.

“I know. Just give me the papers you do have and I’ll do it.” Draco gestured with his hands to further illustrate his point. It was hard getting through to Potter sometimes. It was clear by the cowlick at the back of Potter’s head that he didn’t get enough sleep last night.

“What do you mean?”

Draco sighed. “You know what I mean, give it over. We both know you don’t want to do it. Just let me handle it, it’ll be quicker for both of us, then we can both get on with our lives.”

“Right...” Potter was reluctant, but eventually, after a nonplussed brow arch and eye rolls full of criticism, Harry finally handed Draco the papers. He looked at Draco oddly, but Draco thought little of it.

The man didn’t want to do it, clearly. Forcing him when Draco knew he’d probably do a crap job of it anyway was just a god awful method of making people do more work. It wasn’t as though Draco didn’t understand Potter’s dislike of paperwork. There were many things that Draco didn’t want to do, paperwork, well, was one of the lesser evil. Time saved for both of them, and no more Robards on his arse. It was simply easier.

Draco left Potter there, looking slightly suspicious and befuddled, but honestly, that just made Draco snort. Though Draco may now be a goon himself, an inferior doing things for other superior people instead of the opposite; it wasn’t as bad as people believed it to be. It became routine. It was peaceful.

It was later at night, when he had his reading glasses on and he was sifting through the pile of evidence for the illegal potion trafficking case Robards wanted, that Harry James Potter knocked on his office door.

“Potter, it’s not locked.” Not that locked doors had any meaning to a slew of Aurors. “Come in.”

Harry shuffled in, his shiny, new dragonhide boots scooting through the doorway first (lucky bastard), then proceeded to sit down on the nearby armchair. It was a dark green -- the armchair Potter was on -- mostly for nostalgic purposes. Draco could have charmed it any color he wanted, but there was always something about green that drew him in.

Potter watched Draco sift in silence. Since Potter didn’t say anything, Draco didn’t either. He kept his line of sight focused on the pile of evidence, which was a fairly good excuse to avoid eye contact.

“We should get dinner.” said Potter, without stutter. Which was relevant, as the case normally was Potter always did. Especially in Draco’s office. He usually looked shy and intimidated here.

In surprise of Potter’s assertion in a place he normally wasn’t, Draco had to pause what he was doing, set his glasses down and raise his gaze. Potter continued to watch him like a hawk, green eyes full of meaning he didn’t get. Draco was easily provoked -- especially by Potter -- so narrow his eyes Draco did and directed a glare unwaveringly back.

It was almost laughable, what they were doing. “At...” Draco clicked his tongue and checked his pocket clock. “...one in the morning.” Right.

“Yes,” confirmed Potter, gaze latching unto Draco’s every movement. It sent a tingle down his spine and Draco wished every so fervently he could punch him so it would stop.

Neither budged an inch. After about a quarter of an hour (which was an abnormally long amount of time for something as silly as a staring contest), Draco’s patience ran thin, not because he couldn’t keep going, but because he was curious. The reason as to his ability to keep going was another conundrum entirely.

“Why?”

“Why not?” replied Potter, the bastard.

Draco gave himself a long stretch, one arm tucked behind his head and the other outstretched above him. A sedentary life tends to do that even to Aurors. “Potter, there are many reasons as to why not.”

Potter seemed genuinely interested in this answer, so it was then that he repeated his question. “Why not?”

“Well for one, it’s bloody witching hour and you’d be surprised to find a soul working the kitchens. House elves don’t slave for the ministry anymore, remember?”

“Not here, obviously.” Potter scoffed, a small quirk in his lips. “You shouldn’t even be here this late.”

“Potter, it’s good that I’m here this late. Though perhaps absent from the forefront of your rather uncomplicated mind, it would be rather foolish to have everyone go home at a decent hour, regardless of ideal working conditions Granger may have embedded into your skull, because then no onewould be present for the security of the ministry in case anyone would wish to target Britain’s valued, shall we say, ‘trinkets’ located in the -- and apparently now unsupervised --  Department of Mysteries.”

Draco was fairly proud of his well-delivered speech, so it irked him that Potter simply brushed it aside and said, “I meant you, Draco. You were supposed to go home at a ‘decent hour’ otherwise Pansy wouldn’t have texted me. There are others keeping watch, not just you, you know, or it would be rather foolish.”

Pansy. The cow! She was snitching on him. Roommates or not, her blatant acceptance of muggle technology was particularly hindrancing to his self isolation. “Let’s say that’s true, it doesn’t change the fact that I’ve told you why not and you’ve got nothing other than Pansy’s alleged text to convince me to let you... what, come again?”

“Drag you out to dinner.”

“Drag. Me out... to dinner. Right. With no one working the kitchens.”

“I’ll cook. I’m not a horrid cook, I promise.”

“Potter.”

“Come on, Draco. You didn’t have to take the report off my hands, but you did. Let me treat you to dinner.”

“Oh, so it’s for the report. No need, you probably won’t believe me if I told you I did it for fun.”

Potter made a frustrated sigh then. Draco had made sure he was being purposefully obtuse in order to have the upper hand. Truth be told, Draco enjoyed toying with him far more than he should, and he really shouldn’t be enjoying it so much because it’s times like these that his inner thoughts betrayed his expression.

There was a beat, before Potter said, “Fine. Have it your way. Carry on then.” Before he promptly left Draco’s office with a solid door slam -- and that was that.

The silence bloomed for a long moment. Draco sighed. He leaned on his elbow and flipped a page of evidence with an air of disdainful boredom. The places where Potter was always left a gaping chasm when he left, but Draco was used to it, he had a decade’s worth of practice, after all. Golden Boy might be done with his shenanigans, but it was Draco’s bread and butter. With a sniff, Draco continued to sort through Potter's report, smirking at the chicken scratch writing littering the blanks of the report.

It was invariably easier enjoying things from afar. It’s what he’d always done.

When it came three in the morning, Draco wrapped everything up into a folder, flung his office door open and sent the report flying towards Robards’ office with a flick of his wand. There was a thunk and an “Ow!” which sounded vaguely like Potter, which was odd, considering he should have left earlier.

“Potter? What in Merlin’s name are you still doing here?” Draco cast a hasty lumos just to make sure, and there he was: Harry James Potter lying on the side of the hallway, rubbing his nose.

“Well, I waited till you had your fun, didn’t I? Reckon you’re hungrier than before too.” Then there was that cheeky grin of his, that ‘outwitted you’ face that both irritated Draco and made him feel butterflies in his stomach.

“Oh, piss off, you should have gone to bed when I took that report off your hands. You could have actually rested! Are you mad? What are you doing still awake at this ungodly hour? Potter, there are better things to do than waste time in front of my office.”

“I’m not mad. Why’d you want me to rest up anyway?”

Perhaps it was because Draco was tired too, but he lacked the energy to argue or do word games anymore. “Because you were lacking sleep! Why else?” said Draco, irritably.

“And how’d you know I was lacking sleep?”

Draco pushed past the baffling man, but Potter was quick to follow behind. “How is it possible you have more energy now than before? Potter, you’re easy to read, don’t you ever question how Granger and Weasley always have treacle tart ready when you’re feeling sour?”

Potter laughed at that. “Right, so I suppose then, like Ron and Hermione, you took the report off my hands because you sensed my mood? Draco...” and Harry had said it in a tone oozing with endearment that Draco had to gag. Potter even had the gall to laugh some more. “You’re more honest like this.”

“Potter, I will murder you, I swear to Salazar.”

“You can murder me after dinner, sound good to you?”

Draco supposed it was a losing battle against the Chosen One. He’d been hungry for quite a while, his stomach now clearly growling, and his mental acuity in shambles, it was hard to find a viable excuse. With a bit of half-hearted whinging, Draco agreed, and was pleased to see another infallible smile from the Golden Boy.

“You’re oddly caring of me, Potter. I can’t for the life of me understand why. It’s not necessary.”

Potter chuckled. “Necessary or not, we’ve moved on, remember? To better things. Besides...I wanted to.” Potter grabbed his hand then, not just held, but laced his fingers with Draco’s. What was terrible about it was that Draco let him. Potter's hand was warm and a just little damp. Draco was nervous about it, and Potter sensed it, because he started rubbing soothing circles on the back Draco's hand with a thumb. Draco let him do that too.

When they finally arrived at the Apparition point, Potter apparated them both smoothly to 12 Grimmauld place.

There they ate there with small snorts and laughs, but before Draco could finish murdering him, fatigue made his eyelids heavy, and he couldn’t remember when he’d fallen asleep. Potter tucked him in, apparently, as there was a warm blanket covering him in the morning. It was mortifying to know Potter caught him asleep, but he never brought it up after (to Draco’s great relief).

They just simply had dinner again the next night, and the next night, and the next.

Draco didn’t care that they had dinner, but dinner meant something else entirely to him: the significance that it had become a routine in his life, and that Harry James Potter was there to share it with him.

End.

[winchest09]

Shatter Me - Chapter Seven

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Word Count: 5527

Summary: The Winchesters were your world. After joining their hunter ranks, you quickly became attached to the brothers. After a successful hunt, you insist on going out celebrating with the boys – only for a loose end to catch up with you. You’re trapped in a world without hunger, thirst and the Winchesters. With the brothers beside themselves, they make preparations to say goodbye until Dean starts to connect to you through his dreams. Little do they know that you’re much closer than they think…

Chapter warnings: 18+, smut, self smut, masterbation, fingering, orgasms, edging?, oral, female oral, fluff, angst, swearing. 

A/N: So here is chapter 7! Hope you enjoy this now and if you’ve read the tags, then you probably can already tell there will be some fun stuff in this chapter! Just you wait till you see what i have in store for you! Enjoy my darlings :) Thank you for keeping up with this story!

Please let me know what you think, feedback is my fuel! I love reading your comments and any reblog makes me smile like a loon, it makes it all worthwhile!

Also any mistakes are my own, please do not repost my work anywhere however reblogs are fine and welcome :)

Shatter Me Masterlist  

Main Masterlist

Let me know what you think!

Chapter Seven

After hearing what Rowena had to say when she examined you, it was a hard pill to swallow for Dean. His head was reeling with all the information that as swimming around. You were cursed, trapped and now deteriorating? He wanted to have hope, he needed to save you but every day there seemed to be a new hurdle that made it that little bit harder to bring you home. Feeling slightly defeated, Dean headed to the kitchen to make himself some coffee before joining the team to get stuck into some research.

Entering the library, coffee in hand, he was greeted by Sam and Rowena sorting through all the relevant books from the bookcases. Rowena already had a few books open, her long fingers scanning the pages as Sam placed new literature next to her.

