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#idk the whole thing is just ridiculous and i get really annoyed by the counter argument being
fiapple · 1 year
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I really enjoyed your tags on that bluey post btw.
oh, thanks anon! that’s very nice of you!
&, yeah, i feel like one of the really under-discussed parts of this conversation as a whole is how the way some people act about kids’ media is reflective of a really horrible view of children as a social class, which i think is where all the pent-up word vomit came from.
on this site especially, some people will repeatedly parrot to listen when media is not for you, and to understand that not everything is made for you to relate to, or with your consumptive needs in mind… and yet as soon as it could be applied to a group they are not personally in, that attitude gets thrown out the window. and one of the many places we see this sort of behaviour is with media made for children.
&, i don’t know, i just think the attempt at excluding children from their own audience spaces overall subtlety plays into the view that children don’t deserve to be seen as people, or deserve to be seen as anything beyond their most basic needs, until they suddenly reach adulthood. and that isn’t really mentioned enough in the context of this conversation.
consistently we see this idea that what children feel or think about media intended for them does not matter because they are not adults, therefore they’re somehow incapable of fully formed wants? or social or intellectual needs? and it’s just really, really inconsiderate overall. just because they may need more simplistic themes or symbolism in order to be able to understand (due to having less life experience & therefore less knowledge to use as a fucking point of reference, not being stupid or less than) does not mean they don’t deserve spaces where struggles they, as children, will relate to are safely explored through art.
i just think it’s really sad.
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Already dating
Word count: 1618
Genre: Probably fluff, idk really
Pairing: Natasha x gn!reader
Warnings: None (let me know if I need to add any)
Request: could you maybe write something with Natasha x male reader (if your comfortable, otherwise you can write it with female or gender neutral) where Natasha blushes when the reader compliments her in front of the team and the team immediately goes crazy and does everything in their power to get them together, only to find out they've been dating all along?
Summary: Steve and Tony (mostly Tony) lock you in an elevator to admit your feelings, not knowing you’re already together.
A/n: Thanks @mochamoff for the request, sorry it took so long to do it! I’m writing this authors note over a week before I’m posting the fic which is unusual because usually I post within twenty four hours of finishing. Anyways it feels nice to be on a break and this fic being posted means I’m officially back which I’m excited for. To be honest this fic isn’t the whole team, just Tony and Steve, but I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out so I hope you all enjoy reading!
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“Next time you have to listen to me in the field Stark.” Steve says as soon as everyone is settled into their place on the jet.
“Actually I don’t, you have absolutely no power over me and as much as you want to be the leader of this team you are not so stop acting like it.” Tony snaps back.
“Someone has to step up and lead.” Steve tells him. “It’s not like you could do any better, you would probably mess things up.”
“Maybe I would, but I would do a hell of a lot better than you are doing.” Tony says. “You like to pretend you’re all high and good and above us but who made you leader? Nobody. You crave control so you took it.”
“I did what needed to be done.”
You watch them snap back and forth at one another a few more times, rolling your eyes at Natasha. She gives you a small smile to show that she’s amused and turns her attention back to your two teammates whose argument has only gotten more and more heated.
“Y/n what do you think?” Tony asks, catching you off guard.
“About what?”
“About who would be a better leader for the team.” he explains. You think for a moment and they both stand as tall as possible (in Tony’s case it isn’t tall at all) and puff out their chests. You scoff, the male ego is so big, even in men who are good and try to do the right thing.
“Neither.” you decide.
“Neither- but the team needs a leader, you have to pick someone.” Tony splutters.
“Just because I don’t think the best leader is either of you doesn’t mean I don’t think the team needs a leader.” you tell him. How one of the smartest people in the world can’t figure that out for himself is beyond you.
“So who would you choose then?” Steve asks, confused.
“Natasha obviously.” you say, smiling at her. The corners of her mouth tug up slightly and even that small movement makes you feel proud.
“No offense, but Natasha???” Tony asks, seemingly outraged. “Why?”
“Well first of all she doesn’t have a fragile male ego like you dumbasses.” you tell them. “But it’s more than just that. She’s smart, both book smart and street smart. She can hack into computers and memorize information easily and knows how to blend in, or to get people to like her. She is more rational than the both of you combined but is also good at making decisions on the fly. She is an excellent fighter and can keep track of strategies and she has connections in and out of the government, with backup plans for almost every situation. Not to mention she has an amazing heart and don’t argue like some other people on our team tend to do. And of course she’s absolutely gorgeous but that doesn’t have anything to do with it.”
You wink at her at the end of your mini speech and are surprised to find her cheeks noticeably pink. She can’t help the smile that creeps onto her face when she thinks over your words.
“Abort mission, Romanoff is blushing and smiling, I think I might be about to die.” Tony states obnoxiously.
“Shut up, you’re just annoyed that she likes me better than you.” Natasha tells him, taking a breath to (mostly) collect herself.
“You’re scary when you’re happy. I haven’t seen you like that before.” he says. “Are you in love with Y/n or something?”
“Shut up.”
Tony smirks. “Make me.”
Natasha takes one threatening step towards him and that’s all it takes for him to back away, stuttering out apologies and mumbling under his breath about how Natasha is too scary to be a team leader. Natasha’s scare tactics do seem to work though because he doesn’t speak to anybody but himself for the rest of the ride home.
As soon as the jet touches down you and Natasha exit, heading straight to the room where you are supposed to be debriefed. Steve tries to follow but Tony grabs his arm to let him know to hold back a second.
“I know I joke but I honestly think they’re in love with each other.” Tony tells him. “I didn’t see it before today but there’s no way Y/n’s speech was platonic, who memorizes lists of reasons why they like their friends, not to mention their flirty wink at the end. And then Natasha, she’s scary but she was acting weird and happy around Y/n.”
“I hate to say this but I agree with you and they would make a cute couple.” Steve says. “But we should probably catch up now.”
Tony takes Steve’s words as an opportunity to stop being serious and become obnoxious again. “Onward dear captain, lead the way fearsome leader, how ever could I-”
“Tony I’m trying to be polite but you are making it very hard.”
---
“Tony no.”
“Tony yes.”
“That is a horrible idea.”
Tony opens his mouth in outrage. “I think it’s a pretty good idea actually.”
“I won’t work.” Steve counters.
“Well I think it well and need I’m the only genius here.” he says smugly.
“You can’t force love!” Steve tells Tony, running his hand through his hair in frustration.”
“Ah, ah, ah,” Tony says, “I’m not forcing love, they are already in love. All I’m doing is giving them a little push.”
“By locking them in an elevator?” Steve asks in a deadpan voice.
“Exactly.”
“You can’t just go around locking people-” Steve starts to say but he gets cut off by Tony.
“Shhhhhhh, hi Y/n, hi Natasha.”
“Hi guys, what are you up to?” you ask, obvious to what was going on seconds before you entered the room. Natasha eyes them suspiciously because they are acting weird, holding their bodies stiffly, which means they are hiding something.
“We were just about to head down to the training room, want to come?” Tony lies smoothly while Steve shakes his head in the background.
“That sounds good,” you reply, “you want Tasha?”
“Okay.” she agrees, still eyeing both of them, Tony in particular suspiciously.
“Great!” Tony says and starts to walk towards the elevator and the rest of you follow him, Steve trying to convince himself that going along with Tony’s plan is doing no harm.
“Ladies first.” he says, stepping off to the side and giving a big flourish with his arm. It’s weird but then again Tony is always weird so you don’t think too much of it, stepping into the elevator. As soon as Natasha follows you in he orders Jarvis to close and lock the doors and to prevent the elevator from moving and then pulling up a screen so he can watch you.
“You better run when I get out of here!” Natasha yells. “You too Steve!”
“You’re going to thank me later.” Tony says. “Steve, why don’t you explain why we locked them in.”
“Um,” Steve hesitates, not knowing where to start, “well we think that you two need to talk about, um, feelings.”
“Feelings?” you ask, confused, while realization dawns over Natasha’s face.
“Um, yeah feelings.” Steve responds, feeling very awkward and hoping this works so he didn’t do all that for nothing.
“They don’t know we’re dating and they’re trying to get us together.” Natasha leans over and whispers in your ear before straightening back up and talking to Tony again. “I didn’t take you for such a romantic Stark.”
“What? I’m not- romantic me? Pepper says I’m the least romantic guy she’s ever been with.” he splutters, trying to regain his masculinity.
“And that is not a compliment.” you tell him. “But for some reason even though ‘you aren’t romantic’ you wanted to get us together.”
“Maybe I did,” he says. “but you have to admit that my plan is amazing and it's totally working.”
Natasha snorts “What part of this conversation screams working to you?”
“Well you haven’t killed Y/n yet and neither of you have denied your feelings so it’s obviously working. I expect a thank you speech dedicated to me at your wedding.” He says arrogantly.
“There will be no speech.” Natasha tells him.
“But there will be a wedding?” He asks, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively and Steve has to look away because it looks ridiculous.
“Hopefully.” you say, teasing Tony with your vagueness but also making Natasha smile as she thinks about what that might be like.
“Told you my plan would work.” Tony brags to Steve before telling Jarvis to release you from the elevator.
“Your plan sucked.” Natasha tells him. “We were already dating dumbasses.”
She grabs your hand and pulls you out of the room as Steve and Tony stare after you, shocked.
“Did you know about this?” Tony asks, looking at Steve with suspicion.
“Not at all.” Steve answers, his mouth still half open. In hindsight it should have been obvious. Of course Natasha wouldn’t want to be open about her dating life right away, she likes her secrets way too much.
---
“You owe me fifty bucks Y/n.” Natasha tells you once you’re out of earshot.
“Seriously?” you whine.
“You said they already knew but they didn't, so pay up.” She holds her hand outwards expectantly and you both laugh.
“Later.” you tell her. “There are more important things to do now.”
“Hmm, like what?” she teases gently, taking a step closer to you. Your breath catches because you still can’t believe you are dating someone this beautiful. You match her halfway and pull her into a deep kiss, only pulling back when you need to breath.
“This.”
---
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yungbud · 3 years
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Silent Treatment+X
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Req? Yes! @madonnasinn said: Can you write a smut about Dom ignoring y/n over a petty fight they had a few days ago, and y/n parades in a very tiny skirt around him when they go out to have dinner with his friends (to get his attention). He then gets really mad because all the guys keep eyeing her, which she knows he hates so she tempts him and fuck in the restaurant bathroom 🤭 just a lil idea i had LOL
Word Count: 2.4K
Tw:Light choking, semi-public sex acts, a little bit of thigh spanking/smacking, idk smut obviously.
A/N: Feast
You sat in the kitchen with Dom. Well, Dom sat, you stood, washing the dishes as he talked to you about how the album was going.
“I’ve just been so stressed for the past three fookin weeks trying to get this done. I just want it to be perfect, you know? And I keep wanting to go back and tweak it but Gav tells me not to.” Dom ranted, absentmindedly picking at his nailpolish while he did. 
You reached for the knob of the faucet, turning the water on to rinse off the dish in your hand, accidentally turning it too high and ending up being splashed with water, soaking the bottom half of your shirt.
That reminded you, tomorrow you had to do the laundry, then clean Dom and your shared room, then you’d have to shower– No, that wouldn’t work. You’d have to shower then do laundry before you leave, or else you’d end up being late for your appointment.
God, these last few weeks had just been so stressful. You felt like you barely had a chance to breathe, you’d finish one thing and up would pop the next. Oh, and you couldn’t forget lunch right after your appointment. You hoped there wouldn’t be traffic, you can’t be late because (Y/B/F) would only be visiting you on their lunch break, they’d have to go back to work straight after. 
Who were you kidding, it’s LA, of course there’d be traffic.
Should you reschedule? You were both so busy as is and this was the one time your schedules had allowed you to meet up in what must’ve been months. 
Shit, you thought, how long had it been? You began replaying the last few months in your head as you absentmindedly scrubbed at the plate in hand.
“And you’re not even listening.” Dom pouted.
“No, no I am. That’s great sweetie.”
“What’d I just say.” He tests, looking at you, his raised brow doing very little to hide the fact that he’s annoyed.
“You were talking about the uh- The uhm,” You paused, mustering all your brain cells to remember what he had just been talking about. The towel squished between your hand and the counter as you leaned against the sink, your fingers coming up to stroke the bridge of your nose as you thought “The drums, you just finished the last of it, right?” 
The oven dinged, signalling the food needed tending too. Your mind flipped as you searched the kitchen for the oven mit.
Where could you have possibly put it if not right next to the oven where you could’ve sworn you left it. You spun, searching the other counters, even going as far as to look in the sink before realizing it had slid to the floor right below where you put it. Sighing, you leaned down to grab it, pulling open the oven to tend to tonight’s dinner.
“Uh, what else happened today?” You ask, trying to keep your mind on track. You were careful not to burn yourself as fussed with the food
“Shit, babe can you hand me the tongs?” You ask, reaching a hand out behind you. That’s when you realized he hadn’t responded.
“Babe?” You try again, turning around only to realize he’d already left. You scoffed, grabbing it for yourself before leaning back. Standing straight, you take a moment to bask in the warmth of the oven before closing it. 
*~Three days later~*
Dom raised his head to look at you, your spoon clinking against the side of your bowl signalling your entrance of the living room. He looked back to the TV just as soon as he had looked over, obviously too invested in whatever he was watching to acknowledge your existence. A sigh of relief left your lips when your butt hit the cushions, leaning back into the inviting, cushiony supports.
“Ugh, this week has been so stressful. I feel like I haven’t had the chance to sit in like… forever.” You say, your eyes focusing on what was playing in front of you. It was an old episode of the great british bake off. 
You laughed a bit, but it came off more as a hum.
“You know, I heard when contestants would cry, Mel and Sue would stand by them and use un-airable language so the footage wouldn’t make it to the final cut. Isn’t that so thoughtful?” You say, trying to perk some conversation out of the boy sitting next to you. 
He wasn’t responding. Your eyebrows furrowed as you searched through anything you might’ve said to upset him recently. You couldn’t think of a single thing, come to think of it, what was the last thing you had said to him? Hell, when was it?
You realized quickly your last exchange was in the kitchen, and even that had been cut short by him leaving. 
Yes, that’s right. When you had crawled in bed with him that night, he had been asleep and you were in such a rush the next morning you couldn’t remember if he was awake next to you when you woke up. He wasn’t exactly avoiding you as much as he was not talking to you.
Had he seriously been giving you the silent treatment for that long? 
“Is everything okay?” You tried, sure you were only getting in your own head. Your eyes had completely left the TV at this point, focusing solely on the quiet boy next to you. There was no response, not even so much as a nod.
“You haven’t talked to me in almost a week.” You continued
“Doesn’t matter. Even if i did, you wouldn’t be listening.” Dom retorted
“I’m sorry i made you feel that way. It honestly was not my intention, i’ve just been so caught up this week.” You were sorry, but it seemed awfully ridiculous to have gone this long giving you the silent treatment just because you had been distracted.
The conversation ended entirely there.
Dom hadn’t said more than two words to you since your argument, doing everything in his power to avoid you. It wasn’t hard, after all he was a very busy man. Especially with the release of his new album coming up, there were interviews and meetings to be had, but at a certain point they became less of a responsibility and more of an excuse.
You were on twitter, you had seen his fans practically begging him to take a break, but taking a break would mean seeing you, and that just wasn’t something he had been in the mood to do recently. It was bad enough already that he had to go to dinner with you.
That was okay, you would help him get in the mood. Or, rather, out of his mood. If Dom wanted to be petty, fine, you could be petty.
You slipped the soft material up your legs, admiring your reflection in the mirror. If Dom was going to ignore you, you were going to give him something to ignore. 
You knew this skirt would do the trick, every time you saw another girl or, fuck it, boy, prouncing around and one of these skirts even you nearly fucked them. Everybody looked good in these, it was a fact of life, you’d decided. You knew you definitely looked good, you almost had to stop for a moment and touch yourself to the sight, but glancing at the clock you realized you didn’t have nearly enough time for a bit of self pleasure.
You were practically already running late, spending all your time getting yourself ready to grab Dom’s attention. You added some finishing touches before heading out to the living room where Dom sat, waiting for you patiently. 
Any other time Dom would’ve been right next to you in the bathroom, admiring your work on your makeup, outfit and hair, but today he stayed in the living room
You tried not to smirk as you made your way into his line of vision. The look on his face was completely worth the hours of tireless work, though. He’d turned his head to look at you, a distinct glare replaced by shock, his eyes widening a bit as they landed on your outfit. It was tight and loose in all the right places and only added to your stunning features. 
“What?” You teased,
He tried to recover quickly, returning to his pouty state, not even bothering with a response as you followed him out the door.
You were sitting at the table, surrounded by you and Dom’s friends when someone finally made a comment on your appearance.
“You look really good, (Y/N).” Tom commented, everyone nodding in agreement as the conversation momentarily shifted to you.
“Thank you! I thought so.” You praise yourself, smiling down at your outfit.
The conversation drifted off again, a newfound confidence bubbling up in your chest. You reached over to Dom, grabbing his hand and placing it on your thigh. It stayed there for a moment before he moved it, and it continued on like that. You did everything in your power to remind him of how good you looked and how short your skirt was until he motioned for you to stand. A couple eyes turned to you as you walked off, but no one asked any questions.
Dom was practically dragging you, your feet fumbling as you struggled to keep up with his long strides. When you realized where you were headed you glanced at him, eyes wide, but he wasn’t looking back. His eyes were focused on the bathroom doors ahead, his jaw clenched, gorgeous green eyes shadowed by his black eyeliner.
“Dom, what are you doing?” You began to plead, uncomfortably aware of the fact that you were about to walk into a bathroom with your boyfriend in front of the whole restaurant. You glanced around, checking for any cameras or onlooking eyes. There were none in sight, but you knew that didn’t mean much.
Your head clobbered light as he pinned you to the stall, his eyes burning into your own. Your gaze faltered, looking everywhere but him. Normally sex with Dom never made you nervous, he had always managed to make you feel safe and comfortable, but going from complete silence to being pinned against a stall in The Olive Garden so abruptly made you timid. His hand pressed down on your shoulder, your legs bending until your knees hit the tiled floor, staring up at him through your lashes. Dom hastily unbuttoned his pants, maintaining his gaze, er, glare on you. Your eyes flickered from his own to his hard dick springing from its constraints, watching as he stroked himself achingly slow before his tip slid past your lips, sliding himself across your tongue a few times, his head leaning back as he felt the warmth of your mouth surround him. 
You hollowed out your cheeks, eyes remaining on his expression. When you reached up to replace his hand with your own you felt a harsh tug on your hair. It took you a moment to realize what he wanted from you, but when you realized you let your jaw go slack. Dom’s hand remained wrapped around the base of his cock, shoving it down your throat unexpectedly, causing you to gag.
Your mouth hung open, weary not to let your teeth scrape against him as he thrust into your mouth. You pulled back a bit as you gagged, your head lightly hitting against the wall behind you. Dom continued to push forward, his hard cock pushing farther and farther back in your throat. You were pinned between his thrusting hips and the bathroom stall, you had no choice but to let him fuck your throat.
Not that you were complaining.
Well, you couldn’t.
You gagged around him, hands coming up to grip at his hips as he continued to use your mouth to get himself off, angelic moans falling from his plush lips.
Dom finally took mercy on you, pulling away and grabbing your chin with his thumb and forefinger, staring down at you.
“You look so pretty gagging on my dick.” He says, wiping the tear coming from your eye. His hand makes its way down to your neck, wrapping around it and pulling you to your feet.
 “Or maybe it’s just that fucking skirt.” He adds, slapping your thigh before lifting the skirt up to reveal your lace underwear. A groan slips past his lips, bringing his fingers against your core. You let out a sigh of relief as his fingers rubbed against your clit, glad to finally get some relief after all this time. It was short lived, though, as he pulled you to your feet using the grip he had on your throat, tilting your head up to look at him.
