#Cathartic Revelation

[wickedzeevyln]

Figment

One would mistake Eli as a crab the way he walked down the corridor of their house. As a kid, he used to dash back and forth with great strides, now, he could pace the length of the room in a few steps. A picture of his eight-year old self still hang on the wall, he was sitting by a pool, though he was missing teeth, his smiles stretched across his face and his eyes were the size of a tea plate,…

[brechtian]

deep sigh. despite what shakespearean convention may lead you to believe the romantic counterpart to the tragic catharsis of death isn’t marriage, it’s sex 😔

[irregularbillcipher]

nondisabled people be normal about curly mouthwashing and treat him like a human person challenge (impossible)

[possamble]

Thank you for your fic! I will be rereading dragoness of melini to cope now 🥰

Oh that's actually a great idea since dragoness is supposed to be the far-off followup/part of the same continuity but also more importantly did it hurt. Did it hurt as deliciously as advertised.

[vendettasfanfictioning]

fucking LOVE happy queer revelations. you mean to tell me this character goes through the whole "oh i like women. i like men. I don't think I'm as straight or as cisgender as I thought I was" arc WITHOUT ANGST???? they get to ask their already-out friends and colleagues and even love interest????? they get to develop a healthy identity uninterrupted by the heavy burden of societal prejudices and just explore for the sake of experiencing different things?????

amazing.

[gsirvitor]

As MLK Jr once said, the weakness of violence as a means to an end, is that it is a spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.

Instead of reducing evil, it multiplies it, for through violence you may murder a liar, but cannot stop the lie, nor establish the truth.

Through violence one may murder one who spouts hate, but one cannot end that hatred, violence merely increases hate.

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, tit for tat, adds deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that, hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

And as Jesus once said, in Matthew 26:52.

"Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword"

Man should not use violence to solve all problems, for violence is not a means to an end, but a deterrent, a manifestation of authority over oneself.

Just as pacifism is meaningless without the capacity for violence, violence is meaningless when used to end every issue, to pluck that cathartic primeval string at the back of your skull.

The ape within you screams out, its bestial nature tells you to strike out in anger, but the man within you must temper you, for a blade cannot remain sharp if dulled on a thousand targets.

God, I've a bad habit of speaking in metaphor, anyway, those of you who understand what I said here, this is for you.

And for others who don't, I'm asking you to not revel in wanton bloodshed, to not seek out death, violence is not just your tool.

Do try to be empathetic to those who lose a loved one, regardless of class, race, or anything else, they are only human, just like you.

[dykedvonte]

I think it’s good to remember Jimmy doesn’t revel in others misery more so feels less miserable when people are as unhappy as he is. The acts he does do not bring him any pleasure, it’s more so the ending effect and reward and even then he’s not exactly happy just content in not feeling lesser.

It’s very easy to characterize his behavior as something cartoonishly villainous and cathartic and, while their is some catharsis there, it is ultimately the case of him acting out deep internalized feelings and frustrations against other people (possibly even himself) that he doesn’t necessarily like doing or even feel relief doing.

It’s both a conscious and unconscious behavior of his that too often gets chalked up to “Jimmy likes/gets off to tormenting others” and it’s a little one note to what is actually displayed in game.

[wangxianficfinder]

In the mood for...

Oct 8th

~*~

1. Hello! Thank you for being doing this, I find so many things I haven't read! Today, I'm in the mood for any fic where WWX is really shy only around LWJ, like, incredibly nervous, and they end up together eventually, maybe one where LWJ is the one who flirts, subtly, in his way and WWX loses his mind over it 😂 @ghostwolf-93

loveliness by orphan_account (T, 1k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Love Confessions, First Kiss, Pining, Teen Romance, Getting Together)

Back up and dream again by The Silverfish (ZephyrAndTheSilverfish) (T, 3k, WangXian, Fix-It, Time Travel, Fluff, Flirting, Cute, Embarrassed WWX)

🧡 Stunted, Starving Juvenility by TomatenMark (E, 828k, WangXian, WIP, Fix-it of sorts, Talisman master WWX, Not JFM Friendly, Study Arc, Getting together, Fluff and Angst, Engagement) The first few chapters of Stunted, Starving Juvenility () feature a flustered Wei Ying after he realizes he's attracted to Lan Zhan which is close to the request but maybe not quite what they were after.

~*~

2. I am in the mood for a fic with dark Jiang Cheng (maybe even demonic cultivator Cheng) and some Jiang Cheng/Wei Wuxian pairing. It could be alternate universe where they didn't grow up like siblings and I would like some arranged marriage between them. It doesn't have to come through and the endgame can be different pairing. I am curious if there is such fic out there.

~*~

3. hello and thank you so much for what you do!!! I just read "although my mind is young, it is not gentle" by everythingispoetry and I was hoping you could recommend me something similar? Something centered around Lan Sizhui and showing his relationship with Lan Wangji and/or Wei Wuxian. Could be him growing up pre-canon or during canon , idc. @ladyhavilliard

let the yoke fall from our shoulders by occultings (microcomets) (G, LSZ & LWJ, LSZ & WWX, wangxian, LWJ & LSZ & WWX, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Character Study, Mentions of Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Gusu Lan Juniors Dynamics, let capricorns cathart agenda, Happy Ending, Family Feels, Established Relationship)

🔒 Not Yet (There As Needed) by sunrise_and_death (T, 13k, LSZ & WWX, JL & WWX, JL & LSZ, WangXian, Post-Canon, Family Feels, Family Bonding, POV LSZ, This Fic Has Everything, even more yearning, WWX & LSZ figuring out wtf their relationship is, Dramatic Revelations)

Important Distinctions by nagi_blue (T, 5k, gen, Fluff and Crack, [Podfic] Important Distinctions by semperfiona_podfic (semperfiona)

your name, safe in their mouth by astrolesbian (G, 10k, LSZ & WWX, WangXian, Father-Son Relationship, Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, More aligned with CQL than novel canon, Miscommunication, Eventual Positive Communication, Trying to be a family, how to tell your dad you want him to be your dad in 6 easy steps!)

Gathered Herbs & Sweet Grasses by hansbekhart (Not Rated, 19k, LSZ & LWJ, WangXian, dad wangji, LWJ’s Questionable Parenting Skills, Grief/Mourning, Recovery, Injury Recovery, Hopeful Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Gathered Herbs & Sweet Grasses [podfic] by someplacelikebolivia)

Inquiry by incendir (G, 10k, LSZ & LWJ, WangXian)

to the act of making noise by words-writ-in-starlight (WordsWritInStarlight) (G, 19k, LSZ & LWJ, LSZ & WWX, WangXian, Grief/Mourning, Father-Son Relationship, inquiry, LSZ is the best of boys and I will not hear debate, Music, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, [Podfic] to the act of making noise by Ceewelsh, flamingwell, kisahawklin, Rionaa) This is basically Lan Yuan growing up with Inquiry as a lullaby (and seeing LWJs grief through his eyes) I'm not familiar with the fic mentioned in the ask, but this fic focuses on LSZ growing up. Tissue alert! And double tissue alert for the podfic version

to recollect and long for by mme_anxious (T, 4k, LSZ & LWJ, LXC & LWJ, WangXian, Angst, Humor, Fluff, weird mix of book and live action, Forehead Ribbons, Family Feels, Weddings, Sort Of, POV Multiple)

~*~

4. HII! Can you please find some zombie au's with wangxian? Ty!

The Edge of Night by Hobbsy3 (M, 277k, WangXian, XuanLi, Modern AU, Zombie Apocalypse, Yúnmèng Siblings Dynamics, Accidental Baby Acquisition During a Zombie Apocalypse, Junior Quartet, (except they’re all babies), Angst with a Happy Ending, Minor Character Death, Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Gore, Ensemble Cast, Worst Zombie Fighting Team Ever, Found Family) Amazing Zombie AU

When the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation takes a week off by galaxy_in_your_eyes (T, 20k, WangXian, Modern Cultivation, Canon Divergence, Everyone Lives, only those that deserve it, kind of fix-it, Zombie Apocalypse, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Attempt at Humor, POV Alternating, Canon-Typical Violence, Blood and Gore, Mentions of Suicidal Thoughts, Brief Mentions of Cannibalism, Zombies, We don’t see the Zombie Apocalypse, It happens behind closed doors, WWX in quarantine, Wangxian being Wangxian, Mentions of Smut, Established Relationship, Courtesy Names, local necromancer gets sick with the flu)

Darkness Before the Dawn by Selenay (E, 64k, wangxian, Zombie Apocalypse, Modern With Magic, Necromancer WWX, Reunions, toddler A-Yuan, There Was Only One Bed, There are zombies but not graphically horrific zombies, Angst with a Happy Ending, Find a home in the middle of an apocalpyse)

when the sun goes out by travelingneuritis (E, 176k, WangXian, Modern Cultivation, tech cultivation, Necromancy, Angst with a Happy Ending, insecurity around adoption, Dad!WWX, dad!lwj, Grief/Mourning, Mistaken Identity, Mood Whiplash, Body Swap, sex tears!, Falling In Love, Consensual Somnophilia, apocalypse (localized), Smut, unrealistic sexual stamina, Flashbacks, Time Skips, Illustrations)

❤️ A Corpse Called By Name by jaemyun (Not rated, 60k, WangXian, Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Horror, Zombie WWX, Eventual Happy Ending, yunmeng trio, Eventual WangXian, WWX is dad material even in death, Humor, YLLZ but make him dead, A Corpse Called By Name by jaemyun [Podfic] by Miss Appellation (Lizeth)) WIP podfic / featuring WWX doing the impossible again, being the best big brother, dad and LZ's crush as a consious boss zombie! Beware of some angst tho

a thousand teeth, yours among them by darkredloveknot (enheduane) (E, 10k, WangXian, Zombie Apocalypse, Blood and Violence, Mild Gore, Hook-Up, Falling In Love, metaphysical sexual body horror (??), Non-Sexual Intimacy, Melancholy)

~*~

5. hello! i would love recs for mpreg fics set in canon/post-canon that are NOT a/b/o.

🧡Accidents Will Happen by vesna (mrsronweasley) (E, 45k WangXian, Post Canon, Mpreg, Fluff, Light angst, Mojo's post)

Bloom where you are planted by luckymoonly (M, 44k wangxian, MM/WQ, Canon Divergence, Fix It, courting, Mpreg, Sunshot Campaign, Fluff, Happy Ending, getting together early, Romance, WWX giving birth in the middle of the war? Most likely than you think!, Yúnmèng Siblings Feels, Smut, Drama, Blood and Violence, Minor Character Death, There Is Only One Bed, No Fall of Lotus Pier, Crossdressing, Shotgun Wedding, Mention of miscarriage (not WWX), wangxian Have a Breeding Kink, Giving Birth, Soft granduncle LQR)

Blooming in white by luckymoonly (T, 38k, wangxian, JYL/JZX, MM/WQ, NMJ/LXC, NHS/JC, Canon Divergence, Mpreg, Getting Together, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, hidden pregnancy, Mutual Pining, Drama, Misunderstandings, Everyone Lives AU, Miscommunication, WWX and NHS are BFF, matchmaker NHS, Fix-It)

Impermanence, Transience, Permanence by Best Bepsy (BepsyGray) (E, 39k, wangxian, canon divergence, unplanned pregnancy, mpreg, gore, sunshot campaign, assumed miscarriage, medical procedures, childbirth, golden core reveal)

in a river you wade by bleuett (M, 20k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Mpreg, Postpartum Depression, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Good Uncle LQR, Family Feels, Happy Ending, Kid Fic)

Take My Pieces, Make Me Whole by InTheGreySpaces (M, 297k, WangXian, NieLan, ChengQing, XuanLi, Canon Divergence, Angst, Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Hurt WWX, JC & WWX Reconciliation, JC is a good brother, LXC Is A Good Brother, Golden Core Reveal, Mpreg, Yuan really IS WWX's son, and LWJ is his other father, LQR is a good uncle, Eventual Happy Ending, WWX Has Memory Issues, NMJ is a good brother, Hurt LWJ, Hurt NMJ, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, tiny bit of non-con, chapters will be tagged individually with necessary warnings, sentient Yin Iron)

~*~

6. I am in the mood of fic with some body swap trope. I mean like if Lan Zhan swapped his body with Wei (maybe some magic went wrong) and both have to pretend to be who they are not. Or it could be bodyswap with any other character. Lan Zhan and Huaisang or Wei and Mingjue or anyone else. I think there is big potential for great stories in there. No modern aus or gender swap please.

🔒💙 Holding shreds by barisan (T, 5k, WangXian, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, No Sunshot Campaign, Body Swap, Not for sexy shenanigans, Chronic Pain, Hurt WWX, Hurt LWJ, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Abusive YZY, Bad Parent YZY, Bad Parent JFM, Good Uncle LQR, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Inaccuracies, POV WWX, Angst with a Happy Ending, Jiāng Family Bashing, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Getting Together, Smart WWX)

come home to my heart by occultings (microcomets) (M, 29k, WangXian, Bodyswap, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Canon Divergence, First Time, Getting Together, Confessions, Sharing a Bed, Misunderstandings, and a little bit of hurt/comfort as a treat)

These next two are crossovers with TGCF & the body swaps involve characters from that story:

🔒even across a thousand miles by merryofsoul (T, 10k, WangXian, HuaLian, Bodyswap, Post-Canon, Light Angst, Crossover, POV Alternating)

lost my fear of falling by thefireplanet (E, 30k, WangXian, HuaLian, Bodyswap, YLLZ WWX, WWX-centric, WangXian-centric, Post-Canon, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Canon-Typical Wangxian Sex Things)

Two Sides of the Same Coin by JiangChengLotus (T, 4k, XiCheng, WangXian, Bodyswap,Humor, Fluff, Bonding, Chaos, Developing Friendships, Misunderstandings)

flux by orphan_account (E, 60k, WangXian, Post-Canon, Canon Continuation, Case Fic, Getting Together, Sharing a Bed, Curses, Bodyswap, Sharing a Body, Psychic Bond, Love Confessions, Light Angst with a Happy Ending, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Sexual Tension, Explicit Sexual Content, Masturbation, Telepathic Sex, Investigations, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Slow Build, Slow Burn) i have to recommend Flux! its a case fic that starts out as bodyswap and eventually leads to sharing a body where they can jump between their two bodies together. its so interesting and i find myself coming to back to it from time to time

~*~

7. ITMF request pls 🙏🏻 there's quite a few reincarnation/time-travel fix-its where either both WWX and LWJ retain their previous memories, or only LWJ but not WWX. Are there any where WWX retains his, but not LWJ? Thank you in advance ♥️♥️

Practical Mythology by metisket (T, 17k, WangXian, Time Travel, YLLZ WWX, myths and legends, apparently the burial mounds has to fix everything itself, zombie farm collective, accidental deities, Families of Choice, WWX has no idea what he’s doing, that’s why he’s doing great) WWX travels back in time & becomes known as a powerful immortal. Baby!LWJ grows up on the myths

Last(?) Loop by PyrrhaIphis (T, 9k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Time Loop, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, before the Cloud Recesses study arc) WWX is in a timeloop, but told from pov of LWJ, who is not in the loop

❤️ And Time Is But a Paper Moon by sami (M, 138k, WangXian, XiChengQing, Time Travel, Fix-It, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Healing, Mental Health Issues, PTSD, Hurt/Comfort, Depression, BAMF WWX, BAMF JC, BAMF LWJ, BAMF JYL, Getting Together) multiple podfics and translations into multiple languages available

Wish me luck by starlight1395 (Not Rated, 164k, WangXian, Fix It, Time Travel, Angst, PTSD, Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Nightmares, Slight fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Lots of tears, canon levels of blood/violence, Minor Character Death, secondary character death, Sibling Bonding, JC curses alot, battle scenes with appropriate levels of violence and blood, semi mild smut, it's emotional and soft smut tho so it's okay, mild Self-harm)

Lay my body down by tawaen (M, 48k, WWX & WQ, WWX & WN, wangxian, WWX & JYL, Canon Divergence, Time Travel, Rogue Cultivator WWX, Eventual WangXian, No Golden Core Transfer, Not Cultivation World Friendly, Canon-Typical Violence, Not JC Friendly, What if WWX saw the first siege of the burial mounds and said Nope to the war, OCs, OC point-of-view for one chapter for plot reasons) has WWX's soul zip back to the moment JC strangled him. The memories are incomplete but I think it still counts?

