#and just. him thinking ‘this one (dissociation) doesn’t feel like it’s his fault. actually it never really does’ implying that it hurts him

[howlsofbloodhounds]

What if Nightmare trys to convince Killer they are equally toxic as a way to manipulate him?

After Killer did something, Nightmare would say something like "this is why no one else would ever except you" or something more specific depending on what would happen

He'd use this to isolate Killer even further than just trafficking him

And this could lead to Killer developing Stockholm Syndrome because Nightmare is making it seem like they're equally toxic, implying they're equals and making Killer think that if he really REALLY deep down wanted to, he could leave, when he actually can't

Sometimes i think my moots are more evil than me.

It wouldn’t be hard to make him believe this at all. He’s so easy to guilt trip when he’s in Stage 1–easy to emotionally manipulate. Break him down and convince him of this, which wouldn’t be hard to do at all, then he’d passively accept it. In Stage 2 he might act in ways that only reaffirm to keep him in cycle of guilt and self sabotage due to outside manipulation.

Killer doesn’t have a stable, coherent sense of self. It’s hard to think objectively about himself when the type of abuse he goes through breaks down critical thinking and the ability to think independently and objectively. The lack of ability to access much emotion in Stage 2 greatly impacts Killer.

He will probably accept that he is equally as toxic as Nightmare passively, in a resigned way. “Yeah, makes sense” way. He’d probably internalize the idea, people’s opinions of him as fact in Stage 1 and may externalize and act and behave the way that aligns with what others say is true in Stage 2. Creating a self fulfilling prophecy.

(Such as that one ask where someone said, “after all the monsters you killed, you can’t bring them back, you can’t be good.” Something like that. And Killer’s (st2’s) response was “It’s not my fault they are weak.” It aligns into his worldview that there’s no point in trying to be better or to change.)

It’s not like he can really trust his judgment on these things. His self perception is eroded and sense of reality is fragmented, as is his sense of self—and so, of course, he has been conditioned to rely on others (such as abusers) for a sense of self worth or reality. It doesn’t help that he has to mold himself to meet expectations for perceived survival or avoidance of suffering/inconvenience/or in Color’s case, abandonment—“I’m whatever you want me to be.”

And yeah, this does mean he accepts things like degradation as fact when it comes from those ‘above’ him —even if it’s intended to be playful.

Even if he knew it was playful, he’d doubt it because he can’t tell if it’s real or not, that it was actually supposed to be a joke. He’d need reassurance, he’d never ask for it—mostly because he’s unlikely to feel any hurt by it, it just is what it is.

He wouldn’t be able to access any hurt or guilt or shame about this idea like he could if he were in Stage 1–if he did feel any (especially if the insult came from someone like color), he’d probably try to repress or dissociate from it.

Stage 1’s fear, guilt, and shame would keep them trapped—may even cause him to try and push away people like Color or the cats out of fear of doing to them what Nightmare does to him. What he “does” to Nightmare when in Stage 2. Of being abusive towards the two most important people in his life.

{ @largefound }

[mageknight14]

I think what’s interesting about Neku as a protag is that while I’ve seen some people talk about how he’s one of the deeper/most complex characters in the franchise, I’d argue that he’s actually one of the most straightforward characters in the TWEWY duology-and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. That’s not to suggest that he doesn’t have depth, far from it. His trauma and the way that he goes about in trying to dissociate from others while still genuinely loving them deep down, even if he says otherwise, is genuinely interesting to see in action, especially in how he approaches his relationships. But compared to the others, I don’t find him as fascinating to explore in comparison to, say, Shoka, Joshua, Sho, Kanon, Motoi, Shiba, Mr. H, or even Rindo as a protag, even if his reappearance in NEO as well as how he tries to keep his trauma/emotions under wraps is still interesting to see in action.

That said, he’s still one of my faves for how much he embodies TWEWY’s themes in general, his development just being great to see in action, and the impact he has on the people around him in various ways. In a series where a lot of the characters like to hide parts about themselves and how those affect the relationships around them, Neku in the first game is blunt to a tee, almost to a fault, and confrontational, which makes him the perfect receptacle for the themes/lessons the game imparts on him. We're privy to almost every single one of his thoughts, feelings, and emotions throughout the game, to the point that it almost becomes a first-person narration at times. He hates lying and it shows because when the characters have doubts about themselves, he’s the perfect guy for the job of setting them straight instead of trying to dart around the issue, getting them to look at themselves and try to press forward anyway.

This is also part of what makes Rindo such an effective foil to him as a protagonist. Like I said in another post, while Rindo SEEMS more socially well-adjusted compared to Neku on a surface-level, once you look into his actions and mindset, you can see that he's also quite the dysfunctional mess. Whereas Neku is blunt, brutally honest, and incredibly confrontational, Rindo is much more passive, self-contradictory, and incredibly insecure about himself and the people around him, which feeds into how he puts people at arm's length, including his supposed best friend. The kid can't even tackle a simple-ass puzzle without needing to consult his online friend first or ask them about their identity because he's afraid of rocking the boat. Whereas Neku is alone AWAY from the crowd, Rindo is alone IN the crowd.

This also extends to their inner thoughts, where Neku will let us, the player, view into his mind and have him lay out exactly what he's feeling, the conclusions he comes to, and be confident enough in what he's feeling to then express himself in exactly that manner (with some exceptions such as some of his interactions with Joshua, which is justified because he doesn't want to risk anything happening to Shiki if their partnership goes south so he tries to keep what he says in check, even if it internally kills him inside, and even then he still spills out how PISSED he is with Joshua towards the end.)

Meanwhile, in NEO, while we do play as Rindo and get the majority of the story through his perspective, we don’t get to see his inner thoughts/turmoil as much as Neku’s…because he DOESN��T want to recognize his issues, instead trying to rely on everyone else to solve his problems for him so that they can take the fallout in case something goes wrong and a lot of it shows through his actions/outspoken dialogue instead. Nagi’s Dive and Haz’s conversation with him are some of the only times someone directly calls him out on his flaws within the main story but when you pay attention to how he acts, his flaws pop up quite a bit. For example, how he claims that An0ther's quote of "never miss your chance to make a friend" is one of his favorite quotes yet he balks at the idea of recruiting other potential team members as well as grimace at the concept of the first game's Reaper's Game.

So we have a guy who’s constantly internally struggling with himself while putting on a cold/blunt persona because he doesn’t want to get hurt and recognizing that maybe he’s wrong on a point and letting us in on how he's feeling a vast majority of the time in his head versus a guy who constantly bitches and moans internally while passively going along with everything in spite of himself, constantly self-contradicting/being hypocritical without recognizing himself as such until he gets a much needed wake-up call later and I think that’s really interesting.

[swordmaid]

on the scenes where rook visits varric in the infirmary, I like to think marina just stands next to the bed and stares at it in silence, thinking she’s talking to varric when she’s absolutely not. like woman who’s dissociating bc she doesn’t know what to do with this grief 👍 hasn’t acknowledged it either 👍 and part of the reason why she’s so adamant on completing this job is to make it up for him. that if she succeeds, it’s not her fault for letting him die - that his death was noble and meant something and it’s not just death. and she gets so frustrated when things arent going her way at the start because she doesnt want this to be on her head you know, and she doesn’t know how to tell bela she let one of her close friends die on her watch. she can’t face that, so she’s 🏃‍♀️ refusing to acknowledge it exists at all.

marina is the type to do what she wants. she likes to exercise her freedom and she doesn’t like to be bound by anything, and she doesn’t feel like she owes anyone anything either. she’s a very living in the moment type of woman, and she has little care about others - only herself. and she’s convincing herself at the start that she’s only doing this job because she wants to - why not save the world? it’s not like she’s doing anything atm I mean how hard can that be 🤷‍♀️? not bc bela put her in it bc of that mishap with that noble and lof upper management politics, and now she feels compelled to see this through because of varric. i think her intentions weren’t really about helping other people at first - that’s something that comes later when she makes herself care about other people - but it really was about her helping to pass the time bc I like the idea that she half believes in what varric was saying was real. she’s skeptical about elven gods being real (she doesn’t even believe in them tbh), but she knows powerful mages are so she’s more inclined to hunt down an elven mage who’s trying to do funky stuff with the veil as a way to kill time before she can go back to the lords and do pirate stuff again. but then it actually turns out real, and now she’s bound to do this job because she thinks she owes it to varric.

and i think her intentions changes overtime to her actually genuinely wanting to save and help everyone when she becomes less selfish and she lets herself come to care about other people. she becomes less of a solitary person - she actually starts giving a fuck about the companions bc i think at the start she doesn’t!!!!!! give a FAWK. they tell her about what’s happening with their lives she’s like 😒 that’s nice but this isn’t in my contract lol. she sees them as an expendable crew at first (tbh I think she would’ve exploded on them if they failed their job like 😭 she’s a professional about her gigs why can’t these people do the one thing she hired them for 😭😭😭) but people she comes to care about later on. and i think that plays well with the marineve arc 🤭 bc i like the idea that the attraction really only starts after minrathous burns. like she flirts with neve here and there but it’s not serious to her, and marina flirts wth anyone if she feels like it anyway lol. but anyway my prev hc of their relationship being this thing where marina becomes fascinated with neve’s drive to protect her city even if it feels futile, and more so after her city burns and she becomes hardened, because she wants to understand it. why is that terrible place worth saving? why do you try so hard? and it influences her as well because she gets affected by neve’s resilience, and she comes to admire it too. and maybe she does want to be like her in a way 🤭 n maybe she wants to try being genuine for once 🤗

[love-kurdt]

wip (what is poppin') wednesday

from chapter 2 of ntwdt >:) this fucking document is 37 pages long rn. to put that into perspective, the entirety of TIMT adds up to 37 pages. and i'm only on part 2 of 4. i think i've gone mad

“We’ve been here for, what,” I checked my watch, just to verify how long we’d been seated in the diner booth, “four and a half hours? And I still barely know anything about you!”

Matt chuckled. “Well, we’ve gotta finish the ten things about you, first!”

“Not my fault you keep distracting me.”

I could hear the grin spreading across his face as he teased, “I’m distracting, now, am I?”

“You are,” I admitted.

Matt narrowed his eyes and stroked his chin in feigned suspicion. “Interesting.”

“Okay,” I took a deep breath, pushing the conversation forward before I got too flustered and lost my train of thought once again. “So… Hawkins, Jonathan, D&D, books, my major, singing, alcohol, my father, Dustin–”

“Dustin doesn’t count,” Matt said.

“He does, too!” I insisted, letting a little bit of my inner child seep through the cracks.

“Fine,” Matt relented with a slight eye roll, “But only because I like you.”

Well, that was very forward of him. It wasn’t too out of pocket, given the fact that I’d literally made out with him not even ten minutes into knowing his name, but listening to a guy openly admitting his romantic feelings for me without any form of hesitation was something I had yet to get used to. I spent years hiding my own feelings, and Mike�� fuck Mike. “I like you, too,” I heard myself say.

“… And that’s ten.”

“Wait really?” I shook my head in confusion. “What was ten?”

“That you’re into me.”

“Oh,” I said with a slight eye roll at my own stupidity, “Yeah. I guess that was ten things.”

“And that’s my number one. I like you,” he nudged my foot with his under the table with a smirk, “I have severe ADHD, I have a dog back home named Swayze— he’s a pomeranian. I’m a sophomore material studies major because I can’t make decisions to save my life. I have a passion for writing and have this dream of writing and illustrating my own stories someday–”

“Woah, wait, me too!” I interrupted, and Matt’s eyes lit up in surprise.

“Wait, you write as well?”

How to Explain The Status of Your Co-Writing Relationship with Your Ex-Best Friend Who You Were in Unrequited but Not Actually Unrequited Love With Without Mentioning His Name for Dummies would’ve been pretty useful right about now. “Well… no. I used to work on silly comic books with some of my old friends, but I only illustrated. Someone else did the writing.”

“Cool,” Matt nodded in approval.

“I have no idea what's gonna happen next. But, whatever it is, I... I think we should work together. I think it'll be easier if we're... we're a team. Friends. Best friends.”

“Cool.” 

“Cool.”

“So, uh—” Fuck, I hadn’t even realized I’d spaced out. “That was five, right?” Matt asked me, and I nodded, taking a sip of my Diet Coke. How long did I dissociate for? This hadn’t happened to me in months.

[blue-slxt]

Two Can Play - Chapter 5

🔞Minors Do Not Interact🔞

A/N: We have finally reached the finale! I legit cannot thank you guys enough for all the love and support on this series. Especially since this is my first Lo'ak fic. Writing this really made me fall in love with him. Of course, like I say in every part, I have to give a HUGE thanks to @pandorxxx for inspiring me to write this fic. Her fic Search & Rescue was a big inspiration for the premise of this story. Two Can Play would not exist without her. So, I hope you guys enjoy the end of this fantastic journey. All characters are aged up.

Previous Part

Pairing: Lo'ak x Fem!Omatikaya!Reader

Warnings: This chapter contains potentially triggering content for suicidal ideation so please proceed with caution. Mentions of death, Angst, Dissociation, Depression, Smut, P in V, Creampie, Oral (M receiving), Mentions of scenting, I think that's it

Word Count: 5.1k

Summary: The aftermath of the incident plays out.

Staring up at the opening in your tent, the night stars bounce in your vision with each thrust given by Tenye above you. He holds on to your hips while he ruts into you. Clearly, he’s feeling good from all the sounds he’s making. You can’t really feel much right now. Your head is too far lost in the sky to be present enough to enjoy yourself. Your mind is back in that space where you’re not really in your body anymore. It’s as if you can actually see your own face peering up at the sky dead-eyed while you force moans from your own mouth to help him finish quickly.

“Ah…Gonna cum!” he says

‘About damn time’ you think to yourself.  You use your hand to push him out of you before he finishes and just pump him with your fist until he cums.

He lets out a dramatic groan when he finishes and doesn’t move an inch while he comes down from his high. Meanwhile, you immediately use a spare cloth to wipe your hand off with.

“Eywa, that was so good” he says between pants trying to catch his breath.

“Yeah…” you pick up his loincloth and toss it to him, “See you around.”

He stares stunned at you for a moment, “That’s it?”

“Yup, pretty much. Bye.”

Tenye scoffs at you and he mutters ‘bitch’ under his breath as he gets dressed and leaves.

It doesn’t even phase you at this point. Nothing phases you anymore. You don’t feel anything anymore. It’s been like this for 2 whole weeks now. You hid out in your tent and retreated into yourself. For the first few days, it felt like you never moved from the spot on the floor where you initially collapsed. You nearly dehydrated yourself from your tears. Ako came looking for you after you disappeared from the festival and the sight of you broke her heart.

And just when it felt like your mind was going to snap from all the overwhelming distress…it suddenly went dead quiet. Your mind and body ceased to process stimuli properly anymore. And before you knew it, you fell back into your old habits. Desperate to feel something—anything, you regressed into seeking comfort in sex. But that did nothing for you either. Not anymore. No matter what, the only person your body responded to was Lo’ak.

You found fault with just about every other male now. This one kissed too rough, that one came too quick, he used too many teeth when he ate you out, and he was too small. One after another, the disappointment seemed never-ending. Lo’ak had utterly ruined you for anyone else. None of them could hold a candle to him and how he knew your body.

And even worse, you still had his bracelet. The one that he made for you. You were too blinded by your rage to have the sense to throw it out that night with the rest of his things. But once you calmed down and registered that it was still on your wrist, it was like your fingers physically couldn’t take it off. As much as it pained you to look at it and remember, you couldn’t deny the comfort it also brought you. Fidgeting with the small beads day in and day out mindlessly.

You curl up on your hammock and fight to keep the tears at bay. But you fail today again just like every day since the incident. It doesn’t take anything to bring the sadness on at this point. It just sneaks up on you when you least expect it. Even with a totally blank mind, your subconscious still remembers every ounce of the pain that still lives there.

Another cold night of crying yourself to sleep.

…

Ako grew concerned about you over the passing weeks. She couldn’t believe the story you had told her about what you witnessed. It didn’t make sense. The way Lo’ak was with you, there was no way it was just an act. Lo’ak may have been a lot of things, but cruel wasn’t one of them. It didn’t add up in her mind. She struggled with whether or not she should go confront Lo’ak. On one hand, she felt like it wasn’t her place to get involved. She doesn’t insert herself into your relations. But on the other hand, watching your body and mind slowly wither away with each passing day was sinking her heart. She needed to find answers.

That’s why she’s currently dragging Lo’ak by his arm through the forest right now. She needs to get to the bottom of this so that she can know how to help you.

“Okay, you need to start talking and I mean right now” she says finally releasing his arm once they’re far enough out of the way.

“What are you talking about?”

“What the hell happened the night of the festival?” she nearly screams at him

“Nothing happened! I was set up!” he says doing his best to defend himself.

