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cryptomiracle · 1 year

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Blue aura (eyeless jack x reader) pt 4

I've decided to give this more parts than I initially said, because there's nothing I love more than a slow burn, and I realized if I only made 4-5 parts, I'd have to rush ej and y/n's relationship, or make two REALLY long chapters 💀.

Read pt 1

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Read pt 2

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Read pt 3

Warnings: mention of alcohol, cigarettes, cursing, police, murder, and guns.

Readers POV:

It was 5:30 am, usually at this time you'd be eating breakfast, and then getting ready for work.

but instead, here you were. sitting in your bed, wrapped in your blanket, staring at your dying computer screen.

You'd been researching the "Slenderman" for hours, yet you couldn't find any reliable source, just a bunch of bullshit websites that were filled to the brim with pop-ups, and sketchy "external links"

By this point you were starting to believe that all of this was fake, that the video you found was just some stupid video made to scare people.

But if it was, how did he know about the animal revival thing?

All of this was giving you a migraine, so you decided to give up for the day, and come back to it later.

You kicked your legs over to the side of the bed, you lifted your arms above your head and stretched.

You stood up, your legs were sore from sitting in the same position for hours at a time.

You walked over to your closet, and pulled out your work shirt.

You got dressed, and walked into the living room.

You decided to just get something to eat at work.

You grabbed your keys, wallet, and your phone and headed out the door.

You got into your car, little raindrops falling onto your windshield.

The sky was grey and cloudy, the pitter patter of the rain making you sleepy.

You ignored the tiredness and made your way to work.

----

(this next part will probably not be accurate, because I have no clue how it works on crime scenes, or how they interview possible culprits.)

You finally got to work, only to find multiple cop cars surrounding the building.

You parked on the side of the road, pulled up the hood of your jacket so you wouldn't get wet, and walked under the police tape.

You also noticed that marks car was still there.

Your heart beat increased

Maybe someone tried to rob the store, or maybe there was a fire or something else.

You were sure that mark called the police, and that's why they're there.

There's no way something bad happened to someone as strong as mark.

Right?

Usually by this time he'd be gone.

You quickly made your way to the front of the building where you saw mrs mitchell

She had her head in her shaky hands, her chest was heaving up and down.

y/n: "mrs mitchell?"

She pulled her head away from her hands to look at you, she looked extremely distressed.

Her clothes were soaked, and so was her hair.

Tears were streaming down her face, her teary eyed husband, mr mitchell was right beside her, hugging her from the side.

Mr mitchell: "y/n-"

He was quickly cut off when a police officer tapped you on the shoulder

He had blonde messy hair, a little stubble, and black rimmed glasses.

???: "are you a relative, or a family friend?"

His voice was husky, and by his tone, it was apparent that he was mad about something .

Y/n: "I'm a family friend, but I also work here, what happened?"

Mrs Mitchell started crying again, her sobs growing louder each time.

???: "Come with me."

He harshly grabbed you by the arm, making the hood of your jacket fall back, and dragged you into the store.

Along the way, you saw a red stream of water running from the side of the building.

Red?

Your heart sunk.

He walked into the store, still dragging you along.

There you saw another man, he had a serious look on his face.

He was bald, he had a beard, and he was quite tall.

He turned to look at you, by the looks of it, he was a detective.

The officer dragged you to a booth and sat you down.

???: "Now you stay right here."

His voice was demanding, but it had another layer to it, maybe malice?

He walked away from you and over to the detective.

They were talking about something, but it wasn't loud enough for you to hear.

It wasn't long until the detective walked over to your booth.

Detective ??: "Well hello, I'm andre smith."

His voice was not as deep, and angry sounding as the other officer, he had a gentle energy surrounding him.

He sat himself down in the booth, right across from you.

Y/n: "y/n, l/n.."

Andre: "now, i'm sure you're confused.."

You slowly shook your head yes.

Y/n: "what happened??"

He hesitated for a moment

Andre: "I'm gonna put this as blunt as possible."

He sighed, and readjusted his tie.

Andre: "your coworker was found bludgeoned to death about an hour ago."

You looked like a deer in headlights.

you knew you shouldn't have left him alone.

Yet you did.

It's your fault.

It's your fault he died.

Andre: "the manager of the auto part store across from here found him, he was-"

He took a sharp breath in, then cleared his throat.

Andre: "he was so unrecognizable, the only way we knew it was him was because of his name tag."

You didn't even notice the tears that started streaming down your face, you just sat there, in a state of shock.

Andre looked away for a second before he started speaking again.

Andre: "it also looks like the culprit took things from the store as well."

He reached, and grabbed a few napkins out of the dispenser, and handed them to you.

His wedding ring glimmered in the light.

Andre: "hey Marshall!" he shouted.

And over came the other cop, the rude one.

Andre: "this is my partner Marshall, Marshall Lambert."

Marshall slightly rolled his eyes.

Andre: "I know this is probably hard for you to handle, but if you don't mind, we'd like to ask you some questions.."

Ejs POV:

He walked through the woods, sticks and leaves crunching under his boots

It took him about an hour to make it home, and other than almost getting hit by a car, the walk home seemed alright.

But then again, I guess just about anything would seem alright if you're tipsy enough.

He finally made it to his cabin, the door creaked when he opened it.

He barely made it in without falling.

He closed the door, and slammed his back against the wall.

There he saw a certain killer laying on his couch.

Ej: "Jeff.. what the fuck are you still doing here?"

He leaned against the wall, and brushed his hands through his hair.

Jeff: "what, are you blind?"

He slightly chuckled and got off the wall, he walked to the couch, and pushed the jeff's legs onto the back of the couch.

He flopped down, making dust fly everywhere.

Ej: "I kinda hoped seedeater would've eaten you by now."

He exclaimed

Jeff: "ha ha... so funny."

He rolled his eyes.

Jeff: "you got my cigarettes?"

He looked at the bag in jacks hand.

Jack reached down, and pulled out the pack of cigarettes.

He handed them to jeff.

Jeff: "Shanks? This brand is ass. There weren't any others??"

Ej: "the lights were out, and I couldn't see."

Jeff groaned as he sat up against the arm of the couch.

He opened the box, and pulled one out.

He held the cigarette between his lips.

He got a lighter out of his pocket and lit it.

He leaned his head back, and took a long drag from it.

Ej: "I told you to get out of here once you started to feel better."

Ej: "you should've been better by last week"

Jeff let out a puff of smoke, before looking back at jack.

Jeff: "*cough cough* aye, but I've got the black lung sir"

He said while attempting a British accent.

Jack sighed.

Right then jeffs stomach started growling

Ej slowly turned his head towards Jeff.

Ej: "you want some takeout?"

Jeff started smiling, making his scars grow wider.

Jeff: "hell yeah!"

Ej: "fine.. but you're driving, my head is pounding."

Jeff lifted an eyebrow, confusion apparent on his face.

Jeff: "we don't have a car dumbass."

Ej: "then we'll just have to get one."

His mask slightly moved, it was clear he was smiling under it.

------

The two men crept through the bushes of a scrapyard, they had their sights on an 1990 Honda Accord

A headlight was missing, one of the doors was a completely different color, and the back windshield was cracked.

It was a hoopty.

The perfect car for two serial killers going for some takeout.

Jeff grabbed a rock and made his way over to it.

Ej: "what are you-"

*𝙎𝙈𝘼𝙎𝙃*

If ej had eyes, they'd be wide open.

Jeff climbed through the broken window

Not long after, the car started sputtering, after a few tries, it finally started.

Jeff: "are you coming or what?"

He yelled, he clearly wasn't worried about alerting the owners.

Jack ran out of the bushes, and to the passengers side.

He pulled the door handle, but it wouldn't open.

Ej: "unlock the door Jeff.."

He continuously pulled on the door, if he pulled any harder he'd probably rip the door off.

Jeff: "it is unlocked, the doors just fucked up."

He loosened his grip on the handle, before finally letting go.

Jeff: "looks like you'll have to sit in the back"

He gave ej a shit eating grin

He reached behind the passenger seat and opened the back door.

Ej squeezed in the back, his legs were too long so he had to hold his knees up.

His head touched the roof of the car.

Jeff put the car in reverse, the car screeched as he took off.

He turned the radio on, some rock song blearing.

Right as he started to put it into drive, an old man came out of the building, he had a pistol in his hand.

Jeff: "oh shit!" He cackled.

Jeff slammed on the gas, making ejs head fly back.

The old man started shooting at them, but luckily he was missing most of the shots.

The man was yelling, but his words were unintelligible.

Jeff: "GET DOWN JACK, GET DOWN!!"

He yelled

Ej: "I CANT GET DOWN"

He yelled back, while digging his claws into the passengers seat.

Jeff took a tight right turn, causing ej to fall down into the backseat, ripping the passengers seat, causing cotton from the seat to fly everywhere.

The man shot at them again, this time breaking the backseat windows.

The old man shot at them once more, but they were too far away.

Jeff: "WHOO!"

He was laughing so hard he could barely breathe, while ej was still holding on for dear life.

----

They finally arrived at their destination.

Jeff turned off the car, and lit another cigarette.

The rain hitting the windshield, creating a comforting atmosphere.

Ej: "hey jeff.."

Jeff: "yeah?"

He turned his head around to look at ej.

Ej: "mask, or no mask?"

He removed his mask.

Jeff: "oh dear GOD.."

He dramatically gasped, and covered his mouth with his hand.

Jeff: "yeah, you should probably keep that on."

He said as he took another hit of his cigarette before putting it out.

Jack huffed, and pulled the hood of his jacket up.

Ej: "whatever man.. let's go."

They got out, and ran through the rain.

They quickly walked into the restaurant, the bell on the door making a familiar jingle.

A little old lady came out from the kitchen.

???: "Hello, welcome to-"

She gasped, her eyes widening.

Jeff: "yo, we're here to pick up an order for..."

Jeff looked at ej expectantly, but he was focused on the downpour outside.

Jeff: "dude."

He nudged jack, causing him to snap back to reality

Ej: "oh uh- Roy."

Jeff: "PFFTT ROY??"

He burst out laughing

Ej: "well that's your name isn't it?"

Jeff: "that ain't my fucking name"

Jeff stopped laughing, and harshly elbowed EJ.

???: "I'll- I'll get that right away!"

She quickly rushed off, back into the kitchen.

When she came back, she was holding a carryout bag.

She handed Jeff the bag, her hands were shaking, and she refused to make eye contact.

She went over to the cash register.

???: "That'll be 15,95"

Jeff: "you disrespect our looks, take forever to get us our food, and now you expect us to pay such a heinous amount of money? Ugh, I'll be leaving you a bad review on yelp."

He crossed his arms, and walked out the door.

Ej: "sorry about him.. he's uh- he's drunk."

He gave her a slight smile, showcasing his fangs.

He pulled out his wallet and handed her the money.

Ej: "keep the change."

#creepypasta #headcanon #creepypasta headcanon #fanfic #jeff the killer #eyeless jack #blue aura #eyeless jack x reader #eyeless jack fanfic #jeffery woods

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thegreatobsesso · 1 year

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Snippet // Update

Callie POV

“I live a structured life,” Ken stated as her stupid dog took off ahead of them, leaving paw-shaped divots in the mud. “I guess that’s probably a foreign concept to you.”

“Actually, it’s not. I spent a few years in a super-structured singles resort you’d probably love called Downing Bay.”

A snort of laughter escaped Ken’s nose. Callie’d never heard her laugh before. That wasn’t strange. None of them were doing much laughing these days.

That wasn’t fair.

“Here,” Ken said, indicating the space between two rocks carved with Roman numerals. “This is us.”

The dog made sure there was nothing in the way but Callie assumed Ken knew their location by the proximity of the surrounding magic. The protective dome glittered in front of them like a giant, curved circuitboard lit by colors puked from a unicorn, undulating softly like a bubble in flight.

The external threat of this arc involves the government foisting their prejudices onto magicians’ bodies - I know right, what kind of government would ever? - but the emotional heart of it is Callie learning she actually has feelings and opinions outside of what happens to her personally. And it’s really fun to play with; I really like the scenes of her realizing in various degrees, oh shit, I care about this. Why do I care about this? Is it even valid for me, An Idiot, to have thoughts about this?

I guess that’s a journey I went on ~15 years ago, and I’m pulling it up and magnifying it to an extreme degree and giving to Callie. <3

#oc: callie #oc: ken #my WIP #the insuppressible callie ray #writing snippet #original writing #original novel #callie hates dogs for the same reason she hates simon: they like her and she doesn't understand why #I love dogs #it hurts me to write things like *stupid dog*#but that's Callie for ya

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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Lan zhan was trasformed into a dog during a nighthunt and now wwx has to find a solution.

He's distraugh, terrorized, but that's Lan zhan, his husband, the love of his life, he would never hurt him, but even knowing all that his mind is still irrationally screaming at him to run, that it's not safe.

And he feels stupid, his husband is the one cursed, and he can't comfort him, he's so selfish for him to need comfort right now.

Other people don't understand this, they'd ask him why is he being so difficult, why couldn't he try to behave normally.

Just people realising how hard Is for him and not using It as a comic relief would be awesome.

Maybe an external pov? Whatever you'll do will be awesome anyway <3

sequel to this fic (LWJ turned into a puppy)

“Oh, fuck off,” Jiang Cheng shouted, and Wei Wuxian, sitting on his bed and still shaking, lifted his head like a dog that just caught an enticing scent.

Probably not the best metaphor to use at the moment. Or at all, really.

Either way, Jiang Cheng was angry at someone, and that was usually a pretty good distraction from, well, just about anything. At least, it had been when they were younger, but that was because Jiang Cheng being angry was usually the prelude to Jiang Cheng doing something stupid which was, in turn, the prelude for a whole bunch of trouble.

Wei Wuxian could use some trouble to distract himself with.

Though – now that he thought about it, he couldn’t quite figure out why Jiang Cheng was doing here, in the Cloud Recesses, much less why he was angry.

He inched towards to the door to try to hear the voices, that had dropped down to a murmur.

“It’s none of your fucking business, that’s what it is,” Jiang Cheng was saying, very rudely. “How long did Hanguang-jun manage without him? He’s not dead or even injured. Temporarily inconvenienced at best.”

Wei Wuxian flinched.

Right.

They were talking about – that.

It wasn’t Lan Wangji’s fault that the water had turned him into a dog. It wasn’t even his fault for getting into it at all; he’d been against it entirely, with Wei Wuxian pushing to try it out – he’d only been indulgent as he always was, loving and cherishing Wei Wuxian too much. If anything, it could be argued that it served Wei Wuxian right for what had come out of there.

(Large and covered in shaggy fur, with wickedly large teeth to bite and strong legs to give chase, pointed snout and ears to better uncover any place he might hide -)

He’d fled, of course. Right back to the jingshi, and as he’d expected Lan Wangji had been considerate enough not to follow him – except the effects of the pool apparently took some time to wear off, and it might be days before…

He’d promised Lan Wangji every day. He hadn’t meant to break his word so quickly.

But he just couldn’t.

Obviously that was what was being discussed outside: how Wei Wuxian ought to be comforting his husband, who’d had his very humanity snatched away from him, rather than huddling inside their shared home; how it was ridiculous for him to be afraid when it wasn’t even a real dog, it was Lan Wangji, who would never harm him.

How he was just being stupid –

“It’s not stupid!” Jiang Cheng bellowed, almost as if he’d heard Wei Wuxian’s thoughts. “Are you completely brainless? Has Teacher Lan decided to give up on teaching anything useful? It doesn’t have to make sense! Fear doesn’t make sense!”

“But –” Some very brave and very unfortunate person decided to try to speak. “To have courage is to overcome your fears –”

“You’re a grown man, what do you know?” Jiang Cheng sneered. “It’s easy to speak of courage when you’re tall and strong, and hard when you’re small and weak – the injuries of childhood are the deepest and most lasting, just as memories are the most visceral when they are from the days when you didn’t know how to hold yourself separate. Do you really think the Yiling Patriarch is a coward? Do you not remember what he did for you, for all of you, at the Burial Mounds, using his own life to draw away the threat?”

Silence.

“So what if he’s afraid of dogs?” Jiang Cheng continued. “That’s his business, not yours!”

A familiar crackle – Zidian being unfurled.

“Anyone who wants to make something of it can come consult with me first!”

Footsteps, retreating rapidly, and then a very familiar tread, heading his way – Wei Wuxian pulled away from the door just moments before Jiang Cheng yanked it open, face red with irritation.

“The people here are stupid,” he told Wei Wuxian without any greeting. “I don’t know how you put up with it.”

“Habit,” Wei Wuxian said on automatic, and then pasted on a grin, though judging from Jiang Cheng’s expression he wasn’t doing a good job of it. “Anyway, aren’t you being hypocritical? You were the one who used Fairy against me…”

“That was because I was trying to torture you!” Jiang Cheng exclaimed, as if that was somehow a defense. “I wasn’t disrespecting you over it!”

…oddly enough, that did make Wei Wuxian feel better.

“Why are you here, anyway?” he asked, and Jiang Cheng shot him a look as if he was stupid. “For me?”

“Idiot,” Jiang Cheng grumbled. “Of course I’m here for you. Didn’t I say I’d protect you from them?”

He’d been very small at the time. Wei Wuxian hadn’t thought he’d remembered.

“Not that you care. I ought to have adopted a dozen dogs, it would’ve served you right…”

Jiang Cheng hadn’t adopted a single dog in the entire time Wei Wuxian had been dead. Even Fairy, Jin Ling’s beloved husky, had been a gift from Jin Guangyao, not Jiang Cheng.

Wei Wuxian abruptly felt warm.

“You’re not here to bully me into seeing Lan Zhan, are you?” he asked.

“Of course not! Like I want to spend any more time with that ice block than I need to!”

“Xichen-da-ge says he’s very adorable right now. All fuzzy pointy ears and big waving tail,” Wei Wuxian said, because he might be mortally afraid of dogs but tormenting his shidi was always the number one priority. “Like a poof ball, he says. And soft!”

Jiang Cheng visibly wavered.

“Shut up,” he said.

“You’d probably try to stick your face into his belly –”

“Hanguang-jun? Never! Not even if he was the softest, fluffiest, warmest, cutest…what was I saying?”

Wei Wuxian started giggling uncontrollably.

Yes, he thought happily: Jiang Cheng’s trouble really was the best sort of distraction.

#mdzs #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #my fic #my fics #betterthan-2-nothing

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fandomn00blr · 3 years

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OC Questionnaire

@cleverblackcat tagged me into this one a few days ago, and I started filling it out for Delilah Howe (not an OC...an adopted NPC!) and I am still working on it for her. But then @funkypoacher tagged me, and gave me specific permission to do it for *my* versions of Carver or Stroud...lol...

So anyway, here’s Stroud, everyone’s Warden Dad(...dy...? jk jk...unless?)

THE BASICS

Character’s name: Jean-Marc Stroud

Role in story: He’s your dad now...unless you’re Loghain and then he’s your infuriating boyfriend/husband whom you are absolutely smitten with...also, Warden-Commander of the Eastern Wardens after Dragon Age Awakening

Physical description: I feel a bit guilty constantly objectifying this poor man and his mustache, but he is just...*chef’s kiss* (Loghain’s POV, but also mine):

Stroud’s quite fit for a man his age, an unmistakably sturdy V-shaped torso atop well-muscled legs, with broad shoulders and strong, defined arms. He’s never quite realized just how chiseled and square his jaw is, either. And as his eyes rove over his face, he tries not to stare too longingly at his lips, which he’s already been acquainted with, though it feels like it’s been ages since that cave-in, and he certainly wouldn’t mind getting re-acquainted. With any part of him, really.

