#but now ive got enough that i can batch them and i finally know how to do it

[speargifted]

//lyri taught me how to batch make icons and i am now unstoppable

[haikyuu-sins]

Hey!!

Ok, first of all I love your writing, it's just soooo good and second, since I saw the requests are opened I wanted to ask for a little scenario, ok here we go.

So it's Law x fem!Reader from the strawhats and both crews are fighting against some kind of enemy and their army, this enemy it's like a mad scientist and shots the reader with a strange sustance but nobody really notices because they are fighting and she doesn't want them to get preoccupied.

The things is, some days later strange white marks begin to appear on her skin and yes, it's the amber lead, she tries to hide it but at some point Law sees it and when I don't know, I will leave the rest to you.

Thank you so much ❤❤

Thank you! I loved how interesting this request was! I hope you enjoy :) (I realized too late into this thatI didn’t make them a strawhat so my apologies for that! I’ve been trying to work on this one for so long and it slipped my mind :( also I’m sorry that this kind of ends a little abruptly, I wasn’t sure where I really wanted it to go in the end

Warnings: Getting shot/blood

****Law x Reader

This was supposed to be quick. An in, out kind of deal. What was going to be a quick trade, ended up being a ruse. When Law was finished with his end of the deal, which was healing a member of this scientist’s crew and in return he’d give Law a medicine that he had been looking for that he would only be able to get from this island.

But things went south as soon as the deal was finished. It all started happening so quickly that you almost didn’t have time to react. Once the sound of a gunshot filled the air, Law was quick to act. He was already after the ringleader and was telling the rest of the crew to fight and stay alive until he got back from dealing with the scientist.

The once peaceful surroundings were now a small battlefield. You watched Bepo and the rest of the crew fighting with the others and you had your own hands full with a few of the men from the other crew. But what you didn’t notice was that there was a sniper off in the distance with a fresh batch of bullets that were coated and infused with different diseases; new and old.

His sights were set on you as you seemed to be giving his crewmates the most trouble. There was so much noise on the battlefield that you didn’t even know where the next gunshot came from. All you knew was that you felt a sharp pain in your thigh, then moments later, another right above your knee cap. Your mind went white for a moment. The searing pain made your head go blank before you felt a fist connect with your face that brought you back to reality.

You wanted to pass out but Law told you all to stay alive because he knew that you could handle yourselves. That meant you couldn’t afford to lose consciousness. Law put his trust in you and the rest of his crew so you needed to show him that you could be trusted.

Blood trickled down your left leg and your pants were sticking to you uncomfortably. You felt useless not being able to even use one of your legs. But no matter how much it hurt, you put your weight on it and continued to fight. Another bullet came your way but this time you sensed it. There was something different about this one. It almost seemed to have some sort of heavy aura around it.

You deflected it with the knife you held in your hand. The bullet ricocheted off and hit one of the men you were brawling with, and straight into his shoulder.

He hissed in pain, not knowing what exactly had happened, but when you saw what that bullet began doing to his body you realized why it was so different from the other two. His skin started to melt from where the bullet entered and he screamed in agony. Your eyes were wide with fear, hoping that that wouldn’t be your fate. While your skin wasn’t melting off like his, you knew that there had to have been something wrong with this bullet as well.

But you didn’t have much time to process what could happen to you because the fighting continued and now you had the added bonus of trying to figure out if there would be a bullet coming at you. In a moment there was a sharp stinging in your side. You heard no gun shots but there was a clear wound in your abdomen.

Within minutes though, everything suddenly stopped, you and the rest of the crew had taken notice that there was a slight blue tinge that covered the area. In that moment, you knew that you could finally relax. Your legs buckled under you and the next thing you knew, you were in the sub.

You ached. Your entire body ached and you heard a soft beeping noise right beside you. Slowly your eyes began to open and you squint. The bright lights nearly blinding you.

Law glanced over and heard the rustling of the bed sheets. “Don’t touch the IV, Y/n-ya.” he spoke as he watched you reaching for it. You sigh and your hand falls onto the bed. “And don’t even think about moving.” he stood from his chair next to you and gently pushed your shoulder down.

Your voice was hoarse when you spoke softly. “Is everyone okay?” glancing around the room, you noticed that there was no one else but you and Law.

“Everyone is fine. I was able to patch them up. You one the other hand were the one who had the most damage done. You were shot three times. I’m not sure why but I couldn’t find the bullets even though there wasn’t an exit wound.”

He had even used his Scan on you thanks to his Ope-Ope no mi but still wasn’t able to find anything wrong. For some reason, you thought it would be a good idea to omit the fact that a bullet that was aimed for you hit someone else and melting the man’s skin off. There wasn’t anything wrong with you now. But what you didn’t know was that the bullets were still inside you. They had dissolved and a deadly and what was thought to be an incurable disease was now making its way through your body.

“I’m going to run some tests-”

“Please, I’m fine! Will you just let me get back to work?”

The look on Law’s face said it all as he turned to you. ‘Absolutely not’ was plastered all over and you knew better than to argue with him, but you felt like a terrible burden.

“You should be doing Captain things, not treating me.” you slumped back into the bed.

“You seem to forget that your captain is also your doctor.”

Your lips made an ‘O’ and your cheeks flushed slightly. “I didn’t forget...It just slipped my mind for a second.”

“I’m going to run your tests tomorrow. You’ve lost a lot of blood and need rest, so I’ll leave you be for a few hours and come back to check on you. Let me know if you need anything. You shouldn’t be in too much pain but I can put more medicine in your IV-that you better not take out-if you need it.” With that, he left the room while you glared at the IV that was stuck in you. It was best that you left it in and you knew it, It soon didn’t worry you anymore and before you knew it, your eyelids fluttered close with the darkness of a promising sleep overcoming.

It was about a week before Law let you out of the infirmary. He made sure you were okay to walk on your own, and he wanted you to take antibiotics for another week in case of an infection. The tests he had taken all came back normal for now. Nothing was out of the ordinary, but he still wanted you to check in with him every so often.

Law was wary of letting you out of his site, something had been worrying him about the fact he couldn’t find the bullets but you spoke of nothing out of the ordinary no matter how much he knew tried to get the information out of you.

The next time Law saw you, you looked like a ghost. He noticed how your knees were trembling and quickly urged you to sit down, guiding you to a chair. “I told you to come by and see me if there was anything wrong, Y/N-ya.”

“I’m fine… really. I’m just a little tired.”

His grey eyes narrowed slightly at you then his brows furrowed. There was a spot in your hair that hadn’t been there before that was beginning to go white--not grey like a normal aging person, but white. Quickly, he grabbed your arm and shoved the material of your sleeve up. You had no strength to pull back and his eyes now widened when he noticed the white patches that were covering you.

“Law it hurts… Everything hurts. I ache all the time and it feels like there’s nothing I can do to make it stop.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about this?!” the taller man quickly scooped you out of the chair and rushed you into the infirmary.

“That bullet…I think there was something in it.” you managed to croak out. “One of their guys got shot with a bullet that I dodged and his skin, it started to melt off his body.” You knew that he’d be scolding you after this, not telling him all of the details the first time is one of Law’s pet peeves.

“This could have all been avoided if you told me this in the first place!” While this would be an easy fix for Law, he was still upset that you were putting yourself in unnecessary pain. You didn’t need to suffer and if you weren't stubborn then you wouldn’t be in this position. He knew exactly what it was like to have this incurable disease, but you were lucky enough to have a captain who could cure anything. Including Amber Lead.

He put you on the bed in the infirmary and it didn’t take him long to get this out of your body. On the way there you had passed out which did make it easier for Law work, but he was scared. This disease was supposed to be gone. So how did this scientist get a hold of something this deadly?

One thing he did know--he wasn’t going to lose anyone else to this forsaken illness. Not again. He had already lost his entire family to it and he would be damned if he’d let it happen to his crew.

It only took Law a few minutes to finish this up and make sure that all of the Amber Lead was out of your body. He ran tests on you all throughout the night, almost never leaving your side. It was comforting knowing that the first face you saw when you opened your eyes was him. Though you knew he probably wasn’t the happiest with you, you did know that he would always do his best to save you and that’s why your eyes were opening in the first place.

Besides the quiet beeps of the monitor, the next thing you heard was his gruff voice. “You sure do leave out some important information when it’s needed.”

You bit your lip. “Sorry…”

“I don’t think ‘sorry’ cuts it when you nearly had a death wish. You’d be dead if you weren’t here with me, you know that? What you were shot with was a bullet that had Amber Lead poisoning which is normally incurable.”

“Guess I’m really lucky then, huh?” you smile weakly over to him, hoping that maybe he’ll see the bright side. “I’m alive at least, that counts for something, right?”

“Yeah, you’re lucky enough to be alive so you can do all of the extra chores around the sub.”