The air around you seemed to freeze, your eyes roamed eachothers faces, desperate for one another. His lips came against yours slowly and then all at once, his hand remaining around your throat as his tongue slipped its way into your mouth. The hand that wasn’t wrapped around your throat remained between your legs, working steadily at making your legs shake for him.
It was almost embarrassing how ready you were for him, so needy that the slightest touch beckoned a whine. Things became heated again quickly, his hands moving from your neck to your thighs, a quick hop before you wrapped them around his waist. 
Dom reached between your legs, trying his best to move the material without dropping you, eventually giving in and letting you do it instead. Reaching between your legs, you wrapped your hand around him, lining his hard dick up with your aching core. He paused there for a moment, enjoying the feeling before pushing himself in. His lips reconnected with your own, thrusting into you a few times before sighing and setting you back to the floor. Your eyebrows furrowed up at him, unsure what to do before he was spinning your around, pinning your face against the wall. You felt him slide between your lips once more before pushing in. It took him a moment to find his rhythm, but soon you were being pounded against the bathroom stall, pathetic moans falling from both your lips, Your senses clouded by pleasure leaving you completely lost to your surroundings.
You would have to be petty more often.
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agent-cupcake · 4 years
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Am I the only one who finds it irritating how the fandom often completely ignore most of Dorothea's negative traits? I don't dislike her, but when I first met her in-game I thought she was an annoying thot and I took pleasure shooting her flirting down. I do like what they've done with her character, but for me something I find fascinating about Dorothea is she's such a hypocrite when it comes to her biased viewpoint nobles and how she holds them to standards she doesn't follow herself. (1/3)
Like for example, she gets mad at Lorenz for being classist, which he is, but he says he's trying to find a wife who will raise his house's standing - something Dorothea outright states she's looking to gain for herself by marrying a noble. She asks Sylvain if he'd be interested in her if she was a "hoarse-voiced old hag", but Sylvain counters that she only likes him because he's a noble and rich. She's a jerk to Ferdinand over a misunderstanding that was based off HER assumptions of him, and she talks about qualities she's looking for in a spouse, but thinks that being beautiful is the only thing she needs to bring to a relationship. There's plenty of other examples, you get the idea. Idk, I guess people are sympathetic to Dorothea because of how she grew up, but her hypocritical views are actually a big part of her character and they just get ignored because people are too busy being like, "YAS BI QUEEN" and can't stand having her being seen as problematic in any way. 
I’ll preface this by saying that I 100% am a huge fan of Dorothea. If I ever have the energy to do another post like I recently did for Dimitri, she def would be one of the characters that I’d consider.
Buuuut, I agree with you anon. People boiling down interesting characters to their most easily consumable traits is a huge issues I take with fandom in general, although since I keep myself so distanced I hadn’t really seen it with Dorothea. When I first met her, I actually kinda just ignored her under the assumption that she would be your average flirty type. It was her death and post timeskip appearance (yes I’m that shallow, sue me) that made me want to get to know her better so when I actually cared to interact with Dorothea further, it was while knowing there was a bit more to her than surface value. Tbh, the only time I really felt annoyed with her behavior was with Ferdinand, as I felt the whole situation was a bit ridiculous and the structure of supports made it such an awkward affair. 
That said, I completely see what you mean. These contradictions are why Dorothea interesting. As with all of these characters, her flaws are backed up by clearly displayed character tags and a very sad and sympathetic backstory... But that doesn’t make the flaws excusable. Her low opinion of herself and desperation to be loved in contrast with the actions she feels are necessary to be happy drive her hypocritical behavior, which is really cool from a writing standpoint and make her both sympathetic and frustrating. She’s very similar to Sylvain in this way, for better and for worse. They’re problematic and hold some pretty unhealthy beliefs about people and themselves, but also have a past and issues that explain why they’d feel that way. In some ways, they’re both justified in their feelings, but on the whole they’re wrong in their behavior and for allowing their predetermined judgement of others and themselves to dictate their behavior. Obviously there’s some glaring differences between the two characters, but I like the comparison because the writers took two similar archetypes and developed and expanded on them to make such wonderfully well done people. Just like Sylvain (and basically any interesting character) her flaws make Dorothea infinitely more complex and fascinating. Her hypocrisy has depth and a very satisfying resolution when she does find actual love and realize that her biases were wrong. Personally, I wouldn’t like her if she was nothing but a flirtatious ~bisexual queen~ stereotype or if I didn’t believe there was far more to explore beyond what was shown in the game. I think that painting her that way kinda cheapens Dorothea overall.  
ANYWAY, yeah. That was a bit of a long-form way to say that I agree with you. This ask kind of surprised me tbh, but I love this sort of analysis stuff so I’m very, very happy to hear other people’s opinions! Overall, I just can’t understand why people are so afraid of their favorite characters having actual flaws, or why they need to explain away any flaws they do have to make said character a perfect icon. I literally cannot overstate my love for Dorothea. I love her place in the game and how she provides such an empathetic perspective, how she embodies a very real sense of insecurity and desperation to be loved that I think a lot of people (aka, me) can resonate with. I love how much she cares for people, how much she grows up throughout the story. I love that she’s such a flawed person.   
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bomberqueen17 · 4 years
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the oxford unabridged dictionary, magnifying glass edition
We Witchered fairly briefly last night because DF had to do some Warframe things first. (Revenge Of Ass Butterflies. IDK. I don’t understand that game.)
We picked up in the Creepy Loot Cave again, and DF immediately was like, “Do I want to fight this gargoyle? Fuck, no, I don’t, fuck it,” and hopped back through the portal. 
Kiera/Boobs McSassy remains annoying. I mean, she seemed to be doing a useful thing during the quest at least, but the way she shriek-whined “Ger-aalllt!” every time an enemy came near her got old Real Fast. And like. The hair-tossing. She’s wearing this ridiculous outfit, with a big floppy split skirt and like five layers of semi-apron thingies over the top, but no actual cargo space anywhere, and just-- no breast support. We discussed that, and MM said, “You know, if I had sorcerous powers, I might devote some of them to braless clothing engineering,” which, I guess, good point. At one point she had to bend down to get something and I had spent that whole day in a slightly not-great bra and every time I bent over I’d had to drastically readjust myself, and I was like, her idle animation is her fixing her tits constantly, and yet bending over has no effect? Come on.
One of these days I’ll write a ballad entitled “Written By A Man” full of all these characters that you absolutely can just... tell... were written by a man. It’s not that I’d never write a character that was an annoying woman, even an annoying woman in an unflattering and uncomfortable costume, but... you can just tell. 
We were debating her sex life and whether she was really hitting on Geralt or not (”She greeted him with bare tits,” MM pointed out. “That wasn’t so much flirtation as it was taunting, I think,” DF countered, which, I think, is a fair assessment). “She doesn’t exactly seem undersexed,” DF said, and MM laughed and said “She also doesn’t exactly seem like a woman who’s... satisfied.”
Anyhow, action started then, and we discovered that it’s actually sort of unclear whether you should fight the Wild Hunt with silver or steel sword. It doesn’t actually seem to make a difference. The hounds, though, you have to do silver with, so. 
It was an annoying but not un-do-able fight, and Kiera did a lot of shrieking but was more useful than, say, Vesemir was during the griffin fight, so. Good for her.
And then. Then, once we’d killed the guy. Kiera said something that made the entire evening worth it. I don’t remember exactly what she said, but it involved the phrase “If I’ve got my knickers on straight...”
We all SHRIEKED at how hilarious that was. “Girl you’ve never had your knickers on straight in your LIFE” I said, and MM said “She probably wears those really skimpy ones anyway, the G-string ones-- I don’t think you can wear those other than straight?” and I was like “oh you can absolutely put them on sideways and never realize” “All I can ever think about when I see those is how uncomfortable they look,” DF put in, and then confessed that most of the time when he does see them it’s that they’ve ridden up out of people’s trousers and look horribly uncomfortable and poorly-adjusted. He is a Sensible Underwear sort of guy, it turns out. I did know that, I’ve known him since the 90s. 
(Maybe the best part of us having these long digressions is that DF never misses anything with the controller. He’ll just, like. Idly be playing the game with a ton of skill, and like, be verbally shitposting the entire time without missing a beat. Hard to convey that in these recaps.)
So we finished the scene and were looting the elf mage’s lab, and in the midst of a conversation, Kiera just... is like yes here’s a thing you should know about and then just
whips out a HUGE book out of NOWHERE and is like “yes read this it has information you need”
and we all were SHRIEKING because WHERE WAS SHE CARRYING THAT BOOK THE WHOLE TIME???
It was NOT a small book! I was like “that’s the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary!” and MM was like “Oh yes! That’s the Magnifying Glass Edition, my parents had that in the house. I recognize it. There’s a little drawer in the cover where the magnifying glass is stored.”
“And she had that IN HER PANTS? Through THIS WHOLE LEVEL?”
“Just... suspended from her underpants, inside the skirt,” MM said. “That explains why her posture was so strange.”
“And why she was fidgeting so much,” DF put in. 
She gives Geralt a magical object and says you can think of me whenever you use it and we all kind of rolled our eyes, and MM started spontaneously composing poetry.
each time you use it, you'll think of me,  and the OED, that I had in my G... Now it's poetry
So, Boobs McSassy pouted at Geralt to get him come help her pick up some widget the magic elf had promised to her. “Your Geralt is whipped,” I said.
“My Geralt is an XP whore,” DF said. 
To get through a door, he had to light a series of torches in the correct order. If you get it wrong, a wraith spawns and you have to kill it. There were about four or five possible answers, and DF did it wrong four times. Hilariously, he’s gotten so good at killing wraiths that each time he was just like “AAAARRRGHHHH” *slash**slash**slash**slash* and the thing was dead, so it was just funny every time he got it wrong. He just went in with such confidence. “Oh, ok, this is how it’s gotta--” *wraith spawns* “for fuck’s sake.”
Amusingly, none of us saw fit to comment on the fact that somehow, Geralt also doesn’t carry a backpack or anything with him, and he just easily took the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary Magnifying Glass Edition that Kiera apparently had hanging from her g-string and put it... somewhere, somewhere between his tight pants and his oddly corset-like padded gambeson, along with the four dozen broken rakes and seven creepy dolls and twenty Rusty Novigrad Swords and fucktillion Puffball Mushrooms and the entire head of a griffin he’s got stuffed in there somewhere. 
Upon completion of the quest, Kiera led Geralt out to a boat, then gave him a quest to “stop by and see me sometime, sweetheart” [that’s not verbatim]. MM was like “PLEASE do not do that quest without me that is ABSOLUTELY a booty call” and I was like “please do not do that quest until you’ve either looted or crafted yourself a condom” and DF was like “but Witchers are infertile?” and MM said “can Witchers get syphilis?” and I said “no but I was going to suggest you make it out of dimeritium so that this Written By A Man character does not actually bewitch you with her Witch Cooch” so now that’s a thing we’re trying to puzzle out in the Crafting tab.
(Like. I’m super into consenting adults doing what they want, but this is a work of fiction and I don’t trust its writers, y’know?)
Anyway, so Boobs McSassy took her swishy split skirt, not appreciably lightened by relieving herself of the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary Magnifying Glass Edition she’d had hanging from her g-string, and sashayed through a portal, and Geralt sailed off on a boat.
“Uh,” DF said. “How do I boat?” I took out my phone and googled “Witcher 3 How Do Boat” and got a comprehensive tutorial for how to do it on a PC, which didn’t help, but DF had figured it out on his own by then.
We found the great loot drop near Fyke Island or whatever, but got murdered by Drowners, [”I do believe I can see his weiner,” he said, frowning at one of the Drowners; he sounded really offended] took a pause to poke at inventory, respawned, tried again, and drowned, and DF was like “fuck this, I really need to go sell a bunch of shit before I can loot anything else.”
So, after much more shenanigans than should have been necessary, we sank the boat and swam to shore and found a godforsaken little marsh town that had a blacksmith and a merchant. So we sold some shit, and then dicked around in the Inventory tab for an ungodly length of time.
MM, an experienced gaming widow who earlier had been quoting swathes of the dialogue from Bioshock (”I was working 70 hour weeks so I badly wanted someone to take me to dreamtime, Mr. Bubbles, so I felt that, I really did”), watched this process and said sagely, “Gotta fiddle with your stuff?”
“Gotta fiddle with my stuff,” DF confirmed. His Geralt, despite the muttonchops, which are not growing out, is starting to look more color-coordinated, which is the sort of thing that soothes his soul. DF, despite being straight, does like fashion, he just likes terrible fashion.
He equipped The Emmentaler, which is a sword he looted from the cheese quest. “Now I want cheese whenever I see this thing,” he groused. But the stats are pretty good. To be on-theme, and since he’s out of Raw Meat, he put cheese into the quick-access slot for food-based health regen.
Stuff fiddled with, we all retired to bed, leaving Geralt in a grim little marshy village. After saving, DF had Geralt throw a bomb at the alderman, just to see what happened. Nothing, as it happened, so he quit and turned off the console. 
21 notes · View notes
slashersteve · 5 years
Text
Ahoy There!
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requested by anonymous:  Yo swooning over Steve Harrington is right! I’d love to see what you’d do with a prompt like, going into Scoops Ahoy and being the only girl he doesn’t strike out with. There’s cute banter, sparks fly, y’know what I mean? Reader/character gets along with Dustin and hears about the Russian translation plan and is supportive and it’s just cute??? Idk man. You could take it almost anywhere but it’s a jumping off point. Love your blog!
pairing: Steve Harrington/Female Reader
summary: Steve keeps striking out with girls, and Robin is having a time about it. The score for the day is 0-5, and then you approach the counter and suddenly it becomes 1-5. 
warnings: none just Steve being an idiot and reader being morosexual
***
“And that is number five! Come on Stevey- you could do better than this,” Robin said as she put another tally mark on the ‘You Suck!’ side of the white board, while the ‘You Rule!’ side remained empty and untouched. Steve groaned, annoyed that Robin was still going at the whole keeping score thing. 
“Yeah yeah-” Steve replied, waving her off as she chuckled. She was never not amused by watching Steve’s failed attempts at talking and flirting with girls. Did he really think he’d get anywhere wearing that outfit? He was very relentless though, never giving up. She thought it was funny. Even when he got rid of the stupid sailor hat, no girl was interested.
“Oh don’t be so sad Popeye- Mrs. Right will come along soon,” Robin feigned support, Steve rolled his eyes. 
“You’re dressed like Popeye too you know!” Steve said, pointing at her. Robin shrugged. 
“I’m not the one trying to flirt with girls while wearing this, now am I?” she replied as she leaned down on the counter between Steve and the backroom, Steve glared at her and she waved the whiteboard in his face. He had half the mind to reach over and erase it, but he simply gestured to it, and said, “Hey! Aren’t you supposed to be helping Dustin translate that Russian transmission? Didn’t we need that board?” She shrugged. 
“Dustin went out to get grab us some hot dogs on a stick dingus- and also we got another whiteboard, well I stole it from another backroom,” she smirked, “And this is very important data.” Steve was about to ask her when she even had time to steal one when Robin suddenly whistled.
“Batter up,” she said, gesturing to a girl they’ve both never seen before walk into Scoops Ahoy. She wore a grey t-shirt with writing on it Steve couldn’t read just yet and light blue high-waisted shorts. Her hair was pulled up into a high pony tail and sunglasses rested ontop of her head. Steve had to really prepare for this one, she was so pretty. 
“How’s my hair look, be honest,” Steve said turning back to Robin as he attempted to fix it. Robin raised a brow, but before she could tell him either way he looked absolutely ridiculous and had no chance with this girl -especially this girl- as he did with any of the others- the girl was already at the counter.  
Steve turned around, scaring you as he said, “Ahoy! Welcome to Scoops Ahoy! My name is Steve Harrington, I will be your Captain on this journey of flavor.” You blinked taken back by his enthusiasm, and Steve continued, “You look like you’re in dire need of cooling off. Ice cream is the best way to go. Need a sample, I got you covered. What can Captain Steve do for you?” He took out his ice cream scooper and flipped in the air before catching it. You watched, slightly impressed. 
You opened your mouth to speak, but then shut it- actually not quite sure what you wanted and also taken back by his forwardness and loud voice. 
“Don’t worry sweetheart- take your time,” Steve reassured you with a wink, you stared at him blankly. Steve was already feeling this next strike out coming along, could practically feel Robin opening the marker to write another tally. But then you suddenly tilted your head and giggled softly, feeling your cheeks heat up.
“How many times have you done this today?” you asked, Steve raised a brow.
“What? Served ice cream to a pretty girl like you? You’re the first one today,” he replied, making you blush even more and laugh nervously. Robin watched from behind, not sure if this was leading to another ‘You Suck!’ tally-mark just yet. You could either tell him in his dreams, or- well she supposed flirt back. She waited impatiently.
“Oh really? Well you’re the first sailor to call me pretty today,” you said cheekily, to which Steve replied, “Am I? Is that a good thing?” 
“It’s good that you’re a cute sailor,” you said, now honestly that comment caught both Robin and Steve off guard, both of them so used to him being rejected right then and there, but you seemed to be absolutely enjoying this. 
“You...you think I’m a cute sailor?” Steve asked, voice suddenly quiet and softer. You leaned on the counter slightly and nodded. Steve didn’t even hide the surprised look on his face, one that made you want to laugh because he somehow looked even more cute.
Robin’s jaw dropped, this was definitely a first. 
Steve quickly composed himself and turned up the charm, “Well if you think this sailor is so cute, how would you like going on a date with him sometime this weekend?” 
“The sailor doesn’t even know my name,” you said, Steve cleared his throat and flipped his hair back again. 
“Does the pretty girl want to tell me her name?” You pursed your lips together in a smile, and then told him, he hummed in content, “(y/n), it’s fitting.” You felt your heart flip, and leaned away to laugh. Steve was trying turn up his charm even more, to really reel you in but he couldn’t stop the stupid grin on his lips that you were actually enjoying this, and flirting back with him. The prettiest girl he’s seen all day was interested in him.
“Oh this has to be a joke- she’s probably just trying to get free ice-cream,” Robin muttered from behind him, not believing for a second that Steve’s horrible flirting was actually working. Steve ignored her, “So- can the sailor get that date now? Saturday Night?” 
You laughed, “But we don’t even know each other.” 
“Oh- I’m Steve, you’re (y/n), there we know each other,” he said, thankfully there was no one behind you in line that gave you more time to talk. You licked your suddenly dry lips and shrugged, “No better time to get to know each other than going out to eat and then seeing a movie together.” You chewed the inside of your cheek now, nervously, not believing that this was seriously happening. You just came in here to get some ice cream, and now this cute guy in a Sailor uniform was flirting with you, and you were flirting back. Not just for fun, but because you actually liked him. 
You’d been gone all month long, and just returned not even a day ago. This was your first official visit to Starcourt mall and you were loving the experience already. 
“Well- if you guess my favorite ice cream- I’ll consider going on that date with you,” you said, fluttering your eyes at him. Steve crossed his arms. 
“Deal, now...” he took a good look at you, humming and then looking upwards in thought, “I’m thinking you’re a strawberry ice cream kind of girl in a waffle cone, covered in sprinkles. But- sometimes you enjoy cookies and cream.” He pointed at you, and to be honest you were quite surprised he got most of it right. You didn’t really like sprinkles, but you did enjoy Strawberry ice cream the most and if you had to choose a second flavor it would be cookies and cream. You nodded. 
“You’re pretty good, work here long huh?” you asked after shooting him a teasing grin. Your comment made Robin snort with laughter and decide right then and there that she was starting to like you.  
“Hey! I do what I have to do, trying to get some real life experience you know?” he said, you smiled. 
“I was teasing, but yeah- you basically got it right. The date will be considered Captain Steve,” you said, Steve looked over at you with amazement, and you reached over to grab a napkin, “Got a pen?” Steve quickly searched for one, and Robin rolled her eyes as she turned around to grab the pen they were using for the notepad to translate the Russian phrases. Steve thanked her, and handed it over to you. You began to jot down your number for Steve, already deciding that yeah you and him were going on that date Saturday. Steve watched with anticipation. He even turned around to look at Robin and point at you while mouthing ‘Can you believe this?’ Robin shook her head, no she really couldn’t.
