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badnoahmens · 11 months

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I took your keys, it was me

Noah Sebastian x Reader

A/N - One of the longest fics I’ve written. Please let me know if it is too much drabble (but also please be nice because I am a fragile little person) and also I’m sorry if there’s typos because I just do that sometimes.

Based off of something that happened at a Bad Omens show, how could I not write about this fantasy? Watch the first few seconds of this to get what I mean. https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSLYKGjCV/

The night had finally arrived, the concert that you had been waiting months for. For the first time, Bad Omens was playing in your city, and it didn’t matter how much tickets were going to cost you or how long you would have to work to build your funds up again, there was no way you could be stopped from going. Your friends like them too, and shared the excitement, but you would never admit how much their music had a chokehold on your life. Whether it be the thrashing drums of ‘Artificial Suicide’ pumping you up for the day, or the moody solemn tones of ‘The Fountain’ that made you cry at 2am, this band was a big part of who you were.

Your outfit was planned, a classic you always felt confident in, and your schedule for the night was mapped out. The easiest way was to drive yourself there, meet up with your friends, and then make your way into the venue. With the price of VIP being way out of your budget, you couldn’t bring yourself to justify it. Seeing them live would have to be enough, and of course it would be.

When the night came, the stars seemed to align for you. Finding a car park nice and close, only a 5 minute walk to the venue, as well as somehow magically not being late to meeting up with your friends. The energy inside of you was buzzing and you had a bounce in your step as you walked up to see your friends all huddled at the end of the line. They welcome you with embracing arms and you all talk about how you ‘can’t believe the night is finally here!’

“What song are you most looking forward to?” your friend asks, now about an hour into waiting in the line, sitting now with legs crossed and looking back at the growing line behind you.

“I’m really hoping they play Miracle. That song's progression and build up is just something else. Can you imagine what it would be like?” you reply with enthusiasm. The conversation continues for the remainder of the evening as you wait patiently for the show to begin.

After more time has passed, the line begins to move. The doors have opened and people are starting to funnel their way into the dark room. Although it was calm before, the energy of everyone waiting to see this sold-out show picks up instantly and the volume begins to grow with excited chatter.

Your group splits up, some heading into the crowd for a good spot to watch the show, others head for the merch line, and at least one headed straight to the bar. You opt in for the crowd. Being a seasoned concert-goer, you stuck to the right hand side, knowing this is where a lot of movement happens and it was more likely you could get a closer view.

The supporting band started and the crowd lurched forward, still not reaching the maximum capacity as people were still floating about. Your legs trip a little underneath you before you finally find your footing. A familiar riff begins to play and the opening band takes their turns making their entrance to the stage. The light was dim so only silhouettes could be seen, but it was a thrilling way to start the night. The band continued to play an entertaining show, interacting with the crowd and thanking everyone for coming to see them. With about a 30 minute set, they truly put in all their effort by playing crowd favorites, new songs, and even a call-back to their earlier music that was a personal favorite.

By the end of their allocated time, they thanked the crowd, tossed out their remaining guitar picks and drum sticks, and then headed off backstage. There was quiet music playing off the speakers now while everyone in the crowd used this time to catch their breath. Others needed a break from the sweaty mosh pit, and left to take care of whatever business they needed to. The group in front of you decided to head out, and kindly offered you their spot. You obliged, barely even hearing them ask if you wanted to move up, and slipped by them as they made their way out. By the time you manage to steady yourself, you realize it is only a single row back from the front of the crowd, the barricade almost within your reach. You didn’t want to push it though, knowing how long some of these people waited to have their spot up front, you just stood your group and hoped there would be an opening at some stage.

Even without any band playing, the crowd was still moving quite a bit, to the point where people were getting a little rowdy. It seemed as though some were growing more impatient as time went by and were trying to move around and gain a more advantageous position. Throughout this movement, someone was shoved, acting like dominoes into your direction, knocking a few people over. As you start to feel this happening, your hand instinctively throws itself to the barricade, reaching between two people to stop yourself from crashing down on top of the people next to you. In doing this, you catch the person who falls on you, a teenage boy by the looks of things. He looked a little embarrassed and even a little flustered, but thanked you and righted himself quickly. Those who were in front of you saw that you had reached up to help yourself, and then did their best in the crowded space to assist you where you coud. Two nice strangers parted just enough for you to stand upright and motioned for you to join them along the front. WIth all the movement occurring, you thought it was probably the safest move to have something to hang onto, not to mention it was the best spot in the house.

Almost as though it was timed, just as you got into your new position, the lights dimmed and the crowd absolutely roared with cheer. You could feel the crowd move in waves behind you with pressure crashing into you. In what looked like slow motion, figures began to grace the stage with their presence, with the soundtrack of a low, slow and suspenseful drum beat starting to fill the room. It was almost hard to hear the guitar and bass begin over the noise the crowd was making, some sounding like caged animals as they screamed bloody murder.

The lights lifted in time with the melody that began, and lo and behold, Noah was standing in front of you. His eyes were shut with one hand pressed up to his ear, a microphone held in his other hand. Jolly was next to him with a stoic look on his face, and Nick Rufilo on his other side, looking down as he strummed the tune being played out. Nick Folio was behind them all, sat up on a raised box adorned with his drum kit, gently beginning to build the heartbeat of the song.

It took you a moment to truly wrap your head around what was happening, Bad Omens we’re finally playing in front of you. In person. Barely a few feet away from you. It’s mere seconds after this happens that electricity runs through your body and you’re immediately jumping along to the hook of the song, ‘Nowhere To Go’. The barricade in front of you was a saving grace as you could feel the swell of people behind you tossing themselves around, breaking apart spaces to dance and thrash about. It didn’t take long before crowd surfers began to topple over you, falling into the arms of security guards that dappled the empty space between you and the stage. You were shoulder to shoulder with strangers, but it didn’t matter anymore. These people were your people because you were in a space where nothing even mattered other than the performance you were witnessing.

The first song comes to a close too soon, and the next begins, each member of the band not missing a beat. You could see it in their eyes that they were just as excited as you were for this show. Noah in particular seemed to be in a good mood, shuffling, dancing and bopping around on the stage, seemingly less serious than normal. He was blowing kisses to his bandmates, to which would send them right back to him. They laughed and joked during the performance and it made the whole show that much more entertaining.

More songs came to a close, and it seemed like Noah himself needed a break from the high-energy show he was putting on. The crowd was starting to settle down, still swaying with the songs but the initial throw of bodies had started to slow. During this rare break in music, your hand swiftly brushed against your pocket and you noticed the lack of contents that should have been there. Your car keys, that you literally needed to get out of here, were no longer clipped and safely tucked away in your pocket. A panic begins to wash over you and your eyes dark around the crowded space as best you could. Leaning over the barricade, you check to see if you can see them, if they had somehow shimmied down and onto the floor there, but to no avail. Your feet are shuffling around in the hopes to maybe, just maybe, kick them or feel them in some way, but there is nothing but other people's shoes and the odd drink can that had been carelessly discarded.

It was then when your ears pricked at the sound coming from in front of you.

“Are you okay? You drop something?” and then nothing followed. Amidst your panic your eyes dart up, meeting those of Noah looking down at you. His chest was still heaving slightly, seemingly out of breath himself, but he seemed genuinely concerned about the state you were in. “You alright?” he asks, with the crowd looking around with confusion.

“My keys,” you call back, trying to break above the sound barrier that was the chatter of the crowd around you. Noah looks perplexed as he tries to decipher what you’re saying. It still hasn’t quite hit you that Noah was checking in on you, and you can tell he didn’t quite hear you, so you repeat yourself again. “Keys!”

“Keys! Oh, we need those” Noah retorts, and leans over his perch on the stage so that he towers over you in the crowd. He seems to peer down at the space in front of you, and then drops down into the photo pit right where you stood. It was starting to dawn on you that the singer of your favorite band, the one you had been waiting so long to see, was standing in front of you, at his own concert, paused, for your own benefit. It wasn’t long that you shared this space with him, as he jumped back onto the stage, throwing one long limb up behind the other back to help him get back to his position.

“You’re staying here forever, with us!” he jokes, but there was something to his voice. It seemed odd that he seemed to help for such a short amount of time, even at all. But it was understandable, he had a show to run, and you were just attending said show.

As Noah paced to the side of the stage, he was swinging a small trinket in his hands, curling his long fingers and then catching it again in the palm of his hand. The familiar glint of one of your keychains sparkled in the red lights shining down on them as they were tossed in Noah’s hands, spinning your car keys tauntingly in front of you. Unbeknownst to you, Noah had helped, he had found your keys, and then, being the pesky prankster he was, had stolen them right from you.

“I took your keys! It was me” he admits, finally dangling them and then tossing them to a crew member side of stage in one fell swoop. It took you longer than you would like to admit to closing your mouth after it hung ajar with shock, and Noah laughed to himself at your reaction. Bewildered, and honestly shocked at what had just happened, Noah couldn’t seem to wipe his shit-eating grin off his face. He was proud of himself, but you? Honestly, like, come on dude, those are your keys, you really need those. How were you going to get them back? Who even had them? What if you really can’t get them back? Questions circled your mind as the world around you continued to move on.

“Alright, so anyway…” Noah moved on, giving instructions to the crowd on how he wanted them to interact with the following song, to which they of course obliged. You on the other hand were still so perplexed, that honestly, it made it difficult to focus on what was happening. Despite this occurring, the rest of the night continued smoothly, no more disruptions from crowd-members misplacing their shit, and the band performed an incredible show regardless of your confused state that slowly lifted the further on in the show you got.

By the time the show came to an end, the encore had played out, and the band was waving their goodbyes, it came to your attention that you really needed to do something now about getting those keys back. But before you got their attention, all four members of Bad Omens were walking away from you with their backs turned in your direction. You called out again, leaning half of your body over the barricade, but to no avail. Defeated, your face falls into your hands, elbows propped up on the cool metal in front of you.

What now? Do you call a cab? Did you even still have your phone, or was that lost too? More and more questions circled your head, making you feel dizzy and overwhelmed. The strangers who neighbored you in the crowd asked if you needed help, but you thanked them and sent them on their way. This was your mess, plus, your other friends were here somewhere too, so surely they could help you out instead. You turn now, leaning back against the barricade, and start scanning your eyes at the emptying venue. A small tap on your shoulder brings you out of your concentration and makes you jump a little. With your head whipping around, you saw it was someone unfamiliar, but obviously a person with the credentials that allowed them to be on the other side of the metal barrier.

“You the one who lost their keys?” he asks, a quizzical look on his face, voice slightly louder than the background music now echoing in the venue.

“Yeah, that's me. Although I think it’s more like having my keys stolen” you retort with a laugh and a little disbelief still. The man opposite you laughs at the remark and looks off to the side.

“Look, if you’re quick to jump over, you can come get them. I think I know who took them and they’re around the back.” His hand motions to the side of the room towards the end of the stage, and there is a clear, small opening that you could fit past. Disregarding any ‘stranger danger’ knowledge from growing up, you trust this man and slip past the barricade, feeling a little out of place after being home in the crowd for the majority of the night.

“I’m Miles, it’s nice to meet you. Did you have a good time?” he asks as you start to follow him around the side of the stage, clearly trying to entertain you with small talk and ease your obvious nerves just a little. You answer him, including by introducing yourself and explaining the pickle that the key-stealing-fiasco has put you in. He seemed genuine, sharing stories of other pranks he had seen the band pull off, but did apologize after knowing that it made you feel worried during the show.

Your concern starts to grow the longer you follow this man, despite his tales of being the band's manager, and sharing some of their antics. You tell him about the lead up to today, and how long you had been waiting for this show to be announced, to which he apologized again, explaining some conflict they had with touring schedules and whatnot. It all seemed pretty genuine, but it was distracting to the point where you had no idea where you were now amongst the maze of hallways and doors. Even though the anxiety started to dissipate, the curiosity is what was growing to take its place.

You round one more corner, following the stranger blindly, and are met with a room with a low ceiling, black walls, and the hum of the fluorescent lights above you. Not only that, but there were people here too. Many people. Maybe 10 bodies in this room, make you suddenly aware that the air was thick with sweat and the antiperspirant trying to hide the same smell. Most of the people in front of you had their backs to the door you just entered from, engaged in a conversation they all seemed too excited to be a part of.

“Noah! Care to return the keys you stole?” Miles calls out, and you felt like a little kid hiding behind their mother with the way you stood behind him. With his call out, most of the bodies turned and looked in your direction, to Miles, and all looked shocked at his sudden interjection. Although he used a lighthearted tone, and you didn’t even say anything, it still felt like you were overstepping.

“Key girl!” You hear being called in a familiar voice. “Yes! Let me find them…” the figure continued, coming from the back of the crowd, followed by the sound of rummaging. About a minute ticked by when he started walking through the crowd, a head taller than the others around him. Noah Sebastian, the same vocalist from the band you just saw was right in front of you, a smile sheepishly adorned on his face as he may you at the door frame.

“I swear they were just here” he says guiltily, with eyes darting from yours to then back at the room he was standing in.

The tightening in your chest felt so unnatural, but it was intimidating seeing him this close, in person, and without the veil of a performance in between the two of you. Your eyes are looking into his warm gaze, and although as annoying as it was to lose your items, this was something you never expected it to come to.

He looks away as he pulls out his phone, promptly making a call whilst looking back over his shoulder.

“Hey! Those keys I threw at you during the show, where did they go? I could have sworn I saw them in the green room…” he trails off to the unknown contact, followed by some “Mmhmm”’s. He looks at you again, meeting your eyes, making a guilty expression and biting down on his lip.

“I see, would it be okay if someone brought them back here? They’re ready to be collected” he states, and you may have been mistaken but was that a wink at you?

He ended the conversation, stating “they’re on their way”, and then stood to the side of the door. “Please come sit down, it’s the least I could do” he pleads, motioning with his arm for you to enter the room.

Your throat was tight and you could feel the awkward heat starting to flush your cheeks as you stood there a little embarrassed. How could you say no?

“Thanks for finding them for me anyway” you state, walking past him and trying your best to swallow the ever-growing lump in your throat.

“I mean, I’m sorry that I took them. I just thought it would be a funny bit. And then I completely forgot about it” he said sheepishly. He followed you into the room, taking a drink from the mini fridge and offering you a bottle.

“Drink while you wait?” He asks, as though he is trying his best to be a good host.

You take the bottle in your hand, while pulling over one of the black plastic chairs to sit down on, as other members of the band started to do the same next to you.

“Honestly, I had no idea what he was doing,” Nick Folio called from behind him in between gulps from his water bottle. He then leans forward and holds out a hand to you. “I’m Nick '' he says with a wide grin. You shake his hand and then twist the cap off your own drink as you reply with your name.

“Neither did I” Jolly joined in, “I thought he was just pretending” he joked as he leant up against the table.

“I see what you did there!” Nick Rufilo said, pointing at him and smirking at the joke you were sure they had heard thousands of times before, also sitting down in the social-circle that was starting to form.

