#and one of the sections is smack dab in the middle of the back of my head

[ambrosiagourmet]

I've been thinking about Laios' succubus lately. Mulling it over a bit.

Because I've seen these pages brought up a fair bit, but almost entirely in the context of shipping (on all sides, really). And I really want to understand what they are doing for the story beyond that.

When I went back to reread the scene and section, a few things caught my interest: the way Laios responds to both forms of his succubus, the themes of the volume the chapter is found in, and the other events of the chapter itself.

So let's dive into those three things, and what I think they say about the succubus scene's purpose.

Laios is never fully frozen by the succubus

So. If you compare Marcille and Chilchuck's reactions...

to Laios':

-

There is a difference. Sure, the basics may look the same once it turns into Scylla Marcille, but even then, it functions differently.

Chilchuck and Marcille are completely frozen once they catch sight of their succubus. Izutsumi, as well, isn't able to look away, and completely freezes up once her 'mom' starts talking to her. As Chilchuck describes, "just looking at them makes you unable to move."

And yet, Scylla Marcille has to actively convince Laios to comply. He even looks away from her at one point!

Laios accepts this succubus, but he is never actually helpless to it in the same way. Taken in? Convinced? Sure, at least enough to let things happen that he probably should question more than he does. But magically compelled? Not really. Not the same way as everyone else is. So that's interesting. But let's move on for now.

2. Volume 9 is all about drive and desire

I don't often look at chapters within the context of the volume they are included in, but I think there's some really fun things to be found with that perspective in mind.

For one, volume 9 starts with an exploration of what desire brought Laios to the dungeon:

And ends with a question of what desire brought Laios to the dungeon:

It's also very concerned in general with questions of why people do what they do. Why they are in the dungeon, why they are with the people they are with, why they stay, what they fight for.

In addition to Laios, we see it with Marcille...

Izutsumi

Kabru

and Mithrun

Hell, we even get it for the demon!

It's certainly not the only volume concerned with desires and motives, but it is particularly focused on these ideas.

The succubus scene fits quite well into the ongoing question about desires, especially Laios' desires. It is even placed at an interesting spot within the volume. The volume is six chapters long, and the scene takes place at the start of the 4th chapter. It's almost smack-dab in the middle.

With all this in mind, it is interesting that, with both versions of the succubus Marcille, it's not totally clear which parts of her Laios is rejecting.

The first version of Marcille looks human, but Laios attacks when he identifies her as a monster. The second Marcille looks like a monster, but he seems to believe that she is the real (human)(ish) person that he knows. So is he rejecting the monster at first, and then accepting the person? Or is he rejecting humanity and only interested in the monstrous?

Something to consider as we look at the next point...

3. the rest of the chapter is a seduction, too

This is one of those things that might not be apparent on a first reading, but is crystal clear on a revisit. We see the succubus try and charm Laios over 7 pages, and then see the Winged Lion do the same thing for the next 19.

Much like the succubus, it offers the mingling of monsters and humans. Much like the succubus, it offers belonging.

(and this is the point where I absolutely must also link this post by fumifooms on the succubus, which has some great ideas on how the scene is informed by Laios' trauma and desire for acceptance!!!)

But, back to the point. The Winged Lion wants to feed on Laios just as much as the succubus did, and it uses similar strategies to try and make that happen. Though this chapter isn't really the turning point for the next Lord of the Dungeon (it is Marcille who will, eventually, become the Lion's next victim), it certainly behaves like it is.

Laios is convinced. The succubus gets its meal. By the end of the volume, the reader begins to understand how concerning his desires are. Together, it is all very good at building up that sense of dread and pending disaster, as we see exactly how and why Laios might just fall into the Lion's open arms and bring about the end of the world.

-

So that's the three things I noticed. But there's still something I want to touch on by looking at the way these observations overlap, and what they reveal, together.

As I said, by the end of the volume, you can feel the tension growing. Just as Kabru and Mithrun do, you look back for an answer to the questions that have been built, chapter by chapter: why is Laios here? Where will his loyalties fall? This chapter, and scene, seem to prove the inevitable truth: he will choose the monster, of course. He will choose the seductive, easy power of the Winged Lion.

But the details of what actually happens tell different story: one in which the Lion is wrong.

First, as a reminder - even in Scylla Marcille mode, the succubus never fully entrances Laios. It convinces him, but it doesn't have him completely under its thrall.

Similarly, in the dream, the Lion does convince Laios to embrace the world he is offering. But even within that dream, Laios continues to ask questions that will be vital to him later. It is because of those questions that Laios comes to a new understanding about Thistle.

And it's this realization that he cites later as part of his reason for refusing the Lion's offer.

He is thinking through things the entire time, just like he continues to question the succubus even after it turns into Scylla Marcille.

Laios also expresses an interesting reason for why he wants to see the future of this world. He's not just invested because it would mean people liking what he likes, or him getting to spend time with monsters. The thought that comes immediately before his acceptance is about what he wants for monsters and people.

I don't think it's a coincidence that this statement - "we're living beings that share the same world, but all we can do is keep killing each other" - can apply to the various humans races just as much as it does to humans and monsters. The thing he is thinking about here isn't just a matter of his personal daydreams. It's an idea that underpins every conflict in the story.

Laios caring about how people as well as monsters in this manner is something that the Lion gets wrong every time. Even at the end, he still frames Laios' desires entirely around hating people and loving monsters.

The Lion has heard him express an opinion about the future of the world! It happened right there in the dream, right in front of him! He just didn't take it seriously, and didn't view it through any lens other than "Laios likes monsters more".

He's convinced that he understands how to get to Laios. Maybe the Lion can't truly see everything, or maybe his vision into everyone's deepest desires has made it hard for him to realize how much choice still matters. That people can, and do, choose which desires to act on, and how to act on them.

Whatever the case, he's wrong about Laios, and the story shows us this over and over again.

After all, look at how the succubus interaction plays out:

A monster uses Marcille to appeal to Laios...

He realizes that something about the situation is wrong, and rejects her.

It changes strategies, and makes new offer: to turn him into a monster.

It also assures him that his friends are, or will be, taken care of.

He accepts. Or rather, allows the monster to have its way with him.

But Laios is not as helpless as he initially appears, and what the Lion thinks is a successful seduction also contains the seed of an idea that will allow Laios to later resist him.

We even get to see Izutsumi playing a similar role in both instances, as the one person fully able to take action in the face to the illusion.

The story lays out what is going happen, and then explicitly tells us that the demon and the succubus are thematically related.

The chapter performs a great sleight of hand here - everything about it seems to indicate that Laios is doomed give in to the option to have his deepest desires realized. But if you look closer, it also contains the evidence that he won't. There's a lot more going on for him.

Yes, he still falls for obvious tricks. He is still extremely into monsters, and he still doesn't feel like he fits in with other people. He may, deep down, crave to surrender to the monstrous - to let it absorb him. But he questions more than he seems to. He considers more than people realize. He cares so much more than anyone gives him credit for.

And I think this is part of why we see the succubus called back to so many times, especially with the wolf head addition to his Monster Form, which he specifically added due to his encounter with the Scylla Marcille.

This all stays with Laios. It doesn't just foreshadow the path of the story, it is fundamental to how and why he walks that path. It's not about him choosing monsters, and it's not about him choosing people. It's about how he considers both, and cares about both.

And it's about the forces that think they already know his answer. Mithrun and Kabru. The Winged Lion. The succubus.

It's about how they are wrong.

#dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #dungeon meshi spoilers #laios touden #winged lion #dunmeshi analysis

[greentrickster]

SVSSS AU set post-canon, the peak lords are having a meeting, business as usual, right up until a heavenly official manifests smack dab in the middle of it. Said official takes one look around, spots Shang Qinghua, and basically falls into a perfect kowtow in front of him while being a level of distraughtly sticky that would make Luo Binghe proud.

"Your excellency, we know you wanted to oversee this section of history, we know it's your holiday, but we need you back, please, no one can figure out your filing system-!!!"

There is an absolutely reasonable amount of pandemonium from ten of the remaining peak lords, Shen Yuan is feigning indifference while also paying razor-edged attention because 'dammit, Airplane, what did you do now', and Shang Qinghua is desperately trying to figure out how to get this god to stop crying and hugging his ankles while babbling about paperwork. Once everyone has calmed down enough, it's revealed that Shang Qinghua, on top of being Shang Qinghua, really is the creator-god of this world and his current human incarnation is the equivalent of a sabbatical to watch some really interesting current events.

Now, the thing is? Airplane is still very much Airplane, all that's true. The part where it gets complicated is that he really is also this world's creator-god, divine powers and all, and he arrived much earlier than the 40+ years ago he thought he had. He has, in fact, been here for most of the world's history, managing the logistics of things to keep them running relatively smoothly the whole time. Except then he realized, "Hey, we're getting close to the era of the Plot, I wanna see that and maybe fix it some!" So he sealed his own memories from between his death and his arrival in this world and incarnated himself as Shang Qinghua specifically so he'd get a chance to meet his favorite character.

The real kicker is, the System? Yeah, there's a reason it has such a modern-tech interface and sounds so Google translate and stuff.

Because Airplane made that, too. Primarily because, while it's been awhile and he doesn't fully remember how he was as a human, he does remember his tendencies to try and wriggle out of stuff, and even now he prefers a comfy life with a not unreasonable amount of delegation, so he decided to give himself a little something to keep himself on-task.

He did not mean to make the damn thing so mean, that was an oops on his part.

While Airplane is reeling with all the headache that is gaining a few thousand extra years of memories while still remaining primarily himself, one of the peak lords asks if the official is certain they have the right person.

They get a derisive sneer for their efforts. "Of course it's his excellency, you think a normal man could run the logistics for a great sect, the Northern realm, and a portion of the Demon Emperor's court, even without having a writing career and social life on the side? Besides, he's the only one we've found who takes notes in his excellency's secret language." And they point dramatically to where Airplane's scribbled some pinyin in the margins of his paperwork.

Airplane can feel Cumcumber-bro's judgement from across the room. On the plus side, his memories of being a god included how to power down the System, so that's something at least, right?

Right?

...

...he needs to go stick his face in his king's chest and cry for a little, he can just feel his workload increasing...

#shang qinghua #shen yuan #svsss #scum villian self saving system #great god airplane

[sortablue]

i’m just being dramatic but i got my hair done today and it didn’t turn out how i imagined and i’m actually really super bummed about it but i refuse to have a mental breakdown over hair of all things

the only thing worse than this is that time in middle school when i was having a rough day and then they ran out of chicken strips as soon as i got to the front of the line and i had a full on sobbing-hysteric-laughing meltdown beside my friend

like. i refuse to regress. but also.

#i keep telling myself it’ll be fine #‘just let it grow out and then you can redye it completely and hopefully get something closer to what you actually want!’ #okay but that’s gonna take years my hair is So Long #‘okay so dye it back to brown and then just dye the sections you actually want’ #that sounds complicated and expensive #‘just dye it back brown and forget it ever happened’ #but i LIKE having dyed hair!! it makes me feel pretty for once #idk i’m a mess i’m sorry #like i don’t want to complain bc i literally have only myself to blame #but also i really don’t like it #and i HATE being perceived badly by other people if something about me is less than perfect #and the sections of my hair dye look so bad bc instead of several small sections they did three big sections #and one of the sections is smack dab in the middle of the back of my head #where all my baby hair falls out bc of fraying and breakage and whatnot #and im just #really disappointed i guess #like i thought i learned by now not to get my hopes up but i guess not #idk i just don’t know what to do

[fairyhaos]

. ˚ lost in this green (and in your eyes)

pairing: wood nymph!joshua x gn!reader

genre: fluff, magic realism, meet cute, besties!97z

word count: 2371

warnings: brief mentions of fainting

notes: i just. i just love wood nymph!shua a lot okay pls he'd fit the concept so devastatingly well

summary: you're lost in the forest, and it's terrible and terrifying and you're all alone but then... well, you meet someone, and suddenly you find yourself wondering if fairytales and myths really are just tales.

"Lee Seokmin, you are so dead."

You turn around in a circle, looking around for any recognisable objects around you, desperately trying to find a way out. When you see none that could possibly mark out this section of the forest as different to where you’ve been traipsing through earlier, you sigh, frustrated. 

This was all Seokmin's fault. Okay, maybe not entirely his fault, but it was all his stupid dare to get you to fetch him a squirrel from the woods (what sort of dare was that, anyway?) and now… Well, now you're lost. 

It had all started when Mingyu had abruptly announced that you should go on an outing for fun, and then Minghao, being Minghao, had insisted that all four of you take a trip into the countryside for the outing, smack-dab in the middle of nowhere for a 'healing day out' in a field surrounded by trees. It had been fun, for all of one hour before you'd devolved into a game of truth or dare that had ultimately led you to venture into the surrounding trees to go catch a squirrel for Lee Seokmin. 

Oh, that guy really is so dead if you manage to make it out.

"Seokmin? Mingyu? Can anyone hear me?"

The wind rustles the leaves in reply, almost mocking, and distantly there's the sound of some insect creaking. Everything around you is green and brown, and even when you look up, the blue sky and bright sun is covered by the dense foliage. This is a little bit terrible. 

Sighing, you continue on your trek through the woods. Not being the best with directions, you'd kind of lost where you were going about 5 minutes into the forest, and so you have no idea if you're heading back to the field or if you're going in an entirely different direction. You just hope you're not walking around in circles, because that would—

You pause in your tracks. For a moment, there’s only the sound of a pigeon cooing somewhere, but you listen harder, certain that it was a distinctive voice that you heard. And then, there it is again, louder, and you’re sure of it. There's a voice, calling for you, and it sounds a lot like Minghao. 

“Minghao!” Immediately, you’re scrambling towards the noise, running along the soft forest floor, accidentally kicking bushes and almost tripping over tree roots. “Minghao, oh my god, what took you guys so long?”

But abruptly, Minghao stops yelling for you, and the forest is silent again. The trees are tall, looming, now, and you kind of wish it was Mingyu’s stupid height looming over you rather than these dark, unresponsive trees. 

You wait, for several moments, straining to hear Minghao’s voice again. But when he calls, it’s in a completely different direction, so you curse to yourself and start running off again.

You’re deeper into the woods now, you’re sure of it, because the trees are denser and there’s less light and the sound of animals and insects have disappeared. The air is still as you run through the forest, still following the faint sound of Minghao’s voice, and when you stop, it’s as if the entire world is silent, with not even the trees making a breath of noise. 

Minghao’s voice disappears, yet again, and now you’re worried that your brain is playing tricks on you. The bushes you brush against are getting thornier, bigger, difficult to get past, and the trees look like they’ve enlarged and now seem to try and slap you across the face with their rough branches. 

You’re well and truly lost now. Minghao’s voice doesn’t sound again, and you turn around aimlessly in circles, hoping that somehow, you’ll magically find an exit. 

But then. In the eerie stillness of the forest, any sound and movement echoes through the trees, and you hear a branch snap to your left.

“Hello?” you call out, hoping it’s just Minghao or one of the others behind the bushes, waiting to jump out at you. “Who is it?”

There’s silence.

And then a bush rustles to your right.

You whip your head around. “Come on, stop playing. Just show yourself, I know you’re there.”

There’s a good chance, you know, that it’s just a woodland creature or something, but everything in this part of the woods seems so dead and dark that part of you is sure that it has to be a person rather than an animal.