Sensing Deans presence, Sam looked towards his brother “You alright Dean?”

“Peachy” Came his response as he rolled his eyes and sipped his coffee

Pulling a tight lipped smile, Sam went back to sorting through the books, eager to find the answer to bring you home. Dean started to look through the research pile, his mind spinning, unsure where to start. As he picked up a couple of books, Rowena looked over to him, her hands palm flat on the table “Dean, does Y/N remember anything?” She questioned

“No. I-I tried to coax her but she’s understandably emotional about the whole thing” Dean shook his head before remembering what he thought might be some key information about where she was “Although time seems to be different in there, she seems to think she’s only been there for a few hours”

“But it’s coming up to three days” Sam interjected, a frown etched in his brow.

Dean shrugged “Somehow, time is different where she is” He stated.

Rowena shakes her head as she scoured some more of the pages in front of her “It’s not much to go off but it’s a start. I’m going to have to go through all types of curses Dean but unfortunately these things take time, it’s literally like trying to find a needle in a haystack” She mentioned, sympathetically.

“Time. That’s the one thing we don’t have” Dean quipped, his voice laced with emotion, the air becoming thick with tension.

Before anyone could say anything else, the fluttering of wings was heard and all three members of the bunker turned to see Castiel standing at the end of the tables. Dean let out a sigh of relief, hoping to whoever was in charge these days for some good news.

“Cas! Please tell me you’ve got something for us” Dean pleaded.

“Sam, Dean, Rowena” Castiel greeted as he walked closer to the huddle “Unfortunately not, I’m sorry Dean. The angels weren’t forthcoming with remedies, not wanting to meddle in human affairs”

“That’s bullshit” Dean snapped “All those dick angels do is meddle”

Castiel frowned “I understand that you’re upset” He tried to reason.

“Upset?! No Cas, upset doesn’t even cut it. Y/N is knocking on deaths damn door and there’s nothing I can do about it” Deans voice became rough, his eyes become glassy and he stared down the angel. The room growing silent once more.

Castiel sighed, he knew Dean was right and he did wish he could do more as Castiel cared deeply about you, you were his friend too after all. After a minute, his gravelly voice filled the silence “I can try to pinpoint her location again. If her state has weakened, it may allow me to locate her spirit”

Dean growled before throwing his coffee cup against the wall in anger “Enough with this state has weakened crap ok? She’s fine, she’s gonna be fine!” Dean roared, staring down at Cas.

Sam interjected quickly, placing himself between his brother and the angel. He knew Dean’s outburst wasn’t personal but the last thing they needed right now was a fight in the ranks. Sam placed his hands up in a submissive manner as he stood in front of Dean before slowly turning towards the angel “Ok, Cas why don’t you help us with some research, we can use an extra pair of hands”

Castiel nodded, walking around the other side of the table towards Rowena who already had books ready to hand to him.

Sam placed his hand on Dean’s shoulder in a comforting manner, trying to reassure him that everything was going to be ok but he just shrugged of Sam’s hand, storming back out towards the kitchen.

“I’m gonna get a stronger drink” Dean snapped, leaving an atmosphere behind him.

 You tried to do everything you could to contact Dean. You were desperate to get your newly found information across to him, you knew it could help to free you from this dull prison. However, no matter how hard you tried, you just couldn’t connect to him. You tried to summon him with sheer willpower, you meditated, you even tried to sleep but you couldn’t seem to drop off. It was infuriating.

You sat in the middle of the double bed, legs crossed looking at the notes in front of you. Each one of them had little messy scribbles which seemed to be written in blood. As chilling as that sounded to you, you knew it was the only reasonable option to write anything considering this place was baron. No food, no water so of course, no stationary. You were wrecking your head trying to figure out these notes, trying to piece together the clues. The witch did this was scribbled on one. Well that you knew already. You’re trapped, there’s no way out. Again, this was something you’d already figured out and you absentmindedly touched the cracks on your arm. You need to escape.

“No shit” You scoffed, wondering who on earth would want to stay here in the first place. However, the last two notes made you furrow your brow. It’s a curse. “A curse” You whispered, trying to think of the curses you’ve come across before. Then you thought that the author of the note may have not meant it in the literal sense, just stating that being there was a curse in itself. You growled as you ran your hand through your hair. You just needed answers.

Love. The last note stated. “Love? What the hell kind of clue is that?” You mumbled, aggravated at the random words in front of you.

Throwing yourself back onto the bed, you ran both of your hands through your hair. You were slowly starting to go insane as you were bored, the only source of entertainment being Dean when he somehow appeared in the same place you were. You pulled yourself up and off the bed, standing in front of the full length mirror that was in the room. Looking at your reflection, you felt and looked a mess. Your hair was all dishevelled, your make up had ran down your face and your clothes had become dirty from your earlier skirmish in the snow. You rolled your eyes, Dean had seen you looking like this and you grimaced at what he may have thought of you. So much for the sexy look you were originally going for. Sighing, you attempted to rub the make-up from under your eyes only for you to smudge it further down your face.

“Eugh!” You grunted, your eyes falling onto the bathroom door. You were itching for a bath but surely the taps wouldn’t work. Shrugging, you headed out of the bedroom to the bathroom. With nothing but time on your hands, you thought you may as well try.

Eyeing up the freestanding bath, you silently prayed that the taps would work. With a squeak as you turned the golden nozzles, you squealed in joy when hot water began to pump out. This was a win in itself and you couldn’t wait to soak your muscles in the water. You began to strip out of your clothes, placing them into the sink behind you. As your bath filled, you also filled the sink so you could at least hand wash some of the dirt out of your garments.

You placed a hand in the water to check the temperature before stepping and submerging yourself slowly. You let out a long pleasurable sigh as you loved the feeling of the goose bumps that erupted across your skin when the warmth encased you. You dipped yourself lower, sliding yourself under the water to wet your hair. As you rose, you pushed your wet strands away from your face and held your hands at the nape of your neck. For a moment, you’d forgotten where you were, you’d forgotten you were trapped but like a blast of cold air, reality dawned on you.

It also dawned on you that Dean could emerge at any time and here you were, naked in a bath tub with the bathroom door wide open. For a split second, you panicked. There were no bubbles to hide your modesty, no towels within reaching distance to cover your naked form if he were to appear at your doorway.  But then that second passed and you let your mind wander to the possibility of Dean seeing you naked. How would he react? You bit down on your lower lip thinking of what could happen and you let your hand stroke down your body as you began to imagine your fantasy.

Dean was at the door, his green eyes growing dark and lustful from seeing your naked form wet and waiting for him in the bathtub. He was wearing dark jeans that made his ass look edible, a tight black t shirt with your favourite red shirt over the top. You closed your eyes, your hand grazing over your nipples. You imagined him stalking over to you, stripping himself of his flannel and top in one go, his toned torso coming into view. You watched in your mind’s eye as he unbuttoned the top of his jeans before kneeling beside you in the bathtub. Your hand ghostly trailed down past your naval, imagining it was Dean’s strong hand instead. You willed him to go lower as he used one finger to trace over your mound, you arched your back, willing for him to get closer. You saw how he smiled, licking his lower lip as he took all of you in.

You thought of him leaning over towards you, his lips nuzzling into the nape of your neck, stealing kisses before allowing his tongue to trace upwards behind your ear. You moaned, your hand dipping lower allowing your fingers to stroke between your folds. In your head, it was Dean’s fingers and you squirmed beneath them. He smiled a sly smile at how wet you were for him as he ran his thumb over your sensitive nub, his fingers dipping into you. You felt your body jerk at the sensation. He curled his fingers inside you, stroking that all important spot as you panted beside him, his thumb working overtime against you clit. You imagined his slightly stubble covered jaw grazing your shoulder as he planted soft kisses against your neck.

You worked yourself hard, chasing your blissful end, your fingers dipping in and out. You let out a shaky breath as you brought your other hand to cup at your breasts, thinking of Dean’s mouth instead. You closed your eyes as you felt his tongue swirl around your nipple, a pleasurable moan leaving his lips and a whimper leaving yours when you imagined his fingers leaving your soaked pussy. In reality, you were edging yourself.

Dean hooked ones of his bare toned arms under your legs, the other behind your neck as he hoisted you out of the freestanding bath. He hummed in approval as he placed your naked form on the side of the tub, using his large hands to spread your legs wide. Droplets of water cascading down your body, causing a puddle to go onto the floor. He sucked at his bottom lip, locking his hungry green eyes with yours. You shook with anticipation, knowing you would soon come undone to the thought of Dean’s mouth sucking and lapping at your juices.

Once more, you allowed your hand to travel south as you slowly circled your own bud, finding the thought of Dean being eye level with your wetness, exhilarating. You carried on with your fantasy, imaging Dean’s tongue lapping at you, dipping into your wet hole then flattening as he travelled all the way to your clit. You watched in your mind’s eye as he sucked and kissed the bud, his tongue becoming relentless to match the speed of your fingers that were currently working yourself. You were getting close, your toes were beginning to curl and that all too familiar feeling coiled itself within you.

Dean pulled away from your soaked pussy as he continued to fuck you with his fingers, his green eyes locked on yours, taking in your moans. The sight of you, all wet and orgasm ready made his erection painfully hard. You watched as he palmed at his dick through his now loose jeans as he moaned your name “Y/N”

You were blissfully unaware in reality however that Dean had manifested in the living room and was calling for you “Y/N?” He husked, looking around briefly before seeing steam seeping out from the bathroom doorway.

Still focused on your fantasy, unaware that the green eyed Winchester was metres away, you continued your pursuit to your pleasure, throwing your head back as you groaned his name “D-Dean” In reality, you were still in the bathtub with your legs spread wide, water splashing over the side of the bath as you chased your orgasm.

Dean had heard your breathy reply and his eyebrows shot up into his hairline. He didn’t know whether to be concerned or aroused. Either way, he crept closer to the bathroom door as he fought his conscience. Surely he couldn’t spy on you while you were bathing? He shook his head, you could be hurt, and you could have hit your head so he was doing this purely for your benefit. Or so he told himself.

You are that dangerously close to your euphoria that you’re delightfully unaware of what was happening around you. All you could concentrate on was your fantasy of Dean between your legs. You looked down to see him lapping at your clit, to see his fingers fucking you and your pussy clenched around them. “Dean” You breathlessly moaned. You were so close, your feet pressed hard against the porcelain tub to ground yourself, your fingers working overtime.

