#I knew what was going to happen because I've been completely spoiled for all of season one but like still AHHHHHHHHH

[somerandomcryptid]

I HAVE STARTED WATCHING ARCANE FINALLY AND I JUST FINISHED EP.3 AND I AM NOT OK. I REPEAT I AM NOT OK.

[tunemyart]

So I've just watched the finale and I'm feeling... Weird. I think part of it is because this show started with everything I like in a story (cool badass ladies, a queer romance, found family, redemption, etc etc) and ended up being... Not all that (most characters die, the romance is doomed, and I guess the redemption mostly happened but wasn't entirely satisfactory to me). Also, I'm someone who as Trauma (tm) with death so, I guess my brain's first reaction is "fuck that I just want them all happy and safe" and it takes me a while to accept when stories take these paths, however well written they might be.

Still, I thought it all went a bit fast in the last 2 eps, with parts of the show ringing just a little bit more hollow than I would have expected? I'm left feeling like the characters of Alice, Mrs Hart and Jen were treated a bit superficially (Lillia's story felt more complete). I also wished we had seen more of Agatha's past because spending centuries just conning witches then killing them is... a bit boring? (maybe we learn more about her in WandaVision, I haven't seen it). And obviously I wished we had seen more of Agatha and Rio. It's like the show couldn't decide if it was about Agatha or about Billy (partly because, I'm guessing it's setting up a 3rd show about him?), and with this short format we ended losing a bit on Agatha's part.

Anyway, curious of what you think of all that because your analysis are always super interesting, and like I said my own brain might be a bit biased towards resistance with this one. And obviously would love to read your fanfic(s) should you write any!

So, I've started and restarted a reply to this a few times, but I think what my answer boils down to is: we're meant to have multilayered responses to this finale. We're meant to sit with it. It's meant to change our experience of the show we've had to this point.

I think the best metaphor for this is the fact the revelation that Rio is Death. Bear with me, because I know this got spoiled for us way early on and we all knew it and were all just waiting for the revelation to drop - but imagine for a second that we didn't know that Rio, Agatha's ex-girlfriend and spooky fun vaguely-a-psychopath as played by the delightful Aubrey Plaza, is death. Your perception of Rio would have been turned on its head. Your perception of Agatha would have been turned on its head. Your perception of the Witches' Road and what we're even doing here with Death walking alongside us as a tourist would have been turned on its head.

Now, we all had an incredibly fun time even with the knowledge that Rio is death before we should have had it. But I think some of the power for what it meant for the story - and our perception of what was really happening - was muted.

Jen, at the beginning of 1.08, says, "She told us who she was from the very beginning."

Sit with that - because the same is true of this story.

---

It turns out that the Road is a metaphor for death. This isn't fully illustrated for us until Nicky, the author of the Ballad, walks down the road with Death's hand in his, and we go, oh. Oh.

Agatha tells us in the beginning that the Road doesn't exist, a rare instance of her giving anyone unbridled truth. And sure - the Road that our coven walked down doesn't exist. The Road that all the witches Agatha lured to the deaths believed in doesn't exist. It's a fiction. But it's significant that Agatha lured them all to the Road and killed them. They wanted to walk the Road. They died. Not "they died instead" - it's a two-fold statement. They wanted to walk the Road and they died. In a gruesome way, Agatha's been taking witches on the Witches' Road since the 1750s.

I don't think the significance of that is lost on Agatha, either, especially where we pick up at the beginning of 1.08. Lilia's dead, and everybody's reeling.

Perhaps Agatha more than anybody.

---

I also want to quickly take a look at Rio's accusation of Agatha regarding Billy.

"The bodies are really piling up." "Did you doubt me?" "Yeah, I did. I thought there'd be a trick in there somewhere. And there was! You were distracting me from him."

Because this is a revelation about Agatha's actions toward not just Rio, but any audience watching her - i.e., us the viewers. She's been distracting us! Not from who Billy is, we know that of course, but with regard to what the Road itself is. Agatha's known the Road isn't real the entire time. She's been protecting Billy from that knowledge. She's been protecting Billy from Rio. She's been protecting the coven itself from disintegrating. And, the biggest con woman move of them all, she's been distracting us - with less and less success as the show goes on - from the fact that she is not even the slightest bit in control.

---

So I definitely want to circle back to what you said about how the show started out with everything you like in a story, because oof, yeah, I felt that. I felt that hard in the finale. Coming off the impact of the incredible storytelling in 1.07, and the queer jokes and campy Wicked cosplay balancing out the sad, I think many of us spent the next week expecting some kind of emotional resolution that probably involved the remaining coven banding together in some more of that found family we've felt them becoming along the way.

Here's where things starts going wrong, right off the bat: they don't. Instead, they splinter. Not only are you aware of just how few of them are left (Jen, Billy, Agatha), but Jen and Agatha can't handle Lilia's death. Jen's distraught. The close up on Agatha running away out of the trial and back onto the Road, alone, shows her looking hunted and wild in her guilt. Everything that follows has its seeds in that moment of rending that began with Lilia's death.

From the beginning, the point has been that Agatha Harkness is a covenless witch. It's something we've seen her revel in - maybe simply because she has no choice but to own it. But the fact is that here, for the first time in centuries, she had a coven. She didn't intend to have one - she intended to kill them all in her basement and not think twice about them again. But events transpired the way they did. They became her coven. And one by one, they all died on the Road.

Rio, of course, has the words to cut right to the quick: "Your coven is shrinking," she teases Agatha cruelly. Agatha looks wild - because she's right. The worst thing is that she killed Alice - and she didn't mean to. She didn't want to. But she did, and in exactly the same way she'd intended to kill her at the beginning, the same way she's been killing witches for hundreds of years. "Your coven is shrinking," and it's Agatha's fault. It's Agatha's coven. It's Agatha's coven.

Hold on to that, too.

---

One of the things that I've been mulling over most is Agatha's character. She's so much fun in the beginning. We're all fucking charmed by her. We also don't have the full context of just how much of a serial killer she is.

So for me, at least, watching 1.08 and not only not getting found family, but getting an Agatha so far away from a "redemption" story that she only just barely is willing to not sacrifice Billy for herself, was kind of a rude awakening. Agatha's a lot more of a villain that I was prepared for. Surprise!

Agatha's so far away from "redemption", in fact, that she's only just barely starting to feel empathy for other witches. She's just starting to be affected by people who aren't #1. And that's a trauma response. And it's so, so, so deeply rooted in her that she's only just starting to be able to conceive of the idea of people who care for her. Of the possibility of being able to live in community. She's not ready for a redemption arc. There was no way that the kind of redemption arc she'd need could fit into nine episodes, because so much of it would for her be predicated on a mental shift that Agatha just hasn't arrived at yet. She's still so angry. She's still so traumatized. She's done almost none of the work. And even at the end, even with the final gesture of sacrificing herself for Billy, that's not a final act of redemption, oh Agatha's now a good person/forgiven/insert word frame of choice.

What this show did in terms of redemption for Agatha was set her up to be in a place where she might want it - where she might want to do and be better for Billy, and someday, for Nicky.

And it's significant that that point comes for Agatha in dying… and after death.

---

This show is about death. The Road is about death. Death is a character on the show.

Like, okay, you're saying. Fine. But what about my gay fun times? What about my queer romance, my found family?

And please know that I'm there with you.

I'm not hugely in touch with what the larger fandom is saying and how they're reacting because I have my little echo chamber here on tumblr and a few friends who have actual social media, but even here I get the sense that we're all kind of :/ for fairly similar reasons. What happened to the show I fell in love with?

And for me, the last few days, I think it's been important to realize that the fact that the show I fell in love with didn't suddenly become a different show. It didn't pull a bait and switch. No twists were in bad faith. Everything has been right here in the text of the show from the very beginning.

And I think it's important to see the story that Jac Schaeffer et al. were actually telling vs. our expectations of what they were telling, or worse, what we wanted them to tell. For just one example, I was convinced we were going to see Alice again - maybe Lorna Wu, too. I wasn't expecting it to be for the sole purpose of recognizing that not only is she dead, but to give Alice herself the space to say that it wasn't fair, that she wasn't ready, that she'd just broken her family's curse, that now she can really do something with her life! Because, ugh, yeah! It's not fair, for all those reasons! But that's also death. Likewise, Sharon's just dead, and worse, her death was pretty much meaningless. Lilia rediscovered herself again, and she chose her death to save everyone else - extremely meaningful. But at the end - she's just dead. We don't see her again. She's gone. She, like the others, walked the Road and away with Death.

I loved these covenless witches. I loved them finding themselves together. I loved them bonding around the campfire and discovering community. I miss them all, so so much. But they told us from the beginning how haunted by death all of them were: Alice and her mom, Lilia and her coven in Sicily, Billy and William Kaplan, Agatha and her son and her ex-lover. And of course, Death herself. Forget haunting these individuals - she came to actually join the temporary coven. Like, fuck. They told us what this show was about.

---

This show is about death, but it's more complicated than that: we'll take our cue from Rio again, who, in being Death, is also the original Green Witch. In short, this show is about Green Craft, "growth and decay in constant flow."

So yes - almost every single witch in the coven dies. Yes, it's permanent. No, the queer romance isn't resolved happily. No, Agatha doesn't have a redemption, satisfying or otherwise. And no, none of it follows what we've come to expect from found family story trajectories.

But the focus shouldn't be solely on the decay. There's a whole cycle of growth coming up after it, even now, and it's being made possible by the death and decay that we just witnessed. And most importantly, it's confirmed that this isn't the end of the story - just the end of "Agatha All Along."

---

I'll finish by actually answering your question - I've been sitting with the finale for a few days, because I also felt weird about it. And I think that's the right word: "Weird." Very spooky season-esque, first of all, but also not tipping all the way right into "bad".

The first thing to acknowledge is that no story is perfect - they were limited by nine episodes by what they had the space to show, and finales are really hard to get just right. The second is that you're allowed to not like any or all of it, especially when something happens that asks you to change your entire understanding of the story thus far, i.e. the Road isn't real, or when you have a particular trauma around death and it turns out that that's what the whole show is about in ways we hadn't fully realized. The third is that it's worth sitting with stories sometimes and seeing how they marinate and develop in your brain and your soul over time. All of these things can and should coexist.

This isn't my first go-round with a series finale that initially made me ???, so I was fortunate in that I felt like I had a cheat sheet. I've still got some marinating to do to see how this continues to change for me. But it's helped me to realize that my ??? reaction is what the story wanted me to have - that the characters are reeling right along with me. Not just Alice in shock about her death, but also Billy at the implications of his creation of the Road regarding his responsiblity for what happened on it. We're meant to feel this way… and then we're meant to reconsider the journey we've been on, the Road we've walked with all of them and the death we've died alongside them, and see it anew for what it really is.

[north-noire]

My Michael Afton throughout the years! ft. his own little doodles. I'll try to be brief about the timeline and how my Michael was without saying too much since it'll be explored in the Hidden Hands AU fic's chapters anyway so I won't say all the details. Feel free to read if you guys like! I have a lot to say about him.

1983 (FNAF 4) - Michael was 12 or 13-ish when the Bite happened. Very reckless yet adventurous kid. Didn't really hate Evan (William, as much as he had a soft spot for Evan, still loved Michael all the same), just had really bad friends and influence (his friends were mostly bullies) - and didn't really like that he's being told to parent a little brother he had no idea how to take care of. It didn't help that Evan tended to be a tattle-tail sometimes about the trouble he was getting into. Michael also, deep down, got scared of what the bullies would do to him if he dared stand up for his brother or spoke out against them, so he ends up going along with what they did for his own sake. After the Bite, Michael was still deeply guilty about what he did to Evan, and it haunts him every night, knowing he had no good excuse but irresponsibility for what he did to his brother, because after all, it wasn't like William wasn't giving him enough attention. Michael just knew that he deserved anything unfortunate coming to him, but is genuinely surprised that his father kept telling him he loved him all the same. From this point on, he becomes easily troubled, tends to stay close to his dad. Makes sure he follows the rules and doesn't do trouble. Just wants to do a complete personality shift, and is deeply ashamed of who he was before. 1985 (Charlie's death, Fredbear's Family Diner shuts down) - Michael was 15 here. Over the years, he slowly isolated himself from most of the people in his life since he gets worried about his past scars coming back to haunt him. Mostly a recluse and reserved. He's not handling things well after Charlie's death and a family divorce - not to mention the non-existent social life he had. Just prefers to be left alone, but he's nice if you get to know him. Doesn't really have a good relationship with Elizabeth, but is actually pretty close with William. Feels extremely guilty and hates himself/blames himself for Charlie's death. He gets paranoid easily, as he thinks whoever took Charlie is now after him, but his father tells him to not worry too much about it. 1987 (FNAF 2) - (17) Slowly having a good relationship with Elizabeth. Starts to get into stuff like the supernatural and becomes superstitious to a degree over the years. In public, he's mostly polite and nice, but his actual personality shows through whenever he's with his father or Elizabeth - he's sarcastic, and has quite a dark sense of humor, can be a bit of a rebel, he's just more subtle about it. A bit of an over-thinker - he gets lost in his imagination/head easily. Has a (surprisingly) good relationship with his dad, as he's not really afraid to be himself around him - sometimes gifts him funny things or something he knows his dad would love/would use (he gifts William a rabbit's foot - for good luck, he says). He also helped William build the Fun-Times with blueprints and other technicalities (He's not really aware of the questionable features they had, unfortunately). He couldn't really come with his father and Elizabeth on Circus Baby's Pizza World opening due to things he had to catch up with his home-schooling, he had been skipping classes to work on the Fun-Times, but he really wanted to graduate highschool with a bang, so he's giving everything his all, here. Then Elizabeth suddenly goes missing all of a sudden, and, well... I would say more, but my fic sort of takes a canon-divergence route around FNAF 2/SL-FNAF 1 so that would spoil half of the stuff I've been working/writing about! Reference-sheet wise, I just wanted to show how he progresses from a rebellious, happy and adventurous kid into a more reclused, anxious and soft-spoken adult. Sorry for the long post! I've just been wanting to talk about him for some time now. There's a looot more that I've left out but yeah that's because there will be more in the fic!

