#but I tried to make it introspective about his past as well

[theaccursedninth]

🕯️

(inner thoughts meme from Rose and from the Doctor as well (any or all incarnations)).

Send 🕯️ + a name, and my muse will share their true, unfiltered opinion of that person! No sugarcoating!

Rose Tyler...her very name shook the Universe itself.

'That was you, Malekith. You destroyed it.'

Yes...and he would carry that burden to his grave, should ever such a day arrive. Sometimes he wondered. Would there come a day Death finally caught up with him? Or was this, spoke a voice, his own voice, small and fleeting amidst the glaring Northern accent. Was this a work of the Big Bad Wolf?

He remembered The Last Day so clearly. Backed into a corner, facing down a monster who called itself a god (sound familiar?) and then a blinding rush of light and warmth...he'd never seen anything more beautiful. More powerful. All of creation, all of existence in the hands of a nineteen year old girl who risked everything to save her Doctor.

Was it worth it, Rose Tyler? Can you look upon my face and say you made the right choice?

The thought coils around his chest, squeezing so hard it nearly knocks the wind from him. She shouldn't forgive him. Not after everything he's done. He knows that and yet...when he looks into her eyes, sees her standing there just as she did that Last Day...he wants to run to her. To cling to her. To collapse in her arms and bury his guilt grief in the comfort of this powerful, beautiful woman. Would she hold me if I asked? Does she see the Doctor in me, still?

Did he want her to?

He thought he knew what it meant to be a monster, once. Nine hundred years old and so desperate to exterminate a Greater Threat he gambled the price on Life itself; the dice landed with unfavorable odds. He thought himself beyond hope, then--beyond salvation and certainly beyond love.

'You were a damned fool.'

Yes. He was.

[corollaservant]

Introspect // Dabi x f!reader (18+)

Synopsis: The past never dies. But it can often be forgotten. (3.4k)

Warnings: yandere/obsessive behavior, captivity, stalking, violence, noncon/dubcon, jealousy, delusion, denial, implied PTSD, deterministic and nihilistic philosophical paradigm, Dabi's POV—stream of consciousness type fic

A/N: wrote this in 3hrs. majorly inspired by (and dedicated to) my fave tumblr writer, new magic wand by tyler the creator and this dabi art 🖤

Happy. You looked happy, that’s what he thought when he saw it.

Not in a way you’d been with him anyway. He didn’t know whether that was for the better. The first thing he thought was you posted him. Of course you would. He was not patched, burnt or looking like someone who escaped the psychiatric ward. Without proper clothing, jumping out of a window, frantically running towards the opposite direction. Was it a matter of appearance? Or did you just not like him enough? He wouldn’t know, you hadn’t spoken in a month. And some days. That’s when you told him you needed space. Seriously, people needed to come up with better excuses, this one was over-saturated. Was it bad he clung onto you? It’s not like you had many friends, all he had asked was more of your time. Your stupid job wasn’t even that important—he never bothered finding out what you did exactly, it’s not like he didn’t care, he just wanted you there. The rest of your whereabouts were none of his business as long as you were not conversing (excessively) with anyone else. Because even then, why would you need to do that? He could do it for you.

He had no actual job, well, classifying as a villain doesn’t get you far in life, he called himself a freelancer. Freelancer in murder and theft, maybe. But he felt like he had a share in serving divine justice. A modern vigilante so to say. Any accidental death was a misfortune, a predetermined fate. He didn’t want to pretend to be integrated in society for you to like him, he was lucky because he didn’t have to. Which then reminded him of how he met you.  

Petting strays at night wasn’t careful of you, especially with the crime rates in the city. But you had done so regardless, he remembers it vividly: You in an alley, on your knees, not caring about the dirt coming in direct contact, extending your hand. The cat was barely visible, he could only make out its yellow eyes. But then, the cat saw him, he knew cats had brilliant vision and it left you, perhaps in thought he had food you didn’t. You turned your head only to take a step back. Not smart, you landed on your ass as you opened your mouth. Did he scare you? Of course, what a stupid thing to ask. Under other circumstances he’d leave. Making fun of strangers wasn’t really his thing, not unless they deserved it, but the cat seemed to take a liking to him. Animals loved him, his mom used to tell him not to trust people who repelled them, it was a bad sign. Animals had instinct, animals could tell. He decided to pet the little guy (or girl?), as he kneeled down and softly touched its head. That was another thing about cats. They didn’t give a fuck about the staples or burnt odor, they just wanted food and the occasional touch. He liked cats. He could see himself in them. Something in the domesticity of the situation must've calmed you down because you fixed your posture and to his surprise approached him. It was still dark, you were still a woman and alone in an alley. 

‘’He likes you.’’ You told him. Had you already figured out it was a male stray? Dabi must’ve underestimated you. Your voice hid a whine, a soft protest but it was not annoyance and he shifted his gaze.

‘’Yeah.’’ was all he said. 

‘’Can I?’’ You asked. Why were you asking for permission, this wasn’t even his cat. 

‘’Sure.’’

You were so close, trying not to scare the cat and also touch him, he noticed. Your finger tried to avoid his but the cat’s head was unfortunately not that big so you eventually grazed a digit over him. You hadn’t flinched back then, hadn’t even scrunched your nose, were you not afraid? Didn’t the smell and appearance repel you? Apparently not, you seemed so invested in getting the cat to like you. It wasn’t like it didn’t. The stray ended up loving you, purring at your touch and looking in your eyes, like a man in love. And maybe it wasn’t just the cat. 

-

Within three days of your first encounter he had you on his chest, in your apartment of course, where else could he have you? He wanted to fuck you the first time he saw you, but the urge wasn’t that violent, which had taken him by suprise. You also did not seem like the type to give it up easily. He’d have to do some mental jumping jacks to get you, he didn’t worry about revealing too much though; he didn't have a lot to say, his old identity long buried away with his sensitivity. He still didn’t feel like hurting you. The first night he told you his name, Dabi, and it was so convincing, he too had believed it. You exchanged trivial information neither cared about and he offered company on your way back. He scolded you for being alone in the neighborhood, like some good samaritan, he laughed as he guided you through dimly lit alleys with zero traffic. 

‘’Want to come inside?’’ You had asked. Already? Were you that easy? But who was he to say no?

Your place was small, as expected, neat and tidy, with a few clothes on the bed, nothing bad. It smelled nice too, he noticed a small plant on the coffee table. How gullible to let him in like that. Dabi imagined how many times you must’ve been wronged in life. But you being you—it was probably something that flew over your head daily. You’d call it compromise, he’d call it stupidity.

He had fucked you in missionary that night, a true gentleman, easing his way inside and slightly towering, making sure the stapled skin under his sternum didn’t touch your sensitive one. You were soaking by the time you stopped making out and he slid a finger inside, warm and enticing, his cock hardened in primal ways. He had softly thrown you on your bed (his definition of soft wasn’t exactly soft, you had let out a groan, was it bad?) and climbed on top. You were looking at him expectantly, your eyes glassy, was that pain or excitement, Dabi would bet bucks on the latter. The way you had shyly parted your legs, not for his cock, but to fit him in between was sickeningly pretty, he could swear he was almost…nervous to slip his cock inside. And he was right, trying to fit it inside failed him two or three times while he pretended to toy your clit with his cockhead. You didn’t seem to mind, his act must’ve been convincing, you were softly moaning and your eyes dared to look at the sight of his swollen tip against your lower lips, was it pretty? He had fucked you as hard as he would allow himself—your body could take it, he had to be honest, the more he stuffed you, the more he needed to drive his cock further into your soft walls, there was no room for play pretend romance here. But you seemed to like it too, wrapping your arms around the bare part of his back, fingers accidentally trailing the stapled skin and groaning near his face. ‘’Fuck.. right there.. D-Dabi! More!’’ More? Sure, you could have more. A patched arm strongly pinned a leg above your head, touching the bed frame, as his stiff and pained cock violated your cunt, he could feel how deep he was and constantly fought the urge to spill already. As for you? Tears from your eyes fell down your now stained sheets as you screamed. Pleasure, pain, honestly he didn’t care much about what it was, your pussy clamping down on him the last thing he felt before he bit down your neck, almost ripping out the skin tissue. His cum slowly trickled out, while both of you panted, each exhale synchronizing with the clock ticking in the kitchen. 

There were no voids you could fill, he knew it, interacting with others proved to be a daily reminder. But there were voids you soothed, pain you healed just with your head resting where a heart used to be. Heart beating irregularly, like his feet in his childhood, with excitement, with a different type of eagerness. These weren’t thoughts he made that night and that’s how he knew he liked you. That night his mind was blank for the very first time, carefree from reality, from the ugliness of living—you had sex with some stained villain, who hadn’t only stained your cunt, but your sheets too, your morals indirectly and heart along the way. These thoughts came to him when he saw the photo. Space. You said you needed space. There wasn’t any relationship established, what the fuck you needed space for? Because now he had found something to give waking up a reason. Someone to regularly satisfy his cock with, someone to take away his thoughts and halt his aimless wandering. And you needed space. How lame. You know what? He could give you space. Indirectly of course. He’d still follow you around, check the whereabouts and conversations, sit outside your house and watch you get undressed. But you looked happy. And he couldn’t decipher in what way. Was he a friend? Who gives a fuck about the guy anyway, why were you smiling like that? You never posted him, that's for sure, you knew in the three months of irregular hanging out (to call it dating would be a joke) that he hated it. And so you never did, even though he wanted you to deep down. Something small. A grocery store visit, one you made when he said he’d cook dinner (he had burnt it). But you never did and now here you are posting with someone irrelevant. 

Murder wasn’t the answer. Stupidly enough it was always associated with morality. But you’d think Dabi would have none of that. He thought murder was stupid. No second of his time ought to be wasted for the next guy. Though he had to admit, he often contemplated whether you’d want this. You didn’t know shit about him. But a sudden murder would definitely have you crawling for protection. And who better than the one who committed it? He honestly wouldn’t go out of his way to do all that. He wanted you organically. It had been a long time since he wanted someone. But you sufficed. You were enough. You never asked, never complained, not even when you’d come home from work, exhausted and dirty and he was waiting at your door. Not even when you were shoved against the cupboards and fucked without remorse—you still wrapped your legs around him and whimpered on his neck. And fuck if that didn’t feel good. He hugged you in your sleep. You’d both sleep in opposite directions, you first of course, so you’d never notice he switched sides and brought a leg over yours, resting his head on your throat, feeling each breath, each pulse. You’d wake up confused at the position, he’d say he didn’t remember. These were the few nights he could reach REM state. No vivid dreams of course, a shipwreck maybe and some elevator descending, lack of control or whatever bullshit he read once. He could still dream though, a miserable reminder he was still human. 

He was always mean. The world didn’t care to mold someone into being nice. What would that even be? He thought nice meant exchange. Be nice and you’d get a pair of shoes. Act nice and you’ll get to watch TV. Treat others with respect and you’d be the family’s topic of discussion over Christmas. Sure, there were selfless people, he wasn’t crazy to think there weren’t a few of them left. You’d be his prime example. And you weren’t even stupid. But your willingness to help and give bordered exploitation. It hit him like lightning. You needed to get away, the real world was doing damage to people like you. If you were with him, you wouldn't have to think twice about being taken advantage of. He’d still be mean, you wouldn’t change that. But at least you’d sleep assured knowing that he’d never, ever demand something from you. Well…besides your presence, though he’d take you as you are, so in retrospect you’d come to appreciate him for the service. 

When he came to pick you up (abduct sounded rough—you’d also want this eventually) you had just finished work. To others you seemed fine, to him you looked exhausted. No need for mask, no need for clothes, he had everything arranged. You hadn’t objected much, he tried the kind approach first, he had only asked you to go for a ride with him in a car he stole, something you’d never know. The place was a dump, a couch covered in dust and a rusty kitchen, but you’d both make it work. It wasn’t like he couldn’t find money. He would, eventually. He remembers the way your eyes widened, what were you expecting, a trip to the countryside for some mimosas? You should’ve known better. ‘’What are we doing here?’’ You had asked, looking him in the eyes, you seemed frightened like the first time you saw him in the alley, it all ends in the beginning of the cycle, such a paradox, he thought. ‘’This is our new place.’’ He cooed as he approached you, you took a step back. There really was no reason for you to be scared, you’d grow to understand the only thing scaring you would be losing him. 

He had tried to kiss you but you protested, pushing him away, a shame really and he wanted to continue with the nice approach. Well then again nice didn’t really exist so it wouldn't have worked anyway. He kissed you, your mouth was closed but not for long before it was forced open, arms snaking around your waist and pinning you to a wall collecting condensation since god knows when. He was on your neck, kissing, biting, frenzied moves really, he needed you more than he needed whatever kept him alive. Three months ago, he stopped thinking. Now, the only thing he thought was you. He dragged you to the dusty sofa, he thought of using his quirk to burn the fabric, but ripping it out came naturally. You were laid out naked and shivering, his hands grabbed your waist—was this warm enough for you? You whispered something, maybe it was louder than a whisper, stop or whatever but he couldn’t listen. He found your cunt immediately, he was almost drooling at the sight, when was he that hungry ever again? Something about your life. People behind. You said something, he didn’t listen. You weren’t that wet like the first time, he understood. Women, they need emotional connection. Maybe a sloppier kiss to get them going. He found your mouth again, forcing you to kiss him back while he gorged on yours, a small movement in your hips, a pad of his finger back on your cunt. Wetter, perfect. He slid up a finger, curling it while his thumb grazed over your clit, you whimpered. That was a sound he could finally register. He’d bring back that smile, but it’d be for him only. One finger turned to two and eventually three, he needed to stretch you out to take him, nothing had changed since the first time, just his eagerness. His cock throbbed in his black pants, he wanted to taste you. 

You moaned and attempted to touch his hair. He didn’t mind but this wasn’t the time. He moved his head lower, spreading your thighs open and spitting on your clit. Spittle dripped down your slit and his index finger trailed it along the entrance, earning him a moan. See, you already enjoyed this too much. This would be your life now on, he’d fuck you till you wouldn’t want another thing. Captivity had a good side after all. He’d treat you so well, he wouldn’t even have to force all that domestic bullshit on you. You’d do it willingly. He eats your cunt out like it's the most sacred meal, sloppily and without coordination, pushing his tongue inside and gripping your thighs forcefully and what is this? You buck your hips up, wanting more, needy little slut. Perfect, so perfect for making him stop thinking. Making him forget. His cock must leak precum, it feels uncomfortable and he wants you to coat his tongue, he really does, but please understand, he needs you. Now. To bother removing his pants fully would be hilarious, he has neither time nor desire to do so, they’re slid down half way, his cock jumps on his abdomen and he gives it an impatient stroke—looking at you always. Let me go. You say, what? Were you stupid? Right before the best part? Right before the start of a new life? Of a life you should be living years ago? Delusional, you’re delusional. ‘’You love me, baby.’’ He tells you and lets his cockhead slip in your entrance, bit by bit until he’s bottomed out and you wince, he doesn’t move just for a second, this should be enough and then starts thrusting without consideration. Like it’s an incentive, like you’re a hole that needs filling, a mere means to an end. You protest a bit more, if you get louder he might have to get violent on you, please understand he doesn’t want this. You’ll get it, eventually. He can’t decipher the look on your face, it certainly doesn’t scream happy like in the photo. 

And then he’s reminded of the photo and a rage is born. ‘’Did he fuck you this good?’’ He spears his cock inside, you are hitting against the arm of the couch, your mouth contracts and you dampen his cock, so he must be doing something right. ‘’Tell me, did he fuck this cunt?’’ He asks and you just moan—are you dumb? Why aren’t you answering? His arms envelop your throat, pressing on the carotid artery as your muffled moans get even more constricted, he spits on your face and demands an answer. Dirty. Slut. Dirty. ‘’N-o’’ comes out your mouth. He hadn’t tainted you? He hadn’t touched you. ‘’I’m sorry.’’ He wipes the saliva off your cheeks, it’s so...wet? Are you crying? Why are you crying? He hates it. ‘’I’m sorry.’’ He kisses you while he plunges deeper, you groan and try to avoid him, stop doing this, you’re his now, it’s final. ‘’I’ll make you feel better, alright?’’ He breathes out, he knows you like his fingers, he knows. His thumb circles achingly, longingly even on your puffy clit while you clench around him, your breathing is labored, you have to cum—cum now! On his cock, show him how much you love him. A few more strokes and he has you clamping down, more tears, so many tears and you moan out his fake name, with anger maybe or an orgasm high, he can’t tell and he doesn’t care either, it’s enough. He needs to steal a kiss one last time and feel the way you squeeze and soak all around to let his load paint you white, maybe he is like a woman after all, longing for emotion, even when he has to fulfill plain instincts. You don’t talk after it, you don’t even blink, you aren’t passed out, are you? He wasn’t that hard, come on now. He has to remove himself, clean you up, the couch and he the least of his priorities. You need to get accustomed. You’ll love it. 

You never ask. About the photo. About your family. About anything prior. But that’s not something he dwells upon, he doesn’t like to look back. You still sleep next to him, well, there aren’t many other options available, yet you do. You still breathe softly in your sleep, he still hugs you from behind. You’ve become a sedative, a very much needed one. He dreams some days, an elevator falling, a shipwreck. Only, you’re there this time. 

The few days he remembers the dream, he appreciates the company. He can only hope you do, too. 