You couldn’t help but smile at the interaction, and a warmth swelled in your heart as you glanced at Noah, who was sitting opposite you on a lounge against the wall, and who had a smile spread across his face as he watched the banter between his bandmates. It almost felt intrusive that you got to share this moment with them, it seemed intimate in a way that only close friends got to see this side of them. This band was largely a mystery, keeping to themselves and presenting as a theatrical showcase spectacle when on the stage.

“Thanks again for your help” you say sheepishly, in an attempt to continue the conversation. “I think it would still be looking for them if you hadn’t grabbed them. That, or they’d be crushed”.

“Yeah, that crowd looked fun! Was it rough? I kind of miss those days'' Jolly asked, curious to know how the show was from the other side.

“It was crazy, but everyone loved it. Honestly, the show is fantastic. What kind of things go into organizing that kind of performance?” You ask, half being polite, half being nosey.

“It’s a lot of trust in the right people” Noah stated, looking over at some of the crew who had just joined you.

“And having a perfectionist of a vocalist overseeing every detail that goes into the show” Rufilo remarks, teasing his band mate.

“So I want to give people the best show of their lives! Sue me!” Noah flails his arms and slumps back into the lounge.

The conversation continues, branching off into music influences, tales from the road of touring, and embarrassing stories from the group that probably shouldn’t have been told to you.

It had been some time, and the keys were still not located. It was something that still was on your mind, but you weren’t upset at how long this was taking. Your drink was empty, so you absentmindedly played with the bottle in your hands as you listened attentively as Folio shared a fond memory from earlier on in the tour.

Noah noticed your toying of the bottle, and stood up to walk towards you.

“Care for another?” He asked, whilst holding his hand out to take the empty.

“Thank you, but maybe not. Still need to drive, remember?” You answer with a stifled laugh.

“Oh shit, that’s right. The whole reason you’re here. Where did he go…” his whole demeanor changes from a relaxed, cool being, to a more frantic and concerned expression.

He strides over to the table Jolly was now sitting atop, picking up items of clothing and shifting bottles around in an attempt to find your keys.

“Noah!” Someone called, to which he spun around to, flinching at the sudden sight of keys being tossed in his direction. With a quick response, he catches them in one hand, smiling at the effort.

“Keys secured!” He calls, looking in your direction with a gleeful smile. He walks over to you, once again brushing his hair back with his hand, and holds them out to you.

As you look down at them in the palm of his outstretched hand, it’s almost like they taunted you like they did earlier in the night with the way the light bounced off of the metal. You reach out and take them from him, trying to be polite but also suddenly aware of the closeness between you two.

“Did you park far from here?” He asks in a quiet tone, the softest you’ve heard him all night.

“It’s only about a 5 minute walk. Thanks for the hospitality, it’s been nice talking” you reply, looking up at him, very aware of the height advantage he had over you.

“I’ll walk you to your car, can’t have you be murdered after what a great night it’s been” he laughed, eyes crinkling at the sides as he looked over his shoulder. “Be back soon, just making sure key girl doesn’t get murdered!” He calls out to the room, referring to you by your new nickname amongst the group. An earlier conversation had made it stick, after Rufilo mentioned it sounded like it had a James Bond-esque vibe to it.

“Don’t kill her yourself, Noah!” Folio calls back with a humorous tone. “But really, don’t. I can’t be bothered going through getting a new vocalist when you get your ass in jail” he continued, face dead-pan.

“Shut up,” Noah replied, rolling his eyes.

You wave to the room, thank them again, and then turn to walk out, Noah closely following.

“You really don’t need to do this. It’s not far” you argue.

“No, it’s okay. It’s nice to get some fresh air” he mentions as you find one of the doors leading out behind the venue.

There was a small crowd of people loitering off to the side, oblivious to your presence. Noah sees it, and hesitates to walk forward. You catch on to this, then also see the group.

“You can go inside if you don’t want to see them” you offer.

“No, it’s not them, I’ll come out when I get back to talk to that group. It’s just… maybe we go the other way? Otherwise we will be there all night” He asks, tucking his hands into the pocket of his hoodie.

“Of course, it’s not that much longer” you reply, turning and starting to walk with Noah down the street, in the opposite direction.

As he walks, he pulls the hood up on his head, keeping him protected from the cool night. You, on the other hand, notice the goosebumps rising and a shiver starting to happen. Trying your best to mask this, you try to talk as a distraction.

“What’s it like?” You ask suddenly, trying to hide the chatter of your teeth. Noah looks at you, frowning slightly as he doesn’t really know what you’re asking.

“You know, the fame, the touring, the music… all of it. What’s it like?”

“I really can’t complain. I’ve wanted this forever, and we’ve all worked our asses off for this” he smiles as he looks at his feet walking next to you. “That’s not to say it has its hard days though” he continues, this time looking over at you.

You respond with an understanding head nod, despite not even understanding a little bit. “What are those harder days like?”

Noah thinks for a moment, scrunching his nose and bobbing his head side to side as he tries to find the right words, eyes lifting to scan the sky for an answer. “It’s frustrating” he lands on. “It’s like… you know what needs to be done, but there’s some force stopping it from happening.”

“Do you mean when it comes t-to music?” You chatter back.

Noah glances at you again, looking away from the stars, and down to meet your gaze up at him. He saw the way your arms were crossed tightly over your body, and the rigid way you were standing. Without speaking, he stops in his tracks and yanks his hoodie from behind his head. It slips up his back and over his arms, tugging up his black t-shirt underneath just a little, making the coloured tattoos decorating his torso exposed to the night air. You couldn’t help but watch as his long arms tower upwards, graceful even in the most mundane of things.

Whilst you were still a little hypnotized, he yanks the hoodie off his head, and without warning slips it over your head. The warmth was immediate, the residual body heat from Noah made it feel like a blanket of warmth wrapped around you. The sudden change in temperature took you off guard, as well as the encapsulating fabric restricting your arms.

Noah laughed at your reaction, looking down at the black hoodie you now adorned, large red letters of ‘OMENS’ printed on the front, and the sleeves hanging idly at your sides. It was so long on you, like a dress wearing you instead of you wearing it. You couldn’t help but laugh at the size of it.

“Looks good on you.”

“What size even is this? How long are you?” You ask without even thinking, and then laugh again at the sound of your absurd question. Long?

Noah was laughing too, now with his arms open to the air you could really see the details and color in the illustrations that covered them, right up to his neck. His hair was now ruffled, a mess with strands standing every which way, showing the undercut of his hairstyle.

You were a little entranced looking up at him, both of you standing still and stifling your giggles like a couple of school girls.

“You seem different in person,” you blurt out. “I mean, different to when you were on stage” you state, not sure if this was crossing some kind of unknown boundary.

Noah thought for a moment, a smile dwindling but still upturned. “I guess I don’t need to play this… character… when not on stage” he responds, tattooed fingers coming up to imitate air quotes to emphasize his words. He thinks about what he says next. “I just don’t want anyone to be disappointed when they come to see us play” he remarked, now looking down at his feet, hands going into the pockets of his black pants.

“I really don’t think anyone would ever be disappointed” you reply, with an undertone of confidence. Noah sighs and smiles in response.

“I’m serious!” You call, slipping your arms into the oversized sleeves and playfully whacking him with the extra material hanging from you.

Noah turns his body, bracing for the light impact, and laughing at the futile attempt to seem demanding. It helped to lighten the mood a little, as you were worried you’d stepped into a personal space he wouldn’t feel comfortable in.

The two of you look ahead, down the dark street, and then start walking again. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry” you state.

“Not prying, don’t apologize.” Noah shook his head and looked down at you again. Every time he did this it made you forget how to breathe. Seeing him this close made you appreciate all the little things you never noticed about him. The marks from piercings from a past life, freckles that dotted the side of his face, even to the uneven stubble that was starting to grow on his jaw. Up close, he was normal, not this enigmatic figure performing. He was himself, vulnerable and insightful.

It made you think about what he was like all the time, if he was serious, if the goofy side ever came out, or if he was quiet and content like now. Maybe a mix of everything? It was astounding to see him so comfortable already with someone he just met, a stranger, and a fan at that.

“Do you often escort your fans back to their cars after shows?” You question, bringing your own thoughts to words.

He laughed breathily before answering. “Not particularly. I’ll usually go out and meet some people after the show once we’ve calmed down. But I can’t say that this is a… common occurrence” he enunciated the last few words in his sentence. It sounded like he was avoiding the lisp that snuck through earlier on in the conversation. “I like to be able to meet people. Thank them. Talk to them like normal humans talk” he explained. “I feel like I can make a real connection with them that way.”

“That makes sense,” you reply.

He continued to tell you stories that involved interacting with fans, and then drifted into interactions with other bands. He told you of his fondest memories while on a festival lineup in the UK. He met an idol of his, and being able to talk to them was something he’ll never forget. The way his eyes lit up when he was talking about this made you smile and it seemed genuine as though he was catching up with an old friend.

“Thanks for being cool with my little prank,” he changed the topic. “Actually, thanks for just being cool in general. It’s been nice to talk to someone new like this. I haven’t done it in a long time. It’s hard to meet new people who have good intentions.”

It took you by surprise how he spoke about you. “I think this is going to be a good story to tell” you reply, also trying to think of a way to say you’re grateful for it because you got to spend this time with him.

You could see your car in the distance, safely parked exactly where you had left it. The walk had taken you longer than expected, but neither of you were rushing to make it end anytime soon. Noah seemed to be the one slowing down the pace, regardless of his lack of warm hoodie.

With the last few steps up to your car door, you come to a halt. “This is me” you point to your car. Nothing too flashy, but not something to brag about.

“Nice wheels” Noah eyes your car. “I like how round all 4 of them are,” he says through a laugh.

You laugh too, looking at the car, and then back to him. “Thank you. This has been really special.”

He goes shy again, looking at his feet while scuffing up some of the grass. “Can I ask a dumb question?”

Your mind jumps to the hoodie you still wore, the smell of him enveloping you as a reminder that it was not yours. “Oh, sorry” you state, hands gripping the hem to lift above your head and give back to him.

“No no no, not that,” he catches the hoodie in your hands, “keep the hoodie, I have so many.” his hands let go after pulling it back down over your head.

“If there's anything I can do in return, please say so Noah” you respond, feeling like you were in his debt. Not only did he give you a great performance, he helped find your keys, gave you his drinks, entertained you with wonderful conversation, walked you to your car, and then even gave you the clothes off his back.

“I really don’t want you to think less of me because of this” he said, a hand rising to rub the back of his neck. He was still avoiding eye contact and looking at the ground. It started to make you think you did something wrong.

“Noah, I’m sorry if I ruined your night” you admit, guilt starting to make your stomach do flips inside you. In a flash his eyes were on you.

“No, you didn’t ruin my night, promise! I… I was just going to ask for your number.”

Number? Phone number? You stood there stunned.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. I look like a creep now and I-”

“Of course you can,” you finally answer, understanding why he was so shy and hesitant before. It wasn’t every day that he would ask for this, and it's a big risk coming from him.

He pulls the phone from his back pocket, opening his contacts and then passes it over to you. Your heart was thumping inside your chest like it was trying to break free as you typed in your digits, adding the contact under ‘key girl’. You hand it back to him, looking up at his face. A smile spreads across as he reads the name, letting out a huff of a laugh.

“Will you be back in this part of town any time soon?” you ask, trying your best to hide the bundle of nerves and excitement brewing.

“We’re heading to the next show tomorrow, but coming back this way on our way home.”

“Well, if you need someone to show you around, take you on a personal tour, I know someone with a car with 4 nice round wheels, and a good story about how she lost her keys at a concert once, that could help you.”

“I think I will take you up on that” he replied through a smile. You couldn't help but smile back. The two of you stood there for a moment, relishing in what had just happened.

“I think I should-”

“Yeah, you should go. It’s been a big night” Noah interrupts. You click at the button on your keys, the light flashing behind you in response.

“Thank you Noah, for tonight. And the hoodie, of course.” You step into your car, looking up at him once more.

“It’s been my pleasure, honestly.” He closes the door and watches as you fasten your seatbelt and start to pull away, waving a long arm in the air gently as you do the same back to him.

As you drove, the figure of Noah started to disappear into the veil of darkness that was night. You could barely see him begin to walk back towards the venue and back to his normal nightly routine after a show. Your mind spirals into a replay of the events that have happened tonight, and that led you to driving away from what seemed like a fantasy.

The drive home wasn’t too long, and it seemed to fly by the time you pulled up in your own driveway. Still processing, the key to the door unlocks easily and you walk in, heading straight for bed. Sitting on the edge of the soft blanket-covered mattress, you pull out your phone for the first time tonight, flicking off the ‘do not disturb’ feature, and scrolling through the flood of messages and missed call alerts from your friends. You laugh at some of the remarks made in the group chat, knowing full well they had no clue what had occurred. Some joked about running away and joining the band, others were betting that your phone was lost.

After a quick message to them all letting them know you are alive, a contentedness starts to fall over you. Did all of that really just happen, or are you just taking part of some kind of dream? As you ask yourself this, a light buzz comes from your phone, alerting you of a new message. It came from a number not saved previously.

Hope you got home okay. Thanks for giving me a story to tell too. Will definitely hit you up for that personal driving tour - Noah

You stare at your screen, looking at the words he chose to use. You tried not to read too much into it, but there was a spark that threatened to roar into a fire inside of you that made you believe he could actually want to see you again. Before getting too ahead of yourself, you type out your reply.

Home safe and ready for bed. Thanks for being my key savior. You hit send, but quickly see a response.

Happy to offer my assistance. Next time I promise not to steal any of your belongings.

Next time? You sure hope to god there is indeed a next time.

Part 2

#bad omens #bad omens band #noah sebastian #jolly karlsson #nicholas ruffilo #nick folio #bad omens fanfiction #fan fiction #fanfic #noah sebastian fan fiction #bad omens fic #bad omens fan fics #noah sebastian fanfic #noah sebastian fic

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hearts4youz · 7 months

Text

The Captains Daughter -Chapter 3-

A/N Sorry for the longer wait!!! chapters 4 and 5 are ready to go and will be out this week/weekend as well!! hope yall are doing great and enjoy this chapter! its a bit of a slow one, the next few are too but I promise it will get better!!

@abbiesxox

Word count: 1.1k

Reader pov:

*Beep beep*

4:45 AM, your alarm was blaring. You let out an ungodly noise as you stretched your still sleeping muscles, reaching over to shut it off. Breakfast started in 15 mins, reporting was mandatory. You used the restroom, brushed your teeth, washed your face with your standard issue bar of soap, which to be honest, didn't do much for skincare. It was more for sterilization than anything.

You combed your hair back into a low ponytail. Luckily the uniform regulations were much more relaxed here than your old base. Your hair only needed to be tied back in some form if it was past chin length, instead of the required sleek low bun most other military organizations required.

Putting on your uniform and double knotting your shoes, you opened your door and began walking to the mess. Almost running face first into a man with a mustache. You looked up to apologize and realized it was your father.

"Watch where you're going fatass," You joked. (A/N- please tell me yall got the mean girls reference.)

Your dad laughed, your footsteps fell in sync and the two of you walked to breakfast together.