[gffa]

I would like to say I've slowed down a bit on BATFAMILY fic over the last month, but that's kind of a lie because fandom has put out some absolute banger longer fics and I've been reading a lot of comics (can you believe how many comics I've been enjoying?? I have never felt so spoiled for choice!), so I still feel like I'm inhaling everything as fast as I can go and it's GREAT. It's a constant stream of crying about fictional characters in canon, crying about fictional characters in sad fic scenarios, crying about fictional characters in happy fic scenarios, and crying about fictional characters because other people care about our babies, too. Also, I have decided I no longer have a Dick Grayson Problem that you must all suffer through to get some variety in the recs, but instead I have a Dick Grayson Solution. You're all welcome. But I'll mix it up a bit just for you guys, so hopefully you find something fun to read no matter your fave and have a good time, because this fandom has been knocking it out of the park with the fic that has given me a good time, READ AND CRY WITH ME, OKAY. BATFAM FIC RECS - BABY DICK IS THE CUTEST FERAL ROBIN I'M NOT HEARING ANY ARGUMENTS: ✦ Grounded by WingFeathers, dick & bruce & clark & wally & ma kent & pa kent & background clark/bruce & cast, 60.4k     In the early days of the Justice League, Bruce is out more and more frequently on League missions, and Dick (age 13) is growing more and more restless and lonely stuck at home. His friends can't know he's Robin, and there are no superheroes Dick's age--or so he thinks, until Bruce receives a call from Barry, desperately seeking mentorship advice. Dick asks to meet the Flash's new sidekick, but Bruce refuses; a fight ensues, ending in Dick getting grounded. One week in Gotham off patrol, and then two weeks alone, far from Gotham... at a little family farm in Smallville, Kansas. And hey, if a certain Midwestern speedster sidekick just so happens to turn up, that'd be just fine. Or would it?

✦ trust in serum by deargalileo, dick & bruce & alfred & clark, 15.7k     "I believe the serum is a mixture of chemicals that compels the target to be completely honest, even against their own will." "You got hit with a truth serum?" Bruce winced as Dick's voice reached a high pitch. "Really?!" "Yes, really."

✦ Storge by CKBookish, dick & bruce & alfred, 5.4k     “Your dad must have his hands full with you.” Elizabeth Ribbons leaned forward and patted Dick’s shoulder, as he reached for yet another slice of cheesecake from a passing waiter’s tray. Bruce fixed his eyes on the ice sculpture that hid him from view. It suddenly seemed like the most interesting design in the world. The soft lines of the ice on the otherwise insignificant over sized swan seemed like a lead shield... Because Dick would read it easily in his expression. He wanted to be Dick’s dad. But he wasn’t.

✦ Robin Wings by JeanjacketCarf, dick & clark & bruce & cast, 3.4k     Clark wakes in a panic, unsure what has jarred him from his sleep. Until he notices Robin's absence from Batman's side.

✦ Hey! He Attempted a Coup! by PandasandDucks13, dick & bruce & clark & justice league & cast, 6.8k wip     What if Dick Grayson was a Kryptonian?

✦ grief mosaic by newsical, dick & bruce & alfred & leslie, 1.3k     Grief paints Dick’s days in muted shades of red and yellow and green. He grows to expect sleepless nights and sweat-drenched sheets. In turn, he finds late night companions in Alfred, with his old movies and stories, and Bruce, who wears the colors of his own grief to prevent its spread to others. Dr. Thompkins writes a letter to Bruce diagnosing Dick with PTSD.

✦ before this ends by emavee, dick & bruce, 2.5k     Mr. Wayne would definitely be angry if he knew what Dick was planning, but it’s not as if Dick is going to be here long anyway. Might as well take the opportunity to fly one last time, while he still has the chance.

✦ A Light at the End of the Tunnel by dizarys, dick & bruce & alfred, 1.6k     Maybe the parenting and grieving books he skimmed the highlights from last week–and Alfred–were right. Why else would Dick have approached their newest case with such ferocity and determination? At first, Bruce chalked it up to empathy. Seeing another child crying after his parents were murdered was something Batman and Robin could relate to.

✦ Last Night of Sadness by gothamshero (emhyr), dick & bruce & slade & william cobb, 6.1k     Dick Grayson has to take liberties when he’s a civilian, but he still knows when he’s being followed.

✦ Starlings in Winter by FromStarstuff, dick & bruce & clark & cast, 18k wip     When Dick was eleven years old he ran away from Gotham. No one could quite figure out why. Take your pick; there was a fight at school, a circus in town, and a song he can’t remember the melody of. Eleven-year-old Dick Grayson was flooded with grief, swimming in it, perpetually drowning. One day it was too much.

✦ What Defines A Father by Browniesarethebest, dick & bruce & justice league & cast, 7.7k wip     Batman hasn't known the newly formed Justice League long enough to trust them, but he's willing to put everything on the line when the one thing he cares for most is taken somewhere he can't easily follow.

✦ Stolen Son by springfox (dallystrings), dick & bruce & cast, 8.6k     Bruce’s heartbeat sped up, but he leveled his breathing to remain clear headed. After another thirty seconds he abandoned the cart and walked briskly through the store, searching every row in a growing panic. “Dick?” he called, “Dick, can you hear me? Where are you, chum?”

BATFAM FIC RECS - ADULT BATSON AND BATDAD ARE MY KRYPTONITE, I FOLD LIKE WET CARDBOARD FOR THEM: ✦ Learning Experience by strikeyourcolors, dick & bruce, 2.3k     "Does it ever get easier?" Dick asks. Bruce isn't technically old enough to be his father biologically, but those deep blue eyes are looking at him as a child beseeching a parent. "Some nights I feel like I can't do this anymore, Bruce. I can't be Nightwing."

✦ Rainbow Puppies by zombiesbecrazy, dick & bruce, 2.4k     Bruce really wanted to hate Pamela Isley right now, but all that he could focus on was how much he admired the way she passionately fought for her beliefs and how he could applaud her application of her educational background into practical endeavors to her cause, however misguided. Being hit with one of Ivy's toxins has Bruce babbling like a fool.

✦ the business of the very few by dustorange, dick & bruce, 4.2k     “I was trying,” Bruce says, “to respect your privacy.”

✦ notches in the door frame by dizarys, dick & bruce, 2.1k     Bruce hadn't been prepared for his days or nights to feel so empty. And he wasn't sure how to interact with the young man before him now. Because Robin didn't need Batman anymore. --- A patrol gone wrong forces Bruce and Dick to finally talk about Robin becoming Nightwing and feelings they'd been avoiding.

✦ No Comfort in the Shade by mx_chrx99, dick & bruce, 3.4k     Dick Grayson is having a hard time and Bruce is there to help.

✦ The Long Distance by takadainmate, dick & bruce, 1.2k     Down here they're not Batman and Nightwing. They’re Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson. But they still fight.

BATFAM FIC RECS - EVERYBODY LOVES DICK: ✦ tender will fall by dizarys, dick & bruce & donna & jason & cast, 3.5k     When the Titans are devastated in an attack, they go to Batman in a last ditch effort to rescue one of their own.

✦ the hardest part by emavee, dick & bruce & jason & tim & damian & cass, no powers au, 5.8k     Dick is dreading his eighteenth birthday and everything that it means for him as a foster kid. His time with his family is running out, and he needs to be prepared for what comes next, to be on his own again.

✦ 5 Times Dick Grayson Was Grateful for His Insomnia + 1 Time He Wasn't by avengemyheart, dick & bruce & jason & tim & damian & alfred & wally, 5.7k     Dick can't sleep, but that's a good thing. He finds himself helping the people he cares about late at night throughout the years. Eventually though, everyone realizes just how intense his insomnia can get. Or: A 5 +1 thing about Dick's insomnia.

✦ A Darker Shade of Gotham by JackHawksmoor, dick & bruce & tim & alfred, 8.3k wip     Dick and Tim are stuck in a crappy alternate universe where most of the heroes they know are dead, Bruce Wayne's bad health meant he never became Batman, and Tony Zucco runs Gotham City's underworld. When Dick is shot by the mob, they take a risk and go to Bruce for help. Alternate Bruce didn't have children, but as he gets to know Dick and Tim, he starts wishing he did.

✦ leave as though fire burns under your feet by perissologist, dick & bruce & jason & tim & damian & cast, read the tags, 33k     That glow is gone, now. Gone from Dick’s skin, gone from inside him. It used to shine out of him, out of all the cracks the world put in him. But now Bruce looks down at him, and he is as dark and cold as a snuffed star. That’s what gets to him the most—not how cold the morgue is under its colorless fluorescent lighting, or the cloying smell of formaldehyde that clogs his throat. It’s how still Dick is, on the cold, sterile surface of the examiner’s table. It’s unnatural. The boy never learned how to sit still.

✦ papers say it's doomsday by dottie_dc (dottie_wan_kenobi), dick & bruce & donna & cast, 2.5k     Half-laughing at his own joke, Nightwing starts to say, “He just doesn’t—” In the space of one word, one breath, and the next—the world ends.

✦ Ibn al Xu'ffasch by hellsreluctantheir, dick & bruce & damian & jason & cast, 16.2k     Batman when they’d thought Bruce was dead was one kettle of fish. Batman when the original Batman was around was another. In his head, Robin—perched on a gargoyle next to him—tutted like an eighty-year-old, and rolled his eyes like the kid he was.

BATFAM FIC RECS - BATKIDS ALL HAVE MANY SIBLINGS AND THEY'RE ALL PETTY ASSHOLES AND/OR WONDERFUL BABIES AND I LOVE THEM WITH MY WHOLE BEING: ✦ our aspirations are wrapped up in books by theragingstorm, damian & barbara & cast, 1.8k     Damian's been confined to bed rest. Someone unexpected helps him.

✦ remind me why I'm here again? by dizarys, bruce & dick & jason & tim & damian & cass & bernard(/tim), 3.5k     Jason's at a Wayne gala. He doesn't want to be. Good thing his siblings are there too. "Were we mean?" Dick mused, "Or just being big brothers?" "He's holding your hoodie hostage." "You're right. We went too easy on him."

✦ put away childish things by bittlebarnes (monroesherlock), dick & damian & clark & jon & barbara & ma kent, 7.2k     "I was sent here as a punishment, surely," Damian deadpans. "Are you feeling punished?" Martha sounds like she’s laughing at him. Unacceptable. "Absolutely."

✦ a hero by hellsreluctantheir, bruce & dick & jason, 15.5k     Dick Grayson died in Amusement Mile. Four years later, Jason Todd is Robin. But he's not dressed in the costume when he hears about a new player in Crime Alley; a man in a red helmet.

✦ Improvise A Symphony by cabezas_de_vaca, bruce & dick & alfred & cast, 5.5k     Or: three generations of Wayne and Wayne-adjucacent men do their absolute best.

✦ The Second Stage by nightwalker, tim & jason & bruce & dick & damian, 8.2k     All Tim wants is to take a shower, get something to eat, and try to wear off the effects of Ivy's stupid pollen in peace. So of course tonight is the night Jason decides to start acting like a brother.

BATFAM FIC RECS - I CUT MY TEETH ON DICK & TIM AS CLOSE BROTHERS AND NO ONE WILL NOT TAKE IT FROM ME: ✦ Red Letter Day by silverwhittlingknife, dick & tim & damian & cast, 41.8k wip     Dick Grayson, stressed pseudo-parent to a preteen assassin, tries to solve the case of Damian’s Mysterious Wednesday. He never expected it to help him fix his relationship with Tim, too. (... Though only after everything fell apart first.)

✦ I know it's just a number but you're the eighth wonder by orphan_account, dick & tim, 1.2k     Dick gets sick. Set before their lives implode on them, so Dick’s Nightwing and Tim’s still an itty bitty Robin.

✦ it's been a long time now (i'm with you) by centreoftheselights, dick & tim, 1.8k     Tim has been noticing some strange things about his life. He isn't the only one.

✦ Little Do You Know by sardonic_sprite, dick & tim & ra's, 2.2k     "So," Tim said quietly. "You're here to break me out I guess." "Yes," came out in a choked sob. "Then you're wasting your time."

✦ pain/release by unchosenone, dick & tim, 4k     Dick goes to check on a wayward brother in the middle of yet another Gotham Toxin (TM), and Tim has a bad time.

✦ I'd Fly Far Away From Here by Sohotthateveryonedied, dick & tim & jack, 3.5k     Tim stacks his fries onto his burger patty in a crosshatch, covering every spare inch in a layer of salty potato and grease. “It all happened kind of fast. Dad and I got into this huge fight, and it’s not very dignified to go back upstairs for my wallet and then storm out.” Dick is quiet while he eats his sandwich, trying to figure this out. “Dick?” “I’m just—trying to think if I should call Bruce first or your dad.”

✦ A Collective End to a Harmony by 061828, dick & tim, 1.2k     A drop of water falls into an ocean, a house’s wooden skeleton has its last nail screwed into place, an old book’s first page finally crumbles off, and Tim Drake turns twenty years old.