Dean stopped just outside the door, his knuckles getting ready to rasp on the wooden frame to make his presence known but hearing your breathless voice made him hesitate slightly “Y/N, you ok?” He cautiously called, his head leaning forward slightly to wait for a response.

You heard him in your head but your sense of clarity was well and truly lost. All you could see was him between your legs, relentlessly fucking you with his tongue and fingers. You groaned, you were close, so close “Dean…D…I’m” You stuttered, your stomach tightening, toes curling.

Dean stood straight, panic taking over “What Y/N, you ok?!” He questioned urgently, making the decision to move into the bathroom, thinking you were in distress.

It was at that moment when you realised that Dean was there, not just in your fantasy, but in reality and your eyes shot open. Your hands scrambled to cover your naked form, the water splashing more so over the side of the bath, just as he entered the room “DEAN!” You squealed, trying to save some of your modesty.

Dean’s eyes widened “Oh my god” He muttered under his breath, his eyes quickly roaming your figure before slapping one of his large hands over his eyes and his slightly pink cheeks  “I’ll just be...yeah” He clears his throat and points outward towards the living room, blindly reaching for the door handle as he left the room.  

You didn’t know whether to be extremely embarrassed or to feel liberated that the man you have had feelings for had not only seen you in the nude, but also possibly getting yourself off. You wanted to hide in this bathroom and never come out. How were you meant to look him in the face after you’ve moaned his name? You knew he heard you. He acknowledged his name and came in to you as if you called for him. You groaned, this time in frustration, into your hands. You’d gotten yourself into this situation, you needed to get yourself out.

“and I didn’t even get to finish” You muttered under your breath as you pulled yourself out of the bath and quickly wrapped yourself in a towel. You grabbed your wet clothes out the sink and proceeded to give them a quick hand wash, all the time wondering what on earth you were going to explain it all to the man currently in the next room.

Dean paced outside the bathroom as he tried to calm himself down. If he said that his body hadn’t reacted to seeing you wet and naked, he’d be lying. He was currently sporting an erection that was straining tightly against his jeans. Running both hands down his face, he tried to get the picture of you out of his head but he couldn’t. The image of you, with your hand between your legs, thrashing in the water was going to be engrained in his mind until the end of his days. He let out a shaky breath, the image of your breasts that peaked above the water was taunting him. He was fighting everything he had to not throw caution into the wind, storm into the bathroom and fuck you against the wall. His dick twitched as he replayed your moans in his mind, the moans of his name and he stopped pacing. Were you thinking of him? Was he your sexual fantasy? Before he could ponder on the thought anymore, the bathroom door swung open and you came walking out, sheepishly looking at the floor.

Dean sensed her embarrassment and tried to break the awkward tension in the room “Sorry I – I didn’t know you-”

“Hey no it’s fine, why would you know” You cut him off, briefly looking up into his eyes as you held your towel tighter with one hand.

“Gotta admit, wasn’t expecting to see you in there” Dean smirked, remembering once more as he placed his hands his jean pockets ���…thrashing about…” He continued, his shoulders coming forward as if he was an awkward teenager rocking on his heels “…having fun” He continued, a cheeky grin becoming evident.

You just stood there like a deer in the headlights. He basically just called you out on you masterbating in the bath so you knew you could play this two ways. Admit it, or deny it with some terrible excuse you know he’d never believe. You went with option A. “Yeah well a girl gets bored and I was cold” You shrugged, squaring your shoulders and looking him boldly in the eyes “Plus I just felt filthy so…”

“Yep” Dean strained, trying not to look at the beads of water travelling down your skin into the valley of your breasts, it wasn’t helping his erection situation. Then again, neither was the conversation he apparently was insisting on continuing. Seeing you standing there in just a towel, with what he just witness, was like torture. Like rain in a drought, he needed you, he wanted you.

He wanted to know what your legs would feel like wrapped around his waist, what your lips would feel like against his, what his dick would feel like buried inside you. He heard his name, there was no denying that so he dared to ask the question that was eating away at him.

“Were you thinking…” Dean cleared his throat as you raised your eyebrows at him. You heart beating a million miles a minute, he HAD heard you. Shit. Dean took a step closer, bringing one hand out of his pockets and scratched at the back of his neck “I just…I thought I heard you say my na-”

“Dean Cain” You spluttered out, thinking on your feet as fast as you could, eyes wide. It was the only other person you could think of on the spot who had the same name as him.

You saw Dean frown slightly “…who?” He questioned, his brown furrowing.

“You know, he played Superman. Also, he’s in Supergirl too. That show I watch sometimes” You ramble, trying to play it off as best as you could, hoping you were being convincing enough. You dared to make eye contact with Dean again and you watch as he raises a brow. You continued “Does it matter?”

“No…no” He replied with a tight lipped smile. If you had to take a guess, you could have sworn that he had looked a little disappointed as his shoulders sagged a little. You just put that down to your wishful thinking.

“Anyway” You wanted to change the subject and quickly, so you decided to walk towards the bedroom to grab the notes “I’m glad you’re here, I’ve found something” You announced as you grabbed the notes off the bed.

Dean swallowed the lump that was in his throat as he watched you walk to the bedroom. Of course you weren’t thinking of him you thought, he wouldn’t be that lucky. At least he still had the memory of you however, even if he couldn’t have the real thing, he’d definitely be storing that in his spank bank. He smirked slightly at the thought, he was still human after all.

Watching you walk out with all of these bits of paper in your hands, he looked at you with confusion as you passed them over. You explained to him everything, what each one of them said, what you suspected they were wrote with (to which Dean grimaced) and where you found them. You also told Dean about what you remembered from when you were with the witch, the words she uttered to you.

“This is” Dean smiled, feeling some weight being lifted, daring to feel hopeful “This is really good Y/N. We have something to work with”

You smiled back as you made you way to the fire, stoking it to keep the flames alive before sitting down on the rug next to it to keep warm “Yeah. I hope so. You going to remember everything?”

“Notes and altum somnum. Got it” He smiled, pointing to his head as he walked over to sit on the couch.

You leant back on your hands, letting the warmth of the fire wash over you and you felt a little at peace, despite not reaching your blissful end earlier, you could always finish yourself off later. You closed your eyes, tiredness creeping up on you after the eventful day you’d had.

You heard Dean speak up next to you as if he had read your mind “I need to tell you as well that we’ve worked out that your time here is a quarter of our time back home. So if I sleep for 4 hours, I only get one…here with you” He sat forward slightly, his hands encased together as he tried his hardest to not let his eyes roam over your figure.

You sat up slightly, opening your eyes to look into his “How…is that possible?”

“We don’t know sweetheart but we’ve got Rowena on the case now. She’s helping” Dean said softly, as his eyes broke contact with yours. You noticed how they quickly looked over your figure before he stared at his closed hands.

You smirked slightly, was he checking you out? Was he enjoying the view? Normally, you’d dive to cover yourself up but being sexually frustrated, you decided to put on a show. If he wanted to check you out, you were going to make it impossible for him to resist.

“So what’s she doing?” You questioned, as you rolled onto your side, back to the fire with your head resting on your hand. The towel had risen slightly, showing off your long legs which were bent fractionally at the knee, your other arm placed strategically in front of you just under your breast.

You saw as Dean ran his tongue across his lower lip before rubbing at his forehead, his throat bobbing as he tried everything he could to look anywhere but at you. He tried his best to explain what Rowena and Sam were doing back home but to not look weird he had to look at you and when he did, he felt his throat close up. Your towel was starting to come loose around your breasts and you weren’t doing anything to adjust it. He was convinced that if he sat at the other end of the coach, he would have a perfect view of your pussy and he groaned internally. Was she knowingly teasing him?

“Y/N, are you not gonna get dressed?” He questioned, his voice coming out huskier than expected. God, he didn’t want you to get dressed but he knew that if you stayed there looking like that any longer, he might effectively ruin your friendship.

You coyly shrugged, enjoying the effect you were having on the hunter in front of you. You felt empowered “I have no other clothes Dean and the ones I do have are currently drying after I washed them” Well…it wasn’t a complete lie. Your clothes were currently on the edge of the bath drying after you hand washed them but then you could use the duvet or a blanket to cover yourself up “I was dirty and so were my clothes” You smirked, the pun intended.

Deans lips went tight as he smiled, rubbing at his jaw. His self- control was dwindling and his erection that he was desperately trying to hide was becoming painful. He needed to do something, he needed to release this tension but he was trying to figure out just how to do that.

In the bunker, Sam strolls into the library, his third cup of coffee in his hand and one made for Rowena. The desks were covered in books, everyone having their own little research stations. Castiel was currently looking through a handful of spell books, Sam had lore and curses and Rowena had the grimore and ancient rituals.

Gratefully accepting her cup of coffee, Rowena looked up at Sam from under her thick eyelashes “Is your brother planning on joining us any time soon?” She questioned, one eyebrow arching.

Sam smiled slightly, scratching at his head with his now free hand “He’s uh…he’s passed out in the kitchen” He muttered, earning an eye roll from Rowena before he settled back down at his desk “Just me, you and Cas for now I guess” He stated, sipping at his coffee.

“Typical, I think I’ve found the counter curse and the boy drinks himself into oblivion” She sassed, her Scottish accent coming out strong.

“Wh-what?!” Sam spluttered into his coffee.

Rowena smirked “It’s all here in this little wee book. The curse itself talks about binding a soul whilst the host sleeps deeply. Next to it, is its reversal” She tapped her nails against the Latin, her smirk turning into a smile.

Sam beamed, his hands gesturing towards her on the table “Rowena that’s amazing, what do we need?”

Standing up, Rowena took the open spell book over to Sam, placing the ingredient list in front of him “Do you have all that?”

Sam nodded, hope blossoming in his chest “Thankfully, yeah. Yeah we do”

“Then I’ll meet you in Y/N’s room pronto” Rowena replied smoothly before she went to gather her things.

Sam looked over at Cas who was also smiling before he offered his assistance with gathering the ingredients. Luckily it wasn’t much or anything exotic so everything they needed was scattered about the bunker. After about half an hour, they had everything they needed and they took it to Rowena who had set up in your room. Red candles littered each one of your surfaces, they’re flames portrayed a warm glow. As Cas helped arrange the ingredients next to Rowena, Sam darted back to the kitchen where Dean was currently passed out, face down on the table.

Shaking his brother, Sam hoped that he would wake but it didn’t seem to be working. “Dammit Dean” He muttered under his breath, his expression one of disgust as he takes in the empty whiskey bottle next to him. He knew his brother was struggling with this but drinking himself into oblivion was not going to help anything and at any moment, you could wake up and Dean wouldn’t be there to greet you.