Slowly, gingerly, you creep towards the bush. It rustles again, and you flinch, but then the distinct sound of Minghao’s giggles comes from the bush and you move forwards, and just as you’re peering over…

“Boo!”

A person jumps out at you, yelling in Minghao’s voice. His hair is long, his eyes are large, and he looks like he has little stars around his doe eyes and he’s smiling widely, wickedly, delighted.

You scream, and he laughs with Minghao’s laugh, and the last thing you see are his eyes suddenly widening in horror as the world fades to black and you fall to the floor.

All you can think is, ‘That wasn’t Minghao’.

————————————— 🌿

When you regain consciousness again, there’s a man leaning over you. His eyes are large and he has little stars around his doe eyes, too, and for a moment you’re sure that it was the person who had scared you who was now going to try and kidnap you.

You yelp, attempting to scramble away, but the man just shushes you, gently and firmly placing hands on your shoulders to keep you against the tree you’re propped up on.

“I’m sorry,” he says, chuckling a little. “Jeonghan is a bit of a menace, but he means well. He just loves imitating voices, and he didn’t intend to take the joke that far. He meant you no harm, truly.”

The man’s hands are now on your face, brushing your cheeks softly, making soft sounds to calm down your racing heart. Now that you’re properly looking at him, the man focused on dislodging a leaf that fell on your shoulder, you can see he’s not the same man as earlier. Not Jeonghan, or whatever this man had called him. But you stiffen up, still, unsure if you can trust him.

He looks up at you then, warm eyes meeting yours. His eyes are constantly turned up at the corners, you notice faintly. He looks like a baby deer.

“I won’t hurt you,” the man says. “I promise. No one here wants to hurt you.” He pauses. “At least, not intentionally.”

Well. That doesn’t exactly make you feel reassured.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” He smiles again, and you realise that even his mouth is constantly turned up at the corners. 

He’s so pretty.

“Let me try again. I’m Joshua,” pretty man says, and he sits back a little to hold out his hand. “And I noticed that you’re a little lost here. I was wondering if I could maybe help lead you out?”

You look down at the hand, surprised to find yourself endeared by the action as you reach out to shake it. His hand is warm, too, as warm as his eyes, rough and soft in yours at the same time. Your heart is still racing when you release his hand, but now it’s for an entirely different reason.

“Y/N,” you reply, deciding that, at this point, you’re not sure you have anything to lose by following this pretty man. At least, if you die, you’ll die by the hands of a gorgeous stranger. “And I think any help would be much appreciated.”

Joshua smiles again, and takes your hand to pull you upright, swiftly walking off, hand still clasped with yours.

The woods are still silent, but it no longer feels as if every sound has been suffocated—rather, it’s a peaceful silence, and maybe it’s brought on by the peace you feel with a warm hand firmly holding yours, and a presence beside you that’s quiet and gentle and relaxing.

He’s silent the entire way, walking with you through trees as if he’s following an invisible path, pushing away branches for you and gently guiding you to one side to avoid tripping on roots. You can’t help but glance at him, often, because he’s so pretty and so calm and, in turn, it makes you feel calm too.

There are flowers weaved into his hair and they wave gently in the wind that has managed to come to life again. The forest feels lighter now, less terrifying, and birds now seem to chirp cheerfully in the trees above you.

One bird comes and lands on Joshua’s shoulder as you walk and you startle in surprise, but the man doesn’t even bat an eye, smiling down at it in greeting.

“Well, hello there,” he says. “What do you want now, you little rascal?”

Joshua’s tone is fond, affectionate, and when the bird chirrups, he laughs. 

“Yes, this person is very pretty, isn’t it?” he chuckles, and it makes you blush slightly. Nevermind the fact that he’s talking to a bird. “But unfortunately, they’re not here to stay. We need to lead them out.”

The bird trills, but Joshua just laughs again, and then it flies off.

You watch it go, curiously, and then look at Joshua, who seems completely unfazed by what would have been, to any other normal person, an incredibly weird exchange.

The stars around his eyes glitter as he turns to look at you. They don’t look like stick-on gemstones or even glitter patches, but look as if they’re embedded in his skin. As if the stars are part of him.

“What brought you here to my humble forest?” he asks, and you blink a little at the strange phrasing of his sentence. 

“Oh. I was… trying to catch a squirrel. For my friend.” It sounds ridiculous, when you say it aloud, but it manages to make Joshua laugh, sweet and beautiful and melodic, and you can’t help but smile.

He tilts his head, amused, and now his eyes are sparkling too. “A squirrel? Well, I think you may have failed at that. Unfortunately.”

You shake your head. “This is all Seokmin’s fault. He knows I’m bad with directions, and yet he sent me off into the forest. Alone.”

Joshua’s hand tightens around yours, secure. “Don’t worry. You’re not alone anymore.” He nudges his shoulder against yours, and the sun is now peeking through the leaves, casting a dappled golden shine over his face. “I’m here now.”

That makes you duck your head, shyly, awed by his beauty.

It takes a few more minutes, but eventually, the trees thin and you can see a road ahead of you, a road that looks awfully like the one that Minghao had driven down hours ago to get you to the field.

“Ah, it seems that we’re here,” Joshua says, and he lets go of your hand. When you look back at him, confused, he smiles a little sadly. “This is as far as I can take you. It’s too polluted there for me, and I can’t leave my home.”

“Your home?” you repeat, but he’s stepping forward again, and then leans in to press the lightest kiss on your cheek. It makes heat rush into your face, blushing at the sudden action, but he’s already stepping away before you can react.

“Goodbye, Y/N, and I hope you manage to get home safely.” He grins, lips turning up at the corners a little mischievously. “Hopefully you manage to catch a squirrel someday.”

You blink, startled, because suddenly he’s leaving even though he’d been by your side for so long. “Wait,” you call out, “what are you?”

Joshua laughs, and he’s already begun to fade back into the trees, the stars sparkling around his eyes. “Wasn’t it obvious?” he says.

“I’m a nymph.”

And then he’s gone, melted back into the forest, and you’re standing there alone, straining to see where he went, wanting to know what he meant, wanting to know whether he really was a mystical nymph that you only read about in legends.

You stand there at the edge of the forest for a lot longer, and are about to walk back into the trees again when there’s the sound of a car driving down the road, and someone honks the car horn loudly, making you jump and turn around.

Mingyu has rolled down the window of the passenger seat, practically half falling out of the car.

“You!” he yells. “We’ve been looking for you for ages! Why weren’t you answering your phone?”

And instantly, the memories of before you’d found Joshua come flooding back, and you run towards the car, yelling at Mingyu.

“There’s no service in a forest, idiot!” You open the car door and get in, only to be tackled by Seokmin, who’s sitting in the back seat beside you.

He sobs dramatically, wrapping his arms tight around you. “Why did you disappear like that! We thought you were dead!”

“No, I wasn’t dead, why—hey.” You frown down at him from where he’s buried his head into your shoulder. “It was you. You sent me into the forest to get you a stupid squirrel!” 

Mingyu laughs at that, looking back at you as Minghao drives off again. “Yeah, Seokmin, you sent Y/N in there.”

Seokmin’s eyes go wide as you wrestle out of his arms to shake his shoulders. “I’m going to kill you! This is all your fault!”

“What—! Hey, we found you in the end, didn’t we? Minghao! Help!”

“Hey hey, no killing in my car,” Minghao interrupts sternly, and he sounds genuinely serious, so you settle down. Not before balling your fist and shaking it at Seokmin, though. This guy really is dead once you get out of the car.

Minghao looks at you in the rearview mirror, eyes glittering amusedly. “How did you even manage to get out? You have literally no sense of direction.”

You don't even register the teasing, eyes going distant as you recall stars around eyes and flowers weaved in hair. You smile, feeling your face warm up, leaning back against the headrest.

“I found a nymph.”

fics tags: @jeonginssa ,, @weird-bookworm ,, @minhui896 ,, @bunnyiix ,, @slytherinshua ,, @haowrld ,, @belladaises ,, @moonlitskiiies ,, @cinnamoroxie ,, @butiluvu ,, @wonranghaeee ,, @zozojella ,, @kawennote09 ,, @thedensworld ,, @a-wandering-stay ,, @abibliolife ,, @doublasting

#fairyhaos.works #svt #seventeen #joshua #seventeen fic #joshua x reader #svt fic #svt x reader #joshua fic #joshua imagines #seventeen imagines #joshua hong #hong jisoo #svt joshua #joshua fluff #svt fluff #hong joshua #svt imagines #joshua au #svt au #seventeen fanfic #joshua hong x reader

[scoonsalicious]

Reminder: I am on a posting break for new content until May 23rd so that I can focus on writing WFLT...

In the meantime, please enjoy this second installment of Unwanted: Unusables, or, chapters from the first draft that didn't make it into the final cut of the finished story! Today, I have an early version of Chapter 6: Unattached. A lot of the beginning is the same (the dinner itself), but there was a LOT I added, then removed, from the end of the chapter. Jade was going by Jewel at this point in the draft, and Tony had gifted Pocket a Ferrari Sergio as his post-Civil War apology.

Why did I scrap this section? Easy: I couldn't realistically convince myself that Nat didn't know how to drive stick shift, lol.

Since this is the whole chapter (as it was) in its entirety, it's long AF.

Enjoy!

You and Bucky arrived at the common room an hour or so later, the sound of laughter filtering out from inside.

"Sounds like it's going well," Bucky turned to you with a hopeful smile. "Try to play nice in there, okay?"

"I'm always nice," you pouted, but when Bucky gave you a pointed look, you sighed. "Fine. It goes against my better judgement," you said, adjusting the collar of Bucky's shirt, "but I'll do it for you."

The look he gave you was indiscernible. There was warmth and affection there, but also an undercurrent of sadness in it that left you unsettled. You swallowed, looking away from him. "Alright, let's get this over with," you said, putting more conviction in your voice than you felt.

He took your hand, and together you walked into the common room. It wasn't hard to spot Jewel-- she was presiding smack dab in the middle of the room, telling some story that had Sam, Steve, Rhodey, Thor, and even Bruce all at rapturous attention.

"I'm going to go introduce myself real quick, then be right back," said Bucky, letting go of your hand and heading over to where Jewel had was holding court. The temperature of the air seemed to drop ten degrees without the warmth of his presence by your side.

You watched as he made his way over to stand beside Steve. In seemingly no time at all, Steve was making the introductions. Bucky took Jewel's hand, and to your surprise, he bent over and kissed her knuckles. Your mind's eye took you back to the day you'd met him, when you'd pulled your own hand back after he'd refused to even shake it.

Jewel demurred and looked away from Bucky, bashfully, before putting a hand on his chest and saying something that made Bucky laugh and caused his cheeks to blush.

"Careful, you glare any harder, you're liable to bore a hole straight through him," Natasha said, coming up alongside of you.

"What if I aim for her, instead?" you asked, reaching for the tumbler of alcohol she offered you and taking a sip to distract yourself.

"What happened to no-strings-attached, friends who happen to fuck?" Nat asked with a smirk. "Don't tell me you've grown strings, Pocket."

You looked away from the scene in front of you. "There might be some growing of string, in theory," you mumbled to her. Nat was the only person you had confided in regarding your arrangement with Bucky. Of course, your friend had been thrilled that there had been something going on between the two of you, but she'd been more concerned about protecting your heart-- was this the safest thing for you to do? You assured her at the time you'd be fine, but now...?

"String Theory?" asked Tony, popping up behind you both with a glass of whiskey. "Seems like a heavy topic of conversation for a social gathering, ladies."

"How'd the interview go?" you asked, hoping to move the topic of conversation as far away from Bucky as possible, now that Tony was there.

"She's everything you said, and more," said Tony with a sad shake of his head. "She put on a good show, though. Cap was eating right out of her hand."

Disappointment coursed through you at his words. "Looks like he's not the only one," you murmured as you watched Jewel let out a coquettish giggle at something Bucky said.

You kept up your conversation with Tony to keep yourself from openly staring, but it was hard to concentrate on anything else. Your heart sank every time they shared a laugh or a joke, or Jewel leaned into Bucky ever so slightly. You found yourself tensing each time Bucky reached out and put a hand on Jewel's arm or shoulder in response to something she said-- all too familiar gestures that you'd grown accustomed to being on the receiving end of, not watching him impart on others from a distance. So much for his "be right back."

You hated yourself for feeling this way.

Eventually, Tony's personal chef, Raul, called everyone to the table for dinner and the little gathering around Jewel broke up. Normally, you would be excited-- you loved it when Raul cooked special dinners for the team, but tonight you were on edge. Following Nat and Tony to the table, you froze in your tracks while you watched Bucky pull back a chair-- your chair, the one you had sat in, next to Bucky, for every meal for the last year-- for Jewel, pushing it in for her as she sat down.

Your heart felt like it was being ripped in half. Your brain automatically began thinking up excuses you could make for leaving the room, but you knew that would only make things worse for you in the long run.

The air around you suddenly felt as though it had grown colder. Everyone around you had noticed Bucky pull out a chair for Jewel-- silently declaring to all that tonight, she was the one he wanted next to him, and not you, despite your unspoken ritual. Sam shot you a sympathetic look, and Steve, who had been getting ready to sit at Bucky's other side, moved to offer you his chair, instead, as if that would make up for Bucky's slight.

You grimaced and silently shook your head at Steve, not wanting to draw any more attention to the awkward situation you found yourself in. Instead, you made your way to the only remaining seat at the table next to Nat-- directly across from Jewel and Bucky.

As you sat down, Jewel looked up at you with a bright smile. "Hi," she said, voice like honey. "I don't think we had a chance to meet yet. I'm Jewel, but you can call me 'Vixen.'"

You looked at her, confusion leaking into your features.

"I thought the two of you met when you gave Vixen her tour earlier," Bucky said, apparently remembering that you did exist, after all.

"Oh, no," Jewel (you absolutely refused to refer to her as 'Vixen,' even in your own head) said with a dismissive laugh, "they had some little bitch of an intern give me my tour. I should actually complain to Stark about her, she had an attitude."

"No, that was definitely me," you said, fighting to keep the annoyance out of your tone, "attitude and all." You had literally wasted three and a half hours of your life escorting this woman around the Tower and she couldn't be bothered to remember you? Jewel didn't even have the decency to look chastised at calling you bitchy to your face.

"They let interns have dinner with the Avengers?" she asked in disbelief, instead. "Have to say, I thought it be a little more... elite."

"Pocket's not an intern," Steve said with a laugh, as though it were the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard, and you were grateful to him for coming to your defense. "She's an Avenger, just like the rest of us." You gave Steve a warm, appreciative smile.

"Thanks, Cap," you said, truly touched he had called you an Avenger.

"Well, she's more like Avenger-adjacent," Bucky amended. The words shouldn't have stung-- it was how you had referred to yourself hundreds of times, but you tended to reserve it for your low moments, when you were feeling unequal to Earth's mightiest heroes. Hearing the words come out of Bucky's mouth, as if he, too, shared in your belief that you were inferior to the rest of them... well, that fucking hurt.

Steve let out a surprised laugh. "Pocket may not have enhanced physical abilities, but she's brilliant. She's an expert in strategy, she's got a PhD in Mechanical Engineering and Computation, and she's got a black belt in Krav Maga. It's no exaggeration to say I'd be dead a couple dozen times over if I hadn't had her at my six. If anything, I think it makes her more important than the rest of us. We're here because of the physical things we can do; Pocket's essential to the team because of how she thinks. We're replaceable, Pocket's one-of-a-kind."

