#I haven’t drawn anything in a decent while just so u know

[imtryingmyfuckingbe]

Chapter Four

Word Count: 3,375

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“So how’s Ben?” Y/N asks as she wipes crumbs onto the floor.

Sylvia sighs, collecting cups and plates from a neighboring dirty table. “He’s okay right now, I think. Been picking up odd end jobs around the complex to make some extra cash. Painted a few chipped doors, fixed a hallway table for the lobby, that kind of shit.”

Y/N moves to the next table, cleaning it in a few swipes. “That’s good to hear. How are you doing? Carlton said you’ve been working a lot.”

Sylvia shrugs, dumping the dishes in the bus tub. “As well as I can be, I suppose.”

They finish bussing in comfortable silence, accompanied by clinks of dishes and silverware. The day passed by without resistance, the lunch flow filling tables and the tip jar. As expected, the weekend crowd provided decent fodder for this month’s finances. Y/N wonders how much Sylvia saves after her bills get taken out.

Ben, while trying to help, earns odds and ends-worthy pay. They share a one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, and the rent is steep. From Sylvia’s drawn eyes and haggard cheeks, Y/N assumes the stress eats her than she admits. When she counts the tip jar, she takes enough to make ends meet, giving the rest to Sylvia. Her friend smiles, wide and exuberant, thinking the pair made out with equal amounts. Hopefully, tomorrow’s brunch rush will offer another round of success.

As they move on to the nitty gritty of closing, Sylvia connects her phone to the Bluetooth. While her taste varies from Y/N’s, the latter still dances with her broom. Right now she’d do anything short of murder to make Sylvia smile. The woman deserves a break.

A bouncing beat thrums over the speakers, hitting the walls and reverberating inward. Sylvia sways her hips, mop in hand. She sings into the handle, her curls swirling around her waist. Y/N follows suit, closing her eyes and reveling in the freedom of pretending she’s okay. That she dances with a friend and doesn’t have to go home to an empty apartment— a shrine of her failures. That a gang isn’t crafting nefarious plans in the woodwork.

She wonders what normalcy feels like as the song fades into one she knows: Lily Allen’s Friend of Mine. Perhaps in a different life she would walk down the street without sideways glances at strangers. How different would her fingers be if they hadn’t learned the roughness of rope, or the cool comfort of a knife’s hilt?

She shakes the thought from her head as she stows the broom. No, right now she isn’t Y/N Y/L/N, a waitress turned vigilante. She isn’t the (poorly dubbed) Hangman. She is a face in a sea of faces. Her actions have no consequence, and the Avengers don’t barge into her life whenever they please.

Sylvia slides behind Y/N while she counts the register. Back to back and hips to hips, they oscillate left and right. As Friend of Mine concludes, Sylvia turns down the volume. They finish cleaning with haste and shout goodbyes to the remaining staff.

On the street, where Sylvia turns left and Y/N turns right, Y/N stops. She looks at Sylvia, at her tired eyes and sagging shoulders.

“Hey, want to come to mine or something?” The words leave before she processes them, surprising herself and Sylvia. She shrugs, feigning nonchalance. “Just realized we haven’t really hung out before.”

A slow smile pushes Sylvia’s cheeks back. She nods, clutching her bag closer to her side and teetering on the balls of her feet. “Yeah,” she agrees softly. “I think that’d be fun!”

Returning the grin, Y/N motions ahead of her. They fall into step.

Y/N considers herself introverted to the point of self-isolation. The recent influx of people in her life—although unwelcome— forces her to acknowledge how much time she spends alone. She likes to think hanging out at Blue’s, or talking to Muriel in passing, suffices to fulfill her social interactions quota. Still, an odd pang hits when she thinks about her lack of friends.

It’s unrealistic, though, and she knows it. The life she leads is unforgiving towards friends and caring and vulnerability. Affiliating with her puts people at risk. If someone found out her alter-ego…

She swallows that thought, instead focusing on Sylvia’s steady breathing and light steps. One afternoon together won’t hurt, she reasons. And then she can let bygones be and never invite Sylvia out again. They’ll return to their work relationship, and Y/N can sate both sides of herself. And, goddammit, she deserves some time off. She can’t apprehend the Vipers if she can’t see straight from lack of sleep and caffeine overdose.

“So,” Y/N begins, not sure how to embark on a new friendship.

Sylvia grins at her. “So how long have you lived in New York?”

Y/N sighs, grateful for a topic she enjoys talking about. Despite the shit hand the city offers her, she can’t fathom living elsewhere. “Bred, born, and raised.”

Sylvia cock a brow. “Really? And you’re not tired of it? I don’t think I’ll last more than a few years here.”

She shrugs, noncommittal. “What about you? Where are you from?”

Sylvia laughs. “Bumfuck, Nowhere in comparison to here. But it’s some small town in Illinois. Ever heard of Mascoutah?”

“The fuck?” Y/N barks with a chuckle.

“Exactly. It’s between here and Timbuktu, I swear. But it’s home.”

Y/N tries to absorb everything Sylvia says, from her generational roots in cow country to why she left. She lets her ramble, grateful to pass the conversation mantle off. The small town of Mascoutah, known most for its nearness to an Air Force Base, offers little in the way of opportunity. The burden that comes with living there includes, but is not limited to: likely addiction problems, possible but unintended relations with a distant family member, and depression. According to Sylvia.

Locals with big dreams either end in a plot at the town cemetery or get out and never look back. Sylvia hoped to be a success story; bragging rights to her family. With damning optimism, she moved nine hundred miles to New York for a job as a junior editor at a fashion magazine Y/N doesn’t know. Two months in and she decided she hated it.

But she refused to leave, and by then Ben moved out. Their small town chewed him up and spit him out; when he joined her, she said he changed. She didn’t know at the time, but his ex-girlfriend introduced him to the wonders of cocaine. It snowballed from there.

By the time the pair reach Y/N’s apartment, Sylvia shared the entirety of her story. Y/N curses the door when it sticks. Penny, the landlord, would receive a strongly worded letter if not for allowing Y/N to pay rent in cash and under a fake name. She takes what she can get, she supposes.

“Coffee?” Y/N offers, holding up the carafe.

Sylvia snorts. “I swear, you’ve got more coffee in your veins than blood.”

Y/N shrugs. “Most interesting thing about me, probably. Water, then?”

Sylvia nods, taking a seat at Y/N’s table. Her gaze wanders, glossing over the tight quarters. She pays particular attention to the window, its crooked bottom rail tilted up from the sill and a crack in its pane. “Is that thing safe?” She points to it like it might bite her.

“No, probably not.” Y/N leaves it at that, pouring a glass of water while the coffee brews.

She passes it to Sylvia, who gulps it down as if she hadn’t drank in days. She refills the glass.

“So what about you?” Sylvia asks.

“What about me?”

“Well, I’m just short of giving you my social security number and I feel like I don’t know anything about you. What’s your story?”

Y/N snorts. “Why, you tryna take me on a date, sweetcheeks?”

Sylvia laughs, waving a hand. “Just curious. We’ve worked together for a year and half, and the most I have on you is a foolish nickname.”

“Hey!” Y/N protests. “I love ‘Goose’. It’s cute.”

“Yeah, how you got it ain’t so cute, though.”

“I thought we agreed to never mention that teeny-tiny incident,” Y/N jokes in a stern voice.

“You’re calling dumping Grey Goose martinis on some high-class business men ‘teeny-tiny’? Carlton about popped a blood vessel from how much he yelled at you. You’re lucky you weren’t fired.”

Y/N scoffs, filling her mug. “One, they deserved it. They were assholes. B, Carlton can’t afford to fire me. He has me, you, and the other servers I don’t know the names of.”

“Brandon and Jennifer. You’ve worked with them at least twice, Y/N. Come on,” Sylvia scolds.

She shrugs, savoring the warmth from the coffee. “Listen, I know the cooks and I know you. And, unfortunately, I know Carlton. That’s enough for me.”

Sylvia laughs, settling into a comfortable position. “Don’t avoid the question. Spill your dirty secrets, Goose.”

Y/N grimaces, buying time to think. She hasn’t done much in her life. Graduated high school, got an associates in Criminal Justice. Tried a stint as a PI, but that fell through after she caught the company in some shady business. Started working at Romero’s, and then started her own PI business. Off the books.

She can reveal half of that without both incriminating herself and dragging Sylvia into her world. Neither of which she wants. So, instead, she settles on, “Well, like I said, I grew up here. Lived in Brooklyn for a bit. When I moved out I decided on Queens. A little more out of the way, plus I couldn’t handle the hipster influx. Every time I see a handlebar mustache and a fedora I’m ready to hit something.”

Sylvia laughs. “Trust me, it’s the same everywhere. They’re all douchebags.”

“Good to know. But, uh, yeah. I’m happy just to live here. Romero’s pays bills and I have money to waste when I wanna. Good enough for me.” She finishes her coffee, standing to get a refill. She’ll have to drink water soon or the tremors in her fingers will start.

“So tell me about the city, then. I’ve lived here for a few years. Ooh, ever had an interaction with the Avengers? Not going to lie, they were one of the main motivators for moving here. I mean, living in the same place as Steve Muscles Rogers?” She sighs, lost in a daydream of which Y/N wants no part.

She lets Sylvia ramble, willing her heart to slow. Sylvia is touching every topic Y/N wants to a void, staring at her with starred expectations shining, while Y/N returns to her seat. “I mean, I’ve seen them do their thing. Battle of New York and all that. No personal interactions. I hear Tony Stark is an asshole, though.” If she has to talk about the banes of her existence, she gets to make fun of them. “And that Bucky fella has a few loose wires. Only one I really like is Black Widow. She’s badass.” And she hasn’t bothered me unnecessarily.

Sylvia deflates, shoulders sagging and smile drooping. “But,” Y/N tries again, “I hear Rogers is exactly what you expect. Helps in even the smallest of situations: walking old ladies across the street, stopping fights. Hear he’s a real gentleman.” She bites her tongue to keep from laughing. Sylvia doesn’t need to know Y/N intends to go fisticuffs with the Captain if she sees him again.

The smile returns with fervor. “That’s so nice. I’d love to meet him.” Another sigh filled with dreams and that same damning optimism that dragged her to the city.

Y/N wonders what goes on inside Sylvia’s mind, what it looks like in there. She can’t recall being as sweet as Sylvia, or as hopeful. She tucks that thought away for later, when she downs too much cheap alcohol and decides to revisit her childhood.

“You almost met the Falcon, remember? He came into the shop.”

Sylvia rolls her eyes. “Yeah, but I wasn’t exactly in the right frame of mind. Plus, he seemed focused on you.” Although not worded like a question, Y/N hears the implication. She shrugs. “So, what else is there to know about the city?” Sylvia asks over the buzz of Y/N’s phone. “I mean—”

Y/N holds up a finger, silencing her. “Sorry, hold on. It’s a pal of mine.”

Sylvia nods in understanding, pulling out her own phone.

“Bern!” Y/N greets. “How ya doing, old man?”

She imagines him rolling his eyes when he scoffs. “Listen here, young whippersnapper,” he kids.

She snorts around a sip of coffee. “What can I do ya for?”

“I haven’t heard from you since our last conversation. Making sure you’re not dead in a ditch or, I dunno, a fire.”

She balks at his flagrant joke, a stuttering laugh forcing itself out. In the present company, she wants to stay away from Viper talk. “Did you ever check out those hearing aids I found you, old man?”

He sighs in mocking. “You got ears on you?”

“You know I do. Just looking out for you. All right, so I’m alive and kicking. Guess the next question is: do ya miss me?”

Bernie pauses. She pictures his fingers picking at his beer bottle, tilting it back. Any mention of emotion puts Bernie off of a conversation faster than kerosene lights. Y/N delights in his stunted emotional intelligence. It makes him an easy target to tease. She bites at a hangnail, awaiting his inevitable dismissive remark.

“Nah, wouldn’t say that. Was just wondering if my troublemaker caused too much trouble she couldn’t get outta.”

She snorts. “Mm, I see. Well, I’m still out making waves. Plus, I’m sure if I kicked the bucket the whole world’d tilt.” Sylvia swipes on her phone, casting sporadic glances Y/N’s way. Y/N catches her gaze and rolls her eyes. She twirls her finger next to her ear and mouths ‘nutty old man’. “But enough about me, Bernie. How’s my favorite barfly?”

“You’re an asshole, you know that?”

“But am I wrong?”

Bernie groans. “I dunno why I even bother. I’m all right, kid. Still wearing this seat down to its springs. Normal Friday.”

Y/N shifts to put her feet on the table, leaning her chair on its back two legs. “See? Barfly. Hey, how’s my pal Chucky doing? Think he’ll scar?”

“Listen here, lady, I ain’t gonna support your violence. It’s bad juju. But—”

“— you and your goddamn superstition. Ya’know—”

“If ya let me finish!” he scolds, voice booming. “It’s bad juju, but I don’t think Chuckles knows how ta take care of himself, let alone a cut. It’s probably infected by now.”

“What do ya mean 'probably'?”

“I ain’t seen the fella since that night. Think ya scared ‘im off?”

She bellows with laughter. Chuckles tucking tail and running, with a height of at least six foot four, instills hilarious images. “Yeah, I fucking wish. You think I’m bad? He’s worse.”

Bernie chuckles along with her. She hears his bottle thunk against the bar top. “All right, kid. Imma go; got important things to tend to.”

“Yeah, ‘nother Bud?”

“Exactly.”

“All right, Bern. It was good to hear from you. Keep your ear to the ground for me, okay? And drink some fucking water. If you die from liver failure or something before I see you next, I’ll bring you back to life and then put you back in the ground. Understood?”

He laughs again, gravelly and soft. “Yeah, well if it meant I got to see your smile one last time I’d be okay.”

She frowns, eyebrows pulling down. “You going soft on me?”

“Nah, not in this lifetime. I’ll see you soon.”

He hangs up with a click. Silence meets her, deafening against Bernie’s words. It sounded too much like a goodbye, like he knew something he didn’t share. No, she admonishes. Bernie wouldn’t lie to her. Right?

Sylvia’s voice pulls her from her reverie. “Huh?”

“Oh, I just asked who that was?” She keeps her eyes cast on her phone. Her free hand drums a beat into her thigh as it jiggles from her tapping foot.

“Oh, yeah. A friend of mine from this bar I frequent.”

She nods, locking her phone and placing it face down on the table. “Which one? For all the time I’ve lived here I haven’t explored much. I wanna branch out.”

Y/N shrugs, contemplating if she should introduce Sylvia to Blue’s. Not unkindly, she can’t picture her there. The patrons would devour her at first glance. “It’s not a place I’d suggest to you; kinda nitty-gritty. Lotsa handsy fellas.”

Sylvia’s smile lacks the crinkles by her eyes. “I can handle it.”

Y/N holds her hands up. “Not saying you can’t. Just warning you. It’s called Blue’s.”

“Oh, yeah! I’ve heard of that place.”

Y/N raises her eyebrows, taking her feet from the table. “Yeah?” She leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees.

Sylvia nods with vigor. “Mm hm. Friend of mine said they have the best cheese fries.”

“Ooh, that they do. Good to soak up the alcohol.”

Sylvia crosses her ankle over her leg, leaning back into her chair, looking at the busted window. “So what’s it like? Never been to a dive before. Lots of regulars? Like Bernie?”

She laughs. “Yeah, guess you could say that. Bern’s basically the mascot for Blue’s.”

Sylvia nods again, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. “I just realized I don’t know much about what you do outside of work.”

Y/N bites her lip, unsure of what to say next. First, Sylvia wants her childhood unraveled, now her extracurricular activities? Furthermore, what does she do? She can’t recall the last time she did something for herself. She shrugs. “I like to read so I’m at the library a lot. I also like to wander the city. Been here my whole life but there’s so much to see.”

“Ooh, what’s your favorite library? I love to read, too, but the one nearby just isn’t big enough.”

“I—uh, I like the one in Midtown, right by Bryant Park? It’s decent size and not a lotta people stick around so I get some time to myself.”

“Thank you, I’ll have to check it out. Makes me feel a little less homesick when I’m surrounded by books.”

“I get that. All libraries feel the same. ‘Cept the one in the Bronx; that one gives me the creeps.”

The conversation lapses into a comfortable silence. Y/N stares out of the window, watching the sun recede and the city lights reign. Her parents had her young and stayed in the city; the twinkling skyscrapers are her stars more than the ones in the sky. She can’t fathom living in a small town and looking up to see the universe, open and unburdened by light pollution. The vastness terrifies her. She thrives best in what she knows, comforted by the familiar skyline.

Sylvia clears her throat. “I’ve gotta head out. Can’t leave Ben alone too long, you know?”

She keeps her tone light, but Y/N hears the strain.

Y/N stands, offering a hand. Sylvia stares at it, head tilted and eyebrows drawn. In lieu of the handshake, she pushes past Y/N’s hand and wraps her arms around her waist. “Oh!” Y/N exclaims. “Sorry, I’m not much of a…” she trails off, patting Sylvia’s back but refraining from returning the hug.

Sylvia snorts, withdrawing. “Thanks for putting up with me.”

Y/N shoves her shoulder. “Hey, I had a good time, too. Now get outta here before Ben forgets who ya are.”

Sylvia laughs. She walks backwards to the door, offering a mock salute before leaving. Y/N smiles, content. The door bangs closed with a ringing finality. Y/N sinks onto her bed, sprawling out with her fingertips touching each side. She hums, for once not cursing the cracks in the ceiling.

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes fic rec #bucky x y/n #bucky x you #james buchanan bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #marvel #mcu #avengers #bucky barnes x female reader #Bucky Barnes x reader

[scentedromancandles]

It’s 2am post sexy maid costume Roman Torchwick n’ run

#I haven’t drawn anything in a decent while just so u know #roman torchwick #gen scribbles #doodle #drawing #in b4 someone’s like ‘Roman lost a bet’ no he’d do this willingly

[jincherie]

4 o’clock | 03

✩ — pairing: taehyung x reader ✩ — genre: hybrid au, single dad au, light angst, fluff ✩ — rating: sfw ✩ — words: 5.5k+ ✩ — warnings: slight angst ✩ — notes: another impulse update while the inspiration was ripe!! I hope u enjoy it :3 I’ll go over it and fix any mistakes with tense and grammar tomorrow either before or after work, so sorry for those in the meantime! i haven’t written in past tense in a while lol

— prompt: “Why are you crying, It’s only you and me here, Me and you, Oh you”

Even if it weren’t for the two twins that had endeared you so, you were sure you would have eventually been drawn to the beautiful soul of Kim Taehyung, like a planet to its star.

— masterlist || 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 — posted; 14.03.2020

“Ah— no— Haru! Don’t touch that please!”

You sat back, content to watch the chaos as it unfolded; Seokjin had sent you some small reports to write and you were making the most of the moment and finishing them while Jungkook and Namjoon helped watch the twins. It was nearing eight o’clock and the cafe had long since closed, the lights dimmed but still on— Namjoon had been counting the tills in peace until the two hybrid twins had grown curious about what was happening on the other side of the counter and darted around to investigate. Jungkook snickered at the scene as he swept the floors, not being shy about his laughter since Namjoon was too caught up to reprimand him right now.

Ordinarily, you didn’t babysit the twins at the cafe— but you’d brought them to get a hot chocolate since the weather was getting cooler and they’d been behaving so well lately you wanted to give them a treat. You’d already texted Taehyung to ask if they were allowed it, and he’d told you yes. The twins had been ecstatic the second you told them where you were going and why. Apparently they were big fans of Uncle Joon and Uncle Koo, despite spending a majority of their time with you these days.

“But Uncle Joon!” Haru whined, big eyes pointed right at the poor male in question. You did feel a little bad for him; he was just trying to count the tills and finish closing after all. “Wanna help!”

“Yeah!” Hansol chorused, popping up from behind his sister. “Wanna help!”

Namjoon seemed like he was absolutely lost for how to handle the situation, standing crowded with the tills held to his chest, and when he finally caved and sent a pleading look your way you couldn’t help but chuckle. You supposed you could put him out of his misery.

“Hey, cutie cubs! I have something over here that I really, really need your help with! Could you come help me?”