“Oh come on!” you groaned out in protest. “This is what I get for pulling thought and making it out alive?!”

“No. This is what you get for nearly getting yourself killed for leaving out information that could have prevented this from getting as bad as it did. Maybe next time you should think twice about being as stubborn as you usually are.”

“But that’s my best quality!”

“Trust me, you have better qualities than that, Y/N-ya.” and with that, he left the room, leaving you with a pink tinted face.

[sugarmaplewings-fics]

Moments

Pairing: Kirishima x reader x Kaminari

Warnings: Near-death experience, mentions of blood and bleeding, general character distress, Y/N is in a hospital, happy ending, polyandry, me not knowing how to end things also i’m sorry the first two paragraphs are atrocious hhshdjc

Author’s Note:

Here’s the final request from this batch! Sorry for the wait but thanks for requesting! I hope this’ll do it for ya <3

-Sugar

⊱ ──── 《∘◦∘》 ──── ⊰ 

⊱ ──── 《∘◦∘》 ──── ⊰ 

Life is made up of moments, each one simple and brief. Some events may feel as though they are building, tragedy looming on a distant horizon. Others happen in a mere instant, only to turn everything upside down.

In a moment, you’d seen the elderly civilian man standing just a bit too close to the battle ground for comfort. Another second; your boyfriend, Kirishima, threw a punch to the villain, knocking him off balance. You saw it, the beam of light shooting straight towards the man. You knew you still had time to move.

Rushing over, you took the hit.

It hurt. Everything hurt. Your eyes rolled back and a shriek escaped your lips, body seizing with the foreign throes of agony. You must have blacked out for a moment, because suddenly you felt yourself being held in a pair of arms.

“She’s bleeding!” a voice said above you, but they sounded miles away.

In a tremendous show of effort, you forced your eyes open. Light from the afternoon sun only brought more pain, but you just had to get a glimpse of him one last time.

Yes, there he was, in all his heroic glory. Your Eijirou. But he wasn’t looking at you. He must have been calling out for someone else. Perhaps it was your mutual lover. Either way, the pain was growing to be too much to bear. You slumped further into his chest, letting your eyes close once more.

Denki. If only you’d been able to see him again one last time….

…

Kaminari was not having a good day. Although, to be fair, it’s hard to ‘have a good day’ when your girlfriend is rapidly bleeding to death in front of you.

Everything seemed to happen so quickly. One moment, you, Eijirou and him were all out on patrol and the next, you were being attacked by some guy with a crazy force quirk. And then you were hurt.

He honestly thought you guys had won, as he secured the final blow on the villain with a shock of energy. Once the guy was effectively fried, Denki was ready to celebrate. Except, neither of his partners were there by his side.

He turned—confused, searching—until his eyes finally fell upon the hulking form of Red Riot kneeling on the ground a few paces away.

“. . . (Y/N)?” Kaminari tried, his voice barely above a whisper. He felt frozen to his spot, unable to move his feet forward nor back.

“She’s bleeding!” Kirishima called over his shoulder, and somehow that was what Kaminari needed to snap him out of it.

It felt as though he was trudging through molasses on his way to get to you—slow, difficult, unwilling to accept the fact that you could be hurt.

But you were. And you weren’t looking good either. You were slumped unconscious against Kirishima’s bare chest, face somehow peaceful amidst all the chaos around your unknowing body. Blood seeped out of a large gash on your stomach, and it looked bad. Kaminari tried to hold back a low moan of distress at the sight of it.

He sunk to his knees, taking off his black hero jacket and pressing it to your midsection in an attempt to slow the flow of blood. It was hard to see the stain on the dark material of the clothing article, but Denki somehow knew it would only be a matter of time before it was soaked through in its entirety.

A small crowd of civilians had gathered to watch the battle, and were now anxiously trying to see if you were going to be okay.

“The police should be here any minute,” a woman informed the two heroes somewhere above their heads.

“Did you call an ambulance?” Kirishima asked.

Denki glanced up to see the woman nod, pulling her phone back from her ear.

“You’re going to be alright,” Eijirou whispered to you, cradling your head and damaged body closer into his own. “Just stay with us, baby, please.”

…

Your eyes cracked open, slow and feeble. Blinding fluorescent light pierced between your lids, making you wince and shut them again. Where were you? And why did it smell . . . strange?

You tried opening your eyes again, your vision blurry and swimming until you were finally able to make out a white-tiled ceiling. Turning your head, you saw a table next to your bed, with a vase of pretty flowers resting at its center. You also noticed an IV drip leading into your arm.

So you were in a hospital. Made sense.

You racked your memory, trying to think of what might have landed you here. Ah, yes, the villain and the old man, that must have been it.

You turned your head again, this time to your left, and it was then that you saw them.

Denki laid slumped over the arm of a chair, supported by Eijirou’s chest. Kirishima's head laid against the sill of a window, which you had to figure couldn’t have been all that comfortable. Both men were fast asleep, quiet snores emitting from the redhead’s chest while Denki left a small puddle of drool on the man’s shirt.

You couldn’t be more in love.

A few minutes passed; just enough to make you aware of the white bandages wrapped around your midsection. A nurse stepped in, looking over his clipboard before he noticed your conscious state.

“Ah, (H/N), you’re finally awake,” he acknowledged with a smile.

“They aren’t,” you snickered hoarsely, gesturing to your partners.

The nurse laughed brightly, which was just enough of a disturbance to rouse Kirishima.

“(Y/N)!” the redhead shouted as soon as he saw you, jumping up out of his chair.

Denki nearly fell forward out of his own seat, waking with a start and a pop of static. “(Y/N)?”

Eijirou hurried to your bedside, kneeling down and taking your hand in his. “We were so worried about you!”

Denki nodded in agreement, settling in next to Eijirou and leaning against his shoulder. “You almost died!”

“Well . . . I guess I didn’t,” you said, unsure of how to respond.

“You were lucky,” the nurse pointed out. “Too much longer and you probably wouldn’t have made it.”

You swallowed, the repercussions of your actions beginning to weigh on you.

“No need to fret,” he reassured you. “We have some of the best healers in all of Japan here. I’m positive you’ll make a full recovery.”

Your boyfriends stepped out of the room so the nurse could finish running his tests; checking your vitals and asking you a few questions.

“She’s all yours,” he said, opening the door and letting the two pro heroes step back into your room before ducking out himself.

“The guy you saved came in here earlier to visit you,” Denki informed you once he was back at your bedside. “He was so grateful.”

You smiled. “I’m glad it turned out okay for everyone.”

“But we almost lost you,” Kirishima said, taking your hand again and pressing a kiss to your knuckles. “Please don’t be reckless like that.”

Your face morphed into a slight frown. “What was I supposed to do, then? Let him die? You should know better than anyone that I couldn’t do that.”

Kirishima cast his eyes to the floor, torn.

Kaminari put a hand on the redhead’s shoulder. “You scared us both, (Y/N). You got hurt really bad, and there was so much blood . . . . You’ve been out for two days, and Eijirou and I . . . we couldn’t help but worry that you’d never wake up again.”

Sighing, your thumb began to stroke the side of Kirishima’s hand. “I’m sorry. I know how scary that is. I can’t imagine losing one of you guys.”

“I just want you to be safe,” Eijirou said.

“Of course.” You moved your hand so you could cup his cheek. “But the important thing is that I’m alright. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

Eijirou leaned forward so he could kiss your forehead, then moved back so Denki could do the same to your cheek.

“I can go get us some stuff to do together,” Denki offered. “Being in the hospital is boring, trust me.”

You and Kirishima laughed. The blond always had your backs no matter what.

And even after a moment of disaster, you were proud to say you could all bounce back. As long as the three of you stuck together, you could get through anything.

 ⊱ ──── 《∘◦∘》 ──── ⊰

Taglist: @aahilovetheatre @basicaegyo @hyunmin-1404​ @iiminibattlehero @katsugay @nabo39 @pyrofanatic @rainy-skys-and-bright-stars @sendhelpimstupid @sxngwoos-ash-box @xoxopam4

[taurustony]

The True Mighty Bison - Season V edition.

Some weeks ago, I had a very productive discussion on twitter with Steven Mane about the subject of this essay, and he brought up very good points, an alternative theory (not as out there as mine) and reminded me I haven't actually added the ACTUAL Seth info from his story and Arcade endings to this text. Now that even Rose is on the game (although she didn't bring new info on this front), Let's update this very wild theory about our favorite psycho powered dictator. For the day you discovered the truth about M. Bison was the most important of your Street Fighter fan life. But for them, it was only Tuesday. HEAVY SPOILERS FOR SETH'S SFV STORY MODE AND ENDING. and in a lesser intensity, Rose's. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is M. Bison. Bison is one first class A-hole who runs the biggest crime syndicate on the world (Shadaloo), wants to spark global destruction if not given global domination and has a tendency to kidnap 16 year old girls.  Bison also wields something called Psycho Power. Through profane rituals (more of this in a bit), He is the biggest source/receptacle of it. this power is also destroying his body, which leads to the only thing he likes more than kidnapping 16 year old girls: Body Swapping. The body in the picture is not his original body, not even his first, but is the... model we are most used to see him using. This is how you would imagine him if one mentioned M. Bison. In SFV he finally got grey/white hair, but originally this body had black hair.

however...