"How was your first day of training with your Lieutenant?"

"I don't think I'm up to his standards," you confessed. Remembering Ghost's disapointment with you the day before

"Ah yeah, Ghost is tough to please. Don’t stress about it kid, if he’s mean to you it usually means he likes you,” He winked.

You rolled your eyes, “he doesn’t even think I belong here, he kicked my ass when we sparred.”

“Ghost is a great soldier, he’s incredibly strong and has seen a lot of hand to hand combat. He can be blunt, but it’s cause he wants to make you better, not boost your confidence,” your dad tries reassuring you.

“Thank you dad, but something tells me him and I won’t get along too well," your opinion unchanged.

He sighs, the two you enter the mess hall and fall into line.

"Speak of the devil," your dad says, lightly elbowing you.

you turned around to see Ghost and Soap had gotten in line behind you.

"Captain!" Soap exclaimed, with just a tad too much energy for 5 in the morning."

You looked up at him and grinned. He had shaved his face, which appeared to have shaved a decade off of his life.

"MacTavish!" Your father clapped him on the back. "You don't look a day over twelve," he teased.

The four of you laughed, the first time you've seen your lieutenant do anything of the sort.

Ghost caught your quizzical expression and quickly stopped, expression reducing to the same stone faced soldier you were growing familiar with.

"Ghost?" Soap wondered why he stopped laughing.

Soaps gaze switched from him to you.

"Oh," was all that came out of his mouth

You were confused, why wouldn't Ghost laugh around you?

Why did soap seem to instantly know why?

Ghost pov:

I was not about to let Y/N see my "human" side, maybe once she proves she can handle herself. I think as I fork bacon onto my tray.

I dared to steal a glance at her, she was back to talking and laughing with Soap and Price. It is odd seeing someone act so informal around him. I know he is her father and all, but everyone else acts so reverent towards him.

I am due to continue her training at 4:00 this afternoon. Dread fills my veins. I hate the thought of being in charge of the training that is designed to save someones life. What if I fail to teach her something that she needs in a dire situation? What if I am too soft on her and she remains weaker than her opponents.

No, that won't happen.

You will be hard on her, you will show no remorse, you won't feel bad. She is not your friend, she is your sergeant. I repeat this to myself in my head as we gather our trays and walk to the table. I ate in silence, paying little attention to the conversation. Gaz and Alejandro had joined us at this point. I stared down at the plate in front of me. The bacon here is nasty.

I wanted to leave. I hated it with Y/N here.

Its not that I don't like her, well actually maybe that is partially why.

But, when I look at her, its like seeing a child. Something that needs to be looked after, someone with a lot to learn, someone who isn't ready to face the world.

I stood up to leave without a word. I head towards the gym to get in a quick lift before the morning briefing.

"Simon!"

Soap had followed me

"Fucking hell" I said under my breath.

"You cant be a jackass to her forever," Johnny said, jogging to catch up with me.

"Until I can safely befriend her without having to worry about having to identify her body a week later I will be," I huffed.

"Simon, I know it hit you like a truck when Henry Jones, and Bill Anderson died, I know how you get when you hear about the death of anyone," he tried to reason.

"I know you always think it's your fault when something goes wrong. I know you want to protect everyone, and I know you don't mean to be an asshole." I looked at him from the corner of my eye.

"But not everyone else knows that," he continued. "Your colleagues are afraid of you. They think you're heartless. I know you aren't, the rest of the squad knows you aren't, well except Y/N.

Him and I walked the rest of the way in silence. I contemplated his words.

Your colleagues are afraid of you

"I don't want her to be afraid."

"Hm?" Soap turned his head

"Y/N, I don't want her to be afraid of me," I confirmed

"The mask sure isn't helping," Soap joked to break the tension. "Actually, keep it on- whats underneath is worse," he snickered.

"You bastard, I'm not ugly," I cracked a smile from beneath said mask.

Johnny has seen my face once, on a mission. I was sucker punched and it cracked.

"What does she think of me?" I say, curiosity besting me.

"She thinks you're a total dick."

"figured"

"You can fix that though," Soap said "It's pretty simple, maybe instead of beating the shit out of her to start training, you could ask how her day is going." He sarcastically adds

I roll my eyes, "I'm capable of friendship."

Soap laughs, "I'll put in a good word for you LT."

Smiling and shaking my head, I walk away.

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stardusthuntress · 10 months

Text

Triggered

TBB x female!reader (pronouns only)

Word Count: ~3.5k

Summary: Tech accidentally triggers your body dysmorphia. The Bad Batch team up to prove to you that they all love you dearly. Angsty comfort fic.

TW: This actively talks about body dysmorphia. Tried not to be too specific so it would be more generic and just comforting, but it does start with a kinda mean comment from Tech, he means well tho. No smut or nothing, but since it is potentially triggering for those with body dysmorphia, I am gonna label this as 18+.

A/N: Just felt like this needed to be written. Based on my own personal struggles, but also inspired by a conversation with someone on here who might also struggle with this. Hope this helps at least one person out there.

hyperspace dividers my own, tbb dividers by @/djarrex

Sitting in the cockpit, working on a project, Tech continues what is, to him, a normal conversation with the woman sitting next to him.

“I have noticed you are shaped differently than most women.”

He turns towards the copilot seat where she was sitting to find the seat spinning and vacant. He turns towards the door, only to see her exiting the ship.

Echo appears in the doorway, a flash of anger on his face. “What did you do? Why was she so unhappy?”

“I did not do anything,” Tech blinks at him in confusion.

Hunter appears next to Echo. “He told her she’s ‘shaped differently than other women’.” Of course he heard the whole thing from the other end of the ship, but Tech notices his tone implies that he, Tech, should not have said that.

“To us, ‘different’ is a positive character trait. Why did she leave the ship?” Tech asks, perplexed.

Echo sighs searching for words, but it’s Crosshair who answers, “to nat borns, being too different is bad,” is all he says.

Echo scratches the back of his neck and explains, “Most of them don’t like that ‘different’ is negative, but it takes a lot more work than you think to get rid of an idea that is so deeply ingrained in a culture.” He looks at Hunter and glances towards the open ship door.

Hunter returns the look and nods towards the door, “Go talk to her, we got him,” He gestures at Tech.

Tech blinks at them confused as Echo jogs out of the ship after her. Tech looks at Hunter then Wrecker, awaiting the usual explanation that followed his lack of emotional intellect. But they both seemed hesitant to start.

Over the comms they could hear Crosshair’s voice telling Echo where to find her. Cross was in his favorite quiet place, sitting atop the ship watching their comings and goings like a vulture.

Echo finds her hugging one knee and staring off into the distance atop a rock, overlooking the ocean.

“He didn’t mean—“

“—I know” she cuts him off. “But that doesn't mean I can always control how I react to it. I don’t want to feel this way, but my experience has taught my subconscious to react like this. I wish I could make it stop too, but that takes a lot of practice and a ridiculous amount of time. I’ll get there eventually,” she sighs.

He scoots next to her on the rock and just watches her. She glances at him, wishing he wouldn’t, starting to feel nervous about the way he’s looking at her, turning away to hide her face. That is, until he starts to talk again.

“Has anyone ever told you how beautiful your eyes look when you’re lost in thought?”

She huffs out a small laugh. “Even when they’re starting to get puffy and red?”

“Yes,” the confidence in his voice is unmistakable. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Not that meant it,” she mumbles into her knee.

He pulls her into a tight hug, and they sit there in silence for a while.

Echo’s not sure what to say exactly, all he knows is that there’s a lot more that has to be said before either of them are willing to return to the ship.

Echo pauses briefly as he passes her sleeping form curled in a chair.

Tech watches as Echo’s expression softens, and he just looks at her for a moment. Tech tilts his head to one side, like a tooka trying to see if the world makes more sense from a different angle (Tech finds it amusing to take these things literally and figuratively). As he watches, Echo leans down and presses a gentle kiss to the top of her head, and whispers something in her ear. She stirs slightly but doesn't wake. Echo stays put, brushing a hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear and petting her head until he’s sure she’s back out.

Tech feels a pang as he watches. Then his vitals monitor beeps at him. He looks down at his datapad, eyes scanning quickly, looking for the results from the algorithm he wrote to help him connect the way his body reacts to the emotions he struggles with. Sure enough, at the bottom of the screen, his “most likely emotion” algorithm flashes a single word at him: Jealousy.

When she’s settled back down, Echo continues walking to the cockpit doorway where Tech stands.

Echo, “I think we got lucky she was willing to come back onto the ship.”

“She’s not really back,” Crosshair’s voice snakes it ways into their minds, voicing the one thing they’re all worried about and prompting them all to look at her, curled into a tight ball, her head slipping onto her knees.

“She is sad,” Tech analyses. “I did not realize what I said would affect her this much, nor this negatively.”

“I think it brought up old stuff for her. She’s kinda like you, Tech. She needs evidence in order to believe something is true,” Echo notes.

“You are suggesting that I have to prove to her that being different is a good thing?” Tech asks. “I have ample evidence that she already knows that, but I do not understand why she did not take my statement in that way.”

Again, Echo sighs, “When I went after her, she told me… she’s spent most of her life just wanting to be as normal, as pretty, as the other girls, and all she ever got was a lifetime of evidence proving that she wasn’t.” Echo’s voice was quiet. He didn’t like saying it any more than they liked hearing it.

There’s silence as they all take this in. Crosshair had joined them, leaning in the doorway, still watching her sleeping form as they talked.

“But,” Tech is confused, he has a datapad full of evidence to the contrary, “we all react to her in ways that show how we feel about her. Do you mean to say she is incapable of seeing that?”

Echo chuckles darkly, gaze drifting to the floor as he scratches the back of his neck. He wouldn’t have put it quite so bluntly. He searches for a nicer way to explain it to Tech’s analytical mind.

“Yes,” Crosshair got tired of waiting for someone else to answer, “Nat born women are conditioned to doubt.”

Tech opens his mouth to protest, he wants to know what she is doubting, specifically.

But Echo starts talking first, “Nat borns don’t get a choice in the cultural conditioning that plagues them any more than we get a say in how the Kaminoans’ conditioned us. It’s up to us to prove to her that she just isn’t seeing the full picture.”

Tech blinks at the two of them, hoping someone will explain exactly how to do so and what exactly she is conditioned to think, but they don’t. To their surprise, Wrecker, who had been napping in the cockpit, is the one who answers.

“Don’t hide anythin’.” His voice is surprisingly quiet, his expression soft. They don’t often get a chance to see Wrecker this gentle.

They all look to Echo, he has more experience with women than any of them (except maybe Cross, but it’s not like he’s going to explain it to them unless he is forced to), not to mention more experience with the emotions of their brothers and the trauma of his own. Echo nods in agreement, “every glance, every time you want to brush her hair out of her face, or pull her into a hug just to feel her close to you. Don’t hold back. She needs to see it. But for now let’s let her sleep. Hopefully that will help a little.”

Tech finally gets a chance to talk to her the next morning. He had been hoping a fresh day would wash it all away, but it looks like today might be harder than he anticipated. She’s just laying in her bunk, curled into a tight ball on her side, hugging a pillow to her chest, staring off into the distance, a lost expression on her face. As he sits down on the bed by her feet she hides her face behind the pillow.

“I only meant……….” He sighs “To us, being different is good. I didn’t know nat borns don’t see it that way. I apologize.”

It’s quiet for a few minutes.

“I have never experienced sexual attraction to a being until I met you.”

She is still quiet.

He’s racking his brain for some way to comfort her. He’s no good at this part, usually emotional reactions were Wrecker’s department. So what would Wrecker do? His mind travels back to when they were cadets and he had yet to get his emotions under control. There were more than a few nights when he cried himself to sleep on Wrecker’s shoulder. Wrecker used to rub his back and tell him he’d never let the Kaminoan’s hurt Tech. Unfortunately, the damage had already been done, so telling her he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her wasn’t an option. He felt like he already had.

Touch! That was it! She usually responded well to the everyday touches from Wrecker, Hunter, and Echo. So he reaches out and gently places a hand on her knee. She’s wearing sleep shorts, and had tossed the covers off, so Tech’s hand sits directly on her skin. He didn’t usually go for touches like this, because he didn’t understand them, but this one felt like the right thing to do, so he went with it, starting to rub, slowly, up and down on her calf. She didn’t react, but she also didn’t push his hand away.

“Is this okay?” He asks, tentatively.

“Yeah,” she mumbles into the pillow.

He sighs and slumps a bit as he relaxes a little.

They sit there in silence for a few moments, just his hand running up and down her leg.

Tech sits up a little straighter, a look of eureka on his face.

“I can prove it,” he offers.

Finally, she begins to peek out from behind the pillow, and he knows this crease on her brow is curiosity.

“I can prove that I find you sexually attractive.” He clarifies. She just looks at him, curiosity piqued, though not like he’s used to seeing when she’s found something she’s excited to learn more about. Those are his favorite moments with her. When she’s excited to learn something new, and they can talk about the possibilities and implications that has on their day to day life, rapid fire. Learning more about the universe together. He vows to find a way to bring those moments back as soon as possible. They both need it.

He pulls his datapad out and brings up some data. “This data shows my vitals from the moment we met, overlaid on the footage I was recording so you can see the implications of visual stimulation on my vitals.” He sends it to her.

Her datapad lights up, it sits next to her head beneath the pillow that still hides him from view. Tech can see the light from under the pillow and watches as the pillow shifts a bit as she picks it up and looks at it.

After a while the pillow shifts again and the light goes away as she puts the datapad back down. She peers at him over the top of the pillow. She doesn’t have words to say anything. He takes that as a sign that he’s the only one who needs to keep talking right now.

“It took me a while to figure out what I was feeling. You know that I do feel emotions, but I struggle to understand them. But I compared it to the data I have of how my brother’s reacted to you and asked them about what they were feeling and how they could tell. I discovered that we have all become rather smitten with you, myself included.”

“That’s bound to happen considering I’m the only woman you’ve been around for months, and probably the only one you’ve been around for an extended period as grown men,” she mumbles.

“But that would take several months to begin to show an effect, yes?”

“Yeah…?”

“I can prove that our feelings began during our first mission with you. I can pinpoint the exact moment for most of us. I am always monitoring our vitals, so any spike in heart rate, or hormone levels I have recorded.”

He sends her his documentation, where he was attempting to understand what they were feeling. Complete with notes about ‘Echo explained that this is common during human attraction’ and ‘Hunter tells me this is a normal reaction to seeing a beautiful woman’ and even ‘Crosshair has indicated that I should talk to her about this’.

“You now have access to the file so whenever it is updated, you will be notified. I tend to update that one quite often. I hope this is a sufficient way to apologize. I am not sure how else to do so.”

“I’m sorry, Tech,” her voice is timid and quiet.

“Why are you apologizing?” Tech asks, nose scrunched, he does not understand.

“I’m sorry I walked out on you without saying anything.”

“I have come to the realization that when topics may be triggering, it is often easier to simply leave the room. I surmise that is why you left?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t want to force her to tell him more, so he just stayed quiet, hoping she might volunteer more information if she felt comfortable doing so.

