#This could work for platonic or romantic

[bitin-and-barkin]

Yandere Donnie

Yandere Donnie would act Obsessive, Controlling, and Dependent.

When April first introduced Donnie to you, you guys fit together perfectly. Like two pieces of a puzzle.

You just GOT him in a way nobody else did.

You were so much like him, yet so different.

The entire time you two were together you two DOMINATED the conversation, April could barely get any words in.

You two traded numbers and from that point on, Donnie wouldn't do anything without you.

If he wasn't nagging April about "when she will bring you over again" (He was too nervous to ask you to come over, which is a first for him) he was texting you or calling you or gushing about you to anyone who could listen.

But how could he not!? You were PERFECTION embodied! He was obsessed with you!

You kept up with his smarts and sarcastic quips, even offering your own.

Although you weren't a tech prodigy you thought a similar way (the right way) and were OBVIOUSLY smarter than his dumb-dumb brothers.

Anytime that he had something to say, you hit back just as hard in a lighthearted, sarcastic tone.

You were also so badass too! Just the general air around you screamed "Cool, emotionless, mysterious, bad boy." You were so dominating and so strong! You were what he wanted to be!

But the thing about it was that you weren't emotionless, far from it.

Although you guys often competed there was never actually any bad blood. Despite being just as good as him (and possibly better, although he'd never admit it), you never held it over him.

You listened to him rambles about science and junk happily, but not in a I'm-only-listening-to-be-nice-but-I-don't-actually-understand-or-care but in a I-love-your-passion-and-can-understand-it-completely way.

You asked questions that he'd never even thought about.

And you were emotionally intelligent too!

You were kind, caring, and oh-so sickly sweet.

He didn't need to put up any sort of mask in front of you, as you made sure you made sure he knew you loved him in any form!

Even the moments when he was ashamed of who he was, when he was worried he would never be enough.

His intense moments of "emotionless passion" or his arrogant moments of dumbassary.

You pushed him to be better while accepting him as who he was.

You made him feel like MORE than his tech, he never felt like he had to hide anything from you, as hiding something from you, just felt like hiding something from himself.

All of his deepest secrets are shared and he expects you to do the same

You made him feel secure, like no matter what he did you would never leave him.

It was like you were a combination of himself and Mikey, his two favorite people in the world! (You were first though, of course)

Even when he was acting like a dumb-dumb (Although he'd never admit it) you held him accountable while still being understanding.

You could understand what he meant without even saying it!

It was like you guys were mind melded or something!

You were like him, a kinship. Almost a frenemy, rivals with how much you competed, but more friend then enemy.

You were almost a teacher to him in a lot of ways, but you never talked down to him or treated him like he was stupid for not understand things that came to you or other easily (like emotions, cough cough)

And he made sure (or at least tried his best) to do the same for you.

For example, whenever you make something techy from the countless facts of science Donnie had taught you he'll cherish it, probably getting an entire shelf and case for any inventions you make for him (and he won't "improve" or "modify" the work to become more efficient, no matter how much his hands are itching to)

Honestly it got to the point where you two were never seen apart.

Donnie began to see you as an extension of himself.

Or, more specifically two parts to something bigger.

Think Glitz and Glam from Helluva boss, or Sapphire and Ruby from Steven Universe, or Fireboy and Watergirl from those dumb cool math game games.

You were him, he was you, and you guys would never be apart.

You guys were two peas in a pod, best friends, yin and yang, fire and water, connected in an unbreakable way he wants to brand your name into his skin and he wants you to do the same for him

it was like a villain and his sidekick, expect none of you were the sidekick! You were equal after all, in his eyes. He genuinely values you and your opinion above everybody elses, and how you felt about something was just as important as he felt about it (aka, very important) He feels very strongly about making sure thing are "fair" between you two.

At first you were fine with this little obsession he had with you two hanging out, you couldn't see the red flags screaming in your face, but then he got oh so controlling.

He might not care about what you wear or how you dress, but every bit of tech in your house is replaced by his own, all suited to prevent hackers and stalkers from accessing your location they all have trackers on them, and the next time you fall asleep he will embed one into your skin

He doesn't mean it with malicious intent, he just wants to protect you as he would protect himself. You deserve protection after all, he just wants to make sure you're safe from any "stalkers."

He kindly searches your room for any "suspicious devices" placed by "creeps" he takes this opportunity to put in his own cameras to watch you from every angle in your home, you get more time away from him but he watches you while you sleep.

He gives you little trinkets and tech made by him just for you they all have cameras in them, he loves watching you

And your health is watched like a HAWK.

He's constantly calling you over to his place, under the guise of "making sure your healthy" and he does do that, he does!

It's like your a permanent hospital patient, with you being strapped up and poked and prodded.

Your heart rate would be constantly monitored with a watch he gave you along with your blood pressure, temperature, blood sugar, and steps per day.

The slightest cough will be treated like a medical emergency. His place would be disinfected and you would be "bedbound" from your illness.

Only he can see you when this happens, after all he's the only one who can care for you properly.

Honestly, I can see him medically abusing you, Munchausen syndrome by proxy style.

He'll give you new meds under the guise of healing whatever menial injury you got, only for you to get sicker and sicker. Hell, he might even put you under anesthesia and give you a couple of injuries (can't have you feeling pain or remembering it!) like breaking your legs and blame it on your "new disease."

Narcolepsy, bouts of paralysis or blindness, chronic pain, he'll do whatever makes you hang out with him more! Of course, none of it will actually be permanent or lifelong, he can stop it as quickly as he started it, but why would he do that when it's so affective?

And when you get ill, he'll insist he can be the only one to care for you. I mean, medical bills are expensive after all! Why waste your money when you can just go to your old friend Donnie!?

He'll have you lean on him for support, making you ill enough to the point that you couldn't even leave the sewers as you could barely move your legs and your entire body felt like it was in flames just so you guys can hang out together a little more

(To be honest it's less about the control he has over you and making you depend on him, and more on making you spend more time with him. But if he needs to make you dependent on him, he's not complaining.)

You'll have to stick with him until this "flare up" of your illness gets better. And he'll keep you trapped there with him through your disease until eventually he begins to break, as that now that you're by his side what the point of putting you through so much pain?

And so he'll down the dosage of the medicine he used to hurt you, just to make you feel a little bit better. But you take this as you healing, and you suggest to him that maybe, just maybe, you could go back home now? I mean you're getting better now, so you don't need to be around him ALL the time.

When he hears this he'll act calm at first even though he feels his blood running freezing cold and he'll help you pack up to go home, only for the next morning for the pain and paralysis come back, stronger than ever and making you cry and beg for it to stop

(He might even keep you trapped with him in this way, physically unable to leave and having your punishments being an up in the illness)

Sure, he'll feel guilt for making you feel so much pain and he'll miss your more fiery personality, that now has been dampened down due to your pain, but at least you're now next to him.

He'll help you learn to function to the best of your ability while ill, giving you a wheelchair and braces and the best prosthetics known to man.

But at the same time, he'll still be making sure you're still dependent on him, but independent enough where the old personality he fell in love with comes back. Independence dependence, per say.

Upping your meds just enough so that some days the pain still engulfs you but keeping it low enough so even on your neutral days you can engage in your battles of wits and words between you two that he oh-so-loved.

Good enough to function normally on your good days, bad enough that you writhe in agony as your skin flares up in pain on your bad ones.

It's all so you're still you, but he is still a part of you.

The same thing can be said for him. He is still him, but you are still a part of him. A MAJOR part.

And if you're ever pissed at him or resistant he'll drug your food with sleeping meds to make you more "soft" and "pliable."

But none of this dependence on him compares to how dependent he is on you.

As time goes on you can't get ANY time away from him.

Even before he does anything too drastic (before he practically kidnaps you) you are pretty much stripped of all your privacy and autonomy.

He's always following you around, showing up at your house unannounced, sneaking into your work/school to meet up with you in the bathroom, and any single moment you can be around him he WILL be around you.

