#and the issue is that i don't WANT to stop

[a-b-riddle]

Part Four

Can't stop thinking about reader losing her cool.

"So we're closed, John." You said, trying to be cordial.

"Is that all you have to fucking say?" He practically growled before huffing. A humorless chuckle rumbling out of his chest. "I suppose not since you won't respond to any of us."

"Don't do that." You said taking a step back. Trying to create some distance between you and him. John would never physically hurt you. That much you knew.

"What?" He asked. His voice rising as he stepped closer to you. "Be angry that you pulled that shit and then left? Stopped talking to us. Changed your fucking locks. Last thing we even knew about you was that you got on a fucking plane and left. Even your friends wouldn't tell us anything besides that you were okay." "Which considering this came out of bloody nowhere, I find it highly unlikely that you are in any way 'okay'."

You took a deep breath. You wouldn't be intimidated. You wouldn't clam up. You wouldn't cry. You won't go back on your decision. You will be cordial and polite and not unleash everything you want to.

"I understand you might be upset, but it's for the best. It wasn't working out and I wanted to end on somewhat good terms. I would appreciate it if you lowered your voice and stopped speaking to me in that way." You could barely recognize your voice. It sounded so scripted. So robotic. But it was something you had been telling yourself. Excuses you had been telling yourself.

Because if you told yourself the truth. The picture you would paint would tell a different story. It wouldn't highlight the fact that John spoke to you like he was one of your men or that Johnny had the emotional capacity of a teaspoon. It wouldn't show what a flake Kyle was or that Simon was well and truly a mean-spirited person.

It would show how you weren't worth it. Four possible men. Four possibilities of happily ever after and none of them chose you. That no one ever did and no one ever would. You weren't worth it. You weren't loveable.

It wasn't right, but it was what the voices had been telling you late in the night. When you would crawl into your cold bed. The silence of the room not filled with John's steady breathing or the sound of Kyle's heartbeat as you laid you head on his chest. The absence of Johnny's occasional snoring or whatever Simon was watching playing in the background of your dreams.

In the void, all your dark thoughts came back at you.

"Upset?" He asked, his voice still louder than you would have liked. "An understatement considering the stunt you pulled."

"You think it was a stunt?"

"So Johnny thought with his dick and didn't plan things out. You should have told him instead of crying to Simon and then pulling this shit." "Christ, I knew you were still young, but I didn't take you for that immature."

"You know what?" "I'm done." "I am so fucking sick of making excuses for you all." "You want to act like I'm the immature one, John?" "You are 35-year-old man who cannot separate his work from his work like. You have continuously talked to and down to me like I am one of your men, only to turn around and always blame your shitty fucking attitude on work. I get that your job is stressful, but I did not sign up to be your verbal fucking punching bag."

"And this come and fucking go incident with Johnny. It has been a consistent issue with him coming over just to fuck. I've asked him for that last six months that 'hey, we've been seeing each other for a year and a half, I would love to meet your family' and suddenly the dates stop. He doesn't ask to see me until after 7 PM. He brings food occasionally, fucks me and leaves. Sometimes before I even wake up."

"And the only reason Kyle is the person I am the least pissed off with is because I haven't even seen him." You took a step closer, not noticing how the anger in John's eyes had softened. "I have not seen Kyle in weeks, to no fault of my own. I stopped reaching out to make dinner plans after the third time he canceled on a date night when I was either on my way or already at the restaurant."

"And Simon?" You scoffed. "Well, it doesn't really matter. After all, as he said I get mine. You all make me cum which is supposed to magically erase how shitty you've all been as partners. It's supposed to erase the nights I've cried myself to sleep debating on whether or not there was something wrong with me. How I'm not good enough to meet anyone else in your lives like some dirty fucking secret. How none of you can even bother to pencil me for a group dinner so I can tell you a publishing house picked up my book. How at some point you all stopped caring or maybe never did."

You took a breath. Blinking quickly to keep the tears at bay.

You wouldn't cry. You wouldn't cry.

"As Simon said it best, I should have known that spreading my legs wouldn’t end with one of you putting a ring on your finger.”

For once, John was silent. Unsure of what to say. An apology starting to form at the tip of his tongue before realizing 'sorry' wouldn't cut it. Not this time.

Had he really been that sharp with you? He knew that there were times he had gotten short, but he almost always apologized immediately after. If not at the very moment he took in your crest-fallen face, then definitely later. But he almost always told you he was sorry. Didn't he?

"So as I said," you swallowed down the lump in your throat. "I'm closed. We're done. Now get out." Your face held no sadness. Even though your eyes were nearly full to the brim with unshed tears, you weren't sad.

You were finally angry.

#captain john price #kyle gaz garrick #simon ghost riley #call of duty #john soap mactavish #angst #angst with a happy ending

[shadow4-1]

I'm just imagining an a/b/o dynamic where the entire 141, including you, are all Alphas. Except, after a few years of such close contact something starts to shift.

You start to become an Omega.

"Why is this happening to me?" You all but wail. It hurts to breathe, everything feels like it's on fire. Your stomach twists again, painful cramps shooting white hot lighting up your spine. "Why does it hurt so bad?"

Your pack is all around you, trying to soothe you in anyway they can but it's not working. Everything hurts, your teeth feel like they're going to crack from how tight you have them gritted. The wave of pain ebbs for a few gracious seconds before starting up all over again. You whine and sob and reach out for any of your team.

"Whats going on?" Price huffs, his cool hand cupping at your face. His touch is the barest relief even as he drags down one of your lower eyelids. He tuts in an intense concern. "Simon, have you seen this before?"

The larger male drops to one knee. He gives you a quick once over before dipping his head towards yours. He presses the front of his mask to the crown of your head. Through your labored panting you barely hear him take in a deep inhale of scent.

He coughs and stands back up too quickly. Judging by his flighty gaze, something is seriously wrong. Another tremor of pain wracks your body. You open mouth squeal. It's getting so much worse.

"Simon!" Soap growls, trying to bring his fellow alpha back from whatever memory he'd fallen into. "What's wrong wit' 'er?"

"She's turning into an Omega."

Everyone in the room turned their gazes towards Ghost, even you, despite your pain. You? An Omega? But you've always been and Alpha. It was part of the necessary requirements to be a part of the 141. You'd been genetically tested, hormonally tested, and aptitude tested. You were a full blooded Alpha coming from generations of Alphas.

"There's...ngh...no way." You hiccup out, tears blurring your vision.

"That doesn't make any sense. That can't happen." Gaz adds. He rubs at your back. His cool touch soothes even more of your pain into a dull throb, but it isn't enough.

"M' n' Alpha!" You cry out in anguish, the first of many tears finally dripping down your cheeks.

Something about Ghost's words hurt worse than any pain your body was making you go through. Try as you may to deny it, he was right. You could feel your body changing, altering, breaking and bending.

"Why is this happening to me?" You wail.

"There's too many of us." Ghost huffs, he glances around at your pack.

"Why does that matter?" Soap grumbles, scooping an arm around your center to pull you up into a sitting position. "We're a pack."

"That's just it." Ghost sighs tiredly.

"I've never heard of this being 'n issue." Price butts in. He grabs your face again and brushes the tears off your cheeks. "Task Forces are fully Alpha run. They 'ave been for years."

"If what Ghost is saying is right, it's biological, Captain." Gaz huffs, his thoughts visibly racing. "Too many Alphas, not enough Omegas. It means we'd go extinct."

"But why didn't she change earlier?" Johnny asks. You teeter in his hold but he keeps you upright. He lets you lean against his chest. He smells more comforting than usual.

"It's hormonal. She's been with us almost three years now, it takes time." Ghost says. Price nods in agreement.

"I'm an Alpha!" You sob, trying wrench yourself free from the multiple men around you. "I- I don't want to be bred. I don't want to be claimed! I'm an Alpha!"

"We're know you are, Love." Price breathes softly. He continued to wipe tears away from your face with a tenderness that only makes your despair swell further. "But this is happening, and we can't stop it."

"Take me to sick bay, please. They'll...they'll put me on blockers or something! Please, anything but this! I don't want to be an Omega."

The pack looks toward Ghost but he shakes his head.

"This is you first heat. The blockers will kill you."

You scream in pain, fear, and frustration. Another wave of excruciating pain washes over you. You wrench out of Soap's grip and fall against the floor. The tile is cool against your flushed skin.

As much as you hate him for it, Ghost is right.

This is your first heat.

Your back arches off the floor. Your toes curl and you squeal, shaking, gasping, panting hot breaths. You can feel yourself start to sweat. There's a sudden gush of wetness between your thighs. Embarrassment floods you. You try to curl into a ball but your body keeps being wracked with tremors.

"H-help me..." You cry out weakly, sobbing into the tile.

Your pack seems to finally get a whiff of your fluctuating scent. All around you, you watch as one by one each of their gazes grow more and more pointed. All of you know what must be done. After all, you're an Omega now.

...and there's no going back.

#cod imagines #mw2 #call of duty #mw2 headcanons #simon ghost riley #cod mwii #john soap mactavish #simon riley x reader #captain price #kyle gaz garrick

[wosoamazing]

Newest Signing

Part 1 - Fire on Fire Series A/N: This is the first part of my new Leah Series, I have already started writing and planing parts of it but if you have any ideas let me know and I will try and include them.

Leah sat on her phone scrolling through various social media platforms, it hurt to see so many other people happy, with their partners when she wasn't, she had never had a successful relationship, to her no one was right, no one was the right match, she didn't feel like they clicked. So many of her exes told her that she had 'too high standards' or that 'soulmates don't exist' or something along the lines of 'you aren't perfect so why do you expect someone else to be perfect'. However she wasn't looking for a soulmate, she wasn't looking for someone perfect, she was just looking for the someone who was perfect for her.