[cherryredstars]

Pls pls pls miss Cherry I need other parts of Ribbons. I need a pt.3 cause I love that au. Something very fluffy super cute and introspective you know? I NEED IT thank you so much 🍒🎀

Pairing: Miguel O'Hara x fem!reader

Warnings: Suggestive, Hinted Intercourse, Talk of Past Intercourse, Fluff

Summary: They're well past the first date thing... right?

A/N: I missed them.

Unedited

Part 1 Part 2

You are not hearing him right.

You push yourself up, hand pressing into his naked chest as his arm and sheets fall off your bare body. His eyes momentarily drop to the soft skin that is revealed to him once again, pupils dilating. His eyes do a lousy job of running up your figure, getting stuck in different areas a bit longer than necessary. His eyes stare up at yours when you start talking.

"You know we've like... had sex before, right?"

Miguel doesn't need the reminder, his eyes falling back to your bare body, your taste and scent still fogging his brain. He won't ever forget that he's had such an honor. Multiple times.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

You give him an exasperated look, laying back down. Your hair fans over his shoulder, tickling the base of his neck. His arms wrap around you quickly, suffocating you in his body heat. His eyes shut as he breathes you in, a perfect combination of his cologne and your perfume. You turn to face him, wrapping your arms lazily around his shoulders and he peppers kisses along your naked shoulders.

"I think we're well past the whole going on a first date thing."

Miguel's brows furrow, and he stops his trails of small worship to look at your face. You try to soothe the wrinkles with your fingers, but he stubbornly holds firm.

"Who said?"

You roll your eyes playfully, a wave of deja vu hitting you. You smile gently at him, gently brushing his hair out of his face. It effectively smooths out his features, dissipating the bunched skin at his brow.

"Says my pair of panties you tried to hide before I walked into your room."

Miguel blushes, forcing his head back into the crook of your neck. He tries to distract you with small kisses and nips to your skin, but you only giggle.

"First off, I have no idea what you're talking about." He muffles against your skin, the burning of his skin revealing his lie. "And second, that doesn't mean I can't take my girl out somewhere nice."

You ignore the stampede of butterflies in your stomach, biting your lip to contain your smile. You slightly tug at his hair, pulling his face away from your neck. You peer down at him, placing a small kiss to the apple of his burning cheek.

"Do you even know how to plan a date?"

Miguel scoffs, rolling his eyes at you.

"Of course I do, I've had this planned for months."

You raise your brow, smiling wide.

"Months? We've only been a thing for like 3 weeks."

Miguel's cheeks burn once again, embarrassed about his slip-up. He rolls onto his back, throwing his arm over his face to hide how flustered you're making him.

"It's an exaggeration!"

You laugh, moving to lay on your stomach as you rest your chin on his chest. Miguel moves his arm just slightly to peer down at you, breath stalling at the pretty smile you're giving him.

"Yeah, sure it was." You tease, giving his chest a small kiss in an effort to calm him down. "But, I guess we can go on a little date."

Miguel gives you his signature lopsided smirk, tilting his head to give you a slow kiss. You reciprocate easily, humming against his lips before he flips you over. You giggle in between the kiss, smiling.

"Then you have yourself a date."

୨୧・・・・୨୧・・・・୨୧・・・・୨୧・・・・୨୧・・・・୨୧・・・・

You check yourself in the mirror one last time, reapplying your lip gloss.

You pucker your lips, leaning back and examining the final look. You hum in consideration, feeling that something is off. You lean further back, eyes squinting before they drop to your bare neck. You go to your dresser, quickly clasping the necklace you were gifted by a certain boy around your neck. You return to your mirror, nodding in approval right before your phone lights up.

You smile as you pick it up, holding it between your ear and shoulder as you grab your purse, back tracking to put in your lip gloss and spray yourself with your signature perfume.

"Bring a vase."

You pause, being met without a proper greeting.

"Hi! I am doing fantastic today. Thank you for asking!"

You can hear Miguel's chuckle, dark and slightly distorted over the speaker. You smile at the sound, setting your perfume down and looking around your room for a vase.

"Hi, pretty. How was your day?"

You smile wider, tone turning soft with affection.

"It was good, are you here? Why do I need a vase?"

"Just pulling up outside." Miguel speaks, the subtle sound of his gearshift moving following his words. "It's a surprise."

"Well," You huff, looking at the decorative vases you don't want to sacrifice for his mystery. "I don't have one."

You can hear his eye roll through the phone as he huffs.

"Yes you do. I promise it's not going to end up broken or something."

You groan, begrudgingly taking a ceramic vase and pressing it to your body, "That's it?"

Miguel hums on the other side of the phone, reassuring you none of your other precious decorations are necessary for what he has in mind. You quickly hang up, making your way outside of your building to find his car waiting for you out front. Miguel smiles as he sees you, taking the vase from your hands and tilting your chin up for a quick kiss before opening the door for you. You smile gratefully, sitting and buckling in before gently taking your vase back from him. He makes his way to his own door, getting in and beginning the drive to your date.

"So," you start, turning to look at him. "Where you taking me?"

Miguel smiles slightly, looking at you slightly before turning back to the road. "I told you it's a surprise."

You huff, lips pouting. Miguel chuckles at you, turning to look at you at a red light and kissing your pout away.

"Cheer up, you'll find out soon."

When that doesn't work, he gives you another kiss, pulling away and giving you that jaw-dropping smile before turning back to the road.

"Look stunning tonight, princesa."

Your pout, instantly drops, being replaced with a bashful smile as your eyes drop to the dress you picked out. Your hands gently smooth it out, a small thank you being mumbled from your lips. Miguel simply smiles to himself, grabbing your hand and holding it in your lap for the rest of the drive.

When he finally stops the car, you look out to see a small store. From the display windows, you can see mannequins dressed in the frilly dresses you love, soft stuffed animals adding to the cuteness. You don't realize Miguel has gotten out of the car until he opens your door, taking the vase from you as he unbuckles your seatbelt.

"You don't need this."

You furrow your brows, taking the hand he offers as he guides you out of the car.

"But you said-"

"I lied." He cuts off, smiling as he places it safely in his backseat.

You scoff and shake your head in disbelief at him, holding his hand as the two of you walk toward the entrance. He pulls the door open for you, and you step inside. You instantly forget the slight annoyance you had, eyes widening as you look around. The store is a bit larger than what the front of the store suggested, the shelves stocked with things plucked straight out of Pinterest. There is a wide range of clothes and decor, your eyes spotting a section dedicated to aesthetic toys.

Miguel comes up behind you, hands squeezing your waist as he bends down to your ear. His warm breath fans over your skin, and you turn your head to face him.

"Not really your style, huh?"

You smile, pushing his face away once you spot his shit-eating grin. He's obviously pleased with himself, and you instantly pull him back towards you as you walk deeper into the store of your dreams.

"Where did you even find this place?"

Miguel shrugs behind you, revealing nothing as he watches you. He can't wipe the small smile off of his face as you scan the shelves, your pupils wide as you take in everything. You gush over anything you see, excitedly turning to show Miguel the precious gems you find. He spends the whole day like this, following and encouraging you to add what you like to the cart.

Though, he does steer you away from the Sonny Angels. He doesn't want you to buy repeats of what he already has waiting for you in the backseat of his car. He only hopes the flowers he bought haven't begun to wilt while you shop.

[nights-at-crystarium]

Fragments - episodes 47-52 author notes

You can find similar breakdown posts on older episodes in my pinned!

Time to recap the first proper wolgraha miniarc. See what you might’ve missed, or simply enjoy the extra content in form of my rambling.

47 stands out as a bit disconnected, floaty, introspective episode fully focusing on Exarch’s pov. I’ve scattered some breadcrumbs for him throughout the entire comic, time to pick those up. He may be an oblivious fool in certain moments, but I believe he wouldn’t keep insisting on staying deaf and blind when evidence’s shoved in his face. So, this moment of recollection and rethinking marks the start of the canon divergence, all of his future actions are colored by this.

Vivi has a dire effect on some people even without trying to manipulate them.

The composition forms a star here :3c

This panel should make their likeness even more obvious, they’re mirror reflections, albeit deliciously twisted ones. Also, the V sign is literally something that Vivi. Just. Does.

Exarch's heard from Vivi himself that they might be the same, Urianger literally tells him to go to a mirror and ponder, but when he does, and tries to look a bit more like he imagines Vivi, he can't stand what he sees in the mirror. They still aren't the same in his heart of hearts, even if reality itself tries to prove otherwise.

Hidden Angst Time! I can only hope that most readers are familiar with the flashback bubbles by now, and that this panel reads as it should: Feo Ul embraces Exarch while pointing out that they’re also being ostracized by their kind. Though the ultimate fae wisdom lies in accepting something the way it is, and just not caring too much.

More under the cut~ 

*rewinds all the way back to episode 1* hehe

“Does a hero have to be happy about his job” is one of my personal fav lines so far, I think it hits hard, pointing not only at Vivi, but at Exarch as well, and the visual supports it. I think this encapsulates Exarch’s ideology.

Exarch’s GASP could be interpreted as saying GASP out loud, which only makes it funnier.

Vivi carefully plans his entrance in order to make the atmosphere less formal. Approaching normally just wouldn’t do it. Also he just feels relaxed and safe to be silly. Remember how lowkey he was since his arrival to the First? His behavior all but contradicted what I said and showed about him in the ARR arc and outside of the comic.

Well, that’s in the past now. He’s finished assessing the situation and concluded that it’s okay to be more himself.

Feo Ul's upset that Exarch used his “radar” to detect Vivi’s ambush while they’d just used a similar ability to make sure that no emet-selchs are around.

If you catch a flirty vibe from Vivi in this episode, you're correct.

Vivi when he's remotely interested in a man:

My flavor of lampshading the obvious exposition dump. Oh Exarch, you asked for this, no take-backsies.

Another few hard-hitting questions from Exarch. It's easy to gloss over these, but if you slow down and think, it's decent angst material. Has anyone ever been concerned about Vivi's feelings, or was it more convenient to look away, even if intently, even if both sides knew they're better off not talking about that, for there's indeed no wol replacement. What good does acknowledging the situation if you can’t change it.

This's Vivi's memory, thus he appears small against the looming forms of the world leaders. Rigid, formal, impersonal. Raha's memories of the Ironworks seem to have a different vibe, despite all the parallels of the duty imposed by the world on one special guy. Also yeah I do wanna make my own version of the 8UC timeline and characters someday, for now these are just random characters that I consider as placeholders. And the dunmeshi cameo x’D

Yes, he mocks the people that he's saved. He's VERY frustrated with his job.

I offer you a fun game: spot all the mannerisms that make Vivi and Emet so alike. I genuinely never thought about this until this year, while this scene's pretty damn old, i.e. Vivi's always been like this, it precedes my Emet brainrot.

I swear that this line also was there before my Emet brainrot, but now it makes for a hilarious kind of foreshadowing.

You could already tell how "fit" he is for solving trolley problems.

This’s his “oops I talked too much shit” face.

The way Exarch just quietly TURNS and LOOKS at Vivi cracks me up. Don't undermine the tone with random jokes, dammit. But is this random? I’ve already analyzed this moment somewhere but for the sake of keeping important things in one place: they wrestle for control here. Exarch winds up for something serious, while Vivi wants to steer the convo towards more casual. It does somewhat lower the tension, though Exarch doesn’t relinquish his lead in the convo.

This doesn’t save him from becoming Frank forever from here on.

This miniarc’s rich with raw, hard-hitting words, so I’ll bring this up again.

We’re finally getting the explanation and context for a lot of previous episodes:

And the following episodes only help driving this point home. Vivi already sees the First as a viable escape from the Source with all of its shitty people and endless problems.

"This's why I... enjoy my time away from the Source": even at this seemingly high level of trust between them Vivi won't openly tell Exarch about his plans to stay here, a variable he doesn't want to become a risk.

Yes, he does an entirely calculated and strategic flop. A literal thirst trap.

Meme provided by my discord server:

Vivi casts provoke, it's..... not effective

^ This’s one of my personal fav exarchs I’ve ever drawn DADDY PLS

A panel that everyone loved to bits :>

I pair angst with other flavors to make it fun and non-repetitive. It's not "boohoo I can never kiss my hero, the world will end if I do, I'm so aggravated with myself", it's the hooded Exarch (duty) being mad at the unhooded Exarch (human), and delivering the same notion in a fun exchange. You can't help but laugh at the comical chibi violence, at the same time you acknowledge that it's a pretty fucked up act of suppressing one's innate human desires.

It's not a date, they just sit and talk <- the water in which Exarch is being slowly boiled.

I rarely talk about the visuals, but here I intended to make it look like a magical moment frozen in time. It's immersive, whimsical, full of color and movement. Despite the perceived warmth, the composition splits them apart, they're alone together. It’s still Raha’s pov, Vivi doesn’t seem to have any fond memories of the Source at all, we only hear about the past from his current jaded self.

An in-universe acknowledgment of the ARR arc lasting only 11 episodes x’D Though it’s all by design, it was meaningful only to Raha, while being a forgettable blip in time for Vivi.

Episode 52 opens with.... *drumroll*

NIP SLIP

I lovingly rendered that nip and I’ll make you look at it.

Ibuprofen meme would be the first thing that comes to mind, but consider the better/worse caption: "come to daddy". In all seriousness though, it’s a cool panel that I wanted to appreciate again. This IS Vivi’s pov.

The grimy beaten up Vivi creates questions that are answered in episode 53, which is yet to be released publicly at the moment of writing this. Some episodes, like 52-53 and 42-43, come in pairs that only make sense together due to the non-linear storytelling.

Yes this’s Aymeric, no I won’t say anything else :’> One thing that’s worth noting is the face Vivi makes here. And the distant, emotionless tone with which he recalls the moment of his own near-death.

Lemme spell it out even more plainly: Vivi romanticizes the moment he almost died. Exarch just happened to be present in that moment, and Vivi latched on to him as someone who would grant him escape, freedom, peace.

“A kindly wizard from fairytales”. I regret to inform you that we have two delusional fucks on our hands. Both see each other as some kinda dreamt up, idealized, mythical figures.

This miniarc isn’t over yet, but I’m wrapping up the recap here. Thanks for reading till the end~

[delicatebarness]

cry baby | chapter twenty eight

Summary: IT IS ART SHOW TIME BABY.

Warning: None, I don't think?

Word Count: 1550

Spotify Playlist | Support: Ko-FI

Series Masterlist | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

A/N: Oh my little cry baby. - Please feel free to leave feedback or let me know where and how you want the story to continue, this is just as much yours as mine. - B

Tags: @buckys0whore | @thezombieprostitute | @lanabuckybarnes | @mishkatelwarriorgoddess | @softieekayy | @noonespecial90 | @hello-therree | @randomawesomeperson102 | @whoreforbarnes | @thejutvtsupport | @somnorvos | @cjand10 | @plasticbottleholder | @birdenthusiastez | @am-3-thyst

Everything: @hallecarey1 | @pattiemac1 | @uhmellamoanna | @scraftsku35 | @ozwriterchick | @sapphirebarnes | @rach2602

Teetering on the edge of despair and resilience, you desperately tried to piece together the fragments of your life. The fragments that had shattered in the wake of recent events. Since your conversation with Steve, the days felt like a blur of raw emotions and introspection. 

Looming over the horizon was your art exhibition, the one beacon of hope amidst the chaos. The show’s preparations made for a much-needed distraction, which offered moments of peace as you immersed yourself in the creative process. However, the lingering thoughts of Bucky, Peter, and Steve cast a shadow over your excitement. 

As you arranged your artwork in the gallery one afternoon, your phone buzzed. A message from Peter lights up the screen. Your heart raced as you read the message: “Can we meet? I think it’s time we talked.” 

You held your breath as you replied, agreeing to meet him at a cafe nearby. Your mind raced as you made your way there, the anticipation gnawing at you. All you could think about was, what you say, how you explain, and whether he would even listen.

Peter was already seated at a corner table when you arrived, his expression somber. As you cautiously approached him, your heart pounded in your chest. The silence was heavy between you as you sat down, unspoken words filled the air as did lingering emotions. 

Your voice trembled as you began to apologize softly. “Peter, I’m so sorry for everything. I never meant to hurt you.” 

Pain and understanding filled his eyes as he looked up at you. “I know,” he replied, keeping his voice equally soft. “But I need to understand why it happened. Why didn’t you tell me?” 

The words caught in your throat as tears welled up in your eyes. “I was scared,” you admitted. “I thought if I could forget about it, move past it, everything would be okay. I didn’t want to lose you.” 

Sighing, Peter ran a hand through his hair. “I get that. But, trust is everything in a relationship. It broke something between us when you kept that from me.” 

Your heart ached at his words. You nodded. “I know. I realize that now. I want to make amends and rebuild that trust. But I understand if you need time.” 

He reached across the table, taking your hand in his as his expression softened, “I do need time,” he said gently. “But, I also care about you. I want to try to work through this, together.” 

You squeezed his hand, relief washing over you. “Thank you, Peter. I promise to be honest with you from now on. No more secrets.” 

A small, reassuring smile tugged at his lips. “We’ll take it one step at a time.”

There was a glimmer of hope as you left the cafe together. 

~

The night of your art exhibition finally arrived. Looking around the gallery, it was alive with the buzz of admiration and excitement. Peter, friends, family, and art enthusiasts filled the space, marveling at the essence of home you captured in your array of sketches. Only your art could depict the familiar buildings around the city– the bar, the library, and more.