“You better-” Steve mouthed to her, and pointed at the board. Robin gave him a look, and rolled her eyes, just as she was about to mark the ‘You rule!’ side, Dustin came back.
“Okay! I’m back with some fuel, but right after we eat it’s back to translating,” a familiar voice came from behind you that stopped you from finishing from writing your number on the napkin. Steve’s eyes widened as you shot your head in the direction of Dustin as he moved behind the counter with his arms full of different kinds of corn dogs on a tray. 
“Dustin?” you asked suddenly, eyes lighting up. Dustin set down the food onto the back counter and looked over at you, then his eyes lit up as well. 
“Holy shit!” he said, you smiled wide as Dustin reached over to give you a high five, “You live here in Hawkins (y/n)?” he asked, you nodded. 
“Yeah! You didn’t tell me you lived here too,” you said, a conversation between you and Dustin started and Steve and Robin were left to watch confused.
“Woah hey- you two know each other?” Steve asked, Robin leaned more out the window to look at the both of them as Dustin and you nodded simultaneously. 
“Uh yeah- (y/n) was the coolest counselor at Camp Know Where- she helped me build my Cerebro you know! And helped me ask Suzie to be my girlfriend,” he grinned, cheeks growing a light pink. 
Well, this was a turn of events. Steve should’ve known too because your shirt literally said ‘Camp Know Where’ in bold yellow writing. You giggled cutely, and asked Dustin how Suzie was and he began to explain to you about how he tried to contact Suzie but she wasn’t answering then that led to possible reasons which led to Dustin evidently telling you about that Russian transmission. Steve leaned back confused and Robin said in a low voice. 
“So she’s a nerd Popeye- you still want that date- I know how much that matters to you,” Robin mocked him, but Steve crossed his arms as he watched the way you talked to Dustin, that smile on your lips and the shine in your (e/c) eyes. He shook his head. 
“Yeah I still want that date, don’t matter to me,” Steve said, giving a genuine look to Robin. She raised both brows, deciding that today would have to be the strangest day of her life. Steve suddenly doesn’t care about popularity, and Dustin knows this pretty girl.
“A Russian transmission? Have you found out what it says yet?” you asked, and Dustin nodded excitedly. 
“We’ve been trying to translate it all damn day- you think you could help us out?” You nodded quickly. 
“Hell yeah I can- I literally have nothing to do, it’ll be fun,” you said nonchalantly, and honestly Steve was surprised how you didn’t even think twice about it. Dustin grinned. 
“Whoa, that- well I guess we have a new person,” Steve said, you looked over at him and smiled nervously. 
“That okay?” 
“Oh- yeah of course- the more the merrier,” he replied, Dustin took the corndogs to the back room, Robin going back there to meet him, leaving you and Steve standing there alone, “So you can uh- speak Russian or?” 
“No, not one word- but,” You picked up the pen, and finished writing your number down, “Maybe the time spent trying to figure it out will help us to get to know each other better before our date Saturday night.” Steve smiled. 
“So we are going on that date? Thought I just won a consideration.” He smirked. 
"It’s been considered!” you replied with a wink, “Also- I know I keep calling you sailor but it would be best if you didn’t show up in that,” you joked as you gestured to his outfit. He looked down and chuckled. 
“Wasn’t going to.” You folded the napkin up and Steve took it from you, stared at it for a moment. 
You then joined Dustin and Robin in the backroom, him playing it for you and Robin joined Steve behind the Scoops Ahoy counter. 
“I seriously don’t think that was real, can two people be having the same dream?” Robin asked, Steve laughed sarcastically. 
“Hah Hah- you better put a tallymark on the ‘You Rule’ side,” Steve pointed, Robin rolled her eyes and went to grab the board. She wrote one line, the empty side no longer empty and Steve threw his fist in the air as a little celebration. 
“It’s one girl, dingus, you still missed out on five,” she said, and Steve sighed happily as he looked back at you through the back window where you were listening to Dustin explain the possible translations to you. 
“Yeah, but a special girl. I could feel it already.” You looked back at him, a shy smile growing on your lips
Robin raised a brow, and scoffed, “Oh my god.” 
473 notes · View notes
earlgreytea68 · 5 years
Text
The Omegaverse Lawsuit
Everyone's been talking about the Omegaverse lawsuit recently, which is a little odd, since it was filed in September, but hey, sometimes that's how it goes!
It literally took me a little while to figure out that the names of the book series at issue here are Myth of Omega and Alpha's Claim. Like, I know this is meant to clearly signal they're Omegaverse books, but it just amused me to be talking about Omegaverse and not have it be a ficcy title. It really drove home to me how very, very different fic is as a genre from commercial original fiction, even when they're hitting the same tropes. 
The first thing to note is that the complaint is not a copyright infringement claim. Instead, the plaintiff, basically a writer named Zoey Ellis, is making allegations stemming from a copyright infringement claim against *her.*
The whole thing starts with a DMCA notice. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it's really easy for copyright holders to get allegedly infringing activity taken down: they file a notice. The website hosting the allegedly infringing activity is required by the DMCA to remove the allegedly infringing activity basically immediately. The person whose material has been removed is permitted to fight against the notice, but of course many people don't do that. It takes time, effort, and a knowledge of the law. For a lot of busy, sensible people, it's often not worth it. What this means is that DMCA notices are massively abused. We know they are. Theoretically they can only be advanced in good faith, however. So, if you can prove you've got a DMCA notice that was issued in bad faith, well, that could be a thing. 
Which is what this complaint builds around. It doesn't happen often, challenging a DMCA notice on bad faith grounds, but this complaint goes for it, which is impressive. And they allege a decent case because they allege a DMCA notice was issued for a book that hadn't even been published yet. Knowing an unpublished book is going to be copyright infringement before you've even seen it is a talent that you'd be smart to utilize on winning the lottery (if that’s what happened, of course). 
The plaintiff here did what you're supposed to do under the DMCA if you believe your work is fine and provided counter-notices. However, unlike in the case of the original notice, counter-notices can take months to process and resolve to get the works back up. 
As anyone familiar with fandom can tell you, rumors spread quickly. Once the word was out there that a DMCA notice had caused a takedown based on plagiarism, the allegations say that forums picked up on it, defaming the plaintiff's reputation. 
The complaint goes on to allege a pattern of the defendant Addison Cain manipulating social media for stars and reviews. I know we theoretically have standards for how stars and reviews happen, but, really, it's a dog-eat-dog world out there in book marketing. These are the examples in the complaint: 
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Idk, if the DMCA notice claims are true, they seem sketchy, but these communications don't strike me as that bad. The truth is, it's hard to know as an author when you're going "too far." You need to educate people as to what's helpful algorithmically, and upvoting five stars and downvoting one stars is helpful. That sounds like what she's doing, providing information so people know how they can help a writer they love. Presumably anyone doing this would seem to care enough about Addison Cain's books to spend time doing this. It doesn't seem from these excerpts like she's bribing people in any way. The second example seems especially bland to me, like, the reader seems to ask if it would be helpful to mark it "not helpful," so the reader brings it up, and then in response to Addison Cain they seem to say that they're shocked anyone would find the review helpful, which seems to me to imply that their "not helpful" designation was a true reflection of how they feel. Surely encouraging truthful and honest behavior on the part of your readers isn't a bad thing, and surely we would not ask authors to explain to readers how to be mean to them, instead of how to help them. So, I don't know, this part of the complaint strikes me as a little weak. I just don't think asking for people who liked your book to review it as scandalous as they seem to think. Like, their exhibit is titled "Review Manipulation," and it includes things like this: 
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(which, btw, afa I can tell, is her encouraging people to leave good review on *someone else's* book)
and
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Idk, what do you think? Are you outraged by those? 
Moving on: 
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This does seem ridiculous to me. She does seem to think that she was the first to ever write a M/F Omegaverse (which the complaint alleges is provably untrue), but also seems to think that she therefore influenced the entire genre to be exactly like her. Idk. This just makes me think, like, ::raised eyebrow:: Who goes around saying "Oh, you know why that's like that? They're all copying ME!" Idk.
(Incidentally, it's interesting that she's claiming to own the straight version of the trope, that the straight version of the trope is the unusual version, because romance is in the mainstream culture dominated so much by straight love stories, and indeed every love-story example in the complaint is a het example. They use "The Runaway Bride" as an example of an enemies-to-lovers trope, which was SO WEIRD to me, I stared at it and was like, ....but all of Harry/Draco exists???? lol)
Asserting that on its own, though, would just make me roll my eyes a bit and move on. Coupled with the DMCA notice allegations, however, it does make it seem like she's trying to claim ownership over the entire M/F Omegaverse genre.
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The similarities listed in the DMCA notice do seem like pretty basic aspects of the trope that I don't think anyone can own. 
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(There are more alleged. This is just the first few.)
But the DMCA notice does purport to contain reviews that say the two books are very similar. 
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(Again, there are more, this is just a selection.) Part of me feels like maybe these people just haven't read much Omegaverse? Or haven't read fic, so they're not used to how tropes work? Idk. Without having read the books myself, it's hard for me to make this call. (And that's honestly how copyright infringement gets decided. You just have to read the books and decide if they're substantially similar in something copyrightable. Which apparently somebody did because the books were eventually reinstated as not infringing, it just didn't happen in a court of law. If this case goes on, eventually some judge is just going to have to sit down and read these.)
And of course the DMCA notice obviously chooses the most favorable to their cause, because there's also this: 
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If the only similarities are the rules...that just sounds like the Omegaverse trope. 
The claims itself in this case are really interesting. It's not a copyright infringement case, because the plaintiff is specifically saying they are NOT infringing. Instead, the first claim is a copyright misuse claim (that you're using the monopoly granted to you by the government in an improper way, usually understood to be anticompetitive in a way that the government didn't contemplate as being part of the copyright grant). These are relatively rare but I think it's the right call, that using your copyright to send false DMCA notices would be copyright misuse. 
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The defendant has now answered the complaint denying the allegations. Indeed, the defendant asserts that the complaint is defamatory because it alleges Addison Cain has only filed one other DMCA notice in ten years of being a published author and thus she has not repeatedly manipulated the system to shame other authors. It also includes a counterclaim that alleges basically that this lawsuit has been brought for harassment purposes because it’s expensive to defend a lawsuit and they alleged that online sales metrics tell them that at most Zoey Ellis has lost about $2000 worth of sales.
So that’s where the case stands now.
Other miscellaneous observations:
--The complaint has spoilers for the end of Alpha's Claim which tell me I would never read that book. 
--This is what the complaint lists as the common markers of the Omegaverse trope: 
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--
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You know, people in Omegaverse fics often grapple really hard with consent issues, and I love when that happens, and I'm sad that's obscured in this paragraph. I mean, I know the point of the complaint isn't to talk about the ways in which the trope can be subverted, but anyway.
I'm not a huge Omegaverse person, but one thing I do often enjoy about it is how stark it makes the sexism of our patriarchal society, that the gender that breeds is so devalued and treated as dangerous and cordoned off and loses agency, etc. And then how straightforwardly it often has to deal with that. And I know M/M Omegaverse often skimps on female characters but I also like how much it drives that point home, that it's not a man/woman thing, it's literally just that as soon as someone has to bear the children, that comes attached with all sorts of burdens and expectations. 
And I'm also not saying that every Omegaverse author sits down to grapple with those issues, or should be, or has to be. Just that Omegaverse can reveal so much about how we structure societies. And I'm sad that this complaint is just furthering this idea that fic doesn't really do anything profound or interesting or necessary and is just: 
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It's cool, not all fic/writing/creativity needs to serve GREAT INTERESTS, nor should it, but also I think a lot of fic/writing/creativity does, and that gets ignored in favor of dismissing it as frivolous. Idk. Obviously this complaint is not about solving that issue, but it made me think about it. 
--
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OR. Hear me out. They could get together and just cuddle for 100,000 words and banter and stuff. Just sayin'. Just throwing it out there. 
--
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I'm honestly really annoyed by this paragraph's wording. It sounds so condescending. "Employed a degree of creativity consisted with other 'fan fictions.'" I hate those quotation marks around "fan fictions," like they're not sure those are a real thing. So-called "fan fictions" (which, who calls them fan fictions anyway? who are they quoting there lol). But also, like, what's the "degree of creativity consistent" language. Like, the standard for copyrightability is that it possesses a modicum of creativity. That's it. It's a low bar. We know the phone book doesn't have a modicum of creativity but almost everything else has SOMETHING. So this strikes me as a little...sneering and dismissive, like, "Well, it's just as creative as other 'fan fictions.'" No. It's creative. Fic is creative. This is creative. It's an entire BOOK, that no one is alleging copies anything other than tropes (AS ALL PIECES OF FICTION DO, THIS IS NOT A FIC THING). It's got plot, characters, setting, dialogue -- none of which are alleged to be copied. So, like, just say it. It's creative. It possesses a modicum of creativity. Move on. I have no idea why that weird "fan fictions" reference is in there, Idk. 
--They've got an exhibit that they claim is Addison Cain online statements about the plaintiff, but I can't make heads or tails of them. They're weirdness about how she's wrote the original M/F Omegaverse, but I don't see any references to the plaintiff author Zoey Ellis, other than very vague references like this: 
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I'm a little bewildered by this exhibit. I think maybe they might be alleging that Addison Cain set up fake accounts to badmouth Zoey Ellis but if that's the case it's not clear to me, especially since they've blacked out the account name: 
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--This complaint has an exhibit that's basically an expert witness on Omegaverse. I love this so much. :-)
--Let's just enjoy this being in a legal filing: 
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--This isn't part of the main allegations. This is apparently, though, the kind of thing that Addison Cain has in the past considered plagiarism. Just a small selection, again, there are more. But:
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I have long said that writing a sex scene is like writing a cover letter: You’re trying to convey a very narrow series of events, over and over, and there’s only so many words you can use to do it. So comparing sex scenes like this just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Sex scenes will mostly inevitably sound similar in isolated sentences like this. It’s so funny, I was just saying to Aja about a gif, “He’s arching his neck to give him access like every heroine in every romance novel.” Because that’s a line we’ve all read in every romance novel.
--
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Honestly, honestly, literally every single Omegaverse fic I’ve ever read has this exact moment. (And many of them do it better.)
--This complaint has taught me a lot about how much of a kink some people have for being covered in days’ worth of caked-on semen, rubbed into their bodies and massaged into their hair. Really, the complaint is kink-instructive, I recommend it.
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--Honestly to me the most damning thing about this is this exhibit where Addison took matters into her own hands to post the similarities between her book and another book, because I’m just not convinced by any of these, and if this is what she thinks copyright infringement is, then I doubt she understands what it is. Bull all these BTBB/TMO comparisons have been her making her case that these two books are similar, and I’m just dubious. And then stuff like this comes up:
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Omegas being tired after a heat, yup.
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They…both came up with a futuristic device that has a…screen?
She does end with this:
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But I just don’t see what she’s claiming ownership of *other than* these really common Omegaverse tropes that I’ve read a million times. (Which isn’t to say that’s a bad thing. I’m a fic person at heart; I adore tropes.)
Anyway. That’s it. That’s the case so far. Let me know if you have questions, because lawyers can be bad at remembering what non-lawyers might be confused about.
In the meantime, I’m going to dig up some Omegaverse.
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7 really stupid things that trigger my rejection sensitive dysphoria
... Does anyone else with adhd have similarly insane rsd, or is it more likely a trauma thing at this point? (To clarify, these all trigger that horrible feeling like I’m being choked or punched in the stomach and also I’m the worst person alive, they don’t just make me mildly uncomfortable.)
• basically any interaction ever where I may have upset someone in any way, even if the person is an asshole and/or someone I’ll never see again. I hate confrontation even when it’s about something very important to me; hell, even watching/hearing other people’s confrontations that have nothing to do with me can trigger the rsd feeling (this one is probably most clearly from abuse but idk).
• criticism of things I like, even the slightest/politest review with some negative points. For some godforsaken reason my hell brain decides to take it personally every time and conclude that I’m an idiot for liking said thing (and positive feedback doesn’t counter it, my brain only deals in Bad apparently).
• SECONDHAND EMBARRASSMENT. And not only like when a character in a movie does something really stupid or whatever, but whenever anyone does anything that I subconsciously feel I would be made fun of or put down for, which is so many things it gets ridiculous.
• showing my work to anyone, even online. I’ve been a writer practically my whole life, yet almost no one apart from some English teachers has ever seen my writing. I usually don’t write fanfic but I wrote one recently for fun, and every time I get notified of a new comment on ao3 I legit have to psych myself up to look at it in case it’s negative, and I get really stressed (there have not actually been any negative comments yet lol).
• not getting texts back right away (well, sometimes— it’s either “they hate me” or “they’re dead” which is its own issue), even though I know I do the same thing myself. My mom has borderline personality disorder, and the irrational fear of rejection is the one part of bpd I really understand.
• trying to use dating apps— I can swipe through just fine but the second someone actually messages me, I PANIC. If I respond they’ll reject me for being awkward/weird/annoying/stupid, and if I don’t they’ll be mad at me (like it matters when we’ll never interact then??). I gave up and deleted my account recently cause it’s not working if I can’t actually communicate lmfao...
• just. Me existing. And how much I suck lmao (not to be self-hating all over the place but it’s true tbh)
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mermaidxatxheart · 5 years
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Some Rules are Never Meant to be Broken Part III
Part I | Part II
Pairing: Paramedic!Bucky X Reader
Warnings: Some language probably, nothing too crazy, the feeling of being watched. IDK. This is kind of a mild chapter.
Word Count: 7143
Summary:  The reader is a Muse living life as a tour guide at a museum. Bucky is struggling with returning home from war and adjusting to civilian life. He used to be a paramedic and now works security, but what he really misses from his pre-war life is his ability to draw. Cue the reader, determined to do her job and get him back to a point where he can do what he loves most. But, spending that much time with anyone always leads to romantic feelings, which is against her laws. Will she be able to resist Bucky long enough to help him and not get her in serious trouble?
A/N: I haven’t forgotten about this story at all. I’m just terrible and my brain simply can’t stop coming up with new ideas. Also, work has been sucking my soul dry. But I’ve finally reached a point, I feel like, where it’s a full chapter. It might not be the most exciting chapter, but I enjoy it, and I hope everyone else does, too. Mood board below was made by the ever amazing @captainsteveevans​ I can’t stop staring at this thing, it’s so gorgeous!! Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. If you do, comment or send me a message. They’re some of my favorite things and I can’t stop smiling when I see them.
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(Look at it^^^ I’m in love!)
Between school field trips and tourists in town for the holiday weekend, the museum had never been busier. You had given six tours and it was barely two. 
 You miss Bucky. It had been three days since you’ve seen him and you’ve hated every second, especially since he left you so flustered at not being kissed.
 What a tease.
 “Y/N, there is a man in the Greek wing that would like to speak to the expert. I told him you would be happy to talk to him. He’s very charming.”
 Bucky!
 “Alright. I’ll head over there right now.” you try to stop the ridiculous grin trying to pull at your lips. 
 You step into the hall and look around, expecting to see Bucky’s muscular frame. It wasn’t crowded in the exhibit at the moment, a few families milling about, but he was nowhere in sight and you feel a sinking feeling in your stomach. 
 He’s not here after all.
 Nothing feels worse than getting your hopes up and then feeling them fall to the floor.
 “Excuse me, you are the expert in this area?” a man asks, coming up to you. You quickly fix your face into a pleasant smile. He’s average height, shorter than Bucky, but a few inches taller than you. His whole appearance is immaculate, suit crisply pressed, dress shoes polished and buffed, his hair is styled professionally-not a thing out of place. His skin is flawless, not a freckle, blemish or mark of any kind. Perfect in every way, it’s almost unreal. 
 “Yes, you were looking for me?” you reply, holding out your hand. 
