#and grieves the fact that those she loved in that world all in the end have died except for her

[drenched-in-sunlight]

one thing that i find interesting is that even though we never get to interact with Marika directly, only knowing her via obscure cutscenes and other characters' dialogue... she actually displays a wide range of emotions as much as any other NPCs.

her statues depict her as having a warm, gentle smile:

the Mimic veil description points to her playful, mischievous side:

(it's a popular theory in the JP/Asian side of the fandom that it's sth from her childhood - hence the "Marika's Mischief", not "Queen Marika's", and she used it to escape the grisly fate befalling her family.

additionally, its equivalence in Dark Souls is also something described as "the mischief of a young girl who sought relief from the solitude of the woods at dusk", aka Princess Dusk who hails from "Oolacile, land of ancient golden sorceries", but i digress)

her portrait, the story trailer's "Queen Marika was driven to the brink" and Gideon's dialogue after the player defeated Malenia pointed out her sorrow:

(back when i first played the base game, this is the portrait that drove my eyes most in Roundtable Hold. i kept gazing at her - the Queen with permanently lowered eyes, and thought "there is a girl in there")

The bat lady's song, Messmer's entire Crusade, all those conflicts to establish the Erdtree, shows her anger, and the cruelty she's capable of:

Then there's Shaman's village, the clinic underneath Shadow Keep, the golden braid, the Minor Erdtree, the sealing of Death - that points to grief, trauma, survivor guilt, kindness, and the ruinous drive for revenge that results in the above path down hell:

(there's also a theory for the Crusade's headless statue being a reminder for the Hornsent of what they put Marika's mother through, but it's not concrete canon so here is the link if you want to check it out)

The fact that all of Erdtree's incantations are heal and protection spells (with only one exception of Wrath of Gold spell which was found after the Elden Ring was shattered), the Capitol's Perfumers originally being blessed healers, and that all Erdtree blessings come in the shape of tears give the picture of Marika's gentle wish at the beginning: to heal everything and everyone.

(and to me personally, there's a kind of vulnerability and honesty in showing your tears to the world and let it be your power to heal at the same time.)

the eye she blessed Messmer with (i do think the Eng translation at some part lost the sentiment of the JP text - that the eye is always referred to as a blessing)

the blessing flask that - unlike its Dark Souls equivalent (which ranges from 6-13 flasks), only have 4 available to us player, heal all ailments and status effect, and specified as sth made for Messmer.

the Marika's soreseal in the Haligtree + the waterfall near Godwyn's final resting place

the Regal Omen Bairn (that was fashioned after the Jizo statue - sth made by grieving parents wishing for protection for their deceased child in the afterlife)

the blessing, gifts, equipment that Messmer and Godwyn's personal knights all get

the fact that Marika's bedchamber and the Impaler's Catacomb (which is the only catacomb in the base game to have the spike trap mechanic used in catacombs in the DLC) remain the proof of Messmer's existence in the base game

how Godwyn's ending is the only ending where the mending rune is placed on the position of Marika's womb (the lower arc or the Elden Ring - also referred to as the basin in which its blessings pool)

that's a whole barrage of motherhood. the love, the fear, the postpartum depression, the guilt and anxiety, (the occasional scheming for revenge with her son). and despite how flawed and tragic that love ends up being for all of them, it is there.

(there's a whole subplot about how Messmer is the only demigod to be called ugly in-game (Hornsent npc dialogue) while Boc's questline is about how his mother being the only one to always assure him he's beautiful, despite everyone else calling him ugly. and how each NPCs questline does reflect a wider theme seen in Marika and her children. but again, i digress)

every time i think of her, Marika is a constantly shifting kaleidoscope, holding everything from within (the beauty and the malign, light and dark, birth and death, she's warm and gentle, she's cruel and unjust, she's strong and kind, she's weak and resentful, she's sweet and she's bitterness made flesh)... and i could only stand there and admire it all.

[dead-salmon]

thinking ob lb2 again and i'm still so sad that it was messed up so badly when the initial themes were really great

like skadis & odin's (which skadis 2nd interlude elaborates on) selfish love, wanting the world and beings they love to continue living even if it's a cruel existence for them. the way you can compare it to surtrs selfish feelings he has for ophelia, or the love sigurd and brynhild have for one another

skadi & ortlinde being unable to understand their loved ones decisions until it's practically too late. the inability of ophelia, skadi and ortlinde to actually take action until it's much too late. napoleon serving as a symbol of hope in that regard, the rainbow finally spurring ophelia into action.

the from lostbalt manga scene of ophelia admitting that she truly had different wishes in life than where she ended up, apologising for not doing better. skadi grieving over this, over ophelia, as a mother who is in the exact same spot of being unable to leave the duty that was placed on her.

lb2 had potential man, skadi's character has so much potential. it just pisses me off that both the game and fandom reduce her to moe scathach when there's so much that could've been done with her character

[ir-abelas-vhenan]

Don't mind me, just revisiting the plot (again) and dying over this line (again). (These screenshots are going to be abysmal, but you'll get the point).

"To stop now would dishonor those I have wronged to come this far."

Yeah he's talking about Mythal (earned or not) and Felassan and Lavellan and Varric...but the way it applies to HIM, too, is what absolutely guts me.

Long post ahead...

Solas realizing that Lavellan doesn't care about how others see him or want to use him under the inquisiton, that HIS motivations as he has shared them are enough for her and worth defending against those who would tell him he's something he isn't. Solas, for the first time, being confronted with the realization that one these new elves he does not see himself in will still go to bat for him.

"You came here to help, Solas, I won't let them use that against you."

(Is he duplicitous? Yes. But intent on working against Corypheus? Undoubtedly).

“How would you stop them?”

“However I had to.”

“...thank you.”

Solas grappling with the fact that it wasn't just a one off, that this Dalish woman being faced with "hypotheticals" he's desperately been trying to get her people to entertain is jumping in head first, pushing back and disagreeing with him but never treating him worse for their differences and always admitting when he's helped shape a changing perspective. Solas daring to ask for help and marveling at the fact that he receives it, that the same woman who asked if it might some day be possible to live alongside spirits, who did not immediately shoot down his critique of THE CHANTRY REFUSING TO ACKNOWLEDGE SPIRITS AS LEGITIMATE BEINGS (GAH), who did not laugh at him for saying he preferred their company most days, this woman, is going to drop time and resources during war time preparations to personally help his friend.

And then, when he is too late and has once again failed someone he considers a friend, he disappears within himself, where he has always gone to exact punishment for the weight of the lives he believes he's betrayed. It almost works, too.

Psych. Lavellan doesn't want him to grieve alone, to stare at the place in the Fade where his friend used to be and think of all he should have done differently.

“The next time you have to mourn, you don’t need to be alone.”

“It’s been so long since I could trust someone.”

“I know.”

“I’ll work on it. And thank you.”

And still she unbalances him, accepts him, wants more. Solas is sharing a personality that brings him the closest he has ever been to his spirit form, and it is ENOUGH for her. Existing as he has always dreamt of is all takes to earn her loyalty, respect, and eventually love.

But does she stop there? No. She doesn't chafe at this random apostate who speaks with certainty and unapologetically delves into a past he believes worth preserving, even at the cost of questioning her culture as it currently stands.

The very woman he once thought of as a mistake that HE unleashed upon the world is asking to be a part of his, not because of what he can bring to the table, not because she needs a right hand man, and certainly not because she thinks he has some well of power and intelligence critical to winning over enemies she’s willing to join for "supervisory" purposes (cough cough hi Mythal). She bears the weight of choices that can and will lead to death, to pain, and when it wears on her she relies on him, not for solutions but so that at the end of it all she might smile with someone who knows her heart and the good she tried to do amidst a sea of terrible options. She wants to be known, no inch of her unturned, and worse, she thinks she knows him. But how could she? This is no longer who he is, it is merely the remnants of what he destroyed to make a world at Mythal's whim.

“You’re an admirable man. Not many people know who they are the way you do.”

“Thank you. Both for saying that and…for seeing that. Few in this world can see me instead of just seeing a pair of pointed ears”

She. Sees. Him. Every part he slowly is realizing he wants to be known for and even a few he thought he could hide. And then he gives it all up. Because he woke to a new world where spirits and elves and mages were so far removed from the role they played in Arlathan that it can only be yet another mistake he caused and must fix, never mind the fact that the dwarves have forgotten why they fled underground millennia ago in the first place.

The friend who tore him from the world he loved, urged him to take physical form? She is dead, too, never mind the fact that she ignored his urging for a different path, nevermind that he killed and tore and hurt in her name because otherwise what was losing the part of himself he loved for?

"A spirit becomes a demon when denied its original purpose.”

“It hurts. It always does, but I will survive.”

“You bound it to obedience, then commanded it to kill. That is when it turned.”

He may no longer recognize where the Dread Wolf ends and where Solas begins, but if he gives up now and permits himself the chance to remember, the pain he caused himself and others means nothing, because he did it all for Mythal and in his final discussion with her, regardless of what Veilguard tries to convey, she does not release him from his position as her agent.

And maybe that's part of why I'm so angry, because EVEN BEFORE TRESPASSER, the fragment of Mythal that ends up in Morrigan could have freed him, but she does not.

"I am sorry." He whispers.

"The failure was mine," he tells her, voice trembling. "I should pay the price."

Silence.

And do we get that "what we did, we did together" psuedo-fake ass-absolution, the one that, if given enough time and safety to put himself first he may have realised he doesn't truly need to pursue the things he deserves, that make him feel finally like himself again? No the fuck we don't.

"As am I, old friend." She murmurs.

Looking through the lens of Veilguard, this isn't an apology, it's a condemnation. It's Mythal tormenting him one more time, twisting the knife deeper, agreeing that it is Solas alone who has brought them to this point, who deserves to be punished. And then she reminds him what they are to each other, what he is supposed to be to her. What he must become again.

"It isn't abuse if I ask," Cole says in his personal quest.

"Not always true," Solas shoots back.

So he recommits to the friend he gave up his nature for, he refuses to let himself remember that Lavellan learned the full truth of his identity and still begged him not to mourn alone. Even so, he still cannot quite forget.

Var lath vir suledin. Our love will persevere.

I wish it could, vhenan.

And so he pushes onwards, spending almost a decade denying himself his true nature and regretting that he ever gave it a chance to come through because now he KNOWS that this world is different and a little broken, but it's a world he could be a part of because of the woman and the friends that made a place for him. It is a world that doesn't necessarily need to be restored as much as it might need renovation, but that is not the world Mythal demanded of him when she let him kill a remaining piece of her. And any solution but that means the hurt of taking a body, of hurting the titans, of time and time again being called on by one evanuris to fix a problem they all caused, was for nothing.

And a Pride of that magnitude, that sinister an origin, has a long, long way to fall.

And then that same uppity little shit has the audacity to tell him it's not too late, that he can turn back.

He kills again. He kills again. He kills again.

He kills a friend.

He fails to prevent the Evanuris from wreaking havoc a second time, wrenches another innocent into his war, and when they ask him about the woman he calls vhenan, he feels the mask stifling him begin to suffocate. But he never lets it fall, because to surrender now is to place her broken heart atop the pile of regrets he's been holding up like Atlas crumbling beneath the weight of the world itself. Because he still thinks it selfish to want the things that make him feel like himself again, so they need to be taken off the board entirely.

"To stop now would dishonor those I have wronged to come this far."

If he gives up now, his entire corporeal life has been a betrayal of many, but worst of all, he will have ruined himself for nothing.

But then she's there. A little older, a little sadder, and still looking at him like she did the night he almost broke and instead carefully removed any suggestion that she had ever belonged to anyone but herself.

"Didn't you hear me?" Her every action screams as she kneels to meet his gaze like he did the day he took her arm (another failure, another sacrifice he cannot let be for nothing).

The tombstone in the fade is his greatest fear, but it is not his fate. Why? She will not let it be. It cannot be his din'anshiral if she is not beside him.

Lavellan may not have understood the depth of exactly WHEN Solas first came somewhere foreign and uncertain to help, but she never once failed to keep her promise. She refuses to let his initial desire to do good be held against him any longer. And when she sees him accept that not-quite-absolution-definitely-more-of-a-power-play from the god that saw what he was capable of and molded him into a weapon, she finds her in to make sure he doesn't walk off alone to mourn again, never again will she lose him to the expectations others have of him. No doubt she wants to find a way to sink the fingers of her good hand into that spectral visage and tear it away like he wishes to do to the veil. But she is not here for Mythal. She is here for her heart, and for the man who has been carrying it since the moment her lips met his in the fade ten years ago.

“No orders to kill, no conflict with its nature, no demon.”

She forces him to see that the only remaining betrayal is to lock himself away one more irreversible time. All that's left to lose is the piece of himself he cherishes more than his greatest victories: all that he has to gain comes from making sure the love that was given to him at Skyhold, in the moment where Varric saw all he was capable of and still tried to bring him back home, was not given in vain.

"There is no fate but the love we share." She tells him as soon as Mythal's too-little-too-late platitudes send shudders through his body.

Banal nadas ar lath'ma vhenan.

It will not be so terrible a place, so unforgivable a betrayal if he can finally dare to put himself first. If, unlike that night in Crestwood, he finally gives in not to break, but to make himself whole.

There's a codex entry in Inquisiton about a spirit of wisdom who is summoned by researchers and only after a very pleasant conversation do they realize they made a mistake and never successfully bound the spirit in the first place, that it chose to speak with them of its own accord.

"I am not certain the spirit would have talked so freely had it been shackled at the time," writes the author of the entry.

I keep thinking about this alongside the datamined line of Morrigan saying, "And so, the Dread Wolf is stopped by, of all things love."

But that isn't quite right, is it?

Because in the end, of course the Dread Wolf could only ever freed by, over everything, love.

[vidals-harkness]

you’re so special, to me (rio vidal)

summary: nobody loves death. rio gets told a thousand times a day how much she's hated. but in the end, when it gets hard, there's always the one 'i love you' she can rely on. life's.

pairings: rio vidal x fem!reader

fic type: fluff with a smidge of angst

warnings: talks of death

word count: 1.08k

“I hate you!” Exclaimed the grieving daughter as Rio stood near the hospital bed.

“I hate you!” Yelled the mother as Rio cradled her baby in her arms.

“I hate you!” Screamed the husband, his wife’s body delicately walking beside her.

“I hate you!” Said the father, watching her take his hurting son away.

I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.

Day in, day out, till the clocks stopped working. Year after year, since the world began spinning. All that hate, all that resentment.

Every time she would feel those rattling breaths, the halting hearts, the tears shed by their loved ones, the blood on the floor. She would feel their pulse against her fingertips, their timers ticking slower and slower. The sand running out from the hourglass.

She would take their hand, bring them peace, and the first thing to be said was “I hate you,”

Nobody loved death. This was a fact. There were exceptions: those who ran into her embrace, those who were cast away, those who were unloved, those who had nobody.

But in the end, it was always ‘I hate you’.

She would never admit it, but despite every single century, she had sat in the darkness and wept.

She’d watch you, envious.

You’d enter a room, and joy would follow. You’d make the hearts beat again, the pulse quicken. You’d form life in the wombs, you’d make little limbs move.

“You’re beautiful,” they all said.

You were wanted, you were what they wished for. Not her.

But she loved you. She loved your radiance, the light you carried. She loved the way your blessings were gentle, divine.

You made the cycle start again, made the flowers grow, the birds sing, and the grass sway, made the breath flow steady in the air.

You were Life.

She was the one that turned it all to ash. The one who snatched the breath away. She was the one who wilted the flowers, browned the grass, silenced the birds.

She was Death.

Yet when the time for tranquility came…there you were.

I hate you, I hate you, I—

“I love you,” you whispered. One whisper silenced the shouts.

“Why don’t they want me?” She asked, her hair falling softly onto her face as she lay with you—moments of rare peace.

“They are flawed creatures, my love,” you responded, ever tranquil and reasonable. “They don’t know the aid you provide, the peace, the release,”

“Nobody wants me,” she said, her tears staining her soft cheeks. Before they could fall on her robes your soft hand caught them, tender as a feather.

“I want you,” you said plainly.

“Why? All I bring is gloom and grief,”

“What you bring is peace and tranquility, cloaked behind the mortal blindness of grief,”

She listened to your heartbeat, she felt your warmth. She’d spent lifetime after lifetime taking, but could never give anything in return. You spend lifetime after lifetime only ever giving, only to never take anything to compensate.

“Selfless creature,” she scoffed. “You give and give and give, you never take,”

You pondered for a moment. “That is the consequence, my dear,”

“How?”

“I never have anything for myself,”

“You never get told you are hated, ever,” she countered plainly.

“The boy on the roof, the girl in the ward, the criminal in the prison,” you listed out. “Many hate life, but the sacred balance unfortunately rests the highest burden upon you, my love,”

“Life cannot love death,” she said.

