#NOTHING HAPPENED ITS JUST ONE OF THOSE DAYS WHEN I’m A LITTLE CRAZY

[letsnotperceive]

Okay, I just can’t stop thinking about John Price honestly. Especiallyyy after he’s *retired*!!

Here is a little drabble (is that the right word? Can’t remember, I’m new here). It gets a little 𝓕𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 (18+) towards the bottom but nothing crazy. F!Reader

⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢

﹉﹉﹉﹉﹉﹉﹉﹉﹉﹉ ୨ᰔ୧ ﹉﹉﹉﹉﹉﹉﹉﹉﹉

✧.* Because sure, big buff military man who’s puffin’ more smoke than a chimney is cool and all. But give me sleepy, squishy, human teddy bear Price. Give me Price who’s perpetually exhausted after carrying the weight of the world on his back. Price that just wants to hibernate for a while with his luv.

✧.*Im thinking he’s all softened up around the edges. All that muscle mass doesn’t disappear over night, but as time passes and he’s no longer on an extensive workout routine, it ain’t sticking around forever. Big ol’ pecs that you can squish your face against, a little padding to his stomach. Hold on, stay with me now 🤤

✧.* Of course, he’s still got that grizzly sort of appearance. All mapped in scars and maybe the occasional burn from those late nights spent at his desk with a cigar between his fingers while he’s drifting in and out of consciousness with exhaustion. The damn workaholic! Hairy too; least we forget—that beard and those arms. Oh lord.

✧.*Maybe one day you realize in that post retirement laze of his (which is well deserved, mind you. Don’t give him a hard time now) that he’s looking a lil’ extra scraggly. You sit on the bathroom counter, and with a delicate hand and a very distracted focus, you give his beard a shave. All cute and romantic, the room still steamy from your shared shower…

BAD. Mistake. You both agree to never let it happen again. An angel just lost its wings!! Leave his beard alone 😭

✧.*Treat this man so good, he deserves it. Whether you like to cook or not, you find yourself gravitating to the kitchen on occasion to make sure he’s eating well at least some of the time. Some home-cooked meals to cancel out all those shitty MREs he’s consumed in his lifetime.

✧.*Bet he will reward you for it too; he’s got a soft spot for good girls. He is tired of yelling commands and barking out orders, he’s too worn out to deal with a brat. Be a sweet little thing now and show him some love. Offer to climb into his lap and take over when his bad leg starts acting up, see where it gets you.

✧.*Rolling your hips to a steady rhythm only you hear, he lets you have your fun until he’s ready to set the pace. Big hands pawing at your waist, clutching at you just tight enough his fingers are going to leave red marks for him to soothe away after. He doesn’t even have to roll his hips up against you, he can just move you as he pleases with his strength.

✧.*You don’t even have to try to give him a show—he drinks in every little reaction you give him. His heart skips a beat when you mewl, your eyes threatening to roll back in sheer bliss. The sticky sound of your thighs, drenched in arousal, meeting his skin. The way your lips meet his neck and shoulders, kissing and nipping love bites against his body. The mattress springs squeaking from underneath you two. It’s a performance, and he’s dedicated to appreciating every moment.

✧.*He’ll send you melting with his words, too—

“Mmm, is that good, little luv’?”

“You like that, baby? My darlin’?”

“Such a good girl—doing so well f’me.”

“F-fuck lovie, do that thing with your hips again~”

✧.* Aftercare is top-tier with him too, no questions asked. He may have gotten a little lazy in his retirement, but never when it comes to you. Water, a snack, a quick clean up. Him putting his entire weight over you like a human weighted blanket. Whatever you need, Lovie.

﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍﹍⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣⌣

Wrote this quickly after doing an online job interview, I don’t think it went very well bc I have awful RBF but wish me luck :,)

Should I do a full fledged fic about this? Anyone interested? Okay, bye <3

[zzencat]

How To Energetically Get The Most Out Of Your School/Work Life - ⏳

Since we’re getting into the groove of things…let’s gaur!!!! For entertainment purposes.

From left to right. Breathe and choose the one(s) you can't keep your eyes off of.

TO ENHANCE ACCURACY BEFORE CHOOSING: Clear your mind. Time is now patient and still. Close your eyes, inhale deeply, fill your chest up to the fullest, feel the soft air brush up against the ridges of your nose. Breathe out.

Pile 1 | boomer mentality?

• change your ways. Bad habits, weak ways of thinking- sure, it’s uncomfortable. Growth is uncomfortable. Success is uncomfortable (I’m pretty sure someone super famous said that once maybe someone should remind me- 🤔) . You’ll find that if you look at things from a new perspective, a new angle, it’ll be beneficial for you in the long run. Just like looking at stress in a good way- there are studies on it that show that if you look at stress in a more positive way and use it to your advantage, you could really stretch out your life and live longer than those who were pessimistic about it (lol fun fact for you)

if you let go of the old, your luck will change. embrace these new changes, beliefs, environments, and people.

don’t keep your time and resources to yourself. allow for self reflection and transformations to happen!

big focus: don’t let history repeat itself. it’s time for a change! let go and let in.

—————————

Pile 2 | feeling stuck or stagnant

• pile 2, you tend to overthink everything. You let your mind run its course. That ain’t good news. It prevents you from reaching new heights- prevents you from even starting on something, just because of fear or even roots of perfectionism. There’s a huge lack of motivation, confidence, and trust in yourself- so much that even when I was pulling your cards they were hesitant to come out. it feels like russian roulette but it’s firing on its own. some people here might tend to overreact/throw a tantrum as well or be immature in situations that need sensibility (in this case, ya gotta take this time to mature.)

• I feel this group has trouble with balance in general. Nothing wrong with that on occasion but if that’s your default setting and you’re stuck in your mind all day, wondering about this and that—just a crazy clash of thoughts and ideas—ruminating and running around in a vicious cycle full of mental bullshit then it’s gonna stop you. It’s gonna stop you from growth, from achieving things, from getting started, from living life normally. That’s the bare minimum, isn’t it? All we gotta do is breathe and when life makes it hard, the brain works harder. The mind is truly the most dangerous thing and you have to embrace it, marinate in it, and pick at it. find out where the balance is between intuition, logic, and emotion.

you might feel restricted and the need to break free, but what you also need is a breather to calm down and assess yourself before making decisions. rmr, deep breaths.

•Do your own research, form your own opinions, figure out who you are, how you operate, and what you want in life. That’s how you begin to build character. That’s how you can move forward, even if it’s little by little. (A more stable foundation comes outta that too.)

big focus: practice self control. when they say “lead with your head,” they really mean the control center of logic, intuition, and emotion…but who’s doing more of the controlling here, you or your mind?

——————————

Pile 3 | “how could I miss that?”

• What you need to focus on is slowing down. it’s easy to miss things when we’re busy or taking on a lot of responsibilities. give yourself some love and care—tend to those inner callings. It’s good for your mental health as well. Remember: mental becomes physical.

• put yourself first for once. Connect with yourself and loved ones- go on one of them self dates- Yessir those exist 😳

• pile 3, you are easily the most efficient and speedy group- cards were legit being shuffled like they were being handled like a pro- but you know the con of that? You miss all the moments you could’ve had with friends, lovers, family. Yourself. You get to miss all the details because things are going too fast pow pow pow one after the other until it piles up and then you end up beating yourself up for small and simple mistakes…calm down and adjust yourself. You will be okay.

• I’m telling you fam- TAKE BREAKS. Give yourself moments to relax and rejuvenate before you push yourself!! You put too much pressure on yourself as it is

• connect with your inner feminine energy when you have the time—you gotta MAKE that time for yourself

• don’t be so neglectful in your relationships btw! Romantic, platonic, familial, wtv- learn how to manage your time so that you can separate work and assignments with social relations. Keep that communication up!! This includes your inner and outer voice. Reflect and acknowledge how you feel.

big focus: be more open minded to making new connections! spend more time with others. you’ll find emotional happiness and fulfillment in it :)

————————————

Ending Teddy note:

Hello hollywood people 😎 it has been a long minute! thank you for taking the time to read through this—YOU ARE AWESOME!!! Always remember to take what resonates and leave what doesn’t! I’ll cya fam ciao :)

[simonisferal]

Valentine — wanderer x gn reader

erhmm, kaveh gets taped to the ceiling, obvious courting/pining, reader's a fucking simp, wanderer's a small bitch/affectionate

guy came up to me and became my valentine, now i gotta reject him because i dont see him like that 😭 but happy valentines day!!

1.5k words

Valentine’s Day was literally today and you were stressing about what to get your lovely partner! Well, not really. If anything, you’re freaking out on how to confess your feelings for them and *then* ask him out. Crazy, and very last minute, you know, but hear yourself out!

You’ve been pinning and courting him for a while. It’s painfully obvious that you liked him, or at least you think.

Wanderer had no revelation. Sometimes he thought that the flowers and large amounts of flowers, snacks and drinks you left on his desk or mail was part of a big prank. Not even his new friend group (“Aggravate”, as Cyno called them) could tell him differently.

They were walking down the halls, ignoring most people who gawked and eyed them. It wasn’t rare for people to look at the five beauties but it was fairly worse since it’s a holiday.

”You excited?” Tighnari, one of the only people who have a brain in this dumb school, mentions.

"For what?” He pauses his walk.

“Oh! For his little secret admirer to come up and confess!” Kaveh squeals. Alhaitham, who stood behind him only snorted but stayed quiet. Tighnari looked to the side but nevertheless agreed with him, “Something like that. I was going to say chocolates or a present but that works.”

Cyno interjects, “Maybe a letter? Something simple to not attract too much attention to you, I would guess.”

”Oh please, I doubt that prankster has the balls to come up to my face and say something, let alone a fake confession.” Wanderer says, not only denying the idea but shooting down Kaveh’s suggestion as well.

"Booo! Where’s your passion for love? I don’t understand how people like you, babes.” Alhaitham pats Kaveh’s back but we all know he thinks it too.The puppet snorts but doesn’t refute anything else. He continues to walk, leaving the four behind while they head to their classes.

Wanderer was interrupted many times by others trying to give him gifts, making him late several times. He grew tired of the holiday and just wanted to go home. Maybe Tighnari can give him something to ease his mind when it's time for study hall.

But they never show up. Wow, ‘real friends’ my ass.

When he goes to his next class, down a small hall in the Vahumana category, Wanderer only sees the empty class. There was no way he was late or early or even in the wrong classroom.

His wary behavior didn’t cease when he noticed a singular note on a desk, his desk. Wanderer didn’t hesitate to pick it up, his smooth hands running over the frail paper before unfolding it from its fold.

Dear Wanderer, it read.

You’re probably reading this with caution or at least looking behind your back right now but I can assure you, nothing bad’s gonna happen as you read this! (I don’t know if that sounded ominious ominous or not so, sorry :( )

I’m the one who keeps buying you flowers and those snacks if you didn’t know by now! I actually have something to tell you and I really hope you come to the library or else I’ll kind of look like a loser lol— Your secret admirer

ps: I’m a little offended you think this whole thing is a prank, Wanderer :(

Damn. He closed the piece of paper and ran his hands through it again. ‘Yeah, right. Like someone would actually love me enough to do this’, he thinks.

Wanderer shoves the note into his short’s pocket and sits down in his seat. There are small trinkets and sour candies in the desk with another note, “Just in case you get hungry :)”. …He sighs. He takes one of the candies in his hand and starts unwrapping the wrapper. ”You guys can come out now. I finished reading the letter.”

There was a small hint of silence before anyone spoke.

"Oh thank the gods, I thought you were gonna leave us here.” Kaveh groans. Both Tighnari and Cyno reveal themselves from hiding in a closet and Alhatiham just turns around in the professor's chair.

”Kaveh?! How’d you get up there?” Tighnari leaves the closet, passing by Wanderer to get under Kaveh, who was duct-taped to the ceiling. He looked sick and frail and like he was about to throw up.”I asked Alhaitham to help me like three hours ago but he never got me down! I missed a bunch of classes..” He whines. Tighnari gives Haitham a glare but the grey-haired male ignores it.

”I’ll help you down, okay?” Tighnari comforts Kaveh and stretches his hand out towards the closet. “Cyno, give me my bow.”

”Alright.” Cyno starts reaching into the closet while the four of them could hear Kaveh pleading, “Wait! No! I can get down myse—!”

Wanderer’s ears ring at the loud sound of Kaveh crashing onto the floor. Joking, of course. He used his anemo powers to safely get the blond down.

"You four are such a hassle.” He groans.

"Well?”

“‘Well’ what?”

”Are you gonna go?”

”Go where?”

”The library, for god's sake!”

Cyno nods along. “[Name] is waiting for you there.”Wanderer groans again while everyone else looks at Cyno like he just admitted to a murder. They whisper as the puppet crosses his arms in his seat. “I’m not going to a dumbass library to just meet [Na]—…[Name]?”

"Oh wow, Cyno spilled. Expected it to be Kaveh.” Alhaitham retorts. Wanderer could only hear a small ‘hey!’ from the thoughts running through his head.

Believe it or not but you were the second place bachelor in the Akademiya. Most girls and guys would be pursuing you right now but you were just in the library? And you liked him? Yeah, right, he’ll have to see it with his own eyes.

”Fine, come on. Let’s go.” He stood up from his seat and began to walk out the classroom, leaving the four boys again.

”Should we go after him?” Kaveh asked.

"You just fell off of a ceiling, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go…”He whines again but wipes his butt from any dirt from the floor. “Okay…”

”I’ll stay with you.”

”Alhaitham, what?”

”You heard me.”

Both Tighnari and Cyno left to chase after Wanderer, the quick fellow already somehow causing a commotion in the halls. You were sitting in the library when Wanderer ran in. You expected him to come, not because you thought of him as a hopeless romantic but because you knew he’d want to see such a wanted figure as yourself actually liking someone.

”Good afternoon, Wanderer.” He heard.

You were carrying a Sumeru rose in your hands, fiddling and admiring the petals and thorns. He just stood in front of you, not believing it wasn’t a prank.

”’Good afternoon’ my ass. What do you want?”

You frown. “Did you not read the letter I left for you?”

He crosses his arms and scoffs. He had an obvious face of disdain, still not believing you. “Why yes of course I did. And just so you know,” he took a small step closer. “I still think this is a dumb joke.”

That statement couldn’t help but make you laugh. “Really? Aren’t a lot of people pursuing you? What about me courting you for, like, 3 months?”He falls silent. You weren’t known for your jokes, most people (excluding Cyno) thought you were unfunny. You also weren’t a liar—everyone calls you honest and trustworthy that even Wanderer can only imagine how many promises you’ve completed.

”Look. I’m really not joking…” You stand up from your chair at the library, taking small steps towards the short male. You extend your hand, showing him the rose you had been admiring for so long.

“I like you.”

Ha… Haha.. He starts laughing. Wanderer found you absolutely stupid. No one, ever, would actually admit to liking him—let alone on a holiday all about love. You had to be an idiot to even think about him romantically.

The puppet stops laughing after noticing you hadn’t gone away or laughed with him. He raised an eyebrow and looked at your frown. “Seriously? You’re an idiot.” His rude remark did nothing to hide the small smile on his face. It was amusing, such a silly thing actually. Who knew you would be such a dumbass for love? Now he doesn't feel even a single drop of guilt for eating all those snacks.

That look on your face says it all. You're in love with him. Pathetic, honestly. But Wanderer'll give you (and himself) a chance at this little game called life. He finds this little situation funny now that he knows it's not some sort of sick joke.

”Fine, I’ll give you a chance.” He takes the rose in his hands, twirling it with his fingers. He looked up at your excited smile. Humans are so easy to please, he thinks but it doesn't stop the small smile crawling on his own face.

”Just don’t bore me.”

[lunajay33]

Not the Only One

•🌪️🍂🪵🏹•

Summary: Reader comes from an abusive family and is insecure about it showing up everywhere with bruises, but one night she comes across Daryl who is more like you than you know

Pairing: Young Daryl Dixon x f!reader

Content Warning: Abusive parents

•Masterlist•

Growing up in a small town in Georgia can have its benefits, close friend group, late night walks, fun memories, but not for some, not for me I get the other side of a small town, the rough crowd and the judgmental stares from the well of kids who’s parents gave them everything they wanted

I never thought there was a problem with the way I lived as a kid but the older I got and realized that not everyone lives with abusive, negligent parents it was world shaking for me and I felt like a complete loser and I still do, I don’t have much some simple clothes and some drugstore perfume and makeup but that’s about it, others girls in my class had expensive name brand everything and judge those like me who didn’t

My dads drunk and takes his problems out on me, my moms a coward and won’t stand up for me so here I am walking around school with a cut down my eyebrow with a nasty bruise forming around

“What happened y/n old man beat on you again” Jessie says laughing as she walks by with her little click, I look back into my locker getting my books for science class sighing not ready for the day ahead full of more comments like that

I walk into Mr.jensons class taking my seat at the back, some people whispering as I walk through the class

“Okay class we have a new student transfering to our class from a different course, obvious people like me more than miss.smith’s music class” he says obnoxiously as the student enters our class

Daryl Dixon he lived a few houses down from me but we didn’t interact much, sometimes I’d see him take out the trash or see him sitting on the doc on the lake behind our houses, it was rumoured that his dad beat on him too but it’s not like we were gonna be friends because we’re abused that crazy…..right?

“You can go sit at the back next to y/n” Mr.Jenson points out to me

He sits down and I can smell his calming aroma, woodsy with a hint of cigarette

“Hi” I smiled meakly

“Hey, ya live on my street don’t ya” he asks slouching down in the chair

“Yeah, I’ve seen you around” so he’s seen me too

“Alright class listen up” the class went on like usual until the bell rang signalling the end of the day, I gathered up all my stuff shoving them in my bag and leaving the class, walking through the hallways heading for the exit when someone runs up next to me

“Hey, ya walking home?” Daryl asks looking down at me

“Oh yeah, I usually like to sit at the doc when I get back, don’t like to stay in the house much”

“Why not?” He asks as he continues to walk beside me back to our street

“I think you know, everyone talks about it” I say motioning to my bruised eyebrow

“They don’t understand, ain’t yer fault”

“It’s just……embarrassing” I say rubbing my arm as a nervous habit

“Yer old man?”