 He shakes it, his hand is soft in yours and after getting used to Bucky’s calloused one, it’s a strange sensation. 
 “Yes. My name is Doctor Feldman. I was hoping I could pick your brain about an exhibit I’m putting together.” He has an accent, it’s familiar but something you can’t place. It’s not anything that you’ve heard in the last fifty years. Maybe you’re just too out of touch with the rest of the world. 
 “Absolutely.” 
 He releases your hand finally and pulls out a portfolio from his briefcase. It matches his shoes, right down to the embellished stitching. An unfamiliar sensation fills your stomach. 
 “This is the space that I have to fill.” he hands you a photograph. The space is large and your mind starts racing about all the things you could fit in there, so many statues of yourself.
 “Quite impressive.” you say, taking the photo from him, trying to avoid skin contact. 
 “Thank you. I was wondering, how would someone like yourself go about filling such a space with history?”
 “Oh, there are many ways.”
 He hands you more pictures of the artifacts to go inside and you’re able to easily recognize them. 
 “You could easily just set it up the Greeks on one side, Romans on the other, but I find that style quite boring.” you flip through a few more pictures, an idea forming in your head. 
 “Or, you could do an interactive style, in which you start with the oldest artifacts, and as history progresses you move through to the point where Rome invaded and then you could split it into two directions.”
 “I rather like that idea.” he says, taking the pictures back. 
 “I’m glad I could be of help.” 
 “I may come back to pick your brain once or twice more.” he tells you, shaking your hand again. “You have such wonderful ideas.” 
 A chill creeps up your spine as he smiles at you. Something is very off about him, something you can’t quite place. You want to tell him to find another expert, that you can’t help him anymore. You open your mouth to speak, but he releases your hand. 
 “Have a good day.” he bids before walking away. 
 Your face flushes in annoyance that he cut you off like that. You make a face at his back, wishing that your powers extended to anything more than just inspiring people. That wasn’t exactly great for defending yourself. 
 You find, not for the first time, that you’re missing Bucky. 
 Rubbing the mark on the back of your neck, you walk back to your desk, counting the minutes until, hopefully, Bucky shows up at five. 
 As it turns out, five o’clock passed about twenty minutes ago and he never showed up. And you’re miserable for it. You wait to leave, thinking... hoping that he was just stuck in traffic or left the office late.
 But as five-thirty passes, you’re forced to admit he’s not coming. Again. You retrieve your things and head out into the night air. Autumn is falling fast upon the city and the air is getting colder. 
 You wrap your coat tighter around you as you make your way home. You first notice something off in the subway car. It feels like eyes on you. You’ve volunteered for art classes over the years, students studying your body, learning how to draw, countless eyes focused on you. You’re intimately familiar with the feeling of being watched, of being watched with intent. 
 Subtly, you look around the car, trying to take in all the faces of the strangers around you. There are so damn many of them, it’s nearly impossible to remember. You shift your bag higher onto your shoulder, trying to ignore the feeling crawling along your skin. It’s a city with 8 million people. They have to look somewhere, so why not at a beautiful woman on a train. 
 The doors creak open, rocking the car slightly and you exit, making your way home.  Once inside the door, you drop off your bag, pulling out your phone and finding Bucky’s number. Your finger hovers over the call button, an internal battle between wanting to hear his voice, and not wanting to look like an idiot. Your thumb twitches, pressing the call button on accident. 
 Shit.
 Bucky
 “Stark, how long does it take to update? You’ve had it for three days.” Bucky sighs, leaning against one of the many lab benches. 
 “It takes as long as it takes, Barnes. You can’t rush science.” he gives a small shrug. “Also, consider me holding it hostage as payback for you breaking my very nice door.” 
 He groans in annoyance. Tony had physically removed his entire arm, claiming he needed it for a software update. What Bucky hadn’t realized was that it would take four days to do it.
 The door to the lab opens and Steve walks in like a man on a mission. “Tony, have you seen-” his eyes land on his best friend and Bucky gives a half-hearted wave with his one good hand. “Never mind. I found him.” Steve leans against the bench next to the dark-haired man.
 He’s uncomfortably silent but Bucky refuses to break first. Steve came in here looking for him, he can speak first. Bucky can feel his blue eyes on him as he studies his nails, trimmed short as usual. There’s nothing fascinating about them, maybe a little grease from working on the arm but it’s utterly boring and Bucky is rapidly running out of things to examine. 
 “You know it’s almost seven.” Steve announces finally. 
 Internally, he winces. Externally, he’s a stone, unmoving and unflinching. “Uh-huh.” 
 “Are you going to see her? You’ve been here late every night this week, later than everyone else.” he nudges Bucky’s arm a little harder than is necessary. 
 “Her who?” Tony pipes up, glancing up from his laptop screen. 
 He glares at Steve. “Thanks for that. And no, I’m not going to see her.” he crosses his arm across his chest, the action falling flat without the second arm to complete it. As much as he hates the stupid thing, he feels lopsided without it. 
 “Bucky! Have you even been out of the building in the last three days?”
 “Would it even matter? I’m not seeing her.” he retorts. 
 “Still waiting over here. Who’s the ‘her’? And why won’t you go see her?” Tony interjects. 
 Bucky’s phone rings in his pocket and he’s forced to dig it out awkwardly. Tony grabs it from his hand, his reflexes not as quick as they should be. 
 “Who is... My Muse? Is that her? Should I answer for you? Hello, Bucky can’t come to the phone right now, he’s a little shorthanded.” he chuckles at his own terrible joke. 
 He rolls his eyes. “Don’t answer it, let it go to voice mail.”
 Tony’s thumb hovers over the screen and he glares at him. He sighs loudly. “Fine. But in return I get to hear all about her.” he declines the call and turns off Buck’s phone. “You can tell her I banned phones in the lab-it screws with the equipment.” he leans against the counter next to him. 
 “There’s not much to tell. I met her at a museum a couple weeks ago.” he shrugs unevenly. 
 “And has spent every day since with her.” Steve adds. 
 “Dude, who’s telling the story?”
 “You’re not doing it well. She’s crazy about him.”
 He sighs, annoyed. “You don’t know that. We barely know each other.” Bucky reasons, but deep down where he doesn’t have to admit it out loud, he likes the possibility of her liking him.
 “Man, no girl that hot is going to hang out with some guy every night for two weeks when she just likes him as a friend.”
 “Every night, huh? Sounds like love to me.” Tony interjects and he glares at Steve. “And you’re avoiding her now? Why?”
 “I’m not avoiding her.” he says hotly. “You said it yourself, it’s been every night for two weeks, we need a break.” even as he says the words, he hates how they taste. Lies and bullshit. He wants nothing more than to go see her right now, to bombard her with questions about her day and to feel her fingers on his.
 “I don’t buy it. Aside from the fact that you broke my door, this is the happiest I’ve ever seen you. And the most normal, at the very least.” 
 “Will you let the door thing go? Fury bought you an even better one. You came out on top with that.” he snaps. 
 He grins widely and looks at Steve. “Aww. He misses her.” he coos and Bucky wants nothing more at this moment than to smack him through his fancy new door. 
 Steven, the traitor, has the nerve to laugh. “I have to agree with Tony. I don’t buy it. There has to be another reason you’re hiding out here with Tony, of all people.”
 His arm beeps on the table and he perks up, looking at it. “Is it finally done?”
 “I don’t think so.” Tony gets up and goes to look. “Nope, that was just part one.” 
 He feels his eyes widen. “Part one?”
 “How many parts are there, Tony?” Steve asks, doing a better job of keeping his cool than Bucky is.
 “Just two, but they’re both big files. Your arm is completely outdated at this point as far as technology goes. I’d compare it to the first telephone. I need to figure out a way to update the entire software system. Otherwise, there’s nothing else I can do. I update this every month, and the updates are getting bigger and bigger. Soon, I’ll just be keeping your arm on this table just to update it.”
 He groans, pressing his fist to his eyes. “It’s going to take another three days to upload that file?”
 “Maybe, I won’t know until it’s done. It could be less, it could be more. Look, if you like this girl, just call her and tell her you’re sick. Don’t leave her hanging.” Tony says.
 He sighs, knowing he’s right. But Bucky also knows that she’ll want to come over and make sure he’s okay. 
 Tony walks towards the back of the lab and Steve turns to him. “Why won’t you call her?”
 “Just leave it alone.” he shifts uncomfortably and Steve’s eyes drop to Bucky’s arm on the table.
 “Please tell me this isn’t a pride thing.”
 “What? Don’t be ridiculous.” he rolls his eyes.
 “Oh my god, it is. Bucky-” Steve sighs, closing his mouth. “Are you going to call her?”
 “Not tonight.” he hedges, and Steve rolls his eyes.
 “Fine.” he claps him on the arm. “Good luck with the update.” Steve shakes his head but leaves the lab without another word.
 “Back in a tick.” Tony jogs after him. “Steve!”
 Steve
 Tony follows him into the hallway. “In all seriousness, if I can’t find a way to update his arm, he won’t have it for much longer.” 
 Steve sighs loudly and rubs his face. “Okay. I still have a few military contacts, I’ll put out some feelers. Maybe someone knows something that can help. Just... do what you can. I’ll be back in a little bit.”
 Tony steps back inside and Steve heads towards the building’s exit. He has a pretty good idea of where he needs to go, but Bucky is going to be pissed at him.
 Too damn bad, pal.
 The drive only takes about twenty minutes. But then it’s another fifteen to find the right building. He’s read so many little white name cards he’s starting to go cross-eyed. He presses the buzzer and sighs in relief when he hears her voice.
 “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested.”
 “How about a trip to SHIELD?” Steve replies. There’s a brief pause.
 “Steve?”
 “At your service.” He waits for what feels like five minutes but probably was only one.
 “Throw in a snack and you’ve got yourself a deal.”
 “Done.” He readily agrees. 
 A few minutes later the door opens and Y/N steps outside, shutting the door behind her. He expects a smile from her but when she turns around, her pretty face is anything but pleasant.
 “What’s the matter?” Steve asks worriedly.
 “Is he okay? What happened? I haven’t heard from him in days. He keeps ignoring my calls.” She rambles before suddenly freezing like a thought just occurred to her. Her face scrunches up. “He’s not... mad at me?” She asks it like it’s a completely foreign concept.
 Steve chuckles, holding up a hand to stop her. “He’s being an idiot, definitely, but it’s not over something you did.”
 “I don’t follow.” She starts, her tone uncertain.
 “You’ll see when we get there. Trust me, if he wasn’t so hard-headed, he would have come to see you.” He watches as she nods, but she still seems distracted by something. “Is there something else going on?”
 “I was hoping...” she shakes her head. “I’m just being stupid.”
 Steve opens the door to his truck for her before going around to his side. “If something’s wrong enough to bother you, it’s not stupid. You can tell me.”
 “This guy came into the museum today to ask for my help.” She starts, fiddling with her fingers. 
 “Was he rude? Offensive?”
 “No, perfectly polite. Professional. Shook my hand, thanked me for my help.” Her tone suggests that she knows how she sounds, but whatever it is about this guy, it’s not something obvious.
 “Y/N, I’m trying to understand, but I fail to see the problem. Unless you tell me what’s bothering you, there’s nothing I can really do.”
 “He was just... too nice? Too immaculate?”
 “Too perfect?” Steve adds, understanding, and she nods with a sigh.
 “It sounds so stupid but there was just something off about the whole thing.” She opens her mouth to say something else but shuts it again.
 Gut instincts are to be trusted for a reason. “What else?” He prompts. 
 “On the subway home, I felt uncomfortable, like someone was watching me.” She rubs her face in frustration. “I feel so stupid! I’m probably just overreacting.”
 “Look, you’re a smart woman. If you feel something is wrong, don’t brush it off. Be aware of everything around you. Trust your gut, we have these instincts for a reason. Give me the guy’s name. I’ll see what I can find on him. That way you can rest easy.” If it’s within his power, he’ll help keep her safe.
 “Thanks, Steve.” She smiles wide at him. “Can I ask another favor?”
 “Sure.”
 “Can we keep this between you and me? I don’t want to freak Bucky out if it’s nothing and I’m just being paranoid.”
 Steve considers the request for a moment. There’s no harm in getting all the facts together. If it turns out it really is nothing, then Bucky will worry and stress for no reason. He’s finally starting to heal and be better. “Sure, but the second we find out anything other than you’re just paranoid, I tell him. He’ll be the best one to keep you safe if anything happens.”
 “That’s fair.” She agrees and he’s content with the arrangement. Bucky will understand why they kept it from him at first, he may not be happy with it but he’ll understand. 
 Now, bringing her to SHIELD, on the other hand, dangerous. Bucky won’t be happy at all, he may even inflict some bodily harm on Steve. But it’s a risk he’s willing to take; she deserves to know what’s going on. And whether Bucky wants to admit it or not, having her there will be good for him. Steve already thinks of her fondly because of how much she means to Bucky, and how much she’s helped him already.
 He pulls into his parking space and they both climb out, heading for the front door.
 “So, what’s the protocol here? They’re not going to take blood samples are they?” She asks and Steve grins.
 “Not a fan of needles?”
 “Something like that.”
 “Nah, nothing too invasive. We just have to take a tissue sample, run a background check, run your fingerprints.” Steve shrugs casually, watching her reaction out of the corner of his eye.
 She doesn’t disappoint. Stopping, she turns fully to stare at him. “I’d hate to see your version of invasive.” She says and he laughs.
 “Just sign in and get your visitor badge.” He gestures to the marble-topped desk where a guest book is laying open. She picks up the pen and signs it quickly, her elegant script standing out among all the others. She clips the visitor’s badge to her shirt as Steve leads her over to the elevators.
 It’s silent for a minute as the car rides up. Then a thought occurs to Steve. “I should probably warn you; Bucky isn’t going to be happy.”
 She looks up at him. “Because you’re bringing me? I thought you said-”
 “He wants to see you, I can see it in his face, but he’s being a prideful bastard. Tony... well, Tony has his arm.”
 “Has his arm?” She repeats, her pretty face going blank. “The whole thing?”
 “No, just part of it.” He replies sarcastically. “Yes, the whole thing. And Bucky is being...” he glances at her. “Well, he’s being a man about it, letting his ego get in the way. Just, something to keep in mind when you see him.” 
 Y/N nods and falls silent. Steve can’t help but wonder what she’s thinking about, however, before he has time to ask-the doors open.
 “This way.” He leads her out and down the hall to the lab. He holds the door open for her and she steps inside and stops dead. Steve touches her arm gently. “He’s over here.” 
 ***
 You don’t know what you were expecting when you walked into the room, but the sheer number of high-tech machines surprises you into stopping in your tracks. You can feel Steve behind you as he nearly walks into you. 
 He lightly presses his fingers to your arm. “He’s over here.” He says quietly, leading you around a corner of sorts. 
 Bucky is leaning against a metal counter, head hanging as his flesh arm is braced against the counter behind him. Somehow, he seems less bulky with only one arm. The other one is laying on a table hooked up to cords. He definitely seems a little more vulnerable without it, you can easily see why he doesn’t want you around. 
 You had a scathing comment all ready to fire at him for being so stupid but seeing him now, you realize that wouldn’t help. You swallow it down and take a step forward.
 “So, this is where you’ve been hiding for three days.” You say and his head snaps up fast.
 “What the fuck are you doing here?” He snaps and you try not to feel offended.
 “Steve brought me.” You take another step forward, looking around at the machines, an idea forming, maybe part of an answer to his problem. “I have to say, if you’re going to avoid me, this is a good place to do it. I would hide out here, too.” You don’t miss the way his eyes slide over to his best friend behind you, hardening into ice.
 “Steve.”
 “You were being ridiculous. I had to do something. And she’s here now, so... you know... you’re welcome.”
 Bucky’s eyes get wide and you can’t help but chuckle a little.
 “Probably not the best lead, Steve.” You tell him, taking another step towards Bucky. His eyes move back to you and you still see the anger there, but there’s something else. It takes you a minute to place it because you’ve never seen it on him before, fear. 
 “Where’s Tony?” Steve asks, looking around.
 “I may have threatened to rip his arms off so he may be hiding.” Bucky admits. 
 You break into a grin. “That wasn’t very nice, was it?” You take the last few steps and lean against the table next to him before he can move. 
 “He deserves it. After you left, he kept harping on me and I got annoyed.”
 You lean your head against his shoulder, getting comfortable. “Will I get to meet him?”
 “I guess. If you want to.” Bucky sighs, his arm tightening around your shoulders. 
 “Barnes! Are you calm now? Or do I have to call your boyfriend?” A voice calls from the back of the lab. 
 “Why don’t you come find out, Stark?” He calls back, his voice vibrates through you. 
 “Will you at least text your girl? You can blame it on me and tell her I banned phones in the lab.”
 “You mentioned that already.” Bucky replies with a grin down at you.
 “That’s what you were gonna tell me?” You ask incredulously. Raising your voice, you continue, “you know no one actually believes that, right?”
 “Why do you think I didn’t actually say it? I’m not out to insult you.”
 “Who’s that? Is that her?” Footsteps hurry forward.
 “So, I might have an idea.” You whisper to Bucky. He looks down at you curiously as a man appears in the doorway.
 “Wow, Barnes, I’m impressed. Hello, I’m Tony.” He offers his hand, a smirk tugging at his lips. 
 “Nice to meet you, finally.”
 “Has he been bragging about me? He has a man-crush on me.”
 You snort. “Not exactly. I have a question. Do you make your own computer chips here?”
 Tony opens his mouth to reply, but then shuts it, tilting his head curiously. “Why?”
 “Well, I’m just wondering why you haven’t made newly updated chips for his arm.”
 “They wouldn’t be compatible.”
 “Why not? Because of the attachment heads? That’s an easy fix. With everything in this lab, you can make anything.”
 “Well...”
 “Bucky, can I see the inside of your arm? I didn’t get a super good look last time.” You ask and he nods, an unspoken question on his face. You can feel Steve’s eyes on you as Bucky steps forward and unlatches his panels.
 You pluck the flashlight out of Tony’s hand and aim it into the arm cavity. There you spot a row of microchips nestled into a bar of receivers. You pull one of the magnifiers in front of you to blow up the bar. You study it for a minute, getting a feel for the technology.
 “Is this Russian made?” You ask, nudging some wires around.
 “How on earth can you tell that?” Tony asks. 
 “It’s obvious, really.” You stand up and snap off the flashlight. “Where do you build your chips?” You look at Tony.
 He leads you to a workbench towards the back. “We don’t have any compatible.”
 “Tony, Tony, Tony. Have a little faith, will you? Also, do you have a computer with all of his information on it? I’ll need that, too.” You scoot out the stool and sit. 
 “What are you going to do?” Steve asks, stepping up next to you.
 “I’m going to help.” You answer obviously.
 Tony comes back and sets a laptop next to you before moving away again. He starts gathering up some supplies as you begin to pull the tools you would need towards you.
 “Bucky? Hand me those glasses right there.” You point up to the safety glasses on the wall above you.
 “You’re making me nervous.” He mumbles, grabbing them and placing them gently in your outstretched hand. 
 You catch his hand and pull it to your mouth. “No need to be nervous.” You smile and press a kiss to the back of his hand before letting it go. Tony brings back over the boxes of pieces you would need. 
 You start assembling the first chip, not pausing to really think about it, just letting the pieces fall into place. Once you’re satisfied that you have everything you need on there, you set the tools down to let it cool. 
 Stretching your back as you straighten up, it cracks loudly. You glance around and realize you’ve been lost in your own head for a long time, a lot longer than you realized. Tony has gone off to work on something else, and Steve and Bucky are talking back in the room with his arm. 
 You tilt your head from left to right, cracking it before pulling the laptop to you. Searching through the different programs that make his arm work as a whole, you find the one that controls basic function. 
 You scroll agonizingly slow through the millions of code lines, adding what you can to improve the quality. It takes you forever. The lines are tiny and your eyes are ready to fall out. You sit back for a minute, closing your eyes and pressing the heels of your hands into them. 