“Yet I love you,” you replied, sealing your words with a kiss to her forehead. “You are my balance, you are my shadow, you are my everything,”

She smiled, a rare smile that brightened her eyes and warmed her heart. Unknowingly it did the same for you. It made her cold cheeks tint pink, made your own heart flutter.

“I am destruction,” she said.

“You are the destruction from which life begins again,” you whispered, fingertips trailing along her neck. “You are the rugged beauty of the mountains, the beauty of the fall, the beauty of a dandelion, of a thunderstorm,”

She felt your words calm her racing heart, she felt it drown out the sea of insults, she felt beautiful.

“I love you,” you said, with a conviction that only an angel could muster. “I love you as the sun loves the moon, as the sky loves the earth. I will keep loving you till the timer runs out, till the last grain of sand falls in the hourglass.

“You can pillage, you can murder, you can plunder. But even then I will see your wild, wild beauty, even then I will wonder like I do each and every day, how such a beautiful soul could love me as I am,”

She leaned up, her hands her support, giving Life a kiss, giving her beloved a kiss. Your lips moved in sync, a dance of gentle and harsh, light and darkness.

As you broke away, still so close that you were breathing each other’s air. She inhaled your scent—so clearly alive. Of moss and petrichor and spring and summer. She understood why your role was what it was.

You were the embodiment of comfort, of joy, of peace. You were the reason why she could keep going without withering away and remaining a mechanical shell of herself.

“You silence the voices within my mind,” she admitted quietly, her eyes locking in on yours. “Your eyes hold the universe, and out of the tens of millions of people who say they hate me, wish ill-will upon me, you are the only one who says you love me,”

Your eyes crinkled at the sides as you smiled, the universe within those heavenly irises shifting as it twinkled. “I will spend every single moment of my eternal existence reminding you that you are loved, Rio Vidal,”

She traced the lining of your lips, your face, your eyes with her fingertips. “Are you even real?”

“I exist only for you, my love,” you smiled. “And you’re so special, to me,”

That’s all she needed.

One voice amidst the thousands. One ‘I love you’ to break through the hate.

Just one you, to help her through it all.

And so Death settled in the embrace of Life, allowing the sand in the hourglass to fall, allowing the timer to tick. Each breath, first and last, thrummed through your synchronised heartbeats, and there she just stayed, listening to the one sentence which fell from your lips.

“I love you,”

hello my bao buns! i’m sorry for the delay in my works but tumblr keeps deleting them :<. i’m working on ‘baby witch from death’ and your requests. thank you all for your patience, bao buns! i love you all!

love, jaya

[pzychojinx]

so, jinx in act one of season two. see, for three years i expected a full on descent into chaos and madness beyond any repair. i'd made peace with that, too. so i'm surprised - pleasantly, joyfully surprised.

very long analysis ahead on where they're taking her and how it speaks to me.

we first meet her again during silco's eulogy sequence - a beautiful sequence, halfway between dreamlike and real. "just like when vander shoved off", she says about his death. except it's not. after vander's death, after vi's perceived abandonment, everything jinx could feel was self-centered. she would say "she's not my sister anymore". she would devalue these people entirely. in fact, every single reaction to any action done by her loved ones would be self-centered and extreme. that is very much how her mental process works, how her trauma caused her to work. and more so: when silco would ask of her any work, any mission, she'd do the job purely for his sake, his affection, his approval, never caring about the cause.

in short, she was never able to get out of her own head for as much as a single minute. now, she starts the funeral off with "chembarons warring for control of the lanes. wannabe street thugs squabbling over scraps. just like when vander shoved off." and it's not about her abandonment anymore. it's not about being left alone. it's not about her. she's talking to silco about his city, his legacy, his world, his chembarons, his lanes. she's out of her own head, and it's the first time we ever see it.

"because someone put all those holes in you", she says then. and this is so interesting because there's obviously a dissociation here, as well as a very intense grief and sadness. we are obviously still dealing with someone who's deeply traumatized and unstable, but let's compare this with powder after the deaths of vander, mylo and claggor. powder had a full breakdown, both turned into a complete de-evaluation of vi as i was mentioning earlier and full desperation. "i only wanted to help, i only wanted to help, i only wanted to help".

this chaotic desperation is something jinx kept within herself throughout the entirety of s1 up until - the tea party. which i'm getting at, in a minute. point being, for now, that the jinx we see during silco's eulogy is grieving and lost and rootless and asking herself "what am i supposed to do with that?", but she lacks the chaotic full-on desperation that would lead her to acts of explosive destruction and/or self-destruction in s1. in fact, she's incredibly quieter. she's more grounded, more present in her movements, in the way she fights, in the way she talks.

in retrospect even her final action in s1, the infamous missile, already had the energy we're seeing now. it wasn't instinctive, driven by hallucinations or trauma or rage or an unrestrained trigger; it was silco's legacy and it was calculated. silco's death, i think now, left jinx as rootless as she's ever been, but it also left her with an acceptance of who she is. "don't cry, you're perfect". the tea party ends with her 'choosing' jinx and if you'd asked me before season two, i would have said with full certainty it meant she'd be going to be a loose cannon. entirely and with no possibility of ever being anything else. that's not what i think now.

i think she came to terms with who she is. i think now that the seat at the tea party wasn't a symbol of complete derailing, it was in a way a symbol of acceptance. "here's to the new us". she's fought her fight between powder and jinx and the tea party has permitted her to gain, in some way, a sense of closure. very importantly, having lost what she perceived as vi's acceptance, and having lost a father, she has also been able to shed the constant and desperate need to be in their favor.

during the 'sucker' sequence, we see her going through the lanes with a hood on her hair, very low-key. loose cannon jinx would have never, ever done that. loose cannon jinx would, quite simply, not have cared. she would have been extra, and explosive, and in everyone's faces. she's preserving herself not to be found, and that's new. again, i think she's still lost and rootless and grieving and really asking herself what she's supposed to do now that she's entirely autonomous and i also think there's definitely still a lot of bitterness and rage when it comes to vi which we obviously get to see during their fight and in no way is she magically ~healthy or anything like that - however.

she is still walking those streets in a way that indicates self-preservation. it would have been very, very easy for jinx to be captured by any of those goons and/or got herself killed. and for some reason, whether that be an apathetic, mourning state or mind, or whether that be some gained peace in who she is, or both - she didn't.

given all this, the new element that season two act one has introduced for her that truly moved me and made me feel... healed in a sort of way, is the introduction of human bonds for jinx that defy her historical, co-dependent mechanism of idolization and de-evaluation. ergo, sevika and isha. this is incredible for her and most of all, it's realistic. it's a chance at something, but it doesn't feel forced, nor fairytale-esque, nor does it resemble your usual ~redemption arc.

sevika and isha function as people who she's building some bond with, and since she's a little bit less in her own fucking head, and since she's not clinging to them as idealized protectors / saviours and neither is she refusing them as betrayers, and since she's not constantly fighting between what she perceives as her double identity anymore, she finally has the possibility to experience healthier bonds. sevika functions as somebody who still ties her to silco, possibly the closest thing she has right now to any root she might have left, and it works: reminiscing silco with her, gifting her the arm, doesn't leave her utterly alone but neither does it let her fall into the trap of clinging onto yet another figure from whom to fully depend.

and isha, very obviously, functions as the possibility of healing her inner child which is a goldmine for her storyline. her bond with isha could clearly have a narrative tie to jinx & silco, to jinx & vi, and most importantly to jinx and powder herself - this is all quite obvious but again, it's not executed in a way that feels like a forced 'redemption arc' or whatnot. the idea of this little street kid who just imprints on her like a lost little duckling, which is in no way jinx's decision, simply feels natural and heartwarming. does this mean i presume such healing of her inner child is going to come easy to her? no. but it's something. it's something very different from anything she's ever experienced before.

even through the loss, the rootlessness, the grief and confusion, the panic attack we see her experiencing through the lanes as a consequence of the moment she sees vi and caitlyn's enforcer squad, even through the brutality of the fight with vi, - and this is all to say, she's still a very traumatized individual, which is important because it would have just been senseless to have jinx somehow get fully stable like a switch had been flipped - we're seeing something new for jinx here. i've seen many posts related to "i'm glad it's you", and i might be unpopular here but while i do think jinx still has an element of suicidality, i also think she was at least half bluffing there. comparing her micro-expressions with the ones back on the bridge fight with ekko, i'm under the impression she was testing vi, at the very least partially. "poisoning us with gas?" is also an interesting line because even in her attack at her sister, she's less focused on her own trauma and more on something that we've hardly seen from her before - belonging to the lanes.

all of this to say, i'm loving the path they're taking for her. it's still very much jinx. it feels like jinx. but she's not just about to wreak senseless and desperate havoc in order to be seen by either her sister or her father, because there's no one to be seen by anymore. she's not fighting a desperate battle between her identities either, because she's accepted her place. she's not loud and erratic, she's quieter and coming to terms with herself. closure is truly the word that comes to mind, for me, in how i see her arc right now. closure, and unexpectedly, possibility.

[fictioninmyblood]

Best Birthday Gift

Summary: Terry finally makes his way home just in time for his love’s birthday. Despite starting the day like any other, Y/N gets to end it with the best birthday gift ever.

A/N: I watched Rebel Ridge and it’s my birthday.

Warning: 18+ themes, fluff and angst(y)

Like most years Y/N had spent without Terry, Y/N looked forward to her birthday the same she did any day. She didn’t. It was always for others that she mustered up the energy to celebrate, but with Terry on active duty for the last few years and a swiftly dwindled social pool she hadn’t really had to lately. Now with Mike dead and Terry fighting through who knows what kind of white hell over in Silver Springs she hadn’t found the will to do more than pack and worry. She just kept praying that she would get another call from him soon.

Y/N had been hanging onto life by her bloody fingernails for years. When Terry crashed into her life, she had almost no craving to live. By the time he’d begun training troops, being stationed away from her for longer and longer periods, there wasn’t much she looked forward to each day. Despite finding some joy in becoming a teacher, Y/N still couldn’t help but see the world as it is. For all the serotonin those sweet babies brought her, knowing them brought just as much anxiety and despair. Terry had promised that when he was discharged he would put her on Dr. Richmond’s personal recovery plan. She would get to cook and bake and homemake as much as she wanted while he and Mike towed boats and he would come home to her every night to rub and kiss on her until all she could feel was their love. A traditional dynamic wasn’t popular these days, but with a man like Terry to ease her fears it was exactly what she was looking for.

The last 10 months of careful planning to finally build towards the growing old promises they’d made each other went out the window with one moment. Y/N had been upset to get that call from Mike in jail, the man doing exactly what she’d predicted and warned Terry about plenty of times. No matter how much they loved him, a pattern was a pattern and his kept putting their own plans on hold. He was always getting into trouble and Terry was always bending over backwards to get him out of it but this time had made her livid. She dug into him about it too, threatening that if he tried this shit in Florida he’d have to worry about her being his parole officer. Terry had worked too hard to make it out of the military with his body, mind, and heart intact, she’d be damned if Mike was the reason any part of him broke.

Too bad she couldn’t cuss him out now for doing just that. She loved Mike like family too, looking out for him in her own way while Terry was gone, but she didn’t know how to grieve. For some reason she still felt like all she had to do was wait a few weeks to pop him upside his head. The only thing Terry told her that had fully processed was the fact that he was in danger now. How could someone think about celebrating their birthday when the love of their life could potentially be strung up in the middle of some hick town to never be heard from again? How could she be happy to have her heart beating when a man she called family, no matter how much he made her mad, was dead? She could wait for him to call for a ride off of the prison lot all she wanted, it wasn’t coming ever again.

So she finished packing, ordered some takeout, took a gloriously long hot shower, lotioned, and cuddled up on her blowup bed in one of Terry’s old hoodies. Not many of his clothes still held his scent as strong as before so she only used the ones that did for emergencies or special occasions. Today counted as both.

Not wanting to think about what she spaced out on, Y/N started watching one of Terry’s favorite franchises. She was about 30 minutes into the first movie when her ring doorbell rang on her phone. Not bothering to look at the video feed, she opened the app and spoke into the phone.

“You can just leave it on the porch, thank you.”

“No can do ma’am, there’s some extra here you have to sign for.”

At the sound of his voice, Y/N finally looked at her video feed to see her baby on her porch looking dirty and exhausted but alive. She squealed, quickly kicking off her covers and ran to open the front door. Terry barely sat his backpack on the floor just inside the front door when Y/N launched herself into his arms, her own instantly locking around his neck. She felt the vibration of his soft laughter as he closed her door with his foot and walked to the island to put the food down.

As soon as the food was out of his hands, Terry grasped the underside of her ass where they met her thighs, helping her wrap them around his waist.

“Hi princess,” he said into her hair.

“You made it,” she mumbled back, still caught up in the feel of his arms around her waist and the smell of his irreplaceable scent drenching her senses.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Terry finally pulled back, pecked the tip of her nose, and looked at his lady. He kissed her sweetly until she started to lose her breath and pulled back to look at her when he was done. He kissed her forehead and took in not only her appearance but also the room. Spotting her makeshift cocoon he sat her on the island and rushed over to his backpack, bringing it with him. Y/N let her legs swing as she watched her man pull a pint of her favorite ice cream out his bag to put directly in the freezer along with a card and mini balloon.

She hadn’t meant to but she went from smiling to full out sobs in seconds as she watched Terry walk towards her with his small offering. It scared the crap out of Terry to see his princess fighting so hard to regulate her emotions and losing.

“Please don’t cry princess, it’s not even that much.”

“But-,” she couldn’t get any of her words out, too overwhelmed with this moment. Terry always seemed to have the magic touch of getting her to live in the now again, even if it meant sobbing uncontrollably. He was her safe place to just be in every form.

Terry cupped her face and wiped at her tears as he continued, “I didn’t even get you a proper gift.”

That made her throw her head back and laugh. “You lyin’ to me Terrance.” She sniffled away the last of her tears and grasped his face back. Y/N pecked his lips until he held her a little tighter and kissed her deeper. She put her hands on his back and rubbed up and down as the moment became extremely heated.

Y/N pulled her face away to really examine Terry, keeping her hands on his back, continuing their rubdown.

“You survived the military, whatever colonizer’s hell is going on in Silver Springs, made your way back to me on that bike for most likely most of the way, and still found time, energy, and resources to get my favorite ice cream and a card for my birthday.”

“Don’t forget your mini balloon.”

“That’s right, a mini balloon too! And the most important part of my gift Terrance Richmond,” she pecked his luscious lips a few more times, “you.”

Terrance was rubbing her lower back and the top of her ass when she grasped his face, her eyes darting between his swirling Hazel blues. She almost lost him, he almost didn’t make it, and it hadn’t been from his time in the military. Faced with what it felt like to finally breathe again, to have her heart beating with every breath he took, Y/N was finally looking forward to finishing the day.

Her voice cracked a little bit, but she held it together. “I almost lost you before I could have you again. This is the best birthday ever. You could have crawled in here needing an organ donor and it still would’ve been. You hear me?”

Terry smiled, only she could end up celebrating him on her birthday. “I hear you. How you wanna spend the rest of the day?”

“Go shower and only put clean undies on please. Your suitcases of clothes are still upstairs.”

Terry smiled wide, with every word Y/N was emoting more and more. God he missed this woman.

“Then?” He asked with a raise of his brow.

“We’re gonna eat and cuddle naked, well I’ll be all the way naked, but either way skin.”

Terry laughed out loud at that one. The life was definitely returning to her eyes, bringing the woman he left back to him. No matter how much pain and grief he suffered these last few weeks, he’d do it all again to end up here, with or without Mike. Mike was family but Y/N was his world, his inspiration, his safe place, and his home. Seeing how depleted her spirit was when he arrived, it nearly killed him to think of what she’d have turned into had he not made it.

“We can make that happen.”

With a few extra kisses to hold him over, Terry made his way to the bathroom and did as told. While he got cleaned Y/N read her card and set it up on the counter before she made their plates. By the time Terry made his way back into the living room, she had a tray set up to make things easier for them to sit down together.

He made her sit on the bed before him so that he could be the one to bring the tray over. After they ate, he cleaned up the food while Y/N changed to the next movie in the series before she removed the hoodie and wiggled on her feet, waiting impatiently. When Terry finally did lay down in the bed, Y/N instantly curled into his side, her head laying on his heart and one of her legs coming up to rest on his pelvis. The opening credits had just finished when Terry looked down at his lady and thanked god that he got to spend another birthday with her. It’d been a few years since he got spend her birthday with her and even longer since he treated her properly. She never cared, so long as he was there to share the day.

Y/N had been drifting but jolted out of her sleep and sat up rubbing at her eyes.

“What is it baby? You need something?”

She shook her head no just like a sleepy toddler and mumbled out, “Thank you for the best birthday gift big daddy.” As quickly as she sat up, she was back down, cuddled in his arms and quickly slipping into her dreams.

This was all she had wanted. To be held and comforted to sleep. It wasn’t much, but Terry had given her that. With the troubles of their lives waiting for the morning, Terry settled in, letting his pride swell with the knowledge that she considered him her best birthday gift.

