#She dies and he goes mad with grief

[fonthoura]

*taps your shoulder* wanna see something cool? *proceeds to infodump about the dynamics of devotion that ultimately lead to the demise of the 12th doctor and Clara Oswald*

[batsandbirdbrains]

Okay but I want a post-Spyral fic like

The one where Nightwing flinches whenever Batman raises a hand

Dick is just always convinced that Bruce is going to hit him. That if Dick does something he doesn’t agree with, he’ll hit him to get him back in line. He gets nervous when Bruce raises his voice, in and out of costume. He rarely visits the manor, because his brothers are all mad at him anyway and think that Dick willingly faked death. They don’t even know that he actually died. They don’t understand why Dick can hardly eat solid food and why he can’t swallow pills at all anymore without having a panic attack.

The only one who wants to be around him anymore is Damian. Damian is the only one who doesn’t call him a liar, who isn’t mad at him. Damian misses him, visits him in Blüdhaven all the time, tells the others off whenever they start complaining or saying mean things about Dick.

And Dick takes Damian out for ice cream mostly when he visits, because he can let the ice cream melt on his tongue, he doesn’t have to swallow it while it’s still hard. Dick practically lives off of soup and smoothies and cereal that’s soaked in milk so long it becomes a soggy slop. Whenever he attends dinner at the manor (and it rarely happens these days, only when Damian really begs), he picks at his food and pushes it around his plate. Damian is the only one who realizes he’s not actually eating. And Alfred, of course, but Alfred knows the truth, and he just doesn’t know how to help, but he doesn’t want to draw attention to it if it will make Dick upset.

Dick relies heavily on the OG Titans, who all rally around him, because they’re the only ones Dick tells the whole story too. And none of them ever really liked Bruce all that much, they all saw the bruises Dick used to show up to the tower with after spending time with the Bat.

When Jason asks in a snarky voice why Roy is still hanging around with Dick after everything he did, Roy shuts it down quick.

“He’s my friend,” Roy says defensively. “And I know how shitty of a dad Bruce is, so I won’t buy into whatever story he told the rest of you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jason demands.

“Why don’t you ask Dick yourself?”

Jason forgot that Roy was Dick’s friend first, that they have a whole history Jason will never know the entirety of. But calling Bruce a shitty dad? He knew the OG Titans didn’t like Batman, but he never knew the full reason why. He’d never really asked. Maybe it was time to.

And maybe he and Tim show up to Dick’s apartment unannounced one day, but Dick is having a bad day. He’s been having a few bad days, and Donna has been staying with him because the others are all worried about him. And they find their brother practically catatonic on the floor of his apartment living room being held tightly by Donna, who’s rocking him and whispering stories in his ear from when they were young and reckless and ridiculous. Garth is in the kitchen making soup, because they all know Dick won’t eat anything else right now, if he’ll be able to keep anything down at all. Roy and Wally aren’t there, the boys all take turns staying with Donna in shifts. They try to get Donna in on the rotation, but she refuses to leave Dick’s side until he’s better.

“Get out,” she hisses at them quietly, glaring at them as they stand in the doorway. “He’s in no mood to see you right now.”

“What right do you have-”

“We’re the Wonder Twins, remember?” she asks, her voice full of snark. “I have every right.”

Garth turns the stove down and covers the pot, then goes to escort them out of the building.

“He’s having an episode,” he tells them gently. “He wouldn’t want you to see him like that.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Tim asks.

“That’s for him to decide if he wants to tell you, not me. Just go home. Please.” But before they leave, Garth gives them a hard look. “But you’ve given him nothing but grief since he came back. Don’t expect him to open up right away.”

“He lied to us!”

“Did he?” Garth asks them, and it makes them both falter. “Or did someone else lie about him to you?”

The two look at each other before turning back to Garth, who rolls his eyes.

“There’s a reason the original Titans could never stand Batman,” Garth tells them, letting out a huff of a laugh. “Maybe start there.”

What happens after that? No idea! I just like the angst of it all.

[womanofwords]

Next is batfam x neglected clone reader superfam.

Back when Dick was Robin he and Bruce broke into a lab and in it was a clone of Batman and Superman (trying to make the ultimate hero). It was only a toddler then and they couldn’t let it stay to be turned into a weapon so they took it home.

They called Clark to let him know and yeah he has his reservations about clones of him. But this one’s still only just a toddler a little mix of him and Bruce. He’s ready to just take the child home but Bruce convinces him not to. That he has better resources and (at this point Clark and Lois aren’t together yet) Clark is always busy between reporting and hero work.

So Clark leaves raising them to Bruce but visits as much as he can. But he visits less and less as he gets busier trusting Bruce to care for their child. But in that time Dick left (not really liking that this sibling got to be a mix of his adoptive father and pseudo dad) Jason came and eventually died and Bruce began to wallow in his grief.

Little SuperBat loved their family and tried to cheer Bruce up but he gets angry that they seem to not care that Jason is gone (they care, a lot. But they’re putting their grief on hold to try and cheer up their dad). This is when the neglect really starts.

Of course Tim joins, Jason returns and all the other batkids follow. But they’re all following Bruce’s lead and the only ones who (should) remember that they’re a clone are Bruce, Dick and Jason (Tim was smart and discovered it on his own at some point in time). It’s when Damien attacks them and they try defending themself that they punch Damien (not even that hard) and Bruce pops off on them for “attacking him”. That they’re wrong cause they “could have killed him” with their “super strength” thus revealing their a clone.

Only Bruce doesn’t know they have super strength because they never showed signs of Clark’s abilities. He tested for a while when they were younger but stopped. They went through gaining and navigating their powers alone (afraid of Bruce’s no meta’s rule).

“But why not go to Clark?” well because Bruce is a control freak who during him yelling at them after Jason’s death, denies them going to visit Clark since (I believe that) Clark and Lois would (or could) have either just gotten married or had Jon on the way. Bruce basically projecting that they’re starting their own family and wouldn’t want a clone.

Angst all around as clone!reader is basically bullied by the entire family. Especially Damien who loves to tout about how he’s the only natural born child of Bruce not a “cheap failed experiment”.

Reader quietly leaves wanting to be alone goes to Mt.Everest. Meets Papa Clark again cause he thought someone was stuck crying on Everest and needed rescuing. Turns out it’s his baby and they’re crying in pajamas on the world’s tallest mountain. Listens to their woes and is furious. He asks why they didn’t come to him and they repeat all the things Bruce and the fam would tell them. How they’d risk exposing him cause they look so much like him and Bruce, how he was starting his own family and they would get in the way.

Clark is furious, but his baby needs him first. Takes them to meet Lois, Jon, Conner and his parents. They all adore clone reader. Lois and Martha Kent are upset that Clark never told them but even more mad Bruce said the things he did to keep clone reader home. Especially since she missed her own father’s wedding and the birth of her brother.

Some way some how the batfam discover clone reader is missing (choose however you want. personally my bet is Damien torments them when he’s bored and discovers their gone because of it). It takes them a while but discovers she’s with Superfam. Cue crazy yandere custody battle in costume and out of it

Great idea, but no thanks. Way too angsty for me. There are so many times I can make myself cry while writing, and I know I will be floating out of my house on a river of my own tears if I ever wrote this. I'm passing on this for the sake of my own sanity.

[paperbodiesamongthestars]

Halfway out the door, but it won't close

Yeah, I'm still mad. The show flatly refuses to address the emotional fallout of the events that take place on it, so I guess I'll do it myself.

Title from Say Don't Go by Taylor Swift, because I love a T Swift lyric as a fic title.

Read the whole thing below, or on AO3.

For the first time in a long time, Buck wants to run. 

The roots he spent so many years putting down washed away more easily than he ever could have imagined, and that hurts. He’s always known Bobby was important—the linchpin of the 118, in addition to being the father Buck always wanted—but Buck was somehow still surprised when things spiraled apart so quickly and so completely without him. 

And Buck gets it. He does. Everyone is retreating into their own corners, taking comfort from their families, and that’s good. He’s glad everyone has that kind of support system. He’s glad they have families to lean on, and to grieve with. 

He just wishes he had someone in his corner too. 

And Maddie’s got him—he knows she does. If he called, she’d be there in a heartbeat, no questions asked. But she’s pregnant. And Chimney almost died. And Bobby did die, making sure Chimney got out. They have a lot going on, and Buck doesn’t want to be selfish. 

Besides, he’s managing. Sure, he wishes he didn’t feel quite so alone all the time, and he wishes that all of the ways he’s trying to help weren’t fundamentally selfish, like they apparently are, but he’s dealing. The hardest part is that he’s been doing his best to be what everyone else needs—to live up to Bobby’s last words—and he’s falling short. He doesn’t—he’s really not sure what else to try, at this point. 

It really doesn’t feel like anyone wants him to keep trying. 

The temptation to pack up his jeep and just choose a direction is intense. He doesn’t, because he promised to take over Eddie’s lease, and Maddie’s baby is coming, and maybe there’s something Athena will need from him at some point, but he looks at the horizon on his way to work and all he sees is freedom.  

He compromises, and requests a transfer. The 118 doesn’t mean what it used to, to him, and maybe at another house he can get up for work without feeling like the grief is going to pull him under. Maybe at another house he’ll stop wanting to take a hard turn onto the freeway, and drive until he loses track of where he is. The 118 is already changing anyway. Eddie will head back to Texas, and the team will get a new captain at some point, and Buck isn’t at all sure that he can see someone else in that seat. Maybe this way he can keep his love of the job, even if it feels like he’s lost just about everything else he cares about. 

And then the building goes down, and the 118 pulls together to help. 

Buck withdraws the transfer paperwork. He doesn’t want to feel disloyal to Bobby’s memory. Going to work every day at that station, like things can ever go back to the way they were before, still makes him feel like he’s going to vibrate out of his skin, but he doesn’t know what else to do. He’s paralyzed; every decision he wants to make feels like the wrong one. 

What he really needs to do is start looking for an apartment. Eddie and Chris are coming back to LA, and of course Buck is going to give him them their house back. He’s happy they’re returning—obviously he is. And the house never really felt like home anyway, aside from—well. It’s never felt like his, is all, aside from one bright, hopeful morning in the kitchen. 

He tries not to think about that too much. The warm light, and the billowing hope in his chest, and Tommy’s familiar scrunchy smile before everything went sideways. It’s too bright to look at for long, so he’s gotten used to locking it away again. 

He should call Tommy, probably, but it feels like it’s been too long. Tommy took a lot of risks to help them, and came to the funeral when Athena asked, to round out Bobby’s first team at the 118, and Buck didn’t even call him after. Never really thanked him. He’s got some texts on his phone—how are you really doing?—that he never responded to, and a couple of voicemails he hasn’t listened to. So yeah, he assumes that window is closed, no matter how much Tommy put on the line for him—for them. 

It’s one more thing that Buck used to have and doesn’t anymore. 

Buck is quiet at work, and the team thinks he doesn’t see the worried glances and the wordless conversations. No one asks him about anything, so he doesn’t share. He spends a lot of time thinking about how he used to picture his life, where he thought he’d end up. 