“Yeah, you?” He nods in agreement looking down

“Pretty shitty, wish I could just get out of here or just start fresh here” he hums making my heart warm, finally someone understands how I feel

We got to our street stopping infront of my house

“So ummm I’ll be down at the doc later if you wanna meet me there just to talk or whatever” I say

“Yeah I’ll see ya there” he says heading off to his house a few doors down

I walked into my house hoping nothing happens today, seeing my dad sat on his chair with a beer in his hand watching the tv

I try to walk past him to my room when he grabs my wrist

“Did you pick up the cigarettes from the store like I asked?” His voice is already angry, I completely forgot

“I……I forgot, I’m sorry” I whine as he tightens his grip

“Why can’t you ever listen, you know what this means”

“No please I’m sorry I’ll go get them now”

“It’s too late”

Sitting on the doc was suppose to be a wind down form the day an escape from hell that is suppose to be a house, instead I’m sat here feeling like I went solar against concrete, my lip is busted severely, by cheek stings, bruises and whips against my back, the hoodie I’m wearing was irritating against my sore flesh

I’d do anything just to go back in time and run away with my sister but I was scared and young and now I’m miserable and constantly afraid

“Hey sorry I’m late” I heard from next to me, too deep in thought to have heard him approach

I kept my head down looking at the water

“It’s fine” I mumble

“Ya okay?” That one simple question broke the damn in me as tears spilled down my cheeks, I turn to him just wanting reassurance or comfort

“I forgot to get a pack of cigarettes on the way home” my voice quivers as he stares at my red cheek and bust lip

“How am I even suppose to cover this up”

“I could go kill him” he huffs anger rising in his features

“Everything hurts” I wince when he places his hand on my back, he pulled back quickly

“Do ya need help?”

“I don’t know how bad they are”

He moves behind me lifting my sweater up to my shoulders, revealing the old and new scars that littered my back with occasionally fresh bruises

“Oh baby girl I’m so sorry” he says under his breath but there was something there in his words that made it feel like he understood this type of beating

“Are they bad?”

“Don’t think ya need stitches but I don’t want ya going back there” he says bringing my sweater back down moving beside me again

“But where am I suppose to go?”

“Old man’s gone for a week, ya can stay at my place”

“Are you sure I don’t want to burden you”

“Ain’t a burden, yer staying with me, come on”

His house was more or less just like mine but there is no surprise there, our fathers are basically the same, he brings me to his room and it’s pretty normal, some hunting stuff plain brown walls

“Thanks for this” I say sitting on the edge of his bed

“ ‘course, ya need anything?”

“Do you have any painkillers?” He went in his drawer and popped one in my hand, taking it hoping it will ease this discomfort

He jumped on the bed sitting next to me as a comfortable silence surrounds us

“I got em too”

“Huh?”

“Scars, don’t like to show em, don’t like to be reminded”

“I’m sorry Daryl, one day we’ll be happy, one day we’ll get out of this mess”

“Together”

Part.2

Taglist: @l0kilaufeys0n7 @stoner420things69 @pinchofthetwd @thestonedwriter @daryldixmedown @deansapplepie @ghostboneswrites2 @superbowlisgay @daryls-wife @pinkratts @daryl-dixons-left-hand @mrrumplebottom @twistedprincess-92 @addi1978 @wongcena @darylspersonalwhore @starrqi @heidiland05 @livlaughlove03

[pippin-katz]

Alright, I have mostly restrained myself, but I cannot stay quiet any longer. There is a question that has been eating at me...

Whose fucking idea was it to have Henry (Nicholas) constantly grabbing Alex's (Taylor's) hair?!

Note: I'm adding this in after finishing writing this because this was supposed to be a relatively short post, and then it spiraled out of control, so if you want to listen to me gradually lose my sanity over this question, feel free to keep reading, cause it is admittedly funny lmfao

Another Note: This is me being overly sarcastic and hyper cause it’s funny for me to think about that situation. This is supposed to be a funny post. I said that at the end, but I’m adding it here too.

Listen, remember what they said about the intimate scenes: they were planned down to every detail. Remember what Nicholas said about having conversations with Taylor, Matthew, and Robbie about boundaries, what was okay, and not okay. Remember that they have A LINE IN THE FILM ABOUT HENRY GRABBING HIS HAIR (iconic).

Do you see it? Do you see where this is going?

The hair pulling/grabbing is not random. It doesn't happen in just the New Year's kiss to set up a funny line later.

It happens all the time.

Even in soft moments, Henry has a hand in his hair.

The hair grabbing gets its own shot in their love-making scene.

Consistent small actions (twisting a ring, biting nails, drumming with fingers, etc.) are character habits. They're things that they do all the time, subconsciously or for a decisive reason, usually if you know that action causes a specific response that you want for any reason.

There's a coworker that drives you crazy, so you purposefully hum really loudly whenever they're in the room to piss them off. Your friend has a sensitivity to the color red, so on days you know you're going to see them, you avoid wearing it. Your partner has muscle cramps, so you massage their shoulders whenever you're standing behind them.

These habits usually start as conscious decisions, then gradually become subconscious, hence the term "habit". You've been doing something for so long or for frequently enough that you do it while on "autopilot".

I think it's pretty obvious why this action happens. It's because A: Henry likes feeling of his hair, and/or B: Alex likes when someone touches his hair. Note: This could be in any context, not just sexual; running fingers through it, washing it, styling it, etc.

Either you figured out what I am going to say, and you're wondering why I'm blabbering on so much, or you're just confused about where I'm going with this at all, so here's where it all clicks together.

When you have a character, habits are something you give them to give them more personality, more insight into their mentality through subtle things they do. It's something the director/writer/actor chooses to give to the character.

BUT - nothing in the intimacy scenes happen without being discussed and agreed upon.

This isn't like Nicholas fidgeting with the signet ring to show Henry's nerves. This isn't like Taylor frequently making little hand gestures (peace signs, finger guns, tapping the side of his glass, etc.) because Alex has undiagnosed ADHD and that's one way to physically imply it.

They can do those things without being told or given "permission" because it's their portrayal of the character, it doesn't effect anyone else, and small details like that are typically up to the actors, unless the director is incredibly strict.

BUT - AGAIN WITH FEELING - NOTHING IN THE INTIMACY SCENES HAPPEN WITHOUT BEING DISCUSSED AND AGREED UPON.

That means that someone, one of the four of them, brought up grabbing his hair as a suggestion, and further more, Taylor (and Nick, but obviously Taylor's consent is more important in this specific case) was fine with it.

Think about it. Think about them sitting around a table discussing the kinds of stuff that Matthew and Robbie would want to see, and what Nick and Taylor would be okay with. Think about the fact that one of them was sitting there, and looked at the other three, and said: "What if Henry grabs Alex's hair a lot?"

And then the four of them had to sit there, and talk, in depth, about what that would mean.

*inhale*

Who... the fuck... said it?

WHO SAID IT?!

Did Matthew and Robbie present it as part of the initial planning?? Or did one of them look Taylor and Nick in the eye and say it?? Did Nick throw it out there as something he thought Henry would do?? Was it Taylor??? Since it's his hair???

Cause it's not just like, running Nick running his fingers through it, combing it during some tender moment, like when Alex talks about his father being an immigrant.

HE FUCKING GRABS IT.

What the fuck were these conversations like?! I cannot think of a single way to have that conversation where someone wouldn't have to say something that would make me make me go UHHH-

What? So - Matthew's like "how do you guys feel about touching each other's hair?" -and they're like "what, you mean like running our fingers through it?" -and he's like "nah yanking it while you're making out"

Like... what do you say to that?! - "oh which one of us would do it to the other?" -and what, did Taylor fucking volunteer?? Just like - "he can pull my hair, it's chill" - WTF?!

Or did he suggest it in the first place, like they were discussing things that would that could be part of Alex and Henry's dynamic and he's just like - "he could pull my hair?" -and the other three just stared at him for a second, because wtf that's a intensely intimate action to suggest?!

Hair touching in general is really intimate, in like, every context, at least I think to most people, and definitely to me. Most people wouldn't just let someone, even someone they were friends with, start playing with their hair or touching their head. I wouldn't even let my best friend randomly touch my head; I would instinctually try to bite their hand off (not a joke). Maybe I'm a slight bit more touch-repulsed than most, but I feel like it's safe to say that the majority of people don't want their hair and head being touched, grabbed, or played with unless they say so.

And again, they do it CONSISTENTLY. It's not a one and done scene. It is an actual dynamic between Alex and Henry they chose to establish.

SO I ASK AGAIN: WHOSE IDEA WAS IT?!

I'm looking at you four, Matthew, Robbie, Taylor, and Nicholas. I know it was one of you cheeky bastards that suggested it. One of you brought it up, and the rest of you were like "sure".

I will be forever haunted by this mystery, as I doubt I will ever get an answer.

Note: Please don't take this super seriously. I'm not trying to imply anything; I'm literally just joking around cause the concept of having that conversation boggles my mind lol

Thanks for reading!! If you enjoyed this essay & would like to support me, you can give me a tip on my Ko-Fi! ☺️

[fanwarriorfictions]

Help Me, Help You - Part One

Fenrys x F!Reader

Summary- In his search for the missing member of the cadre, Fenrys stumbles upon Vaughan’s little sister, who is also searching for her brother. They strike a deal, and set of to find the slippery male.

Warnings- tiny bit of angst if you squint

Based on this ask

Series Masterlist

Part One

There was a cat following him.

It had been for several days now, ever since he’d shown up in the small village just north of Verese. He wouldn’t have paid the creature any mind if it hadn’t been for the keen eyes that tracked his every step to the small inn that first night. And again, when it showed up that morning as soon as Fenrys stepped into the village market.

Fenrys had been searching for Vaughan for months now, since the end of the war, since he’d driven Goldryn into Maeve’s black heart and watched as Aelin burned her to ash, since her death hadn’t fixed any of the broken pieces of him.

He’d set off soon after that, to look for the final member of the cadre, to offer him a place in Terrasen, to distract his mind from the memories.

In the time Fenrys had searched, he’d only been able to find small signs that the male even existed. Picking rumors from towns and villages, but Vaughan was smart, he didn’t leave a trail if he could get away with it.

Sometimes Fenrys would follow a lead only to hit a dead end, turning back to find that the male had went the complete opposite direction.

He’d heard rumors of a to large osprey flying north from Wendlyn’s capital. So he’d followed them to this tiny little spec of a village. Full of humans who were to hesitant or downright to terrified to speak to him, even when Fenrys flashed his charming smile.

Though he understood that the effect was diminished by the scars that now adorned one side of his face. His eye just barely spared from the damage.

He’d refused to heal the wounds, had refused to tell anyone why he’d let them scar, only telling Aelin once that he wanted to remember. She hadn’t pried, he almost wished she had.

The only thing that didn’t seem to mind the scars in this village was the damned cat. It simply watched him as he struck out with every single vendor in the market, those keen eyes examining him from head to toe. Day after day, it watched.

Now, Fenrys openly glares back at the creature, larger than a usual house cat, more like one of the forest cats that hunted in Oakwald, the dark grey and white fur perfect for blending into the shadows, striking at prey fast and disappearing even quicker.

The cat simply stares back, its head tilting in that predatory way, like he was nothing more than a mouse it had marked for dinner.

“I don’t suppose you’ve seen the bastard I’m looking for?”

The poor woman at the spice stand beside Fenrys balks at him, eyes wide and scared as he talked to the cat. Gods, he was talking to a damned cat. He was surely going crazy, maybe he should give up on this useless search and go back to Terrasen.

Fenrys smiles at the woman, his mask of cool charm in place, “Sorry, you wouldn’t happen to have seen a large bird flying through here have you?”

That’s all that charm was nowadays, a mask. It felt like a preformance, and Fenrys was the poor fool forced to act.

He could scent her fear but the woman opened her mouth, voice pitched, “I have actually.”

The cat seemed to perk from its spot on the window seat across from them.

Fenrys raised a brow at the creature, turning back to the woman, “Did you see where he was headed?”

“He was flying north,” the woman swallows nervously, “I thought it odd considering winter is already setting in up near the port. It didn’t stick around long.”

The first real clue he’d gotten in the week he’d been there, and it would seem the male was well on his way. Hopefully he wasn’t already on a damned boat back across the ocean.

“Thank you.” Fenrys pulls a few gold pieces from his pocket, watching the woman’s eyes go wide as he sets them on the counter between them.

He turns, finding that cat still watching him, almost expectantly, “Are you coming?”

Unsurprisingly, the cat follows him as he walks back to the run down inn, keeping a healthy distance between them.

He left it on the street in front of the inn, climbing the rickety steps that groaned beneath his weight. The tiny room feels claustrophobic, the bed barely big enough to hold him, the only light is the sun through a single window and a candle he’d scavenged from the bar room on the first floor.

Fenrys didn’t have much to pack, just a few clothes and his weapons. He didn’t even bother to close the door behind him, he’d be out in less than a minute.

“Are you leaving?”

He whirled towards the voice, dagger poised to strike. Fenrys found a beautiful female, familiar keen eyes watching him with curiosity, like she had for the past week. The damned cat, he was almost annoyed with himself for not realizing she was fae.

“Tired of watching from a far?” Fenrys asks, giving the female a lazy smirk.

He keeps that dagger level with her throat, laying the charm on thick to hide the way his heart had leapt in his chest. Not many could sneak up on him, he never let his guard down, especially now.

Her eyes still have a feline look to them, a shine in the light that left Fenrys feeling uneasy.

She steps further into the room, like she didn’t care about that blade aimed for her throat, “Are you going to find him?”

“Find who?”

That glare is near lethal and Fenrys feels his invisible hackles raise, ready to fight.

“Don’t play dumb with me, pup.”

“So you know who I am,” he states, a scarred brow raised, “How do you know who I’m looking for?”

“Because I’ve been looking for him too,” she says, arms crossing over her chest. “Now that your bitch of a Queen is dead, he’s finally free to come home.”

Even after her death, very few fae, especially this close to Doranelle, were brave enough to speak against Maeve. Even the ones who’d fought with them against her and Erawan’s forces, she was like a ghost, still haunting them all.

“I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but he’s been a free male for months now. I doubt your dear Vaughan is coming home to you.” Fenrys can’t help the smirk that came to his lips as he looks her up and down, “Which is a mistake on his part.”

The look of disgust on her face is near comical, “I’m not some desperate old flame.”

He raises a brow, “Sorry to assume. If not a vengeful past lover, then who are you?”

“His sister,” she snarls.

Fenrys felt like the carpet was pulled out from beneath his feet. The shock is enough to have him lowering his dagger.

“He has a sister?”

He didn’t see much resemblance, Vaughan was an imposing male, tall, nearly as tall as Lorcan with dark hair and eyes, and he was quiet, rarely speaking more than he had to, never joining in on celebrations or nights spent at pubs.

Now that Fenrys thought about it, he didn’t know all that much about the male, beside his time in Maeve’s cadre. An excellent warrior, they’d fought side by side many times, had fought for Mistward. He’d been blood sworn to the valg queen long before Connall and Fenrys had taken their oaths. Other than that, Vaughan was a mystery.

“I’m not surprised my brother never told you of me.” The female perches on the edge of the small wooden desk by the door, “Vaughan is an over protective bastard when he cares enough to show his face.”

There’s an edge to her voice, she was very angry at her brother, and he could understand why. The elusive male could have gone home at any time, yet he was still traveling the world.

He’d traced him through Erilea, and all the way across the ocean back to Wendlyn, yet not Doranelle. He’d kept his distance from the fae cities, like he was hiding from something, maybe someone.

Fenrys examines the female, just as she examines the tiny room around them, her eyes flitting over his weapons with little interest. She holds herself with feline grace, like her other form lingered in this one. No wonder she was able to sneak up on him without a sound.

“What’s your name?” Fenrys asks.

She’s clad in form fitting leathers, similar to the suit Aelin had worn in her time as an assassin. Fenrys, a full blooded fae male, noted that she was absolutely gorgeous, the type of female that would have males and females alike crawling for her.

Maybe in another life, before the events in the past year, Fenrys would have crawled for her too.

“Y/n,” she says simply, turning that gaze back on him, “And I already know who you are.”

“I hope your brother only told you the good stories,” he grins.

She gives him an unimpressed look, “He told me enough.”

Given his own reputation, Fenrys wasn’t really surprised by the lack luster response. He wasn’t the type many would want their sisters around.

“Ouch.” Fenrys raises a hand to his heart, pouting, “That bad-“

“I’m not here for small talk,” she interrupts, pushing off that desk, “You’ve been asking around for my brother for months now, why?”

The room was truly to small, the few steps she takes places her directly in front of him. She’s either really brave, or incredibly stupid to put herself in easy striking distance.

“Straight to the point,” Fenrys nods, “I like that, it’s quite refreshing.”

Her glare could set him ablaze, “Do you know where he’s going? Why he hasn’t come home?”

“You’ve been following me around,” he shrugs, “I’m sure you know as much as I do at this point. Which is a whole lot of nothing.”

“Why are you looking for him?” She asks again, “From what I hear you’re serving a new queen, is Aelin Galathynius so desperate to fill her court with Maeve’s old one?”

Fenrys can’t stop the flare of anger. The condescending tone, the obvious distaste of his queen, his friend.

“She wishes to offer him the same courtesy she offered me and mine,” he snarls, closing that small gap between them.

Fenrys wasn’t as tall and foreboding as Lorcan or even Rowan, but he wasn’t small by any means. Y/n had to crane her neck back to keep her glare locked on his own. She somehow makes it seem like she’s looking down her nose at him.

“And what’s that?” She asks, rolling her eyes at him, “A blood oath or death?”

“A better world,” Fenrys snaps, “It’s his choice if he wants to join her court, there’s no consequence if he doesn’t, simply an offer.”

She hums, “Isn’t that amicable.”

Fenrys took a deep breath through his nose, forcing himself to calm down, “Was there something you wanted, kitty cat? Or are you just here for the view?”

The nickname has its desired effect, she bristles, and Fenrys mockingly smirks at her. That seems to get under her skin even more.

“I have a proposition,” she grounds out, “I think we can help each other.”

“Oh?” Fenrys lets his smirk turn into a lazy grin, that mask of male arrogance, “How so?”

“My brother isn’t an idiot,” she hisses, taking a large step away from him, a look of pure disgust on her face, “He’s no doubt heard of you asking around for him, just like I did. You’ll never catch up to him.”

Fenrys keeps his distance, “Oh really? And you think you can? If you could, you wouldn’t be here asking me for help.”