We’ll Build A Dynasty (one the heavens can’t shake) by One_eyed_God (T, 66k, WangXian, WWX & WQ, WWX & WN, WWX & JYL, canon typical Jiang family dynamics, BAMF WWX, Canon JC Characteristics, POV Outsider, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Relationship, WWX is a Wen, Sect Leader WWX, Genius WWX, The Casual Intimacy of Hand-Holding, A Love Letter to WWX, Not JC Friendly, Time Travel Fix-It) is one where WWX is the only one to travel, but the story is told from everyone else's POV

two guys r in love thats literally it by victortor (M, 11k, wangxian, Time Travel, the fluffiest thing ive ever written)

~*~

8. Itmf more like " dispersing clouds ". I Just love the wwx in it. He's written soo good there. Especially the aspect of him being a head disciple, the author wrote about it in such a way that he actually felt like a head disciple. That one paragraph about him waking up and going " 5 laps around the pier now. " It was soo hotttt! Helooo?

Everything else in the book was written so perfectly true to every character.

This book comes par with " 12 moons and a fortnight " for me NGL. @constellationdks

Just go forward like you mean it by tawaen (M, 101k, WangXian, WWX & WN &WQ, WWX & JYL, NHS & WWX, Canon Divergence, WWx does not attend the Wen indoctrination, WWX saves Lotus Pier, Inventor WWX, No Golden Core Transfer, Sect Leader JYL, JC Has No Golden Core, Bad Parents JFM & YZY, Not JC Friendly, but he gets a happier ending than canon so don’t look here for bashing) Like in Dispersing Clouds, WWX leaves the Jiang but spends time fixing the defences & interacting with elders & fellow disciples. I definitely feel it has similar vibes to that fic

~*~

9. hi!! im looking for recs where both lwj and wwx time travel to the past (preferably longer and novel canon, but anything works!) thank u!!

Never Again by Hauntcats (T, 67k, WWX & WN & WQ, JC & WWX, wangxian, graphic depictions of violence, major character death, Canon Divergence, Angst, Golden Core Transfer Fix-It, Time Travel Fix-It, Not JC Friendly, Dark, BAMF WWX, mentions of abuse, Not Everyone Dies au, XY doesn’t have a happy ending)

🔒 Here With Me by iamwish (T, 58k, WangXian, Time Travel Fix-It, wwx turns this into a no war!au, Canon-Typical Violence, Period-Typical Homophobia, Bad Parent YZY, POV WWX, POV LWJ, POV JC, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, WWX Has PTSD, and also depression sometimes, Unreliable Narrator, (all of them))

💖 Regrets by antebunny (G, 37k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Time Travel, Fix-It, Temporary Character Death, Angst, Explicit Descriptions of Love, and other squishy feelings, Angst with a Happy Ending)

🔒 Ad Oblivione by Baph, HikariNoHimeWriter (M, 70k, WangXian, Time Travel Fix-It, Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, POV Multiple, Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Identity Reveal, Golden Core Reveal, Cultivation World Critical, Not JC Friendly, Abusive YZY, Angst with a Happy Ending) Out of the pair of them, initially only WWX remembers, but LWJ regains his memories of the undone timeline over the course of the fic

A Life Without Regrets by naqaashi (M, 163k, WangXian, JFM & WWX, JC & WWX, WRH & WWX, LXC & LWJ, LQR & LWJ, LWJ & NHS, Canon Divergence, Time Travel Fix-It, Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Crack Treated Seriously, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Rogue Cultivator WWX, Murder Husbands, PTSD, BAMF WWX, Cultivation Sect Politics, Genius WWX, Cultivation Theory, Sentient Burial Mounds, Dysfunctional Family, Grief/Mourning, Angry WWX, No Golden Core Transfer, BAMF LWJ, Angry LWJ, One-Braincell WangXian, Idiots in Love, Requited Love, Requited Unrequited Love, Soft WangXian, Married WangXian, Soulmates, Not Cultivation World Friendly, Immortal WWX, Canon-Typical Violence, Not JC Friendly, Not Yunmeng Jiang friendly, not gusu lan friendly, Immortal LWJ)

Family by Quiet_crash (G, 57k, WangXian, XuanLi, Time Travel Fix-It, Grief/Mourning, Loss of Parent(s), Established Relationship)

The Wild Geese’s Tomb by The Feels Whale (miscellea) (T, 66k, WangXian, Time Travel AU, fixit, Temporary Character Death, all women live no women die, LWJ’s canonically intense feelings about everything all the time, WWX’s clinical depression gets treated and blamed on resentful energy, navigating gay marriage in ancient china by utiliizing class snobbery for your own ends, if you’re not sure whose fault anything going on in here is then blaming NHS is probably a good bet, WWX plays ‘summon LWJ’ it’s super effective!, the ‘unexploded cow’ approach to dealing with your enemies) CQL rather than novel canon, but it's too good to not recommend

~*~

10. Itmf: the most comforting and soft fic recs you have!

I want a happy ending and for it to be about Wangxian. I don't care about length, it can be a long, plot filled story, as long as there's plenty of fluff!

I'm talking lots of cuddles, soft kisses, non sexually bathing each other, hair brushing, things like that! Bonus points for the smell of sandalwood relaxing Wei Wuxian, but certainly not required!

Thank you all! @acebookdragon47

Continuation by thefaceofno (T, 13k, WangXian, 3zun if you squint, Canon Continuation, wwx builds a lotus pond in cloud recesses, Hair Brushing, Angst with a Happy Ending, Light Angst, Pining, gay disaster lwj, Post-Canon Fix-It)

call me home and I’ll build you a throne by anaphoricae (E, 51k, WangXian, Post-Canon, Post-CQL, Canon Compliant, Getting Together, Developing Relationship, Self-Indulgent, Gusu Lan Juniors Dynamics, Touch-Starved, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Sexual Intimacy, Lán Juniors Gossiping about Wangxian, Nightmares, Hurt/Comfort, Domestic Fluff, WWX Has a New Golden Core, Farmer WWX, Chief Cultivator LWJ, Mutual Pining, Communication, Quietly Falling Into a Married Life, Light Angst, Wholesome, POV LWJ, POV WWX, LWJ in braids agenda, Sharing a Bed, Semi-Public Sex, Inventor WWX, Jealous WWX)

where the chaos is by darkredloveknot (enheduane) (E, 6k, WangXian, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV) Compliant, Post-Canon Reunions, Love Confessions, First Kiss, First Time, Emotions, WWX is overwhelmed, Domestic Bliss, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Bottom LWJ, Top WWX, Intimacy, Hair Brushing, and more!)

🔒Heart of hearts series by apathyinreverie (M, 40k, WangXian, Dark LWJ, (Ish), Amnesia, WWX gets to be Not Okay after the BM, Hurt WWX, Recovery, Protective LWJ, Possessive LWJ, some definite manipulation, but not everything is as it seems, not nearly as dark as the tags make it sound, Canon Divergence, Golden Core Reveal, Golden Core Transfer Fix-It, Kind Of, Domestic WangXian, Fluff, WWX Goes to Gusu, Possessive WWX, Sunshot Campaign, BAMF WWX, BAMF LWJ, Not Cultivation World Friendly)

We Meet at the Thousandth Step by Admiranda, Rynne (T, 316k, WangXian, CSSR/WCZ, Canon Divergence, No Sunshot Campaign, CSSR & WCZ Live, Rogue Cultivator WWX, Different First Meeting, Night Hunts, Genius WWX, Inventor WWX, Plot, Romance, Drama, Fluff, Strangers to married, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Everyone Lives, Developing Relationship, Minor Violence, Case Fic, Mystery, Flirting, WWX’s Canon-Typical Flower Flirting, Arson, There Was Only One Bed, Getting Together, First Kiss, Meeting the Parents, Resolved Sexual Tension, Resolved Romantic Tension, WWX Is a Good Big Brother, New Relationship Bliss, Chinese Mythology & Folklore, Blood and Injury, Yiling siblings, Married WangXian, Honeymoon, Wangxian’s Baby Fever)

~*~

11. itmf fics where characters have a crush on wei wuxian or fall for his charms?

Cotton Wool by incendir (M, 34k, wangxian, LJY/OMC, JL/LSZ, JC & WWX)

Help, My Dad Is Fucking Someone My Age!! by sweetlolixo (T, 3k, WangXian, LSZ & LWJ, Canon Divergence, Humor, Crack, Fluff, Romance)

Transcend by covalentbonds (not rated, 7k, WIP, WangXian, Post-Canon, Fluff and Humor, Smut, YLLZ WWX is prettiest fight me)

~*~

12. hi! this is for itmf.

can you recommend fics that discuss sizhui’s dislike for jiang cheng? this could be because of his treatment towards wei wuxian or maybe because of his treatment and dislike of the wen remnants. thanks!

on the importance of restraint (or lack thereof) by nixtothou (G, 3k, background WangXian, LSZ & JC, Families of Choice, Light Angst, LZS Needs a Hug, Angry LSZ, i simply think lsz deserves to snap, zhuiling if you squint, Not for jc stans, Post-Canon, Character Study)

Symmetry by Vir_Abelasan (M, 13k, LSZ & WWX, WangXian, One-Sided JC/WWX, One-Sided JC/LSZ, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Canon Divergence, LSZ is raised by WWX, WWX still dies sorry, Revenge, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Dark LSZ, Manipulation, Power Imbalance, Torture, Not JC Friendly, JC’s Canonical 13 Years Murder Spree, BAMF LSZ, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, LSZ Gets to Go Apeshit)

~*~

13. itmf wwx or lwj centric modern setting long fic with some family angst! preferrably not slow burn, no vers please! thank u <3

🧡🔒Truth Will Out (when caught on video) - End_OTW_Racism! by KizuKatana (E, 179k, wangxian, WN & WWX & WQ, graphic depictions of violence, modern cultivation, canon divergence, YZY abuses WWX, caught on camera, partial core removal, WWX kicked out of Jiang sect, livestreamer WWX, meet ugly, dual cultivation, smut, no war)

Ornaments Under the Stars by trippednfell (M, 62k, wangxian, Modern, Inspired by Hallmark Christmas Movies, the wangxian Hallmark Movie AU no one asked for, plot and title were randomly generated, Kidfic, Disabled Character, debilitating injury as substitute for missing golden core, Additional Warnings In Author’s Note, Angst with a Happy Ending, Guest starring Lan Zhan’s sky blue coat, The Coat deserves its own tag, disordered eating habits - not a major plot point, WIP)

❤️ save a sword, ride a socialist by sysrae (E, 33k, wangxian, modern w magic, college/university au, fake/pretend relationship, single parent WWX, homophobia, light angst w/ happy ending, idiots to lovers, fluff)

‘Let’s go home.’ by Crowgirl (E, 27k, WangXian, Coffee Shops & Cafés, LQR's Excellent Parenting, Meet-Cute, First Kiss, First Time, First Meetings, Pining, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Angst with a Happy Ending, Modern AU, Past XiYao, past emotional abuse, Past Emotional Manipulation)

~*~

14. hello! for the next itmf i have three requests! i would love to see canon/post-canon fics of

A. jingyi seeing wangxian as his parents

B. jin ling seeing wwx as a parent

C. jin ling struggling with his feelings about jc after finding out the truth about everything

no AUs please!

~*~

15. Hi! so this request is under itmf i think!

i didn’t see much mention of this but are these any fics that talk about lwj and wwx’s class difference? anything where wwx gets to experience luxury for the first time as lwj’s husband? 🥹 it doesn’t have to be in detail but i would love to read about that!

as always thank you for your blog and all that you do 🫶

🧡 Stunted, Starving Juvenility by TomatenMark (E, 859k, WangXian, WIP, Fix-it of sorts, Talisman master WWX, Not JFM Friendly, Study Arc, Getting together, Fluff and Angst, Engagement) In the early parts of this fic, WWX worries about how LWJ is out of his league class-wise & that the elders will never allow them to get together

~*~

16. hi! are there any canon divergence fics where wei ying snaps out of whatever disassociation he experienced and manages to save lan zhan before the elders can even get to punish him? like, the whipping didnt happen at wei ying lives type of beat. thank you!

~*~

17. Hi! Hope you have a nice day! I’d like to ask for fics which include a-yuan calling Wuxian his dad or wwx calling wen qing his sister

The most dangerous thing is to love by KatAnni (E, 113k, WangXian, Golden Core Reveal, Fix-It, Everybody Lives, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Canon Divergence, Hurt!WWX, Found Family, Implied/Referenced Torture, POV Multiple, Implied/Referenced Cannibalism, Panic Attacks, PTSD, Golden Core Transfer, Golden Core Transfer Fix-it, Medical Procedures, Fainting, Major Character Injury, Blood and Injury, WWX Has a New Golden Core, Asexual JC, homophobia doesn’t exist here, Marriage Proposal, Marriage, Wedding Night, Whump) a-Yuan refers to Wei Ying as his dad starting in chapter 18

❤️ Seen and not heard by eatmyass (E, 51k, wangxian, case fic, no sunshot, kid fic, dadxian, strangers to lovers, found family, LWJ pov, pining, fake/pretend relationship, first time, falling in love)

The Core Issue by Hauntcats (T, 21k, WangXian, Angst with a Happy Ending, Not JC Friendly, Canon Divergence)

~*~

If you didn’t get an answer to your ask here, don’t forget to make use of @mdzs-kinkmeme and MDZS KINK MEME on Dreamwidth. Authors actually do use them for ideas. You may get what you order!***Your prompt doesn’t have to be kink! Fluff, crack, whatever - it’s all good!***

[elvensorceress]

idk I get incredibly angry at homophobes being cast on my gay shows. anybody want the start of my fic where Eddie dumps her bigoted ass and then has a gay ole sexy time with his husband and his husband's new boyfriend? because here. you can have. it's cathartic 💕

test drive - 2K, BuckTommy, BuckEddieTommy, Buddie endgame forever / Explicit

The restaurant is dimly lit in a way that might be classy and romantic, but Tommy’s hand is also on Buck’s thigh. And he’s having a lot of very not-classy, not even very romantic sorts of thoughts. Everything is far more along the lines of, he could put his hand on my dick, and I know what his cock feels like down my throat, and why are we here in a public place when we could be back at my loft taking turns fucking each other until we’re both a mess of cum and lube and sweat and sexy bruises and love bites? Because all of that is way more appealing than what they are sitting here, waiting to do. 

If it were just one of their dates, it’d be great. Those are fantastic. Tommy likes to pick him up and take him to nice places and he smiles in a really, really soft cute way that also has an air of, I am going to fuck you until you scream and you will love every second. And holy fucking god, does Buck love every second. 

Bisexuality, man. Who knew? 

It’s so fantastic. It’s so different? Or maybe it’s just that Tommy is different because he’s ridiculously cool and hot and Buck always really liked when someone knew what they wanted and would take the lead and he could do everything in his power to please them and make them feel good. Confidence is infinitely sexy and competence even more so. And Tommy has all of that in spades. 

And Buck loves men. Buck really loves men. It makes so much sense and how had he never even considered? Maybe he considered but he sure as hell never realized wanting a man and being attracted to a man was something that fit so well. Fuck, it fits so well. 

Maybe he could even end up with a man someday? Maybe he could marry a man and have a relationship that is like this all the time for the rest of his life? Not that he doesn’t like women still. Women are great. People who don’t identify as either or they identify as both or however they choose— they’re great, too. 

Everyone is hot and Evan Buckley is very bisexual, and it just might be one of the greatest revelations he’s ever had. 

He’s just really, really enjoying being with a man right now. 

He is not, however, enjoying the thought of this dinner. Everything about this dinner makes his stomach a washing machine of anxiety. For no reason. He doesn’t know why. There’s nothing wrong with it. 

Why wouldn’t he and his boyfriend go on a double date with his best friend who is their mutual friend, and his best friend’s girlfriend. What is wrong with that? It’s fine. Should be— fun? 

