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lostinlovingrevery · 15 hours ago

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He's Definitely Obsessed With You

Origins! Logan X Fem!Reader

Plot: You're an army nurse, deep in the trenches of the Vietnam jungles, doing everything you can to keep yourself together, and the infantry that come into your tent. One day a soldier you aren't familiar with is brought in, and you find out something about him that leads to the start of an important relationship between you both that changes the course of your lives together...

A/N: This is basically the plot of Origins, but with my own spin on it with a Fem!Reader! This is my first time EVER writing an X reader, so comments appreciate! I plan to make this a series, but I wanted to put out a prologue first. Okay, it's not really a prologue and more like a chapter, and ended up being super long because I started writing and then didn't stop, and prologues are short- but IT'S MY STORY AND I'LL CREATE MY OWN RULES. The prologue is just how reader and Logan meet! (PS, there's eventual smut...Soon as I figure out how write it without getting embarrassed) Also, I'm still figuring out how to format on Tumblr, so please don't mind any funky design choices. Probably spelling and grammar mistakes somewhere in there

Warnings: Reader POV only (for now) Reader is female, also an army nurse, also a mutant- but powers aren't specified, blood mention, medical stuff talked about (like amputations), injury descriptions, Vietnam war and slight politics mention, probably a lot of historical inaccuracies i just googled things but I tried! implied reader could be religious but honestly there's nothing concrete to that. The only description of reader is her clothes and that she has hair, and wears makeup (lipstick). Reader has a hard on over Logan (she has a cruuuush), let me know if there's anything I missed!

Word Count: 4753

Prologue:

Rain rapped lightly along the top of the large tent, creating a soothing sound throughout. A radio, playing an american music station, played a rock song, of some new band slowly making a name for itself, sat nearby on a metal cabinet. Stacks of manila folders and papers were disorganized and spread, almost completely covering a desk. A clock ticks rhythmically. The tent was lined with cots, tables, ratty mattresses, IV stands, and small tables covered with empty food trays, water canisters, and paper cups filled pills. Some of the beds were taken up by injured men, snoring and groaning as they attempted to sleep, only slightly more comfortable here in the medical tent than out in the muddy, rainy trenches. It was monsoon season in Vietnam, and you were at your wits end with paperwork in the middle of a small but-not-that-small camp, set up not far from an American fire support base.

You were sitting at the desk, half asleep as you attempted to fill out another request form for medical supplies. Halothane, Methoxyflurane, Morphine, Penicillin - are common medicines that you find yourself constantly having to restock. Of course bandages, gloves, needles, saline, tubing, multiple surgical supplies, other things you find yourself low on often too, considering the amount of amputations, large and minor, that happen around here. The medical tent that you currently reside in was a revolving door of soldiers, both American and Vietnamese, as well as nearby villagers who come for aid after the American presence near their homes led to viruses they can’t combat on their own, or other unfortunate injuries if war breaks out in their village.

You were simply an army nurse, this was not your usual duty to perform, it was normally left to the assigned doctor of the camp. Your job was to assist the doctor, take care of the patients, administer medicine, IVs, change bandages, wet baths, feed them, and hold their hands as they cry for their momma and to God. You were busy enough, and the doctor, Doctor Frank Jones, who you were assisting had got shot by a stray bullet when out in the jungle, and had to be taken back to the main base, and back to the States. Due to a communication failure, his replacement ended up somewhere else, and transportation wasn’t an option due to the fighting happening.

Fortunately, Doctor Jones had seen potential in you and believed you would be an excellent doctor one day - something you wanted to pursue after your service was fulfilled. He became a mentor, helping you study and learn medicine, and giving you skills that an average nurse- even an army nurse- wouldn’t usually have. Now, it was just up to you, and a few young army medics - teenage boys who were given no choice in going to war, and their skills were found best in assisting injuries on the battlefield, but they were eager to help, and their light-hearted jokes and company helped relieve some stress for you, especially with the pain you watch day in and out. You didn’t always have the luxury of their help though, as when patrols went out, they required at least one of them to join. It leads you to have to order around other grunts who have no idea how to even measure the proper dosage of cough syrup for themselves whenever a serious injury comes in, having to give detailed orders on what to do- usually just getting you the supplies and medicine you need, as the grunts are typically too distracted and upset over their fallen brother to assist you in anything medical and complicated.

With being the only medical authority in the camp- as well as the only woman- you were well respected and popular. Your compassionate personality, and comforting presence, as well as your “Take-no-shit” attitude, led to soldiers of this camp visiting you all the time, usually making up excuses like having a cough, or a splinter in their finger, just so they could have the pleasure of your smile and encouraging words. The CO here made sure that they all treated you with respect, as a woman- and a nurse, so you never once felt unsafe- or unappreciated. Besides, a good section of this camp is young boys, too nervous about their situation to worry about trying to flirt with a woman like you. You're more of a comfort figure in these parts than anything else. Despite the stress and worry you face in day to day life, in the middle of the war, you were just happy to be doing something. You weren’t exactly a supporter of this war, but the moment you saw young boys lining up to go to war, something in you made you fiercely determined to follow, and do whatever you can to make sure those boys can go back home to their mothers and fathers.

The Rolling Stones was now playing on the radio, this was a band you were more familiar with - one of your favorites. Your foot tapped to the beat of the song, as you checked off another item you needed to be stocked up on- and hoped the supply chain doesn’t hold out on you again. For some reason, they seemed convinced that you must surely be lying about the supplies and will not send you the full amount of what you requested, leading you to storm into the CO’s tent on more than one occasion and rant to him with a few unsavory words about the supply lines commander. He always listens though, and does his best to get you what you can- which you can appreciate.

“Hey turn that up-” You heard one of the patients call out, and she smiles, reaching to the radio and turning the volume higher. She looked up from the desk to see one patient in bed moving his foot with the beat of the song, and the other, who asked her to turn it up, raised his arm in the air, hand in a fist as he rocked with the song. “This is a good one, hadn’t heard this one yet.”

“It came out in 65’ dumbass.” the other called out. “How’d you not know it?”

“I’ve been here since 64’ asshole! Think we always had access to a radio?”

They all chided each other, making you laugh as you shake your head, turning back towards your paperwork, determined to finish it today so you can send it out. It was rare you get these moments of quiet, so you appreciated it when you could. Things could turn on a dime in a second, especially since the fighting was getting closer to where this camp was set, and you’re hoping that you would get some help before anything serious came. You were just starting to get absorbed in the letter you were writing to the CO of the supply line, something slightly passive aggressive, when one of the soldiers yelled to you from outside.

“Hey! Nurse! There’s some guys coming this way! They got someone injured-”

You looked up, dropping your pencil, and turning the radio down as you readied yourself, brushing the pants of your army fatigues to straighten it out, and rolling your sleeves farther up your arms. You watched as the flaps of the tent get pulled open, as two men carry someone resting on a cot. You didn’t like how quiet the man was being.

“In here-” You lead them to another section of the medical tent, ment solely for treating wounded, in an attempt to keep something sterile and clean- well, as clean as you can get it. The soldiers set the man onto the table that sat in the center of the room, small trays and medical supplies, as well as a large overhead lamp that provided lighting to give you a better view at what you’re working on, surrounded the table.

“We got ambushed on patrol, fortunately he’s the only one that got hit, a VC jumped out of the grass and stabbed him. We got pressure on the wound, and he’s still alive- for now.”

You nodded as you went to a basin to pull on some sterile gloves, and walked over to examine the soldier. He was handsome- you couldn’t help but noticed but quickly put that out of your mind. A full head of deep beautiful brown hair, and a thick beard framed his face. He looked older, possibly in his mid 30’s. A sheen of sweat covered his skin, as his teeth were gritted and eyes cinched shut in pain. A wave of sorrow hit you, as you never liked seeing people in pain, it hits you bad enough to wonder why you chose to go into the medical profession of all things. Nevertheless, you push through, and began working on removing the uniform so you can see if you can save this one. At least he wasn’t screaming.

“Whats his name?”

“Logan ma’am. He’s Private First Class.” The private responds, voice professional, but quickly drops into something softer. “He’s a good guy, and smart, usually quick on his feet, its surprising someone ambushed him…”

“Need any help ma’am?” The other private who brought him in ask.

“No, I got it, thank you.” You tell them as you grab some sheers and began cutting through Logan's army garments. “Just make sure others are alright. See if any of the boys out there need water.”

They nodded, saluting- leading you to roll your eyes- and left your section of the tent, just as you manage to cut off the white wife beater he was sporting underneath his army garments, giving you a complete view of where he had been stabbed. You breathed a small sigh of relief, the wound appeared in the part of the torso where nothing vital was located and you managed to roll him to his side- seeing the stabbing didn’t go straight through, meaning this guy had a good chance of surviving, assuming he doesn’t succumb to infection…

“Alright Logan,” You turned you head to look at the man, who was still tense, eyes squeezed shut. He was somewhat awake, with his breathing and the way his muscles contracted, but he didn’t seem to be aware of what was going on, you still felt it important to talk to whoever you were treating though. You had to hold the hands of many scared soldiers, and quickly have learned the right things to say when comforting. “I’m going to take care of you, and in return, you’re going to need to be strong for me here.” You say softly but firmly to him, hoping that he’s hearing you through the pain, as you went and quickly grabbed a wet cloth out of a basin nearby, squeezing out the excess water, and gently placing it over his forehead, in order to soak up some sweat, and provide some more comfort to cool his skin that seemed to be burning hot. You couldn’t help but note that you don’t recognize him- you wouldn’t have forgotten his face that’s for damn sure, if he’d ever came to visit you, which most privates in this camp has at one time or another. You shook the curiosity out of your head, you had to move quickly, fighting the urge to wanting to take in the details of his face- his very handsome face, and moved to focus back onto the wound on his torso.

You started by slowly removing the packed bandages, examining the blood flow to make sure nothing gushed, but he really wasn’t bleeding much anymore- actually, it didn’t look like he was bleeding at all now. Confused, you began cleaning the area of the stab wound so you could get a clear view of what you were looking at. At first, you thought you were losing your mind, you had to been because what you were seeing…

It was as if the skin was growing back, the wound, going inwards seemed to almost pop out, before the skin stitched together, going through what the bodys usual healing process would look like- except doing it within a matter of seconds. Turning from a bright red inflamed wound, into a baby pink scar bump that slowly faded off, you couldn’t even tell anything had happen there- except from the blood stained around it. You were blinking in disbelief, mouth slightly agape, before it suddenly occurred to you what you were just seeing.

Oh shit-

He’s a mutant.

You looked at the man, who’s muscles seemed to be relaxing now, as he took deeper breaths, the sweat on his face began to dry and disappear. You weren’t sure what to do at this point, you’re so used to every minute counting to fix someone, and this guy just healed himself in seconds!