It should be enough, to have what he has now. He has his sister and the 118. He’s loved, certainly.  He matters to people—he knows he does. But it doesn’t feel like quite enough anymore. He knows everyone lost Bobby, and everyone is dealing with it in their own way, but he doesn’t think he should have to feel like an afterthought, or an inconvenience. He has the vague sense that he shouldn’t have to keep making his grief smaller, but he does it anyway. What else can he do?  

Eddie sets a firm date for his return, and he keeps telling Buck that he doesn’t have to move out, but Buck does. He does have to move out. It’s just—it’s the right thing to do. He thinks it is, anyway, but maybe he’s making it all about him again. He can’t tell anymore. 

Buck goes on calls, and he gradually packs his life back into boxes and labels them, and he goes to look at apartments. He doesn’t find any that he likes. They’re too small, or too dark, or in the wrong neighborhood, or they just don’t feel right. Big shock there—nothing feels right to him. 

Buck knows his realtor is frustrated when he tells her the kitchen in one of the units faces the wrong direction, and he gets it; he’s frustrated with himself. 

Buck goes back to his—to Eddie’s—to the mostly packed house, and he finally admits to himself that he’s not really looking for an apartment. 

He goes to see Gerrard, with a request for vacation this time. 

“It’s a good chunk of time,” Gerrard says slowly, from behind the desk where Bobby should still be sitting. 

“It is,” Buck agrees.

“Sometimes staying busy is better, in these situations,” Gerrard says. Buck can tell he’s trying to be gentle about it, but all he can see is Tommy’s shoulders hunching when Gerrard all but called him a fairy at the medal ceremony. He doesn’t waver. He holds Gerrard’s gaze until the man looks away, clears his throat, and signs the request. 

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Buckley.” He sounds irritated, and Buck feels a little better. He also hopes he knows what he’s doing, but he has a good feeling about it. He’s optimistic, maybe, for the first time in a while. 

Buck shows up to his next shift with a countdown clock in his head, and the rush of relief he feels almost makes him dizzy. He’s got another ten days before his time off starts, but it’s sitting there on the horizon now, an emergency exit, an escape hatch from his life.

He feels steadier now that he can see it up ahead. He’s a little more settled in himself, and he knows everyone sees it. His friends exchange relieved glances when they think he isn’t looking, and some part of him wonders why they can’t just talk to him. He wonders why they couldn’t just sit him down and tell him they were worried, but maybe that’s unfair. Maybe everyone is doing their best, and Bobby’s loss is just insurmountable. It feels that way sometimes, like Buck won’t survive this. It feels like all the bonds tethering him to his life snapped at once, and they’re just dangling now, the severed edges fraying by the day. 

Buck doesn’t say anything about the time off. He works and he smiles at his friends, and no one eats together or makes plans to hang out after work. He tries not to be too hard on himself for giving up—for betraying the last thing Bobby asked him to do. He tried—he really did—but he just can’t anymore. He can’t throw himself into holding everything together when no one seems to want to be held. 

He hopes Bobby would understand, but he can’t be sure.  

The day finally comes. Buck’s stuff is packed into his jeep or his new storage unit. He works his last shift and still doesn’t say anything. He thinks about it, but he’s not sure what he would even say. He figures his friends will have questions when he doesn’t show up for the next shift, but that’s a couple of days from now. Maybe by then, he’ll be far enough away to have found some answers. 

Buck makes it a little over an hour into his drive, heading north, before he has to pull over; he’s crying so hard he’s afraid he’s going to hit something. He takes the next exit, doesn’t see the number through his tears, and parks in the first parking lot he finds. He turns the car off, leans over the steering wheel, and gives in to his sobs. 

He’s not sure how much time has passed when he takes one deep breath, and then another. He feels calm for the first time in a while, emptied—for the moment—of the deep, terrible sorrow that’s been suffocating him for so long. He cleans off his face and then sits up straighter and looks around. He’s parked near a Jack-in-the-Box and he’s suddenly starving, so he goes inside and orders about half the menu. He goes back to his car to eat, windows down, staring unseeing at his surroundings as he thinks. 

Getting even this far out of LA, he feels like his brain has rebooted itself, like he’s stepped out of a fog and can suddenly see clearly again. He considers what he wants to do next. 

He could turn around. He could drive back into the city, and find a place to stay for a couple of weeks while he keeps looking at apartments, and he could use the time off to get settled into a new place. He could rebuild his routine. The thought of it makes a pit of dread open up in his stomach, so that’s a no. 

He could keep going. He could get back on the road, head north the way he planned, drive until he feels like stopping and find a place to stay the night. He could do that for weeks—he’s got six of them before he has to be back at work. It’s what he should do, probably. He could rely on himself, learn how to be alone. Only he feels like he’s already pretty good at that. He’s been alone a lot in his life, and he knows he could do it. But six weeks on his own suddenly feels a lot more like loneliness than freedom. 

Buck tilts his head back against the headrest and closes his eyes. With this unexpected—and almost certainly temporary—feeling of calm and clarity, he’s suddenly confronting some uncomfortable revelations. 

Underneath the grief and the helplessness he’s been feeling for weeks, he’s angry. He’s angry at Eddie for getting in his face, and for implying that he didn’t do everything he could to save Bobby. It felt like shit to hear it, and Eddie was a dick for saying it. He’s angry at the rest of the team, too. For not taking him seriously. For assuming he was as fine as he seemed, even after losing someone who was more of a father to him than his own father ever was. For not even asking where he was moving to when he left Eddie’s house. He loves Chim, but maybe he was wrong; maybe Buck doesn’t owe it to Bobby’s memory to stay in a place where he doesn’t really feel seen anymore.

Buck knows he’s a lot—he can be a lot. But he also knows that he’s grown up in the last few years. He’s loyal, and will do anything for the people he loves. And even before Bobby died, he wasn’t getting that back from his friends. He understands why—they all have lives, and kids, and it’s been a crazy year for everyone. But he consistently made the effort to be there for them, and it doesn’t feel great that no one could find the time to do that for him. 

Well. One person did. One person always showed up for him.  

Maybe Buck doesn’t actually need to get out of LA for six weeks. Maybe he needs some space from his friends and family until he’s got a better handle on his anger with them. But maybe he doesn’t have to spend the next six weeks alone. 

It’s entirely possible that Buck’s silence the past few weeks closed that door for good. But Tommy’s been texting and calling, even though he’s not getting anything back, so maybe it didn’t. There’s only one way to find out. 

It’s early afternoon by the time Buck parks in front of Tommy’s house. He doesn’t know Tommy’s schedule anymore, but he gets lucky—Tommy’s truck is parked in the driveway. Buck’s hands are sweaty all of a sudden, and some of the conviction he felt earlier has drained away. There’s enough left to propel him out of the jeep, though, and up the steps onto Tommy’s porch. 

He rings the doorbell and waits. It’s only a few seconds before Tommy opens the door. His face creases with surprise when he sees Buck, but his eyes are warm. 

“Hi,” Buck says a little awkwardly, and then he barrels on before Tommy can say anything in return. “I want to be friends,” he blurts, without really meaning to. Tommy’s eyebrows shoot up and then furrow as he frowns, and Buck watches his eyes shutter, the way they did in the kitchen that morning. “For now!” he adds hastily. “I’d like to be friends for now.” 

Tommy’s expression does something decidedly judgmental before he gets a handle on it. He’s such a bitch sometimes, and Buck likes him so goddamn much. Loves him, in fact, but he thought about it the whole drive here, and he’s a mess right now; if he says it for the first time today, neither one of them will ever trust it.

“Maybe you should come in,” Tommy says slowly, and his tone is so neutral that Buck winces. It’s fine. He can fix this. Tommy’s willing to at least hear him out. 

He follows Tommy into the kitchen, and sits on one of the barstools at the island while Tommy makes two cups of coffee. He slides one over to Buck and sits at one of the other stools. He’s got his expression under control now, and Buck hates it. Tommy’s so expressive when he’s comfortable that this carefully polite mask feels like a slap. 

Still, Buck feels more relaxed right now than he has in weeks, just because Tommy is sitting across from him, watching him, and yeah, he should probably start explaining. 

“I put in for a transfer,” he says, and there go the eyebrows again. Buck smiles despite himself. “I withdrew the request, later, but then I took some time off. Kind of a lot of time off, actually.” He has a thought, and he looks up. “S-sorry I didn’t get back to you.” 

Tommy shakes his head. “It’s fine, Evan. I figured you were busy with your family.”

“Not, uh. Not so much,” he says, feeling tears pricking at the backs of his eyes. “It’s”—he waves a hand—“everyone has their own families, you know?”

Tommy’s frowning at him now. “You’re their family too,” he says slowly, like it’s an obvious truth, and that does it. The tears come, and so does the whole of the last few weeks, words spilling out and over each other as Buck tries to convey his loneliness, and helplessness, and what Bobby said, and how hard he tried, and how no one seemed to want that, and then Eddie—

He loses the thread a little bit, and he’s not sure what he’s saying. He’s trying to get the important parts out through the tears, but he’s not sure he’s even making sense anymore. And then Tommy’s arms are around him, big and warm and grounding, and he stops talking at all and just cries for a little while. 

When Buck is composed again, Tommy takes a step back. Buck wishes he wouldn’t, but he holds out his hand and Tommy takes it, and that’s something. There are some things Buck still needs to say. 

“It got a little jumbled earlier, so I’m not sure if I mentioned it, but I, uh. I gave Eddie his house back.”

“You said,” Tommy says, and squeezes his hand. 

“I didn’t find a new apartment,” Buck admits. “I was going to go on a road trip, just drive for the next few weeks, stay wherever I felt like staying.”

“That sounds nice,” Tommy says. 

“It did at first,” Buck says. “Then it sounded really lonely.” Tommy makes a soft noise in his throat. “So I—I turned around and came here instead.”

“Because you want to be friends,” Tommy says slowly. 

“Because I want to be friends right now,” Buck corrects. “I absolutely want to try again. I wanted to try again last time, before—but I screwed it up.”

“Pretty sure I screwed it up,” Tommy says. 

Buck shrugs. “Maybe we both did. I want to do it right. But I’m a mess right now, and I don’t want you to think that I’m only here because…because everything else in my life is falling apart. I want to choose to try again when we’re both solid.”

Tommy nods, but his gaze stays on the countertop in front of him. “What if”—he clears his throat—“what if you get your feet under you, and realize this isn’t what you want?”

“I won’t,” Buck says, calm and sure. He tugs on Tommy’s hand to get him to look up. “Tommy, I won’t. I’ve been missing you for months. The only reason I want to wait is because I want both of us to know for sure that we’re building on a solid foundation, okay?”

Tommy stares for a long moment, searching his face, and then he gives one short nod. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, okay.”

Buck can feel the smile stretching over his face. “Yeah?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” Tommy says, and smiles back. 

“I thought you weren’t ready to move in together yet,” Buck says without thinking, when Tommy shows him the spare room. 

Tommy rolls his eyes. “This doesn’t count. This is me helping out a friend, like everyone should do.” His tone is pointed, and Buck tries to ignore the little burst of pleasure he gets from knowing Tommy is mad on his behalf. He can work on being less petty about it later. 

“Yeah?” Buck asks. 

“Evan,” Tommy says, leaning in. His voice is low and intimate. “When I actually ask you to move in with me, you’ll know it.”

