#I would love to recreate the scenes myself but the problem is that I can't draw nor can I animate | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rise-my-angel · 1 year ago

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Okay I absolutely waited until you were caught up to respond to your comments because I didn't wanna spoil anything accidentally!

But listen, I love the dynamic between the reader and Stannis. I think it's common for him to be a dismissable character in terms of family for fics, especially since Baratheon readers/ocs tend to be Robert's. But I love Stannis and he is a father who loves Shireen (season 5 who?), but I realistically knew that he likely would be a degree of difficult for an older child, especially one that shares a lot of commonalities with him. They aren't supposed to be unhappy in their reunion, but they also are just the kinds of people together where they aren't very emotional with the other. They have massive issues, but they aren't the epitome of broken father/daughter, they just have their own unique way to handling their differences.

The way I try to write is that, if I'm not enjoying writing and editing it, then there's a problem. If I'm skimming past my own words to get o the point, I need to rewrite something there. I adore doing flashbacks beacuse they aren't there to fill the page, they are scenes which were so egrained in my head that they had to come out. I'm passionate about recreating existing plots and scenes in compelling ways beacuse I love exploring what I've already seen in a new light, so I write that passion and hope it comes off as such.

Fitting the reader into this world is a significant amount of work, I try desperatly to ensure that I don't make them the main character just beacuse they are this stories protagonist. I ask myself whats the most realistic path to this end goal, and how long and difficult is to to get there? And so thats what I do. I worried recently that I was slow burning Jon and the reader too much, but I deleted a ton of things that I tried rewriting beacuse making them go fast felt forced. The whole point is that they started slow, their reunion was an explosion and now whats left in the rubble is that very same intial slowness.

It's why Jon was out of the story for so long, I needed him to go on relatively the exact same path as the show to end up somewhat similar to his arc as Lord Commander and showing that WOULD have just been a rehash of what we know, so i was very selective about what to show and only slowly did I include him more. I can't write them as fast and easy as her and Robb, beacuse thats not who they are. Her and Robb moved fast emotionally baecuse with the other it was natural, her and Jon are already close emotionally but now there is so much more going on thenw as ever in the way yof your marriage to Robb. So it's longer, harder, not as easy or black and white.

Making the side characters feel real too is so important. I never want them to feel like a cameo, I want them to just feel like passing people in an existing world. Maege Mormont is one of my favourites to write and getting back to Bear Island was always going to include her, similar to how Brynden Tully became a bigger aspect of her circle beacuse I found they naturally had a lot in common to respect. I never want them to feel like I'm mentioning them just to include them, I want them to have a purpose.

Also, I love that you are enjoying Theon. My approach to Theon now is one of my favourites, he can be off to the side entierly for a while but he never stops being important. No one will ever understand what Ramsay put them through more then each other and they will never forget that. Theon is trying to find himself again, and that cocky demeaor tries to come through but it isnt quite as genuine anymore. I wanted him to be important beacuse it felt as if he was very much an accessory to Yara's plotlines once he escaped and I wanted him to feel more like the readers companion. Same with Olly, I never liked his season 6 rewrites it felt ungenuine. It felt like general audiences didnt like what he did and wanted him to die simply beacuse he helped in a mutiny, but he has so much going on in seasons 4 and 5 and its clear hes not a bad perosn. He was a kid who had to force himself to stab Jon through tears and it never felt as if he was there of his own accord. It felt like a child being manipulated and no longer had any choice but to participate. His introduction makes this clear, he's just a boy. He's a boy who lost everything in minutes and is struggling to find his place after the fact. He isn't a terribly important character to the plot, but he is a child, and he becomes important to the reader and thats what matters. Like Theon, Olly is important to the reader without ever actually ignoring the bad things they did.

The Jon era of this story is my favourite beacuse so many moving parts are happening, and eventually when they come together I never want them to feel disconnected or out of nowhere. I always want this story to play out as if you could see it in your mind as if watching on screen.

Its why I'm so nervous for the later chapters I'm currently writing, since I have to desperately hope that I have not gone off the plot with my late story approach, even though I am passionate about the ideas I am writing.

Anyways, your responce these past few days has been a never ending highlight and also has been a nightmare for my anxiety beacuse now if you end up hating the upcoming chapters I'm just gonna pull a Tommen and

Heart of the Great Wolf

20 - Visions in Eye and Flames

Pairing: Jon Snow x F!Baratheon!Reader, Robb Stark x F!Baratheon!Reader (Past)

Length: 12.4k

Warnings: angst/hurt comfort, discussions of warfare, minor blood and violence, talk of executions, mentions of child death, mild gore, suicidal ideation, references to rape

Notes: We got a few big boy chapters coming up, so I'm posting this one early. Previous Chapter Here, Series Masterlist Here.

Renly Baratheon spent so much of his days taking little of anything seriously. Only a child when he was given Storm’s End meaning much of the ruling had to be taught to him, if at all. Then being brought to King’s Landing when he became old enough did once more he get granted a position on the small council without ever truly doing the work to earn it. Most days he spent it laughing and gambling with Littlefinger and the more that piled onto Stannis’s desk the more tiresome he found his brother.

It was why he begun sending his eldest daughter away in the first place. Renly was spoiled and had no idea what true hard work it took to run Robert’s Kingdom for him and he had no intention of letting you become the same. The North was a surprising choice as it also was easy. Many of the Seven Kingdom’s were no different then the backstabbing of King’s Landing, and he found no ally he trusted in Dorne nor did he appreciate their much more free leisurely way of life.

No one would call Stannis a friend of Eddard Stark, but then most would not call Stannis a friend to any person. A bitter taste in his mouth after spending a year holding off a siege of Storm’s End, starving as slowly they made their way through the horses, then the dogs, the cats, the rats and finally just as there left was only option left to them, just as he was sure his wife as dying, did a boat appear carrying enough food that they could hold off for just a bit longer. Long enough to have it end. And it was Ned Stark who arrived, ending the siege and it was Ned Stark which was given the credit for the work.

He was the man Robert wished was his true brother, the one that was looked at and trusted in ways that he would never be. And as much as there was a stubborn resentment, he was smart enough to know that there was no glory or gain from the actions Ned Stark took. He was not a man who let his successes influence who he was and it was his best option.

Dragonstone was dark, and grim and you for a long time there were very alone with little in the way of friends. He could send you there for a time, and know you would learn as much from the man as you did gain from being around the Stark’s children. He had two sons around your age and it would do you some good to be around them.

Selyse had an issue with it. She had just lost her second boy before birth, and she considered the Northerners to be unruly and unbefitting of her daughter. Saying keeping her around boys as she grew up at that time would only serve a distraction. Putting suggestions of houses at least with a girl your age to be sent to, but Stannis trusted none of them to teach you. You learned a great deal from him, even in the months before the Jon Arryn’s death you would still travel to spend your time in Winterfell at Ned Stark’s side. Taking it as seriously as you did your first months ever there.

She wasn’t wrong about his boys however. You made friends with his sons faster then you did anyone on Dragonstone and the more you would write home or visit, the more you talked about them and not what you were learning. Each time you would come home a little more light in your eyes, a little more wild then before but that also was why he finally took you with him to King’s Landing. Selyse had Shireen to dote on by then, and he wanted to crush out whatever carefree nonsense the two Stark Boys were influencing you with. And he had watched as that wild streak tamed over time finally as you took far more after him then you did Renly, or the Northerners you stayed with. Or so he once thought.

Until sailing to Eastwatch by the sea, Stannis had never set foot in the North. He had no reason to, most didn’t. It was large, and cold, and the Northerners too difficult to control but somehow they had seen you as one of their own. He had hoped that meant finding allegiance in them would be easier then he thought, but they were a stubborn people.

As the snow mounted around his army, he had both demanded they stay quiet and out of word and sight to the rest of the Kingdom, as well as to find reassurance in their god which wasn’t burned in a fire. Early on his men asking for burnings as sacrifices for better luck and weather, but Stannis only told them “I will have no burnings. Pray harder.”

He had left the red woman behind on purpose, her fire god asking too much of him and the more he spent listening to her the less chance he had to gain the people’s support. He had lost it in the wildlings, and if he continued as such he would lose any new chance of an ally. Regret was not often a word in his vocabulary, but the longer the war went on, the more he looked back with disdain on the inhumane actions he had chosen so brazenly. He would remember that look of hate in your eyes that day in the field.

As much as he went on about how you were a traitor, realizing that you had died hating him, was the worst punishment Stannis could receive for his sins. A punishment for those sins that had yet to cease.

The Bolton’s were smart, keeping their presence around the North minimum but Stannis’s silence meant that they now had no idea if he was out there to attack. His biggest issue now, lay in the scattered remains of the Ironborn. With no unity to fight them out with, each House seemed doomed to fight them off on their own as their new wardens prepared for Stannis alone.

But the North it seemed, did not break from what his daughter had told him. What Robb Stark had told him. They wouldn’t have him as their King, and as his army encroached onto Deepwood Motte it was an itching question of who exactly would they even listen to at this point.

Robert many times went on often and loudly how difficult it was to control them, and truly Stannis was starting to understand that fact.

It was a tricky spot to approach in, not quite close enough to the waters to push them back into and corner them. It was going to have to be a risk of cutting himself a path and holding the line rather then trap them between two spots with nowhere to run. Then again, many of his moves now seemed to be gambles of varying pay off. His one with Jon Snow certainly didn’t.

A man as stubborn as his father but it was not his place to argue. He made his choice and Stannis had to plan regardless of the difficulty without him. He had seen great potential, but there was much holding him back that day and he could only guess as to what upbringing led a son of Ned Stark to be alone in the Night’s Watch.

He had hoped to feed into the injustice of what the Bolton’s had done to his family and his home, remind him that the man who held Winterfell was the same man who murdered Jon’s own brother but still he said no. Offered to make him a true Stark and become Lord of Winterfell himself and still he said no. What would get him to say yes, what was left in this world for Stannis to offer him that would finally pull Jon Snow out of the frozen waste of Castle Black and into the fight.

But if only for that particular day, he had to shelve that thought for later. Or at least he thought he did.

The men for House Glover had no fight, pushed back into their own home and not enough of an advantage to overpower the Ironborn infesting it. Coming up from the southeast, he was strategizing for just that fight. And as that fight proceeded, he knew he needed to push them back enough to give the Glover’s a chance to break into it on their own as well.

Only, it was not the allies of the North which came from the northwest. There in fact for the most part, were none in the hands of the men who came. Not Ironborn either.

Stannis had the line blocked so they could not pass through them but it was the men which came from above that circled around the rest and cut off any escape. Blocking the Ironborn in as their fight grew fruitless. Their fighting was a mix, some with a tactical approach others with a brutal bloodshed that charged with little fear.

Only in the midst did he realize he in fact, recognized there was at least one image he knew. Pressed into the shields and armour of the men was that of a bear. But it was the ones they fought with that was confusing. The very wildlings who had so adamantly denied his cause.

But as the fighting stopped finally, it was an image he almost thought he hallucinated the first few seconds he realized what he was looking at. But standing in front of him and not frozen away still.

So this was that feeling. It had been a long time since it passed through you, but you recalled the shaking in your bloodstream vividly then as well. This time you knew what to expect, but did you really?

The worst of the battles were eluding you by the end of the war. Lannisters on the run, and hiding away so much there was no fight to be found for some months. But now, after everything that has been between the last fight you remembered and now, you could very well be right before that first one in Whispering Wood. Uncertain for the safety of those you care about going into this, but far less of that was wondering of yourself.

This time as you sat in the Mormont’s armoury all on your own, slowly lacing up your boots in the quiet you contemplated something you had told Robb. Back in Winterfell when men once more were gathering around to prepare for war, “I know how to swing a sword, but maybe that doesn’t mean I have the right to be out there with you and these men.”

Robb had assured you on it then, but his words no longer reached your darker mind now. Maybe you were really just trying to play in something you couldn’t handle anymore, but who would you be if only now did you just hide away from it?

Only as a pair of gloves lightly smacked into your chest, your eyes instantly peeled up in a glare to the somewhat amused Theon. “I’d ask if you were alright, but I know you’d just lie.” Leaning back against the wall closest to you, he watched as you tugged them on irritated. “Don’t think I’ve seen you this wound up since-”

“I know.” Cutting him off you looked back down. Letting your foot step from the stone bench back onto the ground, you swung yourself to sit forward. “I can’t tell if knowing what the fight we are walking into will look like makes me feel more assured or less.” Pausing you looked up to him, his own eyes wandering off as he was lost in thought. “What about you? Ironborn are your own people, are you sure you’re up to being on the other side of them?”

He didn’t respond right away, but you felt the conflict. “Don’t know. Guess I’ll only find out when I’m actually out there again. Were you prepared to fight on the other side of your father?”

Your eyes snapped up, stuck to a meaningless spot on the floor before you shrugged and continued fiddling with the leather. “Always figured it was an inevitability. He thought I was a traitor, there isn’t much space for love in there to hesitate towards.”

“Thought I was the traitor.”

He said it so casually that when you looked up with a confused look, you could see the humour hiding his deep struggle of it. The sides of your mouth quirked up a bit to alleviate the weight on his shoulders. “At this point I’m not sure there’s even one of us who isn’t seen as a traitor to someone somewhere along the lines. Just something they will have to move past.”

“Oh, just like how you’re so good at moving on from things.” You glared up at him, but he just crossed his arms looking at you with a more narrowed, almost analyzing gaze. “Ever since the day you rode into Winterfell with the royal family you’ve taken every single problem and just put it on yourself with blame and never let anyone take any of it off. You just keep holding onto everything like you’re afraid to it’ll all crumble the second anyone helps.”

You didn’t respond, and you knew it was hypocritical of you to even do this. You had told Robb so assuredly, that he shouldn’t be carrying the burdens of leadership and war all on his own but yet you found no reasonable solution to such things other then to take it all on you. “Don’t know any other way, I suppose.”

“Could try not being so miserable all the time.” A small smirk shared between you at the insult but you found not the strength to really bite back on it. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but you’re likely not going to feel any better by assuming everyone wants to blame you. They’ll have enough to blame me for, so try letting me share some now.”

You bit your tongue in thought, trying to contemplate how these people even still saw any good in you when a pair of entering footsteps caught your attention. Looking up to the main door though, was not in a manner as subtle as you were perhaps hoping. He was having one side of thoughts, you were having the other and quickly the third part in Theon found no desire to be in between. Grabbing both sets of bows before leaving the room.

Jon was better a this then you were, acting so natural as if there was nothing to think back so distractedly. Given better attire and armour by the Mormont’s set something off in your blood when it was not the time nor the place. Dressed not like others of the Night’s Watch any longer, his new colours draped in a dark, blueish green and browns in leather armour that all made him look like a proper warrior, a leader. Strapped around him still was Longclaw that stood out far more against this look then blending with the black before it.