Shouldn’t be a bad taste in his mouth that the wine still hasn’t gotten rid of and roiling in his stomach that is really killing his appetite. But it very much is. 

Tommy squeezes Buck’s thigh and rubs it in a way that surely is supposed to be comforting. But it makes Buck want to drag him out of this restaurant and back to the loft where he can show Tommy how good he is at fucking him now. Not just because it would be a thousand times better than the prospect of this dinner. The bar is so low on the ground, it’s buried at this point. But also because sex with his new boyfriend is better than— actually, Buck is having a hard time thinking of anything that is better right now. 

Very hard time. 

They’ve been practicing. Everything. Blowjobs, fucking, fingering, ball massages, prostate milking, rimming— all sorts of really fun things Buck never even imagined could feel so good. Not that he was oblivious to a lot of it. He has toys. His ex was into pegging. Buck might have been unaware of how intense and gay— well, bi. He’s bi now. Buck is bi now. Probably always was but he knows it now. He’s bisexual.— his attraction to men could be. But he was not unaware of sexual acts that feel good to his body. 

But it’s totally different with a real man and a real cock and being manhandled by someone who might actually be bigger and stronger than you is really fucking hot. 

He checks his watch again and it’s already 7:28. They’re almost half an hour late. Which is so not like Eddie. He’s not sure if Marisol is like that but he knows for sure Eddie is either fifteen minutes early for everything or he texts if there is a problem. Even then, he’s only ever a few minutes late. If that. And last Buck checked, there were no new messages on his phone. 

He checks again, and still nothing. Not even to Buck’s message of, hey u ok? u on the way? He frowns and sets his phone back on the table and turns to Tommy. “How long before I’m allowed to be really worried?”

Tommy gives him an amused smile. “You can be worried.”

“How long before we need to bother Athena? Ten more minutes? Five? Sh-should I bother Athena now?”

Tommy’s eyebrows scrunch and he looks at Buck like he’s crazy. Okay, it’s probably crazy. Just. He’s worried? That must be the churning in his stomach. “I’m sure Eddie’s fine. It hasn’t been that long. And he’s Eddie.”

Yeah. Yeah, he’s Eddie. But Eddie was also shot downtown in the middle of broad daylight and nearly bled out all over, and there’s not much anyone can do even if they are trained in hand to hand combat and self-defense and those kinds of things. Not many ways to defend against a sniper round that shouldn’t even be a thing. 

Not that Buck is thinking about that. Ever. 

He’s just turning into a washing machine over this dinner. That’s all. 

Five minutes later, some of it finally eases when Eddie finally shows up and sits down across from them. Alone. 

Alone?

“Sorry, guys,” Eddie runs a hand through his hair and breathes like he’s run a hundred miles. He’s hardly been looking distressed at all lately. He’s been glowing smiles and pretty laughs. Not pretty. Nice? Good? Good that he’s so much happier and at peace. 

But he’s not that now. 

“I would’ve—” Eddie checks his own watch, one that was a Christmas present that Buck had engraved with, all the time you need, and must realize how late he actually is. “Fuck. Sorry. Really sorry. I’ll buy? Unless you’ve already eaten and paid and are about to leave.” 

Tommy shakes his head and has that nice smile that’s so reassuring. “We haven’t. Don’t worry about it.”

“We were waiting,” Buck adds and itches to ask him what’s wrong, why he’s late, why he looks— like he isn’t okay. 

“Great.” Eddie nods tersely and it sounds anything but great. “They got anything stronger than wine and cocktails here? Because—” He doesn’t say. But he does make a face the conveys everything. 

“Doubt it,” Tommy says. “But we can get something somewhere else. Is Mar— Mari?”

“Marisol,” Buck supplies. Not that it matters. Not that he cares. Is he supposed to care? There’s nothing wrong with her. She’s fine. 

“Right,” Tommy says, which should say everything. Eddie’s been hanging out with Tommy for months, Buck’s been with Tommy for months, and Tommy is pretty damn good at remembering people’s names. “Marisol. Is she still on the way?”

Eddie’s jaw gets very tight. “No. We’re done.” 

Tommy looks at Buck and Buck looks at Tommy. They’re done? They broke up? Not that it’s particularly surprising. Part of the curse of dating someone you met on a call. Gotta be. Also the whole thing where Eddie has some kind of commitment issues or something because as soon as he gets a girlfriend, he has to spend all his time doing anything besides being with said girlfriend.

“So, drinking?” Tommy says. 

Buck pushes his wine glass across the table. They usually share when they eat together. Drinks, food, anything. And he’s happy to offer it to the cause. 

“Yes, drinking.” Eddie takes Buck’s wine and downs all of it. 

Eddie’s single again. Marisol isn’t coming to dinner and she’s not part of their lives any longer. Not that Buck has a problem with her. She’s fine. She was nothing really. That wasn’t going to last. Eddie likes the idea of being with someone. So he says. He’s allergic to actually having a relationship for some reason. 

The washing machine in Buck’s stomach disappears though. Which is so much better. Now, it’s just Buck hanging out with his best friend and his boyfriend. 

Maybe there’s a little washing machine. It’s nothing though. 

They order food and drinks, and Eddie only goes through a couple shots and three glasses of wine and one beer. But he eats and also drinks water and doesn’t seem inebriated at all. So, they focus on the meal and Tommy’s latest work stories of helicopter rescues. 

It’s not until after Buck discreetly hands their waiter his credit card before they’re actually brought the bill, that Eddie actually starts talking.

“I kind of fucked up. Didn’t mean to. I owe you an apology,” he says and looks at Buck with worlds of regret and sorrow. 

Whatever it is, Buck forgives him. He’s sure he’s done far worse than whatever it is. “Why? What, uh, what happened?”

Eddie doesn’t look at him. Or Tommy. He does shake his head but not like he’s saying no. More like he’s disgusted. “I let it slip that you two are— that you’re. Dating. Together. Boyfriends? Do you call each other that? Are you boyf— never mind, I let it slip. I’m sorry. That was my bad. Not my secret to tell.”

Tommy looks scrunched and confused again and Buck— he doesn’t understand what the problem is? No, he hasn’t told many people yet. But it’s not a secret that he and Tommy are together. 

“Eds,” Buck says and immediately thinks he probably shouldn’t have called him that. He doesn’t know why. But he shouldn’t. “It’s fine. I’m not— It’s not a secret. I’m not hiding. Or— or in the closet? I’m out. Now. I’m bi and—” And he’s really happy about that. He really loves it. He’s bisexual. He loves women and men and whoever regardless of gender. And holy shit, does he love men right now. He really, really loves being with a man. He looks to his side and grins brightly at Tommy. “And I’m not ashamed or embarrassed that Tommy and I are together.”

There’s a cute half smile that curves the side of Tommy’s mouth and Buck so wants to kiss him. And do all sorts of other things with him. 

“Well. Good.” Eddie taps his finger on an empty shot glass like he’s contemplating ordering another. “Still. Didn’t go well. Didn’t mean to out you like that.”

“Didn’t go well?” Tommy asks. “Saying that Evan and I are dating didn’t go well?”

Eddie purses his lips and does a slow, exaggerated shake of his head. “Nope. But at least I learned that now. Has the waiter brought our check yet? Because I’m just going to drink more if I don’t head out soon. Not that I’m sad about her or anything. I’m pissed. You think you know someone, and no. No, she’s a raging homophobe.”

She— oh. Oh, that’s what happened. “She broke up with you because we’re gay? Bi and gay? Or— you know what I mean.” Is Tommy gay? Or bi? Or something else? Buck hasn’t actually asked what label he uses. How he qualifies his sexuality. He felt weird asking. It’s so personal. Is he supposed to ask? All he knows is that Tommy was into him. Tommy kissed him and it was breathtaking, incredible, magnificent and changed Buck’s whole life. He didn’t really think anything beyond that. Couldn’t really think beyond that. 

Eddie definitively points at himself and then at phantom nothingness. “I dumped her. Because I said this was a double date with you guys and she said, well not really, and I said, no really. It’s a double date. Her and me and both of you. Double date. Except not her. Ever. Anymore. Because she had to go off about how it was wrong and made her uncomfortable and I ‘let both of you be alone with Christopher?’ And it couldn’t possibly be a date like me and her would go on a date because she’s a woman and I’m a man and that was normal. But you two are both men. Both muscular, powerful, masculine, manly firemen type men— so it could never be the same especially because neither one of you are flamey or girly or whatever, so it could never work, the two of you since neither one of you is ‘The Girl.’ Which is all bullshit. By the way. Obviously. And,” he finally stops and breathes, and there’s a hard swallow in his throat and his eyes are distant and his whole body is strung tight and if he could breathe fire? He probably would. Holy shit, he’s pissed off. Buck isn’t even sure he’s ever seen Eddie this angry at anyone who hasn’t hurt someone he loves. 

Although. Technically she did? Not hurt per se, Buck doesn’t give a shit about what she thinks of him. But she was insulting them. So. Yeah, okay, of course fiercely protective Eddie would be angry. 

“And anyway,” Eddie says, still never quite looking at Buck or even at Tommy. Never quite focusing on them. “That’s how I’m single and back on the market again.” He smiles a wide, bitter, snarky kind of smile, and steals the half-full beer glass in front of Buck and downs it in one gulp. 

(Read on AO3)

[see-arcane]

Examining the Nosfertrio

I must uphold my position as Words Georg and yammer about the Nosferatu Trio (Nosfertrio) that makes up the core of Nosferatu (2024). Specifically in terms of the love triangle and their roles within it.

Spoilers and a massive monolith of text below.

Ellen and Orlok

I’ve already seen a handful of posts going into the metaphors inherent to their relationship. Orlok as Ellen’s id, as the repressed darkness and fey nature she must keep bottled up for the sake of her era and society, as brutality and sensuality, et cetera. And there’s definitely truth in that. Just as it can be found in a lot of horror-attraction (I hesitate to give all of them the blanket of ‘romance’ but attraction is key on one or both sides for hero and antagonist) stories in various degrees from bodice ripper to outright nightmare. There is a definite cathartic itch that’s scratched in everything from Labyrinth’s Jareth to The Phantom of the Opera’s Erik all the way to this, Orlok at his most cadaverous and insidious.

People want to be wanted. On some level, we want to express the repressed depths of ourselves, be they perverse and violent or weird and whimsical. 99 times out of 100, we still restrain ourselves from doing the Immediate Gratification action—anything from snatching the last piece of cake because we know someone else is looking forward to it or taking a hammer to an annoying customer’s skull—because appeasing that kneejerk urge will have consequences. We will feel bad about having done it or else outside forces will punish us. Repression is a fact of life, with some forced to constrict themselves more than others. Not always for good reason. Case in point, poor Ellen stuck in period piece hell.

Ellen was suffering as a young girl. Her clairvoyance and supernatural susceptibility made her an early outcast and the death of her mother left her alone with a father who we learn had a period where he seriously considered sending her to an asylum. A period we also learn came after Orlok began either causing or infinitely worsening her epileptic fits. The one Ellen describes to Von Franz involves her being found naked mid-spasm. Something to do with her flesh.

Was she found orgasming? Had she clawed at herself, perhaps at her breast where Orlok couldn’t yet feed and bleed her? Maybe she was caught in a masturbatory act that Orlok played puppeteer to. We don’t know because we’re only meant to conjure something mortifying for Ellen to be caught at; just as her other public fits have been. Her father is disgusted by it, whatever it is.

Sometime in this miserable window, Thomas enters her life.

Thomas Hutter who is in every way Count Orlok’s antithesis. He loves where Orlok only wants. He wishes only to give to Ellen, to make himself and their life a thing worthy of her—note, she lived in a stunning mansion as a girl and Thomas needed a loan from Friedrich Harding to afford their tiny home; Ellen married down to be with him and he knows it. If Ellen is an owed piece of property in Orlok’s view, Ellen is precious beyond words to Thomas, who even in his terror and ailment, loves her more than he fears anything.

Then comes Orlok in person, slapping Wisborg with plague and murdering friends and children and threatening to go after Thomas if Ellen does not ‘willingly’ submit to him. A big bloodstained temper tantrum is needed before Ellen dons her wedding dress again and gives herself to Orlok for the sake of being the Judith to his Holofernes. When Orlok’s time comes it is an agonizing thing. A final dose of pain for him to suffer in recompense for years of violation inflicted on a girl since puberty.

Ellen kills him. Ellen dies for the sake of killing him and guarding Thomas. In pure emotional math, she is true to what she told Orlok outright:

No. I love Thomas.

I care nothing for your affliction.

I abhor you.

You revel in my torture.

Nothing but truth here. She loves Thomas. She doesn’t give a shit how ‘afflicted’ Orlok is by him wanting her. She abhors him. And, with almost a lifetime of evidence on her side, yes, Orlok appears to get off on casually, repeatedly, flashily subjecting Ellen to her spasms, however pleasurable or painful they might be, to say nothing of her embarrassment and being ‘helped’ by the era’s dehumanizing quackery.

And yet.

Ellen has two visuals and two lines that suggest that buried in her hate and horror at Orlok and all he does, there is still one wisp of…I really hesitate to call it love. Attraction might be in it. ‘Affliction.’ Whatever it is, it is the tiny buried stretch of spiritual ore that I imagine brought Orlok sniffing in the first place. Ore that has been honed by years of abuse and the hopeless inescapability of his attentions into something that Ellen shelves with the rest of her shame and fear, but cannot let go because it is a part of her and part of what kept her from succumbing to total despair in her time before Thomas.

Because Ellen was lonely once upon a time. Did she know Anna as a young girl? Or did that come later, after Thomas? Either way, she prayed for a companion. For comfort. She felt alien and alone and wrong. Which Orlok scented as she called out blindly—a familiar essence he could take advantage of. Because he is a tyrant. A monster. And he is alone too. 

You are not for the living. You are not for humankind.

The visuals:

Ellen meets him in Anna’s room. Comes close close close to kissing him—and reverses (I abhor you).

Ellen stays with him in the bed, lightly cradling Orlok as the sunrise kills him; and he does not claw or tear at her in his death throes, even knowing her betrayal. Only lays a gentle grasp on her shoulder. They recline again as they die, Ellen letting him lay rather than letting him fall off.

The lines:

Before Orlok strikes her mind: He took me for his lover! (Not victim. Lover. She believes it.)

While Orlok has reached out and pressed his influence on her again, her words possibly not wholly her own: You could not please me so well as him. (Is it Orlok goading? Is it Ellen telling a truth or a lie to prod Thomas into sex? Is it a jumble?)

Ellen loves Thomas more than Orlok or her own life. But there is a grain of care for the monster who obsessed over and menaced her for so long. It’s the grim and heady little whisper under all the trappings of horror-attraction, why fiction loves a demonic dom or a pining terror.

I was never alone with them infecting my life. I was the focus of all their attention and passion. I saw so much violence done for the sake of them coercing me to their side. I had these throes forced on me and in being forced to endure their darkness I was absolved of any guilt in moments of pleasure from it. I held hands with Death in a dream and I was so happy when everyone I knew—everyone I smother myself to accommodate—was dead.

It’s there. Of course it’s there.

But what else is there with it?

Ellen and Thomas

Enter the newlyweds who didn’t deserve Any of That Shit.

We don’t really get much time with these two beyond establishing that they are very genuinely in love, have been thoroughly enjoying a too-short honeymoon, and are each prepared to kill and die for each other.

But something I’m seeing around the edges of post-film analyses is a phenomenon that I recognize from certain unfortunate reads of Jonathan Harker’s character, both from Dracula’s book canon and almost 130 years’ worth of trash adaptations. Already this boy is teetering on the precipice of being done dirty the exact same way Jonathan was via sanding down his full role and character in the story. I’ve seen takes that reduce him to the Normal Guy Your Weird Ex Hates, the Guy Who Doesn’t Listen to His Wife, the Useless Guy, the Boring Normie Guy, the Connecticut Clark to Ellen’s Malfina, et cetera et cetera.  

But like. You have to miss a mountain of context clues to land on any of these statuses as Thomas’ deal.