The only moment of peace you get is in the bathroom and even then, if you're in there for longer than two minutes he'll begin to rant to you through the door.

It may frustrate you but to him it makes perfect sense. After all, two is better than one, so why would you ever need to be apart?

You guys are just better when with each other. You cover each other flaws and weakness and boost up each others strengths.

You need him and he needs you He needs you more than you need him, it feels like pulling teeth or losing a limb or peeling skin if he can't feel you, touch you, breath the same air as you

You're always there with him. Without you? It just feels so.. lonely. And he's not one to mull over being alone, in fact he loved it before he met you. But now? It feels like he's missing something vital, like an artery or a lung or his heart whenever you're away.

Wherever he goes he's always thinking about what you would want or what you would say, your voice taking up a special little part of his mind that was beginning to collect dust.

He felt your sadness, your passion, your anger, as if it was his. And whenever you smiled, he felt your smile like it was his own. It's so quiet now without you. He was always used to hearing your breath or your heartbeat, to the point where it felt like second nature to seek out it's comfortable rhythm He'll make a recording of your breathing pattern and put it as background noise in all of his favorite songs and make something to copy and let out the vibrations of your heartbeat tenfold, that way he can lay down on the floor of his lab and quite literally feel your heartbeat as if it was his own

So, when he explained all this to you so casually you finally began to get why he always wanted to be around you. it was unnerving at first sure, especially the way he looked at you with such desperate, mad eyes when he explained it to you after you said that you needed to get back home. Now that you knew this though? It just felt selfish to leave him alone.

His relationship with others falters as if he is talking to someone you also need to be involved, and the same goes for if someone is talking to you (this doesn't bother him as he firmly believes you are the only one he needs, his brothers and april are just an afterthought)

I mean, he doesn't hate his brothers! They still are his brothers after all, and he loves them. And he's happy to spend as much time with them as before you came into the picture, but you always need to be there, involved, and considered. You're practically part of the family, part of him! Part of something bigger and better! Just don't split you two up or else he'll scratch his skin raw, just ITCHING to hang out with you again

Whenever he's apart from you it's a bit like when Raph goes savage, but less angry and more anxious and scared shitless. Ever since he'd met you he'd never had to be alone this long

You can go out, do whatever you want as long as he's with you but you can't go home to your family, they aren't good for you

Your friends are weirded out by this and so are his brothers, with them pretty much telling you guys "Hey your relationship with each other is pretty weird. Why are you always around each other?"

You two deny this though, you out of innocence and naivety, thinking that Donnie would never invade on your personal space despite the uncomfy feeling you get when he butts into your conversations.

He would never hurt you or control you, despite how he stops letting you sleep at your OLD home, as now he always wants you to sleep in the same bed as him in your guy's room.

Despite that he's already began bringing your stuff into his your guy's room, setting it up as if you live together you practically do, your family thinks that you've ran away as it's been a month since you've gone home

He's also oddly touchy.

You see, a lot of you prolly won't agree but just think about it;

He's almost ALWAYS touching someone, as long as he initiated the contact he seems to be fine with and actually LOVE physical touch.

I just believe he doesn't like hugs because of his "emotionless bad boy image" and because it feels like he's trapped, and going to be suffocated. Like he has no control.

But with you? That's not a problem.

Although most touches with him are the ones as shown here, small things, touching you is GROUNDING for him.

He needs them in fact. You're his grounder, his shoulder to lean on, his support, a part of him. He needs your touch, he needs you. Often times you are the only thing that can calm him down from any "episodes" he has.

Besides that, although he'd never admit it, he's also quite lonely.

He loves his brothers but he feels fundamentally different from them, different from anybody else in the world.

So if he found someone who got him in the way he'd always wanted? He'd never let go of them.

This also goes for touch. Despite his touch aversion he often wished he had someone who he felt safe and comfortable enough with to hold, or someone who he felt loved enough with to the point where he could be held. So when he met you? All of his unrequited dreams of physical affection with someone whom he truly felt connected to came out.

He often takes your arms and rubs his hands back and forth on them as a stim, or does the same thing with your back while laying his head in the crook of your neck.

Something that he does pretty much whenever he can is sitting on your lap, not in a weird way though.

You two will be sitting on the floor (He's gotten a preference for sitting on the floor as it makes this activity more comfortable)

And you'll be causally laying against the wall, legs spread as Donnie sits between them and you peer over his shoulder.

Maybe you two can be just chatting, or maybe reading a book together or playing a video game together, with you giving him tips as he controls.

You two also often sit in opposite positions, with him peering over your shoulder as you sit on his lap.

Something else that also happens is him clinging to your back like a kola, with him running his hands over and over again over your thighs and arms as a stim.

And sometimes (often), he'll even run them over your chest and stomach.

This happens especially when he's having meltdowns, so you can't just shove him off.

And if you tell him to stop? He won't. Maybe he will for a while, but he'll "forget" and get back right to it.

If you tell him how it makes you uncomfy or how it's weird? He'll tell you that you're crazy. This is a completely normal friend activity, your just overreacting.

He especially does this when laying in bed with you, as he expects you two to sleep in the same bed. (You'll cuddle like this lmao, and donnie is the one clinging to you like a kola oddly enough)

Something else he also loves to do with you is parallel play.

You see, because of his independent nature, despite his obsession, not every waking moment will be spent talking to you.

But something that he still loves is just existing with you nearby, aka parallel play.

You two spend a lot of your time doing your own thing, maybe him coding as you watch movies or him napping as you play video games.

He loves doing this, and you like it too! it gives you back the freedom that was stripped away from you

Its the perfect solution! You and him can keep your independence while still being together, acting as one!

And during these moments, to stay connected, he'll use small, little touches.

A hand on the shoulder, sitting back to back (his favorite), an arm wrapped around your neck while you game on the couch, resting his face on your hand as you sleep. He loves them all.

And if you ever try and deny him any of this? Or slowly move away from him?

Well, he won't let that happen.

He's dependent on you.

He controls you.

He's obsessed over you.

He NEEDS you.

You won't ever go home or be alone again.

| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

This was way too long, but I love him so much <3 It was itching at my brain until I wrote it down. This could work for platonic or romantic yandere, I prefer some form of queerplatonic. Overall, I believe his yandere-ness to be a very "we are pretty much one lmao" type thing because I am also autistic but touch averse and I often feel isolated from others around me, as I feel as if I could never be vulnerable around them. I often dreamed of someone who just GOT me in a way that nobody else did. This led me to be very interested in the idea of "fusion" from su as the act itself seemed so intimate; Two beings becoming one, being able to share a body and coordinate a mind, become something bigger than their parts to the point where you're a new person? That would be amazing. So I imagined that with Donnie. He believes you two are the same person in the way that Stevonnie from su is shown to be when they first fuse. It's obvious that there are two parts of you but just the way you work together just feels so natural. Idk, this is just heavy projecting and may be out of character, but I love the idea of dependent Donnie <3 Very much Jason Dean from Heathers vibes

Also, this is all BEFORE kidnapping, imagine how bad it would be after that. He values your opinion heavily and always takes what YOU want into considerations, except the certain "hard no" topics like ones that came to your safety, including those constant health checkups. He's no expecting you to agree with him all the time, but he is expecting you to listen. He would never hurt you, and you know that, just as he knows you wouldn't hurt him (no matter how much you should) so why won't you listen to him? He's only trying to help.

[bubzebii]

How would you guys feel…

If I made a rottmnt fic of my original character?

[eloquent-edits]

🗡️ “I’m all for platonic intimacy but this…?”

the subtext of romance is really peeking through 🗡️ friends to lovers scenarios

Person A going to person B’s house to watch a movie but getting looped into playing drunk card games with B and their parents

Working out together and A insisting on spotting B and adjusting their form

B playfully poking A in public and promptly getting tackled

B patting A’s cheek only to accidentally linger as they notice how the light catches in A’s eyes (A is DESPERATELY trying to not blush)

“Here’s the garage code.” “… Why am I receiving this information?” “You’re already over here a lot. My parents think it’s better than a key.”