These are Ed and Falke. They are CLONED Bodies of Bison, They are both spare bodies for M. Bison, created in a attempt to build a body strong enough to hold his power. They are both of the most recent attempt, the newer models so to speak. As far as we know, they are all biological (a point that will come up later) and since CAPCOM use the word CLONES, they share the same DNA as Bison. Physically speaking, they are around their late teens, although being much younger actually (both suffered from accelerated aging). They escaped Shadaloo due to the fact that an older model ended up destroying the base where they were being held. speaking of the Devil....

These are Seth and Abel.  Also, spare bodies of Bison. But (un)fortunately, they developed a conscience and independence. While Abel ran away and joined the french army, Seth created a splinter cell from Shadaloo called S.I.N. and planned a hostile takeover of the syndicate. One interesting fact is that both Seth and Abel are the SAME MODEL of bodies, but Seth installed the upgrade of the Tanden Engine on his body. So Seth was once like Abel and if given enough time and the proper modifications, Abel could become like Seth.  One recent release on Street Fighter V revealed the Seth was always more machine than man. If that is plainly due the Tanden Engine modification and what this means to Abel, its still unknown. both (Abel more than Seth) still have Bison’s DNA on them. Also, Bison considers this batch of clones a FAILED experiment Seth was the final Boss of Street Fighter IV, and Abel was the protagonist of that series. but, the older models are the more interesting ones.

These are Cammy and Decapre. Both are the oldest clone models player knew until recently. They are also fully biological and the first successful vessels for Psycho Power. Decapre is actually a “ Cammy Alpha“, a first attempt to create Cammy herself. Being fully biological, they ALSO carry Bison’s DNA. While Cammy became independent and joined the British Army, Decapre stayed brainwashed and a weapon for Shadaloo until recently (SFIV). Both Decapre and Cammy were part of a shadaloo project call “The Dolls project“: Most of the Dolls were the kidnapped teenage girls mentioned before, who were also test beds for Bison’s mind control via psycho power. There were 12 Dolls (Decapre and other 11), with Cammy being a 13th, codenamed Killer Bee. As of now, you probably noticed: 3 males, 3 females. We might be onto something here. But remember that profane ritual I mentioned? One of the results was this lady here...

This is Rose. In order to get full access to Psycho Power, Bison had to EXPEL ALL THE GOOD ENERGY FROM HIS SOUL. No joking. the good half of Bison’s Soul incarnated on a young Italian GIRL who was being born that moment and who grew up to be a incredible psychic and fortune teller ,plus the most powerful user of the SOUL POWER, the opposite to Bison’s Psycho Power. so Rose is the REINCARNATION of Bison’s soul, or at least half of it. After the events of SF Alpha 3, Bison even used Rose’s body as a vessel, to hide himself from the authorities. How she was freed and what happened to her during SFII is still unknown. Street Fighter V didn't really expanded on the relationship between Rose and Bison, as much as confirmed that as of the end of A Shadow Falls (SFV general story mode), Bison's is truly gone, at least as definitive as Rose can sense. Let's also remember that, until the interference of Rose herself, Cammy/Killer Bee was considered a succesfull attempt at creating the perfect body. If Rose hadn't freed Cammy's mind, which was as close to a blank slate and receptive as possible, its highly probable that Bison would be using her body instead. Still with me? STREET FIGHTER V: ARCADE EDITION added another point on this list: SETH was released in 2020 as a playable character, part of Season IV. HOWEVER, the FORM he appeared is quite the surprise.

THIS IS SETH! YES, THAT SAME SETH!! (a name tag on SFV confirms this is number 15, the seth that was at the center of SFIV events) After having all of his bodies destroyed during SFIV, his brain was placed by Juri on an old body known as DOLL UNIT 0. The interesting thing here is that Jury is doing this in behalf of a third party, identified only as voice on phone. This voice expected a male body, while Juri didn't even noticed (or cared) that Seth or DU0's had a gender. Doll Unit 0's body accepted Seth's biological brain without a problem. Seth's mind however, is on turmoil. When integrating with the DU0' original personality, something went wrong and Seth went completely batshit crazy. He only sees Psycho Power, and mistook Ed and Falke as being Bison himself, due to their Psycho Power energy. Some lines, such as this Seth is true perfection hints on a ongoing attempt of accepting the new body. The Arcade mode ending and an extra Seth on his Critical Art during his V-trigger 1 also hints that Seth's true power lies in the INTEGRATION with this new body. ALL OF THESE, ALL OF IT, are just canon facts from the SF series lore.  now for the speculation. Bison is not using the original body. And psycho power, specially the levels Bison desires, requires quite the strong one, which factors on why his current body is failing these days. why he had to abandon his original body? My only guess is that the profane ritual either destroyed it in the process or damaged it beyond repair. but at this point, Bison already had gained the power to posses other bodies. Doll Unit 0, the prototype for the perfect vessel, is female. Bison’s soul incarnated on a female body and until very recently, when his clone technology developed enough to create more radical deviations, the clones were all female. While there is several attempts of male bodies they are a late development and not only there is only one almost successful male body, it is the one that requires constant replacing AND Bison is trying to upgrade from, because it's not enough. But, the creation of a male body is stiil on the table and being attempted. Considering CAPCOM’s own words, that Seth is more machine than man, we can guess that Abel is probably just the biological basis for Seth, who is mostly the Tanden Engine and a biological brain. This is what was implemented into Doll Unit 0, who was completely female at that point, maybe even fully biological since Cammy, the earliest successful clone so far is fully biological as well. If we compare to real world cloning technology, cloning someone of the same gender is easier and more direct than altering the gender. Then there is the not-satated-but-extremely-obvious-fact that DU0 was the true first attempt at the tech that would produce Cammy, meaning, Shadaloo’s cloning tech was tested with HER. This also means that Doll Unit 0 IS EXTREMELY SIMILAR, IF NOT IDENTICAL, TO BISON'S ORIGINAL BODY. in conclusion: Bison’s original body is FEMALE and something close to this:

Thanks BbbSFXT from Deviant Art for the Mod and the picture. On the last version, I considered Mistress Bison being blonde, but thinking it through, it was more wishful thinking, trying to make them close to Cammy. Clones being a blonde is probably a side effect of DNA manipulation. Blond hair is recessive, and putting on the simplest, almost insulting way possible, it means blonde only happens if both sides of the DNA have the same code for hair. Since Bison is using the same DNA over and over, it makes sense clones would end up blonde. This also fits with DU0 being a very early prototype, with almost Bison's entire DNA intact, including the code for them hair. And now let's talk mysticism: There is the whole Yin/Yang theme surround everything Psycho Power, explicitly shown in Seth's design, but it was already there, at least as early as the Alpha/Zero series. In the balance of the Yin/Yang symbolism, Yin, the black part, can represent a “feminine principle” and also, can be a suffix/preffix meaning shadow. While Yang, the white part, can represent a “masculine principle” and also can be a suffix/preffix meaning light. these are parts in all living beings, be them male or female.

Psycho Power, the shadow, is feminine. Soul Power, the light, is masculine. There is a inversion of the symbolism here, with Bison, the male body, using the yin and Rose, the female body, using the yang. But the catch is: Rose is not a traditional reincarnation of Bison (obvious reasons) but received Bison's yang, on top of her natural one. This counts on why Rose is so powerful with Soul power. And while she doesn't seem to suffer a physical instability like Bison, as fortune teller and psychic, seem to be incredibly sensitive to strong emotions and energies around her (How the mind of G affected her on SFV being a exemple), I would argue that this extreme sensitiveness is the side effect of that extra yang energy. Let's also consider that while Bison wants MORE shadow and went way beyond what his natural body could hold, Rose stayed pretty much at her natural levels, as far as we know. So Bison's instability can be accounted as using insane levels of pure feminine energy inside a male body. Seth, the genderless one, will only find harmony in accepting his female body. Rose, the female body, is the only of them to have any kind of control and estability. This all points towards Mistress Bison, and that's the hill I'm dying on. this also ties to the idea proposed by Steven Mane: Psycho Power is closely related to the feminine and can't function properly, or at all, with men. Bison forcing that is the base reason for the physical instability. Which leads us to... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Steven Mane's alternative theory of Psycho Power

The main gist here is that there isn't really any indication that Bison's OG body is any different from the one he uses today (which is true. There isn't a single line about it on the canon sources). The initial lack of male clones is accounted simply as that we haven't seen enough male clones, and they might have existed since Killer Bee's times. In his views, everything so far points to Bison desiring a male body. However, Psycho power works better with women, or was meant to be used by women. There is another fighting game with a similar plot, Skullgirls, in which the main McGuffin for that story is a mystical artifact that only works with women, which is why most of the cast of that game is female. And after Rose's SFV ending, I wouldn't put behind CAPCOM to lift another game's plot point for their own, specially one that would fit well with the already stablished canon. However, Steven Mane's best argument for this comes from SFA3 itself, or rather, the PSP version of SFA3. But before we get to that, let's go down on the memory lane and remember the facts.

Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX, also known as Street Fighter Zero 3 Double Upper in Japan, is so far the last version of Street Fighter Alpha 3 released and it is an exclusive of the Playstation Portable console. The Alpha/Zero Series is the main focal point when talking about Bison and Psycho Power, as it's the series where Rose first appeared and in Alpha 3, we have the only canon appearance of Cammy as Killer Bee (on the intro of her first fight against Rose) and the first playable Dolls, Juli and Juni. SFA3 MAX is also, up to the publication of this, the only game in the series to have a guest character (the jury is still out on SFV last season V character). "Wait, Tony" you ask "Don't you mean 4 guest characters?" Eagle and Maki are not guests: They were always part of the Street Fighter franchise, and are contemporary to the events of the game . Yun makes a non-canon appearance which is explained by time travel (in his own quotes), since the events of Alpha series happen way when he was nothing but a toddler. But he is still part of the franchise, so not a guest, per se.

Ingrid, however, is a conundrum wrapped inside a enigma and kept inside a locked puzzle box missing some of its pieces. That is inside a cave inside a volcano under the pacific ocean. On the mariana trenches.

Ingrid is from a failed, unreleased CAPCOM game called CAPCOM Fighting All-Stars. Her first playable appearance is the ill-received crossover game CAPCOM Fighting Jam, known in Japan as CAPCOM Fighting Evolution.

In All-Stars, she was kind of a regular fighter, with a special importance to the plot and final boss. The very little we know about the plot hints on her being something beyond human. She carried a code Isis, is nicknamed the Eternal Goddess, and is said to posses the power of longevity.

On Fighting Jam, she has to solve some issues she had with Pyron, the final boss of that game and an alien who is basically a living sun and is hinted to be what ended the dinosaurs (i swear this is Darkstalkers Canon) Her ending there is... weird.

I brought this up because it adds a tiny little bit of context to her SFA3 MAX ending.

Ingrid claims ownership of the psycho power. Notice that its the power itself, not the Psycho Drive Bison's uses. And Bison is aware of that. Roses recognizes both as users of Psycho Power, even though she doesn't recognizes Ingrid. Also note at 00:59 that the focus point of the psycho drive carries Ingrid's Seal, the same one on the cups on her head AND the one she summons on her Fighting Jam ending. Oh, and she is capable of time travel. but no mention if she was the one who brought Yun to SFA3 time, though. What this all mean? Speculation time: According to Steven Mane's theory: With Ingrid being the creator of psycho power, Psycho power works better with women. You can even explain Bison's obsession with 16 year old girls: They are the ones who closely resemble Ingrid, who he knows is the original source of that power. This also explain why Bison's desire of a male body directly conflicts with psycho power: It was never meant for such body. and why there is so much female clones: It simply the result of experiments to see what fits better. But Bison is trying to get around this: He has been experimenting on both, noticing that male bodies deteriorate way faster, confirmed that female ones fit better, but for reasons only known to himself, this was not enough. The genderless Seth, a sentient machine build to gather psycho power, was Bison's latest attempt of circumvent the body type limitation, but it still didn't work (as stated by Bison himself) This is where Steven Mane's theory ends. But from that, we can jump to other conclusions: Ingrid is a goddess and is the source of Psycho Power energy. Notice that she is not the source of soul power though, so behind her innocent face, behind those red eyes, lies something sinister and evil. (Or maybe, Soul Power is simply Psycho Power with another name? Rose might be the one hiding something...) [Small June/2021 update: After a lazy Sunday re-reading the SF30th's bios, its is clear that Soul Power is not just Psycho Power with a different name. So if you want to follow this line of thought through, you have to consider that Ingrid is EVIL, or at least deals heavily with negative energies (closer to Akuma than Bison). and it opens the possibility of a God/Goddess of Soul Power somewhere out there on the SF Universe. but that is speculation for another time.]

Ingrid is time-travelling to specific points in time to collect parts of her power. Bison was one of those who stole it. Pyron probably did it too, and in 201X, Ryu has something to do with it.

Oh, extra fact: SFIII, the last game on the timeline, happens in 1999. SFV, the game that was released on the 10's, canonically happens during 1998. So the Ryu she is supposed to meet next is YET to appear (maybe in SF6?).

And because she is a time travellng goddess, not a dimension hopping one this means a direct connection between the worlds of Darkstalkers, Street Fighter and Red Earth, the three franchises from CAPCOM Fighting Jam: Darkstalkers' Human World could be considered to be Street Fighter's Earth, and Red Earth is literally another planet on the same universe, hinting a bigger CAPCOM shared timeline then we expected. We can also speculate that Bison ultimate goal would not be just global domination but to replace Ingrid as god/goddess of psycho power. And she took Yun to 1989 just for the LuLz. Why I didn't mentioned Ingrid up there in MY theory? because of CFN Portal. The Capcom Fighters Network Portal is essentially the final word on who is canon in Street Fighter. Released together with SFV, its a well documented, weirdly organized and deep source of any street fighter or final fight character you can imagine. Those 2 guys fighting on the intro of SF2 got bios there. As well as Hakan's daughters and Elena's Family. Heck, CFN Portal is the place that finally settled Chun-li's father name as Dorai.

There is also relevant guest characters and characters who appeared in other games but that CAPCOM consider part of the franchise and canon, such as Blade from the Street Fighter: The Movie game (now part of the North American operations of Shadaloo) and... Ruby Heart from MARVEL vs CAPCOM 2 (a version of her actually, before the events of that game). Ingrid is clearly shown as a guest character and NOT part of the street fighter franchise, as she does not have the SF franchise standard background. the only ones who this happen are special guests from, such as the ones from Street Fighter EX and Street Fighter 2010. Ingrid is also described there with her bio from CAPCOM Fighting All-Stars, rather then her own story on SFA3 MAX or even CAPCOM Fighting Jam, in a way making her role on SFA3 MAX similar to Evil Ryu's: A what-if non-canon scenario of the events of the game, that has no bearing on the main plot. Evil Ryu's ending are always Ryu kills everybody and wants more blood, never really explaining anything. Evil Ryu is more important as a visual representation of the dark side of Ryu rather than a character itself'. and because of that precedent, when CAPCOM itself gave her non-canon status, it's better to err on the side of caution and not consider her direct influence and acts when speculating about the plot and lore, unless they are the only source of some kind of hinted information. And there is one very canon character who has a situation like that. Killer Bee. As I mentioned before, the ONLY time Cammy acts as Killer Bee in canon is on her SFA3 arcade/story mode: In her intro against Rose, her very first fight, She initially starts under control of Bison. Rose actually recognizes Bison's Power and frees her, even before the fight starts. The fight itself is actually framed as a violent reaction to being freed. but there is a game where we can see Killer Bee Cammy in all her brainwashed glory: X-men vs Street Fighter. Released before Alpha 3 and the first game where Cammy is shown with her Alpha design. Her quotes there shows a profound reverence to Bison AND some are mechanical in nature. Goddess Ingrid (to differentiate a bit from Code Holder Ingrid) could be one of these instances: Canonically speaking, we know very little about Bison: What are his motivations, why he desires such levels of power or anything that would elevate him from one dimensional antagonist. Sagat started as that and became one of the most developed characters of the franchise. Gill is from the straight go good intentions that will end up bad. Seth is the whole reason of this essay, so I don't need to show you anymore how he turned out a interesting character. and there is G, who is either a suicide cult leader still looking for followers, or the savior of mankind. Not to mention that most players thought as a good guy until Rose's ending. like, holy psycho powered cow... Bison is still just the dictator who wants to rule the entire world. And the only character that deals with Psycho Power in a way that is not just evil power for the evil dictator is a character that, as far as CAPCOM is concerned, is not even acknowledged as the relevant version.