Of course, the answer was yes. At the opportunity to help one of their favourite people ever, their eyes lit up and you stifled a laugh as their tails flicked and whipped excitedly. They were scrambling around the counter within seconds, big eyes directed at you now as they clung to the leg closest to them.

“Yeah, y/n?” Hansol inquired, patting your thigh excitedly. “Need help?”

“I absolutely do!” you confessed dramatically, leaning closer. “It’s something only you two can do.”

They almost vibrated in their excitement, making you think maybe there was a little too much sugar in those hot chocolates. They leaned in closer, Haru whispering with wide eyes, “What is it?”

“Well,” you started, pulling out two pieces of blank paper. “I have something important I’m writing for one of my jobs, and it needs some pictures… but I don’t have any! Do you think you could draw me some pictures to send with it? I don’t know anyone who can do it as well as you…”

The twins gasped, sold immediately on the idea. You’d learned very quickly that of all their hobbies and things they like to do, anything to do with painting, drawing, and colouring— they liked that the most. Eagerly, they climbed onto the free seats at the table where you were perched, looking at you obediently and patiently. Their ears betrayed their excitement though, flicking and twitching restlessly. You passed them a piece of paper each and let them choose one of the markers from your pencil case. Haru chose blue, while her brother went for a light green.

“What do we draw?” she asked after a moment, marker looking very oversized in her tiny hand. To her credit, she had it in an expert grip.

“Anything you want,” you answered immediately, unable to help but laugh at their excited gasps.

“Weally?!” In his glee Hansol’s ‘r’ glided into a ‘w’ sound even more than usual and you almost clutched your chest in fear that you had a literal heart attack. They’re so cute, they’re so cute it’s over for me!

“Yup!” you nodded, waving your hand for them to go ahead and do whatever they want. They didn’t need to be told twice; they launched into their efforts, markers meeting paper eagerly. You could have sat and watched them all night, so endeared by the way their tongues stuck out in concentration and their ears flicked every so often. Unfortunately, you still had a report to finish and so begrudgingly you returned to that as they scribbled artfully across the pages, having granted Namjoon time to escape to the staff room and for Jungkook to grab the mop and bucket and begin sanitising the floor.

Like that, the cafe settled into a nice ambiance— the radio still played soft tunes across the store and the only out of place noises came when one of the twins dropped a marker or Jungkook bumped into a table or chair due to his shapely rump.

It lasted a good five minutes, and you suspected it would have lasted longer if Namjoon’s phone didn’t start ringing on the counter. The twins barely spared it a glance before returning to their works— man, you chose the distraction well, huh. There was the slight sound of cluttering and something falling in the direction of the backroom before Namjoon emerged with tousled hair and wide eyes, a note sticking to his cheek as he looked around hurriedly for his phone.

“Who on earth…” he muttered to himself as he searched; you pointed to your cheek when he caught your eye and he reached up to remove the note, appearing sheepish. It didn’t take him long to find the phone after that, hurrying to pick it up before passing it over to you on the bench. “Y/n, can you answer that? I think I flicked a coin in the sink and I don’t know if it went down the drain or not— thanks!”

Bewildered, you hurriedly scrambled to the counter, grabbing his phone and seeing that he’d already answered the call and just left it running. You didn’t have time to see who was on the other end before you brought it to your ear, not wanting to leave them hanging any longer than they already had been.

“Hello?” you said, sounding somewhat hesitant. Any caution you might have had was quickly thrown to the wind when a familiar dulcet tone greeted you from the other end, though.

“Wh— y/n?” Taehyung sounded surprised to hear your voice, and you didn’t blame him considering he’d called Namjoon’s phone. “Uh, hello. But, um… why…”

“Hey, Mr. Kim!” The change in your attitude was instant, something fluttering in your abdomen at the knowledge of who you were talking to. “Sorry to surprise you, but Namjoon is counting the tills and kind of dumped his phone on me. Is everything okay? Did you want to talk to the twins?”

Taehyung made a sound of understanding before hurrying to reassure you, “Ah, no! No, that’s okay, I’ll see them soon anyway. Um, I was actually calling because…”

He faded off for a moment, an awkward tone slipping into his voice when he resumed. “Um, all the buses near my work were cancelled because of maintenance or something and, um… I don’t really have a way to get home… so I was just…”

It took barely a second for you to realise what he was getting at. “Ah, you need someone to pick you up? No problem! I’m with the twins at the cafe right now, so I can come pick you up while Joon and Jungkook watch them for a few minutes if you’d like!”

The hybrid on the other end seemed flustered at your easy agreement and instant offer.

“I, um… that’s fine, if that’s not too much trouble? I’m sorry to be bothering you— I’ll pay y—”

“Nope, it’s okay!” you were quick to reassure him, making sure he knew that you didn’t expect compensation just for being a decent person. “Don’t even think of paying me extra, I don’t mind at all! Just text me the address and I’ll be there as soon as possible!”

The line was silent for a few moments before Taehyung spoke once more, sounding slightly choked up. “Thank you, y/n.”

“No problem,” you assured, saying goodbye before hanging up and placing Namjoon’s phone down. A few moments later your own buzzed in your pocket, most likely with the address you’d requested.

Ducking into the backroom, you let Namjoon know what the call was about and he easily agreed to watch the kids while you went to pick up their dad. Once you secured his blessing, you returned to the main area to see Jungkook currently being subjected to the twins and their marker, scribbles and drawings beginning to make their ways up his forearms. Hansol had managed to land the arm that already had some tattoos on it and was having the time of his life colouring them in. As soon as he saw you, he pointed excitedly, “Look, y/n! Uncle Koo’s a colouring book!”

The male in question seemed absolutely endeared by the twins and of course easily agreed to continue watching them while you went to pick up Taehyung. The twins were excited to see their dad again soon and so let you go in peace when you told them what was happening.

Fifteen minutes later found you on the road and nearing the destination that Taehyung had texted you. Apparently it wasn’t at his actual workplace, since there weren’t any bus stops there and he usually had to walk twenty minutes to the nearest one, but it was still in the general area. You were thankful that you’d driven the twins to the cafe instead of walking earlier, since it meant your car was already outside and waiting. You were also thankful one of your friends had bullied you into cleaning it the other day because you knew you’d be embarrassed as hell if Taehyung climbed in and found all the bueno bar wrappers that had been on the floor of the passenger side. What could you say? You had an addiction.

As the GPS on your phone told you that you were growing closer, you began to scan the streets for the golden-haired male in question. It didn’t take you long to spot him, because even in the dark he stood out as a spot of beauty in his surroundings, hair gleaming flaxen in the streetlights. He was only in a white button-down and slacks, but still he looked incredibly good. Honestly, if you saw an image of him you would have sworn up and down that he was a model. The flick of his ears as you neared the curb where he stood told you that he’d heard you from afar, but he waited until you were alongside him to shoot you a sheepish smile.

He was somewhat shy as he climbed in, tentative in his movements as he placed his bag down by his feet and shut the door, resting his hands in his lap. “Thank you,” he murmured again, low tone making your heart skip a beat. What was it about him that seemed to make you so… giddy?

“It’s not a problem!” you assured him again, making sure he caught your smile before you set the destination in your phone and turned to the road; you knew vaguely where you were, but you didn’t travel often to this part of town so you’d need a little bit of guidance to get back to Namjoon’s cafe. It was too dark to tell for sure, but you could have sworn the hybrid’s cheeks flushed slightly.

You didn’t think that the silence would have been all that awkward, but you didn’t want to really risk it—there was still a bit of distance between the two of you, understandably. He was basically your employer right now. But you couldn’t deny the urge sparking to life deep inside you that pushed you to get a bit closer to him. Inexplicably, it was something you wanted.

“When I left, the twins were having the time of their lives,” you informed him, unable to keep the smile from your voice. Your eyes were on the road but you caught his head lifting in your peripheral. “Originally I had them drawing something on paper, but when I came back they’d turned Jungkook into a canvas and discovered his tattoos. I think they were overjoyed to have a living colouring book.”

At your words, Taehyung couldn’t help the laugh that tumbled from his throat at his kids’ antics. “They love colouring,” he murmured in response, letting his head fall back against the headrest. Your brief glance over reveals his form, slumped slightly and wrought with exhaustion. A shard of concern wriggles its way into your chest, unsettling you slightly. Was he eating enough? Sleeping enough? You felt so bad for him that you wished you could lift every single worry from his shoulders and give the world to him on a silver platter. His twins deserved it, and so did he. You weren’t sure exactly when, in the past month or so of looking after his kids, that such feelings had had time to bloom, but they had. “I wish I could get them more things, since they go through materials so fast, but… paints are getting more and more expensive these days.”

You hummed, trying not to let the sadness currently permeating your chest to show on your face. “That’s true,” you responded softly. “I imagine they’d go through paints and markers faster than you can blink.”

Taehyung chuckled, the sound soft and low, eyes closed as he sank into the seat. “Yep. I have boxes full of drawings at home. They refuse to part with any of them.”

It was your turn to laugh now, able to imagine it all too easily. “I think they’d never talk to me again if I ever lost the ones they gave me.”

Soft melodies drifted through the car as you drove, your phone’s playlist still on the one you used to lull the twins to sleep. Endearingly enough, it seemed to be working wonders for their father, too. Every time you glimpsed over, it seemed like he was that bit closer to completely dozing off next to you. You were sure he’d be embarrassed about it later, but you honestly didn’t mind. It relieved you a bit to know he was getting at least a little bit of rest.

Well, he was until a low, rumbling sound echoed in the small space. You bit your lip to contain the laugh that attempted to bubble in your throat, but were unable to help the glance you gave to the side. Taehyung looked mortified, gaze averted out the window and cheeks red as his hand rested over his stomach, as though to muffle it should it make any further incriminating noises. His tail curled beside him in embarrassment.

“Well, I suppose that’s good timing,” you said, unable to keep the smile from your voice. “Are you in the mood for a noodle dish or something soupy? Or rice? I was gonna stop by somewhere and grab something for dinner anyway.”

Taehyung’s hands quickly rose, waving awkwardly. “Oh, no, it’s okay— we can just—”

You hummed, pinning him with a look as the car drew to a stop at a set of traffic lights. “Have you eaten today?”

He might have been embarrassed, but you could tell he wouldn’t be able to lie to you. You were proven right when he simply blushed, averting his gaze with his ears angling down.

“It’s okay,” you said, reaching to pat his leg before you had to return your hand to the gearstick. “I haven’t had dinner yet either, and we can grab something to take back for the twins too! Is there anywhere you’d like to go in particular?”

Perhaps it was the hunger, but he didn’t take long to give in and acquiesce to your gentle nudging. His voice was soft when it brushed your ears in response. “I don’t mind, anywhere is good.”

You pondered his words for a moment before speaking what came to mind, “I think I know a place that you’ll like.”

— x — x —

“Woah.”

You smiled at the wonderment in Taehyung’s voice, glancing over to see him looking around in awe. You’d decided to take him to your favourite fusion restaurant, since you remembered that they actually made that dish that he liked— japchae?— and it seemed you’d made the right choice. The restaurant was underground, and the ceiling sprinkled with woven trains of fairy lights. The walls of booths and along the tables were somewhat porus and absolutely covered in layers upon layers of scribbles and drawings from people who had visited over the years. A bowl of markers rested by the door and you were sure to grab one on the way past.

One of the table staff saw you and grinned, making her way over immediately. Her gaze didn’t even linger on Taehyung as it swept over him, something you appreciated.

“Y/n!” she burst, moving forward to bring you in for a quick hug. “It’s been a while! I feel like I haven’t seen you in years.”

You rolled your eyes, blushing slightly. “It’s only been like, a week, Jihyo. What, you weren’t there when I ordered last time?”

“I had placement,” she said, sighing dramatically. “We can’t all finish the semester on time, y/n.”

You laughed in response, and the brunette was quick to get back on track. “Table for two? In the usual spot?”

“Yes please!” you answered with a smile, feeling Taehyung shift in confusion behind you. You wonder if he thought that you were only coming for take away. Originally you were, but as you entered the restaurant you’d read a text from Jungkook saying that they’d taken to twins back to your house, so you felt less pressed to get there sooner.

The two of you follow Jihyo towards the back of the establishment, taking a seat when she gestures to do so in the booth furthest from the front and closer to the kitchens. She left you with menus and told you to press the button when you were ready to order.

“We’re eating here?”

You looked up to catch Taehyung’s gaze, and the expression you find there wasn’t upset or antsy, more confused. It occurred to you a moment later that maybe you should have asked for his opinion before deciding all on your own.

“Oh… Sorry, Mr. Kim.” Your cheeks heated in embarrassment at your own audacity. “I should have asked you— I just got a text from Jungkook saying they took the twins to my place so I figured we didn’t have to rush and could relax a bit. Would you like to get takeaway instead…?”

At your explanation, the male relaxed in his seat, shoulders releasing the small amount of tension they’d held. “No, it’s okay. And you can call me Taehyung, you know. I don’t think you’re that much younger than me, actually.”

Your head tilted in surprise as your hands opened the menu automatically. “Wait, how old are you?”

Taehyung hummed, opening his own menu and looking down, visibly growing happier at the sight of some of the dishes. “Twenty-four,” he answered distractedly, finger trailing over number 37 on the menu. “Are the pancakes good? I wonder if the twins would like them…”

It took all your willpower to snap your mouth closed and swallow your shock— twenty-four?! That’s so young! It wasn’t like he looked old, but to have kids… you thought that he was late-twenties or early-thirties and had just aged really well. You were left reeling at the fact he really wasn’t all that much older than you at all.

It made you even sadder, actually, as you realised that he must have been only twenty-one or so when the twins had first come into his life. It can’t have been easy, especially if the situation was as you suspected with the twins’ mother.

“Wow, you’re young,” you couldn’t stop it from rolling off your tongue, and coughed before continuing, ignoring his amused look. “And they are! I like both the spring onion and the kimchi one. For the twins though, they might like the spring onion one better. I’ll get some to take back to them so they can try it, actually. Maybe some of the chicken too… I’m craving chicken.”

You’d started off talking directly to him, but as you went on you had ended up talking more to yourself. You missed the soft smile that Taehyung sent your way. It was silent as the two of you ruminated over what to order, and neither of you spoke until it was time to order and the waitress (not Jihyo this time, unfortunately) was walking away with your meal ticket and the menus.

“Thank you.”

It caught you by surprise, his sudden words. You looked to him with wide eyes, mid-sip of your water, and blinked in confusion. He chuckled at the sight you presented before leaning back in the booth, taking the permanent marker into his grasp and fiddling with it between his fingers. You continued your sip, waiting for him to continue in his own time. You didn’t have to wait too long.

“For caring so much about Hansol and Haru,” he explained, eyes flicking to the side before rising to meet yours. His ears were lowered slightly, bashful, as he continued. “It means a lot to me, and I know that it means a lot to them. They…”

He cleared his throat, reaching for his own cup of water. He still looked exhausted, but the smell of food in the air had livened him considerably since you entered. “They’ve never really said anything, or asked about their mother, and I don’t know for sure whether they have put you in that role… but I’m glad they have someone else that they can trust and feel safe with. I know whenever I leave them with you that they’ll be okay, and I don’t have to worry, because you always spoil them and they’re always happy. So thank you, for that.”

You blinked, surprised at the sudden sting to your eyes. Flustered, you waved your hand at him, blinking rapidly to ward away the tears. “You should warn a girl before you spring something heartfelt like that on her, Mr. K— Taehyung. I might cry and then our food will be ruined.”

He was still for a second before your words sank in and he laughed, tipping his head back from the body of it. It was a joyous sound, and it made your heart sing to hear it— after the mushy way his earlier words had made you feel, you didn’t know if you were in a good place to handle it. You waited until he calmed to continue, wanting to respond properly now your thoughts were in order.

“But you’re more than welcome, you know.” His eyes met yours as you spoke, fingers fiddling with the marker. “Those two are so beautiful, Taehyung. I can see you give them everything and they really deserve it. I’ll have you know that if I could and they asked for it, I’d climb up and pluck every star out of the sky just for them. Everything I do for them is really the least I can do. I’ll always care for those two, even if you were to move away and forget all about me.”

He snorted at that last part, but you could tell he was touched from the tender look in his eyes. “Don’t worry, that’s not happening any time soon.“

A few moments of silence followed his words, but it wasn’t uncomfortable, and it was soon broken by the arrival of some of your meal. Your mouth started salivating the second your plate touched the table, but you held off until you asked the waitress for some plastic containers and she brought them back for you. Once you’d put some of the food aside for the twins, you happily dug in to the meat dish you’d ordered.

You didn’t catch Taehyung’s fond look as you put some food aside, but you did hear it when, moments later, he let out a soft sound that echoed surprisingly like a moan. Your head shot up and he blushed bright red, cheeks so full of food he looked more like a chipmunk than a lion. He chewed and swallowed the majority of it down before offering a sheepish explanation, “Sorry, it just tastes so good… it’s been so long since I had bulgogi.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at that, almost choking on your own mouthful. You didn’t say anything though, mind wandering to other things— namely, the mention of the twins mother. You wanted to know so badly what the situation was, but you were also painfully aware it was absolutely not your place to ask. But at the same time, the twins were young, and what were you meant to do if they ask difficult questions about their mother as children tend to do? You were torn, but you didn’t realise the extent to which your thoughts were playing across your face.

“You want to know about their mother.”

Freezing, you shot him a guilty look, mouth full of spring onion pancake. You feared that you’d look over and see an upset expression on his handsome face, but it was surprisingly neutral— if anything, he seemed amused at the mess you were making as you struggled to keep the food in your mouth.

“It’s okay,” he chuckled, taking a bite of his meal and humming at the flavour. “It’s only natural to wonder since you haven’t seen her. It’s not hard to tell that she’s not around.”

You finally managed to swallow the entire contents in your mouth, shooting him a look of apology. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to say anything if it’s painful…”

The hybrid shrugged, pushing the food in his bowl around with his chopsticks. “It’s okay. It’s been three years, the wound is old…” He picked out a piece of beef, munching it before continuing. “Their mother was another lion hybrid— I met her in an adoption shelter we’d both ended up in until we were of the legal age that we could leave. She was my first love. I thought the world of her. It wasn’t planned, when she got pregnant. She didn’t really want the a baby but, well… you know how it is.”

Something sharp stabbed in your chest at his words, your expression softening. Hybrids still faced a lot of discrimination in more ways than one, and they didn’t have access to all the same types of resources that humans often took for granted. So if she’d wanted to abort the pregnancy, you doubt she would have been able to…Taehyung cleared his throat, continuing.

“When she became pregnant, and after she had the twins, it became clear that she wasn’t really the woman I fell in love with… When I saw those two, my beautiful little cubs, and held them in my arms— I knew I would love them for the rest of my life. But she… it wasn’t a sentiment we shared. She grew cold and fought with me, saying I’d ruined her life. And then one day she left, before they’d even been weened. I haven’t seen or spoken to her since.”

“I’m so sorry…” it was all you could think to say, your heart aching for him. You couldn’t imagine the amount of betrayal that must have felt like, the hurt that would have resulted. And on top of it, how difficult it must have been to be on his own from the very beginning.

He wrinkled his nose, sniffling slightly before shooting you a reassuring look. He waved his hand through the air, returning to the meal more heartily. “Don’t be— like I said, the wound is old. Besides, I thought you should know since you spend so much time with the twins. They’re curious, and they’re kids… I wouldn’t want to put you in an uncomfortable situation if they asked something difficult.”

“I appreciate that,” you said, sectioning off another piece of pancake to put in your mouth. Your thoughts ran a mile a minute at the information he’d given you, but you did your best to push them to the backburner for now— you didn’t take him out and force food down his throat for the sake of hearing about his partner. “I am still sorry, though… It seems like a lot of things have happened to you that you don’t deserve.”

“That’s how it always is,” Taehyung shrugged, nonchalant. Something about how accepting he was of his own misfortune bothered you— he shouldn’t have had to be accepting of the way the world has treated him like dirt. You allowed your eyes to wash over him, taking in the slight bags under his eyes and the somewhat pallid quality to his skin. In that moment, you decided to do whatever you could to help him— both for him, and the twins. If it meant you continued sending home little care packages with the twins, then so be it.