Forced close proximity at a LAN party because there’s not much room at the table (and A’s arm keeps brushing against B’s, messing up their aim, but if anything the space between them decreases as the night goes on)

The “Oh, is B coming too?” to “A kidnapped me to come here and hang out” pipeline

Going from quick and funny head scratches to absentmindedly stroking/detangling their hair while chatting with friends

“Do I smell okay?” “You smell normal.” “Which is…?” “Like lilac and gooseberry.”

A melting into B’s hug after a long and stressful week

B helping A deal with a major headache by rubbing/scratching their back

A heating up B’s ears with their hands because B forgot ear muffs in winter

“My mom thinks you’re really pretty/handsome.” “My mom thinks you look like Adonis/Aphrodite.” “Can you ever take a compliment?”

Candid pictures give away the softness in B’s eyes when they look at A goofing around

B not minding when A gives them a long hug in public, even though they aren’t big on PDA in general

B drawing a shitpost and sending it to A, A setting it as their lockscreen, and months later B realizes that A still hasn’t changed it

B’s family automatically assuming that A might join for any family function and making A’s favorite dish accordingly

“I have to go into the office this week. Can I crash at your place since it’s closer?”

Hanging out for hours —> “I don’t want you to drive home this late.” —> waking up in each other’s arms because they both refused to let the other sleep on the floor/couch

“My clothes reek of you.” “You could’ve just told me to take a shower.”

[psychotic-nonsense]

"I'm sorry."

It's the first thing Steve says after everything.

After getting Vecna Cursed. After nearly dying. After a hallucination of Eddie saved him. After running through a looped forest. After finding sanctuary in Steve's memory of that Starcourt bathroom. After Eddie reveals himself as Eddie.

It's the only thing he can think of. It's not big enough to fit everything, but it's the only thing that fits in his mouth.

"Don't be."

Maybe that's the only thing Eddie can think of too. The only thing Eddie can bear to say.

Because don't be can't stop Steve's eyes from watering when he sees the vest in his closet. Don't be can't stop Steve's feet from dragging him to the cemetery every evening to clean Eddie's graffiti-covered tombstone. Don't be can't stop Steve from sitting beside Wayne and listening to him talk about the Eddie he remembers. Don't be can't stop Eddie's body from showing up in Steve's dreams, nor Eddie's corpse from his nightmares. Don't be couldn't keep the pain away enough, didn't stop Vecna from latching onto it while Steve was walking alone in the woods.

Don't be isn't enough for what Steve wants to hear. But even stuck here waiting, hoping, for someone to get Steve out, there just isn't enough time.

"I miss you."

"...Why?"

Eddie says it back so quickly, so quietly, like it's just unfathomable to him. Maybe it is, considering their last memories. But their eyes meet and he looks just as sad, just as longing, as Steve.

"You were my friend."

Steve can't help but say it like that. Like they were friends for years instead of days. Like Eddie was that important to him in their final moments. Like his heart really aches for Eddie every second of the apocalypse.

Can't help but say it like he means it.

"I wish we could've had more time..."

Steve's voice cracks a little there as he turns away, hiding. It's all he wants. It's all Vecna used to entice him with. It's all that's keeping him going, to finally fulfill the last request Eddie made. It's all he has left to feel close to Eddie.

The Eddie that's sitting right next to him, silent, his sight weighing on Steve's skin. Conscious and aware and the real Eddie. Trapped in Vecna's head as a backup power source, yet who still risked everything to come save Steve. Who Steve will never see again because killing Vecna means killing Eddie for good, and his heart doesn't want it, is begging for another solution...

But for once, his broken head overpowers his shattered heart.

"Maybe we did."

Eddie takes Steve's hand. Meets Steve's surprised look with his own small smile of hope. They're both suddenly tearing up, eyes glistening with life in this gray stall.

"Maybe in another world, we got a second first chance. A first second chance. Maybe even a third, or fourth. Maybe in a different life, we had everything we wanted. Because you, Steve Harrington, are too good for me to be doomed to meet just once."

And for a moment, Steve sees it. Feels it. Versions of them connected through the universe.

Little kids playing in the lake. One with bruised skin and shaved hair, loud but unfathomably lonely. One with a bruised heart and soft eyes, timid but stubbornly hopeful.

A rockstar with glittering chains, center stage in the spotlight. A set of eyes in the crowd or behind the curtain, watching only him.

A werewolf and a vampire, two cryptids of horror, meeting in the dead of a full moon night to feel safe with the only other one who understands.

A future where they won, where the only death was the one that mattered. A process of healing and learning, coming home to a family every single day.

A world without pain, without their hell, where two high schoolers found freedom from their shackles and company in each other. Hiding away together in the dark corners of the town.

Steve even sees other versions of them. Versions that he knows were originally never supposed to meet, yet forces so much greater than them pulled them together.

A metalhead drug dealer, constantly getting into trouble with one nail-bat-weilding cop.

A criminal's fugitive nature leading him to a rugged trailer park, and the dangerous owner within one such home.

An eccentric king in an old coliseum, always choosing one particular warrior as his champion.

A young programmer being pulled away from his work by sobs above his apartment, running upstairs to check on the law student that recently moved in.

Two actors, finding an easy friendship in the months of filming one season of a show that would change their lives.

In that moment, Steve's overwhelmed by the closeness he suddenly feels with the soul beside him. Falling into tears, he pulls Eddie into a tight hug, holding him so so close to convey everything he can't say. Feeling Eddie hold him back, hearing everything Eddie can't say in return.

Familiar music comes on outside the stall. Robin's voice calls out to him, telling him to come home.

And when he does leave, Steve hopes that someone out there will understand that he never can. Because here in Eddie's arms is the only place that will ever truly feel like home.

"Thank you... for everything, Eddie."

Thank you, Steve. For everything and more..."

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

- List of AUs, in order, after, "Versions of them connected through the universe": Childhood Friends / Rockstar!Eddie / Werewolf!Steve & Vampire!Eddie / Eddie Survives / No Upside Down & High School

- List of Multiverse Steddie AUs, in order, after, "...yet forces so much greater than them pulled them together": Eddie x Gator / Baron x Michael / Geta x Sean / Keys x Eric / Quinn and Keery

[starry-bi-sky]

Okay so this is almost a direct copy-paste of my earlier reblog but only the Xin Yuan parts, because its long enough to be its own post and i want to share it! It deserves it's own post <3 typical starry stuff to write a 2k word long reblog, unfortunately.

I say almost because I went through to proof read and ended up adding more stuff.

I've been cooking on this idea for the last two days since I saw the Xin Mo!Shen Yuan post but??? I can't find anything on Xin Mo's backstory or how it came to be -- which means that's free fucking plot right there baby. That's a sandbox and im making LIFE SIZED CASTLES. I'm so excited.

The idea of Shen Yuan transmigrating centuries before the events of PIDW as Xin Mo -- but when he wakes up, he's not the sword. He wakes up in the body of a young boy named Xin Yuan. Now it makes sense for this boy to be a demon, but the drama, the intrigue, the spice of Xin Yuan being a human child.

SY wakes up as a boy below the age of ten, and the System tells him where he is, and SY is excited to meet his favorite protagonist -- only to gradually realize that he's like, a thousand years or so before the events of the novel. The rant he gives the system is legendary.

Bc what's the point of getting dropped into PIDW if he's never going to meet his favorite character??? This is a scam! BUT he settles into his new life, he's like, some orphan street rat or some other tragic airplane-esq backstory.

The system gives Shen Yuan his first mandatory quest: become a righteous cultivator. Which was like, kinda his plan/hopes anyways, except! There's like?? No official cultivator sects anywhere? The Cang Qiong Mountain Sect hasn't even been established yet, and there are pockets of cultivators running around, maybe some groups or schools popping up and then sinking back down, but nothing's really taken root!