✦ young numb and broken by wingedgrace, dick & tim & cast, read the tags, 1.1k     His bare feet were covered in cold, damp sand, and he could barely feel them. Well, he could feel them, but they didn’t seem to be connected to his body. Or maybe it was him that wasn’t connected to his body. (or: poor Dick Grayson needs some love and a chance to catch his breath.)

✦ there's an endless road to rediscover by Zahri, dick & tim & cast, 1.2k     Sometimes the only way to show that you've moved on and forgiven each other is to take a flying tackle from the ceiling. Dick and Tim know each other's demonstrations of affection. Damian doesn't.

✦ spread your wings by wingedgrace, dick & tim & cast, 2.1k     “Why did you give Robin to Damian?” Dick pinched his nose. He’d started to pick up some of Batman’s habits, whether he realized it or not. “Tim, we’re not talking about this again. We’re talking about how you’re off on this… quest, to prove that Bruce is still alive. And I just want to talk. Come home.” Tim didn’t budge. “Why did you give Robin to Damian?”

BATFAM FIC RECS - DICK/BABS FOREVER AND YOU CAN SHUT IT IF YOU DISAGREE, THEY'RE ADORABLE TOGETHER: ✦ Taking Turns by mx_chrx99, dick/babs, 2.3k     Tim had practically begged Dick to get a flu shot. He probably should've listened.

✦ The Summer of Her Discontent by dotfic, dick/babs, 7.8k     Batgirl contends with her feelings after Dick leaves Gotham.

✦ Thirteen Hours by dotfic, dick/babs, 7.9k     Set during "Knight Time," during their trip to Romania, Dick and Babs start healing some old wounds.

✦ The Night the Lights Went out in Gotham by dotfic, dick/babs & bruce & tim & jim & cast, 13.8k     "When it comes to emotions, even great heroes can be idiotic."-from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

✦ Regular People by zombiesbecrazy, dick/babs, 1.6k     All sorts of people can enjoy a good sunrise over the city after a long night. Why should heroes of Gotham be any different?

✦ strawberry milkshakes by brandywine421, dick/babs & bruce, 2.8k     Why is Bruce bringing Dick? It's not an emergency alert, or medical - just an alert. She should have put in her comm - if it was a simple pit stop they had safehouses, but - Batman dangles Dick's keys in her direction at the door but she's glad he didn't come through the window. She looks past him to catch Dick's attention and - something's wrong.

BATFAM FIC RECS - I WILL DIE ON THE HILL THAT TIM DRAKE'S TRUE LOVE INTEREST IS CONNER KENT AND NOBODY CAN STOP ME, NOT EVEN GOD: ✦ Stay for breakfast and also forever by Ididloveyou_once, tim/kon & bruce, 2k     Conner turns up in the middle of the night after a mission gone wrong. Tim learns that seeing Conner cry makes him feel like his heart has been torn out of his chest.

✦ Think Cupid, But Aim Lower by NevernightUnderRainbows, tim/kon & bruce & cassie & bart, 2.3k     Or, the Batfamily will make sure Tim gets his guy, even if it entails a lot of beating around the bush, dropping hints so veiled that they can be misconstrued surprisingly easily, and basically giving the bird and his clone boy a headache in the process

✦ The Once and Future Bat by LilliputianDuckling, tim/kon & some kon/cassie & dick & roy & martha & anita & cast, 16k     Tim realizes it was a mistake to clone Conner when he ends up with a baby on his hands at sixteen years old. Well, Jackie's his now. Where does he go from here?

✦ there you were by mindshelter, tim/kon & cassie & bart & martha, 19.5k wip     “You know, the cool thing about me,” Tim says, voice gone quiet and petal-soft, “is that even when I didn’t care whether I lived or not, I was pretty goddamn hard to kill.” Kon sighs, eyes glued to his feet. His hand is still encircled around Tim’s arm, trailing up to the bend of his elbow.

✦ time flies by by Laroyena, tim/kon & clark & jon & lex, 6.5k     Jon Kent is Superboy. Tim's gut instinct tells him that's wrong. (Timkon fix-it where reboot!Tim misses Kon like a phantom limb. And then he gets him back.)

✦ Tangled by thewhitestag, tim/kon, NSFW, 4.1k     Kon doesn’t want to be that person, always waiting, wondering if the next time will be more than just two friends messing around.

✦ you put your arms around me and i'm home by merils, tim/kon, 4.5k     Kon's acting a little odd after a close call. Tim ponders the potential causes.

BATFAM FIC RECS - TAKE THE ANGST DIAL, TURN IT UP TO ELEVEN, AND BREAK THE KNOB OFF, THAT'S WHAT I'M HERE FOR: ✦ Bereft by glassofwater, dick & bruce & cast, 4.7k     Laying on his back, shoulder brushing up against debris, Dick closes his eyes briefly. He doesn’t want to die, has no intention to do so tonight, but he is scared. The blood on his side pumps out of him with each thump of his heart, beating at a rate too fast for Dick to properly count. That shouldn’t be right, he shouldn’t even be awake and struggling at the moment, but the luck that hangs over Gotham is a mysterious one; it doesn’t favor anyone and yet…

✦ fun and games by prismatical, bruce & dick & jason & tim & barbara & stephanie & duke & cast, 78.6k     The Joker's loose, and the Batman isn't in Gotham. The family struggles to hold itself together as everything else spins out of control.

✦ Bone Weary by TheSilencer, bruce & dick & jason & tim & damian & cass & steph & duke, 8.1k     "You cannot reach out until you reach in." Dick assumed the words were metaphorical. They weren't. Or Dick Grayson is cursed, and the cure is not any better.

✦ What These Hands Have Done by WinterSky101, bruce & dick & jason & tim & damian & cass & steph & alfred & cast, 14k     Dick is mind controlled into attacking his family. Unsurprisingly, he takes the whole thing very badly.

✦ All The Small Things by Geeves, dick & bruce & damian & cast, 20.1k     After Bruce's return to the Bat, Dick and Damian have to deal with just being brothers, but things are just a bit too messy to be that easy

✦ All Our Broken Parts by mx_chrx99, bruce & dick & jason & dick/babs & cast, 28.1k wip     Jason will not let this happen again. He can't. But what if he's already too late?

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 致命游戏 / The Spirealm.

The Spirealm is a 2024 drama about two young men who fall in love while basically playing a whole bunch of horror-themed escape rooms that can for-real kill you.

This show/book combo has gripped my entire ass. The second I knew I wanted to watch this, almost immediately after it started airing, I muted the tag. I was so right to do this, because this is worth not spoiling yourself about. If you are a Guardian fan in particular, you owe it to yourself to watch this for reasons I think will become clear as you go about watching it.

So! If all you need to know is that I think you need this show in your life, great! You don't even need to scroll down to the end of the post for the links; go to Viki and press play. In case you need more convincing than that, though, I'm going to give you here five reasons to watch it that are as spoilerless as I can make them.

Before we start, though, I'm going to take a moment to note that I had to torrent the video files so I could make screenshots of my own, and if I hadn't, this would have been a much uglier rec post than the others I've done. Not only were there not many promotional materials or official stills released, the show itself barely stayed up two hours on iQiyi, and that's because this drama is a...

1. (Barely) Censored Adaptation Of Same-sex Original Work

Ah, you know that MyDramaList tag well, don't you? Yeah, the original novel, Kaleidoscope of Death (which has a rec post of its own!), is supernatural story about grief and loss built on the love story between the two male leads. Now of course you know already that a mainstream Chinese television adaptation of something like that is going to straighten up everything and turn the horror romance into the sci-fi platonic love of besties.

...But damn, folks, it's still real gay.

Ling Jiushi, the sweet-faced newbie, is a canonical virgin and loving cat dad who plays the mysterious video game once, then finds himself suddenly able to enter the game worlds bodily -- and of course, if you die in the game, you die in real life. He's pretty much doomed, until he meets...

Ruan Lanzhu, the cool-as-a-cucumber veteran of the door worlds, who falls pretty much immediately for the completely oblivious Ling Jiushi, then has to spend the rest of the series consumed with lust while trying to keep him and a couple other dipshits alive.

The show preserves so many overtly gay beats and declarations of affection from the novel, to the point where it's just this side of suggesting that the romance is actually, textually happening just offscreen, every time the camera cuts away. I am forever grateful that working with Zhu Yilong on Reunion seems to have perfected sweet baby Junjie's ability to look at a man with nothing but love in his eyes.

I adore so much the dynamic they have, one where a man who has never told the truth a day in his life encounters a man so sincere and naive that you cannot seduce him with anything but absolute honesty or he's never going to get it.

There are three (3) separate door worlds where they share a bed, and in every one of them, they both sleep with their shoes on. Like the absolute freaks they both are.

2. It's puzzle solvin' time!

So if you've read some of my rec posts before, you know that I am critical of stories that center around cases that are unfollowable, uninteresting, or both (e.g., Mysterious Lotus Casebook and White Cat Legend). I am therefore thrilled to tell you that the door worlds are actually (largely) thoughtful mysteries with reasonable solutions, where you care about what's happening and why.

The way each door world is set up is that you have to solve the puzzle to find a key and unlock the door that will let you leave. One of the challenges is each world's door ghost, who has the key and does not want to give it up. The other challenge is the world-specific set of taboo conditions, where violating them means the door ghost can kill you -- and you are not always told what those taboo conditions are. That means that solving a door involves 1) figuring out what will insta-kill you, 2) not doing that, 3) finding where the hell the exit door is, 4) placating and/or scamming the door ghost long enough to snatch the key from them, and 5) running like hell to the exit door with that key before the door ghost fucks you up about it.

As the show goes on, you get introduced to the concept of door-passing shepherds, which are experienced door-finishers who take through lower-level players, building them up in the process. A lot of these shepherds work for organizations, such as the one Ruan Lanzhu runs. And a lot of them are ready to reach the exit by climbing over everyone else's corpses.

That's part of the fun of the setup: You're not just thrown in alone. You show up with a random number of other players, some with very different levels of experience. At least one of you will make it out; not everyone will. So you can add a step 6) to the list above, which is: surviving all the other players who will gleefully stab you in the back in order to be the first player out the door.

The door worlds are also lovely. They all feel like sets -- and I know that's a weird thing to say about places that are literal sets, but they manage it feel it even on film. In fact, even the show's uses of clunky-ass greenscreen feel appropriate, because of how unreal everything is supposed to be. Everything looks like a dream, which is only amplified by how beautifully everything's shot.

(What's that you say? You say the guy who directed this was the editor on Infernal Affairs? No kidding.)

From a fandom perspective, what's great here is that even though there are technically just twelve doors, there are canonically way more than twelve door worlds out there. That means that whatever worlds you want to create are valid. The best pieces of fanfic I've read are the ones that dream up their own door worlds, complete with taboo conditions, key puzzles, and world-specific perks that lead to gay sex, because come on.

3. A good middle ground of horror

So at this point you are perhaps wondering: How scary is it?

And the answer is, kind of as scary as you're willing to let your mind go with it. Everything has been science-fictioned real hard, including the video game premise that "explains" what's happening with these doors. It relies on dread way more than jumpscares. The blood/gore/gross content is extremely low, again on account of Chinese content censorship. Most icky things are done with offscreen sounds and shadows. I'm pretty squeamish about pain and injury, and I can't recall a time I had to look too long away from the screen.

However, that means the show works some real conceptual horror. That picture up there is of a man forcing three young girls to hold raw eggs unbroken in their mouths. There's nothing about that image that's not technically G-rated, and it's awful in context.

The best bits are when the monsters don't need a lick of CG to become horrors. They cast a contortionist in the Waverly Hills door world, and she absolutely earned her keep.

I have a lot of critiques about how the show handles things, especially in terms of defanging the horror elements (which it does), but one thing I think it absolutely gets right is that it understands that ghost stories are first and foremost tragedies. That's a thing I've always liked about Asian horror in particular, how often you wind up siding with the ghost. Yes, sure, she tried to strangle you with her hair, but have you ever considered she's the real victim here? There's always a bit of a calculus: Can you negotiate with the door ghost, or do you just need to stab them and run? The Spirealm prefers negotiation, and frankly, so do I.

So yeah, it's about as scary as you let it be. If your horror tolerance is low, watch it in a well-lit room and focus on the unreality of it, and you'll be okay. If you're looking for something genuinely spooky, spend some time thinking about the existential dread of the entire situation, and that'll be good for a couple good spine tingles.

4. The Obsidian Family (& Friends!)

In a show where death is always an option, you have to have characters where you actually care if they live or die. Fortunately, all your allies are charming and loveable enough that you are going to be real upset every time they get put in danger!

Obsidian is one of the organizations I mentioned earlier. It's run by Ruan Lanzhu, and it includes a cool and collected doctor, a mom friend who cooks for everybody, a guy who's maybe not having the best mental health day of his life, and two identical twins who could not be more different if they tried. They all live in the same amazing big fancy house, which is where Ling Jiushi too goes to live when he joins the group. They have big family meals, they look after one another, they hang out together -- I mean, if this is the kind of setup you love, then you will love this setup.

There are also plenty of allies who aren't technically part of Obsidian, but who are our friends nonetheless, and who come over to hang out in the Obsidian house from time to time. Some of them are rivals turned friends, some of them are clients turned friends, and some of them were just friends all along! Surely nothing bad will happen to any of them, and they'll all live happily ever after, right? ...Right?

5. Toast and Chestnut!

Of course, the true heroes of the show are Toast the Corgi and Chestnut the Kitty.

Animals are so good.