He turns back to his bag, throwing the last few shirts into it before slinging the leather pack over his shoulder. She stands directly in the doorway, blocking his only exit out of the room.

“Now if you’ll excuse me.” He nods to the open hall behind her, “I should-“

“He’s leaving for the southern continent,” Y/n interrupts, “Their was a naval ship sent by King Glaston himself, a gift for the Khagan, it left a few days ago, and I’m willing to bet my brother is stowed away on it.”

That’s exactly what Fenrys had been nervous of. And of course he was going to the southern continent, the massive expanse of land where the male could quite literally go anywhere.

Fenrys raises a brow at her, “If you know where he’s going, why ask for my help at all?”

Her eyes shift, just barely, and it’s enough to tell Fenrys that she’s nervous.

“You know my brother,” she says, “You were his friend-”

“In the loosest sense of the word,” Fenrys cuts in.

He raises his hands in mock surrender when she glares at his interruption. After a moment, the scathing heat leaves her eyes and she sighs.

“I haven’t seen my brother in nearly two decades, the last time we saw each other.” She stops, frowning down at the ground, “You aren’t the only one he’s trying to shake off his tail.”

Sibling fights, Fenrys feels his heart squeeze painfully in his chest, he knew those all to well.

Onyx eyes, blankly staring at him, the life bleeding out of them onto the floor.

“We have a common goal.” Her voice brings him back to the present, “If we work together, we may be able to find him, and we both get what we want.”

Y/n sticks her hand out between them. Fenrys sees the smallest waver in her, the shaking she tries to hide. Behind the glares and grace, was simply a girl, desperate to find her brother, to make amends.

And maybe it was that, the fact that Fenrys would never have that chance, that made him take her hand in his.

“Help me, Help you.” Fenrys shakes her hand once, noting how incredibly soft her palms are compared to his calloused one, “You’ve got a deal.”

And when she smiles, Fenrys find it in him to smile back.

“So when do we leave?” Y/n asks.

Fenrys gestures towards the hall behind her, “Right now, kitten.”

“Don’t call me that,” she hisses.

And Fenrys laughs, and for the first time in many many months, it feels almost genuine.

[justnatoka]

Of crushes and marshmallows

Dwayne x GN! Reader

A/n: Yes, I know the setup is very similar to Love is in the air, but I couldn't care less lol.

Word count: 938

Prompt: "He's so pretty I think I'm gonna faint."

The smell of burnt sugar filled your nose as Paul yelped, then started cursing. He had been working on roasting the perfect marshmallow, carefully keeping watch to make it just right. However, when you looked over, his stick was tipped over, right into the campfire, his marshmallow lying sad and abandoned in between the charred logs. Paul himself was already further down the beach, chasing after a cackling Marko. His shout of “I’ll get you, you little shit” and his brother’s booming laughter flew back to you with the light summer breeze.

You just finished eating your own sweet snack, and thanked the gods – and Marko – for finding packs of marshmallows among the belongings of the unfortunate college guys you fed on for dinner. Ironically enough, they were also camped out around their own fire on the complete other end of the beach. You all figured it would be a shame to let those goodies go to waste. Morally questionable? Absolutely. But morals go out the window the minute you start tearing people’s throats out.

You noticed that the bag you’ve been sharing with Star had run out, so you motioned over to Dwayne. He was sitting across from you on the other side of the fire, the bag of marshmallows between him and David still half full. He took one out and tossed it over the flames, and you grinned as you perfectly caught it with one hand.

“Nice throw,” you commented.

“Nice catch,” he turned it right back at you. You would be lying if you said your stomach didn’t flutter at his words and the half smile that accompanied them. You averted your eyes in embarrassment, and busied yourself with securely putting your marshmallow onto your stick instead.

Yes, you had a massive crush on him. It was an undeniable fact that you tried to suppress as much as possible. You had no idea how it would play out if you confessed to him. If he rejected you, you couldn’t live it down. Not to mention all the teasing you would receive from the boys. So you kept it to yourself, swooning over him in your head like a lovesick teenager.

Paul and Marko returned and started to tell an elaborate story of some guy they saw on the boardwalk the day before as if nothing happened, the whole marshmallow fiasco quickly forgotten. The others watched them with amusement as they played out the whole scenario. Meanwhile, you were watching Dwayne.

The evening breeze caught strands of his hair, swaying them gently, and you felt a sudden need to run your fingers through them to see if they were as soft as you imagined. He looked positively majestic with the warm glow of the flames painting his skin a rich golden hue, their light twinkling in his dark eyes, giving them a playful glint. And then the edges of his lips turned upwards, breaking into a huge smile and laughter filled the air as the others cracked up at something Marko said.

He just so happened to turn to you at that moment, eyes still crinkling at the corners and the air left your lungs as you were struck by his beauty. It was hard to believe someone can be so effortlessly beautiful. You wished you could capture this moment with all of its sounds and smells, so you could come back later and drown in it; with him looking at you like that, all smiles and shining eyes, the echo of his laughter still in your ears.

“Dammit, he’s so pretty I think I’m gonna faint.”

It was unconscious. You didn’t even realize you said it out loud until you noticed Star turn to look at you from the corner of your eye. You turned to her, eyes wide when you saw her amused expression. In the next second, her smile turned mischievous. You knew what she was about to do, and you started shaking your head like crazy. Still looking into your eyes, she spoke up loud and clear.

“You know, if you stared at Dwayne any more, I would be concerned for your eyes falling out of your head.”

The silence was deafening. And the more it stretched on, the more you were sweating. In the end it was Paul who broke the tension.

“Finally someone said it! I thought I would go crazy if something didn’t happen soon,” he threw his hands in the air.

“Wait, what? You knew?” You were so surprised, you even forgot to deny it.

“You aren’t exactly subtle,” David commented while taking a drag of his cigarette.

“Yeah, dude, you were practically salivating every time you looked at him. It was pretty obvious,” Marko added and you wanted to die.

Hesitantly, you turned to Dwayne.

“Did you know too?”

He just nodded silently.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I figured you would tell me when you’re ready.” His eyes were so soft as he looked at you. It warmed your heart, and your embarrassment slowly started to die down.

“So, what now?” you asked.

A smile grew on his lips that was definitely flirtatious.

“We can start with you coming closer,” he said and patted the sand beside him.

You face felt hot as you gaped at him for a moment before getting up and plotting yourself down next to him. Dwayne immediately threw an arm over your shoulder, bringing you to his side and it just felt right. You couldn’t wash the dopey grin off your face for the rest of the evening, not even when Marko shouted at you two to get a room.

[touyas-multi-purpose-saline]

DAY IX. — FORCED ORGASM

cw: Forced Orgasm, Violence / Allusions to Violence, Weapons / Use of Weapons, Murder / Reversed Murder, Blood, Traumatic and Graphic Descriptions of Death / Dying, Overhaul Being an Asshole and Desperately Angry, Sexual Torture, Unhealthy Relationships, Slight Yandere Undertones, Uncomfortable Scenarios, General Dark Content Not Suitable for Immature Audiences, Fem! Reader. Reader discretion is advised. 18+ Only!

author's note: I think that if Overhaul had a lover, he would not be very kind in the sense that he would be a little too unstable to view everything you do in the right light. I.E., good luck, he's delusional and jealous. Also, he would definitely threaten to use his Quirk on you. I do not condone unhealthy behavior in any sense! This is strictly fiction! Do not force yourself to read if you're uncomfortable.

word count: Approximately 1.2k words.

The bed isn’t as comforting as it should be whenever your knees and palms slammed against its plush expanse. A shocked gasp warbles in the back of your throat, but it’s immediately stifled by a frustrated growl accompanied by a hand connecting to the back of your head. Kai’s voice is like poison to your ears whenever your face collides into the bed. 

“What was that? Were you trying to be cute or were you trying to piss me off?” 

You attempt to respond, but Kai’s hand keeps your face buried in the covers. It’s getting harder to breathe, but you don’t struggle. No, if you do that, you’ll just make him angrier. He clambers onto the bed with you, one leg folded to support his weight while the other dangles off of the edge. You can feel it—he likes to hold you in this position whenever you’ve done something ‘wrong.’ 

“He was so annoying. The way he laid his filthy hands on you is just driving me crazy. I hate it!” 

Kai’s fingers braid through your locks before he clenches and rears your head back roughly. You cry out, agony igniting in your veins and shivering down the wisps of your blood, but Kai doesn’t falter. He just pulls you into his lap, his free hand immediately diving down in between your legs, seeking, fondling. 

“I’ll never let you go out with me like that again. What kind of bait wants to get dirty with their target? I can’t believe you would cheat on me like that. Damn!” 

It’s better to close your eyes and let Kai rant, to let those claws slice down your thigh. A couple of them snagged against the holster strapped around it—the one hidden underneath your skirt, just a backup in case you needed to protect yourself on these sorts of heists. He rips it off without a care in the world, as if he doesn’t care there’s a loaded weapon in there. Kai lets the gun dangle by its strap for a few long and heavy moments, breathing so hard that you think he’s panting, that he’s not even sucking up oxygen, it’s just a reflex. You crack one eye open, vision carefully sliding over to watch the gun sway. The hand in your hair drops down, swooping underneath your arm before his fingers cup your jaw harshly. 

“Why are you always flirting with other men? Is there something wrong with me? Do you not love me? I don’t understand. Tell me why you cheat on me.” 

I’m not, but you don’t say that. 

“N-No, there’s nothing wrong with you, K-Kai. I was just trying to—to butter that guy up, I swear.” 

The holster clatters to the bed, loud even in its muted silence. And it happens so fast, but Kai’s hand is a falcon, and suddenly something hard and cold pressed into your temple. You gasp in genuine terror, both eyes open and unfocused, and you home in on the object digging into you. The gun. Kai has the gun against your head right now. Are you breathing? Is this real? Surely this can’t be happening. It’s so chilly—when did the room start darkening? Shadows splatter against the wall, you can’t breathe. Holy fucking shit, you can’t breathe. He’s delusional. What. What did you do? That guy’s face flashes in your mind—what was his name again? He was so unimportant to you that you can barely remember the finer details of his appearance. Kai was jealous of him—of that? You swallow, but all that comes up is frothy milk. 

“Prove it. Touch yourself for me. I want to hear you moan my name. I want to hear you beg and apologize while you finish. Now. Do it now or I’ll pull this trigger. Don’t make me. I don’t want to have to punish you, angel.” 

Tears are welling in the corners of your eyes, lip trembling, and you slowly start to slide a hand down your belly until it’s bunching up the fabric of your skirt and slipping down your mound. 

“K-Kai, I—Please, listen, I didn’t mean to upset you. I—” 

The gun’s gravity sucks in. 

“Too late. You’ve hurt me, so stop stalling and make it better.” 

Your fingertips roll down until they catch against your clit, flaccid and still. You’re not aroused in the slightest and the gun against your head serves as a reminder of impending doom—and you can’t get hard with that, you can’t get wet, you can’t feel any heat pool down your tummy in the delicious kind of way that makes you want to pleasure yourself. 

“Please, please, Kai. It’s not what you think—he—that guy doesn’t matter to me, I was trying to help you—I just wanted to help, I—Kai, I love y—” 

Thundering echoes rumble throughout your head. It’s a kind of ache that feels like a pinch, but a needle that doesn’t know when to stop piercing the skin. Deeper and deeper, there are cries in your head. Silence and ringing, some sort of pressure, sinus, allergies, fireworks, firecrackers, altitude. Fuzz and haze flashes before your eyes, some sort of smoky and mystical summer day that hangs in the distance of an incoming twister. Your eyebrows pinched together. Time is pausing, so slow, like a falling tone of music that keeps building the bass. The reverberations. And on the other side of your head, an explosion. You don’t even have time to scream, but the pain you feel is nothing human. Papercuts, lemon juice, fire, acid, car crashes, broken bones, knife gashes, decapitation, drowning—all at once and yet not at all. 

It feels like it just goes on and on, a light at the end of the tunnel that beckons but never quite reaches its hand out, at the spinning and feverish shudders wriggling underneath your flesh, and then—it all sucks back in. 

You blink. 

Kai is hyperventilating. A few wet droplets hit the back of your neck. He’s crying. 

“N—… Next time I won’t put you back together. Hurry up, come on, I need it. Come on, angel!” 

Your fingers are rubbing your clit in quick jerks now, up and down, side to side, pressing down and twisting in all of the right ways. You think you’re moaning. They shake in the back of your throat while your thighs clench. You stare at the wall. Your chest is tight, heart frozen in ice and quicksand. 

“I’m sorry, Kai.” 

A moan punctuates your statement, but there’s no emotion behind it. You lean back against him, unaware of anything. His chest heaves and tickles you. It’s so good. Proper, sturdy, and you’re bucking your hips up while you chase your high. It’s there, building, and you start gasping. 

“I’m really sorry, Kai. I love you, Kai. I want you, Kai. I only need you, Kai. I need you to forgive me, Kai. Kai. Kai Kai Kai Kai kai kai 

Something pops inside of you, cream and sobs that choke you and you’re left decaying in Kai’s arms. 

The gun still against your head. 

[ivystoryweaver]

With You part 5

<-prev next-> || Fic Masterlist || My Masterlist

Summary: Jake tries to fall asleep beside you, Steven is there to adore you in the morning and Marc is still struggling. What happens when Jake breaks his lifelong silence?

Pairings: Jake Lockley x reader, Steven Grant x reader, Marc Spector x reader. Gender neutral reader. No use of Y/N. Reader is engaged to Marc and Steven.

Word Count: 4.7k

Warnings/notables: Fluff, longing, complicated relationship stuff. Angst. References to past abuse. Struggles with addiction/alcoholism and its effects. Probably inaccurate description of addiction. self-worth probs. Violence is mentioned. kissing and touching, implied sex but no smut, nothing explicit or gender-specific. Let me know if I missed a warning. inaccurate DID, based on the show. Not beta'd we die like arthur harrow in the back of jake's car

Dividers by saradika

PREVIOUSLY, on “With You”...

Oh, he liked the idea of getting under your skin. He liked it a lot. 

“Really?” He teased. “You mean you don’t scare the shit out them in the middle of the night? Follow them around? Drive them crazy...wearing that?” He threw your words back at you. 

What a little shit. 

“No,” you steadily answered him, your gaze open and honest. “I guess I’m just here to drive you crazy.” 

With little convincing, Jake got ready for bed, so he could join you in finally getting some rest. Your 3am alarm went off as he was washing up, so you silenced the one for 4:00.

Conveniently it was your day off, so no other alarm was set. Steven did have one class mid-day, but otherwise, also had the day off.

As Jake slid under the covers, you reached to turn off the bedside lamp. Then you were left in the same position you found yourself in that first night.

The night he held your hand.

Remembering what you'd whispered to him in the dark that night, you softly uttered, "I'm glad you came back to me, Jake."

"I'll always come back to you," he swiftly replied, his voice the softest you'd ever heard it.

Slowly, you reached for him, resting your hand over his. He immediately slid his fingers through yours, just like the first night, and whispered goodnight.

Jake always came home while you were asleep, and he didn't even front every day. Usually he was only there when Khonshu bid him take to the nighttime alleyways and rooftops, or when Marc and Steven were in an exorbitant amount of danger...

...which was unfortunately more often than either of them (or you) were aware. Marc had a long and colorful past, in which he'd made many enemies - some of them, through no fault of his.

Abused, with an undiagnosed disorder, there were sections of his life missing, and problems he just couldn't control. That, combined with blackouts from drinking and a mighty temper, when provoked, had left a trail of...unfortunate mishaps. And pissed off former associates and enemies.

Time eased many grievances, and Marc had handled several problems on his own, years ago. But even after Jake himself had dispensed with Arthur Harrow, there still lingered fingers of his network. And those weren't the only problems.

Just last week, Jake had disposed of a man who had followed you home from work two nights in a row. He simply watched the first night, choosing restraint, but after he saw the mysterious man following you a little too closely the second night, well - that man did not live to see a third.

At first, Jake wondered how Marc could be so naive. He expected that more from Steven. Well, not naivety, exactly, but a general "chin up" outlook on life that the he radiated.

Steven, although far more direct, outspoken and cautious than most people gave him credit for, was an overall ray of sunshine. In protecting the system, Jake wasn't just protecting his own body, or Marc, who he had known since his youth, he was protecting Steven - the one Marc simply could not do without.

And Jake supposed that's what it all came down to. Marc had settled into a beautiful domesticity with both you and Steven. And maybe that was why Marc couldn't perceive the danger you were all in.

Jake was happy to keep it that way. If Marc was not only safe, but thriving, if Steven was growing and learning, putting his beautiful mind to work, and the two of them had someone they loved? Then Jake had done his job. As long he stayed on top of things, it could all work out.

But the drinking relapse was a problem. And he hadn't counted on you meeting him.

Jake had often wondered how Marc and Steven - for lack of a better word - shared you. He wondered if they ever got jealous. Or if you ever showed any preference for one over the other. That's why he thought it best to stay out of it. Not only did he hope to keep his head down and do his job, he was concerned that getting mixed up with you would only confuse him.

That all went right to hell when he carelessly barreled into your bedroom the other night, having forgotten to have Marc or Steven check in with you earlier, or go to bed beside you. He was equally panicked and wonderfully elated for this mishap.

And now, as your soft breathing slowed, he tried to pretend this night was like every other time he'd slipped through the window to find you asleep.

But it wasn't and he couldn't.

He wished you were still awake. He wished he had more time to hear your voice, to watch the flurry of you around the room, picking up his things, worrying after him. Squeezing his eyes shut, he remembered the press of your body against his - the soft satin hugging your shape.

Shit. He could use a cigarette. Or maybe he could beat the hell out of someone.

It was difficult to blow off steam when Marc - a.k.a. their body - couldn't drink and with Marc and Steven engaged to you. Jake tried to respect that. He had the right to his own life, sure, but he just couldn't bring himself to "blow off steam" in that way since you got engaged. You weren't his, but he was faithful to you anyway.

As if sensing his irritation in your sleep, you rolled over, burying your face into his shoulder, snuggling up to him comfortably.

Jake was walking a very fine line between soothed and riled up. If your leg made its way across his thigh, he was going to lose his shit.

Only a few hours later, as the sun struggled to climb into a gray sky, you woke up, tangled in someone. Wondering who might greet you each morning always brought the tiniest smile to your face, but on this morning, just for a moment, you wondered if it was Jake.