You were speechless at Steve's words, your throat tightening with the emotional lump that had formed there. That may have been the kindest, sweetest thing anyone had said about you, ever, especially on the heels of Bucky's comment. Catching his eye, you mouthed a silent thank you, wishing you could convey how much his words meant to you. He winked at you in acknowledgement.

"I just meant that we try to keep Pocket away from the dangerous stuff," Bucky backpedaled, weakly, in your opinion. "Can't risk her getting hurt." He smiled at you, but you just stared back, impassively, until he looked away, embarrassed. He knew you only called yourself 'Avenger-adjacent' when you were being hard on yourself. He fucking knew it, because he had told you to knock it off a hundred times.

"So, Pocket's an interesting name," Jewel said, and you were momentarily grateful to her for trying to move the conversation on to something less embarrassing for you. "Did your parents, like, hate you or something?" she continued with a giggle. Well, that was a short-lived respite.

"Yeah, they did, actually," you said, completely straight-faced, "but the feeling was mutual, so no love lost there."

Jewel's mouth dropped open in shock and you had the distinct impression you'd ruined whatever power play she'd been trying to pull on you.

Nat broke into laughter next to you, and soon everyone else around you was joining in. While only a select few at the table knew the full extent of what your parents had put you through, it was no secret that you had experienced abuse at their hands, and it was second nature for you to use dark humor to help you cope with it.

As the laughter died down, the small talk started up again. You were thankful for the distraction, but your appetite was gone, which was a shame, because Raul had done an excellent job. You pushed your food around your plate, occasionally nodding along as though you were paying attention to the conversations around you.

You tried to ignore the little glances and gestures that Jewel directed at Bucky, but your eyes kept flickering over to them. You couldn't help but notice the way his body leaned in slightly towards hers when they talked. Did he do that when he spoke to you? He hadn't even said a word to you since the horrible Avengers-adjacent comment.

"So, Bucky," Jewel said, her voice low and flirty, "handsome super hero like you, you got a girlfriend?" Your eyes snapped up, watching him, sure he was going to look to you, make eye contact. Something to acknowledge what was between you, that would make you feel like you were still in the same room, hell, on the same fucking planet, as him. But he didn't.

Bucky grinned, running a hand through his hair.

"Nah, no girlfriend," he said, glancing over at Jewel. "But I'm definitely open to the idea." You had been stabbed in the abdomen on a mission once, and that hurt less than hearing the words that came out of Bucky's mouth, and you had to resist the urge to get up and leave the room at that moment.

"Really, man?" Sam asked from where he sat on the other side of Natasha, his voice hard in disbelief. The atmosphere in your corner of the table had shifted. Natasha, Steve, and Sam all stared at Bucky with looks ranging from incredulity to flat out disgust. Maybe the two of you hadn't been as secretive as you'd thought.

You couldn't bring yourself to even look at Bucky anymore. It felt like a betrayal, the way his eyes had met Jewel's and not yours. You tried to focus on the conversation around you, but all you could hear were your own thoughts. How could he be so callous as to openly flirt with someone else in front of you? Had you meant nothing to him?

You took a deep breath, trying to steel yourself against the pain that was slowly building inside of you. You knew that the two of you were never anything official, but you had thought that there was something there between you.

As the dinner continued, you couldn't shake the misery that had settled in your chest. You excused yourself with no explanation, abruptly getting up from the table, and made your way back to your room. Once you were alone, you let out a shaky breath, tears streaming down your face.

How could you have been so stupid? You had let yourself believe that there could be something real between you and Bucky, but clearly, you had been wrong. He was interested in Jewel and you were just a convenient friend. Being kept in a holding pattern until something better came along.

You collapsed onto your bed, burying your face in your pillow as sobs wracked your body. How could you even face him now, knowing that he had no real interest in you beyond your friendship, after all the things you had done together? You didn't know if you could bear being in the same room with him, pretending like everything was okay between the two of you.

As you lay there, lost in your thoughts, you barely registered the sound of your phone buzzing from your bedside table. Picking it up, you saw you had a new message from Nat.

Do you want me to kill them?

You wiped away your tears, a small smile tugging at the corner of your lips. Leave it to Natasha to offer such a straightforward solution. Despite your heartache, you couldn't help but appreciate her loyalty and fierce protectiveness.

You typed back:

No, as tempting as it might be. Thank you for offering, but I don't want you sent away for double homicide.

Her response was almost instantaneous:

I'm insulted you assume I'd get caught :)

The smiley face at the end was too much, and you actually laughed. You were so grateful to have her as your friend.

Thanks for having my back, Natty.

Any and every time, Pocket. You know that <3

Other texts started trickling in from the rest of your family. Everyone checking in to make sure you were okay, since you had left the table so suddenly and without giving a reason.

But none came from Bucky.

Your suite suddenly felt too small and hot-- you needed to get out, go somewhere that wasn't covered in memories of Bucky so that you could breathe. There was only one thing you did that always helped clear your head. You needed to go dancing.

You changed your clothes for the third time today, opting for a pair of skintight, red leather pants and a black halter top. You did your hair and put on some makeup-- just enough to mask that you'd been crying, but still enough to turn a man's head.

Shoving your phone, ID, and credit card into your back pocket, you left your room and headed back to the common room. You could have just texted Nat to ask her if she wanted to come with you, but you wanted to see Bucky's reaction to how you looked, if he even had one at all.

You were surprised to find the common room far emptier than you'd left it a little over an hour ago. It seemed as though, once dinner had ended, the gathering had broken up and people had started going their own way. Glancing around, you saw Nat standing by a window, looking out over the Manhattan skyline, but Bucky and Jewel were nowhere to be seen. You tried to ignore the rock that had taken up residence in your stomach.

"Natty," you called, getting her attention. She met you halfway across the room, a large grin spread across her face.

"Damn, girl," she let out a low whistle as she assessed your outfit. "You trying to give Barnes a heart attack?" she asked.

"No," you said, "I want to go dancing. I need to get out of my head. You want to come?"

"Absolutely, if only to keep you from making any decisions you might regret in the morning." She paused, assessing you. "He's walking her out, by the way. In case you were wondering where they were."

You had, but your stomach soured at the knowledge, all the same.

Down in the lobby, you were just about to call an Uber for you and Nat when you spotted Bucky standing off to the side with Jewel. They were standing far too close together for your liking. You hoped you could sneak by without attracting their attention, but Jewel caught sight of the two of you and began waving you over.

"Natasha!" she called (okay, so maybe she wasn't waving you over). "Come join us!"

Nat gave you a questioning look, silently asking what you wanted to do.

"Might as well," you muttered. "Night's already gone mostly to hell."

You and Nat made your way over to where Jewel and Bucky were standing.

"Did you come to say goodbye?" Jewel asked Nat, the eagerness in her voice palpable.

"Uh, no," Nat replied, obviously confused. "Pocket and I are heading out. We're going dancing."

"Oh. My. God." Jewel practically started jumping up and down. "Bucky, we should go dancing with her!" It wasn't lost on either you or Natasha that Jewel seemed to be purposefully excluding you from the conversation. Bucky, unsurprisingly, didn't seem to notice.

"Sorry," you said, suddenly struck with inspiration, "but the car's only a two-seater. Maybe next time."

Nat raised a questioning eyebrow at you as you picked your phone out of your pocket and dialed the Tower's garage. "Hey, Carl, it's Pocket.... Good, thanks... you?... Listen, can you have someone bring my Sergio to the front entrance? I'll be taking it out tonight... I know ... Great... thanks!" You ended the call and looked to Nat. "They'll bring the car up in just a minute."

Nat couldn't hide the grin that had spread across her face. "Finally! I have been dying to get my ass into that car forever!

"What's a Sergio?" Jewel asked. "I've never heard of it before."

"I wouldn't have expected you to," Nat said, giving Jewel a tight, fake smile. "Seeing as how Ferrari only ever made six of them."

"Pocket," Bucky said, the first words he'd spoken to you since you and Nat had arrived, "can I talk to you for a minute?" He took your arm and led you away from Nat and Jewel to a more secluded section of the lobby.

"What are you doing?" he asked, voice low and with a hint of warning behind it.

"Going dancing with Nat," you said simply.

"Come on, you never drive that car. You're too scared of damaging it. So, how come the first time you decide to take it for a spin is right in front of Jewel?"

"What are you insinuating, Bucky?" you asked defensively. He looked at you as though you were a child lying about who broke Grandma's favorite vase.

"You're pissed about the intern comment, so you want to flaunt how much money you make. That's really not like you, Pocket. I'm disappointed."

You were physically taken aback by his words. "You honestly think I'd do something like that?" you asked, incredibly offended he could think such a thing of you.

"I didn't think so, but..." he let the rest of the statement hang in the air.

"I called for the fucking car because I didn't want her just inviting herself to join Nat and me," you snapped. "It has absolutely nothing to do with showing off how much money I have."

Bucky ran his hands through his hair in frustration. "God, Pocket, would it kill you to be nice to her for just a minute? I don't understand why you have it out for her so badly."

"That girl has been nothing but nasty to me all day," you said through gritted teeth. "And if you haven't noticed that by now, nothing I say is going to make you see it." God, you were so disappointed in him. The hurt and betrayal you'd felt earlier had subsided and now you just felt... sad. Deflated. "I don't want to argue with you, Buck. Especially not about her. So, can we just agree to disagree on this, and Nat and I can be on our way? I'm sure you have more important things you'd rather be doing than giving me the third degree, anyway."

He crossed his arms, giving you a hard stare. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Tilting your head, you pursed your lips and gave him a look. "Really? Everyone noticed it, Bucky. Everyone."

"Pocket!" Nat called out to you, preventing Bucky from responding to your insinuation. "Car's here!"

With a heavy sigh, you began to make your way to the front doors. "See you later, Barnes," you called over your shoulder. You were more than ready to get out of there and lose yourself in the music.

*

Hours later, you were coated in a sheen of sweat from dancing and completely and utterly shitfaced. You hadn't intended to get drunk, let alone this drunk, but once the alcohol started numbing your feelings, all you wanted to do was drown your emotions in it. Now, you were sitting in a booth in the club, head pressed against the wall, fighting to keep your eyes open. Nat had taken your phone and was talking to someone.

"Hey, it's Natasha. Can you do me a solid and meet up with us? ... Pocket's plastered and I don't know how to drive stick. ... It means I can't get her car home. ... She already shares her location with you, right? So just take an Uber. ... You can drive her back to the Tower and I'll take the Uber home. ... Did you forget how she dragged your ass home when you were drunk on Thor's Asgardian shit? ... I'd say you owe her. ... Text her phone when you get here; I'm holding onto it. ... Good, see you in a bit." She hung up and bent down so she was at eye level with you.

"Sweetie," she said gently, "don't be mad at me, but I called Bucky to come get you and bring your car home."

You scrunched up your face in disgust. "Bucky? Ew. I'm mad at him. He sucks."

"I know, honey, but he's the only other person I know who can drive stick who's awake at this hour, and your car's too expensive to leave in valet parking overnight." She brushed your hair away from your face as you turned to look at her.

"What's wrong with me, Natty?" you asked her, your emotions fighting their way back up through the haze of the alcohol.

"Nothing, Pocket. Honey, nothing's wrong with you. Why would you ask me that?" Nat's voice was full of concern.

"Why doesn't he love me, then? Why am I good enough to fuck, but not good enough to love?" The last of the words came out in a choked sob.

Nat wrapped her arms around you, rubbing her hands up and down your back in a soothing pattern. "You'd have to ask him that, sweetie. I can't answer it for him."

"It's 'cause I'm just a gross, used up whore," you told her. "'s all I've ever been good for-- sticking dicks in. Nothing else."

Nat held you at arm's length so she could look you in the eye. "Pocket, stop. That's Darren talking, not you, honey. You know that's not true."

"Then why doesn't he want me?" you hiccuped. "Fuck, Natty. 'm so in love with him, it hurts." There. You finally admitted it, not just to Nat, but to yourself. You were in love with your best friend, and you had been for a while now. You'd been too afraid to acknowledge it, to open yourself up to the idea that maybe you could have a real relationship with him, and now it was too late. He'd found someone else, and you'd missed any chance you might have had.

"I know, sweetheart," she said, embracing you again. "Everyone knew and, for what it's worth, we were all sure he felt the same way."

"He doesn't, though," you sniveled into her shoulder. "And why'd it have to be her? Natty, she's so awful. He could have anyone he wanted, why did he have to pick her?"

Natasha sighed. "Because he's a guy, and he thinks with his dick," she told you. "And since dicks don't have eyes, it makes it hard for men to see what someone like Jewel's really like. Especially when Jewel doesn't want them to."

You snorted, imagining Bucky's dick with googly eyes attached to it. "His dick was the best, Nat," you bemoaned. "I'm going to miss it so much. So many times, when we were finished, I couldn't even walk after."

It was Nat's turn to snort. "That does sound like some good dick, Pocket," she admitted.

"And his tongue," you sighed. "'s so long, you wouldn't believe--"

"Okay, Pocket, I think that's enough sharing, don't you?" You pouted but didn't say anything else.

Your phone buzzed then, and you looked all around for it before you watched Nat pull it from her pocket and look at the text you'd just received."

"Alright, Magic Dick's here," she said, taking your hands in hers and hoisting you up. "Up you go."

With her help, you stumbled out of the club, only tripping over your own feet twice, which you thought was fairly impressive, given the circumstances.

Outside, Bucky was waiting for you, a stony expression on his beautiful face. God, he looked so handsome. "Magic Dick," you whispered to Nat, then burst into a fit of drunken giggles that had you tripping over yourself all over again.

Bucky was immediately at your side, taking your weight off of Nat and putting it on him.

"Well, hey there, Magic Dick," you giggled. Bucky shot Nat a look over your head.

"How much has she had to drink?" he asked her.

Nat handed the valet the claim ticket for your car. "More than she should have, that's for sure."

While you waited for the valet to bring your Sergio around, Nat leaned down to look at you. "I'm going to get in the Uber now, Pocket. Bucky's gonna take you home, alright?"

You nodded and reached out to drunkenly stroke her face. "Okay, Natty-Nat. Love you."

"Love you, too, sweetheart." She kissed your forehead and headed for the waiting Uber. Before she got in, she turned to Bucky. "Don't give her any shit tonight, okay?" she ordered before closing the door, leaving you and Bucky to wait for the car alone.

"What's going on with you tonight, Pocket?" he asked. "You haven't been acting like yourself." The car pulled up and the valet held the door open for Bucky as he slid you into the passenger seat.

"Just wanted to dance," you murmured, tilting your head sideways to look at him as he fastened your seat belt. "Makes me feel better. And then there was alcohol. Oops."

Bucky let out a sigh as he closed the passenger door and made his way around to the driver's side. He had a point; you seldom got drunk. It reminded you too much of your mother, so you only ever let yourself get a little buzzed. But tonight was a special occasion.

Bucky pulled out of the lot and onto the street. Even at the late hour, New York was still alive with activity. You leaned your head on the windowsill and watched the lights as they passed by.

"You're supposed to be on my side, you know." The words were a whisper, and you'd spoken them into the night. If he had been anyone else, he wouldn't have heard you.