 “You doing okay?” Steve asks, his hands coming to rest on the back of your shoulders.
 “Yeah. It’s a lot of code. It won’t be perfect, I’m not as familiar with this kind and it should probably be rewritten better, but I’m not that good.”
 “Well, how much do you have left?”
 “About six hundred and fifty pages, give or take.” You answer off-handedly.
 “Oh, shit.” 
 “Yeah, where did Bucky go?” You ask, looking around. 
 “To make some coffee.”
 “Oh good, I’m gonna need it.”
 “So, bad news. We’re out of coffee.” Bucky says, coming back and draping his arm around your shoulders.
 You tip your head back and look up at him. “How can you be out of coffee?”
 “Either that or someone moved it. Which would just be dumb.”
 “Well, with the amount of code that I have to correct, there’s no way that I can keep going without any.” You sigh and rub your face. “I can’t even fix it all.”
 “Who can?” Steve asks.
 “Super geniuses?” You reply sarcastically, then you have a serious, actually helpful thought. “Well, I’ve heard of this girl, crazy inventor good. She might be able to help if we bribe her with something good. But, she lives...pretty far.”
 “How far?” Bucky asks. 
 “Africa, Western Africa.”
 “Well, I better make some calls.” Steve says matter-of-factly. 
 “If you can get her here, I think she and I can fix this.” You tell Steve and he nods.
 “Then it doesn’t look like you can do any more tonight. Bucky, why don’t you take her home? You can come work on this tomorrow, Y/N.”
 “You sure?” You ask.
 “Yeah. Go home, get some rest.” Steve nods.
 Bucky steps back and holds out his hand for you. 
 “Are you sure you’re okay to leave?” You ask Bucky. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”
 “I think I’ll survive.” He smiles and you slide off the chair to follow him. 
 “Goodnight, Steve.” You say and he kisses your cheek. “Bye, Tony!” You call as Bucky pulls you towards the door. 
 He’s silent on the elevator ride down to the lobby, across the wide-open space and outside. He’s walking slowly so you can keep up with him, but still silent. 
 “Are you mad that I came tonight?” You ask quietly. 
 He looks down at you, surprised. “Why would you ask that?”
 “Because now you’re not speaking.”
 “I’m just thinking. Definitely not mad at you.” He pulls you tight against his side. “Are you kidding? You were the best part of the last three days.”
 “I can’t believe you thought I would care about your arm.” 
 “I don’t have a decent response to that, so I’m just gonna shut up.”
 “Probably a good call.”
 “So, how forward would it be if I showed up tomorrow to walk you to work?”
 “It would be worse for you if you didn’t. Trust me.” You grin, poking his side. 
 A cold shiver trickles down your spine and you stop dead, looking around. You’re definitely being watched. You glance up to the windows on the side of the building but no one is looking out of them.
 “What’s the matter?” Bucky asks. 
 You want to tell him but there’s just so many benign explanations that you still don’t want to worry him over nothing. 
 “So, does this mean we can have dinner at your place now?” You ask, tilting your head to look up at him as you continue walking. 
 “Yes. I will pick you up from work, and then we can finally have dinner.”
 “Excellent.” 
 You walk in silence for a while, his arm wrapped around you and you couldn’t be happier. The implications of your happiness aren’t lost on you, you know what will happen if you fall in love but as long as he’s your favored, you can claim it’s all an act, that this is what he needed to get going again.
 But you know the truth.
 And it scares the Tartarus out of you.
 He walks you up to your apartment, hesitating outside your door again. If he leaves you a second time without a kiss, you’re going to throttle him.
 “You’re coming tomorrow morning, right?” You ask, tilting your head to look up at him. 
 “I’ll be here.” He promises, taking your hand gently. You lift it to his face, cupping his cheek softly. He lowers his face to yours and you meet him the rest of the way, capturing his lips with yours. Your skin prickles, nerves coming alive as he kisses you, backing you into your door slightly. Your fingers slide into his hair, curling into the strands and scraping against his scalp. 
 He pulls away breathlessly, his eyes unfocused. “I should go.” He mumbles. 
 You nod, hating to watch him leave. “Tomorrow morning.” You remind him. He smiles at you and turns for the stairs. You wait until he’s out of sight before unlocking your door and heading for the window overlooking the street. You watch him emerge and he glances up at your window, a broad smile on his face. You can’t stop the weightlessness of your heart. 
 This is bad.
 Really bad.
 But you can’t bring yourself to mind too much. Not after he kisses you like that.
 With a sigh, you turn and get ready for bed. 
  Bucky
 Why is walking to her apartment so difficult? He’s walked home from there plenty of times. He groans in frustration and reaches for his door handle again.
 “Just fucking open it, you coward.” He mutters. And yet, his hand hesitates just out of reach. He groans and pulls back, pacing away from the door. 
 “What are you so afraid of? She’s already seen you without your arm, and she wants to continue seeing you. She wants you to walk her to work.” He says to himself, pacing around his living room. 
 “And then what? Leave her at the museum while you go back to work and deal with Tony being insufferable? You’re no good for security with just one arm, so Fury makes you stay in the lab. You’re alone all day.” He sighs loudly and smacks his face a few times, trying to get himself together.
 “You like being alone, moron. It’s better than having to deal with Sam or see Nat. Definitely don’t wanna see her.” He catches sight of himself in the mirror and points at his reflection. 
 “Listen here, you little shit. Twenty minutes with Y/N is better than three days without her. Get your ass over there and walk her to work.” He snaps. 
 He marches over to the door, flings it open, and steps outside. He barely remembers to lock it behind him before he’s off, walking to her apartment before he can chicken out. But with every step, his stomach tightens into a series of knots and he can’t catch his breath. 
 “Damn it, Y/N, what have you done to me?” He mutters. 
 Her building comes into sight and it’s like his skin ignites with electricity, nerves ramping higher and higher. He steps up to her door and raises his finger to push her doorbell. His hand is shaking so bad he nearly pushes the wrong one.
 “Come on, man, get it together.” He shakes his hand as if that can expel all his nerves and pushes the right buzzer.
 “Hello?” Her voice comes over the box and he can’t answer. “Bucky? That better be you.” She says and he smiles, despite his anxiety.
 “Yeah. It’s me.” He replies.
 “Come on up.” She says, buzzing him in. He pulls the door open and goes inside, her voice echoing in his ears.
 He reaches her door and knocks nervously. His hand starts to go to his hair, maybe to flatten it down or fix it, but honestly, what good would it do at this point?
 She opens the door in her robe, with a tank top and long pajama pants on underneath, a big cup of coffee in her hand. “Come on in.” She steps back, watching him.
 He steps inside, trying to look anywhere but at the gorgeous woman in her pajamas. “You’re not ready yet?” He asks, turning his gaze to her living room. He wanted to be here twenty minutes ago, but now, with her swirling all around him, he just needs to leave. To get this over with.
 “I called in sick.” She says, giving a pathetic fake cough. 
 The knot in his chest loosens and he can breathe a little easier now. “You did?”
 “Yeah. I thought we could have breakfast, and then go back to SHIELD and work some more on your arm.” She says with a shrug. 
 “You did?” He repeats, stunned. She continuously surprises him. 
 “Is that not okay? I thought that since we haven’t really spent a lot of time together over the last three days that we could now, and under the pretense of a good cause.”
 “No! I like that idea. I just wish I had thought of it first.” He says and she laughs, walking passed him into the kitchen, catching his hand in her soft one as she goes. 
 “Besides, you still owe me for that kiss you withheld. Don’t think I won’t be collecting on that.” She warns and he can’t stop the grin on his face. 
 “I genuinely can’t wait.” He says as she pushes him into a chair, her hand trailing around his neck. 
 “Can you use a fork right-handed?” She asks, leaning down close to his ear.
 Her perfume clouds around him, seeming to seep into his skin, fogging his brain and he can hardly focus on what she’s saying. All he can picture is pinning her against the wall and kissing her for all he’s worth. “Um, yeah. I got used to it before I got the arm.” He answers nervously. 
 “Good.” She straightens up and steps back, leaving him feeling empty like he’s missing something. 
 It’s quiet in her apartment as she moves about the kitchen. He feels pressure on his shoulders, something weighing him down. He gets up and goes to the bar to watch her.
 “I’m sorry.” He says after a long minute. 
 She looks up at him in some surprise as she cracks eggs into a frying pan. “Sorry for what?”
 “Avoiding you.”
 “I understand, Bucky. Probably better than you might realize. But I want you to know something, okay?” She puts down the spatula and walks around to stand in front of him, easing herself between his knees. She places her hands gently on either side of his face, her skin soft and warm on him. “There is absolutely nothing that you can do, or reveal about your past, or say to me that will make me leave. Do you understand? I don’t care if you have one arm, one eye, and one leg. I’m in this.” 
 He closes his eyes and nods. “I understand.”
 “Promise me, no more secrets.”
 “I promise.”
 “Good.” Her hands slide down his chest and she grips his shirt, pulling him against her, kissing him deeply. Her lips are soft, sweet on his, and yet so urgent. 
 He wraps his arm around her, pulling her against him. She pulls back, her beautiful eyes closed as she rests her forehead against his. “I should make breakfast.” She mumbles.
 “I’m not done kissing you yet.” He sighs and she chuckles.
 “We have time. We can pick up where we left off later.”
 “You miss the arm.” He says softly.
 “I like the way the hot and cold feels. And I don’t like that you’re uncomfortable.” She pulls back out of his grasp and goes back into the kitchen. 
 “I’m feeling better.” He shrugs lopsidedly. It mostly has to do with the fact that she’s so accepting of this whole situation.
 “Be that as it may,” she pauses and looks up at him with a soft smile. 
 He sighs and sits back. “Fine. We can finish kissing later.” 
 She laughs, grabbing a mug out of her cabinet. “Sounds like a plan.” She pouts him some coffee and sets it in front of him. He captures her hand, pulling it to his mouth, kisses her palm, inhaling the scent of her skin. Images of flowers, bright and full and oh so delicate, fill his mind. Peonies and roses and lots of others he didn’t know the names of. Soft pinks and deep purples and bright reds. So vibrant, so alive. He lets her hand slide out of his and his fingers itch to grab a pad of paper, but he doesn’t have his dominant hand. 
 Maybe she’s right, they need to finish his arm. 
 He lifts his mug and sips at the coffee, savoring the flavor of it. She hums softly as she cooks in the kitchen and a strange feeling washes over him. 
 The complete sense of domesticity about this scene. This gorgeous woman that he can’t get enough of, making breakfast for the both of them. The normalcy of it twists in his heart like a knife. 
 He knows he shouldn’t rush things, should take their time. It hasn’t really been that long in the grand scheme of things. It’s dangerous for her, he’s dangerous. 
 But he can’t make himself stay away from that look in her eyes when she sees him. Soft and affectionate, not disgusted, not terrified. She treats him just like he’s anyone else. And it’s been so long since anyone has done that. 
 Even Nat, when she came to see him. She had a hard time looking at him. She stayed across the room the whole time, afraid of him. It’s not her fault. She did what she needed to do for herself, to protect herself and he can’t blame her for that. 
 A plate sets in front of him and he blinks and looks up. 
 She’s smiling at him, teasing. “I think I lost you there for a minute.” She says.
 “Just thinking. This looks great.” Scrambled eggs with fresh tomatoes and spinach, sausage and toast. 
 “Just breakfast.” She shrugs, bringing her plate around to sit next to him. 
 “Well, unless Stevie and I go to a diner for breakfast, mine usually consists of protein bars.”
 “That’s boring.” She sighs, digging in. 
 They eat in comfortable silence. He can’t stop looking at her. The gentle way her hair falls like a curtain between us, the casual way she flips it out of her face. Her cheekbones are a work of art, her long eyelashes laying against her cheeks soft and delicate like a flower. He has a sudden urge to sketch her, to get her lines down perfectly. 
 “Mmm. That was good.” She hums, scooting her stool back. “I’m gonna jump in the shower really quick.” She carries her plate into the kitchen and sets it in the sink. “Make yourself comfortable.” She presses a kiss to his cheek and heads into her bedroom. 
 He slowly finishes eating before taking his plate into the kitchen. He draws some hot water and quickly scrubs the dishes, setting them to dry in the dish rack. He settles into her comfortable couch, looking around at all the pictures and artwork in her living room. 
 There’s a statue sitting on her entertainment center. It’s of a couple waltzing. The woman looks like she’s wearing a flowing dress but the only details visible are at the bottom, her sculpted back looks bare. She has her face tucked into his neck in an intimate moment, a private affair just for them. The rest of their world faded away while they’re in each other’s arms.
 Bucky stands up and crosses the room to the statue, picking it up and examining the couple. His finger traces across her back absently.
 “Do you like it?” She asks behind him. 
 He nearly drops it as he turns around. He sets it down carefully so he won’t break it. “Yeah.” He looks up at her in time to see her struggling not to smile.
 “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” She steps forward and picks up her shoes. 
 “It’s okay. Ready to go?” He asks, holding her hand as she balances on one foot.
 “Yeah. Can we call a cab? It would be quicker.”
 “Sure.” He opens her door for her and makes sure to lock it, handing her keys back to her. 
 Master List
Tag List (to anyone I miss, I’m sorry. If you’d like to be added, send an ask. Strikethrough means I couldn't tag you)
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whetstonefires · 5 years
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I have wandered into your tumblr and I want to know absolutely everything about your ideas for Earth 3 Impetus and Motion. EVERYTHING. Possibly the least relevant part of that is the family line, as Earth 3 often has really skewed versions of the characters. Would the first Johnny Quick even have a speedster grandson when he was killed and his blood used to power his successors?
Oh, cool ask! Thank you!
😄 I’m very happy to talk about this but I’m afraid you may be disappointed, because I’m Doing It Wrong. I’ve been working off and on on a bespoke Earth-3 for the past…several years. Production has slowed but not stopped. It’s up to over 300,000 words on AO3 at this point.
The issue that set me off was that tendency to skew; I didn’t like it. I found that, most of the times DC had built into Earth-3 before rebooting again, there were two countervailing currents leading writing decisions. On the one hand to make things As Wrong As Possible compared to the main timeline, and on the other to just make them…arbitrarily different.
Lois Lane is Superwoman, evil counterpart of Wonder Woman, for some reason, woop-de-do; this fits under both categories.
This process worked neither according to the ‘timeline that diverged into a Bad Timeline at some point in the distant past but somehow contains versions of the same people in the same place’ premise of the original Star Trek ‘Mirror, Mirror’ episode, nor does it work according to any direct cosmic principle of inversion, although some of the early versions claimed to.
(See: Mirror Christopher Columbus discovered Europe and then later Evil George Washington conquered England for the American Empire, what even guys. 😩)
Also Earth-3 so transparently existed almost every time it was reinvented as a place to get villains from, and to look bad in comparison to the main timeline, without any attention to making it work internally, which I thought was a damn waste of a cool concept. ‘A damn waste of a cool concept’ drives a lot of fanwork lol.
So for my world, I had the slightly conflicting goals of working as close to that amorphous thing ‘canon’ as possible, and of making the setting stand on its own, as a superhero setting, with internal causality and more or less the usual sort of hero-versus-villain logic. So I inverted the alignments of only superheroes and supervillains, and kept as much as possible of their backstories intact.
This means my stuff doesn’t map onto any canon Earth-3, especially not the one from Forever Evil because that came out after I’d already gotten all the big things pinned down. 😅 Some people get upset about this and come yell at me about how i.e. Owlman is Thomas Wayne Junior. But since I always saw that particular concept as a huge cop-out from looking at how few alterations it takes to turn Bruce Wayne into a spectacular villain, I was like ‘nuts to that’ from the start.
If you’re cool with my relationship with canon, on we go.
-&-
So, Impetus and Motion! I don’t remember what I said on that one post where I remember blathering about it, so forgive me if I repeat myself. ^^
Lineage is the same as canon, technically. I’ll go over it; if you don’t care just skip ahead to the next subsection. 😄
Mirror Barry Allen, the Dash, got his villain name for his signature kill technique of grabbing someone, hyperaccelerating them, and then letting go at the right moment that they get dashed against something immovable and go splat. He dashes people against things.
(His eventual sidekick, Blaze, got his for liking to make things combust by accelerating their molecules. The combination makes them sound like a pair of racehorses, which they did not intend and are very annoyed by when it’s pointed out.)
The Dash is pretty scary, especially because most of the ways he abuses his speed for profit are so low-key nobody even notices (i.e. screwing with the stock market) and he doesn’t need to be a supervillain. He just likes it.
His public villain profile is relatively low for the level of danger he poses, tho, because his town is infested with really dumb superheroes who beat him embarrassingly often, when he actually turns up to fight or is successfully ambushed. And with the occasional exception the scale of his crimes is fairly small compared to i.e. Ultraman.
Keeping him imprisoned is ridiculously difficult, tho. He can’t be completely depowered (because the Speed Force is external to him and all the power dampeners that are used assume they’re trying to shut off something generated internally) and he’s really smart, so it took years of battles to keep him long enough to transfer into a proper cell even, and longer to get an unblurred look at his face.
His secret identity survived so long that Barry Allen was there to comfort Iris West after she was targeted by the Dash on several occasions, and they were married by the time he got ultimately unmasked.
She left him after that and moved back to the future, which she was still from because that’s hilarious, but he eventually tracked her down and promised to reform if she’d take him back. This obviously fell apart eventually, but not until after the twins were born.
I haven’t mapped out the mirror Thawne line. I assume the Thawnes with healing powers who inadvertently adopted Barry’s twin were much nicer in this timeline but idk if he ever became Cobalt Blue or what. I hope he lived to old age. Apparently there have been multiple Cobalts Blue? Idk idc, Flash continuity what even are you.
Everyone thought Eobard Thawne was nuts, but he actually did go back in time and stop the Dash from destroying the world with nukes in a fit of rage, his historical analysis, method of giving himself speed powers, and time machine were all successful. He may additionally suffer from some degree of psychosis, but he wasn’t wrong. (His little brother still exists in this universe because good!Eobard wasn’t the type to manipulate time to erase inconvenient family members. He also doesn’t have the title Professor because he never got tenure, so he just goes by Zoom.)
-&-
Bart is still Don and Meloni’s kid. Frankly I don’t understand those two in the normal timeline, so it’s hard to construct their mirror versions in any depth or even decide whether they should get mirrored. (Probably not tbh.) But I don’t exactly need to, because the resulting Bart is very much the same and thus doesn’t really know them. He was still born with his weird speed glitch that caused him to be raised in a simulation, and eventually time-traveled to un-glitch him.
The difference is that he’s not a nice kid. He’s a two year old who looks twelve and has received all his socialization from reasonably good AI in a world that was not real. Where nothing had consequences. Where nobody was real.
He’s very frightening, is Impetus. Impetuous, wildly powerful, selfish–oddly sweet, occasionally, in the ‘gay and innocent and heartless’ way of Peter Pan, but probably even more likely than Peter to knife someone. He’s so delighted the first time he eats actual ice cream, as opposed to a simulated version, but the ice cream stand is now on fire.
Mirror Bart isn’t so much cruel or even un-empathetic as solipsistic. He’s arrested in the state of an intellectually advanced toddler playing, what’s that game called, the one where the objective seems to be getting in car chases a lot? When was the last time they made a new one, I feel like I haven’t heard it mentioned in ages, it’s a dead franchise isn’t it I’m old. Grand Theft Auto! That’s it. He doesn’t just not understand that danger is real, the way Impulse started out. People aren’t.
Impetus is easily bored and surrounded by NPCs. It gets ugly, sometimes.
He also time-travels a lot more frequently than normal Bart, because he doesn’t really get attached so he doesn’t try to maintain a normal life of any kind, so he pops up all over the timestream.
Jason Blood hated him personally long before Bart had any idea who he was; they have a villain rivalry plagued by causality issues and closed time loops that is alternately epic and stupid as fuck.
