#I know some of it is internal drive. but a lot is fear of failing bc I have been told (indirectly) it’s not an option

[iwait4youalexg]

When I was panicking yesterday about not being super happy with my school and thinking about what would happen if I were to drop out I think most of the existential anxiety around that is due to how my parents treat my brother. My brother is 2 years younger than me and dropped out of school years ago and has never had a job and I think since then he’s been taking some classes online but I don’t really know much tbh. But my parents are always really hard on him about being in classes or getting a job or having some kind of plan and I’m not super close with him for other reasons and he has some issues but I could never get on board with the things my parents criticize him for. I don’t think my parents realize how hearing this over the years has instilled in me and probably my little sister an anxiety about not having it ‘together’ not having a plan for our lives school or career wise and I think maybe I jump into things without knowing if they’re really right for me in the long term because I fear that if I’m undecided or take time off I’ll be treated the way he is

[narrativelysignificantturtleduck]

something that makes sokka extremely adhd relatable is that he's constantly looking for his Thing, the one Thing he's good at or useful for that makes up for any failings or flaws or ways he just can't measure up to others. at the beginning of the show he defines himself by being the oldest boy in the village & best warrior, but then he gets his ass kicked by zuko and suki and sees aang's raw power and he can't exactly think fighting is his special skill anymore. but he still thinks he has to be defined by fighting ('man of the house' daddy issues) so he calls himself the guy with the boomerang bc that's turned out to be his most useful and versatile and unique weapon, the one that other people can't outclass him at (after all, it's his most successful attack in his fight with zuko). when he loses it in "avatar day" he explicitly says it's like losing a key part of his identity and the moment katara goes "hey you're good at solving mysteries" he's like "yeah! i'm a detective! that's my new thing! and gets a new set of objects to signify it ("i believe in the power of stuff"). but detective sokka doesn't last bc throughout the entire episode he and katara are pretty equally matched in detective skills and he gets his boomerang back anyway. failed experiment.

and throughout all of this, he's figured out that people find his insistance on getting them fed & his grumpy comments funny and so he begins defining himself as the meat and sarcasm guy, and when he's a tough spot in "bitter work", bargaining with the universe to get him help, he offers that up as all he's got to give. it's obviously a Joke that he immediately asks for meat after telling the universe he'll give it up but it's also pretty indicative of how much he clings to these identities. it's all he's got (he thinks), of COURSE he can't actually give it up. they stuck that boy in a hole for 22 minutes and it revealed so much about how he sees himself.

at some point (likely around "the library" when he takes initiative to come up with a fire nation invasion plan) he also becomes the plan guy, the idea guy, and the gaang find themselves looking to him for leadership. this is perhaps the closest to fully encompassing sokka that any of his "[blank] guy" labels get, since coming up with plans involves planning when and how to fight (boomerang guy) & how to get everyone fed (meat), and people not following his plans is a major source of frustration (sarcasm).

this all culminates in "sokka's master", where the show finally names the underlying insecurity driving this quest - that he's a nonbender. katara being the last waterbender meant she was in danger and that keeping her safe was top priority, and even though hakoda and kya wouldn't have played favorites sokka probably felt a little like the unfavorite child for not being special like her. he lacks an ability, and believes his life has less value bc of it. almost like somebody with a disability and internalized ableism

(interesting, one of the people who most consistently mocks sokka for being a nonbender is toph, early on. toph has a lot of internalized ableism herself, a fear of vulnerability bc she doesn't want to perceived as weak like her parents thought she was. her bending is her disability aid, the thing that allows her to be stronger than people think, so she dismisses a nonbender until she learns better.)

piandao's response to sokka's lack of self-worth is not to train him to be great at one thing, but to introduce him to a variety of different arts, show him that his value lies not in having any one skill but in his capacity to learn and grow. there's no single thing that makes him worthy. it isn't even the combination of all of them that makes him worthy. he simply is worthy.

and i don't know if this is a unique narrative in fiction or anything but it really means a lot to me that sokka doesn't have One Thing that "makes up" for him not being a bender. he's of course extremely skilled and prodigious at many things he does in the show but there's no one savant talent that "justifies" him being in the group and i feel like so many disability narratives - especially for kids - go that route and i really appreciate that atla doesn't and simply says people are valuable because they are valuable, not because of their special abilities

[thebluestbluewords]

Any random descendants headcanons you want to share?

I know I've been holding on to this ask for ages, but fear not!! I have FINISHED MOVING MOSTLY (I just have a couple boxes of craft supplies left to unpack, and tbh I mostly keep those in storage bins for organization anyway so it's fineeee) AND I HAVE SOME ENERGY ONCE AGAIN. 

Because I've been hearing a lot lately about my irl coworker's kid and her battle with school (she's been suspended twice in the last two weeks! And one of those weeks was spring break!) here's some VK school headcanons. 

As all of us book fans know, Carlos and Evie love school. They're TRAGIC, HOPELESS NERDS. 

Building on this, I think that Evie loves school so much that she's chronically overscheduling herself.  She's the girl who takes a full course load plus a bonus class just for fun, plus four or five extracurriculars.....plus of course she's doing the most for her required Auradon Prep volunteer hours, and on top of that she's running her fashion empire. She's the girl who has an absolutely ruthless schedule for herself, and she's never without her planner. During AP finals week, she's the one who schedules herself a five-minute cry break in the library, and then when her alarm goes off, she stops crying and gets back to work. She's spent so long being castle-schooled that she is not giving up a single moment now that she can experience school to the fullest. 

As a Very Important Headcanon Note, I do believe that Auradon Prep has a volunteer hours requirement for all students. They've got to have....something like 35 hours of volunteer work each year, which is about an hour a week if we're following a standard US school schedule. 

Lonnie organizes fun runs for charity as her volunteer hours. She's got a couple other international students on board too, and they work together on it. One of the school faculty supervises them and signs off on the hours. She organized one for the benefit of the isle, not that she's going to admit as much to the VKs. 

Evie refuses to participate in any Isle-based charity drives. She's on the junior kingdom advisory council, and that's enough time spent thinking about home the isle for her. Her school-sanctioned volunteer work is with an organization that helps bring fun STEM experiments into the public elementary schools. Of course she's going to design experiments that let the kids have a little bit of explosives. As a treat. The little girls deserve to know that they can look cute and cause chaos! 

Mal failed the required safety training, and isn't allowed to go into the elementary school with Evie. Apparently if you put curse words in every single one of your write-in answers, the school decides that you're not worthy of being a role model for the youth. 

She's getting her volunteer hours by working in the museum archives. It's mostly scanning boring, dusty old books into a digital archive. Totally dull stuff. She's only doing it because it keeps her away from the innocent public for her volunteer hours, and she's definitely not reading the books in the museum archive, which are mostly there because the kingdom did a very badly organized roundup of magical books when the magic ban first went into place, and nobody ever organized the piles of random spell books that have been collecting dust in the archive since. Totally not reading them. 

On an unrelated note, Mal's been sent to in-school suspension once every three weeks (the maximum amount that she can get away with before the consequences start stacking up) for accidental fire-related property destruction. On the plus side, she knows how to cast fireball now! 

Jay and Carlos are both doing their volunteer work through the on-campus junior sports teams. They're teaching adorable elementary students how to hit balls and not trip over their own feet. Jay is thriving. He loves kids and being adored. He's got a pack of under-ten kids who think he's the coolest thing ever. He gets to toss them around like boneless little sacks of meat, and they love him for it. He's doing great. Carlos is.....surviving. He's got two surly little pre-goth kids who are only in sports because their parents made them sign up, and they think he's the coolest student coach because he threatens them with physical violence when they don't participate. 

Middle school kids aren't required to do volunteer work, but Dizzy and Celia are HYPE to get student volunteer access to the AP chemistry labs once they're old enough to volunteer as lab cleaners. 

Squeaky and Squirmy are planning on running away to sea before they get to high school. They have not told anyone about this plan. 

Uma's pirates will eventually get a singular year of high school education each, during which they will cause at least thirteen new behavioral rules to be added to the AP handbook. 

Gil volunteers to crochet blankets for the Auradon City hospital, and accidentally finds his calling as a baby whisperer. Tiny babies love him. He's huge and warm and used to handling kids from all his half-siblings that keep popping up on the isle. What he lacks in critical thinking skills he makes up for in literally just picking up a kid and making them fall asleep. 

Uma creates a new volunteer position where she sits in the Isle Affairs office and bullies the adult coordinators relentlessly. She has one of them signing off on her volunteer paperwork, and another one of them paying her under the table for her consulting services. 

Harry is exempt from volunteer work, due to the unmitigated violence that lives in his soul. Also, he's like twenty, and refuses to do even a singular year of high school. He spends the time that Uma's choosing to waste in high school auditing college-level psychology classes so that he can learn better ways of psychologically tormenting their rivals. 

[saladmix]

salad

just why are you doing this to this poor kids cant you see that they had enough?? (/hj im addicted to this)

I KNOW I'M SORRY LISTEN that was a brutal chapter and I know it and I think we all need a little rest let's get some hot chocolate and blankets and take a nap and relax knowing that their ordeal is almost over they are GETTING! SAVED!

I actually have so much to say about this chapter and I'm going to use this to ramble please forgive me. Spoilers for Chapter 32 under the cut!

I have a lot of feelings about Leo's internal struggle on escaping this situation. In the beginning, there were several opportunities that the boys could have bailed, before they were in the quarantine rooms. But TMNT to me and many others has always been, in part, a metaphor for exclusion, or "othering," whether that be through race, neurodivergence, gender, sexuality, or the many many other ways that society seeks to exclude and categorize.

And there's such a weight with that exclusion. We know the MM boys want to belong its one of their core goals that drives all their actions and thoughts. Not only was the entire movie about that, but the series was peppered with this stress of "we got what we wanted, but it could be taken away, we could be set back." They clearly feel responsible for all mutant activity, afraid that any actions by other mutants will reflect badly on them. And this is super common in excluded or targeted groups of people. That fear of 'oh god, please don't let this act have been committed by X or Y or they're going to think they're right about us.'

So here the boys are, in this other dimension, and they're being seen once again as a possible threat. But this is a new one for them-- usually when someone views them as a threat they act aggressively. But now, they're being given water and jackets and treated with kind words. And the one thing Leo doesn't want to do is reinforce a stereotype or confirm their fears that yes, he and his brothers are dangerous and need to be handled.

So they all kind of go along with this treatment, despite every warning sign in their bodies going off. And by the time the realize they're trapped, that this situation is just as bad as the one they were in back home, it's too late to do anything. And it hurts, because even in this world of mutants, they're still the ones who don't belong, they're still the threat, they're still the problem.

Which brings me to HANNAH, who was actually a very fun little character to write. On the one side of the spectrum you have MM Leo and Mikey, who have kind of relied on Hannah as a source of comfort and a promise of freedom and safety. On the other side you have Donnie and Raph who absolutely did not trust her (we'll see this come out more in future chapters). But I really did break my own heart with her, and how Leo, over the course of a year, really began to see her as someone he cared about and who cared about him. Hannah is the one that makes him feel less different, less dangerous, and possibly the one who will bring him into the world. When she's disappointed in him for their escape attempt he kind of breaks down, and it's a break down for multiple reasons: they're still trapped, they're still not safe, they failed and now it'll be even harder to escape. But it's also BECAUSE she's disappointed in him, and Leo doesn't really fully understand that but it cuts him in a way he wasn't expecting. Like he's done something wrong by trying to advocate for himself and his brothers, like he's stepped out of line and in some way failed his internal desire to belong. He's set himself back. And that's fucked up, guys! it is! But Hannah represents this chance for them to not only be free, but to be seen and treated as equals.

And then the world ends, and Hannah leaves. And we don't know if she thought about them, or if she actually cared, or if she was just there to keep them in line. We don't know what her real motivations were because Leo doesn't know and that breaks his heart. The one person he thought for sure wouldn't stand for their mistreatment abandoned them. And now he's alone.

Anyway this kind of got long and disjointed and I'm not sure there's a good coherent pull-through thread in there but my point is that the boys did indeed have ENOUGH and they're very tired and traumatized and would very much like to go home now.

[ac-liveblogs]

Hello! I've been curious about how you'd do Nahida's character ever since you mentioned you'd like her to parallel Collei! I believe you also mentioned the cage allegory didn't really work when she was able to do so much? And that all the archons would step down - kinda curious what would Nahida do post main quest, instead of being reinstated as archon.

Nahida's story has some relatively interesting ideas (learning to be angry for herself, her insecurities as an archon) but it's just. Any interesting plot that could spawn from that is nipped at the bud! She's so flat as a character that there's absolutely no emotional punch - like, if she actually ACTED angry for more than 2 secs... if her insecurities had some grain of truth bc how can the archon of wisdom be wise without experiencing anything, locked all her life...but no. She has nothing.. internal? That drives her. Her insecurities are unfounded, the only factors preventing her from realising her objectives are external and gone now - heck her MOTIVATION is external and something she just has been TOLD she has to do. She has nothing to aim towards in her growth as a character.

Also please write out the railroaded hellspawn samsara dream loop... hated hated HATED that part. Wish we'd gotten smth like penacony - an alternate sumeru in dreamworld w cool aesthetics - where we could meet nahida, instead...

Hi!

I've been thinking of AQ-era Collei as 'active, assertive, independent to a fault' and Nahida as 'passive, reactive, learned helplessness'.... they've both totally given up on themselves for different reasons.

At the start of Sumeru, Collei is stuck in her own head and is determined to take Dottore down with her, she doesn't even want to try using her powers for anything beyond revenge. Meanwhile, Nahida only uses her powers to reach out to her people in dreams to try and help them, and thinks its her own fault she's being replaced because she failed to stop the Withering. I don't think she ever really thought about saving herself.

I thought about it in terms of them both learning something from each other, and using that to protect themselves/what they find important. I wanted Collei to overcome her own fears and use her powers to protect Nahida, and Nahida to value herself enough to fight for her right to exist... and them both decide they want to be able to move on past all this with the people that care about them.

That's also the reason Nahida is the only ex-Archon that makes it through this in one piece LMAO.

I was going to wrap most of this up during the Sumeru chapter, which surprisingly has a lot going on in it. I think they both really dislike Scaramouche, but they kind of empathise with him as being a guy in a similar situation to both of them… (sorry to tighnari, i'm mostly focusing on collei -> cyno, nahida, dottore.)

