#Overcoming condemnation

[thecatholiccrusade]

Forgiven & Free: Leaving Guilt Behind

Have you ever felt the heavy weight of guilt bearing down on your soul, even after confessing your sins and seeking God’s forgiveness? It’s a common struggle for many Catholics – the lingering sense of shame and unworthiness that seems to cling to us, despite our best efforts to move forward in grace. But the truth is, holding onto guilt after repentance may actually be a trap set by the Devil…

[sipping-ambrosia-wine]

i wanted to weigh bad faith readings vs how clumsy the writing in Weapons Factory actually was to make people dislike luminara so much and. wow. she literally falls to her knees and despairs when she thinks barriss is dead.

[t4tails]

[icewindandboringhorror]

finally settling once and for all... with the evidence laid out plainly.. which of these brother boys is more stinkys ,,,

[platypusisnotonfire]

This is exactly what I want my future hypothetical family to be. This is what I will pass down to my children.

my family is fucking addicted to macgyvering and it's becoming a problem. every time something in this house breaks, instead of doing the sensible thing of replacing it or calling someone qualified to fix it, we all group around the offending object with a manic look in our eyes and everyone gets a try at fixing it while being cheered on or ridiculed by the rest.

it's a beautiful bonding activity, but the "creative" fixes have turned our house into a quasihaunted escape room like contraption where everything works, but only in the wonkiest of ways. you need a huge block of iron to turn on the stove. the oven only works if a specific clock is plugged in. the bread machine has a huge wood block just stapled to it that has become foundational to its function. sometimes when you use the toaster the doorbell rings. and that's just the kitchen.

it's all fun and games until you have guests over and you have to lay out the rules of the house like it's a fucking board game. welcome to the beautiful guest room. don't pull out the couch yourself you need a screwdriver for that, and that metal rod makes the lamp work so don't move it. it also made me a terrifying roommate in college, because it makes me think i can fix anything with enough hubris and a drill. you want to call the landlord about a leaky faucet? as if. one time my dad made me install a new power socket because we ran our of extension cords

[angelkwill]

Traps

everyone will face trapsof darkness, they are to overcome those who shine the brightesthave either done so, or have yetto face their traps so judge not, lest ye be judgedcondemn not, lest ye be condemned for judgment and condemnationare themselves traps, andmany get entangled -akw- ___©2024 Angel K WillBlog Photo by chivozol from PexelsBe Peace. Flow Love. Life Joy.Check out the bookstore;…

[hobbitkiller]

The complexity and nuance of Arcane isn’t that there’s a class conflict. That’s the straightforward, obvious, surface conflict. If your analysis of Arcane doesn’t get beyond that, you are very shallowly scratching the surface.

When it comes to the class themes of Arcane (which are not the only ones) the nuance and depth come from realizing that such conflicts are rarely so simple. People who come from the oppressed class can, in turn, oppress their own people. People can benefit from being part of the rich/oppressor class without realizing how they benefit from the system, and even those who see it can struggle to break from their own privilege. Some people are most concerned with harm reduction while others seek radical change. Sometimes, the only way to move forward is in step with the person who was just holding you back. Arcane lays all of this out, and, yes, that can be unsatisfying. Black and white stories where there’s a clear good guy and bad guy can be comforting, and there are certainly some very good stories that are that way, but that wasn’t what Arcane set out to do.

Arcane did its best (which I personally believe was fantastic) to humanize everyone, even Silco and Ambessa—to not necessarily excuse but to explain why we do the horrible things we do. For love? Yes. And fear, anger, greed, pride, altruism, hope, and despair. It was not interested in condemning its characters for their flaws but rather showing them either fighting to overcome them or falling victim to them like any decent tragedy would do.

It’s a disservice to the narrative to flatten that complexity to rich = bad, poor = good.

[myownwholewildworld]

Love is heartbreak

↪ a the age of adaline inspired fic

pairing: marcus acacius x ageless!f!reader. summary: kissed by the goddess juno on your day of reckoning, you are brought back to life, condemned to wander the earth for a century. until you meet the other half of your soul who offers you the life you yearn for. but will you be strong enough to accept such promise? author's note: yes, i've cheated on my other wips, I'M SORRY. but when the angst and romance call, i can only answer - i am only human afterall. hope you like this little story that was supposed to be a drabble but ended up being this long, oops! comments and reblogs appreciated. enjoy! x warnings: 18+, mdni. soulmates trope. angst, romance, smut. mild breeding kink (soz). infidelity. mention of SA (not by Marcus) and death. dual pov. reader is female and a blank slate. reader is close to 150 years old (stopped ageing in her twenties) and Marcus is in his fifties. not beta'd and very lightly proofread, apologies if you spot any mistakes lol wordcount: ~8.4k. divider by @\saradika-graphics

“I’ll do anything to stay by your side, amica mea (my beloved). I don’t care about what the future holds if it’s not with you,” Marcus’ broad hands held yours, his thumb drawing invisible circles on the back of your hands.

You hated this — how your heart twisted inside you, torn apart by the choice you had to make. Was this never-ending life not enough punishment? No, you also had to go through heartbreak — your own and Marcus’. For love, you had to.

With eyes averted, you looked down at your worn sandals. Tears teetering on the edge of your waterlines as your vision became blurry with sadness, regrets and fears washed over you like the Tiber kissing the shore goodbye.

In your hundred years wandering the ground beneath your feet, you never had to go through this. Always so careful not to feel, not to grow close to anyone, not to really live the life you wanted, and now you were in a position where it almost felt too real.

Within reach — you only had to extend your hands and hug him in a tight, soothing embrace. Only needed to accept the life that Marcus was offering. Though as much as you wanted to—you wanted it, him, so badly—you could never.

And what was worst, you couldn’t explain why. First you would see the horror in his eyes, that frightened look glittering, then incomprehension, and finally disgust. Your heart couldn’t take it.

“But I do care, Marcus. Yours is bright, your military career is about to take off. I would only hinder you, your dreams. I am no one, and—” you tried to reason with him.

But love was blind. Love was deaf. Love didn’t care about impossibilities, because love was defiant.

At least his was.

“Do you think I care about being disowned? Do you truly believe that I would choose such dreadful life over you? Over a wonderful life with the person I love most?” Marcus squeezed your hands before one of his found your chin, tilting up your face to him. “Omnia vincit amor, et nos cedamus amori (love conquers all, let us too yield to love).”

You shook your head in denial, his words ringing in your ears like chants of war. Because Marcus waged war in all aspects of life, even in love — he’d conquered your heart so fully, you’d never asked him to return it. It would forever be his to cherish, to cry over, to destroy, to hate.

Because he would need to hate you to overcome the heartbreak you were about to cause.

“You don’t have a choice here. You are to marry the lady your family has arranged for; her family’s prestige will do you good. You’re just infatuated, Marcus, it isn’t true love,” you forced yourself to let a soft laugh out, wiping your tears as you took a step back. “At least, for me, it isn’t.”

Marcus’ expression folded and your heart with him. You hated yourself for saying such a vile lie, but a necessary one. The passage of time would not affect you, always stagnant in your early twenties after a fateful day when Juno decided to save your life from certain death. The Goddess of love and marriage was also one known for Her eternal youthfulness — one She would only share with those who had been wronged. And you had been so wronged in your mortal life.

And here you were, so close to committing the same mistake all over again. But you knew better this time — not because you didn’t trust Marcus, but because Fate was capricious. It didn’t matter if Juno was watching over you.

“You don’t mean that. I know you don’t. This is true love, lux mihi (my light), one that would live through eternity,” Marcus muttered breathlessly, reaching for you again, looking for that unbreakable connection you both strongly shared.

“Eternity? Don’t speak of things you don’t understand, Marcus,” you retorted, forcing your tone to sound mocking.

Another step back with an unmovable expression and you saw realisation dawning on him. Slowly like a river widening its meanders, steady like the constant flow of water. Relentless you were, steadfast in your resolution.

“Ave atque vale (hail and farewell), Acacius,” were your last words to him.

35 years later...

“Father, may I marry her?”

Marcus gazed down the dining table, eyeing his son with consideration. He knew what it felt like, how true love messed up your head to the point of madness. He had felt that way only once in his life, and it wasn’t for the woman sitting beside him.

As cruel as it sounded, Marcus never loved his wife, because his heart belonged to someone else — the now hazy memory of a woman who always lingered on the edges of his mind. A cruel reminder of how feeble and fleeting love was, how love turned into heartbreak with just a few words.

“At least, for me, it isn’t.”

That sentence alone had broken him, his ability to feel some sort of romantic connection died that very same day. At night it would haunt him, filling his dreams with nightmares. The same scene playing over and over in his mind, his heart cracking even more every time those words would hit him.

He’d waited for weeks, months. A year it took him to realise you truly were not coming back, that you meant it. He’d only been a plaything for you, a toy you discarded once things got too real. And at that point he surrendered to the pressure his family put on him. Marcus had followed through with the arranged marriage in the end, despite the agony and the empty hole in his chest.

And now his son was following in his footsteps. His heir looked so much like him, like a reflection of the past staring back at him. It pained him — he saw himself in Magnus, almost as if the roles had reversed and he was his own father thirty-five years ago. Pleading, asking to marry the love of his life even though his hand had already been promised in holy matrimony to another.

His wife, Prisca, waved one of her hands with disdain, the spoon clattering on the porcelain plate.

“Nonsense, Magnus,” she tutted at their son. “We’ve already been through this. You will marry Verina. You’d put us in a very compromised position with Gellius if you don’t.”

“But—”

“Quit your whining and man up, my son. Gellius is the Emperor’s best counsellor. It will bring our family great reputation,” Prisca reasoned, tone poisoned with greed. “And riches.”

“Father?” Magnus’ eyes shot to his, pleading him to intervene.

Marcus sensed Prisca stiffening besides him, gripping the arms of the chair like a vice. He didn’t look in her direction but knew how her orbs distilled venom. She would never understand what their son was talking about, but he did. Too damn right.

“I would like to meet her before giving you my blessing,” he spoke calmly, lacing his hands together on top of the wooden table.

Magnus’ eyes sparked up, a hopeful smile curling his mouth.

“Of course, of course! She’s waiting right outside,” and then his son hurried out of the room.

Prisca stood up, the screeching noise of the chair’s legs irritating Marcus.

“Like father, like son,” she muttered maliciously before disappearing too.

In this moment of silent respite, Marcus pinched the bridge of his hooked nose. The patience he had to muster was titanic. His life had been nothing but heartache and war, his son being the only reason he stood by his wife’s side in public. He’d tired of the pantomime, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.

He would meet the woman who had stolen Magnus’ heart, just to make sure there was no deception from her part. Marcus wouldn’t wish for his son to go through the same heartbreak as him. If everything was at it should, then he wouldn’t oppose.

“Father,” Magnus called, and Marcus removed the hand from his exhausted, battle-scarred face.

His heart literally stopped.

A warm smile softened your expression when Magnus asked you to join his family in the dining hall. You had been sitting patiently in a small waiting room, wondering if this was right.

The first time you had laid eyes on Magnus a week ago, your heart jolted, and your mind went blank. He reminded you so much of your one and only true love, the one you ditched thirty-five years ago because you were too afraid to embrace the beautiful life he had offered you. The one you still felt in your heart, dormant yet very present in your everyday life.

Perhaps it was wrong of you to encourage this situation, whatever this was. When Magnus had asked you that morning to join his family for supper, he had caught you off guard, so you found yourself agreeing to it.

Deep down you knew why you hadn’t disappeared yet: you wanted to live this moment one more time. Wanted to remember how it felt to be loved so fiercely by Marcus, a yearning you’d been craving for over three decades. Only this man wasn’t Marcus, only someone who was his spitting image.

One dinner, a few hours more of playing pretend, and then you’d vanish again. Leave Rome behind after such brief visit before someone recognised you. You couldn’t afford to give any explanations, so you’d only visit this place once every decade.

You walked behind Magnus, head slightly bowed and hands laced in front of you. Magnus’ broad body blocked your vision, but soon enough he stepped aside to introduce you.

You curtsied, eyes averted, fixed on the marble slabs.

Before you straightened your back and introduced yourself, the man across the room spoke your name — your real birthname.

Inevitably, your heart sank to your belly with panic and your eyes quickly drifted up to meet the darkened ones you once had allowed yourself to swim in.

Marcus. Your Marcus.

Your heart raced in your chest and filled with pure joy. You couldn’t stop the smile that had started curling your lips nor the glassiness of your eyes.

Your one and true love was staring back at you with widened, tired eyes. He had gotten up off his chair and was striding towards you before he suddenly halted a couple of meters away from you with confusion painting his handsome features. Ones that had not remained impassible to the passage of time and war, but ones that you daydreamed about every single day without fail.

So within reach — you would only need to close the distance between you two and hug him, hug him till dawn and never let go. Oh, how much you missed him, how much you still loved him. With your whole heart, the one that ached and wept with regret in your chest right now.

Would he love you back? Did you break the love you shared past the point of mending?

“What? Her name is Aurora, father,” Magnus chuckled nervously, his eyes dancing between the two of you, puzzled. “This is the woman who has stolen my heart. I would like to marry the love of my life with your blessing.”

Your eyes flew from Marcus to Magnus at the revelation, bewildered. Marriage? Was this what it was all about, the purpose of his invitation to meet his family? Marcus’ son wanted to marry you?

You had not seen that coming, as it wasn’t your intention at all. You had only wanted to live this fleeting fantasy of yours for a few days, but there wasn’t love. Not like the one you felt for Marcus, that could never compare.

“Your name is Aurora?” Marcus’ question forced you to look in his direction, your heart twisting maddingly inside you. You nodded with hesitation, “I thought you were…” Marcus pronounced your real name again, the sinking pit of your stomach churning.

“That was my mother,” you quickly came up with a lie. You could never tell him the truth.

“Your mother,” he repeated slowly, shock and pain transforming his beautiful face. “I knew your mother.”

“What? Really?” Magnus intervened with a laugh, palming his father’s shoulder. “That’s such a coincidence!”

You looked at both of them, but your eyes inevitably lingered on Marcus’ darkened ones. Would he believe your lie? Again?

“The resemblance with her is… uncanny. You look so much like her, Aurora,” Marcus rasped, taking a step back and steeling his posture with determination.

He didn’t need to speak for you knew his hurt. Because the same memories that were flooding his mind, had been drowning you for decades.

The atmosphere felt heavy with unspoken truths, your face burning — you loathed yourself for the pain you had caused him. Pain that still contorted his expression every time his eyes flicked to yours.

Would he ever forgive you? Would he know that you lied so many years ago? That you truly and irremediably loved him? That you would always do?

You bowed down your head, mainly to conceal the unspent tears brimming on your waterlines.

“So I have been told, General,” you muttered softly as Magnus’ hand rested easily on the small of your back, his lips brushing your temple gently.

“I know this may seem sudden, father, but I know that Aurora is the one,” Magnus confessed shyly, pulling your body towards him in a warm half-embrace.

Never in your life had you wished yourself to disappear so badly. Marcus’ sight burnt through you and you couldn’t help but reciprocate him. The sadness—no, the heartbreak—in them was like a dagger through your heart, and you wondered if the decision you made so many years ago had been the right one.

By the looks of it, he had done well for himself, just as you had imagined he would. The villa was beautiful, sumptuous even. It spoke of his status in the Empire, how highly rewarded he had been for his enterprise. You assumed that Marcus had married eventually after you left, and you only hoped he’d married for love.

“I see,” Marcus murmured in reply to his son, walking back to his chair. “Let’s eat first. Prisca, my wife, won’t be joining us. She had to excuse herself because she wasn’t feeling well. Please forgive her absence.”

Prisca. So he hadn’t married for love, his family had won and forced him into an arranged marriage after all. Your heart cried for him, for the injustice you had showered upon him with your departure. Perhaps he ended up loving her so his life wouldn’t be as miserable.

That last thought stung, the dagger further twisting in your heart. You wanted his happiness, but selfishly you hoped Marcus still loved you. Undeserving of such love you were, that was clear to you, but you still hoped anyway.