But he wasn't anyone else. He was Bucky. "I am on your side, Pocket. Always."

Though it felt incredibly heavy, you turned your head to face him. He looked so beautiful driving your convertible, the lights of the city reflecting off the lines of his face, the warm night breeze tickling his hair.

"You weren't tonight." Your voice was small, reflecting every bit of the self-doubt you'd felt over the course of the evening, every ounce of the pain.

Bucky sighed, his flesh hand gripping the steering wheel of the Sergio so tightly his knuckles were white. "I don't know what you want from me, Pocket."

You let out an exhausted sigh, the beautiful drunken haze fading from your system and leaving an ache in its wake. You're stomach growled and you remembered you hadn't eaten much dinner. "Can we get something to eat," you asked him, "and go somewhere to talk?" He nodded and changed course, heading away from the Tower.

A few minutes later, he pulled the Sergio into the well-lit parking lot of a 24-hour diner. Like lightning, he was out of the car and coming around to open your door before you'd even finished fumbling with your seat belt. He reached his flesh hand down to help you step out of the car, and to your surprise, didn't let go, hold your hand as you walked into diner together. Most likely making sure you didn't drunkenly fall on your ass and embarrass him, you thought.

Inside, the perky blonde hostess gave Bucky a long, appraising look while he asked for a table in the back. Even at this time of night, the diner was bustling with patrons. The sound of chatter and clinking cutlery filled the air, competing with the soft buzz of fluorescent lights overhead. Waitstaff hurriedly made their rounds, taking orders and carrying plates with a clatter of dishes.

When you reached the back, you slid into the booth the hostess directed you to, and instead of sitting across from you, Bucky slid in next to you. The hostess handed you your menus before casting a final, lingering glance at Bucky and walked off, leaving you alone with the super soldier and not sure what exactly you were going to say to him.

You unwrapped your silverware and began playing absentmindedly with the band that had been holding your napkin in place. You could feel Bucky's eyes on you, but you didn't turn to meet his gaze until you felt the fingers of his metal hand gently reach over and brush a strand of hair away from your face.

"You wanted to talk, doll," he said, softly, "so let's talk."

You bit your lip and turned to meet his eyes, the blue of them so soft and gentle as he looked at you. "I'm not saying this to attack you, Buck," you began, gathering your thoughts, "or to try and make you feel bad, but you really made me feel like shit tonight."

He swallowed thickly, but before he could answer you, your waitress approached the booth to take your order. You ordered a chicken Caesar wrap and a glass of chocolate milk for yourself; Bucky ordered a coffee and a large basket of waffle fries.

Once the waitress had left, Bucky turned back to you, taking your hand in his metal one and lacing your fingers together. "The last thing I ever want to do is hurt you," he told you. He brought your hand to his mouth, placing a tender kiss on your knuckle. "I'm sorry. I was a dick tonight. Finding out that Jewel has the same kind of abilities as I do... it made me feel less alone, like maybe I'm not just a fucked up science experiment that went horribly wrong."

"Buck..." you began, but he continued talking.

"It doesn't excuse how I treated you tonight, but I was so eager to get to know to her, to see how she copes with it. I've only ever had Steve to talk to about it, and Steve's... well..."

"Steve's fucking Captain America," you provided, understanding now where Bucky was coming from. "The perpetual boy scout. You don't want to open up to him about the darker stuff, because you're afraid it will change how he sees you."

Bucky closed his eyes and nodded. "He's already done so much to save me from the worst parts of myself; I don't want to burden him with any more than I already have."

You cupped his jaw with your hand. "Steve loves you, Buck. He will never see you as a burden. I promise you that."

He smiled at you, but it was sad. "I already cost him so much. More than you realize, Pocket. It just felt like, with Jewel, maybe I could have someone else to discuss those parts of myself with, someone I wasn't afraid of letting down."

Your first instinct was to be hurt that he felt he couldn't share those parts of himself with you, but you realized why he wasn't able to.

As if reading your thoughts, he said: "Please don't think it means that I want to share things with her instead of you, though. That will never be the case."

"But there are things that I'll just never be able to fully understand," you supplied, "because I'm not a super soldier. I understand."

He nodded, leaning his head down until his forehead was pressed against yours. "But I don't need to be friends with her," he said. "You said she was horrible to you, and I believe you. That's not the kind of person I want in my life. You're the most important thing in the world to me. I need you to know that."

You would have sworn you felt your heart momentarily stop. More important to him than Steve? Your cheeks grew warm at the implication.

"Bucky, I never want to be the kind of person who tells you who you can or can't be friends with. If talking to her helps you process whatever you need to process, then please, do it." You nuzzled your nose against his. "Just, you know, never flirt with her in front of me again."

He pulled his head back and looked at you, a knowing smirk plastered across his face. "Doll, are you telling me you're jealous?" You made a scoffing sound and playfully pushed him away from you. You were treading dangerously close to feelings territory, and you'd only just gotten back to a good place with him; you weren't about to risk it, but you weren't going to lie to him, either.

You ran a hand through his hair, leaning closer until your lips were pressed against the shell of his ear. "You know I've never been a good girl when it comes to sharing, Bucky," you breathed before taking his earlobe into your mouth and sucking on it.

Bucky let out a low groan and shot his metal hand over to possessively grasp your upper thigh, sending a shiver through you. "Be careful, doll," he growled in the way that had you clenching your legs together, "otherwise I'm liable to bend you over this table and fuck you so hard, you won't remember your own name."

You pulled away from him. "Promises, promises," you teased.

Before Bucky could follow through on his threat, the waitress returned with your orders. Without thinking, you handed Bucky half of your wrap at the same time he deposited a generous handful of waffle fries onto your plate. Catching your eye, he gave you an amused grin, and you both burst into laughter. The tension between you two seemed to dissipate, replaced by the comfortable banter you were used to.

The conversation throughout the meal was light, ranging from random anecdotes to plans for the next day. Occasionally, Bucky would say something that made you giggle uncontrollably, causing a few patrons to give you curious glances. But he just flashed them his charming smile, making most of them blush and turn away.

After finishing your meals, you scooted closer to him, resting your head on his shoulder as you watched the diner's activity. His arm automatically wrapped around you, pulling you closer into his side. You could hear his heart beating steadily in his chest, a soothing rhythm that made your eyes droop sleepily.

"You alright there?" Bucky asked softly, noticing your languidness. You hummed in response, too comfortable to move or open your eyes properly.

"Gettin' sleepy," you admitted as you tried to stifle a yawn. "'s been a long night."

"Then let's get you home before you turn into a pumpkin, princess." Bucky helped you out of the booth, then tucked you into his side so you could lean against him as you walked toward the counter to pay your bill. You tried to hand Bucky your Amex card, but he shooed your hand away. "I got it, doll. Least I can do after everything I put you through tonight."

You didn't argue with him, not because you didn't have the energy to, but because you knew it was his way of making amends. He settled the bill quickly, leaving a generous tip, then led you back out of the diner into the cool night air. You leaned against his sturdy form as he walked you both back to the Sergio, opening the door for you and helping you with your seat belt, despite your protests.

"I'm not that drunk anymore, Buck," you laughed as he leaned over you to click the belt into place.

"Damn it, woman, be quiet and let me take care of you!" He pressed a quick kiss to your lips before closing the door and making his way around to the driver's side.

Though the drive to the Tower wasn't very long, you quickly found yourself lulled into a comfortable stupor, your mind at peace for the first time in what what felt like weeks. You barely registered when Bucky pulled into the Tower's underground garage, or stopped to give the Sergio's keys to the night parking attendant. You were vaguely aware of him picking you up and cradling you in his arms as he carried you back to his room.

Once inside, he carefully helped you strip out of your pants and halter top and into one of his shirts. Once you'd changed, he tucked you both into his bed, curling his body against yours until you didn't know where his body ended and yours began.

"Better?" he asked, softness threading his voice. You hummed in response, half asleep as your body molded into his welcoming warmth.

A soft chuckle rumbled through his chest, "Sweet dreams, doll," he murmured, pressing a gentle kiss to your temple as he adjusted the sheets around you both. His metal arm wound under your pillow comfortably while the other rested on your waist, giving you a sense of protection that no fortress could offer.

You curled closer into him, snuggling into his broad chest like a kitten seeking warmth. His steady heartbeat and slow breathing became your lullaby, luring you closer to sleep with every second.

He stroked your hair gently as you fell off into sleep, whispering words of affection and apology into the quietness of the night.

[inorganicone2230]

This Waking Nightmare (Part 2) Yandere!Morpheus x Fem!Reader

Part 1 and Part 3

Summary: Even before his capture, Dream of The Endless had always longed for a loving partner to share his eternity with, and when he finds that an unexpected turn of events may be the first step towards gaining what it is he has been yearning for for so very long, he’ll do anything to make it a reality.

So when Alex Burgess unexpectedly flees after the death of his father, leaving Fawney Rig to crumble into disrepair, Dream had no idea that his salvation would come, not in the form of any of his siblings, nor by any feat of cunning on his part, but simply by the unprecedented arrival of a single mortal girl who would go on to forever reshape and change the very fabric of the Dreamlord’s endless existence.

Warnings: There are no warnings for now, these first few chapters will be fairly tame.

Neil Gaiman is a master storyteller and I own nothing related to The Sandman in any of its forms and/or adaptations.

It wasn’t too hard to find the entrance to the basement, not when someone had graffitied two of the most famous book quotes of all time right across the door and walls in big black letters.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here & As above, so below

Whoever did it had probably thought that they were being very clever, but in actuality, they really just came off as being very pretentious and lame. If this were a horror movie, it would be beyond the realm of B-rated cheesiness.

You opened it without much hesitation or fanfare and the door swung inward on rusted and squeaking hinges. Shining your flashlight in, you could see that it wasn’t anything special, just a rickety old staircase that led down into what you naturally assumed was just an ordinary and equally as old basement.

You debated turning around and leaving since you would still have to make the trek back up the incredibly long driveway to make it back to the main road and blessed cell service, but you’d already come this far, you silently told yourself, it’s not like a few more minutes of exploring is gonna do you any harm. After all, if Kalvin had been telling the truth during the drive over, then there wasn’t going to be much to see down there anyway. You’d likely be in and out in less time than it was taking you to actually debate this inconsequential task.

With your mind made up, you slowly began making your way down the stairs, being extra careful to watch your step on the way down so as not to fall and hurt yourself. However, when you finally reached the bottom, you were surprised to see that the opening to the space was blocked off by yet another barrier, this one a barred metal gate that reminded you of an old prison cell door. Luckily for you and your now thoroughly peaked curiosity, it wasn’t actually barring the way anymore since it appeared someone had long since taken it right off its hinges and just left it lying on the floor where it fell.

Carefully making your way around the darn thing so you wouldn’t trip over it and possibly twist your ankle, you finally got a look inside the place, and needless to say, it was pretty damn impressive.

“Holy shit…” You exclaimed.

This sure as hell wasn’t what you had been expecting. You had obviously never seen the basement of a mansion before, but you had imagined that it wouldn’t be that much different from any other basement. However, the dinghy space you had been anticipating entering wasn’t at all what you currently found yourself standing inside of.

Instead of a low ceiling full of cobwebs and support beams and a compact dirt or concrete floor, in its place you found a space the size of a small parking lot, complete with a high ceiling to add more openness to the underground space and solid stone flooring that left echoes in the wake of your footsteps. But it was what you saw in the center of the room that made you truly take notice.

There was a section of the floor in the shape of a large square, smack dab in the middle of the room, that appeared to be separated from the rest of it by means of what you could only interpret as a mini trench of some kind surrounding it in an equally shaped outer square. After moving closer to shine your flashlight down into it, you could just barely make out the telltale signs of dried up sludge coating the bottom, indicating that it must have been filled with water at some point.

“So it was a miniature moat or something?” You questioned the empty room as you continued to look around. If you had to hazard a guess, this probably had less to do with interesting architecture and more to do with the cult that had once called this place home back in the day. There was a small pathway that cut through the mini-moat and gave access to the strange spot, and since you were still curious to get a closer look at it you moved towards it.

*scrap scrap*

The faint sound came from behind you and in a whorl of spiked panic, you spun around, and aimed the flashlight in the direction of the scratching noise and prayed to God that it wasn’t the aforementioned axe murderer you had briefly imagined earlier.

At first, you didn’t see anything at all, but upon closer inspection, you noticed the faint outline of a large rodent near one of the alcoves in the wall and relaxed ever so slightly, but as soon as the light touched it, it shrunk back and suddenly skittered down into the ground through an opening of some kind.

You might have been content to simply forget about that and continue on with your snooping now that you knew there was no danger, except for the fact that you remembered that this whole floor was seemingly made out of stone; and there should have been nowhere for that rat to go underneath it all. You weren’t entirely too sure, but you didn’t think that common household rats were known for burrowing in the ground, much less burrowing through solid stone.

Now thoroughly intrigued, you made your way over to inspect the area and realized that this one random section of the floor was made of wooden planks that extended out from the wall by 4ft or so, in fact, this odd wood trimming seemed to run around the entire length of the room. It was like the people who originally lived here were trying to cover the stone with the wood flooring, but stopped midway through the project for some reason.

Angling your light over the spot the rat had disappeared into, you saw that there was a hole in the wood about the size of a baseball and without much more thought, proceeded to get down on your hands and knees to shine the flashlight inside.

You knew this was an incredibly strange and silly thing to be doing, you weren’t going to find anything of real substance or value in a rat nest, but some unseen force (probably the tequila and your damned curiosity) was pushing you to follow through and at least check it out, if only for the sheer madness of it.

But it wasn’t a rat in a small hole that you saw…

Not even close… It was the broken top step of an old wooden ladder.

“The fuck?” You took a second look to see if it was some kind of trick of the light or even just the broken off piece of wood that would have originally filled in the hole, but sure enough, it was a fucking ladder of all things.

Using the sleeve of your jacket to brush away the thick layers of previously undisturbed dust and dirt coating the wood, you soon found what you were looking for in the form of a rectangular seam that didn’t match up with the rest of the wooden floor boards lining. A quick knock on the top even confirmed your suspicions when the sound rang back hollowly.

This was definitely a hatch door, but it had no handles to lift it with or even hinges at the back to help it angle it upward. If you wanted to get it open, you were going to have to take the whole thing off. But that begged the question of whether or not you even wanted to bother with it. It was probably nothing more than a dank and dirty old root-cellar, but still, you couldn’t help but wonder about it, and you knew that you’d keep thinking about it over and over again if you left without even trying.

Mind made up, you set down the flashlight and positioned it to shine where you needed it before pulling out a sturdy switchblade from your pocket that you had been carrying around for years in case of an emergency or accident. This wasn’t the kind of situation you ever thought you’d find yourself to be using it in, but better this than a potential kidnapping.

Over the course of the next half hour, you worked to use the knife as a makeshift crowbar and pry up the hatch. It wasn’t easy since the damn thing was nailed down in a few spots, but with a little bit of time and elbow grease, it eventually became loose enough to lift and toss aside. The smell of stale air wafted up from the opening and you coughed as the scent settled into your lungs, but it didn’t smell like something rotten or anything horrible, so at the very least, if there were any dead bodies down there, they likely weren’t fresh. As you peered down into the hole, you could see that the drop was about 6ft to 7ft down and the floor was concrete, you just hoped the old ladder was strong enough to handle you going down and back up it at least once. The last thing you wanted was to get stuck down there and end up starving to death, because you highly doubted that Gabby and the others were going to come back looking for you.