Post AQ, I don't have a problem with Alhaitham taking over as Grand Sage (temporary or otherwise), so I figured Nahida would be working with him and whoever else he hires to govern Sumeru going forward. Beyond that, I think she'd just enjoy living life day by day. She's 'wise' but has no lived experience, so I wanted her to just get the opportunity to live her life. I'm tossing up if I even want most people to know she used to be the Archon or not…

If I have time, I'll do a sidequest/continuation with the Temple of Silence with her, Cyno, Collei and Sethos.

I also hated the Samsara. Did society learn nothing from the Endless 8? The idea that it was engaging gameplay is also laughable. I think Genshin forgets its a videogame sometimes. How convenient we have a party member decently familiar with dreams that can save us some time (Xiao).

There main outline I have for the Samsara is;

Collei's Eleazor revealed here.

Nahida can ONLY communicate through dreams. The Samsara is the most active she's been in a long time;

Scaramouche is directly plugged into it, realises she's using the chance to try and get help (from the Travelers, ew) dirctly tries to stamp her (and us) out in the dream world (opportunity to for dream shenanigans/bosses);

Display Irminsul's powers by having Scara use it to rewrite everyone's memories of who their current god is (? maybe? foreshadow lumine's resistance to it)

Us ruining the experiment and shutting down the cycle gets us on the Akademiya's radar;

I didn't want us to spend too much time in the Samsara, and mostly thought about converting it into gameplay (i.e., a "dungeon").

I didn't think about using it to get rid of my frustrations about Penacony though! You're right that it'd be more "interesting" to explore if the dreamworld is very different to reality (thinking like this is a real game that's going to get made… lmao). I think that might work well once Scaramouche knows we know and starts trying to squash us and we've realised it IS a dream. He can start really disliking Nahida for stopping him from killing us lol.

[rayadraws]

I recently read a book about motivation and I found it quite interesting - and couldn't help but see a lot of parallels related to artists and art block. I thought I would share some of the points the book makes, which might be interesting for artists, writers and other creative people.

Motivation

We need motivation to start on and continue working on a task. We can find our motivation in different things, each with good and bad side effects - some of them have a tendency to shift our focus (for instance if you're motivated by feedback/praise you may end up spending more energy chasing that than at the task at hand).

Motivation can broadly be divided into external and internal.

External - rewards, compliments, likes

Internal - your own drive to do/finish a meaningful task

When possible, internal motivation tends to work better than external motivation, we’re more tenacious when our motivation comes from ourselves rather than outside sources. Internal motivation is strengthened by:

- Learning to master a new skill

- Experiencing autonomy (making your own decisions, this is self-rewarding)

- Being part of a community

- Feedback from others

- Performing a task that's suitable for our skill level/previous experience

- Getting to choose your own task

By contrast, external motivation can consist of:

- Bribes, such as treating yourself after finishing a task. This is a double-edged sword - it will further convince your mind that the task isn't worth doing for its own sake, but if the alternative is that you won't finish the task at all this is a better alternative.

- Grades, can motivate but also cause stress and be associated with personal worth, which is detrimental. If you can view grades as neutral feedback you can utilize them best.

- Social influence, such as not wanting to disappoint others. Can strengthen internal motivation but also cause fear or an unwillingness to challenge yourself in case you fail.

- Status, power, money, you can become addicted to these factors.

If you want to be more motivated you need to first understand why your motivation is lacking in the first place. A common issue is that you're too worried about what others think about you.

Self-worth & the idea of talent

There is also our feelings of self-worth and how capable we view ourselves that influence our motivation. If we knock ourselves down ("I bet I can't do it anyway") it'll lower our chances of success. If we believe in ourselves and our skills we're more likely to succeed.

When possible it's valuable to have a role model, having one can motivate us a lot. Is there none? Perhaps you'll be the first role model for others following in your footsteps.

In modern society we often put the idea of "talent" on a piedestal, of having been given the gift of expertise without putting in the hard work. In truth no such kind of talent exists, expertise comes from hard effort.

We also have to watch out for over-commitment, which can lead to stress, exhaustion and anxiety. Two major risk factors are the feeling of being watched/judged and a lack of balance, typically the concept of talent again - the end result should be perfect, but should also appear as if it took no effort, an impossible task. The concept of talent leads us to the next point:

Deliberate practice

There is the concept of deliberate practice, meaning that how we practice is more important than how often we do it. You can spearhead your growth by making your practice intense, conscious and tenacious. To use drawing as an example, you'll learn more by practicing something you feel uncertain about than just repeating what you already know. Likewise, learning more about different fields/parts/subjects makes us more well-rounded in general. For instance, if you learn to draw one kind of animal it'll be easier to draw animals related to that one. Learn to draw a completely different animal from the first one and you'll struggle less with animals related to that one too. We grow and learn the most when we manage to find the right balance of staying inside and stepping outside our comfort zone.

You can think about how video games are set up and draw comparisons with a good way of learning a skill - you start at an easy level, gradually add more challenges and focus on your progress rather than your mistakes (just don't fall into the trap of a bonus system of quick rewards).

Our brains need to be challenged to grow, but we also need time to recover. In other words, alternate between trying new things and doing what's familiar.

If you are putting a lot of effort into a task it's a sign that you're learning. If things are too easy it's time to raise the difficulty.

Mindset

Mindset is about how you react to when things go well - and when they go badly. You can't change your mindset before you're aware of it.

We have a tendency to let feedback we receive (or lack thereof) colour our feelings of self-worth. Viewing your accomplishments as part of your personal worth is a surefire way to ruin your motivation, your tenacity and eventually your health.

A poor view of your self-worth also steals a lot of energy. You view your skill as a personality trait and base your inherent value on the feedback of others, such as the number of likes you receive. You run a higher risk of failing a task if you’ve tied it to your self-image or if you're addicted to praise.

On the other hand, positive affirmations are actually not as helpful as we’re often told, they mostly reassure people who are already very confident. High confidence is not automatically tied to successful accomplishments but can be a source of joy and determination - though that confidence can be at risk of quickly shattering if things don't go as we hoped.

Focus

When we pick up a new hobby we're often very motivated at first. This tends to stem from being at a suitable challenge level for our skill level, we get in the "flow" and we can easily see/follow our progress at mastering a new skill.

Over time it becomes more challenging to balance our challenge level with our skill level, risking us growing bored or frustrated. To counteract this, learn to compare yourself only with your own growth, not anyone else's, it’s not relevant to you.

Feedback

Contrary to what one might think, feedback is not always helpful. We're often already aware of our mistakes and having them pointed out is not helpful unless we ask for it.

Negative feedback is much more helpful if it leaves room to adjust/fix the issue, otherwise it's not really helpful. Mark the difference between small slips (not worth bringing up) and mistakes (that can be corrected).

Many of us are addicted to praise. It gives us a form of external reward, feedback and it makes us feel valuable, but there's risks too, such as setting too high expectations and thinking you only have value while you're productive.

Feedback associated with our feelings of self-worth, like "I'm the best", adds nothing. Focus on your achievement, not your self-image. If you view failed tasks as failures of yourself as a person you'll run a high risk of giving up. Constantly focusing on high achievements will eventually lead to exhaustion.

Giving feedback to someone else:

- Be gentle

- Help a person stuck in a negative spiral to formulate a less destructive way of thinking of themselves

- A failure is just a failure, it doesn't define a person

- Keep offering praise even if the recipient isn't used to it and try to wave it away

- Usually we should focus on the achievement, not the person, but it's fine to also give person-based praise sometimes ("you're the best!"), as long as it's not always the main focus

Source: 'Motivated' by Alva Appelgren

[kaurwreck]

totally understand the apparent incongruity between the silly action absurdism in bsd and the recent political commentary, but the political commentary in bsd has been threaded throughout with varying degrees of subtly, some of which I only initially clocked because of my undergrad and graduate education in political science, philosophy, and law; my transpacific legal practice; and my longstanding interest in history, classic lit, political philosophy, strategy, and international statecraft. most of what I now understand only began surfacing after I began deep diving into the source material and historical resources that I started exploring explicitly to better contextualize bsd.

it scarcely breaches the surface of the political commentary in bsd, but below I've listed posts I've written on bsd's metacommentary relating to politics and philosophy:

World Building

bsd exists in an alternate interwar period between WW1 and WW2, and there are wild historical divergences that speak to Asagiri's ruminations on statehood and sovereignty.

the agency office is designed to reflect the east/west tensions specific to 1920s-1930s japan

the contemporary Japanese constitution as we know it does not exist in bsd, and that has implications.

us-japan and uk-japan relations are fundamentally different in bsd than in irl.

yokohama is structured in such a way that indicates the port treaties were never formally abrogated.

the port mafia performs the same function in yokohama as organized crime does in a failed state, relating back to the prior bullet point.

no, seriously, yokohama has a foreign military police presence that the port mafia proactively contains to stabilize the city because the city is a failed state, and we were told this within the first few episodes/chapters.

bsd continuously explores the impact of ww1, the tensions and failures of the interwar period, and how each + other auxiliary conflicts created ww2 — all of which are critical to understanding the modern state, and modern statecraft.

bsd yokohama also frequently harkens back to the chaos of early port treaty city yokohama, and the only thing maintaining its modernity is seemingly the tripartite framework.

Philosophy

fyodor's ability reflects his eastern orthodoxy.

dead apple reveals a lot of fyodor's ideological motivations and philosophical worldview, which in turn reflect his fear that only consequences prevent atrocities. (but he also thinks that there being any chosen among the all reflects a fundamental violence against humanity imparted by a god whose world he seeks to fix.)

aya's skill is a commentary on confucian virtues.

akutagawa is lost in the sauce of his own politics and philosophical anguishes, down to the frilly little jabot he wears.

Political commentary is woven into every aspect of bsd, from setting and set design to costume design to the historical references to the world building to the themes and narrative structure to the characters' motivations and driving forces. You can't have a story set between wars, one of which is explicitly WW1, without there being political commentary.

But there are even subtler details woven throughout, all of which emphasize that this is a story about what it means to exist. Any inquiry into existence requires political commentary, considering politics concerns the total complex of relations between people living in society.

It's also a flexible term, and lest the subtleties not be enough, the existence of ability users and their ongoing threat to civil order that drives Fyodor's consistently vocalized ambitions to eradicate them as a form of salvation more obviously references another definition of politics, i.e. the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of status or resources.

And, lest we forget, the widepread, internationalization of fun, silly action manga is a form of soft cultural power/lever of international influence that serves Japan's interests as a nationstate. Which is pretty inherently political.

tl;dr: we cannot divorce how we choose to cope with the world from the world with which we're coping.

me: wow it's odd that I haven't seen more chatter about the latest chapter

me, reading the chapter: oh, it's because it's all hobbesian discourse and the brothers karamazov references

[wickjump]

hello esteemed whump enjoyer... i am but an angst lover at most, i'm not sure if i consider my expertise to be whump (or cross), but here i am offering something in your inbox. i don't know if you've discussed this before, but do you think cross will have problem with swap/blue at some point? like, once he discovers that swap is his blueprint (heh), would he feel some sort of imposter syndrome? like "wow, is that who i am supposed to be" moment?

imagine this in a star sanses context too, whether cross is on the stars or the bad sanses side is up to you. nevertheless, do you think cross would feel an intense feeling of being compared, similar to how children in certain households will have their parents who are never satisfied with them compare them to other children of the same age group? i imagine cross would have some irrational anger/envy towards swap if that were the case. unresolved childhood trauma anyone? :]

I THOUGHT THIS WAS GOING TO BE A JIGSAW TYPE THING FROM HOW IT STARTED OUT id fail ngl

anyway. goddd im so torn, and so is cross, about swap and cross’ dynamic. on one hand, cross would like swap because he is a swap. at long last, he doesn’t feel isolated anymore. he’s been surrounded by classic sanses for the most part, and he’s always felt so different and wrong among them. but with swap he’s found his kind of person. they like the same foods, watch the same kinds of shows, have the same ambition and drive.

they’re not lazy, they work hard, and they eat food outside of condiments or the greasefest that is grillby’s. obviously, xgaster’s world has many twists compared to underswap—his world is a mash of classic and swaps, taking the ‘best’ out of both to make his own masterpiece. but underswap and it’s people are still so similar to cross, that even for a brief second he can pretend he’s home.

and yet. cross feels a twist in his soul. swap is who he was supposed to be. who he would be, had xgaster not intervened. had xgaster not improved cross like he improved everything else, cross would be a lot more like swap, his initial intended outcome. this becomes one of two emotions at any given time:

envy and superiority.

envy is obvious. swap lives a pacifist timeline above the surface. he has his friends, his family. he never suffered the abuse cross went through. everyone’s alive. and most importantly, swap is content. he’s happy with where he is. cross is never content, not when he was raised to be anything but. he envies swap’s ability to be satisfied with what he has, because despite how much cross tries to perfect himself, he’s never happy with it. he feels kind of like an imposter sometimes. like he’s the mimic and swap is the original, and he hates that feeling.

superiority is less obvious, but it makes sense. sometimes, he will look down on swap the same way xgaster looked down on other aus. or similarly, anyway. cross doesn’t want to fix swap, he doesn’t act cruelly and he keeps these thoughts mostly internalized. but cross will look at swap and think about all the things wrong with him, all the things xgaster fixed in cross. swap isn’t an actual royal guard, he’s loud and clumsy and he never takes things seriously. his training is unprofessional and while he packs a punch it’s disorganized. his room is cluttered and his words unprofessional. cross is better than that. he was made to be better than that. cross is prim, proper, and exactly what everyone else wants him to be.

all in all swap is very conflicting for him. i like to think cross is impersonal in his violence most of the time on nightmare’s team (unfortunately my favorite group setting for him) because to him it’s a job and depersonalizing it is his way of coping with his actions. but sometimes when he’ll fight swap there’s emotion in it, unresolved anger and envy and fear. that’s the closest to letting his feelings out that he lets himself get.

[sweettodo]

Professor ⟿ Hisoka Morow x femreader

Includes : smut, student x teacher

Word count : 2,7k

[STUDENT IS AGED, IN COLLEGE]

••

"Please- please sir, I'll do anything, please don't fail me this semester."

Professor Morow sits in his office chair; hand on his chin as he ponders, he did like the sound of you begging.

••

You could cry.

You could drop out right fucking now. Beyond fed up.