And then there’s Thad. Thad’s had a less awful time than he did in canon, I think–President Thawne is not technically a supervillain so he’s probably about the same as in the original timeline, but even assuming Meloni and Don are still out of the picture (probably it’s Barry’s fault in this dimension?) raising a kid as a ‘defense mechanism against a supervillain’ calls for less extreme brainwashing fuckery than raising one to hunt down a superhero.
So he probably behaved a bit more like a reasonable grandparent, simply because the context incentivized him to emphasize concepts like duty and loyalty more, and hatred less. He might even have been able to go public with Thad’s existence, depending on the spin he came up with. Among other factors.
But it was still a depressing, isolated, dehumanizing way to grow up, and it went on a long time, because as per canon Thad has the opposite problem from Bart in terms of how he passes through time. Motion is a 40-year-old man with a 12 year old’s body and approximate life experience.
Thad was already So Tired when he finally got out into the world on his own, and once he encountered Impetus he learned pretty quickly to both pity and fear him.
Even when Thad tries to avoid Bart and just have a life, Bart always crashes back into his existence again, and in the meantime he feels guilty. Because even if he could completely shake off having been raised to see countering Impetus as his whole reason for existence, he’d still feel a lot of personal responsibility to try, because he has the ability to stand up to him in a way almost no one else does, and he knows Bart’s out there resulting in casualties.
Due to all the time travel involved, even having just defeated Impetus doesn’t mean he’s not still out there at an accessible point in the timestream, needing to be stopped.
Impetus results in Motion the way Inertia resists Impulse. They’re very much locked into an action-and-reaction framework that does not even a little bit help with Thad’s clone identity issues.
Except for how the amount of time Thad spends saving people from Bart has slowly created a fairly large body of people over the course of history who know them as distinct entities, and like Thad a lot better. 
Good feels good. ^^ It’s not necessarily the case that this happens, obviously, but with their alignment swap they also ultimately exchanged who’s defined by isolation. It takes Bart a long, long time to even understand that he’s lonely.
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regina-nox · 4 years
Text
Look I get being annoyed with all the attention/praise Natalie Portman got for her cape at the Oscars being embroidered with the names of the female directors that got snubbed by the academy. Especially considering that she has only starred in two* films with female directors, one of them being herself. One might argue that it’s another case of performative wokeness. Another then might counter that by pointing out that it’s better than doing nothing, which is never a strong argument.
We need to stop expecting perfection from artists. I’m not saying we can’t hold them accountable or criticize their actions, but we need to also be patient. Be annoyed at all the Buzzfeed-esque drooling over celebrities doing cool/good things that gets plastered all over social media, but don’t get annoyed at the celebs themselves for that coverage. Portman didn’t ask to be congratulated on her sartorial decision: she was merely using her platform in a very clever way to bring attention to an issue she has been outspoken about in the past.
I know how annoying all of the sheep like praise for celebrities can get, it’s ridiculous, but I don’t think we should let that stop us from still giving people credit for doing awesome things. Like I said, we’re allowed to critique people who possess swaths of influence and have a platform whether they acknowledge it or not, but if we’re going to critique them then in turn I believe it’s our job to commend them when they contribute to significant issues. Not only does that encourage celebrities to do this more, but it also sends a message to all of the people who follow this person that what they’re doing is important and deserves positive recognition. Because then their attention is brought to the issue, and it can ultimately foster widespread change. For example, while it’s definitely worth mentioning that it seems Portman could make more of an effort on her part to work with more female directors, however I don’t think it’s fair to completely slam her for making a statement with that outfit. I think that kind of bashing promotes purity culture—are we not allowed to take a stance on an issue if we haven’t led a perfect example?
I think the scathing attacks just discourage people. Because who among us is perfect? People (celebrities and non-celebrities alike) see Portman trying to make an effort and then being dragged for it. Again, not saying we shouldn’t or can’t point out the flaws with her protest, but to ruthlessly bash her doesn’t help. And I usually hate that kind of argument, like when I was on a date with a guy and he said “women saying ‘I hate men’ doesn’t help their cause” and I replied saying “maybe I don’t always need to be helping the cause, maybe I can say whatever I damn well feel like.” The difference is at the end of the day Natalie Portman is a physical human being and being a celebrity she is already subjected to mass amounts of criticism. And yes, we can find what she did to be more of an act of performative wokeness and find that tiresome. But did it deserve outrage?
And this isn’t me saying we need to be polite in these times, because fuck that. Like when fucking T.I. told everyone the weird shit about his daughter and her gyno appointments and everyone was rightfully like what the fuck, you complete gross fuck. The crowd booing Trump at the World Series was great, Pelosi ripping up the SOTU speech was also great. I’m just saying, as a cynical person myself, it’s important not to tear down everything all the time because it isn’t perfect. Uh Obama’s presidency was far from perfect, partly because of the continued use of drones (I mean hey if we could employ drones without killing thousands* of innocent people I wouldn’t complain but that’s just me and my opinion idk), but it also gave millions** of people access to affordable healthcare (and hey while the ACA isn’t universal healthcare it has provided a great foundation to move the country there). Oh that being said it doesn’t mean someone’s good behavior always excuses bad behavior. I’m not saying every artist should simply be able to get away with bad shit (“I mean I know that whole T.I. thing was fucked up but he’s so good in the Ant-Man movies!” or even “Well T.I. apologized and then donated a million dollars to some women’s charity*** ok let’s all move on!”).
Again it’s super important that we criticize people that wield massive amounts of influence. Speaking of the Academy, it annoys me to no end that people simply blame twitter for the lack of Oscars host when people had every right to criticize the choice of Kevin Hart as a host considering all of those awful tweets about if his son ever came out as gay. Some people might argue that they’re just tweets and jokes, he isn’t serious. But when you think about all of the LGBTQ kids currently living in the streets because their parents kicked them out, it becomes slightly less funny. And now I’m getting into comedy which is a whole other can of worms. I mean we should definitely approach these things holistically as we’re all entitled to our own interpretation. But we don’t always have to be mean is I guess the crux at what I’ve been trying to say. (Again, not saying we shouldn’t or can’t be mean because fuck it.) So then maybe not?
It’s tricky because as I’m writing this I’m also playing the counter arguments in my head. I guess what I’m trying to say overall is can we please chill with tearing imperfect people down when they try to make a difference, and that tearing people down is not the same as constructive criticism.
Keys (because I don’t feel like doing research on an opinion piece of a tumblr post):
*=me being not entirely sure of the accuracy of this number full disclosure
**=me knowing it was in the millions but also still not knowing the exact number so yeah disclaimer there
***=me having no actual clue if this happened, like I’m going to assume he apologized because public opinion practically demanded it and then it would just make sense to make a show of making an effort which is so easy when you’re wealthy. But my point is I really have no idea what he did and so I completely made this up and don’t know the extent of how fake/real it might be.
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wavemaker9 · 5 years
Text
Hey time to make things worse! 
I started trying to think of what would be said if dal did insist on talking to s!austin. I think she’d have to find a way to sneak in to talk to him at some point. I know for a fact that if mel didn’t say she couldn’t, kyle would. He doesn’t know what’s up with austin right now, but the man did try to actually choke him to death, and given the glares he’s shot dal so far too, until they know what’s up enough where they can rule him hurting dal out as a possibility, he doesn’t let his niece go in the same room as austin. He wants to believe austin wouldn’t hurt dal, he really does, but better safe than sorry
Like he really does want to give austin the benefit of the doubt, he grew up with that guy, he knows that guy. Austin’s gotten violent when really mad sure, but austin hasn’t lashed out /at/ him since they were younger and kyle did some /really/ bad pranks at him. Not only has the guy gotten better at directing his anger away from people, but also. Well, part of the reason austin stopped fighting kyle when kyle fucked with him was as they got older, kyle got stronger physically and austin was a nerd and read. They both knew that by their teens, kyle could have kicked austin’s ass at any time if they wanted and that even if austin /had/ wanted to fight kyle, he was going to lose. And that’s another thing like. Y’know how the reason s!kyle and s!mel are like ‘this can’t be our austin because our austin doesn’t have a heart so he can’t fake caring about people’? F!kyle is like ‘my cousin’s idea of an intense workout is a light jog around the block and he doesn’t even know how to throw a punch right. He curls his thumb in his hand half the time and throws all his weight into it it’s embarrassing. There’s no /way/ he should have been able to take me.’ and that’s probably also a factor for him being more willing to at least somewhat buy austin’s story later. They can say stress did it or suggest other ideas like DID but stress doesn’t suddenly give you fighting experience. He knows vaguely that DID’s supposed to have certain personalities knowing things others don’t or whatever but he’d severely doubt that it can suddenly give you years worth of fighting practice + understanding how your cousin fights when the only times you’ve ever seen him fight were briefly and never in such a desperate situation. If it weren’t for the viciousness, it’d have felt like he was fighting an old training buddy, someone he’d fought against multiple times, for him to have a grasp on how kyle moved at the level austin did. So like later on being told ‘oh yeah that’s because you were fighting someone who’d been fighting against you for a long while’ would be like ‘i guess that makes more sense’. Like basically what’s more logical? That alternate universes exist and austin’s mind was swapped with a version of himself that wants to kill kyle? Or that austin secretly knew how to fight kyle /really well/ this /whole time/ but was hiding that knowledge until he could try to kill him for no good reason with a bunch of their family in the next room over? Kyle wants to say the first one. They’re both dumb but one’s dumb and also clears his cousin’s name, so.
Anyway anyway, got off topic. Kyle wants to believe that austin wouldn’t hurt dal, but he also assumed austin wouldn’t have tried to kill him and dal’s safety is more important than siding by the cousin who tried to kill him, so. Dal either having to at some point sneak by at least kyle if not mel and others to talk to him or /really/ convince someone to let her through and keep an eye while she talks to him. And the main thing i hate is you /know/ at some point s!austin tells her she shouldn’t exist. That the very concept of him ever even liking amelia as a friend, let alone loving her or having a child with her, is ridiculous, and that dal’s being here is a mistake. And when he says it, he means it in a way of ‘this whole world is wrong and shouldn’t exist’, he’d say it in the same way he’d say his being related to kyle is a mistake or his parents being alive is a mistake. That that’s not how the world should be. It’s a mistake that this is what things are like now.
But on the other hand. I mean it’d probably have had to come up to dal by that point that her birth /was/ accidental. That mel and austin hadn’t meant to even be together let alone have a child, and they’re so glad now that they have her, but at the start, yeah, i mean it’s a fact she wasn’t planned for like at all. And dal was probably a little upset about it at first, but i can see her getting past it soon enough with the support network she has. Even if her parents didn’t originally want a kid, they do clearly want her now, she knows they both love her so much, they’re glad they’re her parents and she’s glad to be their kid, too, so even if it’s a little disappointing, it’s fine now because her parents make it clear how glad tehy are to have her. No deep concern can last too long because even if her parents hadn’t wanted her originally, they both make it clear however they can how much they /do/ want her now. Also when kyle finds out she knows, him also throwing in his point of ‘the universe wanted you to exist so much it put two totally opposite people who hated each other together just so you could be your super cool self today, so like. That’s kinda cool (playful wink)’ also maybe just him admitting to her he wasn’t planned either, and /he’s/ super cool right? (dal teasingly doing an exaggerated thinking noise and him ‘oi!’ before her laughing and agreeing yeah yeah okay uncle kyle, you’re super cool and him /thank you very much/) now they can be super cool accidents together or whatever, it’s chill.
So dal pretty reassured by that point that just because she wasn’t planned doesn’t mean she isn’t loved, but it still hurts a /lot/ for someone who looks and sounds like her dad to so callously call her a mistake. She probably tries to deal with it in the moment, not let it show how much that hurts to hear, but she also is still just a teen at oldest so probably not that great at hiding that. And worse is it’s clear he doesn’t /care/ about her reaction. It’s not even that he’s glad she’s hurting or something, she just means nothing to him except being annoyed she’s even there. Like honestly? S!Austin probably not even talking to her at first, finally saying when she keeps pressing that she doesn’t deserve a response. Maybe that’s why he says it. The same thing of his parents pushing him into why he’s so harsh and cold to them and finally getting out ‘you should be dead’. her trying to get him to explain why he won’t even just talk to her, what’s he so afraid of? And him finally countering at that that he’s not /afraid/, she just doesn’t deserve a response. She doesn’t even deserve to be here. She’s a mistake, she doesn’t deserve his time or effort. Not sure what else would come up after that, though i think I did see nyo suggesting dal asking who he is since he can’t be austin and he’d answer at that that she should /know/, because again, he assumes this is all some weird trap against him. He surely wouldn’t even be here if they didn’t know who he was; don’t play games with him. But to her without context that can just end up coming across as ‘you should know because i’m your dad’.
God okay and after this. Like i said, dal tries to play tough about it but that’d have to really hurt to hear. I think her trying to push off talking about it but eventually going to like mel or maybe kyle about it. Mel because mom but kyle also an option because they /were/ accident buddies and also her probably more worried her mom’ll be mad about her sneaking around than kyle would, unless mel wasn’t as against dal speaking to austin as kyle was for whatever reason. I doubt that but i dunno. Either way, her looking to them for some reassurance again though and probably having to explain why and either of them just fucking furious upon finding out. I don’t know who austin thinks he is now but how fucking /dare/ he tell my daughter/niece that she’s a mistake.
Idk how mel’d take that fully, but kyle’d go in to talk to austin again if he found out he said that. Look trying to kill him is one thing. He did some stunt that almost got himself killed every other day when he was younger. He’s cut that shit out after getting the twins but like it’s him, you can’t legally make kyle brown 100% value his life fully, it’s impossible. But you don’t fucking talk to his niece and /your daughter/ like she’s a goddamn abomination or something, that’s where we cross the fucking line, mate. And austin’s just as dismissive as ever again, if he says anything, it’s to ask why not since she might as well be, maybe even saying all of this should be. Oh fucking. Oh /no/. Austin saying she might as well be, kyle too, trying to pass off as family like he is. And he doesn’t! He means it as just “we’re not family, we’re enemies. Your little game of trying to convince me otherwise to- I don’t know, make me feel sorry for trying to kill you -won’t work!” but in the context. Like this austin probably doesn’t even /know/ this kyle was born thanks to an affair. The insult isn’t even one he can intentionally make i don’t think. /maybe/ depending on how far back he looked into s!kyle’s background and if that kyle is also the same situation, but like you /know/ that’s not where his brain goes to. He has absolutely no intention of citing that with the insult, it’s just the face value “we’re not family and you trying to convince me otherwise is wrong in a ‘what is natural in the world’ way”. But yeah it def comes across in context of ‘Dal’s a mistake because of how she came to being born and so are you.’ And there’s really barely anything austin /could/ have said to not make kyle angrier at this point, but that /definitely/ isn’t it.
Kyle’s anger is never quite as sharp as austin’s. When austin gets really angry, he does lash out and just snaps something. Throws a glass, slamming a plate onto a counter, does that arm shove to push things off a table, etc. something that breaks the item, usually. Kyle i think crushes things, like snapping a pencil that was in his hand by accident. Or he’ll like punch a wall or something, something more blunt. Something that is fitting between the two austins is like, when they do lash out and strike at a person without any weapons, it is usually the throat they go for if they can reach. Kyle’s the type to grab at clothes, though. If he’s angry enough, he’ll also try to throw a punch, but he gets that hold on the clothing first, not the person. Or he just does that venting yelling thing and like storms off to punch a pillow. I think since he did deal with more physical abuse as a kid, he’s tried to make it instinct to /not/ go directly to hurting a person first. Grab their shirt, not them. Hit the wall, not their face. Gripping hard on something is less likely to break it than just smashing it against something. Again, if you really push him, he can’t- given how emotional he is, he can easily go over the edge anyway, but the pro there is that he has that experience and has slowly learned how to handle more extreme anger than austin has. Both still get mad and can get violent, but kyle at least can recognize the slow build of anger, that boiling over that he starts to express more in rougher dialogue and hand movements or whatever. He sees when that anger starts to come out more physical and can try to start redirecting it. Austin, meanwhile, tries to bottle that up, keep bottling it, keep it all contained, concealed, hidden, until he very suddenly can’t and he snaps and the cup has already shattered against the far wall before he realized he even threw it. Kyle’s a dam that starts to leak first, whereas austin breaks all at once.
However, the insult kyle hears in those words is pretty close to the all at once, so when kyle’s anger finally pushes past the line and boils over, he grabs for austin’s collar, sure, standing and dragging him up out of his chair as well, but he does /also/ life his hand up to punch austin square in the jaw. A part of him just wants to snap out for austin to fucking get his shit together, to remind him that he told him before he wouldn’t let austin’s shitty personality and behavior hurt dal and just because he thought he could stop worrying about that when austin stopped being a fuck up as a dad doesn’t mean that warning went away. However, a, he’s too mad in the moment and the more emotional part of him is falling back on actions over words and ‘punch your suddenly terrible and attempted murderer cousin in the face until he cleans up his act again’ feels like a real good action. B, before he can get too far into either action, austin’s snapping his hands forward as well, and his hands go for the neck again. There’s probably a momentary struggle again, another attempt of austin trying to squeeze kyle’s throat but this time around kyle’s trying to hit austin actively instead of just trying to largely defend himself; he’s fucking /sick/ of this shit and he’s going to kick austin’s ass until he remembers how not to be a fucking cunt!
Luckily for both, i assume ivan has been hyper aware of Kyle’s location since he was first attacked, keeping an eye on him and especially wanting to stay near whenever kyle had to be near or especially in that room. So ivan having moved to stand at the door at some point and the moment austin’s hands land on kyle again, he is moving to cross the room, pulling the two apart and shoving austin over against the far wall face first. Probably says for kyle to leave the room before he’ll even consider letting go of austin, and is reluctant if not downright refusing to budge when kyle tries to say to let him go, he was handling it. That’s very nice that you think you were, radost’, but on the other hand you two were trying to kill each other again and i /did/ promise that if he attacked you again, i’d break him in half, so. Like. This is ivan being nice considering he could have austin in a fucking stranglehold or something, see how /he/ likes being choked. And another dif between f!austin and s!austin. It’s like only because s!austin is super confident he’s not in any real danger because either this is all fake or this is real and htere are real murder laws + a lot of angry family this ivan would have to deal with, but austin doesn’t like plead or anything. Other austin got put into ivan’s grip and was desperately begging not to be hurt. This austin just stays quiet and lets ivan pin him to the wall. It’s not worth fighting back without his powers when he doesn’t think this is a real concern + and he still thinks all of this is fake somehow anyway. Just rubs his shoulder or whatever parts were grabbed/bent to pin him when released and continues glaring. He’s largely checked out of most of this and is only really answering questions when the answer is too blatantly obvious where he /has/ to make sure they know. My enemies have to know they’re wrong.
Also that being something that comes up between dal and austin once the austins switch back. At some point during one of the times they’re allowed to see each other, dal sitting next to him and asking to confirm that he doesn’t think she’s a mistake, right? And him surprised before quickly insisting no, of course not. Who told her she was a mistake? Which she takes as evidence for something like DID or a fugue state or something when she has to remind him it was him, or maybe she says ‘the other you’ did depending on how she wants to label it for coping reasons, but still. Then there’s the look of confusion, realization, horror and disgust and anger and disappointment across his face, as it all clicks. Him carefully putting an arm around her shoulders, apologizing for whatever he said when he was like that. He promises, crosses his heart, everything, that she’s not a mistake. That if he ever said that, he was /so/ wrong and he’s determined for her to know that. Before and even after all this, probably talks honestly with her on the accident thing, but like. So was fucking penicillin and look how important that is to the world? That’s not bad, that’s just a fact. She was an accident, sure, but not a mistake, y’know? He might even usually admit that it took him longer than it should have to see the value in having a kid, but again, by the time she’s old enough to be talking to him about it, he’s at a point where he doesn’t let her doubt for a second that he is /so/ pleased to have her. She got him to come around on the subject and he could not be more grateful for that. And like. Hearing him say the same thing now doesn’t completely erase what she heard before, but it helps settle some of those doubts at least a little bit, especially, again, given how caught off guard and then angry and guilty austin looked to find out /he/ said that insulting thing. It’s still not great, but it helps resolidify this idea in her mind that that wasn’t /really/ her dad, y’know?