Only sight was your eyes narrowing a little as you glanced to him, looking discreetly from his sword to his hair now pulled all the way back most wouldn’t think anything of it, but Jon knew better. Especially now. “Something on your mind?”

Quickly finding his eyes again before you closed yourself back up, fussing with the tightness of your boots laces only to find a distraction. “No.” You paused before trying to slip out in a flat tone, “I’ve never seen you dressed for a fight like this, is all. Caught me off guard.”

Unlike Theon, there was little wait in Jon approaching you, taking a seat beside you despite how you tried to not look at him. “I haven’t seen you like this either, remember?” You shrugged, to many nerves about too much at one running inside your mind. Jon called your name, turning your head slightly to his direction but it wasn’t enough for him. Saying it much more stern in a deeper tone, causing you to finally look up at him.

He looked incredibly handsome like this and you hated that you were even thinking about that right now.

“I want you away from the main fight as long as you can.” Once perhaps he would’ve thought you’d argue back but you just sat in quiet, eyes looking at him but still far away as he continued. “You haven’t been in a real battle in well over a year, and you’re not even fully healed yet. I can’t have you getting hurt out there.”

Biting your tongue, your nodded as a weight settled in your chest. Leaning your forearms over on your knees as you clasped your hands you quietly muttered, “No, I get it. Stay on the sides, out of the way.”

Jon was quick to jump on that, tone a little more tinged in a frustration. “That’s not what I’m saying, and you know that.” You sighed deeply, he was right but you didn’t really know what else to feel sometimes outside of whatever this hopelessness was. “If I let you out there, trying to risk your life just because you think you’re expected to, could you really tell me that you care enough about yourself anymore to not get hurt?”

Once more, you said nothing and he was right. Shaking your head slightly you sighed, “Sometimes I hate that you still know me so well. Especially now that you’re much bossier.” Leaning away from him, you missed the fond smirk slipping onto his face briefly.

“You stay closer to the sides with Theon, you were always a better shot with an arrow then you were with a sword.” If the nerves in you weren’t screeching you may have nudged him for that, and Jon picked up instantly how difficult it was to find that playfulness the closer to a fight it was. Leaning forward he matched your position but never tried invading your space. “You’re allowed to let other people do some of the hard work, you know.”

“You are King. And that means realizing you don’t always have to do everything yourself.”

Since when were you such a hypocrite? Were you always this was, and no one had made notice of it to you? Nodding weakly, you could feel his eyes on you, you only seeing part of him in your side vision without turning proper. “As long as you do the same. Make me do some of the hard work for you, I mean.”

By not looking at him, you did however miss the dark greed in his eyes flashing by quick, as he also swallowed, forcing something very not appropriate for this setting back down his throat. Trying desperately to focus on anything but how breathless you sounded with his name moaning from your lips the other night, and how much of a siren’s song the taste between your legs called to him as. “Think we could figure something out.” For a moment you both sat in the quiet together before he asked, “Are you ready?”

He knew you had too much anxiety to speak much, taking your nod as his answer. Standing up, Jon held a hand out to you to pull you to your feet. Looking at you closely for a second, giving a slip of softness in the heavy looming air. His hand letting yours go as it reached up, running gently down your cheek and cupping your jaw with a thumb running along the skin it just passed over.

In an easier time, Jon wouldn’t have hesitated to lean down and kiss you. But he told himself, ease you into things. The closer this fight got to Ramsay, the more he knew you would lose the capability to relax even when alone. Instead he pulled back, gently pushing you towards the door with a rasping, “Come on, they’re all waiting on us.”

It was Galbert Glover which was the one who displayed which side confused Stannis. In the final calm of everything, finding an easier victory then presumed as the Ironborn were not prepared for the wildness of the free folk being led with genuine strategy. “Never thought I’d live to see the day I was grateful to see the wildlings coming through those woods.”

Recognizing a once fellow soldier in Maege Mormont, the pair of them clasped arms in a firm shake, a gratefulness on both of them seeing the other still alive. “Can’t say I did either, but they get the job done don’t they.” She easily recalled the last time she had seen Stannis Baratheon, and the many since rumours she’d heard didn’t make the formal greeting any more welcoming. She let her little spitfire Lyanna send that raven for a reason afterall. Give him a taste of how the North felt about his claim.

Turning to look at him, as the free folk surrounded the Baratheon men unsure as to what fight they may be looking at next. Tormund staring down the man, no faith in what he would presume they were here for and he received it. “Your people deny my cause, and yet you show up in battle regardless.”

Tormund’s unimpressed voice rumbled out loud for all to hear, “We didn’t come here for you.”

Stannis asked for who, and like a parting sea in the crowd of free folk they all turned to make way a path for the one who did lead them. His own armour doused in as much blood as his sword dripped but certainly it was indeed Jon Snow. The men around him holding a confidence in how they looked to him come into the clearing.

Meeting each other half way, and certainly not looking for any kind of fight further, both men reached out to shake the others hand firmly. Stannis speaking up first as they let go, “I take it this means you’ve reconsidered my offer.”

But Jon was confident, a furrowed look in his brow as though it spoke of something he knew that the King before him did not. He knew two things, and both were as much as a hit to the gut as the other as far as he was concerned. “No. I haven’t, your grace. I’m not here to fight for you, I’m here to fight for them.” Looking to where both of those in House Mormont and House Glover stood before turning back. “I mean no offence to your help, but the North isn’t your home to defend. It’s mine, and theirs.”

Gesturing to those who stood behind him before finding all certainty full in his tone. “I’m not here to kneel, or to ask anyone else to. One of your men, Ser Davos, told me that as long as the Bolton’s hold the North it will suffer, and that just maybe I’m no use to anyone if I hide at Castle Black while my home gets torn apart. But I’m here for my people, to fight with them, and beside you if you will. Not to submit them to your cause.”

If Jon had to wager a guess, he would assume that the King was currently trying to decide if he admired him for his brazenness or hang him for his insolence. That narrowed, sharp expression in his eyes on top of a cold face gave little away and his tone gave even less. Even as it could sound. “You got them to follow you.”

Years ago, such a statement would have had Tormund stepping up in an angry defence, but things were different now. And Jon appreciated the trust in him to speak for them with honesty. “The free folk didn’t follow me beacuse they had to, they did it beacuse I asked them for help. Not to bend to me, but to fight beside me. After what we’ve seen, they understand we can’t let whose King of who get in the way anymore.”

Galbert Glover approached the pair, “If there’s a wildling army on my land, then that means you must be Jon Snow.”

Willing him not to say anything in front of all these people the two shook hands. “I am, my lord. It isn’t easy, asking to put years of fighting with wildlings aside but I’m grateful you agreed to hear us out.” A flicker of eyes between, Jon could recognize was the realization Stannis was having of missing key information. Jon stepping towards Lord Glover in a lower tone, “There are matters would be best discussed in private, my lord. If you still are willing to-”

Getting used to being treated with the kind of respect he could see these same men giving Robb, was strange but there was not a single ounce of ire in the interruption. “My home has been ravaged by the Ironborn for over two years, and that’s all ended now thanks to both of you. I am more then willing to hear your proposal.” For a second, Jon had glanced in the distance and if he was seeing Ghost he knew who was not far behind, and doing it in front of all these people was a big mistake.

The lord and the Southern King greeted each other at least showing the same degree of respect to his own fight for Deepwood Motte. If there weren’t so many people around, Jon may have tried it. But eyes were lingering too much in the crowd of a once battlefield and there was enough to discuss then to add that. He could only hope he was conveying enough to Ghost from their eyes meeting far off, that he understood to keep back. Ghost backing up a bit before turning around and taking off.

He wasn’t going to parade you around your father and his men like a spectacle to gawk at.

It wasn’t supposed to take this long to join, but truth be told there weren’t only hangups for you that were keeping it back. Beckoning the men with you to go on ahead you looked back up from your arm to them with a narrowed glare, “Keep this scrape out of your mouths, would you? No need to go blathering everytime I get a cut.”

You’d spent more time around these men then Theon did. Spent more years in a war with soldiers of the Mormonts on your side and it seemed the striking attitude was taken with a grin and a mumbled agreement as they left. Theon knelt at your side pulling the bloody leather on your upper arm apart enough to glance at it. “You think he’s not going to notice the second he sees you?”

Rolling your eyes you huffed, “I would just rather not be fussed over right now, I’d rather be anywhere then here right now.” You had been the one to spot out your fathers men right away and you were thankful if you had any skill with you still, at least you could hold your own with a bow. An excuse to stay as far away as possible. “What about you?”

Raising an eyebrow with a glint of mocking, “You asking if I want to be fussed over? Because if it’s by Snow, then no thank you I’ll pass.” You rolled your eyes again, finding no amusement in it but as Theon cleared his throat and tore the leather open a bit more to see how deep it was, you knew the facade wasn’t as strong as he pretended. “I don’t know, I can’t say I feel bad, didn’t know these men and they didn’t want to know me. The more we get on our side the more they’re going to start thinking that way about me. Hope you’re still coherent enough to defend me then.”

His voice hissing a bit as he seemed to finally have noticed it was deeper then you had admitted the slice to the arm was. You were taken by suprise by an Ironborn in the ends of the fighting, running behind you enough to slice at your arm before you could defend yourself. Theon sending an arrow through his throat moments after.

One fight back and you already were worse then the first one you ever battled in. A dreading promise of your future uselessness. Glancing up with a guarded, but almost regretful expression sinking into your eyes at Theon, he tried not to look as he carefully wrapped a bandage inside the tear of your armour and around the cut for now. “I will be, if my father doesn’t hang me for being a traitor that is.”

If you were joking, neither you nor Theon expanded upon that sentiment. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

Satisfied with the wrappings for now, he pulled you up to your feet as you just looked at the other for a moment. You were both stalling, and you both knew it but finally you walked closer to the edge of the snowy cliff to snatch your bow. “I’ve done plenty wrong.”

The bodies around couldn’t help but make you wonder, if the Ironborn were still this prevalent in areas of the North and from what you had gathered there was little help from the Bolton’s, you wondered just what their numbers looked like. The houses on their side, and their now more untouched army having cleared their way to Winterfell would give them a mighty advantage should they have that amount against yours.

As you got closer, the more your nerves flared up. Seeing a clearing further from the Glover’s Keep, you found the stares from both sides to be unnerving. One side looked to you with knowledge of the dead and the other likely just saw you as a traitor to be taken care of. Stares of men you hardly knew anymore, and then stares of men you barley knew to start with but it seemed conversations had moved on without you.

For once, you were thankful not to be in on it. Your arm already was sore from your own incompetence, you nodded to Theon who parted ways, already reading what you intended to ask of him. The only other one around with any casual intention finding his way to you in the quiet mess. “One of these days I’m going to have to see what a pretty crow like you, looks like swinging that sword.”

Glancing up from your partially knelt over position, you raised an eyebrow at Tormund with a small huffing breathe of amusement before directing your attention back the count still holding on a number in your head. “Might want to start one now then. Once my father realizes I’m alive I’m fairly certain the upstanding holder of duty and justice will serve my treason a swift sentence.”

Coming around to see your face more clearly, it was twisted in a terse frustration that narrowed your brows into a scowl as you continued on. “You think any of us will let that happen?”

You shrugged, voice tight and restrained. “It isn’t up to you. It’s up to the King.”

Kneeling down, the wilder man took no issue with snatching the wiring you were coiling and tossing it out of sight. Leaning to follow your turn to watch it go before you relented. Once more making eye contact with him, eyebrow raised in waiting. His own features narrowed slightly, “How are you more stubborn then your crow, in there?” Head nodding to the Glover’s reclaimed Keep.

Expression did not move not twitch, flat tongued tone spilling out. “Spend a few years being raised by my father and see for yourself.” Tilting bit as your shoulders dropped, voice a bit more quiet. Not quite relaxed, but a relenting ease. “I spent three years at war thinking eventually, I would find myself fighting against him too. Called me a traitor and my husband a thief and a usurper, and the only reason he’d feel any guilt about it is beacuse he spent a year thinking I was dead. You’re likely not aware of this, but guilt is not exactly a strong motivator for a man like Stannis Baratheon.”

“So why’s it so damned strong in you?” As you braced your hands on your thighs to push yourself up, Tormund did so with no effort and dragged you up in the process like you weighed nothing. Your hands braced on your hips, knees slightly bent favouring one side he noticed, you were looking out to the snow melting landscape he got the sense you were simply trying to accept the worse case scenario. “As if you’re crow’s going to let anything happen to you. Can barley take his eyes off you for more then five seconds when he’s near you, you’re not going anywhere.”

As Theon reemerged, you nodded to your current companion lungs constricting with each step. You tilted your head slightly in question, and he did for what it was worth, look somewhat apologetic. Head dropping fully to one side as your face fell and eyes narrowed, he gave you an incredulous look in return. “You think your father’s going to hang you, well Jon would hang me if I sent you to him and didn’t mention you were hurt.”

“I’m not hurt, it’s barley-”

Theon didn’t give you the chance, walking passed you with a shove to your upper back. “It’s only going to be worse if you make him come find you himself.” Yelling fading as he got further away.

The walk to the keep was short, but felt an eternity passing each step forward. A childish wish weeks ago that maybe the gods would bring just your father to you when it was all you loved that you thought you lost. Now, you couldn’t possibly conceive of a less appealing idea then having to face what you did, and what she did.

And how if he didn’t hate you when you died, he would knowing you were what he has left and the pathetic failure to live up to what he had tried to teach you to be for your entire life. What leader were you by now that could live up in Stannis Baratheon’s eyes? Especially one with eyes as cold and dispondant as you were coming up the steps, guards at the main doors opened for you with mutterings of a title you wish wasn’t you anymore.

Even worse, as soon as you stepped inside, Jon all but accosted you too suddenly for your dreary haze of a mind. One hand on your cheek, inspecting anything major on your face as the other gentle just below the bandage clearly bleeding through. “What the hell happened?”

Shaking your head the nerves just raced inside it bouncing like coins. “Jon, I’m fine-”

“You’re not fine.” The hand on your cheek joining the other to pull your arm towards him, turning it as you looked at the slight blood and grime over him. “You should let me close this before it gets any worse.”

Trying to pull away, it didn’t even phase the far stronger man as he just pulled you back with a hand at your waist. The other peeling back the bandage enough to gauge how deep it was. “One cut, it’s one cut, Jon.”

As if something suddenly swam into the fore most of his mind, his fingers gently ran through the loose strands of hair at the side of your face before cupping it tenderly. His own eyes dark, tied between angry and upset that made your heart ache even more when his face twisted to the same expression match as he spoke. As if out of breathe, and full of a worry and irritation. “How the hell did Robb do this?”