“Of course, Dominus,” you hushed as Magnus guided you to an empty chair.

The food served was delicious, but the silence looming over the table tinged the atmosphere uncomfortable. Magnus did a remarkable effort to keep the conversation going, but Marcus’ succinct replies didn’t leave much room for chatter. And when Magnus pushed again about the marriage proposal—to you dismay—Marcus said that it could discussed tomorrow over breakfast.

Even though the man in front of you had aged, you still saw him as he was thirty-five years ago. He had a scar on his upper cheek and across the bridge of his aquiline nose, crows feet kissing the corners of his brown eyes, his thick curls were greying, and his demeanour was more stoic, but he was still your Marcus.

The only difference though was his lack of… life. His eyes didn’t sparkle anymore, they were tinted with darkness and sorrow. Had war changed him? Had you changed him?

Your throat collapsed on itself, tightening to the point of suffocation. Just in time, you reined in the tears as the last maid removed the plate in front of you.

“I should be going,” you announced, pushing back the chair to stand up.

Marcus sprung to his feet before his son did. And when he realised his promptness, he cleared his throat but didn’t speak.

“It’s late,” Magnus said, standing up to be by your side, throwing a confused glance to his father. “Could she stay the night, father, please?”

Marcus nodded.

“I will ask one of the servants to prepare one of the empty chambers,” Marcus conceded, walking around the table to meet his son.

“Oh,” Magnus sighed, and you knew he’d hoped to share a bed with you tonight.

Your face burnt once more with shame when Marcus’ eyes looked for yours. However, you didn’t meet his gaze, scared of what you would find in it.

“Thank you, General, you are most generous,” you husked in a low voice.

“I will show you around the villa in the meantime, amica mea,” Magnus said, his hand quick to rest on the back of your waist.

You subtly flinched at his endearment. That was what his father always called you. It felt wrong when he said it now, completely out of place — it didn’t at first, when you looked at him and imagined he was Marcus instead. But with the love of your life standing firm in front of you, it sounded so vile.

This fantasy of yours was a dangerous game, one you didn’t want to play. Not if it meant hurting Marcus again, because you could see the way he studied you. How his pupils dilated with anger every time his son would seek your touch. It was killing him, and you in the process. When everyone went to sleep, you would leave in the middle of the night, as the shadow you were condemned to be.

Magnus urged you to turn around and walk beside him, when you heard Marcus gasp.

“Your birthmark,” his words stopped you right in your tracks.

When Juno touched you to bring you back to life over a century ago, Her caress left a mark on the back of your left shoulder. The shape resembled that of a peacock, the loyal animal known to accompany the Goddess.

“What about it?” Magnus intervened, confused by the interruption.

Slowly you looked over your shoulder to glance at Marcus. His eyes were a window to his restless, half soul, desperate and blown — he knew. He searched your face for a crack, a way in, but your expression didn’t tumble.

You wished you could veer around and throw yourself in his arms, kiss him and apologise, ask him to take you back. But you just couldn’t. Love was heartbreak, and it would have to remain that way if you didn’t want to hurt Marcus even more than what you already had.

“Nothing,” he grumbled, jaw tight with a tic on the muscle.

Marcus stirred in bed, unable to get any sleep.

Your face haunted him brighter than ever — every time his eyes shut, your sorry expression would gnaw at the confines of his mind. Seeing you right in front of him after so many years, all curled up to his son’s side, drove him mad.

At first, he thought himself crazy. You looked exactly as you did thirty-five years ago — not even a wrinkle kissed your skin, not a greying hair anywhere to be seen in your plaited hair. So when you explained you were the daughter of the woman who broke his heart, he had believed you.

That was until he saw the birthmark on your shoulder. The unmistakable shape he had joked about in the past, telling you that you had been kissed by Juno Herself at birth. It was impossible that you had inherited such a peculiar mark.

But it was even more impossible that you had remained as youthful as you were, as if not a single day had passed. How was that even possible? Some people were gifted with slow ageing, he had seen some, but to remain exactly the same? No, there was something else lurking, an explanation he could not grasp because it was too surreal, too unfathomable for a mortal.

Marcus needed answers. His mind was a tangled mess, this new discovery shining a different light on the conversation that destroyed him over three decades ago. Did your words have a meaning he had not been able to see before?

“Eternity? Don’t speak of things you don’t understand, Marcus.”

What had you truly meant by that? Did you understand what eternity really was in a level he couldn’t even start to comprehend?

Heart pounding, he quietly removed the covers and sat on the bed. A quick glance over his shoulder confirmed that Prisca was sound asleep. Not that she would miss him anyway.

In darkness, Marcus palmed around until he found his toga and quickly changed to then walk out of his bedchamber with a clear destination in mind.

He trudged along the cold corridors of his villa until he found the door to the room you were sleeping in. For a second, he doubted, thinking he was crazy for the implausible reason taking form in his mind. But if it wasn’t that—that you were, somehow, ageless—he still needed to know why. Why hadn’t you aged? Why leave him? Why not tell him the truth?

As his shaky hand lifted and curled to knock on the wooden plank, the door swung open.

You appeared under the doorframe with a wild expression and widened eyes, obviously in a hurry to leave. Again.

“Marcus,” you gasped, one hand flying to your chest in surprise as your beautiful eyes met his.

He froze in place, all the words he had planned to say stuck to the back of his throat, forming a lump that would not let him speak. Your beauty was dazzling, but it was the buried love he harboured for you what stopped him from talking as it resurfaced.

His memory of you had not faded, able to remember every single feature of your face regardless the passage of time. Everything about you was engraved in his mind, but he had almost forgotten how sweet you smelt. Roses, with an earthy hint of grass.

As your scent numbed his mind, Marcus finally found his dry tongue.

“Don’t leave, please. Don’t leave again,” he begged in a hoarse whisper, his eyes diving in yours.

You looked up at him and he felt himself under a spell. The same one you had him under years ago, when the heart was shattered and the mind bleak. Because even when you waved him goodbye, he still loved you. Never stopped, was never able to hate you for what you did, what you said.

“Can we talk?” he pushed before realising your eyes were glassy with sadness. “I know your name is not Aurora. I know it’s you.”

Your bottom lip trembled as a single tear fell from the cliff of your lashes. Moved by his own ghost of the past, Marcus reached for your cheek with his palm, the thumb brushing away the tears that followed the first one.

You let go of a deep sigh, kissed the palm of his hand and nodded. His heart was beating so loud, so fast, he almost missed your words.

“I owe you an explanation, Marcus,” you finally spoke, a broken sob almost tearing his resolution.

As you stepped aside, Marcus came into the room you were so eager to leave behind. Your heartbeat had spiked the moment you saw him and hadn’t slowed down since then. Perhaps you didn’t die of heartbreak but could die of a heart attack.

For decades you had been running until you found him. Until Marcus made you believe you could have everything he promised. It had been the first time you had actually considered growing roots. But the thought of not being able to grow old, to see the love of your life wither away while you remained sane, was paralysing. You had panicked — too scared to accept the love of a man who would give up everything for you, too frightened to trust someone again.

But was Marcus not worthy of your trust? He demonstrated repeatedly how he would always protect you, always cherish you. Not only with words, but with actions too. He had been so considerate, so loving, for a moment in the past you thought it a ruse. How could someone be so damn perfect and still be real?

Your heart clenched in pain, seeing him latch the door behind him and turn around to face you. The look of confusion, of sorrow, ate at your conscience. Under the candlelight, his torn features stuck out, time unforgiving. He was still gorgeous, would always be in your eyes.

“I’m sorry,” was the first thing that slipped out before the quivering of your bottom lip let out a sob. “I’m so sorry, Marcus. I didn’t know Magnus was your son, otherwise I would have never—” you shook your head, taming your cries. “I should have known. He looks so much like you. When I first saw him, I thought it was you. That somehow you had been able to still time and be with me.”

You sobbed a pitiful laugh, unable to look him in the eye. It was shameful having to admit something like this — that you had chased after a boy because he reminded you of someone you loved. But despite your immortality, you were still capable of human mistakes.

“So you didn’t know he was my son?” Marcus asked quietly. You could see the inner workings of his mind ruminating as you shook your head no. “Do you love him? Were you really going to marry him?”

The questions caught you off guard. Although at some point you were expecting them, you didn’t think it would be this early in conversation. It might be for the better if it got out of the way as soon as possible, so you could explain yourself.

The first cut would be the deepest, although the rest would still hurt.

“I love the idea of him,” you emphasized, ashamed of yourself for giving in to such fantasy. “I thought I could love him the way I did you, that he could be a vessel of my love for you. That I could, for a few days, remember how it felt— how you felt. That I could have you one more time,” you paused and sighed, intertwining your hands together to twist them nervously. “I only met him a week ago, marriage did not cross my mind at all. I was going to leave once—”

“Once it got too serious,” he finished for you.

Marcus went quiet again, his eyes transfixed on you. You wished Juno blessed you with the ability to read minds, to know what he was thinking right this moment. Did he hate you for what you just revealed? Did he think you were sick for trying to live out a fleeting dream? Would he forgive you for such despicable behaviour?

“Do you still love me?” his gravelly voice was so low, for a moment you thought you had imagined it.

But the doubt, the fresh hurt in his wounded gaze, told you otherwise.

You gaped for air, your lungs strained with sorrow. You should fib, stand by your initial lie, tell him you didn’t. But what had that gotten you the first time around except for a life of misery and loneliness? What had that gotten him?

“I do. I do love you, Marcus,” you whispered, out of breath due to the pounding of your heart. “Couldn’t be any other way. You’re the other half of my soul that I’ve been missing for so long.”

Time stilled as you looked Marcus dead in the eyes. You were not expecting anything out of your raw confession, because the time for those had passed. It was what you should have said thirty-five years ago, not now. You were too late to mend the love that had slipped through the cracks of time.

“Then that’s all that matters,” he finally broke the silence, his voice laced with emotion.

The admission shook you. Could this be true, really happening? Did he still love you after all this time?

In a couple of strides, you found yourself in his arms, the way it should have been ages ago. His forearms wrapped around you like a warm blanket as his head bowed down to taste your lips.

You kissed him back, first sweetly, then fiercely. You kissed him with all the unexpressed love you held in your heart, with the passion your true love deserved. His tongue was as sweet as you remembered, as soothing as your memory recalled. A dance ensued, his tongue reading a love letter to yours.

Your hands, which had been resting on his chest, drifted up to cradle his face — his moustache and stubble pickling the skin of your palms. Marcus untied his mouth from yours to kiss your tears goodbye, then pressed a peck on your forehead. His heart was beating as loud as yours, in unison like true soulmates.

“I’ve missed you. I never stopped thinking about you, lux mihi,” he confessed under his breath. “Life was never the same after you left.”

His admission made your heart flutter even further, and you couldn’t help but let your hands roam his back. Your fingers played with the knot holding the toga in place, his seeping warmth beckoning.

“I need you, Marcus. Make love to me,” you pleaded, leaving a love trail of kisses on his neck.

Marcus’ chest rumbled at your plea, his lips hunting down yours in a heartbeat. His hands were quick with your clothing, worshipping the curves of your body as it was revealed to him. You did the same with his toga, until you were both bare, standing in front of each other.

You saw his eyes lingering on every nook and cranny of your skin before they found yours. A thunder of connection ran through you, of yearning. On your tiptoes, you kissed him again, pressing your breasts onto his chest while your fingertips traced the map of his back.

You didn’t expect all the bumps and grooves you found on his skin; battle scars dotted around everywhere. Some thick and protuberant, some thin and soft. Marcus keened at your touch, silently letting you know that some of them were too sensitive to be caressed.

How much hurt his body and heart had endured, a life dedicated to war and duty. Your heart cried for him, for not being able to be by his side when he needed you most. Had you taken up his offer, had he run away from responsibility with you, his skin would tell a different story.

But the past couldn’t be changed, only the present was malleable enough to shape a new future.

Slowly he pushed you towards the bed, his hands resting on either side of your waist while his thumb drew lazy circles on your bristled skin. Raking your fingers through his silver curls, you leaned back on the mattress, his warm body blanketing yours.

His hands found the apex of your breasts, soft fingers rubbing your taut nipples as your head tilted back. Marcus licked the salt of your exposed neck, finding your pulse point. He kissed the spot and lingered, your vein pulsing against his lips as one of his hands discovered the slick your thighs harboured for him.

The feathery caress of his ring finger outlining your seam turned you into a whimpering mess. His pad stroked your nub, a slight flick followed before it slid down your slit and found your weeping hole. He circled it a few times, taunting you effortlessly, before returning to your clit.

You heaved, lips pursed so your moans would stay contained. In the dead of the night, you worried this show of love would seep through the walls. But not even the thought of his marriage, the thought of Magnus lying in bed a few rooms over, could stop you from joining your bodies together the way the Gods intended.

Marcus’ mouth travelled down the column of your neck, kissing the center of your clavicle before he went further down. Your unattended nipple was soon enough smothered by the wetness between his lips, and you fisted his hair in response, gently tugging at it.

“Marcus,” you moaned, eyes shut. Rejoiced.

One nipple drowned in his spit, the other pinched between his fingers, and his ring finger pressing tight circles on your thudding clit had you fighting to remain silent. But the moment the hand between your hands moved down and his digit teased your walls apart as it sank in your slick warmth, you couldn’t stop the muffled yet loud moan.

“Sing for me, meum corculum (my little heart),” Marcus husked. The gentle pumping of his finger in your wet heat had you quietly howling a few seconds later. “That’s it.”

Your felt your walls contract, pulse around his finger, holding onto him for dear life. Feeling your need as his own, Marcus dunked his middle finger in your pussy too, stretching you while his thumb stroked your clit. The combination of it all made you clench around him, almost begging for release.

“Let go for me,” Marcus asked between licks, and you couldn’t resist his prayer.

The coil that had been tightening inside you finally snapped, releasing a wave that coursed through your quaking body like a tumultuous sea. Your back slightly arched as your thighs trembled around his forearm, chest rising with a dire need for oxygen.

Marcus chuckled softly, setting your nipple free as he searched for your mouth again. He devoured you as you came down from your high, his erect cock gently resting on your mound. The weight of it on your sensitive skin felt like it belonged. The anticipation of welcoming him inside you made you gush.

“Let me drink you, kiss you, savour you,” he pressed a kiss on your mouth after each pause.

Your skin flushed; the proposition was somewhat indecent. It was lewd, frowned upon, and you were tethered to the chains of social decency. But there was nothing decent about infidelity, after all.

“Please, mea vita (my life). I can make you reach for the moon and the stars in the ceiling above if you let me, make you touch them,” he promised.

You shyly nodded, and his boyish grin grew wider, his lips tensing. So contagious, you smiled back as he came off you and moved your body until your butt was on the edge of the mattress.

He scooted you over towards him until the back of your knees were resting on his shoulders — leaving you completely exposed to his hungry gaze. His eyes lingered on your leaking dampness, his dilated pupils tracing the outline of your seam. The intensity of it all, the deep connection, made your thighs press together against his neck, wanting to hide your core from him.

You had nothing to be shy of, as Marcus had already seen you bare before. Sex with him had always been ardent, fervent — the heat of passion always got the best of you both, a certain urgency to consummate your love. But now? Now was different. There was no rush in his movements, in how his thumbs pried your pussy lips open, in how his warm lips brushed the sensitive skin on your inner thigh. His calm confidence in taking you as he had promised was new to you, who never had all the time in the world. But right now, you did. For Marcus, you did. Always would.

Your lashes fluttered, kissing the apples of your cheeks the moment the languid strokes of his tongue met your swollen flaps. He kissed one gently, then the other, before the wet muscle lapped from your gushing hole up to your clit. So venerating were his licks, your limbs relaxed at the intimate kiss.

“You taste like ambrosia, lux mihi. The best relish I have ever been graced with,” his hot breath collided with the cold skin on your slit, your body trembling in response.

“Marcus, please,” you begged, although you were not sure why, or what you were asking of him.