“That’s not how she described it” Ako retorts crossing her arms over her chest.

“Look, I know that it looked really bad from her perspective, but I swear I am telling the truth! Fea said her friend hurt herself in the forest and I went to help, but then she cornered me. But I pushed her off immediately. You’ve got to believe me.  I would never do something like that.” His voice is pleading and his eyes are sincere.

Ako takes a deep breath sitting on his explanation. That story does make more sense in her mind, but she knows it won’t be any simple task trying to convince you of its authenticity.

“Did you explain that to her?” she asks still somewhat skeptical.

“She threw me out before I could. She didn’t want to hear it.” The defeated tone in his voice doesn’t go unnoticed.

“I…I love her. I could never do that to her. But it’s over…she hates me now.” He slumps back against a tree letting his head fall forward.

“You need to go see her.”

Lo’ak looks up at Ako with doubt, “How? She doesn’t want me anywhere near her.”

“Don’t care. I don’t want to hear it. You haven’t seen her, Lo’ak. She’s a mess these days. She won’t eat or drink or leave her tent. She’s a shell. Even I’ve never seen her this bad before. She needs something more than I can give her. She needs you. Now, move your ass!” her arm stretches to point in the direction of your tent signaling him to get moving.

Lo’ak lets Ako’s words sink in. He wants nothing more than to come running to your side. Thinking about how much you were suffering was torturous to his mind. But how would he get through to you? How would he get you to listen?

“Now Lo’ak!” Ako pipes up breaking him out of his swirling thoughts.

He decided he was just going to have to figure it out on the way. If he wanted this—truly wanted to be with you, shouldn’t he fight for it? He rises from his slumped position against the tree and let his feet carry him to your tent.

He still has no idea what he’ll say or how you’ll receive it, but he just knows he has to try. He owes you that much.

Your tent comes into view in the distance and his pace slows as he feels his resolve starting to fade. Your last night together replays in his mind standing outside of your tent. The anger and suffering in your eyes and the way you shouted at him to get out. It was like he was reliving it again at this very moment. Standing in the same place he stood while he collected his discarded belongings that you had thrown out of your home. A home that he had started to feel like he belonged in too.

His family was wonderful and they loved him and he loved them too, but with you, the two of you had filled the space together. It was both of yours. Losing it was crushing. He wanted to come home. With one big breath, he finally builds the courage he needs to walk inside.

He closes his eyes while he waits for your angry tirade to hit his ears…but it doesn’t. He hears nothing. Cautiously, he opens his eyes to look around and for whatever reason, you’re not home. That’s odd. Ako said you hadn’t left since that night. So where would you go?

He gingerly walks around letting himself reminisce about all the blissful mornings and heated nights he would spend here with you. He makes his way over to your hammock and something catches his eye. It’s the bracelet he made for you.

You never took off this bracelet. Not for one second. Not when you slept, not when you bathed, not even when you kicked him out. He didn’t see it among his things and it brought him a small comfort to know that you held on to it. But now, his heart sinks to his feet. Lo’ak couldn’t quite place why, but he had this awful feeling deep in his gut. Something was wrong. He needed to find you immediately.

He storms out of your tent looking frantically around everyone in the area trying to find your face. But he doesn’t see you.

Ako is walking towards him, “So, what happened?”

He runs to her, “She’s not home.”

“What? Where did she go?” “I don’t know! She was gone when I got here! And she left her bracelet. She never takes this thing off. We need to find her. Now!” panic seeps in and takes over his mind.

“Okay okay, I’ll search through the west side of the forest, you hop on your ikran and look through the east.” Ako tries to stay calm so that Lo’ak doesn’t completely lose himself right now. What they needed right now was not to panic, but to make a plan.

He nods his head and takes off to call and mount his ikran. He’s so frayed, it effects how his ikran flies. Its movements are rough and choppy in the sky, but they take off, nonetheless.

…

What is the point? Why bother keeping this up anymore? Everything is just so heavy. The weight of the grief sitting on your chest is nothing short of devastating. First, your parents, then losing Lo’ak, and now you can’t even find solace in your one simple pleasure. You can only take so much.

You’re completely dissociated from reality while you walk through the forest. You let your body just wander aimlessly through the foliage, around trees, through bushes, and over creeks. The soft moss is a welcome feeling under your feet as you let yourself sink deeper and deeper into the unfamiliar path you’re on. You let the colors of the various flora surrounding you guide you through an untrekked trail.

You didn’t know where you were headed. You secretly wished that your body would take you back to the pond. The same place where you would visit so many nights with Lo’ak just floating until all the world’s problems seemed like nothing more than ripples in the water around you two. Where nothing else mattered but being with each other. If only you could go back in time and warn yourself. ‘Don’t fall for it’. ‘Stick to your gut’. ‘He’ll only break you’. ‘Do NOT fall in love with him’. But that was only a wish and real life is not so forgiving.

Reality is cruel and merciless and does not care for your pathetic wishes of things to be different.

You continue your aimless stroll through the dense forest watching your feet place themselves one in front of the other. Until…the green of the forest starts to slowly fade. The green under your feet gradually shifts into a hard, stony gray. And there is no more soft moss and grass, but now there is harsh, sharp edges of rocks poking and prodding the soles of your feet. Where were you?

You finally find the motivation to lift your head and find out where you had travelled. It was a mountain? No, it was a cliff. Why had your body been called here of all places? Fear gripped your chest suddenly realizing how high up you were. Frozen. Even though you were far from the edge of the cliff, your body stood completely still as if taking even one more movement would result in your tumbling over the edge. And instead of misery, you feel gratitude. You are thankful for the fear because it is better than the all-consuming nothingness you’ve been feeling for weeks now. You’re so desperate to feel absolutely anything that you push the envelope even more and, with shaky legs, you take several steps forward.

One step and then another. You slowly, but surely, bring yourself closer and closer until you can see over the edge of the cliff. Below is a body of water, no doubt with some sharp rocks just under the surface or a shallow bottom. If you fell, that would surely be the end of you.

But would that be so bad? Putting an end to all the misery? No more tears, no more emptiness, no more loneliness, no more suffering, just…peace. You could finally be with your family again and you wanted so badly to be with your parents again. But what would they think of you? If they knew who you had become since their passing, how disappointed would they be? How could you possibly face them again as you are?

But the urge to just put one foot over the edge is…enticing to say the least. Your hand reaches for your wrist only to be met with nothing. That’s right, you took off your bracelet finally and left it at home. You had grown so accustomed to playing with the small beads that not having it now left you feeling more exposed and lonely.

You turn your face up to the sky hoping to find some kind of sign or message from Eywa on what to do. When you drop your head again, a shadow passes over you. When you look up, you discover Lo’ak flying overhead on his ikran. Of course he would show up here right now. He lands blocking your path back into the forest. You’re trapped between him and the edge that you were dangerously close to.

“I’ve been looking all over for you! What are you doing up here? You shouldn’t be here!” Lo’ak calls out before he can even fully dismount his ikran. He starts walking towards you, but you take a step back. “Be careful! You’re too close! Just come over here, please!”

You shake your head casting your gaze down to the ground. This was the worst-case scenario right now. Lo’ak pauses and stays where he is so as to not push you any further back. “Listen to me. Please. I know you probably hate me and I can’t blame you. From what you saw, I know it looked bad, but—”

“Bad? Bad doesn’t even begin to cut it, Lo’ak! You had another girl all over you! And—”

“I know how it looked, but listen to me for fucks sake!” he cuts you off and you hold your tongue shocked. Lo’ak has never taken this tone with you, but it worked in getting you to be quiet long enough for him to explain his side.

“I know how it looked, but you have to believe me, I would never do that to you. It was a set up. She cornered me because she was jealous of you. She wanted what we have, but there’s no way I could give myself to her like I have with you.”

He cautiously takes a step forward and you don’t step back. You let his words flood your head and process. Of course, you want to believe him, but could you really trust that? It would make sense. Fea was always giving you death glares after you and Lo’ak had got together. But you can’t bear it if this was just a ploy to get you back.

“I could never feel the same way about anybody else. Love only feels like love with you.” He takes another stride your way.

Your knees start to tremble under your weight and tears fall directly from your eyes to the stone beneath you. Your heart called for him, it ached for him to hold you. But your mind was still doubtful. But were those doubts heavy enough to outweigh the love you still held for him?

“Sevin…” he’s careful with his tone while he continues to approach you in the same way one would approach an unpredictable, wild animal. “I love you. There’s nobody else I could ever want.”

With that, your body finally gives out and falls to the ground. Lo’ak runs towards you and catches you before you fully hit the stone. He quickly drags you back further from the edge. A swell of emotions rushes from your body as you quake in his grasp. He smooths his hand over your hair and shushes you quietly in your ear. “It’s okay now. I’ve got you. I’m so sorry.” Every word he utters brings a fresh wave of emotions in their wake. It’s too much. It shatters what little composure you were clinging to. You let yourself completely fall apart in his arms and bawl into the empty sky.

…

You finally come to late into the night. You’re back in your tent, tucked into your hammock. There was no memory of you coming home. As a matter of fact, you couldn’t remember anything after Lo’ak confronting you on the cliff. How did you make it home? You finally sit up and look around your home and on the floor next to you is a sleeping Lo’ak. His knees are tucked into his chest and his head is resting on his arms.

After you had crumpled in his arms earlier, Lo’ak had carried you to his ikran and held you while he flew you back home. He tenderly layed you back in your hammock and cleaned your face with a cloth and some cool water. He sat and waited with you while you rested. He had silently vowed to himself that he wouldn’t leave your side.

Your body relaxes in his presence the same way it always did. What are you to make of this situation? Just as soon as you had started to try and think of an answer, Lo’ak had started to stir awake.

He instantly looks to check on you and notices that you’re awake. “You’re up. Are you hungry?” He stands and walks across the room to pick up a bowl of fruit. “Ako dropped this off for you a while ago. We figured that you would need something to eat.” He brings the bowl over to you and hands you a piece of fruit.

You mutter a small ‘thank you’ and take the food. It was true that you were hungry, but you also didn’t have very much of an appetite.

Lo’ak watches you while you eat and sits in front of you cross-legged. “Can we actually talk now?”

You rake through your endless piles of thoughts trying to find a starting point. “Did you mean it?” He looks at you asking you to elaborate with his eyes. “When you said that you…l-love me.”

His ears drop at your doubt, but he couldn’t blame you for that. “Of course. And I’ll say it as many times as I have to until you believe me.” His hand rests on top of yours. You force yourself to not pull away.

“I…I love you too, Lo’ak. But I’m so scared.” Just when you think you couldn’t possibly have any more tears, new ones appear glossing over your eyes. “I can’t take another heartbreak. I don’t have it in me.”

Lo’ak’s hands hold either side of your face while he rises up to his knees. He presses warm, firm kisses to your forehead, “You won’t, tíyawn. I swear it. Never.��

Fresh tears hit your lap, but they aren’t yours. You angle your head up to look at him and now he had tears streaming down his own face. It’s truly a heart wrenching sight. You wipe his face with your thumbs and he leans his face into your touch. “I want to come home.”

A small smile breaks through on your face. ‘Home’. You try to swallow the lump in your throat so that you can actually speak words. But all you’re able to give him is the smallest nod of your head. His smile from your answer is blinding.

“Oh, before I forget.” He looks around on the floor in the spot where he was sleeping earlier and grabs your bracelet. “You left this behind.”

He grabs your wrist and ties the bracelet back on. Feeling the tiny weight on your arm again filled you with a sense of content.

“Can we go to sleep? I’m really tired.”

“Of course, sevin.” You missed hearing that.

You lie back down facing the wall and Lo’ak shifts behind you to settle into the hammock with you. His arm hesitantly rests over your waist. He still radiates that same warmth and safety that you missed, but your messy thoughts prevented you from ever fully falling asleep. Lo’ak noticed too. Every time you would stir in his arms or shift around, he would snap back to attention even if he was dozing off. He didn’t want you to be by yourself through the night. So, if you didn’t sleep, then he wouldn’t sleep.

…

A week had passed and you were slowly starting to come back into yourself. Lo’ak never left your side. He stayed with you through your whole recovery period and he loved you the whole way through. He never let a day go by without reminding you multiple times that he loved you. Some days were better than others. Some days, you looked and sounded like your normal self again. Other days, you could hardly get out of your hammock. Either way, he supported you in any and every way you needed.

You were cautious about opening back up to him. It didn’t come easy. It took a lot of heavy conversations and long sleepless nights. You still loved him and you believe that he loves you. What more could you really ask for? But your mind still torments you with the memory of what happened. You need to forget it. You want it ripped from your mind.

‘Fuck it’, you think. You’ve finally had just about as much as you can take of this.

You sit up from your hammock with a huff and look at Lo’ak who’s carving up more fruit for you on the floor.

“Lo’ak, I need you.”

He stops what he’s doing and sets down the fruit and knife. “What do you need ma txe’lan?” He comes over to you ready to attend to whatever you ask of him.

“Lie down.”

Confusion flashes across his face, but he complies anyways. You stand from your spot and kneel down between his legs. You quickly untie his loincloth and tear it off.

“W-what are you—”

“Shhhh…please don’t talk right now. I just need this, okay? Just let me do this.” You say already starting to stroke him. He gets hard almost immediately at your touch.

Lo’ak decides to not challenge you on this and let you have your way with him. You use your tongue to follow the vein on the underside of his shaft up to his tip and swirl your tongue around it.

He sucks in a sharp breath when you wrap your lips around his tip. You slide him all the way into your mouth and bob your head up and down while hollowing out your cheeks. All he can do is watch in amazement you while you go to work on him like your life depends on it. “Oh shit…” He can’t hold back the groans that escape his lips. It had felt like a lifetime since he last felt you and being in this moment right now was like heaven.

Every flash that comes across your mind just motivates you even more. You’ll keep going all night if that’s what it’ll take to finally wipe the memory from your mind.

The sounds that fill your tent are obscene, moans, curses, and slurping.

Lo’ak is slowly losing himself in the pleasure and the smell of your arousal thick in the air makes him that much more dizzy. Your body begged to be filled. You needed that pleasure that you had been deprived of for so long. More, more, more.

You use one of your hands to untie your own loincloth and pop Lo’ak out of your mouth. He barely has a chance to fully take a breath before you’re already on top of him and sinking him into your needy pussy.

“Fuck…” you breathe out as he reaches all the way into you. Your walls spasm around him getting reacquainted with the full feeling.

“Shit, wait wait” he tries to say, but it’s too late. His seed spills out into you and the heat spreads in your core. You stare down at Lo’ak with raised eyebrows and the embarrassment is clear on his face. “Shit. Sorry, sorry. It’s just been so long and between your mouth and the squeezing and—ughh” his hands cover his face trying to hide his shame. But you feel no shame or judgement towards him right now.

“Lo’ak…” you move his hands so that you can see his face, “It’s okay. We’ve got all night.” You smirk down at him and his blushing face. It’s almost comical how fast he gets hard again inside of you. “Think you can keep up?” you tease already starting to roll your hips into his.

“Yawne, you have no idea.” With one swift movement, he had flipped you over so that you were on your back and he was hovering over you. He meant every word too. Lo’ak hadn’t had any type of relief since the last time you two were together and he fully intended on making up for all the lost time.

Your hands guide his face down to yours to meet in a heated kiss. Lo’ak thrusts into you at a slow and steady pace. Every roll of his hips is deliberate and precise and it reaches the spot you need it to flawlessly. He pulls away from the kiss and holds you close to him while he whispers sweet words into your ear. “I love you”, “You are perfect”, “I need you”, “I am only yours”, and so on. You can feel him just pouring all of his love into you. You can’t quite name the feeling that comes over you, but whatever it is drives you to sink your teeth into Lo’ak’s shoulder.

There is an overwhelming, deep-rooted need to have him completely belong to you. A need to make it clear to anyone who laid eyes on him that he was already taken. Even if over time the mark would heal and fade, you’d mark him again and again for the rest of your life if you had to.

The twinge of pain in his shoulder fuels the pleasure and makes Lo’ak pick up speed. You let go of his shoulder and lick the small drips of blood that spill from the punctures you made. He sits up to his knees and holds your hips level with his while he continues to rut into you faster and harder being spurred on by the sight of your bouncing breasts and parted panting lips.

“I love you, Lo’ak.” Your words are breathy and broken, but he still hears you clearly.

“Say it again.”

“I love you, Lo’ak. I love you” you repeat it while you feel your high approaching. “Haah…Lo’ak, I’m going to cum.”

“Do it. Let go for me, sevin”

Your body immediately obeys his command for you and your head falls back while the knot in your body snaps. Lo’ak keeps fucking you through your orgasm, “Just like that.” He can’t stop moving feeling the way your pussy was gripping his dick as if you were trying to milk him for all he’s worth. “Fuck…so good…” his eyes roll in pleasure as he chases his own high. You can tell from how he twitches inside of you that he’s close. You’re desperate for it already.