So, keeping the knife in your hand, just in case, and the flashlight in the other, you slowly and carefully began making your way down.

The wood groaned and creaked under your weight, but not enough to make you believe it was going to give out or break. You still felt incredibly relieved when your feet finally touched the ground though and you turned around to get your first look at the secret space.

However…

…

…

…

That relief was incredibly short lived upon discovering what exactly it was that this odd chamber had truly been hiding.

—————

Morpheus froze in stunned awe as he watched the young woman deceased down the ladder and into the dank darkness of his prison chamber, the flashlight she carried in her hand shining like a beacon from the Silver City itself as it cast eerie shadows all around the space.

If he were mortal and not the true universal embodiment of dreams and the unconscious mind, he might have pinched himself to see if he was dreaming this all up, but such a thing couldn’t be possible, the entrapment circle crafted around his cage had prevented him from dreaming since the moment of his capture.

Which could really only mean one thing…

That this was real.

It was difficult to make out her features from the dim light cast by her flashlight, but right now, he couldn’t care less what she looked like, not when she held the power to help free him just by simply being here. She was the first true living thing he had laid eyes on in… well… he didn’t accurately know how long, but it was long enough that the mere sight of her was enough to make him want to weep.

But as she raised the light to look around, her reaction to seeing him made it clear that he was not at all what she had been expecting to find down here. 

She screamed in surprise and stumbled back onto her rear, gaping at him in shock and disbelief. She stayed still like that for so long that, were it not for the erratic rise and fall of her chest to indicate otherwise, Dream feared she may have passed out or even died of fright right there on the spot.

She eventually seemed to get her bearings about her and he heard her mumbling some rather choice words before coming to a decision and he watched with bated breath as she closed up the knife he just now noticed she carried in her other hand and put it away in her pocket. She began scrambling around the chamber, looking for something, though he knew not what for.

That question was soon answered however when he saw her bend down to pick up a large rock with a jagged end, to which she must have deemed acceptable, because she was suddenly making her way over to him. He nearly smiled in gleeful triumph when he saw her shoes scuff a line through the entrapment circle, weakening its enchantment on the glass and his power.

She set the flashlight down on the ground before turning to face him through the glass, a determined look set upon her rather beautiful face, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, he heard another's voice ringing in his ears. He didn’t know if she truly had the voice of an angel, for that’s exactly what it sounded like, or if he was just that desperate for the sound, but he didn’t care. He wanted to beg her to keep talking, to fill his ears with the sweet melody and never stop, but he found his own voice was caught in his throat as the shock that he was finally free settled over him. The long awaited relief washed over him in delightful waves and he slumped against the glass, unable and unwilling to take his eyes off of the beguiling creature standing on the other side of his cage, the rock in her hand raised high and poised to strike.

“Just hang on, I’m going to try and get you out!”

And then she moved.

—————

Finding a naked young man trapped in some kind of creepy glass cage down here was so far down the list of things you hadn’t expected to come across, that it wasn’t ever even an option. But that’s exactly what it was, and you just figured that you could worry about the ‘how’s’ and ‘why’s’ of this incredibly odd turn of events after you had gotten him out of this thing.

For a brief moment, you had thought that the best thing you could do would be to leave and get far enough away to call the police and let them handle this. But you knew they’d likely just think this whole thing was a prank call by some bored teenagers and ignore you, or they’d show up and you’d get arrested for trespassing before losing your scholarship and getting deported. There was also this man’s safety to consider, you admitted to yourself as you thought of what could go wrong if you left him here for even a few hours. You doubted he was down here by choice; what if whoever put him there came back to kill him, or what if he ran out of air or something while you were gone?

He didn’t look hurt or anything as far as you could tell, so he couldn’t have been trapped for very long, you thought, even as your subconscious mind took notice of how there were no human footprints of any kind trailing through the dirt and dust that blanketed the floor, or how there seemed to be no other entrances/exits besides the one you just came through, and that one clearly hadn’t been used in decades.

All of these thoughts piled up in your head faster than you could comprehend or keep track of them, but in the end, it was none of them that made you decide to help him. It was the look on his face, the look that told you something fundamental would shatter inside of him if you turned your back and left him here alone, even if it was only for a short amount of time.

Now here you were, banging on the seemingly indestructible glass with a rock to try and break through, and in your panic, it never even occurred to you to try and see if the damn thing had a door with an outside lock to try and open for him or something.

At first, all it did was scratch the surface and you fears you may actually have to go back up in search of a better tool, like a hammer or something, but after a few more hard strikes in the same spot, spiderwebs and hairline fractures began to splinter outward from the area and you could see that a small hole had been formed. Once the structure was weakened enough, breaking through the rest of it was comparably easy to chip away at, and soon, you had made a hole big enough that he could squeeze through. There were metal pieces wound through the glass and you dragged the rock against both, trying to get rid of as many jagged chunks as you so he wouldn’t seriously hurt himself when climbing out.

“Just… umm, let me brush away some of these shards and pieces before you get out.” You said awkwardly, not entirely too sure how to speak or what to say in a situation like this as you took off your coat and used it to clear away the glass that had fallen inside the cage and then did the same to the floor so he, hopefully, wouldn’t end up slicing the bottoms of his feet to ribbons.

“Give me your hand and I’ll help you out.” You said, trying to remain as calm as you could. He hadn’t said a single word yet as he just kept staring at you with wide eyes and a gobsmacked expression.

You hadn’t bothered to get a really good look at him, not just because of how strange and disturbing this situation was, but also because the man was butt-ass-naked. But now that you were so near to him, you couldn’t not take notice of him and his rather… appealing physique.

Pale skin so white it almost seemed to glow in the dim illumination cast by your flashlight and a messy shock of pitch black hair set over an angular face that you could only describe as being utterly beautiful. With high cheekbones and full pursed lips that were making you think of very sinful and inappropriate things, it really was a miracle you weren’t drooling right now, and that was just what he looked like above the neck.

He didn’t take your outstretched hand though, and instead grabbed the metal portion of the structure and swung himself out with all the ease and grace of a practiced gymnast. His feet touched the ground without a sound and he didn’t even seem bothered by the potential injuries and infection he could sustain from the broken glass and filth ridden floor. He just stood there, stark naked and silently watching you.

As he stood to his full height, you could now see that he was quite a bit taller than you, by at least a couple of inches, if not a whole foot, and you couldn’t help but wonder if you had hit the nail on the head when you thought his movements were as fluid as a gymnast’s, because he certainly had the body of one. He was lean, but even in the crappy light cast by the flashlight, you see that he was sculpted with ropes of solid muscle. He reminded you of those famous statues from Greece, the ones carved from marble to look like the ancient heroes from the epics, like Hercules and Achilles.

But as you looked up to make eye contact with him, you found yourself completely hypnotized by what you found there.

His eyes were the color of raw silver, like dancing silver flames, or the glinting of two bright stars in the deepest and darkest night sky. They were captivating and you found that you were so enraptured with them that you didn’t even realize you had taken a step forward until you heard glass crunching underneath your booted foot and you snapped out of it, jerking back with frightened shock over the momentary loss of your inhibitions.

You really were trying your best not to ogle him, but that was rather hard to accomplish when he was making no move at all to cover himself and you refused to turn your back on him. You might have helped him out of a really bazaar situation, but that didn’t mean you trusted him enough to let your guard down completely with him, he was still a perfect stranger after all.

“Listen,” You started off, trying to find something to say that would help to ease the tension of this incredibly awkward silence. “Now that we got you out of whatever that thing is,” You made a hand motion towards the now destroyed cage. “We should really look at getting out of here before whoever it was that put you in there decides to come back.” You took a step back, opting to put some distance between you and the stranger, but for the first time since you laid eyes on one another, he spoke, and you weren’t entirely certain if it was his words or the haunting raspy sound of his voice that made you freeze, but you did and it cost you.

“They won’t be returning.”

You opened your mouth to ask what the fuck he meant by that, but faster then you could process what was happening, the man’s hand shot out and snagged your wrist. He gave a gentle tug and you went falling into his arms, but before you could even begin to struggle or open your mouth to scream, he opened his other hand and blew something into your face and everything suddenly went dark.

—————

Morpheus caught you in his arms as you went limp against him, the last thing he wanted was to see you get needlessly hurt, especially since he now owed you quite the generous life debt for unknowingly freeing him from what he was beginning to think would be an eternity of confinement.

Looking down at your peaceful expression, he used some of what reminded of his limited power to look into your dreams, trying to find out any information he could in regards to you and the state of the world he was about to re-enter.

Quite often, he was able to glean a lot about a person’s waking life, not just from their dreams, but from the multitude of thoughts that tended to run rampant through their mind in those hazy moments right before sleep truly claimed them. Those moments were often similar to that of waking dreams and he used to use them rather frequently to gather information when it was necessary.

And you were no exception to this trait.

In a matter of moments he knew quite a lot more than he did a few hours ago.

For example, he now knew that he had been imprisoned for well over a century, 106 years to be exact. He also now knew that your name was (Y/N) (L/N), you were 21 years old and attending university here in England despite not being British, he had even learned that you had been fortunate enough to get a single dorm room on campus and that you had been abandoned here after a rather interesting altercation between you and some of your fellow classmates.

With this knowledge in hand, he scooped you up into his arms as gently as he could and found himself marveling at just how soft you felt in his arms. You fidgeted a bit in response to the movement and grumbled something unintelligible before going quiet again, which showed just how weak he truly was, if he was at full power and in possession of his tools, you would have entered into a sleep so deep that only a select few things would have been enough to wake you. That thought was enough to spur him into action once again, and using the knowledge he’d gained from you, he called upon another morsel of his nearly depleted power and brought the both of you to an entirely new location.

Your dorm room was about what anyone could expect of such accommodations and Morpheus was quick to pull back the soft blankets and lay you down on the mediocre bed. 

However, despite knowing he should be leaving right this moment to return to The Dreaming and begin the hunt for his tools of power, he found himself increasingly reluctant to fully release his hold on you. He hadn’t felt skin to skin contact in so long, even before his imprisonment it had been quite a while; but it was one thing to shun such a thing by choice, it was another thing entirely to have the option of it totally stripped away from you by force. Now he was feeling it again with you, and to his touch starved skin, it felt like the most exquisite thing in the world, both waking and dreaming.

Without realizing it, he found himself sitting beside you on the bed and stroking the tips of his fingers down your cheek, you sighed in your sleep and leaned into his touch, as if soothed by it. The simple and unconscious reaction left him with goosebumps prickling his skin and his heart stuttering in his chest as he continued to watch you sleep. He thought about entering your dreams and seeing what such a brave little mortal would conjure up in his realm, but for some inexplicable reason, he found himself unwilling to look away from the peacefulness of your sleeping face here in the waking world.

Eventually though, he knew he had to depart. It was time for him to finally return home, to go back to The Dreaming and assess the damage wrought by his absence over the last century, as well as to begin the search for his tools.

Cupping your face in his hands, he leaned over your sleeping form and pressed his forehead against your own and whispered your name softly to the otherwise silent room.

“You are my savior, my light in the darkness. I don’t believe there is anything I can do that will ever truly be enough to repay you for what you have done for me tonight.” Being this close to you, he couldn’t help but notice your enticing scent and how it made his mouth water, not with the typical hunger one would expect after so long in confinement, but with something that left his cock twitching against his bare leg. However, he ignored that feeling as best he could and continued on. “But this I promise you, my little savior, once I have my tools in my possession again, I will see to it that you spend the rest of your life with nothing but the sweetest and happiest of dreams whenever you enter my realm, even if I have to enter your dreams every evening and craft them by hand myself. I vow that no nightmare will ever intrude and interrupt your sleep ever again.”

There was so much more he wanted to say to you, so much more he wanted to do, but time was of the essence and he needed to leave, before he did something very foolish, something that would surely bring the wrath of the universe down upon his immortal head.

And so, with nothing more than a quick kiss to your brow and another heartfelt exclamation of gratitude, he was gone in a whisp of shadows, as if he had never been there to begin with.

Please enjoy and let me know what you think of this second chapter! I’m dying to know what you all think is going to go down.

Please forgive any minor potholes or inconsistencies, I tried my best to make the detail changes make sense for the story I wanted to tell while still keeping in line with the original source material. This is mostly based off of the Netflix series, but there are some details about the comics and audio books thrown in for flavor.

And as always, I want to give a very BIG thank you to my amazing friend @talpup for all the brainstorming and encouragement on these stories! I’m  sure I would have given up on this blog a while ago if it wasn’t for  all of   their help. I highly encourage anyone who takes the time to  read this to go over to their page or their AO3 account under the same  name and check out their works, especially Chaos and Lost Song. They  are two of my favorite BNHA fics of ALL TIME! And who has also started  their own Yandere!Overhaul fic called Crossroads and is set in a  1920′s prohibition style era, it’s amazing and you really need to check  it out!  

#This Waking Nightmare #18+ONLY #MINORS DNI #yandere!morpheus #fem!reader #yandere!morpheus x fem!reader #The Sandman #Dream of The endless #there will be trigger warnings #in later chapters #unhealthy obsession #hero worship #stalking #typical yandere behavior #yandere blog

[didyoutrydynamite]

So what even is “Renegade Au?”

So people have been wondering what exactly the Renegade Au is, the very short of it is basically “What if Jaune and Cinder bonded during Beacon?” With the exception of a few character changes, the Renegade Au follows closely to the canon story line up until after the Batlle of Haven. (Had to dial Adam WAY back from his original canon writing in order for him to work in this lol In Renegades he’s less of a psychotic abusive ex boyfriend and more like the love child of Prince Zuko and Kevin Eleven.)

This Au was something I used to think about all the time back in the day when Volume Six was just coming out, but I didn’t have the skills or time to write about it. I eventually put it to the back of my mind and eventually was inspired to write JNRZ Au!

The Renegade Au is mentally stored away in eight different parts, and the posts I’ve recently been making with Jaune, Cinder, Adam, and Neo, this takes place in Part 4 smack dab in the middle of the whole story. Now, these are going to be massively edited summaries of the first four parts of the Au, and will be missing a whole lot of certain nuances and important moments, but pretty much give gist of what led up to the formation of the Renegades.

Part 1: Beacon. Jaune and Cinder meet and essentially become friends during the Vytal Festival event of Volume 2 and 3. They have friendly banter, assist each other with training and advice, and even go on a couple of “sort of dates”. Cinder, knowing how this is going to end, makes it clear to Jaune that she's not interested in anything serious. Despite this, they continue to spend time together and almost become intimate at one point. In contrast to the typical Knightfall Beacon narrative, Cinder STILL goes through with the plan, almost blowing it by giving Jaune the “Don’t come to school tomorrow”. The Fall of Beacon still takes place, Pyrrha dies, and Cinder gets annihilated by Ruby's Silver Eyes. The only real major difference is that Jaune is forced to kill Penny on national television instead of Pyrrha. (Does that mean I kinda called it several years in advance???)