If he asks someone how to become a cultivator, there's no straight answer. No "oh you can go to X to do that". He's pissed! How can he become a cultivator if there aren't any schools around to teach him? Deus ex machina, that's how.

Out of sheer luck, SY manages to help save a rogue cultivator, and promptly gets adopted by said rogue cultivator, who gives SY the name 'Xin Yuan'. He is ecstatic. And you know what? It's actually pretty fun!

He's getting to travel the world of PIDW in its early stages, and gets to see the building blocks for the eventual main story. He's discovering all this local flora and fauna that are foreign to his old world and unmentioned in the book, and he's learning cultivation! Granted, its unsafe, newly(ish) discovered cultivation, but it counts!

Wistfully, he thinks about perhaps he'll do something grand and get his name carved into legend. Something that would eventually help the protagonist later down the line in his quest for revenge.

The system remains silent to his thoughts.

But Xin Yuan doesn't take much stock in that daydream anyways. It's nothing more than fantasy to him; wish-fulfillment. He does discover however, that he is positively brimming with spiritual energy. Overwhelmingly so.

It's both a blessing and a curse, as it puts a strain on his meridians if he's not careful, and leaves him prone to qi deviations for the exact same reasons. He already has a heart demon or two from a few traumatic experiences in the past.

(bc hey! angst a day keeps the writer sadism at bay, and all that)

I'll say he's about... eight when he gets picked up by the rogue cultivator, who I'm calling Lin Kai bc he deserves a name. They travel around PIDW up until Xin Yuan is twelve, where he goes through a traumatic experience that results in a heart demon.

It's after that that Lin Kai decides to put a stop to his wandering, and find a place to settle down to raise Xin Yuan in. Coincidentally! They settle down in a nice mountain region that's thriving with spiritual energy. The mountains at the time were called something different, but they will be eventually known as the Cang Qiong Mountain Sect

Coincidentally, the mountain Lin Kai and Xin Yuan end up on is Qing Jing Peak. XY does not realize that the mountain he's on is Qing Jing. The System does not tell him. But he likes it there, more than he was expecting. And as much as he's traveled around, he really does enjoy being in one place.

He has a tendency to go down the mountain and help the village setting up down there, and when he's a teenager he starts venturing out more and more.

Xin Yuan forgets sometimes that he's in a novel, especially after settling down on Qing Jing peak. The system becomes remarkably quiet since there's no quests for him to do and not a ton of opportunities to get B-Points. He cultivates with Lin Kai, helps tend to the garden they're growing, goes down to the village to play with the other kids.

There's one boy he's best friends with, a boy whose not all that good with words, named Liu Zhihao. He's got potential for cultivation though, so Xin Yuan drags him up the mountain when he can so that Liu Zhihao can sit in on lessons with Lin Kai. He drags him all over the forest at the foot of the mountain to go look at bugs and animals.

(One time, when they're fourteen and Liu Zhihao has been learning cultivation for a few years now, Xin Yuan drags him out of bed late one night to go look at the stars. Xin Yuan tells Liu Zhihao about ascension -- something that still feels like a far off dream to many in this time -- that night, while they're sitting on the wet grass.)

("We should ascend together." Xin Yuan tells Liu Zhihao, jade eyes gleaming. Never let it be said that Xin Yuan doesn't love deeply, no matter what kind of love it is. He was always so lonely as Shen Yuan, Liu Zhihao is his best friend. "We'll become immortals, and then we won't ascend until the other is able to.")

(Liu Zhihao stares at him silently, his face unreadable. Then, quietly, he asks; "Promise?")

("Promise.")

When he starts adventuring outwards, further away from the mountain and the village, Liu Zhihao sticks to him like rice. Not that Xin Yuan's complaining, that's his best friend after all, and Liu Zhihao has become a formidable cultivator. He deserves to show off his skills.

He starts making something of a name for himself by the time he's, like, 18 -- although that name is in its baby steps, along with Liu Zhihao. They're slowly growing renown.

Perhaps XY uses his knowledge of PIDW and cultivation in general to help make advancements in the cultivation field. Although the system prevents him from sharing too much, it doesn't mean he can't practice it himself. Perhaps he's one of the first cultivators to develop a golden core. One of the first known immortal cultivators. One of the first to have a spirit sword.

(Although I don't know the logistics of any of this since my knowledge on xanxia/cultivation stuff in general is all still pretty new and google wasn't all that helpful lol.)

Either way, its my excuse to eventually make Xin Yuan come across as ethereal to other people. Peerless beauty SY for the win. Hs wifebeam is too strong, Xin Yuan has a line of suitors following after him and he's completely unaware of it. The rest of history is not.

Demon realm stuff has been stirring up since Xin Yuan was a kid, but at the time it was rare and in the beginning stages. Its been steadily ramping up and the system is sending him on more and more treacherous quests -- some of them mandatory, some optional. SY doesn't often take the optional ones unless it comes with a sufficient B-point reward.

for all intents and purposes though, he's a wandering rogue cultivator with Liu Zhihao, going from place to place to either help a town or village, or to discover more creatures or artifacts (although there aren't that many). Just all around living his life. He participates in a few major quest lines that are sure to get him mentioned in legend, even if it's a background character way.

(Unbeknownst to him, rather than being a side character in these legends, he's named directly. You can't become one of the first immortal cultivators and NOT get name dropped for clout.)

He has a spirit sword named Shā Mó, (杀 shā - to kill/weaken/counteract/reduce) (魔 mó - evil spirit, demon, possession). He routinely goes back to QJP to see Lin Kai, or to rest when traveling has worn down on him and he wants nothing more than to sleep somewhere he knows he'll be safe in. It becomes more frequent as Xin Yuan becomes more famous. Liu Zhihao often comes with him.

it all comes to a head though when the rifts between the demonic realm and the human realm become too great, and the balance between both realms becomes unstable. A demonic emperor's influence, wanting to merge the two realms so he could conquer both to satiate his own greed.

Typical evil king stuff. This comes to a climatic head in a great battle between every cultivator available and the demon emperor's army. Xin Yuan was one of the many who helped lead the charge.

In the end, it was Xin Yuan who ends up defeating the demonic emperor, but the rift that the emperor used to cross between worlds is destabilizing as well. Except instead of trying to close, it's getting bigger and bigger, threatening to swallow the heavens and earth and demonic realm whole.

You know how Yue Qingyuan's soul is bonded to his sword due to a qi deviation? Let's take it a step further >:)

Xin Yuan uses himself and Shā Mó to close the rift. However, it takes all of his spiritual energy to do so, as well as him filtering the demonic qi into his body to redirect it back to the demon realm.

In the end, Xin Yuan and his beloved sword Shā Mó fuse. Xin Yuan's soul becomes trapped in the sword. His physical body is unable to handle the immense amount of power it takes to close the rift, and is destroyed. He is immortalized in legend by his grieving cultivators.

(Liu Zhihao ends up ascending alone. He ascends with the hope that one day he'll see Xin Yuan again, even if it's in the face of someone else. Lin Kai does not ascend, too weighed down by the grief of losing his son.)

Xin Yuan, now Xin Mo, falls into a stasis. He's very confused and disorientated when he regains 'consciousness'. The system has been silent for most of his life, only popping up to give him mandatory quests, hints, points, or to answer any questions.

But once he wakes up, it cheerfully pops up again, congratulating him on completing the origin story of Xin Mo. SY freaks the fuck out. he'd shake the system screen if he could, but he doesn't have arms. or legs. or eyes for that matter.

He can sense his surroundings, but its all like imprints to him. He can sense the energies, but he can't see anything. It's all very disorientating and horrifying after years of being human. Like a sensory deprivation chamber.

