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mickeyswhore · 1 year ago

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You're Mine Now

A/N: Let me know if I should make a part 2, guys. 🥰

Summary: After Mickey was shot, he left the college and became a hitman. His newest target? You. But he didn't want to kill you, so he decided to take you and make you his.

Mickey Altieri x Reader

Warnings: smut, dark, Mickey's POV, unsavory language, Stockholm syndrome, a dash of daddy kink, talks about murder

(this pic gave the inspo, actually)

Mickey had the foresight to escape after Mrs. Loomis shot him, he wanted to kill the bitch but she was finished off so he was fine. He got all of the money he had access from the bank account before it was closed by the police, so he was able to get by for a couple of years. He went back to the forums where he met Mrs Loomis so he started killing people for hire, it was quickly paying off quickly, he was able to be completely underground and it was great, getting paid for doing what you love.

It has been years now, Mickey was in a routine now. His fees were astronomical because he was the best of what he did, and he made no excuses about it, his only rule was no children, even murderous psychopaths had a line, and that was Mickey’s. Usually his customers were powerful men not wanting to deal with prenups, competitors in their fields, or simply people that pissed them off and that allowed him to walk around the higher circles and Mickey loves the finer things in life, so is a win win situation.

Mickey now was about to meet with a potential client, now he only accepts new customers through referrals, so it doesn’t blow back on him. Only now with all of his security measures in place, Mickey realises in how much danger he was by just accepting random anonymous messages, young and dumb as they say. The building was in a high end hotel, Mickey knew the owner so he knows that every recording of him is prompted deleted. He was wearing his signature full black tailored suit, Mickey was a silver fox now, he was glad that between balding and going gray, it was the latter for him.

“Mr. Wadsworth, how do you do?” The man was probably the same age as Mickey but he was in a disgusting shape, balding and a huge gut, it disgusted Mickey to no end. He took great pride in his appearance, he never understood why other people didn't.

“Mr…I didn't catch your name?” His voice was annoying, Mickey thought, definitely won’t be a regular client.

“That is because I didn't give it to you, shall we?” Mickey motioned for him to sit, which Mr. Wadsworth did. “So, what is the sensitive matter that would like me to handle?” Mickey was always adamant about using vague language, nothing that would look bad on a court reading, was his motto.

“I want a permit for drilling oil but the land is protected by law, there is one senator that is blocking it, I simply need him to have a family emergency, him not being around wouldn’t be good for business.” Mickey laughed, at least he had the foresight to know that getting rid of the only senator blocking his progress would be idiotic, you’d be surprised how many people able to afford a hitman are dumb to target the most obvious person.

“Great, who would be causing the family emergency?” The man passed Mickey the folder, he didn't look at it, Mickey was always adamant about doing his own research.

“It needs to be done before next month.” Mickey nodded and got up from his seat, this man was incredibly dull so he couldn’t wait to leave.

“I know my schedule, transfer half of the money and you’ll hear from me after is done.” They shook hands and Mickey went to his hotel room, it was where he preferred to work. Mickey had a house with way too many acres but he was barely there, if he was being honest it wasn’t conductive to business and it was lonely. Mickey always had one night stands, he hated (loved) to brag but getting women was not an issue for him at all, but an actual relationship? Not likely.

He opened the folder and he saw a photo of the target, the daughter of the senator, you. Seeing your photo made Mickey stop, what a fucking waste, he thought. You were fucking hot, he thought about maybe seducing you and then kill you but would that be enough? Mickey started reading about you, it was comical how much younger you were from Mickey, he was old enough to be his daughter, in his fucked up mind Mickey being so much older than you got him excited.

You were in university, no boyfriend made Mickey smile, from the files it seems as if you were a bit of a loner. He was going to start stalking you and to get close to you, and see how is the best way to do his job. Mickey finished reading your files and went to bed, he was painfully hard now, he simply decided to ignore it and focus on his task, you.

Mickey thought it was way too early, but apparently you woke up that early to go to the library, then your favourite local coffee shop. He got to the library before you, and then you entered the store, it was summer so you were wearing a blue summer dress, Mickey thought you looked delicious. You said hi to the worker and was getting closer to where he was, which was the classics. Mickey was now in character, pretending to ponder on which book to choose, he sighed and that got your attention.

“Hey, sorry to bother you but do you need help?” You tapped him on the shoulder and when Mickey turned to you he wanted to laugh at your reaction, your mouth was open it was clear as day that you found him attractive, that was always made the job much easier.

“It is that obvious that I need help?” Mickey let out a fake embarrassed laugh, it was easy to act like a dork sometimes, Mickey thought.

“Well, no. But you are holding one of my favourites and I need to know why you haven’t chosen it yet.” You were behaving like a school girl with a crush, the giggling, the hand on your face to hide the embarrassment, Mickey thought it was extremely cute.

“It’s for my niece, she just started university and I want to give her a nice gift. Do you think that should I just bite the bullet and buy both?” He gave you his million dollar smile and he could see you melting, you were adorable.

“If you can, I would. Especially if she’s a book worm like me.” You laughed again, and Mickey could see that you couldn’t hold eye contact him and he loved it.

“I can’t believe that you are a book worm, how can such a beautiful woman like you be buried in books? I guess that you have the beauty and the brains, then?” You touched Mickey’s arm while laughing, he got closer to you and you did too.

“You are too kind, sir.” Mickey took a deep breath, you calling him sir being so close to him was making him incredibly hard.

“I’m Mickey, by the way.” He extended his hand for you to shake it and you introduced yourself. Your whole demeanor, voice and body was intoxicating for Mickey, he wanted you, not just for one night, he wanted you to be his forever. “I know this is probably too much too soon but…would you like to get a cup of coffee with me?” He looked at you with a smirk, you looked so flustered and Mickey loved every second of it.

“Yes, there’s a coffee shop that I love.” You and Mickey went to the counter and he paid for both books, he could tell that you were admiring him, his suit, the way Mickey carried himself, he could tell that you enjoyed everything about him.

“Shall we? My car is parked right out front.” Mickey’s hand went on your lower back, he could tell that you enjoyed the contact, getting to the door he made sure to open the door for you. He did the same with his car door, his car was spacious and he could tell that you liked it. “You’re gonna have to guide me, because I moved here a couple months back and I still don’t know my way around it.” The two of you smiled and you were more than happy to give him directions to the coffee shop.

Getting there Mickey could tell that people were staring at him, it was a regular occurrence but he could tell that it was a bit weird for you, so he made sure to be touching you at all times, Mickey pulled the chair out for you and acted like the perfect gentleman for you, he was proud on that fact.

“So, what do you do for a living Mickey?” He could tell that you were nervous, afraid of saying the wrong thing and mess it up but that wouldn’t happen with Mickey to smooth out any situation.

“Consulting, they pay an obscene amount of money to put out their fires.” It was true, his killing rates were astronomical, and he did what he loved. “What about you, sweetheart?” You giggled like a schoolgirl and tried to cover it up with a cough, Mickey tought it was the sweetest thing ever.

“I’m in university at the moment, but I still have no idea what I’m going to do…maybe you can teach me more about consulting?” Mickey could see the attempt of trying to get his number and he smiled.

“I’d be more than happy to teach you anything you want, sweetheart.” Mickey put his hand on yours and you looked at it and he saw how your breathing changed, oh you were horny, Mickey thought to himself.

“I’d like that.” You said in a breathy voice and Mickey knew you were a goner.

-----------------------------------------------------

After your first date, Mickey made sure to take your contact details and he was now a staple in your life. He was the first person you called when you had anything going on in your life, and it has only been a week. Mickey on the other hand was utterly obsessed with you, and he already that he wasn’t going to kill you and that you were going to be with him for the rest of your life. He already had everything ready, and he made sure to destroy the life of the man that wanted you dead and if you were with him, no one would try to kill you because of your father ever again.

Mickey went to the restaurant to meet you, today was the day that he was going to make you his fully. His house was already set for you to be there, no work for a while to pay full attention to you, Mickey never felt this way before, and he wasn’t going to give up on you, he owned you, it was only a matter of time for you to find out.

“How are you, sweetheart?” You went to Mickey and kissed him, and he took advantage of that and put the drug on your drink.

“I’m great, I can’t wait for you to meet my parents.” Mickey smiled, another reason why he wanted to take you away, not having to meet your parents.

“Me too, sweetheart.” The two of you started talking about other things, and you started getting a bit sleepy. “Are you okay, baby?” Mickey looked so concerned, it almost looked real.

“Yeah, yeah…just a bit tired.” You yawned and Mickey asked for the check, the drug was going to knock you out in a few minutes.

“Let’s get you home, sweetheart.” He paid with cash, as always and guided you to his car. As soon as you got there, sleep took over you.

Mickey started driving, he made the point of not initiating any intimacy with you, he wanted you fully comfortable with him. He looked at your exposed legs and Mickey caressed it, your skin was so smooth, he felt like a goddamn teenager, getting hard just by feeling your leg. He focused on the road, otherwise he would start fucking you before you woke up.

-------------------------------------

When Mickey arrived with you still asleep it was evening, he took you out of the car and carried you to his house. House was an understatement, it was a mansion but Mickey hated to brag. He had a bedroom ready for you, it didn't open from the inside, he knew that you were going to freak out for a couple of days and he needed to break you in.

He decorated the bedroom in a way that he knew you would enjoy, he put you on the bed and left. Watching you on the camera, Mickey grabbed a beer and waited for you to wake up. He knew that he could be quite obsessive but there was something about you because Mickey never went through so much trouble just for some pussy.

Hours passed and you started to wake up, Mickey could see and he was excited about it. He could tell that you were starting to freak out.

“Hello?” Your voice was cracking, and Mickey couldn’t help but groan. He loved hearing you so helpless. “Is there anyone out there?” He could see that you were about to cry, Mickey knew he was fucked in the head, he was since a child but hearing you cry? Fuck, that making him incredibly hard. “Is my boyfriend alright?” Mickey groaned, you were worried about him? Fuck, he started palming himself through his trousers. “Please, don’t hurt him.” Tears were running down your cheeks and Mickey got his cock out and he started stroking it, while he could hear you cry, his strokes got quicker. “Please.” Mickey groaned, and his strokes got quicker. “Please, I’ll do anything.” He started massaging his balls and with the way you were begging? Mickey was going to cum anytime now. “Please.” Mickey came, hard. He got all of his trousers dirty, but it didn't matter.

Mickey didn't talk to you, he only gave you food. It has been days, you were going insane and every time you cried, he was jerking off. He decided to taunt you and got something he hasn’t used in years, the Ghostface voice modulator.

“Good morning, bunny.” The voice boomed across the bedroom and you were scared.

“Who are you?” You sounded almost happy to have a human interaction and Mickey could see how much you craved for it. “Are you going to kill me?” Tears started running down your face, you were so scared. “Where is Mickey?” Seeing how much you were worried about him, Mickey was enjoying every second of it.

“I could never kill you, if you must know someone wanted to kill you, I simply got in the way. This is for your protection.” You started yelling and crying so Mickey stopped talking, and you fell asleep after doing it for hours.

------------------------------------

It has been a whole month, Mickey could see it was getting to you, your mental state was very fragile and he knew this. So now it was time to show himself to you, next part of the plan. Mickey was sure Stockholm Syndrome would make you so malleable, perfect to be his perfect little doll. You were asleep when Mickey opened the door, he watched you for a few minutes, you looked so peaceful.

“Sweetheart, wake up.” He shook you, and you woke up. As soon as you saw Mickey, you started kissing him.

“Oh my God, are you okay? Mickey, I thought they killed you.” Mickey had a couple of fake bruises on his face, but he thought of something different now.

“How could they kill me when it’s my house, bunny?” He used the voice modulator and you just looked at him, but it was curious, you didn't stop touching Mickey.

“It was you?” You whispered, but your hands were still on Mickey and he was smirking at you.

“Of course, I couldn’t let them kill you, bunny.” Mickey started touching your face and you leaned into his touch.

“You love me?” You whispered, he could see the wheels turning in your head.

“Of course, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.” After those words were uttered, you jumped on Mickey.

You started removing his shirt, you were wearing a silk nightgown and nothing underneath. Mickey started kissing you, it was all teeth and passion, he removed your nightgown and you removed his cock from his trousers.

“I need this, daddy.” You stradled him and aligned his cock at your entrance, Mickey couldn’t believe any of this. It was as if you were possessed.

Mickey put your nipple in his mouth, you were bouncing on his cock, he could feel how wet you were.

“Keep bouncing on my cock, bunny.” The two of you were on the floor, there was no time to get into bed. You were moaning and bouncing on his big and thick cock, your pussy felt like heaven for Mickey, he was never letting you go now.

“Fuck, daddy.” You screamed, and he could tell you were going to cum.

“Oh, I can tell you’re going to cum bunny. Come on, cum all over my cock little bunny.” He bit your left breast making you moan and then you pulled his hair and Mickey could feel you cumming around his cock.

You were exhausted, you put your head on his shoulder and Mickey started cumming inside you and you moaned. This was perfect, Mickey picked you up and put you on the bed. You started whining and he laid with you, and you laid on top of Mickey.

“I love you, never leave me.” After this, you fell asleep. Mickey smiled, this was way better than he ever imagined.

"Don't worry, bunny. You're mine now." He kissed your forehead and fell asleep as well.