[demigod-shenanigans]

Re: Reyna joining the Hunters and why I think it’s actually really depressing

So for a variety of reasons I’m not a huge fan of Reyna’s arc ending with her joining the Hunters of Artemis. Part of that is rrverse characters should be allowed to be single without joining the eternal celibacy club, but that’s not a problem exclusive to Reyna. I also think handling asexuality in the context of celibacy by choice is… messy by default, especially if it’s your one confirmed ace character.

Beyond that, though, there’s a bunch of context surrounding Reyna’s life and personality that just make that choice seem really sad to me?

I’ll split this into three thematic subsections and put the second and third one under the cut because this got pretty long

Reyna and her sense of duty:

I highly suspect Reyna’s fatal flaw is her sense of duty. This is never explicitly confirmed (because no one except Percy and Annabeth has confirmed fatal flaws), but duty is the theme her entire character revolves around. Basically from birth she’s raised to believe the fate of New Rome lies on her shoulders. A lot of her actions in the books explicitly link back to her sense of duty.

She runs herself ragged trying to find Jason and trying to manage a job made for two people on her own before Son of Neptune.

A lot of her conflict stems from the fact that what is necessary to protect her home (leaving her post and following Jason) inherently clashes with the rules of that home.

Reyna also actively chides others (like Lavinia in ToA) for leaving their posts and not sharing that same sense of duty.

Because of this, like Jason, Reyna is never really able to be a kid.

Joining the Hunters sort of does a good thing in that it allows Reyna to gain some distance specifically from New Rome, which her fate and also a lot of her trauma regarding her upbringing revolves around.

But it doesn’t allow her to be a kid any more than being a praetor at Camp Jupiter did. Potentially less so, actually, seeing as the Hunters are basically always on the move doing something important while at Camp Jupiter you probably have regular days off and a city to visit and relax in always right around the corner.

Reyna lays down one duty and immediately commits herself to the next one. She doesn’t grow and learn that she doesn’t have to carry the fate of the world on her shoulders. She just trades one burden for another.

—————————

Reyna and her emotions:

The timing of Reyna’s choice to join the Hunters seems really off. New Rome is mostly destroyed and just suffered a catastrophic amount of losses. Reyna absolutely has a right to step down as a leader, but this seems like an odd time for her to do it, especially considering she just completely up and leaves instead of at least sticking around to help rebuild her home and then join the Hunters after. As someone so fundamentally defined by her duties and her loyalty to New Rome, why does she spend half a day off-screen and then suddenly decide actually she’ll leave her destroyed home and all those grieving people for someone else to deal with? It just seems really out of character for her.

This begs the question: is Reyna really making that choice because she figured out it’s what she wants, or is it because she can’t deal with what happened? Because looking at all the destruction and attending all the funerals—deaths that happened while she was technically in charge but unable to be present, people she was supposed to protect—reminds her of every way she’s failed her home?

Also, Jason just died.

Jason was Reyna’s best friend for years. He was the first person she allowed herself to grow close to after her sister left her, and very possibly the first person she ever fell in love with. She never properly got to make up with Jason. Very likely they were both afraid to be hurt again. They both thought there’d be time for it later. But there wasn’t. There isn’t. She only got her best friend back in a coffin, and even in death, returning to New Rome (to her) wasn’t Jason’s choice.

Reyna leaves the place where they grew up together, the duties they used to share and all the memories—memories that were just hers, no longer his, since he never properly got them back—two days after she watched his pyre burn.

How much of that is her leaving because she wants to, and how much of it is the fact that she can’t keep her walls up and keep herself going in the place that used to be theirs, where Jason’s ghost is staring back at her at every corner? How much of her leaving is her unwillingness to deal with her grief?

Reyna running away from her feelings is an ongoing theme. It makes sense from a lot of different angles why she’d do it.

She was raised by an abusive father who often turned his feelings (what child Reyna would have seen as “love”, but was primarily paranoia/anger) against her and Hylla.

It’s also addressed directly that Reyna worries if she feels nervous or scared, her emotions will cause the camp to worry as well—her power is quite literally to project her own emotions outward, so if she does that with negative emotions (intentionally or unintentionally), it would cause problems. Suppressing them feels safer. On top of that, in her role as a leader, she has to provide a certain sense of confidence and assurance even when she herself doesn’t feel it.

Joining the Hunters instead of facing those feelings is not exactly a great way to heal in that regard.

————————

Reyna and the weight of Bellona’s prophecy:

As far as we’re aware, Camp Jupiter has faced more threats in the few years Reyna was in charge than it has in centuries. First the Titan war (which Reyna must have arrived partway through, depending on how early the Romans even knew about and were involved in what was happening there), then the war with Gaia, then the Emperors.

And obviously that’s not actually Reyna’s fault—Reyna is, in fact, a huge contributing factor to why these disasters weren’t a lot worse and didn’t claim even more lives. But this is all put on the shoulders of a girl who knows her fate is intricately linked to the legacy of Rome.

A girl who is already convinced that her love is fundamentally destructive and keeps other people from being happy. Her father spent her entire childhood suspicious of Reyna potentially betraying him—and, because she ended up killing him in self-defense, it’s very easy for a traumatized ten year old to internalize that maybe that suspicion was totally warranted. Then Circe’s Island gets destroyed. Then Hylla finds her happiness with the Amazons by leaving Reyna. Then Jason leaves her, seeming so much happier with Piper and Leo than he ever was with her.

Everyone she loves always seems to be happier without her.

So maybe the best thing she can do for New Rome—a home that she loves and that has faced so much destruction in the short time she’s spent there—is to leave.

Maybe the best way to keep New Rome safe (because New Rome’s survival is linked to Hylla and Reyna’s bloodline continuing to exist) is to make herself immortal and preserve it that way. Because, unless Reyna dies in battle, she could live centuries—potentially thousands of years—as a Hunter. She can’t ever properly go back to the home she loved, because that’s not how the Hunters work. But she’s still bound to her fate by her blood. She’s still doing her duty to New Rome by living as long as she can.

It’s not something she can ever be free of.

The worst thing about this is I think Reyna choosing to find a fate for herself outside of New Rome could have actually been a great way to conclude her arc, but god do I wish it was executed differently and actually given proper exploration/space to breathe instead of just resolved by taking her off-screen for a few hours and then sticking her with the group of female warriors that barely gets to have any plot relevance outside of conveniently coming to people’s rescue.

[dontforgetukraine]

"I watched a film today at the Venice Film Festival titled "Russians at War." Since our film is in the same section as this one, I usually wouldn’t speak publicly about it. However, in this case, I cannot remain silent, because it’s not just about films and art, but about the lives of thousands of people who die in this war— a war that has instrumentalized propaganda as its weapon.

This film may mislead you into believing that it is an anti-war film, one that questions the current regime in Russia. However, what I witnessed is a prime example of pure Russian propaganda. Here’s why.

The filmmaker begins by expressing her surprise at the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In her film, she always uses the term “invasion” and never "full-scale invasion." She does not mention that Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea in 2014. These two events seem to not exist in the world of this film. The filmmaker also states that her country hasn’t participated in wars for many years and that she has only read about wars in books. Thus, the war in 2022 was a complete shock for her. It’s interesting how the filmmaker could overlook the fact that her country has been inherently involved in various wars and occupations for at least the last 30 years (1992-93 Transnistria, Abkhazian War, 1994-96 and 1999-2009 Chechen Wars, the 2008 war in Georgia, and the 2015-2022 invasion of Syria).

The filmmaker starts her narrative with a Ukrainian who now lives in Russia and fights on the Russian side. This is a very intriguing choice for the beginning of a story about Russians at war. Later, this character will claim that a CIVIL war began in Ukraine in 2014. He will also suggest that Ukrainians bombed the eastern parts of their own country (and this is why he moved to Russia). Another character will declare that Ukrainians are Nazis. We’ve heard these narratives before; they are (and apparently still are) widely and actively propagated by Russian media. One of those horns of propaganda is Russia Today channel, for which the director of "Russians at War" has previously made several documentary films.

Throughout the film, all characters express their confusion about their actions in Ukraine, stating they want the war to end and that most of them are fighting for money. In the final part of the film, the battalion is moved to Bakhmut, and most characters die in battle. We then see their comrades and relatives grieving at their graves. All of them repeat that they don’t understand why this war is happening and who needs it. In the end, the filmmaker concludes that these are poor, ordinary Russian people who are being manipulated into war by larger political games. I found this perspective amusing because the filmmaker—like putin and his regime—plays an interesting game with these people. They deny them the simple ability to possess dignity and to think and decide for themselves. To her, these people are merely powerless objects. If those engaged in a war that has lasted over 10 years were not powerless, it would imply that they, in the majority, actually support this war, wouldn’t it?

You will feel pity for the people depicted as dying in the film and for those we see crying for their loved ones. And you should—if you are a normal human being, you should feel pity, sadness, and emotion. However, it is also important to remember that these individuals joined the army that invaded an independent country, many of them willingly, as we learn from the film. You should also recall Bucha, Irpin, Mariupol, and the civilians who were murdered there. Remember the thousands of children who were illegally transported from Ukraine to Russia. While I’m writing this and while you’re reading it, missiles are striking Ukrainian cities. The buttons are pushed by ordinary Russians. Are their crimes any less significant simply because they claim to be unaware of why they are involved in this war?

By the way, the director asks one of the characters if he thinks the Russian army commits any war crimes. He answers “no,” claiming he hasn’t witnessed any war crimes. Interestingly, the director echoes this in her interviews, stating she saw no signs of war crimes during her time near the front (https://www.reuters.com/.../russian-soldiers-given-their.../). We can only be happy for her that she was fortunate enough not to witness any war crimes. Unfortunately, thousands of Ukrainians have not been so lucky.

I could continue, but I believe it’s enough to understand that this film presents a very distorted picture of reality, spreading false narratives (calling the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea a civil war; suggesting that the Russian army does not commit any war crimes; presenting those who are part of the aggressors army as victims).

If you decide to watch it, I recommend following it with another documentary about Russian soldiers titled "Intercepted," directed by Oksana Karpovych. "Intercepted" also opens a door into the lives of ordinary Russians fighting in this war. You’ll be curious to explore it, as it will undoubtedly surprise you. You may also want to add "20 Days in Mariupol" to your viewing list, just to be able «to see through the fog of war," as the director of "Russians at War" so aptly put it."

—Darya Bassel, Ukrainian film producer of war documentary “Songs of Slow Burning Earth

[beannoss]

Twilight headcanon

Inspired by this super lovely art by @roucaelum-art 😍! (brief mood spoiler: roucaelum's art is so soft and so sweet! This hc has a touch of the bittersweet 🫶)

After Strix, when the Forgers are well established, no secrets between them, Twilight starts journaling. Obviously this is a security risk, so he creates an elaborate cipher. He tests it on Franky. He tests it on the cipher-breakers at WISE. He even feeds some to the SSS. None break it. Satisfied, he starts to journal. Twilight's journaling time is something he starts to jealously protect; given how much it means to him and helps him process things, Yor starts to protect it jealously, too.

Later in life, when he and Yor have been together for decades, he teaches the cipher to her in case she wants to read and/or share his journals after he dies. It takes time, of course, but not as much as someone might otherwise think, knowing Yor and looking in from the outside. This is in large part because Twilight creates the cipher with Yor in mind. Rarely one to do something for a single purpose when multiple are available, creating it with the intention that Yor can easily learn it also works to confound others in his profession. You see, he’d never met anyone who thinks the way Yor does, and certainly it's far outside espionage or intelligence norms, a way in which no one in those professions would expect a cipher to operate. This revelation he saves for his final journal, and Yor only learns it had been intended specifically for her after his death.

To that point, Twilight does (peacefully) predecease Yor, but she finds she can’t share his journals with the outside world, not yet. They're too precious, too close, touch her too deeply, to share outside the family.

She teaches Anya the cipher, so their daughter can read and share his journals after Yor passes away.

Anya does: she reads her Papa’s journals. Spends a few months, a couple of years, keeping them between herself and her parents' memories. Twilight’s accounts, unsurprisingly, have incredible detail about Yor and Yor’s life and Yor’s opinions and Yor’s views and Yor’s daily life and the way Yor moved through the world. There’s an incredible amount of detail about Anya too: Twilight hadn’t started journaling until years after Strix ended, nearly a decade after he adopted Anya. But, of course, his memory was impeccable, and once he started writing, he never stopped.

Anya reads about herself, about her mother, about their loved ones and their enemies. She reads his words about politics and the news and Twilight's opinions on literature, film, various cuisines. The bakery down the street and the neighbour with the lush roses. Spycraft, war, and international relations. Parenthood, partnership, friendship. Every other idiosyncratic thing he chose to write about. All of it written in her father’s matter-of-fact style from his matter-of-fact perspective, which was always more full of love than he would admit or accept.

She grieves anew, softly, and in her own time.

One day, when she's ready, Anya goes to her father’s favourite archive. She asks to speak with the archivist team. She asks if they would like the journals of the greatest spy in Westalis history: had they ever come across the name Twilight in their research?

She teaches them how to decipher his code (it is, of course, the most complex and creative cipher the lead archivist has ever seen. Anya thinks of her mother, and smiles). It takes them time to go through everything; it takes them time to verify it. But of course, they do. Because Twilight was thorough and he was precise and and he was an excellent planner, prescient more often than not. He ensured there were enough careful points of reference that diligent researchers would be able to confirm his identity and the veracity of what he wrote. And he would only trust the most diligent of researchers.

It's a small archive; the launch of the display of Twilight's journals is similarly small. Anya thinks he would prefer that. The idea of hoards of people reading his words all at once, even if he had intended their being made public, might be enough to revive his stomach aches from beyond the grave.

Anya attends the opening with her loved ones, and later, at home, she shares her own memories of her Papa, and her Mama, and the times they saved the world.

[dragonkeeper19600]

Submas Headcanons

Some people have expressed interest in hearing my submas headcanons, so without further ado:

Ingo and Emmet are not originally from Nimbasa City. In fact, they were born and raised in Mistralton City.

They've always loved trains, ever since they were toddlers. Their mother figured they'd outgrow it eventually. They did not.

Their father worked in airplane maintenance at the Mistralton Cargo Service. He always brought his Pokémon, a Timburr, to work with him.

Unfortunately, when the boys were six, both their father and his Pokémon were killed in a workplace accident.

Both he and Timburr were interred together at Celestial Tower. In the years following his death, his wife would sometimes take Ingo and Emmet to visit his grave.

It was on one of these visits that Ingo met Chandelure.

Ingo, who was eight at the time, had just gotten into a fight with his mother.

The twins never really got along with their mother. She was never abusive to them, she just didn't really get them. Their eccentricities and "weird behavior" often left her exasperated.

Ingo was actually the better behaved of the twins. Emmet was the bigger handful. He would sometimes get so upset that he'd shut down and refuse to talk, only venting his frustration in loud, wordless whines.

The dad had always been better at calming him down, but these tantrums often left the mom at her wit's end.

Ingo often found himself caught between his mother and Emmet.

On this particular day, emotions were flying high (as they sometimes do when people are grieving), and Ingo got so angry that he ran deeper into Celestial Tower without Emmet or his mother. His mother shouted at him to come back or he'd get himself lost, but he didn't listen.

Guess what? He got lost.

It was later in the day, and there weren't any other visitors. He spent a long time wandering around the graves, not knowing where he was, feeling increasingly scared and sorry that he'd yelled at his mother.

Finally, after what felt like a long time, he collapsed on the ground beside a tombstone and buried his face in his arms. His legs were tired, and the area he was in didn't look familiar at all. He began to have those irrational thoughts that children sometimes have, that maybe his mother was so mad that she would just take Emmet and leave without him.

Just then, out of the corner of his eye he spotted a little light wavering near the floor just a few feet away. When he looked closely at it, he saw that it was a Litwick. The boy and the Pokémon made eye contact for a moment before the Litwick disappeared behind a tombstone, only to reappear on top of another tombstone just a few feet behind it. It seemed to be beckoning Ingo to follow it.

Now, Ingo had heard the stories they tell about Litwick, how they pretend to guide lost children to safety while actually leading them to the spirit world.

But he was so lost, so lonely and desperate for someone to help him, that he didn't know what else to do except follow the Litwick.

Besides, even if the Litwick did lead him to the spirit world, maybe he'd be able to see his dad there...?

So, he followed the Litwick.

The Litwick led him down the various winding paths between the tombstones, down the stairs, over the mist-covered floor. Every time Ingo thought he'd lost the light, it would reappear a little closer, waving at him to resume its lead once more.

Finally, the walls inside the tower had grown dark, and Ingo saw a massive lighted doorway before him. Was this the spirit world?

No. It was the exit to Route 7. The bright light of the setting sun seared Ingo's eyes as he stepped out of the tower.