Your body stiffened. Did you sleep like this for the past few hours? Did it bother him? You hadn't ever thought of what you might do in the night when Jake got home from his escapades.

As the man beside you continued to breathe evenly, in and out, you decided that three hours of sleep was definitely not enough.

Hours later, you awoke to the domestic sounds of the kitchen. You smelled cooked food and heard the sink's water running, along with the clang of a pot or saucepan.

The sun had made its way through the morning fog, and a sliver of it poured through the crack between the drawn drapes and the window.

After stretching like a very satisfied cat, you freshened up in the bathroom and headed back to your closet to decide what to wear for your day off.

Steven was waiting for you on your bed, perched on the edge.

"Morning, my love," he hummed cheerily, his eyes raking down your body appreciatively. "See you've got on those nice satin pajamas I gave you."

Glancing down at yourself, you softly smiled. "Indeed."

"You're so bloody lovely," he breathed, eyes darkening as he reached out his hand to beckon you back to bed.

Feeling absolutely adored and a little frisky, you skittered over, ready to pounce, when he held up two hands to stop you.

"Careful, darling, I've made you breakfast. Or brunch, rather. It's eleven o'clock," he laughed, nodding toward the tray sitting in the middle of the bed.

Eyes wide, you beamed - but it didn't stop you from climbing onto his lap, just...carefully.

"You are an angel." Locking your arms behind his neck, you dragged your hips forward until you were flush against his body. Rubbing your nose against his, you giggled as he chased after your lips.

"Feeling cheeky this morning, are we?" he tutted after trying and failing to kiss you a few times. "Come here, you." Gently gripping your face in one hand, he opened his mouth hotly over yours. Sucking your lips one at a time, he teased you right back, easing one strong arm around your back. His forearm flexed, holding you firmly as he thrust up against you.

"Steven," you gasped, shifting in his lap to feel him just where you wanted him. Licking into his mouth, you pushed your fingers into his curls, tugging just hard enough for him to jerk deliciously against you again.

The two of you went on that way until he laid back on the bed, pulling you on top of him.

"Steven, Steven, wait--"

Too late. The tray carrying your breakfast spilled all over the bed, some of the jam-covered toast landing on Steven's adorably oversized sleeve.

"Shit, I'm so sorry." Scurrying off the bed, you rapidly gathered up the mess, hands bumping into Steven's as he struggled to help you.

"Thank goodness I've left the tea on the table then, yeah?"

You burst out laughing.

You and Steven cleaned up the bed, finished breakfast (at the table) and dressed in cozy clothes for a day off together. Steven decided missing one class wouldn't hurt anything, since he had high marks in every course.

"Thank you for taking care of me this morning, my love," you sighed contentedly, draping your legs across his lap as you relaxed on the couch. "I noticed you pulled the drapes closed so I could sleep in."

"Oh...must've been Marc, I s'ppose," he mused, rubbing up and down your leg. "Wasn't me."

"Oh, okay. But it was you that cleaned up the broken bottle the other morning, right? Before I woke up and made breakfast for Marc?"

Steven's head whipped around so fast. "Sorry, what? Marc broke a bottle? Darling--"

"It wasn't like that, I promise. It was an accident," you soothed. Reaching for his hand, you squeezed it gently, forgetting, in that moment, who could have cleaned up the bottle.

"Everything's a bit odd lately, innit?" He spoke up after a few moments. "Khonshu scaring the life out of Marc like that, deceivin' us both. Bloody stupid pigeon."

"I'm sorry, baby." You felt a shade guilty having talked to Jake twice when Marc and Steven had yet to even meet him.

"Not your fault, love. The old bird's the one to blame. Him and this other mysterious bloke I've got up here." He tapped one finger to his forehead.

"Jake, you mean." You eyed him cautiously. Feeling like you hadn't seen Steven as much for the past few days, you felt the need to confess - catch him up. "I talked to him again last night. Did Marc tell you we'd met?"

Dark eyes cut over to yours - unreadable - a rarity in your warm and open Steven. "Didn't have to. Spoke to him myself."

You gasped a little dramatically. "Y-you talked to Jake? He talked to you?"

"A bit, yeah," Steven sighed. "A bit. Might have told us we were still entangled with Khonshu so Marc didn't have to wake up in an alley like that. It's no bloody wonder he's had a rough go of it."

Gently rubbing your thumb over his knuckles, you inched a little closer to him on the couch. "So...you're angry with him then. With Jake."

Shaking his head, Steven's gaze dropped. "He's got his own life I s'ppose. Rather used to the way things are with Marc, is all."

"Must be hard, sweetheart," you sweetly sympathized, wishing you could fix any and everything for these men you loved.

"Not your fault," he softly repeated, reaching up to caress your cheek. "He does seem a bit taken with you, though."

Oh god.

"R-really," you squeaked. "Jake said that?"

"Not exactly, but...I gathered," Steven mused, his fingers trailing down over your throat to rest along your collarbone, which he traced carefully. "Made me wonder if you'd worn that lovely satin for him, if I'm honest."

You gulped. "Well...not for him, exactly. I did want to talk to him in a little more than Marc's t-shirt. I want answers too."

The corner of his mouth turned slightly upward, reminding you of Jake. "You're a vision in anything, darling - bare legs and t-shirt, or black satin. I certainly understand why he fancies you."

You skin heated up as you tried to decide how to respond.

And just like Jake the previous night, Steven seemed to enjoy you flustered like this. Giving you a devilish smile, he trailed his fingers down your arm.

"Steven...you're my fiancé," you finally managed, a little breathless. "Jake and I have only spoken twice. It will take a little more than crawling in the window at night to get to know one another."

Nodding, Steven asked, "But you would...like to get to know him?"

"Of course I would," you instantly answered, as if it were obvious. "Of course I want to know someone in our lives like this - part of you and Marc, and...honestly, someone who has you all out at night doing god knows what."

Reaching for your fiancé, you wrapped your arms around his neck. "Besides, I doubt Jake said he fancies me," you chuckled. "Doesn't really sound like him."

"Ohhh, it doesn't, does it?" Steven laughed out. Studying you closely, he added, "Would you like to know what he really said? 'Bout you?"

Spellbound, you nodded as Steven leaned in close. "I'm not going to tell you. That's between you two. But I will tell you what I think, if you care to know."

Climbing across his lap, you touched your forehead to his. "As long as it's something good, baby."

"Oh it is," he breathed against your mouth.

He never told you. But you did finish what you'd started in the bedroom.

After all the recent late night activities, plus a vigorous couple of rounds in bed with Steven, your sated bodies drifted off to sleep...

...which inevitably led to you waking up from your nap, wondering who would be greeting you. The flat was quiet and you were alone.

Feeling a little more relaxed and rested than you had felt in days, you found the clothes Steven had yanked off your body just a couple hours before. You didn't want to waste one more second of your shared day off by sleeping.

After checking the bathroom and the living room, you finally found a note in the kitchen from Marc.

On the roof. - M

Finding some shoes and Marc's tan hoodie, you grabbed your phone, realizing Marc had sent you the same message via text, just in case.

A few minutes later, you made your way out to enjoy the chilly but decently sunny day. A rare treat indeed.

"Hey there," you sweetly greeted, walking up beside Marc, purposely bumping your shoulder against his. "Where's your jacket? It's cold."

He glanced over at you, smirking. "You're wearing the one I like. Looks better on you anyway."

Even though Marc was a little taller than you were, you wrapped your arm around his shoulders as if it might warm him up.

"What are you doing?" He chuckled, already a bit cheered up by your presence.

"I'm protecting you. Like I said, it's cold."

Glancing down at you, he shook his head, amused, while his heart flared with adoration. You were always taking care of him in one way or another. He could never deserve you.

"Come here," he whispered, pulling you into his arms, folding you close. "There, now I'm warm."

"Good," you returned, nuzzling into his neck.

He held you in silence for a few minutes, rubbing up and down your back lovingly.

From what little you knew of Jake, you were fairly certain that Marc was the quietest of his alters. It was nice sometimes, to just be together in contented stillness.

But unlike Jake, there was no one in the world you knew better than Marc. And he was neither content, nor prone to remain still for much longer. Itching to prod about what troubled him, you waited longer still. You had learned to wait him out and he had learned to trust you...confide in you.

"I, uh..." he cleared his throat, breaking the silence after a while. "I came up here because I was thinking about...having a drink."

Oh.

Releasing you, as you knew he would after an admission like that, he folded his well defined arms over his chest. "Sorry." He stared out over the city, wondering what you would think of him - of how he kept letting you down.

Matching his pose, you gave him just enough space to confess, while keeping close enough to ground him.

"Sorry for what?"

Huffing out an irritable sigh, he frowned. "You know what. Sorry for wanting to. For...fucking everything up, for letting you down."

"I see," you softly returned. "Is that all?"

Turning his head, he started at you. "Is that not enough? You need a longer list?"

"No," you shrugged, keeping your gaze fixed on the cityscape. "Just asking if there's anything else you're trying to punish yourself for today."

"There's a never-ending, extremely long fucking list," he huffed, rolling his eyes. "Where do I even begin?"

Turning your body to face him, you waited a moment for him to calm down. "How about we start with what brought you up here today? Did something happen? Did you talk to Steven? Or Jake? Or maybe Addiction is just being the annoying bitch that Addiction is?"

You could see that he was already relieved to have you facing him, engaging with him. Marc could fight with the empty, thin air if he wanted to, because the person he fought hardest with was himself.

"I did...talk to Jake," he finally confessed, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. "He, uh...he actually apologized...for what happened in the alley, with Khonshu."

"Okay," you slowly nodded, your heart rate doubling at the thought of Marc and Jake interacting. "And how did that make you feel?"

"Like an idiot," he huffed, pushing a hand through his hair. "I should have known that Khonshu would never leave us alone." His hands landed on his hips - a trademark Marc-is-annoyed stance. "I should have known it wasn't safe, especially for you."

"What does that mean?" you hesitantly questioned. Surely he didn't mean he was unsafe for you, or Jake was... You started to worry for just a moment, that he would try to do one of those stupid 'you're safer without me' speeches that superheroes were always doing in films.

Like hell. Khonshu could shove his bony beak right up his bony ass. He was not fucking with your engagement, or your life.

Seeing your distress, Marc reached for your shoulders. "Jake saved your life last week," he explained. "Someone was following you home from work."

"He...what?" You gasped. "Who? Jake told you this?"

"Don't know who," Marc replied, his jaw clenching in fury at the thought of anyone even noticing you, let alone trying to stalk you. And to think he had no idea - no inkling that you were in danger... it was unbearable. "Doesn't matter. He's gone now. I just can't believe I let that happen to you and I didn't even realize..."

Releasing you, he paced a few steps away, and back again. Back and forth, punishing himself. For not perceiving that danger still followed him around - followed you. For not being the one to save you. For not recognizing someone else was in his mind, in their body. For being the absolute most useless and pointless of his alters. For all these things compiling and making him want to drown it all at the bottom of a bottle. For being a worthless alcoholic. For being like her...

Marc was the walking embodiment of the phrase, 'that escalated quickly...'

You knew it was bad once he stopped pacing and dug the heels of his hands into his forehead. Steven would probably be joining you momentarily. Or maybe Jake.

"Marc?" You softly called, gently reaching for his wrists to stop him hitting himself in the head. You didn't pull or try to halt his motion, you simply allowed your fingers to circle his wrists. As soon as he realized that his banging motion was jerking your arms too, he stopped, allowing you to hold onto his wrists, rubbing your thumbs carefully over his skin.

"There you are," you soothed, granting him the most gentle smile and pulling his hands down to his chest. "I think you kept this conversation going without me. Probably started telling yourself a whole lot of bullshit...does that sound about right?"

Sometimes you would undercut the most dramatic of his meltdowns with deceptively gentle sarcasm. It always seemed to disarm Marc - your comments showed him your tenderheartedness rather than your slight teasing feeling like mockery. You truly had a gift for it.

You didn't wait for his verbal answer. His silence was compliance. You kept hold of his wrists, there against his chest, and tried to fill in the blanks.

"I'm guessing you're blaming yourself for not knowing everything that's ever going to happen, for not predicting the future, for not knowing every corner of your mind, and for being afflicted with an addiction. Am I close?"

His jaw clenched, this time in anguish, rather than fury.

"You don't...you don't have to do this," he choked, avoiding your gaze. "You shouldn't have to do this."

"Like I hell I shouldn't," you shot back. "I marrying you in 52 days. And on that day, I'm going to vow to love you for better or for worse, in sickness and in health - you know the rest. This is exactly what I should be doing."

"I'm sorry," he brokenly whispered. "I'm sorry I'm like this. I hate it. I hate..."

"What are you like, sweetheart? How is it that you think you should be?"

Marc shook his head, his eyebrows pinched with worry. "I-I don't even have a job or go to school, or always make you smile or feel better, like Steven. I can't even protect you, like Jake. I have nothing to give you. I can't think of one reason to even--"

"Don't you dare," you warned. "Don't you dare compare yourself to them - they are a part of you." Releasing a shaky sigh, you realized then how bad things must have gotten for Marc before he ever even picked up a bottle.

This was deeper than one encounter with Khonshu. He was calling his whole self-worth into question, comparing himself to Steven and now Jake. He hadn't failed you. Maybe you had failed him.

"Look, I don't claim to be any kind of an expert on addiction or DID or marriage," you explained to him. "I only know what I know. When Jake saved my life, you were there. You are a part of him. And-and Steven - his amazing mind is your mind too. This addiction you have - they all have it! I understand you are distinct people, and I respect that. And I don't pretend to know what you're going through or what it feels like to be you, but baby..."

Squeezing his hands, you peered up at him pleadingly. "You were my first love. I knew you first. I loved you first. You are the reason I'm here. And Steven. And Jake. We all love you, Marc and we need you. We're with you. Who else is going to help Steven remember to do his homework? Or make my coffee the way I like it? Or fix the sink every time it leaks?

"Who is going to make me feel like the most special person in the world, make me laugh, make me the best toast for breakfast--"

"Uh, that would be Steven," Marc admitted, his voice softening. "Steven does those things for you."

Thinking back through what you'd just said, you nodded. "True. He does make better toast than you but his coffee-making skills are shit."

Marc cracked a smile. Just a tiny one.

"And you do make me laugh. And make me feel special. Why do you think Steven is the only one who does that?"

"Because...I don't know, because he's so good at it," Marc shrugged, calming down a little more. Your candor was somehow soothing because he never had to wonder where he stood with you.

"Baby, where do you think he gets that from?" You stared at him pointedly, waiting for him to get it. "How many years did you try to protect him, to keep him safe?"

"Yeah, but I fucked that up too," he argued. "He was pissed when he found out about me, remember I told you that."

"Only a first," you reminded him. "But since then, you're literally his best friend. You keep him grounded. And I know it's true for Jake too. You're his moral center."

"Really," Marc scoffed, "then he's fucked."

You rolled your eyes. "You are. From what little I know of Jake, he doesn't seem all that bothered by violence... by doing whatever he feels he needs to do, for you or for Khonshu. Don't you see?"

Marc shook his head.

"When you have to use violence, you hate it, because it was used on you. You've agonized over the lives you've taken, because you value life. What is more morally centered than that?"

Finally releasing your hands, Marc rubbed his face with a long sigh. "I told myself I wasn't going to do this to you. That I was just going to go to a meeting and talk to you after. But...but I thought if I left to go to a meeting that I might stop by the store and there would be a drink, you know, just waiting..."

His hands found their way back to his hips. "What do I do?" He gazed at you as if everything in the world hanged on your answer.

"This," you said confidently. "You take a beat...take a breath, talk to me. Exactly this, baby. Everything you need to be doing, you are doing right now: admitting you're tempted to drink, stopping and thinking first, going to meetings..."

You counted his victories off on your fingers, "Using your support systems, being honest about your feelings, even the really fucking hard ones. This is exactly what you do, Marc. You are literally my hero."

Completely taken aback, his lip trembled. "W-what? No...I-I'm not."

Folding your arms over your chest, you narrowed your eyes, waiting a beat.

"You're not? Shit. I must have been thinking of someone else then." Cracking a grin, you inched toward him slowly. "You're so damn stubborn, Marc Spector, but you have met your match. Game fucking on."

Reaching for his wrists, still planted defiantly on his hips, you pulled his hands into yours. "Now, is there anything I can do to make you feel better today? I could walk you to your meeting? Or fix you some matzah ball soup? I've been practicinggg," you sang, a little playfully.

Sometimes acting like a dork really cheered up your grumpy fiancé. Maybe it would work.

"Please, god no," Marc laughed out, "it was more like matzah meal sludge. I think I could have built a sandcastle with it."

Giggling, you released his hands, sliding your arms around his torso. "Okay, fair enough. Maybe we'll do something else then."

"Yeah, like what?" He shot back, some of the tension finally draining out of his tense body as he wrapped his arms around your back.

"How about a massage?" You suggested. "You love it when I play with your hair. You could lie down on my lap, relax..."

"You're just trying to get my head between your legs, aren't you?" Marc chuckled, narrowing his eyes.

You smiled innocently up at him. "Always."

"Come on, it's freezing out here," he laughed, guiding you back toward the doorway with his arm around your shoulders.

"Still feel like a drink?" You asked, your candor never ceasing to amaze him.

"Only if you make me eat your matzah ball soup," he teased.

Just him joking was a good thing. And he probably would have you walk him to a meeting later in the day. One step at a time.

"You're really doing it, you know? I'm really proud of you," you sweetly affirmed as the two of you made your way back down to your flat.

"Thank you," Marc evenly answered, after a long silence. He hadn't really been sure how to reply until the two of you were back inside your living room. "For everything."

"One day at a time, my love. Today, you're doing it. You're doing everything right."

Wondering what he would ever do without you, Marc pulled you close, gently swaying with you in the silence of your flat. He had always felt so hard to love - his childhood had made sure of that. But you loved him hard.

@stormydaysxx laaundromat @kindlover @spxctorsslxt @deezisnotreal

@rivalriotrenegade @wordacadabra this--is--music @i-still-dont-like-your-face 

idk if all the tags work. I tried!

[long-live-astronerd-ghost-king]

Ectoberhaunt 2023. Day 17. Blood and Flesh.