Sam tried one more time to wake his brother, this time slapping him hard on the back but all he got was a grunt. Sam had no choice but to leave him to it, they had to perform the spell before your body deteriorated anymore. They had to bring you home.

As the youngest brother entered your room, Rowena had already started the spell under Cas’ supervision. She started to chant the reversal, the ingredients in the bowl sparking, and the candles in the room flickering. Sam kept clenching then unclenching his hands as he stared down at your still form on the bed, his nerves on pins at what the outcome of this spell would be. As Rowena placed the last ingredient into the bowl, her eyes turned lilac and the bowl exploded with a blue flame causing all of the candles in the room to burn out.

“Bollocks” The witch muttered. The spell hadn’t worked.

You were still lying on your side, basking in the warmth of the fire as you and Dean made small talk. It was the only thing that Dean could think of doing to try and take his mind off wanting to take you there and then in front of the flames. You both laughed at a story Dean was telling about him and Sam when they were younger, you always loved hearing about their childhood, even though it was limited. You admitted how Dean looked after Sam, how he practically raised him. It was a quality in him that you admired.

“So…this seems to be the longest you’ve been here” You noted, playing with the hem of your towel.

Dean nodded as he rubbed at the back of his neck “I uh…might have knocked myself out”

“What?” Your smile fell, concern immediately flowing through you at his admission.

“Full bottle of whiskey, good vintage and percentage” Dean half chuckled, knowing that you’d be deadpanning him right now “Pretty sure I went KO on the kitchen table”

“I can’t beli-” You couldn’t even finish your sentence when you felt like all the wind had been knocked out of your lungs. You pushed yourself off the floor so you were sitting up as you tried tour hardest to catch your breath.

Dean noticed the change and immediately grew concerned “Y/N? You ok?”

You didn’t even have the opportunity to answer before a familiar searing pain soared through your body and you let out a piercing scream. Dean rushed over, placing himself in front of you as he scanned the room quickly for danger before looking back at you. Your screams didn’t stop as you clawed at your right arm, clinging tightly too it as tears streamed down your face. Your skin was burning, throbbing and you tried desperately to stem the pain.

Dean noticed the source of your pain and tried to pry your arm from your grip so he could inspect it. Although he didn’t have to move your hand to see what was causing the pain. Thick black cracks were crawling from your wrist to your elbow, the skin around them an angry red as your skin burned with pain.

“Please help me” You sobbed, your eyes fleeting from your arms to Dean’s concerned eyes.

Dean felt his eyes glass over, swallowing a hard lump in his throat when your pleading eyes bore into his “You’re gonna be ok Y/N” He whispered, brushing the hair gently from your face and the tears from your cheeks.

“Stay with me Dean” You pleaded, the pain was too much and you were scared. Looking down at your arm, you loosened your grip so you could fully inspect the damage. You were falling apart, the curse draining you, piece by piece.

You’ve never been terrified before. You’ve been scared, nervous or apprehensive but never downright terrified. The look on Dean’s face said it all, the worry etched in his features as he held your face in his hands “Please don’t go, please don’t let me go” You begged him.

Dean felt his resolve break there and then. He pulled you into him, his strong arms wrapping around your frame, his head resting on top of yours.

“I’m not going anywhere sweetheart”

A/N: ... well...there we go! Hope you enjoyed! 

Any feedback would mean the absolute world to me so if you have the time, i’ll love you forever!

Also if you want to come along for the ride let me know - TAG LIST IS OPEN! Just send me an ASK and i’ll happily oblige :) 

Shatter Me Taglist:

@witch-of-letters @flamencodiva @couldabeenamermaid @31shadesofbrown @jamielea81 @cocklesbelli

My Forevers:

@squirrel-moose-winchester @negans-lucille-tblr @researchandbones

[marril96]

A Sext a Day Keeps the Boredom Away

Pairing: Rowena x reader

Summary: Reader is bored without Rowena. Rowena remedies that through text messages.

Warning: Kinky.

A/N: Huge thanks to @raesanerd and @a-generic-sinner for giving me info on sexting, and to @oswinthestrange for the summary.

Editor: @oswinthestrange

Helping the Winchesters with a case wasn't your ideal way of spending your afternoon.

What was even less ideal was splitting up and going out in search for clues.

Rowena went with Sam.

You had to "privilege" of going with Dean.

At first it was fun. Going from door to door, from person to person, asking for any kind of information, relevant or not, that might be of help was interesting, exciting even. For a moment you felt like a detective from one of the TV shows you liked.

However, it all came to a halt when Dean grew hungry, which meant all activity was to stop until he was full.

So here you were, in the passenger seat of the Impala, head leaned against the window, staring out at the people casually passing by, bored out of your mind. Dean had invited you to join him at the fast food restaurant, but you'd declined. You'd be bored either way; you much preferred to be so alone in the car than sitting across from him and watching him overstuff his mouth with fast food.

You took out your phone and, thinking it over for a few moments, sent a text to the number you knew by heart.

I'm bored. :(

Rowena's response came right away.

My wee poppet.

You could imagine her smirking as she typed it, the mean tease that she was.

Dean parked me. He went to eat. I'm alone in the car.

Join him.

Ew!

You were there for breakfast this morning, and you wish you weren't. The man had the dining habits of an animal.

You typed,

What you doing?

Waiting for Samuel to finish talking to the yokels.

You chuckled.

Join him.

I'd rather take an iron bullet to the heart.

Drama queen.

Just honest, dear.

Another chuckle. So dramatic, she was. And, as strange as it was, it was one of the reasons you loved her.

Rowena was high maintenance. She was picky and demanding; she liked things to be done in certain ways, and tended to throw tantrums when something didn't go exactly how she wanted it to. She was more dramatic than a seasoned theater actress. She liked to make puppy eyes and stick her lower lip out in a pout when she wanted something, knowing you wouldn't be able to resist her. She was as stubborn as a mule, and had the temper of a dragon.

At the same time, she was the most loving person you'd ever met. She held you when you cried, whispered sweet things into your ear and shook you gently, as if you were a child, to soothe your aches. She took care of you when you were sick. She wasn't much of a cook, but if you asked her to make something for you, she did it without complaint. Anything to please her girl. She curled up against you every night, and kissed your cheeks and lips every morning as a greeting. If you were in danger, she came to your aid right away, protected you from every threat. If someone dared to even look at you in a way that could be perceived as threatening, she would look — glare, threaten — right back.

You loved her to death, and she loved you just as much. Her imperfections, little flaws, only made you love her more.

A gloomy look fell on your face. You said,

I wish you were here right now.

Rowena responded,

Imagine I am. ;)

You raised an eyebrow. A smile broke out on your mouth.

Oh, really?

Really. Imagine I'm there.

A few seconds passed, then she said,

Have some help.

A picture flashed on your screen. Your eyes widened, surprise spilling over your face. It was a picture of Rowena standing in front of a mirror, clad in nothing but lingerie. Black, silky lingerie that stood out perfectly amidst the pale sea of skin of her body. She was smirking in that way that always sent delightful shivers down your spine; naughty, provocative, a cruel, cruel teasing.

Hot damn, you thought. Hot fucking damn. Your pussy dripped in agreement.

I took it this morning.

You typed, hands a tad shaky, desire growing with each passing second,

I thought you hated selfies.

God, you wanted her!

You wanted her right here and right now, on the backseat of this car. You didn't care what Dean would say, didn't care that he would most likely kill you both if he were to caught you even thinking of doing it in his precious car. You were bored, and horny, and you wanted your girlfriend.

Right. Fucking. Now.

There are exceptions to every rule. ;)

Again that smiley, teasing, practically mocking you. Bad girl!

Narcissist.

You could practically envision her shrugging nonchalantly.

I know you like it.

Damn right, you liked it. You typed,

I'd like it more if you were naked.

Oh? And what would you do to make that happen?

You smirked, excitement growing.

I'd rip the bra and panties off you.

Rip them off? Just like that?

Just like that.

Rude.

You shrugged, then, remembering she couldn't see you, said,

They're in the way.

She responded within seconds.

Then what?

I'd push you on the bed and straddle you. Then I'd wrap my hand around your neck and tell you, in your face, what a bad girl you are.

I suppose I'd deserve that.

You would. You're a very bad girl.

So, so bad. The thought made your pussy drip again.

You continued,

I'd kiss you, and then bite your lip. Drawing blood.

Naughty!

She had no idea.

Then I'd bite your neck. I'd bite you until your entire neck is black and blue. So everyone knows you're mine.

Ow, darling!

You smirked. It would hurt and she would love it.

You continued,

I'd bite down your body, mark you all over. Gotta teach you a lesson.

And what is that?

Don't tease and think you'll get away with it.

:(

You deserve it.

I suppose I do.

A few moment passed, then she sent,

What would you do after that?

You didn't even have to think about the answer; it just came to you, automatically, instinctively, the picture accompanying it clear as day in your mind. Your pussy clenched with want, with need only Rowena could satisfy. But she wasn't there, and a part of you hated her for it, hated her for driving you mad and making you weak. She did this to you, and she wasn't even here to make it right. It wasn't fair.

She had to pay for it.

I'd spread your legs wide open and shove a finger inside of you. I'd use my other hand to rub your clit. I'd rub and thrust until you're shaking and begging me to keep going, and then, when you're close to release, I'd stop. I'd keep doing it over and over. Get you close, but never let you come. Then I'd take care of myself, make myself come all over you, and lick my fingers clean while you stare and cry and whine about how it isn't fair.

Heat pooled inside of you, sinking lower, lower, dangerously lower. Your clit throbbed, swollen; a few flicks, a few teeny-tiny rubs, and you would come. You were that close.

Goodness, woman! Bloody cruel, aren't you?

You stared at the new text from Rowena, smirk growing, as wicked as the text you'd sent her.

Punishment, babe. In fact, I think I'm gonna enact it tonight.

Oh?

Yeah. It's been a while since I punished you. You're my bitch tonight.

I'm scared.

You should be. I won't hold back. You, on the other hand… :P

Whatever have I done to deserve this? :(

You turned me on in public.

That does sound naughty.

Glad you see it my way.

Don't think I won't protest.

Quite the contrary — you were expecting it. Rowena was nothing if not a rebel.

Which made it all the more fun to tame her.

Counting on it.

Just as you pressed SEND, the door opened and Dean slid into the driver's seat. You flinched, startled. You weren't expecting him to be back so soon. You squeezed your legs together and leaned further into the door, huddled as if you were cold, hoping to high heavens you hadn't leaked on the seat.

Dean's eyes narrowed. He eyed you, curious, confused. "What's up with you?"

