#one (1) effervescent joke

[aropride]

mutual 1: just got engaged lol <3 #slash serious

mutual 2: i know its been 3 years but i cant stop thinking about bloingo's arc in season 2 :(( my baby my baby youre my baby say it to me

mutual 3: This world is sweriously so fucking beautiful #Just had a snickers bar. effervescent

mutual 4: https://open.spotify.com/track/2P5yIMu2DNeMXTyOANKS6k #yeah...

mutual 5: [gerard way image] #i miss her thighs i mean her music

mutual 6: [this post contains filtered content: blood, gore, guts, wound, nsfw]

mutual 7: if bloingo was a deer he would have chronic wasting disease

mutual 8: [responding to the most insane anon hate you've ever seen] they anon on my askbox til i block #fslur girl slay

mutual 9: Next person to Fuck with mutual 8 has To go through me..... I Will Protect You

mutual 10: get me OUT of the fucking midwest bro #CANNOT take it anymore im srsly at my limit

mutual 11: [poll] should i get boba [yes] / [no] / [button for me]

mutual 12: i think i have a disorder

mutual 13: [rapidly reblogging gerard way images from 2010 with 6 notes]

mutual 14: dude i just got hit by a fucking car im not even joking im waiting for my uber to the hospital rn i think my legs are broken why does god hate me

mutual 15: JUST GOT MY NEUROSCIENCE PHD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

mutual 16: [this post contains filtered tags: #[fandom you hate but you love ur mutual so much anyway]]

mutual 17: [reblogging bloingo fanart at a rate previously thought physically impossible]

mutual 18: One of the guys in my head ate my fucking ham sandwich

#text

[gallusrostromegalus]

all the captains and lieutenants accidentally get slipped some of ukitake's fucked up gigaweed edibles, what happens

First of all, it's not an accident, they straight-up plan a Friday-Night-Of-A-Three-Day-Weekend event of this. Everyone is curious, and Ukitake thinks it will be a funny way to celebrate his Birthday. He is correct: Yamamoto: Veteran of The Dank Arts, gets real high but not unpleasantly so. Would do it again next time he has a long weekend to enjoy it!

Sasakibe: Claims Ludwig Wittgenstein makes PERFECT sense now, attempts to write this philosophical revelation down but is thwarted by the jammed machinations of a clicky pen.

Soi Fon: Gives herself a hernia laughing at one (1) bad pun.

Yoruichi: Used to Urahara's Megaweed Edibles, so approaches the Gigaweed with undue confidence, declares This Edible Ain't Shit five minutes in and eats a second one. She has to be coaxed down from the top of the fridge where she's hiding from The Hatmen by bribing her with a can of Tuna. (Ukitake keeps the $21-a-can Good Shit in the house)

Omaeda: Creates a God-teir marinara Sauce, AND has the good sense to have Nemu pause her Game of Go and come into the kitchen to write down what he did.

Rose: Writes a magnificent new symphony, it's his best work ever, it's life alteringly beautiful, it's effervescent- When he sobers up, it's half a piccolo solo that barely qualifies as a ringtone.

Izuru: In the kitchen crying while eating an inadvisable amount of Omaeda's Spaghetti Marinara.

Retsu: Category Five Mukbang Incident

Isane: Thinks she's filming the Mukbang Incident, actually has her phone open to the calculator app.

Shinji: refuses to touch the Gigaweed because he "Owes The Hatmen Money" and nobody can tell if he's joking or not (he's not).

Momo: Literally Everything is HILARIOUS

Hiyori: Did not know it was possible to have a bigger, gayer crush on Momo, but she somehow opened up a new level of lesbianics. She calls it Gay 2.

Byakuya: Couchlocked for 24 hours straight.

Renji: Couchlocked right there with him, but able to text Izuru to bring them Spaghetti.

Komamura: Can't. Canine Weed Toxicity. (Relieved, offers to spend the weekend watching Toshiro and Yachiru so he has an excuse to go winter camping over the weekend)

Iba: Got High as FUCK. Found out later that the thing he actually ate was a Little Debbie Cosmic Brownie.

Shunsui: his alcohol tolerance actually makes his weed tolerance terrible so he's on the floor from jokingly licking the wrapper.

Nanao: Challenging people to knife fights (Romantic Intent).

Tousen: Immediately passes out because he managed to get his blood pressure down to normal levels, sleeps for 26 hours straight and wakes up feeling genuinely well-rested and in a good mood for the first time in two centuries.

Kensei: Gets his hand bitten at the Category 5 Mukbang Incident because he thought it would be funny to try to snitch off Retsu's plate.

Shuuhei: Attempting to refinance Shinji's debt with The Hatmen. Possibly succeeding?

Mashiro: Said "This Edible Ain't Shit", took a second, and appears to be unaffected. Playing Go with Nemu and winning.

Matsumoto: Makes the Hernia-inducing Pun. Will not STOP making Puns.

Hitsugaya: Being babysat by Komamura, would be madder about this if he wasn't also having a blast doing wintertime camping.

Kenpachi: Attempts to fight his own shadow, loses.

Yachiru: Also on the Wintertime Mountain Expedition, trying to talk Toshiro into joining her and Komamura on an Elk Hunt.

Ikkaku: Has done weed before, but only smoked it, but has a naturally suspicious nature and waits to see how Yoruichi does on her second edible, and avoids running afoul of The Hatmen.

Yumichika: Stays sober to collect blackmail on everyone. Actually films the Mukbang Incident for Isane

Mayuri: This is NOTHING compared to the Quantum Formaldymeth shit he's been on for the last century.

Urahara: from a prominent weed-growing family and lifetime connoisseur of The Herb. Takes one bite and realizes he's in deep shit, lies down on the floor next to Shuuhei and gives him terrible financial advice.

Nemu: Not chemically effected by The Edible but she loves A Group Social Activity so she's a little crunk on Social Recognition Euphoria and it's interfering with her game.

Ukitake, peeling his lieutenant off the floor: Y'all are wimps.

Rukia: has to be peeled off the floor, is affectionately dumped in the laps of Renji and Byakuya, where she forces them to have an emotionally honest and borderline normal conversation.

#AEIWAM #drugs mention #An Elephant Is Warm And Mushy #Bleach #Bleach fanfic #long post #weed mention

[mylovelies-docx]

Sorry, I Love You - Part 1

Here we go! I have it planned that I will be updating this story on Fridays, so yay! I have 10 parts set out as of now, but we'll see where this story takes me.

Plot: You and Bucky have a good thing going - best of friends that also have more than a little chemistry between the sheets. Everything is fine until you develop feelings for the man who doesn't want a relationship. What will happen when Bucky finds out?

C/W: Friends with Benefits, ANGST, unrequited feelings, lots more to come!

Word Count: 1,200

Prologue

You were right to doubt Natasha's words.

Waking up next to Bucky just gets harder and harder as time goes on. Listening to his soft murmurs and heavy sighs, the feel of his bare skin against yours. Every time you find yourself between his sheets, you resent him a little. But it’s not his fault, it’s yours. Every time.

Because you know that if you ever take that one crucial step towards him, you’ll lose him. Lose this closeness, this connection.

So you don’t take that step. You haven’t opened up and told him how you feel for months now. And it drives a knife into your heart with every second that passes where you don’t confess.

Every time you sneak away from parties to some hidden room for a quick fuck, or when he’s pounding into you under a street light on some deserted road with your leg hiked over his motorcycle at 3 am, you can’t help but imagine that all this passion has to mean something to him. Like it means something to you.

So you test it.

You invite him on adventures between missions, visiting museums and parks and 24/7 diners that you know are perfect date spots. He always readily agrees to hang out and stays with you the whole time, his arm slung over your shoulders while he laughs in your ear.

Spending time with Bucky like this leaves you effervescent. You always leave his arms smiling like a fool – because that’s what you are.

Because these movie tickets are just an excuse, really. 

Bucky’s been so busy these last couple of weeks that you’ve hardly seen him, let alone spent any "quality" time with him. You’re currently on your longest dry spell you’ve ever had with him, and the lack of contact leaves you delusional.

Delusional enough to do something stupid. 

Delusional enough to tell Bucky how you feel.

The air is cold as you and Bucky stroll from the movie theater, your heart buzzing in your chest as you contemplate how best to approach the topic. Bucky gives you the perfect opportunity with his next sentence.

“Damn, dollface, forgot how much fun it was to hang out with you. Feels like it’s been ages.”

“We could always hang out more,” you respond coyly, taking his hand and curling yourself against his side. You don’t think you can look him in the eyes while you confess to him.

“Yeah, we should,” Bucky says, and you can’t hold back your next words.

“We could go on a real date sometime.”

You feel a nearly imperceptible jolt in Bucky’s muscles, and his voice is slightly bemused when he replies. “What?” 

There’s confusion behind the words, but you hope against hope that it’s because he’s thinking your suggestion through.

“Well, I mean, we’ve already kind of been going on dates and doing other things that couples do? It wouldn’t be so hard to just make it more concrete, you know?” Your words squeeze around the lump in your throat, your insides shivering in desperation.

Bucky stops in his tracks and pulls you off to the side of the street out of other people’s way. He turns you to face him, his palms resting on your shoulders, his blue eyes searching your face for any sign of the joke you must surely be playing. Because you’ve talked about this. He was very clear. And you had agreed all those months ago – agreed that it was just sex. Agreed that neither of you had any romantic feelings for the other.

“Uh, doll? What are you…?”

Your cheeks burn and your fingers tingle. Your heart can’t handle being scrutinized so intensely at this moment. You avert your eyes to where you’re scuffing your shoe back and forth, back and forth, across the pavement.

“I’m saying… I–I like you, Bucky.” Heart in youth throat, you finally look back into his eyes when you say his name. 

But his expression as he looks back at you isn’t the one you were wanting to see. Bucky looks panicked. Like you’ve just told him that you’re holding a bomb that’s set to detonate in seconds. 

“Jesus,” Bucky says your name in exasperation as he removes his hands from your arms and runs them through his long hair, “why would you–”

Fuck. 

You quickly back-pedal, trying to keep the panic out of your voice while scrambling to pick your bleeding heart off the dirty sidewalk.

“No, no, no. Wait, Bucky. Listen. I know we’ve talked about this before and you said you weren’t looking for anything serious.” Your hands are flying all over the place as you try and explain away your feelings. “But we’ve been hanging out a lot and maybe I just got the wrong idea–”

“Yeah. You did,” Bucky interjects, sending a dagger into the mess of an organ clutched desperately between your hands. “It’s flattering and all, but… you know I’m not interested in you like that.”

You’re successfully holding back tears against the burning in your eyes, but the need to release all the pain you’re feeling is overwhelming. You wrap one arm protectively around yourself and grab on to your other bicep, squeezing hard to feel the physical hurt instead of the emotional.

“No, yeah, you’re right. I’m – I just thought I should be honest? But, seriously, don’t even worry about it.” You hold your hands up in a placating gesture and give as convincing a smile as possible. “This won’t change anything, I promise. And besides, I’ll get over it soon enough!”

Bucky gives you a skeptical look, but nods his head slowly. “So… we’re taking sex off the table, obviously.”

You give a breathy laugh and try to roll your eyes playfully. “Probably not the best idea at the moment,” you respond.

“Yeah,” Bucky sighs, “probably not.”

You both stand in awkward silence, not really looking at each other. You can only stand it for so long until you casually throw a thumb over your shoulder and suggest heading back home.

It’s a long, long ride back on his motorcycle. But at least the wind lashing your face gives you an excuse for the tears that fall.

***

You make it to your floor without seeing another person, but your luck runs out when you find Nat and Wanda watching a movie together in your bed. The sight of your two best friends smiling warmly at your entrance shatters the last of your strength.

You can’t stop the hiccuping sob that leaves your throat – it refuses to be held back any longer. Both women’s eyes widen and they immediately start to sit up, but you’ve collapsed on top of the covers between them before they could move. You can feel Wanda’s fingers in your hair and Nat’s hand rubbing soothing circles between your shoulders.