#mickey altieri x reader #mickey altieri imagine #mickey altieri smut #mickey altieri x you #mickey altieri #slasher fanfiction #scream franchise #scream imagine #scream 2

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dwindlinghaze · 2 years ago

Note

this is just an idea

remus & reader are harboring feelings for each other and it being like an unspoken thing that they like each other amongst not only themselves but their friends

but someone (could be a friend or someone outside their friend group) acknowledges it just pointing out all the things you guys do like the way you’re only affectionate with him / the two of you are very touchy or maybe you wearing his sweaters and sharing his chocolate with you

just very much them being read by someone on how they give each other special treatment (boyfriend and girlfriend treatment) and to stop being around the bush.

just fluffy goodness 🩷

hey anon !! tysm for requesting,, here's the fic. i hope u like it <3 sorry i made some tiny changes,,, i didn't realise while writing it :( ☁️☁️🤍

you'll never know

(remus lupin x reader)

contents: fluff, she/her pronouns, they know there's something between them, pure fluff

　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

started as a simple friendship. thinking love hadn't been meddled in. you would talk into the night and nobody had noticed.

could you call it hope that you and remus can be something more? you always knew your little crush on the boy. you acknowledge it and accept it because who on earth would not fall in love with remus lupin.

that scruffy looking but sweet remus lupin.

he's the kind of person that you would look for in a long lasting sort of bond.

remus lupin had so many things to hold. he has to hold the burden of being a lycanthrope, he has to hold james and sirius accountable as for he is a prefect, he has to hold heavy books, he held every brain in the marauders combined.

and most importantly; he hold you. your hands, your bicep, you waist, your robe, your books.

your heart.

it was very obvious that you harboured feelings for him some time during this year.

and he does too. he knew about your feelings and respect it. he wouldn't want to cross your boundaries though- or the thin line that separates platonic and romantic in your friendship.

people around noticed. especially remus' close friends. james and sirius know the boy so well that they're aware of the differences of remus when he's with you and when he's with anyone else.

but they never really spoke about it though. they want to give remus some privacy and want him to actually be the one that puts you together.

he holds your hand when you guys are walking. he doesn't hold anyone's hand. never. he lets you eat his last bar of chocolate but would scold sirius if he even tries to touch his ten stacks of them. he pulled your hair back when it's blocking your view while reading. he lets you sleep on his lap with his favourite sweater draped around your torso.

and it's really strange to the others because he never lets anyone wear his 'favourite' sweater. if peter asked to borrow one of his sweaters, he would give him choices except that one.

it is his favourite because it was the first sweater of remus' that you wore. you were cold and had asked remus if he had an extra one in hand. and he did. it fits you a bit too large but it's perfect either way.

you only wore it once but the photographs he has taken in his mind recalling the day you wear it lingers for not only once.

that's why he loves wearing it so much. you found him wearing the sweater a lot. a silly part of him thinks that if he let anyone else wears the sweater, they would also be smitten by you as him.

"rem are you listening to me?" you looked up, eyebrows raising.

"hmm what were you saying?" he got out of his lavender haze, still a smile playing on his lips. his smile isn't a perfect smile. it's lopsided and asymmetrical. but you loved it. the way his cheeks crinkled around the edge of his lips and the way his eyes twinkle is simply a beautiful sight.

"what were you thinking about hm?" you asked as you got up from his lap into a sitting position. remus' lap felt cold, missing the warmth of you a second ago.

"nothing," he replied, though he is still smiling at you. it was a lie, he was thinking of something- or rather someone.

"i was just saying that i'm going to go up. it's almost ten," you said, pointing to the clock that hung on the wall across the sofa you were both laying at.

"oh yeah. go up and sleep, dove. you must be tired," he said before kissing your cheeks.

his lips lingered there for a while. his warm breath hovering over your skin. he always does this. he always kiss you on your cheeks or temple.

you wondered if that's a special treatment for you. he never does that to anyone else.

his chapped lips were such a contrast to your soft skin. but you never mind it. if anything you loved the way his lips felt in your warming cheeks.

･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ

"morning world!" sirius cheered as he took a seat on the gryffindor table for breakfast.

"that lovebirds still has come down yet?" james asked.

"nope. i'm honestly getting sick of their blindness," sirius grumbled. "why can't they just date already? like- it has been six years!"

"give them time, not everything has to be rushed!" lily snapped, irritated by how loud his voice is in the morning.

"lilypad's right!" james agreed, just for the sake of lily. though he also thinks that one of you should make the move as soon as possible.

it was suffocating to see his best friends being madly in love with each other and also not doing anything about it. he knew remus is a gentleman and he would never in his life do something that could upset you but this is getting so hard to watch.

"they're coming! act normal!" peter said, turning his attention to his three slices of pumpkin pie.

"hey 'vryone," you greeted, smiling at your friends.

james' eyes darted to your fingers. they were intertwined with remus' which made the boy scoff.

"what's with the face?" remus spoke up, sitting down besides you.

"nothing- i'm just tired of you," james said, yawning.

remus ignored him, instead he put down a plate in front of you and started to place your favourite foods on to your plate.

"thanks, rem," you said, cheeks flushing. he always did this to you. he kissed the crown of your head in response.

"ugh this is so gross," sirius groaned.

"i think it's cute," lily said.

"you think so? do you what to do the stuff they do together? y'know since you like it and i also like it so we both like it and we should fulfil our needs of likeness by doing it...?" james said, sending a grin to the redhead's way.

you didn't know what happened next because remus has now occupied your full attention. he was talking about the new book he has read and thought that you would like it too. he retold the novel as a short summary for you to hear.

sirius eyed the two of you suspiciously. he knows how much remus loves you. he even talks in his sleep about how adorable your voice sounds when you're sleepy.

sirius has had enough of it. maybe it's time for him to knock some sense on remus and make you go out with him.

･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ

"moony, what are you afraid of?" sirius asked out of the blue.

remus furrowed his brows, taken aback by his sudden question. "what?"

"just answer. what are you afraid of?"

"i don't know.... i'm afraid of toads? they're gross and sticky," he grimaced.

sirius almost wanted to slap his face. that wasn't supposed to be his answer. "i mean- what are you so afraid of until you can't date her?"

remus thought about it for a while but he doesn't really have to.

you are beautiful to him. simply, magnificent. maybe even too perfect for the world. he knows that the love is mutual and that he's not fighting alone.

you know about his furry little problem and you don't mind. if anything, you might even love him more because of how strong he is- having to go through all of that until his last breath.

you know about his vulnerable side and you told him that he can be just remus lupin when he's with you. he doesn't have to put on a facade. he just has to be him.

you both cried, laughed, cry-laughed in each other's arms. remus is a guy with a tough exterior, but you know how much of a softie he can be. you never make fun of him for it.

and you even managed to let him accept that he's not the cause of anyone's problem. he's not at fault for being a werewolf. he is just like everyone else in the school but more wonderful.

there's actually no reason to be afraid.

maybe he's just waiting for you to ask him because he's still not sure if you wanted him to actually be your boyfriend or not.

maybe he worried about you and him not working out at the end and has to suffer as ex lovers. the thought of you not being able to do your usual stuff with him anymore ached his soul.

sirius saw how remus' expression changed from a good one to a worried one. he wondered, "what's stopping you, moony? is it the werewolf?"

"as insane as it sounds, i don't worry about that," remus replied. never in his life that he ever thought about actually saying those words. but you came and changed everything. though he still worry about his lycanthropy and hurting people, he accepts the fact that he would never hurt you. you're not dumb. you can save yourself and remus trust you with every cel in his body.

it's actually bewildering how you can do that to him.

if the waters dries up and the moon stops shining, stars fall and the world goes blind, remus knows he will be saving his love for you.

"then go and ask her, moony! don't put someone in a position like y/n's. it's confusing and at the end, if you don't do anything about it, it will leave you two hurting. just trust me mate," sirius patted his on his head.

remus thought about that too- every sleepless nights. he's actually going feral right now as we speak.

･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ

one sunny afternoon, you were sitting on the clocktower field with remus beside you.

you were informing him about the type of clouds in the sky. this topic is actually one of the small amount of information that he doesn't know.

your fingers darted to the little bubbles of clouds in the sky, "this one, it looks like cotton right?"

"it does," he replied, nodding his head at you as he looked lovingly at your face. you were so mesmerising. he is sure if anyone looks at your for more than two seconds, they would be head over heels.

"that's cirrocumulus," you beamed at him.

"ah yes, the cumulus family," he said back.

"what? i don't remember saying anything about cloud families," you laughed.

his arms were around you, secured tightly. his head was touching the side of your face. if anyone sees this from an outsider's point of view, there is no denying that you two are dating.

"well- if i can recall correctly there is cumulus, altocumulus, and cirrocumulus," he remembered.

he remembered!

of course he did. he always listens to you.

you shook your head, pushing it further on his neck.

"honestly, you two are such a cute couple-" you heard a voice coming from behind. lifting your head around, you saw a girl smiling at you and remus.

"you guys always hold hands- even right now! lupin's only affectionate towards you and that's so sweet. y'know, so you feel special. you two look at each other like you're the only people in the world! and lupin shares his sweaters with you! i could only wish," the voice continued.

your cheeks flushed, you have no idea what to say. but remus does, "i know, you'll find your own y/n soon."

the girl's cheeks reddened, dreaming about the thought of having it.

when she left, you turned to look at remus. the smile still hasn't faded. you buried your face on remus' chest; hiding it there. he knows this action all too well.

he wrapped both of his arms around you while he smiled with full knowledge. he closed his eyes, thinking about that talk with sirius.

he doesn't want to be too late. what if you give up on him because you're tired of not establishing the relationship you two are having?

"is it true you're only affectionate to me so you make me feel special?" you asked. your voice came out muffled by his sweater.

"nope. i'm affectionate towards you because i love you and i feel like myself when i'm with you," he pressed his lips on the top of you head.

your heart jolted at those three words. you knew remus likes you- but love? that just got one step beyond.

"rem, do you mean that?"

"what?" he pulled away and took hold of your face. "i love you."

you smiled against his palms. "i love you too," you whispered softly. you don't have to be loud, he can hear you just as well.

"i know," he kissed your nose.

"you do?" you feel yourself heating up under his stare.

"i feel it," he simply reply. "i'm actually disappointed because you think i only like you," he chuckled. "you're wrong y'know. i love you very very much. i've shown that to you everyday. just hoping that you'd catch up."

"sorry, i tend to doubt things."

"don't doubt me," he cooed.

"i know," you laughed. "are we..?"

"um if you want to yeah," he assured. you loved how he doesn't pressure you into things. he always makes sure that you're fine with everything.

you nodded.

"okay. we should- i don't know, what does two people do right after they tell each other about their love?" remus asked, acting confused.

"hmm i don't know, i think they hug each other? should we?"

"we hug each other everyday. we should do something more..."

"like...?" you dragged on, loving how flustered he is to even say the word 'kiss'.

"stop. i know you know."

"i do," you giggled.

"okay i'm gonna kiss you now," he leaned in and kissed you.

it was a lie if he says that he never dreamt of this. what he dreamt of was definitely far from reality because it is much better in real life with an actual you.

the kiss was tender, very gentle. when the two of you pulled away, you looked at his eyes, loving how pretty it is under the warm sun yet cold wind.

"i love you."

he pulled you closer to him- even though you're already insanely close. your face was tucked under his chin with his palm pressing your head softly against his chest, the other around your waist.

there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow he chased.

#remus lupin fluff #remus lupin x reader fluff #remus lupin x reader #remus lupin blurb #remus x reader #remus lupin imagine #remus lupin fic #remus fluff #moony x reader

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punkascas · 10 months ago

Text

okay, so i don't want to, like, Start Something or whatever so we're doing a barely-tagged, separate post. i also realise this is mostly pointless because others have already said what i'm going to say, and did it better, with far more grace, and sound less like an asshole than i do.

but jesus louise helen christ, the weird fucked up ideas people have around abuse and personal responsibility and the effect of trauma. like as an abuse and csa survivor, it genuinely alarms me to read posts that use arguments i remember my dad making. like, i'm assuming most of this rhetoric comes from gen z — maybe that's inaccurate; maybe that's unfair. but right now i'm very much Having A Moment Here that the kids aren't alright.

no 22-year-old should be repeating the same awful, manipulative, logically and morally bankrupt justifications for violence and torture my dad says. like literally what's in the first two episodes of ofmd s2 is torture.

i love ed; he's an amazing character. taika is hella wowza top marks acting him. but like.

like.

torture, my dude. physical and psychological. trauma. harassment. that we see the lasting effects of through s2.

just. i. what??

so here we go, okay. have too many, zealously highlighted screenshots so i can dig into details.

cut to save your dashes. content warning for discussions of abuse and trauma (if that wasn't obvious), as well as spoilers for ofmd s2.

re: ed knew what he was doing was wrong and felt guilty about it at the time:

we have no on-screen, textual examples of this. not in the dialogue; not in the acting; not in the blocking; not in the cinematography or music. nothing.

knowing the crew are overworked and kind of traumatised by all the violence, ed bribes them with cake. because, as we know, cake like tea fixes everything. only ed wasn't even with them to share in the eating of the cake. he made izzy responsible for that. he doesn't give the crew a break; he doesn't choose less ethically-fraught prizes to hunt. there is not one scene of ed talking directly to the crew — until he points a gun at each of them.

we see ed crying (and drinking, and rhino horn-ing [way to help further extinction, man]) but it's always paired with shots or flashbacks that reference stede. ed is still all up in his feelings about stede, and ed confirms this when he tells frenchie the myth about albatrosses never needing to return to land. ed cannot go back, does not want to go back, because he was rejected. (like, stede is literally landed gentry, come on!) all he wants to do instead is stay at sea committing to this unhinged version of unstable, sadistic piracy.

but okay, okay. say we ignore all of that. let's say ed does feel sorry and guilty and ashamed of his actions. he knows what he's doing is wrong and unfair and cruel. that it's harming others. that it's particularly harming the dude that ed has, for better or worse, basically spent his life with (izzy; i mean izzy). ed… still continues to do the things! how far off are we at this point from the definition of malicious? you know action x hurts person b and then you do it anyway. is that honestly a better, happier, more ethically defensible reading of the character?

re: the crew didn't mutiny because they love ed despite his violent, sadistic actions.

mutinies were a thing, yes. but both historically and in the world rules established by the show, mutiny is disincentivised through threats, distraction via extra work, and corporeal punishment. we see both ed and izzy use all three of these to try to prevent the crew from disobeying orders. they didn't wait until the storm and izzy shooting ed to mutiny because they understood or sympathised with ed; they took the chance to kill him then because that was the first real opportunity they'd had. the reward finally out-weighed the risk given that ed was going to kill them all that night anyway.

