#and I know a lot of these are memories that my source memories would normally mask because the emotions are the same

[scramjettracy]

Sometimes the similarity between Gordon and Virgil was striking. For all that they seemed to be total opposites, once in a while Scott would do a full double take as it seemed Virgil’s voice would emerge from Gordon just in a more tenor range. But it wasn’t just Virgil-wisdom, was it? It was Virgil-wisdom enhanced by sunshine and tempered with the experience of things Scott wished Gordon had never had to know. And all that sharpened by the fact that, of all their family, Gordon could probably come closest to understanding Scott. Because the two of them WERE similar in more ways than Scott liked to admit. Gordon would get it if he knew. If Scott let him.

But how could he? With so few other points of stability in his life, Gordon needed Scott as a big brother.

But maybe big brothering could involve sharing a little, just enough so that Gordon could feel comfortable to share back if he needed to.

He shuffled a little closer and nudged Gordon’s shoulder gently with his own.

“Heh yeah well… she was always good company. And I like to keep her abreast of all the melodrama… all the Situations y’know?… just so happens historically a lot of them have involved You.” He rested the side of his head against Gordon’s for a moment, eyeing the bandaged arm. “She’s never surprised, by that, by the way. Twas ever thus. After Virg and Johnny I think she’d come to the conclusion I was just an anomaly and kids were mostly easier to keep alive than they thought. Then you came along and… between stopping me leaping off high places and you yeeting yourself into every available water source… she said we kept her fit at least.”

An obviously doomed military attack on the giant lizard was playing out silently on the screen. Gordon was watching, but not really watching. His emphatically casual posture and calm expression couldn’t fool the man who’d played that game for half his life.

“I miss her. I know it’s been so long, maybe I shouldn’t need her anymore. But… it never goes away and I just worry I’ve spent so long trying to imagine what she’d say that my memory of her is more me than her. What if after all this time I’ve led you guys down the wrong path? What if she’d have done differently to Dad? What if she woulda talked him out of all this? Persuaded him that y’all deserved to have normal lives? To be safe? I ask her about it and I can’t… I can’t hear her response anymore.”

If the Tracy penthouse was quiet (too quiet?) when you left for what was an entirely too full day of meetings, it may have been a different case on your return.

The enormous holoscreen was lit, playing a rather antiquated movie featuring a rampaging dinosaur currently chewing an office block to the screams of innocent humans.

A pair of canvas shoes kicked off just over the doorway, a scuffed hold-all abandoned alongside them. A box of rather tempting mini apple pies on the edge of the kitchen worktop, a set of officewear hung over the back of a chair-

And one head of blonde hair, sprawled out on the sofa with his feet up, currently engrossed in the movie.

The screaming noises might have concerned Scott, had their authenticity not been thrown into some doubt by unconvincing roaring sound effects effects and frenzied orchestral music turned up so high the floor was vibrating.

Rolling his eyes he sidestepped the deck shoes trip hazard, and strode into the kitchen to deposit the bags of food on the work surface. Four bags, to be precise because apparently the only way to get “a bit of everything” was the Special Occasion Family Buffet deal for 8.

Which came with a vegan celebration cake, a generic banner reading “IT’S A CELEBRATION!!!”. And three helium balloons.

He’d given the balloons to a young family he’d passed on the way back to the apartment. The banner he guessed he’d stash for some generic celebratory occasion.

He rubbed at the grooves the hessian-handled paper bags had left in his palms. Their evening meal weighed approximately the same as a couple of human toddlers.

Some might deem it excessive… alright it absolutely was an excessive amount of food for just the two of them but it had saved him having to make an actual Decision about what to order.

He was all decisioned-out for the day.

He snuck a tiny apple pie out of the box to fuel the short walk across the room towards where his baby brother was still engrossed in wobbly CGI lizard-violence.

Godzilla swiped at a helicopter and reminded Scott that his initial idea of surprising the oblivious squid by leaping over the back of the couch and crushing him mightn’t be the best plan. He crouched instead at the side, just behind Gordon’s head and as the onscreen monster swung its head menacingly towards the camera Scott threw his arms around Gordon’s neck and whispered ‘BOO!’

He should have expected the bowl of popcorn to the face…

[thethingything]

apparently now we get to have flashbacks to the weird period between mid 2015 and late 2016 where our mental health took some absolutely wild hits, plus the odd flashback to mid 2017, so I guess it's time to deal with this stuff again

[gg-collective]

I don't particularly mean this in a "comparing my experiences to headmates'" way, but I have noticed how odd I feel next to our other introjects. The grand majority, if not all, of them are from hyperfixations/special interests-- things which we collectively have a lot of knowledge on. While I am from a series that we read the first book of, skimmed the second, and don't have any access to the third. I don't even particularly consider myself a fictive, despite that being, in all technicality, what I am. To top it off, I am not sure that my source would even be considered "popular" media-- at least, not with systems, as far as I have noticed. It is all a bit confusing, especially as someone who misses people I hardly remember. To feel connected to a life (or, lives), source trauma, and people I only have vague memories of is so... odd-feeling

[5starssz]

All For Me

Paige Bueckers x fem reader

Your two year relationship with collegiante basketball star Paige Bueckers ends suddenly in both of your senior year. You couldn’t seem to detach yourself from her even though Paige had seemed to move on. Once you graduated and Paige was doing her 5th year, Paige finally realizes what she lost.

All For Me- Mariah The Scientist

!Warnings! Angst

Purple= Paige

Pink=You

All For Me-Part one

One Year Ago

“Why are you doing this?”, my voice was low, heavy with all the emotions I was forced to bear in that moment. No one expects the person they thought was THE ONE to break up with them on a random Wednesday in December at 2am. Paige sat across from me as we both sat on the floor of a tight hallway in her residence hall. It was an empty hallway with no dorm rooms where we would meet. Paige’s eyes shifted down to the ground, avoiding eye contact with me. “I just can’t do this anymore”, she bluntly stated. “You’re lying Paige, i’ve done nothing but be the person you needed. I grew for you Paige, we grew together. What can’t you not do?!”, you emotionally explained. My voice being unstable due to the puddles forming in my eyes. Paige lifted her head, eyes dialed on mine. For once I couldn’t read her. There was nothing behind those blue eyes that were once filled with love. “I’m sorry”, was the last thing she said to me as she got up and walked off. ‘I’m sorry’ the last words I thought would be exchanged between us. I sat in the same spot until 4am hoping she would run back to me and say she didn’t mean anything she said, i really hoped. She didn’t.

Current

I woke up in my small disheveled apartment to my phones alarm sounding in my ear. Ive lived in this apartment since my Junior year of college. I had a showing for a house that’s up for Sale about thirty minutes from me. I did my normal morning work routine: Brush my teeth, skin care, makeup, hair, and fish for an outfit. Luckily last night I felt like being organized and picked my work outfit the night before, a grey pant suit and some black heels. I hated my work attire but I gotta do what I gotta do. I headed out a few minutes early so I could grab a coffee before I had to drive to the house. My normal coffee shop was closed so unfortunately I have to venture onto campus for coffee. ‘I’m praying i don’t see anyone’, I say to myself knowing exactly who that ‘anyone’ was. The drive isn’t far, which was the goal when I first rented the apartment. I parked in a parking lot next to the shop, walking in and immediately being hit with the scent of coffee and pastries. Due to my amazing luck, the line was extremely long. “fuck it, a girl needs her coffee”, i said quietly walking into the line. As I stood in the line I heard a large group of people laugh, it didn’t catch my attention that much to pull my eyes off my phone. The laughing continued until the sound of a breaking plate made the whole establishment fall into silence. My head quickly turned to the source of the sound. “oh my god”, I said out loud when my brain finally processed what I’ve been looking at. A group of girls in dark blue sweat suits and one standing up with her hands rested on her head. Her eyes shifted around the small shop realizing all eyes were on her. Her eyes were met with mine and my heart dropped. Her eyes grew and her hands dropped to her side. Everyone else around us had gone back to whatever they were doing before and the rest of the girls started laughing at Paige and helping clean up. Not Paige though, she remained in the same spot maintaining eye contact with me. ‘I can’t do this today’, I thought to myself breaking the eye contact with her. I can’t really tell but it looked like she was….sorry? or sad? I can’t read her like I once could. Her eye contact was so captivating, it brought back a flood of memories in that short amount of time. I was left in deep thought in the middle of this long ass line. “Hey”, the voice broke me out of my deep dive into memories. My eyes moved to the right of me to be face to face with her. “Hi Paige”, I said to her with a small smile. “You look great…..and i’ve been thinking lately and I’m sorry about how I ended things with us-“. I cut her off. “I’m sorry Paige but I don’t think this is the time or place for this conversation. I have a house showing to get to”. “I understand. I shouldn’t have dumped all this shit on you right here, right now. We can talk later?”. I grabbed my coffee off the counter and turned back to Paige. “yeah, I still have your number. See you later Paige”. I squeezed my way through the crowd of busy people and walked out the double glass doors quickly until I felt something on my arm. I stopped to turn around and saw Paige grasping onto my forearm. “Paige I-“. “I know you have to go but just know I never closed the door on us……I’m stupid as shit and thought there was someone else for me. I fucked up and i’m so sorry”. Her voice sounded like she was hurt, like she really regrets it. But she left me for someone else?! “We’ll talk Paige”. I said walking away and out of her grasp. I still can’t hate her though, I cant bring myself to hate her. My heart still beats faster for her like it did when we were deep in love, I don’t get it. The only thing I was left thinking was ‘what did that girl have on me?’

————————————————————————

to be continued….

[deltoradecay]

The Problems With Decay.

Sometimes, shit from fictionbased identities (or other alterhuman identities involving memories/noemata!) sticks. Memories, noemata, trauma responses, other things ingrained into your being--it's hard to break old habits. Especially if they're rooted in avoiding disastrous outcomes. It might be easier for some to move on, harder for others. There's plenty of people who aren't affected much by things that happened in their memories--other times it really sticks hard, and finding ways to navigate those things can be tricky. Sometimes, because of that, in your current body/brain/life or whatever framework you use, you have to find ways to make accomodations for yourself.

I'm a fableing (a sort of grey-area between fictive and fictionkin in a median system) of Tomura Shigaraki, from My Hero Academia. For people who don't know, in source, Shigaraki has a power that enables him to basically turn anything he touches with all 5 fingers of his hands to dust. Which, yeah, great for getting rid of problems (and people)! Not too great when it's not a thing you can simply turn off. Any thing I would touch, at all, would dissolve out of my control. If I touched it--even accidentally--with all 5 fingers of one hand? Gone. Can't do shit about that once it happens, there's no way to stop it. Many an accident happened.

Ignoring any specific events that happened in source canon... Even back then, there were absolutely things I didn't want to destroy. I had to be careful how I held things, careful how I interacted with people (if I didn't intend to kill them), careful of every movement I made. Hold a burger wrong? Well, lunch is gone now. Accidentally stumble a little and my hand reflexively touches someone to steady myself? They're gone too.

Now that I'm here in this body, I obviously don't need to worry about destroying things accidentally. I don't have my power in the front, my hands are completely safe to touch no matter how you do it. I can't decay things anymore. But that hasn't stopped me from acting like I still have it, and behaving accordingly regardless of that my hands can actually do now.

I'll hold my phone with a finger carefully lifted off the back of it. I'll pet our cat usually with only two or so fingers to be safe. I get worried about letting our birds onto my hands--what if they're perched just right that their feathers touch my other fingers? I'll hold food and drinks with a finger lifted off of them (which kind of looks ridiculous with holding cups because it's so obvious to other people). I'm still so meticulously careful about how I touch things, and yeah, I get really fucking anxious about it when I'm handling things I care a lot for. I know I can grab a glass without it fading away, I know I can pick up our cat without worrying that I'll end him, I know I can hold our birds, I know I can hold someone elses hand. It's something I logically know isn't an issue, it's not how it was in my memories, but living that life left a mark on my brain and it's hard to shake.

But, kind of recently, I learned something. Digital artist gloves. We've wanted some for a while, to make it easier to draw. We'd originally planned to wear them pretty often if we did get them, because we need to wear gloves a lot of the time anyway due to having circulation issues that lend our hands to getting real cold real easy. We normally wear fingerless gloves, as we need our fingertips to use our phone and type. But we thought more on it, and were thinking about how maybe artist gloves wouldn't be enough to keep our hands warm--typically they only cover two fingers, and are joined by a thin strap, overall covering less skin than regular fingerless gloves. But from that line of thinking I realised, they completely cover two fingers, and don't really touch any of the others.