Truly, I love that one of Ling Jiushi's defining characteristics is that he is a Cat Dad. He is a simple man with simple needs, and one of those needs is to pet his kitty or he'll explode.

caveat: Some thoroughly bad adaptation choices

Yeah, so I keep talking about the novel (and talk even more about the novel in its own rec post), but I assure you, you don't need to have read the novel to feel the degree to which this is an adaptation -- and one that's had its rough, nasty, spooky, gay edges all sanded off in the desperate hope of ever seeing daylight.

Now, sometimes I consider batshit nonsense janky creative decisions to be a selling point for a show (see: Mysterious Lotus Casebook, Legend of Fei, Sand Sea)! In this case, however, I'm going to have to take points off for how incoherently bad they are here. We're talking Psych-Hunter levels of Why Would You Do That-- and the answer, as always, comes down to how you write around what censorship won't allow on television.

The novel says the doors are supernatural. The show says they're a virtual-reality computer game. Now, on the surface, this move sort of makes sense -- you can't have ghosts, but you can have computer games that make digital ghosts, which, sure, okay. But then the problem quickly becomes that the plot of the novel is not remotely built to support a sci-fi premise, so a lot of things have to be grafted awkwardly on. Like, say, a bad guy who stole his corporate logo from Even Worse Twitter. Or a game-designing bestie whose face is never seen. Or [late-stage spoilers about a major character].

The eventual explanation is that this whole setup is a righteous and good game that has somehow been corrupted by evil game-designing capitalists from the West, and that's why it can abduct you in broad daylight and kill you if you fail it. There are good people who want to purify (???) the game, and evil people who want to make money off the game. And I don't mind spoiling you for that part, because it's garbage nonsense. You will be deeply unsatisfied with the show's half-assed attempt at resolving it all. (You may, however, have that disappointment tempered with the amazing concurrent display of heterosexuality that is apologizing to your best bro by coding his perfect man for him. The Spirealm is a land of contrasts.)

Look, I consider myself a mild to moderate socialist, and even I was yawning and making jerk-off motions every time someone started to wax halfheartedly poetic about how evil American capitalism is. Like, yeah, but not because some college student made a vile and wretched video game that eats people! This show is a critique of capitalism like a five-year-old crying because he doesn't get ice cream before bed is a critique of authoritarianism.

And even this, I can't be too mad at it about, you know? I just assume that this was some absolute Hail Mary attempt at getting past censorship -- you know, maybe if we make all the right "grr, USA bad!" noises, they'll let our gay ghost story slip by? And it worked! I mean, just barely, but it did.

So yeah, fair warning that the Spirealm is a show that, if you love it (and I do), you will have to love despite some glaring flaws that haunt it all the way through and hit especially hard during what should otherwise have been an amazing endgame. But hey, we're c-drama fans! We're good at loving janky things, right?

Want to enter the World of Doors?

As I said at the start of the post, Viki's got it -- and only Viki. I'm not sure what circumstances got it up on Viki after iQiyi pulled it, but I'm glad. Watch it quick, before Viki changes its mind!

Hug him! Hug that boy!

[meanbossart]

Lore Ask Compilation: "Every Other Question Is About The Drow's Dick" edition

Oh I LOVE Minthara, her dialogue is absolutely fascinating and in my opinion some of the best written In the game. Experiencing her in my Evil Durge playthrough without having been spoiled to her companion scenes prior was great - the amount of depth they managed to add to her, without it at all feeling forced or rushed, and considering how much less time she gets to develop at our side is really well done. While nearly everyone's quests had me immersed, she was one of the few characters who really made me pause and think about the things she had to say to me, what she truly meant by them, and what they meant for me as an avatar doing an evil run.

We have a lot of characters in this game that are meant to be full of wisdom and experience, who are meant to be the ones who say the right thing at the right time that inspires us to make the correct choices, but I don't think either Halsin or Jaheira (and I love Jaheira) made me feel like I knew so little about life quite as Minthara did.

And, of course, she's absolutely hysterical. 10/10 I wish she had a proper companion quest past being rescued but I understand why she doesn't.

[MORE ASKS UNDER THE CUT]

It doesn't connect to the urethra since the slit in on top, so he nuts and pisses normal.

Also you 100% are not sorry, stop lying to me.

Man, I thought a lot about this one because I play so fast and loose with the content the game gives us that I'm positive there must be SOMETHING I'm completely disregarding, but I couldn't think of anything! I've chosen to pick slightly less obvious interpretations to some lines and text but nothing that completely deviates from canon, I don't think. If anyone has noticed something I neglected to mention, feel free to let me know - not because I want to revise it, but just because I'm curious!

For the second part of the question, not really. Larian did a great job of giving us plenty of room to play around in the dark urge's background, I think I'm yet to see something that I find to truly "not fit" in the ample freedom they've given us. I have my preferences, of course - I'm shocked to find that most dark urge's are NOT big hulking beasts, for example - in fact that seems to be the minority by far, but I realize that I have my... Uh... Biases.

You can see a cute little divot through the fabric if you look closely LOL

And nah, I think his penis has seen enough sharp points for a lifetime.

Well.

Unless someone decided to add some bite-marks to it.

HMMM, I... Don't think so.

He didn't cry as a baby, he didn't cry as a child (and this isn't something I just decided on now - this is a major reason why his foster drow mother even kept him around) he didn't really cry growing up or at any point during the campaign. I think he is capable of it - sadness in him just tends to be far more confusing a feeling than anything else.

He will have emotional moments in ANE, whether or not that will culminate in crying is something you will have to wait to find out LOL

Astarion has noticed this and just took it as a character trait - the drow doesn't cry, he just gets confused, angry, frustrated or simply bottles it up. While he can be demanding of his emotional maturity, he isn't going to try and dictate how he should experience his own feelings. If it did happen it would definitely catch him majorly off-guard, perhaps even shift the perception he has of him to a certain extent.

Oh my god you just know they All managed to be utterly quiet about it for as long as humanly (and unhumanly) possible until like, I don't even know, halfway through the Shadow-cursed lands where one day Karlach finally turns back to the group around the campfire after a half-nude drow has strut past and she's like "SO

"DOES ANYONE KNOWS WHY HIS DICK HAS A SNATCH"

And Wyll is like :0... Karlach you can't just ask people that.

And then she pointedly turns to Astarion and starts trying to interrogate him on how it works while Gale covers his ears and Shadowheart is like:

This is gonna blow you guys backwards but he does not do those things in front of people and thinks its rude if you do.

HMMM Mostly physically but it's a little subtle. He really enjoys interacting with Astarion's (and previously Orin's) hands - kissing, holding, caressing. Touching hair and faces as well. He can engage in more overt physical affection but usually Astarion has to be the one to initiate.

A disarmingly earnest proclamation of love and adoration here and there as well - he isn't shy in the slightest to tell people how he feels about them, he just isn't constantly reminding them of it unless inspiration strikes.

Most of all I think he expects his loved-ones to see his care for them in his tendency to go out of his way to help them achieve their goals.

He went with them to the Shadow-cursed lands but I never helped him fix the curse, so he stayed behind when the gang went onwards to the city. DU Drow didn't really like him so it was good-riddance as far as he was concerned.

If he had come along and propositioned him during act 3 - uh, you know the really mean rejection line you have as a choice during that dialogue? Yeah, that one lmao.

Alas, DU drow is just monogamous. He could entertain group-sex with a partner for fun at the most, but not ever a third person in the relationship. And In my personal interpretation (but by all means - everyone else have fun with their poly arrangements!) of Astarion and his delivery of the "this is about Halsin" line, I also thought he was lying about being comfortable with it, so I write him as monogamous as well.

Nothing. Nada. Not a thing. Say what you'd like about Bhaal but he sure knows how sculpt them out of his murder-meat.

(Thank you!!!)

[hyperactively-me]

okay okay okay, i know you get sooo many asks for king!ghost/princess!reader au, and we love them all and eat them all up--so i understand if you never answer this one... But i've always wondered, esp after he gifted reader his knife, what the heck was simon doing in the hall, cleaning his knife *that* night. Like I think about it often, was he going to talk to her (lil scandalous in the middle of the night)? Did he happen to be walking around and see her? Was he making sure she was okay? Was he feeling bad because he knows what it's like to have your family ripped away and although it is for the better, he feels remorseful for the reader? I mean, obviously reader felt someone watching her, how close was he??? Watching her be free and open in her lil sanctuary (thinking about how she'd have to find that in his kingdom/castle)? I NEED ANSWERS LOL

king!ghost x reader -- knife explained (flashback to the first couple of chapters, specifically "knife"; written in Ghost's POV) hopefully this answers your question 😉

It’s been a sleepless night. He couldn’t sleep. The woman betrothed to him was a complete and utter mystery. He had never seen anything like you, the way you so openly displayed your disdain and disgust to him. 

Yes, he knew that he was not very well-liked outside of his own kingdom. But, this is a woman who is supposed to be his wife. He recalls the fire in your eyes, the unwavering determination that matched the contempt in your voice. It was a stark contrast to the delicate and obedient bride he had envisioned you would be. What a spoiled little princess you turned out to be. 

And, he didn’t mean to be intimidating on purpose, that’s just how he carries himself outwardly. He was accustomed to commanding respect and obedience, even if it was born out of fear, no matter who the person. But, you were different. You had risen up against him because of your fear, and unashamedly at that. 

It kept him wide awake, the way your face twisted into a frown every time he stepped into a room, or the way you turned up your nose when he tried to speak to you. He thinks back to the dinner earlier that night, the way your knuckles were white as you gripped your dinner knife, fork stabbing into the innocent food being served. He had to bite back the urge to laugh; laugh at the thought of you being difficult on purpose. Until, it had finally hit him, that you were acting like this on purpose. It wasn’t just a ruse, your defiance, and fear, was quite real. You were not the stereotypical demure bride.

He shifts in his bed once again, staring at the ceiling, and he finds himself drawn to the challenge you presented. It was as if you held the key to a mystery he couldn’t resist unlocking. A woman who dared to challenge him was a rarity, and the prospect both unsettled and fascinated him. He couldn’t dismiss the fact that you had piqued his curiosity in a way that no one else ever had.

Ghost finds himself torn between frustration and intrigue. He never saw himself fit to be a husband, yet here he was. The usual tactics that had subdued others seemed to have no effect on you. Instead, it fueled your defiance, making you even more resistant to his authority. He should’ve known that you were going to put up a fight in the first place. Yes, he knew that noble women were trained to be blushing brides, but the mere thought that you had to give up your life in your home kingdom as you know it for a man you’ve never met, and a man known for wars and bloodshed at that? Who was he kidding?

Of course you would despise him from ripping you away from your family, from the comfort of your home. Hell, he went through a similar situation with his own family. The mere notion that he was inflicting the same things he went through on you made his stomach churn. He needed to get up. 

With that, Ghost shudders, rising from his bed, needing to clear his mind. He pulls on a pair of black pants and a black tunic alongside his balaclava, grabs his knife, and slips out of the guest room. The castle is shrouded in silence as Ghost moves through its dimly lit corridors. His mind races with thoughts of you, the enigmatic woman who now shared his fate. The air is deathly still and the moon hangs high in the sky, casting a silvery glow over the castle grounds.

Ghost happens upon the hallway that leads to the garden. He notices the wooden doors are slightly ajar, pricking his instinctive protective senses. Immediately, he makes his way over to the door, reaching out to grab the handle. Before he can step outside, he hears a rustling of fabric and looks straight through the crack.

There you were, in all your glory, standing outside in the garden, a robe wrapped tightly around your frame. Ghost hesitates for a moment, torn between retreating unnoticed and going outside and confronting you. The moonlight accentuates the curves of your silhouette, and he can’t help but be captivated by the vulnerability you’re displaying outside, a stark contrast with the defiance he had grown accustomed to. 

He leans against the doorframe, his presence still concealed in the shadows. It’s like you were a different person, the way your hand gently caresses flower petals as you stroll, the gentle breeze playing with your hair. There’s a rawness in your gaze, a depth of emotion that intrigues him more than he’d like to admit. 

For a bit, Ghost remains hidden, an unseen observer of the woman who challenges every preconceived notion he had about his future wife. As if suddenly snapped out of his trance, he takes a few steps back, feeling as though he’s intruding on something personal. Ghost feels guilty for watching you so… calm in your garden. 

He retreats, his footsteps carrying him away and down another hallway, the faint moonlight filtering through narrow windows his only guide. With a deep breath, he comes across a rather comfortable looking chair sitting in the hallway; one that’s surely only used as a mere decoration. Regardless, he sits down and pulls his knife out. 

He twists it in his grip a few times, admiring the way it looks in his hands. He brings it closer to his face, inspecting the blade with scrutiny, until he notices a few smudges on it. 

Can’t have that, can we? He thinks to himself. 

The blade, a symbol of his title and the harsh realities of the life he leads, demands his attention. He meticulously cleans the smudges from the weapon, treating the knife as though it’s a holy item. Ghost’s hands move with a practiced precision, the rhythmic sound of the cleaning echoing in the silent corridor. The blade, once tarnished, now reflects the faint moonlight streaming through the windows, a gleaming testament to Ghost’s meticulous care. He wonders if you’ve ever had to wield a weapon before. Most likely, no. He would change that, once he trusted you more. Couldn’t give a combative person a knife now, can we? I’ll give you more time. But, I don’t doubt for a moment that you wouldn’t be able to carry such a thing in your pretty little hands. 

Suddenly, a rustling of fabric pricks his ears. He immediately stands from his seat, the legs of the chair scraping across the floor. He knows it's you. 

No use in you running now, he thinks. 

“What’re you doin’?” he calls out, knowing damn well that you’re most likely going to lash out again. 