again, we have no scenes, no dialogue, no visual or audio cues to tell us that the crew understands or loves ed — excluding izzy, obviously. fang could also be on that list, if you take into account his personality and his behaviour both in s1 and later in s2 in the fishing boat scene. but in the first two episodes, we only see the crew show trauma responses around ed. they talk about him but almost never to him. and when they do have a direct conversation with ed, it is either confrontation or head down, submissive, "of course, blackbeard; anything you say" placating. i'm so baffled where the show points to any sign of love from the crew towards ed before his "death".

re: ed can't be held responsible because he was suicidal.

uhm. no. hard no. a harder no than stede's brazilian cherry wood mast. fucked up people do fucked up things but part of being an adult is owning your fucked-upped-ness and not fucking up others while you work on unfucking yourself. children, children are not fully responsible for the impact of their actions on others when they're deep in their feelings, especially if they're feeling their feelings as a trauma response. this is because literally their brain cannot do that kind of control. it doesn't have that software pack installed yet. ed does have all the adult updates installed, even if he isn't running them at that moment. he has no right to take out his feelings on other people: to maim them, to psychologically torture them, to abuse them, to work them to exhaustion. to kill them. he does not get a free pass to do suicide by abused employees. (like suicide by cop but more indirect and passive and harmful.) talk about passive aggressive.

secondly, ed is not just passively suicidal and happy to find new risks that might end his life. he is very purposefully taking izzy with him (see: literally removing the bits of izzy that would help let him walk away from ed; the fact that ed becomes actively suicidal only once he thinks izzy is dead; the whole keeping izzy's corpse in front of his and stede's beach shack i mean inn — the codependence, she runs deep). ed is also putting the crew through the same risks, the same isolation, the same danger. both stede and izzy agreed that ed had gone full scorched earth policy. you don't get forgiven for the murder part of a murder-suicide pact just because of the suicide part. not to mention that no one (once again, you could potentially argue izzy as an exception) was good on a murder-suicide pact with blackbeard.

and then to say the crew felt guilty? i assume i'm misreading that. the crew. felt guilty. for ed's actions. that is, if not victim blaming and if not darvo, a very close inbred cousin of them. like hapsburg jaw inbred close.

re: ed healing and his view of himself as a monster.

to heal means, in part, to accept responsibility for the harm you've caused, whether it was intentional or not. it means making amends. it means building or rebuilding relationships where possible. it means putting the other person or persons' feelings and boundaries and need for safety above your desire for absolution or forgiveness. it means working through your own guilt and shame and anger (or whatever drove you to act the way you did) in a separate space, not with the people you hurt, but someone who can be a step removed, more impersonal and objective to help you reflect and face hard truths as needed. i say this as both someone involved in activism and community reparations and as an abuse survivor who has done nearly 30 years of therapy learning this in order to not hurt people. it's not ed's fault he's fucked up just like it isn't my fault i am. but it is on me, like it is on anyone, to make sure i limited as much as possible the harm i can cause to others because i learned some awful but very effective tricks at a young age to survive.

ed does not really do any of the above. he doesn't say "sorry". he speaks in generalised language. he complains about the cat bell (which he seems to wear only for one day, given the implied timeline with lucius and pete's engagement). i have a model ship on a stand that says "this is a safe space ship" as a joke because i work for the government and have written press releases that sound just like ed's "apology". where you take no responsibility and encourage "the culture" to move on.

so, really, my question becomes: ed sees himself as a monster. in s1, we had enough balance between ed's current actions and his referenced past actions to see this belief as likely untrue. in s2 though — i mean, is it? is that an unfair or inaccurate belief? i can understand how carrying that belief can get in the way of ed's growth and eventual healing but like. from an outside perspective of ed-the-fictional-character. he's not a "good" person. he's capable of and has done and continued to do horrible, cruel things. ethically, can you argue with that statement about him?

re: ed trying to destroy relationships because of his self-worth issues and instead the consequences of his actions proving that he's loved.

this is the point that made me go: right, no, i need to respond. i need to say my piece about this. izzy and the crew suffering ed's violent tyranny and then sticking around on the revenge anyway afterwards is not a sign of love. it is not showing love to bear pain for someone. it not showing love to let someone mistreat you, threaten you, hurt you, maim you. their actions are selfish and done to give them feelings of power and control over you. lying back and thinking of england to get through it is not love. it is absolutely a survival technique. but it is not love when you do it at the expense of yourself or others.

i also disagree that ed was trying to push people away or break his relationships with others. we know from s1 that ed is fairly blasé about whether crew members die. again, we don't see any friendly or intimate exchanges between ed and any of the crew to imply any kind of relationship there beyond "tools who accomplish ed's goals". the one exception, as always, is izzy. and as previously stated, ed seems bound and determined, in a very conscious way, to bring izzy into death with him. ed does everything in his power to make izzy want to kill ed, or at least agree that it's best if ed dies, and to want to kill himself so ed doesn't have to die alone. that isn't ed breaking that relationship; it's making it permanent in a really fucked up shakespearian way. the only relationship we see ed waffle between wanting to keep and wanting to push away is stede. after his corporate "apology" and the fishing trip with fang, all of ed's dialogue is with stede and a little bit with zheng until izzy's death scene. the crew loving ed just isn't a thing, at least not one we're shown. not from either side. ed's relationships are with stede and kind of, sort of with izzy (because he does manage to, if not fully break, do some major damage to that).

love did not save ed. ed wanting to live, because stede came back, because he didn't want to jump off hornigold's cliff in the first place, saved ed. izzy saved everyone else.

so yeah: that's it; that's the post. the rhetoric that abuse is love or that abuse can be "cured" with love or that trauma isn't lasting and serious and has impacts on people's daily lives is just. wild. wild.

and terrifying.

my dad was born in the 40s. why is anyone born in the 80s or later still defending this mindset? it honestly, truly freaks me out.

guess it's good i have a fucking therapy appointment on monday.

#ofmd critical #ptsd problems

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chaostudee · 25 days ago

Text

the secret of us , chapter four.

༘˚⋆𐙚｡⋆𖦹.✧˚

a couple of hours later you are at home getting ready with your friends to go out but you cant help it when your eyes briefly scan the piece of paper that lewis gave you.

your cheeks burn as you remember the interaction but you know better that nothing can become of it yet you slip the piece of paper into your purse along with your lip gloss and keys.

once you arrived at the club you followed your friends to the bar where you all bought a round of shots. a couple of hours later you find yourself on the dance floor swaying from side to side with a beer in your hand to the music.

although the main purpose of tonight was to forget him you couldn't help but think about the way his eyes latched onto yours or when your hands brushed when he slipped you his number.

you stop dancing and gulp thinking about it. you look around in the mob of people only to find your friends no where to be found. your first instinct was to find your purse of course which luckily you had but you were distraught to find that your phone was gone.

you put a hand over your mouth in worry and groan as you have a horrible headache from all the alcohol and truthfully it is even hard to stand without feeling dizzy. you sigh as you go to walk outside to go catch some air.

the streets were near quiet and you longed to know what time it was. you bite your lip before taking one last look in your purse only to find the one thing you were trying to avoid. lewis's number. you chuckle realising that you rly have no option since you honestly have no clue of any of your friends numbers and no money for a taxi.

a man nearby is txting on his phone so you go and give it a shot.

"um sry is it okay if i use your phone for one second"

the guy looks up and looks at you weirdly but once noticing that you were desperate he sighs and hands you the phone.

"thank you so much i wont be long"

the man grunts in response. you walk a few metres away and start typing in his number. just as you are about to dial you question why are u doing this? surely there is someone else? but you know right well that there isn't.

you dial and the line starts ringing.

༘˚⋆𐙚｡⋆𖦹.✧˚

lewis is sat in a bar with most of the grid sat beside george as he laughs at another joke he made. lewis looks at the clock seeing that it is nearly 2am and sighs.

as he looks around at the decor he feels his phone vibrating in his pocket which is obviously unsual at this hour. he pulls out his phone and sees that it is an unknown caller, his first unstinct is to block but there is only few people who had his number and now you being on of them. he smiles softly to himself realising it could be you.

"hey you okay man?" george asks

"um ye um i got to take this real quick" he says trying to hide his smile.

george nods but narrows his eyes as he notices lewis happy demeanour which was not often seen only on the rare chance he was with someone. george smiles to himself.

lewis walks outside and answers.

"hi"

"oh um hi lewis its me um yn"

"you just couldnt last that long without hearing my voice again"

you blush and chuckle "um well.....no not exactly um...i"

lewis notices your shaky speech. "hey um you okay? he didn't hurt you again did he??"

you let out a sarcastic laugh. "um you know what no im actually not okay you see um this is not even my phone, i lost it, my friends ditched me here at this club, and i had a few too many beers and i feel like shit and now im calling this cute guy that gave me his number because i literally have no one else"

"shit im sry but if you need a lift i can get my driver to pick you up if u want"

"are u sure i dont want to be a burden" you ask running a hand through your hair.

"you're not a burden don't worry and now i can get an excuse to leave this horrible bar"

you groan. "oh god im so sry i totally forgot that george told me he was going out tonight"

at the mention of george you both go quiet.

"please don't mention this to george he would actually kill me if he knew"

lewis nods and looks in the window at his teamate filled with guilt. he looks away. "okay".

"can you send me your location?" lewis breaks the silence with his question. you do as he requests.

"okay ill be there in 20"

༘˚⋆𐙚｡⋆𖦹.✧˚

the cold brisk air nipped at your feet and you couldn't help but shiver in instinct. your eyes scanned the main road waiting for lewis.

momentarily a black limo pulled up and not to your surprise lewis jumped out and looked around frantically for you.

once he had spotted you he sighed in relief and made his way over to you.

"oh thank god you're okay"

you smile shyly at him but you are so utterly exhausted that you can't even utter a word.

lewis catches onto this and nods in understanding. he takes the jacket from around his shoulders and places it on your own. your cheeks redden, his familiar smell wafting into your nostrils.

lewis guides you to the car, opening the door for you, making sure that you are comfortable before going around the otherside and getting in himself.

"you're staying at the same hotel as all the other drivers right?" lewis asks looking over at you to confirm his query. you nod in response before deciding to devote your attention the scenic views of the city.

the moonlight that shone on your face enamoured lewis and he kept glancing at your hand which lay palm facing upwards. he wanted to place his own ontop of yours and intertwine your fingers. he watched as you unwinded the window so that your hair flew ascrew across your face. he wanted to trace your cheek and pull your hair away from your eyes. his eyes scanned your face and watched as your tooth latched onto your lower lip.

his chest constricted when you looked over at him giving him a weird and confused expression.

"why are you looking at me like that?"

"like what?"

"like u want me"

lewis's eyes widen and he chuckles. "you're drunk y/n".

you roll your eyes. "well done for stating the obvious handsome".

lewis narrows his eyes and looks at you. "don't call me that"

"aw i thought you liked that" you say pouting.

lewis shakes his head. "fuck y/n pls stop messing with my head. we both know that sober you would never ever do this shit"

you chuckle. "well that's the fun of it". you take your hand and begin to trace up his arm but he pulls it away.

as the car begins to slow lewis sits up straight. "looks like we are here"

you groan, a sudden rush of nausea hitting you again.

lewis hops out and heads around to your side of the car and opens your door for you.

"are you okay to walk?"

you look up at him and then back down at your feet, you can already feel the blisters forming and your legs feel like jelly.

"um yeah i'll be fine"

you go to stand up but immediately fall and lewis supports his arm around you.

"you sure about that?" lewis chuckles. "god you are so stubborn"

"here sit down so i can take these off" lewis instructs as he points to your heels.

he glares at you and you obey. lewis gets down on his knees as he begins to unbuckle your heels. your heart is racing as his fingers brush the side of your leg. sure your head was woozy and you were most likely not going to remember this in the morning but when lewis looked up at you, holding your pair of heels in his hand you wanted nothing more than to kiss the shit out of him.

lewis eyes your feet and notices a trickle of blood coming from your heel. "fuck y/n you could have told me you were in pain" he says frustrated with you.

"i'm sorry" you mumble "i just didn't think you would care that much".

lewis shakes his hand and brings his hand to his forehead. "i care abou y/n okay so please don't keep anything from me, you can trust me i promise".

his words seem so sincere and his hand on your thigh is comforting in a way.

"okay?"

"okay" your reply.

lewis looks at the hotel. "what floor are you on?"

"oh god um i think it's 24 or 25 fuck idk i'm sorry"

"it's okay i'll figure it out"

lewis wraps his arms around you and lifts you up into his arms.

"what are u doing"

"i'm carrying you because you are certaintly not walking that distance"

you want to protest but don't.

lewis carries you up multiple flights of stairs before you make it to your door.

lewis allows you to get out of his grip as he tries to open the door. he takes a credit card from his wallet and uses it to unlock the door. shockingly it worked.

lewis helps you into the room and sets you down onto the bed. he watches as you collapse onto the bed and lay there in a ball. your dress begins to ride up and he quickly looks away.

"y/n sweetheart you have got to get changed i don't want you to be uncomfortable and also your makeup"

you groan in reponse, too tired to function.

lewis sighs. "come on i'll help you". lewis helps you sit up and you rub your eyes trying to rub your eyes free of sleep.

you sit up reluntantly. "um my pyjamas are in the top drawer over there" you mumble pointing the to top dresser.

lewis opens the drawer and picks out a set and throws it at you.

"thanks"

"um can you turn around real quick"

he coughs. "oh yeah yeah i'm sorry"

you change in the nick of time and then you are greeted by an awkward silence.

"you can go now" you say stifling a yawn.

lewis's eyes widen. "um okay....are you sure though?"

you hesitate but nod firmly. "you should get back to the guys"

"i don't really want to go back to them though" he admits with a shrug.

"then go home get some rest you had a long weekend" you suggest as a compromise.

"but i don't want to leave you here alone"

"but i'm always alone"

"yeah but you don't have to be"

"lewis...."

"please just let me stay"

"well you can sleep on the couch ig"

"thank you".