He didn’t leave you waiting again. His fingers sank in the flesh of your thighs while his tongue dived inside your slick furrow. So dextrous were his charges, you couldn’t help but mewl like a starved kitten in a back alley asking for leftovers. First, he flicked your excited bundle of nerves, and then he suckled on it, his jaw working you through the climb to another orgasm. The buildup was intense, but it became feverish the moment his finger joined the action — it slid easily inside, curled to caress the precise spongy spot of your arousal.

Unaware of your own actions, one of your hands slithered down your belly until you fisted his curls — pushing him towards the centre of your heat, not away from it. He hadn’t lied — the stars appeared behind your eyes, bright like the future you wished you had with him. A sea of constellations, all imploding at once in an amazing rain of stars that blinded you as you came crashing down from the skies.

You heaved and wailed his name in ecstasy, your entire body quivering with the strength of a thousand suns. Your entrance clenched around his finger as you held your breasts, your thumbs ghosting the taut buttons. You leaked your pleasure on his mouth, and he drank unashamedly, grateful of your offering.

A sweet kiss on your mound before he towered over you, and you could only look at him in awe with raw, true love. When his battered body blanketed yours, you draped your arms around his waist, hands lightly resting on his lower back. The knowing smirk on his lips spoke of a muted “I told you so.”

“I love you,” he whispered instead.

Your heart swooned and healed and cried and exploded. All at once. He hadn’t said those exact words yet, but they were veiled in every sentence, every action he had said or done tonight. Deep inside you were eternally grateful that he hadn’t grown to hate you, that his love for you remained intact despite heartache, circumstances and time.

Unbeknownst to you, tears welled up, ones that Marcus drank too. As he did, your palms stroked his ribs, careful to avoid the scars you had come to learn were too delicate. Eager, one slid off his skin until your fingers wrapped around his throbbing manhood. Eyes down, you saw the pearly bead of pre-cum commending you to butter it on his flushed head. With your thumb you caressed the tip, and Marcus’ lips parted in need — an invitation you quickly accepted, dunking your tongue in his mouth.

A few pumps had him groaning and soon enough you were guiding him to the pocket of heat between your thighs. His cockhead kissed your gushing entrance the same way his lips did — knowing, denuded, possessing. And slowly he made his way in, parting your flesh like a new stream disturbing the earth beneath. The burning sting was most welcomed, blossoming into a fullness you had craved for decades.

“I’m home,” Marcus rasped when he was fully seated in your cunt.

Your throat clamped a little, emotion overtaking your senses the same way his erection did.

“Welcome home, dilectus (beloved),” you muttered with a loving smile and teary eyes.

You melted into a slow kiss as Marcus rocked his hips, rutting into you almost lethargically, wanting the moment to last. You let him set the pace, the drag of his cock in your pussy a delight that had you reaching for the stars again and your inner walls squeezing him tight. The sweet rhythm of his swaying tightened the slick, hot coil that pooled low in your belly, and the moment Marcus gained momentum, you followed.

Needily he started fucking into you with precision, chasing both of your highs. His dick pulsed inside you, your heartbeat instinctually adapting to his in a second. Both so close to the sky above, gasping for air now, you rocked underneath him to amplify such pleasure.

“Marcus,” you whimpered, your hands now cradling his face. You lost yourself in his eyes, blown and loving. “Please, inside,” was everything you murmured.

Even after your petition, the snap of his hips against yours didn’t falter. Instead, the pace increased as his wild orbs studied your blissed out expression.

“Do you mean it?” You nodded effusively. “Do you want your belly round with my child?”

You didn’t even know if it was possible — yes, you looked young but were closer to a hundred and fifty years on this earth than to the day you were born. The fertility of your womb was one you never dared to test in your immortal life, but the thought of having such a memory—someone—to remember him by when the days grew cold and the nights dark was overpowering reality.

“Yes, I do,” you reassured him, pecking his lips softly.

His head fell, his face resting on the crook of your neck, while he made love to you. His moves stuttered, announcing his climax, and your pussy hugged him tight in a natural response. The moment the first ropes hit your cervix, you came undone too. As Marcus filled you with his warm spent, you creamed around his beating girth, your hands holding onto his shoulders as your back arched and your nipples kissed his chest.

It took both of you a few minutes to come down, for the haze of lovemaking to slowly dissolve in the musky air. Marcus hungered for your lips and he hunted them down with eagerness. Your bodies finally untied, his cock leaving you empty yet satisfied.

You hoped—prayed—his seed would take root in your womb. Even if it was impossible, the sliver of a miraculous possibility gave you a resemblance of hope. So you pressed your thighs together, greedy of his gift.

Marcus rolled off you, falling onto his tummy besides you. Quickly you laid on your side, your fingertips tracing the lines of his skin again. A feathery touch to alleviate the harshness of life. He unburied his face from the pillow and turned to look at you.

His smile was instant, and so was yours.

For an hour no words were spoken at all, no sleep was achieved either. You both remained silent, staring at each other, soaking up the love that flooded the chamber.

Replacing your fingers with your lips, you kissed the scars on his back, his shoulders, his arms. And finally his nose and cheek, where you dawdled as if your caress could erase the pain they inflicted.

“What are we going to do, amica mea?” Marcus husked after what felt like an eternity.

Reality set in, leaving a gaping hole in your belly. What could you do? Would you be strong enough to stay by his side for however long the goddess Mors took to claim him? Strong enough to build a life you knew was ephemeral? And once he was gone from this mortal plane, what would be left of you?

The choice was an impossible one. One that you should have made decades ago, when the heart was whole and the mind still strong. Now you knew how arduous life was without him, how—for years—you had looked for him in the small details and every single man who resembled him, how the regret and the grief haunted you at every turn of a decade. Now you knew that life wasn’t worth living if you didn’t have Marcus to share it with.

You traced the profile of his nose with your lips before pressing a soft kiss on his.

“I am not sure, but I am willing to try… if you are,” you whispered, leaning back.

The implications of such life were huge for him. Married, with a son who though himself in love with you, an acclaimed General who served Rome even when Rome didn’t serve him. His responsibilities were greater than yours, Marcus had so much to lose. Had you accepted his proposal when you should have, neither of you would be in such dire situation.

Marcus sighed heavily, rolling onto his side to face you. His calloused hand cradled your cheek, his eyes filled with a determination you wished you had back then, when life was easier.

“There is nothing nor no one that could stop me from spending the rest of my life with you, lux mihi,” he mumbled, hand dropping to your hip. “I said it then, and I will say it again: I do not care for this life if you are not with me. I don’t care about reputation nor retaliation. For over fifty years I have done what was expected of me, and I am done living my life for Rome and her vice. You’re the stars that light up my path in the darkest of nights, the warm sun that guides me home. For however long you’ll have me, I’ll be with you. My heart was always yours, mea vita, since the moment I landed eyes on you. And I don’t want it back, ever, even if you have to leave again.”

The softness of his delivery, the truth his words emanated, brought tears to your eyes. You thought yourself unworthy of his love, his devotion, when you had only caused heartbreak. But this was your second chance, one you were not going to let go.

You moved closer to him as his arm wrapped around you. With your forehead resting on his naked chest, you traced invisible lines on his ribs.

“I won’t leave. That broke me once, can’t handle it a second time. I love you and want to spend the rest of our time together showing you how much I do, making up for lost time. For however long,” you repeated, kissing his chin.

There was a brief pause, and you knew what his next words would be.

“How old are you?” the question you had always avoided, dreaded.

“Close to three times your age,” you confessed, looking up at him through your lashes.

The answer slowly sank in, but instead of horror, incomprehension and disgust, you only found acceptance. As if it was just another fact about you, nothing of major importance.

“You look amazing for being close to one hundred and fifty years of age,” he joked with a grin to lighten the mood. You let out a soft laugh in response. “How? If you want to share.”

The story of how you came to be ageless wasn’t a pleasant one. But your life was full of secrets that had ruined every human link you had to this earth, and you wouldn’t let them spoil the only real connection you had left.

“I… I was promised to a man, one who I thought was worthy of my love. There were things I was blind to at that time, and only time showed them to me. I thought everything was going as expected, he was always so courteous and respectful in public. Until our wedding night, when he…” you paused, the memories too painful even after all this time, “he abused me, and let his friends use me. When they were done, they left me for dead in a ditch.”

Marcus’ arm draped around you tighter, his heart beating so loud you could hear it thumping against his chest. He hugged you close, his warmth calming and reassuring. Marcus was nothing like that man, if your abuser could even be considered a person. You knew he never would be so despicable — you were as sure as the first lights of the sun would wake you up tomorrow.

“It took me hours to finally drift away. And when I did, Juno greeted me. Said the man had wronged me, and that I should have a second chance to understand what marriage and true love actually were about. Then she touched me right here,” you caressed the peacock-shaped birthmark, “and breathed life into me.”

Marcus leaned back a little to inspect your torn features. The heartache he had to endure paled in comparison to yours. How could someone inflict such hurt on another? He couldn’t even fathom such disgusting scenario. That man was the reincarnation of evil, and he wished he suffered the most agonising death.

He had only seen your soul’s purity, your kindness, your benevolence. Anyone who didn’t was blind.

“You did not deserve that ending, amica mea — no one does. He didn’t deserve you,” his heart cried for you, for the weight you had carried for over a century. “You’ve got the purest heart I have ever known. A soul that I will protect until my dying breath.”

“A half soul,” you interrupted him, and Marcus looked at you confused. “Because your other half completes mine.”

His heart jolted, this time because of the sweetness of your confession. That muscle had grown bigger in the last two hours than in his entire lifetime. He sworn himself to stand by your side, come what may. You would never be wronged again, not if he could avoid it.

“We’re leaving tonight,” Marcus declared without skipping a beat.

“What? What about your wife, your son?” your eyes had widened, but his resolution was firm.

“My wife… she’s not been my wife for years. She’s poison. And my son…” he shrugged, conflicted. “He’ll eventually understand, or so I hope. I believe he might already have an inkling that something weird was at play from the moment I said your real name.”

“Marcus, are you sure? You’d be sacrificing so much for me, I wouldn’t want to—”

He didn’t let you finish, his mouth covering yours in a passionate kiss that slowly turned gentle and soothing. Your hands caressing his battle-scarred skin was like a balm; your touch the first and only one to cure all his ailments. Unhurriedly, he sat back up on the bed, dragging you with him.

“Let’s leave now. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you, lux mihi,” Marcus purred against your lips.

Fifteen minutes later, you were both clothed and atop of two horses, blending in with the shadows of the night that concealed your departures, in search of a new life. Together.

taglist: @orcasoul @lilac-boo @picketniffler @almostfoxglove @gothcsz @liciafonseca @namenotimportant1373

[metranart]

Tokyo Rev Shameless Smut - Draken x Baji x Mikey x You... Stepbrother's crave

The door to the house opened and you heard the voice of Keisuke, he wasn't alone— he called you to go say hello and a funnier idea crossed your mind -since you became brothers so long ago, you were always the playful type- So, you ended up hiding in the closet of his room to surprise him. You would go out, scare him and everyone would laugh…

“It seems that nobody is home-…” 

You heard someone say as they slowly approached the room, and you prepared to jump out… but all playfulness turned to ashes when Keisuke was pushed into his own room in a knot of grabbing limbs and passionate kisses—

“Shit Baji! You interrupt a Toman meeting like that again and I'm not responsible-…” Manjiro Sano kissed the threat against his neck, and your stepbrother chuckled.

“I wanted to make your blood boil—” the dark-haired gang member confessed. “I’ve missed you, how the hell was I supposed to get your attention when I’m no longer allowed in Toman meetings?”

“There’s a reason for that!” The sub-commander, Draken, shrieked as he buried his fist in the aforementioned mane to tilt his head back violently and capture his smirking lips in a bruising kiss, devouring his mouth to then continuing to spat between smooches. “You’re incorrigible, Keisuke…”

Baji groaned deep in his throat, and your throat dried, too stupefied to react, condemning yourself to watch. Mikey grinned amused, letting his hands begin to undo the Toman’s cumbersome uniforms. It was your last opportunity to make your presence known but your body was frozen… you were stunned, heart racing alarmingly fast and cheeks burning with a fever… but quiet as a tomb- and somehow, you kept like that for the next hour… an involuntary witness to this knot of unbridled lust.

They used Baji as their cocksleeve and glorified cumdump, and he LOVED every minute of it, moaning, grunting, and cursing through clenched teeth as Draken’s powerful hips pounded into him relentlessly.

“—I knew this would shut you up.” 

Was all Manjiro Sano said before his cock disappeared into your stepbrother’s mouth, who gulped it down with the expertise of a sword swallower. Inviting that massive piece of meat to kiss the back of his throat, over and over and over again, there was no gag reflex, just saliva dripping down his chin and eyes clenched shut as he enjoyed being used by two of his most trusted friends.

“~Fuck! I won’t deny that I missed this,” Draken growled raggedly, his manly voice a guttural moan that barely overcome the clapping sound of skin against skin. “… Mikey?”

Mikey just moaned a weak affirmative, too busy and mesmerized and desperate to keep riding his first division captain’s warm, wet mouth to answer. Draken smirked before laughing in amusement.

“—I don’t know if we were lucky or unlucky that (Y/N) wasn’t home…”

You forced yourself to swallow the gasp that almost came out of your mouth at the mention of your name.

This time Mikey did answer. “UNLUCKY…” the blond growled, frowning a little, “—I’ve been wanting to fuck the brothers ever since Baji introduced her to us.”

Draken tightened his grip around Baji’s hips to force his hips higher, earning a faster pace, deeper, with a rawer sentiment—as if trying to take out his next words on him.

“Same here-…aghh- f-fuck-… I can’t stop thinking about that little kitten and how cute she’d purr while we introduce her to the cravings of the flesh-… we’ll be amazing teachers” Draken’s predatory grin said it all, “is your cute sis still a virgin, Keisuke?”

Baji made a choking noise, and the shorter blond gave him a break to answer.

“My-My sweet sis is off limits, you idiots.”

He warned between coughs before sending them a sharp, dangerous smirk. Your heart softened for him, who ever since he welcomed you into the family, swore would protect you, you never doubted it… but for him to even face his best friends for you. It made you appreciate him even more.

“Buh Baji, don’t be the jealous type- how boring.” Mikey complained, throwing a tantrum.

And before Baji could answer, he was pulled up by the taller blonde until his back collided with Draken’s massive, sweaty chest, a strong hand snaking around his neck. “She has to lose it to someone, who better than us who will adore her like the princess she is—”

“I said NO.” 

Baji stood firm, he knew how rough these two could be, he loved it and couldn’t get enough… but you were fragile, you needed someone sweet and tempered, not this mass of bites, pinches and unbridled lust. 

“THIS is not open for discussion.”

“-Why are we so unsuitable, captain?”

Mikey tried to sound disinterested, kissing the words from Baji’s sweaty chest to his neck, making him moan, but Draken read him like an open book. Mikey wasn’t going to let it go. Draken had noticed that special sparkle in his commander’s eyes the moment he met you, the same sparkle he now saw in the mirror every morning. You had smitten them, they were in love with you… taking Baji was the consolation prize, you were the jackpot.

Without pulling out, Draken dragged both down to sit on the bed, continuing his thrusts but now, in a slow and lazy back and forth motion, perhaps keeping Baji happy and lightheaded would help their case.

“It’s not you—” After some delicious friction and pampering the raven-haired confessed, enjoying way too much the slow, gentle penetration, “there’s nothing inappropriate about you two, you’re perfect…” His hand wrapped around Mikey’s face to pull him into a sweet kiss, making sure their gazes melting in each other before going on. “I just want to protect her from everything and everyone, she’s precious to me- a feeble thing…” Your lips made an unconscious pout at that, “she’s innocent—” 

Mikey’s laughter interrupted him. “She’s already eighteen, she’s an adult… I assure you that she’s going to have sex soon—”

“I know!” Baji cut in, gruffly, “I know… but I am her big brotha, I have been protecting her since my mother married her father, you guys are more than six years older than her…”

“-More than six years of experience.” Draken corrected, “we would do better than a stranger.”

“Let it go,” Baji stated definitively, “you will have to settle with me.”

Mikey and Draken exchanged a glance, before saying in unison. “……Fine.”

