#even if there isn’t i chose to believe anthony made this all possible

[danrifics]

dan and phil games was only resurrected cos anthony rejoined smosh and you can’t convince me other wise

#i’m telling you there’s a direct correlation #even if there isn’t i chose to believe anthony made this all possible #dan and phil #dan howell #phil lester #amazingphil #daniel howell #danisnotonfire #dapg #danandphilgames

[irishseeeker]

                      row, row, row your boat with ferocious jealously 

Kate Sharma is taking a boat ride with a man that isn’t him. Anthony Bridgerton decides he doesn’t quite like that.

---

Anthony Bridgerton was livid.

“Anthony.”

“Anthony?”

“What?” Anthony snapped, his tone harsher than intended as he snapped his head away from the source of his rage and back to look at his pestering brothers.

Benedict, frowning at his brother’s harsh tone, raised an eyebrow. “What on earth are you glaring at?”

Colin was smirking triumphantly over the glass in his hand, which made Anthony want to throttle him more. “I wonder what our dear brother could be glaring at. Or should I say-who.”

The widest lopsided grin spread out on Ben’s face.

Benedict, the traitor, quickly caught on as he followed Anthony and Colin’s eyeline to where Kate Sharma herself, dressed in a dark purple dress that made her brown skin glow and his legs weak, was talking to him. No-she was laughing with him. He couldn’t possibly be that funny.

Was it a pity laugh? Surely it was a pity laugh.

Anthony had never hated a man so much in his life as he hated William Trent. He was the second son of an Earl and Anthony had spoken to him a few times at Whites. Anthony didn’t know him well at all, he had been in Benedict’s year at Eton and Oxford and they had only met a handful of times.

Anthony still despised him.

Since when had he been courting Kate? Anthony couldn’t have possibly missed news that significant. He came from a family of gossips who would have said something, he attended most of the same balls as Kate did-he didn’t recall them dancing, much less speaking.

Kate’s ring of laughter rang through the air and it was like a knife to the chest, puncturing every bit of sense he had left in him. Anthony didn’t care much for sense at that moment.

All he knew was he wanted to be the one to make her laugh.

That fact itself rather terrified him.

“What do you think of Trent, Ben?” Colin’s teasing tone wasn’t lost on Anthony and he was this close to getting thrown into the river that was a few metres away from them.

“I rather like him. We went to Eton and Oxford together. Decent. Funny,” Benedict drawled, his lopsided grin close to falling off his face as it was stretched so widely. “Very popular with ladies, I believe.”

Anthony was clenching his jaw so hard, it began to ache. His grip was so tight on his wine glass, it was close to smashing in his hands. “I hope you two are enjoying yourselves.”

“Oh brother,” Colin said, patting his eldest brother on the shoulder with the same, teasing grin. “We truly are.”

This was ridiculous. He didn’t want to come today. The last place he wanted to be was at a full of young ladies on the marriage mart, their families and potential suitors. He had to come, as he is meant to be courting and finding a wife. He was also the head of his household. He was meant to be courting Edwina.

Edwina.

Anthony hadn’t thought about her since they had briefly greeted each other when they arrived. All he could think about, from the moment he saw Kate and her head full of bouncy, dark curls , was her. How much he wanted to wrap one of those curls around his fingers and pull her away, behind a tree and-

No.

He had to stop this. This endless torture of imagining things that would never be. He had already chosen a wife. Kate had dragged her sister off just as Anthony and his brothers greeted the Sharma women.

Kate had barely looked at him as she said those two words, “My lord,” that made the hairs on his arms stick up and an uncomfortable warm feeling spread through his stomach.

Those feelings only ever happened when she spoke to him.

He wanted her to whisper them in his ear while he had his way with her. He wanted her to whisper them in his ear in their bed. He wanted her to whisper them in his ear while she was sat on his lap, dancing in his arms, for the rest of their bloody lives-

“It looks like Miss Sharma is going for a boat ride down the river.”

Colin’s voice snapped Anthony out of his dangerous thoughts and the fury quickly spread through Anthony’s entire body as he watched Kate take that bastard’s hand and walk towards the boats that were lined up along the bank of the river.

Not on his bloody watch.

“What an excellent idea,” Anthony said, shoving his glass into his brother’s chest as he clapped his hands, looking around for Edwina. “I’ll go find Miss Sharma.”

“I believe Miss Edwina Sharma has already been escorted into a boat.” Benedict chimed in, gesturing towards a boat that was being rowed by a man Anthony couldn’t recognize.

Shit.

Anthony had to act fast. He had to ask a young lady quickly to take a boat ride with him so he could catch up with Kate. He would row the bloody English channel just to find out what they were speaking out and what was so bloody funny about Trent.

He scanned the crowd around them, most of the young ladies beaming at him but he struggled to put a name to most of their faces. He needed someone he could tolerate, that didn’t talk too much and someone that wouldn’t make him want to drown himself more than he already wanted to at the thought of Kate and that imbecile rowing along the river together.

He left his brothers, making his way through the crowds and spotting a few familiar faces. He nodded his head in greeting as people spoke to him, hastily turning around as he spotted Cressida Cowper and her mother making a beeline for him.

Colin had once compared them to the Queen’s yapping little dogs that never seemed to shut up and follow you everywhere and Anthony struggled to not laugh every time he had the displeasure of making their acquaintance.

There were many things Anthony would do to get closer to Kate Sharma and that man but trapping himself in a boat with Cressida Cowper would not be one of them.

He didn’t like bullies.

There, standing in a shockingly blinding bright yellow dress with embroidered sequins, was his saving grace.

Penelope Fetherington.

“Miss Fetherington,” Anthony said, slightly out of his breath as he approached her, bowing his head. “Would you do me the honour of accompanying me for a boat ride along the river?”

He felt slightly guilty, noticing she was alone and looking uncomfortable. Eloise was sick at home in bed, she had made her first season quite the strain on their family with her habit of complaining about everything and unwillingness to participate in anything.

“My Lord,” Penelope squealed, her round cheeks darkening as she bowed her head. “Oh! That is very kind of you. But-well, you don’t have to. I’m really okay. If your mother-”

“I want to,” Anthony said quickly, the guilt growing inside of him as she spoke. No one should have to feel as if they’ve only been asked because someone’s mother forced them to. Even if his intentions weren’t honourable, he’d try harder to make sure she didn’t feel like that. “Do I seem to you like a man who does what he doesn’t want to do?”

Penelope’s anxious expression faded slowly into a relaxed one, a small smile appearing on her face. “I would love to, my lord.”

“I will admit, Miss Fetherington,” Anthony spoke quietly to her, offering her his arm as they made their way to the river bank. Anthony pushed people out of the way until they were right behind Kate and William. “I do enjoy boat rides. However, I needed to escape the preying mothers and their daughters on the bank. My mother would have pushed me onto a boat if I didn’t pick a suitable young lady and I couldn’t have picked better company.

Penelope’s giggle, which was louder than expected, caught the attention of Kate, Trent, Cressida Cowper, another gentlemen Anthony hadn’t met and of course-Colin.

Colin, who had wormed his way into a conversation with Kate and Trent and grinning mischievously at his brother as he did so. Benedict had been wise enough to stay away.

“Viscount Bridgerton.” Trent said quickly, smiling and bowing his head as he addressed him. Anthony’s bow was stiff in return.

“Good afternoon,” Anthony said stiffly, feigning slight confusion and real distaste as he stared at him. He wasn’t very impressive up close. His jacket looked cheap and his hat was slightly wonky. Anthony surely didn't have anything to worry about. This man didn’t look funny. “Have we met?”

It was rude, but Anthony couldn’t find it in himself to care.

He chose to ignore Colin’s loud snort from beside him as well.

“William Trent, my Lord.” He said, blushing slightly as he shook Anthony’s hand while he pushed his shoulders back and stood up straighter. He looked scared. Anthony knew instantly he wasn’t a good fit for Kate. She would walk all over him. Anthony relished in how intimidating he could be sometimes. “May I introduce-“

Anthony could feel his blood boiling. How dare he. The hand that was free from Penelope’s arm curled into a fist, he knew the expression on his face was thunderous. No one had to introduce Kate to him. No one. If anything, he should be the one introducing Kate to people. That should be his job. Except it wasn’t and it could never be. “There is no introduction necessary. Good Afternoon, Miss Sharma.”

“Lord Bridgerton.” She said plainly, frowning slightly at him. Her voice and frown, and those two words once again, having an exhilarating effect on him like nothing else has before.

Anthony’s manners quickly made themselves known as he turned to Penelope. “May I introduce Penelope Fetherington?”

“Sir,” Penelope said kindly, bowing her head. “Kate.” Her smile was much wider as she greeted her. Kate’s smile and something inside of his stomach twisted.

“Lord Bridgerton,” A voice from beside them piped up, belonging to, unfortunately, Cressida Cowper. “I would be happy to accompany you on the river. Sir Byrne will take Penelope off your hands-”

“I don’t believe I asked you, Miss Cowper,” Anthony said sharply, turning to glare at the intruder who had wiped the smile Anthony had been staring at right off Kate’s face. “I believe I asked Miss Fetherington.”

That shut her right up. Anthony didn’t like to think too badly of ladies of the ton but Cressida Cowper was truly unpleasant. That was the nicest word he could think of that wasn’t severely inappropriate.

“But, Miss Cowper,” Anthony said, his revenge so sweet he couldn’t help the smile breaking out on his face. “My brother Colin would be happy to accompany you.”

The colour drained right out of Colin’s face.

Anthony couldn’t help but glance at Kate, who caught his eye before looking down at the ground, desperately fighting off a smile.

Anthony clapped his brother’s shoulder as they moved towards the bank of the river where footmen had set up the boats for the passengers. He moved quickly to make sure they got the boat right beside and behind Kate and Trent. Kate and Trent were saying something quietly but Anthony could see the smile on her face and it infuriated him more.

It wasn’t that he didn’t expect Kate to have suitors. How could she not? She may be different to some ladies of the ton but everything different about her made her stand out from the rest. Not to mention, she was absolutely beautiful. He couldn’t stand in a room with her lately without glancing at her every ten seconds.

Any man would be a fool not to want her. Of course she was going to be courted.

He just wished she wasn’t.

He had no right to, he shouldn’t, but he did anyway.

Trent, the incompetent idiot, was caught in a conversation with a man on the bank. Kate, of course, took it upon herself to get herself into the boat.

“Be careful.” Anthony said, jumping at the opportunity to offer her his hand after he helped Penelope into their boat. Kate stared at his hand for a moment, before, begrudgingly, accepting it and stepping into the boat.

“Thank you.” She said stiffly, avoiding eye-contact as she settled into the boat. The moment their hands touched, her touch erupted a sensation that traveled from the top of his fingers, all the way up his arm and into his chest. This was seriously getting out of hand. Anthony needed to get himself together.

“Enjoy your boat ride,” He said quietly, noticing out of the corner of his eye Trent was finishing up his conversation. “Kate.” Anthony made his way back to his boat, smiling briefly at Penelope as they waited for Trent to begin rowing so Anthony could quickly follow.

Once they started moving, Anthony had a small swearing fit under his breath but the chances of Penelope hearing his language was quite high. Another boat had pulled out in front of them and separated them from Kate and Trent. Anthony was manically rowing to try to catch up with them up the river and his arms were beginning to ache.

Penelope spoke up. “I was sorry to hear about Eloise. I hope she is feeling better soon.”

Anthony didn’t miss the sly smile on Penelope’s face, which momentarily distracted him from glaring over at Kate and Trent’s boat. “I would be willing to bet the deed to Bridgerton House that Eloise has made a miraculous recovery by this evening.”

Penelope laughed. Anthony couldn’t help but join in.

“I apologize,” Anthony said, both of them sharing a smile that his apology wasn’t sincere at all. They both knew Eloise quite well. “Betting is not an appropriate topic to discuss with a young lady.”

“Please do not apologize, my lord.” Penelope said, smoothing out the bright yellow skirt of her dress and fidgeting with a few beads.

“We have known each other for a long time, Penelope. Please, call me Anthony.”

“Okay, Anthony,” Penelope said slowly, testing out the name before smiling shyly. “I will not say anything. What happens on this boat, stays on this boat.”

Anthony quirked an eyebrow at her before returning back to glaring at Kate’s boat. He couldn’t help that his attention drifted there. He didn’t mean to be rude but he was just dying to know what they were talking about. He could see Trent rowing, and Kate laughing, and he couldn’t help the ache in his chest that he wished it was him.

“I do hope Miss Sharma is okay.”

Anthony looked back at Penelope, his arms slowing down slightly as they were really beginning to ache. He didn’t want to seem too obvious in his endeavours to get closer to Kate but he would be willing to capsize the boat between them to get closer to her. “I believe I saw Miss Sharma get on a boat earlier, with a gentleman I didn’t see. Is there a reason she wouldn’t be alright?”

Surely Kate wouldn’t have got on a boat if Edwina was ill or in some sort of trouble. Kate was always by her sister’s side, looking out for her. It was one of her traits Anthony admired the most.

“I didn’t mean Edwina.”

They briefly stared at each other in silence, an awful sinking feeling in Anthony’s stomach settling in as if he had been caught in the middle of an act. Subtly had never been his greatest form. If Penelope knew what Anthony was thinking, who was he thinking about, what he was trying to do-well, he was screwed.

“I was speaking with Kate earlier and well, she is not too fond of boats,” Penelope said, glancing upwards as they rowed under an oak tree. “I’ve always enjoyed the water. Kate, however, doesn’t. The movement makes her feel quite sick. I believe she tried to avoid a boat trip but Mr. Trent was quite persistent.”

It was as if the clouds had cleared and the storm inside of him had faded away, making way for the sun to shine brightly through.

Anthony tried very hard to smile. He focused on pulling each oar back and forth to hide his smile but he wasn’t having much luck. Kate was with him out of pity. Kate hated boat rides and she was probably miserable a few metres ahead of them, desperately wishing to be anywhere but on a boat with Trent.

A man who had to beg a lady to do something she didn’t want to do wasn’t the right man for her.

He wasn’t the right man for Kate.

“I hope the experience isn’t too unpleasant for her.” He said idly, desperate to keep up some sort of calm, cool and collected façade that he wasn’t thrilled to hear the news. The boat ride was actually quite pleasant, they chatted away while Anthony picked up the pace to make sure they were behind Kate and Trent as they pulled back into the bank of the river.

Anthony stood up and helped Penelope out of the boat herself, waving off the footman and smiling as she bowed. “Thank you so much for a lovely afternoon, my lord.”

“Anthony.”

“Anthony.” Penelope blushed slightly, her eyes catching something behind him. Anthony turned around to see a rather flustered Colin, desperately rowing and splashing to make his way to the back with a very displeased Cressida Cowper. Penelope bowed her head again before turning around and walking back towards her family’s tent, to her very pleased looking mother who was pretending she hadn’t been watching them the entire time.

“That was nice of you. To ask Penelope.” The voice next to him, one he could recognize in a crowd full of people, caught him by surprise as he turned around to see Kate Sharma beside him. She wasn’t glaring at him like she usually was, which was an excellent start.

“I like Penelope. I know this may come as a shock to you, Miss Sharma,” He said teasingly, the smirk on his lips the most genuine and amused all day. “On the rare occasion, I can be nice.”

To Anthony’s surprise, Kate laughed. The low, joyful laugh was like Christmas to him, flooding his veins with dopamine like no other. He never wanted to stop hearing it.

Anthony made her laugh.

It was the best feeling in the world.

He was secretly thrilled she approved of him inviting Penelope. He didn’t know why, but he had found himself lately needing her approval. He was desperate for it.

Kate’s eyes darted around them before landing back on him, quickly bowing her head. “Well, I will see you at your ball tomorrow evening.”

He bowed back, a small smile playing on his lips. “You will, Kate.”

“Well,” She said, gulping slightly as she fidgeted. She appeared flustered, her neck and cheeks reddening slightly. Anthony desperately wanting to kiss it away. “Good day Lord Bridgerton.”

“Anthony.” He quickly corrected her.

Kate wasn’t buying it. “My Lord.”

“Good day, Kate.”

He watched her nod her head before turning around, making her way back up the slight hill of the bank. He watched her fierce, bouncing girls fly in the wind until she disappeared into the crowd.

It was a good day, indeed.

#did I see those pap pics and write a fic based on them? yes #yes I did #bridgerton #kate x anthony #kate sharma #anthony bridgerton #canon #one shot #fanfiction #kate sheffield

[shades-of-stony]

ABO Stony AUs! (Part 2)

As promised, here is part 2! [link to Part 1] I’m not sure if I’m gonna make part 3 but there are still a bit ABO fics left. 

A King For Christmas by iam93percentstardust

Summary: In 1867, Tony Stark flees New York after refusing to marry the alpha his parents chose for him. His money runs out in the small kingdom of Dacia, ruled over by King Steven of the Rogers line. Somehow, and he’s not entirely sure how, he ends up accepting the position of nanny to the king’s four children: Harley, Peter, Sarah, and Morgan.

Tony bonds with the children easily but their father is harder to get to know. Steve is still grieving his wife’s death four years earlier. His continued mourning has turned the once bright halls into dark and somber shadows of their former glory. Tony isn’t entirely certain what he can do but he knows that he has to do something or else the whole country, so attuned to their leader, will sink into despair. He begins by reconciling the king with his young children.

Meanwhile, the children have decided that it’s high time their father fall in love again—and Tony is the obvious choice. They concoct elaborate plans to force the two together, hardly realizing that Steve and Tony are falling in love, not through their shenanigans but through the quiet moments they share bonding over the love they have for the children.

What, Like It’s Hard? by JehBeeEh

Summary: Omega Tony Stark has it all, until his alpha boyfriend breaks his heart. In an effort to win him back, he follows the alpha of his dreams to Harvard Law School, where he discovers there might be more to being the first omega at the prestigious school. He also meets another alpha that might just make him forget the one he drove across the country for.

Two-Point Perspective by FestiveFerret for sabrecmc

Dear omega,

Congratulations! You've been selected. Alpha #95847872 has been assigned as your pre-bondee. A group bonding ceremony will take place on the 14th, unless other arrangements have been made by your alpha or their family. A valid bonding license must be submitted to Omega Services within 45 days of this letter or all services will be cancelled and any transferable benefits will not be applied to your alpha's package.

If there is some reason why you cannot be bonded on this date, please apply for an extension by calling 1-800-555-6827 within 7 days of receiving this letter.

Sincerely, National Omega Services

I Love You (From the Bottom to the Top) by RomancebyFaye for Reioka

Summary: Steve and Tony have a great relationship. They may have only been dating for a few months, but the truth is, they had been in love for years before that. Their relationship is only getting better from adding this new intimacy and Steve is very satisfied with how open Tony is in the bedroom. He’s giving and generous, sometimes to a fault, just as he is with everything.

And then Steve comes home early and catches sight of something he wasn’t meant to see. The shock he gets from the sight of watching his alpha ride a toy might not have been meant for him, but it doesn't stop him from wanting.

Now, if he can just figure out how to tell Tony how much he wants what he witnessed without putting his foot in his mouth…

Or Tony offers Steve something in the bedroom and Steve misunderstands the offer.

Until he doesn’t.

A Prime, Divided by avengersasssemble

Summary: Facing his and his infant son's possible death sentence, young prince Tony runs away to the only place where his father would dare not follow: the Northern Territories, known to house the most savage and brutal Alphas--including their bloodthirsty leader, the Prime Alpha. Forced to navigate fatherhood and diplomacy while being unable to speak the Northern language, Tony has to make decisions to save his son, even at his own expense.

Oversight by ShyOwl

Summary: It really wasn’t Steve’s fault that no one knew he was an omega.

I Love You 3000 by NazakiSama166

Summary: After the death of his husband, the only thing Steven Rogers could think of was going on and dying in one of his missions, and Steven was happy to get his wish.... that was until he woke up in a strange universe when people can shift into wolves and men can get pregnant... Oh, and did he mention that Tony was there too and was in love with his younger jackass self? And let's not forget about Peggy...

Life just loves to mess with him...

Dear Enemy by AvengersNewB

Summary: Alpha Steve and omega Tony are SHIELD agents who don't always see eye to eye, but some benefits on the side help them work things out in the most non-traditional way. Steve's jealousy after an unfortunate encounter with Ty Stone, however, makes things complicated.

Love Match by FestiveFerret

Summary: Tony had but one goal for the season: secure a marriage proposal from an alpha with the position and means enough to remove him from his father's house. Love was wholly irrelevant to the matter. 

Stuck in a... by  Annie D (scaramouche)

Summary: Steve gets into a serum-enhanced rut. Tony figures that there’d be a long list of people who’d volunteer to help Steve out, but there’s only one person Steve wants.

A Late-Night Snacks, and Other Good Ideas by  Annie D (scaramouche)

Summary: Steve's heightened senses means that he always knows when Tony's in heat. One night, he finally does something about it.

citrus and lavender by JehBeeEh  

Summary: Steve laid Tony on his bed as delicately as he could manage. Which was ridiculous because he knew, logically, that Tony was absolutely fine. JARVIS himself had told him. And that’s 100% why he had fought Natasha so hard on Tony not needing to go to medical when they came back, even though he probably could use the check up. Yup. That was definitely the only reason he had insisted on bringing Tony back to the penthouse. No other reason at all. If you keep this up, you just might start believing it, he thought to himself ruefully. Tony wasn’t his. He had made it very clear that he didn’t need some alpha in his life to mess with everything he’d worked so hard to accomplish. Especially not Steve Rogers.

Found Love in a Hopeless Place by crispybacon

Summary: Steve really, really did not want to tag along with his brother to the bar, no matter how many times the jerk nagged him that he needed to get laid. Just because Bucky’s known his Omega since kindergarten, and the pair have loud obnoxious sex in their shared small two bedroom apartment, didn’t mean Steve needed to stick his knot in any Omega that looks his way.

That’s not the kind of Alpha Steve was.

Or, Steve goes to a bar and meets an Omega with a complicated past that changes his life forever.

This is Not a Drill by sabrecmc

Summary: “Can I—can I see him? I mean meet him. Uh…welcome him to the team?” Tony clarified, probably not very well, he knew.

“Well…there’s a bit of an issue with that,” Fury said, and Tony figured this was where Fury got to whatever it was that had really forced his hand and made him call Tony in, knowing how much the man detested having to do so. “You see, well. He was suspended in the ice for nearly seventy years,” Fury began. Tony nodded along, because he could do math.

“I’m sure he has a lot of adjusting to do—“ Tony started.

“Seventy years,” Fury repeated, cutting Tony off and leaning back in his chair and making it rock slightly. ��Of no suppressants.”

“Oh,” Tony managed to choke out past the lump that had suddenly formed in his throat. “Oh.”

Everybody's got a hungry heart. by Perlmutt for ShadowsintheClouds

Summary: Tony Stark has never experienced a true heat due to the suppressants he's taking on a daily basis. Society accepts him as a beta, together with his friends and teammates and the alpha he's secretly in love with. But some things are just too big to be kept hidden forever. An unfortunate turn of events forces Tony to reveal his biggest secret to the world...