“I never wanted to be this different,” is all she says.

“I like your ‘different’,” Tech volunteers.

“Is that you talking, or your brothers? What did they tell you to say to me? How much pity did they recommend you bring to the table?” Her tone of voice suggests she is getting mad again.

Tech’s eyes widen and he shakes his head rapidly. “No! Echo said to never pity someone. He said pity only hurts people. He made us all swear never to pity you for anything. I did not mean to imply that. I like your different, I mean that.”

“Sorry,” she whispers, sinking into the pillows again.

Again his mind reaches for something to help comfort her. He doesn’t like how she seems to be conditioned to apologize so often for things that are his mistake and not hers. Again, touch finds its way to the forefront of his mind. So he reaches out physically this time, for the hand resting on top of the pillow she still clutches.

His hand gently slides underneath her own, threading his fingers through hers. He’s struck with the urge to kiss her hand. He’s not sure why. He’s never felt this before. He tries to hold back.

Until Echo and Wrecker’s words surface amidst the confusion in his mind again, ‘don’t hold back’… ‘don’t hold back’… ‘don’t hold back’…

So he stops trying to hold back and lets go, and leaning forward, lifting her hand slightly, to press a soft kiss to the back of her hand. He doesn’t mean to let it linger, but he’s never felt this way before and he wants to remember it forever.

She looks at him with surprise. And then smiles a little. His heart skips a beat. Again, his vitals chart blinks at him, drawing his attention from her eyes. He laughs softly when he sees the new “most likely emotion” blinking at the bottom of the screen, so he shows it to her.

‘Adoration’, the blinking word reads. This time the smile doesn’t leave her face. It still hasn’t quite reached her eyes, but it’s starting to get there. As she stares in disbelief at the word on his screen, a new message from Echo pops up at the top of the screen.

Tech feels it buzz, but doesn’t take the datapad back, knowing now how important that one word is to her.

Her brow scrunches when her gaze drifts to the message from Echo.

She raises a finger to tap on it, but stops, realizing it’s not her datapad.

“You may open it, if you wish,” Tech offers. “I wish to show you I trust you.”

She smiles, the turbulence inside her beginning to settle again as she taps on the message from Echo.

As the message opens, she begins to shift. Moving the pillow around so she can sit up. As she settles, her hip presses into his own. He does not protest. He likes this touch. He moves to hold the datapad between them so they can both see it. It’s a photo of a beautiful waterfall sent to the group chat with the caption, “you guys would love this place”. He and Hunter were out scouting the camp site while they await their next set of orders.

From the increase in noise just outside the ship it seems that Wrecker is excited to go exploring.

“Would you like to go on a walk?” Tech asks.

She nods, squeezing his arm to her side briefly, whispering a quick “thank you” into his ear. He looks up at her happily as she stands up, letting his gaze linger on her as she bounces to find some civilian clothes to change into. She spots his look and pauses for a moment, confusion on her face.

“I like your happy, too,” he tells her. “You know we pride ourselves on being different. It was meant to be a compliment. I did not understand how sentient beings could be considered attractive until you joined us.”

She smiles at the floor, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“I like your shy, as well,” he adds.

She giggles.

…‘Don’t hold back’… he’s learning what that means. And this time he wants to hug her. So he stands up and opens his arms to her, a question on his brow.

She beams and throws herself into his arms. He wasn’t quite prepared for her enthusiasm. It sends them both back a few steps, until his legs hit the bunk and his hand reaches for the one above to stabilize them.

Today might be okay after all.

When the two of them arrive outside they find the commotion was Wrecker putting together a picnic. Crosshair pretends he didn’t help. They all know he did, but they let him think they believe him. Donning the packs Wrecker holds out, the four of them hike their way out to the coordinates Hunter sent them.

After they’ve eaten, as they are enjoying the sunlight and time off, Crosshair stops her for a moment, tilting her chin up to look deep into her eyes. Where confusion paints hers, his show only confidence and lustful smirk. In a split second the moment is over, he places a kiss on her forehead and walks away like nothing happened. His brothers pretend they didn’t see. Moments later, her datapad lights up with an update from a document of Tech’s. It’s the document he sent her earlier, the one filled with all his evidence that they all adore her. The newest entry is a snippet of a video of her and Crosshair from just a moment ago. She glances at Tech and nods a shy ‘thank you’.

That evening, Tech exits the cockpit to find her laying with her head in Echo’s lap as he pets her hair and they both study their datapads. Again, Tech feels a pang of jealousy, and it is once again confirmed by the flashing word at the bottom of his screen.

He sits down by her feet, pretending to be enraptured by something on his datapad too. She looks over at him and smiles, he returns his signature half smile, with half lidded eyes.

Hesitantly, she stretches out a foot and places it in his lap, biting her lip as she looks at him to ask if this is okay.

Tech holds her gaze and places his hand on her leg, stroking it just like he did before in answer to her question, and letting the hand holding his datapad rest on her ankle. Tech has never been so intimately close to a woman’s ankle before. He’s seen her’s plenty of times, she likes wearing shorter things that let her ankles breathe from time to time, but he’s never had a chance to really memorize every curve of them before, no matter how archaic a fascination with ankles may seem, it’s new to him, and he enjoys it.

Echo glances over, to exchange ‘told you so’ looks with Tech, but Tech is still looking at her, fascinated by the studious look on her face as she goes back to reading something on her datapad, still biting her lip as her mind returns to her work.

Instead Echo exchanges one with Hunter, who has just entered the ship, brushing rain from his ruggishly handsome locks.

Hunter stands in the doorway for a moment, before stepping forward and placing a kiss to her shoulder, then heading to the fresher to find a towel for his hair.

In Echo’s lap, he can feel her cheeks warming as she tries to suppress a small smile. This is new to her too, but who would say no to 5 sweet, handsome men doting on them?

Please don’t steal my work! I pour my heart into these so if you like it please reblog to share instead of reposting it!

#zenith writes #tbb x reader #tbb tech x reader #sergeant hunter x reader #tbb crosshair x reader #arc echo tbb x reader #tbb hunter x reader #tbb x you #the bad batch x reader #the bad batch x you

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petrichormore · 10 months

Text

So about 4halo “dying…”

I’m watching the clip where Forever shows Baghera the book and supposedly “friendzones” Bad because I didn’t actually see the full thing and… why did people think the ship is dead? (I know Forever apparently revived it hours later but bear with me).

Because from where I’m standing, it’s perfectly fine? It’s been more dead in the past. So let’s break the scene down:

(Scene Analysis under cut - I felt like I was watching something straight out of a romcom movie. Also the following is about the CHARACTERS)

So. Forever shows Baghera the book and Baghera asks if he feels the same way. Forever says, “There’s a problem, Baghera - I love him back. (Pause) I love him back, but as a friend.”

Baghera goes “really?” because she’s skeptical and Forever claims that his “heart can’t take it anymore.” (Obviously in reference to Philza breaking it.) He then goes on to say that “After what happened to Philza, I think [thought] I had enough of it.”

I’d like to pause here to point out that at no point in this conversation does Forever sound confident in what he’s saying - he’s uncharacteristically shaken and unsure throughout. He uses phrases like “I thought” and “I’m trying” instead of “I know” and “I am” which imply uncertainty. He phrases his statements like questions, as though he doesn’t know what’s going on in his own mind.

Anyway, Forever says he likes Bad “as a friend” but his reasoning is literally just “I’m not ready for this right now” which… makes no sense to say if the first statement is true. If you aren’t interested in someone, you probably don’t justify by claiming you aren’t ready - because it’s just a fact relating to the other person. Saying “Oh there’s a big problem - I like this person as a friend because my heart can’t take the pain of heartbreak anymore!” Like. That doesn’t really make sense, does it?

He also tries to bring up a conversation dramatrio had a while back about how friendship is better (based, btw) - but to me it honestly just sounds as though he’s trying to convince himself rather than making a statement. Again, he sounds very confused. In response, Baghera points out that “not everyone is happy” with just friendship.

Forever also seems to be just generally confused with Bad’s behavior, as he sees it as uncharacteristic (which it is) and therefore disingenuous. This actually seems to be the main source of distress for him: whether or not Bad actually loves him. He talks to Baghera about how he doesn’t even know if it’s real because it’s so unlike Bad - Baghera agrees that it’s strange coming from Bad, but she believes Richarlyson when he says the book is genuine. Forever doesn’t, and later on in the stream he apparently reveals that he doesn’t understand how Bad could love him in a romantic sense and doesn’t want to be drawn in to something that might not be real? (Maybe???) As Forever is still streaming, I can’t go over it but I will when I can. Either way, this doesn’t seem like the type of worry a person who doesn’t reciprocate any romantic feelings would have? Like cool story bro but this really shouldn’t be relevant if your only feelings are platonic?

And Baghera? Baghera literally notices this! She sees Forever’s indecisiveness and says “Okay, but if you don’t like him like that, well, it’s not a question, you know?” She calls him out on it directly.

And Forever doesn’t acknowledge it at all. He just moves on and says that if Bad had approached him when he first joined, he would’ve been delighted to add another boyfriend in alongside Philza [Specifically, he brings up a song about Snow White and the phrase ‘Why have just one when I could have seven?] This, while funny as hell, has nothing to do with the conversation and it honestly comes across as Forever trying to examine his own feelings and failing miserably.

Baghera asks “So you’re sure you don’t want anything to happen with Bebou?”

Forever responds “yeah” and then immediately follows it up with “The problem is that after what happened, I’m really…” So ‘yeah’ is not an actual answer here, just a transitional word. (And again, notice the strange justification. The problem apparently not a lack of romantic attraction?)

Baghera follows that up by asking if Forever doesn’t want a relationship with Bad because he has been hurt by his previous ‘relationship’, or because he has no romantic interest in Bad specifically. Forever… doesn’t answer. He says, “Yeah, that’s a good question because I don’t even know if he likes me like that, or if he just loves me as a friend.” Once again, ‘yeah’ is not an answer, just a transition. Congratulations, Forever, you specified exactly nothing.

And thennnnn Forever is back to being worried over whether or not Bad likes him or like-likes him (it’s like they’re all gossiping 10 year olds hehe). He’s scared to ask him directly because he doesn’t want to “hurt him” (by ‘him’, I mean BBH) but it really just sounds like he’s a goddamn coward (affectionate) and is using that as an excuse. Especially since he phrases it like a question.

Baghera decides to take pity on him and offers to sneakily question Bad about it and then report back, which Forever immediately agrees to (it’s the most enthusiastic he sounds during the entire conversation). Forever than says that he really wants to “know what is happening” and to “take care of Badboy because he’s really important to me” (?? We all know, Forever, but okay cool I guess?? /j)

He finishes by reasserting (to himself, mostly) that he doesn’t want a relationship specifically because he’s trying to focus on his career, family, and friends (and because Philza broke his heart). He never says that he has no romantic interest in Bad besides the very first “as a friend” comment, and, in fact, somehow avoids saying it even when Baghera asks him directly to his face!

He honestly gives every reason for not wanting to be in a relationship except for “I’m not interested in the other person.” Like that’s the one thing he doesn’t say.

So. Take that however you will.

#this is all coming from an aromantic person in case you were wondering #i don’t know shit about romance but I do know that Forever’s ‘friendzone’ was shaky at BEST #baghera was tired of hearing her brothers boy problems #qsmp #warning 4halo jumpscare #4halo #q!badboyhalo #q!bbh #q!forever #q!baghera #4halo analysis #i guess?#qsmp scene analysis #again I could be dead wrong about all of this I really don’t know about romance

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minggukieology · 1 year

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Happy FACE era and happy Jikook days to all!

I promise I'll write a few in depth reflections on the latest Jikook interactions and also will address 편지 in another post but I just wanted to get a few things off my chest so I wanted to post this first. (Sorry, this post will mostly include my reflections and no profound analysis so if you're not interested in my ramblings, you can skip this one)

*inserts these pics to catch your attention lol*

I guess I'll start off by this: I did make the conscious decision to lay off the petiness a few months ago though I can't help but think these few days (even weeks) happened for the sake of all the hateful trolls who have been making rounds even on here revelling in the fact both Jimin and Jungkook were mostly off-grid and Kook spotted having a social life, which somehow automatically discounted any possibility of him keeping in touch with/seeing anyone else for some reason.... but anyways... for the sake of keeping my karma clean let's move on.

Being an ARMY with a special fondness for 3J and Jikook I have to say my life is pretty easy, I just lay back and enjoy as their appearances happen and let things unfold without having to get angry or hateful. Mostly because my love for them doesn't hinge upon a never-ending need for validation for what has been a constant for the past 10+ years. And I hope by communicating and trying to explain more closely to you how especially Jimin and Jungkook interact, trying to help you bridge the language gap, I really hope you feel this sense of calmness as well. There is never anything to question, to fuss or argue about. (Not to stray too much off topic, but rest assured I deeply value and appreciate each and one of your replies and messages, despite the fact I am notoriously bad at replying to them 🫣)

Watching Jimin and Jungkook interact always feels like home, like you have been granted an insight into a familiar scene, with people that are so close they can't help but joke around or poke at each other yet at the same time can't hold back on their appreciation and softness for each other. (If you need a visual representation just take any moment Jimin talks about/with Jungkook and automatically gets all giggly and soft and Jungkook's last live where you could see the little goofball laughing at ex. the teasing scenes but at the same time couldn't hold back his starry eyed expression 🥹)

I have to admit though, I myself got proven wrong when I confidently posted about how they are both missing ARMY based on the Weverse interactions and then proceeded watching Jungkook turn on a live barely interacting with the comments (even remarking on the fact he isn't checking them yet people keep writing lol) just to watch over 1hr of Jimin content and admit to have been staying on top of all his promo releases...To then read Jimin's reply in which he left no room for debate. 국민 정말 미안해ㅠㅠㅠ

So what have we learned over the past few days?

Jimin and Jungkook are fine, in fact better than fine, and not seeing them in public proves absolutely jack sh*t (reverting back to a bit of my pettiness here)

Jungkook was involved with the album more than we could have ever imagined. (can't wait to talk more about 편지, I have to say not many songs have ever touched me as much as this one, for various reasons...)

Jungkook visited Jimin's rehearsal (and was really interested in watching him record for a music show too 🥺) and was also for that reason so confidently announcing that something "amazing beyond words" was coming before the teaser for Set me free pt. 2 dropped

As expected Jimin's latest schedules are recording/company-home-eat-sleep and repeat so he has barely any time left and Jungkook misses him a lot :(

Jungkook is as supportive and admiring of his hyung as ever- his words not mine (still a huge Serendipity stan though 🤭)

And once again highlighting: their communication feels very warm, friendly and familiar, there is no sign of them not knowing about each other or being distant

This was all I just had to write down before my head started spinning, I will be back with more of my nerdy language analysis posts, thanks for reading if you decided to! 😊

#jikook #민꾸기 #just my personal rambles #reflections

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lovelessrage · 2 months

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Hi! I've been trying to educate myself on various aro and ace experiences and concepts, and I find your blog really helpful with that. However, I have a question about lovelessness that I wonder if you could help me with?