A curt laugh followed and then twenty more minutes of taking turns with your stepbrother. Ramming into him like madmen, twisting and bending him as they dreamed to do with you. But what took your breath away the most was the contrast, all that rough manhandling vanished the moment they spooned Baji's exhausted form into a sweet cuddle… it was so intimate and personal the way they devotedly adored him, that you couldn’t help but moan longingly, immediately your hands muffled the noise, in time…. or so you thought.

Mikey and Draken worshiped Baji’s sleeping body with caresses, massaging the bruises out of his skin. 

“His skin looks so cute with all those bruises-” Mikey slurred words sounded awfully gentle.

“He’s exhausted, we should go.” 

The tall blond suggested, leaving a trail of smooches and kisses all along the curvature of his neck. Small signatures of gratitude after letting them leave him almost catatonic, so tired that he didn’t even notice you sneaking out of his closet towards the door.

It had been more than ten minutes since you had heard the front door of the house open and close, and you took it as your cue that Mikey and Draken were already gone.

Tipping your way out of Baji’s room, you closed the door delicately behind you and once you felt safe, you let out a long, heavy sigh—

“…. So, what do you think?”

Almost jumping out of your skin, you glanced timidly over your shoulder just to find your stepbrother’s perpetrators there, both leaning carefree against the wall, looking awfully smug, yet awfully expectant.

Your cheeks painted crimson at being discovered red handed, and your lips went dry, forcing you to lick them, movement that did not passed unnoticed by those blonde predators.

“D-Did you know I was there… the whole t-time?”

Both shrugged their shoulders, dismissively. They were not interested in that; both wanted to discuss a more important issue.

“You already heard your beloved brother’s opinion, but in the end it’s your decision, (Y/N).”

Mikey was the one who spoke now. Both ready to intercept you if you tried to run away, and also to let you do so if you wanted to, but something inside them told them otherwise.

“What you saw there,” Draken had to let you know, “is years of intimacy and trust… we’re not that rough…”

“I like rough.”

It slipped out of your lips without your permission, and you could notice the fire it lit in both blondes. A fire that spread uncontrollably, without hesitation, their fists clenched at their sides, and you noticed the real effort they were now making to not lunge at you, then and there…

“So…”

Mikey stressed, and you gulped hard.

“—So….I—”

➡️ NSFW ART of this drabble and mor of Tokyo rev 🥵

[lightyakami]

for anyone interested in interpreting death note through lens that focuses more on the japanese political context, i truly cannot recommend "the world is rotten": execution and power in death note and the japanese capital punishment system" highly enough. here are some highlights:

As for the Japanese legal system, the population are unsatisfied because the failing network of responsibility and accountability means that the laws are not effective, the system is not providing the justice that the people expect of a public institution. Kira, on the other hand, is slowly accepted by the people as a legitimate source of law because he has the threat of force behind him.

By revolutionising the world with a new form of justice, Death Note challenges or overcomes two of the greatest criticisms of the Japanese capital punishment system by either exaggerating or eradicating them. The first element is the public nature of the Death Note's kills as opposed to the highly secretive stance the Japanese government takes surrounding the death penalty and its actual executions, and the second is the speed of death for the condemned.

In truth, Kira's first live (and widely public) execution, that of Lind L Tailor, was one that was practically sanctioned by the state as a legitimate use of violence and power given that Tailor was an inmate due for execution the day of his confrontation with Kira.

Light never claims to be law, and his claims to being justice hint at an insidious division between the two terms, 'suggesting that justice may be something quite apart from law, something that exists outside the legal system'. Justice is central to the idea of modern law, but it is the force imbued into the very concept of justice that transforms principles of justice into laws.

[merakiui]

[1] 𝔴𝔯𝔞𝔱𝔥.

yandere!twst x (female) reader cw: yandere, unhealthy behaviors/relationship, brief nsfw, non-con, restraints, mentions of murder and adultery, religious imagery, choking, violence masterlist // prologue // one (you are here) // two

You wake to fingers in your throat. Not on your throat, as one might assume in association with asphyxiation, but in your throat.

Fingers with pointed nails that burrow into your esophagus, scrabbling for a handhold as if whatever’s inside is trying to climb out through the only passage it knows.

It begins with a simmering itch, hardly noticeable, but then it’s insistently scratching, choking you from within. With a dying wheeze, you jerk up out of bed like a corpse reanimated. You can only claw desperately at your neck, helpless like a dove with clipped wings. Bent over the mattress and shuddering with every dry heave, you force your own fingers into your mouth in a futile attempt to pull whatever’s inside free from its fleshy confines.

In a shocking struggle, you manage to brush something coarse just before you remove your fingers, now slick with saliva. Much like the rain falling in a steady curtain outside the little window, the hellish sensations from within persist just as incessantly. You scrape at the back of your throat, your eyes wide with manic terror. Miraculously, you manage to grab hold of it—the wicked offender!

In one rough tug, the lodged object comes spilling out of your mouth in dark tendrils. It’s magical like a trick from a hat.

You pull lengths and lengths of soil-clumped human hair from your throat, choking all the while. It forms a sizable lump on the bed.

What is this madness? you think in a blind panic. Before you can even register the wetness on your cheeks, you’ve already coughed up enough hair to fashion into an elaborate coiffure.

And just when you think you might lose yourself in this never-ending torment, a brilliant flash illuminates the dark. Someone places a hand on your shoulder, and it ends all at once. The hair vanishes in a blink. With it, the creature attempting to crawl out of you is banished to a forgotten sliver of shadow. 

Hasty in your movements, you perform a perfunctory pat-down. Nothing is amiss. It’s as if the previous ephialtes and its accompanying fright never occurred.

Surely an omen birthed by foul temperaments, you reason, turning to face the person.

The person.

Reacting on instinct, you feel around for your dagger and, seizing it, drive it towards the trespasser. They catch your fist in both hands. Their palms are unnaturally soft.

“You need not be afraid.”

Now faced with their pure countenance, so full of white light, you discern traces of humanity in their figure. Four pairs of grey eyes blink back at you. The rest of their face is obscured in dazzling luminosity. Wings unfurl from behind, stretching wide enough to encapsulate you in a feathery embrace.

“Do my eyes deceive me? It cannot be, yet it is! Right before me—an angel!”

The divine being hums in acknowledgment. 

Overcome with a fierce shame, you lower your blade and scramble off of the bed to bow before them. “Forgive my barbarity, angel. I acted on an impulse driven by baseless fear. I implore clemency.”

“Lift your head so that I may look upon you and know of your honesty.”

You do as instructed. Your heart pounds ruthlessly inside your ribs, fueled with newfound anxiety. “I thought you to be an intruder,” you confess. “Of this I am earnest, but I shan’t resist should you seek to punish me.”

“My child, you are a lamb full of faults. Even so, you are deserving of forgiveness. That is why I have come.”

The angel lowers to sit on the edge of the straw mattress. They gesture to the space beside them.

“You’ve…come for me? Surely you jest. I have been condemned to isolation for a crime I am wrongly accused. I am an innocent prisoner, angel. You must know this.”

They extend a wing in sympathy. Soft feathers kiss your cheek, drying tears you hadn’t realized were there.

“Be at rest. You need not scramble.”

“Am I saved? Will you free me from these vile stone walls? Truly?”

Before you can beg for revenge against Father Flamme, you clamp your mouth shut and remind yourself to uphold a pious disposition. The angel’s wing shudders and withdraws to fold against their back. You watch a loose feather float to the floor. It’s rendered ash before it can come into contact with the grime.

“Indeed, child. Come.” They offer their hand next. “There’s no need to bow in reverence. I am aware of the veracity of your faith. Rather, I shall deliver a message on behalf of Him.”

“Him…” You flounder with wide eyes. “Oh! Oh, can it be true? Has He recognized my efforts? Have my prayers been answered? Am I saved—forgiven?”

The angel nods. You almost cry from the relief. All of your doubts… They are meaningless in the presence of God’s heavenly messengers.

“Take my hand, child, and I shall free you from that which entraps.”

Your hand twitches towards them, but then it halts.

Wordless, the angel gazes at you.

“Aah, so that is the net you intend to cast.”

You rise from your position on the floor and, slipping your rosary off, you drape it around the angel’s neck. Before they can question your behavior, you shove them onto the bed. They fall in a startled flurry of feathers. Guided by suspicion, you move to sit atop them. They lie flat on their back, watching you carefully. It’s in that single second that you see something new flash in those unassuming greys. Something malevolent. You grab hold of your dagger and yank at the rosary to bring them closer. The iron blade is poised at their chest.

It is a threat and a warning—a sincerity. You will not hesitate to spill unholy blood.

Such a shameless mask of blasphemy! 

“My child—”

Your knuckles ache from the tight enclosure your fist forms around the beaded chain. Again, you drag them towards you when they resist.

“You dress yourself in flesh and feather so that I may be blinded by purity, but beneath such flimsy pageantry is the odious effluvium of the Devil!”

“My dear child, I come peacefully.”

“How dissonant a nightingale sings when its mouth is filled with treacherous filth. Foul beast, your tripe is of no value to me.”

Their eyes darken, and suddenly they’re looking through you rather than at you. The dreamy lilt falls away, and with it comes a churlish snarl. 

“And what of you, Sister?”

“There is no angel in this world who would spare me a glance.” The tip of your dagger pokes through the faux angel’s robes, almost piercing silvery skin. “No angel, no matter how authentic, would dare embrace these sinful, blood-bespattered hands of mine.”

The creature remains silent, studying you with all four of its beady eyes.

“You cannot fool me, demon. Reveal yourself! I shall look upon your monstrous countenance when I drive this blade deep into your heart, and it will bring me impeccable satisfaction to have triumphed over your temptation!”

Gradually, the light dims enough so you may espy a mouth twitching into an impish grin. And then a cloud of thick smoke envelops you. It stinks of rot and death, of dank cellars, of mildew and monstrosity. You stumble away in an effort to escape its clutches, swatting through the haze before it can choke you with its filth.

In the midst of the shroud, a pair of pointed teeth wink back at you. Blood leaks into the creature’s irises, and every soft, saintly feature twists into something rough and hard. A sickly pallor spreads over his body, coated in sticky obsidian that drips like drool from a cursed mutt’s mouth. You squint through the fog, searching for the monster.

“So you’ve come to test my faith, have you?” you demand, clutching the handle of your dagger with unfaltering tenacity. “You’ll find your attempt is in vain, for I shall never accept anything from a demon!”

“Oh, I’ve come for more than that, Sister.”

Clawed hands part the smoke. It disperses in seconds, allowing you the opportunity to observe the fiend in his flesh. Twisted horns sprout from a head of crimson hair, curling into a crooked crown. A leathery, spade-tipped tail flicks to and fro. The creature’s clothes are queenly in design, albeit torn with time, stained black with execrable blot. A dark band encircles his throat, and when he tilts his head stringy tissue snaps in place to prevent his decapitated head from rolling.

You inhale sharply and catch a new scent on your nostrils. This devil, with his inky Medici collar, each pointed tip a dagger itself, smells distinctly of dead flowers.

Large, black wings shred through mottled skin, unfurling in a grand, demonic display. A mysterious liquid drips from the thorns lining his wings, landing in scalding plip-plops on the floor. He stands on blackened hooves, not nearly as tall and intimidating as you once imagined, but he’s still a grotesque effigy all the same. 

Gingerly, the demon plucks the rosary from his neck and casts it at your feet. Just before the wounds are healed, you make note that the holy object has left his skin singed.

“You intend to kill me?” he taunts, laughing. “With such a feeble blade? Hah! Why, that would hardly leave a blemish. Human tools are no match for me.”

Ink drools from the exquisite tattoo on his face, and he gathers some on his thumb to paint his lips in the ghastly smear. 

“I should expect nothing less from a wrathful Sister such as yourself. You’d sooner drive a blade through me than allow yourself to bask in the forgiveness of an angel, an imitation though it may be.”

To make such a brazen mockery of a divine being… Rotten devils do not possess a glimmer of shame!

“You talk freely, but your every promise has a heavy price. There is no forgiveness to be had from a foul creature like you.” You swipe your rosary from the floor and fasten it around your neck. “Begone, or I shall pray you away.”

“I should like to see that valiant effort. Alas, you’ll find it rather wasteful.” He strides your way, his hooves clicking an ominous rhythm against the stone. “I’ve come to collect you, my wrathful Sister. There is no negotiation to be had, nor a debate of what and who is right or wrong. This is a fate as final as death.”

“You talk of nothing but rubbish!” You stumble away, brandishing your blade with halfhearted courage. “You… You cannot take me.”

“And yet I already have,” he answers simply, smiling wickedly. His tail traces a path from your stomach to your breast, lingering just above your heart. “Did you not wonder who might dwell in your shadow? Who accompanied you in your madness at a time when you were most vindictive?”

Utter tripe! It cannot be true. He intends to lead me astray. 

He’s quick on his hooves, sidling up to you from behind. His hands settle upon your shoulders, inky claws drumming calm rhythms. “I’ve watched over you, Sister. Longer than you could ever suspect. I know of your transgressions—every incident of wrath, each inscribed in permanence on your very soul. Which, as you might already know, is quite the potent delicacy for those of the same station as myself. So while I may don angelic trickery, you play a deception that has since become wholly unsuitable for your oh-so-virtuous character.”

“I’ve no inkling what you’re referring to. Not the slightest inkling!” you protest, shaking yourself free of his grasp. 

He chuckles and steps forward. His tail brushes your jaw, leaving a slick trail of sludge in its wake. In a furious shiver, you scrub at it, but it sullies your hands.

“It was you! You’re the fiend who has cursed me so. That trick—the hair. Your malevolence knows no bounds.”

His eyes crinkle in amusement. “I am the very sin you deny. The very sin you run from even though you once embraced me so tenderly.”

“You’re wrong… You’re wrong! I would never lower myself to your devious standards.”

“But you have, and you continue to flee, seeking shelter under a roof that cannot provide the solace you’re after. Not anymore.” He indicates the room—your prison cell—with a sweep of his tail. Moonflowers and roses curl around the bed, blooming beneath silver light. You can’t estimate when they may have appeared, but just as the light falls upon the demon you know it must have been his doing. “The flock you have vested so much trust in have abandoned you, left you for dead at the edge of the pasture, and just beyond beautiful safety is a world of wolves waiting to feast.”

Peace, you remind yourself, steeling your frazzled nerves. He provokes me intentionally. A weak heart is susceptible to minacious influences. I mustn’t succumb.

“Father Flamme would never do such a thing. This is merely a test of my abilities as a lady of the church.”

Alas, those words do not sound right in your mouth because Father Flamme has done such a thing, even though you’d rather not confront his lustful betrayal. 

The demon’s nose twitches, and his red eyes shimmer with irritation. “You wear on my patience, Sister. Denial and delusion are shrouds befitting fools, and you are no fool.”

“You are aware I would never content myself with the likes of you. Rather, it is you who is the fool for assuming I would accept you so blindly. My faith is sturdy as stone. You will never sway me.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“It is a fact.”

“Sister, you should know your confidence is pitiful and misplaced.” The demon lowers to sit proudly at the edge of the bed. He folds one leg over the other, and you watch the drip-drop of ink slip from his hoof. It puddles on the floor, burning through the grass now sprouting up through stone. “If not myself, the truth of tragedy will reveal all.”

Rigidly on your guard, you frown. “And that might be?”

“There is a beautiful woman lying slain and scattered amongst the hogs. A brutality of which your village has seldom seen. Might you know something?”

You hold his fiery stare with an unshakable determination. “I do. Everyone adores her.”

“Not everyone,” he corrects, his tail flicking from side to side, as if he’s entertained with this dissection of the obvious. “Not a certain Sister, perchance?”

“I’ve no association with her.”

“How skillfully you dance on the tip of a needle.”

“That is the truth. I’ve no association with a woman like her.”

“Not anymore, for she’s good and gone. The living can never visit the dead just as the dead can never return to the living.” The demon brings his fingertips together to illustrate his next point. “In the moments between life and death, those worlds nearly touch.”