The closing of the rift and the cycling demonic qi tainted both Sha Mo and Xin Yuan irreparably, and it did some kind of damage that resulted in SY needing to feed in order to use the spiritual powers. Kinda like how Xuan Su uses YQY's life force for it's spiritual energy, but instead of feeding on his own lifeforce, Xin Mo feeds on others.

The rest is history. Xin Mo is originally tied to the story of Xin Yuan -- believed to be all that remained of the man after he sacrificed himself to keep the realms separate. It's believed that the force of the realms closing permanently infused Sha Mo with demonic energy, turning it into Xin Mo.

But, like many stories do when faced against the tide of time, things get lost; chipped off; changed. Xin Mo is steadily separated from Xin Yuan, especially once it becomes clear how parasitic the sword really is, until they are all but separate entities themselves and the origin of Xin Mo's creation all but forgotten.

The years blur together when Xin Mo is not being wielded, and at first Xin Yuan was agonized by the fact that he stole the lives of all his wielders. He knows it's only a novel, but his decades spent in this life have softened him, and he's grown attached to the world around him.

But time erodes the mind like water erodes stone, and he becomes numb to it, then eventually anticipating of it. He forces himself to remember what he knows of PIDW's plot, and kinda fixates back on his old obsession on Luo Binghe. But while PIDW stays in his mind, his memories as Xin Yuan fall to the wayside.

Not forgotten, per se, but... tucked away. The system prevents him from forgetting fully.

Xin Mo isn't fully a demonic sword either i think, but instead harbors an ugly cocktail of both spiritual and demonic qi. Special circumstances and all that. Everyone just assumes he's a fully demonic sword because that's usually at the forefront, his spiritual qi weakened from the initial fusion and from years of not being fed spiritual qi. It's part of the reason his wielders always end up destroyed by him, other than the whole, yk, 'overwhelming qi' thing.

Nobody would recognize Xin Mo's human form as Xin Yuan other than some truly ancient demons. Of which Meng Mo might. But even that's iffy because there's a lack of surviving paintings of Xin Yuan, but also because of XM's demonic appearance and supposed lack of connection to XY.

Xin Mo has never spoken to his wielders before, not in the same way he does Luo Binghe. He tells Luo Binghe this, and he also tells Luo Binghe down the line that he is both spiritual and demonic -- something he also never told his wielders because there was no point to it.

okay okay i've got to end it here because its already gotten ridiculously long -- of which im both apologetic and unapologetic for -- but i DO think the Shang Qinghua and Shen Yuan meeting (and reveal) would be fucking hilarious. Especially if SY has learned how to pop between sword form and human form by then -- although i guess it doesnt matter either way because SQH's reaction is still the same.

And that reaction is internally screaming and going "hey what the FUCK?? WHY DOES XIN MO HAVE A HUMAN FORM??? WHAT IS THIS??? SYSTEM??? EXPLAIN???"

meanwhile from his place on the sword hilt xin mo is squinting at Shang Qinghua in bewilderment and going "aren't you supposed to be dead" but doesn't pay too much mind to it because its not like its going to change anything.

...up until he catches shang qinghua going "WTF" silently from his little corner while all eyes are off him. One moment SQH is standing beside his king, and the next he's been tackled to the ground by one wild-eyed, human-shaped Xin Mo.

everyone, including SQH, thinks Xin Mo is going to kill him. It is a surprise to everyone when he does not, and instead dissolves into deranged, uncontrollable laughter after spitting out some phrase in some ancient tongue and watching SQH's eyes grow wide in recognition.

[silently-standingstill]

this is outrageous i cant stop drawing them

[kiwisandpearls]

imagine wearing your taller f/o’s clothes. They’re a little big on you but you love wearing them, it brings you a lot comfort.

[junkanimate]

Another one inspired by this post

[bed-of-ashes]

sooo I made a whole post about SL cletho and I've just watched all of Cleo’s LL and I'm having Thoughts so you're all gonna suffer for it

They've got this "you're good with me and I'm good with you" thing going on. Every season as I can recall they're never actively hostile toward each other beyond teasing jokes. They default to allying with each other when their main alliances fall apart, and they both just sorta know they won't be hurt by the other. They never discuss this on camera, but it's always true. Cleos always welcome in the white castle and they go there just to chat with Etho sometimes, she didn't want to let him get boogey'd by Pearl, he helped them on red life.

"I know you enjoy that kinda thing" "what, I enjoy rudeness?" "Don't you?" "I mean, don't *you?*"

Also just him betting on their life is so funny 💀

They are The last nonred alliance in the server, despite not being allies the entire season

He tells them AND other people that he's scared of her. Like?? Etho the minecraft man himself genuinely does not want to get on their bad side, to the extent he makes deals with her that are just "here I'll give you potions if you don't go after me for just this episode"

Etho’s panicked "BACK AWAY EVERYBODY IM DANGEROUS- oh, Cleo. Cleo, come with me." Man calms down IMMEDIATELY realizing it's them.

When they're ghosts, Cleo goes "oh Etho! I didn't see you die!" and he says "I got killed Cleo, I didn't survive :(" stuck out to me for some reason

He is the only one she takes compliments from. They don't even accept compliments from Scott or Pearl, but Etho keeps going "ooh that was good Cleo!" and "nice job with that one Cleo!"

bouncing off that he goes so far out of his way to make Cleo feel like a useful member of the team I'm. crying

"I thought I ran into lava but it was Cleo’s hair" I laughed so hard

Theyre just such good friends, like. In general they're very similar people in that they click really easily, they tend to gravitate toward each other in these Life series because they just generally trust each other. they have such a good foundation that you can put them in any situation and they'll still be rock solid. Cleo & Etho, man.

[normystical]

ATTENTION ALL ALASTOR SHIPPERS: 

uniromantic 

THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME. PROCEED

[lighthouseshepard]

writing idea - john gets considerably injured and doesn't tell arthur cause he thinks arthur would judge him cause "arthurs had so much worse happen and he just got back up" and arthurs like "dude you've had a human body for like two weeks i would expect you to not be used to pain" and its like a stereotypical hiding injury thing you know

HI HI thanks for this!! again i tried to keep it under 1k but. it ended up... 4.3k.....

heres a mostly unedited first draft i might play around with more later!! (: not so much a considerable injury but this is where my brain went anyways!

As John takes the stairs up to their small apartment building, Arthur in tow with one arm wrapped loosely around his just behind him, he stumbles.

It’s a quick, clean slip of his left ankle, rolling outward at an unnatural angle just as he reaches the last step. The movement itself would have been almost unnoticeable if not for the sharp stab of pain which accompanied it, a searing pressure radiating outwards in undulating bursts. He hisses under his breath, hurriedly letting Arthur go so as not to accidentally drag him down too, and tries to casually play off the lurch.

“Sorry,” he says quickly, righting himself. Immediately he bangs it against the cement edge, eliciting another silent wince he’s immensely grateful Arthur isn’t privy to. “Lost my footing, I guess.”

Arthur hums, instinctively reaching out for John’s guidance and huffing when none was received. Cautiously he takes the remaining steps, coming to stand just beside John at the top before the door.

“It’s alright, John,” he replies, head tilted in his direction. “Thanks for not pulling me down with you.”

His smile begins to fade after a moment of silence in which John stares dizzily at his own feet, struggling to control his breathing. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” comes the hasty retort. “I just… hit it on the stone, I think.”

His brow furrows. “Hit what?”

“My ankle,” John growls, blinking away spots of light dancing across his vision. In the dying sunlight they blended in amongst the cloudless sky, shimmering specks deceptively working to trip him up again as they wavered in front of him. As soon as the words leave his lips he regrets them. 

“I mean,” he clarifies, “I barely knocked it. Nothing to worry over.”

“Oh.” Arthur frowns, searching for John’s hand in the middle distance between them. “Do you want me to take a - well, not a look, but perhaps we could patch it up? Is it bleeding?”