Let’s look at the chief offense: Thomas disregards and/or shuts down Ellen.

First:

Thomas tries to shush Ellen about her nightmare(s). For a moment. But Ellen insists, and so he listens to the dream of wedding Death. He does shush her then, but in the way of soothing. It was just a dream, not a portent. All will be well. What is he supposed to say otherwise? Yes, I believe you. Yes, something horrible is about to happen. Worry, fear, fret. It’s the best course of action.

As for him leaving the bedside and ultimately going out to Orlok’s castle despite Ellen’s pleading? Again, what else is he logically meant to do? This boy does not know what genre he’s in. Ellen does because she’s Ellen. Thomas thinks he’s in a period piece romance with a happy ending and his moneyed best friend repaid for his loan and his beloved back to living in the luxury he knows she left behind to be with him. To do that, he must work for it. He must jump through whatever hoop Herr Knock tells him to. Between the latter and the bait of the commission he and Orlok dangle in front of him—Friedrich paid back, a step toward a plush future to gift to Ellen—and the fact that Ellen’s warning plea comes from dreamt vapor, it’d make no sense for him to just kick off his shoes, endanger his job and roll back in bed with her because his permission slip would read:

‘My wife said no :)’

Even if he wanted to, and it’s hard to think he doesn’t want to going by how uneasy he was the moment Knock put the job in his hands, Thomas had no real room to refuse without putting himself and Ellen in real economic and interpersonal trouble. At best he might have feigned illness, but even that would be a gamble. All the things Ellen wanted him to do—stay longer with her, heed her premonition, don’t go on the journey—Thomas did want to do. But couldn’t.

Second offense:

Thomas ignores Ellen when she says their petite home (and ohhh doesn’t that sting in the 21st century to think that a place like theirs was considered ‘small’ or lower class once upon a time) is fine and Thomas need not push himself to extremes to finance a bigger better household with a maidservant and other bells and whistles to satisfy her. True! No denying it! Just as there is no denying that, out of the entire ensemble, Thomas Hutter is from the lowest class out of everyone.

Friedrich is his friend, a wealthy inheritor to a father’s shipping company who lent Thomas the money needed to pay for the little home and possibly his and Ellen’s wedding. Anna is Ellen’s friend, two girls with a friendly and possibly amorous history from what we can infer is a similarly well-off social level. Thomas is only in their circle by dint of somehow crossing paths with Friedrich and being charming enough to win an otherwise Classically Masculine and Rich Man’s regard.

And Ellen, again, stepped out of the wealthy life to be with him out of love. In her dream her father was there, one of the dead, but he is absent for the entire film. Considering her only other mentions of him were a childhood of his calling her a changeling girl or an unclean thing meant for a madhouse, we can assume the man did not empty his pockets for or applaud her choice of husband. Hence Friedrich’s loan. But for all the discomfort of her family life, Ellen did live a far more polished life than the one Thomas can give her as-is.

(I envy you, said to Friedrich outright.)

This is Thomas’ most standout flaw in my opinion, one that amounts to a single facet of a wider issue: Thomas Hutter feels inadequate on multiple fronts.

He is not wealthy enough to give Ellen the lifestyle he wants to return to her. He has not made up enough savings to repay a man he wishes were only a friend rather than an all-but-in-name sugar daddy. He’s unequivocally not within spitting distance of any other male character’s classic forms of manliness. Just an ongoing mantra of ‘not X enough,’ and that’s before Orlok gets in his head. More on that later.

He’s not shutting out Ellen’s insistence that she’s happy with their simple surroundings because he doesn’t care about her opinion. He’s shutting it out because he can’t get out of his own head about how much lesser he feels compared to her and their friends, feeling as if he has to make up for not coming from where they do and for basically taking his princess away from her metaphorical castle. Fittingly, it’s the complete reverse of Orlok’s treatment.

If Ellen is the prize to be conquered for Orlok, she is the undeserved prize on a pedestal to Thomas. One who needs precious things foisted on her to make him worthy of her loving him despite her saying otherwise. The guy can’t see past his own low view of himself to accept that she is sincere in his insistence that he is enough.

And that brings us to the third issue:

Ellen says she wants to come Orlok-hunting. Thomas shoots her down.

Bit of an echo from Dracula there, with Jonathan and the rest of the Drac Attack Pack unanimously deciding Mina has to be kept out of the villain’s reach while they go a-hunting..! Only for that very move to be what puts her in an unprotected position when said villain comes skulking up to her. It is a very old school Protect the Fair Maiden! move. Fitting for the genre and the time period and so on.

But unlike in Dracula, Thomas and Ellen’s playing of the scene makes much more sense.

They are not dealing with Dracula the Conqueror. They are dealing with Orlok the Repeat Rapist and Tantrum-Murderer Obsessed with Ellen. If there was one person in the entire ensemble not to bring into closer proximity to Orlok, even if she were at maximum anachronistic girlboss badass levels, or even just armed with her own stake and pistol, it would still very much be Ellen. Orlok’s been making her life hell at a distance. Willingly putting her in arm’s reach would make me blue screen too if I were Thomas. This isn’t Jonathan fearing the chance that Dracula might go after Mina out of convenience. This is Thomas rightfully clocking that Orlok will 110% go directly after Ellen. Obviously he says Ellen shouldn’t be on the hunt.

Which was just as obvious to Ellen before she even suggested it.

Because with or without Von Franz promising to lead Thomas and Sievers on the wild goose chase for the sarcophagus, Ellen was already planning to barter herself in exchange for protecting Thomas and Wisborg. Which Thomas would also 110% slam the brakes on if he knew what she was up to. She didn’t suggest her joining the hunt because she had any intention or expectation of them agreeing. It was to make sure that the suggestion was shut down and that Thomas and the others would be far away when she baited Orlok to her.

Both Hutters are terrified for the safety of one another and would rather face Orlok themselves and risk dying than put their beloved in danger. They are too alike in that regard, just as the Harkers are, and that love and desire to protect is abused by both versions of the Count to get what they want. It’s just that Ellen knew exactly how to ensure Thomas would do what she wanted by nettling him with the concept of her coming along and risking proximity to Orlok; perhaps intentionally implying she meant to put herself between him and Thomas as a shield. Cue him declaring absolutely not. Irony of ironies.

But alllll this is just window dressing compared to my main nitpick when it comes to some folks’ view of Thomas paired with Ellen. And that’s that he is the milquetoast nothingburger ignorant could never truly understand or please her! husband.

Shut the hell your mouth. I am a proud monsterfucker. I am all for the dark gothic fuckeduppedness of Orlok and Ellen’s whole dynamic. But as Stoker and Murnau are my witness, You Shall NOT Slander This Lad as Jonathan Harker was Before Him.

Ellen was the one wheedling Thomas to stay home and roll around in bed while he was late for work, wanting more of whatever he was dishing out. They were left unsupervised in someone else’s foyer for 0.5 seconds and immediately started tongue wrestling while sinking to their knees and cutting away to [REDACTED INTIMACY WHILE STILL VERY VISIBLE IN THEIR FRIENDS’ HOUSE]. Thomas jumped into a river, dragged himself from the brink of undeath, and rode half-dead all the way home to reach Ellen and try to get her out of Orlok’s range. Thomas, who was terrified of Orlok, still put that horror aside because he learned of Orlok’s torturing of Ellen and intended to kill the fucker for it to keep her safe.

Before all of that, Thomas earned Ellen’s love in their even greener youth.

Ellen, the girl who was strange and Other and tormented by Orlok’s spells and despondently alone with her monster? That was the Ellen who Thomas met. Who Thomas fell in love with. Who fell in love with him. And it was a love intense enough to blot Orlok’s shadow. When that shadow came back—

I am become a demon! I am unclean!

—Thomas stayed in the dark with her—

I love you! I love you!

—resolving to either kill the thing that had preyed on her or die trying.

Even if we knew none of this, Ellen’s final act is its own proof of what he was to her. We saw what she’s like with someone she clocks as an asshole when she confronts Friedrich for his actual ignorance and actual callousness. If any character is the starched ‘refuses to believe the supernatural reality/adheres to patriarchal bullshit’ figure, it’s him, not Thomas. (Hello echoes of Jonathan Harker versus John Seward, but I digress.) Ellen calls that shit out.

Why do you hate me? How can you be so stupid? So cruel?

She feels what she feels and says what she means and is the most observant character in the entire story.

And in the end, she deems whole fucking murder-suicide as a price she’s willing to pay to protect Thomas. Whatever we could not see before the film began, whatever romance the Hutters shared, it was true and powerful enough for her to do this.

Which leaves Thomas behind, her cold hand in his, all tears and grief at this—his last failure to tally on his internal chalkboard. He was not the Hero, but the Damsel unaware. He could not protect Ellen because she and Von Franz tricked him into safety as the latter schemed and the former gave herself up to the martyr role. Thomas was too trusting and too late and too much himself rather than the Man ™ who should have saved her from throwing herself on Providence’s pyre.

On that note.

We have to address the mess in the castle.

Thomas and Orlok

Eggers added a lot of meat to the very trimmed-down characters of the 1922 Hutters and Count. Original concepts and harvested bits from Dracula were all applied. The way he composed them served to fix what I still consider to be a barely-concealed plot hole.  

In 1922 and 1979, the Count sees a girl in a locket and immediately becomes obsessed with her. That’s it. That is the entire bulk of his awareness of her before Thomas arrives at his castle. An arrival that was very much based in the original Dracula’s desire to move himself and his deadly presence away to a new place. Original 1922 Orlok seems to just be in it for mysterious plague harbinger reasons. 1979 Dracuorlok seems to be genuinely distraught and resigned to some kind of irresistible condition that says He Must Go Bring Death. But Orlok 2024?

According to Von Franz and his reading, Orlok wants to kill the whole world with his plague..! But has just been chilling for a few centuries I guess. No rush. Not until Ellen happens. She and her covenant and—gasp!—marrying another man!? Barely a man at that.

Ellen Hutter and her new marriage is Orlok’s impetus in coming out of the castle and planting himself in Wisborg. Him stealing the locket and being obsessed with her now makes far more sense than it did in any preceding film because we get the new context of him preying on her since she was a teenager…

…which was interrupted because of Thomas.

The other man. The boy. The laughable gentle meek shivering rival who Knock sends to his door and into his power.

Where 1922 Count was rigid and awkward to the point of seeming like he had to fight rigor mortis with every step and 1979 Count was glassy-eyed and frantically grasping with lonesome eagerness, 2024 Count is stewing over jealousy and disbelief and derision and only the flimsiest attempt at playing client to fool the young man into signing his status as Ellen’s husband away. A farce, a farce. But the covenant demands he cannot kill him outright. That would be theft, not Ellen ‘giving herself freely.’

But after? After the signing, surely he could wring the boy’s neck. Could sit and watch as the wolves tear him to pieces. He could fill him up with plague or snap him in half or drown him like the Pied Piper with a rat… All these things he could have done after he tricked Thomas’ signature out of him on the occult document.

And didn’t.

Let’s retreat to that first strange night together.

Thomas gets subjected to Orlok’s trance the second he reaches the crossroads that leads to the castle. He does not walk as much as float into the coach that has no driver, his next scene showing him abruptly on his feet with his eyes shut in sleep. The doors open to him without hands, leaving him to trail after the Count as if on a string. Orlok gives Thomas two orders the moment they reach the dining room.

One, get out the paperwork. Two, Thomas will address Orlok as his Lord.

“Pardon, sir—?”

“Your. Lord.”

“yesmylordforgivememylord”

Thomas takes his seat and gets treated to Orlok very obviously flexing his powers by doing his little teleportation trick around the table, getting right up in Thomas’ space to pour him his wine, his hand nearly brushing Thomas’ face before retreating.

Thomas asks about the vampire hunting scene he saw in the graveyard and—

“SPEAK NOT OF IT AGAIN!”

Thomas speaks not of it again. Orlok tells him to eat. Cue the mishap with the bread knife and the bleeding thumb. Orlok sounds caught between snarling like an animal or climaxing at the table at the sight of the blood and insists Thomas go sit by the fire where Orlok can see to the wound. Thomas blinks and has lost time again: Somehow he’s been moved to the chair by the fire, fully paralyzed and in tears as Orlok closes in on him, locked in a waking nightmare as the innkeeper woman warned him. This is where Eggers cuts away. All we know for certain is that Orlok fed at Thomas’ breast at least once in the night.

And that he went out of his way to leave Thomas laying face down on the floor come daylight.

The reveal shot is posed as almost comical when coming straight after Ellen’s pining comment about him. I heard some people laugh in the theater. But combining this visual with others to come makes it one of the most awful scenes in hindsight. Because I believe it’s the clearest sign that Orlok outright raped Thomas.

No jokes, no implications, no metaphors. I think he performed the literal act. The only way it could stop short of that in my mind is if Orlok abused his trance state to force Thomas to his knees before or after feeding on him for some emasculating puppeteer work. But no. I think it was genuine rape. It may have happened again in the next feeding night, where Orlok is shown wholly naked as he feeds on Thomas’ breast again. Both times Thomas wakes up dressed. Both times Thomas was preyed on in the exact same way Orlok preys on Ellen.  

And notably, not in the same way as Anna Harding, who immediately got whacked with a dose of plague. Her children had their throats torn out. Ditto the ship’s sailors. Everyone else just sickens and rots and blood-vomits to death.

Thomas and Ellen are the only ones Orlok goes out of his way to prey on in an erotically posed way that results in trauma and ailment, but not the plague or raw slaughter Orlok’s throwaway victims get. Ellen makes sense because she’s ‘his enchantress.’ Thomas because..?

Hm. How does jealousy really fit in here as a reason, Count? Why is it that Thomas is the only man in the film you go out of your way to target by mounting and suckling on him? Why is it that you put words in Ellen’s mouth to describe him as a swooning lily of a woman who fell into your arms? Why is it that you still have your feelers in Thomas’ head to airdrop visions of yourself and your last assault on him? And—big big question here—how much influence did you have on Thomas and Ellen during their spontaneous lovemaking scene? Were you watching like Ellen implied? Did you want to?

Last and certainly not least:

You say you couldn’t kill Thomas or it would spoil the covenant. Yet you were surprised that he was still alive. And you reacted Violently+ when Knock suggested he be ordered to go out and kill the young man in your service. Why is that?

(Who made that vampire in the graveyard?)

((Which of those coffins in the crypt was going to be Thomas’?))

This is dancing around the subject, I know. The gist is this: Orlok wasn’t just angry at Thomas for stealing Ellen from him. He was incensed at Thomas being just as out of place as Ellen herself was. Ellen is not a classic fair maiden. Thomas is not a classic manly man. Thomas is, to Orlok’s surprise, making him pissed and horny. And that opens the door to the Count attacking Thomas in a way that seems to be a warmup for his future laying with Ellen. He wants to ‘make a woman’ of Thomas, the lesser, weaker, kinder, prettier, chosen man.

See? See? She has no husband to thwart his conquest! This quailing thing under him can be no man, so it must be a woman. Ha. Ha.

Cue him leaving Thomas on the floor, ass up, for Reasons.

Whether Orlok blithely accepts his attraction to Thomas (he is merely an Appetite, after all) or is grimly wrestling with ye olde compulsory heterosexuality and quietly framing all his weird attentions to Thomas as just him humiliating/emasculating the young man, we also have to turn the lens on Thomas himself.

Theories have been passed around that, given the queer elements of the film, Ellen and Anna, Thomas and Friedrich, all had romantic pasts of their own. Or at least friendships as intimate as they could get away with before they paired up with their respective significant others. Ellen and Thomas especially are heavily bi-coded. Ellen has Anna, naturally (Thank you for loving me), but Thomas has beats with Friedrich, with the unnamed and charismatic leader of the vampire hunting party in the graveyard, and, if only due to Orlok’s trance, Orlok himself.

Even if it was magically induced, Thomas saw a vision of Ellen in Orlok’s place as he was fed on. Seeing it, seemingly experiencing it, Thomas looks to be in a heady stupor as Orlok feeds—blearily welcoming the initial attack and whatever might have followed it.