"no problem okay well um goodnight lewis and thanks for everything tonight it means alot".

lewis nods. "i'm here for you y/n whether you like or not".

you smile shyly and hop into bed as you watch him walk out of the room. it wasn't long before you had drifted off into a deep sleep.

lewis tossed and turned on the couch and the constant ticking of the clock bugged him. the light that emerged from your room enticed him. he couldn't stop thinking about you. part of him knew he was being crazy. he practically begged you to stay over and you hardly even knew eachother but even so he wanted nothing more than to be close to you.

lewis gets up and hovers outside your door before making a peek into your room. he smiles seeing your stoic figure in a peaceful sleep. upon spotting an armchair at the side of the bed he sat down in it as he kept a watchful eye on you. as the night passed his eyes fluttered and it wasn't long either before he had drifted off aswell dreaming about the company he had enjoyed that day and how he was hoping for many more days like today.

taglist ⭑.ᐟ

@rafeyybabyy

@lottalove4evelyn

@sweetestgirlintown111

#f1 fanfic #f1 imagine #f1 fanfiction #f1 fic #f1 fluff #masterlist #f1 2024 #fic rec #formula 1 #f1 blurb #lewis hamilton #lewis hamilton imagine #lewis hamilton x reader #sir lewis hamilton #lewis hamilton fanfic #f1 edits

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elsa-fogen · 5 months ago

Note

So uhhh quick question what would you do if you wanted to finish something (an art cough cough) but everytime you tried to finish it, your motivation just keeps flicking in and out and made you have a hard time finishing it and almost made you wanna give up and leave it unfinished?

Sorry for the long question but i have SO many unfinished drawings that i want to post so bad but couldn't for sum reason 😭

And you're the only artist so far that i know almost post around every 3-5 days

You don't have to answer this but can you pls give me youtube art tutorials that help you?

So very sorry for disturbing you 😅

i'm not the best person to ask for advice, honestly. Maybe it'll sound too prideful, but i consider myself a really special case. I don't hate myself and my art (mostly), i don't suffer while drawing, and i've never had an "art block" in my life. I've been drawing my whole life, and if you count all days when i didn't draw anything you'll get... well, maybe 2-3 years out of my 24. I think. so, anything i say may not be helpful.

Actually almost everything you see in my blog are just colored sketches, not finished art

woops haha

Maybe that'll work for you too? try to just color your sketches and post them as they are. When i realised that my works don't have to be fully finished, my life become much easier. And i was really surprised to find out how many people can enjoy my comics even if they're just sketches. Of course, comics with cool art and colors will get more attention, but in the end, you won't get any attention if you don't post anything. so i know for a fact that i can't pull out a fully rendered comic, and all i can do - just sketches, and in this case it's better to post at least them then post absolutely nothing. There will be people who enjoy them.

and very often stuff you did for fun has more attention then those things you spend much time and effort (like how my shitty meme got 10k notes out of nowhere)

but when i need to finish something i just make myself do it. Just breaking myself over a knee. And don't start anything else before it's done.

It helps when you have a date when the art should be finished, and consequences if it's not. Yeah.

And EXCUSE YOU, I ACTUALLY POST EVERY DAY! gee, no respect on this hellish site for my hard work /very much J

And i don't watch any art tutorials aha- i watch reactions or game playthroughs, or some blogger ramble about some cartoon while drawing.

so yeah, kinda messy, as all my text posts are... but hope it'll help you. Good luck with your art!

#sudden ask lol #art advice #text post

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madfantasy · 3 months ago

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New 3 things that happened:

*I got my new ID, my id expired and to renew it I had to get photographed, and since I just opened my bank account a year ago it depends on it so already I was giving up on the idea to keep the account but by miracle a photographer agreed to picture us at home, and it turned to us cuz I wanted all my sibs to have theirs taken with me too and because I had to argue first time to get my ID forever, so i didn't have the energy to keep doing it for the rest of my sibs so now it was the chance. The day of the photographer coming I was shaking with fear and I thought I would never leave the bathroom gotten ill. I fear seeing people more than dyin so I don't know how I held it together, I literally don't remember how it went or how I did, but I recall my sibs looking the same as I felt but it was finally done. parents too taken their shoots and because one needed their passport renewed to renew their id, them alone costing 1k$ and the appointment was set 6 months ahead, we R now close to it anyway, and the thought of how we have to pay to exist some more costly made me think of my worthlessness and helplessness even more, making me ashamed of still living.

The thing that blinded me, me the first to be tested on lo

*my eye is better, I still see a dark spot looking in a certain direction, getting an eye mask surprisingly helped keeping my eyes less dry cuz they be the most when I wake up and I had the driest time before it got infected and swelled, and already I'm used to the spot and can ignore it..

*I'm still drawing, literally it's making me live love and laugh, I don't care about improving or drawing my best constantly, ai can get poisoned for all I care as it continues to dehumanise the whole point of art-- keeping humanity alive ( btw use glazing ❤️🖤)

I realised that I don't have any physical collection of my art & since I can't look at the screens forever just to browse, nd printing all my stuff isn't feasible, then I came across those mini albums Nd I got the idea to just print one sheet = 9 pics! They look good too for trashy quality, I love it 8' and yes, purple and silver is the 10% obsession to my 90% red and black pallets, thanks to remembering Freeza c'x

But as usual posting my drawings never cease to eat me alive with anxiety, but I think I'm slowly becoming indifferent to it, even if the thought of that no one actually sees my art but me, which is the main case cuz I am living in isolation and being drawing in secret till few recent years because of my conservative surroundings, I feel much calmer when I'm not seen and maybe it's self destructive in a way cuz to stay posting I need to be commissioned cuz net bill, but it became irrelevant cuz I accepted that i can't have the mental capacity to be a social media person or chase anything that I already knew I can't maintain, I had an art block for a year I almost believed that was it for my art drive and me cuz it my sanity— cuz burning out so bad. If my post has a description it was in my drafts for months cuz I plan for every piece I share, but if can't form words I allow myself to let it be captionless, I draw faster than I form words and that's why art is important to me on a personal level, it's my first way of express even if its indirect, the only bit of human Mani left to live in me to put through lines and paint splodges. Even if no one sees it, and to be honest with myself, have very weak chances of being seen on a level that benefits me financially, I'm on the other side of the world, never seen the sky beyond my schooling days, nonverbal irl and know that I can get taken advantage of easily in social manner because it either I don't get the social cues or can't say no..

I'm grateful that at least I got the chance to experience being in a loving nurturing fandom like Sev's that made me experience genuine human goodness and care I never thought possible, made me have some self worth, personality beyond a made for marriage caretaker, and allowed me to get art tools and clothing that I was never allowed or could afford, and many first time small life pleasures like perfumes, food and toys, even if I only recognise 5 or 10 of you dears now, by DP liking my posts- (I suck at remembering names sorry)

I'm also grateful to have a room after endless years of couch and house movings, I have a safe space to still be able to draw and be cool under an AC in this 50° weather..

I think realistically that's the best it can get having spent all my life trying to get anywhere but isolated, and nothing working. At least I'm indifferent and fine of being the caretaker of my disabled guardians and siblings, I need them as much as they need me, even if it caused me the same cycle of mental anguish and earth leavings hehe

Wish U all the ease and peace and yummy peas 🫶🏽

4 am, sleep deprived

#personal #drawing journey

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sflow-er · 7 months ago

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I heard people are mad because they feel like August should be apologizing to Simon also, and I think that’s like, a no-brainer because of course he will – – he’s changed now. He’s not the same person who did that thing so – – we saw him suffer and now he apologized to Wille whom he knows and then – – I’m sure when [August and Simon] meet, he’s going to talk to [Simon] about it too. Linnéa Roxeheim, director of S3 eps 5& 6, PRP interview 59:00-59:22 (– – used for legibility, the redacted phrase is 'you know')

So...this kind of seems to confirm something I've been thinking since I watched the season: the lack of apology from August to Simon feels less like an intentional, character-defining writing choice and more like a mishap overlooking or even retconning the August-Simon conflict.

Some thoughts under the cut.

That conflict was one of the central building blocks and driving forces back in S1. Simon wouldn't have ended up selling drugs if it wasn't for August looking to buy, Wille wouldn't have found out about August's finances and been able to use them against him, and Alexander would not have been framed to save Simon. And for that matter, August's eagerness to pin the blame on Simon was likely fuelled by the fact that he wasn't just a sosse sleeping with Wille, but also a constant thorn in August's side. Someone who had even physically roughed August up at one point.

Still, I do believe August's decision to post the video mainly concerned Wille. I've written about that too many times to rehash it again; let's just take his dismissive reaction when Sara says Simon is distraught in S1E6 at face value. And that made perfect sense for his character, considering his only moral code at the time was (elite) loyalty.

However. From S2 on, the history between August and Simon has been sidelined, and the focus has been on the conflict between August and Wille.

We didn't see Simon suffer any more daily consequences from the video in S2. He could already sing karaoke in Bjärstad without people giving him dirty looks, and both the rumour mill at Hillerska and the hate comments online had stopped. Not being allowed to sing his song at the Jubilee was a concrete consequence, but even that felt more like an obstacle for Wilmon and an opportunity for Wille to stand up for them. Simon and August barely even interacted over the season - but at least Simon did refer to Sara knowing everything August had done to him in the gun range scene, so that was something.

I had hoped for the August-Simon conflict to be picked up again in S3. Even if the writers wanted to focus on other relationships and tensions, to me, it felt too essential to pass up. It would have been a clear sign of August learning the accountability and empathy that he needed to grow, and it would have also provided some much-needed closure for Simon (and tied the series together as a whole). I guess the writers felt differently.

Even though the focus on Simon getting hate on social media again could have provided an easy tie-in, the vile hate messages focused on his and Wille's relationship, as well as him being a POC. Apart from Linda's comment in the settlement negotiation, I don't think the video was even mentioned once in all the hate comments we saw. There was no indication of the media or the public having dragged it back up either (or asked who filmed and leaked it, but that's another matter entirely). Nor were there any references to Simon having already received some hate after the leak - on the contrary, it seemed like he was completely blindsided by all the vitriol. I do realise that the scale was much bigger this time around, but still.

Circling back to the August-Simon conflict, there's also another aspect that is easily overlooked. Namely, that Simon himself actually seemed pretty content to just put all his dealings with August to rest after the settlement was finalised. The only time the two of them even interacted after that was all about Sara. It could have also been an opportunity to show Simon's own feelings, but that didn't materialise.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Simon could still use that apology, but I never got the impression that he needed it the way we fans needed to see it. Based on S3, you might even think their only source of conflict was Simon coincidentally being on the video, and when that was settled, Simon was okay just moving on with his life.

Which brings me back to the ending.

I always figured that August was portrayed as genuinely remorseful towards the end. Yes, I would have liked to see more of his growth and development (even just showing his reaction to the sale of Årnäs instead of having Simon say that Wille said it was a fitting punishment would've worked wonders)... But the authorial intent seemed to be that he had already taken enough steps. His and Wille's reconciliation was as sincere as anything could get, with Wille not forgiving him as such but agreeing to move on, start healing, and even wish each other well. Wille was sincere when he congratulated August upon graduation and tapped him as the next king, thinking he was well suited for the job (it's the narrative that frames it as a sort of punishment, not Wille).

Crucially, Simon doesn't seem bothered by this. If both Wille and August had truly just ignored the harm caused to Simon and reconciled amongst themselves, with Wille essentially giving August the position that everyone but August still thought was all August ever wanted...while Simon was still hurting and needing the closure of an apology...well. That would actually make Wille look like kind of a terrible partner even right at the end, which clearly wasn't the intention.

We can't be sure if Wille told Simon about the reconciliation when they talked at the lake, but Simon will still know that Wille stepping down means August stepping up, and he is happy about it. Wilmon are off to start a new chapter in their lives, and we don't get the feeling that the lack of an apology to Simon is left as an unresolved issue between them (or between them and August).

So...yeah. I guess I'm just trying to point out that this seems to be another example of a previously important plot line being dropped from S3, and to a lesser degree, also another example of execution vs. authorial intent.

#young royals #young royals season 3 #young royals analysis #linnea roxeheim

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singsweetmelodies · 1 year ago

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Hello Katie 👋🏼👋🏼 :D

For the 50 romance prompts ask meme, I'll like to request for 44: soulmate AU: timers <3

but if possible... with a twist...? (you don't have to include a twist if it's too difficult to work it in!)

The twist being, for whatever reason, their countdown timers for each of them to the time they meet their soulmates doesn't match, so they think "we're not each other's soulmates. that's cool. (no it's not)" but it turns out that they're each other soulmates anyways. or they choose to be with each other in spite of not being each other's soulmates. idk. *nervous laughter*

hiiii charlotte 🥰 first off, i am SO sorry for the incredible delay with this answer!! i saw this prompt and i absolutely LOVED IT (and the twist!! 🙏 *chef's kiss*) but unfortunately i got struck with a horrible case of writer's block/work deadlines, and just couldn't get to it at all.

until yesterday: i decided to just open my inbox and see what came to me. no thinking, just following the vibe of a prompt and writing. and uh. this happened... not only did it get ridiculously long (oops?) but it also somehow became a mini "investigate montreal" fic?? so in that vein, i'm tagging @1016week and submitting a belated entry for Day 6 "Montreal"... ❤️

i love this one. hope you love it too!! 👀⌚

Charles' soulmate timer stops when he is seven years old, and he meets the boy with the bluest eyes he's ever seen.

He's been vibrating with excitement all weekend - not just because it's a karting cup, but because his soulmate timer has been ticking down to this day for months now. Well, not just months, not really. It's actually been his whole life, but Charles doesn't remember all of that. He only remembers the past few months, when the little numbers had been getting smaller and smaller, until there were only ten days left and Charles gasped when he realised that the day would fall on the same day as the Bridgestone Cup.

"Of course the girl I marry is going to like racing, too," he'd told Maman and Papa, confidingly. Not a lot about soulmates made much sense to him, but this did.

His Maman had tried to smile, and Charles had hugged her tight to let her know it was going to be okay. He would find his soulmate, and then everyone would be smiling, because that's what people do when you meet your soulmate.