Your face fell a bit, but he moved the other from your arm to the other side of your cheek, not pulling you any closer but keeping you right where he could see your eyes. “Do what?”

Both knowing it wasn’t anger at him, not at Robb. An anger however, at something far more complex in detail only made worse likely by both of you in visions of blood and death to the other. “Stand fighting knowing you were out there too. I hate it, hated every second not knowing where the hell you were or if you were alright. How did he just let you into the thick of all that and not lose his mind?”

In truth, you both were just more confident then. Fought and loved together it was easy to feel on equal grounds together with Robb. But who you had become? Now you were painfully aware that Jon was so much more then you were. Even when being generous towards your own worth. Wanting to reach out to him, but you hesitated like many times before, fingers stretched but flexed back into themselves rather then find somewhere on him to rest them. “Jon, it’s just a scratch. I barley did anything out there, regardless.”

The blackness faded away some as he calmed. The grey now looking over your face like it had been ages since he’d been allowed to see it. “You shouldn’t have to be out there at all.” For a split second, magnets coming together like a fate meant to be as Jon’s eyes slipped down to your lips and back up. And as quick as the force pulled him barley an inch closer did doors opening in the distance once more pull you apart entirely.

For the best you thought. You hadn’t felt his lips against yours since that first night and whatever restraint still existed in you was quickly dying each time you felt them anywhere on you at all.

Head tilting down for a moment when no one passed by or turned corner to interrupt, you broached with caution. “Does he know, or are we leaving that up to me?”

Sighing, Jon’s brows narrowed a tinge as he glanced between you and the path to your father. “Lord Glover has agreed to pledge his own men to us, saying that if Robb refused to bend to Stannis, then he wouldn’t either. But I think he’s starting to put it together.”

Feeling the breeze around you, sat atop your horse your memory could see the simple disdain for your choices in his eyes. That your duty was beside him as his daughter, but even still you found no favourable manner of crossing to his instead of the people who looked to you as their own. “Either way.” You dropped your arms from their crossed position of your chest to your side as your face stilled. “Suppose it’s time for me to find out what it is he still does with traitors.”

Jon tried taking a step back towards you, but how closed off you were becoming to him to stop in his track. Looking you over, eyes glazing across your arm. “You really should let me take care of that before you see him.”

The shrug on your shoulders didn’t sit well with him. Wishing you would find something within yourself to push for and still coming up short. “If he’s going to burn me, a little blood won’t matter much then will it?” Jon tried calling your name in a quiet warning, but you turned to walk towards the doors. Not needing the sight to know that Jon was following you.

The doors to the main hall opened, and inside was both Lord Glover, and Stannis Baratheon. One looked at you with the same shock most others did while the other was more challenging to ascertain the meaning. Yours was the same for him, however.

Eyes watching you carefully with heavy air and the scent of blood still fresh around you even so far removed from it’s vicinity. Your life and his both caked in layers of death yet never once stood on the same ground as anything but enemies. Not once in the emotion of care did footsteps carry you to the table they both found themselves around while your own heart was steady enough to keep yourself willed together.

Not as unseemly as the last, more full of colour and life as if the thing which took toll had long healed with eyes dull in colour giving away nothing. Or much and you simply did not know him well enough to detect anymore. The only man you were sure you could read was your father but as foreign to you as was as detached to the memories with you.

Those early days on Dragonstone as he continuously hit you with a practice sword, little instruction each time but a few words that you connected in a string of lessons. The quicker you became under his instruction, the more he would smile when you came close to striking him. No such fondness in the echoing quiet of the room.

Jon had approached to your side, “Lord Glover, I don’t want to impose in your own home but perhaps some privacy would be helpful.” You didn’t look anywhere but him, a coldness sitting so heavily within the colours of your eyes that where else was left for you to go but freeze over entirely.

Standing, he took no offence to you not making any motion towards him. Lord Glover clearly was used to you by now, even if it seemed like such a stand off behaviour for a not so keen eye. “Of course. The room is yours as long as you need it, your grace.”

Eyes of a father flickering to beside you, and the pieces fit closer to making the right image when he was not sure who it was the title was directed towards. But knowing the Glover was not looking or speaking to him. You cared not with him, it was a truth he had failed to face before and you would not stand for it again.

Two Baratheon’s staring with the same analyzing judgment before your tone came out, flat and even with not a hint of anything to detect behind it. “Heard you were dead.”

Stannis’s eyebrows quirked up only a single breathe as his voice was yours as yours was his. Clearly he raised to be like him too much. “The North is large, word of my whereabouts travel slow. Yours however, didn’t travel at all.” You spoke nothing and forced him to keep the conversation float enough to keep from sinking. “Rumours are rarely true, what am I to make of the one I know the Northerners are whispering about you.”

Match met in eyes, you saw them flicker down to where it could not be seen. “Just because I stand before you now doesn’t make them lies.” Images almost came upon his eyes as your father seemed to find little doubt in whatever it was was spoken of you.

Coming up to the thin table, you stood at the other side facing him directly. Your palms flattening across the smooth surface slightly wishing that this could just be done and over with. Your father was quiet, only not one that was comforting or easy. Faint sounds muffled and echoing both within the halls and outside them as you watched.

Your father spoke with more genuinity in his tone then you’d heard in years but you soon wished he didn’t bother. “I’m sorry about your son.” Instantly yours flickered away, to the side downcast as a heavy weight stole the breathe from your lungs and left only a burning that travelled down to the scar under your clothes. “I wish I could have told you sooner. Your mother and I know better then most, you didn’t deserve that.”

The force of your heart pounding made you want to throw up, the only hope that had been found in a long time for you both but a shattered memory that bled out just as fast. You didn’t look where you knew Jon was outside, close enough to hear. You didn’t even know if he knew. You didn’t want to know if he knew. You wanted no one to speak of it ever again and your father took your silence as that deceleration.

“You betrayed me. Siding with a crown that fought against my own.”

Peeling your eyes up to him finally, you leaned further into the table only to look away to nothing of important on the table once more. “What did you have in mind? Dragging me in front of your men up to your gods flames? Or have you found even a shred of mercy to have it be quicker then that?”

You saw not the blinding light of rage in the grey eyes somewhere behind. He and the King had come to an agreement already, but your acceptance of death made him uncomfortable and angry.

Stannis stood a little more with ease. “I’m not punishing you for those crimes. Or any of your crimes.”

Sharp eyes flickered up to him, a confused tint of rage that almost hissed along with your breathless tone. “Why?” He had no care for mercy when he was ready to stand against you and Robb. “You’ve never taken kindly to traitors, why change that now?”

Brows furrowing as he gave you a forming look of incredulity. “You’re my daughter.”

A hiss still seeping out only one thing came to your mind. “And Renly was your brother.” You could still recall the last day in front of him, begging with naivety for him not to declare King for himself. Not to do something so rash and stupid, and only having him throw back in your face that if you didn’t want the family torn apart you should’ve sided with them.

If it was guilt you caught, he smothered it just as fast as he grumbled out, “He denied my right as King, stole my bannermen, conspired to keep me off the throne. Tell me what is the penalty for treason under the law? What justice is there in letting him steal what was rightfully mine?”

You had tried for long not to believe such a thing but he didn’t make it easy. “Robb did too.” Trying to claim that was different, you cut him off with no care for how that looked. “It wasn’t different when you threatened to destroy us. Your grief over my death is not a forgivence for three years thinking you’d come for us one day.”

An aggravation slipped into his voice, bracing his hands on the chair in front of him similar to your own stance. “What is it you want me to do then, I can’t change the past or any mistakes I may have made. I don’t do this, any of this, to be cruel in intention. If the law is cruel, if our own duty is cruel, who are we to go against that?”

“I know half of what you’ve done was for what you think was right, but I also know the other half was only done because she demanded it so.” A sting in your eyes was at the sights and words haunting you from what whispered reached. “You aren’t a man who slaughters innocents, or burns people alive to appease some god a that woman whispered in your ear of. You were never that man until her.”

His eyes narrowed towards you, “She does what needs to be done, does what others aren’t willing to admit. I never asked for this, no more than I asked to be King. We do not chose our destiny-”

A flash of rage swam through your veins, palms slamming down onto the table with a bang with a biting anger so close to sorrow fighting for control in your throat. “Don’t speak to me about destiny. You had the gall to let that woman tell me of a future I’ll never have and stand in front of me now that I’ve lost all of it? You stand here and tell me this was all meant to happen this way, that everyone we’ve all lost was worth it just to get here?”

Not with rage which matched yours but as he stood there with a radiating feeling around him that was as tense while it was intertwining with yours. “We’re at war, we lose the people we love. That’s the sacrifice we have to make.” You shook, trying not to let it break but the water was spilling over and the glass begging to crack open. “Even when it’s our own. We don’t have to like it, but we have to accept it.”

A whisper all you could muster in case the sounds otherwise to high and break it. “You truly believe that? That we have to sacrifice the people we love, our families just to fight for some future of a god so few of you even have faith in? That even losing your children is worth what she speaks of?”

Your father thinking it was your own being referred to. Tone softening a bit as he found your glaring eyes. “Your son is gone, you can’t change that. I thought I lost you, but something brought you back for a reason and you need to accept that regardless if you don’t like it.”

It was a mistake letting it come out of your mouth, because as soon as it was spoken into the air there was no avoiding it. “And if it was Shireen?”

Stannis knew in an instant something was wrong, something as a horror painted over your eyes and your skin paled had him suddenly standing at a cliff’s edge of a nightmare. “If Shireen what?” You couldn’t breathe, or move. Stuck in that position as the world stopped spinning and all you could feel under your palms was the horribly smooth glide of a blade before a blazing fire in the snow had followed.

He called your name, but you didn’t look at him. Wanting only to flee or cry, likely both as the thoughts and feelings still fresh in your hands was as if you were there once more. Only it was worse, because you knew she never could be again. The fires in your mind was bright but you saw nothing of a god in them, only loss that was your fault.

Turning round the corridor, you tried to shake away your father’s new duty for you. Only repeating in your head as there was no escaping this fate, he’d drag you into this duty if he had to but your father knew better then to think you’d truly make any fuss.

The grim walls surrounding you were darker and more closing in then the previous, and the air was thick and heavy where there were there not windows flowing the wind through. But as you neared the room you were headed towards, you felt both a breeze and the sound that followed.

Voice a little more solid then last, two years making quite the difference you imagined as the gentle singing reached your ears. No doubt sitting by the window so the singing could be heard by whatever birds passed by it. Leaning against the open door, she continued to sing running her hands along a doll you recall having gotten for her.

It had been a while since you had visited her, her nameday rapidly approaching and yet you had not seen her since a little over two years. Dragonstone was easier to visit then the North and you had been on ships heading there countless times. You had only just reached your teens the last time, old enough to be trusted on your own for such journeys across the bay and still young enough that your duties were not quite your fathers yet.

That would change this time. Two years in Winterfell had done a number on your willingness to return to King’s Landing and this time you insisted on being here first. You needed something to occupy your mind after the final few months there had changed into.

Finally whispering into the afternoon air in a lull of her song. “Hey silly girl,”

Turning in an instant, she yelled your name and jumped up. Running for a hug as you met her half way, kneeling down to catch her as she all but lept into the final few feet between you. Both of you laughing with joyful grins as you both kept a tight hold.

Finally pulling back you held her at her arms, looking her with a mocking squint up and down before running a hand along her hair. “You’re going to be grow to be even prettier then the Queen at this rate.”

Huffing at you with annoyance, making you laugh even more as you kissed the top of her head. “You’re older then me, that makes you the pretty one.” Face twisting into a playful doubt and shake of your head that had her insist further. “It’s true, you look so pretty coming back from the North.”

You felt your heart soften a bit. It was why you didn’t like to visit her while departing King’s Landing, needing time to come down from the aggravation such a city caused, but the ease from the North still feeling the remaining trails of something like home. Standing up, you both moved to sit on her bed as she crawled to sit in the middle more.

Once more you ran a hand over her hair, moving strands to the lay behind her shoulder. “Well, I am just going to have to find a way to convince father to let you come with me one of these days, aren’t I?”

She nodded before hesitating, a little more dejected then before. “And mother.” Your eyes narrowed a bit in question as the girl looked away, like she was debating a secret to tell. “She says the North isn’t helping, that you are still too wild and that Lord Stark’s sons are a bad influence. Mother would never let me go.”

She never said it in so many words to you, but had made it clear she thought your attitude as too lively and quick when returning from there. This time was especially bad. Two years had truly made it feel like home and those in it. Chuckling you raised an eyebrow at her, “Being honest with ourselves, Shireen? I think there isn’t much mother does like whenever I come visit.”

Not even the age you were when first visiting Winterfell, she was too young to understand if you tried to tell her about it the way you wanted, you had no one here nor King’s Landing to discuss it with. Her eyes widened suddenly, “I made you something, come look.” Flipping onto her stomach she hurled half her body over soft surface to a small cupboard to the side of her bed, rifling through things to grab a piece of paper. Pulling it back, you turned to your stomach as she flipped it over.

Her drawing far better then the last one she included in a raven to you. She was unstoppable about sending things to you now that she knew how to write. A winter scene no doubt she tried to copy from one of her books, and in the middle were two stags, one smaller then the other and beside them was a large wolf bigger then the other two. The stags coloured with browns and yellowish golds and the wolf was a deep black that made it look menacing. You smirked at her, turning your head slightly. “Are you trying to warn me about something?”

She nudged you with a bashful smile and you nudged her back. “No, I thought about making it look like us but when I grow more I didn’t want to have to redo it, so I made us our house animals.” Pointing to the first taller stag, “That one is you. You’re fully grown already so I had to make me a bit smaller, but that’s okay it can just mean this one’s younger.” The second being smaller clearly her.

You nodded to the wolf, “So whose that?”

The little grin turned a bit shy, you tilting your head to the side to better look at her as she flickered between you and the drawing before settling on the drawing. A shrug she finally relented. “I can make a new one if it’s wrong but you said he has longer black hair. I didn’t mean to make him so scary looking, it just turned out that way.”

Were she not so innocent and so young you may have told her how ironic it was she made you this while you were away in Winterfell finding a new dynamic with the wolf in question. “I think he’d find it amusing you made him so scary and menacing.”

“You have to keep it a secret though, mother says you talk too much about him in your letters. Says you shouldn’t be so distracted with a boy.” The North in general were not suited to your mother, loud and charming in their own unique ways, some bold and brash that would not sit in her stomach well. “So I have to keep it until you leave, so you can take it with you and she’d never see it.”