Despite the somewhat depressing start the conversation had, it soon melded into more comfortable, relaxed topics. Taehyung seemed interested to know a bit more about you, apparently wanting to corroborate the many things his twins reported back to him with facts straight from the source itself— you. He asked about your schooling, what you wanted to do— eventually he allowed himself to verify some of the things the twins apparently told him, like if you really had a giant gudetama plushie in the corner of your bedroom. You’d blushed at that one, especially considering that it was true. In turn, you’d gone ahead and asked him about some of the things the twins had told you— like if he really didn’t like mint chocolate chip icecream, and if all the older ladies in the building really pinched his cheek and called him handsome every time they saw him.

At that he had cleared his throat and blushed too, before quietly admitting it was true. It seemed the twins were very good at digging up dirt on the both of you.

You didn’t linger in the restaurant all that long, making your way up to the counter after you’d eaten your fill. The conversation continued right up until you reached the register, at which point Taehyung promptly froze. You turned, in the middle of pulling your card out, and caught him looking with white eyes at the total, like he’d completely forgotten that he’d have to pay at the end of it. It wasn’t hard to guess the direction that his thoughts had gone, and when Jihyo read out your total for the table you left it barely a second before moving.

“Boop!” you said, smacking your card on the reader and relishing in the confirmation beep that sounded a second later. “Paid!”

Taehyung looked at you with wide eyes, hand coming to grip your sleeve. “Y/n, that was so much! You didn’t have to—”

“It’s okay, I got paid today,” you smiled at him, holding up the bag of takeaway containers before passing them to him. “Plus, it wasn’t just our meals— now we have some food to take back for the others, too!”

You were oblivious to the fond, amused smile Jihyo was sending your way, especially since she slapped a brighter one on when you faced her. “I’m glad you two enjoyed yourselves! I’ll see you next time y/n, make sure you bring him too! The chefs apparently liked watching his expressions as he enjoyed the food.”

You laughed, bringing your arm up in a mock salute as Taehyung blushed red beside you, risking a sheepish look back at the kitchen. Two chefs were peeking out the doorway, and waved when they saw him looking. Embarrassed, he tugged your sleeve and began moving towards the door, urging you to leave. You couldn’t help the laughter that escaped you on the way out, waving to Jihyo as you went and promising you’d be back soon.

— x —

Later, when Taehyung was laying in his own bed after Namjoon had dropped him home, the twins cuddled next to him — they’d been so ecstatic at the special food they’d gotten that they hadn’t left his side all night, clinging to him like never before— he couldn’t help but reflect once more on the changes in his life, however big or subtle. The most noticeable was you, and oddly enough, when he thought of you now, gratitude wasn’t the only feeling swirling in his chest like it had been before. There was something else there, something new and warm and even though he didn’t look any closer at it, scared to see its name, it comforted him all the way to sleep, sending him off to cozy dreams of the sun, the twins, and you.

a/n: pls let me know what u think and whether u enjoyed it by liking and rbing!!! it helps me know i’m doing somthing right!!! also feel free to support me on my kofi and send me an ask or too with what u think !!!1 thank u for reading and i love you!!! <3 <3

— masterlist || 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06

#taehyung fic #taehyung x reader #bts hybrid au #bts hybrid fic #hybrid taehyung #hybrid taehyung x reader #single dad au #hybrid au #single dad taehyung #bts #bts single dad #single dad taehyung x reader #reader insert #my work #4 o'clock #bts fluff #bts angst #taehyung fluff #taehyung angst #bts series #taehyung series

[gallavictorious]

Do u have any songs that u listen to and like remind u of them/their relationship? Some of my favorites are blood on my jeans by juice wrld & Martin and Gina by polo g. And most definitely ifhy by Tyler the creator lol. In mickeys pov tho ofc

Hiya, nonnie! Sorry it took me a little while to get back to you – been busy and this ask was hard (though lovely to get!). See, the songs that I primarily associate with Gallavich (or any character or pairing really) are no usually the songs that best describes them but the songs I listened to a lot when I first fell for them? So, my main Gallavich tune is ”Spiralling Shape” by They Might Be Giants, and yeah, not really... ”People II: The Reckoning” by AJJ actually the one song I can think of that fit both of these bills: I listened to it a lot when I first created this blog, and you can see it work for Ian, whenever he's struggling with his illness.

However! There are always lyrics, or snippets of them, that make me go – yeah, that makes me think of Gallavich. Here's a few:

Second half of the first verse of ”Granite Years” by Oysterband reminds me of their second year together, when they started actually hanging out beyond just banging, being young and wild and just so drawn to each other. There's a chaotic, jubilant energy to it that just fits them, I think:

"Cruising for a bruising" - tattooed above the heart - it'd take the strength of Mary - to hold the boys apart - they flicker in their footsteps - a voltage overload - dazzling the dancers like they're - fixing to explode - you find 'em later lying in be road

For some mid-seasons angst, have this from Maroon 5's ”One More Night”:

You and I go hard at each other like we're going to war - you and I go rough, we keep throwing things and slamming the door - you and I get so damn dysfunctional, we start keeping score - you and I get sick, yeah I know that we can't do this no more

But baby there you go again, there you go again, making me love you - yeah I stopped using my head, using my head, let it all go - got you stuck on my body, on my body like a tattoo - and now I'm feeling stupid, feeling stupid crawling back to you

Fairly recent favourite ”Rebels With a Cause” by Dropkick Murphys works rather well for their early seasons, too, particularly for Mickey and these bits:

He was tortured he was troubled - she was sick and she was lost - searching for an answer, - rebels with a cause - doing what they do to get what they need - life was cheap, there were no guarantees

Dead-end kids, you don't want, 'em you don't need 'em - and you'll always find a reason when you need to write 'em off - dead-end kids, you can take 'em, you can leave 'em - you said they'd never listen, you said they'd be better off - but we believed in you, we knew it from the start - hey kid, you've got heart

They were wretched they were raw, they were tough and they were mean - they were scared they were cold, they were somewhere in between - looking for a chance from someone who believed - remember what you see ain't what always what it seems

The chorus to Andreas Johnston's ”A Little Bit of Love” is a decent summary of their ups and downs and dedication:

We break up a little bit - make up a little bit, shape up a little - and try some harder - and that's just a part of it - it's all for a little bit of love

For season 5 (and onwards!) protective!Mickey, there's the Swedish song ”Du behöver aldrig mer vara rädd” by Lasse Lindh that I've partially translated in tags before, but here goes:

We met sort of by chance - somehow we fell into each other – and to imagine that something I'd always thought - would be so hard was so easy

We met sort of by chance - two cats seeking shelter from the rain somewhere - and love has never hit me like this - and I know - I am terribly difficult at times

But I'll never never - let anything bad happen to you - I hold you so tight - close to me through the rain and the wind - and I'll alway always - watch over you - through the darkness I'll guide you - I'm there in every step you take - so you needn't ever be afraid again

Oh, and ”Here You Come Again” by Dolly Parton really works well for Ian's POV during season 7 (except the bits about ”lie your pretty lies” because... eh, no).

Sorry I haven't got a more profound answer for you, nonnie. As the years go on I rather imagine I'll listen to more songs and just go ”ah, Gallavich” but right now, this is what I can immediately think of (she said, fully well knowing she'll think of like three other songs that fits the second she posts this). Did give your songs a listen, and yeah, I see where you're coming from! If anyone else would like to share, I wouldn't mind in the slightest ('cause I'm always on the lookout for new music).

#asks

[deadreligions]

Beginning

Chapter 1.

A true story.

I don’t know why i’m writing this. I don’t know why I feel that after all these years, that this might be the most forward way to conclude this internal dialogue of what was real and what wasn’t. I have the journals. Scratched in words filled with anxiety and lust wrapped up in a toxic relationship that ultimately determined my path in life.

We go back

 We go back

We go back

Down

Down

Down

Do you care to follow?

It might hurt.

Enjoy the ride.

July 11, 2007

The air is crisp and rolls through my window, it's hot and the air feels so heavy in this monstrous room that I share. I’m tired. My heart still hurts. I don’t understand why I’m being forced out of this relationship that I've been in for like a year almost, my parents can be so uptight. I still remember my mom wigging out after finding out I use tampons over pads now at the ripe age of 14, but oh man when they found out I lost my virginity they completely lost it and banned me to my singleness and internal loathing. My whole last year of 8th grade was nothing short of craziness and experiments that some people would highly question. Maybe i’ll let you know a few things but until then i’m trapped in this fucking room left to my own devices, maybe i’ll make a habit of journaling every thought that happens to cross my mind but i’m sure its going to be a boring summer. Who knows. I’m going back to bed.

July 11, 2007

DUUUDE my mom came in and said that I can go to the lake with her and my sister! I’m super unmotivated but the idea of being able to be outside for a few hours might just cure this aching heart. I don’t know, maybe i’ll actually catch a decent tan for once instead of just burning to a crisp per usual pastiness. I may have some hispanic through me, but the irish trumps all and provides olive skin with long thick brown hair that is almost unmanageable sometimes. I sometimes feel like a decent blend of both ethnicities but who's to say, I never felt like I was that special anyways. I’m rambling. Again. 

I couldn’t put my finger on it yet, but this anxious feeling was washing over me and I couldn’t think as to what it might be. I tongued the side of my cheek in hopes of a distraction. My mom was busy driving and enjoying the 85 degree weather to notice any signs of worrisome. My younger sister tuning out just as much but more or less excited for this impromptu trip to the lake. We haven’t lived here long but the scenic trees that nestle in the great seattle regions felt like home when compared to the dry desert of Richland, Washington. I could almost breathe in the moisture. When it came time to finally turn off of an intersection towards the waterfront, the anxiety feeling became almost overwhelming and knotted in the pits of my stomach, I felt so uncomfortable in my two piece bathing suit in public. Mainly because even at 120 pounds of flesh I felt so out of touch with myself and the way I looked. I wasn’t nearly as developed as the girls in my 8th grade class and the averageness of myself was almost glaring. I wanted to sink into fall already.

“You ready? Now I understand that you’re under a tight restriction but I couldn’t resist giving into this day, it's all nice and what not. I don’t know what's gotten into you, but maybe a day out with your family would be good for you. I love you, but I just need you to be safe okay?”

I tried to understand what she was implying, but all I heard was the echoing insecurities and everything that followed was you aren’t going to date. Ever. Again. I shuffled out of the front seat and replied with a simple yeah just to mull things over with her, I honestly didn’t feel comfortable talking to my mom about how I was feeling let alone what others were doing at my age. She wouldn’t understand. 

I had to guide my younger sister by my side and slowly walked down a narrow path that would eventually open up into a huge entryway with trees lining the way, almost guiding you into a private oasis surrounded by greenery. The lake big enough to swallow as far as I could see, I felt drawn to be enveloped by it. I wanted to be weightless. My younger sister took no reservation by running gleefully into its depths, and sinking into its lucrative fluid that made her shiver with laughter. My mother’s hearty chuckle that barreled through her chest and a side eye that questioned my own enthusiasm. 

“You getting in?”

I shrugged my shoulders hoping maybe she would let me sit down and enjoy the scenery but of course that’s not the case.

“Go on, I have some reading to catch up on and you need to be outside at least for a little bit this summer so I suggest you enjoy it while you can.”

“FINE.” I was entirely annoyed with the situation but I knew it was also pointless to start with her once she gets going, besides anything is better than that dreaded room at this point. I dropped my towel and glasses and kicked off my sandals, and was soon already crossing the waterfront pier slicked with water from the numerous people jumping off of it. One by one, gainers and backflips performed for onlookers who waded in the water below. Girls about a year or so older than I were crowding towards the corner of the pier and hoping to find a suitable partner for the summer. Like a mating call. Flocking with all of their colorful feathers and huge tits luring all the possibilities that would fling themselves. I felt awkward. I definitely didn’t want to jump but standing there completely dried alone just screamed weird. I wrestled with my thoughts for a second at most and was disrupted by cheers of the cackling hyenas, giggles and hushed words implied that whoever it was, was the flavor of the day. I stared at the water hoping to catch a curious glimpse at this suitor that seemed to have wooed a slew of young women and was surprised. His hair caressed his skin with its onyx waves while he moved gracefully through the water, like butter being passed through with a knife, his body cut out of the water as he hoisted himself through with the ladder joined to the waterfront. I studied his muscles that moved in symphony as he moved hand over hand, water dripping from every crevice and cut. Like marble cut fresh and polished over. My face felt hot quickly as soon as I noticed that he had turned and met my gaze. I felt exposed. His eyes were haunting pools of black that seemed to have burned when looked at for too long. I turned my head, maybe looking at the water and pretending to search for my sister might make him advert and continue whatever conversation he was having at the time with one of the hyenas. It didn’t. 

“Hello.”

A caramel voice oozed a greeting and left me frozen. I jumped because I wasn’t convinced that this person is literally talking to me, I even looked to my left sure that I was mistaken and was confused to see that I was.

“Uhhh… H-hi?”

“So are you just going to stand here the entire time or are you actually going to go swimming?”

“Well I, u-uh, Yeah I was planning on it but I wasn’t sure how the water felt or anything and didn’t want to freeze to death you know?”

Really. Thats the best you could come up with?

He ran his hand through his hair shaking the residual water out, he cracked a smile as if he knew that was obviously a bluff but something read that his black pools were soft. They greeted me warmly. 

“Come.”

His hand outstretched covered with veins and light hair that speckled through, warmth is being offered from a strange man so why not. Not like I have anything better to do. 

“Okay…”

I took his hand and trusted him as he guided me toward the end of the waterfront, questioning looks from the pack and I could feel the intense analysis of my body being a process. 

“Hey, I realized I didn’t ask your name?”

The more we walked, the more slick it became thick with wet bare feet running through repetitively. I leaned way more into his hand than I wanted too but lord, I was not about to bust my ass on the ground.

“Quinton, but you can call me quint for short, usually everyone does. What's yours? Sorry I’m horrible at introductions.” He suppressed a light laugh and maybe a hint of embarrassment? We finally came at the end of the waterfront and was briefly introduced to his friends, Micah and Max, both seem to be the main culprits of the suitors that the pack was still lingering around. Micah was short, maybe as tall as me at 5’ 7 with copper hair that had ringlets dangling about his pale face, something said that he and Quint were close based on the eye gestures Micah tossed about, he looked up to him. 

“Oh no, you did not let my man lure you in!”

Max smiled wryly at Quint and made his gaze back over, green eyes greeted me kindly and offered an olive tree of friendliness amongst strangers.

“ I’m Max, seems like you’ve already met Quint, don’t let him convince you to do anything because unfortunately he has a bad habit of doing it with us.”

“Hence all the extravagant diving!” Micah waved his hands about and bowed in an incredibly dramatic fashion. “Quint being the swim nut that he is, he’s always trying to level up everyone and it gets old but it's okay, at least we can play into the benefits right?”

Micah gave a wave to the girls still idling near bye and a squeal of giggles erupted, I laughed nervously and tucked as much hair behind my ear that I could before giving a reply.

“Well I actually just met him, he thinks i’m weird for being dry and watching everyone swim but I just don’t want to get cold!” I playfully rolled my eyes, maybe if I match the same enthusiasm that was presented I might just be able to get away with being cool, these guys were obviously a few years older than me so why would I ruin that opportunity? That's all I heard about from high school, the benefits of being with older people in upper classes and that you can get access to anything was enticing.

I noticed that the entire duration of talking to the guys, Quint was still holding my hand, and while typically I would feel absolutely weird and probably creeped out about it something was just so familiar. It felt normal. Quint was quicked to assess the conversations and was reserved, almost as observing but providing small touches of smiles and shrugs here and there, He was even quicker to notice my thought process and was able to put two and two together.

“Ready?”

The guys who were laughing moments ago became serious instantly, They both gripped the side of the waterfront and lifted themselves perfectly to a standing position balancing seemingless. I couldn’t help but gaze in awe as a perfectly timed synchronization of twisting and flipping through the air was accomplished and disappeared into the water below almost within a blink.

Quint pulled on my hand issuing that I should follow, I nervously did but was not quite sure what he was expecting me to do, I cant jump and do crazy flips like that! The more I walked the more I felt like I didn’t belong there. That I should leave. The intense pit back again and barreling deep into my chest now and the heavy thumps proving louder in my ears, I was sure he could hear it. He guided me to the edge of the dock. I looked at him and told him that I was scared, I don’t know you and I don’t want to jump but I feel like I must. That I have too.

“It’s okay stranger, you just have to trust me.”

And just as quick as was spoken, the icy waters caved in around me and pulled me

Down

Down

Down

Into

The

Abyss

You 

Held

Me

In

The

Darkness

And I wished to never come up for air again.

#writing book reading goth alternative mentalhealth venting friends

[spacebunniis]

meta topic: Yexia and how she changes over the course of the story :3c (i know i already Know This but i love it a lot and i think it deserves to be OUT THERE ON YOUR BLOG !!!) ♥

you are the bessssttt ;;U;;❤️❤️❤️❤️

prepare for a LOT

I HAVE

SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT YEXIA AND HOW SHE GROWS AND CHANGES

uhhh under a cut because even I wrote more than I expected to

alright here is angry nightmare child’s growth to semi-decent tough girl with a good(ish) heart

let’s start! all the way at the beginning!

Yexia is the 5th of 6 siblings, and the clear favorite  of her parents because she’s the strongest (physically, and more importantly, in the force). It’s not exactly a favoritism that is rewarded with anything other than her parents at least do praise her versus the cold indifference (or sometimes disdain) her parents show to her siblings. They still push her to be stronger, and only encourage her to push herself, to go far, and make it obvious that she’s only successful if she has something to show for it. She’s the one who is going to carry their family name, who is not only going to hold their prestige, but raise up their legacy, make their family name better. Yexia and her siblings are all regularly encouraged to fight each other to ‘improve’ their skills, and they do not hold back. At a fairly young age Yexia has a spar against her force-blind sister Izhae, and leaves half of Izhae’s face covered in a burn scar. (sidenote that I don’t know if I’ve talked about before - instead of base game abilities, I always imagine Yexia’s force abilities being more fire based, to match her…explosive…personality  :’D ) This isn’t the only time she leaves scars on her siblings (granted, she’s also got quite a few from them).

By the time she arrives as an apprentice at Korriban she is well and truly awful. She’s her parents favorite, so she’s nothing but a cocky, overconfident asshole. She thinks she’s the best, and she deserves whatever she wants just because she’s so great. There’s not a lot of people who get along with Yexia because she’s hard to get along with. She’s blunt, and not in the good way - it’s just plain rudeness. Yexia delighted in tormenting and taunting others, because that’s how you show you’re better than them. Whatever she’s doing she rushes in with blind surety and recklessness because of course she knows what’s best, of course she can take down anything and anyone.

However, as an apprentice she’s also faced with, for the first time, realizing that everything isn’t going to come easy to her, it’s not all going to be handed to her. It’s not that she isn’t strong, she is, but in what is news to her, so are plenty of other people. There’s plenty of other strong force-users, some who even rival or exceed her. But she has to be the best, and her instinct in the face of this is just to get angrier, and more reckless, and just be more of an asshole in the quest to prove she’s the strongest.

One of the first things that begins changing her world view is Vette, who really is the first to both not be afraid of Yexia AND not to immediately just (rightfully) hate Yexia for being so insufferable. The two of them working together, and Yexia having to rely on Vette for something she can’t do starts to make Yexia reconsider some things. And also you know, first ever friend! Yay! So Vette is able to put up with Yexia’s assholery, give some of it back, and still be enjoyable and nice and well…it feels good to have a relationship with someone that’s based on anything that isn’t hate or rivalry. Yexia doesn’t really know what to do with herself (which does lead to her falling back on just saying rude or angry shit when she’s overwhelmed/doesn’t know how to correctly process feelings).