“Yeah?” Buck asks again, and it’s a lot breathier this time. 

“Yes,” Tommy says with a smirk, and Buck briefly wonders how committed he has to be to the friends thing. He watches Tommy saunter out the door, heading for the kitchen, and he firmly reminds himself that waiting is the responsible choice, and will absolutely be worth it.  

He’s by himself for the moment, but he doesn’t feel alone at all. He looks around the spare room, at his clothes hanging in the closet, and the soft blue comforter on the bed. Tommy put fresh sheets on it earlier, and they smell faintly of lavender. He sits on the edge of the bed, closes his eyes, and breathes. He feels good here, safe and comfortable and wanted. 

He knows his grief will be back, and the real world will intrude sooner rather than later. He’ll have decisions to make, and explanations to give when the team realizes he’s gone. He and Tommy still have a lot of talking to do. 

For right now, though, he can smell the faint scent of lavender, and Tommy’s body wash underneath that. He can hear the sound of Tommy moving around in the kitchen, and birds chirping at each other outside the window. His hand moves over the comforter, and he feels the echo of Tommy’s palm against his. 

Buck blinks his eyes open and smiles to himself. He’s not okay yet—not by a long shot—but for the first time since Bobby died, he knows that he’s going to be.  

[neverthebabysitter]

Thinking about that prompt i found on TikTok about faking your death and then coming back and knocking on your best friend's door like nothing happened.

That but make Steve fake his own death accidentally, so he is clueless why Robin is freaking out when he goes to visit her.

(with a side of Steve going feral a la Jonh Wick and Die Hard over his car, i'm so normal about this, so normal, it's not like i use this like an oportunity to make a b99 reference, pff, Gertie who??? )

Like, i know nothing about witness protection and how faking your death would work, but, but- let's use our imagination.

Steve's father being a lawyer and messing with someone he shouldn't have. He ends up dead and because of this, the cops think they could go after Steve too.

Which, true, Steve has an accident that destroys his car (RIP BMW, I love you, but this is for plot reasons, you would be missed), so now he has to be under witness protection.

Steve, like the ball of repressed trauma and anger issues that he is, decides that the best thing to do is go after the people who destroyed his car, a la John Wick; because:

Going after them to avenge his father: no, thank you.

Going after them to avenge his car: yes, let me go for my bat.

That without forgetting to leave a cryptic message to Eddie's and Robin's voicemail.

While Steve is having his own action movie with handling the 'mob' and cops that kinda want to help, kinda don't care; the rest of the Party is freaking out because "WHAT DO YOU MEAN NO ONE INVITED HIM TO SPEND CHRISTMAS WITH SOMEONE AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN HIS CAR WAS FOUND IN THE QUARRY???".

Dustin asks Robin if something happened with Steve during christmas, like kissing under the mistletoe or something, only for Robin to say she didn't invite him because Eddie did, but Eddie hears that and goes, "Uh, no? I chicken out; I thought you would invite him after I didn't."

They asking around if someone invited Steve because it's kind of public knowledge that his parents suck, but no one did, and he hasn't come to the Party's Christmas party yet, so he's probably mad at them.

But Eddie and Robin are having a Bad Feeling™ because of the voicemails, and Hopper is being called to identify a car that it was found in the quarry that morning.

And Hopper knows that car, he has seen that car since Steve was a dumb teenager that got his parties busted by the chief. He hasn't seen Steve for a while. He wasn't at the christmas party. Where was he again?

The Party still isn't in the know, but Hopper is already looking for Steve but he can't find him and-

Remember that i told you Steve was in witness protection? Well, i think sometimes they fake their deaths, i'm not sure, but this is the perfect oportunity and cover to pretend that Steve died.

So the government uses it, and The Party doesn't know because different branch of the government and all that.

When Hopper founds out he doesn't know how to tell the other that Steve had an accident and they are still looking for him in the quarry; but they already know, they used Dustin's cerebro to find out what was going on.

Everyone is devastaded, and then, Eddie and Robin hear their voicemail again only to bring out that maybe it wasn't an accident, that maybe Steve did it on porpose.

And grief, pain, mourning, sadness, anger. Just a lot of feelings.

Meanwhile, Steve is kicking ass and using the Bad Guys™ headquarters like his own personal rage room.

Blablabla something something something.

Steve let out his anger, has a few personal realisations, lets himself think about the trauma he's endured all those years and comes back like a new person, ready to confess his feelings for Eddie Munson and let people care about him.

The first thing is go talk with Robin, she's probably worried about him and she probably knows better than him to help him confess to Eddie.

So he goes, only to be utterly confuse by the amount of tears, snot, yells and hugs that Robin welcomes him. It's not like he died.

Then Robin is flabbergasted by his Audacity.

Both of them fall into a bickering that makes Robin cry harder because she thought she wouldn't have this again and Steve starts to cry because Robin is crying and now they're both crying.

Needless to say, they catch up about all the things that happened in both ends.

It's not the end of tears, hugs and yelling, though.

Just give Steve all the confort that he refused to accept because he didn't think he deserved and that people didn't know how to give.

Fluff, Fluffy, Fluff. A bit of Steddie here.

Yeah, that's all.

[hearts-hunger]

omg why did that suck so bad??

let me say the pros first:

young mazino jesse is growing on me. he gets that responsible/sarcastic thing that game jesse has. and the fact that he is shown taking care of all of them in the end is very in character and nice for us to see.

gabriel luna once again slays as tommy. that kiss with maria, the longing???? god. i love him.

the fighting in jackson was a cool idea, would have enjoyed playing a sequence like that in the game, but overall the change hurts more than it helps.

okay that's about it for what i liked lmao! the cons:

where is my pot smoking lesbian love scene. what the fuck.

kaitlyn dever looks like a little kid, genuinely. and so does bella ramsey. kaitlyn has more emotional range than bella but neither of them can carry that rage and heartbreak. neither of them are raw and brutal like they are in the game. they're both trying too hard and it shows.

everything that was changed from the game was worse, and i believe that with my whole heart. why wasn't tommy with joel? the reason tommy goes as psycho as he does it because of the grief he has from introducing joel to abby. why didn't we get dina/ellie patrol route to further solidify their relationship? dina being at the lodge made no sense and added exactly nothing to the plot. why was ellie going to jump right back into patrols with joel? in the game she barely even spoke with him before he died, but in the show apparently they're good enough to just hang out now???

The Scene™ was simply not executed as masterfully as in the game. like, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. the colors were off (where is my cold, dark, shadowed death scene?), the stab was fucking pathetic compared to game abby's yell and final blow, owen didn't get a chance to do his "if we kill them we're no better than he is" which actually gives him a character trait. abby spent wayyyy too much time explaining everything to joel. and joel is like. crying? instead of spitting mad and sneering his way towards a death he always knew was coming. where's the RAGE???? it's all sanitized and therapy-speak and big feelings and sad girls and weak old men. it just doesn't hit as hard.

the show is trying so hard to make us sympathize with abby, even more than the game, and it's so forced as to feel stupid. also, side note, why is she housewifing for owen? she's a bitch to him in the game and i like that about her. why is she rubbing his arms and making him soup or whatever? not my muscle mommy.

no "bigot sandwich" line???? best line in the whole game???

anyways those are my thoughts, i'm sure i'll have more, but come talk with me about them if you want!

[wangxianficfinder]

Fic Finder

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1. I’m going crazy looking for this fic! WWX, an OC, and a-Yuan time travel back to the CR era. Older WWX and the OC are romantically involved, but there’s implied Wangxian for the younger set. I think older WWX was trying to hide his identity. Anyone know it? 😭 @elegantgardencandy

FOUND! Through The Eyes of a Snake and a Crow by of_rivers_and_moons (T, 84k, WangXian, OC/WWX, JYL/JZX, WIP, Based off of a AngstyMDZSThoughts prompt, With A Twist, Time Travel, Arranged Marriage, Snakes, Canon Divergence, Jealousy)

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2. There is a fic, (LWJ time travels I think, not sure) He subtlely manipulates WWX against the Jiangs. I forgot if he was older or same age as Wei Ying. There was a kiss scene in the cloud recesses Library, Jiang Yanli scolding him for spilling soup on Jin Zixuan and then apologising. It's not like stones on an unseen board. Jiang Yanli is not in Cloud Recesses in this fic. @sunshinesnow

FOUND? If only you knew (what goes on in my mind) by makexianxianhappytoday (G, 7k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Yunmeng Jiang Sect Bashing, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Jiang Family Bashing, dark LWJ (but in a good way) <3, Protective LWJ, Oblivious WWX, Time Travel Fix-It, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, smug LWJ) For number 2 of the latest fic finder it sounds so familiar but it could also be a combination of the fic they said it wasn’t and this short fic. The soup spills on Wei Ying and Jiang Yanli ends up getting mad at him. But they’re all at Cloud Recess here. In their recollection was it at Lotus Pier or during war or where did Wei Ying spill the soup?

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3. Hi team ! I have a request for the next fic finder. What I remember is that LW finds a little girl alone in a forest. He offers to take her home, and they find themselves in front of a barrier, which only those wearing a necklace can pass. The girl has one and she passes easily. LW can also pass because he shares the blood of the village chief, who is actually his maternal grandfather, of whom he knows nothing. LW thinks that the village is the ideal hiding place for the Wen and WY. Thank you ! @sweet-maemi

FOUND! Arbitrary by devinokaze (T, 137k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Post-Sunshot Campaign, Burial Mounds Ensemble as Family, but live somewhere else, hidden society, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, POV Multiple)

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4. Hello, I’m searching for a watching the movie type fic. What was special about this one was that this happened during the time Wei ying was dead. And then they did like all certain trials after they found out he was innocent to get him alive and they found out during this whole thing that Wei Ying was watching over then lan zhan and ayuan. @chloecov4506

FOUND? Misunderstood by Silver_Flame_2724 (M, 250k, WIP, WangXian, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Heavy Angst, Suicidal Thoughts, Canon-Typical Violence, Self-Worth Issues)

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5. Hello! Thank you for your hard work!!!!

I'm looking for a fic where WY died and is thrusted back in time when he was a child. He decides to avoid the Jiang's and in the beginnings acts as a rogue cultivator I remember that he has a ghost lady companion and there was a Cultivation Conference where the rumors of a child (ghost/deity) is roaming about in the world and we could see a bit of Lan Queen perspective on the matter. I also remember that WY went to Carp Tower (but not the reason why) and JYL meet him there and felt that there was something missing in her family (I believe that she used the word glued, and that there was someone missing that glued them together).

I know that this is long, but I can't find it in AO3 and I'm searching all the pertinent tags and bookmarks.