She had started to think that maybe she was just asking for too much, and that her standards were too high, but that was until the day Jonas introduced the team to Arsenal's newest signing.

"Girls this is Y/N Y/L/N, she is our newest signing, and yes she did sign outside of the transfer window as approved by the FA due to issues at her old club, but no further questions on that please. She isn't going to be fully joining training until our Portugal training camp, just so she has some time to settle in but also a well deserved break, but you will see her in the gym and around the place, so please make her feel welcome. I think she is going to be really great for the team."

Her eye's immediately connected with the brunettes, she was tall and muscular, her face held the dreamiest blue eyes, and her smile was perfect, she continued watching the girl as she hugged Stina, the way her hair flowed, her body flowed, it was safe to say Leah was mesmerised.

"Stop staring, you creep" McCabe whispered in Leah's ear, causing her to break from her trance, giving the Irish women a playful smack on the shoulder. "I'm going to the gym," she said as she stood up and headed out, everyone around her making eyes at each other.

_____

You walked into the locker room behind Jonas and as he introduced you to the team, a certain blonde's eyes connected with yours, you couldn't help but notice the small smile her lips created when she saw you, but you quickly diverted your gaze to your best friend. Walking up to her and hugging her.

"I'm glad they let you sign out of the transfer window," Stina said, sounding relieved as she released the hug, "yeah I was worried they wouldn't but once I explained to the FA what was happening they were horrified and told me they would reach out to whatever club I wanted to, within reason, and see if they would sign me. Apparently there are going to be investigations."

"Good, they shouldn't be doing that. But where are you staying? You can crash at mine until you find a place if you need."

"Thank you, but I'm all good, Moster and Tante said I could stay with them, as they are in Paris for the next however long, however it was more a non-negotiable, I think they also meant I was going to be staying when they came back, again non-negotiable, but I'll see."

You and Stina continued talking until it was time for the girls to go to their meeting. You had an appointment with one of the physios just so they could check your range of motion and get some base lines in case you were to injure yourself before your first fitness testing session. As you walked into the gym, you saw a certain blonde in the corner, working away at some exercises which must've been set for her. As you worked with the physio completing the activities and exercises he wanted you to do you couldn't help but notice the way the blonde kept glancing over to you, almost as if she wanted to talk to you.

_____

You sat down at a table with Stina and Frida, Caitlin joined you and wanted to catch up with you and also trying to help you integrate with the team more easily, Caitlin's presence meant that Katie and then consequently Beth sat with you too. You knew the Aussies already due to having spent most of your childhood and your very early twenties in Australia, due to your Tante's work.

"Steph," you called out as you saw the very flustered Aussie walk into the dinning hall, she turned her head around to you, just about every emotion passing through her face.

"Y/N?" she questioned as she walked towards you, "what are you doing here?"

"Well if you weren't late you would've been here when Jonas said I was transferring here," you weren't normally one to say anything about your teammates being late, especially new teammates, however you are Steph had been teammates a long time ago, making your senior team debut for Melbourne Victory exactly a year after she made hers, and she also had a mark on her neck, so you were waiting to see how bad her excuse was.

"Sorry yeah I slept in, Calvin was up barking most of the night. It's so nice to see you again though," she explained as she pulled you in for a hug.

"That mark of your neck would indicate otherwise," you whispered in her ear, she just groaned knowing everyone would've already seen it.

You spend the rest of the lunch talking to mainly Steph or Stina and Frida but occasionally others would make some small talk with you.

After lunch you said your goodbyes to the team, and started to make your way out, when you heard someone call out your name, you turned around to see Leah moving towards you. "Would you like to join me and some of the team for dinner tonight? We are just going to a local pub," she questioned.

"Umm," you filled the air as you hesitated not sure what the goal of her invitation was, "if you don't want to, that's totally okay, I mean you're probably busy anyway," she quickly spat out trying to backtrack.

"Oh no, I would love to, it's just that I don't currently have a car," you told her as you fiddled with the ring on your finger.

"Oh, I can drive you if you want, you can just message me your address later," you nodded and mumbled a quiet thanks before you both went your separate ways.

____

You were just about to put your shoes one when you received a message.

From Leah: I'm just out the front in the car, no rush though. I know I'm early.

To Leah: Hey, all good, I'm actually just putting my shoes on now, I'll be out in a second.

You're pretty sure Leah's eyes widened as you walked out of the house and to her car. You opened the door of her car and saw her eyes run over your body before she said "You look nice," "Oh, thank you, it's nothing," you blushed slightly climbing into the passenger seat, but in truth it was nothing. You had a pair of light blue skinny jeans on, with a cropped country road rugby jumper on. You also have a black puffer vest in case you needed it but you placed that on the floor as you got in.

"You look nice too," you said as an afterthought, almost regretting it instantly, it probably wouldn't been better to say nothing at all than say that.

"Thanks," she smiled at you softly before she began to drive.

---

It was safe to say by the end of the night you hadn't once regretted your decision to come, all the girls there were super nice and it was a really great way to get to know them all, outside of soccer.

"Um, we're about to head home and we just thought to offer to take you home, since, um," Beth gestured over to where Leah was a the bar, you couldn't help but feel a small wave of warmth travel through your body at the fact that the team already seemed to care about you.

"Oh um, yes please that would be great," you followed Beth and Viv to their car, making small talk with them on the way home, when the car pulled up outside your home you didn't miss the look the couple sent each other, you quickly hopped out and thanked the two women profusely, before walking up the stairs of your home and collapsing onto your couch, noticing a message from Stina.

From Stina: Hey, I hope the night out with the girls went well. What would you say to a movie night at yours tomorrow night? In the theatre?

To Stina: Hey yeah it went well, Beth and Viv took me home, will explain why tomorrow night at movie night in the lounge room, you can invite Frida if you want too.

From Stina: Okay. I'll be over around 5. From Stina: Wait, why the lounge room?

To Stina: See you then, I'll make pasta.

#woso #woso community #woso fanfics #woso imagine #woso x reader #arsenal wfc #awfc #awfc x reader #leah williamson x reader #leah williamson #wosoamazing fireonfire

[sunderwight]

SV AU where Shen Yuan transmigrates into a dragon.

It's not so bad, at first. He's an extremely magical sort of dragon so he can easily take on a humanoid shape, and he has dominion over an entire mountain, with a magical gate that leads to his palace. Said palace has a fully stocked treasury, a library, garden, etc, with the only real downsides being that the place is kind of huge and very difficult for a neet with limited housekeeping or landscaping skills to keep up with. The original dragon had enslaved a bunch of fairy spirits to do it for him, but since Shen Yuan has moral objections to that, he'd let them all go and they'd run off before he could even think to offer to hire any of them as paid employees instead. Not that he can blame them for being in a hurry to get gone.

He does his best, and generally enjoys being a dragon lazing on his mountain, or wandering the beauty of his palace and investigating the books and scrolls kept there. He doesn't actually seem to need to eat or drink, so that's not really an issue, and nobody looks keen to bother him. But after a few months the dust starts to really pile up, and trying to figure out how to do his own laundry without modern equipment leads to several disasters, and even though he doesn't need to eat he's starting to think it would be quite nice to have a fancy sit-down dinner and enjoy it for its own sake anyway. He has an enchanted larder but his food prep skills aren't up to much.

So, Shen Yuan ventures away from his mountain. He keeps to his human disguise when he's not traveling, and at first tries to hire on some help from a nearby city. But when he explains that he lives on the mountain, he realizes the difficulty, because everyone in the area knows that only the dragon lives there. So they all think he's either a liar or a fraud, or some servant of a nefarious supernatural creature angling to trick and possibly devour them.

Shen Yuan tries approaching another town in his dragon form, to see if anyone will actually deal with him if he's being upfront and honest about the situation, but the townspeople just panic. He returns to his mountain to rethink his strategies, and in the meanwhile the alarmed locals hire a swordsman to go after him. The guy gives him a few very painful cuts before Shen Yuan mostly-accidentally sends him careening into a boulder. One broken arm later the swordsman is gently persuaded that the pay he was offered isn't worth the effort on this job, and leaves.

Discouraged, Shen Yuan decides he's gonna give this one last try. He picks the second closest city, flies up, and is like yes hello, yes I am indeed a dragon, no I'm not trying to burn down your walls, yes it would be excellent if you stopped shooting arrows at me, look they don't even get past the scales? It's kind of silly? Okay, yes, thank you very much. Good. Now, the thing is, I'm looking for some people. I want to take them back to my mountain with me, to my incredibly nice palace, and -- what was that? A princess? No no I don't want a princess, what would I even do with one? If anything I'm looking for the complete opposite of a princess!

Anyway, the locals take this to mean that the dragon is demanding a sacrifice in the form of a pretty boy of no particular pedigree, and Shen Yuan takes this to mean that he's finally made his case clear and they're going to dig up someone who is willing to overlook his being a dragon in exchange for free room and board and fair wages out of his massive treasury.

SY's a bit disheartened when the entire city could only apparently turn up one such person -- an underfed teenage boy who looks at Shen Yuan like, despite the situation, he is still expecting to be eaten at any moment. Poor thing! But at least having one servant means he can potentially get more, especially if it all goes well. The lad can tell others that working for a dragon isn't so bad! Well, provided that he doesn't give up in alarm at the state of the mountain palace.

For his part, Luo Binghe at first thinks he's definitely going to get eaten, and then that this dragon is weirdly nice about planning to eat him, and then that maybe the dragon has other (even less savory!) plans for him, until finally he sees the state of the dragon's laundry and the foot-thick layer of dust in the corners, and gets completely distracted. Mortal terror forgotten, those floors should not be that filthy, Lord Dragon respectfully that isn't how anyone should prepare rice either, but oh Binghe has never seen a kitchen so nice before in his life...!