Tutor after tutor, study session after study session since ninth grade never did you any justice, even cheating- peeking over to your neighbors left you with an end result of the huge red D's, F's and C's scribbled onto your paper. You were tearing the hair out of your head.

You couldn't write an English essay even if there was a gun being held to your temple; you weren't necessarily illiterate, but you envied your classmates who could throw together a thesis in an hour lecture, not to mention these giant papers which could've driven you to kill.

Today, bright and early in the morning, here you sit in your English classroom writing a timed essay, an essay about the logistics of capitalism, whatever that meant. Headache booming while you wrote illogical sentences onto lined paper vigorously.

You didn't even bother to read over your work; an hour later you're finally standing up from your seat and shuffling down the row, reaching to drop your paper into the basket, "Miss. Y/l/n, have you looked it over?" Professor asks, you smile and nod, he takes it from you.

"I wrote it sir, I don't need to reread it." You retort, he leans back in his chair and raises an eyebrow at you.

"That's not necessarily what I meant; very well then." He smiles, you go back to your seat and wait for class to be over.

Thirty minutes later, kids are gathering up their bags and papers, scurrying out of the classroom to their next lecture, as you walk out of the double doors into the hallway, your last name is being called and you stop in your tracks, turning around, "yes, Mr. Morow?" You respond, stepping back into the classroom, he stands from his desk, hands patting the black button up as he stands, he waits for you to approach his desk, his arms crossed and he seemed a little irritated.

You approach the front of his desk, nervous, "now, you can't honestly tell me this is your best work." He sighs, you swallow hard, slightly embarrassed, he looked completely unfazed.

"W-well, in my defense Mr-" you stutter, he immediately cuts you off.

"There is no excuse for this lackluster paper." He states, you jump out of your skin, his tone threatening. Everyone always knew not to mess with professor Morow, he was strict and rarely tolerated unprofessionalism. But you- you, always drove him mad, he hated how you acted, he wished he could fail you for the year, being as you were so incompetent.

But that would be immoral or him to stoop that low.

"I should have you rewrite this, do you know how important this is for your grade? Do you want to pass, y/n?" You not, picking at your nails in fear, he was definitely failing you for this semester.

"I'm sorry sir, I try- I really do, it's just I can't bring myself to it." You mumble, head down in total humiliation. "Please- please sir, I'll do anything, please don't fail me this semester." You plead.

Professor Morow sits in his office chair; hand on his chin as he ponders, he did like the sound of you begging.

He sighs and moves towards his bag, opening it and shuffling through papers, pulling out mine, you braced yourself, "you're going to rewrite this, I will swallow my pride and give you a chance, I'd like to see you get higher than a C." He deadpans, you nod, gracious for his generosity.

Handing the essay back to you, "would you like me to do it right now?" You ask, he shakes his head no, closing his bag and picking it up.

"Nope, I'll help you later, you'll have to leave campus for this evening, so clear your schedule." Your eyes widen, he begins walking out, back to you before he peers his head back towards you, "do you want help?"

"Yes, yes sir I do." You sputter, he gives you a half cocked smile.

"That's what I thought." He leaves you breathless as he turns off the lights as he turns the corner out of his class, leaving you there in the barely lit room. You slowly walk out of the empty class, unsure if something like this was even appropriate, 'but it has to be, he's helping you.'

The next few hours would feel like eternity, laying chest up, looking at your ceiling spread eagle bored out of your mind. Waiting for time to pass before you anxiously awaited for later tonight. As you lay there, you hear your phone swoosh, indicating you had just received an email. You sit up and snatch your phone off the bed stand, opening it and seeing an email from the professor.

With an address being the only thing sent to you, you don't bother responding, 'this must be his house,' you spoke out loud, looking at the time on your phone, you might as well get ready, only an hour until you need to leave.

Wearing the same thing you had worn all day, a plain black skirt with a sweater, you just spray perfume over yourself and brush through your hair.

It was only 5pm, but the time of the year brought early darkness; so it was pretty dark by the time you were walking through the parking lot and unlocking your car door. Bag in toe you drive off campus, you scolded yourself for being so, so stupid. How can’t someone write an essay? Not to mention you were at fault for letting it get this bad... a teacher, y/n? A teacher is doing this for you? It was embarrassing.

Soon you're driving up the spiral driveway up towards the large house in your view, nice car in the driveway, lawn well taken care of. It was beautiful. You take off your seatbelt, opening the car door with your bag and keys in hands.

You walk up the path and inhale before you're knocking on the door; waiting a few seconds and the door is opening. Professor Morow allowed you entrance, wearing the same button up and black slacks as earlier in class. We great each other, "follow me, my office is upstairs." He speaks, you follow him up the marble stairs, down the hall and he's opening a beautiful wooden door, a large desk, chairs in front, a couch with a bookcase behind it with stunning red curtains which were closed.

"You have a nice home Mr. Morow, stunning." You breathe, looking around and observing.

"My, well thank you y/n." He hums, sitting in his chair behind the desk, you sit in front of him, taking out your paper along with a notebook and pencil, “I'll have you rewrite, and after each paragraph I'll read it over for you." He says, crossing his leg, you nod.

"I- I wanted to thank you again, for helping me." Yoy mutter, he nods slowly.

"Don't worry, you'll make it up to me." He smirks, motioning to your paper to get you to start; so you do. Starting with your thesis, you spend extra time making sure you think it looked good. You hand it to him and he reads it over, eyes trailing across the page, "not bad, but I know you can write more about the proprieties within some enterprises.” You groaned and quickly started erasing, his hand immediately grabs your wrist, stopping you, “I didn’t say erase it.” He insists, you look up at him, then down at his hand; a big hand wrapped around your wrist obviously didn’t fill your head with appropriate things.

He suddenly stands, walking around the desk and reaches his arm to grab your pencil, his arm flexing next to your head while he rewrites the things you disregarded, your throat hitches, sitting still and tense; intimidated by his cologne aroma and the fact he was inches from you, “what has you so tense?” You internally gasp, heart beating and you see him now standing against his desk to your right. How the fuck could you answer this?

“I-uh, no reason.” You nervously chuckle, he crosses his arms; he didn’t buy it at all.

“Cat got your tongue?” He chuckles, stepping closer to you, you stared up at him, he towered over you, swallowing hard, “no need to be nervous, y/n.” He says. The tension was really thick in the room, you didn’t notice until you found yourself pressing your thighs together for pressure.

“Sir I-” his hand moves, tucking hair behind your ear, instantly silencing you. You’re spinning. Such an authoritative man making you feel small was a new feeling you hadn’t felt before; like you needed to listen to him or else you’d be in some type of trouble.

“I hope you’re paying attention, if you want to do good of course.” He murmurs, dropping his hand back down, you nod slowly, listening to him. “I’ve always known you could be a good girl.” You were stunned, you chewed on the inside of your mouth like crazy as he still stood over you.

“Mr. Morow,” you breathe, nervous, “I need to pass this class.” The desperation in your voice was pitiful, and Hisoka fucking loved it.

He brings his hand up to your jaw, caressing only a little with his thumb, “don’t worry, you’ll get a good grade,” he purrs, thumb running across your bottom lip, agonizingly slow, “open.” Mouth opening immediately. His thumb slides into your mouth and down deeper towards the back of your throat. You look up at him with beady eyes, he licks his lips and smiles.

He pulls out of your mouth, you hesitantly bring your two hands up, lightly touching his belt, his head drops down and he assists you in unbuckling his black leather belt, “my my, such a fast learner, so good.” Your face heats up, fingers working at the zipper of his pants, the tight space was noticeable, the bulge in his pants made you squirm.

Hand grabbing the back of your head, he’s releasing his cock from his open slacks, you braced yourself for the thick and long cock to stab the back of your throat. He holds your hair back out of your face while you’re spitting up the base of his dick, taking the tip between your lips slowly while you looked up at him with those eyes.

Tongue swirling around the tip, his grip tightening on your skull. You push your head further onto him, spit seeping down your chin; taking over, Hisoka pushes your head down all the way to the base, choking and your throat constriction, he groans and pulls you off him quickly, “do you like my cock down your throat princess?” He purrs, index finger lifting up your chin, you nod, he smiles and grabs you from under your shoulder, you stand and he pushes you over the desk, legs locking and you’re held up by your arms.

“Hmm, how about you give me these wrists.” He hums, ripping you off your only stability, side of your face hitting the desk... right on top of your essay. You hear a click followed by another, cold metal now holding your wrists together.

“What, do you just have handcuffs in arms reach for this typa’ thing?” You found it humorous.

Mr. Morow didn’t.

Your skirt flying up, followed by a shard pain on your thigh, you gasp and try to look up; belt in hand, your English professor had whipped you. Hard. Your leg tries to move back but he’s placing his hands on your waist, keeping you still, “tell me, why might your panties be this soaked? I haven’t even touched you.” He had bent down to your ear, vibrations sending you crazy, “do you want me to fuck you? Princess? Fill you up?” You bite down on your lip, he made you tingle just by the sound of his voice.

Another smack of the belt against your ass rings through you and you yelp out in pain, hissing. “Answer me. Go on,” even his soft voice made this sound harsh, you press your forehead against the desk, panting; the pool of wetness most likely slipping down your thighs.

“Fill me up professor, please.” You mewl, he chuckles deeply, the sound of the belt on the floor caused you to sigh out of relief; instead his hands were grabbing your thong, pulling them down slowly and letting them hit your ankles.

“Oh my, so fucking wet.” He hums, pulling apart your ass cheeks to get a better look.

“Sir.” You retort, needy and beyond ready to be fucked at this point.

“Yes?” You tense up, mouth dropping open when you feel his tip stroke up and down your folds, your thighs tremble and shake under his grasp, slowly pushing his throbbing cock into you. You cry out, “use your words, what is it?” He questions you once more.

“So fucking big.” You moan, he pulls your hips further onto his cock; shaping your pussy to his liking, stretching you out and hitting every nerve possible, “oh my god!” His hips finally touching your ass, you twitched and tightened around him, fitting around him accordingly.

“You take my cock so well.” He pulls out, hands tight around your waist as he slowly thrusts you, you gasp and squeal, he didn’t even need to try to hit your gspot. He speeds up, enough to feel that sharp pressure of his head poking at your cervix, his name spilling from your mouth.

“Such a good girl, do you like that?” Ramming into you, your legs wanted to drop as he fucked you numb, his big hand grabs your hair, yanking your head upwards, “answer me.” He grits, you couldn’t, you couldn’t even compose words as he fucked every syllable out of you.

You didn’t answer, he shoves your head down, slamming onto the desk painfully, you wince and he picks up pace, “I told you to answer me,” drilling into you, you’re stomach twisting into a tight knot.

About to reach your hard orgasm, he only fucks harder, screaming out a gasp, “fuck! Your cock feels so good Sir!” You cry.

Your moans and screams were music to his ears, only inching him closer to stuffing you with his kids, “such a good little fruit, you’re sucking me in so good.” He groans, your cum coating his dick, he picked up your arms by the metal chain of the handcuffs, using it as leverage to demolish your insides.

Your wrists sore, makeup dripping down your eyes along with your tears, hair a mess, legs numb and shaking ready to give out, “I’m-I’m gonna cum again!” You wailed, he didn’t change his pace, cock stroking against your sweet spot.

“Do it.” Hips sputtering, only slowing down slightly, you become his cum disposal, dumping his seed into your hot cunt. He’s groaning, panting lightly; throwing your second orgasm into the mix, your slick and his cum pouring down his cock and your thighs, you shook profusely, he massaged your ass with his hands before unlocking the cuffs and pulling you up, dropping to your knees and huffing.

“You took me so well.” He purrs into your ear whilst picking you up by the armpits and placing you in the chair, he wipes under your eyes where most of the mascara was and brushes your hair out of your face, crouching down to your level and pulling your panties over your knees, you lift up a little so he can pull them up completely while watching his every move.

While you composed yourself, he walked back around to his desk, gathering papers together in a stack, “we can finish writing tomorrow, how about that princess?” You smile and nod, relived he wouldn’t put you through the torture tonight.

“Sure,” you say, standing and trying way too hard to walk normally, you pick up your bag and keys, walking towards his office door.

“See you in class tomorrow, professor.”

[invisibleanonymousmonsters]

All Men Have Limits - VI

Character: Dick Grayson x Reader x Bruce Wayne

Summary: A certain bat believes that Y/N is in way over her head, that she’s too naive to act in her best interest. So, whether she wants it or not, the vigilante family is going to help and protect her before she gets herself killed.

Word Count: 3,800+

Previously on…

“Nightwing! Regroup!” Bruce snapped into the comms again.

No matter how dire the situation was, they always stuck with their codenames while in uniform. But right now, Bruce wanted to scream at Dick to get his shit together.

Dick was quiet for a moment, allowing his family to only hear the roaring of his motorcycle as it zipped through the streets of Gotham.

“By the time we regroup, she’ll be dead,” Dick answered darkly.

This was the biggest difference between Dick and Bruce.

Dick wasn’t ruled by his emotions – except when it involved the safety of people he cared for and loved. When that happened, his emotions took control. It was very unlike Bruce, which just proved there were some things Dick simply couldn’t get trained out of him.

Bruce was always calm and collected – even when it was his kids that were in danger. Was he scared for Y/N’s life? Yes. But he also knew that panicking and going in hot was not going to help her. If anything, it would put more people in danger.

“Jason is following him,” Tim announced.

Jason might’ve refused to use comms, but they still had a tracker on his bike.

“What’s the plan?” Tim asked.

——————

Y/N probably looked like a drunk driver from the way she was serpentining to the heart of Gotham.

But she was tried to load a magazine into her gun as she ran every red light without getting t-boned by oncoming traffic.

It was…a lot. Especially since Y/N knew she were driving to her assassination.

It hadn’t been hard sneaking past the internal security at the manor. Y/N knew she could do it since she was brought there. But she decided to save that knowledge for the right time. And that was tonight. It was clearly designed mostly for Damian – or perhaps for any of the boys when they were younger and rebellious.

Then Y/N had to jumpstart the first car she saw parked on the street near Wayne Manor, which took longer than she had liked.

She might not have a lot of skills in the combat area. But she was rather resourceful in almost every other way – which included hijacking cars.

Y/N was so panicked about making it to the city before they could intervene, that her mind wasn’t really processing what was about to happen.

All Y/N knew was that she hoped they’d be done with it before any of them knew what was happening and could try to stop it.