Baby, Just Say Yes by betheflame for starksnack

Summary: In a world where Tony's life looks a lot like Taylor Swift's, Steve realizes there always more to omegas than meets the eye.

Apple Pie and Sunshine by betheflame, starksnack

Summary: Even though they've loved each other for years, Steve and Tony have each convinced themselves that their one-night-stand was a fluke. Thing is, it also resulted in Tony getting pregnant and as the birth approaches, perhaps it's time to use their words.

blue since the day we parted by funkyspacegirlfriend

Summary: When he's twenty, the man Tony thinks will be his alpha and mate walks away, leaving Tony with a gift he'll never regret.

The same alpha reappears fifteen years later in the form of SI's new military liaison.

In my Favorite Dreams (I feel your heat) by Corsets_and_Cardigans for wingheads

Summary: Steve is on his morning run in DC when a ghost from his past comes back into his life. And he's not alone. *** “Steve?” Sam’s voice cut through the veil of the past, the crushing weight of memory that stole his breath. “What’s wrong, buddy?”

His staring must have finally alerted another parent, a woman eyeing him warily while tugging on Tony’s sleeve until he turned around. His eyes were just as expressive and wide as they were ten years ago, piercing the cold morning air straight to Steve’s own.

“Tony.”

“Wait. Tony Tony? The Tony? The Tony that Bucky busts your chops over Tony?”

His voice cracked, wrent into pieces at seeing his omega who wasn’t his anymore, body flaring in pain. Years worth of aching denial like a hot fireplace poker to his soul. “Yeah.”

“Okay then, who’s the kid?”

The Couch by Perlmutt

Summary: Steve overstepped a mark, when he accidentally called Tony, his mate, tiny. Because his omega was very self-conscious when it came to his height. So he needed to show him that he thought Tony's perfect just the way he was, if he didn't want to sleep on the couch for the next week. Luckily Steve was the man with a plan...

be the summer in my heart by billyscissors

Summary: After Obadiah betrays the Southern Isles, he offers Omega Prince Anthony Stark as tribute to appease the Warlord of the North

#stony #stony fics #stony fanfic #steve and tony #stevetony #stevetony fanfic #stevetony fic rec #stevetony fic #stony fic #SUPERHUSBANDS #fic rec

[fangqueen]

Fic Rec Tag Meme

@sitp-recs, I’m terribly late, but this looked way too fun, so I had to join in. Fair warning, y’all, not everything here is Drarry, or even HP (I am a prolific rarepair shipper/multi-fandomer, and Dron is my OTP 😂), so I’ve added the fandoms and pairings below as well. All of these (and many more!) can also be found on my ficshelf! It was so hard to pick these as it was, I couldn’t help but point you in the right direction for all the ones I (sadly, unfortunately) had to cut from the list, lol.

Anyway, thank you so much for running this tag meme, @sitp-recs! It’s been amazing seeing everyone’s recs and discovering new fics! 🖤

• A fic you love without knowing the source material: He Was a Punk, Pete Did Tabletop Roleplay by @mscaptainwinchester Marvel | Peter/Wade | NC-17 | 7.5k

• A fic with a premise that shouldn’t work but it does: Anthony J. Crowley, Retired Demon and Airbnb Superhost by @theoldaquarian Good Omens | Hints of Aziraphale/Crowley | G | 3k All fics are valid and work!! That being said, I had no idea just how much I was going to fall in love with a fic about Crowley being an AirBnB host when I first opened it. 😂

• A fic you’ve reread several times: Department of Magical Creatures Case 62637 by @mscaptainwinchester (under RonsPigwidgeon at the time) HP | Draco/various, Ron/OMC, Ron/Draco | R | 121k How could I expected to only pick ONE?! 😂 I’ve reread everything you’re seeing here - I’ve reread nearly every fic I’ve ever recced at least once. But I couldn’t make a favorites list without this fic, so might as well put it here, haha!

• A fic you still remember many years later: Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble by Sushi HP | Severus/Severus | NC-17 | 8.9k I remembered it so well (and fondly) that after 12+ years, I went scouring the Wayback Machine to find it. And yes, the pairing is correct. Don’t look at me. If you’re still interested in reading after knowing that, hit me up, ‘cause it takes a bit of instruction to find it now.

• A comfort fic: You and I by @shiftylinguini HP | Scorpius/Albus S. | NC-17 | 32k

• A cathartic fic: The Conformity Conspiracy by shrink South Park | Michael/Pete (or Ethan/Dylan, as this was written before they had names in canon) | R | 71k I really struggled with this entry. I came to the realization that...I don’t know if I’ve ever actually felt catharsis from a piece of media before??? Well, I have with music, for sure, but not really with anything else. Anyway, I chose this fic for this slot because every time I read it, I’m transported back to being a goth teen. I can feel every word, every action, like I’m going through those years again with them...Which isn’t necessarily what cathartic means, but fuck it, it works for me, haha. ***As always whenever I rec this fic, I do just have to warn that it’s not properly tagged on AO3, and there is definitely some potentially triggering content in it. If you’re interested in reading and would like to know more (so you can be better prepared), feel free to DM me!***

• A fic you’d print and put on your bookshelf: In Flight, Two Boys by lobst_r HP | Marcus/Oliver | NC-17 | 29K Again, how I could possibly pick only one for this one?! I would print out ALL of these fics if I could, and many more! But this is such a beautiful fic, it definitely deserves a spot on the list, and what better spot for it than this? There’s actually a sequel currently posting as well! I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet, but I’m sure it’s just as amazing, if not more so.

• A fic you associate with a song: You Do Your Body Work, I Feel My Pulse Working Overtime by @veelawings HP | Draco/Harry | NC-17 | 1.6k I mean, it’s in the title. 😜 But also this is just a truly inspiring fic that I absolutely had to include! (I realized I somehow haven’t queued a rec post for it yet, and I will make sure to fix that soon!)

• A fic that inspires you: dirtynumbangelboy by @magpiefngrl HP | Draco/Harry | NC-17 | 39k

• A fic that brought you onboard a new ship: Lumos by birdsofshore HP | Draco/Harry | NC-17 | 41k Some people may be surprised to know that Drarry was, uh.......once my NOTP. Yes, really. 😂 You wouldn’t suspect that nowadays, would you??? LOL. It’s all because of this wonderful, beautiful fic. I saw it getting recced everywhere at the time and said fuck it, I’ll give the pairing another try - and I never looked back!

• A fic you wish could be a movie: Midnight in the City of a Hundred Spires by @shiftylinguini HP | Draco/Harry | NC-17 | 25k

• A fic that led to you making friends with the author: A Weasel in the Hamptons by @peachpety HP | Ron/Draco | NC-17 | 15k I don’t quite know if this counts, because I believe we’d already been speaking before this??? 😂 But of course, being that I’m the mod for Ron/Draco Fest, I knew who was writing for this prompt of mine, and thus we dispensed with the formalities in private, haha! It was a great experience, and I was so overjoyed to see the results in the end. So happy to have met you, love! 😘 Hope you’re well!

• Free Space: The Pizzaria: A Sordid Tale of Destiny, Evil and Garlic by Mad_Maudlin HP | Ron/Draco | PG-13 | 36k A Dron/crack!fic staple, honestly, and I just couldn’t make a favorites list without it!

• A fic you’ve gushed about irl: Runway by @candawrites HP | Ron/Draco | R | 15k

• A fic you associate with a place: Archipelago by Mad_Maudlin HP | Ron/Draco | NC-17 | 18k I just have a very distinct visual memory of reading this fic for the first time: sitting on the couch in my mom’s living room, the sun setting outside. (I was visiting for her bday, I believe???)  I think of that moment every time I see the title.

• A fic that made you gasp out loud: clutched your life and wished it kept by @glitteringvoids HP | Ron/Draco | R | 110K

• A fic you found at the right time: Howlr by @partialtopotter HP | Draco/Harry | NC-17 | 47k I got really sick in summer 2018. I know I’ve talked about it on here a million times at this point, so I won’t dwell. But I ended up finding and reading this fic the following March, and it reawakened my love of fic and fandom that had been lost over the previous months while I was dealing with everything. I hadn’t been reading or writing at all in all that time, and I ended up reading this whole thing in one sitting. I couldn’t put it down! It just made me feel so good, after a long time of not feeling anywhere near good.

• A fic that you would read fic of: In the Garden After Dark by @the-starryknight HP | Draco/Harry | R | 3.5k I just need more of this universe and Draco’s Illusion magic. 😍

• A fic that made you laugh out loud: Why Parvati Patil Must Die by hull1984 HP | Ron/Draco | PG-13 | 39k

• A fic with a line (or two) that you’ve memorized by heart: Hail to the King by Mad_Maudlin HP | Ron/Zacharias, Ron/Zacharias/Draco | NC-17 | 5k

• A fic that gave you butterflies: The Electric Fizzing Prick Pistols, or Whatever by whitmans_kiss HP | Sirius/Remus | PG-13 | 3.8k

• A fic that embodies something that you value in life: Luna Lovegood: Wank Coach for the Long-Since Deceased by yrfrndfrnkly HP | gen | PG-13 | 9.8k This was another difficult category to choose for. Not that I don’t think any fics I’ve read display good values! Of course they do! But I have this weird issue where I don’t, like...project? at all??? So sometimes it’s hard for me to recognize these things in what I read. But eventually I realized it had to be this fic, because I just love the carefree way Luna lives her life here, her job helping people (well, ghosts who could use some sexual release, specifically, but you know), and the wonderful friends she surrounds herself with.

• A favorite AU: Quibbler Unsolved by Leontina HP | Draco/Harry | PG-13 | 17k More of a fusion than an AU, but it’s just fantastic!

• A fic you stayed up too late to finish reading: Grounds for Divorce by @tepre HP | Draco/Harry | NC-17 | 122k

• A fic that made you feel seen: Taste the Rainbow by @maraudersaffair HP | Ginny/Pansy | PG-13 | 639

#fic rec tag meme #fangqueen recs fics #fangqueen speaks

[ilalos]

Lavender dreams (Anthony Bridgerton x OC)-Part 1/3

Word count: 3.1k

Anthony stormed into his office after breakfast with his mother following close. The proper introductions were made when Miss Grace, or Gigi as she preferred to be called, entered the dining room; he had ignored the little somersault that attacked his heart when he made eye contact with the young girl and instead of acknowledging the feeling chose to finish eating as soon as humanly possible and left the table in a haste.

“How could you not notify me of this visit mother? The responsibility of finding her a suitable match falls on me and I know nothing about this girl, do you?” he tried to keep his voice down, but the exasperation he felt still showed in the form of harsh whispers.

“I didn’t tell you because I know she won’t have a problem finding a suitor that would be interested in her” Violet sat down tiredly looking at her exasperated son.

“And how are you so sure of that?”

“Well, she is an only daughter to a wealthy man, she is a well-read young woman and an amazing piano player, not to mention her dowry is obviously substantial” she gave him a pointed ‘I told you so’ glare “and of course, she is beautiful”

“Even worst then, we’ll have to make sure that whoever marries her-“

“We won’t do anything but I’ll make sure she loves the man she chooses to marry and he does her, that was Rose’s wish and that’s what I’ll do” she stood up not wanting to hear any more of her son’s antics.

Meanwhile, in the drawing-room things seemed to be running smoothly as Gigi read a novel and Eloise sat next to her reading the latest Lady Whistledown, while Benedict draws the pair in his sketchbook.

“Ugh! I can’t believe tomorrow is the day where our whole future is defined by the judgment of the queen” Eloise couldn’t keep her discontent in after reading the suppositions of who could be this season’s Incomparable “Can you believe it? Tomorrow our settling down begins” she sighed dramatically.

“Stop scaring the girl, Eloise” Benedict chastised with a smile, not looking up from his sketch.

“It’s not like I have a choice on the matter, so I try not to worry too much about it” Gigi gave her a small smile as if trying to comfort her.

“Right?! Society makes us feel like we have no choice, we either settle for a boring man who will hopefully be interesting enough to-“

“I don’t think she meant that she is pressured by society, dear sister” chuckled Benedict

“Oh, then pray tell me what you meant Grace”

“My father is very ill” started Gigi with a sad look as she let the book fall on her lap “I’m his only daughter and he wishes to see me married and in love before his passing”

Silence filled the room after Gigi finished speaking, she picked her book back up and resumed her reading when Eloise’s voice suddenly cut through the quiet atmosphere.

“You could marry one of my brothers, you know?” She said it more as thought said out loud than an actual suggestion and it caused Benedict to loudly scratch his pencil against the paper of his drawing.

“I don’t think that would be a wise suggestion sister” he racked his brain trying to come up with a way to explain how adamant he was on NOT getting married anytime soon “I for one wouldn’t want to be the brother in question, no offense Gigi”

“None taken” she giggled “I understand where you’re coming from Eloise but neither of your brothers seems prepared, or willing, to get married this season”

“Well it’s your loss, these dimwits may not look like much but they are somewhat intelligent and also very desirable matches according to Lady Whistledown”

“Well isn’t this a warm welcome?” Colin's voice startled the siblings and their guest as they didn’t expect him to arrive for another month.

Benedict was the first to stand and embrace his brother while his sister seemed to be torn between welcoming Colin and running to the Featherington’s residency to notify her best friend of his arrival, she knew Penelope would appreciate learning the news before the whole ton started whispering about it or even worse reading about it the next day. Standing up she chose to run to her friend’s home and also drag her guest along to not leave her alone with her brothers who were already deep in conversation.

“Tell mother we will be back for lunch!” She ran to the door with an iron grip around Gigi’s wrist only stopping to give a quick “Welcome home brother!”

“It was lovely to meet you!” That was all Gigi managed to get out before being dragged through the streets of London towards the Featherington home.

/////Time jump\\\\\

The picnic had gone wonderfully and Violet could not have been happier, surrounded by all her children and one grandchild. For a moment she forgot the expectations, the pressure of the next day’s events that signified the start of a new season that would, hopefully, be less dramatic than the last.

The men chatted about Colin’s travels as all the older men had already taken the same voyages, in way less innocent intents than him (read: brothel tour) as he seemed truly interested in the culture, the sights, and the history of the places he visited. Of course, he had met many women on his travels and he had laid with some of them but of that, he wouldn’t speak in such proximity to his mother and sisters.

Later that evening the girls had gone to pick up their debut dresses accompanied by the duchess to get as much advice as possible in how to be the Incomparable of the season, Daphne truly didn’t know how she had achieved that and if she had to be completely honest she only went to spend some time with her sister.

When the girls arrived back at the Bridgerton home, Violet decided it would be early supper and early bedtime for everyone because tomorrow was a crucial day for everyone’s life. Lady Bridgerton knew she couldn’t control what her sons would get up to in the late-night but she would make sure that her debutants were well rested before their presentation to the queen, and she made sure of it by personally escorting them to their shared room and verifying they had in fact gone to bed.

Way past the middle of the night Gigi woke up with a start after having a nightmare about her mother’s death, tears were running down her cheeks and her heart was hammering inside her chest so fast it was almost painful. She quickly looked to Eloise’s sleeping form and breathed a sigh of relief when she confirmed that the girl had not been awakened by her. Slowly and quietly Gigi got up from the bed and grabbed her robe, she needed some fresh air to calm down and maybe some milk.

Little tears were still falling from her eyes as she walked to the kitchen but the hammering of her heart had subsided by now, as she passed the office she noticed light coming from the room and with a frown, she went to see who was there at this ungodly hour. It was Anthony who was hunched over his desk holding an almost empty cup of liquor, his other hand supporting his head and messing his once perfectly combed hair, he was looking at some papers that were carelessly thrown over the desk surface with a deep frown.

“Lord Bridgerton is everything okay?” she knew she should’ve just continued her path to the kitchen but seeing him so concerned made her feel a dull ache in her chest.

He was startled by her voice, almost dropping his cup and lifting his head so quickly he got a little dizzy. He took a good look at her and realized a couple of things: first, she had been crying, and second, even in the simplest of robes with dried tears on her cheeks she looked breathtakingly beautiful.

“Miss Gillingham what are you doing awake at this hour?”

“I could ask you the same thing” she hadn’t meant to sound so sassy but her sleepy brain couldn’t process much formality at the moment.

“It’s nothing that concerns you” he said it with no intention of being harsh but her small wince let him know it came out that way “may I ask you, where were you heading to before stumbling into my office?”

“I was on my way to the kitchen to heat some milk, couldn’t sleep”

“I could help you with that” he surprised even himself with the suggestion because he knew he couldn’t even turn on the stove “stay here, I’ll go to the kitchen, it’s no place for a barefoot lady to be in”

She blushed and looked down at her feet that were in fact bare. He got up from his desk and walked up to where she was standing by the door, he gently pulled her inside the room and guided her to sit on the couch, silently instructing her to stay there before taking his leave for the kitchen. After he left she decided it would be nice of her to refill his drink, she grabbed the liquor bottle that sat atop one of the many papers on the desk and poured it in the cup. She knew she shouldn’t be reading what was written on the papers but her eyes couldn’t help but wander around the surface and soon realized what troubled Anthony, someone was stealing from the family.

“You didn’t need to do that, I could’ve poured it myself” she jumped a little when she heard his voice.

“Nonsense, you went into the trouble of getting me...cold? Milk” she had one look at the small glass bottle he held in his hand with a small smile.

“Ah yes” he chuckled “I didn’t want to bother a kitchen maid so cold milk it is”

“I appreciate the gesture Lord Bridgerton” she took the bottle from his hands as he approached her “I understand you not wanting to wake any of the kitchen staff as one of them is clearly stealing from you”

“What are you talking about? Such accusations are not to be said in such a lightly manner”

“I apologize, sir, I didn’t mean to anger you” she looked down at her feet and tears welled her eyes once again.

“What makes you think one of our kitchen staff is stealing from us?” He was genuinely curious about her answer, not sure if he’d believe it but nonetheless curious.

“Here” she pointed to a piece of paper and his breath hitched at her proximity “it says that you bought 50 baguettes from the bakery today”

“Yes, what about it?”

“Well I saw your table this morning and there were no baguettes there, in the picnic he had croissants and for dinner, there were, again, no baguettes” she felt proud of the way he looked down at her in what could only be described as awe “Baguette is a bread that must be eaten within the same day it is bought as it will get stale rather quickly, it is also an incredible amount of bread for a relatively small family to eat” she completed her explanation and stepped back to give him room to see it for himself.

“I believe you are correct but I must know, how did you know this?” All Anthony could think about was how wonderful it would be to have a wife that could understand such concepts of family economy.

“The same thing happened at our state a couple of years back, our housekeeper claimed to buy enormous quantities of food to get the extra coin herself”

“Who caught her?”

“My mom” she smiled “She said men would’ve never noticed because they had no idea how a kitchen works, she did and she taught me that being a good wife meant not only raising the children but also making sure everything in the home is working how it's supposed to, among other things”

“She sounds like a wonderful woman” he wanted to embrace her with how small and sad she looked but he refrained from doing so, it would be highly inappropriate.

“She was” a yawn tore through her and she suddenly realized just how tired she was “Well good night Lord Bridgerton, thank you for the milk”

He took the vessel from her hand, set it gently on the table, and offered his arm to accompany her to the door.

“Goodnight to you too, and please call me Anthony”

She looked up at him one last time before turning and padding to her bedroom as quietly as she could. Meanwhile, Anthony sat back at his desk and chuckled in disbelief, he had spent the past three hours trying to know where the sudden increase of expenses had come from and she had solved it after mere seconds of looking, she truly was a wonderful woman and would be an even better wife. He couldn’t help but think for a brief moment that she could perhaps be a wonderful wife for him.

Morning came quicker than expected and the house was filled with running maids preparing baths, horses being brushed, and food being made. Anthony fired their housekeeper, Violet wanted to kill him as he chose to do so at the worst possible time and that forced her to make her personal maid the housekeeper to keep things running smoothly on such an important date. The girls came down with their hair done wearing robes so they could eat before getting dressed, Violet didn’t want them to spill anything on them but most importantly she didn’t want to have either of the girls fainting in front of the queen due to hunger, so breakfast in a robe was the solution.

Disaster hit Lady Bridgerton’s mind as soon as she saw the way her firstborn looked at Grace, he looked at her as if he was in love with her. She had no problem in her son choosing to court the young heiress but it would look terrible if he were to court her while she was staying in their home, it would certainly give the wrong impression. She rose from the table and grabbed her eldest daughter by the elbow prompting her to follow her out to the hallway where she proceeded to explain that she needed her and her husband to take Grace to Lady Dunbury’s house.

“But why? Is our presence bothering you mother?”

“Of course not dearest, but I must get Grace out of the house to avoid a scandal” at her daughter’s confused face she continued “your brother seems to fancy her and I’m afraid if he chose to court her it would look terrible if she was to be living under the same roof as him”

Daphne understood her mother’s reasoning and agreed that it would be quite scandalous for a debutant to live in the same home as the man who courted her. Back in the dining room, the Duke of Hastings was getting worried by his wife’s absence so he ventured into the hallway to find her and her mother speaking in hushed voices.

“My love! I was just about to send for you” Daphne reached her hand out to her husband and he took it with a wary look “My mother has asked us to take over Grace’s season at Lady Danbury’s house, and I wanted to know if that may be possible”

He wanted to say no, he wanted to avoid staying the whole season under the scrutiny of the ton and also that of Lady Danbury, but he couldn’t deny his wife the chance to spend this time close to her family and for her to take such responsibility was a task he knew she wished to do to make her mother proud. So despite wanting to deny such request he smiled and instead said he’d be honored to help her with such task and would make arrangements to speak with Lady Danbury and send their belongings there while they went to de debutants presentation.

The presentation to the queen goes uneventful until Eloise walks in accompanied by her mother, even though she failed to aid in catching Lady Whistledown The Queen admired the young lady and provided her with a nod of approval, which was an enormous statement coming from the monarch. Next walked in Grace with Daphne and to no one’s surprise, she was deemed the Incomparable by the queen with a simple kiss to the forehead.

The news traveled fast and as soon as both ladies arrived at the ball in Lady Danbury’s home their dancing cards were filled with prospects, well Grace’s was because thanks to Anthony’s ‘assistance’ Eloise’s was impossibly blank. Daphne and Simon had decided to allow Gigi to dance with whoever she liked and they would worry about background checks when the dances turned into gentleman callers.

Anthony spent half of his attention taking good care of his sister and the other half was put into painfully watching Gigi dancing with different men, but what hurt the most was seeing that the man that made her smile the most was his own brother. He watched Colin take her first dance and couldn’t help the jealousy coursing through his veins as he saw them smiling and laughing as he twirled her around the dance floor. Perhaps that jealousy is what prompted him to abandon his sister’s side and approach the purple-eyed girl to ask for a dance.

“I’m so sorry Anthony but my dance card is full for the night” she was truly apologetic even though she had no way of knowing the eldest Bridgerton would want her to save a dance for him.