While reading a post about lovelessness that seemed influential (https://aroworlds.com/2019/07/16/i-am-not-voldemort-an-essay-on-love-and-amatonormativity/) I started thinking about families and the responsibilities of parents. I know someone (not aro or ace) who has struggled a lot in their adult life because their parents showed little emotion/tried to repress bad emotions to protect their children, and who never told their children that they loved them. This person feels unworthy of love today and has been going to therapy for years to try to manage it. Obviously it's very complicated and no one can know for certain where this person's issues stem from, but I was just curious to hear about a loveless person's opinion on this topic.

I guess what I'm trying to ask is, do you think loveless parents have a responsibility to show their children love / tell them that they are loved even if they (the parent) does not actually experience love?

Would be very grateful for a response and I hope this does not come across as rude 🙏

Well, I think, at least in my personal opinion, there's many ways to show affection to children beyond saying "love". The thing is, children learn what you teach them. If you teach them love as the final frontier, the wholeness of your care, and then take it from them, they'll notice its absence. So, you... don't base your child's worth on love! You base it on something else.

If you tell a child you care for them, you want the best for them, you are proud of them, etc. from an early age, they can still feel cared for without "love" needing to be said. You can show affection in a lot of ways! You just need to show your child those ways and establish early that you still care, even if you don't use the same language other parents might use. Kids can recognise when they were raised differently, so a parent should be ready to have conversations about why they're different from their peers. It can be a good way to introduce your child to the fact it's okay to be different than people around them, and that they don't need to be exactly like every other family.

The main holding point is the expectation that someone would teach their child that love is absolute and then refuse to give it to them; this just isn't realistic. Any loveless parent who wants healthy kids isn't going to enforce love normativity just to dissapoint their children by not being able to give it. How someone cares for their child varies, and it's a conversation you can have properly when they're old enough to understand. But, in the meantime, there's many, many ways to have a child feel safe and secure without saying "I love you". It's about building their confidence and support network, not establishing love as the most important thing in the world so you can tell your toddler they can't have it. THAT'S how you screw up a baby. When they're older and can understand more complex concepts, you can talk about the word "love" as a family and what it means to you and your child. It'll depend on each and every person what comes of that, but regardless, it's important to reaffirm love isn't necessary for that child to be an important part of your life.

They have an obligation to show their child they are wanted, they are welcome, they are safe with you, and they are cared for; this doesn't necessitate love. All it takes are dedicated parents willing to put in the work required for raising a baby, and make sure their child knows they mean the world to them without using the word "love".

[Plus, from personal experience as someone who did get told I was loved by my family? It didn't help me out. At all. Mostly because the word meant nothing when they did not back it up with anything. Love only means as much as you put into it.]

#loveless #loveless aromantic #loveless aro #loveless aplatonic #loveless apl #afamilial #afam #<- tagging bc this is specifically addressing that side of lovelessness #afamspec #aspec #scowl corner

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bugtransport · 6 months

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been thinking about "as far as i'm concerned all robots are transgender" for a couple days because when am i not thinking about robots. but also i don't want to write an essay on someone else's post so i'm doing it myself. i think there's a simple explanation for this one: there's an additional axis that you have to consider when you're considering the gender expression of non-human entities and that's how human or non-human they can and want to appear and be recognized as. i call it the humanity axis.

("humanity" is an oversimplification - a lot of the times when you're discussing robots you're talking about them in the context of a sci-fi story which some of the time can have robots living in largely non-human societies (for an easy silly example off the top of my head think BMO who lives with exactly one human for most of his life) but even then we're contending with the gender dynamics of the organic beings around them that make up the society they're based in. not to mention that we ourselves as humans view and create everything from a human-centric point of view that's kind of inescapable imo. for the sake of getting through this with any kind of coherency i'm going to use the term "humanity")

the closest thing that i can imagine to be what i would consider a “cisgender robot” would be a robot that was created by robots in a world where humans don’t have an influence. this can’t really be the case – robots being inorganic have to be created by some outside being and therefore will always be formed in the image of the societal opinions of their makers. you’re working with a blank slate here; you don’t have to be bogged down by what evolution might just decide on its own. sure, they can in turn create their own robots that may be influenced by other factors and get further and further removed from their original designs, but that begs the question of whether it’s possible to dilute the original influence far enough to where it’s no longer a factor. personally, i don’t think so?

so, we can agree: every robot has the influences of humanity in them but is still distinctly different, creating the humanity axis. there’s a place that they each physically on there depending on how they were constructed; there’s also a choice each of them must make as to how much they want to adhere to their assigned spot. to fully be human is not an option, as they would have to not know they’re a robot, and to be fully robot isn’t an option either, as they were made by humans. i suppose you could be happy with your assigned place on the humanity axis but you could never truly be viewed by the organic society around you as anything but “other” unless you tried to fully pass as human. then we can bring in characters who never had to consider the humanity axis until, well, circumstances changed (things like cyborgs or mind backups or a good ol’ brain in a jar) and now they have to learn that they actually experienced a kind of privilege that they weren’t even really aware of until they had to question their relationship to their humanity. they don’t even have to view it as a bad thing – it’s not a bad thing. you can be very confident and happy with who you are and your status outside the traditional human framing of whatever society you’re in. being othered isn’t always a bad thing and some can take solace in the fact that they’re able to dictate who they are without having to technically abide by whatever norms biology has been divided into. it lends itself easily to exploring beyond what’s been set out for you from the start. not always, not every robot wants that or cares to explore it, but it can.

a robot can be a girl and inhuman; they can have no relationship to human gender and identify very closely with humanity. it's about the interactions with those that made you. it's about having to dictate who you are for yourself. tl;dr: yeah every robot is transgender

#making spaghetti #“how's pluto going” FINE AND NORMAL

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beaker1636 · 7 months

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F is For Face Sitting - Vinny

a/n: So if you didn't figure it out I kind of hinted that Lottie was a bit insecure about not being the smallest girl out there in the last part and I really played with that in this chapter in a way that I found really sweet and loving between her and Vin. So this one is a really fluffy smut and hopefully you guys like it as I took kind of a different route with this than I originally planned. I love you all and appreciate all the kid words I keep getting with this, I’ve been really putting myself out there and trying new things with this fic so all the kind comments mean a lot to me!

Also probably won’t get much posted until Thursday or Friday so sorry if you don’t get any updates for awhile!

“Are you trying to get me killed, there is no way Lottie is going to allow me to do that with her tonight,” Vinny groans as he sends the message in the chat back to Chris, wanting to fling his phone across the room.

“Why not? It’s not even that weird or anything, is it like Mia said about how she needs more confidence?” Chris responds quickly, making Vinny want to bury himself in a hole.

“She hates doing anything where she has to be on top because she is worried she’s too big, no matter how much I try to convince her otherwise it never works. Hell last night she was off because she was embarrassed about being around all the girls in the pool because she is the only “bigger” one and she isn’t even that big. It’s a rough subject okay,” he hits send, now worried if you found out that he said something if you’d be upset.

“But she isn’t even that big, listen, give her a really nice night with a relaxing dinner, maybe a relaxing bath and then focus on her. Let her know all you are aiming to do tonight is take care of her and maybe you can slowly coax her out of it, remind her how beautiful she is and that you are lucky. If you build her up enough you will be able to get her to try and might help build her confidence some… and based off comments on the photo Mia posted of the two of you you may need to do that. People are being assholes towards her.” Vin reads the message and immediately panics, pulling up Mia’s instagram and suddenly feeling angered at some of the things that are being said.

“Fuck, how do I fix that? If she has seen it then she’s gonna be a wreck when she gets home from work,” Vinny thinks to himself groaning, “Why do people need to be assholes?”

Rather than saying anything he decides the easiest way to get the point across that he doesn’t give a shit about any of it is to post a photo he has of the two of you that Rick caught a while ago, his favorite photo of the two of you that neither of you have posted before. He doesn’t remember what the two of you were laughing at but the smile on your face always makes him smile when he sees it. He makes a quick caption about how beautiful you are caught in the moment and left it at that, hoping that people would get the hint and lay off you.

He smiles to himself when he sees you respond to him comment with I love you.

He sends you a quick message telling you he is going to meet you at your place in a little bit now that he knows you are off work and that he is bringing dinner over so you don’t need to worry about anything.

Later

Vinny opens your front door and smiles when he hears the shower, knowing that you must have just gotten home from work if you are still in the shower. Setting the food he picked up down on your coffee table he makes his way towards your bathroom, knocking before slipping in.

“Hey baby, just letting you know that I am here,” He says, trailing off when he hears what music you have playing, it is what you listen to when you are in a bad mood. “Are you okay?” he asks softly.

“I will be, give me a few minutes to have my moment and then I’ll be out,” you respond, he can tell by the tone of your voice that you have been crying, his heart falling when he knows what it is about.

“Baby, get out of the shower, we need to talk about this,” He says softly, hoping that you will listen and feeling better when he hears the water turn off, the curtain slowly opens just barely so you can reach your hand out, grabbing your towels to wrap around you and your hair before you open it the rest of the way and step out.

“Come here, let's go to the room. I want to show you everything about you that I find attractive, that others find attractive, baby,” he says quietly, reaching for your hand so he can lead you towards your room.

He is a little upset that you don’t fight him, normally you put up a huge fight when he drags you somewhere so he knows you really are out of it. He moves you and has you sit on the edge of the bed, facing your full vanity mirror, giving a kiss before he moves so you can see yourself in the mirror.

“Let’s start with your hands, the hands you use to take care of children all day, that you use to wipe their tears away, clean their faces, cradle them when they need some love, play with them. The few times I have witnessed you with your class I love seeing the way you use them to take care of the kids, to take care of everyone when you can.” He gives one of your hands a light kiss before setting them on your lap.

“Vin, you don’t have to do this. I’ll get over it eventually,” you whisper softly, meeting his eyes in the mirror for a moment while blushing.

“I know but I want to Lottie,” he responds, placing a kiss on your bare shoulder. “Your arms, the way they wrap so tightly around me and those you care about, the way you wrap them around your work kids when they run up to you when we go out and one of them sees you. I would be lying if I said that I don’t sometimes get jealous of the kids that you hold onto all day and love on in your arms, but I am the lucky one that gets to be in them at night, that you pull into your chest while you play with my hair and we just talk or I game for awhile,” he says softly, rubbing his hands along your arms while you continue to watch him.

When his hands reach the top of your towel where it is tucked around you he notices you suck in a breath, the way you tense under his touch so he pauses for a moment. “Hey, it’s just me, you don’t need to be shy for me Lottie.”

When he undoes it he lightly runs his hands along your stomach, one of the places he knows you are really insecure about. “I love that you are soft and cuddly, you are strong. I love that when we curl up and you envelope me in your arms that I can be comfortable as I lay on your soft belly and chest. It brings me so much comfort when I use you as a pillow, there is a reason why I try to lay my head on you a lot when we are cuddled up in bed. I couldn’t do that with someone that is smaller, I love being curled up with you and comfortable. My favorite place to rest my hands is on your waist when you are around me, I don’t know why it just brings me comfort.”

Before you can protest he moves so that he can leave a kiss on your lips, trailing down to make sure he leaves gentle kisses on your love handles and stretch marks, the places that he knows you are the most uncomfortable with, that you usually get annoyed with when he tries to touch them.

He stops when he gets lower to sit up and watch you again in the mirror as he settles back behind you once again, this time his hands resting on your thighs. “We’re at my favorite part, I love your squishy thighs and butt. They look so good in your jeans when you are walking, they are so comfortable to sit in or lay my head in. They keep you up on your feet when you chase littles all day, and I know they love getting to sit in your lap with you. I love the way you wrap them around me when I get you all needy and you want me to just get you past the finish line already.” He ghosts his fingers towards your center when he says this, smiling slightly to himself when he feels you shudder.

“Now arguably one of my favorite parts of you, I would be lying if I tried to pretend that it wasn’t,” he smiles slightly when he hears you giggle at his words. “I love it when you get all wet and needy for me, when you draw my fingers and my cock in as you get closer and closer to falling over the edge, I love the way you taste when you let me taste you and get you going.”

He runs a finger along your opening towards your clit, making you squirm in your spot as he begins to tease you slightly, knowing that he is getting you worked up and also raising your mood and confidence slightly. He uses his other hand to let your hair loose, brushing it away from one of your ears before leaning in to whisper, “Let me worship you baby, please ride my face tonight, take the pleasure you need from me.”

He notices you freeze up but continues to tease you, the one hand still barely grazing your clit while the other reaches around you to lightly toy with one of your nipples, trying to get you to the point you won’t think about it, that you will just let him do what he wants to do.

“Vin,” you start to say with a sigh.

“You’re not going to hurt me, if I need you to move I will let you know. Please, let me pleasure you, show you how much I love you and your body,” he asks, moving to lay down on the bed behind you.

Hesitantly you move, leaning yourself over him but not sitting down like he wants you to, nervous to be trying something new, especially when you’d be putting your weight on him.

Getting impatient Vinny grabs your thighs, pulling you down on top of him so that he can begin to tease your folds with his tongue. Running it from your entrance to your clit several times knowing that motion drives you nuts before finally sucking harshly on your clit for a second, making you arch your back and moan at the feeling.

“There you go, rock yourself on me, take what you want,” Vinny encourages, moving his hands to your hips as he urges you to rock them as he continues to tease you with his tongue, knowing he is bring you close when you now are moving yourself, starting to take it into your own hands as you moan on top of him.

He moves a hand so he can slip two of his fingers inside of you, knowing that the added sensations of them working inside of you as you work yourself on top of him will set you off, and he is correct. With a couple more swivels of your hips, with his tongue working at your clit you come undone on top of him.

He lays his head back so he can watch you as your face tightens and you throw your head back as you ride out and slowly come back down from the orgasm he just gave you. You slipping your legs over his head so that you can move and lay down next to him on the bed, chest rising and falling rapidly as you come down from everything that just happened.

“I told you that I would be fine, just because you aren’t the smallest wouldn’t mean you would hurt me. I love your body baby, you do such amazing things with it and I wish you could see that… but I’ll keep worshiping you and telling you until you believe me,” he says softly, giving you a kiss and trying not to laugh when you grimace at the taste of yourself on his lips.

“I’m going to go brush my teeth and then reheat our dinner, go get dressed baby,” he says softly, making his way back to the bathroom that you both left about a half an hour earlier so he can do that.

When you slip into the kitchen where he is warming dinner back up for the two of you you sneak behind him, wrapping your arms around his back as you rest your face on his now shirtless frame.

“Thank you Vin, I love you,” you hum softly, feeling a lot better after all his praise and kind words. “I know I should ignore it, but it never gets easier having those comments directed at me, being the bigger one of all our group of friends.”

“I know, but you aren’t even that big babe. And all that matters is that you and I love it and are happy, and I am. I love you just how you are. Now why don’t we take our food and go watch (your favorite movie)?” He asks, turning around to wrap his arms around you as well, your head now resting on his chest.

“That sounds wonderful, thank you Vin,” you say softly, following him towards your couch to go and do just that, curling up next to him the second the two of you are done with dinner so you can enjoy the rest of your night together.