Moving through the crowd, you exchanged smiles and grateful words to those who came to support you. However, there was a small part of you that couldn’t shake the disappointment that Bucky hadn’t shown up. He had been a huge part of your life for so long, and despite the recent tumult between you, his absence felt like a void in the celebration. 

You tried to push the thought aside as you focused on your friends and family. Peter stayed close, he introduced you to various guests, his presence comforting and supportive. He touched your arm gently, as you spoke with a couple that stood admiring a sketch of the old library. 

“Hey, I want to introduce you to someone,” he said softly, guiding you toward a corner– where stood a striking woman, her gaze intently fixed upon one of your pieces. “This is Michelle,” he continued, his voice holding an enthusiasm you hadn’t noticed from him before. “She’s a big fan of your work.” 

Turning to face you, Michelle’s smile was warm and genuine. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you,” she said, extending her hand. “Your work is incredible, The way you capture the essence of each building… it’s like I’m seeing them for the first time.” 

Returning her smile, you shook your head. “Thank you, that means a lot to me.” 

Beaming, Peter was pleased with the introduction. However, the more you chatted with Michelle, you couldn’t help but notice the way Peter looked at her– his eyes lingered on her longer than usual, and his smile was a bit wider. It was subtle, but it was there. Unmistakable. 

You observed Peter and Michelle’s interaction as the conversation flowed. There was a natural chemistry that was hard to ignore between them, an easy rapport. His laughter was more frequent, and his posture relaxed. You were certain that he was attracted to her. 

As you chatted with Peter and Michelle, your gaze wandered around the room. Your breath hitched in your throat when you saw a familiar figure standing alone. Bucky was stood intently staring at one of your pieces. Relief and anxiety washed over you as you excused yourself and made your way over to him. 

His expression was unreadable as he stood before a particular sketch. You realized as you got closer which piece had captured his attention– the sketch of him. Amidst all the buildings, there he was, a part of the landscape you created in your ‘Home’ theme. 

He turned to look at you as you approached, his eyes filling with a depth of emotion you couldn’t place. “When did you make this? Why?” he asked, a softness in his voice tinged with curiosity. 

Offering a shy smile, a heat flushed across your cheeks. “Um, I made it a few weeks ago,” you admitted softly, your cheeks warming further under his gaze, “For years, I’ve sat across from you in our booth. For my entire life in this city– all I see is you.” 

Your heart pounded with the weight of the truth. And, for a few moments, you both stood there. The world around you faded away, it was just the two of you. Years of shared memories and unspoken truths connected you. 

Just as you were about to say more, Howlett approached with a broad grin. “Hey, kid! I bought your art of the bar!” he announced, his voice booming with pride. 

The news snapped you back into reality as a surge of joy washed over you. “Really? Thank you so much!” you exclaimed, turning to find Peter alongside Howlett. Peter beamed as he pulled you into a celebratory hug. 

As you basked in the moment, Bucky watched, a small smile playing on his lips. For a beat longer, he stood there until he could no longer beat not being the one to share in your triumph. He quickly turned and slipped away.

A hollow feeling settled in your chest as you turned around, looking for Bucky. He was gone, and your heart sank. It was in that moment, as your eyes scanned the room but yet, found no trace of him that a realization hit you with a force. A force you could no longer ignore– you are in love with him. 

The empty space where Bucky had stood was all you could think about as the celebration continued around you. Noticing the shift in your mood, Peter gently squeezed your hand. “Hey, are you okay?” he asked with concern etched on his face. 

“Yeah,” you forced a smile as you nodded, “just overwhelmed,” you replied, your voice barely above a whisper. Your revelation pressed down heavily on you, making it hard to focus. 

“I’m so proud of you,” Peter said softly, pulling you closer as he wrapped his arm around you. “This is your night. Enjoy it.” 

Leaning into him, your thoughts were miles away as your feelings for Bucky lingered. You tried to push them aside as the night wore on but, they were always there.

~

It wasn’t long before the gallery slowly began to empty. Peter and Michelle were deep in conversation, and you watched them from a distance. It strangely made you happy to see Peter so at ease.

Natasha and Wanda approached you while you stood lost in thought. They had noticed your distant gaze. 

“You seem a bit out of it,” Natasha said softly, nudging your shoulder. “Everything okay?” 

You nodded, forcing a smile. “Yeah, just a lot to take in tonight.” 

Glancing over to Peter and Michelle, Wanda’s eyes narrowed slightly as she watched their interaction. “You noticed it too, huh?” she asked with a gentle tone. 

Your shoulders slumped as you sighed. “Yeah, it’s hard not to. He looks… happy around her.” 

Natasha put a comforting arm around you. “It’s understandable. You’ve been through a lot lately. But, it is okay to feel what you’re feeling.” 

You took a deep breath, looking at both of your friends, voicing the truth that had been weighing on your heart and mind for the last few hours. “It’s not just that. I… I’m in love with Bucky.” 

---

Series Masterlist | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

[itsdeniini]

Can i requestt how if enhypen feels jealous/possessive to his partner how they handle it?

HOW ENHYPEN MEMBERS HANDLE JEALOUSY AND POSSESSIVENESS TOWARDS THEIR PARTNER ꨄ︎

- a tarot reading ๋࣭ ⭑🕸🦇🕸๋࣭ ⭑

n ☻ t e ! : i am a self-taught tarot reader, and the interpretations i provide are personal. if anyone would like to share their own insights, i would be more than happy to hear them! please be kind <𝟑

HEESEUNG ♱

He rationalizes his jealousy, believing that if someone truly likes him, they'll stay; if not, it wasn't meant to be. He maintains his composure and politeness, but if he's deeply in love, he'll give a cold stare to anyone who tries to take his love, confronting them to back off. Overall, he is introspective about his feelings, often seeking to understand them before reacting. This approach helps him maintain control over his emotions, even in challenging situations.

JAY ♱

He gets jealous-protective rather than pure jealousy. Technically possessive? He's generally too shy to act on it, but those close to him can sense his jealousy and protective nature. He pouts frequently, a lot. Trying to mask it behind quietness & impassiveness? NO! He will pout and scowl at anyone who dares to take his partner's attention away. If he sees someone flirting with his boo, he WILL hold their hand in the most obvious way.

JAKE ♱

He tries his best to keep his jealousy to himself, but sometimes it slips out. He will argue to either justify or alleviate the feeling, trying to make himself feel better. He used to be more shy about it, but with his partner, with whom he has a strong bond, he can be extremely possessive. He considers himself the best man for someone and believes they shouldn't be afraid to acknowledge it.

SUNGHOON ♱

He avoids the person and pretends everything is fine when they're around his partner, but this inner conflict eats him up, leading to self-isolation for contemplation. Or he just beats the SHI– well, he just tries to release the pent-up tension that he accumulated. Sometimes, this tension spills over into his interactions with others, causing misunderstandings and further isolation. Other times, he channels it into his work or hobbies, finding temporary relief but never truly resolving the underlying issue.

SUNOO ♱

He struggles to remember ever feeling genuinely jealous. Perhaps envious, but never in a romantic sense. The casual use of these terms confuses him. If someone claimed to be jealous, he would urge them to stop that behavior. He would inquire about their insecurities. He loves openly and does as he desires, encouraging his partner to do the same if they wish. He's not prone to jealousy, although he might feel a twinge of envy if his partner is with someone else, knowing it's not his place to join.

JUNGWON ♱

He tends to feel jealous quietly. He won't express it directly but might become distant for a while until you inquire or he moves past it. He can also be a bit oblivious, so unless it's very obvious, it usually doesn't bother him. When he does recognize his jealousy, he prefers to reflect on it alone rather than confronting the issue head-on. Despite this, his care and affection are unwavering, often evident through small, thoughtful gestures. In time, he learns to communicate better, finding ways to share his feelings without letting them fester.

NI-KI ♱

He rarely experiences jealousy; instead, he tends to become quiet and a bit grumpy when feeling lonely or neglected. With a little patience for his sour mood and some extra love and attention, he quickly bounces back. During these times, he appreciates small gestures of affection, like a surprise hug or his favorite meal. A simple conversation or shared activity can also lift his spirits and bring back his usual cheerful demeanor.

[blackmosscupcakes]

While I'm on the subject of Bells Hells' reactions to the events of last episode, I'm extremely interested in what's going to happen with Ashton. After all, only DAYS ago in-game, Ashton had their own mishap that resulted in the whole party being furious with them to varying degrees. And C3E78, their apology tour for that event, came with plenty of statements and promises on their part that have an awful lot of relevance to current events.

Ashton has always shown a high degree of awareness that this is a group teetering on the edge of darkness at any given time. His apologies in episode 78 tend to be loaded with assurances that he will forgive the others when it's their turn to make mistakes just as he hopes they will forgive him. Here's what he said to Chetney:

TALIESIN: Well, I'm glad you stopped. And I don't know, I'm processing a lot right now, but if I do stay, if you let me stay, the day something happens and it goes bad for you and you hurt a lot of people because, for any reason somebody gets in your head, something bad happens, something pushes you over the edge, something just fucking stupid. Stay or go, I promise that I will stick around, help clean it up. You will get no shit from me. None.

And here's what they said specifically to Laudna when she confronted them:

TALIESIN: I will, no matter what we do, no matter what mistakes we make, no matter what we have, I will stay and I will be there and I will not-- I will not walk away. I don't know what love is, but I'm going with this.

And they seem to be sticking to that promise! At the end of last episode they were very strongly by her side. He clearly sees (understandably, given his past) the act of sticking with someone no matter what to be one of the highest expressions of love. But sticking by someone doesn't mean signing off on all of their behaviour unchallenged, either. I also think it's relevant to look at what was in his mind when Imogen tried to read it:

TALIESIN: I think I've seen a pattern in my life and I've-- I'm going to just describe it instead of-- Just the realization of hubris and temptation and blame and this sudden realization of this epiphany of violent levels of projecting responsibility. Just this very wide thought of so many moments in life of not being responsible for what happened and suddenly going through that one by one of just, it took one week of vaguely knowing where I came from, and the only thing I really knew about these people was that they fucked up in this very particular way and it took me one week to do the exact fucking same thing. Because I was so desperate to have it and so desperate to have something that I lost so that I could be mad at someone for taking it.

They immediately took a step back and saw their responsibility for the way in which they hurt their friends, and so they expressed regret and apologies for that. He also saw how his actions were a way of reflecting his hurt back out into the world in the same way he was hurt. His father failed him, and his pain and trauma led him down the path of making a very similar mistake. I suspect all of this was on his mind in that moment where he took Laudna by the shoulder and whispered to her that she should start with an apology. They were hoping she would respond to it with that same introspection, but unfortunately a few things--not the least of which being Delilah--are in the way of that.

The question is what does he do next? He made a promise to walk beside, but (as I said above) that isn't necessarily a promise to unilaterally co-sign all of someone's actions, and I'd like to see a step forward in which Ashton uses their experience with the shard and what happened after to perhaps try and further encourage Laudna to make amends and communicate and come into the fold of the group instead of isolating herself. But I wonder if perhaps they do not feel that they have the right to say anything negative to her at all only days after the shard incident. But how does one reconcile that with a group member who risks becoming genuinely dangerous to your other loved ones if she continues down the path she's on?

[feuilletonette]

Bridgerton S3, they could never make me hate you.

I had been consuming a lot of contents albeit very much revolves around these two darlings, Penelope and Colin. I just couldn't get enough. I was simply never the same after Polin. Never.

It had been pressing weeks when I felt the shed of my old skin upon the compounding insinuations of loss affection toward men of haunting past. In which with all their might would do everything to sabotage the relationship, to run screaming and crying and throwing up to absolutely defy these insurmountable feelings, one could label within the word, love. Until they are utterly consumed by these thoughts and overwhelming need to express such affections where the only way to ever cope results to angry, passionate confessions of love.

I am wild to witness the stark difference of how we see Colin did none of those things because in my conclusion, he wasn't as emotionally constipated and the first three leads and it is such a refreshing medium to see without ever actually stripping him flat. That is what I want: a tender, loving, down bad softboy declaring that if his purpose was to love a woman as great as me, then he shall be a very fulfilled man, indeed.

The argument that he didn't say the 'I love you' enough debate was, in surface, quite understandable but if you start to analyse closely, after the proposal, almost every interactions he's had revolved around finding an opportunity to express his love and admiration to/for Penelope, especially in his conversation with his siblings.

He didn't need to scream his confession, he'd been attuned and embracing it (enthusiastically so) once realised, that is why he was never repulsed of having to speak of it the first place! In fact, he even actively communicates it in the most beautiful way possible.

He sought advice from Violet, followed Anthony straight away when he told him that he should tell her he loves her. Listen to Kate's marital advice. He's open, he's receiving help, he's trying to process his hurt and overcoming his triggers. He's learning to do better but it wasn't perfect. He made mistakes along the way but eventually led him to the path of acceptance.

He wanted to love her better, despite of and in spite of. Colin had always been introspective so when he had discovered the root of his actions, he gathered up the courage to be vulnerable and admit it to Penelope. That he was feeling envious because he never truly felt good enough. But this was recieve to be affirmed of his inherent worth. The thing I love about this couple is that they felt so human and that propelled them to move past such damaging beliefs of themselves to do better.

Don't even get me started with Penelope, I could make dissertations of how well she was written for all anyone could care. Miss girl is ambitious, I love how her mental glow-up was able to comply how well her physical glow-up was executed also. In the end, she needn't to choose between herself and the man she loves.

She can be both independent and cherished by a man, a man who constantly worked on himself because she mattered more than his ego. She may have wavered after various discouragement and she had tried, so so hard to give up her success but she couldn't. Whistledown is something she wouldn't compromise as it would mean betraying a part of herself. So I was glad that upon fighting for it, the people around her soon realised that this is something they could not deny and something they should fight with her not off of her. I'm glad that the show was able to depict that Penelope could have both. Being a succesful, career-driven woman should not cost you your love, or at least the right one. And it's a powerful message to have.

I also love this passage of weilding her power into more productive causes such as giving voice to the voicless. I hope we see more of it for the upcoming season.

Though, of course it's not perfect, with pacing issues and subplots with purpose I had hard time figuring. But if there's one thing I couldn't stress enough, season 3 has so much depth and I was very glad to dive upon the narrowest trenches of it.

It was so beautifully done and that is why I also stand that Polin have the strongest foundation so far as they navigate their biggest block and be the best versions of themselves together, and occasionally, with the help of one another.

P.S I am only talking about the show Polin, I hated the book, but I suppose this would be for another post.

[aspiringtrashpanda]

I LOVE OUR COLLECTIVE SON. Find the prompt list HERE.

── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ──

DAY 17 Prompt: Luke Additional tags: Introspection, plant care, super vague hint to spoilers

“How are you doing today?” 

Luke checked the soil of the potted scorching sunflower on his bedroom windowsill. It was dry to the touch, ready for its daily sip of water. As Luke pushed his curtains to the side, positioned the plant’s flower facing the full moon, he checked all of the deep green leaves for any hint of decay.

“A little thirsty,” He acknowledged, “But you still seem healthy.”

His fingers pinched one of the velvety golden petals, humming in satisfaction as the heat that thrummed through the flower seeped through his skin. The fastest way to measure a scorching sunflower’s health was to ensure it was still converting moonlight to warmth. 

“It’s funny to think that talking to you has become a routine for me,” Luke murmured, propping the pot onto his homemade drainage system (a tupperware with holes poked in the bottom, turned upside down in a shallow bowl) and gently pouring a small stream of fresh water into the soil. “It feels like just yesterday that Beelzebub was passing on Mammon’s tip.”

“You are a lot happier since I started talking to you, huh?” With a smile, Luke carefully preened any dead leaves from the plant’s underside. “I do wonder why Mammon knows anything about plants, though.” 

He giggled, pausing his ministrations to consider, “Maybe he tried to grow a Grimm tree.”

With his sunflower care complete, Luke allowed himself to sink down onto the bench that lined the bay window, placing his chin atop his knuckles as he peered out at the Devildom street just past the glass. He had grown to like the location of Purgatory Hall. Off the beaten path, but not too far removed from the stores downtown. They were close enough to the hustle and bustle that demons–most often couples and those taking their curious beasts on an evening stroll–still passed by.

Tonight was nothing out of the ordinary. Luke’s eyes traced the path of a young demon who looked roughly his own age. They laughed, tugged along by an overeager hellhound puppy. Luke felt a familiar squirming in his gut. 

“When I first came to the Devildom, I hated demons. I thought they were bad. Evil and immoral.” He sighed, his fingers absently playing with the scorching sunflower petals, “But now, I don’t think they’re so bad after all.” 

“I don’t like to admit it, but… I think they’re my friends,” Luke’s voice dropped to barely above a whisper. On the other side of the glass, the hellhound skidded to a halt, turned around, and tugged the young demon back the way they came. The dog’s nose never left the pavement, clearly tracking some scent. 

“At least, Barbatos and Beelzebub. Barbatos helps me with my baking, and I know I say that I want to be a better pastry chef to please Michael, but I’ve started to notice… Well, I look forward to giving my sweets to Beelzebub, even if he is the worst taste tester in all three realms. His praise is nice, I guess.” Luke shut his mouth, let the confession sit. When nothing bad happened, he added, “And I don’t mind Leviathan and Satan much, either. Leviathan is always happy to tell me about new games he thinks I might like, and Satan isn’t as scary as I thought he’d be. He’s nice to cats. Cats wouldn’t like a mean monster.”