“Give it to me, Lo’ak. I want all of it.”

That was all he needed to take him over the edge and spill everything he had into you. His hips stutter and slowly come to a halt.

You both take a few seconds to catch your breath before he finally pulls out of you and watches his cum drip out of you and down your ass. You look up at him, “Don’t tell me you’re done already.”

He flips your body over by your hips and says, “You wish.”

…

For the rest of that night, you and Lo’ak went at it nonstop until you both were barely hanging on to consciousness. Afterwards, you both clung to each other while you slept half the day away.

Ako came by to check on you and was beyond relieved to see that you were well. And from the scent burned into your skin, she could tell that you and Lo’ak had finally made up.

“So, who officially lost the bet?”

Simultaneously, you and Lo’ak point at each other and make the same shocked face when you realized.

“You totally lost. You’re the one that said, ‘fuck the bet’ remember?”

“Yeah, but that was after you fucked me, so you lost.” He says lightly poking your chest.

“After you said you wanted to kiss me!” you blush trying to defend yourself.

“Kissing doesn’t count. But if it does, then you definitely lost that night after you fell off that branch” he says with an arrogant smirk.

“W-well, no because….you…I d-didn’t mean to…” you search for a rebuttal, but he had you cornered. You look to Ako for some type of help, but she only raises her eyebrows at you. “Sounds like you lost to me” she teases in a singsong voice.

“Shut up” your blush deepens while they both laugh at your flustered face.

“Anyways, I was going to gather some food. You two think you can leave your love nest for long enough to come help me?”

“Sure thing. Some fresh air will be good.” Lo’ak answers.

The three of you leave your tent and you and Lo’ak walk hand-in-hand into the forest.

[zurajanaizurakoda]

I assume no one will read this, but the fanfic I'm working on is going to be more author notes than fanfic and I'm highly invested in Katsura as a character at the moment so I thought I would post my feelings about Katsura and disassociation here. (Mild Ginzura)

EDIT: I think I'm confusing fugue state with catatonic.

I very strongly headcanon that Katsura has dissociative states that can get to fugue state, and there’s not a lot of evidence but hear me out.  When Sensei is beheaded, he doesn’t react, like at all.  And I know it’s because the scene is supposed to be about Gin and Takasugi and Katsura is on standby as much as he possibly can be while still being in the scene, but it’s telling.  He doesn’t even cry, which is odd because he cries early and often, even in serious scenes.  During the battle at Eiroku, he cries simply because he and Gin lived through a battle.  I feel like when he realized what was happening he just went away when he realized he couldn't do anything.

Second piece is in the second movie where he’s facing execution, and he does literally nothing.  Definitely not arguing for fugue, he does react to his surroundings, for instance he watches Gin come up with the sword with at best mild interest.  (And this is a man who is a six foot penis dressed as his dead boyfriend running past security to take his head personally, you’d think it would be worthy of a reaction)  This is literally Runaway Kotarou, it’s essential enough to his character that he’s famous for it.  He escaped from jail in a week when he was a giant screwdriver.  It doesn’t come up much, but every time he’s been captured he’s escaped.  Suddenly he spends five years in a jail cell and then goes to his execution without a word.  I feel like he was living in some form of dissociative state for most, if not all the five years.�� Once he realized that the world was broken in a way he had no skills to fix and realized he was useless and he just shut down.  I feel like Katsura’s sanity hinges on his ability to feel like he serves a purpose. Also, of course, he apparently talks about destroying this wretched world but the first thing he says to Gin is how disappointed he is in himself for not being able to save the world when Gin apparently failed. Unlike the execution scene, he actually displays a good deal of emotion when recounting the last time he saw Gin, almost crying. (One might even say it's implying that unlike his own death, which made no difference to him either way, he genuinely regrets Gin's death, but that's just me)

The third one is a good one!  After Nizou cut him down he played dead, meaning he was unresponsive enough that Nizou assumed he was dead and left him as a corpse.  When they discuss it later, Takasugi comments that he’s getting better at playing dead, implying that Katsura becoming unresponsive during battles has been a recurring theme in the past.  Katsura replies that the fault was Nizou’s, implying that he didn’t assign his survival to any conscious action on his part, it just happened like that.  Knowing he was about to die (and since it’s Katsura, the fact that he’s dying alone and possibly by the orders of one of his few friends in the world are probably factors in that) is enough to make him go away for a while.  I imagine in battle it would be useful, their battlefields tended to be piled high with corpses and it’s likely most soldiers wouldn’t go through them looking for survivors.  I feel like it’s highly possible that on at least one occasion his friends thought they were pulling a Katsura corpse out from under a pile of amanto, only to realize he’s alive and just left for a while.  Probably scared the shit out of them, and not just the first time.

The last thing is just a little one, but when he’s Zura he seems to turn off or at least greatly dull his pain reception.  He definitely seems to still be in the moment and aware of himself, but he’s consciously ignoring signals coming from his body.  Just noting that it’s something he does.

If you're into Ginzura, consider reading Big Spoon! It's not the fic this rant inspired, and it may be not the best characterizations but it's my favorite fic of mine. Gin and Zura sleeping big spoon/little spoon style when life gets too shitty starting in childhood, and eventually getting so many feels.

OH YEAH maybe not relevant but he sleeps with his eyes open and it seems like that's another indicator that he can just leave, five senses be damned.

[bestworstcase]

Listen as someone who loves Ozpin a lot, he got the better end of the deal and we know this bc Light said explicitly he would not be alone. No it’s not a GOOD deal but considering he found and reunited with and had kids with Salem in his first new life? Things only got terrible for him truly after they broke up / tried to kill each other.

Salem watched humanity be Destroyed by the “gods” of her world who thought she should be punished bc they were easily swayed into fighting by making her Love Forever, Invulnerable (can be brown. Apart but comes back together) and then Left Her Alone Until Humanity Evolved once again either by our real world rules or magical rules or a combination of the two.

Listen I’ll write an essay about Oz and his years of fucked up loneliness and body snatching he didn’t want but Salem being Alone for That long without even the release of death at her own hands? NONE of us would handle that well who knows how she rebates when life sprang up again like. She’s the villain for sure she’s fucked up for sure but man I would be too. I would be too

it’s funny that you say this actually because i think the opposite. salem may have been brutally psychologically tortured for millions of years at the hands of cruel and tyrannical gods, but 1. she’s still herself, 2. she understands that she did not deserve this, and 3. she was ultimately able to claw back some agency for herself by jumping into the pool of grimm (which is doubly true if that really did cause humanity’s resurrection, because in that case she actually ended the worst part of her curse).

meanwhile ozma got turned into a parasite who subsists by erasing and absorbing other people’s lives, over and over and over again, entirely against his will and in a manner that also forces him to experience this from their perspective too. and the god of light tricked him into agreeing to this—so he feels it’s his fault—on top of making it his sole responsibility to redeem humanity before the gods lest the whole world be obliterated. he’s been manipulated into a position where the one person who ever made him want to live is his greatest enemy and his whole existence revolves around a hopeless campaign to get rid of her so he can save the world that he only wanted to save because she was in it. and his sense of identity has been eroded so badly that he doesn’t even consider himself to be a person anymore. and he’s convinced all of his suffering is his fault and exactly what he deserves for having failed.

and rwby has been very, very clear that a person’s soul is their identity, their self-knowledge, which means that the nature of ozma’s curse is tearing his soul apart.

when salem found out he reincarnated early she kicked everyone out of the room, tried to calm herself down, had a meltdown, blew the windows in, and then very quickly shuffled her plans around to do damage control and even try to turn this development to her advantage (<- the ‘wring the lamp’s password out of him’ plan). when ozpin’s precarious house of cards collapsed he burrowed down into oscar’s head and went catatonic for months. and if V1 is any indication, as ozpin he regularly spent months on end just dissociating all the time. salem is like… a lot more emotionally functional than he is, and i think that’s entirely because ozma’s form of reincarnation is shredding his soul and forcing him to live in the bodies of people he involuntarily consumes.

[bouncykhotchillipeppers]

a short nct johnny birth chart reading (cross-posted from twitter)!

disclaimer: i do not know him personally, no harm intended, and others may interpret it differently. this is all for fun! please be nice as i don’t know nct super well. please do not repost or steal my work.

now, on to the fun stuff.

my first reaction was just…oh. that’s why. THAT is why he’s like this. the sheer, absolute, utter chaos inside of him. sorry to this man. the best way i can describe him is a cynical dreamer. completely out of pocket. very chill yet extremely uptight about certain things. his entire chart is a walking contradiction. let’s break this down.

the first thing i will focus on is his aquarius mercury rx in 5H because that is his chart ruler. a…backwards thinker, if you will. he’s that out of the box person who asks the weirdest questions in your biology class about, like, “since it’s theoretically possible, blah blah blah.” ACTUALLY. WHAT IF. MAYBE IF THIS HAPPENED. yeah, he’s that guy. don’t get me wrong! he’s actually a deep thinker, the guy that reads wikipedia because it’s fun and a walking encyclopedia of weird facts you really didn’t need to know about. he’s smart as hell and willing to debate anything, almost to a fault. it’s easy for him to see multiple sides, the cynical side giving way to the fantastical side and vice versa, and if he had harsher placements, i would say he’d make a fantastic lawyer because of this ease. truth is, he would fucking suck because he would let his emotional bias get in the way. he’s also not…serious enough. which i’ll get into later.

sun in aquarius in fifth house! creative, passionate, realistic. sun trine moon, in tune with himself. he knows who he is, though maybe not necessarily what he wants or needs. sun semisquare venus and sun opposite mars—a fighter. context is important, though. fighting against his friends is something he absolutely hates because he views his friendships as his solid foundation, somewhere he can go to let go. he will do everything he can to protect those friendships. he ACTS like he doesn’t give a shit because, hello, aquarius sun and gemini moon—the top two signs of not giving a shit—but the reality is that he does care, thanks to 7H in pisces and 11H in cancer. he’s just emotionally stunted because of that moon square saturn. he’s also a great friend because he’s so easygoing and lax about a lot of things. until you push him to his breaking point. then he will cut you to your core, taking all those little bits of knowledge he’s gathered over the years and turning them into the worst bits of knowledge about you and throwing them back in your face with a direct coldness. but other than that, he’s real chill. thoughts over feelings type of guy.

great friend, not so great boyfriend. he needs to be able to detach completely and emotionally, someone who’s as independent as he is and definitely not someone who’s clingy. he will prioritize his friends and family over romantic relationships any day, any time. he will dm you back with “i think we’d be better off as friends.” he will move on. he is a heartbreaker and does not care because that is not where his priorities lie. he thinks romance is inviting you over to his friend’s house for some beer and a nacho table and wii sports.

the final topic i will discuss is my favorite one: his grand mutable cross.

grand crosses (or grand squares) are when there’s four squares connected to each other to create a cross or a square in the chart, and they’re typically all in the same mode (cardinal, fixed, mutable). (i say typically because our very own mark lee has two grand crosses, one is fixed and the other is dissociate because of his cancer mercury rx.) but i digress. included in this aspect are his gemini moon 10H, sagittarius jupiter 3H, pisces saturn 6H, and virgo ascendant. so, what the fuck does this mean? to put it simply: chaos. despite all the stable capricorn and aquarius in his chart, this man thrives in disruption. every moment is a moment to live and enjoy. he needs to think, do, and decide for himself—to be free. he excels at the mundane but shines in the unanticipated. he’s good at seeing the small details and the big picture, the reason in the emotion, the halves in the whole, and is willing to take whatever life throws at him with ease because of the way he’s predictable with his unpredictability. restless and always looking to do something, anything to keep himself occupied. however, he tends to worry about meaningless things and ignores or outright avoids the things he needs to confront, hence why it’s hard to push him to his breaking point, which is confrontation. the capricorn in him helps with this to an extent. the tendency to see the absolute best and absolute worst in every situation is another one of his faults; as an example, he can cheer others on but internally be worrying that someone might get injured. he thrives in fun and excitement, constant change. as long as he has somewhere to focus his restless energy, he’s good.

some final notes:

i try to stay away from parents for idol chart readings, but since a parent planet is on the MC, i’ll talk about it. moon conjunct MC: he considers his mother to be the light of his life, literally. places her above everyone else. the midheaven is the highest point on his chart, the part the light shines on the most. he sees her as witty and capable and gets along well with her.

cancer in 11H: so devoted to his friends and his dreams. the basis and roots of his life.

a piece of advice i would give him: not everything has to be a major upheaval. it’s okay to let things go. it’s okay to be selfish sometimes, but the best place for you to be is in service to others. caring for others, especially friends and family, is what will make you happiest. but do not give a piece of yourself to everyone you meet.

ummm that’s it! 🙈 if you have a fan meeting with another member please ask them their birth time i’m always curious i love knowing idols’ charts

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Grounded

Prompt: I know you don't let Patton, so I understand if you no want, but can we get some hurt/comfort pat? Maybe with janus or remus?? - anon

Read on Ao3

Warnings: character bleed, lite flavors of dissociation

Pairings: intrumoceit (sanders sides fandom why do we have the weirdest goddamn ship names I'm dying here) can be platonic or romantic you decide

Word Count: 2087

As anyone who spends too much of their time reading things about characters receiving the things they want is wont to do, Patton spends a little too long reading something he maybe shouldn't have and now has to deal with the consequences of having many emotions that aren't actually his and, well, dealing with it. 

Luckily, he's got some help.

He made a dumb choice. 

It wasn’t like he meant to do it, and he didn’t mean for it to get this bad either, but he—okay, maybe he’s just bad at realizing when he doesn’t actually need to feel the feelings and he can just—just—

Patton stares at the ceiling tiles. Have there always been little scratch marks on that one? They look like they’re from a cat. 

He wants a cat. 

You’re allergic, he hears Logan’s voice drifting in from ages away, it wouldn’t work out. 

But Patton wants something to cuddle now and he can’t find anything because he can’t get up because of stupid feelings. 

His phone still lies next to him, the screen just flickering to black as he glances over. He blinks once, twice. Who knew people were so good at making him feel things?

Okay, he did read the tags, but like…that’ll only get you so far. And it’s not the author’s fault, they did tag it, and he’s—he’s fine. He’s fine. This will go away. It’s just a bad time right now. It’ll be fine. 

It’ll be fine. 

“Ho, ho,” and that’s Remus, isn’t it, “who’s having a not-fun time right now?”

He can hear the record scratch as Remus’s gaze lands on him and barely has time to blink before a concerned face is leaning over him. Remus reaches down and lightly smacks his cheek. 

“Pat-Pat?”

“Hi, Remus.”

Remus’s face softens, sitting on the edge of the couch. “I heard a bad thing, are you okay? Wait, no, stupid question.”

“’S not stupid.”

Remus frowns and runs a hand through Patton’s hair. The soft touch makes him want to close his eyes. Why is he so heavy?

“Patton. Patton.”

Oh, Remus is calling him. 

“Hey,” Remus murmurs as he opens his eyes again, “what’s going on? You look…floaty.”

‘Floaty’ is a good way to describe it. “I made a mistake.”

“Okay,” he says without missing a beat, “what’s going on?”

“I, uh, read something I don’t think I should have.”

“Like, it-suddenly-had-sex-in-it shouldn’t have or it’s-giving-me-character-bleed shouldn’t have?”

“The—the second one.”

Remus makes an ‘ah’ sound and ruffles Patton’s hair again. “Roro does the same.”

“Of course he does.”

An affectionate roll of Remus’s eyes as he stands up. Something in Patton wants to reach out, ask him to stay, but he doesn’t have time before Remus’s arms are winding carefully under him. 

“What…?”

“You’re having a bad time,” Remus says softly, hefting Patton into his arms like he weighs nothing, “I’m gonna help.”

“Um…”

Remus pauses. “Is that okay?”

“…do I even weigh anything to you?”

“Nah. It’s like carrying a kitten.” Remus nuzzles into Patton’s hair. “A big floppy kitten.”

The image of Remus with a massive cat in his arms makes him giggle as Remus carries him up the stairs. He pushes the door to Patton’s room open with his shoulder and lays him down on the bed. 

“Now,” he says, sitting next to him, “do you need to ride this out or do you want me to try and get rid of it?”

Patton’s fingers clutch at Remus’s costume. “Getting rid of stuff is bad. Logan said so. We’re not supposed to try and force them out.”

He feels more than hears Remus’s breath catch in his throat and when he speaks next, his voice is wet. “Oh, Pat-Pat, you’re such a softy.”

“Mhm.”

“Alright, then. Riding it out it is.” The hand is back in his hair and his eyes drift shut. Remus is warm. How is Remus so warm? “I dunno, you gotta ask Roman. We both run super hot.”

“…is that why Janus is always hanging off of you in the winter?”

Remus chuckles. “Yeah, probably. I know he wants Roman as his space heater as well ‘cause sometimes I gotta do things that he doesn’t wanna be around for.”