Part 2: Wanderers. In this section, the events of Volume 4 and 5 are closely followed as Team RNJR journeys through Mistral while Salem's gang continues their usual schemes. The main focus of this part, however, is on how Jaune and Cinder are coping with the aftermath of the Beacon incident. While Cinder recovers from the effects of the Silver Eyes and trains to master her Maiden powers, she finds that her success is a hollow victory that leaves her with conflicting emotions and a frightening realization that she may never be truly satisfied. On the other hand, Jaune is fixated on the idea of killing Cinder, having honed his Aura-enhancing techniques to the point where he can now start pulling off superhuman strength feats. The story reaches a climax in Part 2 with the Battle of Haven, where Jaune and Cinder engage in a 1v1 fight that tears up an entire wing of the school. Despite ultimately overpowering Jaune, Cinder spares his life, and goes down to the vault to get owned by Raven.

Part 3: Reconciliation. begins right after the Battle of Haven and continues into Volume 6, with a dying Cinder contacting Jaune on his scroll, which she remembers from their time at Beacon. Instead of seeking revenge, Jaune finds Cinder by the riverbed and uses his newly discovered Semblance to heal her. Despite still harboring hatred towards Cinder, Jaune realizes that he felt emptier when he thought she was gone, so he can't bring himself to kill her even when she's at her most vulnerable. In return for saving her life, Cinder offers to help Jaune in any way she can. They make a deal that Cinder will help Jaune find Pyrrha's parents so that he can properly pay his respects and grieve for her passing. Together, they embark on a journey across Mistral, overcoming obstacles and emotional barriers, and having plenty of screaming, crying, and heart-to-heart conversations. Eventually, they find Pyrrha's parents at the southernmost point of Mistral (Instead of Argus this time), where Cinder shares Pyrrha's last words and her own regrets, stopping short of confessing to murdering her. From this moment here, Jaune and Cinder have pretty much given closure to their shared past and have essentially started back at square one.

Part 4: Renegades. This part of the story takes place in Volume 7, specifically during the four or five months skipped over in the original show before Salem's attack on Atlas. It begins with Jaune and Cinder dining in a dive bar for thugs and rogues when news of a record-breaking bounty on their heads, placed upon them by Clay Forester, a creepy and mysterious Grimm Poacher they met and fought during part, who also has a strange fixation on Cinder.bThe entire block erupts into chaos as bounty hunters, criminals, Jaune and Cinder, along with the unexpected aid of Adam Taurus (There to join up with Cinder) and Neo Politan (Originally there to kill Cinder, they cool now though), fight for survival. After the battle, Neo and Adam express their desire for revenge against Team RWBY. Jaune, having just gone on a journey of forgiveness with Cinder, invites them to join him in forming a new team called The Renegades. Despite Cinder's reluctance, they set out on a journey across Mistral, taking jobs for money and supplies while fighting off every bounty hunter, bandit, and monster that stands in their way on their way to Atlas.

Again, this the TL:DR of what’s happened so far in Renegades Au in terms of the posts I’ve shown so far, so there’s a TON of intricate details missing. When I open Asks back up after this Weekend you are all more than welcome to ask me anything you want about this Au.

#renegade au #jaune arc #cinder fall #neo politan #adam taurus

[butlerettes]

The Bookstore

Chapter 1

It was a gorgeous day.  The sun was high above the sub-neighborhood of Los Feliz.  You had just gotten your lunch and had a few minutes to kill.  The only place that drew your attention was Skylight Books.  An indie bookstore on Vermont Ave.  You had rode your bike to soak in the rays of the sun.  Plus, you wanted to ride off some of the calories.  

Entering the bookstore, you took in the smell, the musk, the paper and the print. The way new books felt under fingers, how the print would smear.  And the sheer joy it brought you.  Walking over to your favorite section you find one of the books you have been looking for.   “The Catcher in the Rye” has a plain red cover.  This is one of your favorite books.  You don’t have this cover.  Moving your hand down the spines of the books you are almost transitioned to another realm until your hand lands on an interesting spine.  “If he had been with me”.  You pull it out.  Just as you were adjusting your books, a tall man, with dirty blonde hair, messy, looked like he was also in a hury came down the same aisle.  He was not paying any attention to you at all. So you ignore him. Because he is standing in the middle of the aisle you move around him.  You pick another book, one you had heard about but never read, “Where the crawdads sing”.  The movie was coming out, why not give it a read. 

Adjusting your books yet again, you start the trek to the checkout counter.  Not noticing the tall man had left, you turn the corner, running smack dab into the tall, blonde man.  Books get flung down, flying into the air his books get knocked into you.You both lean down reaching for the respective books as both of you hit your foreheads together.  You got a whiff of his cologne; it was inebriating.  He grabbed your “Catcher in the Rye”, “This is my all-time favorite book,” He says.  Looking into each other's souls.  His eyes are very close to yours.  So blue and near perfect.  His seems brighter than yours.  He starts to gather the rest of the books.  He hands you, yours.  “It’s not my favorite, but it’s up there,” giving him an answer.  “which one is your favorite?" You pause, then nod, “I think it would be the Outsiders.”  “That’s a good one.”  You brush yourself off.  You exchange apologies and you both walk to check out.

“Austin,” he mentions holding his empty hand out.  You grab it and shake, “Y/N”, reciprocating.  He smiles, “Nice to… uh meet you.”  Giggling, you respond with, “You as well.”  You were next in line.  Putting your books on the counter, Austin offered to pay for your books but you declined.  Thanking him, you went to unlock your bike.  As you were getting on your bike you heard a husky voice saying, "Thanks again."  He doesn't look your way.  You both leave opposite directions.

You head back to work to finish the rest of your day reading a new author.  You liked her work, but had to get it published.  You work for Legacy Launch Pad Publishing.  From the bookstore it is a 13 minute bike ride.  You pedal fast to see if you can get there quicker.  Starting the timer, you actually arrive in ten minutes.  Parking your bike around the back, you head to your office.   

Your office is small, but quaint.  You have your desk with your computer.  It's a mess.  Mauscripts are covering it.  You have sticky notes all over.  There are two chairs facing your desk.  Four book shelves adorn your back wall, filled with books, and a few knick knacks.  You have a window and carpet on the floor.  Your office is a little messy,  you will clean it someday, but for now back to work.

You start to pack up from your workday, when you get a call.  "Hello, this is Y/N with Legacy Launch Pad Publishing, how can I help you?" You answer.  "Gross, everytime you do that it makes me want to hurl," y/frn says disgusted.  "I have to answer the phone that way, you know this." You reply.  "We are going out to eat tonight, want to come?".  "Sure, where?" You ask.   "Messhall Kitchen." She responds.  "Around 6."

After dropping your bike off, you head to dinner.   Waiting for you are your four best friends.  You have been friends with Y/frN since elementary and the other three college years.  Sitting at the table you discuss how everyone's day went.  When it came time for your turn.  You explain how your day went, "I also ran into a man.  He's tall, sandy blonde hair, he smelled heavenly, and even offered to pay for my books." "Did you get a name?" quizzed Y/frN.  "He said his name was Austin," you reply.  She squints her eyes and scrunches her nose, "what is his last name?" "I don't know what it is, he never said."  Your friend sitting across from you nearly spits her drink out, "You said he was tall, blonde, and smelled good.  “Did he have messy hair?"  "Yeah, I guess."  Three of your friends' mouths open in unison.  Looking at each other, the other friend says, "Babe, you met Austin Butler."   Feeling like a total ass for not knowing who that was, you ask softly, "Who is that?"  All of them started to talk at once.  You finally hear one of them say, "Are you serious? You really don't know who he is?"  "No, should I?" "Girl, he played Elvis in the movie."  You should have watched that movie, but you just haven't had the time.  Reacting, "Oh, It's on my watch list."  "Please tell me it is at the top of your list."  "Hey, was this the guy?" Showing a picture of Austin.  "Yup, that's him." 

#austin butler fic #austin butler fanfic #austin butler fanfiction #austin butler imagine #austin butler x you #austin butler #austin butler angst #austin butler fluff #@purejasmine

[hell0mega]

a newer friend of mine, who is trans and talks a lot, asked what gender people i don't know assume i am. i pretty confidently said, well, if they're queer, sometimes they just ask my pronouns, but normies just think im a woman

she seemed genuinely surprised and said if she hadn't have asked my pronouns when we met, she would've defaulted to they/them anyway. "you look very androgynous" she said.

i appreciated the sentiment but im not sure if i really believed her lol. she's not one to lie, but still. all my life i've had this weird form of dysphoria where i never felt enough like a girl. but it felt like i couldn't be. i wasn't a girl, enough. being girly felt like i was pretending. but i didn't want to be a boy, or even really boyish, either. i liked certain feminine things, and certain masculine things. i took "where on the gender spectrum are you" tests throughout high school and always landed right smack dab in the middle every time.

i've almost always wanted to be androgynous. and before i knew what that was, i wished i could turn "back and forth" between the "two." but i was a girl, right? girls looked like girls. so i tried to look like a girl. and it felt like i was faking. i didn't want to dress like a boy, though, either. i shopped in the boys section on and off, mostly for shirts, out of comfort (and interest. the girls section didn't have charlie the unicorn shirts) but i didn't want to be a boy. boys were dumb. i WANTED to be a girl. why couldn't i just be a girl? everyone says i am, and that's cool, cuz girls are cool. wish i could be one.

nowadays im firmly nonbinary genderfluid-y and worry about what other people think of my gender presentation WAY LESS than i used to. i have a lot more to worry about as a 27 year old adult, and being surrounded by queer friends and community helps a lot. but, i don't know. that comment brought up a lot of... thoughts. a lot of memories. a lot of feelings i don't think ive ever processed.

ive been not a girl my whole life. and that's okay.

#didn't even really get into the physicality of this whole thing lmao #i could go on forever about my various quirks of body dysmorphia and dysphoria #nonbinary #personal #mine #uh oh trying to cry now. held out till the end

[hdrobby]

𝖆𝖈𝖙 𝖎, 𝖘𝖈𝖊𝖓𝖊 𝖎𝖎.

𝖘𝖞𝖓𝖔𝖕𝖘𝖎𝖘,  robby performs for his evaluation. 𝖒𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓𝖘,  his temporary group-mates, named. 𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖉 𝖈𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖙,  written in roughly 𝟖𝟑𝟎 words.

all the tension, fights, & hard work have all led up to this moment, & as he stands in formation with the others, robby takes a deep breath ;; centering himself so that he can fully surrender his body & soul to the performance. it was a difficult process getting here, but despite the awkward spells & blossoming of rivalries, he likes to think that all of them have come together to put on a great show — one that’ll hopefully impress the panel overseeing them. milliseconds before the song starts booming through the speakers, he works on eradicating the worries that mason is going to give it his all ;; as if he has a vengeance out against robby due to their argument. sure, their relationship may have a scar on it now after their tiff, but overall, he regards his senior as a person that’s extremely talented — someone that he wants to keep up with, like a friendly rival. so, even though the two of them have to work together to pull this off, there’s still an air of soft competition between them — one that only further inspires him to strive for perfection ;; to kick his ass & prove he’s deserving of being the group’s main dancer. he fought for the position, now he’s gotta back up his assertion by not disappointing any of them with a subpar showcase.

when the beat drops, his eyes become fierce ;; flames spiraling within his irises as the guitar riff builds. his limbs move on auto-pilot — rehearsed, relaxed, loose, & powerful movements being displayed to the watchful eyes before him. he’s swift, fluid, & careful, & so far, he feels as though he, as well as his teammates, are well in-sync with one another. there’s an ease that swathes him, & when it comes time for him to sing his first lines, robby takes his mark smack-dab in the middle of the formation, but what happens next disturbs him slightly. a whopping majority of his focus is on perfecting the choreography & adding his own flare to it, so the instant he opens his mouth, his vocals are overly light ;; breathy to a fault. singing in falsetto to start the first two phrases is difficult while in motion, & it throws him off. this went better in practice, so he becomes momentarily frustrated ;; knowing then & there that his dancing needs to be perfect to make up for what he’s lacked so far.

using his determination & annoyance as fuel to push himself further, robby doesn’t hold back. he powers through the first half of the chorus, & when it’s his turn to sing again, he goes at it with confidence — even if his vocals are still flawed. he’s on-key, but the strength isn’t there. it’s an area he knows he needs to focus more on in order to succeed, & while it’s a good reminder for him to direct his priorities, it’s unfortunate that he had to learn this lesson during this eval. luckily for him though, the lower register he can use during his lines at the start of the second verse makes it easier for him to sing. his voice is inconsistent, but he’d rather that than have it be completely terrible throughout the whole song. being that he has so many parts, he does his best to keep up with them as he pours his heart into the dance ;; making great use of his center time with striking facial expressions, the unveiling of his trademark dimples at just the right moments, & natural magnetism.

through the first dance break — the one where he’s the center focus throughout it — he shows his best work as this is the section he honed in on for hours upon hours upon hours. he knew it would be his time to stun people, & he does exactly that. in his opinion anyway. slowly, he’s starting to feel better about himself. maybe he had a rocky start, but he’s bringing it home now. above all, he really likes the song, & he feels like he suits the concept well. that matters, too, right ? he can only hope that’s true because his slip-up in the beginning, he’s having a lot of fun. as the piece wraps up, it feels like it zoomed by with the velocity of a stroke of lightning. all of those painstaking days leading up to this all came down to a three-&-a-half minute set, & as he stands in final pose ;; he breathes heavy & feels exhausted, but proud at the same time — the sweat that’s on his brow a testament to how hard he worked.

now, all he has to do is wait for the results. it’s anxiety-inducing, but he’s convinced he’ll get mostly positive remarks. hell, robby’ll be happy even if only his dancing is highly praised. that in mind, he turns to bow towards his audience, thanking them for their time, & excuses himself from the dance-floor ;; his heart pounding fiercely.

#〈 ⚠ 〉 ——— 𝒇𝒆𝒂𝒕. solo. #hd:events #hd:eval #( a total rush job & not my best; but i tried! 😭💓 )

[stxr-bxster]

“What happened here?”

Send “What happened here?” to find my muse after they’ve finished fighting a brutal fight.

Could have Krigg finished that fight more cleanly? Yes, she believed she could have.

Would she have done so with all her limbs still attached if she had worried about doing things cleanly? That, on the other hand, was highly debatable.

And frankly, Krigg hadly had the time to be thinking about what she could have been doing better when she found herself heafting off of her a flab of shredded meat with a wet, unpleasantly sticky squelch. She sat up, slowly running a hand down her face to wipe the disgusting film clinging to her face, threatening to permanently gunk up her eyelids shut, and blinked a few times to stare at her handywork. If you could call it that.

The space smack dab in the middle of the large street junction was a smoking crater, the road's aslphalt having violently burst open from below from sewer level. It would have been easy to blame the combined force of the fistful of pulse grenades crammed to their maximal setting for cracking open the street like a ripe watermelon, but the massive frame of the mutated sewer beast whose gob they'd gone down certainly hadn't helped matters any. The grotesquely enlarged rat mutant looked like a melted pile of bodies with an ass barely recognizable from its head, but by concentration of heads alone, Krigg supposed that what counted as its front end was now thoroughly blocking the driveway.

The back end was still in the sewers, the two sections connected at a 90° angle by mess of raw flesh out of which exploded ribs bloomed, sticking out into the air in a pattern hardly coherent with a single ribcage. On top of that, the street was clogged by honking cars, bits of rubble, sewage and whatever explodified mutant rat bits had made their way to the surface, caking the pavement in gore. The smell was about what you'd expect too, doing a fairly good job of driving away unlucky passerbys.