The demon with the hellhound was trying to wrestle an unknown object from the dog’s mouth. Luke could hear the demon laughing, cooing at their puppy and begging it to drop the stick! The dog’s tail was wagging so swiftly, Luke thought for a moment that it had two tails. The pressure grew in his stomach, a hole opening up in his chest. Why would such a wholesome scene make him so very sad? 

“Does that make me a bad angel?” Luke asked his flower, “Raphael says that showing kindness to all beings is necessary for maintaining a pure soul, but Simeon did that and…”

He slammed his mouth shut, hesitated, and then whispered so softly, he could barely hear his own words,“Would it be so bad to fall?” 

Yet the demon and their hellhound moved past Purgatory Hall, and the moon remained as silent as ever. Luke sat in the quiet, in the dark of the Devildom until a ding from his D.D.D. lit up the device’s screen. It was a message from Mammon, asking if Luke wanted to go hunt faeries in the human world.  

“Why can’t we all live in harmony, together?” Luke muttered, and this time he thought his scorching sunflower tilted its head towards him. 

“It doesn’t feel very kind to keep everyone apart.” 

── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ──

OBEY ME! MONTH MASTERLIST

[bibibbon]

people have been debating whether mirio really was a better successor for ofa has given me an idea for my rewrite. In my universe, izuku is much nore attentive and analytical of his surroundings, and due to facing discrimination for his quirklessness, he has a less rose tinted view of hero society and wont just follow orders like lemillion. An example is when he and lemillion first meet eri and lemillion give eir back to overhaul, a long tongue snatches eri from his grasp and darts away. Lemillion tries to chase after the villain but izuku recognizes it as my oc herpeton and due to them already having worked together in the past izuku trusts his instinct enough to stop lemillion and get both them out of the alley and away from an angry overhaul. Also after izuku discovers who herepton is with nezu and after nezus deal, izuku acts as a benefactor to herpeton and gives him intel on what pros patrol the cities that herpeton is visting for the first time and what their tactics are. This willingness do what is right instead of just following what the commision want is why all might chose him as his successor. Speaking of which, nana shimura and the rest of the ofa holders were also vigilantes, which explains why they most people have never heard of them. What do you think?

Hi @suchusoid 👋

This has been a long and ongoing discourse that's been reignited a few weeks back after the series ended.

Personally, in Canon itself we aren't truly given a concrete reason as to why izuku is better than mirio and why he deserves OFA more than mirio. This gets even more annoying as the series ends with izuku not even claiming the quirk or making it his but simply still viewing it as a gift from his favourite hero.

I remember @mikeellee asking a similar ask as to why izuku was picked and not mirio and Canon doesn't give us a concrete answer heck it's even worse when you realise how non existent izukus relationship with all might is.

However, I think that you're changes here to izuku are honestly what was needed!! Having izuku carry and cement the idea of no man is created equal and making sure to make that an integral part of his character would allow for izuku to really see the grey morality and messed up system especially since Canon does try and point this out but constantly fails due to the lack of introspection and development izuku has.

Izuku understanding the cruelty of the system yet still trying to save everyone is what makes him different to mirio who has a goal if 1 million people but izuku has an ongoing gaol that in reality would never be achieved and will always be added onto and altered to help produce a fairer society one where people can at least have the same opportunities.

Making Izuku much more attentive also makes sense and is crucial since Canon misses that part of his character completely. In Canon we do get some interesting analytical moments from izuku but they are inconsistent and its a shame because with a bit more digging and thinking izuku's character could of became so much more.

Mind you this is the same character that saw Hawk's once and said that it's weird that he is only 6 years older and so much more mature then them.

This is also the kid who ended up copying his classmates move multiple times with his quirk like shooting blackwhip from his mouth to mimic froppy or the use of his legs when it comes to ofa mimicking iida.

Due to his analytical abilities I feel like midoriya would be able to peice together that herperton is one of his classmates friends.

They would form a partnership of sorts. Izuku wants to help herperton out in hopes of helping achieve a better future and society so he would give him information in return and maybe he would even give him some quirk advice.

A part of me thinks that herperton would get a sense of deja vu especially when he finds out that izuku was quirkless. This would all remind him of his own quirkless mentor and from that they would slowly grow closer to the point where they both trust each other to make the right move if needed. This means that izuku allows for eri to be taken and then herperton and izuku manage to get her into safety.

In the end izuku wants a better society and he has already done many things to show us that he would do what is morally right over following the rules. This is the same izuku who ran and intervened the moment he realised iida was in hosu and trying to kill Stain. This is the same character who tried to take down gentle criminal so the school Festival wouldn't be disturbed. Even if it means getting himself into trouble or being hated izuku midoriya does what is right and that should be his character

[ravenalla]

Okay I swear this will be my last rant post before the next episode airs but I have to get it off my chest cause I keep seeing the argument made that people disappointed Din gave the darksaber away are forgetting the lack of plot in the previous seasons, which I very heavily disagree.

I can’t speak for everyone, but at least for me when I’m saying I’m disappointed Din did not become Manda’lor I am not saying I hated the adventure of the week side quest format they had. That’s what I liked best about the show! It was great in season 1 feeling like Din was just the random guy off on his own adventure with this baby he found, I would have loved for it to have kept that small space western feel. Season 3 becoming this big interconnected universe with a corrupted New Republic plot connecting to the sequels is what I was most worried about just because I personally don’t like that direction. The more they’ve tried to go the Andor route and make this show about the Galatic politics, the worst it’s become imo (we literally have two white dudes writing a plot point about droids liking being underclass and serving the soft democratic people that is ruled with the help of a former Nazi, but ohh it’s okay it’s Jack Black and he’s funny and the Space Nazi and the Space Nazi doctor are really sorry for what they did, look the New Republic is just as bad as the fascist imperials 🥺🥺)

What some people are not getting is that the darksaber is ALL. DIN. HAD. LEFT. There was no driving force or goal for him after episode 2, they reunited him with his child in a spin-off show, they have him redeem himself fairly easily without any emotional impact, and now they took away the opportunity to do one last interesting thing with him. Din does not have his own actions or thoughts throughout most of the season, and when he does it’s just retracing the character development they already gave him in previous seasons (i.e. the whole droid fiasco). He’s a plot device, meant to further Bo-Katan’s character and help her with her goals or have him in danger so she can save him. It was okay if Din did not become Manda’lor, but they can’t just make him having the darksaber out to be a huge deal, show him trying to learn how to train with it, and give it up so stupidly through a loophole just so Bo-Katan can lead again when she has done nothing to actually earn it or apologize for the way she disrespected Din’s entire culture again and again. She was a terrorist who has done a 180 into suddenly being an honorable character just because of a few action scenes, no introspection or interesting conflict between her and the covert about their differences, nothing about her actually thinking about her past mistakes, just the covert being there to look like dumbasses who settled on a dangerous planet where their children get eaten so Bo can lead missions, look a million times more competent in comparison, and suddenly be the one who deserves to lead.

There doesn’t have to be a big plot each episode, but it’s not being executed well like it was in the first two seasons. The goal was getting Grogu to a Jedi, and we were given the interesting side adventures on that journey. Din needs to find somewhere he can lay low, he goes to Sorgan and becomes tempted by a domestic life. Din needs credits, he takes a job with some old acquaintances and sees what kind of slimy person he could have been. Din needs to find other mandos to help him find a Jedi, he runs into a small town desperate for help with a Krayt Dragon and showcases his pride in being a Mandalorian but his respect for other cultures and his willingness to do the right thing. He travels to a planet ruled by an former Imperialist because the Jedi he was searching for was there and helps her to save a town both for their sake and his need to give his son the best life he can have. See the pattern? They were side adventures, but they weren’t a random hodgepodge of ideas, they fit the story and the tone, giving us interesting side characters and helping to develop our main characters. Din showed his leadership, his growing kindness, his frustrations, his annoyances, his fears, Grogu becomes more adventurous, vocal, and attached to who he’s starting to see as a father figure. They both aren’t talkative characters, but they had feelings and personalities we saw. They had moments between them that wasn’t just exposition for the plot or a push towards an action scene, it showed their lives and values, their relationships. Little moments like Din being happy to hear Grogu’s name, Cobb sharing his story and why he valued the armor, Omera talking with Din about his life and wondering if he could stay, Frog Lady wanting to get her eggs safely to her husband and Din comedically trying to make that happen. The story was driven by these characters decisions and their personalities.

Season 3, on the other hand, has taken away all the life of these side adventures in its goal to tie in a larger Star Wars narrative that connects to other shows. They are not character driven anymore, and instead the characters are being twisted and molded to do and say stuff that’ll get us from point A to point B instead of the other way around. The point of Din breaking his creed is not to see what that would mean for his identity or how he wants to live with Grogu by his side, the point is to take him to Mandalore so that he can ultimately get trapped and fall down a hole so Bo-Katan can see the Mythosaur. The point of Bo-Katan’s crew leaving her and her staying in a random castle for no reason doing nothing all day isn’t for her to recognize her past failings or show us what their relationship was like and what it meant to her, it’s to have an easy offscreen explanation so that she can come to the covert without anything challenging in the way. The point of Din’s coverts staying on a monster-infested planet where Paz’s son is kidnapped isn’t because it makes sense they’d be there or that Paz suddenly even has a son we’ve never seen before, it’s so they can put in CGI monsters they thought were cool and have Bo save the day so they can have a flimsy reason she does need to be leader again. The point of spending time with the covert and having random pirates attacking Nevarro wasn’t to develop the other mandalorians as actual characters, it was to have them accept Bo easily so that she can “walk both worlds” and give Carl Weather’s character more screentime. And so much more.

Things are happening, but it doesn’t matter whether they make sense or fit the characters anymore, because all the side quest are focused on is bending over backwards trying to make you believe this Bo deserves the darksaber narrative. Before that it wasn’t like the Covert was planning to take back Mandalore, Din wasn’t planning to take back Mandalore, Bo didn’t tell anybody what she saw so there was no real stakes for anybody. Nobody in the main plot has had any purpose as more than side characters besides her. Din may have been the main character, but the people he met on his journey didn’t just do stuff to contribute to his own character or finding a Jedi. Omera had her own goals, Cobb had his own goals, Fennec had her own goals, Boba had his own goals, and they all still worked well with the narrative without diminishing each other, Din developed on the way by learning from the other characters and them him. What the fuck does Din want this season? Paz? The Armorer? The answer is whatever will make it easiest for the plot to retake Mandalore and have Bo be the Manda’lor for these writers, despite it being shown previously they have no reason to care or like Bo-Katan.

Like, some character moments are there. Bo is changing. I’m not saying that’s not happening at all. But it’s being done in a way that is sabotaging every other aspect of the show to force this plot that they wanted, the sidequest are feeling duller because they aren’t for these characters to have fun adventures we get emotionally invested in that simultaneously furthers the actual main characters goal, it’s let’s just have a CGI dragon, let’s have Lizzo and Jack Black guest star, let’s have Zeb from Rebels be in there for no reason. Unless again you count Bo as the main character, but like honestly she’s not even having natural character development. She went from being an antagonistic ex-terrorist to suddenly being kind and charitable with hardly any buildup or insight into her feelings. It doesn’t feel organic. I know she lost everything, but they still made it seem like she blamed Din for it only to have her rescue him once and completely abandon that hostility. The best we really have gotten is Grogu remembering his past while with the armorer and setting up his future as a Mandalorian, but even that feels cheapened when the armor he was given isn’t even talked about with the person who he shares the symbol with him that signifies their relationship, making me think it’s just another merchandise decision.

We wanted Din to learn to rule because, even if we did have to say goodbye to the adventure of the week type format, it would have been in service of his character evolving into something he doesn’t think he deserves or is good at. It would have been the next step in his journey, accumulating everything he has learned, the growth he went through using both diplomacy and his skills as a fighter time and time again. Instead, they chose to really quickly ditch any of the conflicts he had so they could have him free to do this instead. If they had waited one more season, this could have possibly been done well imo. Din’s arcs could have been brought to a meaningful and satisfying conclusion, and then you could have made him and Bo-Katan become co-leads. It wouldn’t have mattered as much then if they decided to focus a little more on her. But instead they essentially abandoned Din’s story they’ve spent two seasons creating to go ahead and tell her own.

The side quest aren’t what people are complaining about. It’s that they have no meaning for our characters other than having everybody circling around Bo most of the time or creating some big connection to the sequel triology and setting up the Star Wats MCU, which wasn’t the style of writing this show did. I don’t care how many ways people want to argue against it, Din is not the main character in this season, which is not what they have been selling us all year, and he doesn’t even have any engaging story or arc as a side character either. That is the problem, and that is why these side quest and the lack of an actual plot do not work.

[rise-my-angel]

Heart of the Great Wolf

17 - Plans of Pain and Horror

Pairing: Jon Snow x F!Baratheon!Reader, Robb Stark x F!Baratheon!Reader (Past)

Length: 14.1k

Warnings: angst/hurt comfort, canon divergence, reference/discussions of rape, suicidal ideation, grief and trauma response, inferences to miscarriages

Notes: Heavy exploration of heavy trauma and mental duress issues this time. Previous Chapter Here, Series Masterlist Here.

It was an odd feeling, standing there against the railing with a slight nervousness in his body. A feeling he had been learning to let go of, but there were two reasons for them to resurface now. If the circumstances were any different he may have prepared himself for what he once thought was coming to him, but Jon didn’t approach Theon with that kind of intention on his face. Instead of was one of deep introspection, where his true thoughts or feelings were tightly locked away except for the frustrated anger that slipped through the cracks.

Though it was also a nervousness that he knew exactly the last time he felt like that. In the dark dungeon cells of the Dreadfort he had seen the horrific jagged red on your stomach that made him shake. You sat there alive with that, when Theon knew he’d killed men with wounds just like that, and now he knew similar scars sat littered across the chest of the man next to him. The man who may have just stayed dead had you never showed up.

Dynamics twisted, Theon had nothing clever to say or anything teasing to throw. He knew Jon could sense how nervous he was, but now there was something in the man that had felt more commanding then in the days of Winterfell. His voice was low and rasping as he leaned on the railings next to him both looking out to the scene. “What you did for her is the only reason you’re alive right now.”

Nodding to himself, Theons swallowed harshly. “I know that. Even coming here I knew you might kill me soon as I came through those gates.” Sighing to himself he could see the look in your eyes for so long that scared him. “But I knew if I didn’t get her here..she’d rather die then let Ramsay get her back.”

Gloved hands tightened around their grip of the railing and he felt shame once more as the anger fought it’s way to hide in Jon’s voice. “I was going to find her myself, the day they...” Too scared to look at him, he could still feel the pain in his pause. “I didn’t force anyone to come with me, if I was going to have to go after her alone I wouldn’t hesitate. Couldn’t sit here and act as if it wasn’t eating away at me, letting her think no one cared. But I wasn’t the one who protected her. You were.”

Theon could sense there was something intense neither of you were saying. Something that left a protective rage about your safety that Theon had only ever seen in one other man. “They want her to marry Ramsay. More then half the North haven’t come to their side, so they thought if they showed up with their Queen married, already given Ramsay an heir, it would force the rest to surrender.”

Jon beside him was clearly holding a lot back, risking a glance to him that held real pain as he continued on. “If no one helped her get away from him, she would’ve killed herself. Not after what Roose Bolton did, not after what Ramsay..”

“After he what?” Turning with a hand still on the railing to face Theon, he felt intimidated to match his position. Quite the lives they have become for Theon to be the one looking at Jon Snow and wanting to slink away instead of size him up. Eyes dark and the scar around one eye only served to make him seem even wilder as Jon muttered with rough restraint. “I’ve seen the marks around her thighs, I know he touched her but I need you to tell me exactly what he did. Because we both know she’s not okay.”

Maybe it wasn’t his place, but Theon also knew it was torture for him as well. He was the one dragged into that room night after night made to watch. He had to watch as you either fought back or tried to block it all out which only ever made it worse. Force your head up to make eye contact with Theon as Ramsay taunted you both before leaving you to handle the torment and pain. He’d seen the marks some easily hidden, others not because Ramsay wanted someone to watch. It haunted him too, but it also for just a second of seconds, had a question occur to him that blurted out.

“When did you see her like that?”

Jon didn’t respond, his eyes shifted to something a bit heavier behind the grey but it was you with the talent to read so well, not Theon. And certainly not with Jon of all people. “I can’t help her if I don’t know what he did to her.”

Some people were passing by, some with nervous eyes others curious and all directed towards the man draped in black beside him. He wondered if he knew how much he was reminding Theon of those last days he spent with Robb. Once dumb teenagers now turned into leaders, and both of which had a dark temper towards others about you.

“Not here.”

As Jon moved to close the main door to his quarters, his eyebrows quirked up a tinge as he caught Olly’s eyes. Watching with a distant fear and horror as he walked across the gravel with what looked like some kind of drink in hand. Were the place his heart was not right under where that knife had dug into, he would’ve found something to note in how he now seemed to now serve the woman he helped murder Jon for trying to protect.

When he entered, you had barley noticed you didn’t even attempt to touch the food brought to you when Olly sat down a small container onto the desk as you leaned against it. Your head screamed at you to just sleep but you hadn’t found any courage to wander further into this place which held any semblance of her.

It was possible you nodded off at some point in the night, but not enough to made any difference as you went over and over again the plans of your father. The less it made sense for him to have lost the further you understood what he was doing. You had previously been rummaging through everything trying to find the letter. You knew it was right on the desk but it was now gone and you couldn’t take just one more spiralling of panic right now.