Hiding back, you both stayed in that position whispering like misbehaving children. “Well, I’m not leaving for King’s Landing until after your name day. So, we have plenty of time to figure out how I am to smuggle it out. What do we think your onion knight would do?”

You didn’t want to think about how long he and your mother were talking with no sign of either of them. What on earth they could be saying to each other now that it was all out, but perhaps it wasn’t your business anymore. He didn’t react as much as you knew it crushed his heart but you had to be the one who did it. It was your hands the blood was spilt and stained too forever, but you couldn’t lie about it.

Talks back and forth between the Northern Houses now pledged to you, as well as the free folk who followed beside him, went back and forth but as you stood with your back against a stone wall, arms crossed as your eyes just glazed over the images and plans splayed out you knew you were being of no help.

You hadn’t even been allowed outside further then the overhands and balconies of the second story or the high peaks of the castle walls that were no escape but a painted mess. You were out of your depth, no knowledge anymore of the state of the Bolton’s army or what their strategy may look like. But more then that, all you could think of was that look on your fathers face.

Wishing it was just a desperate plot from two people who had no concept of what to do without Shireen between them, you knew better. You could see how that look behind his eyes was as in awe as he was cautious of his words. Telling him the truth that if you didn’t send that woman away you wouldn’t have the restraint later to not shove a blade through her. That all you could see was here lies.

“I can’t tell you what to believe for yourself, but I won’t follow it. How many more have to die before we find any true fate in this destiny she speaks of? How much more of this family do we have to lose. How much more do you and I even have left in us to give?” You still didn’t ask about Renly, maybe you didn’t want too. Didn’t want to hear what he was capable of doing to his own brother, but then, you were the one to wield the dagger yourself for her.

Perhaps you were as guilty as he was. Traitors to more then just each other because it was the only choice you saw, the only duty left in front of you.

Speaking low, in a rumble as he stepped back towards the other end of the table. “I saw a vision in the flames.” Slowly, your head rose up, peeling from it’s nonsense focus and following the path up to meet his eyes, as if recalling what should not be possible. It had been a very long time since you had recalled such an incident, but not with him. “A great battle in the snow, I saw it.”

Dreams were one but images in your minds eye were others, nowhere near sleep nor flames but they had been there all the same no matter how much you pushed them away, how much you tried to deny they were there. You could go the rest of your existence avoiding looking at it, but the scar along you felt as real as inhuman it was. Your eyes looked to the other, a strange pulse in your heart as you saw not an enemy.

Stepping forward, he braced his knuckles onto the surface leaning towards you in mimic, a knowing on his tongue that you know didn’t come from you. “And I know you saw that you raised him from the dead.” That freezing cold from your dreams swept over you but ran straight through your veins and down your spine. Eyes falling from his as you recalled how the marks felt on his cold corpse that very first time in horror.

Quietly murmuring your name, there was a genuinity in his face that was one you knew carried the truth of his conviction. “I never used to believe, but when you see it, when it’s right there in front of you. As real as these stone walls, how can you deny that you have a true purpose here?”

By the time Jon found you again he had spent much of the time planning that you had lost in your own head. If you listened closely, you could still hear her faint singing as you would always walking the halls of Dragonstone only to have it replaced with the hissing in your ear of words still haunting you the closer you came back to him.

“If you’re a lucky girl, I’ll find you a pack of real wolves to replace all your dead ones. Strip you right down and throw you in with them. We could all finally see our Queen in the North back where she belongs, just something for the wolves to fuck until I kill all of them too.”

When the true wolf came upon you, you almost jumped out of your skin. Jon moving to reach out and steady you, but you already had moved back a step with a gasping sigh and leaning back against the stone wall. Looking out into the thick of the snowy woods. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

You barley shrugged as he leaned back for himself beside you. Both arms crossed in front of your chests but his didn’t have any shake in it, unlike the one you were trying to hide. “Did we come to an agreement?”

Jon nodded, “We have. Lord Glover seems confident the Manderlys will give us a chance as well as the Hornwood’s.” Only nodding being any indicator you heard him, your eyes were trained on the sun lowering itself to hide behind the trees. “It was strange they said. Having me be the one in charge and you not there at all.”

You shrugged again. Something in you was mentally drained and you just did not have the energy to talk about leadership in that moment. “And my father?”

From the side you could tell Jon had turned in place to look at you, still leaning as you were but his sights now only on you ignoring him in favour of the setting sun. Voice rasping out your name gently wanting you to just turn and look at him. But you couldn’t. You didn’t want to see the colour in anyone’s eyes right now save they fade away.

“Come on, I’m patching you up. Now.” Not bothering to wait, Jon encouraged you forward with him and you just didn’t bother arguing. The bandage was soaked through and blood drying thick by that point and you knew it wouldn’t be a pleasant sight.

Never questioning where he was heading, it was always like that with him. You’d follow him anywhere he’d lead you and even in moments now where it felt like the world was between you you still managed to just trust where he was taking you. The voice in your head though, he you’d fight everytime. Only make it worse as you wondered what else could he have planned and yet it was always worse then the last.

It wasn’t until Jon already had you sitting down, him sideways next to you, sitting a few things out did you notice he was far more cleaned up then before. You truly hated how easy he made it at any time to admire him. Gesturing towards your outer layer, “I need that off.”

Looking down you swallowed that feeling before starting to wince as you slowly pulled it off, only to feel flushed in an instant as Jon swiftly reached over to pull it off without any effort, only to feel winded as he also pulled off the softer long sleeve underneath where there was only enough material on left to cover your chest. But he only put them to the side, reaching back to peel off the bandage.

Trying your best to look forward instead of the soft glint in his eyes towards you, right now it might break you and you just didn’t want to deal with that. Not now, not here. “Is your quiet signifying good news or does it look infected?”

You missed the small shake of his head, but you heard the deep exhale. “No, it looks like it should be fine if I stitch it up now.” Turning and gathering what he brought over, you felt the burn of the slightest bit of water, gently running across to clean it enough for Jon to see better. Pausing as he glanced up to you, “Ten years ago you would’ve already complained about that.”

Smiling a bit, you raised an eyebrow. “Ten years ago we were still all teenagers chasing each other through the wolfswood.” The smile on your lips small, but enough that it brightened the grey in Jon’s eyes.

You did hiss slightly as he first pushed the needle through, but didn’t move otherwise. Collecting yourself as he continued on. “If I’m remembering correctly, me and Robb were the ones doing the chasing.”

Neither of you noticed in that moment, but it was the first time Robb had been brought up between you both that didn’t skip to pain or distant agony. Mentioned in passing with a fond smile on both at the memories alone and none of the blood came forth in that moment.

“Pretty sure that was the point. See if I could hold out until midnight and not get caught.”

With each wince or hiss, Jon’s eyes flew up to your face but saw none of the unfamiliar points of agony that used to come with cleaning such injuries. And a little more heavy something weighed in his chest at how you didn’t notice you were so used to it.

His hands were large and rough, yet such a gentle touch as he continued to stitch the sliced skin together. Much like the tone of his voice sounding as a tender rumble despite the husking deep thickness of his accent shining through. “And how’d that go for you? Not getting caught.” You just rolled your eyes playfully as he looked back between you and his work. “Hard to believe we just came home that night, and no one suspected anything was different.”

You never forgot it, the way he gained the upper hand and had your back against a tree so you couldn’t run only to press himself against you in a kiss. A kiss that somehow led all the way to right this very moment together. “Hard to believe there used to be a time you didn’t make me nervous.” Your eyes both flickering to the side to peek a glance at the other as you turned them to the floor. “Though I always wondered if you simply got a kick out of making me nervous around you for fun”

“I did.” You’d turn to him were it not to jostle his steady hands still very carefully sewing the wound together. “It was cute, that out of the two of us, it was you who was always nervous. Always a bit shy whenever I’d go to kiss you after. Not that much has changed.”

You didn’t look past at the memory, trying to look forward. Not wanting to base whatever careful balancing act it was you held with Jon at an impasse, for a night you both had not repeated. The other night, that first on Bear Island came the closest, but he had directly told you he wouldn’t kiss you. So how would he truthfully knew if it still made you nervous or not?

For a while it was just quiet. Just your shaking breaths every now and again before Jon had finally finished clearing up your arm, and wrapping it fresh. You weren’t sure why it slipped out, but there was no stopping once your mouth betrayed your thoughts. “I thought of you sometimes. When Ramsay would...it wasn’t always but sometimes the only way I could cope was to focus on something else..and I often ended up thinking about you.”

Your name came out in a husk, his eyes narrowed as he looked at you. “How often did he hurt you?”

Trying to recall, the time was varied in your mind. Unsure of how long you were really at the Dreadfort locked way. “He only started when the Lannisters had officially made him a Bolton. Around the time they retook Moat Cailin, so..whenever that was. It started then. Only got worse, made it worse for myself ,honestly. Fighting back as much as I did. Think he actually enjoyed when I put up a fight.”

That feeling of the cool air on your skin as you rode into Winterfell that paired so ugly with how horrific of a journey it was to get back. It only got worse when you were given an actual room to live in that he could visit whenever he wanted.

Jon was deathly silent and you dared not look at him. “Sometimes he’d drag Theon in..force him to watch. Would tell me I was lucky he.. otherwise he would’ve forced him to help.” Looking down your nails dug into whatever skin on your fingers it could find but the pain served no distraction from the nightmares.

“They took everything I still had with Robb and tainted all of it, Ramsay plastering his nightmares all over it like this was all I was ever worth after Robb. As if I was supposed to feel worthless without him, not be able to think of him without thinking of how Ramsay came and ruined all of it..the only thing that they didn’t ruin was you. You were the one thing still intact enough that I could escape to when it got too much.” You inhaled a shaking breathe that followed with tears, no point in pretending they weren’t there, or hide them. Jon always caught onto your state, always knew what you were trying to hide in your feelings.

Shrugging with a fake lightness in your eyes that played on your lips as if to placate whatever was behind you within him. “Sometimes it feels like I’m now just ruining you in the same way. That all this I dragged into you is going to stand out more then...then..”

“More then what? More then how much you mean to me?” You rolled your eyes, not wanting him to do the same placating but Jon had none of it. Moving to crouch in front of you forcing you to look in his eyes, somehow raging yet flashing of a softness. “You didn’t deserve that, any of that. No one does.” A glint of doubt in your eyes and Jon reached up to cup both your cheeks in his hands. “I know you wish you could just be fine, but you’re not. You’re not fine, darling. And I can’t seem to get through that beautiful head of yours enough to convince you that it’s okay to not be alright.”

You smiled weakly, and in a risk of your heart, one hand of yours gently reached up. Wrapping around one of his wrists, which only made him hold tighter and lean into you closer. “I was always stubborn, wasn’t I?”

Thumbs running along your cheeks, you could see he wanted to be angry, wanted to be furious but also found none of that red when you looked into his eyes. Only a love that was as strong as it was the day you two left one another on the Kingsroad with a screaming in your hearts that parting was more then sweet sorrow, but blood and horror. “You’re also clever, quick in a fight, and I know behind all this you’re someone who inspires these people. But, you’ve also been through hell, and it’s just going to wind up killing you if you don’t let someone in, let me in.”

Pushing the ends of the fabric around his wrist you gently ran a thumb over his pulse, eyes almost slipping closed at the reassurance. “I don’t know if I have it in me anymore, Jon. I don’t know if they’ve left any kind of a leader I once was in me. I don’t know where I fit in here anymore, or where I’m supposed to be.”

Leaning forward, Jon pressed his forehead to yours murmuring your name as one hand readjusted against your cheek and the other gently ran along your hair at the back of your head. “You don’t have to always be the one carrying everything yourself. If you don’t think you can stand on your own, that’s okay but I want you by my side. You have to let me protect you, let me take care of you, if you don’t think you can do it yourself.”

Heart wanting to melt away in your chest almost crumbling to dust. “Why are you still so sweet to me, after everything I’ve put you through?”

Hesitating in his own right not to kiss you, he gently ran his nose along the length of yours, nudging you until you leaned more into his touch properly. Letting him cup the back of your head to stay closer then you were before. “We gave each other up once, and we both ended up dead. But you’ve been given a new chance, you gave me a new chance and this time, I need to be the one to protect the woman I love. Because you belong with me, and I’m not giving you up to anyone else ever again.”

Pulling you to your feet, Jon only let you go long enough to change where his hands sat, pulling you into his chest. Your hands spared no time wrapping up around the back of his neck. Jon’s were split between holding the back of your own head into his neck so he could lean down to nuzzle his own into yours, and the other wrapped tightly around your waist keeping you both close.

Only the calming of each other’s breathing sounded in the air. Every single thing outside of this small moment could be entirely ruined, a horror waiting for you both as soon as you left this room. But as long as you both stood there in the others arms it felt like maybe you both weren’t so beaten down and broken.

Jon for his part however, knew a striking hot rage was building and the closer you all got to Winterfell the more he knew it was going to be likely impossible to properly contain it.

Especially when the next day’s early morning sun rose and arriving with it, a vicious note of terrorizing threat towards Jon for not giving you back. Laying out the vile, bloody thing’s he’d do to you in front of him before killing him just to prove his “bride” didn’t belong to Jon. But it was what came with the letter that was the beginning of an urgent nightmare that no longer could take it’s time getting there.

The bloody, rotting, decapitated head of a black direwolf.

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iloveubee · 2 years ago

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I Will Forever love my girlfriend, She Is the most important person to me and, to be honest even if i am with others Like Friends, no one Is at the same level as her, even if il with others without her i feel lonley...She Is the love of my Life and the emotion i have for her are infinite i wanna be with only her for the rest of my life, i can see myself with any other girl other that her, i want i bright future with her, i want to be with her Forever and live togheter in a nice house and be finally Happy. So i was thinking in the future or when we can to propose to her, i wanna make the most breathtaking, emotional and real proposal ever, so i wanted to remake a scene from Steven Universe One of her favourite cartoons of all time, (also i know that It becomes a sad and goes badly but its so pretty and meaningful) i wanted to recreate the proposal scene of Connie and Steven in Steven Universe Future, its so pretty and romantic, also where i live Is full of beatches, and maybe i know the closest match, i have the pick Nick set thats probably the easyest part, gettin the food Is not that difficult, the there Is the outfit idk if i would be wearing the same outfit at Steven, idk maybe i would look cheesy, but maybe yeah to be accurate, the only problem Is the Song part, i can't play a ukulele, but maybe i could Just sing idk or i would entirely skip the ukulele part? Idk i still Need to figure It out, i Will still propose with the glowstick bracelet Like Steven but i Will propetly attach the Ring box with It? Idk i Will surely buy her a Pink or purple ring with a meaningful gem, idk i have still planty of time to decide and, for now i Just i wanna see her so bad, i miss you bee.