"Nothing," you said quickly. A tad too quickly not to be suspicious.

His frown deepened. Then he shook his head and, as he started the car, mumbled under his breath like an old man muttering about kids these days and their strange ways he couldn't understand, "Witches."

You sighed. Just a few more hours until nightfall. Just a few more annoyingly slow hours, and Rowena was yours.

You just had to be patient.

Tags: @werewolfbarbie @oswinthestrange @songofthecagedmoose @apurdyfulmind @getthesalt-sam @metallihca @salembitchtrials @jay-eris @hellsmother @elizabeth-effie @victoriasagittariablack @rowenaswife @dropsofpetrichor @xfireandsin @liddell-alien @hotdiggitydammit @1-800ahs @darkhumorsblog @wayward-kaia @angel7376 @rowenaisfabulous @ruthieconnells @evil-regal-vampiress

[alecjmarsh]

How I Make Story Mood Boards

Written by request!

First, here are some mood boards that I have made. I’m linking them so I can refer to them and give specific examples--I would advise having them open while you read. 

Loud the Waves Roar   |   Winter Song   |   Yellow Rose   |   Tirsa

Before You Start

As soon as I start developing a story, I come up with a tag for it on tumblr. Sometimes it’s the name of the story, but if I don’t have a name, I call it “project—keyword.” That way I can save anything that might be relevant until I have enough of an idea about the story to start an aesthetic. Sometimes by the time I’m ready, there are some real gems there.

Finding images

This is really difficult and usually takes me a couple hours. I start by simply searching for anything that might be vaguely relevant to the story. For Yellow Rose, some of the terms I googled included: woman, 1930s film star, witch, witchcraft, dustbowl, storm, 1930s, cabin, gardening, farmer, field, vintage car, wolf, werewolf, guitar, musician, folk music, Bonnie & Clyde. Be creative with your terms, and scroll through a few pages of results.

Google tends to return a lot of stock photos, so I also use tumblr a lot, and should use pinterest more, but sometimes google image is good enough

Find actors who resemble your characters. Bonus points if the actors have been in movies set in a similar time period.

Remember that images can be cropped and filtered. If you only need a hands, try looking with terms like “gentleman” or “teacup” or “praying” or “shirt cuffs” or something that might have a hand doing something interesting in it.

Sometimes, finding the right image is a lot of work. The guitar image in Yellow Rose is one I found, cropped, and then put through like 6 Photoshop filters before I thought it looked sufficiently vintage (and I still don’t love it.)

Save everything you might use in a folder. You’ll be surprised what you end up keeping at the end. Each of the mood boards I linked has 25-30 images saved in the desktop folder.

Words (optional)

I like to put words on my aesthetics! For Yellow Rose, I took lyrics from a Laura Marling song. The album Semper Femina is basically the soundtrack for that story. I think for the Winter Song words, I searched “relationship” or “romance” on tumblr and scrolled until I found something I liked. I pick out words fairly early in the process because I need to know how much space they’ll take up.

While doing the layout, I also decide if the words should go over an existing image or on a solid colored background, which can take up space if you don’t have a lot of images, or put emphasis on the words if that’s what you want. That’s what I did in Tirsa’s mood board, since those words are so indicative of her journey.  

Layout

I look at the images and pick out a couple that I know I have to have. That helps me decide how to arrange the other pieces, and then the other images usually get picked to fill in the gaps. You can see from my linked boards that I like playing with shapes.

There is nothing wrong with a standard set up! It’s non-distracting and lets you focus on the images instead.

Some classics are a 3x3 grid of square images or a 2x4 table of images that are wider than they are tall. Both are going to be automatically balanced and easy to read.

On tumblr, images placed side by side get automatically cropped into the same dimensions. This keeps things balanced along a vertical symmetry line (the same on the left and right). If you’re working in Canva, photoshop, or another photo processing app, you’ll have more options

Yellow Rose: For this I started with the concept of a 3x3 grid. The wolf and the herb pictures were square, and the photo of the girl was nearly square, so it made sense to crop everything else that way. Instead of doing a perfect grid, I decided to put the wide image in the middle because it really captured the feeling of the wide sky being swallowed up by dust clouds. It went in the middle to keep the top and bottom balanced. The top row is Florence, and the bottom row is Rosa, so each of the girls get the same amount of images.

Winter Song: Winter Song is primarily a romance, set against a political backdrop. I knew that Irina, as the POV character, had to be more prominent than Viktor in the layout, so I put her up top. I loved that image of Emmy Rossum and knew I had to have it, so I found two images with similar proportions to go on either side of it. This mood board also tells a story as it goes down. The top row is Irina as she arrives in St. Karlsburg. The words show the change in her life that catalyzes the story—meeting Viktor. Then there are two images to show the political unrest in the city. One is a riot of peasants and one is a marching army, but both show crowds in mirror images of each other. (It’s possible I flipped one of the images to create this effect). The bottom row shows her personal life—her writing, her lover, and the long conversations they have together over tea.

Cohesion

Now for all the fiddly bits that really make the post come together. To make it look like a single art piece and not some images pulled together from google, they need to look like they came from the same source. The first thing I do is crop the images super carefully. I do the cropping first because sometimes it turns out an image won’t fit in with the others once it is cropped.

I build my aesthetic posts directly in tumblr, which is kind of janky so I have to be careful. You don’t have to do this, but I like being able to click on each image and look at it separately.

Next is color. I think it’s important that every image have a similar color feel, or that certain images are intentionally bright for emphasis. I do this by playing with saturation sliders and filters in the default photo editing software on my PC.

Part of color cohesion should be in your mind from the beginning, so you pick images with lots of blues and greens (as in the case of Loud the Waves Roar) or something like that. It makes your life easier later.

Yellow Rose: Sometimes a color choice is genre motivated. Yellow Rose is entirely sepia toned because (1) it’s set during the dustbowl and (2) it’s a metaphor for Florence’s state of mind.

LTWR: Sometimes color is setting motivated. Loud the Waves Roar is much brighter than my usual mood boards, but medieval courts were just Like That, and also it is set in a country that is tied to the sea, and blues and greens help emphasize that.

Winter Song: Sometimes color is more symbolic. All of Winter Song is slightly desaturated because it’s set in a fantasy world based on the 1910s, but there is more variety. I desaturated the city street to make it sit right with the other two images in the top row—if it was too bright, it would draw the eye and look like the most important image. The pictures of the crowds are intentionally sepia toned to look like vintage photographs or newspaper clippings (Irina is a journalist). The bottom row, Viktor’s row, is more brightly colored both the draw the eye and to show that that is the main focus of the story.

Tirsa: Tirsa’s mood board is mostly reds (her hair/blood) and green (gives a botanical/medical feeling), so I desaturated the blue sky so as not to unbalance the rest of it.

I love mood boards that are mostly desaturated except for two images in similar color that create a balance and draw the eye. Not every image should be equally important, because that exhausts the eye. Pops of color, or text to break up the images, keeps the eye interested. There’s also some color theory that goes into this, as too many different colors can look garish or cluttered, so picking a couple complementary ones and desaturating the rest can be helpful. Go with what looks right.

Once everything is laid out, I try to walk away for a little bit and come back to it with fresh eyes. Do the pieces still fit together? Do the right images draw my eye? Do I understand the essence of the story? Do I like it?

If the answers to all these questions are yes, it’s time to post.

OH AND PLEASE CITE YOUR SOURCES!!!!

[buckyreaderrecs]

Bucky Barnes and the Girl With Too Much Power: Chapter 3/?

Summary:  Nobody knows about your power. You’ve never really wanted to use it, let alone hurt someone with it. But, someone has figured you out, and now they’re following you. There’s only one place you can go for help - The Avengers. Good news is they’re good people. Bad news is your power is entirely relevant to soft, sad, recovering, broody Bucky Barnes. Chapter 1. Chapter 2. 

Chapter 3: A decision is made. A plan is formed. Bucky has a request. 

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Reader Characters: Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov, Sam Wilson, Tony Stark, Wanda Maximoff, Peter Parker Additional tags: Bucky needs a hug, recovering Bucky, mostly canon compliant (Infinity War and Endgame didn’t happen, Stark Tower still exists), angst, possible future smut (who knows, not me), mutual pining, reader has powers, she/her pronouns, more tags/characters to be added with future chapters

Bucky Barnes and the Girl With Too Much Power Chapter 3/?

From the Potomac River to Romania, Bucky had simply tried to exist. Be the market customer, the guy on the bus, the man walking by that nobody remembered. Just… exist. But, since Shuri pulling trigger words from his brain and Wakandan doctors doing their best to undo the years of damage to his body, Bucky had felt like he was existing to make up for his life before.

Every day was an act of redemption. Each thing he did, a beg for forgiveness. And it was easy for him to live like that, despite Steve telling him he didn't owe the world anything and Sam's honest trauma counselling lines over pizza, and even The Avengers' ultimate adoption of him, Bucky still felt indebted and it was simply the easiest way to live.

Standing in the middle of your limbo, Bucky could feel the way you were pressed into him, leaning all your weight onto him. It was how Steve used to hug him before the war broke out, like if Bucky moved, Steve's entire centre of gravity would be ripped out from under him. Steve relied on Bucky back then. It was what you were doing now. He wasn't indebted to you.

What did that mean? How was he meant to act around you? Talk to you?

Bucky didn't move first, he gave you all the time in the world. Eventually, you slowly uncurled yourself and let Bucky have his arms back. Your eyelashes were clumped together with tears. Suddenly self-conscious, you took a step back and wiped the tears and snot away with the sleeve of your shirt. Sniffling, you looked around a little hopelessly.

"Uh… Did ya need anythin'? I know a cup of tea helps Wanda when she's upset… or Peanut Butter Cups put Steve in a good mood. Must be a psychological thing, 'cause of the syrum..." He was rambling just a bit, but it was sweet. It was also an insight. You wondered if he ever made Wanda's tea, or if he just watched and noticed things.

"I… um… I… don't know," you replied honestly.

Bucky nodded. "Yeah… Alright… I, uh, just came to see if you were okay… as you can be. Only thing that's gonna make you feel much better is knowing what's going on, yeah?"

"Yep," you answered quietly, wrapping your arms around yourself.

With another nod and a gentle squeeze of your arm, Bucky vacated the room. The door was left unlocked.

…

The bed beneath you was getting more and more comfortable the longer you waited for Wanda, Bucky, or someone else to deliver your fate. If you forced your heavy eyelids to remain open, the room wouldn't stay still. Any chance of coherent thinking was lost hours ago. You'd not slept in over thirty hours, and your body was damn well aware of that.