Anyway, needless to say, it works out just fine.

#svsss #scum villain's self saving system #scum villain #bingqiu #this is luo binghe's palace now shen qingqiu just lives there #the only hiccup is that binghe is strangely bad at convincing anyone else to come work at the palace #shen qingqiu encouraged him to assist in finding other help but somehow binghe always comes up empty handed #oh well guess they'll have to continue living there just the two of them with no one else #(this eventually does change but binghe sulks for WEEKS about it)

[tossawary]

I think one of the keys to non-canon and rarepair relationships for me in fanfiction is that you have to respect the relationships that are already there. Not like in a "you have to do the canon relationships and then break them up first" way, because you can definitely make it so that the canon relationship in question never happened OR was never romantic or sexual if you want. But in a basic characterization issue kind of way.

For example, when I wrote a Shang Qinghua / Yue Qingyuan fic, I was looking at the ways to make that work given the Qijiu and Moshang situations. And I ended up making it so that Qijiu either never had or never fully developed any romantic or sexual feelings in this AU, but they're still inseparable as friends / brothers / platonic soulmates of a kind. You CAN'T write a Yue Qingyuan who doesn't care about Shen Jiu. It's just not on the table in terms of characterization.

(I mean, you could, I suppose, but then it's a case of, "Who the fuck even is this guy anymore? You undid his whole backstory and now he's a completely different person." I do think you can write interesting AU stories focused on character development in which Yue Qingyuan learns to move on after post-canon or in which perhaps Shen Jiu's treatment of Luo Binghe becomes an actual breaking point for their relationship, but even if things somehow get REAL BAD between him and Shen Jiu, I don't really think Yue Qingyuan will ever be able to stop caring completely.)

Likewise, I made it so that Moshang never fell into the master-servant situationship, and ended up as cooperative enemies / distant allies of sorts. But Shang Qinghua still thinks Mobei-Jun is sexy. That's his ideal guy! Airplane Bro still being a little weird about his favorite character is not really negotiable to me, even if he's in love with someone else. He has eyes! He can still look at other men disrespectfully! He just doesn't act on his attraction.

Like, you can totally just sidestep any romantic / sexual feelings and make it so they never existed, in order to pursue your pairing of choice. But you cannot easily deny, in my opinion, the basic fact of a character caring on a basic level about someone important to them. I think it gives weird "you're only allowed to care about your romantic partner / no friends allowed" vibes to just completely cut off all other relationships. There's not a hard line between "love-triangle-fixing polyamory" and "completely isolated from even friendships because maintaining friendships with exes is cheating somehow monogamy" as options here.

#tossawary svsss #hey share the weight #tossawary fandom

[vbecker10]

Loads of Fun

Laundry Day (Loki x female reader Y/N)

How Could This Not Fit?! (Loki x fem reader Y/N)

Pairing: Bucky x female reader (Y/N)

Summary: Bucky doesn't want to admit that he hasn't quite gotten used to all the new technology since he was freed from the Winter Soldier and his latest issue is with the dryer. Y/N catches him mid-struggle with the machine and comes to his rescue.

Warnings: some light swearing, feeling a tad useless and old, Bucky struggling hard with the laundry, Y/N being super awkward

A/N: So in Laundry Day (linked above) I wrote an off hand little comment about how much laundry Bucky needed to do and @alexakeyloveloki comment inspired me to write a short fic about it so... enjoy 💚

This is not the same Y/N from Laundry Day & How Could This Not Fit?!, this is a different one. Apparently a bunch of women in the Tower have the same name as you (haha sorry that's dumb but I wanted them both to be Y/N fics so here we are)

"Oh.... I messed up," you close your book and get up from the couch quickly as you suddenly realize it's almost midnight. You had meant to only read one more chapter but you had gotten lost in your book as always.

You grab your detergent from the closet, drag your overflowing laundry hamper to the door and slide on a pair of flip flops. "Every freaking time," you mumble to yourself as you open the door. Once again, you put off doing laundry until you completely ran out of clothes.

The elevator doors open and you step out into the basement. "At least no one should be down here," you think out loud thankfully.

You had tried to do your laundry this morning but you gave up on that idea as soon as you opened the door. Loki's girlfriend was sitting on top of one of the dryers with her legs around his waist. You put your hand on the door and shake the images of the two of them away, you don't need that to be stuck in your brain.

"Damnit," you whisper as you freeze completely, the door halfway open. Bucky has his back to you as he stares at the dryer, unaware of your presence. You had developed a crush on the super soldier and decided the best way to handle it was to avoid him at all cost like any other mature adult. You were terrified that you might say or do something embarrassing so you thought your best option was to never be alone with him.

You sigh, knowing you're out of underwear and options so you open the door the rest of the way. Before you can say anything to him, the dryer Bucky is focused on begins to beep loudly.

"I don't know what you want from me," he says to it, his voice full of frustration.

He opens the door and the sound stops, you are both completely still but as soon as he closes the door it begins again. He pushes the button on the panel to start the dryer but the beeping continues.

"Why are you so complicated?" he asks the machine, clearly unaware that he is no longer alone. He pushes another button that does nothing to quiet the sound then he groans loudly, nearly ripping the door off the hinges with his metal arm.

"Do you need help?" you ask quietly from behind him.

He closes the door quickly as he turns around to face you. You can see the frustration in his expression turn to embarrassment when he realizes you were watching him. As he opens his mouth to answer you, the dryer starts to beep again.

He pulls the door open and turns towards you again. With a look of utter defeat he says, "I think it hates me."

You cover your mouth to keep from giggling at the fact that a super soldier is losing a battle with an appliance. There is no need for you to add insult to injury, you think, but he does look like he is in desperate need of a hug.

You walk over to him and drag your hamper in front of an empty machine. "I'm sure it doesn't hate you," you reassure him with a smile and he shrugs, clearly not believing you.

"Can I take a look?" you ask pointing at the dryer and he nods, moving away from it as if it might explode at any second.

"You can try but I'm telling you, this one is evil," he laughs nervously.

"I think I can handle it," you try to sound sure of yourself. "Oh, I'm Y/N, by the way," you suddenly decide to introduce yourself as you close the door.

"I know," he answers and you turn your head to look at him over your shoulder, the beeping continuing. "You work for the IT department," he says and you feel yourself blushing. "I've seen you around the Tower a few times."

"Yep, that's me," you respond, trying not to sound as if your internally screaming. He remembers my name? When did we even talk? I definitely would remember if we talked. Focus, focus, you yell at yourself, you've been staring at him for too long.

"Well, they don't train us to handle haunted appliances but I think I can handle this one," you say then immediately cringe. Why do I talk? You think, this is why I avoid him.

Your thoughts are interrupted by Bucky laughing. You turn towards your new favorite sound and he smiles at you as he leans on a nearby washer.

Ok, you think to yourself, time to show off and fix this stupid thing. You check to see what settings he's used but they all look right. Well, there's that, you think a bit annoyed but you're determined to figure it out. Suddenly you get an idea.

"Sometimes these things get weird when they are unbalanced or too full," you explain as you open the door and bend down. You reach in to level things out. A second too late you realize your holding a pair of his damp boxers and throw them back inside.

"Yep, these look fine," you close the door quickly and stand up, hoping he didn't notice but you can tell he saw you pick them up. "No. I mean... not that the boxers look fine, just like the load is fine. I- I'm just gonna..." you say, as you turn to face the dryer again. "I'm gonna die," you whisper as you rub your face with your hands. Good job dummy, you managed to make this even more awkward.

"Damn dryer is going to beat both of us," he says after a moment of continuous beeping and you can't help but agree with him.

"I think you might be right-" you pause, your eyebrows scrunching as a blinking red light catches your attention. "Has this been blinking the whole time?"

"I think so," he guesses. "Is that important?"

You sigh and nod, "It means I'm an idiot."

He tilts his head, his arms folded across his chest as he watches you open the dryer door again. You pull open the small door at the bottom and groan. He walks closer to see what you are doing but you don't notice until he leans over your shoulder.

"What is that?" he asks and you jump at how close his voice is to your ear. "Sorry," he laughs. "Thought you knew I was in here."

"Yea I just thought you were over there," you wave you hand towards where he had been and almost hit him in the face with the back of your hand. He dodges it easily and laughs lightly as you cover your mouth. "I'm so sorry," you mumble from under your hand.

"Its fine, you missed," he says with a grin. "So what's wrong with it?"

You pull out the lint trap and show him, "This thing is full so it won't run until we empty it." His expression tells you he has no idea what it is so you explain how a lint trap works and that if you don't clean them out you could potentially start a fire.

"Oh," he responds. "Wouldn't it be helpful if the stupid thing said that's what was wrong with it instead of just beeping?"

"It did," you groan then point to the light that is no longer blinking. "That's what the little light was for."

You wait for him to be stunned by your stupidity. You work for the IT department at Stark Industries, the most technologically advanced company in the world and you barely fixed a not broken dryer. You turn it on for him then turn your attention to finally loading your clothes into the washer.

Instead of responding the way you think he will, he sighs and takes a seat. "I don't understand any of this new technology," he admits.

You turn over your shoulder to look at him and see that he seems defeated again. "Don't worry," you try to make him feel better. "Stark likes new toys. He gets all the fanciest tech, no one knows how to use this stuff."

"I don't know how to do anything," he rests his elbows on his knees and leans forward. You turn on the washers and walk towards him. "Nothing is simple anymore."

"What do you mean?" you ask as you sit in the empty chair next to him.