Your sobs eventually turn into sniffles, and that’s when Wanda speaks.

“What happened?” she asks softly.

You take a shuddering breath in before saying, “I was stupid.”

“What–” Wanda begins, but Natasha immediately knows what you mean.

“Fuck.” She sighs heavily and leans down to place a kiss on the crown of your head.

Part 2

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x y/n #bucky fanfic #captain america #Sorry

[lafleshlumpeater]

can i please get literally anything about travis stoll. i’m begging. i need more content for him. if i have to be picky all i ask is daughter of apollo reader

Ofc!! Hope you enjoy<3

Warnings: none, i think? Lmk if there are

Requests are always open<3

travis stoll masterlist

“What’s this, babe?”

Your boyfriend, uncharacteristically shy, looks up at you through his lashes, chin tilted down. You cock your head to the side.

“Travis?”

“Hmm?”

You give him another perplexed look. “Can I open it?”

You had just showered after training to find your boyfriend waiting on your bed, a brown paper package sealed with sellotape in his ever- moving hands. He had wordlessly stood up, greeting you with a shy grin and handing you the mystery item.

Even now, he’s hesitant, biting his lower lip. You reach out and pull it from under his teeth- you were always nagging at him for that habit.

You trace a thumb up his jaw, admiring the spatter of freckles along his nose and cheeks, like the most delicate painting of stars in the sky, his sunkissed skin the canvas for it.

“You- you can open it.”

“Sure?”

He nods. “But-” he places his hand over yours when you pick at the sellotape. “Don’t laugh.”

You’re about to give him a playful quip back, something about how if it’s something stupid like a plastic bug, you’re going to laugh- but the words die on your tongue and your face relaxes into something like sympathy or extreme tenderness when you realise he’s serious. The poor boy thinks you’re going to laugh at him.

Your insides dissolve to mush. “I won’t laugh. Promise.”

You can see his shoulders slump slightly, but he’s still tense. “Okay.”

Your fingernail resumes its endeavour to peel away the sellotape, but quickly growing impatient, you just tear at the paper. At first, you see nothing inside and wonder if it’s one of his silly, everyday little jokes after all- when something at the bottom glints up at you. You raise an eyebrow, but your boyfriend just looks to the side, long lashes almost blond in the sun shining through the open window. You observe the thing more closely, taking it out and laying it flat on your palm- and when you see what it is, your heart flips.

It’s a necklace. A golden chain, so carefully crafted you wonder for a brief moment if it was forged by Hephaestus himself. But that’s not what caught your attention.

Your face pulls up into a face- splitting grin, so wide it hurts. A small bow and arrow charm hanging from the end, a curly ‘T’ and ‘S’ next to it. His initials.

You look up at him with an elated giggle. “Travis.”

“Do you like it?” he asks nervously, eyes squinting, sceptical through narrowed eyes.

“I- I love it,” you beam. “Thank you. So much.”

Your effervescence is contagious; Travis rubs the back of his neck with a sheepish but easy smile you knew so well. “I didn’t know whether you’d want your initials or mine, but-”

“But it’s perfect,” you interrupt. “Thank you. Honestly. I love it.”

At your adoring reaction to his gift, he completely relaxes, face still flushed a pleased pink. “I’ll help you put it on,” he says, taking it from you and turning you around by your waist. You feel his fingers brush the back of your neck as he clasps the necklace, stroking his thumb along your warm skin. “Pretty.”

Your smile grows even wider, something you didn’t deem possible. “Shut up.”

He leans in, nosing along the skin between your neck and shoulder. “No.”

“Tease,” you mutter, turning back around to face him and pulling him in for a long- awaited kiss.

Sorry if this was really random just smth i was thinking abt yesterday

READ: this account stands with palestine, and so— i require everyone who interacts to educate themselves, and support/donate. READ THESE; 1 and 2, HELP HERE, BOYCOTT. silence is complicity, do not scroll past this.

#pjo #percy jackson and the olympians #inbox #requested fic #gn reader #gn reader fic #travis stoll #travis stoll x reader #fem reader #female reader #x reader #percy jackson fic #percy jackson blurb #percy jackson oneshot #travis stoll blurb #travis stoll oneshot #travis stoll fic #travis stoll x gn reader #travis stoll x fem reader #stoll twins #travis stoll fanfiction #travis stoll fanfic #travis stoll fluff #travis stoll headcanon #travis stoll thoughts #travis stoll x gn!reader #travis stoll drabble #hermes cabin #pjo hoo toa #heroes of olympus

[cringefail-clown]

at last, where doing it man where MAKING THIS HAPPEN

cringes jakehal fic rec list

just so were clear: some of the fics are unfinished, and havent been updated in a while. leaving a comment to let the author know that youre reading and youre enjoying it is fine, but dont be a bag of dicks and harass them over when the new chapter will be up. have some decency or else ill be inside your walls.

Heart by fawn_writes || rated T || 1/1 || 663 words - man its so good. short and sweet. jake comes by to witness the construction of hals new body while also reminiscing about the times he fought brobot and his untimely demise. a good sparkling of body worship. "Everything will be normal. They’ll manage to keep it normal. After all, Jake has enough of his own heart to share." - fuck, that lines so effervescent.

What he needs by fawn_writes || rated M || 1/1 || 1259 words - another banger from the same author. they be doing the horizontal tango, but nothings too graphic. healthy serving of body worship from jakes perspective, as well as his internal struggle with his apparent robotic attraction.

Dead Weight by squirtgunplay || rated M || 5/9 || 27337 words - oh that fic. oh my god. love me some zombie apocalypse au with existential horror sprinkled on top. hal and dirk are twins but with a twist in this one. theres mystery. theres injuries that make you incapable of moving around. theres ship of theseus discussion. its nourishing. its beautiful. jake and hals banter in this one is fucking amazing, and the author captures their characters so well. the relationship between hal and dirk is also very fucking good and heartwrenching and just ugh. stellar writing, the forth wall break made me laugh out loud, hal gets called a security camera (derogatory). theres graphic depictions of violence, so beware of the tags.

Tennessee Whiskey & You by MistLaFey || rated T || 5/? || 12217 words - major character death and graphic depictions of violence tagged, so beware and read the tags. no-sburb au. dirk fucking dies (its in the fic description so i dont feel like its a spoiler). beautiful exploration of grief, unhealthy coping mechanisms and trying to get back into the normal life when theres a big part of it suddenly missing. hal and dirk are twins. jake is not doing well. hal is also not doing well, but pretending he is. its heartbreaking and some scenes made my chest hurt. very good fic and i dont understand why it doesnt get more love. it deserves it. go read it, even just for the funeral scene, i got teary-eyed over it.

seconds by squirtgunplay || rated E || 2/2 || 18698 words - graphic depictions of violence and its no joke, presidential alert the girls are fightinnn!! but its also so funny and the authors so funny and its also really hot! no sburb au, hals a human and dirks twin. he gets kidnapped by a craigslist hitman jake who mistakes him for dirk. the banter is top game in this one. hal cant keep his mouth shut even in life or death situation. jakes a dork, but hes a deadly dork, and also cant keep his mouth shut about his personal problems. theres fistfighting and knifethrowing and hal gets a weapon put to his head at least twice and he thinks its pretty damn hot. theres banging in second chapter. what more can i say to sell you on this one. the characters are on point, the action is tense but its also written in a cheeky, fun way, smut is good, a npc gets unsubscribed from life. amazing fic, 10/10, will read it again.

I Think Therefore I AR by Taxi_Boy || rated T || 25/? || 30417 words - im saving the best for last. major character death. hal has to start the game and get his friends into the medium while dirk is missing, while also pretending to be dirk as to not raise their suspicions. im not going to say anymore about the plot, you just have to go and read the fic. genuinely my favourite jakehal - and homestuck in general - fic of all time. i love caliborn in this one. i cant wait to see what the author has cooked up for us in the future. its plainly genious.

these are only ao3 fics as i have no clue how tf you search other fanfic sites for a specific ship, but if you have any other recommendations feel free to add them onto this post! we all need some good jakehal fic recs in these trying times!

#homestuck #homestuck au #jake english #hal strider #lil hal #auto responder #jakehal #haljake #reblog to save a jakehaler

[wanderlustmagician]

Welcome weary intergalactic tumblr travelers to my humble blog amongst space.

I am Wander (or Magi). A simple alien who enjoys writing, learning, and is in general a very excitable dog in a trench coat.

Fun Facts about me can be found at the tag -

#wander facts

I apologize if you came here for my writing and found a lot of shit posts and yelling about food crimes. I use the following tags for;

Shit posts/posts about life: #wandering thoughts

Food related: #food talk

I have several feral cats (mutuals) that I interact with a lot that have their own tags. I did absolutely steal the alliteration thing from Cheeto. No regrets. :D

hotcheetowastaken - #cheeky cheeto

somer-writes - #sassy somer

evablueblanket - #effervescent eva

estelian-01 - #effortless este

marcusdoodlesalot - #marvelous marcus

needfantasticstories - #super skip

There a probably a couple I’m missing but I’ll update this as we go.

I am always open to receiving asks.

Please do not be afraid to send me something. I will be very enthusiastic about answering any questions*. 💛

*unless the ask is rude, cruel, or mean in nature. This is a safe space for fun and silliness. Anything of the prior listed nature (rude, cruel, or mean) will be unanswered and deleted.

As I said before, I do write! I have an AO3 account under the same name -> wanderlustmagician

My current word count there is: 31,020

My goal word count for the end of Feb 2024: 45,000 (69% achieved)

Writing tags:

#wandering pen / #theres an au for that

I currently mostly write and post for Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda). Though I have written for HxH (some works still up under an old user), Tokyo Ghoul, D. Greyman, DC Comics/Batman/Young Justice, Voltron: Legendary Defender, and Akatsuki no Yona/Yona of the Dawn. Some are posted under a different user, some have been taken down due to personal reasons, and some will never see the light of day.

All tags will be listed in the tags on the post

Now that you’ve had a wandering glance me and who I am… Click the Read more to see my current posted works, ongoing writing projects, and future projects.

My Current Series:

Everything but Blood -> Linked Universe Modern AU

Posted Works Count: 2 // Status: Ongoing

Visions of a Calling (Complete)

Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, Want to Stop (Complete)

[Stealing Clothes WIP]

[Adopting Imp WIP]

Tags: #lu modern au // #everything but blood

Cataclysmic -> Linked Universe Witch AU

Posted Works Count: 2 // Status: Ongoing

The Truth Begins (Ch 1/?)

Heretic (Complete)

Price of Ignorance (Complete)

Tags: #lu witch au // #cataclysmic

Skyloft Valley -> Linked Universe Stardew Valley AU

Posted Works Count: 1 // Status: Ongoing

Welcome to Korok Town (Complete)

Into the Valley (Year One) (Ch 2/3)

Tags: #lu stardew valley au // #skyloft valley

The Sages Journal -> Linked Universe Atlantis AU

Posted Works Count: 2 // Status: Complete

Lanaryu’s Blessing (Complete)

Path to Thriving (Complete)

Tags: #path to thriving // #lu atlantis au

My Other Posted Works:

Ongoing Works:

Lost & Found (Ch 5/?)

Also known as the big brother Time AU of my Modern AU setting.

Tags: #lost & found // #lu modern au

Potential Upcoming Projects:

A Links Meet series that I’m called Forged. It’s still in the planning stages and I’ve not decided the end of it yet.

All of these will be updated as I make and post content. I have over 300 notes of writing. So there is always something in the works! Drop me an ask or at @ if you’re ever curious.

Thanks for wandering through and sticking around for that bad joke!

Hope to see you wandering into my asks or comments soon! Gotta blast!

#wander facts #wandering thoughts #food talk #wandering pen #there’s an au for that #lu modern au #everything but blood #cataclysmic #lu witch au #lu stardew valley au #Skyloft valley #lost & found #path to thriving #lu atlantis au

[fionarara]

HIPSTER KENMA PART 2 WHEN PLEASEEEEE IM OBSESSED

nonni all caps ?? for hipster kenma ?? i thought this idea was an incredibly niche thing in my odd brain which would legit get like zero interaction, i straight up wrote it mostly for myself, so this is a v pleasant surprise (Ｔ▽Ｔ) also, this got longer than expected, but since you requested it with such enthusiasm, i wanted to add in a little extra detail as a treat for you ♡

+ hipster ! kenma . pt. 2 .