Of the places you could be, Stark Tower was certainly one of the safest. Regardless, you felt hyper-aware of potential threats, entirely scared at the prospect of being kicked out onto the street with no help, and constantly watched by the security camera in the corner of the room.

Biology is a bitch. Despite desperately trying to remain awake and alert, you passed out before The Avengers had even come to a conclusion about you. When they finally did, Tony asked F.R.I.D.A.Y. to bring up the feed to your room.

"Which one of you wants'ta wake up Sleeping Beauty?" he asked, feeling a little sorry for you.

"Let her sleep," Steve replied, glancing over at Bucky. "We'll sort it out in the morning. She needs sleep and something to eat before she'll be able to tell us anything,"

"Anything else," Wanda clarified. "She told us plenty."

Everyone agreed, then headed to their separate spaces in the Tower. Steve and Bucky were last out, both watching over your sleeping image on the screen.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y., let me… us… know when she wakes up," Steve requested, then slung an arm around his oldest friend and steered him from the room. "You wanna talk about it?"

…

The blinds started to rise, letting in the New York morning light. It burned your eyes at first, but quickly the breathtaking view distracted you from the abrupt awakening. You walked to the windows and looked out over the city. Of the millions of people living down there, what made you special enough to be on someone's watch list? A sharp reminder-

"Wakey, wakey!" Tony called as he entered the room with a knock or pause.

Instinctively, you swung around and yelled, "Stop!"

He froze. Entirely. It was lucky that the life-supporting bodily functions were automatic and unconscious; your power didn't control those. You could keep Tony still and he wouldn't stop breathing. Unless you wanted him to.

Almost as still as Tony, you looked at him in shock. He'd startled you into a reaction, but now you were too scared of his to let him unfreeze.

Before you had to though, the gentle but firm voice of Captain America could be heard from the hallway behind Tony. "Y/N?" he called softly. "I'm coming in." He appeared, dressed in casual jeans and a black t-shirt. He had his hands out, like you were a cornered animal he wanted to subdue. Walking passed Tony, Steve kept his eyes on you.

"I'm sorry," you whispered out, another relatively instinctual response.

Steve nodded. "I know. He knows too. Wanna let him go?"

"You can move," you directed at Tony.

Tony's body relaxed and he dramatically shook himself out. You expected hell, but instead Tony looked over you with some suspicion, but more interest. Then to Steve, "Thanks, Cap,"

"Thought we agreed-"

"I know, I know. You're little sad squad would come get her. I was just in the neighbourhood, thought I'd drop by, you know."

Yeah, he knew. Steve was well and truly acquainted with Tony Stark's unpredictable behaviour. He just stared at Tony until he got the hint.

"Right. Well then," Tony said, stepping backwards toward the open door. "Guess I'll see you later. Good chat, Y/N. Nice playin' with you." Both you and Steve watched him walk out the door, then jump in surprise. "Christ, Barnes!" He looked back at Steve, pointing to, you presumed, Bucky standing outside in the hall. "Why's he gotta creep around like this?" He shook his head at Bucky, then walked away.

Bucky stepped out of hiding and into the doorway.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y. let us know you woke," Steve said to you, turning his attention from Bucky to where you were still standing in front of the window. Wanda had explained Stark Tower's AI system. If you needed anything, ask F.R.I.D.A.Y. It was a little unnerving to think about, so you hadn't.

"Are you okay?" Bucky asked, moving as slowly as Steve had, but without the hesitation. He came to a stop in front of you, watching as you nodded. "Don't worry 'bout Stark… He's… I don't know… him, but he's alright. Forgiving, at the least," he told you.

Everybody knew The Winter Soldier had killed a lot of people. Everybody knew who many of those people were.

"I'm okay," you said, sensing neither Steve nor Bucky were going to move unless you gave them something.

"Did you get some sleep?" Steve asked. It seemed genuine.

"Yeah, a little,"

"Good, that's good. Let's go get some breakfast. We can talk, if you want to," he offered. His body language had softened considerably, probably from the point of you letting Tony go. He was still being cautious though. While you figured it was because Steve was wary of you, he and Bucky knew it was because he was not used to how Bucky was behaving. He had declined Steve's invitation to talk about it, about you, the previous night.

…

The kitchen wasn't really a kitchen. Serving the joining conference rooms and corporate spaces, the kitchenette mostly saw coffee and ordered-in baked goods. Somebody though, had the good thought to go one step further this morning.

Wanda was unpacking takeaway containers of real-deal cooked breakfast food. She looked entirely domestic, like if you didn't know she was the Scarlet Witch, you'd think she was simply a beautiful woman, and in this case, one gong out of her way to make you feel safe.

"I think this was Pepper," she said in lieu of a good morning.

Steve had entered the room first, you tailing him obediently. He motioned at a bar stool, inviting you to sit.

Why you did it, you weren't sure, but you turned to glance to Bucky behind you. "Sit," he nudged gently, taking up the stood next to yours.

A plate was put in front of you. Steve and Wanda began to chat, unguarded and natural - which you took as a good sign. They both ate, as did Bucky but he stayed as quiet as you. It was more hospitality than you'd expected, and you didn't want to be rude or ungrateful. However, the nerves and fear coursing through you stopped any chance of being hungry. Bucky subtly watched you push food around on the plate.

"Steve," he said, concluding nobody was getting down to business, so to speak.

Steve genuinely looked confused at first, then he clocked your uneaten food and still-panicked body language. He would have always helped you - even if not through The Avengers. He had forgotten that people's idea of him had changed over the past few years. He wasn't America's golden boy anymore. Not perfect. Not always law-abiding. Once upon a time, someone like you could show up and know categorically that Captain America would save them. It wasn't like that anymore. You were waiting, unsure.

"You can stay here, Y/N," Steve said, a little bit rushed. "We watched overnight to see if anybody… lingered around. Nobody's come looking for you yet."

"But we believe you," Wanda added. "We'll find them."

"Well- we will do our best," he clarified. Steve then looked over at Bucky, as if he expected him to add something. Bucky remained silent.

Saying 'thank you' didn’t feel like enough. Before you got even that out, Steve continued. "Tony's letting you use one of the living quarters,"

"You'll be near me," from Wanda.

"It's just Wanda and Buck living here right now, but the rest of us are always around. And there isn't a more secure building in the world," Steve assured you. The fact that you'd easily found your way into the heart of it the night before crossed everyone's minds. Nobody mentioned it.

"Why do you still live here?" you asked Bucky, almost automatically. It just slipped out. You'd assumed wherever Steve Rogers went, Bucky Barnes would follow.

Bucky's blank expression almost faltered. "Not really trusted yet," he told you.

"Buck-" Steve said at the same time as Wanda began, "By you. Everybody else trusts you. You're free to go whenever you want,"

"So are you," Bucky pointedly replied.

They looked at each other for a moment, their respective ghosts catching up.

"Anyway," Steve cut in, "You should head home, grab what you need. We'll figure it out from there, okay?" He rested his palm on your arm in a soft gesture.

"By myself?" you asked quietly. All three of the Avengers could hear the fear in your voice.

In your life, you had been forced to live on the cusp of hyperawareness at all times. Self-monitoring was the natural consequence of not wanting to out yourself or hurt anybody. A side effect of the monitoring was being able to read other people exceptionally well. Take for instance this moment in the kitchenette of Stark Tower. The truth was not being told. Wanda fidgeting with her teacup, Steve's watchful eyes attempting to assess your belief… They were dead giveaways.

"It's best that nobody knows you've come to us," Steve explained. "If whoever it is following you are planning something, it may just speed up their timeline."

He probably wasn't wrong. But it also wasn't everything.

"Answer this question truthfully: why do you want me to go alone?"

Wanda's eyes went wide as Steve immediately started to talk. "Officially we didn't record anybody outside the Tower but Buck saw someone a block down that isn't normally there. We sent an agent to approach, and they were posed as living with homelessness, but it was an obvious cover. We're sending you home to test if they'll follow you."

There were two seconds of silence when he finished.

"Well…" Wanda sighed out, sipping at her tea.

"That… doesn't feel good," Steve said, feeling disorientated.

From next to you, Bucky chuckled to himself. You turned and shot him a look. "It's not funny!" Abruptly standing, you launched the others to do the sam, falling into defensive positions. "You said I'd be safe and now you're using me as bait,"

"Y/N, we know-"

"No, you don't fucking know," you interrupted Steve. "I've got-got this thing… this power that I don't want and now people I don't know are hunting me and I don't know how they know about it and it's fucking terrifying! And I work up the courage to come here and risk gettin' shot by Iron Man or whatever to get help and you're just sending me out there to see if anything happens?!"

"You're right," Bucky says, stopping you from continuing with not so much what he said but with the volume of his voice. It was the loudest you'd heard him speak. He stepped closer to you, relaxed his shoulders. "You've got every right to be pissed. But you're not exactly defenceless, and we don't have a lot to go on here." He took another step closer; he was at an arm's length. "We shouldn't have lied, but we didn't know how you'd react. Can't blame us for being careful. I'm sorry, Y/N… But we ain't gonna let anything happen to you, trust us."

The Avengers had been through hell, some more than others. All of them though, knew what it meant to be afraid of themselves and for their lives. This had very reasonably left them with depleted trust levels but maximum empathy, arguably, none more than Bucky Barnes. So maybe it was only Bucky that could have asked for trust and received it.

You nodded, trying to breathe properly.

"Here," Bucky said, closing some of the space between you and reaching for your hand. He lifted it to your nose then demonstrated what to do on himself. "Breath in one way," he told you, closing one nostril. "Breath out the other." He switched.

Following his lead, you breathed in, breathed out. In. Out. It worked. With your breathing regulated you felt slightly more in control.

"I'm sorry," you said to step, looking behind Bucky at Steve.

"It's okay; you're scared. But we're going to help you, Y/N."

…

The elevator music was not the usual. Maybe Tony's Spotify was directly connected to it, you thought on the ride down. Maybe it was F.R.I.D.A.Y. making the building more Stark-esque. It helped to think about the music rather than the fact you were about to step back out into the city.

"You wanna go over the route again?" Bucky asked. He was leaning against the elevator wall, adjacent to you. He'd been watching you since leaving the kitchenette.

In a boardroom you had been shown the planned route you'd take home, and where each Avenger would be located. It was just Steve, Wanda, Sam and Peter Parker. The kid had been called in when Natasha received one of her mysterious messages and disappeared into the night. Everybody else was out on missions or taking time off. You and your tail weren't exactly a high priority. Agents in civilian attire would be on the street too, just in case.