"Everything is a computer now and the whole building talks. The fridge has more technology in it than the last car I drove, the toaster is voice activated, hell even the sinks are motion sensors," he says, his eyes focused on his hands as he talks.

You cover your mouth quickly to hide your laugh but it slips out. He looks at you and you lower you hand to ask, "I'm sorry but... who told you the toaster was voice activated?"

"Sam," he says then his eyes widen, "It's not is it?"

"No," you shake your head and can't hold back your laughter.

He groans, lowering his head again, "I'm gonna kill him."

"You didn't really believe him did you?" you ask in disbelief.

"I spent five minutes yelling 'toast' at it this morning before he said it was probably updating," he admits, covering his face with his metal hand.

You smile and imagine him getting more and more annoyed at the poor little appliance.

He sits up, resting the back on his head on the wall behind you. "I just don't know why everything is so complicated," he says and you suddenly feel guilty for laughing.

"I'm sorry," you tell him, looking down at your feet. "Have you tried talking to Steve about getting you up to speed on some things?"

"I don't want to keep bothering him every time I can't turn on a light or get ice out of the fridge," he says. "Steve adjusted fine so I just have to keep trying to figure all of this out."

"Who told you Steve adjusted well?" you ask before you can stop yourself.

He looks at you but doesn't answer so you continue talking. "I was part of the team that helped wake him up. Trust me, he freaked out plenty of times and he was confused by pretty much everything in the beginning."

He shakes his head, "I didn't know that, it's one of the only things we've never really talked about."

"I'm sorry we didn't have a team prepped for you when you joined. I guess we just sort of figured you had been awake a lot more than Steve," you say. "As the uh... other guy," you add awkwardly, trying to avoid calling him the Winter Soldier.

"Technically I was but..." his voice trails off and his flesh hand covers his metal hand as he looks down.

"The other guy didn't do much cooking or laundry, did he?" you ask, finishing his thought.

"No," he answers.

After a short silence you say, "If you want, I can help get you up to speed. A lot of the tech around here is actually pretty easy to use, if you know what your doing."

"You don't have to waste your time," he shrugs. "I'll figure it all out."

"Helping you wouldn't be a waste of time," you tell him with a smile. "Besides, I have a lot of free time. I pretty much do nothing but read when I'm not working so I'm always around if you need me," you add and groan internally. Try to make it sound like you don't have a life at all, good job, you think.

He smiles and makes eye contact with you, "That would be really helpful, thanks."

You get lost in how his smile lights up his face but the long beep of the dryer finishing thankfully means you don't stare at him until it gets awkward. He gets up to empty the machine and you grab your book from the top of the washer before sitting back down. As you open the book he sits next to you again.

"Oh," you close the book and look up. "Sorry, I thought- you don't have to stay down here. I've got a while left until it'll be done."

He looks at the time left on the washer and says, "I just thought we could talk for a bit but... if you would rather read, I can leave you to it."

"I can read this later," you smile. You mean to gently toss the book on the table used to fold laundry but you over shoot and it hits the floor, sliding away from you. You cover your face with your hands and get up.

"I've got it," he laughs. He places the book on the table and sits next to you.

"I'm not usually a disaster," you tell him and he chuckles. "Actually, I kind of am. That's why I'm way better off with books and the tech stuff then with people," you admit. "I always do something stupid or say something weird," you feel yourself shrink back in your chair.

"I think it makes you interesting," he replies with a smile. "I'm never quite sure what you're going to say or do."

You laugh nervously, "Me neither." A second later your brain turns on, wait did he say I was interesting?

"There is actually one thing you could help me with now, if that's ok?" he asks, keeping you from focusing too much on what he had just said. He takes out his phone, "I think there's something wrong with it."

He hands it to you and you almost drop it when your fingers touch, "Ha, I've got it. Sorry." You open the settings and start looking for usual problems but things seem fine. You look up at him, "What's wrong with it?"

He smirks and says, "It doesn't have your number."

"Wow," you can't help but laugh. "That was really smooth."

He laughs and says, "I'm a bit out of practice but I thought that was good."

"It was," you blush and add your number before handing him back his phone.

He looks at it then back at you and says, "Okay, but seriously, how do I text you cause I'm not sure how exactly to do that."

I hope you liked this!! Please like, share and comment if you did 💚💚

(I don't have a Bucky tag list yet so sorry my Loki list didn't get a choice lol)

@soubi001 @michelleleewise @harlequin-hangout @ace-of-gay @xorpsbane @mochie85 @sheris532 @lokiswife-dark-fox-queen @lokiandbuckysdoll @winterfrostlovetriangle @cabingrlandrandomcrap @stupidthoughtsinwriting @mjsthrillernp @lulubelle814 @goblingirlsarah @janineb86 @alexakeyloveloki @siconetribal @jiyascepter

#bucky x y/n #bucky x female reader #bucky #bucky x you #bucky x reader #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky au #bucky fanfic #bucky fluff #bucky fic #bucky drabble #bucky imagine #former Winter Soldier #james buchanan barnes #james bucky barnes #james bucky buchanan barnes #james barnes #bucky mcu #bucky marvel #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes marvel #bucky barnes fandom #sebastian stan #seb

[genderqueerdykes]

i do want to say to the other nonhumans who have been told that their otherkin, fictionkin, therian, alterhuman, or other nonhuman identity is "just a phase" and that it would go away if you "had less free time" or "more to do with your time"- i want to say that at least in my case, that's really just a big fat lie

i began identifying as nonhuman in late 2010, early 2011. i was browsing otherkin forums back then, back when forums were still widely used. it took up a lot of my thoughts at first because it was new and it can take a while to figure out what your nonhuman identity is. as time passed and my life got progressively harder, going through bouts of homelessness, living in hotels, having my trust broken by friends... never did i once lose my nonhumanity.

sure it fell to the back of my mind while other priorities took the wheel, like paying for shelter, but if anything, being homeless and experiencing the "real world" solidified my nonhuman identity more than anything. being exposed to the "real world" make me understand that i do not understand how humans think, and that i still am not one, over 10 years later. i never became misanthropic, but my feelings of "otherness" only intensified as i became more and more confused about the human experience, which lead me to feel less and less like one. something like the feeling of a lost coyote who wandered too far into the city, staring at the city skyline, unfamiliar with this terrain, unsure of how to even begin to adapt.

if something is a part of you, it won't just go away because other things come along. i never stopped identifying as a wolfdog even while i was scared out of my mind and busy facing the challenges of the human world. those challenges and hurdles that don't exist in the natural world literally reinforced my understanding of my nonhumanity. i will simply never get the way humans think or operate, and that's fine. it's literally a non-issue. they don't get me, either.

#nonhuman #otherkin #therian #alterhuman #canine therian #wolf therian #dog therian #kin #our writing #about us #fictionkin

[silverwhittlingknife]

OKAY SO i have been rereading dustorange's wonderful post here about Dick in an UtRH-esque scenario where he dies & then comes back to life

AND I HAVE INCOHERENT BRAINSTORMING THOUGHTS:

so first, i think Robin!Dick would be just as hurt by the discovery that Bruce has a new Robin, and brood about it - but i think the shame of having died would stop him from confronting Bruce about it the way Nightwing!Dick does in canon.

and I do NOT think that he would expect Bruce to kill anyone for him (or even be upset that he doesn't? I just don't think this would be a consideration for Dick. he's gonna be fixated on "I failed." so he'll be upset about being replaced but not about the lack of revenge. and if Bruce did take revenge, i think he'd actually feel angry and betrayed about that because it'd feel like the choice was taken away from him, a la how upset he gets when he thinks Bruce has arranged to have Zucco killed - even if he intellectually knows that Bruce wasn't deliberately undermining himbecause he didn't know Dick was gonna come back to life.)

anyway so what WOULD he do??

what comes to mind is something along the lines of "Dick obsessively keeps an eye on Batman & Robin even while telling himself that he's not"

and then - say - if it's Robin!Tim (i feel like this has to be Tim because in the world where Dick dies there is no way that Bruce is voluntarily picking a new Robin), then maybe the moment when Dick steps in is when Bruce is in danger & he's furious / critical of Tim for not protecting Bruce well enough

and i feel like that's how he'd channel the hurt feelings - it'd all be deflected under shame and obligation, and then translated into the anger of "you replaced me & yet you're failing to do the job that you're supposed to do" (which is actually about projection/self-hatred because Dick would actually be mad at himself for having died & not doing that job anymore)

and Dick wouldn't want to see Bruce at all because of the shame over dying & subconscious fear that Bruce doesn't want him back, plus every little thing that Tim does differently would drive him NUTS because it implies that maybe the way Dick did things wasn't good enough for Bruce

i'm actually kind of fascinated by this now. because i am me and i have (1) obsession i am mostly invested in the dick & tim side of it sdfsdfds

so i'm picturing Tim very stung by whatever critical things Dick said to him & tracking this mysterious vigilante down, and then Dick doesn't want to spend ANY time with him BUT he's also subconsciously desperate for news of Bruce!!! so then something something Dick starts sorta training him a la Tim's various contacts with edgy non-batman-aligned vigilantes, and Tim's very defensive about how he IS a good robin so THERE but of course he's also defensive because he's secretly worried he's not good enough.

normally i would have tim Recognize dick since recognizing dick is tim's most basic skill HOWEVER i think it would be much more fun if tim doesn't recognize him so he can give dick a speech about legacy & the first robin: "i do x and such because that's how the first robin did it so it is Objectively Correct." which Dick will find incredibly infuriating but will be unable to counter since he cannot counter with 'the 1st robin was ME'

…hmmm i do think Dick ought to be angry about SOMETHING about batman's methods/attitude just because that's more dynamic? I feel like in order to make the adaptation work, there ought to be SOME kind of argument with Bruce right before he dies that he can still be mad about, a la the garzonas fight for Jason and Bruce. unsure what though?

okay let's see: I feel like Dick's main arguments with Bruce aren't about vigilante issues per se so much as they're about working in a team - so e.g.