But now you felt even more overwhelmed as your palm pressed firm into your forehead. “He thought you would come back to him, he came here still mourning your death. Your father would want-”

“My father thought I was a traitor.” Your hands flew down the desk behind you, the slight slam almost making the boy behind it jump back. “He called Robb a thief, saying he stole half his kingdom if he took Kings Landing he would have come after us next.” The pain in your voice cracked slightly, tone falling as you knew it wasn’t Davos’s fault you were so unreasonable over this. “I stopped being his heir the moment I chose to join Robb instead of sailing for Dragonstone.”

Stepping towards you, your eyes fluttered shut as arms crossed over your chest. Davos speaking quieter then you had yelled, “For a time he was angry, but he knew he made a mistake by turning your offer down. I tried telling him more then once to reconsider making peace with your husband and everytime he denied it right up until you both died.”

Scoffing, you turned your attention to the darkness of the walls around you. “Never once did he step foot in the North. Never liked it, never cared for it but he sent me here for half my life so I wouldn’t end up spoiled and unprepared like Renly. Then he married me to the North only to have them as an easy ally at his back and then still called me a traitor for staying with them.”

The cold in the air now reminded you of that night, how despite the freezing weather around it was the spirits of the North that warmed you. How unsure Robb looked and yet how he never wavered to be the King they needed, the only one they wanted.

“What was I fighting for, if I turn around now and accept the very crown we lost the war fighting against? That I was willing to be their Queen only until something better came into my lap?” Biting your lip before dropping to something softer, more distant and somber. “Besides, I was never their leader Ser Davos. I was Queen only because they chose Robb as their King. I wouldn’t have been anything without him. He was their leader, I wasn’t meant to do this on my own.”

He felt for you, having seen the qualities of the man in person that day. It was clear why the Northmen respected Robb Stark so much, and easy to see those same qualities that Stannis had seen in his brother. He had said it to no one but Davos, but were you still alive Stannis said, he wondered if Jon would’ve accepted his offer of Winterfell, if he too, had offered you as well.

A hand rested on your upper arm as you looked up, an understanding kindness in his eyes that was so uncommon amongst most of the men you’d come across in these years. “These people need a leader, they need someone to follow someone to believe in.”

The way so many had gone to him, the way so many looked to him with love in his new life. “They already have a leader. They don’t need a new one, they just needed to have the one they already believed in back. And he is.”

You hated the ease in which Davos felt like a father sometimes, an honesty with a comfort that was frustratingly effective as it cut to the chase. “Then what does that make you?”

Voice quiet, but both in the room heard it well as it was weak yet conclusive. “Suppose it just makes me someone who is in his way.” Once you may have had something to offer him, but no longer. You had nothing to give Jon or his cause that wouldn’t bring him down. A disappointment you were.

Circling around the desk before he could speak, you sat down with a louder shift in tone. “It might be a better use of your time, Ser Davos to make yourself available to the Lord Commander for the time being. He is the one in charge and with the men who will follow him, he and Stannis were trying to fight for the same cause and they both died for it. He would be better served by you then I would.”

You didn’t mean for it to come off the dismissive way you did, but there was nothing you could see that didn’t leave you behind. It made sense, you married Robb and left Jon behind to the Wall and now it was destiny he do the same to you. And you’d deserve it as far as you were concerned.

He didn’t buy it though, and curse him for knowing you that well. “Your grace if I may,” Your inside twisted at the title, it didn’t used too but since arriving you felt as if it were a mockery. Sitting down in front of you he leaned forward, “You think you’re the only one to worry about disappointing the people you love? That the things we suffer through make us weak in their eyes?”

Hard pressed to find the right words to say, you swallowed heavily hoping it would take the nerves down with it. “Tell me, Ser Davos what could you possibly have done to disappoint the people most important to you in your life?”

There was no hesitation in his answer, the words much more of a surprise. “You had the restraint and the influence to send that woman away yesterday. That isn’t nothing, she’s been attached to the King’s side for a long time and no one has managed to force her to leave until you.” Your eyes narrowed in slight question as he elaborated. “When I tried, it was with a knife and it got me tossed into a cell.”

Your expression must have shifted drastically, because Ser Davos chuckled to himself. “That’s the same expression your father had. She had pushed me one step too far, and right there in the middle of the room I tried to put a knife in her.” It steadied on the tip of your tongue to ask, but you knew the man well enough that something quite wrong must have been that cause. Or very painful.

Leaning forward yourself, you lightened the weight in your shoulders a bit as you spoke a bit more freely. “She only left because I did the exact same thing to her. I was angry, I was confused, hell0 I still am but she just kept trying to convince me to join her. That her visions were all true and not lies made up to hurt people she can’t so easily manipulate.”

Meeting his eyes you found yourself being the open one for the first time, “Told me that her god was trying to say I was with the wrong person. That I was on the wrong side and everything since then had been trying to push me here.” Your eyes drifted to the side, a quiet crack in your tone breaking through. “Saying being with Robb, having our child wasn’t my destiny. I was just so angry, so I shoved her against the wall and told her I’d put a knife through her stomach where Roose Bolton did mine.”

It was an odd thing, but there was a semblance of proud on the mans face. “I don’t mean to overstep, your grace but in my own opinion her talk of destiny is nonsense. You had a husband you loved and a child on the way and she cannot take that from you. Even now that they’re gone, she can’t take away that love between you, that will always exist.” Your eyes flickered down to a spot of nothing on the desk, your throat too choked to make any sound.

You hoped that was true, you really did. But you failed everything Robb had fought for, and betrayed his memory twice over. Davos did not let the thoughts stew though, “You suited each other. Your father wouldn’t have been to happy to hear me say this, but you looked like a proper King and Queen by the others side. Losing both of them will always hurt, but no one can take away what you had. Not even her.”

Not moving, you nodded a single time as he could see the hold in your face trying not to let too much of that pain out in front of anyone. Looking up to Olly he nodded to the side, “Come, let’s go make ourselves useful somewhere else. Give the Queen a moment alone.”

Olly nodded, getting to the door before turning back looking to you and then the food he sat out hours ago. Catching a protest from Ser Davos he quickly grabbed it to bring with him. “I can bring you something warm later.” He was trying very hard to make up what he did in your eyes and you had no idea why.

You didn’t know what Queen anyone saw you as anymore, nor if they should. As the door closed you sat in that silence for a moment before standing abruptly. Ever so slowly, you walked to the main part of the room. Theon had tried to make it relatively inoffensive but you still could sense her right there. Saw where she’d spend her time, where all her books would lay out.

The red woman may have burned her but you were the one to put a knife through her, ending a horrid pain or not it was on you and only you that she was gone. Sending her away was more to spare you from letting that anger inside you take a step too far, stop seeing their faces in hers and maybe they won’t haunt you.

But they did, all of them did. Every waking moment felt as if it was one onslaught of terror after the other in a world that no longer had a place for you in it. Fingers gently tracing over one of the books tucked away you recognized the cover. Smiling to yourself as you flipped it open gently seeing how well worn the pages were, easily seeing Shireen opening it up and going through everything as if she hadn’t read it a thousand times over.

By the time you sat, your back against the wall and knee bent with your feet flat on the floor you rested your forearms over them. Letting your head fall back onto the surface as you looked around. Your father had come here to fight an enemy you barley understood, and yet still found it within him to try and fight for a North that he knew had denied him. Some still would, or did.

You knew of some houses who sided with the Boltons, others more predicable then others. Rumours of the Umbers, some of the Manderlys making you wonder what the justification of their new fealty’s were.

Still not knowing who was left, who escaped or survived or what kind of allegiances lay about the North in truth. Hadn’t even a clue what state the Riverlands would be left in, once under Robb’s rule as well now felt so far away it was impossible to see. It flashed in your mind before you could stop it, the fire around the chanting, the horror of what became of both of them.

He didn’t deserve to be a tossed away pile of bones scattered across the Twins. He deserved be in the North, deserved to be buried with his family he fought for in his own home. He and Grey Wind both didn’t deserve to have it end in such a horror. Bringing any of him home likely wasn’t possible, if the Freys kept track of any beyond that night. Your heart almost plunged down into your stomach as a vile feeling rose in your throat.

An agony in your heart that overtook the nightmares which followed that night beyond. How many of those men would stay aligned with such traitors if they knew what they did with their King. The Young Wolf they had called him and they forced him to die as such. You didn’t know when the tears started, or when they fell too heavy to contain but your head dropped into your arms. Pulling your knees closer to your chest.

You could see them all, feel the blood under your hands and the constant loss surrounding you that all screamed it was your fault. Maybe this new life was for no purpose, maybe this was still the punishment. Eventually the exhaustion took over from the tears, but you had no idea when you fell asleep. Only the dream like sensation of a pair of arms wrapping around you before something soft fell underneath along with a gentle rasp that you couldn’t see in your slumber.

Maybe if you were lucky, you’d never wake up.

Coming around to the waking world, you were laid out under the sheets of a place you hadn’t fallen asleep in. Laid out on your side your eyes slowly opened to the sound of a grumble, as right before you red eyes watched you closely. Ghost sat to the side of the bed, his head laid out on the sheets watching you before letting out a whine when you found his attention. Slowly pushing up on your palms, the sheets fell around your waist leaning forward to run a hand along his fur.

The direwolf leaning right into it with another low grumble before shaking his head out and turning towards the door. Pausing to look back at you, you raised an eyebrow as your voice crept back from a grumbling slumber. “I suppose I can’t argue with that face, now can I?” Head tilting to your words you finally stood up, muscles for once not so angry as you did so. Over a week now had found many rough places to sleep, and even less willingness to stop to do so.

You had felt far warmer then normal and only as you stepped forward towards Ghost did you realize there was a furred cloak wrapped around you, a cloak that had your heart skipping. The last time you had ever seen it was years ago riding away from you when it’s owners father was still alive. The white fur brushed with darker spots alongside it had always stuck out from the other Starks whose were mostly dark with spots of browns and specks of black around it.

Many years ago, still teenagers, you had told him that winters and snow suited him no matter what about it he hated in name. Draped in all black for so many years, it made sense that his companion was the pure white opposite that kept it all balanced. The North felt like it was all around Jon for so long that ever pretending he was anything but a Stark was unfair. You had told Robb that night in Riverrun you never understood why he was treated the way he was.

In truth you logically did know, bastards of Westeros were treated amongst different levels depending on who it was they were born to. It had been a long time since you thought back to that day, but you could still see the boy with striking eyes and dark hair that matched you so well it stunned you into a shock you never quite got over in those days. But Gendry was a lowborn, from what you had been able to tell, possibly knew his way around being sold as a slave as well.

Having any Baratheon in his parentage meant nothing, born destined to live in the slums of flea bottom and that’s all the world would ever care from him because Robert would never have cared. But Jon was as much of a Stark as any you’d ever met and yet the only way you found one another again was in the most dire of lost times at the edge of the world brinking on a darkening end.

He was more of a Stark then you were a Baratheon anymore, no matter what Ser Davos tried to convince you of, you didn’t belong amongst the golds of Stags. But draped in Jon’s fur, you didn’t think you belonged with the wolves either. Just the dirt and rotting ground.

The Lord Commander’s quarters were naturally the most well made of the lot. More rooms were sectioned off with proper privacy rather then most of it in one place. The chill in the air reaching the point you knew it would never truly go away, wrapping the ends of the cloak a little firmer around your front as your eyes narrowed looking around.

For a brief moment, he hadn’t seen you yet. Sat away at his desk with his face twisted into something more exhausted then you’d seen before. It was hard to tell by the light coming from outside, but it appeared to be later in the afternoon, and likely Jon had been there for far too many hours scanning over too many words and numbers to not hurt your eyes eventually.

You hated the jump in your heart, the spike that felt so familiar like everytime you would see him for the first time when returning to Winterfell. Then it was more innocent, a comfortableness with a growing of more heated touch that never quite got off the ground then but just a quiet intimacy with your best friend. Now though, the faces in your mind, the life you lost in one horrible night that told you it was wrong to have anything close to that ever again.

You promised to never leave the other anymore, and you broke that by being pulled back to the world of living and not doing your duty to your vows and following him right back to the darkness. Pain and a scarring ravaging of your mind and body that took away the things he had given you and yet once you escaped that too?

Would they all hate you for what you did? For how it felt now? To look at Jon, his black curls thick, wild, and longer then they’d ever been, and the rest of him sharper and more distinguished from time, face framed by facial hair that you knew what it felt like scratching between your legs. Was it so horrible of you to so easily look at him now, and rediscover things that you once found so easy to love but in a whole new version of the same man. Was it unfair to Robb for you seeing his brother for the first time in years, and that was what happened?

It was a burning inside you that night, like you would be consumed by flames should you not give yourself to him as many times as he needed to take you. Never felt like it was more natural to be with someone, but now it all felt like you were just finding traitor in yourself to more people. A traitor to your father with Robb, and now a traitor to Robb with Jon and all of it was only your fault alone.

Clearly, you’d been standing there for a little longer then you guessed. Jon having set aside whatever took his focus previously as he softly called your name for what sounded like a second attempt. Mind snapping back to him, too falling easily into the wide tenderness of his grey eyes that made you stir uncomfortably. Your voice rough, and tone even more awkward. “You brought me here?”

Jon didn’t respond with the same stilted feeling, just looking to you with the same ease he always had even despite the raging tension in his shoulders. “The only way you could sleep was passing out on the ground or at your desk,”

Your brows narrowed for a moment, “How would you know that?”

His face never changed once and neither did his soft toned confidence. “Because I know you, and I know the last thing you’d want to is to fall asleep in either of their beds.” You hated that he was right, you hated that you had been to terrified to sleep in either your father or Shireen’s beds. Knowing the nightmares would follow thusly.

Stepping a few feet in more, distracting yourself by looking around his quarters to shove the sting in your eyes back down. “So you what, brought me to yours?” Whatever distracting accusation in your voice you attempted failed, either in you or to be fooled by Jon. He knew you so well and you hated every second of it. You couldn’t hide from him and you had the distinct feeling he no longer would let you try.

“If it meant I could keep an eye on you, yes.” You could hear a shift, likely him leaning back in his chair looking you over with a more narrowed, scrupulous gaze. You felt him follow you, as you looked over whatever lay about in the room to not meet his eyes back. Your name slipping roughly from his lips, making your jaw clench and eyes sting more.

Interrupting him before he could push the issue, but trying to push the playfulness in your voice didn’t quite hit it’s mark. “Thought men of the Night’s Watch weren’t allowed women in their beds.” Not looking, you missed the smirk slide easily onto his face.

Still low, his playfulness was much more natural in tone. “No, normally the men prefer sneaking off to Mole’s Town to stay in theirs.” But hair so red flashed in your mind and you knew it wasn’t there which his company was found, and you hated yourself deeply for feeling uneasy over it.

You had no right. You married his brother, kept another man’s bed warm while you were being looked to as a Queen and he was here shut off from the family who wished they did him better. You had no right to feel this way about Jon finding that same thing with another woman it was his life. The hands clutching the cloak gripped tight enough you could feel the strain in your knuckles, at least hidden by the black of the fabric over it.

Trying to smile while casting your eyes over titles on a bookshelf, “Suppose if they punished everyone for that, there would be nothing but corpses to man the Wall.”

“You mean more then it already is now?” You didn’t know if he intended it as a joke or not, but it finally made you whip around with a sharp unamused glare. It was all too clear exactly how those scars on his chest felt and nothing funny about it came to you. But the small conflict in his eyes had you pull back a bit. Wasn’t really funny to him either.

Glad he was giving you the space, you walked a bit closer before sitting in the seat opposite across the desk. Your hands still tightly gripping the cloak around you as he looked you over with something you didn’t want to recognize. Something you wish didn’t warm the chill in your veins. “I didn’t mean-”

“I know.” Your eyes flickered back up to his, something that was keeping himself at a distance to you but yet it appeared as if the effort was difficult for him. Once in another life, you both found it easy to keep apart so honestly. Hide in plain sight and save these kinds of emotion for private. But now? Now doing so in private felt almost worse, like giving into what you didn’t deserve anymore.

The quiet between you was heavy, but you had no clue how to break it. No idea what to say to make any of this easier, make any of it make sense. Neither of you should be here, and yet?

“Ser Davos told me my father offered you Winterfell.” His brows narrowed a tad as you glanced up to him and then back to the window on the walls. A twisting in your own expression at the idea, “Said he would legitimize you, give you Winterfell if you helped reclaim it. But you said no.”

The conflict in Jon’s own eyes were missed as he finally looked away from you. He was confident when he said no to the King, but all it took was one discussion with Ser Davos afterwards that stripped him off the lies he told himself. You did not know what exactly was said between them, and you did not presume to ask the details. It wasn’t your offer and not your right to know and yet here you were running your mouth about it because your mind couldn’t stop itself.

Running a hand over his mouth, there were finally nerves visible in his own person then just you for once. “I swore a sacred vow to the Night’s Watch.” You clenched your jaw as you turned away only to feel confused by the breath of a genuine chuckle from him. “There’s that look again.”

Turning with a furrowed brow, you more defensively turned your voice up. “What look?”

Jon only chuckled harder. “That right there” His forearm leaned with him to rest on his desk to point to your expression. “The same look you gave me that night, when I tried telling you why I was joining in the first place. You gave me that same look then, like you knew I wasn’t being honest with myself.”

You had no idea where it came from, but something so calm and flat slipped from your mouth with a very small amused shrug of a shoulder. “You and I are quite good at that, aren’t we?” You wanted to laugh with him, but it wasn’t quite as easy. “Lying to ourselves about what we really feel.”