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survivor-kuwait · 5 years
Text
Episode 16 - “Debbie was right. Never trust a god damn redhead” - Owen
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That tribal actually went better than I could have ever expected, even with Owen staying.  Owen definitely only had it set up to play his idol if an idol was played on Cullan, two idols burnt and one was def wasted by Cullan so now he doesn't have it to use later in the game if/when it inevitably comes time to start making hard decisions.  That play also drives Maynor/Timmy/Chips a little closer to me in that 6 person alliance which I absolutely need.  KAIT IS GONE!!!!!  Every round, every day she was buttering me up as jury management, I knew it, she knew it.  That is absolutely annoying, makes me want someone to win even less.  The reason I wanted Owen first was for the simple fact Kait would be more likely to try to work with me than Owen if she knew she was on the bottom.  Oh well, pretty good tribal for me all in all, everything turned up Ian.  
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Debbie was right. Never trust a god damn redhead. Me: omg Maynor so cute love my showmance Me: omg Timmy and I putting our shit in the past love him Maynor and Timmy: rihanna.winking.gif In a way I deserve it. I made myself heard these last few votes with pulling together alliances at merge and going after Devon and Ian and even the Venus thing. And I accidentally revealed in the chat that Kait found my idol. It made sense for them to take a shot, although not sure why me and not Kait and matt who are more likeable and powerful lmao Now I’m just like.... okay Devon and Ian got what they wanted which is gross? Timmy and Maynor gonna try to sell this as their move but as far as I’m concerned Devon and Ian own it. I’m sure they capitalized on touchy subjects to make me strong and them weak. Moving forward I just hope that now that Kait is gone there are bigger fish to fry.... I’m gonna get drunk and then deal with this tomorrow lmao Two rounds ago I was stressed choosing between my two closest allies. Now both of them are gone and I’m fucked 😂
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I’m shocked Owen knew to play his idol...I need to figure out how that happened. I am happy Kait left in the end though because that’s who I even said in the Ridiculous 6 chat but others wanted Owen and I didn’t feel like pushing too much because either going was fine to me. But 7-3 in the revote was spicy, I think it was Matt that flipped just to be in the majority for his piece of mind. Still don’t really trust him anymore because he’s a liar, but it is what it is. Should be interesting tomorrow when people have more time to talk.
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I guess i’ll make one before going to bed cuz Johnny asked. So this challenge was cute. The fishes though were very douchey. Tbh when Timmy told me Ian had 19 million when I had 9 million, I was like Im not winning. I also thought Cullan was going to beast this challenge and get like 100 million. I was shook to find out that I won. And I won the final 9 immunity which means I beat my Guyana placement which is amazing. Im so happy. Now I just need to get further in this game. But first need to see who will be voted out at tribal tomorrow night. No names have been said yet. More updates tomorrow, i promise.
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If Cullan's amateur hour costs me MY game for me.... then I guess I deserve it, alliance management is kind of my whole thing in these games. I try to make everyone I'm allied with to feel like I want to go to the top with them. I can fix this, I have too. Why the hell would you tell someone that 4 people already want to vote one way? Quit getting ahead of yourself, think of the future but focus on the round at hand. Single digits is a slow burn and every fucking step has to be precise. If I can manage to keep the "alliance" together Cullan just solidified why I want to sit with him in the end, he won't win.
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So I’m still recovering from the real life hangover and survivor hangover of losing Kait and having my little alliance blown into smithereens. I still do trust Maynor and Madison moving forward but I definitely feel there’s less room to hide. All I can really do at this moment is kind of get on board with voting Owen, which btw I wanted to do anyway eventually hehe. Not having kait makes me nervous but I definitely feel less tethered and more free to make moves moving forward and I hope one of them involved actually getting cullans ass out smh I’m telling you he’s gonna win.
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Odd day, not really sure what to do. I feel like doing Owen is predictable so I am exploring some options today. I am trying to see what is best for me going forward.  I think Owen Madison and Matt all have the jury votes at this point so getting them out may be good. But long term is that what is best for me, I don’t know. 
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I feel lost...like I know what both sides are doing but being in the middle has its drawbacks knowing that maynor and i are on the bottom of both sides then which sucks. I think the best move tonight is to get rid of Owen but who knows what implications that will end up having. Will be interesting.
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I had a dream I made a rlly funny confessional and then I woke up to find literally nobody has messaged me back except for Devon who is talking about god knows what I’m literally miserable without Kait. I thought that Maynor and Timmy would easily flip back to us and vote with me matt madison to break up the Devon Cullan Ian thing. But Maynor didn’t answer me all day and madison barely is. Timmy said ‘what moves are to be made’ ???? Matt at least came and told me Cullan said it was me and then told me Maynor and madison are in and they’re talking to timmy. Why are they talking to matt but not me??? It’s fucked up And then I yelled st Cullan and asked if he was just gonna let Devon and Ian drag him to the end and beat him and he was like ‘well I’ll vote them if there’s numbers’ lmao. Bitch idek god I’m tired of him asking me what the vote is all the time like GSKSHDB WHY DO U THINK I HAVE ANY CONTROL THIS ROUND I’m Absolutely about to lose my mind. I’m surprised it’s taken this long for me to snap but I legitimately can’t stand omg. Like I don’t even bother messaging chips or Ian lmao I don’t have anything to talk to them about I wish I could’ve won immunity. If I somehow stay tonight I need to figure something out 
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I think Owen is gonna get voted out and if that happens I’m done! But let’s pray chips is going bye bye.
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I’m absolutely pissed at Madison and Maynor. Why aren’t they fucking talking to me when they’re apparently telling matt they’ll do stuff???? What the fuck!? Matt is telling me Devon will apparently vote chips. Okay....? Like what do you want me to do or say? You have all the information rn because nobody will message me. I asked Matt if he thought we should still vote Ian and then if Devon rlly votes chips it would be 4-4-1 and I can use my tiebreaker. Matt was like ‘who would they vote I don’t want to make it too complicated’ I DONT KNOW WHO THEYD VOTE UR THE ONE TALKING TO THEM. I appreciate him trying to save me but it’s frustrayinf because I have no stability rn when they just ugh’nnn idk. Why hasn’t he made a group or some shit 
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The vote tonight is going to be Owen, most likely. But Matt Madison and Owen wants to do Chips. I dont know if thats a good move. Its better to have Owen gone since he is a huge threat in the game. I just feel bad about voting for him again.
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Alright, so here's a hot take of what's been going on with me and this game. Last round the goal was to vote out Owen because he's the biggest threat in a group of four that has been conspiring to control the game - the group is Owen, Kait, Madison, and Matt. The way I see the group breaking down is basically, Owen+Madison and Kait+Matt with each duo having a strong link between the four. A group of six formed to counter these four called the "Ridiculous Six" formed by Devon. It is my understanding that Devon was a "pawn" of the four before defecting after they tried to strike at Ian during the duos vote off. Since he felt "used" he defected and wanted to keep the four from keeping control in creating the group.
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The four had control of two hangers-on in the form of Timmy and Maynor that they were using for two extra votes. Since they would potentially have the numbers if those two were to vote with them they let loose a "plan" to vote out Devon when in reality telling those two that they would be voting Cullan in case of telegraphing to Devon to play his idol - Cullan actually had an idol and played it and I think it prompted Owen in playing his. To be honest, I think that Owen sent to his tribe chat that he would play his idol IF Cullan had an idol played on him or played one himself. So no votes counted and then we just went with our second choice in Kait to vote out of the game. She left.
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So the round following the vote seems pretty obvious to me, we need to try and vote out Owen. The group is scared to actually follow through on the vote because they think he will play an idol. I mean, if he does it's another idol burned and makes the vote easier. I know that that means we lose somebody but I dunno, if it were me getting voted out because of it I wouldn't be too pressed getting idoled out. Anyway, Cullan kinda let me know that there's a "secret" other plan to vote out Madison instead since she has a good social game, which I haven't seen. And also Matt is telling people to vote me instead to try and force a tie so that Owen can use his ACTUAL power that we know he has... I dunno man, if we end up voting out Madison instead (because they don't vote Owen) then I might be more flexible in what I do because Owen did that. And if I end up going then woohoo! That makes me 3/3 with getting ninth in a season in a row.
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Looks like Devon and I are the middle know. Apparently he wants to get rid of Chips cuz of this hero arc?!?!? Interesting so need to know how he is voting. This is somewhat getting messy between Chips and Owen. Im glad I have immunity.
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Ok this vote is SAUCY SAUCY SAUCY! The vote started with me wanting to target Madison as she is a social threat and has connections to maynor who would flip to their side (he already has). Chips became concerned that he wasn't being looped in on the vote so we decided to continue the push towards owen. Matt, madison, and maynor all agreed to vote for Owen but in reality they are voting for chips as that's the most viable option than can convince us to do as he is a "goat". He's a good ally so no way in hell am I voting him out. If owen and the gang survive this vote, they have majority and there will be a clear pecking order especially considering the fact he has a tiebreaker advantage. I feel confident in the five we have to vote for owen
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i think im leaving this is all just bad devon apparantly wants chips and it wasd too much to try this forcing a tie shit so now we're just goin with chips which hopefully is enough but someone told cullan it was chips???? lmao so thats fun and i tried convincing cullan to do it but idk this whole thing is kinda fucked up soooo bye bye 
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i wouldnt be so sad about this if kait were still here but there are literally so many personality-less people left in this game and if they get to the end ill literally die. madison and matt rlly about to be all i have left ro root for this is absolutely TRAGIC. imagine the first boot coming back into the game and getting dragged to the end as a goat fksadjfhjf GOD im so sad rn :((((((((((((((((((((((((((99 I WANTED TO DO SOMETHIN ICONIC IN THIS GAME BUT ALL I DID WAS FORGET TO TALK TO PEOPLE AND COMPLAIN at least ill prob win hq words
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bazzaya · 7 years
Text
a demon’s plight - part one
A multichapter series regarding Minerva’s healing/redemption Post-Tartaros.
Summary: Following the incident with Tartaros, Erza tries to help Minerva recover both physically and mentally. One of her only hopes is taking her to Porlyusica to see if Minerva can be made human again.
A/N: Hey, did you know that apparently it’s canon that Minerva went to Porlyusica post-Tartaros to get the whole demon thing checked out? Yeah so here’s that, but with Minerza, because that’s my thing. Probably will be multiple chapters. Idk if it’ll have a happy ending or not. We’ll see :)
Word Count: ~3.2k
[Ao3 Link/FFNet Link]
Enjoy!
"Are you good to walk on your own?"
As she was trying to get herself to stand, Mirajane glanced up to see Minerva in front of her with her hand on her hip. She was surprised by Minerva's concern, but she soon schooled her features and merely shook her head, "I'm fine, but thank you for the concern." Mirajane figured she should at least be polite; Minerva seemed to have a change of heart and she was the one to kill Kyouka, besides Mirajane didn't have the energy to be difficult, "There's something I need to handle on my own anyways…"
Minerva only shrugged and gave a dismissive wave at that, unbothered either way, "Suit yourself. I'll look over Titania in the meantime as you run along with whatever business you have."
Mirajane's gaze steeled on Minerva once she stood, "Are you sure that's the best idea?"
At Mirajane's cautious look, Minerva rolled her one eye, "Oh, please.. It's not like I'm going to try anything while you're gone. You needn't worry over sweet little Titania." Minerva looked over at Erza in that moment, seeing the battered and bruised mage practically unconscious on the ground, "...Well, aside from the obvious worry there, I mean."
Mirajane seemed more convinced with that, and her expression softened and she nodded appreciatively, "Thank you. I'll leave her to you."
Minerva watched as Mirajane left, though soon Minerva returned her attention to Erza. She walked over towards Erza and kneeled by her side, making sure that Erza was at least alive, "It's over now. We're all safe. There's no more Face to worry about, and the demons are all gone." There was a beat of pause, "All except for one, that is."
Erza languidly jolted at the suggestion of another demon still roaming around, and she tried to sit up, "There's still one left? Where is it?" She coughed out, her attempts at sitting up proving to be futile.
Minerva coaxed Erza into lying back down, "It's me, you idiot."
"Huh?" Erza turned her head to face Minerva, a confused eyebrow raised, "...Oh, right. I almost forgot about your...situation."
"Flattering, really, but I know they're hollow words. One look at me and it's easy to remember." Minerva sneered, "But enough of that. Do you want to go join up with the rest of your friends? I'll take you to them."
Nodding at that, Erza slowly started to sit up again, "Yeah… I should see how everyone's doing, make sure they're alright…"
Minerva held out her hand for Erza to take, and from there she pulled Erza to her feet and wrapped Erza's arm around her shoulder to keep Erza upright. Minerva started walking with Erza in tow towards where she last saw action, hoping to find the rest of Fairy Tail there. Along the way and amongst a very heavy silence, Minerva noticed how Erza's gaze was trained on her and had been trained on her for the longest time, and Erza didn't look to be letting up anytime soon.
"Now… You know I thrive off of the attention, but you of all people to be staring at me like that is at least moderately unnerving." Minerva warned, glancing at Erza out of the corner of her eye.
Erza blinked a few times, surprised to have been caught, but she shook her head to regain her composure, "Sorry… I was just thinking about something."
Minerva raised an eyebrow, "About me?"
"Sort of." Erza frowned out of sympathy, "I was thinking about everything that's happened. You scorned yourself for being so weak as to have been subjected to this whole transformation… I wondered if there was anything to do about perhaps reversing it."
Letting out an annoyed growl, Minerva tore her gaze away and bared her teeth, "I don't need your sympathy. I was the one who wrought this upon myself. I should have to live with the consequences of my actions, even if it means looking like this forever."
"Did you really bring this upon yourself, though?" Erza tilted her head to get a better look at Minerva, "You know, Minerva… I'm not clueless, and I'm certainly not obtuse. I kept an eye out for you and that guild you ran along to after we crossed paths again. Don't think I didn't hear the rumors about what happened to Succubus Eye. Everyone was obliterated in that place except for you… and it was all because of Kyouka's curse, wasn't it? You must have been strong enough to withstand it. It also must be why you were taken into Tartaros to begin with."
"I was weak enough to allow myself to be taken."
"You can't possibly blame yourself for this."
"Oh, you'd be surprised, Titania." Minerva smiled wryly, "If I was strong enough… If I hadn't allowed myself to be petrified with fear… Maybe then I wouldn't have been taken from Succubus Eye. Better yet, if I hadn't been so corrupted by darkness, I wouldn't have been in Succubus Eye to begin with."
Erza furrowed her eyebrows in response, "What's done is done, and there's no use in dwelling upon it. Don't let yourself be bogged down by it, either."
"It must be easy for you to say that when you aren't the one scarred like this forever!" Minerva growled, placing her hand over her blackened eye, "This is a permanent reminder of my weakness and mistakes, and there's nothing I can do to fix it!"
"Perhaps there's nothing you can do, but maybe there's something I can do about it!" Erza countered, raising her voice to try and get Minerva to listen to her.
Minerva let out a bitter laugh, "What, are you planning on using your magic to change into a nurse's outfit for little old me? A pretty sight that may be, but it will get you nowhere in reversing the damage that's been done."
Erza scowled at that, growing irritated, "Would it kill you to take me seriously for five seconds?! Listen to me, Minerva! Are you truly thinking of returning to Sabertooth, to your home, continuing to be so stubborn and standoffish? If you really want to change, start by accepting help and stop insisting you do everything on your own!"
"Do you really think that Sabertooth would accept a monster like me?" Minerva sneered, twisting her lips.
"Sting and Rogue sure accepted you with open arms." Erza shot back, "Even with you looking like that."
Minerva averted her gaze and clenched her jaw, unable to dispute that. Erza took that as an invitation to talk further, "There. Now at least hear me out before you start fighting back, alright?"
With a pronounced tilt of her head, almost like she was pouting, Minerva looked back over at Erza, "Fine."
"A friend of the Master's… she's quite adept in healing the most obscure of ailments. She was even able to make me an artificial eye after I lost mine as a child." Erza held her hand over her right eye at the memory, though she quickly focused back on Minerva, "There is very little she cannot do. I wondered if perhaps she would be able to reverse the transformation you were put under."
"You sound hopeful." Minerva commented, a dry tone to her voice.
Letting out an enervated sigh, Erza closed her eyes, "Yes, I am. I want to help you, Minerva. Just allow me that much."
Minerva didn't respond right away to that, she merely glanced Erza over and kept her jaw clenched tight. Her expression gradually came to be less aggressive, and soon she caved in and nodded her head. Something in her couldn't deny Erza that much. "Fine. I'll give your healer friend a shot. For you."
Erza allowed herself to flash a brief smile Minerva's way, "Thank you. You won't regret it."
Adjusting her hold on Erza as they walked, Minerva simply kept her gaze fixed ahead, refusing to look at Erza, "I better not."
"Wait… She's not coming back with us?" Sting tilted his head, confusion written all over his expression. He turned to Rogue, eyebrows raised, "But that's the reason why we came here in the first place…!"
Erza frowned to herself, staring at the ground by her feet, "I'm well aware… However, she doesn't want to return, not yet. She doesn't believe she deserves to return to Sabertooth in the state she's in. I believe I have a plan to change her back to her human form, but for now… she's not going back."
"That's ridiculous! I don't care how creepy she looks! Milady's coming back with us and that's final!" Sting shouted, fanged teeth exposed in his rage.
"Sting… That's enough." Rogue interjected, "If it is milady's wish, who are we to deny her what she wants? Everything is her decision, whether we like it or not." He focused back at Erza, and despite his composed nature, Rogue still could not completely hide the concern and disappointment on his features, "Do you think she will ever want to return to Sabertooth?"
"That's… a tough question to answer." Erza admitted shamefully, still unable to make eye contact, "I think that if she feels that she has repented, or if she thinks that she is no longer a monster… she will deem herself worthy of your company. I cannot say anything for certain… I'm sorry."
Sting's anger seemed to wane, and he unclenched his fists and frowned in helplessness, "We just want her to come back home, man… All of this is her bastard of a father's fault! Milady didn't deserve any of what he did to her!"
Erza raised an eyebrow at that, and Rogue took it upon himself to explain, "We encountered Jiemma here, shortly after you left with milady. Apparently he was the one who came to Tartaros first, and he was the one that had Succubus Eye attacked so that Minerva would be brought here and would be made into what she was." He frowned as well, averting his gaze, "This was all Jiemma's doing, what happened to Minerva… and yet he still had the gall to call her useless and weak…" He wound up taking a fistful of the fabric of his sleeve as he spoke from his growing anger as well, though he was faster in calming himself than Sting.
Erza finally looked up at that, eyebrows furrowed and a new look of determination in her eyes, "I'll fix this. I promise this to you. She will be back at Sabertooth where she belongs. Please, just allow me the opportunity to reverse what has happened to her. Then she will want to come home."
"We trust you, Erza." Rogue nodded, "Let us know if we can be of any help to you."
"Yeah. We want to help her too… We just don't know how…" Sting grunted and hung his head, letting out a heavy breath.
A small smile crossed Erza's lips, and her demeanor softened, "Thank you. She is lucky to have you both at her side in a time like this. I'm sure she will not forget that."
"And hey! You better not try and steal her for Fairy Tail either! She's ours, you got that?!" Sting teased, snickering to himself.
Rogue punched Sting in the shoulder, "You idiot…! Now's not the time for your jokes!"
Sting pulled Rogue into a headlock in retaliation, "Come on, man! You can't say I'm wrong! Remember when they nearly stole Yukino from us?! I don't want the same thing happening to Sabertooth's resident princess! So hands off, Erza!" He pointed at Erza with that statement, a grin on his face.