1) Bruce being controlling/demanding, and 2) Bruce being secretive and doing stuff behind Dick's back, and 3) Bruce not allowing Dick enough autonomy, 4) just generally a perceived lack of trust.

SO maybe whatever The Frustrating Thing that bruce was doing when dick died is a thing he's STILL doing with this new robin, and dick is getting frustrated all over again sorta on tim's behalf but mostly on his own behalf because he never got to resolve this with bruce

but anyway that way when Bruce finally spots disguised!Dick, then they can have the fight again before Bruce realizes who he is <3

#extremely good ideas / extremely bad ideas #there should be utrh!dick + robin!tim fics. i've decided now #sorry jason fans i love you i don't know where he is in this scenario #maybe uhhh he moved to metropolis. i don't know #anyway i do NOT believe dick would ever ever ever take on the Red Hood identity in a million years though #jason's got a whole 'i confront my worst fear via becoming it' thing going on #but i feel like dick's angst would be more about Me & Bruce rather than directed at the joker or any particular enemy #so no Red Hood #he does need a new costume though so i'm picturing him in the Renegade costume from the mob arc

[velnna]

Hii!!! Big fan of your work. 🩷 Random question. What was it like coming up with Staeve? Did you have any doubts or anxiety posting him online for the public to see? Or was it just something you were positive about? I would love to showcase my Tavs online but I always get so nervous since I 1. Don't want anyone to steal my oc or 2. Fear that people won't like them. ☹️

Thank youu 💜 I'll be honest Staeve (and me playing BG3 after not having played anything big in a decade) was just a meme that got out of hand so I never set out to share him as a full rounded character. It just sorta happened.

But in general I never have any sort of negative feelings about sharing characters because none of them are created for people to like - they're exclusively created for ME to like haha. If people like them too, amazing! If not, oh well 🤷‍♂️ I won't change or stop sharing them because of that.

I know it's not easy to just stop feeling stressed or anxious about something, but if it's any consolation most characters do have a little fanbase hidden somewhere, and at worst they'll be received quietly, not negatively. Fear of backlash against your characters is only maybe justified if they very openly represent things people might take an issue with, but that's pretty hard to get by accident imo

#staeve #ask

[iamasimperyk]

Just a little help -Rafe Cameron

Warnings: Corruption, Anger Issues, Not proof read, English is not my first language

Pairing: Grumpy!Rafe x Sunshine!Reader

You hated Rafe. He was a grumpy guy while you were a ray of pure sunshine. The fact that he was a Kook while you were a Pogue didn't make things any better.

You couldn't go to the other side of the island without him making rude comments. Of course, they hurt you, but by now, you were pretty much used to it.

"Where are your little friends? After our last encounter, I thought they understood that letting you walk home all by yourself is not a good idea." Rafe grinned like a maniac.

"It gets boring, you know. Everything you can do is insult the Pogues and me. If you have something new, please let me know." You smiled at him, patting his chest. 

You have always followed your instincts without hesitation. And right now, it felt right to pat Rafe's chest.

"Don't touch me with your dirty hands, Pogue." He hissed, turning around to leave.

You took a deep breath, not believing what you were about to do, "Rafe?"

After you called out his name, he turned around quickly, clearly annoyed, "What?"

"Who hurt you?" You asked carefully, to not make him even more upset. You knew it was a cliche moment, but you loved all this corny shit.

Rafe looked at you for a few seconds before he started to laugh. He was laughing directly in your face after you tried to be nice to him for once.

"I suggest you go back to your fucking side of the island and stop asking me shit." He said after calming down his laughter, his tone dangerously low.

"Come on, Rafe, you can tell me. I am actually a very good listener." You tried once again, wanting to help him.

He walked to you as fast as he could, "Listen, Pogue, I know what you are trying to do, and I can guarantee you, it won't work. Did your friends send you to me? Did they think I would go easy on you because you are known as the sunshine of the Cut?"

You quickly shook your head, "I just came from work, so it was a total coincidence that I met you."

The tension was so thick that it seemed like it could have been cut with a knife.

"Look, Rafe, you hate me, and I don't even know why. Everybody told me I was supposed to hate you as well, so I did it. I promise I am here to help you." You looked into his blue eyes, finding some sort of comfort in them.

Rafe Cameron was speechless. Never had anyone wanted to him, and now you, a Pogue, stood in front of him.

"You want to help me to get rid of my anger?" He asked, to which you nodded. 

That was all Rafe needed to see before he pressed his lips onto yours. Your eyes widen in disbelief, not expecting something like this. 

"Now, I feel better." He smirked after pulling away.

"Why would you do that?" You raised your voice at him.

The answer was he didn't know it. He never thought about you in any sexual way, but the way you looked at him, he just had to corrupt you. And that's exactly what he did.

A year later

"Here," You smiled down at Rafe, handing him a glass of whisky.

He pulled you onto his lap, kissing you roughly, "Thank you, what would I do without my little ray of sunshine."

It was like he brainwashed you. You did everything for him, just like he wanted it all those years. He finally had someone who didn't say anything against the things he did. And he intended to keep it that way.

#rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron #rafe cameron x you #rafe cameron x y/n #rafe cameron x reader #rafe x reader #rafe x you #rafe x y/n #obx #outer banks #outer banks x reader #outer banks x y/n #outer banks x you

[twelvemonkeyswere]

Brienne and Femininity (and Masculinity)

I’ve been musing how one of the most important topics in Brienne's storyline is femininity, and even though her story isn't finished, we can fairly see what some of her major themes are around this—particularly, how performing or failing at performing femininity affects her both internally and externally.

Often I see people pointing out that, in spite of all of Brienne’s traditionally masculine ways—her clothes, her skill set, her body shape, to name a few—she does not fully reject femininity. That she likes little cute animals and fairy tales and wears dresses, and is shy and blushes frequently. This is an important point because, very often, fantasy settings made the assumption that a woman can only be taken seriously if she goes beyond “her womanhood” and acts and thinks “like a man,” as opposed to other girls who are too busy mending or wanting romance. Brienne challenges those tendencies that GRRM saw in his contemporaries. Things have changed a lot since (hello The Locked Tomb, for example), but you can still see where he is working from, and how many of the aspects of Brienne's story still resonate with more modern audiences because, well, sexism hasn't stopped existing. It's also important because the larger asoiaf and got fandoms often refuse to see this side of her, reducing her to a walking sword or a cardboard cut out of a pushover.

Now, my main issue here is that I feel several interpretations of Brienne have now gone on the other direction, and focus so much on Brienne PERFORMING traditional femininity—wearing luxurious dresses, using make up, accepting lavishing gifts, or wondering if she can be desired, for example—that we've gone sometimes on the opposite direction. I feel like many times we’re afraid or do not know how to approach characterizing her as someone who rejects aspects of femininity without making her into another “not like other girls” stereotype.

My two cents on the matter is that if we focus too much in what Brienne can't but "wants" to perform, we forget that she is, in fact, gladly rejecting some common impositions of femininity in her society.

Beginning with swordplay at a young age, for example, she was very glad to ditch a more traditional education in order to learn how to fight the way we know men are taught in asoiaf/got. She is also explicitly more comfortable in men's clothes. We all like the scene where Jaime makes an effort to give her a dress and she appreciates it, but we don't even find out what happened to the dress, because, presumably, the dress itself is not THAT important, at least not as much as the fact Jaime gave her gifts as a form of appreciation. Dresses have been used in Brienne's past to mock her (the event with the bear being the most recent one), and the important part is that Jaime is the only one who has given her one without that ulterior motive. The point of the scene is that where everyone undermines and underestimates her, he is acting the opposite way. We’re seeing how the relationship between them has evolved and that he is doing his best to mend what has happened and what he has done. She is given a dress and a sword as symbols that someone else in the story is beginning to appreciate her for all she is.

Beyond that, we even get details on the old shield Brienne got at Harrenhal, but not a word about the dress. Brienne explicitly doesn't really like being in dresses, she prefers mail and breeches, and feels more at ease in them than anything else. This is not her hating dresses because she is above them. I can’t remember well but as far as we know it’s just her preference: I don’t recall her saying she hates dresses, just that she prefers trousers. She must have been wearing dresses her whole life! It’s not likely she is unused to them. But we do know the act of being given a dress is important in Brienne’s story. The problem is not that they can’t make dresses for her, the problem is that everyone who forces her to wear a dress wants to signal how lacking she is as a woman, trying to fit her in a box too small for her real shape and then mocking her because she doesn’t meet their standard. The problem is they want to make her uncomfortable and they want to humiliate her, because she dares to exist in a way that doesn’t conform to patriarchal ideals. And the problem is that she likes to wear trousers and mail. She likes to wear masculine clothes, and they want her to be very aware of how much they disapprove.

And we also hear a great deal about marrying and having children out of duty. There's a certain loss she feels there because she believes that, at that point, all those missed opportunities will never present themselves again. All her life, she grew up with a dichotomy that dictated that the chance of having a family or children was through duty or none at all, because she is her father’s heir and—they kept telling her—nobody would want an ugly, masculine, temperamental girl as a wife. They could only want her for the money she brought. The point of the story is that, once again, failing the standards of femininity has forced her into a mentality where she thinks she can’t be loved because nobody would like who and what she is. But even then, even with that thorn in her mind, she still feels relieved she didn't have to perform these particular duties. The only thing she’s sad about is that she thinks she's missed any chance at having a family at all and will never know what that might be like. She doesn’t actively want babies or even to be married. She is still young, and at least to me, she seems to view these things in hypothetical rather than explicit goals or wants. She thinks that, at 20, there is no opportunity for her to experience these things because of how her society works. It’s the lack of choice that she mourns, down the line. But she rejects that particularly role that femininity imposes on her now. She didn’t want it, and she is happy it didn’t go through. She literally fought an old man to prove how much she didn’t want those impositions.