FOUND? 🔒 Ad Oblivione by Baph, HikariNoHimeWriter (M, 70k, WangXian, Time Travel Fix-It, Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, POV Multiple, Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Identity Reveal, Golden Core Reveal, Cultivation World Critical, Not JC Friendly, Abusive YZY, Angst with a Happy Ending)

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6. Hello can you help me find the fic where lan wangji made his heartbeat match wei wuxian’s own through meditation please…that’s all I can remember from it

FOUND? 💖🔒Silver & Gold by beeswaxing (E, 162k, WangXian, Post-Canon, Canon Divergence, Fluff and Angst, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Age Regression/De-Aging, Fix-It of Sorts, Post-Canon Fix-It, Family Bonding, Established Relationship, Cuddling & Snuggling, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Literal Sleeping Together, Romance, BAMF WWX, Mutual Pining, Horny Teenagers, Underage Kissing, Protective WWX)

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7. Hi! I am looking for a fic that I think was modern with magic. It was a soulmate au where, unbeknownst to WWX, Madame Yu had cursed him so that his soulmarks never appeared because she wanted WWX to feel unloved. I think it was a color soulmate au where people left colorful marks on their loved ones, but it also could have been something to do with constellations? I would love to read this again, thank you!

FOUND! leading tone by silencemostofall (G, 32k, WangXian, Modern AU, Soulmates, with a lil twist, Eventual Happy Ending, Music, Orchestra, [Podfic] Leading Tone by silencemostofall by Beria1021)

NOT FOUND! pastel by antebunny (G, 6k, WangXian, Modern AU, College/University, Soulmates, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Self-Esteem Issues, Misunderstandings, Angst with a Happy Ending, Unrequited Love, but not actually, no courtesy names)

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8. Hi! I'm looking for this a/b/o fic, honestly it might even have just been porn with no story. It was about wwx and lwj going to this clinic or something that matches up compatible alphas and omegas and they take a contraceptive before they have sex. But wangxian take one look at each other and both agree not to take anything. I just remember at the end they're telling an employee there and she's so confused why they didn't take it and tells wangxian that it's not the clinic's responsibility if wwx ends up pregnant

Thank you!

FOUND? Lucid by lazulink (E, 9k, WangXian, Modern AU, A/B/O Dynamics, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Assigned Heat Partners, Strangers to Lovers Speedrun, Scenting, Nesting, Knotting, Mating Bites, Cunnilingus, Rimming, Humiliation, Blow Jobs, Breeding Kink, Spanking, Consensual Non-Consent, Consensual Somnophilia, Breathplay, Loss of Virginity, Light Dom/sub, Alpha LWJ, Omega WWX, PWP, Top LWJ/Bottom WWX, Intersex Omegas, Under-negotiated Kink, Implied Future Mpreg)

~*~

9. hi i know this is kinda insane but ive been searching for this fic since 2021 so all i remember is that wangxian are in university and they're roommates. so one morning wei ying woke up late to a class that require him some stationary or like he forgot it (cant remember the details) he doesnt have any so he decided to borrow from lan zhan who already gone to his own class, he was opening lan zhan's drawer on his desk to look for said stationary but found his journal/diary/notebook instead, he got curious i guess and decided to take a peek and realized soon enough that lan zhan was actually writing about him, and he read the page where basically lan zhan wrote how basically he wanted wei ying (cant remember if he wrote it in a diary kind of way or straight up writing smur fanfiction about them)

(also its not "sign me up for that full time, im yours" by elhana)

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10. Hi! Can I please have some help looking for a fic I read ages ago, I'm 70% was wangxian. 😅

Canon Divergence before the Nightless city massacre; Wen Qing, Wen Ning, and Wei Ying go to the Unclean realm to ask Nie Mingjue to let them use the Nie medical room to heal Wen Ning and Wei Ying by getting rid of the resentful energy. Wei Ying plays to slowly remove the resentful energy while Wen Qing heals Wen Ning and he lives/comes back. Then Wei Ying has to stay awake and play to allow Wen Qing to heal his injuries from his fall into the Burial Grounds because the resentful energy was the only thing holding him together/keeping him alive. I remember Nie Mingjue and other Nie soldiers standing and watching horrified for both procedures, and that healing Wei Ying started from his legs up he had to pull the energy away from each limb while Wen Qing heals him.

I'm pretty sure it ended with the Wens moving into the Unclean realm and Lan Zhan finding out Wei Ying was there and insisted on staying to help him heal. @thequintessentialmuggle

FOUND? ❤️ three surgeries and a mercy kill by MarbleGlove (T, 11k, medical procedures, fix-it, Demonic Cultivation, Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Self-Indulgent, WWX Has a New Golden Core, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies)

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11. Hi I’m looking for a fic and can’t seem to find it anywhere, it was on ao3. It was set in the untamed universe, and started when Jin Ling stabbed wwx after him and lwj fled carp tower, and wwx got really sick bc it was raining and had an infection(?) the juniors were there as well and, and also a wangxian confession.

If you could find it then thankyou very much!!! @lan-xinyu-lan

FOUND? Sorry and Thank You by Morgana_avalon (G, 56k, WangXian, LXC & LWJ, JL & LJY & LSZ, JL & NHS, LXC & NHS, Hurt/Comfort, JL suffering an emotional breakdown, JL stabbing WWX at the Jinlintai, Introspection, canon divergent but also canon compliant, Bad brother JC (but not too bad), NHS taking an interest in JL, painful and infected stomach wound, LXC to the rescue, WWX & LWJ are married, WWX has no golden core, NHS's hand fan is not what it seems, NHS is a determined little devil)

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12. Helloo, I can't seem to find this fic I've read a while back, it was wangixan, completed, set in university.

The plot was basically that wwx moved to a new uni and lwj is known for sleeping around there, but wwx doesnt know that and on his first night in the dorms they run into each other, wwx has alcohol which is forbidden so lwj tries to report him or something but they end up having a one night stand.

Lwj basically kicks wwx out in the morning, but they run into each other again at this martial arts? Class run by nmj and wwx tried very hard to befriend lwj again.

I don't remember any secondary ships aside from yanli and zixuan being married.

Yanli and lan huan are teachers at the uni in this fic and they end up having beef because their brothers keep hurting each others feelings

This is all i can remember, the rating was probably mature? But i am not certain.

Thank you sm @dcfangirl

FOUND! the earthquake in the room by phnelt (E, 39k, WangXian, College/University, Modern: No Powers, Canada, Getting Together, Mentions of lwj/others, background NieLan, background QingMian, inter-faculty romance, strangers to lovers to frenemies to lovers, mostly book characterisation, Background XuanLi)

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13. Hello I'm looking for this one wangxian forbidden love fic I read a long time ago but the only thing I remember about it is that lwj is a pastor son and wwx is the local bad boy/troublemaker. It should be around 2020-2021-ish when I read it but I'm open if there is any different yet similar fic of the same nature/vibes. Thank you in advance!!!

FOUND? Mad about the Boy by TriviasFolly (M, 62k, WangXian, 1950s America, Greaser WWX, Historical Smoking, Historical Viewpoints, Angst, Internal Struggle, Pre-Relationship, Historical Homophobia, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, sexual awakenings, Sexual exploration, in which LWJ waxes poetically about dicks, small town gays, Self discovery journey, Self love journey, the excuse to have WWX smoke and wear a leather jacket, gay acadamia, teenage dramatics, smoll angst) I don't think this is the one they were looking for because it was published in 2023, but Mad about the Boy is set in 1950s America. Wei Ying is a greaser and Lan Qiren has Lan Zhan's life planned out for him to become a surgeon who will come home to a demure wife at the end of the day. The story is exceptionally written and depicts small town life, complete with small-minded, homophobic people and the difficult choices Wei Ying and Lan Zhan are forced to make. I highly recommend it.

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14. I was wondering if you Help me find this fic about I think Wei ying agreed to come to lan zhan home but he could with the wen poeple if you agreed to get cleanse of all resentment, energy. he knew he was gonna die, but he still did it in like lan zhan it’s kind of mad about it.

FOUND? 🧡 decay by antebunny (G, 15k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Angst, Misunderstandings, Miscommunication, Fix-It, Angst with a Happy Ending, the fluffiest ending, Hurt/Comfort)

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15. For the next fic finder, I've been looking for a fic that was a crossover with Firefly. LXC saved LWJ and WWX from a science facility, and tries to get a ride on a ship either owned by NMJ or JC, and LXC gets caught "smuggling" LWJ and WWX. Well it turns out that JC had started space traveling because he was looking for WWX. I thought that mondengel had written it, but I couldn't find it when I had gone through their works. If you can help locate it then that would be amazing! Thanks for the help!

Hi! I’m #15 on the recent Fic Finder. It’s not among the stars. WWX and LWJ weren’t courtesans. I’m pretty sure they were both science experiments, or something along those lines, and I think they were essentially abducted, so LXC went to rescue LWJ and had to take WWX as well since LWJ wouldn’t leave without him. It was also a one-shot. If it also helps, all the MDZS characters basically replaced all of the Firefly characters

NOT FOUND! among the stars by plonk (E, 61k, WangXian, Space, Science Fiction, Firefly Setting, Courtesan WWX, Courtesan LWJ)

FOUND! Sabre by mondengel (Not Rated, 1k, WangXian, Firefly AU)

For 15, check specifically chapter 4 of among the stars. The chapters are not connected to one another and are each a contained story. Chapter 4 has WY as the mechanic, LZ as the psychic girl in the box, yanli as the captain, jc as whatever jayne's job is... You should double check specifically that chapter!

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16. Hello! I am looking for a specific fic, please. It was set in Cloud Recesses and I think WWX and LWJ were married. WWX was given a role within the clan as something like personnel manager, and he was tasked with speaking with every single disciple to see how they liked their work and then rearranging their schedules and getting them better pay and the like. For some reason the elders wanted to overthrow LXC but all of the disciples that WWX had helped rose up to fight back in gratitude for WWX’s help. Would love to read again, if anyone remembers what this fic might be! Thank you!

FOUND? Practical Considerations by teawater, the_anthropologist (E, 97k, WangXian, Arranged Marriage, Canon Divergence, Found Family, Spouses to Lovers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Politics, Scheming, Lán Elders are assholes, BAMF WWX, BAMF LWJ, eventually BAMF LXC, learning to make decisions, Learning Self-worth, Self-Esteem Issues, Sweet Wangxian, Domestic Fluff, Fix-It, JC is a big asshole, he improves somewhat but it’s open-ended, POV wwx, POV LWJ, POV JC, Golden Core Reveal, Teacher wwx, Golden Core Transfer Fix-It, Alcohol as a Coping Mechanism, Past Suicidal Thoughts, Post-Sunshot Campaign, WWX Protection Squad, Feelings Realization, WWX protector of the twin jades, Protective LWJ, Protective WWX, Protective LQR, Demonic Cultivator WWX, Married WangXian, Genius WWX, Everybody Lives) Wei Wuxian was in an arranged marriage with Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen asked Wei Wuxian to take over the accounting for the sect. After Lan Wangji gets a beating from the Elders, Wei Wuxian researches how the Elders have more power than the Sect Leader and learns that they were meant to be advisors, leading to a reorganization within the sect. Lan Xichen asks Wei Wuxian to interview all the disciples to work out better positions for everyone and those disciples help prevented a later coup led by the Elders.

~*~

17. Hi! I’m looking for a fic where WWX, JC, Mianmian, and JZX are superheroes. LWJ was the bad guy. I think it was called Minx? I can’t seem to find it. I remember WWX felt like an outsider. JC resented him quite a bit. WWX ends up on LWJ’s side.