And by god, he was so handsome. You thought that already, got to stop thinking about that. Turning away from his face, you went to examine where the stab wound used to be, gloved fingers gently pressing on the area- before the soldier- Logan, practically yelped- and sat up rushed on the table, startling you even more so than him, as you jumped back, hands in the air in surrender- as if you did anything wrong.

He was panting, the cold wet cloth you had placed on his forehead fell into his lap, as he looked around with wide eyes, pupils dilated, his nostrils flaring, he almost looked animal-like in this state. He turned to look at you. His eyes took you in, and suddenly you felt embarrassed by your army clothes you were sporting, green cargo pants, and a green collared button up shirt, tucked into your pants, making you feel less than girlish in them, despite their comfortability, your forehead was covered in sweat, and your hair pulled back in a bun neat bun with baby hairs sticking out everywhere. At least you had lipstick on to give yourself a little bit of a pop in your plain looking outfit. That should be the last thing you should be worried about.

“You’re okay-” You finally found your voice, holding your hands out to him, “You got ambushed, but you’re okay now.”

He blinked, then let out a small sigh, his whole self seeming to relax, his expression turned more human-like, as he faced forward, then looked down at himself. His hand went over where he had been hurt- seeing that there was no longer any injury there, although something in his expression told you he could still feel it. He swallowed, jaw tensing, before realization struck him, and his head snapped to look at you.

“You saw- You know, don’t you?” He asks, his voice was deep, but sounded a little dry and scratchy. Still, it was enough to make your knees weak.

You turned, going to a cabinet that held medicines and various other supplies, but on the counter was a pitcher of water and a few glass cups. Pulling off your gloves, you poured a cup from the pitcher, turning back and handing it to him.

“Yeah. I saw.” You say cooly, holding it out for him to take. He looked at you, his deep and should you think gorgeous hazel eyes felt like they were piercing your soul; as if he was trying to decipher what was going on in your head, which you wish you knew as well because his stare was making your brain fuzzy; then glanced at the cup and finally took it from your hand, your fingers brushing together, making your heartbeat just a little faster, and you could feel a small heat blooming in your cheeks.

Jesus christ, pull yourself together

You thought to yourself. You cleared your throat while he took several swigs of water, dropping his hand with the cup to his side as he took a moment to breathe once more.

“Got anything stronger?” He asks, his low and smoother now, quirking a brow at you. You smiled,

“Sorry, anything alcoholic you may want to drink in here, I gotta save for the guys who can’t heal themselves within minutes.” You say teasingly. “Supplies are low enough already.”

You could see a small quirk of his lips, in something resembling a smile. He was still tense though, his eyes seemed to be somewhere else. He looked at you again,

“Does it…scare you? Me being a mutant?” He asks, his voice low

“Um….No?” You responded, confusion on your face, a small shake of your head, “Why would it?”

He seemed relieved- and surprised by that answer, his shoulders finally relaxing, and he took another drink of water, eyes closing as he finished the cup, and handed it back to you, where you set it back on the counter. Wiping his mouth with his arm, he sat up more confidently, bending his leg as he brought his knee up to his chest, and propped his forearm over it, and leaned back on his other hand, taking a few deep breaths as he lowered his head down, then looked back up at you, his expression suddenly stern.

“You gonna tell them?” He asks. You knew he was referring to the army. Mutants weren’t well accepted in the world- much less the US army. The American government is actually sitting comfortably in the capital and writing out bullshit laws on mutant regulations, rather than trying to figure out a solution for the war here in Vietnam. You, a mutant yourself, albeit your powers were easy to hide and conceal, you still feared of a day that someone somehow discovers your secret. You’ve heard stories of American soldiers revealed to be mutants being killed, due to some bullshit excuse that they “lied” about who they were, and couldn’t be trusted. Whether those stories were true or fearmongering to keep mutants hiding their true identities, you didn’t know, but you certainly weren’t gonna find out yourself. You definitely wouldn’t put another fellow mutant, just trying to survive like you, in any sort of danger like that, even if he could probably just heal if he got put in front of a firing squad.

You pursed your lips together. Then smiled. “No. I’ll keep your secret.” You say. “All it means to me is that I have one less person to worry about around here. I was actually wondering why I hadn’t seen your face in this tent yet before, and now I know why.”

He softened at that, but his face quickly fell back into something more serious and stern once more, which you’re starting to think might be his baseline.

“You okay?” You asked, your voice was soft, and sweet, and borderline angelic for a man like him, who’s been in wars almost his entire life- which you don’t know about that. “That probably didn’t feel good, what happened.” He nodded.

“M’ fine….Thank you.” He grumbles lowly, looking down at his hands. “I heard about you- actually I-I seen you around. You’re the only nurse on camp?” He asked, looking back up at you, there seemed to be a bit of curiosity in his voice.

“Yeah. I’m pretty popular.” You say, in a teasing voice, blushing at the thought that he’s noticed you. Which shouldn’t be a surprise, you are quite literally the only woman around, save for the women in the village not far from here.

“Must be busy.”

“Oh… Nah-” You playfully wave him off. “Some days are so slow, I’m actually bored.” You say matter-of-factly, but you both knew you were kidding. Another quirk of his lips. You smiled softly at him, but there was a voice in your head telling you, that since he doesn’t need your help, you should probably get back to helping the ones who do. Not that you want to leave, he was so damn handsome, you could stare at him all day. It wasn’t just his good looks though, his whole self drew you in with just a few words, and you find yourself wanting to get to know Logan, because the look in his eyes told you that he was someone worth knowing. Or maybe that was just your hormones talking. There was just this energy between you both, some type of unseen connection. His eyes trailed down you again, this time fully taking you in, stopping at your chest, and for a moment you were about to be completely turned off by this man being a pervert, but he nodded towards it.

“Your necklace?” He asked. You looked down, oh, you thought to yourself. You pulled the string of your necklace, lifting the small coin that it held, string carefully wrapped around it so it doesn’t fall off.

“It’s a prayer coin. A priest gave it to me.” You explained. “It’s the archangel Raphael. A protector, patron saint of medical workers, like doctors, nurses.”

“Like you?”

You nodded. He examined it, before you tucked it back under your shirt. You usually keep it hidden, but it must have fallen out while you were rushing. Now it was silent again, and you both weren’t sure what to do or say.

“Well….” You took a breath, you glanced down at his abdomen, and suddenly your brows creased in concentration.

“What?” He asked, by your sudden change in demeanor.

“You can’t exactly walk out with no injury. Those two privates were pretty worried about you.” You say, putting your hands on your hips and pursing your lips together. You clicked your tongue.

“I can figure something out-”

“No no-” You held your hand up and looking around the room. “Those privates brought you in, there’s probably an incident report written right now, not to mention I have to write a report on your injuries too-” you explained. “I mean, how are you gonna explain it if you walk out, completely A-okay?”

Logan shrugged simply. “I can think of something, it isn’t the first time this happened.” You rolled your eyes. Men.

You rather not waste bandages on a pretend injury, but you need someway to get his injury to look believeable, thats when you spotted your answer. His white tank top that you had drop to the floor, it was good enough to wrap around him, making him look as if he’s been all fixed up from his stab wound. The shirts cotton texture looked similar to the pattern of a bandage, and was good enough, especially considering no one would be looking hard enough at his wound anyway.

After a few minutes of “fixing him up” with your solution to keep his regenerative abilities a secret, you stood back examining the fake bandage/shirt that you tore up and wrapped around his torso, using bandage pins to hold it in place. Then shrugged.

“It’s good enough.” You say. “You’re not going anywhere anyway, so it’s not like you’ll raise a bunch of questions. It looks like you have an injury, it’ll match the incident and medical report. You won’t get found out.”

“I’m not going anywhere?” He raised a brow.

“Nope. You were injured, which means I gotta keep an eye on you. So you’ll be sleeping here, and you’ll have to pretend you’re in pain, whining and moaning and all that. Give it your best performance.” You encourage. “Take it, not many around here get a chance to get a break like that.”

He looked at you, pondering what you were offering him- well, you weren’t offering, he was going to have do it because you weren’t gonna risk him revealing himself as a mutant, which for some reason you were now more concerned about than he was. A small smirk appeared on his face, “That mean you’ll be waiting on me then, hand and foot?”

You smiled, “Don’t get ahead of yourself soldier.” You say teasingly. “You can stay in here a little longer, rest up, maybe shed some tears to make it look like you’re suffering tremendously.” You added a little flair as you brought your hand up to your forehead, pretending to faint, before turning and walking away to leave the room, now knowing you really needed to get back to work.

“I don’t think I need to shed any tears.” He mutters, but there was amusement in his tone though. “Hey bub” He called after you as you were about to leave the room, lifting the tent flap, but you stopped to look at him. “Why are you seen keen on helping me out? Making a plan to make sure people don’t find out what I am…Seems like too much trouble to go through for you.” He frowned.

“Well…” You dropped the flap of the tent, “Us mutants gotta stick together, right?” Logan looked surprised at first, eyes widening a bit, and jaw slacking, but then a soft, genuine smile stretched across his face, the corners of his eyes crinkling, leaving you thinking that was a smile you never wanted to go without again. Smiling back at him, you winked, and turned back before stopping and looking at him again, “Plus, you seem worth the trouble.” You add, before finally leaving him to himself.

Maybe it was too much trouble. You could leave Logan to figure it out himself. You two didn’t know each other, you weren’t friends. Yet you, the compassionate self you are, and also slightly bull-headed, was not going to leave Logan hanging alone. Maybe it was the fact that you were both mutants that urged you to help him, let him know that someone like him out there has his back, even if he had many brothers at his side watching his back too. Or maybe it was because you felt an undeniable pull towards him- and him towards you.

While he stayed in the medical tent with you for about a week, the standard time for stitches to stay in. While staying, you both got to know each other better. You found a deep friendship with Logan quickly, both of you having an understanding of each other, not just as mutants but as individuals as well. You were able to laugh, usually at his snarky remarks to the other privates and even his comments to the higher-ups, surprising you in how he likes to occasionally challenge authority despite how quiet and reflective he can be some moments. You saw him as brave, smart, and he was protective, always going first in patrols, and keeping an eye on the younger privates. He’d hid it well, rarely making it seen, but he had a compassion that made your heart swell, especially when you came across him comforting a young private who was homesick and scared. He had a good instinct that seems to attest to his mutation- which he later revealed the full aspects of it to you later on, claws and everything- which did nothing but fascinate you, leading to a full acceptance of him he hadn’t felt or seen in a long time. He’d visit you in late nights when he wasn’t assigned guard patrol, bringing you something to eat or drink, and you’d both quietly talk about your lives, and how’d you ended up there. He listened to you complain about the lack of supplies, and how you got into medicine in the first place. You’d learn of his brother Victor- another Private First Class there at the camp, who you quickly learned a distaste for after meeting him, and how old they both really were- leading you to bombard him with history questions, that he simply answered “I wasn’t there bub.” There was an unspoken yet mutual physical and spiritual attraction between you both, but before anything could have gone further in your relationship, down in the thick muddy jungles of Vietnam, you suffered a similar fate as your mentor Doctor Jones. A stray bullet having shot through your shoulder while you were out, attempting to help a young private who’s leg unfortunately got caught in a dirt trap. You were okay, but orders sent you home on a medical discharge, saying you fulfilled your duty to the States.