(Later that night, when Charles had been too excited to sleep and he'd gone to the bathroom quickly, Charles had heard his parents having an argument in their room. The door was closed, so their voices were muffled, but Charles could still make out his Maman saying "I just don't think it's a good sign, to meet your soulmate so young!" But Papa had countered, "Many people do, and they have beautiful stories. You have to trust that our Charles will meet his perfect match tomorrow." And then there had been an icky noise, like kissing, and Charles had flushed the loo quickly and ran back to his room.)

Now, with the beautiful blue eyed boy standing in front of him, Charles thinks of Papa's words again. Our Charles will meet his perfect match tomorrow.

Charles thought it would be a girl who really liked karting, but this is even better. This is a boy who wins at karting, because he's holding a trophy in both hands and grinning like he couldn't be happier.

Of course Charles' perfect match would be someone who wins at karting. It's only right, because Charles also wins at karting.

Charles clears his throat. "Hi," he says shyly, and the blue-eyed boy jumps.

"Oh! Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see you there," he says apologetically, and then he laughs. He has a nice laugh, Charles thinks - like he knows how to have fun. "You are a bit short," the blue-eyed boy adds, and hey.

"Hey," Charles protests. "I'm tall for my age. I'm seven."

"Well, I'm nine," the blue-eyed boy says, like that's the most impressive age in the world.

It is a bit impressive, but not very, because Lorenzo is much older than that. Still, it is a little scary - Charles is only seven. What if this blue-eyed boy doesn't like him because he's only seven? Older kids can be mean like that.

No, he is your perfect match, Charles reminds himself. This blue-eyed boy won't be mean to him, because that's not how perfect matches work.

Charles takes a deep breath, then he sticks out his hand. "I'm Charles," he says.

The blue-eyed boy takes his hand, and it feels... weird. A little bit like when you get shocked by static electricity.

Charles giggles, unable to stop himself, and the blue-eyed boy smiles, as though he likes that.

"Hello, Charles. I'm Pierre," he says, squeezing Charles' hand. His eyes widen a moment later. "Oh! You've met your soulmate?!"

Charles doesn't understand what he means. "Well, yeah," he says. "It's y-"

And then he notices it.

Pierre's soulmate timer, right there on his wrist, right above where Charles is gripping his hand - it's still ticking.

Now, Charles doesn't know a lot about soulmates yet, but he knows that that's not good. Not good at all.

"I, um," Charles stammers, and then he does the one thing Maman and Papa said you should never do to your soulmate. Charles lies.

"I met so many new people today. I don't remember who it was."

Pierre's face falls. "Oh," he says, and he sounds unbearably sad for Charles. "But..." He chews his lip, shaking his head with a deep frown.

Then, mid-shake, Pierre's expression changes to one of determination. "I will help you find them," he says, with the kind of confidence Charles can only dream of when he's not on the racetrack.

He tugs on Charles' hand - which he still hasn't let go of - and Charles is helpless to do anything but follow.

They don't find Charles' soulmate anywhere, of course, and then Charles has to go win his race - but Pierre makes him promise that they will find each other at the next French karting event, and Charles will tell him all about his soulmate.

Charles promises, even though the idea makes his stomach feel all funny. I shouldn't be lying to my soulmate, he thinks, guiltily.

But Pierre's soulmate timer didn't stop ticking, and... that's not how soulmates are supposed to work.

The moment he's in the car with his father after the race, heading back home, Charles asks him about it.

Papa is quiet for a long moment, then: "Are you sure there wasn't someone behind Pierre, Charles?" he asks, in his careful, kind way. "Someone who's timer stopped at the same time as yours?"

Charles thinks about it for a moment, but even the idea of that feels - wrong, somehow. Like going into a corner and knowing you braked too hard, and you're going to flip the kart.

He shakes his head decisively. "No," he says. "It's Pierre."

He hears rather than sees his father blow out a soft sigh. Charles catches his eye in the rearview mirror, feeling confused and a little shaky inside.

When Papa sighs like that, it's never good news - it's usually something about sponsorship, which is a word Charles is already coming to dread.

It doesn't make sense how this could be about sponsorship, though. It probably isn't.

Charles waits for his father to gather his thoughts, like he needs to do sometimes to make sure he says exactly what he means. (It's something Maman keeps telling him he should try doing as well, but he's not so good at that yet.)

"You know how even the greatest racing drivers make mistakes sometimes?" Papa asks.

Charles frowns, but he nods. "Yes?"

"Sometimes the universe is like that, too. Sometimes the universe makes a mistake, and stops the timers too soon," Papa explains.

Charles frowns. He hasn't heard about that before, but he guesses it makes sense. It's true what Papa said - not even Senna was a perfect driver who never made mistakes. It makes sense that the universe is the same.

"But this doesn't mean you don't have a soulmate, okay, Charles?" Papa says before Charles can spend too much time thinking about the whole thing. His voice is firmer than Charles was expecting, and he reaches up to tilt the rearview mirror to see Charles better.

"It doesn't mean you don't have a soulmate," he repeats, like he doesn't want Charles to ever doubt that. "It just means it's going to be a little harder to find them."

Charles frowns, and he can't help but be a little annoyed. Isn't the whole point of soulmate timers to make it easier to find your perfect match?

It's just his luck that his soulmate timer doesn't work properly.

"I understand," Charles says, though, because he can tell it's important to his father.

Papa nods, but he keeps watching Charles in the rearview mirror for the rest of the drive, like he sometimes does after a race where Charles crashed the kart badly and he needs to keep making sure that Charles is fine.

Of course Charles is fine. He doesn't think this is comparable to a bad race at all! It's a little annoying, yes, but it's not that bad. It's just a bit of extra work, isn't it?

Charles shrugs his shoulders, glancing quickly down at the stopped soulmate timer at his wrist.

Whatever. Racing is more important than soulmates, anyway.

Almost twenty years later, Charles still says that to himself almost every day, even if he doesn't believe it with nearly the same careless seven-year-old confidence anymore: racing is more important than soulmates.

It is, because it has to be.

The thing is this: his father's explanation to Charles' seven-year-old self had been true - if a little oversimplified, and painted with an overt layer of kindness.

The truth Charles knows now is that there are two reasons, two categories, for people whose timers stop when the other person's keeps running.

One is, like Papa had said all those years ago, a simple case of mistaken timing - cases where the universe or fate or whatever controls it all stopped one person's timer a little too soon, or the other's a little too late.

It's harder to find each other in those cases, but it's still quite possible.

And then there's the second category. The unrequiteds. People whose timers stopped at the right time - when they met the person who would be their perfect match - except that they are not that person's perfect match in return. It only goes one way.

It's rare, but it happens sometimes. No system is perfect, after all - not even a system of soulmates.

For years and years, Charles tried to convince himself that he fell into the first category. His soulmate timer simply stopped too early, by some cosmic accident - but it's okay, Charles insists to everyone who asks and to himself as well, because what it's done is given Charles more time to focus on his racing instead. He's not constantly glancing down at his wrist and wondering when his timer is going to stop ticking - he can just get on with the racing.

He'll find his soulmate eventually, but on his own terms. There's nothing bad about that, surely.

Charles believes that. Really he does.

Except.

Except, if it's true and Charles falls into the first category - the mistaken timing category - then it would mean Pierre isn't his soulmate.

Pierre, who kept the promise he'd made to a seven-year-old who wasn't even his soulmate (because, yes, he had found Charles at the very next French karting cup, and he'd asked to meet Charles' soulmate - and when Charles had to admit that he still hadn't found them, Pierre had hugged him and told him not to give up and that he would find his soulmate someday. Pierre had held Charles' hand and explained that his parents almost didn't find each other, but they did. So it might take Charles some time, but that was okay, because it had taken Pierre's parents some time too, but now they were happier than ever. He'd been so convincing, firm but kind and absolutely sure of himself, and he'd made Charles believe it. He also made Charles smile, genuinely and truly, when he promised he'd stick by Charles' side no matter what anyone else said or whispered about his stopped soulmate timer.)

Pierre, who kept that promise about sticking with Charles, too. Pierre who never stopped being kind, and loyal, and the best friend Charles could ask for, whether he was seven or thirteen or nineteen or twenty-six.

Honestly, how was Charles supposed to not fall hopelessly in love with him?

He tried to deny it. For years and years, Charles tried to deny it - I will find my soulmate someday and it will all make sense, he'd tried to convince himself - but the thing was, what made more sense than Pierre being his soulmate?

It was roundabout the time of Pierre's first win (when Charles was standing under the podium in Monza with an aching back but a heart soaring with joy for his best friend despite the disaster of his own race) that Charles resigned himself to the truth: Pierre is his soulmate.

He has to be. Isn't a soulmate meant to be your perfect match; the person who understands you better than anyone and makes you happier than any other person in the world?

There's nobody else who could make Charles as happy as Pierre does. Nobody, nobody. There's no point in even trying to deny it anymore.

Pierre is his soulmate. But he is not Pierre's.

And that's okay. It's okay.

It has to be.

It isn't okay, not really, but that's true of a lot of things in Charles' life, and he's learned how to deal with them. He can deal with this, too.

On the whole, Charles thinks he does a pretty good job of dealing with it. He gets to be Pierre's best friend, after all - isn't that just a different kind of soulmate? True, Charles might want more, but it isn't like he has nothing. He has Pierre, and he will have Pierre for the rest of their lives.

Not in the way he wants, but - at least he will have Pierre.

The one thing he tries never to think about is Pierre's actual soulmate. Because Pierre has one, he knows, and he will meet them at some point.

Charles doesn't know how the hell he's supposed to look at some soulmate of Pierre's, and smile at her, and not be hopelessly, heartbreakingly jealous.

(He will do it, though. He will learn to smile at Pierre's soulmate - for Pierre's sake. He'll do it for Pierre.)

But that's a bridge he will cross when they get there. He doesn't have to worry about it yet (or at least, that's what Charles keeps telling himself even as the months tick by, and he knows there aren't year figures left on Pierre's soulmate timer anymore. Just months now, and then... weeks.)

Charles isn't thinking about it. He's put it out of his mind completely - which is easy enough to do, thankfully, given everything that's been happening on-track this season.

That's probably why he accepts Pierre's invitation to dinner in Montreal without thinking twice about it. (Even if he had realised, though, Charles doesn't think he would have been able to say no, either. He would give Pierre everything, if he only asked.)

So they go to dinner in Montreal, and it's perfect, and wonderful, and laughter-filled, and all in all exactly what Charles needed to distract himself from the fact that he has yet another engine penalty, and the sinking feeling that the championship is beginning to slip out of his reach.

Pierre seems to realise it, because he's in even finer form than usual - teasing Charles and tickling his ribs playfully and making him laugh at every possible opportunity.

Even on the drive back to the hotel: they stop at a red light, and Pierre steals Charles' cap, and Charles is giggling and filming it while Pierre is giggling back, and he's pretty sure neither of them are thinking about it at all, until-

Until Pierre's face changes from laughter to something almost ashen. "Charles," he says, and for all the years Charles has known him, he's never once heard Pierre's voice like that. "My soulmate timer just stopped."

For a few seconds, the words don't even register in Charles' mind.

Then they do, and Charles can feel his heart drop. "What?" he breathes.

His hands shake, and he doesn't even register the fact that the light has gone green as he glances all around them, craning his neck to see if there's anyone behind the white Ferrari, or around to the side.

Just a few minutes ago, their car had been surrounded by fans on all sides, all jostling to try and get pictures of them. But now, somehow, they're all alone in the Montreal night.

(The irony of it all is not lost on him - is this how Pierre felt all those years ago, when he was trying to look for Charles' soulmate at a karting cup, but not finding anybody it could be?)

"Are you sure it stopped just now? And not earlier?" Charles asks, willing his voice not to shake.

"Yeah," Pierre whispers. He sounds... devastated.

"But," Charles says, and then he has to take a deep breath. "But there's no-one else here, Pierrot."

"I know," Pierre says, somehow even softer.

Charles' fingers clench reflexively around the steering wheel, and he's moving in blank autopilot as he puts the car into gear and starts driving forward again.

He doesn't even realise he's shaking his head until Pierre says softly, "Charles." There's something wounded about it.

Charles stops shaking his head and slams on the brakes instead, jerking the car into something he hopes is a parking space at the side of the road.

"I don't understand," he says, far more calmly than he feels. "You can't - I can't be your soulmate."

Okay, maybe he's not so calm after all. But he doesn't think... he doesn't think anyone would be calm, in this situation.

Pierre makes a sound that could almost be a laugh, except that it sounds too strangled. "Do you know," he says, "that I have spent half my life wondering if the soulmate system got something wrong in my case? Because if you're not my soulmate, then who is? Who could possibly..."

Pierre does laugh this time, shaking his head. "You know, I asked to go out with you tonight for a reason. I knew - I knew it would happen tonight, so I needed to..." He swallows. "I needed to see you, one last time. Before I wouldn't be allowed to love you anymore."

It jolts through Charles then, what Pierre is trying to say. "Pierre," he breathes, and now it's his turn to say his best friend's name in a way he doesn't think he's ever said it before.

But Pierre's not finished yet. "I thought I could have one last night with you," he says. "One last night, before I had to say goodbye to my feelings, and try to love someone else."

My feelings. Try to love someone else.

Charles Leclerc is a lot of things, but an idiot is not one of them. He knows what Pierre is saying. He's...

Pierre loves him too. All along, Pierre has loved him too.

Only, he never had the option of thinking we're soulmates, Charles realised, and his heart twists in his chest.

Because Charles, for all that he accepted his soulbond toward Pierre was unrequited - at least he'd had the option of them being soulmates. Yes, it was in a twisted way, but at least he'd had that.

Pierre didn't. And he still fell in love with Charles.

The thought hits him like a shell-shock, and it's enough that Charles can only sit there for a moment, staring blankly, as Pierre continues talking beside him.

"I meant for tonight to just be a quick dinner together, something fun but normal for us," Pierre is saying, wringing his hands. "But I lost track of time. I always lose time when I'm talking to you, Charlito, I could talk to you forever - but the point is, I forgot to tell you I need to go back. I forgot that I was meant to meet my fucking soulmate tonight, because I was spending time with you, and - "

He takes a deep breath, and then he laughs again, leaning forward to drop his head into his hands. "I felt it happen, you know? I knew exactly when my soulmate timer stopped, because I could feel it, and it's - it was when I put that fucking cap on my head, Charles."