He watches you as you slowly turn around, fear etched into your face. A change from your usual frown and furrowed brows. Ghost can see the flicker of uncertainty in your eyes, the robe clutched tightly around you as if it were a shield. You take multiple steps back as your eyes flit down to the knife in his hand. He knows he must look intimidating right now, dressed in all black and a skull balaclava concealing his features, wielding a hefty looking knife. Yet, how soft you looked mere moments ago, your lips parting so prettily as your eyes rest on his figure. 

“What are you doing?” you motion to the knife in his hand. 

He swivels his head down at the knife in his hand, a faint smirk playing on his lips. You can’t see it, thanks to the balaclava. How predictable, of course you were going to point that out. Without hesitation, he takes the knife and flips in his hand before sheathing it in his pants pocket. 

He watches you wince at the sudden movement, a flash of guilt courses through his veins for a moment. But he remembers that he can’t have you thinking that walking over him like you do now is acceptable. 

“Thinkin’,” he responds, voice gruff. You flash him a look of confusion, still wary of your position. Ghost takes a step forward, his silhouette partially illuminated by the moonlight spilling through a window. He watches you take a quick step back, suddenly hating the way you look so small. 

“What are you doin’?” he asks again, crossing his arms in front of his chest to act as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. He can see the wariness in your eyes, the way you stare at his muscles, the guarded stance, and it amuses him, even though he tries not to show it. 

“I don’t see how it's any of your business as to what I’m doing in my own home,” you retort, squeezing your robe tighter around your body. 

He takes a breath, a low chuckle escaping. But you’re right. He has no right to question what you’re doing in your own home. After all, he’s the one who’s a guest here, not the other way around. You have the right idea being wary of him, a monster of a man, being awake and roaming the palace halls at this hour of the night. But, he couldn't help but feel a glimmer of protection for you. A woman alone at this hour of the night? 

He brushes off those thoughts, not wanting to let you win. Yet, he also wants to answer a small question he has. Would you back down? Now, at first, when he thought he would be receiving a blushing bride, he was going to treat her as kind as he possibly could. But now that his “blushing bride” is a noncompliant, fiery woman, he wants to make sure of another thing. That you would have the ability to stand up for yourself even in moments of pressure, especially in moments of pressure from him. 

“Listen here, sweetheart,” he says with another hidden smirk.

“I’m not tryin’ to pry, but you've been actin’ a certain way ever since I’ve arrived. I don’t appreciate it,” he states plainly, shifting slightly. 

He doesn’t miss the glare you throw at him, fingernails clutching into your robe tightly. How he wishes those fingernails would be buried in his back. 

“Well, you can mind your own business. I don't need your so-called ‘concern.’ Why do you think I’m acting this way?”

A really good fuckin’ question with an equally obvious answer, is what he wants to say. 

But he refuses to answer, pride welling up inside of him. Ghost takes a cursory glance at you again, noting the way you’re almost curled into yourself. You’re afraid of him. He couldn’t shake the image of you standing beneath the willow tree, how carefree and soft you looked then. 

Without thought, Ghost takes a step towards you again, but this time, you don’t move. How intriguing. He takes another step, waiting for you to give in, back down from whatever you’re thinking about right now. He takes another step, giving you another chance to move, a chance to show him that you're not willing to back down. How perfect. Put me in my place, this is what I deserve, he thinks. 

Ghost is now mere inches away, and you still haven’t moved. Good princess. 

Your neck is craned up to look at him, disdain written on your face.

He reaches his fingers up to your cheek, the pads of his fingers just barely ghosting over your skin as he makes his way to push stray strands of hair behind your ear. And the most surprising part of it all is that you let him. Now, he thinks he’s misjudged you. A spoiled princess? No. A woman who knows how to stand her ground. 

He can see you go as stiff as a board under his touch, your chest heaving as your heart rate picks up. He can see the pulse in your neck clearly. His eyes flit towards your bosom for a split moment, then he pulls his hand away. 

“Hmm,” he hums, a glint in his eyes. Interesting. 

And, without a word, he makes his way down the hallway silently, heading in no particular direction. He can feel your eyes boring into his back, and he feels a flash of pride, secretly hoping his stature impresses you. I know it does. 

At the end of the day, he doesn’t aim to break you; he just wants to figure you out. You’ll both be officially bound together in the next few days when he finally proposes to you, whether you like it or not. He can’t deny the conflict within himself — the desire to unravel you clashes with the knowledge that he’s pushing the boundaries. All these contradictions, and you’re driving him crazy. Why does he want to kiss you and fight you at the same time? 

He pulls the knife back out from his pocket, studying the reflection of his eyes in the blade. He wants to get to know the woman he had seen out in the garden. 

Time will tell.

- - - - -

(masterlist)

[pandorasprongs]

CHAPTER FOUR | come home to my heart.

'it's nice to have a friend' fic masterlist + playlist | previous chapter

PAIRING: jamie tartt x fem!reader

WORD COUNT: 3.1k

SUMMARY: jamie tries to get reader to forgive him.

WARNINGS: language

A/N: hello! sorry for such a long wait, i've been on vacation. i also haven't been able to proofread huhu but hopefully the interlude prepped ya'll for this moment because a good chunk of this one is from jamie's pov! don't have much to say because i don't want to spoil much hehe but enjoy jamie's comeback!

Losing Jamie for a second time felt the exact same: like absolute shit. Except this time, you were an adult and couldn't sulk in your room all day. So for the next few weeks, — aside from said crying sessions — you've been dragging yourself to all of your lectures and powering through office hours as if nothing happened.

You already told Liv about it the morning after, and after seeing your bloated face and the fact that you had a massive hangover, she decided to withhold her 'I told you so' speech, much to your relief. 

It was unraveling the exact same way as last time and the cherry on top was the fact that Jamie wasn't reaching out in any way, shape, or fucking form. No texts, calls, or anything. 

Every now and then, you'd think about reaching out yourself. It was you who yelled at him that night and told him to leave, but you would shake your head every time. No, if Jamie really wanted to preserve your relationship, he would have to be the one to reach out. You got to say your piece and that's it.

And maybe you were being a little petty, taking down all your photos with him from the shelf and stuffing them in a box with all the tokens from Jamie that you couldn’t bring yourself to throw away, but at least it stopped you from nearly breaking down every time you passed your hallway.

Jamie wasn't taking it so well either, despite what you assumed.

After that night, he had this sinking feeling in him. He knew he fucked up, — ghosting you and treating you like a complete stranger at the pub in front of his teammates, — but it hurt even more hearing you shout and tell him how badly it fucked you up.

To this day, he doesn't know why he did it, really. Maybe it was the fact that he felt guilty for never talking to you after you left. Or maybe you were right; he cared too much about what his teammates thought that he ended up hurting you in the process. But no matter the reason, he ruined one of his most important relationships that night.

So what was he going to do? What he always did. Ignore it. Focus on the season, despite the fact that Richmond has been on a losing streak since the West Ham game. While Jamie might be off his game because of you, he wasn't going to acknowledge that. Just bury it and hope it disappears.

It wasn't until after the fifth match in the losing streak that he got a message from an unknown number he was forced to confront it. 

Hi Jamie. I'm Liv. I'm not sure if (Y/N)'s mentioned me, but I'm one of her friends and I got your number from her phone. I was hoping to talk to you soon when you're free.

So now, he was sitting in a white office like he was waiting for some test results. It didn't help that the person sitting in front of him was in a lab coat, either.

"Sorry, I know it's weird we had to do this in an office." Liv started and Jamie straightened up in the chair. "I thought you'd want somewhere private to talk."

"Right."

"Yeah, so you're probably wondering why I wanted to talk to you. Uhm, (Y/N)'s been a little off recently. She told me about what happened, which I honestly saw from a mile away, but that's not the point." Liv sighs before continuing. "The last time this happened, back in uni, she practically quarantined herself in her room till her parents came and picked her up. She barely ate, and barely talked to anyone. It was terrible. And I can tell that she's on the way to that again."

Jamie's eyes widened, filled with guilt once again, but he said nothing.

Something about his reaction just triggered something in Liv. "Right, so I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but what the fuck are you doing, man?" The footballer moved back in his chair, but Liv wasn't dismayed. "Why haven't you called her? Or even texted or something."

"I," Jamie's completely at a loss for words. "I thought that she didn't want to talk."

"What gave you that idea?"

"She told me to leave that night so harshly, so I thought..." Jamie trails off, realizing how terrible that reasoning is after saying it out loud.

Liv is thinking the exact same thing, causing her to roll her eyes. "Come on, Jamie! You can't actually think she wants nothing to do with you now. She won't ever say it, but do you know how many times I've caught her checking your contact to see if you've sent anything? She misses you and seeing how shit you've been playing these past few matches, I think it's safe to assume that you miss her too."

Despite this woman being a complete stranger to Jamie, he's suddenly compelled to admit, "Just because she misses me doesn't mean that she wants me back in her life. And I don't think I should be, to be honest." She's better off without me. 

Liv's expression finally softens and she looks down at her desk before saying, "She at least deserves an apology."

—

It had been a few days since then, which Jamie had been using to think it over. He knew Liv was right; he needed to apologize. He just didn't know how. And of course, he had to talk to the most emotional man he knew.

"Jamie! What brings you here?" Ted who, despite the team losing yet another game, greeted quite cheerfully. It almost made the football player turn right back around because he wasn't sure if he was in the mood for his coach's relentless optimism.

But he knew there wasn't anyone else he could go to, seeing as you were obviously unavailable, Keeley was way swamped with her new company, and telling his mum would be indirectly telling your parents too. He shuts the door behind him and moves to Ted's side of the office. "Right, um, I was hoping to talk to you about something."

His coach seems to pick up on Jamie's uneasy demeanor and leans forward with a sympathetic look on his face. "What's up, buttercup? Should I gather the diamond dogs for this?"

Jamie, recalling the name that the coaches and Higgins called themselves, was quick to reject the idea. "No, no, I'd rather not have them find out about this. Uhm, look, I know I haven't been doing my best recently,—"

"Oh, we'll get a win soon bud, don't worry." Ted is quick to reassure the player and while Jamie appreciates it, he shakes his head.

"No, I know, but that's not it." Jamie takes a deep breath before continuing. "It's just, I've been a bit distracted recently."

"Is this about a girl perhaps?"

"No," though Jamie thinks about it for a second. “Yes, but no?" Seeing the slight look of confusion on his coach's face, he explains, "A while back, I reconnected with an old friend. She was my best friend actually, back in Manchester. We didn't exactly end on the best of terms and it was my fault. But when we met again, she told me that I didn't need to apologize."

Jamie continued to recount the past few months to his coach, from his blind date to the Bones & Honey incident, along with what he did to you in the pub all those years ago. 

"So now, I don't know what to do. Her best friend said I should apologize, but I don't really know how. I'm not really the best with these types of things." Both of them still remembered how long it took for Jamie to get the team to forgive him when he first came back.

Ted takes a second before responding, trying to figure out the best thing to say in this situation. "You know Jamie, I've always thought the simplest ways are sometimes the best ones. Overthinking things tends to complicate them more. You want to apologize right? How'd you used to do it when you were kids and you threw your little tantrums at each other?"

"Coach, I don't think bringing her chocolate is gonna work this time around." Jamie gets flashbacks to your first-ever argument as kids. Jamie accidentally ate the last slice of chocolate cake that you had unofficially saved and you stormed out and locked yourself in your room for an hour. 

All it took was Jamie sliding a bar of chocolate through the bottom of the door, explaining that he got hungry, and promising to save her a slice of cake the next time they had a party. You ended up sharing the bar with Jamie.

"Probably not. But in all the times you fought, what were the things that got her to forgive you? What did you say that made her understand your side and know that you actually were sorry for what you did? And how did you prove to her that you weren't going to do that to her again?" Maybe if Jamie thought about this advice later tonight, it'll make more sense, but right now, only one question was occupying his mind.

"D'you think she'll forgive me?" He thinks out loud.

"I honestly don't know Jamie, I don't even know who she is. But if you show her how much you care like how you're showing me right now, I'm sure things will be fine." Ted, now standing, offers a comforting pat on the back.

Without looking up, Jamie whispers, "I never meant to do this to her. To hurt her like that."

"We rarely ever mean to hurt the people we love." Ted offers.

Love. Yeah, Jamie thought, he did love you, even after all these years. Especially after all these years. What, with all the 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' bullshit.

"All we can do after is try to atone for our mistakes and hope they forgive us. And even if they don't, at least you leave knowing you tried." Jamie nods his head and thanks his coach for the advice.

As he got into his car to leave the clubhouse, he pulled out his phone. Hi, are you free tonight? I was hoping we could talk. 

He anxiously waited for your reply and started listing all the places he had to pass by before heading to your place if you even answered. But before Jamie even left the car park, you already replied, Sure.

—

Maybe you had been hoping for Jamie's message more than you thought. You were in the middle of the lecture when you got his message, so while your class passed the handouts around, you took the chance to grab your phone and reply.

So now, you were anxiously waiting in your flat, still unsure of how you were meant to feel about all this. You knew there was still anger there, but you weren't sure if exploding on him relieved that feeling or made it worse. A part of you also felt guilty for it too, for not even giving him a chance to apologize in the first place. Maybe instead of awkwardly letting him inside later, you would've been having yet another movie night together.

That's what he was going to do now right? Apologize? You didn't really press on for my details when he messaged you earlier. You just hoped that seeing him again will trigger the right response to whatever he had planned.

You heard the doorbell ring and suddenly, it felt like your heartbeat quickened. You take careful steps towards the door and after mentally preparing yourself for whatever this was going to be, turn the doorknob.