And who did he see just outside the entrance? His mother, with Emmet in tow, frantically giving Ingo's description to a police officer who'd been patrolling the area.

Emmet was the first to spot Ingo. Their mother immediately swept Ingo into a hug. Relief and frustration were mixed, and she scolded him even as she held him. ("Don't you ever scare me like that again!")

Ingo looked back over his shoulder at the tower as his mother led him away. He could still see the little light flickering in the dark doorway.

From then on, every time Ingo went to visit his father's grave, the little light was there.

Ingo started bringing the Litwick gifts. Little berries and other snacks he'd snatched from the house, and was pleasantly surprised to see Litwick eat them. He wasn't sure whether Litwick ate food or whether they exclusively fed on life energy.

Eventually, Ingo saved up enough pocket money to buy a Poké Ball from the Pokémon Center and brought Litwick home with him.

He had to hide Litwick from his mother because his mother always hated ghost Pokémon, and always kept her own Pokémon, a Herdier, close by whenever they visited Celestial Tower in case they were ever attacked by one.

Emmet tried to help Ingo keep Litwick hidden, but they were eventually found out. A particularly nasty fight broke out one night at dinner. Emmet was refusing to eat something on his plate. His mother, who was already in a bad mood, insisted that he was too old to be this picky and to eat already. Emmet shut down and refused to talk, and it just escalated from there.

Ingo tried to plead with his mother to stop yelling at Emmet, but that just redirected his mother's anger toward himself. Litwick saw her yelling at Ingo and got angry. The light on its head flared. Suddenly, Ingo's mother began to get very tired...

Ingo realized what was happening and shouted at Litwick to stop. Litwick was confused at first. It didn't think it was doing anything wrong. It was just trying to protect its friend. But when it saw how upset both Ingo and Emmet had become, it stopped draining energy from their mother, and the light on its head went out before she lost consciousness.

The crisis had been averted, but the jig was up. Ingo's mother naturally freaked out and insisted Ingo get rid of Litwick. The twins begged her not to make them get rid of Litwick, vowing that this would never happen again, but the mother went so far as to ransack their room looking for Litwick's Poké Ball. Once she finally found it, she vowed that first thing in the morning, she would trade Litwick away, and she wouldn't hear any arguments about it.

Ingo had always been the better behaved son, but the prospect of losing Litwick was too much. That night, he snuck into his mother's room, grabbed Litwick's Poké Ball from her purse, and ran away from home.

He was gone for three days before the police found him at Twist Mountain. At the time, he was only nine, too young to go on the gym challenge.

His mother was strangely subdued when she picked him up from the station. He had been expecting her to blow a gasket, but she only seemed tired. She grounded him for a month, but she never said another word about getting rid of Litwick.

Nowadays, she lives in Undella Town, in a villa that the twins paid for. She did not take news of Ingo's disappearance well. She sort of shut down and absolutely refuses to acknowledge that he's gone.

She and the twins were never close, but even so, Emmet can't help but feel abandoned by his mother in the wake of Ingo's disappearance.

Speaking of Emmet, here's how he met Eelektross:

When the twin were finally old enough to take the gym challenge, they decided to head south toward Chargestone Cave.

Ingo had an advantage because he had already had a Pokémon he'd been training for a while, but he promised Emmet they would catch him a Pokémon in the cave. And there were plenty of Pokémon to catch. Emmet borrowed Litwick and was able to catch himself a Joltik. Ingo, for his part, caught a Klink.

But Emmet heard one of the trainers they ran into say that this cave was home to a very rare Pokémon called Tynamo. Emmet was intrigued and immediately decided he wanted to catch one. As the twins neared the end of the cave, Emmet declared that he wasn't leaving until he caught a Tynamo.

Ingo was aghast. Tynamo was a super rare Pokémon. They could search the cave for days without seeing one.

Emmet suggested that Ingo could leave if he wanted and keep bringing Emmet food while he searched. Ingo thought this was a crazy idea and said so. But Emmet could be verrrry stubborn, and no matter what Ingo tried, he couldn't get him to leave the cave. Finally, Ingo departed for Route 6 in a huff, saying that Emmet could do what he wanted.

So Emmet searched the cave. But even after wandering through the cave for hours, he had still found no sign of a Tynamo. Worse yet, he kept running into a lot of rock Pokémon that his newly caught Joltik was unprepared to fight.

Finally, his watch told him that it was getting late. Emmet was exhausted and embarrassed. He regretted not having listened to Ingo, and he dreaded having to hear him say, "I told you so."

So, he decided to pull out his sleeping bag and camp right there on the cave floor in order to put off having to face Ingo until the next morning.

In the middle of night, he was awoken by the sound of something rummaging in his backpack. When he picked up his flashlight and looked, what did he see but a Tynamo munching on one of the Pecha Berries his mother had packed.

Emmet only had an instant to be excited before the Tynamo grabbed the berry in its sucker-like mouth and fled deeper into the cave. Emmet ran after it, flashlight in hand, determined not to let it get away.

But he wasn't the one to stop Tynamo. Instead, Tynamo was jumped by a pair of Boldore as it was fleeing. Emmet ducked behind a rock and watched as the Boldore easily beat up Tynamo and took the berry, from which it had only been able to take a few nibbles with its small mouth. Emmet, armed with only an exhausted Joltik, was completely helpless to stop this, and could only watch as the Boldore left with the spoils.

Emmet slowly approached Tynamo, who was lying on the ground in a tiny heap. It occurred to Emmet that perhaps the reason Tynamo were so rare was because they were so weak.

Emmet had been under the impression that because Tynamo were rare, they must be super powerful and that having one on his team would make him unstoppable. Nonetheless, he did not hesitate to reach for the empty Poké Ball he had in his pocket.

Ingo had spent the night at the Pokémon Center in Driftveil City, worried sick about Emmet. Early the next morning, he headed back toward Route 6 with plans to find him in Chargestone Cave and try once again to get him to give up his search for Tynamo.

Instead, he was shocked to run into a triumphant Emmet crossing one of the bridges over the river, holding up Tynamo's Poké Ball in his hand.

When Tynamo came to at the Pokémon Center, it was understandably alarmed to find itself in a strange place it didn't recognize with a strange kid it didn't know grinning down at it.

But it immediately perked up when Emmet dumped a bunch of berries from home onto the table below where it was floating.

As Tynamo looked up at Emmet questioningly, Emmet earnestly promised that he would make Tynamo strong and that as long as they were together, Tynamo would never be hungry again.

He has kept that promise.

I have a lot more, but I think that's more than enough for one post. I might make another post about Ingo's life in Hisui before he met the protagonist, but we'll see.

[glossdebut]

Take a Bite Ch. 7

✧ PAIRING: yoongi x fem!reader

✧ SUMMARY: Your fledgling career as a music journalist is finally going in some kind of direction that must be on the path to success. Your coworkers like you enough to invite you out on Fridays, your boss is starting to think you’re competent enough to let you score a few bylines, and you’re finally getting the hang of InDesign. All of your hard work, late nights, and complete lack of a social life are starting to pay off… Even if it all came at the expense of the longest relationship of your life. Fine. You’ve accepted the fact that romance isn’t for you, under any circumstances. You won’t risk your career for anybody. Not even Min Yoongi.

✧ TAGS: slow burn, eventual smut, eventual romance, producer yoongi, music journalist reader, neighbors to friends to lovers? you’ll see, reader is bad at feelings, reader is post-break up

✧ WARNINGS: copious amounts of FEELINGS both good and bad, theatre references LOL, world-class meddler kim seokjin, yoongi being hopelessly whipped, angst, smut

✧ WORDCOUNT: 10.3k

✧ STATUS: complete

✧ AUTHOR’S NOTE: WOW. i don't even know what to say... with this chapter, take a bite is officially complete. THANK YOU so much to those of you who have been reading from the very beginning and sending me such kind words. this story means so much to me and i can't believe it's over. thank you again to @love4myg for beta reading this chapter and the last!! everybody go give tanni some love. i love you all! i tried to give this story the ending it deserves so i hope you enjoy the last chapter <3

Chapter 7: Wanna Do It All Over Again

You’re a planner, a scheduler. You keep a minimum of six to-do lists at a time. You do your best work when your week is clearly laid out for you within the confines of the neat little boxes on your calendar. So you allot yourself one day to grieve what could’ve been with Min Yoongi, and that’s it.

Your Sunday is spent wallowing, because Rina doesn’t give you any choice in the matter and you don’t have it in you to put up a fight. She seems a little bit like she’s grasping at straws on how to help you, though.

You don’t blame her. Rina had dropped everything to be by your side when your ex ended things, but the remedy for that was pretty straightforward.

There was the initial crying on your part—the intense and nauseating kind that felt like it would never stop, until Rina held you and it inevitably did. After the tears came the anger, the picking apart of every little argument you’d had with him, every quirk of his that had soured from endearing to annoying, and Rina had no problem talking shit. Anger turned into drinking, and drinking led to falling asleep in a heap together on your couch.

It didn’t magically fix the hollowness inside of you overnight, but it helped. Rina had a patented method to make a broken heart a little more bearable.

A patented method that, unfortunately, doesn’t really apply here. Your heart isn’t broken over a failed situationship. You’ve been crying, sure, but it’s more of a passive sniffle than anything else. You can’t bring yourself to feel angry at Yoongi either. Confused, annoyed, disappointed, stupid—all of those you can feel just fine. But the anger just won’t come.

Desperate, Rina defaults to cliches. Cheesy movies, ice cream, face masks—the stuff straight out of a ‘How To Get Over Your Ex In Ten Easy Steps’ article in a teen magazine. She paints your nails while you stare blankly at Julia Stiles’ face on your TV. You force yourself to believe it’s helping. You have work to do, a deadline to meet. So if you need to watch 10 Things I Hate About You with Rina and cry it out to cleanse your brain of Yoongi, so be it.

You refuse to use a sick day in general, let alone because of a man, but you do grant yourself permission to work from home on Monday. Not because you’re still grieving—that’s what Sunday was for��but because you look like you’ve been run over, dumped into the river and then fished out.

With greasy hair and puffy eyes, you set your phone to do not disturb and hunker down in your bed to write your profile on Yijeong. Despite the burn of your laptop on your thighs, you type and self-edit for hours, pausing only to listen to your recording of Yijeong’s interview and transcribe direct quotes. 

You’re able to churn out a subpar first draft before you burn out around four in the afternoon. Your brain is all over the place, and as a result, the profile is nowhere near where it needs to be. But you don’t have it in you to stare at your laptop screen for any longer. 

Rina slipped out this morning and made herself scarce so you could work, so you’re alone. You decide to shower first and foremost, something you’ve been putting off for far too long, and then maybe order dinner if you want to shell out extra money towards a delivery fee. 

Stretching your legs as you stand, you use some of your few remaining dregs of energy to drag yourself out of bed and into your bathroom, finally shedding yourself of the sweatpants and shirt you’ve been wearing since Sunday morning.

Your mistake is looking in the mirror. The few marks Yoongi made on your body are only just barely beginning to fade, still dark on your skin. You trace a fingertip over the bruise he’d sucked into your breast just days before, so recently that you can still conjure a phantom of the feeling of his lips and teeth on your skin. He’d wanted you so fervently then that you’d been sure at that stupid party that he already felt what you did. That he’d just been waiting for you to catch on. 

You don’t know what you did wrong, what kind of misstep you could’ve made to make Yoongi withdraw so suddenly like he did, but you wish you could take it back.

When you finally emerge from your shower, you’re no more energized than you were when you entered. At the very least, though, you’re clean, and you decide to reward your efforts with tangsuyuk.

When you turn your phone off of do not disturb, you can’t help but hope, just for a moment, that Yoongi has texted you today.

Instead, you find that Seokjin has.

[4:42] Seokjin: If you’re not too busy, can we meet?

The anger that had been missing in action floods your senses all at once. 

Seokjin wants to meet you. Seokjin, who you’ve met once. Meanwhile Yoongi, who allegedly still wants to be your friend, can’t send you a cursory text or, god forbid, walk down the hallway to explain any of this to you.

You are not this girl. You have gone through strenuous effort to build very sturdy, very high walls to ensure that you don’t become this girl—the one who loses sight of what’s important to her for a man who will just fuck her over anyway, leave her high and dry. Disappear with no explanation. Fuck that.

If Yoongi isn’t man enough to let you down easily himself, if he’s going to have Seokjin do it for him, maybe you’re better off without any bullshit excuse. From either of them.

You swipe out of your messages, ordering your hard-earned tangsuyuk first. Once the payment has gone through, you open Seokjin’s message again, fingers shaking as you type out your stilted reply and press send.

[5:03] You: i am too busy. and not interested.

Bitterly, you set your phone back to do not disturb. The delivery driver will knock when your food is here, and you couldn’t care less about whatever Seokjin’s reply could be.

★ ★ ★

The rest of the week goes by in a blur, but now that you’re committed to feeling pissed off, you actually feel a lot better. Maybe it’s the man-hater in you.

You hyperfocus on finishing the profile, the words flowing much easier now that you’re done feeling sorry for yourself. Even when you have to write about Suga and his impact on Yijeong’s career, you aren’t the slightest bit thrown off. By the time you’re done, you’re confident that it’s possibly the best thing you’ve written in a long time, and when you hand it off to Rina for feedback she concurs.

On Wednesday morning, you drop the final draft off on Kevin’s desk for approval, and then spend the next few hours helping out where you’re needed. Everyone in the office is in a frenzy to get the layout of Look Here’s next issue together. You spend your day copy editing and calling sources with last minute follow-up questions. 

When all of the articles are squared away, you lurk by the design team in case they need any extra hands. In return, you get to watch the paginator type your headline onto the front cover, which is… a pretty cool moment for you.

You usually hate the week leading up to print day, but knowing that Yijeong’s profile is going to be on the cover, you revel in the chaos of it.

You’re slightly anxious when Kevin calls you into his office right before quitting time, but you try not to let it get to you too much. You know the profile is good.

“Y/N,” Kevin says, tearing his attention away from his computer as you step into his office. It’s a good sign, you think, that he’s looking you in the eyes this time. “Sit down.”

You sit, immediately tapping your foot to try and calm your nerves. “You wanted to see me?”

“I read your piece,” he says, leaning forward in his chair to rest his elbows on his desk. But he doesn’t say anything else.

Um… Okay.

“And?” you ask meekly. He looks at you seriously, and your heart jumps into your throat.

“It was incredible,” he says. Fuck, thank god. “You should be proud of yourself.”

“Really?” you ask, your whole body relaxing all at once.

“Really,” he insists. “It was well-written, informative, personal. I don’t know how you got him to open up like that, but I hope you can keep doing it.”

You blink at him. “Keep doing it?”

“You can expect more assignments like that starting next week,” Kevin says, smiling at you warmly. Holy fuck. “We’re all very impressed with you. We want to give you bigger responsibilities moving forward.”

“Thank you,” you blurt out, unable to contain your excitement. “Thank you, I won’t let you down.”

“I hope not,” he hums, amused, before turning back to his computer. “Go home and get some rest. Print day tomorrow.”

“I will,” you say, standing up in a flash. You want to call—Rina, you want to call Rina and tell her the good news. “See you tomorrow!”

“Have a good night!” Kevin calls as you leave his office in a hurry.

As you walk back to your desk to grab your bag, it feels more like you’re walking on a cloud. Holy fuck. You were right. This piece was your breakthrough piece, and you proved yourself just like you knew you could. Nothing can bring you down right now.

★ ★ ★

As it turns out, Kim Seokjin is not the kind of guy who takes kindly to being ignored. Based on what you know about him, you probably should’ve been able to figure that out on your own. But you certainly didn’t expect him to ambush you outside of your apartment.

You spotted Seokjin sitting against your door as you made it home from work, although he scrambled to his feet when he noticed you approaching. You wondered how long he’d been sitting there waiting for you to get him. He looked like he was well-prepared to convince you to let him in, a pre-planned speech at the ready, but you didn’t give him the chance, wordlessly letting him inside.

Maybe you were still riding the high of being praised by your boss, but you highly doubted anything Seokjin could say to you would kill your good mood. If he wanted to defend Yoongi’s honor, he was welcome to try. 

Your initial impression of Seokjin was that he was boisterous, silly, and a little bit crude. As you sit across from him, all of that still seems to be true, although he seems intent on doing his very best impression of a longsuffering psychiatrist right now.

He sits primly in the armchair opposite the couch you’ve nestled yourself into, his hands steepled together in his lap as he pulls a serious face. It looks strange on him.

“I’d like to preface by saying that you and Yoongi are both being stupid.”

You blink at him, taken aback, until your expression settles into something unimpressed.

“Nice start,” you say flatly.

“You’re perfect for each other and why both of you are willing to throw it away so quickly is beyond me. It’s giving me a headache,” he continues, rubbing at his temples as if to prove his point. “I’m going to play mediator just this once, and then it’s up to you two to figure it out for yourselves.”

“Does Yoongi know you’re here?”