Operating off of the logic my decay used, the gloves wouldn't be turned to dust because they don't cover my whole hand, and neither would anything I touch, because two fingers have a barrier over them, effectively disabling my quirk for as long as I wear them. It was the sort of middleground compromise I needed, between ignoring my anxiety and playing too hard into it by being terrified to touch things. Even if theoretically I could accidentally touch the glove with my whole hand and make it go away, in this body I can't do that, and unless I remove it, I will just keep being able to feel the glove on my hand as reassurance. A safeguard--not from anything literal anymore, but something to give me peace of mind.

I wear them all the time now, both in-system and in the front. They're just a permanent part of my outfit at this point (as you can see below in the art we made of myself), and they've helped me stop thinking about it so constantly. I don't need to worry about decaying things around me because I have protection measures against that.

While me wearing them was spawned out of exotrauma-induced anxiety, they're also really identity affirming the more I think about it. Yes, I'd like to not have to worry about decaying everything I touch--but that's just a trait of me. That's as much of a part of me as my other memories or my other experiences. They make me feel more like source-me, because I know if I thought about this solution before as an easier way to eat, drink and sleep? I absolutely would've done it. I don't see it just as wearing the gloves because I'm anxious or traumatised. I'm taking a positive out of it--I'm wearing them because I'm Tomura Shigaraki. Of course I'd need to have something like that.

So, I guess, the point--aside from me simply just sharing this--is that sometimes, you need to figure out some sort of compromise for yourself. Some way to navigate your own noemata, exomemories or exotrauma that you might have to get a little bit creative for. Is it always going to be foolproof? No. It is maybe a bit silly sometimes? Possibly! But this is something that both saves a lot of anxiety for me, and is in a roundabout sort of way, identity affirming at the same time. You can find positives in the weirdest things.

[qinchez]

━ .ᐟ₊⊹ PAIRING: myth/dragon sylus, x female mc ( mc’s name is surina ).

━ .ᐟ₊⊹ SUMMARY: tidbits of conversation have an immediate effect on sylus, making him reminiscent his earlier days with his beloved.

━ .ᐟ₊⊹ GENRE: very myth focused. heavy angst. no comfort.

━ .ᐟ₊⊹ NOTES: i started writing only recently and english isn’t my first language so take this with a grain of salt. quotes mentioned are not mine but canonically in the game.

“i made it while you were getting your marshmallows. i didn’t have a lot of time, so the final product is rough around the edges …. are you satisfied with it, my beloved?”

ruby eyes facing iridescent ones. warmth being spread along one’s face and through their hearts, the source of heat not caused from the bonfire but the blossoming feelings exchanged between them both.

“yes … i am.”

it seems that she liked the flower crown he made for her. good. it made him happy that she did, but little did she know that wasn’t the first time she was given one from him.

she had forgotten, all memories of him gone, and it hurt more than expected. he didn’t blame her per say, but having to act as if she was a stranger, as if she wasn’t the one he loves, the one he longed for after waiting for so long to meet her hurt.

glimpses and flashbacks of were all he had of their doomed past.

surina was the sole reason for his humanity. the girl who named him. sylus, the ruthless, decisive, cruel, and merciless leader of onychinus, named by his beloved. even after his death and even without her remembering anything, he still chooses to go by said name. kindly welcoming the remaining fragments of her instead of nothing at all. the feeling of her being a part of his life is something that he has always longed, sometimes even, begged for.

she had taught him to be human. having such a profound effect on sylus. she was the one who gave him a purpose and a sense of humanity, these no longer welcome fragments still remaining a part of him, accepting whatever parts of her remain. her influence on him so deep that he chose to continue living under the name she had given him. her lasting impact on him was so significant that sometimes he yearned for her to be there, even in just some small capacity.

he had always clutched onto his humanity, in his own words, mistakingly believing he was a normal person. growing up and thinking he was one and trying to bend his identity into something he is not, refusing to come to terms with the fact that he is not human anymore, but a monster instead. he was scared. not only was his appearance changing, but his entire view of himself. who is he? who has he become? the very way he saw himself was now tainted.

her love acted like a balm over his injuries. as if she’s wiping away the blood from injuries caused by his own self. the act is so tender, a stark reminder of the way she viewed him, the way he wished to be viewed. like her equal, her companionship, and her love. he would love to simply exist as the man she loves.

accepting his identity as a monster also meant the fact that he always had a soft spot for animals. dragons have long been depicted as mythical monsters with powers and a fearsome presence. they are creatures of legend that inspire fear and awe in those who hear their name, always associated with destruction and chaos, yet symbolizing creation along with destruction. sylus had always been aware of this perception, sometimes even choosing to bask in it all. after all, he is strong, fearsome, and capable of unleashing destruction. although sometimes, that perception couldn’t be more different than what he is or wanted to be. people often thought of dragons as cursed animals. ones that should be locked away and are incapable of any love and affection, not knowing that said deemed impossible human love would be the cause of this dragon’s demise. a creature that is always perceived incapable of harboring such emotions, and an animal that could never be human, falling utterly in love. a love that made him thought he could live as a human too, and one that couldn’t last long.

a dragon’s curse that consists of killing his beloved. one that the two fated lovers … two star-crossed lovers whose fates and souls are entwined, could not escape, no matter how much they tried. no matter how many tears were shed and no matter their relentless efforts, it would always be futile. doomed by the narrative, the two lovers’ unwavering fight against their fate will never suffice. fate will continuously plunge the two lovers into the abyss as was written. the blood-red greatsword constantly reappearing, longing to be thrust into the dragon’s ruby like chest.

his heart, gleaming and vulnerable always seemed to beckon the blade. as if it was begged to be destroyed, as if his death was the key to some greater truth. she, his lover, was doomed to forever be his arch-nemesis. continuously finding herself the unwilling hand of fate, and the wielder of the cursed sword.

“….. you must press on. because if you don’t … there’s no going back.”

no matter how much she tried, how much she strained her own body to stop it all, it’s as if her body had a mind of its own, refusing to be controlled by her. agonizing screams pierced the abyss yet fell upon deaf ears. and to make matters worse, he was the one further plunging the sword further into his own chest. she knows him well enough to recognize that this is his last act of rebellion against their predestined fate, and a final laugh in the face of the curse, ending it on his own terms.

her hands and body were trembling, every gasp of pain from him resulting in a guttural sob escaping from her, tearing through the void. she could feel his pain and she wishes she can make this stop somehow, but all her attempts were futile, the curse merely mocking her for even trying to defy it. his ruby eyes, always the most gentle with her, were still filled with love and warmth but they now shimmered with a bittersweet resolve — a sight that broke her even more. the eyes that she adores, ones that always shone with an outwardly brilliance, that could put even the shiniest of gem stones to shame, were now getting dimmed as life was seeping from them.

he was bound to this blade, his soul burning with it. their sacred love now destroyed, and the stars weeped for them over and over. stars that have always shone so brightly were now dimmed with sorrow, mourning the tragedy of their love. every flicker of their light seemed to carry the grief of love once shared, an eternal lament to a love that couldn’t defy its cruel destiny.

the sword that was now pulsing, was ready to engulf him whole. he was slipping away between her fingers, the love of her life, dissolving into fragments, every shard carrying a piece of his soul, along with her own. even the stars that were weeping, their light flickering out one by one, the pain and suffering exhibited being enough to fully extinguish their light. it was as if the stars were paying tribute to the grief and agony that transpired.

she embraced him with all the strength she could muster, arms fully wrapped around his body, begging to anchor him to this world, to her. he was her other half, their souls and hearts bound forever. fingers were now desperately clinging onto him, as if to etch her love into his very being, and whispered pleas were being uttered.

“stay. please … please stay. don’t leave me, not like this, not again …” her voice was breaking, carrying the weight of their agony and the weight of a thousand lifetimes of loss.

she didn’t know who she was praying and begging to, but it didn’t matter. she would pray to every god that existed and kneel before every god and beg and beg and beg, if it meant she can have him next to her. she would scream her desperation to the heavens if she had to, move mountains, and commit every sin known to mankind if it meant he would not leave her side. she would beg until her knees buckled and her body gave up on her, knees bleeding from the ground’s cruel embrace, just so they can live the simplest of lives together. she wishes she could rewrite the stars and undo their doomed fates, no longer wanting anything else from the world, except his presence, because a world where he does not exist was one she could not endure.

she pressed her forehead against his chest, feeling his erratic heartbeat of his heart — possibly for the very last time. the heart he gave to her without a second thought as it was hers since the beginning of time. he was merely returning it back to it’s rightful owner. with the last of his strength gathered, he kisses her forehead and whispers a goodbye, his eyes brimming with tears and love for her. her body shook, wracked with sobs that echoed the depth of her anguish as she listened to his heart as it stopped beating. as he slipped away, she was left with her own self, and an incurable tear in her heart. after all, no matter how much she longed for it, her love alone would never be enough to defy the cruel narrative that bound them.

[shepscapades]

... that lean makes me think of the lean Bdubs did in the syncing comic....which if course begs the question: Did Etho pick up this habit of leaning to indicate processing/suspicion from Bdubs or did Bdubs pick it up from Etho? (or is it just a good way to show that emotion in comic form XD) Also.... the hair clip... My impression is that the flashback is from pretty early on. Is the hair clip a precursor to the well known headband? In universe, why a headband? Since they both do wear headbands... Was the headband originally Bdub's? Is... I know Etho is scared during the whole Last Life thing... is he thinking that Bdubs is planning specifically on targeting one of the androids? Or is that his fear talking?

... And after all that speculating... Ouch, Poor Tango!! ( i know this is an important event for Tango, but we don't see any of his reaction or feelings about any of this yet)

Wonderful comic, as always, Shep!

WEEE These are such good questions omg :DDDD alright i couldn't shut up so i'm putting it under a read more =w=

this is basically a mini comic breakdown! just rambling about some of the dbhc plot and mecahnics >:D

The lean is such a fun detail, i didn't even realize the similarities-- but it's actually a really nice (totally intentional) callback! I think Etho absolutely picked up those mannerisms from Bdubs, the same way Doc did from Ren, and so on so forth-- the androids, especially throughout season 8 and last life, are using their partnered hermits (and the other hermits in general) to learn what it means to be and act human-- vocal mannerisms, physical mannerisms, learning emotions for the first time and what it means to feel them, everything! I kind of see Season 8 as their "young" period-- their first season, the season they learn who they are and develop some of their most iconic traits. Etho is still himself, shyness and stoicism and all, but he learns his whimsy and silliness and teasing nature from being with bdubs for so long :)

THE HAIR CLIP <333 Yeah Etho's "Replaying Memory" moment is when Doc was checking out his "wounds" / the damage he sustained (from the initial creeper blast that caused his deviation) for the first time! At the time of the memory, It had probably been a little while since the actual initial incident where Bdubs had covered him up a little bit to hide the damage, but i'm sure doc or someone else noticed before long LDFKGJDF so this is their first like... "checkup"! So Etho is pretty young here (Doc too, but he already has his robot arm at this point, so...), maybe within the first month or two of season 8. So he definitely normally wears a bandana at this point (the same band bdubs made him wear initially to cover up the forehead cracks a little), but he's clipped his bangs back here so Doc can get a better look at the damage :)

I have a LOT of feelings about Etho's mental dialogue throughout last life, and it's very complicated and i won't be able to shut up about it so that's for another post. I will say, I don't think Etho ever truly thought Bdubs would Boogey kill him (though, doubt is a very powerful thing, so it turns out). I think Etho is still puzzling Bdubs out (though he's definitely learned quite a lot about him), especially when it comes to more serious situations like this, so the unknowns are definitely the biggest sources of fear for him. He can only do so much with the data he currently has, and the idea that a weapon so sharp could permanently damage any of the androids... it's an unsettling thought, regardless of whoever the mostly likely victim ends up being. (I don't think Etho expects it to be Tango, either-- not until he sees that look in Bdubs' eyes 10 seconds before it happens. I think Doc's little speech about their models is just helpful information for the reader and a sense of foreshadowing (as well as a reminder for Etho of how Not-So-Indestructible he is/the other androids are), not so much that etho thinks it's going to be tango after recalling the memory. Same for Bdubs. I dont think bdubs decided to target Tango until he was staring the back of his neck down and realized he could take the opportunity before he lost it). Anyway i've already rambled too much /silly

And lastly, Yes. This is, besides his deviation, probably Tango's most formative moment. The second time he truly experiences rage. I don't know if I could do a comic or an illustration that truly does his rage moment justice after he wakes up post-respawn and has a meltdown trying to kill bdubs, but knowing that Skizz wasn't built until s9 and is therefore missing from Last Life (AKA, Tango has no one other than Etho and Bdubs), just... makes this betrayal so, so much more painful. This betrayal is very much about Tango's rage, but it's also about his sense of trust and safety and his understanding of the way the world works. Hermitcraft is safety and jokes and support, and sure there's a bit of death here and there, but this is unlike anything he's ever known-- it's adrenaline and fear and threats and betrayal and. Anyway what a normal meltdown to have! And Etho can do nothing to calm him down except hold him back from killing bdubs (there's something to be said there too, about Tango knowing for certain now that Bdubs obviously chooses Etho over himself (Because come on, Bdubs wouldn't have killed Etho. Let's be honest here), but knowing too that Etho is choosing bdubs by not letting Tango get the revenge he so rightfully deserves...) Anyway. I think i'll explode if i think about this more

[cynthiav06]

https://www.tumblr.com/lilislegacy/777117213311336448/httpswwwtumblrcomfate-of-the-envious74879588?source=share

Ah, that's a good one. The source post that is. Not op's take on it. Nothing against the op. They have some good Percy takes. I am not sure why anon didn't send this to @fate-of-the-envious themselves considering they would probably have a more apt reply for this as the source post is theirs. But I will do my best to break it down instead.