Except, apparently, one gobsmacked Nypardian that had properly fallen out of the sky to observe the situation, and had just spotted her. Krigg let out a faint, tired-sounding groan, and proceeded to peel herself off the street with a sharp hiss. Her clothes had very little white left on them, stained either bile green, bright red, or an unspeakable brown. Her hat was nowhere to be found, for once, and what she'd kept were torn in multiple places, leaving dozens of rivulets of bright magenta pink to mingle and run through the gut residue.

Finally back on shaky feet, Krigg slowly ambled away from the scene and past Rex, weight only shifting gingerly to one of her legs, and retreating swiftly with each step, giving her a noticeable limp.

"You guys had a rat problem." She hoarsed, voice creaky and used.

#pzfr #ask meme

[sarangbe]

[  🌹  ]  𝖞𝖔𝖚’𝖗𝖊 𝖒𝖞 𝖆𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖑 𝖇𝖆𝖇𝖞...

𝖌𝖗𝖊𝖊𝖓𝖕𝖑𝖚𝖌𝖌𝖊𝖉 𝖒𝖚𝖘𝖎𝖈 𝖋𝖊𝖘𝖙𝖎𝖛𝖆𝖑 /  20220710. 𝖙𝖑𝖉𝖗 /  SARANG PERFORMS ❝ 𝖆𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖑 𝖇𝖆𝖇𝖞 ❞ BY THE LOVELY TROYE SIVAN FOR HIS OPEN MIC SET. 𝖗𝖊𝖋𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖓𝖈𝖊[𝖘] /  VOCALS — THE FULL DURATION. 𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖉 𝖈𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖙 /  WRITTEN IN ROUGHLY 815 WORDS.

the fact that he’s even doing this is an absolute surprise to him, but if sarang expects to be scouted into a company, he realizes that he needs to start stepping out of his comfort zone. at least a little bit. that, and well, having some experience in the art of performance is definitely a good thing — even if for some reason things aren’t as smooth as he’d like for them to be. the only way he’ll get better is by trial and error, and while he tries to approach the situation he’s in with a sense of realism and practicality, he somehow feels confident in what he’s prepared. sure, he selected a piece that might be simple as far as melodies and vocal technique are concerned, but it’s sung completely in english. he doesn’t speak a lick of it, but he taught himself how to get through the song in one go without stumbling over syllables or absolutely butchering the pronunciation of the lyrics, so he’s hoping that he can pull it off when it really matters... which just so happens to be mere moments away. how terrifying.

when he’s told that he’s on deck, he can’t even enjoy the performer-before-him’s set. he can hear the music blaring from the speakers, the applause from the crowd, and the exuberance of the individual on stage, but all of that fades into a blur. all he’s focused on are the words to his song, the fact that this is honestly his first time performing in front of an audience, and hoping to the heavens above that he can pull it off. rumor has it that scouts are in attendance to prune budding talent, and he genuinely wishes that he’ll catch the eye of some of them. with their training, he knows he can bloom into a marvelous spectacle — one that’ll make his older brother proud, and in the future, set him up for life. there’s nothing he wants more than to repay seulgi for all the sacrifices he had to make, and he prays that that starts here.

all of these wonderings add to the already weighty pressure on his shoulders, but he’s forced to shrug it off when he’s introduced to the group of people looking to be entertained. his obsessive thought patterns distracted him so much that he had no time to prepare for his entrance, so he charmingly stumbles his way to the mic stand set smack dab in the middle of the stage — his soft black whorls being tousled lightly by the breeze, the smile that tugs at the corners of his lips refreshing and bright. it’s clear that he has abundant presence and aura, but does he have the pipes, too ??

instinctively, sarang bends forward in a ninety-degree bow; non-verbally greeting and thanking his gallery for the undivided attention they’re providing him. it fuels him more than they realize. the rush of adrenaline is enough to obliterate the paralyzing nervousness he was feeling moments prior, and when the backing track hums through the audio system, he licks his lips and starts singing; his vocals timid, but the amount of heart he delivers with each section is palpable and notable. he knows that’s his biggest asset, but that he also needs to remember the technical tricks he’s learned to stay in tune, breathe at all the right times, and support the higher notes.

he carries out the first verse, first pre-chorus, and chorus well; the soft breathiness of his tone sometimes a little too quiet, but thankfully, the microphone is sensitive enough to pick up his sound. at the start of the second verse, he picks up the mic from its stand and ambles towards the front of the stage; schmoozing those nearest him with sweet smiles, and even a few winks here and there, but these motions cause his diction to decline slightly. not only that, but his pitch is faulty for a line or two, but he’s thankfully able to correct himself before the next chorus. he’s also fortunate that his ear isn’t trained enough to pick up on his mistakes, so he steamrolls through with scrumptious confidence and charisma. sometimes ignorance is bliss, right ??

at what seems like lightning speed, he’s reaching the conclusion of the song, and although it’s repetitive even in its closing, he tries to vary up his expressions and adjust the emotions that he infuses into each bar so it feels fresh, and when it’s finally complete, he sighs a breath of relief; bowing once more toward his onlookers as he secures the microphone back where he retrieved it from. though, this time, before he exits, he lilts a “thank you so much! please look forward to more of me in the future!” into the open air — departing shortly thereafter; truly proud of himself for not passing out, falling on his face, or doing anything wholly embarrassing. 

#BE:GREENPLUGGED #ㅤ* ╱ 염사랑. ━━━━ SOLO.

[atiny-for-life]

Full CIX Storyline Explained - Part 5

CIX's Full Storyline Explained - Masterlist

'HELLO' Chapter 3. Hello, Strange Time

From here on out, we'll be moving in different territory. Instead of the realism-based concept of the first album, we'll now move onto a concept based on Dante's Inferno and the 9 Levels of Hell.

CONCEPT VIDEO 1 : 火

火 is the Chinese character for fire

Byounggon has been associated with fire since the last Chapter so this is very fitting

it's unclear to me which layer/circle of hell this is supposed to be as there's really only one associated with fire which is the 8th trench in the 8th Layer: Fraud, but the people punished there are fully turned into fire as punishment for lying for personal gain which wouldn't align with the story

alternatively, we can ignore the fire and look at the people climbing over each other to get to the top which would fall in line with Layer 5: Wrath where people who were constantly angry or mean in life are drowned in mud and constantly trying to push others down to get back to the surface

personally, I believe Layer 5 would make more sense since Byounggon seems to have a lot of build up anger which was strong enough to overpower any kind of guilt or sadness toward Yonghee's situation

CONCEPT VIDEO 2 : 水

水 is the character for water

Hyunsuk is placed inside a boat, people clawing at him and the wooden edges to get in with him

there really isn't any circle of hell associated with boats, though Dante and Virgil do use one at times to move around the place but Hyunsuk ain't on a mission from God so he shouldn't be getting that privilege

there's really only one place where we see regular souls utilize a boat and that's on the way into Hell where Charon transports the souls to Hell's entrance across the river Acheron - since this also aligns with the character for water, I'll assume this is where he's at

within the story itself, we do find out during the Save Me Kill Me era later on that he committed petty theft at one point which would qualify him for the 8th layer of Hell, specifically section 7 of this layer in which people are tortured with snakes which is fun

CONCEPT VIDEO 3 : 沙

沙 is the character for sand

we see Seunghun dragging his feet through dirt, chained to a group of other wanderers

another one that's pretty confusing

if we go with the concept of "sand", we'd have to move to the 7th Layer of Hell: Violence, but wandering a sand pit with fire rain would specifically imply he committed violence against God and I don't think that's the case

if we're going with the wandering aspect, we'd find ourselves in the 8th Layer: Fraud, specifically trench 9 where people how sowed division among others are forced to wander in endless circles while getting limbs chopped off that'll regrow only to be chopped off again when they reach that same spot on the next circle

if this is really where he's at, it could be a hint toward where the story is headed in the upcoming album (that is, if they're really picking up where we left off in Chapter 2)

CONCEPT VIDEO 4 : 氷

氷 is the character for ice

Jinyoung's chained up in a frozen room with snow piled up around him

this is luckily one of the two most straightforward ones we've got: we're smack-dab in the middle of the 9th Layer, specifically in the third section of said Layer: Treason against friends

in the original story, the people here were frozen in a lake up to their necks, leaving only their heads exposed but I respect the creative freedom to craft a more visually appealing scene

it's clear that Jinyoung ended up here as a result of how he'd treated Yonghee leading up to the incident

CONCEPT VIDEO 5 : 木

木 is the character for tree

we've got Yonghee in the middle of the woods and with scratches on his face

this is also very straightforward: we're in Layer 7, section 2: Violence against the Self

the people who're punished here are turned into trees which grow fruit that is then eaten by the Harpies living in these woods; whenever the Harpies damage a tree or pick a fruit, the trees will bleed and scream because, to the punished, it'll feel like having limbs broken or torn off

obviously, Yonghee landed here because of his tendency to self-harm and his attempted suicide

is this morally right? clearly not, but Dante was a self-obsessed weirdo obsessed with Florence for some reason so his opinion doesn't matter

#cix #byounggon #seunghun #yonghee #jinyoung #hyunsuk #cix storyline #hello strange time

[celebratinglizziessweet70]

British Museum Archives

This whole experience was very eye opening, and very exclusive. The British Museum Archives are not open to the public and therefore, not many people have the chance to see this insane space, that apparently is not organized or cataloged properly. Which is so insane to me. Though this is not the fault of the wonderful woman in charge, who clearly loves this institution and collection too much. Seriously, she’s amazing and I am in awe of all the work she has done for this library.

This space was something to behold, smack dab in the middle of the museum this archive is something that no one would even consider actually being there. It’s a massive one room space covered floor to ceiling in bookshelves with the cool secret staircases built into the bookcases. Currently, the only have 3 archivists at this time, which is the most it has had since it’s creation, because before this they primarily relied on the help from volunteers. It is the largest national institutes in the country and as she put it they have some major work ahead of them. One thing they don’t have too many issues with though is provenance thankfully, seeing as nothing is withheld in the collection unless it is some how a security threat. At this point, there is no digitization of the collection, though that is a goal for the future. At this point the retrieval time for items is about 10 days, which isn’t too surprising seeing as this massive collection is basically run by one woman. Also, it becomes more complicated because the records stored here are not necessarily in order and lots of the different sections of the museum are very private and possessive of their collections and how they have obtained them which makes it harder to make sense of what they already have. It really was just overwhelming to see how much of the library was uncatalogued and to know how much work they had to do.

She also gave us some cool fun facts, like how the museum used to be covered in cats to help keep away pests in the early 1960s, and that the museum didn’t have guidebooks until 1808. This visit really made me realize how much work has to go into collections and how important it is to have actual professionals involved in the conservation of these kinds of materials. Libraries and archives are often put on the back burner for many professions but the British Museum really emphasized this point, which was kind of hard to see. It was definitely a learning experience and made me want to learn more about conservation and how to help in these kinds of situations.  Still, I appreciated our guides openness and honestly about the situation she was in and I have nothing but respect for her and her work. 

[k1ng0fn0b0dy]

❤ No Friends

[2300+ words]

[He/Him pronouns]

[Squid Game AU: Blood mentions, undescriptive death, furry mention, possible other triggers be careful!]

Description: This contest isn't a game between friends. Somehow, you find some anyway. [Dream Team x Reader]

[Read the rest under the cut]

{《☆》}

You worried your lip between your teeth, leaning back against the coarse fabric of your bed. Teams were already forming, people huddled in their own unconsciously divided sections watching stragglers warily. The next game was set to start soon and you hadn't joined a team, an unsettled pit in your stomach every time you thought about picking a side.

There were two large groups, one set of people referring to themselves as "L'Manburg" and another calling themselves "Dream's Ensemble" or something similar. Each leader was a stark division from the other, one team lead by the first number, 001, and the last number, 486, though you didn't remember who had which.

Your own number, 243, was smack dab in the middle of both of the numbers. In a way, the rest of the stragglers considered you their de-facto leader with no one else taking up the mantle. There weren't many who hadn't chosen a side but there was still enough people for you to feel so small for the shoes you were trying to fill.

You tore a piece of your bread apart, shoving it in your mouth with nothing else to do. It wasn't amazing bread, not warm and soft and slightly buttery, but it could've been worse. You've had people give you worse. You took a good look over the people spanning the beds around you. They weren't trustworthy, not truly, you didn't know half of their names and the rest of them were a blubbering mess of weak spots. Weak spots got you killed.

Frowning, you ripped off another piece of bread. As you shove it in your mouth. the disgusting taste of paper hit your tongue. You've eaten enough scrap paper in times of desperation to know the taste of ink smearing your tongue. Spitting it out, you wipe at your tongue with your sleeve and grimace at the slobbery piece of paper in your bread.

'Circle. Triangle. Star. Umbrella.'

It was scrawled in perfect print. on such tiny paper that it was a wonder you ever noticed it. You glanced around, curious if anyone else noticed the odd taste. No, nothing. No one had hunched into themselves reading a tiny pink slip. You were the only one to notice.

Without thinking, you shoved the paper in your mouth. It wasn't a good taste but you had a feeling the slip had something to do with the next challenge. Shoving the rest of the bread in your mouth, you chugged the rest of your milk and wiped your mouth. The next challenge would be starting soon, you should probably try to make some alliances, however strained.

"Hi," Someone walked up to you before you could move, white-rimmed sunglasses pushed high up their nose. Their light brown hair was bouncing with their steps. "I don't think we've talked yet."

"No," You affirm, briefly looking over their shoulder and catching the stone-faced leader staring back. Goosebumps trailing your neck, you twist your head up to look in 404's eyes from your low position on your bed. "I'm Y/N. No last name."

"George, last name not needed." They said, lips quirked up with amusement. "So, I'm only asking because Dream told me to but would you like to join the Dream SMP."

"No," You said without needing to think. You could join, but they had a target painted on their back by L'Manburg and it was drama unneeded. "I appreciate the offer but I'd rather stay a neutral party for now."

George didn't look surprised at all. "I thought so," he said, solidifying your guess. "You don't seem the type to instantly join a fight. You'd watch and wait for the right moment to join. Dream didn't think so but he's a stupid American."

"You're oddly observant," You say in lieu of a response.

"And so are you." George did smile this time. a sweet little thing, shy but heart-warming. "Word of advice, don't wait too long. You sit around the entire time and people won't need you. You'd be another death in a game where people stopped keeping track."

You look at George, really look at him, and he is unassuming with his too-large zip-up hoodie that wasn't his and his boyish, charming features. There is a sharpness to his face though, sharp teeth hiding behind soft lips and edges that could cut steel. His eyes, barely noticeable with the sunglasses. see too much with a smart glint that has you wondering what he doesn't know. He tips his head to you, face going back to an impasse.

"See you after the game," His voice is solid, confident. You are confident too.

{《☆》}

You pick a triangle and it is the easiest decision you've made in a while. George greets you with a tip of his head, already leaning back into a bed when you're done. Dream is looking at you over his shoulder and the goosebumps are back.

Settled down in your own corner of the nobodies, you don't expect anyone to bother you until gunshots start ringing out. But someone does, shaking your shoulder and then leaping back when you swing your leg at them.

"Woah," 034 has their hands raised in the air, a large distance between the two of you. They have a bandana wrapped around their head, swaying with them as they lean back. "Sorry dude didn't mean to startle you."