“As they might on All Hallows’ Eve. An erroneous argument.”

“Ah, but this instance is far more tangible than that.” He waves his hand in the air and from nothing comes something—a fistful of darkened hair torn right from a scalp. He holds it up to the light and hums, turning it over just as slop drips from the clump. “Well, Sister, what say you?”

You click your tongue. “Surely you’ve plucked your humor right from the filthy recesses of the hog pen.”

“Then you must have been there before me, otherwise our penchant for such morbid mischief would not align so celestially.”

He tosses the dark cluster at your feet. You nudge it hesitantly, as if it may spring up at any moment. 

“What is it you want?”

His tail flicks in your direction.

“You cannot have me.”

“Your approval is not a requirement. If I must, I shall take you by force.”

“You are nothing but a foul, empty dream. Come morning, I will be rid of your presence.”

His clawed hands curl into tight fists, and he inhales a long breath. “But not my influence. Never my influence.”

With a swish of your habit skirt, you turn your back on him. “Your voice wears on my ears. Begone with you and take your tricks whence you came.”

“Deceitful Sister, you cannot rid yourself of me so easily.” A shadow slithers over to you. From the floor, he rises to meet you. “You’ve exhausted my patience, and thus I shall resolve to scrape the truth from the corners of your very heart!”

You jerk away from him, but a vine snaps forward to wrap around your ankle. You’re pulled onto the grassy stone floor by accompanying vines, each one lined with thorns. They pinch at your clothes, threatening to tear fine fabrics and render them rags. 

“Then I must say farewell to our cordial conversation now that you’ve shown your true colors, impatient devil.”

He smiles down at you, fanged teeth shimmering in the light, and his red eyes look small and beady like an insect’s. “I shall tear you apart just as you desire. Perhaps I should use your method if I wish for effective results? Then the hogs will know the taste of human twice more.”

You bark out a bitter laugh. Any attempt of struggle is met with resistance from the plants. They’re curled around you like botanical shackles, tightening their coils every time you squirm. A thorny rose rests upon your breast, beautiful beneath the moon and dangerous in the dark. You know better than to give in to its scarlet temptations.

“You want me to confess to my crime when it is quite clear it never could have escaped your omniscient eyes! If you’ve known all along, your plot has been ineffective from the start. So I’ll say it now and spare myself the vexation: I put that woman there—in a grave amongst the hogs—and I’d do it again should she somehow return for vengeance. I’d do it a hundred times over if I must! However much it will take to prune her blight from the flowers in my world!”

For a beat and then a few breaths, no words are exchanged. The both of you watch the other closely. You school your scowl into something serene and soften your once thunderous intonation.

“I am not afraid to admit my terrible transgression here. You should know I feel no such remorse for that wicked woman and her lies. That witch.”

The demon towers over you, a curious lilt to his stern voice. “Do you expect to remain free now that you’ve met me?”

“I can’t be certain of that, but I do know I will fight you until my last breath.”

“Ah, is that so?” His tail curls around the handle of the dagger and he dangles it above your face, just out of reach. You grit your teeth and struggle against the vines, but they hold firm in their entrapment of your limbs. “There’s still one detail you’ve forsaken. You’re not yet absolved of your rage. Rather, it’s still festering within your heart.”

“Open your mouth wider and perhaps I’ll be willing to hear your nonsense.”

The demon grits his teeth. “I’d rather not cast pearls at ungrateful swine.”

“How your warped perception honors me so!” You tilt your head in mockery. “If you must know, foul beast, the sins of a hollow-hearted husband are unforgivable. It is only because he is my father that he knows the blessing of another day. Know that I’d sooner cut him down with just the same amount of rage if these familial ties were not so entangling.”

The vine that had once snaked around your throat falls still, its pressure lessened only by way of the demon’s piqued curiosity.

“It burned a hole through me every waking moment I remained shackled to this forbidden truth. Is marriage not an oath—to be forever fond even in sickness? And yet he would rather leave my mother to rot in her chamber than keep to the promise seared onto his heart! So I thought there was no demise more fitting than the execution to which I condemned the witch he adored so ardently. My mother has always sought to provide for me. It is only fair that I return her goodwill and guard her heart when she is unable to.”

He looks at you differently now, as if learning this forbidden knowledge has somehow excited him. Perhaps, rather than that, it is the feeling of having been proven correct that incites a delicious thrill from deep within.

“It is as I assumed,” he says after a beat of silence. “Your loyalty is certainly meritorious. There is nothing sweeter than wrath-fueled obsession mired in the candied glaze of a woman’s choler.”

“I am guilty and irredeemable, but I am no fool. You tread lightly, demon. Is there something on my person that requires prudence, perchance?”

His lip curls in a soundless snarl. The vines slither away from the beaded chain wrapped around your neck. Bearing the Holy Cross, it’s been carved from the finest rosewood and blessed by Father Flamme himself. If there’s anything that can shield you from a devil’s sinful tyranny, it’s your rosary.

But then a thorn-studded vine reclaims possession of your neck, curling roughly in threat. You choke on your surprise.

How can it be?! Impossible!

Steadily, still minding the religious hindrance, his vines explore the clothed expanse of your restrained body. Your rosary has minimal effect. When he reaches to touch you, he pulls away with smoldering flesh. And then, turning to look you in the eyes, he laughs. It’s loud and victorious, shot through with a cold, crazed strain.

“I see!” he exclaims, lifting his hand to the moonlight to inspect the damage. The wound closes up slowly, skin stitching together with gooey strands of blot. You wrinkle your nose in disgust. “You’re not so invincible now. I may not be able to lay a finger on you myself, but my precious flora certainly can. Whether it withers, shrivels, or burns away, it matters not.”

You struggle around a retort. Peace. Be at peace. I mustn’t let my anger control my actions. If I’m unable to fight with my body, then I shall battle with verbosity.

“Oh, I imagine this is quite disheartening for you. To have placed so much faith in this pitiable pendant… There, there.” Petals brush your cheek in faux comfort, catching invisible tears.

The moonlight spills across his face and you see him for what he really is: a contemptible creature of impiety.

A shiver bolts up your spine. You are helpless beneath the beast, but you refuse to act so and give him the satisfaction.

“What do you aim to achieve with your trickery?” you ask, contorting your expression into a sneer. “My faith is much too sturdy to crumble at your influence.”

“Ah, but even the sturdiest of foundations can be eroded with time, Sister.”

“Then I suggest you return at a date in which such a feat is sensibly plausible.” Glaring up at him, mummified in thick vines, you add, “I’ll have long departed the earth by then, so perhaps you’ll find the answer to that assumption in the mouths of worms.”

“Enough!” he snaps, seething so much blot spews from fangs bared. “I’ll hear no more of your impertinence!”

Just then, the vine around your throat constricts. Thorns burrow into your flesh. A choking noise gurgles from the depths of your esophagus, and you thrash wildly on the floor, eyes bulging and mouth opening in a silent scream. The tendrils curled around your knees part them in impatience, and perhaps if he was of a pious temperament he might have fallen to his. More vines slide beneath your habit skirt, prodding relentlessly like weeds in a flowering garden.

Again, you find yourself questioning your god. If He is so benevolent—if He is meant to embrace, love, and protect all as they tell you in the church—why is it that you are prepped for slaughter, shut away in a slice of shadow where salvation can never hope to reach? 

Leering at you, the demon seems pleased with his gruesome handiwork. A demented smile sharpens on a countenance most cacodemonic. 

“How tranquil and still the world is when insolence and disobedience are extinguished. You cannot fight against me. Although it’s risible you think you can, foolish Sister.”

As if slicing through skin, the thorns tear at your pantalettes, inching dangerously close to a sacred space—a space you vowed to keep virginal with an oath of chastity. This gives way to a fresh form of terror—one that is reminiscent of lechery, wearing the face of Father Flamme.

The breath that would have stuck in your windpipe is snuffed by the demon’s thorny stems and vines, all stabbing at you and drawing blood. It stains porcelain moonflowers in cutthroat claret until they resemble the prettiest of roses.

“K-Kill me,” you cough out, “and then you—you shall—you’ll never—never—know an h-hour of serenity.”

“Oh, I shall do more than that.”

This, you know, is a promise that can only foretell the worst.

Death is fair in mortal acumen, but wrath is not. And the foulest sort of death is the kind that chews through you after you have been hollowed by hellish hands.

When there is nothing left for wrath to chew through, how can you expect to remain whole?

Bracing yourself, you recite prayer after prayer in your head. Your vision dims and with it comes the release of all manner of feelings: regrets and triumphs, moments of misfortune, the inconsolable, mulish notion of survival.

You meet the tyrant’s crimson stare and refuse to shed tears for him, readying yourself for defilement as one might a beheading. The act itself shall be swift and painful, but it’s the time in the aftermath that shall stretch onwards and leave you searching for safety in your own body. Perhaps it will take the arbitrary forever to find that peace.

There is a lapse in action that stuns parasitic invasion just before it can spread petals previously untouched.

From the very bottom of the tower, a faint shout resounds. Louder, then, as if echoing a certain authority. You strain to place a name to the familiar tone, but your heart recognizes it well enough. The demon ceases his assault at once, his pointed ears pricking as he listens. And then the vines slither away and he retreats into the shadows of a now-bare room, lit only by the rays of the rising sun. Air rushes into your lungs. You take in gulps of it, ever-grateful to have survived.

You lift yourself up from the frigid floor next. Your heart thumps in time with the distant toll of church bells. Shakily, you clutch your rosary and stagger towards the tiny window. As you watch the sun cut across the horizon, every stroke of light banishing last night’s evils, you wrap your arms around yourself and mumble your appreciation in relieved repetition.

All that is left of your encounter with the demon is your dagger stuck into a crack in the stone, its elongated shadow warped against the wall.

You point at nothing when you whirl to face your nonexistent foe.

“Begone with you, demon dross, and never return! Your perfidy is naught but worthless under the divine shadow of the Lord!”

It is Father Flamme you heard. Surely! Yet even as you await his appearance it becomes impossible to fathom. 

There are no visitations granted for a seven-day sentence.

[rizzanon]

omg! some focus on our girls!.

Stephanie and Batsis!readers relationship… it hurts so much.

Batsis was normal almost opened to Steph in the beginning. likely because Steph was not only outside of the family, outside of the people she needed to prove herself too but Steph was another girl struggling to be a vigilante just like her, that with the fact Batsis saved Steph in their first meeting likely soothed a lot of her insecurity because she was helpful and capable for once. it was a nearly perfect opportunity for Batsis to make a friend in her vigilante life, to have someone in her corner who could resonate with her, who she didn’t have to prove herself too… only for all that to come crashing down when Steph was chosen to be batgirl… for someone she had thought she was on the same level with maybe even slightly higher then to suddenly “be chosen over her” it triggered that same negative self image that had originally been absent in her relationship with Steph except so much worse because now she isn’t just shadow boxing now she has actual competition, one who has already won over her.

the fact that the actual reason Steph was chosen was due to Batsis degrading mental health in self-endangerment only makes this worse for her. grief can often time exacerbate already existing mental health issues like insecurity, feeling like if you were stronger or smarter, if you were better that who you lost would still be alive are so common and being a vigilante would only add “credibility” to those thoughts. if you’re fighting to save lives then how come you couldn’t have saved your loved ones?. those heightened negative feelings leading her to misconstrue why Steph was chosen to be batgirl making her unable that it was in part for her own safety even when directly told fully believing she was being lied to and seen as lesser.

all of that leads to her shutting out and lashing out at that one person she previously didn’t seem to feel a need to prove herself to, the one person who could understand her, the one person who seemed to have believed she was fit for the role as batgirl from the start who never doubted her before. Batsis’ own negative self image completely destroys her relationship with someone who believed in her and who she believed in. turning it into a competition turning that girl she could’ve built a bond with into nothing more then someone she needs to prove herself better then.

Stephanie seemed to truly believe in batsis despite noticing her flaws from their very first interaction. Steph knew Batsis wasn’t flawless and yet still clearly respected her, despite not wanting her help, because she related, she too wasn’t the best and need to improve, to Steph Batsis was someone who has more experience then her in the field of vigilantism but still reachable someone she could connect with, someone who had extended her belief, belief in her skills, in her determination, belief in her. and Steph extended it that belief back. she believed in Batsis, and it seems she still does even the tinniest bit.

Steph seemed so excited to show Batsis, her as batgirl. almost as if she was saying “look i’ve caught up with you now!” “we’re matching!” possibly thinking that them sharing the batgirl moniker would bring them closer together deepen their connection only for it to destroy it.

to suddenly be faced with such anger and accusation by someone who you were forming a bond with must’ve hurt so much. for someone who had once offered you such unwavering belief to view as nothing but competition, an obstacle they need to overcome, someone they need to knock down someone they need to be above… would be agonizing. not just losing their belief in you but gaining near condemnation as if they want nothing more then to see you fail all while accusing you of trying to hurt them of trying to replace them as seeing them as lesser…

Steph was just trying to prove herself, trying to find her place and unknowingly pushed Batsis out of the one she was trying to carve for herself.

Barbra was trying to help, both girls needed a guide, both were trying to prove themselves, trying to find their places, they needed to, they both needed help… and were equally deserving of it. but realistically Babs could only supply an adequate level of help to one. she could’ve and should’ve tried to do more for Batsis but there’s only so much one person could do. it was one or the other and Barbara knew that. she only likely knew that what Batsis was going through was much more then she was equipped to handle especially when she was also in charge of helping Steph. she could’ve and should’ve done more for batsis even if it was only ten precent more but she couldn’t have done much on her own…

it would need to be a group effort and unfortunately due to the circumstances it wasn’t very feasible but they still should’ve tried should’ve done something…

anyway thats it for todays amateur dyslexic analysis hour. babs section could be better but i need to sleep, i’ll domore when i get more scenes of her.

LITERALLY COULDN’T HAVE SAID IT ANY BETTER 🥹 i have to admit, steph and reader’s relationship became more complex than i intended for it to, but i think it fits well with the story now so im happy with that. you’re so right by saying that Steph was outside of the family and outside of the people reader needed to prove herself to. Steph was another girl struggling to be a vigilante just like her, which is why there was a chance for them to bond over, but all of it was ruined when steph became batgirl whilst reader was benched. reader being benched didn’t help with her growing insecurities and need for validation/to prove herself, and it only intensified seeing how someone else “stole” her role, the one thing she was trying to prove herself with.

as for babs, she was trying to help both girls, but she inevitably spent more time on steph and left reader alone. i agree that babs definitely could have handled it better, but for the sake of the plot we move on. i’d like to think that babs didn’t realise how vital her role is in reader’s life as a guide/mentor and a role model (considering she’s the first batgirl and the one who set the standards—very much like dick with robin) the person taking up the mantle after the first person set very high standards for it definitely don’t have it easy lol

there will be more of barbara and reader’s relationship explored in chapter 7, so hopefully you’ll look forward to that and babs owning up to her mistakes and seeing where she went wrong..! 🤭

[apoloadonisandnarcissus]

The Tragedy of Haladriel - Part I

In Season 1, there is foreshadowing about how Galadriel will be responsible for “bringing Sauron back” due to her obsessive pursuit to destroy him. This is also a theme in Season 2, with her character, now, desiring to put things right and atone for her past mistake.

For the sake of not repeating myself, I recommend reading this post, first.

We foresaw that if Galadriel’s search should have continued, she might have inadvertently kept alive the very evil she sought to defeat. For the same wind that seeks to blow out a fire may also cause its spread. Gil-galad reveals to Elrond the real reason he sent Galadriel to Valinor, 1x01

In 1x04, Galadriel sees a vision of the Fall of Númenor, on the Palantír:

The red is meant to symbolize Sauron, and she’s walking towards it. In the Númenor plot in Season 1, there is a lot of weight of Galadriel being the one responsible for announcing the Fall of Númenor (which will be caused by Sauron).

In “Rings of Power”, it’s pretty much established that it was Galadriel’s pride that condemned Middle-earth to Sauron’s tyranny. 