[notquiteaghost]

@bytebun replied to your text post:

Kabu & Cody & fox relationships on kamino vs. now? also how did mirage get her name?

to address your first question,

so As We Know clones-specific canon is A Hot Mess so, for my purposes, jango employed the cuy'val dar to train the clones & the distinction isn't that they only trained some clones it's that they trained some more. jango trained the alphas personally, there were aptitude tests for CC training but jango got final say, CC training meant more time with the cuy'val dar as opposed to flash training & sims. most clones are basically ipad babies. i love domino squad but given the numbers it is insane that tcw tries to say any trainer wld take that much personal interest in just one squad, esp after the war's actually started & they have an idea of actual casualty rates

(oh this is a lot of words ok i will be kind)

similarly, in theory after the war starts choosing who gets CC training wld fall to the alphas but in practise CC training just stops in favour of universal Don't Fucking Die Before Your Third Deployment training. if the war went on long enough they ran out of anyone with formal CC training then hypothetically promotion wld depend on field experience but in practice by the last few months most every company is operating on an Whoever Yells The Loudest command structure. rex is actually just very ahead of the curve in being a captain inexplicably in charge of a battalion

anyway. sorry ive thought abt this too much. my point is, kabu & cody are batchmates but kabu did not get CC training; kabu is a captain, kabu got medic training. fox & cody are not batchmates, tho they are agemates (for my purposes, batches are like being in the same high school class and agemates is being in the same grade and i refuse to actually run the numbers on how many are in a batch but it is more like a few dozen than a handful), and they did CC training Together for that reason.

SO. to get to ur actual question. fox & cody on kamino are new chevrolet in flames dot mp3. nightmare teens who have been told they're The Best Of The Best and also have enough of an inclination to Asking Questions to be overly aware just how dire their sitch is and are very much plastering over that awareness with cockiness & bastardry. (not that every clone isnt aware Shit's Fucked but yknow there's 'wow it sucks we literally don't have rights' and then there's 'if we're meant to be such good soldiers why is there so many of us. how many of us are they expecting to die.' & CC training does in fact go over replacing casualties). they are inseparable from almost the moment they meet; first CC training session involves sparring & they are the two who Will Not Fucking Quit.

cody & kabu are -- ok to be clear when i write clones 'batchmates' is not a guarantee of Sibling Dynamic, but in cody & kabu's case they are Sibling Dynamic. lot of downtime spent together, cody's the first person kabu talks abt gender to, kabu's the one who gets the brunt of cody's Fucking Hells Do I Even Want Command stress, etc. they're very much the siblings who will shittalk each other till the cows come home but stab anyone else in the throat for looking at their sib funny. their batch's Resident Troublemakers

kabu & fox at first are very much like. imagine the spiderman pointing meme but they're both holding a gun. what do you mean cody can have TWO people. this is quickly resolved after the first time fox & cody make out, and then kabu & fox join forces (cody Hates this)

so a summary of the dynamic of all three of them on kamino is they each take it in turns to be the one Causing Trouble while the other two disapprove.

and then once they're deployed, cody & fox very much have to Adjust to no longer being literally joined at the hip, and kabu bears the brunt of cody adjusting. (thorn bears the brunt of fox adjusting. fox & cody are not deployed with a batchmate on accident)

SO. Now, kabu & fox are just as much Siblings as kabu & cody. fox likes to pretend to be mad about this, kabu likes to threaten to bribe fox's subordinates to forcibly sedate him, cody watches these exchanges with a fond smirk. and the further into the war we get the less ghost / the 212th as a whole give any shits abt decorum & the more likely you are to walk in on kabu threatening to tell the entire GAR about That One Live Fire Drill if cody doesn't lie the fuck back down and stay there

[the-bjd-community-confess]

More Divaz confos

Mod: Round two of these, previously: link. There’s some interesting customer reviews in this batch (5 and 8) which may be useful to readers.

1.Vic3mage "the secret bjdivaz vip group is just pictures of boxes coming in and going out". Yeah, between the bitching about d0llshe, asking people to post on doa for them, dunking on ex-customers, posting pics of random doll parts that they can't identify which doll they're supposed to go with, whining about how little money they make, whining when ppl e-mail them, whining. Yeah, other than that it's just boxes, and alpacas u can buy off amazon anyway lol.

~Anonymous

2.The butthurt users crying and guilttripping under every Divaz confession who have never been seen before elsewhere on this blog are extremely unsuspicious and unproblematic and definitely unconnected to Divaz and unbiased in every possible way

/s

~Anonymous

3.idk shit abt bjd1vas but v1cemage i can absolutely tell you the shit about ch0o is 100% accurate, fucker's got a long, long history of being an awful little man that stretches well beyond his involvement in the doll community. between the two i'd still trust bjd1vas over ch00 ch00 the fool any day!

~Anonymous

4.The Z3st and Div4s thing is really silly and both entities were being shady but did they really have to take the DZ waiting room down with them? :( He had even made a separate thread about it......

~Anonymous 

5. RE: BJD Divaz

I’ve been a customer of BJD Divaz since they first started, when it was only run by Chart3rline. I even contacted other BJD companies trying to persuade them to work with Divaz as their US representative. Most declined because they didnt like D's commission fee, but I was able to persuade a few of them.

I asked them to purchase a doll off DOA because I couldnt afford the asking price, and while they did, I found out later that instead of agreeing to purchase the seller's price, they negotiated the price to be lower. This significantly cheaper price was not passed down to me. I paid the full price +the commission fee based on that full price. I am disappointed I was not told this. This is when I stopped viewing them as a "friend" and instead, as a business. I dont hold this against them, it’s context to what Im going to say later.

I’ve stopped purchasing from D after my recent order from them. This company usually takes 3 or less months to make a doll. I’ve ordered the doll from D and it took 11 months. They let me know it arrived to them in March and that it will be shipped soon, except it only shipped on July, and only after I sent them several "reminder" emails. Before people in the comments try to put the blame on me for not sending a reminder soon, please keep in mind that I acknowledged the email in March and confirmed everything and they keep stressing to not send them emails because they are busy, I’ve emailed once every month since. I’ve since switched to ACBJD and Ive been happy with communication and the dolls ordered. I imagine ACBJD gets the same amount of emails, but they dont berate their customers if they email more than once.

I regret when people wanted a D0llshe, but not deal with him, I always recommended D. I would warn people of ordering directly and instead go through D. They assured buyers they would be handling communication and all the efforts so they wouldnt worry, except they didn’t. A person that I’ve recommended D to, who surpassed 2 years, keeps messaging me for help because D wouldnt reply to their emails. She is respectful, sweet and a timid person, not a Karen. This person, emailed D without a reply so would email a week later, only to be told that their email would be pushed down to the bottom if emailed again. No response, so she goes to FB and IG, who both tell her to email because they arent the person running orders. Finally got a response that they would get their refund, after D0llshe sends D's payment, but minus the PP fees. 3 months later and theres no refund, only a promise of them getting it later. Why is the customer missing out on fees when they have no doll? Customer emails d0llshe and he says he cant offer refund, because they didn’t order through them, which is understandable, but when all options are out for a customer, do you blame them for chargebacks?

If anyone files a chargeback, D will be blacklisting them from every company they rep, as in blacklisting you from buying direct from those companies. I urge everyone who has negative experiences with D to email the companies they rep instead of venting on confession blogs, and writing your experiences on social media. Make it count and send letters to the companies they represent, and please provide proof because they will try to make you out to be a liar.

Speaking of, they made vague posts on cl0ver singing for charging paypal fees, and that they offer guarantees as an official dealer, except when offering refunds, to non delivered products I might add, they are keeping the fees, and offered no help with d0llshe, even before they ended their dealership with them. Someone on DOA was told to not email them unless the wait time surpassed 1.5 years. They are even so petty that they post screenshots with the full name and address (dox) of the customer on purpose and then delete it out a day later as if they just realized their "mistake".

Before you try to make excuses for them about the fires, keep in mind, I am dealing with a business. The lower price negotiation with the DOA sale, I am in no way obligated to give them a pass or treat them as a friend when they made it clear that our relationship is strictly business. Their issues, are not my issues. D0lk got dragged for not shipping in time, others, including artisans, got dragged for being so late with communication and sending back refunds for cancelled orders. Why does D get to be exempt?

The supporters are the worst part of this, because of instead of being honest so D can improve, they support them for being "real". For example, look how micemage words it, to make it seem like this criticism is from one person, when there are people on addicts who didn’t have good experience. Check the bjd dealers tag here, you will see the supporters in the comments going off on any and all criticism of D. Some have sane comments, but the majority are cult like and try to identify the person venting as if it’s one person. Addicts deletes threads with criticism asking people to instead direct it to their feedback group; which lets be honest, no one is going to do because its "not that bad", and most dont want to join a new group, which is mostly dead.

This is my first and last confession on D, I’ve emailed each company they rep and told them my experience as well as contacting the 3 month wait company, with screenshots of my order, how they handled it, and the excuse they used to put blame on the company for being so late (package arrived march to D, 4 months to be shipped is on D, not the company). I’m not using company or order details because I know they are petty enough to try to identify me and publicly shame me like they have to others. This and the threat of suing is why not many people like to go public with their experience. They just keep feedback neutral, move on and never deal with again.