You missed Logan, and you also found yourself struggling to find your place back in civilian life again, the stress and the trauma of the things you saw weighed heavy in your mind, not to mention the worry you felt over Logan's safety while he was still over there. The only thing easing your worries was the letters you wrote to each other, until one day his letters stopped coming, and your own got returned back to you with no explanation, leaving you in fear of the worst….

#logan howlett #logan howlett x reader #wolverine #logan howlett x you #logan howlett fanfiction #logan howlett fic #wolverine x f!reader #wolverine x reader #wolverine x you #wolverine x men #i know the title will throw you off but TRUST ME #especially with the vibes of this fic #also like i said my first reader fic SO PLEASE BE GENTLE

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writteninkat · 2 days ago

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Adoration's Abyss | Bakugou , Stalker Reader

synopsis: He was the untouchable star, and I was just another face in the crowd—until I wasn’t. What starts as admiration spirals into something far darker when love turns to obsession, and boundaries blur between devotion and delusion. You really are different from other girls… but at what cost?

w/c: idk i was hoping for 5k, i hope it reached

warnings: stalking

a/n: hey i wrote this while i was at the beach for five days. update on my life: been getting into poetry and essay writing again. finally had the balls to share my work with my friends and family lol

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The moment I saw him, the world folded itself into something smaller, something manageable, as if the chaos of existence could be trimmed to fit within the orbit of his gaze. Katsuki Bakugou: a name that rippled through crowds like a thunderclap, his presence igniting every room he entered with the ferocity of a supernova. He wasn’t just an idol; he was a phenomenon, a living pyre burning too bright for ordinary mortals.

And yet, there I was. Just another face in the sea of adoration, clutching my ticket to the meet-and-greet like it was a lifeline to salvation.

“Hi, Katsuki! I loved you in—”

He cut me off, sharp as a blade but not unkind. “In Beyond the Blast?” His voice was rough, gravelly—a symphony of jagged edges.

I faltered. Did I seem too predictable? Too common? A sheep in the flock of screaming fans? My heart plummeted.

“Pouts are overrated,” I said, forcing a small smile, my voice softening into something calculatedly vulnerable. “I want to be different. Not just like…other girls. I loved you in the Eclipsed show, but also in Burning Hearts, Live Loud, Infrno's Edge...” I trailed off, naming a more obscure project, the kind only the most dedicated fans would know. I even threw in a few lines about a candid interview he once did, where he spoke about how sunsets reminded him of fleeting time.

His expression shifted—slightly, almost imperceptibly. But it was enough. The ghost of amusement danced on his lips, and he said, “Maybe you really are different from other girls.”

Inside, I was roaring. Victorious. Outside, I laughed softly, demurely. “Maybe.”

I am so much worse.

When I left the meet-and-greet, I told myself it was enough. To stand in his presence, to hear his voice aimed in my direction—wasn’t that already more than most could hope for? But hope is a greedy thing. It feeds on itself, growing hungrier with every indulgence.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. His voice lingered in my ears like a song on repeat, the low rasp of it curling around my thoughts. I replayed our brief exchange in my head, editing and polishing it, imagining what I could’ve said to make him linger just a second longer.

And then, of course, I opened the scrapbook.

It started innocently, as these things always do. A collection of concert photos, magazine clippings, interviews. But now, as I flipped through the pages, it felt insufficient. Two-dimensional. Katsuki wasn’t just a face on a page. He was a force, raw and untamed, and these flattened images could never capture him.

I needed more.

When I heard about his upcoming promotional event, I didn’t hesitate. The tickets were sold out within seconds, but I had connections—or rather, I made them. A fan forum moderator owed me a favor, and I cashed it in without a second thought.

The event was in a sleek, glass-paneled venue that gleamed under the city lights. I arrived early, blending seamlessly into the crowd. I wore my best dress—not flashy, but memorable. Just enough to catch his eye again.

This time, I didn’t bother with the front row. No, I wanted to watch from a distance, to see the full scope of his energy. He moved onstage like a storm contained within the fragile frame of a man. His voice electrified the room, his words sparking laughter and applause.

But every now and then, his gaze flickered over the crowd, scanning faces. Did he remember me? Did his eyes pause, even for a fraction of a second, on mine?

I convinced myself they did.

It was after the event, during the afterparty, that things began to change. I wasn’t supposed to be there, of course, but slipping past security was easier than I thought. People underestimate how much you can achieve when you’re polite, invisible, and just persistent enough to not raise alarms.

He was there, naturally—leaning against the bar, his posture relaxed but his eyes sharp. A few people approached him, but he brushed them off with a curt nod or a smirk that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

And then, somehow, I was beside him.

“Hey,” I said softly, almost shyly. “I’m surprised you’re not the center of attention.”

He looked at me, and for a second, I thought he might not remember. But then his expression shifted—a flicker of recognition, like a match striking against stone.

“You again,” he said.

From that moment on, it was as though I had been given permission. Not by him, of course, but by the universe. Surely this was fate, wasn’t it? To have crossed paths with him twice, in places swarming with thousands of people?

I began to learn things. Little things, at first—his preferred coffee shop, the route he took to the gym, the kind of music he played in his car when he thought no one was listening. These were harmless details, gathered with the precision of a collector adding rare gems to their trove.

But soon, harmless wasn’t enough.

The first time I followed him home, I told myself it was a mistake. I had been walking in the same direction, and it was pure coincidence that his apartment building loomed ahead of me. But then I did it again. And again.

His building was tall, sleek, and anonymous, but I found ways to breach its defenses. A delivery uniform, a borrowed ID badge—small deceptions that felt exhilarating in their simplicity.

I never crossed the final line. I never entered his apartment, though I knew exactly which door was his. Instead, I lingered in the shadows, content to imagine the life that unfolded within.

But imagination, like hope, is a hungry thing.

It’s funny, the way routine can warp into ritual. What began as occasional glimpses became a nightly pilgrimage. I knew his schedule better than my own. His habits—oh, how they fascinated me. The way he left his balcony door slightly ajar, as if inviting the wind—or something else. The flicker of his apartment light in the early hours, suggesting sleepless nights.

Once, I saw him standing there, silhouetted against the glow of his television, shirtless and utterly at ease. It felt intimate, watching him like that. Almost sacred.

He would never understand how much I admired him.

I started leaving small things behind. Harmless tokens—an autograph request slipped under his door, a pressed flower on his windowsill. Gifts that could be explained away if he ever noticed. They were never acknowledged, but that was fine. It wasn’t for him to notice. It was for me.

One night, he deviated from his routine. The precision of his life had always been a comfort to me—a series of movements I could predict and follow like a choreographed dance. But that night, he didn’t go home after his gym session.

Instead, he stopped at a convenience store, and I, foolishly emboldened by months of watching, followed him inside.

He was standing by the drink cooler, scanning the rows of energy drinks with a scowl. His hair was damp, his hoodie slung low over his face, and yet he was unmistakable.

I wasn’t supposed to get this close. Not yet.

But he turned, and suddenly we were face to face.

“Oh,” I said, startled into breaking the sacred silence between us. “Hi. Fancy seeing you here.”

His eyes narrowed. “Do I know you?”

My heart thrummed like a caged bird. Did he recognize me from the meet-and-greet? From the afterparty? Did he know I’d been watching him all this time?

“I’m a fan,” I said quickly, keeping my voice light, casual. “We’ve met before, at your event. Twice, actually.”

His gaze lingered on me, sharp and assessing, and for a moment, I thought I saw suspicion flicker across his face.

“Right,” he said finally, brushing past me with the kind of indifference that only he could make seem regal.

But as he left the store, I caught a glimpse of something in his expression—something that wasn’t indifference at all.

After that encounter, I couldn’t stop imagining what he thought of me. Did I stand out to him? Did he wonder about me the way I wondered about him? The thought was intoxicating.

I found myself becoming bolder. My nightly visits turned into longer stays. I started leaving notes with no name, no context—just fragments of thoughts I thought he might find poetic.

“The stars envy your light.”

“Even storms pause to admire you.”

“You are the reason the sun rises.”

Each one felt like a confession. A prayer.

But then one night, the notes disappeared. When I crept back to his door the following evening, there was nothing waiting for me. No sign that he had read them, or even seen them.

Had he thrown them away? Or worse—had someone else taken them before he could?

The thought burned like acid.

The line between admiration and possession is thinner than most realize. I crossed it without even noticing.

I started taking photos—not of him directly, but of the spaces he occupied. His balcony, his car parked in the same spot every night, the shadow of his figure through the curtains. My phone became a shrine, each image a sacred offering.

But it wasn’t enough.

One night, when I was sure he wasn’t home, I found myself standing at his door. My hand trembled as I reached for the handle, testing it. Locked, of course. But locks are just puzzles waiting to be solved.

I didn’t go inside—not yet. But I stood there, breathing in the faint scent that lingered in the hallway. It felt like standing on the edge of a cliff, the abyss yawning beneath me, daring me to jump.

The day it all unraveled was unremarkable. A sunny afternoon, ordinary in every way—until I saw him again.

This time, he wasn’t alone.

She was tall, elegant, with a laugh that rang out like silver bells. She touched his arm as they walked, her presence so seamless beside him that it made my chest ache.

The world tilted, sharp and unforgiving.

How dare she? Didn’t she know? He wasn’t hers to touch, to smile at, to laugh with.

He was mine.

I followed them, of course. Through the crowded streets, past the bustling cafes and shops, until they arrived at a small restaurant. They sat by the window, their faces illuminated by the golden light of the setting sun.

I stood outside, watching, my reflection in the glass overlapping with theirs.

For the first time, I allowed myself to hate him. Not just her—him. For being so blind, so careless, so utterly indifferent to the devotion I had poured into him.

You’re supposed to be mine.

The thought felt foreign, even to me. But once it took root, it spread like wildfire.

That night, I found myself back at his apartment building. The familiar routine should have soothed me, but it didn’t. My heart was pounding, each beat a war drum, as I stared up at his window.

The light was on. He was home.

But I wasn’t standing there just to watch anymore. I wasn’t there to leave notes or flowers or to bask in the glow of his existence. No, this time, I had crossed the threshold.

I waited in the shadows until the lobby door opened. A tenant stepped out, their face buried in their phone, oblivious to my presence as I slipped inside. The elevator doors gleamed like a portal to another world.

His floor was silent. The kind of silence that feels alive, pulsing with expectation. My footsteps were soft, my breath shallow, as I approached his door.

The lockpick trembled in my hand, but I’d practiced this moment a hundred times in my mind. The faint click was both satisfying and terrifying.

And then I was inside.

It was everything I had imagined and nothing like it at all.