And of course next, one of the most important factors, naturally, is Azhiera. Apart from being forced to work together, Yexia is drawn to Azhiera for many reasons, just many she can’t exactly figure out at first. For one, she is definitely attracted to her, but doesn’t even realize that until MUCH. MUCH LATER. But also at the beginning I think, she’s a little afraid of Azhiera to be honest. Azhiera is strong, and in the face of a lot more obstacles than Yexia has ever had to face. Even not knowing Azhiera’s entire history, she is still an alien (and a chiss at that) at the academy. And like Vette, Azhiera is never really intimidated by Yexia, which definitely throws her off. This small, sassy, blueberry just refuses to be intimidated, and actually messes with Yexia. Azhiera sasses Yexia back, “accidentally” zaps her, and Yexia gets angry but always comes up short of actually doing anything more than being all bark and no bite at responding to whatever Azhiera is doing.

The more they work together the more Yexia realizes she likes Azhiera, and that, in a weird way they are friends. But she has no way of … properly conveying that, or conveying how important Azhiera is to her with words so it comes out more through actions. She’s always a shield between Azhiera and enemies, she tries to say nice things even if it usually comes out weirdly phrased, in a yell, or roundabout way.

She also begins talking more about feelings with Vette because Vette (mostly) doesn’t make fun of her. The relationship she ends up having with Vette is, Yexia eventually realizes, the kind of relationship most siblings have. They bicker, they tease each other, but at the end of the day they have each other’s backs. They don’t try to one up each other, she doesn’t feel like she has to be better than Vette - they’re equals. And she starts seeing Azhiera as an equal too (or, honestly maybe placing her above a little bit, not that she’d ever admit it but she’s pretty damn smitten).

Which, as cliché as it is, also contributes to her growth. Finding something other than anger as a passion, something like love, a desire to protect her friends and found family - that really pushes her to finally start thinking beyond herself. She (as long as it took) finally begins to realize the ways everyone she encounters has a whole life, their own passions and goals, and that she could never be the best at everything. Everyone has their own strengths - and for the longest time she was only using her strength in the pursuit to become stronger and nothing more. She is still a pretty brutal Sith, and still works her way up in the Empire, but she’s not quite as unforgiving, she’s more willing to show mercy rather than brutally end anyone who crosses her.

(I still haven’t finished warrior’s story though know most of it so bare with me as I skip ahead to expansions!)

Later on she ends up working as Linalae’s right-hand officer (whatever that position is?? idk), because by the time they’re facing Valkorion and Arcann, Yexia is a much more mature person. She still uses her outside voice more than often, is quick to anger and often very intimidating but she’s better at stepping back and actually evaluating situations, in actually giving fair responses to situations. She’s also finally able to take orders from others, and recognize someone like Linalae as a good leader, and someone worth following. (Begrudgingly she also becomes something of a squad 'leader’ for a group of blueberries that has until now been Vette and Azhiera, is joined by my inquisitor Ziseshis, and eventually any other blue babe in the alliance who realizes, they can all kind of stand behind her and let her take all the damage for them, even if she complains and yells about it, she’s gonna protect them).

And, to come full circle, let’s end with family too!! By the time she’s in the alliance she’s lost contact with all her siblings. It’s not like they were ever close to begin with. But she does return home one last time to formally let her parents know she’s not carrying on the family name the way they want her to. At this point she’s lost an arm (that’s a story for another time!), and she tells her parents she’s in love with Azhiera, a chiss, and she doesn’t plan on returning home ever again. Needless to say her parents are furious, and rather than yell or explode at her Yexia just, finally receives the cold indifference they had been giving to all her other siblings. She’s just ignored. So she leaves and returns to her real family.

Eventually out of morbid curiosity she asks Linalae to check in on her sister Izhae. All Yexia knows about her is that she was in the military, since it was her only way of proving any strength. Linalae discovers Izhae also became a Cipher Agent, however, is listed as KIA. It’s not something Yexia can cry over, or even feel a deep sadness over, but it still stirs up something more now than it would’ve in the past. She at least wishes she could’ve apologized to Izhae, for a lot of things. However, she does get the chance to apologize to one of her siblings. When she and her siblings came of age, it was her family’s tradition to send them out to face a large and hard to take down beast as a right of passage (how Yexia got the scars on her face). It is expected that they defeat the monster and return, or die in battle (because coming back without defeating the beast would be unthinkable). Her sister Jaeyi never returned from the fight, and was presumed dead when Yexia was incredibly young. She was used as an example of how Yexia and her siblings shouldn’t be weak, of what not to be. Jaeyi was brutally injured facing the beast, but in her nearly last moments she became so fearful for her death that she was able to drag herself to freedom, far away from the beast before collapsing. She was discovered and healed, and eventually found herself among Jedi who wanted her to join them. Her upbringing and this experience made Jaeyi an incredibly fearful and meek person, bad at standing up for herself, scared of her own shadow, but still trying her best to prove her worth among the Jedi - to prove that saving her was worth it. Still, she never fit in that well, and didn’t feel she was particularly strong or worth while. And since I’ve already rambled enough about Jaeyi on accident - the long story short is, Yexia ends up finding Jaeyi and bringing her back to the Alliance, where Jaeyi is welcomed and slowly begins to fit in. The two of them have a lot to rebuild in their relationship; when Yexia finds Jaeyi, Jaeyi is terrified Yexia will drag her back to their parents or kill her on the spot. It takes a long time for Jaeyi to stop being scared of Yexia. But she gets to watch the way Yexia interacts with everyone, how Yexia has respect and people listen to her, but they don’t respect or listen to her out of fear - Yexia’s actually earned it.

Overall, by the end Yexia is still rough, and speaks somewhat crudely, and jumps to conclusions or actions too quickly a lot of the time. She still yells a lot, and isn’t always good at expressing genuine emotions, or saying nice things. But, underneath all that she is pretty sweet - she genuinely tries to help her friends, she definitely does everything she can to protect what and who she believes is worth protecting. She learns how to step back and assess situations, how to do things that will benefit her and others, she learns how sometimes she needs to put the needs of others before herself. And she’s also pretty good at giving those back-breaking, lifted off the ground hugs.

So that’s !! A lot on Yexia :’D a very angry tomato. I love her so much and to anyone who reads all this thank you so much????? i have lots of thoughts and feelings and so much i wanna write for her and idk if i even conveyed everything properly but ;v; here’s a big long wall of words and love!! TvT

#cipherr #answering things #yexia zveris #azhiera #HOLY WOW THIS WAS SO MUCH #i feel like i could write more too but I WILL SAVE IT #and try to write actual fics fdfdskfdsj #oh i guess i can also start tagging #izhae zveris #jaeyi zveris

[deitiesofduat]

I was wondering if u can do a bunch of random facts/headcannons for the main cast?

Oh man, I mean, I’m happy to try, but I’m not sure where to start for the entire cast of 10… well, now 11 gods. I know have some that are scattered around the blog’s tags, and also in places other than tumblr, but It’ll take me a bit to find them or think of new ones without revealing spoilers, hmm…

So here’s what I’ll try that’s similar to the 1 Like 1 Fact meme I did on twitter a while ago: for every note this post receives, I’ll add a DEITIES-related headcanon or fact about the main cast. The main cast includes Set, Horus, Anubis, Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, Bastet, Sekhmet, Thoth, Ra, and nowwwww Sobek – and maybe the Set Spawn and the big bad serpent too, if relevant. You can add a note by +liking this post, and if you’re interested in learning about a particular deity, you can mention their name in a comment (and it’s not necessary to reblog this, unless you want to!).

This should help give me a bit more focus and time to think of some decent non-spoiler headcanons/facts to share. I’ll come back to this post in a few hours and add any many as I can, depending on the amount of notes it receives, and I’ll bump and place them under the cut for easy access. So yeah, go for it /o/!!

[1] Been playing with a headcanon where Horus’s Eye can see an object’s or person’s weak spots – though only for like, a moment once it’s activated, cuz I’ve wanted to avoid him being OP (but then again… he’s a literal god… so >>)

Also a related-headcanon where he can see a person’s past injuries thru his Eye too, including the hidden ones that have long-ago healed and left no visible scar. I’d like to draw the ones he “sees” on others one day if I keep it…

[2] Set is the only one of his siblings that doesn’t have an avian sacred animal, and for a while I wanted to keep it that way and literally keep him “grounded” compared to his family (sans Anubis). But I found that he’s sometimes also associated with crows (and falcons??? interestingly enough), and even though I haven’t found solid evidence of this yet, I also like the idea of him being associated with bats even before I read about it in Kane Chronicles I swear– So those 2-3 animals are probably some alternate animal form that he has but just rarely takes.

[3] Actually while I’m at it– aside from the Sha Animal, here’s a list of 30-ish animals that I keep as Set’s canon forms in DEITIES verse (based on a combination of historical speculation, recorded myths, and personal headcanons), and would love to eventually draw him as one day:

Aardvark, African Wild Ass (and Donkey), Giant Anteater, Baboon, Bat, Boar/Pig, Bull, Camel, Crocodile, Crow/Raven, Dog (some sort of sighthound?), Fennec Fox, Fish (Eel?), Gazelle/Antelope, Giraffe, Goat, Goose, Hare/Rabbit, Hippopotamus, [Spotted] Hyena, Jackal, Jerboa, Okapi, Oryx, Panther, Rat, Scorpion, Shark, Snake (Viper), and Zebra/Quagga.

[4] RELATEDLY… I REALLY REALLY like the idea of Set somehow acquiring a Thylacine form even tho it’s in no realistic way in the current timeline because thylacines weren’t native to Africa let alone Egypt. BUT… I JUST… THEY REMIND ME OF SHA ANIMALS SO MUCH o)——–

[5] When I was considering the color schemes for the main cast, I once briefly envisioned a purple/violet scheme for Nephthys, but decided to scrap it because (1) I wanted her colors to contrast with her sister’s and match a bit more with her husband’s and son’s and (2) I found that purple was nigh impossible to find in AE wall art and admittedly worried “maybe it won’t look authentic if I use those colors;;;”

Even though I’m happy with her orange/black/red scheme now, I’ve recently found that purple is a common association / kemetic UPG (or doxa?) with her?? SO THAT WAS INTERESTING… I don’t think I’ll change her color scheme for DEITIES, but maybe I’ll draw her in an alternate purple outfit one day to see how it looks on her >>

[6] One of the reasons why I like Horus, Anubis, and Bastet as their own casual friend group in DEITIES verse is that, because they’re all relatively young gods, they all share the experience/pressure of being measured up against their older royal relatives – Horus being seen as both his father and mother’s legacy and feeling the pressure to restore his family’s throne; Anubis being know for his infamous father, and even having his paternity questioned (via rumors and “myths”); and Bastet being the youngest of Ra’s daughter, sometimes being compared to her sister’s roles and achievements.

They’re all really good at masking any pressure they feel, but they also probably confide in each other about it more than with others, cuz they’ve all “been there.”

[7] Relatedly, one of the earliest version of DEITIES Project, before it was known as “Deities Project,” had Horus, Anubis, and Bastet as the main trio. That’s been changed “for reasons” since then, and their characters were quite different back then, but it might be fun to explore a story that focused on the 3 of them someday.

[8] Okay ya’ll know the part during The Contendings where Horus and Set are racing in stone boats and Horus “wins” by painting his wooden boat to look like stone? I have ideas for how that entire race happens in DEITIES verse that would be fun to explore as a side story, but in order for me to give Horus a “legit” way to win without outright cheating, he covers his boat with stone casing/accents, and after he wins and is confronted about it… well…

HORUS: “The rules we agreed on were to sail a boat made with stone. They said nothing about it needing to be made entirely out of stone.”SET: “…”HORUS: “ :)c ”SET: “…” *Internally raging*

[9] I’ve headcanon’d that Nephthys has her own set of ~7 Shabti who act as her personal assistants while she’s conducting her nightly duties, or working around her home, but I haven’t decided much more past that (still debating on how she acquired them, and if she more-than-likely named them…).

The concept and number were loosely based on how many of the other goddesses had their own sets of 7 as extensions of their power and/or control (7 Ribbons of Hathor, 7 Arrows of Sekhmet, Isis’s 7 Scorpions), and I thought it’d be neat if the Goddess of Service had her own Shabti that exemplified that part of her domain.

[10] Thoth is an avid lover of puzzles, trivia, and strategy games, and he’s also exceptionally skilled at games of chance. He doesn’t gamble or make bets often because he understands the risks, but when he does he tries to be calculative about it… and also has a natural knack for luck going his way (EX: That one game of senet that he won to help assist Nut with having her children… which is another story for another day)

[11] Ummmmm Isis is the only one of the main cast who I haven’t drawn a ref of her sacred animal form yet… or at least, not digitally. Her animal is the kite, but I’ve been debating on a while for what species to base her design on. I like the idea of her kite form looking like the Black-winged Kite, although those species aren’t native to Egypt… but some are native to Africa… and they’re so fricken pretty and they fit her colors so well so I might cave on this ffffffffffff–

[12] While we’re on the subject of sacred animals (and to help me get somewhat closer to the note count lmao I’m trying guys–), Horus’s falcon form is based on both the Peregrine falcon and the Lanner falcon, with more simplified markings for my own sanity when I draw him in dozens of panels.

At one point, I considered making his falcon form leucistic to contrast more with Anubis and Set, buuuuuut I also liked the brown colors on the falcons’ normal coloration, so I kept it. (That and more leucistic birds of prey are hawks, so… maybe for Khonsu tho if I don’t change him to an owl, hmmmm…)

[13] Okay continuing thoughts on animal forms, Bastet is able to shift her cat form into nearly any coloration or breed she desires (aside from her eyes, which remain green), but for the purposes of DEITIES I draw her as a brown cat with light gradation markings. I knew of the Egyptian Mau but also realized the spots would take a lot of effort to redraw in the panels where she appears as a cat (much like the spots on falcons for Horus). I also personally really like solid-colored coats on cats, and in particular I liked the coloration of the Havana Brown, so it may be a little less authentic but it did factor into her colors as well.

[14] I'm still debating on Sekhmet's main hairstyle and want to play with it a bit more -- not the arrangement per se but whether to keep it as locks or to make them more obvious twists -- or perhaps a combination -- since I can see her with both style at certain points in time. Either way, at full length Sekhmet's hair is very long: if she were to loosen her tie and let it fall, her longest locks would reach past her hips.

[15] I initially gave Set yellow eyes because even though he's often depicted with red eyes, I didn't want to over saturate his design with just... well, red -- especially in his animal form where his entire body is covered in red fur (red eyes + red sclera would have been, a lot). I like how his yellow eyes provide some contrast, and I've since found some story-related reasons where his eyes might play some role in the plot… but anything further might be spoilery 8')c

[16] It took me a while to settle on Osiris's "resurrected" skin tone because there were a lot of sources that describe his skin as being green, or blue, or black in coloration. I even tried them out in an earlier color test that I shared on patreon, but I eventually went with black since the color has had various meanings in Ancient Egypt that include both life and death. (It also gave me some opportunity to give green skin to Ptah and blue skin to Hapi to help vary the designs for each of those gods).

[17] Relatedly, Osiris's mortal form is a naturally dark skin tone, but following this death he can no longer appear in that form. He is also unable to travel to the overworld / realm of the living, though I'm still debating on how restrictive this is (if it's limited to his physical body or if he can split his soul under special circumstances, or with assistance). Regardless, most of his correspondence with other deities have to be arranged within Duat for this reason.

[18] I haven't made any plans to designate a spouse or romantic partner for Ra. I understand that there were a number of goddesses that were associated with him in the myths and often said to be his wife, but for that reason it was hard to settle on choosing one -- or multiple, and I realized that for the purpose of the main story it might not be necessary. I also kinda like exploring the idea of this high king and powerful creator deity who's also a happily single father, and where it's not for tragic reasons like the separation from or death of his spouse (not to knock that trope at all tho sdjfdsf). I'm not opposed to him being shipped with anyone though, I just don't think I've been inclined to do it myself lmAO;;

[19] RELATEDLY, while Ra's daughters (Sekhmet, Mafdet, Hathor, Serqet, Bastet) don't have a biological mother, I like to think that they were raised in an environment with a lot of parental figures and mentors to go around, aside from just their father. I haven't quite settled on how it was organized though, but I know that the daughters regard Thoth as something of an uncle/secondary dad (tho their dynamic with Thoth is can vary a lot from the one the have with Ra), as well as their teacher and mentor. I can also see where other gods like Khnum, Khepri, and Bes, and goddesses like Neith, Seshat, Taweret, Ma'at, and Mut, might also have played some direct mentor role in the daughters' upbringing and sense of self.

[20] (squick + implied nsfw) I uh… have this minor gag headcanon where Horus, Isis, and Osiris just don't eat fish. They just… don't. And it's entirely based on that one part of the myths after Osiris's death, where a certain part of Osiris's desecrated body ended up in the river and was swallowed by a fish 8')c (should be noted that I'm not saying that event did happened in DEITIES canon, but I'm also not disputing it either >>).

Apparently that was considered a bad omen, and I still find conflicting information on whether consumption of fish was taboo for some or all in Ancient Egypt (I think "for some" makes better sense, cuz why would an entire society that resides near the Nile river pass up on a perfectly available food source?? But I digress, I might need to review this again so take my thoughts with a grain of salt--). I also admit that I've seen it mentioned that fish are not ideal food offerings for Isis and Osiris?? and I can imagine that maybe Horus adopts the distaste for them as well. Either way, I go with the DEITIES canon that while most people and deities happily consume fish, Horus and his parents will not, and they don't enjoy it as offerings either.

I’MMMMMM gonna end it here for now cuz my headcanons have run dry for the time being, thank you guys!!

#// I'M SRSLY JUST blanking on new facts right now o)-----< but I wanna give this a try later after I make dinner in a bit #// I will… also see if I can make a tag for the headcanon-type replies since it seems that people are interested in them! #DEITIES asks #general asks #meme #Horus #Set #Anubis #Bastet #Nephthys #Ra #Thoth #Isis #Osiris #Sekhmet #headcanons

[tornadoofboredom-blog]

WHY I AM THE WAY I AM

edit: i know this is really long but y’all don’t have to read all of it. just part of it. i’ve struggled with trying to speak about my emotions for my whole life. so i want to start this blog explaining my purpose. thank u to everyone who has even glanced at this, i appreciate and love you even tho i don’t know you 💛

During my childhood, I was relatively happy. I knew that my family didn’t have a lot of money and we weren’t rich, but we still were comfortable. My parents were divorced, but still did everything they could to make sure we have what we needed. While I was also pretty happy, I was also very unhappy. When I was 11 or 12, my grandfather had passed away. He was the rock in our household. He kept everything together and we all just lived in harmony. After he died, my mom and my step dad both lost their jobs. I can’t remember the reasons now, but a lot of it was because of the recession at the time. So for about 6 months, we were barely scraping by with what we had. It was the lowest my family has been. I was so upset at the time because I couldn’t go to work for my family and help them. All I wanted to do was help. It was so hard for us to get the basic necessities and get everything covered. We struggled and we still do to this day, but the difference now is that I can help. Since my personality type is a INFJ, we are people that are naturally motivated to help others. We like to make an impact; some go for small while others go big. Helping people is something that I’ve always been drawn to. For a while, I wanted to become a social worker. But now that I’m more in tune with my creative side, I’d like to make a bigger impact through art and unique experiences.

Since my parents were divorced, we stayed with our mom during the week and saw my dad every other weekend. For the longest time, he lived in Sheldon with his girlfriend, Gina, and her daughter, Angelica. At first everything was great and we all got along well. But after Gina got comfortable around us, she started to show her manipulative side. She was very controlling and would verbally lash out if things were not done to her standards. Looking back, I think a lot of this started my anxiety. I was so anxious that I would mess things up and get yelled at or punished some other way. Since I am the oldest out of my sisters, I think Gina felt there was a competition between me and Angelica. If I had a shining moment, she would try to push me aside and try to bring the attention to Jelly, Angelica's nickname. Sometimes she would just say stuff to degrade me and made me feel less than. I still feel that lasting effects of this. I still have anxiety when it comes to having a spotlight on me. I think people in general just give me anxiety because they are so unpredictable. Throughout all of this, my favorite way to spend time with my dad and escape Gina was through us drawing. My sisters and father would all just sit around the dining room table together and just draw anything. It was a way for us to improve our skills and spend quality time with him. I credit him for my passion for art and drawing. He taught us the value and importance of art and how it can mean anything you want. My dad introduced us to our favorite form of self-expression and I’m gonna be grateful that he did that for probably the rest of my life.