~Anonymous

6. Listen, I can't take you seriously in regards to BJD!vas because you're posting on a confession blog. If you were serious, you would have posted in buyer beware groups, DoA reviews or the board to get things resolved, or you would have made a complaint to the BBB. And your language makes you come off more as someone with an agenda rather than someone who is trying to warn people. If shipping is the issue, stop buying with standard shipping and pay the extra price for express shipping. I saw one of you complain that it sat with them for 20 days; that's probably because you're not the only one and they more than likely have a queue to check and then ship out. Do mistakes happen? Yes, because we're human. I've been in this hobby for a few years now and it seems like most people know you're going to have to wait, sometimes even outside the expected wait time. And shipping something as big as a doll is a timely endeavor. I shouldn't have to say that.

My point is simply to stop complaining on an confession board and either take it to the places previously mentioned. Posting here behind the anonymous mask makes you sound like a petulant child who didn't get their way right away.

~Anonymous

7.My only issue with BJD Divaz is how I never get any updates. Every email, they tell me to join their facebook page for status updates. I dont have a FB and I dont want to create one. I bought my doll through their website, updates should be posted on their website, or they could send me an email. That isnt asking much.

~Anonymous

8. Since there seems to be a lot of either "completely negative everything sucks" or "everything was sunshine and rainbows" confessions about bjd!vaz I thought I'd chime in with a neutral review.

PROS

-They were always polite and professional in their emails, and gave me very detailed answers to my questions.

-I got exactly what I ordered, so no mix ups or missing parts or anything like that.

-I think them being forthcoming about personal issues (only one person on staff, illness, the flooding isue etc.) on social media is good, since it keeps customers updated as to why there might be delays.

-If you live in the US their shipping is very reasonable.

CONS

-Reply times were varied. Sometimes it could take over a week, sometimes a couple hours.

-My order took about 10mo which, when comparing to other people who ordered through the same company around the same time, was about 3x as long as if I bought it direct and 2x as long if I had gone through a different dealer. I get some of the waiting time is out of their control, but it was kind of ridiculous.

-They dont necessarily ship the same day they send you a tracking number. I wish they said something like, "Here's your tracking number, our pickup is Xday so it should start moving after that" just so I could be aware.

All in all no major complaints. I got my doll and all that. Their lone employee is clearly overwhelmed. I hope they hire another person, if only to give the one a break.

Truthfully, I most likely won't buy through them again. I'd rather pay the international shipping and go direct, than deal with the extensive wait time. I'd still recommend them to someone looking for a very long layaway, though. I paid in full, but if I had a 12mo layaway I would've never known they weren't ready to ship my doll until month 10.

~Anonymous

[heathridgemanor]

hello ive posted another fic its second person prison fic set during the episode Hell’s Kitchen heres the link

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28686504

please read the notes at the start and if any content within the fic are going to effect you in any way please don’t read it

if you would like to read it here instead, it will be below the cut :)

Not cozy at all (hard to live) || spencer reid || 1234 words

tw: suicidal thoughts, blood.

Sickening yellow that makes you wish they were just the same concrete grey that surrounds you. The bars. You tried to explain this to Emily; she didn’t understand. She never does anymore. The bars, the table, the wooden plank disguised as a soft wall between them in visiting hours; it’s chipped away at her ability to understand you.

Just like it’s chipped away at your sense of self.

Reading to just for contentment, chess is a game of strategic violence to show anyone clever enough that you are just as ruthless as them. Journaling doesn’t help but your head hurts too much to keep everything inside.

You talk to Rossi about trust, about change, about-

Lockdown. This is your chance. You look back at Rossi.

You dig through concern and sadness and are thankful for the lack of pity until you find it. Love. Love for you as if you are his own. You let it burn into your mind because you are never going to see it again.

Not if you can’t figure out another way.

You’re back behind the pealing bars and they somehow look more attractive now that you know what is going to happen the next time you leave them behind for the laundry. Your cell block isn’t on lockdown, you will still be required to perform your duties and you wish your duties were profiling as it once was.

You can’t even try to profile the countless white shirts you fold beyond stripping away individuality as the prison system intended. It’s even before your anger overtakes you that you know you are too far gone.

Luis spent his final moments choking on his own blood, fear flooding his eyes as he was forced to stare up at the reason he was killed. You shouldn’t envy him.

But you do, because he is free from this hell.

That’s how you know you are too far gone. 

That’s why you give up trying to come up with another way.

“There’s only so far I can go.” Shaw said.

“So can I,” you replied, and you’re talking about how you can’t go and fight them with a shiv that was once a toothbrush, but you can prove everyone who told you that you wasted your chemistry PhD wrong.

You can’t think, your mind is blank when you need it most. Sickening yellow bleeds into your mind, pooling into an ocean deeper than any on Earth, and your thoughts become chained and anchored to the bottom.

Pull. Pull. You can’t. You can’t hold your thoughts up the way Atlas held the heavens.

You aren’t Atlas.

He endured his punishment, you are going to kill yours.

Revenge, protection; the motive doesn’t matter. If your heart wasn’t slowly dying it would hurt with the knowledge that your friends would still believe you were a good person. That you were doing what you had to.

You don’t have to do anything. You can just die instead.

Baking soda. Bleach. Bars. Your three new best friends cheer you on as you look over your shoulder. For the first time, you are glad Gideon and Hotch and Morgan left, because they are the three people who were the polar opposites of your new friends.

You never want them to know you let your fear and anger cloud your judgement.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

You can almost imagine it’s raining.

They killed Luis. 

Brush. Brush. Brush. 

Snow off a road, it’s colder now.

They deserve it.

You put the snow back where you found it and as you deliver it to the men God sent to test you, you wonder if it He will send them after you, or if you are not even worth that much trouble. You are quiet when you return to your cell, and you can barely hear Shaw asking What the hell did you do?

He’ll find out soon enough, when the rusting yellow bars and the concrete grey cell is decorated with red and your broken body becomes a centerpiece. You ought to let that happen.

It doesn’t.

Instead you can’t decide if you are being faced with a wrathful God or a godless existence as you find Malcolm on the floor, choking on his own blood. So much like Luis. The only difference being the method.

You still killed them both by proxy. You are no better than the man who put you here. Maybe he was right to.

The guards shove you behind the chipping steel and you think the yellow has never looked as dull as it does now. After days, weeks, months, it doesn’t matter, of being trapped by those bars, they have never looked so dull.

“Bad batch,” you hear the warden answer your question and you would have laughed at the understatement if two-

Three-

Four-

Shaw wasn’t coughing up blood, decorating his cell with half the paint that should be on your own. Maybe between them they will cough up enough blood for you to do as you should without harm to yourself.

You don’t know what makes you feel worse: that, or the fact you only feel bad that none of the people who were poisoned were your two targets.

Targets.

You had targets. 

You hope Gideon was right when he said This will hit you, because maybe the guilt will give you absolution. Fingers softly grip at your face; they almost don’t feel like your own and for a moment you can’t remember how you got here.

The only reason you don’t start trying to wake yourself up is because you know you aren’t lucky enough for this to be a dream.

You let the bars embrace you. You let the baking soda and bleach congratulate you. You don’t fight, you stay quiet, you keep your head down. You don’t want to; you want to scream and shout and start a fight but you don’t because you let your anger out once already and-

The fallout.

You wonder what you did to Mr Scratch for this to be his way of playing with you, and the only possibility you can think of is that he forced Hotch to choose, and he chose you.

Just as you chose him.

Just as you chose to give in.

It does hit you in the end, even if they didn’t die. Every time you pass the infirmary you feel a stab in the fractured remains of your soul. The fog of fear and anger clears up and you do feel bad about hurting those men, but not as much as you should.

Maybe you always knew this was how it was going to be. After all, you did tell Rossi There’s a helplessness in here that causes people to do things they would never consider and helplessness was really the only way you could describe how you felt.

How you feel.

Maybe you didn’t mean to hurt Shaw and Malcom and the others, but you did.

You did.

That’s what matters in the end, even if your family won’t see it because they are blinded with love the same way as you were with anger and fear.

Night falls, lights out, and your last thought before the sickening yellow consumes you in a way it shouldn’t in the dark is of an old friend who killed a man.

You wonder what Elle Greenaway would think of you nearly killing seven.

[captainamericasbeard]

I Owe You One

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: Just fluff. Fluff and too much food. 

Summary: Bucky steals your food and your heart in the process. Awwwwe.

A/N: This is my entry for @barnesrogersvstheworld ‘s writing challenge. My prompt was “I owe you one.” “You owe me three. At least” It’s in bold. I had a ton of fun writing it and I hope you love it. Sorry if I make your tummy rumble with all the delicious food references. Please like, comment, and reblog. I like the validation. 