CW: TW! Recurrent pregnancy loss. TW!Abortion. TW!Bleeding

Maddie: Jack, we need to talk. I know this is gonna sound crazy but I think Phantom, the ghost boy, is actually our son. And I’m sure Danny and Jazz know about it too.

What if we bring down on the Fentons the knowledge that they have ghost children without revealing Phantom’s identity?

Text+Chat+Memes=Prompt:

Of course Maddie wanted to have children. But…Not in college. She felt it was too soon. The lack of stable earnings and time were not conditions for growing a new person. She had nothing to give this potential child. Maddie did not hesitate long before deciding to have an abortion.

And for years, neither Jack nor Maddie have thought about this unplanned pregnancy.

Ectoplasm is toxic, obviously. But since ectology was only recently recognized by the scientific community, no one has ever fully analysed the effects of ectoplasm on the body.

When Maddie and Jack had the misfortune to become one of those couples experiencing recurrent pregnancy loss, they immediately suspected that the ectoplasm in their lab contributed to their reproductive difficulty. Put simply, death didn’t go with life.

They may not always have followed the lab’s safety rules perfectly, but is that why one of their first works will be exposing a teratogenic effect of ectoplasm? What if they’ve lost their only chance to be biological parents?

What a cruel price to pay for the work of life. Jack and Maddie so dreamed of their little happiness. Do they have to forget about it?

No, the Fentons don’t give up that easily!

They may have to spend a few years doing only theoretical work, but they’ll try again.

~~~~~

Ectoplasm is toxic. Tests, hopes…and a few miscarriages too.

Jazz was a miracle. Fenton family literally didn’t get out of hospitals to look after her health.

Danny was an even bigger miracle, because they didn’t have any hope of having a second child. Maddie and Jack didn’t even plan this pregnancy. Danny was born premature, with signs of hypoxia... but alive. His potential twin was not so lucky. Single intrauterine fetal death (sIUFD).

Right. Death still followed them. Of course, parents didn’t tell Jazz and Danny that they might have had another brother. It was their grief. Children had no reason to know about it.

~~~~~

"You filthy ghost!" Maddie stopped to rest after a chase for elder Phantom.

"Exhausted?" Dan was flying at a safe distance from her. "Maybe it’s time to retire, Maddie? A little exercise never stopped you before." The ghost was clearly making fun of her.

"Not going to happen, I’ll do it until I die if Amity Park need it. And my son will be here to stop you instead of me after me or Jack."

The smile on Ghost’s face faded immediately. "I hope he die first." The ghost whispered in a hoarse voice."It's best for everyone."

"What did you say?" Maddie rose up in anger, pointing her weapon at it.

"Has any thought crossed your mind about what happens to your children if anything happens to you? Go out every day and yell like idiots, attracting all the ghosts around." An ectoblast is blowing right up against her temple and crashing into the wall. The ghost frowned and turned away. "Did you ever think that Danny wouldn’t want to live without you? Did you think that he would be hurt if he had to lose you? No! Is it always about your stupid desires and ambitions, Mom."

For a moment Maddie thought he it was looking at her like it had seen a ghost, which was obviously just ridiculous. Maddie wanted to laugh about it, but somehow she couldn’t. Why would the ghost trying to fake human emotion care to hide the tears that gather in the corners of its eyes?

Maddie tried to get it out of her head. Anyway, it’s not that important. Phantoms have always been atypical. She’ll come home, take a warm shower, and tell Danny how much she loves him.

~~~~~

Maddie: My son is a strong boy and Dan: He’s weak! He’s a freak! He can’t handle it, Mom!

Maddie had long pondered this theory since the day Jack admitted that Phantom had misspoke during the fight and called him his father but she had never experienced it before. Or maybe she wasn’t paying attention.

Maddie: Hey, Phantom, just a question, how old are you? Dan: Why are you changing the subject? Twenty-four, twenty-five… Hell, I don’t remember. Stopped counting after 17, nobody cares anyway. And her first months dating Jack were 24 years ago. Right. The eyebrows, the shape of eyes and the height is all from Jack. The waist and the side eye from her. Theoretically. Still need more proof.

~~~~~~

Dan: Is this all your frail human form can do?

Maddie walked past the Casper High playground when she saw a ghost flying around. It was one of the new ones. The Phantom’s full-grown specimen. More dangerous. And totally unpredictable. Maddie squeezed the gun harder. Her theories are just theories and she can’t have such a dangerous spirit near the school, near her children.

Danny: Shut up and give me my bottle of water, asshole.

This voice. Maddie stopped in shock. What’s her boy doing so close to a ghost? He’s always so terrified of them.

Dan: No pull-ups, no water. You need muscles. Without them you’re gonna look like a worm if you’re gonna grow up to be taller than Jack as I am.

Danny: Just so you know, you’re a terrible big brother and I hate you.

Dan: Well, that just means I’m doing a good job.

Danny: When Mom asks who destroyed the furniture in Vlad’s house I’m pointing at you. A little run around town will be good for you. And as they say, Older siblings are like your parents' personal science fair. They're a bunch of experiments.

Dan: ...Just so you know, it sounded completely insane. Terrible. Good job, but don’t go near Dani with those jokes. Jazz will kill us both for setting a bad example. Danny: Bad example? Since when has a good sense of humor become a bad example? Dan: Shut up. Drink water and go to the shower. Jazz is gonna kick my ass if you die of overheating.

Danny: Huh, afraid of one know-it-all? When dad chased you with a bazooka, you didn’t seem scared.

Dan: Сome on, dad has a lot of strengths, yeah, but the ability to aim isn't one of them. And not

Dani: driving a car?

Danny: Right. Wait, how long have you been eavesdropping? Dani: Long enough to blackmail you both. Сomputer’s mine for the rest of the week. Dan and Danny: Shit.

~~~~~

The Invisobill. or Phantom. Ha. Danny Fenton…Danny Phantom. Weston boy said crazy things. Yeah. But what if he was only partially wrong? Everything except the color of its eyes and hair is so much like Danny's. If this were typical manipulation from a ghost hoping to shake the desire of ghost hunters to chase a creature similar to their child, he would have had to give it up months ago. But phantom did not change his disguise. This is his true form. What about ghost girl and older ghost? They are also so young.

Maddie could not sleep. In her head struggled scientist and woman weighed down by feelings of guilt and shame. She was tormented by philosophical problems and religious issues. No, Maddie, not even a neural tube is formed at that time. It was just a collection of cells. It’s not a person. It doesn’t feel pain. And ghosts do not too. Right? Is it even acceptable to compare such things? Is it possible that a ghost is not the remnant of negative human emotions and memories? What is responsible for its formation then? What is the purpose of such a ghost? And more importantly, how long have these ghosts been near and they did not notice? Has the portal become a source of energy necessary for their existence in the physical plane? Or is it only they who have not seen them?

So painful. It’s so unpleasant to think about what monsters they look like to their dear Danny and Jazz. Ghosts or not, she threatened creatures who might have been part of their family in front of her babies. God, naive teens must think that three Phantoms are their siblings or something. Of course! That explains the disappearance of fenton thermos and the way the Phantoms sneak into the portal and Danny’s always somewhere in trouble and…Oh my God, they could be in so much danger! How long has this been going on? No, the real question is..Hm, if this is going on for so long, why haven’t the ghosts done anything…evil? If their nature is in the destruction then why didn’t anything happen? Jack and she would never have missed something that would hurt their children.

~~~~~~

The fight between the Skulker and Invisobill was particularly fierce this time. Maddie was unlucky to be in one of the damaged buildings. But who is she if not a scientist? She will find a way to benefit in such a situation.

Unnecessary risk, completely unprofessional. But… The debris of the wall does not lie on her very tightly and the weapon still with Maddie. Yeah. She has to test her theory. She has to. She can get up and leave if she needs to. Right? A little dizziness never killed anyone. She just feels cold and sounds are strange. Maddie: Help. Help! Someone! M-Maddie? An insecure voice with an echo sounds. Yes, it's near. Maddie: Help! I can’t.. I can’t get up. T-Hard to breathe. Danny: Mum! Mama, hold on, I’m coming.

Phantom checks her pupillary reflex. Who taught him that? Jazz? The touch of his hand, so cold and shaky. Now Maddie really doesn't feel so good. It’s good that the ghost is her boy. She doesn’t have to worry about anything happening to people around. Neither he nor Danny know how to lie. She can breathe. Just cover her eyes for a moment and… Just a few seconds. Phantom:Jazz, Jazz! Call an ambulance. I don’t know what to do. I..I can’t just make mum intangible. What if she has a crush syndrome and I make it worse or… Her boy. Why is Danny so scared? Danny: Tucker, she is bleeding and she’s not responding to me and… Sshh, my little star, is all right. Mom just needs to lie down and rest a little.

~~~~~~

Maddie could not believe that she had actually passed out. But the time spent in the hospital gave her enough time to think about everything.

Maddie: Jack, we need to talk. I know this is gonna sound crazy but I think Phantom, the ghost boy, is actually our son. And I’m sure Danny and Jazz know about it too.

Jack: Honey, are you sure we don’t need to double-check if you have a concussion?

~~~~~~

Maddie and Jack decide to watch surveillance videos for the first time. After all, it concerns the safety of their children, they have the right to know what happens in the house in their absence. Especially when the ghosts are nearby. Children *live in their own sitcom*:

They have seen enough. Maddie decides to check chats on Jazz’s phone. It’s for their safety, only. She’s a good mother but what if the ghosts are up to something?

The chat was so..Teenage? And Chaotic. Normal? No, definitely not. How many times have they punished Danny unfairly? Did Jazz learn to lie and they didn’t even notice? And what the hell, why were they joking about dissection. It’s just awful. They need to talk immediately. No, it will look suspicious. They need to try to make contact with ghosts. And then they’ll all be grounded. All five.

Oh, and she thought two kids were a lot of work. How are they gonna handle three more with the bizarre biology ectology? Do they have hobbies, interests? They are definitely more complicated than theblob-ghosts. Was she wrong? Do they have emotions, a need for socialization? Can she trust her emotions in this matter?

~~~~Bonus~~~~

"What the hell happened to freak’s neck?!"

Danny: Um, excuse me, ma'am, he’s been doing Hatha yoga in India for years. Practice opens up amazing flexibility in the joints! Right, brother?

Dan: Fuck off.

Ma'am: Don’t take me for an idiot! What about his skin color then? Jack: You have something against my son’s tan? Dan: I told you going shopping with me was a bad idea. Dani: If you didn’t scare everyone around, it wouldn’t be so bad.

Dan:...I didn’t even try to do it this time. Why is she meddling?!

~~~Bonus~~~~

Dan: Why am I only third? Dani: Because I have successfully stabbed Danny in the back when he did not expect it. With you he is always waiting for a trick. This makes me much more successful than you :)

[that-ari-blogger]

Can't Argue With Crazy (Hollow Mind)

I’m going to open this with a question to Dana Terrace herself: Why? Did you wake up one morning, look at your audience, and think “I will break you”? What happened to the goofy series with the body swap episode and the playground game of thrones?

In all seriousness, I have been mentioning a lot that the Owl House features a runup to its final arc to get its mind into gear and fine tune the tone and pacing. In my opinion, that final arc kicks off in a big way with Hollow Mind.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD: (The Owl House, Frankenstein, Moon Knight, Bladerunner)

In 1818, a book called The Modern Promethius was written. It’s one of those books that people like to say they’ve read and is a founding piece of science fiction, arguably the first book in that genre.

This is a practice called obfuscation. I was being honest with you here, but there’s some key information that I am leaving out, and it will change how you understand this post. At the moment, there’s a chance that you think I am cleverer than I am, as I have read a book you have never heard of and statistically, obscure fiction leads to a higher level of intelligence.

Alternatively, if you have heard of this book (Or looked at the spoiler warning), you know exactly where I’m going with this.

In this case, the missing information was the book’s author, and it’s full title: Mary Shelly, and Frankenstein; Or The Modern Promethius, alternatively known simply as Frankenstein.

However, I’ve already employed a few more deceptive techniques, and I’m interested in seeing who caught them.

First up, obscure fiction doesn’t actually lead to a higher level of intelligence. I’ve twisted that statistic a little. The link between reading in general and intellect is well established, but there is extremely little evidence for the obscurity having any effect on that. There is, however, a link to perceptions of intelligence, which I drew upon to base my claim.

This is an advanced technique known as lying. But it’s also social engineering, or more specifically pretexting. If I establish something that makes me seem more intelligent, a reader is more likely to believe me when I start espousing facts. I can then use this to talk bollocks to my heart’s content.

Notably, one side effect of this opening statement is that, depending on who you are, it either made you more likely to trust my opinions or more sceptical of me. I have artificially made myself seem more honest in comparison to a nebulous statement. But I have also pulled the rug out from under you, and that’s not a trust that can be built up as easily as it was eroded. Remember this.

In Moon Knight, a key reveal of the series is that Steven was not the real person. That he was the alter ego, made up and kept in the dark. It’s a harrowing reveal, and it plays with perception of reality in what I think is an interesting way.

Steven assumes that his reality is the truth because why would he think otherwise. I challenge you to find someone who doesn’t share this bias. You assume you are just like everyone else until proven otherwise. Just like you assume the sun will rise tomorrow and be roughly the same size and shape because nothing has given you reason to suspect otherwise.

This is Occam’s Razor, a tool that essentially declares the simplest answer to be the correct one. In this case, it is simpler to expect yourself to be a standard issue human being than a manufactured split personality of someone else. Or, that your memories aren’t manufactured and that you are the original personality.

It is also a bias founded in reality. Here, things usually repeat unless force acts upon them or they are instable by nature. This is how the science works, and since that is the study of reality, I defer to it in matters of real-world happenings.

In the case of the sun rising tomorrow. The sun has risen every day of a millennia, the likelihood of a force suddenly manifesting to change that is so infinitesimal that it isn’t worth dwelling upon. Even then, there are very few things that can affect the rising of the sun, and most of them we would know about in advance.

In short, you can expect reality to continue as it always has. There are rules to the world, and the world tends to play fair.

Linking to my point about Moon Knight, this can be manipulated through obfuscation. If you take away important information, a person will assume that they have the whole picture and act accordingly. Again, Steven assumes that he is the same as everyone else, and the audience of the series assumes the same thing. They have also not been given all the information. Even when the split is revealed, you are primed to think of the perspective character as the originator because why would you think otherwise.

Worth commenting on, is that the final scene of the series introduces a third personality, and this doesn’t come across as nearly as surprising, because we have been primed to expect a twist just like this. It’s the same thing happening again, just in a different way.

If we cycle back a little bit, did you catch how I referred to Steven as I started this section? I described him as not a real person, and I’d like to reverse that claim.

The following statement is not up for debate, you may disagree with anything else, but this is ironclad: Personhood is not anybody’s to ascribe or take away. You cannot declare that someone is not a person because you dislike them. You cannot refuse to accept someone's personhood because you believe them to be bellow you. Personhood is immutable, and everyone has the right to it, no matter how different from you, no matter how evil you find them to be. I am not willing to argue this point.

What this means has provoked a decent amount of speculation from philosophers and writers. Science fiction does this through its question of what is qualified to be a person. If you’ve read a story with a robot in it, you know what I’m talking about here.

However, if we substitute the terminology for a moment, we can notice that this is more widely used than you would expect.

The idea of a soul is often used synonymously with personhood. Basically, people have souls. Fantasy and mythology does this a fair bit, and its where the word “soulless” originates. A place with this adjective restricts agency and therefore expressions of individuality and personhood. An act that is soulless is one that forfeits personhood, used synonymously with “mindless”.

I would argue that anything with internal thoughts has a soul and therefore is a person, or vice versa. But I don’t think that’s the important question here.

I think the more important factor of this question is the faith of it. Not religiously, but in terms of a good or bad faith argument. In other words, why a person is making their case.

For example, the robot story archetype of “this group of individuals has claimed personhood, does that mean we have to give them rights?”

These stories rarely dispute the autonomy of the individuals, just the reaction to it. Therefore, in my opinion, the creation and intended purpose of the robots is irrelevant, they are people and should be treated as such. The story establishes that the robots can think, and that falls into my argument above.

Bladerunner adds onto this the idea that artificial life forms, or replicants, look exactly like humans, and explores how that affects the perception of them. The moment when Decker stands over the corpse of what looks like a human being and who has acted like a human being up to this point is sobering. But it also points to the fact that all it took to get people to be ok with not respecting the personhood of robots in the Star Wars franchise (who act just like humans), is the fact that they don’t look like us.

As a side note, I originally had to watch Bladerunner for school, and the prescribed version of it was the Director’s Cut. I only found the original version afterwards. So, if you despised the original because of how gratuitously redundant parts of it are, I would advise the other version. It quite literally gets rid of the bad things and explains the elements that felt unclear.

Specifically, it implies that Decker might be an artificial life form, which throws you for a loop entirely because it means that humans and replicants are functionally identical except for how they are created, and how long replicants are allowed to live for.

Humans will, however, always find a way to spot the difference, and in Bladerunner, that is through the eyes.

I haven’t watched the more recent film, so I don’t know if it’s been clarified. But the original doesn’t make it clear what the deal is with those eyes. Are they unique, somehow? Do they move in a weird way? We are only shown the reaction to the difference, not what that difference actually is, implying that the significance might be disproportionate to what is observed.

I ran this post by a few friends before posting it, as I usually do, and one of them commented that this is like being trans. To her, gender is like personhood, it has ideas attributed to it, but in reality, all you have to do is claim it and functionally speaking, it's yours to do with what you will.

She noted that the difference between a trans person and a cis person is disproportionate to the reaction to it. In all the ways that matters, a trans man is a man. But because a trans man was assigned female at birth, that means that people feel ok disallowing his masculinity.

She also highlighted the idea of bad faith arguments in this field eroding important discussions. The example she gave was how the transphobic cries of “what makes a woman?” undermine the fact that conversations about femininity and masculinity and how they are presented are important to have, especially because gender expression can take so many different forms.

People transition for a reason, and understanding what that is can help people in the future understand themselves, which at the very least has massive mental health benefits. But instead, the question is used to gatekeep something that isn’t anyone’s to gatekeep.

For context, I am not trans, I am nonbinary, so I cannot do justice to this idea beyond “this is what somebody who knows more than me told me”. I asked her if I could include what she said, and she said yes. But I still recommend checking out literally anyone else who has actually lived this experience.