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pacinosgf · 2 years ago

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from paris, with love: learning to accept the wonders of life, facing your problems, coming to the realization that love requires a sacrifice that you are more than glad to make. starring marjorie & dorothea, written by isa & amanda.

How weird it is to write a letter. I know people used to do it all the time, but it's obviously different. now I could simply text you, but what would be the fun in that? Where is the romance? Where is that fuzzy, warm and at the same time aching feeling, like when you are watching a 40s melodrama and the protagonists are intense and passionate and you can't help but feel totally affected by them?

Exactly, these things don't exist in a text. So write a letter, we must! I see the whole thing as a movie montage of our own: I will write it peacefully, a sweet smile on my lips that will make the audience melt and root for us. I will spray my adored perfume on it. I will put it on your pocket, and in a especially hard moment at work, you will find the letter and feel totally mesmerized by it. When you finally arrive home, I will be at the couch, waiting to embrace you in the most loving hug to ever grace the screens. Not even Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman could top that hug. Our chemistry is so unbearing that producers will consider censoring an embrace! And that's how our movie ends. The kiss scene is for us and for us only.

Can you notice how much free time I have now? It's almost killing me. Not that I used to do much in Genovia too (at least when I was just the princess), but having an internal depressed monologue took up too much of my time to notice. It's the most free I've been since I graduated college. So, while you are out and I'm here alone, I try to master day-to-day activities to fill the schedule. Cooking, for instance. I know how to make an egg, before you start laughing! This princess does not have a problem with getting her hands dirty. But really cooking, like doing fancy dishes. Sewing too. I suppose tomorrow I will start talking to the rats in the sidewalk.

Two days before we met, I was in Venice, trying to build some courage and get to Paris to see you. I remember wandering around the streets, uncertain of what to do, considering simply giving up and going home. Then I met this musician and her girlfriend (or wife, I didn't want to ask it properly) and they started telling their history together. How it was against all odds, how the lovers themselves didn't think it could work. The girlfriend was only in Venice for vacations, a break from the busy and incessant big city life she loved so much. But when she met the musician, with her quiet life and sensible tones, so different from everything she'd ever met, she knew it was over. The musician would follow her everywhere, as a melody, as a memory, but never as she truly wanted: in person, out of love. So she stayed.

She stayed and I rushed out to Paris, following the string that unites us since we met for the first time. I put on my favourite clothes, as a kind of armor. I motivated myself by remembering the nights we spent exploring museums, kissing in every corner and leaving our mark in every bar. Holding hands and feeling the most powerful people in the world. Silently recreating famous movie scenes. The napkins with love notes I used to hide in your bags and pockets, those you probably only found right before washing, because that's simply how you are. A smudged Love you so much - Dotty out of the machine.

Thank you for always seeing the Dorothea behind the princess. Thank you for understanding that there's no Dorothea without the princess. And thank you for being so patient! I have no idea of what I would have done If I had gotten here and you had someone or just wasn't interested in me anymore. Maybe I'd have killed myself or become queen. Who knows? My first royal assent would be incriminating you of something and making sure that you would be locked up in Genovia for the rest of your life.

Just kidding! Love you. I think I should start looking for a job. I've read once that adults that don't really want to adult keep getting masters: maybe I should do the same? Former princess-Doctor Dorothea Grimaldi, expert in Social Science, sounds good? Should I put the almost forty years of experience being a princess in my curriculum?

That's the part where I feel too sensitive to say something and keep joking to distract you. It's over now. What matters is that I love you! I'm so glad that I missed the plane.

Sincerely and profusely,

Your Highness, Princess Dorothea.

p.s: I swear that the signature was out of habit.

@gllianowens

#dorothea & marjorie.#esse aqui eu quero mandar um alo especial pro meu namorado pois faz uma semana que to rascunhando esse #e ele teve o trabalho de pegar os rascunhos que tenho no zap e ir recitando pra mim enquanto eu ditava o que queria corrigir e como queria #continuar #e segurou o nebulizador pra mim enquanto eu escrevia NO PAPEL porque o computador me dava dor de cabeça #thanks for being my alma baby <3 #ENFIM eu amo o formato de cartas amiga sou muito romântica. deus abençoe!#e a dorothea é totalmente alguém que gosta de cartas também. she is an old school romantic.#e amo os paralelos entre daisy e natasha e elas nossas queridas europeias #bjosssssss #it's supposed to be fun turning 21.

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classicdaisycalico · 2 years ago

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Watched the "Pinocchio" remake on Disney+ yesterday. Here are my thoughts.

Putting under a "Read More" for spoilers and length of post.

Including Jiminy Cricket singing in the castle intro is nice because he's the one who introduces the song in the original film!

Also, Joseph Gordon-Levitt actually does a really good job voicing Jiminy. A pretty good impression of the original VA, I think!

I like how Geppetto gets a deeper backstory this time around! The idea that he creates a little puppet boy to remember his deceased young son is a very sweet one.

CGI Figaro is still adorable in this movie. Cleo, on the other hand, is bordering on creepy.

THE CLOCKS ALL HAVE DIFFERENT DISNEY EASTER EGGS! Woody and Bullseye seem a little out of place for the setting of the film but I totally get why they included them; Tom Hanks voiced Woody.

WHY IS THE BLUE FAIRY ONLY IN THIS FILM FOR FIVE MINUTES? Disney, explain. That's basically fridging her. Stop doing Cynthia Erivo dirty, please.

Pinocchio is TINY. I expected him to be the size of an average 5 or 6-year old boy but he is MINISCULE. Doesn't change the fact that I love him to bits, though.

Loved the cute little montage of Pinocchio bonding with his babbo and his new pets before Geppetto decides his (very) little boy is ready for school. Was it necessary? Probably not. But it was still cute.

Keegan-Michael Key as Honest John clearly improvised some of his dialogue behind the scenes. Let's be real, though; some of his lines won't age all that well the older this film gets. (ex: "An influencer!" or "Chris Pine!" I mean...seriously?)

Hot take hours: I actually liked that Pinocchio still wanted to go to school after that run-in with Honest John and Gideon. It actually really hurt to see him get kicked out of the schoolhouse by the schoolmaster. I say this as a teacher myself: LET THE BOY LEARN, SIGNOR!

The puppets in Stromboli's show are seriously faithful recreations of the ones in the 1940 film. That's some impressive visual dedication on Disney's part.

Fabiana and Sabina are sweet. Do I think they're necessary characters? No. But I understand why they're included, and that is to give more dimension to Stromboli's mistreatment of his employees, and to give Pinocchio some good strangers to trust as he learns about the world.

PLOT HOLE: How did Pinocchio figure out that his nose would grow every time he told a lie? I'll admit, him using his nose to help Jiminy reach the key and unlock him from Stromboli's cage was very smart, but there was no way he devised that plan on the fly.

Him getting kidnapped by the Coachman on the way to Pleasure Island instead of being convinced to go by Honest John and Gideon is also an interesting change from the film. Another hot take: I kind of like this interpretation about as much as the original.

I know due to censors and the rating system, the delinquent kids can't exactly do the same stuff they did in the 1940 film, but I know Disney could have been more creative than this.

MORE HOT TAKE HOURS: Pinocchio seeing the kids destroy the wooden clocks is actually really good to include. When you consider what you're seeing from a wooden puppet's perspective, it's actually kind of gruesome. (Another example of this would be the abandoned puppets in Stromboli's wagon.)

I never understood the weird blobby henchmen from the 1940 film and what they were, but at least Disney was creative enough to find a solution to that problem, and that is: they're magical dust/fog/mist creatures. I like this interpretation, actually. (Another hot take, I know.)

One difference I don't like is how this line is removed from the film: "You boys had your fun...now PAY FOR IT." as the kids-turned-donkeys are sold to the salt mines and circuses.

Regarding Lampwick's donkey transformation, I'm actually glad we still only see it through the shadows BECAUSE of the creepy CGI. I don't care if people think's it's a copout (ANOTHER HOT TAKE, I KNOW). It's supposed to be framed through Pinocchio's perspective as the most terrifying thing he's ever seen, which should be a valid perspective, considering that he's maybe 6 years old, at best, and therefore this would be the scariest thing he's seen in his very short life so far.

MORE HOT TAKE HOURS STILL! I don't get why people are ragging on Geppetto for...doing exactly what a dad should do when his son is in danger? The fact that an old widowed man would risk his life for his teeny tiny puppet son, including selling all of his life's work for a boat to rescue him from a cursed island, is very significant. He just loves his very very little boy so much!

Why does Sofia the seagull exist as a character? We already had another helpful bird in the original film, and it was the Blue Fairy transformed into a dove. Using that plot element would have been far more faithful to the 1940 film AND it would have included Cynthia Erivo that much more.

Pinocchio and Geppetto's shouting back and forth about what transpired in the past day was exactly how I'd imagine a little boy telling his family about his first day of school (even though Pinocchio wasn't at school. You know what I mean.) Tom Hanks was losing his accent during that exchange, though!

Y'all. Monstro in this film is TERRIFYING. Not only because of the sheer size of this absolute UNIT of a unit but also because they made him half whale AND half kraken. I don't get why they decided to add tentacles to Monstro, but I guess Disney wanted to make him an ACTUAL sea monster, instead.

Pinocchio humming "When You Wish Upon A Star" as he mourns the apparent death of his babbo is really sweet.

My first indication of him turning into a human was the fact that he was shedding actual tears. PUPPETS DON'T CRY!

The blink-and-you-miss-it transformation of Pinocchio into a real boy is such bullshit. What made the ending of the original film so significant is that we got to see him as a living boy for the first time. Geppetto and Pinocchio's wish came true as a result. We didn't get to see any of that here, and that's awfully disappointing.

Don't close a film with closing a storybook if the film didn't open with one to start with! But I will say, the final words of the book in Italian is a good nod to the original story of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi.

Overall, I'd rate this a solid 5.5/10. Great visuals and impressive Easter eggs. Out of all the changes made to this film, I appreciated maybe 30% of them. The remaining 70% probably should have been scrapped entirely. It's such a shame how half-baked this film is, compared to the 1940 film, which has a very rare 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Moral of the story is: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Disney should probably apply this lesson to most of their live-action remake ideas, to be honest.

#mel rambles #pinocchio #this got suuuuuuper long guys #i guess i just have a lot of feelings about half-baked live-action remakes

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icks4van · 4 years ago

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WOW fellow aries here, I can't believe there are so many of us. But different from y'all I have no illusions that me+van would be a NIGHTMARE. Irl I could never deal with the amount he'd be away, prioritizing his career even though I know that's the right thing, that he flirts with anything in a skirt and how much he drinks/smokes/other stuff. And as a total aries hothead I would SCREAM at him for all of it. And it would all turn toxic bc immediately afterwards (or..during?) I'd sex him to death

let me tell you i love so much about this ask. first of all, how are so many of us aries its kinda trippy ngl but i love that for us. you see, i feel this fully and yet my brain is still like “yeah i think we could make it work”. not me trying to rationalize being in a relationship with van LMAOOO the amount of clownery on my end is troubling. i’m like oh i wouldn’t mind him being gone a lot bc i like having my own space and i wouldn’t mind him prioritizing his career bc said career gets him hella money and i wouldn’t mind him being flirty with everyone bc two can play at that game motherfucker and i wouldn’t mind how much he drinks/smokes bc i like to part take in such recreations myself from time to time i’m happy just so long as he doesn’t do meth. but then i have to look in the mirror and remind myself YOU WOULD FUCKING CARE ABOUT THOSE THINGS STOP PRETENDING LIKE YOU AREN’T A BASKET CASE IF HE THOT KATHLEEN GAVE HIM PROBLEMS HE WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO HANDLE YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE A PROBLEM TAKE YOUR MEDS AND GO TO SLEEP JESUS CHRIST. end scene 😌

this new t-shirt design will be up on my etsy soon so keep an eye out for that and thank you my lovely anon for delivering such an iconic line that will be integrated into my normal everyday speech 😘

#i’m afraid i’ve committed too hard to the bit #it’s gucci tho bc i did laugh out loud (lol)#catfish and the bottlemen #van mccann #laney says things

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purgatoryandme · 4 years ago

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Hey! I can't seem to find the post you made with all the books references in Illuminate Me and the reason behind it? Is it deleted?

I know that there is an incomplete one floating around in my reply tag, and it should be in the Illuminate Me tag, but tumblr’s search features are so bad that I went back to the original word doc of the complete list, so prepare for that particular storm lol. Quoted/Referenced Reading List (In Order of Appearance) Shakespeare: Macbeth I opened on a Macbeth quote (‘When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lighting, or in rain’) because I wanted to start with something immediately relatable. Most readers were introduced to more ‘dramatic’ plays through Macbeth. Beyond that, they were introduced to the concept of pathetic fallacy, which I think plays nicely with Tony as a character (a man who is CONSTANTLY imparting emotion onto inanimate objects…and then actually giving them their own emotions) and with one of the core problems in IM, which is deciding the emotions of others for them. I was hoping to get the ‘feel’ of that without having to lean too far into the actual concept.

Bonus: I picked this quote in particular because of the importance of threes in Tony’s life (his core group of friends, iterations of the reactor, number of times reborn, his bot children VS his AI children, the number of lovers or almost lovers he has in the fic, etc). Milton: Paradise Lost ‘What is dark within me, illuminate!’ is a modernization of the original Milton quote ‘what is dark within me, illumine’ for readability. I actually feel a bit bad about changing this considering how many people think this is the original quote now. This wound up being a central (and title) quote somewhat by accident. I’m fond of it because of how much I liked a different one that I had originally wanted for Tony’s thoughts of the reactor: ‘yet from those flames, no light, but rather darkness visible’. I had originally wanted to start off on a sadder note, one that showed how much Tony hated losing his humanity, and so the flames of Hell and their physics-bending concept seemed thematically appropriate. I had always intended to eventually invert the imagery – instead of Extremis being (to Tony) flames capable of extinguishing light, the reactor would become a water-like blue light that couldn’t be choked or recreated by any of the shadows that pursued Tony in his life. I picked Milton SPECIFICALLY for the imagery of light and shadows.

But, man, listen. Darkness visible is a great concept, but it’s also tired. It has, as you’ve noted, been discussed to death. So as I was reading ‘Milton’s darkness visible and Aeneid 7’ to refamiliarize myself with some of the broader themes attached to that particular piece of imagery, I wound up thinking about how to invert the darkness itself instead of the overall concept. The flames of Hell extinguish light instead of having to exist away from it. It is a bad that cannot be penetrated by good.