(LOGHAIN! STOP BEING SO HORNY FOR YOUR BOYFRIEND, YOU GRUMPY OLD BASTARD!)

MBTI/Enneagram Personality Type: IDK

INTERNAL LIFE

What is their greatest fear? Probably disappointing anyone who is depending on him for safety/protection/reassurance

Inner motivation: Is ‘just wants everyone to feel safe’ an inner motivation? No. Shoot. STROUD WHAT MOTIVATES YOU?! Oh, I know...the fact that he lost everyone and everything he cared about to the Game and instead of going on a fucking rampage, he internalized it and joined the Wardens so that their deaths wouldn’t have been a total waste. What’s that called?

Kryptonite: If one of his Warden ‘kids’ is hurting, it hurts him...doubly so if he can’t do anything about it.

What is their misbelief about the world? Ok, so this is a tough one. Dude has been through all of it, and still believes in the power of kindness and duty and compassion, but not in a naive way. He chooses it, right? So I wouldn’t call it a misbelief, but he genuinely believes everyone is capable of choosing good, or trying to do better, or whatever. Shut up. I’m not crying, I swear.

Lesson they need to learn: You can’t save ‘em all (he still has regrets about what happened with Anders and Justice).

What is the best thing in their life? His little Eastern Warden family...Vigil’s Keep comes to feel like home to him.

What is the worst thing in their life? The thought of ever having to deal with Orlesian politics again...which is why he’s so grumpy in Inquisition.

What do they most often look down on people for? He has very little patience for people who manipulate others for their own personal gain.

What makes his/her/their heart feel alive? Seeing his Wardens thrive/come into their own/embrace duty/grow/find love...I SAID I WASN’T CRYING!

What makes them feel loved, and who was the last person to make them feel that way? Stroud doesn’t need a lot of personal reassurance to know that people care about him and that he serves a purpose...but if someone goes out of their way to do something just for him, he absolutely falls apart. Loghain making an Orlesian-inspired dish for his birthday was the last thing I wrote of this variety, but I imagine that Loghain does a lot of stuff like that just to see Stroud’s cheerful stoicism obliterated...and also because he loves him.

Top three things they value most in life? Helping others/compassion, his found family, and his duty as a Warden (but not in, like, a stupid way...)

EXTERNAL LIFE

Is there an object they can’t bear to part with? He keeps a portrait of his family tucked away among his things...the only item he brought with him from his former life when Clarel recruited him to the Wardens.

Describe a typical outfit from top to bottom. Heavy silverite Warden armor while out on missions, over a dark blue quilted tunic with a silver embroidered griffon and leggings (?). All very official. Off-duty, he wears simple undyed cotton or wool tunics (they’re probably fitted well) and woolen breeches (also fitted...um...well...*fans self*). It’s hot. <- Loghain, again?! Yeesh...

What is their method of manipulation? He’s not big on manipulation (see above), but he knows how to get what he wants from Loghain by wiggling his mustache and just...staring at him...all twinkly-eyed. Maybe chuckling good-naturedly if he wants to bring out the big guns.

Describe their daily routine. (Whoops...I missed this one, I guess!) Wake up early. Breakfast and paperwork in his office. Meetings, etc later in the morning. Then lunch with Loghain somewhere outside, weather permitting. Meetings/more paperwork/drills and training in the afternoon. Dinner with everyone in the dining hall at the end of the day. Quiet evenings. Then bed!

Their go-to cure for a bad day? Feet up in front of a fire...some tea? Maybe with a bit of whiskey in it. And something sweet to munch on like cookies. Bonus if Loghain is there with his little shawl, reading or complaining to him, preferably both...

GOALS

How are they dissatisfied with their life? He still harbors a lot of anger and resentment toward the Game (I mean...), but he’s actually pretty satisfied with his life as a Warden.

What would bring them true happiness or contentment? This is the most selfless thing ever, but he would love to see Loghain and Anora reconciled.

What definitive step could they take to turn their dream into a reality? He would never, but he totally could invite Anora to dinner at Vigil’s Keep or something and pretend it was Loghain’s idea...lol. OMG...AU where Stroud is the meddling spouse...!!!

How has their fear kept them from taking this action already? Not so much fear as it is just respect for personal boundaries or whatever...

How do they feel they can accomplish their goal while still steering clear of the thing they are afraid of? He hopes Loghain will eventually reach out to his daughter himself, or Anora will force her way back into her father’s life. During Inquisition, Loghain and Alistair (who is King and married to Anora in this world state) have a bit of a scuffle, then manage to get over their shit (sort of), so Stroud has some hope that they’ll all figure it out eventually. He just won’t be there to see it cuz he stays in the Fade, the self-sacrificing bastard.

#dragon age #character questionnaire #it's a good thing yall keep tagging me in this stuff cuz i sure can't write #stroud #jean-marc stroud #best warden #best dad #best husband #best #loghain #stroghainoff #chokedamp and feelings #also in #warden hawke #together into the abyss #kieran #omg they're in like every fic I've written this past year

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seungmoroll · 4 years

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Heather | Han Jisung

Word count: 5.2k

Genre: slight angst, fluff, realization of feelings

A/N: this is the second part to Minho’s Heather, so if you haven’t already, you can read it here, though it’s not really necessary to read it. you can also read the other member’s here.

F/n = friend’s name

Jisungs POV

“No.”

“But-“

“No.”

“What happened to providing the best service to your customers?”

“Jisung,” they lock eyes with me before they continue their sentence, “I am not going to give you a large cup filled with pearls.”

“But I’m willing to pay for it.” I give them my best puppy dog eyes in hope that they’ll give up their resolve. I had a plan, and I refuse to let Y/n get in the way of it.

“Yeah, but I’m not willing to clean up the mess you’re going to make.” How did they know what I was going to do with the pearls?

“I-“

“I know exactly what you’re going to do with those tapioca pearls, and as much as I would love to see Changbin suffer, I refuse to clean up the boba you plan on spitting out at him.” Dang, they were spot on with my plan.

“Fine.” I reluctantly say. A look of content settles on their face, “Good.”

“I’ll just wait until Minho comes out.” A frown quickly replaces the look of content on their face. “No you will not.”

“Did I hear my name?” Minho pops out from the back room, making me quickly change my plan of attack. I will get the boba.

“Nope, no you didn’t. You can head back to the back room.” Y/n quickly says, trying to get Minho to leave.

“There’s my favorite CuTea worker,” I say in attempt to butter Minho up. I can feel the glare Y/n is giving me, but I ignore it and continue at my attempt to get my cup of boba, “Minho, you’ll get me a cup of pearls, right?”

He gives me a smirk, “Oh, we spitting them at Changbin?” This is why he was my favorite worker…right after Y/n.

“No, stop it right now. You do know that if you give him the pearls, we’re,” they motion their hand between the two of them, “the ones that are going to have to clean it up.”

Minho takes a moment to think before he tells me, “Yeah, sorry bud, I’d totally give you some, but I got places to be after work.” By places, he meant wherever Doyeon was, we all knew. Deciding to change the topic for the sake of Y/n, “Right. Y/n,” focusing my attention on them, “you doing anything after work tonight?”

Leaning against the counter, they say, “Uh yeah, going home to lay in the comfort of my bed.” Great. This meant good for me.

“Well not anymore.”

They quirk their eyebrow at me in confusion, “Excuse me?”

“You didn’t let me finish. Let’s go out.” This time it’s Minho who quirks his eyebrow at me, which I choose to ignore as I focus on Y/n. There’s a weird expression on their face, and then that’s when I realize that what I said sounded a bit weird.

“Like let’s hang out. You and me…as friends. Not like going out out.” I’m just making it worse and more awkward, aren’t I?

“I’d like to Sung, but I’m tired, and I need my sleep.” Oh, you have no idea how much I love it when you call me that name, Y/n.

“Then how about another time this week?”

“Hmmm, what about Wednesday?” That was two days from now.

“Wednesday? I can do that. You working that day?”

“Yeah, but I got an earlier shift, I’ll be done by 5.” Oh? This is working awfully well for me. I’m internally jumping up and down and pumping my fists, but externally I try to play it off nonchalantly.

“Great, it’s a date.” Keyword try. “Not like a date date, but you know.” Y/n starts to giggle at my way of trying to escape the awkwardness, and I swear that that was the sound you hear when the gates of heaven open. However, it sadly ends when the door opens, alerting the shop of a new customer. Getting out of the way for the customer, I stand off to the side of the counter, where Minho is suspiciously looking at me.

“Is there a problem? Is there something on my face?” I quickly grab my phone from my pocket to check myself through the reflection. Fortunately, there’s nothing, but it would’ve been so embarrassing if there was while I was talking to Y/n. Instead of responding, Minho just chuckles and shakes his head.

Before I can say anything to him, the door opens again, and I see that it’s F/n. They approach the three of us at the counter, “Hey guys.”

“Hey F/n.” Y/n’s angelic voice says. Minho gives them a curt nod.

“What can I get for you today?” Y/n asks F/n.

“Let’s see, I’ll have a strawberry banana smoothie with pearls.” Speaking of pearls, I open my mouth to say something to F/n, but Y/n stops me before I can get a single word out. “Don’t even think about it.”

In a second attempt to ask F/n, they cut me off, “I don’t want to know, nor do I want to participate in it.” Their response makes me visibly shrink.

After paying for their drink, F/n says to me, “We should sit down and get to work.” F/n and I were currently taking geology together, and we were paired together to work on a group project. We’ve been working on it for the past three weeks, and I was the one that had suggested we work on it at CuTea. Though, F/n wanted to work on the project at the library, but I like to believe that my cute charms made them change their mind.

Parting from Y/n and Minho, we go and sit down at a table, with me making sure that I have a good view of Y/n. It’s not like I creepily watch them or anything, but I enjoy those small moments when we meet each other’s eyes. However, I’m sure those moments mean nothing to Y/n. When Y/n approaches our table to serve F/n drink, I focus my attention on them as the smile brightly at me and walk away, back to behind the counter with Minho.

“So we only have these last few things to do before we can submit the project, and you’re not even listening to me.” A hand comes into view, bringing me back to focus on F/n. I can tell by their face that they’re not happy with me.

In attempt to make them happy, I tell them, “I was totally listening to you.”

They roll their eyes at me, “Sure, you were.” Playfully, I grab the straw wrapper that was on the table and ball it up, throwing it F/n for not believing me. They manage to dodge it and playfully glare at me.

“You like them, don’t you?” Confused, I tilt my head to the side in attempt to try to figure out what they mean.

Sighing, “Y/n. You like them, it’s obvious.” My eyes widen in shock at their statement. I’m not that obvious, am I? Maybe I should be surprised that F/n. They picked up on the smallest things, like the first week of us working together, they pointed out that I like to stuff my cheeks while I eat.

Leaning closer towards them, in case Minho, or worse, Y/n could hear us, “Is it?”

“You don’t treat me the same way you do them, so yeah, it’s quite obvious.” Of course I didn’t treat them the same.

“That’s because you’re you.” I could tell by the look on their face that my answer did not satisfy them. “I mean-“

“Don’t finish that sentence.” I slowly shut my mouth to prevent anymore words from spewing out of my mouth. I really need to work on thinking before speaking, it’s going to be a big problem for me one day.

“You plan on telling them?” I choke on my spit after hearing their question. After I manage to not die 7 feet away from Y/n, I look at F/n in bewilderment. Of course I thought about telling Y/n, but I shut down the idea every time. There were many obstacles in the way, and to be quite frank, I don’t think I can go around them.

“I don’t have a chance.” They cock their eyebrow at me encouraging me to continue.

“They like Minho. Liked Minho. I don’t know. Either way if they liked Minho then I definitely don’t have a chance.” I could definitely say that Minho was what everyone wanted in a man. He was handsome, smart, funny; he was even a good cat dad, which is what I found out from him after he spent half an hour showing me pictures of his cats. He was basically the whole package.

“Han Jisung. Don’t you dare put yourself down like that. You’re an amazing, sweet, funny guy, anyone that doesn’t like you has a problem.” I knew F/n was just saying that to make me feel better, but it was still nice to hear. However, I can’t help but squint my eyes at them in suspicion, “I think that was the nicest thing you’ve said to me, are you okay? Are you sick?” Reaching out, I place my hand on their forehead to check their temperature. Weird. They’re pretty warm. I can see them looking up at my hand in bewilderment, then all of a sudden, I feel a small tinge of pain in my arm. Clutching said arm, I dramatic express my pain, “Ow, what was that for?”

Instead of the devilish look I was expecting, there was what I think to be a hint of embarrassment on their face. I don’t know, but their face was quickly reddening.

“Hey, but seriously are you okay, you’re pretty warm and your face is turning red.” They quickly grab their face to hide it, “I’m fine, it’s just hot in here.” I checked the thermostat that’s located on the wall and see that it’s only at 70 degrees, which wasn’t hot at all, but decide against saying anything. Alternatively, I push their drink towards them, “Here take a sip of your drink.” Quickly they do as I say, and once they’ve taken a long sip, they say, “Let’s get started on this project.”

We spend about an hour and a half working on the project, and I can proudly say that I actually focused on my work and not Y/n. Though I was very much tempted when I heard her laugh, probably from what Minho said. Eventually we call it a day, with only a few small things that we have to go over remaining. “So when’s the next time we should meet? It’ll be the last time we have to work on this stupid project.”

“How about Wednesday? I was already planning on coming here, so we can just meet up here and finish everything up.”

A snicker escapes from their mouth, “You come here so often, aren’t you worried that it might seem odd?” I did think about that once, but I’ve already came up with an excuse in case anyone asked. “Don’t worry, if anyone asks, I just really like the drinks.”

I’m 100% sure that I hear the word obvious come out from their mouth. I can’t get a word in because Changbin comes barging in the door, “Jisung c’mon, get your butt moving.” Looking at Changbin then at Y/n, who’s by the counter with a knowing look on their face.

“You sure I can’t get that cup?” I ask Y/n.

Giggling while shaking their head, she says to Changbin, “It’s your lucky day, I saved you.” He cocks his head, unsure of what’s happening. As I come up to him, I tell him that it’s nothing.

The following day was possibly one of the worse days I’ve experienced. I had slept through my alarm causing me to miss two of my classes and then when I went to get lunch with Chan, I spilt my soup all over me. Which is why I decided to stop by CuTea, I needed to see Y/n to make my day better.

I barge into the door expecting to see the beautiful face that belongs to Y/n, but instead I am met with the sight of Minho at the counter. Confused, I look at the time on my watch and see that Y/n’s shift should have started already.

“They’re not here.” Minho says to me, continuing, “They took the day off.” I instinctively pout because I won’t be seeing Y/n today, meaning that I had to wait another day to see their angelic face. Instead of turning back around and leaving, I order a drink and as I wait for Minho to make it, he starts a conversation with me.

“You know that I know right?” Tilting my head, confused as ever, I watch as he slightly shakes his head at me. I had no idea what he was referring to.

“I know you like Y/n.” My eyes widen at his statement. Was I really that obvious? He was the second person to tell me that this week. Oh no, if Minho knows, then that means Y/n most likely knows too. Seeing the panic on my face, Minho reassures me, “Don’t worry, Y/n is oblivious. They don’t know.” I let out a sigh of relief. “Or maybe they do, and they choose to ignore it.” I can’t tell whether he’s joking or not, but either way, I don’t appreciate it.

“Don’t worry, I’m just messing with you.” Minho hands me my drink, and I eye him suspiciously as a take a sip of it. I’m sure he wants to laugh at the look I give him, but he goes on to say, “Why don’t we sit down and talk.” I hesitantly agree, but that’s because I’m slightly scared of him.

Sitting down at a table, I refuse to make eye contact with Minho. He keeps on giving me this look and I don’t know what it means, nor do I like it.

“There’s something else that I know.” Now looking at him, I can tell that what he wants to talk about it serious. “I know that Y/n likes me.” Oh. That’s not what I was expecting. So he knew? I wonder if Y/n knows that he knows. Maybe they didn’t want to tell me because they felt embarrassed.

Feigning innocence, I ask him, “Does she now?” He could be trying to play with me, and I wasn’t going to fall for it.

“Quit that, I know you know.” Well he’s no fun.

Quickly stopping my act, I ask him, “How’d you find out?”

“I’ve known for a while now. It was kind of obvious.” He wasn’t wrong there. Even I could tell before I started talking to Y/n. Hm, that’s something that we had in common, being obvious. Wait, now is not the time to focus on our similarities.

“Why didn’t you do anything about it?” I wasn’t mad or anything, well maybe just a little bit, but that was because he knew all along and never said anything to Y/n.

“I didn’t want to hurt them.” Is the excuse he gives me.

“It might be too late for that,” I sharply say.

He awkwardly rubs the back of his neck, “Yeah…I know. Look, I didn’t want to reject them and break their heart. I really like them as a friend and I just didn’t want to ruin that. Plus, I really like Doyeon.” That last part wasn’t necessary to add, but I don’t say anything about it. Instead I ask, “Why are you telling me all of this hyung?” Minho and I weren’t that close. Outside of Y/n and CuTea, we never talk to each other, so why would he tell me this?

“Like I said earlier, I know you like Y/n.” I had no idea where he was going with this conversation. “I think you should tell them.”

“No.” Why was everyone telling me to confess? Is it try to embarrass and ruin Jisung’s life week or something?

“And why not?”

“Because…” I look away from him as he sits there and waits for my answer. “Because?” I can’t believe I was really about to tell him this. I mumble out my answer, not wanting him to understand a single word I said. “Jisung.” I didn’t appreciate the tone he said my name in, but I also knew that I was being a bit childish.

“I said, because they don’t like me, and I don’t want to get rejected.” You can’t blame me for being scared of being rejected, I’m human after all.

“And what makes you think that will happen?”

“Did you just forget about our conversation earlier? They like you, not me, so of course I’m going to get rejected.” How many times do I have to say that Y/n like Minho? It’s starting to get annoying, especially since I have to say it to Minho himself.

“Who’s to say they don’t like you too?” What kind of question was that? There was no way that Y/n could like me.

“Did you like snort all the sugar back there or something? Y/n doesn’t like me, at least not in the way I want them to.”

“You won’t know until you do something.” That’s it, he was definitely crazy, either that he wanted me to see me suffer.

Instead of responding, I get up from my chair, “I should get going.”

“Leaving so soon?” This conversation was starting to get repetitive for me and I didn’t like it. I didn’t come here to make my day worse. I don’t respond to him once again, so he asks me, “Got things to do?”

In attempt to leave me alone, I say, “Yea, something like that.”

“Like confess to Y/n?” I don’t have to look at him to know that he’s smirking. I’m sure that if I were to turn around and face him, that my eyes would literally shoot daggers at him.

“Not going to happen.” I make my exit from the boba shop, and as make my way home, I can’t help but think about the conversation I had with Minho.

Today’s the day. The day I get to hang out with Y/n outside of CuTea. Yesterday might’ve been the worse day ever, but there was no way I was going to let anything ruin today. F/n and I were meeting up at 4 to finish up our project, and then I’ll be heading out with Y/n. We agreed to go to a restaurant to get dinner and then to the park just to talk. I’m bringing my skateboard because one time they mentioned how they wanted to learn how to ride one, so I thought this might be a chance to do so.

When arrive at CuTea later on that day, another worker is working the counter, I think their name is Sana. I’m assuming Y/n is in the back room. Once Sana has taken my order, I choose the same table from Monday to sit at, waiting for F/n to arrive.

Once they arrive, I motion for them to come sit down and slide a drink to their side of the table, “Here, I ordered your drink for you already.”