“May I see it?” He read through the list of names and chose to scratch over Benedict’s name knowing his brother had saved himself a dance with the girl only to save her from another dance with an impossibly boring gentleman, so he wouldn’t mind giving his dance up to his older brother.

“Is that allowed?” She asked with a smile.

“It is when he’s your brother” he dropped the card and handed back her pencil “Do me a favor and save me a dance on the next ball, and all others after that” with a final smile he left her to dance with the next gentleman and went back to his sister’s side.

Part 2

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

I wanted to write this in 1 part buuuuut it came out longer than expected 😬 It’ll probably be like a 3-4 part story. If you took the time to read this I appreciate you :):):):):):):):):)

#bridgerton #bridgerton imagine #anthony bridgerton x oc #anthony bridgerton #anthony bridgerton imagine #my writing

[klarolijahs]

So I saw you were open for requests. How about something terribly angsty for Kanthony? Like maybe kate couldn't have kids, and Anthony takes a mistress or something?

You really like angst don't you?

Okay, so this is heavily borrowed by a fic I wrote for Klaroline ages ago - and the prompt kind of fits. This is extreeeeeeeeeeemely OOC for Anthony, but here goes. Don't kill me. I promise I make Anthony suffer!

TW - Character death, and cheating.

______________________________________________________

The first girl was stillborn. Nothing to worry about, the midwife had said, she was young, she would bear many children.

The second girl was born barely a year later, with a head full of auburn curls and brown eyes.

They called Anthony stern and severe; she knew him to be rough, at the very start of their forced courtship he hadn’t been a gentleman, and had laid out the duties and expectations of their marriage in crisp, clear words. But when he looked down at his daughter, a simple smile on his face, she knew he wasn't as cruel as they made him out to be. Her husband was a complicated man.

The third daughter was born three months early, and didn't survive the night.

The fourth daughter was born eleven months later, her hair curlier and as dark as Kate with early signs of her father's dimples. Anthony was content and smiled in resignation.

The fifth daughter was born a year later. Anthony didn't hold her until she was 4 months old.

Then, he stopped coming to her bedchambers, stopped touching her, and stopped seeing her altogether. Without any warning, she was shifted to a smaller bedchamber as far away from Anthony' as possible, and informed by his man of business that since she could not bear her son any male heirs, her services would no longer be needed. And that he would find someone else to bear him a son.

Their marriage had been an arranged one, with the intent to provide his title an heir and his name a Viscountess, but with time she had come to love Anthony, and come to believe that he reciprocated her feelings. Which fueled her determination to speak to him before he took drastic steps.

"You could say no," she asked him, refusing to cry or expose her vulnerability as she sat on his bed. It had taken her a full week to manage to get an audience with her own husband.

"I want a son, Kate," he replied sternly, "Is that so wrong of me?" he questioned, his eyes cold and hollow, and she longed to see any sign of the man who had kissed every inch of her, who wiped her tears when the lost their child, who rocked her back to sleep when it thundered, some sign, any indication that she meant more to him than a working womb.

"Is it wrong of me to want a faithful husband?" she retorted back, tears sneaking down her cheeks and she wiped at them furiously. No, he wouldn’t get the satisfaction to see her cry. He hesitated for a second, before turning away from her as he said, "It isn't uncommon." He said softly, the Viscount disappearing for just a minute, and the man - Anthony - warm, kind, complicated, brash re-appeared.

She knew he was right; it wasn't uncommon for titled men to take lovers, but that didn't mean it didn't sting her. She had nothing more to say, no meager words would change his mind. Gathering her skirts as gracefully as she could, she made her way out of his chambers.

He spoke her name softly, making her turn around as he whispered, "I'm sorry, Kate."

And Kate could see that he wanted to be more, more than Viscount Bridgerton who existed only for duty. But he chose to close off, to treat her as such. So she could choose her pride, her dignity.

“You’re a coward, Anthony Bridgerton.” She said venomously and left his chambers.

She watched from afar, burying the pain and betrayal she felt, focusing all her attention on her daughters. She didn't know her name, she didn't want to. She saw her at times; making herself believe that Anthony had chosen a Brunette, brown-eyed girl for a reason.

She watched and ignored and mourned, until his lover gave birth to a son. Anthony no longer smiled at her, never even looked at his daughters. She was no longer the woman of the house, she was the woman who wasn't good enough.

Then she spiraled down a deep abyss that had no bottom.

-------------

Anthony heard the servants screaming as he played with his son in the garden. Handing him off to his caretaker, he ran into the mansion, following the screams.

They came from Kate's bedchambers, where he found his wife hanging from the ceiling, her tears still wet on her cheeks.

-------------

The dreams began years after her death.

Preoccupied with his own thoughts, he ventured into the wing of the house he never visited, as if fearing it would break him by its mere presence. The sound of loud giggling and running feet stopped him in his tracks, as a small girl ran out of her chambers and into the passage. Her governess screeched as she followed behind her. Charlotte, eleven years old now, was the spitting image of her mother, even at such a young age. His breath caught in his throat as he looked down at his daughter, a wave of emotions spiraling through him.

Taken aback by him, she stopped in her tracks, twirling around in her bright yellow dress as she gave him a shy, genuine smile, and in his head he saw Kate smiling at him the same way, on their wedding night all those years ago. She had her mother's smile. And his heart broke, when he realized the girl probably didn't even know he was her father. The governess grabbed her by the shoulders, gently reprimanding her for running away. Her hurried apologies fell on deaf ears, his attention focused on the small child who huffed and followed after her caretaker. He lingered by the door, watching as Charlotte asked her governess who the strange man was.

"He's your father, pumpkin," the old lady replied, fussing over the child's unruly curls.

From the small crack of the door, Anthony watched as the smile faded from his first-born face, her eyes growing dark and sad as she looked down at her feet. And in his head, he saw Kate's face when she learnt of his son.

-------------

That night, he dreamt of her for the first time.

He dreamt of the last conversation they had, he dreamt of giving in to her, he dreamt of forgetting about his need to have a son. He dreamt of not letting her walk away from him. He dreamt of never having done anything to have to apologize to her for.

He dreamt of being the Anthony that had been in love with Kate, not the coward who put his duty first.

When he woke up, he was drenched in sweat and shaking like a leaf. And never knowing, or never wanting to know, if the wetness on his cheeks was from his cold sweats or the tears he shed in the memory of his dead wife.

-------------

He dreamt of her every night, therein.

He dreamt of the day his youngest daughter was born. He dreamt of going in to see her after he was informed it was a girl. He dreamt of holding her as Kate watched him. He dreamt of suggesting that they name her after Kate's mother. He dreamt of not leaving for four months to court another woman to share his bed and bear his son.

And when he woke up, the truth of his actions haunted him. His daughter was named Mary, but by no aid of his. And by the time he first held her, he had decided that it would be the last time he would hold her, or her mother.

He dreamt of the night he betrayed his vows to Kate. He dreamt of not going through with it. He dreamt of giving into the guilt that had flooded him. He dreamt of going back to Kate, telling her that he'd rather have her and a dozen daughters than some other woman and a male heir.

But when he woke up, his wife was now the woman who bore him his son. And his daughters had no idea who he was.

-------------

Weeks later, he requested to see his daughters, a request that positively baffled their governess. It was a cruel joke, he was certain of if, for each of his daughters looked just like their mother. Mary, the youngest and the most clueless, took to him the fastest, chasing the butterflies with her sister. Charlotte, stood feet away from him, holding onto her governess' hand tightly. She was afraid of him, he could tell, and deep down, he could not blame her for fearing him.

"Come sit next to me," he said, smiling at the girl who narrowed her eyes at him. His heart ached to hold his daughter's hand, trace the light freckles on her cheek, knowing that in doing so, he'd be touching a part of Kate. He needed it like he needed his next breath. But his daughter was just like her mother, stubborn and determined, as she resolutely shook her head and disappeared behind her governess.

"Why not?" he asked, burying the sudden pain and anger he felt at her rejection.

"Because," Charlotte said bravely, poking her head out from behind her caretaker's many skirts, "You killed mother."

His eyes widened as he felt his heart drop down to his gut, watching in horror as Charlotte gave him a look that screamed disappointment and bitterness, as her governess alternated between yelling at the child and apologizing to him. His daughter was ashamed of him, he could see it in her watery eyes, and he would never be her father, just the man who took her mother away.

Three truthful words and a look of pure disappointment from a child bought the weight of his decisions down on him. His hands may be clean, but his conscience never would. He might as well have tied the noose that took his Kate's life.

A coward, through and through.

And that sent him spiraling down a deep abyss with no bottom.

-------------

He dreamt of her asking for him. He dreamt of her pleading for his help, dreamt of her feeble, pained voice calling out for him. He dreamt of rushing to her aid, dreamt of finding her injured and helpless in her chambers. He dreamt of saving her life, dreamt of holding her till she stopped crying. He dreamt of never letting her go.

When he awoke, he created a ruckus in the mansion. Breaking through every door and waking up all the servants. Like a possessed man, he screamed and howled at everything and everyone, yelling that Kate was calling for him, insisting that he heard her, crying that she was hurt and begging them to find her for him. He searched for her for hours and hours, but to no avail.

When he finally slept that night, on the cold floor of his chambers, he did so truly believing that he had killed her yet again.

-------------

And from that day onwards, the ton had a new name for him. He was no longer the cool and stern Viscount. He was now The Mad Viscount. He saw Kate everywhere, in every brunette woman on the street, every brown-eyed servant in the mansion. He saw her everywhere, he heard her everywhere, and he felt her everywhere. And he knew with every fiber of his being, that she was in pain, that she needed his help, that he could save her.

And every night, he dreamt of her calling out to him.

And every night, like a mad-man he searched for her in every corner of the mansion, in every nook and cranny of the garden, every alley of every street, begging the world to give her back to him.

But she never did.

She haunted him in his every waking and sleeping moment.

Until the day he took his life in the same place she did.

#my writing #kanthony #kate x anthony #bridgerton #AGNST #anthony suffers trust me #TW #trigger warning #OOC Anthony because he would never cheat but okay #CHARACTER DEATH BEWARE

[just-dreaming-marvel]

Love Is Not Forced ~ 13

MASTERLIST

< previous chapter

Word Count: 2,000ish

Summary: Something else happens in the garden. 

Y/N’s lunch date with Thor in the village was fun, she felt that she had never laughed more in her life. But she couldn’t feel any spark there. Even with King Steven there was a spark. It might be one of hatred, but was still there. 

The rest of the day, Y/N couldn’t help but keep reliving the moment she kissed Loki the night before. She was mindlessly strolling through the garden, book in hands, in the afternoon. But she had been on the same page since she arrived in the garden almost thirty minutes before. The Princess was looking down at her book when she ran into something hard. Y/N looked up to see that it was King Steven.

“It seems you have a habit of running into people, Your Highness,” the King teased.

“Or it could be that you have a habit of not making your presence known,” Y/N responded before moving around the King to continue her stroll.

“That could be it as well,” Steve turned around and began walking beside the Princess. “Or maybe I just get stuck in place, staring at your beauty?”

Y/N chuckled, almost coldly. “And how many women has that line worked on, Your Majesty?”

“I’m afraid that I have not had any woman near me that compare to your beauty, Princess.”

“I hardly believe that. You are a King, I’m sure many maidens from many lands have caught your eye.”

“None of them had the personality to keep it though. I mean—“

“I understand what you mean, Your Majesty. But you don’t even know my personality, you don’t actually know me.”

“I know that you are often found out here in the garden or in that tower of yours. I know that you aren’t someone who gives their trust away easily, but have yet found a way to trust Prince Loki.”

Y/N closed her book and put her full focus on the King. “What does this have to do with the Prince of Asgard?”

“He is not someone you should be trusting so easily, Princess. He has wormed his way into the hearts of many and has led them astray.”

“He would never do that to me.”

“You do not known him.”

“I know him better than you do,” Y/N made an abrupt stop. “Did you come out here to simply try and convince me that Prince Loki is not trustworthy? Cause, Your Majesty, that is not respectable of you. The Prince has never spoken ill of you to me. Yet here you are, interrupting my stroll, to tell me of your opinion on the Prince. I say, that says more about him then that does about you.”

“My apologizes, Princess. I did not come out here looking for you to talk about Loki. I came out here to ask you to join me for dinner. I leave for Brooklyn tomorrow, to prepare for your arrival, and I wish to spend some more time with you before I leave.”

“I’m afraid that I’m going to have to decline your offer.” Y/N started walking away. 

“And why is that?” The King was quick to follow.

“Because I do not wish to dine with someone who is so quick to judge everyone, including myself.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about Princess.”

“You’ve spent the time strolling with me, trying to get me to think less of Prince Loki.”

“I have a feeling the current situation is not all you are referring to.”

“You are correct. I am referring to the night of my birthday. You and your guard were out in the garden, talking. You had yet to make an appearance or even meet me, and yet you felt okay disrespecting me.”

“Princess, I didn’t know that you heard that,” the King rushed. “You’ve got to let me explain.”

“I think I’ve heard enough from you for a life time.”

“Y/N,” Steve reached and grabbed her wrist, stopping her from leaving. “Let me explain.”

“Let go of me,” Y/N tried to get out of his grip, which was actually really tight.

“Not until you give me a chance to explain.”

“Please, Your Majesty, you’re hurting me.” 

She continued to fight. He let go and looked at her wrist. It was red with his hand print. It looked like it might leave a bruise. The King immediately felt guilty. He hadn’t realized that he was using his full strength. Y/N cradled her arm close to her chest.

“Y/N, I’m so sorry.” He stepped closer, wanting to take a look at it.

“Get away from me.” She stepped back.

“I didn’t mean—“

“What’s going on over here?” T’Challa made his way down the path. He had heard the Princess’ voice raise and wanted to make sure she was okay.

“Nothing,” the Princess answered quickly. “I was just leaving.” She turned to leave but T’Challa caught her arm, causing her to flinch. He immediately pulled back.

“Is your arm okay, Princess?” T’Challa asked, clearly concerned.

“It’s fine. I’m just a little clumsy. I’m going inside to rest now. I will see Your Majesties at dinner.”

She left swiftly, not giving the King’s a second glance. King T’Challa turned to look at King Steven.

“Did you touch her?” T’Challa asked, not beating around the bush.

“I—“

“Did you lay your hand on her with ill intention, King Steven?”

“I didn’t mean to. I was trying to get her to stay, but I didn’t realize my own strength.”

T’Challa shook his head. “The Princess has not been trusting with you and this is how you treat her? No wonder! I know you and King Anthony are concerned about her growing admiration for Prince Loki, but this isn’t helping. If you want her to trust you enough to chose you willingly before the choice is made for her, you need to watch your mouth. And your actions.”

“How do I make it up to her?”

“You need to be more careful. If she has a bruise because of this, people will notice. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the Princess is honest about what happened. It might be smart to leave tonight before dinner.”

“What? How is that a good idea? Leave right after harming her?”

“Leave a letter and head back to Brooklyn tonight. Spend all your time preparing your kingdom for her arrival. If you show her how much she is wanted there by the people and by you, you may have a chance.”

“Are you sure?”

“I cannot be sure that it will work. But, honestly dear friend, this is probably your last shot.”

Y/N spent the rest of the day in her tower. Only Wanda was allowed to visit her. A bruise was forming on her wrist where the King had grabbed her, and Wanda had mentioned something. Y/N brushed it off as her being clumsy before telling her friend to grab her a long sleeve dress for dinner. If she thought she couldn’t dislike the King of Brooklyn more, she was very wrong.

After redressing for dinner, the Princess made her way to the dining hall. Everyone was already there besides King Steven. She let out a small sigh of relief before sitting down and joining in the conversation. Loki was seated across from her, giving her small smiles every time their eyes meet. Y/N returned them, she didn’t want Loki to know what the King had done and she wanted to have a good time tonight. Possibly with Loki.

When dessert was up, a servant came by Y/N’s side and got her attention. 

“Your Highness,” the servant called, “there is a letter for you.” The servant held out the letter for her to take.

“Oh, thank you,” the Princess took the letter. 

She examined the letter. On the front, there was only her name. She turned it around to see the seal of Brooklyn carved into the wax holding the letter closed. 

“May I be excused, Father?” Y/N asked, wanting to read the letter in private.

“Why not read the letter out loud, here?” King Anthony responded. “For everyone to hear who is trying to woo you?”

“Anthony,” the Queen scolded before turning to her daughter. “You are free to go, love. You do not need to share your letters with anyone.”

“Thank you.”

The Princess got up and swiftly went to her tower. She carefully opened the letter and began reading.

Dearest, Y/N,

There are no words that can adequately tell you how sorry I am about the words that were said in the garden at your ball and today, during your stroll. There are also not enough words to adequately tell you how sorry I am for grabbing you in that way. My mother raised me to respect women, and I’ve always prided myself in that. I don’t know what got into me. I truly wasn’t meaning to do it out of anger. I just wanted you to hear me out.

I’ve met with many of possible wives before you. With each one, their fathers would tell me all the good things about their daughter. Or the many good traits they believed their daughter to have. Each time, I was disappointed and, I know this is very ill mannered to say, disgusted. All those other women were simply looking for the crown or to get into my chambers for a night.

So coming to the ball that night, I had no hope for it. I had been fooled so many times before, that I was sure your Father was fooling me again. I know that your Father loves his jokes, so I thought that maybe he was fooling me to get you married off for the sake of his kingdom. I know now, that your Father, the King, would never fool around when talking about you. His only daughter, and the obvious light of his eye.

When I first saw you, at lunch the morning after, my heart stopped. I’ve never seen a more beautiful woman before having meet you. I immediately felt guilty for the things that I had said the night before. I was confused as to why you were so distance towards me. But after having heard that you heard what I had said, it all makes sense now. If I had heard those things, I wouldn’t trust me either. 

I promise you, I’ve never meant you any harm. I honestly want to get to know you. Not just as Princess Y/N of Alexandria, but also just Y/N. 

I know that by simply writing this, I cannot be forgiven. But I hope that it helps. I am also sorry that I didn’t make it to dinner. By the time you read this, I will be on my way home to Brooklyn. I am leaving in hopes of preparing for your stay in my kingdom. I do hope you choose to still visit my kingdom. I promise that I will behave and my apologizes will be shown to you, sincerely. 

Again, I will ever be apologizing to you. I hope to see you in Brooklyn in the coming days.

Forever apologetic,

Steven Rogers 

Y/N was genuinely in shock. The letter was so sincere. Or at least seemed to be. She knew she didn’t have a choice at whether she was visiting Brooklyn or not. She wanted to a bit more now, just to see what the King would do to show his apologizes. But, she needed him to suffer a bit before they saw each other again. The Princess decided then, that she would visit Asgard and Wakanda before she would visit Brooklyn.

next chapter >

I really enjoyed writing this chapter. Especially the letter. Hope everyone enjoyed reading it.

If you want to be added to the tag list, send in an ask or dm me.

Tag List:

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@freya-xo​  

@laic2299​

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#steve rogers x reader #loki x reader #t'challa imagine #thor x reader #tony stark x daughter!reader #the avengers x reader #avengers x reader #marvel imagine #steve rogers imagine #loki imagine #thor imagine #avengers imagine #king!Steve Rogers x reader #marvel royalty au #marvel medieval au #marvel au #marvel fanfiction #avengers fanfiction

[hamiltonimagines]

Fell For You

Pairing: Daveed x Reader

Summary: Y/N is in the Hamilton cast and faints during the show. Daveed is concerned and misses the show to stay with her and help her get better.

Word Count: 2.4k

Warnings: Fainting/Passing out

I had feeling a little sick all day, but I had to power through it, because it was it a two-show day. Tomorrow was my day off so all I had to do was make it through today. I took some medicine before I left my New York apartment and grabbed my big bottle of water. If my voice was going to make it through two shows, I would need all the help I could get.

I walked into the theater and started the walk to my dressing room. “Hey Y/N” I heard a voice say behind me. I turned around and saw none other than the one and only Phillipa Soo. I was in the ensemble and played Eliza’s understudy. Because of that I became best friends with Pippa, Jasmine, and Renée.

“Hey Pip, how are you?” I asked, knowing I would have to act like I wasn’t sick so no one would know. “I’m good, but how are you? You look like you’ve had a rough day” she asked. “No, I’m perfectly fine. I’m ready for two shows” I said, faking enthusiasm.

“Come on Y/N, you can’t trick me. What’s up?” She asked. “I may or may not be getting sick, but don’t tell Lin or anyone please” I begged her. “If you don’t feel good, just take the day off. You work so hard, you deserve a day off” she assured me.

“I can make it through today, tomorrow is my day off. I promise I’m fine” I said. She stopped me before we walked into the dressing room we shared with Renée and Jasmine. “I won’t tell anyone, but only if you take care of yourself, don’t push yourself too hard. If you get worse I’ll tell Daveed. You know he won’t let you perform while you’re sick, he loves you too much” she teased.

“Come on Pippa, Daveed and I are just friends. We aren’t in school anymore, a girl and a guy can be just friends” I said, trying to convince her, but she knew me too well and would never fall for that. The truth is I’ve had a crush on Daveed since I met him. We’re really good friends and I knew telling him how I feel would just ruin things.

“I’m just saying, you both act like a married couple. And the way Daveed looks at you, proves he has to like you” Phillipa told me. “The way Daveed does what?” I heard a recognizable voice say and then felt two hands rest on my shoulders. I froze, realizing it was Daveed.

“Oh we’re just talking about how much better Anthony would be playing Lafayette and Jefferson” I teased. “Oh haha so funny” Daveed said, faking laughter.

“Lin said he wanted to talk to me about something, so I should probably go do that” Phillipa lied, as smirked at me and walked away.

“So how’s my favorite Y/N?” Daveed asked, as he moved to stand in front of me. “I’m doing great” I lied, smiling. Then I got that familiar scratching in the back of my throat. I quickly covered my mouth as I had a coughing fit. There was no way Daveed would believe that I wasn’t sick. “Hey, are you okay?” He asked me, as he placed his hand on my shoulder. “Yeah yeah I’m fine, guess I just choked on air a bit” I lied, trying to convince him. “Orrrr you could say I took your breath away” he said and winked.

“Alright that’s enough. You’re such a flirt” I said, rolling my eyes. “Just for you, my love” he joked and blew me a kiss. “I’ll see at call time” I said turning around and walking into my dressing room.

My cheeks were beyond red, I could feel the heat radiating off of them. There was no way he didn’t notice how much I was blushing.

I sat down in front of my mirror and heard giggling behind me. I turned around and saw Renée and Jas both with the biggest smirks on their faces. “And you say you guys aren’t dating” Renée said. “Oh shush, he could hear you” I whispered. “Ooo someone’s cheeks are red, I wonder who made you blush like that?” Jasmine teased. “I can’t stand you two” I said, giggling. I turned around and got ready for the show.

I had made it the winter’s ball scene. I was dancing with Daveed and he had a worried look in his eyes. “You okay?” He asked me. I just nodded, I needed to save my voice as much as possible. He went along with it, but still looked concerned.