Cut forward to his breaking from his fever in Ellen’s company, still in traumatized shock, unable to speak on everything that happened to him. She’s seen the bite wounds on him. That isn’t a secret. Something else, something worse—I can’t breathe! Get off me! Get off!—is left unspoken, and he cannot bring himself to admit it to Ellen. Not even after she divulges her history with Orlok. Not even after the fight or the sex or the broken spell and their embrace. Orlok did an awful thing to Thomas that he is too afraid and ashamed to speak aloud, at least on screen. Would it be better or worse if there had not been a memory of pleasure to taint it as it taints Ellen’s assaults? 

Ellen calls Orlok her shame. Now he’s a shame for both of them.

…

With all that said. Yes, ‘love triangle’ is the easiest name to pin on this entire hot mess, if not a perfectly accurate one. Ellen and Thomas are in love, but the right words don’t exist to label the lines that connect Ellen and Thomas to Orlok.

tl; dr: Orlok was never going to make this polycule happen and I will not give him kudos for trying. 

[theplayer-io]

I just had an interesting revelation about agent smith/pivot/gui

Spoiler alert for animation vs animator 11, and such.

So when I was making my babydoll x perfect girl edit with tco, I noticed that agent gui (smith/pivot/agent, or whatever you'd like to call him) was looking real good at tco's eyes when they were up at the atmosphere

Gui was looking dead straight into tco's "eyes" during the decimation, and what baffles me now is that I realize how terribly tco's fate could be with someone with this much vengeance.

Tco already struggled being beat up by gui back at the forest clearing. He had to ask tsc for help, and even then, they got captured.

After all, gui saw mitsi die, and he knew who tco was before vic. I think we all realize how personal this whole ordeal really got since we learned that gui was a great family friend of vic's and mitsi's. He's not just doing it for the money, and he never really was after a certain point.

Goodness gracious, and the fact that he was sobbing when having to rewitness mitsi's death with the save file reader? He for sure hates tco with a burning passion and was not hesitant when helping vic with the whole box scene.

Gui is one of my fav characters in this whole series, mainly because he resembles cgp grey, but his lore is incredibly good and complex. So, now we know that the manhunt is incredibly personal and that beating tco up in the forest clearing must be really cathartic for him.

Imagine the anger and resentment he has when he saw tco again, perhaps feeling freed when he was finally the one causing the terror to tco when he was chasing him with the other mercenaries. Imagine the defeat he felt when he looked at tco's eyes when tco froze the vehicle he was on when he made that escape to Alan's pc.

Now with tco and tsc at gui and vic's mercy, I'm curious on what his anger will lead to in future episodes..

he's so awesome

[delirious-donna]

There’s No Better Love [Higuruma Hiromi]

an: entirely inspired by this absolutely amazing art of Hiromi with a soft little tum (link to twitter here). I ADORE soft bellies, and I am here to spread the agenda to normalise this in both men, women and they/them. They are beautiful and I will nuzzle those pooches just like they deserve.

pairing: Higuruma Hiromi x female reader

warnings: none really, soft fluff, domestic vibes, body positivity throughout, suggestive at best, reader loves her husband unconditionally (as she should)

Masterlist

Higuruma enjoys a nice long soak, a fact that you’ve come to appreciate even more than when you found him all those years ago submerged whilst fully suited on that dimly lit stage. That was the day that your life changed forever, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Since then, he tends to stick to more traditional bathing practices, though he has been known to drag you kicking and screaming into the shower when you are both still fully dressed. You had to admit, there was something weirdly satisfying about the experience, almost cathartic, but you continued to bristle when he chuckled and gave you that knowing look. The one where he is certain he’s won and you’re not sure whether you want to smack him or kiss him. No prizes for guessing which option usually wins out…

In lieu of fully clothed bathing, Hiromi takes to visiting a bathhouse on his way home from work once every few weeks. Usually on a Friday, and especially during those weeks where he feels like his workload will never end.

You can always tell when he’s done exactly that, acutely aware of the zen-like hum that radiates from him as soon as he steps through the door. His smile is lax—dopey and carefree. His normally dark, calculating eyes have grown warm and shiny, still just as tired but less sore. A blush decorates his cheeks and the tips of his ears, and of course, his hair is still damp because he never takes the time to dry it fully before tripping his way home to you on a cloud of relaxation.

Many things have changed since that first fateful encounter, so many that it would take an age to list them all out, but right now, your focus falls to that of his stomach. Half undressed, Hiromi stands by the sliding wardrobes with his shirt hanging open. His trousers spill messily from the laundry hamper, leaving him in his underwear and black socks. His stomach forms a soft pooch, a beautiful curve that has you capturing your lip between sharp teeth.

Decorated with black downy hair from navel to the band of his shorts, you reminisce of the days when that subtle tum was simply flat. No real meat to his abdomen to speak of, although he was still strong and was even more so today. A fact he revels in proving by hoisting you onto the nearest surface to have his wicked way with you. Back then though, taking care of himself had always fallen low on his list of priorities, and if that meant he skipped a meal or two to catch up on his emails, then so be it and his physique bore the evidence of his focus.

The evidence of his shifting priorities warmed your heart, a sentimental smile tugging at your lips and it brought you to the edge of the bed. His eyes caught yours in the reflection of the mirror, eyebrows crinkling in question whilst you simply held out a hand for him, which he took without thought.

“Something wrong?” He asked. His other hand found your cheek, palm cupping gently whilst his thumb stroked lovingly across your soft skin.

You hummed. “Far from it. Have I told you lately how much I love this little tummy?” Leaning forward, your nose nuzzled against the small pooch, the coarse hairs tickling at your cheek, until he tensed and tried to suck it in.

“Hey! Don’t do that,” you chastised, glancing up from beneath your lashes with a snort of annoyance exhaled through your nose. Hiromi rubbed at his neck, embarrassed perhaps, but you weren’t having any of that. Not when he so openly worshipped your body. It was his turn to be on the receiving end for once.

“You’ve been over feeding me,” he grumbled with his bottom lip jutting out in a mock pout.

Hiromi let out a yelp as your teeth nipped at his stomach, head snapping down to meet your fiery eyes and he had the decency to look away sheepishly. “I think you’ll find, that I have simply been feeding you. And anyways…” You murmured, drawing a little loveheart next to the pink mark from your bite. “It’s cute. Makes me feel like you’re truly comfortable with me, with us and our life.”

“An understatement, darling.” His hand moved to the back of your head, fingers tangling into your hair. “Now, why don’t you come up here and kiss me where I can return the favour, hm?”

Moving to your knees, you wound an arm around his neck and claimed his lips just as he asked. There was no urgency, no fumbling or groping hands divesting you of clothes, only that sweet connection of two people so in love that they couldn’t bear to be parted. And yet, part you must. The need for oxygen an irksome necessity when you would much rather breathe in your husband until your lungs seized up entirely.

“Mm, I can smell the oils from the bathhouse on you,” you murmured, moving your lips to his jaw, down his neck and across his clavicle, leaving wet little kisses along the way. “Did you have a nice soak?”

Hiromi sighed in contentment, letting his body relax and return to its normal stature. He felt his small but obvious belly sag, brushing against your own and he tipped his head in wonder.

“Mhm. Feels nice to lie back and let the stresses of the week slough off. Do you… do you really like it?” He asked, hands settled at your waist and tracing his thumbs in slow circles over the cushion of belly. It was ridiculous to be self-conscious about something like this, but the feeling existed nonetheless. Hiromi knew that had the situations been reversed, with you being the one asking such a silly question, he would waste not a second in proving just how much he loved every inch of you—both with verbose enthusiasm and physical reinforcement of his words.

“Hiro.”

Your fingers skimmed his shoulders, pulling free the shirt that resided on his back. You explored the structure of him; the ridges of bones, the strength of lithe muscles, skin dappled in dark hairs and marked by a small number of scars. Every freckle deserved attention and you followed the path your fingers traversed with your mouth, listening to his breathing grow irratic and stuttered.

“I love the very bones of you. The sinew and tendons. The blood pumping through your heart and moving…” you paused, glancing down deliberately. “To every organ and limb. This stomach proves to me that you’re happy, and whether it stays like this or grows bigger, I will continue to love it, and you.”

He let out a sigh when your lips trailed lower and your tongue peeked out to lick at his happy trail. Hiromi cupped your jaw, waiting until your gaze lifted to gift you a smile that reached his eyes and twinkled with the mischief you were accustomed to. With soft fingers you kneaded his hips and around to his backside to give a squeeze.

“I think you’ve made your point, you little minx,” he hissed, though he couldn’t prevent the breathless giggle that accompanied the words.

“Y’know… I don’t think I have, but let me remedy that,” you purred, reaching for the waistband of his underwear and forcing him one step closer. “We’ve got the rest of our lives, after all…”

[charmed-quill]

Burrow Bound//B.W x Reader chapter 1

Authors note at end.

Original request by @littlegreenteacup

Summary: Y/N, an American half-blood witch newly arrived in Muggle London, stumbles into the warmth of the Weasley brothers after a serendipitous meeting in Diagon Alley. Drawn into their world, she finds herself at the Burrow more often than not. Meanwhile, Bill Weasley is learning to navigate life as a single father, relying on his mother’s help to care for Victoire. Though their worlds orbit each other, Y/N and Bill’s paths never seem to align—until one evening when fate finally draws them together. Will it be the start of a love story, or will they be left with nothing but heartache?

word count: 3.8k

Next Chapter

She stared down at the paper in her hands, feeling like an absolute idiot. The crumpled map, slightly smeared from being shoved into her pocket one too many times, seemed to mock her with its uselessness.

“It should be here,” she muttered under her breath, glancing up at the shop she’d stopped in front of. Her eyes darted between the map and the nondescript storefront, hoping for some miracle revelation. But the only thing staring back at her was a faded sign advertising "Fine Magical Instruments."

The map insisted the apothecary was right here. It had to be. Right?

Had she been given bad directions? The instructions her roommate, or flatmate, as they apparently called them here, had scribbled down had seemed simple enough:

Leaky Cauldron, head to the back door, count brick three up, two across. Walk until you reach the Menagerie, take a left, and the apothecary is the second shop down.

She replayed the steps in her head for the fifth time that day. Maybe the sixth. It didn’t help. The buildings all blurred together in a haze of ancient brick and slightly wonky signage.

She sighed, the sound carrying the weight of frustration. She should have clarified the directions, taken an extra five minutes to grill her flatmate before bolting out the door this morning. But no, in her eagerness to explore Diagon Alley on her own, she’d assured herself she’d figure it out.

Big mistake.

With a huff of annoyance, she turned on her heel, her eyes still glued to the crumpled piece of paper. The faint buzz of magical activity around her felt like it was mocking her ineptitude. 

“Walk until you reach the Menagerie, then take a left,” she repeated under her breath, more to keep herself sane than anything else.

Her steps quickened as she scanned the street signs, or lack thereof. How could magical London be this confusing? She’d been navigating the magical world since she was in diapers, for God’s sake. Surely, she could handle one enchanted shopping district.

Apparently not.

“Apothecary is second down,” she said, stopping abruptly in front of yet another wrong shop. Her frustration peaked as she took in the distinctly non-apothecary vibes of the bright green storefront.

“Fucking Christ!” she exploded, crumpling the map into a tight ball and tossing it to the cobblestone ground. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment almost immediately, but the childish outburst felt oddly cathartic.

“Whoa, what did that paper ever do to you?”

She spun around, her face flaming as a deep, amused voice interrupted her tantrum. A tall man stood a few paces away, arms crossed and a crooked grin plastered across his face.

“Oh, nothing, I just…” she stammered, struggling to find the words to explain herself without sounding like an absolute fool.

The man chuckled, stepping forward to retrieve the crumpled map. His movements were casual, effortless, and she found herself caught in the moment, watching as he unfolded the paper and scanned the directions. Freckles were scattered across his tanned face, and silvery scars traced faint lines along his jaw and temple. A fiery mop of red hair completed the picture, and she realized she was staring.

“Whoever gave you these directions either hates you or hasn’t been here in about five years,” he said, raising an eyebrow as he pointed to the handwritten instructions.

“Excuse me?” Y/N blinked, confused and mildly offended on behalf of her flatmate.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his tone softening. “I just mean the apothecary moved a few years ago. These directions are outdated.”

Y/N closed her eyes, biting down the irritation bubbling to the surface. Of course, the one day she decided to wing it, she got sent on a wild goose chase.

“My roommate gave me these,” she explained sheepishly. “If you couldn’t tell, I’m not from around here.”

The man’s smile shifted, turning warmer, more genuine. “Yeah, I picked up on that,” he said, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “American?”

“How could you tell?” she teased, her lips quirking up despite herself.

He laughed, the sound light and disarming. “Just a guess.” He glanced at the map again before folding it neatly and handing it back to her. “Tell you what, I’ll take you to the apothecary. It’s on the way to where I’m headed anyway.”

“You don’t have to…” she began, but he was already gesturing for her to follow.

“It’ll save you from crumpling up more paper in frustration,” he said over his shoulder, his grin widening.

“So, what brings you to this side of the pond?” the man asked, his tone light as they began their trek down the bustling street. 

He walked with the ease of someone who’d navigated these cobblestone paths countless times, his steps confident and purposeful. Meanwhile, Y/N was trying her best not to trip over the uneven stones, her shoes scuffing awkwardly against the ground.

“I moved for work,” she began, catching herself as she stumbled slightly. “I got a job at the Natural History Museum. I’m part of a small team that makes sure the artifacts the no-maj’s bring in aren’t, like, cursed or magically significant,” she explained, her voice lifting with excitement as she spoke about her job.

The man’s lips quirked into a fond smile, his freckled face softening as he listened. “I have a brother who does something similar,” he said. “He used to work in Egypt as a curse breaker, dealing with old enchantments in the pyramids.”

Y/N’s eyes widened in awe. “The pyramids? That’s incredible. I’ve always wanted to see them,” she said, her words spilling out in genuine admiration. She could already imagine the sun-soaked ruins, the ancient magic buzzing in the air.

“What’s your name, by the way?” the man asked, glancing at her with an easy grin. “I’d rather not keep referring to you as ‘American’ in my head.”

She laughed, the sound light and unguarded. “Y/N L/N,” she said, offering a smile. “What’s yours?”

“Charlie Weasley,” he replied, his name rolling off his tongue with a practiced familiarity. He came to a stop, gesturing ahead. “The apothecary is two doors down from here.”

Y/N’s gaze followed his gesture, but it landed on the vibrant chaos of the shop they had stopped in front of. Bold, whimsical letters stretched across the storefront: 

Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes.

Her eyes flickered between the sign and Charlie, the dots connecting in her mind. “Is this your shop?” she asked, tilting her head curiously.

Charlie chuckled, shaking his head. “No, my brothers own it. Fred and George,” he explained, his tone laced with pride despite his casual words.

Y/N nodded in understanding, her gaze lingering on the storefront. The colorful displays in the windows practically shouted for attention, filled with an assortment of bizarre and likely mischievous products.

“Right. Well, thank you for helping me get to the apothecary,” she said, turning back to him with a cheeky grin. “I’ll be sure to tell all my friends you’re the best tour guide around.”

Charlie returned her grin, pretending to tip an invisible hat. “Much obliged,” he said with mock formality. “See you around, Y/N.”

Before she could respond, he disappeared into the vibrant shop, leaving her standing on the cobblestones with a bemused smile. She shook her head, glancing once more at the chaotic storefront before continuing on her way.

—

She fiddled nervously with the hem of her shirt as the older woman led her through the labyrinthine halls of the museum. The grandeur of the place was both awe-inspiring and intimidating, with towering ceilings and intricately carved archways that seemed to stretch endlessly. Her footsteps echoed faintly against the polished floors, the sound only adding to the quiet hum of the building’s atmosphere.

“On top of your, well, magical duties,” the woman said, lowering her voice conspiratorially, “you’re expected to be familiar with the ins and outs of this place. It may seem daunting at first, but I promise it gets easier the more you work here.” Her tone was reassuring, and her smile softened the formal edge of her words.

They stopped at the entrance, the very spot where the tour had begun hours ago. Y/N glanced around, feeling a bit more grounded now that she’d walked through the building’s vast exhibits and winding corridors.