The apartment was minimalist, almost sterile, with only a few personal touches—a jacket draped over a chair, an empty mug on the counter. The air smelled faintly of him, a mix of cologne and something darker, more primal.

I moved slowly, reverently, like a pilgrim in a holy place. My fingers traced the edge of the kitchen counter, the back of the sofa, the spine of a book on the coffee table.

And then I saw it.

A framed photograph on the bookshelf. It was him, of course, but not alone. She was there, too—the woman from the restaurant, her head tilted against his shoulder, her smile soft and radiant.

Something inside me snapped.

The sound of the front door opening shattered the silence.

I froze, the photo still in my hand, as his voice echoed through the apartment.

“Yeah, I’m home,” he said, his tone clipped, probably on the phone. “I’ll call you back.”

The click of the call ending was deafening.

And then he saw me.

For a moment, neither of us moved. His expression was a kaleidoscope of emotions—shock, anger, disbelief.

“What the—?” he started, but the words died in his throat as his eyes dropped to the photo in my hand.

“I just wanted to understand,” I said softly, my voice trembling. “Why her? Why not me?”

His jaw tightened, his hands curling into fists at his sides. “Who the hell are you? How did you get in here?”

I stepped closer, the photo still clutched against my chest like a shield. “I’m the one who’s been there for you. Watching, supporting, loving you when no one else understood.”

His face darkened, the anger in his eyes hardening into something sharper, colder. “You need to leave. Now.”

But I didn’t move.

“You don’t see it, do you?” I whispered. “How perfect we could be. How much I’ve given up for you. She doesn’t know you like I do. She’ll never understand you the way I do.”

His voice dropped, low and dangerous. “Get. Out.”

But I wasn’t afraid—not of him, not of anything. Not anymore.

“I’m not leaving,” I said, my voice steady now. “Not until you see me.”

The argument escalated quickly. His anger clashed with my desperation, the two of us locked in a battle neither could win. He tried to push past me, to call for help, but I grabbed his arm.

“Don’t,” I said, my voice breaking. “Don’t do this to me.”

He wrenched free, his movements sharp and unforgiving. “You’re insane.”

The word hit me like a physical blow.

Insane.

After everything I’d done for him, everything I’d sacrificed, that was what he thought of me?

I don’t remember much after that. The emotions—rage, heartbreak, betrayal—all blurred together in a red haze. I remember the sound of something shattering, the photo frame hitting the floor. I remember his voice, shouting, but the words were lost in the chaos.

And then, silence.

When I came back to myself, I was standing in the middle of the room, my chest heaving, my hands trembling. He was gone—whether he had fled or whether I had…

I couldn’t let myself think about it.

The apartment felt different now. The air was heavier, the shadows deeper. I looked down at the shattered photo frame, the glass shards glinting like tiny stars.

I picked up the photo, carefully tucking it into my pocket.

It wasn’t over. Not yet.

Katsuki would understand eventually. He had to.

After all, no one loved him like I did.

The room is cold, sterile. The kind of cold that seeps into your bones, reminding you that you’re somewhere you don’t belong. A single light hangs overhead, casting harsh shadows on the walls, and the mirror on the far side reflects nothing but my own weary face.

Well, not just my face.

I know he’s there, standing on the other side. Watching me. Listening.

The officer across from me clears his throat, his expression caught somewhere between pity and disgust. “You’ve said enough. We’ve got everything we need.”

But I’m not finished. Not yet.

“You don’t understand,” I say, my voice soft but steady. “It’s not what you think.”

He sighs, flipping through the file in front of him. I catch glimpses of photos—my notes, my gifts, his shattered photo frame. Evidence, they’d called it. Proof of my “obsession.”

“Help me understand, then,” he says, leaning forward, his tone patronizing. “Because right now, it looks like you broke into Katsuki Bakugou’s apartment and—”

“I didn’t break in,” I interrupt, my voice rising just enough to startle him. “I let myself in. He left the door open for me. He knew I was coming.”

The officer’s brows knit together in disbelief. “And why would he do that?”

I smile, leaning back in my chair, feeling the faintest flicker of triumph. “Because he needed to see me. To finally realize who I am.”

The officer shakes his head, muttering something under his breath before standing. “You’re delusional.”

The voices outside the interrogation room are muffled, but I can still hear fragments of their conversation.

“She’s nuts. Every detail she remembers—it’s like she’s been living his life alongside him.”

“Obsessed, more like. Did you see the journal we confiscated? She knows what time he brushes his teeth, for crying out loud.”

Someone else laughs nervously. “Poor guy. No wonder he’s freaked out. She’s on a whole other level.”

But then I hear his voice—low, gravelly, and unmistakable.

“She’s different.”

The laughter stops.

“What do you mean?” another officer asks cautiously.

There’s a pause, and I imagine him standing there, arms crossed, that signature scowl on his face.

“I’ve had fans follow me before,” he says, his tone unreadable. “They scream, they cry, they cross boundaries. But this one… she’s worse.”

His voice drops lower, and I lean forward, straining to hear.

“She’s worse because she actually got under my skin.”

The officer returns to the room, his expression stony. “This is over. You’re being transferred soon.”

But I barely hear him. My eyes are on the mirror, on the faint outline of movement behind it. I know he’s still there. Watching. Listening.

“I’m not sorry,” I say, directing my words to him, not the officer. “I’d do it all again. For you.”

The officer exhales sharply, shaking his head as he gathers his papers. “You’re a real piece of work.”

He leaves, and for a moment, it’s just me and the silence.

And then the door opens again.

I feel him before I see him. The weight of his presence, the intensity of his gaze—it’s unmistakable. He doesn’t sit, doesn’t speak. He just stands there, arms crossed, his crimson eyes burning into me like fire.

“You really are different,” he says finally, his voice low and sharp.

I smile, the kind of smile that comes from knowing you’ve won something no one else ever could.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” I whisper.

He doesn’t reply. His jaw tightens, and for the first time, I see something in his eyes that wasn’t there before. Not anger. Not fear.

Something darker.

Something that looks an awful lot like acknowledgment.

End.

a/n: another reminder to never stalk people. i didn't write this to romanticize stalking, however, this idea's been weighing in my head and i knew i needed to write it down somewhere. here is somewhere. k bye.

63 notes · View notes

shizuturnspages · 2 days ago

Note

Just yandere ayato and diluc with reader who has been through a lot. Like war, abuse, losing friends and death? You name it

And yet reader remain gentle and kind through it all.

I like this one because we all know diluc turns cold after his father's death, meanwhile ayato had to put up a face and gets crueler in order to keep the peace around his clan,

Yandere Ayato and Diluc with a Gentle S/O Who’s Been Through It All

Yandere Ayato

The Facade Falls for You

❥ Ayato is a master manipulator, wearing a calm, collected mask to navigate the storm of Inazuma’s politics. Yet, with you, it crumbles. Your gentleness is disarming in a way that terrifies him; he feels like you’re the only person who truly sees him beyond his strategic facade.

❥ He becomes obsessively protective, not just of your safety but of your kindness. He sees the world as something cruel, unworthy of you, and he’s determined to shield you from anything that could tarnish your purity.

Fixated on Your Strength

❥ Ayato admires your resilience, though he’d never outright say it. To him, your ability to endure so much and still remain gentle is nothing short of miraculous—and it feeds his obsession.

❥ However, he also hates the world for what it’s done to you. While you forgive and move forward, he quietly seethes, plotting ways to punish anyone who’s hurt you. They won’t even know it’s him pulling the strings until it’s far too late.

Subtle Possessiveness

❥ Ayato’s control over you is subtle but firm. He makes it impossible for you to leave his side by weaving himself into every aspect of your life—offering you comfort, opportunities, and protection under the guise of kindness.

❥ “You’ve done so much on your own,” he murmurs, taking your hand. “Let me carry some of that burden for you. You deserve to rest.”

A Calculated Protector

❥ Ayato will eliminate threats to your happiness without a second thought. Whether it’s someone from your past or a current obstacle, he’ll handle it quietly and efficiently. You’ll never have to lift a finger—or even know.

❥ But if you insist on staying connected to anyone he deems harmful? His tone sharpens, his smile a little too tight. “You trust me, don’t you? Then let me decide what’s best for you.”

Scenario:

You were sitting in the gardens of the Kamisato Estate, the sun casting a soft glow over the flowers. Ayato watched you from a distance, his heart twisting. How could someone who’d faced so much still look at the world with such warmth?

He approached, offering you a cup of tea. “You seem lost in thought,” he said, his voice gentle.

You smiled, though the melancholy in your eyes was impossible to miss. “Just thinking about the past. It’s strange, isn’t it? How the world can be so cruel yet still so beautiful?”

Ayato’s jaw tightened. He hated hearing you speak of the pain you’d endured, even if you did so with such grace. “You shouldn’t have to carry those memories alone,” he said, his tone firm. “Let me share them with you.”

“You’ve done so much for me already,” you replied, your smile soft but hesitant.

“And I’ll continue to do so,” Ayato said, his hand brushing yours. “Because you deserve more than what this world has given you. And I’ll ensure you have it—even if it means bending the world itself.”

Yandere Diluc

A Mirror to His Own Pain

❥ Your ability to remain kind despite your suffering resonates deeply with Diluc, who turned cold and distant after his father’s death. He sees in you the person he wishes he could have been, and that admiration quickly turns into obsession.

❥ He clings to you like a lifeline, desperate to keep your warmth in his otherwise dark and lonely world.

Overbearing Protection

❥ Diluc’s protective streak is intense. He knows first-hand how cruel the world can be, and he refuses to let it harm you any further. Whether it’s sheltering you at Dawn Winery or accompanying you everywhere, he’s always there.

❥ “You’ve suffered enough,” he says, his voice low and serious. “Let me take care of you now.”

Anger at Your Past

❥ While you forgive those who’ve hurt you, Diluc cannot. His anger burns hot and relentless, and he channels it into ensuring no one from your past ever gets close to you again.

❥ If he finds out someone who hurt you is still alive? Well, the Darknight Hero has another mission.

Struggling with Your Independence

❥ Diluc struggles with the fact that you can stand on your own after everything you’ve been through. While he respects your strength, it also feeds his insecurities—he wants you to need him.

❥ This can lead to moments of conflict, where his overprotectiveness clashes with your desire to handle things yourself.

Scenario:

The crackling of the fireplace filled the quiet room at Dawn Winery. You sat curled up on the couch, staring into the flames. Diluc watched you from across the room, his expression unreadable.

“You’re too quiet,” he finally said, breaking the silence.

You glanced at him and smiled faintly. “Just thinking.”

“About what?” His voice was soft, but there was an edge to it—an undercurrent of worry.

“The past,” you admitted. “It’s strange. I’ve been through so much, but I’m still here. Sometimes I wonder why.”

Diluc crossed the room in a few strides, kneeling in front of you. He took your hands in his, his grip firm but gentle. “You’re here because you’re strong,” he said, his crimson eyes locking onto yours. “Because you’ve endured more than anyone should have to. And I swear, as long as I’m alive, I won’t let you suffer anymore.”