“Oh. Um, thanks.” Pulling out their laptop from their bag, we get started on the finishing touches. I didn’t bring me laptop since I was going out, so we had to share F/n’s laptop. After we finished what needed to be done, we reviewed everything to make sure that everything was there, but I was struggling to see the screen, so I grabbed, F/n’s chair and pulled it closer to me. I could tell that they were flustered from my action when they asked what I was doing.

“I can’t see the screen.”

“Oh. Um, sorry. Is it better now?” Nodding my head yes, we continue to review the final project. Though something feels off about F/n, it’s like they were emitting anxiousness.

“Hey are you okay?” They’re surprised by my question, but I can tell that there are other emotions they’re feeling.

“Jisung,” pause, “I like you.” Uh, did I just hear that right?

Turning to face my whole body towards them, I ask, “What are you going off about?” I wish that I didn’t turn because then I would’ve missed the way the visibly inflated.

“You can’t be that dense, Jisung.” Honestly, I didn’t know what to say to them.

“I’m sorry, but-“ they cut me off, something that everyone seems to be doing lately.

“Don’t. Don’t’ apologize. I know, you like Y/n. I get it. I just wanted to let you know.” They begin to pack up their stuff as a way to escape my stare.

“When?”

I can tell that they’re taken back from my question, “When what?”

“When did you start liking me?” There were no signs of F/n liking me, but then again not everyone was obvious like me, but still I should have been able to pick up on something.

“Around the second week of us working on the project.” It’s been over two months, and I didn’t even realize it. Well this is awkward.

“Well now that the project is done, we can stop hanging out with each other.” I watch as they get up from their seat and try make their way to the door. Getting up, I follow them, stopping them before they could leave.

“Hey, wait up. What do you mean stop hanging out?”

“Jisung, outside of this project, we would have never talked. We belong to two different circles.” It’s true. F/n’s group was more academic than Changbin, Chan, and I combined, but it’s not like you can’t hang out with those not in your circle.

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true and you know it. Even if you didn’t like Y/n, I would have never had a chance with you. You and I both know that.” I could tell that F/n was starting to get frustrated with me, but I could let them leave without resolving whatever this was.

“Why do you have to say it like that? Why are you making these assumptions?”

“Because it’s true Jisung. I’m not your type and it’s clear to see with Y/n.”

“Just because I don’t reciprocate your feelings doesn’t mean we have to stop being friends.” I liked hanging out with F/n, I didn’t want to stop talking after the project was over.

“Yes it does. I can’t stand sitting right beside you and you having your eyes glued on Y/n, and with that being said, I’ll see you in class.” They barge out the door as I stand there unsure of how to take in the situation. I look around and I see that no one else in the shop was paying attention to us, or at least they stopped before I could notice. I sigh in defeat, but a voice brings me out of my mood.

“Hey, did F/n leave already?” I slowly turn around to face Y/n, quickly changing the expression on my face and giving her a bright smile. I guess it was already 5.

“Yeah, they had some other things to get to.” I didn’t actually know if they did, but I’d rather not tell Y/n what just went down, “You ready to head out?”

The restaurant I decided to take Y/n out to was not even a restaurant. It was actually a food truck. I thought Y/n would’ve liked it better than any other place, and I was right because they love the Korean tacos they had. Since it was a food truck there were no actual chairs, so we sat on the sidewalk, talking and grubbing. If I were to be honest, I loved every moment of it. It was nice to talk about something that wasn’t boba related. I got to know Y/n more and vice versa. They also pointed out that I liked to stuff my cheeks with food and called me a chipmunk, and I couldn’t help but blush when the casually wiped a piece of food that was on my face. I would’ve been embarrassed, but I was too focus on the fact that their thumb was that close to my lips and that their hand felt so warm on my hand.

Once we were both done with our food, I offered to throw away the trash, and when I walked back to Y/n, I saw that they were scrolling through Instagram and saw the photo that was displayed on their phone. It was a picture of Minho and Doyeon. Making sure that they knew that I was approaching, I saw that they had quickly turned off their phone. When I reached them, I said, “To the park?”

Luckily the park was only 2 minutes away from where the food truck was. We had been walking in silence, until I saw a set of swings. Pointing at the swings, I ask, “Should we sit there?” Nodding their head, we make our way to the swings.

Once seated, the silence comes back.

“So…”

“Don’t bring it up Jisung.” So they know that I saw their phone. However, I try to act clueless, “Bring what up?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“So I’m going to take that as a no then.”

“No?”

“No, you’re not over Minho.” Great. I really had to ruin the mood for the night by bringing this up, but I had to know the answer.

“Jisung-“ This time it’s my turn to cut off their sentence.

“No, it’s fine Y/n. I get it, you need time and Minho hyung is a cool guy, so of course you’re not over him yet, but I hope you know that there are other good guys out there. You shouldn’t wait for one specific fish when you could get others.”

“Jisung, let me talk.”

Something inside me had sparked, and for some reason I couldn’t stop my mouth from moving faster than my brain. “No Y/n, let me get this off my chest. I like you Y/n. Crazy, right? We’ve only been friends for like three months, but I’ve fallen completely head over heels for you. You know, the first time I went into CuTea with Changbin and Chan and saw you behind the counter with your cute little cap and apron, the first thought that came to my mind was ‘Wow, they’re beautiful.’ And ever since that day, I would come into CuTea every time the others went because I didn’t want to miss the chance to see you. Yes, the other two knew about my little ‘crush’ on you and tried to encourage me to say something to you that wasn’t my drink order, but I didn’t have the guts to do so because I knew you were out of my league. And then one night I came into the shop by myself after having a stressful week and I just wanted to hear your voice, even if it was for a minute, but I saw you in tears, and it broke me to see you like that. This might sound weird, but I’m thankful I saw you crying that night or else I wouldn’t have been able to talk to you. And talking to you makes my day, heck I was having the worse day yesterday, and decided to go to CuTea to see you, only to see Minho and then have that stupid conversation with him that has now landed me here.” After that long rant, I take a deep breath. I refuse to look at Y/n instead, I look up at the sky and focus my attention on the moon.

“Are you done now?” After I nod my head they continue, “I know that you like me Jisung.” What. “I’ve known for the past two months.” Again, what. “You’re quite obvious.” At this point, I’ve twisted the swing so that I could face my whole body towards Y/n, and when I do, I see that they’ve already done the same and that they’re looking at me with those beautiful eyes.

“I-“

“Stop, I’m not done. I don’t like Minho anymore. I stopped liking him a month after him and Doyeon got together.” This was news was brand new to me. Y/n hasn’t really talked about her feelings for Minho as of lately, so I wasn’t sure how she felt, but I guess I know now. “I also like someone else now.” Oh. I’m pretty sure that cracking noise I just heard was my heart.

“Oh, I see. Do I know them?” Why? Why do I like to put myself in pain?

“Yeah, you know them really well.” Great, it was someone that I knew. Wait.

“It’s not Changbin is it?” If it was Changbin, I think I would just cry and laugh at the same time.

“Ew, yuck no, it’s not Changbin.” Good, Y/n is out of his league anyways.

“Chan hyung?” Chan hyung made sense, he too was what every person wanted. I don’t think I could get mad at Y/n for liking him.

Shaking their head no, they say, “It’s not him either.” If it wasn’t Chan or Changbin, then I wasn’t sure who Y/n could be talking about.

“The person that I like is funny, outrageous, sincere, confident,” I couldn’t think of anyone that matched the description, “they also stuff their mouth with food like a chipmunk.” Oh, wait. It takes me a moment to process their words. Are they-are they talking about me?

“Yes dummy I’m talking about you.” I think I need a moment. Y/n just said she liked me. Wait, “I need you to say it.” Y/n gives me a confused look. “I need you to say that you like me.” If they said it, then I can confirm that I’m not making this whole thing up.

“Han Jisung, I like you.”

“You like like me?”

They roll their eyes at me, but still respond, “Yes Jisung, I like like you.”

“Oh. That’s cool.” One second I’m sitting on the swing, and the next I’m on the ground. Y/n just pushed me. “Hey what was that for?”

“What kind of response is that? ‘Oh. That’s cool.’ Shouldn’t you be, I don’t know, happier?” Ah, I see where I went wrong. Getting up and dusting off the dirt, I stand in front of Y/n with my arms wide open. Hesitantly, they get up from the swing and wrap their arms around me. Giddily, I encase them in my arms and lift them up. I instantly fall in love with the squeal they let out.

“Han Jisung put me down!”

“No. It was a trap, and now that you’re in my arms, I’m never letting you go.” I give them a tight squeeze, causing for another squeal to escape from them.

“But I thought you were going to teach me how to use a skateboard.” That’s right, I was. Gently putting them down, we make eye contact and I can’t help but look shyly away. They giggle because of my timidness, but I see them shiver due to a small gust of wind. Quickly I take off the hoodie I’m wearing and shove it towards them.

“Here, take this.” They look at me unsure before taking it from me.

“But what about you?”

“Don’t worry about me, I got something else to keep me warm.” I wrap my arm around their shoulder, pulling them closer towards me.

“I like shy Jisung more than I do bold Jisung.”

“Well lucky for you, you can have both.”

Yeah, today was definitely a better day than yesterday.

A/N: ah, sorry that it took so long for this to come out! 🥺the semester is coming closer to the end so it’s beginning to get hectic, but I've finally managed to get this out. I decided to do something different this time and wrote in Jisung’s POV. what did you guys think of it? also this came out a longer than I expected, but I really like how this turned out. like always, I appreciate any comments or feedback, so feel free to leave a message.

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tundrainafrica · 3 years

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So, it took months for me to finally let go of my anger & disappointment towards Yams for writing ch132. But then recently I found this tweet https://twitter.com/helmn9R/status/1315427848467947520?s=19 and suddenly it all came back to me. Nevermind the backstory, her character development is alr strong enough w/o it. But she had so MANY unresolved story with Eren, Flegel, most importantly, herself (read the tweet for more explanation). What a waste of character for her death being so pointless that it didn't give any improvement to the plot at all, neither to any other characters development. We all know, Armin would still be Armin in recent chapter with or without her death. So WHAT'S THE POINT ACTUALLY? ;-; I'm sorry for ranting:(

Okay, I really agree with you here. There are times I find myself realizing that I will never be completely satisfied with Hange’s death. Yams can pull off the most mind blowing ending to AOT and I will still have this hole in my heart left by her death. And I’ll be writing Levihan fanfiction and metas for an incredibly long time because Hange is really an underappreciated character in this fandom and Yams just gave her the most beautiful yet most unsatisfying and unnecessary death.

That is… if you look at it in the grand scheme of things.

I feel like if we meta Hange’s personality a bit and follow the story from Hange’s POV and put her character as a focus we could actually paint the story as a good tragedy for her character and somehow we could put meaning into her death.

Although Hange had started off a little wide eyed and naive, we can all agree that Erwin, Moblit and the death of the whole survey corps did a number on her psyche. Even before she could completely process their death, Hange was placed in one of the highest and most important positions in the government and suddenly she has to deal with the opening up of Paradis, diplomacy issues and the rapid progression of technology.

As the commander of the survey corps which brought all these hopes and possibilities in, which also brought the threat of a war from an external force in, Hange had responsibilities much larger than Erwin ever had. I think given the fact that she started her position in such an inopportune time, and she got placed into a position so unfamiliar even for her, she would be incredibly uncertain. I mean who could have been prepared for what lay outside the walls really? Hange may have been a genius but her experiences were limited to the simple life that lay within the walls. I think her being dropped into that type of position from a medieval setting to a 1940s world war 2 setting would be a lot even for a genius like her to handle.

And that uncertainty and the stress of just everything changing and having to take the reins would have eventually lead to some self esteem issues on her end. And mind you, even before they opened up paradis, Hange had self esteem issues with becoming the commander. One hint of this is in the scene in season 3 where Levi and Hange had a meeting with the reporters and Hange was still reeling from her sudden rise to power and suddenly, Levi (who usually never talks) had to be the one to face the reporters because Hange, (for the first time) had nothing much to say.

And what if she never really completely recovered from that?

Imagine what happened after with everyone just coming in, technology rapidly progressing and Hange having to quickly adjust her plans and her way of thinking with the endless developments she has to address. And here’s another thing which can completely trample Hange’s self esteem. She is the leader of the country stuck in the medieval ages. She is literally the least up to speed among all the other diplomats and representatives of other countries and a war is brewing and she had to deal with that too.

And things just take a turn for a worse when they attack Liberio and when Eren, the person who she believed to be the hope of humanity, the young boy she had somehow raised herself decides to betray them. I mean they will have their scenes in season 4 when she references their conversations and how he used to listen to her until dawn years ago. Dam that scene where Eren grabs her by the collar of her shirt is just so dam heartbreaking.

Then all the soldiers under Hange, who she was tasked to lead suddenly turn against her. And before she knows it the rumbling starts and the world is about to be completely destroyed.

Of course Hange would manage to twist it to her own fault. If we look at everything at face value and think ‘who the hell was in charge? How the hell did this happen to the survey corps? Who was supposed to look out for Eren?’ Anyone would blame the person with direct responsibility over that. The one who was supposed to be leading the survey corps and the development of Paradis, Hange.

So it is not too outrageous to think Hange would have blamed herself for everything there and her shitty self esteem is obviously feeding into that too.

I mean she never had the confidence to begin with. She never had the time to adjust to her new position and she could easily rationalize every loss to her own ‘lack of capability’ as a commander.

And what does Hange decide to do with the weight of all those mistakes on her back. She decides to scramble for a way to atone for them in whatever way she can. She wanted to sacrifice herself. She wanted to give her life for them.

In the grand scheme of things, yes her death was pointless but when I watched the build up of her psyche and the battering of her character, I couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t a horrible way to go out.

It was unnecessary. It was pointless and it was unsatisfying.

But god, the build up and just the analysis of her storyline all the way to that point made it so depressing. Made it so heart wrenching to analyze the desperation which had pushed her to the point of thinking…

“I’m useless. I’m stupid. I’m careless. It’s every bad decision I made that pushed Eren to betray us. For two separate factions of the survey corps to be created. Erwin would have done a better job.”

And the cumulation of those thoughts and the trampling of every bit of her self esteem probably led her to think. I may be commander but I’d probably be the most useless one on the field. I’ll try to be as useful as I can, even if I die in the end.

And that’s why when they were desperately looking for a way out, Hange obviously volunteers herself. After all she’s been through, after seeing her psyche and self esteem break one by one, I don’t think Hange would have been the type to volunteer anyone else. Her guilt and her self loathing wouldn’t have allowed her too. She probably genuinely believed Armin and Jean would have done a better job leading than she could, I mean she’s probably still reeling from the fact that she couldn’t keep the survey corps in one piece as their commander and she was probably thinking “Erwin would have kept it in one piece”

So I think somehow there was build up to her death character wise and the build up was beautifully tragic.

I wouldn’t say it was a masterpiece though because honestly Yams, could have just have avoided a situation with Hange dying. But I can’t help but think, Yams has been giving pretty sad ends to a lot of his characters and AOT has been pretty dark and a lot of deaths turned out to have been pointless anyway.

I mean how many people have died for Eren only for him to turn into the asshole of the century?

Hange died selflessly, she died for what she believed was right and at her last moment, she couldn’t send anyone else to die in her stead and I think this very much aligns with her character.

Really, I probably would have lost a lot of respect for Hange if she left Connie behind instead or something. The only other person I think I would have found reasonable seeing there sacrificing their life would have been Levi. Hange and Levi would not have let anyone else go. It’s just not in their character. The 140 cadets are all their babies after all.

Thanks for asking this though. Really interesting question.

I actually wrote a fic recently analyzing Hange’s psyche towards the end of the story which I’m linking here for anyone who’s interested.

#hange zoe #hanji zoe #meta

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letapollojusticesayfuck · 3 years

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💎⛰️🎢☀️📜✏️⭐📣🔦 for currents & 💡 for the scurvy fic. i need to know.

sparrow that’s. so many. (but you’re asking me to talk about currents and I am always looking for a reason to talk about currents so. Thank You)

(also, obvious spoilers under the cut for undeniable you (the currents pulling me onward so. if you care about that you might want to read the fic first)

💎- What was your favorite part?

I’d probably say...the beginning of chapter 7? Where it’s immediately post-trial and Klavier and Apollo are just so tired and at loose ends and they go and sit on the courthouse steps and talk. I basically wrote the entire fic in order to write the last 4 chapters--the emotional aftermath of the trial, but I had to write the trial first so it would have context.

⛰️- What was the hardest part?

Figuring out the whole Gramarye Siblings situation, for sure. Because--the thing is that canon isn’t entirely cohesive on who did what when. I did a ton of research by perusing the wiki and taking notes on Jove, Thalassa, Magnifi, etc--and then I kind of just decided that if there was no coherent canon timeline, then I didn’t need to stick to it--and made as much of it up as I felt was necessary.

🎢- Were there any scenes you were nervous about? For audience reception or otherwise?

With every single courtroom scene, I was worried that it would be super boring or wouldn’t live up to the games or that all of the arguments I used would be Wrong and Bad? also this isn’t unique to currents but every single time I write a kissing scene I worry that it’s going to be bad

☀️- Was there symbolism/motifs you worked in?

A little? If anything, I was trying to emphasize the symbolism and Themes that I felt the canon games after AA4 didn’t utilize at all--like, I deliberately used Apollo flying across the ocean after hearing about Klavier as a parallel with Edgeworth flying across the ocean when he heard something happened with Phoenix, and obviously the “POV defense attorney defends rival prosecutor” is a deliberate parallel with 1-4. I guess Klavier’s hair might be a bit of a motif but that’s mostly because I think it’s pretty and less of a deliberate choice lmao

📜-Do you want to write something like this again in the future?

Depends! I would maybe write another casefic if I had a really good concept for one, sometime In The Future (because they are So Annoying to plan)--but as for multichaptered fics, I definitely want to write another one sometime. I just need to have a Good Idea and the motivation to stick with it--currents was written mainly out of spite at the dropped plot threads from AA4 and my determination to resolve a bunch of them and also further my Klapollo Agenda.

✏️-Would you go back and change anything if you could?

At the moment, I don’t think I would--but if you asked me again in a year or so, I probably would change things. I still want to write a series of oneshots in the currents universe--stuff focusing on characters we didn’t see enough of, like Trucy and Phoenix; and Kristoph pre-fic; and Phoenix and Miles; and Klavier and Apollo after everything

⭐- What’s a scene/paragraph you’re proud of?

“We can’t dwell too much on that part. But one more thing—if they planted the nail polish back then, and the powder in the mortar and pestle—how could they be sure you wouldn’t...accidentally…”

Apollo trails off, but they both know how that sentence ends. Klavier shudders.

“I almost never use that thing, anyway—it was a housewarming gift, and I’ve only ever been ambitious enough to grind my own spices about twice. Otherwise, it’s just easier to use the stuff in jars. I guess they must have known that, somehow? Either that, or...it didn’t matter if…”

“So, they’re someone who either wanted you to be found guilty for a murder you didn’t commit, or didn’t mind if you were poisoned by accident—and who probably works for that dogsitting company,” Apollo murmurs, pulling out his planner and jotting down a few notes. On the other side of the glass, Klavier sighs, tilting his head so that his fringe obscures his eyes.

“I wonder...if they’d gotten me, accidentally...would they still have killed Kris? Or would they have been satisfied with just me?”

The question is nearly inaudible, but Apollo looks up sharply, staring at Klavier.

“You think they killed him just because...it would hurt you?”