His grey eyes shined at you with a familiar fondness so unique to only him. “Part of me didn’t think I deserved it. I spent so many years pining after everything my siblings got, but finally when it’s right in front of me all I could worry was that it shouldn’t be mine.” Voice and eyes far away in both as he let himself open up. “I found a place here, I found a reason to keep going to keep fighting but did any of that mean I should have the one thing I could only get because the rest of my family is gone? So I said no. That my place is here and getting myself involved with politics of the Seven Kingdoms wasn’t my place anymore.”

Pulling something from a drawer in his desk, you stilled. Recognized the tint right away before he even could open it back up. Sitting it face up between you, both knew the other had read and reread it too many times to count. Only this time, as a shaking panic found it’s way into your eyes a darkening anger swirled in his. The proof that what happened to him, was your fault.

You’d run from this very room if you didn’t think Jon would instantly leap up to shove the door closed before you could walk out of it. There also, was no hiding the watering that finally broke free of the dry sting and the red that followed the pressure. “I...what do you want me to say? If I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t have come here and maybe they never would have-”

It was uncommon that anger was directed towards you, but the darkness in his eyes and twisting expression of frustration as he looked at you felt horrid. “That’s what you think this is?” He leaned back before forcing himself to stand. Taking a few steps to the window running a hand over his face once more before turning back to look at you. Less of a furious anger and more like a hurt form.

Your name slipping harshly from his lips, making you turn to look at him wishing you weren’t so weak it was obvious you wanted to cry. “The Bolton’s murdered my brother, took my home from it’s own people. And when I finally find out after a year that they’ve kept you alive as their prisoner did I finally get it. I spent all this time trying to convince these men that the Free Folk deserve a place in the North as much as we do, but it wasn’t until him,” His chin nodding to the letter, “Did I realize that I don’t deserve to be the one leading these people if I don’t even try to protect the people I love.”

Your nerves ragged and your muscles under the cloak shook as you shook your head as your words gritted together. “And coming after me got you killed.”

Clearly a sore spot was pricked at, as he stepped forward, his voice raise along with his temper. “They killed me for doing the right thing.” Your head jilted back a small bit, biting your lip at the tone but never moved to make him stop. “The Night’s Watch isn’t the shield that guard the realms of men if we’re only protecting each other. What’s the point of trying to protect the world from what’s coming if I let everything I love die before it even gets here.”

Walking closer to you, your eyes were turned away from him completely. His voice lowering as he braced his palms across the side of the desk angled towards you. “I died trying to protect you and there wasn’t one second I ever regretted it. I didn’t regret it when I bleeding out on the ground, and I don’t regret it now that you’re the only reason I’m even alive.”

One gloved hand rose up to cup your cheek, turning you to look up at him and starling you by how close he really was. Your lungs chose to not even try to work as you looked at him as he whispered, his breathe warm as it gently reached your skin. “So stop avoiding me. I made my choice. Fight for what’s right, for my people, and for the woman I love.”

Even under the leather, you were sure he felt you shiver as you tried turning your gaze away from him, this time the tears just falling. The one hand still on you, running his thumb over to wipe away what it could reach but he never moved forward beyond it. Just kept you there, until your nerves settled down.

For once, you felt a sliver of calm that gave back any strength in your voice. “So, now what? You’re alive, as am I, so what do we do?”

Not that he said it, but the darker animal inside of Jon certainly had a very different answer to that question then the reasonable answer you were thinking. But after what he learned, part of him was petrified that he had scared you. And as much as he wanted you, as much as whatever this feeling inside his new beating heart screamed at him, he would never take that gamble when you were so fresh from such a disgusting torture.

His voice was low, and sure of himself as he came back around to the right conclusion. “First, I’m getting you to eat something for once and then? We do our duty. We start planning how we get the North back. Together.”

Nodding, you felt the loud noise in your head settle. Part of you sick of how only Jon seemed to quell it, but that was just a fact you were going to have to live with. Jon on his part, gave himself credit for having the will power to not kiss you. Running his hand over the side of your head, hair running through the leather between his fingers just looking at you for a moment when he let it slip out. By accident, his voice a quiet, husky awe like it was only meant to be in his head. “You look so beautiful in my clothes.”

Jon’s chuckle was deep as you flushed, turning away from his touch trying to hide the swirling embarrassment. A warmth in the pit of your stomach that felt so normal to be there with him, but you scoffed anyways. “Alright, you already made your point there’s no need to flatter me into it.”

Laughing more freely he let one more tiny part of him slip, and thankful that you didn’t shy away from him for it. Leaning closely he mumbled, “If I’m not supposed to flatter you, then you shouldn’t look so beautiful in my furs, sleeping in my bed.” You flushed one more time as Jon leaned in like it was such a normal thing to do, slipping his hand gently behind your head to pull you to him. Pressing a kiss to your forehead, your heart leaping in your chest at the tenderness. “Stay here with Ghost, I’ll bring you something.”

If you weren’t so flustered, you’d tell him you could do it yourself but by the time you registered he even said anything he was gone. Leaning forward to drop your head in your hands only to be nudged by Ghost. Drawing you back up, you sighed running a hand along his head. “At least I know now it’s just a Stark thing to enjoy making me nervous.”

Ghost just moved a bit closer, begging for more of your nails to stretch around his ears as he shuffled closer to comfort you. If only with the direwolf, that might have been the first time you said something so calmly about Robb and not felt like you wanted to throw up over the pain. It hurt, but it was a hurt that stemmed from memories that weren’t so agonizing to recall.

Eyes drifting upwards, you hesitantly reached out to grasp the letter. Despising how easily you could hear his voice as you glossed over the words. It seemed more unhinged then what he was when you left, but still the details didn’t add up. It had taken about seven days to reach Castle Black and this letter would’ve arrived on the sixth night. Seven days of battle, but only that very night Theon and yourself made an escape did Roose Bolton bring your father up to Ramsay.

The details of his ravings about you added up in your mind, there was only one place, one person you could reliably run too and blaming Jon as if you were stolen in the night was easier then accepting two beaten prisoners out foxed your men and hounds. But why lie about your father? Why would he have reason to lie and say Stannis was dead if he wasn’t?

You froze as it hit you. So much, so very much had happened between then and that day, many people who were there in person or signed to it were gone or prisoners still to the Freys. But there were absolutely still those who would know about it.

Ghost whined at you in concern as you bent in your seat, head falling into your hands at the factor you had so massively forgotten in this haze of your mind. How could you even bring that up now, how would you ever say it? Especially after what your father already tried to offer, he would just think you were trying to manipulate him.

It was made in genuinity, you and Robb both never doubted that choice and there was never even a second choice that you two considered good enough to put first. Not even Catelyn could find a protest beyond her own misgivings, and yet as it all came onto you like freezing water you realized that you had no idea what to say. Was this even a North anymore that would value your words? Would they see you alive and consider your stance as fair and righteous as they considered their once King’s?

One thing after another it seemed, not even a fortnight had passed since you escaped the Boltons and already the weight piled up one after the other with things that you had no idea what to do about. It was a bit odd however, having this weight and yet the giant direwolf here seemed to not just sense it but found discomfort in your own.

Even sized as this, Ghost was still a bit smaller then Grey Wind. Silent as anything when he wanted to be, preferring to slink into the background to watch with keen attention. Whereas Grey Wind stood tall and proud, confident in his intimidating nature that used it as a protective guard to those he cared about and in private, preferred to relax to fall asleep in gentle peace. But the quiet watchful direwolf in front of you was so much more lively alone.

As if Ghost was still a pup demanding your attention, huffing at you when your hands stilled as they scratched along his fur. Standing so close he could knock you over when outside you had noticed he preferred to stay back and watch it all play out with no distractions. Yet both still seemed to regard you with their own protective nature when most others knew direwolves to only answer to one.

But then there were those days, moments that felt like the wolves were more human then animal and something aggressive in them leaping to the forefront at your defence. Jon had said when he died, it was like part of him lived within Ghost, that he could see and control his animal in such a strange way that left him wild and aggressive until you showed up at the gates.

For a moment, you remembered the flames. Those few seconds before there was nothing, and how there was just enough flickers of life in Robb’s deep blue eyes that you knew he had to watch you first and were you not sitting you may have fell over at the thought.

Grey Wind shot full of arrows before his head was cut off just like- jumping up to your feet as if needing urgently to shake off the bile in your throat at the memory. You told yourself countless times not to think about it, but it was the last sight of him you’d ever get and suddenly the world felt dizzy.

Stepping forward, you had to brace your palms against the desk, head hanging low as the world spun both around you and inside your mind feeling like you were at a dozy sea. Only it was the sea which dragged you out, just as a hand reached your arm you spun around in a gasp as you both flinched away from the other. Theon a few feet back, hands now raised in the air as he looked over you with wide eyes at your breathless tone. “What are you doing in here?”

Lowering them back down, he tilted his head slightly to look you over with concern. “Checking on you. The two dead people disappear all day, started to make everyone a bit nervous out there.”

Steadying your breathing you leaned back against the desk, crossing your arms. “There is a difference between being dead and rumoured to be dead.” He didn’t take the hint to leave it be, and you could only wonder just what the talk really was outside your hearing.

Moving to match your position, he eyed Ghost now sitting quietly with watchful eyes unlike the affection of mere seconds ago. His arms crossed as well, tone bordering on light but in a more distant banter then perhaps years ago. “And I know there is a difference between surviving a knife in the stomach, and surviving being butchered like he did to you.” Your head turned to the side, eyes slipping closed to turn it out but he leaned closer. “You can’t keep avoiding it. Everyone is talking about it, you and Jon both, like they can’t decide if they’re terrified of you two or ready to worship you.”

Neither of those things sounded appealing, your resolve shredded too cowardly to be feared and there was nothing about your new life that deserved any kind of reverence. You were just you, alive somehow and far more broken then any Northerner would recall following you as. “I can avoid it as long as I refuse to speak on it. I’m alive that doesn’t mean anyone thinks I’m special.”

His eyes softened as he watched you, your gaze less harsh as you looked meaninglessly around the room. It took a while for it to be spit out, but once he did it was out there and he knew he had to address it further. “Jon does.” Your tone warning him by name but he climbed over it. “You think I’m stupid? That I can’t see the way he looks at you? Like you hung the moon in the sky just for him?”

Nudging his arm, the tiny gesture letting you two slip to a more normal feeling. “Have you been reading poetry in your spare time at the Wall, or did I only miss the fancy words in between ignoring how vulgar you used to be.” Both of you didn’t really laugh, but a far away smile crossing both of your faces at the memory.

Truly two different people in those sights compared to the ones in the present.

He shrugged as you both looked more to the ground in the quiet. “Guess I’m just noticing things more then I used too. Ruined my life always trying to be the centre of attention, decided maybe it might do be some good to take influence from you two and shutting up once in a while. Gave me time to start noticing the things around me.”

You wanted to dismiss it outright, but turning to glance at Theon you didn’t see the once cocky charmer he once was, but a man just as torn apart by the very people who did you. The one who risked everything to bring you here, to someone who had every reason to hate him for what he had done. It wasn’t so easy just brushing him off anymore, not when even now he stood by you instead of finding a better life anywhere away from here. You bit your tongue as something choked up built, but you never spoke of it.

Not outloud to a soul, and with those striking blue eyes still so painfully in your heart you had even less words to describe what those grey ones did to you now. “One of us should be able too. It feels like I have no idea what anyone is thinking anymore, like I could always read a person and their intentions but now there’s a fog overtop of my eyes and everyone is just a mystery.”

Nodding mostly to himself he hummed, “I can lift it for a few people. If you care to hear.” You shrugged a shoulder, and he continued on taking it as a yes. “For once, I can tell you that boy Olly? He’s about as afraid of you as he does admire you. Told you to your face he shoved a knife into Jon’s heart, watched you cut a man’s head off and hang two others for that crime but you kept him by your side. At this point, I think he’ll do anything to make up for what he did.”

You swallowed heavily. “He’s just a boy. I can’t blame a boy for being manipulated into something he couldn’t possibly understand. Seems keeping around people like that is a new pattern of mine.” Eyes meeting the other, you both knew there was direct influence on that one. You had found a true friend in Theon after once only seeing execution as a choice for his life and perhaps it make you more willing to forgive that of another.

“I also know I ruined my own life by going back to the Iron Islands, that the only time I felt like I was part of something good was fighting by Robb’s side. And that I’m willing to get dragged along with you until you figure out what your next moves are as well.” The only thing you could be sure with, was the honesty and dedication in his eyes that was as foreign to him now as it was for you to see it again. “Besides, I didn’t just swear my sword to the King in the North. Pretty sure there was a Queen in there as well.”

Both of you knew, you didn’t feel like that person anymore. Not even close, but now you knew in a strange panic that you were going to have to do your duty. The last real act as King and Queen you had made with Robb needed to be upheld, if only could it be done by one who was less inclined to so easily fall apart. Theon didn’t need to hear it, but you said it anyways. “I’m sorry for ever sending them to you. Truly, I am.”

Eyes meeting once more, it was a bond that likely none else would understand. Forced into a torture upon the other that no one else could image were they not there to endure it. “So am I.” Progress was made for him, a kind moment of comfort where your hands found the other.

Memories of a hellish nightmare that left your souls both in horrid tatters, and yet enough pieces were scraped together to run from it before it consumed you both without mercy.

If the gods had none else planned for you, at least you could rely that Theon would go with you towards that chaos. What worse could you two find that hadn’t been done to either of you over by those blood curling pale blue eyes.

Too far removed from the present still, the small moment as the door from outside opened followed suit with something that only further proved Theon’s point which escaped your notice. But as the door and cold swung open, and as Jon walked in to the sight? Theon couldn’t help but notice that as Jon’s eyes flickered sharply between how close you two were standing and your attached hands, that he had never seen such a quick flash of possessiveness even on Robb.

But as soon as it was there, it faded when you let go of him to stand up straight, a bit of a wall throwing itself back up. One on one was easier, but more then that seemed to put you right back to an edge that you were terrified of looking weak standing over.

Theon also couldn’t help it as the thought came to him, but that he had almost walked in on you and Robb during the earlier days at war. And that even in Robb’s quick temper at Theon to get out considering your state of undress, it wasn’t anywhere near the dark which came over Jon’s grey eyes as he for hardly a second, noticed you holding hands.

If this was some strange connection between you because of what happened, he didn’t know. Theon just hoped you weren’t adding to this onslaught of self punishment by pushing it away out of a surviving guilt. Robb may have died hating Theon, but he knew he wouldn’t have died never wanting you to find any happiness again.

And gods help him, Theon was starting to suspect Jon desperately wanted you to find it with him.

“What would he get from lying about that?” That was the question you still weren’t sure of. Ser Davos seemed to agree that the time of events didn’t line up if Ramsay had been telling the truth about Stannis. But with no word from him, or where his armies were none of you had anything to go off of but a feeling.

Busy looking through the papers left behind from your father, it left Davos and Theon to work with Jon on how everything fit together. Having attempted to pledge Northern houses to his cause, you and Theon could say with certainty who wasn’t loyal to House Bolton but many had denied Stannis or not given him any response what so ever.

If the remaining Ironborn were driven out of the lands, it would leave only the ones who betrayed and murdered their King as the ones left in charge. Must like the rest of the kingdoms it seemed, no longer were the wars fought across the lands but within them just for the right to live. But the North was vast and large with little organization in place to start at.

“Trying to scare me into surrendering. If he thinks I’m a threat, telling me he and his armies are dead might mean less chance I go after them.” Your eyes were starting to hurt, but there was a vast amount of back and forth to put everything together. Half of Jons desk on the opposite side of him was covered in papers as you leaned over in your chair sorting things quietly as their voices moved around you.

Theon spoke up from the side a sudden thought occurring to him, scouring back into his memories to find it past the fears of the moment. “He tired to do more then scare you. They were trying to find Bran and Rickon, and he sent one of his men here to look for them.” Pausing he looked at the slowly filling anger in Jon’s confused eyes. “He said that even if they weren’t, you might be a threat to them, especially if you found out about...”

You knew eyes drifted over to you, but just narrowing your own at the paper hoping to blur passed the thoughts from distracting you even more. Jon asking, “When was this?”

A pause between them no doubt as he tried to recall, you knew too well keeping track of days or weeks in those times was an impossible task. “Wouldn’t have been long after..” Theon clearing his throat trying to push past the looming narrative there, “after what happened at the Twins... He’s not here though, so I don’t know what..”

Your eyes widened, hands gripping the paper a bit tightly trying to not see it. Not see the way in that last time outside the way the sun shined on the Trident and how the next time you saw any sun you were being dragged through the North almost in a delirious fever. You purposely didn’t look up, you didn’t want to distract them either.

Jon connecting it on his own, “We had a man come here, saying he was from the Riverlands but he died when we went to take care of the mutineers at Craster’s Keep. If he was there for me, someone should have told him not to waste his time. Thorne took care of that one.”

If this all happened while still at the Dreadfort no wonder you didn’t hear a thing about it, locked away in their dungeons ready to die was your state. Not much had changed beyond where you were allowed to walk around since then.

Ser Davos was sat next to you, “Makes sense actually. You know the North better then most, your father was Warden of the North for over twenty years, your brother was their King. Roose Bolton’s a smart man, he knows if you come out of the Night’s Watch you’re a threat. Especially after losing what they thought was going to be their key to their claim.”