You shook your head. “Diluc, you can’t protect me from everything.”

“Maybe not,” he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. “But I can try. And I will. Because I can’t lose you—not to this world, not to anything.”

57 notes · View notes

treatbuckywkisses · 1 day ago

Note

Nika the way you write !!!! Is SO !!!!!!!!!!!!! Every piece you ever make is so vivid and visual to me !! YOU ARE SUCH A STORYTELLER!!!!!!!

CAUSE AND EFFECT

"It’s infuriating to him, the way you get to use your powers. The way you don’t need to think about consequences, because they don’t have to be permanent, don’t have to be something you need to live with for the rest of your life. To you, time has always been something that can be changed with a single snap of your fingers. Whatever you do can just as easily be undone." - I am OBSESSED with Bucky's pov this is everything to me🥹 and the way he's thinking about readers powers being a gift while she's carrying it calling it a curse is SO scream worthy

"With all the good that you could do, you choose to do nothing instead; to stay out of the picture entirely and burn through your powers just because you can, wasting them all on things that don’t mean anything. " - GOD YOU ARE SO EVIL this is such a realistic first impression from bucky though 😔

"Something about her words strikes him like a match, and so he tilts his head and squints at her and thinks that maybe, just maybe, he’s got it wrong." - Bitch I have CHILLS. (Also Becca knows he's in love w her) This realization is everything. Pure perfection.

"Honestly, he can’t. He’s still trying to pick up on it, the split second between before and after, that little change of your posture, your hair, your face, that tells him more time has passed for you than it has for him. " - FUCK OFF SRE YOU ACTUALLY KIDDING ME HES WATCHING FOR HER TIME TRAVELIJHBTHROUGH SUBTLE CHANGES YOU ARE INSANE SOMEONE LOCK HER UP IM DONE WITH HER GET AWAY

"He can’t help it. He wonders what your original answer was." - IAM KICKING MY FEET AND TWIRLING MY HAIR AND SCREAMING AND WRITIJG IN MY DIARY HE WANTS HER SO BAD I CANT STAND YOU

"You’re grouchy in the mornings and you make terrible jokes when you’re nervous and you have a strange feud with his cat and your smile makes him want to put his fist through the wall because what is he supposed to do with any of this?" - BAGSJSG THIS IS SO FUNNY IM SO GIDDY RN UOURE INSANE KISS ME ON THE MOUTH

"You’re you, and he’s him, and there’s a sort of "us" in the both of you that doesn’t exist in real life. So when you let him lace his fingers with yours and press your lips to his forehead and it feels easy, that’s usually the point when he wakes up, heart tumbling over itself, right hand tracing the ghost of your touch, always too much, never enough. " - oh my God get a GRIP girl I'm tearing up at this paragraph you are fucking joking and then you go and MAKE THEM HOLD HANDS OH MY GOD AND HE DOESNT EVEN FUCKING REMEMBR SRE YOU FUCKING KIDING NE RIGHT NOW THATS EVEN MORE FUCKED UO EHY DO YOU HATE ME RIGHT NOW NIKA OH MY GOD ??????????????????

here I am feeling all of the feelings with a SIDE PIECE you're clinically insane I can't stand you

Pls fix my heart I can't take this i need them to kiss rn and he together forever and ever 😭😭😭😭😭

❤️ a good time!

tat!bucky’s favorite (or least favorite) thing about twelve

… why not both?

cause and effect

chapter summary: How Bucky fell in love with Twelve: Slowly, and then all at once.

pairing: bucky barnes x time witch!reader

word count: 1.8k

warnings: light angst and negative self talk (this is bucky y'all); some light pining 🤭please note that my blog is rated 18+. minors dni. ageless/empty blogs will be blocked without warning.

a/n: i've literally had this one in my drafts for about two years and i hadn't actually planned on posting it for a while yet but i did promise distractions. and i missed him. i always do.

this is part of the time after time universe but can be read as a teaser and/or a standalone 💚

Bucky’s relationship with time has been fractured ever since a cold day in January that stole away the life he was headed towards and turned him into the monster underneath a child’s bed.

It’s hard to feel good about the concept of time travel once a lot of your own time has been taken away from you. Even now, there’s only so many things in his life he has control over; like the fact that he’s actively choosing to go back to therapy now, or that he’s able to keep a pet for the first time since he was thirteen years old. Stupid little things, like what kind of food he wants for lunch or whether he should take the stairs or the elevator.

Every single one of these things he’s fought for tooth and nail, clawing his way out of the past and carving out his own space in reality again, struggling, trying, hanging on like he wasn’t able to all those decades ago.

He’s probably still failing.

Some days, clinging to the present is tense and brings him nothing but grief. Sometimes, it feels like he’s going to have to mourn the past forever, whatever might have been; and maybe that’s his sentence.

He wouldn’t have wished it on anyone. He deserves worse.

And then there’s you.

Flickering in and out of time, constantly moving, changing in the time it takes him to blink.

It’s infuriating to him, the way you get to use your powers. The way you don’t need to think about consequences, because they don’t have to be permanent, don’t have to be something you need to live with for the rest of your life. To you, time has always been something that can be changed with a single snap of your fingers. Whatever you do can just as easily be undone.

Once you decide you’ve seen enough, you can just take the scene from the top.

And you’re so stubborn.

You’ve already seen how this goes on if you let it, and so you’re always right, end of story. There’s an ease to your steps because of it, a nonchalance in every movement, and it makes Bucky’s blood boil to see it so plainly.

With all the good that you could do, you choose to do nothing instead; to stay out of the picture entirely and burn through your powers just because you can, wasting them all on things that don’t mean anything.

How many lives could you potentially save?

Instead, you consume disturbing amounts of caffeine and then continue to provide running commentary to the world around you based on things that, to him, never happen at all. "Do this", "don’t do that", "take the other one", or, his absolute favorite, "don’t make me fix that".

Why not? he wants to ask, say, demand. Why not fix all of it?

It takes a while for him to realize that all of your fire means you’re burning from both ends. In fact, it takes Becca.

"You should bring her by sometime," she tells him on a rainy afternoon. "While I’m still alive and kicking."

His little sister just turned ninety-eight. Her kitchen sideboard is filled with black-and-white pictures reminding him of all the things in her life that he missed, arranged in perfect little wooden frames.

"And why would I do that?" Bucky asks, scowling at his cards.

"Because you keep mentioning her," Rebecca says dryly and whisks the cards onto her pile with quick fingers.

"You gotta be kidding me," he groans, noting down her points. "And I don’t."

"Do, too. I don’t remember you being this terrible at this game."

"Because I haven’t caught you when you’re cheating."

"Exactly. It’s embarrassing." She wins the next trick, too. "How’s Tuesday?"

"Am I clairvoyant now?"

"I was thinking lunch."

"No." Finally, he gets a couple of points down. When he glances up at his sister again, she’s looking at him expectantly and he sighs. "What?"

"You can’t fault me for being curious," she says. She has just as many opinions as she did when she was sixteen. Her eyes are still the same, too, the same shade of blue as his and the same glimmer of archness as their mother.

"Don’t you think it’s weird?" Bucky says, finally giving in. "The whole … time thing?"

"I think it’s very weird, but so’s you returning from the dead and kvetching about it." Her eyes narrow when he starts to protest. His mouth closes again. "Besides," she continues, shuffling her hand around, "it doesn’t sound all that fun."

"To have the power to never make mistakes?"

"To have to live through every mistake twice without anyone knowing."

Something about her words strikes him like a match, and so he tilts his head and squints at her and thinks that maybe, just maybe, he’s got it wrong.

That you carry not only your past, but all the futures you’ve seen that never came to be; all the what ifs having turned into answers.

And he thinks, how nice. And then he thinks, how horrifying.

It’s a thought that follows him over the next couple of weeks, and it starts reframing your interactions for him, in a way.

"Will you stop staring at me," you say without looking up from your book.

Honestly, he can’t. He’s still trying to pick up on it, the split second between before and after, that little change of your posture, your hair, your face, that tells him more time has passed for you than it has for him.

It’s more of a feeling than anything else, something right at the back of his mind telling him that something is different if he concentrates on it enough, but he’s never sure what it is. And he doesn’t like that; not one bit.

So Bucky crosses his arms and leans back. "Why?"

A flash of irritation makes your nose twitch, even though you still refuse to meet his eye.

"It’s rude, for one."

"Noted." He waits for the two that never comes. "Anything else?"

And there it is. A blink-and-you-miss-it kind of moment, like the air shifting around you ever so slightly, a certain knowing glint in your eyes when you roll them and get up.

"Annoying!"

He can’t help it. He wonders what your original answer was.

***

Bucky’s relationship with time changes slowly, the deepest cuts carefully mending themselves until looking back doesn’t feel like getting his bones ripped apart anymore, until he looks at you on a cold day in January and realizes he’s fucked.

At first, he hopes that it might be a fluke. A trick of the light, maybe, or seasonal allergies. That’s the reason why his eyes are drawn to your face as soon as he enters a room; the closest source of discomfort always the thing he seeks out first. That’s the reason why his chest constricts like that.

But the truth is, he knows this feeling has been building slowly; he’s just been unwilling to admit it.

Something soft and delicate has started to nestle in that gaping hole inside his chest, unbothered by the walls he’s so carefully built up.

He’d never planned on you.

Fuck, if he’d known in the beginning, he might’ve …

No, he thinks. He wouldn’t have changed anything.

Because you’re too good for him, anyway, and he knows it. Smart and strong and funny and gorgeous and capable of things he’s not sure he’ll ever fully comprehend; and it’s worse than that, because he knows you now.

You’re grouchy in the mornings and you make terrible jokes when you’re nervous and you have a strange feud with his cat and your smile makes him want to put his fist through the wall because what is he supposed to do with any of this?

He’s not made for this dance anymore. That part was taken from him so long ago, and he’s delusional to think that anything or anyone could return it to him after all the bridges he’d been made to cross and burn. Why would someone like him deserve to be given tenderness anymore in this life? Why would anyone want to try?

But that foolish thing blooming inside him feels a lot like hope, despite of what he keeps telling himself.

There’s just something about you that keeps pulling him in, and honestly, he’s tired of fighting it. Then again, the thought of you feeling the same is nothing short of ridiculous.

He’s not the same guy as he used to be. Hell, sometimes he’ll look at old photographs and barely recognize himself.

He remembers life before, and maybe that’s what makes this so hard. He remembers talking to pretty girls, their bright smiles, their soft skin underneath his hands. Good times were easy to come by, even though life was hard in a different way, then. But he was good at it; acting on his feelings alone used to be simple, fun, second-nature almost.

It’s different now.

It used to be different only once before, and look where that’s gotten him.

No, he can’t say anything. Not ever; or not yet, at any rate.