She knew what they would’ve said. They would’ve told her to stay where she was and they would handle it. They would’ve done everything to keep her safe while also trying to save Gotham.

But Y/N couldn’t wait to see if she was responsible for the deaths of thousands while she sat on her ass and did nothing.

So she took her life into her own hands.

She gave enough information for them to use. Even if she was gone, she’d given them enough leads to finish the job without her.

Now her time was up.

Y/N knew eventually time would catch to her. She’d lived a far too risky life, threatened the most dangerous people, ruined the lives and locked up even more of dangerous people. It was only a matter of time before her luck ran out.

Y/N skidded the car to a stop. And she realized her hands were shaking as she threw the car into park.

She hadn’t stopped driving until she reached Old Gotham – right underneath the Clock Tower.

It was a nice, wealthy part of the city, which meant that there weren’t questionable people lingering on the streets.

In fact, it was eerily quiet – even for such a nice neighborhood. Y/N didn’t see a single person walking around in her vicinity.

But when she turned, there were five masked people watching her.

The Talons.

Their faces and bodies were completely covered, with their masks and goggles reminiscent of actual owls.

All of them had an arsenal of some sort of bladed weapon – countless knives, katanas, axes, or even broadswords. And, of course, they all had talons. 

“So you are the irritant,” one of them greeted, his voice muffled from his gear.

Y/N took a step back as she grabbed her gun out of the back of her waist.

But she felt a presence behind her and whipped around to see more Talons surrounding her.

Did they really expect her to be able to put up that much of a fight?

“I’ve been called worse,” Y/N smirked.

She was clearly in denial that she was about to die.

They all unsheathed their weapons.

But Y/N wasn’t going to let them make the first move.

She started shooting bullets. Either they were wearing bullet-proof vests or they were blocking her bullets with their weapons. It was all happening so fast that she couldn’t figure it out. She knew her aim wasn’t off. Jason had been secretly teaching her how to shoot. And she’d gotten rather good with his help.

��Fuck,” Y/N hissed when her magazine was empty and she had failed to take down a single Talon.

As she tried to reload the magazine, their patience ran out.

One of them knocked the gun out of her hand, slicing the skin in the process.

Before Y/N could look down at the damage, another Talon wrapped his hand around her neck and lifted her off the ground like a doll.

“How can such a weak and pathetic woman have caused such a nuisance?” He cooed at her as he tilted his head, inspecting her.

Y/N couldn’t reply even if she wanted to.

Her hands were frantically trying to free herself, nails ripping at the armor and gloves of the Talon.

“Perhaps she could be of use to us,” one of them spoke up. “Unless she’d rather die…”

But before they could drop her or make a decision, someone dropped into the middle of the chaos with a blur.

Next thing Y/N knew, she was being dropped to the ground and coughing to recover her breath.

When she looked up, she saw Dick – no, Nightwing – taking on all of the Talons who were sent to kill her.

Yes, Y/N had frequently seen Dick train with Bruce and his brothers. However, this was something entirely different.

Y/N watched in shock as Dick used his escrima sticks to take out the Talons in droves. He flipped, kicked, punched, and moved in a way Y/N had never seen before.

There was a moment of pause that gave him the opportunity to meet her gaze.

“Y/N, run!” Dick screamed as he flipped away from the deadly claws of a Talon.

She blinked at his command and snapped out of her daze.

Jumping to her feet, she did as he said.

But she only got a few yards before two more Talons dropped in front of her and blocked her path.

Her fear was interrupted by bullets raining on them seconds before a motorcycle flew into her peripheral.

Red Hood did a front wheel break and swung his motorcycle so precisely that he managed to take out both of the Talons with the backend of his bike.  

He turned to look at her. “Get on.”

But Y/N looked behind her at Dick, who was fighting Talon after Talon.

“What about Di–” she stopped herself from using his name. “What about Nightwing?!”

“Batman is on his way with the others. But right now, we have to get you out of here,” Jason yelled back.

Right on cue, the Batmobile came screaming toward them, as well as Tim on his motorcycle.

“Y/N, get on the motherfucking bike,” Jason warned her.

She turned around again and saw Dick now being aided by Damian, Tim, and Bruce. They were finally starting to overpower the Talons.

Clearly they hadn’t sent the numbers to defend themselves against the entire bat family. They probably assumed Y/N would head their warning and arrive unaccompanied. And Y/N did. But both her and The Court underestimated the vigilante family’s protectiveness towards her.

Y/N finally listened to Jason and jumped on the back of his motorcycle.

Barely giving her a second to adjust, Jason floored it and sped away from the fight as quickly as possible.

This motorcycle ride was nothing like the one Y/N shared with Dick.

Jason rode like bat out of hell, whipping around tight corners without slowing down. And even with her vice-like grip around his waist, Y/N felt like she could fly off at any moment. The wind stung against her skin like a million little needles.

“Where are we going?” Y/N tried to scream to him.

“We have to make sure they’re not tracking us before we return to the cave!”

Y/N couldn’t tell how long they had been driving around. But her arms and muscles were sore from the tension of holding on for dear life. She was so exhausted that if she hadn’t been so scared, she probably could’ve fallen asleep on the back of Jason’s motorcycle – even with his reckless driving.

Without any warning, Jason veered into a parking garage and went to the basement level where no cars were parked. He must’ve pressed a button because a hidden compartment was opening against the cement wall and suddenly they were driving through it.

Y/N got off the bike as soon as he stopped and looked around.

It must be one of his safehouses.

To her surprise, Jason took off his Red Hood helmet and then the domino mask underneath. He also grabbed some clothes that would either cover his Red Hood uniform or make it look like civilian clothing.

He pointed to a car, “Come on.”

Y/N followed him silently and got into the passenger seat.

It was a 20 minute ride back to the manor.

And it finally gave Y/N time to actually process what she had planned to do tonight. 

“Wanna talk about it?” Jason asked after 10 minutes of silence.

“And say what?” She challenged.

He smirked. “I don’t know. Maybe how you enjoy playing sacrificial lamb.”

Y/N ground her teeth together. “That’s oversimplifying it, and you know it.”

Jason just shrugged.

“That’s it?” She asked when he didn’t follow up with any more questions. “Really? You’re not going to start lecturing me?”

“Oh, definitely not. ‘Cause you’re gonna get a shit ton of that when Bruce sees you – maybe even from Dick, if he’s not too overwhelmed with relief from seeing you in one piece. Which, by the way, you’re very lucky to be.”

Y/N had no response to that.

The rest of the ride was quiet, except for the local classic rock radio station that Jason decided to turn on.

To their surprise, no one was waiting in the cave for them. But Dick and Tim’s motorcycles were parked, as well as the batmobile. So they had clearly returned.

“That might not be a great sign…” Jason mumbled as got out of his civilian car. “Come on,” he nudged with his head as he started making his way to the stairs that led back into the manor.

When they got up, Jason followed the sounds of voices coming from the kitchen.

Y/N’s eyes immediately took in the group, worried that someone would be missing.

No one was in full uniform. Tim and Damian were in sweats. Bruce’s cape and cowl were gone, but his full body armor was still on.

The three of them and Alfred were all gathered around Dick, who was sitting on the island counter shirtless with nothing but his black compression shorts on.

One of his left eye was black, there was dried blood below his nostrils, his bottom lip was split and swollen. But Y/N’s eyes were only looking at the wound on his side that Alfred was currently stitching. Clearly one of the Talons’ swords found an in.

When the family heard Jason and Y/N’s entrance, all eyes were on them.

Dick looked relieved.

But Bruce? He looked livid.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

He didn’t yell. No, instead his voice was low and even. And it scared Y/N more than yelling ever could.

But she was too busy looking at Dick’s injuries with concern.

Then her gaze raced to Tim and Damian, looking them up and down to try and assess if they had any injuries. But they seemed in good shape.

“Y/N!” Bruce snapped.

Finally she acknowledged him. 

“What?!” She growled in return.

“What were you thinking?”

“Bruce…” Dick warned quietly.

They had all seen Bruce get this way. And they all unfortunately had been on the other side of his wrath. They could see the telltale signs that Bruce was about to give one of his level-headed, but extremely disappointed speeches.

Except there was one big difference this time: Y/N wasn’t one of Bruce’s kids.

And by now, all of the boys had figured out that Bruce was feeling some kind of way about her. Even Damian had finally realized that Y/N wasn’t just an ally or fellow vigilante to his father.

“How about we all take in a deep breath and appreciate that none of us are dead?” Jason asked the group loudly. “Because we know that hasn’t always been on the case in the past…”

But Bruce ignored Jason and took a step to Y/N.

“You could’ve been killed,” he muttered quickly.

“I was trying to save innocent lives!” Y/N snapped.

“You should’ve told us as soon as you received the threat,” he countered.

“Why? So you could sideline me and make decisions about my fucking life?”

“We would have come up with a plan. One that did not involve you hot-wiring a car and driving to your death.”

“I was trying not to endanger anyone else, meaning all five of you!”

“And look how that ended,” Bruce answered darkly as she gesture to Dick, who was now stitched up and Alfred was putting a wrap around his torso.

“You can’t just shove your way into my life whenever you feel like it!” Y/N finally shouted at Bruce. “I was doing just fine before you added yourself to the situation.”

This wasn’t just about tonight anymore. The tension in their relationship had now flooded into the argument, finally reaching its boiling point.

“Tonight proved otherwise,” Bruce told her evenly.

But Bruce remaining too calm and showing no emotional reaction was only infuriating Y/N more.

“Hey!” Y/N yelled. “Just because I don’t put on a stupid costume and punch my way out of problems doesn’t mean you’re better than me. In fact, you would be screwed if it weren’t for me. You need me. You need me more than I need you.”

Bruce just glared at her.

“What? Nothing to say?”

“We can have a discussion when you stop behaving like a child.”

And it was finally what made Y/N snap.

She lunged at him.

What she planned on doing to him was beyond her. Everyone, including herself, knew she didn’t stand a chance against a petty fight with Batman. She probably couldn’t even land a punch if he let her.

Thankfully, she would never have to get that proven to her. Because Dick put a stop to it before it could actually start.

When he had moved off the counter and closer to their argument, she didn’t know.

But now Dick was finally intervening as he wrapped his arms around Y/N from behind her, pinning her arms to her side and pressing her back to his chest.

“A child?!” Y/N screamed as she tried to fight her way out of Dick’s grip. “Should I remind you that you fucked this ‘child’?!”

“Alright,” Dick warned her calmly. “That’s enough.”

“Let go of me!”

“Calm down,” he told her quietly.

Suddenly, Y/N remembered that Dick was injured, and he was injured because of her. And now she was thrashing against him, probably causing him harm and putting him at risk of opening the stitches Alfred had just finished.

“Fine,” she huffed. “I’m calm.”

But Dick waited a second or two before he decided to believe her.

When he let go, she lightly shoved him away from her and made her escape.

The whole family watched her leave, and felt the awkward tension that filled the room after she’d gone.

Tim looked shocked.

Jason glared at Bruce.

Damian seemed rather disappointed – in Y/N or his father, no one could figure out.

Dick eyed Bruce. “Great job,” he told him darkly.

Bruce just crossed this arms and sighed.

Dick gestured in the direction that Y/N went. “Aren’t you going to go after her?”

But he knew already from Bruce’s expression that he wasn’t going to anything of the sort.

“You know what, forget it.” Dick huffed before heading in the general direction that Y/N had escaped.

But Jason wasn’t going to let Bruce off the hook so easily.

“What the fuck is the matter with you?” He hissed.

“Stay out of it, Jason.”

“Stay out of it?” He mocked. “Yeah, it’s a little bit hard to do that when her safety has become a family matter.” Jason shook his head in disappointment and turned to leave, “I’m out of here.”

-----------

When Dick tried to retrace Y/N’s steps, he found the front door of the manor wide open. The sight was rather eerie for some reason. But Dick stepped onto the front of the manor and looked out at the land.

Had she made a run for the gate?

It wouldn’t be the first time tonight, clearly.

But after a few scans of the property, he eventually found her.

Despite the circumstances, Dick couldn’t help but smirk when he found Y/N sprawled on the great lawn of the manor, laying on her back and staring up at the stars.

He stood over her. “I’m surprised you didn’t make a run for it.”

“Oh, I tried,” she told him matter of factly. “Bastard’s already updated the security system from earlier tonight.”

“Believe it or not, that’s his way of saying he cares. Just ask Damian.” He slowly sat down on the lawn with her, but made sure to still give her some space.

“No. It’s his way of reminding me that he’s the one in control.”

Dick winced, knowing there was probably truth to that, too.

“He shouldn’t have said that to you,” Dick sighed.

Y/N scoffed. “What part?”  

He hesitated before clarifying. “You’re not a child.”

She went quiet, not expecting him to get right to it.

“Well, we’re the same age…so of course you’d say that.”

Dick rubbed his face, knowing this was a losing battle. Nothing he said on the matter would bring her comfort.

Y/N finally looked away from the stars and her face scrunched in guilt and worry as she took in Dick’s fresh bandage. There was a pinkish blotch that showed just how big the wound was.

Slowly she sat up and turned to him. “Are you okay?” She whispered shakily.

He grinned at her concern. “Believe it or not, this is nothing.”

But Y/N still reached forward and cupped his face. Her thumb traced around his black eye, but made sure not to put any pressure on the swollen skin.

Dick leaned into her touch, not bothering to try and hide the affection.

“This is exactly what I didn’t want,” Y/N mumbled.

Dick opened his mouth, but then quickly changed his mind and closed it again.

“What?” She pushed.

But before Dick would answer, he slowly moved into her space. Then he pressed his forehead to hers.

“Please, don’t do anything like that again.”

His approach was different, but it was clear Dick and Bruce felt the same way about the stunt she had pulled. 

Y/N was quiet.

“I understand why you did it. I really do.” He added quickly. “But just…” He paused and took in a shaky inhale. “Tonight scared the hell out of me, Y/N.”

“I’m sorry,” Y/N whispered.  

“I know you are. I saw it on your face as soon as you saw my injuries.” His eyes went dark. “But we can’t do things like that. We have to work together or this is all going to explode in our faces.”

Y/N thought over his words.

His hands went to cup her face.

“Deal?” He pushed.

She nodded.

Then Dick’s eyes moved down to her throat.The blistering red was already fading and being replaced by purple and blue bruising.

His mind flashed back to earlier, how he saw her dangling by her throat and unable to escape the Talon’s grip. The sight had caused him to rush into battle, not thinking of a plan before doing so. It went against everything Bruce had taught him. But seeing Y/N’s life in danger made him black out.