All this is interesting to me because Brienne also sort of thinks of herself as her father's son as well as her father's daughter. It almost slips her mouth once or twice. She is aware, I think, that many times the differences between a son and a daughter boil down not really to gender but to the sort of duty they perform. And she wants to do the sorts of things sons do, too. Men regularly learned to fight and wore the clothes she liked best and used hard-earned skills in a way she wanted to use them. There are layers to this (we’ll get to that in a bit) but she is, I think, very aware of her masculinity, and, if left to her own devices, she seems comfortable in it. The problem is she is NOT left to her own devices.

Most of Brienne's self doubt comes from outside forces. As a woman, they underestimate her. As a woman, they think she is stupid. As a gender non-conforming woman, every jape uttered goes directly to her womanhood. As a woman, if she looks the way she does and dresses the way she does and fights the way she does, when she expresses any vulnerable emotion, any shred of “femininity,” she is mocked for it. She likes dancing and beautiful things and pretty boys but a woman as masculine as she is is not the sort of person who gets to express those preferences without judgment from those around her.

The point is Brienne’s world wants her miserable either way: being unable to be a woman the way they demand of her, because she is too much “like a man” for it, or being unable to be a man, because she is too much a woman for that. The point is she can’t win regardless of what she does. Because that’s how sexism works.

But Brienne’s story is, I think, one about choices. The thing is that the world makes it harder for her, but she shouldn't have to be one thing or the other. She shouldn’t have to be defined by one or the other. If she wants to fight in the mud and smell roses and wear chain-mail and talk to charming men, she should be able to choose all of those things. I think it’s easy to focus too much in what aspects of femininity Brienne likes or dislikes instead of looking at what the story is proposing, which is to look at what Brienne,as a person, likes or dislikes. What she wants. Her parallel story to Jaime is about how the world will always try to put folks in boxes, especially those who, for some reason or another, do not easily fit in those boxes. The question is not “what feminine/masculine parts of Brienne is she happy performing” but rather “what does Brienne want, and why does she feel like she cannot get it and doesn't dare ask.”

This is also what drives her to servitude. There’s a phrase out there that says that if you don’t think you can be liked, you try to become useful, so at least there’s a reason to keep you around. It’s heartbreaking to see how Brienne’s vision of herself has been so skewed by the emotional abuse, parental neglect, and bullying she’s experienced since a young age. She doesn’t think anyone will grow close to her, so at least she can be close to people by serving them. She wants to put her skills to use, she wants to find a place where she fits, where she can be more herself, but she isn’t sure what that looks like or how to find it. She’s still searching, and learning many things on the way.

And Brienne is still very young. We can see her confidence growing and her worldview challenged and she is beginning to see the realities of herself and of the world around her through various trials by fire. Misogyny makes her feel incomplete, but we know the things she trusts about herself while simultaneously seeing the way she constantly doubts others. How she can't never express all of herself without constant judgment or mockery.

I feel like yes, the fact Brienne doesn't reject all traditional femininity is really important to her themes, but by extension, it's as important that shedoes reject some of those traditional expressions of femininity. What she is truly rejecting is imposition, not femininity. What she truly needs to embrace is freedom, not masculinity. She's making her own vows, breaking her own promises, going through her own mistakes. She is learning the hard way. Agency in a world of limited choices is one of Brienne's main themes too. There are moral issues that go deep within her story as well as examinations of the effects of war and the struggle to find authenticity and connection in a community that refuses to acknowledge yours, a community drenched in pretense and lost in performance.

And I think it’s easy to get too caught up in her wanting to be a girlfriend or a mother or wearing a dress that we bypass the whole conversation around why that matters at all. I feel like Brienne's success isn't going to come from her fully embracing all her feminine traits or fully accepting all her masculine traits but from being able, down the line, to be exactly who she is.

#i was looking at my drafts and here are some scrambled ideas I had that I wanted to release so I've tried to make them more organized #brienne of tarth #asoiaf

[soaringwide]

Pick a Card: Month Ahead #01

This was written for May 2024 but with the intention to be timeless, so even if you find it later there might be a message for your next month.

We'll look into your energy coming into the month, but also what will be the theme/area of focus and what you'll need to pay attention to, as well as the surprises that might come your way.

It's my first time doing a pick a card like this so we'll see how it turns out! I love doing those privately though.

As always, be mindful that this is a general reading meant for multiple people so it might not be 100% fitting for your situation, and that it's based on the energy you hold at the moment of selecting a pile that draws you to one of them.

PILE 1

Cards: Page of Cups, Queen of Wands, 9 of Cups, Ace of Swords, the Emperor, Strength, 5 of Cups, the Moon, Queen of Cups, 5 of Wands rx, Ace of Pentacles, 4 of Cups, Page of Wands

For your energy coming into the month, I see you being in a state of being in tune with your heart, opening up to the possible rise of a new romantic connection. I get the sense that you're cautiously optimistic about it, because while you feel confident within yourself and in a happy place, you're also aware that it's too early to tell. But you're not letting that deter you and you're fully embracing your own power, feeling good about yourself and where you're at while looking ahead hopefully and waiting for an opportunity to move forward. I think for you the process of the month ahead has already started a bit before the start of the new month and you're continuing the process.

When it comes to the theme of the month, I see the importance of putting your emotional fulfillment at the forefront and being actively working towards it. There is a need to bring clarity about the situation, clarity that will bring you contentment and tie loose ends. You will be determined to work through that with willpower and determination by taking the lead and stop wasting time around. I think you are seeing the path forward for this connection and you're determined to go for it and not let it escape. You got four cards here and they all represent a different element, which I interpret as the fact that harmony within and for yourself will be a big theme as well. Between your feelings, your thoughts and your actions, everything will be grounded in your authentic self.

I think these past few months have not always been great for you and you're determined to leave that behind and enter the new chapter of your life. You've learned all you had to about your old ways and now you're ready for a change. So for the goal you'll have in mind, you will be focused on not falling back into the same patterns of thoughts and behaviors and keep moving forward with determination and a sense that you can't go back to what you once where.

The challenge that will arise will come from your own psyche. I get the sense that you still have unresolved issues within yourself that may cloud this great picture, so you will have to be extra careful about not letting your fears and doubts making you spiral down and do or say something that doesn't align with your truth. You might go through times where you feel irritable or anxious and you may take that as a proof that things are going to shit again and you might want to run away, but it's an illusion. It just means that you still have some inner clutter to sort out. Be careful about not shutting yourself off from others as a reaction to your inner pain.

When it comes to a surprise coming your way, it seems there will be an event that will create a shift from a confusing and chaotic situation to one of open communication of feelings, laying out a more positive base for the future. I'm getting the sense that this is what the theme of the month was referring to, and while you seek it, you don't really know how it will unfold so it will still be a surprise when it happens. When this even happens, be as open and honest as possible in order to clear out any possible miscommunication, be kind and listen to what the other person has to say with empathy and love at heart.

What you'll have gained by the end of the month will be a stable and solid start towards the future. Things are blossoming but you'll have learned that there's no point rushing into anything and that things come when the time is right. You'll be set to build on that for the months to come. Maybe the start of a new commitment although things are in their very early stage.

As a final advice, it is important not to shut yourself off from your emotions and not to stay stuck in your old ways of remaining passive. Stay open and assertive, go after what you want and I get the strong message that you need to communicate openly about everything that isn't clear in this connection. Don't just wait around for things to fall onto your lap. Be passionate and enthusiastic and again be clear about your intentions. Also, you're learning something new and important so be gentle with yourself if you don't get everything perfectly from the get go, what matters is to do your best.

PILE 2

Cards: King of Wands, Queen of Cups, the Lovers rx, 8 of Cups rx, Queen of Pentacles, Ace of Swords, Memento Mori, 10 of Swords, King of Pentacles, Queen of Wands, 2 of Wands, The Chariot, Knight of Pentacles, 6 of Pentacles, 3 of Cups rx, 7 of Cups

For the general vibe of this pile, it feels a bit overwhelming like there is so much to pay attention to that you are somewhat disconnected from yourself as a result, because your feelings are so confusing that you get lost in them. There are A LOT of court cards, which may mean that there is a situation that brings the intervention of a lot of different people, perhaps it will be busy at work, or something involving family, creating a very messy situation where everyone has something to say and you can't hear yourself anymore. Really there is so much external influences here that I had a hard time picking up on YOU until the end of the reading.

For the energy you have coming into the month, I really think you are in a committed relationship with someone (and if not it's not your pile), but there is a big disharmony here. It seems one of you is on the way out of the relationship (represented by the King of Wands), and the fact that the Queen of Wands shows as a challenge later in the reading, I'm getting that this person already has someone in mind. It seems you are longing for the way the relationship used to be and it feels over, but you are having difficulties moving on right now. It's also possible you're just longing for the idea of Love altogether and wishing you could drop everything you have right now to run towards it. There is a choice to be made but right now at the end of the month, you are not making a move one way or another.

The theme of the month to come for you pile 2 makes a lot of sense considering what I already wrote. You will have to focus on your own clarity and get grounded in yourself, trying to find stillness in the chaos that surrounds you in order to get the answers you need, based on your own guidance. I'm also getting that you feel resistant to change and the call of life, and that you may feel a bit dead inside and numb as a result. There is a need to find excitement for the miracle of life again which has been lost due to your complex situation. ''The meaning is in the Middle'' is what's written on the card and writing down in case it speaks to anyone.

