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mikuluvu · 2 days ago

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HER LAST CALL

Summary: You and the team were in a mission, almost a whole swarm of enemies we're chasing you and the team. But when you stepped on pressure-triggered landmine with no way to disarm it, you made a unthinkable choice to be left behind so they can escape.

CW: Character death, Soap ooc??, Themes of grief and loss.

Tf141 x fem!reader

A/n: 3/10 COD fic posted! This one is a angst, i rlly love this fic mwa mwa. It was 4 out 4 pages in my google docs LMAOO. This was kinda a little bit of Soap x reader?

The jungle was filled with chaos, gunfire tore through the trees, and shouts of the enemies closed in. Task Force 141 and you moved through the bushes, their breathing ragged but their focus was steady. The extraction helicopter was only three klicks away, the sound of its blade barely heard over the gunshots.

“Move, move! They’re on our six!” Ghost’s voice barked through the comms.

Soap glanced back, looking the silhouettes running towards them. “Christ, they’re swarmin’ like bloody ants! We need to pick up the pace!”

Price pushed forward at the front, his rifle raised as he led the team. “Eyes up! Stick together, and keep fuckin’ moving!”

You ran in the middle of the team, your lung burning. The mission had gone sideways hous ago, and now it was a race for survival.

The enemies was close, too close. But then, as you pushed through a particularly thick path of brush, it happened.

Click.

Your boot froze mid-step. For a moment, you didn’t register what it was. But then the cold, horrifying reality hit you like a train. Your breath caught in your throat as you looked down. There, placed beneath your foot, was the edge of a land mine.

“Shit,” you whispered. Your body went rigid, “No, no, no…”

Soap, who has been keeping close behind you, halt to a stop as he noticed your sudden halt. “Y/n! Fuckin’ move it! We’re dead if-” His words dies as he saw the look on your face. His eyes followed yours to the ground, and his expression instantly turned grim.

“Fuck,” he muttered, crouching down beside you. “Pressure-triggered?”

You nodded, you voice shaky but calm. “I-if I lift my foot, it’s game over.”

“Bloody brilliant,” Soap hissed, dragging a hand down his face. “Alright, don’t panic. We can figure this out. There’s got to be a way-”

“Soap.” you cut him off through his rambling. “You know there’s no way out of this.”

The rest of the team realized both of you were gone, making them double back, forming a tight circle around you.

“What’s goin’ on?” Ghost said,

“She stepped on a mine,” Soap said quickly, his jaw clenched. “One of those pressure-sensitive one. If she moves, it’ll blow.”

“God damn it,” Price muttered, dropping to one knee to see the situation. Gaz stood nearby, firing gunshots into the jungle to keep the enemies at bay,

“We’ve got to disarm it,” Soap said, his voice growing more frantic. “Or… or swap out somethin’ for the pressure.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Gaz cut in, “They’re right behind us!” he yelled, as he keeps on shooting.

Price’s hand hovered over the mine, but hesitated, “It’s too risky,” he admitted. “Even if we had time, there’s no guarantee we could disarm it without triggering it.”

You swallowed hard, forcing yourself to speak through the lump in your throat. “Then… you have to leave me.”

Those words hung heavy in the air, like a gunshot. Everyone froze, their eyes snapping to you, because you suggested something unthinkable.

“Not happenin’,” Ghost said instantly.“Listen to me,” you said, your voice trembling. “They’re closing in. If you stay here, we’re all dead. I can buy you time to get to the helicopter.”

“No,” Soap snapped. “We don’t leave anyone behind, and we’re not starting now.”

“Soap…” You reached out, gripping his arm. “You have to, There’s no way to save me without costing everyone else their lives.”

Ghost took a step closer, “We’ve been through worse. We’ll find a way-”

“You fucking can’t!” you shouted, tears stinging your eyes. “There’s no way outt of this, and you know it!”

The team fell silent, the weight of your words sinking in. Price stood up slowly, “She's right,” he said quietly. “We’re out of time.”

Soap stood up and whipped around, glaring at him. “You’re just gonna leave her? Just like that?”

“Do you think I want to do this?” Price snapped, his voice cracking. “Do you think any of us do? But if we stay, she dies and we die. We’ve got to make the hard call.”

Soap turned back to you, his eyes pleasing. “There’s gotta be another way,” he whispered. “Please.”

Your heart broke at the pain in his voice, but you steeled yourself. “There isn’t. Soap, you have to go.”

Gaz grabbed Soap’s shoulder, pulling him back. “She’s giving us a chance to get out of here. Don’t waste it.”

Ghost lingered, his dark eyes burning into yours. “You don’t deserve this,” he said quietly.

You smiled weakly, your tears finally spilling over. “Just promise me you’ll make it out,” you said. “All of you.”

“We will, love” Price said, his hand gripping your shoulder and looking at you with his now soft eyes.

Ghost hesitated a moment longer, then turned away, his hands gripping his gun tightly. Soap looked back at you one last time, “I’m sorry,” he choked out.

“Don’t be,” you said, your voice breaking. “Just go.”

And then they were gone. The sound of gunfire grew louder as they closed in. Your gripped your gun tightly, your heart pounding as you prepare yourself.

“This is where I make it count,” you whispered to yourself.

The first wave burst through the trees, and you opened fire, cutting them down one by one. You fought with everything you had, holding your ground as long as possible. The sound of the helicopter’s rotors grew faintly louder in the distance, a reminder that they were almost safe.

You closed your eyes, and then the mine detonated, englufing the jungle in a blinding flash of light.

The team was silent, their boots heavy as they walked through the compound.

Laswell was already waiting for them, she noticed the missing member immediately.

“Where… is she?’ she asked,

Price stopped in front of her, his hat pulled low over his face. He didn’t answer immediately. When he finally spoke, “She didn’t make it.”

Laswell’s breath hitched, “What happened?”

“She stopped on a pressure mine,” Gaz said softly, “There was no time to defuse it. She… she stayed behind so we could make it out.”

Soap, who has been silent until now, suddenly snapped. “It shouldn’t have happened!” he shouted. “She didn’t have to fuckin’ die! We could’ve done something! Anythin’, but we just fucking left her there-”

“Soap,” Price said, his voice low but firm.

“No!” Soap turned to Price, “you were the one who agreed to leave her”

He didn’t react, “She made the call, Johnny. She made it for us.”

“And we listened,” Soup muttered bitterly, sinking onto a nearby chair. “We bloody fuckin’ listened.”

A/n: Wooohooo! sorry for this... (Im rlly not) I hoped you all liked this <3 Feel free to request Tf141 x reader! or any of the characters!

Reblogs w/comments are appreciated! You can support me through buying me a coffee!

#x reader #cod x reader #cod #angst #tf141 #tf141 x reader #tf141 angst #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley x reader #captain john price x reader #johnny mctavish #johnny soap mactavish #johnny soap mctavish x reader #soap x reader #ghost x reader #price x reader #gaz x reader #kyle gaz garrick #kyle gaz garrick x reader

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deesea-ao3 · 3 days ago

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I've finally realised why I fundamentally disliked the New 52 version of Shazam/Captain Marvel.

I've had nitpicks about it before, but I always chalked it up to my personal preferences, and not anything inherently wrong with the retcon. It just wasn't my thing.

However, I could never shake the feeling that there was some deeper flaw to it than a mere difference in taste. New 52 Billy is a very different character to his older versions, but the core of his backstory (homeless orphan, history of abuse, extreme independence) was arguably retained, just in a new modern rendition. So why did I feel like the new 52 had lost something important?

Then it hit me.

Any version of Billy Batson would, realistically, never let himself have parents again.

Now that is not to say they don't have merit, I can see the vision with them. A perfectly normal, loving, and safe parental unit to contrast the insanity of Billy's life and give him that sweet hurt/comfort goodness. In the end, though, I could never get used to them. Even with all of Billy's changes in the new 52, it always felt deeply ooc whenever he would respect their authority or consider their comfort more important than his responsibilities. In fact, the new 52 version of him is even more distrusting of adults than the golden/silver age version, so Billy compromising his independent personality (especially after he gets his powers) feels like a huge contradiction to both his original and retconned selves. The Vasquez's aren't developed enough characters to make such a huge narrative trade off satisfying. This weird "distrusts authority figures + is proficiently independent yet let's them dictate his responsibilities and make choices on his behalf" characterisation extends beyond the Vasquez's and into Billy's professional relationships with the League. I love reading things where the trinity try and parent Billy, but the fun of it is how he never let's them in the end. Billy's been treated like an equal long enough for him to have seen his colleagues true selves, there is no chance in hell he'd let Superman dad lecture him when he's seen the man at his worst before.

While I never enjoyed the new 52 "Shazamily" brand, I could tolerate it. I never found any of Billy's siblings aside from Mary and Freddy compelling for various reasons, but Darla, Pedro, and Eugene were alright as far as superfluous characters went. What I really never liked were the Vasquez parents, Rosa, and Victor.

What I love about Billy Batson as a character is how inherently tragic he is, but in more subtle ways. Billy was orphaned/abandoned which is sad in and of itself, but the real meat and potatoes is what came after. Billy's been failed by everyone in life, but will not give up faith in people irregardless. He is the world's most competent 12 year old, with wisdom beyond his years and hard won skills that helped him survive on his own. All of this is what made him worthy of the lightning, what made him different and less likely to misuse such power.

Billy Batson in any era of DC always starts out as one of the weakest members of society. His misfortune always stems from the selfishness of others, who's proclivity to abuse their privileges make the boy intimately acquainted with the worst mankind has to offer. He has been robbed at every turn of good choices, and left with the hard ones instead. Education or food? Entertainment or work? How far is he willing to go for survival? If he lies, cheats and steals will he still want to survive by the end? if it means losing who he wishes to be?

If I were in his circumstances, I would be insulted by any attempts to parent me. Acknowledging that I deserved better wouldn't negate a childhoods worth of untrustworthy adults. By that point I'd be so used to living on my own that any well-meaning adults attempt to "lessen my burden" would certainly chafe. God forbid anybody try discipline me in the hopes of providing structure. I would never respect them again. Put the fucking mantle of Champion of Magic on all that, with an ancient wizards seal of approval, and I'd be out of any foster home faster than you could blink.

Why the hell does Billy stay in a house with a bedtime, and lectures, and restrictions on his ability to choose if he can transform into an invulnerable demi-god who can teleport into a safe, warm pocket dimension? Why doesn't he sell off some old junk from the rock, impersonate an adult, get a cheap apartment and load it up with magic wards and runes and just live there? This kid is divinely sanctioned as worthy of responsibility, why the fuck would he listen to life advice from two adults he barely knows? Billy can still be humble about his power while also having a spine about it.

Billy can have as many siblings as he wants, even if I don't find them all that interesting, but I don't think he would ever want parents again. Not if it meant losing the security that comes with full self-determination. He deserves to have had parents, but the tragedy of Billy Batson is that he can't. He has power unimaginable, is a beloved public figure and successful superhero, all these things that only existed in dreams before, but he doesn't have parents, arguably the one thing universally all children should get to have.

#dc comics #dc #captain marvel #shazam #billy batson #mary bromfield #freddy freeman #superman #batman #wonder woman #shazamily #new 52

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barbaralimao · 2 days ago

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Please tag the presence of BABIES in a work. Thank you!!!

okay, genuinely curious (and please feel free to expand in the tags)

#When the characters are too OOC #Like Daddy Don Lucanis you'll never convince me to read one fic like this #The first paragraph must be good to hook me too #So I end up reading the beginning of a lot of fics #I also do not like stories with babies why people like babies so much #This applies to 'oh the MC is the son of the HoF and someone' it's just like finding out Rey is palpatine's granddaughter for me

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estherscorner · 1 day ago

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♧ Maybe in this life, or the next.

♡ Pairings; Scaramouche/Wanderer x GN!Reader || ROMANCE

◇ Summary; Loving you was easy, but keeping you was the challenge. What happens if your fate remained unchanged during your next life?

♤ Warnings; Angst/No comfort, Reader gets reincarnated, You two genuinely loved eachother but were never meant to be together, OOC scara, vulnerable scara, soft scara, shitty writing lmao, major character death.

Let me know if I miss any!

(NOT EDITED!) [SHORT STORY]

After everything he went through for centuries, Scaramouche made a silent vow to himself that he will never get attached to mortals.

They had a short lifespan, often making the most out of it by celebrating yearly. For those unfortunate, they pass away at a young age. The reason behind it consisted of their death being caused by their own kind or a cruel fate they were destined to meet. And those who were considered lucky and spared would surpass a century of age.

So for an immortal like him, this must be the version of his divine punishment. The cruel fate that he was always destined to meet. The curse of immortality and mortality.

You. You were his curse. The one he came to adore. The one who's fate always ends so abruptly.

The one who was meant to be.

You were the one he was destined to be with, or so he believed. He wasn't a fan of romance at all, and he didn't believe in what humans called “soulmates”. But if he were to have one, it was definitely you. Almost every life you had, he had fallen for you over and over again.

And it was his curse.

He met you when he still went by Kunikuzushi. The naive puppet, exploring the world of Inazuma and learning basic survival all by his own. The one who had been abandoned by their creator, and much more recently, by a friend.

And you were just an Inazuman villager that was nearing your death. One who took pity on him as he approached you with an innocent smile.

The one who helped him learn how to love.

You taught him basic human knowledge, what they need for survival and what not. You never informed him that humans can contract diseases. Hiding the fact that you were nearing your death due to your sickness.

You didn't want to break his heart. As you were aware of how he held deep affection towards you.

When he met a small boy that was just like him and you, you made sure to stick to his side. Monitoring the boy's health in secret while helping him learn how to take care of others- but also trying your best to learn his nature. To let him learn and create an identity for himself.

You helped him create a name and identity. And you had him learn human emotions.

Which was a small mistake on your part.

You wanted to love him back, to reciprocate his feelings and help him with exploring the world. But you were powerless. You who slowly succumbed to your illness. Never waking up as you laid still beside him.

He was deeply hurt. He vividly remembered the tears he spilled for you. Crying and begging for you to stop joking with him. Thinking you were playing a cruel prank on him once more.

He wished that he was in tears because of a harsh prank, instead of weeping right over your corpse.

Your being held a huge significance to him. It it wasn't for you, he wouldn't have easily learned how humans worked.

You left an imprint on his nonexistent heart.

You, along with the boy, was his final betrayal that made him "understand". The way you made him feel, it made him doubt you. Made him feel like your love towards him was just a lie to bait him. To trick him into succumbing to his worthless emotions.

Like how you succumbed to your illness.