(+ part 1 ⇢)

+ hipster ! kenma who feeds his hairless sphynx cat gluten-free food, because he wouldn’t feed his cat a certain diet that he isn’t also on himself

+ hipster ! kenma who thinks much of the fashion industry’s antics are ridiculous for being so overpriced (and that some of their practices can be harmful to the environment), but will drop $375 bucks at a carefully curated, high-end, second-hand designer fashion shop in the arts district on a fresh pair of black jeans, ones that already come pre-ripped and are conveniently labeled as having a 'distressed' look. so edgy. clearly, who needs logical pricing when you can pay a premium to look like you've been through a barbed wire fence? + hipster ! kenma dislikes coffee, because not only is it so acidic on the PH scale, the entire culture surrounding the popular brew (–and yes, he really did call coffee, “the popular brew” when explaining this to you) is so aggressive in prevalent society, as it seemingly promotes an inherent overly capitalist mindset that is so patriarchal. instead, he opts for ~matcha with lion’s mane extract~ for better concentration and whenever he needs a pick-me-up. besides, he prefers things being more chill and calm anyway, and coffee makes him feel too jittery and whacked out + hipster ! kenma doesn’t actually have the best grasp on crypto or stock trading, but from believing and claiming he did, got yaku involved in also investing in that one reddit gamestop stock with him. unfortunately, due to a bad call of not pulling the shares out in time, they lost a considerable amount of money. L. but as short-tempered as yaku used to be, he’s mellowed-out in his older years and only blames himself in the end for even listening to hipster kenma in the first place. anyway it’s cool–when yaku came to visit town from russia, he got taken out by hipster kenma for an evening of partying, all drinks and party drugs on him, as a sort of apology for the risky financial loss—the night ended with the both of them on the floor crying together from reminiscing about past memories and ‘the good ole days’, sheesh + hipster ! kenma who sometimes seems like he hates you, but gets a bit of a kick out of you bringing it up, because whenever you do, he gets to playfully remind you he’s just in resting mode or deep in thought by making the same joke every time, “that’s just my cunty cat face” + hipster ! kenma who is prone to getting some pretty gnarly anxiety at times, so he takes these 15mg edible marijuana gummies to chill himself out. his favorite flavor of THC gummy bear from the packet you gifted him, and which he now regularly takes, is salted caramel and dark chocolate + hipster ! kenma will drag you to see an arthouse docufilm about the music history of video games with modular synthesizers, etc. at this little blackbox theater, complaining that those big blockbuster movie chains are ripping you off by charging way too much for mainstream crap, but then he proceeds to overpay for an overpriced, organic, effervescent, raw kombucha drink once you arrive at the little indie theater (he definitely thinks buying soda at the movie theater is beneath him, “the way i see it, if you want a soda at least make it, like, an actual appropriate setting, go to a carnival and have it with a corn dog.”)

+ hipster ! kenma loves street food. will take you to the local art walk/night market festivals once a month, fascinated by tasting all the different street food vendors and scoping out the community art scene, he’ll even end up treating you with a tasty treat every time from one of the booths. although he doesn’t particularly love overly sweet things, he will especially eat any sweetly-glazed savory snack that comes on a stick. one thing about him that you’ve come to appreciate though is that he doesn’t just gobble down his food, no, hipster kenma actually enjoys taking the time to savor what he consumes while giving insightful commentary on the food’s flavoring, etc. + hipster ! kenma who DIYs…many things, because he figures, let’s be honest, other people can’t be relied upon to make things correctly, not by his standards. especially when it comes to his computer, which of course he built himself: it has a fully transparent case so you can see right through to the whole display of all dazzling gear and deco inside of it, and in his words it had to be, “a state of the art custom loop with full liquid cooling”. you admit the inner flashing lights are pretty and the computer is definitely so decked out, that it's for sure one of the coolest things you’ve ever seen.

+ hipster ! kenma kinda has this weird thing that if he didn’t think of a cool idea for his twitch stream first after seeing it from another popular streamer, then he acts like it’s kinda inherently stupid, mentions how blasé it is to you and his friends, even if deep down he does find the idea interesting or appealing and probably, most definitely, would’ve adopted it himself 

+ hipster ! kenma who can oftentimes hold the belief that adopting a cynical and pessimistic outlook on life makes one more intelligent and analytical, even more sophisticated or enhances his overall cleverness of mind, sad + hipster ! kenma is hot. okay. in such an understated way, which all the more makes him hotter, though he’s not fully aware of his own appeal, or perhaps only mildly—actually attracts a fair amount of bitches when he goes out to the dive bars or local music shows, ones who aren’t intimidated by his sort of mysterious appearance or superior demeanor which is bound to come off a little pretentious, but in truth, he’s actually a bit insecure and shy about being approached so often and therefore tends to stay pretty silent when that happens, unsure of how to fully deal/cope with someone who is being so direct about their interest in him. ultimately prefers the slow get-to-know-you burn when it comes to any romance: a friends first, lovers later kind of thing + hipster ! kenma is incredibly observant, especially in social situations and mostly prefers to just take everything in, only speaking when he has something truly poignant to say … or when an opportunity strikes to completely, calmly, eviscerate someone’s inane or ignorant opinion, delivering a point so smooth, he’ll crush their shitty take all in a such a demure, cool, collected and resolute manner to the point where the dumbass person in question doesn’t even know they’ve been schooled and insulted by him until the roar of jeers and laughter from the surrounding crowd are heckling the unbeknownst fool, sick burn hipster kenma + hipster ! kenma only dares to wear brighter colors when at the beach and the item of clothing is a hoodie (proclaims it’s a light and breathable one though sooo he’s not sure what everyone is making such a fuss over when you, hinata, kuroo and the rest of your beach crew kick up some sand towards him while chiming in unison to urge him to, “take it off! we’re by the ocean, bruh!”) – the brightest colors of those hoodies ever worn at the beach are either a pale mustard, burnt amber, or white with possible cool textile designs. not only that, but he’ll stick to the shade beneath the large beach parasol playing on his nintendo switch, because listen, he isn’t about to get skin cancer on account of the toxic chemicals they put in sunscreen these days just so he can catch some rays (which of course, the sun could also give one cancer) + hipster ! kenma has these annoyingly long pretty dark lashes which are framed so nicely by his non-prescription clear frame glasses, and every so often you will playfully grumble to him about how unfair that is, since he’s a boy and doesn’t even care that he’s got them, then proceed to joke by asking him to give you some of those lashes since he doesn’t in fact need all of them for looks. he’ll respond by lightly chuckling and referencing that one Clockwork Orange film scene where the main character’s eyes are forced to remain horrifically clamped open, slyly suggesting, “if you can manage to get me in a position like that, then and only then, can you have them” but don’t bother, he continues, because you’ll never get past him~~ + hipster ! kenma who, no matter what he seems like on the surface, you know in the end that he’s undeniably ride or die for his friends, 10/10 will always always have their back, willingly giving them a hand without making a big deal of it + hipster ! kenma shelled out quite a hefty price on his ‘Beats by Dre’ headphones, even though as a self-proclaimed audiophile he knows they’re nowhere near being the best on the market, only bought them for the clout, and walks around town wearing them or for his twitch streams + hipster ! kenma secretly cries to bon iver, sufjan stevens, james blake, ryuichi sakamoto, erykah badu, nick cave and portishead when he’s alone + hipster ! kenma watches a looot of documentaries 

+ hipster ! kenma owns this cat shirt ↴ doesn’t wear it out in public though, only to bed, and has had it so long it’s already starting to fray at the sleeves and shoulder's seams:

+link2masterlist.

#🔌fifi's delivery service #maybe a part 3 someday in the far off future - but it’ll be pretty short because hipster kenma weirdly exhausts me #haha i think i’ll still bring him up every now and then because i know this kind of guy too well #feel free to come chat with me about him though bc i can answer any hc about this dude eeeasily #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu x reader #hq headcanons #kenma headcanons #haikyuu #hq #kenma x reader #hq x reader #kenma kozume headcanons #kenma kozume x reader #kenma #kenma kozume #haikyuu x you #hq x you #kenma x you #kenma kozume x you #haikyuu headcanon #haikyuu hcs #kenma headcanon #kenma headcanon #haikyuu!! #hq!! #hipster

[jackheathwriter]

There's a scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Indi (Harrison Ford) and his father (Sean Connery) are tied to chairs, having been captured by Nazis after Indi's girlfriend betrayed them.

Indi quietly asks his father, "How did you know she was a Nazi?"

His father replies, "She talks in her sleep."

Indi does a double-take.

When I first saw that movie I was about 8, sitting cross-legged on the carpet in my parents' house, way too close to their CRT television. I thought, "Nazis talk in their sleep? What an interesting piece of trivia."

I watched that movie a lot of times over the next few years. When I was about 12, and old enough to realise the idea that Nazis talk in their sleep was absurd, I interpreted the double-take differently. I thought, "Ohhh. Indi has suddenly realised his father has lost his marbles."

It's been more than 20 years since I've seen that movie, but having watched it over and over back when my brain was still spongy and malleable, I don't need to see it again. I can watch a highlight reel in my head whenever I feel like it (although while fact-checking this piece I noticed that Ford and Connery weren't tied to chairs, as I remembered). This scene popped into my head recently, and I finally, finally, understood why Indi was so startled.

It made me laugh.

I'm sharing this story because I've been thinking about how many metrics are involved in the consumption of art these days. When Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade came out, there weren't many ways of measuring its success - just the number of dollars it earned at the box office, the quality of the reviews in the newspapers, and the number of Oscars it was eventually nominated for (3, winning 1). If it were made now, the distributor could track not only how many people watched it, but at exactly what point viewers were most likely to stop watching, which scenes got paused and replayed, and how likely viewers were to tell their friends about it on social media. All this extra data seems like it should help filmmakers tell better stories.

But how do you track which jokes will make people laugh, when they're thinking about it 20 years later?

You don't, I guess. Algorithms can track your behaviour, but they can't actually spy on your thoughts (yet). So, creators optimise for the data they do have. This creates an incentive to tell stories which keep people watching, listening and sharing, but which are quickly forgotten. Engaging, but evaporative. I'm sure there are many reasons for the effervescence of contemporary film and television (the sheer amount of content, pressure to compete with social media, the fact that 45% of us are watching our phones and our TVs at the same time) but this is definitely one piece of the puzzle.

I don't have Spielberg's genius, but I am lucky enough to be working in a medium that isn't quite so quantifiable (although that is changing). This means I'm free to tell the stories I think readers will remember for years to come, even if I have no way of telling whether my instincts are right.

 Speaking of which...

In 2014 I wrote a book called Scream: The Human Flytrap.

It was translated into French, adapted for audio, and spawned three sequels. And now, ten years on, it's about to be re-published.

Warning: the book was intended for kids and teens, but when I asked my publisher how scary I could make it, her response boiled down to "as scary as you want, so long as there's no sex or drugs in it." I took her at her word, and wrote a book which gave nightmares to a generation of kids, who are now deeply traumatised adults.

Preorder it from your local bookshop or below - if you dare.

#indiana jones #books #writing

[anonymityisfunwriter]

The Winter Soldier (Part 1)

"Hello?" Sam emphasizes, though you're clearly not listening to him. He waits for any sort of reaction, for any indication that you're not completely catatonic. He snaps his fingers in front of your face, only eliciting the most menial, microscopic movement. "Hello?"

You slightly jolt at the sound of Sam's voice. "Sorry. What?" 

"You miss him," Sam matter-of-factly states.

"Yeah," you admit, your voice constrained with a painful longing that had yet to subside.

"I hate seeing you like this."

"Yeah," you absently repeat. 

"You're going to go back on Monday?"

"Yeah."

"You don't have to," Sam assures you. 