That makes Seokjin snort. “Are you kidding? He’d try to kill me,” he says, crossing his arms. “No, he doesn’t know I’m here. But he told me what happened, and I think there are some things you deserve to know.”

Yoongi told Seokjin what happened. You can’t help the scoff that escapes your lips. That’s nice for him. You don’t even know what happened. Yoongi certainly didn’t seem to feel obligated to clue you into his reasoning for ending things.

“Why doesn’t he tell me those things himself, then?” you ask bitterly.

“Because he’s stupid,” Seokjin says, snapping his fingers impatiently. “Keep up.”

“Okay,” you sigh, equally impatient. You’ve changed your mind. You want to get this asshole out of your apartment as soon as possible. “We’re both stupid. What is it that I deserve to know?”

“Yoongi-yah may be stupid, but he isn’t a bad person.” 

You sit up straight at that. Is he joking? “What are you, his fucking character witness?”

“I’ve been his best friend for over a decade,” Seokjin snaps, clearly tired of your attitude. As if you aren’t justified in having one. “So if I am his character witness, I’m a pretty fucking good one.”

You open your mouth to say something, something venomous at the tip of your tongue, but Seokjin beats you to it, holding his hand up to silence you. “Can you just be quiet for five minutes and let me say my piece? Please?”

Huffing petulantly, you shrug and lean back into the couch, gesturing for him to continue.

Seokjin visibly regroups. You watch as he sits up a little straighter, shakes off the irritation, takes a deep breath.

“For as long as I’ve known him, all Yoongi has ever wanted was to make something of himself,” Seokjin starts, calmer now. “He loved making music, and he didn’t care about anything else. Least of all himself.”

“I got to know him when we were freshmen in college,” he continues. “I’d heard about him from classmates, seen him around, but you know Yoongi. He’s pretty tight-lipped about things, always has been. It’s one of his many faults.”

You scoff, your bitterness cutting through the air. No kidding. That’s how you ended up here, isn’t it? Yoongi’s little omissions, always giving half-truths. The real reason why he ended things with you is just another one to add to the list.

“Anyway,” Seokjin says, his eyes narrowing at you for a moment as he continues. “I was majoring in theatre, and I’d been cast in ‘Into the Woods.’ Yoongi was volunteered by his piano professor to help with the accompaniment, and during our first rehearsal I just remember thinking to myself, ‘who is this scrawny kid who can play Stephen Sondheim with his eyes closed?’”

You wish he’d get to the point already. You’re a sucker for a good backstory, you are. It’s what makes you such a good feature writer. But you’d really like to maintain your resolve in being pissed at Yoongi, if you can help it.

“I was so impressed with him, you know? He does that. He makes everything look so easy. I made it a point to get to know him, and he opened up to me surprisingly fast. I think he needed a friend,” Seokjin continues. “He told me that he was mostly there on scholarships, but he still had to work two jobs to live and pay off the tuition that he did owe. He told me that he utilized the fuck out of the production equipment on campus. He told me that all he wanted to do was make music, and for people to hear it and think it’s worth something.”

Seokjin pauses for a moment, shifting in his chair.

“I think he would’ve done anything to make that happen,” he says, tension in his voice. “I already didn’t like some of the shit he did do, the situations he put himself in, but I think if he knew it could’ve made his dream a reality, he would’ve done much worse.”

Seokjin doesn’t offer up any more information on what exactly Yoongi did, but he doesn’t have to. You gather by the grimace on his face that it must’ve been pretty bad.

“Obviously he made it anyway. You know who he is now,” he says, pausing for a moment. He looks at you seriously. “That comes with its own set of issues, though.”

“Like what?” you ask, disbelieving. 

You feel bad for Yoongi, you do. At least for what he must’ve went through in the past. You know what it’s like to struggle, to feel like you can’t possibly reach your goals with the resources available to you. You’re experiencing that currently. 

But Yoongi is extremely successful now. Artists trip over themselves to get a song from him because they know it’ll chart, that people will go crazy for it. His track record is that good. How hard can it be, living like that? Having people think so highly of you?

“Like people taking advantage of him at every turn,” he says, his words blunt. “People pretending to care about him to get close to him. Even going so far as dating him. Long-term. Or at least as long as it takes to produce an album.”

Oh.

“…Suran?” you guess, thinking back to the party Saturday night. The way Suran kept touching Yoongi, like there had been something there. Yoongi didn’t seem all that uncomfortable, but he’s got a killer poker face. Could Suran be that kind of person?

“What?” Seokjin asks, bewildered. “No, Suran was just a casual thing. He told you about Suran?”

“I met her. Saturday,” you say, waving a hand dismissively. “They seemed close.”

“That’s been done for years. Yoongi cares about Suran, but it isn’t like that anymore,” he insists, shaking his head. “It was someone else. It’s not my place to say who, but it’s the only time I’ve ever seen Yoongi in love like that. Or at all, honestly. He brought her around all of us, which is a big deal for him. Wrote songs for her. Like, not just for her album, but for her. About her.”

“What happened?” you ask despite yourself. You can feel your resolve crumbling, curiosity getting the best of you. Fuck.

“They were out celebrating finishing the album,” he says. “She wanted to go for a walk after dinner. Kissed him in the middle of the street. The next morning, he woke up to pictures of it all over the internet. She’d texted him, too, breaking it off. It didn’t take much brain power to figure out she orchestrated the whole thing.”

You feel a pang in your chest. As hurt as you are, you also know that Yoongi couldn’t have possibly deserved that. Nobody does.

“He threw himself into his work after that—almost never left the studio. Barely ate or showered,” Seokjin says. “I had to put a stop to it. He was going to overwork himself to death, if I didn’t. I had to help him dig himself out of that hole.”

You chew on your bottom lip for a moment, doing your best to ignore how much that sounds like you. How Yoongi was the one beginning to dig you out.

“That sucks,” you say finally. “But I don’t see what that has to do with me.”

“Come on, Y/N. You’re smarter than that,” Seokjin huffs. Big talk from the man who’s been calling you stupid this whole time. “Yoongi hasn’t dated anyone since then. Hasn’t even shown interest. Until you.”

“That’s not what it was, between us,” you insist. “I thought, maybe…” Maybe it could’ve been, you think. You shake your head to snap yourself out of it. “But he ended it.”

“Because he’s stupid,” Seokjin says. “Because he got hurt, and it made him stupid, and when you asked him if he could get you an interview with Yijeong, he was scared that was your endgame.”

What?

Yoongi thinks you were using him? What the fuck????

“I wouldn’t—“ you start, but Seokjin cuts you off. 

“Why do you think I’m here?” he asks, his gaze piercing through you. “You think I couldn’t tell you were going to fall in love with him the moment I met you? The moment I saw you two together?”

Your throat tightens and you have to tear your eyes away from Seokjin. Love is a big word. One you’re not quite ready to contend with, not now.

“…I like Yoongi,” you manage. You can admit that now, even if Yoongi himself never got the chance to hear it. “But just because he got hurt once upon a time, it doesn’t automatically make the way he ended things with me okay.”

“Just talk to him,” Seokjin pleads.

“Look, I listened to what you have to say,” you say, standing up from the couch. “And I’d be lying if I said it didn’t change some things. But I don’t know if I want to talk to him, okay? Maybe it’s better that it’s ended before we got anywhere serious, if we’re both so fucked up over the past.”

“Y/N—“

“Seokjin, I have work in the morning. I appreciate you coming over to tell me all of this, but I’d really like it if you left now.”

You don’t give him much of a choice in the matter. He’s overstayed his welcome. You make it abundantly clear that if Seokjin doesn’t use his own two legs to walk himself out of your home, you fully intend to grab him by the scruff of his neck and drag him out yourself. 

Defeated, Seokjin stands up from his chair and makes his way to your front door. You follow close behind, shutting and locking it behind him before he can get another word in.

When you walk back to the couch, you catch Rina poking her head out into the living room. 

Shit. You hadn’t even known she was home.

Wordlessly, you sink back into the couch, emotionally exhausted. Rina sits with you, repositioning you so your head is in her lap, running her fingers through your hair soothingly. 

You both sit in silence for a few minutes, but you can practically hear the gears turning in Rina’s head. She’s been biting her tongue since Saturday night, being supportive when you needed it, but not pushing. But she was just in your bedroom that whole time, and Seokjin isn’t exactly quiet. You can only imagine what she heard. You brace yourself.

Finally, she breaks the silence.

“He can play Sondheim with his eyes closed?” she asks.

All of the tension seeps out of you at once. You should’ve known better. Of course Rina won’t push you in either direction. She’s your best friend, your Seokjin. Her loyalties will always be with you, and she knows that you need to process everything on your own. 

But she’s also a theatre kid.

“Apparently,” you huff, closing your eyes.

“…That’s really hot.”

You laugh, reaching up to swat at her shoulder. “Not helpful.”

“What are you going to do?” she asks, her voice gentle.

That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? What are you going to do? Seokjin made a strong case for Yoongi, but you’re still mad about how everything played out. You trusted Yoongi this whole time to be honest with you, but you keep being made aware, over and over, of how much he keeps to himself. You aren’t sure if you want to fight to be let in, if it’s worth it. You want it to be.

“I don’t know,” you say finally.

Rina hums, continuing to stroke your hair.

“...Do you wanna watch ‘Into the Woods’?” she asks.

You snort softly, sitting up to grab the remote.

“Only if it’s the one with Bernadette Peters.”

★ ★ ★

When Yoongi got his very first long-term gig as a producer, Namjoon brought him a potted plant as a studio-warming gift. 

Yoongi thought it was stupid at first, because his studio didn’t have any windows—windows would compromise the integrity of the soundproofing—so the plant would have zero chance of survival. And why was Kim Namjoon buying him a plant anyway? New headphones would’ve been better, Yoongi told him. 

But Namjoon had laughed and insisted that the plant—a dracaena, apparently—was extremely resilient. That it could still thrive in the darkness.

“That’s why I got it for you, hyung,” Namjoon had told Yoongi. “It reminded me of you.”

Needless to say, Yoongi became obsessed with the thing.

It was just a small little cutting, just barely starting to grow on its own, so Yoongi researched how to properly care for it and took all of the necessary steps to ensure it would succeed, even in his dimly lit studio. 

He watered it, pruned it, measured its growth. He sent Namjoon pictures of it on a weekly basis. He named it—Eodumie, thank you very much. 

It took a while, but eventually, Eodumie started to die. Yoongi didn’t know why, so he started doing research on dracaena. He’d put so much effort into helping it grow, so it only seemed sensible to figure out why things had taken a turn for the worse. Run into a problem, find a solution.

Yoongi very quickly found out that Namjoon was a little bit dumb, and that the only ‘plants’ that grow in complete darkness are mushrooms. But he still felt like he’d failed. 

When Yoongi is really upset and can’t stop turning a problem over in his head, he resorts to extremely heavy-handed metaphors to help himself make sense of things. 

So all of that is to say, Yoongi has a tendency to kill things before they have a chance to grow.

He thought, because you didn’t want a relationship, that you were safe from it. And you were, because he really was okay with being your friend. He didn’t expect any more from you.

But then you asked him if he wanted to have sex with you, and… Well, everything changed then, didn’t it? Not because he couldn’t keep things casual anymore—if that’s what you wanted, he would do it. He would try. You make it so hard for him to say no to you.

No, everything changed because Yoongi is an overthinker by nature. He’s attuned to the rhythm of the world around him, notices patterns where others don’t. Especially when he’s seen them before.

He gave you his mouth, and then you wanted more. He gave you more, and then you wanted a favor. He gave you your favor, and then Suran gave you his identity. You had your favor, and his identity, and then you were all over him, and Yoongi knows what happens next. He’s heard that song before.

Shit, Yoongi’s made that song before, unwittingly. And he’s not interested in writing another duet just for it to sour like the last one.

Metaphors, again.

The point is, he cut it off before he was in too deep. Sex complicates things. For him. It blurs the lines, and he’d much rather do you professional favors when he’s not also seeing you naked. It’s the only way he can keep being your friend, and that’s what you want.

Seokjin thinks he’s being an idiot. Seokjin can suck his cock. Yoongi was doing what he thought was right.

He hadn’t expected to hear from you. Over the past week he’d thought about reaching out and explaining himself every day. But he wanted to give you space, maybe. Or maybe he still felt a little sore about the whole thing. But then, Friday night, you text him asking him to come over and…  

Now he’s in your apartment.

In all of the weeks he’s known you, Yoongi has never actually been inside your apartment before, he realizes. Is that weird? The closest he’d been was when he picked you up for the party on Saturday. When he’d lingered in your doorway, looking at you in your pretty dress. Fuck, you looked good. He didn’t want to go to that dumb party in the first place, but you in that dress… He wanted to drag you down the hall, get you in his bed. Take it off of you with his teeth. 

It’s devastating that now that Yoongi is finally here, you seem so stiff in his presence. Quiet. Unlike yourself. You’re sitting as far as humanly possible from him on your couch, and Yoongi feels like an asshole. Even when you were literally a stranger, you didn’t feel like this much of a stranger to him. It was instant, the way you’d hit it off. Did Yoongi really make things this way?

“I read your article,” he says, cutting through the silence. Neither of you have spoken since he came in, and the tension is making him antsy. Desperate to break the ice.

What he doesn’t tell you is that he read your article the second it came out this morning, that he’s had alerts on his phone for everything published under your name since the day after he met you. That he drops everything to read it all, no matter what he’s doing.

It was beautiful. It was about one of his best friends, so of course he thought so, but you have such a way with words. It’s another thing you have in common, he thinks. You both have difficulty saying what you feel out loud, but when it comes to work, when you’re writing, it just pours out of you.

“You read my article,” you repeat softly, huffing. Yoongi can’t read the expression on your face, and that bothers him to no end.

“Of course I did,” he replies, brow furrowing in confusion. “I always do. Especially this one.”

“We need to talk,” you say. He watches as you turn your body on the couch, pulling your legs to your chest to face him.

“Okay.”

“I need to talk,” you suddenly correct, voice tight. You take a breath, and then, “Seokjin came over the other night.”

Seokjin… Oh.

Oh, Yoongi’s going to kill him. Brutally. He told Seokjin to keep his nose out of his fucking business and instead of listening and staying out of it, he came over to your apartment? Is he insane? Yoongi’s always thought so, in a mostly loving way, but this is a whole new level of intrusion that he didn’t think Seokjin was capable of, and now he has to die.

“He came here? He had no right—”

“It’s fine,” you say, waving a hand. Yoongi’s unconvinced, but he forces himself to settle, to take a breath. You said you needed to talk, and he’s going to let you. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was going to text you, so… It’s probably good that he did.”

Yoongi doesn’t see how that could possibly be the case, but he stays quiet. Waits for you to find the right words. 

“This whole past week, I’ve been so… confused,” you start, your eyes fixed on the couch cushion between the two of you. “Confused, and mad at you.”

“I still am, I think,” you continue, lifting your head to look at him. “Mad at you. But I don’t want to be, because I miss you. You said that you still wanted to be friends, but you haven’t exactly put in much of an effort to do that.”

“I wanted to give you space,” Yoongi says. His excuse sounds hollow, even to his own ears.

You shake your head. “You don’t trust me.”

“It’s not that, I just—”

“Let me talk,” you snap, frustrated, and Yoongi’s mouth snaps shut so fast he can hear the click of it. “You don’t trust me, and that’s fine. I get it. But if me asking you for help bothered you so much, you could’ve just told me no instead of assuming that I was using you as some kind of stepping stone and then just breaking things off without explaining.”

There’s nothing Yoongi can say to that. He knows you’re right. He should’ve just said no the second he felt uncomfortable, but it was just so important to you he couldn’t bring himself to not help you.

“I get why your brain immediately went there, but I’m not going to apologize or act guilty or anything like that. Because I wasn’t using you,” you say firmly, crossing your arms. “Shit, Yoongi, all the times you’ve offered to help me I’ve tried to stop you. My car? But then the one time I come to you first, you assume the worst and shut me out. It’s not fair.”

“I know,” Yoongi says, looking down at his hands. “I’m sorry.”

He feels like the world’s biggest piece of shit. For someone usually so observant, he suddenly feels like he’s been blind this whole time. You’ve done nothing but be upfront with him about what you wanted, and still he assumed you were pulling one over on him. He’s spent the past week feeling justified, feeling like he’d done the right thing, but your words have made his entire mindset shift in an instant.

“The night of the party, I…” you trail off. And then you laugh, which makes Yoongi look back up at you. “Yijeong told me I was special. He said that you hadn’t been to an industry event in years, even when he asked you to. I didn’t know that.”

“It was important to you,” he mumbles, sheepish. He didn’t know Yijeong had said anything about him to you. Looking back now, he realizes how stupid that is. His friends are all world-class meddlers. Clearly they need to be, if Yoongi’s this fucking dense.

“See? That right there,” you say, frustrated. “I thought, maybe… I thought you had feelings for me. Non-platonic, romantic feelings. And for the first time since my ex… Did I ever tell you what happened with him?” you ask.