The second time he saw you was when he was recently promoted as a harbinger. Going by the codename “The Balladeer”. You were one of his subordinates.

He couldn’t believe his eyes, and he couldn't deny how his heart squeezed the moment he made eye contact with you.

He swore to scrub away every last bit of human emotion within him. But he already broke the promise to himself when he decided to talk to you. The harbinger that was known and feared by everyone for his cruel words was unusually quiet when it came to you. It confused you to no end but you were content with it.

It must've been a coincidence, right? The fact you were exactly similar to someone he used to love. Down to your philosophy- you were exactly like them. Only with a different name and background this time.

It was eerie how it was as if you got reincarnated. He couldn’t shake off the thought and idea of it. Was this the celestial gods above finally apologising for mistreating him? For making mad at the humans and gods?

Or was this another trap. That you were trying to lure him back into being exactly who he once was?

Weak, vulnerable, stupid. He was always like that with you.

You were much stronger this time. Much more strong willed. If he could turn you into an immortal, that would be perfect. Maybe this time you wouldn’t be unfortunate enough to succumb to a cruel fate.

He let his guard down just for you. Looking at you so lovingly despite how his harsh words seemed to contrast his gaze. How he'd check up on you after every mission. You were strong. He is strong. This felt like the correct time. Like the stars above were aligning just for him.

Maybe just this once, You would have all the time in the world with him.

And deep within him, he wished he should've just gone with his idea of turning you into one of the doctor's experiment. Making you immortal.

There your lifeless form laid on the grass. The green patch below you turned into crimson red as your eyes were back to being dull. A feeling he hadn't felt in years crept right back. A feeling he long forgot about.

Dread.

It was merely a mission that went wrong. You were his right-hand commander. The one he always trusted. He knew your beliefs, he learned the world whilst continuing to believe in your philosophy. No matter how stupid it sounded to him.

But maybe it was his mistake for trusting you to begin with.

He couldn't even mourn. This was his punishment for breaking the promise he swore to himself all those years prior. The promise he broke as soon as he decided to fall in love with you again.

This was a dark reminder that you were one of his betrayal, and nothing would ever change that.

Does he even have the right to cry? He should have expected the worst. Yet he fell for your trap and found himself vulnerable again. A state that was supposed to be erased from his very being.

He hated you. Hated how you toyed with his feelings.

The third and final time he saw you was after he erased his very existence. Becoming a failed attempt of a God and gaining an anemo vision after getting his memories back with the help of Nahida.

And those memories included you.

He came to terms with himself. Removing his past identity.

Removing the identity you helped him create.

He went by the name Wanderer. And even after all these years, he couldn't help but feel bitter towards you.

He hated how you were so significant to his being. How you could easily melt away his ice cold wall he so delicately placed around his heart to keep everyone out.

And how you always seemed to find your way to him again. Coming right back into his life.

You weren't a villager who was ill, you weren't someone who's job always risked themselves and was in constant danger.

You were a traveler with a vision. Exploring cities and landscapes you’ve heard stories of. Loving the new views and meeting new people.

But as if to mock him, you were still exact one he had fallen for.

You were the same old you, The one he fell in love with all those centuries ago. The one he stupidly got vulnerable with.

And this time, You were the first to approach him.

You were more open in this life, always chattering and bothering him despite the fact he'd try to push you away or shut you off. His cruel words didn't even faze you. This time, it was you clinging onto him.

Following him around, Buying him food, talking to him about your commissions. You were the one who constantly pestered him.

And he was still the same idiot that believed in you. Even after claiming he hated you.

How could he even get himself to hate you?

Old habits always die hard.

But he promised. Thuis time, he will learn how to love you in time. This time, he wouldn't wait until you die in his arms. He'll protect you from your fate.

“Do you believe in reincarnation, Wanderer?”

You asked, laying down on the patch of grass right next to him. He leaned onto the wooden bark behind him. Closing his eyes as he hummed. How ironic.

The wind blew stronger.

“Only idiots believe in those.”

He bluntly said. Eyes opening to gaze down at you, arms under the back of your head as you stared up at the clouds right up at the blue sky. Admiring the view despite there wasn't much going on.

He never truly understood how mortals seemed to cherish even the smallest things.

“Does that make me an idiot, then?”

You asked. Chuckling as he raised a brow at you. You closed your eyes taking in a deep breath. Moments like these are what you cherish the most. Relaxing and having fun with the ones you love.

“You were always an idiot.”

He scoffed at you. Feigning annoyance and hurt. Sitting up to his level and slapping his shoulder, sulking. You puffed your cheeks up. Not saying another word as you pout at his bluntness.

He knew it all too well. You were always trying your best to make him smile.

And you never failed to do so.

“What? Am I wrong?”

He said sarcastically, smiling at you as you just rolled your eyes at him. Scoffing at his words. He watched as you laid on your back again. Arms on your stomach this time, yawning.

“Life is really scary. But I feel like being alone is scarier.”

you said, trailing off as you glanced back at him. Eyes locking with his sharp ones. You gave him a smile. A simple and soft smile.

It was contagious. He always loved seeing that etched on your lips.

“That's why I'm glad I have you.”

You followed up. He gagged and rolled his eyes at your cheesiness. You didn’t even know why you're saying all these words.

But maybe it's because you just wanted to tell him how he truly meant to you.

“You're so cheesy, It's disgusting."

He said. Tone blunt as he placed his large hat on your face to block your view. You didn't fail to notice how his cheeks seemed to turn a hue of red despite the fact you both were under the shade.

You couldn't help but smile at his reaction.

“I'm not being cheesy! I just wanted to tell you that you mean a lot to me! We rarely have heart to hearts.”

You said. Removing his hat that he placed on your face and placing it on your stomach. Arms around the large accessory as you looked up at him again.

His elbow was on his knee, hand on his chin as he stared down at you with softened expression.

“I love you, I truly do.”

Despite the fact you loved him for centuries on end in your past lives, he never got to hear you say those words in person.

Most of the time, he could see it through your expression and your shared silence.

Maybe the problem was with your fate. Alwats ending so abruptly back then. But, he was happy that he got to hear those words. Even if it were just mere sentences. Even if it took him a lifetime.

“..Yeah.”

He couldn't bring himself to say it back. He never could. He wasn't Kunikuzushi anymore. But with your hum, it was like a confirmation that you knew he loved you back.

He wished he could tell you how much he truly loved you. But for now, he wanted to keep the comfortable silence.

There was a small glimmer of hope that there was finally some progress with your fate, even if it took him centuries, he will wait until you and him finally got the happy ending he wanted.

The happy ending you both deserved.

But he wonders if he could act fast and beat destiny, before it could take you away again.

He held your hand. Fingers intertwined as droplets of tears spilled onto the cold skin below him.

Your eyes were sickeningly dull. And he was all to familiar with how it looks.

Your vision in his other hand, slowly turning a shade of grey before completely becoming a dull colorless one. Similar to those visions without an owner.

As he held your hand. He truly wondered how many times he will have to be tormented like this.

And if he was truly guaranteed to meet you in your next life.

(A/N); "I lowkey don't like this one since I feel like I can do better! But it's fine, I'm very new to writing anyways. I also can't feel the angst ughh :("

♤ Property of Esther ♤

#scaramouche x reader #wanderer x reader #scara x reader #scaramouche x you #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin x you #genshin angst #angst

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rivendell-poet · 1 day ago

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i absolutely adore ur headcanons posts with the lotr characters but i didn’t know how many characters you take requests for per headcanon post so i’ll keep it very short ehehe

how would the elves (legolas, thranduil, lindir, glorfindel, meludir, haldir and feren) react to human who is just affectionate even before courtship starts? morning hugs, lemme braid ur hair, surprise tackle hugs or see u later forehead kisses? just thought it would be funny to see the elves go beet red with perked up ears since y’know, they’re not as affectionate as humans

thanks so much! (and so sorry for the wait, completely my bad) legit an honour to have you request from me/say you like my works. and I completely agree with the thought being funny, and here it is as headcanons!

(full disclosure, i've written once/not at all for the last three characters - please tell me if they're ooc)

*･༓˚✧ ❝𝐞𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫❞ ‧͙⁺˚༓˚✧ « headcanons »

○ Legolas ○ Thranduil ○ Haldir ○ Lindir ○ Meludir ○ Feren ○ Glorfindel ○

GN!Reader | TWs : None | Wordcount : 1.3k

𝐋𝐞𝐠𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐬

✧ Depends on if he’s travelled with the Fellowship, or if he hasn’t.

✧ Either way he’ll go still for a second, eyes gently going to you as if to check you’re actually doing what you’re doing. And of course there’s a light blush that’s spreading across his face.

✧ He gingerly hugs you back, unsure whether or not to squeeze you in it like you’re squeezing him. And when you give him a little forehead kiss he simply freezes in your arms.

✧ Wonders, just for a second, if you somehow started courting and he didn’t realise. Then he simply stays there and gives a smile.

✧ It isn’t forced, just slightly uncertain - he’s never experienced this before.

✧ Later comes up to you and awkwardly thanks you before retreating backwards.

✧ If he’s been in the Fellowship for long enough he starts to reciprocate the gestures on a smaller scale.

✧ Legolas can very easily be convinced to braid your hair as well, and he takes it very seriously.

✧ Lays out his cloak so you can sit on the grass. Does a few small ones so you can see which one is preferable.

✧ When you’re not courting he feels a little guilty doing it - as your hair falls through his fingers it’s almost like you are together. And he doesn’t want to take advantage of that. But he likes you too much to stop, and you braid his hair as well.

✧ Is probably the quickest of the elves to get used to it, aside from Glorfindel.

𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐢𝐥

✧ In an odd way, he’s one of the elves who craves it the most.

✧ Everyone else has some casual touches, a reassuring gesture by a friend. But no-one is brave enough to touch the King of Mirkwood. Until you.

✧ He’s missed warmth, he’s missed the sense of other people that you can now bring.

✧ Thranduil finds himself at first leaning into the hugs, before remembering that he should be proper. That he’s maintained a colder persona for so long. (He still can’t fully hide his reluctance as he pulls away.)

✧ The people who know him well are surprised when he doesn’t admonish you, before they realise why. You don’t understand why the king is suddenly glaring at someone behind you.

✧ Eventually he starts to return the gestures as well, although to start they are more careful.

✧ As begins to braid your hair - the light touches causing some strands to escape and generally become loose - you remind him that you’re not made of glass.

✧ You’ve been able to almost tackle him with a surprise hug, he can touch you with more than a feather-light weight.

✧ Once the two of you start courting he accepts the gestures more easily, although he’ll never become quite as good at spontaneous physical gestures of affection.

✧ Throughout the entire time he remains impressively blush free, although he does tense quite a lot.

𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐫

✧ You’ve seen how the poor elf froze when Aragorn simply hugged him. He’s very unused to gestures like this.

✧ He does like them - or at least, judging by the way he’ll steadily grow red he thinks he does. Or maybe he simply likes you.

✧ You have almost certainly triggered his fight/flight/freeze instinct on more than one occasion with a surprise hug, although he’s getting better at it. There’s a low chuckle, and a small smile when he realises it’s just you.

✧ People being this naturally affectionate is a curiosity to him, but when it comes from you it’s something he’s eager to know more about.

✧ Although the gestures, the small kiss on your forehead in greeting and such, are at first stiff and uncertain he gets better with them.

✧ Half the time when he’s greeting you with a forehead kiss, his lips really want to ask you ‘what are we?’. Or perhaps kiss yours.

✧ Still, Haldir is content to wait for a while. Even if he freezes up, your gestures still mean so much to him.

✧ Things become clearer when you eventually start courting, and all the affection feels more natural to him.

✧ There’s moments where Haldir simply blushes as he stands next to you, but every day the elf becomes more sure of your bond - and gives more expression to it.

𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐫

✧ Also blushes a lot, his breath slightly catching before he tries to amend whatever he’s done. A small cough, or perhaps a bow to you in greeting - a vague hope some of the red will have gone when he comes up again.

✧ How you greet him, the quick kisses or the hugs, pulls him straight into romance stories he hasn’t read (or at least acknowledged reading) since he was a young elfling.

✧ And even then the gestures where between those already together, not like the two of you.

✧ Yet he doesn’t ever draw away, finds his gaze lingering on whatever has occurred.

✧ After the first time you’d braided his hair he’d nervously approached you again, asking if you braid it the following day as well.

✧ What you’re doing is unusual, but he can’t bring himself to care. Even the worries he has about seem to dissipate when you smile at him, or say goodbye with a kiss.

✧ Even after you start courting he still can’t stop his face from blushing horribly. Although he no longer hides it - he’s proud to be that deeply in love with you.

𝐌𝐞𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐫

✧ When you first meet him, your interaction is brief. Not too many words exchanged as he talks to you, and then again as you disappear. Except for ‘goodbye’ kiss you give him.

✧ It’s feather light, but as an elf he could feel it so clearly. The brush of your lips against his skin, the way your eyes had sparkled. How quickly blush had rushed to his cheeks.

✧ Meludir lifts a hand to the spot you touched him, almost as if expecting something. But there is nothing, just the memory of your affection.

✧ Unlike the other elves, he can’t help but try to seek out your affection. Returning a friendly kiss with a gesture of his own, even if he can’t quite bring himself to kiss you back.

✧ There’s always a smile on his face after you’ve done something, big or small, and a sprinkling of blush to accompany it.

𝐅𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧

✧ The first time you do such a gesture to him he’s quite certain that it’s by mistake.

✧ The second time you do it, or something similar, you can see him freeze for a second (trying to process it) before he turns to you. Almost confused, trying to understand why.

✧ Feren eventually just accepts it, although that doesn’t stop him from getting slightly flustered.

✧ As a diplomat the brief kisses, the friendly greetings aren’t too bad. He can adapt, he can get used to this new social interaction. What he can’t get used to is the more intimate gestures of affection.

✧ You truly see him flustered for the first time when you offer to braid his hair. The way he looks to you, words suddenly gone as you smile at him.

✧ It’s also these interactions he craves more than anything else.

𝐆𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐥

✧ There is a small part of you that’s, quietly, intimidated by the golden warrior. But when he laughs with you, a rich, lighter laugh than you expected accompanied by a radiant smile, you realise you have nothing to be afraid of.

✧ Still, the goodbye hug you give him is slightly shy.

✧ There’s a moment where he simply lets you hug him, before he ever-so-gently returns the gesture; careful to be light and to not trap you.

✧ The smile he had on his face is still there when you pull away, which gives you a little more confidence.