Before we begin, to those who have been sending me similar asks may have missed my recent post on going on a hiatus again soon. It would be beneficial for both me and the anons/followers to use the navigation bar on my blog page to search all the posts relevant to anti percabeth tag or any other tag you want. Because I assure you at least for anti percabeth whatever post you think you want made chances are I have already made it. I have made a lot of posts so a nav page is a bit hard to make, I am in process of making it but please until then utilize this method.

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

Now, the post (which I implore you to check it out first) is about the scene in Chalice of the Gods where Annabeth pushes Percy of a cliff. Op links that to the Judo flip scene and says neither is abuse and normal rules can't be applied to demigods like Percy and Annabeth but she does agree that it was an inappropriate reaction from Annabeth both times so at least that’s something. Let's deal with this one at a time.

Let's get the Judo flip out of the way. I don't know why everyone focuses on the wrong thing with the Judo flip. Annabeth was high on emotions and the Judo flip was definitely a terrible response considering she was also unaware of whether Percy still had his Achilles curse or not given that she flipped him on the small of his back where his mortal tether is. Even if she knew the curse was gone that is in no way a response of someone who has been intensely missing their boyfriend and was in great pain without the said boyfriend. But I am willing to ignore all of this even because funny enough that's not the most concerning thing about the Judo flip. The MOST CONCERNING part of the Judo flip is that Annabeth BLAMES Percy for getting KIDNAPPED and having his memories BRAINWASHED. That's where I draw the line.

Also if op wants to point out the actual terrible implications in Chalice of the Gods about percabeth, not only does Annabeth do all of the above, she MAKES PERCY APOLOGIZE for what was clearly assault against him as evidenced by Percy's conversation with Grover.

She is putting her own distress at him being missing ABOVE PERCY'S PAIN AND PERCY'S SITUATION. We don't get a single scene where Annabeth comforts or consoles Percy about everything that happened to him. Being dropped in the middle of no where, constantly hunted by creatures that kept resurrecting, being in enemy territory with no memory and a thousand other horrible traumatic situations that PERCY HAD TO FACE.

Okay now getting back to the scene in Cotg where Annabeth pushes Percy off the cliff.

First, the op goes on about how Percy was unhurt and fine, and he is powerful so he can heal himself and so on. Yes, obviously, yes, he's bloody Percy Jackson. But I think everyone's missing the point. Just looking at the start point and the end point isn't enough. What happened in between is just as important. Yes Percy can heal himself, yes he is the strongest demigod but he is also just a teenager who feels pain just as acutely as a human [mentioning this cause op says that we don't know if demigods feel pain the same way] and it's not just me. Percy himself mentions this.

It was obviously painful. He goes far enough to call it worst case of heartburn. Sure it healed right after but it was very painful.

And let's get to the worst part. Percy was quite literally having a very traumatic experience especially if it made him feel like his child self, scared and powerless.

So we have disproved the first point which stated that he was completely fine and it wasn't painful. Yes he healed, but he wasn't at all fine and it was definitely painful. My guy was having a breakdown from it. Which part of that seems okay?

Now the op says that Percy had priorly said yes to a suggestion to jump, let me emphasize jump. Annabeth pushed him off without warning but I am sure she thought it was fine, Percy was a bit irritated but he let it go. We will let this one pass. What however should have been Annabeth's response is that she should have checked on Percy, she should have been at least a bit guilty that Percy was going to have to do all the painful stuff. Because as op says the river god was going to attack anyway and Percy was the only one who could deal with that but there's no acceptance on Annabeth's side for the gravity of what's she made Percy do. Because she was right there watching him being thrown around and beaten up heavily while having a tea party with the river god [not her fault it was a good distraction] but all she did was tap on her watch and tell Percy to hurry up. No consideration for his pain or what he was going through, not during the situation nor after it. Now Annabeth out of everyone should be attuned to Percy's emotional state. Given the sheer scale of his out of control response she must have been able to tell it was not an okay experience. Percy pulled the entire river bed off and completely rearranged it. So that should have been a clue but not Annabeth, she calls it GOING OVERBOARD later on.

Also let's go back to the part where she pushes him off. Percy wants to take it slow. He says he does but nope Annabeth just straight up pushes him off. Op says it's Annabeth being sarcastic or funny but it's obviously not what Percy wanted to do in that moment.

And we all have seen Annabeth repeatedly getting physical with Percy, and it's completely one-sided to the point where Percy just has to tolerate and get used to her hitting him. There are various books where he says he was afraid she was going to hit him. Now the problem with that is Annabeth's medium for expressing rage is also her medium for having fun with him and that's not a healthy thing cause Percy obviously has bad experiences with physical abuse and latent trauma from it and he shouldn't have to get used to Annabeth's unhealthy ways of expressing herself at his own expense. Annabeth loves him, so she should do better because Percy has gone above and beyond for her every time. surely he deserves Annabeth being soft with him and surely a relationship should have healthy and positive emotional expression medium between them. Shouldn't Annabeth as a person deserve to be able to move on with some of her unhealthy coping mechanisms as a sign of recovery from her own trauma as well? For herself and for Percy? Between Annabeth teasing his intelligence and hitting him constantly, we see zero to none.

So yes it may not be outright abuse but it is heading towards it because at what point are we going to acknowledge Annabeth has a very bad way of expressing herself to Percy and it has consistently involved violence and or demeaning remarks? She literally punches him in the stomach in The Titan's Curse because Percy doesn't ask her to dance when she was the one who wanted him to do so while not giving him any hint and or idea that she wanted such a thing.

I know why everyone in Percabeth community gets defensive over the word abuse as they should because it's not a small thing but surely we can acknowledge that there's some disconnect between what Annabeth wants to convey and how she conveys it that stands contradictory to her orignal intention and also that she fails to see the harm in this?

Now we might have different takes on how a relationship goes but I firmly stand by my own. I have nothing against those who ship it but that does no mean those of us who do not ship it are doing so on baseless grounds.

[runningfrom2am]

cold nights // part thirty-two

summary: the end.

pairing: coriolanus snow x fem!reader

wc: 2.9k

masterlists / nav / requests

tags/warnings: tribute!reader and mentor!coriolanus, r is very sweet (too kind for this world. literally.), sunshine x grumpy trope kinda, he falls first, violence typical for the source material, depictions of mental illness, also she's is very smart (as she should), district twelve!reader.

a/n:

the end!! omg!!guys thank you so much for being here through this whole story and this was LONG!! over 110k words of a lot of nonsense but to anyone who's made it this far,, ilysm. i'm gonna miss them!! stop they were everything to me :(

ANYWAY same with LTPF if you've read that, there will be an epilogue coming soon and also definitely more oneshots and maybe bonus content that i wish i included in the original series but just didn't make the cut. so stay tuned for that!!

if you liked this series, i'm obligated as well to plug my NEXT series that's coming soon, 'requiem'!! i am so excited about it so please follow me for updates on when that will be posted!! def soon!!

just one more time i wanted to say ily, and thank you :')

see you soon!

my asks are also open to talk about this series! (i do have emoji anons open now too!)

send me any and all of your thoughts! here!

series masterlist // playlist // pinterest board

You keep your books tucked firmly to your chest as you walk into your first class, wearing the spare clothes you brought to Sejanus's house on Friday just in case you had to change. In case you spilled something on your white dress, or just felt the need to change- ironically enough.

Your normal seat in the front centre of the room is obviously free, considering also that you were quite early this morning. You had some readings you needed to catch up on anyway, in order to be prepared for midterms which were apparently coming up quickly.

It isn't long after you open your book before others begin to shuffle in, and much to your surprise, you feel the chair next to you pull back and see someone sit down. "Hi, Victor." The boy's voice says, forcing you to look up from your book.

Dark hair and dark eyes, you think you remember his name was Cancor. "Oh, my name is Y/N." You correct him kindly, adjusting nervously in your seat.

"I know that." He says, eyes merely slits as he seems to look past your own eyes and into your soul.

"You're... You're Cancor, correct? I don't believe we've properly met." You add, sitting up straighter.

"Crane." He states. "My last name is Crane."

"That's... yes that's a lovely name." You smile nervously, unsure what to say but still wanting to fill the silence he seemed so comfortable with. "Alliteration is such a fun thing to consider when naming a child..."

"It means spider." He states. "Did you ever meet my sister?" He asks, ignoring your nervous ramblings.

"No, no I don't believe I have. What is her name?" You ask.

"Arachne." The boy says, raising an eyebrow at you expectantly while you take a moment to wrack your mind to place it. He's acting as if you should know her, and suddenly you feel like you do.

You tilt your head slightly, allowing the memory to hit you like a freight train.

The funeral.

All you really remembered until now was being chained to a truck and paraded down the street you now recognize as the Corso, the body of his sister's tribute swinging above you while people screamed and cursed at you. Then, Coryo sang the national anthem.

"Oh, yes. Of course." You nod slightly, a frown settling over your features. "I am so sorry for your loss. Truly."

"No, you're not." He spits. "You don't care, and the fact that you're pretending to is just vile. She meant less than nothing to you and those animals- otherwise, she would still be here!"

You stammer, pushing yourself back in your seat as you grip the bottom of the chair. "No, no- I am sorry, I am. That should not have happened. It- It was horrible."

"Cancor." You silently thank the universe for your professor's quick intervention. "If you wouldn't mind returning to your usual seat and leaving Miss Y/L/N alone."

"We were just talking." Cancor replies, suddenly sweet as honey- cool and collected as if he wasn't just berating you over your faults in his sister's death.

"Go." Dr. Nero tells him again, nodding up toward the back of the lecture hall. "Before I am forced to ask you to leave."

The boy sighs in quiet frustration, slightly aggressive about his movements as he grabs his bag and stomps up the stairs.

You look up to your professor who greets the look with a curt nod and the smallest of sympathetic smiles.

It does nothing to quell the lightness you feel that usually signifies the trembling of your hands, which would soon spread. You close your eyes trying to take deep breaths that wouldn't come, but all you can see is the bodies of Arachne Crane and her tribute by the bars that had separated them. You have to open your eyes to remind yourself you aren't standing in the street, wrists still shackled to a truck. You can feel the chains weighing your wrists down to the desk as you think about it. You had almost entirely forgotten about the whole event- and the guilt of that was suddenly clawing its way up your throat. Cancor had never had the privilege of forgetting the way you had.

Quickly, you shove your books into your bag and stand, heading for the door. "Y/N." Dr. Nero's voice forces you to stop and you just turn to look at him, knowing full well you're unable to speak. "It's 8:58."

You nod slightly, looking down at the marble flooring that lay between you. "Start without me." You mumble, not giving him the chance to respond before you're leaving, accidentally bumping shoulders with some of the final students to enter.

You hadn't missed a single class yet, attendance was important, but right now you couldn't care less. Why should you even have the privilege of attending classes at the university in place of some of the academy's brightest minds who never got the chance? Like Arachne, and the three other mentors who were killed because of the games. You knew it wasn't necessarily your fault, but you understood Cancor's anger being directed at you. In a twisted way, you felt like you deserved it. They were meant to survive, you never were. Yet, here you were- a walking reminder to those students' friends and families that for some reason, they had to lose someone they shouldn't have.

You quickly pace down the nearly empty hall, trying to hold back your tears as long as you could. Feeling like you can't breathe is making it exponentially harder, and you wonder how you even walked out of the arena as it was. Adrenaline is a crazy beast- and you wished you had some leftover now. Sometimes, in moments like this, you wonder if you had used up your life's supply of the chemical the last time you were here in the Capitol.