For what you'll consciously focus on this month, I'm getting just like...trying not to break down completely and at the same time keeping up with your demanding job and practical life issues. Perhaps this impending breakup is causing financial stress and you don't know how things will turn out. So your goal will be navigating that in order to stay on top of things both mentally and professionally/financially.

Okay this is where it finally clicks because I was confused whether you where the one with the third party of the one who is perhaps cheated on. With the King of Pentacles longingly looking at the Queen of Wands (the third party I mentioned before - don't take gender into account though) standing next to him, I'm getting that YOU are wondering how to welcome this new passionate connection into your busy life and how to make it fit from a practical standpoint with your current relationship. The Queen seems to be both a challenge and an opportunity, I don't necessarily get that this Queen is a bad omen, it's just a difficult situation that require a choice on your part.

For the unexpected thing that will happen this month, I'm not getting a particular event but rather, how it will change the course of what you're doing. This surprise will force you to weight your options and start pursuing what you desire, getting out of that rut you are in. There will be progress moving forward as I don't think you'll be left indecisive for too long. There is a sense of urgency here, whether it's perceived or true, you will feel it deeply and it will push you into actions. You will be surprised by how determined you suddenly feel after the indecision of the past.

What will be gained after the month ends is a newfound stability as you'll have regained your footing. From that point in the spread it's like things have cleared up a bit and there's open space. There is a new beginning on the horizon but unlike the urgency that led you to that point, there is now the need to take things slow and build strong foundations.

The advice you got was that, well, it's time to choose what you want to do with this third party. You can't keep holding things like that without making a choice. You might also need to distance yourself from bad influences around you like friends or family and again focus on yourself. The second advice is about restoring some type of balance between giving and taking. It seems someone has or will give you something and you'll have to give something in return so that not to break the flow of the relationship.

PILE 3

Cards: 4 of Swords rx, 8 of Pentacles, 4 of pentacles, 3 of Pentacles rx, 7 of Pentacles, 9 of Pentacles, 5 of Wands, 9 of Wands, Justice, 4 of Wands, King of Cups, the Moon, 9 of Swords, Temperance, 6 of Swords, the Fool

For your energy coming into the month, I see that you might have been feeling burnt out for a while now due to over-exhausting yourself with work or your studies, something you've put a lot of care and energy into in any case. You feel stagnant and somewhat demotivated and the whole thing is weighting on you. It's like you've put so much effort into working on this issue that you feel totally depleted emotionally. However, you can't seem to let go a bit in order to get things flowing again and you remain stuck, fearing everything is going to go to waste if you relax a bit.

The theme of this month will be to find your support system and reach out for help in order to get you to find new solutions to your issue. Not everything can be done alone. Furthermore, not every project can be rushed through all the time, sometimes you have to let it rest for a bit and let it grow under the surface of the soil. You will find great benefit from focusing on your own enjoyment and pleasure for a change in order to find a new perspective on your situation.

Despite that, it seems your mind will still be set on proving yourself this month. It's like, you feel burnt out and stagnant, and instead of getting the cue that you need to slow down a bit, you look at others and wonder why you can't hustle like them. Basically you're sensing there is an issue but you're trying to solve it in a toxic way by comparing yourself to others and feeling threatened by their success, triggering your self esteem issues.

The challenged you will have to face have to do with accepting to restore the balance in your life and take a break to have a bit of fun. Sounds like a false problem but it seems it's quite difficult for you to do at the moment because you're so focused on your tasks. It's a critical point though because if you don't cut off the toxic behaviors that are burying you into the ground, you will face the repercussions of your own non-action further down the line. You might have a hard time socializing because your heart is not there and you might feel left out, even though it would do you good to get a change of scenery and get out of your cave for a while.

For the unexpected thing that will happen this month, this will have to do with some type of emotional reconnection that will lead to more balance. It's very possible that it'll be uncomfortable at first as all the negative feelings you've been pushing under the rug all this time are resurfacing, but if you manage to stay afloat you will find a greater sense of mastery over them. I'm not getting anything precise as to what's gonna happen, but it will have to do with you being forced to take the blindfolds off and finally pay attention to your mental health. This might be the inner crisis you need to get back in a better shape.

What will have been gained by the end of the month has to do with leaving behind this way of doing and thinking you were holding onto at the beginning of the month. You will finally be able to get moving again, even if it will feel somewhat bitter and hard to do, remember it's for the better because you could not keep going on like you did.

The advice for you to help you navigate things is to not take everything so seriously all the time. Don't focus too much on what's not working or what you could do better or even on what you can't control, but try to find hope and the sense that a new beginning is at hand if only you open yourself up to it. Whoever is sending you this advice really encourages you to enjoy the little things and find your youthful spirit again. Things won't stay bleak forever so the best thing you can do is let yourself move along the stream.

#pick a card #pick a pile #tarot reading #divination #pac reading #pick a card reading #soaring wide #tarot #month ahead #may 2024

[littleavengerfics]

How about WandaNat x little reader. Reader goes to the dentist and is told that sucking her thumb/her paci has ruined her teeth, so now needs braces / surgery. Next time R drops she has a massive temper tantrum when she can't self sooth. Desperate to sleep before a mission Wanda creates a paci using her magic

Soother (Wanda Nat x little reader)

(sorry this took a while, life got crazy, hopefully you like this, if you don't let me know if you want something changing and I can do that for you)

It was a day all three of you were dreading, the dentist appointment. The caregivers knew it was gonna be a hard day for you all as you hated going to the dentist. "baby, come on get dressed we have to go in an hour." You groaned pulling yourself out of bed, "I don't wanna go." You huffed giving her a pout. "I know, you've been trying to get out of it all week, but it's not happening." Natasha smirked, picking out your clothes, she loved doing it everyday, even if you weren't little. "Nat. I brush my teeth twice a day and floss, there is nothing wrong with my teeth so I don't need a dentist."

"Y/N you're not going to get out of it, if you stop whining and behave at the appointment ill buy you a treat after we are done and you can watch two movies before bed tonight." You couldn't help but smile at her proposal as you knew it was only gonna come up today." fine I'll behave but just know I'm not happy about it."

"I can live with that for an hour. It's either a slightly grumpy you or an angry wanda and right now ill take the first." As she spoke she heard wanda yelling that they were going to be late. As much as you hated going to these appointments wanda hated running late for them even more and with you and natasha it was like that most of the time. Though thanks to their driving you still always arrived early, much to your dismay.

***

"baby don't worry, I'm sure everything is going to be fine." wanda reassured, squeezing your hand. You weren't so sure. When the doctor came in your heart started racing, holding Wanda's hand was helping but not enough. You needed something else and before you knew it your hand made it's way up to your mouth. The doctor chuckled a bit which made you frown. "there's our problem." both wanda and Nat looked at you and it was only then you realised there was a whole other conversation going on between the three of them you didn't understand. You still didn't pay any attention until natasha pulled your thumb out of your mouth.

"Really? It caused all that damage?" natasha said in a worried tone, the look on her face made you want to cry. If Nat was upset clearly something was wrong.

"It's not the end of the world, we can give them some invisible braces to fix the issue. The thumb sucking, however, does need to stop." It was a sentence that made you completely freeze. You didn't like that doctor anymore, at first she seemed nice but now you weren't so sure. By the look on your caregivers face you could tell that was going to be a rule and you weren't happy about it.

"That's going to be tough. They never stop." I barely listen as he starts giving them suggestions of how to deal with my bad habit. "there are some alternatives, there is chew safe jewelry and even adult pacifiers that can help with thumb sucking and other habits. If you use them responsibly and stop when there is pain or discomfort it won't cause as much change."

"I will look into those, thank you." Wanda smiled, hoping this would be a solution to their problems. After they left the dentist y/n dropped again after getting all of their work and it soon became a constant battle to keep y/ns thumb out of their mouth. Each time they were stopped they seemed to get more and more upset, by the night Wanda and natasha were mentally exhausted from the tantrums, it got even worse when natasha got a phone call. "babe, we have to leave for a mission tomorrow. We leave early in the morning."

"There goes our plan to just let them cry it out till they fall asleep while we wait for the delivery, Im already slow in the morning, I need to sleep tonight." Natasha nodded, she of all people knew about Wandas hatred of the morning, she knew it would be a rough day if they didn't get to sleep soon. "can't you use your magic to make them sleep."

"No, I promised myself I would never use my powers on them like that." the two were interrupted by y/n dumping all their toys on the floor and crying. Wandas mind was quickly changed, but she decided to try a less forceful approach first, she conjured a pacifier similar to the one she had seen on the Internet.

She couldn't believe it when y/n took to it, their wails turned into light sniffles within a few minutes and they stopped acting out. Wanda picked them up, "there see, everything's okay. You're okay, you like the paci?" y/n nodded settling against Wanda who put them to bed, "goodnight baby sleep tight." Natasha and Wanda breathed a sigh of relief as the little went to sleep peacefully, Wanda cleaned up the mess with her magic and the two turned themselves in for the night as well.