“Has he asked?”

A sigh warms the top of his head, somewhere between fond exasperation and bittersweet resignation. “You know Roro. He’ll give up his own heart if someone else asks for it and not give a damn that he’s bleeding all over the floor except that he’ll have to clean it up.”

…that is true. 

“They’re getting there,” Remus murmurs, still ruffling Patton’s hair, “but it’s gonna take them a bit. Until then I don’t mind.”

The floatiness is beginning to subside but in its wake comes a terrible heaviness that immediately threatens tears in the corners of his eyes. Remus notices because of course he does and in a flash he’s cradling Patton’s head in his hands. 

“Hey, hey, Pat-Pat, what’s wrong? Shh, shh, you’re okay, am I hurting you?”

“’S so much,” he warbles, pawing clumsily at Remus, “’s—’s not mine but it’s so much an’—an’ I—“

“Cmon, let it out, kitten, it’s okay. I’m right here.” Remus must’ve changed because Patton’s face meets soft cotton as Remus scoops him to his chest. “Better out than in, Pat-Pat, it’s alright.”

The sobs come in waves, the heaviness sinking so deeply into his chest one moment, receding and leaving him grey and cold the next. He loses track of where he is, swept up in the waves of strange and impersonal emotions, clutching Remus’s shirt as a warm hand runs up and down his back. 

Remus stays with him, murmuring a litany of comforts, nuzzling the top of his head and pressing chaste kisses to his temple. His fingers idly trace patterns between Patton’s shoulder blades, rubbing firm circles when the sobs start to sound painful. 

“Hey,” he whispers when Patton finally goes limp, “it’s okay, you feeling a little more like you?”

Patton nods blearily. “Thanks for staying.”

“Of course, kitten.” Remus grins as Patton’s cheeks flush. “Too much?”

He shakes his head even as his ears burn brighter. Remus softens, another kiss against his forehead. 

“I’m not trying to tease, I promise.”

“I know.”

“You wanna try and get back on your feet a bit more? Or you wanna lie here?”

Now that he’s cried, his shirt sticks to his chest and arms, tacky with sweat. His glasses lie lopsided on his face, face all stiff and swollen. As warm as Remus is, parts of him are freezing and other parts feel like they’re about to combust. 

“…c-can I…clean up?”

“Yeah, kitten, you can.” Remus ruffles his hair. “You good to move on your own?”

…he can, but he doesn’t want to.

“Can I call Janny?”

Patton blinks. “Janus?”

“Yeah. He’s the best at, uh, this part.”

“…really?”

“Hey,” Remus chides, tugging playfully at his hair, “don’t knock it ‘till you try it, okay?”

“No, no, I didn’t mean it like that, I just—“

“Shh, shh, kitten, it’s okay. I was teasing.”

“I’ve never had—“

“Patton,” Remus sighs, “calm down. Shh, shh, come here, yes, that’s it, I’m right here, it’s okay. I’m not mad, Janus won’t be mad, you didn’t do anything wrong. That’s it…shh, shh…oh, kitten…”

Patton sniffles. “Sorry.”

“No, I should’ve known better. You’re really fragile right now.”

“‘M not.”

Remus just raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, you are,” and there’s no condemnation in his voice, “and that’s okay.”

“…maybe.”

Remus smiles, leaning down and resting their foreheads together. Patton can’t feel anything other than the weight of the hand on his shoulder and the mattress under him, but he knows Remus is there. 

“Can I call Janny,” Remus asks again after a moment, “can he help?”

Patton’s fingers find their way shyly around Remus’s wrist and he nods. 

A few moments later, there’s a telltale rustle of fabric as the door opens. 

“Well, this is certainly an expected surprise,” drawls a familiar voice, “and I’m not at all upset that you’ve disrupted my schedule.”

Oh. Was he in the middle of something? Did—did they mess up his schedule? 

He doesn’t get to stay in that train of self-doubt for long, though, because two seconds later, Janus glances over and sees him weakly clutching Remus and he barely has time to blink before there’s another concerned face hovering over him. 

“Sweetie,” Janus murmurs, expression open and soft, “can you hear me?”

Patton nods dumbly. Janus smiles. 

“Good. Can I ask Remus to catch me up?”

Another nod. 

“Character bleed,” Remus says softly, “too many emotions that aren’t his.”

Janus makes a quiet noise of understanding and stands up. “Have you gotten any food or water in him?”

“Not yet.”

A cool glass is pressed into his hand. “Drink, sweetie. Don’t want you getting dehydrated.”

Patton sips at the water as Janus bustles about the room. Remus reminds him to go slow, carefully taking the empty glass and setting it on the table. He keeps one hand under Patton’s head, playing absentmindedly with the hair at the nape of his neck. 

“All done?” Janus holds out his hands. “How about a rinse-off? It might make you feel better.”

“But standing.”

Janus chuckles. “You do know you can sit and lie down in the shower, right?” When Patton just blinks at him, wide-eyed, he rolls his eyes fondly and leans down to scoop him up. “Come on, sweetie.”

“Eep!”

“Hey, easy,” Remus barks as Janus starts to carry him to the bathroom, “be gentle, Janny.”

“I will never be anything but.”

“Now that is a lie.”

“I won’t,” Janus whispers just for Patton to hear, “I won’t hurt you.”

Patton just nuzzles into his collar. Janus smiles, setting him on the edge of the counter and sliding his glasses from his nose. 

“Are you alright from here?”

“Mhm.”

Janus narrows his eyes. “Are you saying that because you think it’s what I want to hear or it is true?”

When Patton hesitates, he steps closer. 

“I’m not mad, sweetie.”

“…I don’t know.”

“I’ll get the shower going. And—“ he slides two fingers under the hoodie sleeves and undoes the knot— “you can do the rest?”

“Okay.”

True to his word, Janus leaves the bathroom once the shower is warm, leaving Patton to get in. He can’t feel the warmth of it, not really, not over the pressure of the water pounding over his head and shoulders. Slowly, he eases himself down, letting the water run over his front. 

Oh. 

Oh. 

…well, now he really doesn’t want to stand up. 

There’s a quiet knock at the door an undetermined amount of time later, rousing him from a daze as he fumbles to shut the water off. He looks up blearily as he tugs the towel down to dry off, dressing in the big t-shirt and shorts he keeps in here. 

“Patton? Are you alright?”

“Mhm. Coming.”

“No rush, sweetie.”

Oh. They made his bed. Janus holds his arms out, smiling as Patton stumbles across the room. 

“Your hair is all wet,” he says, but it isn’t scolding, only slightly bemused as he catches him. 

“Here, kitten,” Remus’s voice says before there’s a towel over his head. 

Distantly, he can hear the two of them having a conversation. 

“’Kitten?’”

“Tell me he doesn’t look like a stray kitten when he’s all sad and weepy.”

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with your ability you share with Roman, would it?”

“Shut up.”

“Just because he can summon puppies—“

“Janny, shut up.”

Janus chuckles as Patton’s face reemerges from the towel. “Hello, sweetie. Is that better?”

“Mhm.” He blinks slowly. “‘M tired.”

“I bet.” A hand slips under his arm and guides him to bed. “Have a nap, sweetie. You’ll feel better.”

“W-will—will you stay?”

Remus is already sitting on the edge of the bed with Patton’s head practically in his lap, hand carding through his hair before Patton has a chance to finish his sentence. Janus just smiles and reaches out to pat his chest. 

“Go on, sweetie,” he whispers, “we’ll stay.”

“‘M I warm enough to be a space heater?”

Janus’s eyes widen. “You—you told him?”

Of course, Remus just cackles. 

“Remus!”

“He asked, Janny, I’m not you, I don’t lie all the time.”

There’s enough softness in their voices to tell Patton they’re not actually fighting and he falls asleep with his heart full of his affection for them to the sounds of bickering. 

“Okay, but have you seen what he looks like when he’s cold?”

“That is not the point.”

“So it is the point.”

“Remus!”

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[alleyskywalker]

A Bit On Theon’s Personality...

(THEON MONTH | DAY 2: Personality Traits; DAY 5: Strengths)

I think it’s been discussed fairly at length at various points by Theon fans that Theon’s personality can be difficult to parse out, even long before he adds the layer of complexity via dissociation while in Ramsay’s clutches. Where do Theon’s defense mechanisms and trauma responses end and his core personality begin? Which and how many of those coping mechanisms are so hard baked into him that they’re basically his personality now, and to what extent?

 For example, I’ve talked before (though I think on discord more so than here), about how Theon’s arrogance and entitlement are really bluster and self-pep talks – overcompensation for his insecurity and an attempt to project a sense of self-worth through that insecurity that he probably means to appear as cockiness at worst, but understandably might read as arrogance from the outside because so much of it is fake. (And the audience that doesn’t bother to read his content carefully falls for this charade as well, at least in Clash, where so much of Theon’s energy is spent on self-pep talks and self-reassurance, because those aren’t things he’s getting from any external source.) And, in fact, when he does get a modicum of emotional support and safety, we see him show actual vulnerability – i.e. see the scene with Dagmer in ACOK Theon III. Yes, he lists his achievements – one of the Blackfish’s handpicked scouts, leading the charge in the Whispering Wood, etc – but they’re genuine achievements he has a right to be proud of and he doesn’t elaborate beyond stating the facts. He leaves himself open by asking if his father knows he’s not a craven and admits to being upset he doesn’t have Asha’s command while also being aware of how petty it sounds. He’s rarely this openly vulnerable in his longing for acceptance, (as opposed to just feeling/thinking it), but is it really a surprise, given that Dagmer is the one person who has offered him actual emotional safety to even the smallest degree?

 And as for entitlement. Please. He’s not really any more entitled than any other character in this series in his social position (highborn male, heir to his father’s seat by all legal rights of this country and society – yes, even among the ironborn the son will be seen as more the heir than the daughter, no matter what Asha would like to believe, and there’s a reason she calls herself Balon’s “son” at the kingsmoot, etc). Even the allegation that Theon shouldn’t have pretenses to the lordship of the islands when he spent so many formative years away rings false and hollow. For example, while Daenerys has her antis who will find any fault with her, most people who criticize and critique her more reasonably (not the mention her fans) quite rarely leverage the accusation against her that she should not pursue her claim to the Iron Throne because she grew up entirely on a whole other continent. So why should Theon be blamed for pursuing his rightful claim?

 But even beyond that, while Theon has the unsettling and somewhat unpleasant habit – as a trauma response/coping mechanism – of buying wholesale into the power structures and privileges hardbaked into his society, including classism, in a way that’s maybe more showy and offputting than with some other characters of his rank, he’s not actually opposed to meritocracy. If anything, he’s very willing to work for and earn everything from his position as heir to affection from a friend. For example, people laugh at him asking for Casterly Rock as his seat – but remember, he’s asking for this as a castle he intends to take himself.

 "I will lead the attack myself, if it please you. As my reward I would ask that you grant me Casterly Rock for my own seat, once we have taken it from the Lannisters."

 —ACOIK, Theon I

 Is he maybe overestimating his abilities? Sure, perhaps. But that’s not the same as being entitled. When Asha is tasked to with taking Deepwood Motte, it’s implied that this will be her seat, at least for the time that she holds it – “I’ve always wanted a caste,” she tells the gathered family assembly smugly (or “like a cat in cream” as Theon calls it) (ACOK, Theon II). It’s just a normal rule of this society that if you take a caste, you’d become its lord/lady if you wished to stay and hold it (and weren’t kicked out). Theon thinking he can take Casterly Rock may be presumptuous, but asking for it as a reward for taking it isn’t.

 Some more: when Asha (in disguise) tells him that the ironborn would not seat a stranger on the Seastone Chair, Theon comforts himself by thinking that he has time to prove himself. Later, he asks Dagmer how he’s supposed to live up to being his father’s heir if he doesn’t have the opportunity to prove himself. Yes, Theon thinks he has the right to Asha’s command and to the title of heir apparent (because by the cultural and legal rules of this society he does) but he’s more than willing to prove himself and considers it rather natural that he should. On a more emotional level, when he thinks of saving Bran from the wildlings, he believes he ought to have “won a smile” from Robb for literally saving his brother. (This last also in the context of Theon thinking about how Dagmer smiled at him – i.e. showed him more approval and affection – than either Balon or Ned…or Robb.) Theon is literally the guy who thinks its normal to win affection from your friends for acts of bravery and service, as opposed to, you know…receiving it freely because friendship. I really don’t see how anyone gets entitlement from any of this (beyond what is culturally normative for someone of his rank and position in this society).

 But, agh, ok, I’ve really digressed here, because my intention wasn’t to write about what Theon isn’t but rather that he is. Not everything. Not every personality trail or even close, because otherwise it would probably take me all month (lol, just this took me long enough). But I did want to highlight a few things. Things that I got to thinking about, actually, after someone I was dating at the time asked me why I liked Theon. Not felt sorry for him or was rooting for him, even, but literally, “what about Theon is likeable?” (he asked a little incredulously). I hadn’t really been prepared for that conversation at the time and struggled to put my feelings into words, especially articulate, convincing ones. So later I began to think about this more, trying to effectively articulate and conceptualize as character traits what this quote made me feel (given that it’s the one that I thought of first when trying to answer his question):

 He's turned against me too, Theon realized. Of late it seemed to him as if the very stones of Winterfell had turned against him. If I die, I die friendless and abandoned. What choice did that leave him, but to live?

 —ACOIK, Theon VI

And I think what it comes down to is this: bravery/courage and strength (of the willpower variety).

 And I think I especially would like to highlight these two aspects because Theon is a character that often gets accused by fandom of being the opposite – weak and a coward. Too weak to not break under Ramsay. Too weak and/or not brave enough to stand up to his father/to stay loyal to the Starks. Not strong and brave enough to face ridicule and even willing to commit murder (the farmer’s boys, etc) to avoid it. Someone who needs external encouragement/recognition, which fandom (and society at large) will often classify as weakness. Sometimes, his failures – or perceived failures – are contrasted with him saving Jeyne: finally Theon grows a spine and does something brave, people say. But I have a different perspective on all this.

 Of course, saving Jeyne was brave and heroic, etc. It was also one of his most, if not the most, selfless acts. It’s also a brand of bravery and strength that is easily recognized by fandom (and society at large); this sort of grand, action movie bravery. It’s flashy, it’s uncomplicated, it’s very external.

 But for one, I don’t think Theon lacked this kind of bravery previously. Robb comments that Theon has “fought bravely for us.” Balon, while finding every fault possible in Theon, will allow him one thing: “at least you are no craven.” His taking of Winterfell was shortsighted but daring and even brave. Here’s another thing:

 But the girl was no true Stark, only a steward's whelp. Jeyne, her name is Jeyne. She should not look to me for rescue. Theon Greyjoy might have tried to help her, once. But Theon had been ironborn, and a braver man than Reek.

 --ADWD, The Turncloak

Now, Theon’s assessments of himself aren’t always realistic and excellent, but he does have a far more critical view of himself in Dance than in Clash. And that brings me to the second but: bravery was never really Theon’s problem. I wouldn’t even say that any one thing was – every choice he makes, whether obviously or arguably bad, is the outcome of a toxic cocktail of trauma, ambition, a search for acceptance, a stifled/unengaged empathy (in large part due to trauma), etc. But it’s neither cowardice nor weakness as such. (And I’ll say that what probably stands out most as specifically different with Jeyne is the level of selflessness and empathy he exhibits with her, the fact that it’s those priorities that drive his courage in that moment – but that’s a post for another day.)

First, I don’t think I need to spend too much time on Ramsay. I mean, maybe I do, but others have done so much more eloquently before. For my purposes here I’ll say that anyone would have broken under the kind of intense torture Ramsay put Theon through. Either broken or died. Yet, Theon not only survived, but he remained quite lucid and defiant throughout. As one of the most illustrative examples:

The world, Reek told himself, this is what the world smells like. He did not know how long he had been down there in the dungeons, but it had to have been half a year at least. That long, or longer. What if it has been five years, or ten, or twenty? Would I even know? What if I went mad down there, and half my life is gone? But no, that was folly. It could not have been so long. The boys were still boys. If it had been ten years, they would have grown into men. He had to remember that. I must not let him drive me mad. He can take my fingers and my toes, he can put out my eyes and slice my ears off, but he cannot take my wits unless I let him.

 —ADWD, Reek I

Playing along to survive or avoid horrific pain and mutilation is not the same as actually losing fortitude, giving up, breaking internally. (Another Theon Month meta goes into this in a little more detail, and as I said, others have discussed this before better than I could.) Just Theon’s Dance arch alone is a testament to his strength and willpower and, yes, to his bravery. But let’s go back to Clash.