Instead of chasing away shadows, which would be implied by shining a light ON them, the request Tony makes here is to actually invert the darkness - to have it illuminate in and of itself. It’s becoming something better instead of being removed or forgotten. On the flip side of that, the darkness within isn’t growing as light weakens, but rather under its own force. Two forces equal in nature and origin in a person. It’s a different take on lighting than the one most critics hammer home. Long ramble is long, but this was the basis for using that quote. It grew from there to have many different meanings, however the core has always remained. All in all I’m pleased with it.

EM Forster: A Room with a View Very forgiving even in its satirical takes on human nature. A lot of passages are very therapy-quotable in their urging to accept the inevitability of causing some harm in life. It plays on a lot of the same concepts with light being obvious metaphor for good and evil that Paradise Lost does, but softens them into more realistic shades of human existence. Isaac Asimov: Foundation Continuing on with themes of rigid morality vs the flexibility and romanticism of humanity, we have Asimov, master of machines and the three rules of robotics! There are lots of quotable epigrams in this beast. The quote pulled from this has two readings depending on what you assume of the man who has said it. If you see him as manipulative, there’s an insidious underpinning of killing off your own morals. If you see him as a kind man, then you could read it as foregoing morals in place of empathy. Tony’s therapist loves a very specific brand of double speak that lets Tony work through the conversation purely through interpretation. Tolstoy: Anna Karenina Tolstoy’s prose is lengthy...so so lengthy, but Anna Karenina is worth the read as long as you relate to at least one of its major characters. Frankly, I think you can choose to read a single character’s plot arc and leave it at that. It’s mostly a novel that is interesting, not because of its plot, but because of its study of relationship dynamics. Tolstoy was really invested in picking apart the idea of what makes a ‘family’ and, beyond that, what makes a class. It’s refreshing to see so much of the critique occurring within the lived experience of the characters instead of through a narrator or outside punishing moral forces. Baudelaire: Windows and Benediction I cannot recommend enough reading multiple translations of Baudelaire poems (fleursdumal.org has a wonderful array available). Benediction is a personal favourite. I love me some malevolence wrapped up in religion. Dante: The Divine Comedy There’s a lot of bleak humor in Dante if you look for it. Several interpretations insist of making each piece excessively grim dark, but faithful translations tend to have a hint of humor in them. It works well for engraving War Machine’s spine - a benediction and a mockery of human limitations. I try to pick quotes that not only fit the scene, but would still fit into the context of the grander themes from whence they came...unless I hate the author. Tennyson: The Lady of Shallot “I am sick of shadows” vs “I am half-sick of shadows”. Tony’s expressing more frustration here with being alone and his passive involvement in that loneliness. Another quote I feel vaguely bad about changing, haha. The Lady of Shallot is a very nice classical piece that I’m sad isn’t taught in schools alongside Hamlet. There are some nice Ophelia parallels here. I wanted a feminine influence on Tony’s loneliness and one that is somewhat youthful despite his age. Yeats: Vacillation I fucking hate Yeats as a person. That said, the man can write. The man can REALLY write. His pieces are almost always layered to the point of absurdity and he’s perfect to swiping quotes with multiple meanings. Definitely Tony’s kind of author. Goethe: Faust Speaks for itself and in the author’s notes on its reference. Dostoyevsky: The Brothers Karamasov IMO a book that deserves all the acclaim of Anna Karenina and then some. Very VERY Russian in its ethical debates of, as always, religious morality vs free will. Also dips into familial struggles and patricide, because it wouldn’t be a Russian classic if it didn’t contain some deeply buried bitter resentment towards paternalism. I’m going off-script here, but this is a fucking excellent book. I don’t really have words for how much I enjoy how Dostoyevsky explores the concepts that he does. Shakespeare: Julius Ceasar Shakespeare: Twelfth Night Twelfth Night deserves more credit for its development and maintenance of an enigma. Twelfth Night has charisma in spades both because of and in spite of the exceedingly petty actions of some of its characters. It is also a refreshingly simple take on love for the sake of it. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Stephen King: Lisey’s Story I consider Lisey’s Story to be the best of King’s work. The man has his obvious writing ticks and his even more obvious issues as an author. Lisey’s Story contains many of them, but navigates them far better than any of his other work. The monster here is all in the mind and is too vast to truly see or understand. It’s perfectly representative of a creeping sense of inescapable horror. It was fun to flip it on its head with a reference here – Tony isn’t terrified of dying, but he is terrified of his inescapable enjoyment of Bucky’s company. Maria’s family saying is inspired by Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass Armitage: The Death of King Arthur A genuinely fantastic classic tale of heroism, filled with all the drama, tragedy, and sacrifice that you’d expect with strongly feminine undertones. I’m a sucker for this kind of thing. TS Eliot: The Wasteland Excellent piece of poetry with many layered meanings and dual interpretations. I can’t really articulate my thoughts on The Wasteland, but I reference an essay at the end of this list that does that for me. Oedipus Rex Rupert Brooke: Safety Not directly quoted but obscurely referenced through Bucky and Tony’s war conversations + Bucky’s conversation about, you got it, being ‘safe’ with his therapist. His poetry is about WWI and is, largely, idealistic. Safety is…not quite an exception to that. His other poetry contains a certain sense of honour and duty, whereas safety, maintaining a seemingly light tone, has nothing of the sort. It is safety in the soul – something untouchable by the horrors of war or death. It treats that as a ‘house’, which leant itself to the article Tony send Bucky. Armine Wodehouse: Before Ginchy Not directly quoted but obscurely referenced through Bucky and Tony’s war conversations + Bucky’s conversations with his therapist. This is also WWI poetry, though far darker than Brooke’s work. It discusses the parts of the heart and soul soldiers lose. It is an extremely good piece AND references Dante’s Inferno. I had to work it in somewhere even if I didn’t want to directly quote it. Meyer and Brysac: Tournament of Shadows Referenced several times over in discussion of war, the great game, and British military history. Beautifully self-aware account of Britain’s insistence on rewriting history after the fact and the tiny hilariously embarrassing moving pieces that shaped what is often considered the heyday of espionage. Murakami: Kafka on the Shore I love Murakami’s response to questions about understanding the novel as a whole. There are no solutions, only riddles presented, and through their interaction the possibility of a solution takes place. It’s a great lens through which to view the book and individual passages taken out of it. Reminds me of The Wasteland having to be read in totality before you can begin picking it apart, after which each individual piece can be read of its own. Kafka on the Shore, with its musings on the uncertainty of fate and redemption, was the perfect book to outline Tony’s horrifying realization, which he is desperately suppressing, that he might be coming to accept Bucky’s feelings. This quote in particular, while I would’ve used it anyway, is also a great callback to the first chapter and its storms. Chapter 29 is a turning point. Beyond it there are some intentional quote contrasts that are probably more easter eggs than they are anything else. Yeats: A Dialogue of Self and Soul Great contrast with Vacillation. Some parts of self and soul are used in that poem and thematically they are connected and contrasted - self and heart vs self and soul. The symbolism and imagery in Vacillation is really on point and layered, but Self and Soul is peak Yeats for its reversal of the typical ‘the soul is pure and bluntly honest and the body is tainted and bad’ in Christian works. Also Self and Soul’s broader context is scrumptious considering the debate poems history of relying on divine forgiveness and lack thereof instead of on forgiveness of the self.

It was fun to give this poem a double meaning in IM as both hugely ominous and ultimately pointing to the later forgiveness Tony receives from himself through the divine (if the soul stone can be called that) in the heavens (space!). There’s also another fun twist to ‘who can distinguish darkness from the soul’ in its contrast with ‘what is dark within me, illuminate’. To take that a step further, Vacillation was the beginning of the path of forgiveness for Bucky (understanding Tony’s heart…somewhat literally as he slowly gets closer and closer to the reactor itself), while Self and Soul is a final step (re: Bucky being presented the final hurdle of Tony deciding to move forward alone). Hermann Hesse: Siddhartha Hesse is wonderfully blunt at times. I gotta admit I love German takes on spiritual self-discovery because they always seem to tend towards much more straightforward answers than other countries. Hesse’s relationship with Buddhism in literature vs his lived experience is also really intriguing. Anyway, Siddhartha, in its humanizing of Gods, is wonderful contrast to the consistent imagery of the untouchable and unknowable forces of good and evil in previously quoted works. It has stopped bringing humanity to the divine and has started placing the divine within humanity. Emily Wilson’s translation of the Odyssey One of the ultimate poetic epics. Now that we are nearing the end, I’m going overtime with making the grander themes of this whole piece hit home. A lot of IM was built on a foundation of poetic epics, of heroism, and a bit of Greek tragedy. The Odyssey embodies all of those things beautifully. It also suited Thor too well to pass up. Yeats: An Irish Airman Forsees His Death Ah, Yeats. Very blatant foreshadowing here that is keeping with the foreshadowing from Self and Soul. Fate has, up till this point, been a bit of a question. It has been ‘when will it come to me’ and ‘how will I avoid or overcome it’. Now fate is a set point. It is knowable and present. ‘I know I shall meet my fate, somewhere among the clouds above’. This goes for the true onset of Infinity War and for Tony’s feelings towards Bucky – when he had no one, he allowed Bucky in after essentially promising himself he wouldn’t. If that’s not an accidental admittance of love, nothing is. Henley: Invictus Absolutely fantastic poem. Continuing with the heavy fate themes coming into this climax. Now that Tony knows his fate, truly knows it, he is choosing to take it on directly. Agamemnon (Anne Carson’s Traslation if you prefer a more modern language approach, Lattimore is you prefer a classic) Agamemnon is forgotten all too often in the world of poetic epics and it’s a damn shame. I cannot say enough good things about it. I always wanted to use lines from Agamemnon in a Tony fic because the Cassandra parallels were too perfect to resist. The chorus in this play was also a perfect narrative device for interacting with something of a hive mind. Yeats: The Wanderings of Oisin Another poetic epic. Nice contrast with The Odyssey, The Death of King Arthur, and Agamemnon. Here the dialogue is between an aged hero and a saint looking into the hero’s past. It has the kind of reflective and aged mood necessary for this stage of the story, but is actually a poem I sortof hate. The line ‘And a softness came from the starlight, and filled me full to the bone’ is absolutely gorgeous, though. Some final inspiration pieces:

The Penelopiad

The Iliad

House of Leaves (for surrealism in the final chapters)

Dante at Verona (used in an author’s note as an intentional jab at the dull uninspired nature of the this particular take on Dante. Repurposed quote, essentially)

a broke machine just blowin’ steam by themikeymonster (great character study of Bucky)

Frank Kermode’s essay “Eliot and the Shudder” (inspiration behind Tony’s entire interaction with literature)

#long post #reply #illuminate me #literature references

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punkscowardschampions · 5 years ago