Yoongi had read between the lines. He knew that your ex had a problem with how demanding your job was, and that it’d ended badly, but beyond that he doesn’t know any details.

He shakes his head.

“We were together for almost four years. Almost all through college,” you start. “He met my parents. I met his. After we graduated, we moved in together. In this apartment, actually.”

Yoongi watches you glance around your living room. He knows that look. Years later, he still remembers what his apartment, his studio looked like when they were occupied by someone else. He remembers every detail. 

“I thought we were going to get married eventually. We’d talked about it.” You pull your knees tighter to your chest, looking down. “I got my first job at some shitty newspaper. I worked insane hours and it barely paid anything, but it was a start. I was over the moon about it.”

He holds his breath, waiting for what he knows comes next. 

“He broke up with me after two months,” you say, your voice wavering. “He said it was because he barely saw me, that he didn’t want to be in a relationship with me if my job was going to be more important than us. It took him less than a week to move out. Four years down the drain.”

Fuck. It’s awful, watching you relive your pain and not being able to do anything but listen. Because Yoongi hurt you, too. He’s the reason you’re digging this up, that you’re feeling it all over again.

Yoongi looks down, picks at his left thumbnail as he listens. He can’t bring himself to look at you.

Your ex is an idiot, he thinks bitterly. How could someone spend four years watching the way you glow when you talk about writing and throw that away?

“I blamed myself. Why wouldn’t I? He told me it was my fault,” you say. “I haven’t been interested in a relationship since. Why try if I clearly don’t have time for it? The thought of you having feelings for me…”

He hears you suck in a breath, braces himself. He thought he’d done a good job of hiding how he felt about you, even after the sex. But he’d made you uncomfortable anyway. Of course.

“It made me want to try,” you say softly.

Yoongi’s head snaps up, his eyes meeting yours. It’s almost insane, the way his heart starts racing in his chest at just the slightest glimmer of hope. You realized how he felt—feels—about you, and you wanted to try? He wants to interrupt you, to ask what that means, but he holds his tongue. 

“I think maybe I’ve had feelings for you this whole time,” you continue, looking down at your knees again. “And I just didn’t want to admit it to myself. But when Yijeong told me all of that… I mean, fuck, Yoongi. We weren’t even speaking and you read my article. You helped me even though you thought I was just using you to get ahead. When I hadn’t seen you for weeks, instead of thinking I was a bad friend, you offered up your studio so we could work in complete silence together.”

He would do anything. He would do anything to see you glow. That first night in that horrible Western bar you’d both been dragged to, the way you puffed up with pride when you told him where you work—that’s all he ever wants to see.

“I was going to tell you,” you say. “After the party, I was going to tell you. But then you ended things, and I… I didn’t know why.”

Yoongi needs to salvage this. He needs to know if there’s anything left, if you could ever forgive him for being such a stupid, prideful ass. He hopes.

“Y/N…” he starts, but you cut him off.

“You do this thing where you only give me half-truths about shit, and it drives me crazy,” you say, pointing a finger at him in frustration. “All of the secrecy about your job, who you are, how close you are to Yijeong, why you ended things with us. It seriously makes me want to kill you sometimes.”

You’re right. He prides himself on being an honest person, but he kept things from you on purpose. He didn’t want to let you in fully, to let you see him. He didn’t want to get hurt. But none of that was worth hurting you. He’s going to fix this. He’s going to try. 

“Then let me clear some things up,” Yoongi says, sitting up straighter. 

He scoots closer, closing some of the space between you on the couch.

Yoongi has never been good at talking about his feelings, not out loud. In songs that will ultimately be sang by other people, sure, but doing it like this makes him squeamish. He’ll get over it, though. You need to hear this. 

“I’m an idiot,” he says seriously, looking into your eyes. “I’m an idiot for thinking you would do that to me. I was scared and stupid, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I assumed the worst of you, and that I kept things from you, and that I ended things so suddenly. My past isn’t an excuse. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I should’ve been more open with you, so I’m going to try. Okay?”

You nod once, and he takes it as his cue to continue.

“You were right,” he says, reaching to take one of your hands in his. He intertwines your fingers, staring down at them as he speaks. “About me having feelings for you.”

He hears a sharp intake of breath. He doesn’t know what that means, can’t bring himself to look at you until he’s done verbalizing all of this, but he hopes it’s a good thing.

“I was happy to be your friend,” he continues. “I didn’t expect anything more from you. But yeah, Y/N, I’d be crazy not to have feelings for you. You’re incredible, you know? You’re so smart, so driven, so insanely sexy. I was a goner the moment you introduced yourself to me with a handshake.”

You pull your hand from his, and for a moment he panics, until he looks up to see you using it to cover a tiny laugh. Your eyes are glassy, and although Yoongi hates the idea of making you cry, he feels relieved to know that it’s likely not out of sadness.

“I’m so, so sorry that I hurt you,” he reiterates, pulling your hand back into his and squeezing it. “I never meant to, but I did, and that’s not okay. But if I didn’t completely wreck my chances and you still want to try, I… I promise I’ll do better. I won’t keep things from you, I won’t act without considering your feelings, I’ll do better with all of it.”

You take another shaky breath, biting down on your bottom lip as you process his words. Yoongi feels like he’s going to have a heart attack, tense and pulled taut, but he waits patiently. 

The ball is in your court now, Yoongi thinks. This is your decision, as it should be. If you want him to walk away, he will. If you want to stay friends, Yoongi thinks it might kill him now that everything’s out in the open, but he’ll do it for you. But he hopes—

“No more half-truths?” you ask softly, and holy shit.

“I promise,” Yoongi insists. He holds his breath.

“Then I still want to try.”

Relief washes over him instantly, all of the tension leaving his shoulders at once. He didn’t fuck everything up beyond repair. You still want him. Holy shit, you still want him!

“Fuck,” Yoongi breathes, squeezing your hand again. “Fuck, can I kiss you?”

“You better,” you say, and Yoongi doesn’t waste a goddamn second. Instantly, he’s moving your knees so he can fit himself between them, cradling your jaw to capture your lips with his. 

God, you taste so good. He’s the luckiest motherfucker on the planet.

Yoongi is just happy to kiss you again, to know that you’re his now. But then you make a sweet little sound into his mouth, slide your hands under his shirt, and he pulls away to look at you.

“Baby,” he says, catching his breath. Shit, it feels so good to call you that again. “We don’t have to do anything right now.”

“Are you kidding?” you ask, pushing his shirt up impatiently. Cute. “After you left me hanging last time? In a suit, no less.”

Yoongi huffs a laugh, grabbing hold of your wrists to stop your hands in their tracks. “I’m just saying, we don’t have to rush into anything just because—”

But then you shut him up with a kiss, which he melts into easily before you’re pulling back again. You look so serious. Yoongi likes you so fucking much.

“I want my boyfriend to fuck me,” you say, wriggling your hands out of his grip to keep feeling him up, and Yoongi is powerless to resist because fuck, boyfriend. “Is that too much to ask?”

He shakes his head dumbly, mouth agape. He’s your boyfriend. You said it.

You laugh, pinching his nipple, and Yoongi hisses as he’s yanked out of his reverie.

“Come on,” you tease, standing from the couch and pulling him with you. “Bedroom.”

Yoongi follows you to your bedroom eagerly, letting you drag him by the arm. You take a moment to shoo Pepper off of your bed and out of the room, shutting the door to keep her out, but Yoongi’s patience only lasts so long. As soon as the door is closed, Yoongi pulls you to your bed, laying you down on your back and kissing you breathless. 

He slips his tongue into your mouth, tasting you as his hands slide over your ass to squeeze it. You moan in response, your hips kicking up against his, and he lifts his head to look down at you.

“Tell me what you want,” he murmurs lowly, his lips still brushing against yours. Yoongi thinks he’d give you anything you ask for, especially when you look so sweet and needy beneath him like this.

“Just want you,” you pant, chasing his lips for another kiss. He obliges easily, dipping down to lick into your mouth again.

A part of Yoongi wants to drag this out—really drag it out this time—and tease you until you’re desperate and whining, begging. A part of him wants to see how far he can push you, to make you fall apart so he can put you back together again over and over. But Yoongi’s also not feeling very patient, not when you’re like this. He feels like he’s going to die if he doesn’t touch you right now.

You moan as Yoongi rips your shorts down your legs, arch your back as he slides his hand into your panties to feel you.

“Shit, Y/N,” he groans, sinking his middle and ring fingers into your pussy with no resistance. “Always so soaked for me.”

“Yoongi,” you whimper. God, he’s so addicted to that—the way you say his name when he touches you. If it wouldn’t make him sound like a headcase, he’d ask you to record it. Sneak it into his fucking songs. Let the world know how pretty you sound for him.

“Fuck yeah, let me hear you,” Yoongi murmurs. He sets a steady pace with his fingers, curling them up and thumbing at your clit, and you cry out for him, your face contorting with pleasure. Fucking addicting. “Sound so pretty, baby.”

“M-missed you calling me that,” you whimper, squeezing your eyes shut as you rock your hips up into his touch, and Yoongi’s more than happy to let you take what you need. “Missed the way you touch me.”

“It’s only been a week,” he teases, pumping his fingers faster as his free hand slides over your abdomen and up to your chest to roll a nipple between his fingers. “Am I that good?”

Despite your pleasure, you still reach out to swat at him blindly, and he laughs when your hand connects with his chest. “I hate you,” you complain weakly, but the way your core clamps down on his fingers tells him something else entirely.

“Nah. You like me.” He dips down to lick and suck at your other nipple, satisfaction buzzing through his veins when your hands thread through his hair, grasping at the strands. Yoongi can feel your urgency, can feel how close you’re getting for him in the way your muscles tense beneath him, and he quickens the pace of his fingers in response. “Come on, baby. You gonna come for me?”

“Shit, Yoongi—” you moan. Yoongi feels the tension in your body break, your pussy fluttering as his fingers pump inside of you, and he lifts his head to look. 

You look so beautiful when you come. Fuck, he wants to commit everything about it to memory: the flush in your cheeks, the way your lips part in a moan, your eyes shut tight as you just… take it.

“That’s it,” he groans, slowing the pace of his fingers, letting you ride out your orgasm. “That’s my girl.”

After a moment, Yoongi withdraws his fingers, leaning down to kiss you gently. “Okay?” he asks when he sits up on his knees, studying your face as you catch your breath.

“Mmh,” you hum, nodding. Your body relaxes and you sigh, grinning. “More than.”

“Need a second?” he teases, grinning smugly at how fucked out you look already. 

“Fuck that,” you say, catching him off guard when you suddenly sit up, surging forward to tug his shirt up and off faster than he can react. The second it’s off, you’re going for his pants next, impatient. 

“Fuck, hold on,” Yoongi huffs breathlessly, amused as you struggle to push his pants down over his hips. He stops you, shifting off the bed for a moment to do away with them properly. “Eager, huh?”

“Can’t help it,” you say, laying back for a moment and lifting your own hips to shimmy your panties down your legs. Yoongi can’t help but stare, his tongue running over his bottom lip as he takes in the sight of you. So fucking pretty.

You grin, sitting up again and gently tugging Yoongi closer by the waistband of his underwear. “Yoongi,” you murmur sweetly, and he hums, transfixed by the sight of your hand moving to palm at him through the fabric. “I wanna ride you. Is that okay?”

He inhales sharply, his eyes snapping up to meet yours. He feels his cock twitch in your hand at just the thought of you on top of him, and you smirk. Damn. You’re the smug one now, huh? 

“Are you sure?” Yoongi just needs to check. He wants to make sure that this is really what you want, but he’s already moving to shed the last barrier between you.

“Uh-huh,” you confirm, biting your lip as you glance down at his now-freed length, your hand wrapping around it and pumping him slowly. Fuck fuck fuck. Yoongi is not proud of the noise he makes, the pitch slightly higher than his normal timbre. If he doesn’t get inside of you soon he’s going to lose it.

Mercifully, you let go, your attention momentarily torn away as you shift off the bed to rifle through your bedside table. Yoongi moves to the head of the bed, sitting up against your headboard and taking a second to calm the fuck down. He wants this to be good for you, and if that’s gonna happen he needs to be able to not come as soon as you touch him, thanks.

When you return, condom in hand, all Yoongi can do is watch you as you tear the wrapper open, roll it onto his length. Wordlessly, you straddle him, his hands coming up to your hips to steady you.

“Good?” you ask, and Yoongi nods stiffly. He’s so good. How could he not be, with you in his lap like this? With what you’re about to do? You’ve completely turned the tables on him, and he’s so fine with that.

“Just—” he grits out, squeezing your hips gently. “Fuck, go easy on me, okay? I want it to be good for you.”

“It will be,” you assure him, reaching between his body and yours to guide the tip of his cock to your entrance. “Always is with you.”

Yoongi raises an eyebrow at you. “Not if I come in two seconds like a teenager,” he points out.

“I’d consider it a compliment,” you tease. Yoongi inhales sharply as you sink down just the slightest bit, his eyes squeezing shut. He feels your lips on his cheek, pressing a gentle kiss there. 

“I’ll go slow,” you tack on, and then you start to ease the rest of the way down slowly, stealing all of the breath from Yoongi’s lungs in the process.

“Shit,” he groans, his head falling back against the headboard. You moan softly once you’re finally fully seated on him, and he squeezes your hips to anchor you there, taking a moment to just look at you. “You’re so pretty, you know that?”

Yoongi’s words are rewarded with a pretty flush on your cheeks and your shy smile. “Shut up,” you mumble. His heart squeezes in his chest, a grin spreading over his face.

“I can’t tell my girlfriend how beautiful she is?” he teases, using his grip on your hips to encourage you to move, tearing sudden, simultaneous moans from both of you as he starts to guide you into a slow, steady rhythm. “How crazy she makes me?”

“You can,” you pant, steadying yourself with your hands on his shoulders, using them as leverage to follow his guidance. “Please,” you add, causing Yoongi’s lips to quirk up in a smirk.

“Such a good girl for me,” he whispers, leaning in to press a kiss to your throat. His hands slide from your hips to your ass, groaning as he grips the flesh in his hands appreciatively. “Do you know how often I think about you? About this?”

“Tell me,” you whimper. You sound so desperate for it, for him, and Yoongi is completely awestruck by you. You’re always telling him exactly what you want, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t want to comply every fucking time. Anything for you.

“Can’t get you out of my head,” he moans into your neck. “You’re so fucking—god, you’re so sexy.” Your hips stutter, and he pulls a hand back to smack your ass once, wordlessly telling you to move a little faster. And you do. “So smart, so passionate. Can feel it in the way you write, but not just that. The way you talk about it, fuck, could listen to you forever.”

You moan, clenching around him, and Yoongi hisses, bucking up into you involuntarily. He’s not going to last much longer, he can feel it, but he can also tell plain as day that you’re just as close.

“Look so sexy riding me like this, too. I’m so lucky,” Yoongi says, sliding his hands over your body as he speaks. “This ass,” he says, gripping it in his hands again. “These tits.” Another squeeze, to your breast this time. “Fuck, your pussy. I could write chart-topping, award-winning songs about this fucking pussy.” One hand slides down, his thumb rubbing at your clit in tight circles. You keen, moaning his name. “How wet it gets for me. The way it tastes, how it feels around my cock. Fuck, Y/N. You’ve ruined me for anyone else.”

“I’m gonna come,” you mewl, and Yoongi can’t help the growl that tears from his throat.

“Yeah, come on my cock, baby, fuck, I’ve got you,” he grits out, planting his feet firmly into your mattress for leverage as he fucks up into you. He groans, his eyes squeezing shut as his hips meet your ass, the backs of your thighs, setting an urgent pace.

“Fuck!” you moan. Yoongi must be doing something right, judging by the way your thighs start to shake, the way your whole body goes taut in his grip. “Fuckfuckfuckrightthere—”

It’s still true: Yoongi will never get tired of the way you look when you come. You just let go, shaking and moaning and digging your nails into his shoulders as you writhe above him. He did that. Fuck.

His rhythm gets sloppy quickly and he pulls you as close as he can as he thrusts up into you, his own orgasm quickly following. Stars burst behind his eyes as he spills into the condom, groaning into the crook of your neck as he slows to a stop.

You pull him into a kiss, both of you gasping into each other’s mouths as you recover. When you tear yourself away, Yoongi feels your hands cradling his face, and he opens his eyes to find you looking at him, exhausted from exertion but smiling.

“I think all of those things about you too, you know,” you mumble fondly, thumbing his cheek. Yoongi’s heart skips a beat. “It’s not just you.”

His hand comes up to rest over yours, a shy smile playing at his lips. “Guess we won’t get tired of each other any time soon.”

You laugh, carefully lifting up off of his lap. “No, I guess not.”

It’s hard to tear himself away from you, but Yoongi drags himself off your bed to dispose of the condom, navigating his way to your bathroom easily. Your apartment has the same layout, after all. When he returns, he uses one of your towels to wipe you down carefully.