Growing up with mental illness is strange. You want to feel closer to your peers, but worry constantly that they won’t accept you. Since this area is can be very judging, there was definitely some societal pressure that made me want to conform to how they were. There was also a lot to alot with at home. My mom also had problems with anxiety and depression due to her childhood and teen years. This only worsened when my grandpa died. For a while, we were all going through it. Mental illness is hereditary, so it does make sense that my family would have to deal with bipolar disorder, anxiety, and depression. We all have a little bipolarness, even if its not severe or moderate, it’s still noticeable. Children growing up with mental illness tend to be much aware of feelings in my experience. They tend to be more mature and have more empathy. It’s also very common for children to grow up with anxiety and depression. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, at least 80% of children grow up with anxiety and 60% are getting left untreated for depression. Knowing that a lot of my peers grew up with this makes me want to create a better world and society that we can all thrive in.

To help fulfill my purpose, there are a couple of things I could do with my life. I could either go into politics and try to work in the system, or I could create a visual line to spread my message of peace and positivity. I really want to do it through a creative line because it’s something I could see myself doing for the rest of my life. Preferably I’d be self employed; the goal is to gain success and be able to make a decent living. After that, I want to make myself and my family comfortable. Following that, I want to move on to society and people in the world. There are so many people out there that have the resources to fix our broken world, but are too selfish and full of greed. To me, this is the ultimate evil. Why not make everyone happy for generations to come? Right now, our earth is at a pivotal moment. We either help it and save it, or it dies. If I could help preserve something that can be enjoyed for eons to come, I’d be willing to do whatever I could.

What is so ironic to me is that I want to help people, but I have a hard time dealing with my own anxiety. I wouldn’t say my anxiety is crippling, but it definitely has an affect on me. I stress so hard when it comes to money or anything of the sort. Honestly, there’s a lot of different things that can trigger me. Just having to sacrifice some personal happiness, sometimes food, or just other necessities starts to take a toll of someone. I feel that if everyone has basic things we don’t have to worry about, then anxiety and depression would be less prevalent. In general, people are less happy when they are in poverty. In 2010, a review was created that included 115 studies from across 33 different countries-the countries ranged from developed to developing- about poverty and mental illness. 80% of the studies concluded that poverty does come with a higher rate of mental illness (Sohn). Not only that, but the same studies also found that mental illness is more severe, damaging, and lengthy. This is especially true for disorders like depression and anxiety. Growing up, I didn’t really know that what I was thinking or going through had to do with mental illness. No one really talked about it so I would keep it in.

Even though I do struggle with controlling my anxiety, I never try to let it prevent me from fulfilling my goals, small or large. One thing that keeps me inspired to go through with my future goals is the Flatbush Zombies. The Flatbush Zombies are a rap group out of Brooklyn, New York City. Their music talks a lot about opening your mind to new ideas and experiences. They also rap a lot about the political climate and change for people. When I went to their concert, I knew from that moment what I really wanted to do with my life. Before that, I was still very undecided and indecisive. The following quote by Erick Arc Elliott is one of the best they have.

“A person who has never failed will never know

How to deal with the billows of the bottom

And will never truly appreciate

What it's like to be comfortable with themselves

Pushing the boundaries to societal norms

This man took on the task to be an indifferent

While others stood by with a simplistic outlook”

This quote really speaks to me because it’s a reminder that it’s okay to fail every once in a while. One can never know what the top is like if they haven’t experienced the bottom. I want to be able to push society into something better and more loving. Flatbush just reminds me and inspires me to keep the vision alive. . Without them, I don’t know where I would be to this day. My life would be on a completely path, and I would still have a feeling that I’m lost. I will be forever grateful to Flatbush for opening my mind and helping me find my purpose.

When asked about my purpose, I feel that there are a lot of ways I can answer that question. I could settle and go to college for archeology and history. If I would take this route, I wouldn’t be able to make a big impact like I want to. If I would do graphic design, it would be the start to make the large impact that I want to. I would be satisfied with both, but I want to pursue a passion. I feel that archaeology would be fun, but that I would be missing out on what could’ve been. The impact that I want to make is probably going to take years to come into fruition but I’m okay with that-good things take time. According to my own natal birth chart, my conjunction jupiter is in saturn. This means that I am serious, patient, honest, hard-working, orderly. My judgment is good and I think things over. I will pursue my objectives to the bitter end, usually knowing when to choose the right moment. This is going to come in handy when I want to run my own business and all aspects of it. I’m also gonna need to rely on the stores of energy I can have and stay motivated.

Getting insight about yourself and doing some self reflection is something I feel that everyone should do. Personally, I like to look at my astrological natal birth chart. A birth chart is a map of where all the planets were on their rotation around the sun at the exact time of your birth. It also can help you know your strengths and weaknesses, opportunities for soul growth, and the best timing for important moves and decisions in your life. Each planet means symbolizes something different. Astrological charts have been around since 3300 B.C. when the Babylonians developed the system the Sumerians and created the zodiac wheel we use today. For example, my moon sign is in scorpio. The moon sign is your emotional personality. To put it shortly, I am emotionally courageous, brave, independent, not a fearful nature. Moon is scorpios are often a very sensual and progressive. This is very accurate to how I am emotionally. I am not afraid to say what I’m feeling and move forward. I need communication to progress forward and grow. Weaknesses that I have is that my feelings could bubble over. I also tend to be secretive and tend to bury feelings because feelings tend to be really intense. In summary, my birth chart and the description would fit my personality type, INFJ.

Horoscopes obviously can’t tell you everything about your life, but it can help guide you. Of course there are very bad and generic horoscopes, but there are also good websites and places to read them. There’s a lot of people that discredit astrology, but I’d say it's just another way of faith but more personalized. If the moon controls the ocean and we are 70% water, its logical to think that the planets would have an effect on us. I’m really open minded when it comes to creation and what our purpose is. I’ve read texts from the bible to documentaries on how our world could be a simulation. The simulation was very, very different. Basically, it states that we are created here for a purpose. The “creator” or whoever would be running the simulation has created us for a purpose. This sits better with me than being put on earth to worship some higher being that punishes us if we don’t. But like I said, I’m open to just about anything and have thought of a lot of different scenarios. I don’t know the answer and I don’t think I’ll find it until death. All I know, is that everyone has a purpose and mine is to create a change for the benefit of society.

#poetry #writing #writers #poets on tumblr #flatbush zombies #divorce #purpose #youmatter #speak now #openmind #openyoureyes #destiny

[thehellishtrinity]

The Virus Lurks (A Human!Trinity Squip AU) Part 1/3

A/N This is what happens when you get super into this blog and then watch The Incredibles right after XD

So yeah, our fav three Squips are human as in they’re physical (and Jeremy’s adoptive guardians) but checks now equal some kind of power. They’re basically supers, that’s all you need. Anyway, I really you like this! :3

Something was wrong; Jeremy knew that much. He didn’t know what it was or if he was even right, but something was off with Muse.

Jeremy didn’t consider himself an observant person, and despite living with his three guardians for nearly five years now, he wasn’t as close to Muse compared to Page or Script, but…dammit he just knew!

Ever since Muse had gone out for a walk to blow off some steam a day ago, everything about Muse was off; his attitude, his actions, even how he spoke. If it was just those factors, Jeremy might have brushed it off, but ironically, it was the shocks that tipped him off.

Muse only ever shocked him if he was in a bad mood or if Jeremy did something he wasn’t supposed to. Not only was Muse suddenly shocking him at random for seemingly no reason, but the shocks seemed sharper and crueler than the shocks he knew.

Page and Script seemed completely oblivious to the whole ordeal, despite Jeremy trying to bring it up. So for now, Jeremy decided to just keep an eye on Muse; who knew, maybe he was just paranoid and nothing was wrong.

But then again…he could be right.

Meanwhile, in a decent sized cell, a blue Squip hung about three feet off the ground, his head low. Red chains bound his wrists behind him and also wrapped around his body, keeping his arms completely pinned. Muse wasn’t sure how long he had been here; the cell was so dark and there were no windows.

“Rise and shine, Muse~” A sickening voice sang. Muse raised his head as a projection of Virus walked towards him. His real body was back home, where his imitation game was still going on.

“What do you want?” Muse growled.

“Oh, so angry,” Virus cooed. “Or…I should say scared.”

Muse’s glare became murderous, “Shut u-” The chains suddenly tightened and electricity coursed through him, making him barely yell out in pain.

“Behave, now,” Virus said dangerously. “Don’t you want to hear about your precious family?”

Muse’s eyes widened, “What did you do to them?!”

“Nothing…yet,” Virus said. “I’m going to take my time with this, seeing as they don’t suspect a thing.” He started pacing around Muse. “I must say, I didn’t know you were the type to have children.” Muse froze in horror.

“That boy of yours, Jeremy, he’s a clumsy little thing, isn’t he?” Virus went on. “But I can see why you decided to keep him; there’s something about him you just can’t live without, and I must admit, I am enjoying my time around him.”

Muse struggled once again, “If you lay a finger on him-” Another strong shock coursed through him, making a few red circuit marks appear on his skin for a few seconds.

“I told you, behave, or I’ll be tempted to simply end you here and now,” Virus said.

“What’s stopping you?” Muse gritted out.

Virus chuckled, “I just like to get things done efficiently,” He said. “Once your brothers are in my possession, then you can have your turn.”

Muse’s face became drawn in horror and realization and Virus walked over to the control panel nearby. “Unfortunately, my visual Check isn’t strong enough to give any visuals, so audio should be fine,” He said, pressing a button.

Muse blinked as a familiar voice came through the speaker, “Who are you?”

“Script…” He whispered.

He heard Virus imitating his voice. “I’m Muse of co-”

“Tell me the truth!” Script snapped.

Muse sucked in a breath; Script had figured it out! “Interesting,” Virus’ projection said softly. “And he was the easiest to fool.”

“Script, what’s going on here?” Muse heard Page enter and the conversation went from bad to worse.

It wasn’t long before sounds of fighting were heard. Muse could hear electricity being thrown everywhere, making him shake in fear. What was Virus doing to them?!

He could hear Script, Page, and…Muse flinched as a familiar yell came through; oh god, Jeremy. Out of everyone, he didn’t want Jeremy mixed up in all this!

Muse struggled and squirmed desperately as the noises of distress became unbearable. “Please, stop!” He cried. “Leave them alone, I’ll do anything!”

Virus only laughed, “Too little, too late, dearie.”

Muse squeezed his eyes shut, trying desperately to block out the sounds. The yells and screams seemed to echo in his head for what felt like hours. And finally…it was quiet.

“What…what happened?” Muse asked softly, panic rising. “What happened?! What did you do to them?!”

“Oh that’s not your concern anymore,” Virus said. “It’s not like you can save them.” Muse’s eyes blazed but a shock coursed through him before he could retort.

“You’re weak and helpless,” Virus hissed. “There’s nothing you can do to save them, and you can be sure that you will be their downfall.” And with that, Virus vanished.

Muse fell completely limp in his chains, his head low and spinning. Page…Script…even Jeremy…they were…

Muse felt wetness on his cheeks while his chest tightened. He was…crying? No…he didn’t cry, he was strong, he was in control, he was…he was…trapped. No one was coming for him. Before he knew it soft sobs were faintly echoing throughout the cell.

For the first time ever, Muse felt truly and utterly helpless and alone.

Meanwhile, in a small motel room, three figures sat on the two beds. Script leaned against the headboard of one, Jeremy next to him, leaning on his shoulder, while Page sat across from them on the edge of the other bed, face deep in concentration.

“I think…Muse is in trouble,” Page finally said.

“Yeah, and we’re not doing so hot either if you haven’t noticed,” Script remarked gesturing to the few cuts and bruises they had all sustained during the scuffle.

They had just narrowly escaped that imposter, Virus, as he introduced himself. It had been a terrible shock to the family, realizing that Muse had been missing all this time and had been replaced by an imposter.

It was Script who finally figured it out and took action, and things quickly turned ugly from their, forcing them to flee their home. Thankfully, Virus hadn’t followed them, but they couldn’t stay hidden, they had to find Muse.

Page frowned, “He’s close, I can feel it,” He said. “He couldn’t have gone that far if he was able to replace Muse so quickly.”

“I’m sorry…” Jeremy said softly, making both Squips look at him. “I…I thought that Muse was acting weird, but…I thought it was all in my head.” Jeremy looked away, “I should’ve said something sooner or tried to convince you guys more.”

Script squeezed his shoulder, “Hey, none of this is your fault; the guy was a damn good actor.”

“Script is right,” Page agreed, sitting on the edge of the side that Jeremy was on. “You don’t have to blame yourself Jeremy; and besides, he managed to fool Script and I, but you caught on.” Page smiled. “It’s not an easy feat to see through a disguise made to fool even Squips.” A small smile pulled at Jeremy’s face and Script rubbed his shoulder reassuringly.

Page got up and started pacing, a hand on his chin, meaning he was thinking. “Virus clearly wasn’t an ordinary Squip,” He said. “No Squip can have more than one Check, and he clearly used more than that.”

“The paralyze thing, the technopath stuff, and even the magnetism manipulation,” Script counted off on his fingers. “What do you think he is?”

“I think he’s just what he said he is; a Virus,” Page said, his face darkening. “He was made to fight Squips…and I don’t think I want to know how he got so many Checks that most likely belonged to other Squips previously.“

Script’s eyes widened in realization before looking a bit scared. Jeremy glanced between them; he had never seen them look so scared before.

“What are we gonna do?” Jeremy asked.

Page turned to the door. “I’m going to go look for him.”

“Now?” Script asked.

“Yes, now,” Page said, “You two are going to stay here.”

Script and Jeremy sat up, “But Page, you can’t just fight that guy all by yourself!” Script protested.

“Fighting him is not what I’m after,” Page said, even though he certainly wouldn’t mind knocking that piece of malware out. “My first priority is finding Muse.”  He looked at Script seriously, “Script, you watch Jeremy and keep him safe until I get back; if anything happens, get as far away from here as you can, understand?”

Script blinked but his face tightened with determination, “Understood,” He nodded.

“But what if something happens to you or Muse?” Jeremy asked.

“We’ll just have to cross that bridge if we get to it,” Page said before smiling kindly, “But you don’t have to worry, Jeremy; I don’t plan on letting Virus get the best of me.”

“How do you even plan to find him?” Script asked.

Page’s smile didn’t fade, “Did you already forget that we know a Squip with a Check specifically for things like this?”

Script’s face lit up in realization, “Oh yeah…”

Page nodded and stepped outside the door; he just hoped that he would still be able to find Muse in time. Who knew what Virus was doing to him…

 The next part will be longer, I promise, along with great amounts of family fluff. :3c

#whOOOOO BOI #I LOVE IT #GOD #THIS IS A GREAT WRITING STYLE #V NICE V NICE #MY BOOOIS #I CANT WAIT FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT #AAAAAAAAA #writing #ooc #submission

[kalinara]

Rip - honour. Rip - intelligence. Rip - savvy. Rip - interactions. Rip - groups. Rip - pride, hubris, arrogance. Rip - resiliency. Rip - attraction. Rip - relationships (any/all kinds). Rip -privacy. Rip - secrets (both keeping them and being out of the loop). Rip - touch. Rip - respect. Rip - love (all of them). Rip - disaster. Rip - loneliness. Rip - leadership. Rip - ever be ready/willing to have a relationship again? Rip - relaxation. Rip - nemesis.

Rip - honour. 

Hah, that’s an interesting prompt because my gut instinct is that he is an honorable person…for the most part.

And for a certain definition of “honor”.  (Sorry, American.  I have no time for an extra “u”.)

I think he tries to follow a code of honor when he deals with the team, as much as possible.  He lies to them, yes.  But he also tends to be very open with the risks and their chances of success.  For example, when he recruited them against Vandal Savage, he might not have told them the whole truth, but he never let them believe it was anything but a nearly-impossible quest.  He always offered to take them home, and when Mick and Snart took him up on it, he didn’t make any attempt to stop them.

But at the same time, I think that he’s used to working on a bit more of a grand scale, with stakes that make honor and fair play a bit less of a priority.

Certainly, as we’ve seen, he isn’t inclined to a fair fight.  He’s got that stunner for a reason.  And while he’s a good hand-to-hand fighter, he does his best work via sneakiness and ambush.  But he’s a scrawny man with no superpowers, so it’s debatable as to how fair some of these fights would be anyway, if he didn’t cheat.  :-P

In the end, I think he’s a pragmatist who wants to be honorable, and tries to be honorable to an extent, but is willing to push that honor aside when the stakes are high enough.

Rip - intelligence

I think Rip has a lot of ingrained assumptions and prejudices with regard to intelligence and/or education.  I think that it’s a quality that he values very highly.  And I think we can see that in the way he initially responds to the crew.

He seems to immediately find a common ground with Martin.  They clash at times, but there was an immediate mutual respect.  As bad as he often was as a leader, he was usually pretty decent at managing Ray.  (And for that matter, in Fellowship, he seemed to be even a little better at keeping Nate in line than Sara usually is.)  He seems to have a lot more patience with the kind of accidental insubordination of distracted geeks than he does with other folk.

He gets along reasonably well with folks like Sara and Jax, who may not have the fancy degrees, but have a lot of natural intelligence.  He respects, although distrusts, Snart.

And it probably, subconsciously, fed into his issues with Mick at first.  Mick is not stupid at all, but his intelligence is on a social/emotional level that the Time Masters aren’t likely to value or even recognize.  And I think Rip’s personal history adds some interesting layers to it.

Rip spent the first formative years of his life starving on the streets.  We don’t know much about that time, but I’m inclined to think that if he’s so quick to stab an adult when feeling threatened, it probably wasn’t particularly pleasant.  I think we can probably hazard a guess that there wasn’t much in the way of educational opportunities there either.

But that changed when he got recruited to the Time Masters.  Suddenly, he was in this warm, safe, place, where he could eat his fill and no one could hurt him.   It must have felt like a completely different world.  And of course, the Time Masters didn’t just give their orphans housing and an upbringing, but an education as well.  (and a healthy dose of indoctrination).

So I tend to think somewhere in the unconscious part of Rip’s mind, he associates education/intelligence with all of the good things like food, comfort, safety.  Basically civilization. Whereas the lack of education/intelligence ends up associated with the fear, cold, terror, hunger of his very early past. 

I don’t really think it’s the key reason he didn’t like Mick at first.  But I think it’s tied up in all sorts of other issues.  Mick is a criminal.  Mick is brutal.  Mick is angry and uncontrollable and violent.  Mick is uneducated.  Somewhere in the back of Rip’s mind, Mick basically is associated with everything that Rip has been raised to hate about his pre-Time Master past.  And of course, the odds are that street-kid Rip would have met people that, on surface level, seemed a lot like Mick.  And those likely would not have been fun or positive experiences.

None of this, of course, is fair to Mick.  (Fortunately, Rip seemed to realize that after the Chronos debacle, and their dynamic shifts significantly and positively in the second half of the season.)

Rip - savvy. 

Okay, so I was going to type a lot about how I think Rip values shrewdness and practical knowledge, but that’s boring and I just typed a lot about intelligence anyway.  So instead, I will talk about pirates.

I think that Rip is secretly a big fan of pirate type media, and may have, at some point during rebellious adolescence considered running away and becoming a time pirate himself.

Gideon was always a little sad that he never followed through with it.  His pirate dreams were a lot of fun, and she always thought she’d make a good pirate ship.

Rip - interactions. 

I think Rip has no idea how to interact with people on a normal, person-to-person basis, without some sort of great goal or mission in mind.

I mean, can you imagine the poor guy trying to engage in small talk?

Rip - groups

So, the most interesting thing about the JSA/Spear reveal in season two, to me (as a single-minded Rip fan) was that it showed that Rip has actually worked with a group before.  And surprisingly enough, seemed to be really effective at it.

I suspect a lot of it comes from the fact that by the time Rip recruited the JSA, they’d been working together for more than a decade.  And even back in 1942, they were pretty calm, focused and disciplined.  So it would have been pretty easy for Rip to present his case to them, and once they’d agreed to help, they would have devoted that calm, focused, discipline to the pursuit of their mutual goals.