I am actually rather tentative about this segment because of how little I know. But this is a blog about analysis, and leaving out the fact that there is a trans reading of a story feels disingenuous. Besides, I think it’s better to start discussion about important ideas than leave them absent from places they are relevant. If I’m wrong, please correct me and I will make adjustments. I always want to know more.

Speaking of trans readings, Hunter is first shown to the audience of The Owl House through his eyes.

The title sequence of the series’ second season features a wall of three figures looking menacing. Lilith, Kikimora, and the Golden Guard, then the scene is flipped. Lilith looks remorseful, Kikimora has lost the plot entirely, and the Golden Guard is… taking off his mask.

What strikes me about this is that this was revealed long before Hunter was shown off. The fans learned that this was a kid long before Luz did. There’s dramatic irony there, but also a display of theme.

The mask is a signifier of Hunter’s purpose. It was given to him by his father figure, along with the role of the Golden Guard. He doesn’t get any say in it at all. Similarly, he doesn’t get any agency when it comes to losing the identity. The mask falls off when Kikimora attacks him, the role gets taken from him by Darius later on. Hunter doesn’t get free will. He has been reduced to a role, a tool. He has had his personhood taken from him, and as I established, that act alone is enough to make Bellos the villain of Hunter’s story.

But the intro features Hunter taking off the mask willingly to reveal his face. In my mind, that links most closely to a scene in Hunting Palismen, when he removes his face covering to say:

“My name is Hunter.”

His name is treated the exact same way as his face, and in this case, he immediately puts the mask back on to face down Kikimora.

So, the two ideas are linked, the reveal of his name and what he is showing to the audience. Combine that with the fact that Kikimora’s and Lilith’s portraits both show their character development over the series, growing more insane and emotional respectively, the intro alone tells us that Hunter’s story will be about the removing of that mask and the learning of who he is.

Except, in this episode, the intro is cut short. The audience doesn’t see Hunter take off his mask, because now the script has been flipped. Not only does the audience learn who Hunter is, but so does Hunter.

“What a shame. Out of all the Grimwalkers, you looked most like him.”

The term “Grimwalker” is, as far as I can tell, original to The Owl House. But breaking down it’s etymology, it’s a fusion of two words. “Grim” and “walker”. Please hold your ghasps of surprise to the end of the post.

However, the word “grim” has connotations of gloom and seriousness. It’s not a nice word, essentially. Telling someone that they look grim is not a compliment.

It also has connotations of death, most likely linked to the Grim Reaper, and has become part of an overly edgy naming convention that has taken up root in certain parts of the internet and for a very specific group of TTRPG players. I challenge you to find two Shadow The Hedgehog fanfics out there that don’t have a character named “Grimsword” or “Axblade the Grim” or something similar.

This is not a criticism, it's an observation. I honestly find it quaint.

As such, a Grimwalker is someone who moves in death, a zombie, a wraith. A being created from the corpse of another. Alternatively, if we take it more metaphorically, a Grimwalker is a creature that exists as part of a deceased person’s legacy. Walking in the space they left behind.

Once again, however, the difference here is less important than how people respond to it. Because functionally speaking, Hunter is just like Luz and Amity. There’s a tiny difference in the way he casts magic but come on. He walks like a Human, bleeds like a Human, has mental breakdowns like a Human.

The fact that I could substitute out “Human” for “Witch” here makes my point even clearer. The benchmark doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things. They are all more similar than they are different.

For the record, Luz, Amity and Hunter, despite being different species of creature, are all people. They think, therefore they are. I refer you once again to my core argument above.

However, all it takes is that one detail for Bellos to deem these others unworthy of personhood. Although, the way he does it isn’t as pompous as he thinks it is.

Bellos is a megalomaniacal villain with a martyr complex. But his motivation is pathetically small. It never occurred to this man that these others could possibly be people. He didn’t have to decide that Witches or Grimwalkers were less valuable than him, because to him, they never even came close. He’s an eejit who cannot comprehend the world as anything other than a hierarchy with himself at the top, and he’s too scared to change his mind.

He's a witch hunter, someone who believes that personhood has to be earned, and to whom it does not occur that he is sacrificing anything when he kills Hunter. The child is just a tool he can throw away.

Which brings me all the way back to Mary Shelly, and Victor Frankenstein. Because the book isn’t titled “Adam”. It’s not about the created creature, it's about the chaotic narcissism of one human disaster. The book is very much about the monster, and that monster’s name is Victor Frankenstein.

I want to take a moment to point out how good Frankenstein is as a story. As in, classics have a reputation for being overly impressed with themselves. So, it’s worth noting that Frankenstein is a classic because of how enjoyable of a read it is.

There’s an almost tangible building dread where you can see the plot coming and the titular character won’t do anything about it because he isn’t aware that there are other people around him.

Like every story, it’s not for everyone, but in terms of craft, there’s some really good stuff going on in that book and I would highly recommend you give it a read for yourself.

But hold on, Frankenstein isn’t aware of the people around him? That’s eerily similar to Bellos. Even in the ways that operates.

The person whose had their face scratched out of every painting sure looks a lot like Hunter.

Frankenstein doesn’t care about people who want to know if he is ok. He uses Clerval like a butler, talks to his family when he needs them, and is ok with the death of an innocent person because it gets the blame for a crime he directly caused to go away. He views people as tools.

He also creates a creature with weirdly coloured eyes, and then bails despite having created life, because it’s not a perfect creation. He doesn’t stop to contemplate what the creature will do or think at all during the story.

When he is told that the creature will take away his love like he did to its would be wife, it doesn’t occur to Frankenstein to check on the woman he loves at all. People aren’t people to Frankenstein.

Bellos, uses people like tools, etc. etc. creates a person with weird eyes. He even named the creature after its purpose. “Hunter.” This creature hunts things for him, therefore that’s what he calls it.

People aren’t people to Bellos.

The justification he gives for righteousness is Hunter’s appearance. That’s why he was expecting him to last longer. Because he looked most like “him”. Aesthetics are more important to Bellos, which is hilarious because of how monstrous he himself looks.

Introspection is another thing that doesn’t come naturally to Phillip Whittebane.

“It hurts every time he chooses to betray me.”

“What did you do to the other guards? To our family? It wasn’t wild magic, was it?”

Luz and Bellos represent light and darkness, as the series plays with that concept and duality. But instead of good and evil because heaven and hell, the story revolves around the function of the two. Light reveals, darkness conceals. As such, evil in the series is defined mainly as wilful ignorance. Everything else comes as a result that.

To Bellos, the worst thing Hunter could have done was ask questions, and it’s not because Bellos is scared of what he might find. Bellos isn’t ashamed of his actions at all. Bellos just despises the idea of critical thinking.

Notice how empty Bellos' eyes are. Everyone else has that bit of light, but he is hollow. Dead and unmoving. A man whose view of the world hasn't changed in fifty years.

This leads back to what I keep saying about Bellos and his evil in that it is self-sabotaging. Bellos could have kept Hunter as a loyal advisor. He could have turned around and said “no, this was because of Wild Magic. They were all killed in battle.” He had established trust with Hunter. But the simple act of asking questions was all it took.

Bellos isn’t clever, he’s petty. That’s an incredibly important part of hit characterisation, and it carries over to what we will continue to learn about him later on in the series.

"I'll do anything to save humanity from evil."

This is why defining good and evil is important. Because otherwise you end up with stuff like this. Bellos defines evil as "not like Bellos", which means that any act of interiority amongst his tools is a questioning his motives. It means that curiosity and change are evil.

The Owl House as a series fundamentally disagrees with this premise. That's important to understand. Showing a worldview doesn't mean you agree with it, especially when the entire purpose of your story is proving that worldview to be utter bollocks.

Regardless of specific details, the discovery that you are expendable is not one that people are prone to take well. I think a lot of what sells Hunter as a character is Zeno Robinson’s masterclass in acting, and once again, that is on display here. Hunter doesn’t scream, he doesn’t cry, he doesn’t get angry or in denial. He goes through too many emotions at once and hyperventilates. That’s affecting writing, and its impeccably well-acted.

The episode ends on a cliffhanger. The question of what to do next. What can Luz do with the information that she helped Bellos become the emperor? What can Hunter do now that his view of himself has changed?

Bellos places immense significance on a human using his name, because he likes the sound of it. But how is Luz any different sounding than any of the Witches. Hunter and Amity have closer accents to Bellos than Luz. Could it be that Bellos' bigotry is founded in absolute nonsense and is working backwards to justify itself rather than accepting all the evidence in the world that it is wrong? Could it be that bigotry itself is inherently dumb as all hell?

The two reveals hurt the characters because they undercut their entire worldviews. Luz believed that she was special, and yet she was duped just as easily as everyone else, and Hunter…

I started this post with a thing about deceptive techniques, specifically obfuscation. Hunter believed that he was in the right because the actuality of what he was doing was hidden from him. If you look closely at previous episodes, Hunter has even gone out seeking materials, notably the Selkidomus scales, to make another Grimwalker. He could have been let go at any time, but he believed he was safe because he wasn’t told about his purpose.

He also had his trust manipulated. Bellos gave Hunter a reason to believe him. The Titan had decreed that Bellos was smart, therefore he must be trustworthy, and yet that wasn’t the case.

So now, Hunter doesn’t feel safe with the Emperor, and he doesn’t fully trust Luz and Eda yet because of course he doesn’t. That leaves only one place he has found where people are willing to show him kindness.

Final Thoughts

I’m not going to argue that Hollow Mind isn’t one of The Owl House’s best episodes after devoting nearly 4000 words to explaining one element within. I barely referenced Luz and Eda’s development, or the fact that the hooded figures are so obviously Raine, Darius, and Eberwolf.

However, I want to dwell on one of King’s lines from earlier on in the episode.

“No one wants to think they've wasted their life following the wrong person. You just gotta find something big to change their minds.”

The sunk cost fallacy is one of the most influential out there. It says that if you’ve walked down a path for a long time, it’s easier to keep following it and brave the consequences than to go back and try again.

But choice isn’t always an option. Sometimes the path ahead of you stops, and you have to go back, start from scratch, and forge something new.

Next week, a light hearted episode. Them’s the Brakes, Kid, an episode I definitely remembered existing. Definitely didn’t forget an important episode of the series at all. Not me. Never. Stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

[rafyki]

Goth! Nico/ Surfer! Percy AU Part 3!

Here, have some awkward flirting by two absolute lovestruck losers (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ Oh how I love writing them being absolute disaster around each other asdsgsdhdff

@neo-kid-funk I managed to finish this part before I thought, I hope you like it!!! And I hope it fuels your inspiration for new art *evil laugh*

(For everyone who hasn't seen it yet, go to Neo's blog and enjoy her beautiful art!! This fic was inspired by her perfect design of older goth Nico <33)

Part 1, Part 2

~~~~~~

Nico didn’t expect it to become a habit. He expected it to be a one time thing, the kind of thing that turns your world upside down for a while but doesn’t really change anything in the long run. 

He expected to go back to work the next time for his shift and to not exchange more than a couple of words with Percy.

Even in his wildest fantasies he had not expected Percy to actually go and make conversation with him. 

“Doesn’t it drive you crazy? That you’re always on the beach so close to the ocean yet you can’t go in the water?” 

Percy had his usual drink in his hand, and Nico had been ready to wish him a nice day and watch him walk away as it always happened.

That was how things usually went. Not this.

Nico could feel his world shift around its axis (a little dramatic, yes, he knew, and he also had no doubt that Leo would tease him nonstop if he told him), and an annoying blush creeping up his neck to his face as Percy looked at him with a curious look.

He looked away, trying to find something, anything, to do that would make him appear busy and give him an excuse to avoid those way too perfect eyes.

He had not been prepared for this.

“Uhm”, he started, remembering that he had been asked a question.

He could almost hear Jason’s voice in his head yelling at him that it’s your chance, it’s your chance, talk to him!; together with Leo’s voice screaming go make him fall for you, goth boy!

Shaking his head a little, he tried to shoo them away.

“I’m not a huge fan of the ocean”, he said in the end.

And, well, that had been perhaps the wrong thing to say, judging by Percy’s horrified expression. Eyes wide wide and mouth hanging open there where he had been about to take another sip of his drink, he was looking at Nico like he had just admitted that he liked to kick kittens in his free time. It was equal parts comical and mortifying.

Before Nico could decide if he wanted to laugh at that expression or regret every life choice that had led him up to that point, Percy let out a shocked “What!?”

And for some reason, that made him chuckle, left him smiling behind his hand.

“Was that the wrong answer?”, he asked, trying and probably failing to keep the teasing tone out of his voice. 

Percy took a moment to answer. He was looking at Nico carefully, a weird expression on his face now that Nico couldn’t read. It made Nico feel a little unstable on his feet; he didn’t even realize he was staring right back at Percy until he noticed the slight red on his nose and cheekbones and found himself thinking that it was cute how Percy still got sunburn even when it seemed that he basically lived on the beach under the sun.

Percy cleared his throat, and the world started moving again around them.

“Yes!”, he said. “How can you not like the ocean?”

Nico shrugged, and threw a glance at the immense expanse of water before him. There were a lot of reasons he wasn't really fond of it, but he wasn’t sure Percy would appreciate them.

“It’s not that I don’t like it, I just don’t like getting in the water”.

“That basically means you don’t like it though”.

Nico rolled his eyes. His heart was beating a little too fast, his hands were sweaty, and he kept playing nervously with the rings on his lips. And he wanted nothing more than for this moment and this conversation to stretch on for as long as possible.

“It seems you’re taking this pretty personally”, he said, smiling. 

Percy smiled back, and Nico’s heart replied with somersaults. “I am, I take the ocean very seriously”.

Nico had guessed, but it was nice hearing it directly from Percy, adding this information to his mental list of things I know about him. For some reason, he had the feeling that that list would keep growing from now on.

His eyes fell on the trident tattoo on Percy’s left bicep. It made Nico feel weak in the knees every time he saw it, his mind immediately offering him the haunting thought of what it would feel like under his fingers. He sort of wanted to bite it.

No, not the time for this kind of thoughts!

He was definitely blushing now - he just hoped that the shadow of the kiosk's little roof was enough to hide it. 

You’re the worst, Nico di Angelo, shame on you.

Percy must have noticed where he was looking though, because he glanced at his tattoo too. “Yeah, I guess it was pretty obvious”, he laughed. 

Oh he had such a nice laugh. 

“You’re a big fan of the Little Mermaid?”, Nico asked, because for some reason that was the first thing that had come to his mind.

It made Percy laugh a little more though, so Nico counted it as a victory.

“That’s definitely part of it, I think I must have watched that movie a thousand times when I was little”.

Nico mentally added that new information to his list.

“Maybe you were a mermaid in your past life”, he suggested. “Or some sort of sea god”.

Those last words escaped his mouth before he could hold them back. He had not meant to say them out loud - damn his brain and his too fast mouth and his stupid huge crush. Percy did look like a sea god but that didn’t mean Nico had to say it out loud and expose himself like that. See, that’s why he didn’t want to talk to Percy, he knew he would make a fool of himself. Maybe the ground would be so nice as to open up and swallow him whole right now.

(Oh, he knew his friends would laugh at him like crazy for this later).

When he found the courage to look back at Percy, he found him still smiling, an amused look in his eyes. 

Nico’s stomach curled painfully on itself in a mix of embarrassment and stupid fondness. He was so weak for that look.

“In that case that would mean you just told a sea god that you don’t like the ocean”, Percy said. “That could be a problem”.

“I never said I don’t like it”, Nico pointed out, surprised at himself for how he could still speak despite his internal turmoil. “And also, I said you might have been one in your past life”.

Percy waved a hand. “That doesn’t matter. You know gods aren’t that reasonable”.

“Are you saying I should apologize?”

“Precisely”, Percy said, nodding solemnly.

That was such a weird conversation to have with someone you barely knew. Yet Nico couldn’t hold back the smile growing on his lips. Despite the continuous maelstrom raging inside him, he probably hadn’t stopped smiling for a second the whole time; it made him feel like a fool, but it was alright because Percy had been smiling for the whole time too.

“And how should I do that?”, Nico asked. 

Percy seemed to think about it for a moment. “You could let me teach you how to surf”.

Nico stopped. Time stopped, the whole world stopped, even the waves of the ocean itself probably stopped moving.

In the least useful way possible, his mind conjured the terrible image of himself on a surfboard in the water with Percy wet and handsome next to him, holding him to show him what to do.

No, nope, no way. He would end up drowning after two seconds, either because surfing was definitely not his thing, or because letting the ocean swallow him would be the less embarrassing option.

“Uhm”, was the only thing that came out of his mouth“I… don’t think that would be such a good idea”. 

Why is he asking me this though, oh my god what’s going on here.

His embarrassment must have caught up to Percy, because suddenly his smile turned awkward and so was also the short laugh that escaped his lips.

“I was just joking of course!”, he said quickly. Nico watched the way he rubbed his neck, the way he wasn’t looking at him anymore. “Well, then-”

“I mean!”, Nico cut him off without thinking. 

That well then sounded way too much like Percy was about to leave, and Nico didn’t want that.

The relaxed feeling from before was gone, replaced with awkwardness hanging heavily in the air around them. If he had let Percy leave now, Nico was afraid he wouldn't see him again.

Don’t ruin this! It’s your chance!

This time, he tried his best to listen to his friends’ voices in his head.

“I- I mean”, he said again. “I’m really not good with water”.

He hoped his smile came out more apologetic than absolutely mortified and embarrassed. The pounding of his own heart was deafening almost, he could feel it in his throat, making it hard to breathe and push the words out. “Thanks for the offer though…?”. It came out more like a question than anything.

Idiot idiot idiot.

“Ah- uhm”, Percy, said, letting out an awkward laugh. He wasn't looking at Nico anymore, his eyes fixed on his still half full drink. “Yeah, sure”.

You have to fix this!

“I'll just- look at you surfing and enjoy the ocean from afar for now”.

Weird, that was weird! Had he really just admitted that he would just stare at him? Maybe drowning in the ocean really was the best case scenario for him. No way his blush wasn't visible right now. 

Percy must be thinking that he was the weirdest and creepiest guy right now. Nico wanted to die.

But then, Percy looked back at him, and the look on his face wasn't creeped out or uncomfortable - just surprised, eyes blinking slowly and mouth hanging open like he wanted to say something but didn't know exactly what. Nico watched as a small smile made its way back to his lips. The red sunburn on Percy's cheeks was mesmerizing.

“Sounds good to me”.

And okay, perhaps he hadn't ruined everything completely. Perhaps he would get to talk to Percy again.

Someone cleared their throat behind him, making Nico almost jump out of his skin. He had forgotten there was a whole world outside of himself and the man in front of him.

“Nico, we have to switch, it's time for your break”, Jason's voice reached him, bringing him back to reality. His friend was looking at him with a clear question in his eyes and badly veiled excitement - Nico knew he would want to hear everything about his conversation with Percy later. 

“Yeah, right”, he replied, half relieved and half disappointed that the moment was over.

He turned to Percy. He couldn't read the expression in his eyes. “Well, I have to go”, he said.

Percy nodded. The soft smile was back on his face, and Nico felt his heart melt at the sight. “It was nice talking to you Nico”.

“You too. Have a nice day, Percy”.

It was the first time he called him directly by his name, he realized. It sounded way too nice ok his tongue.

He kept staring at his retreating figure as he walked away, feeling unstable on his feet like someone had suddenly changed the gravity on Earth.

“You okay?”, Jason asked.

“Uhm… I think so? I'm not sure what just happened”.

Jason laughed and put a hand on his shoulder in comfort.

“You can tell me everything later, alright? Come to my and Leo's place after work”.

Nico grimaced at the prospect - he could already feel the teasing that would come of it. But he did need to talk about it, so he nodded.“Yeah, alright”, he agreed. “But I really need a smoke now”.

[treeba-rk]

a small collection of shit the tumblr treebark community has tagged about cc!renchanting. Everyone feel free to contribute, many of these are pretty recent (from the infinite pining era), not from old posts!

#omg just call him hes not your ex   #i think about this so much. bro really was just like man that guy was weird. i think i’m in lo— #also this was very heterosexual of martyn. #relationship goals (they are not dating) #I hate them so much I fucking hate them #MARTYN WHEN I CATCH YOU MARTYN #can martyn like get a job #is this real?? #never a boring day following martyn on Tumblr #once again im reblogging the gayest ass mcyt fanart from none other than martyn in the little wood #martyn this is a really gay post to reblog /silly #its the single pathetic bisexual dogboy swag # everyone say thank youse to false #theyre having gay sex in that box. ok! #this is why joel betrayed dogwarts right at the start #fellas is it gay to do Whatever this is #treebark in the eyes of those around them is apparently horrifying #the server has chemicals in the water that turns the fucking ccs gay for Ren diggity Dog #Jesus christ #martyn intheliitlewood what are you doing in my falafal #I almost went full crazy insane treebark fangirl in the tags until I saw martyn inthelittlewood official reblogged it #SOMETIMES YOU GOTTA ENTER YOUR SLUT ERA AND THAT IS FINE TOO #fuckin slay martyn go kiss men Now we just pray he doesn't find the smut artists and find out people assume he's a bottom #he broke into our house and won’t leave :( turns out he’s the one who built the house? i think that’s why we let him stay #‘classic treebark bait’ MY ASS #martyn that shit is straight out of a fanfic #i think martyn can lurk in treebark tag if he wants #martyn once again outing himself as a renboy #shoutout to cherri for the renchanting propaganda god bless #WTF REN YOU CANT DO THIS TO US #they make me homophobic #mans woke up in a cold sweat checked his tumblr askbox wrote That and then fucked off for the rest of the day like nothing happened #the m in martyn stands for manic pixie dream girl #people be normal in the tags challenge: failed #why is martyn writing fanfiction and putting it on my dash at 3 am? #Top 10 Signs You Should Dm Him:#Number 1: you're writing fanfiction in tumblr ask box answers

this is an incredible collection and i am flabbergasted by how you keep track of this. treebarkblr is hilarious

<3 <3 <3

[severelystrangewriter]

Holding Hands (Flufftober 2023 Day 6)

Pairing: kei “tsukki” tsukishima x female reader

WC: 906

Warnings: none

Summary: just a short and sweet scenario involving tsukki holding your hand

Note: there’s nothing really to add, no thoughts only tsukki

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kei Tsukishima has been your best friend for as long as you can remember. You, him, and Tadashi Yamaguchi were practically inseparable growing up. So it came as no surprise to you when you started developing feelings towards Tsukki.

Being with the bespectacled boy was second nature to you despite his cold and calculating personality. What surprised you was how he reciprocated your feelings, having actually been the one to confess to you during your last year of middle school.

You accepted happily and thus began your relationship, which might not seem like your typical relationship to outsiders. He still teased you like he would anyone else, but don’t worry, you always served it right back to him.

To be completely honest, with the way you two acted, most people didn’t even know you were together.

And it’s not like you guys were keeping it a secret either, you were both just too lazy to “announce” it to the world. You both knew you were dating and that’s all that mattered.

Tadashi knew of course, and he was ecstatic for you both. In fact, he’s the one who would talk about it more than you and Tsukki did- always suggesting date ideas that he would inevitably tag along. It was kind of endearing.

You all were now in your first year of high school and you were a manager in training like Yachi for the Karasuno volleyball team.

“Hurry up! We’re going to be late for school!” You exclaimed to Tsukki as you both walked to school with Tadashi.

“Calm down, (Y/n/n). We still have plenty of time,” Tadashi reminded you, “What are you in such a hurry for anyways?”

“She’s just anxious about that test today. But it’s not like getting there early is going to make it happen any faster,” Tsukki rolled his eyes. Tadashi nodded in understanding.

“If we get there early, then I can go over those flashcards one more time,” You said like it was obvious.

“But you’ve been studying crazy hard this entire week!” Tadashi protested, “I’m sure you know everything by now.”

Before you could reply, Tsukki spoke up, “He’s right, you’ve done nothing but stress about it. I mean, you’ve hardly slept. Which is why I’m not letting you touch those cards when we get to class. Let someone who actually needs them use them, like Tadashi.”

“Hey!” Tadashi snapped.

“Are you trying to inhibit my academic career?” You argued.

“I’m prioritizing your mental health,” He countered.

It was then that you felt Tsukki slip his hand into yours as he tugged you closer to him, the both of you coming to a stop.

“Look at me,” Tsukki stared hard at you and reached out with his free hand to flick your forehead, “You’re going to do fine on this test. You’re smart. Stop worrying so much.”

You looked up at your boyfriend with wide eyes, he looked completely serious as if daring you to argue with him about it. But you didn’t. Instead, you found yourself nodding along, a determined smile making its way onto your face.

“You’re right,” You said.

“I know I am,” Tsukki replied, continuing to walk once more, this time with your hands interlocked.

Your smile grew, feeling a little lighter now thanks to Tsukki’s words of encouragement. 