✧ And Glorfindel is so happy you have the confidence. He’ll still blush when you’re affectionate, but it’s more because he likes you than he’s embarrassed.

✧ (One exception is the kisses, which do turn his ears red. He still looks forward to them from you, however.)

✧ Will return quite a few of the gestures, although like Thranduil you have to remind him that you’re not made of glass.

A/N : Comes back to drop this fic with no explanation, leaves immediately again- Just kidding. I should be back again, sorry for the long wait; I've been very ill & then my laptop broke, so. 2025 been going... interestingly

« masterlist » thank you for reading *･༓˚✧ Taglist : @celestialhole / @starwars2222 / @xiaoseminence / @withasideofmeg / @nilintakan ✧ wish to be tagged?

✧ @wordbunch / @bespectacledhuman / @howling-medic / @paigemackenzie0206 / @northernwing

✧ @ferns-fics / @chewgazellechew / @recordofragnarokfan2 / @stormchaser819 / @raikan624

✧ @anchy-bananchy / @zeldastrife / @killermarionette / @deannie13 / @fleurdemiel-145

✧ @themuseinthewoods / @wisheduponastar

#lotr x reader #lotr x you #the hobbit x reader #the hobbit x you #legolas x reader #thranduil x reader #haldir x reader #lindir x reader #meludir x reader #feren x reader #glorfindel x reader

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bill-cipher-official · 1 hour ago

Text

YOOOO!! I need to get some Scene / Scenecore outfits, I love the aesthetic. I also don't know the difference between the two, so it'll likely be a mashup of both.

Part 1 shop update tomorrow 1/14 @ 5:30pm central time!! :D new items and restock!

𖦹₊ ⊹ 🌈 SHOP 🌈 𖦹₊ ⊹

#out of character.#ooc post

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corviiids · 1 day ago

Note

If i ask nicely, would you consider writing the core of Light and L character like you did for Shuake? (IT'S BRILLIANT BTW!! You're so galazy brain. I love reading any meta or just silly posts you posted here <3) because you mention Light a couple time in Akechi's part and now i need to know your thought on him and L.

(Also, about the death note wip you're cooking right now, is it a oneshot or multiple chapters fic? Im super excited for it!)

i ABSOLUTELY would thank you so much for asking and for your lovely kind words. and im sorry this took me seven years to get to i just kept psyching myself out.

here's the ren & goro post this ask refers to for anyone wondering. the 'core' refers to my answer to a writing meme:

26. What would you describe as OOC? [...] it's the same approach i take to language tbh particularly in pronunciation. once you understand how a language forms its sounds at a base level, you dont struggle with the accent on particular words, and you can encounter words you've never seen before and understand how they're likely to be said/spelled/etc. so once i learn to 'speak' a character they come more naturally. idk if that comparison makes sense to anyone else but it does to meeeee all this to say i think a character is ooc if they do or say something i cant reconcile with that core!

the death note wip is a multichap!! thank you for your interest!!! ill talk about it more once i've stopped tying myself in knots plotting it!! broadly it's a what-if type au which has led me to replot an entire series from scratch dont look at me

anyway lawlight below. i will say ive been really desperately wanting to do like a video essay or something about death note which would be a lot about L and light specifically and how i interpret their characters so ill try and not go toooooo insane in this post but maybe ill go more insane later. in a video. with my human voice.

(edit: i failed i went insane)

light - one-way road to the sky

ok let's talk about one of my favourite scenes of the entire series, which i think is widely not super well understood but honestly to me holds the key to light's entire character. it's right there in volume 1

sorry, the only digital copy ive got on hand is the scanlation. for comparison the official print copy reads:

bubble 1: hey, maki, wanna party tomorrow with some guys from s. college? ten o'clock. bubble 2: yeah, totally! bubble 3: hey, can i go too? bubble 4: my mom isn't here yet? what's that nag doing, geez! light (thinking): damn... light (thinking): start looking around you... light (thinking): and all you see are people the world would be better off without.

this happens within the first 40 pages of the first volume. and it's like. haha hey light what the fuck? this is a totally normal scene in everyday life. people are talking about living their lives. nobody's done anything remotely reprehensible in this scene. and light's just walking through the streets experiencing apparently unprompted and quite extreme misanthropy. what's wrong with him

ok let's have a quick look at the first time we meet light in the anime.

[...]

cool cool cool im gonna pivot again let's look at the first song (besides the overture) in the musical.

ok rook! we get it! light yagami is out here like damn we live in a society time to kill people about it. this is news to nobody! we all know this!! that's what the series is about! why are we rehashing all of this

great. cool. awesome. let's look at all those scenes one more time. but this time don't look at light. instead let's look at the people around him

in the opening shots of the anime (after the shinigami world, which actually is much the same theme): news of brutal murder is narrated over establishing shots of tokyo. light is shown dead-eyed, going about his ordinary life, surrounded by random other civilians doing the same thing.

in the musical, light isn't angry that murders happen. he's angry about the inaction and complicity of the ordinary people around him.

these scenes aren't highlighting that light thinks crime is bad. we all know crime is bad. the point of these scenes is to contrast light's frustration and fury against the reactions of the people around him. here's what light yagami is seeing: we're surrounded with rot. but nobody's reacting. and then life just goes on. so suddenly all those completely normal scenes of people being concerned with the superficial details of their life aren't just normality, they're complicity. day in, day out. so the world is rotting, and to light, it seems that everyone is completely ok with that. that's just the way things are. and that disgusts and depresses him. on top of than that, it isolates him: he feels like he's the only one who sees or cares about this, that everyone dismisses him as naive, that no one else can be trusted, that everyone else is able to ignore something he sees as inexcusable. this is a sentiment he repeats again and again. it reads as arrogance, and it is, but it's also isolation - after all it's lonely at the top and just as lonely to feel like you're at the top even if you arent

can i talk about the iliad again? is that ok with everyone. im gonna talk about the iliad again

in book 1 of the iliad, the commander of the greek army insults achilles by publicly and unlawfully taking a prize (the girl briseis) who rightfully belonged to achilles. achilles reacts by withdrawing his troops from the army, dooming the greeks' campaign. achilles had a lot of friends in the army, so why would he essentially sentence them all to death for something that only agamemnon did? well, (because agamemnon did something publicly that everyone knew was wrong, and yet nobody was willing (or at least able) to stand up for achilles and stop it from happening. achilles, disgusted by the inaction of the bystanders, turned his back on all of them. fun fact i nearly wrote a mini thesis (an academic one not just a long post on tumblr) about the intersection btwn this book of the iliad and legal theory but law+classics is such a niche interdisciplinary field my professor couldnt find anyone who could supervise me so i couldnt do it. anyway that's not the point

is this right or fair? who cares, not the point. what im interested in is what that kind of behaviour says about the individual. light, like achilles, is a highly idealistic person. we all know that in the abstract, but take a second to really really dig into it, because it's actually quite an interesting fact about a character who is popularly understood as being cold and unfeeling or flatly psychotic and on a power trip. idealism isn't naivety, it's not optimism, it's not even really a happy thing. idealism is simply a firm belief in the way things should be at the cost of refusing or being unable to accept what is.

this is the core of light yagami to me. light doesn't become kira because he's cold or destructive or crazy. he doesn't actually even do it because he's spiteful or misanthropic. it's very much the opposite. he's misanthropic because he believes in the world so much. isn't that a great contradiction! ok here i'll show you some proof.

in an early scene (also in volume 1), light describes himself as an optimist and ryuk finds that interesting.

so light is an optimist. he believes in a bright future for humanity. he wants to protect humanity. he likes humanity. no, he doesn't believe that people are inherently good, but he does believe in some goodness as a part of humanity and wants to protect the best of people, in an egotistical way:

how do we reconcile that with a young man who walks through the streets listening to completely ordinary conversations by ordinary people and reacts by wishing death on everyone talking?

let's split out what's going on here. remember what's happening in light's head. light yagami is 17 years old. he grew up with a police chief for a father (in a fictional world where the police are the literary stand-in for law as justice so just pretend for a second that police are good im sorry), watching his father work tirelessly to fight crime - but crime continues, making this an endless, thankless task. and while crime continues, so does the world around him. every day light sees atrocities on the news, and he sees atrocities brought home, and then he lives his ordinary life and watches the people around him apparently not give a shit, only concerned with the petty details of their own little lives. bystanders watching wrong happen, selfishly unaffected. day in, day out. that idealism is getting colder the longer this unendurable injustice goes on. so achilles condemns his friends to death.

what human trait is being exhibited? realistically it's helplessness. would being miserable about crime help to end crime? of course not. people have to go on with their lives, that's a fact, it's even a strength. even light begins the series completely unable to do a thing about the rot he sees around him, which is part of why he's so depressed. but that's not what light is seeing. light is seeing ordinary people appear to choose not to give a fuck about injustice. the thing that's sparking his disgust is apathy, real or apparent. light yagami is an idealist. he wants a better future - a utopia that only he can imagine - something that can only happen if either everyone becomes as good as he is, or he takes control.

if you leave an idealist in an unwinnable situation for too long, their pure belief will start to curdle. it will not turn to realism. they will not accept what is. they will only become more and more bitter that what should be, isn't. they will become a cynicist. this is really the heart of my argument and ive made it a million times and ill make it again. idealism and cynicism are not opposites, they're not even two sides of a coin. they are two points on the same line which moves very quickly in only one direction. this is where i start when im writing him: how do i make someone who believes so hard that it's killing him? someone who believes so hard it makes him believe in nothing?

then we find the third point on that line, which someone can reach by gaining sudden power - for example, a magic notebook that kills people: radicalisation.

how do we reconcile his desire to protect humanity with the fact that what he's trying to protect against is also humanity? how can i say light loves humanity when he has such disdain for them? easy peasy: light sees himself as the messiah. my bumper sticker that says ask me about light's martyr complex PLEASE ask me about light's martyr complex i wrote a song about it ask me about light seeing himself as the sacrificial lamb on the (and then the bumper sticker cuts off)

light loves humanity the way a twisted shepherd might love his sheep. something to be protected, but something beneath you that can't be trusted to know what's best for them. humanity is something he loves because it's endearingly pathetic, something to pity and save. repeatedly he refers to becoming kira as a personal sacrifice, something that costs him his soul but that he has to do. it's a delusion of grandeur driven by dual purposes of ego and some desperate wish to change a status quo he's been despairing about for years.

tl;dr: light believes with all his soul in something he thinks is impossible, and it's killing him slowly, and then a chance to change the world just falls out of the sky

L - isolate yourself until you can make believe it's just a game

steeples fingers. i have Things to Say about L Lawliet.

ok listen. listen. Listen. listen. are you listening? listen. in general i think people kind of misunderstand characters who are hyper-intellectual and/or behave unconventionally in social settings. you're all going to fucking kill me for this but i think there's a tendency to like... accidentally turn any character who falls vaguely in this broad category into sheldon cooper. god im sorry i feel like i just shot everyone's collective dog

specifically what i mean by that is that 'awkward' gets flanderised in a way that eventually becomes a caricature of itself, because there is so much nuance to actual social awkwardness that it's very easy to kind of pick a template and stick to it without really thinking about what makes that character 'awkward' and what the root and type of awkwardness is, unique to them. so instead we just get, like... generic big word user. generic driven by logic and logic alone guy. generic guy who doesn't Do Well with other people, for Smart Reasons.

here's a list of true things about L which i think are safe to say are uncontroversial

intuitive

logical, master of deductive reasoning

competitive

behaves in an odd way that draws attention

is aware of that fact

focuses extremely hard on his cases and only cares about being a detective not anything else

isolates himself and doesn't like talking to people partly for his own safety partly because it's boring to him

here are things i have seen in characterisation of L which i would like to dispute

makes decisions and draws conclusions based solely on logic and evidence

doesn't understand social cues

here's a list of alternate interpretations which i would like to propose and that i am willing to back up with evidence and/or by physically fighting over them

is driven primarily not by logic or evidence, but by incredible intuition which is supported by logic and evidence when it suits him

has a keen understanding of people, interpersonal relationships, and social norms

leverages that understanding frequently to his benefit

feels that he is not capable of / not a part of emotions that he sees as being typically human (see his speech about being a monster)

and yet in an abstract and self-contradictory and low-priority way still kind of desires connection, leaving him emotionally isolated

chooses to behave oddly on purpose, not because he doesn't realise he's behaving oddly, but because it is not a priority for him

those might seem like fine distinctions at some points, but stray slightly off the mark and his characterisation begins to vary wildly. for example, interpret L as being bemused or unaware of social cues, and one possible characterisation that may stem from that understanding (which i have seen) is that L doesn't understand sarcasm or jokes - which is demonstrably untrue. L demonstrates weak social skills because social skills aren't a priority for him, not because he doesn't understand social norms. after all he does a reasonably convincing 'i am a normal dudeguy' voice on at least two occasions (suzuki the information line guy and asahi the calling matsuda for drinks guy). even with the taskforce, when his behaviour is more of his usual bizarre self, he still makes the effort to treat them respectfully and meet them where they are, explaining himself when they ask, chatting with them, holding ordinary conversations. you can read this any number of ways but my point is that he can do all of this with relatively little struggle

it's also very much not the case that L doesn't have feelings or care about other people. he's ruthless and he's cool with causing people to die if he has to, but he reacts with visible distress to the deaths of the FBI agents, to ukita's death, to the prospect of other members of the taskforce dying. he does care, he's just not morally driven as a priority.

ok but if he can cosplay as Normal Dudeguy with no trouble then why doesn't he. why does he conduct all his business in dark rooms apart from the entire world forever. is it gauche to use a section of my own fic to explain my point? im going to do it anyway

It is easy to identify in Light what he has long known in himself. That little pearl of disruption, grown around an irritating grain of something just unique and tremendous enough to be uncomfortable to the more ordinary around them. L has hidden it by hiding himself. Light has hidden it by hiding within himself. L's black letter is to Light’s vapid smile is to Kira's invisible bullet.