#littleavengerfics #little reader #sfw agere #natasha romanoff #mommy natasha #mommy wanda maximoff x little reader #mommy wanda

[strqyr]

genuine question: do people want bad, inconsistent writing? is that it? because that's the only way "taiyang is and always has been a horrible father and yang had to raise ruby all on her own and she resent him for it" makes any damn sense.

like. where's the resentment?

where is yang, while happy that ruby is one step closer to achieving her lifelong dream, feeling just slightly frustrated that she's once again sharing a room with her sister, when going to beacon was supposed to be a place just for her for at least two years without having to watch after ruby and feel guilty over it?

where's the resentment when tai sent zwei to the girls to be taken care of while he's away on a mission, placing that responsibility on yang again? why show yang instead being flippant about the whole ordeal, and shrugging it off like it's nothing, being ready to leave zwei alone in the dorm room for the week they're away because he has the absurd amount of food and a can opener tai provided them?

where's yang bringing up how she had to apparently grow up early because tai wasn't there, when she wanted to be treated like an adult?

where's the resentment when yang was about to leave home under the assumption it was her keeping her father from going after ruby, only to find out he isn't coming with her, once again leaving the responsibility of taking care of ruby on her shoulders?

because the show i watched, it doesn't exist. to even remotely get to that point you'd have to ignore ruby talking about their dad in a way that makes it clear he was present and raising them, you'd have to ignore yang having to wait for him to be out of the house to leave herself once again proving he was present and attentive of them, you'd have to ignore ruby's first happy memory being from that same time period (and with no corresponding sad memory to counter it), you'd have to ignore him reading them bedtime stories and taking them out for boba after school, making sure he's spending time with them even when he's busy with work.

you'd have to ignore that both yang and ruby have a good relationship with their father.

that is not to say tai doesn't have his flaws—every damn character in this show does—, but that's exactly what V4 is about. the rift that existed between yang and taiyang was his refusal to talk about raven and doing his best to prevent her from looking for her. that's it. just compare the difference in tone between yang's "oh, so now we can talk about her?" and "i don't know. some things you just need to be there for." and it's clear as a day where the resentment actually lies.

therein lies the core of the arc between yang and tai, and like many issues between characters in this show, it gets resolved: for the first time ever, he properly talks with yang about raven, and when yang is about to leave, he doesn't try to stop her like he has before; instead, he asks her where she's going, and gives information that might help make her journey easier.

if they intended there to be any lingering resentment from yang, 'boba' was not the way to do it. we know what yang's resentment looks like: anger, snappiness, the like. it's not quiet, almost somber.

they could have written yang treating tai's absence in vacuo as something she has come to expect from him, but they didn't; instead, she wonders why, because she can't fathom what could be more important for their father than being there, in vacuo, with them.

and that alone comes as validation for everyone who has wondered the same: why is tai staying in patch when everyone else is on the move? this is a character we're first properly introduced to as a father who has fallen asleep by his daughter's bedside waiting for her to wake up, a father who is almost brought to tears by relief that both of his daughters are back home and safe.

a father we last saw being absolutely desperate for his daughter to come back on screen when ruby's message cut short.

and beyond brings a sledgehammer and says yes, it is odd that taiyang hasn't left home to be by his daughters' side. wonder why that is, must be something important, wink wink ;)

and if you ask me, that sounds like a pretty damn good "long con", and damn good writing.

#rwby #taiyang xiao long #yang xiao long #ruby rose #the disrespect this family gets smh #make it make sense folks!!!

[kdinjenzen]

🔥anime

The characters in anime aren't fucking white and I need people to stop pretending they are. 99% of anime characters aren't white or intended to be seen as white. Americans and Europeans only see them as such because that's what they want to see and then disregard the characters names, culture, and the entire plot of the goddamn show.

Most "popular" anime treat their female protagonists like garbage or don't even really have any and I'm tired of people pretending that Dragon Ball, Bleach, Naruto, My Hero, AoT, etc treat women like anything other than something to laugh at, ignore, or objectify.

There are plenty of actual queer manga/anime out there and people just refuse to acknowledge any of it because it's not "right" or "perfect" because they often deal with real queer issues and real queer people but no body wants to see that because they just want "a gay kiss" and will scream "SUCH GOOD REP" when a lot of the popular stuff is watered down bullshit. (Same goes for any mainstream queer stuff tbh, often the fault of the publishing/production companies and not the creators themselves but I stand by my statement)

Dubs are difficult and the reason people don't like them as much is because acting to a dub to match existing lip flap movements means that some lines will always naturally feel stilted even if they have the best translators/localizers working their asses off for pennies to make a good adaptation. It's not the fault of the actors, directors, or localizers... it's the fault that dubs naturally have a more challenging ladder to climb to match up to the original which was animated to the performance of other actors.

"The animation didn't do nearly as cool things as the manga!" - yeah no shit, because the animation industry in Japan is built of such horrible labor practices that people burn out and end up physically, emotionally, and mentally suffering due to the workload, work hours, and below poverty-line pay. The fact that there's such brilliant artists being treated so poorly anywhere is horrifying but the fact that fans then shit all over them for no reason is just stupid as hell.

The popularity of anime and proportions for anime girls has done irreparable damage to the appreciation and love of body diversity in real life. Stop trying to look like an anime girl and start looking at yourselves as human beings.

[cirilla-fiona-riannon]

Translations may not always capture the exact nuances or tone of the original text. Expect grammatical errors and inaccuracies.

Case 1: How to Soothe Gilbert When He is Upset

Gilbert: "Is that all everyone wants to say?"

All the important officials in Obsidian were gathered in a large conference room.

At the gathering where military personnel of all ages and genders were present, Gilbert, seated in the upper section of the room, was clearly seething with anger.

(I'm not surprised.)

The reports and agendas they were discussing were all filled with an unbearable stench of corruption.

It wasn't because the officials were lazy or incompetent; it was because of the corrupt practices deeply embedded within Obsidian.

(Every time I see Gilbert fighting alone like this, it feels like my heart is being crushed.)

Gilbert: "I'm getting nothing but half-baked progress reports. What do you expect me to do with this?"

Gilbert: "Your job is to complete the tasks assigned to you. If you can't even do that, then you're neglecting your duties."

Male officer: "With all due respect, Prince Gilbert, the issues we're dealing with are一"

Gilbert: "If they don't change their attitude, then it's better to introduce a new system. You just need to create a draft proposal for that, yeah?"

Male officer: "You're right, sir."

Gilbert: "Why do you impose restrictions on yourselves, calling things impossible and reckless?"

Gilbert: "There is not just one way to achieve a goal."

Gilbert: "If I believe I can accomplish something, then I surely can. You people just lack the capacity."

Gilbert: "Those filthy trash are probably laughing while you all remain at a standstill like this." **

Gilbert: "You know what will happen the next time you give me a report like this, right?"

He got up from his seat with a smirk, and all the soldiers stood up in unison, saluting him.

The tension was so intimidating and overwhelming that I almost forgot to breathe.

Gilbert: "Well then, let's adjourn. Good work, everyone."

He swiftly walked away.

As one of the attendees, I bowed to the military officers and quickly followed after Gilbert.

Emma: "Gil."

Gilbert: "What is it?"

When I called him, he stopped and turned around to face me.

Despite the tense atmosphere, his smile, which contained all the pent-up tension and hostility, was as refreshing as ever.

(But he still seems tense.)

He probably wasn't aware of it, but his eyes weren't fully smiling.

(I think he's planning to inspect the military exercises next.)

(If he goes in this state, everyone will undoubtedly feel uncomfortable.)

(Now that this happens...)

Emma: "Watch this."

I took a coin from the pocket of the dress he had prepared for me.

Emma: "Right now, the coin is in my left hand."

Gilbert: "I can see that."

I tightly gripped my hand, hiding the coin.

Emma: "Which hand do you think the coin is in now?"

Gilbert: "You want me to say it's on your left, right? But unfortunately..."

He gently grasped my hand and rolled up my sleeve.

Emma: "Hey, that's unfair!"

Gilbert: "You're just inexperienced."

Despite discreetly hiding the coin in my sleeve, Gilbert saw through it instantly.

(Performing magic tricks is really difficult.)

(Or maybe it's because he's my opponent?)

He took the coin from me and flicked it into the air, catching it in his hand.

Gilbert: "Where do you think the coin is now?"

Emma: "I'm pretty sure it's neither in your right nor left hand."

Ignoring his clenched fist, I searched through his sleeves but found nothing.

I tapped various parts of his uniform that seemed like they could hide something, but there was nothing.

(Huh?)

Gilbert: "The answer is..."

He opened his hand, and I saw the coin sitting on his palms.

(I fell for it.)

Gilbert: "Haha, you're too easy."

Emma: "You usually do something crazy."

Gilbert: "Are you disappointed?"

Emma: "A little."

Gilbert: "You're so honest."

He clenched the coin in his hand once again.

Then, when he opened it, there was nothing there.

Emma: "Huh!?"

Gilbert: "Little bunny."

He pointed to the pocket of my dress with his finger.

With trembling hands, I reached inside and felt something hard.

Emma: "Wow!"

I pulled the coin out of my pocket and gasped.

(I don't understand what's going on, but he's really something.)

Gilbert: "You always react like a child."

Emma: "I can't help it. It's just amazing!"

He chuckled, his eyes reflecting that sentiment.

(I'm glad. Even though the magic trick failed, it seems like he calmed down.)

Gilbert: "But was it really that obvious?"

He seemed to have understood the meaning behind my actions.

Emma: "Yeah."

Gilbert: "Fufu, I'm hopeless, aren't I?"

Emma: "Isn't that why I'm here?"

Emma: "So that you can have some peace of mind?"

As the number of times we attended official functions increased, this feeling only grew stronger.

Gilbert: "You're so efficient."

Emma: "!"

Suddenly, he leaned in and pressed his cold lips against my cheek.

His red eyes reflected my profile with affection.

Gilbert: "I'm counting on you."

Emma: "Leave it to me!"

(Lately, I've been thinking that maybe I'm the only one who can make him happy.)

Masterlist ╎ Next Part

#ikemen prince #ikepri #ikepri jp #gilbert von obsidian #ikepri gilbert #ikepri translations #ikepri spoilers