But as we’ve seen: Time Masters tend to work alone.  So I doubt he had any real appreciation of the work that goes into creating a team like that.  Recruiting the Legends would have been a nasty surprise.

 Rip - pride, hubris, arrogance

I think that Rip does tend toward a certain arrogance.  I hesitate to call it hubris though, because I don’t think he tends toward “excessive” pride.  (I think Rip’s deadly sin is more wrath than pride, honestly.)

Rip’s arrogance comes from his abilities and experiences.  He’s a Time Master and he’s a damn good one.  He’s Captained the Waverider for twelve years.  He’s feared by time pirates.  He has a shit ton of skills and training to back that up.

I don’t however think he’s a snob.  I don’t think he has an innate sense of aristocracy, or the belief that he’s better than other people.  He was pretty quick to treat his team as his equals.  He respected Martin’s ability to use time equations, Jax’s ability as ship’s engineer, Sara’s ability to fight and to lead.  I think that his initial issues with the Rogues weren’t so much feeling as though he was better than them, as they reminded him of an origin/life that he very much wanted to forget.  There’s an interesting distinction there that might fuel its own blog post one day.

Rip’s secret keeping probably does have an element of pride, but I think it’s less about an inflated ego, and more a sense of “this is MY responsibility, I can’t put this on someone else’s shoulders.”  

Now the Time Masters on a whole?  The epitome of hubris.  There’s a reason that I think of them as the time-space Order of Hermes.  They scheme, they manipulate, they control, and they tell themselves that it’s for the best.  That they’re the best people to make these decisions.  And in the end, their machinations led to their own destruction.

Rip - resiliency

Rip is a survivor.  He kind of has to be.  We’ve seen the trauma list.  But I wonder if maybe his resiliency hasn’t met its match.  Rip’s been different since Land of the Lost.   More shaken, less certain.  And I don’t think it’s entirely about confusion over his place in the group.  

I’ve described Rip as a festering knot of rage and sarcasm wrapped in a duster (a description that I am rightfully proud of), but we haven’t seen any of that rage since Rip woke up.  Even when the poor guy was face to face with Eobard, all he managed was a tired sounding “in the brig”.  It’s worrisome.

Rip - attraction

Okay, so I mentioned before that I officially claim Rip Hunter as an asexual character.  Dude fell in love with a disembodied AI, whose only visual image is a floating blue head.  He’s one of us.

That said, it’s clear that he has romantic attraction.  We see that with Miranda, Jonah, and Gideon.  It’s not a very large sample size, I’ll grant you.  But what can you do.

But based on those, I would say that Rip seems to be drawn toward passionate, somewhat domineering personalities (Gideon’s subtler about it, but it’s definitely there), with strong convictions.  And he seems to especially like beings with a wild or uncontrollable streak.  

So this is where I reiterate the headcanon that Rip is romantically in love with his entire damn team.

(I suspect he also may have a bit of an oedipal/electra complex.)

(Bonus, slightly disturbing thought: if you look at Jonah Hex and then you look at Mick Rory, then it starts to be possible that there may have been yet another element involved in Rip’s initial difficulty in dealing with Mick.  Just saying.)

 Rip - relationships (any/all kind)

Hm.  Well.  For a Time Master, whose ethos specifically forbids most types of attachments, Rip seems to have collected a lot of them.

Miranda and Jonas are obvious, of course.

But there’s also the team, who he loves so much that even when he’s amnesiac he’s trying to save them.

There’s mentor/father figure, Druce.  Mary Xavier.  There’s Gideon.  The JSA (at least Heywood and McNider.  Courtney seemed more distant.)  Jonah.

There’s even that fucked up obsessed villain dynamic that he has with both Vandal Savage and Eobard Thawne.

I mean, really?  That’s a lot of fucking relationships.  He’s really bad at the no-attachment thing, isn’t he?

(Awkward crossover AU idea: Rip Hunter in the old Jedi Order.  or possibly  Rip Hunter, the galaxy’s worst accidental Sith ever.)

 Rip -privacy and  Rip - secrets (both keeping them and being out of the loop)

I think privacy among the Time Masters must be a really interesting concept.  They have AIs that monitor dreams.  Councils that regulate romantic relationships.  Devices to literally invade people’s minds.

That’s not a society that puts a lot of stock in privacy.

But I’m reminded of something I read about Japan, when I was much younger, which discussed how even though physical personal space was very different there than in the United States (as anyone who’s ever been crammed into a Japanese subway can attest), many Japanese people had other ways to establish personal boundaries and maintain some measure of distance from one another psychologically, even if it can’t always happen physically.

And it makes me wonder if the Time Masters don’t have their own ways of psychologically creating some measure of privacy for themselves.

It may explain why Rip finds it so difficult to open up to his crew.  What do you keep for yourself in a society where even your dreams are monitored?

That said, to Rip’s credit, he isn’t prone toward hypocrisy.  He doesn’t seem to have much of an issue when the crew keeps secrets from him too.  (He was concerned about Sara’s bloodlust, but he didn’t seem to be upset that she didn’t tell him about it, for example.)

Rip - touch

I think this is one of the ways that the Time Masters really fucked Rip up royally from day one.  Because Rip is so standoffish most of the time, so rigid and closed off, that he pretty much breathes “don’t touch me” vibes.

But as has been pointed out and illustrated in lovely gifsets, Rip is remarkably touchy-feely when people are injured.  Shoulder pats.  Face holding.  Hand holding.  And it’s not a matter of him tolerating their need for comfort.  He’s the one who reaches out.

He’s the one that, as soon as he’s freed from the brig in his mind, immediately clings to Gideon (though when it came to the kiss, she pretty much jumped up to meet him half way.  But that’s a different bit of meta.)

And then there was that weird sort of lean/not-lean into Jonah Hex’s space when they’re bantering about laser guns.

I think ultimately that Rip is not touch-averse at all.  He’s touch-starved.  He wants to reach out to people.  He wants to offer comfort and receive it.   He’d actually really enjoy a shoulder pat or a hand-shake, or a god-damned real, corporeal hug.  But he doesn’t know how to ask for it.

He gives “don’t touch me” vibes because he doesn’t know how not to.  And that’s so very sad.

Rip - respect

Okay, this one is more tangential.  But I always find myself wondering about Magister Druce.  I mean, specifically, his role in young Rip’s life.  Because Rip respects him and trusts him so damn much for most of season one.  EVEN after being lead into an ambush.  EVEN after knowing about Chronos.  EVEN after he issues the Omega Protocol.

And has that actor EVER played a good guy?  Ever?

But Rip’s utter shock when he learns the depths of Druce’s betrayal is unmistakable.

And the thing is, I’m not sure that the regard is entirely one-sided.  I’ve mentioned before that the entire Oculus reveal was basically unnecessary.  Rip was captured and likely to be executed, exiled, or just imprisoned for life.  Druce had no reason to remove him from his cell and explain everything.  Unless he seriously thought something would be gained by it.  I wonder, if Rip had given into despair and surrendered, if Druce wouldn’t have actually brought him back into the fold.  I kind of think that was the intention.  (Especially given the parallel cuts to Mick’s re-brainwashing.)

It’s pretty clear that they were mentor and student at one time.  But it seems like a little more than that.  This isn’t just a student’s respect and trust for a mentor.  It’s bigger, blinder, more unconditional than that.  It’s a child’s trust, and as we’ve seen, Rip isn’t particularly good at trusting anyone.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Druce had been grooming him from a very young age.  He might have even been the one who initially found little Michael on the streets and brought him in.  It would explain a lot.  Particularly the level of self-loathing that Rip has for his younger self.  Mary Xavier wouldn’t have encouraged that, and instead seemed gently tolerant of Michael’s issues.  Druce, however, may have.

And of course, then it leads to more speculation.  Rip may not have trusted the Time Masters, but he trusted Druce.  How much did he trust him?  Did Vandal Savage know how to find Miranda and Jonas because Rip told Druce where they were?

Rip - love (all of them). 

All of the types of love or all of the characters?  

Okay, so, this is another “I blame the Time Masters” bit, but I suspect that eros and philia are really easily mixed up in Rip’s brain.  It’s what comes of a society that stigmatizes normal human connections the way it does.  

I’ve mentioned before that I imagine Rip sees gestures of romance in the same way that we look at overtly sexual acts, and I stand by that.  In a lot of ways, I think he’d be more comfortable seeing sexual acts, as that’s just primitive biology.  Romance and friendship, concepts that prize connections between people, that prioritize certain people over others or even the world…  those are truly dangerous for a Time Master.

And considering that Rip did help break time specifically for his team, the Time Masters may have had a bit of a point.

But anyway, this is yet another chance to state my sincere belief that Rip Hunter is deeply in love with his entire team.  Even Martin.  Even Mick.  And of course, Gideon.  And he has no idea how to begin to parse out these emotions or what to do with them.

I think the Time Masters probably have a really interesting stance on storge.  There are certain implications that it’s frowned upon as well.  Certainly Jonas was a problem.  And I suspect there’s a reason Rip had to cross his own timeline in order to seek his mother’s help.

The one storge type of relationship that seems to be tolerated is Rip’s regard for Zaman Druce.  But perhaps that makes a lot of sense.  If the young Time Masters’ are only allowed one outlet for human connection, they will likely be very dependent on it, and therefore more easily influenced.

Agape is probably the love most favored by the Time Masters.  But I think it’s the love that Rip is least suited to.  Agape requires a level of emotional distance that I don’t really think Rip has.  Rip goes all in.

Rip - disaster. 

I feel like that dash should be an equal sign.  And that pretty much says it all.  :-)

Rip - loneliness

One very consistent character trait of Rip’s is that, in the end, he really needs to have people around him.  We’ve seen what he does when he’s alone: he either ends up succumbing to despair or engaging in tremendously bad, self-destructive ideas.

The truly depressing part about Rip’s story so far, however, is that he starts out as a man who is (except for Gideon, to be fair) completely alone with his grief, rage and guilt.  He ends up gathering a makeshift family of misfits and assholes.  But he still ends up suffering alone.  

Rip - leadership

Wisecracks aside, I don’t actually think that Rip is THAT bad as a leader.  As we’ve seen in the Spear flashbacks and  in Fellowship: when there’s a clear goal, with a clear direction, with a team that’s willing to listen, he does fine.

Furthermore, there are a number of really good decisions that he made in season one that he never really gets credit for: 

For example, naming Jax as ship’s mechanic.  This wasn’t just a lucky spur of the moment decision.  It was a decision made in the context of a growing issue.

If you recall, the relationship between Martin and Jax was a pretty important arc in the beginning of season one.  Martin had kidnapped Jax to bring him along, to begin with, while Jax had expressed doubts that he’d be any use on this kind of team.  They were also dealing with Martin being overprotective and domineering toward Jax, as a result of dealing with Ronnie’s death.  Martin had to learn to trust and back off of Jax.

So looking at that, then we can see why naming Jax as the ship’s mechanic was actually a legitimately brilliant management decision.

Jax didn’t initially have a lot of self-confidence.  He saw himself as the normal guy.  An ordinary mechanic surrounded by super geniuses and assassins and so on. (Not that there is anything wrong with being a mechanic.)

But Jax was a mechanic and a very good one.  And he was much smarter than he gave himself credit for.  This made him an ideal choice.  (And since he’s patient and mature, he’s far better suited than Ray, who while brilliant and mechanically inclined, is a bit too erratic for this kind of job.)

So Jax discovers that he has it in him to be an awesome Chief Engineer.  Instant boost of confidence.

It also has nothing to do with Martin or Firestorm.  As we’ve seen with Ray, when you have powers or cool tech, it can be very easy to put all your self-worth into one specific role.  And when you’re partnered with someone who can be a little overbearing, like Martin, then that can be a lot of added stress or a recipe for co-dependence.

But this way, Jax has something that proves that he has value as a teammate besides just being Martin’s partner.  It’s something that’s all his.  And it gives him more of a way to argue on equal footing.

And it gives him a way to seek privacy and vent if he needs to.  Need some time alone?  Important repairs.

Another good decision that Rip made was to pair Kendra and Sara in White Knights.  This was, if you recall, right after the episode where Sara had revealed her issues with bloodlust.  And of course, we learn that Kendra’s having a great deal of difficulty managing her Hawk powers and memories.

Neither woman would have likely sought the other out on their own.  As we saw, both had a considerable amount of distrust for each other at the time.  Furthermore, Sara’s used to suffering in silence, while Kendra was understandably overwhelmed with the changes in her life.

They’re both good people though and even though they’re not likely to ask for help for themselves, both women were inclined to try to help someone else.

So Rip pairs them up, points out to each how she’s uniquely qualified to understand what the other is going through.   And voila, both women are able to help each other, and then embark on a lasting friendship.

I don’t point this out to give Rip credit for either Jax’s achievements or Sara and Kendra’s.  He is certainly not the reason that Jax was a good mechanic or the girls became friends.

But in both cases, he was the one to recognize the potential that these characters had, and pushed them into a position to discover that for themselves.

And that’s pretty good!

In the end, Rip’s biggest obstacle as a leader is, I think, a measure of confidence.  He doesn’t have the confidence to open up to his team.  He doesn’t have the confidence to exert authority over his team.  So he is never able to quite direct or control them successfully.

Rip - ever be ready/willing to have a relationship again?

That’s a hard question.  I think at some point in the distant future, he would be ready/willing to have a relationship, but honestly, he’s nowhere near that point right now.  He’s not quite the jagged chasm of despair that he was in season one, thank goodness, but I think he’s still a bit too fragile.

One of the reasons that I ship Time Hex is that I think it’s the only relationship that I could see actually working right now, because all the groundwork was laid a long time ago.  Even if you don’t think they had something going on then, there was still a level of trust and camaraderie that predates Rip’s current fragility.

Prior to Turncoat, I thought Time Canary had a chance to work too.  He’s still kind of broken, but she’s kind of broken too, so I thought they might be in a place that they could help each other.  But then there was evil Rip.  And even though I think Sara’s already forgiven him, and had basically as soon as they saved him if not sooner, Rip isn’t anywhere near ready to forgive himself.  

And really, I don’t think Sara would pursue it either right now, even assuming she’s interested.  She has some idea of how lost and fragile he is right now, and how hard he’s trying to adjust to the changes of the crew, his role and hers.  Pursuing a relationship right then and there would probably feel like a potential abuse of power.  And I think Sara is someone who is always very conscious of that kind of thing.

Oddly, I also don’t think Rip is ready for Time Ship at this juncture, and I kind of wonder if that wasn’t maybe some subconscious push for him to leave the ship.  Because he and Gideon have been partners for a very long time.  She’s a rock and a sole point of stability for him.  But suddenly, thanks to his own impulsive gesture, there’s something new and chaotic in the mix.  I don’t think he’s remotely ready to process that.

Rip - relaxation. 

I’m not sure that I believe Rip is able to relax.  Even before his family died.  He just seems like the sort of person who is constantly focused on a goal or idea.

I’ve mentioned that I don’t see Rip as much of a chess player.  I think of him more as someone who would be putting together a giant 5 billion piece puzzle, or making something.  Basically solitary and creative pursuits.

Rip - nemesis.

Hmm.  Well, so far we had Vandal Savage and Eobard Thawne?  I admit though, I’d love to see the introduction of some rival ex-Time Masters or something.

But really, I want the return of Zaman Druce.  He was such a great villain.  I’d love to see him cross swords with Rip again.  (Also, Leonard Snart would be back too.  I know a lot of folk would enjoy that.  :-P)

#Anonymous #rip hunter #legends of tomorrow #headcanon storm

[bibliosexxual]

accidentally?

Based on this prompt I said I’d fill a few days ago:

boss: “know why I called you in here?” me: “because I accidentally sent you a dick pic” boss: “accidentally?”

yup.

(on ao3)

“You need to stop pining after people you haven’t even spoken to,” Lydia says one day, probably because Derek—er, Mr. Hale, their boss—has just stepped through the front door of the cafe where they’re having lunch, and Stiles has trailed off mid-word to watch him walk up to the counter. In Stiles’ defense, he’s never seen Mr. Hale outside of the office before, let alone Mr. Hale wearing a leather jacket over his dress shirt. God, and Stiles thought the tailored suits were bad enough…

Anyway.

“Uh, I have too spoken to him,” Stiles says indignantly, tearing his eyes away from Derek’s broad back across the room. “One day I was coming out of the break room and I almost walked right into him and he said, ‘Excuse me,’ so then I said, ‘Oops,’ and he smiled at me. Kind of. A little bit. I mean, I interpreted it as a smile. There was some prolonged eye contact.”

Lydia abruptly stops stirring her fat-free latte to stare at him—one of those Oh god, it’s worse than I thought kind of looks. “That’s it?”

“No. I wasn’t finished,” Stiles says. “We also ate lunch together last Monday. I forgot to bring my lunch, so I was just eating a bag of chips from the vending machine and he offered me half his tuna sandwich.”

It had been one of the nicest office lunch breaks he’d ever had, actually. Stiles was sitting on the low brick wall at the edge of the picnic area, and to his surprise, Derek sat down there, too, in his probably-thousand-dollar suit, while Stiles gaped at him a little for doing it. 

Derek had then continued to sit there even after giving away the sandwich. It had been clear from the way he kept glancing at Stiles that he didn’t know what to say but he wanted to say something, so Stiles had prompted, “Got any weekend plans?” and Derek had said he didn’t have any, so Stiles had rambled for a while about his weekend plans, which involved going down to San Francisco for the weekend for a Bastille concert. Derek sat there and listened attentively the whole time, which, in Stiles’ experience, not many people would do. He also said he didn’t know who Bastille was. That was a little surprising, but then again, Stiles supposed Derek didn’t have a lot of time to absorb pop culture, what with running the foundation and owning a dog and all.

He’d obviously had a bit of time at that moment, though, so Stiles had pulled out his phone and played Derek some of their songs, and Derek had nodded his head subtly to the beat and smiled a little and instantly made Stiles’ crush on him a whole lot more intense.

“And that’s it,” he concludes now. “So do you think he’s into me at all?“

"How should I know? I’m not a mind reader.”

“Coulda fooled me,” Stiles mutters, thinking about all the times she’s guessed ahead of time what he was going to get her for her birthday and all the times she’s taken one look at him and known with an uncanny certainty that he’s just gotten laid or, more commonly, that he’s just spent the whole night playing video games and ignoring life’s responsibilities.

Now Lydia sighs. “Look, all I know is, office romances are tricky. Even if he is interested, he’d probably feel like he can’t ask you out because of the power dynamic. You’ll have to make the first move.”

“Yeah, right,” Stiles snorts.

Lydia raises her eyebrows like, I thought so. “Stiles…” she says, “as your friend who’s concerned for your happiness, I’m going to ask you something: Have you gone on a single date in the last month? The last six months?”

Stiles resists the urge to squirm under her knowing gaze. She could be a world-class interrogator if she ever wanted a career change. “Okay, but… I’ve been busy, okay? It has nothing to do with Der— Mr. Hale. As if. That’s ridiculous. Totally ludicrous.”

“I see,” Lydia says, unimpressed.

The next thing he knows, she’s installing a dating app on his phone and filling in a profile that’s a hundred times more charming and put-together than anything Stiles could’ve come up with on his own and finagling a promise out of him that he’ll at least give it a decent try.

Stiles gives his word, but privately he wonders if he can keep it.

It was actually Derek who inspired Stiles to apply to work at the Howls for Change Foundation to begin with. The local newspaper interviewed him a couple of years ago about the foundation, back when it was just starting up. Stiles had been just skimming, not planning to sit down and read the paper for half an hour, but that’s just what he ended up doing, drawn in by Derek’s interview—his enthusiasm and love for wolves, his eloquence in replying to the journalist’s questions, the accompanying picture of him… He was in jogging clothes, crouched on a trail out in the woods somewhere and hugging his German Shepherd while flashing the camera a rare, genuine smile so bright it made Stiles feel warm all over, and yeah, Stiles applied to this job about 75% because he loved wildlife conservation and about 25% because he wanted to see Derek Hale smile like that again, and possibly be the one to make him do it.