I had made it through the first half of the first show and it was currently intermission and I was in my dressing room sitting down, trying to drink as much water as possible. I kept coughing and felt absolutely horrible.

Daveed walked in and sat down next to me. “I know you said you were okay, but I’m really concerned for you” he said as he turned to face me. “It’s nothing, just a little cough” I reassured him. He pressed his hand against my forehead. “Y/N you’re burning up. Please talk to Lin, he’ll let you stay backstage. You’re really sick, you might make it worse. I don’t want you to be in pain” he said, sounding very worried. “I can handle a little sick, and I’m drinking water. It’s just half the show and then another show. I can do it, I promise” I told him.

I felt so bad for lying to him and minimalizing this, but I didn’t want to disappoint anyone by failing at doing my job.

Then they made the announcement for places and Daveed helped me stand up. He put his arm around my waist and helped me walk back up to stage.

“As soon as you need to get off the stage, let me know and I will figure it out” he promised me, before leaving to go to the opposite side of the stage.

I put on a fake smile and walked out and performed to the best of my ability.

We got to the Stay Alive Reprise and I was standing in the wings. I was standing in the wing, looking for my water since my throat was burning. I couldn’t find it and realized I had left it in my dressing room. My muscles wouldn’t allow me to walk all all the way there even if I had the time.

I cursed under my breath and leaned over and put my hands on my knees. I tried to regain my breath and I heard loud footsteps. I looked up and saw Daveed running over. “Lin told me you looked sick, you need to stop. You can’t go back out. Have you been drinking water?” He asked me. “Daveed, I’m fine. I’ve been drinking water, I can finish the show I promise” I told him.

“You don’t look good Y/N. Please just stay here. You won’t disappoint anyone, no one will get mad at you. I need to know you’re safe” He confessed.

Had I not been so horribly sick, I knew I’d be blushing at how concerned he was. I heard where we were in the musical and ran back onto stage to my spot, before Daveed could stop me. Everyone would think I was weak if I couldn’t finish the show.

I finally made it to the end of the show. We were all doing the final bow. I had made it through the first show, I had told Lin I couldn’t do the second show. But, I made sure to finish the first one.

I stood next to Daveed when we did our bow. I was holding onto his hand like my life depended on it. I knew I was far too weak to be standing on stage. I hadn’t had any water in a while and I could barely stand up on my own. Daveed had definitely noticed and was supporting a lot of my weight, by letting me lean on him.

We took our final bow and he held on tight to my hand to make sure I didn’t topple over. I kept that fake smile on my face for the crowd. Then we started to walk off the stage. Daveed held onto my hand and we walked off the same side of the stage. “You did it, you crazy powerhouse. Now let’s get you some rest” he whispered in my ear.

I was not walking as fast as him even though he tightly held my hand. All of a sudden, the room started to spin and I felt lightheaded. I felt like I couldn’t keep up with him. I had to keep going, I was almost off the stage. “Da..dav...daveed..” I said, just as we made it into the wing.

My hand dropped from his and I felt myself slowly start to fall to the ground. It felt like I was watching it in slow motion. I heard Daveed call out my name and then everything went black.

I slowly opened my eyes and winced at how bright the light was. I looked around and recognized I was in Daveed’s dressing room, then I saw Daveed sitting next to me. He had his head in his hands and he was messing with his hair.

“Daveed?” I said, trying to get his attention. He quickly looked up to meet my eyes. “Y/N you’re awake!” He said, with the biggest smile on my face. “Did I really faint or did I imagine that?” I asked him. “No, you really fainted. Gave me and everyone else a heart attack. I was so worried about you” he said, looking relieved.

“I’m sorry for scaring everybody” I said, honestly. “This is on me, I should’ve stopped you from performing. Then this wouldn’t of happened” he said, blaming himself. “This isn’t your fault, you tried to stop me, but I didn’t listen. I pushed myself too hard.” I told him. “Next time, please be careful, I can’t watch you get hurt” Daveed said.

My feelings for him felt ten times stronger. He was so caring and compassionate. Too bad he would never like me back and we could never be together.

“Wait! If you’re here, is the second show already over?” I asked him. “No, it’s going on right now. They’re in act one” he told me. “What? Then why are you here? You should be out there, not in here playing nurse” I said, I felt guilty that I made him miss a show. “No, I chose to be here, you’re more important” he said grabbing my hand and I blushed. “You shouldn’t have to miss a show because I’m a mess” I told him.

“I can’t believe you still don’t get it” he mumbled under his breath. “Get what?” I asked, confused.

“I like you Y/N. A lot. I have since we first met. I’m here because I care about you too much to just leave you here by yourself. I know this will ruin our friendship and you’ll probably hate me, but I can’t watch you as you talk about how you feel like you’re a bother, when there is nothing in this world I’d rather do than be here for you” he said.

I was in complete shock. I couldn’t believe what he just said. Was this a joke? A cruel trick? He surely knew about my feelings and was trying to mess with me. After all these years, had he really felt the same way?

“You....you like me?” I asked, still in disbelief. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t of said anything” he said, putting his head in his hands. “No no don’t be” I said. He looked up at me with a confused expression. “I like you too, I always have. I thought you knew all along” I confessed. It felt so good to have it off my shoulders. “You’re not just saying that?” He asked me, still cautious. “I mean every word, I promise” I said, smiling.

“Well then, come here you dork” he said as he cupped my face and pulled me close. Our lips connected and it was so much more than I had ever imagined. It felt right. It felt meant to be. I placed my hands on his chest and he continued to kiss me. He placed one of his hands on my waist and then we both pulled away and leaned our foreheads against each other’s.

“Hey how is..OHH would you look at that?” We heard someone say. We looked over and saw Lin standing in the doorway. “It’s intermission, I was coming to check on Y/N. But, I see you two have finally gotten up the courage to tell each other how you feel. It took you guys long enough” Lin said, with a smirk plastered to his face.

“Alright, you can go now, but don’t tell anybody” I groaned. “Oh I’m telling everybody, I mean, nobody will be shocked” he teased as he left the room.

“Well I guess they were bound to find out somehow” Daveed said, as he kissed my hand. “We are never hearing the end of this” I said, giggling. As soon as I said it, both our phone pinged. We looked and everyone was sending messages in the Hamilton groupchat about how much they shipped it.

“That was quick” he said, before putting down his phone and pulling me into his lap. I placed my phone with his and admitted “I can’t believe it took us so long to get to this point. All it took for us to finally confess our feelings was me fainting”. He smirked at me and said “I guess when you fainted, you fell for me”

#daveed diggs x reader #daveed diggs imagine #daveed diggs imagines #daveed diggs #hamilton #hamilton imagine #hamilton imagines #phillipa soo #anthony ramos #lin manuel miranda #renee elise goldsberry #jasmine cephas jones

[phantomwitch16]

Humberto Lopez is a goldmine of a character

I haven't posted anything that was my content for a long time now, and I decided to change that with an essay about my favorite character from Marvel.  With the new development that has happened, I decided to celebrate this Marvel character's return which has been in a limbo state for over half a decade. I will be going into spoiler territory, so if you want to read the comics to learn more about this character, go and read the comics and have your adventure experiencing his journey along with his friends. If you are interested in the character but don't want to read the comics (or go to the wiki), there will be a quick synopsis of his character later on down in the post, but I won't be putting down the necessary details so that this post won't get too long.

He first appeared in the comics was in Avengers Initiative: Featuring Reptil #1 in 2009 and reappeared in Avengers Academy comics that went on from 2010 to 2012. He was also part of the Avengers Arena comic series as one of the game participants and lasted from late 2012 to 2013. However, most people may recognize him from his animated appearance on the Super Hero Squad Show from 2009 to 2011, voiced by Anthony Del Rio. He was also in Avengers Assemble: Frost Fight, made in 2015 with Del Rio returning to voice the character. With these recent developments, in May of 2021, Reptil will be getting his mini-comic series by Terry Blas, and Enid Balám called Reptil...on the Brink of Extinction.

The main reason why I am making this post is that I believe Reptil is a severely underrated character within the Marvel universe. At the time of first writing this, he had not appeared in much since 2013 in the comics or 2015 in an animated setting. I began writing this over a year or so ago after glancing through the Marvel wiki to see anything new that happened since I lost interest in the comics after his supposed 'death' in Avengers Arena. Since then, there have been no new developments to his story until a while ago when there was an announcement on Twitter about his comics' return with his comic series and an appearance in a one-shot Spider Man comic.

To start this rant about him, I'm going to recount his origin story to bring people up to speed to explain who he is, what powers he has, what kind of person he is, his journey and my personal feelings about him before going into the possible story lines Marvel could do for after this short series. On the other hand, pray that they decide to take him out of the creative limbo within the next few years again, straight after this when his journey is getting better. And if you're wondering, yes, I'm still salty that he's been pretty much dead for nearly a decade.

Who is he?

Humberto Lopez is a Marvel character who is a Mexican-American teenage superhero known by the code name Reptil. Like many young kids, he wanted to be a superhero, mainly an Avenger. His parents, however, mainly wanted him to follow in their footsteps and become a paleontologist as they did.

In his first appearance, he was about sixteen years old when he joined the Initiative after his powers appeared to locate his missing parents. When they were declared dead, he went to live with his grandfather in Nevada. Not long after his arrival, he almost gets caught in a landslide that almost kills him when the amulet turns his legs into those of a dinosaur.

What are his Powers?

Humberto's powers are directly tied into the amulet he found in the dig with his parents. With it, Humberto can turn his body parts into those of a dinosaur or any prehistoric animal. If he wanted to, he could turn his entire body into that of the dinosaur. With this power, he runs, flies and becomes as strong as any dinosaur he desires. The major drawbacks of this power are that when he transforms into a dinosaur, he loses control over his instincts and becomes a threat to others. This would make him similar to the Lizard almost when you think about it in that way.

His origin story

His origin story is told in Avengers Initiative, where he made his first appearance. There, we learn that Humberto found his amulet during one of his parent's archaeological digs. During another dig, his parents disappeared without a trace, leaving Humberto to be placed into the care of his grandfather.

After nearly getting killed during a rock slide, he finds out that the amulet transforms his body parts into those of a prehistoric animal and only seems to be reactive to him specifically. He registers with the Initiative during the Skrull invasion. Still, it isn't until a year later, after his parents go on missions when Stregon starts attacking SHIELD bases, that he is quickly trained and joined a small squad led by Tigra to track him down.

However, they later learn that the attacks were Stregon's attempts to locate and rescue Moon Boy, captured by SHIELD scientists. Humberto sacrificed his place among the Initiative to bring Moon Boy back to the Savage Lands and meet Ka-Zar, who swears to help him find his parents.

His Journey as a Superhero

Months after his time with the Initiative, he is kidnapped by Norman Osborn and several other kids to push their powers to the limits. These kids include Hazmat, Finesse, Striker, Mettle and Veil, most of whom were kidnapped or captured against their will and were pretty much tortured to gain results. Soon enough, the Avengers come in to rescue them just before Osborn's HAMMER agents attempt to destroy all evidence of their crimes, which included the Reptil and the other kids and offer them a place to join Avengers Academy.

At the Academy, it isn't long before the kids find out why they are there. While they are led to believe that they were brought in to become the Next Avengers, they were brought in to prevent them from becoming rogue. While Pym and the others know that Humberto is a good kid who wants to help the others with Tigra even telling Pym about him, the major threat with him, as stated previously, is that transforming into a dinosaur will make him lose control over his instincts. 

Anyway, Humberto begins to learn more about himself, his powers begin to develop, more students come to the Academy, and relationships develop with the team, primarily a romantic relationship with Finesse. However, the relationship gets strained after he switches bodies with his future self so that the future Reptil will become a definite one. There he learns of the possible future that he has Finesse and their daughter Maria, which strains his relationship with Finesse in the present. He eventually starts to distance himself from her and eventually develops a close relationship with White Tiger due to their similar powers following a fight with Jeremy Briggs. 

During Christmas, he, along with several other teens, get kidnapped by Arcade to be part of a game where he and the teens would have to kill each other until one remains to walk away. He, Hazmat, Mettle, X-23 and Juston were just some of these kids kidnapped by Arcade.

On the first day, several of the kids died, with one of them being Mettle, who chose to sacrifice himself to protect his girlfriend, Hazmat. It's a downward spiral from there where it leads to the Hazmat and X-23 fighting to the death after X-23 got affected by a trigger scent, several of the kids dead and Humberto's fate is left ambiguous for several years.

My feelings for his journey and the new solo series

Overall, I am excited to see Reptil coming back to the comics. He was one of the characters that got me interested in the Marvel Universe when I started watching the Super Hero Squad and other animated shows made at the time. Shows like Wolverine & the X-Men (Nightcrawler), Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (Wasp & Ant Man) and Spectacular Spider Man (Spider Man).

This series and an appearance in another comic is a big step for Reptil, and I hope he gets the recognition he deserves and hopefully has more story lines in the future.

Possible story lines

I'm excited about this series is the possible story routes that the writers could go in for the series and afterwards. 

For me, I hope that we get a better look at his mental state and the struggles that he had to face since. Given what he had been since the disappearance of his parents and what had happened at the end of Avengers Arena, it made me wonder if the writers will mention the difference between the person he was and the person he is now. I kind of hope he isn't entirely the same person after that. The experience that he and the other kids went through was very traumatic, and I want there to be some acknowledgement of it like there was with Hazmat and the other kids in Avengers Undercover. 

Before this, I considered making a fan-fiction about Humberto just leaving the Academy, trying to overcome the mental hurdles that are likely PTSD, depression and anxiety. I wanted it to be kind of angsty while showing a bit of truth of someone who is battling those hurdles, feeling alone and showing a bit of self-hatred over his inability to help his friends. Being the leader of his group of heroes in the Academy, a big piece of responsibility that's placed on a sixteen to a seventeen-year-old kid, then being put in a situation where your teammate and one of your best friends died in front of your eyes, I think would lead to Humberto also developing an inferiority complex. It wouldn't surprise me if he felt partially responsible for Mettle and Juston's deaths or even some of the other deaths that happened in the Arena.

And with that, I will be listing nearly everything that has happened to him since he had the amulet. His parents going missing at fifteen, he gets kidnapped a total of three times (first by Osborn and the second and third being by Arcade), having trouble controlling his powers. He is scared to do so, being the leader of his team of Academy students, getting mind-swapped with his future self and seeing the possible future he could have with Finesse and their daughter Maria, having his powers briefly ripped out of his chest (yeah, that happened), losing his friends in Avengers Arena and almost dying from getting nuked by Hazmat.

I hope that we get to see the extent of his injuries because I feel like it would tie in well with the first point above. I mean, you can't say that Humberto isn't resilient. He survived Hazmat having a meltdown and almost got blown to bits. Traumatic experiences can leave a devastating blow on a person. One such injury that might profoundly affect him because it has a tie in his possible future with Finesse. A part which may not exist anymore… Yeah, this sounds dark, but it is plausible.

I hope that Reptil will appear in other Marvel story lines as the main character or make brief appearances here or there. Maybe even join the Champions since we saw him staring at the news looking at Miss Marvels, and maybe even other heroes his age. Maybe interacting with Moon Girl due to their connection to Devil Dinosaur as a partner, hell, maybe even going back into his roots at the Super Hero Squad and maybe developing a mentor-student relationship with Wolverine...if he's still alive, that is...I don't know; it's been a while since I've been keeping up with the comics.

#marvel #reptil #avengers academy #humberto lopez

[harry-sussex]

KATIE’S TOP 10 15 WORST ROYAL WEDDING DRESSES OF ALL TIME

15.  Silvia Sommerlath in Dior by Marc Bohan (Sweden, m. King Carl XVI Gustaf, 19 June 1976)

I love a good simple wedding dress, but this thing needed a tailor from the heavens to save it.  It looks like she’s wearing a bedsheet, or a nightgown.  The veil is fine, but I hate the little short part just dangling from the Cameo tiara in midair.  I don’t hate the whole look in theory, but a lot of adjustments needed to be made for it to work, especially since she went from commoner straight to Queen.

14.  Marie-Chantal Miller in Valentino (Greece, m. Crown Prince Pavlos, 1 July 1995)

This is a case of way too much going on.  It looks like the designer took pretty parts of multiple wedding dresses and sewed them together without seeing that the individual concepts worked well together.  This thing has mismatched lace, I mean, come on.  Also, the corset does her no favors.

13.  Sophie Rhys-Jones in Samantha Shaw (United Kingdom, m. Prince Edward, 19 June 1999)

Beaded jewelry - especially a cross - does not belong anywhere near a royal wedding.  The dress is way too plain, even for my ordinarily plain taste.  It looks like a nightgown.  The bouquet and veil were nice, but that necklace is just terrible.  Combined with quite the unfortunate tiara, this bridal look missed the mark in a lot of ways.

12.  Charlotte Casiraghi in Chanel Haute Couture and Giambattista Valli (Monaco, m. Dimitri Rassam, 1 June 2019)

I couldn’t decide which of Charlotte’s two gowns (excluding the short Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello from her civil ceremony) was worse, so I chose both for this spot.  The Chanel didn’t fit her anywhere, and those shoes need to be burned in a fire.  The fabric is wrinkly and heavy and the bodice drowns her.  The Giambattista Valli looked like all of the elements of a typical boho beach wedding, but all sewn together in some haphazard, last-minute fashion.  There’s just too much going on - lace and mesh and ruffles and appliqué and polka dots and tulle and wide sleeves.  I genuinely hate them both, especially since I had such high hopes.

11.  Mabel Wisse Smit in Victor & Rolf (The Netherlands, m. Prince Friso, 24 April 2004)

I don’t hate the silhouette, but that super short veil and those bows have to go.  The bows literally ascend in size down the train - I just don’t get it.  I can’t get it.  This could have been a success if it wasn’t so heavy (weighed down by those ridiculous bows) but the small details just kill the entire thing for me.

10.  Marilène van den Broek in Pierre Yves (The Netherlands, m. Prince Maurits, 29 May 1988)

Wedding dresses should never have collars, and you should never see the ribbing of the corset through the fabric.  It looks like Pierre Yves missed the entire midsection of fabric and just decided to let Marilène walk out with her lingerie showing.  The collar would be weird on a shirt, let alone on a wedding dress.  I hate it.

9.  Sarah Ferguson in Lindka Cierach (United Kingdom, m. Prince Andrew, 23 July 1986)

The 80s were a terrible era for fashion.  I hate satin with a passion - it is possibly the ugliest fabric on the face of the earth.  Combine that with shoulder pads and puffy sleeves... yikes.  The skirt of the dress looked wrinkled (satin is the least forgiving fabric) and her veil swallowed her entire head and her hair - which is almost impressive, considering one can ordinarily see Sarah’s hair from the International Space Station.  Also, those bows on the veil... nope.  Bows just seem so juvenile for such a massive event.  This is just a case of 80s fashion gone wrong - at least the proportions were right, but the rest of it completely missed the mark.

8.  Masako Owada in Jun Ashida (Japan, m. Crown Prince Naruhito, 9 June 1993)

Another case of too much happening at once.  The lace is pretty but combined with the excessively ruffled collar, buttons, elbow-length gloves in a mismatched fabric/color, matching handbag (??), and over-the-top necklace and tiara (which I love, but not with this), the look in full is... unfortunate.  Also, I hate with a passion when royal ladies in gowns cover their sashes.  This was the day she became the Crown Princess of Japan - that sash is a lot more important than that ugly little overcoat!!  The sash should always go over the outfit.  Period.  

7.  Letizia Ortiz in Manuel Pertegaz (Spain, m. The Prince of Asturias, 22 May 2004)

I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again - wedding dresses should not have collars.  For someone whose fashion almost always knocks it out of the park, I’m flabbergasted that Letizia chose this look for her wedding day.  It looks like she’s wearing a camisole underneath to bring up the neckline... I used to do that when I was 13.  It wasn’t a good look for a teenage American, and it’s not a good look for a future Queen on her wedding day.  Also, the fabric swallows her petite figure alive.  The shape is closer to a nightgown than to a wedding dress.

6.  Princess Märtha-Louise in Wenche Lyche (Norway, m. Ari Behn, 24 May 2002)

Wedding!! dresses!! should!! not!!! have!! collars!!!  The only thing worse than a collar is a jacket... Märtha-Louise went with both in this case.  The color is unforgiving and the jacket doesn’t match the slip dress beneath it.  I think I like the tiara individually but it just does not work with the dress/vampire cape thing she has going on.

5.  Mathilde d'Udekem d'Acoz in Édouard Vermeulen (Belgium, m. Prince Philippe, 4 December 1999)

Honestly, I’m getting tired of saying it, but... wedding dresses should not have collars.  The color is pretty but that’s about all I can say about this dress.  What’s with those polka dots?  Who on earth would think that polka dots and ruffles should go in the same veil?  With lace?  And tulle?  It looks like the designer took all of the leftover fabric from his past designs and stitched them into a ridiculously mismatched veil that was paired with an extraordinary simple dress (that would have been fine on its own, had the collar/coat thing been totally eliminated).  Seriously, these collars make all of these gorgeous royal ladies look like Dracula.

4.  Rania al-Yassin in Bruce Oldfield (Jordan, m. King Abdullah II, 10 June 1993)

This like something you could get at Party City for $75.00 so a child can call herself “The Bride of Franken-Elvis” while trick-or-treating on Halloween.  Seriously, what is it with these ladies and their collars?  That embroidery... no.  It’d be bad enough if it was white or silver, but the fact that it’s gold?  Just no.  And it’s repeated on her shoes!!  Short-sleeved jackets are simply the worst, especially over a wedding dress.  The fabric is unforgiving (I hate satin) and the whole thing looks like it was just pulled out of a suitcase before being thrown on the bride.  The bouquet is terrible, the earrings are terrible, the hair is terrible... why does it look like the veil is both pulling on Rania’s scalp and strangling her beehive?  I don’t get it, I hate it, I can’t imagine why anyone would think any part of this ensemble looked good.

3.  Mary Donaldson in Uffe Frank (Denmark, m. Crown Prince Frederik, 14 May 2004)

By far, the worst wedding ensemble of all the modern royal brides.  Mary has such an incredible fashion sense, which is why this one hurts so much.  What is going on here?  A bad case of wedding hair, for one - suffocated of course by an ugly tiara, excessive earrings, and a veil that looks like it just came out of someone’s attic, unpreserved and yellow-tinted.  The same goes with the dress - what’s wrong with the color?  Why does it look like it’s been sitting in a studio with a bunch of chain smokers for a year?  The color just washes her out completely.  The shape isn’t horrible but those weird panels on the front look like they were sewn on the morning of the wedding as an afterthought.  I hate the fabric, I hate the sleeves, I hate the fabric, I hate the design execution, I hate the veil, I hate the bouquet, I hate the accessories... overall, I hate the whole thing.

2.  Soraya Esfandiary-Bahktiary in Christian Dior (Iran, m. Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, 12 February 1951)

Feathers... just no.  Nope, no way.  I have nothing good to say.  I have nothing to say.  Just no.  