This time they all knew you were trying to avoid their gazes. Let them speak you thought to yourself, let them figure this out. So far you were deep into discussions and numbers with the Iron Bank of Bravvos and promises to pay out the debt of the Seven Kingdoms should your father succeed in taking the Iron Throne with their backing. How he planned to do that was just another dark hole of headaches and papers and you suddenly could remember why you got so little sleep in the Westlands.

You think your name was passed around once or twice, but you had all been there quite a while and you wanted to get through most of this before leaving for the night. “Alright, so you two escape taking what they thought was their key to gaining the North’s support with, knowing the only person you could go to is me. Then lie about Stannis being dead to scare me out of retaliating.”

Theon responded this time, “Why wouldn’t you hear anything from him then?”

Both likely turned to Davos this time, who took a good moment to consider the most reasonable action he would take. “If he thinks the King would be going right for the Iron Throne, then the most reasonable way is to take Winterfell on the way to King’s Landing, goes right through there. If he’s trying to misdirect them, it’d be easy. The North is big and the Bolton’s don’t have enough men to search for him.”

“Gain support, or try to, from the other Houses and attack Winterfell when they least expect it.”

You didn’t know how to say it, but it wouldn’t work. Your father wasn’t going to gain their help and the reason why was the two people sitting at the desk. But dumping that on Jon, especially now was unfair. It felt too much like trying to convince him to do something beacuse you said so, even though it was the furthest from the truth. You knew the choke hold the Boltons were keeping the North in hurt him, it couldn’t not. The North was Jon’s home and it pained him to see it so shattered from the bloodshed of his own family.

Deep within your thoughts, you hadn’t noticed the time passing enough that only you remained at the desk rereading the same thing over and over. Thinking for a moment you were alone, you put the remaining of it down with the rest of the piles before leaning down in your seat resting your head back in your palms trying to will away the growing headache behind it.

War had crept up behind you all in King’s Landing over four years ago and not once had it left you. The continuation of fighting for your people on one side, and the other just beyond this very wall with things you barley understood. You hardly dreamt of the cold and the ice since that night but now they felt like they were gone. Hints of something you had no way of grasping in the war down south and yet up here you didn’t understand them any better having disappeared.

Inhaling deeply, you gathered yourself enough to stand. Deciding there was no point in lingering in his quarters beyond what he kept you there for initially. But behind you was where his voice rasped out from, your name soft on his lips. Turning to him, whatever calm you felt with him earlier struggled to return once all alone.

Everything about him tried to entice you whereas all the rest insisted you had no right to any of it, not what had already been there and none more. Turned partially to look back at him you clearly were ready to walk out the door at any second. “Was there something else you needed?”

Jon hated how formal with him you were trying to be, hated that he didn’t know if it was him or you that was causing this rift, and most of all that it hurt everytime you built that barrier. A barrier that for the entire time you’d known each other never used to exist. But if it was him, then he knew it was his responsibility alone to mend it. “I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

Your brows narrowed as you turned to him more, confusion all over your face but quiet for him to explain himself. “For what I did. Coming back was...overwhelming, and seeing you again just...” A frown forming deeper as he stepped forward, shaking his head to collect the words catching your eyes once again. “I of all people should know better then to have assumed that was something you wanted, and it probably didn’t help I wasn’t exactly gentle about it either.”

Your heart started to race, trying to grasp what he thought was going through your mind but the implications were making you uncomfortable. “Why would you think I-”

His voice a little louder this time, but you simply refused to even look him in the eye and he hated trying to guess why and only finding an answer in his actions. “Because I know what it’s like.” You found them this time though, and yet Jon instantly could feel what he did back then. That the thing you’d hate was that he was lying to himself thinking it was alright and he couldn’t stand there and not atone for doing the same thing. “You can tell yourself it’s fine, you can lie all alone and say you liked it so what does it matter but don’t lie to me.”

You tried protesting but it seemed he couldn’t stand you trying to shut down the conversation before it even could pick up. “I’m not lying-”

His voice on edge and frustrated as he called your name almost in a tone of a stern lecture, “You can’t even look at me, barley wanted to be around me since that night and after everything Ramsay did to you,” Your eyes flickered back up to his, “and after what she -”

You fully spun to look at him as soon as he cut himself off. Something flashing in his own eyes that you had felt in yourself. “Jon,”

Shaking his head he stepped forward gently pushing back whatever he found almost slipping from his tongue. “Theon told me what Ramsay did to you. I needed to know, I saw the marks on you and I couldn’t ignore it anymore. Thinking that you didn’t want to be around me because I forced you into it-”

Finding your own voice this time with it’s own breathless anger in tone. “Jon you didn’t force me into anything. I liked it.”

“Just because you liked it doesn’t mean you wanted it.”

Your eyes finding something in pain behind his grey ones, the deep breaking in his low tone that was holding back for his own sake now. Your mind only remembering flashes of pretty red and yet before you was something that didn’t match what you thought you had seen that day.

In that thick silence you looked at him, a face that at times so far could be sharp and rough now was a softness none here likely had ever seen. But still, even now, he showed it to you. The girl in you wanted to go to him, but the darkness inside your head told you to leave him alone. Your words being all that was left of the fighting between them. “I promise you, I wanted it. All of it. And maybe if I wasn’t so sure I was just ruining your life being here, I’d let you do it again.”

Just as you turned, just as the cold of the outside slipped in from the turning of the door handle, Jon’s own hand reached over your shoulder. Closing it gently as you felt his warmth radiate over your back, but he was far enough that you couldn’t feel anything else. His voice clearly at least a foot away from you. Whatever he actually wanted to say, he changed his mind at the last second. “You should stay here. It’s not good for you, being all alone in that room, and at least here I can make sure you actually get some sleep at night.”

The tender concern, your mind almost dividing as you could too hear Robb telling you to calm your temper, that it wasn’t good for you. The deep care in both of these men that came so naturally as they were around you, and yet this from the one man you thought it would be gone from for good.

Your voice was a whisper, too afraid to speak any louder or even match his quiet fear of being so loud everyone outside could hear. “So it is only the Lord Commander whose allowed to break his vows about women in his bed.”

Neither of you smiled or smirked, but the lightness in his tone felt more comforting then the pain in his eyes that threatened to break you. “My vows also said my watch does not end until my death, which has already happened.”

This time you did smile a bit, a tiny half one that unseen by you, genuinely let a real one come over Jon’s face. “I don’t think that’s how they are supposed to work, Snow.”

Stepping forward you could see the egdes of his curls dance across he side of your vision, his voice a tad lower but the smile then you could finally hear in this voice. “I also wasn’t supposed to bring the free folk South of the wall, or leave the castle to try and protect the woman I love, but I did both of those things and the only life it cost was my own.” Neither words you had ever found the bravery to say before, not in the growing affection of teenage hood and then the nervousness of adulthood kept them away more. “The only vows that matter anymore are the ones that swore me to protect the realms of men, and that includes protecting you. Even if it means me keeping you safe from yourself.”

Neither said anything else, but you nodded. Jon’s hand removing itself from the door before letting you walk out into the cold. Jon knew lying to himself was pointless and no one here would buy them anymore. The North was his home, it was part of him, and it was his duty to fight for it.

The Night’s Watch couldn’t protect the people from what was coming if they stopped caring about their well being before the darkness came. This couldn’t be about vows and rules anymore, that’s what got everyone he ever loved killed. He broke those vows and Thorne had his men murder him for it, but now he was the dead one and Jon was still here.

Thorne died and stayed dead for the rules the old gods were telling Jon he was right for breaking.

You weren’t sure you had ever been in a room this uncomfortable before. On the best of the years with him, you on many instances had no clue what things to say to your father, and you spent more years with him then your mother. Yet now, you both sat in her quarters nothing but a fire crackling on the opposite wall of her to distract. She didn’t look well, but you supposed in her eyes neither did you.

The small cuts on your face were finally beginning to fade away, but you both knew of the one sitting under your shirt that was utterly fatal. The books by her bedside spoke of titles you never heard before and you need not think of the sort of darkness preached. One that led to such horrors when you couldn’t think of anything less comforting then the fires to your agonized heart.

“You don’t think it’s going to work.”

Looking up from where your fingertips were tapping at the table between you, her eyes were narrowed but something like hope. Selyse and Stannis Baratheon were the most unloving couple you ever had imagined and yet they were your parents. Robert Baratheon was married for over twenty years to Cersei and they despised one another. But Cersei had once admitted there was something akin to a faint love in her heart during their early years towards him. You knew your parents never even had that.

Loyalty to each other is not the same as love.

You could remember telling Robb you were afraid you were dragging him into a life with a miserable woman to love as your parents were. The small hope in her eyes as you told her that you suspected he was using the rumour of death to hide his movements through the north was nothing.

Nothing compared to the way you and Robb would look when in the ends of blood and battle you’d find each others eyes and remember why the fight was worth for the other. Nothing compared to the screaming, dizzying cries in your heart as you saw Jon’s beautiful grey eyes staring back at yours that night in the ice cell.

They were not Robert and Cersei, but their affection stopped at loyalty. She stood by Stannis no matter what he chose, and he never let others disrespect her as they did himself. The thing that bonded them together truly, was their daughters. First was you, young and curious prospering in the strangeness of the island you lived on and a Kingly uncle who would visit, that in those days still held much genuine love of life inside his eyes. Then your father sent you to Winterfell for the first time after the second instance your mother lost a son in the womb.

It felt like punishment on the ship. Your second baby brother was too gone and they sent you away to a strange, cold place where you knew none but the household guard which accompanied you. You aren’t quite sure if your relationship with your mother ever really improved past that point.

“I fought beside those men, mother. In battle, I fought on the front lines with them and watched how even in their own losses, they truly believed in us....in him. They won’t have a king that isn’t one of their own.” The way they all worshipped Robb, and how he never understood it but he accepted their loyalty with such a weight and responsibility.

Her face fell a small bit, leaning more over the table to sip at her drink. Every silence felt like it lasted for hours, to the point even Olly by the door could likely feel it. You barley touched yours, ever since those long nights in the dungeons of the Dreadfort, horribly ill and throwing up so much of what went down that eventually you had only stinging bile to coat your throat, food and drink felt like a feat to down.

There was a sharpness for a moment in her eyes that you interrupted before it got any further to her mouth, “If father really is the only one true king, then they would have pledged their loyalty already wouldn’t they have?”

Your mother sighing, glancing to the fire before turning back to you. “I didn’t ask you here for an argument.”

You nodded, leaning back in the chair as you glanced to Olly. Ever since that day he has seemed to stick by your side, whenever Theon didn’t. Two men who had done terrible thing’s now seem to atone by serving you, and you had no idea what they saw in you to care so much. Certainly not your social skills judging by how difficult you and Selyse found it to even look at the other.

“I know. But I fought a war by Robb’s side for three years, a war we knew would eventually be against my own father. Even if he is passed, I will not sit here and act as if only now do I swear loyalty. If I were going to do that, I would’ve come home to Dragonstone they day I escaped King’s Landing.” Your eyes blazing into hers now actively avoiding you. “But you and father married me to the North, and they accepted me as their own, they accepted me as Robb’s Queen and I died for that cause.”

Her head whipped back to you finally. A sorrow in her eyes slowly painting over. “Could I...would you show me?” You nodded pulling the edges of your shirt up, eyes glancing back to Olly who looked at the jagged scar with the same shock in his eyes that were towards seeing Jon alive, but much more contained.

Your mother couldn’t look away. It was getting harder and harder to deny it, and it was what everyone thought regardless if you pretended it was anything but your end. Letting the fabric of your shirt drop back down, you swallowed heavily. Broken and losing what will was left as his blue eyes looked from how soaked in red his hand was to your face gasping for air that would not come through the blood that flowed up into your mouth. “I suppose the women in this family simply aren’t destined to have boys are they.”

No doubt she could see the pain on you as well as her voice was low. “That is not the same. I lost them from my own body, my health, my failings. Yours was taken from you by another. There is no reason to think you would’ve-”

Where it came from you weren’t sure but it slipped out. Maybe because if anyone understood what that loss felt like, it truly was your mother. “I dreamt about him once. A small baby boy, he had my eyes but..” Your eyes for once found the flames but saw nothing but your own memories behind them. “He had this dark curly hair, face just like a Stark..I didn’t even know I was with child at the time.”

Both of you sat in silence, a pain that was too hard to put back in it’s darkness had unleashed and no doubt both in the room saw the reflection of the crackling fire in tears down your cheeks. You didn’t bother to hide them either. Neither of you finding it in you to speak a word on the matter, the pain too fresh for you and comfort not a commonality between such a family.

Speaking your name quietly, you didn’t bother turning to look at her. Your hand risen up, nails lightly digging into your mouth trying not to see the blood once more. “You’re sure he was dead, it wasn’t any kind of a mistake?” A strange seek for doubt in your mothers tone but one that you were hearing from many on the matter.

Olly to the side dropped his head as you smiled half a smirk with no feeling beyond the simple motion as if a huff of disbelief of the question. As if down there once more, you could feel the way they pressed against your bare hands. Not healed, not quite open, but just open wounds that existed on his body much like your own and how horrible and pale he looked when you first were brought to him.

Voice a slight whisper, “There is no mistake, mother. He was dead, as dead as any man can be.”

Sensing her eyes on you, begging in your mind for her not to say it but she did regardless. “The Lord brought you back to bring him back.” You tried warning her to stop, but she pressed on. “Whatever your destiny is, it’s tied with him and you need to accept that perhaps you are meant for something greater then-”

“Then what.” Looking at her, the remains of once tears trying to dry up. “Greater then what, mother? I had a life, a husband and a son to be, coming home to the North with Robb was my destiny. I was never supposed to have one with..” Your voice so quiet but the room was as well, and she certainly heard you. “We never thought..”

Her eyes watched you carefully but you shook the thought off. For the first time in all your life, you had no idea what to feel or think about Jon Snow and you hated it. You hated that he still knew you without any doubt, but you felt like you were just intruding on a strangers life pretending you could ever still mean something to him.

Selyse had never met Robb Stark, she had no way of knowing what your life with him was like but she had seen you at Jon Snow’s side. And she could say without doubt that she has never seen a man look that way at a woman before, as if their entire world has been consumed with this other person. And yourself? She looked at you now and knew as difficult as it was, how hard you tried to not look at him said just as much as his inability to look away.

Standing up abruptly, you tried hiding any tears with the back of your hand. “You should rest, it’s getting rather late.” As you approached the door, you turned back to look at your mother before turning to the boy. “Olly, I ask if you could see to Selyse for the next coming days. We are about to get rather busy, and I think she would appreciate the company.”

He didn’t disagree, and you could only wonder what about you made him stick to your orders in atonement so deeply. Your mother’s voice speaking up, only catching as you turned only partway to look at her. “Goodnight.”

Nodding back, yours was as stiff. “Goodnight, mother.”

Walking out into the cold, you only got a few feet before finding yourself leaning against the railing you stood on, hands braced as you looked out to the night. Something you didn’t understand was beyond those walls, something that once had you dream of cold and ice, but little understanding beyond those visions.

But there was something in the eyes of those here, something that truly haunted them. As you made your way back, for only a moment did you pause before your eyes slipped closed as you sighed and the path turned only slightly towards a different room.

It was dark, but you found no care to light any fire as you made your way through the quarters with a slower hesitancy. Being in here felt so strange, not right and you were too on edge to consider looking around like any other would normally. But as you draped the fur cloak over a dresser, you ran your fingers gently through the light colour.

In the night just like this, sat in front of the Weirwood in your final moments only together as you found a comfort hiding your face between this very fur and his neck for what you both felt was surely the last time. And as you carefully peeled off your boots, you slept only under the thinnest of the top sheets as you saw and felt too much in the quiet.

Sleeping alone used to be normal, but then it was by Robb’s side for years no matter where you travelled too. Then in the worst of it, your nights too often interrupted by the violence of pale blue eyes and a slimy taunting voice that sought to make you afraid of sleeping at night.

As you lightly drifted off, part of you wished Theon never brought you here. You felt as if you were just ruining his life, and he deserved better. He always deserved better, better then what Catelyn treated him as, better then to be shut away at the Night’s Watch and better then being trapped with you.

Yet later in the night, your mind woke just enough to sense as a figure came into the room, keeping the dark as much as possible like they didn’t need to see to navigate. The part of your mind that was still mostly asleep clenching your hands as if to brace yourself.

If he thought you were asleep, he would often drag you from bed and wake you up with a jostle usually to the head against the hard ground. Make you foggy and a little less coordinated as he begun, but it never came. And in an instant your mind which was slowly finding itself more awake settled itself as the figure was warm. Sliding into the sheets behind you, slowly before leaning over you.

The brush of his curls against the side of your cheek and neck, no matter how hard you tried to convince yourself wasn’t for you to enjoy anymore, relaxed at the feeling. Feeling Jon carefully drape back your hair, collecting it so gently in his hands to neatly move it out of your face and tucked neatly to the side.

A large, calloused hand ran lightly over your arm before finally relaxing. His other arm stretching out to the other side of the bed by your own head as you felt his chest bare against the thin material of your shirt. Slowly, you let him pull you closer into his arms before you shifted yourself to fit better in his touch as well. His free hand draped over your hip with a gentle touch before it slid up to just under your breasts. Pulling you back firmly into him as his own forehead nuzzled against the back of your hair.

For the first real time in either of your lives, you freely found yourself sleeping in Jon Snow’s bed, tucked safely in his arms and were you not so close to the depths of dreams once more?