(honestly a lot of what i have discussed here is also covered in this fic so in case this fucking three thousand word essay is not enough for you you can go read that.)

something L and light significantly have in common is that their intellect and unique way of thinking really set them apart from everyone in the world, which is incredibly isolating. but while L has the 'benefit' (arguably could be a detriment but i think he sees it as a benefit) of a unique upbringing which allows him to use his skills to their full extent without worrying about really anything else, light is very much trapped by social convention. while light's life is privileged and materially perfect, he's stuck inside what society expects of him, while L is able to exist completely outside that paradigm. the result is that light has retreated within himself and spends all day playing a part, barely tolerating the monotony and apathy of the world around him by mechanically performing as expected while smothering the part of him that never has an opportunity to truly come out until kira. L, on the other hand, has no reason to put up with a society that is, for lack of a better term, really just beneath him. so he retreats. remember that the first volume/chapter of the manga is called 'boredom'.

you can see that even in his comparatively limited interactions with the task force, he is having to exercise a level of patience to explain to them what he's thinking at every stage, to have to defend his methods, his instincts, his decisions, etc, needing to step through every stage of his reasoning so that the others can follow and won't object. this is NOT just about masking his odd behaviour, it's also very much about having to step through his morals and his process, which is second nature to him but is new to everyone else and needs explaining. it is visibly exhausting to him, and this is with people he actually seems to like well enough. eg during yotsuba arc when light and soichiro keep raising moral concerns, and he has those little "here we go again" moments (which i love SO much and are so telling of him to me) even though he doesn't let his frustration show. which is why he usually does not bother with it and prefers to work alone. he sits the way he does even though he knows it's odd, because he feels he need to sit that way. when light calls it out, he doesn't question that people will think he's strange, so he's clearly aware. he just explains himself.

but if he were out with people on the regular, he'd need to defend himself constantly. the things L does are not conventional. yes the sitting is just an oddity of his so it's a good example, but it's not just the things that are odd that cause a problem: he frequently makes decisions which seem to make massive leaps of logic nobody else (except light) can follow, and often his actions are morally questionable or even reprehensible. all that is because L is extremely pragmatic and results-focused. it kind of doesn't matter to him how he gets from A to B as long as he gets to B. but the way his mind works is that he makes big jumps that make perfect sense to him but would draw curiosity or objection from anyone who doesn't think the way he does. it would be absolutely exhausting to have to constantly defend every strange or questionable thing he did, so he just retreats.

when he works with other people, i think it's worth noting that the team dynamic never actually struggles for L's awkwardness. this is something i really like about death note honestly - L is quirky and strange, but the series doesn't do that thing where it's like He's A Genius Of Course He's Rude To Everyone. he's actually not. for the most part, L is courteous, patient, and polite. he's sometimes blunt or abrupt, but he very rarely does the thing where he's obliviously cruel or brushes people off. he's considerate of people's needs, he's visibly compassionate of other people's emotional difficulties, and he very rarely loses his patience. when matsuda tries to tell the locked-up light about kira resuming activity, L snaps "Matsuda!" to stop him, and then immediately corrects himself to go "I mean, Matsuda-san." it would have been really easy for the series to do that tropey shit where he's so smart that he doesn't bother with politeness, but he factually does. he makes the effort to treat people politely even when he's not actually being kind. when he's asked to explain himself, the reader can see he's tired and annoyed, but he doesn't take it out on people. on the odd occasion he does make fun of someone for being slow, he does so in mostly light-hearted ways. so he is very capable of dealing with other people directly. his lack of social skills aren't for lack of understanding. he just can't be bothered. it's a waste of energy to try and behave 'normally' or to do things that other people find acceptable, whether that's due to social norm or common morality. it is so, so much easier for L to do things alone. without the need to explain or defend his behaviour to anyone, his isolation turns real world problems into something almost purely theoretical. so it really is like a game for him, at least at first.

whatever

i think it's really important for a character like L to not be fooled by the surface-level categorisation of 'smart awkward character'. we really need to find what's driving his awkwardness. it's not ignorance, it's not even really disdain, it's exasperation. he's tired of being surrounded by people who just can't keep up with him, and he does not have enough energy or interest to spend his time handholding everyone through his process, so he just does whatever the hell he wants and avoids people as much as possible so he doesn't have to deal with it.

look i know this is a really long way to say stuff that people mostly already know, but i think L is one of the most finely nuanced characters in the series because he looks like such a simple expression of a known archetype and the ways in which he subverts expectations are so granular that it's easy to completely miss them even while appreciating how interesting he is. the way this translates into how i write him is that he's polite and has a lot of patience until he simply doesn't, at which point he'll inwardly or subtly express that he wishes he didn't have to bother with this shit, that he picks up on fine social and emotional details that other people will totally miss, but that he'll always put his own whims and plans before anything else.

tl;dr: L behaves like someone who is constantly moving at his own pace and for whom dealing with people is rarely worth the effort, but this does not make him inept or unkind.

#i also wanna say i have my own personal headcanons regarding like #l and light's experience with neurodivergence etc #but that doesn't play into my analysis here so much. this is just about how i read their behaviour and motivations #diagnosing fictional characters is not really something i feel comfortable doing out loud #because i dont feel it's my place to do that. ill just keep those thoughts in my head #rookthots #death note #long post #i got this ask in like september #im so sorry #i got stressed about sharing my opinions on the internet so i just sat on it for months #IT'S MY OPINIONS. MY OPINIONS ONLY. only my personal thoughts and opinions #only my personal approach to writing these characters #only my personal fucking doctorate on lightology that im presenting on tumblr

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hollowed-theory-hall · 1 day ago

Note

hi 👋 i love hearing your thoughts about things, especially when i feel like ive hit a wall with ideas lol. anyways i was wondering about whether or not you thought it was ooc for sirius to go after wormtail that night instead of stay with harry

Hi 👋

Thank you so much!

And no, I don't think it's OOC considering it's one of the first things we learn about Sirius. Sirius, when he's emotional, he's reckless. Actually, Sirius is reckless with his own safety in general. Throughout GoF and OotP he constantly tells Harry to not risk himself, but Sirius is constantly putting himself at risk. He is reckless with his own life and well-being almost constantly. His recklessness extends to others as well (I mean, the prank could've ended up with everyone finding out or with Remus killing Snape. So it's clear he doesn't care as much for Remus or Snape's safety). But not Harry. Never Harry's safety.

Harry's safety is incredibly important to him, not his own (or some other people, he's pretty selective about who matters).

After the Potters died, Sirius trusted Hagrid and Dumbledore to keep Harry safe, so he allowed himself to go after Pettigrew. I mean, it's his usual pattern, he makes sure Harry is safe, like he shouts at him to take Neville and run in the ministry in OotP:

“Harry, take the prophecy, grab Neville, and run!” Sirius yelled, dashing to meet Bellatrix.

(OotP)

Before throwing himself headfirst into danger he might not return from. (Azkaban back on the night the Potters died and a fight in which he died at the end of OotP).

Besides, Sirius sees betraying his friends as the worst sin possible:

“Believe me,” croaked Black. “Believe me, Harry. I never betrayed James and Lily. I would have died before I betrayed them.”

(PoA)

“You don’t understand!” whined Pettigrew. “He would have killed me, Sirius!” “THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED!” roared Black. “DIED RATHER THAN BETRAY YOUR FRIENDS, AS WE WOULD HAVE DONE FOR YOU!”

(PoA)

He is willing to die for James, Lily, and Harry in a heartbeat. It's not even an active decision for him, it's just how it is. To think it isn't the same for Pettigrew — that his friend let James and Lily be killed to save his own skin — there is little Sirius hates more than that. If Voldemort comes after you, Sirius sees no other option but to die to protect your friends.

Like, fandom likes to talk about secondary houses and stuff, Sirius' second choice house would be fucking Hufflepuff. His loyalty and how all-encompassing it is, is such a big part of his character. Loyalty motivates him to do almost everything he does. He breaks out of Azkaban to protect Harry:

“But then I saw Peter in that picture . . . I realized he was at Hogwarts with Harry . . . perfectly positioned to act, if one hint reached his ears that the Dark Side was gathering strength again. . . .” [...] “So you see, I had to do something. I was the only one who knew Peter was still alive. . . .” [...] “It was as if someone had lit a fire in my head, and the dementors couldn’t destroy it. . . . It wasn’t a happy feeling . . . it was an obsession . . . but it gave me strength, it cleared my mind. So, one night when they opened my door to bring food, I slipped past them as a dog. . . . It’s so much harder for them to sense animal emotions that they were confused. . . . I was thin, very thin . . . thin enough to slip through the bars. . . . I swam as a dog back to the mainland. . . . I journeyed north and slipped into the Hogwarts grounds as a dog. I’ve been living in the forest ever since, except when I came to watch the Quidditch, of course. You fly as well as your father did, Harry. . . .”

(PoA)

He stays in a cave and eats rats so he could be close by if Harry needed him during the tournament:

Harry pulled open his bag and handed over the bundle of chicken legs and bread. “Thanks,” said Sirius, opening it, grabbing a drumstick, sitting down on the cave floor, and tearing off a large chunk with his teeth. “I’ve been living off rats mostly. Can’t steal too much food from Hogsmeade; I’d draw attention to myself.”

(GoF)

The original plan with the Secret Keeper was for Sirius to be the decoy. So, Voldemort would go after him and kill him, but James, Lily, and Harry would be safe. Sirius planned to die to keep the Potters safe:

“Lily and James only made you Secret-Keeper because I suggested it,” Black hissed, so venomously that Pettigrew took a step backward. “I thought it was the perfect plan . . . a bluff. . . . Voldemort would be sure to come after me, would never dream they’d use a weak, talentless thing like you. . . . It must have been the finest moment of your miserable life, telling Voldemort you could hand him the Potters.”

(PoA)

He goes back to a childhood home he hates and lets the Order invade his privacy in a way that clearly strains on his mental state because he knows it'll help protect Harry. Sirius wants to be of use and of help to the people he cares about so fucking much:

“Hasn’t anyone told you? This was my parents’ house,” said Sirius. “But I’m the last Black left, so it’s mine now. I offered it to Dumbledore for headquarters — about the only useful thing I’ve been able to do.” Harry, who had expected a better welcome, noted how hard and bitter Sirius’s voice sounded.

(OotP)

So, of course, he goes after Pettigrew to avenge James and Lily. His friends are dead, Voldemort is dead, Harry is safe, the only useful thing left for him to do is punish the traitor:

...but it was the other way around, don’t you see? Peter betrayed your mother and father — Sirius tracked Peter down —” [...] “Harry . . . I as good as killed them,” he croaked. “I persuaded Lily and James to change to Peter at the last moment, persuaded them to use him as Secret-Keeper instead of me. . . . I’m to blame, I know it. . . . The night they died, I’d arranged to check on Peter, make sure he was still safe, but when I arrived at his hiding place, he’d gone. Yet there was no sign of a struggle. It didn’t feel right. I was scared. I set out for your parents’ house straight away. And when I saw their house, destroyed, and their bodies . . . I realized what Peter must’ve done . . . what I’d done. . . .”

(PoA)

It's how his loyalty is.

It's such a major aspect of his character that is consistently a huge motivation for him.

I think it's telling his Animagus form is a dog — the animal most renowned for its loyalty.

So, yeah, I think it's 100% in character. It's reckless, as Sirius often is for his own safety. And it's out of Sirius' sense of loyalty that Peter betrayed. Sirius hates Peter at that moment more than he ever hated anyone probably. Because Peter abandoned his friends. Becouse he sinned against Sirius' highest value — loyalty.

Sirius holds everyone else to his own standard of loyalty, as well. He likes Ron and Hermione because they were willing to die for Harry in PoA and Sirius respects that immensely. Becouse to him it's obvious you should be willing to die for your friends. It's what you do.

Add to that the raw emotions of just losing his two best friends, the end of the war, the betrayal at the moment, the guilt he feels even during the events of the books for his part in it (for suggesting Peter) — and you have a Sirius who'd probably be willing to harm other people (and himself) on his way if he got to kill Peter.

So, it's actually very in line with the type of behavior we see from Sirius. The only situation in which he wouldn't have gone after Peter is if no one was there to take Harry and then Harry would be at risk if Sirius left. Becouse in general, with Sirius' morals (loyalty above all else) and emotions at the moment, he would always go after the traitor if he could.

#harry potter #hp #sirius black #god I feel feral about that man #I love Sirius #hollowedtheory #padfoot #hp meta #harry potter meta #asks #geck-motj

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sherewrytes · 2 days ago

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𝔹𝕣𝕠𝕜𝕖𝕟 ℙ𝕚𝕖𝕔𝕖𝕤, ℝ𝕪𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕟 𝕊𝕦𝕜𝕦𝕟𝕒 7

↳ Sukuna x f! black reader

Summary: After the death of his grandfather, Sukuna Ryomen is left to shoulder the weight of his family, caring for his younger brothers, Yuuji and Choso. As he withdraws into grief, his relationship with Y/N, his girlfriend of a year, begins to crumble. When Y/N discovers the truth about his grandfather’s passing during a heated argument, it leads to a painful breakup. Now, both are navigating life apart, but Sukuna’s heart aches for Y/N. Determined to win her back, he must confront his pain and find a way to break through the walls he’s built. Can he rekindle their love, or is it too late?

contents: heavy angst, modern au, 18+, smut, dark romance, drug use, talks of depression and similar topics. (a lil )

fic warnings. ooc, profanity, mental health issues, toxic relationships, cheating, explicit smut, serious drug use, mentions of depression + more to be updated as story progresses.

Please read with proper discretion. this is a work of fiction. all characters are written to portray roles that are necessary to the plot and are in no way a reflection of their canon counterparts.

Taglist: @for-hearthand-home@clp-84@thelightknight21@favvkiki @helightknight21 @dylsw @ria-s-writes @sleepymothafterhours

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Here is another chapter cause I'm still writing out the other fics right now :)

Chapter 7: Breaking Point

Y/N’s POV

It’s been, what, two weeks since I last saw Sukuna? Since he left my apartment I finally put my foot down. It feels surreal. Like he was here one moment, his presence filling every part of my life, and then, just like that, he’s gone. I can actually focus in class again, and my thoughts are less cluttered without his constant ups and downs. For the first time in a long time, I’m getting assignments done on time, and keeping up with my workload. But underneath it all, there’s this ache, a hollow space where he used to be.

I try to ignore it, but it’s always there, tugging at me, making it hard to concentrate completely. It’s the little things—his laugh echoing in my mind, the feel of his arms around me, his stupid smirk whenever he got under my skin. I find myself wondering if he’s okay. Did he come out of the hospital yet? Did he manage to finally piece himself together?

A part of me wants to reach out, just to check in. Maybe see if he’s doing better, if he’s still leaning on his friends, getting through each day somehow. But that’s not my place anymore, is it? I gave him so many chances to let me in, to let me help, and every single time, he shut me out. He made it clear he wanted to handle things his way. And I… I need to start respecting that boundary, as much as it hurts.

I take a deep breath, glancing out the window of the studio. The city is buzzing outside, people going on with their lives, completely unaware of the turmoil inside me. I sip my coffee, watching the people walk by, their laughter faintly audible through the glass.