Sometimes, though, Bucky lies awake at night and listens to the rain knocking against his window, and he remembers how much easier falling asleep used to be when he had someone next to him and his mattress didn’t swallow him alive.

He’ll remember the dark circles under your eyes and wish it could be as easy as asking, too. He wonders if there’s a universe you remember where he tries, but he doubts it.

These days, he knows his mind again. And it’s not a burden he wants to share.

You have enough to carry on your own.

Maybe, he thinks as he stares up at the ceiling at three in the morning, maybe there’s still a certain comfort in your powers, in knowing all the possibilities, but it also means constantly losing something that’s real; always mourning the life that isn’t.

He can relate to that.

And maybe that means you can relate to him, too, at least a little bit.

It’s odd, how comforting that last little thought is to him.

When he does eventually fall asleep, you make your way into his dreams, too, sometimes. Those times are the worst.

You’re you, and he’s him, and there’s a sort of "us" in the both of you that doesn’t exist in real life. So when you let him lace his fingers with yours and press your lips to his forehead and it feels easy, that’s usually the point when he wakes up, heart tumbling over itself, right hand tracing the ghost of your touch, always too much, never enough.

He knows it’s not real.

He knows it’s just an indulgence; selfish, really.

The problem is that whatever small hope has decided to settle in his very core is impossible to kill, no matter how much he pushes it down; and he’s not sure he wants to lose it again.

Secretly, silently, serendipitously, you make him have faith in the future again.

But it’s not time for it yet.

if you want to read more about these two (plus a lot of time related shenanigans), read the main series here. or check out the rest of my bucky fics, that's also an option 💚 i don't do tag lists but you can follow @intrepidacious-fics for update notifications

#time after time #nika <3 #fuck this fic actually #i will NEVER get over this #this is going to haunt me #and keep me up at night

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riongeee · 2 days ago

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Jamil, immediately after graduating: Quit your job

Sebek: ???

Jamil: Travel the world with me

Two people with predetermined futures running away together to experience the world :')

But genuinely as a little thing, I think that would be so fun. Like, imagine, Jamil who has been forced to constantly be meeker and to lower himself to appease people and has always had the looming future of being a mere servant. Then we have Sebek, loud but still has that future of having to lower himself to someone.

Like, Jamil would probably hear tidbits about Sebek and the fact that their similar, like we already know that Sebek and he are both bodyguards, and despite Sebek 'liking' his future (Quotations because does he like it or is that just all he's ever known) or is he just resigned? So Jamil takes one look at Sebek and just goes 'this one, this ones mine'.

Like at some point Sebek becomes known as the honorary Scarabia first year because Jamil (I'm picturing this post his overblot) is absolutely overprotective of his first year. Like, Jamil teaches Sebek things that Sebek would've never really spent much thought on otherwise. They cook together, Sebek learns Jamils style of dance and in return Sebek teaches Jamil how to ride on horseback and introduces him to obscure operas as he begins to come out of his shell. Jamil begins to see more to Sebek than the Malleus obsessed,loud knight everyone else sees. It comes to the point that when people see one they ask where the other is (enter angst about Kalim remembering when he was like that with Jamil????)

Also, Diasomnia in all of this, they just assume it's Sebeks admiration for a senior. In the actual game, Sebek also admires Jamil, so for them, it would be a case of Sebek just thinking he found a new person to respect. They only really notice things are different when Sebeks absence makes it known. It makes itself known through the lack of a sonorous voice waking Silver up; through the lack of joyful compliments towards Malleus; through the lack of panicked flails as he tried to mitigate Lillias disasters in the kitchen. They find themselves oddly out of place without their first year, yet now, they have no idea to reach out, they can only watch as Sebek laughs in a way they've never seen before (had they ever seen him laugh so hard he snorts?)

Enter, the conversation. Personally, I think it would be after Malleus' overblot, like not even graduation. Jamil realizes not only does he want to travel the world, but he wants his friend to do so too. In the moments where everything was in limbo, Jamil regrets that Sebek has never been able to think of a future that deviates from his set path and he decides to try change that.

Whether Sebek takes that chance, is an entirely different story :)

#scarabia #sebek zigvolt #twisted wonderland #twst sebek #malleus draconia #twst #twisted wonderland au #jamil viper #twst jamil #twisted wonderland jamil #finally posted again #teehee #personally I didn't read this as romantic but my friend thought it was so idk #think what you will

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thepunkmuppet · 23 hours ago

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approaching The Confession Scene and what the fuck. this is genuinely tragic like I’ve always seen it as a meme, a joke, an iconic moment in fandom history, whatever, I’m a tumblr user, but now that I’m actually here it’s just fucking SAD

season 15 as a whole is NOT bad. it’s really not. but there’s zero destiel. they rarely speak at all unless it’s plot-related, one (1) episode pairs them together, frankly season seven was ten times more focused on their friendship and that’s INSANE because cas is only in like five fucking episodes of that one. they have a mini arc midway through the season which is very gorgeous and well-done, but it then goes absolutely nowhere and nothing at all is done to make it textually romantic.

by which I mean: no episodes have dean or cas reacting personally to sam and eileen’s relationship, or any other romantic relationship they come across. we’re never shown anything even remotely romantic even in an unrequited sense (no post-realisation awkwardness, no lingering shots of cas pining from afar, etc etc). it reads like a normal season of the show, which, yeah, I think those two are pretty fucking gay regardless, but they’re always textually written as a friendship, with no explicit cues to clue the audience in that there are canon romantic feelings. and that doesn’t change here, at all.

so I guess what I’m saying is the confession scene is purely just a moment of fan service. as stunning as the speech itself is, and as well as it fits cas’s character, the writers throughout the season didn’t actually give a fuck to make destiel ROMANTIC even in a one-sided way. film is a language and as much as misha does in his acting, even from castiel’s perspective they’re still framed as a friendship within the show itself RIGHT up until he says the words I love you. they weren’t interested in actually depicting a (even one-sided) queer love story, just wanted to give fans their “okay here it is we did it guys!” moment at the end, so that way they didn’t have to actually show an explicitly romantic gay love story, they could just say some words, kill cas off and boom it’s canon! here you go people we’ve been leading on, mocking and low-key gaslighting for eleven years!

idk man it’s just so disappointing. I knew it was and I know everyone has been talking about it for years now but my GOD it’s so bad 😭 I can’t even tell you how bizzare it is to have seen destiel confession meme on here and in various fandom video essays EVERY DAY FOR FOUR PLUS YEARS and now here I am, watching it go down in real time with full context, having watched over 300 episodes of this show, invested, obsessed, and REALLY FUCKING UPSET AAAAHHH

EDIT: forgot to mention this originally. the actual concept of cas’s moment of perfect happiness killing him, while kind of stolen from buffy, is AMAZING. and the literal perfect opportunity to have a building textual confirmation of his feelings throughout the season, where he realises what that moment will be, and it ends in the tragic confession of his love. like that’s insane that’s perfect. but no it just comes out of nowhere so oh fucking well whatever I guess! they’re canon so we should all be happy! I hate this stupid bumhole show AUGH no one talk to me ever :(

#angry typed all of this instead of doing my actual film homework #but yeah man just what the fuck #in all fairness I have not yet watched 15x17 or 18 because I’m TERRIFIED #so maybe all of a sudden we get a bunch of cas pining shots and gay shit but from what I’ve heard I REALLY DON’T THINK SO 😭😭😭😭#uuuggghhh I hate them I hate them I hate them (I love them more than I love myself and I’m so fucking sad that this is their legacy)#destiel #destiel confession #superhell #destielgate #spn #supernatural #spn meta #dean winchester #castiel

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househrt · 2 days ago

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your hilson truth serum fic has been living in my brain all week i'm OBSESSED. your writing is like. you have literally taken them from the show itself and plopped them into these lil scenarios your characterization is just so good!!

thank you!!!! I felt bad bc I took a big break before writing the last chapter so I didn't know if it would still be cohesive or satisfying, but v nice comments have built my ego back up and I love that

I'm using my creative writing degree for the most important thing in the world (making those repressed freaks suffer and then kiss)

also (and idk if this is interesting/useful for anyone but anyway) when I got back into writing fanfic after years and years, I would fully write Hilson stuff with this video playing next to me, to remember what their voices sounded like:

youtube

#asks #house md #my posts #malpractice md #hatecrimes md #hilson

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catras-breakup-song · 3 days ago

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it’s already annoying enough that they still, in 2025, 4.5 years after the fifth season ended, run blogs almost solely dedicated to hating on a cartoon since they can’t find a better hobby, but what really bothers me at this point is how they have to make their superiority complex everyone else’s problem and go out of their way to bully & harass stans over their posts under the guise of “debunking arguments” (which, even if that is true, debates aren’t always inherently invited and dragging someone into them by assuming “existence of post = open discussion” when they aren’t interested may violate a boundary), usually indirectly so that we don’t know and won’t respond to it.

glimmadora shippers (who are catradora antis, nothing wrong with just liking the ship itself!) are definitely the most frequently guilty, thinking of 1-2 blog usernames in particular here, and they largely overlap with the first group in your list — many of them tend to also be lumity fans (again, so am i, i have the owl house showrunner’s art of them as my main blog’s icon; that alone is not the issue) and compare it to catradora because if it’s not perfect fluff then it’s apparently not acceptable to portray in (animated) media. it’s rather ironic because they are so loud about being against toxic behavior + obsession with people minding their own business, but have no problem actively engaging with these things online in order to make sure others know they hold the wrong opinion over pixels + lines on a screen.

the ones that have really surprised me though, are hordak & shadow weaver stans. it’s a cheap excuse to accuse them of ableism* & misogyny & lesbophobia (and trust me, i also hate pointing fingers at baseless bigotry when it doesn’t apply tot the situation), yet abusive characters in this show are clearly fine to enjoy just as long as they’re not catra, which therefore implies… exactly those ideas. they hide behind a façade of caring about ableism via entrapta’s writing** and the end scene of 4x01 when catra holds hordak’s crystal over his head to bribe him, but either they’re very biased and cherrypick who deserves protection from discriminatory beliefs based on a subjective “perfect victim” status in the fandom, or they’re simply weaponizing those criticism arguments in order to silence opposing voices among the discourse regarding catra’s redemption arc getting more attention, since she’s a main character, than the cardboard cutout big-bad villain, who wasn’t supposed to have anywhere near as much development or sympathy given from the beginning. i roll my eyes when they complain about how season five catered to her so much, especially instead of hordak, because the show has literally always been primarily about catradora and the best friends squad by extension; hordak was nothing more than a tool for the narrative. that means you got what you came for, so you can either stay mad or leave ─ i highly suggest the latter for everyone else's sake.

i’ve been collecting receipts of the latter group that you can check through all the various reblogs (it’s not a neat consecutive thread unfortunately, sorry) in the notes here, just because it’s difficult for me to believe those takes are actually real if i can’t prove it to even just myself, lol lmao.

another thing i’d like to mention is that i’ve seen antis mention biphobia coming from she-ra stans a few times now, and as a bisexual activist who is unapologetic about calling that crap out without any respect for the perpetrator, the funny thing is… this is pretty much the only fandom where it hasn’t occurred that much in my experience, let alone to such an unbearable level — mind you, i’ve been here since june 2020 (not on this account, but wherever SPOP existed on the internet). it’s always been much more prevalent in arcane spaces, hell even the owl house with three prominent bisexual characters and only one canon lesbian is filled with far too much erasure & policing regarding our identity. also no one ever cares about bringing up bisexuals unless it’s to hate on us somehow, so i always find a sudden uptick in concern from monos that can be essentially read as a “gotcha” or otherwise supporting detail rather than its own thoughtful discussion to be deceitful and i tend to be quite wary of it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

*ableism in this case comes from catra’s heavy BPD-coding, which i can speak on as i also have it — or at least share most of its symptoms consistently, which has been overall agreed upon by my psychiatrist.