“Any questions?” the woman asked, her hands clasped in front of her.

Y/N thought for a moment, her mind briefly flicking through everything she’d just learned, before shaking her head. “No, I don’t think so,” she said with a small, grateful smile.

The woman, Lori, she’d introduced herself earlier, nodded in approval. “Well, that’s all for your orientation. We’re all thrilled to have you on our team, Y/N. See you Monday.” With a final nod, Lori turned and walked back the way they’d come, her heels clicking faintly against the floor.

Elation bubbled up in Y/N’s chest, and she felt like she might float right off the ground. It was everything she could do to keep from squealing like a child in the middle of the museum. Her lips twitched with the effort of holding back a grin as she glanced down at her watch.

1:07.

Her roommate wouldn’t be home for another three hours, and she was far too excited to sit in her empty apartment. The museum still buzzed with quiet activity around her, and the idea of exploring its exhibits before her first official shift on Monday was too tempting to resist.

The architecture around her was imposing yet somehow comforting, as though the centuries-old walls had stories to tell, if only she had the time to listen. Y/N wandered into the fossil exhibition, her breath catching as she stepped into the dimly lit space. The towering skeletons loomed above her, their ancient bones casting long shadows against the walls. Her eyes fixed on a particularly large display, the intricate curves of the creature’s ribcage and skull drawing her in.

“That’s a dragon skeleton, you know.”

Y/N jumped, the unexpected voice startling her. Turning quickly, she was met with a crooked grin and a pair of familiar freckled cheeks. “Charlie? What are you doing here?” she asked, her tone laced with surprise.

He shrugged casually, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket. “It’s my dad’s fifty-fifth today,” he explained. “He’s obsessed with everything Muggle—or no-maj, as I’ve heard you Americans call them. He goes crazy for this kind of stuff.”

Y/N’s lips twitched into a smile. “What kind of dragon is this?” she asked, gesturing to the skeleton. She already knew the answer but couldn’t resist using it as an excuse to keep the conversation going.

Charlie tilted his head, examining the bones with a practiced eye. “It’s a Hebridean Black,” he announced confidently. 

“I’m impressed you knew, especially since it’s not complete.” Y/n replied

“Well, I’d hope I know my breeds,” he teased. “I do work with dragons, after all.That’s kind of my thing.” Charlie grinned

Y/N’s eyes widened slightly. “Does your whole family have exciting jobs or something?” she asked, laughing lightly. “A curse breaker, entrepreneurs, and now a dragon tamer. The next thing you’re going to tell me is one of your brothers is on an international Quidditch team.”

Charlie’s laugh was loud and genuine, the sound echoing through the quiet exhibition. “No, no international Quidditch players in the family,” he said, “but my sister is on a shortlist for the Holyhead Harpies.”

Y/N scoffed playfully. “Good lord,” she muttered. “Do any of you have normal jobs?”

Before Charlie could respond, they were interrupted by a loud voice. “Oi, Char-char, quit chatting up birds! We’re here for family time.”

Y/N turned toward the voice and found herself staring at two identical men, likely about her age, dressed in equally outrageous outfits that nearly made her laugh out loud. The mischievous grins they wore were so similar to Charlie’s that she immediately knew who they must be.

“I’m not chatting anybody up,” Charlie said defensively, crossing his arms. “This is my American friend I was telling you guys about.”

There was an immediate shift at those words. One of the brothers stepped forward, grabbing her hand and shaking it vigorously, while the other quickly followed suit, taking her other hand.

“My, my, an American, you say,” one of them said, his tone mockingly serious.

“You should be in jail for your crimes against the crown,” the other declared dramatically.

“Yes, yes, death penalty for traitors of the crown!” the first added with a mock gasp, their antics perfectly synchronized.

Y/N burst into laughter, unable to help herself. “I’ll have you know I’m a very law-abiding citizen,” she managed between giggles.

“You’re going to shake her arms out of her sockets,” Charlie interjected, stepping forward to gently pull Y/N out of their enthusiastic grip.

The twins relented, their grins never faltering. “You must come meet the family,” one of them insisted.

“I don’t—” Y/N began, raising her hands in protest, but before she could finish, one of the twins looped his arm through hers, the other doing the same on her opposite side.

“No need to be shy,” said the one to her left. “We Weasleys don’t bite.”

“Unless we’re provoked,” added the one to her right, winking cheekily.

Charlie rolled his eyes but followed along as they guided Y/N out of the exhibit. The twins chattered away, introducing themselves as Fred and George and peppering her with questions about life in America.

“So, are cowboy hats mandatory?” Fred asked, his expression deadpan.

“Or do you get fined if you’re caught without one?” George chimed in.

Y/N snorted, shaking her head. “Only on Tuesdays,” she quipped, earning approving laughter from both of them.

They led her to a bustling cafe area within the museum, where the rest of the Weasley clan had gathered. The group was loud and vibrant, their laughter and chatter filling the space. Mrs. Weasley was fussing over her husband, who seemed delightedly overwhelmed by the assortment of Muggle trinkets spread out in front of him. A young woman sat nearby, her arms crossed but a faint smile tugging at her lips as she watched the chaos.

“Mum, Dad, everyone,” Fred said with a dramatic flair, letting go of Y/N’s arm and gesturing toward her like a showman unveiling a masterpiece. 

“This is Y/N, Charlie’s American friend.” 

All eyes turned to her, and Y/N suddenly felt like she’d stepped into a spotlight. 

Mrs. Weasley’s face lit up, her warmth instantly putting Y/N a little more at ease. 

“Oh, it’s so lovely to meet you, dear,” she said, pulling Y/N into a gentle hug before she had time to react. “You’re a friend of Charlie’s? Funny, I don’t think he’s mentioned you before.” 

Y/N felt her cheeks warm. “Oh, um… we met a few days ago in Diagon Alley. He helped me out, and then we bumped into each other again today,” she explained, her voice faltering slightly. 

“Well, any friend of Charlie’s is a friend of ours,” Mrs. Weasley said with a kind smile, looping her arm through Y/N’s and steering her closer to the group. 

“I’m Molly, by the way.” The older man sitting nearby stood and gave her a wide smile, his glasses slightly askew. 

“Arthur Weasley,” he introduced himself, shaking her hand with enthusiasm. “A real pleasure to meet you, Miss Y/N.” 

“Thank you,” Y/N said with a small, nervous laugh, glancing at the table cluttered with what looked like small Muggle trinkets. “Oh, and happy birthday!” 

Arthur’s grin widened, clearly delighted. “Thank you, thank you! And tell me, do you know what this is?” He held up a small object—a round keychain adorned with a fake dinosaur bone. 

Y/N tilted her head. “Um… a keychain?” she answered. 

“Exactly!” Arthur exclaimed, his excitement palpable as he held it up for everyone else to admire. “It’s what Muggles use to keep their keys together. Brilliant, isn’t it?” “Mum, Dad, maybe ease up a little before you scare her off,” Charlie said, his tone teasing but affectionate. 

“Oh, I’ll manage,” Y/N replied, her smile relaxing into something genuine. Her gaze shifted to a younger girl sitting nearby, watching the exchange with a glimmer of amusement.

 “Ginny,” the girl said, standing to offer her hand. Y/N shook it, her curiosity piqued. 

“Oh, so you’re the sister I’ve heard about?” Y/N asked. Ginny grinned. 

“I’d hope so—unless Charlie’s hiding another sister somewhere.” 

Next to her, a tall boy with freckled cheeks and a shy demeanor raised a hand in an awkward wave. 

“Ron,” he mumbled, his ears tinging pink as he quickly sat back down. 

“I’m Percy,” another redhead added, stepping forward with an air of authority. He adjusted his glasses and shook Y/N’s hand with precise formality. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” 

“Much obliged,” She returned with a kind nod of her head. 

As the group settled into their seats at the café, the twins wasted no time launching into their favorite topic: Y/N’s American roots.

“So, tell us,” Fred began, leaning across the table with an exaggeratedly serious expression. “Do Americans actually eat bacon with maple syrup, or is that just a cruel stereotype?”

Y/N laughed, shaking her head. “We do, but it’s not like a law or anything. It’s just… good.”

George made a face of mock horror. “Savages.”

“Right, because treacle tart for breakfast is the height of sophistication,” Y/N shot back, her grin widening as the twins burst into laughter.

Molly, seated nearby, smiled fondly at the exchange. “What’s it like back home, dear? Do you miss it?”

Y/N hesitated, her gaze softening. “Sometimes,” she admitted. “I miss the big open spaces. And the sunsets—they’re… different. Bigger, I guess.”

“That’s because they don’t have as many buildings in the way,” Charlie chimed in, earning a laugh from Y/N.

“Probably,” she agreed. “But it’s nice here, too. Diagon Alley’s a bit of a maze, but it’s got charm.”

“Well,” Arthur said, his voice bright as he adjusted his glasses, “you’re always welcome at the Burrow. It’s nothing grand, mind you, but it’s home.”

Y/N smiled, feeling the warmth of his words settle around her. “Thank you. I’d love to see it.”

Fred leaned in conspiratorially. “Just a warning: once Mum feeds you, you’ll never leave.”

“Guess I’ll pack a bag, then,” Y/N quipped, the table erupting in laughter as Molly gave Fred a playful swat on the arm.

"Y/N, why don’t you join us for dinner at the Burrow tonight?” Molly Weasley said, her eyes sparkling with genuine warmth. "It’s the least we can do after Charlie’s told us how much he’s enjoyed meeting you."

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t want to intrude…” Y/N began, though her heart fluttered at the invitation.

“Nonsense!” Molly interrupted, waving a hand dismissively. “We love having guests, don’t we, Arthur?”

Arthur nodded enthusiastically. “Absolutely. You’d get a proper introduction to wizarding Britain—Weasley-style,” he said, gesturing to the lively group around him.

Y/N hesitated, glancing at Charlie, who gave her an encouraging smile. “You’ll love it,” he said simply. “Mum’s cooking is legendary.”

Fred leaned closer, a mischievous glint in his eye. “And don’t worry, we’ll keep the jokes about Americans to a minimum.”

“Define ‘minimum,’” George added, smirking.

Y/N laughed, shaking her head. “Well, how could I say no to that?” she said, looking back at Molly. “Thank you—I’d love to.”

“Brilliant!” Molly clapped her hands together. “It’s settled, then. We’ll get Charlie to pick you up before tea.”

As the family returned to their celebration, Charlie leaned closer, his voice low and conspiratorial. “Brace yourself. Dinner at the Burrow is… an experience.”

Y/N smiled, already feeling a strange sense of belonging among the chaotic, loving Weasley clan. “I think I’m ready for it,” she replied.

—

She stood in front of the mirror, nervously fiddling with the hem of her sweater. The soft fabric twisted between her fingers as she tilted her head, eyeing her reflection critically. The sweater was fine, nice even, but was it too casual? Too plain? She had already changed her outfit four times, each choice leaving her more uncertain than the last.

“You’re being stupid,” she muttered under her breath, her voice low and harsh in the stillness of the room. “It’s not that serious. It’s just dinner.”

Her stomach churned anyway. She let out a frustrated sigh, smoothing the fabric of her sweater as if it would magically grant her confidence. A sudden knock at the door jolted her out of her spiral, the sharp sound echoing in the small space.

She turned toward the door, her heart leaping slightly in her chest. Taking a deep breath, she swung it open.

Charlie stood on the other side, his easy grin and casual posture instantly grounding her. The faint smell of fresh air and something earthy, like pine or smoke, seemed to follow him.

“Are you ready?” he asked, his voice warm and steady as he extended his arm to her.

She hesitated only for a second before stepping out and locking the door behind her.

“I think so,” she said, her voice softer now as she looped her arm through his.

Charlie gave her a reassuring nod. With a sudden loud CRACK, they vanished from the doorstep.

The sensation hit her immediately. The familiar but still deeply unpleasant feeling of being shoved through a too-tight rubber tube made her stomach flip. She clenched her teeth, barely suppressing a groan. Then, with another jarring CRACK, it was over.

She gasped as her feet hit solid ground, the cool evening air brushing against her face. Her eyes widened as she took in her surroundings. They stood in an open field bathed in the soft, golden glow of twilight. A tall, lopsided house rose before her, its mismatched windows and chimneys jutting out at strange angles. Specks of warm yellow light glowed from within, and the faint, inviting aroma of something savory wafted toward her. Wildflowers danced gently in the breeze, their colors vivid against the fading light, while chickens clucked and scurried across the yard, pecking at the dirt.

It was chaotic and imperfect, but there was an undeniable charm to it. It felt alive.

“What do you think?” Charlie asked, his voice breaking the spell.

She turned to him, still trying to gather her thoughts. “It’s—” she trailed off, searching for the right words as she stared at the house. “Amazing,” she finally said, her voice full of awe.

Charlie’s grin widened, his chest puffing out slightly as if he’d built the house himself.

“We better get inside before Mum sets a search party on us,” he said, nodding toward the house. The faint sound of clinking dishes and muffled voices reached them, growing louder as they approached.

With a small smile tugging at her lips, she followed him toward the door

a/n: so if you’re reading this my old account got terminated for some reason so I made a new one with the same name (which is this one) anyway re-uploading what I had 🫡

[jolenes-doppelganger]

Windows To the Soul- Kinktober Week Two

Juliette Nichols x Fem!Reader

MINORS DNI 18+

[Originally labelled 'Mirror, Mirror On the Wall, Who's the Biggest Slut of Them All?]

Summary: An unplanned visit after your abrupt breakup with the Sheriff of the Silo brings unexpected revelations.

Kinks: Mirror sex, post-break-up sex.

A/N: This fic is less explicit smut and more graphic emotion-wise. What is the dirtiest, most sinful thing one can do if not admit they need another? (I am struggling to write the smut and it shows bc everything I write is just SAD).

Word Count: 2.1k

Every breath of air you took in this moment felt woefully inadequate. You couldn’t get a breath in, not a true, full-bellied breath that would soothe the ache in your lungs, relax the tension in your stomach, release the blockage in your throat. Three weeks of no contact, not a single glance in the hallways, and she was back, sitting on your couch like she’d never left. Taking you off guard in your own home. It’s something Juliette would do. The same blonde hair falling out of a too-loose ponytail, unbuttoned uniform and belt loosened to accommodate the natural press of her slouched abdomen against her pants.

“Jules.”

“Shut up.”

You don’t know who moved first, her barreling towards you off of her perch on the couch, you careening forwards and meeting her halfway. Her hands on your back, hips, shoulders, grasping-grabbing-pulling-yanking-cradling-holding all of you. Her mouth smashing against yours, the goddamned whimper she let out. All of the anger and hurt of the break up forgotten in the paroxysm of her body on yours, her mouth tracing hungry patterns wherever it found purchase.

“Jules, wait, please-”

A swipe of her hand over the table, glassware smashing on the floor; the destructive nature of her desires on full display.

“I can’t get you out of my head.” she whispered, nose pressed against your temple and shaky breaths puffing out over the small hairs that clung next to your ear.

That stupid face. Those stupid blue eyes and cocky smirk, the class of glassware.

“Get the fuck off.” you shoved her back, getting off the table.

A perplexed look came over Juliette’s face, her hands raised in mock surrender.

“Sorry.”

“You would be.” you snapped. 

The broken glass littered the already well worn linoleum. Another mess, another headache Juliette brought upon you. Neither of you spoke a word as you swept the broken glass into a pan, putting it in a bag for now.

“I should’ve slapped you.” you mumbled, not quite meaning it.

Juliette raised her brows, shaking her head dismissively. Her thumbs worked circles over the fabric where they perched out of her pockets, adding to the sheepish posture.

“Yeah, well sex with your ex is supposed to be cathartic.” she sighed.

“Not if you ended on bad terms.” you snapped.

Juliette shrugged, using your less than furious response as a cue to push forwards a little more. One step closer towards you at a time, slowly invading your personal space.

“It was a short fling, I didn't think I needed an explanation for leaving.”