FOUND? 🔒 Minx by retired (misbehavingvigilante) (E, 66k, WangXian, Teen Titans (Animated Series) Setting, Age Difference, Corruption Arc, Daddy Kink, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Extremely Dubious Consent, Manipulation, Seduction to the Dark Side, Sexual Harassment, Trans WWX, WWX Has a Rape/Non-Con Kink, YLLZ WWX, Dark LWJ, Dragon LWJ)

~*~

18. I remember this fic where wei wuxian is some sort of general maybe and he runs away from lan zhan and their kid/kids with the help of wen qing and wen ning. In the process of running away wei wuxian breaks down and wen qing finds out that he is pregnant and I think you ziyuan shows up?

I only remember reading till there and i can't find it please help @mysteriouslywangxian

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19. Hello, can you please help mee.

I'm looking for a fic I read a while back, around 2021? Wangxian has s*x in the xuanwu cave but wy end up passing out due to fever and lwj is convinced that he has taken advantage of a sick wy. They meet again years later. It's also not jiang friendly and wy will live with the wens after being rescued from the cave @romyb28

FOUND? 🔒💙 Wish I could forget the taste of your skin and the feel of your hands pinning me down by KizuKatana (E, 63k, WangXian, WQ & WWX & WN, weapons-grade thirst, Getting Back Together, Trying REALLY hard to not still like your Ex, but failing, BAMF WWX, BAMF LWJ, Canon Divergence, Modern Cultivation, Case Fic, LWJ's canonically big dick, sort of a 'thirsting for your co-worker ex' vibe, it eventually gets worked out, Mutual Pining, Guest-starring LWJ’s canonically poor communication choices after romantic cave encounters, novel canon relationship dynamics, basically this fic is about escalating sexual tension)

~*~

20. I need help looking for a wangxian fic

The fic is in a modern setting mostly on the pov of the junior quartet.

They think that LWJ is cheating on WWX since they saw him leave a club/bar/restaurant with a beautiful "female". Turns out it is just WWX in a dress.

Involves misunderstandings, devastated LSZ, and the juniors ruining LWJ's surprise gift for WWX. @lanwuxian0725

FOUND! Junior.exe has stopped working by Luminos07 (T, 4k, WangXian, Crack Treated Seriously, Attempt at Humor, Junior Quartet Dynamics, Junior Trio Shenanigans, This fic is basically the juniors being dumb, Crack, Humor, Comedy, What’s the tag for the juniors going through LWJ's phone?, Protective JC, Modern, no actual infidelity, Established Relationship, LWJ's sugar daddy tendencies, WWX Protection Squad)

~*~

[forestshadow-wolf]

Ao3 link

the night was quiet as Soap watched Ghost flick his lighter on. it took half a dozen tries for Soap's shitty old lighter to hold a flame enough for Ghost to light his Cigarette. Soap sat on the ventilation box a handful of steps away from the half wall marking the building's edge that Ghost looked out across the base from.

he laments how long it's talking to come back. he's been 'dead' for months if the reports are correct, awake for only a few weeks of it. he should be saving his strength, trying to remold himself, shouldn't have died in the first place. but he can't seem to say away. he can see the days getting heavier for Ghost the longer this goes on, and it's his fault. he wished he could stay longer. more often. around more eyes of witness. maybe Ghost wouldn't think he's gone mad with grief, then.

he's used to this by now. he follows Ghost when the chance arises, when he's strong enough, as less than even his callsign. a whisper of a breath as he 'helps' Ghost on his paperwork, writing reports, counting days. it's going on almost six months now, and he's not entirely sure how much longer they can keep doing this.

the old hag had been right when she'd said there were things worse than death. not that he'd ever doubted. and he's felt the pain of it — torture, sickness, drowning, burning — all the typical things, but maybe this is what she'd meant. the witch had been merciful enough to let him age to his end but; knowing the nature of his personality; had ceased to allow him the privilege of a true death before his predestined time.

he'd been young then. thought it to be a gift, a non-curse. to be unkillable. of course, he learned pretty quickly that pain was still pain no matter if it ended in death, or was only meant to. the first time he found himself at the center interest of a sadist, he'd thought that was what the witch had meant. it all felt just as intended to, as sinister as its dealer. and immunity does not mean he gets to forgo nature, he must still heal, and he bends the scars cast upon him. sicknesses were worse; the high mortality ones anyway; unable to eat, unwilling to drink, wrecked with muscle spasms, and choking on blood and mucus . asphyxiation was a beast all on its own — dying, and coming back, and dying again, and no reprieve with no injuries to come back from; put a little air back in him and bring him back to life, watch him die over and over. the worse the injury, the longer it took to come back; suffocation took almost nothing, blood loss a day maybe two, worse things took longer, infection, missing limbs, whatever else. he doesn't know how it works, most of the time it was a coin toss between a few days, and a few weeks. but this one, a shot to the head, it shouldn't be taking this long. it's never taken more than a month. he doesn't know what's broken, how he broke it, and he doesn't know how to fix it.

this was worse. so much worse than he could have ever imagined. and she couldn't have known. could never have known, not in a million years, that there would be someone, anyone that would make him feel this way. there was know way she knew that meeting Ghost would make him feel like he was different. and she couldn't have known he'd get so addicted to the feeling that he'd never be able to keep away, even in death. but maybe this is what she'd meant all those years ago. because she was right, there are things worse than death. and he's found the worst one.

He tries to tell him that he's alive, but Ghost only seems to think he's gone off the deep end; refuses to get help either. he wants to show the others, but this strange non-death makes it hard to orient without a tether. up is east, down is left, inside is quadimenasional; nothing is anything, and everything is nothing without a tether. the night only makes is harder, blinder, scarier. and the day burns away his attempts like a midsummer's morning dew.

Soap stretches to perches on the wall in front of Ghost instead of where he'd sat on the ventilation unit, as he reaches out for his first breath of smoke, twists it around his grasp like rope, and lets it fill his being like water. with the second breath he plucks the stick from his mouth.

"smokin' again, L.T?" he teases, finally material enough to fill himself with Ghost's cigarette between his lips.

"should have known you wouldn't give me even a moment of quiet tonight," Ghost crosses his arms, appraising him as smoke fills his body.

"and yer as happy to see me as always," Soap crosses his ankles, rocking them lightly.

"you're not real, Johnny," Ghost huffs, reprimanding himself. and not for the first time Soap regrets what he's doing, loathes himself for not letting Ghost let go, for not being able to stay away.

"told you. I'm no' dead," he takes another drag of Ghost's cigarette and blows it in his face. Simon closes his eyes against the breath, denying Soap, denying himself.

"I don't deal in ideology," Simon tells it plainly.

"keep my memory alive; keep me alive," Soap muses.

"real 's real."

"real is real, L.T," soap tells him. the amber shades in Simon's eyes have long since dulled into burning ash, and the bags under his eyes seem to be endless when Soap looks into them. he can't help but reach for his mask, and Simon lets him easily enough. "and I'm right here"

"I hate when you do this," Simon seems to sag with the breath he leases, though he doesn't move an inch when soap sweeps a soft finger below his eyelash; not quite touching him, hasn't wanted to see his touch break on Simon's skin, hasn't in all the weeks he's been here. "wish you'd come back."

"I will, Si, I will," he caresses his hand along Simon's jaw as close as he dares without touching.

"please, Johnny," Soap lets out a surprised gasp as Ghost grabs his wrist and leans into his hand.

and it stays firm.

Ghost seems to startle too as Soap's heart stutters in his chest. he jolts back, and would have tumbled over the edge if Ghost hadn't caught him and dragged him back onto the roof.

"you're real," Ghost whispers in awe, holding Soap's face in both his palms.

"I'm here, Simon. I'm here," Soap affirms, holding him steady just above the elbow. and he squeezes just as tight, burying his face into Simon's neck, when he wraps him in a hug and buries his face in his hair.

"how are you real?" Simon whispers into his hair; it's grown longer in the weeks that soap's been following him. "I spread your ashes." and Soap can't help the tears that well in his eyes as he pulls away, just enough to see his face.

"I know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Si- I'm- I should have come back sooner. or- or stayed away. I'm sorry, Simon, I'm so sorry. I should have stayed away." it's a feedback loop that he can't break; of sorrys and sobs and regrets; and he buries himself back into Simon, holding him so tight like he's the one that left and not Soap. tight, like he can hide from what he regrets. tight, like he can make Simon save him from his own actions, again.

Simon holds him like he knows. like he knows soap can feel the weight of the world crushing him to death. like he knows Soap feels like he might float away again. and he doesn't let go. not when Soap's legs crumple and he drags them to the ground. not when soap grips him so tight it hurts his own fingers. not when the sun starts to peak over the horizon.

"you came back to me." Ghost murmurs into his temple, right into the scar marking him a dead man. he rocks them gently, soothingly. soap should have stayed away.

"I couldn't stay away," and Soap hates how true it is as it leaves his mouth. he should have. should have stayed dead. let Ghost move on instead of this. instead of torturing them both for weeks and weeks. he should have let go; moved on. but he couldn't.

"I couldn't let you go," Ghost says it like he's confessing a sin. like he thinks he's been the one teasing them all this time.

there might be more of this later

[bwobgames]

Ángel said to stay here. But he didn't specify which “here”. So, as long as he's in the train, he's fine!

Maybe Vivi really is a bad influence.

In any case, adventures!

He seems to be in the part right after the entrance. A sort of lounge room, just to look at the passing landscape and relax. Seeing as this is only supposed to last the night, he's not surprised it is so simple.

To the right he finds none other than the bedrooms. The cabins. The resting stations.

His and Ángel's room is closed, so is Nina's and Mari's. Owen and Simon's is open, although there is no kids to be seen. The room is a mess.

He sees Nadia in her room, looking for something.

Upon seeing him she closes the door.

Privacy, he guesses.

She's not mad at him, right? Ángel said something about fighting, but he wasn’t fighting!

He's just… blunt. Sometimes. He still hasn't mastered the art of talking to people it seems.

Nadia is smart, but she's also painfully young. He's not sure how to proceed.

Hopefully she'll understand.

He feels bad for all the things she has to understand.

He also sees their train-mates cabins. The doors are wide open.

The girls are unpacking some things, they wave at him.

The boys are… Wrestling? Seems like the blonde one is winning. Good for him.

He moves on

Deeper into the cabins there is the bathrooms. No showers, though.

Finally, an overnight travel where he won’t get tossed around when trying to use the bathroom.

And to the very end, there’s a staff only room, probably to get to the conductor.

It's locked.

Not that he. Um. Would get in. That's not polite or legal. He has never entered private property illegally haha. Anyways, to the other side.

He goes back, he hears Nina from her room. There’s only Anita in the girls cabin and the boys closed the door.

The entrance now has Owen and Simon. Conniving it seems.

“Hello children and no longer children. Are you conniving”

“Yes!”

“Keep it legal.”

“You sound like a cop”

“Fine. Keep it moral.”

“Mr. Beebo, what is more deadly. A whale or a snake?”

“…And keep it safe. Goodbye.”

He does not want to find out what is that they're planning. Because if he does, he will be responsible. Blissful ignorance time.

There is a corridor. The sides have more staff doors, probably storage.

Entrance, storage, bathrooms, bedrooms…

A train isn't a house.