"Hi," Jamie greeted, in the most awkward way possible for a guy as confident as he could. You notice him holding a box of LEGO flowers under his left arm and a pack of chocolate nuggets in his right hand.

In an attempt to lighten the mood, you jokingly ask, "Is your apology just going to be flowers and chocolate?" though it may have come across as harsher than you intended.

"No, but uh, in case you changed your mind about talking to me when you saw me, I thought this would at least get me through the door," Jamie explained and you slowly nodded your head.

"Well, you were right." You take the things from his hand and let him inside. 

You had already cleaned up the place before he came over and hidden all the messy catalogs and test papers in your room for the time being. Its current condition could honestly pass as one of those display sets in department stores.

You placed the items on your dining table before turning back to Jamie who was awkwardly standing in the middle of the living room.

You didn't want to delay this any further. "So, why'd you want to talk?"

"Right," Jamie started, still unable to look you in the eye. "I wanted to say sorry for not messaging you these past few weeks. I've just been busy and Richmond's been on a losing streak too,—"

"Is that really all you wanted to say?" Your tone was soft, but even you knew you were being blunt. You just couldn't handle the sinking feeling of anxiety in your chest anymore and while you might be rushing him, you just wanted to get this over with.

"No, it's not." Jamie closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He moves towards you and starts looking at you intently. "I'm sorry. For everything. You deserved an apology and an explanation a long time ago and I can't go back in time, so I want to do it now."

He pauses for a moment, and when you realize he's waiting for you to say something, you respond, "Go ahead, Jamie."

He nods his head and almost looks like he's psyching himself up before a match. He takes another deep breath before continuing.

"I wanted to start from when I started to get distant. I never told you, but after I started at Man City, dad came back into the picture."

"He did?" Your voice was barely a whisper, and you're unsure if he even heard it because he keeps talking.

"You know how he is, right?" Of course, you did. 

Growing up, you knew the exact times his dad would be coming over. There’d be some beat up car in their driveway and if you looked out your window, Jamie’s window blinds would be down. During the early years, you’d ask your mom to call their house, but after the first time and about a ten-minute call with Georgie, she started telling you they were busy. It was only after that outlying car in their driveway disappeared that Jamie would come knocking at your door, asking to play. He'd have this air of discomfort the first few days, but you were so happy being able to see him again that you’d end up ignoring it.

"Anyway, he was on my arse that whole time. He always had something to say after every match about how I fucked up or, how shit I'd been. Even if I was just sitting on the bench, he still had something to say. It was exhausting," You could tell that Jamie was starting to get angry at the reminder of his father, and without thinking, you reach out to hold his hand. Jamie seems to relax at your touch and when he seems to have composed himself, you let go.

"He would go on about the same things. Don't be soft, it's the fucking Premier League and shit like that. I just, I wanted it to stop. And I thought that toughening up would stop him from him getting under my skin. That meant removing everything that did make me soft, vulnerable. One of those things was you, but I realized now that it was in a good way. As in, I only ever felt comfortable and safe when I was with you." Your eyes widened at his confession and you felt tears threatening to fall.

"But fuck, Dad was really in my head back then. I thought that you were making me weak. And I hated the thought of him calling me that. So I stopped picking up your calls and messages. I just blocked you out.

"But when I started to realize I was becoming a prick, I thought you'd never want to talk to me again. That you'd hate me and it wasn't worth trying to get you to forgive me. Plus, Mum always had great stories about you, so I thought you were better off without me. I guess that's why I was such a prick back in the pub, pretending I didn’t know you. Might as well lean into it if I already lost you." At this point, you were resisting the urge to envelop Jamie in a hug and never let go, but you knew he wanted to finish his piece.

"And I know that it doesn't change the fact that it was a shitty way to treat someone I loved, but it's the best explanation I can give you. I really am sorry." Jamie held your eyes, emphasizing how genuine he was being. Someone I loved, did he really just say that? But he starts again before you can even consider what that meant.

"And, I really am trying to be better. I want to be worthy of staying in your life, if you'll let me. This time, I promise I'll never leave you like that ever again."

You were processing his words and couldn't answer immediately, so Jamie added, "And if you decide that you don't want anything to do with me, then you'll never have to see me again. But I promise to keep trying to be better even then."

You continued to stay silent and Jamie took that as your answer. "Right, so that's all I had to say, so I'll be out of—"

You wrap your arms around him, stopping him mid-sentence. The footballer is slow to reciprocate it, but when he does, you're transported back in time. It feels like you're eight again, and Jamie's football team just won the finals. It feels like you're fifteen again, and you've made up during a midnight run to the grocery after a stupid argument. It feels like you're seventeen again, saying goodbye to the only boy you've ever loved.

"I don't know if I'm ready to forgive you yet, Jamie. To go back to how it was before." You finally answer, and if you're being honest, you don't think you ever could go back. "But I want to be able to," you whisper and you feel him relax even more in your arms. "Just, don't fuck it up and leave again. Because I'd really love to have you in my life again."

"I promise I won't." And this time, you believe him.

A/N: and there you go! the angst is over! (or is it? muahaha) some cameos from liv and ted to help snap jamie out of it :) i had written jamie's apology monologue the same time i wrote reader's angry monologue from chapter three with some slight revisions when i put them in their respective chapters, so hopefully it matches up well stay tuned for the next chapter!!

TAGLIST: @moonflowersandsparkles @faith-alons26 @rexorangecouny @aiyaiy @thegirlthatwantedtowrite @giggling-sewer-ginger @katdahlali @higherthanheroes @guccilongboard @alipap3 @rockchickrebel @ellietartt @shineforever19 @skewedcherries @jamietarttdodo @meg-ro @deepdarkvelvet @taytaylala12 @scaramou @rae4725 @oxxolovemelikeyoudooxxo (couldn't tag you for some reason?)

[666writingcafe]

A Reward: Mammon/Levi/Beel

Final Part of Special Bonus Content

In a few moments, the only people left in this imaginary room are myself and the first three demons I've made pacts with: Mammon, Levi, and Beel. I suppose the effects of the sleeping potion are finally starting to wear out, meaning that soon we'll all be awake and back in the real world.

But something tells me that these three will fight to remain here for as long as they can in order to complete their turn.

"I don't think there's going to be room for all of us on the bed," Beel observes.

"Couldn't we just magically make it bigger?" Mammon asks.

"Yes, except the people with that ability are no longer here," Levi responds, slightly irritated. I take that as my cue to hop off the bed and walk over to the three men.

After some discussion about how exactly we're going to do this, we end up sitting down on the floor. Mammon pulls me onto his lap and starts nipping at my neck, eliciting a quiet moan from me. Beel and Levi quickly position themselves on both sides and start touching whatever part of my body they can reach with their hands and mouths.

The three of them prove to be a deadly combination. When mixed together, their sins cause them to develop a sort of hive mind; their only goal is to ensure that I fall apart in their hands.

And it's working.

"Were you like this before us?" Levi whispers suddenly.

"Like what?" I respond, a bit confused by his question.

"Slutty," Beel bluntly answers. I shake my head.

"I'm a bit of a late bloomer," I explain. "Before the exchange program, I only ever kissed one guy. Didn't do anything else beyond that."

"You can't be serious." Mammon abruptly stops his attack on my neck. "You mean to tell me you were a virgin when we first met?!"

"Is there something wrong with that?" I ask. Realizing how harsh he sounded, Mammon quickly replies,

"No, of course not, MC! You're allowed to do whatever you want with your body, even if that means keeping it to yourself. I'm just a bit surprised, that's all."

"Because of my recent behavior?"

"Because of your soul," Beel states seriously, forcing me to look at him. "It makes the most physically gorgeous people look average in comparison. I get that humans aren't as sensitive to this sort of thing as angels and demons are, but I thought they could at least sense inner beauty."

"Maybe they did, but MC shut them out," Levi suggests. "I mean, I remember them not being too keen on getting dragged into our shenanigans when they first arrived in the Devildom. They just wanted to get through the exchange program, learn as much as they could, and go home."

"You're not wrong," I respond. "The more I got to know you guys, though, the more I wanted to take part of the action. I was no longer satisfied with merely watching from the sidelines. And, well..." I pause, taking a deep breath. "You're all really attractive."

"I knew you had good taste!" Mammon exclaims, causing me to giggle.

"You're certainly going to be spoiled for the rest of your life," Beel quips. "It's not like the average human is going to be able to top anything we're able to do." With that, the three of them resume their activities.

Unfortunately for me, everything becomes hazy, and soon I wake up on the floor of the home theater. I must have been the last one to return from the dream realm, for there's no one else in the room with me. The others are probably well into their day by now.

I get up and stretch out any kinks before exiting the room. I happen to catch my reflection in a mirror as I head to my room to change clothes, and I end up doing a double take.

My throat is completely covered in hickeys and bite marks. Ducking into the nearest bathroom, I undress myself and discover that they also litter my torso and inner thighs. There's even a couple on my butt.

At least I don't have to be anywhere today, because there is no way I could come up with a white lie to explain all of these marks.

Taglist: @lost-in-time-wanderer, @fuzztacular, @dianedancer18, @sweetbrier2908, @flare-love, @completelyshatteredbrokenmschf, @thunderlightning351, @l3v1chan, @anxious-chick

[blingblong55]

The Great War - Simon Riley//Vladimir Makarov

Creds to: @shadow0-1 for that Ghost work

Based on a request:

with the new mw3, lets do angst, something along the lines of "Somewhere in the haze, got a sense i've been betrayed" coming from us because 141 betrayed us horribly, which ended up in us getting tortured and then we pretennd its fine when it isnt. forget and forgive we lie and when we meet with Makarov, we tell them, 'oops sorry, forgot i was also a enemy at some point, guess its time to betray like real enemies do' and as we set Makarov free, we show that we have been working as his spy ever since they betrayed us. also can this be with a female reader and we also marry makarov behind their backs so thats why we betray so hard? i love u!

A/N: I forgot to add the angst....im so sorry pookies

Part 2

---- F!Reader, soldier!reader, enemy!reader, betrayal ----

It's been three months since Task Force 141 last saw you and how you betrayed them. Makarov and you have become the real-life Joker and Harley Quinn. In love with the other and maybe the love is toxic but the way he and you were so mental and in love made it all so good and bad. Everywhere you went, his hand held yours. It was romance for what poison could be. Deadly. One night, as Makarov and you celebrate your anniversary, he decides to spoil you. A private jet, a romantic location and a whole week in paradise. Well, that is the plan at least.

On the way there, the jet gets hit, Makarov rushes and puts a vest over you, his trusted gun and a kiss. "What are you doing?!" you frantically ask. "I'll meet you at our spot later my love," he lets go and then opens the door to the jet. The air tearing the door, he kisses you once more and as you look at him in fear and confusion, he gives you the illusion that he is right behind. Which he is not.

As you descend back to steady ground, the last person you ever thought wanted to see you, pulls a risky stunt. One he claims he has no idea he had the adrenaline for. Your body is so close to the ground as you watch your husband's jet explode. Ghost, holding you close as he deploys his parachute. "Vlad!" you call out with a tear-filled face. Ghost held you with all his mighty power until you two reached the grassy area. As he begins to unstrap, your hands hit his chest multiple times. Messy tears escape your face, "Why! why the hell did this happen?! What did you do!" Your hits became more defenceless as you cried and let out sobs of fear. Ghost wraps his arms around you.

In your memories, there he is, Vladimir and the children you were so set to want. Lazy Friday nights, the kids, Vladimir and you, a beautiful and complete family. It was like every puzzle was perfectly placed. Green lawn, sunny day, a puppy, giggles and small kisses. All gone in a matter of seconds.

"Shhh, shhh, I know, R/N, I know," his hand on your head, rubbing it as he kept you close to him. He was a trained soldier, after all, so he knew that occasionally he had to deal with people going through so many emotions. His gaze, why does it have to be this way? Why must he stare at you like this now?

No one knew Ghost had been on the lookout for you. That he went against every order given to him, that he broke an oath to hold you in arms this way as you cry. You pull away, your arms wrapping around your own body. Trying to find comfort in this moment. How did you lose him so easily? After so long of loving him in secret, he is gone this quickly. Like a cheap curse. But he was meant to be the lifelong curse. To ruin your very soul and taint you with his power of cruelness.

"God what were you even thinking?!" You push him., "You could've died, Simon. And then what?! huh!" You push him again and this time he grabs your arms. His stare lowered, eyes teared up as he confessed, "I did it for you," and now, he has become someone who he hates. Someone who betrayed the task force, someone who fucked it up and still it felt so right. Maybe you are a temptress, maybe you are the cruel one and not these men. Why must you make them love you so hard that they do this? What the hell do you even do now?

"I killed them all, please…please R/N, please listen to me." His voice more softer, gaze is so beautiful that it makes your heart flutter. "No, Simon-" "Listen to me this once. I know what I did is wrong but damn it, don't you feel it too? Don't you feel what I do? When I hear your voice, that sweet melody becomes my reason to wake up early, to smile, to even dare come back from operations. R/N, I know I'm not the best-looking guy in a crowd but…damn it, I would ruin everything for you."

His hand holds yours as he places it over his chest, "For years, so many years, this heart has belonged to just you." He whispers and holds you in for a kiss.

A gunshot.

One body to the floor and then darkness surrounded by crimson red.

No one ever said the joke or Harley Quinn had a good ending, guess it is the way this life goes.