Her reasoning was nothing short of inadequate. A fling, a minor dance of passion between two people who were just in the same place at the right time. Until it was the wrong time. But it hadn’t been, not in your eyes. Realizing she had never really gotten over George well enough to love another had been a hard pill to swallow, one you’d only managed recently.

“You know, you really should’ve made it clear that you weren’t planning on staying.” 

Looking at her was an awful mixture between painful and infuriating. You busied yourself with the dishes instead. They’d been soaking long enough, it was a matter of draining the water and actually washing them. Such an act conveniently coincided with having the excuse to avoid looking at her.

“Listen, I get that you’re upset that I wasn’t upfront about what I wanted, but no one ever is, so…” Jules shrugged, watching as you dove headfirst into the nearest task.

“Doesn’t excuse the fact that you just up and left. Lead me on… Flirted, teased, even hinted at something more in the future. Kind of like how George did to you.”

Juliette let out a groan of anger, turning on her heel and running a hand over her scalp in the anxious-avoidant motion she was so fond of.

“Founders be damned, are we just going to sit here and trade barbs all day?” she huffed. “I have enough shit going wrong for me, I don’t need you-”

“Oh you're still entitled to me?” you snapped. “Pretty mature of you, slinking back for a less than underhanded attempt at trying to fuck me.”

Juliette spun on her heel, now facing you. Her jaw quirked to the left, mouth working its way into a grimace. Again she smoothed her hair, hands stilling on her hips.

“I came because I wanted to apologize, and then you came in with your business casual shirt all rumpled, and in that damn skirt that just hugs your body, so yeah, maybe I got a little side tracked.”

There was nothing you could say to that. It wasn’t an insult, but it wasn’t exactly a compliment. She’d left emotional baggage and pain the same way George had left it with her. A cute little cycle, but not one you excused her from. Soap was up to your upper arms, each dish scrubbed beyond what was really necessary to get it clean, but it was better than outright hurling something at her.

“Listen, I do miss some things, it just… For so long I didn’t know what I wanted, and now I do. And it’s not here, not with you, as wonderful as you are…” she choppily advocated, taking slow steps forwards until she was just short of touching you.

“As wonderful as I am you’re an asshole who wanted someone to fuck and hold you close while you were going through your shit. There’s a word for it, and it’s called a rebound. Shittiest thing you could ever do to a person, honestly.”

A long sigh crested over your shoulder, close enough to tickle the back hairs of your neck. Her arms snaked forwards, resting lightly on the swell of your hips. 

“Crawling back to you isn’t what I was planning, but I can’t resist another go…”

An arm snaked around your front ready to pull you back towards her, to snag you and pull you towards another hook up you knew you’d regret.

“Just one more time, for the fun of it…” Juliette whispered, breath climbing over your ear, attempting to lure you into a yes.

Anger welled up again, and this time you had a sink full of soapy water and a small pot to work with. Turning on your heel, you doused her front with several cups of warm dishwater. Juliette looked down at her clothes, and then you. 

“I have the maturity problem? Yeah right.” 

She reached in the sink, using a bowl to douse your work clothes in that same water. You smacked her with the damp dish towel, she snapped your ass. The two of you fought like children, splashing each other with water until both of you were wetter than not. A particularly violent toss of water caused your frictionless shoes to slip on the linoleum, causing you to careen back. The plastic cup fell against the floor, your body careening down towards the ground. Two hands reached outward, gripping your shoulders. Juliette let out a yelp, losing traction as well. You both crashed against the floor in a mess of limbs. Her elbow against your ribs, her chin clacking shut as her jaw cracked against your shoulder.

Both of you groaned, each more than a little sore. Juliette adjusted her body over yours, staring down at you, laid upon the linoleum with water lining the floor around you. Her head blocked the main light of the kitchen, creating a small halo around her head as she looked down upon you with more than a fair degree of concern. Neither of you broke the silence. Doing such a thing would be precarious, shattering the subtle tranquility of the moment. She settled above you, elbows on either side of your face. 

When she leaned down you didn’t push her away. Her body was warm, seeping through the damp cloth of her soaked uniform. You swore you could still feel the familiar dip and swell of her muscular back, and as your hands traced the line of her spine, you found the familiar divot at the base, hiding just under where her belt sat. Juliette, to her credit, was far more cautious in her next attempt. Soft kisses graced your cheeks, her fingers just lightly tracing the hair above your ears.

“Yes?” she whispered.

“Since we’re both here…” you softly replied, a squeeze to her back to affirm that subtle consent.

Juliette hummed once, hands sliding under your torso, pulling you up and off of the wet floor. Her hand cradled the back of your head, soothing pressure overwhelming the dull ache from where your skull had made contact with the ground. To have Juliette be this soft with you spoke to her inner guilt, a phenomena you’d witnessed many times after she vented to you about George. But you wouldn’t complain. Not when she was pulling you up, cradling you to her like a small child, carrying you away, out of the kitchen, towards the bathroom. 

As your feet touched the ground, she caught your chin, pressing a soft kiss there. A reassuring kiss, probably the only real intimacy you’d get out of this experience. Her mouth found your neck, wetter, meaner, hungrier kisses working slow patterns down, her calloused hands undoing the zipper of your skirt, the buttons of your blouse. Your own hands shook as you undid her uniform. Belt clanging to the floor with her slacks, uniformed button up shrugged off in the same manner you’d watched countless times. Neither of you could speak at this moment, neither of you dared. Words could ruin this moment, would ruin it. 

By the third time her lips crashed against yours you were finally bold enough to reciprocate, mouth slackening as her tongue slipped past your lips. She had the smallest hint of coffee breath, the one beverage you were sure she consumed regularly. Juliette lived on coffee, she depended on it in ways you knew to be worrisome. But when that coffee-breath stained tongue touched yours, it was a comfort. A spark of assurance in an otherwise vague moment. Her hands slipped to your back, yanking off your bra, blunt nails digging in with the desperation of her jerky moments. You both kicked off your shoes as you finished pulling off your panties. A push into the shower, that was all the direction she gave.

Cold water shocked your flushed skin as she turned the water on, body pressing against yours as she desperately kissed you against the shower wall. A quick glance to the long mirror in the bathroom confirmed the sight. Juliette’s hands tracing your hips, her mouth tracing desperate patterns on your neck. You didn’t have the heart to tell her to stop. You’d wear turtlenecks for a month if that’s what you needed.

“Jules, look at me, please.” you broke the rhythm of the moment, trying to catch her gaze.

“I am.” she whispered.

Her gaze slipped to your right, and you turned, following it. Blue-steel eyes meeting yours in the slightly foggy mirror. You turned, still making that eye-contact as her hands slipped around you from behind. One hand down, parting your labia. The other cupped your left breast, thumb drawing circles over the pebbled flesh. 

You didn’t watch her hands as they stimulated you, fingers dipping inside, thumb tweaking your clit. You felt that. But all you saw were those blue eyes overrun with emotion. A white-hot throbbing erupted in your chest, complimenting and growing alongside the burning ache in your core. The sounds you both made, the way you moaned, the desperate whines she let out as she watched you climb higher, it was all background. Center stage were those blue eyes, heavy and burdened. 

One climax, then two. Your legs gave out, the two of you collapsing in the bathtub. You kissed hungrily, devouring her tongue, her lips, her breath. As her thigh made contact with your cunt, hers pressed against the complimentary thigh. And as you rocked together, you felt that grief.

The small little stuffed animal she kept in her bedroom, the books she had on her shelf. The way she left all of her socks inside out to ensure she didn’t put them on with a hair inside. The nose scrunch, the awkward bug-eyed look she sported most of the time.

“Please stay.” you whispered, your hands splaying over her back.

Juliette leaned down, her forehead pressed against yours. One loud whine and she came undone. Her body slouched over yours in the bathtub, the shower going cold as the water pounded down around you. Juliette’s breathing evened, nose finding that familiar crook in your neck and just nuzzling.

Tags: @ilovehotactresses @marvelwomenrule @midnight-lestrange

[antianakin]

Antianakin's Second Anti-Anakin/Pro-Jedi Fic Rec List

Same general idea as the first one, this rec list is dedicated to fics that are critical of Anakin Skywalker. That can mean anything from just emphasizing that the Jedi's philosophies are right even if it means Anakin is wrong, to killing Anakin off in the most gruesome (and probably cathartic) way possible as a consequence for his choices. Since I know there are differing levels of feelings towards Anakin in the people that follow me, I'm going to add in some new helpful terms and redefine the categories slightly. Please note that these are MY personal interpretations of the fics, not the authors' stated intentions.

Helpful terms:

Unfinished - Any fic that is marked as incomplete, or a series where the fic(s) in it are still incomplete and cannot stand alone.

Ongoing - Any series marked as incomplete, but the fics in it are marked as complete or can stand alone as they are.

Critical - The fic critiques Anakin's philosophies and choices, but allows for more sympathy towards his character and situation should the reader desire it.

Anti - The fic specifically presents Anakin in a very negative way without any sympathy for him or his choices.

Anakin/Consequences: Anakin experiences consequences for his actions, but does not die. These fics can be anywhere between "critical" to fully "anti" depending on the author's take.

Spoiler Alert, He Doesn't Make It: Anakin experiences the specific consequence of dying. These fics will likely all fall under the definition of "anti" as opposed to just "critical."

The Galaxy Deserved Better: Focus of the story is more on characters' reactions to Anakin's choices or using other characters and their relationships to critique Anakin's choices in canon. None of these fics will be "anti" Anakin probably, since the critique of Anakin is at best a catalyst for the rest of the story.

I've had people ask me how to FIND more anti-Anakin fics, so here's my tips:

Look at your favorite authors' bookmarks. If you like something someone wrote, chances are they like reading the same stuff you do.

There's always the option of looking into tags, but I've found that very few people actually use "anti" tags on fanfiction, so your best bet is to look into pro Jedi/Jedi appreciation tags as much as possible, and the ones that are truly pro Jedi are often also critical of Anakin simply by design (if he shows up at all).

A lot of these fics take things like the Tusken massacre, Order 66, and Anakin's treatment of Padme, Ahsoka, Obi-Wan, and the clones very seriously. Please take that as a warning if any of those things might be triggering, and keep an eye on the tags for all of the fics included here just in case.

There is no specific order to this. I tried to group fics from one specific author together, but other than that, I didn't place anything in any specific position for a reason.

This is not an exhaustive list of good anti-Anakin fics that exist, obviously. If your fic or your favorite fic isn't on this list, please feel free to rec it yourself in the notes, leave a reply or reblog with a link. I'm happy to read more anti-Anakin fic, especially if it's very Pro-Jedi!

One final reminder: NOTHING IN THIS LIST IS ANAKIN FRIENDLY! That means it's likely not going to be friendly to Anakin specific ships either, particularly Obikin and Anidala. If that's going to bother you to read, please just skip this entire list, it's not for you.

Anakin/Consequences

Blood-born Memories by Siderea (anti, 725):

Quinlan touches Obi-Wan's robe after his "assassination" by Rako Hardeen and ends up picking up some memories and emotions from Anakin that give him some heart-breaking revelations about Anakin's true nature.

Technically this one ends just before any real consequences and so the consequences are more implied, but I love the way Quinlan reacts to the revelations he has in this fic. Quinlan is so obviously horrified by it and heartbroken on Obi-Wan's behalf, but also strong enough as a Jedi to know what he needs to do now. He's already grieving his friend, but he has to set all of that aside to deal with this now more important issue. This fic is supremely unlikely to ever get any follow-up, but thinking about how Obi-Wan would deal with this development upon coming back from his stint undercover is delightfully angsty.

Malfunctions & Mutiny by BitterChocolateStars (anti, 6k):

Obi-Wan loses on Mustafar, but Anakin takes him prisoner and proceeds to kill Palpatine and make Padme Empress. He puts Cody in charge of guarding Obi-Wan, and one day Cody's chip breaks when Anakin tortures Obi-Wan. Cody starts working on an escape plan for everyone, Jedi and clone alike.

The nice thing about fics post Order 66 from clone perspectives is that Anakin tends to be represented as an unforgivable monster and little else. Cody's priority is saving everybody he can and getting them as far away as possible, so he's not interested in trying to understand or sympathize with Anakin when it doesn't serve his purposes. One of the things I really like in this fic is the way we see Rex and Ahsoka react to the revelation of Anakin's betrayal. Ahsoka takes it a lot better than she does in canon, but we get a nice sort-of outsider perspective of Rex struggling with believing it until he doesn't have any other choice and the way this impacts his relationship with Cody.

The Temple vs Order 66 by LauraBWrites (anti, 4k):

The Temple has become semi-sentient over the years and starts preparing to protect the Jedi in the eventuality that Anakin Skywalker fails.

The Temple itself being a character is really fun, and I quite loved the way it was almost arguing with the Force about Anakin and how to handle the growing darkness in him and the galaxy. I also really appreciated that, while Padme ultimately leaves Anakin behind, her selfish choices during the war aren't swept under the rug, either. I liked that it insists that Anakin is taken care of and not just left to rot, but that whether he gets better or not remains up to him. It doesn't matter how much therapy he's given by the Jedi, he has to choose to accept the help or it won't work.

For want of a horse, the rider was lost by LacieFuyu (critical, 19k):

Anakin doesn't get left in the dark about the Rako Hardeen mission and it goes disastrously as a result. Everyone has to live with the consequences of that choice.

This one takes place within the Rako Hardeen arc, but it does deal with the revelation of the Tusken Massacre and the Anidala marriage as well. There are a lot of truths being thrown at Anakin in this particular fic by the people around him who start to discover more of what he's done and who he truly is, most of whom choose not to sugarcoat anything for him. Several of the characters choose not to forgive Anakin for what he's done, even as some of them continue to work to help him figure out how to heal and get better. There is hope left for him at the end, but the consequences for him in this feel very real and substantial, it goes far beyond Anakin just having to live with what he's done. He loses a lot of the people he cared about, he loses certain privileges and ranks, and they leave open the possibility that he might have to face a pretty serious consequence for the Tusken Massacre from the Tuskens themselves. So while it's sympathetic, it takes Anakin's choices seriously, which I appreciate. I also liked seeing some of the ways other characters were dealing with their own pain and betrayal, the ways they were taking comfort from Jedi teachings and loved ones to heal in a more healthy way.

Spoiler Alert, He Doesn't Make It

here on the edge of silence, half afraid by Siderea (anti, 4k):

Pirate/Mer AU where Fox and the Guard work on Palpatine and Anakin's ship and Fox manages to kill Palpatine, causing Anakin to throw him overboard only for Mer!Obi-Wan to save him.

I like the development of Fox and Obi-Wan's relationship in this one, from some very understandable mistrust to attraction and the beginnings of a friendship. The glimpses we get into a wider world and a rebellion of sorts and how Obi-Wan being a merman fits into the Jedi still existing and fighting alongside the clones under Palpatine are SO tantalizing. Fox's opinion of Anakin is immensely low and Obi-Wan himself is far enough along from whatever betrayal Anakin committed in this AU that he is able to criticize Anakin's behavior and obsessions with people. Anakin never actually appears in this fic, he remains a far-away obstacle to be removed, and I love that for him.

The Galaxy Deserved Better:

Ahsoka is Mace's Padawan series by SkyeBean (ongoing, anti, 442k):

The title of the series speaks for itself for the most part, but this is an AU where Mace chooses Ahsoka to be his Padawan around a year prior to AOTC and it follows the various consequences of that change both to Ahsoka herself and to the galaxy at large. The first fic goes all the way through the end of the Clone Wars, but other fics in the series continue beyond that to at least the end of ROTJ and explore the impact of the Empire on the Jedi as they struggle to survive.

I made an entire separate post strictly about this series because it basically changed my brain chemistry for the week it took me to get through everything, and I know several other people have recc'd it in various lists, but I'm putting it here again for anyone who hasn't yet seen it because it's just that good and that worth it. This fic understands how to make Ahsoka develop and mature without making her some angel or goddess of light without flaws. It is BREATHTAKINGLY pro Jedi and especially pro Mace Windu. There's some really great exploration of Ahsoka's relationship to the clones both before and after Order 66 as well a lot of delightful diversity in her relationships to other Jedi. This fic does not pull punches with regards to Anakin, Padme, and Anidala, or the consequences of their choices. If you were disappointed in how the Ahsoka show treated her reaction to Anakin and his atrocities, this fic is the OPPOSITE of that.