But... is this as simple as it appears? Is it because she brought him back to Middle-earth? Or because she denied his offer? The answer is far more complex, but it’s connected with her pride, yes, and also with her meddling with Mairon’s attempt at redemption. But also with Mairon’s own choices. In boils down to both of them getting tested by the Valar, and failing.

In the end, Galadriel didn’t overcome her pride, and Mairon didn’t see his redemption through and fell back into evil, and this is pretty much in line with what Tolkien himself wrote. 

Galadriel: The Elf Transformed by Darkness

[Galadriel] had no peace within. Pride still moved [her] when, at the end of the Elder Days, the final overthrow of Morgoth, she refused the pardon of the Valar for all who had fought against him, and remained on Middle-earth. Unfinished Tales [of Númenor and Middle-earth]

When we first meet Galadriel in 1x01, we can immediately perceive she’s strong-willed, proud and rebellious, acting against orders of the High King of the Noldor, Gil-galad, in her endless hunt for Sauron, Morgoth’s sucessor and the responsible for her brother’s death.

Galadriel is also the only Elf in Middle-earth who believes that Sauron is still out there, and means to find and destroy him, at any cost. “More and more of our kind began to believe that Sauron was but a memory. And the threat, at last, was ended. I wish I could be one of them.”

Gil-galad “honors” Galadriel by granting her passage to return to Valinor, and rest in glory. But she’s set on refusing, because she’s certain Sauron will return.

Elrond: Do you truly believe seeking him out will satisfy you? That one more Orc upon the point of your blade will bring you peace? […] If you are wrong, will you lead more Elves to die in far-off lands? To convince yourself you have done enough, how many more statues would you add to this path? No one in history has ever refused the call. Do so now, it may never come again. Do so now, it may never come again. You will linger here, an outcast, poisoned in dark whispers and dreams. Galadriel: And in the West, do you think my fate would be better? Where song would mock the cries of battle in my ears? You say I have won victory over all the horrors of Middle-earth. Yet you would leave them alive in me? To take with me? Undying, unchanging, unbreaking, into the land of winter less spring? Elrond: Only in the Blessed Realm can that which is broken in you be healed. Go there. Go, and I promise you… If but a whisper of a rumor of the threat you perceive proves true, I will not rest until it is put right. You have fought long enough, Galadriel. Put up your sword.

Galadriel sees her endless pursue for Sauron as the means to earn her inner peace after everything she saw, did and endured on Middle-earth. It’s connected to her pride, yes, but also to her greatest and deepest desire of healing. And this is why she can’t stop her pursuit, even when we, the audience, watch Galadriel endanger her companions’ lives in 1x01.

It’s not just about vengeance, because, like she tells Mairon, 1x05, “one cannot satisfy thirst by drinking sea water”. Hence, Galadriel believes that, only when she destroys Sauron, will she be able to find inner peace, and heal the darkness within herself.

Halbrand: The Repentant Mairon

When Thangorodrim was broken and Morgoth overthrown, Sauron put on his fair hue again and did obeisance to Eönwë, the herald of Manwë, and abjured all his evil deeds. And some hold that this was not at first falsely done, but that Sauron in truth repented […] But it was not within the power of Eönwë to pardon those of his own order […] to receive from the Valar a sentence, in might be, of long servitude in proof of his good faith. The Silmarillion

In 2x01, Sauron’s physical form gets destroyed by Adar using Morgoth’s crown, and he spends centuries on a cave. He regains a new physical form and a new name (“Halbrand”, because “I have many names”, as it’s been established by Season 2).

When Morgoth was defeated, it was as if a great, clenched fist had released its grasp from my neck. And in the stillness of that first sunrise, at last, I felt the light of The One again. And I knew if ever I was to be forgiven... That I had to heal everything that I had helped ruin.

While wandering the Southlands, he eventually meets Diarmid (the original owner of the King of the Southlands’ heraldry pouch):

I know you’ve suffered. I can see it in your eyes. There’s another life waiting for you. You just have to turn toward it […] A sure path may crumble, but there’s always another. Often, it can lead us someplace better. Someplace good. They say there’s places across the sea, a man can escape himself. Find another path. Perhaps another life.

When Mairon arrives at Númenor, he sees it as “the place across the sea” Diarmid told him about. Where he can find another path. A island gifted by the Valar themselves to Men, and where they are ever watchful. And so, he believes this is where he can prove his good faith to the Valar and sought their forgiveness for his past sins and crimes under Morgoth.

There is not another man on this isle that knows this craft better than I. I will shovel coal if needs be, I’ll splinter wood, I’ll shape a sea anchor for you, free of charge, sturdier than anything you have ever seen. How’s that? I’m here to start anew. Lend me that chance. Please. And I won’t forget it. Halbrand/Mairon asks for work at Númenor forge, 1x03

Diarmid also tells Mairon he has to chose good everyday, and this is a callback to Gandalf in “The Hobbit” trilogy: Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.

Diarmid: Nightmares again? What haunts you so? Mairon: I’ve done evil. Diarmid: All of us have done things that we care not to admit. Mairon: Not like I have. Diarmid: Find forgiveness. You are alive because you have chosen good. Mairon: But what of tomorrow? Diamid: You have to choose it again. And the next day. And the next. Until it becomes a part of your nature.

We, then, see Mairon chose wrong, by not helping Diarmid and leaving him for dead, and steal his pouch. He later atones for this when he saves Galadriel from drowning. He also asks for her forgiveness, in 1x05:

And this is when something starts to change in Mairon, and he sees earning Galadriel’s forgiveness as his chance at redemption, instead of staying in Númenor in servitude (like he was meant to).

However, his bound to Morgoth (darkness) is always lingering over Mairon: when he leaves Diarmid to his death, and when he beats the Númenóreans smiths (because of Galadriel).

“The Sea is Always Right”

After Season 2, we have the confirmation that Galadriel and Mairon meeting was, indeed, by chance, and not something planned by Sauron. Nor did he summoned the sea serpent (“the Worm”).

There is a popular theory that suggests this sea creature might have been sent by Ulmo, the Vala of the Sea. This is a strong theory, since this is a Vala associated with Númenor, and both Galadriel and Mairon were on the Sundering Seas (next to both Valinor and Númenor). And this also aligns with the notion of “tides of fate” and how their meeting was the work of something greater.

Judgement of the Valar

Ours was no chance meeting. Not fate, nor destiny, nor any other words Men use to speak of the forces they lack the conviction to name. Ours was the work of something greater. You must see it. Galadriel tells Halbrand/Mairon, 1x03

When the petals of Nimloth, the White Tree of Númenor, fall, according to Queen-regent Míriel, the Faithful see in them the tears of the Valar, “a living reminder that their eyes and judgment are ever upon us.”

The eyes of the Valar weight on both Mairon and Galadriel, in Númenor. Can he see his redemption through? And can she let go of her pride?

At the surface, it’s like Elrond said in 2x02, Galadriel saw in Halbrand the lost king who could ride her to victory, and help her destroy Sauron and avenge her brother’s death. Mairon, on the other hand, coveted Galadriel’s light and believed she might help him gain his redemption by earning her forgiveness.

They were both wrong, and they both failed the test.

It’s Galadriel’s pride who tempts Mairon towards the darkness and into his old ways under Morgoth, and eventually leads him to chose deception instead on staying on Númenor in servitude.

Galadriel: A cage you have landed in because you chafe under the rags of the common. And the armor that ought to rest upon your shoulder’s weighs upon your soul. Halbrand/Mairon: Be careful, Elf. The heir to this mark is heir to more than just nobility. For it was his ancestor who swore a blood oath to Morgoth. I am not the hero you seek. For it was my family that lost the war. Galadriel tries to persuade Halbrand/Mairon to reclaim his crown as King of the Southlands (future Lord of Mordor), 1x03

“Aren’t these the seeds you planted?” Sauron asks Galadriel in 2x02 and 2x08.

Indeed, in 1x03 and 1x05 we see Galadriel being the “Morgoth” to Mairon’s “Sauron” on several occasions, and him even growing impatient with her, because she’s impulsive, aggressive, arrogant and sometimes downright offensive towards the Númenóreans. This chaotic energy recalls him, even if on a subconscious level, of Morgoth himself.

Mairon compares Galadriel to a "horse in full gallop", and advises her not to antagonize the Númenóreans (although, he's not one to talk, as we see later).

You used me. After I all but begged you to let me be (…) Find another head to crown. Halbrand/Mairon gets angry at Galadriel, 1x05

We even see Galadriel going into the forge to tempt him with promises of power, as Morgoth himself did when Mairon as a Maia of Aulë. And this is when everything chances for Mairon.

Mairon's Choice

When Galadriel is about to leave for Middle-earth, the petals of Nimloth begin to fall, and Tar-Míriel believes it’s to be a sign from the Valar: Galadriel must not leave. In the same sequence we also see Mairon, looking over Númenor.

This can mean the Valar are warning the Númenóreans about Sauron’s presence on the island, or that Sauron himself caused this to happen, to prevent Galadriel to leave without him. I think both interpretations can be correct, really.

This marks Mairon’s first deception in Season 1: him accepting to play the “King of the Southlands” role. And we have red (deception) on this shot, as well. This is the beginning of Mairon’s downfall into darkness.

Mairon now believes that Galadriel will help him achieve his redemption, because he will able to “choose good” with her, by gaining her forgiveness and healing. However, it’s the other way around. By following Galadriel’s pride, he’s one step closer to fall into his old ways, into evil. Because he chose deception, instead of following through with his initial intentions of servitude.

And, in 1x05, we, the audience, are shown *the* moment when Mairon makes this choice (deception over redemption):

Understanding Galadriel and Mairon connection

In 1x02, Galadriel and Mairon end up adrift on a raft, together. And Galadriel immediately starts to plot ways to find Sauron, once she sees the crest "Halbrand" wears. Nevertheless, this is the scene when they start to bond with each other, too.

This is also the episode where Elrond says to Durin and Disa: Where there is love, it is never truly dark. And then next scene is Galadriel and Mairon getting to know each other.

I know something of the pain you carry. I grieve for you. For those you lost. Galadriel emphatizes with Mairon, 1x02

On Tolkien lore, Elves are emphatic and compassionate beings by nature, but having Galadriel empathizing with him, appears to have a deep effect on Mairon. It probably has something to do with the fact he’s the one who caused her brother’s death, by having his werewolves kill him. He later saves Galadriel from drowing, too, maybe to "atone" for her brother's death at the hands of his servants ("an eye for an eye").

I have been searching for my peace for longer than you know. Please, for both our sakes, let me keep it. Perhaps some peace would do you good as well. Mairon tells Galadriel once they arrive at Númenor, 1x03

Both Galadriel and Mairon recognized the need for inner peace and healing in each other, and this is, maybe, why they both felt so drawn together. Both of them were seeking redemption, and saw the opportunity to get it in each other. Galadriel, herself, tells Mairon this, in 1x04: Come with me to Middle-earth. And together we will redeem both our bloodlines.

This need for redemption also connects with a recognition of past misdeeds: they have both done things (or saw them being done) they deeply regret, and it haunts them, still.

"The light of Valinor shone upon your very face, Galadriel, and you turned your back on it. Was it truly to fight the darkness or was the darkness calling to you?" Elrond asks Galadriel, 2x02

Galadriel and Mairon felt so deeply connected because they shared the same belief: only when they destroy “Sauron”, will they find inner peace, and healing from the darkness within themselves.

There was a physical attraction, sure, but these are immortal spirits, up and foremost (with Mairon not being bound to his physical form, unlike Galadriel). The connection they felt runs deeper, than just wanting to “shake the sheets” (or the forge table) with each other. Or him just being attracted to her because of her legendary beauty (Morgoth/Silmarils parallel). 

Galadriel: Thank you... For pulling me back. Mairon: Was you, pulled me back first. Galadriel: Whatever it was he did to you, and whatever it was you did... Be free of it. Mairon: I never believed I could be... Until today. Fighting at your side, I... I felt... If I could just hold on to that feeling, keep it with me always, bind it to my very being, then I...

Galadriel stopped Mairon from getting his revenge against Adar (because he was the one who destroyed his previous physical form), and, that’s the reason for him starting to believe redemption is within his reach, after all. And he thinks it’s because of Galadriel (and not due to his own choices).

And this is another one of his mistakes, because this is how he was created by Eru during the Ainulindalë ("before the breaking of the first silence"). Marion isn’t a leader: he’s a follower, a Maia in service of a Vala. That's who he's suppose to be, and how he was designed to be. He served Aulë, then Melkor/Morgoth, and now wants to serve Galadriel, believing she will guide him to the redemption he so desperately wants and seeks.

[beegomess]

M.R. || Take me back to the night we met

Summary: Years after leaving London, Mattheo returns accompanied by his girlfriend, Catherine, only to be confronted by a past he believed he had overcome. An unexpected reunion at the Nott's house brings up intense memories and unresolved feelings, while he faces the new life of a love that was left behind. Between dialogues full of tension, unexpected revelations and the weight of past choices, Mattheo needs to decide if it is still possible to move forward or if he is condemned to be a prisoner of his own memories. Warnings: None, just some broken hearts. - word count: 4.4k

If you were to define your love life in a few words, maybe you would say that time, kind and ruthless, was both a curator and a sculptor. He resignified the wounds, turning them into scars that today carry stories, and not pain.

You will always love him, always. Mattheo was undoubtedly the love of his life.

But there is something about these loves that no one warns: sometimes, the love of your life doesn't make you the love of his life. Confusing, but real. And now, years after that sudden breakup on a cold night in the communal, this truth echoed in you. It was like a distant note, but still capable of making an impact.

The pain of that moment was inevitable. The end came without warning, between a mixture of tension and an almost unbearable weight, just before the great war. Time, however, fulfilled its promise. He didn't erase the past, but he smoothed its edges. The painful memories gave way to something kinder: the good moments, the laughter, the intensity of a youthful love that seemed infinite, but was as fragile as a glass.

Mattheo, on the other hand, moved on as he could. For him, the process was no less complicated. Your absence was a shadow that he had to learn to get around. Life, as you learned, didn't expect anyone. And the choices they made shaped them, even if they were separated.

And so, another day began. You, in your routine, walked to the cafe near the Ministry, the same one where you always bought your favorite candy before work. The typical London rain created a constant rhythm outside, while the aroma of fresh coffee filled the room.

Mattheo was also in London. He had returned that week to introduce the wizarding side of the city to his girlfriend, Catherine. She was everything you would expect from someone coming from Beauxbatons: graceful, with an almost unreal beauty and that air of natural sophistication. He walked next to her around the small center near the Ministry, describing school stories with a hesitant smile. As much as he was there, a part of Mattheo seemed distant, wandering somewhere that not even he knew for sure.

So, chance - or maybe fate - interfered. When Mattheo entered the cafe with Catherine, his eyes immediately caught something familiar. A silhouette that he would recognize in any crowd, even after years.

You were there, analyzing the sweets in the window, unaware of his presence. The attendant smiled at you as he did every day.

- You'll want the usual, Miss. Nott?

- Well, I think so. I just can't decide... - you answered with a light laugh, the same joy that used to enchant you in the past.

Mattheo was paralyzed. His body didn't move, while his mind seemed to run in circles. Catherine, without realizing his internal conflict, advanced, analyzing the sweets with curiosity. He couldn't say anything, but his eyes never left you.

When you finally turned to leave, it happened. His eyes met his. And the world stopped for a few seconds. The coffee was still full of murmurs and movement, but for both of you, everything disappeared. He looked different, more mature, but there was still something so unmistakably "Mattheo" in him.

His eyes showed surprise, but soon softened into a smile. That smile that made him relax, even without realizing it.

- For Merlin, what are you doing here? - you asked enthusiastically, approaching for a brief hug, but loaded with a nostalgic heat. The touch, no matter how fast it was, reignited memories that Mattheo had been trying to bury for years. - How are you?

- I... I'm fine. - He finally managed to answer, still processing the moment. - I brought the...

- Does Theo know you're here? - you interrupted him, excited, your mind already running to the reunion with the friends from Hogwarts. - We need to get everyone together again!