[At the 141 base]

"Price, have yer seen Ghost?" Soap walks in after looking for his friend around the base for nearly an hour. "Should be in the shooting range," Price responds. "Think he mentioned something about going to the gym," Gaz mentions. "Not in any of those places." Soap says. The three men looked everywhere. Then, a soldier comes running in, "Someone stole the plans and mapping for the operation-" "and many of the files have been deleted, security footage is also gone." Another soldier comments. The three men have many possible answers and then two names come to mind. Makarov and yours.

"She fucking kidnapped him?!" Soap was furious and it was well known he hated you for what you did. Gaz, oh that man hated you for everything you were worth. In their books, you placed first place against Makarov and Graves. "That fucking bitch," Soap slams his fist on the table of Price's office.

As the men gather information and what else was taken, they realise a pattern here. After knowing who you were, your pattern who Vladimir is and his way of dealing with stuff, they understood the job was from someone on the inside and described you as someone who broke in. With contacts in many parts of the world, they looked for traces of him and traces of you.

You weren't even planning on this robbery to the base. Makarov wasn't either, so there is a third man. Alejandro and the rest of Los Vaqueros were told that they had someone else as a suspect. The devil herself, Valeria Garza. One look into her history and she was also not behind this mess. She was hunting down someone, yes but she didn't care for 141…yet.

After hours of exploring any enemy that would do this, it suddenly struck. And just as Gaz was about to give his shocking idea, Laswell walked in.

"Ghost wasn't kidnapped, the files were stolen but it was him…he is the man on the inside. This entire time, Ghost talked with Makarov, they weren't friends but allies. He is our next target," she slams his file on the table. "If we want Makarov, we take Ghost down first." "But how?" "We hurt the desire of his newfound criminal mind." "Which is?" "Grim. We know he was hurt when she revealed she was with Makarov, so it's time we take it old school and hurt her to get to him." Laswell looks over at Price, he nods and leans on over. "If we do this, I don't want casualties." "We got a deal?" "We do."

With that set, 141 found the targets of their next operation but this time, their calls had to be whispered. Two former members of their teams who knew them all too well, this has to be all a precise work of war. Simon 'Ghost' Riley, R/N 'Grim' Makarov, the new image of a ticking bomb. Their names are given to all the agents in the world. Hitmen, snipers and all countries, looking for two mad soldiers.

One was set to win. That win would set a new record for all criminals and good men. This is how modern warfare changes for the better and worse of us.

This is the great war.

A/N: i thought this was uploaded and it turns out it was in my drafts all along....i'm stupid

Tags: @actuallyhiswife @eicee @liyanahelena

[purge-samauwu]

I'm watching heartbreak high and I just don't see how anyone can like Harper?? (I'm only on episode 4 or 5, the show is amazing but it's fucking whirlwind)

Granted I can tell some crazy shit happened to her and I'm already slightly spoiled to what it might be but I don't think that's an excuse for anything she does in the show for what I've seen.

She comes back to school after ghosting her friend, of which she's been friends with for at least a decade, and is completely unresponsive to her. (To a degree she must blame her for what happened but that blame must be not that much since she's so desperate to talk with her in the episodes after 1.)

Then proceeds to break Amerie's nose, or at the very least injure it, in front of everyone.

Amerie then tries to find a way to talk to her a a party. When she asks what happened all Harper can do instead of actually explaining is get defensive and cal her stuff.(If you don't feel like talking about something traumatic I'm not saying you have to but if you're going to hold it over someone's head because you believe it to be their fault you could at least give them the gyst of they seem keen on trying to fix it.)

And that's not even mentioning that Amerie didn't even think of snitching on her for participating in the whole thing that kicked this off. She really could have after the punch to the face. Because it is entirely unfair that she receives the brunt of the blame for something and the person that she did it with contributes to her alienation.

Then Harper fucks Amerie's crush. Which Amerie has no claim to the guy but Harper knew she had been crushing on him forever. Harper claims it just happened but I don't believe that for what happens next.

She then takes advantage of Malakai, Amerie's boyfriend, while he's under the influence and had just been freshly assaulted by the police. (With the help of Dusty, Amerie's crush, so he's disgusting too.) And the show doesn't specifically say it but I have every reason to believe she was at some level sober when she initiated the act. Which for obvious reasons is just fucking awful but also she slept with another person who held great value to Amerie. Even if she isn't conscious to it, she hast be unconsciously taking revenge on her. Her excuse for this was something along the lines of "I just wanted to help him🥺" or some shit. Which to quote Sarah (a girl in the show) "you just wanted to get your dick wet".

She then has the audacity to mad at her friend for not supporting her horrible behavior.

I've seen people try to excuse everything she's done (and will probably continue to do) all because she has trauma. Which I'm sorry but I have CRAZY amount of trauma and traumatic memories but I don't go around doing shit like this.

JUSTICE FOR AMERIE! SHE IS MY FAV BBG OTHER THAN DARRON AND QUINNI!! THEY ARE THE BEST TRIO AND I HOPE THEY LIVE BEAUTIFUL LIVES. (ALSO CA$H)

[stillmonsterz]

I just finished the Brave It Together parts, and omg, wtf is Ni-Ki up to?? I knew it was too good to be true with him, the way he was so lax and chill. I don't think he's a bad guy, I'm just wary of him now.

I think Jay and reader are a good pair because they're the same in lots of ways. They get something from the other that they need, which completes them and make them whole. Is she that way because it was a way to protect herself when younger, so it's just automatic? Their dynamic can be frustrating at times, but it works. She reminds me of Daria in a way. I like her friendship with Isa.

Despite all the shit that happened regarding Jake, I really don't think he raped Mina. We've heard things from multiple povs about it, and I just don't feel that he did that. That club may be spoiled, rich, entitled assholes, but I think they draw the line at something like that. Remember how upset Ni-Ki was when he told her what happened when he drove her home that time?

Jay Jay Jay...I'm not sure what to even say. I'm curious about why he's the way he is. It's like he's so angry about everything, and he's behaving in a way because he has nothing to lose? Idk. I should reread it so I can understand him better. I just hate that he treats reader and Isa horribly. Like why is one good enough to fuck but not show off? I can't wait for the next chapter/part.

I've been saving this one. I hate letting long asks like this leave my inbox lmao.

Y/N's past is probably going to stay ambiguous. I try to leave hints here and there, but I want a lot of my fic to be left to open interpretation. It's funny you mentioned Daria. Never watched it, but from what I've seen they are very similar (flat affect, societal disconnect, style of dressing). Jay and her are similar, and I'll go into that more in the final part trust.

I've spoken to my friends and they said that they thought Jake did it, so it's interesting to hear the opposite perspective. I'll never reveal what really happened, so it's up to you.

Isa is the biggest victim in all of this imo. Y/N went through a lot, but Jay coerced Isa into public sex and her new friend has been sleeping with her man for weeks. It's rough for her.

Thank you so much for leaving your message, and I really hope you enjoy this fic.

[cyanide-latte]

So after Book 6 left me completely and utterly devastated and a crying wreck in my bedroom, I've finally started Book 7 of Twisted Wonderland and I figured I'd just do a basic drop of my thoughts so far. I'm keeping them under a "read more" cut and I'll also tag this post as having spoilers (even though it's not really the more recent spoilers) just to be safe and considerate.

Beyond that though, my thoughts aren't going to have a filter so please take this with a grain of salt. (I'll mention at the end where I've stopped for now in the plot, so please don't spoil past that point for me if you reply to or reblog this post. I really really don't want spoilers.)

Got it? Good. Here we go.

- Exasperation and loathing, thy form is Michael Mouse, I viciously beseech thee to get out of my house

- we need more of the freshmen just interacting with one another in general

- Rook wanting to take an internship in archeology make so much sense for him. "I'm not a patient person but this will challenge that" BRO, SAME.

- Idia just interning at Google basically

- Lilia like "btw I need to drop out of school, gonna throw a party later before I leave, kthnxbai"

- all of the characters doing impersonations in this book is a DELIGHT

- "I declare the mopefest official over!" Spoken like a man who bottles his stronger emotions up out of fear of having to face them, Ace

- Fucking love the meta commentary

- Idia "I'm not going to some farewell party for a junior I barely know because I need to actually mourn losing contact with an internet friend who ghosted me and I'm despairing the possibility I could ever possibly make a friend again" Shroud is too fucking real, he's relatable honestly

Malleus: here's my lil sob story abt the time I threw a tantrum so bad I almost froze an entire castle of people to death. Lilia made it all better but gave me a stern talking-to I've never forgotten.

Me: why do I feel like you learned nothing.

Also Malleus not long after: because I took your words to heart Lilia I've been looking for a solution to this problem, and Silver and the Ramshackle prefect with their random venting to me gave me the perfect idea, so I'm going to trap THE ENTIRE ISLAND in stasis sleep so NOBODY CAN EVER LEAVE ME AGAIN a good hoard knows to stay put for the dragon who owns it haha you'll all be fine, dw about it, I've got everything under control

Me: so you learned nothing.

- Malleus has no rights, he needs to be sent to the Time-Out Corner

- I also love that that Malmal fight loads up with an infinity symbol because it's like oh lol yeah, infinite-turn battle but then you see Malleus's fucking 300K HP bar and I was instantly like "hmmmm I think you're lying" and then his regen heals for like 60K damage each turn and he casts fire damage immunity on himself and I was like "mmhmm I knew you were lying to me"

- I demanded Mickey get the fuck out of my house so of course naturally the game decides to be cheeky and put me the fuck in his instead

- no but why the fuck is he here. I'm so fucking annoyed

- WE DON'T NEED MICKEY.

- I get it, I get why he's here but he really doesn't need to be. Disney you CAN in fact make a fucking video game without shoehorning the damn mouse into it. The Hidden Mickeys in various backgrounds were fine, we didn't need more than that.

- for the record, I've been pissed off about this since it started happening books ago, but I remain aggravated by Mickey just being shoved into this.

- I love that Silver shows up to bail MC and Grim's collective ass out of danger and then meanwhile you've got Ortho like "I've seen dial-up faster than this shit, what the FUCK bro, I expected better of you, logging this in my database as an Epic Fail."

- but also ORTHO MY CHILD. BE FREE. YOU GOT THIS.

- The Shroud parents are EXACTLY how I imagined. They're everything I wanted from their characters and more. They even SOUND like I hoped they would. Beautiful. 10/10. My intuition about their entire family remains, as ever, on-point.

- I do love everything I've gotten with Silver to this point. I was very baseline neutral on his character until now, but the more I'm seeing of him, the more I appreciate what I am getting.

- Sebek is autistic. I will die on this hill. Even if he represents autistic traits the internet DOESN'T like to woobify for the most part, that boy is autistic. He's autistic as fuck. This book is so far just further proving it.

- I mentioned earlier that Malleus has no rights but I'm saying it again because it's fucking rude as shit he's got epic choral BGM in Sebek's dream. Also creeping on people's dreams and threatening to forcibly make them sleep forever when they defy you because you feel entitled to ownership of your victims? Wow. Hey by the way Malleus, you got a phone call, we got a guy from Ohio on the other line, says his name's Freddy, you're one set of full-body burn scars away from him sueing your scaly ass. Yeah, just thought you'd wanna know.

- Listen I really want to appreciate and like the Malleus I hear everyone among my friends and mutuals say they see him as but no. No. Is he well-written? Well, I'm still early into this, so I'm withholding judgment on that point though I AM hopeful that I'll eventually appreciate how he's written. But do I like him? No. I didn't give a single flying fuck about him to begin with and I still don't. Throw onto it he's being a bitch right now, and that's not helping. If you genuinely like Malleus as a person, that's your prerogative, that's whatever. I'm not entirely sure what you see in him to like as a person but again, your prerogative. If you like him as a character because of how he's written for the role he is in, in the overall story, power to you, I REALLY hope I'll eventually agree with you. But as of right now, just so you're aware if you've read this far, I still don't give a single flying fuck about Malleus and I'm slowly starting to teeter into the direction of actually disliking him as a person.

- Silver: QUICK, TAKE MY HAND!!! Sebek: ew.

- Currently I've stopped on the chapter where Silver has dream-hopped from Sebek's dream with Sebek, Yuu and Grim in tow, into the dream of a mysterious bat-masked figure with a familiar voice who couldn't POSSIBLY be Lilia, not at ALL. So please don't talk to me about anything past that yet. I'll reblog this post with an update when I get further.

[jimmycarterghostland]

(This is going to be kind of a long post about Worm. BTW, I'm currently on the Scarab arc)

I'm reading Scarab 25.1 of Worm right now.

I only read a couple of words of it, though. I had to make this post, because I need to say it boggles my mind when someone says they read Worm in a matter of weeks. I saw a Reddit comment from a guy(I'm assuming they were a guy) who said they read Worm in two weeks. I started this read in either May or June. So either 4 or 5 months ago, and I'm still reading. This web serial is MASSIVE.

When I first started the read, I would read three chapters per day. But these chapters are so long now, I only read one of them per day. And I can't even imagine reading Worm in two weeks. I would quickly get tired of reading that many words. This thing is over one million and a half words long.

Some background: I discovered Worm years ago, back when I was googling the longest story, or probably when I was searching up a one million word-long story. I can't remember which of those things led me to Worm.

Ultimately, I ended up discovering this story. I spoiled a lot of it for myself. I also used to read it out of chronological order. I would read random scenes and stuff. My attempts to read the entire story in order failed. Until I started this current read months ago. I don't mention all of that in my occasional posts about Worm, and I spoiled a bunch more of it for myself during this read. So, I'm actually aware of a lot that's going to happen in this story later on. Reading Worm completely unaware of what was going to happen in it must have been crazy for people who read it live.