You clear your throat, shaking your head as though that will clear the mental fog of grief. You looked around and you aren't in your usual surroundings. You didn't know how you walked all this way with Sam without ever being present of mind, but here you were, sitting in a pizza place with Sam sitting across from you. Two drinks in front of you. Your hands picking at the vinyl table cover. You shake your head again before speaking, "I don't think I get to decide that."

It didn't matter if you were ready or not, the bereavement was over in a few short days, and you were expected to face the team after such a crushing loss. You weren't sure how that worked out.

After all, it was only six weeks ago that you were handed his dogs tags. Then, a few days after that, a folded up flag and a medal for his service. As if any of that made up for it. 

"No," Sam remorsefully concedes. "But I don't think anyone would hold it against you if you weren't ready."

"I'm not the only person who's lost someone."

"That doesn't matter."

"We should get going," you announce, your hands smoothing over the wrinkles in the tablecloth. 

"We haven't even ordered yet," Sam lightly reminds you.

"Right," you exhale, a slight humor in your tone. 

"In a hurry to get back home?" he gently jokes, very slightly pushing the boundary to momentarily coax you out of your grief. 

"Well, nothing good ever happens after midnight."

"Oh my God," Sam dramatically groans. "You sound like-"

He falters before the name leaves his mouth. You know what he was going to say, 'You sound like Bucky'. 

But then you remember, it shouldn't be that easy to say his name after such a short time. After all, he was a person that a few short weeks ago you swore you couldn't live without. And here you were, living without him. Then you feel immensely guilty for the few feeble laughs that you did manage. 

You shouldn't be laughing, walking around New York like you're not absolutely devastated. It was wrong, pretending, continuing living your life - a life you promised to a person that wasn't even here anymore.

You wonder if it would ever stop feeling like a betrayal: allowing your world to turn without him. You wonder if the people walking by can see the devastation that lay dormant in your bones.

It's a little twisted, but you sort of hope they can. 

"Yeah," you exhale. "I do."

"I invited Steve," Sam hesitantly states. 

"You invited Steve?" you sigh, your shoulders slumping in defeat.

"I thought it could help. Seeing one person before you go back. You haven't seen them since-"

"Since the funeral," you finish for him. 

Though you considered Steve a good friend, he was probably the last person you wanted to see at present. 

Steve was the unfortunate soul that saw the very moment you lost everything. He watched as your normal, bubbly, effervescent demeanor disintegrated with one phone call. He'd never seen anything quite like it. Before that phone call, you and him were joking around while you awaited extraction from a mission. 

You answered the phone without a care in the world. He would never forget your smile slowly melt away into an expression that would forever be engrained in his mind. 

"What?" you exhaled, your voice already shaky. "No. It- He- It- No."

He immediately straightened himself, taking a step closer to you. The phone slipped out of your hand, crashing onto the rough gravel. He caught you before you crumpled to the floor with a pained scream lodged in your throat. 

"He's gone," you sobbed, your powers uncontrollably surging wreaking havoc on the environment around you. 

He didn't even need to ask, he knew there was only one person that would elicit such a reaction out of you. When he finally got you back to Sam, he searched for answers to questions that you would inevitably have. An ambush. Apparently, no one on that mission stood a chance. Not that there was anyone left to corroborate that.  

Steve also had the terrible honor of helping you deliver a eulogy that you never thought you'd have to write, let alone give to a room full of people, and subsequently leaked online. 

"Yeah," Sam sighs. 

Your shoulders stiffen, feeling the distinct sensation of being watched trickle down your spine. You look over both your shoulder then out into the dark night outside the restaurant.

"Sam," you pause, the uneasy feeling of being watched radiating down your spine. "Something's wrong."

"What?"

"It- it feels like someone's watching us," you admit. 

Sam mimics your motions, looking over each of his shoulders, over the booth, out the window. "I don't see anything."

For a moment, you're concerned that Sam thinks you're going crazy, that you're losing it and allowing the grief to cloud your judgement. He raises his hand, flagging down the waitress and with kind, quiet words asks for the food to-go instead. 

"Thanks," you murmur. 

You're staring out into the dark night as Sam places a few dollars on the table and stands to leave. You unceremoniously slip your jacket on and walk to the door. Right into Steve. 

"Hey, guys..." Steve trails off. You're not sure if he pauses at the sight of the two of you leaving or at your grief-stricken appearance. "You're headed out?"

"Yeah, just a weird feeling," Sam ambiguously offers. 

You're thankful Sam doesn't tell Steve that you're the one with the weird feeling, that your paranoia is the one ruining the evening. 

"You - you can come with us if you want," you hesitantly add, if only to appease Sam's concerned expression. "We'll probably just eat at the apartment."

"Sure," Steve nods sympathetically. 

You've only walked a few steps away from the restaurant when you feel it again.

The hairs stand on the back of your neck, goosebumps radiate down your arms. You look around again, only to see nothing but the dimly lit alley and the warm glow of the street lights. They eerily flicker as though they're warning you of danger, counting down some imminent threat. "Okay, you know the part of the movie where the one person is like 'something's wrong' and then they're like 'no, I'm being paranoid' and the other friend's like let's cut through a dark alley to get home faster."

"Yeah?" Sam simply replies. 

"That's what's happening."

"Am I the only one that didn't get the movie thing?" Steve questions. 

"Someone's watching us," Sam states ominously, suddenly feeling the foreboding sensation creep down his spine.

"Okay, so-"

Steve's cut off by the sight of a looming, shadowy figure in the backlit alley. "Guys."

Sam looks down the alley, fervently shaking his head. "So what we're not going to do is go into the dark, creepy alley. We're going to leave and go home and definitely not go down that alley, right?" 

"I don't think he's going to give us much of a choice," you sarcastically remark, looking at the figure who's yet to move or do anything expect watch the three of you.

Sam takes hold of your arm, trying to usher you away from whoever lurks in the darkness. You resist Sam's hold and take a singular slow, cautious step forward to get a look at the obscured face of the figure.

It's almost like it triggers the man, like the movement is a catalyst to him storming in your direction. You see the outline of a gun being raised and pointed at Sam. Without much composure or grace, you flick your hand to rip the gun out of his hands. It unceremoniously clatters against the brick wall, but ultimately does nothing to deter the man. 

"Great," Sam scoffs. "Just what we needed."

"What do you want?" Steve diplomatically calls down the alley.

"You know, I don't think he wants to talk to us, Steve."

You ignore the two men, taking another step forward. Your endless amounts of frustration, pain, and anger making you a little more reckless. Only a few yards away and his pace increasing exponentially, a well-timed flicker of light gleams against something metallic on the man. 

Leaving you no room to argue, Steve yanks you back, moving to stand directly in front of you. 

"We could just walk away," Sam grumbles. "Why can't we ever just walk away?"

Just as the man enters close, hand-to-hand combat range, two street lights stop flickering, illuminating the very entrance of the alley where you three still stand. It reveals a face you could never forget. It's so undeniable that you don't even question if the grief is causing hallucinations. You stand there, frozen in shock, staring at the person you loved most. A person you thought was dead. 

"Oh, shit," Sam exhales. 

"Bucky?" Steve asks.

"Who the hell is Bucky?"

You remain standing frozen in shock as your blood runs cold. It doesn't seem like there's anything that can release you from your stupor. Not the boot to Steve's chest that sends him flying against a car. Not Sam going hand-to-hand with Bucky. 

Steve quickly recovers, lending a hand to Sam. 

You're only brought back to life when you see a serrated blade swiftly enter and exit Steve's side.

You suck in a large breath, suddenly reanimated. As though he can sense that you're no longer catatonic, he turns to you. Even as he violently charges at you, it doesn't change that you want nothing more than to run back into his embrace. 

With every single hesitation and reluctance coursing through your veins, you send him violently crashing into the wall with a flick of your hand. You hear the sickening scrape of vibranium against the exposed brick, and more than anything, you want to apologize, to beg for forgiveness for this and what transpired six weeks ago, for the events that brought him here, and everything in between. 

His eyes narrow, clearly reassessing the scenario. You aren't sure what changes his mind, but Bucky takes off, clutching the damage you inflicted to his arm as he disappears into the cover of darkness. 

"We have to go after him," you frantically insist. 

"Steve needs medical attention."

"I'm fine," Steve insists, clutching his bloodied side in pain. 

You look at your friend, sitting propped up against the wall in the damp, dirty alley, feeling terrible about what happened. Feeling so responsible for letting Bucky get away and for letting Steve get hurt. You could have stopped him if you hadn't hesitated, if you hadn't stood there paralyzed with dumbfounded shock. "I- I'm sorry, Steve."

"It's okay," he quietly assures.

--

"Steve's going to be okay," Sam informs you, softly closing the MedBay door behind him. 

"Good."

"Are you okay?"

"No."

"That was probably a stupid question."

"Yeah."

"For what it's worth, I'm so sorry."

You shake your head, shaking away the apology. You don't want them anymore. You don't want to hear any more apologies, niceties, or sage words of wisdom. Now that you know Steve's going to be okay, you need to go after him. You stand up off the plastic waiting chair, "Now what?"

"Now what?" Sam repeats, his head jolting in clear repulsion of the question.

"How do we find him?"

"I don't know."

"That's not an answer, Sam."

"It's as good as we're getting tonight."

"That's not good enough," you seethe, uncharacteristically angry and demanding. 

"We're just going to have to wait and see-"

"I'm not waiting around for someone to give me answers."

"Well, you're definitely not going to be the one to go and find them."

"Why not? Why not me?"

"You're too close to this. You just found out your dead boyfriend isn't dead, that's not exactly a formula for success."

"I'm going after him. You can't stop me," you fume, turning on your heels to embark on a hopeless search. 

"Leave it alone," Sam orders, grabbing your arm to stop you from leaving.  

"No!" you interject, whirling around to face Sam with an expression equal parts agony and excruciating pain. "You can't ask me that. I-I won't. I won't do it. That's my person, and I need to get him back."

"That's not your Bucky anymore! Okay? That's not him."

"He's in there," you desperately insist, your voice breaking. "I know it."

"You saw what he did to Steve. Without hesitation." Sam sighs deeply, rubbing his temples in a feeble attempt to calm himself. "I'm not going to let you die trying to bring him back."

"You've brought him back before. We can do it again."

"You don't know that! And what if you-" he lets the words die before they even leave his mouth. He knows it's selfish, incredibly selfish even, but all he can think is he just lost his best friend,  this other best friend injured, he can't lose another one. "What if you can't? What if you can't and the Winter Soldier gets his hands on you? Because that's who that is! That's not Bucky and whatever his mission is, he's not going to stop until it's done."

"I don't care!" you exclaim without thinking, inadvertently confirming everything Sam already knew, everything he dreaded. The resilience that was the very essence of your being, the fierce loyalty, all things he loved in his friend, was now your fatal flaw.

"Let him go," he enunciates. "At least for now, let him go."

You swallow the knot overwhelming your throat, still your voice is marred by overwhelming sadness, mixed with remorse, and tainted with guilt. "You know I can't do that. He's out there. He's out there and he's all alone." As the words leave your mouth, your voice breaks entirely. "I promised him, and now he's alone because I let him go on that mission. I should've- I could've-"

"Hey, hey," Sam softly interrupts, pulling you into a crushing embrace. He continues, mumbling into the top of your head, "It wasn't your fault. It was an ambush. There was nothing we could've done. It wasn't your fault."

You pull yourself out of his hold, clearing your throat as you furiously wipe away the tears. "I won't leave him, and if you're not going to help me, I'll go after him alone."

"I'll tell SHIELD," he blurts as you turn away from him.

Your shoulders stiffen as you turn back to face him. He hates that the thought even entered his mind, let alone that he actually said the words. That was a betrayal in every sense of the word in your book. He knew what the first hand what that threat looked like. He knew that and said it knowing that although he might've just irreparably damaged your friendship, he may have just saved your life.

Your lips pull in and Sam can see the sting of betrayal on your face as you shake your head in disbelief, "You'll tell SHIELD?"