Klavier shifts, meeting Apollo’s eyes. “What would be the point, otherwise? Vengeance? Apollo, who’s left alive that would need to enact revenge on him? He was already on death row—what does this accomplish, besides hurting me?”

As much as Apollo tries, he can’t come up with an answer.

I don’t know if I can think of too many specific scenes I’m proud of--but I really do like this one, because I think it shows Apollo’s pragmatic side--trying to solve the murder mystery, pushing his emotions aside when he can--while illustrating Klavier’s attitude of “usually I would brush this off but we both know this premise is a little wonky and this isn’t adding up.”

...that might not have made sense, I’m not always the best at analyzing my own writing. I just throw words at the page and what happens, happens.

📣-What was the best piece of encouragement you got?

It’s cheesy, but everyone who commented on each chapter was an invaluable source of encouragement? like, the absolute best feeling in the world was posting a new chapter and then seeing all the comment notifications come in, and spending the rest of the day replying. I’d written 6 chapters before I posted the prologue, but having people give me their reactions to each chapter really was the most important thing that made me keep going <3

🔦-Did you learn anything while writing it? About yourself? Writing?

I learned a lot about How To Write A Murder-Mystery--first and foremost, that it involves so much planning. And I maybe had to spoil the ending of AA6 entirely for myself--fun fact, I still haven’t finished the game, I’m stuck on Trial Day 1 of the Maya case (because I’m Tired, okay?). About writing and myself--I learned that I definitely need a deadline, and that using external “word count goal” tools is pretty essential for me if I want to write anything longer than a oneshot.

For The Scurvy Fic:

💡-What was the motivation behind the story?

okay SO. There was a conversation going on in a Klapollo discord server. Somehow we ended up talking about Klavier and/or Apollo being cheapskates. I think I mentioned something about Klavier surviving entirely on ramen noodles because they’re cheap? and then it devolved into a conversation about how they’d totally get scurvy if they did that. And I started thinking about how Klavier and Apollo are inherently pretty competitive, and how they’d totally just get into a stupid bet and be so stubborn that they wouldn’t back down, because they have to Prove A Point, even if they get scurvy from their awful diet of Whatever’s The Cheapest. And then...Scurvy Fic Happened. (along with the Other scurvy fics, because there’s Three of them!! I was just the only person who went with the obvious title).

Thank you for the ask!! Hope this was...enlightening??

#ask #asks #thank you!!#ask game #aa currents #exitcorners

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montagnarde1793 · 4 years

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Ribbons of Scarlet: A predictably terrible novel on the French Revolution (part 2)

In case you were wondering, that’s not actually the novel’s subtitle, which is really “A Novel of the French Revolution’s Women.” But like, only the famous ones. Ok, I’m done. Moving on...

Parts 1, 3, 4 and 5.

Structural Issues

While the choice of characters was a red flag for me (and not in a good way), choosing to structure the book the way they did was a mistake.

This is true for a number of reasons. (I’m sorry, btw, for all the comparisons to Marge Piercy’s novel, but the shared conceit kind of made it inevitable.) Piercy’s characters also only got an average of 80 pages each (though as the typeset was denser, they arguably had a little bit more space), but since the POVs were interspersed, they played off each other much more naturally and allowed the characters the time to develop. Even there it could feel underdeveloped, but here it seems like they’re rushing the undeserved character development so they have some kind of complete arc for each character before the next part starts.

Some chapters are clumsier at this than others. The absolute worst is Pauline Léon’s, which is unsurprising for a number of reasons, but notably because she has the fewest pages of anyone except Charlotte Corday, who doesn’t really get an arc: she shows up in the plot already wanting to assassinate Marat; she succeeds; she doesn’t regret her decision; she’s tried and executed. That’s it.

This choice also means that the main strength of this type of anthology goes largely untapped: namely, that we get different POVs on the same events. Since each protagonist is associated with a different period in time, we can only ever get their point of view on previous events through awkward flashbacks.

It probably also accounts for one of the worst, most artificial and amateurish aspects of the book: the way in any given section the other six point of view characters are shoehorned into the narrative, whether it makes any sense or not. The protagonists of the different sections have to have some (highly improbable) relationship with one another or be reflecting on each other’s lives in the most ham-fisted, author-soapbox way possible. We’ll circle back to that last part in a bit.

Possibly the most ludicrous example of this is Manon Roland’s inexplicable decision to take a random trip to Caen in mid to late August 1792 just so the author can have her run into Charlotte Corday. Like, do I even need to explain how little sense this makes? Apparently so. Look, first of all, going from Paris to Caen was not a trivial trip in the 18th century. Today you could make a day-trip of it and not be missed. It’s about 2 hours each way in the TGV. But in the 18th century, you’re looking at more like 2 days each way, minimum. Not the sort of trip you tend to make without an ostensible reason. Does Manon Roland have one, even as written? No, she does not. She’s going to Caen to flee the temptation of François Buzot’s advances. Which, ok, internal motivation for leaving Paris, but they don’t bother to give her a pretext. How is she going to explain to her husband her random absence of at least 4 days (not to mention the expense)? And why Caen (other than the external reason of the author’s wanting her to come across Corday)? She has no connections there. Does the author even know that the main person Manon Roland knows from the region is Buzot and that it’s therefore the last place she should flee to stop thinking about him? And she’s supposed to be a savvy politician: does she not care about the optics, as the interim Minister of the Interior’s wife, of fleeing in the opposite direction as the Austro-Prussian troops are advancing on Paris?

And I know what you’re thinking: I’m overthinking this. This wasn’t a book designed for specialists. But I think a reader can tell when a world they’re reading about doesn’t feel fully fleshed-out. In that sense, it’s less about accuracy than it is about how flat and artificial a reading experience it makes for. One of the most valuable things I was taught in school was that when making a presentation, you should always know more than you intend to say. I think the same goes for fiction: you should know more about the setting and the characters than appears on the page. In this book I consistently have the impression that the authors know less.

Moreover, the authors claim to have been striving for maximum consolidation of characters in order to reduce confusion, but it ends up coming across as both artificial and condescending. Trust your readers to be smart enough to work through their confusion. Otherwise you make it feel like there were a total of about 20 people in Paris during the Revolution, which, again, makes the setting feel completely artificial.

While I’m not sure anything but better research and writing could have salvaged it, this book would have already been 1000% better if the characters met or thought about each other only when it would actually make sense for them to do so and the narratives were interwoven.

The Authors are Desperate to Make Sure You Feel the Way They Want You to about Key Figures. They Also Think You’re Stupid

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not accusing them of supposing their readers to be ignorant about the French Revolution. You should always assume your reader to be ignorant of what you’re going to tell them. Ignorant, but intelligent. That’s the key. The problem is that the authors don’t trust their audience.

So we also get characters doing things like giving you a who’s who of the most famous (and only the most famous) authors, artists and activists of the time whether it makes sense for them to do so or not, like this is a textbook and we’ve got to make sure the reader is informed of the existence of all these figures (or maybe give them the chance to pat themselves on the back if they’ve already heard of some of them).

Or my least favorite French Revolution trope: having Robespierre ominously show up in 1789 to start plotting the “Terror” (here they have him spouting the apocryphal* quote “pity is treason” to an audience of Sophie de Grouchy, Condorcet and the Sainte-Amaranthe family sometime in May or June 1789) (p. 89).

*Presumably, it’s a corruption of declarations such as the one in his 5 November 1789 response to Louvet’s denunciation that “La sensibilité qui gémit presque exclusivement pour les ennemis de la liberté m’est suspecte.” (“I find the sensitivity that groans almost exclusively for the enemies of liberty suspect.”) or the one in his second speech on the judgment of Louis XVI of 28 December 1792: “la sensibilité qui sacrifie l’innocence au crime est une sensibilité cruelle ; la clémence qui compose avec la tyrannie est barbare” (“sensitivity that sacrifices innocence to crime is a cruel sensivity; clemency that compromises with tyranny is barbaric”).

Again, we see the same need for oversimplification. Robespierre is, as one of the authors’ notes puts it, one of the “dangerous men” (back matter, p. 18) that should have been prevented from ever having power so he’s not allowed to ever do or say anything sympathetic. (And yeah, I know, death of the author and all that, I shouldn’t count the authors’ notes, but they really only serve as explicit confirmation of what could be pretty transparently inferred from the text and this way no one can accuse me of reading things into it that aren’t there.)

Because of this, even real quotes are cited out of context to the same end: when Robespierre says “pity is treason” in 1789, Condorcet says his bit from the Chronique de Paris article from April 1792 to his wife — you know the one, about Robespierre’s being admired by women because he’s basically a cult leader (p. 90). There’s no reason to think Condorcet had any particular enmity toward Robespierre (or even that Robespierre would have been on his radar) just after the opening of the Estates-General, though certainly, contrary to what is portrayed here, Condorcet was not a democrat in 1789 and Robespierre was. But again, historical figures we’re not supposed to like must be set up early and often as stock villains — otherwise you run the risk of your readers thinking for themselves, I guess. Also the Chronique de Paris quote (which is from an unsigned article generally attributed to Condorcet) is pretty damn misogynistic, which given the book’s stated main theme, you would think would be addressed in some way, but nope!

Conversely, figures the authors like are liked by the characters — or they are at least forced to begrudgingly recognize their merit — whether it makes sense or not. One of the things Manon Roland is made to number among the things going “wrong” in August 1792 is “the hero Lafayette[’s being] forced into exile” (p. 261) and while it is the author of a different section who is a self-proclaimed La Fayette stan (thanks to Hamilton, of all things…) I think it’s fair to say from his portrayal in all the sections that we’re meant to admire him. But here’s the thing. I don’t really care what you think about La Fayette. That’s not the question. To Manon Roland in August 1792, La Fayette was a traitor who attempted to march his army against the Legislative Assembly and all her friends and allies in said Assembly voted to indict him. If you’re writing from her point of view, it should reflect that.

Likewise, they have Pauline Léon describe Olympe de Gouges like this in July of 1793: “A defender of women, of slaves, I wish I could have admired her, but having aligned herself to my enemies, I could look at her no other way.” (p. 353). Olympe de Gouges is far better known now than she ever was in her lifetime, so making sure every character has an opinion on her is, once again, pretty artificial, but even assuming Pauline Léon had heard of her, Olympe de Gouges’s brand of feminism was an elitist one that excluded women like Pauline Léon and her abolitionism went out the window when the slaves actually started to rise up, so Pauline Léon actually would have had reason to dislike her beyond the logic of ‘you’re with me or you’re my enemy’ (there is a quote where she’s made to think precisely that, but I can’t seem to find it now — or maybe it was Reine Audu; they’re characterized pretty similarly in that respect). Likewise, Pauline Léon is made to disapprove of Condorcet or the Rolands because they don’t “[get] things done,” not because of any actual ideological disagreement (p. 349).

Probably the worst bit of condescension comes once again from Manon Roland’s section, where she tells a fellow spectator in the gallery of the Convention, “‘Don’t bother trying to tell the different assemblies and conventions apart,’” which is pretty transparently just the authors directly talking (down) to the reader rather than a conversation people who were living through events (and invested enough to be attending the Convention) would plausibly have had.

If it sounds like I’m being particularly harsh on the Manon Roland section, btw, I actually think it’s one of the less poorly done, at least in terms of rendering an historical figure’s mentality, most likely because unlike for some of the other figures, we have her memoirs and correspondence. It helps that the figures she’s supposed to hate line up with the figures the authors want us to hate as well. She saw herself as a reasonable republican and her Montagnard enemies as demagogues and that’s also clearly the authors’ assessment of the situation, so there’s less of the strange cognitive dissonance you get in some of the other chapters where even what is supposedly characters’ own POV frames them as wrong.

Stay tuned for style issues and reflections on what it means to “write what you want to know”!

#en anglais #French Revolution #Révolution française

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negasonicimagines · 4 years

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Want U Back ; “A Resounding Yes” (1)

h request: Does “could we get an ellie x reader fic?? doesn't matter what it is, we just miss you!!” count? I guess “!??!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?Could I request literally anything with angst and hurt/comfort!??!?!?!?!?!!?!?!??!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!?!!!!!?!?!!!!??!?!!?!?!!!!??!??!?!?!?!?!?!!?” fits, haha!

synopsis: Ellie knows she fucked up the second she sees Yukio’s lips on yours. She knows your relationship will never be the same, but can she still regain what she took for granted?

author’s note: hey! sorry for being the worst! Also, do you guys prefer the selectively-omniscient 2nd person POV, or the rigid 2nd person POV that sticks to the reader’s thoughts? I played with Yukio’s original backstory in this, let me know what you think! Just so y’all know, this is only divided up because it’s suuuuper long! I have more to write, but I still plan to finish it soon!

warnings: emotional cheating, break-up, unhealthy relationship (that gets fixed), angst, if there’s anything else let me know! Also, this isn’t really a trigger but this fic will explore a lot of Ellie’s flaws and features her being a Not Very Good Girlfriend in the beginning, so if you really don’t care for the idea of her being a sucky gf, you might wanna skip this one. Also, TROS spoilers

“What’s the difference between a piano and a fish?”

“You can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna fish,” Yukio responds with a giggle.

“Damn it!” Wade told you the joke that’s so bad it rounds back to good earlier, and the first person- after remembering Ellie would probably just glare at you, of course -you thought to tell was Yukio.

“Wade told me that one, too,” she explains.

“One of these days, I am going to beat him to a joke,” you declare, looking to the girl with a smile and cluelessly stealing her breath away.

Maybe she should give you a hint, she thinks. The two of you are close enough already, sitting together on the floor in her room making shrinky-dinks for earrings. She could just grab you and…

Well, now she’s blushing, thinking of a lot more than just kissing you.

“Hey, ‘Kio, did you hear me?” She didn’t respond to your next attempt, one of many this evening alone.

“Hm?! Oh, no, I didn’t, sorry…”

“No worries,” you chirp, and after a few beats of silence, Yukio asks:

“Aren’t you gonna say what I missed?”

“Oh, it was stupid, anyways.”

“No way,” Yukio argues. “Go ahead.”

“What do you call a donkey with a million eyes and a million legs?”

“Ooh, I haven’t heard this one. What?” The genuine curiosity; the hope for a clever answer… It’s a little too much to take without letting out even a snort, but you manage.

“A monster,” you say, in your most deadpan expression possible, which happens to be a stupid grin at Yukio’s chuckling.

The smile fades, but not completely- never completely, not when you’re around -before she leans in, just a little. But, you know what she wants. A part of you wants it, too.

You put a finger to her lips, gently stopping her.

“I- I haven’t broken up with her, yet.”

“Yet?”

“You and I have been getting a lot more close. Even closer than before, which I didn’t even realize was possible, but too close for me to have a girlfriend who doesn’t know about it. And I… If I’m choosing, I’m choosing you. I should have before.”

“Before? Y/N, one of my favorite things about you is that you usually aren’t this vague,” Yukio remarks, and you scoff.

“Can you blame me for being a bit nervous to confess that I’ve liked you as more than a friend for a long time? Like, ‘the only reason I even ended up with Ellie was because I really like both of you and she asked first’-a long time?”

“Not at all,” Yukio admits. “It’s getting kinda late, maybe you should head back… Do you want me to walk with you?”

“I’d rather she didn’t blow up on both of us,” you admit. Yukio’s your official roommate, but the potential for Ellie to level the house in her sleep has perks, including her own room. You sleep there, and your bed in Yukio’s room has been replaced with a futon. Guess it’s time to pack your bags. Should you start doing that before or after you tell her you’re leaving her for her other best friend?

“You’re doing it tonight?” She wonders, surprised as you scoop up the scrap plastic and throw it away. She picks up the scissors, and colored pencils while you put your markers back in their case. Tomorrow, the two of you can heat up your creations.

“You’ve emboldened me… You usually do,” you tell her. She makes you feel like an equal when you’re together, and since she’s pretty damn great, your self-esteem gets quite the boost.

“You’re gonna be the death of me,” Yukio replies, blushing.

“I sure hope not,” you tell her in lieu of a goodbye, and once the door is shut behind you, Yukio squeals in delight.

As you head to Ellie’s room, the nervousness in your stomach starts to boil. You knock.

“Y/N?” she questions.

“Yeah.”

“Come in.”

You enter awkwardly, but she doesn’t seem to notice the way you fiddle with the door to make sure it closes perfectly quiet, after that one time she got onto you for closing it too loudly.

“Why do you even knock, anyway?”

“Just wanna respect your privacy. It’s your room.”

“I’d say it’s yours, too, but you don’t really spend a lot of time here anymore.”

“Never thought I’d see the day you were passive-aggressive,” you remark. Normally something like that would be teasing, but now it just feels biting, to both of you.

“I guess you could say love changed me,” Ellie retorts. Love. As if she loved you. The only sign she might is when she mumbles the words back to you. She never says it first, never holds you without you asking, only really kisses you when she wants to-

“I was just hanging out with Yukio,” you admit, snapping out of it.

“Maybe she should be your girlfriend instead, since you like spending so much time with her.”

You know she’s probably just hurt, or jealous, or… Well, that’s irrelevant. It’d be a fair criticism if she wasn’t such a bitch about it.

You take your chance: “Maybe she should.”

And then you grab your go bag from the closet, as well as your other suitcases, the ones you used to move your things here in the first place. You start packing.

“Wait, what? What the fuck are you doing?”

“I said, ‘Maybe she should.’ As in, maybe this relationship has run its course and I’m better off with someone else.”

Ellie blinks. That’s a first, she usually doesn’t allow herself to be phased by the things you or anyone else says.

“Well, let me clarify for you. That maybe is a resounding fucking ‘yes,’” she retaliates. Ah, that’s what it was. She wasn’t bothered in the least, she just needed time to come up with a good comeback. That’s your Ellie… Well, not anymore.

It feels like it takes longer than it does, but eventually your things are all tucked away in your bags.

“You’re not gonna take Gerard?”

“Why would I? You got him for me,” you tell her in lieu of a goodbye, heading back to Yukio’s.

She opens the door before you even knock, but seems surprised to see you there.

“I was worried she might try to chase you down,” she explains before you even ask, ushering you in. She takes your bags and sets them down on the futon.

“As if she’d ever fight for me,” you assure her, but it just puts a frown on her face. She’s already wearing pajamas, so you figure you should change into yours.

You swiftly do so, not even bothering to tuck yourself away in the bathroom. After all, the two of you have changed in front of each other countless times.

Yukio’s stunned expression implies this time might be a little bit different, though. You can’t help the twitch of a smirk that graces your lips before you do head to the bathroom, taking the contents of one of the external pockets of your suitcases with you and completing your nighttime routine.

“Can I kiss you, now?” Yukio asks as soon as you reach her. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed, and she asks the question like she’s asked it a million times and you’ve said no to every single request. You realize that maybe she has asked, in some subtle ways. A hand on yours to comfort you, a longing look in her eyes when you turn away… Maybe she’s been asking you to kiss her all this time, and you just didn’t see it.

That maybe is a resounding fucking yes, you remember Ellie’s words from before.

You lower yourself and press your lips to hers. She freezes in surprise before responding, tangling her fingers into your hair and you can feel in every motion how badly she wants this, wants you, like no one ever has, or at least not in a way they’ve communicated. Yukio kisses you like she loves you; she loves you. You smile into the kiss and she pulls away to see it, to see you. “Wow…” you both sigh, before giggling.

“Are you sure this isn’t too soon?” Yukio wonders. The fact that she cares to ask is enough to send the butterflies already in your stomach into a fluttering frenzy.

“You of all people should know that relationship was over before I went to that room this evening,” you remind her. “That this one started before I kissed you, even.”

You do feel a bit guilty about that part, but it just… Happened. Yukio was there when Ellie stopped being there, bored of you but unsure how to say it, you’re sure.