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djljpanda · 1 year

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Hello May you please write about Wednesday’s shy sweet gf who loves cute things but has a soft spot for her even thought she despises that kind of stuff such as affection and being madly in love ( and added jealousy lol pls 😩🥀💗🖤

No worries.

Wednesday was so protective over you as if someone could just think one thing bad about you Wednesday already planned to dump their body.

Wednesday loved how innocent looking you were and how sweet you are.

It still amazes her on how she grew to love the thing she hated.

But to her displeasure shw isn't the only one who loves you sweet shy charms.

Many students in the school were also in love. Her jealousy grew more during the next dance that was going to happen. Many have tried to ask you out to the dance but you turned them all down with a sorry.

But as the dance was coming closer Wednesday had came up to you during lunch and led you outside where she had started to say that you and her are still going to the dance. "We still are but if you don't it us alright-" "No need to tell me all that nonsense I just had to make sure that you know we are going to the dance". "Well don't worry, we will go together I promise", you had said with a sweet smile in the end.

At the dance you both came in as total opposites you dressed out in pastel pinks and whites while Wednesday was in all black. That whole night you both talked you even got Wednesday to dance with you.

But as the night was close to ending you were getting some punch for you and Wednesday as siren student came up to you asking if you had wanted to head to their dorm after the dance.

"Oh sorry I was gonna go with my girlfriend and her friends after this, sorry" "But are you sure", said the siren student as they started to get pushy. Once you saw they were about to use their ability Wednesday came in taking you away from the scene after sending a death glare towards the siren.

Wednesday had taken you and her into the halls of the school. "Are you alright I saw that filthy siren near you" "No I'm fine dear, really I am" "You have to stop this whole shyness as what if I wasn't there they would have use there siren call on you" "I know and I'm sorry. I promise I'm trying but-".

As you went on tears had started to build up in your eyes. Based on being scared of what the soren could have done, being talked strictly by Wednesday, the felling of being useless and weak, and the fear that one day because of your shyness something bad will happen.

Wednesday notice your tears as she put her hand on your shoulder giving you a signal that you can go in for a hug. You hugged her tightly as tears streamed down your face. "Mi amour you are to cute cry, it is also not your fault this is who you are amd I love you for that but don't feel like your shyness is pushing you back. I'm sorry for making you feel that way" "I forgive you Wednesday but is there anyway you can help me become more confident?" "I will help in anyway you need but don't feel like i'm pushing you to do this" "No but for tonight let's just enjoy this" "Alright" "But we should be going your friends are probably trying to figure out where we are". "They are not my friends" "Really Enid would not like to hear that".

#wednesday addams x reader #wednesday 2022 #wednesday addams #wednesday addams x fem reader #wednesday x reader #wednesday #wednesday x fem reader #wednesday addams x fem!reader

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inquisitor-apologist · 1 year

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Force, I am SO frustrated with the Filonification of popular Star Wars. People keep on trying to make arguments about Star Wars, yet they refuse to actually watch Star Wars and make sensible criticisms about it because they’re literally just parroting whatever weird non-canonical shit Felony spit out in an article last week.

I was looking at this article:

And I was legitimately trying to look at the criticisms and see if I can agree with any of them, but they don’t make any sense and I can just feel Filoni oozing off them.

So imma rant, got it?

Mistake Number 1 that led to the fall of the order: They were too much into politics.

More specifically, the article claims that “they very much had a hand in the flipping the Senate” with reference to the Vote of No Confidence for Valorum in tpm, but it’s been a minute and a half since I saw the prequels, so I read the Wookie summary, and I might’ve missed something but I don’t think there’s any mention of them, like, voting or doing anything significant in the Senate in ep1? I feel like it would’ve been mentioned if it was even vaguely implied that the Jedi mind tricked the senate or lobbied for the vote to go one way or another, but it isn’t mentioned anywhere and it don’t square with what I remember, so I’m guessing they just made this up and convinced themselves it was canon? Tell me if you can figure out what they’re talking about or if there is a canon basis I missed.

Other than that, I do not remember a single scene where we saw the Jedi do anything more political than take orders from politicians or exist in the senate building in the prequels.

Mistake Number 2 that led to the fall of the order: Suppressing Baby Murderer’s emotions.

…A Take, certainly. So this one’s talking about Anakin’s grief over his mother’s death, which I agree would be a fucked-up thing to suppress. That’d suck. If it actually happened because… the Jedi do not know that Anakin’s mom is dead. They do not know that Anakin and Padmé went to Tatooine, since they were ordered to stay on Naboo. They are utterly unaware of everything that happens on Tatooine aside from Yoda feeling the Tusken Massacre in the Force. Yeah, Anakin told Obi-Wan that he’d had dreams about his mom dying, and he didn’t do anything about it, but that wasn’t Obi Wan suppressing Anakin’s emotions—that was just him saying that it sucked that he had a bad dream, since I don’t think Anakin said it could’ve been a vision or anything, so this one doesn’t land at all. Where did they get this idea???

Mistake Number 3 that led to the fall of the order: ‘Allowing’ Maul to take over Mandalore (somehow?)

I can feel my brain cells dying. Maul joined up with a terrorist group and some crime gangs to forcefully take over a neutral system. None of that was ‘allowed’ by the Jedi. They also say that the Jedi ‘sent’ Obi Wan to get rid of Maul when I remember Yoda telling Obi Wan some shit like “Send anyone to Mandalore the Jedi cannot” and then Obi Wan went to Mandalore anyway and it didn’t do shit. Anyway I feel like the author of this article might own a ridiculously annoying cowboy hat. Just a hunch.

Mistake Number 4 that led to the fall of the order: Baselessly Exiling Ahsoka (Baselessly?? There very much was base)

So. Wrong Jedi Arc my beloathed. Here we are again. The article claims that the Jedi “exiled Ahsoka Tano on mere suspicion alone and didn't even confirm whether she was involved in the bombing of the Jedi Temple or not”. Which. Hmm. So, there was a big investigation into the bombing that pretty definitely said that Ahsoka was almost certainly the bomber. It wasn’t ‘mere suspicion’, it was all the fucking evidence very clearly pointing to her. She ran away, she worked with a damn separatist assassin, she was found in a warehouse filled with the bombs. The audience know she was framed, but the characters don’t because the whole point of framing someone is to convince the other people they did it. If the Jedi had exiled her for this, they would’ve been being very reasonable and justified. Will also point out that the Jedi were forced by the Senate to exile her and did not want to. They apologized and let her back in as soon as they possibly could.

Also there’s this weird (actually!) baseless claim that Ahsoka was one of the most powerful Jedi in the Clone Wars. Which has no proof because it’s untrue—she’s a padawan with max 2 years of training. There’s no way she’s more powerful than a fully trained knight, of which there were still quite a few. But of course she is, because she’s Felony’s beloved OC who can do no wrong.

Mistake Number 5 that led to the fall of the order: Not giving Baby Murderer power

I am convinced that no one involved in writing or editing this article has actually watched RotS, and has only ever listened to Felony talk about RotS. They claim that ‘they invited Anakin over to the Council as a pseudo-member and his only task was to spy on the Chancellor. Not only was this political meddling once again, but it was also an insult to Anakin’ oh no, they insulted Anakin, clearly this means he’s justified in murdering them! Also, the Jedi Council apparently wanted to appoint Anakin, they weren’t literally forced into it by Palpatine. You know, that scene where Palpatine is like “yeah, I’ve forced the council to put you on the council even though they don’t want you there. You’re my spy on the council now” that didn’t happen actually. The Jedi were completely evil in not allowing the unstable baby murderer a full seat on their governing body when they were forced to put him there through nepotism. Them asking the only guy who’s close enough with the chancellor to investigate him because he’s overstayed his term and is overreaching with his powers is also completely evil and awful and unjustified. Uh huh.

Mistake Number 6 that led to the fall of the order: Mace Windu Wants To Kill Palpatine Right Away (direct quote from the article)

Yeah, you read that right. I can’t make this shit up, but filoni sure as fuck can. So, Mace Windu learns that the shady Chancellor that’s been overreaching with his authority and has overstated his term is also an evil Sith that has manipulated both sides of the war to gain power, causing the deaths of millions, including a shit ton of Mace’s people and friends, because said chancellor drafted them to fight in the war that he created. This would make Mace pretty damn justified in killing Palpy imo, but Mace specifically goes to arrest him for his crimes. Palpatine then kills three other Jedi Masters in cold blood and attempts to kill Mace, and when Mace beats him he still tries to arrest him—y’know that whole “You are under arrest, my lord” bit?—until the guy tries to fucking electrocute him with his fucking hands and it becomes clear that there is no way to take him in peacefully. Only after palpatine murders 3 people in front of him, attempts to murder Mace in combat, and makes it clear that he cannot be taken in alive does Mace attempt to kill him. No matter how you slice it, that’s not him wanting to kill the bitch right away.

Also the article tries to say that Anakin wanted to bring Palpatine in because he recognized that he should stand trial, which is technically what he says, but he also screams “I need him!” in that same scene so I think we know why he really doesn’t want Palpy to die.

Mistake Number 7 that led to the fall of the order: They didn’t train Luke and Leia

Now this might seem baffling because the article is supposedly talking about things that caused the fall of the order and Luke and Leia weren’t even born until after the fall of the order, but I can assure you that the article does not explain this in any way.

Still, let’s pretend this makes sense with the subject of the article and press on. The article asks what was stopping Obi Wan from training Luke as a Jedi on Tatooine. I feel like the answer might have something to do with the fact that the twins were so powerful that the Jedi were afraid that the emperor could sense them if they were next to each other. Formal training would make them stronger and more likely to be sensed, so they didn’t do it until they had to. This probably would be the most reasonable thing in here if the article wasn’t about what caused the fall of the order.

Mistake Number 8 that led to the fall of the order: Not telling Luke about Vader

Yet another Thing That Lead to the Fall of the Jedi Order that somehow happened after the fall of the order, but if I focus on that I might start screaming, so we move on.

This article leads you to believe that all the problems in ESB could’ve been solved if only Obi Wan had told Luke about Vader. Hmm. Yoda says in RoJ that Luke wasn’t ready for the information when he was told at the end of ESB, which seems very true based on the fact that Luke was unable to accept the information when told, was described by George Lucas as suicidal afterwards, and is suddenly unable to consider killing Mr. Evil Baby Murderer Space Fascist afterwards because of their family connection, and you want Obi-Wan to tell him earlier?

You know that OT Luke would, upon hearing that information before Cloud City, have immediately jumped in his X-Wing and raced to confront Vader. If he found Vader in that state, Luke would’ve been even more unbalanced and unfocused, which would’ve lead to him losing the duel worse and being either killed or captured by Vader, since Leia wouldn’t have been close enough to save him.

Mistake Number 9 that led to the fall of the order: Not believing people who had been dead for 1,000 years were back without proof

I want you to imagine a hypothetical with me: a guy that is somehow vaguely influential in politics walks up to the UN and tells them that Leif Eriksson and the Vikings are back and coming to kill everybody. This man has no proof beyond what he and a couple of people with him say , and there has been no indication of this at all before he shows up. I know in that scenario I’d want the UN to throw him out until he had proof.

That’s the modern day equivalent of Qui Gon telling the Jedi the Sith are back. He’s making a huge claim with no evidence. You can’t expect the Jedi to immediately believe him no questions asked. The instant there’s actual proof of this, we see the two most influential and powerful Jedi, Mace and Yoda, talking about how they need to look out for other Sith. They are taking the threat seriously, they just aren’t omniscient like the audience.

Mistake Number 10 that led to the fall of the order: When they were enemies of the state who would be killed if they didn’t hide, they hid

Truly, a horrible mistake. Now they’re mad at Obi Wan and Yoda for going into hiding, unlike other survivors of Order 66. Other survivors such as Kanan, Ahsoka, Cal, and Quinlan, perhaps. All of these characters went into hiding. Cal and Kanan were forced out of hiding, and Ahsoka helped with the early rebellion while remaining in hiding, but pretty much every order 66 survivor tried to go into hiding.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go cry.

#star wars #Obi Wan #Yoda #obi wan kenobi #Mace #Mace Windu #jedi #jedi order #jedi order positive #jedi positive #anti filony #luke skywalker

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minsungchronology · 5 months

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My Personal Opinions on Minsung's Dynamic (2022)

Disclaimer: I am not trying to pass off my opinions as facts. This is my personal interpretation of what is laid out right in front of us. I could be completely off base because I don’t know these guys personally, so take this with a grain of salt and feel free to disagree!

UHHH???

WHAT THE HELL IS IN THE AIR THIS YEAR??

I kept on saying that to myself as I kept collecting more and more clips to add to the video. They’re so sweet and gross and flirty, it’s adorable.

If you’ve watched the previous years, think for a second and compare their interactions from 2018-2021 to 2022. Whenever the two of them would be on screen at times I'd be like “Am I interrupting something??”. At times you’d see them in the background and they’d be doing their own little thing. I can’t even describe it, but the way they look at and naturally gravitate towards each other is something else (there's an insane amount of this during the Maniac tour). They have so much fun with each other.

I think at this point, most of the self-consciousness has dwindled away. They are older, more experienced, and they are probably more than aware of what they can or can’t get away with on camera at this point.

I’ve also said before in my 2018 video that Lee Know was easy to read, but that kind of tapered off in subsequent years. However, I think “open-book” Lee Know makes a swift return this year. He has the worst poker face when it comes to Han lmfao. LK is as “cat” as a human can get, but he has such puppy/golden-retriever energy around Han.

There’s so many moments throughout this year where he’s like 😊 🥰. I can’t possibly talk about all of them. If I took a shot every time it happened, I wouldn’t be here to type this out. The man is so bad at hiding it. The SKZ Talker where Han sings with the flower in his hair and the way LK is caught staring at him as he sings along gets me in shambles.

Lee Know is also caught "slipping up". A moment that comes to mind is when he stuttered out “sexy” as Han was fighting the back pain demons on the concert floor. Yay intrusive thoughts.

Also, the SKZ talker episode with the MAMA awards. THE FACE LK makes for a split second when he finds out Han is rooming with Felix before he basically “interrogates” him about it during the “interview” they have.

Han is caught "slipping up" too. I've noticed he doesn't do it as much. He seems more careful and harder to read, while Lee "Your Body Moves First Before You Think" Know is more (carefree?) about things.

The “In Your eyes” POV video and the Studio Choom behind from Maxident era come to mind.

Then in one of their step-out videos (LK had the pink/light purple hair and they were announcing the world tour). Han places his hand on LK’s butt and starts doing…something to it (that’s between him and God). LK starts smiling for a bit before forcefully removing Han’s arm. Then Han literally bites his lip. IN A STEP OUT VIDEO??? They’re so shameless dskjhskdjfhk

Subtle moments like these are the most telling and eyebrow raising things in my opinion, cause you can’t really explain them away. And these are just a few of them. There’s a lot more this year, but I’d be writing this forever if I mentioned them all.