His choice to side with his family over the Starks isn’t made out of weakness or fear – it’s just a choice based on priorities (his future, his family, his people vs. …well, Robb, basically). Even the farmer’s boy’s murders, while technically driven by a fear of ridicule, and while awful, are neither about weakness nor a lack of bravery. After all, Theon sees very well when even his own men start to turn against him at Winterfell, because they’d rather die “gloriously” than go through all kinds of tricks and slights of hand with child hostages and such. But Theon presses on with his plans to salvage the merest shadow of a hope for them to get out of there alive, even if it means sacrificing respect, a thing he has fought for so desperately up to this point.

Nor is it, by the way, that Theon is particularly driven by a fear of death more than any person really would be (after, all the human instinct is to survive):

They made a pitifully small assembly; the ironmen were few, the yard large. "The northmen will be on us before nightfall," he told them. "Ser Rodrik Cassel and all the lords who have come to his call. I will not run from them. I took this castle and I mean to hold it, to live or die as Prince of Winterfell. But I will not command any man to die with me. If you leave now, before Ser Rodrik's main force is upon us, there's still a chance you may win free." He unsheathed his longsword and drew a line in the dirt. "Those who would stay and fight, step forward."

--ACOK, Theon VI

Theon will die if he must. He’ll make a last stand. He’ll even do it all alone, abandoned by his men if they wish for safety (and many of them do abandon him). He refuses, in fact, sacrifice his dignity and surrender. It’s just…he’d rather not die if there’s a way to save himself, what’s left of his men and (if the hostage plan were to be successful) Beth and any civilians who might die in as collateral damage in the battle that will ensue as well. (Remember too that he refuses to put everyone to the sword when his men point out that he should, because the Winterfell’s civilian population will turn against them once the battle starts.)

Theon’s priorities and ethics in the middle of this horrific mental breakdown he goes through at Wintefell are all kinds of messed up – which he is aware of and feels intense guilt over almost immediately – but he’s never not brave and it’s never about weakness.

Now, sometimes, the drive to survive is presented as a weakness or a cowardice in itself. A sort of, “look at all of these terrible things this person will do just to live! They don’t have the courage to face death!” But per above, Theon doesn’t have an overwhelming fear of death. He’s brave in battle, he’s willing to make a last stand bravely if necessary.

To come back to that line again: What choice did that leave him, but to live?

Theon’s whole story is not just about survival. It’s about the courage and strength it takes to survive and to live. Theon surviving, living, not to mention finding any joy in that life, is a huge giant fuck you to a world that has knocked him down again and again, threatened his life literally, and threatened his ability to actually enjoy that life. A world that’s this close to winning long before Ramsay:

Outside the rain was falling harder than ever. The rope bridge twisted and writhed under his feet. Theon Greyjoy stopped in the center of the span and contemplated the rocks below. The sound of the waves was a crashing roar, and he could taste the salt spray on his lips. A sudden gust of wind made him lose his footing, and he stumbled to his knees.

--ACOK, Theon II

This is after that awful dinner at Pyke and the council where Balon lays out his war plans. It’s so subtle that I missed it on the first read and I think on the first re-read too. But stop to picture this scene in your head for one second. He’s lowkey suicidal before he’s even left Pyke.

Living for Theon is not the easy way out. It hasn’t been since he was 10. First a hostage, constantly living under the threat of death, culturally alienated, socially isolated, lacking in affection (the only person he seems to be even possibly emotionally close to is Robb, and even that relationship isn’t without its toxic power dynamics), traumatized by all of this. Then coming home and finding that it wasn’t only his childhood that has been stolen from him, but possibly his future too – he’s once again alienated from his people and his family, he can no longer connect with his childhood friends. He starts to slowly lose that sense of identity and self long before Ramsay’s twisted Reek games. But he just…refuses to give up.

In ever situation. At Winterfell, he tries to be social, riding and joking with members of Winterfell’s guards in AGOT when they ride out to the execution, showing that he had something of a social life probably, and casual friends, if not very close and intimate ones. He tries to be close to Robb. His chief and most visible defense mechanism is to smile, to pretend everything is fine. On Pyke, he’s determined to prove himself to his father, to the other ironborn, to show that he is a worthy son, a worthy Prince. At Winterfell, in Clash, he fights to maintain his achievements, his standing, his dignity, and yes, his life.

What choice did that leave him, but to live?

At this point, Theon just living is a contradiction. It’s inconvenient for pretty much everyone. He’s broken with the North, Asha feels threatened by him (though I don’t think she actively wants his death, he’s likely under the impression she does), his father has abandoned him, and as we find out later from Aeron’s POV would be happy enough to see him dead so he doesn’t “stand in Asha’s way.” And in the face of all of that to turn around and say, effectively, of all things, I don’t even know if I want to live anymore, but it’s the only thing to do. You would all rather I be dead, but fuck you. ???

So, I guess the answer to that question that prompted all of these thoughts is fundamentally this (at least in part): I wish I could be that strong and that brave.

[gch1995]

"Anakin killed kids because he was ordered to and because he was too lost to the Dark Side to think rationally".

I love how these poeple more or less quote Obi Wan verbatim, whilst insisting they don't worship him.

The ironic thing about all this of course is that Obi Wan is an unreliable narrator- the exact same thing they accuse Anakin of being. Those of us who actually understand what "unreliable narrator" means, however have a far better basis for calling him one.

Obi Wan is well established as an unreliable narrator because he

a) Lies. Repeatedly. Which means we can't take him at his word.

b) Is mistaken: Despite how they try and claim he had legitimate basis for claiming Anakin was iredeemable, and saying Luke Skywalker was The Chosen One, Lucas and others have confirmed that he was wrong.

c) Doesn't have all the facts and presumes to comment upon events he didn't witness.

Basically, Obi Wan fails to meet all three conditions upon which a character can be deemed reliable. Therefore, why should be accept anything he says in regards to Anakin or his fall?

Thank you! Obi Wan Kenobi is not a reliable narrator at all, in spite of being a “good guy.” He deliberately lies and manipulates the truth to use other people for his and Yoda’s own ends to fit in with the Jedi of his all the time in both the OT and PT movies. He spent roughly three movies of the OT saga deliberately deceiving, endangering, and manipulating Luke to kill his father “for the greater good,” even though that shouldn’t have been Luke’s battle to fight, considering the fact that he was an innocent in all this shit between Obi-Wan, Yoda, his father, and the systematic abuse, crime, corruption, and oppression throughout the galaxy that led to their downfall, even if they didn’t deserve Order 66 and mass murder from Palpatine and the Sith.

That was all on on Anakin, Obi-Wan, Yoda the other adults in the old Jedi Order, and the other adults with power in the old Republic in one way or another over the past two plus decades, not just Palpatine and the Sith. Many of them were victims with compromised agency who were never going to be able to easily just say no and do better, so it’s not all all their fault, but they still technically could have done better. They still knew better, but their fear outweighed their consciences. They were helped fuck him up twenty years earlier with that whole “greater good.” By the end of the OT saga, Anakin seems to be the only one of Luke’s predecessors who’s genuinely learned to take personal responsibility for his crimes under Palpatine by sacrificing his life to save Luke, rather than trying to use him to run away from his problems with Sidious, his own self-hatred, or allowing him to be killed by his master because he realizes his love for his son is greater than his fear and self-hatred. Obi-Wan and Yoda never seem to learn that lesson, however.

The thing with Anakin is that he may be gaslit and misled a lot, he may learn to delude himself with that whole “greater good” mentality to try to dissociate himself from the horror of the crimes he’s committed, and he may genuinely feel like he doesn’t have or deserve much of a choice because the odds really are against for him safely doing any better and he’s afraid and he hates himself. However, he never consciously and deliberately lies to others to use them for his own ends like Obi Wan and Yoda do. Even when he’s an asshole to Luke and his friends in the OT movies, he’s not trying to outright deceive him in the same way that Obi Wan and Yoda are, so his word is actually more trustworthy than theirs.

[csaventing]

Tw Idk if this is okay to vent here if not you can delete and tw for mention of (non-sexual) animal abuse. All my sexual abusers were 18 and younger and it all happened when I was 18 and younger. Like I had a romantic relationship as a teenager that involved abuse I was 17 he was 18, 2 boys when I was little kept forcibly touching me as I tried to stop them and also made me watch them hurt animals which I just dissociated from most the time, my brother forcibly raped me when we were children on multiple occasions and emotionally abused me, 2 of my cousins also one who was 7 years older and the other was a decade older both coerced me into sex as a child and all I remember was crying cos it was painful and uncomfortable and hiding or covering my face. And I felt bad cos they had bad childhoods and were lonely teenagers who probably got into porn too young. A girl I grew up with psychologically, sexually and emotionally abused me and the adults around us helped/enabled her with it and would scream at me for not letting her hurt me. All I’m capable of is feeling a “sexual attraction” towards them. I literally cannot feel sexual attraction towards anyone I meet I don’t even know if I’m ace-spec or not, I can’t get off unless I think of my brother, cousins, that girl, or those boys. I literally cannot become lubricated unless I fantasize about them.

How could so many children and teenagers do that? How many cases of CSA are actually minors perpetrating cos that number must be fucking high.

One of them apologized, another looked sorry but didn’t say anything I should’ve let him cos I think he would’ve, one of them said nothing ever happened and I’m making it the fuck up, another used darvo on me, and another said he was entitled to hurting me cos he hates women, and the other said he did do it but doesn’t care and wants to “have sex” some more cos I’m “so sexy” and when he grabbed my hips and pushed it into his not too long ago (I’m 23) I became immediately lubricated and so turned on I stood frozen for god knows idk maybe like 10 seconds? And I felt I almost climaxed. How?? Why?? Same thing with that girl I grew up with who used darvo on me she also lubricated me so quick by getting physically close to me… Why can’t I do that with the love of my life instead? Does that mean I absued them since my body seemingly liked it? Or is it just a trauma arousal response? Sorry this was long you can ignore.

None of that is your fault and none of it should ever have happened.

Regarding the arousal I would definitely think it is a trauma arousal response. It isn’t uncommon for people who have experienced CSA to think of previous abusers when getting off either. You are not alone.

[justfandomtings]

Character study of William murderface

Cw: child abuse, ptsd, trauma, internalized homopobia,ect.

Throughout the show, murderface has been presented as a shitty person that is untalented, leeches off of his friends/ fame, and honestly just seem to have gotten lucky when getting into dethklok.

Which is true, but I want to look in a little deeper why he's like this. (Note:this might be kinda head cannonish. I have some examples from the actual show but since we never got a deep backstory for murderface or get many murderface centric episodes I'll be filling in some empty spaces.)

Murderface in the show

Murderface is extremely self loathing and has had moments where he just goes so hard in on himself.

Season 1 episode 1

We see this in the very beginning when he refers to himself as the 'fat one.'

It could've been played off as a simple joke, which it was in the show for the audience watching. But in the show's universe and for the character, this will be an occurring thing.

This continues in

Season 1 episode 3

It's murderface's birthday and the boys throw murderface a party. During his party murderface is shown complaining and being stand-offish. You would think the last thing he would want is a party, yet he still sends out invites to his bandmates. (Note: noticed how the invites were sent right after murderface left the room? Idk it just seemed like he was embarrassed or scared his bandmates would laugh at him for wanting a birthday party. He even tried to act non chalant when the invite said "come if you want, who gives a piss." when they did throw him a party he still came)

When the boys pulled a little, kinda mean but harmless prank on him, literally giving him the gift of nothing. Murderface was fucking hurt, like genuine tears almost left this man's eyes when he come into his room to get his thing's and 'run away'.

Of course the boys did give murderface an actual gift, which honestly had a lot of thought and effort put into it. This makes murderface cry a tear. (Of blood but you know still a tear)

This is the example of the boy's showing they care for murderface. But even after this big gesture murderface will continue to believe the opposite.

The show continues and we get the first and honestly only backstory for murderface.

Season 1 episode 6

When the boys get a band therapist, we find out the tragic murder/suicide of murderface's parents. His father killing his mother then himself with a chainsaw, this whole thing happens while murderface as a baby sits in his highchair unaware while eating his cereal. This flashback makes murderface kinda sit there in shock as he pisses his pants.

(Note: murderface has said in the show that his appearance was the reason his parents are dead. If that really was the case, why didn't his father kill him or at least killed him after he killed his mother? Why did his father just kill his wife and himself? Never laying a single hand on murderface? Will get back to that later.)

Season 1 episode 9

Bringing up this episode may be confusing to some for bringing this up since it doesn't focus solely on murderface. He doesn't even get that much screen time this episode. But I would like to point out his actions in that episode.

In this episode the boys adopt a young teen boy they name fatty ding dong and raise him as their son for probably couple of weeks. While the boys all had their...interesting way of raising him. Murderface had the most physical fights with fatty ding dong. Mostly when we misbehaved. Like hitting him, shocking him non stop with a tazer, beating him for eating his civil war boots ect.

I just like to point out that murderface was raised by his grandparents. We'll come back to more of that later in the post.

Season 1 episode 11

The band gets reunited with their families and what we see from murderface and his family is that they are very violent towards each other. Murderface tries to choke his grandmother when looking in at her mouth as she chewed. Pickles and Nathan had to snap himself out of it, murderface apologized saying it was his fault for looking to deeply.

Like that was some kind of trigger from his past that made him black out and get violent.

He was also highly against buying his grandfather a wheelchair, only doing so because the boys agreed to be nice towards their family to get them to leave.

Even when they were spending time with each other, they never touched each other William kept his distance. Only ever touching if it was fight related.

In the same episode we see why, Stella was so physically abusive towards murderface, spraying fucking pepper spray into his eyes when he did..nothing? He wasn't aggressive or was even part of the issue. She just attacks him because she had to change his diapers?

This belittlement and physical abuse continues everytime they are together on screen.

So to bring back up season 1 episode 9. With how murderface treated fatty ding dong we can assume that's how we was being treated while under the care of his grandparents. Children soak up things like a sponge. Whether you think they remember it or not. Many psychological reports has shown that children will mimick and repeat behaviors and actions their caretakers do. If it's right or not, children will do things because that's what this adult dose. That's what they see at home. It's normal to them if that is the environment they grow in. Even if the child feels like something is off or wrong. They won't know exactly what is wrong or why because it's all they know.

So if this is how murderface was raised, which highly may be the case since we see Stella physically abuse murderface even as an adult. He might have actually thought this is how you raise a child, this is what you do to a child when they misbehaved. Nobody in his life has corrected murderface or explain to him that this way of discipline isn't ok or even discipline to begin with, it is abuse.

So, we are to believe with the information we have now. Is that murderface was most likely abused as a child, probably all the way up till he was able to get away from them and join dethklok.

With this information we can apply this to his behavior in the show. A side effect from child abuse is suicidal behavior. Throughout the show Murderface would now and then casually commit about hurting or killing himself.

Season 1 episode 2

Murderface casually states if it'll be brutal enough for him to just take his life after Nathan deltes another record. Or when the boys kindly ask him to stop eating beans, he gets oddly emotional and says he'll just starve to death then.

Another effect from child abuse is eating disorders and obesity.

You already know this a big part of murderface's character. There are times where he's seen constantly eating junk food, to eating nothing and just drinking coffee, to the doctor pointing out the back of his teeth are decaying. And murderface informs him it's from throwing up his food.

He also gets teased for his weight being called chubby and fat, ect. Murderface has a hard time with his weight, his excessive eating may even be seen as an unhealthy coping mechanism.

Other effects such as aggressive behavior, low self esteem, dissociation, ect. Is also shown within the show.

Season 1 episode 15

Murderface gets into a motorcycle accident and is sent into the hospital. This near death experience gets him on a religious journey. Maybe to find answers to certain questions or possibly wondering where he was going to go if he did die? Is he a good person, why do certain things happen to people, what's the meaning of life?

He asked the guys if he really deserved to live. Does he really deserve to be brought onto this world, being a part of a pretty good and rare type of life.

The boys being emotionally closed off don't really answer his question. They honestly brush it off but they do go along with murderface on his spiritual journey.

He eventually chooses no religion, but I feel that near death experience stuck with him. He either decided that life was too short so might as well live it, or a more cynical view on life. That it's meaningless then who cares if he died?

Season 2 episode 11

This is probably an episode where murderface was the most sad and self loathing. (This and another episode I can't wait to get to) after his concert, he felt pretty shitty with the outcome and had lead him to feel that he does not deserve the life he has now and wonders why he even shows his face. Just wanting the spot light for one.

Which is really interesting. Because comparing season 1 with the other 3. Murderface in season one had...fans. There were people who genuinely liked him. The prime example is his birthday episode.

When he had a solo, just like in season 2 episode 11. People were cheering his name. Practically screaming at the rooftops for him. So what happened?

We already know that murderface is the least liked member of the band, but even then he still had fans. Hell people committed terrorists attacks just for him on his birthday.

Maybe it was just a loud minority? Who knows, but if in the show as time went on less and less people had him as his favorite or even just liked him would probably get him really insecure.