Yukio nods, kissing you this time. It’s gentle, she’s gentle, but it’s still loaded with all the feelings you’ve been too ashamed to express these past few weeks.Yes, all of them. You pull away while you can still stop yourself, and nearly topple over with nerves. Yukio pulls you onto the bed before turning the lamp on and afterwards clapping to turn the lights off.

“That’s new,” you note, still a bit breathless. “Hope you don’t mind me being a tease, but it is a little too soon for that.”

“You’re not a tease. We did what we were both comfortable with. If you’re not ready, neither of us are. Did you and Ellie ever…?”

“Oh, um, yeah. A lot.”

“Right, I guess I should’ve figured that out when you stopped complaining about being a virgin,” Yukio chuckles.

“So, now we just… Sleep?” You wonder.

“I guess so, but…” The two of you meet eyes. Despite the agreement that you shouldn’t go farther than kissing, there’s still excitement buzzing in the air from the “new” relationship.

“You can go ahead and transform, if you want. Might help you get in a sleepy mood.”

“Transf-? Oh, right… I don’t really do that anymore, not when I’m sleeping.”

“Why not? You told me it makes you feel safer.”

“Takes up too much space on the bed,” you mumble. “Plus, what if I accidentally claw something up in my sleep?”

“Did- Did Ellie say those things to you?”

Yukio is a sweet girl, but not nearly as bubbly and innocent as she pretends to be. There’s a dark side to her, one just like yours.

“Yeah, but… You’re probably taking it a lot more serious than she meant it. She’s not like us, Yukes. She has normal parents, went to a normal school before all this. Doesn’t understand.”

“Doesn’t try to,” Yukio complains. “Would it help if I said it makes me feel safer?”

You give a noiseless chuckle.

“I mean it. Think about it, wouldn’t you feel safer with a guard leopard sleeping next to you? A mamushi curled around your arm ready to strike any intruder?”

“I guess you’re right. Couldn’t you just Rey Palpatine the shit out of anyone who tries to attack us, though?”

“Remind me of that travesty of a movie again and you’ll have to worry about being Rey Palpatine’d yourself. But, uh, yeah, of course I’m right. And Ellie’s more of an idiot than I thought she was,” Yukio says, and you can see her adorably smug smile shining bright in the moonlight.

“Hey! She’s still our friend!”

“Yeah, once she gets over me stealing you,” your new- oh, wait, you should probably ask what you are, you realize -remarks.

“Something tells me you’ll figure out soon that there isn’t much to get over. Uh… What are we, now?”

“I’d be honored to call you my girlfriend,” Yukio tells you. “Now, will you please transform into a cute creature for me to cuddle?”

“Didn’t think you were this much of an animal-lover, Yuks,” you remark.

“I’m a you-lo…” She trails off, realizing what she was saying. “-ver.”

You slip under the covers to strip back down, afterwards beginning the transition. You feel your hands shift into paws, feel even the barely visible hairs on your skin thicken and darken as the features of your face shift and contort into something else entirely. You pop your head back up and Yukio laughs, smoothing the ruffled fur on your head and face.

“You are so beautiful,” she tells you. You’d thank her, but it’s a waste of energy. You were taught how to push your thoughts into the minds of others like speech by some of the most powerful telepaths ever, but as you have no more psychic energy than even a non-mutant, it’s tiring to use that ability; therefore, any other form of communication is preferable.

You choose to nuzzle her hand, and she’s grinning ear to ear. It’s not every day she gets a real-life teddy bear, well, before now. You’d be happy to do this every day, though you might get bored of the bear aspect.

Yukio bear-hugs your neck, pulling you close. You really do feel more relaxed, tired from the transformation and comforted by her embrace. You give a low grumble, nervous to fall asleep on top of her, even a little bit. She looks inquisitive before seeing your point and releasing you so that you can lay back. You turn over, and she spoons you, nuzzling her cheek against your new fur.

Your eyes slip shut, and your breathing slows to match hers as the two of you fall asleep.

#yukisonic x reader #yukisonic imagine #yukio x reader #ellie phimister x reader #negasonic teenage warhead #negasonic teenage warhead imagine #negasonic teenage warhead x reader

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graffitibible · 4 years

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Building ocs to complement the characters like that is an absolute galaxy brain move, are there any specific ones from starry eyed??

thank you!! and yes, all the most prominent ocs in starry-eyed (i.e. the other two crews he had prior to the fab four) were built to complement or highlight some aspect of jet. i’m not sure how well some of them came across but they were all meant to correspond to or develop a trait of jet’s.

doublestar signifies jet’s relationship with assertiveness. he’s not a super assertive personality by nature (he tends to be drawn to people with a lot of conviction and external confidence, like dust devil and party poison) but some of that has to do with his upbringing. he wasn’t really encouraged to figure out his own relationship with leadership because doublestar was a very “i take charge and you do what i say” personality even if it was with benign intentions. it’s in part because of doublestar that jet has a lot of doubt about making his own decisions for himself and feels more comfortable following someone else’s lead, and also one of the key reasons he puts so much weight on himself to always perform well. she complimented him a TON for the things he was really good at and she did this with good intentions - he’s a great sharpshooter, he’s a fast runner, he’s got excellent instincts for survival. but because jet’s a heavy internalizer, he took all that to mean “oh, i have to perform those things ALWAYS and it’s my direct fault for things that go wrong in those areas because I’m The Best At Them Like Doublestar Said.” so for all that doublestar did her best to prepare him and her group for desert life, she didn’t excel at that in every respect lol

coma doze represents a humor, impulse, and lust for life that jet didn’t really allow himself to have, even as a kid. coma chases emotional highs; jet never allows that for himself. jet’s own enjoyment of something is literally always the last thing on jet’s list of priorities. coma’s a much more lighthearted, spur of the moment kind of guy than jet ever allowed himself to be, and also incredibly pathos-driven. coma’s willingness to throw himself at the fight taking place in the analog wars has more to do with a need to do something with himself than any genuine investment in the struggle taking place. those moments where jet says “fuck it” and does something stupid (like charging a scarecrow while he’s completely alone and without backup for example lol) come from a similar place. most of the time coma’s willing to let his emotional high dictate where he ends up without considering the why or how or the aftermath of it. this is meant to be a clear contrast to jet, who even at his angriest and stupidest, has a reason for doing what he does. he sees a scarecrow, he’s overcome with anger and frustration and a willingness to avenge his friends - but even in that state of heightened emotion he still has a moment where he weighs the risks of the action before he decides to take it.

nova cane indicates jet’s skewed priorities and his sense of strategy, which ties into the above point, as well as his familial mindset and loyalty. that moment before he does something stupid or does something big where he checks himself and weighs the risks of it, that’s something that i wanted nova to represent. nova’s the voice of dissent when coma wants to charge in guns blazing and try and turn the tide of the analog wars, because she’s got the presence of mind to note that two people aren’t going to change the landscape of an entire war. and yet she’s also the person who doesn’t register that she’s been shot because she’s too busy fucking up the dracs that fucked with her crew. the risks to herself don’t sit on the same level as the risks to the crew as a whole, which probably seems pretty familiar since jet’s very much the same way. the risks he takes when it’s his own life on the line are significantly greater than the risks he’s willing to take when it’s the well-being of the group that’s put in the crossfire. nova was there to vocalize and highlight that a little since it’s not something that jet ever sat down and verbalized to himself, and not necessarily something he’s even aware of. it’s a little more evident when it’s someone else falling into those same patterns because that’s less subject to the inherent biases of jet’s pov.

nine-volt rocket was there to highlight jet’s tendencies for codependency. there are a lot of instances in part i where rocket was having a hard time (both physically and emotionally) and jet helps them out with basically no prompting from anyone. a lot of the “nurturing” (read: self-sacrificial) instincts jet picked up early in life have to do with rocket and this notion of “other people have it worse than me so i have to push myself to help them out since i don’t have it as bad” which is categorically not true but jet has a piss-poor conceptualization of his own limitations because of it. he always prioritizes other people above himself, and part of that is because for as long as he can remember, he’s kind of had to do that. of course the idea that he “has” to do it is more or less manufactured. no one asked him to take care of rocket or anything. he internalized the idea that he’s the “most capable” person in the group and so assumed that the responsibility fell down to him and because it tied into the “survival of the group” mentality, no one questioned it.

dust devil is one of those assertive personalities that jet’s drawn to. they’re representative of some of the early germs for the sense of justice that would later drive jet and by extension the fabulous four. dust devil’s aware that some things in the world are very broken and really wants to fix them but ultimately his plan to do that comes down to “break shit very loudly and raise hell doing it” which made for great catharsis but not much in the way of tactical warfare. because jet didn’t have any great stake in the analog wars other than the loss of nova and coma (which more came down to both of them being in the wrong place at the wrong time), dust devil was pretty necessary to introduce that element of “this affects everybody in the desert and you should care about it.” also on a less serious note dust devil existed to make it evident that jet’s Very Gay. i write the fab four as a family unit more than anything else so writing romantic interactions within the group doesn’t super jive with me. but i wanted it to be apparent that jet’s a dude who likes other masc-aligned folks so that’s what that whole mild panic over dust devil planting one on him came from.

fever queen is another character that highlighted jet’s self-sacrificial and codependent tendencies, and this was meant to call to light just how unhealthy they were. queen likes to vent to him and doesn’t really take into account how jet feels about these things - it’s a surprise to zir when jet chimes in because what queen really wants is a blank wall to throw things at so ze can get it out of zir system. queen also has this innate cynicism that’s supposed to counter jet’s own mindset - ze doesn’t think that any efforts to fight back against BLi are worthwhile and are ultimately doomed to fail, but sticks with the group out of necessity. while jet’s not so optimistic to feel like he can singlehandedly tip the balance of a desert-wide struggle, there’s a reason that he’s drawn to the idea of hitting back against better living, and that’s because of the sense of justice i touched on in the point above. queen was also meant to indicate that jet’s ultimately a pretty extroverted person, despite how nonverbal he is. he gets his energy from other people. queen similarly wants to be surrounded by other people, even if ze doesn’t believe in what they’re fighting for, and that’s something jet can relate to.

haywire is a natural exaggeration of jet’s self-destructive tendencies, and is also meant to indicate that a lot of those tendencies stem from a fundamental sense of self-loathing. haywire is dying and knows it. she doesn’t give a fuck about long-term survivability. she hurls herself headfirst into every firefight and when it isn’t charging straight into every clap she runs across, it’s out and out baiting people into fucking with her. jet might not be dying but he’s got a similar mindset. he’s super willing to put himself in the line of fire because he thinks nothing of himself, thinks nothing of the worth of his own life. his self-destruction isn’t big and flashy the way it is for haywire or someone like party poison or fun ghoul, but it’s very much present nonetheless. there’s that moment where haywire basically begs jet to kill her because she’s got a lungful of poisonous gas and she’s dying in a very slow and painful matter, and jet refuses. this is supposed to be a demonstrable contrast to how jet indulges his own self-destruction at the end of part ii. he’s not the kind of guy to put a gun to his own head, but he’ll wander the desert until he dies. he’ll entertain the idea of waltzing into battery city or out into the remains of zone seven just to see what happens. it’s a passive self-destruction as opposed to haywire’s active self-destruction, but that doesn’t make it any less retroactively horrifying that he and haywire are so goddamned casual about how willing they are to Fucking Die.

100% titanium is maybe the most obvious. they gave jet a “voice” in a sense because while jet’s a primarily nonverbal dude, titan was entirely nonverbal due to injury. but even before jet started picking up sign language from them, he got them in a way that not a lot of the other members of the group did, with the exception of raya. titan was there to make it a little more obvious that jet’s actually extremely good at reading other people’s body language and communicating nonverbally. he doesn’t need words to make his point and other people don’t need to spell out their points to him when he can pick most of the big points from the little things - how they stand, how fast they’re talking, how much they’re moving, their expression, etc. titan’s easily one of the characters in part ii that jet has the closest and best relationship with, and i also wanted a character to emphasize that jet has a massive capacity for a genuine love and warmth. some of his most genuine moments in part ii come from his interactions with titan.

mantarraya is meant to represent jet’s faith. she was initially there out of necessity - there was this nonverbal character that no one else would logically be able to understand, so mantarraya was there to streamline that. but more than that, i needed someone to remind jet of the faith he kept back in part i since queen was an outright nonbeliever and neither haywire nor devil were all that devoted to the idea of the witch. so raya believes in the witch, she believes in destroya, and she’s hopeful that she’ll see the latter raze battery city in her lifetime. for her, her faith takes the sting out of the inevitability of death - the witch will take care of her once she eats it, so it’ll be okay. jet doesn’t have that same confidence, in part because he pours so much of himself into others rather than into himself. so much of him wants to shut down and stop but he refuses to indulge that because other people need him. maybe the witch will take care of him, but he won’t be there to help of everyone else who needs him, and what’s worse is he’ll be helpless to stop whatever happens next. it was that existential fear that raised its head toward the end of part iii, because he hadn’t really taken the time to confront it until then.

#ask #anon #*fabrication #im so sorry this got so long #im not sure how much of this came through in the final product #ultimately i was afraid to make these lines too distinct #since the story was about jet and not these characters #so regardless of whether what they represented #my hope is that they nonetheless highlighted those aspects of jet #mention of suicide ideation as a warning

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kayteewritessteve · 5 years

Text

DT - Twitter Drunk 2/3

Description: One stupid drunken night leads to an uncomfortable week from hell. That only gets worse when you are forced to face the problems, that your drunken escapades caused, head on. Yeah, you are never going to drink ever again.

Masterlist HERE.

Word Count: 9,250 ish.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader.

Rating: PG.

Warnings: Lots of curse words, awkward moments, and a slightly frustrated reader. Little angst here and there, but lots of stupid humour.

A/N: I sadly don’t own any of these characters. And no beta reader, so I do proudly own all the errors and this story, so there’s that.

Steve’s POV

Steve finds himself seated at the breakfast bar in the towers main living area. Sam and Bucky on either side of him, as they all silently munch away on their individual bowls of cereal.

The tower is relatively quiet this morning, which is both relieving and scary, all at the same time. The tower feels very much like a small child to Steve, when it is eerily quiet, that’s when he truly had to worry. That’s when he should probably go investigate and prepare himself for the incoming chaos that he may find.

Though the fact he can physically see Bucky and Sam currently, does give him some peace of mind. Those two, together, were mayhem and destruction personified. Anytime they were out in the world together, something usually ended up broken. Be it a window, a plate, a car, or Steve’s mental stability.

However, the lack of a Stark currently, in the silence of the tower, was a little unnerving, if he’s being honest. Though at least when Tony was alone, he stuck mainly to only blowing up parts of his lab, or other people’s personal lives. So he didn’t really need as much supervision as the other two did.

But when the three of them were together, now that was another story entirely. They honestly reminded Steve of a show he used to watch as a kid, The Three Stooges. Though they all sort of switched roles, just depending on the day really. However most days Tony was Moe, while Bucky and Sam were Curly and Larry, respectively. But the odd days they’d switch roles, ya know, just to keep things interesting.

Steve sighs quietly to himself at the thought, as he makes a mental note to see if he can track down some of The Three Stooges videos to watch again. He always did enjoy that show—well, that is before he had to basically live it in real life. So yeah, maybe he won’t look those videos up now.

The sound of hasty shuffling feet catches his attention and he looks up just as Moe—excuse me, Tony, enters the kitchen, looking slightly frazzled and far too overly excited for this early on a Saturday morning. Steve internally groans because he knows Stark is about to drop some sort of bomb on them all.

Something clearly happened that Stark finds incredibly funny or worthy of the whole tower knowing right this very second. He is honestly surprised Stark doesn’t just use Friday to play a pre-recorded message throughout the tower so that everyone can learn of the news at the same exact time. That would be far more efficient, if you ask Steve, but does he plan to mention this idea to Stark? Not a hope in hell. That man doesn’t need anymore ideas to help him gossip more quickly and effectively.

No, Steve will just let him continue to work for it. It keeps him busy and less likely to mess with anyone around him, so that’s a small win, in and of itself. Plus he’s pretty sure that Tony truly enjoys actually seeing the looks on peoples faces when he shares his random news with them, so that would probably explain why he does this all in person.

Tony catches sight of the three men and the wicked grin on his face only grows, and this time Steve externally groans.

“There you guys are!” The older man says quickly as he makes his way towards them, “have any of you happened to check out Twitter yet, this lovely morning?”

Steve furrows his brows, yes, he has a Twitter account, but does he actually use it? Hell no. He can barely even figure out what Twitter is for, honestly, let alone how to maneuver the hell site. And anytime he does get on his account, the tweets—what a ridiculous thing to call them—are usually pretty descriptive and very, very highly inappropriate to say to a complete stranger. When Steve had mentioned the aggressive tweets to Sam and Bucky, they had both burst out laughing and when they’d finally managed to reign themselves back in, Sam had told him those were called ‘Thirst Tweets’—Whatever the hell that means.

That was when Steve came to the unwavering realization that Twitter just was not for him. Though Bucky seemed to pick the site up rather quickly, and now he was tweeting with the best of em.

Steve shakes his head at just how stupid those words truly sound. He’ll never fully acclimate to this time, nor the strange and invasive customs, ideologies, and ethics that comes along with it. Don’t get him wrong, this century does have a lot of really amazing features, such as better healthcare, easy access to information, more equality and a larger variety of much, much better tasting foods.

But some days he did miss the simple things from the 40’s. Meeting people in person, going to the movies unbothered, the anonymity that came with a lack of widespread media, and just going out for a drink and some dancing with a good pal or your girl—not that he did a lot of dancing back then, nor did he actually have a girl, but still, life was simpler then, less wasteful and a heck of a lot less superficial.

“No,” Sam answers, and Bucky just shakes his head before following it up with a, “why?”

“Oh, well, then the three of you are truly missing out,” Tony grins widely, his eyes locking with Steves and instantly the latter knows this cannot be good. “Someone wrote a very sweet and long winded Tweet about our little Capsicle here.” He chuckles, gesturing to Steve, and the super soldier is now positive the older man is actually vibrating with excitement currently.

“No way,” Bucky’s eyes grow wide as he quickly pats himself down then pulls his phone from his front pants pocket.

“What does it say?” Sam hastily asks, as he tries to reach across the counter for Tony’s phone. But doesn’t even get close as the billionaire quickly yanks his hand, the one holding said electronic, away from Wilsons reach.

“Simmer for just a moment, my dear Sammy. Don’t you worry your pretty little head, I’m planning to read it out loud for all of you,” he happily says, putting his phone up in front of his face as he clears his throat loudly. Then he begins to read the tweets, raising his voice probably in an attempt to sound more like a woman.