 

A train… can’t be a house. Right?

 

He thinks of animals.

This is an old train, recently remodeled to become touristic.

Old abandoned houses tend to be considered haunted…

He really should start investigating the logic behind them more.

Hey! Maybe that could be Nadia’s part! That way she can join the house busting party without being in direct danger!

Usually he gets curious about cases, but these… just make him scared. Specially after he analyzed the doctor's investigations.

He has concluded that what motivated the purpose was… grief.

He's been doing that lately.

 

If they break the heart, could Oliver accidentally re-purpose the house?

What would happen to him then?

 

He already has been having a hard time, this isn't exactly ideal.

 

Alright then. Let's fix it! No more grieving! Grandma lived a long and fulfilling life and she died happy with people she loved! She is now in heaven with Copito having fun with the angel chickens!

He gets a pang of sadness.

No no no no none of that! The investigation! Yes! Time to keep moving!

He finds the cafeteria! There's a worker preparing food. Seems like they'll start dinner soon.

He sees Marigold and Natalia chatting. Good for her. There's no better person to ask for advice than Marigold.

Except for taste in men. Of course. Hopefully they're not talking about that.

He continues until he reaches the last part of the wagon. Another lounge area, he sees a worker taking out some extra blankets from a little closet. Yay! Warm!

He also finds an emergency brake! Must be a new addition. Marigold was right, it really is up to standard! It makes him feel a bit better.

And then, a door separating the two wagons. It’s completely locked, of course. As the law says they must.

He sees a bit of the normal class seats, through a small window. They seem comfy, hopefully they recline a little. There's even little tables to have dinner or play games. Woah, equality train.

Seeing as this thing is not stopping, it means there's no way of getting to the other wagon, well it’s not like he needs to- WHAT

WHAT ARE THEY DOING

HOW

Oh good. They saw him.

Wha- HEY!

He's sleeping in the couch tonight.

And Vivi, in the washing machine.

They'll come back soon. If they don't want even more consequences. Beebo related consequences.

Well, he supposes he has snooped around enough, dinner is arriving and-

Oh? What’s this?

Did Nina bring it for the kids? Or Owen?

He'll keep it for now.

It's 9:30 PM

<-PREV START NEXT->

[just-some-user-hunny]

I just realized that the dance is inevitable and isekai!reader will defend their mother and full-blooded siblings {following the book of fire and blood} while dealing with black forces in the riverlands someone lies that their remaining family (Aegon, Alicent and Jaehaera) are all dead that leads to them going batshit insane and burning BOTH black and green forces which leads the riverland forces being too injured to march to king’s landing and the northern army to halt thus not managing to get the hour of the wolf and at the end reader dies (idc if its a suicide or of a broken heart) and cannibal goes INSANE burning everything in his path until he meets an injured Sunfyre who were able to recognize each other because of their riders connection to one another while he is flying to Aegon and Cannibal stays with Sunfyre until Rhaenyra is killed and Sunfyre dies after “killing” the last threat to Aegon which leads to Cannibal escaping and not being found by anyone and it would be pretty amazing if we could get what the maesters who wrote fire and blood to think about isekai!reader 👀

Oooh now that's some good stuff 😳

The dance of the dragons is such a tragedy, everyone is blinded by anger and revenge that they end up burning up together.

Poor isekai!reader would go absolutely mad, losing her family members like that. The Cannibal would be more than willing to burn everything in a furious rage with her, he himself would be akin to a wild animal due to his connection to his rider and the grief/anger they're experiencing. He'd scoop them up and take them to burn whoever they need to, anything to quelm and satisfy the readers blinding rage.

Once the reader dies however, it's like whatever strand of sanity he had left snaps. With you gone, there's no restraint. He's sharp gnashing teeth and blazing emerald fire and death, destroying everything in his wake till he fulfils his riders revenge.

After the dance and everything is settled in ash, whoever remains will remember the reader in a haze of fondness and terror. Cannibal would return to the wilderness, his own heart hurting and swearing to never get close to humans again after the heartbreak of losing his one and only rider.

Isekai!reader would be remembered as the princess who went mad with vengeance, killing and burning till her own life got snuffed out like a candle. (Maybe she dies upon the battlefield and the cannibal keeps fighting, or she takes her own life from the sorrow and doom of it all). The princess whose dragon kept going on to fight in her name even without her voice to command him.

[zeestarfishalien]

Unwanted Farewells

[Day 5 DPxDC Week: Jason Todd // Soulmate AU // Funeral Rites ]

• Anger Management ship (Jasmine Fenton x Jason Todd) No relevant warnings beyond the usual DP stuff

Jazz has always had it the worst. Danny might have been the one to die but Jazz is the one who lost not only her soulmate, but her little brother too. It doesn’t matter that he’s still around, he knows the grief weighs on her sometimes. She overcompensates by being a massive mother hen and general pain in the neck but he tries not to get too upset with her about it.

With Dani with an “i” fresh out of high school and Jazz’s birthday coming up soon, he wants to do something special. He spends a lot of time bribing Ghost Writer in order to research his idea out.

It’s probably the most time and effort he’s put into a project that wasn’t about space.

Proposing the idea to her is the one big thing this all hinges on. He’s not 100% sure she’ll be on board with this but he’d like to try.

And trying is what kicks off the first part of his plan. It’s a little awkward to bring up the fact that he doesn’t have a grave and would like one. It’s almost physically painful to see the grief it brings to Jazz’s eyes. She tries to hide it but Danny has always been able to read her better than he lets on. It’s part of the process though. He needs her to see how this goes and feels. How it’s a celebration of life and honoring those who have passed and not just a somber reminder to the living of what they’ve lost. He needs her to see what it means to him. And what it would mean to her soulmate.

He makes the grave marker of course. They’re not about to buy one when he has the strength and abilities to carve it out himself. He makes sure that it’s vague unless you know him. No names, no identifying markers like age or dates. It’s simple and meaningful for him.

{May he rest here between walks among the stars, our friend and brother beloved}

From there it’s pretty much all fun and games. Literally.

Same brings the games while she has Tucker pack out the food. It’s a combination of some of Grandma Ida’s homemade desserts and various junk foods. Even Tucker brings some cookies his mom helped him figure out how to make.

Jazz is in charge of the drinks while Danny and Dani handled all the decorating. It’s a combination of solidified ectoplasm, his ice, and various flowers they’ve gathered and strung together in a flower chain.

It’s a smashing success and he sees something in Jazz release. Some niggling worry or grief she carried that is no longer there.

Now, he decides, it’s time for part two.

What throws part two for a loop is when Dani with an “i” brings up that she’d like a grave and proper funeral rites as well.

It’s not a setback. Definitely not when he sees how much more relaxed and content Jazz is at Dani with an i’s wake.

It’s only a couple days from her birthday when he brings it up. The funeral practices for soulmates are as varied as they are sacred. He proposes her options via a PowerPoint he put far too many hours into.

By the time he finishes rambling, she’s got this sort of startled look on her face.

He twists his shirt in his hands as he stands awaiting her judgement. The longer she’s silent, the more convinced Danny is that she’ll reject the whole thing and not talk to him for a month.

Okay, maybe a week but still a week is a long time.

Suddenly Jazz is crying and oh ancients he’s really messed up this time. She’s not even mad just straight up upset by his offer.

But then she’s hugging him, telling him she loves him, and thanking him.

It’s not as hard as Danny feared to actually track down the location of a Jason Todd who died before Jazz reached 16 (she never wanted to look him up before, didn’t want to know what she was missing) and the day before her 25th birthday Danny, Dani, and Jazz all pile into her little car to make the drive to Gotham, homemade foods in tow.

Danny and Dani made sure to swipe one of Vlad’s special rich dude credit cards to fund their trip and the stop at multiple flower shops to get enough flowers to make flower chains and crowns for all of them.

It’s closing in on evening, the day of Jazz’s birthday when they finally roll up and upload everything. They didn’t bring any lights, but none of them really need much light to see for eating food and drinking sodas. Jazz brought some jasmine tea and an extra cup to place on Jason’s grave. They make a funky, dark evening of it, but finally Jazz grows more somber and keeps taking long looks at the gravestone so Danny and Dani decide to make themselves scarce.

They’re about halfway across the cemetery when out of the shadows steps the looming menace of Red Hood.

“The fuck are you doing at that grave?”

It’s not his voice or his tone, but the sub vocal ghost speak that makes Danny and Dani freeze up ramrod straight.

That’s a revenant and they’re trespassing on his resting place without permission.

So of course like any sane person, Danny says something stupid. But he just can’t believe out of all the ridiculous coincidences to exist in the world, that Jazz’s soulmate is undead like him seems just too far to believe.

“Jason?”

Almost late despite having the day off work bc I had to go shopping and bc of where I live, shopping is essentially a full day affair. This is shorter than I’d like it but I also kinda enjoy where it ends XD imagine their next moments however you please or feel free to add onto this.

[faerghusfucker]

baby felix used to everyone doting on him and listening to him and taking his baby demands and opinions very very seriously even if they’re just humoring him, even if they just think he’s adorable, then suddenly the world ends, glenn dies, dimitri goes mad and felix is the only one who sees it, but now no one is listening to him, no matter how much he metaphorically screams, but that just drives him to scream more

THIS THIS THIS EXACTLY THIS!!!!

felix has absolutely undoubtedly been spoiled his entire life up until the tragedy of duscur, and that gave him possibly the worst and rudest awakening and coming of age than i think he ever would’ve had otherwise. to an extent i feel that that applies to all of the faerghus nobles except maybe sylvain because he had it rough the entire time (ingrid as well to an extent but thanks to being sent to stay in fraldarius much of the time, it’s safe to say she was able to at least be away from her territory’s woes much of the time.)

also i just had a conversation with a friend about this and we’ve kind of come to the conclusion that like. the bulk of felix’s trauma does not come from the tragedy itself, but THE AFTERMATH!!!! felix generally processes his grief for his brother in a way that feels. very very normal? definitely not perfect but he has a somewhat healthy view of glenn’s death that doesn’t glorify it or put him in a mindset of needing to avenge it. it’s just a really bad thing that happened.

but then his dad tried to say that his brother’s death was a good thing??? and ingrid locked herself in her room and refused to come out, not even to feed her horse??? and what i feel like is the most understated bit of felix’s trauma, DIMITRI BEHEADED A MAN IN FRONT OF HIM AND ENJOYED IT!!!!! dimitri, his best friend, someone he looked up to and probably sought out for comfort and stability during this time after the tragedy, committed an act of violence that felix fully would not have been able to conceive of at the time. this was their first battle, and in that battle he saw his best friend act that way. dude i’d crash out too!!!

i feel like the potential of felix suffering from the trauma of that battle is way way understated!!! he’s characterized as being angry with dimitri, but what if that anger was actually a cover for fear the whole time???? he warns byleth constantly about dimitri, and in azure moon when his warnings end up to be accurate, he refuses to go near him at all, instead just begging byleth to help him. this could be a grudge, or it could be driven by fear.

i feel that his categorization of dimitri as a boar/beast is also a form of a trauma narrative. he can’t conceive of his dimitri being capable of such atrocities, and so he never associates them with him by name. the boar is the killer, the boar wants revenge, the boar is an entity inside of dimitri that must be tamed and kept inside so that the real dimitri can stay on the outside. but this narrative falls apart as felix sees this construct of the boar bleed into what he believes to be dimitri’s real self, and part of his arc in their support chain is coming to terms with the fact that dimitri holds this duality all the time, that there isn’t a separate boar prince and that it’s all the real dimitri.

side note, but the story that felix tells to raphael in hopes about the wild boar that he encountered on a hunting trip speaks LOADS to his choice of insult for dimitri. when he encountered that wild boar, it nearly killed him. he was young, and probably felt afraid and powerless when he was attacked by such a powerful animal. dimitri’s downward spiral and the resulting violence made felix feel so afraid, so powerless, so weak, that he couldn’t reconcile the fact that his best friend did such things and instead had to start associating him with the animal that almost killed him as a child.

and how did felix and raphael kill the boar in that support chain???? with TEAMWORK!!!!! felix was stressing about that wild boar because he barely escaped with his life when he encountered a similar one in the wild. but once he and raphael worked together they were able to hunt one down. WHICH IS AN ALLEGORY FOR HOW NO ONE PERSON OR ACTION WOULD EVER BE ABLE TO HELP DIMITRI!!!!! it takes work from multiple people and for a long time to help tame the boar so to speak.

did i mean for this ask response to end up being about felix and raphael’s hopes supports???? no! am i mad that it did????? also no!