Before he could answer, Catherine appeared next to him, interrupting the moment. She was so different from you, and yet, so present. With perfect blonde hair and striking green eyes, she looked like she was out of a painting. He held Mattheo's arm naturally, a gesture that did not go unnoticed.

- Oh, sorry! I'm Catherine. - She said, offering her hand to you. The French accent was charming, but somehow you felt the impact of what it represented before you even touched it.

- Nice to meet you, Catherine. I am... - you started, but she interrupted you with a sweet smile.

- I know who you are. - The statement sounded casual, but there was something almost calculated in her tone. - Matt told me about you and the Hogwarts group.

The word "Matt" fell like a stone on his chest. It was small, but heavy, because it sounded so intimate coming from her. However, you kept your composure.

- Oh, of course. - You answered naturally, looking back at Mattheo, as if you wanted to find some explanation in his eyes. - You should go to our house today. Theo would love to see you.

- As long as it's not a nuisance, we don't want to get in the way. - Catherine said, with her impeccable politeness.

- Not at all. - His voice was gentle, but there was a sincere firmness in his words.

Mattheo just nodded, uncomfortable, while Catherine smiled next to him. You noticed the discomfort, but decided to put it aside.

- Well, I need to get back to work. See you at night, right? - you said, looking back into his eyes.

- Of course. - Catherine answered before him.

- Great. Our house is at the same address as always. - You addressed Mattheo, hesitating for a second before adding: - I hope you like it here, Catherine. It's not as sunny as France, but I swear there's something special in the rain.

You waved and left, opening the umbrella from the outside. Mattheo remained motionless, watching you cross the street. He couldn't look away. The rain blurred the glass, but he still saw you with absurd clarity. It was as if, for a moment, nothing had changed.

Outside, you also felt the weight of the meeting. As much as time had transformed the wounds into scars, some still throbbed, remembering that certain loves leave marks that not even time can erase.

______________________________________

Your family's house, the one you and Theodore currently shared, was almost as Mattheo remembered, but now there was a different touch, a warmth that didn't exist before. Still, every corner seemed loaded with memories that came back to his mind like a flood. He always knew that this house was part of you, but now, when he entered again, he felt as if he was stepping on a territory that was both familiar and strange.

The cold marble of the entrance hall still reflected the lights that floated gently in the air, but something was different. The wooden hanger next to the door now supported not only an umbrella, but also a scarf of yours and a bag, objects that made you realize that you had transformed that place in a subtle way, making it more yours. It was an inhabited, lived house, full of history. Nostalgia squeezed Mattheo's chest. He couldn't ignore the echo of the teenage steps he used to take there, running furtively to his room, while waiting for no one to notice his presence.

In the main room, the photos caught his attention immediately. Delicately ornate frames decorated the main bookshelf, showing a timeline of you and Theodore. In one of them, you were sitting next to Theo, Draco and Astoria in front of a perfectly decorated Christmas tree. The image seemed to exude a calm and cozy joy, but for Mattheo, it was also a cruel reminder of what he lost. He should have been in that photo.

There were also portraits of smaller events: birthdays, trips... Mattheo delayed his gaze on each of them, unconsciously looking for traces of himself that were not there. The absence hit him unexpectedly, as if those frames also enclosed a piece of his life that he had left behind.

Catherine seemed fascinated by everything around.

- What a beautiful place. - she commented, genuinely enchanted. - It seems so... full of history.

The dining table was another example of the care you had put into that space. A simple floral arrangement adorned the center, accompanied by scented candles on silver supports. The hand-embroidered towel looked like something inherited from past generations, and the dishes were perfectly arranged, as if they were for a special occasion.

Theo received everyone with his usual charm. He hugged Mattheo warmly, without hesitation, before shaking Catherine's hand.

- I hope you're hungry. - he joked, guiding them to the table. - Dinner prepared by magic hands. Literally.

You tried to disguise the slight tension throughout dinner, but Mattheo didn't. He couldn't look away from you. The way you smiled, the sound of your laugh - everything seemed exactly as he remembered, and at the same time, new. He saw you in a new light, someone who had grown and changed, but was still the same person he loved years ago.

While Catherine got involved in Theo's stories, Mattheo got lost in memories. He could imagine you sitting at the table, still a teenager, laughing at something Theo said. He remembered going up the stairs in silence, feeling his heart race as he entered his room. The smell of your perfume still seemed to be impregnated in some corner of the memory, as well as the sensation of your touch.

After dinner, everyone gathered in the living room. It was a smaller and more intimate space, with shelves crammed with books, a comfortable sofa and an armchair that Theo occupied while serving whiskey to everyone. He lit a cigarette, and the strong aroma of tobacco mixed with the air already heated by conversations and laughter.

Catherine was completely at ease, laughing while Theo narrated compromising stories about Mattheo.

- For God's sake, how did you get rid of these things? - she asked, between laughs, looking at Mattheo, who looked away, embarrassed, but amused.

- For some reason my father didn't kill him. - Theo replied with a mischievous smile, blowing a cloud of smoke. - Not that there was a lack of reasons.

- But what were you doing so wrong, Matt? I'm curious. - Catherine insisted, excited.

You, who were next to Theo, tried to divert the conversation:

- Theodore is exaggerating. - You start, with a light smile. - Our father was not the kindest person in the world and he never needed reasons not to like someone.

However, his brother excited by the drink, let go without thinking:

- Oh, right. Let's pretend that Dad thought it was normal to find Mattheo's pants in his room.

The silence fell like a rock in the room. Mattheo looked at you, visibly uncomfortable, while Catherine processed the information.

Before the tension in the room could suffocate everyone, hurried steps echoed through the house, cutting the charged air like a cruel warning. A male voice, firm and distant, sounded in the distance:

- Slowly!

A little girl appeared at the door, her messy black hair framing a radiant smile. She ran directly to you with the purity of someone who did not know the weight of a past.

- Hey, how are you? - His voice came out so sweet and natural, as he took it easily and raised it in his arms, as if that gesture was part of his daily life. You laughed, a sound so light that it made Mattheo's chest hurt, as if that laugh was something he could never claim again.

- Hi, Uncle Theo! - The girl waved to Theodore, pulling a warm smile from the man who always seemed to be at ease, even in the most uncomfortable situations.

But Mattheo was frozen. The world around you seemed to be reduced to a blur, while only one question hammered in his mind: did you have a daughter?

His heart, which already seemed overloaded, took an empty leap, as if it was unable to process the possibility that you had built a life so far from what he still secretly imagined.

And before he could organize the fragmented thoughts, the door to the room opened again.

A man came in. Tall, impeccable, with a perfectly aligned suit and a posture that exuded confidence. He looked out of a painting - with striking features, deep eyes and a magnetism that made the environment revolve around him. But it was the way he looked at you, with intimacy and possession, that crushed Mattheo.

- Hi, dear. - The man's voice was soft, but every word sounded like a blow. He approached you with a sharp familiarity, depositing a brief but intimate kiss on your cheek.

You turned to him with a smile - that smile - and, as if the universe had chosen that moment to destroy any remaining hope in Mattheo, you said:

- Tom, these are Mattheo, an old friend from Hogwarts, and Catherine, his girlfriend.

Thomas stretched out his hand with the naturalness of someone who had no idea of the impact of his presence. Mattheo squeezed her, like a mechanical reflex, while his mind was spinning. So, you finished, casual, without noticing that each word was like a dagger:

- This is Thomas, my fiancé.

"Getroved"...

The word ricocheted in his mind like an endless, deafening echo. He felt the ground give way under his feet. Like an automaton, his eyes sought his hand, and the brightness of the ring on his finger seemed to mock him, a cruel reminder that he was too late.

Catherine, noticing the tension, tried to intervene, smiling kindly:

- Is she your daughter?

You laughed, a quiet laugh, and exchanged a look with Thomas before he answered:

- No, she's my niece. But he loves spending time here.

The explanation should have brought relief, but the knot in Mattheo's chest just tightened. It was more than the child. It was the man next to you. That's what he represented: a future that Mattheo didn't have by his side.

The little girl, oblivious to the charged atmosphere, pointed to the glass on the table.

- Aunt, what is this?

You smiled, still so light, and answered without hesitation:

- Apple juice.

- Can I drink?

- This one is hot. Let's go to the kitchen to get a very cold one. - You got up with the girl on your lap, moving away from the room, but not before adding, with a caress that seemed so natural: - After that, you go to bed, agreed?

Your voice disappeared as you moved away, and Mattheo remained motionless.

Everything around seemed to fall apart inside him. It was a suffocating mixture of longing, jealousy and a pain that he didn't know he could feel again. He wanted to move, he wanted to breathe, but the air seemed too heavy. You were everything he had wanted - everything he still wanted.

But now, he felt like a shadow, a spectator of his happiness. And as the sound of his steps moved away, something inside him broke irreparably. Mattheo's heart finally accepted what his mind already knew: he was looking at the life that could have been his, but would never be.

He looked away to the window, to the cold night outside, and for the first time in years, allowed himself to feel the weight of what he had lost - and what he would never have back. Feeling the weight of everything that would never be his, a new wave of pain hit him, more subtle, but still devastating: guilt.

He felt the overwhelming weight of having been so deeply shaken by you, by your new life, while Catherine was there, by your side, full of confidence in what they had together. She didn't deserve that. Catherine was good, kind, full of enthusiasm for life.

And yet, there he was, unable to look away from your memory. Unable to silence the storm inside you.

He hated himself for that. He hated the fact that a part of his heart - a part he thought he had buried a long time ago - still belonged to you, even with Catherine so close. Her smile was real, her intentions were pure, and yet he couldn't match everything she offered.

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to gather strength to mask the whirlwind inside him. When he opened them, he forced a smile to Catherine, who looked at him curiously.

- Is everything okay? - she asked softly, the concern tinging her voice.

Mattheo nodded, the lie stuck in his throat.

- Of course, it's okay. - he replied, his voice sounding distant even to himself.

But he knew everything wasn't okay. And the weight of that would consume him long before the end of that night.

Thomas returned to the living room alone, walking with controlled but firm steps, as if he were perfectly at home. He removed the suit with an almost automatic movement before looking around and announcing:

- She went to put Amélie to sleep. - Her voice was low and well modulated, and there was an almost rehearsed tone in softness.

Mattheo hated it. He hated the way Thomas looked so natural there, as if that space was as much his as it was yours or Theodore's. It was a visceral feeling, almost childish, but he couldn't ignore it. Thomas was the stranger, the intruder, and yet he was the one who was by his side now, who was part of his life.

Thomas approached the armchair that was previously occupied by you and sat down casually, crossing his legs while pouring more of the amber drink in the glass you had used before. Catherine, always friendly, leaned slightly forward with a polite smile.

- So, Thomas, do you also work in the Ministry? - she asked curiously.

Thomas looked up at her, the smile he answered seemed polite, but calculated.

- Yes, I work as a strategic advisor in the International Cooperation Division. - He folded the sleeves of the white bed to his forearms while talking. - It's an interesting position, but also very stressful.

Theodore let out a slight laugh, leaning against the arm of the sofa.

- Believe me, this is nothing more than an elegant way of saying that he deals with annoying people all the time.

- Something like that. - Thomas replied, a skewed smile appearing on his lips.

Mattheo, until then silent, finally manifested himself. His voice was low, but loaded with something he himself didn't know how to name:

- And how did you meet her?

The question seemed innocent, but the look he gave Thomas carried an intensity that neither Catherine nor Theodore could ignore. Thomas did not hesitate, but the brightness in his eyes seemed to change slightly, as if he was calculating the impact of each word.

- We met during a conference in Paris, at the International Division. - he began, with a polite tone, but something darker seemed latent. - She was presenting an alliance proposal for the British section. Intelligent, articulated... - He paused, as if savoring the weight of the next words. - I confess that it was fascinating to meet her. She... seemed to have a lot to overcome, even though she was so young.

The silence that followed was dense. Mattheo narrowed his eyes, and Theodore, perceptive as always, turned his gaze from Thomas to Mattheo, capturing the subtle change in his friend's posture.

- She's good at it - Theodore intervened, trying to ease the mood, but sounding uncomfortably aware of the tension. - It always was.

Mattheo didn't answer immediately. He knew that Thomas knew more than he was letting it show. That last sentence, "she seemed to have a lot to overcome", was an indirect, almost a provocation.

Thomas tilted his head slightly, the smile on his face more contained, but still with that touch of provocation that Mattheo began to recognize.

- But what about you, Mattheo? - Thomas asked, his voice low, loaded with intentions that he didn't need to hide. - What have you been doing since you ran away... sorry, did you leave London?

Mattheo looked up slowly, a look that masked the whirlwind inside. There was something lethally controlled in his posture, like a stretched rope about to burst.

- Just living my life. - The answer came coldly, each word deliberately measured. He took a sip of his drink, as if that was enough to swallow the discomfort. - Sometimes, leaving London is the best thing you can do.

Thomas smiled almost imperceptibly, as if he knew exactly what was happening under the surface. The silence hovered for a moment, heavy and sharp, until Catherine, always insightful, intervened with a polite smile, trying to dissipate the suffocating tension.

- So, have you already scheduled the wedding date?

Thomas turned to her, and his smile seemed to gain a warmer air, but still calculated, as if each word had been carefully rehearsed.

- Oh, yes. Actually, it will be next week. Something small, intimate, but, of course, you are invited. We couldn't leave out old friends.

Mattheo squeezed the glass in his hand, his knuckles turning white as he processed that. The idea of you marrying Thomas seemed like a low blow, even though he knew he had no right to feel it anymore.

That's when you returned to the room, the steps echoing softly while your gaze carefully evaluated the scene. There was something in your eyes, a glow of caution that suggested that you knew the atmosphere was loaded.

Mattheo straightened his posture, as if his presence had taken him out of the torpor. He put the empty glass on the table with an abrupt movement and got up, fixing his coat with slightly trembling fingers.

- Dinner was great, but it's already late. - he said, his voice firm, but low. He avoided staring at you directly, giving Catherine a brief look. - We'd better go.

You nodded, offering a little polite smile that seemed loaded with unsaid words.

- It was good to see them. - You said moments before hearing the phone ring in another room and going to answer while they left that room.

Theodore accompanied them to the lobby, where Mattheo, already eager to leave, noticed something that had previously gone unnoticed: a wall covered with magical photos.

His gaze was immediately captured by a particular image. It was you and Thomas on a beach, illuminated by the golden sunset. Thomas lifted you up easily, a sincere smile on his face, while you laughed, his arms around his neck. In the sequence, the photo showed you two running back to the water, the brightness of the foam captured in the constant movement of the image.

Mattheo stopped for a moment, unable to look away. That scene was not just a static memory; it was a glimpse of a life that seemed so distant from him now, a happiness that he knew he could never have given you.

Catherine lightly touched his arm, her soft voice breaking the moment.

- Shall we go?

Mattheo took a second to answer, forcing a brief smile and waving to Theodore.

- It was good to see you, Theo.

He took one last look at the photo before turning and leaving, each step heavier than the previous one. As he and Catherine appeared away, the snap echoed through the night, but the silence that remained behind seemed to speak more than any word he could have said.

Inside the house, Thomas stood in the same place for a moment, watching the door through which Mattheo and Catherine had left. A half smile curved his lips, loaded with the certainty of someone who knew exactly what he had provoked. There was something almost triumphant in the way he released the air, as if silently celebrating a won battle without raising a wand.

You entered the room soon after, your gaze immediately capturing Thomas' face and that smile that, although contained, brought an enigmatic air.

- Have they ever gone? - he asked casually, trying to ignore the persistent feeling that he had left something unresolved.

Thomas nodded, approaching you with calm steps, his hand landing on your waist with the familiarity of someone who knew exactly where it belonged.

- Yes. - He took a brief look at the corridor before turning his attention to you. With a subtle gesture, he began to guide her towards the stairs. - Who was on the phone?

- Your sister. - you answered, letting out a light sigh. - Asking if Amélie had already slept.

Thomas let out a short laugh, full of affection.

- Always so worried... - He dramatized with a playful smile, his hand still on your waist as you began to climb the steps.

The sound of the steps echoed softly through the environment, and the weight of that night seemed to finally give way to fatigue. But as his feet followed the usual path down the stairs, his mind wandered for a moment into the past.