“‘Do you ever just hear of someone in passing, or see them in the media, and have this instantaneous deep longing emotion within you. Not a longing in the sense of wanting them, but entirely due to hoping with everything inside you that they find their true happiness one day..’‘..‪That they wake up in a few years and smile, like truly smile, because they are exactly where they wanted to be. Where they deserved to be. That they’d ended up with every desire they had yearned for. And I’m not talking about material objects. I’m talking life goals and accomplishments..’‬‪‘..I’m talking about the true important aspects of life. The things that actually matter in the grand scheme of it all. Well, that is how I feel whenever someone brings up Steve Rogers. Or whenever I see an article or a news story about him. I instantly have this desperate want for him..’”‬

Sam cuts in, a goofy grin on his lips, “girl, I feel that. I also have a desperate want for Steve whenever I see him.” He turns to playfully wiggle his eyebrows at Steve, while Bucky and Tony burst out laughing. ‬

‪All of this only causing the blonde to shake his head and drag a large hand down his face in exasperation. Knowing instantly that these 3 were never going to let this go, he just silently prayed that no one else in the tower had seen these tweets yet. Don’t get him wrong, they were sweet as hell, and made a slight blush creep its way onto the super soldiers cheeks, but he wasn’t really a huge fan of the spotlight. Never had been, never will be, and this very much put a blinding light smack dab on his face. ‬

‪Tony quickly attempts to steel himself once again, but he can’t stop the chuckles from bubbling out as he continues to read. Every few words a snort or giggle escapes the confines of his lips. “‘..to be happy. *snort* Truly and utterly happy. The man deserves exactly that, and yet so much more. *small giggle* What with everything he has done for us and this planet. *snort* If anyone in this world has earned their happily ever after, *small giggle* it’s that man.’” ‬

‪Steve just groans and lays his forehead against the cold surface of the counter, as the three men continue to laugh boisterously around him. This couldn’t get anymore awkward and embarrassing, and Steve wasn’t even the one who wrote the tweets. ‬

‪“What are we laughing about?” ‬

‪Whelp, obviously Steve spoke too soon, clearly it could get worse. And much, much worse at that. He slowly lifts his head and then promptly drops it back down to the solid surface with a thump. ‬

‪“Oh Nat!” Tony excitedly calls out, “you’re just in time! We were just discussing the most recent fan tweet for ol’ Rogers here.” ‬

‪“Ah yes,” she snorts, “I also truly hope Steve gets every desire he yearns for.” ‬

‪He doesn’t even have to raise his eyes to know she has a playfully quirked brow at the moment. He can just feel it on her, staring smugly at him. ‬

‪“You saw it already?” Bucky chuckles. ‬

‪“Are you kidding? Who hasn’t?” She cackles, her voice sounding much closer now, “I even already retweeted the entire thing.” ‬

‪“Me too!” Tony quickly chimes in, “I had far too much fun responding to that third part.” ‬

‪“Shit, I need to retweet this now too!” Sam adds, and Steve can hear him shuffling around next to him, most likely attempting to find his phone. ‬

‪“Oh, same,” his traitorous best pal says from beside him and Steve’s head snaps up to narrow his eyes at his buddy in outrage. But Bucky just smirks right back, shrugging his shoulders and then focuses on the phone in his hand. ‬

‪Everyone falls silent as they tinker on their phones, Steve getting up to wash his dishes so he can make a hasty exit from the kitchen. But before he can even turn the water on, a low whistle rings through the room, “damn Punk, you gotta see this dame. She’d give Vivien Leigh a run for her money back in our day.”‬

‪That only slightly peeks Steves curiosity, but only slightly—who is he kidding, that’s a complete lie. The truth is, now he really wants to know what she looks like, but he refuses to let any of these dickheads know that. He’s always had a wee bit of a crush on Vivien Leigh, ever since he’d seen Gone With The Wind. But he ignores Bucky’s obvious use of Vivien to entice him, and instead just nods nonchalantly as he continues to wash his dishes, “I’m sure she would.” ‬

‪“Tin Man’s right,” Sam starts, “this woman is insanely attractive. Steve, man, you gotta check her out,” and just as his friend finishes his words, the unmistakable sound of a stool being pushed back echoes through the room. ‬

‪Steve just hums as he quickly dries his bowl and spoon, before putting them away, “maybe later, Sam. I ah,” he scrunches up his face, which luckily no one can see as he is still facing the cupboards. “I have something I need to attend to at the moment.” Yeah, that didn’t sound convincing or truthful at all. But he doesn’t give anyone a chance to retort as he makes a beeline out of the kitchen. ‬

‪Though he doesn’t miss Bucky playfully yelling, “yeah, I’m sure you do.” And the hidden meaning of those words makes Steve shake his head, and flush just a little as he hastily makes his way down the hallway. Clearly his lifelong best friend knows him far too well, and is more than aware that Steve is sneaking off to both avoid this conversation and privately creep this sweet tweeting woman. ‬

‪Which again those words sound utterly and completely ridiculous to Steve. ‬

‪It had been a couple of days since Tony had come barreling into the kitchen, and since then Steve’s Twitter app had been taking a damn beating. ‬

‪Not in the sense that he’d started posting more, but in the sense that he’d been going on it more. He’d actually asked Bruce that Saturday afternoon if he could walk Steve through how to maneuver the hell site a little better. Figuring Bruce would be the least likely to judge or mock Steve for the request. Nor would Bruce tell the others that Steve had asked, as if they all learned of this, they’d know exactly what he was up to, and why he wanted to know how to use the app. ‬

‪When he’d arrived back to his room after promptly fleeing the kitchen and his overzealous friends, he’d opened the app and tracked down the famous tweets. Which honestly wasn’t hard at all, as damn near everyone Sam had set up for Steve to follow had retweeted the posts by this point. So they were basically his entire main page. ‬

‪He’d clicked around for a bit, until he managed to finally end up on her—Y/N’s page. And then opened her picture only to abruptly drop his phone. Though luckily for the tiny electronic, it never actually met the ground, all thanks to his ridiculously fast reflexes. ‬

‪He’d then just stood there, awkwardly wide eyed and staring at her picture. Because shit, Bucky wasn’t lyin’. She did give Vivien a run for her money. She was stunning, and upon scrolling through her page and reading her other posts, he learned she wasn’t just beautiful on the outside. ‬

‪He’d then noticed a few retweets from some girl named Lindsey, figuring that must be a friend of hers, he opened her page. Instantly noticing a string of retweets of Y/N’s original lengthy post, and jokingly commenting about ‘how much did you drink last night, girl?!’ Though in a lot more words than just that, he was paraphrasing her friends actual response here. ‬

‪And that’s how Steve figured out that obviously when Y/N drank, she wrote sweet and thoughtful messages to and about complete strangers, people she idolized or looked up to, or just plain admired—which yeah, that wasn’t really normal. But in all the best ways. Most people who tweeted him were vulgar and far too descriptive. He honestly didn’t get many heartwarming messages from the public, so these words really stuck with him. They brought a smile to his face. ‬

‪And on top of all of that, she’d been drinking. And most of the drunk people he’d ever encountered were all either loud, rude, belligerent or far too flirty. Booze giving people the liquid courage to say the things they’d never voice sober. Liquor basically heightened a person's internal personalities, which wasn’t always a good thing for some. So the fact that she was so damn sweet when intoxicated, only stood to reason that her sober was probably a true sweetheart, through and through. ‬

‪Which all only made Steve yearn to actually meet the woman behind these thoughtful words. Though he knew that would never actually happen, because reaching out to her now would be weird, wouldn’t it? ‬

‪I mean, would she even want to hear from him? Would she even be interested in possibly meeting him? Would she even respond to a message from him? From the looks of it, she hadn’t posted anything since that night, so maybe she was avoiding her social media at the moment. Maybe she just wanted this all to blow over, and maybe Steve should want that too. Maybe he should just let this all rest, and continue on with his life as normal. ‬

‪It’s not like they’d meet and fall madly in love instantly, or end up becoming something more than that. It’s not like him just letting this whole situation blow over would really affect him all that much, right? Maybe she only felt that way about him because she’d been drinking. What if sober, she had completely differing opinions of him. ‬

‪Yeah, that’s very unlikely, he knows that. But truthfully, Steve was ridiculously nervous at even the thought of interacting with her. I mean, he never really had ‘game with the ladies’, as Sam had put it. And he’d never even really entertained the idea of meeting someone, or dating someone, since he’d woken up from the ice. He’d just focused himself and his mind on his job, and didn’t even allow any hopes of love or a relationship to infiltrate his head. Because he knew once he really, truly thought about it or gave it any weight in his mind, that he’d come to the unwaveringly obvious realization that he was alone. That he was lonely and wanted more than anything to have someone special in his life. Someone who saw him for him, for Steve Rogers the man, and not Captain America the legend. ‬

‪But now all of this had crashed those very thoughts that he’d avoided for so long into his head, like a dang freight train slamming into a car stuck on the tracks. And now all he could think about was how desperately he wanted a person, a gal to call his own. Someone to go to bed beside every night, and wake up wrapped around every morning. A woman to share his free time with, to tell about his days, his stresses, his accomplishments and goals. And have her do the same in return. ‬

‪But even with that all bouncing around in his head, he was scared. Truly and entirely terrified. Because with opening yourself up to another, giving love a shot and taking the leap to see where it goes, came the potential of heartbreak. Came the possibility of ending up hurt and even more alone, if it all fell apart in the end. ‬

‪And yeah, you can’t have true happiness without taking a chance on it. You can’t succeed without first trying. But Steve had struggled his entire life, he’d fought to get where he is today, he’d sacrificed so much of himself and his life to get where he is now. To be at the place he is now, and even though being alone was a sore spot for him, his heart wasn’t tattered. It was fully intact again, and he really just wanted it to stay that way. ‬

‪He’d finally reached a place where he was actually content with his life, where he was proud of who he was and how far he’d come. And he refused to mess with the happy balance he’d found now. ‬

‪Was that a foolish choice for him to make? Oh definitely. But was he going to just continue to be stubborn and pretend like he was truly happy in this moment? Hell fucking yes.‬

‪Steve was ridiculously stubborn, and he fully knew it, and owned it, 100%. ‬

‪Steve walks into the kitchen to grab a midday sneak before heading back to hide in his room. And the second his eyes land on the current occupants of the space he almost groans loudly. ‬

‪Tony, Nat, Sam and Bucky are all lingering around the kitchen island, talking about what Steve can only assume is his personal life. Or rather, the lack thereof. ‬

‪There are only two days left until the press release and Steve has been basically avoiding his friends for the last 2 days. Ever since Tony cornered him in the gym trying to give him the full run down on Y/N. Where she worked, where she’d gone to school, where she’d been born and raised, everything.

‪All things Steve honestly had no business learning from the billionaire. Who had actually proudly admitted to doing a full background check on the woman, as if that was normal to do at a complete stranger. Steve had instantly scolded the man, citing that it was only ridiculously intrusive and unacceptable to creep into someone's personal life like that. Especially someone who none of the team actually knew. ‬

‪She wasn’t some criminal set on world destruction, nor was she a person of interest to the team in regards to a mission. She was a civilian, a regular person, and she didn’t deserve having her entire life picked apart and invaded like that. She deserved her privacy. ‬

‪Tony had then tried to talk Steve into contacting her, even just a small message to her Twitter account to thank her, or something of the like. But Steve wasn’t interested, he was still happily stubborn and pretending to be ignorant to the longing feelings within him when it came to Y/N. Because honestly, he didn’t know her through a dang hole in the ground, let alone should he be feeling this way about a woman he’s never even met, let alone spoken to. This was outrageous, these strange feelings were ludicrous. ‬

‪So no, he doesn’t feel anything towards her. And yeah, he knows wholeheartedly that that’s a blatant lie, but shoot him for trying to think rationally here. For trying to be logical to the fact that one shouldn’t feel this strongly for a damn stranger. So, by day he’ll just continue to fake that he isn’t interested. That he hasn’t checked out her account or photos, that he hadn’t been day dreaming about meeting her. He’ll just continue to pretend like he wants no part of this in front of the whole team. ‬

‪But then by night he’ll check out her twitter, like every night since she’d posted, and wonder what she’s like in person. Wonder if she’s easy to talk to, if her laugh is infectious, if her smile is like the sun, if her mere presence alone is truly calming. ‬

‪She still hadn’t posted a damn thing since the famous tweets, so clearly she was avoiding her social media. She hadn’t even retweeted a single response, nor deleted the original posts. It was like her account was completely frozen in time—pun not intended. ‬

‪Tony had just stood there, continuing to pester Steve about Y/N, up until Steve had opted to completely ignore the man entirely. After he’d stopped responding, Tony had finally dropped the topic and left, but not before vowing to get Steve on board with this ‘operation get Rogers a date’ mission, as the billionaire had hilariously nicknamed it—Note the sarcasm. ‬

‪And once Tony had left the gym, and the door slamming shut had confirmed he was truly gone, Steve had glanced over his shoulder to fully affirm he’d left. And instantly noticed the manila folder sitting on a bench where Tony had been standing. And it didn’t take a rocket doctor to figure out what was in that folder. No, Steve was instantly aware it was most likely a full and complete write up on Y/N. ‬

‪He chose to ignore the folder, or at least he’d put in a solid effort to ignore it. But after a little while—read, literally 2 minutes—Steve finally caved and hesitantly walked towards the folder, wiping his sweaty hands on the towel he’d kept over his shoulder. And once he reached the folder, he glanced around as if to double check there was no one watching or present to witness his next move. ‬

‪Then he gingerly scooped up the folder, staring at the outside for a moment before taking a deep breath in and opening it up. To only be instantly met with a stunning photo of Y/N, that adruptly confirms his earlier thought, her smile is like the sun. ‬

‪And as he delves into every fact and detail about her, all the things Tony had managed to dig up about the woman, the irony is not lost on him. He’d literally just chastised Tony for invading her privacy, and yet, here he was, doing the exact same thing. Lapping up every little detail he could about her. ‬

‪At least Tony had invaded her privacy for semi honourable reasons, he’d only done it to help a friend out. Where as Steve was doing it entirely for selfish reasons. His desperate need to know everything about her, yet being entirely too petrified to actually reach out to the woman, to just speak to her. To give himself the chance to learn all of these things about her, from her, as was the way it should have been. ‬

‪The only thought running through his mind at that point was: What an utter schmuck he’d truly turned out to be. ‬

‪Back in the present, he halts his steps and honestly contemplates if he should slowly back out of the kitchen, before anyone even notices him. But he never gets that chance as 4 sets of eyes snap up to land on him, and he knows escaping now unscathed is highly unlikely. ‬

‪So with a deep breath in, he enters the lions den, entirely prepared for the razzing and ridicule he was about to endure from his, so called, best friends. As they continued to chide him for having not made a move yet, as they continued to inform him that they were displeased with his lack of action in all of this. ‬

‪And as they kept reminding him of what happened the last time he’d waited too long with a gal, and yeah, those comments cut deep. But only because he knew they were entirely accurate, and that’s why they truly cut as deep as they did. He was well aware of his shortcomings in the romance department, but did that stop him from stubbornly pretending like his friends were entirely wrong? Of fucking course not. ‬

‪Because Steve Rogers was thee most stubborn man on the planet, and he was entirely proud of that simple fact. ‬

‪He’s standing on stage, Tony droning on and on about God knows what. Steve had tuned out a while ago, his mind still all over the place. Still focused on entirely different things than the current topic of the day. He should be focused on the facility's grand opening, and Tony’s eloquently chosen words, but yet again, for the millionth time this week, his thoughts are on Y/N. The woman he feels like he knows damn near entirely at this point, yet has never once laid eyes on. Not even so much as seen a glimpse of in real life. ‬

‪And how truly creepy does he sound right now? This was some next level stalker behaviour, as Sam would call it, and he freaking knows it. God, did he know it. ‬

‪Bucky’s elbow making direct contact with Steve’s left side ribs, jars him painfully from his reverie. He manages to only wince slightly at the forceful hit before snapping his eyes at his best pal—who may lose that title soon if he isn’t careful—and glaring at him. ‬

‪Bucky just grins and leans in towards Steve, as he whispers, “don’t look now, Punk, but it appears a little Tweety Bird is in attendance with us today.” Then the brunette nods his head in a direction towards the back of the audience. And yes, Steve is well aware of who he is referring to, as Tweety Bird is the name his ‘friends’ had been using to refer to Y/N as all week. And don’t even get him started on how much that nickname truly irked—‬

‪Hold up. Wait a tick. What did Buck just say? ‬

‪Steve's eyes quickly scan the crowd before landing on her near the back. And God, he couldn’t have missed her beautiful face even if he’d tried. He honestly isn’t sure how he hadn’t noticed her before. His super soldier eyes clearly need to be checked as they so obviously missed the stunning woman hidden in the masses. ‬

‪He finds himself completely and totally trapped in her stare. His eyes locked onto hers as if they were high powered magnets, and not even his super strength could pull them apart now. He is just about to break out into a huge grin, just at the fact he actually got to finally see her in the flesh, but then his mind catches up to the moment. ‬

‪And wait, wait, why is she even here to begin with? ‬

He snaps his eyes to his possible ex-best pal, and narrows them accusingly. If Bucky is behind this, he can kiss his best friend title goodbye. And Steve will happily inform him that Sam has taken up that position now, just to be as petty and childish as he possibly can.

But all he receives in return is a wicked grin from Bucky, as he nods his head towards Tony. And just like that, Steve flicks his intense gaze at the billionaire in question. Wishing in this moment that looks could kill, that he had that super power. Because if they could, if he did, Tony would be laying on the floor right now. But luckily for the smaller man, he doesn’t have that ability, though Tony will wish for a quick death once Steve gets his hands on him.

Once this is all over, and everyone leaves so there are no witnesses, Tony will get what’s coming to him. Mark his words, Tony Stark will learn a valuable lesson tonight—

Movement catches his attention and he flicks his eyes back to see Y/N hastily packing up her things. Wait, she isn’t leaving yet, is she? The press release isn’t even halfway done yet. She can’t just leave, not before he has a chance to actually speak to her. To actually, finally, interact with her. She is here after all, he’d be an idiot if he didn’t use this to his advantage now.

Maybe Tony will be safe after all. He did sort of give Steve this opportunity after all. Maybe Tony’s meddling wasn’t entirely bad this time. Though he would still need a stern talking to about interfering with other people's lives.

Her eyes lock back on Steves and he can see the tears pooling in them now. His perfect eyesight honing in on them, and his heart feels like it’s about to break. She’s tearing up? Why is she tearing up? He sees a tear slip down her cheek as she quickly wipes it away just as she turns and hastily heads for the exit.

And watching her retreating form snaps something in Steve—well that and another well positioned elbow jab from Bucky. As if trying to break Steve out of his head, while also urging him to do something.

Steve shakes his head and then quickly makes his way to the edge of the platform, jumping off it and landing gracefully on his feet before taking off at full speed after her.

Members of the press moving out of his way, and snapping photos as he runs passed. But he isn’t focused on any of that currently, he just needs to reach her, to stop her from leaving just yet. He just wants to meet her, to talk to her in person.

He vaguely hears Tony trying to wrangle in the press, trying to regain their attention as he makes up some excuse for Steve's abrupt exit. He’s guessing Tony saw her leave just like Steve and Bucky had.

He stops when he reaches the first road, and glances around, quickly pinpointing her form hastily walking towards the main road. Her head down as she goes and he begins to jog after her and once he gets close enough he calls out, “Hey, hold up.”

He watches as her steps falter and then stop entirely, her shoulders deflating slightly as her arms rise up a little. Though he can’t make out exactly what her hands are doing currently, but a gut wrenching thought tells him she is probably wiping away more tears. However then she slowly turns to face him, keeping her eyes down as if the ground is the most fascinating thing she’s ever encountered.

And all he wants is for her to glance up, to look at him, to allow him to finally truly take her in. He desperately wants that, he is about to beg her for it honestly. But he is so tongue tied in this moment, he can’t even think of a single word to say. Nor is he sure his voice will even work at the moment.

After a moment though, it appears she’s managed to locate her voice. But she still keeps her eyes down, even as she speaks, and her voice is nothing like he’d imagined it would be. It’s way prettier sounding then his mind could have ever conjured up.