[gosiksmallspace]

I have been thinking and there should be at least 15 movies about BatFamily:

Batman: Year 1

Origins of Batman. Bruce Wayne gets back to Gotham and he starts his work. His first time appearing in the city, modification to his suit as he gain experience. Meeting Pinguin, The Riddler, Catwoman, ect. Also make Batman a detective, not only superhero.

2. Robin

How Dick became Robin. Death of his parents, getting into Gotham’s orphanage and then being taken in by Bruce. Him learning that Bruce is Batman and chasing Tony Zucco together. Robin’s training and beginning of Batman and Robin.

2.5. Justice League

Not sure if it should be full length but Batman joining Justice League should also be mentioned. Also Dick is the first sidekick and it should be mentioned. Give me him and Batman interacting with the Justice League. Maybe introduce Barbara Gordon as Batgirl?

3. Titans

Batman, Robin and Batgirl working in Gotham and then Dick meets other sidekicks and young superheroes and they start the Teen Titans. Appearances of Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, Speedy, Aqualad, Starfire, Cyborg, Raven and BeastBoy?

4. Robin 2

How Jason became Robin. Bruce and Dick argue about Dick spending more time with Titans and not in Gotham. Then Bruce kicks Dick out. He regrets it but Dick goes to live in Titans Tower. Bruce meets Jason while the younger is trying to steel Batmobile tires and take him home.

Dive into Crime Alley and how bad situation there is, show Jason’s upbringing and training to be Robin. In the meantime Dick becomes Nightwing.

5. Death in The Family

Jason's death and everything that lead to it. Show Jason as a Robin. Give me him finally bonding with Dick a little (because Dick is mad at Bruce not at Jason). And then Jason is misled by Joker and Batman doesn’t make it on time. With Tim appearing at the end of the movie.

6. Robin 3

How Tim became Robin. Bruce drowns in grief and he loses his way. So the young boy who followed Batman and Robin and every night took photos of their doings decides to do something about it. He goes to Dick and tells him to become Robin again but Dick says no, so Tim Drake decides to do it himself. He picks up Bruce from grief, trains to be Robin and him and Dick bond because they brothers (also Dick regrets that he didn’t spent more time with Jason).

7. Robin 3.5

With Tim problems with his family, his girlfriend Stephanie Brown temporary steps up as Robin. Bruce fires her when she disobeyed orders. After problem with Black Mask she fakes her death with the help of Dr. Leslie Thompkins. Tim goes back to being Robin.

8. Young Justice

The beginning of Young Justice. Tim starts his own team. Introduction to SuperBoy (Kon), Impulse (Bart) and Wonder Girl (Cassie) and Arrowette.

9. Killing Joke

I mean it’s a killing Joke.

Important thing is that Barbara gets shot by Joker and returns as Oracle.

10. Red Hood

Jason returns. He’s not happy that Joker is alive. And decides to clean up Gotham from drug dealers. He also visits Young Justice headquarters and bets up Tim. And then he has a standoff with Batman. At the end Cassandra Cain appears in Gotham.

11. Son of Batman

Damian appears. He doesn’t get along with Bruce because Bruce hates that his son is a killer. They finally understand each other and things start to get good but then Bruce dies.

12. Robin 4

After Bruce death, Dick is forced to become Batman as well he decides to take care of Damian. He makes him Robin which disappoints Tim. Tim takes new name Red Robin. Also Staphanie as Batgirl makes appearance.

13. Outlaws

Jason decides to make his own team. Artemis, Bizzaro and Arsenal make appearance.

14. Batgirls or Birds of Prey

Dick and Damian work as Batman and Robin, meanwhile Oracle, Orphan and Spoiler work on their own stuff. Some appearances of Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, as well as Batwoman.

15. Bringing back Bruce

Tim doesn’t believe Bruce died so he searches for him. Bruce returns and again becomes Batman. Dick goes back to being Nightwing and moves to Bludheaven.

Of course there is much more than that but those are the basics. The material is there. It just has to be used. Stick to the comics and someone make it! It can be animated. Hell, it can be TV show with each point making a season! Give me BatFamily!!!

[gwenllian-in-the-abbey]

Not fluent in English. 

Please tell me I’m not the the only who noticed that team green characters in the show aren’t allowed to hate team black characters. 

Like Aemond can’t even hate Lucerys for cutting his eye and disabled him for life. 

And Alicent can’t hate Viserys for marrying and gr*ping her and forcing pregnancies on her, even though he have no intention to name any of their sons his heir, and treating her mostly like a caretaker and concubine rather than his lawful wife and the mother of his legitimate children. 

Aegon and Helaena aren’t even allowed to hate Daemon the man who ordered the death of their Son.

Like why??? Why aren’t they allowed to hate them???

Hi aleksandra! You make a good point! I think there are a few things going on here.

For one, I think the writing is incredibly inconsistent across the board this season, and there are a lot of dropped plot threads. Some of it is intentional (like, I do think B&C was deliberately downplayed and undermined so that Alicent could have that Dragonstone scene, more on that in a bit), some of it I think is just bad writing and a kind of ... well, look, I can't speculate as to what goes down in the writer's room and have no idea what their workflow looks like or what processes they follow, but a problem going back to S1 is that characters and dialogue vary a lot from episode to episode. I don't think it's all that normal for a fandom to be concerned ahead of time about which writers will be writing which scenes and which episodes, but with HotD there seem to be huge differences in how each writer interprets the characters. Having worked on OFCIR collaboratively with @aifsaath, we work really hard to make sure the chapters are relatively consistent. I gave our first few chapters to my critique partner for original fiction, a guy who knows my writing inside and out, someone I've worked with for about 6 years now, @theravenpiper, and he could not actually tell which scenes were written by me, and which were written by Aife, which I took as a big complement to our collaborative process, and to our ability to edit to a uniform standard. Now I'm not saying we do it better than the HotD writers, but I do think that there is something missing from their collaborative process that makes the entire thing seem disjointed.

I do not think it is entirely that the whole of team green is not allowed to be angry at team black, although that is part of it, some of it is part of an overall bigger problem where major events are not allowed to resonate across the story, and I chalk some of it up to simple bad writing. Rhaenyra is apparently over Luke's death enough by E3 that she can seek out Alicent for some kind of vague "let's stop this madness" ploy, but still conveniently needs "a son for a son" in E8. Although Rhaenyra is negotiating from a position of power in E8, there was no reason for her to feel so desperate as of E3, when Rook's Rest hasn't even happened yet, that she would set aside her grief and anger and go seek peace. Peace was offered in E10 of season 1 and Rhaenyra turned it down after Luke died, so what has changed besides Rhaenyra's own husband beheading a toddler? Other events happen too and have little or no consequence. Rhaenyra and Mysaria kiss in E6 and it's entirely forgotten by E8, with zero follow up. Criston Cole is brought to his knees by the sight of Aegon lying injured by his dragon, but never even visits his bedside. Gwayne never interacts with anyone aside from Alicent and Criston. Rhaenyra sends her younger children to the Vale and never mentions them again (she is shown looking wistfully at a box of toys), nor does Jace. Laena in a vision berates Daemon for not looking after their girls, but does he ask after them when Broome shows up directly from Dragonstone? I could go on. Events just happening and then never really mattering again is a consistent problem throughout the season, which makes it hard to tell when it is happening deliberately and when it is happening because the writers can't get on the same page.

There are two things I do think are deliberate, however, one of them being the scrubbing of Viserys' image. While audiences loved Paddy's performance, a lot of viewers did pick up on how Viserys played favorites and neglected his sons, and I think when the show decided to switch up Alicent's motivation from "she wants to protect her children and knows they will face the sword if Rhaenyra comes to power" to "she misheard Viserys' last words," they knew that the natural question is, "why should she care about Viserys' last words?" A lot of the immediate feedback about that episode involved how Alicent was stupid for not knowing Otto planned to have Aegon take the throne, and a lot of people didn't think that Alicent (or Aegon for that matter) really believed that Viserys changed his mind, but apparently that was the writers' intention, that Alicent truly believed it and managed to convince Aegon (there's a lot I could say about how they could have included this deathbed misunderstanding into the plot without having it replace all of Alicent's other motivations, but they did not do that). So in order to drive home the point that the whole entire war is being fought due to this misunderstanding, they have to make sure the audience is clear that all of these characters considered Viserys a good king. Even if he was Alicent's rapist. Even if he was a deadbeat dad. Even if he was a terrible husband. We are meant to believe he chose Rhaenyra not because he was playing mindgames or out of guilt over Aemma's death, no we must believe he chose Rhaenyra because he was good and wise and to convince us he was good and wise we have to have the green characters reminding us constantly that things were so much better when Viserys was around, that Aegon is inferior to Viserys, that Viserys' wishes are all that matter. Nevermind that it goes directly against the book, never mind that it's not even a particularly powerful or interesting change, it's what enables Rhaenyra and Alicent's relationship to continue. Because here's the thing-- if Alicent put Aegon on the throne because she felt it was the only way to keep her family safe, and because she feels that law and tradition ARE on her side, and because absolutism isn't good (!!!) then there's no chance for her and Rhaenyra to ever reconcile. These are irreconcilable differences, not misunderstandings. And so the show has to glaze Viserys otherwise the basic reasoning falls apart.