Coryo was already running late after spending probably far too long conversing with your brother in the car, but he couldn't resist taking a detour into the arts building. He would just pass through, past your room just to glance inside and see if you were really there. Just to get a look at you.

He doesn't need to, though, turning a corner and just catching a glimpse of your hair as you disappear with a left turn at the end of the corridor. He was sure it was you.

Walking past your classroom he looks anyway, just to double-check, and as he suspected, you were gone.

He quickens his pace, taking advantage of his height difference over you to try and catch up with more rushed steps. "Y/N?" He calls out as he turns the same corner, but you're already hidden from view and the door at the far end of the hall is slamming shut.

As he continues down the corridor, a furrow knits its way into his brow. You must be headed to where you normally eat lunch, that is all that would make sense.

Without thinking, he follows. The courtyard is almost empty, aside from your frame curled up on the grass, knees tucked to your chest and bag discarded halfheartedly beside you on the damp grass. The sun casts a shadowed glow where it isn't blocked by trees or buildings in its path of rising, the grass is wet under his shoes as he quickly approaches you.

"Hey- hey, Y/N/N, it's me." He calls out as he walks up behind you. You turn your head, and then stand quickly.

"It- It's okay. I'm fine." You stammer, wiping your cheeks frantically. "You should g-go, you're already late."

"I'm not leaving you like this." He shakes his head, holding a hand out toward you as you avoid his eyes. "Tell me what happened, love. Talk to me."

You shake your head, shoulders backed to an invisible wall as you hold your palms over your face. You can't look at him right now- especially right now, when all you want is for him to hold you.

"You're okay. I'm not gonna hurt you." He whispers, taking a hesitant step closer. By now, you know full well he wouldn't hurt you. Not in the way he's saying, at least.

"You should go." You choke over the words that feel heavy in your mouth.

"Y/N, love, I told you, I'm not going anywhere." He repeats calmly.

"I want to go home." You sob. "I shouldn't have won, I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't even be alive!" You say, voice picking up in frustration. "It's not fair. Nothing is fair, nothing."

He frowns as you lower your hands, clenching your fists at your sides. "Of course, you should be here."

"You don't get it!" You snap, and you hardly even sound like yourself.

This was it. This was your breaking point.

Coryo is taken back by your outburst, almost flinching at the abruptness of your shift. He had never seen you angry- he didn't even know it was possible. Of course it was. He'd spent all this time, all this energy trying to convince people that you were human. Anger comes with that, hand in hand like your cat and the fur that's clinging to his clothes at this very moment. You couldn't have one without the other. "Then explain it to me." He urges you, trying to sound anything other than defensive.

Your eyes soften, as if you're suddenly realizing that your anger was not entirely placed on him. You shake your head. "It's not... I cannot explain it and that is the worst part." You sigh, but the rage flashes in your eyes again as you look down. "Why was it me and not any of them? Why did so many of your classmates have to die? Why did Marcus escape only to face a worse fate than the rest of us, when he tried to help me too? Why am I enrolled at this stuffy university when my spot belongs to Arachne Crane in rights?"

"Arachne Crane?" Coryo mutters, eyes widening with confusion while he wonders where on earth that came from. He shakes his head quickly to dismiss the thought. "Marcus tried to save you, yes, that could have been you who escaped, that's true- but you were too busy trying to save me. And you did." He knows better than to accuse you of regretting that. He knows you don't.

When you don't reply, just staring at him head on now, frustrated and confused, he continues. "If we're going by this unexplainable logic of the universe, I think that it was you because instead of saving yourself, you saved me. And you did it again in the arena, when you went back for Jessup when I was looking at the screen and begging you silently to just ditch him. Same exact thing when you tried to get little Wovey up into the rafters with you, and hell! When you stared down the barrel of my gun, shaking head to toe from fear just to save the life of the Mayor's daughter, who was nothing but awful to everyone!" He says, gesticulating wildly to get his point across. "I've been trying to tell you for months, Y/N. It was you because you are the only person in this whole damn country who cares about someone other than themselves."

You just shake your head, and it's frustrating to him that you're unwilling to accept what he knows to be true. "It didn't work." You sniff. "You're the only one who survived me."

"Listen to me," Coryo says, reaching out and holding your face in his hands- throwing caution to the wind regarding how he knows to handle your panic attacks. "I survived because I had to learn how to love you."

You look into his eyes, flitting your own back and forth between them in an attempt to place any signs of deception. Blue, baby blue. You find none.

"And I did. And I'll love you every day for the rest of our lives. I don't want you to think for a minute that I'm embarrassed by that fact." Your eyes are squeezed shut by the time he finishes speaking, his thumbs swiping over the tear stains left down your cheeks by anger.

"It's not your fault." You mumble, shaking your head under his hold. "I do not fault you for being embarrassed."

"I'm not." He says again. "Look at me, please, love."

You pry your eyes open to face him.

"I've... I've had all this pressure my whole life to be perfect, and now it's worse than ever and I should have never let that get pushed onto you. I want you to be happy, that's all. I want you to be free to do whatever you want, and right now, the cost of that comes with who we are in public. Do you understand?"

"Yes." You say softly, but he can see that's not fully true.

"Here, in the Capitol, everything is a social ladder. We cannot marry who we wish, we marry who we should. Rarely ever do kids here date for fun."

"Like Lucy Gray and the silly mistakes she made over and over again with Billy Taupe." You comment, trying to lighten the tension you feel radiating off his body.

"Yes." He chuckles, smiling hopefully at you, relieved that you understood. "But I want nothing more on this earth than for you to be the one I spend my life with. I want to make you happy, but first, in order to do that, you have to be someone that they will accept. And I am so, so sorry I didn't explain this to you sooner, but I want you to know I've never wanted you to change."

"We don't need them to like me to be happy. That will be an endless uphill battle, Coryo." You shake your head slightly, placing your hands over his as they slide down onto your neck.

"It will be uphill but we can do it." He assures you quickly. "You're already well-liked, we're-"

"Were you not happy in Twelve?" You ask, a sad look in your eyes.

He stops, tilting his head slightly at you. He was happy in Twelve, now that he considers it. He hadn't thought about it, he was so focused on hating everything but you that he just assumed it was awful, but really, it wasn't. Not in hindsight."Is that what you want?"

You smile in response. No one had asked in months what you wanted. What you really wanted.

"What do you want, love? I'll pack up and move us back to Twelve tomorrow if that's what you really want." He says again, nothing short of desperation in his tone.

Faced with the option, you're really not sure. Yes, of course, you'd like to go home. It was very tempting. But Coryo was right, this education was important. You imagine for a moment the life you could have back home if you stuck it out a few more years. And maybe by then, you'll be better accepted here. Maybe by then, the Capitol will be a different place, and you'll be truly happy here. With him, and he will have the power to make the games go away.

"No, no." You shake your head. "I want to do something splendid...something heroic or wonderful that won't be forgotten after I'm dead. I don't know what, but I'm on the watch for it and mean to astonish you all someday." You say, and he can tell from your change in notation that the words are not your own. It was something new, unlike what he had heard from you before. He smiles. "I want to be with you, first and foremost."

"You'll always be with me. Where you go, I follow." He assures you. "I was happy in Twelve, if only because I had you."

"That should not be enough, though." You insist.

"It has been for you, hasn't it?" He asks, and you nod, biting your tongue.

He grins. "Then I promise, love, that would be more than enough for me."

"O-okay." You agree, suddenly flushed by his stare. Coryo smiles, looking briefly at your lips as you speak. To him, they seemed more tempting now than ever.

He starts to lean in and you move your head back quickly, a worried look crossing your face and you look around. "Coryo, we-"

"I don't care." He says quickly, gently pulling you back to him and pressing his lips to yours. Consequences are the last thing on his mind right now.

You take hold of the front of his delicately pressed shirt, pulling him closer with his hands on your neck. Here, in the middle of the university courtyard with the sun shining down on your back, everything is okay and at least for now, the cold night has given way to a warm, sunny morning.

taglist: @soulessjourney , @that-veela-girl ,  @dreamyysouls , @rockstarbfs , @maysileeewrites , @baybieruth , @kitscutie ,  @fratboyharrysgf0201 , @totallynotkaibiased , @stelleduarte , @secretsicanthideanymore , @bejeweledreverie , @drewsandsebastianswife , @niicole-87 , @queenofshinigamis , @innercreationflower , @nallasstuff , @iovemoonyy , @thatmarvelchick19 , @wearemadeofstardust0 , @regulusblackcore , @puredreamagination , @fantasticchaosthing , @becauseseaotters , @secretsicanthideanymore , @cascadingbliss

okay suddenly tumblr isn't letting me tag more people than this so i just made some cuts unfortunately :') i just left the max amount of people i could whose users i recognized and see in my notifs all the time :) if you're not on here and you should be i'm so sorry!

also this taglist is closed now!! if you’d like to get a notification when i update, turn on my post notifications!! i promise i won’t spam y'all :,)

[thewalrusespublicist]

"Tbh I was starting to feel a bit down about my blog and what I was putting out ( the eternal crisis on how to give full answers and opinions without being stupid, boring and annoying lol)"

OMG no way! Your blog is one of the best here! What i love the most is reading the analysis and meta from the users, there's always more information and good takes, and yours are always quite deep and insightful.

I would love if you share your opinions about Stuart as well. I feel like he is obviously more sanctified that he should be since he died young (like that insane quote from his mom saying that Brian told her that Stuart could have been the Beatles' manager, no way lol) and i feel his memory has been used to attack Paul, sometimes in a very unfair way. Like, i don't deny the teenage drama and jealousy that Paul felt about him but he *was* a shitty bass player and the band was Paul's future, he was allowed to criticized him not only for being John's new bestie. I also think John played with them both but i lack of your eloquence so i will love to read your take about it.

Hi anon! And the other anons!

Thank you again and to all the other messages I got, they were extremely sweet and really made my day. :)

From my inbox, it's clear you guys want to know about Stu and his role in the Beatles legacy. Well you asked for it and a novel you shall have. Be warned this might be the longest post I've done so grab like a drink or something.

A few disclaimers: I wish and had intended for this to be more of a deep dive into Stu as a whole person rather than just his relationship with John and Paul. Unfortunately I just didn't have the space to do it. If you want to know more about Stu I would highly recommend @eppysboys' blog which is the source for all things Stu Sutcliffe and where I got a lot of this info. Please check their stuff out. Also, I'm going to be a bit blunter on this than maybe I usually am because this topic has been irritating me for some time. Oh also I’m trying my best to answer a lot of asks in one post so please forgive if I don’t fully answer your specific ask about this!

Stu in a perfect world should be a fandom darling: an exciting cipher, a handsome artistic talent that died way too soon who had a major influence in the early Beatles style. It's like there’s this secret other James Dean looking mf Beatle hidden away to uncover, that's cool and he is cool! The problem is that he’s sort of becomes radioactive to talk about in a normal way due to how he's been portrayed and utilised in some biographies and fandom spaces, particularly those that have been infected by John Lennon aspirational boy bestie syndrome. As those types of spaces cannot seem to exist without tearing down Paul to prop John up as their special lil guy, Stu as John's other best friend has become the ideal heavy object to hit Paul McCartney over the head with. It's like a corrosive element, the minute Stu hits a Beatles bio, the biographer suddenly loses all training in objectivity and source work and starts waxing lyrical about 100 percent reliable never biased or wrong Saint Stu of Hamburg who died for our condom arson sins and that Paul McCartney should feel bad about every day of his life for not worshipping Stu and not accepting his own ‘place’ in life as John's just-some-guy placeholder best friend. I’ve personally seen so many posts and forums where Stu being mentioned leads to a legion of comments about how Paul could never have been Stu (correct both ways) and how John would never have even glanced at Paul for much longer if Stu had been alive. Sidenote: If you seriously think that the musical savant from down the road whom John went on to produce the most prolific song writing partnership in history with couldnt have kept his attention for long then I'm begging you on hands and knees to get your head out of the arse of your John Lennon body pillow and be serious. But anyway…

This boy bestie battle royale approach has in turn lead to a reflex reaction where Stu gets studiously ignored by other sections of the fandom as a precedent has been set that shining a light on him diminishes Paul and John's relationship with Paul. It's frustrating because if people weren't so keen to cut Paul out of his own story then we would get a much better nuanced view of every single person involved.

So let's put aside all of our defenses, cut the John Lennon loved one ranking system bullshit and lets look at the actual question here which is what was John and Stu's relationship really like and what did he mean to John?