You may have otherwise cried at how overwhelming it was that you and him fit together so perfectly.

[spiderscribe]

For te character ask: gimme Starscream (TFP), Dead End (cyberverse) and Drift (mtmte)

:3💖

Ajfldksjlf you somehow managed to pick three of the five characters that I’ve been really rotating through my brain this past week so thank youuuu I had a ton of fun with these :3 enjoy the headcanons!!! 

Starscream (TFP)

Headcanon A:  realistic

When Starscream gets over himself and stops fussing over how to make himself look as good as possible, he’s actually a pretty good leader who’s skilled at managing all the small details to accomplish his bigger goals. Starscream himself doesn’t know this though, because even when other people genuinely think he’s doing a great job, they keep it to themselves for fear of inflating Starscream’s ego. (It’s Soundwave. He’s people.)

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

Starscream’s opinion on humans goes up from “occasionally amusing but overall useless life forms” to “extremely grudging fear respect” after that time Miko stole the apex armor from him and beat him up. Obviously Starscream doesn’t reveal this shift to anyone, but after some observing Raf figures him out. He chooses not to tell Starscream that Miko is an outlier and most other humans wouldn’t be able to kick his ass, because a) it’s an advantage he can maybe use in the future and b) he starts laughing to himself whenever he thinks about it.

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

Starscream is desperately touch-starved, and craves physical intimacy and gentle touches. Alas, after everyone he’s lost and everyone who’s hurt him throughout the war, he never allows himself to be that vulnerable with anyone ever again. He does his best to keep everyone, no matter which side he’s currently playing, a careful arm’s length distance away.

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

Since it’s canon that Starscream likes to browse the internet, my possible-but-still-probably-unrealistic headcanon is that Starscream is pretty fluent in internet memes and slang. He expects Soundwave to know a lot too, since Soundwave monitors everything, but Soundwave tends to filter out anything he deems pointless and that includes anything to do with human internet culture. The first time Starscream brings up a meme in reaction to one of Soundwave’s audio clips, he gets a very confused blank stare in response.

Dead End (Cyberverse)

Headcanon A:  realistic

Dead End is bad at forming close friendships, mostly because his unending pessimism tends to eventually put people off, but he’s actually pretty good at initiating small talk and making superficial acquaintances. That’s why he’s on speaking terms with most of Decepticon high command and makes a feeble effort to save them from the Loop. (Feeble because, well, being on speaking terms with them doesn’t mean he actually likes all of them. Case in point: Soundwave.)

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

As they slowly get to know each better by virtue of forced proximity, Dead End and Hot Rod both come to realize they actually have a lot in common: they’re both the “shoot first, ask questions later” type of bot, they’ve both got quick tempers, they both like to keep their finish as pristine as possible, and (although Hot Rod tries to pretend this one isn’t true) they’re both prone to negative introspection when things aren’t going their way. Rather than bringing them closer together, this realization horrifies them both and they silently and mutually avoid bringing it up, ever.

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

I touched on this in my deadceptor fic, but reiterating it here with more heart-crushing-ness: Dead End doesn’t regret choosing to abandon everyone and leave the universe with Megatron. It’s not that he doesn’t care about everyone else, and if they were all hurt or killed by the Quintessons he would’ve been sorry that they died, but that’s not enough for him to feel bad about his choices. He’s not sorry about prioritizing himself and his own goals first.

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

Shortly after joining the Decepticons, Dead End developed a crush on Megatron. It eventually faded into strong admiration and loyalty, but Dead End still thinks the whole situation was extremely embarrassing and would vehemently deny it to anyone who asks.

Drift (Mtmte)

Headcanon A:  realistic

Drift’s ongoing “see who gets more kills in fights” contest with Rodimus was actually his initial idea, not Rodimus’. He came up with it so he has something to focus on while fighting (keeping track of his increasing number of kills) and he doesn’t lose himself in a mindless rage the way he used to do as Deadlock. He only meant it as a one-time thing, but competing with Rodimus turned out to be so fun, and Rodimus’ sulking face when he lost was so funny, that Drift brought it up again the next time.

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

If a normal bot was fully aware that Ultra Magnus hated them, they’d do their best to stay out of Magnus’ way and avoid doing anything to piss him off. Drift, who is far from a normal bot and more mischievous than most people think, conspires with Rodimus to play really stupid pranks on Magnus like adjusting the lighting to be a few degrees brighter than regulation and using incorrect punctuation in his submitted reports. Drift thinks of it as “if Magnus thinks I’m the same kind of idiot as Rodimus, then he’ll stop seeing me as a dangerous Decepticon.” Rodimus just thinks the whole thing is hilarious and is glad that he isn’t the only one getting yelled at.

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

Drift treasures every close connection he’s formed in the past and present—all the people who saw something good and worth saving in him. But after he defects from the Decepticons, he starts chasing that kind of close connection with a secondary reason: yes, he still desires that intimacy, but he’s also looking for people to devote his life to. Drift sees offering his unquestioning loyalty as a way to atone, and if he ends up dying for someone, then, well, it’s what he deserves after everything he did as Deadlock.

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

A leftover habit from his days as Deadlock means Drift naturally has a very exaggerated fighting style. Think dramatic twirls and poses, sword thrusts that are a little flashier than strictly necessary, brutal punches that hit where he knows will cause the most energon to spray out, terrifying smiles, etc. As Deadlock, it strengthened his reputation as a fearsome berserker and he revelled in it. As Drift, it’s mortifying as all slag. It takes him conscious effort to not fight like that, and he still sometimes slips into the habit by accident. Rodimus tells him not to worry about it because he thinks it’s cool. Many, many years later, Ratchet admits it’s kind of hot.

[heartbreak-sandwich]

Sides of Billy Only You See

Early morning sleepyhead: Billy is not a morning person, but the fact that he has to make it to work to make a living is a great motivator. He always tries to gather extra patience when greeting you and talking with you after he wakes up because he doesn't want to say anything he doesn't mean, and you are always the most important thing to him.

Contemplating his actions: He knows that sometimes he says unnecessarily mean things or takes the conversation too far when his temper gets the best of him, and he does feel bad about it when it happens. You'll sometimes catch him getting quiet, looking off into the distance or down at his shoes for a few minutes before making an uncomfortable trek up to someone he owes an apology to.

Introspective curiosity: After everything he has been through, Billy has repetitive episodes of wondering why he has certain feelings and what the meaning of his future is. This is usually late at night when you can find him chainsmoking next to an open window, playing soft music so as not to wake you. He will always let you in on his thoughts and questions, and you are always there to remind him that he is a good person despite his past, and he is healing.

Childlike playfulness: He would never let anyone else know it, but Billy gets excited pretty easily, and he loves to rough house and tease you and his closest friends. He will sling you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and spin you around until you're both dizzy, have splashing fights with you in the pool, and will chase you around the house, jumping over furniture to play an impromptu game of tag. He loves the simply joys of childlike fun.

Notes around the house: He works some early mornings and some late nights, so he is always leaving you sweet notes on the fridge, on the counter, in your bag. Despite what other people probably believe, he is rather well-spoken in writing, and he is always signing his notes with, "your secret admirer" to keep the inside joke alive about how the two of you met.

Singing and dancing: Billy loves music, and even though he keeps his cool well in front of others, he will always sing, dance, tap on random things around the room/car, and pretend like he's putting on a show for you. He will also never confess out loud that he is a diehard Duran Duran and WHAM! fan. He is always playing music at home, and he will randomly walk into the room, grab your hand, and spin you around before engaging you in a partner dance while he lipsyncs to whatever song is playing.

He cares what your family and friends think: Billy always takes the time to think carefully about how he acts and speaks in front of your family and friends. He wants them to know that you are treasured and well taken care of, and he is careful to always be as respectful and patient as possible when interacting with them. Your parents adore him, and your friends are starting to come around after seeing how helpful and empathetic he really is, even if they already knew of his past.

This is my first time making one of these, and I'll definitely add to it as I think of more. These are just some starting ones that I think of a lot.

[anndramarama]

I feel like the scene in this is gifset by @guzhuangheaven is where Lin Chen officially, consciously crossed over.

To what mindset, I'm not quite sure, but he has avoided that last bit of conscious introspection for a long time, but now the threat to Changsu is not something that Changsu with all his powers can defend against in the moment, and the threat isn't Changsu's deteriorating health, which Lin Chen is at turns empowered to battle directly and helpless to change at all.

Lin Chen knows that the battle against the poison was lost a long time ago, as part of a past he can't change, and the fact of that moves like a leviathan in Lin Chen's psyche, making him more unhinged and eccentric every year.

So if he has a chance to pick up a sword and defend Changsu in a direct and visceral way, he's going to take that chance, all appearances of neutrality be damned.

(He would take any chance to do it, too; he would feed himself dangerous drugs or transform into a mythical creature, or spin the roulette wheel of time to save the person he loves.)

Think about the way he delivered his diagnosis and treatment plan to Nie Feng and Xia Dong (and Changsu and Mu Nihaung). He was flippant and direct and rude, a bit too much like an actor on a stage, because there was no way he could be even a little bit himself, or behave in a way that was closer to normal (think about how Yan daifu might have summarized their options for contrast).

He couldn't be somber because Changsu depends on him to be anything but (the one time when he did start to show his true feelings MCS literally broke down and cried).

He couldn't show too much compassion because Changsu reads that as pity, and Lin Chen knows that MCS carries that heavy burden every time he interacts with Mu Nihaung.

He can't be too enthusiastic about Nie Feng's rather excellent prognosis because Changsu chose the other path, the one that had the treatment that was worse than death and would make his life miserable and comparatively short, and dwelling on that forsaken possibility can only lead to despair.

So with his choices so limited Lin Chen plays up his eccentricities, his supposed medical objectivity and curiosity, and no one can see the man behind the curtain. He might as well be a disembodied voice during that diagnosis dialogue, because Lin Chen is present but largely unseen by everyone except MCS, who can only metaphorically look at his shadow during moments like this -- and MCS can only look at it sidelong, in denial, and in strict control of himself.

Which is a good thing, because sometimes Lin Chen is internally screaming and enraged, and already furious with a grief that burns too bright for the few human eyes that are tuned in enough to see him clearly.

Lin Chen had long ago stopped speaking to Changsu in absolutes. Changsu is going to die. Soon, tomorrow, a month from now, two months, three? No one knows. Lin Chen doesn't know, he can only make predictions and wait.

He would rather not make predictions. He would rather not be asked, thank you. Leave Lin Chen alone. Let him brew medicines and banter with MCS and drink, and wait for the sun to come up on one more day where his friend is alive to drink the medicine, tease him, and see another sunrise.

Now back to the same remarkable gifset I referenced above. OP captioned it "Lin Chen and Fei Liu worrying about Mei Changsu: a full time occupation. Look at Fei Liu," and I owe OP big time because, yes, let's look at Fei Liu, and let's talk about Fei Liu and Lin Chen.

We see and we're told that they don't get along. Lin Chen is a bit of a dick to Fei Liu even though he seems fond of him too: he teases Fei Liu, tries to play with him mostly unsuccessfully, and seems to use him as a distraction to help play up his (Lin Chen's) eccentric behavior. I think there was also a comment about Fei Liu wanting to avoid Lin Chen because Lin Chen makes him (Fei Liu) drink medicine, but I'm not super clear on that.

We see that they "don't get along," and if anything this amuses MCS. Fei Liu comes to MCS for help, asks to be saved, and MCS helps Fei Liu. Because MCS can do that, it doesn't require physical strength, only that he plays the role of the "good dad" according to the established dynamic in their family of three.

So we're told that Lin Chen and Fei Liu don't get along for all the reasons above, but we also see that they're a really good team when it's necessary. There's the scene where they're chasing Qin Banruo, for instance. Later, Fei Liu sits across from Lin Chen while he makes Changsu's medicine and talks about their upcoming tour of jianghu, and they both agree that it doesn't matter where they are as long as the three of them are together. (Yeah.)

That's quite a contrast to the scene in the gifset, where Lin Chen is anxious, and possibly feeling helpless, and definitely contemplating violence.

And where's Fei Liu in that scene? He's shut down, head on the wall, inert.

This is the same position he's in when MCS is ill sometimes, or he's upset about something. Because we are supposed to understand that while Fei Liu can't quite articulate what he's feeling, and is mentally still a VERY young child, he does react immediately to situations and has an intuitive understanding about what's going on around him, particularly with regard to MCS.

So, how does Fei Liu feel about Lin Chen, and more specifically why does he seem to dread his presence in previous scenes, to the point that he captures and is going to kill the pigeon sent to summon Lin Chen?

My guess is that Fei Liu sees right through Lin Chen. He knows what Lin Chen is feeling under all the bluster and weirdness, and he knows that the dark feeling coming from his other parent affects MCS too.

However we read their relationship, Lin Chen and Changsu are very, very close; they live with each other off and on and love each other deeply; they understand each other better than almost everyone else around them; they rescued a child and parent that child together. Their little trio is intimately connected by time, experience, trauma, and pain.

Lin Chen and Changsu both playact that all is well but they can't fool Fei Liu, especially when they are together.

So it makes sense that Fei Liu would want to keep them apart as MCS gets sicker and that dark feeling grows, because it's scary. They're Fei Liu's world and that world is breaking down continually, weirdly, unpredictably.

He wants them to stay in their corners, thank you, because he's afraid of how it feels when they're together.

But back to that gifset:

At the start of this post I theorized that Lin Chen crossed over from even paying lip service to neutrality, but where else did he cross over? From ongoing anger to something like acceptance of MCS's inevitable death, in a way that would allow him to prioritize Fei Liu in the moment?

Or did he move on from anger to full-on Denial?

Because after that scene Fei Liu is pretty much at ease in Lin Chen's presence, and part of the reason for this (long, sorry) post was to try to understand why.

If he's moved on to Acceptance, good for Lin Chen. He might have a chance at good mental health in the near-ish future (think five years post-canon, and that might be a generous estimate).

But if he crossed over into Denial and it's strong enough to fool Fei Liu? I think Lin Chen's long term future might be a lot darker than one would expect from the always-sunny, temperamental, eccentric jianghu doctor.

[eleanor-bradstreet]

Thoughts on Bridgerton season 3

No one asked, but putting it out there. (Written after viewing part 1.)

The Good

Polin - it’s their season after all. There is plenty of them and a lot of scenes pulled right from the book. I don’t think Colin/Newts is all that charismatic or great at acting tbh, but Pen/Nic is carrying the season. Seeing through her eyes, there is a compelling story of self-acceptance, struggle and romance. I was whooping whenever she got steamy with her man.

Debling - wonderfully acted and such an interesting addition to the ton, I love this character. He is so kind and honest, he deserves the world.

Francesca & John - Hannah Dodd is doing a wonderful job. We get to see the one and only shy Bridgerton, which is novel. Her odd chemistry with John is magical and I am already fucked up about them. I’m more invested in them than Polin 😅

Eloise - we are seeing more facets of Eloise which is wonderful. That she is willing to look deeper at peoples’ true character - including Cressida and Pen, though the reconciliation with Pen isn’t finalized yet. Cressida also makes Eloise check herself, her assumptions and privileges which is crucial for her development. She’s growing this season.

The Cowpers - redemption arc for Cressida incoming! We are learning that her bitchiness stems from a competitive nature, which she feels she must have to secure a good match thanks to pressures from her awful parents. This is interesting in its own right but please please please have Sophie also being mistreated in their household. That would be the bow on top.

Marcus Anderson - hello handsome! He is wonderfully acted and immediately has a warm spark with Violet. The mystery is built as to why Lady D is so aggravated by him. What has he done in the past that makes her wary of him?

The music - great instrumental covers of on-point pop songs and revisiting a few tried and true Bridgerton original themes.

The Bad

Kanthony - But only for part 1. I'm guessing they had to work around JB's busy shooting schedule, but it sucks they found a lame way to essentially write them out of episodes 2-4. I'm happy to see from the trailer there will be more of them in part 2.

Benedict - for fucks sake, he does nothing. Season 2 might as well not have happened. Not only is he not sad nor frustrated with Anthony about art school, he has no introspection or personal development in part 1. He’s just shoved in the background again, making sassy little comments and fucking a random lady. Where is this ‘crucial role’ the showrunner mentioned? What ‘comes to a head’ for him as Luke keeps alluding to? All of his material must happen in part 2 because there is nothing in part 1.

The fucking Featheringtons - I know the entail is a plot line set up by season 2, but getting into microscopic detail about the sex lives of the elder two Featherington sisters is not the comic relief the show thinks it is. It actually makes me nauseous. The whole ‘race to produce an heir’ could have been a single line explanation from Portia and screen time with the Featherington couples could have been spent on more Benedict.

The sex - part 2 better be mind blowing because Nicola’s claim that Polin has ‘won the steamy battle’ is unfounded based on the first four episodes. Okay we’ve got Anthony and Benedict each with a scene between the sheets kissing ladies but not a single Bridgerbum to be seen. The claims of ‘threesomes’ and ‘lesbian sex’ are extremely generous. It’s 5 seconds of Colin kissing sex workers and them peformatively kissing each other. I know we have the mirror scene coming in part 2 which threatens to blow the roof off anything Saphne and Kanthony did but thus far, I am unimpressed. It feels more buttoned up than ever.

Now, I have also watched part 2 in its entirety. Without spoiling any details, see below the cut for a general note.

Part 2 contains some MAJOR twists that I feel are going to fracture the fandom. Brace yourselves.