"Give me a day. 24 hours. 24 hours to pull an actual plan together."

"He could be gone in 24 hours. Anywhere in the world," you vehemently object, throwing your hands up in frustration. 

"24 hours," he repeats. "And if I think there's even the smallest chance that we can do this, I'll give it everything I have."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

--

"Mission report."

Bucky remains silent, still replaying the unsuccessful mission in his head. 

"Mission report. Now," Pierce orders with a strong backhand to Bucky's face. 

Bucky's head is frustratingly flooded with flickers of a life he can't remember. He silently weighs his options before asking, "The woman in the alley. Who is she?"

"A SHIELD asset. You've been surveying her for weeks."

"I knew her," Bucky states. "Didn't I?"

The well-dressed man says nothing, straightening his back and readjusting his suit jacket. 

"I knew all of them," Bucky continues.

"Wipe him. Start over," Pierce orders to the man standing to the side of Bucky. 

Ignoring Bucky's pained groans and yelps of torture, Pierce grabs the file that they'd gradually collected. It's a thick manila envelope filled with everything from you personal history to walking routes to your favorite places in the city. It was everything and then some. 

"You really think that he can take her?" Rumlow mutters.

"I don't think she'll put up much of a fight. Too emotional," he states, his voice filled with repulsion. "I'll fix that."

Rumlow nods before Pierce turns back to the Winter Soldier, the blank slate more than ready to comply. Pierce slides the photo toward him, "This is your mission. Apprehend the target and bring her to me."

He rigidly nods, standing without hesitation to complete his mission. 

"And, Soldier?" Pierce interjects. "Though I suspect she's not going to put up much of a fight, if you find yourself unsuccessful again, kill her."

"Kill her?" Rumlow mutters as they watch the Winter Soldier walk away. 

Pierce languidly shrugs, "If she won't help us, she certainly won't live to help them."

--

At Sam's vehement insistence, you reluctantly stay at the Compound that night. Your leaden feet drag down the Compound hallway, and you're thankful you don't have to face anyone else that night. You stop in front of the distantly familiar door, though it's only been six weeks you felt like an entirely different person than the one that left this room that fateful day.

It's the first time you're able to step foot in the bedroom you shared with Bucky. Because even if you don't know where he is or if you'll ever really get him back - he's alive. And that's more than you ever thought you'd get. 

You're careful not to touch anything, to leave all Bucky's possessions exactly as he left them. To leave the memories as pure and untainted as possible. 

The ticking of the clock drags as you keep thinking, because maybe it's not better. Maybe it's worse that he's alive and having to undergo whatever excruciating torment he's being put through.  Or that he's out there, but the person you loved is truly gone replaced with a stranger whose laugh you could recognize anywhere. 

Your mind whirls trying to reconcile what you hope with what is - your wishes to the reality of it all. You find that the memories of the few short years with Bucky, do not break your fall. 

You give up at almost 2 in the morning. You take the strong sleeping pill prescribed to you in the beginning of this nightmare and crawl into the loneliest bed you've ever known. 

You don't fight the medicinally-induced sleep as it slowly overtakes you, but instead relish in the short reprieve of the rushing, turbulent flow of thoughts that gradually wane into a bearable trickle:

When your eyes open, you notice him right away. He's laying down on a picnic blanket, scattered beams of sunshine cascading through the leaves and branches of the tree above him beaming on his face. He lifts his head ever so slightly, just enough for him to make eye contact with you. The corner of his mouth lifts and he nudges his head to invite you over. 

You take a singular, cautious step forward. 

He doesn't disappear. Doesn't waver in his invitation. He sticks his hand out as if to coax you closer and all your hesitations and pretenses crumble.

You bolt towards him, practically throwing yourself on top of him to envelope yourself in his warm, comforting embrace one last time.

"I missed you," he murmurs into the top of your head. 

"Me too," you whimper, allowing the tears to freely flow and trickle onto his shirt. 

You two stay like that for a long while, soaking in a comfort you never thought you'd be able to seek again. You listen to the steady beat of his heart, his slow, even breaths, the slow, gentle strokes of his hand trailing up and down your spine. 

"You know Sam's right?" he asks after only so many moments of comfort. 

"Now I know I'm dreaming. You'd never willingly admit that Sam was right about anything."

"I'm being serious."

"Don't," you plead, tears burning at your eyes again. Your hands tighten on his shirt, clinging to him to will him to stay with you in this idyllic moment. "I love you."

"You have to let me go," he says, his hand stopping in its tracks. "I could kill you."

You sit up completely to meet his eyes, to show him your determination, the infallible resolve to bring him back."You won't."

"Let me go," he repeats.

You stand up in a huff. Angry that he'd even make a suggestion, that you could simply continue on knowing that he was out there and not do anything about it. How were you supposed to let him go when he was haunting you? "You know I can't."

"You have to," he begs, standing up and taking your hand in a desperate plea. 

"You promised me," you angrily remind him, tears slipping down your cheeks. "You promised you wouldn't leave me! You said you'd always come back."

"I'm sorry I couldn't keep that promise."

"You can! I can bring you back. Me, Sam, Steve, we can-"

"Let me go," he interjects. "Nothing good will come from going after me."

"I'm not going to stay away."

He abruptly drops your hand, an eerie chill cutting through the warm summer breeze. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

You look up and the Bucky you knew was gone, you could tell as the feeling of safety and comfort evaporated. Instead, you look up and see the mask of the Winter Soldier. Without a moment's hesitation, his vibranium hand wraps around your throat, slowly, mercilessly crushing your windpipe.

You unwillingly jolted from your slumber gasping for air. 

You weren't sure if it was for better or worse, but Bucky did not meet you in any of the rest of your dreams that night. Instead, you were plagued by sick highlights and twisted reels of the night before. It came back as flashes, fragments of a puzzle you didn't have any idea of how to put together.

The early morning sun filters through the curtain warms your face, stirring you lightly. The mental fog lifted, cleared just enough for a vital epiphany. It's in your disoriented state that the pieces start coming together, forming a picture that only the most vile, wicked and evil mind could've put together. 

And suddenly, it all makes sense. 

You jolt out of your lonely bed, haphazardly throwing your covers off and forgoing your shoes as you throw your bedroom door open. You're about to storm down the short hallway when you see Sam standing there. He looks as frantic as you feel, mirroring your frenzied, realized state.

"I figured it out," you and Sam state simultaneously. "Jinx."

"You go first," you both continue. "No, you."

"Okay, I'll go first," you decide. "It's me." 

"It's you," Sam affirms, his voice barely above an exhale. "You're what they want."

--

"Should I even bother asking you to stay away?" Sam asks, standing beside a thankfully recovered Steve in the conference room. "To stay at the Compound where you're not in danger?"

"It's always nice to know that you know me," you offer. 

He sighs deeply. "What if I said please?"

"You know my answer."

"But this changes things," Steve adds, his arms folded in both frustration and concern. "If it's you they want, bringing you to the fight is handing you over on a silver platter."

"Then that's my choice to make. I can take care of myself."

"You know the person that says that in movies is always the first person to go," Sam retorts. "You're not thinking about this logically."

"No, I'm not," you proudly admit, an unshakeable resolve in your voice. "I thinking about this as a person who lost everything. And now I have a chance to get it back."

"You're being reckless," Sam chastises.

"Sam," Steve gently warns.

"I need you to trust me. I need you to trust that I know what I'm doing," you state, your eyes filled with unspoken pleas. 

"Then how do we find him?" Sam exhales, his shoulders slumped in resignation. 

"Would it be too much to ask to use myself as bait?"

"It's always nice to know that you know me," Sam says, redirecting your own words back at you.

You quietly huff in amusement, folding your arms as you turn back to the large screen. On there, you can see the few confirmed sightings of a masked figure. All within a few miles of the SHIELD housing you had been staying in during your bereavement. Still looking at the screen, you're the first to speak, "It's safe to assume that he's been watching us."

"Right," Sam agrees. "But he could've moved in before the other night. The question is: Why didn't he?"

"I was never alone," you audibly think. "SHIELD's been keeping a close eye. Agents in the house next to me and in front of me. You've been staying with me. Too many eyes. Probably why he waited until I left the house."

Sam shrugs. "Guess that makes sense, but then his mission isn't to...you know?"

"To kill me?"

"Yeah," Sam tersely exhales. 

"They're recruiting," Steve concludes. "Bucky wasn't expecting to me to make an appearance. The two of you he could take. Three of us? Maybe not."

"So we draw him out or we find where they're keeping him."

"And how exactly do we find secret HYDRA posts?"

"Google?" you sarcastically remark.

"I think we need to pay a visit to Fury. See what he knows."

"Agreed," you nod. 

It was a suffocating silence in Sam's car as you drove to the city to pay Nick Fury a visit. You found that more common nowadays than any other form of conversation. People simply didn't know what to say to you anymore. And you didn't have the energy to guide them through a simple conversation. So you remained shrouded in silence. Lately, you liked the silence - it reminded you of him. 

You'd only been driving in the car for just under thirty minutes when you see him. You weren't sure if it was a coincidence or that you were somehow hyper-aware of his proximity. But you barely caught the sight of him as you approached a freeway overpass. 

"Guys," you gasp, pointing to the figure on the overpass. "I don't think we need Nick to find him."

Steve's eyes widen as the man drops from the overpass onto a car, cars swerving out and away from the Winter Soldier as he stormed his way with one very specific target in mind. Sam stomps on the brake, the smell of burning rubber filling the car as he skids to a haphazard stop. 

"I think we found him," you exhale, catching Bucky's eye as he pinpoints your location in the backseat. 

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Sam scoffs. 

Without breaking eye contact with him, you stumble out of Sam's strewn car.

"Wait," Sam calls as you shut the door behind you.

Though the lack of emotion or recognition in his steel-blue eyes breaks your heart, you don't break it as you cautiously walk toward him. You're vaguely away of Sam and Steve getting out of the car, the shots ringing around you, letting you know that Bucky did not come alone. With two hands out in a peace-filled gesture, "I don't really know what to say to you, so-"

He's totally unfazed by the words leaving your mouth, his stone-faced expression completely cold and void of any discernible emotion. He raises his gun with an ease that breaks your heart, pointing it directly at you. You flick the gun out of his hand like the night before, "I'm not going to fight you."

"Good," he states, just close enough that you can almost reach out and touch him.

Without hesitation, a skilled, agile hand is flying at you at lightening speed. You stick out your hand, stopping his vibranium fist mid-air. "Okay, so maybe I fight back just a little bit."

You feel him fighting the invisible force, willing it to fold to his incredible strength. You try not to waver being this close to him, seeing his familiar blue eyes just a few feet from you. The very moment you're about to falter, Steve's familiar shield flies from behind you. 

The Winter Soldier expertly dodges it, his focus momentarily off of you and onto the two men behind you. 

While Steve takes up combat with Bucky, you focus on the guns still shooting at and around you. It's almost amusing, seeing the shock as the HYDRA agent's lose their guns to an invisible tug that sends them clattering to the floor. Or the bullets that are forced downward rendering them almost entirely harmless. 

"I've got this. Steve needs help," Sam calls, his gun in hand as he takes care of the remaining HYDRA agents. 

"You're the one that trained me," you murmur, your eyes raking over the two super-soldiers fighting. "Let's see how much that paid off."

As you approach, you whip his blade right as he kicks Steve into a thankfully vacant car. 

"I told you I wasn't going to fight you," you remind him, your voice laced with all the pent-up frustration and anger from the last six weeks. 

Before he can begin his assault, your powers take hold of his vibranium arm. You can see him fight to escape the hold that pushes him further and further back. Even as he hits the brick wall behind him, he viscously tries to pull his arm out of your hold. 

You feel every single burst of energy and strength he exudes and almost stumble back under his incredible strength, but you hold steady. You firmly plant your feet on the pavement in front of him, just out of his arms reach. "I've mourned you for weeks. You could at least remember me."

Just as you feel the tides of the fight turning, you hear the squeal of tires rapidly approaching the scene. Bucky's arm still pinned against the brick wall, you look over and see several distantly familiar SHIELD agents step out of their cars. 