“I um, I’m really, really sorry,” she starts and then clears her throat, “I shouldn’t have come here today. I ah, I didn’t want to ever make you feel uncomfortable in any way. And I guess I just need to apologize to you for my ridiculous antics last week. And ah, and for stupidly agreeing to come to this junket. I’ll just um,” she glances over your shoulder momentarily, as if looking for an escape. “I’ll just be going now,” she quickly says as her eyes finally meet his. And he is instantly aware that she has been crying, confirming his earlier worries. She gestures with her thumb over her shoulder as she takes a small step back. “Sorry again, for um, for everything.”

Their direct eye contact momentarily stuns him, so much so that he had yet to fully comprehend her words. He is just happily lost in this moment, hoping it doesn’t actually ever end.

But then it does, and he is instantly thrusted back into the here and now when she turns and quickly continues down the road. Hastily moving away from him yet again. And fuck that if he is going to let her get away now. Not yet at least.

He quickly catches up to her, softly saying, “wait,” as he gently grasps her elbow in the hopes she’ll turn back around.

She takes a deep breath and then turns to face him again, just as he’d hoped and he quickly, be it reluctantly, removes his hand from her skin. Their eyes connecting once again. And shit, what does he do or say now?

Before he can even realize what he’s doing, his hand rises up to rub the back of his neck as he rips through a bunch of different thoughts as to just how he should proceed here. What he should say to her now.

“I ah, I wasn’t—“ he pauses realizing his mistake then quickly corrects himself, “I’m not uncomfortable about you being here,” he shakes his head, “not at all. I just—firstly, I just wanted to apologize to you, actually. I know they probably forced you to be here today, I don’t really know how, but judging by your reaction to all of this, I’m guessing you really had no say in being here.“ He sighs deeply, “I had no idea that they’d actually invited you, so I can only assume that Tony played a huge hand in all of this. He really likes to insert himself in other people's lives, so I apologize that you got dragged into this. He doesn’t really know when to butt out.”

She nod slowly as her eyes flick down to the ground again, “it’s okay. You really don’t owe me anything, I honestly brought this all on myself. I um, I don’t blame anyone else for any of this, but thank you for saying all of that.” She looks back up at him, “it really helps to hear. This week has just been—“ she halts her words and sighs deeply as she waves a hand around. “Sorry, that’s really not important. Um, just basically thank you, ya know, for easing my mind with all of this.”

He can’t help the frown that forms on his lips, she honestly believes that anything she has to say isn’t important? God how wrong she is, he’d enjoy nothing more than to hear her talk for hours. Even about absolutely nothing. And God, he really shouldn’t be this damn smitten with her already. He shouldn’t be feeling this damn connected to her already. He’s doomed, but yet, he honestly has no issues with that fact. He quickly wipes the frown from his lips and shakes his head, “don’t mention it, but I should really be the one thanking you.”

Her eyes instantly widen, and it takes everything in Steve not to chuckle at the shocked look now on her face. Her eyebrows slowly crinkle in the most adorable way, as her mouth hangs open just slightly. It’s honestly the cutest damn thing he’s ever seen. And he’s seen a lot in his time.

And then she seems to pull herself back together, “I’m sorry if this is rude, but um, why exactly would you owe me a thank you?”

He can’t help the stupid smile that forms as he tries to hide it by glancing over his shoulder to ensure that no one had followed them. Mainly anyone from his team, if he’s being honest. The press following him is nowhere near as much of a possibility as his fellow Avengers, and also nowhere near as embarrassing.

Seeing that luckily no one has, he comes up with a quick plan to ensure that they aren’t bothered or overheard. “I’ll explain all that, but first, can I show you something?”

She nods quickly, “um, yeah. Yeah, of course.”

“Okay, great. Just uh, just follow me then,” he quickly says before he starts to lead them both towards the spot he’d decided would be the best choice for privacy. And to ensure no one overhears either of them.

Reader’s POV.

You fall into step with the giant man, curious where exactly he is leading you to. He hasn’t said anything since you both began walking and you honestly have no idea what to even say to him. The silence isn’t too bad, though that’s honestly a lie, the silence is actually extremely awkward.

You have no idea what he still has to say to you, nor where your currently heading towards, nor what he feels about all of this. I mean, yeah, he said he wanted to thank you, but for what exactly? You have no fucking clue. And shit yeah, that’s a little unsettling, if you’re being honest.

Your hands start to clam up again, as you keep your eyes down, watching your steps to ensure you don’t eat it. Because that would just be so magical if you did biff it right now. Ya know, in front of Steve Rogers and all.

He’d probably think you were just a ridiculous klutz, or an accident prone nincompoop. But really, you just aren’t the best on heels, and as you both have now left the glorious cement behind and are trekking it through the compound’s vast green space, falling is a very real possibility. You hoofing it through the dang wilderness now, as if you’re some seasoned hiker on a nice, scenic Sunday adventure, instead of a small, sightly out of shape, journalist in high ass heels.

You stealthily side eye your adventure buddy and wonder if he’d give you a piggyback ride. I mean, that’s a ridiculous thought, but like, would he though? Ya know, if you asked really nicely and remembered to use your manners? He is rumoured to have insane strength, so he could probably easily chuck you over his shoulder, as if you weighed nothing at all.

Oh God, why do you now want nothing more in this life, than to be slung over Steve Rogers shoulder like he’s some damn caveman. Shit, yeah, that’d be hot for sure.

You shake your head and stifle the laugh that wants to bubble out of you, as you focus back on the ground ahead of you. What a ridiculous person you truly are. Who even thinks something like that about a complete stranger, let alone Steve Rogers—Though, come to think of it, probably a lot of people think things like that about him.

Once again you feel a large warm hand on your elbow and you halt your steps to glance up at him, curious what’s happening. Oh shit, what if he can like, read minds or something, and just no one actually knows about that enhancement of his? Fuck, please God say he can’t.

Though let’s just test that theory, ya know, just to be sure. Hello? Steve? You there? If you are, fyi, my favourite number is 9. And I think you have a fantastic ass—shit, just ignore that last part—

“We’re here,” he says quietly, and his hesitant expression leads you to believe that he can’t, in fact, hear your thoughts. And thank fuck for that.

You nod—no clue why you do, you just do. And then quickly glance around at your surroundings, only to then have your mouth fall open at the beautiful sight before you.

You hadn’t even noticed where you’d ended up until this exact moment. You are standing on the edge of a large body of water, and with a quick glance over your shoulder you realize you are surrounded by trees. The facilities buildings no longer even in sight, and it fells like you are in the middle of nowhere, like there isn’t a single soul around.

Your eyes slowly slip back up to meet the large blondes piercing blue ones, a smile on your lips. “This please is beautiful,” you whisper before your eyes drift back to the water ahead of you. “It’s so peaceful here.”

“Yeah,” he sighs deeply, “it is. It’s ah, it’s one of my favourite spots on the compound to escape to. Ya know, when I just need a moment alone, or some time to think.”

You side eye him again, seeing him just staring out at the water now, and then your eyes drift back to the water as well. “I can totally understand why, it’s so quiet,” you whisper, as if speaking too loud will ruin the tranquility of the location. “Thank you,” you glance back at him, his eyes on you now. “For showing this place to me, for sharing your secret spot with me. I honestly needed a peaceful moment like this,” you sigh, “it’s just been such a long and gruelling week. So, seriously, thank you.”

He nods, “I’m sorry to hear your week hasn’t been very good. Is there anything I can help with?”

“No,” you shake your head, but then halt the action as a thought crosses your mind. “Unless you happen to have access to a time machine?” You ask playfully.

He chuckles, “I do actually, but why do you need a time machine?”

“Just so I can fix a few mistakes from my past,” you nonchalantly answer, but then his words fully sink in and your eyes widen once again. “Wait, actually?”

“Yeah, actually,” he grins as he brings his index finger up to his lips in a ‘shh’ motion. “But that’s just between us, no one actually knows that we have one.”

“Damn,” you mutter as you glance back out at the water. “And here I thought self driving cars were insanely futuristic. But a time machine blows that out of the dang water.” You quickly shake your head, looking back up at him, “sorry, yes, your secret is safe with me. I won’t tell a soul.”

He just smiles down at you, “perfect.”

A few moments of silence go by as you both just enjoy the comfortable moment, just standing quietly at the waters edge. As if time has come to a complete stand still, and no one else exists in the world. But then your mind reminds you of the real reason he brought you here, and your curiosity won’t allow you to stay silent any longer. “Um, I believe you wanted to tell me something,” you turn to face him, giving him your full attention.

“Right, right,” one of his large hands comes up to rub the back of his neck again. “I ah, I just wanted to thank you. Ya know, for all the kind things you said about me. Honestly, it was really refreshing to have someone say all of that to me. I’m not really used to people caring that much about me—“ he shakes his head, “no, that’s not the right wording, I mean more, the sentiments behind your words. Lots of people idolize Captain America, they wish him the best, but not a lot of people actually acknowledge me, Steve Rogers, as a person. So it meant so much to me that you were talking about me, the guy from Brooklyn, and not the hero persona I live in the shadow of every day.”

Before you can think better of it, you reach out to gently lay your hand on his forearm. And yeah, you have to force yourself to ignore the instant tingles and warmth that floods your system, just from merely touching him. This is not the time to perv out.

“I’m so sorry, Steve. You truly deserve so much better than that, and I apologize on behalf of my generation for making you feel less important than the Captain. Because honestly, that couldn’t be further from the truth. There would be no Captain America without there first being a Steve Rogers.” You remove your hand from his arm, “and furthermore, Steve can and will live on without the Captain, but the Captain cannot live on without Steve. It’s impossible, he does not exist without you.”

He just stares at you, silently, as his face holds an unreadable expression.

Feeling like you might have overstepped or said too much, you quickly shake your head, “I’m sorry, ignore me, I’m totally rambling again.”

“No,” he shakes his head now, as if snapping out of it, “please don’t apologize, I was honestly just a little caught off guard by all that you’d said—in all the best ways, I promise.” He smiles, “I can’t even begin to explain how truly amazing it is to actually hear someone say that. After all these years. It’s just,” he sighs contently, “it’s just really nice to hear, is all.”

You smile up at him, glad your rambling meant so much to him. He deserves to hear these things, and you believe every word you’ve said wholeheartedly. You wouldn’t have said them if you hadn’t. You may be a lot of things, but a liar or a fraud weren’t one of them. If you deeply believed something as true, you always voiced those thoughts. “I’m so glad to hear that,” you say quietly as you turn to face the water one last time. “I guess we should probably get back. Ya know, before someone comes looking for you,” you glance up at him and smirk. Knowing full well that no one is missing you currently, but you can only assume Steves absence hasn’t gone unnoticed by his team members, nor the press.

And honestly, you don’t need anymore gas thrown on the raging fire that is your life currently. The press would have a damn field day if they caught wind that you two were hiding out in some secret place, alone—Oh God, just imagine the headlines for that.

He sighs, nodding, “you’re probably right.”

Then with a final glance at your surrounds you both head back, you pull out your phone along the way to finish ordering your Uber. Because you refuse to walk back into the conference, side by side with Steve. It’s probably just best if you leave now, before anyone clues in that you both were together this whole time.

You reach the road again, and luckily managed to not fall or break a heel. Which is honestly a feat in and of itself. You’d have to put ‘skilled heel hiker’ on your resume once you got home. Because honestly, that was something any future employer of yours should really know, and appreciate.

You stop walking and Steve notices instantly, turning to look back at you, his brows furrowed in the cutest way. You have to stop yourself from reaching up to smooth out the lines, because it’s weird to touch strangers, right? Yeah, yeah, it’s weird.

“I’m going to head out, I’m sure I’ve missed the entire last part of the conference by now, and I kind of want to beat the rush of exiting press,” you say, which is all true, you just might have also strategically left out the main reason as to why you’ve chosen to leave early.

He nods, “ah, yeah, that’s a good point.”

You smile up at the beautiful man one last time, you’re not entirely sure if you’ll ever see him again, so you take a moment to memorize his features. Ya know, so you can happily and accurately daydream about him later. But then the sound of an approaching car hits your ears and you glance to see your Uber pulling up and—shit. Of course he would have the fastest response time of any Uber driver in history. Because yeah, clearly you aren’t supposed to spend anymore time with this amazing human. That’s just your damn luck.

You turn back to him, and saying goodbye now honestly sucks, but you both have lives to get back to. “Thank you again for showing me your spot, Steve. And for just taking the time to talk to me, it made my whole week so much better,” you smile as the car pulls up beside you both. The driver quickly confirming you are who he is picking up.

“No worries at all,” he smiles back, “it made mine as well.”

Your smiles grows at his words and you reluctantly force yourself into the car, waving as it pulls away.

And as it makes its way down the road, you slump back into your seat, releasing a deep breath. This afternoon will forever live on in your head; the day you met Steve Rogers in the flesh. It will, from this moment on, be your all time favourite memory, hands down.

Steve’s POV

Steve stealthily makes his way back to the compound, rejoining the touring group as his teammates show the press around the main areas of the facility. He falls into step next to Buck, who is lingering near the back to ensure no press members sneak off or get lost.

“So,” Bucky pipes up quietly after a few moments of them just silently walking side by side. Not even turning to look at Steve, and instead keeping his eyes fixed ahead of them both. “How was it? Did you manage to catch her?”

Steve smiles widely, he couldn’t prevent it even if he’d tried. “Amazing, Buck. I did catch her, and she’s just,” he pauses, no words really holding enough meaning to describe Y/N. “she’s amazing, in so many ways,” he finally finishes, even though the word he’s picked really doesn’t do her justice.

Bucky grins widely, “so, when do you see her next?”

And Steves steps falter just slightly at his pals words.

Bucky stops walking altogether, gaping at Steve. “Punk,” he says slowly, “please tell me you got her number?”

“Shit,” Steve cringes as he stops walking as well, he knew he was forgetting something. He then sighs loudly as he drops his head forward. “I totally forgot.”

Bucky groans loudly, “Punk, we talked about this! Rule numero uno, always get the cute girls number!”

Reader’s POV.

You’re sitting at your dining room table, laptop in front of you as you slowly work on the Avengers article for your boss. You had luckily gotten a bunch of photos and recorded most of the conference, so you have more than enough to work with. Which, thank fuck for that. You really need to keep your job, at least for now, at least until you can secure something better.

Your phone starts to ring and you glance over at where it currently sits on the table beside your laptop. You pick it up and see it’s an unknown number—which yeah, that’s a little odd.

You hesitantly answer, unsure who it could be, “hello.” But then there is no response, you pull the phone away from your ear to see if the call is still active, and it is. You put it back to your ear, “hello?”

“Uh, yeah, hi, sorry. Is this—is this Y/N?”

“It is, may I ask who’s calling?”

“It’s um, it’s Steve,” he says and instantly you almost gasp because how did he— “Steve Rogers,” he quickly clarifies, as if you wouldn’t have figured that out already.

You giggle, because this man is just far too adorable for words. “Hi Steve, how are you?”

“I’m good, I hope you don’t mind that I’m calling you. I was going to message you on Twitter but I honestly couldn’t figure out how to do that. And I’m not really any good at texting, so a phone call just seemed like the best option.”

You smile widely, barely containing your laughter at how flustered he sounds. “I don’t mind at all, it’s so nice to hear from you. Though I am a little curious how you even got my number.”

“I ah, I sort of had Tony look it up for me.”

And that does cause you to laugh, “I should have guessed. So, what can I do for you, Steve? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay. I just,” he takes a deep breath, and now you swear you can hear voices in the background, you just can’t make out what any of them are saying. A scratchy sound rings through the phone, as if the mic is being covered by something and then you hear a louder muffled voice now, but still can’t make it out. However then the scratchy sound stops and Steve speaks up again, “I ah, I was just curious if you’d be interested in maybe going out to dinner with me sometime this week? I mean, ya know, if you’d be interested in that,” he pauses for a second then quickly adds, “Did I already say that?”

You hold back the excited giggles that want to break from your lips, he is clearly flustered by this and the very last thing you’d ever want to do is make this worse for him. Or to hurt his feelings by laughing at him putting himself on the line like this. Asking someone out is nerve wracking enough in this day and age, let alone when they laugh in your face—or over the phone—directly after you ask.

“I’d love that, Steve. Which day did you have in mind?”

“Friday?”

“Friday is perfect,” you grin widely, then you quickly exchange details and give him your address as he insists on picking you up. You both then say your goodbyes and hang up. And the second you put your phone back on the table, you squeal loudly.

You have a date with Steve Rogers in 5 short days, and you honestly couldn’t be more excited for it. And this all came to pass because you’d been on Twitter Drunk. Who would have ever seen this insane turn of events coming. You certainly wouldn’t have.

And shit, what is Lindsey going to say about all of this? Oh God, when she finds out she's going to just die. You pick up your phone and dial the familiar number, knowing that she’ll be pissed if you don’t tell her right away, or if she hears it from anywhere else other than you.

“Hey Y/N,” her chipper voice plays through your phones speaker.

“Linds, you’ll never guess who I have a date with on Friday. But you have to promise you won’t tell a soul, or so help me God, I will disown you!”

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

@caps-lockdown @itsstillnotwhatyouthink @tfandtws @boxofteenageideas @wangdeasang @giggleberts @casuallydarktiger @theonelittleone @agentbadbitch @ratwrites @starrystellars @bandsandanimefreak @rockyroadthepastryarchy @lovvliies @cuffski @icesoccerer @alwaysright4 @lilsthethrills @steeeeverogers @zombiepotterfour @mu-mu-rs @ledandan1244 @straightforwardly @denzmallows @xremember-me-notx @gwynethjodie @lollipopdomination @capstopavenger @jemimah-b99 @rcvenqers @justkending @alagalaska @starstucknature @silent-loucidity @sabertooth-potato @pies-wands-and-more @interstellarmess @gabriella69816 @phantom-soilder @wordlesscaptain @captain-hammer-of-asgard @viarogers @pixieferry @kaithezaftig @the-kinkiest-goblin @hysterically-original @badassbeckettswan @heyiamthatbitch @zlixlle @capsicledoll @givemehopenfandoms @pretendingandpreposterous @frozen-phoenix17 @emotionallysalty @saturngirlz @atomicsludgedonutbiscuit @ivannagotthebeat @bohemian-barbie @marvelous-capsicle @ivoryhazlewood @steverogersxreader @cjhorseback @jasminecalia @secondstar2disney @jessiedaeum @betsynodak @capricornprince118 @just-ladyme @pinkleopardss @drayshadow @sister-of-stars @wiserebelpartypie

#au fanfiction #fanfiction #long post #long read #marvel au #marvel fanfiction #steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x y/n #steve rogers x you #Twitter Drunk #part 2 #steve rogers au

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all-pacas · 5 years

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Can you go into detail about you POV of Nott being bossy and meddlesome? Ofc answer when you can, but i really want to hear your perspective on it

i should say that i mean it in the best possible way — but yes, nott is bossy. we see it best and most sharply with yeza, with the way she talks to and about him, as though he’s a fragile baby bird who needs her taking care of him, who can’t function without her. who needs to be reminded to promote himself, who argues with her about shop keeping and whether he promotes himself enough, who clearly can’t cook or manage without her care. it’s also very similar to how she’s always treated caleb — nott defers to him more, yes, but there’s also a reason people call her the mom friend. caleb is just so weak, guys. he can’t live without her watching out for him.

now. nott isn’t stupid. she’s not literally so self absorbed that she thinks the world can’t spin without her turning it. it’s actually her habit of externalization, of seeking her self worth in and through others — nott doesn’t think highly of herself, but does think the world of her loved ones. therefore, by taking care of them and pushing them, she has value. also: nott knows how great love is. and jester should get that as well, no matter with whom (nott has tried to set her up with both fjord and beau). caleb doesn’t have anyone? he’s lost the people from his past? then nott should fix that, too, because then caleb will be happier.

it’s all driven by love, but it’s also true that nott is stubborn as fuck and has always been pretty set on her ways. i think she probably knows and regrets sending the astrid letter in the sense that it caused trouble she literally never considered — she absolutely put no deep thought into it at the time — but i don’t think she regrets trying to help caleb be happy. and i think that’s a firm distinction for her.

she isn’t controlling, she doesn’t boss yeza around as criticism or a way to command — she does it to help, and to feel needed, and to be able to see him succeed and be wonderful and let the world see him as she does. the same for caleb. the same for any of her loved ones, really: let them be great and let nott have helped. because that gives her worth, too.