Erza raised her hands in surrender, unable to stop the laugh that slipped through, "Don't worry. I won't steal your princess. Though… You should probably let the poor guy go, Sting. Rogue's face is completely blue. I think you're suffocating him."
"Huh?" Sting looked down to see Rogue blue in the face, and he let go, "...Right, yeah. I knew that."
Rogue rubbed his raw neck, taking in a large breath as he could finally breathe again, "Yeah, sure you did…"
Minerva glanced over her hands, studying them, allowing for the reality of their appearances to settle in for her. It was the first time she was out of the clothes that Tartaros had put her in, the first time she was without any gloves over her hands. It was then Minerva could see the black scales that had replaced her skin, turning her arm serpentine, morphing her fingers into claws. The black scales began to fade near her elbow, where they turned into a few lines that trailed up into her neck and face. It was the first time she was without the knee-high boots as well, and through the slit of her dress, Minerva could see the markings that went up and down her legs. The demonification process certainly left its traces on her, and there was no denying the monster she had become.
In the midst of her reflection, Minerva heard her name being called, and with a slow blink she focused her gaze on Erza, "There's no need to yell, Titania. I'm right here."
Erza frowned in response, "I had been calling your name for perhaps a solid minute now. I felt as if yelling was the only way I was going to get you out of your thoughts."
Furrowing her eyebrows, Minerva drew in a breath from surprise, "...My mistake. Well, there's no use in dallying around any longer. Introduce me to this renowned healer friend of yours, Titania. You'll have to understand my eagerness to be freed from this depressing state."
Erza nodded and walked towards the reclusive tree Porlyusica called home, knocking on the door until the woman she was looking for appeared on the other side.
"Oh. It's you." Porlyusica stated with obvious disdain in her voice.
Unable to help herself, Minerva wound up smiling at that, and she peered over at Erza to gauge her response, "How loosely was the term 'friend' used before, Titania?"
"Unfortunately, quite…" Erza said to herself, but quickly she got a second wind and she stood up straighter, "I do hate to bother you, Porlyusica, but I would like to ask for your help."
"With what? You look as healthy as can be." Porlyusica said dryly, "I don't like to waste my time."
"I'm well aware. I wasn't requesting your services for my sake, but rather for my friend here." Erza stepped aside and motioned towards Minerva to introduce her.
"Another loose usage of the word 'friend.'" Minerva commented, still smiling to herself.
"Humans… Always testing my limits…" Porlyusica shook her head with a growl.
"Then this might be your lucky day." Minerva placed a hand on her hip, "I'm no human, after all. Perhaps then you will be so inclined as to help me."
Porlyusica raised an unamused eyebrow, "You look human to me, missy. If you're not human, then what are you?"
Minerva narrowed her one eye, "Take a wild guess. Starts with an 'm'...?"
"A monster?" Porlyusica said dryly.
Grinning, Minerva nodded, "Exactly."
"Minerva, stop this." Erza shook her head disapprovingly, "You're not a monster!"
"Whatever narrow loophole you've created doesn't matter." Porlyusica explained, "I won't treat you. Do not think for a second I do not know who you are, Minerva Orland. I know of the terrors you've wrought upon Fairy Tail, and especially for Lucy's sake, I will not extend my services to an enemy."
"Porlyusica, please! Hear me out!" Erza pleaded, though she was soon cut off.
"Oh, please…" Minerva sighed, placing her hand to her forehead, "Why does everyone always call me cruel for what happened to Lucy? I allowed her to get second place! I feel as if that was extremely generous on my end!"
"Some nerve!" Porlyusica sneered.
"I'll show you nerves!" Minerva stepped forward, a clenched fist reeled back, but Erza's arms around her waist stopped her from getting very far.
"Minerva!" Erza growled, struggling to hold Minerva back. She didn't have to put up a fight for long, because soon Minerva was placed under a sleeping spell and fell slack in her arms. Erza only had to move to catch Minerva to keep her from falling. Looking back at Porlyusica, Erza blinked a few times in surprise at how Porlyusica tranquilized Minerva so easily.
"Now if you're finished wasting my time-"
"Please… Allow me to explain!" Erza said, desperate, "I need help. Gravely."
Porlyusica let out a sigh and crossed her arms, eyes falling shut. She did not protest, however, which gave Erza a window to continue.
"She isn't supposed to be like this… She didn't deserve what happened to her. Her father had her kidnapped and put under demonification. What I and her friends want is for her to be returned back to normal." Erza swallowed harshly, "Please, Porlyusica… She's committed to changing, believe it or not. Putting this experience and this trauma behind her is a step in that process."
Silence followed for a moment after that, with Porlyusica seemingly thinking things over. Erza looked at the unconscious Minerva in her arms, eyes wandering over the scales and markings marring her skin. She felt sympathy and concern rising in her chest for Minerva, with the effect that demonification had on both her mind and body. Looking back over to Porlyusica, Erza was able to catch Porlyusica letting out a heavy sigh and stepping aside to make room.
"Alright, I'll look her over. But I make no promises. I have never treated anything like this before." Porlyusica caved, shaking her head.
Erza allowed herself to smile as a result, "Thank you." Moving her arm behind Minerva's legs, Erza sweeped her up into her arm, "Er… Do not tell her about this. I have a legitimate fear that she would actually kill me if she were to find out that I was holding her." And bridal style no less.
With a roll of her eyes, Porlyusica eventually complied, "Yes, yes, whatever. Just set her on the bed and I will examine her."
Nodding her head, Erza brought Minerva inside and laid her down on the medical bed. Erza moved without thinking to brush some stray hairs out of Minerva's face, and again her gaze was drawn to the mark covering Minerva's one eye. With a frown, Erza pulled away and turned to Porlyusica, "Thank you again, truly. Please… Do what you can. Many people are hoping for her recovery."
For once, Porlyusica didn't have anything smart to say. She nodded in response to that, and went to gather some supplies. Left to herself, Erza swallowed and let out a sigh, still looking at the unconscious Minerva.
She truly hoped that Minerva could get better.
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Text
How to Fix A Bad Day... // Jeon Jungkook
Summary: In which you’ve had a terrible day, and boyfriend bunny kook tries his very best to cheer you up :)
Genre: flufffffffff
Word Count: 1,800+
A/N: Well, this is super strange for me because it is my FIRST post, so I hope you enjoy and come back for more... PLEASE REQUEST!! :D Also, please give me some constructive criticism???? Too much context? Not enough action ;) ?? Let me know, and I’ll make improvements!! :D  P.S. It’s like really long???? for a first story kinda maybe-ish idk why tho i think i have a problem with these kinds of things??? request AUs and stuff I wanna try to do those cute bullet pointed scenarios tooooooo!! :DDDDDDD
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Monday, 9:23 PM Mondays.  You thought, as you jammed the key in the front door. Stepping inside, you let out a heavy sigh, not even bothering to take off your shoes before sinking into the cushions of your couch. 
Sure, Mondays were always the worst day of the week, but nothing could have prepared you for the nerve-racking, heart stopping, painstaking shit show that ensued that day. 
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Monday, 6:38 AM
You groggily walked over to your desk, barely able to keep your eyes open. Mondays were already terrible, but this particular Monday, you had to get up early. Without any explanation at all, you were required to be present at a meeting with one of the Chairmen of the board... who happened to be halfway across the world at the moment. See, now that meant him dictating the exact time of the meeting that would be most convenient to him, and not taking into consideration that you had to get up at 5:15 AM in order to get ready and arrive to work on time. 
Placing your bag on the desk, you proceeded to shed off your huge coat before hanging it on the back of your chair. You powered up your computer and let out a deep sigh before logging into your email. You liked checking your email first thing in the morning, because there was often information within emails from colleagues and bosses that related to the events of the day. Surely enough, an email from her boss sat at the top of the list, curiously titled: “Proper Attire.”
Clicking on it, it opened to reveal: Dear Y/N, I apologize for having to send this email so late, but it is very important that you wear the proper attire for this meeting. This means that your attire should be of the utmost professionalism, and should not be sexual, revealing, or suggestive in any way. This meeting will be very important to both your career and mine. Please come to Meeting Room 14 at 7:15. Thank you. 
You couldn’t help but be somewhat offended by your boss’s choice of words. Sexual? Revealing? Suggestive? What kind of person did he think you were?  Determined to carry on with the day, you decided to not linger on it. After checking a few more emails, you looked at the clock: 7:08. You decided that it was time to make your way to Meeting Room 14.  When you arrived, you were met with 4 other people, all of which were large, middle age men, who you’ve never seen before. You stood a little further away from them, assuming they were there to meet with someone else, and checked your phone as you waited for your boss. You had received a message from your boyfriend, Jungkook:
Kookie: Hey love, sorry I couldn’t hang out yesterday... :( You: Hey, don’t worry about it, another time :) Kookie: Are you free tonight?? :DDDD I can come over and we can have pizza and watch Netflix?? heh Netflix and chill ;)) You: perv. But yes come!!!!! I’ll probs be home around 7? Kookie: Sounds great! See ya laterrrr
You allowed a small smile to form on your face before putting your phone in your pocket. You could see your boss walk down the hallway, and went to go greet him. Before you could, the men from earlier cut in front of you, giving their own introductions. You gave your boss a questioning look, but he just shrugged and suggested that everyone go inside.  He directed you to sit next to him, and allowed the others to sit wherever they wanted, but there seemed to be a distinct pattern already. You suddenly realized what you were standing in the middle of. You were brought here as a representative of the team progress, in as a result, your boss’s progress. 
Soon, the Chairman was online and video ‘meeting’ with you all. You guys started to do reports on what achievements that each of the teams have made, with you ending the circle. As soon as you began speaking, there were noises and words of disparagement. People did not want a woman to be in a position of power, and they were very clearly expressing it. When the chairman asked everyone to pitch ideas for an event that the company was having later, you pitched an awesome idea... which was ridiculed and brought down... until one of the men in the meeting brought it up again. Except they did not even acknowledge that it was your idea. Luckily, the Chairman took noticed, even commenting on it. That made you feel a bit better, but not enough.
When the meeting was over, your boss congratulated your efforts, and said that there would be more opportunities for you in the future to express your ideas. This piece of good news was completely ruined when the other men laughed at him, quickly making their own snarky comments towards your direction. “A woman will never get the job.” “They’re just keeping her around because of the pretty face.” There they stood, mocking you, and you wanted nothing more than to walk over there and wipe those nasty smirks off their faces. But your boss, sensing your anger, grabbed your wrist and dragged you towards the elevator. 
As soon as the two of you stepped in, you let out a loud sigh. Your boss, understanding your frustration, told you to take the rest of the day off.  “You did good work Y/N.”
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Monday, 4:57 PM
After your boss had graciously allowed you to take the day off, you still found yourself working for a few more hours before finally allowing yourself to leave the office. As much as you wanted to ignore the words of those men from the meeting, you couldn’t help yourself from having the urge to prove that you deserved to have your position. It didn’t end there though. On your way home, a stranger had spilt their ice coffee on you, so you were a sticky mess with a very ruined blouse. Needless to say, you were in a pretty sour mood and wanted nothing more than to just go home, eat ice cream, take a shower, and sleep. You just got into your apartment when your phone buzzed:
Kookie: What kind of pizza do you want?
It took a while before you realized what he was talking about.
You: Actually Kookie, I’m really tired. Work was kinda terrible... can we hang out tomorrow? Kookie: NOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I MISS YOUU :((((((((((( You: Sorry... love you!!
You sighed, feeling terrible that Jungkook missed you, but you really didn’t think your attitude would have really been much fun for him. You didn’t want to ruin the night with the repercussions of your bad day. You took out your ice cream and ate a couple of spoonfuls before dragging yourself into the shower. You rinsed off the ice coffee that coated your upper half, and decided to not wash your hair tonight, since you didn’t have to energy to go through the whole process of blowdrying it. It was early, but you happily crawled into bed after your shower, desperate to replenish your sleep. 
Just as you were finally drifting off to sleep, your doorbell rang, causing you to groan in displeasure. WhO CoULD PoSsIbLY BE AT YOUr DOoR RIghT NOWWWWW!?!?!? You stomped to your door, prepared to yell when....
Jeon Jungkook.  Dressed in a full bunny costume.
All your anger dissipated the second you laid eyes on him. Wearing a bright smile, he held a pizza pie in his left hand, and a bouquet of fresh red roses in his right. 
“Ta-dahhhhhhh~~” “Jeon Jungkook... you dork.” “Excuse me, I’m a cute dork.” “Yes, you cute dork.” “Thank you.. so are you going to let me in or..?” You laughed before moving to the side to let him in. Watching him struggle to shove himself through your doorway was probably one of the funniest things you have ever witnessed, and when he finally made it through, he was sweating and heaving like a mad man. 
He was incredibly uncomfortable, but if his discomfort brought a smile to your face, he would stay this way forever. Jungkook absolutely adored you, and could not stand it when you were upset. He tried so hard to think of a way to cheer you up, and luckily all his hard work paid off. He was honestly half expecting you to be annoyed and slam the door on him, but what Jungkook didn’t know was that he was the light of your life. 
He was the best thing that ever happened to you, as cheesy as it sounds. Just seeing his face would have cheered you up, but you hated seeing him worried about you. You preferred it when he was smiling, because then you knew he was happy. You knew it was selfish, but a sad Jungkook would break your heart, and if it were you who made him sad, you would feel absolutely horrible. You stood there, wondering what in the world you would do without him when his voice broke your train of thought.
“So do you feel better now?” he questioned, tilting his head slightly. “Much better,” you replied with a smile, “Now get that thing off will you?” “What, is the bunny costume turning you off?” he teased, wiggling his eyebrows and doing a little dance for good measure.  “Well actually, I was gonna give you a kiss, but if you’d rather just wear the bunny costume, that’s fine with me.” You took the pizza and flowers and smirked, quickly turning around and running to the kitchen before he had time to object. He gaped at your retreating back before letting a wide grin spread across his face. He took off the bunny costume, glad to be able to let his body breathe again and ran after you. 
You had put the pizza on the table, put the flowers in a vase, and were leaning against the counter waiting for Jungkook to come in. When he did, he walked up to you, placing his hands beside you and successfully trapping you between him and the counter. He looked down at you, a gentle look of adoration in his eyes, and brought his face dangerously close. He glanced down at your lips and whispered, “You owe me a kiss.” 
Unable to take it anymore, you reached up and tangled your hands in his hair, bringing his soft lips to meet yours. The kiss was long and sweet, filled with love. One of his hands made its way to your waist while the other caressed your face, pulling you in to deepen the kiss. His teeth playfully grazed against your bottom lip before he finally pulled away. 
“Thank you,” you whispered, “for being such a great boyfriend tonight.” “Tonight? I’m always a great boyfriend,” he smiled cheekily.  You chuckled and gently smacked his arm.  “Shush. Now, let’s eat?” 
You started walking towards the dining table when Jungkook latched onto your arm. You looked at him, raising an eyebrow curiously. He smile warmly before placing a gently kiss on the back of your hand. 
“I love you Y/N.”
“Love you too, Kookie.”
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littlewolfdiaries · 7 years
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What was the scary thing that happened to you?
okay so I don't know if these are related but these happened a few days ago and I know I talked about them here, you can scroll endlessly thru my recent posts and read the original posts of that day if you'd like; So, my best friend (I actually moved tho so we're not really "best" friends anymore but hey) is a tana mongeau freak (gonna say this again, trevor moran will always be a trillion times better he's my god). She wanted me to watch a video tana recently posted called something super clickbait-y like "I'm going insane... help me..." etc. It was about her "coincidences" and how she thinks she might be psychic or sum. My best friend said it reminded her of me bc I've been psychic my entire life (would love to explain all the weird shit I can do & what has happened to me, just ask bby). Sadly, though not really sadly, I tell her I haven't really had any coincidences in a long time. That night I go to bed. It's like 2am when I'm finished watching the video so sleeping seems just slightly appropriate. In the middle of the night, I "awake" to hearing the name michael whispered in my ear extremely loud. I have anxiety, I'm scared as hell, but go back to bed. In the morning, I wake up only to realize it never happened. It was a dream, but I could feel literal anxiety in my motherfuckin chest. Anyways, first thing I do in the morning, check my snapchat and clear out all those annoying ass streak pics of people's fucking blankets.It says a new person added me on snapchat: michael. A complete fucking stranger.Next few nights, I'm getting cravings for my cards. Sounds really weird but it's like that feeling you get when you need lotion really bad on your hands and it's just bothersome (if you can't relate to this you just can't fucking relate, give up). This brings us to last night where I get my mother's tarot cards as mine are in a box somewhere from moving. First three cards picked consecutively in separate rounds are the devil. This a common occurrence for me, but I was fucking scared. In my old deck there isn't a devil card so I would ironically pull the joker card constantly. I think after a while I stopped taking them out just because what the motherfuck am I right. I did a reading on myself (I know, I'm an idiot but sometimes it's useful). It was complete gibberish. I put them away, confused. This was last night.Today--- the shit that went down today was just ridiculous, though one part of it can maybe be linked to my lil psychic rebirth awakening shit. Most of it is just fucking weird and kinda funny.We went to this stupid firework festival in a sketchy town nearby (though only drunk 40 year old white golfing couples came??odd??) and my mother loses her keys. We go crazy looking for them as the "festival" ends and it's dark outside and we're scared as hell. I'm also hit on by some middle aged man a while after this. Once we finally leave, we all have to go pee. It's like maybe 10:30 (too lazy to check my snap story for the exact time) and we're driving around to find somewhere we can pee and maybe eat. The city was super dark and sketchy, we tried going into this Mexican restaurant but there was mad creepy looking guys outside so we were just like ight ight ight We literally pulled into a böjanglés (idk how the fuck to spell that shit) to have this bitchita MOUTH to us "we're 🙅🏼🙅🏼closed 🙅🏼🙅🏼 only drive thru ⏩⏩!!"We end up at this subway which was like the only place open. I got a bomb ass selfie in their bathroom and we order food. This boy laughs when I ask for a six inch. All is good, it's just him working, until this dude comes in. He's got sum dirty ass Jordan's, sweatpants, and way too long curly ass hair looking ratchet as hell. He's legit like the type that's been to jail and will likely go again. The counter dude goes "don't worry, this is my friend". We're like ???ok??? they joke around and this ratchet boy helps himself to mad drinks and food without paying. Then, he goes up to the counter and like hands something to the dude and they like whisper real close to each other. They go to the bathroom together, right? We're the only people there. There's like huge awkward sexual tension in the air and my friend starts bobbing her sub down her throat LMFAOO. They come out and got messy hair and we heard noises and shit.Then, they sit down. He shows the dude a pic and he's like "damn damn I can't believe she's only 13". JAJSJSKDKC NO And then they start quietly singing Spanish opera dead fucking serious. He makes these bird noises. I go to record and my motherfucking flash is on. It's so fucking weird. We leave, then start talking in the car. It was so much weirder in real life, I swear. Subways are small and it was just us during this. They weren't like a traditional couple, either, like they went about like they were distant friends (aka his plug). There was no affection, no signs they'd like each other. So, my friend has a sixteen year old brother whose name is Dylan. I'm like, damn daddy, because the name Dylan is my dream guy name. To test it, we ask her what he wants to be when he's older she fucking says air force I have to pick my jaw off the ground bc I always refer to an invisible person as "Dylan my future Air Force/Navy husband"(don't judge). Get this, his middle name is Michael. I'm not sure if that's related bc Michael is so common, but hey. Ponyboy Michael Curtis. On my story, I actually have a text to my mom in which I refer to my daddy I mean future husband oops. So, we're quivering bc his name and the Air Force?? Dude. Then, this cop car starts following us. I get a pic & video bc this bitch is on our ass? And soon enough, HIS MOTHERFUCKING LIGHTS ARE FLASHINGWe get pulled over, I get the whole thing on snapchat. It's like literally neverending, weird ass shit and I am horrible at creating the proper mood for you to really experience how much of a fucking disaster the night was, but try to envision it. It's 1:54 as I type this and I got home at six minutes to 12.
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