“We should get some ice for your neck,” Dick muttered quietly.

Then he looked down at her hand. It had stopped bleeding, but the cut looked painful and there was dried blood surrounding it.

“Fucker sliced it when he knocked my gun out of my hand,” Y/N mumbled when she saw Dick staring at it.

He eyed her suspiciously. “And I suppose Jason’s been helping with that, huh?”

She cringed. “Maybe…”

Dick just huffed and shook his head.

He started getting up, “Come on. Let me clean that cut and get some ice for your neck.”

But Y/N pulled him back down.

“Wait. Can we…Can we just stay for a bit?” She asked quietly, and then pointed up and laid back down in the grass to stare up at the sky.

Dick smirked and nodded.

He joined her, moving closer this time so their shoulders touched.

“You can actually see the stars out here,” Y/N sighed.

The smog and city lights of Gotham made them invisible.

But now they were far enough to see a few.

Dick thought about all the places he used to travel to with the circus. Some of them were so far removed from society that he could see every single star at night.

But he didn’t tell Y/N that this was nothing compared to those places.

Instead, Dick just slowly moved his hand and grabbed Y/Ns, interlacing their fingers. A part of him expected her to pull away. But she squeezed his hand and kept looking up.

—

Alfred found Bruce in the library, looking out the windows.

When he joined his side, he saw what Bruce was looking at: Dick and Y/N laying on the grass of the great lawn, stargazing.

“You’re disappointed in me,” Bruce said without taking his eyes off the two.

“I said nothing of the sort, Master Wayne.”

Bruce frowned. “You don’t have to.”

“She is not another charge, Master Wayne.” Alfred sighed. “Therefore you should not treat her as such.”

“I’m trying to keep her safe.”

“Why do you think she said nothing of the threat?” Alfred countered. “Why do you think she did not believe she could trust you?”

Bruce said nothing.

“You put the safety of Gotham over your own life every night, Master Wayne.” Alfred continued. “Yet you are so spiteful towards others who do the same.”

That finally made Bruce turn away from the window to look at Alfred.

“You owe her an apology,” Alfred finally confirmed. “Even if Master Dick has become rather good at cleaning up your messes.” 

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

Part 7

Let me know what you think – please, please, please.  

[spookysmujer]

Maraschino pt.2, O. Diaz

Summary: After the rejection from Oscar, things seems to take you on a roller coaster ride. 

warnings: angst, f e e l s, theTEAbeenSPILLED ☕️ daddy issues

word count: 3.5K

a/n: Here is the highly requested part 2 of Maraschino! I had fun writing this though if it is trash it’s because I wanted to hurry and get it out for y’all since I been getting msgs. heh. But Ray? Whew chile, the ghetto! Part 3? Please enjoy and don’t forget: follow the blog, heart/comment/reblog the content as well as turn on the notifs! (Y/S/N: your sister’s name)

(gif belongs to @thesewickedhands​ ✨)

 “Have a wonderful day!”

God, why is the person yelling? You smile weakly and squeeze your eyes nearly shut as the sun is blazing down on you while you say your thanks and exit the uber. The throbbing of your head and the loud lawnmower from one of your neighbors has you internally cursing.

How did you end up like this? Granted this was the plan last night to go out and have a good time, you certainly did not expect to be doing such a thing. You never let yourself get to this point before. But you also never got denied like you did with Spooky last night. A shiver goes through your body as you think of him. You won’t let him infiltrate your mind no more.

“Y/N!” Your sister’s voice sounds frantically as you round the corner of the house.

Well there goes your plan to sneak in through your window to pretend you were in your room all along. She wraps your arms around you, gluing herself to your body causing you to stumble back a bit. “You are a dead woman walking!” She whispers to you as you arch an eyebrow at her. 

As confused as you were, José appears from around the corner taking long strides towards you. His face sports no emotion of missing you but a lot of anger. It causes you to automatically back up the closer his approaches you. Your sister has since removed herself from you as your brother is now in your face.

You blink as you peer up at him, “Where the fuck have you been, hermana? You know how much shit you are in, hm? I get a call from Y/S/N saying you aren’t home. I assure her you would be and when she calls me at 6 in the morning telling me that you still aren’t in? You left a note?”

“José! Calmate, I went out with a friend. And I spent the night. What’s the big deal about that?” You briefly explain yourself. He laughs for a moment before grabbing you by your upper arm and pulling you towards your sister. Now it’s her turn to start backing up, “Ven aqui, her! That’s the big deal. When I ask you to be the sister you need to be, I don’t mean when you feel like it. You know the Santos have been getting into heavy shit lately. I need you here when I’m not!” 

The tension is thick as you pull your arm from his hold and push him, “But when you wanna go and do whatever it’s okay? When you wanna hitch a ride with Spooky to Sin City with dirty ass hynas last week, it’s all good. Business trip, huh? Don’t come for me when you are far from perfect!” 

The two of you are both very stubborn with your brother usually being calm and collected while you’re more expressive with your feelings. Family is important to him especially considering it’s just the three of you. Jose scoffs as you stomp away from him and your now crying sister. 

Oscar suddenly appears in front of you as round the corner and collides with his body. He reaches out to grasp you before you can stumble back, the feelings hitting you all at once, “What are you doing here?” You swallow thickly.

He licks his bottom lip as his eyes rake over your body. Still in your dress from last night, hair unruly and make-up smudged. Anyone can spot a ‘walk of shame’ when they see one. He laughs internally thinking of how you wasted no time after last night’s rejection.

“I offered to drive him when little hermanita called up again worried you weren’t home yet. Seems we know why now.” A small grin painted across his lips, you squint your eyebrows at his words as you hear your brother approaching the two of you. You step back before Spooky migrates his eyes to behind you, “We got business, everything good here?”

José nods and steps beside you, “Don’t be leaving.”

The two guys leave as you stand there a bit dumbfounded. Y/S/N appears next to you and grabs your hand. She apologizes for you getting into trouble with José. You want to yell at her for starting unnecessary drama. But she explains she didn’t want your brother to potentially find out about your little sneaky link with Spooky.

“Well, he and I ended that shit so nothing to worry about. I went out and got wasted. I am done with these guys. No más!” Though even sounding like fake news to yourself, you go and wash off last night’s memories. 

As the day had gone by, you skimmed through your daily journal of all the entries you wrote about Oscar ‘Spooky’ Diaz, ripping them out. All 6 pages. You roll your eyes at your thoughts about him, some sappy and some nasty. How did you believe a man who runs a street gang, that is as mean mugging as Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street, would be into you the way you are him?

It didn’t matter the answer now. Good riddance of him! That’s when the sound of your window opening pulls you from the wandering thoughts. You stand up quickly, reaching for a bat that’s besides your bed. “Get the fuck out!”

“Calmate! It’s me, Oscar.”

You clutch your chest, doubling over to catch your breath. “What is wrong with you? Ever think of flying a pebble at the window or calling first?” You say as he climbs in, adjusting his flannel before closing the window then your room door. You watch him as he starts to look around your room. Though there’s a part of you that wants him out, you haven’t made any advances to get him out.

He sits on your bed and finally looks at you, “Abajo.”

Uncompliant, you cross your arms and shift your weight to make it known you are fine standing there. He smirks and looks away before locking eyes with you. “You don’t think I like you too? You think I fucked with you for this long cause it was just convenient? Girls everywhere around my place but I was only fucking you. Why do you think that?”

“Is this supposed to be your sweet confession that makes me go all heart eyes? You're gonna apologize and I’m supposed to forgive you and then we give us a try and realize all our worries were nothing but fear that our anxiety instilled in our heads? Because that’s not how it’s gonna go.” You say as he gives you a semi-disgusted look.

You chuckle softly and watch him intently.

Oscar analyzes you closely. It’s a front, no doubt he thinks. He doesn’t deny the thought that you are a thick-skinned woman. He knows you have a superior mind and a mouth to go with it but he knows there is no way that you could’ve gotten over him that quick. Though judging by your appearance earlier in the day, you definitely tried.

You laugh a little more as you step in front of him and lean over to get your vision in line with his. “You made it clear to me and now I’m making it clear. Nothing you say will convince me that you give a rat’s ass about me. If you really did? There would be no sneaky link shit. You wouldn’t have a problem with people knowing about me, or my brother knowing but it is a problem so get out.”

This ticks Ocscar off a bit. He stands which makes you straighten up as he gets in your face, stepping towards you. You are stepping back slowly as he creeps more, “You think you can handle this lifestyle? The constant threats, the territories? You can’t. When it comes to this kind of life, something like love can be the bane of your existence. So we don’t get into it. We don’t get involved because the people we fall for end up dead.”

You’re pressed with your back against the wall and your chests against each other. Oscar’s eyebrows are connected and he’s staring at your agape mouth. His breath is fanning against your lips, emotions hitting you all at once. “I-I slept with someone last night. Got it good too.”

The jealous tactic seems to fail immediately as Oscar laughs. And for some reason the look of amusement on his face seems to be familiar for a reason you can’t seem to figure out.

“Sleeping around is simple, falling for someone is something else entirely. I’m not saying that we jump into something. But at least you know now it’s not just one-sided.” He steps out of your room. You follow and watch him walk down the hall as Y/S/N stands there. She is stunned seeing Oscar nonchalantly trek through the house.

You don’t know what to say. As you look at your little sister, you sigh in defeat trying to explain this one. Instead you go back into your room and shut your door. You got what you wanted, right? But you still feel like something is missing. 

The week had slowly crept on.

A few shifts at the bodega, classes at the community college and life at home. Jose had basically converted you back to your teenage ways. Making sure you were doing your part in parenting your little sister. Friday night Y/S/N wanted to have Dwayne’s BBQ for dinner and since your social life is drier than your skin, you agree. 

The thought of a  BBQ bacon cheeseburger lifts your mood which has been dragging throughout the week. Your sister happily skips into the restaurant as you trail behind slowly, when you enter you look for her and see she chatting up with Dwayne. 

“Y/N!” José calls out and your vision unfocuses from them onto your brother and pile of Santos in a booth. They all look your way including Oscar. You exhale a deep breath through your nose as you put on a fake smile and wave before stepping up to place an order. 

 Your brother approaches you as you look past him to the booth of Santos, “Didn’t know you guys would be here.” He sets down a $20 bill on the counter when the cashier tells you the total. “Foos gotta eat too.” José starts talking to you about something but your focus falls back on Spooky again. You watch as he stands and makes his way towards you. A small panic sets in your chest but fades away as he ends up exiting the BBQ joint. 

Unknowingly to yourself, your watch as he walks to his car. He leans against it and pulls out a cigarette, no matter how hard you try to avert your eyes from him, you can’t. All week you had been doing fine. Even with the little things reminding you of him, even with the memories that have been seeped into your bed. You didn’t dwell too much on thinking of him until you see him now. 

“Talk to him.” 

It’s just like the movies where the car tires come to a screeching halt and there’s the obnoxious crashing sound. You move your eyes to your brother’s. Did he just say what you think he said? “Talk to him? Spooky, what for? Why would I need to talk to him?”

Jose chuckles, “Hermana, I had my suspicions about you two. Then he told me bout it, he acts like it doesn’t bother him much but it does so go talk to him. Yeah, I’m not so thrilled that he’s messing around with my baby sister. I know how he is but I know he wouldn’t do anything to intentionally hurt you so I’m cool with it. So go talk to him, figure that shit out because I’m getting over you moping around the house.”

You push him away as you look back to the red impala.  After a moment of contemplating it, you decide to head out and approach Oscar, he had his eyes on you since he settled by his car. You lean on it besides him and cross your arms, “You told my brother?”

He smirks and shrugs his shoulders. You try your best to keep the smug look off your face. He holds out the cigarette, you take it and inhale. Coughing a bit as the smoke burns your throat a little. You hand it back and sigh, turning to look at him.

“I like you, you like me. I’m not saying we jump into something… but why not?” You question as he exhales some smoke, you lock your eyes into his, “You ain’t cut for this lifestyle, you would be a liability. Plus your brother in my line of work? That makes him vulnerable as well. It woul--”

You groan loudly which quiets him mid-rant, “Drugs, alcohol and money do all the same things to him too. You see how he is when he gets wasted. There are so many things that make you all vulnerable. If he can make it work with the hyna he’s with, then you can make it work with me. Plus I know this lifestyle more than you think. I know when and where to be and not to be. I know who to know and who not to know. I know things! So don’t act all big bad Spooky to me.”

Now standing directly in front of him and he’s peering down at you. He dips his face lowers and looks at your lips as you look at his. In no time your lips are connected. Oscar slides his hands over your waist, gripping it and pushing you flush against him. You bring your hands to cup his face, letting your tongue slip into his mouth. A full on make-out session breaks out.

As if you didn’t dream of something like this happening you smile into the kiss, pulling away, “You get into this with me, it’s not gonna be glitter and gold. This shit is tough, I can’t be worrying about the things I already do plus you.” You nod and kiss him again, wringing your arms around his neck, he hugs you and feels calm for the first time in a while.

So you enjoy the night more than you thought you would be. With your siblings and the Santos at Dwayne’s. After a night of chatting, Oscar asks you to come back to his place. And well since it isn’t your first rodeo, you agree and send Y/S/N home with José. 

You don’t keep your hands off him while heading back to his place, you are pressed against him and kissing his neck, he is loving every moment of it. The both of you get out to head into the house but the mood is killed when you walk in to find Cesar and his friends on the couch who get frightened due to the scary movie playing on the TV.

Oscar cursing under his breath, “Can’t you watch movies at some else’s house?” You elbow him as he rolls his eyes. But Cesar didn’t want to start anything with his older brother so he asks Jamal if they can continue watching at his house. Soon after the house is empty and quiet again. The two of you settle on the couch, you straddling him and pulling your top off.

“Yo! There’s someone posted up outside!” Cesar suddenly bursts through the door which causes Oscar to push you off him and reach for his gun. He tells the younger Diaz, his friends and you to stay put as he checks out the fool that runs up on the Santo trap house. You scramble to put your shirt back on and curse when Cesar trails after his brother. You follow in pursuit, trying to tell Cesar that Oscar said to stay inside. “Who is that?” 

“Ray?” You say out loud though you thought you were just thinking it.

Oscar turns to you when you say the name of none other than his estranged father. You look to both Ray and Oscar, looking at the two men and making the connection. You feel the color get sucked out of your face, oh fuck.