Text

Jimmy & Janis

Jimmy: Afternoon Janis: Just about Janis: Won't tell anyone you didn't hit me up with the coveted Morning text, like Jimmy: No need when I'm there to do it in person Jimmy: Just use your imagination when you tell 'em how I woke you up Janis: 😏 Why bother when they so ready to do it themselves, like Janis: #yourinfluence obvs Jimmy: 😎 Jimmy: Yours is that the 🐶 won't shut up 'bout you #real love 💕 Janis: Dog, yeah? Janis: Not heard that one before Jimmy: Alright, you rumbled me, my sister too Jimmy: But what the dog's saying is nicer Janis: 😂 Janis: I did forget to invite her along, to be fair Janis: Forgetfulness gotta be catching 'cos Mia totally wanted to idk Janis: wax my bikini line or something, apparently Jimmy: I know this is fake but your dirty talk needs some work, mate Jimmy: Good to know that shit does happen at sleepovers though Janis: Grow up dickhead 🙄 Janis: probably try recreate game of thrones and pour it on my head, no thanks Janis: can't make that sexy, no matter how many dragons I add to the story, soz Jimmy: Niche reference 👍 Jimmy: I rolled up to say tah for not being a dickhead anyway Jimmy: It all went to plan Janis: You're definitely that kinda nerd, don't lie Janis: Duh Janis: 🥇 Janis: I told you Jimmy: Piss off am I Jimmy: You can't pretend that you don't know how cool I am now, Joan Janis: What, 'cos you took me to the pub I suggested Janis: Okay 😏 Jimmy: 'cause I didn't make a holy show of myself as you Irish call it Jimmy: at the pub you suggested Janis: You were alright Janis: Not too unbearable, like Jimmy: I love you too, baby 😘 Janis: 🖕 Idiot Jimmy: What you doing tonight? Jimmy: We should be seen together so people don't reckon I got what I wanted and that's it Janis: Or you were that shit I've had to ghost you Jimmy: Nobody's thinking that Janis: Alright ego 😜 Janis: but I'm up for doing something, long as it's not totally shit Jimmy: Is there like a party or something going on? Jimmy: More people the better, I reckon Janis: Undoubtedly Janis: I'll ask my cousin, not everyone he knows is a total prick Janis: up for the challenge, yeah? 💪 Jimmy: Like you said 🥇 Janis: 👍 I've hit him up, let you know the where and when Jimmy: Alright Jimmy: I'm on a half day so don't matter Jimmy: Time to make myself look #goals Janis: Sick Janis: weren't too dead were ya? Jimmy: Nah Jimmy: You? Janis: Good Janis: 'Course not Janis: Lazy rich bitch anyway so you know Jimmy: 😂 Jimmy: tah for saying it so I don't 'ave to Janis: Please, you're so gutted Jimmy: Maybe Jimmy: You'll just have to cheer me up tonight Janis: Yeah? Janis: Easy Jimmy: Easy for you to say now, yeah Jimmy: We haven't faked it for that long before Janis: Have a little faith Janis: 'less you're planning to make it hard for me or Jimmy: It'd be more fun but we've got a deal Jimmy: So don't fuck it up & I won't Janis: Fine 🙄 Jimmy: Saving your enthusiasm? 👍 Janis: Yeah Janis: basically got 16 years worth saved up, hope you're ready Jimmy: Challenge accepted, Jillian Janis: That's the worse one yet Jimmy: 💔 Jimmy: I won't use it when anyone can hear me, don't worry Jimmy: What's your name again though? Janis: You testing me Janis: watch me turn up looking like a bag of shit now Janis: enjoy, wanker Jimmy: Watch me 😍😍😍 even harder for it Jimmy: You're not gonna beat me, babe Janis: So am Jimmy: Like I said, easy to say now Jimmy: Harder to do when I'm chaining 🚬 to put you off Janis: 😒 I've handled worse Jimmy: I don't need your exes list, Judy Janis: Short list Janis: . Janis: like Jimmy: What? Jimmy: You only fake date Jimmy: 🎻 Janis: Fuck off Janis: I don't date Janis: waste of time Jimmy: Can be Janis: Is Jimmy: Pete'll be gutted Jimmy: Still, if you're as good in bed for real as you are when it's fake, decent consolation Janis: I'm sure Janis: aside from he probably fancies you more than he does me Jimmy: Me too, he's been name dropping you all shift 💕 Jimmy: Wrong again, Jennifer Janis: Lies Jimmy: I didn't know who he meant for half of it Jimmy: but yeah Janis: Brilliant Janis: Good thing he's not our target demo then isn't it Jimmy: No offense, Janis Jimmy: ain't my fault he don't know you Janis: Why would he Janis: He's like year above ain't he, idk Jimmy: How would I know? Jimmy: Not the one crushing on him Janis: You do keep bringing him up Janis: if you needed a beard, like Jimmy: Piss off Jimmy: What do you wanna talk about then? Janis: [Party deets] Janis: There you go, can plan your outfit now Jimmy: What time do you wanna show up? Janis: Later the better, init Janis: make a scene but also, don't have to spend too much time surrounded by idiots Jimmy: You just know you can't hack faking being my girlfriend for too long Jimmy: but 👌 Janis: Bitch I can go all night Jimmy: Nah Jimmy: You'd be stretched to do an hour Janis: Bollocks Janis: When do YOU wanna go then? Jimmy: I'd go right now if they'd have me Jimmy: Better than being stuck at the CG Janis: N'awh, you really know how to make a girl feel special, babe 😘 Jimmy: 🎻 Jimmy: I'll do it tonight Jimmy: Do your best to wait patiently, Jodie Janis: 🖕 Do yours to keep up Janis: can't be too late if you gotta leave 9 though, are you sure Janis: lowkey might not even start before then Jimmy: I've sorted it with Cass Jimmy: I can be out as late as we need to get this done Janis: Didn't know it was her calling the curfew not your Da Janis: but makes sense, tbh Janis: cool then Jimmy: Piss off Jimmy: He don't call any shots Jimmy: But someone's gotta look after my brother & he don't worry 'bout that either Janis: I wasn't trying to be funny about it Jimmy: Decent effort then 'cause you weren't Janis: Alright Janis: sorry Jimmy: 👍 Janis: meet there? Jimmy: Alright Jimmy: Let me know when Janis: k Jimmy: [Later] Jimmy: They want me to work over Jimmy: when are we going? Janis: Oh, don't worry then if it's gonna be too much hassle Jimmy: It's only a couple more hours Janis: When are you getting off now? Jimmy: 4.30 Jimmy: but I got some shit to do when I leave here Jimmy: part of Cass' bargain Janis: 👍 good girl Janis: anything i can help with or you alright Jimmy: you can get the dog out Jimmy: know you'd both love that 💕 Janis: Sure thing Janis: use the extra steps myself anyway Jimmy: Come and get my keys whenever Janis: Are the kids gonna be about Janis: they could come with, if they would Jimmy: you can ask 'em if you're feeling brave Janis: Just an idea Janis: might run off some energy lowkey exhaust the dog and them, like Jimmy: I reckon it's a good one Jimmy: They might not Janis: I'll try Jimmy: 👌 Jimmy: If they're dickheads, text me Janis: Don't worry, I've got millions of cousins and shit, I know how to not get 'em killed or I wouldn't offer Jimmy: Weren't worried 'bout 'em Jimmy: Just you Janis: Oi Janis: I'm no soft-touch Jimmy: Only got your word for that, mate Janis: 😑 Janis: Proof'll be how well-trained this dog is Jimmy: You ain't got long enough for that Jimmy: I'm not fake dating you for years tah Janis: Christ no Janis: crash course, I'm that good Jimmy: 🙄 Jimmy: as long as you're more convincing tonight Janis: Name a time I haven't been Janis: everyone's buying it so hard Jimmy: I told you, that was lowest tier shit Jimmy: You have to pretend to like me for longer than a make out sesh Janis: I keep telling you I can, damn Janis: Can't prove it 'til we're there, can I? Jimmy: Alright, calm down Jimmy: take some pics on your walk, really milk how domestic we are Janis: Done Janis: she's very photogenic Jimmy: 💕 Jimmy: you can date her for real when this is over Janis: You're giving me her in the fake breakup, yeah? Janis: Cheers Jimmy: why not? Jimmy: means you gotta give me something Jimmy: get thinking Janis: can I interest you in Grace? Janis: know what you're thinking, literally defeats the point Janis: but she just looking for a new fam Janis: bitch for a bitch Jimmy: nah tah Jimmy: One sister's enough Janis: Shit Janis: I got 3 Janis: worst luck Jimmy: 🎻🎻🎻 Jimmy: violin solo for each Janis: Grace is more like a fucking triangle solo Jimmy: brutal Jimmy: I don't reckon there's an emoji for that though 💔 Janis: 🃏 Janis: really lacking on the emoji front Janis: gutted, gonna complain Jimmy: get it done, Joanne Janis: talk to twitter whilst i'm there Janis: your account not dead now? Jimmy: 💕 Jimmy: I ain't checked Janis: Bummer Janis: no new nudes for me 💔 Jimmy: I'll streak through the party Jimmy: make an entrance Janis: 😂 Janis: Twat Janis: There's no pretending to be 😍 over public indecency Jimmy: try harder then, dickhead Jimmy: thought you were 🥇 Janis: I don't want everyone to reckon I'm actually derranged, like Janis: be normal, Taylor Jimmy: spoilsport Janis: you know, one of us has to Jimmy: I get it, you don't reckon you won't be overcome with lust at the sight of me actually naked Jimmy: head in the game, girl Janis: 'Course Janis: who wouldn't be Janis: turning it into a casual orgy Jimmy: Mia maybe Jimmy: You're more her type Janis: Ugh don't Janis: idk what her problem really is Janis: 'cept she wants to wear my skin Jimmy: she's jealous Janis: Nah Janis: she's an only child and her daddy gives her everything so she's rolling in it Jimmy: but 'til he gives her money for surgery you're prettier than her Jimmy: & now you've got me so 🗡 Janis: Don't fuck her, yeah? Janis: It must be how she gets her power 'cos she's got no interest in actually being with you, she just has a list of like every boy in Dublin or some shit she's working through Jimmy: even if she has surgery, I have standards, I told you Janis: Good Janis: even if you're a bit of a prick, hate to see you go like that Janis: 🐍 eat you when she's done Jimmy: I'd rather my 🍆 stays attached to me Jimmy: more use than my head Janis: What's more #bae Janis: agree or disagree? 🤔 Jimmy: take it to a twitter poll Janis: I think they've got a bias rn though, after that pic Janis: say something dead brainy, babe Jimmy: too northern for that Jimmy: do it for me & say I did Janis: It's weird when you're #humble Jimmy: 😂 Jimmy: gonna fuck with you when you find out that's the real me Janis: Coulda kept that in the vault, I'd never know Jimmy: Like I said, you'd find out Janis: You not planning on deleting me when this is all over then? Jimmy: Probably but there's still this thing called IRL Jimmy: Can't bin school off yet Janis: Oh, where I'm at my most social, 'course Janis: you barely knew I existed 'til now I think we'll be fine 😏 Jimmy: Don't be gutted Jimmy: I know your name now & everything Janis: Yeah was so sat there praying for the day Janis: 🖕 Jimmy: 💕 Janis: what are you actually gonna wear Janis: not saying we should be THAT fake couple and co-ord but Jimmy: hadn't given it any real thought Jimmy: what's the party dress code in leprechaun land? Janis: depends who you are and who they are Janis: don't wanna be try hard Janis: probably can't show up in my gym clothes, though Jimmy: who am I & who are they, babe? Janis: you know who you are Janis: leather jackets ain't just for your baes, obviously Janis: idk who this kid is exactly but he lives in a normal neighbourhood so he's not like dead posh or anything Jimmy: there's your answer then Jimmy: easy 😍 Jimmy: only challenge is me finding the place Janis: I better hang about then after I've walked the dog Janis: probably more #goals to go together anyway Jimmy: yeah Jimmy: smoothie? Jimmy: You should eat so you don't get dead drunk again Janis: 'Scuse me Janis: I was not Jimmy: You were Jimmy: & don't bring a jacket so you can wear mine that's gotta be #goals Janis: Just mad it went unnoticed that I was in the dog walking 'gram Janis: too 💕 for them all, baby Jimmy: just don't get as pissed tonight Jimmy: you might let everyone know how you really feel Janis: You ain't my Dad Jimmy: Nah, I'm your fake boyfriend & I'd like it if you didn't out us Jimmy: that's it Janis: I'm not going to because I wasn't even drunk and I won't be tonight Jimmy: 🙄 Jimmy: if you're gonna chat shit, I've got work to do Janis: I don't wanna chat to you anyway if you're gonna be shady Jimmy: 💔 Jimmy: Shady? Am I also slim 😂 Jimmy: top lingo, Janet Janis: 😒 you are that white Jimmy: take it up with my dad Janis: When can we have our first fake fight 'cos you're asking for it today, like Jimmy: a bit soon unless you wanna do a really hot makeup makeout Janis: Who'd want that? Janis: Shame Jimmy: the fans Janis: True Janis: but you said I've gotta show I can stand you when you ain't rocking my world so Jimmy: & you've gotta show you want me too more than just a once off Janis: Don't want much, do ya? Jimmy: It ain't about what I want Janis: You know what I mean Jimmy: I know you keep saying you'll do this easy Jimmy: So stop whinging Janis: I ain't Jimmy: 👍 Janis: you liked whelan's then, yeah Jimmy: yeah Jimmy: I'll probably go back Janis: good Janis: i knew you would, it's alright Jimmy: seeing as you know me so well you can find me a real girl to date when this is over Janis: ha Janis: jog on Jimmy: 💔 Jimmy: go on Jimmy: it'd be a laugh to see who you'd pick if nowt else Janis: not a dyke, remember? Jimmy: didn't say you had to join in with us, did I? Janis: shut up Janis: what do i know about girls Janis: not a real one, am i Jimmy: what do you reckon you are then? My dream Jimmy: Piss off Janis: don't be stupid Jimmy: you're real Janis: You said it, not me Jimmy: What? Janis: 'you can find me a real girl to date' Jimmy: I meant a girl to not fake date Janis: whatever Jimmy: come on, Janis Janis: don't matter Janis: forget it Jimmy: don't wanna Janis: don't be a dick Janis: if you didn't mean it you didn't Jimmy: I'm not Jimmy: So don't you be a dickhead Janis: What the fuck have I done? Jimmy: acting shady Jimmy: to use your top lingo Janis: 😑 you clearly don't know what that means Jimmy: nah I don't Jimmy: it's bollocks Jimmy: reckon you made it up just then Janis: not that deep undercover than we need our own language Jimmy: good 'cause I ain't sure I'd keep up Jimmy: proper cryptic you Irish Janis: 🖕 Janis: how's that for cryptic? Janis: gobshite Jimmy: 😂 Janis: I'm not finding you a girlfriend Janis: Ruin your own life Jimmy: Alright, leave me to my own devices so I can find another girl who prefers old blokes Jimmy: on your head Janis: If it keeps you from becoming a baby daddy, aren't I doing you/the world a massive service, really, like Jimmy: if that keeps you warm, mate, tell yourself it Jimmy: I'll be shivering 'cause left out in the cold 🎻 Janis: Catch me and Pete laughing at you whilst we fuck on a huge pile of money in our mcmansion Janis: #thedream Jimmy: leave it out Jimmy: I've seen him concentrating when he makes a latte I don't need to think about his face when he's going at it Janis: 😍😍😍 Jimmy: get in his inbox to live that dream Janis: Can't be having my fake mans and real in the same place Janis: mixing business and pleasure always a no Jimmy: he won't say owt Jimmy: tell him you're down to cheat Janis: thanks for your permission 😂 Jimmy: don't care, do I? Jimmy: just keep it off the 'gram Janis: You might have endless faith in him but I don't Janis: everyone knows everyone's business around here 🙄 Jimmy: if you cheat I ain't lost owt Jimmy: go on Jimmy: save me a break up Janis: I don't think so Janis: I get to come out of this looking good, that was part of the deal Jimmy: We can change it easy Jimmy: & anyway who says pete ain't a trade up Janis: Nah Janis: Deal's a deal, I'm sticking to my side of it Jimmy: You've done it Jimmy: been proven those girls ain't my type Janis: If that was true we wouldn't be going tonight Janis: we ain't done here Jimmy: we ain't done for you Jimmy: but if you reckon you've got a better offer, take it Janis: Don't use this as an excuse Janis: you know I don't Jimmy: an excuse for what? Janis: For not wanting to help me out now we've sorted your side of it out Jimmy: I've said I'll do it Jimmy: like I said, not about what I want Janis: I know you don't want it alright Janis: it doesn't have to be much longer Jimmy: just don't fuck Pete Jimmy: I still have to work with him Jimmy: & I don't want the pisstake Janis: I'm not going to Janis: I've literally not spoken to him before Jimmy: then don't speak to him Janis: Um bit far, am I only allowed to order smoothies from you? Jimmy: CG isn't the only shit coffee shop around Jimmy: why come in after this? Janis: so I'm banned now, jesus Janis: fine Janis: I don't even drink coffee Jimmy: I can't ban you Jimmy: not the manager Janis: but you would if you could? Janis: well that's lovely Jimmy: so you would come in for coffee & a chat after I've fake dumped you? 