My personal opinion:

I think they became more than platonic this year, post-Oddinary era and pre-Maniac tour (the beginning of it at latest). If someone asked me to guess a specific time, it would probably be April to May-ish. There’s a noticeable shift in their behavior from then on if you watch everything sequentially.

As for their two-kids room. I have a lot of opinions on that.

They are soooo much more confident here than in their 2018 one.

Like…watch them back-to-back. They’ve come so far.

Imagine “Feelings” Lee Know from 2018 getting to see his 2022 self and 2022 Han interact.

This might be reaching, but I think the other members (and themselves) sometimes allude to these two having feelings that go beyond platonic without having to explicitly state it for obvious reasons. Like they are trying to skirt around that, but at the same time imply that “yes, these two are very special to each other”. The language and analogies they use throughout the 2KR episode really make me raise my eyebrows.

As I’ve learned more about Minsung’s dynamic/as well as making this video, I think these two have a lot of parallels to MeI B and Geri from the Spice GirIs. If you know, you know. I vaguely remember someone (who personally knew the group) implying almost the same type of thing about them years ago (something along the lines of them having a very "interesting"/special bond).

I’ve also found it interesting how they mention (multiple times!) although LK is the Hyung, Han is able to rein him back in. Whenever that happens, LK immediately just…becomes pliant?? Like???? What????

You can actually see some instances of that in previous years (the 2021 car Vlive where LK has the napkin on his face comes to mind. He immediately takes it off after Han tells him to), but it's more noticeable this year. (I.e: LK immediately wanting to let go of Changbin’s hand as soon as Han expresses his displeasure when before LK was perfectly okay doing it?? ????? Another actual eyebrow raising moment for me.) This is a guy who comes across as a more dominant type of personality so this really threw me off lmfaooo. This is one of the reasons why I find their dynamic so interesting, but I feel like it’s not talked about enough????

Plus, LK looking at Han like he grew two heads before Han has to specifically clarify that he sees him as an “older person” rather than an “older brother”. LK has absolutely no problem with other members (i.e: Felix) seeing him as an older brother figure (in fact he welcomes it), but God forbid Han does. Interesting. 😉

(accidental parallel to 2018 LK saying “where?” when 2018 Han says “you have one right here”)

And Seungmin saying “They’re both free spirited. They have to do what they want to do.” is kinda 💡 💡 💡. It kind of goes back to Han and LK in their 2019 2KR: them saying that they both don’t care about what others think. Thinking about that, their behavior this year doesn’t surprise me one bit and almost everything else in prior years leading up to it.

2023 is where things get more blatant. I feel like that’s the year where the two want to tell us that “Hey, you guys are right. There is something going on between us.” I feel like they are taking full advantage of the shipping culture that’s abundant in K pop and FS to a smaller degree to say as much as they can possibly say without compromising their careers. As someone who’s been into K pop since 2nd gen, I’ll explain why I think this in the 2023 video.

#minsung

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slippinmickeys · 6 months

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Proof of Life 4/?

1. “Dana, I cannot tell you how glad I am to hear your voice,” Ethan says. The connection is not great, a truncated hiss on the line, but he sounds truly relieved. “Honey, I missed you so much.”

She is not sure how to respond. She is thrilled of course, to no longer be a hostage. To have unlimited food, water, and Jesus Christ, a hot shower. But even in the midst of the gunfire, of her producer dying in front of her, her thoughts didn’t once turn to Ethan. She thought of her mother, her nephews. If he’s waiting to hear that she’s missed him too, she’s not sure she can bring herself to say it.

“Dana? Are you there?”

“I’m here,” she says.

“I’m sure you’re tired and…” his words trail off. Traumatized, is probably what he’s thinking. And he’s not wrong.

“Yes,” she says. She is tired. But it’s an emotional exhaustion.

“Honey. I’ve talked with Bill. We’re still going to get you home. The network is going to help cover the cost.” She feels a small amount of guilt for putting a kink in Bill’s plans. The military will no longer be transporting her home, not after her insistence on being brought to the mainland and onto the closest US base. His superiors were not thrilled, and neither is he.

“Okay,” she says. There is something he’s not saying, she can hear it in his voice.

He hesitates a moment longer.

“Listen, the network… They want to do an interview. As soon as possible. Do you feel up to doing that?”

It sounds like the very last thing she’s interested in doing.

“Ethan, I don’t know,” she says, weary. What would she even say in an interview? Yes, I was kidnapped at gunpoint and my friend and producer was killed in front of me. I thought I was going to die. I thought I was going to be raped. I was held hostage without enough food and I passed the time by falling in love with my cellmate and having a lot of sex.

“I get it honey, you’ve been through a lot,” he says. He needs to stop calling her honey. “It’s just…”

“It’s just what, Ethan?” she says testily. No part of her wants to be having this conversation right now.

“The network. They… They paid a lot of money to the rebels for your release. They spent countless resources trying to find where you were being kept. There was a full week’s worth of news cycle on you when you were taken, and now that you’ve been rescued, it’s back in full swing. We’ve had requests for interviews from all the broadcast networks. But I feel like we owe it to CNN to appear there first.”

She is struck silent by his words. Ever the newsman, his priorities have remained the same since they met. And the word “we” bothers her.

“I’ll be right with you the whole time. I’ll pre-screen every question. You don’t have to do it alone.”

“That’s… very kind of you,” she says, with no emotion.

There is another hiss of static on the phone.

“Listen, it sounds like we have a bad connection,” he says. “I’m going to let you go. Bill should have your flight information by morning. I love you.”

She does not say it back.

2. They met, embarrassingly enough, at a pub.

She had actually agreed to go out with some friends from the hospital — something she never did — and they both ordered the same drink while standing next to each other at the bar, something fruity and pink. She was impressed at the confidence with which he placed his order and told him as much. He was impressed by her.

They began dating soon after, about a year after Ethan had started at CNN. She was working in pediatrics — something she both loved and hated — when Ethan brought up an idea one night while they were out to dinner.

“So one of my segments tomorrow,” he says. “The guest dropped out just as I was leaving for dinner.”

“Is that why you were late?” she asks.

He gives her a small smile, ignores her question and plows ahead. “It’s a story on the phenomenon of misinformation as it pertains to the AIDS epidemic.”

“Oh, Ethan,” she says, suddenly and genuinely interested in his work. She forgets to be annoyed at him. “That’s fantastic. There’s so much bad information out there.”

His smile gets wider.

“I was thinking,” he goes on. “That maybe you could step in.”

She’s confused. “What do you mean?”

“You could step in and be the guest. The medical expert. For the segment.”

“You mean on air?” She’s flummoxed by the idea. It’s ludicrous.

“Yes,” he says simply.

“Ethan, I’m not an epidemiologist. I’m not… There are far more qualified people that would do a much better job than I. Like… Spitzer. Or Harris. Or… who’s that guy from NYU, the one who wrote the paper? He could take the train down and be here in plenty of time.”

His grin has only gotten wider.

“I tried,” he says. “They’re all at a conference in Amsterdam. Listen, you’d do great. You know your stuff, you can think on your feet and, I mean… you’d look fantastic on camera.” He is playing on her vanity now.

“Kirby would have a heart attack,” she says, stabbing the olive in her drink with the straw. Kirby is an executive producer, and Ethan’s boss.

“Kirby already approved it.”

She was running low on arguments and he could sense the blood in the water.

“You’d be on air for five minutes, tops. And we can pay you.”

When she heard the amount, she blanched. She had med school loans to pay back and Ethan knew it.

In the end, she agreed to do it. And once she’d done it, she found that she liked it. Was good at it. Kirby was so thrilled with her performance that he asked her to come back, and eventually, to be an on-call medical expert. Not long after that, she was offered her own monthly segment that sent her out into the field. Ethan’s star began to climb. They moved in together. And one thing led to another which led to another, an odd snowballing effect which led her to a street corner in a war-torn city in West Africa, where she was kidnapped by a group of rebels and thrown into an upper floor hotel room with a man she had never met.

Where the course of her life once again took another hard right turn.

3. She has reached a level of numbness that she can’t fight her way out of.

She doesn’t actually want to fly back to the States. Well, she does, but she wants to find Mulder first. To talk to him, to explain. To have an honest conversation about what they went through and What Happens Next. What must he have thought when he saw Ethan on the base television? When he read the chyron under his name, when he heard him say ‘I want to put my arms around her and never let go?’

What must he be going through? Whatever it is, she feels like they should be going through it together. Nothing feels right anymore. For weeks and weeks all her experiences were filtered through a lens of the two of them together. Every decision she has to make now comes with the impulse of wanting to turn to him to see what he thinks about it.

Their relationship in the Hilton was something they were in the middle of. Everything inside her is screaming we weren’t done! It’s like they were mid-conversation when someone cut the phone line.

Ethan, her boyfriend, the man she has built a life with, feels like an annoyance, a pesky insect she wants to brush from her shoulder. Her life had narrowed to the four walls of a hotel room and the man that was harbored within them. The world outside of it is too much. She wants nothing to do with it. She wants Mulder and the narrow, fixed point of her life as it intersected with his. Nothing else feels right. It’s too much. She wants to be rid of it.

So she chooses to feel nothing. She chooses the hebetude of nihility. It’s not the healthiest choice, but at least it’s hers.

4. She tries on calling him Fox. Like slipping on a sweater she isn’t sure will suit her, she calls him by his first name.

“Fox,” she says, letting the X draw out a little, letting it hover in the air like a fine mist of smoke. She is wearing nothing but the natty sheet from the bed, which makes her feel libidinous and a little bit bratty. She’d like to reach out to touch him, but he’s on the other side of the room.

When he hears her say it, he winces. There’s a story there.

“You don’t like your name,” she observes.

He wanders back towards her a little, but gets caught in a shaft of sunlight streaming into the room.

Outside the window and up, up, the clouds look like cotton candy. They could be in Kansas, in Iowa, in one of those states in the middle with a lot of Walmarts and Republicans. Outside the window and down, there is the burnt-out husk of a Ford, there is a rounded shape of what once might have been a human turning to leather in the sun. A khaki colored dog trots by, like it has somewhere better to be.

“I—,” he starts, “I even made my parents call me Mulder.”

He gets to the bed where she’s waiting and lowers himself onto it, reaching out to touch her arm.

“Is that so?” she says.

He shrugs, opens his mouth to say something, then closes it. Scully senses pain behind his silence and touches her hand over his where it rests on her arm. He rolls his hand over so their palms are touching and laces his fingers through hers.

“‘Fox’ was the last thing my sister ever said to me,” he says, looking at the floor. “She was calling out to me, asking for help. She was calling my name.”

A hard shot of empathetic pain darts through her chest.

“What happened to her, Mulder?” she asks quietly. If he doesn’t want to answer, she won’t force the issue.

He squeezes her hand and then lowers himself onto the floor next to the bed, leaning against it, the back of his head resting on the mattress.

“I was twelve when it happened. She was eight…”

5. “Tell us about the picture, Dana,” Maureen, the interviewer asks her, empathy or sympathy or pity edging into her speech from all sides.

The woman hands her an 8x10 color reproduction of the proof of life picture the rebels had taken, ever so slightly out of focus, the cheap little flash making her hair look like the orange of a lava flow. Mulder is standing just beside and slightly behind her and so he’s a little bit darker, and his beard in the picture is really just a few days worth of stubble. They both look frightened, a little stunned.

“Did the picture give you hope?” Maureen asks.

“Did it give me hope?” she asks, confused. She had been shoved up against the wall with guns in her face; hope was so far off in the distance it wasn’t even on the horizon.

“When they took the picture. The Proof of Life. Did you know then that we were trying to get you home? Did it give you hope?”

There’s that word “we” again. Scully swallows, looks down, shakes her head.

“He gave me hope,” she says quietly, staring at the Mulder in the photograph.

She thinks of his narrow hips between hers, his hands spanning her ribs. She thinks of the pictures he took, the way he looked at her like she was the only woman in the world.

“Fox Mulder?” Maureen asks her. “The other hostage?”

Scully nods, then finally pulls her eyes from the photograph and looks for Ethan in the darkness just behind the camera. She doesn’t see him. It’s hard to see anything with the lights so bright in her eyes.

“Yes,” she says, coming back to herself, remembering to be professional. “The other hostage. We leaned on each other.”

Maureen leans forward eagerly. “Why don’t you tell me about that, Dana.”

#the x-files #fanfic #my fic #msr #au #war correspondent/photojournalist AU

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generouskittentidalwave · 3 months

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Tobio talk

I honestly have come to the realization that as well known as Tobio is because of Astro, while Astro stays the same in his iterations, Tobio is so obscure that while he has a few constants (shy/introverted/polite/struggles with his messy room, cares about his parents, etc..) most about him changes in different forms of media, and is also kept unknown for plot reasons, even his name itself changed as it wasn't Tobio originally. Usually because he is hit with a truck, or killed some other way, in the begining before we get to know much about him.

I think the most character he has ever been given is in Atom the Beginning, and the 2003 anime via flashbacks and a visit from his ghost (ouch as that scene hurt me🖐️😭)

The 2009 movie gave him a bit more screentime but there his character was different as in they kept most of the constants but made his personality more mischievous, confident, and sometimes hilariously cocky as he tries to live up to Tenma's ridiculous expectations

I think the other one would be Pluto which we don't even see Tobio in at all, but we get a lot of insight on who he was via Tenma having his usual existential breakdown about his death at the dinner table, very much confusing Astro (at the time who grew up thinking he was Tobio), leaving him very confused on why his father is talking about him in third person right to him.

As for the rest he is only brought up via flashbacks, people talking about him, and his unfortunately short screentime in the beginning of almost every iteration.

Most people base his personality on Astro but even then that's very incredibly vague as in every iteration Astro is displayed to, not just have traits only Tobio would have and replicate things Tobio would do, but also have a personality pretty different to Tobio. Tobio is shy and reserved (usually), Astro is polite like Tobio was displayed as but is more open and extroverted, in the 2009 movie Astro and Tobio have similar traits that make them alike but their personalities are mostly different, same for Pluto, and many others.

The only thing that stays the same between Tobio and Astro no matter the iteration is their looks and most importantly their moral compass. No matter what Astro and Tobio have the same moral compass on things

Now this brings us into aus which do exist in the small yet vastly powerful and growing Astro Boy fandom

I don't count Aus in this as they aren't anything canon or official, but nonetheless it is the one instance where their moral compasses change. In this instance you have what I call the "what if?" phenomenon, that happens in every fandom where they take the wholesome lil guy and change their moral compass around, usually making them into a bad guy/antagonist for their own interesting plot and story explorations which can lead to pretty interesting au reads. And as a side note yes, I am aware some people may find it upsetting as it's always out of character and some people don't like seeing their favorite good guy made out as a terrible person or doing something terrible which is understandable, it's not my cup of tea either, but at the same time you shouldn't worry about it affecting your love for the character because you have to remember that it's not their actual character nor is it affecting their actual character/reputation as a character. As long as it isn't made into anything immoral then just let people have fun and don't bug them. It's not hurting you or anyone else, or taking away the reputation of the character. Just vibe and let vibe.