John and Stu met at art college a year or so after Paul and John met. Up to that point John and Paul had their fun little codependant thing going on but Stu quickly became a huge fixture in John's life. Stu had things that Paul couldn't really offer at that point in time. John was at his heart a musician who aspired to be seen as an artist (he would later express surprise that he didn't become an artist). Stu was the passionate artist who knew tons about the art of the period that could teach and inspire John. Their creative leanings meant they could work on projects together and share art notebooks and poetry. (Including yes the one with anti-semitic story which I mention again as I believe it's an important thing to remember when it comes to both John and Stu and the culture of the time.) Stuart by the sounds of it was even writing a novel about John at the time of his death. They were fascinated and inspired by each other.

So, creatively they fired each other up but more importantly perhaps, Stu and John were peers. It's funny to think about when you see the Beatles later but at the time Paul and George were the kids in their school uniform coming to see their cool older friend at art school. That's an important divide. When Paul and George's parents insisted their kids do their homework and go to bed, John and Stu could stay up and talk all hours of the night, which they did. They also could rent a place together and spend long hours chatting (despite John moving out later after realising electricity cost money lol.) There's a different dynamic that the age similarity offered as well. Whilst Paul would later somewhat grow into this role, Stu could act as an authority figure to John as well as open up to John in a way you can really only do with your peers. Stu was the person John opened up to throughout Stu's life:

How long can one go on writing and writing like you. I now don’t really know who I’m writing to or why it’s quiet peculiar. I usually write like this and forget about it but if I put it in a little part of my [almost?] secret self in the hands of someone miles away who will wonder what the hell is going on or just pass it off as toilet paper. Anyway I don’t care really what happens because when I think about it, it’s so bloody unimportant – but what is important who has the right to say that this letter is not important and this is a something any way – anyway – anyway – yeah! I wonder what it would be like to be a cretin or something. I bet it’s gear. & how are you keepin Stuart old chap are you as ok – is life as good – bad shite, great – wonderful as it was or is it just a thousand years of nothing and coolness on and on and on. I think this is it Goodbye Stu don’t write out of – er what is it? well not because you think you ought to write when you feel like So goodbye (from John you know the one with glasses) ANYWAY BYE BYE see you soon I don’t know why I said that I remember a time when everyone I loved hated me because I hated them so what so what so fucking what I remember a time when belly buttons were knee high when only shitting was dirty and everything else clean + beautiful I can’t remember anything without a sadness So deep that it hardly becomes known to me so deep that its tears leave me a spectator of my own STUPIDITY + so I go rambling on with a hey nonny nonny nonny no

Extract from a letter to Stuart Sutcliffe from John Lennon, 1961

By lots of accounts Stu was gentle but firm when it came to telling John he'd gone too far. John references this aspect of Stu to Hunter Davies:

"I looked up to Stu. I depended on him to tell me the truth. Stu would tell me if something was good and I'd believe him."

The Beatles: The Authorised Biography (Hunter Davies)

In this way I kind of see Stu as a proto-Yoko. John was so insecure and uncertain about his grip on the world and reality that he relied on Stu to be his point of reference and guide. Paul did this too later and I think in Hunter Davies John mentions this, but not at this time period and not as much due to their competitiveness. This may be why some people saw Stu as the person that really understood John at this time period:

"During the turbulent adolescence that prefaced a turbulent manhood, hardly anyone knew Lennon as intimately as Stuart Sutcliffe. If they weren't exactly David and Jonathan, June Furlong, one of the life models at Liverpool's Regional College of Art, had "never seen two teenagers as close as those two."

The Gospel According To Lennon by Alan Clayson

Now this person likely never met John and Paul together but this is only one of many similar quotes and even Julia captain of John and Paul's friendship boat seems to agree there was a period where Stu dominated and Paul 'kept his distance' from the John-Cyn-Stu 'menage-a-trois'. But the friendship wasn't perfect and his position as John's ultimate best friend was never iron clad. This is best outlined by the shit they pulled when John convinced him to join on Bass for the Beatles.

Despite being John's best friend, Stu was teased and bullied:

"They argued as usual amongst themselves, but most of all they picked on Stu, the newest member of the group. John, George and Paul had been with each other long enough to know that rows and arguments and criticism didn't mean much. If it did, you just argued back. "We were terrible," says John. "We'd tell Stu he couldn't sit with us, or eat with us. We'd tell him to go away, and he did." At one hotel they stayed at, a variety show had just left. There had been a dwarf in the show and they found out which bed he had slept in and said that would have to be Stu's. They certainly weren't going to sleep in it. So Stu had to. "That was how he learned to be with us," says John. "It was all stupid, but that was what we were like."

The Beatles: The Authorised Biography (Hunter Davies)

Why John encouraged this I have no idea, maybe jealousy over Stu's looks and wanting to play people off each other? Things were tense in both Scotland and Hamburg, especially between Stu and Paul. As I said in my last post, the girls were fighting and it was mutual. Paul was mad for both fair and immature teenage-boy reasons. Stu could not be bothered with the bass most of the time and couldn't really play well and was only there as he was '(John's) best friend' (ouch for Paul). Paul conversely had given up higher education to be there and was sending lots of money back home. He also was dating the girl Paul fancied. Stu was popular with the new group and also did mean things like help John steal Paul's money when money was really tight for him. Paul in turn was a passive aggressive, jealous and mean. It all came to ahead in the punch up onstage which according to Spitz came about from Paul wanting money back and saying that Stu could borrow some from Astrid. Stu goes for him and reports vary from full-on bust up to embarrassing scuffle. Stu then goes to where Astrid and Paul's gf Dot are, demands Dot leaves and goes on a rant about Paul. Now all of this must be framed in the context of Stu receiving increasing brain damage from his condition that seemingly lead to mood swings and anger. Nevertheless, the mutual needling and anger, as well as John's refusal to do/say fuck all about it, especially given how protective John was of Stu, suggests that it wasn’t straightforward and/or John may have been playing some games to make both feel threatened. This would also make sense as to why we hear conflicting accounts of John and Stu being the centre of everything and everyone else in orbit AND John and Paul being the centre and everyone else playing catch-up, as well as John giving Paul the lead to take him round the Reeperbahn when John got dressed in the gorilla costume. (I know Paul may have just been the closest there but that always gave off bestie behaviour to me.)

(I did get an ask about how John and Paul's friendship survived it, I think it was damaged by Hamburg. When Paul got back home he got a job at a construction site and there's just a vibe of everything being a bit on tenterhooks. John also acts a bit weird at the period, not talking to anyone for a few weeks then making a lot of weird demands from Paul. I'm really not sure what to make of it.)

Even when he's back in Liverpool, John still writes long letters to Stu and vice-versa. I can't find it at all but I’ve read a really sad interview with John saying he missed his best mate and it's a shame that he's not with them. He had no idea at that point that Stu had already died of a brain hemorrhage at 21.

John is said to have gone into hysterics when he found out Stu had died. A lot of people who've spoken about this time (Aunt Mimi, his sister Julia, the Exsis) concur that at this point Stu was his best friend and the death shattered him. He even told Astrid he wished he could give his life for Stu’s. This is backed up by the fact that John never forgot Stu and his shadow lingered for the rest of John's life:

Stu was recalled in In My Life

Years later, after John composed the first of his truly poignant and heartfelt Beatles songs, "In My Life"—with its lines about "friends I still can recall/some are dead and some are living"—he revealed to me that the two people he had had uppermost in mind were myself and Stuart Sutcliffe. And then he stunned me with a statement that I'd never heard him address to anyone—least of all to another man. "You know, Pete," he said softly, "I do love you. But," he quickly added, "I loved Stuart as well."

Weird that Paul isn't mentioned surely you think that he would be mentioned if Pete was there too okay, okay my tin hat is going away this isn't the time

Pete Shotton, Nicholas Schaffner, John Lennon: In My Life

In 1965 John drew Stu on a postcard

He apparently said this about Stu prior to sending the postcard, prompted by an article about Stuart.

The card had been sent from Genoa mid-way through the Beatles' Italian tour. [...] But the conversation had become maudlin when I reminded him that he was going to talk to me for an article about Stuart. [...] In that sad telephone conversation before they set off for Milan, I asked him if he was happy: 'I'd be a lot happier if Stuart was still part of us,' he said, 'The Beatles would be complete.' And before he rang off he said 'Ill send you something.'

He also appears on the cover of Sgt Pepper

As mentioned, Stu gets mentioned in Hunter Davies in terms of wistfulness and guilt AND he gets a mention in John's insane 'if I were a homosexual' ramblings in early 70s. According to Yoko, John also wanted Yoko to write letters to him and didn't think it would be strange because Stu wrote letters to him.

I have a pet theory that as with a lot of things for John, his unresolved grief over Stu really came to the fore in the late 60s now that he had actually had a chance to sit down and think about things. I believe it was partially why he wanted Yoko to write letters and why he gets mentioned in the early 70s as a collaborator/best friend and not in 1980 where John only gives that credit to Paul and Yoko. I think with the cracks with Paul, John had started to think back on his old friend and guide and what advice he would give.

Stuarts presence is still felt throughout the seventies:

“He told me everything. He loved to talk about Hamburg. There were no secrets. It was the kind of life I never knew…. It meant total freedom. At his side always was Stuart, sweet Stuart. There wasn’t a time in John’s life when he didn’t think about Stuart. He spoke always of his love and respect for Stuart.”

Yoko discussing Stu in When They Were Boys: The True Story of the Beatles’ Rise to the Top by Larry Kane

Coming to grips with his death is also present in Skywriting

SEAN O’HAIRE: What happened to Stuart Cliff? DR. FISCHY: What happened was a full exchange of energy where it was not needed within the expression of your own self or in the energies involved around and about you. We cannot call it a happening. We’ll say it is an awakening, for in that way it has served an expression from the past to the present and to the future to where there shall be more of that incomplete vibration expressed to you in a more fuller understanding.

Skywriting by Word of Mouth, John Lennon

This isn't exhaustive but I think from all this it's pretty clear that John adored Stu, John grieved Stu and kept grieving Stu. Stu had a specific place in his life as a confidant that he tried to recreate with Yoko. At the time of Stu's death, he was John's best friend, probably slightly over Paul. Stuart had been able to be both a friend and paternal presence, a confidant and an artistic collaborator. His presence and loss was one of the foundational points in John's life.

But as we've been asked to play this stupid game and so many bios like to make a hoopla about it, were they at their closest ever as close as John and Paul were at their height?

No.

How do we know? Because John told us so:

" He [Paul] still is the closest friend I've ever had, except for Yoko, so I'm still close to him whatever goes on."

John Lennon to an interviewer, 1971

But Walrus! John just says shit! How do we know he isn't leaving out Stu because the press don't know Stu. Well true John does just say shit but this is at a time where John isn't the most glowing about Paul and he's had no problem mentioning Stu in this time period ('one of my best friends ever' would have made a similar point).

But Walrus again! If John picked Stu over Paul when they were young why wouldn't he be the boy bestie of all time, and why would John say that he was closer to Paul? Well, because of the environment and timings. Stu's death happened near the beginning of John and Paul's major bonding moments. If you look at their personal timeline, Paris, the Nerk twins, and getting signed happened just before Stu died. That's missing the major years of Beatlemania, Key West, LSD, Paul growing more into being John's peer and a load of other huge moments in their lives. It's like how John writes to Cyn in 1962 about wanting the house to themselves and not have Paul around all the time. Would you say because he feels closer to Cyn then that John in his overall lifetime loved Cyn more than Paul? No, because relationships change over time and theirs were no exception. (One thing to consider as well is that we don't yet have many letters between John and Paul during their Beatles years and earlier, probably because they were spending so much time with each other. We know a couple exist that Paul considers too personal for publication but I'm sure there are others. It's easy to understand what John felt for Stu as we have the letters, I think we would also have an easier time understanding what John felt for Paul if we had the equivalent of those.)

At the end of the day Paul was the man he believed he had a psychic bond with, the man he couldn’t shut up about, the man whom he’d conquered the world with with their endless collaboration, the man with a twin personality to him and according to John spent more time with throughout the 60s than he had with Yoko ever. To be frank if Paul had died in 67' I don't think this would have been a conversation.

As mentioned early, in early 1970s John elevates his partnership with Stu to his collaborations with Paul and Yoko but by 1980 he’s pretty clear that Paul and Yoko are their own category.

"I was saying to somebody the other day, “There’s only two artists I’ve ever worked with for more than a one night stand, as it were. That’s Paul McCartney, and Yoko Ono.” And I think that’s a pretty damned good choice!!"