~~~

School and volleyball practice passed fairly quickly, causing you to breathe a sigh of relief. You were ready to go home.

Tsukki must’ve been feeling particularly touchy-feely today because the minute you both stepped out of the gym he laced his fingers with yours as you walked to the corner store for a snack. It made your heart flutter because typically it was you who initiated contact.

“Hey guys- AH! Tsukki and (Y/n) are holding hands!” Hinata yelled when you caught up with the team at the corner store, pointing at your laced fingers. He bounded over and circled you two once, studying you both curiously.

“Well duh, they’re dating,” Tadashi explained with a knowing smile on his face.

“What?!” Came the chorus of exclamations from your friends.

“For how long?” Kageyama demanded with a suspicious squint, annoyed that Tsukki of all people somehow managed to get a girlfriend.

“Our one year anniversary is actually next week,” You smiled sweetly, giving Tsukki’s hand a squeeze.

“But… you’re so nice,” Hinata came to stand in front of you again, looking at you like you’ve grown an extra head as he scrunched his nose, “Why are you dating Tsukki?”

You offered a one-sided shrug, “Because I like him and he makes me happy. Why else?”

“How? He says super mean things, like, all the time and-” Hinata suddenly started cowering, being cut off by Tsukki’s glare and menacing aura.

“Like I said, he makes me happy,” You repeated, stepping closer to Tsukki and leaning into his side. He seemed to relax a little at your reassurance.

“Yeah, no, I’m not buying it,” Tanaka shook his head and crossed his arms, “Blink twice if you’re being forced into this relationsh- ow!”

He rubbed the spot on his head that had been harshly smacked by Daichi.

“We’re happy for you guys, really,” The captain said with a comforting smile of his own. 

You grinned back and after a little more chatting you, Tsukki, and Tadashi departed from the group to head home, with Tsukki’s hand snuggly fit into your own like the most perfect puzzle piece.

[forever-rogue]

Okay so normally I’d do this off anon, but honestly I’m really hurt by it and just wanna submit something for your writing pleasure if you’d like to write something like it. So recently I was meant to meet up with someone that I thought was so different than other dudes I talked to and he just completely ghosted me. He used to wake me up with good morning beautiful messages and now I’m left with absolutely nothing. I was hoping you could make on where that happens but it’s like a mess up with the towers or something and then Eddie or Steve shows up with flowers and everything like days later when they realize the readers not gotten any of their messages. They explain it and show them how they didn’t go through and reader just throws themselves into their arms crying and saying that they didn’t think they were good enough for them but the boys just prove to them how amazing and wonderful they are.

AN | This would feel so terrible! Luckily, Eddie is not the type of guy to just ghost someone 🥰

Warnings | Mild Language

Pairing | Eddie x Fem!Reader

Word Count | 3.3k

Masterlist | Main, Eddie 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

"You're doing it again," you looked up from your phone and found Alicia watching you with a knowing little smile. Your entire face flushed with warmth as you locked your phone and tucked it away, "mhmm, just like I thought."

"Shut up," you groaned, throwing her the middle finger as you walked to the kitchen. She might have been your best friend and your roommate, but damn. She read you too well sometimes, "mind your business."

"How am I supposed to mind my business when you're pining over some boy?" She sang the last word and you business yourself with making some tea, "a certain boy that calls you princess and beautiful and angel. Now that's like romance novel level shit."

"I…no, ugh. Stop," you pleaded with her, trying to hide the fact that you were grinning widely and flushed like crazy, "he doesn't do that."

"I've seen the texts," she tutted and you hid your face behind your hands, "its alright, babe! I think it's really sweet actually. He's totally into you."

"Maybe," you sighed softly, "but I do like him a lot. He's really sweet."

"Are you going to see him again?" Yeah, you sure hoped you would. The first date with Eddie had been nothing short of magical. You didn't believe in love at first sight or anything of the sort…but Eddie definitely had you questioning that. And that was scary in and of itself, "I feel like you need to. I'm personally invested."

"I will," you promised, tummy swirling with butterflies. The mere thought of seeing his pretty face again made your heart flutter, "I want to see him again. Alicia, ugh, I really like him already."

"So romantic," she agreed as you put a little honey in your tea. You stirred it thoughtfully before taking a long, slow sip. You hoped the tea and its magical powers would cause your head to remain straight and your thinking in order. Before you could say anything else your phone lit up with an incoming FaceTime call, "speak of the devil."

Your heart started to pitter patter excitedly as you contemplated whether or not to answer it. Obviously you wanted but you didn't want to seem too desperate. You looked at Alicia and she just pushed the phone towards you. 

With a groan you grabbed your tea and phone and rushed to your room, accidentally slamming the door behind you.

"Sorry!" You called out before taking a moment to catch your breath before answering the call. Your heart almost stopped when you saw his pretty face beaming at you through the screen, "hi."

"Hey pretty girl," oh no. His voice was soft and smooth like honey and velvet. He was definitely going to be the death of you, "how're you?"

"Hi handsome," you set the tea down and flopped onto your bed, trying to act calm and casual, "I'm alright! Just got home a little bit ago. Work was…rough. Just one of those days I guess. How are you?"

"Ahh, you know, same old, same old. Got some pretty rad ideas for DnD for the next time the kids are in town," he waved his hand around, causing you to giggle. He was always so expressive, and it was a quality you enjoyed about him, "but my day is much better now that I've gotten to see your pretty face."

"Stop," you buried your face into your pillows, groaning loudly as Eddie laughed. He loved getting you all flustered and shy, "you're being gross and mushy!"

"I'm only being honest," when you allowed yourself to look back at your phone you found him smiling softly, "I've got a question for you, if I may."

"Of course…"

"Will you," he paused for dramatic effect, leaning in closer, "go on another date with me? Maybe this Saturday if it's not too crazy of an ask?"

"Yes!" Your answer was given without hesitation, so excited that it caught both of you off guard. Eddie's cheeks pinked as you gnawed on your bottom lip, "I mean.. yeah, that'd be cool. Totally works for me. I'm so cool and calm about all of this."

"Such a little dork," he leaned back, stretching and taking a moment to collect himself. He didn't want to seem too desperate, and the fact that you were so eager made him feel so good. He'd never had someone make him feel this way before; but he'd known from the start that you were special, "I like it - you."

"Me too," you promised softly, "what did you have in mind?"

"Let me surprise you," he suggested and your curiosity parked up, "I'll pick you up and we can go on an adventure. Whaddaya say?"

"Sounds like you've got yourself a date," the two of you exchanged shy smiles, the anticipation buzzing between the two of you, "now, tell me about these DnD ideas!"

Eddie was so easy to listen to and got so excited that it made you excited. You didn't really understand much of what he was saying, but you still enjoyed listening to him talk about his passions.

This was going to be a problem. You really liked Eddie Munson. It was almost scary how fast and easily it all happened. 

Just like that. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

You had a couple of days before you were going out with Eddie again and you'd been buzzing with energy the whole time. You were so excited to see him again. You'd only known him for a little over a month but it felt like you'd known him forever. Everything came so easily with him, so naturally. It was like your heart had been waiting for something all this time and you'd finally found that in Eddie.

And it all felt so great. 

Until it didn't. 

It was Wednesday morning, and when you checked your phone after you got up, you didn't have anything from Eddie. Which was odd considering you'd woken up to good morning texts from him for the last month. You tried to push down your disappointment and figured that maybe he was just really busy. He wouldn't ignore you purposefully. 

You went about your morning routine and headed out to work, still without having heard from Eddie. By the time you went to grab lunch, you decided to text him. You'd been getting nervous and wanted to make sure he was alright. It was so strange not to hear from him at all, especially when you'd grown so used to talking to him throughout the day. 

Unfortunately your text went unanswered. By the time you got home, you were both worried and mildly annoyed. He could have spared you at least a quick text or something.

"What's got you so upset?" Alicia clocked your mood as soon as she walked in the door. You were leaning against the kitchen counter, clutching a glass of wine as you stared off in thought. You thought you were hiding your dour attitude a little better than that. Apparently you were very wrong.

"Nothing," you drained the rest of your glass and shrugged your shoulders. Alicia grabbed the glass and set it onto the counter, raising an eyebrow at you, "fine. Eddie hasn't texted me all day."

"What?" Her mouth formed a small o in surprise as you nodded, feeling pathetic, "how…why. That doesn't make sense! He's practically in love with you."

"Okay, that's dramatic but yeah," you let out a long, heavy sigh, "its just weird. He's not normally radio silent. He says something at least but I haven't heard a thing today. I hope nothing is wrong and he's okay."

“Let’s not go to that extreme either,” she gently nudged your side, “I’m sure everything’s fine. Maybe he forgot to hit send on his text or he’s just really busy. You’ll have a good night or good morning text tomorrow for sure.”

“I hope so,” you grabbed the bottle of wine and poured the last of it into your glass. Drinking wasn’t the answer, but it did cut through some of your nerves, “I don’t think he’s the type to just suddenly ghost me, but I guess nothing these days is that surprising.”

“He wouldn’t,” she promised softly, “and if he did, we’ll track him down and make him suffer. I got you, babe.”

“Thanks,” you couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up and escaped your lips. You were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. You just hoped he wouldn’t disappoint you. 

You contemplated sending him a good night text night, going back and forth on it for way too long before deciding fuck it. You highly doubted that you would come off as clingy and even if you did, you didn’t care. After over a month and a half of constantly talking, this was such a strange change of pace. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The next morning your texts remained unanswered and there was nothing new. The only notifications you had were the usual ones from your friends. You weren’t sure if you should be annoyed or worried. Your second date was supposed to be the following day but at this point you weren’t so sure that was going to happen. 

In a spur of the moment decision, you decided to try and call him. But as soon as you hit the green button to call him, the call went straight to voicemail. Alright…so more than likely his phone was dead. That wasn’t so strange, right? Eddie was a self-confessed scatterbrain so he’d probably neglected to charge his point the night before. You hadn’t left a voicemail, instead shooting him a text to find later asking if he was okay. 

All you could now was wait…and hope that you heard something from him. You had been so sure and convinced that Eddie was one of the good ones and hated the idea that you had been wrong all this time. 

But as the time wore on, your phone remained drier than the sahara. You hated that every time you received any sort of notification you scrambled to grab your phone, hanging onto the last bits of hope that you were going to hear from Eddie. Your abysmal hopes were crushed by the end of the night as you crawled into bed and went to sleep. You didn’t bother to try and reach out to him again. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Saturday rolled around and you felt absolutely crushed. You were supposed to have your second date with Eddie that evening but didn’t even hold out any hope for it considering that he’d been mia for over two days now. The outfit you’d picked for your date tonight was hanging against your closet door, taunting you. You’d thrown it together as soon as you’d ended your last facetime call with Eddie.

With a heavy heart you pulled off the back of the door and set the hanger back among your other clothes. You’d decided to busy yourself with doing some of the chores around the apartment that you’d been putting off including going through and organizing your makeup and closet. Anything to keep your mind off the fact that you’d been ghosted, stood up, whatever you wanted to call it. 

Alicia worked this weekend, so at least you had the place to yourself to wallow around and be sad in peace. Despite the fact that you’d basically been dodging her as much as possible, she knew what was up; she was your best friend after all. She’d already started planning a girls’ date night for a few days from now when she was off to surprise you and hopefully cheer you up. She was such a kind spirit and you loved her a lot.

You decided to text Eddie one more time, probably a desperate attempt. You wanted to see if he was at least willing to give you some sort of explanation for his sudden disappearance. You felt like you were owed that much at the very least, right? After all those sweet words and plans you were left with nothing. A small part of you was still worried that something had happened to him, but it was unlikely that something that bad had happened. 

You spent the day working yourself to the bone before taking a hot shower and calling it a night early. At least if you were sleeping your thoughts wouldn’t keep wandering everywhere. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Sunday came and you were up bright and early. Your body really didn’t want you to get any extra rest despite it being the weekend. You stared at the ceiling for a while before getting up to start getting around to doing things. You felt so pathetic being so hung up over a boy but you know, the heart wants what it wants or whatever that expression was. 