Now what does this have to do with any of this? Well two things actually. One not only is the "what if?" extremely rare here, but it's also the only instances of their moral compusses getting turned around. The fact it never happens in the official media, and rarely ever happens in the fandom itself, is something I find to be a pretty cool constant for their characters that is agreed upon 100% in canon and a lot of the times in the fandom as well.

And I believe it is because it helps link the two together as their moral compusses, or better yet, their hearts, being of the same tune, helps them react to important situations the same way as eachother. They reflect eachother. Despite their differences, Tezuka shows that they are still always connected by heart and always will be in their official works.

So anyway, Tobio deserves more attention as there is both so much yet so little known about him at the same time, and with his ties to Astro's past it makes him such a cool character that deserves much more recognition! ^^

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dollsonmain · 4 months

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Ok I'm going to explode if I don't talk about the big batch of unfortunate ponies that are on their way in for an emergency cleaning.

I am so excited and happy and grateful that I get a chance to clean them up because I'd never get to see many of these ponies in person otherwise since they're too pricey for me to buy.

I'll put it behind a cut, though, so their owner can choose whether or not to view my preliminary assessments which are based on the sales photos.

So, these were an expensive eBay lot with a lot of rare ponies in it which was an excellent price for all of them together. When they arrived to their buyer, it was discovered that they absolutely reek of mildew/mold. That's extremely disappointing.

They got packed right back up and are already on their way here.

Normally, boxes of ponies coming from there say they'll take a week and a half or so then suddenly appear after a couple days. I don't think that's going to happen this time, being Giftmas.

I had linked to the sale a while back but I didn't look super close at the pictures because there was no way I was going to be bidding, until today. They certainly LOOK stinky.

Mildew stink is easier to remove than smoke, regardless of whether it's cigarette smoke or whatever my Wave Runner smells of (it smells like she was in a house fire). Mildew stops stinking for the most part once it's all dead, and it's all certainly going to be very dead when I'm done with these ponies.

I have an ozone generator which will help if the bad smell doesn't wash off sufficiently. They can also be treated like rustbutts and given an oxyclean soak inside and out though that's rough on the hair so not my first choice. I may also get that UVC lamp and add it to the SunBox which is good for killing off mold and mildew. Then it's a question of how efficiently I remove it all from the vinyl, or how deeply the scent has gotten into said vinyl.

I'm both feeling optimistic and wary of that optimism. I don't want to get my own hopes up. Gotta keep that shit realistic.

If everyone got wet enough to mold, I don't think Talk-a-Lot is going to be functional. Hopefully she doesn't have batteries corroding in there. If that stuff on her face comes off, though, she'll at least be good for display. She looks very bright and fresh, otherwise.

Look at that scrungy hair on Merry Treat. hohoho bitch I am so excited. She also has some yellow on her face that will hopefully wash off. If it doesn't, yellow does cooperate pretty well with hydrogen peroxide and the SunBox.

I can already see that Mommy has unstable vinyl. That's a shame. Mommy and Baby are Euro exclusive IIRC, and difficult to get, here.

I'm not sure those dark spots on Baby aren't stains. I hope not, but it kind of looks like marker eyeliner.

These little pearlized babies are downright disgusting... Poor things. The pearl paint is surprisingly not as difficult to clean as I'd feared when the first ones showed up, what was it last year? It can withstand a gentle melamine sponging just as well as the cutie mark and eye paint. I also have a matching pearl paint to help with patching in where needed, though I don't have any semi-gloss sealant so any patched areas would rub off again rather easily. Good enough for display. I am rather confident they will turn out just fine.

Look at that knotted up wad of tail tinsel. (❁´◡`❁) I can't WAIT to make that all smooth and pretty again. Hopefully the stuff on her will come off... I can't tell if she has all of her hair and there were no photos of her other side. It looks like it might be shorter, but that can be caused by being matted, too. Fingers crossed it's all there.

Even with a haircut, Rapunzel's resale value is preposterous, which is why I will never own one.

There's some yellow grime on Birthday Pony and Firefly. I'm wary. It will either wipe right off or is stained. No way to know until I start cleaning.

There are no photos of the other side of Li'l Pocket. I wonder if she has her piggy bank and coin, still.

There's a little Remco donkey in there! I was wanting to see one, and now I don't have to buy one to get to.

Swirly Whirly.... I can't tell if the grime is ON her or IN her. She does seem to have shadowing in thinner areas but that can be both caused by dark mildew inside the body and just the fact that it's thinner, there, and there's a bit of a shadow inside. I won't know until I crack her open. When there's dirt stuck in the rooting holes like that, in my experience, it's coming from inside the body. Which is not a problem.

Her horrible hair texture excites me.

I have seen a few Glow n Shows go opaque even more than Starglow there... No idea what causes it. Happyglow in this same batch seems fine.

Someday I want to have some Glow n Shows.

I expect this to be stains. When it's been little round blooms like that, it's generally stained. I hope I'm proven wrong. She has her key, which is EXCITE.

There have been times where I've picked up a pony that looked like they had blooms and I didn't think they'd come off, and they wiped off no problem.

I actually have this one. She's my only remaining childhood pony. My Secret Beauty's key is long gone, though, and her saddle can barely stay latched anymore. The spring for the latch is worn out. She also has an ink stain on her cheek.

.... I don't even know. The listing doesn't say what this dog is.

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ivymyers · 10 months

Text

Problematic (Bucky x Reader)

ig I just like writing about bad things happening to y/n :,)

(There’s a part where I reference Bucky’s hands. Just know one is the metal arm, I just didn’t know how else to say it.)

I honestly don’t know what insanity made me write this but here it is.

Also, don’t expect anything from me for about a week, I’ll be on a vacation.

SOMEONE GIVE ME A REQUEST I’M BORED. (I’ll literally write almost anything)

Around 2.1k words.

Warnings: torture, injury, agnst, Hydra, mentions of death, mentions of rape, low self esteem, anxiety, nightmares (seriously, don’t read if it’s going to bother you)

—-----

You had stuck with your boyfriend Bucky for so long. When he had nightmares you always comforted him, when his panic attacks got bad you always calmed him, and when he needed to talk you were there. For the two years you had been together you both supported each other. The pair of you were inseparable, the time either of you were away on missions away from each other was actually painful.

[In the meeting room]

“Hyra base. That’s our next mission.” Tony stated. “I’m sending Sam, Clint, and y/n on this one. It’ll be just a quick in and out. You’ll be clearing the area out, it should be relatively small. We’ve done a scan of the base from above and it seems like this should be a quick trip. Sam, come in from above, we want a nice view of the action. You shouldn’t have to do too much. Clint, you will be taking shots from a distance. y/n, you will be on the ground fighting. I’m confident that you can handle a few Hydra soldiers” He winked in your direction. “Questions?”

Bucky was the first one to speak, “Yea, why is y/n the only one out there?”

“Did you not just listen? I swear Barnes you only hear when y/n’s name is mentioned. It’s a small mission and I’m sending THREE avengers. That’s more than enough.”

“Buck I can take care of myself, I'll be fine.” You chimed in.

“Y/n is one of our strongest magic users. She’s more than capable. Now that we’ve all discussed Barnes’s separation anxiety, any real questions?” Tony went on. “Great. We leave at 6:00 am tomorrow.”

[Later that night]

“Bucky- we went over this. You have too much of a tie to Hydra. I can handle this.”

“Y/n. I really think I should go with you. I know how to deal with them, I don't trust the situation. Something doesn’t sit right with me.” Bucky began to raise his hands as he does whenever he gets worked up.

“Are you saying I can’t do this?”

“Of course not it’s just-”

“I’m going to bed, Buck. I need to be up early. Don’t bother sending me off the two-day mission that I’m not capable of protecting myself on.”

“Jesus y/n. If you put it that way then maybe I won’t. I’ll see you in two-days then. You can be so…problematic.”

It was just a fight. A small one, nothing you couldn’t handle. Bucky kept his word the next morning. His last words to you sticking to your skin like dew drops to a leaf. You’d fix it when you got back, right?

Except you wouldn’t get the chance to you. There were way more soldiers than you’d anticipated. Bucky was more than right to worry. Hydra had you cornered and there was nothing you could do as they dragged you away.

San got the whole thing on camera as he was scouting from above. All the team could do was watch as one of the strongest Avengers was helplessly dragged away.

Bucky didn’t know what to do. The last words he exchanged with you were in anger. The frustration built up and began to eat at his insides. He knew Hydra better than anyone on the team. If they did anything close to you what they did to him- he didn’t want to imagine it.

Meanwhile you were taken and tied up in a metal chair in a stark white room. Your magic did not work when you tried. The whole place looked clean and was decently large for you being the only one in there. Then you remembered. Hydra.

You didn’t have any information about secret plans or missions or tech or anything to share. So when the torture began your screams echoed and there was no ammunition you had to counter you painful days and sleepless nights. No breaks, just constant hurt. All while Bucky’s words ran through your head over and over and over and over.

Problematic. That was he had seen you.

You weren’t sure how long you had been there for. But sometime into your stay things began to get even worse. They gave you minimal food and water. They began to torment your nights as well by splashing water over you while dead asleep. Waking you with beatings or weapons. But the worst of it by far was the sexual abuse. They raped you countless times as you struggled against their strength. It became too much to bear.

The room was now covered in blood. They hadn’t once cleaned an inch of the space you were in. The metallic scent was always in your noise and the crust of dried red followed your eyes to every corner. But by now you were used to the smell and your vision was blurring from malnourishment anyway.

When you weren’t concerned over when your next meal would come or when the next attack would happen, Bucky filled your mind. Did he care? Was he thinking of you? Or was he glad his problem was gone. The thought of it alone was almost worse than the torture.

You had nothing left.

But then gunshots were heard from outside your room. And through your hazy self could barely process when Bucky broke down the door. He held your barely breathing body in his hand as you struggled the most you could, which was not very hard.

“No…no, no. Stop. Let me go. Not again…” You whispered barely audible.

“Love, it’s me Bucky. I’m not going to hurt you darling.” His heart broke when hearing your cries. He knew exactly what hydra could do to a person.

He sat there with you until Sam and Tony came through and saw the two of you and told him to carry you back.

On the ride back Bucky held you in his arms. Running his fingers through your hair he was beginning to stress whether you would even make it. Your pulse was faint and you had so much blood all over you. He couldn’t tell which wounds were currently open and which ones were old. Your broken lifeless body was painful for him to look at, yet he couldn’t seem to look away.

[Back at Avengers Tower]

You opened your eyes to no blood on the walls and IVs in your arms. The room was slightly larger than the one you were in before. But something felt different about this room. The door opened and you shut your eyes tight as they went and pulled the covers that you didn’t have before up to your face.

Your breaths came short and fast and visions of what happened before shot through your memory. The pain. The humiliation. The shame. What horrors would you face now?

“Y/n you’re awake! Oh, hey, hey. It’s just me. Bruce see? You’re home.”

His voice flooded your senses and you began to calm. Wait. Did he say home? You moved the covers from your face to see the Avenger who had patched you up as best he could since you had returned. Sure enough it was a friendly face you were met with. You stared at him in return.

“You really took a beating out there y/n. Do you want me to go over your medical reports with you now or wait for Bucky to be here too so that I won’t have to repeat it.”

When you didn’t respond he knew something was really wrong. Obviously they had tortured you physically, but something was broken in your mind as well.

When you saw his reaction you plastered a smile on your face and told him to bring him in, hoping Bruce didn’t see your smile fall as he left the room. Being alone suddenly became scary, you were so used to only preparing for the next visit that all you could do was listen to your own heartbeat when Bruce left.

You didn’t hear the door open. But you felt Bucky’s strong body crash into your weak one. What you did hear was Bruce saying he’d give you some alone time.

“Bucky…”

“Oh doll…” his voice trembled as he spoke. Bucky’s hand shook as he reached out to touch your face.

You flinched at his touch and in that moment he thought of every possible type of pain Hydra could’ve put you through. His eyes glistened with tears and he saw how frail you looked.

You jumped when Bruce opened the door again. “Ready to go over the medical reports?”

You had a broken ankle, two bruised ribs, one broken rib, three broken fingers, a sprained wrist,. a dislocated leg, stab wounds, a minor concussion, and countless cuts and bruises. Not to mention a black eye.

Suddenly, Bucky inhaled, stood up and left the room.

Deep down you felt something snap. You felt a mix of emotions. Did Bucky not want you anymore? Were you really that broken?

Bruce followed Bucky and you left with your own tears. After one week in the room, Bruce and the doctors they assigned to let you go back to you and Bucky’s room as long as you came for daily checkups.

[Later that night, first night back in your room]

As soon as sleep drifted upon you the nightmares began to torture you. Memories and fear alike, this was the first time sleep became such a punishment for you.

You awoke in a scream of terror and to Bucky holding you tears streaming down both of your faces. He held you and rubbed your arms.

“I’m gong to fucking kill every last one of them y/n. You don’t deserve any of this. You hear me.” He whispered into the side of your head.

Again, something in you clicked and you stiffened up. Bucky immediately noticed and pulled away.

You both knew you weren’t going to get any sleep so the two of you stood up to cool down. Then the questions came.

“Doll, tell me what happened. You have to tell me what they did.” He was angry. Not at you, but his rage still scared you. As Bucky kept rambling, hands flying through the air, your eyes got wide and the thoughts of pain and fear came tumbling back into your head and you backed into the wall. Hand at your mouth to silence the tears, you slid down the wall. No noise came from you, yet the sound in your head drowned out everything else.

Bucky turned to face you not knowing what to do.

“Problematic” were the words that you sobbed out when he pulled you into a hug.

“Darling- I never meant those words. I love you with everything I am. How long- Jesus-” He ran his hands through his hair. “How long were you thinking of those words? The truth. Now.” He stared you down.

You looked away, “every goddamn moment.” you mumbled. “I thought of them and you every second I was in there. When I wanted hope all I had was that.”

Guilt seeped through Bucky’s mind, a million different thoughts jumbling together. But you weren’t done.

“They beat me until my bones broke and I needed stitches I never got. They almost drowned me several times. They held me at gunpoint. They told me I was worthless over and over until I believed every word of it, and I still do. They abused me until I was sick- even then didn’t stop. They locked me in a room of corpses and made me spend the night in it. They raped me so much that my skin does more than crawl. Fuck, I’ve been awake for a little over a week now and not one other person besides you and Bruce have even bothered to visit! So forgive me if I’m hurting a little.” You were screaming out your words by the end.

It broke Bucky, The thought that someone else’s hands were on you. The thoughts that they made you think. He trembled from everything you told him.

“Doll…my y/n…I regret every word that I said before you were- God I messed up. You matter more to me than anything else. Don’t ever think you’re worthless. And the rest of the Avengers, they thought it best to give you a little space. I’m so sorry Doll.”

You slammed your body against his and let your tears fall onto him. Clutching onto him, deep down you knew you'd recover with lots time, as long as Bucky was by your side.

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#fanfic #x reader #requests open #requests #fandom #bucky #bucky x y/n #bucky angst #bucky x female reader #bucky barnes #james bucky buchanan barnes #winter soldier #hydra #marvel #marvel fanfics #marvel fanfication

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