John Lennon interview with DJ Dave Sholin, 1980

There are of course the what ifs. Would Stu still being alive mean that John was not as close with Paul? Maybe, highly doubtful though as the Beatles experience was so intense. If Stu remained a Beatle would John be as close with Paul? If Stu remained a Beatle he wouldn't be Stu so no. At the same time who knows what it would have been like if Paul and John were peers from the off? I said this to @the62ndbugsfan when it comes to Stu vs Paul (hi girl sorry i've made our chat a whole ass post lol) but to go a bit Wuthering Heights, soulmates are made as much from the earth as they are of the stars. What binds us is our experiences just as much as our personalities. There may be a universe where Stu and John took on the art world together or became inseparable bffs again after the Beatles disbanded, but it is not our universe. In this universe Stu tragically died and John and Paul chose to become Lennon/McCartney and artistically unite themselves forever.

Even going back to Stu's lifetime, I've said it before and I'll say it again I find it interesting that not only did John choose to go to Paris with Paul rather than pay to meet up with Stu somewhere but that they arranged to meet up with Juergen and nobody told Stu until they'd already gone. Stu was shocked and didn't know if it meant the end of the Beatles which is a pretty big thing for him not to know about. Why didn't John tell him if they're apparently still writing long letters? Was it because he really wanted to do this with Paul and didn't want to hurt Stu's feelings? And that's really the point I want to make here. Due to his trauma John was preoccupied with reinforcing ranking of relationships within his life. But the thing is friendship rankings are made up guidelines and the reality is far more complicated. You can have a designated best friend but feel closer to another friend at times, you can want to do one thing specifically with one friend and not the other for various reasons. You can (as I do) have more than one equal best friend. Friendship as with most relationships are in a constant state of flux and each friendship you have will give and mean a different thing, even if they are of similar value to you.

Paul may have ended up closer to John than Stu had been, but that doesen't make John's relationship with Stu any less special. Nor does Stu negate the significance of Paul. Whilst both fit into John's pattern of intense relationships and demands related to that, both had unique positions and meaning to him. Considering what I've gone into about John's closeness to Stu, it actually says something deeply, borderline unnervingly, intense about John and Paul that Paul pipped Stu to the post. Maybe it's time Beatles bios accept the fact that John Lennon just wouldn't be into them like that, stop using a tragically prematurely deceased young man as a prop in their jealous psychological warfare against Paul McCartney, stop perpetuating one of the most damaging games that John did to his loved ones and allow both relationships the space to shine and showcase the amazing talent that was the Beatles and those that surrounded them.

[katzkinder]

Since Mukuro and Tsuna are still weirdly connected, Tsuna’s sometimes gotten glimpses of things he wasn’t ever supposed to, and vice versa on Mukuro’s end. He usually shoves Tsuna awake once he notices Tsuna’s accidentally plopped into one of his memories, but

If it’s one of Tsuna’s, he’ll let it play out without interruption. It’s never anything of note, anyhow, so expending energy to wake him would be pointless >liar mc liar face

Eventually this gets him more than he bargained for

There’s also a lot of stuff in Tsuna’s mind that, once he’s aware of it, it makes him go okay hold up

Because it’s not like he ever assumed that Tsuna was some happy go lucky idiot, but he also assumed he wasn’t actually thinking about much in that head of his he’s sure is more fluff than brains

Gokudera-kun is going to be disillusioned with me any day now. I’m grateful to him but I feel bad for somehow tricking him like this. I shouldn’t let him get too close but I don’t want to hurt him, either. What should I do? I’m sorry, Gokudera-kun. Please don’t hate me when you figure it out.

Yamamoto is such a nice person; he shouldn’t be stuck around someone like me. He’s like Kyoko-chan like that. Nice to everyone, even useless, no good me. I wouldn’t be surprised if she fell in love with him. Of course the two nicest people in the whole school would date, right? I’m so worried about him… I don’t know how to handle the way he lights up when he sees me. What should I do? Don’t try and hurt yourself again. Don’t get hurt for my sake, either. I’m sorry I’m so weak…

Hibari-san doesn’t treat me differently from anyone else. He’s super scary but he still bothers to treat me like I’m normal. I think if even he began to act like I wasn’t worth his time I would seriously just give up and call it quits. Things have gotten so messed up. I’m relying on a psychopath like that kicking my ass to reassure me I still mean something. If even someone who values strength above all else still has hope for me what choice do I have?

Reborn’s going to give up on me. Reborn’s going to give up on me. Reborn’s going to give up on me. Don’t go. Don’t go. Don’t go don’t go don’t go don’t go don’t go don’t go don’t go don’t go— It would be just like me to be so useless I beat the world’s greatest, huh?

The only words he ever found in relation to himself, and words that shake him to his core, are very simple ones

Please wait for me

One time, though, he managed to dive deep enough to find the source of Tsuna’s Dying Will, and he keeps going back despite knowing it’s a pointless, silly thing to do.

There are still the broken remnants of a cage around it. If he sits near it like this, he can almost pretend he isn’t in Vindicare. The cage is still red hot. He’ll burn his fingers if he tries to handle them. The flames reach out to him but don’t touch.

It is not a soft, warm home.

It is something which, if he allowed it to, would consume him right down to his marrow.

This is how Sawada Tsunayoshi has always survived

One day he sees that flame guttering, and he feels panic swell in his throat, because what could possibly, after all this time, be dimming that roaring inferno

There’s ice at the base now

Tsuna made a binding vow to destroy Vongola, that rotten, shambling corpse of a man’s ideals puppeteered by someone with a face a lot like his.

He knows better than anyone that when you make that kind of vow, if you don’t fulfill it… There are consequences.

The mafia has practically deified Vongola Primo’s will into its own separate entity.

The ring, rebuilt and no longer fit for any other, past or future, weighs cold on a young boy’s finger, demanding he make good on his promise

Mukuro wants to destroy the mafia. He’ll get his wish. He’ll make sure of it.

Sawada Tsunayoshi… Is too kind for that life, anyhow.

[mirensiart]

Speaking of hard to identify sources of pain/high pain tolerance, I wanted to share a headcanon that would be a “fun” little mystery for the chain:

To me, it makes sense that Wild would have fibromyalgia and not just because of the extent of his injuries. The shrine had to turn all of his nerves back on so it wouldn’t surprise me if that caused them to fire of pain signals randomly with no explanation.

The thing with fibro is that it has like half a dozen different kinds of pain that have no consistent triggers and just flare up without warning. Things like not getting enough sleep or food, stress, and overstimulation (including from pain, which is fun) are common sources but sometimes the body is just like 🔪💥🔥 for ✨mystery reasons✨

So suddenly everyone feels like all their skin is on fire but no one’s injured (not even Twilight, for once!) and it takes them forever to figure out who’s even in pain. When they do eventually figure it out everyone has to explain that no, that’s not a thing skin normally does, why would you think that? But if it’s been like that since Wild stumbled out of the shrine how is he supposed to know? This is like having to learn what a normal hylian range of motion is all over again!

Oh my god this is so good!!!

I remember someone sent me an ask with a similar idea, that since he woke up without memories all he's known is a life with chronic pain and doesn't realize that that isn't normal

I do hc him to be one of the links with highest pain tolerances, but he's very sensitive still.

I do like this a lot, thank you so much for sharing!!!

[saintsenara]

Wait why are you not a fan of Snape and Hermione?? 2 nerds who care a socially awkward amount about the things they care about nerding out together at levels of romance people who can be chill and normal about things can’t comprehend?? It’s not one of my fav ships but I can definitely see it!

I headcanon that Snape picks on Hermione being a muggle raised know it all thirsty to prove and lacking self awareness because he was one himself when he arrived at school and James and Sirius picked on him for it! It’s like that you’re most repulsed by the things you’re self conscious of in yourself thing to me. Or maybe a him trying to live out being the “cool” one in that dynamic thing

But when she’s a grown woman and more self possessed like he became too I feel like that same energy ness has potential for love!

Hermione is famously respectful and compassionate enough towards all beings to be more understanding than say Lily Evans of his prickly tender ego if he had another m word style outburst and such a people pleaser she’d keep coming back for more snark as long as he peppered it with the odd encouraging compliment

And I feel like a Snape in reciprocated love could absolutely veer into inventing beautiful and helpful spells to impress his lover or sending “made me think of u 😘” notes with verses of elaborate obscure poetry territory that would be frankly the level of literary and academic courtship our Herms deserves 😌

Is it cause they’d both be the highly strung worrier one and they both need someone to ground them? Or maybe too pessimistic together and one of them needs to be the cheerful one?

anon, i genuinely love this for you - i'm always thrilled to get people explaining their love for ships in the ol' inbox, especially when they're ships i don't instinctively vibe with, and i have been won round to stranger premises than this by a passionate defence of why two characters should kiss.

where i still think snamione isn't clicking for me, however, is that the way you describe both snape and hermione here doesn't align in any significant way with what i personally think would be interesting to explore about either character in a relationship and have them still feel meaningfully like their canon selves.

[i will say, though - because i always think it's worth reiterating my fandom commitment towards being neither a cop nor a priest - that i literally don't give a shit about either the age gap or the student-teacher dynamic. i know that's an objection to pairings like snarry and snamione which lots of people do express. but i will never be one of them.]

the primary reason that i don't vibe with many of the more... sapiosexual hermione ships [by which i mean not only snamione but tomione] is that they hang on the idea that hermione's intellect expresses itself in a way we never actually see in canon.

or, the idea that snape and hermione are intellectually compatible [and that they would enjoy hanging out being nerdy about stuff] is just... not true.

throughout the seven-book canon, the way that hermione shows herself to be clever is that she displays an excellent memory and an enormous capacity to rote-learn. her intelligence is overwhelmingly demonstrated - both in the classroom and during the trio's year on the run - by her being able to regurgitate swathes of information, very usually verbatim from the source she got it from.

she is clearly able to use this ability to retain information to understand the theoretical component of magic in a way neither harry nor ron ever manage, and she is able to use this understanding of theory to work out how to perform spells which are ahead of her expected level on the hogwarts curriculum.

and this is intelligence - and i want to be very clear that i'm not trying to suggest that hermione shouldn't be thought of as intellectual, or that her academic achievements should be devalued. but it isn't the way snape's intelligence manifests itself.

because hermione is never shown - at any point in canon - to be a particularly creative or experimental thinker.

she places an enormous intellectual trust in disciplinary authority - teachers and textbooks - and is frequently rattled when these are revealed to be partial or incorrect, as we see in her shock at hogwarts: a history not mentioning house elves or her anger at harry getting better results by following the modified instructions in the prince's textbook [despite knowing nothing about the theory underpinning them] than she does with the "official" ones.

she also regards the gatekeeping of inquiry which disciplinary boundaries enforce to be a positive thing and she never displays any inclination to step beyond them. she dislikes the spells in the prince's textbook because they aren't ministry-approved - and i must say that i think the idea that she'd be won over by a man creating spells for her is wishful thinking...

she is immediately mistrustful of anything she can't find something she regards as an empirical source for - notice, for example, that she only comes round to the idea that prophecies might be real once she encounters them in the ministry of magic.

even when we see her using magic on her own terms - the jinx she uses on marietta edgecombe, for example; or the protean charm on the da coins - the magic she's using is sophisticated, and is being applied in a way which wouldn't be classroom-sanctioned, but it's not magic which is being used in a way which is removed from the spell's original purpose. the protean charm on the da coins is impressive because it's a flawless execution of newt-level magic by a sixteen-year-old. it's not impressive because hermione is using it in a strange, experimental, or radical way.