You’d taken the time to make some breakfast and coffee and sat at the kitchen counter, scrolling through your social media feeds as you ate. It was a random knocking on the door that caused you to startle. You set down your coffee as you slid off the stool with a grumble as you walked to the door. You didn’t even bother to see who was at the door before cracking it open. 

“Yes?” you asked, brushing some of your wild bed head out of the face.

“Hiya,” you knew that voice. You knew that voice. You looked up and there was Eddie Munson standing in front of you, pink cheeks and a boutique of your favorite flowers in one hand. He held up his hand in a weak little wave as you opened and closed your mouth like a fish out of water.

“Hi?” you asked as he scratched at the back of his neck awkwardly, “Eddie, what are you doing here?”

 “Umm, well, I hadn’t heard from you in a few days so I figured I’d come say hi,” he sounded so nervous as confusion marred your face, “that sounds so pathetic and I feel like some weird stalker. It was just that we’d agreed on a second date and then I hadn’t heard from you and it just felt off. I thought we’d been getting along so well and I, umm, I…I really like you. I also just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“What are you talking about?” you weren’t totally tracking what he was saying but he seemed so genuine and sincere, “Eddie, I haven’t gotten any texts or anything in days from you.”

“What are you talking about?” he was shaking his head, a few curls falling out of his messy bun, “i’ve been texting you and everything.”

He looked so crestfallen at your words that it did make your heart stumble for a few beats. But then you remembered the upset you had gone through the last couple of days and you shook your head. The tension flowing between the two of you was palpable, “that’s such a bullshit story, Eddie. Did you come here because you got bored or something?”

“I mean it,” in his haste to show that he wasn’t lying, he almost shoved the flowers into your hands as he reached into his back pocket to pull out his phone. He fumbled around for a moment, hands shaking with nerves as he tried to pull up the messages that he’d been sending to you…allegedly. Eventually he pulled up your message string and turned his phone around to show you everything.

You made a small sound of surprise when you saw a slew of texts that he had sent to over the last few days. For whatever reason your texts hadn't gone through to him….just as his hadn’t sent to you. You Sighed heavily, letting out a breath of exasperation as you shook your head. You blinked back a few tears as he let out a nervous laugh, “Eddie…”

“I don’t know what happened,” he said softly, “but umm, I didn’t want you to think that I just ignored you and I wanted to make sure nothing happened. It just was weird not hearing from you again. You can look through my phone i-if you want. I’m not talking to anyone else or anything, only you.”

“I don’t know what happened,” you set the flowers down gently on the granite countertop before taking his hand and pulling him into the apartment. You closed the door and handed him back his phone before grabbing your own and showing him the same thing on your end. You watched his eyes widen in surprise, “but I was worried about you too.”

“Yeah?” his big brown eyes lit up with excitement as you nodded, “umm, I can go if you’d like. I’m not sure where to go from here or even if you’d still want to-”

You knew he was a nervous rambler, it had been one of the first endearing qualities you’d noticed about him. But this time, you cut him off by taking his face in your hands and kissing him. That seemed to shut him up immediately and his hands found your waist as he pulled you closer to him. Neither of you wanted to let go, only pulling apart when you both needed a breath of air. 

“Umm, does that mean you don’t want me to go?” his cheeks were a dark pink and you couldn’t help the giggle that bubbled up and escaped your lips. You put your hand on his face and gently brushed your thumb over his cheek. 

“I don’t want you to go,” you confirmed softly. Relief flooded throughout your body and all the worry and anxiety you’d been experiencing were slowly leaving. You hadn’t been imagining that Eddie really liked you - he did. He did. 

“Cool,” he gnawed on the inside of his cheek for a moment, “I don’t want to go either. I was hoping you hadn’t totally decided you didn’t want anything to do with me anymore. ‘Cause I kinda really like you already.”

“I kinda really like you too,” you promised, the two of you exchanging shy smiles and nervous chuckles. You didn’t know why your texts hadn’t gone through to him and vice versa but it really didn’t matter. You were just thankful, among many other things, that he had cared enough to come and find you. Eddie Munson really hadn’t turned out to be one of those guys, “thank you for coming, and the flowers. That was really sweet of you.”

“Of course,” he smiled softly, “I know this is short notice but would you want to go out with me today? We can still do what I had planned for last night.”

“Right now?” you grew excited as you rocked back and forth on your heels.

“Right now,” he confirmed as you nodded, “but I can let you change first. I mean, you look gorgeous even in pajamas, but you might want some real shoes at least.” 

“Oh,” you just realized that you were still in sleep shorts and a tank top with messy hair, “oh. Yeah, changing might be a good idea first. But then I’d love you to go out with you, Eddie.”

“Rad,” he whispered more to himself than anything else, “one more thing since I hadn’t been able to say it in a few days - good morning, sweetheart.”

“Good morning handsome,” you leaned up and pressed a kiss to his lips, “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Me too,” he stole another kiss from you, “me too.”

[porcelana-r0ta]

The Curse of Sight

Summary: When Wes Weston meets Time Drake-Wayne, the dots start connecting. And those dots form a Bat. 

Word Count: 2690

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44788813

[Part 2]

When Wes Weston's parents divorced, they decided that he should stay with his dad in Amity Park. After all, small town Amity is much safer than big city Gotham, where his mother was moving in order to accept a promotion with Wayne Enterprises. Wes, in order to still see his mom, would visit her in Gotham every summer and every other holiday.

Of course, Amity soon became more dangerous than Gotham could even dream of thanks to the hell portal in the Fenton's basement that killed and bore Phantom, but whatever. No one ever listened to Wes anyway, and he learned to shut his mouth when Sam Manson shoved him against the lockers and asked him what he thought would happen to Danny Fenton if the Ghost Investigation Ward ever believed his “crazy as shit imagination.”

She was still playing the "Wes is crazy" game, even when defending her boyfriend.

Still, she was right. Danny was safer without him trying to convince Amity's negligent populace that Danny was Phantom. (Even if it absolutely drove him mad that no one but him was capable of making the connection between Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom.) So he shut up. He deleted his conspiracy theory blog and even asked Tucker Foley to wipe all remnants of its existence from the internet, a request which his classmate happily obliged. He even said, "I'm glad you're moving on from this whole Fenton-Phantom obsession, Wes."

Professional gaslighters, the lot of them.

So yes, Wes had thoroughly given up on the superhero ID evidence schemes by the time he left to visit his mom after his freshman year of high school. He had made peace with it and settled back into reading mystery novels or movies and solving the case before the protagonists in place of proving Phantom’s ID.

When he came to Gotham, he had to get a new library card so he could keep up with his mystery novel hyperfixation. He happens to take just a little too long in the library, so by the time he has a nice stack of books to check out, it's dark outside.

Great, walking back to my mother's apartment in the dark in Gotham. Seems super safe.

Well, Gotham is no Amity, right?

So he marches on and tries not to be too resigned when he's inevitably yanked into an alleyway even though the apartment is only three blocks from the library.

Classic.

It's just a man with a gun, his face obscured with a hood and a red bandana. He's literally nothing compared to Pariah Dark or Undergrowth or Dr. Spectra or even the fucking Box Ghost.

"Let me guess," he says. "You want any cash I have, right?"

"Kid, shut the hell up and fork over your money," says the man, and Wes sighs. The mugger didn't even wave around his gun or give an impassioned speech about stealing someone's pelt.

"Original," Wes intones. "But I'm fifteen. And everyone knows young people don't carry cash anymore. I guess I could give you my mom's emergency credit card that she gave me, but she did say it was for emergencies only, so."

The man just stares at him. Wes shuffles uncomfortably.

"Oh! And I could just cancel the card before you use it," Wes adds into the silence.

"You don't consider being held at gunpoint an emergency?" the mugger finally asks, looking uncertain.

"Should I?" Wes wonders aloud. Sam had been much scarier when she threatened him.

"You said you're fifteen? And you don't have a Gothamite accent?" the man offers his reasoning, as if it's any kind of logical. He'd fit in well in Amity for that trait alone.

"Gothamites always think they're so superior." He has to roll his eyes. "Guns aren't that scary. You know what is scary? Your whole town being dragged into the dimension of death for three days. This is nothing. This city is nothing." You are nothing. He knows better than to say that last part, though;

"Christ, kid, you're crazy." The man shook his head and pulled the hammer of his gun back. "Just-- give me the watch you're wearing."

Wes sighs again, "Whatever, I'm not fighting for it." It was literally just a cheap Walmart watch. But just as he goes to unlatch the watch from his wrist, a caped vigilante swings down from the rooftops and kicks the mugger straight into the pavement.

The mugger doesn't get back up.

"Thanks, Red Robin," Wes dutifully says, even though he's pretty sure the man was A) not really that much of a threat, and B) going to have serious brain trauma now.

"It's no problem," the vigilante says. "You're a little young to be out this late, though."

Well, that's rude. It's only 7:00 pm. The only reason it's dark at all is thanks to Gotham's pollution problem. (Maybe they should let Poison Ivy just go fucking feral, like Sam suggests.)

Wes doesn't say that. Instead he says: "Didn't you start crime fighting when you were, like, twelve?"

Red Robin sputters, but Wes continues, "And the first Robin couldn't have been more than nine. I have never picked a fight with hardened criminals." Do ghosts count as criminals? Surely not. What right does Wes have to dictate the morals of being from a completely different dimension? "So I think I'm doing better than you in the safety department, no offense."

Well, doing better in Gotham. But the Justice League doesn't need to know about Amity Park, so he'll leave that part out.

"I-- just--" Red Robin struggles for a second, and then clears his throat. "Why don't I escort you home?"

"I'm two blocks away, but thanks. And thanks again for the---" he waves to the unconscious mugger. Definitely brain damaged.

"Yeah, no problem." And then he grapples away.

Phantom's much cooler. Not that he'll ever say that in front of Danny, Sam, or Tucker. Or anyone from Amity.

He makes it safely home, even if he does pretend to not notice the Bat stalking him from above. And of course, once he recounts his tale to his mother, she freaks out that he'd been nearly mugged, and tries to ban him from doing anything in Gotham at all.

"Mom, I can't just stay inside the house all day. I refuse to spend my whole summer on Netflix." He wants to at least go sightseeing.

Her mouth goes into a thin line and her eyes are as fiery as her red hair.

"Fine," she says. "Then you can get a job."

His stomach drops, "What?"

"A job. My floor needs a new intern, and I found just the perfect person."

"No, Mom, you can't," he pleads. "A Wayne Enterprises job? I'll be known as a nepo-baby for life!"

"Well, too bad. You should have thought of that before being mugged."

"Almost mugged, Mom! Almost! Red Robin was there!" When he sees that this point is getting him nowhere, he switches tactics, "Mom, the Waynes are held hostage, like, every other week! Do you really want me in closer proximity to them?"

She lifts her chin and sniffs, "I'll be there to watch out for you. And an intern won't have any reason to be next to a Wayne, anyway."

He groans, "Mom, please. It's my summer vacation!"

"And you're my son. Discussion over. You start in two days."

He groans again, "Do I at least get paid? Or is Brucie Wayne like every other rich white dude out there?"

"Wes, sweetie, you're white--"

"But not rich," he grumbles.

"But yes, you'll be paid. Every position with Wayne Enterprises is paid."

He crosses his arms, "At least there's that, I guess."

His mom walks to him to hug him and kiss his forehead.

"I'll handle the paperwork tomorrow. Don't worry, you'll love it there!"

Well, spoiler alert: he doesn't.

He's basically a go-fer, fetching paper or ink or photos or files and most usually, lunch from across the street or donuts or coffee. Especially coffee. And his mom's coworkers kinda suck because hey, the Wayne's executive PR manager just hired her own kid for a coveted Wayne internship. No one likes the idea of someone being here who doesn't deserve it. So he is really sent on the most stupid, tedious errands possible for an intern.

He called it: he's the resident nepo-baby, beaten only by Brucie Wayne's very own brood of nepo-babies.

Suddenly, just letting that mugger fill him with hot lead doesn't look so bad. Maybe he would have become a ghost! Haunting Danny would have been fun. Or Ember and the others of her nature make it look fun, anyway.

The Fenton thermos part would probably be uncomfortable, though.

"This sucks," Wes mutters to himself, balancing three carrying cartons of Batbucks (Gotham's stupid parody of Starbucks since they have to be special and not like other girls in every aspect possible) coffee with just two arms, staring helplessly at the elevator call button in front of him.

"Need an assist?" calls a familiar voice, though Wes can't place from where.

"Yes, please!" Wes says gratefully, looking up at a face with blue eyes, black hair, and a familiar jawline.

Wait a second.

"Here, I'll get that for you," says the man, who is really more like a teenager, since it's goddamn Timothy Drake-Wayne, co-CEO of Wayne Enterprises at just seventeen years old. "Going up, I assume?" he gives a charming laugh as he presses the up button, the kind one practices to perfection to ace media interviews and entertain the wealthy elite at galas.

"Yes, thank you, sir," Wes says, and takes the time to really study Drake-Wayne's eyes. And sure enough, he can recognize makeup covering up purple eyebags, just like he could on Fenton.

No. Please, Lord, I'll go back to church. Just don't let it be true.

"Yeah, no problem!" Drake-Wayne says, which really just seals the deal. Wes quietly dies inside, and also curses God. "I'm glad to be of service! Interns doing coffee runs really are doing God's work. And there's no need to call me sir. Tim will do just fine."

"Right... Tim," Wes says uncertainly. He kind of wants the elevator doors to open up and reveal a pitch black hole to drop into, but when the bell rings and the doors slide open, it's just the same ol' regular elevator it's always been. Damn.

So. The boss of this whole entire company is Red Robin. Makes sense, seems legit. He figured out that Plasmius was the mayor of Amity, too, didn't he? So why shouldn't all billionaires be playing dress up and fight crime or be the crime? What's stopping them all, really, when wealth is a superpower all on its own?

Wait, fuck. So. If Tim started out as a Robin when he was twelve-ish. And apparently billionaires are playing dress up. Then doesn't that mean...?

Oh, God. Couldn't he go one season without figuring out some superpowered person's secret identity? Is that too much to ask?

And of course, after figuring Tim and goddamn Brucie Wayne out, it's not so hard to see the correlations between the introduction of every other Wayne brat to the debut of each Robin.

He shakily steps into the elevator, "And how do you normally take your coffee?"

"With the maximum amount of espresso the barista can legally give me," is Tim's immediate answer.

Just like Danny.

And even worse, Tim steps into the elevator after him.

"What floor?" he asks, and Wes feels stupid. Obviously he was going to come in: why offer help at all if he wasn't going to push the floor button for Wes?"

"Uh, 73," Wes says.

Tim nods and presses the according number, and then takes one of the cartons from Wes as the doors closed.

Hopefully, any nerves that Wes is showing can be played off as the nerves an intern would get when they somehow get stuck with the Actual Big Boss™ , and then said Boss™ tries to take the shit they're carrying.

"Uh, you don't have to do that," Wes says nervously. "I can carry them all, really!"

"Don't be silly," the literal co-CEO of his workplace says, as if Wes is in some fucked up Wattpad fic. "Again, where would any of us be without the ones who bring us coffee?"

"In bed?" Wes offers nervously. "Sleeping?"

Tim laughs, but his smile looks more like a smirk, "I guess you're right!"

"But seriously, I can carry the coffee. It's my job. And it'll look weird to everyone if they see the CEO helping me do my job."

"It's no trouble!" Tim insists, and then emphasizes his point by stealing the second carton in Wes's hands. "See? And my employees will be glad to see that I value every employee and am always willing to help out!"

Haha yeah, thought Wes. Too bad they'll never know just how much you help out, right?

Finally, the elevator dings, and Wes is released from one prison to another.

Thanks to the normal chaos of working at Wayne Enterprises, no one immediately notices that the co-CEO is carrying the bulk of the load. Instead, they all hone in on the scent of coffee, and they lunge.

"Thanks, Weston!" the few who are clear-minded enough to remember manners manage to say, even as most of them take their orders from a black haired wunderkind instead of a redheaded conspiracy theorist with the curse of Cassandra.

"Of course," Wes says nervously, and then finally some recognition starts sparking in the coffee-hungry eyes of exhausted PR employees who are always trying to handle some wacky Wayne hijinks.

"You're Weston," says his mom's assistant, Jade, pointing at Wes, and then slowly pointing to Tim, "and you're.... Oh, Mr. Drake-Wayne! Here, let me get that for you!" She yanks the empty cartons out of Tim's hands and shoved them into Wes's. Luckily, his carrying carton had been emptied, too, so he doesn’t get coffee spilled all over him and the floor.  "Here, Weston, go dispose of these! Why were you making Mr. Drake-Wayne carry them? It's your job to get coffee, not our CEO's! He has better things to do. In fact, he probably needs to speak to Ms. Rolland."

Ms. Rolland as in his mother, who went back to her maiden name after the divorce.

"Now hold on," says Tim, his eyes alight with anger. "I offered to help Weston out, and I have no need to speak with Penny. I was just helping out one of my employees."

"Oh," says Jade, taking a step back. "Of- of course, sir! Weston, here, I'll take these cartons back. And sir, it's very kind of you to help out."

"I try," Tim says dryly. Wes notices he doesn't tell Jade to not call him sir. "You should probably get back to work."

"Of course, sir." And with the cartons in her hands, she scurries off in the direction of his mom's office, where she'll probably complain about how her kid made Jade look like a fool in front of the Actual Big Boss™.

"Uh, thanks," he tells Tim. "But you really didn't have to help me. It is my job, after all." Unwilling or not.

"It's no problem!" Tim repeats, and Wes wants to bang his head into a wall. "And hey, next time you do a coffee run, forget the others and just grab my order." His words are accompanied by a wink, and Wes is pretty sure it's supposed to be weird rich people humor, so he laughs, and pretends his heart isn’t beating into his ears.

"As much espresso as possible," he plays along, and Tim grins, pressing the call button for the elevator. It hasn't been summoned to another floor, so it opens right back up.

"Have a good day, Weston."

"It's just Wes, really," he corrects, and Tim smiles again.

"Wes," he says, and the elevator doors slide shut.

Cool cool cool. So now he just has to survive two months in Gotham while knowing the entire Batclan’s secret identities.

Cool cool cool cool cool cool....