“No.” John pushes slightly past him, fidgeting for keys in his pocket. Arthur’s arm is left hanging at his side, fingers lightly clenched. “I said it’s fine, Arthur. Can we drop it?”

“Okay,” Arthur mutters exasperatedly under his breath, following him hesitantly inside once the door is unlocked. “Whatever you say.”

John all but limps his way into the front hall. If the shuffle makes a noticeable sound against the faded rug he attempts to ignore it, desperately gritting his teeth. With each shift of his leg the throbbing increased, sending burning jolts of agony up through his foot. Beads of cool sweat were breaking out on his temples. Irritably he wipes them away, squinting into the living room through the haze of pain clouding the forefront of his mind.

“Stupid fucking ankle,” he mumbles.

 “What was that?” Arthur calls from behind him. John struggles to turn, one flattened palm braced against the wall. He watches as Arthur unwinds the scarf from around his neck, smoothly kicking off his shoes into the corner. Shoes that he, too, needed to probably remove if bending down didn’t seem like a far impossibility.

But he doesn’t answer. Instead he slowly twists back around, hobbling towards the promise of relief found in the couch awaiting him.

“John? Did you hear me?”

His eyes shut tightly as soon as he sinks into the cushions. The pain refuses to dull despite the lack of pressure once he sits, if anything only growing stronger when he attempts to prop it up on the coffee table, as though gravity were relentlessly trying to tug it down again for his own good. He groans, the noise pulled unbidden from his throat, and hastily covers it up with an aimless cough he feels as a weak imitation of one in his chest.

“John,” he hears a second time. Arthur’s voice is closer now, somewhere directly to his left. Although he turns his head in acknowledgement, his eyelids remain closed, brow furrowed. 

“What? I heard you.”

He could practically sense the crossed arms. 

“What’s going on?” Arthur asks, his tone firm. “Why are you sitting like someone threw you there and you don’t know how to get up?”

“How do you know that?"

"Lucky guess."

"Nothing’s going on. I’m… comfortable.”

“Really? You don’t sound like it.”

“I said it’s nothing,” John snaps. The wince which pulls his lips taut lessens any blow he’d intended within his retort. “I’m just tired, that’s all.”

“I thought you hit your ankle on the steps?” Arthur says thinly, stepping closer. “So which is it?”

It never ceased to irritate and amaze, Arthur’s ability to weasel the truth out of him. Back when he’d just been a voice behind those deep amber eyes it was magnificently easier to conceal the truth, hiding himself in falsehoods he had ample time to conjure up while Arthur slept or moved about the world amongst others, unable to talk to him. He hadn’t been bound to a body which would betray him at the slightest inconvenience: all his emotions, he felt, were visible on his face and in the lines of his silhouette all the time. Being given away by the twitch of his mouth or the hesitancy in one look of his eyes was maddening. He couldn’t control it, hadn’t yet mastered the subtle art of physical deception. He had no reason to, he knew, but it continued to bother him regardless, being so visibly and openly seen by everyone around him. Every thought was laid bare, ripe for someone else to pluck.

These visual cues didn’t apply to Arthur, of course, but it didn’t need to. It didn’t matter when it came to him. He could sense each ripple of truths withheld in John’s voice as though they were tangible vibrations running beneath his fingers, plucking incorrect notes from a string of music. Whether this was a skill gained through time or familiarity, he didn’t want to ask. Perhaps he’d just had plenty of practice, before John came along.

“It’s… both,” he says lamely, eyes flicking open to watch as Arthur shifts from one foot to the other impatiently. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” he exclaims, a frustrated scoff behind his words. “I’m not even looking at you. I can’t.”

“Like you know exactly what I’m thinking,” John presses, willing himself not to wither beneath that sightless gaze. Like a parent, he thinks to himself, who’s just caught someone doing something they shouldn’t.

“Maybe I do.” Arthur comes to stand beside him, bumping up against the edge of the couch. “Maybe I’m just trying to help, you donkey. What is going on with you?”

“It’s-” he begins to say, but he’s quickly cut off.

“Don’t tell me it’s nothing. You’ve been like this all day: grumpy, antagonistic, walking… very oddly. Did you not sleep very well?”

“I slept fine,” John mutters. “How could you possibly know I was walking strangely?”

“Ah, so he admits something!” Arthur says with a scoff. “I can feel it along your arm when I’m holding onto you. The movement of your gait is different from anyone else - Noel, Oscar, even Marie. Your footsteps all sound unique, too. If I didn’t know any better I’d say you were trying not to limp.”

The silence stretches. John breathes in shallowly, as if the quieter he became, the more likely he was to become invisible.

“John?” Arthur asks uncertainly. “Have you been limping all day?”

“I… not all day, Arthur.”

He sighs, a ragged exhale. “Jesus fucking Christ, John, I knew it!” he says, throwing his arms up. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

John tries to prop himself farther up on the couch cushions, sliding the dead weight of his leg along the coffee table. “Because it’s not important, Arthur,” he protests angrily. “It’s just a - a sprained ankle or something! Noel says it happens to people all the time.”

“You told Noel?” Arthur’s demeanor shifts, and John can’t quite place where it was going. “Is that who you hung up on over the telephone yesterday, when I walked in?”

“I - yes, I told Noel,” John says, glancing away. “I didn’t want to… I mean, I wouldn’t-”

“But you didn’t tell me,” Arthur states, frowning. “I don’t understand, John.”

“Because I didn’t want to bother you with it, alright? Jesus fuck, Arthur! It’s just a little bit of pain!”

His shout rebounds around the living room, echoing along corners and twisting through the dark. Once it dissipates, all that nervous, fearful energy fading into thin air, John realizes the sun had already set. In the shadow of the singular lamp they’d kept on after they left earlier that day, Arthur looked smaller than John had ever seen him previously - socked feet, soft button down shirt untucked, shoulders slumped while his head was turned away from John’s direction.

Hurt, he understood after a solid minute of nothing spoken. There was hurt on his face.

“Arthur,” he says hastily, backtracking. “I didn’t…”

But Arthur was already interrupting.

“Is it bleeding?” he asks flatly. “From where you knocked it as we were coming in.”

John’s eyes widen. “What? No, no, like I said it’s probably just a sprain.”

“Don’t get up.”

“I wasn’t. Where are you going?”

He watches helplessly as Arthur begins to trod across the living room to the hallway just behind them. His left hand searches for the wall, brushing against it occasionally as he vanishes around the corner, the thin lines of his silhouette blending into the darkness. John waits with gritted teeth, listening to the faint but unmistakable sound of a drawer opening in the bathroom, before he’s rejoined in the living room.

“Give me your foot,” Arthur instructs. He comes around on the opposite side, taking a careful seat on the table in front of the couch. “Which one is it?”

“It’s… it’s this one,” John stutters, glancing at the little white box he’d placed between them. “What is that?”

“First aid kit. Came with the apartment, I think. Never thought I’d have to use it.”

There’s a bite to his tone which causes something in John to cower. Panicking at the unfamiliarity of the uneasy feeling, he thinks immediately to fight back against it. Yet no manipulation tactic in his mental catalog nor no insult he’d ever learned from Arthur was readily able to be wielded. He stares, unsettlingly dispirited, at Arthur’s hands while he begins to search through random items in the kit.

“Arthur.”

“Put your leg on my knees, John,” he says. He’s facing away, still wholly focused on determining which items were what through sensation alone. The subtle surprise when John does as asked without further complaint doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Oh. Thank you. Now tell me where it hurts.”

Stretching over as much as he was able, halfway balanced on the edge of the cushions and held now partially up by Arthur’s own legs, John indicates with one pointed finger. 

“Here,” he says, lightly touching the far side of his ankle. “Move your hand just - just there.”

As slender fingers come into contact with the swollen skin, John hisses. Arthur moves as if to draw back, but after some hesitation makes a second attempt with a touch so gentle John hardly senses the wandering examination at all.