[in contrast, the dark mark - which harry notes the coins mimic - is clearly a spell voldemort himself invents.]

snape, on the other hand, is an experimenter. he's someone who clearly sees magic as a creative force which he has every right to shape as he sees fit by adaptation and invention. and he's someone who evidently rejects the logic of disciplinary gatekeeping - one tension in his relationship with dumbledore prior to half-blood prince is that snape evidently retains an enormous intellectual interest in the dark arts [which, as he tells us, are an area of magic which is feared precisely because they can't be neatly contained within disciplinary boxes - they are ever-changing, unfixed, mutating...]

and it's these conflicting views of what magic is and how it should be used and thought about which is the cause of the intellectual incompatibility we see between snape and hermione in canon.

he is unequivocally in the wrong for his dismissive classroom manner towards her - because he is an adult and she is a child. but he isn't wrong in principle that hermione just repeating what she's read in the textbook and refusing to synthesise her knowledge [she always goes massively over word limits! she never gives answers in class in her own words!] isn't actually a demonstration that she understands the material. [and therefore something a good teacher would guide her through conquering... snape having no interest in doing this is his own fault.]

and - from a snamione-specific perspective - it's all the evidence snape needs that, actually, they're not going to enjoy hanging out chatting about academic pursuits. hermione values knowledge like a dragon hoards treasure. snape wants to take that treasure, melt it down, and turn it into new and weird things.

once again, i don't think this a flaw in either of their characters - it's just something which is. and i don't think it's an insurmountable obstacle to writing snamione, because i believe any ship is possible if an author has enough nerve. but it's an aspect of both characters' canon personalities [and hermione's above all] which never seems to make it into snamione fics - all of which, as far as i've encountered them, are beholden to an idea of hermione's approach to academia which is considerably more flexible than we actually see in the books.

of your other points, i'm not particularly convinced by the idea that snape sees his younger self in the teenage hermione. this isn't just for the reasons outlined above - hermione isn't trying to prove herself in the same way he was, which was by creating and experimenting in a bid to be noticed and considered impressive - but also because of the massive gulf in their respective class backgrounds.

hermione is really posh - and, while she's obviously subjected to discrimination at hogwarts on account of her blood-status, she also comes from a family with both the financial resources and the cultural language to make her familiar with the vibe of the elite muggle boarding schools hogwarts is a pastiche of.

the teen snape - in contrast - stands out from his cohort in that he is visually identifiable as working-class [which does appear to be genuinely unusual at hogwarts]. his class background is something which clearly drove a lot of the marauders' bullying of him [i'm sorry to the girlies who think james and sirius targeted him out of some righteous desire to stamp out his prejudice - it was because he was poor and uncouth] and which he still has a chip on his shoulder about as an adult.

this - again - is not an insurmountable barrier to a snamione relationship [as it's not a barrier to thousands of real-world partnerships and friendships]. but it is something an author needs to grapple with if they want to make the pairing - at least, in my opinion - seem plausible. but the standard vibe seems to be that snape would be comfortable in the grangers' home fairly quickly, and that he'd be delighted to have hermione swanning around offering suggestions for how they could do up spinner's end... instead of him resenting this as the unwelcome meddling of people who've never had to worry for money.

i'm also not particularly convinced by the idea that hermione would get over being called a mudblood - especially by an adult man. while i think it's completely plausible that she'd handle this differently than lily [although lily's reaction is entirely justified - and i don't think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater of contextualising the teenage snape and the motivating factors behind his decisions by pretending that cutting off your friend because he called you a slur is a petty, ill-thought-out, or unreasonable move], i don't think that her reaction would be automatically forgiving.

hermione is compassionate towards kreacher when he calls her a mudblood because kreacher is a slave, whose prejudicial views are inextricably bound up in the magic used to oppress him [i.e. that if he received an order to use the term, or to refuse to serve a muggleborn food, from his masters, he would have to punish himself violently if he disobeyed it]. she is not - quite rightly! - compassionate towards someone like draco malfoy when he calls her one, since he is a free person with full agency to choose not to do this.

could she forgive him - or snape - for using the term? sure! absolutely! but i don't think it's a given - and i also think she'd expect a demonstration of how sorry snape was which wouldn't necessarily align with how he'd think he'd demonstrated his regret.

i do agree that - as you say - hermione is a people-pleaser, and she definitely has a far greater tolerance for being treated cruelly by people she wants to impress [especially authority figures - including snape himself] than either harry or ron. and i think this has the potential to introduce an extremely thorny dynamic into a snamione fic - in which the power dynamic inherent in the age gap [which, to reiterate, i think is completely fine for an author to enjoy] is compounded by hermione being unwilling to anger or contradict snape [which is a vibe - as i've said in answer to an ask about harmony - we also see in her relationship with harry... it's also obviously exactly how snape's relationship with dumbledore works.]

on a couple of the more minor characterisation notes, i'm afraid that the idea of snape as a great romantic has never hit for me. it seems really bound up in the way alan rickman portrayed him in the films, which i've always found a bit toothless. i also don't like the trope of "actually snape's really hot" which seems to always accompany it - ugly, odd men to get to bone too!

[what he would be - i think - is a magpie. get ready to be handed odd stones and bits of leaves on dates.]

i also think they're highly-strung in ways which differ enough to mean they'd just annoy each other. hermione is highly-strung in that she flusters easily and is very poor under pressure, but she's actually pretty emotionally stable [and i'd dispute that she's a pessimist - this is a girl who thinks that she's successfully eradicating slavery at hogwarts by knitting hats; she's pretty robust, funny, cheerful, and idealistic]. snape is highly-strung in that he has a hair-trigger temper and is very emotionally volatile, but he's obviously an extraordinarily good liar, very quick on his feet, and very good under pressure. he'd think she panicked too much [and over insignificant things he didn't care about], she'd think he tanked the vibe of a date by taking offence at someone breathing too loudly.

where are they similar? well, they have a shared self-serving streak [hermione is appalled by behaviour from harry and ron she considers perfectly moral when she does it]; capacity for cruelty; tendency towards secrecy; tendency towards pettiness and pleasure in the misfortune of others; loathing of flying a broom; cutting sense of humour; stubbornness; resilience; clear dislike of slumming it in nature; love of puzzles; and a weakness for red hair.

i think you could make it work on the grounds that they'd probably have the time of their lives being haters together - especially, i feel, about rita skeeter.

and - y'know - because love is weird.

[spacechip707]

Sweet Wishes

Summary: When MC presents him with the first birthday cake he’s had in decades, Xavier finds his emotional defenses wrecked.

A slight AU to the cake scene for Xavier’s bday event. Fluff and sugar ahead. 

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A/N: Xavier’s bday week isn’t over yet!! So please enjoy this quick little Love and Deepspace AU fic because I wanted him to cry at some point during the event. 

Dedicating this little fic to my twin and bestie @my-soul-sings as a thank you for resurrecting me out of the writer’s block grave <3 

Also available to read here on Ao3! 

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It’s the cake that destroys him. 

Out of the countless Wanderers and battles he’d faced, out of all the failed attempts to find her, the pain he’d felt then had only fueled him to press forward. To what?

He hadn’t known. 

Even when this girl appeared in the no hunt zone like an angel from his dreams, he knew it wasn’t her. So he refused to allow himself to feel anything more than a quiet fondness.

For decades, he’d kept distant from most people. They were temporary factors in his existence, doomed to disappear or fall away with the turn of a new generation.

But MC…

There was no magnanimous event that caused the shift within him. Rather, her little gestures gradually whittled away at his centuries-old shield without his knowing.

It was the mundane afternoon calls, asking what he ate or wondering if he’d like to join her for a walk. The glimmer in her eyes when they played cards was another contributor, a tell-tale sign of her good-hand. When Xavier felt especially generous, he’d let her win just to hear her laugh, even at his expense. 

Maybe worst of all were the random encounters—at the store, on the bus, while hunting. Her face would visibly brighten to the point Xavier often debated if he’d subconsciously manipulated his own Evol just to emphasize her wonder. It was as if seeing him were the highlight of her entire life.

All of it deconstructed his defenses, culminating to this single point in time. The final blow. 

“Wh-what’s this?” he stammers out when she retrieves a lighter from her pocket. 

She stares at him with feign disbelief. “You’re not so old that you don’t know what a candle on cake is, right?” 

He never disclosed his age, and he is old, so he could certainly play into that. 

But he can’t manage it, even as a joke. His chest is tightening too quickly as she lowers the flame onto the wick. The last time he’d had a cake in front of him…a candle…she was there too. Well, not her, but…

“Happy Birthday to you,” she begins to sing slightly off key with a synchronized tap of her fingers. “Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Xav…” 

His unfinished name drifts into the air as she catches a glimpse of his face in the moonlight. Her eyes widen in panic. He’s confused until he finally gets a grip on his present reality and notices the purple and white fondant blurring together in his vision. 

“Are you—are you crying?” she says before hurriedly grappling at some nearby napkins. 

As if the acknowledgment breaks an internal dam, tears begin to spill freely onto his cheeks. He makes no effort to stop them, mostly because he’s stupefied by their existence. A breathy laugh catches in his throat when MC dabs a napkin against his now damp face.

“It’s not that…” he tries before his voice wavers. His face heats with MC’s concern anchored upon him, the soaked cloth clenched in her fists. “I’m sorry—you can finish singing.” 

Her eyes search his in an agonizing stretch of vulnerable silence. She’s young, and unlike him, memories of years past…lives past…don’t dim the sparkle in them. 

“I hear a lot of people get the birthday blues,” she says quietly, her hand lifting to gently rest atop his head. “It’s normal to feel like time is going too fast or that you’re behind.”

The irony of the statement slams into him, and more moisture accumulates at the edges of his lashes. Time was often the source of his loneliness, but not in the way she was thinking. 

Alarm flashes across her features again as she swipes another tissue against his face. “Ah! Sorry, I’m so bad at this,” she says, stepping closer. 

His hands catch her wrists, stopping her frantic ministrations midway. “MC,” he says, another breath of laughter escaping him at the sight of her distress on his account. “I’m not sad, I promise.” 

The pang in his chest is painful, but it’s tenderness, not melancholy, that causes the sensation. 

“But— “ she begins before her shoulders deflate. “I didn’t want to make you cry.”

It’s almost said as an apology—an unnecessary one. Xavier had grown more indifferent about his birthday with every passing year. It wasn’t until MC insisted they did something other than read a book did he realize how her strains of affection had wriggled their way into his head. 

For the first time in years, he was enjoying this day. Not that he wanted to celebrate himself…rather, he wanted to celebrate with her. 

The chair creaks against the cement as he stands, his hands still clutching hers. With a light tug, she loses her balance and staggers forward into his chest. He envelops her in his arms, savoring her touch when she relaxes into his embrace. 

“I’m grateful,” he says after a long moment, her hair soft against his face. “That was all.”

It’s insufficient for what he’s actually feeling. A memory tugs at the back of his mind, and even if it’s far off, he remembers it vividly. 

It invokes the smell of vanilla and flowers, the comfortable heat of the mellow sun on his cheeks, and an inexplicable warmth that blossoms from his chest. 

His gaze sweeps over his current surroundings, littered with the little details she’d prepared these last few days, and he’s aware of the direct contrasts. 

Chocolate instead of vanilla. Paper lantern stars among the potted flowers. The moon instead of the sun beaming down on them. 

However, that warmth is very much the same. 

Thank you for letting me relive it, he thinks, unable to articulate his gratitude aloud.

She loosens herself from his hold just enough to look up at him. Her focus flickers to his lips, and his usually slow heartbeat quickens in response. 

She presses onto her tiptoes to brush her nose against his. “Happy Birthday, Xavier,” she finishes, barely above a whisper.

Allowing his eyelids to flutter shut, he relishes in the splendor of the next few seconds. Her closeness and the brush of her fingers against the nape of his neck leave him chasing his next breath. 

But before Xavier can close the meer centimeters left, the saccharine scent around them turns acrid. 

His eyes snap open to meet MC’s own stunned expression.

“The candle!” she gasps as they both whirl towards the forgotten cake. A pool of wax bubbles at the center and only a small stub of wick remains lit. 

MC shoves him haphazardly back into his seat, tapping his shoulder wildly. “Just hurry and make a wish!”

Xavier’s mind draws a blank as he finds himself facing the cake once more. With all the years he’d lived, he should have a long list of desires, and yet in this very moment, his heart is full. 

Still, he squeezes his eyes shut and blows out sharply. The weak flame vanishes into a thin trail of smoke. 

MC softly claps her hands together before coming around the table. Xavier leans forward to observe the details of the cake now that tears weren’t obscuring his vision. Purple streaks swirl through the white cream, and the delicate gold dust scattered throughout reflects the glittering constellations overhead. 

“Did you make it yourself?” he asks, though the answer is obvious by the half-squished fondant star in the corner. 

MC nods proudly. Her confidence only wanes when her eyes fall on the puddle of half-dried wax cratering the icing in the center. A defeated sigh drifts from her lips. “Xavier, I think baked goods tremble when they see you—and you didn’t even make this one.” 

“Maybe I’m a legendary monster in their world,” he says seriously, pleased by the soft chuckle he elicits from the girl. His attention flicks to her briefly before returning to her diligent fingers extracting the wax. “It’s pretty either way.” 

MC hums in disagreement. “The icing on top made it prettier.”

With a small spoon, she swipes a lump of sugary fluff from one of the corners and pops it in her mouth. “It still tastes good though—so that’s all that matters.”

A remnant of the white icing is smudged against the edge of her mouth, but Xavier says nothing, electing to commit the image to memory instead. 

Still oblivious to her appearance, she collects another scoop from a different side and extends it out to him. “Want to taste it?” 

Xavier’s lips lift in a small smile as his gaze trails from her hand up to her face. Those tendrils of affection are winding inside of his chest again, only tightening their hold at the brilliant luster reflected in her eyes. 

She was looking at him like that again, her entire countenance brightening as she waited expectantly. He was accustomed to being a loner—a shadow passing through the crowd before disappearing into a flash of light. 

But now, she was aware of him. More than that, she was anticipating his reaction, his thoughts, his feelings—and not just because it was his birthday. 