1.  Lady Diana Spencer in David and Elizabeth Emmanuel (United Kingdom, m. The Prince of Wales, 29 July 1981)

The epitome of god-awful 80s fashion.  I get that hindsight is 20-20 but I can’t believe that anyone on Diana’s design team would think this thing would age well.  It looks like it weighed more than Diana ever did!  Puffy sleeves, ruffles, mounds and mounds of ridiculous, wrinkled fabric... it’s a wonder she wasn’t sucking wind by the time she got to the altar!  It’s like a workout!!  Who needs to go to the gym when you could just put on Diana’s wedding dress and walk a couple hundred feet?  For such a young, beautiful bride - this entire thing missed every mark.  It wore her, not the other way around.  She was barely out of her teens when she wore this and it just aged her... I could do this forever.  This is one of the worst royal wedding dresses of all time, then and now, and I can’t fathom anyone ever approving this design much less wearing it down the aisle during the wedding of the century.

#my post #katie's top 10-15 #katie's worst wedding dresses #queen silvia #crown princess marie-chantal #sophie rhys-jones #countess of wessex #chaarlotte casiraghi #princess mabel #princess mariléne #sarah ferguson #duchess of york #empress masako #queen letizia #princess martha-louise #queen mathilde #queen rania #crown princess mary #queen soraya #princess diana #Princess of Wales #lady diana spencer

[therainroguefanfiction]

❉ 139 Dreams (Nate River/Near) Never Say Never ¹⁸⁺

📑 Table of Contents

Genre: Smut 18+, Fluff, Romance ☁

Word Count: 3,728 ☁

Pairing: Female Reader x Near ☁

World: Death Note ☁

WARNING: This fic contains explicit sexual content and should not be read by those under the age of eighteen. This fic also features an age difference - near is 17 and the reader is 21. If you’re not okay with this, please do not read.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ: *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: . ☁

You cracked your neck as you made your way down the hall towards the room set up as headquarters. You entered the room, eyes glancing at the dozen monitors that lined the back room, each one displaying a different camera feed. Anthony sat at a laptop on the desk connected to the wall, typing away. Nate was on the floor, creating a statue out of dice. Stephen and Halle were both absent.

You pulled out a chair, sitting down at the small round table on the left side of the room, loosening your tie. These four members were the only ones left alive from the SPK, created to take down Kira four years ago. The government had been so impressed with their efforts that they decided to keep the group together. You were added to the mix a year ago because of Anthony’s close friendship with your father.

When you were growing up, you had been in and out of trouble, even joining a gang at the age of fifteen. There, you learned how to fight, but you didn’t agree with morals and straightened your life out at eighteen. Now, at age twenty-one, you were working with the best guys in the field.

Anthony turned in his chair to look at you. “How did it go?”

You pulled a pack of cigarettes from your pocket, pulling on out of the package with your lips. You lit it, taking a long drag before answering, the smoke exhaled with your words. “His alibi checks out. I went out of my way to make sure all the I’s were dotted and the T’s crossed.”

He nodded in understanding, picking up a pen and crossing off the name on the legal pad that sat beside the laptop. “We’re running out of suspects,”

You leaned forward, the chair wobbling under you. “If you would just let -”

“No,” he said firmly, giving you a look like a father who had just caught his kid trying to sneak out after curfew. “We’ve talked about this and my answer is still no.”

“You said it yourself, Anthony, we’re running out of suspects and out of time.”

“I have faith that Near will solve this case,”

You glanced at the seventeen-year-old, still building his statue but obviously listening to the conversation. You chose your words carefully, “I have all the faith in the world in Nate, but I’m just saying that if you would let me, we could solve this case in no time flat.”

“There’s no guarantee that your old gang even knows anything about this case. The risk is greater than the possibility of a reward.”

“I agree,” Near commented, twirling a piece of snow-white hair around his finger. His eyes met yours, almost as if challenging you to question him.

You exhaled smoke in annoyance, smashing the cigarette into the ashtray, “Fine.”

“Where are you going?” Anthony questioned, his voice softer.

“I haven’t eaten since yesterday, I’m going to go get food,” you answered, leaving no chance for a response as you closed the door behind you.

Anthony felt guilty turning down your idea because he knew you were just trying to help, but he didn’t want to put you in such a risky situation. He sighed, folding his hands and resting his forehead against them. Nate stared at the closed door, his statue forgotten in his mind.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ: *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: . ☁

You entered the diner, choosing a booth near the window. It was almost ten at night, so there weren’t too many customers around. The waitress set a menu down on the table, offering you a tired smile.

“What can I get you to drink?”

“Soda, please.”

“Sure, I’ll be right back.”

You sat back in the booth, absentmindedly looking over the menu. ‘They don’t understand. Marco is an information broker, he has his nose in everything illegal that happens in this country. Even if he’s not a part of it, you can bet your ass that he knows all about it. He’s one of the underground’s top informants.’

The waitress returned with your drink and you thanked her, rubbing the condensation with your thumb. ‘I guess Anthony has a point, though. Marco isn’t exactly the most forgiving person in the world.’

“Y/N? Is that you?”

You glanced up, eyes growing wide at the man that stood before you. “Takeshi?”

“It is you!” He smiled brightly, sliding into the booth across from you. His two friends watched him for a moment before exchanging a look, shrugging and finding a table on the other side of the room. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again after you left the crew!”

“Thought I’d be dead, huh?” you teased, taking a sip of your drink. Takeshi belonged to Marco’s gang, but he had been with them a lot longer than you had. With hair as black as night, bags under his dark eyes and multiple piercings in both ears, he was a pretty intimidating guy upon first glance, but he’s got a heart of gold. He had been the one to take you under his wing when you first joined.

“Yeah,” he smiled sadly before perking up again. “What are you up to these days?”

“You won’t believe me if I told you,”

“Try me!”

You hummed thoughtfully, taking a long sip of the soda. Right before he was about to burst from anticipation, you finally said, “I work for a special task force within the FBI.”

“You’re right, I don’t believe you.” He sat back, folding his arms over his chest.

Your eye twitched in annoyance. “At least pause in thought before completely denying it!”

He chuckled, leaning forward on the table. “I’m really glad you got out. I was worried about you, ya know?”

“What about you? Still intimidating newbies with your dashing good looks?”

“Ignoring that comment,” he muttered. “I guess you haven’t heard?”

You raised a brow in question.

“Marco is dead,”

“No way,” you leaned forward, lowering your voice. “The hell happened?”

“You remember Layla, yeah?”

“Marco’s on-again-off-again childhood friend with benefits?”

“That’s the one!” He snapped his fingers. “Marco killed her fiance because of how possessive he is. She waited two whole years before carrying out her revenge. In bed.” He clicked his tongue, motioning toward his lap.

You got the hint, “Ouch.”

“Major ouch,” he winced. “She watched him bleed to death.”

“Damn. Did she take over the crew?”

“Nah, she didn’t want anything to do with us. She turned herself over to the cops and is locked up in Victorville State Pen.”

“Who is leading, then?”

He smirked proudly, wiggling his bushy brows.

“No way. You are?” you questioned in surprise.

“Yup! But don’t you worry your adorable little head, I’ve learned from Marco’s mistakes. I won’t be like him!”

“You better not or I might just be coming to arrest you one day,” you winked, pulling out your buzzing phone from your pocket. It was a new message from an unsaved number, one you had memorized rather quickly after starting your new job.

✉ ‘Where are you?’

Direct and straight to the point, like always.

You waved your hand to get the waitresses attention. “Can I get the chicken nugget dinner to go, please?”

“Sure! And for you, sir?”

“The cheeseburger, but can you deliver it to that table please?” Takeshi pointed to the table his two friends were sitting at.

“Sure thing,” she smiled before returning to the kitchen.

He stood up with a smile. “I’m glad I got to see you again, Y/N. Keep moving up, don’t fall back to our level, ‘kay?”

You smiled sadly, nodding your head. “See ya around, Takeshi.”

He waved before heading over to his friends. You couldn’t deny the heaviness in your heart, but you were relieved that he wasn’t under Marco’s tyrannical rule anymore. He would be an amazing leader, you knew. You were almost sad that you wouldn’t be around to see it first hand.

The waitress returned with the food, packed nicely in a plastic bag. You paid for the meal, took one last look at Takeshi and stepped out into the chilly night. You pulled out your phone, typing back a quick message to Near letting him know that you were on your way back.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ: *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: . ☁

You pushed the door open, stepping into headquarters. Near was alone, working on a one-thousand piece puzzle. The statue was now complete – a re-creation of the statue David by Michaelangelo. You honestly didn’t know how he managed it, but it actually looked the same, minus a few details you just couldn’t replicate with dice. He looked up at you when you entered.

“Where’s Anthony?” you asked, closing the door behind you.

“He went to a meeting with one of the suspects,”

“I see,” you sighed. Guess your apology would have to wait a bit. You stopped in front of the teen, holding out the bag of food. “Here. I know you haven’t eaten anything.”

He stared at it for a moment before finally taking the bag. “Thank you,”

“Looking after you is in my job description, ya know.” You smiled softly, taking a seat at the wobbly table. You tried to focus on the report laid out in front of you, but you found your gaze flipping back over to the snowy-haired male. He would pick up a puzzle piece and pause, thoughtfully taking a bite of the chicken nugget in his other hand. His hair fell over his face, shifting slightly when he leaned forward to set the piece down. How many times had you ruffled his hair, surprised at how soft it felt against your fingers? How many times had you been completely blown away by his intelligence and maturity, and the things he knew?

‘I wonder if that knowledge goes for sex, too.’ You wondered, only to quickly shake your head. ‘What are you thinking, Y/N? He’s only seventeen, and he would never be interested in your messed up ass.’ “Never,” you muttered under your breath, hanging your head. Why did it hurt so much to admit that?

Near watched you closely as you stared at the report. What were you thinking about that made you act so dejected? He wished he could read your mind.

The door opened, Stephen and Halle entering a moment later.

“Mason Vitali’s alibi checks out,” Stephen announced, falling into the chair at the desk.

Halle sat down across from you. “Jesse Blanch’s alibi is also solid.”

He crossed the two names off on the legal pad. “That leaves three possible suspects out of twenty-five.”

“Anthony is meeting with one of ’em, now.” You commented.

“What’s the chance that he’s the one?” Stephen joked.

“Five percent,” Near answered, dead serious as he stared at the puzzle.

The older male sweatdropped, not expecting a legit answer.

Halle smiled before turning to you. “Can I ask you something, Y/N?”

“Sure, what is it?” you asked, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it.

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

Both Stephen and Near snapped their heads in your direction, curious about the answer.

You raised a brow. “Are you hitting on me right now, Halle?”

She sat back, laughing. “No, no. I was walking by the diner and saw you sitting with a guy. You both seemed to be pretty happy around one another.”

Near’s eyes narrowed at this information, his finger twisting around a lock of his hair.

“Oh that,” you smiled, sadly, tapping your cigarette on the side of the ashtray. “He’s an old friend of mine. Haven’t seen each other in a while, so we were happy.”

Near wanted to ask if he was an old crew member, it was on the tip of his tongue, but the presence of the other two members made him remain silent.

You put your cigarette out and stood up. “I’m gonna head back to the hotel. Call me if you need me, yeah?” You caught Near’s dark gaze but you tore your eyes away, leaving the room as you cursed your racing heart.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ: *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: . ☁

You glanced at the digital clock beside the bed. One-thirty shone in the darkness and you sighed, turning your gaze back to the ceiling. You were on your back on the double bed, where you had been since you returned to the hotel. You honestly felt drained, but no matter how hard you tried, you just couldn’t seem to fall asleep. Your mind was racing with thoughts about the case, about Takeshi and the crew, and finally, about Near.

A knock on the door made you sit up. You checked your phone but had no missed calls or un-opened messages. Pulling yourself from the bed, you pulled the door open.

“You really should ask who it is before opening the door,” Near told you, blankly.

“What are you doing here?” you raised a brow, stepping aside when he tried to enter, closing the door behind him.

“That man,” he started, walking over to the floor-to-ceiling window that covered the entire back wall of the room. “He was from your old gang.” It wasn’t a question, he already knew the answer.

You folded your arms over your chest. “How did you even get here?”

He glanced at you over his shoulder. “Giavanni brought me.”

“And did you really come all this way just to ask me something you already know the answer to?” You sat down at the small table with a huff, lighting up a cigarette to calm your nerves. “Yeah, he’s from my old gang, but I didn’t seek him out. It was just coincidence that he was there. I didn’t even mention the case, we just caught up.”

He walked over to you, snatching the cigarette from your lips. “Stop smoking,”

“You know it’s not that simple, Nate.” you tried to take it back but he stepped away, holding it behind his back.

“When you crave a cigarette, do something that elicits a stronger, more powerful reaction.”

“Like what?” you raised a brow, trying to think of something that matched his description. One thing came to mind and you jokingly asked, “Like kissing you?”

He was silent for a moment, smoke rising from the cigarette behind him. You were starting to regret your comment when he finally stepped forward. “Try it,”

“I’m sorry, what?” You swallowed, surprised by his reaction. He continued until he was directly in front of you, his leg brushing against yours. “You really shouldn’t joke around like that, Nate.”

“It wasn’t a joke,” he stated, blankly.

You found yourself leaning toward him, your hands gripping his waist and tugging him close until he stood between your legs, his knees against the chair. You hesitated, but he leaned down, his bangs brushing against your forehead. Before your brain could convince you not to, you closed the distance, your lips claiming his. The contact sent tingles throughout your body, something you had never experienced from kissing someone before.

You pulled back just enough so your lips ghosted over his. “Don’t overthink it, Nate. Let your body do the work.”

His eyes met yours and he nodded.

You closed the distance again, lips pressing against his with more force. He responded this time, moving against your own. You groaned, tugging his body closer until he was straddling your lap, body flush against yours. You broke away, trailing kisses down his neck as your hand slipped under his white shirt, rubbing the small of his back while you nipped at the skin beneath his ear. His sharp intake of breath sent a wave of heat through your body.

“I want you so damn bad, Nate River. Everything you do drives me absolutely nuts. You’re the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing I think about when I got to sleep. I want you, all of you.” You groaned again, hand moving to rest over his heart, which was beating faster than normal. “Your heart, your soul, your body. I want it all.” You sighed, pressing one last kiss to his neck before leaning back in the chair. “But, you know what they say; ‘You can’t have your cake and eat it, too’.”

Near leaned forward, his pale hands grasping your cheeks. “I admit that the subject of love and sex is something I do not understand or have any experience in. However, I want to experience it… with you.” He paused, gathering the right words he was looking for. “The things you described, I couldn’t find the right words to express them until you said them yourself.”

“Nate…” you whispered, placing your hands over his. Your heart felt like it was going to burst through your chest.

“I would like to spend the night with you and learn more,”

You threw away all of your doubts and slammed your lips against his, arms tight around his waist as you stood up, carrying him to the bed. You broke the kiss, now straddling his body as you unbuttoned his shirt. He watched you closely as you trailed kisses down his chest and stomach, hands squeezing your outer thighs as your tongue teased his nipple. His mind frantically searched for the words to express what his body was feeling.

You shifted so you could place a gentle kiss above his waistband, fingers sliding underneath the stretchy material. You paused, looking up at him. He was watching you with half-lidded eyes, expression more relaxed than you had ever seen it before.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” you questioned, thumbs rubbing circles on his hips.

“Yes,” he answered without a hint of hesitation and you could see the want in his eyes.

You smiled, kissing his stomach. “Just remember, it’s never too late to say no. You tell me to stop and I will.”

“I know,” he spoke softly, hand resting against your cheek. “Please continue,”

You were more than happy to oblige his request, sliding his pants down his leg. He lifted his hips to help, his fingers pushing down his boxers. You chuckled, pushing his hands away so you could remove them from his body. His dick popped to life, fully erect. He took a deep breath when your fingers gently wrapped around the shaft, applying steady pressure as you stroked him up and down.

You kissed the tip before taking him into your mouth, tongue flattening against his dick. His lips parted, head falling back against the pillow as pleasure rose up within him. He rested his hand on your head, fingers tangling in your hair.

As his body relaxed and his mind calmed, his body started to move on its own, hips bucking as you sucked and licked him. His dick started to twitch in your mouth and you knew he was nearing release, so you pulled away with a pop.

He lifted his head, eyes narrowed at you, his face a light hue of pink. You chuckled, pulling off your shirt as you crawled off the bed.

“Don’t worry, the best part is yet to come~”

He watched as you slid your pants and underwear down your legs, his gaze traveling the length of your body, settling on your bare breasts. You climbed back on top of him, your slick core resting against his stomach. He could feel the heat you radiated and the wetness that was slowly coating his skin.

Your lips claimed his, tongue brushing against his lower lip. His lips parted, your tongue enticing his to play. His hand slid up your side, hesitating when he reached your breast. Your hand rested over his own, guiding it to your right breast. His fingers squeezed the flesh and you broke the kiss, sliding back until your pussy hovered over his dick.

Locking eyes with him, you found an emotion you hadn’t ever seen in his gaze before, but one that you recognized well – love. You kept eye contact as you guided his dick to your entrance, lowering your body, walls stretching to accommodate his size. Moans passed your lips as you continued down until he was fully inside of you, your hips flush with his own. In that moment, nothing else mattered but the two of you. You only saw each other and the new bond that was being formed between you.

You leaned forward, one hand on the mattress beside his chest while the other found his, fingers threading together. Honestly, you were content to just stay like this forever, with him inside of you, but your body wanted more and, judging from his hips grinding against yours, his did, as well.

You started to move your hips, slowly sliding up and down his length, but you quickly picked up speed, moans and pants of pleasure mingling together. His hips bucked up to meet yours, free hand on the back of your neck.

“N-Nate,” you moaned, fingers fisting around the sheets as his dick reached deep inside of you. You had never felt so much raw, intense emotion before. It felt like you were going to explode and you loved it.

A groan passed his parted lips as he tugged you down, his lips molding against yours. With one particularly hard thrust, your hips collided and he spilled his seed deep within you. You arched your back but your body didn’t still, riding out your high as long as you could.

Breathing heavily, you let your body fall down, half on top of his own. He pulled the covers over the two of you before wrapping his arms around your waist. His dick remained inside of you, twitching when you moved around too much. Your lips found his neck, leaving light kisses and nips against his skin.

Neither of you had to speak those three little words, they hung in the air, wrapping around the two of you like the cotton sheets against your naked bodies. You could feel them within your soul.

“Y/N,” he called softly, his fingers running up and down your hip.

You hummed in question, eyes closed as sleep started to overcome you.

“We didn’t use a condom,” he said, flatly.

You laughed, snuggling closer to his body. “Maybe next time mention that before we have sex. I’m on birth control, so it should be fine.”

He nodded, letting his chin rest against the top of your head. Both of you drifted off with smiles on your faces.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ: *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: . ☁

📜 Read more by checking out my masterlist 📜

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#139 dreams #smut #18+ #rains 18+ #fluff #romance #age difference #one shot #anime #near #nate river #river nate #death note near #death note #writing #creative writing #writeblr #scenario #scenarios #anime scenarios #anime scenario #fanfiction #fanfic #fanfics #anime fanfic #anime fanfics #reader insert #reader-insert #reader

[aethelflaedladyofmercia]

On Falling and Identity

One thing I’ve fallen out of the habit of doing is elaborate metas based on my fanfics every Wednesday. First I took a long hiatus to finish “What it Means to Be A Demon” and then I started posting it and it was angsty and that made me tired.

Plus, I’ve been posting chapters on Wednesdays, and busy enough that I couldn’t do a post and a meta.

But I have some time today, so I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on Falling and Identity. Because there’s more to “What it Means to Be A Demon” than physically and emotionally torturing Crowley (there’s that, too).

Names

One thing I think we can all agree on: the demons in Good Omens are not using the names they’d had as angels. We have plenty of examples: Cra(o)wley, Hastur, Ligur, Beelzebub, Dagon, even Satan (on the to-do list: re-watch while keeping track of various names used for the devil. I’m trying to remember where the name Lucifer is used outside Crowley’s drunken rant, and even that is a memory of their time in Heaven). 

(Fun fact: when I searched the GIFs for “Good Omens Devil” one of the results I got was Gabriel, and...technically incorrect, but still accurate.)

Regardless, none of these really fit the pattern of angelic names (Gabriel, Uriel and Michael are all standard angel names; Aziraphale does fit this phonetically, but the spelling is different; Sandalphon less so, but still a traditionally angelic name). So, disregarding the possibility that angels somehow rebelled and Fell based on the names they already had, it seems clear that they chose new names after Falling.

Were they forced to change their names? Did they forget their original names? Did they voluntarily give them up? We don’t know this, but I’m sure going to speculate!

Crowley, however, is the only one we know who changes his name, from Crawly/Crawley (note it’s Crawly in the book but Crawley in the script book). It’s called attention to very early in both - the first post-Eden scene in book and show is our two maggot husbands lurking in the graveyard, and one of the first things they comment on is Crowley’s name change, “what’s he calling himself these days?”

I find it rather interesting that the demon who changed his name - something notable enough for others to comment on - is also the one who winds up the most independent, the most free-thinking, the most human.

Identity

Names and identity are tied together in Good Omens.

Most notable version of this is Dog, a terrifying hellhound who very abruptly isn’t. And the moment he changes is the moment he receives his name: in the book, his shape changes as Adam describes his ideal dog, but his personality changes at the naming; on the show, everything changes at once. 

From the book: “The hound waited. This was the moment. The Naming. This would give it its purpose, its function, its identity.” (page 82)

There’s also the “Form shapes nature” passage on page 132 - in short, now that he looks like a small, yappy dog, he is a small, yappy dog. It can’t just be that simple, though - the Horsepeople (well, 3 out of 4) all spend much of the series walking around in very human bodies, yet their nature doesn’t become more human. So it’s not just being in the form, it’s accepting the form, letting the form be more than just the mask you wear.

So bring this back to the demons. On the series, we see that they have different forms in Hell and on Earth - not radically different, but the Hell version is more extreme.

Beelzebub in Hell 

Beelzebub on Earth

Crowley even more so - he appears as a giant snake, as a human with snake eyes, and as...whatever that thing was at the paintball game. It was vaguely snake-y. So we know they have options for how demonic they appear. Whether by choice or some other means, Crowley’s habitual form is the most human. As a result, his actions seem to be the most human.

Importantly, while it might seem fatalistic to say “Names determine who you are, Form determines nature” - both of these are Crowley’s choice (and presumably other demons as well). He doesn’t want to look like a snake, so he doesn’t; he doesn’t think the name Crawly suits him, so he changes it. Changing his name, changing his form, creating his flash bastard persona - these are how he develops his identity. These are how he makes himself into something more than a demonic snake.

Headcanons

So now we get to the part where I explain how this ties into my story, “What it Means to Be A Demon.” I believe everything has at least been hinted at in the story so far, so I don’t feel as much like I’m spoiling my own plot.