Afterwards, he climbs into your bed with you, pulling you close, your head on his chest. For a moment, Yoongi tries to think back to the last time he felt this way, but he comes up short. Even in his last serious relationship, it didn’t feel this way. In the back of his head, even if he wasn’t willing to admit it until now, he always knew something was off about it. But this, being close to you like this, this thing you were both so scared of… It feels so right. 

“Seokjin thinks we’re going to fall in love,” you say after a long moment, your voice quiet. Dangerous thing to say, Yoongi thinks, with your head on his chest like this, so close to his traitorous heart.

“Seokjin thinks a lot of shit. Says all of it out loud, too,” Yoongi murmurs into your hair, taking one of your hands to thread his fingers with yours. “What do you think?”

Yoongi knows what he thinks. He thinks he’s already more than halfway there. He thinks this… you and him could really be something. Not for the first time tonight, he holds his breath.

“I think he’s right,” you answer softly, lifting your head to look at him.

As Yoongi looks back at you—his wallflower, his neighbor, his music journalist friend, his beautiful, hardworking girl—all he can think about is that Western bar he didn’t want to go to. The one he was dragged to on some random Friday, not even a wellness check night. The one he could’ve easily said no to going to in favor of staying in his studio instead. Just another thing he owes his friends for, he thinks. This might be the best one, though.

He squeezes your hand.

“Yeah,” he says. “Me too.”

★ ★ ★

EPILOGUE

You didn’t think you were going to make it.

Work has been busting your ass lately, and while you’re endlessly thankful that your career has suddenly taken a sharp turn for the unimaginable—interviewing Lee Chaerin, fucking CL up close and personal, are you joking?—you told Kevin that you had somewhere to be tonight. And that motherfucker still kept you in his office long past five to brainstorm next month’s edition.

Thankfully, you made it out with just enough time to make yourself look presentable in the mirror before making a dash for your car. Unfortunately, you had to forego running home to shower and change clothes, but you did wear a cute sweater and a flattering skirt to work today in anticipation of exactly that situation. Small mercies.

You’re late, definitely late enough for it to be rude, but Yoongi had insisted over and over that this was a completely casual thing.

You love Yoongi, but he’s totally full of shit. There’s nothing casual about meeting your boyfriend’s literal soulmates.

As you stalk towards the front door of the restaurant, you pray that you haven’t completely squandered your first impression before it even begins. Even Rina is making a better one than you—she showed up twenty minutes early. Backstabbing bitch.

Yoongi, ever the gentleman, meets you at the door.

“Will you relax?” he says, exasperated even as he leans in to kiss you ‘hello.’ When he pulls back, he flicks you on the forehead. Asshole. “You texted me your ETA like twelve times. While you drove. This is the furthest thing from a big deal.”

“Says you,” you grouse, slipping your arm into the crook of his elbow easily as he guides you inside. “These are your soulmates. They already love you. What if they hate me? What if they want to burn me at the stake?”

This past month with Yoongi has been nothing short of bliss. You’re both busy, both practically living in your respective workplaces, but sometimes you make time to visit him in his studio and work next to him in silence. Sometimes you come home to find him cooking dinner for you in your apartment and swapping stories with Rina. Sometimes you sleep in on weekends, wake up next to him and admire the softness of his features in the morning, the way Pepper curls up on his chest like he’s been around forever. It’s so good it makes you want to cry. Comfortable. Plus, there’s lots and lots of sex. Sex so good it makes you actually cry sometimes.

“They won’t,” he insists, keeping you close as he weaves through tables to guide you to the private room in the back. “They’ll love you, too. Maybe even more than me. You’re much easier to get along with.”

“That’s true,” you concede with a dramatic sigh, smiling at him fondly. He may be a grouchy hermit, but he’s your grouchy hermit.

When you reach the door of the private room, he stops. You can hear Seokjin’s windshield wiper-y laugh, even with the door closed. “You ready?” Yoongi asks, turning to you with a grin.

“No,” you mumble, pouting. When he runs his thumb over your bottom lip mockingly, you huff at him. “But I guess I have to be, don’t I?”

“Yep,” he says simply, dipping down to kiss you one more time. “It’s gonna be okay, baby. I love you, so they’ll love you, too.”

You hum, grabbing greedily at the front of his shirt to pull him down for one more kiss. “If you say so,” you murmur. “I love you, too.”

You smooth out his shirt and then do a full-body shake to ease your nerves, which makes Yoongi snort. “Okay, I’m ready.”

Yoongi nods, smiling at you fondly, gums showing. You’re damn lucky, you think, to be the one at the receiving end of those smiles. He loves you. It’s so fucking stupid how much he loves you, and how much you love him in return. It’s still new, still a little thing that both of you are learning how to nurture properly, but fuck it’s good.

When he opens the door, the noise of friends inside—both yours and his—filtering out into the restaurant, it’s that gummy smile still lingering in your mind that makes you take a step inside. That, and Yoongi’s voice in your head telling you it’s going to be okay. Because if there’s one thing you know beyond a shadow of a doubt after this past month, it’s that Yoongi will always be honest with you.

He squeezes your hand, and you step inside.

✧ shoot me a reply or an ask if you enjoyed this chapter! feedback is always appreciated <3 join my taglist if you want to be tagged in future fics!

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PREVIOUS CHAPTER ✧ MASTERLIST 

[nburkhardt]

Feels Like the World's Gonna End (But I'll Get You Through)

This was supposed to be small, oops. Hopefully it reads okay! Also small warning: panic attacks, flashbacks. Hurt/Comfort, lots of cuddles & kisses at the end ✨ (btw when you see ~ it means a pov change.)

To a regular person, July 4th is a good day. It’s a day to celebrate and enjoy one another.

To Steve Harrington it is everything but.

Getting tortured either on or around July 4th would definitely change your opinion on the day. It would cause panic and anxiety.

He’s kept it close to his chest, what happened behind those steel doors. Kept it minimal with the rest of who was involved with the Russians. Robin especially doesn’t know exactly what happened to him when they separated them. Dustin and Erica doesn’t even know the torture happened, Steve and Robin kept it quiet.

The rest of their group didn’t even believe them about the Russians at first, so he couldn’t figure out how to bring it up. Since at the time Hopper was gone, believed to be dead and Joyce was grieving. Steve felt like he couldn’t speak to her about it, didn’t want to bring it up.

So, close to his chest is where it all stays.

————— July 4th, 1986 —————

Vecna defeated and with that the upside down is no longer around, everyone is finally able to breathe a little easier.

The Byers are back in Hawkins, living in a brand new home that they were able to finally finish putting together to hold the start of a new tradition of get togethers with their group and then some.

Today is the official start of said tradition. Everyone is meeting up and going to enjoy the day together, like normal regular people.

Or make an attempt to be normal regular people, for Steve at least. He’s been more, jumpy lately and luckily not a lot of people have notice. Sure, it’s been a good few months since everything went down and everyone is doing okay.

But the whole first part of July is just not Steve’s favorite anymore. Technically the whole month, if he’s being completely honest.

Which is just shitty, since his birthday is also July 4th.

Not that anyone knows, he kept that particular fact to himself. Celebrates it at the end, so everyone believes it’s the 31st instead. Which is fine, really it is. He’s not too picky when it comes to celebrating, before everything it was stuffy parties full of his parents friends and coworkers. Then it was parties to get drunk with classmates.

It’s been better since Dustin came into his life, since Robin and now with everyone else it’s good. It is.

Just with everything that happened in March on top of his unresolved trauma from last year, he can’t help but feel like something is going to come down.

Something is about to happen and it’s not great that this is going through his head as he’s sitting on the ledge of the Byers’ wall watching the kids run around like the teenagers they are or hearing laughter all around him.

There’s a genuine smile on his face as he watches Eddie spin Erica around and the honest to god joyful childlike smile on her face. It makes his heart beat a little faster, seeing not just Erica be the child that she is but also just Eddie.

He knows he’s in love with Eddie, has for a while. But he can’t bring himself to make a move, even if Robin swears Eddie has to have the same feelings. That there’s a chance but the last time he took one with the L word, his heart got stumped on.

So, he’ll stay right here and watch from his spot, listen to them be happy and enjoy the holiday. All while anxiously waiting for something to happen. His mind is set on it, even if he’s trying not to let those thoughts win.

Before he can even register anything, suddenly his vision is blocked and his heart rate immediately goes up as he’s also picked up and being moved. It’s so sudden that the anxiety he’s been having is loud and clear, telling him this is real.

This is happening. He’s being taken again. The Russians are here or wait- he never left, never escaped and his mind has finally decided to remind him of his new reality. That they’re here to break him more, hit him more, maybe they’ll actually go through and cut his fingers off now.

Still, he struggles and tries to escape. He whimpers out first, a wounded and pathetic sound even to his own ears. Opening his mouth and out comes, “I work at scoops ahoy! I didn’t mean to find it, I swear! You have to believe me, please!”

His mind flashes again to the absolute sinister look the Russian soldier has, shows him the bone saw and he can hear it start. There’s tears going down his face, even with whatever they put on him. Heart beating so fast, he’s shaking and struggling.

“Please, please! I just scoop ice cream!” He’s screaming, his throat hurts and they won’t stop. “I don’t know anything, Please!”

The arms around him are gone, with those gone he hits the ground hard and he scrambles to get away. Sobbing and trying to get away without vision, “let me go, please, please. I just work at scoops ahoy I didn’t mean to find anything! I didn’t see anything, I swear!”

Curling into a ball, he tries to stop but he can’t. He can’t see, he’s stuck under the mall and doesn’t know where Robin is- doesn’t know where Dustin and Erica are, he’s all alone.

Alone with evil people who want to hurt him.

~

Everyone freezes and their face go pale as they watch Steve curling into a ball rocking himself, sobbing into his legs. Pleading to stop hurting him, to believe him.

It’s heartbreaking.

Eddie has to shake himself to get moving, he glares at Lucas, Mike and Dustin as he quickly drops Erica’s hands to make it across the yard to Steve, “what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“We didn’t mean to scare him!”

“It was just a prank!”

He shakes his head and decides they aren’t important here, that the one sobbing is who he needs to pay attention to. Kneeling next to Steve, he doesn’t touch; not yet at least. He takes a deep breath before trying to get Steve out of this, “Steve, Steve, you’re okay.”

Steve only sobs harder, shaking his head.

“Stevie, hey, come on. You’re not there, whenever you are. It’s not real” he hopes his voice doesn’t sound as shaky as he feels, “Stevie, you’re at the Byers house, in the backyard.”

“You’re lying, this-this is a trick!” Steve sobs out, “it-it won’t work, I don’t know anything about any Russian code-”

There’s a few gasps around him and he looks over his shoulder to find Dustin’s eyes widen and Robin’s face pales even more, “It’s- it’s gotta be a flashback, he’s- we- Eddie, he thinks he’s in the bunker, from last year- under Starcourt”

“I don’t know anything, I swear. I work at scoops ahoy, I just scoop ice cream. Please, please let me go!”

All he can do is feel heartbroken all over again, feels helpless as Steve sobs in front of him. Eddie looks away from everyone else and focuses on Steve instead. He doesn’t want to touch yet, doesn’t want to make Steve freak out even more.

“Steve, listen to me. You are not at the bunker, you’re safe. I’m Eddie, it’s Eddie. It’s July 4th, 1986. You are not at Starcourt, you’re safe” his voice wavers towards the end, listening to Steve sob is not what he wanted to ever hear.

All Steve does is shake his head and sobs more.

Taking another moment to breathe, he leans towards him slowly and pulls the cloth off Steve’s head. “Open your eyes, please sweetheart. Open them and you’ll see me, see Eddie.”

Behind him he can hear someone else crying, can hear Joyce and Hopper whispering to each other and hear everyone not in the know try and figure out why Steve is freaking out. It doesn’t pull his attention away though, his vision is just on Steve.

He refuses to look away, actually.

Steve’s tears don’t stop, the rocking though is finally stopping, his arms are still tight around his knees but he moves his head up and slowly blinks. It takes a few minutes and Eddie can see when it finally clicks in Steve’s mind. His face is suddenly white and he tightens his arms again, “Ed-Eddie?”

Nodding, he shuffles a little closer, “Yeah Stevie, it’s me. You’re okay”

“No, no- I” Steve’s eyes are red and wide as his eyes jump from him to everyone behind him, “I need to go- I can’t- I can’t-”

Without any words he moves quickly, gets up and helps Steve up. Tucking him under his arm and pulls close, leading him away from the house and now the shouts from everyone else. Eddie ignores them too, focus on getting Steve away.

They end up at his new trailer.

Eddie takes a moment in the kitchen to calm himself down a bit more before picking up the mugs of tea and making his way back into his room where Steve is. He pushes the door open, a small smile on his face as he makes his way over.

Steve has the blankets pulled all the way to his chin, he’s staring at the wall with tears still streaming down his face but there’s no more sobs.

“I got us some tea” he raises the Garfield mug up, “got your favorite cup too”

It causes a wobbly smile and Eddie’ll call that a small victory. Steve lets the blankets fall down and takes the mug, blowing it before taking a small sip. Eddie follows his lead and does the same. Only moving just to get under the blankets, making sure to rest his legs touching Steve’s.

It’s quiet the only noises coming from outside, from the other residents enjoying the holiday.

Even though the tea is gone, Steve still has the mug in his hands. They’ve been in the trailer for two hours now. Eddie doesn’t want to push, but he’s also very concerned and wants to make sure that he’s okay.

“Stevie, are you okay?”

Steve rolls the mug in his hands as he shrugs, “I don’t know, that um, that’s never happened before”

He nods, tapping the mug and once Steve lets it go, grabs it and places it next to his own mug. Looking at Steve, he’s never seen such a defeated look on his face. It’s wrong and Eddie hates it.

“It’s o- well, it’s not okay. I’m sorry the boys were assholes. You don’t have to tell me, not right now. We can just sit here and skip out on the party.” He won’t make him explain it, not right now.

That’s not important currently, what’s important is making sure Steve feels okay and safe again.

Steve just leans against the wall, a sigh coming out of his mouth before he looks at him. “I, I got tortured last year. Um, I haven’t told anyone. It was-”

He shakes his head and pulls him close to hug him, “Steve- Stevie, you don’t have to talk about it right now. We’ll talk about it tomorrow, right now I just want you to calm down and make sure you’re okay”

Steve looks at him and blinks back tears before nearly crashing them down against the bed. He tucked his head against Eddie’s neck and wraps his arms around him. Eddie does the same and holds him, rubbing his back and squeezing him close.

They stay like that, until the tears are gone and they can hear muffled fireworks going off now. Eddie’s on his back now with Steve cuddled next to him, head on his chest.

It’s a lot more intimate than they normally are, they’ve shared a bed before several times, actually. They’re close and both crave touch, but never this close. There’s something different swirling around them.

“Eds?”

He hums out and continues on with the pattern he’s making against Steve’s back with his fingers, “yeah?”

“It’s my birthday” Steve whispers it, like it’s a secret.

He freezes, hand completely flat against Steve’s back now. His whole body goes nearly stiff under him, because what?

“What?”

Steve shrugs, moves slightly to look at him, “today, it’s my birthday. I um, I’m officially 20”

He blinks and sits up more, confusion all over his face, “You- you got tortured on your birthday?”

The only answer he gets is a nod, Steve shifts back to cuddle him. “Yeah, kept it to myself. They, everyone, doesn’t know.”

It makes his heart hurt hearing that Steve was tortured on his birthday and that they didn’t know. It’s only as that thought goes through his mind, that he goes over what Steve said.

“They know it’s your birthday, right?”

Steve shook his head, squeezing his arms and hiding his face. He can feel his shirt start to get damp, making itself known that Steve is tearing up again.

“Stevie, why don’t the-” he shakes his head, deciding questions aren’t needed right now. He doesn’t need explanations, actually.

Right now all he wants is to hug and keep this man safe.

Eventually the sounds of fireworks die out, soon just chirps from birds and the wind blowing against the trees, muffled sounds of people laughing is all the white noise they need to fall asleep, along with how comfortable they both are.

They’re also emotionally drained, Steve especially.

~

He feels warm, comfortable and safe. He cuddles his pillow more and freezes for a split second when it shifts. It takes another second to remember where he is, who he’s with and what happened.

Steve’s cheeks burn as he shifts to look at Eddie under him, he’s still asleep. Looks relaxed and soft, beautiful. It makes his heart start to beat a little faster.

Eddie starts to open his eyes and he squints at him, “Staring is creepy, Stevie”

Quickly he shifts away from him and looks everywhere but at Eddie. He feels the bed move and hopes Eddie isn’t about to kick him out for staring.

“Hey, I wasn’t ready to give up with the cuddles” Eddie whines, and Steve knows that if he looks he’ll find a pout on Eddie’s face.