The cap that he's still wearing. Charles' 16 Ferrari cap.

Charles' hands shake as he reaches out to touch it, just the brim. "Your soulmate timer stopped when you put my cap on," he says, because a part of him still can't believe that this is real, that he's not living in some kind of heartbreakingly wonderful dream.

Pierre straightens up so fast that Charles is left with his fingers dangling awkwardly in mid-air. "Yes," he says, suddenly looking wild, "but this doesn't have to change anything, Charlito, I promise. I will still help you find your soulmate, and I will - I'll learn how to live with an unrequited bond, it's -"

"No!" Charles interrupts, half-throwing himself across the car to catch hold of Pierre's hands. "No, no, no, no. No more unrequited bonds, Pierrot."

Pierre starts to shake his head, but then he stops in the middle of the movement. "What do you mean," he asks, very carefully, "no more?"

And suddenly, Charles feels giddy, of all things. "I mean, your timer didn't stop when mine did. So for years, I have thought that we can't be soulmates, or at least that you couldn't be my soulmate. But now your timer stopped when you put on my cap, so -"

"Stop, stop, stop," Pierre says, squeezing Charles' hands tightly. "What do you mean, my timer didn't stop when yours did?"

"Oh," Charles says, and then he winces, the weight of the only real lie he's ever told his best friend (the only real lie he's ever told his soulmate) settling onto his shoulders with uncomfortable heaviness. "Um. Well. Do you remember when we met, and you thought I already met my soulmate?"

"No," Pierre breathes, but it's not the kind of no that says "no I don't remember." This no is more like "no way."

"Yeah," Charles says, and he can't help but look down at his own wrist, where the soulmate timer has been stopped for years and years. "My timer stopped the moment I met you, Pierrot."

"You..."

Pierre doesn't look like he knows how to finish that sentence, but Charles understands him anyway. "How was I supposed to tell you? I was seven, Pierre, and your timer didn't stop. I thought it was a mistake for years."

"But?" Pierre asks, like he can tell there was a but.

Charles beams at him. "But, I realised that there was nobody else who could be my perfect match. So I thought you were my soulmate after all, but it was unrequited."

"Never," Pierre says with a fierceness Charles doesn't expect. "Charles, never. If I knew... if I thought I had even half a chance, I would have been with you anyway."

Charles tries to laugh, but it comes out all breathless. "No you wouldn't."

"Yes, I would," Pierre argues, and his voice is heartbreakingly sincere. "I don't care. I would have chosen you."

Charles hears a punched-out noise, and it takes him a moment to realise it came from him. The next moment, he's unbuckling his seatbelt and climbing awkwardly over to sit on Pierre's lap.

It's not quite comfortable, because for all its luxury, the white Ferrari does not have a lot of leg space - but Charles doesn't think either of them give a single fuck, in this moment.

"I love you," he tells Pierre, reaching up to cup his cheek. "I've always loved you, but I never would have stood between you and your soulmate."

"Funny," Pierre says, his hands coming up to grip Charles' hips, "because that's exactly what stopped me from kissing you senseless."

"Well," Charles says, and if he grinds down just a little on Pierre's lap, he'll swear to everyone who asks that it was accidental. "It doesn't have to stop us anymore."

"Never again," Pierre agrees, tightening his grip on Charles' hips. "Never."

"So kiss me senseless, please," Charles whispers, and then he adds "soulmate," and that's what does it. Pierre surges up and kisses him, wild and desperate and more than a little clumsy, but without question the best kiss Charles has ever had. His own cap digs into his forehead a little, but Charles can't even bring himself to care about that - they owe too much to this cap now, honestly.

Maybe the universe does know what it's doing after all, Charles thinks. Maybe the universe just wanted to write a good story for them. A story that goes like this:

Charles' soulmate timer stopped when he was seven years old, and he met the boy with the bluest eyes he'd ever seen.

Almost twenty years later, Pierre's soulmate timer stopped in a white Ferrari in Montreal, and Charles finally got to kiss the boy with the bluest eyes he's ever seen, the man who is his best friend and his soulmate.

The odds of it working out this way have to be... a million to one, probably, or maybe even less.

But then again, what are the odds that two boys who met at a French karting cup and became friends with a shared dream would both make it to Formula 1?

Maybe the answer is just that Pierre and Charles have always liked beating the odds.

(50 Romance Prompts Ask Meme) <- not currently taking more prompts, sorry!

#50 romance prompts meme #piarles #piarles fic #myfic #soulmate timers au #*me writing this to try and banish my writers block* so it's just going to be a short little drabble!#you can tell i am a scuderia ferrari fan and delusional because LOOK what happened lmfao #i don't think you could call this ''short'' in any sense of the word #in fact it probably belongs on AO3 #OOPS #but i love it #i love it SO MUCH #we are so back babyyyyy #(like any good ferrari fan i fully expect to be saying ''it's so over!'' a week from now)#(but let's enjoy it while it lasts!!)#(SOULMATE PIARLES BABYYYYY)#(posted at exactly 16:26 my time too! this makes me smile <333)

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emdeerm · 1 year ago

Text

Prompt!

Danny, you were loved and are missed.

(Phantom Planet happened. The results... are not the same)

It happened.

The world found out about Danny Phantom and the news went over even worse than expected.

The general population didn't take kindly to the existence that are Ectoentities. It scared them. There were some who were grateful for being alive and even loved the Ghosts but there were far too few of them.

Most of them were people under 25.

They lacked any power that could help the Ghosts in what was to come.

The Acts have been made public. The Anti-Ecto blasters and other weaponry has appeared on public marketplaces and the Anti-ghost propaganda was blasting on every news outlet possible around the world. Thos countries that valued their dead, were staying out of it but didn't help either.

At least they provided silent shelter to those seeking it. Dani went there, barely escaping with her half-life intact.

Vlad, from what Danny was able to gather, didn't have a good time in space either.

Danny...

Danny is dying.

The GiW got competent. He got clumsy. He was so, so, so tired from saving others from their clutches that he wasn't able to dodge the few shots.

His parents and friends were detained and trialed. They were found guilty and were to be kept is a far away prison for many years yet to come. Despite their best attempts to escape, to help, they were cought again, sedated and shipped away within days.

Danny was forced to watch all of that. His powers shortcuted and blocked, mouth gagged and eye forced open. It broke him and his core began to weaken.

The scientists were even more relentless with a body of a boy who lost his will to struggle.

And now, he was dying. He new that. They broke his Core by accident and here he was. Fading.

The scientists weren't there to see it. Something was happening outside of the room. He couldn't hear and see. He didn't care honestly.

They came. Slammed themselves through the door with a green bang of a natural ectoblast.

Danny smiled at them weakly. They were too late but he was so-so happy to see his friends, parents and rogues again. At least he didn't Fade alone.

He felt his body being cradled by countless hands as his world Ended.

---

Clockwork looked at the heartbreaking scene if front of him and grabbed his staff tighter.

This wasn't supposed to happen. The timeline was supposed to be Bright. It was filled with new dangers and adventures for the young Halfa but it was Exciting and Fun! He checked the timelines he could see over and over after the reveal went so horribly wrong.

He still couldn't find the timeline they were in.

Danny, as he came to realise, was an anomaly that lives on the edge of existing and a hidden timeline. The one that Clockwork had no access to.

Danny was an Ancient in the making. A baby ghost that was to grow into someone great and mighty. That truth hit him hard. That meant that there would be always a timeline that was hidden from the Master of Time. It was an Ancient's trial.

And it appeared that his beloved pupil was forced into his before he was ready by the stupid, ectoranium rock.

The Ghosts weren't able to come on time. The countless shields, weapons and obstacles were constantly in their way for 14 long months. It was only by luck did they finally find a trace of their young Hero.

And they were late.

...

"I will not tolerate this." He announced as the last specks of light left the eyes of the Great One of the Infinite Realms. The energy began warping the reality around them.

Everyone present felt the anger of the Ancient of Time who decided to go against any and all restrictions placed on him. It would cost him greatly.

"The timeline is a glitch. It shall be corrected."

The reality was altered.

The Ghosts woke up in their lairs, disoriented and sick. The Fentons woke up with a headache.

The latter just shrugged it off. He former remembered everything.

----

Everyone woke up a few months before the portal incident. Danny wasn't a Halfa yet. And the Ghosts understood that. They had to wait. Just a little bit longer.

But they missed their half-dead menace.

With the Help of Nocturne, the Rogues would visit his dreams and play with him. Sing him songs. Show him how to fight. Give him new knowledge on the culture of the Ghost zone.

Unfortunately, they forgot that This Danny was still very-very much not aware of them. Needless to say, his friends were treated to new stories from his dreams. They found them fascinating with how vivid they were. And Fun.

The Ghosts were there, on the other side of the portal, when Phantom was born.

The Infinite Realms cheered loudly.

#danny phantom #writing prompt #poor danny #seriously #those months in the hads of GiW and others were horrible #also #I made a mistake #I started writing prompts and putting out my ideas into the wild #now my brain won't stop #hlep #danny phantom prompt 1

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xb0rder-7inex · 8 months ago

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I was moved to a women's shelter and let me tell how how much more fucking comfortable it is here.

For starters at the last shelter I met some people who already know who he is and already didn't like him before they saw me and that was unsettling for a few reasons but I won't go into details. I'm having a lot of anxiety tremors and there's nobody here to hold me and I'm trying to keep my head on straight and remember what I'm fighting for.

Every support worker here is a woman my age or only slightly older which makes them really easy to talk to. There are still a few "moms," but only a few. It definitely feels more like a camp than a shelter. I ate 3 healthy meals today. I took a 30 minute hot shower in a clean bathroom. I got to put on fresh clean pajamas that fit me. My bed is actually fucking warm. I'm allowed to use my own blanket. I can smoke weed in the parking lot. I'm not sleeping on a cot beside strangers and I have my own full sized locker. A little space to myself. These are all a relief because I will be here for quite a while. I'm glad they talked me into coming here.

I also talked to the courts today and they care about what I have to say about him and that's so fucking important to me. I talked with her on the phone for 20 minutes and she gave me a lot of positive feedback about options and reuniting families after safety plans have been put in place and I'm so fucking hopeful. I meet with her next week.

Guess the best place about rock bottom is that there's nowhere to go but up.

I have literally nobody left. My dad is helpful but my mom and I have nothing to talk about and I can't stay with either of them, especially if I want to get my life together in the way that I want to. My therapist and these support workers and some of the women staying here are the only people who get why I want to go back. It's so hard to talk about and if you think the stigma around bpd is bad I hope you never have to see the stigma around being a victim of dv who isn't ready to get out. Did you know victims will go back on average SEVEN times before they leave? I guess this is number two for me, but I had somewhere to go before and I genuinely believed he didn't want me anymore.

Still... This is 2 of ~7. That's just the statistics.

That's a long time for women to not have any of the support that they need. Everything is "let's keep you out" but I have had to FIND the people who say "let's keep you safe."

As hard as this is to do literally fucking alone, I am so proud of myself for being strong through this. So many times I wanted to die. So many times I wish he had killed me. And I'm proving to myself exactly who I fucking am, both who I am to myself and who I am to him. And I refuse to betray that. I made certain commitments when I went back and I'm sticking to those commitments.

I have been emailing him several times a day but he obviously isn't allowed to talk to me so he doesn't respond. I don't know if he even opens them. I'm not blocked on snapchat and that's a good indication for me that he isn't done being in my life, although my biggest fear right now is that he doesn't care even though I know that's not who he actually is. He isn't a monster, he's just spent his entire fucking life being told that he is. I don't expect anyone to understand or be supportive but I always knew this day would come. I always fucking knew what my place in his life would mean.

I really do hope he fucking learns from this. I really fucking hope he sees that I'm fighting FOR him and realises that and doesn't take it for granted because I have never been so fucking low in my life.

I have never had this level of unconditional love for anybody, ever. And if he ever tries to tell me again that I don't fucking love him then I stg he better just kill me next time.

#actually borderline #bpd #being borderline #borderline problems #borderline things #bpd stuff #bpd problems #bpd fp #bpd vent #bpd relatable #tw : dv

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organised-disaster · 5 months ago

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Sorry for the delay, but it's finished!!

I'm just going to tag @baxieblur-turnip and @randosfandos because they're the only interaction I get lol

SNOWBIRD: CHAPTER III

"You'll be fine, Rumes. Your name's only in once this year," says Yumi. She wraps a hairband around my braid, keeping it in place.

I rub my nose.

"Yeah, but you're in a bunch of times," I say. Yumi sighs.

"That's okay. It's my last year, remember? And so many other people have the same odds as me. We'll both be safe."

Yumi awkwardly stumbles out from behind me. I remain seated on the floor, staring at a scuff mark on Yumi's floorboards. Yumi crouches down slightly. She squeezes my shoulders.

"It's going to be okay, Rumi." I nod. Yumi gently tugs me to my feet. "Come on, then, Junco. We'll be in trouble if we're late."

Yumi had all sorts of cute little nicknames for me. Sometimes, I wished she'd just say my name, although it usually wasn't positive if she did. It was mainly "Rumes." I don't let anyone call me any of Yumi's nicknames anymore.

She called me "Junco" a lot, too. It was my favourite bird. Yumi said she started calling me that because her earliest memory of me is me pointing at one during winter. Yumi loved to tell me that story, too.

I was sick. Nothing that would hurt me now, but I wasn't a strong child, and such a mild illness hit me hard. I never really knew what I had. It never occurred to me to ask.

Yumi said that she came to check on me, alongside my mother. I was apparently standing up in my cot and watching the window.

I pointed at it and said, "Bird." I was talking about a fat little dark-eyed junco I had spotted. Yumi used to say how she was convinced it had cured me. She said she figured out that it was medicine and care, but she was young.

She found out what it was called and started using it as if it was my name instead of the bird's. She called me that less as I got older, but she almost never called me by my real name when I was younger.

I hug my knees closer to my chest.