"Whatever, why are you here?" You grumble, a bit peeved at being woken up.

"Uh, oh, Dream wanted to see if you changed your mind." They laugh nervously, scratching at their neck as they look back. Dream is staring at both of you, eyes slanted in an oddly personal way as he meets your eyes. His eyes are a hazel type, with a warm brown circling the pupil but a forest green mixed at the edges. They're like steel as they trace your face, searching for any emotion that will give away your thinking.

"I don't know," You look back at 034, not missing their minuscule flinch from your stoic gaze. "Depends. Has it been long enough?"

They sway in place, switching from the balls of their heels to the tips of their toes anxiously. Not meeting your eyes directly, 034 shrugged. "Maybe, dunno. Not up for me to decide."

You hum, watching 034's hair tilt and fall to cover their eyes, black hair sucking the light out of the world around them. Their white bandana is the only divide you can notice in his hair, too many dark shades blended together to tell which parts fluff up or twist sporadically. He's the type to look dangerous at first glance, sharp features and burning eyes that solder fear into your heart. But he's nothing without a fearless leader to command him. He is a right-hand man but nothing more. It does not make him useless, just troublesome.

"No, not yet," You look back at Dream, smiling with no emotions. He doesn't look different, still staring at you indescribably, just with his lips twisted down and pressed into a thin line.

{《☆》}

A fight breaks out at night. It shocks you awake as your bed shakes with the force of a body slamming into it. People are screaming, crying, bleeding out in front of you. The sheets you were sleeping on are white but the floor around you is not so lucky.

Dodging past a crazy person whose attacking wildly, you spot the two main groups attacking each other. Sharp edged bottles cracked up for weapons, metal bars from the beds gripped tight in small hands.

You squint down at them, stepping closer to the scene. Dream, George, and 034 are leading the fight, all sporting weapons against the relatively young adults that make up L'Manburg, carving lines into cheeks and stabbing shallow wounds into tripped people. You don't know if anyone even has a team when everyone's attacking at wild.

Kicking a bloodthirsty man towards the fight, he's taken down in seconds by an angry dutch man screaming something about furries. Blood pools around their body and you take the brief second to leap down and take their weapon off of them. Slick metal, dripping with blood, is wiped down with your shirt before you try using it. It wouldn't be useful if it fell out your hands the second you tried using it, would it?

You keep towards the outskirts, attacking anybody who gets close. They tend to scramble off quick enough, looking for bigger fish to fry. That is until an oddly tall British man leaps down from a bed and faces you.

"So, you're the person Dream's been trying so hard to get." 486 comments almost idly, bored in fact. "If I'm honest, you don't look like much. Too weak, don't look too smart, I'm honestly surprised you made it this far."

He's not entirely wrong. You hadn't entirely expected to make it this far either, after so much time spent not doing anything productive this felt like too much progress. It felt good to be good at something, but you're also struggling to keep it up.

"You're not all that either," You snap, aiming desperately for an insult to land. Your words sound so familiar to you and it takes you a second to realize they're words you tell yourself. "You're smart sure but your not a leader. Your followers won't respect you when you start losing. You're a phony."

486 grits his teeth as the words hit their mark, arms flexing as they grip their weapon tighter. "Shut up."

You dodge a hard swing, knowing now that you two are more alike than you had thought. You dig deep into the darkness of your brain, pouring every taunting insult you've been told into a mold for a weapon sharp enough to hurt 486. "Why? Afraid of facing the truth that you're building yourself too high. When you fall, no one is going to catch you."

"Shut up!" 486 yelled, face flushed a hundred shades of fury. They swing again and this time you cannot dodge their long arms. Large shards of glass stick out from your arm, cracks in the glass as you drop to the floor. 486 stands over you, looming with a wicked sneer. "You're just a pest. A stupid fucking-!"

Someone bodily slams into 486 with a battle cry, using their metal bed post to hold 486 prisoner against the wall. You take a harsh breath in, stilted like the fear ripped your lungs open. As you open your eyes again, George is standing in front of you. He smiles, a cheeky little smug smile that flushes his cheeks pink. "Saw you needed some help, it's not too early is it?"

"Right on time," You said with an airy breath. George reached down and pulled you up, his soft hands cold against yours carefully. He didn't let go and neither did you. "I'm very much reconsidering my neutral stance," Glancing back at George, you smirked a bit. "After all, I need my knight in shining armour to keep me safe."

George laughed, his cheeks alight with embarrassment. Brushing it aside for his own good, he smiled, "I'm glad you've decided to join."

Looking over at 034, he was wiping off sweat as 486 scrambled towards 213. They looked up, meeting your eyes and smiling. "Glad you're alright now, you looked pretty shit during that. I mean, you're hot and all but blood doesn't look good on anyone." They shake their head before laughing. "So, where's Dream?"

George shook his head fondly, "You're an idiot, Sapnap."

Sapnap grinned, sharp-fanged and welcoming. "You love me."

"Go away," Letting go of your hand, George pushed Sapnap's face away roughly. As Sapnap ambled back to Dream, George looked back at you. Softening, he smiled sweetly at you, raising a hand to brush someone's blood of of your face.  "I'm glad you're not just a number. Like, really glad."

You laugh and reach up to hold his hand, leaning into it more than socially acceptable. "I'm glad you aren't either." When you let go, George keeps your fingers linked. He bats away wild attacks, pulling you behind him often.

Dream meets your eyes as you walk into their metal barricade. Their stone cold face breaks into a smug little smile. "I told you so, George."

"Whatever, Dream, go get Ponk," George rolled his eyes, meeting your eyes as Dream happily ambles towards another fellow.

The brunet rolls his eyes fondly. "Dream's prideful. He was so sure you'd join us."

"Well I did, so he's not wrong." You look over at the man whose face seems to be naturally blank. He looks back and as both of your eyes meet he smiles, a softer but very wrong look from the man.  Maybe he's just one of those people with a creepy smile. That does sound fitting.

There is a certain relief that comes with being able to let others make your choices. Having people stare at you, expecting and waiting, it makes your skin itch with the weight. Sapnap seems to feel the same, watching Dream, who takes the feeling in stride and thrives, waiting for an order to attack, to wait, to sleep, anything. It's sort of like he's a puppy.

Smiling at your own thought, imaging Sapnap with floppy dalmatian like ears, you slump back into George's shoulder. The brunet doesn't seem to care, too busy wiping blood off of his metal pole. Sapnap looks over, meeting your eyes with his own wide smile. Definitely a dog-boy.

"The fighting seems to be dying down," Dream says, looking down at you from where he now stands at your side. They twist their pole in their fingers, like it's easy to manipulate in theihands. "You two can rest. Me and Sap can take the first shift."

"Thanks Dream," George says, instantly standing to curl in the bed withing the fort. "Come on, Y/N."

"Alright," You stand, brushing dust off of your bloody clothes. Maybe it was counter-productive. "Thanks for the save again, Sapnap."

"Anytime handsome," He laughs, nodding you away to sleep.

Pillow next to George's, you think that maybe you should've joined sooner.

{《☆》}

[And then Dream betrays you all and goes on to die at Tommy's hands in the last game. /j]

[Second post this week wtf happened to having an upload schedule me. Anyway next post should be a little mermaid au with *someone* I'm not sure yet I'm already 1.5k words in ahdkgakf]

[Just as a forewarning! Uploads are out of order so something I said a chapter ago could've been from months ago! I'm thinking of adding dates to my post just so everyone is aware that somethings I've said are out of date! Also please keep commenting some of you are funny af]

[L0v3, k1ng]

Masterlist

Taglist: @creatorofstars

#x male reader #x reader #mcyt x reader #dsmp x reader #mcyt x y/n #mcyt x you #mcyt x male reader #dsmp x male reader #wilbur soot #male reader #squid game #dream #dreamwastaken #dream x reader #dream x you #dream x male reader #sapnap x male reader #sapnap x reader #george dsmp #georgenotfound x male reader #georgenotfound x reader #georgenotfound #sapnap #dream team #dream team x reader #dream team x male reader #fundy #i really wanted to use their twitch leak numbers but i couldnt find them

[slashingdisneypasta]

*Separate* J Squad x Reader || Headcanons

Topic: Affection/SFW Headcanons for Jerome and Jonathan + NSFW Headcanons for Jervis.

Notes: SO I WANTED TO DO NSFW HEADCANONS, but I cant help but see Jonathon as Ace (With zero interest in undergoing sexual activity for any reason), and as I started to write Jerome's HC's, I just realised... it just felt kinda wrong, honestly. I mean, he was traumatised for a long time by his mother 'banging the clown's in the other caravan 'room' (So probably just behind, like, a curtain) from who knows what age. "But he learnt to love the physical pain!,", you might say to me, and yes, that's true. I have considered that. But still, it got too uncomfortable for me. So for now, no NSFW for Jerome either. But Jervis at least gets the green light XD

Warnings: NSFW/Smut HC's in Jervis' part. Normal Jonathon and Jerome mess in the other two sections.

~~~

Jerome Valeska: SFW

Jerome is a showman, obviously! He loves to show you off. My deepest apologies if you have severe self-consciousness, anxiety, or body image issues of any kind- Jerome is going to carry you up onto a stage at some point whether you like it or not. If you cry, he'll just give your damp cheek many kissies and ask the (Quite possibly non-existent, at times,) crowd to cheer louder for you.

He's just loving you, in his own way! He thinks you're great, and whether you're on board or not, he's going to show the world.

He also has n o patience for people who don't agree with him about you. He would kill a person if they so much as sneered at you and he caught it (Not that that would ever happen). But also, like, "Don't get too excited over 'em either though, you know? Heh. I'd have t' kill ya."

P! D! A! He's always dragging you into hugs, or just straight into his side so he can have his arm over your shoulders or around your waist, pulling you to him to dance with him at random times (I feel like that's a big one.), etc.

Another big one is him snuggling you up close to him so he can whisper stuff in that hoarse voice of his, straight into your ear (Which is honestly probably gross and hot and wet, but its a small price to pay for being loved instead of murdered you know?). Secrets. Mostly inside jokes. Just between the two of you. Makes you feel special that there are things going on in his head that he just wants to share with you, and no one else ^^ Which means a lot coming from this loud mouth

He also likes to take selfies with you! Oh dear lord, so many selfies. In so many poses. Jerome must document every moment, with you. He uses both camera phones and polaroid's. Cant you just imagine him with a selfie stick though? Jonathon and Jervis bring it back with them from a trip to do god-knows-what, and gifts it to him and he just-

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASP. GROUP selfies!! With you smack dab in the middle, often, because you are a star.

Lots of nicknames, of course, too. Basically, any food that sounds at all cute, lots of adjectives of course, cutesy-annoying stuff like honey-bun, really long nicknames where he has to take a DEEEP breath in the middle before finishing, etc.

Oh lord, thinking for Jerome makes my head hurt. No wonder he's insane. Onwards!

Jervis Tetch: NSFW

ALRIGHT! The NSFW ones. Marvellous.

So! Lets get this out of the way immediately: Jervis does not 'fuck'. He 'makes love' okay? XD

Our sexy bearded man, here, is a gentleman. But do not take that as me saying that he is vanilla. Ohh, no. No no. No. He dresses up as the Mad Hatter, for goodness sakes. That's half a step away from Willy Wonka. What do you want me to tell you, here? What do you really, need to know?

Well, for starters, doing the deed with him is not a one-and-done kind of deal, at all. Nayyyy. Block out at least 2 days because you're gonna need a r e s t the day after.

No, no XDD Sorry, joke. Its not THAT extensive, but he does like to take his time and make sure his partner is enjoying themselves (Its part of what makes him enjoy himself) and it is quite likely, if he likes you a lot, that you will orgasm more then once.

He is surprisingly knowledgeable? (Skilled?) Like, he isn't super experienced so by all logical accounts, he shouldn't be very good at the sex, right? But he is. He knows how to make his partner (And himself) cum and cum hard.

He has a very focused look about him when he's, ah, 'working' (For lack of a better word) on you, but as soon as he's experiencing the pleasure (And, please man. Please take care of him as well, he deserves it XD) you will see your Mad Hatter unravel before your eyes. No more will his rhymes make sense.

He's switch. Generally tops (Like a sweet little door mouse to take care of) but likes to bottom too (Would also like a dominatrix to take him over).

Keeps his clothes mostly on (except for his hat) during.

You will not catch this man shying away from giving his lady oral. He! Will! Make! Her! Feel! Good! Plus he likes it. He's also not against period sex. I mean, he might be nervous at first, the first time, but he read that it might help you feel better! So he's gonna DO IT.

Kinks include: Alllllll the possessive stuff you can think of, like creampie and doing it when he's been jealous to mark you with his smell. Also, obviously, hypnotism if you'll let him. LOTS of teasing. I can also imagine he has a bit of an age difference kink. 'Big brother' stuff, and all that...

He's also quite experimental, so if you want to get under the table at a Legion of Horribles meeting and try to ruin his reputation, he's kinda... you know... for it?

Jonathan Crane: SFW

O-KAY. (First of all, I write for the current version of him. So just clearing that up)

So, Jonathan is a lot less of a soft boi, generally, with affection for his S/O then Jerome is (Jerome is a gooey, love struck mess honestly). I mean, if he were to be soft around anyone?? It would be you. But that has, sorta, been beaten out of him... But we'll get to angsty stuff at the end.

The ways he shows he loves and cares deeply for you are protecting you and making sure you're happy when he can do something about it (Or when he cant. He'll still try). Like, he'll immediately appear in front of you if theirs danger or he just doesn't like the way things are going (E.g, Jervis is becoming a little hysterical, Jerome's got that mischievous twinkle in his eye, Firefly is getting a bit more hot headed then she usually is, etc) and he'll get you tea and feed you soup when you're unwell (In fact, he watches out meticulously for signs of ailments with you. As soon as he's convinced there's something up, the gloves are ripped of and he's feeling your forehead for a fever and getting you to sit down.

Also he's not afraid at all to speak up on your behalf to any one of the League of Horribles Members (Except Mr Freeze- Vic would do nothing to someone he sees as an ally. I'm convinced. The rest, though, are pretty unstable) or any law enforcement. Even if he's being carted off into the Arkham truck.

He likes to hold your hand every now and then, too. So he doesn't lose you XD Like, he'll lead you along so you don't get lost in the madness that usually surrounds him. Also when he's spraying someone, so he knows you're not at all in the line of attack. (Cuz like, he cant totally see through his costume? There are blind spots?? Its easier for him to feel that you're safe)

As for the moments he is, truly, soft with you... its usually when he's been hit with the nostalgia bat. When he's thinking deeply about his father and the time he spent terrified of the scarecrow. It doesn't happen often, but not even The Scarecrow can truly escape his trauma.

At these times, he'll wordlessly slip into your bed in the dead of night (You know who it is, of course. Even in the dark. Who else do you know that feels like canvas?) and snuggle close. He'll just say, in his normal voice (No modification. Just a scared young man), that he's 'thinking about it again'. And you know he just needs you to lay there with him. Make him feel warm and not alone.

#J Squad #J Squad x Reader #Headcanons #Jerome Valeska #Jerome Valeska x Reader #Jervis Tetch #Jervis Tetch x Reader #Jonathan Crane #Jonathan Crane x Reader #Scarecrow #Scarecrow x Reader #Fox Gotham #Gotham #Gotham x Reader