"You said you weren't going to call SHIELD," you hiss.

"I didn't," Sam swears. "But maybe Steve getting stabbed in an alley raises some red flags?"

"Okay. That's fair," you concede.

Your eyes scan the chaotic area and see only a handful of SHIELD agents, most occupied with evacuation and HYDRA operatives lurking in the corner.

"I don't trust them. They'll kill him or send him back," you grit, your voice strained under the incredible strength it takes to hold Bucky. "Need some help here, guys."

"You can't protect him and fight him off," Sam cautions, preemptively cautioning you from protecting him like you swore you always would. 

"I'm not going to let them hurt him," you grit, one hand protecting Bucky from rogue bullets directed at him, the other still trying to contain him. 

"And if we bring him back and he finds out he killed you? Then what? Do you honestly think that we could talk him off that ledge?"

"You talked me off that ledge," you quietly remind him, looking up to meet Bucky eyes. 

"It's not the same and you know that."

"I know," you exhale, and for a moment, you let your emotions cloud your judgement. You forget that it's not your Bucky. You forget that he's not going to pull his punches. As though he knows you've pulled back and lost focus, with a singular deft movement, he roughly grabs your shoulder and throws you against the brick wall. 

Your arm and shoulder take the brunt of the hit, but you feel the pain radiate down the entire side of your body. You'd heard about the Winter Soldier's ruthlessness before, but as he reaches for your injured arm, you can't help the surprised, pained yelp that leaves your mouth. 

Upon seeing Steve recover in his peripheral, he drops you as suddenly as he picked you up. He drops you as though you were nothing to him to focus his fight on Steve. Using your uninjured arm to pick yourself up, you feel the blood trickling down the side of your face. 

"You okay?" Sam calls, peeling his eyes away from his own battles to check on you. 

"Yeah," you call back, clearly lying as you cradle your injured arm. "Barely even hurt."

By the time you're fully standing, the two super soldiers are enthralled in a fight that can only be described as dizzyingly terrifying. Except for protecting the man trying to kill you from SHIELD agents, you feel entirely useless. You see the look of shocked anger on the faces of your allies as you ricochet bullets away from Bucky and leave him unarmed. And you still don't care enough to stop protecting him. 

Your attention is only called away when Steve's shield clatters less than a foot away from you. 

You shift your focus back to the two men, the fight going in a direction that you're not sure you like.

"Steve, catch," you shout, sending his shield flying back into his hand. He catches the shield with expert precision, using it to block Bucky's strike. They meet with a loud metallic clang, but they both fall away mostly unharmed. 

With the sound of your voice reminding him of your proximity, he whirls around to you. With a heavy boot to your midsection, he kicks you back, sending you flying into one of the abandoned cars on the street. With the wind almost entirely knocked out of you, you breathlessly groan, "Okay, that hurt. That one hurt."

"Are you-" Sam begins.

Before Sam can finish the question, you hear more shots ring out. One followed by a muted thump. 

"Sam?" you frantically plead, unable to fully stand as pain radiates through your body. "Sam?"

"Damn it," Sam groans, clutching his bloodied shoulder. "When we get Bucky back, I'm gonna kick his ass for that."

With a shaky hand on the asphalt, you being to lift yourself up in spite of the grueling agony in your body.

You look just in time to see something horrific. 

Before you can intervene or even process what's happening, the car less than a yard away from you explodes. Before you succumb to the damage done by the debris and your close proximity to the blow, you see Bucky standing a few meters away from you, Steve, bloodied and bruised, desperately trying to clammer to his feet to stop him. 

Before you fade out of consciousness entirely, you see Bucky standing there with the weapon responsible for the blast in his hand. 

Your eyes jolt open only moments later, the loud screech of a large piece of metal debris being lifted off of you. 

The Winter Soldier looks down at you fighting with every ounce of your being to stand. With one shaky leg you place your foot back on the ground, but before you get the chance to find your footing, a merciless hand painfully winds in your hair. You shakily exhale, frantically stumbling to your feet as he harshly tugs you up.

For a moment, he looks at your face. There's no emotion there, no recognition, nothing. 

He's simply confirming his target.

Before you can say anything, his hand goes for your throat. You can barely keep him from winding his fingers around your neck, using every last ounce of power to keep yourself alive. He flexes his hand, once again trying to break the invisible force keeping his metal hand from forming a fatal grip on your throat.

Over his shoulder, you see a few remaining SHIELD agents clambering to reach for an available weapon. Though you're intent on keeping yourself alive, you see an agent successfully reach for a gun, pointing it at Bucky's back. 

And maybe this would prove Sam right, maybe this was irrational grief that overcame you, but you know in that moment you have a choice: him or you.

Him or you.

Him or you.

And though you want to keep your promise to Sam and Bucky, it's not a choice. You focus that last of your energy on protecting him, allowing him to close his hand around your throat. He doesn't crush your windpipe immediately, instead he slow drags you to the edge of consciousness. You wouldn't be surprised if you simply woke up in a HYDRA cell a few days later. 

He raises you, pinning you against the wall. The very tips of your shoes barely scrape the floor and you feel consciousness slipping further away from you. "It's going to be okay," you wheeze against his firm grip. "You're going to be okay."

The words echo somewhere deep inside his subconscious, ringing and amplifying somewhere in the very recesses of his mind:

"Shh..." you coo, gently stroking his face. "It's going to be okay. You're going to be okay. It was just a nightmare."

"It felt so real," he trembles.

"You're going to be okay. I'm here - always."

He jolts his hand away from your throat, allowing you your first large breath in well over a minute. You drop to your knees, holding your throat as you cough and sputter for desperately needed oxygen. 

You found that grief came in sporadic, cataclysmic waves.

Each merciless wave crashing down on you as you tried to tread choppy waters, and every time you felt like you were drowning and your lungs could take no more, you were granted a singular gulp of air. Your lungs and chest ached. Your muscles burned with exhaustion, but that one breath of air kept you marching on. Even if you didn't want to. 

You look up at Bucky, who looks down at you with a concerned, fearful look on his face. With recognition and remembrance in his eyes. 

Both literally and figuratively, this was your breath of fresh air. 

Part 2

A.N.

LISTEN, before you say anything, just know that I didn't want this (a lie) I didn't want to write this (that's also a lie). But I got an awesome request/idea that took root. And I tried talking myself out of it, but it was too late. The seed was planted, the idea festered, and this is what happened.

For the sake of sanity (mine and yours) and to keep the grumpy sunshine series happy and not endless cycles of tragedy for the sake of continuity, we'll call this an alternate timeline. Yes, that's what we'll do. The real Sunshine and Bucky are way over there, living their best, peaceful lives. That is all.

AnonymityIsFun Masterlist Grumpy Sunshine Series Masterlist

#grumpy sunshine trope #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x y/n #sam wilson #james bucky barnes #reader insert #grumpy x sunshine #grumpy sunshine #x reader #marvel fanfiction #bucky x reader #bucky x y/n #bucky angst #james buchanan barnes #bucky #bucky fluff #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes x female reader #anonymityisfunwriter #anonymityisfun #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky x Female Reader #bucky x you #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes one shot #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes au #bucky fic

[insertsickusername13]

Hoping, praying, crying, trembling, please no one read this please it's so bad please. you're going to have to ignore all the typos literally couldn't bring myself to reread this

Richjake Week prompt 1: Rain!!

Word count: 1.6k

Summary: Rich and Jake have a very important conversation. In the rain.

Rich decided a month ago that he’s going to tell Jake when it’s raining. 

He has the image clearly in his head: the sky opening up, mourning for his soon-to-be lost relationship with raindrops Rich decides to see as metaphorical tears. There’s of course an atmosphere of catastrophe in his mind, upheld by the fire in the background and the SQUIP standing behind him, seething out acids that only marred Rich’s body further.

It’s raining now- a harbinger of his doom- and his body feels like it's on fire again. The world is on fire, all the while it's being simultaneously doused and reinvigorated. Jake’s shadow on the concrete in front of Rich only makes it worse.

“I can’t tell if you want me to cuddle you or go away,” Jake says. He tries to take on a joking edge to his tone, the lilt in his voice alight despite the fact the sun isn’t, and Rich offers up a skeleton of a laugh in response. Jake frowns as he sits, tense and hesitant, on the other end of the bench.

Rich pulls his knees up to his chest. They’re outside in the summer rain (though it’s really only a drizzle), Rich having decided to face his reality head-on rather than hide from it among the walls of their apartment. Their apartment (he doesn't deserve that).

He’s curled up on a small, cushioned bench, his side pressed against the armrests as he tries to broaden the space between him and Jake as much as humanly possible.

“I still can’t tell,” Jake whispers and this time around it’s almost soft, his hesitance audible in the small, shaky breath he takes afterward. Rich watches the rain. 

“I want you to stay," he says as if it's simple.

Jake doesn’t seem reassured in the slightest. He remains in the same position as before: back straight, hands on his knees, eyes following Rich’s every movement with a starved type of desperation that echoes. 

“Okay,” he says, “But what do you want me to do?”

Rich shrugs, the words he knows he needs to say so close to physically manifesting them as a fatal blockage in his throat he has to choose between opening his mouth and having vomit spill out or leaving Jake in pained silence. 

“Can I…fuck, Rich, you’re not giving me much to work with here. I—I want to help. Tell me how.”

Rich watches the rain. He watches and decides he hates it. He hates that it has to ruin what he’s so carefully cultivated. He fought like hell to keep Jake. He’d watched Jake try to leave—he’d watched his expressions as he found out about the SQUIP, about the full extent of Rich’s lies and all the ways Jake had been ruined by them. He’d almost left. Rich fought to keep him, begged and promised, and struggled to keep those promises but succeeded nonetheless. He won. It isn’t fair that now he has to fight all over again, has to pick back up his metaphorical sword, and argue until his tongue is bleeding and his lungs are on the verge of collapse just to convince Jake he’s worth a second chance. A third. 

Though there’s some invisible hand on his throat, squeezing his vocal cords and chest with a borderline sociopathic effervescence, he whispers, “I have a secret.”

He watches the rain and doesn’t watch Jake’s innate radiance dim to barely an ember. Jake's nails dig into his knees, the image of Chloe with another man, Chloe with a girl, flashing in his head. He can't lose Rich too.

“You…" he tries, "Okay. Okay. It’s okay. I’m listening.”

Jake shifts closer. Rich almost falls off the bench in his attempts to get farther away, to stretch the distance, to not let Jake touch him or see him or know him or get angry. He pulls the sleeves of his sweatshirt from his wrists to his knuckles, hiding as much skin from Jake’s view as possible.

“You’re gonna be angry at me.”

Lies. Jake doesn’t get angry. He gets defensive, sure. He’ll build up every possible barrier within a moment, isolating himself from Rich and everyone else before Rich can even finish whatever incriminating sentence he’s trying to say, but he doesn’t get angry. Not like Rich’s dad does.

Jake doesn’t seem as aware of this rule as Rich is. He hesitates before he responds, and when he does, he doesn’t deny Rich. 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says, and the words are so carefully chosen—cherry-picked from a stockpile, organized just so Rich would be assured without being condoned---that Rich almost falls for the pretty picture Jake paints. He's knocked out of the delusion as he remembers hearing that exact sentence in a romance movie two weeks earlier.

“Yeah, well," Rich says.

Jake inches closer again, this time just close enough so he can brush his knuckles up against Rich's elbow. Rich thinks he might faint, but he keeps his body so completely unresponsive that even someone as clairvoyant as Jake doesn’t notice the deep-rooted discomfort twisting in his stomach. Without a sign to stop, Jake’s touch solidifies into something precious, something golden and rare. He doesn't let go.

“Talk to me, baby, please.”

Baby. He’s so casual with it, so confident in his relationship with Rich that he can slip in pet names and touch Rich without feeling like the entirety of him is imploding.