“You know him, who is he?” Cesar asks you and he looks at Oscar. The Santo leader has his eyes on you and is still confused as to how the hell you know his father. “He’s our father.” Oscar says, still looking at you.

The confirmation makes you want to be obliterated right in your very spot. This can’t be happening! Is it? You try to speak but nothing comes out of your mouth. You finally look to Ray who has a small smirk on his face and that’s why that look Oscar had on his face that day seemed so familiar. You saw it that night you went out of town to have a good time. 

“Hola de nuevo, pequeña coyote.” Ray says looking at you. 

You grimace as Oscar connects the dots himself. The amount of heat that settles into your face along with the gasps from Cesar’s friends don’t make it any easier to bear.

“Wait Oscar, wait!” He is stepping towards his father, ready to charge. “I didn’t know he was your dad! Listen to me, please!” You step forward quickly and pull his arm back, he yanks it out of your grasp quickly as you plead for him to listen to you.

Oscar begins to snap at you, “Him? This is who you slept with and you want me to listen to explain? Huh?!” The anger booms in his voice as he is mere inches from your face. Cesar appears next to you trying to get between the two of you. You didn’t think Oscar could ever get so mad. And you have seen the Santo leader in moments of rage before. 

“Mijo, listen..” 

Ray’s voice sounds from behind Oscar now. He turns and wastes no time in welcoming him with a right hook. His father stumbles back as you gasp along with the sounds from the teens. “Oscar!”

You take the initiative to stand between the two of them, holding out a hand against Oscar’s chest as he is heaving and exuding anger. Ray is mending to his jaw as he stands up. You notice the lights of the neighbor had turned on and people were beginning to pile outside of their homes to see all the commotion.

“Oscar just stop and listen to me for one fucking second! No, I did not sleep with Ray. We did get together that night, yes but we didn’t do anything that involves other body parts. I started going off about you with him, I vented and we spent the night drinking. I got too wasted and he offered to let me spend the night in his motel room. Nothing happened!” You release in one breath. 

Everyone looks at you, unable to make sense of the situation. 

“That’s why I came, when she mentioned things about you, I had to come see for myself if what niña said is true. That you’re running the Santos.” The two men stare at each other as you stand in the middle. Your heart is racing. 

Oscar doesn’t say anything as he looks back and forth between his father and you. When you step towards him and reach out to grab his hand, he raises his hand up in defense and steps back. You can see the glint of hurt in his eyes as he backs away from you. Your eyes pleading for him to try to understand everything.

You trail behind a fuming Oscar into his house, you are nearly jogging when you catch up with him. But he steps into his room and slams the door in your face. You step back and sigh. “Please talk to me…Oscar. Nothing happened, you have to believe me.” 

He doesn’t respond as you rest your head on his door. You hold your hands on the door silently cursing yourself. What could you say that made the situation sound better? How could you make it look like it really was nothing even with Ray right there?

A few moments have passed by when the door opens, a still very upset Oscar stands there as he flies forwards a bunch of crumbled paper at you. You watch as the papers fall to your feet and he slams the door in your face again. No context of nothing. 

When you pick up the papers, it’s drawings of you. Portraits sketched out from a ballpoint pen. Some dated as far back as a month ago to as recent as a few days ago. Oscar drew you. He did so multiple times and in such craft it takes your breath away. 

You feel the tears begin to well in your eyes. The pain that you have caused him. How do you fix this?

taglist: @clemmingstylins0n @fairygardenss@princesstiffxoxo@firebenderwolf @spookysnena @mbaku-babygirl @chellybear98@multiyfandomgirl40 @i-just-wanna-live-gc@roury66 @kkim120 @lillict @tinylumpiaa @prettymya3@starrynite7114 @onmyspookysblock @aneitii @b3mybunnybaby  @angelxfics  @spookysbabymama @ladylj @vayagrxce @irenne-stans @boujee-bitches (please let me know if you want to be added or removed!)

[drmmyrs]

Remember Me (Becca x MC) Part 2

Hiii I’m back. Sorry again for the delay 😬I had such a hard time writing the ending so thank you so much @samanthadalton for all your help 😘Also, a big thanks to M anon for their suggestions and song request which I used some of.

tag list: @samanthadalton @crazzyplays @uselesslesbianfr @baexpoppy @alexroyard @alexlabhont @veenast @noixngn @sillyandcutewizardstuffs @doey-eyes8 @itszdavenport (If you wanna be added or removed or just prefer a certain ship just let me know ❤️)

Read Part 1

Pairing: Becca x MC (Emily)

Warnings: some swearing

Word Count: 2289

It's been an hour since Emily last came into my room to remind me of my doctor's appointment. And it's been about thirty minutes since I've been ready to go, physically at least. Naturally, I tried to get Chris to come with me instead because he's my boyfriend, right? Ughh fine, ex-boyfriend. But can you blame me, though? How am I suppose to move on when I literally have no memory of some sort of breakup or closure? I stare at the dull beige-colored ceiling, a view which has me panicking in the mornings right after I wake up, before I remember that I don't live at the sorority house anymore. I then close my eyes and get comfort in the memories I have left, my only anchor on the reality I knew, away from this freakish place with the people I don't even give a shit about.

After a couple more minutes, I begrudgingly get up with a groan and trudge downstairs, finding Emily waiting on the couch. She smiles upon seeing me, but I don't return the gesture, being genuinely annoyed at the prospect of having to spend an incessant amount of time with her. So instead, I walk past her towards the door, my heels clattering on the wooden surface. Emily then follows behind me from a distance, careful not to invade my space. Once outside, I walk straight towards the passenger door of Emily's junk of a car, grabbing the handle as I glare at Emily impatiently, waiting for her to unlock it. As soon as unlocked, I sink into the seat, slamming the door close harder than I intended. Emily, though, takes a second before going in, eyeing the seat suspiciously as if it might shatter anytime. Once seated, she places her hand on the gear stick, slightly trembling. And then it dawns on me, I may have forgotten about the accident, but it's probably still fresh from her memory, terrorizing her at every reminder. All this time, I've been complaining about how unfair everything is for me, not once considering how it may have affected her.

"Who was driving?" I ask. It may not be the best thing to talk about right now, but I have to know.

I see Emily flinch at the question, and before she even opens her mouth, I know. She looks out the windshield, her voice cracking when she replies, "I was."

I nod. My mom told me it was a drunk driver running a red light that hit us, so I don't blame her at all, not anymore.

"Is it–" The words come out sharp, so I stop and soften my voice. "Is it the first time you drove since?"

Emily doesn't reply immediately; instead, she shifts the gear and steps on the gas pedal as we begin to make our way towards the hospital. She grips the steering wheel tightly, anxiously looking at the road, her eyes obsessively sweeping for any oncoming traffic at every intersection.

"No. No it's not but..." Emily trails off, her knuckles turning white as her grip on the steering wheel tightens.

But it's her first time to drive with me in the car. I turn my head to look out the window, knowing full well I can't ease her fears. How can I when I'm the living reminder of everything she lost?

---------

I immediately regret my outfit choice as soon as we get into the waiting room, the frigid temperature biting at my skin, sending sharp pains like that of a needle across my exposed skin. I try to play it cool, but a shiver escapes my body, desperate for any source of heat. A few seconds later, a jacket appears in front of me, held by Emily who is wearing an annoyingly cute little smile on her face. I mumble thanks and take the jacket, placing it over my shoulders, smelling the scent of lavender as I bask in the comfort of heat.

I take out my phone and browse my socials, catching up on all the events I missed–or forgotten–while ignoring the get well soon messages from both people I know and don't know that have been piling up ever since the accident. A few minutes later, the doctor calls my name, and as I stand up, Emily does as well but then sits back down almost immediately, clearly unsure if her company is welcome.

I roll my eyes. "Come on."

---------

After a useless consultation–apparently, they can't do much to help me regain my memories–Emily suggests we stop by an ice cream parlor not far from here. I assent, but only because I need the comfort of a sugary snack right now, and it's been ages since I had one, or at least I think so.

We reach a store I don't recognize, replacing an office space that, while I never paid attention to before, was a pleasant fixture in my reality, not this... eyesore. I shake my head; I can't keep living in the past. I follow Emily into the store, reminding myself that this is my reality now.

Inside, the floor is patterned with alternating pink and black tiles, and the walls are coated with somewhat fresh pink paint adorned with decors that scream ice cream as if one might stumble into the shop looking for lunch or something.

"Welcome t–ah Emily and Becca! I haven't seen you girls in a while."

I turn around to see a guy, probably in his mid-twenties– smiling at us like...  I shoot Emily a side-eye. She, of course, fails to mention that the guy working here is buddy-buddy with me. So, is this the kind of couple we were? Those who frequent an ice cream parlor enough to be on a first-name basis with the ice cream guy? I internally groan in disgust at the thought.

"–Becca." I'm pulled out of my thoughts when I hear my name. Emily and the ice cream guy are looking at me expectantly.

"Sorry I didn't hear," I mumble.

"You'll be having strawberry, your usual, correct?" says the guy with a wide smile.

I do want strawberry, but I shake my head and say, "Vanilla," just to spite him, annoyed how some stranger knows my favorite ice cream flavor.

"Ooh, trying something new today, are we? One rocky road and vanilla coming right up," he announces in an annoyingly high pitch voice. I struggle not to roll my eyes.

"Where's the bathroom?" I ask, which is met by a look of confusion followed by a laugh.

"You know wh–" 

Emily quickly interjects, "The bathroom's there, Becca," pointing at a door at the back of the store.

I excuse myself and go to the bathroom, heading straight towards the mirror. I stare at my reflection, nitpicking every tiny detail that has changed throughout the years, changes I don't recognize at all. A tear rolls down my cheek, but I quickly wipe it away. I'm Rebecca fucking Davenport; I don't cry. I grip the sink tightly, overcome with a new resolution. I know who I am; they don't, convincing myself more than anyone else.

Once finishing up in the bathroom, I head back outside, noticing a different aura in the room. Emily is holding our orders with an apologetic look while the ice cream guy regards me with pity, something I've grown used to in the past few weeks. I take my ice cream from Emily, not meeting her gaze, and walk out of the store, striding ahead of her towards the car, not once looking back.

--------

On the ride home, silence weighs heavily between us as Emily bites at her lower lip, either contemplating what to say or waiting for me to go off on her. After an awkward amount of time, Emily finally breaks the silence.

"I'm sorry I–"

"Forget about it," I cut her off, too exhausted to engage with her. I think about the previous encounter, wondering if that would be my norm. Unfamiliar people coming up to me, sharing inside jokes and anecdotes while I stare blankly at them, wondering if I should explain my situation or just ignore them, being the bitch I know I am. I stare out the window, seeing all the changes in the city, musing about the memories I may have had alongside them, memories that I may or may not recover. It's as if an impostor had been living my life for the past two years, and now I'm forced to follow in their footsteps. It's obvious I had changed a lot during those years, my previous enemies becoming my closest friends, my greatest rival supposedly becoming the love of my life. Was she the love of my life? Was I happy with Emily?

It's already dark outside when we arrive home. I notice a few cars parked down the road, something unusual considering this is the only house for at least a couple of blocks. What do I know, though, it's not like I remember much about this place. I turn my attention back to the house; the lights inside are turned off, leaving a lone street lamp and the car's headlights as the primary sources of light, accentuating the jagged grey bricks of the house, almost giving an appearance of something sinister. This is ridiculous; I chide myself for being scared of a stupid house. 

Emily walks ahead towards the door while I follow a few steps behind. As soon as I walk inside, the light turns on, and I'm greeted by a chorus of surprise echoing throughout the house, coming from people whom I only recognize half of. I stare at them blankly, unimpressed but just mostly confused. My mother walks over to me and gives me a big hug.

"Happy birthday, sweetie."

Birthday? I inconspicuously look at my phone. Huh. I could've sworn I've seen the date today at least a few times. A few moments later, Emily steps forward with a cake in her hands.

"Happy birthday babe," she says, immediately followed by a look of horror. "Becca. Sorry."

Of course Emily had planned this. It doesn't really matter if I wanted to have a stupid party. She had to go ahead and decide for me.

"Go ahead and blow out the candles," my mom urges.

I blow out the candles, faking a smile for my mom. As much as I want to storm into my room, I'm not about to break my mom's heart by causing some unnecessary drama.

--------

Just a few moments into the party, and I'm already exhausted–people lining up to greet me, asking how I've been doing since the accident. I realize that most people here don't know about my condition, which means I have had to engage in quite a few conversations about the things I've supposedly been doing for the past few years, things I have no recollection of, to which I gave vague answers to avoid having to explain everything. 

I down my fourth glass of virgin cuba libre, eyeing the display of alcohol with contempt, resentful that I can’t drink because of the medicine I took earlier, when Zack drags me across the room to play some truth or dare with a bunch of people, some of whom I don't recognize. Thankfully, if there was one thing the sorority has taught me, it's that you don't have to know someone to ask the right questions or expertly avoid the common ones. That is of course until someone asks you the most unexpected question.

"Do you have a date for the wedding yet?"

I stare at them blankly, fumbling for words. Wedding? 

"I–I–"

But before I can make up an answer, Kaitlyn arrives with Emily in tow, and that's when I notice it, the ring on Emily's finger. I gasp for breath, feeling like the air is taken out of my lungs. And I almost don't notice it when Kaitlyn takes out her guitar and starts singing, joined by the others.

When all the tears are rolling down your face And it feels like yours was the only heart to break When you come back home and all the lights are out And you're getting used to no one else being around

Oh, oh, I'll be there

I look at the unfamiliar faces, singing their hearts out, gazing at me fondly. I then turn my gaze to Emily's ring finger, and sitting on it is a small but glistening diamond and part of me chastises myself for not noticing earlier. I feel the entire room’s eyes on me and suddenly, it becomes too much for me to withstand. I stand up, scrabbling to go to my room, footsteps following behind me. Once I got on the stairs, Emily shouts my name from behind, and I stop at the sound of her voice, turning around.

"We were engaged? Why didn't you tell me?" My voice comes out harsher than expected and it seems to take Emily by surprise too because she just stands there motionless, speechless. “Marriage is a big thing Emily, that’s not something you can just conveniently not tell me.” I let out a frustrated groan, momentarily letting the anger wash all over me before I’m left with a bitter feeling in the pit of my stomach. “I’m sick of having random people tell me things about my life which I can’t even remember when my own fianc–” I stop, not even being able to say the word, shaking my head as the agony brought by my predicament proves to be too much. “I can’t do this. I'm sorry," I croak before running towards my room, slamming the door behind me. I then curl myself in bed as the tears fall freely.