He shakes his head and fights back the smile, “I’m sorry”

“Don’t say sorry, I want the Stevie cuddles.” Eddie smiles and moves closer, wrapping his arms around him, “come on, it’s like-“ he glanced at his alarm clock, “it’s four in the morning, let’s sleep, okay? I won’t accept any sorry or explanations until the sun is out and I have breakfast with my favorite person”

All Steve can do is nod his head, slowly moving with Eddie to lay back down.

It’s quiet, Steve can feel Eddie’s fingers doing twirls and lines against his back. It’s slowing down and Steve can tell Eddie’s falling back asleep.

It’s nice, this is wonderful maybe even perfect. Steve wonders if this is what it’d be like if they were in a relationship together. If Eddie is even more touchy, if the nicknames extend past the normal Stevie and sweetheart.

“I can hear you thinking, Stevie”

He freezes and looks up to see Eddie already looking towards him, “sorry?”

“No need to be sorry, just, why are you still awake?”

Looking away, he thinks about it. Really thinks about it and maybe, just maybe, he could be a little more vulnerable with Eddie. Thinks that of all the people to immediately act and help him, was Eddie. That he took him away from all the eyes and took him home, gave him tea and held him.

So, he can be a brave right now.

Moving, he sits up and brings Eddie with him. He’s confused but moves willingly. They’re just looking at each other and he needs another moment to get his mind set. Taking a deep breath, he grabs hold on Eddie’s hands.

“Eddie, I need to tell you something and I don’t want this to ruin anything between us. I really, really hope this doesn’t ruin it. Because you’re important to me. So please, just listen to me and promise you’ll still be here”

Eddie blinks, confused and concerned.

“You can tell me anything, sweetheart.”

He nods and tightens his hands around Eddie’s before blowing out some air, “I, I thin- no, I know I love you. I’m in love with you, Eddie. For a while now but I was scared and worried that if I said that word, that I’d be left alone and you’d leave. But after what you did for me, I- I need you to know that I feel this way for you.”

It’s quiet and Steve can’t keep looking at Eddie as the time keeps passing by, he wants to bolt, wants to leave; needs to leave if Eddie stays quiet longer.

Feels like an eternity has passed before he feels Eddie’s hands on his face, as they move him to look at him. Makes him realize not only was he crying but Eddie’s tearing up now.

“Eddie I-”

“Don’t apologize, if that’s what you were going to do, please don’t apologize. Actually, stop apologizing to me today. I need you to realize I don’t need them, and I don’t need you thinking you have to leave, either.”

All he can do is shut his mouth, another sorry on the tip of his tongue. Eddie’s mouth tips to knowing smile, before he moves his hands down and around his neck.

“Stevie, I’m going to kiss you now. Okay?”

This is not where he thought he’d end up, but as Eddie smiles again before coming in close. He’ll take it.

He’s imagined kissing Eddie, of course. Has had dreams that woke him up needing a cold shower, had a million thoughts and wants, but it has nothing on actually kissing him.

The first kiss is salty from tears, it’s soft despite the chapped lips. It’s everything and more. His favorite part isn’t the kiss itself, though this will become addicting eventually, no his favorite part is Eddie resting his forehead against his own and the quick kiss to his nose before pulling back with a smile and, “I’m in love with you too, honey love”

Steve matches that smile, feeling high and happy. So happy, he immediately wraps his arms around Eddie in a joyful hug with tears and laughter. “I love you so much, Eddie”

They spend the rest of the night curled together. The next morning will be filled with more laughter, kisses and cuddles. Eventually they’ll talk about what happened, those explanations will be needed and heard. Someday, in the future, Steve will be honest with everyone and tell them what he went to.

For now, they’re settled on the couch lazily making out. Everything else put on hold, they deserve a lazy day together.

— —

UH, this was supposed to be a short hurt/comfort thing for the 4th of July, but it uhhhh got away from me? Like really got away. Anyway, i hope you enjoyed it! If you saw any mistakes let me know!!

Quick shout out to @i-less-than-three-you for helping out with this! Thanks for listening to me talk myself into this and then help with some of the plot )she came up with Steve’s birthday idea 😈) so thank you and I love you 🩷

Permanent tag list: (if you want to be added let me know!!)

@spectrum-spectre @itsfreakingbats @mysticcrownshipper @artiststarme @thereindeerlady @justforthedead89 @ronniescontinuum @freyaforestafay @littlewildflowerkitten @estrellami-1 @gregre369 @zerokrox-blog @bookworm0690 @flustratedcas @carlprocastinator1000 @marvelmwah @solliesolesito @navnae @i-less-than-three-you

[heartofsol]

Elise & the Duke

Elise's relationship with her father isn't discussed very much. I think it's actually one of the most interesting aspects about 06.

In a flashback, he's shown telling a young Elise "Don't cry" and "Become a strong queen who doesn't cry no matter what happens" in response to her grieving over her mother's death, which is...not great. A child should be allowed to grieve over their deceased parent. Although the Duke means well and says this because he genuinely believes strong leaders never cry (which is far from the truth), that doesn't make what he's doing okay. It doesn't matter that he's saying it in a soft and gentle tone, either. To a child, it's likely gonna seem like a dismissal of their feelings (which it is). This also shows that he was telling Elise to never cry before he used her as a vessel to seal Iblis.

Another thing I find interesting is that Elise says "I understand everything my parents said to me now." It could imply that Elise's mother held the same sentiment as the Duke, but we don't know for sure.

Now, onto the Solaris Project. Some time before the project began, the Duke told Elise that Solaris' power would allow them to travel through time and rectify past mistakes. The main reason the Duke began the project was so Elise could see her late mother again. Once again, good intentions, but the Duke experimenting with supernatural forces beyond his understanding cost him his life and hurt many people, perhaps his daughter most of all.

So long story short, the project goes wrong and the Duke is fatally wounded in an explosion but shortly before his death, he sealed the Flames of Disaster in Elise and pretty much left her clean up his mess. She was cursed to never shed a single tear, had to rule an entire kingdom at a young age, is relentlessly pursued and kidnapped by a madman who wants to harness her power, and when she makes a single friend, he gets murdered right before her eyes by the creature that her father experimented on all those years ago. Elise is suffering the consequences for her father's actions.

And how does Elise feel about her father after all this? She still loves him deeply. She doesn't express any anger towards him or angst about the way he treated her, or that he inadvertently caused her suffering, even though she has every right to do so. You get the sense that she doesn't even realize her father's "love" was actually quite abusive, which is just really tragic. She's been conditioned to accept this as her role in life and you can see it in her behavior. At the start of the game, Elise lacks confidence, is unsure of what she can do in her situation, and even blames herself for the things that are happening. Her attitude gradually changes when she meets Sonic, who encourages her to be more proactive and truly enjoy life instead of being restricted by her role as a princess.

Yet people get on Elise's case for breaking down once at the tail end of the game over the fact that she'd lose the memories of her only friend and would be separated from him?

Elise doesn't mean what she said in this moment, and blows out Solaris' flame to save the world seconds later. She had to bottle up her emotions for a decade and now has to say goodbye to the person whom she grew to love over the course of their adventure. Her reaction here is more than justified.

Elise is such a good character 🤍

[janewayintersection]

the amount of people who are like "omg i ditched kaidan for garrus after he was mean to me on horizon!!" baffle me. shit on bioware's writing for making shep work with cerberus all you want, but kaidan calling shep out on this and not joining them is NOT the issue. in fact, him reacting like this is why i love him??

he specifically states he trusts shep, just not cerberus. which is the only rational response in that whole entire goddamn game!! like?? you spend all of me1 stopping cerberus operations. they kill several alliance soldiers and admiral kahoku, try to make a rachni army -- they are WELL known for cloning and ais... miranda even outright states she wanted to plant shep with a control chip. there is literally zero reason for kaidan to believe the shep in front of him isn't some cerberus sleeper agent. or an ai. or indoctrinated. or being manipulated (THIS ONE IS CANON BTW). even if he trusts shepard, he doesn't trust cerberus not to pull any of this. quite frankly, i'm baffled more companions don't have this exact, entirely justified concern.

loyalty is important, but blind loyalty is dangerous.

honestly, the crew in me2 is lucky that the illusive man was so weirdly and uncharacteristically insistent on shepard remaining untouched. things could have gotten very bad otherwise.

being best friends with someone, or more notably, being in love with someone, isn't the end all be all magic potion in this world. being in love with someone doesn't mean you should blindly trust their actions. if my significant other joined a terrorist group, you can bet my ass i wouldn't join them! sorry! if anything, it's healthy that kaidan has his own sense of morals and priorities he follows over shepard. he's his OWN person, love shouldn't be something that makes you suddenly give up who you are and what you believe in.

not to mention kaidan is entirely out of the loop for the whole game. his intel states that cerberus is behind the abductions (the horizon incident is partially a result of cerberus' fiddling btw), and that shep has been alive and never even reached out to anyone. he doesn't have the information we the players have. he doesn't know that the illusive man insisted on no control chip. he doesn't know about the lazarus project or its specifics.

and as for the "cheating" discourse if you romance someone new in me2, i do personally believe shep getting with one of the me2 love interests is cheating on their me1 love interest. to shep, they skipped those two years. they wake up as they did during the me2 prologue. no time has passed. and then they immediately get with someone else after one (1) argument with their love interest over them, may i remind you, joining a terrorist group. even if you don't think it's "technically" cheating, it's at the very least pretty trashy and flakey.

if anything, i'm gonna say it! kaidan is more forgiving than i'd be! the fact that he even sends an email saying he still cares and that they can see what happens after this is all resolved is WAY more than i would have done. the fact that kaidan will find out shep got with someone else, and STILL be willing to give shep a chance is like. man. it's saying a lot. i am just saying.

imagine losing someone. you see them literally die as your ship explodes and they burn up in the nearby planet's atmosphere. you grieve. you put yourself into your work. then suddenly, two years, later. they pop back up again. ALIVE. and with a terrorist group. and basically tell you the equivalent of "just trust me bro" despite the fact that while you trust them, you don't trust the terrorist group. so you're like hey, what the fuck. why are you with a terrorist group. and they're like i'm not with them, we just have common goals. and you're like. i'm gonna say it again. i trust you, not the terrorist group. okay?? i can't join you for this reason. please be careful out there, seriously.

and then they immediately jump into the pants of that one guy you knew back on a mission from two years ago.

what would you do?? would you not feel hurt? betrayed? upset? confused?? i'm sorry, i'm completely on kaidan's side. i'd go as far to say that he's far more understanding than he should be in me2.

me3 is all about regaining that complete and undying trust back, and that cerberus didn't fuck around w shep. or that being with cerberus didn't change them. his "loyalty" quest is just visiting him in the hospital and showing him shepard still cares. that they're still the same. that cerberus truly didn't alter them. that there was more going on. that shepard was forced to work with cerberus out of complete necessity and only did what they thought was right. and i think that's neat!!!!

[briaroftheroses]

Right Here In My Arms Tonight

warnings: angst, grieving dead loved one, no happy ending // wc: 700+

spencer reid x fem!reader (no use of y/n)

A million thoughts flew through Spencer’s mind, as they always did, as if his brain was the superhighway. Rain pattered softly against the window, dark clouds looming in the night sky, as he cuddled himself further into the bed.

He replayed the previous few weeks in his head, recalling every small detail. He always thought it was a gift, that he would never forget the way your eyes sparkled when you were happy, the look of your hair in the soft morning sunrise, the image of your skin in the moonlight. Now, he felt as though it was anything but. Cursed to remember the feeling of your bodies tangled together, the sound of your melodic laughter, the memory of hushed whispers in the dead of night, hidden from the world in a cocoon of blankets, and knowing it was all gone.

He couldn’t help but wonder if it was all his fault, as self-doubt and pity creeped in. Could he have been better? Is there something he could have said, or done? Was he too dependent, too self-critical, or not affectionate enough? Or was it inevitable, like the last embers of a once warm and glowing candle dying out?

A part of Spencer didn’t want to believe that it was all over. He was a man of logic, facts were everything to him, yet you seemed to have stripped that all away. Facts meant nothing when he felt lost, half-convinced he would look up and you would be there, smiling down at him, looking like an angel sent from heaven. That’s what you were to Spencer, it’s what you always had been. His saving grace.

The team had been constantly checking over his shoulder, out of concern, and a worry he would return to his old habits. The thought almost made Spencer laugh. You would be so disappointed if he started taking dilaudid again, so guilty that you drove him to it. No, he wouldn’t do that to you. He wouldn’t let you see him like that. You would come back, right? And when you did, Spencer would be sure that he was ready, not hopped up on drugs.

“Sir,” woman’s voice rang out softly in the room, almost afraid of startling him, as if anything too loud would set him off.

Sir. He wasn’t Spencer there, not Doctor Reid. He wasn’t anything, not without you.

“Sir?” The same voice called as Spencer refused to look up, only burying his face further into the blankets. Spencer was sure it would work, that if he could just hide himself then none of this would be true, just a bad dream that could be warded off with a sheet.

“We need to prep the body,” those words seemed to somewhat knock Spencer out of his stupor of denial as he glanced up. He still refused to look at the nurse, his gaze trained solely on you, on the bruises and cuts maring your face. You were still beautiful, you would always be beautiful to Spencer. You could be covered in scars, and violent purple bruises, and be bald, for all he cared. He would never meet someone more perfect, more ethereal.

“She’s going to wake up soon,” Spencer voiced adamantly. The heart monitor had flatlined long ago, but it was as if Spencer never even heard it.

He did, he absolutely did. It’s what threw him into a pit of despair and agony, the sound being the final note in Spencer’s life, the soundtrack to the end. He couldn’t possibly go on, not now. Not while you lay still beneath him, body battered in from the ubsubs attacks, breathing stilling to a halt.

No, this wasn’t right. None of it was. You were supposed to wake up, hold him, kiss him, and marry him. Spencer’s fingers toyed idly with the shimmering ring on your finger.

“She’ll wake up,” he repeated, with such conviction you would’ve almost believed him, if not for the way his hands shook and you lay lifeless in the hospital bed.

Spencer always knew everything, something he took great pride in. He had his whole life planned to the moment. But, with every second that you remained unresponsive to his hushed words, and delicate kisses to your face, his future slowly swirled around the drain, leaving only blackness behind.

And the million thoughts in Spencer’s head finally stopped, replaced with only you.

written by @briaroftheroses, august 15th 2024

tags: @fear-is-truth @slutforgarlogan

a/n: woke up in an angsty mood today and made my first spencer fic 🤪

also i’m so sorry i haven’t post a fic in like five months 😭 i have been writing, just nothing’s been getting finished

[ameriatenebrae]

Late night thoughts...

The biggest misconception about Tom/LV is that he can't feel normal human emotions. But it's actually one of Tom's key characteristics that he's trying to be large than death, trying to run from his human self. But that's the thing; he's just trying. And maybe he managed to be precieved like something more by those who feared him. But in reality he could try as many times and ways he wanted, he could never succeed. He's still, of course, responsible for all of his actions. And he is still an arrogant, psychopathic, ambitious, condescending, sanctimonious, selfish, self-centered, evil, sadistic, narcissistic, merciless, ruthless, power-hungry man. He really doesn't care for almost anyone than himself. Yes, he became what he became.

But his emotions were just supressed human emotions mainly because of his childhood loneliness. Sometimes I see myself in young Tom because of that. Loneliness damages your brain and soul so deeply. Especially when you're that young.

Actually, one of the base pilliars of the whole story is that even the Dark Lord himself, was just a very broken human being. Traumatized, unloved (till Bella came around), unwanted, mad at the whole world.

The whole "he can't love another person" stems from the fact he resented love because he never got any. Till he met Bellatrix, who loved and understood him for who he was. That's why she was always treated better. Why he couldn't harm her, why he took the shame from her when mocking the Malfoys, why he rescued her from the ministry, why he screamed when she died. Because he knew, she's the only one he could trust and be himself without his masks. It was his borken way of showing, that he cares. He didn't understand what love means. That doesn't mean he couldn't feel it subconsciously without knowing and recognizing it. It wasn't healthy but it was there.

And with love, there comes grief, the price we pay for someone we care about. And he did pay it, he grieved his mother and completely lost control when he saw Bella die. Maybe even he didn't expect how much it would affect him. But it certainly did.

And I'm really mad about her canon death scene not being in the movie because the whole symbolism of that scene made the ending so perfect: He lost the battle the moment Bella fell to the ground: just minutes before his own death, (he tried to avoid his whole life), he was mortal, hurt, grieving, alone and angry. Just a human being. And that was the most tragic yet beautiful way of paying for everything he's done. The most perfect way of ending his story. And the fact he has a daughter is even more perfect. Because children are usually seen as a legacy of their parents, since they share genes with each parent. So when they're gone, their kids live on and cycle repeats itself and they "stay alive" through them. But Tom wanted to live as him, in his body, not as a half of his genes in his daughter. So Delphini's existence is ironic in that way. Because that's how both Tom and Bella managed to "stay alive" in the end. United in her.