_______________________________________________________________________

Bucky was always taking your food. You’d lost count of the number of times you’d walked into the kitchen and found him hunched over a meal you’d whipped up for yourself. Perfectly prepared BLTs gone in a few bites. Four bowls of spaghetti bolognese in the time it took you to take a shower. A whole pan of chorizo macaroni and cheese. You didn’t even get a bite. There was no limit to what he could eat and he seemed to have very little guilt about the whole thing. You’d walk back into the kitchen and find him hunched over your plate, a fleeting look of guilt in his eyes and he’d mumble around his mouth full of food, “I’ll owe you one.” He was deeply in your debt at this point.

You two were a match made in culinary heaven. You’re an excellent cook and he’s an indecent eater. He devours his food. He absolutely stuffs his face. He moans over your cooking in a way that makes you blush. He practically sings your praises while he eats and he would lick the plate if you’d let him. You don’t really mind. It makes you happy to make him happy and his sweet words makes your stomach somersault.

But lately you’ve taken to eating in strange places in an attempt to hide from him. A bowl of lemon chicken pasta on the floor of the server room. A plate of garlic and chili prawns with homemade crusty bread at the desk of a disused office. You even once considered taking your chicken schnitzel sandwich up into the vents but then you’d have to share with Clint. It wouldn’t have mattered, Bucky could find you anywhere. Just when you thought you’d found the perfect spot he’d whip open the door and shout “Aha!” He’d look pleadingly between your eyes and your plate of food with such longing until you handed over your meal resignedly. You’d never be able to resist that look.

_______________________________________________________________________

One day you were sitting at the table over a simple breakfast of coffee and banana bread slathered with ricotta cheese, honey, and cinnamon. Bucky was on his third slice and you realized this was the only slice you’d be getting. You got up to refill your coffee and Bucky asked “What’s something you love to eat that you can’t make?” You thought for a moment.

“Phở.”

“Phở?”

“Yeah, phở.”

“What the hell is phở?”

“It’s a Vietnamese soup. It’s got noddles and meat and herbs. It’s spicy and sweet and amazing. I’d be out of my depth trying to make it myself. And its so cheap you might as well just go to a restaurant for it.” Your eyes took on a dreamy far away look as you thought about tender pieces of sweet chicken floating in a broth that took two days to make.

“Let’s go. Let’s go get phở,” Bucky says snapping you out of your reverie.

“Yeah? You’d be up for trying it?” You ask.

“Yeah! I think its cool that you can get food from just about anywhere now. I never would have got a chance to try Vietnamese chicken noodle soup back in Brooklyn. Let’s go. Can we go now?” He starts getting up from his chair, his mouth watering at the dish you’ve described.

“Bucky, we're literally eating breakfast right now,” you roll your eyes at him, “can we at least wait until lunch?”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” he sits back down and grabs his fourth slice of banana bread.  

_______________________________________________________________________

Bucky hangs out with you in the kitchen while you spend some time cleaning bowls and loaf trays. You wipe down all the surfaces and cleaned out the fridge from countless containers of Chinese leftovers. “Damnit Clint,” you mutter as you fill up the trashcan. You whip up a batch of chocolate and caramel chip brownies and Bucky doesn’t even wait for them to cool before he devours half the tray and finishes the milk. He has started pacing at this point, ready to go. Finally you can’t handle his anxious energy any longer.

“Ok, ok, I’ll go get my jacket.” Bucky whoops and does a little dance as he rushes off to his room to grab his own jacket. You go to your room and while grabbing your jacket you decide you need to pull a brush through your hair and wash the flour off of your face. The few extra minutes you spend trying to look presentable has Bucky pounding at your door.

“What’s taking so long, Doll!?” The nickname puts a smile on your face.

“Sorry, just trying to look decent,” you say as you step out of your room and pull the door closed behind you. “You always look perfect, Doll. Don’t stress about it.” You dip your head down to hide your blushing under the pretense of zipping up your leather jacket. You look back up at Bucky to find him watching you intently. “Ready?” He asks with a smile playing on his lips.

“Ready,” you smile back.

It’s a perfect autumn day in New York City. The air is crisp and you both bury your hands in your jackets as you stroll down the sidewalk. There’s not much conversation happening but you don’t mind. Bucky’s presence makes you feel calm and collected. You always enjoy being around him and today was no different. Your favorite phở place was only a ten minute walk and you were there before you knew it.

The restaurant is a hole-in-the wall place, just as it should be. It was appropriately named Phở Noodles and as you opened the door you were greeted by the familiar tinkling of a bell and the soft brown eyes of the owner.

“Seat for two?” She asks with her thick accent, holding up two fingers to make herself clear. Her eyes twinkle mischievously. She’s used to you coming in by yourself.

“Yes please,” you respond with a wide smile. She seats you and Bucky next to the window and brings your waters. Bucky takes off his jacket as he sits and you watch him take in the decor, the kitchen in the back, and most importantly the bowls of phở at your neighbor’s table. He looks at you with childlike excitement in his eyes and you have to giggle at him. Your waitress comes over with a sweet smile and waits patiently for your order. You don’t even glance at the menu as you order two chicken phở, two Thai teas, and a share plate of egg rolls. The waitress nods and smiles and takes your menus as she walks back to the kitchen. You fold your hands on the table and turn back to Bucky who had watched the entire transaction with interest.

“So you come here a lot,” he asks, smirking.

“Yeah I guess. Three or four times a month. It’s comforting after a hard mission or a long day to just let someone else cook for dinner for once.”

“I think I owe you an apology,” Bucky says sheepishly and you raise your eyebrow. “I’m sorry I always steal your food.”

“Yeah, you do seem to have singled me out.”

“I can’t help it! You're just an amazing cook! I can always tell when its you in there and my mouth just starts watering and I just have to have some.” He looks at you, eyes pleading forgiveness.

“You know, you could just ask. I’d be happy to double the recipe so there’s enough for both of us. Where do you put it all anyways? You don’t look like you eat as much as you do.”

Bucky turns lightly pink at the implied compliment. “Hyperactive metabolism. Its a side affect of the serum. My metabolism runs about four times faster than yours. Steve’s is even worse. You see how many eggs he goes through.” You both laugh, Steve is famous for his daily dozen egg omelette.

“Gotcha. That makes sense. But why do you have such an indecent relationship with your meals.”

“Real answer or fake answer,” Bucky asks hesitantly.

“Real answer of course.”

“All the time I was with Hydra I never ate any real food. They kept me alive through IVs. I think I’m just making up for all the meals I missed” He was casual about it but you could tell it hurt him to relive any part of his time with Hydra. Meanwhile your heart had dropped out of your chest. You decided then and there you would never withhold food from Bucky Barnes ever again.

“I’m so sorry, Buck. I don’t know what else to say.”

“It’s ok. You don’t have to say anything.” He reaches his hand across the glass top table and gently holds yours. He was the one reliving the horrors of his past and here he was comforting you. Your brain goes fuzzy at the touch but luckily your food arrives before you can make a fool out of yourself.

Two huge, steaming bowls of broth, chicken, and rice noodles are placed in front of you. Next comes the plate with all the traditional toppings- mint and scallions, lime and sprouts, and more. Finally down comes your teas and the egg rolls with their light sauce full of shredded carrots. You teach Bucky how to add the toppings, which sauces were savory and which were spicy. You show him how to hold the chopsticks and the spoon for scooping up the broth. You both dig in and Bucky does not hold back his praises for his dish. He moans at the first bite. He loves each element of the soup and how they come together in perfect harmony. He slurps his broth oblivious to the glances of the other patrons. Before you’re halfway through your own bowl, Bucky is ordering his second.

“So you like it,” you comment between bites. Bucky nods his reply as he prepares and dives into his second bowl. Finally you’re too full to eat another bite so you slide your bowl over to Bucky as he’s finishing his. He doesn’t skip a beat as he pulls your bowl closer and keeps eating. You suppress a giggle and watch him enjoy one of your favourite things. Your heart swells knowing you’ve brought him the joy of a new discovery. Bucky finishes and sighs contentedly, his hands on his stomach and a smile on his face.

“Yeah,” he says seriously, “that’s pretty damn good. Thanks Y/N.”

“Anytime Buck.”

_______________________________________________________________________

You walk back to the tower in contented silence. Once inside you make a quick decision. “Come with me,” you say as you head towards your room. You open the door and move across the room to your closet. You stand on your tiptoes reaching into the top shelf while Bucky watches curiously from the foot of your bed. You pull out a decorative box wrapped in plastic wrap from underneath a pile of sweaters. “Come sit down,” you say as you begin to peel layers of plastic off of the box. “I’ve got dessert.”

“You’ve been holding out on me, Y/L/N,” Bucky says as he sinks to the floor and inspects the contents of the box.