**that’s not to say how entrapta being autistic was handled, especially in 5x02, isn’t problematic, especially considering i’m autistic too and that has rightfully made our community uncomfortable, generally speaking. i just don’t trust authentic critique with genuine love for the character or even basic respect for this piece of media as a whole to come from that crowd specifically.

i'm losing my mind how are there STILL ACTIVE CATRA HATE BLOGS it's been FOUR YEARS how are you still this mad about a female abuse victim!!!!!! how do you STILL not get it!!!!!!!!!!

I have been in enough fandoms to understand that some of the people who stick around the longest are those who act the most scarred after watching the media. It's like stockholme syndrome. Or it's like hating the thing is what gives them drive in the world.

I have also been on the other side of this. I remained a Homestuck blog for a whole four years after the ending made me depressed about Terezi Pyrope, even lasting an additional year and a half after the dogshit epilogues released, through to the demise of Hiveswap and Homestuck^2, before I realised enough was enough and let Adventure Time give me sanctuary again.

But Homestuck had its Gamzee fans who hated the comic and fandom, Adventure Time had its Lemongrab fans who hated the show and fandom, and it seems She-ra has its fair share of antis.

The She-ra antis consist of the following groups, from my observation:

Former fans who got obsessed with some other show and have to bash She-ra because it ain't cool anymore. Usually Owl House fans but can be from anywhere. Their hate is universally connected to propping something else up, and is never done in isolation.

Hordak fans who hate Catra and maybe every other character and crew member and the show. There are a lot of the reverse, Catra fans who hate Hordak, which is part of why this group is so persistent, as a "counter" to this Hordak hate. However, the Catra fans who are Hordak antis MOSTLY do not hate the show (they are just... out of touch with it and generally have bad takes). I've seen one or two extreme cases of Catra apologists accusing Adora, Scorpia, and even Entrapta of abuse, but they were completely alone in their feelings. The Hordak fans who hate Catra tend to also hate Glimmer, Mermista, Adora, Bow, and say that the show is ableist or whatever, but they do not actually harbor much love for Entrapta. Her victimisation is an excuse for their behaviour and they have no understanding of her chaotic character. Do not interact.

Glimmadora fans (the ones who purely seem to exist to make 'Spop Is Abusive' posts). Why the fuck Glimmadora fans hate the show so much, I do not understand. But these are probably the most In-Your-Face of these three groups. While the Hordak fans mentioned above have a lot of similarity to Homestuck Gamzee fans or Adventure Time Lemongrab fans in the weird way they'll hate on the show for doing their blorbo wrong, Glimmadora fans don't have that evidence because they don't really care about Glimmer or Adora. They have absolutely nothing to say about the show, other than that it is Bad. My theory on these Glimmadora fans is that they really liked the Glimmer and Adora ship on a superficial level, and then the show decided to have its Deeper Themes and give Catra and Adora a messy, complicated relationship. There was a lot happening after season 3 where people went "CATRADORA IS REALLY ABUSIVE AND CATRA IS HORRIBLE AND YOU SHOULDNT SHIP HER WITH ANYONE". This period was SO fucking harmful to the fandom that it never recovered, so much work was lost and deleted from AO3. People would say "Glimmadora is a much better ship anyway". But then when season 4 rolled around and, uhh, Glimmer was acting like a little shit all season (for good reason but she really fucked things up with Adora), and Glimmadora crumbled into ash? Well the Glimmadora truthists felt like the show was working against them and that Season 5 was a grand conspiracy to make the Abusive ship Catradora canon!!! The funniest part of this is I sympathise a lot with these feelings. I used to be a Glimmadora truther myself when I watched the show in fall 2021. I was like, "wow, look how nice this ship is. And they go with catradora in the end?? Fucking HOW???". But then seasons 4 and 5 happened and.... yeah, I was disappointed with how Glimmer and Adora's friendship ended up, but I was ENAMORED by the messiness of Catra's character and how raw her and Adora felt about each other even in spite of all the bullshit. I never made excuses about the show being abuse apologising. I analysed it purely in how believable the relationships were and what the intentions of the characters are.

Of these groups, the ones responsible for the most actual SPOP Anti blogs are undoubtedly the Glimmadoras. The only time I've seen something similar, so many antis appearing, was because of Steven Universe ship wars. You have NO IDEA how petty people feel about Lapidot, Amedot, all the dots, all the amethysts. A crew member was chased off the internet over it, or left the internet over the show's own decisions, depending on whether you believe the """screenshots""" that were taken of Zuke's ""private blog""".

#discourse

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chomp-bomb · 2 days ago

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People in fandoms really need to let go of canon pairings being endgame.

First off, a disclaimer: I am not saying you can’t like canon pairings. Obviously. I love a lot of canon ships in tons of different fandoms. This is not me saying you can’t ship them or me attacking them so please take more than two seconds to understand what I’m saying before jumping me.

With that out of the way (rant below the cut):

It is actually so frustrating how people cling to canon pairings like they’re the only valid ships to ever exist.

I’m bringing this up specifically because of the new Noxus trailer that came out yesterday. I’ve already seen the absolute warzone that it’s becoming on TikTok with people shouting about how “Katarina has a boyfriend!!! She’s straight!!!” in response to literally any mention of liking the character or shipping her with someone else.

So to the people who think that a character having a Canon partner means that every other ship is wrong: hate to be the one to break this to you, but it’s not actually a reason to invalidate other ships.

I’m gonna bring up the Timebomb vs Lightcannon debate.

Timebomb shippers have been incredibly aggressive towards any Lightcannon shippers, and are so quick to say Lightcannon wouldn’t work because it’s not canon. I’d like to remind you all that canon doesn’t mean people can’t ship Lightcannon. Timebomb being canon doesn’t make it immediately better or higher than Lightcannon. The air of superiority that so many canon shippers have over fanon shippers is completely unwarranted. Your ship is not immediately better because they are canon.

And here’s the thing: I don’t even like Lightcannon myself! I’m very much a Timebomb shipper. But just because I prefer one pairing over the other doesn’t mean that Lightcannon is a bad ship. I can recognize that, despite my own dislike for it, people are entitled to their own interpretations of the characters and their relationships to one another.

I get how easy it is to fall into the mindset of “My pairing is canon, so therefore it is the only correct one and everyone else’s is wrong.” But at the end of the day, it’s not a reason why your ship is better. It doesn’t immediately make you more correct. It doesn’t make every other ship bad. There are tons of canon ships that are downright awful, badly written, or rushed. To be canon is to simply be the creator’s preferred pairing when creating their story. It’s nothing more than that.

People have been obsessing over non canon ships since fandom’s creation. Hell, fandom as a concept itself started because of Kirk x Spock shippers way back when.. I’d say that makes fanon pairings pretty important, don’t you think?

Anyways this once again is very common sense, but I’ll repeat that I’m not trying to attack or insult anyone regardless of where you stand on this argument.

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that-ari-blogger · 3 days ago

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Complex Motivations (You Didn't Know)

Hazbin Hotel is about redemption, and a large part of that is the complexity of motivation. Sinners have unique reasons for what got them into hell, and that intricacy is explored in great detail with the main cast, but also everyone around them.

This is actually a mercy extended to the villains. Because contrary to popular belief, having a reason for doing what your doing doesn’t make you right. The Vees, for example, are characterised entirely by their dynamic with each other, and understanding their motivation means understanding just how cruel of a person Valentino is, for example. It doesn’t justify his actions, it explains them, and makes him a more complex character than “he does bad things because he is bad”, a mentality that the show criticises at every opportunity it gets.

Speaking of which, that reductive worldview is exemplified by the folks up in heaven. Specifically, by Lute, Adam, and Sera, and You Didn’t Know exists to show them on a sliding scale of villainy, and how their place on it doesn’t matter.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD: (Hazbin Hotel)

CONTENT WARNING: (Language)

“But she was right”

The first words in any story give context to what is to come. They set up the plot, provide a question or mystery, and establish pacing. Songs in musicals are parts of the story told in microcosm, and so they apply these rules. In this case, it is important to understand that each of these people has been proven wrong.

Their worldview is measurably false, and the question is, what do they do now?

This isn’t a presentation of ideas, this isn’t a philosophical debate, this is an exploration of character in the face of challenge, and how it exposes a person's true motivation.

Starting with Lute, because she is, in my eyes, the simplest. She believes everything that she is saying with no one hundred percent certainty, and it’s almost refreshing in contrast with everyone else.

Adam and Sera are both fickle in morality, but Lute is rock solid. She is bigoted and evil, and she is owning it. She is, for lack of a better term, a paragon.

Why are we having this conversation? Angel Dust is a sinner, therefore incapable of making any points. Any evidence presented is invalid because he’s the one presenting it.

“What are we even talking about?

Some crack whore who fucked up already?

He blew his shot like the cocks in his mouth.

This discussion is senseless and petty!”

Redemption can’t be proven because redemption doesn’t exist.

It’s a flat, mindless understanding of the world that a lot of people carry, more than you think.

Dutch angle. These two make the scene unsafe. Standard filmmaking but worth pointing out.

This is called Doxastic Anxiety, according to the philosopher, Jenifer Foster. I recommend her dissertation, as well as the video by Philosophy Tube (@theabigailthorn), which discusses it in the context of deliberate ignorance, amongst other things.

Doxastic Anxiety is an aversion to forming new beliefs. In this case, Lute doesn’t want to believe that redemption is possible, so she, quite efficiently, doesn’t believe.

This isn’t an argument or a conversation, this is one side presenting evidence, and immediately getting shot down with “shut up, I’m right.” You can’t change the mind of someone who refuses to open it in the first place.

This is matched by the music itself. I’ve talked at length about Adam and Lute’s obsession with rock music and what I think about that, but there’s a gaping hole in Lute’s argument here.

The drums are doing something interesting, and I will come back to them later, but the guitar is remarkably restrained, which isn’t what you would associate with rock at all.