Suddenly, my phone buzzes, pulling me from my thoughts. It’s a message from Utahime.

Utahime: You doing okay? Need anything?

I smile, appreciating her concern. She’s been there since everything happened, her presence a constant comfort, even when I didn’t realize I needed it.

Me: Yeah, I’m fine. Just… thinking too much, as usual.

Utahime: Well, stop that! We’re going out tonight. A distraction is exactly what you need.

I hesitate, looking down at my phone, my thumb hovering over the keyboard. I know she’s right. A distraction might help me let go of these lingering thoughts, these small pieces of Sukuna that I can’t seem to shake.

Me: Fine. Where and when?

Utahime: I’ll pick you up at 8. Be ready!

A part of me feels relieved at the thought of getting out, of being around people who remind me of who I am outside of Sukuna, outside of this relationship that became such a heavy part of my life.

as the car moves through the city streets, I press my head against the cool window, letting the world blur past me. The bass-heavy beat of W.D.Y.W.F.M. pulses through my headphones, each lyric tugging at parts of me I’ve been trying to bury.

Maybe you’re right, maybe this is all that I can be, the words echo, hitting a little too close to home. I close my eyes, feeling the weight of those lyrics settle in my chest. The memories start seeping in—the countless times I let myself believe that if I loved Sukuna enough, if I was patient enough, he’d eventually find it within himself to let me in. That if I just waited, things would finally feel right. But now I wonder… maybe it wasn’t just him. Maybe I should have known better than to believe that love could fix someone so broken.

But what if it’s you, and it wasn’t me?

The question pierces through my thoughts, stirring a bitterness I didn’t know I still had. He wanted to drown in his own pain, to shut me out every time I tried to pull him up for air. I couldn’t have been the answer, and yet here I am, with pieces of him still lingering, haunting me at every turn.

The Uber driver takes a corner, the familiar streets near my apartment coming into view. I force my gaze away from the window, back to my phone screen, trying to focus on anything but him. It shouldn’t hurt this much, but it does—knowing that for all the love I poured into him, it wasn’t enough to keep him from self-destructing.

The song fades as I arrive at my building. I thank the driver, taking a deep breath as I step out, feeling the city air wrap around me. The streetlights cast a dim glow on the sidewalk, and I let myself pause for a moment before going inside. I need to let him go, I tell myself firmly, as I push open the door and head up the stairs to my apartment. I have to learn to let go of the weight of him, of the what ifs and the could’ve been that keep me tangled in his memory.

I climb the stairs, my heart pounding faster with each step as I spot the car parked out front. The familiar shape, that old, dark-colored sedan that Sukuna drove everywhere... no, no, no, I think, my pulse racing. I’m not ready to see him. My body tenses with dread, the past few weeks crashing down on me in waves.

But as I get closer, I realize it isn’t him. The figure slouched in the driver's seat isn’t Sukuna—it’s Yuuji, his face drawn and pale under the streetlight glow. Relief floods me, only to be replaced by confusion and worry. I stride up to him, feeling the weight of all the things I know about Sukuna’s recent spiral pressing on me, unsettling and heavy.

"Yuuji," I say, my voice sharp, "why are you here?"

He startles, looking up at me with bloodshot eyes. I catch the shadow of sleepless nights, maybe even nights spent worrying about Sukuna. He tries to brush off the tension, but I can see right through him. He's younger, not yet old enough to be driving around on his own at this hour. That alone makes my stomach twist.

"I just… I didn’t know who else to talk to," he mutters, glancing away. The hurt and worry in his voice rip into me.

My gut clenches as I realize just how much of Sukuna’s pain has been spilling onto his family. The weight he’s putting on Yuuji, on Choso… it’s more than I ever understood. The anger, frustration, and heartbreak I felt these past weeks—they’re nothing compared to what Yuuji was going through. He’s barely an adult, forced to watch his older brother destroy himself.

“Yuuji,” I say softly, keeping my tone steady, “what’s going on? Why didn’t you call me?”

Yuuji looks up, and in that one look, I see just how much he’s been holding in. “I thought… I thought I could handle it, but… he’s just getting worse. I can’t even talk to him without him blowing up at me. He left some days ago, maybe more, and just stormed out. No one knows where he is. Toji, Choso, and even Geto…they all tried reaching him, but he wouldn’t answer. And then I remembered… you always knew how to reach him when he was like this.”

The ache in his voice cuts through me, and a fierce protectiveness rises up. I left Sukuna to deal with his pain, but it’s clear that his absence has left more than just a hole in my life—it’s tearing his family apart too.

“Yuuji,” I start, forcing calm into my voice. “I know things are tough, and Sukuna… he’s dealing with a lot. But you don’t have to do this alone. Have you told anyone else? Choso? Gojo?”

He shakes his head, looking at the ground. “No. Choso is dealing with enough as it is… and I don’t want them to worry more.”

He’s trying to be strong, trying to hold everyone else together when he’s the one falling apart. I know that feeling all too well. Sukuna and I broke things off because I couldn’t keep sacrificing my sanity for someone unreachable. But I never thought about how much worse it would get for those who couldn’t walk away, like Yuuji and Choso.

I reach out, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Yuuji, you don’t have to do this alone. You shouldn’t be doing this alone. Sukuna needs someone to get through to him, and it might not be me anymore—but we can try together.”

He stares at me for a moment, eyes wide and vulnerable. “Do you think… Do you think he’ll ever listen? Or is he too far gone?”

My heart aches at his words. “I don’t know. But we have to try.”

He nods, the glimmer of hope in his expression heartbreaking and determined.

I closed my eyes, gripping the phone tight. I knew Kenjaku could be difficult, even evasive when he wanted to be. Sukuna had a talent for finding people who were just as stubborn and reckless as he was. But I couldn’t back down, not now, not with Yuuji looking at me like he was counting on me.

“Kenjaku, I need to know. Yuuji’s here with me. He and Choso haven’t heard from Sukuna in days. They’re worried sick, and he’s…he’s not okay. I think you know that.”

There was a pause on the other end, the silence stretching uncomfortably long. I could almost picture Kenjaku’s calculating look, weighing his options. Finally, he sighed. “He showed up here a few nights back. I didn’t ask questions. He’s been sleeping it off on my couch, but I’ll be honest—he looks like hell, Y/N.”

The anger that had been simmering inside me now sparked, but it wasn’t toward Kenjaku. It was all for Sukuna—his self-destructive spiral, the pain he was dragging everyone into, and the part of him that still didn’t realize how much he meant to those around him.

“I’ll be over soon,” I said, voice steady despite the turmoil within me. “But please, don’t tell him I’m coming. I don’t want him bolting before I get there.”

Kenjaku’s chuckle was dry, but he agreed. “Sure thing. I’ll keep him occupied, though good luck getting through to him. He's really badly…. He’s fucked up, Y/N.”

I hung up, feeling a mix of relief and dread. When I looked at Yuuji, his eyes were wide, filled with a flicker of hope. He didn’t need to ask what I’d found out; the look on my face told him everything.

“I’m going to see him,” I said softly, reaching for my bag. “I’ll try to talk to him, to get through to him, somehow.”

Yuuji looked at me with a mixture of gratitude and worry. “Thank you,” he whispered, his voice barely audible.

With a final squeeze of his shoulder, I turned and headed out the door, my heart pounding as I braced myself for the conversation I wasn’t sure I was ready to have.

Yuuji nodded, taking the key from my hand with a somber expression. "I will. Be careful, okay?" he said, his voice thick with unspoken worry.

I offered him a brief smile, though I could feel the weight of everything pressing down on me. "I will. Just... keep an eye on things here, yeah? If anything happens, call Toji."

Yuuji gave me a small, reassuring nod before he turned to head toward the stairs, his footsteps echoing in the hall as he climbed.

I stood there for a moment longer, staring at the door. The tension was building inside me—this wasn't going to be easy. I had no idea what I was walking into, but I knew I had to face it. For Yuuji. For Choso. And for myself.

With a deep breath, I pulled my jacket tighter around me and left the apartment, locking the door behind me. The walk to Kenjaku's place felt longer than usual, each step heavy with uncertainty. The city seemed quieter tonight, the streetlights casting long shadows across the pavement as I made my way toward the familiar building.

When I finally arrived, I didn't bother knocking. Kenjaku had given me the code to the door ages ago. I typed it in quickly, the door clicking open with an almost too-loud sound. The hallway was dimly lit, and I could hear the faint murmur of voices from behind one of the doors.

I hesitated for a moment, my hand on the doorframe. This was it. I didn’t know what I was about to walk into, but there was no turning back now.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed the door open.

I stood there, taking in the scene before me—Sukuna, looking completely worn down, his eyes barely open, his hair disheveled and his face a mess of exhaustion and defeat. The cigarette hung loosely from his hand, the smoke curling up into the air as Uraume stood nearby, her posture stiff, frustration radiating off of her.

"Uraume, calm down," I said, my voice steady but firm as I crossed the room, stepping closer to the couch where Sukuna was sprawled out.

He groaned in response, his hand sliding off his face just enough for his eyes to meet mine, dull and clouded. He didn’t look surprised to see me, but his expression was unreadable.

"Great, now I'm fucking seeing and hearing shit," he muttered again, his voice thick with fatigue and annoyance.

I didn’t react to his comment, not letting it phase me. Instead, I walked over and sat on the edge of the couch, just enough to be close but not invading his space. I glanced over at Uraume, who seemed to be holding her ground, but she took a step back, recognizing that I was the one who needed to handle this.

"Sukuna, stop hiding," I said, my tone softer now, almost pleading. "What the hell are you doing?"

He didn’t answer immediately, instead, taking another drag from the cigarette, his eyes drifting away from mine, focused on the wall as though he didn’t want to face me, or anyone.

"You think running away is gonna fix anything?" I continued, my voice low but insistent. "You think wallowing in this is gonna bring Jin back? Or fix what’s broken?"

His jaw clenched, and for a moment, I thought he was going to snap at me again, but instead, he just let out a deep sigh, and the silence in the room hung thick.

"I’m not hiding," he muttered, barely above a whisper. "I’m just... tired."

"Then let us help you," I replied, my heart aching for him, but frustration mixing with it. "You don’t have to carry all this alone."

Sukuna shifted on the couch, his hand coming up to cover his eyes again, but this time, there was something in the way he did it—a sort of resignation, like he knew I was right, but couldn't bring himself to admit it. Uraume stood there, arms crossed, clearly waiting for him to make a move, but it was clear he wasn’t ready.

I stayed quiet for a moment, allowing him his space, but I couldn’t just leave it at that. He needed to hear it, and I needed him to understand.

"You're not alone in this, Sukuna," I said quietly, my voice breaking through the tension. "You’ve got people who care about you. People who are worried. And you don’t get to shut them out."

He didn’t respond immediately, but I could see his body language soften just a little. I wasn’t sure if he was hearing me, or if he was just too far gone to care, but I couldn’t give up on him—not when he was this close to losing everything, including himself.

"Sukuna..." I started again, but Uraume cut me off.

"You can only do so much, Y/N," she said, her tone serious, but a little softer now. "He’s gotta want it. He’s gotta find it in himself to get back up. And we can’t make that choice for him."

I nodded, swallowing back the knot in my throat. I knew she was right. But it didn’t make it any easier.

"You think he’ll listen?" I asked, barely above a whisper, not expecting a clear answer.

Uraume gave a small shrug. "Maybe. But only if he realizes he’s not beyond saving. But that’s up to him."

I glanced at Sukuna once more, feeling the weight of everything press down on me. His eyes were still closed, and he looked so damn defeated. Part of me wanted to scream, to shake him out of his spiral. But I knew that wasn’t what he needed.

What he needed was time and a reminder that he wasn’t the only one who had lost something.

Sukuna's smirk was laced with bitterness, and it was as if the weight of his guilt and self-loathing had manifested in those cruel words. His eyes never left me as he took another drag of his cigarette, the smoke swirling around us like a barrier, creating distance between us that I could almost feel.

I didn't flinch. I refused to let him see the impact his words had, but inside, I was crumbling.

His voice was sharp, cutting through the air, his pain seeping out in every syllable. "You think you can save me, Y/N? Don’t fool yourself. You know I’m worthless."

I wanted to shout at him, tell him he was wrong, but instead, my voice came out softer than I expected. "Sukuna, you're not worthless."

He let out a dry laugh, one that held no humor. "Yeah? Then why the hell did you leave? After we fucked, you tossed me out like I was nothing. Isn’t that what you think of me too?"

Each word felt like a blade to my chest. The anger, the resentment in his voice—it was suffocating. I could see the way his eyes flickered with something raw, something vulnerable that he kept buried under layers of pride and self-doubt. But he was pushing it all on me now.

I took a shaky breath, trying to keep my composure, but the truth was, hearing him say those things cut deeper than I ever anticipated.

I stepped closer to him, ignoring the thick cloud of smoke that hung in the air. "I didn’t leave because I thought you were worthless," I said, my voice trembling but determined. "I left because you pushed me away. You closed yourself off, pushed me out of your life like I was nothing. And I couldn’t keep pretending I didn’t see it."

His expression hardened at that, the smirk fading away as he leaned back on the couch, his eyes narrowing at me. "You think I wanted to push you away?" His voice was quieter now, but there was still that edge of anger behind it. "You think I wanted to feel this empty... this fucking broken?"

I shook my head, my heart aching for him even as I held my ground. "No, I don't think that. But that’s what you did. You kept pushing everyone away, even when they were just trying to help. I couldn’t be the one to fix you, Sukuna. I’m not your savior."

He looked away then, the cigarette trembling slightly in his hand. "Then what the hell am I supposed to do, Y/N?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper now, the anger gone, replaced by quiet desperation. "How do I fix this? How do I fix myself?"

I didn’t have an answer. How could I? He had to want it, had to find the strength to fight through his demons on his own. But that didn’t mean I was ready to give up on him.

"You can start by not pushing everyone away," I said, my voice softer now, almost pleading. "You’re not alone, Sukuna. Not yet."

For a long moment, there was silence between us. The tension hung in the air, thick and heavy, as I waited for him to respond. But instead, he just took another drag of his cigarette, looking lost in his thoughts.

"I never asked for any of this," he muttered finally, his words barely audible. "I never asked to be the one holding everything together. I never asked for... this pain."

I didn’t know what to say to that. I didn’t have an answer for him. All I could do was watch him, hoping, wishing he would find the strength to face what he had been running from.

But deep down, I knew it wasn’t up to me. It never was.