From the boardroom, you'd been put back in your limbo bedroom for a couple of hours while the plan was put into motion.

When Bucky returned to collect you, he'd changed out of the sweatpants and white t-shirt he was wearing and into his uniform. You'd not seen it before, on the news or the internet or anywhere else. You'd never know he had a vibranium Wakandan-made arm. Bucky's long hair was pulled into a bun.

"No," you replied quietly, glancing over at him.

His watching was both unnerving and reassuring. You'd never want to be on the wrong side of Bucky Barnes, formally The Winter Soldier. Luckily, you weren't.

"You can make me, if you want," he said then.

Fully turning to him, your anxious expression turned to confusion. "Make you do what?"

"Tell me to make sure you get home and back here in one piece. If you make me, I gotta, right?" he asked, with a way too casual shrug of the shoulder. Bucky's lips were curved upwards just enough that you could catch it, but he didn't look like he was waiting for you to laugh. It wasn't a joke.

"Aren't you gonna do that anyway?"

"Course, but…" When he paused he read your face for any minute micro-expression. How much of the truth could you handle? "Get an order, complete it like a good soldier. Makes it easier. Keeps you one-track-minded." He'd settled for part of the truth. Only a small part.

It became very clear that Bucky was asking you to make him obey, although you didn't know why. Reaching out to the elevator control panel, you hit the emergency stop. When the elevator did in fact, stop, you were a bit surprised. Dramatically stopping an elevator was something people only did in movies. It had amused Bucky though, that was evident in the dimples on his cheeks formed when his small smirk grew too wide.

"Make sure I get to my house safely. Help me get what I need, and bring me back here," you told Bucky as you leaned back against the wall opposite his.

The smile dropped from his face, along with any shade of expression. You could see your power in his eyes.

Bucky nodded, you started the elevator, and the rest of the ride was silent.

Chapter 4. 

[belphegor1982]

Got tagged by @kikabennet! 

when did you last sing to yourself?

Yesterday, since I’ve currently been awake for an hour and a half. Might have been either “Bonnie Portmore” or “Here’s a Health (To The Company)”. I’ve been putting a lot of shanties and pirates/sailing-related films soundtracks on to draw to (and hopefully write to) lately. (EDIT: Ooops - yep, wrote that yesterday around 11AM, so make that this afternoon; I hummed while I drew along with the first 3 Pirates of the Caribbean soundtracks. It’s so darn hummable.)

if a crystal ball could tell you the truth about anything, what would you want to know?

Who was the Man in the Iron Mask!? (I know better than to ask personal/family truths :S Besides, I’m curious.)

(putting the rest under a cut...)

what is the greatest accomplishment of your life?

Being able to speak (mostly) and read/write English fluently.

what is the first happy memory that comes to mind, recent or otherwise?

When my mum was in the hospital with my newborn baby sister, my dad would take me see them, and before that we’d stop for ice cream and a ride on the merry-go-round. That’s what comes to mind when I read “first happy memory”.

if you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living?

I’d go see my family and friends who live far away a lot more, and eat a lot more of my favourite things.

do you have a bucket list? if so, what are the top three things?

I don’t, really ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

describe a person close to your life in detail

The Best Beloved is tallish (1,77m - that’s… 5′10?), with dark brown hair, green eyes, skin that tans easily even in winter, and glasses. …and that’s as much detail as I’m comfortable putting.

do you feel you had a happy childhood?

On the whole, yes. Could’ve done without the bullying at school and the undermining of self-confidence at home, though.

when did you last cry in front of another person?

Don’t remember, so it must be at least a fortnight.

pick a person to stargaze with you and explain why you picked them

My dad, who used to sail with a compass. I don’t think he knows much about constellations, but he’s always willing to share memories, even if sometimes he doesn’t remember he’s told them multiple times.

would you ever have a deep conversation with a stranger and open up to them?

Probably. I shouldn’t, though. Strangers being by definition strangers, you never know where that information is going and how it might be used (possibly against you).

when was your last 3am conversation with someone, and who were they to you?

We both were tired and ended up going to bed around half past midnight, so no 3AM conversation, but my friend Sandrine last week.

if you were about to die, and you could only say one more sentence to one person, what would you say and to whom?

…I have no idea? I think I’d concentrate really hard on not dying :S

what is your opinion on brown eyes?

Why would it matter tho I have brown eyes and for the longest time I thought they were boring. It doesn’t help that brown hair and eyes are basically the default where I grew up/live. Then I grew up and moved on.

pick a quote and describe what it means to you personally

George Bernard Shaw’s “Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.” Life is complicated, all about balance between extremes and absolutes. Don’t trust people who tell you the world is grim and serious just because they are. And while getting the giggles at a funeral/wake is inappropriate, it doesn’t mean you’re heartless.

what would you title the autobiography of your life so far?

Wait, What

what would you do with one billion dollars?

I’d keep half a dozen millions for me (car and house debts), my family and my friends, and give the rest to social services, healthcare, and public services in general.

are you a very forgiving person? do you like being this way?

Ehhh… It’s complicated. I tend to hold grudges when I can remember why, but I rarely do something about it. On the whole I’m pretty “live and let live”.

would you describe yourself as more punk or pastel?

Neither, really. I’m too soft for punk, but pastel’s not really my thing either.

how do you feel about tattoos and piercings? explain

I’m too much of a wuss to even consider getting either, but they look great on other people. When I get a spot on my tongue I wonder how people with a tongue piercing manage to keep it, though. It’s very distracting.

do you wear a lot of makeup? why/why not?

As a rule, no, but if I work or if I’m invited somewhere I’ll throw on a bit of eyeliner and lipstick. (I should raid my makeup drawer, really, some of my lipstick cases are almost 20 years old and you should NOT do that.)

talk about a song/band/lyric that has affected your life in some way

In high school I saw a psychologist (junior high was NOT a happy time and the bad stuff just overflowed at one point) and went to an outpatient clinic every Wednesday. They had lots of activities, like painting on silk, various art stuff, and a band, and I loved that band. I was one of the only ones who’d request songs to sing in English. The guitarist introduced me to the Beatles’ “Something”, which I didn’t know, and to this day when I hear this lovely song I think of that guy who had a great smile, a great sense of humour and a great moustache (think George Harrison on Let It Be) who helped me get better.

list the concerts you have been to and talk about how they make you feel

Not to brag, but back in my uni days I did go to a number of them - K’s Choice, Coldplay, King Khan And His Shrines, M, Tom McRae are among the ones I remember. And a couple months ago I went to a rock concert with three bands one after the other. I love live music, it feels amazing. It courses through my body, makes me grin like a maniac, and want to jump and flail around just to vent the excess energy. And all this without a single drop of beer! (can’t stand the stuff :P)

who in the world would you most like to receive a letter from and what would you want it to say?

I’d love a letter from the national loto that says “here’s a giant check even though you haven’t scratched a ticket in years” :P More seriously, I LOVE receiving letters from my Internet friends.

do you have a desk/workspace and how is it organised/not organised?

I don’t really have a workspace. I have a desk, which has the desktop screen, keyboard, mouse/graphic tablet, and a whole lot of mess of papers, pens, boxes, and stuff. I can use either that desk or my laptop in my armchair.

what is your night time routine?

Finish watching the movie/tv show, look at Tumblr a bit (and/or stuff on the laptop, like TV Tropes), go to bed, read a bit on my Kindle, kiss the Best Beloved good night, switch off the lights, and try to sleep.

what’s one thing you don’t want your parents to know?

Anything about my intimate life, thanks.

if you had to dye your hair how would you dye/style it and why?

I experimented a bit with henna back in the day, but generally I just have haircuts (I have too little hair to risk harming it). I’d like some reddish highlights one day, though.

pick five people to go on an excursion with you. who would you pick and where would you go/what would you do?

Eehhh... I’d rather stay at home and chill :P Okay, I’d take the Best Beloved and my friends Melody, Nico, Sandrine, and Aldric, and head to Marquèze. (wish their website had an English version, it’d be better.) It’s an ecomuseum about local life in the early 1800s/early 1900s, with preserved traditional houses and people showing skills like dyeing fabric, shepherding, making flour (there’s a watermill) and all sorts of cakes and bread and snacks, and an entire day isn’t too much to visit everything.

name three wishes and why you wish for them

I wish:

I had a decently-paying job from home,

my friend Sandrine’s mum were/will be all right (don’t ask),

we had the house extension built already

what is the best halloween costume you have ever put together? if none, make one up

We didn’t have Halloween when I was growing up, it really only started to be a thing in earnest a decade or two ago. Although... One time when we lived in Bordeaux, the Best Beloved and I were invited to a housewarming party on Halloween, so people would wear costumes. I went as a witch, with a long black skirt, long-sleeve thing with black lace (-ish), long black and white wig, and of course black lipstick and lots of black around the eyes. The Best Beloved had made a cloak, a scythe of sorts with cardboard and foil, and had a scary death head mask on. We didn’t have a car and the friend lived in Saint-Médard (which is relevant), so we had to ask around the bus drivers for which bus went there.

So picture the two of us dressed as we were, mask and all, well after dark, asking around for the “S&M” bus. Yep :P (People stared at us during the ride, and unlike the Best Beloved, I didn’t have the luxury of a mask to hide my laughter...)

what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done while drunk or high?

The only time I got slightly tipsy I went a little pink and apparently talked a little louder than usual. I’ve never got drunk (too afraid of stomachache later) or high (it took my mum two heart attacks to quit smoking and I’m wondering if she hasn’t taken it up again, I can’t hold a cigarette, tobacco or otherwise).

what’s one thing you would never do for one million dollars?

Hurt people, probably. If I wouldn’t do it for ten dollars I wouldn’t do it for a million - if you agree to one or the other the rest is just haggling over price.

if you’re a boy, would you ever rock black nail polish? if you’re a girl, would you ever rock really really short hair?

I don’t think I have the right face shape for that - my face is too round, longer hair suits me better.

what’s your starbucks order, and who would you trust to order for you, if anyone?

I live 126 km (78 miles) from the nearest Starbucks, when I walk by one the queue is huge, and the prices are well beyond my range :> But I’d trust the Best Beloved. He’d still ask me, though.

what is the most important thing to you in your life right now?