After the concert failure, Charles let's him host a Nas car event. Which I'd think would've gone actually well if you know, the dethklok curse wasn't a thing.

Also as murderface was planning the event people around him didn't really support him or help him out. Which is mostly murderface's fault, he has a lack of focus and doesn't really plan things through. This is a good reason for partners and others outside wanting to work with dethklok not want to work with murderface. It costs money and a lot of time to do all the things related to dethklok. And murderface's flakeyness is a valid reason for business and others to not have faith in him when related to these things.

BUT! (This is a little bit of projection here) as someone who also has a lack of focus and hard time to get things done. That doesn't mean I don't want to do said thing, that doesn't mean I want to waste others time. I simply have a hard time focusing, I need structure and that little reminder to get things done. But the difference between me and murderface is that I'm not a billionaire.

I am not apart of a popular metal band, with all the money in the world, with a manager that will clean up every little mess I make.

I have more risk, whatever I fuck up will effect me. I will suffer the consequences. Murderface won't. (Also he's a fictional character..so reality won't have any affect on him lol)

But yea, I believe if murderface would suffer from his consequences then he'd be a bit more on things. Also I feel murderface's mental health issues play a huge role in things.

His fear that he's not good enough, eating disorders, ect. Can really mess up your focus.

So, now to the infamous episode. Dethvanity.

Season 4 episode 8

In this episode Murderface in nominated for the most brutal looking award and this. Fucks. Him. Up.

So much so that he actually hallucinates his bandmates and Charles calling him ugly and other things that they never even said.

When he goes to the plastic surgeon, he tells him. A complete stranger, that he hates himself. For murderface to actually admit this deep issue that he's been keeping deep down. For him to show vulnerability to a stranger is pretty sad.

When he goes to Nathan to borrow money, he tells a story of a 'boy' that was so ugly that he's driven his parents to murder suicide. Again he's calling himself ugly and blaming himself for his parents death. (Were going to get back to that too.)

After murderface gets the surgery he days dream about what would happen if he was beautiful. Finally being accepted and able to say fuck you to all those that were shit to him.

Of course, it doesn't end like that. He's face gets infected and is even more ugly than before.

This episode was pretty messed up. Murderface didn't get what he thought would give him validation, he looks down on himself more, and he is humiliated front of 100s of people.

This whole shit show probably validated all the negative thoughts he had for himself.

Next we'll talk about his internalized homopobia. Murderface...is definitely..not straight. He's not gay either he does have sexual attraction to women but his uncomfortably and very interesting moments and visions say he might like more than just that.

Season 2 episode 5

Murderface has a weird thing with eating 'penis' shaped objects or watching other eating said shaped objects.

He has a lot of weird moments where he gets really close to one of his bandmates and just whispers something in their ear. Specifically Pickles and Skwisgaar.

He just said fuck it and tried to bang toki while they were in the submarine.

Had hallucinations of cutting between women, men, animals, even his own grandmother and was distraught when he had a small moment of admitting he way gay.

There's no real specific reason why or how murderface is this scared of being gay. But I feel it may also be with how he grew up. He was probably been told it was wrong to be gay and how immoral it was to like men and you'll burn in hell if you do. Also being gay wouldn't be 'brutal' or 'manly'.

And not to shit on metal heads but you know. They're not the...most..exclusive group of people.

I think murderface is scared to accept he's gay because his grandparents made him feel he would be a bad person if he was or get kicked out of the band if he was.

So, after all I laid on the table, let's wrap this up. Back to the blaming himself of his parents deth. I believe, Williams parents didn't kill/murder themselves because he has ugly. I like to think the opposite, I believe his parents actually dearly cared for him. I think his father had some serious mental issues or something else pushed him over the edge.

It could be anything really, maybe his dad was crazy, maybe it had something to do with the curse. I like to think they both cared for him his dad just..idk snapped.

I'm assuming murderface's grandparents are his dads parents. And seeing how they treated murderface they most definitely treated his dad the same.

Or, it wasn't murder/suicide at all. Buckle in because it's all tv theory over here. I have a hard time to believe that murderface remembered, in such detail in fact. How his parents died, in the flashback he looks to be 7 to 8 months? Traumatic event yes, but there's no way a baby can remember such a thing.

I think, Stella lied to murderface about how his parents died. I think it was just some evil twisted thing she said to make murderface feel terrible about himself. His parents probably unfortunately died in say a car accident or health related issues. But the main thing is how guilty murderface feels, how terrible he feels that he thinks he was the reason he killed his parents when that's far from the truth.

It was either an unfortunate accident or his father killing themselves. But it is not murderface's fault.

The physical abuse from his grandparents, the guilt of believing he's the reason for his parents death, his aggressive internalized homopobia, lack of support, the bullying from his bandmates, body issues/eating disorder, and it just keeps going.

It's no fucking wonder why the man is like this. Don't get me wrong, murderface is an asshole and is responsible for most of his actions.

But that's still a lot of shit for someone to go through.

That's all I have, this is really long. But I hoped you like this little thread. There's still more to his character but this is long enough.

[supercorp-hosie]

My thoughts for Legacies 315:

1) for the Star Wars, I have no knowledge about it, I saw some parallels of characters after the episode, it seems accurate, but I still have no idea why Hope’s characters in it didn’t even have a backstory or name lmao. I’m just overall unfazed;

2) the background of the trio and Alaric! There are like so much to address and I don’t know how to fully share my thoughts in-depth organisedly. I’ll try;

3) facts first: so it’s canon that Lizzie’s mental problem is diagnosed at earliest 11, but specific time unknown;

4) Jed activated his curse earliest at 11, since Lizzie had a crush on him for two weeks. I mean who would’ve thought that, common headcannons seem to incline on Josie x Jed tho😂. That just doesn’t randomly cross my mind🤣. Anyway, it doesn’t deny that Jed and Josie could be a thing too, since the twins often have the tendency to crush on the same person? I’m feeling like 60% of the time? I mean they obviously have the same preferences for LI, bad girl or bad boy type, anyone? Rafael, Sebastian, Jed, Jade, Penelope, Hope, Finch. They kind of have this thing with new people to their lives, for Josie, Rafael, Finch, Jade(it’s arguable but I think people tend to have a whole new lens when reconnecting with a disappeared person in your life for years when you’re very young. The perspectives are not the same, like you’re meeting a new person especially you don’t really know them before);

5) especially Lizzie, she definitely has a thing for new people that seems like bad boy/girl. I emphasised on the new people here bc I don’t think ethan is exactly that type, it’s just how Lizzie imagine him to be in that AU. Raf, Sebastian, Ethan....(maybe Jed was new when she crushed on him too, who knows), more specifically, it’s Strangers to Lovers trope for her romance department, so she can imagine as much as she wants and have the wildest dreams (bgm intended). Maybe Josie’s it’s not as much like this considering we don’t know how Posie happened, and with Hope her crush is canon when she was 12, but we don’t know how long exactly the crush was and when did it started, I just have to count that not being new person into her life. But I do get that why Josie said Lizzie always get the boy/girl Josie crushed on too, mostly they have the same type and preferences. Though they can randomly blurt out characters that we all don’t even know as more solid examples.;

6) Alaric and the fact of him being quite an absent father since the twins were 11 is solid canon. I understand the need to care for Hope because the world can’t afford a tribrid went uncared for and went around killing people, but still, the different perspectives of Hope and Lizzie to Alaric are very sad. To think that your father would betray you for another child, is very sad, even for Lizzie, the more dramatic one. So I understand that Caroline wasn’t there for the twins either, another absent parent. About the mother figure being diminished here, I’ll address it in another point. What’s left for Lizzie? Josie.

7) So basically Josie had to handle herself and Lizzie’s all by her own? That’s very hard! My BFF is bipolar, we are not living together, but before, my whole situation [for being in love with her + her situation] had really been hard for me too. I couldn’t imagine what’s it’s really like for Josie. (Another point that I need to address is the real mental problem that Lizzie has) Sure Alaric might not always be absent, but the intensity of Lizzie’s perspective begs to differ. Josie had to understand what is Bipolar at a very young age; had to be there for Lizzie when she had her outburst; had to be the one constantly check on Lizzie whether she had taken her meds; had to digest the emotion impacts from Lizzie after the outburst; had to understand how Lizzie functioned when she was down. None of that are easy, and there’s no one there to ask of what Josie really feels. How Josie pent out? What does she need? Josie might feel the need to be not wanting things and always be good so that she can get the love from Alaric (I remember in season 1, Josie felt the need to lose the game to get on Alaric good side) . So she just started to suppress her voice and her needs, because Lizzie need them the most. Over time or years of suppressing in front of her dearest family, she most likely felt unneeded by her parents, and forgettable to her parents(the girl that’s so quiet that her parents forget about her, the girl that Penelope won’t fight for anymore). She needed to feel needed, so she just let Lizzie take all of her, from whom she felt needed the most. So all of these from Josie’s perspectives, it started a vicious cycle for the twins. And leads to how the twins dynamics and how Josie are in present days. But her problem was never solved, they just accumulated day by day, year by year, leaving the good and dark side from Josie being so separated and unbalanced. The inner turmoil is always there. These lead to the extreme polarity of Josie’s good and bad side. When she’s doing bad, Josie would be especially aggressive than she needed to be because that’s an instinct to compensate the lack of action before. After long suppression, once being released, the instinct would be stronger than usual and harder to get it under control. Under the influence of dark magic, Dark Josie felt like another personality inside Josie here to take over the whole Josie and protect their interests that true Josie are neglecting. Kind of like dissociative identity disorder but not really it?? It’s just an understanding that I’ve been wanting to express, but so hard to organise it, because it’s so complex. By this understanding, I do still think that Josie should still be held accountable for her actions, even when dark magic was influencing her, like even people with mental health illness should be instituted and lost their freedom. I just think that it’s not fair to think she’s straight up very evil and do nothing good for people. It’s not like she’s being dark for no reason at all. This just mean that the dog that doesn’t bark can be more harmful than people think. These doesn’t mean that when Josie goes dark, she doesn’t deserve any leniency at all while holding her accountable. (And it’s not like she’s not beating herself up for most of the things she had done) Oh and sure, Josie should do the healthy way of voicing out these needs and all, to encourage a healthy dynamics between them like she’s the only healthy one between them, but still the problem is, they both lack the environment and guidance to make a healthy working relationship between themselves. How could they know what is healthy when the environment was already lack thereof.

8) Reading Lizzie’s diaries is bad, I understand, because you literally need to understand what leads to what, to gain control when your life is a chaos, but still. It’s even worse when you have that need to confide in another person to get things out wrongly. (I was having a phone call during the diary sharing review, but this is what I vaguely get) a) Josie is confiding the contents very specifically to another person that Hope can somehow reconstruct a sequel to it? b) Josie chose the wrong place to confide it since when she gets emotional, people can probably hear what was shared. At least from what I guess I got, it isn’t stated that she spread it to the whole school nor it was spread to the whole, even if that’s the case, it may not be on purpose, and she chose the wrong person to confide in. Like about the reveal in 112, she made up that Hope talking bad about Lizzie to the whole school, but it doesn’t mean that she spread it nor the whole school actually knows. Another case is, even if the school knows, it could easily be known by any passerby to Lizzie outburst and spread in the school. From what we saw from 101, the kitchen is a public space, the utensils and cutleries breaking should be very alarming, and there are students with intensified senses in the school. By that fact itself, it doesn’t really help Lizzie in being discreet of her illness. Still, sharing your sister’s diaries after reading it is really bad. But I do get that, sometimes you really need to talk to someone that know some of the situation but don’t really know the person in question to recalibrate yourself. But that person have to be like the dead end of all school gossip but not close to Lizzie, so it can do no harm (because he/she/they literally have no use to talk to someone with all these, usually there’s this no name policy, but with Lizzie being her sister, it’s useless hiding, maybe) when you disclose something related to her pertaining your own issues. Josie should apologise for sharing Lizzie diaries, even if Hope was not meant to know that, despite her werewolf hearing. For the reading part, did we get the apology tho? I guess we had? If negative, apologies needed.;

9) From Lizzie perspective, we can see her does Josie wrong but didn’t apologise either. Like Lizzie being princess but Josie being her android, personalised valet? It just showed that during that period of time(specifically from when until when tho, that’s a question), after what Josie had been enduring, taking care of her, Lizzie thought of herself being princess but didn’t actually think Josie as her equal? Like how the Android was programmed to bow to Lizzie? That’s just the habit of the twins dynamic showing, also partly Josie mistake, but Josie does deserves to be perceived as more than that, even when she’s derogatory to herself, Lizzie should uphold that for her. Their dynamics is just sad because it’s not entirely the twins fault, it’s also due to the absent parents in the household, they didn’t know better, they can only depend on each other. They’re orphaned like Hope in a way when their parents are still present. Even though they have privileges as Alaric’s daughters, but that doesn’t help with their real situation. This is just a perfect example of how your family shaped you, but we can still fight to shape ourselves after the power that our parents have over us gradually diminished, like how they’re starting to shape themselves more now as they’re coming to age.

10) What really warms me from the Android situation, despite Josie feeling like she’s being degraded the whole time, a subject to Lizzie, is that from how Josie is the combination of two Androids, also shows that how Lizzie actually looked up to Josie. Maybe it’s not addressed, but I see that. For Lizzie, Josie can really do so much things for her, take care of her so closely that Lizzie can count Josie as her personal valet. Derogatory, yes, but that place is also very important to prince and princess, bc they can literally do nothing to take care of their daily lives themselves well, like Merlin for Arthur (I mean the actions, not the presumably romantic relationship). Without Merlin, Arthur life is a mess! And the knowledge for Android part, it means that in Lizzie’s mind, Josie actually is like the person who knows everything😂 usually that figure should be our parents😭, but for Lizzie, it’s Josie, like she knows the answer to all. It’s sad and warming at the same time. Just more appreciation will do! And the fact that the special sword that they’re finding the whole time was in Josie’s thigh, just show how the trust that Lizzie had in Josie, not even their parents can triumph it, because Josie was the one being there the whole time. So they really deserves each other despite all the shitty things they have done to each other.

11) about Lizzie mental illness, I was recommended a post informing people about how Legacies fucked up Lizzie’s illness. After my own research, I do agree with the OP, I think that Lizzie situation is more like borderline personality disorder rather than bipolar, but that doesn’t make the whole situation easy. I can provide the table I made the next time regarding that.

12) Hope being Lizzie’s villain is really fitting, lmao, the intensity of Alaric care for Hope is so much that even Lizzie thought that Alaric would betray the twins for Hope.

13) I like Hope’s look. Josie being the Android that malfunction sometimes is funny too, especially when Josie is angry the whole time, cuz it’s infuriating too🤣🤣

14) Hope and Josie during Lethan kiss is me. How they’re totally in the same team when Lizzie being like that? Hosie are both wary of their characters and backstory? Hosie rights. Hhhhhh, oh Hope might be jealous of Ethan😂 Hizzie rights.

15) Another Hizzie rights, Hope wrote a sequel to Lizzie fanfic. And..... is Hope officially a nerd too???? I can’t! Hhhhh but maybe not, or else Hope would have known who she was.

16) Lizzie says, maybe deep down I still feel that you’re the chosen one (IN HER OWN STORY)

17) Younger Hope kind of break my heart more. It’s so sad😭😭 how she’s in denial of their parents death, and blame it on herself.....no baby. How Hope just have to tell herself all that again. And about Hope being scavenger, I think it’s fitting too. Her life, like the twins, is in pieces too. She had to pick them up herself, and build a world where her heart and hope can rest safely, and that just make her not mad at Josie burning down her room gayer. She was so closed up to herself that her room is like another world for her. So forgiving Josie just because of her crush, is like Josie and her crush on Hope meant the world to her???? Hosie rights! Anyway, Josie still messed up with that.

18) Having Younger Hope saying those things to Josie, oh my heart! Josie is a protector for Hope! Hosie rights! And Hope knowing the truth to stop Lord Marshall! Malivore, and Josie just stop talking because she doesn’t want to encourage Hope to die😍😍 Younger Hope actually wants to be best friends with the twins!!!!

19) Hope literally just stop growing taller after 12/13 like I did, is fact! And I’m comforted by that, sorry not sorry, lmao!

20) For real I don’t understand why Hope is suddenly full tribrid at the end. When she fights with Malivore.

21) The gun fight and sword fight is so weird! It’s like the gunners don’t know how to shoot at all, like they’re in slow motion, difficultly level easy to the audience, it’s so fake. I’m for Hope being badass, but it seems like the show doesn’t know how to portray a good fight scene. The sword fight is like in slow motion. And if Hope is to combine magic with sword fighting, she should combine them more. I don’t feel she’s badass at all, cuz it’s literally level easy😑

22) Star Wars AU have brought up so many childhood unresolved for the trio to understand each other more and be a better team. I love them ended up being all supportive and the panda promise🤣🤣 I love that the twins just agree not to let Hope die like that. But they’re like promise that a little later than Cleo and Landon? My team Sowanby! Applause to Handon, but please don’t be together again! Strike three, no is no!