His words hit like a punch to the gut. The rawness in his voice, the way he almost choked on the words—it was as if he was tearing himself apart right in front of me. I watched him, frozen, my heart pounding as he looked away, refusing to meet my eyes.

"Just go, Y/N. Please," he said, his voice rough, barely holding it together. "You made the right choice. Don’t let guilt eat at you. Your love... it wasn’t enough."

I felt the sting of tears welling up, but I forced myself to hold them back. This wasn’t the time to break down. He was pulling up walls as quickly as I tried to break them down, and part of me wondered if he would ever let anyone truly see the pieces of himself he kept hidden. I wanted to tell him he was wrong, that it wasn’t about my love being "enough"—that he was worthy of love even in his darkest moments. But I knew, standing there, that he wouldn’t hear it. Not now.

"Sukuna," I began, my voice catching despite my best efforts to stay steady. "It's not about being enough or not enough. You’re worth more than this... more than what you think of yourself right now."

He let out a bitter laugh, shaking his head. "Don’t... don’t do that. Don’t pretend I’m some lost soul you can save. You’ve done enough. It’s... it’s better this way."

"Better this way?" I asked, my voice sharper than I intended, feeling the frustration bubbling up. "Better for who? Because I don't think it's better for you. Look at yourself, Sukuna. You’re drowning, and you’re just... letting it happen."

He clenched his jaw, his hand shaking slightly as he flicked the cigarette into an ashtray. "Maybe that’s what I deserve," he said quietly, almost to himself.

The silence between us felt thick, suffocating. I took a step closer, reaching out, but he backed away, pressing himself further into the couch as if my touch would somehow make things worse.

"If that’s really what you believe..." I whispered, my chest tight. "If you really think you deserve this pain... then I can’t force you to change your mind. But I wish you could see yourself the way I see you."

For a moment, something flickered in his eyes, something soft and vulnerable, but it vanished as quickly as it appeared. He lowered his gaze, the same smirk that once felt charming was now nothing more than a mask.

"Just... go," he whispered again, his voice so small it was almost lost in the room. "Forget about me. Move on. It’s better that way."

I stared at him, wanting to reach him, to pull him out of this dark place. But maybe he was right. Maybe I couldn’t save him. Taking a shaky breath, I nodded, my heart shattering with each step as I turned toward the door.

Before I left, I looked back one last time. He wouldn’t meet my gaze, his eyes fixed on some distant point on the floor, lost in his own torment.

“Goodbye, Sukuna,” I whispered, the words barely escaping my lips. And with that, I stepped out, leaving behind the man I’d loved—and the pieces of myself that still wanted to believe he could be saved.

Sukuna's pov

I watched the door click shut behind her, the silence settling thick in the room. My chest felt hollow, but the ache gnawed deeper, clawing its way up my throat. I turned to my side, curling up on the couch, pressing my hand over my eyes as if I could shut out everything I’d just done. I’d pushed her away—again—and for what? To prove some sick point that I was beyond saving? That I didn’t deserve her?

I could still smell her faint perfume lingering in the air, feel the warmth she’d brought with her now slipping through my fingers. It wasn’t like I didn’t want her here. God, I wanted her more than anything. But how could I let her stay, knowing what a mess I’d become? How could I put her through the hell I was living every day?

My mind drifted back to Jin and Gramps, memories that never stayed buried long. Jin would’ve slapped me across the head if he saw me like this, wasting away, hurting everyone who tried to care. But I could never forgive myself for that night, for not being there when he needed me. And now, I was dragging Y/N down with me.

The silence felt louder now, each second stretching painfully, mocking me. She’d tried, even after everything I put her through. She tried to reach me, to pull me out of this pit I’d dug for myself. But I’d thrown her love back in her face. Again.

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath, pressing my fists to my temples. I wanted to cry, to scream, to feel something other than this endless, numbing void. But even that felt like too much. All I could do was lie here, drowning in my own misery, pushing everyone who mattered further and further away

Kenjaku grabbed my wrist, yanking my hands away from my ears. "Look at me, Sukuna," he snapped, his tone harsher than I'd ever heard. "This is your last chance. No one else is going to fight for you if you don’t fight for yourself."

I kept my eyes shut, trying to hold on to the darkness, anything to keep from facing the weight of his words. What good was that going to do? The damage was done, and I’d burned every bridge around me.

I tried pulling my arm free, but his grip tightened. "You think you’re the only one hurting?" Kenjaku’s voice dropped, each word laced with a fury that broke through my wall of apathy. "Your brothers are terrified. Toji, Uraume—they’re all watching you tear yourself apart. And Y/N? She might be gone, but you know damn well it’s killing her too."

My hands trembled as I finally opened my eyes, meeting his stare. I could see the disappointment, the anger. But there was something else, something that looked too much like hope.

"Why does it matter?" I murmured, my voice cracking. "I’ve already lost everything. What’s the point?"

Kenjaku’s expression softened for the briefest moment before he pulled me up to sit. "You haven't lost everything, not yet. But if you keep pushing everyone away, there will be nothing left. Not your friends, not Y/N, not even your own damn self."

The words hit like a punch to the gut, and I felt a flicker of something I hadn't felt in months—fear.

I held his stare, my jaw clenched, trying to keep the defiance in my eyes. But Kenjaku didn’t look away, his grip on my arm tightening. "What did you take?" he asked again, his tone sharper, cutting right through me.

I tried to shrug him off, mumbling, "Just something to take the edge off. Why does it matter?"

"Because," he hissed, shaking me slightly, "you can barely stand right now, Sukuna. You're falling apart, and you keep reaching for whatever dulls the pain instead of facing it. So I'll ask you one last time—what did you take?"

I swallowed hard, feeling the weight of his demand. I didn’t want to admit it, didn’t want him to know how far I'd fallen. But the way he was looking at me, with a mixture of anger and something close to pity, broke through the wall I’d put up.

"Xanax... some Oxy," I muttered, barely audible, each word feeling like a confession. "And... a couple drinks." I looked away, shame burning in my chest.

Kenjaku's face twisted with a grimace, and he let go of my arm, taking a step back as if the truth was too heavy for him. "This is what you're doing to yourself?" His voice was low, thick with disappointment. "This isn’t numbing the pain, Sukuna. It's destroying you."

I sank back onto the couch, the weight of his words pressing down like a boulder on my chest. "Maybe that’s the point," I whispered, barely holding back the rawness in my voice. "Maybe that’s all I deserve."

Kenjaku knelt in front of me, looking me dead in the eyes. "Then prove yourself wrong," he said firmly. "If you can’t do it for you, then do it for them—your brothers, your friends, everyone who’s still here trying to reach you. But you have to decide to get up and fight."

My answer was simple, and final. "No."

Kenjaku stared at me, frustration flaring in his eyes. I could tell he was holding back from saying more, like he knew words were useless right now.

“You want to keep drowning?” he asked, his voice sharper, leaning closer as if to pierce right through me. “You think this is easier, huh? Wasting away until there's nothing left?”

“Maybe it is," I said, my voice hollow. "Maybe it’s the only way I can even get through this. The only thing that keeps my mind off... everything.”

“You’re just running,” Kenjaku shot back, anger finally surfacing. "You think the pain will leave you alone? It won’t. It’s gonna keep eating you alive until there’s nothing left, Sukuna. Nothing for you, and nothing for the people who actually give a damn about you."

I clenched my fists, nails digging into my palms until the sting cut through the haze clouding my mind. “Then let it. I’m not worth anything to anyone.”

Kenjaku exhaled, the fight leaving his shoulders. He stared at me, his eyes dark and steady. “You keep saying that, but it’s not true. You know it’s not true.”

Silence settled between us, heavy and unbreakable, until he finally straightened, his expression hardening. “Fine. You want to stay here, stay here. But don’t expect any of us to stick around and watch you throw your life away.”

#jjk x black reader #sukuna x black reader #sukuna angst #sukuna x female reader #sukuna smut #sukuna #jjk x reader #jjk x you #sukuna x reader #ryomen sukuna #black tumblr #black reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen #sherewrytes

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wickjump · 3 days ago

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also btw a lot of it is genuinely just innate stuff with both cross and dream i feel. like innately they wouldn’t be healthy. he literally is not in control of how he feels about dream. if dream was a shit partner for whatever fuckass ooc reason cross would struggle to even dislike him. come on. guys. acknowledge this. please if you want to make healthy cream you have to acknowledge this imbalance that cannot be erased or blocked out. cross is a character who depends on praise and positive reinforcement because of the abuse he endured as a child. dream is an endless well of positivity that cross begins to seek out once it overwhelms him. come on. please. god above

IM LITERALLY BEGGING YOU PLEASE GOD LOOK AT THIS HE IS LITERALLY UNABLE TO PROCESS HIS OWN FEELINGS DUE TO DREAMS AURA. HE DOESNT LIKE IT UNTIL HE IS LITERALLY OVERWHELMED BY DREAM’S AURA IM GONNA KMS. CROSS WANTS DREAM TO GET AWAY FROM HIM AND ONLY BEGINS TO LIKE THE FEELING WHEN HE IS LITERALLY BEING OVERWHELMED BY HIS AURA RAHHH

HIS CHOICE WAS TO NOT WANT DREAM NEARBY SO HE CAN FEEL HIS EMOTIONS. ITS ONLY WHEN HE IS OVERWHELMED BY THE POSITIVE AURA THAT HE SEEKS IT OUT. IM BEGGING YOU PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE THIS IM PRAYING

i really dont like cream because i think it literally messes up cross’ entire development as a character and would not be healthy for him. i am so sorry cream loving mutuals but this is on the MIND.

i just. primarily don’t like cream because cross always falls under power imbalances. he needs an equal in his life rather than someone he will deem as above him, someone whose aura canonically directly affects him and influences how he feels about dream. he would canonically struggle to dislike dream despite how he wants to because dream’s aura literally shoves comfort down his throat, even if dream doesn’t intend that. there is an old comic about exactly that. dream’s aura is not what ‘made’ cross love him, but it would influence how cross feels about him and would urge him to stay if he ever wanted to leave.

but honestly the thing that drives me crazy the most is how in SO MANY (as in, like, most nowadays) interpretations dream is shown as cross’ knight in shining armor, his angel, his savior. someone cross reveres. dream is his ethereal lover and cross is someone who cannot compare, in his mind.

but what cross needs is an equal, and characters like dream (or nightmare) have such a big power imbalance between them and him. dream is the guardian of positivity, he will outlive cross for likely hundreds of years and cross is aware of this, and the mindset that he’s only a temporary lover would mess him up a bit too. and again i really really hate seeing cross reduced to dream’s anything. dream’s soldier, especially dream’s dog (note that i love dogboy cross but combined with the power imbalance and how cross often is shown to view dream as someone above him it feels yucky to have cross be dream’s dog)

cross’ entire story is about him becoming his own separate person! being with equals and not surrendering to those with more power over him and instead fighting back!! this is also why i like ships like crepic and kross and recently whatever color x cross is called a lot better. because they’re equals to him. and he sees them as equals, too.

cream is. fine to ship. its just not my thing. crossmare also isnt because of the same reason. in a bad sanses setting he would view nightmare as his superior, hell, he even calls nightmare ‘boss’ in these kinds of settings a lot of the time when with a romantic relationship established between them. nightmare owns him. even in a fanon setting where nightmare doesn’t beat the shit out of everyone, nightmare still holds cross’ life in his hands. cross has nothing in return.

in aus where nightmare and dream are made to be equals (such as modern aus) i can see ships with them! the pet peeve isn’t as present. still don’t like cream thoguh im sorry as a cross obsessor it’s just not something i think he would be healthy in,, he’s gotta have an equal not someone he views as above him which he always will because that’s how he was raised and trained to be his whole life.

him fighting to be free from that cycle only to just fall back in the position of being under someone again, REGARDLESS of how comforting or good they make him feel while he is, isn’t healthy for him. they can be excused as fine because dream is loving and kind to him and cross is very receptive to it, and it does help him with some things, but cross can’t handle constantly being around that. i hate that this is always ignored. i hate that cross being reduced to something someone owns, dream’s dog, Dream’s soldier, Dream’s, is just constantly a thing that people are totally chill with. no matter how much Dream could insist they’re equal, Dream isn’t, case closed. he is immortal and cross isn’t. if Dream lives for thousands of years there’s a likely chance he’ll enter another relationship a while after cross dies. cross would be aware of this. cross would be aware that the multiverse reveres dream and would feel a duty to feel the same. dream is a guardian, and cross can’t even fully free himself from his father’s control.

idk i just think cross should not be in relationships with people who have power over him, at least not as much as dream/nm do. it makes me sad because i like cross a lot and him being in relationships with people above him, no matter how nice they are or how reassuring they are, is not something he would ever be able to healthily handle or accept. he was raised to have an inferiority complex about himself and he will continue to have that unless he is surrounded by equals who support him in fixing that and don’t fuel it, even without wanting to.

but honestly tho overall ship what u like. hell if i care these guys ain’t real. u do u man. plus a lot of cream art is cute. it’s just a pet peeve of mine :’)

#they’d work better as friends #but honestly idk if they’d even be that #i see them as acquaintances. i genuinely do #i struggle to see them as anything more #i don’t think cross would want to associate with dream any more than he’d want to associate with any other ally he met in underverse #cross needs equals before he should even consider becoming dream’s bf #like. period.#he has issues to work out #and dream being with him where he is now would not be good #dream is not what cross needs to work through his issues #and imo not what cross needs at all period #but i digress #i saw a post where it was like. dream thought cross was proposing out of the blue (they weren’t dating) but in reality it was adoption paper #s because dream gave him the positivity his dad never did. i like that better than cream

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alea-jottun · 23 hours ago

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How s2 betrayed Viktor, Mel and Jayce by making them passive characters

I had initially started to write a long post about the reason I didn't like Viktor, Mel and Jayce in s2, but I figured it would be better to just get to the point, which is : they do not work in s2 because they have become passive characters.

See Viktor : in s1, he is a determined inventor, has a strong will (manifested by his presence at the Academy, his desire to help Jayce, to break into Heimerdinger's office despite the risk, his refusal to be limited by his body, etc.) and a strong intellect, which is used to reach his personal objectives. He has strong opinions about his environment, about his work, and he has his own personality. He is shown taking action (ex : trying to cure his leg). His tragedy is that his health will not let him accomplish all that he is capable of. He is an active character : his desires, his skills, his choices move the plot forward.

But then in s2 : he gets fused with the hexcore while he's unconscious. He's magically cured. He isn't a scientist anymore. His relationship with Jayce isn't important anymore. He has a few lines before more or less disappearing from the story until the finale.