Being happy and/or stress-free. Also the oncoming Papa Bear Awards nominations in a week and the Eurovision Song Context coming up in May :D

Tagging @radarsteddybear, @rose-of-pollux, @truxi-twice, @myrling-art, @iorvethscommando, and @toooldforthisbutstill! :o)

[awed-frog]

tl;dr: nope

I got a couple of anon asks about this, and I’m also tagging @twist-shout-and-shells because they asked me to, but I have to say - I don’t know anything about comics, I don’t know Marvel at all, so this review is just a meaningless rant. Like, I know so little about this universe that the first superhero movie I ever saw in my life was Thor, and the only reason they got me was because my mythology-loving ass assumed this would be about the actual god, you know?, so that was a very confusing two hours. Anyway - after this, I’m done with them. The ridiculous hype campaign they created around Infinity War actually activated my crow brain, which means I rushed to the theater because I was sort of expecting this would be a shocking masterpiece and any spoiler would ruin it for me, and - yeah. Never doing that again. Because, whatever - they do manage to come up with some good writing from time to time, and Black Panther’s success had made me hope they’d finally recognize that a solid, coherent and meaningful story is really the first thing you need, but apparently not? 

Ugh.

Anyway, here are main reasons why I didn’t like Infinity War.

1) No, we don’t need a new plague

Problem number one with this movie is that it fails to take into account that our IQ as a people has dropped about twenty points over the last thirty years (and I’m not even joking) and that means even a guy nicknamed ‘Mad Titan’ is actually given the benefit of the doubt (I don’t remember anyone thinking Hela might have had a point, but then again, women are known to be emotionally compromised at all times, right, so all that rage was probably PMS and crazy bitches, amirite?, can’t live with them, can’t live without them). And here, predictably, is the result:

I even checked Breitbart so you wouldn’t have to and while they seem confused as to whether they should support this movie or not (don’t watch because Captain America is played by ‘Comrade Communism’, do watch because Chris Pratt is a Good Christian Man), it’s still clear to everybody over there that Thanos, “an environmentalist wacko obsessed with salvaging the natural resources of the universe” is “espousing liberal jibberish”.

So, I’m going to keep it short and mostly sourceless because I saw a lot of people discussing this, but just to be clear: yeah, it is worrying that human population has basically tripled in thirty years, but the correlation ‘more people = more damage & fewer resources’ isn’t as clear-cut as some like to think. Also, research shows that women being recognized as human beings - that’s the actual way to solve this problem (see also x, x), which means that if Thanos had meant business, he could have used those frwaking stones to build schools and family planning centres. 

2) Your plan against evil can’t be just saying no

This is probably what bugs me the most both in fiction and IRL: saying ‘Trump is a moron’, ‘capitalism is bad’ or ‘genocide is wrong’ is not a political program. It’s a moral stance, and kudos to you, but if you want to make the world a better place, you need a lot more than that. But, nope - IW fell into this trap with such relish I can actually believe no one saw this as a problem - at all. When Thanos pointed out, rather smugly, that decimating Gamora’s planet had led to a new era of happiness and prosperity, she didn’t react in any way. We never saw Tony or Shuri mentioning the outlandish, extravagant idea that better and greener technology could actually save us all. We never saw anyone point out that when the richest 1% own half the world’s wealth, wiping out half of a Nairobi slum isn’t likely to do much for the environment. I guess it wasn’t relevant to the plot?

3) Turning your audience against the good guys = dick move

That said, our planet is objectively in bad shape, and writers and artists who are (or like to think of themselves as) engagés are more than welcome to discuss this - for all her faults, JK Rowling did that to perfection in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, focusing on the importance of conservation and taking a clear stance against animal trafficking. Other movies, of course, went a lot farther than that: my movie rec of the day is Okja, a masterful and soulwrenching look at how capitalism manages food production. But IW, on top of everything else, manages to be an anti-green movement movie? As if that was needed in any way? Apparently comic!Thanos’ goal was to impress Lady Death or something, and maybe they should have gone with that, because to me, movie!Thanos’ plan sounds like an ill-conceived and unfortunate parody of the green movement. In fact, eminent biologist E. O. Wilson’s Half-Earth explores this exact possibility - which is not about killing off 50% of the population, thank you very much, but about improving agriculture and urban structures so we can leave 50% of the world to the rest of the ecosystem. And maybe it’s just me, but isn’t it a bit weird the book came out at about the same time when IW’s script was being written? I try not to be a paranoid nutcase, but come on. Because what the movie does is that it turns Thanos into a sort of green Hitler whose only focus is the environment (“But he was a vegetarian!”), cue the creepy final shot of him going all ‘Schwarzy in the forest’ surrounded by clean-water creeks and happy animals while we are left counting our dead. The metaphor couldn’t be more obvious, and to be honest it is most unwelcome. Time and place, guys? I really haven’t seen something so revolting since I got to the end of the Da Vinci Code and realized atheists were the true monsters all along.

4) Being a hero doesn’t mean saving your friends

So this is starting to become a trend, and seriously, enough. If you’re a hero, then you need to think of something greater than yourself, and this is why your life will suck and suck and suck until your untimely death. Deal with it? And I can understand Loki giving up the Tesseract for his brother, because he’s always been more of an anti-hero than a hero, and his morals are shot to hell in any case, and I’ll forgive Dr Strange because he clearly saw something we didn’t, but what the hell was Steve thinking? Seriously, I keep seeing posts about how Pure and Noble Steve is, and guys, did we even see the same movie? Bringing Vision to Wakanda meant endangering an entire nation, and thousands of people there paid for that choice with their lives. It’s because Steve insisted in not seeing the big picture - or accepting Vision’s own wishes - that Thanos even succeeded in the first place. If they’d destroyed the stone, Thanos would never have gotten his hands on it, and Wakanda would not have been attacked by a horde of alien demons. Sacrificing hundreds or thousands of nameless (black, African) warriors to keep one (white) man safe is not heroism - it’s cowardice. It’s assuming your own feelings and your friends’ lives count more than the lives of strangers, and this is the exact opposite of how a hero should think. Not that I’m surprised, since Steve already condoned the destruction of half of Bucharest to save Bucky, but whatever. Compare and contrast with Tony, by the way, who first tried to destroy the Time stone, then chose to sacrifice himself to save someone he didn’t even like? Yeah, that’s more like it. #TeamStark

5) Every single woman is defined by her relationship to a man

With the caveat that no emotion, connection or motivation is throroughly explored in IW because it’s an action-packed movie during which people never speak an honest word to each other (relying instead on posturing, movie quotes and sarcastic remarks), here is basically what happens: men have things, and women have men. Tony’s journey is mostly about saving Peter and also sacrificing himself for the world. Steve is all about his friends and various heroics. Dr Strange is a sort of ascetic monk playing the long game. Thanos wants to save the universe or something. And Vision is on a quest towards humanity? Maybe? But the women - Gamora is important because she’s Thanos’ daughter. Scarlet Witch is important because she loves Vision. Natasha (I think she’s in the movie? I don’t actually remember if we hear her speak) is on Cap’s side because Cap. Pepper only appears to remind us of what Tony has to lose. Exceptions to this rule include Shuri, whom IW didn’t quite manage to destroy; Loki, who was always female- and queer-coded, so I’m not surprised he ends up dying for the handsome and suitably Aryan hero; and arguably Starlord, who mostly fights for Gamora (what is a virtue in a woman, however, is a weakness in a man, because Starlord ends up fucking up the plan because of his love for her). And I know they probably tried to compensate for the complete lack of women in the movie by highlighting how powerful Scarlet Witch is and focusing so much on Gamora, but I’m an annoying person, so that didn’t work for me. Because, again, Scarlet Witch is a 2D character plucked directly from a Victorian dictionary’s definition of ‘woman’ (while the menfolk around her worry about the possible demise of the Entire Earth, there she is, channelling all her energy in being a good and loyal companion to her robot husband) and Gamora has no more control over her life in this movie than she had as a child? Her main narrative purpose in IW is to make us feel bad for her boyfriend and father, who’re both driven to kill her (for very different reasons) and suffer for her death (and don’t get me started on Thanos suddenly loving someone and what a stroke of luck, the one person in the universe he gives a damn about just happens to be standing next to him on top of a cliff when he needs to kill her). Seriously, why is it that female characters’ concerns still begin and end with romantic love? This trope that romance is the most important thing for every single woman needed to die, like, yesterday.

6) None of that actually means anything

Look, I’m a sucker of time-travel of any description, but I also think time-travel must be done honestly or not at all. Movies like Back to the Future or Arrival both use time bending to great effect, because the stakes are real and painful and there are all sort of complex decisions facing our heroes. But IW doesn’t care about any of that. The existence of the Time stone is not about ethical dilemmas or even turning up the drama to eleven - the one purpose of that thing is to make us hope that our personal fave is not dead after all, so we’ll keep watching this stupid franchise until the end of times. That finale could have been innovative and heartwrenching, and instead we already know it wasn’t. Samuel L. Jackson is apparently confirmed in Captain Marvel, which will be released next year, and we also know they’re working on Spider-Man 2, Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Black Panther 2 and Doctor Strange 2. Capitalism has very nearly killed the possibility of creating a well-written and gutting story, because the rule is, If it makes money, it goes the fuck on. Hence TV shows which no longer make any kind of sense but we all keep watching out of nostalgia, affection for the characters or dissatisfaction with our own lives, and also franchises which stretch the plot to new and boring limits (for instance, it beggars belief that Tony and Steve didn’t even meet in IW, and their fight never came up at all: I guess we’ll have to wait for IW 2, or Avengers 37: The One with The Talk). And here, again, studios are so greedy that they willingly disregard the fact audiences will reward ‘complete’ stories: for instance, Logan was critically acclaimed and made tons of money, but the risk of ‘permanently’ killing off a beloved character is still considered too high. And playing it safe actually works: IW costed $320 million, which is about 5% of the studio’s budget, and that investment has already been repaid in full (the movie made double that in the first two weeks).  

(Meanwhile, 21st Century Fox gained more than one billion dollars from Trump’s TAX REFORM THAT WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN - probably a disappointing amount of money for owner Richard Murdoch, who has a net worth of 15 billion and is known to use some of that hard-earned cash to support laudable & important causes such as the privatization of public education, but hey, we all need to make do and move on, right? Right.)

So this is mostly it. To be fair, IW was mildly entertaining, and I thought they sort of did a good job in juggling twenty leads - we got no character development at all and no meaningful dialogue, but we saw everybody at least once and their lines were funny? Some moments were genuinely good despite a couple of bizarre plot points (I’m still unclear on why Strange didn’t create a circle of fire around Thanos’ arm, and very tired of the overused ‘Yeah, let’s save the most powerful weapons for last’ trope), so I wouldn’t say this was the worst movie ever made, but as I said, I’m done. I’ve given more than enough money to this franchise, so when IW 2 comes out, I think I’ll be a boring adult and watch it on TV as I’m doing my ironing or something. Good times.