I like how Wildbow has a bunch of loyal readers who comment on every chapter. I pray my own web serial gets loyal fans like those. Technically, I'm a silent reader with Worm. I don't leave comments on WordPress, but I do discuss Worm on Tumblr, and I've been reading every chapter. It's funny, because as a writer, I hate having silent readers. Positive comments on a story are encouraging, gives me the push I need to keep writing it.

Anyway, I love Worm. It's so good. There are definitely some grammar errors and some instances of clunky writing, but this story is still a lot better than many traditionally published novels. I won't name any names, but there's this one traditionally published novel that I've been reading every day, and it's absolute trash. I actually dread reading it. But I hate having a book and leaving it unfinished, so I'm forcing myself to read that one. It sucks so bad. The difference in quality between this book and Worm is astounding. Seriously. It makes me appreciate Worm a lot more. I never dread having to read a chapter of Worm.

The characters in Worm are complex and have their own unique personalities and speech patterns. Wildbow is a master of writing multiple points of view, and a master of writing distinct characters. Characters in Worm have unique dialogue. I remember reading a certain chapter and just knew it was Skidmark speaking, because he is vulgar and doesn't feel shame when he curses or says something inappropriate.

In Hookwolf's interlude, his personality pops off the page. His racism shows in his thoughts. He refers to Shatterbird as a racial slur in his inner monologue. A non-racist character would have used the proper term for Shatterbird's ethnicity in their inner monologue. But Hookwolf is a racist. He thinks like one, and Wildbow shows that well. Wildbow knows how to give each of his narrators a distinct character voice. Or if not each of them, enough of them. Many authors are bad at writing multiple POV fiction. Wildbow isn't one of them. And since I prefer multiple POV literature over single POV, I'm glad that Worm is a good example of what good multiple POV literature looks like.

Worm has some great subtlety too. A lot of things aren't overexplained. As in, Wildbow doesn't unnecessarily beat the reader over the head with certain stuff. Like, when Leviathan was moving slower, implying he was weaker than he was when the battle against him first started. Wildbow could have written "Leviathan was moving slower because he was weaker." Wildbow didn't do that, though. The fact Leviathan was moving slower told enough.

Another instance of Wildbow being great with subtlety was Charlotte's interlude. She is distrustful of men because of what happened to her at the mall, but Wildbow doesn't constantly refer back to that incident. There's no overexplaining. The reader can already guess that Charlotte is distrustful of men because of that mall incident. If Worm was written by a bad writer, they would have kept explaining how the mall accident was what made Charlotte scared of men. Wildbow does a great job of "show, don't tell".

I no longer think Worm will be traditionally published. I wish it would be, but at some point I realized it would be very hard for Worm to be traditionally published. I think it's fine the way it is. Having Worm in a web serial format is good enough.

I love Worm, and I am glad it exists.

[mytalemyworld]

I don't have enough time to talk about the episode (there were some parts I love but also some parts I found sloppy) however this scene is engraved in my mind and heart forever. I can't stop thinking about it.

From the beginning to the end… How the feelings were portrayed and how they were in character and yet showed so much progression. How they were soft yet intense. Just like everything about them.

Alaz: Can we talk? Asi: No. Alaz: I didn't come to fight, Asi. I came to talk this time. Please.

Like this was the beginning (more like the end of me), the way he was begging so they could talk…he's always convincing and she has always a soft spot for him when he is desperate but after everything he knew he was extra soft here.

Asi: So?

He was nervous about how to start the conversation, became insecure about how she would react. He knew one wrong word choice could make their fragile relationship worse…His whole body language, his all eye movements…This was the first time we saw him like this.

Alaz: Look. I know what we are is too ridiculous. It's mostly my fault. Asi: Mostly? Alaz: Okay. (*) Let's say all my fault.

I smiled at his adorableness here.

(*) "Okay" makes sense when it comes to clear translating. But actually he said "oldu" which is usually used when someone asks for you to do something as their wish or command and you are like "okay I'll do it".

She wanted him to be sincere and he was like okay I will be and he kind of owned his mistakes here.

She is Asi, he can't beat her but since this doesn't make him uncomfortable anymore, since he's at peace with his feelings now, he just accepted it and smiled.

Asi: What's going on? There's something off with you. Did you come here to overcome your fears? Alaz: You're right. I am the coward one in this situation. I was scared of your stength. You're always so strong, even when I hurt you, you never break down. Whatever I do, it doesn't matter, you always stand straight in front of me. It's like you're wearing a steel armor…that's what I thought. Since I couldn't beat you, I attacked more. I didn't even stop to think once why this girl was wearing this armor. Asi, for the pain I've caused you- Asi: Stop right there. What pain? Where did this come from? You caused me pain?

We finally saw the continuation of the talk between the siblings. (Honestly, I didn't like the way Çağla told her he was scared of being in love with her. I think this conversation should have happened between them, not like this. But anyways.) When after he'd said "I didn't even stop to think once why this girl was wearing this armor." she waited to hear something different. Not his "I caused you pain" talking.

She outbursted.

Every time she chose to trust or wanted to believe him he proved her wrong. He broke her heart. Even when he looked so sincere. But since she can't afford to suffer because of him she completely builds her walls around again not allowing him to enter anymore.

Her pride is stronger this time also she hates being weak.

It was more like she was talking to herself here. She wants to convince herself, "you've been through so much, how could he bring more suffering, he's such a spoiled brat who has everything in this life, who just sees everything as a play, even you, come to your senses, don't fall into this trap again, he's not worth this pain".

She was arguing, telling how he had no idea about the real pain but this time he wasn't in pain because of his guilt.

This is the face of someone who has realized what she has been through.

This time he was in pain because she was in pain. Not his feelings were on the spot, this was only and only about her.

Now he knows how to love.

Alaz: I am sorry. Asi: Don't be. Don't say sorry. You're being Alaz, as always.

Like you can clearly see she doesn't trust him. He says sorry but will forget what he said the next day and hurt her again.

But then boom! He pulled her and hugged.

Touching is his love language, when he can't explain what he feels, when he can't console someone with words, when he feels like words are not enough and since he knows lack of physical touch between people when they need it makes one more misarable...

And also here…when embracing her was also a need for him he didn't think twice.

She needed that hug too, you know. She closed her eyes and hugged him back slightly.

Asi: Let go. Let it stay messy. You can't put them back together.

He has the opposite effect of "healing" so… They are not good for ecah other, she means. She might be broken but he's the last person to make her feel good. Not anymore at least.

I mean, if he could express what he'd done or what he couldn't do, they would get back on track. Because they could talk once and share what they feel. Then everything went downhill, they lost what they had.

But she will choose to believe him again and this time he won't disappoint her. He will fix what is broken between them.

They're just so heartbreakingly beautiful. The way they fell in love with each other is so beautiful. I just can't get enough of them.

[the-ellia-west]

Hello! Just came to drop by and ask about your current WIP, TCOT! I've seen your prompts for it and I want to properly know more about it. Sorry if it has been explained in your masterlists but I can't seem to find a solid explanation and decided to go here instead.

So! What is the story about? Who are the main characters? And what do they look like? And anything else you want to share about it?

Thank you so much for the Ask @justalittlebuddy

And I didn't really ever make a thorough explanation of it. Just a small synopsis, which only explains like the first 7 chapters?

So Here, a massively long ramble about TCOT, what it is, the conflicts, the characters, and everything.

Alllllrighty!

Here we go!

Explanation of the plot and general premise

TCOT is meant to be/ I'm hoping to make is an about 8 book Series of low fantasy setting with high action, high stakes, romance subplots, and way too much drama.

It's meant to be a basic War-centered fantasy story with good vs Evil with tons of interesting side plots and characters that make it its own interesting and unique project.

Main plot has never been a strength of mine, so I stole one from stereotypical children's media and twisted it into my own thing, adding way too many branches until I turned it into a tree.

The Story is meant to be a pitchfork shaped plot with An underline of the war plot while exploring the psychology and character arcs of all my lovelies in depth.

Now I probably accidentally re-explained that like 4 times as I tend to do, but whatever, Its general structure goes with the heroes down on their luck finding more ways to fight back against the Villains until something works. Other than that I can't explain without spoiling like the 17 consecutive character arcs that interweave to make the story what it is.

All I can say, is Kasi's shift from a seamstress to a warrior, Xhaazi's mental shift from a Jokester to a fighter, Chrin's shift from a nervous seer boy into a powerful influence, Sokuna's shift from a defender to a leader, and all the villain's arcs, that I can't say anything about unless Major spoilers. :]

The Characters

TCOT's main focus is on its characters and their arcs as already stated, There's multiple species, trauma, murder, magic, and morals thrown all about like party confetti in this series.

I can't say a lot about their arcs, but each and every one of them goes through some transformation into something completely different from what they were at the beginning, and This list of characters has an incredibly important arc which weaves together to create the big main plot:

Kasi, Xhaazi, Chrin, Sokuna, Marril, Shyre, Viasaki, Kila, and Geon

I will give you a parapgraph about each because I'm feeling talkative

Kasi

Kasi is a young Outlander who lives outside the walls of Feyrama's Capital City of Terefin with her father Julan and her twin brother Xhaazi. The twins never knew their mother and Julan doesn't like to talk about her. Kasi is a hothead with strong emotions and a tendency to throw-things-first-ask-questions-later. She's fiery and passionate, but she also has extreme emotions in the opposite directions, as in she gets overly excited sometimes, breaks down crying at minor inconveniences, or has panic attacks. But she's gotten good at controlling herself and seeks solace in her loved ones and her job.

Xhaazi

Xhaazi is Kasi's twin brother and a jokester, younger by an hour, and very easily excitable. Just like his sister, Xhaazi has a tendency to feel emotions very strongly, but he doesn't let life phase him and tells jokes to cheer up his friends and family as he loves seeing others smile. Their approval is everything he wants and more. He's upbeat and excitable, enjoying silence as well as loud places. He loves spending time with others and will help wherever he can in any way he can.

Chrin

Chrin is a very powerful young seer boy, who is related to secondary nobles through distant family. But no matter what happens, Chrin is all sunshine and smiles, seeing the silver lining on every cloud and keeping a level head in even the worst scenario, a stark and well-needed contrast to the twin's extreme reactions. He cares for everyone and just wants his efforts and love to be appreciated, as well as to help create a better future for himself and everyone he loves.

Sokuna

Sokuna is an adult shade who ran away from the other shades to protect her daughter from the ruthless training and bloodshed that comes with being a soldier raised from birth. She does everything she can to make a happy life for herself and her daughter in a world that hates them, trying to see the sun between all the rain.

Shyre

Shyre is a young noblewoman and Heir to the third most notable family in Feyrama, the family in charge of negotiations and Trade. She is kind-hearted and well-meaning, though a little naive to the true problems and violence of the world. Shyre can be categorized as a chronic optimist with a lot of passion and not a lot of street smarts.

Now... onto the villains...

Geon

Geon is Less of a villain than he is... actually I don't know what he is. Geon is a Prince who is the bastard child of the Roselite king and an Ahelite Sorceress (Ahelites are an Elven servant race) Born blind, he was shunned as inferior in every possible way by everyone except the only legitimate son of the King and Queen, his older brother Damian. Goen is kind, compasssionate and soft spoken, with a tendency to go against orders and isolate himself because no one in the palace besides his mother, Damian, and his assigned Aid Trissa, care about him. Well at least he's like this until... Shit happens.

Marril

Marril is a paid Assassin. He is also a Hitman. But mostly Assassin. He was cursed at a young age to serve the Shades and their king, and has been trying to scramble free of its torture for years. Guilt-stricken and angry, he is rude, callous, and generally a menace to people he doesn't like, he uses sarcasm and violence as coping mechanisms. He is formal, but a very generally angry person with a lot of trauma who just kinds of needs some help and a cup of coffee.

Viasaki

Viasaki is the First Lieutenant under Tias and The Vessel, controlling a battalion of soldiers. He is a strategic genius who uses most of his time to care for misfits and lost soldiers. But despite his empathy, he will usually follow orders without question. He wavers between his own thoughts, and listening to the voices in his head, while sometimes being controlled by The Vessel. The only thing truly keeping him anchored to reality is his utter hatred of Kila and Tias.

Kila

Kila is Tias' Warrior, also known as the second in command or most trusted of someone with high rank, you only get one, if one of your soldiers volunteers and proves themselves worthy in skill. Kila is worthy and works to stay worthy no matter what. Worthy of status, worthy of love, worthy of a home, worthy of not being thrown out of the mountain at any second, worthy of not being hit for doing a bad job. Kila is a raging perfectionist who sees the world as the strong and the weak. She is a chronic people pleaser and hothead who like to do things her way even though she tries her best to be the perfect servant.

(The only reason she doesn't try to please Viasaki is because she sees him as weak)

Anyway, those are my lovely babies, time for

Conflict

All of the Conflicts from TCOT come from the characters and circumstances

But the main ones are these:

The Main Trio really Fuckin' hates Marril

Viasaki and Kila CANNOT FUCKING GET ALONG

and

Y'know, war

Each book will be structured around a specific character, and developing their arcs, some will get multiple, it's just generally the arc that gets the most progress, and the character that has the most POV time.

Book 1 is basically an intro and set up for everything, but I love it, and I can't wait until we get into the real meat of this shit.

Anywayyyyyy, Book 2 is slated to be a Kasi book, #3 is planned to be a Viasaki one, and I'd have to find my google doc for the rest.

Anyway, thank you again for the ask and this chance to ramble! This is the premise and characters of TCOT! I hope you enjoyed and You'd want to read it!

(Also, if anyone wants to draw these little losers or look at Physical descriptions of them, I am trying my best I swear to make those.)