(there’s also a separate and much more meta discussion about all the ways sam has jokingly used jewish mother tropes with nott, and his own mother having pushed her children into acting from young ages and was very successful in that regard — there does seem to be a bit of that, but i’m not the person to lead that discussion. but luc’s getting a quality education when he’s a bit older, y’all.)

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siarven · 4 years

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Happy STS! No specific question today, just take this as free opportunity to ramble about one of your favorite things in your WIP! Have a good day! :)

Awww, you sent me two asks (from 2 weeks and 1 week ago) about this and tumblr just didn’t tell me I’d gotten any?????????? I only stumbled on them by accidentally clicking on the ask box???

Thank you!!

I haven’t participated before because I was too busy at home (and hate tumblr-ing from my phone) but I will try to do it in the future

What is one of my favorite things in my WIP…. I can’t decide on a wip, or a thing, so I’ll just scream about all 3 of my currently active WIPs and everything, sorry, thank you :D

First of all, I am very much in love with everything about my 3 recent WIPs :D. As Dreams Collide and Like Dragons of Old are both in the dark epic fantasy area, so while they’re also going to be aggressively hopepunk, they’re in general a lot darker than Hope Beyond, and also more epic and … well, fantasy xD And I love that! Hope Beyond is the first story that’s not set in a fantasy world of my making. Which, funnily, makes it so much harder for me. I love imagining everything xD But I feel like Hope Beyond needs that, to be a bit more grounded?

My WIPs are first and foremost written for me, with the things in them that I love :’) So I just take everything I like and throw it into a pot and hope that others will like it, too. But if not that’s okay. I will still love it :3 So that’s why my WIPs usually have a ton of creatures in them, creative worldbuilding (with lots of nature in it), and a mean magic system XD. And a lot of platonic love, between friends, family members, found family members… that sorta thing. And they also hurt a lot, in all the creative ways, while still refusing to give up hope and fighting for a better world ;D It’s gotten very hopepunk nowadays. I’ve come to actively dislike grimdark, even if a lot of my old wips fall more into that category (it’s probably the asoiaf influence..).

So this escalated a lot, I will just put it below a cut…

Hope Beyond is very small and personal and private, it’s all about the characters and probably won’t have an obvious villain. It’s more about personal growth, so internal conflict (and external conflict between the characters, but not necessarily with a villain in it). And I love it for that, and I love that it’ll be a comic, too! Even if that is so much work ahhhhh

And I love that it’s about recovery, and about three women and their conflicting recoveries, and how they help each other grow past their trauma, and how their pains are all so different but also similar. :’)

AND THE CREATURES!!! I can have all the creatures, and they don’t have to make physical sense, they can just be ghost creatures, and they can have stupid pun names, or heartfelt ones, or–

With As Dreams Collide, it’s kinda similar, but for very different reasons :’) I’ve been working on that thing since Nov 2014 (when I wrote the first draft during nanowrimo) and it’s come so far?? It’s the third draft now but it could just as well be a totally different story. There’s a huge, huge jump even from the second to the third draft! In the first draft, Elinor didn’t even exist! It was set somewhere in England! It had some fantasy in it, but not a lot. When the original story was supposed to be done, I hadn’t reached 50K yet so Ava got randomly promoted to main character, and the low-fantasy story turned into one with more magic in it… and more danger, and an actual villain xD And Ben wasn’t just a ghost-boy anymore, he was a ghost-boy with some sort of magic. Originally all the magic wasn’t magic, it was just something ghosts could do! And in the second draft, Elinor was only mentioned in passing and appeared once in the epilogue, and now she’s a main character!

It’s changed so much, and even if I still love the original concept (and will probably use it for something visual, one day, it’s just perfect for a visual novel, tbh), Dreams as of now is just so different, and I love it to death

I love that Merreadon, the city, is a huge tower-like mess of a structure, built around a few magical trees that connect Aelaris to Nevaeh, the space between worlds (that connects most of my WIP-worlds ;D); I love that the whole world is populated by a ton of small sorta-intelligent dragons, some of which are bird-adjacent and do bird things, some mammal-adjacent, some reptilian, insectoid, amphibian… I love that dogs are called wolflings cause the domestication isn’t that far off in that world. And that people tried to make spies out of dragons by bribing them with food, except the dragons took the food and ran. XD

I love that there was an apocalypse in the past, that there are long forgotten secrets simmering everywhere, that the gods are alive and well and very inhuman, and that they’re not even actually gods. I love that i made two religions that don’t even feature in this book xD I love the religions that are actually important in the story! I love that none of them are “obviously right”, that it’s pieces that fit, while others don’t fit.

I love that my characters feel like people to me, that they’ve gotten so important over the past 1-2 years that I’m having serious second thoughts over some parts of the plot xD

I really, really love about all of my stories that they’re interconnected, and while it’s incredibly frustrating (and delves into the most spoilery spoilers ever) to explain my magic system (that all individual ones are part of a “big” one), that it all works and makes sense even between all of these worlds, and that some characters will show up in other stories…

And now, Like Dragons of Old!

Like Dragons of Old is similar to Hope Beyond: Both of them are composed out of the things I love, from the very beginning. While Dreams grew organically, LDOO is the best planned story yet.

It will 100% kill me.

I absolutely love my worldbuilding, the magic system, the characters–

The Library!! The Broken Continent!! The Mean Tree Gods!! I love these concepts so much, I can’t wait to write all of it!!

I love that all 3 books of The Song of Aunae Trilogy cover 10 years each, that the characters grow up, and that the story grows up with them. That the first one will be cute and sweet, but also set up the pain from the later books… and it starts with a genocide. Whoops. XD

I love that the first book is Selandri’s POV, the second one is Onii’s, and the third one is Timbre’s. I love that Onii is a chaotic trickster phoenix in chicken form. I LOVE ONII AND TIMBRE AND SELANDRI SO MUCH AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Literally everything about these books makes me happy, even the romance aspect! Normally, I don’t like writing romance, and just ignore it from the get-go or make my main characters aro-ace. But in this case, while Timbre is ace, she and Selandri do fall in love and it makes the story so much more heartbreaking, cause it’s their story, how one small stupid choice when they’re children ends in them being on different sides in a kind of eternal war, and how they still love each other after all these years, even if.

I love that Timbre is the low empathy hero, while Selandri is the high empathy antagonist, I love that they’re so different but still so similar…

I love that I’ve decided to write three different endings (cause the grey one was planned, but now that I know them, I wanna write three versions, I want to let people decide which one they need the most–): the white one, the happy ending. The grey one, the bittersweet ending, that’s still more sweet than bitter, but will still make you cry. And the black one, the bittersweet ending that’s more bitter than sweet, which will kill me, specifically.

Strike that, all three will kill me.

I love that Like Dragons of Old is still going to be incredibly hopepunk, even if there’s so much pain and destruction and loss.

I’m so sorry, this got s o l o n g

It was a lot of fun though

if you made it this far, here’s a smol cute book monster

#ldoo #hopebeyond #dreamshadow #storyteller saturday #thank you for asking <3 #this got so much longer than I expected #apparently I needed to let out all the love???#ettawritesnstudies

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hardlyfatal · 5 years

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gary’s writing workshop: lesson 3:

Plot Structuring, Part 1

What is a story? Stories are accounts of transformations: situations, people, attitudes, establishments. If something isn’t changing, what is there to write about? Nothing.

Our job, as writers, is to describe the change and repercussions so that they’re effectively and entertainingly communicated to our readers with as much readability as possible. There are three components to managing it, which I’ll be going over here..

In this lesson, I’m going to ask you to change how you perceive and write stories.1

1. Plot Points & Purpose

Instead of looking at scenes from the outside – instead of looking at them from the POV of the reader, and considering their entertainment value – I want you to look at them from the inside. Or, rather, from below. From what basis, to what purpose, do they spring?

Scenes do not exist just to be entertaining. The wow factor is great, but it’s the icing on this particular cake. You can dress up a scene with elaborate setting, intense dialogue, brisk pacing, and boatloads of UST… but if they don’t move the plot along, they’re like a broken pencil: pointless.

Thus the new way to look at stories, at individual scenes, is to scrutinize them for purpose. The only purpose or reason any scene should make it into a story is because it moves the plot to its next point. These are in fact called plot points, and every scene requires one.

It’s a pretty existential way of looking at the matter, but it’s necessary, in order to create a satisfying tale that flows logically from one place to the next, that feels continuous and makes sense. Making sense is a very important, and often overlooked, aspect of storytelling.

Let’s use my story, Shoot the Moon, as an example. Going into it, I knew my overarching story premise: I wanted them to meet, hate each other, but slowly grow to learn about, become attracted to, eventually love each other, and then part. Not knowing that they actually lived in the same city, they meet again and reestablish their relationship. Finally, they find the motivation to overcome their personal demons to be together.

If you tease apart those plot points, you’ll see there are three acts:

They meet, hate each other, but slowly grow to learn about, become attracted to, and eventually love each other.

They part, not knowing that they lived in the same city, then meet again.

They overcome their misapprehensions about each other, and personal demons, to be together.

So how do I get them from A (beginning of each arc) to B (end of each arc)? The chapters in each arc have to have purpose; they have to have a point. Thus each scene was created to serve the purpose needed. A few examples:

I wanted Jaime to see how loving and gentle Brienne could be in contrast to her appearance and behavior to that point, so I created the scene where she shows the twins the bird eggs.

I wanted Brienne that, for all Jaime’s dickishness, he carried pain and perhaps deserved a bit of understanding and patience, so I created the scene where she confronts him and he reveals how he’s been parenting the twins by himself since his wife died.

I wanted to show Brienne’s persisting lack of self-esteem and reinforce Jaime’s attraction to her, so I created the scene where Arianne opened the door in just a robe, exposing most of her goodies, and Jaime hardly noticing because he was paying attention to Brienne instead.

As long as your story is driven by plot points– that make sense – that’s it. You’re probably suspicious of how simple it is, but it really is just that uncomplicated.

Despite that simplicity, I see a lot of people including gratuitous scenes, the purpose of which is to stroke the reader’s kink for whatever (hurt/comfort, fluff, smut, drama, etc.) instead of to push the plot forward. Either nothing much occurs in the scene, or it’s merely a reiteration of plot development and exposition that has already occurred before.

In the case of the latter, you need to have self-discipline and choose one or the other. There is no need to repeat yourself in romantic fiction – it just bogs things down and kills the pacing. Redundancy is wasted time and effort. If you’ve made a point, the point is made and does not need repeating. Have you noticed yet that I’ve said the same thing four times in this paragraph, just worded differently? Yeah.

In the case of the former, it just needs to go. If it’s dead weight, it’s dead weight. Be like Marie Kondo: thank it and let it go.

That’s not to say that hurt/comfort, fluff, smut, and drama can’t be included. They absolutely can and should be; they just need to have a point, and you only need to make that point once.

The point of a hurt/comfort scene could be one of them learning to trust the other, or discovering they have the capacity to be gentle and caring with another person, or that being vulnerable – with the right person, i.e. the other half of the couple – is not only safe but freeing.

The point of fluff could be one of them revealing they feel secure enough to let their inhibitions down and show spontaneous affection, or to show their joy in being able to openly express their love instead of having to keep it hidden and fearful.

The point of smut could be one of them developing the confidence to be a more active or even dominant lover, or show their surprise to be given pleasure for their sake instead of used for their partner’s satisfaction before their own, i.e. that they matter as well and that they doesn’t have to sacrifice their own pleasure in order to make the other person happy.

The point of a dramatic scene could be an expression of any of these – trust, capacity for gentleness, security in the other’s affections, confidence, realization of self-worth, revelations of secrets – possibly with some sort of action-y component. Is there a dramatic revelation that will somehow directly impact the romance between the couple?

To illustrate what I mean, I chose to deconstruct a scene from the show specifically because it is so spare of dialogue (relatively speaking), to show you how effective scenes can be even when there’s not a lot of verbal exposition, at least about the true reason for the scene.

This scene has nothing to do with her loyalties to the Starks or Catelyn Stark, though it may seem that way at first. It exists to give Jaime an opportunity to get to know Brienne better in ways that speak to her core personality and character.

Example:

TV!Brienne takes on three Stark men – who had killed a group of prostitutes after servicing Lannister soldiers – while Jaime watches. Youtube link, if you’d like to watch it to see exactly what happens..

Reason it was included:

To give the audience not only more evidence of her fighting prowess but also insight to her thoughts/feelings (her pity for the prostitutes in particular and of women’s plight in being under the control of men in general, and that she’s empathetic to the point of being vengeful on behalf of others who have suffered).

To make the audience understand that Jaime is now aware that Brienne is a formidable fighter; is not an empty braggart/can back up her claims of ‘knocking men into the dust’; is passionate enough about her convictions to fight and kill for them; is brave enough to face, and skilled enough to defeat, three men at once; is more committed to her loyalty to other women than she is to the Stark cause.

What was accomplished:

Jaime sees her as more than just her unusual appearance or another random person who loathes him like everyone else or a Stark lackey. She becomes a real person to him in this scene.

2. Making the Reader Give a Damn

You have to retain the reader’s interest from one chapter to the next. If you lose them along the way, you’ve lost any reason to keep going with the story. I know we all tell ourselves “I’m just having fun!” and “I’m doing this for myself!” but I think we all agree, though maybe just secretly, that it’s kind of bullshit: stories are made to be read by someone, somewhere.

If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? If no one reads our stories, was it worth the effort of writing them? If we’re boring the pants off our readers, why bother? Maybe it’s because you love to know you’re making others happy, maybe it’s because you love the appreciation you receive, whatever. IDK your life. But for the most part, there’s some external validation going on, and if others are quitting your story in the middle, or foregoing your stories entirely because past things you’d written had been unreadable, you’re just shouting into a void.

The main issues where readership hangs in the balance are pacing and description (setting, blocking, inner voice/narration). We’ll go over all of these to a greater degree in later lessons. For now, I’ll just say… if these are compromised, you’re going to be giving a skimpier, shallower, boring-er version instead of the lushly-detailed story it could have been.

3. Making Sense

Getting them sucked in with your word-picture and the flow of plot points is only two-thirds of the job: you also need to make sense. And before you start yapping about suspension of disbelief, yes, that’s a thing, but it only goes so far. There are certain premises than can stretch credulity and still work, but others that go too far and just ruin it.

This is one of our Battles of the Balance: you have to find how far you can go until it just doesn’t work and starts to feel stupid. It negatively impacts readability because it’s so outlandish that it tugs the reader from their reading trance and makes them wonder WTF you’re trying to do because what you just wrote is highly improbable. It kills the story’s readability. It’s important to stay grounded and retain an open mind about your balance in this regard. You need to be able to analyze what you’re doing and seeing if it is going over the top rather than blindly trusting your first impulses and, worse, ignoring feedback that indicates that you need to tone it down.

This is why the work of A Certain Someone fails: she contends that human people are able to produce bodily secretions to a volume that is not physically possible. She loses us because she forewent logic for the payoff she was reaching for (presumably arousal?). Instead of us getting all into the smut and romance, grinning dirtily, instead we frown and grimace because we’re imagining rivulets and puddles and sodden carpets and crusty mattresses, etc. And her ego prevents her from understanding that she is imbalanced in this way, with the result that she keeps churning out fic after revolting fic that many potential readers avoid.

It’s also why Mary Sues and Gary Stus spur such a knee-jerk loathing in so many people. It’s fine to give your characters fine, admirable qualities, but if you heap them on, or don’t counter them with just-as-significant flaws, it will no longer make sense because it’s illogical that anyone would be so fantastic and lacking in defects.

Chekhov’s Gun3 vs. Deus Ex Machina

Chekhov’s Gun2 and Deus Ex Machina are two sides of the same coin: the need for continuity. If it happens earlier, there needs to be resolution later. If it happens later, there needs to be mention (aka ”foreshadowing”) earlier.

Chekhov’s Gun is a literary principle stating that elements in a story have to be relevant. The presence of superfluous details constitute ‘false promises’ on the part of the author, because they’re offering a concept to the reader that will never have any point.

This doesn’t mean you should never mention non-essential things that have no bearing on the plot for fear of creating Chekhov’s guns willy-nilly; you need to create ambiance with description of setting, etc. It just means don’t make a point of mentioning something beyond its level of importance to the story. Brienne’s nose is mentioned as being crooked to emphasize her ugliness as well as symbolize her atypically unfeminine lifestyle since the huge majority of Westerosi women don’t get their noses broken, due to their less active lifestyles. Jaime’s nose is mentioned… never, because it doesn’t matter.

Disclaimer: I am terrible at the Chekhov’s Gun thing, because I have a shitty memory and will put in a detail that I fully intend to do something with… only to completely forget it exists and never mention it again. This is bad. Do not do as I do on this one. I mention it because it’s a continuing issue I struggle with and continue to work on. My poor betas...

Deux Ex Machina is a plot device whereby a problem, conundrum, obstacle, or mystery is solved when an unlikely resolution presents itself without any hints or foreshadowing earlier in the plot, often in such a convenient way that it feels contrived and anti-climactic.

Example that I just cooked up: The big fight in King’s Landing, Jaime and Brienne fight a pitched battle to reach the throne room where Cersei is seated upon her pile of swords. Together, they manage to defeat Gregor Clegane and just as they’re about to confront the queen, Arya pops up3 from behind the throne to tug on Cersei’s left earlobe. Turns out, Cersei is actually an android and had been malfunctioning for a long time, hence her erratic behavior. Bran had a vision about where her off-switch was, and used magical mind-speak to tell his sister how to cut Cersei’s power. Et voilà!

Example that actually happened in the show: Dragons fly at the speed of light and can whisk people around a continent comparable in size to the United States in an hour or two. Similarly, ships can navigate long distances at a fraction of the time supported by actual reality, and horses can rocket down the Kingsroad like Maseratis, if the speed with which Brienne and Pod made it from Winterfell to the dragon pit is any indication4.

Homework

If you are currently working on a story: create an outline of its plot in terms of each scene’s purpose. Identify any gaps in the progression of plot points, and come up with ways to bridge those gaps.

If you are not currently working on a story: do this with one of the stories you have already published. Think up what you could have done differently, or what you could have inserted, to connect the loose ends.

If you are not currently writing anything, and have never published anything: Take one of my stories, nothing too short because it won’t have enough transitions to make the effort meaningful, and nothing too long because LOL this is supposed to be fun, and do as instructed above. I suggest Signs of Life, Vision of Love, or Full Fathom Five because of their middling lengths. Identify gaps, and suggest fixes for them.

Remember to look for connections and flow from scene to scene, NOT chapter to chapter.

Footnotes

1 – Unless you already do this, in which case… well done! Carry on!

2 – This refers to Anton Chekhov, Russian author, not any Star Trek character.

3 – I SWEAR TO GOD I wrote this months ago, before the last season. Wish I hadn’t been prescient about it... *weeps*

4 – Like, I know about the compression of time through editing but COME ON.

#gary's writing workshop #writing #writing tips #writing resources #writing references

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