The feeling has only gotten stronger since then.

Derek likes to act like he’s just one of the employees, even though he’s not only the boss but also the organization’s founder. He has his own corner office, but he mainly just uses it for meeting with local policymakers and other bigwigs. The rest of the time, he has a cubicle where he plugs away on his laptop or just sits contemplatively, eating an apple or listening to music on an old CD player he keeps in the top drawer. He eats lunch outside in the picnic area with his employees, too, when it’s nice out. He brings bag lunches from home, which Stiles finds oddly charming.

Still, Stiles can see Derek is set apart. No matter how much he acts like he’s just an employee, no one ever forgets he’s the boss. When he walks into the break room, a hush always falls, and if they were talking about something gossipy or off-color before he walked in, they always hastily change the subject to something more workplace-appropriate and bland, like the weather or what’s for lunch, and Derek nods politely at them, gets his coffee, and leaves without a word. Stiles thinks he looks kind of lonely. He always comes off as hardworking and unpretentious, but he also doesn’t seem that fond of small talk or smiling, and it clearly makes a lot of people feel awkward around him.

For all the great work Derek is doing in the conservation world, he doesn’t seem to have a lot of friends.

Even so, the thought of Stiles asking him out and Derek actually saying yes… Well. It’s laughable, really.

So Lydia says, “Promise me you’ll at least try the app?” and Stiles says he will.

*

Two weeks and several mediocre first dates later, Stiles is sitting in a budget meeting at 9 a.m. on a Monday morning, poking at his phone under the table. He doesn’t make any attempt to stay on task first; whenever Greenberg starts talking in these meetings, like clockwork Stiles always gets this unbearable itch to look at his phone or pick at his nails or even just stare blankly out the window, anything but listen to him.

He deletes a dozen spam emails and replies to a couple punny texts from Scott from last night before he finally, reluctantly thumbs over to his unread messages on the dating app. By this point he’s not very optimistic. Turns out he was right to be, because someone has sent him an unsolicited dick pic.

Instinctively he sinks down a little lower in his seat. It turns out to be an unnecessary precaution, though. One glance around confirms it: the woman to his left is absorbed in doodling Power Rangers on her notepad, and the man to his right is gazing straight ahead into space, so zoned out he’s practically comatose.

Stiles looks back down at his phone.

It’s a nice dick pic, objectively. Very artistic, very tasteful. The guy, whose head is cropped out of the photo, is sprawled on his back on a turquoise sheet, soft sunlight falling on his naked torso, one long-fingered hand curled lazily around his erection. A+ for aesthetics.

Still, Stiles did not wake up this morning after only three hours of sleep (what can he say, he got distracted by Wikipedia again) just so he could see a complete stranger’s junk.

The sad thing is, this isn’t even the first time this has happened, or the third, or the fifth… Would it kill these guys to say hello first?

Stiles screenshots it, then pastes it into a new email to Lydia (he’s been keeping her apprised of his dating app adventures, at her insistence). He captions it with a grumpy, “guess how my morning is going.”

She’s the one who thought this app would be such a great idea in the first place. Maybe now, face-to-face with what Stiles has had to put up with on a daily basis for the past two weeks, she’ll finally admit the whole online dating thing was a bad idea and stop shooting him pitying looks whenever the subject of Derek Hale comes up.

After that, he blocks the dick-pic-sender and puts his phone away. Greenberg is still talking, still meticulously going over lots of hard-to-read charts, and Stiles’ gaze inevitably wanders to fall on Derek instead. Derek, who’s sitting at the head of the table, looking at something on his phone and not even trying to hide it.

Stiles supposes if you’re the founder of the company, you don’t have to pretend to be paying attention while Greenberg talks.

Derek’s phone buzzes in his hand; Stiles can just barely hear it. Derek taps at the screen while lifting his glass of water to his mouth, and then he must read something shocking because he simultaneously spits out his water all over his notes and starts coughing furiously, doubling over like he’s dying, his phone clattering to the table.

Greenberg momentarily stops his monotone speech, hovering like he’s not sure what to do, while pretty much everyone around the table freezes up except for the vice president, Boyd, who’s sitting next to him and never seems even remotely fazed by anything. He pounds Derek heartily on the back a couple times.

It seems to help. After a long half minute, the coughing fit passes. Derek looks up, red-faced, and rasps, “I’m okay.”

Hesitantly, Greenberg starts talking again. Derek straightens his tie and puts his phone away, and Stiles’ fellow employees go back to slumping in their seats with blank, I’m-bored-out-of-my-mind expressions on their faces, and that’s that.

Stiles can’t help wondering what it was Derek saw that got such a reaction out of him. Whatever it was, it’s guaranteed to be more interesting than this meeting.

Ah, well. Stiles will probably never know.

Or so he thinks until about half an hour later, when his phone buzzes with a new email from Derek—the only email he’s ever gotten from Derek, not counting the company-wide newsletters and memos.

It’s a good thing Stiles finishes pouring his coffee before taking a look at it, because otherwise he probably would have scalded the skin of his hand off and spilled coffee all over his shoes and the break room floor in the process.

The subject line reads, “re: guess how my morning is going.”

Stiles freezes.

Blinks.

Closes out of his email app and opens it again.

The email is still there. It’s still titled "re: guess how my morning is going.” Stiles didn’t misread it.

He’s pretty sure he doesn’t breathe for a solid five minutes while he lets the mingled surges of horror and adrenaline wash over him. It’s like one of those nightmares he used to have in high school where he’d stand up in class to give a presentation, only to look down and realize he was inexplicably buck-ass naked and everyone was laughing at him.

Finally he sucks in enough air to gasp, "Oh god. I’m dead. I’m so dead.” There’s no one else in the break room, but he still says it. It seems like the kind of momentous occasion that needs stating out loud to the universe.

Then he chugs his entire mug of coffee and speed-walks as casually as possible down the hall. A few people glance at him curiously from their cubicles, probably because he’s blushing so hard he looks like a tomato on the verge of a nervous breakdown, or possibly because no one runs in this office, anywhere, for any reason. Dignity is the name of the game. Stiles has none.

Stiles ignores them all in favor of diving into Lydia’s office and slamming the door shut behind him. He doesn’t care what work she might be doing; this is more important. This is a crisis.

She must get some sense of that from the look on his face, or maybe from the way he’s slumped back against the door and panting, because she doesn’t snap at him or even look that annoyed.

Stiles waves his phone at her and tries, in a rambling and adrenaline-fueled outburst, to explain. He’s not sure how much of it is actually anything bordering on English, but he thinks he ultimately conveys the important bits.

While he talks, Lydia rests her elbows on her desk, steepling her fingers, and looks intrigued. “So,” she says when he finally runs out of breath, “what did Derek actually say?”

“I don’t know!” Stiles says, only a little hysterically.

“You didn’t read the email?“

Stiles shakes his head, sheepish. She’s undoubtedly judging him so hard right now, and he knows, okay. He knows.

Lydia lets out one of her trademark "why am I surrounded by incompetence” sighs and holds out her hand for his phone. Stiles meekly hands it over.

Lydia unlocks it without asking him for the passcode, which suggests either that Stiles needs to make his passwords stronger or that they spend entirely too much time together. Then she reads, and Stiles chews on his thumbnail and practices the breathing exercises his therapist taught him.

Lydia hands his phone back after only half a minute, her expression softening to something almost sympathetic. That’s when Stiles truly comprehends how truly, apocalyptically bad this is. Lydia never looks sympathetic.

“Well?” Stiles croaks.

“It just says he’d like you to come see him in his office as soon as you get a chance.”

Stiles has never heard anything so ominous.

“You shouldn’t keep him waiting,” she says gently. “Go get it over with, and while you’re doing that, I’ll write you a glowing recommendation letter.”

A recommendation letter. To take with him when he gets fired. Oh god.

*

When Stiles edges into Derek’s office, Derek is standing over by the window. He looks stunning as usual, tailored suit perfectly accenting the powerful lines of his body, but his ears are kind of pink. He’s got out a bottle of wine and two glasses on a little trolley table; he must have an important meeting with a big client later today. Stiles will probably never find out about it, though, seeing as he’s about to get fired and all.

“Stiles,” Derek nods.

Stiles would reply, but he’s afraid nothing will come out but an unmanly squeak, so instead he just focuses on perching on the edge of the nearest chair. He’s never actually been in Derek’s office before. It’s very Derek; it reminds him of the woods, lots of earth tones and accents of green. If not for the circumstances, Stiles would probably find it calming. As it is, he’s not sure he would find anything calming right now, except maybe a Xanax.

“Do you know why I called you in here?“ Derek asks.

Oh god, does he have to say it out loud? It’s not like they don’t both know already. Stiles opens his mouth, and no words come out. His mind is one long internal scream. All he can do is clutch the arms of his chair and watch as Derek uncorks the wine and starts pouring it into the first glass with intimidating casualness. He looks like he’s not mad at all. It’s terrifying.

Finally Stiles manages to force the words out. “Because I accidentally sent you a dick pic.”

Derek stops pouring wine into the second glass. “Accidentally?”

“Yes!” Stiles says, latching onto that word like a lifeline. Is it even legal to fire someone for an accident? Well. Probably yes, if it results in somebody’s arm getting lopped off or something, but a dick pic isn’t quite on that level. Stiles hopes so, anyway. “And it wasn’t even my dick!”

Derek puts down the bottle of wine completely. “So… your boyfriend’s…?”

Stiles shakes his head. “Don’t have one.”

“So you’re saying you sent me porn.”

Stiles groans and drops his head to his hands. He can’t look at Derek right now; he’s already reached maximum mortification levels. “No, I, um, so the thing is, I have Lydia Martin down in my email contacts as ‘Divine Goddess,’ which alphabetically puts her next to you, so I accidentally emailed the dick pic to you when I meant to email it to her, and before you say anything, I know I’m not supposed to send explicit materials over the company email and I swear it won’t happen again.” Assuming Stiles ever gets another chance to use his company email, that is, but he’s not going to be the one to point that out.

There’s a long silence, and Stiles risks a peek up through his fingers. Derek is frowning at him, but not like he’s angry. More like he’s confused. “Isn’t Lydia married? To a woman?”

That makes Stiles forget for a moment about being embarrassed. He sits up straight, flailing his hands in a chopping motion. “Whoa, no, it’s definitely not like that. It’s not a flirting thing. We’re just friends, and you’re right, she and Allison are very happily married and I’d never do anything to get between that. Ever. It’s just, she set me up for an online dating profile recently and I kind of hate it because I keep getting dick pics, so that pic you saw was like, like a status update. Like, 'Look how terribly this is going, I hate all of these dudes sending me dick pics because none of them are you'—”

Shit. He bites his tongue so hard he’s surprised he doesn’t taste blood, because nope, what the fuck, that was not supposed to be a part of this conversation, and now Derek’s grip on the neck of the wine bottle has gone white-knuckled and he’s just staring at Stiles, all deer-in-the-headlights.

Not for the first time in his life, or even the hundredth, Stiles wishes he had the power to rewind the last ten or so seconds of what just happened and start over. Unfortunately, no such luck.

“Just to clarify, I didn’t mean to imply that I want you to send me a pic of your dick,” Stiles blurts. “I just meant in a, um, a purely romantic sense, no one on that app is as good as… yeah.” Stiles trails off because Derek’s eyes are continuing to widen, and that’s probably not good. “Oh god, I’m making this worse. I shouldn’t be allowed to talk.”

Derek still doesn’t say anything. Maybe it’s an interrogation tactic or maybe (probably) he’s just in shock.

Either way, Stiles feels compelled to break the silence. “Are you going to fire me?” he asks tentatively, after what feels like the longest and most awkward minute of his life to date.

Derek finally blinks and relaxes his death-grip on the wine bottle. “I’d be crazy to fire you. You’re one of my best employees.”

“Except for the whole dick pic thing,” Stiles points out, risking a smile, and Derek smiles back. Stiles feels a little of the oh-god-I’m-about-to-get-fired tension leave him, and in its place the usual oh-god-I’m-in-the-presence-of-Derek-Hale tension starts creeping back in. That’s a lot more familiar, and a lot more exciting.

“Oh, I don’t know, I didn’t…” Derek starts, looking away out the window and then nervously meeting Stiles’ eyes. “I didn’t mind the dick pic thing so much. Not when it was from you.”

It’s Stiles’ turn to stare in shock.

Derek spins jerkily on his heel and picks up one of the wine glasses and starts chugging it down, and okay. Maybe Stiles isn’t the only one who’s pretty nervous right now. That thought makes Stiles a whole lot less nervous, and he stands up and moves around the desk while it lasts. Derek turns his head a little. Stiles reaches up and takes the glass away and sets it down on the table.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have— It’s not professional—” Derek starts.

“I would send you a picture of my dick if you asked,” Stiles blurts, and it feels like one of the bravest and most romantic things he’s ever said.

“I would send you one, too,” Derek says, blushing furiously.

That basically shreds the last bit of Stiles’ self-control. He grabs Derek’s fancy silk tie and tugs, and, before he can second-guess it, kisses Derek Hale the way he deserves to be kissed, thoroughly and so enthusiastically that Derek ends up sinking back to lean against his desk like his knees just won’t hold him up anymore.

“So, just to clarify,” Stiles pants, resting a hand on Derek’s chest and thrilling that he can do that now, “I’m definitely not fired.”

Derek rolls his eyes and pulls him back in.

(end)

#my fic #sterek fanfiction #i'm gonna tag this #marauders-mess #since i kinda feel like they prompted me for this one with their message from a few days ago

[cyjprojectarchive]

blurry | bambam

prompt: inspired by bammie’s instagram selfie hot dayum could i not contain myself, so i made an imagine abt it B) here it is if ya wanna get attacked by our bamchinja. c;  group: GOT7 pairing: bambam, you genre: fluff words: 3185 note:  sorry theres so many spelling errors its currently 3:18 am and im tired as heq ill edit this tomorrow thanku ㅠㅠ

“Dude, you got this.”

“Yeah, well, what if I don’t? Our asses are on the line here,” Bambam’s worried tone reverberates from your phone’s speakers. You have it on loudspeaker mode because you were in the mood for some mint chocolate ice cream. You just got home from classes today and boy was it scorching hot outside. 

“Yes, you do. And no, they’re not. You’ve been practicing nonstop for this comeback, Bam, I think you have it all down by now,” you repeat a little louder than usual as you open the freezer and take out the pint of sweet and cooling treat. 

Setting it down on the kitchen counter, you cap the lid off and start digging in with your spoon. “And why are you so nervous? You’ve never asked me advice on how to handle stage fright ever since we knew each other,” you comment through the melting of your favorite dessert inside your mouth.

“Are you eating ice cream from the pint again?” He suddenly asks, a tone of amusement lingering in his voice. You automatically hug the thing of ice cream closer to your stomach, eyes peering at the phone resting near you. “How’d you know?”

“Just a hunch.” You can just hear him shrugging smugly.

“You wish you were here,” you retaliate, scoffing as you take another scoop. You make sure he captures the sound of you scraping the soft and gooey substance of sweetness. You know you should be encouraging him right now, but teasing the boy you’ve known for quite a while now is always a treat in its own way. 

“I do. I do wish I were there,” he agrees somewhat seriously. You’re unsure whether he was talking about having ice cream or something else, but you brush it off, not wanting to think about such complications right now. 

You put the spoon down and attempt to bring the previous conversation back. “Really, though, Bam. You’re going to do amazing, as always. Don’t worry too much about it, alright?” You tell him earnestly. If Bambam had never asked for any reassurances with you before, maybe this time he really needed it. 

A slight pause occupies the air until you hear him exhale shortly on the other end of the phone call. “You’re right, you’re right. That makes me feel so much better. Thanks, fam,” he answers with a hopeful tone. 

Shaking your head, you protest, “No problem. And don’t ever call me ‘fam’ again, fam.”

“Would you like to be called something else then, hmm?” There he goes, back to his usual zany self which you can’t help but blush about…

Did Bambam just make you blush? 

“I would like you to call me when I’m not busy enjoying my ice cream,” you tell him, going back to eating your lunch for the day. 

“You didn’t even start eating ice cream when I called you in the first place!” Bambam interjects and you soon chuckle at his predicament. You hear a few conversations bubbling up in the background, even recognizing Yugyeom’s whining to one of the hyungs, maybe Jinyoung, you’re not quite sure.

You move your position to the couch, setting down your phone on the coffee table. You hear a distinct voice referring to Bambam and he responds, but you’re too focused on your ice cream to eavesdrop. 

“I have to go in a few. What’re you going to do afterwards?” He finally addresses you. You ponder his question until you realize you’ve forgotten something really important. 

“Shoot! I have a major presentation for my History class tomorrow!” Spoon hanging in midair, you slowly place the ice cream pint next to your phone, feeling guilty of even opening it up. 

“And you haven’t started on it yet,” Bambam muses. You groan in agreement and slap your forehead lightly. “No, because I thought it was happening next week.”

“Too distracted with me, huh. I have that effect,” the boy on the other end suggests, a smirk almost evident in his voice. You laugh mockingly, but the anxiety in you keeps rising. “Guess I have something to keep me distracted while you’re performing,” you conclude, probably feeding his ego even more. 

“That’s good, then, at least it’s not another guy,” he jokes and you roll your eyes. “Whatever, snake,” you shoot back. 

“Anyway, I got to go, we’re shooting in a few,” he tells you, almost begrudgingly. “Hey, I really appreciate you answering the call.”

You smile at his genuine reply. You rarely see this side of Bambam whenever you guys are together, or even just talking on the phone. You feel a sense of warmth in your heart, and you honestly don’t know what to make out of it. But you don’t let it get to you- not yet.

“Of course. You know I’m here,” you mutter softly. 

“And me too,” he chimes. Another voice, presumably Jaebum, informs him about getting ready, so you anticipate Bambam’s good bye. “Now I really need to go. I’ll message as soon as possible.”

“For sure, Bam. Good luck! You never fail to do your best,” you add, making sure he’s still reassured. Bambam thanks you again, and the call ends.

Now, onto cramming that damned History presentation.

Adding a few finishing touches here and there, you finally have a decent 10-slide presentation for your class tomorrow morning. Stretching your arms upward, you let out a relieved sigh, yawning in the process. Making sure that the file has been saved to your laptop, Google Drive, and USB, you turn your laptop off and trudge your way into the comfort of your bed. 

The digital clock on your nightstand reads 11:24 pm and you feel quite proud for completing a procrastinated project before the day ends, roughly speaking. You ease your way into the duvet, grabbing your phone to the side for a late night session on a few of your social media accounts. 

You go to your Messages and remember Bambam’s call from earlier. You wonder whether the performance was a success- it probably was, and Bambam just had cold feet, but you already texted him two hours ago complaining about History being your worst subject ever and how lucky you are it’s your first class of the day. You type a new text, informing him of your success nonetheless and hoping he had a fun time today as well. 

Before you can hit the send button, a chat bubble appears on Bambam’s end first. Your eyes widen at the screen and your lips part in surprise. 

“What the…” You utter under your breath, hands suddenly sweating at the sight of your phone, Bambam’s selfie showing on the bright screen. You squint your eyes to confirm what you’re seeing is right. 

You hit backspace on your keyboard and type a new message with quick and shaking thumbs. 

Wrong number, headass. 

He reads it immediately and your heart skips a beat. Your eyes cannot seem to focus on anything else other than the blurry selfie of a jet black haired K-pop idol. You find yourself mesmerized at his cerulean contacts and drawn to the straight and full pink lips. Breath hitching, you mentally urge yourself to stop giving in to your thoughts. 

Undeniably, Bambam broke every puberty challenge out there, and not a day goes by without you reminding him that- much to his satisfaction. But you complimenting him was always out of good faith as good friends, nothing more and nothing less. 

However, recently, things have been a bit blurry between the two of you. It doesn’t help that his constant teasing makes you more conscious of the type of relationship you guys are slowly developing. 

And this selfie isn’t helping.

lmao what do you mean that is supposed to be sent to my best friend

You share a room with Yugyeom. Just show it to him in person lmao

not himmm, my OTHER best friend. u. anyway, like what u see? ;)

WTF are you talking about, you never send me selfies before??? 

aww is it that bad, b? :,( it’s just a lil smth to motivate u with ur presentation. hows that going for u, btw?