23) for MG, Jed, Kaleb, they really need to make up with each other, I’m glad that they finally made it. And Kaleb being jealous of Methan? Lmao! And MG didn’t even say Ethan name? I love Maleb bonding, and MG never left his man behind!! Another things is, what’s wrong with those boys fighting scenes? We saw them throwing valuables to distract the monster again?! What if the keys are damaged? How are you going to go home? Oh and Jed being useful!

24) Jed last name is Tien, 田/填 in Chinese, I’ve shared enough in my other post. But still WE DONT ACTUALLY HAVE JED FIRST NAME! Give us that!

25) Still, I don’t understand how the wendigo is not dead yet. And how come it’s defeated by fire this time??

26) I don’t quite actually know what’s happening with Dorian. Is he okay? I bet he is, so Emma is coming back, right? Based off what the conversation is? We need Emma, really.

27) regarding Emma, is the lack of mother figure that I want to address when stating the twins dynamic. I don’t actually know a lot from TVD or TO, I just happen to know some general things and snippets from edits. But I know Hayley’s words before she dies, like “I’m not going to teach my daughter it’s okay to let people she loves die” and paint art, have at least one epic love? But for real, in legacies, all I get for Hayley is 103, Josie paying her respects, but none other than that. It’s all Klaus. I believe that Hayley is an important figure to Hope too. But she’s not mentioned enough, it��s kind of erasing her impact on Hope?? Like Caroline too, we get her phone calls, the twins trip to Europe to treat their problems off-screen, the letter for Lizzie in 302, the recommendation for Lizzie to go to the witch retreat, but not vetted by Alaric.....yes she get all these and Jo Laughlin being there in 106 (I cried so hard). But still the mother figure is still being minimised. Like in Lizzie’s fanfic there’s never a place for Caroline? How surreal? It doesn’t make sense. (I understand the actress is just not returning). But still these doesn’t change the fact that the show is lacking a mother figure as a whole. Emma should be that.

28) Clarke!!! Like it’s predictable! But what’s unpredictable is that he went straight to shower🤣🤣🤣 I love his snarkiness! Clarke meeting Hope half naked! Holarke! Hhhhhh

I’m too tired, sharing this episodes thoughts is exhausting me. There must be something I left out, please feel free to remind me!

[lovely-necromancy]

A Cure for Insomnia Ch 19

Your bags were jumping and sliding around in the back of Madeline's rusty pickup truck. She had been kind enough to offer you a ride up to the lodge when she stopped by the shop earlier.

Madeline had seen the sour look Nate kept sending you and how you were intentionally not looking over towards the soon to be graying young man. Not one to beat around the bush she asked what was up, mam bear mode peeking through.

Nate was just being a dick to you and saying you had to stay with the Cowells longer than what had originally been agreed to. Big Jo seemed fine about letting you go back home now, even with your resolve set to continue hanging out with Toby. But Nate was trying to put a tight leash on you since you “wouldn't listen to reason” - so he said.

Even with security at the cottage updated Nate still thought it best to keep you with them if you were planning to still interact with Toby. More than likely he was trying to make that harder for you to do since staying with them would definitely make it easier for him to keep track of you.

The thought alone set shivers down your spine. Like a constrictor slithering up your back to rest around your neck and do what it does best.

It had been really hard to breathe these last few days.

But all Madeline needed to hear was “Nate” and “being a dick” before she said she'd take you herself. Thereby ending the conversation and silent argument in the shop, as she spun on her heel stating when she'd pick you up later.

Nate hadn't been too happy about the exchange but he could suck your dick. He's been annoying you with all this Toby bullshit and doesn't get to tell you what he thinks right now.

The drive up is silent, but that comfortable kind of silence between two old friends who don't ever really have a need to talk to hang out. It's nice because it gives you tons of time to think about just what you're about to do.

Going over several scripts all at once in your head.

You want to talk to Toby. You still haven't read that file but it just doesn't sit right with you that it was ever even given to you in the first place. Toby being completely unaware of the total breech of privacy makes your stomach flip just like your bags in the back right now. It's not like you ever asked for the detailed life file but at the same time it feels wrong not to let Toby know tht something like that even exists for him. His past being dug back up all without his knowledge or consent. And now here you were about to lay it right down in front of him.

Was this the right move? You're the one bringing it to his attention, if it's something that will mess him up it'll be your fault that he's upset. Jo and Nate may have gotten the information but you still count yourself as being a complacent party to all of this.

Your stomach feels like it's on a drop tower as it sinks further into a pit of guilt.

You feel like the scum of the Earth right now. Hopefully he isn't too upset.

Seeing your downcast eyes, you were a lot more expressive than you ever really realized, Madeline pipes up, “You gon' be ok there sport?”

A small smile bit at your lips. There's a reason Madeline Cobb was known in Kepler as Mama. She took care of those she saw as her own and that was damn near half the town at this point. Hell you'd heard a rumor she raised most this town. The lodge had been her orphanage  before all the kids grew up and turned it into a resort once new arrivals stopped coming. That's probably the reason it's always been so warm and welcoming, it was a home first.

“Yea...just nervous.”

She lets out a small chuckle at you.

“Don' be, 'm sure that Toby boy will say 'yes'. And if he don' well you just come find me. I'll set him right.”

Ok now you were just confused.

“Huh?”

“Don' worry about it, he likes you jus' like you like 'im. It'll work out for you two.” she reaches over and ruffles your hair before jumping out of the pickup. You hadn't realized you were already at your destination.

And it was too late to correct Mama, she'd already made it inside the lodge, about why you were so nervous. The warmth in your face makes you even more grateful for your mask. Barclay was getting bit by the end of the night, the man really needed to get a boyfriend and stop trying to manifest one for you.

The door to the lodge opens again, you hardly paid it any mind. So lost in your own musing you didn't even notice the man walking towards you. Your goat plush had fallen beneath your seat and you were attempting to grab it but it was too far out of your reach.

“You good there?” Toby's amused voice calls, startling you.

Popping your head out of the opened car door. Heart racing faster at the sight of your friend standing there with a small smirk on his bandaged face. You weren't ready for this.

His eye looks better, well like a normal black eye and not a swollen lump that threatened to over take his socket. Now his eye looked like it could still function out of the slight opening. Fuck this was hard enough when you'd pictured only one eye looking at you but now you had to calculate for both!?

Is it weird that this is what worries you? Are you derailing from the actual situation? Distracting yourself so the conversation is easier on you. So you don't have to think about the possibility that Toby won't want to be friends after this. That he'll end up hating you for something you hadn't done.

God you really want to cry.

“Hey, space cadet.” Toby's made his way over to your side and puts a gentle hand on you knee, “You ok? Did something happen?”

He's really sweet, you're going to miss him.

No, stop. You need to get a grip and stop thinking like this. Toby will understand and you guys can continue being friends, a bit awkwardly but still friends. You'd get to hang out and maybe wander through the Monongahela together.

“I...I dropped my goat.”

He cocks his head to the side, brows slowly smoothing out and he gives a gentle squeeze to your legs as he reaches under you, hand searching for your lost plush.

The warmth that was once collecting in your cheeks shoots down past the void sitting in your stomach. Just another thing to add to your list you suppose. After a week of nearly no privacy or comfort you are thoroughly pent up. You don't necessarily want Toby, just need someone or something to help relieve the fire between your thighs. He just happens to be in proxcimity of that fire, poking the flame that hasn't been snuffed during your stay with the Cowells, making it dance and writhe reminding you of the need.

But you can't focus on that yet, you'd give yourself a hand when you finally got back home. Right now you needed to focus on Toby. And having that uncomfortable conversation.

“Here he is.” placing the goat in your lap he looks into your eyes, a slight glint in his.

He's in a really good mood tonight. You have to ignor the whispers in your head, telling you you're about to ruin this for him.

Luckily a tic to the right shoos those thoughts away for you.

“YN?” his hand is back on your knee, it's such a small gesture maybe even completely subconscious but it helps ground you.

You haven't read that file but you can't see Toby ever doing something awful enough to warrant Nate's barrage of paranoia and fear. Even if he did....he couldn't still be bad right? You're such a good judge of character and you called Brian on his masking there's no way you'd miss Toby lying to your face.

“I...” he's looking into your eyes searching as you take a steadying breath, “I just really need a slushie right now.” your eyes drop to the goat in your hands.

You fucking coward.

It's silent for a moment as you chastise yourself for not just coming out and telling Toby you wanted to talk. Toby's hand falls easily from your knee and to his side.

“A'right then, you good to drive?” you really missed your chance here, “'cuz Brian's got Connor tonight.”

Wait what?

You look at Toby who simply raises the right side of his mouth in a lopsided grin. A subtle raise of his right brow tells you he understood what you'd asked for. When was the last time anyone was ever able to read you so well?

“Yes!” you push the goat into Toby's chest and practically dive into the back seat for your bags. “I can drive. Franklin?”

“Don't work tomorrow, so sure.”

His good mood seems to pick back up a bit. He's chuckling as you rush to gather everything and head over to your car, barely shutting Mama's door as you do. Toby gives it a good bump with his hip to make sure it shut properly. He unlocks your car for you and slides into the passenger's seat while you arrange your shit in the trunk.

You catch sight of the skull still in your trunk and figure you'll just leave it as is for now. Since it seems that literally every time you close this trunk you forget it exists. Bye weirdly placed deer skull maybe one day you'll have a wall mount worthy of your beauty.

Before closing the trunk you do rab the file. Maybe having it up front with you will help you actually tell Toby about it.

When you open the driver's side Toby's hand is already outstretched and waiting for your phone, this isn't his first rodeo after all. You can't help but smile as you hand it right over to him. He notices, because of course he does, and beams back at you. Sending more warmth throughout your body. After collecting your emotions the guilt comes back around.

You need to stop being horny on main. And in front of Toby no less. It's weird, like you're riled up for him and not because you're attention starved and haven't known solitude for over a week.

By the time you're driving off the lot Toby had picked you 'Let's drive to nowhere' playlist. A perfect choice for tonight, seeing as these are all either songs to dissociate to or have mental break downs with. And with you obnoxious emotions either is up for grabs. Aside from the music the car was silent as you drove out of town.

You were so wrapped up in what to say to Toby, how to say it, when – that you ended up not saying anything at all. Toby on the other hand couldn't wait for you any longer and broke the silence himself.

A habit he seems to have, must not like silences.

“Normally you don't shut up,” the words were harsh but his tone wasn't for once.

He watches as the scenery changes from quaint country road to interstate. “Did something happen?”

An awkward anxious smile makes its way on to your face. You've never been good at schooling your features and smiling was unfortunately your default in the even of confrontation. It was probably just your brain's way of protecting you from emotional trauma.

“Sorta.”

To his credit Toby waits for three full songs before prying for more information.

“Another attack?” he's on edge.

To be fair you are too.

“No, like hell Jo and Nate wo-would let me leave if that were it.” your head jerks twice to the right. You miss Toby's wince.

Nate barely let you leave the shop today, you had to get outside assistance aka Mama.

“Ok, so what happened then?” as you bit your lip trying to find your words Toby is running through his own list of possibilities. “Dis Ma- Tim do something to you?”

Huh?

Why would Tim have anything to do with this? Are they still fighting? But Brian has Connor tonight...that doesn't seem likely but you've really only hung out with Toby thus far. You don't know enough about their group dynamic.

You also didn't miss the beginning syllable Toby said. Was he trying to say 'Matt', 'Mark', 'Manny'? There were so many names that Tim's alter could have but at the least you've more or less been told there is an alter to begin with.

But why would Toby be concerned about Tim's alter? Was he the one that punched Toby? Were they actually the two fighting and not Tim and Toby? This is confusing just being on the outside, you have no idea how the trio copes with this situation.

“Oh no, Tim and Not Tim have been nice to me.” if you're coming clean about the file might as well come clean about knowing Tim has an alter. This way Toby could pass along the message to Tim and Not Tim.

“Back up, not liter-mrrow – literally. 'Not Tim'? You've met Mas-Ma-Masky?!”

Masky? That's a strange name, but who were you to judge the name someone gave themself. Maybe he's a He/Him enby.

“Not like formally or anything, but I'm pretty sure he was the one that helped me and Ronnie out the other week.” you switch lanes to drive off of the interstate, hoping to find a secluded road to have this conversation on.

God knows it's going to take all of your concentration.

Toby was seething in his seat and you know the tension is only going to get worse going forward.

You can hear him muttering to himself, 'of course' or 'he didn't remember', over and over. Finding a good place to park the car you take it and turn to Toby, who's still lost in his own head.

“Tobias.” you call trying to jostle him and it works a little too well in a sense. As he blurts out, “Don't! Masky's dangerous stay away from him!”

He immediately freeze like he hadn't meant to say that. And while it wasn't a tic it was probably an impulse brought on by his anxious frame of mind. He's popping his knuckles again too.

You don't know why you said it, looking at Toby's wide blown pupils – riddled with fear and nerves, you should've kept you mouth shut.

“Dangerous like you?”

Or at least phrased that a bit more eloquently.

Toby's eyes grow dark and his good eye cuts low nearly matching it's swollen twin. A shiver runs down your spine even though you know the malice is not for you.

“What.” he hisses out.

It's not a question, it's an order. He wants to know what you know and maybe even who told you. Maybe he thinks Masky told you something, since that was the topic of the previous conversation.

Dark eyes watch you like a hawk as you pull the file from the map holder in your door. His chest is nearly heaving with every breath at this point, can he hyperventilate? That's a dumb question he most certainly can. And he's either on his way to that or a panic attack. You hope you don't send him into a panic attack, Connor's not here to help. Connor know pressure though, Toby's had him preform it on you during your spells. Would it work the same if you laid on top of Toby? You're getting too distracted right now.

Not trusting yourself to not just back down now, you hold the folder out to Toby to take.

He's just staring at it like it'll attack him at any moment, and honestly it might...just not physically. He glances up at you. There's a funny flash of deja vu likening back to the first time you met. Cold indifferent and confused eyes looking at you as though you were some strange alien they'd never seen before. This time however there's a spark of something else in them. Something dark that festers beneath the surface. Was that hatred, betrayal, or was that the wall he was building back up. The wall that would sever this friendship.

Stop projecting. He hasn't even taken the file, he can't possibly know what's going on right now.

“What's that?” see.

“Nate got super protective after the attack, I guess the other day you just like rubbed him the wrong way. So, he had someone look into you. That file is everything they found...pretty sure it's your whole life, I swear I haven't read anything. Not even a peek. But Jo and Nate tried to tell me the-”

He snatched the file from you before you'd even said you hadn't looked. He opened it and a second later it was closed and he took a shaky breath before looking at you.

It was your turn to look like a deer in headlights tonight, you knew that breath was one of barely concealed rage. This was it, this was where everything ended, all because Nate had “a bad feeling” about Toby.

But you trusted Toby, he wouldn't hurt you. He was your friend.

“So” he lets out a harsh sigh, “you didn't...you haven't read anything?”

You hastily shake your head, “What did they tell you.” he looks off to the side and his mouth is all screwed up, and not in it's normal mangled sense.

“That I shouldn't see you anymore, you did something bad, awful, terrifying; Nate's list goes on but I sort of...fo the fingers in the ear 'lalala' thing” you say sheepishly, “anytime he tries to tell me something. Jo stops when I ask him to. He's not too worried about you...I think.”

Or he's working behind the scene to keep you and Toby separated for the long run but that's speculation and not the point of this conversation so you don't mention it.

Toby's flipping through the file skimming it, no doubt looking for his checkered past, he finds what he's looking for and nods once continuing on like he was reading a grocery list. Which he may as well have been, a grocery list of all his transgressions. With the way his fingers gripped the edges of the folder you could tell he was putting on a front about the contents.

They did bother him.

“Why didn't you look, why didn't you listen YN?” was he seriously angry at you for that?

“It was an invasion of your privacy. Whatever's in there I wanted you to have the ability to tell me on your own terms – if you ever even wanted to. Not because you were forced into it because I found out from some third party that doesn't even know you.”

“Then why the fuck did you -wrong- practically jump into a car with me and then hand me a file on my shitty life!?!” He slammed the file down into his lap with a lot of force, more than he should have used for sure. “They think I'm a menace and they're right you shouldn't have...you need to...” he trails off looking like he's trying to disintegrate the file in front of him with latent laser eye abilities.

His arms are shaking.

No – he's trembling. The way he's biting his lip tips you off. He's trying to hold himself together, trying to stop himself from breaking. This can't be the same person Nate's so worried about.

“You're biting your lip, that's not good for you.”

“Fuck off.” it's half hearted at best, no real weight behind the words. And he does let his abused lip go.