Names were lost. I established this earlier in “Early Days,” but Crowley and the other demons can’t remember their original names, they were taken away as part of the act of Falling. For the purposes of “interpreting canon,” both options are plausible (names were taken or names were rejected), but this is the one I felt had more story potential, because it meant:

Identities were lost. This is a little tougher to explain, and I hope I’ve been able to make it clear in the story. The demons are no longer who they were as angels. They can remember their past lives...to an extent. Names and faces slide out of focus, scenes replay without context, they can’t connect things into a coherent story. And the sense of the being they were before the Fall is just...gone. They became No One.

Demons rebuilt new identities. They chose names for themselves, distinguished themselves, built up cults of personality if you will by attracting followers and supporters. Hastur and Ligur, for example, have clearly built their personalities around cruelty and intimidation, but each even has his slightly different brand, such as Hastur’s brutal honesty (a few metas have pointed out that he doesn’t lie, but his truths are extremely cruel). Appearance is also part of this - while the angels have a certain uniformity to their look, the demons each have a different take on the general theme of “humanoid but bestial.”

Demons, especially low-ranked demons, must fight to retain their identities. This is a major part of what’s going on in “What it Means to Be A Demon.” You sort of need other people to acknowledge your identity...this is something you’ve either experienced or not. Whether it’s a gender identity, a sexual orientation, a diagnosis, or just run-of-the-mill interests - when other people ignore, refuse to acknowledge or outright reject something about yourself you know to be true - it f***ing SUCKS. It makes you doubt yourself, it digs away at you, maybe it even makes you conform more to how other people think you should be, because you start to lack the strength to be who you know you should be, or makes you feel like a failure because you can’t be who they want you to be. In the story, Crowley (still Crawley, as it’s around 2400BC) is abused and tortured, but he’s also forced to take shapes based on what others ask of him; he’s told how to present, how to dress, where to go; the other demons even call him “Crawly” which sounds exactly the same but isn’t a name and trust me in these circumstances you can tell. And it wears away at him, makes him question who he is. Destroys the identity he’s built for himself

When they lose their identity, they become...something else. This is not really based on anything specific from the show, except the endless hordes of seemingly mindless demons in Hell. But if their identities are something they must fight to hold on to, what happens when they lose them? In my story, I’ve presented two options: the Nameless (basically mindless bodies who go where directed, do as told, don’t speak, don’t react, no signs that they even think), and Chaotic ones (imagine a Hellhound in human form - instead of mindless obedience, mindless violence). This is the fate that the demons - that Crowley - fight to avoid.

Crowley is not going to let this happen. I’m dead center in this story, so sorry if this is too much of a spoiler, but I did mark it Canon Compliant. The demon who makes an Arrangement with an angel, the demon swaggering around Shakespeare’s Globe, or performing daring Bastille and Nazi Church rescues, who asked for Holy Water because he was going to fight Hell if he needed to - that Crowley is not a demon under existential threat of oblivion. In “What it Means to Be A Demon,” his identity is under threat, because of the things he feels he needs to do to physically survive. But his story arc for this portion of the overall series is all about Crowley finding his identity, and forcing Hell to acknowledge it, one way or another. And over time - he changes to Crowley, he adopts Anthony and Anthony J as his names, his sense of style becomes more elaborate, more personalized, his possessions more solidly representative of his self. And, ultimately, he creates an identity that is strong enough to go against Hell.

So, those are some of my thoughts on DEMONS and FALLING and IDENTITY. I have mentioned that I have a lot of them. ;) If my ideas intrigue you (and if you have a strong stomach for angst and abuse), I hope you will check out my story! Here’s the link one more time:

Read it on AO3! (Rated T for violence, language, and potentially triggering scenes)

Here’s the whole series! (All but two stories are rated G, so if you prefer something lighter...)

#good omens meta #good omens prime #crowley #anthony j crowley #ineffable demon (crowley) #good omens hell #good omens fanfiction #good omens headcanons #ao3 link #sawdust of words #i wrote this instead of shoveling out my car #now i should probably go shovel out my car before it gets dark #oops too late

[lowbrowanthro]

Maud Wood Park: Forgotten Feminist, Proto-Anthropologist, Bad Bitch

In the summer of 2018, I spent three weeks in the Library of Congress researching twentieth-century women political leaders (think suffragettes, early legislators, etc).

Mostly I skimmed workshop pamphlets and stared, unblinking, at indecipherable handwritten correspondence. But one woman in particular had me rapt.

[Extremely Stefon voice] Maud Wood Park’s story has everything - suffragette drama, a trip around the world, and a secret (second! Post divorce! That scandalous queen!) marriage that *definitely* disappointed her dad.

(Photo from: https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library/collection/papers-maud-wood-park-in-womans-rights-collection)

Born in 1871 in Boston, Maud Wood Park was a no-nonsense activist ahead of her time. I call her “forgotten” even though she’s well-known to scholars of women’s suffrage (NERRRDS), because she’s largely left out of public school lessons featuring big names like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Yet her work as a lobbyist with the National American Woman Suffrage Association and as the first president of the League of Women Voters made her a centrally important figure in the struggle for American women’s suffrage.

(Maud pictured 4th from the right. Photo from: https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library/collection/papers-maud-wood-park-in-womans-rights-collection)

Even more interesting than her activism (lol sorry, women’s rights) was her personal life.

Maud did her own damn thing - she chose not to have children, eschewed religion, traveled around the world without a male escort, and never stopped fighting for women’s rights. She married her first husband after meeting him in college (she went to Radcliffe, A.K.A. ~Lady Harvard~ because She Smart And She Fancy), and then divorced his ass when she was 35. Two years later, she ~secretly~ married Robert “Bob” Hunter Freeman.

(Above: Bob and his bowler hat. Photos from the LoC collections)

Bob was ~an actor~ and theatrical agent (yes Maud, I feel you, who among us has not pined for a sensitive artistic type). They both traveled so often for work that they were never able to officially, publicly settle down and cohabitate. Instead, their marriage remained secret to all but a few close friends, and they met clandestinely in hotel rooms during Maud’s lecture circuits. They also shared a robust (there are SO MANY LETTERS, you guys) correspondence. Many of their letters focus on their interpersonal drama and semi-tempestuous but deeply-loving relationship, and you bet I read all that shit. 

They had serious differences and disagreed constantly. Bob gave Maud shit about her temperament and lack of religion, and she gave him shit about his lack of logic.

In the 1915 letter to Bob below, Maud openly and unrepentantly admits to being a stone-cold bitch (my heroine..!), describing herself as “a cold, hard, self-contained, self-centred, ambitious and extremely critical woman.”

(Maud’s a Slytherin. Obvs.)

Maud knows herself. Maud accepts herself. Maud does not care about your feelings.

Bob, on the other hand, was a total Hufflepuff. In the funny 1915 letter below, Maud writes to him about how much her “man-hating” spinster friends love him, seeing him as more of a womanly kindred spirit than a man. Their high praise even inspires her to (grudgingly, poorly... Maud is all of us) embroider Bob’s initials onto some handkerchiefs, even though she “hadn’t done anything of that sort for over 20 years.”

Ah, ~True Love~ :’)

(Above: Maud and Bob, basically)

Maud was an independent thinker, and her lack of religious belief troubled Bob at first. She explained her outlook on life to him in a 1908 letter: 

“I feel a sort of responsibility to myself and to others, irrespective of God’s existence or non existence. I think it is the effect of my keen perception of the rights of all other living creatures, black, white or brown, animal as well as human. It explains my passionate democracy and my sense of outrage at the injustices that women have to bear. It does not rest on love of God or recognition of Him; not even on love of men, but rather on the craving of my whole nature for justice. It’s the best thing in me, my only effective weapon against my egoism.”

Clearly, humanist ideals fueled her activism at a time when many involved in social reform movements held beliefs rooted in Christianity.

(Above: the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, for example! Photo from: https://sites.google.com/site/orangewomenstemperanceunion/background-on-women-s-christian-temperance-union)

Maud was also kind of an amateur anthropologist - she traveled around the world to study the conditions of women in various cultures. 

Funded by a wealthy sponsor who supported her work for women’s rights, she struck out on a two year journey in 1909 to investigate women’s lives in far-flung locales including Singapore, China, India, Australia and New Zealand, New Guinea, Bhutan, and elsewhere.

(Above, postcard of Chefoo, China, circa 1908, from: https://www.hippostcard.com/listing/street-in-chefoo-china-postcard-c1908/16726374)

Her views reflect the times and an understanding of universal womanhood that’s been deconstructed by postcolonial feminist scholars, but she recognized the importance of cultural differences.

Before women could even vote in the U.S., Maud was going around stressing the need to understand the various ways women lived around the world.

Rather than just exoticizing foreign tropical locales, she described their complexities. Maud talked about the widespread poverty in Chinese villages in the wake of nineteenth-century British imperialism and described India as “huge and enormously complicated” in a February 9th, 1920 letter written on a train from Darjeeling to Calcutta, for example.

She exhibited an anthropological curiosity (even if she lacked a little tact), writing this detailed description to Bob on June 18th, 1909:

“This afternoon I did get off by myself in a rickshaw in a town I never heard of and poked around for an hour in unimaginably dirty and crowded streets. The Yang-tse-Kiang is a beautiful broad river, but almost deserted on the banks except for occasional cities of large towns where the foreign “Concession” is nearly opposite the landing. If we can we get away from the Concession in these places and into the Chinese town, usually enclosed by a wall. There indeed everything is different: muddy, smelly, narrow streets, swarms of men, some children and fewer women, (those who are well-to-do stay in the “Inner Apartment”) endless little dingy restaurants half on the street where the cooking is all in plain sight, ramshackle one-story houses leaning against each other in order to stay up at all. Most foreigners are disgusted and flee as soon as possible, but I enjoy it all and want to go poking up every lane and into every courtyard.” 

Maud also recognized the pervasiveness of Western culture way before scholars started theorizing about “globalization.” In 1909, she wrote:

“Fate seems always to pull at my skirts and drag me back to the surroundings of the inescapable West. It’s marvelous how pervasive that is out here in the Orient – the trace of the West. –I begin to believe that there isn’t a village in Asia where you can’t buy bottled waters and find at least one Englishman. I may have to go to central Africa to get the unadulterated East; and even there I suppose I’d find T. Roosevelt or his remains.”

I choose to believe that she would have made a good intersectional feminist activist and anthropologist had she been born a few decades later.

Maud stressed that women deserved freedom above all in both her personal and professional life. She lobbied for women’s rights tirelessly both to legislators and to Bob, who started out skeptical but was eventually won over. 

In the 1915 letter below, Bob wishes Maud success and writes that he’s come around in favor of women’s suffrage once and for all, finally convinced “of something which perhaps should always have been obvious, but wasn’t.”

(That’s f***ing right Bob, get it together)

Maud Wood Park - world traveler, legislative expert, and even playwright - was a fierce feminist. She seemed to foreshadow the third-wavers of the future. In a 1912 letter (one of her many extended arguments with Bob), she considered the future of the women’s movement and women’s ultimate place in society:

“I resent so bitterly the arrogance of men who attempt to say that what men want is the measure of what women should be – or the added insult of attempting to interpret Nature or the Creator for women. Certainly if there is any record of what nature intended it is to be found in the powers that she has given women. If a woman has a beautiful voice it seems likely that nature meant her to sing, etc., etc.

The moral of all this is – don’t spend any more time or words or ink in trying to show what women were meant to do. Spend your energy in giving women themselves a chance to show what they were meant to be.”

Amen.

#Maud Wood Park #Feminism #suffrage #women #women's rights #feminist #history #anthropology #research #archives #womens liberation #suffragette #votes for women #romance #star-crossed lovers #herstory #women's history

[aweirdkindofyellow]

Glad to Meet You Again

Alex Gaskarth x OC ‘A past relationship did not end up very well. Now it’s nearly six years later, and they meet again.’

Lena Conrad and Alex Gaskarth used to be the couple that everybody wanted to be. They were too cute for words, a perfect couple that seemed like they were soulmates. As you would say nowadays, they were #couplegoals. But that only lasted for three years. Some say they were too young to face the problems they were going through, resulting in their breakup, but others would say that even if they had been through it when older, they wouldn’t have made it. They hadn’t seen each other since that messy breakup, until now.

Six years later, Alex is still playing in a band and Lena is a stay at home mom taking care of her five-year-old son. Only one of them knew they’d cross paths again on this specific day.

Start

Lena didn’t often go to concerts, let alone did she ever take her five-year-old, Nick, along with her. There was a time she used to go to concerts on a daily basis, especially when she was on tour with her ex-boyfriend, Alex Gaskarth, lead singer and guitarist of All Time Low. It was a hectic life, but in her early twenties, she only enjoyed the traveling around and the unexpectedness. Going to one concert, however, was already way different than being on the road. This was just one evening of chaos and excitement, something she hadn’t experienced in years. The ironic thing, though, was that this happened to be an All Time Low concert again.

But that doesn’t explain why Lena was going in the first place. Well, it certainly wasn’t because it was an All Time Low concert. That just happened to be a coincidence. Luckily she knew, or it would have been a very unexpected and quite unpleasant surprise. But All Time Low was the headlining act, so there was no way she could have missed it. She wasn’t coming for them, though. She was coming for one of the supporting acts, whose lead singer happened to be one of her boyfriend’s very close friends, who over time had grown to be a great friend to her as well. So, she was there to support him, not to rekindle anything with Alex or the rest of the band.

Now, why was Nick coming along and where was Anthony, her boyfriend? Well, they were all going to go, but then something came up, leaving Lena to go alone with her son. Nick still wanted to see his ‘uncle’, and she wouldn’t take away that from him. He was like a role model to the boy and he always seemed to be the one that got along best with him. Even guys covered in tattoos and called Scott Schaffer knew how to deal with kids, something most people didn’t believe was possible. But he was living proof.

Despite the fact that her ex-boyfriend was definitely going to be there, Lena didn’t really mind. Their breakup might have been absolutely horrible, ending in a shouting match and a lot of tears, but that had been six years ago. She had long moved on since then, quickly having found somebody else, having had a son, and having a life she always wanted. Maybe seeing him wouldn’t do any bad. Maybe it was for the better, to show each other that they had moved on from what happened. It could possibly end up with them being friends again.

So, she confidently got out of the car with Nick and walked up to the back entrance. She acted like she knew exactly where she was going, ignoring the few stares she got from the young fans waiting out in the line to get inside the venue. There was a small fear that some of them would recognize her, but she also knew that it would be very unlikely since it had been so long ago. Many of the fans probably didn’t even know about All Time Low’s existence back when they were still dating. She just didn’t want rumors starting, turning it into an unnecessary messy situation.

Once at the door, she was greeted by a security guard. She knew exactly how the process went, having used to do this quite often, and already had her ID ready in her purse. As expected, all she had to do was give her name and show her ID. Nick got to pass through without any problem since it didn’t seem like a five-year-old would try to sneak in, especially with his mother on the guest list.

When they were let inside, Lena could feel Nick shaking with excitement. He got to see his uncle frequently, but he rarely got to see him in action live. This was something so special, and he couldn’t wait to see it. He wanted to be just like Scott when he was older. At five years old, Nick had already decided that he wanted to be in a band.

“Are you excited, buddy?” Lena smiled brightly, feeding off her son’s energy, her voice just as bubbly as it always had been.

“We get to see uncle Scott play!” Nick chirped back, doing a couple of jumps to show just how delighted he was.

She ruffled his floppy blondish-brown hair that was getting darker and darker as he got older, and pulled out her phone to text her boyfriend. He might have been busy with work, but of course he still wanted to know if Lena and Nick got to the venue safely and were let in. Lena kept hold of Nick’s hand while texting Anthony, simultaneously walking down the hallway that led to all the dressing rooms.

If only she hadn’t tried to multitask.

Just after hitting send, she slammed into another body, startling both her and the other person. She let go of Nick and looked up to the stranger to apologize profusely. As she held up her hands in protection and saw who is was, she felt even worse. This was not how she had wanted it to go at all. Right there, the man she walked into: Alex. He looked right back at her with widened eyes, questioning his sanity. He never expected to see his ex-girlfriend again, this couldn’t be real. Maybe the person who walked into him made him fall over and gave him a concussion.

But, no. She really was there.

“Lena?” Another voice from behind Alex said, Jack appearing from the door to the right. “What are you doing here?”

Nick carefully shuffled closer to his mother’s leg, not sure what to make of the two tall men in front of him. Lena put a reassuring hand on his head and gave the guys a smile. “What most people are here for: to watch the show.”

“How did you even get backstage?” Jack questioned next while Alex was speechless; he didn’t know what to do.

“By being on the guest list,” Lena joked back, running her fingers through her son’s hair. When she imagined introducing her son to her ex-boyfriend and his best friends, she had imagined it to go very differently. They would have already seen her with the support act, and then they could be reintroduced or something.

Before Jack could try to dig any further, Scott Schaffer came out of one of the other dressing rooms and saw the people he had invited to come see the show from side-stage. He looked at his favorite nephew and jogged up to them. 

“There’s my favorite Brooks!” He picked up the boy and raised him to put him on his shoulders.

It was only then that Jack and Alex noticed that there was a five-year-old around. They were too focused on Lena to see that there was another person. It didn’t help that Nick was hiding a little behind his mother. But now he was easily seen, raised up above everybody else.

“Oh, I’m not your favorite?” Lena challenged, giving her friend a side hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“You see, you’re technically not a Brooks,” Scott returned with a mock serious face. “you’d have to get married for that.”

“I keep forgetting that.” She had been together with Anthony for so long that his family already felt like family to her. She was just as much a Brooks as he was. It just wasn’t registered legally.

“You are going to have to do something about it.” Scott continued to play along before looking up at the young boy on his shoulders. “How’s your screaming going?”

Nick shook his head and shrugged. “Not so good. I think I’m going to stay with singing.”

“You know, your father was always better at singing as well. Leave all the screaming to me.”

Nick nodded this time, a grin spread across his face. “He tired, but he said it ruined his voice, so he stopped. I don’t want to break mine either! It sounds like it would hurt.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Scott agreed. While his music didn’t contain any screaming now, he could do it and had once made the mistake of telling Nick. Nick wanting to be just like his uncle, tried to copy it. But let’s just say it wasn’t the best thing to do.

“How about I show you around?” He suggested towards Nick next, who nodded furiously, and then turned back to Lena. “Too bad Anthony couldn’t be here, or I would have totally shown off what he’s missing now that he isn’t in a band with me anymore.”

When the two of them sprinted off, Jack and Alex were still staring at Lena with bewilderment. They still couldn’t process what was going on. Here was a girl they both knew, with a son and she had some relation to the guy they were touring with.

“Who’s Anthony?” Jack asked the question Alex was thinking as well. The latter just wouldn’t dare ask it out of fear that he would be accused of still having feelings.

“My boyfriend,” Lena clarified, actually happy that that was going to be brought out of the way early on, “he used to play in a band with Scott years ago. They’re still best friends now.”

“A band?” Alex blurted out, his filter not being able to stop him in time. He wanted to hit his head against the wall to tell his brain to not be so stupid and betray him like that.

Why was it such a big deal that he said that? Well, it was what broke up Lena and Alex. The band was unsigned after having released an album on Interscope, and it put a strain on their relationship. Alex was stressing out a lot about what to do next, and Lena accused him of only caring about the band and ignoring her. Of course, this didn’t sit right with Alex, and the fight started. Lena made him chose between the band and her, and it’s obvious how that ended. Ever since it happened, Lena had beaten herself up about it. She never wanted it to come out that way, but it’s how it went down. There was no way to change it. She had never wanted to force Alex to make a decision like that.

“Yeah,” Lena nodded, trying to keep up her smile to make it less awkward, “but he’s a producer now. He quit just after we met. It was his decision, I had nothing to do with it, in case you were wondering…”

Alex nodded, not really sure what to do with the information. For some reason, it surprised him that she went to a band guy right after having broken up with him for the sole reason of him being in a band. And it totally wasn’t fishy that said guy quit being in a band after meeting Lena. Maybe getting away hadn’t been such a bad idea that long ago.

“By the way, I want to apologize for that.” Lena decided to tell him, not knowing if the subject would ever arise again. “I shouldn’t have made you choose. I never meant for that to happen and I’m so glad you made the right decision. I’m not trying to make it all better now, but I just thought it would be a good idea to apologize now that we both moved on from it, you know?”

“Yeah, of course.” Alex gave her an awkward reassuring pat on the arm. He wasn’t sure if he had completely moved on from it. Yes, he had gotten over Lena, but how was he expected to move on from something that had affected him so much? The breakup had ruined him, and he was always so afraid that something was going to force him to make a decision like that again.

“Is that little dude your son?” Jack tried to change the subject a little, knowing that Alex always had some leftover feelings about how they had broken up.

Lena nodded, her mood elating almost immediately. “Yeah, his name’s Nick. He’s five years old,”

“Five years old?” Jack tried to seem neutral, but he couldn’t help but squint his eyes a little as he did the math.

“Yep. Anyway, I should probably go find him before Scott gets him into playing the drums or something.” Lena chuckled and rushed into the direction she had seen the two run off into before. It wasn’t that she was against Nick wanting to expand his creativity, but she wasn’t sure if she could stand the noise.

When Lena had turned around the corner, Jack looked right at Alex with worried eyes. No, not because he was afraid Alex would be upset about seeing his ex-girlfriend again, but for a whole other reason that was way more worrisome. Although his forte had never been math, he could figure this one out.

“Is it just me, or does that boy look like a miniature version of you?” Jack muttered so that only Alex would be able to hear.

Alex looked back at his best friend, his heart dropping. “I thought I was imagining it.”

“Umm, okay… but we can’t be sure, can we? I mean, sure he’s five and you guys broke up almost exactly six years ago. But anything could have happened right?” Jack tried to reassure his friend that it wasn’t what they were thinking. There was no way that their shared idea was right.

But then Rian came stumbling up, laughing about something he came from. “Dude, Alex, I swore I just saw a child that looked exactly like you!”

That was the last thing needed for Alex’s smile to drop completely. As much as he wanted to deny it, it was impossible. Nick looked just like he did as a kid. He gulped as he tried to steady his heart rate. “Lena’s here with her five-year-old son.”

Rian dropped the drumsticks he was holding and glanced between his two bandmates, hoping to see that either of them was joking. But Alex’s greenish-pale complexion and Jack’s static facial features said otherwise. They weren’t fucking around with him, this was actually happening. This wasn’t something they would joke about. Why would they even include Lena in it if they were lying?

A little later, when Scott’s band was playing, Lena and Nick were watching side-stage. Jack decided to watch along with them, Alex feeling too light headed to go as well, but they needed some answers. If Lena actually was there with Alex’s son, they needed to know. She couldn’t just hide it from him. The only problem was that Jack had no idea how to introduce to topic without weirding her out.

But then he heard Nick singing along loudly with his uncle’s music. He wasn’t half that bad, especially for a five-year-old. If he continued to work on it, he’d be able to sing like it was nobody’s business when he was older.

Jack, shuffled a bit closer to Lena and leaned in so they could talk over the loud music. He pointed at Nick. “He can sing pretty well. I’m impressed.”