[itsthestutterforme]

Shuriken (Jang Hanseok)

Summary: Y/N is a mercenary with a particular knack for knives and torture. Hanseok hired her as his new body guard against Vincenzo, little did he know that her and Vincenzo have a history. A dark history.

Characters: Jang Hanseok x mercenary!reader (implied sex), Vincenzo x mercenary!reader (past lovers), Jang Hanseo x reader (platonic), Ms. Choi x reader (platonic)

--

You hated jet lang with a passion. You would think that since you're a mercenary, that you're fine with traveling but you really hated it. You pull up your turtle neck to cover your maliscous scar across your neck. It's not that it bothers you to show it, you just didn't feel like explaining to others that someone tried to kill you and failed.

You take a taxi from the Incheon International Airport to the location your employer asked you to meet him. He was explicit with making sure that you get all the luxuries plus the 500k and that you never leave his side. He's definitely paranoid. But this isn't the first time you've had a paranoid employer.

Hopefully, he's not a crazy one. You'vs had enough with the crazy employers. The taxi drops you off at a fairly large, modern-looking house. But from the looks of it, it does not take much to break in here. You'll suggest installing some deadlocks and bullet proof cameras.

You pay the driver before hopping out of the car with your luggage. He drives away and just as you approach the gate, the door buzzes open. You walk in and are instantly greeted by four people, three men and a women. Two of the men looked young, they're probably brothers. The other man and woman looked older.

"I'm Jang Hanseok, this is my brother, Jang Hanseo and my lawyers, Ms. Choi and Mr. Hanchul. This is Y/N, the Slicer." "I see you did your research," "A little. Had to know who I was dealing with." "Yeah, and that nickname did not give me any justice. That's one of my least favorite names given to me."

"There's multiple?" "Yeah, there's Ninja, SheWolf, Shredder, Grim Reaper, Death, Queen of Hell, and my favorite, Shuriken." "Shuriken? How did you get that name?" "A talented magician never tells their secrets," you say. "Now, where's my room?" You add.

Over the passed few days, there is not much action to be on high alert. Which leaves random conversations about favorite foods and TV shows.

He doesn't seem like a terrible guy, he has a messed sense of humor though. He even asked a if you've ever been in love before. You answered by pointing to your scar and saying, "Once, unfortunately,"

You were walking through the parking garage to get the car after having dinner with Hanseok and the rest of his crew when you hear tires screeching. There was a black van next to you and the doors flew open Instinctively, you push Jang Hanseok behind you.

A dozen of guys with masks pile out of the car with their own weapons. They rush towards you and you take out a few thin shurikens from your sleeves and flick your wrists forwards. They hit two men in their throats and you duck under the arm of a man with a wrench.

You grab his arm and throw him to the ground and just when another man headed towards you, you take out your ninjato sword. Clicking the button, it springs into it's full length and you slice across the man's chest.

His blood sprays across your face before he falls to the ground and the man you threw to the ground is starting to get up.

You cut his throat and knee him in the face before ducking and weaving through their blows, cutting their backs and faces along the way. One managed to take your ninajto sword from your hands so you took out your daggers.

Stabbing his heart, you take out the blade before drop kicking him towards his remaining four comrades. They all fall to the ground and before they could get up, you threw a dagger through one of their eye sockets.

The three of them rush towards you and you swing your leg under one of them, tripping him. Then you one with a roundhouse kick and the other with a jumping back kick.

"Now, which of you wants to run back to you boss and say that Shuriken is in town?" You ask breathlessly. They look to each other and one of them hops into the van and drives away. "Well.." you state and before they could run away, you use two more shurikeins that cuts through their throats.

You turn around to see Hanseo, Ms. Choi and Mr. Hanchul looking at you with both fear and shock. You tried to wipe away the blood from your face as you look at Hanseok. He smiles at you with a dark look in his eyes. "Let's go," you suggest.

**

Since you fought those amateurs in the parking garage, Jang Hanseok has been more around you a lot more than usual. It's almost like he was attracted to the fact that you killed people without blinking. He buys you everything from food to jewlery.

He doesn't mention who I'm protecting him from. He doesn't even allow his comrades to say his name. They just call him Mafia Bastard. They were celebrating a victory over said Mafia Bastard. It wasn't until he admitted to killing his mother that you realized just how similar you guys were.

Sitting at the table, you read your book and leave your glass of champagne untouched. You started to zone out after they continue to ramble about the Mafia Bastard.

You felt some tensesness in the room when Ms. Choi said, "Did you really think that you would betray the Chairman and I wouldn't find out about it?"

You still don't look up from your book until you heard a silenced gun shot and Ms. Choi's screams. You reach into your belt and aim your gun towards the perpetrator.

His expression matched yours when you realized that it was him.. Vincenzo. The man you loved and betrayed you. The one that gave you that hideous scar.

Without a second thought, you shot his arm and chest. He kneels on the ground and drops his weapon. "Thats impossible, you're dead." He groans. "There were times when I wished I was." He spits out some blood and says, "Y/N, I.. I'm sorry."

You raise the gun again to kill him but you remember Hanseok saying he didn't wabf the Mafia Bastard dead, not yet. "Get the hell out of here," you say, setting your gun on the counter. He stands up from the floor and staggers a little before opening his mouth to talk to you. You raise your hand for him to stop and he complies.

He holds onto his chest and walks slowly out of the building. That's when you notice the dead man on the floor. From the looks of it, he's was tortured to death. He must have been the one who killed his mom. "Why didn't you kill him! We didn't hire you to let people live! We hired you to kill!" Ms. Choi yells.

You look to Hanseok and ask, "You said to keep him alive, is that correct?" "Yes, I did. And we didn't hire anybody, I did, so watch your tone."

You approach her and take out a dagger from your ankle holster. You press the dagger against her throat and said, "Question my intentions like that again, and I'll slit your throat."

With that, you walk out of the lounge room and went into Hanseok's room where the balcony was. "So he's the reason why you have that scar," Hanseok says, stepping on to the balcony with you.

"I don't want to talk about it," you say flatly. "He's the one that's trying to kill me, so you better talk about it."

"Look at me," he adds, turning you around and pressing your back against the railing. "Why do you care? What matters now is that I'm willing to kill him. No, I'm more than willing. I want to kill him." You say as you throw him to the ground and apply pressure to his chest with your knee. Taking out your blade, you press it against his throat.

"I'm not your brother. Put your hands on me again and I will kill you, do you understand?" You add. He nods and you release the pressure from his lungs. You tuck your dagger away in your ankle. When you try to stand up, he pulls you back down and flips you onto your back.

He pins your arms above your head. "What are you doing?" You ask. "I'm trying something," he says before capturing your lips in a burningly slow kiss.

Oddly enough your body eases under his touch and he lets go of your arm. You sit up to pull off your shirt and he pulls off your jeans, slowly kissing up your stomach.

Meanwhile Cha young walks Vincenzo out of the hospital and to his chair. The bullets were through and through, so it didn't take that long to clean and stitch him up. "Who did this to you?" Cha young asks. "I deserved it," "No one deserves to be shot... except Hanseok."

"I.. I don't know how, but I'm going to make it up to her." "Her? A woman shot you?" "A very special woman that I once loved," "Wait, now I'm even more confused. If she was so special then why did she try to kill you?" "Because I tried to kill her."

[inkingtwice]

Apparently it’s my weekend for wordy meta: sorry. 🤷 This is what happens when I take a break from job #2 and rediscover the concept of free time, I guess: I reread craft books and analyze the crap out of my favorite stories. Maybe I should take up knitting?

Anyhoo.

Jeff Gerke proposed something in Plot vs. Character that has stuck with me since I first read it, which is that every protagonist has a primary inner hang-up they’re constantly tripping over on their way to their goals. This doesn’t have to be some earth-shattering thing, as long as it’s significant to the character. They don’t even have to be aware of it. (Often, I think, they’re not: they discover it somewhere between catalyst and climax—usually closer to the latter—after barking up at many perfectly innocent trees on their way to the truth.) Gerke called this the knot, which is a nicely catchy term.

Hardly an original thought, and it applies to a specific approach to story structure, but I think it’s useful not only for writing but for reading/watching fiction.

And yeah, it’s formulaic, as a lot of general writing advice tends to be…but in this case, I find the simplicity appealing. Advice on characterization can get insanely specific, and after incoherent mumble years of studying the art of storytelling in its written and theatrical forms, the firmest conclusion I’ve come to is that I don’t think it really needs to be. Pin the big character stuff down, shove ‘em into a story, and let the plot do the work of revealing the character’s essence: that’s what plots are for. Too much detail in the prep phase can be as limiting as too little.

Which may seem like an odd thing to say coming from a nerd who likes to outline her long-form fiction in Excel and then graph it to the major elements of the Plot Mountain, but, dammit (janet): discovery is as much fun in creation as it is in consumption.

Basically, what this-all speaks to is internal conflict.

Conflict in plot is another thing where there are doorstoppers of advice on the shelves and online, some of it tedious and some of it great, but what it pretty much boils down to is desire + opposition, yes? The external stuff—character vs. character, -vs. society, -vs. nature, etc.—drives action. The internal stuff—character vs. self—drives character development. It's not that simple, of course: they do interact. The action grinds away the outer layers of the character, revealing the essential self and forcing personal change. That change pushes the action forward as the character tries new avenues around/over/through the obstacles between them and their goals.

Conflicting values, blind spots, guilt, shame, shit coping mechanisms, obsessions, fears, heavy secrets…the internal conflict is always psychological, and unless it’s confronted, everything the character does to leap the hurdles of external opposition is likely to fail, or at least to resolve incompletely. They can face down all the dragons they want, but they won’t get out of their own way until they face themselves. This is Gerke’s Knot.

What I love about Hwang Si-mok as a character—okay, yes, one of the things I love—is that Lee Soo-yeon pulled quite the bait-and-switch on the audience with his internal conflict. The side-effects of his brain surgery create major conflict, so significant to character development and action that it justifies a prologue sequence to set it up and various moments of exposition in the first half of the season to establish the details. Look, all of this explanation says: here is his knot, his central conflict, given to you right from the first scene. How will he overcome this?

Except that’s not actually it.

It’s external, despite its physical location within his brain. It was done to him; whether by his choice or not, we don’t know. External forces can cause a knot, but by definition they aren’t internal conflict. This was gloriously clear by the time Si-mok faced his reflection in the interrogation room with Yoon Se-won to reject aloud the idea that his condition and the effects of its treatment made him inherently dangerous, something he’d carried and possibly believed all season, and presumably ever since he was a child. He was judging Yoon Se-won’s choices, yes: but he was also saying We are not the same, you and I. Your choices are not mine. This is not who I am.

This is why I love Lee Soo-yeon's writing. It's so smart.

This is also why I love complex characters so much: so many layers. Si-mok sheds several of his in season one, and each subtraction reveals new facets of his character: to the audience, to the other characters, and to himself. He achieves a more complete understanding of himself and brings that with him into the next season.

Has his true internal conflict been revealed? I don’t think so, which is one reason I am still, in the absence of any news confirming it, confident that a third season was at least planned. There have been some lovely, subtle hints at what that internal conflict is, and god knows my headcanon for it is locked and loaded, but the arc of character growth isn’t yet complete: he still has miles to go.

Fingers crossed we’ll get to learn about it in 2022.

[imagineswriting47]

Running away

A/N: This is for the Anon who asked ‘ Hello! I saw that your requests were open, and I want to know if it’s possible to write a Dean x reader story where the reader has a dark/sad past ( maybe worse than the Winchesters?) that extends outside of America, like an international type of deal? Then maybe dean does something rude or finds something out and treats her badly, just something that causes her to run away? I literally have no plot to this! Thank you in advance! I want to apologize for this taking so long to get out.

Summary: When Dean finds out the truth about Y/N he doesn’t take it to well.

Parring: Dean/Reader

Warnings: None

Tag List: @akshi8278​

If you had told me ten years ago that monsters and demons were real, I would have laughed about it. I would be thinking that you were saying some terrible jokes. Now I know differently. Watching monsters kill my whole family changed everything. How I survived, I will never know. Running away from everything didn't solve anything, either. Flying to America, I hoped that I could leave monsters hunting behind and the British Men of Letters. I couldn't. Once a monster hunter, always a monster hunter. So when I heard about some strange killings the town over from where I had been staying, I had to check it out. Meeting the Winchesters was not what I expected. Nor were they anything like I had been lead to believe. When everything was said and done with the hunt, Sam asked if I would like to come along. I said, 'no.' I gave them my number to call if they needed anything anyway.

After meeting Sam and Dean, I started hunting again. I was meeting other hunters along the way as well. But somehow, the Winchesters and I kept crossing paths. Every time they would ask me to come along with them, I told them 'no.' But the more that I hunted with them, the more I found myself wanting to go with them. For the first time since I lost my family, I felt safe with someone. But how would they handle the truth about me? My past is not pretty. The things that I did for the British Men of Letters are things that I can't forgive myself for. They will hate me if they know the truth about me. But Sam, with those puppy dog eyes, how could I say no. Even when I got a room in the Bunker, I still kept my distance. I was doing my best to keep my past from them. They could never know how much I care about both of them. I fear that they could use it against me, or someone could use the brothers against me.  

The past, no matter how hard you run from it, will always find you. 

A simple hunt that turned out to be demons changed everything. Demons lie; everyone knows this. But these demons were not lying about me. And when the beast was dead, Dean asked if the creature was telling the truth. Did I sell my soul? My silence was answer enough for him. Then the yelling started. I was everything that he said. I was no better than the monsters that we hunted. While my soul was still mine, it was dirty and tainted by the darkness that is Hell. It doesn't matter to him that my soul is still mine and that I still have my soul. That I managed to get the demon who I sold my soul to break their end of the deal was a miracle. By breaking their end of the agreement, they were making the deal void. Dean didn't care about that, and the whole way back to the Bunker, Dean was silent after Sam got Dean to stop yelling and get in the car. A yelling Dean I knew how to deal with but a quiet Dean that was a bad thing. When the car came to a stop, I all but jumped from the car and went to my room.  Closing the door behind me, I sat on my bed.  Only a moment later, the door was thrown open by Dean.