👌 Janis: You're actually such a prick Janis: 1. I'M dumping YOU Janis: 2. You were actually serious that you're gonna delete me? Avoid me forever too? Very mature Jimmy: I'm gonna delete everyone Jimmy: not just you Jimmy: why do you care? like you said, didn't know each other existed before Janis: You're gonna have no friends, whole time you're here then Jimmy: hopefully Jimmy: what you're offering now, are you? Janis: no one good enough for you, yeah? Janis: not now I know Janis: don't worry Jimmy: you were the one warning me not to turn into 'em like a day ago Jimmy: didn't realise the real you was a cheerleader of leprechaun town Janis: Piss off Jimmy: that's the plan Jimmy: wear the uniform tonight though, the fans will love it Janis: It's going to take you ages you may as well try and tolerate it whilst you're here Jimmy: You don't have to outdo my dad on the fatherly advice Jimmy: not part of the deal Janis: Exactly, you're not gonna leave your brother and sister here Janis: so it's years, not months Jimmy: that's assuming any of us are gonna stay here Jimmy: he keeps jobs slightly longer than girlfriends but don't go mad, like Janis: Yeah great, hinge your masterplan on his lack of Janis: I hope it all works out for you, really Jimmy: I don't need a masterplan this is my real life not a fake dating plot Janis: Fuck you Janis: Act like it then, you live here right now, get over it Jimmy: Piss off Jimmy: You've lived here longer Jimmy: where's your friends? Janis: What's it matter 'bout me? Jimmy: you're dishing it out like I gotta be living my best life Jimmy: sort yours Janis: Again, this isn't about me Janis: you're not me Jimmy: & you ain't me, sweetheart Jimmy: you don't know what I want so don't tell me Janis: Don't fucking talk to me like that Jimmy: likewise Janis: Fine, be miserable Janis: like you said, why do I care Jimmy: 👍 Janis: Fuck me knowing what you want, I hope you work it out Jimmy: I have Janis: Good for you Jimmy: dead patronising you Jimmy: Love that Janis: I'm not the one throwing out sweethearts like it's the 70s Jimmy: Nah, you're just the one judging me when all you know is my name basically Jimmy: starting to see your sister's POV now Jimmy: bit of a nightmare, aren't you? Janis: Go fuck her then Jimmy: I don't want to Jimmy: but tah for the permission Janis: Literally drop dead Janis: I never once judged you and it's fucking rich you taking issue when all you do is judge everyone here all the time Jimmy: just 'cause you're a girl don't mean you can talk me like that & then tell me how to talk to you Janis: like what Janis: you talk to me like a piece of shit Jimmy: 🖕 Janis: Great Janis: Bye Jimmy: not bye, see you in a bit Jimmy: unless you're bailing Janis: you reckon i'm in the party mood Janis: really Jimmy: not what I asked Jimmy: don't matter how you really feel, does it? Janis: you're a sociopath, awesome Jimmy: no idea Jimmy: but alright fuck the party, don't bother me Janis: nah, 'course, nothing does Jimmy: nowt that's any of your business Janis: 👍 Jimmy: 👌 Janis: I'll still walk the dog it isn't her fault Jimmy: 💕 Jimmy: you'll still need the keys Jimmy: won't throw 'em at you not very #goals Janis: I don't care anymore Janis: who am I impressing, like you said Jimmy: when? Janis: You know Janis: I've got no friends, I'm a nightmare Janis: 🎻 Janis: the list goes on Jimmy: that's not what they're seeing Jimmy: just me 🎻 Jimmy: you've impressed everyone else Janis: Please Janis: you're so smart now Jimmy: It don't take much Janis: Exactly Janis: Jig is probably up Jimmy: Bollocks Jimmy: you know it's working Janis: Yeah not now I hate you Jimmy: you didn't love me before Jimmy: but alright Jimmy: call it off Janis: I'm not coming out of this like this Janis: you don't have to see me Janis: I'll make it work myself Jimmy: 👌 Janis: just tell me how you wanna sound Jimmy: I don't care Jimmy: do it how you want Janis: is it wise to give me such free reign Janis: nightmare i am Jimmy: you heard me Jimmy: don't matter Janis: You reckon I shouldn't care? Jimmy: I'm saying I don't Janis: No one's judging you anyway Jimmy: feel free to change that Janis: I'm not that much of a bitch Janis: thanks Jimmy: not on the 'gram anyway Janis: Fuck you Janis: I was being nice Jimmy: 'til I told you not to fuck Pete Jimmy: If I knew that was the dealbreaker I wouldn't have said nowt Janis: No, 'til you asked me to find you a girlfriend, called me not a girl Janis: then fucking agreed with my sister Jimmy: I told you, I never said you weren't a girl Jimmy: & I weren't serious about the girlfriend thing Janis: Whatever Janis: I don't even know if that's his name so it isn't about that Jimmy: alright Janis: It ain't alright Janis: I wasn't serious either you didn't have to take it like that and make it into this thing Jimmy: I seriously don't want you to fuck my co-workers Jimmy: that's all I said Janis: I'm not going to! Janis: I don't even want to Jimmy: 👌 Jimmy: don't matter now Janis: Why not Jimmy: 'cause this is finished Jimmy: we don't need to keep chatting 'bout it Janis: Why is it a problem if I'm not gonna do it Jimmy: it ain't Janis: Then stop being a dick Jimmy: You stop being a dick Janis: dickhead Jimmy: You're the dickhead Janis: Oh my God Janis: stop Jimmy: just break it off Jimmy: I've got work to do Janis: Come on Janis: you're really dedicated now you don't wanna talk to me Jimmy: why would I? Jimmy: if we aren't going to the party what is there to chat about? Janis: well we could Janis: but fine Jimmy: you don't wanna either Jimmy: you hate me now, remember? Janis: Well you never liked me apparently so can't be offended Jimmy: yeah I can Janis: It's not fair, that's bullshit Jimmy: you hating me is not the same as me not knowing you Janis: maybe i'm being slightly dramatic Jimmy: go for it Jimmy: like I said, don't matter Janis: No Janis: Shut up being annoying Janis: let's go to the party Jimmy: I don't reckon that's a good idea Janis: Why not Jimmy: not in the running for an oscar, are we? Janis: alright Janis: i'll go by myself i guess Jimmy: that's a worse idea Jimmy: get it together, Jasmine Janis: Why? Jimmy: You're a pisshead & you need me Janis: 😑 Janis: well then you have to come Janis: I'm going Jimmy: Alright Jimmy: when? Janis: Whenever you've done what you've gotta do at Home Janis: I'm already on the bus to get the keys Jimmy: I just have to get the bribes in Jimmy: come with Jimmy: we can get drinks for the party or whatever Janis: I get it, all the sugar Janis: alright Janis: just don't try to palm me off with alcopops Jimmy: piss off would I Jimmy: I don't hate you Janis: tah 😏 you do reckon I can't handle my drink though Janis: which is just untrue Jimmy: you couldn't Jimmy: that's all I've got to go off Jimmy: prove me wrong tonight if you're that mad 'bout it Janis: What did I do? Janis: because I have evidence of YOU licking MY face, thanks snapchat Jimmy: FOR snapchat Jimmy: you were being nice to me when the camera weren't on Janis: How dare I 🙄 Janis: make it sound like I was tryna jump you Jimmy: nowt like that Jimmy: you were just Jimmy: fuck knows, mate Janis: ominous Janis: maybe i won't drink Janis: fuck's sake Jimmy: challenge turned down? 👌 Janis: 😠 No Janis: you got me paranoid now though Jimmy: not trying to get in your head so I'll win or owt Jimmy: nah Janis: 😒 Jimmy: for real though that weren't how I wanted that to sound Jimmy: it was fun Jimmy: you weren't a total dickhead like usual, that's it Janis: so what you're really saying is Janis: I should make a habit of it? Janis: cool Janis: I thought you meant I was white girl wasted then I'd have to kms, obviously Jimmy: I'm saying if I were gonna hate you, I couldn't then 'cause you were alright Jimmy: calm down Janis: Awh babe Jimmy: what the fuck is white girl wasted? Janis: If Gracie or any of her mates are at this party, hopefully not, you'll get to see Janis: the girls who are screaming 'this is my song!' to every other shit song Janis: and lose their shoes and shit and end up sobbing hysterically on a poor bouncer or something Jimmy: that don't exist up north, lasses drink like lads Jimmy: I'll have to take you Jimmy: learn something, Jemima Janis: you can't say the north has a better drinking culture than ireland Janis: that's literally all we're known for excuse you Jimmy: I reckon I just did Jimmy: am I gonna get cursed now? Janis: Think you're gonna get deported so you'll be buzzin' on that Jimmy: 👍 Jimmy: they aren't gonna be at the party are they? Janis: Nah, would've seen all the annoying getting ready and pre-drinks stories by now Jimmy: thank feck as you 🍀 say Jimmy: fun as it'd be to get that angry vein going in Mia's head again Janis: Please never say that again but do 'cos I wanna hear wtf it'd sound like in your accent 😂 Janis: she's DYING for round two Jimmy: I'll whisper it in your ear later if you pretend I'm saying something #goals Janis: Deal Jimmy: Just don't piss yourself laughing I don't need everyone reckoning my chat is that bad Janis: 🎭 Janis: I'll be so into it it'll be awkward for everyone else Janis: 💪 Jimmy: yeah alright Jane fonda just try & look like you're dying for round two 😍💕 Jimmy: maybe there'll be a room we can fake fuck in Janis: What are house parties for Janis: besides easier underage drinking, obviously Jimmy: as long as Mia ain't there to listen at the door Janis: I refuse to fake an orgasm for her the cunt you'd have to actually just fuck me Jimmy: I'll just take you home if she shows up Jimmy: pretend like I'm anti-fucking in strangers houses Jimmy: like its a northern thing or summat Janis: 😂 Polite, very anti-you Janis: but it works Jimmy: there's only so much convincing fakery I could let you do before it'd just sound hot Jimmy: not part of the deal for me to be into it Janis: Yeah Janis: Only human Jimmy: 🐍 quota in these parts is full Janis: Truly Janis: Don't tell Paddy, he'll be fuming Jimmy: 🤞 Jimmy: better get more smokes if you're sharing Jimmy: remind me Janis: Should get my own, least pay you half Jimmy: call it my being a dickhead tax Jimmy: besides, people were into it Jimmy: new #goals Janis: You make it look good Janis: no one needs to know you get out of breath on a dog walk Jimmy: you give then you take away Jimmy: 💔 Jimmy: next time tweet the first bit & leave off the second Janis: I already did that story, no caption necessary Janis: can't have you thinking I'm too nice again and going weird on me Jimmy: Piss off Jimmy: Are we meant to do getting ready snaps or are you not white enough? Janis: God no Janis: 'less we're being all extra about how much we don't wanna leave bed, like Jimmy: we could Jimmy: I zip up your...dress? but you take off my shirt Jimmy: make it sexy Jimmy: 😂 Janis: 😂 Janis: this is just going to get confusing Janis: end up leaving half undressed but not in the intentional way Jimmy: no then? Janis: nah, we can Janis: means having to take less there so we can lowkey have a decent time still Jimmy: almost like you now Jimmy: 'cause that's a top plan Janis: Gimme time Janis: not a fan of almosts like go all in and hate me or you know Jimmy: 👌 Jimmy: what are you wearing not heavy breathing way? Jimmy: in a* Janis: Thanks for clarifying Janis: I put a few options in my bag, I'd ask a girl but you know Janis: You'll have to do Jimmy: I am out of breath but 🚬 not burning desire Jimmy: piss off I'm better Jimmy: I'll tell you what looks hot Jimmy: 😍 not bitchy side eye Janis: #truelove Janis: #lastsalifetime #inyourlungs Janis: Good, can always get that from your sister if I'm missing it Jimmy: You're getting too decent at #s gonna have to dump you 💔 Janis: #damn Jimmy: Stop Janis: #gonnamissmewhenimgone Jimmy: #Janis please Jimmy: if you make me laugh I could keel over 🚬 remember Janis: When bae calls you a health risk 😍 Jimmy: #goals right Jimmy: love you so much its gonna kill me Janis: mhmm Janis: i told ya, just got the organ wrong Janis: no 💔 going for the lungs Jimmy: just leave my 🍆 out of it & like my head I ain't too concerned Jimmy: least I got a pair of lungs Janis: are you saying i have 🍆 envy Janis: cos that's even older than the dyke line tbh i expect better from you Jimmy: let me know when I streak through the party Janis: 😂 Janis: Will do Jimmy: don't say nowt if you don't 'cause 💔 Jimmy: it ain't my party to cry at Janis: Poor boy Janis: Just tryna seem nonchalant 'cos already meant to have seen it, duh Jimmy: try & seem 😍 like you can't get enough of it though Jimmy: tah very much Janis: Okay you want drooling Janis: got it Jimmy: if you can Janis: Don't doubt me, just your ability to bring it Janis: kinda cold Jimmy: where I'm from this is summer temps Jimmy: don't worry 'bout me, girl Janis: Then we won't have a problem Jimmy: nah Jimmy: & if anyone asks, I'm thinking 'bout you #muse Janis: I think they'll have more pressing questions Janis: like, what the fuck? Jimmy: that's how it is in 🍀 Jimmy: boring feckers Janis: 😂 Janis: maybe after you've been there and had a few Jimmy: I won't find them boring? Jimmy: or I will Janis: saying you taking your kit off would be craic and not a sign of something wrong Janis: they'll still be pretty dry Jimmy: 👍 Jimmy: can I leave here yet? it's rivaling in the boredom stakes Jimmy: come back Mia, some mildly annoying shit you've done is forgiven Jimmy: nowt else Janis: Shh Janis: come meet me off bus Janis: #romance Jimmy: alright Jimmy: you sold it to me Janis: 💕 Soft Jimmy: give me the kiss of life if I look like I'm going Jimmy: 'cause you know I'll 🚬 & walk Janis: 😏 Janis: Giving the OAPs on here a show Jimmy: love our new audience 💕 Janis: always a bitchy one though, i 👀 you grandmia Jimmy: probably is her nan Jimmy: does she have a face like 🍋 Janis: Chewing wasps forreal Janis: though I think Mia just rose up from the pits of hell by herself so Jimmy: get her number for my ex Janis: 😂 Janis: so thoughtful Jimmy: her status updates have been harrowing mate Jimmy: reckon Barry's playing away 💔🎻 Janis: Oh no Janis: typical Barry move Jimmy: Yeah Jimmy: near end of life crisis Janis: Stop making me laugh I'm getting looks Jimmy: payback for before when you near ended my life Jimmy: could be worse least I'm not turning you on with the mention of him Janis: War flashbacks, like Jimmy: you got it, JoJo Janis: 💔 Janis: I don't get it but you do you Janis: true love and all that, I guess Jimmy: You don't get wanting to fuck an old bloke? Jimmy: Me either Janis: 😏 OMG we get it, you're straight Janis: it's me they got the questions about, not you Jimmy: so far Jimmy: but Pete is gonna need consoling for his 💔 Janis: 🙄 don't drag me into this Janis: find yourself a girl and him a mans Jimmy: so nah to the threesome? 👌 I'll let him know Janis: You don't wanna see his cum face Jimmy: I'll look at the back of his head Janis: Alright, glad you've worked out the logistics Janis: be rude to make him stay under the pillow Jimmy: 👍 Jimmy: in or out? Janis: whey Janis: long as it don't count 'cos threeways don't Jimmy: 'course Janis: 👍 Jimmy: #romance Janis: you know it Janis: real test faking it to that level, no matter how thick he is Jimmy: 🥇 Jimmy: we've got this baby 💕 Janis: Poor Pete Jimmy: 🎻🎻🎻 Jimmy: you see me yet? Janis: Hold on, lemme try and remember what you look like Jimmy: You ain't that good at faking it, Justine Jimmy: #unforgettable Janis: You'll be huffy when you find me chatting to the wrong white boy Jimmy: Nah I'll just smack him Jimmy: #goals like Janis: 😏 Janis: There you are Jimmy: 😘

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