“All the talent comes from his father’s side. There’s a reason he was a lead singer, not me.” Lena replied, knowing just as well that her son was unrealistically good, and not just because every mom wanted their child to be special and do really well at something. Nick really did have a talent.

“Oh, yeah, right. You said your boyfriend used to play in a band,” Jack nodded, waiting for Lena to tell him that her boyfriend wasn’t the father of the child.

“Exactly.” Lena nodded, not giving Jack the answer he wanted. “He would have been so good at it if he continued, but he always dreamed of producing music, so he took his chance. He’s pretty good at it, if I say so myself. Of course, he doesn’t produce music for pop acts, but he’s worked with many up-and-coming rock bands.”

“Maybe we should work with him sometime?” He wanted so bad for Lena to get uncomfortable and say no, just to give him a signal that something was off.

But, no. She was cool with it. “Oh, that would be so awesome. I’m pretty sure he would love to, and I could probably get you a cheaper rate. He’s open to so many things. If you want to make a record with some weird influences or if you want to do something you often do, he’ll be all up for it.”

“Really? I’ll talk to the others about it.” Jack gave her a thumbs up, still expecting her to suddenly change her mind now that he was actually considering it.

“Awesome, and no hard feelings if you decide not to.” She said as she swayed along with the music.

Jack took this as a sign and pushed a little. “You don’t want us to?”

“No, of course I want you to! I just don’t want you to feel bad or obliged to do something just because you don’t want to hurt me or something.”

“Oh, okay…” He tried a different approach by mentioning another feature about her son. “He’s got an interesting hair color.”

Although it was a weird thing to say, Lena shrugged it off as it just being Jack. He might have looked way more grown up, but maybe he was still as obscure as the Jack she used to know. “It used to be way more blonde. I feel like he’ll have brown hair before he’s a teenager. It only makes sense; I have brown hair, his dad has brown hair.”

“You know, I’d love to meet his dad or your boyfriend some day.” Jack tried to emphasize a little that he thought that they were too separate people, but Lena didn’t seem to notice. He even had some suspicions that Lena was lying about either the dad or the boyfriend. She was too off with everything going on.

“You totally should come over next time you’re in town. I’ll give you my address.”

“We actually have a day off tomorrow, so we could probably come by then.”

Lena quickly grabbed a pen and a small piece of paper out of the shoulder bag she was wearing and quickly wrote down the address, not really thinking about the fact that Jack could easily lose it with how unorganized he was. "You should."

“That actually doesn’t sound too bad.” Jack smiled with a nod, thinking it would be the perfect plan to get it out of her if she wasn’t going to tell them before she left. “Now, I’m going to get a beer, would you like one too?”

“Oh, no, I don’t drink.” Lena scrunched up her nose, a beer sounding like the worst possible thing that Jack could have suggested to her.

“No way, I don’t believe you!” He gasped loudly and let out a high-pitched noise when Lena shrugged to show she was being serious. “You used to be the queen of flip-cup! You could take on an entire time all by yourself.”

“I haven’t had a drop ever since I found out I was pregnant with Nick.”

Jack shrugged and decided to get a water bottle for his reacquainted friend. He didn’t just want to ask her if she wanted beer just to not give her anything else when she said she didn’t drink. So, he went back to his dressing room to get both the beverages. On the couch, Alex was sat twirling his hair around his finger and bouncing his leg up and down.

“You okay, dude?” Jack asked as he got the bottles out of the fridge provided by the venue.

Alex snapped his head towards the sound, not having noticed somebody walking in. He immediately stopped the movements he was making and acted like everything was fine. “Yeah, it’s just weird to see her again, ya know?”

“Yeah.” Jack nodded, feeling bad that Alex was so anxious. “By the way, I’m trying to get Lena to spill if he’s your son. So far, it’s not really working, but we might be able to do so tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

----

The next day, Jack decided to take up on the thing Lena had offered. Everybody in All Time Low piled into a van and drove to the address scribbled on a note that Jack had received. When they had typed it into the map on their phones, they found out that it was only forty-five minutes away, which wasn’t such a long way for what they were used to. It was unusual to spend a day off like this. Normally, they’d explore the town they were in and go their separate ways, but as far as they knew, this time they were going to spend the entire day at the house of one of their ex-best friends.

“So…” Zack decided to break the uncomfortable silence that was hanging around for the first ten minutes. “What are you going to do if you find out the kid’s yours?”

Alex massaged his temples and took his eye off the window to look at his friend instead. “I don’t know, Zack. That’s what I’m trying to figure out now. For all we know, he isn’t even mine.”

“But he looks so much like you!” Rian intervened, knowing his words were probably not helping, but also not wanting Alex to build up… false hope? No, that wasn’t the right word. He just didn’t want Alex to deny that it could be a possibility only to be hit with it later.

“Everybody has look-a-likes. He might not look anything like me anymore in a few years! Maybe it’s just all a coincidence.” Alex raised an eyebrow as if he had just scientifically proven that it wasn’t possible.

“Oh my god, Alex,” Zack groaned, running a hand through his hair, “stop trying to deny it. There is quite a high chance he’s yours. Brace yourself for it.”

“Okay, alright.” Alex held up his hands in defense and rolled his eyes a little to show he was fed up with his bandmates constantly bugging him about it. “If I am, I don’t know what I’ll do. I mean, I don’t want to be that other guy who happens to be his biological father. Right now, it seems like that child really does believe Lena’s boyfriend is his father.”

“So, you’d try to get said boyfriend out of the picture?” Jack wondered out loud, bringing his hand to his chin to put on a thinking face.

“No,” Alex scoffed, almost appalled that somebody would even suggest something like that, “I mean, I don’t know, maybe.”

“You’d actually get back with your ex because she had your son?”

“Well, what the hell would you do?!”

“I’m just asking if you’d be happy with her. You guys did break up for a reason. She did make you choose between us and her,” Jack muttered, feeling personally attacked by Alex.

“And she apologized last night, saying she never meant to say anything like that. There’s no reason for me to resent her anymore.” Alex pointed out, trying to picture his life if he was with Lena again. He didn’t even care about how he was planning on getting there, but it didn’t seem all too bad. They had loved each other so much before, they could definitely get there again.

Rian sighed, feeling bad for his best friend. “Please don’t tell me you’re actually considering it.”

“I wouldn’t want it if it turns out he isn’t my son, but I could deal with it if he is.”

“Let’s just find out what is actually going on before we make dramatic decisions like that, ok?”

Alex nodded in agreement and went back to staring out of the window. Although he didn’t want to seem like he was in deep thought, he couldn’t help but think about what his life would have been like if he and Lena hadn’t broken up all those years ago. Considering that he believed that they wouldn’t have ever broken up otherwise, the only pictures Alex could imagine were happy things. They would have been a happy family. Nick would have idolized him, always asking him for singing and guitar lessons. Lena would watch them with a loving smile gracing her lips, feeding their baby girl. It was perfect, something any guy dreamed of having. Alex had to keep reminding himself that breaking up was the right thing to do, or he wouldn’t have been giving his son music lessons and there would have been no way that he was actually as happy as in his daydream. But then again, maybe they would have worked it out if they had pushed through. Lena did say she never meant for it to come out that way, so he could have found another solution.

“Bro, we’re here.” Jack hit his shoulder, making him snap out of the imagination. Everybody had already gotten out of the van and was standing in the sunny warm outside weather.

“Oh, sorry.” Alex rubbed his eyes and climbed over the seats to get to go out as well. When his eyes adjusted to the light, he had no idea what he was looking at. Well, he knew it was a house, but he had no idea Lena would ever live in a place like that.

The property was fenced, the gate open for anybody to go on the driveway. But that wasn’t what shook him. The house had a nice suburban feel to it, but it was twice as big as your usual house, and the white contrasting to the red bricks somehow made it fall into the modern category. Alex had expected to find Lena living in just a common house that looked identical to the ones around it. But she seemed to be doing really well for herself. Living in a house like this did not mean the income was coming from a usual job.

The boys entered the property and walked up to the front door. One of them rang the doorbell, and shortly after, the dark wooden door opened and the same girl from the night before was stood behind it. Her face lit up as she saw her old friends, ushering them all inside before they would get a sunburn or anything of the like.

“Sorry for the mess,” she chuckled, believing that the slightly shifted carpet already made the house look unordered, “Nick has a friend over and they’re running all over the place.”

“This is not a mess at all. I wish my house would occasionally look like this!” Jack looked around at the modern and simplistic interior.

“I’d probably have a panic attack if my house was ever as messy as yours, Jack,” Lena joked, but everybody knew it was probably also to truth, especially Alex. When they lived together, she’d also freak out over every little thing he left lying around. He used to think it was so annoying, but when she moved out, he was pretty glad he had been drilled. The first couple of days, or even weeks, hadn’t gone so well.

Lena made them follow her into the living room. Once again, the entire open space was as clean as could be. There were French doors with large matching windows facing the garden, the clear clue pool right in the middle. This place was a dream house for anybody, and here Lena was living in it. The guys were so amazed by it all, but she didn’t even make it seem like anything special.

The laughter of Nick and his friend could be heard while Lena asked the All Time Low guys if they wanted to have something to drink. She got herself some tea while returning with three beers and one water for the guys. While Lena herself didn’t drink any alcohol, and Anthony didn't drink much either, they always had some laying around for guests. No, they didn’t have frequent guests, but they always stocked up for family events and were left with some at the end.

The five of them were catching up when Lena’s boyfriend appeared. He was entering through the French doors, coming from outside, or more likely the studio in the pool house, wearing a white tank-top and black basketball shorts, his hair a complete mess. While eating a bowl of cereal, he saw the strangers in his living room and froze up. It looked like he had just woken up despite it already being the afternoon.

He looked down at his appearance and grimaced. “If I knew we had people over, I would have made myself look a little better.”

“And how would you have done that?” Lena laughed, her smile causing the skin around her eyes to wrinkle.

“Sneak in through the front door, obviously.” Anthony took another bite of his cereal and acted like his answer was the most logical solution.

Jack wasn’t sure what to think or how to feel. He was more busy with taking in the guy’s appearance and trying to remember what Nick looked like. Anthony had a slightly shorter haircut and a bit lighter hair than Alex, they both had bushy eyebrows and brown eyes, but their smiles were very different, and Anthony’s ears were more pointed. If Alex had been out of the picture, Jack would have totally believed that Lena’s boyfriend was Nick’s father, but it wasn’t that way. To him, Nick looked just a little more like Alex.

With the French doors still open, a dog that the All Time Low members hadn’t seen before suddenly came running in, knocking hard against Anthony’s legs. He managed to regain his balance quickly without trouble, barely moving an inch, but it meant the bowl of cereal had to be sacrificed and all the milk poured onto his shirt.

“Are you kidding me?” Anthony groaned, ignoring the dog that was now further into the living room.

Lena giggled, only showing how much she was in love with the man. “You should know by now that you shouldn’t stand at an open door like that.”

“Yeah, that’s the worst part, this isn’t the first time it’s happened. I’ve had that dog for seven years and I never learn.” He ran a hand through his knotted and borderline greasy hair and went to bring his now empty bowl to the kitchen. “Sofa, you’re supposed to be old and tired by now, not trying to make me fall over!”

“Sofa?” Rian inquired, believing he hadn’t heard the name right. There was no way they had a dog called Sofa, that was just strange.

“Yeah, well, she used to be called Sophia,” Lena explained during the few seconds that Anthony wasn’t around anymore, “but then Nick started to learn how to talk. He couldn’t pronounce it and kept calling her ‘Sofa’, so it kinda stuck.”

“Ah.” He nodded, now no longer thinking it was as weird. At least they had a good explanation behind it.

Anthony came back, his shirt now taken off, showing the tanned abs and chest with a few tattoos he had. If any girl had to choose between having a one-night-stand with Alex or Anthony based solely on their bodies and not any feelings, many would probably have chosen Lena’s boyfriend. He had claimed multiple times that he was going to work on his dad-bod, only to go back to the gym soon after. It was just a norm for him.

“At least it’s forcing me to take a shower, so it’s all good.” Anthony put on the grin that made Lena’s heart flutter when they had just started dating, and started making his way toward the stairs.

“You better before you start smelling like sour milk!” Lena shouted after him before turning back to the people she believed were her friends again. Little did she know they also had an alternate motive.

“So that’s the boyfriend that somehow led you back to us.” Zack whistled and nodded his head as if to show that he was impressed with what Lena was able to catch.

“Yep, six years strong.” Lena nodded, feeling some tension building in the room. She wanted them to meet her boyfriend, but them questioning her about him felt a little off. “He’s been working day and night to finish mixing an album, hence why he looked so homeless.”

“Six years?” Jack gaped. He couldn’t believe it. It hadn’t even been six years since she had broken up with Alex. Had she been cheating as well?”

Lena rolled her eyes, knowing what Jack was getting at. “Almost six years. I met him like a month or so after Alex and I ended things. It wasn’t supposed to be anything serious, but look where we are now.”

“Wow… Alex was probably at his worst after one month, I’m surprised to hear you were already dating other guys by then.” Rian added, trying to force the conversation in the direction they needed it to go.

Alex sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Thanks for embarrassing me guys, you’re doing great.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I was only looking for a rebound. Anthony knew and we had a no-strings-attached kind of deal, but it sort of turned into something more. I never intended to jump over to the next guy so quickly.” Lena told them the honest truth, hoping it would stop them from wanting to dig even deeper into the beginning of her relationship. But it only did the opposite.

Jack had to cut straight to the chase. “Because you found out you were pregnant with Nick.”

“Um, no.” Lena shook her head, taking offense from Jack’s comment. This was going too far. “I found out after we started seriously dating. I mean, I probably got pregnant early on in the whole relationship, but it’s not the reason why we decided to take a further step.”

“How early on in the relationship?” Jack pushed next.

“Jack,” Alex groaned to stop the other. He could sense that it was making Lena uncomfortable, but not because she was trying to hide something. To her, this was just him trying to find out every little detail about her relationship. This was not ok.

“What do you want me to tell you?” Lena glared at Jack, not understanding how her hyper friend from years ago had changed so much. “That Alex and I broke up, that I went out to find somebody as a rebound, that I met Anthony, that three weeks in we decided to start dating, that eventually I took a pregnancy test at the doctors and that they said one to two months pregnant? Do you also want to know all the details about the sex? Do you want me to tell you what it was like meeting each other’s parents for the first time? I can go on and tell you all the details, but I don’t think that all really matters.”

“One to two months?” Alex repeated in a hushed voice, needing to know when she had taken the test.

However, Alex wasn’t intending on asking any further questions, not wanting to make Lena get furious. But she heard his thought quite clearly. All she wanted was to rekindle her friendship with the All Time Low guys now that she had the opportunity, but all she was getting was how rude they were being. If she knew that this would have happened when she invited them over, she would have never done it.

“Yes, one to two months.” Lena nodded in an over exaggerated way, her voice showcasing her frustration. “Does it really matter? I don’t get why you’re so interested in how my relationship started and when Nick was-- oh my god…” Her eyes doubled in size when it hit her. She stood up from the couch and looked at the four boys in front of her before her gaze rested on Alex. Her head shook in disbelief. “No…”

“Wait, you didn’t know that this was a possibility?” Jack stiffened up, starting to feel guilty for interrogating her. He really thought that she was trying to keep it a secret even though they were right in front of her.

“No, no, it’s not possible,” Lena said, but it was more to reassure herself. “They said one to two months, not two to three.”

Rian decided to be the responsible one and try to guide her through the thoughts she was having. “Okay, well, how far into your relationship did you find out?”

“I’m not sure anymore… I’m guessing just over a month?” She ran her hands over her face, glad that she never wore too much makeup. “Which leaves enough time for it to possibly be… oh my god…”

Throughout it all, Alex had been staring out in front of him, only half hearing the conversation going on around him. He couldn’t comprehend what was going on anymore. Sure, he came here to find out whether or not he had a son, but now that it actually came to it, he didn’t know what to do. There was no certainty that Nick was his, but it made it all so real. Alex was a little mad that he maybe hadn’t had a chance to be there the first five years, confused because he never even thought it could have happened, happy because it would mean he had a child, sad because he wasn’t prepared. There were too many emotions to deal with for him to be able to act ok.

It was exactly the moment that Anthony decided to walk back in. He had Nick hanging off his neck and Nick’s friend hanging off his leg, carrying them forward with him. The two young boys were giggling, having too much fun for words, causing Anthony to have a great big grin on his face as well. His son’s happiness meant his happiness.

“I’m a human jungle gym!” Anthony exclaimed, not sensing the nature of the scene in front of him yet. But as soon as he saw his girlfriend bent over, her hands covering her mouth, her elbows resting on her legs, her eyes showing signs that she was about to cry, he knew something was up. He shook the boys off and told them to go play outside for the time being.

Before he could ask what was going on, he saw Alex’s gaze follow Nick as he ran outside, and Jack and Zack looking at Alex, Rian having a hand on Lena’s back to comfort her. It was like he didn’t even need to hear it. He could feel exactly what was going on and it made him sick to his stomach. As much as he wanted to deny it, he couldn’t walk away from the scene. If he walked away, everything was only going to get worse. He had to be the bigger man here and suck it up for everybody involved.

But still, he couldn’t help but let his first reaction get to him. Shaking his head, he took his time to individually look at the people in front of him. “No.”

Lena turned her head to finally look back at her boyfriend and tears started prickling her eyes. All this time, she hadn’t even thought of the possibility that Alex was the father of her child. Now she couldn’t help but feel guilty and as if she had betrayed Anthony. Ever since they found out she was pregnant, she made him believe that he definitely was the father. She didn’t know any better, but she couldn’t help but feel like a disappointment.

“Nobody’s going to tell me that it’s not what I’m thinking?” Anthony asked out in hidden desperation, sighing when nobody answered him. He never thought he would be in the situation of not being sure whether he was the father of a child or not.

It was obvious that nobody was going to fix what was going on or come up with any solution whatsoever, so Anthony decided to take it upon himself to come up with rational decisions and try to compensate what everybody wanted and needed. He joined the others, only sitting on the coffee table instead of the couch so he could look at everybody.

“I’m so sorry,” Lena whimpered, trying her best to make sure she didn’t break out in tears. She felt like she was hurting both Alex and Anthony with her actions. This wasn’t how she expected the day to go at all.

Anthony decided to ask one question before going any further and starting his reasoning. “Are you sure he’s the father?”

Alex snapped his head to look up at him, finally coming out of his trance. He expected Lena’s boyfriend to get furious and lash out somehow, but he looked like the only person that was in some sort of way composed. For some reason, Alex wanted both Nick to be his son and not. On one hand, he wasn’t sure if he could deal with it, but on the other, he couldn’t help but feel a little happy. He could only imagine what Anthony was going through.

Lena shook her head, telling him that she didn’t know anymore. Anthony held out his hand to hold hers and ran his thumb over her knuckles once their hands were interlocked. He pulled her a little bit and motioned for her to come sit in his lap, which she did. As soon as she was sat down and wrapped in his arms, one single tear ran down her cheek. She was so afraid of what was going to happen. It could lead to her losing both potential fathers. But all Anthony did was hold her and kissed the top of her head.

Alex felt like he needed to do something as well, maybe hold her hand as well and say some comforting words, but he couldn’t. Not because he didn’t want to, but because it was obvious that he wasn’t the one to do that anymore. She had Anthony to do all of the comforting, he had no part in that. He wasn’t as important. If it ever came between the two of them, he knew that Lena would always choose her boyfriend.

Anthony looked at Alex, mainly directing his words to him. “If you want to, we can get a paternity test done to see who’s the father.”

Lena cringed at the words, never having wanted to have it come down to this. She always thought she’d know who the father of her baby was. She wasn’t stupid enough to sleep around with multiple guys at once. The only mistake she made was trying to move on too quickly. She didn’t think she’d get pregnant so early on in her relationship with Anthony… or so late with Alex...

Alex nodded, but only to make Anthony continue with his plan. Only getting the test was going to leave even more questions unanswered. “And then?”

Anthony shrugged, not having thought that far ahead yet, but willing to come up with something on the spot. “If you turn out to be the father, you can be in his life. Nick will get to know as soon as possible, that’s just the right thing to do. But I will always also be a father figure to him, we can’t change that anymore. I’m always going to be around.”

“And if I’m not?” Alex asked next, a little of disappointment shown through his eyes, but not through his voice. Only Anthony could see it, making him feel for the guy he never met before but knew from many pictures.

“Then I’m going to be the only father in Nick’s life. I do, however, want to give you the possibility of being like an uncle to him. All of you guys, really. But if you want that, you’re going to have to be around. If you’re not friends with us or do anything to try and be really good friends and role models to Nick, you can forget about it. I understand that you’re on tour the entire time, but all it takes are simple things. Scott’s been able to do it, you guys can probably fit your way in as well.”

Lena stayed quiet the entire time, listening to the words of the guy she loved with all her heart. He was being so compassionate and he didn’t even have to be. Most guys would have gotten so mad, not only at the other guy but also at her. Although she couldn’t have done anything about it, she would have lost everything that meant so much to her. But here Anthony was, being way too good for her. She didn’t deserve him being so understanding, but it’s how he had always been. It’s what had caught her eye before they decided to start dating.

Alex also didn’t understand. He thought he would have come out of it all with a busted lip and a black eye, especially with how ripped the guy was. Maybe he did have Zack who would have protected him, but if a guy really was mad, he was going to do more damage than he seemed capable of. Not even Jack was attacked despite being such a douchebag.

“Okay,” Alex agreed.

The remainder of the time, they discussed a little while longer how everything was going to happen. They all exchanged phone numbers to be able to contact each other for when the test was actually going to take place. All Time Low first had to finish their tour, and they somehow had to get Nick to give a sample as well without giving him any false information. But after all that was done, they tried to fall back into a normal conversation. It started off difficult, but eventually it became more natural. With both the solutions Anthony had given, they were going to have to get along anyway. It was only a good idea to get a head start. Lena was the only one that was still quite distant, completely shaken up about what had just happened.

When it was time for the All Time Low guys to go back again, Lena and Anthony led them back to the front door and waved until they were out of sight. They couldn’t say that the meeting had been a good one, but it also hadn’t necessarily been a bad one. All they could do was move forward with what they had found out and hope that everything was going to be OK in the future. Hopefully, Alex would step up if he was the father, and Anthony promised to always be there, calming Lena’s heart for there was one more thing.

“I promise that our next baby is certainly yours,” she told Anthony as they stood in the hallway, her arms wrapped around his neck and his hands on her waist.

“Of course, and I know that.” Anthony nodded, giving her a smile to show that he wasn’t mad about anything that happened.

“No, really, I promise. I know for sure.”

“Yeah. I don’t expect anything else.”

Lena had to resist the urge to roll her eyes and bit back her grin. “You’re just going to have to wait six more months.”

Anthony frowned, his eyebrows furrowing as the grip on his girlfriend loosened. “Six more months?”

“Until we have another baby in this house.”