After the War (Part the First) by KChan88 (critical, 7k):

Instead of Obi-Wan, Mace and Yoda choose Quinlan to be the one who goes undercover during the Rako Hardeen arc. Obi-Wan, who has been in an off and on relationship with Quinlan since they were teenagers, reacts to the loss.

This is actually incredibly positive towards Anakin, but I'm leaving it in here as "critical" because pretty much any fic that has someone else reacting to the Rako Hardeen act is sort-of critical of Anakin's canon behavior by design, and the underlying issues that ultimately lead him to darkness. Obi-Wan reacts like a Jedi should, letting go when he believes Quinlan to be dead, and understanding when he has to face Quinlan after he knows it was a lie even as he is still angry at the circumstances putting Quinlan in that position in the first place (not the JEDI, just the war and the way it's forcing the Jedi to run themselves ragged and put themselves through the wringer). That anger gets acknowledged and accepted and Obi-Wan and Quinlan are shown to have an incredibly healthy relationship with each other that's incredibly sweet.

After the War (Part the Second) by KChan88 (critical, 6k):

Quinlan manages to catch up to Obi-Wan during his confrontation with Anakin during the Obi-Wan Kenobi show and the two have a reunion after things settle down on Tatooine.

Part of the same series as the above, this one lands more sympathetic towards Anakin than positive, since it's set post Order 66 and, for obvious reasons, it's pretty hard to be positive about what Anakin's done and what he's chosen to be at this point. But it's not unsympathetic, both Obi-Wan and Quinlan remember good times with Anakin, Obi-Wan has a line about having felt some kind of light in him during that last conversation they have in the show, and Quinlan makes comparisons to Anakin sounding like a scared and lonely little boy. So the critical aspect of it is relatively soft and minimal aside from the obvious references to his betrayal. Much like the fic above, I really love the way Obi-Wan and Quinlan's relationship is represented and the dynamic they have with each other.

Meet in the Middle by BilbosMom (critical, 9k):

Baby Luke and Leia are working on some Force shenanigans to try to find a way to speak to each other through a middle ground within the Force, but have trouble getting to each other on their own and end up recruiting Rex and Obi-Wan to help them.

This one is also pretty positive about Anakin in that it talks a lot about how Luke and Leia are going to save him by reminding him of how to love and things like that. I'm leaving it in here because it is also set post Order 66 and does reckon with the impact of that, especially on Rex who is finding out this betrayal for the first time, so it's hard not to end up at least a little critical just naturally. Anakin has done some particularly heinous shit and is still DOING some heinous shit. That remains true whether he can be saved in the future or not, whether he used to know how to love selflessly or not. I particularly like the structure in this one, the way it bounces back and forth between Obi-Wan's perspective with Leia and Rex's perspective with Luke. I like the way that Luke and Leia land sort-of wiser than their years due to their stronger connection to the Force but also still very much children who get impatient and annoyed with the adults around them.

scraps series by grumpyhedgehogs (critical, 9.5k):

Cody's chip fails when Obi-Wan dies on the Death Star and he goes searching for Rex and the Rebellion. He deals with his grief and guilt along the way.

Cody isn't Anakin's biggest fan, obviously, but both he and Rex acknowledge that Anakin USED to be a better person. The focus of the story is on Cody's relationship with Obi-Wan and how, even after he's died, that relationship still helps Cody move forward from his grief and find some measure of peace. I like the way Cody, Rex, and Ahsoka all connect over the different ways Obi-Wan had meant something to them and the ways he impacted their lives.

may you inherit his light by notbecauseofvictories (critical, 2.5k):

Leia reflects on her relationship to Bail Organa and the impact of his loss in the years after ROTJ.

Leia is also not Anakin Skywalker's biggest fan and dislikes that she inherited anything from him. I appreciated that Leia never forgave him in this. Even in the moment where she claims to wish he showed up, it's so she can rage at him for being the reason she ISN'T Bail Organa's daughter instead. It's a heart-wrenching story and dive into Leia's character, the ways her life at constant war have defined her as well as her experience as an adopted child who wanted nothing more than to have something physical to connect her to the family she loved and to make them proud. Mon Mothma saying Leia reminded her of Bail about made me cry.

Thank the Gods, I'm Not Alone by BitterChocolateStars (critical, 16k):

Obi-Wan and Rex from ten years post Order 66 both get sent back in time to the Clone Wars and work together to make sure it doesn't happen a second time.

Since Obi-Wan and Rex are primarily dealing with an Anakin who HASN'T betrayed the Jedi and the clones yet (depending on whether you count his marriage to Padme and his murder of the Tuskens a betrayal of the Jedi or not), they both have to figure out how to forgive this version of him that hasn't committed the crime they're angry about yet. He's the same person who DID go down that path before, but circumstances change enough to make different choices this time around. I appreciated the acknowledgment that it's okay to choose not to forgive the version of Anakin that DID make those choices, even as they recognize that it's not fair to hold this version of Anakin accountable for things he didn't do.

Gentle Welcome by Miandraden1 (critical, 1k):

Short and soft post-Rako Hardeen one shot where Obi-Wan reflects on Anakin's reaction to his stint undercover but gains comfort from the people who understand.

I love Obi-Wan discussing his worries about Anakin with Mace, it's such a nice call back to AOTC where he was more explicitly pushing back against the Council's decisions and had less faith in Anakin, whereas here he's so clearly trying to continue to have faith in Anakin's ability to grow and learn, even as he can tell Anakin's struggling. There's no lack of acknowledgment of Anakin's continued struggles, but there is a choice to continue to believe in him. I love how sweet the clones are in how they react to the Rako Hardeen deception, in some ways this is just another Tuesday for them, but Waxer explicitly leaving Obi-Wan a little gift he knows he'll like says something slightly different and it's adorable.

The Temple of Hope series by Zarz (ongoing, critical, 93k):

Obi-Wan, Anakin, and their battalions stumble across a very old Jedi Temple that reveals certain truths about both the Jedi and the clones and changes everything.

This one is also mostly about just forcing Anakin to face his own truths and fears while everybody else gets to make their way to a happy fix-it AU as a result. One of the tags on the first fic is "anakin skywalker faces consequences" but the primary consequence is just Anakin feeling bad about what he's done more than anything else. It's overall a sweet, soft, Force-sensitive Clones!AU with a lot of pro Jedi vibes to it.

"... if you remain his student" by Peppermint_Shamrock (critical, 4k):

The Wrong Jedi arc doesn't happen which leaves Ahsoka at the Temple during Order 66 and she was never going to be enough to save or stop Anakin.

To be perfectly honest at this point, this is the ending I'd have wanted for Ahsoka. It wouldn't have been able to happen in canon given she's not in ROTS, but like... this is probably one of the most impactful ways for her story to have ended (and one of the kindest, given how shitty her character has become). I love the way this fic insists that Ahsoka isn't enough, any more than Padme or Obi-Wan were, he'd have cut her down the same he did the others, no matter what he might have felt for her once or what she believed he felt for her.

Reversi by LacieFuyu (critical, 2.5k):

Anakin and Obi-Wan's roles are reversed in the Rako Hardeen arc and Anakin is startled by everyone's reactions to his deception.

This is yet another one that is critical by comparison to canon. Even Anakin himself acknowledges by the end of the fic that he's pretty sure he wouldn't be reacting this compassionately and calmly and reasonably if their positions were reversed, something we know to be true. There's also a small moment where Anakin begins to doubt his choices regarding the Tusken Massacre, but instead of actually reflecting on it, he buries the feeling all over again and chooses to learn nothing. It's very in character for Anakin.

[charliehoennam]

aftermath.

A/N: nobody asked for this, but all I've seen is Will smut (which I totally love, don't get me wrong) but I need some vulnerable Will

Pairing: Will Miller x f!reader

Warnings: grief, mourning, sad!will, mentions of death, mentions of Will's military past and Tom's funeral

One of the things you've always admired about Will is his strength. He was always the one to put on a brave face and push on. The captain in him had the duty of moving forward and completing whatever mission was at hand, whether it was getting his team to the landing zone or grocery shopping day at home.

It was that very same strength he possessed that got him through the darkest times in his life.

Losing his war veteran grandfather, losing his comrades in combat or to the haunting PTSD that they tried to chase away with substance abuse.

Before you came into his life, before he realized that he was lost in the same fog of that purgatory of PTSD, shutting his emotions out is the only thing he knew. After all that time, he came to believe it was easier than having to deal with them.

It just wasn't a priority; a moment of tears he refused to share with anyone anywhere other than sat naked and alone on the shower floor.

Tom wasn't the first friend he'd lost, but it doesn't mean it made losing him any easier.

It was easy for him to plaster a smile and bury his grief deep down until he felt it was time to unbury it and mourn.

Getting to that point of self-awareness was a victory in itself.

It took so much patience and love and pain, not only on his behalf but yours as well, to help him to understand what he was really struggling with.

He hadn't realized it had gotten so uncontrollable until the incident at Publix - the grand revelation of the weapon he could be, once shred of his humanity, provided the cathartic acceptance of the fact that he needed help.

Upon federal investigation, the story they told was that Tom had been shot and killed in a tragic mugging incident on their consultation trip. Just a boys' night out gone bad.

It wasn't too hard to believe, given they were 5 foreigners in a country that wasn't theirs. The heat from the Feds didn't last long. Thanks to Santiago's few but faithful contacts, that investment was quickly brought to an end.

It's barely 6 a.m. and you're stood in the kitchen making coffee, still processing how this all happened.

Your black dress is simple but elegant and modest against your body. Despite the itchy fabric, you can feel the early morning chill soaking through.

The dripping of the coffee maker lures you into a whirlwind of thoughts. You watch the droplets of dew form on the kitchen window against the cloudy sky which threatens to rain.

You start to second guess the toast when it pops up in the toaster. You're not the slightest bit hungry and you're positive Will won't be either, but you have to try.

He hasn't eaten right in the past couple days. You didn't say anything, but you've noticed the few bites he'd given his food and the way he'd pick at it.

He should've been ready and downstairs by now, so you decide to go up and check on him.

Moving forward is hard for most people, but for Will, it's what keep the pain at bay. The problem is when he stops.

Like a tornado, he's left with the screaming silence and the damage it left in it's wake.

Now that he's home, the mission of bringing Tom home is complete, the hard truth that his friend and mentor is gone has begun to sink in.

You gently knock on the door as you reach your shared bedroom.

"Honey, do you want any help?"

"I'm good, sweetheart. I'll be right out."

You can hear him sniffle despite his attempt to sound as normal as possible. Unconvinced, you turn the knob and open the door.

He's sat on the edge of the bed wearing a simple black suit as he looks back over his shoulder at you with a Marine coin in hand, a gift from Tom when Will confessed about his therapy sessions.

You aren't too surprised to see he changed out of the formal military blue suit he had out on earlier.

The ribbons, the medals, the badges... He couldn't put them on without feeling the crushing and staining weight of guilt.

"Lat minute outfit change?"

The corner of your lips curl in an attempt to smile, hoping to cheer him up with a bit of tease.

"I was gonna wear my dress blues, but..." he trails off for a moment to swallow hard. "Just didn't feel right."

Without a word, you quietly walk over and sit beside him. You're not sure what he needs right now, but you don't want him to feel alone.

"Black is more flattering if you ask me," you speak up.

His beard twitches as he attempts to smile. He knows you just want to help him feel better. Yet all he can do is stare down at the gold coin.

"Five times... Five times. Five close calls. And he survived them all. He didn't deserve to go out like that. He just wanted to help his family."

You fight back tears as you listen to him with an arm wrapped his back as you press your cheek to his shoulder.

"I told Santi to get him in. I said I'd go if Tom was in. Tom didn't even want to go in the first place. He didn't-"

There's a crack in his voice which he catches it in his throat to compose himself. He sniffles letting a tear cascade down his cheek only to wipe it away quickly, hoping you hadn't seen it.

"This isn't on you, Will."

He nods although you both know deep inside that he won't stop blaming himself.

"When you told me you were a marine, I knew the risks that came with that, Will. Every knock on the door had my heart racing. But I decided to stay with you because I love you. There wasn't a person on earth or a God in the sky that was gonna tell me otherwise. I knew the risks and I took 'em anyways because not having you would've hurt more... I don't understand how fate works other than we all end up the same. What I do know is that all we can do is love our close ones and cherish the good memories you have of them."

With a tearful and silent nod, he lowers his head and rests it against your chest. His arms lock around your waist as he surrenders to the tears in your embrace.

The tears quietly trickle down your cheeks as you listen to him finally breaking down.

With your lips pressed against his golden hair, you hold him in your arms and stroke the hair on the back of his neck to soothe him for as long as he needs.

All you can do is hold him through it and he couldn't be more thankful to have you in such a vulnerable moment after having faced them on his own for so many years.

Just the feeling of not being alone was overwhelming enough, but to have you holding him and reminding him of the things that are easy to ignore in grief give him hope.

Although he feels he's coming apart, he knows that he'll have the strength he's always had.

It's different now. It's not the strength to bury and forget; it's the strength to heal.

With a sigh of relief after a long, vulnerable moment, he pulls away from you and nods, mentally assuring himself that he's alright.

Upon arriving at the church, you're greeted by Molly so you offer your deepest condolences due to the circumstances. Just as Will, you find that the guys have all opted to wear normal black suits instead of the formal military uniform and you wonder if it's for the same reason.

"Sorry for that," he sniffles wiping his eyes as he tries to regain his composure, swallowing hard with guilt. "We should get going... I don't wanna be late."

You remind him that there is no need to apologize and that he can take the time to splash some water on his face to help him recollect before leaving.

Frankie doesn't say a word other than to Molly and the girls, apologizing for their loss. Throughout the priest's religious ceremony of easing words, Benny's apathetic eyes are glued to Tom's casket set in front of the church between his military portrait and a beautiful arrangement of white flowers. During Will's heartfelt eulogy, Santiago keeps his head lowered as the guilt consumes him.

The grift and sadness during the wake only follow and weigh heavier during the long walk to the gravesite, lingering among the guests of the funeral like a dark cloud. It's only reflected in depths by the light rain pitter-pattering all around.

The military traditions at the funeral leave a bitter tinge of irony in the boys as they watch Tom's casket lowering into the ground.

Tess's happy big doey eyes are now swollen and red as she cries under her mother's arm, hugging the folded flag as if it were her dad, while Molly holds her other and youngest daughter under the other arm.

Looking over at Will, you see that he's trying his hardest to keep his strong facade as well as the boys.

You slide your hand into his and whisper to remind him he's not alone and doesn't have to feel alone.

With a gentle squeeze to your hand, he nods.

"You with me?"

"I'm with you."

You and Will - as well as the guys and Tom's family - are the last to leave, reminding Molly that you're more than willing to help with anything.

Will, however, lingers a moment to speak to her private and tells her about the fund. You can tell from her reaction, she's genuinely surprised and thankful, relieved to know that she'll be able to pay for the funeral.

Having called your boss the previous day to let them know you wouldn't be going to work due to the funeral, you take the rest of the day off to recover from the overwhelming day after the funeral.

The drive home is quiet save for the rain against the car and the windshield, echoing into the vehicle which you insisted on driving to give Will some mental ease. He didn't put up a fight. He was quite relieved you'd offered.

In spite of being eager to understand how he's doing, you refuse to burden him with constant questions and decide to respect his mourning process. So, you keep a hand on his thigh to remind you're in this together.

He doesn't mind it at all. In fact, he is grateful for your respect and your thoughtfulness. His hand rests over yours and doesn't leave until you have to pull your hand back to turn the steering wheel, but it finds it's way back onto his leg, warm fully welcomed by his engulfing hand.

As you're undressing in your room, Will's hand catches yours while you're unzipping your dress.

"Thanks... I don't know about you, but I'd say this weather is perfect cuddling weather," you share letting the dress hang loosely off your shoulders.

Will smiles shyly as if you'd read his mind and locks his arms around your waist.

"I couldn't agree more."