Rich hates it. Rich hates that he can’t kiss Jake. He hates that he can’t go out to dinner with him without worrying about what the waiter thinks, what the people next to them think, what his father would think if he ever looked at Rich long enough to know what’s going in in the rest of his life. He hates the rain. He hates that every time Jake tries to reach out—to bridge the gap Rich has been meticulously building ever since Jake first whispered I love you—Rich wants to puke. Because if Jake gets too close, if he touches Rich for too long, he’ll be able to feel the femininity in Rich’s hips, in the build of his hands, in the spaces between the cracks in his body. He’ll know and he’ll never look at Rich the same. He’ll know and he’ll treat Rich like the rain. 

Rich clenches his jaw.

“I’m trans.”

Jake’s still holding Rich’s elbow. He’s completely silent, completely still, barely existent beyond the persistent heat of being alive. Then, the words slurring together with quiet confusion, “So… so you’re a girl?”

Rich is going to die. Rich is going to die. Rich is going to die. Rich is going to die. Rich—

“No! No, I mean you’re—you’re a boy? Which… which direction?”

Rich is too disoriented, too scared, to respond. He practically falls off the bench in his attempt to stand—to escape—an action that Jake mimics as he scrambles after him, hands fumbling to grab on again, to touch him, to know him—

Jake’s fingers tangle in Rich’s sweatshirt, gripping onto that rather than his actual forearms. 

“Hey,” he says, louder than the rain. Then, more reassuring, “Hey, baby, I’m sorry, stop, I’m—”

Jake doesn’t get angry. Jake will get defensive and, as Rich learns the moment he finally manages to open his eyes and face the consequences of his prevaricate lifestyle, Jake gets scared. Utterly, simply, wholly, scared. 

“I’m sorry,” Jake says, eyes so wide and desperate Rich is sure he’ll cut himself on Jake’s gaze. The finality of his apology is either the inevitable breakup Rich has been anticipating for the past weeks or a confirmation of every hope he hasn’t dared dream. 

“It’s okay.” It’s not.

“I—I don’t know what to—you—of course, I—I’m not upset.”

Rich’s response comes on instinct. 

“I’m not a girl.”

Jake nods like he’s accepted a command rather than told a fact—determined, focused, ready to die on the words he’d just been told.

“Okay. So your name’s still Rich?”

“Yes.”

“You’re still my boyfriend?”

“Yes.”

“So… so nothing’s really gonna change?”

Rich wants to laugh. Nothing’s really gonna change? Does Jake not feel like lightning just struck their home and left the entire thing in ashes? Can he not see how hyper-aware Rich is of every fiber of his being, from the curves he’d skillfully hidden with Jake’s hoodie—too big, purposefully chosen for this conversation so Jake won’t search for the signs he’d missed for so long—to the place where Jake’s thigh presses against his own, so close and warm and knowing?

He swallows either a smile or a sob and whispers, “Not if you don’t want it to.”

Jake makes a sound of frustration. 

“But what do you want? I—I don’t know what I’m supposed to be saying right now, Richie, I’m—I don’t—”

Rich guesses Jake has never seen a movie to base his personality off of for this scenario. 

“Just—” Jake tries, gripping harder to Rich’s arm, this time his fingers pressing into Rich’s veins and muscles. “Just tell me what to say. Or do. I love you. I want you happy. With me. I want you to know I support you and you’re still my boyfriend and this doesn't change anything but you’re kind of looking at me like I’m insane or going to hurt you and I don’t know what to say to prove that isn’t true, and this is clearly important to you, and I honestly don’t know why I’m the one freaking out when you just fucking came out to me but please—”

Rich gets on his tippy toes and kisses the rest of Jake’s panicked rant off of his lips. Jake plunges into it, and Rich isn’t sure if it’s because he’s grateful to be back in familiar territory (Jake can do kissing, Jake can do physical) or if he’s glad to have confirmation that Rich isn’t angry with him. Between the feeling of Jake’s arms creeping around his waist with a careful certainty to squeeze the life out of him and the rain, picking up now that Rich had gotten the hard part over with, he doesn’t get the chance to figure it out.

“That was good enough,” Rich says, lips coated with a disgustingly perfect mix of Jake’s spit and rainwater.

“Oh, thank fucking god. Thank you.”

He wraps himself around Rich, closer than he’s ever been before, pressed into Rich’s space like he’s trying to taste it all before he drowns. Nuzzled against Rich’s shoulder, either shaking from anticipation or shivering through his now soaking-wet clothes, he whispers, “So proud of you baby, really—but did this have to happen in the rain?”

“Yes. You have no fucking idea, Jake. Yes, it did.”

#richjake week 2023 #totally didn't do this last minute literally less than an hour before midnight #shut uuuuuppppppp #gonna kms this is the worst thing i've ever written #literally praying no one reads it #please #for the love of fucking god #richjake #jake dillinger #rich goranski #bmc #be more chill #never opening tumblr again no one look at this bullshit #tw internalized transphobia #kinda? #maybe? #idfkkkkkkkk jskfjdskjghkjdhgjdhf #hate myself rn that was so bad #y'all have NO IDEA

[y0itsbri]

yoooo! tagged for this awesome new game game from @depressedstressedlemonzest by the effervescent @ian-galagher @creepkinginc @mishervellous @grossmickey @milkovetti <3

What are some movie /tv quotes that you quote often?

tbh almost every scenario can call for an appropriate quote from the twilight saga

What is your favorite flower?

i love em alllllll but will always have a special spot for ageratums like look at these funky mystical guys

If you were in Avatar the Last Airbender what element would you want to bend? Earth, fire, water or air?

even tho i'm a fire sign, i've always wanted to bend water

What was your first job?

retail baybeee 🎯

What is your favorite breakfast?

i've gone through phases of like only one thing for months on end. used to be: eggos w pb in the middle, banana protein shake, oatmeal w cranberries and crushed almonds, greek yogurt w chocolate chips and honey. but! i think the fav would be pancakes with fresh fruit and different syrups (maple + a fruity one so i can alternate between bites) with a side of veggie quiches *chef's kiss*

What's a meal from childhood that you love?

i'm a vegetarian now but i miss my mom's sloppy joe's (edit: i told her this and we are gonna make vegetarian sloppy joe's next week!). also when she would surprise me with apple or cherry turnovers after i had dance practice.

What's your favorite joke to tell?

okay i just looked up jokes and i found one that i think the mootuals will enjoy:

why do cows wear bells? because their horns don't work!

and another for the nerds:

r.i.p. boiling water 😞 you will be mist 🕊️

LOL okay whatever you're getting more jokes that made me laugh

what do sprinters eat before a race? nothing. they fast. 🏃💨 how do you organize a space party? you planet. what did the drummer name her twin daughters? anna 1, anna 2 and a 1, 2, 3,4 🥁 why did the scarecrow win an award? because he was outstanding in his field.

here's one for our safari pal willow:

why can't you trust the king of the jungle? because he's always lion 😩

What's your favorite animal to see at the zoo?

orangutans!!!!!! penguins!!!!!!! manatees!!!!!!! tigers!!!!! giraffes!!!! elephants!!!!

What's your go to quick meal to cook/make at home?

🗣️ peanut butter sandwich

What's your go to meal to cook someone to impress them?

i don't cook much, but when i do, it's not to impress, but to nourish 💪

What's something you want to do better?

being more active! doing things that i keep saying i want to do!

If you're working do you like your job?

just started a new job and my first day on the floor is tomorrow so i hope so!

Do you collect anything? What?

helllll yeahzzz. well i don't like. actively seek things out, but when i see em and bring em home i'm like ah yes and put them in the pile w the others. so i think that's a collection. so: books, rocks, crystals, sea shells, stuffies, art supplies, plants. aka things that nourish and comfort the soul

If you were trapped in a kids tv show, what show would you be okay with being trapped in?

spongebob would be fun i think, as long as i am also a sea creature

An adults tv show?

the white lotus. fuck it LOL. give me absolutely eerie and unsettling drama in the most beautiful places on earth

What kind of job did you want as a child?

vet, fashion designer, chef

Do you follow any sports? What team do you root for?

no sir i do not

If you could be any animal what would you be and why?

clownfish would be vibes. anemone friend

If you could be any mythological creature what would you be and why?

dragon i wanna be big and powerful and also surrounded by crystals

What's the most obscure thing you've had to google for a fanfic you were writing/reading?

axe throwing places in chicagoland LOL

What Milkovich do you identify with most?

mickey

Which one are you actually like the most?

mandy

What Gallagher do you identify with most?

ian

Which one are you actually like the most?

lip

tagging @heymrspatel @grumpymickmilk @pinkmatter-mp3 @messedwithmandy @vintagelacerosette if ya wanna!

#tagged

[fountainpenguin]

New Reedfilter Rules chapter today!

Chapter 3 - “Best Regards”

Read on FFN || Read on AO3

Columbine Longwood and Kalahari Sanderson have a spat, Talon questions how much his adoptive parents care for him, and the Anti-Cosmo pays Thirty-Seven another surprise visit...

(First 800 words under the cut)

.: Reedfilter Rules :.

It does not calculate or risk.

Pleasure's unknown and so is force.

It does not crawl across the bed

And is too steadfast and well-bred

To contemplate divorce.

(Excerpt from The Grey Among the Green, John Fuller, 1988)

-----

Best Regards

Spring of the Lightly Trodden Stones

~3 days after Chapter 1

Inkblot City - Capital of Pixie World - Morning

-----

For three days after New Year's, the High Count's perfectly scrawled, perfectly creased invitation to dinner theater hung like a bat on the bedroom corkboard. Fergus kept it there beside a calendar featuring pixies in trees and vaguely motivational phrases like Tomorrow is a day of work and Look before you ping. He needed to go. He needed to bring Talon to see his father. They needed to talk about Talon, about his future, about the roles they would or wouldn't each play in raising him… It was necessary. An appointment.

It was not, as Columbine Longwood called it in the copy center, a date. The instant the word entered conversation, Sapphire placed a hand on Fergus's back, right beneath his wings.

"Walk away," she told him, cold and firm. Her effervescence tickled the inside of his ear in a swirl of irritated magic and exhaled breath. "She's not worth it."

"I won't walk," Fergus muttered back, but he did stuff his hands in the pockets of his work pants… It would keep him from grabbing the star-tipped pen inside his jacket. "I'm waiting for my copies." Which was obvious; the machine practically screamed when it ran. He'd experimented before and you could hear the noise from here to the toilets. He needed many copies. These were for Hawkins' finance presentation in 40 minutes (Evaluating the effectiveness of current wand technologies and comparing them to other options on the market; Fergus had to be there because Thane couldn't make it and he was the only other person who studies wands enough to give unbiased advice about their inner workings regardless of Fairy propaganda and pretty shells).

Anyway, Longwood couldn't tell him where in this building to go or what to do. She wasn't his boss. Sapphire's, maybe, but not his. Maybe he'd stay in the copy center all day. It might just be a little room, but it smelled sweetly of ink stains and lemon cleaning sprays. Here, the carpet stripes ran north to south instead of east to west. It was a good room. He'd park his butt. Work remotely from here in place of the office down the hall. What was she going to do about it?

Longwood's wings slanted back at his words, drooping low. Incidentally expressive. All six people in the copy center looked directly at her because of it… even her own freckle-faced intern, who floated nearby with a manila folder pressed against his chest. Longwood corrected quickly, pushing herself back into a floating position. Her dull gray fingernails clenched so tightly against the meeting notes in her hand, the page crumpled.

"I was making a joke. Ha ha, ha ha."

No one else laughed. Sapphire's cold fingers pressed so close to the slits for Fergus's wings, she grazed bare skin. Nearly imperceptible. Tiny half-moons. He turned around.

"I think you knew exactly what you were saying. You're accusing me of matchbreaking."

"It was a joke," Longwood defended again. Fergus tried to speak, but Sapphire's nails bit softly against his skin.

"She's not worth it… Longwood, back off."

Now that sounded like a joke worth laughing at. Back off? Longwood lived her life fighting to be the type of person who was worth responding to when she let some quip or challenge fly. She sort of basked in being the workplace enemy… Fergus couldn't define exactly why, but he'd long suspected her need for attention stemmed from being the lastborn child in a very big family. Longwood liked to own things, and things required money. She worked for that. She always knew exactly what she was doing, buzzing around in a fuzzy gray sweater that only barely passed the company's workplace attire requirements… It was very nearly silver. Very nearly against the rules. That seemed to be her motto.