It was…overwhelming. 

Unable to stop himself, Xavier rises to his feet, not quite sure what he wants to do or say. However, when he peers down at her again, his body acts before his mind can catch up. 

Swooping forward, he catches her mouth with his own. 

Immediately, he is bombarded with her intense sweetness. 

She tastes like sugar and stars and lavender—as if all the promises she’d adorned on him that day lingered on her lips, reaffirming her vows even as she melts into him. 

At her returned fervor, his smile unfurls the kiss, a result of his physical inability to contain his bliss any longer. 

“It’s very sweet,” he murmurs into the meager space  between them. His thumb traces the outline of her jaw and brushes away the little bit of icing he hadn’t caught. 

When he meets her gaze again, her countenance is radiating with fondness just as it had at the fountain. 

“Do you want to know what I wished before?” he says, suddenly feeling flustered by her rapt attention. 

Her expression contorts into stern frown. She steps back, though she can’t go far with his hands greedily holding their grip at her waist. “No! If you tell me, it won’t come true.”

Xavier hums thoughtfully, bumping her nose with his own. “Then can I tell you what I didn’t wish for?”

She falters a moment before pursing her lips. It’s obvious her curiosity is winning over her superstition. “I guess that’s alright.” 

A chuckle scrapes past Xavier’s throat, but he schools his giddiness, clasping his hands together over the small of her back. 

“I didn’t wish not to revisit the sea of flowers with you next year,” he says. “And I didnt wish not to watch a real meteor shower with you. And I desperately did not wish not to spend every birthday I have left in time with you.” 

A soft pink dusts her cheeks, growing deeper with every “not wish”. Her hands cup his face and she gives him several tight squishes—as she tends to do often. 

“Don’t tell me you wasted your wish on that,” she says, her voice noticeably strained. “I promised you those things, so I’ll make sure it happens.” 

“A wish on you is never wasted,” Xavier returns, pulling from her hold lest she assault him further. “Besides, those are my true feelings, and really…it’s all I want.” 

MC releases his face to wrap her arms around his neck once more. “That’s all you want?” She raises a brow. “Even more than those ugly pictures of me back?” 

He rolls his eyes. 

“They’re not ugly,” he insists, though he grows solemn at the smirk that pulls at her mouth. “But I do want those back.”

“It would be a shame if they got lost.”

“I won’t let you borrow anything again,” he threatens knowing full well he’d lend her his very life source if she asked. 

Her shoulders shake in a fit of giggles before she rests her head against his chest. Though there’s no music, they begin to sway to a melody only their tied souls seem to hear. 

“Fine. Think of it as your second to last birthday gift,” she murmurs after awhile. 

“I think you’ve showered me with enough today,” he says. “Though…why second to last?”

MC lifts her head as they slow to a stop, her expression more somber and sincere. “I’m cashing in my wish early,” she explains, her fingers fiddling with the lapel of his blazer. “For the meteor shower we’ll see in the future.”

“And what’s that?” Xavier pauses. “I mean…what’s your not-wish?”

Her lips quirk upwards at the joke before she lets out an unsteady breath. Her eyes lift to his, drenching him with her fierce conviction. “I wish you all the happiness in the world, Xavier. And not just in this one. Every world out there…every planet, every universe—I wish you happiness in each one.”

His throat is constricting again, and maybe a few more tears leak from his barely dried eyes, but it’s okay. With all the smiling and laughter throughout the day, a few bouts of crying was justified. 

However, it seemed that MC’s wish would be granted early.

Because as they sit under the stars and eat sugary cake—and even as they pull pieces of wax from their mouths with heady laughter—Xavier feels his chest fill with the warmth of the sun. 

Whether this would be his last birthday or the first of many more celebrations, he would hold fast to this memory with everything inside of him.

Because in this exact moment in time and space, he was blissfully happy.

[hyacinthusmemorial]

is it only me, who goes like "Apollo must have flashback to hyacinth dying , when he saw Achilles and dead Patroclus,

Am I the only one who thinks of this? Okay

If that’s your personal head canon, go right ahead. Believe what you want to, nobody will stop you. 👍😉 I think its definitely a sweet sentiment, and a fun little brain worm.

But, I don’t think Apollo would react that way for for quite a few reasons. The first is mythology and the second is psychology and the third is genre.

The mythological reason is that Apollo is directly and purposefully responsible for Patroclus’s death, and he definitely hates Achilles. Like actually. The List of Top Ten People Apollo hates has Achilles twice on it. If he was in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and Achilles, and he had a gun with two bullets in it, he would shoot Achilles twice. He wants Achilles to suffer, and when Patroclus dies he tells Hector that he’s the third guy to kill him, but Apollo was the first to kill him. Because I think everyone in the Trojan war knows Apollo and Achilles hate each other. Apollo because Achilles murdered his sons (plural) and Achilles because he knows Apollo’s going to kill him. Reasons for their bitter rivalry can be found in this post here. There are more probably too.

As far as the psychological aspect, let’s assume Apollo’s psyche is like a human’s (which I do not think it totally is, but that’s another post). Trauma and Grief are two completely separate experiences. Grief is a normal human thing which we are given excellent coping skills to overcome by nature. People die. It’s a fact of life. But, HOW people die can be traumatic. For example, if your in a war and you watch your buddy die from a mine exploding and he doesn’t die right away, that’s traumatic. The grief is still separate from the trauma. Its closely aligned, but its separate. Trauma on the other hand is a situation that humans are not equipped to handle—its a situation outside the psychological norm. So our brain adapts normally to an abnormal situation.

I think the only true similarity between Patrochilles/Hyapollo deaths is that they were gay and one of them died before the other. If anything, Apollo was feeling a little vindictive when Patroclus died. He was the arm of fate that killed Patroclus, and Achilles absolutely deserved the death and destruction of everything he held dear in my POV. He was a serial assaulter and a war criminal.

Another reason why flashbacks just don’t work is because flashbacks are a trauma response. I think there’s a separate issue where one might live in the memories of a loved one’s passing, but that’s separate from a flashbacks. Flashbacks from PTSD are when the subconscious fear overwhelms the conscious. It requires a trigger, which can be anything and sinister—subtle and terrible. We know from the ancient authors that one of Apollo’s trigger is a westerly wind. @gingermintpepper had an excellent post providing several sources about Apollo’s approach to Hyacinthus and Asclepius’s deaths.

A flashback is a fear response in a situation that does not require this response based off of a trigger that puts the sub-conscious into a flight/fight mode and makes someone relive a previous traumatic experience. So for example Apollo might feel a western wind and relive Hyacinthus’s death or fear that Zephyrus is about to hurt him or the person he is with. This also depends on coping skills, and whether the person has developed grounding skills to put them back in the present.

I don’t believe that the situation with Patroclus/Achilles is triggering in the right way to elicit a flashback in Apollo. Patroclus and Achilles deaths are pretty different from Hyacinthus’s. So even if he had a grief response it would be minimal. At least from my perspective, one of my parents died when I was a child, and I had to take care of them while they were sick. I take care of a lot of sick people in my day to day, and I will say I rarely ever experience something that puts me back into the mode I was in when my parent died. I walk past the room my parent died in sometimes, cause I work in the hospital that they died in, and I am alright because I recognize the situation and I’m able to accept they died there. Alternatively, what does illicit a response in me is a certain smell my parent had when they were dying. I recognize it in patients sometimes, and I can have a visceral response to that, but again, I have learned how to appropriately deal with these sorts of things because “improve, adapt, overcome.”

Trauma is absolutely just a part of living in the world. Everyone has their own life story and troubles and triggers and struggles. But I don’t think Apollo/Hyacinthus connects to Patroclus/Achilles in any intense way.

Alternatively, I think perhaps something Apollo might have a more visceral response to is Hermes and Crocus, who are quite nearly the same dang story. That’s Apollo’s brother, and he loses someone the same way Apollo lost someone. That would open up gateways of intense suffering.

As far as genre goes, Apollo and Hyacinthus have a horror story parading as a romance story. Zephyrus is a sinister, invisible monster—he causes violence in a place where violence does not belong. On the other hand, Patroclus/Achilles is a war story—violence is expected. They both absolutely knew they were going to fie in that war, so their agony is expected from the beginning. Hyacinthus’s loss is unexpected and therefore, grievous. Not that losing your lover/cousin in a war is less horrific—it’s just prepared for, while losing your lover in a meadow while playing discus is…not.

I don’t mean that your personal view is wrong in anyway. Apollo is a divine character and anybody can have any view of him they would like. A lot of people view him as the antagonist of the Iliad and Achilles’ story, which to me, he just isn’t. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love perspectives and opinions. I like sharing mine, so I love it when people share theirs.

[wildflowervol6]

my all time favs - soukoku fics pt. 2

part 2 lessgoooooo

The City Where Wind Blows by Raven_Rein

Dazai has long since known that he'd die either by his own hand or Chuuya's.

He just never thought the end would come like this.

(this is MCD)

The One Whom My Soul Loves by KikiMari

On a particularly gloomy night, Dazai finds himself in an empty church, talking to a strange priest with a glass of wine in hand.

A story of grief, healing and love.

Don’t Lose Yourself by cheeto_frog

"I'm dead." Ryuunoske said stoically.

Chuuya faltered, breath catching in his throat as he extended a finger just to drop it midair. "I'm sorry, you're WHAT?"

"Dead. That's why your fist went through me. I kind of figured that part was obvious." __

After Chuuya’s brother returns as a ghost and begs him to bring him back to life, Chuuya has no choice but to enter the infamous labyrinth with a rather annoying peer wrapped in bandages.

Chuuya is determined to save his brother—that is, if he and Dazai don’t kill each other first.

As the Petals Fall by black00cat

Chuuya has lived a relatively normal 20 years of his life, until it all came crashing down with a single mistake. Now, bleeding and desperate, he doesn’t care about where he’s going or who may be waiting for him in the dark forest — he’s going to be dead very soon anyway…

Unless he has the (mis)fortune of catching a certain kitsune’s eye.

And neither he nor Dazai know just how complicated their life is going to get, or how high the stakes will be when the past comes back to haunt them.

OR: kitsune Dazai x human Chuuya story with lots of demons and drama, some fluff, some smut, and a happy ending :)

Ritual Time by SunTheater

Walking to the train, looking over his shoulder every so often and wishing he had just taken the motorcycle, he thinks about questions, who’s allowed to ask them and what they’re allowed to be. He thinks about the ways people talk to each other, sometimes more violent than fists and knees. He thinks about the deaths of hundreds of people and who’s to blame for them.

He also thinks about Dazai. He mostly thinks about Dazai.

~

Chuuya is dissatisfied with this life. Dazai leads him to another.

The Great War by the_most_happy

Dazai "Ouji" Osamu is the most popular idol of his generation.

People adore him, critics worship him. He has the whole world dancing in the palm of his hand. When he steps into an underground bar in Yokohama, on a summer night like any other, he is looking for a muse, a fake boyfriend and a reason for living.

Nakahara Chuuya just wanted a glass of wine and a one-night stand.

(Or: the “I slept with a stranger and he turned out to be my little sister’s favorite singer” AU where two idiots catch very real feelings through a fake dating contract. Art in notes.)

until the song is over by arkastadt

Chuuya can't accept his new reality, so he forces Poe to write him a new one

(MCD)

A Matter of Faith by the_most_happy

Or: Chuuya gets severely injured during a battle, and Dazai orders him not to fall asleep.

-

“You can’t—“ With that single note of a well-known song, Chuuya pushed him off a cliff - and Dazai was still falling when the second note vibrated between them. “You can’t do a double suicide—"

‘It’s going to be alright, ‘Samu,’ Chuuya had said. ‘You are going to be fine.’ And, now, the stupid Chibi was trying to make him laugh.

“—On your own.”

Visiting Hours by the_most_happy

Nakahara Chuuya is beautiful.

He owns a flower shop. He has a deep, sweet voice, a worn-out leather jacket and azure eyes that glisten under the spring sun.

“Oi, hang on. Are are you hitting on me?”

“I could be,” Dazai says, putting the pen down. “Am I allowed to hit on you?”

[Or: Dazai meets a handsome stranger in a park and decides to write his story.]

It must be the wine by BlowingYourMind

And Chuuya smiled. He smiled. Even with only the pale light of the moon as a light source, the sight was one that Dazai would commit to memory. He would engrave it in the back of his mind because even if Chuuya was drunk, sick, half-asleep, and in an emotional crisis, he would always be a sight that Dazai never got tired of looking at.

Or

Three times Chuuya drunkenly confesses to Dazai and one time Dazai returns the feelings.

mwahhhhh and head pats

xoxo