“It’s swollen, John,” Arthur says, staring into the middle distance as he feels along the reddened skin. “You’re going to have to take your shoes off.”

“I know it’s swollen,” he grinds out, “I can feel it.”

Immediately he regrets the display of aggravation. Eyes flick worriedly to Arthur’s face, searching for any kind of reaction there, but he may as well have been surveying a blank canvas.

“I think we should try ice,” is all he says. “Before attempting any kind of compression. Wait here.”

“It’s not like I could go anywhere,” he mumbles beneath his breath as Arthur leaves him for the second time. “I’m not running a fucking race on this thing.”

When he returns, grasping a cloth wrapped bundle, John studies him curiously. Nervous muscles stiffen in preparation for another round of sharp throbbing; but as Arthur sits again opposite him, the grip which guides his foot is somehow even kinder than before, cradling the injury into position across his knees.

“Let me take your shoe off,” he murmurs. “I’ll be quick.”

"I’d rather you didn’t,” John protests. “Can’t we just - God, Arthur!”

No apology is forthcoming. It’s palpable in the tension of Arthur’s fingers regardless, the unhappy twist of his mouth. He fumbles the laces undone with one hand and slips the shoe off, dropping it unceremoniously to the floor. One black sock follows. The hem of his trousers is rolled back up to his calf, delicately smoothed along by a soothing touch.

The introduction of cold is almost worse than the prodding he’d just undergone. John jolts as the cloth touches his skin. A pang similar to shattered glass ricochets across his foot and he has to bite his tongue to keep from shouting. Arthur holds him steady, other hand firm on his calf, bent over the injury.

“Easy,” he says quietly. “It’ll hurt for a minute or two, but this will help to numb some of the pain and swelling.”

“Numb?” John gasps, “or worsen? What even is that?”

Arthur readjusts the bundle. “Peas wrapped in a washcloth. You should know, you bought all the groceries last.”

“Why the hell would I buy peas? They’re repulsive.”

“Well I didn’t, and we don’t have ice in right now, so it’ll have to do.”

True to his word, after some uncomfortable minutes of silence, the throbbing begins to lessen. John sinks back in relief, a sweet dullness overtaking pain receptors which had not let up on their constant alarm for what seemed like eons now. Thoughts broken up by the unrelenting ache finally begin to clear. From behind the haze he sighs, tilting his chin up towards the ceiling. Long hair spills over the back of the cushions.

“That’s… much better,” he says weakly. “Thank you.”

“I imagine it is, yes… John?”

“Yes?” he answers, anticipation sitting nauseatingly in his gut. “What?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you hurt your ankle?”

In the low light he steals a glance over. His vision was better than most - better than Arthur’s, when he had been able to see out of his eyes. Things came across with astonishing clarity, even when there was little illumination to help refine the world around him. John narrows in on the long pink scar across Arthur’s throat, an indelicate reminder of the Dreamlands, the incomprehensible weight of that last stand reduced to one single, jagged divide. His torn ear hid neatly enough behind reddish gold curls, but the mark across his face where those dangerous sands had scraped away the skin there was not so easy to miss. 

In the break between their conversation he rolled up his shirtsleeves and there too John could spot scars, dots and lines of invisible constellations, healed but not forgotten. The wooden pinky finger taps his ankle as he shifts the peas. John’s pinky, he thought. Or, it had been.

Everything about Arthur was a testament to some horror he’d survived, that they had survived together. And John, in this new body, had nothing to show for it.

“John?” Arthur asks. “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay,” he argues. “It hurts.”

“Is this helping at all? We can always wrap it afterward. Hopefully it won’t need to be seen by anyone.”

There’s concern in his voice, so genuine despite the way he’d just been treated that something snaps just around John’s lungs, a sharp, bitter pull. Whatever he had been about to say dies under his tongue. Nothing comes out, although his lips part for several seconds.

“John?”

His restraint falters.

“I’m sorry, Arthur.” 

“...What?”

“I’m sorry,” he says, yanking the words agonizingly out. “It wasn’t my intention to lie to you from the start, I - I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“Tell me what, John?” comes the baffled prompt. “That you injured yourself?”

“Yes,” he emphasizes. “I don’t even remember how I did it, I guess I just… stepped incorrectly? Tripped over something? I don’t fucking know, Arthur, and it’s so goddamned stupid. I can’t even control my own two legs! How am I going to keep existing in this body if I break under the slightest influence? It’s not like you get hung up over a fucking sprain, or don’t bounce back from a coma, or a car crash, or-”

“Hang on, John, wait,” Arthur interrupts. “Is that what this is about? Me?”

“Yes! No. I don’t know, Arthur. A bit of both?”

Frustration boils beneath his skin, hot and shimmering. The corners of his eyes prickle but he doesn’t move up to rub at the sting coiled there, waiting for release.

“You don’t let anything stop you,” he says, the living room blurring. “Gunshot wounds to the chest, electrocution, multiple stabbings, so many falls I’ve lost count-”

“Technically the gunshot would have killed me if not for the wraith, " Arthur offers feebly, but John doesn’t seem to hear him.

“Not even getting gutted through inside those mines in Addison! Not even my shitty job of sewing you back up.” He swallows, breathing heavily. “You’re practically fucking invincible, and meanwhile I take one wrong step and I’m incapacitated for days, can’t even take a stroll with you down the street, can’t carry you up to bed when you’ve fallen asleep on the sofa.”

Tears were flowing now, trickling in trails of shame down flushed cheeks. “It’s ridiculous. I witnessed you wade through literal nightmares, Arthur, and you did it without losing yourself. You still managed to laugh where you could, to have hope, and-”

The thought was running swiftly away from him. He twists sideways as far as he could, facing the other side of the room, held in place only by his ankle. Again wishing to disappear, again wanting to crawl back inside Arthur’s head where it was safe.

It takes Arthur far too long to respond. For some time nothing moves in their midst, save for the rapid rise and fall of John’s chest, the hitched cadence of his breathing. Eventually Arthur shifts. John listens to his clothes rustle and wonders when the floor would swallow him whole.

“John?” Arthur says softly. 

His jaw clenches. “What.”

“Look at me.”

Sniffing, he turns. The hand not keeping the frozen vegetables on his foot coaxes his chin up and over. Arthur’s touch doesn’t linger, giving him ample space. John wishes it would. Frustration continues to slip across his face, lines of damp salt.

“I didn’t react that way to all of those things because I wanted to, John,” he says gently. “I did so because I had to. I was surviving, trying to keep us both alive. What would have happened if I gave in and just laid down and let it all overtake me?”

John mulls it over. 

“Nothing,” he concludes, wiping angrily at one eye. “We wouldn’t have gotten very far.”

“Exactly. You think I didn’t struggle? You saw me, John, you saw through me!”

He laughs, the first bright sound to filter through the room since they’d come home, tinged by bittersweet memory. “You were there for every second of it. Remember me waking up from the coma? I could hardly drag myself out of the bed, much less walk. And everything else that’s happened to my body, well…”

Briefly he touches his stomach. “Sometimes I wonder how there’s any blood left in me. I feel patchy, like I’m just made up of gaps a person could see straight through. It all still aches, John. I’m aware of it all, every stupid mistake or scar or… whatever else Addison and the Dreamlands, all those monsters did to me; but if I refused to accept in some capacity, where would that get me? Fuck, I’d never leave the bed, and I’d have every right to do so. Why do you think I still sleep in some mornings?”

“You’re saying you’re hiding things too, then,” John says slowly. A flutter of remorse crosses Arthur’s smile, curving it downward. 

“Yes,” he nods. “A little bit. I didn’t want you to worry, John.”

“This is the same thing, then!” John exclaims. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry!”

“It’s not the same, but… it is similar, sure. I’m still figuring this all out, what to do now afterwards. I know we both are. I suppose we’re each guilty of something here, aren’t we?”

A mutter answers him, unintelligible. Arthur sighs, rubbing John’s leg placatingly. 