"Were you going to tell us?" Dean spoke the quiet furry easy to hear in his voice. I didn't know what more he wanted me to say. What could I say? "You lied to me—your just another monster. I trusted you to have Sam, and I's back. I trusted you, and I should never have done that..." I don't hear anything after that; his words keep getting harsher and harsher. Seeing the chance when Dean stepped further into my room, I ran. Once past him, I let the tears fall down my face. When I felt like I ran into a wall only to have two arms wrap around me.

"Y/N?"

"I'm sorry, Sam. I'm just so sorry." I whisper as I pull away from him. Running to the garage, I jump into my old car. Once out and onto the road, I drive. There was no destination in my mind; I just kept driving; my tears had long since dried, not having the energy go further. I pull into a little service road with the car off. The silence is defining. I did not realize how used to the boys always talking I had gotten.

Climbing into the back of my car, I lay down. Pillowing my jacket under my head, I let the blackness of sleep pull me under. Though my sleep was restless, I could not get more than a couple of minutes of rest. The sun shining in the car's window decided for me that it was time to start moving again. Sitting up, I rub my face trying to wake myself up the best that I can. Climbing back into my car's front seat, I turn the car over and get back out onto the road. I keep heading west following the sun, still with no destination in mind. I only stop when I get hungry or need to use the bathroom. Putting as much distance that I can between the Winchesters and myself. 

Just before nightfall, I find a small little town that has a cheap motel in it. Thanking my stars tonight, I pull into the motel parking lot. I was pulling out the little bag of clothing that I keep in the trunk of my car as a 'just in case kind of thing. The motel was reasonable but also dirty as most cheap motels come. Also, it doesn't look like any redecorating has been done since the eighties. After all the salt lines are laid out, I make my way to the shower. The water is thankfully hot, and I let it relax the muscles of my back. I was washing my body before stepping out of the shower. Towel drying my hair, I quickly re-dress and head out of my motel room. I am running into a small town looking for someplace to get something to eat. The town's dinner was little and '50s themed like much of all the diners I had obtained food over the years. Ordering my meal to go, I quickly make my way back to my hotel room. I eat fast, not even tasting what I was eating, knowing that I need to see what I had left in my car. At this point, I considered what had been left at the Bunker lost, and I needed to know what I needed to replace. The bags I felt had some weapons left in them but not enough to keep hunting for long. But I had left my phone behind in my room. 

Over the next couple of days, I manage to get some money for doing some hustling at the bars. With that money, I got myself some new clothing and a burner phone. By the end of the week, I move to another town. I kept moving like that week after week, hustling money as I went. Three months after leaving the Bunker, sitting in a small bar, I hear the door open. Sitting where I was, I could see the door and those that walked in, but they could not see me. Standing in the doorway are the Winchesters. I wait for them to get to the bar with their backs to me before standing up and making my way out of the bar.

Once back at my motel room, I pack up my things, cleaning up, making it as if I was never there. By the time I am finished, I can hear the Impala's unmistakable sound pulling into the lot. I wait to hear a door close than wait longer to be sure before stepping out of my room. I am quickly making my way over to the car. I set my things in the passenger seat before walking over to the office. Once checked out and everything paid, I make my way back to my car. At the same time, my attention was elsewhere. I failed to notice Sam stepping out of his room. Sam doesn't see who I am until I am standing next to my car with my head down. "Y/N?" I hear Sam say to me as he moves to be standing on the other side of my car.

"Hey, Sammy," I say as I look up to him. Only the Sam that I see is not the same Sam that I left at the Bunker. This Sam looks so tired like he hasn't slept in weeks; the dark rings under his eyes are so dark. He even looks like he has lost weight. His clothing seems to hang on him. "I can't believe it, Y/N. Dean and I have been looking for you." When he mentions Dean, I can't help but cringe back, Remembering Dean saying that he should kill me. "Y/N?" When I hear my name, I look up to Sam. I can see the concern in his eyes. 

 "I can't, Sammy. I'm sorry, I-I have to go." I whisper to him as I pull my car door open. Making a decision quickly, I pull out a piece of paper and write my new number on it for him. 'Don't tell Dean.' I finish off the note before handing it to him. Once in my car, I don't wait to see if Sam reads the message before pulling out of the parking lot. I'm not on the road long before I hear my phone start to ring. Wanting to put more space between us, I don't answer.

I drive for the rest of the day and all through the night. I don't stop until I cross over into Ohio. I stop at the first motel that I come across. Once in my room, I plug in my phone before falling into bed. I am woken up hours later to my phone going off.

Grabbing it off the table, I find that Sam is calling me. "Are you alone?" Are the first words out of my mouth before Sam could even say anything. "Yes." Sam and I talk for hours after that. Mostly it was just me telling Sam that I was okay. That no, I hadn't been hunting. Then he asked what happened the night that I left the Bunker as Dean wouldn't talk about it. So I start from the beginning by telling him everything. The secrets that I had kept from him, why I sold my soul, how I got out of it. What Dean said to me and how it scared me. 

Sam fills me in on everything that had happened since I left. I can't believe what Sam tells me how worried Dean got when he realized that I hadn't returned to the Bunker the next day. After a week, Dean was freaking out, calling everyone that we all knew to see if they had seen me or heard from me. At first, I thought it was because he was trying to follow through with what he had said in my room. Sam said that all he kept saying was that he needs to apologize. 

Sam and I keep talking for weeks after that first phone call. He keeps his promise and doesn't tell Dean about our conversations. But with each chat I have with Sam, I make my way closer to the Bunker. Sam doesn't know this, but I plan on seeing him again in the next couple of weeks. Sending a text to Sam when I get into town, I tell him where I am staying. He doesn't get back to me right away, but when he does, it doesn't take him long to show up at my hotel room. Once my door is open, I am pulled open into a bone-crushing hug. "It's good to see you too, Sam."

"Same to you, Y/N." When Sam pulls away from me, I can get a good look at Sam. He looks so much better than the last time than I saw him. The dark circles are gone, and he seems like he has been eating better. "You look better, Sammy. How's Dean?" What Sam has been telling me about Dean is making me worry.

"It's not good, Y/N. I don't know the last time he slept. I can't get him to stop looking; it's killing me not to tell him that you are okay." Sam sits on the bed in the room with his head in his hands.

"Do you-Do you think that it would help if I went to the bunker?" I whisper to him as I take a seat next to him. This was my plan when I came here, but to hear Sam talking is making me nervous to see him again. It's been six months since I have been back. "Would you?" I can see the hope in his eyes as he lifts his head and looks at me. Shrugging my shoulders, I stand up and hold my hand out to him, pulling him to his feet. "Let's go." I want to get out of the door before I change my mind. It doesn't take long before we are pulling up to the Bunker and making our way inside. Sam stays back, letting me walk in first. The Bunker is quiet, not much noise to be heard, nothing like it was before when I was living here.

"Sam, where did you go?" I hear a yell for the library turning, I look at Sam, and he smiles at me in pushing me to the library. Dean has his back to me when I first see him again. "It's not Sam," I say to him. I can see him freeze before turning slowly to look at me. "Hi, Dean," I say when I can see his face. His face is pale; he looks so tired and underfed. I don't get the chance to get a good look at him before I have an arm full of Dean. For Dean being so much taller than me, he seems so small in my arms. But what makes me the most surprised is when I can feel tears on my neck. I start to walk backward and out of the room, slowly making our way to his room. Dean doesn't seem to realize that we are even moving. He is shaking in my arms but not making any noise either. Once in his room and laying down on his bed, all he keeps mumbling is 'sorry.' I keep whispering soothing words in his ears, hoping to get him to calm down. Slowly he stops shaking, the tears stop falling, and his breathing gets deeper, letting me know that he has fallen asleep. Not long after he is sleeping, so am I. 

I don't know how long we are asleep, but I am woken up to the feeling of a hand on my cheek. Opening my eyes, I find Dean's green ones looking back at me. Looking Dean in the face, he looks better already; the dark marks under his eyes less pronounced his cheeks have color back in them. "You okay?" I ask him as I place my hand over his that is on my face.

"I should be asking you that Y/N," Dean whispers to me, his eyes closing as he says this. "I'm fine, Dean, I promise." I smile at him even though I know that he can't see it. Not knowing what to do, I move his hand off my face; turning my back to him, I sit up. "But I couldn't stay, Dean, not after everything. I-I'm not staying for long. I just thought that I would come and see you and Sammy." I can feel the bed moving behind me as Dean stands from the bed. He moves around the bed and stands in front of me.  Dean is turning on the bedside light before kneeling in front of me. 

"Y/N, I can never tell you how sorry that I am for what I said. I will never admit this outside of this room, but I was afraid. I sold my soul. I know what could have happened to you, and I don't want that for you. You are so beautiful and kind and everything that is good." Dean looks like he wanted to say more, but he doesn't. He takes a deep breath before standing up and turning his back to me. His shoulders fall.

"Dean, I'm sorry. But I couldn't tell you; I didn't know-how. I want to stay here. But I don't think that I can, not after everything. I know that I am better off on my own..." I don't get to finish my sentence before he turns back to face me, grabs my face in both of his hands, and kisses me. It could be barely be called a kiss more of a dry press of his lips against mine. "Please..." I can feel him whisper against my lips. Deciding to throw caution to the wind, I lean up and kiss him. The kiss is rough, all teeth and tongue saying everything that both of us just couldn't put into words. I feel his hands on my ass before he is lifting me up. I warp my legs around his waist as he turns and presses me against the wall.

We kiss for what feels like hours about cant be more than a couple of minutes. "Don't leave me." I hear Dean whisper as he pulls away from this kiss. His head once again resting on my shoulder. I grip tighter to the short hair at the back of his neck before whispering, "There is nowhere that I would rather be."

With my feet back on the floor and the both of us cling to each other, I know that we have a lot that we need to talk about, and my past is one of them, but maybe this really is where I am meant to be.

A/N: Thank you for reading. Please leave a heart and a re-blog. My requests are still open but it might take some time for me to get them out.

[marigoldsandbuttercups]

Will you please tell us how the Underswap, Swapfell, and G bros annoy their brothers? I’ve been dying to know ever since I read the other post. Please tell me Aster capitalizes on G’s spider fear.

How They Annoy Their Bros: Electric Boogaloo

Blue:

- Can and will yell as loud as he can "I LOVE YOU, MY DEAR BABY BROTHER" that even the residents in hotland can hear it echo.

- While he doesn't coddle his brother, what older sibling doesn't like to tease their lil one at any instance? That being said, Blue made a whole shebang of being intimidating (straw in mouth, weird accent) after the whole superhero act when Chara first came. The kid side eyed Stretch, who, internally died.

- If Stretch is being a butt, Blue will call him by his full name, except.. It changes. No one ever knows what Stretch's last name is and he hates one in particular that is, "Elasticbones" ,you'd think he'd love it for the pun, but nope, he hates it.

- Blue also likes to ironically "be one with the kids", this is effective on both Chara and Stretch and they both hate him for it when he calls memes, " The May-May", only to use a meme correctly when no one is watching just to mess with them even more. "No One Will Ever Believe You."

Stretch:

- So, you know those memes about DN? Yeah, he uses it on Blue everytime, without fail. And proceeds to laugh about it to his brother's face for like five mins straight-

- Stretch is the only person who can tease Blue about his height and get away with it. But stars, Blue will get annoyed when Stretch squats down a little to talk to him sometimes.

- Blue hates anything that looks like it came from uncanny valley. And Stretch utilizes this everytime by buying really old, antique stuff that just looks slightly off. One of his favorites is the cuckoo bird clock, it comes out with a pained squawk every time. He calls it "Maurice", much to Blue's dismay.

- Stretch is incredibly good at using his magic for all the dumb reasons, him and some of the others in the household share this (esp Rus, Red and surprisingly, Papyrus-) he likes to summon little ghouls to mess with Blue, or just casually move his things when he's trying to reach for them.

Black:

- If the two are having an argument, he'll use his status to low-key mess with Rus and it works when the younger brother is glaring at him for a while. "Well, As Your Older Brother And Captain, I Order You To Do Your Laundry"

"I'm not even that active in the royal guard-",

" Captain."

"Fineeee"

- "Baby Brother." , makes Rus want to hide and is low-key sweating the whole time cause it's embarrassinggggg. He can handle being called "little brother" but not the other one, stars no.

- Rus has a lot of embarrassing moments despite being mostly rather shameless, so Black does use it to his advancing when he wants Rus to get out of bed every once in a while.

Rus:

- Says the absolute, most cringe worthy stuff in front of Milord. And I mean, things that have Milord tell other people that "he doesn't know who that fiend is-"

- Tends to be referred to as the older brother sometimes, and low-key rubs this in his brothers face when Black is bringing particularly bossy that day.

- Uses the height difference, too. Though he gives it a little more ✨ variety ✨ by occasionally draping himself on Black and pretending to be asleep.

"Snrk- Angry Arm-"

"Not. A. Word"

- One worded replies. Drives Black up the wall and the fastest way to get him to go on a hour long rant about how communication is so weak these days-

G:

- No one knows what his actual name is, and his brother has to deal with newbies asking for the same dude with many names. Oh, his personal favorite was, "Gremlin Overlord" yeah, a real winner hsjsjsjsjsnn

- Like Rus, he's also rather embarrassing in public and when he's live streaming, often having his brother sighing in disappointment in the background with all his antics. God, the moment chat sees a spider in the background, "F"s flood the chat for Aster.

- Is a general nuisance when Aster is trying to be Real Smooth™. Stars help that man when he's talking to someone he fancies because G will be in the back with the most outrageous disguise and it's so obvious it's him and Aster knows his date knows and he just wants to be swallowed into a hole.

Aster:

- G is... Afraid of spiders-and what's a better way to show brotherly love than to use that to Aster's advantage. Aster does this by sometimes leaving around fake spiders and this works when he hears a familiar shrill scream. The others know this too.. Which is why Aster knew he screwed up when he heard Edge scream after grabbing what he thought was a fake spider-

- Also you know those super nerdy math memes that have a secret meaning when it finally clicks? Aster recites them all by heart and G hates it cause he's a visual learner and also omg how is Aster speaking so fast--

- Because Aster handles the kitchen, every so often he'll just mess with the food a little. Not where it's anything dangerous but just... Why does it taste so off? And he lives for the confusion on G's face when he suddenly starts to croak like a frog, bonus if it's during a livestream