Mattheo's face, the way he looked at you during dinner, the way he seemed to carry so much on his shoulders - as if the weight of the years had transformed him into something you barely recognized - all this throbbed in his mind. It was like opening a chest that you swore never to touch again, only to be enveloped by the dust and memories that had accumulated.

But when you looked at Thomas, who guided you with a gentle smile, reality came back strongly. He was the constancy you never had, the gift you chose to build in the midst of the ruins of a war that had taken you so much. Mattheo, as important as it had been, now it was just a shadow of what it once was. The past, he realized, was a place where you no longer belonged.

Meanwhile, outside, Mattheo walked silently next to Catherine, the darkness of the night swallowing every thought he couldn't control. Thomas' face, the ring shining on your hand, the happiness that seemed to emanate from you - all this corroded him, but nothing affected him as much as the feeling of guilt.

He cast a brief look at Catherine, who walked next to him with a serene expression, apparently oblivious to the storm inside him. The guilt grew, overwhelming. It wasn't just the weight of still feeling so much for you; it was the fact that, by drowning in the past, he had neglected the woman next to him.

Catherine deserved more than the shadow of a man attached to something he could never be again. And while the click of the apparatus took them away, Mattheo knew he needed to choose: continue carrying the ashes of what it once was or finally learn to leave them behind.

masterlist

A/N: I'm finally back!

xoxo, bee🫶🏼✨

[buccini555]

𝐓𝐨𝐤𝐲𝐨 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬: 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐬/𝐨 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲

How would they react to the news that their girlfriend ended her own life?

A n g s t H e a d c a n o n s !

𝐹𝑡. Manjiro Sano, Izana Kurokawa, Kakucho Hitto, Ran Haitani, Rindou Haitani and Baji Keisuke

Requested by: My bestie ♡

𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐣𝐢𝐫𝐨 𝐒𝐚𝐧𝐨

At the exact moment he received the notice announcing that his girl was in the hospital after an attempt to take her own life, Manjiro did not hesitate to go to the place at the same time, so when he arrived at the hospital, the first thing he did was try to find out the condition of his beloved, until then, still hoping to find her well again.

As soon as he saw one of the doctors pass him in that freezing hallway, Manjiro immediately questioned how the girl was, "S-she's okay, isn't she? How is she?" Insistently, he questioned, however, the doctor only gave the news that the girl had not survived her to injuries.

At that same time, Manjiro felt as if his world was collapsing, he couldn't even believe it and for a brief moment, he still begged for that fact to be nothing more than a simple mistake, despite that, when part of him accepted what had really happened, the boy felt completely apathetic, as if some kind of emptiness took over him, after that event, Manjiro was never the same or could come back to his normal state, all he felt was guilt.

𝐈𝐳𝐚𝐧𝐚 𝐊𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐚𝐰𝐚

"Baby?" He looked for his loved one in every room of that house, until he entered the bedroom and saw water running under the bathroom door, tension spread throughout his body, but he did not lack the courage to open that same door.

When faced with such a scene, Izana hurried to try to save her, even doing anything at that moment, he couldn't believe his own eyes when he saw that it was already too late, even trying to stay in hope.

Although he could still save her life, the boy burst into tears when he realized that there was nothing left that could bring his beloved back.

After that day, Izana was never the same, becoming even more closed in his own world and carrying the guilt he condemned himself for not having arrived sooner to avoid all that tragedy.

𝐊𝐚𝐤𝐮𝐜𝐡𝐨 𝐇𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐨

Upon receiving the news that his loved one had just been hospitalized, the boy left everything behind, overcome by worry, he could barely think about what he would do if something bad actually happened.

When he arrived at the place, he immediately went to find out about the girl's condition, but, as soon as he learned the worst news he could receive, Kakucho just refused to accept that she hadn't resisted.

Alone, sitting in an empty corridor of a hospital, still in denial, he remained at the door of the room where his loved one was, when he cruelly realized that he would never see her alive again, he could not control his incessant crying, sitting on that floor, blaming himself for not having saved her from herself, he would definitely never be able to feel joy again, no longer caring about being alive or not, after all, after that day, the boy no longer felt anything.

𝐑𝐚𝐧 𝐇𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐢

Finding his beloved's absence strange when he arrived home, something like an intuition made the heart of the tallest one feel distressed, for this reason, it didn't take him long to go up the stairs and look for her, the moment he opened the bedroom door, he saw her, but not as he wanted and then, the blood spread on the floor announced the tragedy that had occurred. "Shit... Shit!" The boy held the girl on his lap and took her to the hospital, believing that he could still save her.

Pacing insistently from side to side, Ran waited in anguish of worry, however, once he could finally be notified of the condition of his gentle girl, he could not believe that she simply had not resisted.

"She's gone... I couldn't save her, I failed." He repeated to himself sitting in one of the hospital chairs, Ran couldn't shed a tear or simply have any reaction other than blaming himself for not having made her stay, even if he had already accepted that he would never see her again, he still He refused to accept that she had left in such a cruel way, so this fact directly affected him, making him completely empty and with a coldness he had never seen before.

𝐑𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐮 𝐇𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐢

"C'mon, don't do this to me, wake up, please, wake up..." Holding the girl in his arms, he did his best to try to save her and have time to take her to the hospital, but his hopes were destroyed when it happened realizing that she was leaving before his own eyes, even though he didn't want to and couldn't accept that he would lose her that night, Rindou hugged her, still trying to make her get rid of those medications, despite all his efforts, he instinctively He knew she was gone when he felt his skin turning cold.

"Baby? Baby, please, wake up!" He began to cry compulsively when he saw her leave before his eyes and in her arms she rested, Rindou just begged for her forgiveness for not having saved her and even if the girl could return to forgive him, the sameHe would carry that pain and guilt for the rest of his life and he did so, Rindou was never able to forgive himself.

𝐁𝐚𝐣𝐢 𝐊𝐞𝐢𝐬𝐮𝐤𝐞

"S-she... tell me, tells me how she is, now!" Arriving at the hospital after receiving such shocking news, Baji immediately went to find out about the girl's condition, no matter how much he tried to control himself or just remain calm, he could not deny himself that he expected the worst, and when unfortunately his intuition did not made a mistake, Baji could not accept that he had lost his beloved so unexpectedly.

Sitting on the hospital floor, he just begged for it to be a mistake or a lie. "...She's fine, this...this can't be real, it's a fucking nightmare." He repeated, despite this, when he realized that it had really happened, his heart broke instantly, the pain caused by the loss of the girl being one of the worst things he could feel.

After that fact, Baji started to get into even more trouble to try to dispel all that feeling and the longing that that girl left behind, becoming a danger even to himself, Keisuke never went back to being who he was.

[a-bad-case-of-the-stephs]

i’ve been thinking abt this for a while and i want ur opinion. do you think characterization-wise stephanie would’ve kept her pregnancy if dixon wasn’t so staunchly anti-abortion? im kinda torn… and ik they retconned it entirely in newer reboots, but i would’ve loved to see her taking care of a kid since she’s good with them

Ok first of all thank you so much for asking me abt this. I actually have so many opinions about Steph’s pregnancy “arc” and I love yapping about her so appreciate this ask a ton.

On one hand, it’s really hard to entirely separate Steph from Dixons conservative values. She was created by the guy and she reflects a variety of semi conservative views in Robin 1993.

Some of these things are deeply connected to her character, for instance her punitive and callous attitude towards criminals. Of course, this attitude absolutely changes over time, but it makes a lot of sense for her to have this conservative approach early on in her crime fighting career, it directly reflects her anger towards her abusive dad.

Others are less grounded in things we know about Steph and more so just throwaway lines, like the joke Steph makes about the Clintons.

What I’m trying to say is it’s hard to determine what Steph would do if she wasn’t being written by Dixon, or if Dixon wasn’t as conservative on reproductive care, because some details about her are both entrenched as part of her character and also potentially influenced by Dixons politics.

There’s two main themes that come up during Steph’s pregnancy which I think are very in line with her characterization and support the idea that the choice she makes is (fairly) in character: her sense of responsibility, and her protectiveness over children as a reaction to how she was not protected.

The idea that Stephanie fucked up, that she made a stupid mistake and her pregnancy is the “consequence” (an insanely horrifically gross premise, for the record) is espoused by her throughout the pregnancy arc.

This is pretty in line with her characterization.

Steph places a strong emphasis on the idea of internal strength, it’s something we see her value in others and something she commits to herself.

(Her father is "weak" because he succumbs to his criminal tendencies, her mother is "strong" for overcoming her addiction, other drug addicts are weak for failing to do so and turning to crime, her mom is "weak" for grieving Arthur, Steph is called "brave" for keeping her baby, Steph has to be “the brave one here” because Crystal won’t kick Arthur out, etc etc)

Potentially connected to this mindset is how Stephanie is also kind of prone to taking responsibility, and in some cases, taking blame for things that actually are not her fault.

Easy example of this is how she talks to Tim about how he might have cheated and wanted to leave her while pregnant, she takes the blame and responsibility for his (assumed) actions. It’s her fault for being so “fat and disgusting”. She understands why he might have cheated on her.

When Batman tells her Tims secret identity (something she didn’t seem to realize would hurt him and which Batman presented the urgency of the situation under absolutely false pretenses) she immediately takes the blame for Tim’s anger, directly condemning herself and centering Tim’s feelings even when Tim is clearly angry at Bruce and hardly acknowledges her at all during the confrontation. She continues to blame herself for this later even after being reassured by Tim.

And a huge example, how Steph believes straight up that she has “a lot to make up for” because her dad is the Cluemaster. This is a consistent part of Stephs characterization, seems to somehow blame herself for Arthur’s actions, or at least not being able to stop him. Steph holds herself to an unfair metric, she takes on this unwarranted responsibility and blame.

It makes sense to me that Steph would adopt a similar mindset in the case of her pregnancy. She’s quick to assume this responsibility and deride herself and her actions because that’s what she’s always done.

The second factor that I think is playing a role here is Steph’s desire to protect the innocent, especially children, as a reflection of the way she was never protected as a child.

Steph is, as you pointed out, shown to be good with kids. And, I think it’s absolutely worth mentioning that she sometimes projects her own experiences onto them. Not in like a bad way, in a: ‘no one protected me, I want to protect them’ way. This is a super strong protective instinct.

This protective instinct is what (I believe) causes her to befriend Damian during Batgirl (2009): she sees that he was missing out on a normal childhood, something she could relate to, and we see her try to help him experience one.

It’s also why she chooses to let her baby get adopted instead of keeping it: we see her convinced by Tim’s arguement about how her baby would grow up without two parents and compares that situation to how Steph grew up with her dad in jail. (By the way, this is just propaganda, the issue is Steph would have to forfeit her teen years taking care of a baby if she kept it, which she is not old or mature enough to raise effectively and which would doubtlessly have terrifying consequences for both her and her baby, not that the baby needs two parents, and one of them has to be a man. But that’s besides the point.)

The point is, Steph’s shitty childhood makes her protective over children and strongly moves her to ensure similar situations don’t befall them.

I think she’s doing a very similar thing when it comes to her pregnancy.

The whole conclusion to her story in the Secret Origins 80-Page Giant is her telling her unborn baby about her childhood, and hoping the baby will get a better childhood than she did.

In the same way Steph is dedicated to stopping kids from experiencing what she experienced, she feels like she has a duty to her baby to protect it in specific contrast to her own shitty childhood where she was not protected.

We see this idea explored again in Steph’s hallucination/dream while giving birth. Her nightmare is centered around Steph’s fear that her baby would end up in the hands of Cluemaster. She's terrified by the idea of this innocent child getting abused by the same man she was.

Also, notice Crystals role here. Crystal's enabling of Arthur's abuse and general shittiness is something we see explored a few times. Steph identifies that Crystal is willing to be blind to the obviously shitty behavior of her brother, Steph's Uncle Dave, and compares her inability to see the truth to how Crystal apparently acted with Arthur in the past. There's more examples, but the way Crystal facilities Arthurs abuse (which Crystal was a premiere victim of for the record) and is unwilling to hear out Steph in her nightmare is clearly a reflection of Stephs own childhood. She is projecting her shitty past onto her baby again.

How does this factor into her choice to not get an abortion? As explored, she has this tendency to project herself and her experiences into kids she sees as in similar situations, and try to protect them where she was not protected. I can see this inclining Steph to 1) see the fetus as a baby and innocent life and 2) feel a very strong protective instinct towards it which think would make her unlikely to abort.

So again, we have this projection where Steph sees the baby as A) her responsibility and B) in need of the protection she did not get.

Both of these factors are undoubtably parts of Steph’s character. So, I’m inclined to say Steph’s pregnancy arc is based in her character.

It comes down to how Steph sees her fetus. If she, like she does in Robin 93, immediately conceptualized the fetus as a separate person, an innocent life, I think her feelings of responsibility and her protective instinct for the innocent and young children would make it pretty much impossible her to end up choosing herself and her own wants over the fetus. I don’t think Steph could ever do that, unfortunately.

On the other hand, if Steph didn’t immediately think of the fetus as a baby, (something that would come with Dixon being less conservative on reproductive rights) I could see her getting an abortion. I do think she’d still feel guilty however, like she’d shirked responsibility somehow.

In conclusion, it’s complicated, but Steph’s feelings during her pregnancy are grounded in her characterization. I think if Dixon was less conservative, we might be able to see how these traits come into play and have Steph maybe learn to prioritize herself despite her self sacrificial qualities, and we could manage not have the 15 year old give birth.

(Okay that was the analysis, now I’m lowkey just going to rant about how I personally feel about the pregnancy arc.)

On a personal level, I think someone should have sat Steph down and explained to her the that she has every right to want to abort? Yes. Do I think Crystal should have had a long talk with her about how Stephanie doesn’t owe this fetus anything and she has a right to be 15 and look out for herself for once? God, yes.

I’m honestly just disgusted by the very concept of the “pregnancy arc”. No amount of cute moments with Tim or attempts to make Steph’s convos with her mom heartwarming will override my disgust at the fact that they made the 15 year old pregnant. It’s not "cute" that she had to deal with pregnancy induced nausea and her math homework. It’s genuinely horrific. It’s not "nice" that Tim uses his Alvin Draper disguise to brings her to Lamaze classes. It’s horrifying that Steph has to ask her boyfriend who has to wear a disguise to drive her to birthing classes because her mom is busy working night shifts at the hospital to support them. It’s not "sweet" when Tim reassures Steph she’s beautiful and Steph playfully threatens to hit him with a teddy bear, it’s sickening that she thinks so lowly of herself in the first place. And it’s definitely not anything but genuinely disappointing that Steph’s next appearance in Robin 93 after giving birth is her jogging to lose the weight she gained from her pregnancy. Just wow.

I love that Steph is good with kids and whenever I see those cute ‘Steph keeps the kid’ au drawings I will admit that my heart is warmed . But at the same time, I'm just personally never going to be in favor of Steph being forced to carry a baby at 15 years old as a "consequence" so we can moralize to the audience about teens having premarital sex. It was not done well. I don't know if it could be done well.

I don’t really think her pregnancy should be decanonized either per se, because I think DC should have to own up to their sexist treatment of Steph (and many many other female characters) instead of getting to pretend they were always perfectly feminist. (This happens a lot with her time as Robin a lot but that’s another post). However, I kind of never want to see that baby appear again in any comic.

When it comes to current comics canon, even if the pregnancy has been retconned, I have this sinking feeling that it’s only a matter of time before that baby shows up as a minor character and becomes a vigilante or some shit. This is the dark timeline to me. The evil universe which I lie awake terrified of but I know is distinctly possible. If this happens, this is my "I told you so" moment.

For me, the “good ending” when it comes to Steph’s pregnancy is she should’ve aborted it. Just no baby, no pregnant 15 year old. She could have even participated in NML in this alt universe (which is another another post). I don't know. I think Steph could be a fantastic mom, but I wouldn't want her to have to be one at 15 or 16.

Thank you again sm for the ask, love ranting about Steph. Totally open to hearing other takes on this arc and Stephs character as always.