“I have experience with this kind of thing, John. You, frankly, do not. We don’t know how this body is going to react to the smallest of injuries, so when you’ve hurt yourself, or tripped, whatever, you need to tell me. I can’t help you if you’re so determined to be… stoically adamant that you can handle it.”

He winces. “No, poor choice of words. You’re more than capable of handling anything. The point here is that you don’t need to do it alone. I didn’t do it all by myself, either, even if it was our body at the time. I still had you there with me.”

“Okay,” John mumbles. The tears had stopped, drying in faintly gleaming tracks. Unable to help himself, he reaches over and directs Arthur’s free hand to his face. Arthur catches on quickly enough. One gentle thumb brushes the dampness away beneath both eyes.

“You said I didn’t lose myself in the midst of all that,” Arthur adds contemplatively, “but I did. You brought me back over and over. I won’t let you drown here, either. I guess we need to be more honest with each other in general.”

He flashes a small smile. “Works in progress, hmm?”

“Sure,” John says, wavering under that look. It was impossible not to. “Okay, Arthur. Thank you. I guess I…”

“Hmm?”

“I know it wasn’t easy, but you made it seem so effortless. I guess I wanted to be able to react the same way.”

“Nothing about being human is effortless, John. If it were easy, you’d be something else altogether.”

Neither are sure what else to say, so they choose to say nothing at all. Arthur removes the cloth, saturated with condensation. The swelling had gone down somewhat. Beneath the inflamed skin a dull ache persisted, but it was milder, simpler to deal with. Darkness shot through with distant city lights and a sliver of the rising moon sits just behind the glass window panes of the front room, enticing and comforting with its allure of endless promise. In the lamp’s glow, John watches Arthur start to slide off the table, cradling his foot until he’s able to place it down atop its surface.

“I think you should sit here for a while,” he advises, frowning. “I can help you down the hall later. If you want, that is. It’s doubtful you’ll be able to keep much weight on this over the next few days if you want it to heal properly.”

“Great,” John mutters. “Wait, where are you going?”

“To change out of these clothes? Why?”

“Can’t you,” he stutters, “stay here? I can’t reach the washcloth. What if I need it again?”

“I can place it next to you,” Arthur says wryly, catching on. “It’s only a foot away.”

“What if I have to get up?”

“You shouldn’t be moving at all.”

“Arthur, please.”

“Christ, alright,” he agrees, fondly. “Just for a while. I’m exhausted too, you know.”

He slips next to him. They fit together seamlessly after some adjusting, John avoiding old wounds, Arthur working around this new one. It’s a recently acquired habit, this circling of one another, quietly curling up until they were consoled enough in their own selves and each other. John’s head ends up across Arthur’s thighs, his foot propped up on the armrest of the other end. He was so tall his leg stretched past the edge of the sofa, halfway dangling in mid air.

“John, darling?” Arthur asks absently, untangling dark curls spread out across his lap.

“Yes?”

“You’ve… carried me up to bed before?”

John blinks. “Of course. I couldn’t leave you on the sofa like that, shivering.”

“I wasn’t shivering,” he retorts with mock affront. “Was I?”

“It was kind of pitiful. To give you credit, you had kicked off the blanket I put over you earlier.”

“I was wondering where that had come from,” Arthur mumbles. “Thanks, John.”

“You’re welcome. You sleep like you’re the prize boxer in a dream ring.”

“What does that even mean?”

“You kick,” John says meaningfully, eyes already beginning to close. “Hard.”

“Oh. Sorry. At least I don’t hog the blankets all the time,” Arthur retorts sheepishly.

“I do not hog anything. I’m much taller than you now! I need more of it.”

“Not all of it.”

“Buy a second blanket, then, if you’re so concerned.”

They bicker until John falls asleep. Sentences drop to single word responses, and soon enough he’s out, trying to get one last quip through the heavy pull of slumber. Arthur sighs as he feels his breathing even out, one palm flat on his chest. He hadn’t even gotten a chance to change clothes. 

“John?” he whispers. “John?”

He doesn’t answer. Arthur lets loose another weary exhale. There was no way he could move now.

“I think you did this on purpose,” he says softly, yawning. “You just want me to play with your hair, don’t you? Unfortunately for you, I’m probably going to fall asleep right here beneath you.”

He brushes stray strands off John’s forehead. It continued to puzzle him how someone who had once spent thousands of years inflicting agony on others now flinched beneath the prospect of bothering those closest to him with pain of his own.

Arthur drifts into unconsciousness soon after the thought dissipates like smoke, head dipping to rest sideways on one shoulder. John, clinging to the last dredges of wakefulness, peers up through heavy lidded eyes just in time to catch a glimpse of Arthur’s silent goodnight, John, on his lips. 

[kimetsu-chan]

They’re off the clock :)

Taglist 🏷️: @larz-barz @aceofstars0 @mooechi @saffron0v0 @zenitsustherapist

@gyutarowritings @rion-isnot-an-ai @midnightmah07 @local-giyuu-simp @pinkwisteria

@tinyperson00

[g1rlr0b1n]

"Prepare for trouble" "And make it double"

More commissioned work from the absurdly talented @ookamihanta!!! (because tbh, I'm kind of obsessed with them) 🤭

I know you're probably like "what? why? this makes no sense!" and that's completely valid but hear me out, this came to me in a dream. Like, wouldn't it be cool if Flatline and Respawn started working together? It's just too perfect because their names flow and sound like a really cool anti-hero or villain duo, their names together imply a never ending cycle of death and rebirth and that's both tragic and beautiful. I also feel like they would mesh well, she's in charge and he's all too willing to follow her lead, could be because he's in love with her or could be because he's desperate for a friend and a sense of belonging (this doesn't have to be a romantic ship, but it also could be).

Like, can you imagine if like things don't work out between her and Damian (🤞) and now one of the Super Son's enemies are his ex and his half-brother who hates his guts. Like imagine ALL THE ANGST! Damian might still be struggling with the loss of his first "girlfriend" (kind of one-sided tbh, he's a cringe little loser /affectionate) and NOW she's hanging out with his brother?! The brother that hates him!!! (also completely one-sided, cringe runs in the family) Anyway, they roll up on the Super Sons and Damian is completely off his game and Jon has to really step into the protector role, something that Damian doesn't usually let him do, but he's so caught off guard he can't even think clearly. Jon is just like, "what is happening right now? I guess I'm in charge? who are these people and why do they make bestie sad?!"

Anyway, go check out their page to see more art!!! Also, their commissions are still open so go check that out as well!!! I definitely recommend them!!! 😘💋

[hohohomelander]

so sirius and james trusted each other more than anyone else, was described as inseparable and 'never saw one without the other'. they were the closest in their little group, they had the mirrors to stay in contact at any time, just for themselves. sirius ran away to james. godfather, best man, loved james more than anyone else and was dedicated to him for the rest of his life. and you fools prefer to ship him with ..*checks notes* that other guy?? the one he suspected was a spy?? the one that thought the same of him and let him rot in prison?? the fuck?

explain pls, cause i dont get it

[duhmailmale]

Pay no attention to how the gun disappears, it was totally intentional

I tried to add in some edits of Da'an carrying other characters. This series is meant to be a what if the characters could carry each other. So hypothetically each of the contestants would have the ability to carry each other

Feel free to uses any of these sprite edits, Just provide credit

Link to funger rips for posting the og sprites.(This made finding the needed assets so much easier)Follow them

Fear and Hunger rips

funger-rips

Thank you CassGriffon for your posting before and after of Character walks.(I was having trouble finding the turn arounds before.) Follow them!

Alternate Marcoh Walk

Replaces Marcoh's walking animation with a slightly more ~J0J0~ one.

Nexus Mods :: Fear and Hunger 2: Termina

Thank you fear and hunger wiki, without you I'd have to learn to access game files

[teddy-bear-d]

Okay maybe the Coral Isles brainrot has got to me already…