Longwood landed then on one of the copy machines not in use, gripping it with her hands and curled toes. She crouched like a mountain cat with an invisible twitching tail. "It's a joke! … I'll say it again for those who didn't hear, and I'll emphasize the part of it that's meant to get a rise: 'It seems like you're making more of an effort to see Talon's daddy since your match took on a damsel's body, and if I didn't know better, I'd say you're meeting up with him for a date…' It implies matchbreaking, which is statistically unlikely. It's hilarious."

"I will bite you," said Sapphire, holding Fergus's arm with both hands now. "This is your only warning."

#fanfic #Reedfilter Rules #ridwriting #We're Pixies! #I'm wasp dad trash #Bat cube and associates #The bat with the hat #Tag for Talon #Cedar toothpick #Did I already lose about 5 posts this month by adding a Read More? Yes. Am I risking it again? Also yes #fic announcement

[cassidyawesome]

Cassidy reviews shows #1!!!: My dress-up darling

TL;DR: CUTE GIRL DOT DECK, insanely charming, cute outfits, good relationship, really funny zoomer talk /srs.

This show….rocks beyond belief!

I’m all things considered a casual anime fan, a lot of stuff i’ve watched is pretty in line with dress up darling (Bunny girl senpai, rent a girlfriend). I hold bunny girl senpai extremely high as a thing i love, and i was holding this show to that level of standard…and it met it very easily in my opinion.

I went into this show expecting some ecchi trash, like some real shit that’s gonna make me uncomfortable. Thats not what i got (well it kinda was) i found myself watching an extremely pleasant and FUNNY show. This show is chock a block full of people just…enjoying what they like AND ALSO LEARNING TO LIKE THINGS, WHICH IS EXACTLY THE ARC I AM HAVING IRL. It was an extreme comfort seeing Gojo and Marin just be friends, they warm up to each other, Marin gets Gojo into stuff she likes, they bond over it.

The standout detail to me about this show is that…Marin and Gojo are just people. Normal dudes (At least until Marin drops that she’s a model on the low and acts like it’s nothing), like i could both meet and be Marin irl. She literally canonically has multiple blorbos. She talks in crazy zoomer speak that i found funny and incredibly endearing. Gojo is an average guy, he’s got a goal, he doesn’t like stepping out of his comfort zone (until he meets Marin).

The real Shmeat of this show is the outfits, the cosplay the dress-up in the darling. And well, it’s cute! Marin’s cute in her obsessing about characters she loves and wanting to be them (i relate to her so much in this area). Gojo’s cute in he wants to make Marin happy, which then leads to him wanting to make himself happy by pursuing his new craft. My favorite of Marin’s cosplay’s is Shizuku-tan.

The one thing i don’t like about this show is the arc(?) with Juju and shinju. It felt very unnatural for the flow of the show for them to introduce two characters - one of which is pretty similar to Marin but kinda just more annoying. The thing that rubs me the wrong way with this is the little sister. She’s the “reverse loli” trope that’s kinda just uncomfortable to watch. I was terrified she was gonna just a joke like “haha girl is tall girls aren’t tall how weird”. This isn’t what happens but what does happen is still kinda uncomfortable and just kinda made me weirded out. Luckily this arc is short and results in some good positive character development for Marin and Gojo.

—-final thoughts—-

(Spoilers for this part) Some last comments i have is This scene at the very very end . Marin has gojo fall asleep while on the phone with her to calm her down, when he’s asleep she tells him she loves him. Not only was this extremely satisfying ending but also very natural feeling.

(No spoilers for this) My last comment is about the Ending song (i know there’s a word for these but idk it). Long story short it’s the cutest shit. The little art style it’s in is adorable, the colors, the expression, THE MOVING PATTERN ON HER SKIRT. The little fish that are just hanging out. Effervescent.

My overall opinion is that this show is incredible. I’m gonna give this a 9.3/10. Both mc’s are insanely relatable to me. Marin is a very gender affirming character to relate with for me. Great story. Incredible aesthetic and settings. GREAT HUMOR! this was my favorite part of the show, the way Marin speaks made this show stand out so much. Watch this show if you like any of these things.

#my dress up darling #marin kitagawa #anime #cassidyreviewsshows

[everlasting-leo]

{bree kish, four hundred and seventy nine, cis woman, she/her} || leonarda da sabbioneta is a mutant with the ability of immortality. they’ve been in new york for 36 years where they spend most of their time as an art therapist at the xavier institute. when i think of them, i think of long flowing dresses in jewel bright colours, wine spilled across scrubbed wooden tables, and effervescent laughter. they are affiliated with the xavier institute.

@c23intros​

QUICK FACTS full name: leonarda da sabbioneta age: four hundred and seventy nine  gender: cis woman mutation: immortality personality: bubbly, friendly, low level hysterical height: 5′0 (she was normal height in the renaissance, it’s not her fault everyone got taller) star sign: taurus fc: bree kish​

TASKS

TASK 1 || let’s talk about the mutant situation

Leo, as she prefers to go by these days, has been around a long time - a (fairly) full timeline of her life can be found HERE but I will also provide a TL;DR because it’s A Lot.

She was born in Renaissance Italy to fairly well-off silk merchants. She had a love affair with Titian, which led to a (LONG) lifetime of trying to recapture that feeling. She’s always hunting down artists and loves being their muse, so she’s sat for many notable painters over the years. Leo really wants you to draw her like one of your French girls.

During her thirties, she had two illegitimate children with Tiziano. They decided at great length to give the children up: Tiziano had his own family to worry about, and Leo felt she could never offer them a normal life. It was the hardest decision she ever made, and the memory of that choice still pains her. For the rest of her life, she has closely followed her lineage with Hobbit-like enthusiasm and likes to be a part of the lives of her descendants. She lost track of her lineage in the chaos of WWII and is currently trying to track people down again.

All that time spent sitting passively for portraits, combined with her parents involvement in the silk trade, led to her becoming skilled with needlework, which has been useful at many times in her life.

Really loves to party: when you’re immortal, life is one big bacchanal. As far as Leo is concerned, everyone should be having fun all the time, and if she thinks you’re not having fun she will drag you out and make you have fun.

You might think approx. five centuries of life would make her smart, but it did not. She is not clever at all, in fact she is a real bimbo. Her knowledge of history is EXTREMELY specific according to who she was sleeping with and where she was at the time. Russian revolution? She’s got no idea what they were revolting about, and she thinks war is pretty boring and gross anyway.

Has no formal qualifications as a therapist, but her open nature makes her easy to open up to, and she’s proven very good at helping young mutants build confidence. Her sessions generally comprise Leo and her patient sitting down while she shows them how to do cross stitch and she rambles on about anything and everything until the patient opens up. Due to the sheer amount of life experience she has, she can almost always find a way to relate or bring up some historical figure that she knew with similar problems.

Has a pet giant turtle called Lettuce - Lettie for short. Lettie is about 140 years old, and Leo got her as a gift when she was still a baby that could fit on the palm of her hand. Now Lettie weighs about 250lbs, and can often be found plodding around the Xavier Institute when Leo forgets to shut her door.

Can accidentally sound incredibly clever because Latin is her native language, she’s a massive Shakespeare fan (so many dick jokes! Hilarious!), and she has very niche knowledge on very specific parts of history. Don’t be fooled. She’s so dumb <3 but she means well.

Devout Catholic, never misses Sunday Mass. Fortunately it’s easy to repent when you know you’ll never meet God: she gets all the fun of Catholicism with none of the guilt.

CONNECTION IDEAS

PATIENTS // Past or present! Since Leo has been at the Institute for a long time it’s possible that even if your character is older now, she helped them come out of their shell in their younger years. Sessions with Leo are basically big gossip sessions, and if your character isn’t talkative she’ll fill in the silences and make sure you have something cute to show at the end of it.

FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES // Leo loves surrounding herself with the talented and powerful. Especially artists, but really anyone notable. She likes to feel involved :O) if your character is influential there’s a strong chance she’s insinuated herself into their lives. Maybe they find her genuinely sweet and amusing, maybe they just put up with her presence because she’s so eager.

DESCENDANTS // Immortality doesn’t mean a lifetime of fertility. She will never be able to have more children but she can still follow her lineage. Currently she’s lost track, but will be doing some research and reuniting soon! If your character would like a chaotic vodka aunt to watch over them and encourage them, please let me know! Only stipulation is that, as Bree Kish is a quarter black, your muse must be mixed race with some black heritage.

#c23intro

[swiftlythebest]

SpiderChar and panel show? 👀

I’m sad because I had this ask all written out and answered and then the app crashed. So hopefully I’m as eloquent and effervescent this time around!

SpiderChar came out of a convo that I cannot find now (probably with Daira but I also can’t find it in our messages so who knows!) where it’s the classic thing of the love interest being into both the normal boy and the superhero, and the superhero flirting with the love interest because he thinks that’s where his only chance is and it’s just a two person love triangle. And I wanted that for Nick and Charlie. But around the time I started planning it, a few HS Spiderman fics got posted so I kind of backed off. But maybe I’ll return to it! Anyway, here it is in its entirety:

A cup was stuck to Charlie’s hand. And not because someone had taped it to his hand or because he’d come into contact with some kind of industrial strength glue. No, the cup was stuck to Charlie’s hand because he’d been bitten by some insane, glowing spider last week.

Panel show came from me thinking it would fun to have a fic where Nick and Charlie are on a panel show together and there are very obvious ~vibes~ happening. That morphed into them being on Taskmaster together and being paired for the team challenges. It’s very fun and I love what it is so far, but it can be difficult to write because I’m so obsessed with being accurate so it’s slow-going. Here’s an excerpt:

“Okay, fine. I made a tiny joke about him once. More of a comment, really —“

“‘You’re not allowed to be athletic, handsome, and funny! Some of us only get one,’” Tao recited Charlie’s joke in reference to Nick Nelson going into comedy after retiring from professional rugby due to injury.

“Right, I said that when asked about him on Radio 1. And then he was on the next day, and they played him the clip, to which he said —“

“‘And his is handsome, right?’” Even though it was only Tao mimicking Nick’s words, Charlie still blushed.

WIP titles!

#asked and answered #swearphil #wip title game #heartstopper #the woes of writing

[passthelines]

Our genuine concepts.

Pass the Line, a theme from ENHYPEN's "Manifesto: Day 1" album, specifically highlights the songs "Pass the Mic (Future Perfect)" and "Walk the Line". These tracks speak to the importance of rising up and voicing our aspirations with passion and determination.

"Pass the Mic" is a song that inspires us to showcase our talents, become role models to others, and never give up on our ambitions. It acknowledges the importance of having a supportive fan base and encourages us to continue striving for success.

"Walk the Line" tells a tale of a group of individuals working together to overcome obstacles and achieve their dreams. The lyrics highlight the strength and courage needed to confront fear and uncertainty and provide motivation to persevere through adversity.

Both songs contain powerful messages that encourage listeners to keep moving forward, no matter what hurdles they may face. They remind us to stay motivated and dedicated as we work towards our aspirations.

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The Auditeur

Jovanca

https://twitter.com/AuditeurJoca

𝗝𝗼𝘃𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗮, the epitome of warmth and cheerfulness. His effervescent personality radiates joy and positivity, enveloping those around him in a comforting embrace. A true embodiment of the phrase “sunshine on a cloudy day”.

2. Nadeen

https://twitter.com/AuditeurNadeen

With his gentle demeanor and friendly smile, 𝗡𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗲𝗻 exudes a positive aura. His kind-hearted nature and approachable personality make him a joy to be around, leaving everyone feeling at ease in his presence.

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https://twitter.com/PassTheLines

𝗞𝗮𝗹𝗮 exudes a warm aura that puts people at ease in his presence. His inviting demeanor and comforting energy make him a natural people person, drawing others to him like a moth to a flame.

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