“It's a breech of trust if I didn't tell you this...I wanted to give you the file because you should know it's been read by two people, to my knowledge.” you place a hand on his forearm, “Toby, I don't know what you've done in the past but...you know you aren't that person now, right?”

He's out of the car in an instant, slamming the door behind him. You follow, as dumb as you understand it is, getting out of your car in the middle of no where with a very unstable person.

“Get back in the car. I mrrow I can't...I need a minute.” his shaking is so much worse now that he's standing, It's even put a tremble in his voice.

“You're stupid if you think I'm leaving you alone in the middle of no where.” you stand your ground, he may need space but this is not the place to have it. You're only a few miles from town, you can get him back to the lodge where he doesn't have to see or be near you.

Hell you won't say a word on the way back.

“Like you're not stupid for ignoring the warnings that I'm dangerous! I've killed people! Did you know that?! Did you even think that's what was so bad!?” he's giving you the same glare he had on when he talked about the fight with Tim.

“I could literally kill you right now, you've driven us out to who knows where but still remained in walking distance back to town. You live on the outskirts of it and it'd be so easy for me to make you disappear and everyone would believe your stalkers got to you.” his chest heaves at a vicious rate.

Despite the venom and truth of his words, you can't find it in you to be scared of him. If anything his rant proves Toby must not have been mentally well during his crimes, he's acting like a cornered alley cat not a serial killer. There's a vice grip on you heart at the thought.

“Ok...are you?”

It's like a switch has been flipped in him and he calms instantly.

“What?” he knows what you're asking.

“Are you going to kill me?” you asked like you'd been asking what time it was.

He stares at you looking you up and down, “No...I wouldn't.” his neck jerks triggering your own tic.

“Then I'm safe.” you slowly approach him, much like you would a feral alley cat. “I trust you Tobias.” you reach out to tough his arm again.

It hadn't worked in the car but Toby does seem to calm down faster when he's being touched. Like the sensation brings him back to reality and locks him there.

“Y-you shouldn'n'n't.”

He doesn't pull away this time as you place your hands gently on his forearms. His eyes raise to meet yours.

“...I've killed.”

He sounds so helpless.

The only thing you find shocking about this is that he actually did it. You know people are capable of all sorts of vile things. But the way Toby's voice breaks, the tremors that run through his body. You can't see any similarity with the horror show you once imagined, a Toby covered head to toe in blood and a vicious grin.

The fact that Toby killed doesn't really phase you much more than the ever present 'how' that rings out. He must have had a reason. Jo wasn't too worried so maybe it was circumstantial. Not to mention Toby's among the general public. Could it have just been an accident? A misunderstanding?

“I don't – no I'm not going to say 'I don't care', because this is something that really effects you but I...I guess what I'm trying to get at is..it doesn't bother me. I know it should but, Tobias I just can't picture you as a murderer.” that blood stained Toby flashes before you singing 'liar', “I got to know you before finding out any of this. So, I know there must've been a reason behind it. And that's...and you don't have to tell me anything.”

Nothing more is said, after all you've said everything you could think of to deescalate the situation. And Toby is frozen as he stares at you. You'd have thought he was dissociating had it not been for the way his eyes still held that tiny reflection of light. He was still present, just unsure how to proceed.

Honestly you were stumped too, you had no idea how to begin this conversation let alone end it.

“My – there was...” you rub his arm in a small circular motion. You don't need to hear anything more, it already feels like too much information that he'd lost the agency for.

But your gentle shushing did nothing because he continued, “Clairse says I had a psychotic break and...just went after the biggest stressor at the time.” he pauses with a deep breath and closes his eyes in the process. “She says it wasn't really my fault, I was under...a lot of – I wasn't there, where I should've been mentally. My dad was abusive...anyone in my situation would've broken at some point.”

His words are hollow and robotic. A mantra he's learned to say although he doesn't believe it.

You'd normally give someone the choice but this time you just slip you arms over his shoulders and pull him into a hug. There's no resistance from him either, if anything he leans into the embrace and grips onto your back. His trembling doesn't stop but it's softened by the pressure.

“You don't have to tell me anything Tobes. I don't want you to...not if it's this painful.”

“I want – want to tell you about Lyra.” his voice cracks in tandem with his neck as he says her name.

And he does tell you, against all your protests to take his time. He tells you everything laid out his whole life right in front of you. From being home schooled early on – isolated within his own home for years, to his older sister and her untimely accident that he's still clearly wracked with guilt about, and then the spiral that ended in patricide and a fire that ate his entire neighborhood.

By the end of his recounting he'd stopped trembling and letting out the occasional sniffle – and now the two of you were leaning on the hood of your car. Looking at the stars that just started coming out for the night, you occasionally whispered affirmations to Toby as he tells more stories from his childhood. The good ones this time.

His spirits aren't as high as they were when you'd started your evening but they're much better than they were two hours ago.

You chuckle as he finishes telling you about the time he and Lyra managed to sneak out of the house for a concert only to realize they had no way of getting back into the house when they returned. Their mom just opened the door letting them inside with a small crease in her brow but the smile that played at her lips told them everything they'd needed to know. They weren't in trouble, she'd sent them off to bed and in the morning asked how the show was. From the way Toby talked about his mom you can tell he really loves her. The feeling must've been mutual, if she sent them off to bed instead of dishing out a punishment all because Toby had smiled for the first time in weeks that night.

“Ah, favorite child Toby strikes again.” you joke.

This time Toby didn't say anything, you had been throwing small jokes in to help keep the mood light, but he just looked at you with his head tilted. A grim expression barely crossed his features before being replaced with a lopsided smile and warm but sad eyes.

“Y'kn – Kyra used to say that all the time.”

“Must be true then.”

He looks at his hands with the softest expression you've ever seen. It's an expression normally given to Connor, just sadder this time.

You nudge him getting his attention back to the present.

“You still want that slushie?”

He takes a moment to look around you and finally rests his gaze on the stars. “Not Franlin, not tonight.” he says focusing back on to you.

“Think we're two exits from Riverton if that helps. They have Wawas.”

“Wawas?” he chuckles.

You nod, “Yea they have smoothies and milkshakes.”

“Ooh la la.”

You both snort and head back into the car. It's surreal to be buckling back in, joking around with Toby when just hours prior you thought you'd be ending your friendship the moment you opened your mouth.

You can't help but ask, “Are we cool?”

“Yea...we're good. 's not like you fucking asked for the information.” he leans his head against the window and crosses his arms into himself.

“I'm still sorry about it though.”

“Know you are. But it's over now.” the finality of that statement takes the weight off of your shoulders. For the first time in days you can breathe again.

“Thanks for telling me everything...you didn't have to. But I appreciate you sharing it with me.”

His nails dig into his arms, or they would have if they weren't chopped down to the bit.

“I mrrow I-I didn't tell you everything...”

Nope this was over and done with, no more sad and scared Toby. You couldn't handle anymore, guilt had found a friend in discomfrot and the two had set out to eat you alive with every tremor that tore through Toby's body.

“What are you like a child murderer or something?” Giving a laugh to soften the joke.

….

You missed the way Toby tenses and sucks in a breath. His heart is beating wildly in his chest, so hard he's certain you hear it. Is that where you draw the line? Child murder. Of course you had to have some boundaries he couldn't just expect you to be cool with everything he's done. You were sure to figure it out sooner or later no thanks to your boss. But Toby couldn't loose you now. Not when you've been an anchor he hasn't had in such a long time. He feels almost human again when he's with you.

He's been quiet too long, at least he thinks he has. He needs to say something, joke around back and dismiss the notion. You can't know not now – maybe not ever.

“I'm trans!” he hadn't meant to blurt that out.

He stared at you with wide eyes. Why had he said that, that hadn't even crossed his mind. Just as he was about to laugh it off you reached over and lightly punched him in the arm. That small gesture sent a tickle down Toby's spine. It was such an innocent touch, but he was touched starved and knew it.

“I am too goof. Thanks for telling me but why the wait?”

Fuck now he had to think of something. Talking to you always made him so brain dead.

“Mrrow...mrr-you saw me as a man first...I wanted to keep it that way.” maybe he didn't have to make something up, just tell you the half truth.

Brian had questioned him when they got ready for the picnic why he hadn't worn his trans tie dye shirt and he's said he misplaced it. A bold lie to tell someone like Brian, especially since it'd been a gift from his mom. She had sent it in a care package last June. He'd never loose something his mom gave him, at least not so quickly. If he'd been being honest with himself at the time, he was worried about your reaction. Of course he knew you were trans too so not like you'd be one to be a transphobe, but he didn't want you to stop seeing him as a man and only see him as trans.

“Toby, you are a man. Nothing short of you telling me otherwise will change that for me.”

Toby isn't sure when you grabbed his hand but he's aware of your hold when you start to rub along his knuckles. He watches your thumb circle jis joints and pressing a bit into the divots as he takes another deep breath.

He gives his best smile, a lopsided uncomfortable looking thing, “I don't think I like when you call me Toby.”

[modern-vellichor]

In Her Blood; One

Pairing: Dads Best Friend!Bucky x reader

Warnings: Age gap (reader is 24 ish, bucky is like 100 yk), daddy issues, uncomfortable home life, mentions of abortion/unwanted pregnancy, implied smut, steve being a shitty dad, smoking.

Bucky stood, leaning against the kitchen island in his best friends house. Steve is standing opposite him, Sam sitting at the kitchen table, their daughter, Sarah, next to him.

He hears the door open and close, the sound of wheels on hardwood floor. Then he hears a voice, sweet and song like, calling out

"hello?"

Sarah's face lights up, she jumps from her chair and just as another girl appears in the door, she leaps into her arms. The other girl chuckles, throwing her arms around Sarah and cooing. "Hey, chicken, I missed you"

The girl dislodges herself from Sarah, smile plastered on her face, beaming. She wraps an arm loosely around Sam's shoulder, "Hiya, dad", she places a soft kiss on his head.

She simply nods at Steve, a look almost chastising him was thrown. "Steven".

And then she turns to Bucky, and sticks out a hand. Her tone changes to something familiar and sweet.

"And you must be Bucky", he takes her hand, "I'm Y/N"

Bucky is confused, he doesn't remember Steve ever talking about a Y/N in his life. Apparently his confusion was evident, because she bursts into offended laughter, scoffing at Steve.

"Oh, he didn't tell you about me? that's rich", she stated, rolling her eyes. She turned her attention back to Bucky.

"Hi, I'm their eldest daughter", Bucky couldn't hide his surprise.

Steve never told him he had two daughters, he only ever spoke about Sarah. Sarah who aced her SATS, Sarah who started law school in September, Sarah who was his proud and joy. And now here was this new girl, who couldn't have been older than 25, standing tall and stoic before him.

Sarah and Sam observed the scene from the table, they watched with a sadness in their eyes.

Instead of questioning further, he simply introduced himself, smiling at the girl and shaking her hand. Doing anything to diffuse the suffocating tension.

"Yeah, I'm Bucky. It's nice to meet you"

"You too, you live close?"

"just down the road, what about you?"

"Art school in Paris, home for the summer"

She had a twinkle in her eyes as soon as she mentioned Paris, Bucky's smile grew wider, as did hers.

"Paris?"

"Paris", she nodded, excited.

"That must be nice"

"Its beautiful, much nicer than this shithole. Its heaven on earth over there" They spoke as Sam dragged Steve out of the kitchen into the hall, and as Sarah disappeared to her bedroom.

Sam pulled Steve out by the arm, dragging him away from the kitchen, away from Y/N.

"what the hell, Steve? you don't even talk about her? Shes your daughter!", he whispered as loudly as he could, scalding his partner.

Steve sighed, running a hand over her face. "She doesn't want anything to do with me"

"That's your fault, you gave up on her before her life had even started. You told her you didn't want her. Did you even know she was coming home? Did you care enough to remember?"

"I remember her telling Sarah something about it, Sarah passed on the message, wasn't paying attention"

"Christ's Sake, Steve"

-

Sarah ran to her room. Away from the looks her father gave her sister, away from the tension, away from her dad's tears, away from the memories flooding back to her.

She hated Steve for ruining Y/N the way he did, and he hated him even more for never apologising. She doesn't blame Y/N for running away to Paris either, she seems happier there.

She still loves her father though, that would never change.

Bucky sat with Sam at the table, beer in hand. Steve had long retired to bed, the two girls were giggling in Sarah's bedroom. The two men were silent, and in Buck's need for conversation, he let his curiosity get the better of him.

"What's the deal with Y/N?"

Sam paused, for a second and then sighed.

"She's Steve's bio daughter, had her with some woman a few years back, before we got together, before Sarah. When Sarah came around their relationship went to shit, Steve didn't like it. She ran away to Paris for school, stopped talking to Steve, dont blame her"

"sounds tough. How old was she when she left?"

"22, poor Sarah was only 16, broke her heart to see Y/N leave"

Bucky was used to being around all the time, but now summer had rolled around, he was here all the time.

practically living in their house. Sarah was used to his presence, but Y/N was wary. She rarely spoke, especially when Steve was around. She grasped at any chance to get out of the house, or to lock herself in her room.

It was either 'bonding time with her sister', or 'making up for lost time', and if not that it was 'school work', or 'extra curriculars'.

Bucky woke in a sweat, he had slept in the guest bedroom. Nightmares followed him though. He silently made his way down the stairs, padding softly on the carpet. The backdoor was ajar slightly, the familiar smell of smoke wafting through the crack.

He pushed it open to find you, blanketwrapped around your shoulders, cheeks wet from old cheeks, a cigarette smouldering between dainty fingers.

He said nothing as he sat next to you, mimicking your position, crossing his legs. He brought the cigarette to his lips, taking in a long drag, before handing it back to you. You laughed, "I didn't think you smoked"

You brought the smoke to your lips, tasting him on the butt, infused in the filter.

"I used to, back in the war"

"everyone smoked back in the war" Bucky nodded along, smiling with you. You rested your head on his shoulder, he smelled familiar and soft.

"What's the deal with you and your dad"

In a moment of exhaustion fueled vulnerability, you didnt think about your answer, instead just spewing out the truth.

"I dont think he actually wanted me, I think he just couldn't let my mom get an abortion"

You sat together, in silence for a while, before you sat up, and turned your body to face him. You studied him. You traced his statuesque features, steely eyes, plump lips, your eyes played at his carved abdomen, dancing over his arms, one shining in early morning light.

He studied you in turn, tired and sad eyes, smoke spilling softly over perfect lips. Beautiful body curling in on itself in the cold.

You leaned forward, lost in your subconscious, desperate for a close look, you wanted to see the cracks and pores and scars littering his tan skin. "why are you awake?", you whispered.

"nightmare"

Your eyes fell to your legs as you giggled softly, "so that makes two of us"

"well maybe I can make you feel better"He gripped your chin, forcing your gaze to his. It was strangely intimate, that's what hurt the most. He pressed his lips to yours. You returned the kiss of course. Desperate and vulnerable, your arms snaked around his neck, his hands pawing at your hips and thighs.

This was wrong, you knew it was. You had already decided that this was a bad idea, you didn't care. Not with his fingers playing at the hem of your shirt, or carded in your hair, tugging lightly to pull the sweetest of moans from the depths of your chest.

Oh, you'd regret this later. But now, you were lost in the feeling of his lips on your neck, and his hands down your shorts. The soft silk of your bed sheets were a welcome contrast to hard metal and hot flesh. A welcomed distraction from the pure filth he whispered against your skin, leaving colourful bruises in his wake.

"please", you mewled over and over as he chuckled darkly. You knew this was wrong, but those thoughts weren't at the forefront of your mind as cool fingers expertly invaded your body and his tongue was licking hot stripes up your bare thighs.

Then, as you were slowly coming down from a lust drunk state of mind, he had the guts to pull you close against his chest. You knew who Bucky Barnes was. You knew he was best friends with Steve and Sam. You knew his past, you knew his present. Here you were, curled against him like he cared.

You weren't stupid. You knew he had objectified you to gods end. You knew that he thought you were less of Steve's daughter than Sarah. He had completely dissociated you from Steve and Sam, Sarah too.

So you waited, until his breathing had slowed and his heart rate was near nonexistent. And you pulled him off of you, and you sat yourself up, swinging your legs onto your carpeted floor. Back bone straight. He didn't care so much now, he definetly didnt act it-

He moved, rolling towards you, snaking his arms around your waist and humming.

"hey"

You froze.

"hey", you stared down at the man in your bed, strands of dark hair framing his herculean face. Blue eyes boring into yours.

"I'm sorry"

"for what?"

"about you and Steve, it must be tough"

You pulled the hair tie from his hair, snapping it around your wrist, running slender fingers through knotted locks.

"don't you worry about it"

"I suppose i'll see you to it, then", he untangled himself from you and picked his belongings up from the floor, pulling his clothes back on.

"see you around, soldier", you smiled.

He stopped in your doorway, throwing a smile back at you. "you too, kotenok"