And before continuing : that scene where Viktor gets out of the arcane cocoon and talks to Jayce was the one that convinced me that s2 had given up on itself. Has anyone else realized how devoid of tension, of meaning, of scenaristic conflict it is ? It is not very long, but each line is like a wet fuse. They don't talk about the fact that Jayce made weapons out of the Hextech. They don't talk about the fact that Jayce betrayed Viktor by not only not destroying the Hexcore, but also using it to save him. They don't talk about Sky's death, they don't talk about the radical changes Viktor made to his body using the Arcane and shimmer, about the extremes he could have reached. They don't talk about the attack on the Council and how it ruined their efforts, how they were so close to making a great leap forward in realising their dream (I cannot believe that this major plot point, the cliffhanger of s1, the tragedy of the Council being attacked while voting freedom for Zaun, is not addressed by the two people who should feel particularly concerned about it. How are they not horrified by it ? How come it had so little impact on them they don't even mention it ? How come Viktor doesn't bring it up with Jinx ?).

Each conflictual plot point, which should have been used to create tension and make the story interesting, was very carefully ignored. When Viktor walks away, Jayce doesn't even try to talk to him, or express any real sadness. This scene is just Viktor going "bye" and Jayce going "kay" (before he is whisked away by the scenario but we'll get back to this later).

Anyway, it doesn't get better for Viktor in the story. Somehow he gets magical healing powers, which is lazy writing. He does nothing when Jayce is clearly hostile, he lets him destroy the commune. Then he suddenly wants to turn everyone into puppets for one episode, before Jayce comes back in the story with a grand declaration, and then he changes his mind again because the show needs him to. All of this is passive : he is no longer a fully-fledged character but an OOC doll that the writers string along and put in a drawer when they don't know what to do with him.

And don't get me started on the "Viktor was the mage" revelation, which is the final nail in the coffin. In short, saving Jayce from jumping, inventing Hextech, their projects, their dream, their bond, all of that loses impact because it was not even their own decision. The main interest of Jayce and Viktor's arc is that they met each other by chance, decided to embark on a seemingly unfeasable project (carried only by their determination, their belief in each other, and their talent), tried to change the world for the better, and failed to protect their creation from the corruption of the real world. If it was all written in the stars, if it happens in other dimensions, then it loses most of its interest. If it isn't really their choice, it has no meaning anymore. It makes them passive pawns in their own story.

The same analyse can be done for Mel and Jayce :

Mel in s1 is a smart politician, strategic, cunning and manipulative at times. She is a nuanced active character, one who wishes to avoid violence and does not take pleasure in suffering, but who also places her own interests first and is not that concerned with the common good (as a council member and the richest person in Piltover, she is also guilty of abandoning the Undercity by her inaction.) Then her mother arrives and adds another nuance to her already moraly-grey character : we understand Mel's upbringing, her exile and her desire to not follow her mother's footsteps. She has difficult choices to make : should she prioritise Piltover over Zaun ? Piltover over Noxus ? Is it being a pacifist to refuse that weapons be made out of Hextech, or is it dangerous and naive to pretend your enemies won't use it ?

But then s2 happens, and you can scratch all of that. Writing political conflict is too complicated, let's just get her kidnapped instead (passive), put her in a magical cell for most of the show, and watch all this meaningless Blackrose subplot unfold (who cares about her father ? Neither her supposed nor her real father appear in the story, and Ambessa clearly is the Noxus leader, so what does her being an illegitimate child change ? Nothing. Also, lineage is a passive character trait). Now Mel has magical powers, without having done anything to acquire them. She gets out of the cell not because of her intellect, or because she cracks a code, or because she accomplishes any action, but simply because she magically knows the solution (passive). And then, the resolution of her conflict with her mother ? A most unsatisfying magic fight. That's it. She didn't even struggle to master her powers. Just like Viktor, she didn't accomplish anything as a true character : she was just put to the side until the writers needed her.

And the exact same happens to Jayce :

Most of Jayce's characteristics from s1 are basically erased. He barely appears in the first episodes, then disappears in the wild runes for most of the series, and comes back towards the end, and suddenly he's on a rampage. His character arc is completely forgotten : remember when Jayce was slowly getting corrupted by power, popularity, politics ? Remember when he was an idealist getting dragged into choosing sides in a violent conflict ? An inventor who broke his own vow, made a weapon out of his own invention (against his partner's will), hated it so much he campaigned for Zaun's independance, only for a rocket to explode in the council room at the critical moment ? What does Jayce think about all this ? Well Jayce doesn't think at all in s2.

When he comes back in the third act (and no character cared about his disappearance, much like the writers didn't care about him), all of his previous dilemmas are erased (because that was easier than writing a satisfactory conclusion) and he has no problem using violence, killing people, and even killing Viktor while he is defenceless. We never get to see any psychological nuance for him : (barely) no regrets for inventing the Hextech and summoning the wild runes, no regrets when deciding that the commune must die, no regrets when hunting Viktor (serioulsy, he should NEVER have accepted to kill Viktor so easily). He gets out of the wild rune and suddenly he's the Terminator.

Until the last ten minutes of the show when he joins Viktor in the Arcane and now he's love incarnate. Then the writers desecrate his corpse one last time by making him spew the strangest lines at Viktor (he was dying, Jayce ! Remember s1 Jayce who was desperate to find a way to save his partner ?).

Again, Jayce did not do anything as an active character : he became a puppet who only moved when the scenario needed him to.

I'd continue with Ekko and Heimerdinger, but you see the point.

The scenario of a series such as Arcane is supposed to be moved forward by active characters making decisions, thus creating and resolving conflict. In s2, the scenario decides what it wants, then twists the characters to bring them where it wants, regardless of coherence or good writing. And even if Viktor, Jayce and Mel had been better written, they had so little screen time, the writers cared so little about them that their stories could not be anything but a disappointment.

#arcane critical

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saintclarkegriffin · 3 days ago

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I still can't believe that I live in a timeline where not only Bellarke isn't canon and endgame, but they also ended up... like That.

And the thing is, on one hand I'm glad that the character assassination and ooc writing and pettiness/spite are all so blatant and obvious because they make it easier to separate s1-s6 bellarke from s7 bellarke in my mind. But on the other hand, the amount of whiplash I get every time I think about their scenes/story in SIX out of seven seasons of the show and then confront those scenes with their canon ending is absolutely insane. Like, what do you mean that they pulled the lever in MW together for them to end like That? What do you mean that they constantly forgave each other and absolved the other of their sins for them to end like That? What do you mean that they put each other's names on the list for them to end like That? What do you mean that Clarke called Bellamy on the radio for 2,199 days for them to end like That?? What do you mean that Bellamy brought Clarke back from the dead with the kiss of life for them to end like That??? What do you mean that every single character on the show called out Bellamy and Clarke's feelings for each other at one point or another for them to end up like That???? What do you meeeeeeannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

#i can't think about it too long or i go insane #it's 3am in my country i should be sleeping and yet here i am #bellarke #the 100

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the-lazyyy-artist · 23 hours ago

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i saw you in a dream a two-part Karasu Tabito x Filipina!reader story part two

Synopsis: The dreams of a distant war led you to believe that he could exist now. Maybe he did.

Word Count: 2.3K

Content Warning: Discussions of history (especially with how Japan teaches it), reincarnation au, reoccurring dreams, fluff, a little ooc (sighs again i know), mentions of Karasu's childhood experiences (lmao huhu)

Author's Note: Now, I know that the discussions of Japan's way of teaching their people about the history of WW II are quite different from how the rest of the world tells it and how it's still controversial, I dabbled lightly around this sensitive topic just to give an insight of how the reader and the other characters dealt with it. I just wanna give you a heads-up on that. If you have any insights about it, please let's discuss it together through replies, reblogs, dms, or asks. I want everyone who reads this part to have an open mind and be willing to give out their points in terms of writing and history. Thank you so much for reading the first part.

Read part one here!

@mininji @wannabepoeticischiya @x3nafix ✨

You were 8 years old.

The dream was always blurry like a camera lens that needed some wiping. The voices sounded underwater; only its tone was familiar to you. The song from the record player was oddly clear to you, but you never figured out what the song was. You can feel the grief in it... because, in the dream, you were the woman left behind by... what was his name again?

At a young age, you'd always read the story of the Japanese Occupation in the Philippines in your History Book almost every week, memorizing the events. However, to your knowledge, you know that there's something more than just the important date of when the Bataan Death March started and where the destination was or what McArthur said when he fled the Philippines for safety.

You asked your teacher to tell you more when the class reached the lesson, being the only one awake and active in such a boring class. She was more than willing to tell you more after classes for a one-on-one session, further increasing your excitement. She warned you as you sat comfortably beside her desk that the deeper event of the colonization wasn't for children, to which you only responded, "I'm a big girl, teacher! I'm sure I can handle it."

You did not.

Because who even knew that there were abuses against women, forcing them to bring men comfort? Who even knew that the Philippines suffered the most because of the battles between Japan and America? Who knew the country was almost erased from the map because of the war? Who knew that it was a bloody part of the country's history?

You struggled to sleep that night, and the dream didn't help you much.

By age 12, your parents took you to Japan as they worked there. It was better for everyone to be together; they told you to comfort you as you cried and cried not to let you leave your grandparents' house. They promised a complete family if you just go with them this time. The plane ride in a foreign country, the country that did so much damage to your homeland, made you feel nauseous. You didn't want to be with these people, you thought, as you sat in your seat, unable to understand anyone in class. It was a sad sight. You were thankful that your dad was patient enough to teach you basic phrases and Hiragana. "You'll get better when you make friends. That way, you can talk and learn from them," he told you one night after your nightly tutoring session.

Easier said than done. Until someone did approach you.

He was nice, at least. He didn't care much that you were different and quiet. He sat beside you one day and said, "Otoya." You replied with your last name, and he nodded. Then he started to talk. You tried to understand what he said, and he was patient enough to let you process what he said before saying more. He was so chill around you that you brought him home to introduce him to your parents, saying, "Ma, Pa, Otoya," then turning to Otoya, saying, "Otoya, Ma, Pa."

It was a weird sight that your parents talked to him more than you did to him, your parents translating what they just said in your native tongue. Slowly, he became a frequent visitor in your home, being around whenever your father gave you your daily language lessons. When you started to get the hang of the language, you finally had a proper conversation with him without writing your questions and responses on paper. There would be times that Otoya would correct you, and you'd roll your eyes at him at which he'd just shrug.

You told him about the dream, how it's connected to history, and how your country suffered. You and Otoya had a silent argument about what version of history was right, almost causing both of you to almost break off your friendship.

You decided to say sorry and to just drop the history thing. But Otoya was still intrigued by your dream.

"Might be reincarnation," he said as you two were taking a break from studying, lying on the hardwood floor of your living room. His silvery hair shone from the sunlight streaming through the window. You sighed and started to fidget on the hem of your shirt. "That would be weird. Why would I be a reincarnation of a sad lady?" you asked quietly. Otoya turned to look at you, his slanted eyes looking bored yet interested. "Maybe you'd grow into one," he teased, his tone unchanging. He always spoke nonchalantly, but you always picked up the intention of his words through the little quirks of his voice. You grabbed your notebook and slapped his head with it, earning a little "ow" from him. "And you'd grow up into a miserable old man who will never get a girlfriend."

Otoya laughed softly and shook his head. "You're wrong. I'm already on my sixth girlfriend this year," he said, his laughter fizzled into a small smile on his lips. "Eugh, we're in our second year of middle school and you had 6 girlfriends already? Gross."

"If you aren't so hung up with your dreamscape husband, maybe you'd enjoy dating too," he replied, sitting up. The ends of his silver hair dropped on his forehead, then he fixed the green streak in front. "Are you really gonna grow your hair out?" you asked, ignoring his comment from earlier. Otoya nodded and messed his hair up a little. "I read somewhere that girls are into guys with longer hair. Might wanna try that out."

You let out another gagging noise before you sat back up. "Enough with the dating talk. You disgust me."

You noticed that the dreams were becoming clearer yearly, revealing more events. The conversations were a little audible, the faces of your dreamscape siblings were no longer a blur, and the song... you were finally able to figure out the tune of the song. The moment you woke up one day, you quickly hummed the song through your phone's voice recorder, hoping one day you'd find the title.

By the time you reach the age of 17, you realize you've been having the dream more frequently than before, sometimes five times every couple of months. By now, you know how deep the man's voice was, comforting and warm despite the situation. He was caring, he was kind. You wondered if Otoya's guess years ago of this being a reincarnation was true because now, you only wanted to find someone like the man in your dreams. How much of a coincidence would it be when you find the same person as him?

Five years have passed, and you have slowly forgotten about the dream. Maybe it was just your busy life that made you forget how you had it for the past year. Now, it's just an afterthought, a memory of how you experienced a love story every time you closed your eyes at night.

The classroom door opened, revealing Otoya and the security guard following behind him. "Eita! It's class hours, what are you doing here?" You asked, pushing him out of the room. The kids inside the room gasped and giggled, hushed conversations between them. "You're attracting too much attention now," you scolded him silently. Otoya shrugged and replied, "Come with me this weekend." Typical Otoya, not acknowledging the commotion he's causing. Now kids are lurking by the door, looking at the star footballer and wondering what he's doing with their beloved English teacher. You smiled at them and asked them to get inside, your sweet voice filling the hallways. The kids giggled and hid behind the door. "Eita," you said, returning your focus to your childhood friend, "you could've texted me that you're back in town."

"You could've been busy, and this is easier. I've invited some soccer friends to visit and take them around the city. Plus, they don't believe I have a best friend, so come with me," Otoya replied, his voice a little sing-song tune, but when he sounds like that, he's annoyed. You scoffed, reaching out to tug his green-streaked hair gently. "Alright, I'll accompany you and your friends. Just text me the details so I can clear my schedule, but only on the weekend. Okay?"

As soon as Otoya nodded, you started to push him out of the hallway. "Now you have to leave. The kids might not be able to stop themselves from seeing more of you." Otoya nodded and waved at the kids peeking through the door, watching him leave. The moment you turned to tell the kids to get back inside, they started to bombard you with questions about your relationship with Otoya and how you knew him. You sighed, knowing that the lessons would be put aside for this.

The moment Karasu heard Otoya mention your name in the locker room after their last match, he knew.

The dreams, he knew this is what it meant. He knew that he was going to meet you one day. "Who?" he asked.

"Oh, interested?" Otoya replied, "Too bad 'cause she's in love with someone else."