"Junco, you should dig a -" A wave crashes over my cubic sandcastle, obliterating it and reducing it to naught but a pile of dampened grains of sand.

I frown.

"A moat. You should dig a moat. That way, the waves can't hit it that hard," Yumi finishes. I start to rebuild the sandcastle. Yumi walks over, her footprints shifting the waterlogged sand around them.

"You can't just rebuild it and expect it to be okay, you know," Yumi states. I halt my construction, watching as the waves once again take it from me.

"Why not?" I ask, resuming.

"You can't control the ocean, Junco. It'll break your blocks down over and over again, no matter how high you build it up," she tells me. I look up at her. She smiles.

"You can do so much else in situations like these," she chuckles. "You change what you can control. Like a moat! You could dig a moat. Or build a wall."

Yumi does both of these as I watch, fascinated. She uses her body to block the waves as she digs and uses the sand to build a wall.

She gets up. The waves once again crash around my sandcastle, but it remains unharmed.

"See? It can't do anything now."

I was only eight, I think, which would have made Yumi fourteen. She made it her business to ensure I learned something from all our interactions. Even if that something was simply that she loved me.

Yumi felt it was important. I didn't realise until just last year that she did it out of a fear of early death. A completely justified fear. Yumi was never paranoid, not even when she was literally surrounded by people who wanted her dead.

"Happy birthday, Junco!" Yumi says cheerfully.

"Yumes, aren't you supposed to be at the Reaping?" I ask her as I yawn. Yumi shrugs and hugs me.

"Ah, well, I have a few hours. A few hours for your birthday!" Yumi does a stupid dance that involves flicking her hands around and jumping a little. I giggle.

"I'm pretty old now," I state once I'm done screeching with laughter after Yumi unintentionally falls and lands flat on her face.

"Ten!" says Yumi excitedly. "It's your first milestone!" Yumi's cheerfulness seems slightly strange.

"Are you okay?" I ask. Yumi sighs. She smiles, albeit slightly forced.

"I'm just a bit worried, Junco," she says.

"Oh, but it's nothing major! Just silly little anxieties," she says, backtracking desperately as she sees my frown.

"Okay..." I say slowly. I don't believe her. I hope that's evident. Yumi hugs me again.

"It's fine, okay, Junco? You're fine. It's your birthday," she says. I don't know why she's hugging me so tight or why she's shaking so much.

"I think I'm a little old to be called 'Junco' now, Yumes," I say, changing the subject.

"Oh. Okay," says Yumi vaguely. "What do you want to be called?" she asks. I ponder her question for a moment.

"I like Rumes. Call me Rumes," I say. Yumi nods and smiles again.

"Well, Rumes," says Yumi, placing some extra emphasis on my name. "The Kaishurrs caught some nice salmon. Mother's cooking it for breakfast today!"

I smile. I do like salmon. Yumi relaxes at the expression on my face.

"I'll let you get your good clothes on, Rumes," she says. Yumi turns and leaves.

Mr Kaishurr is a fisher, as he was at the time, working in his big teams on their haulers. They'd sometimes go over quota, meaning they got to choose what to do with the excess.

Well, not really. They weren't truly allowed to, but the Peacekeepers turned a blind eye to it. Some even bought fish from them. District Four has never been a poor district, but if you were doing that physical labour, if you were being tossed about on the open ocean, at the mercy of the elements...

Well, would another bowl of soup truly hurt anyone? Another, more filling topping for your bread? Just a little more food at dinner? And the Capitol wouldn't even suffer without the extra. The Peacekeepers understand that. That's why the Capitol remains unknowing of District Four ever going over quota by more than would be noted.

The Kaishurrs often chose to share their excess with us. It's what we'd cook on special occasions. My mother was the reason we knew them, being incredibly good friends with Mrs Kaishurr. With their wives occupied with talking and laughing and cooking together, my father and Mr Kaishurr really only had the option to talk to each other.

Their conversations were stilted and awkward. They coexisted because it was easier than hating each other. Mr Kaishurr always rubbed my father the wrong way. He irritated me slightly, too, always talking and knocking people about or putting his arms around people's shoulders or talking far closer than he really needed to.

Neither of my parents fished - when they still worked - and worked much higher-paying jobs than the Kaishurrs did. My mother ran a glass-blowing business, as well as just making small-scale glass panes and such.

Most of the glass in Panem is sourced from here, although One is responsible for making most of the gorgeous things out of it.

My mother used to say how she loved the shapes and colours the glass made. That was why she did it, she said, and not because it paid well. It did, though. Fine glasswork such as Mother made was expensive.

My father worked on the mayoral council. Still works. He must be disappearing there all day to still be bringing in an income. He's fairly close to the mayor in his position, and he used to be good friends with him. Maybe he still is. I don't know when he'd find the time, though. He's buried himself in work and alcohol, even more so lately.

Sometimes, the mayor would come over for dinner with us. When Yumi was still alive, when Mother was still here, when Father still smiled, when the Kaishurrs were in the early stages of their fight.

Yumi would dress nicely, as would I. Our mother would start preparing food early while our father would clean the house. Mayor Esthel was his friend, but he was the type of friend that Father had to be cautious around.

Yumi gently kicks my leg under the table. I look at her. She pulls a strange face, tugging the skin under her eyes down with her pinkie fingers while she stretches the corners of her mouth with her other fingers. She sticks her tongue out.

I laugh quietly. Our mother smacks the side of Yumi's head, stifling a laugh of her own. Yumi stops tugging her face, her mouth snapping back to her normal smile.

We're silent again as we eat our dinner. I messily eat the bread I've been soaking in my soup, getting the hot liquid all over my chin. Yumi hands me a napkin.

I look up at her again. She's balancing her spoon on her nose. It falls off and clatters on the table. She quickly slaps it back onto her face like it never fell in the first place.

I laugh much louder this time, mainly at how goofy Yumi looks with her large grin and nose obscured by silver metal. Yumi seems satisfied.

Our father clears his throat, briefly distracted from his conversation by Yumi's antics. He's glaring rather pointedly at her. Mayor Esthel chuckles and waves a hand good-naturedly.

"Please, Sesten, it's fine. Your daughters act like my little girls. It's nothing I'm not well-versed in."

Mayor Esthel has two daughters, Tyra and Mechi. Completely identical to the point where they're sure they were confused with each other as babies. Both have straw-coloured, collar length hair cut in neat bobs. Each about my height.

They're both my age. We talk occasionally. Nobody can tell them apart by face alone, but Mechi has taken to embroidering her name onto all her clothing for that exact reason.

The day they swap clothing is the end of whatever we have together, I suspect. Tyra completely believes that she is more attractive than her sister and that they shouldn't be indistinguishable from each other.

They're both good-looking, with their fair complexions, sharp noses, and keen, narrow features, but Mechi is far nicer to be around. That doesn't stop both of them from being equally popular and equally desired. Tyra loves the attention while Mechi merely tolerates it.

I wouldn't say we're friends. Friends are too dangerous.

I hear quiet, muffled crying. I wander out of my bedroom, searching for its source. It's coming from Yumi's room.

I open the door. Yumi's face is buried in her hands, and her shoulders are shaking. She's sitting on her bed in a weak slouch. I walk over to her.

"Yumi?"

Yumi snaps up to look at me. She sniffles loudly and wipes her nose.

"Are you okay?" Yumi looks like she tries to smile. Instead, she bursts into sobs again.

I sit down next to her and wrap my arms around her. Yumi continues to cry. After a long time, she takes a deep breath. I hand her a handkerchief.

She wipes her eyes, then loudly blows her nose. She folds the handkerchief up.

"I'm sorry, Junco, I... It's not your problem, really," she says damply.

She pats my head. She smiles as more tears pool in her eyes. She pulls me into a hug.

"I love you, Junco. Don't ever forget that."

"Do you miss Otto?" I ask.

"Yes," Yumi chokes out.

"I miss Otto, too," I say feebly.

"I don't think there's anyone who doesn't," Yumi responds, equally quiet.

"I think she did a good job," I try. Yumi is quiet.

"She fought pretty hard," is all she says after a while.

Otto was a sweet enough girl. She was Yumi's closest friend, right up until her death eight years ago. She went down roaring. Yumi said she didn't like seeing Otto like that, but what did she expect?

Otovia Ossa, the best student in her grade and the most lethal fighter. She killed three other tributes before... Gloss, was it? Something like that, anyway. Before what's-her-name from District One took her down and won.

"Why?"

It was a stupid question, really. It had an obvious answer. But hearing it out of Yumi's mouth made it stick with me.

"Because she wanted to go home. In the end, the winner isn't the most vicious. They're not the best at killing. They're just the one who fights the hardest to get home."

I'll never forget that. It's burned into my brain. And I know. I know exactly how she meant it. I know what she was doing when she did it.

Yumi squeezes my hand reassuringly. I look at her. She smiles warmly. I smile back.

"The female tribute is..." Yumi doesn't let go of my hand. "Rumi Erudite!"

Yumi almost crushes my hand before she releases it. I stiffly walk forward. Yumi sputters from behind me. I get halfway to the stage before she shouts.

"I volunteer as tribute!" Yumi shoves me back into where I was. Our eyes meet in passing. She's angry. Her expression softens as she looks at me, but then she turns back to the crowd. Her eyes harden and smoulder again, the brown suddenly appearing black as she glares at them.

I didn't misunderstand the meaning. Yumi was always clear with me.

There's a close-up of Yumi's disgusted expression as she turns away, then the camera switches back to the Careers finishing the District Eleven tributes off. Yumi's district partner created a net trap. District Eleven was their first set of victims.

"Man up, Erudite," scoffs District One. "This is the 'fight each other to the death like animals for a chance to go home' games. Being a pacifist gets you killed." Yumi glares at him.

"It's barbaric," she spits. "Trapping them like fish."

"The barbarity is the whole point," shoots the other District One tribute in retaliation. Yumi still looks appalled.

"I won't have a part in it," she mutters. The other District Four tribute quickly comes to her aid as the other Careers growl and mutter as they turn toward her, faces twisted into snarls.

"So you're just dead weight, then?"

"You're using our supplies, but you won't contribute?"

"We don't need to keep you, you realise..."

"She doesn't mean it like that, guys. She'll help us, obviously, and she'll kill someone if she needs to. She just means she doesn't want to for the moment," says her district partner, pointedly turning and glaring at Yumi.

"She's not good at getting things across," he lies.

"That's believable," sneers District Two. District Four huffs.

"She is worth more alive than she is dead right now," says the other District Two tribute.

There's various mutters of agreement.

"Fine. We're eating you the minute we run out of food, though, Yumi," says District One. She's met with awkward silence. "It's called a joke. It's called a bloody joke, guys, relax."

So why? Why would she tell me that and do what she did?

District Four stomps after Yumi, his trident in his hands. He could throw it.

"Fight me, you idiot! It's just us! Why are you still running?!"

Yumi doesn't respond to him, losing her footing in the mud and slipping but not entirely falling. She continues fleeing. Her district partner finally decides to try, shifting easily into a sprint. He gains on Yumi immediately.

He yanks on her jacket, throwing her to the ground by her hood. Yumi makes no visible attempt to resist. He raises his trident in front of her face, and his whole body tensed as if to throw it. He holds himself there for a while.

"Yumi..." he says quietly, his trident falling from his hands. "...please fight. This is getting depressing."

Yumi looks up at him and smiles, although slightly sad.

"No."

I couldn't put the pieces together. I can now, of course, but I was twelve, and she was eighteen, and I firmly believed she was amazing. I couldn't see her flaws.

And I couldn't see why she would let him kill her without even resisting. I realise now, though, that Yumi saw it as a way out.

As her escape. Yumi never liked the idea of the Games. She never liked being trapped under the Capitol. If she had been around when it happened, she would have wholeheartedly supported the rebellion that started this whole mess.

She kept quiet. She loved me. She protected me. And then when the moment came, the time when she could help our family...

She didn't take her opportunity.

She loved human life in general more than she loved me.

That's fair, I suppose.

Finnick Odair yanks his trident free of Yumi's body. As he is declared the winner, he throws the trident far away from him. It buries itself in a tree trunk. Finnick drops to his knees and begins to sob.

For a brief moment, there is only the babbling of the commentators on the screen. Something shatters.

What do I remember, I wonder? What do I remember of my mother's screams, of my father's mournful fury? I remember the sound of my mother screaming until her throat was raw. I remember how she sounded as if her heart had been ripped from her chest.

I remember my father's bleeding, shredded knuckles as he continued to punch the walls until they gave way. I remember his face. I remember my mother's. I remember...

I don't even remember what I felt. I loved my big sister more than anything.

There was a funeral. Yumi's friends attended. Yumi's parents attended. The girl who had practically become Yumi's younger sister attended. Finnick attended. Did I attend? Did I attend the gathering meant to mourn, if I had never once mourned? I don't know.

I left dandelions on her grave. She liked dandelions.

My father gave the eulogy. My mother couldn't. She was forgiven fairly easily, so wrought with grief that she wasn't really present in the first place. District Four talked about me. They thought I didn't hear them.

Everyone loved Yumi. Most cried when she died. They expressed their sympathy to my family. My parents were inconsolable. Some people tried to talk to me.

I'm told I showed nothing. That I was completely and utterly blank with no sign of mourning or sadness or anger or anything that would be brought about by the death of a sister.

I'm told I unsettled people. Because a child's eyes should never be so dull or emotionless, I'm told. So they started avoiding me. They still do.

I receive sideways looks. I receive double takes. I receive second glances. People walk faster when I am behind them. People do not show me their backs if they can help it.

I loved my mother, too. Although the last time we ever spoke was the hour before Yumi's death.

Mrs Kaishurr, of course, attempted to console her. My mother's other friends, my uncles, my father, they all made efforts to help her. I think the last time I ever saw her was when we passed in the hallway.

She didn't look at me. She hadn't looked better than she'd been before, but she wasn't crying. Her eyes still seemed flat and hollow. The circles under her eyes were much darker than they had been.

Her hand was briefly on my shoulder. She gently squeezed it. And then she walked into the study.