“No way! You’re lying!” He gasped, his eyes lighting up with excitement. He knew he always wanted more kids with Lena, he just didn’t know when. But now was the perfect timing.

She let her grin spread across her face and nodded to show him that she was being truthful. “I found out a week ago.”

Anthony firmly planted his lips on hers, not being able to wait for the next chapter to come. Whatever happened, he was still going to have his perfect family, whether Alex was included or not. Nick was always going to be his son, and now he had another child on the way.

The mood in the van, however, wasn’t as joyful. It was quite somber actually, even though the day hadn’t ended on a bad note. They all got along with each other, there was nothing to be upset about. But it didn’t feel that way.

“What wrong?” Jack asked Alex, noticing that they were all feeding off of his negative energy.

“I don’t know if I want to take that test…” Alex breathed out, not taking his eyes off what he could see flashing by the window. “He’s a good guy, nothing like I would ever be. I can’t just take this happiness away from them. They were doing just fine without us, why change that now?”

#all time low fanfiction #alex gaskarth fanficition #all time low #alex gaskarth #all time low imagine #alex gaskarth imagine #glad to meet you again

[powerstrangerdacre]

Blame

Part 1 - you, me, us

Part 2 - “his&hers” chains

Part 3 - NORMAL

Summary: He longed to see her Y/E/C eyes staring at him in that way only she could. And he feared that this same feeling would swallow him whole and break him from the inside out.

Pairing: Tony Stark x Reader

Warning: Cursing? (Maybe?)

Wordcount: 2900+

AN: Hey y’all. I’m just... y’know... dropping by to say hi and thanks for reading. Please tell me if I can improve in any way. Or just like, what you thought about this. I’ll post the other two parts over the course of the next days... so tell me if you wanna be tagged ;). Also, huge thanks to @theoneanna and to @mercuryriver for proofreading and stuff. You guys are way too nice. ^^

In the beginning, everything was fine. They were young. They were foolish. They were just kids that didn’t know about the weight of the world which was about to crash onto them. In the beginning, they had their parents to depend on. They had someone to tell them what was wrong and what was right, just so they wouldn’t have to support the weight of their own choices. However heavy that weight was.

Then they were friends. It wasn’t hard to become friends, since they were literally pushed together by their parents. Everyone knows that type of friendship that happens because your mom or dad tells you to be nice to the other person. The type of friendship that isn’t exactly forced, but doesn’t happen because you wanted it to happen. For “normal” people that kind of friendship usually happens when they’re too small and too shy to form their own relationships.

But Y/N and Tony weren’t exactly what people called “normal”.

No, Tony was Howard Stark’s of Stark Industries only, star child. And Y/N… Well let’s just say that her family was influential in not the most legal of ways.

No, Tony and Y/N didn’t meet in kindergarten or in school or on the playground. They were old enough to make their own choices and any other normal kid would have to take responsibility for the choices they made. But they didn’t. No, Y/N and Tony didn’t know anything about responsibility or freedom, and yet they somehow made their “coerced” friendship work. Some of their other friends couldn’t understand why on earth they would just allow for something like that to happen. Some people just couldn’t understand how they could allow their parents to manage their lives to such amount.

But they simply just couldn’t say no.

Tony’s reason for not saying no to his father was simple: he didn’t want to disappoint him more than he already had. Sure, he was the best student and the best athlete and smart and charismatic, and still he felt like so much less in his father’s eyes. Hence the undying fidelity to his each and every order.

Y/N’s reason was much more complicated. Sure, her parents boasted about her academic achievements and strong-headed personality to others, but they weren’t as easy on her as they let others think. They controlled each and every one of her steps in life. School? Her father chose it for her, no matter how much she complained. Friends? Her mother ran background checks on all of them, “disposing” of the ones she deemed unfitting. They chose her clothes and hairstyle and everything in-between. And they mostly made the right choices. That is, the right choices for them.

And then one night at one of Howard’s get-togethers, they made one wrong choice and introduced one very controlled Y/N to one very out-of-control Tony.

She watched as the party-goers drank and danced along to the soft tune playing through the speakers. The room smelled of money and fame and prominence. This was the world her parents had chosen. This was the world she had grown up in. Her mind yelled and screamed at her to get out, to run as far away as possible and never look back on this life of materialism and greed.

She could basically hear the thoughts of each and every person in that room. The eyes of the old men that lingered on the daughters of their so-called friends. The smile on some women’s faces as their fingers trailed loose circles on the men’s shirts. She felt a shiver run up her spine as her father’s hand touched her back, ushering her towards someone she didn’t recognize. This was all she was, a possession to her parents, to be won by one; the one that was most influential.

Tony lingered by the bar, a girl he didn’t know hanging by his every word. The conversation was little and far-between, but every time he spoke even one word of acknowledgement towards her she would giggle and bat her butterfly eyelashes at him. A smirk pulled at his lips as he watched her eyes focus on someone behind him, widening with every second that passed. He had a feeling of just who was the presence behind him, and the voice that followed that presence just proved his feeling to be right.

“Son, I have someone I would like you to meet.” Howard’s hand came down on his shoulder, the woman Tony had been talking to leaving with just one disapproving glance from the well-known inventor.

Tony stood up and followed his father, words of conflict on his lips, and yet his lungs couldn’t form breath to let those words roam free.

First, his eyes fell on a man. His hair was gray and his face was ridden by wrinkles, but Tony knew this man was no older than 40. John Persico, Junior, the one and only boss of the one and only New York City mafia. He shook hands with the man, not batting an eye when his grip was way too strong.

Then, his eyes fell on a woman, much younger than who he assumed to be her husband. Her smile was bright and charming as she shook his hand, but he knew that she was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Adriana Persico, the woman behind every move of the Colombo crime family.

He wondered, how out of so many people at that damn party, his father wanted to introduce him to the ones that could most likely kill him without any remorse.

And then, he saw her. A girl, her smile shy and her eyes fearful. Her trembling hands only proved what he feared to be right. Her eyes shifted and her shoulders slumped as her father pushed her forward.

“This is my daughter, Y/N, I’m sure you’ll become great friends,” he said.

And great friends they did become, though not like her parents had expected.

At first, when Tony first got to know Y/N, at that same party, he thought she was just another girl. A pretty girl, hell, gorgeous even. But she was just that, a pretty face with no personality. Just like all the others.

Of course, he didn’t plan to see her ever again, but his father had other plans, forcing him over and over again to take the girl out. They went to the park, to the movies, out to dance. Seemingly everywhere, just to get them together.

At first, he thought she was just another pawn in their parents’ games, just like him. At first, he thought she didn’t have a mind of her own, since he had never had to talk so much about himself while with a girl. Most of them just liked blabbing away about anything and everything. But not Y/N. She listened to what he had to say, only giving him small affirmation that she was indeed listening. Indicating that he wasn’t just talking to himself.

Then, without his father telling him to, he found himself calling her and meeting her more and more often. And when he did that, he started noticing the real Y/N, in-between fragments of a broken, fearful mind.

And that Y/N, she was simply and utterly beautiful. She could keep up with his banter and his wit. He could talk science with her and not feel as though he was talking to a brick. She challenged his ideas about robotics and astrophysics, coming up with ideas of her own and shutting down some of Tony’s which she deemed “too crazy”. Y/N had a certain spark to her, one that he was certain he would never grow bored of, and so he was sure he would never grow bored of her. And it wasn’t long until Tony noticed that that thing he was feeling whenever he was around her had grown from worry and friendship to something more. Fondness. Care. Appreciation. Love.

He longed to see her Y/E/C eyes staring at him in that way only she could. He longed to hear her voice and her contagious laughter whenever she wasn’t around him. He wished for the touch of her hand, even though she never had granted it to him. And he feared she never would. And he feared what he felt for her would never be reciprocated. And he feared that this same feeling would swallow him whole and break him from the inside out.

And so he didn’t meet her anymore. Not because he didn’t wish to, but because he was too scared, and that in itself terrified him.

But then there she was. Standing tall and proud in her flowy, golden, silk dress, looking like a goddess with her hair flowing freely behind her as she walked from guest to guest at yet another one of his father’s party. And he couldn’t help but watch and admire.

She must’ve felt his eyes on her, because as soon as she turned once more, her eyes fell on him and a smile spread over her lips. He watched as she made her way towards him, swallowing dryly as that feeling returned, clawing at his heart.

“Hey there, jackass,” she said, eyes as bright as bright, or maybe even brighter than he remembered them to be.

“Hey, honey.” His eyes couldn’t move, or rather he didn’t want to move them as he took in all of her.

“So…” she tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear as she took a seat next to him by the bar, “What’s got you so busy the last few weeks?”

“Oh, nothing…” he lied, “You know how it is…” He found himself tongue-tied. He couldn’t believe it. Him. The Anthony Edward Stark. Tongue-tied because of some girl. Only, it wasn’t just some girl. It was Y/N. And that made a whole world of difference.

“That’s so…” Y/N took a sip of her champagne, eyes trailing down. She knew he was avoiding her, though he didn’t really have to do a lot of avoiding, since they didn’t really run in the same circles. But she knew something had changed in him. Something had shifted as his eyes finally snapped away from her and shifted between everything and everyone at the party. “We’re okay though, right?” she asked.

“Hmm?” Tony muttered, not entirely sure what she meant.

“We’re still friends… right?” she asked.

Tony wished nothing more than to yell “No! We can’t be friends! Friends don’t look at each other like we do. Friends don’t understand each other like we do.”. Instead, he settled for a “Yeah… sure.”

“Great!” She smiled that brilliant smile of hers, a smile he really hoped was reserved only for him. “’Cause I’ve got this great theory about Einstein’s theory of relativity and I can’t really discuss it with anyone but you.”

And she started explaining and talking animatedly about whatever nonsense she had come up with. And he stood and listened and gave her more nonsensical ideas. And for once he understood why his father had been so adamant about him meeting her. She was a girl, subjugated by the weight of her family’s words and rules, but it seemed like Howard had seen something in her that no one else had. Maybe it had been that spark that Tony could see now, or maybe not. But he couldn’t help himself as he watched this girl, so much more stunning than the shadow of herself that she used to be, and the words simply slipped out of his mouth.

“You know… I’m usually smooth and stuff but… how about I take you out sometime?”

She smiled and nodded, pink dusting her cheeks as she stared into her glass of golden, sparkling alcohol.

“It’s a date.”

And just like he already knew and predicted, he never grew tired of her. There was always something new and unexpected about her. Like the time when she had tried to cook for them only for it to come out a mess. Or the time she helped him build the robot for MIT’s Robotics contest. He reaped the rewards for their work, but she didn’t mind. She was simply proud to see their work out there and being acknowledged by so many people.

To put it simply, he was happy with her by his side, and she was happiest whenever he was by hers.

But then, reality came crashing down, just like the responsibility that Tony’s parents had tried to shield him from.

His eyes widened as the call from the police came. His heartbeat stammered in his chest and his breathing stuttered. “We’re sorry to inform you but your parents seemed to have been in an accident. Their car collided with a tree and they both died on impact.” the voice had said before he hung up.

The funeral was just a few days later. She was by his side, but he couldn’t help but see her as somewhat of a gift for him. A gift and a blessing his father had bestowed on him. She reminded him of Howard and he simply couldn’t take it. It was enough that he had lost both his parents. He didn’t want something to remind him of that every damn day.

Y/N walked into his apartment, looking out for the pieces of shattered glass that littered the floor. She stepped directly into his living room, where he laid on the couch, empty bottle of whiskey in one hand, the back of his other arm laying over his eyes. She didn’t know what to say, but she knew that nothing that she could say or do would make it any easier or better.

“Tony… you should really stop. They wouldn’t want this for you.” She walked over to him, taking the bottle and placing it down on the floor. Her hand grasped his and he squeezed it tightly, before his hand went limp once again.

“How do you know what they would want for me?” he asked.

Her eyes widened, her hand gripping his tightly. She knew he was trying to push her away, but she wouldn’t go without a fight. “I don’t know… But no parent would want this for their child.” She squeezed her eyes shut as the words left a sour taste in her mouth, almost like they’d burnt her tongue. She knew what she said wasn’t true. There were parents out there who didn’t care what their kids went through, as long as those kids behaved. “I know Howard and Maria loved you,” she said, “I know they cared for you, and I know they would’ve never left you if they could’ve helped it.”

Suddenly, he snatched his hand from hers as he stood. He paced back and forth, hands clawing over his face as he took a deep breath. “You don’t know anything. Howard… he was nothing but a… a leech that only came to me when I would be of some use to him!” he screamed, “I was not his son! I was not family! Hell I wasn’t even human! I was just a pawn in that sick, twisted game of his!” He turned to her, eyes scanning her shrinking stature. “But not anymore! No! I won’t play his game even after he died!”

“What… what do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean that I’m moving, Y/N. I mean that I don’t want anything to do with anything that has his… his damn signature on it.”

She nodded. “Where are you taking us?”

“ ‘Us’?” he took a deep breath, “Y/N… there is no ‘us’. There was never an ‘us’.”

Y/N simply nodded, expression as stoic as stone. Tears slowly welled in her eyes, but he was right. They had never actually put a label on whatever it was that they had. You couldn’t lose something you never had in the first place. Nothing gained, nothing lost.

He watched as she grabbed her bag from the couch, nodding once again as a goodbye before turning to head for the door. He watched as her shoulders slumped and her head dropped, and he willed everything he had just said out of existence. But he knew that the words couldn’t be taken back. This was his decision, after all. So he settled for a simple “Don’t cry for me. I’m just a jackass. You know that.”.

She turned her head, taking a last glance at him. “I know. No need to cry. There was never an ‘us’ anyway… right?” She shook her head. That couldn’t be right. It didn’t feel right. “But if there was never an ‘us’… then what about every. Single. Day we spent together? What about the way you talked about a future that I would be in? Why did you make me believe there was an ‘us’?!” she screamed. He could feel her words resonate within him. This was exactly what he had been afraid of: that feeling he had for her breaking him. That feeling taking over whatever conscience he had underneath all the alcohol he had just consumed. “Why did you make me believe that you loved me?” she whispered brokenly.

He took a deep breath, words caught in his throat. Until, finally, he forced them out. “I never loved you.”

The sob that shook her body was heartbreaking, even for his inebriated state, as she nodded once again and walked out of the room.

Taglist: @artisticlales

#tony stark #tony stark x reader #tony stark fanfiction #tony stark fanfic #tony stark fic #tony stark imagines #tony stark imagine #tony stark reader insert #iron man #iron man x reader #iron man fanfiction #iron man fanfic #iron man fic #iron man imagines #iron man imagine #iron man reader insert #tony stark x you #iron man x you #Robert Downey Jr #robert downey jr x reader #robert downey jr fanfiction #robert downey jr fanfic #robert downey jr fic #robert downey jr x you

[asiryn]

tagged by @primrose-path-of-dalliance (!!!!!! thanks!!! (lmao, it’s been so long since i’ve been tagged in anything XDD))

Rules: Name your top 10 favourite characters from 10 different fandoms, then tag 10 people!

i’m putting this behind a cut, bc i rambled on for quite a while XDD these won’t be in any particular order, and the fandoms will be chosen based off of what i’m currently most into/whichever ones i think of first XD

1. Maleficent [Disney]

okay, i lied a little.....she is clearly my #1 favorite character of all time, so of course she’s first (the rest of the list won’t be in any particular order :P). but....yeah, i love her forever and for all time and eternity, i love her class and elegance, my hunt for all merchandise of her that i can get my hands on is legendary and knows no bounds, she’s my forever girl, etc, etc. if you know only one fact about me, it’s probably that i love maleficent. there’s nothing i can say here that i haven’t probably already said a million times over, so i’ll move on XD

(moana has risen to be a pretty close second, tho)

2. Anthony J. Crowley [Good Omens]

i read the book from a library over a decade ago, and i liked it well enough, but it like....wasn’t an instant new fave that i had to immediately buy for myself (tho it is on a list of books that i wouldn’t mind owning...but maybe it’s finally time, who knows). i’m halfway through the show, and i’ve finally fallen in love with it (i think it finally being a #confirmed love story between our favorite ineffable idiots finally gave it the push it needed XD). it’s still a bit early for me to have a solid, definite fave, but lbr, if i know myself at all, it’s gonna be crowley XD i love this dumb demon (who’s rivaled in his idiocy only by his equally dumb angel husband), i love how he’s so soft even as he tries desperately to convince himself and everyone else that he isn’t, that he loves so many things and humanity and an angel even as he tries to say that he isn’t capable of it, that he never stopped questioning even after it had made him Fall. also, i am so thankful that the fandom has really embraced the potential for the shenanigans of crowley’s snake form.👍

(second place is probably aziraphale, but i also really love anathema too)

3. Namine [Kingdom Hearts]

another one that probably comes as no surprise, if you know me. i love this girl to the ends of the universe. i love the way she reclaimed her agency, her selflessness and determination, her empathy and kindness, how she went from a damsel in distress to pretty much saving everyone, over and over and over again. she deserves only happiness and the best things from now on. and please, for the love of god, give her some new clothes, nomura. >_>

(second fave is roxas, tho really, i love 98% of all the characters in this series ;;;)

4. Aerith Gainsborough [Final Fantasy VII]

my precious sunshine girl 💖 i prefer her in the original game, where she was sweet and optimistic, yes, but she was also sassy and fierce and took shit from no one. i love the girl that decided she wanted to wear a sexy red dress just for the hell of it, and threatened to rip off a mafia don’s balls. i love the girl that was confident and flirty with cloud, but never let any kind of bullshit ‘rivalry’ get in the way of being friends with tifa. i love that she always called cloud out on his bullshit, that she never let tragedy and oppressive shinra forces grind out her optimism, that she never stopped dreaming of a better future. i love that she was exposed to the worst of human nature, and yet still believed that they were worth saving. i love all versions of aerith, obvs, but they’ve definitely smoothed out her edges over the years, and i think that’s a shame. so here’s hoping that she’ll be more like her original self in the remake. 

also, can’t wait to see aerith die again :)))))))

(my second fave tends to flip between cloud and sephiroth)

5. Ling Yao / Greed [Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood]

look. listen. i can’t choose between them, i just can’t. and hey....technically they sort of combine into one entity, so it’s totally fine to count them together, right?? XDD so yeah, it’s really fucking hard to pick a fave out of this cast, bc there’s only like....3 characters?? that i don’t love. but ultimately, it had to be these two. every single second they’re on screen, they totally steal the show, and they have a lot of the best scenes and moments in the series. i love ling, how he seems like a total goofball and comic relief at first, but fairly quickly you come to see just how fucking seriously he takes his duties and responsibilities, how selfless and devoted he is to his people, how he would walk through hellfire for the people he loves. he’s just....he just loves, so fiercely and intensely, that he moves even greed into loving him and the people he cares about without even trying. 

and then there’s greed, who even from the beginning, you can’t help but be charmed by, with his sarcastic slow claps and laidback attitude. but over time, you see that he’s just like ling, really, in that he can’t help but get attached to these humans, that he loves them just as fiercely and intensely, even as he desperately tries to play it off. i love the way his character serves as a means for the story to have a really thought-provoking rumination on the nature of sins and desires, and on humanity (as do all of the other homunculi). i could go on forever about these two, and about the show in general, bc it’s just so deep and incredibly layered and complex, so i’ll stop here. 

(next fave after them is winry)

6. Bucky Barnes [MCU]

it’s hard for me to talk about bucky without just dissolving into endless sobbing, but i’ll try my best. he’s just.....he’s someone who has ended up suffering so fucking much, who has every reason in the world to be angry and bitter and resentful and if this was the villain origin story, you’d probably find it hard to blame him. (also, i refuse to say that bucky was ever a villain, bc he never willingly chose to be with hydra, he’s a victim goddamn it--) and yet....he still chooses to be good. to be kind. he could have chosen to go on an endless revenge tour against hydra, but instead he focuses on his own recovery. and always, always, always, he puts other people first. he chooses to goddamn freeze himself, possibly forever, so that he doesn’t hurt people again. he’s truly an inspiration to me, because even after everything he’s been through, he still doesn’t give up. ......and if you’ll excuse me, i need to resume crying about bucky barnes for the rest of eternity 😭😭😭

(next faves are sam and steve. what can i say, i love my caps XP)

7. Keladry of Mindelan [Tortall]

speaking of inspirations, few (if any) characters inspire me more than kel does. unlike every other tortall protagonist, she has absolutely no magic at all, and she starts her story with more odds stacked against her than any of the others. the system and institution are against her, and most people actively, viciously hate her and want to see her fail, all for being a girl and daring to openly step outside of her gender roles. and yet, kel never gives up, and wins through pure will and determination. more than that, she never stops fighting any oppression that she sees, and is always looking out for the abused and marginalized of society. she is fair and just and righteous, and full of a quiet, immovable strength that i, frankly, envy. she’s a fucking mountain; you haven’t a hope of ever tearing her down. 

(other faves....george, raoul, and dom. it’s really fucking hard to choose between them, i can’t even)

8. Oree Shoth [Inheritance trilogy, by N. K. Jemison]

oree is pretty much single-handedly responsible for me loving this trilogy, and is the reason why The Broken Kingdoms (the second book, of which she is the protagonist) is in my top 3 favorite books of all time. she is....just so fucking radiant. she’s a blind artist, and is flung so far out of her depth in the story, and yet she holds her own. in this world of gods, she brings this incredibly human element, and is celebrated because of her humanity. she’s angry and flawed, but also full of love, compassion, kindness, and mercy. she teaches gods the meaning of forgiveness. she takes shit from no one. just....do yourself a favor, and read this series, even if it’s only so that you can read this book. 

(second fave....it’s probably shiny, lbr XD)

9. Sirius Black [Harry Potter]

ahhh, a classic fave. but yeah, i still love him, even after all these years. yes, he’s incredibly flawed, but at his core, he’s just so loyal, and he loves so fiercely, and he tries his absolute best to be there for harry, that i can’t help but love him. also, i have a Thing, for characters who suffer so tremendously, but who don’t give up, and still try their best to be good people anyway. also, wolfstar was the foundation of a very formative part of my life, and put me onto the road of accepting my queer identity, so i’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for the characters who were a part of that. 🤷‍♀️

(other faves are luna and harry, always)

10. Gladion [Pokemon]

mostly his anime incarnation, tho i do like him in the games as well. i love this soft goth boy with all of my heart. he’s so gentle and kind and loving, and i can’t even with him. 

(other faves are lillie, n, zoey, and kukui)

if you guys want to do it, i’ll tag... @dabiden, @green-piggy, @seasbelow, @theroyalweekend, @toomanyfeelings5, @ashetrashe, @neddea.....i can’t think of anyone else, and i’m running out of steam, so if you want to do it, then consider yourself tagged! :)

#kiryn rambles #ask meme #tag meme #primrose-path-of-dalliance #favorite characters #maleficent #crowley #namine #aerith gainsborough #ling yao #greed #greed the avaricious #bucky barnes #keladry of mindelan #oree shoth #sirius black #gladion