He must be interesting, Karasu thought, but meeting you might change everything. Maybe. Chigiri chimed in, saying he doesn't believe that Otoya has a best friend when all he talks about are girls and how to pick them up. "How about we visit each other's hometowns while off-season?" Otoya suggested, throwing his duffle bag over his shoulder, and waiting for Karasu and Chigiri to finish up. Chigiri shrugged, saying he was okay with it. Karasu agreed too, saying it would be interesting to look around.

Your name has been on his mind for years, it's crazy. He has never told anyone about his dreams, how he sees himself as a soldier in high ranks, marrying a girl in a country he has studied so much about, learning as much as he could, even the parts he cannot accept at first but kept his mind open for the possibility that it might be true. It was crazy enough that people might start making fun of him for it, so he kept it to himself, kept it in his heart, and swore to find you, even if the possibility of meeting you were low. He believed that in his ordinary life, this dream made it extraordinary.

The dreams started when he was 8. Every night, it’s always so clear. Karasu could see the face of the lady, the way she smiled, the way she cried when he left, the way she looked when he danced with her. The sad lady, he once called her, became his favorite dream. Maybe that's why he rejected Marisa. He was too in love with her.

It was sad when he dreamt of the lady less and less as he aged. He could remember her name, her face, and her voice. Karasu knew that this might have meant something.

He read about reincarnation in other religions and how it works. He read about it in fairytales and watched it in romance movies his sister loved to watch. Karasu knew he could be reaching, but if he kept dreaming of a certain woman, this might be it.

Now it seemed fate was working overtime as he and Chigiri waited for Otoya to pick them up at the station. It was a lovely day, too. The breeze was gentle and cool, and the sky was as blue as ever.

He knew this would be the day he’d meet the sad lady.

"Sup," Otoya greeted as he arrived, walking towards the two. "Where's your best friend?" Chigiri asked, looking around, "You said your 'best friend' would be here."

"She will be here. She has some school things to do," Otoya responded.

"Student?" Chigiri asked.

"Nah, teacher."

The day went on as Otoya took Karasu and Chigiri to local spots to avoid a surge of tourists that day. Otoya was good at playing tour guide for the two, taking pictures of each other, noting places with great deals, and buying souvenirs for their families. It was not long before Otoya took Chigiri and Karasu to Sakae District, awaiting your arrival.

And Karasu knew you before you even spoke.

God, you looked exactly like how you did in his dream. The kind eyes, a smile that could take every worry away, and your hair, though longer, was the same. But you weren’t as sad as you were in his dreams. "Is that her?" Karasu asked, his eyes glued on you as you walked towards them. "Yep."

"Hi, guys! I'm sorry I joined you so late! Had to grade the kids' essay papers," you said, your cheerful voice somehow lifting their exhaustion. Otoya threw his arm over your shoulder, pulling you to him. "It's alright. We had fun without you anyway."

"Rude," you scoffed, nudging his rib with your elbow. "Are you gonna introduce me to your soccer friends, Eita?"

"Ah, right. Karasu, Chigiri, Y/n. Y/n, Karasu, Chigiri."

Your mind somehow sparked at the name. Karasu. Where have you heard that name again?

His eyes met yours, pretty blues that reminded you of something distant. A memory? His smirk reminded you so much of someone you met before. He was familiar yet a stranger, someone you want to know more and get close to. What was this feeling?

You held out your hand for Chigiri, which he was happy to shake, and turned to Karasu who held your hand firmly, and for a split-second...

You were taken back to the conversations in the dream about the war and the soldier telling you he loved you, how he told you he wanted you as his wife, and how his name was...

"Tabito?"

Karasu smiled at you as he stepped closer, meeting your gaze once more.

"So, it really is you, Y/n. I've been waiting to meet you for years."

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garessta8 · 3 days ago

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yoooooooooooooooooooooooo

first, as a fellow appreciator of statistics and obsessions, I can't help but admire your work gathering the base information here. (wait, does "reading every DE fic" means you read mine, too??? @_@ shit now i really wonder what you thought of them) and as someone who read not every, but a lot of DE fics, I feel like i can give my own two cents regarding the analysis of said information.

i personally find it ironic that out of allllll Kim's problems described and addressed in the game, people choose to attach themselves most to the least addressed one. i.e. Kim being gay. he has one moment about being gay, but he's a binoclard seolite all the time, but fic writers don't care about that as much… no no no. but as you said, it's about reliability. for the sake of statistics, I'm a white cis middle class woman with terrible eyesight (-9.5 miopia + astigmatism; thank god for contact lenses, because glasses for this prescriptions are thick like actual bunoculars and inconvenient af). Out of all Kim's struggles the most relatable is the eyesight one, and even there I'm much better off because our world has way better ophtalmology. So it's not really relatable. I've almost never been ridiculed for having bad eyesight (at least that I remember), and it doesn't interfere with my lifestyle (except that I need a supply of contacts).

harry's portrait conventionally handsome lmao honestly, from the way Kim talks about Harry's age or if he shaves his moustache, Harry actually was intended to look… maybe he was conventionally handsome somtimes, but now it's shit. maybe not horrible, but shit. and don't forget, all potraits are not drawn hyperrealistically. the opposite, in fact.

anyway… concluding all that:

I agree with your analysis - it's all very on point.

that sad phenomenon results in a lot of fics that go over the same old tracks, often in a way that's borderline OOCing. it can get boring and/or just embarassing to read, sadly, which means less reading material for me but i dont't think that addressing DE's themes as the core of a given fanfic would've made for a better story to read. because they'd be same old themes that would've also probably written in very similar way and grew boring quickly. I'd rather wish that fanfic writers stepped aside from those old scenarios and explored all the "what if?"s that fanfiction allows people. There's potential for so many wild stuff, but people just write about Le Retour and Kim&Harry's post-martinaise shenanigans. And casefics (I just don't like crime mysteries sue me). And wildly misenterpret the nature of the Pale.

lame.

but… Fanfic Helps People Cope from what I've observed, similar warping of themes and characters are just as present in other fandoms. it's not just DE "problem" (i put it in quotes, because I don't think this is actually a problem) the thing is… first, not everybody is just good enough as a writer and author to explore themes they don't relate to. they might realise that, or not… their lack of ability might prevent them from realising the themes being present second, writing these themes is a hard effort, especially for people who don't relate, or would prefer to avoid them, etc etc. it's not the type of effort many people would do as a hobby (a person needs to have a certain masochistic type of personality… yeah) putting 1st and 2nd with "fanfic helps people cope" results in phenomena you've described. it's not "worrying" imo, it's just the way of nature. rain falls, wind blows, and fanfic writers ignore canon material to insert their own problems into the characters.

some opinions on fanfic trends for Disco Elysium on AO3 for the past 2-ish years; i address racism, ableism, jean and kim tropes, accesorization of harry and the way the game themes appear to have warped.

some of you may know i've been reading every fic published on the disco AO3 tag chronologically since 2019 for a little over a year and jotting down some trends (not a proper statistical study, just some tracking of when certain tropes are introduced and when and how they reproduce because i like observing that kind of thing.) there's been an uptick in trans(masc) Kim and Jean character studies since late 2022-early 2023, among many others, but these ones were like overwhelmingly prolific once they were introduced.

harry, kim and jean are overwhelmingly the characters with most fanworks in the tag. and having read a little over 4k works it turns out that people engage in a very distinct way with them for the most part that tracks with the growth of the trans Kim and Jean character studies as a trend.

the disco elysium fandom's english-language writers are, according to my cursory snooping, overwhelmingly trans, some flavor of gay, white and from north america and western europe. given personal anecdotes, i also suspect they are upper middle class (though not as statistically huge as the previous things) and struggle with mental health. in the past decade or so a lot of fanworks have followed a trend of exploration focused on catharsis and personal relatability.

now, kim and harry appear so much in the text with so much detail that there's plenty of personal details to pull from to write them, where as jean's total presence in the game (rarely achieved in one run but i'm taking into account all his mentions and lines) is smaller so it follows that people need to fill in some gaps and there's more characterization freedom. jean is white, younger than both harry and kim, canonically depressed, non-canonically confirmed by his character player an amphetamine addict but presented as a functional person during the game, and covers a very specific narrative hinge that i understand as relevant: he's a bridge between pre-Martinaise Harry and his Martinaise self.

he's objectively a very comfortable character to play with because he's mostly a blank slate except for his relation to Harry and his vitriolic grief towards him. so logistically i understand why people who struggle with mental health, are white, are anywhere between 17 and 35, are functional and able-bodied and may or may not have a complicated relationship with a close person who struggles with addiction or other health issues might go "YES, GOOD CATHARSIS NARRATIVE FOR ME". but the sheer amount of works that value Relatability over engaging with the characters or the themes has resulted in a very strong ripple. which leads to trans kim.

the game paints a deep and vivid image of kim, both from within harry's own perspectives and the objective things he says out loud. he's a walking contradiction, he's alienated from his body and selfhood, he beat himself into submission to stay alive. he's a walking reminder of his assasinated communist parents, the people who killed them paid his salary, his body (racialized, disabled) is both a hindrance to his assimilation and a tangible proof that he could have belonged somewhere but doesn't, that no matter what he does it will be considered first. so he watches his words, his movements, his appearance. so he partakes in hypermasculinity. he's canonically gay, mixed race, diasporic seolite, and disabled. and somehow, the only one of this that is recurringly explored in most fanworks is his homosexuality, usually in the form of being a guiding figure to harry or as a Fellow Gay Cop to jean, or eyes, or someone else.

now, we have the trans kim trope. my opinion on the trope isn't relevant to the point i'm trying to make, but i will say i think transmasc kim is something i enjoy in theory, i think it's a worthy exploration that works very well with the hauntings of embodiment and perception that exist in kim's canon self. but it's very jarring when all of these tales of gay trans kim refuse to engage with race, or with physical disability. like, after you've read 800 trans kim fics you start noticing how solid that avoidance is, how big the elephant in the room is, and i can't help but think that, coupled with the explorations of Jean, the issue is: the white ablebodied writer is unwilling to engage with race and disability.

my charitable reading of this is that the white ablebodied writer doesn't want to write about what they don't know, they don't want to overstep. my neutral reading of this is that the white ablebodied writer doesn't consider how sexuality and gender's material realities are tied to race and ablebodiedness in the real world because they are the Default Categories and it didn't occur to them that kim's experience of them might overlap. my least charitable reading of this without directly falling into the assumption of ill intent is that the white ablebodied writer is uncomfortable with the idea of the fact that their experience of gender and sexuality isn't universal and it's not as emotionally cathartic to think about how they might be racist and ableist because they put on horse blinders and they're trying to write things they like, and understanding this is unpleasant and doesn't belong in their feel-good hobbies.

people love to talk about kim's body without acknowledging the way asian masculinity and femininity exist in relation to whiteness when it's harry or jean in the room. people love to talk about kim's body without engaging with the power relations that exist in many disabled people's sexuality.

the tropes' strength lies in the relatability factor (very high) and the willingness of both author and audience to engage with the canon material for the characters they are writing (very low). and so you end up with a lot of jean character studies about his feelings towards harry (when everyone but kim in the game also knows both harries, but jean is prioritized consistently) and a lot of character studies about kim (that ignore most of the lived experiences of him because they're directly tied to his and his parents' race and alienation that are not particularly cathartic for the white author and reader)

one of the big themes of the game, if not the biggest, is failure. specifically it asks the player to think about what to do when you have failed and you know there are no blank slates, and asks you to empathize not only with harry, whose every thought you're privy to, but to everyone you talk to that has the same rich landscape beyond your brief interaction. when relatability is prioritized in fanworks, this question falls apart, the purpose becomes to find ways in which these characters are like you (the author, the reader) so you can afford them the level of humanity needed to feel emotions about them.

harry's tropification follows four large trends: self-loathing, aggressive addict, psychic omniscient prophet, overwhelmingly emotional and adoring puppy. some authors sometimes are capable of depicting both, usually as if they are unrelated and it's a harry-esque contradiction, but it's truly baffling how rare it is to find stories that engage with all of them or with multiple of them as inextricably bound together like canon material does. harry needs to be relatably lovable (heartbroken, self-loathing, fixable by love, fixable by the universe, capable of change that gets exponentially better) or relatably hateable (physically and emotionally abusive, manipulative, unreasonably needy).

most fics in the relatable lovability fall on the kim/harry ship, most fics in the relatable hateability fall on the jean/harry ship. here's where it ties into the big tropes for kim and jean: the fanworks about a game that asks a question about failure and questioning certainty become stories about inevitability.

jean's vitriol in the game comes from the same place as harry's self loathing: a visceral response to decades of failure. they're not objective truths (i'm thinking about the mirror reveal being intended as a way to make the viewer realize harry isn't a reliable narrator at all, but especially about himself: you see a regular guy, conventionally handsome but clearly in pain and growing old and sick. he calls himself horrible shit, however).

playing up jean's part as the Bridge is comfortable because it allows the player to separate Harry's failures from their agency as a player (something that greatly drives the point of the game home, emotionally speaking -- you're not that different from Harry. Harry's not that different from anyone else he meets. the irreversible failures exist for all of us, as do the chances to try again.) if jean is right in resenting harry, and moreover, he's objectively describing harry's behavior, harry's failures become logical and inevitable consequences of his Way of Being. if Harry calls kim a slur, or threatens children, or scares civilians, that's just because that's how Harry is (according to Jean and Harry's own brain), so the possibility that one of your tries might be meaningfully good becomes... less weighty. it's a fluke, and you'll fail again, so don't get your hopes up. it's almost an excuse to believe that there's nothing new under the sun and going back to old habits is inevitable, but the conclusion becomes "so nothing i do really matters" instead of "it's hard and painful to try again when you've failed so many times before. what does this say about the person who tries?". and in that way jean is an interesting character because understanding why he resents harry for being able to try more freely than him without the weight of memory is important to the theme. what has to click to start climbing out of the grave? can anyone do it? will i ever do it? why now, and why not when i tried to pull him out?

and similarly, when we write about kim, we have to confront what makes him who he is and not another generic character to write, and the fact of the matter is that being a cop, being visibly of seolite heritage, having PTSD, having a visual impairment on record that interferes with his cophood, his cophood being the only identity he appears to have had a choice over, how he treats harry because he's a cop vs. other harry parallels who aren't, how he treats harry whether harry respects him or not... they're important. and trans kim could be a way to approach these themes but it's currently existing in a vacuum of authorial catharsis, and the refusal to address the real politics that give emotional weight to disco elysium is becoming a worrying, overwhelming trend. i urge you all to think about these things a little.

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