And the second is the events like Luke's death, Blood and Cheese and Rook's Rest come in, events in which the greens or the blacks harm and traumatize each other directly. It is not that the greens are not allowed to hate the blacks, it is that Alicent is not allowed to hate Rhaenyra, and by extension, the people who Alicent cares about are not allowed to hate her (I would argue that Aemond is allowed to hate Luke on screen, he literally murders him, and I don't think the scene with the brothel madame is an expression of true remorse, it's more "I'm kinda sorta sorry there were consequences for my actions."). Alicent cares about Helaena the innocent, and therefore Helaena cannot be allowed to hate Rhaenyra (note Phia Saban's many interviews about how apolotical and neutral Helaena is). Aegon, on the other hand, can be affected by B&C because he is allowed to hate Rhaenyra. In fact, his hate for Rhaenyra puts him at odds with his mother, which is what the show wants. Aegon is gravely injured at Rook's Rest, but good thing Rhaenyra's forces did not cause the injuries, Alicent herself drove him to battle with cruel words, and Aemond burned him, which puts him at odds with Alicent too (and Helaena is allowed to express ire at Aemond by extension). If you look at S2 as an exercise in driving a wedge between Alicent and her family and downplaying what happens to them in order to justify their decision to have Alicent seek out Rhaenyra and surrender Aegon's life, it makes a lot more sense.

The thing is, it still doesn't work. Their efforts are much too transparent and require characters to act in ways that are simply not within the realms of how normal human beings would react to these situations, much less the characters established in S1. There is a twitter user, and I'm so sorry that I can't remember their name at the moment, but I've seen them express the sentiment several times that Alicent's character this season made them aware, in a way that a viewer should never be aware, that these are scripted lines coming out of her mouth. That is, a lot of the characters in S2 do not feel like actual people. Aegon is such a fan favorite this season because he feels real. Alicent garnered legions of fans last season because her struggle felt real, even if we didn't agree with it. She felt like a character who inhabited a quasi-medieval world, bound by restraints we are not bound by, but nevertheless a human with human reactions who had to make difficult choices and persevere through them. And any human would be angry beyond comprehension at Blood and Cheese, would lose all faith in Rhaenyra, would know that there can be no peace if she is ruling with a man that ruthless at her side. If she thinks her sons are devils (and mind, so far as king Aegon's most egregious action is executing a handful of ratcatchers after one of their number murdered his son, whereas Rhaenyra burned about 65 peasants alive in a quasi religious ecstasy-- will Alicent ever find out about that, I wonder?), they are at least the devils she knows. Better they all die than end up in Daemon's hands, surely? And so OP, you're right, they are not allowed to hate each other when naturally you, and many others, feel like they should. That is because they are writer creations who would never do such things as what happen in the books in the first place, acting out plot points of entirely different characters (their book counterparts).

[evil-women-step-on-me]

Sayeon Lee: A Tragedy of Her Own Making

"Am I a bad person? Or just a weak one?"

It would have been easy for Sayeon Lee to be drowned out by her more colorful supporting cast.

The main three, for example, have their own main character-level backstories. Ryujin's adoptive family was massacred by the Aberrant Corps, the organization she is then forced to join; she seeks to avenge them by killing the Level 9 officer behind her family (and maybe crush's) death. Iseul's father was an apparent beacon of goodness within the shady Aberrant Corps and died before Iseul came of age; Iseul strives to succeed him, even though the Corps is a darker organization than he could ever imagine. Min was stripped of his essence at a young age, the trauma forming his stoic, mute personality. He joins a gang of criminals led by a woman he probably loves- even though she will never love him back- at least not in the way she loves her real sister, Sayeon Lee.

And who is Sayeon Lee? She's a hard worker. She… goes to school. She had maids? Her day-to-day existence is pretty cushy. It's explicitly stated that Sayeon has never worried about money, and probably food. Samin provides her with everything should ever need. As Officer Cha drives her to the Corps, Sayeon worries about her salary.

And despite how sheltered Sayeon is, and how "normal" her goals are compared to everyone else's ("Make the world a better place"…. ok, gurl) Sayeon still manages to be a devastatingly tragic character. To me, the reason is simple: Her tragedy is largely of her own making.

After Samin killed her best friend's dad, Sayeon could have reacted in so many ways. She could've tried leaving the home, or she could've not. She could've accepted Samin (and her family's) criminal history by acknowledging many of their actions as necessary, or she could've not. She could've lived her life and tried embracing the things that bring her happiness- or she could've not.

She doesn't, she doesn't, she doesn't. Sayeon chooses, inexplicably, to become a prosecutor. She studies until her nose bleeds so that she can get into a top school and put people like her sister in jail. She rejects having friends, hobbies, comfort, or any leisure throughout her teens just so that she can fulfill this purpose. She, essentially, rejects happiness itself.

And she didn't NEED to. From the start, no one has forced Sayeon to do anything. In fact, she has something that no other member of Cell 4 has: the backing of an ultra-powerful, ultra-rich family member who would do literally anything for her, no strings attached. Sayeon is the single most privileged member of Cell 4.

Ryujin didn't choose to be captured by the Corps. She didn't choose to sit in jail for years. Iseul is happy to be at the Corps, but he didn't have a choice in that either- unlike Sayeon, he isn't conveniently related to a family of supercriminals that would bail him out if he wanted something different. Min has had so little choice in his life that his character is basically defined by it. Even now, he is watching Sayeon on another person's orders. Does he even know he has a choice?

By contrast, Sayeon is FREE. She's still bound by society in some ways, so no, she won't become a prosecutor. But she had a choice between the Corps and a luxurious underground life as the untouchable sister of a superpowered heiress, who built an entire criminal empire just to protect her, and loves Sayeon with her whole heart and more.

And Sayeon still chose the Corps.

Sayeon is so mad with guilt and grief, so stuck on the idea of becoming society's Perfect Angel, the embodiment of her country and culture's ideals in some twisted form of repentance for something that she didn't even do- the actions of her family, which she did not choose and could not control- that she rejects happiness every time.

THIS is her fatal flaw. THIS is Sayeon's tragedy.

Not that she doesn't have a choice. But that she's always had one.

[teleit]

Plot bunny - Daemyra meets the consequences of passion on the beach

Okay, this isn't my usual yapping about how I desperately want to ask HBO to provide the public with a report on the show's expenses and find out how much they pay those nine monkeys with typewriters and one college student with three other jobs who are posing as the House of the Dragon writing team.

But one thing leads to another, so I'm thinking about how convenient it is for Daemon and Rhaenyra to indulge their fetish for public intercourse, and somehow no one found them at all, even though they were not just simple servants, and they couldn't just disappear for a whole night without someone noticing.

And if someone had found them? Maybe someone like Laenor Velaryon?

Laenor, mad with grief, having almost drowned himself a few hours ago, and unable to sleep, escapes from surveillance and goes wandering around Driftmark and the surrounding area. He can't help but think about how his sister died, the one he hadn't seen in years but loved so much; how scared and desperate she was when she couldn't give birth herself, and how much pain she must have suffered; how she spent her last moments in agony and terror. He lost his sister and the nephew who killed her, and whom he almost hates, but knows Laena would never forgive him for those feelings.

And now he stumbles upon his wife and brother-in-law fucking like wild animals on the sand, hidden from the world by a rotten boat hulk. From the world, but not from Laenor.

A part of Laenor understands what these two feel, and is happy for them. His marriage to Rhaenyra was an arrangement that grew into friendship, but never into love; his true love died on the floor of the feast hall, beaten to death by the hands of Criston Cole. He is happy for her, finding solace in their cold, empty marriage, first in Harvin and now in the man she has desired for decades.

He is happy for Daemon. They are friends as much as they are family, which is rare in their houses. They fought together in the Stepstones, and Laenor was happy for them and Laena, the kind of man he would have wished for his sister - almost, Daemon had an unfinished gestalt with his niece, so it was not perfect. But Laena was happy, or sounded so in her letters, so Laenor accepted it as it was. True, now Laenor is more inclined to hate Daemon for laughing at the funeral, but Daemon is Daemon, and someday the pain of loss will pass and Laenor will be able to look at him again without disgust.

But this part is small, quiet, and immediately drowned out by the anger, fury and betrayal rising inside like a storm wave. How dare they! At the funeral of Laena! His sister! Who died giving birth to Daemon's son! Died far from home, far from her family! Daemon didn't even bring her body, just charred bones!! The coffin didn't even touch the seabed, and these two had already stuck together with their crotches!!! HOW DARE THEY HOW DARE THEY HOW DARE THEY!!!

And Laenor, in whom a sea of ​​hatred rages, takes up the blade. He doesn't think about anything, doesn't understand what he's doing, but he knows that these two people, half-naked and shuddering with vile pleasure, are his and Laena's traitors. They are monsters, and Laenor doesn't understand how he could have considered these two his friends.

Daemon Targaryen is still a rogue prince even with his pants down, and Laenor was never considered the best swordsman, at best a good one. Rhaenyra screams at them to come to their senses, but it's no use to Laenor. Daemon dodges the sword, disarms Laenor, but it's doesn't help at all - Velaryon does not listen, his eyes are empty and dark with hatred, he rushes at Daemon empty-handed, wanting to hurt him, just as he and Rhaenyra did to him and Laena.

And Daemon makes a mistake - he, a skilled warrior, underestimates Laenor's rage, and when he swings his blade, intended to drive Velaryon away, he pierces him. Laenor does not die quickly enough - he screams in pain and anger, screams so loudly that he attracts the attention of the guards, who were alerted when it became clear that Corlys' son had disappeared and every servant and guard rushed to search for him.

And what a picture the guards find - the heir of Lord Velaryon, husband of the crown princess and the father of her children, future king consort, Laenor Velaryon, agonizing on the dirty sand. Daemon, shirtless and with unbuttoned pants, with a bloody sword in his hands. And Princess Rhaenyra herself, Laenor's wife, looking at what is happening in horror, wrapped in a dress with loose lacing and pulled off her shoulders, disheveled and covered in sand.

The events that followed have not yet come together in my head in any confident way, there are so many possible consequences.

Rhaenyra and Daemon are caught at the crime scene with bloody hands, one of them not even metaphorically. Denying the fact of murder and sexual intimacy is simply stupid.

Rhaenyra has two options:

1) Lie about how she and Daemon were enthusiastically doing a vertical tango on the beach as soon as they had the chance. She will wring her hands, roll her eyes, and start crying about how her evil uncle tried to take advantage of her, and how the noble and fearless Laenor rushed to her rescue. No one will believe her, of course, but the consequences will be mostly laid on Daemon. He won't be executed as a kinslayer, because Viserys is a spineless whiner, but he will be sent to the Wall.

2) Stand with her uncle and go for broke, and if they die together, they will die together. Again, Viserys' spine is a monkey noodle, he will never kill his sweet daughter in his life, and will try to leave her as his heir, because she is the daughter of the woman he once cut up like a pig in a slaughterhouse.

In any case, what will happen for sure in any case is a complete loss of the Velaryon support for Rhaenyra, Luke losing his rights to inherit Driftmark and the Velaryon name in favor, most likely, of Baela, the loss of Daemon's rights to his daughters - this will be one of Corlys' first demands to the crown, he will not allow the only thing left of his daughter and children in general to remain in the hands of the man who killed his son. All of Westeros will discuss and condemn the actions of the Princess of Whores, Uncle's Delight, for many years. It would take a miracle for Viserys to leave her as his heir, but will he succeed, and what kind of reign awaits a woman with such a background?

Anyone want to add anything that I might have missed?

P.S. If someone wants to use my idea and turn it into a fanfic, be my guest, just tag me, and left a link in the comments down below, I REALLY want to read a story with such a plot =)

PPS. English can kiss my ass me in that scary and dark place where I learned it through sheer force