There's some colour symbolism here that I love. Traditionally, there is a correlation between good and evil, light and dark, white and black. Those three categories align and while there are implications there, it is storytelling standard. Except here, in this scene, the brightest part of the shot is the window into hell, and because of the shadows rendering lute in grayscale, the closest things in the scene to pure white are Angel Dust, and Charlie's hair. The filmmakers are messing with morality, so naturally, they can't resist a chance to mess with the imagery thereof. Also interesting here, the shadows are of the Angels own making because it is their architecture. They aren't just made to look bad by contrast, it's their own actions that lead to this symbolism.

Music is emotion, that’s why character playlists exist. Songs convey themes through vibes, and rock music is about big, unrestrained emotions. Rock music is fundamentally wild.

Consider Bullet With Butterfly Wings, by the Smashing Pumpkins. The song is about anger at an inability to claim freedom, and so the guitar evokes the pacing of a caged animal during the verses, then comes out swinging in the chorus only to, for lack of a better term, fumble it. The resolution at the end of each musical phrase is clumsy, like falling back to square one. The final chorus, notably, doesn’t do this, and is much more comfortable, evoking a feeling of catharsis that contrasts with the lyrics of the chorus.

Powerlessness. The character is trying to claim freedom and has transcended their anger, but it hasn’t worked. The finale is desperate, and the music thrashes against its bars, trying to break either them, or itself, all while repeatedly screaming the words:

“Despite all my rage,

I am still just a rat in a cage.”

“And I still believe that I cannot be saved.”

Maybe the bars are more than just physical. Maybe there is a psychological element to this kind of oppression.

Even Sweet Child O’ Mine, by Guns and Roses (they’re a small, up and coming band. But I think you should check them out. There’s promise there) which is calm and reminiscent for most of its runtime, is built on being dynamic. The iconic riff famously bounces between highs and lows to mimic the highs and lows of a life lived.

It’s messy in the way that memories are messy, and the solos are wild and meant to be experienced more than just listened to. They chomp at the bit during the lull at “where do we go now”, before climbing back into soaring expressions of glee and, for lack of a better term, raw power. It’s a very different emotion to Bullet With Butterfly Wings, and you don’t need the lyrics to understand that.

The point I am making is that rock music is intrinsically expressionistic and unchained, and when Lute sings, her portion of the song is anything but. Lute is angry, and appropriating imagery that is not hers to use to justify that anger. But what is the anger at? Being proven wrong.

Case and point, her guitar is simple and even. It rises, then stops, then repeats, then plays a nice little melody at the top, before resorting to power chords. She has tried to form a point, but has been unable to, and instead of examining that, has resorted to anger and displays of force.

There is something in that "stick it to the man" thing. People in power almost seem to fetishise rebellion, but when it actually happens, they get all upset. Adam likes to appear as the underdog, and I think he likes to feel like the underdog, but he isn't. He's the one the underdogs are fighting.

Moving on to Adam, who doesn’t believe anything he is saying. He is doing genocide for entertainment, and he doesn’t care about justifying it. There is nothing behind this man, he gets what he wants because he wants it. He is a man child.

He has also already had his views explained in detail, so this song gets to shine as a character beat for him, because of the aforementioned framing device. What do you do when you are proven wrong? Do you change? Do you shout down what the person is saying like Lute? Or do you get petty and start being an arse because you can?

This is where we see Adam’s vindictive side, and it sure is a coincidence that the guy who champions retributive justice has a habit of taking what he views as revenge and multiplying it tenfold. That’s probably not important.

Anyway, this is used to bring up Vaggie’s deceit, but it also exposes something interesting about Adam’s villainy. It’s innately self-sabotaging.

Adam could have kept his gob shut and this would have gone off without a hitch, but he didn’t. His villainy is based in retribution, and so he had to dish it out when he was slighted, even if it undermines his greater scheme.

Which, if I may get a bit soap boxy, is how villains work in the real world.

I get frustrated with the view that kindness is hard and that being awful is easy because it isn’t. Don’t let people tell you the world is naturally terrible, because if you believe them and expect the worst, then you don’t call people out on their nonsense. “Oh, the world is bad, it was the easiest choice to do this awful thing.” No! It took a choice to cause suffering, someone made that decision.

Evil is difficult and self sabotaging and will wreck you for doing it to the point where it stops being worth it. Truly evil people are those that make the decision to do what they are doing because they have weighed up the consequences and decided that they don’t care.

On a day-to-day level, kindness is easy. It costs you nothing. Don’t use the mundanity of misery as an excuse for your own shit behavior, and call people out on theirs because they are actively making the world worse, not prolonging the status quo.

But on a grander scale, this is where Adam comes in. I would argue that it would be easier for Adam to not do a genocide. Like, it would be easier to just sit at home, drink soft drink, be a tosspot. He wouldn’t be a nice guy, but it would be an improvement.

But to do what he is doing right now, he had to come up with the idea, something that probably took him a while. Then he had to persuade Lute and the other executioners, which probably took less time. Then he had to run it by Sera, and then he had to amass an army in secret and keep that same secret of genocide from an entire population.

But he did. He went above and beyond so that he could kill people for sport.

Adam actively made the world worse, and crucially, that directly led to his death later on in the series. He gave people motivation to want him dead.

I mentioned at the start of this post that the sliding scale of villainy doesn’t matter, and that brings me to Sera.

Sera isn’t evil. She doesn’t directly cause bad things. But that “directly” is doing a lot of heavy lifting, because Sera is an enabler. She doesn’t have a moral compass at all. She doesn’t stand for anything, so she lets everything happen.

She doesn’t do the genocide, she doesn’t want to be a part of it, and she thinks that makes her a saint. But then again, she had the power to stop it, and the choice to do nothing is still a choice.

General lump of ice for anyone who wants it. If you ever find yourself smiling like a maniac with literal hellfire reflected in your eyes, maybe reconsider your life a bit.

Sera could have said “no” and been done with it. But instead, she signed herself up for a lifetime of subterfuge because it seemed easier at the time. Theoretically, Sera isn’t as bad as the others, but in practicality, oh yes she is.

Sera’s lack of morality is actually what inspired me to analyse this entire musical, because her part in this song is so crucial to my understanding of the musical as a whole and I haven’t seen anybody else’s reading factor this in at all.

Sera doesn’t defend the genocide; she defends her decision to lie. Even when called out on it, it doesn’t occur to her that the murder of civilians is what people are upset about.

“I thought cause I’m older,

it’s my load to shoulder.”

“No”

“You have to listen,

it was such a hard decision

I wanted to save you

the anguish it takes to

Do what was required…”

There are two possible readings here, the first being deflection and the second being indifference.

Deflection is simple. She gets called out for murder and she apologises for lying. That’s not remotely the point, but if you can get someone tangled up in an argument that they didn’t sign up for, you can twist their words into something they didn’t mean.

Anger is a volatile emotion, but it can be lead astray. Deceit is not an easy thing to justify, but it’s a lot less difficult than systematic oppression, so Sera might be steering the conversation to something where she is on slightly less of a rough footing.

The other reading is indifference. Sera genuinely doesn’t care about morality, and so she is trying to keep her public face. She is the leader of… is Heaven a country? Is it a city? What is Heaven? Anyway, Sera is in a leadership position, and so she has made the decision to maintain her image first and foremost.

She spins the genocide as something that was required and starts defending the lie, because that’s what she thinks is most important. To her, the genocide was required, but to that I ask: for what?

Like, what is the end goal here?

Adam has presented the idea that the genocide makes him feel good. Lute is of the opinion that the sinners deserved it. But Sera says “required.” For what?

Is she required to let Adam do what he wants? Is she trying to find a middle ground between “no genocide” and “yes genocide” and landing on “some genocide”?

Alternatively, does Sera think it is required to keep the population of Hell down, so they don’t rise up? Does she think this is needed for her own security? Is it for control? Because, if that’s the case, I think she is talking bollocks.

You don’t need to murder someone to not feel threatened by them, and there are better ways of coexistence than control.

Sera returns to what I said earlier about villainy being difficult. She didn’t need to go along with the genocide. It wasn’t required. But she chose to, and that makes her stand alongside Adam and Lute.

Before I finish up, let’s talk about the drums.

The song is dense, and has a lot of moving parts, so as a storytelling technique, the drums are really impressive. Not only to they separate the sections and make the story easier to digest, adding to the vibes of each part while keeping the momentum going, but they also join the sections with fills to ease the transitions between disparate parts of the story.

The song starts out with no percussion as Emily pleads with the court and specifically with Sera. Then Charlie brings some backbone to the conversation with the concept of fairness, and we get a steady, repeated beat, like boxers circling each other.

We get a fill into the marching beat that backs up Lute’s solo, before a chorus from a rock song follows Adam’s input in the conversation. So far, so good.

Then Adam ruins everything, and the song abruptly cuts back to Emily, who suddenly has percussion accompanying her voice. Although, it is off kilter and unsteady, unsure if it should be here or not. It’s uneasy as Emily tries to work out what is happening and how to feel. Something is wrong, and her music is evolving to keep up.

Sera’s section messes with this in a way I love. Starting off mimicking Emily’s exactly with the unsteady beat as if to say “I’m with you.” Although it adds some bass drum, specifically the rhythm played during Adam and Lute’s chorus.

Then, as she says the line about doing what was required, Emily’s rhythm cuts out entirely to show the falseness of this offer. Sera and Adam are entirely aligned here.

Emily is back, and her rhythm is gaining more and more confidence as she gets more and more angry.

We’re building to a final chorus, and we get a quiet fill before a surprisingly understated chorus.

“Was talk of virtue just pretention?

Was I too naïve to expect you…”

“If Hell is forever than heaven must be a lie.”

The perfect world is built on suffering, which means it can’t be a perfect world. Everything else falls away, including the drums, into short punches that are just off beat enough to feel natural. This is just brutality. Messy, unrestrained, hammering. This is the point; this is the centerpiece of the musical.

Then the drums cut out entirely for the final moments to underscore the revelation, and the song wraps up.

Final Thoughts

I’m about to spoil the rest of the musical, so be warned.

I want Sera to be redeemed so much, and I actually think it might happen, here’s why.

First, I think it would be funny. I think Sir Pentious being in heaven would be an excuse to torment her into changing. Like, she gets so frustrated by the snake boy who’s voice she recognizes for some reason, and who proves her wrong so entirely, but whom she can’t escape from and whom she can’t bring herself to dislike.

Drag the angel, kicking and screaming, into being a better person. Commit to the theme, damn it.

But I do think there is a chance of this actually happening, and that is because of the expressions that Sera makes. When Emily snaps, the show makes a point of showing Sera’s response, and it is abject horror and sadness. There is no anger or spite there, it is just shock and terror.

A sinner couldn’t convince her, but she is willing to listen to Emily, and that is the expression of someone who’s entire world just came crashing down.

Maybe it’s the fear that Emily will fall like Lucifer, or maybe it’s the fear that she won’t. I cannot wait to find out.

Next week, however, is Out for Love, and I have thoughts about that song. So stick around if that interests you.

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