She was a lovely woman. Brown curls down to her upper back and brown eyes to match. She was patient. Perhaps too loving. She had her hobbies. She didn't even leave a note. She loved her friends. She was a loving mother and wife.

It was my father that I looked most like. Yumi's distinction from me came from our mother's eyes and curls, but our narrow faces and black hair came from our father. Yumi was a combination of both our parents. I clearly only took after our father.

My parents used to joke about how I was exclusively my father's daughter and that my mother had no part in me. My father would then say that this was a blessing, because I was already such a pretty girl and that if I looked like my mother he would have to start nailing boards to our doors so people couldn't break into our house and propose to me on the spot.

My mother would laugh and smack him with whatever was in her hand at the time, often a spatula.

I wasn't the only victim of my father's jokes. He would occasionally ask Yumi how many boys she'd turned down that day, to which she would respond with a random number. My mother would sigh and shake her head, smiling.

There wasn't any sign of a struggle. Most of her things were missing, along with some bags. The door was unlocked. It's reasonable to assume she left of her own accord. She didn't even look at me. She couldn't, apparently. If the conversations overheard through doors are any clue.

We still don't know where she went. We had no guesses, no indication. We just assumed she went to another district. I wonder how well that went for her. I used to despise her for it, for abandoning her family when they needed her. I don't blame her for leaving anymore, though.

She left because she just couldn't face it anymore. Because she couldn't look at her home and know that one of her daughters would never return to it. Because she couldn't look at her surviving daughter without seeing the other one. Because she couldn't look at her daughter, knowing why she'd never see the other one again.

I can't blame her. I'd leave, too, if I knew that I would be forced to live in a home that could never feel full again.

Some good leaving would do now, though. Now that the damage has already been done. There wouldn't be a point. And besides, who would miss me?

Who would miss Rumi Erudite, the girl good at nothing but violence? Who would miss Rumi Erudite, the girl who only knows how to hurt? Who would miss Rumi Erudite, the girl that everyone would be correct to hate?

No one. I know that if I vanished, no one would look for me. My father already refuses to acknowledge my existence, as if pretending he only ever had one daughter would prevent him from losing the second. There is occasionally food on the table when I get home, but beyond that, I am dead to him. I doubt he's even doing it to save himself anymore. He ignores me out of habit and hate.

People would hear that I had disappeared. They'd remark that it was odd, perhaps, if I didn't leave a note. That would be the end of it, and no one would speak of Rumi Erudite again.

Maybe I should. I should just leave in the middle of the night, quietly and without making a spectacle of it. Since nobody would care.

I kick the wall across from me, hoping to put a hole in it. The wall does not give, but when I bring my leg down, something makes a crinkling noise. I look up to see what it was. A small, rectangular parcel sitting under my foot. I pick it up. It fits nicely across both my hands. It says my name on it in a neat, very deliberate script, as if the person writing it had to spend a lot of time and effort forming each letter. Sera's handwriting.

I tear the paper off it. A photo frame, thicker than most that I've seen. I run my fingers over the patterns dug into the dark wooden border. Framed is Yumi.

A greyscale drawing of her, done with graphite pencils. It's incredibly detailed. Yumi is facing the artist and smiling warmly. A few of her dark curls are caught up around her ears. She looks a little windblown, her hair preferring the left side of her head to sit.

I turn it over to find that it has a stand. Pinned underneath the stand is a note in Sera's slow handwriting.

Happy birthday, Rumes. Love ya.

I run my fingers gently down the glass panel in the front, tracing the outline of Yumi's face. The surface is uneven and rippled. I pull my thumb down the frame again and am pricked by a sliver of wood. This is Sera's handiwork.

It's not really a surprise that she made this. She's quite adept with things like these, a skill developed by years of gutting fish. Her hands tremble, but she can hold them still when she concentrates. A smudge on the side of Yumi's right eye tells me that Sera probably drew this, too.

Of course. Of course she did. Because that stupid girl just won't give up on me and move on.

My knuckles whiten as I grip the portrait of Yumi. Sera. I want to strangle her. I want to shout at her. I want to call her an idiot and slap her until she regains her senses. I want to hold her close and never let her go. I want to beg on my knees at her feet for her to forgive me. I want her to leave my life entirely.

She's an idiot. She'll never learn. She'll be the one who gets lost looking for me. She'll be the one who gets hurt defending me. She'll be the one who wastes her life on me. She'll be the one who stands too close when I lash out.

She's the only one who stayed in my life. She was the only one who comforted me after Yumi died. She was the only one who came to my aid when everyone was correct to say those things to me.

I grab Sera's arm and pull her away. She resists, ignoring my statements that she's done enough. The boy, covering his bleeding nose and what will turn into a black eye, cusses and runs off.

I use my thumb to wipe the blood away from Sera's cheek. She draws the back of her hand across her mouth, smearing the blood from her busted lip.

"Tetra shouldn't be allowed to talk to you like that," she mutters.

"And you shouldn't be allowed to get into fistfights with people who insult me," I snap back angrily.

Sera folds her arms across her chest.

"It's not fair. He w-w-went after Yumi." I let go of her face.

"He went after me, not Yumi," I tell her. Sera frowns harder.

"He said that -"

"It doesn't matter what he said. He was going after me." Sera's expression changes from a confused frown to near tears.

"Rumi, it isn't your fault."

It makes me angry, so angry, when Sera lies to me. She thinks I can't tell that she lies to me. But we've known each other for fifteen years. I recognise cues that basically don't exist. I can identify her mood based on how quickly she blinks.

I see all her little tells, her painfully obvious tells. And they infuriate me.

I am not a thinker. That is not what I do. I act before I ask, as I've been told by my many frustrated primary school teachers. And by plenty of others, to remove the needlessly complicated words.

I act on anger. I act on sadness. I act on hate. I do not act on happiness or love or anything that Sera does. That is why she does them, to make up for every horrible thing I do.

I regret acting in that moment. It would have been better if I had done nothing, nothing at all. It made me want to cut off my hands. She didn't deserve it. She hadn't earned it. She had already taken so many hits for my sake. And then I administered one more, and it was the one that made her cry.

Sera places her hand on her cheek, rubbing where I hit her. She looks rattled. I clench my fists tightly, backing away from her. Tears spring into her eyes.

"I'm... I'm sorry..." I mumble. Sera starts to tremble. Her tears drip down her cheeks. She looks utterly betrayed. I walk away faster, shaking my head. Sera's shoulders start to shake as she sobs. I turn and run entirely.

I ran all the way home and locked myself in my room. Rumi Erudite doesn't cry. She gets close, yes, but she doesn't ever cry. She's not capable of it. She's not capable of empathy.

She is capable of violence. She is capable of smashing photo frames and shattering mirrors and punching walls and hurting everyone around her.

She is capable of sitting in a ring of broken glass, her knuckles bleeding and cut by the shards stabbed into them that she couldn't be bothered to remove. She is capable of being discovered by the friend that she punched in the face.

That friend is capable of wrapping her arms around Rumi Erudite and brushing the hair out of her face. That friend is capable of telling Rumi Erudite that it is all alright as she gently pulls the mirror fragments from her awful hands. That friend is capable of bandaging Rumi Erudite's self-inflicted wounds.

That friend is capable of listening and nodding while Rumi Erudite gives the most worthless apology anyone has ever heard.

"I... I didn't mean it, Sera. Please. I didn't mean it."

"I know. It's okay. Did I push too hard?"

"..."

"Rumes?"

"Why do you always blame yourself?"

"Haha. You're exaggerating a little there, Rumi."

"I'm serious. What part of this was your fault?"

"I... Uhm... You... Tetra w-w-was being an ass! He -"

"You didn't deserve that. I'm... I'm sorry. I got angry and you were close."

"It's okay, Rumi, it really is."

Sera bounces back. She brushes things off. She ignores, she overlooks, she turns a blind eye. To everything I do wrong. She thinks I don't notice what she discards of her morals for me. She knows I'm not a good person.

I don't know why she's stayed by my side all these years. She's had six to leave, six to work out how to phrase it without hurting me. Sera is kind. She lets people down gently.

I don't deserve that, though. I deserve to be dropped from a great height, in the metaphorical sense. Perhaps in the literal, too. Maybe I would walk off myself...

I cut off that train of thought as quickly as I can, shoving it back to the dark corner of my mind where it resides. It's much worse than simply fantasising about leaving, and I'd rather not touch it now.

Sera tends to hold it out of my reach, though. Even if it hurts her, she stays by me. For fifteen years, I've been a thorn in her side. For twelve, I've hurt her. For six, I've been...

Awful. I am awful. I am a monster. And Sera is an angel, an angel, and she will always hold out her hand to me so that one day I may stand in her light. That hand...

That hand that is calloused and scarred from years of work. That hand that is wonderful to know and to love. That hand that is safe to be near.

That hand that is always gentle even when it is undeserved. That hand that is never raised against me, not even when it would be considered self-defence, not even when it is necessary, not even when it is right. That hand that is often wrong, that persists nonetheless.

That hand that is always outstretched, always waiting for me to take. No matter how many times it gets bitten and clawed and stabbed, it will never retreat. That hand whose owner always smiles, be it happily or sadly or with worry. I hate that smile.

I hate Sera. I hate her rough hands that feel so warm wiping the blood off my face. I hate her gentle tracing of the scars on my knuckles and abdomen and face and arms. I hate the way she holds my hands, acting as if they have a purpose that isn't pain. I hate the way she cups my cheek in her palm, and I especially hate the way I lean into it.

I hate the way I stain her hands with the rust-coloured aftermath of my training to die fighting. I hate the way I worry her with my cuts and bruises. I hate the way I resist when she tries to use me for comfort. I hate the way I abuse her.

I hate the way I dare use up air. I hate the way I dare waste her time. I hate the way I dare take up space. I hate the way my eyes are hooded. I hate the scar on my cheek. I hate the sight of my face. I hate how I love winning fights. I hate how I love the sensation of flesh under my fists.

And, oh, how I hate that all I know to do is hate.

I hate.

Sera hugs me desperately, hiccuping and sobbing. Yumi gently pries her off me. She sniffles loudly, and her face screwed up. Yumi hugs Sera, clearly feeling sorry for her. This proves to be a mistake, as Sera instantly latches onto Yumi with the approximate force of a vice.

"Sera, sweetheart, let me go," says Yumi kindly. Sera responds by burying her face in Yumi's stomach. Yumi pats Sera's head. "We'll be late, Sera. We'll get in a lot of trouble with the Peacekeepers if we're late."

Sera releases Yumi, desperately trying to contain another ocean's worth of tears.

"It's only her first year. She'll be alright, Sera. You guys can go to the beach again afterwards, like you normally do!"

Sera nods. She looks at me, then hugs me again.

"It's a beautiful day for the beach, Sera."

"Okay."

"Come on, Rumi. I wasn't joking."

"Come home, Rumes..."

"...please."

And hate.

Sera wipes her eyes. Then she wipes them again. And again. I hand her a tissue, which is instantly soaked by all the water pouring from her eyes.

"I'm so happy you're still here, Rumi," she manages, voice choked by emotion."And Yumi's going to be okay, right?"

"Of course she will. She wouldn't leave us. She'll fight."

"Y- Yeah... Yeah, I bet she w-w-will! Yumi's amazing! She'll be okay. I bet she'll w-w-win and not have to hurt anyone, either! She's smart enough to figure it out." Sera inhales unsteadily, her usual smile brought to her lips.

I hug her.

And hate.

I do not let go. I cannot ever let go. The world will fall to pieces if I let go. She is dead, so she is holding me together. And I am holding her together also, because Yumi is not here to do it for us.

She weeps. I cannot.

But it won't change the fact that my mother left.

My father barks a laugh. It's angry and mirthless.

"Of course she would. Because she just can't take anything, can she?! She just -" My father abruptly smashes his empty bottle of drink into the wall. It does not break.

"- can't -" Again, he forces the bottle into the wall. " - take -" I hear the bottle crack, but it remains sturdy. The wall is dented now.

"- anything!" The bottle explodes into a shower of shattered glass and alcohol dregs. It's almost pretty, with the way the light hits it.

But it won't change the fact that my father does not accept that I exist.

I gently open the door to my father's study. He is sitting at his desk, head down, and glass in hand. It's mostly empty. Paperwork litters the floor. I read one. It's about a request for a new Peacekeeper division.

I make no attempt to wake my father. He will not like it if I wake him from whatever heavy, dreamless sleep he has deliberately drowned himself in.

But it won't change the fact that Sera was injured.

I clutch the hem of my mother's dress, peering around her in an attempt to see into Cod's home. They talk at the door.

A little girl with blonde hair wanders into my field of view. She turns to look at me. Her face is badly scraped, stitches running from her chin to her nose and her eyebrow to her hair parting. Her nose is mostly obscured by a bandage.

She studies me for a long time, attempting to place me in whatever memories that have not bled out of her. She beams, her grin crooked, and waves.

She calls my name, and I call hers.

But it won't change the fact that Yumi is dead.

"Finnick?"

"Yes?"

"When you get home, can you please do something for me?"

"Of course, Yumi. Anything."

"Tell my family I love them. And there's a girl named Sera Kaishurr. Tell her I love her, too."

"I will, Yumi. I promise."

"My baby sister, most of all. Don't let her forget."

Yumi's slight smile does not ever fade.

And it will never change the fact that I killed her.

#snowbird #snowbird chapter 3 #the hunger games #sera kaishurr #sesten erudite #rumi erudite #finnick odair #yumi erudite #mella erudite #tyra esthel #mechi esthel #its here!!!! at long last!!!#we had some technical issues moving it across but HERE IT IS!!#proofread!#im kinda warming up to this chapter #already started on chapter 4 before i remembered i needed to post this lol #the action starts back up again in 4 but i like the exposition dump regardless #woo! rumi hates herself! and also they are so so so gay!#a friend of mine read chapter one and started resentfully muttering about a homophobic hill #yay snowbird #sure hope there are no mistakes because i spent TOO LONG fixing this and it would be really really REALLY annoying if -#anyway we know how yumi died now so thats awesom #having one canon character makes it qualified to be fanfiction

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