Again, with the weird ass nicknames, Bam lmao? And you’re just a few minutes too late bec I’ve finished, but thanks for trying.

Also, no, it actually looks really good. :)

pshhh u like itttt bb ;) oh, hey thats great. u should go 2 sleep by now.

and really? don’t play me, bb :,(

It does! Your face is blurred, so it’s perfect.

wow bye

You chuckle to yourself at the playful conversation. Typical Bambam, but you still can’t help but be confused at any underlying message of all this. Or maybe there’s not any and your mind is just running irrationally due from the emerging crash of the caffeine. Maybe that’s it.

You think of sending him a meme- of himself, might you add- until he follows a new text. 

blurred like our relationship, right

Dropping your phone to the side, you bring a pillow pushed to your face and scream into its plush surface. You feel the heat coming off of your cheeks, chest heaving in and out as well. What was that all about? Has Bambam been aware of the unusual tension you, yourself, have been feeling towards him the past couple of weeks? Why is he speaking up about it now?

that was stepping out of the line of being corny. i’m sorry lol

You notice that he was trying to play it off cool, but now that you’ve gotten a signal from him acknowledging the uncanny stage of your relationship right now, you wanted to go all out. With Bambam, you need to know whether he’s serious about this or not. 

You retreat the pilow away from your face, flustered at the suddent flight response you just pulled off. You certainly cannot be this embarrassing once you confront him, that’s for sure. But realizing you might have been absent for a while, you gingerly take a hold of your phone and type a new message with a plan. 

When are you free, Bam? 

You need to discuss this to him in person. You need to see it in Bambam’s eyes. You see the typing animation show on and off as he’s probably contemplating on what to say to you too.

i’m free for a few hours after our morning radio interview

Perfect. I’ll meet you at the cafe near my university at 12. Sounds good?

yeah yeah ofc 

Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, Bam.

you too. uhhh good night?

Good night to you too, Bambam. :)

“Headass, over here!”

A guy in stylish clothing, together with a black cap, black sunglasses, and black mask whips his head towards your direction. His tall stance and sense of fashion already singled him out from the lazily dressed college students surrounding the cafe right now, including yourself.

You end up sleeping three hours later after your conversation with Bambam, different scenarios of your meet up today forming in your head, some with good outcomes and others unspeakable. You couldn’t believe that you were able to set up a “date” with him with the intention of confessing the uncertainty you have in regards to affectionate feelings towards him. 

He walks over to the corner of the quaint little shop, a cold drink already in place before his seat. You don’t see his expression quite well, seeing that his whole face is covered with different kinds of masks, but you hear him chuckle as he relaxes in front of you, inspecting the drink shortly. 

“You know me too well,” he finally says, lowering the mask to his chin so he can take a sip of his favorite drink. You grin at your accomplishment, chugging the iced coffee you bought for yourself as to keep your nerves from taking over you- which was ironic since you’re gulping down more of what keeps you shaking right now.

“How was the interview?” You ask nonchalantly, watching his every move. Bambam glances up at you and nods his head, “It went really well. More enjoyable than your presentation, that I could say.”

Glaring daggers at him you counter, “Shut up.” He cackles at your response, and then the two of you instinctively easing into your normal conversations of mundane stories and brutal banters, almost forgetting about the original reason of you meeting him here.

But you didn’t mind, not one bit. You missed his physical presence. Just seeing a hint of his crinkling eyes from the shade of his visor is enough for you to feel comfortable around Bambam. He genuinely is the best person you know. You both never have to think twice about saying something potentially wrong, because the other would just use it at their advantage but at the same time turn it into an inside joke between the two of you. 

There was something that he declared which made you stomp your hand down the table in rejection. He chortles at your dramatic expression and casually lays his hand on top of yours. Your face quickly realizes this as you retrieve your hand back to your sides, squeezing it tight to stop it from trembling at the sudden contact. 

Bambam notices your discomfort and coughs awkwardly. “Sorry, sorry. I ruined it, didn’t I?” He admits, looking down in frustration.

“No, no, Bam it’s not that,” your attempt in fixing the matter at hand was futile, and you wish you have more time to stall, more time to just have mindless fun with the best guy friend you’ve ever had in a while. 

But seeing that your stomach churned and jumped in itself after a simple touch of your hand, you had to tell him how he’s made you feel. Or else you’re going to go nuts.

“What are we, Bambam?” You blurt out, eyes fixating on the empty cup of beverage sitting idly on the table. “And don’t make it out as a meme, ‘kay? I’m asking it seriously,” you follow up with a scrunched face, making sure that Bambam knows you’re done with fooling around. 

You peek at his face and he seems to be smiling shyly, hand that was once touching yours now scratching the back of his head. You find yourself wishing you never took it back. 

Shaking your head, you whine at your inner frustration. “I… I think I like you, Bam. And I don’t know why I’m saying this now but recently, you’ve been saying weird stuff to me that gets me all flustered and red and you can’t see that because we haven’t seen each other in a while, but when we do I try to suppress it just because I don’t you to think I’m weird or something like that but our conversation last night messed me up big time, and now I don’t know if suppressing it is going to help anymore and I just -”

You stop yourself from losing air in your system as you inhale and exhale. Your hands have been clutching themselves tightly on your lap and you let go to feel the blood pumping again. You’re afraid to look up and see a confused Bambam staring at you, but before you can contemplate any further, you hear a soft laughter resonating from him. And it wasn’t that of mockery, so you slowly turn your head to reveal a blushing adolescent boy before you, hands covering his eyes under a pair of expensive sunglasses.

 “Aw man, you beat me to it. Why do you always do that to me?” He complains cutely. You titl your head in confusion. 

“I was supposed to confess first. Do you know how ashamed I feel right now?” He takes his hands off his eyes as well as his sunglasses and you finally see his eyes. Glistening in hope and anxiety all at the same time, but the beauty in them never left. You are taken aback, but you try and keep it together as he gulps down and stares right back at you. 

“You always beat me to things, but that doesn’t mean I won’t confess anymore. Yes, I’ve been trying to get your attention more frequently because I’ve… developed feelings for you, and I didn’t know how to handle them other than be more annoying than usual.” His assessment of the situation makes you giggle, and it prompted him to keep going. 

“I was really happy I got to talk to you when I was feeling hella nervous yesterday. It made me confirm my feelings for you and that you make me comfortable in whatever situation we’re in. The selfie I sent you last night was just me trying to see if you kind of feel the same way, and I honestly didn’t know what to expect from there.” He brings his hands on the table and plays with them mindlessly, biting his lip as he looks down. 

“I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel frustrated by the way I’ve acted, I’m just a dumb adolescent boy who doesn’t know how to handle his feelings well. But I was honestly really glad we got to hang out today, you know I missed you a lot. So, I’m sorry if this ruins everything…” he trails off, seeming to want to say more but his tongue prevents him from doing so.

You keep your eyes on him, not exactly knowing how to respond correctly. He gives you a full minute to contemplate on your own before he looks back up at you, pausing with his hands and smiling sheepishly. “Any response from you would be great right now.”

“Shoot, I’m sorry,” you say, lips in a tight line. You think for another few seconds before finally making up your mind. “C’mon, let’s take a selfie.”

“W-what?”

“C’mon, Bam. You have a better camera than mine, so go get your phone!” Your tone was firm but encouraging at the same time. He hesitates for a second but complies nonetheless. You scoot next to him, your arm slightly touching with his. You falter a bit, but you feel Bambam relax with your touch and you smile as you move in a tiny bit closer.

He positions the phone at the perfect angle and you see him trying out a few different expression before his thumb presses over the button. Your smile grows wider at the sight of him assessing himself, but you quickly peck the soft surface of his cheek and beat him to taking the selfie. 

Without waiting for his response, you snatch the phone away and inspect the picture. Content with the image, you show him the screen. 

He looks at with his eyebrows furrowed, but immediately understands and reveals a goofy grin. You nudge his elbow playfully before resting your head on your shoulder, already feeling at ease with your position.

“Not so blurry now, huh?” You ask him. He pats your head in response and squeezes your shoulder reassuringly, the touch of him making you want more.

 But for now, this is enough.

#got7maknaelinenet #kreativewritersnet #got7 imagines #bambam scenarios #got7 scenarios #bambam imagines #emjae fics

[toxoiddiamond]

T H E B A S I C S Given Name: Nico Wilder Meadows Nicknames: His wife calls him Ni-Ni. He used to think that was cute. Now it just annoys him. Age: 21 Birthday: July 19th Zodiac Sign: Cancer Birthplace: NYC, New York Current Location: Baltimore, Maryland Speaks: English Dominant Hand: Ambidextrous Education: He’s currently studying at the Baltimore School for the Arts. He got a bit of a late start—he spent the year after high school just working, being newly married, being generally aimless, etc., and didn’t enroll in art school until he was nineteen. Occupation: He has a moderately successful YouTube channel where he releases animated videos and such. He also makes a decent amount of money by doing art commissions. And he works part time as a waiter in a small Italian restaurant. (He doesn’t really need the restaurant job; he mostly has it so his wife will shut up about him needing to have an “actual job.”) Vehicle: Yellow 1997 Hyundai Accent, but his wife normally takes it because her work is further away than his, and it’s not hard for him to take the bus to school/work. Worldly Possessions: Pretty much any art supplies you can imagine (and really nice ones, too—he likes to get the best possible tools to work with, because he wants everything he does to be the highest quality possible). A nice laptop. Tons of movies. Like, really, tons of DVDs. Pet(s): Nah. He wouldn’t mind having a pet, but his wife is allergic to both cats and dogs, unfortunately.

A P P E A R A N C E Height: 5’9” Hair: Dark brown (almost black) and somewhat shaggy, a bit choppy, sometimes hanging in his face, sometimes pushed back. His hair has a mind of its own, and it can be quite unruly. Facial Hair: He sometimes lets his face get a bit scruffy, but he prefers to be clean-shaven most of the time. Eye Colour: Hazel Skin Tone: Somewhat pale, and his dark hair makes him look even paler. He doesn’t like many outside activities. Clothing: He doesn’t really put much thought into what he wears most of the time. He doesn’t look bad or anything, it’s just that he doesn’t have any particular style. He just wears jeans and t-shirts and sneakers most of the time, and he has quite a collection of worn-out, oversized sweaters. He definitely cares more about comfort than anything else. He also likes to wear slouchy hats on days when his hair is being particularly unruly, just to contain it a little. Distinguishing Marks: Quite a lot of scars, mostly small ones. However, there is one more noticeable one on his back, where one of his foster fathers hit him with a broken wine bottle; he ended up needing forty-seven stitches, and was immediately pulled out of that home by his case worker. If he had his way, he’d have lots of tattoos. He has a bunch of designs he’s drawn up for himself, and knows an artist who would give him a steep discount. But Crystal thinks it would be a huge waste of money, and doesn’t want him to do it, so he hasn’t gone through with it yet. Face Claim: Jackson Rathbone

H E A L T H Physical Health: His immune system is kind of shitty, and he doesn’t get as much sleep as he should, so he is prone to getting sick a lot. Not seriously ill or anything, but if there’s a flu or anything going around, he’s guaranteed to catch it. Physical Abilities/Limitations: He’s an amazing artist, especially if he really puts time and effort into something. Art is something that’s always come naturally to him. On the other hand, he sucks at most other physical things—he’s not physically strong at all, definitely can’t hold his own in any type of fight, gets sick a lot, etc. Addictions: None. He’s been hurt at the hands of many druggies and alcoholics, he’s seen what it does to people, and he is determined not to ever end up like that. He only has the occasional drink and has never even been drunk, and he doesn’t even like to take Tylenol or anything unless he really needs it. Allergies: He has seasonal allergies, and takes a low dose of Claritin during the spring and summer so he won’t be a useless mess. He is also deathly allergic to penicillin. Mental Health: He is under a lot of stress due to the fact that his marriage is slowly falling apart and he kind of wants to get a divorce, and he fights with his wife a lot. He also has some underlying issues from his fucked up childhood, but nothing really severe. If he would bite the bullet and finally get out of the bad relationship he’s in, he would be much better off.

H I S T O R Y Summary: Nico grew up in the foster care system, and spent the majority of his childhood being passed around from home to home. He lived in some very bad situations, and endured some serious abuse, both physical and mental, in some of the homes he was in. He started drawing at a very young age, and art quickly became a way for him to deal with his emotions and stay sane. During high school, he lived with a particularly awful couple; they took in several foster children so they could receive more money from the government, but the woman was a basketcase and the man was a violent drunk. Rather than try to get into another situation, Nico just avoided going home as much as possible; he spent the night at friend’s houses whenever he could, and sometimes even slept on the street if he couldn’t bring himself to go home. It was around this time that he met Crystal. She went to the same school as him, and they had several classes together. They hit it off and started dating during their junior year. Crystal’s family, as it turns out, was also pretty awful and abusive, particularly her father. Nico and Crystal would often fantasize about running away together and never having to deal with such terrible people ever again. And, shortly after they graduated, they decided to make that dream a reality; they ran off and eloped, and never went back. For a while, things were fantastic between them. They were happy just to be together and away from everyone who hurt them. But the longer they were together, the more things began to fall apart, and the more they began to realize how different and incompatible they are. But neither of them is really willing to admit defeat, and honestly, at this point, they’re both a little afraid to leave each other, both afraid that they’ll never find anyone else who understands them. The dissatisfaction is comfortable and familiar, and they both crave familiarity/sameness on some level, so they haven’t gotten a divorce, even though they both know in the back of their minds that it’s inevitable. Job History: As a teenager, he worked part-time in a grocery store, saving up money and preparing for the day when he would finally be able to move out and be on his own. He also started up his YouTube channel when he was seventeen, and started making money off of it about a year later once it got more popular. Now he does a lot of freelance art commissions, runs his channel, and has a part-time job in a restaurant, all on top of going to school.

C O M M U N I C A T I O N Speech Pace/Style: Scattered as hell. He can hold a normal conversation most of the time, but tends to jump from idea to idea, subject to subject, without much warning. If he’s really excited or passionate about whatever he’s talking about, he doesn’t even speak in complete sentences, and it can be hard to follow his train of thought. Talking to him is never boring, that’s for sure. Accent: American, with an occasional hint of a New York accent on certain words. Usual Curse Words: He actually doesn’t have a particularly dirty mouth unless he’s really excited, or really angry about something.

P E R S O N A L I T Y, M I N D S E T, A N D B E L I E F S Personality Type: ESFP Sense of Humor: He really likes clever/thoughtful jokes, puns, and non-sequitur humor. He’s pretty funny himself, and likes to entertain everyone around him and make them laugh. Habits: He fidgets a lot if he has to sit still for a long period of time. If he’s holding a pen or pencil but not actively drawing/writing something, he will twirl the pen around in his fingers. Sometimes, if people make a sudden movement in his direction, he’ll instinctively step back or flinch away—a residual effect of the abuse he endured when he was younger. Fears/Phobias: He is really, really, deathly afraid of any large body of water—lakes, the ocean, whatever. He’s not into that shit, and no one will ever convince him to go swimming in a lake or even get near the ocean or anything. He also hates bridges, especially ones that go over water, for obvious reasons. This is not really an actual fear, but Nico gets really uncomfortable around super drunk people, and will promptly leave a party as soon as people start really getting smashed, or if he sees any illegal drugs going on. Strengths: Nico has a unique perspective on things, and views the world differently than a lot of other people. He’s very creative, and comes up with interesting/clever solutions to problems a lot of the time. He’s also quite optimistic, and isn’t easily frustrated or discouraged. He loves talking to and getting to know people, and although he loves to talk, he would much rather talk about the other person instead of himself, learning whatever he can about them. He doesn’t have the best memory, so he doesn’t necessarily remember all the information he gathers, but he is still genuinely interested. Charisma for days. Seriously, he has a natural ability to get people to open up to him and draw others out of their shells, probably because he’s so willing to talk about literally anything, and he is the least judgmental person on the planet. So, he gets along with basically anyone and has a lot of friends as a result. His artistic skills are off the charts—art has always come naturally to him, and it’s the main way for him to release whatever emotions are inside him. He mainly draws and paints, but he’s experimented with various forms of art and he enjoys them all; he loves to create things. Flaws: Nico, for all his creativeness and ability to forge a new path based on his unique perspective, often has trouble seeing things from someone else’s point of view. It’s not for lack of trying—he really wants to understand people and why they think the way they do—but it’s hard for him to get out of his own head a lot of the time. His impulse control is nonexistent. If he wants something in the moment (or, you know, someone), there is no way he’s going to be able to stop himself, even if he knows he should. No matter the consequences, he will do it, justifying it to himself however he can. Even knowing full well that he’ll regret it, or that his actions could hurt someone else, he’ll still do it. He’s kind of an ass in that way, though he doesn’t intend to be, and he always feels guilty later if someone really does end up hurt. Although he’s usually optimistic and doesn’t let himself get stressed over nothing, if he does get anxious about something, he tends to work himself up so much that he literally cannot calm down. Fidgeting, pacing, going on long walks just to try and distract himself, unable to articulate his thoughts because they’re too scattered, etc. In this state, if anyone tries to calm him or get him to sit still/stop what he’s doing or talk out his feelings, he tends to get angry and snap at them (he doesn’t like being told to calm down anyway, it’s definitely one of his pet peeves). Self-Esteem: Even after all of the things he’s been through in his life, Nico’s self-esteem is still pretty good. He’s at least aware of the fact that none of the abuse he endured was ever his fault, that he was just a kid and didn’t ask for or deserve any of it. He’s confident in his own abilities, especially as an artist, and truly believes that if he wants something, he can most likely get it as long as he puts in his best effort. Religion: Agnostic. He doesn’t subscribe to any particular beliefs, but absolutely loves studying religion, learning about different systems of belief and ideas, etc. That sort of thing is fascinating to him.

R A N D O M Sleeping Position: Sprawled out, usually on his stomach. Boxers or Briefs?: Probably briefs. Day or Night?: Either one. He’s just happy to be there. Top or Bottom?: He could go either way~ Partying or Relaxing?: He loves parties, so that’s usually what he’d choose.

R E L A T I O N S H I P S Closest Friend: Nico has a lot of casual friends, but no one that he would consider to be a close friend, no one he feels he could go to with all his problems or confide in or anything. Relationship History: Crystal was his first girlfriend, and, in his naivety, he thought his feelings for her would last forever and that they could save each other from their miserable existences. Turns out, that’s not how it happened. They’ve only traded one type of miserable existence for another. Sexual Partners: Crystal is his first and only at this point. Thoughts About Sex: He likes sex with Crystal, but part of his regret in getting married so young is that he was never able to experiment with anyone else, see what else is out there. In particular, he has always wanted to see what sex is like with a man—and truth be told, he’s always been more attracted to men in general than to women. It’s not that he wishes he could sleep around with a lot of people, just that part of him wishes he’d had some time to himself, unmarried and not tied down to anyone, just to figure himself out, learn what his preferences are. Because now he feels their sex life is not exciting anymore, and whenever he tries to talk to Crystal about trying new things in bed, she gets very embarrassed and shuts the conversation down, and he doesn’t want to pressure her to do anything new if she’s uncomfortable.

P A R E N T S He never met his biological parents, and he knows nothing at all about them. He’s curious about them, but he’s always been too nervous to actually seek them out, worried that they would reject him or that it would turn out they’re not alive anymore.

D A I L Y L I F E Living Arrangements: Nico and Crystal live in a modest, decently-priced two-bedroom apartment just a quick bus ride away from campus and not terribly far from where Crystal works. One of the bedrooms is currently being used as an office/art studio by Nico, though Crystal has occasionally dropped hints that maybe they can make it into a nursery in the future. (That sort of talk absolutely terrifies Nico—it’s not that he doesn’t want kids, just that he knows he doesn’t want kids with her, not when their relationship is already on shaky ground.) Their furniture is mostly from IKEA, with a few random things they picked up at thrift stores. Lots of art on the walls, some drawn or painted by Nico, some gifted to them by friends.

#character: nico meadows #ship: juni #character sheet