“Yeah sorry. It won’t happen again I promise,” you glance at him from the corner of your eye and he’s looking at you with a dopey smile on his face. “They’re my grandma’s cookies. She makes them every year and sends me a box. I tend to hoard them. They’re chocolate peanut butter pinwheels.” Bucky’s eyes light up as he starts to reach into the box. Quickly he clenches his fist and pulls back.

“Sorry. May I have some?” He asks looking down at you with the sweetest expression on his face.

“Of course, Buck,” you answer softly and you both dig into the box.

“Too bad we’re out of milk,” Bucky comments around a mouth full of cookie.

“And who’s fault is that?” Bucky laughs and goes in for what might be his fourth cookie. Together you polish off the box in one sitting, Bucky eating the lion’s share of the precious treat. After the last crumb has been picked off of the inside of the box you both sigh contentedly.

“Thanks for sharing, Y/N, I know they were pretty special. I owe you one, for sure.”

“For that you owe me three. At least.” You burst out laughing and Bucky joins. You’ve never felt so contented, sitting on the floor of your closet laughing with the man who has managed to capture your heart.

_______________________________________________________________________

It’s a week after the phở and it’s managed to be a particularly terrible day. You decide there’s no way you’re cooking and opt to order out Chinese instead. You settle on your favorite garlic and ginger chicken with rice and a few egg rolls. Hanging up the phone you move to your room for a quick shower and to change into some sweats and an old t-shirt. All you can think about is the newest episode of Brooklyn 99 and your dinner on it’s way to you. You open the door to your room and immediately smell trouble. Your food has arrived. You rush to the kitchen to see Bucky hunkered over a container of Chinese food. YOUR Chinese food. The delivery guy must have come while you were in the shower. You stomped your foot and threw your hands onto your hips. Your eyes were flashing in anger.

“James Buchanan Barnes. What the hell do you think you’re doing!?” Bucky’s head snaps up. His body freezes with chopsticks in one hand and the box in the other. He gulped down his bite and looked so damn guilty you immediately softened your stance, dropping your hands down to your sides.

“Shit, Doll, I’m so sorry. I thought it was Clint’s! Can I owe you one?” He looked truly remorseful and your heart just fell apart.

“No, Bucky, you cannot owe me one. You owe me about a million. And you know what, I’m cashing in now.” You step towards him with your heart pounding out of your chest. You knew he could hear it but you didn’t care. You strode up to him and closed the gap between your bodies. You paused inches away from his face, giving him a chance to say something or push you away. He did nothing but swallow hard as his eyes flew from your bright, blazing eyes to your soft lips and back again. Before you could think about it you bring your lips to his in a tender kiss. He was frozen for a moment, food still in hand, but his lips quickly melt into yours. He throws the food onto the counter you have him pushed up against and wraps his arms around your waist, deepening the kiss. You rest your hands lightly on his chest for a moment before you move them up to tangle your fingers in his hair. He moans into your mouth like he did with that bowl of phở and you couldn’t help but smile. He pulls you closer to him as your passions grow and he tasted like garlic and ginger, savory and sweet all at once. You finally brake away to breath, locking eyes with each other.

“I'm glad one of us finally had the courage to do that,” Bucky whispers, his voice low and husky. “So I’m not in trouble for eating your dinner?” He smiles down at you with a devilish grin.

“You keep kissing me like that and you can steal all the food you want.” Your lips reconnect and you realized you were both hungry in a way food could never satisfy.

[crimsxndesire]

The automatic doors opened for Dominic as he stepped into the main lobby of the hospital. He was off, but here for personal reasons; the other reason he spent most of his time at the hospital: his mom. Looking down at the bag full of different foods she might want to eat, if he was lucky. The chemotherapy had gotten rid of any appetite she used to have. Attendees and nurses waved and smiled at him: it was no secret why he was here. While he’d been working, he was often looking up his mother’s charts and numbers, to see if there had been any improvement. Unfortunately, nothing had changed. 

Gently he opened the door to her room, hoping he wasn’t interrupting her sleeping. Her health was slowly deteriorating and if she got any respite, he didn’t want to ruin it. As soon as she stopped she smiled, greeting him warmly. It didn’t matter that she was sick, in the hospital with IV lines running in and out of her body, she was still the picture of sunshine. He didn’t like admitting he was a momma’s boy, but seeing her sick, not knowing if she was going to make it or not, made him not care about anyone’s opinion anymore.

Every time he saw her, she looked more frail and sick. It killed him that there was nothing else he could do for her. He had gotten the best oncologist on her case, to do anything to just help her, but the cancer was still taking over her body. As a doctor, he knew what the inevitable was, but as her son, he wanted to fight for as long as she possibly could. She was getting tired of the treatments though, the toll of the medications, drugs and everything involved was getting to her and she was slowly giving up. Neither of them spoke about that, though. They both pretended for the sake of the other.

Dominic greeted her as he pulled things out of the bag: soup, meal replacement shakes, yogurt, jello. Anything that she could possibly eat without upsetting her stomach. She smiled, grabbing the cup of jello, “Thank you sweetheart.” Being the control freak he was, he grabbed the clipboard with all her information as his eyes scanned the page. They had upped her dose, meaning the usual was not working anymore. “Dominic, don’t worry about that, please sit.” She begged as he put it away, forcing himself to be her son, and not the doctor he trained to be. “Are you comfortable?” He asked, pulling the chair to her bedside as he finally got a good look at her: sunken cheeks, hair loss. All the signs of cancer. Grabbing his hand, she smiled, “More than you would believe! I think they upped the dosage on the morphine I can have.” She giggled, “But enough about me. I’m tired of talking about myself. How is everything with you? Work, life, any women?” She pried.

Shrugging, he brushed her off, “Work is good. Finally starting to find my place there.” He avoided what she really wanted to know. Just like any mother with her son, she was more interested in his love life. She looked disappointed, “Nothing else?” She pushed further. “Like a woman you could have kids with? To pass on your beautiful genes to?”

Chuckling, he shook his head, “No mom. No women to bear my children.” She sighed, knowing that she was just wanting to have grandchildren before she passed. He would have loved to, but it’s not exactly conducive to have a child while you work 70 hours a week, it also wouldn’t be fair to whoever the mother would be. Dating had always been complicated for him. First it was Audrea, a woman he had loved, who was not enough for her according to her parents. Then it was a string of women who had chased him and finally gave into but never felt more than a physical attraction to. Now there was Ingrid, someone he had helped, who he was never expecting to have anything with and now they were getting closer and it made him nervous.

“There is someone though…” He spoke up softly, but it didn’t matter, she had heard it perfectly and she lit up. She looked like she was a hundred percent better, “WHO?!” She asked loudly. Shrugging, he thought of ways to explain Ingrid, “It’s not a typical relationship…”

Eyeing him, “She’s not a fuck buddy is she?” Asking with no shame. Groaning, “No Mother, not a fuck buddy.” He avoided saying anything about the start of the relationship, “She’s… younger than the usual girls I’ve dated…” He felt a need to explain himself, “I treated her and it just ended up happening. She had family problems, so she stayed with me… It’s now something more. It makes me nervous though. I’m this old man compared to her and I feel inadequate.” It was the truth, was he good enough for her? He had only ever felt insecure in one relationship before and it was ended forcefully. He didn’t want the same to happen.

“Is she old enough to consent?” She asked him bluntly, making him scoff at the idea, “Then so? You sound pretty worried over her and you’re notorious for not worrying about the women you date, so if you’re this torn up..” She shrugged with a smirk. “I am your mother and I know every single thing about me, even when you try to keep it from me. I want to meet her.”

He started shaking his head, “No, that’s going to scare her off!” Pouting, she kept asking, saying how happy it would make her and how it would make her forget about the shit she was currently going through and he couldn’t fight her… “I will ask, but I’m not forcing her!” He warned, as the door creaked open, a familiar face greeting the two of them.

His mom smiled as the doctor administered a new batch of medicine. “Dr. Murphy, could I speak to you for a moment.” He asked, excusing himself to talk to Dominic in the hall. His colleague, began speaking in a somber voice, explaining the current treatment to his mother before explaining that the doctors and her have tried their best…. The words he was saying were reverberating in his head as he took it all in. His mother had enough and she asked for no more treatment. She didn’t want to tell him though, knowing it would break him. His older associate offered him his condolences before walking off, leaving Dominic to take in the news. Logically, he understood his mother’s decision, but emotionally was another story.

He walked back in, and rattled off other great oncologists in the country, offering to fly her out or calling in a favor, anything to help her. “Nicky…” calling him by his most rare nickname. She pleaded with him, begging to let her die with dignity. Ignoring her, he kept rattling off different options for treatments, before she stopped him. “It’s enough Dominic. I’m tired of fighting… I just want to enjoy what I have left with you.” He wanted to interject, but she stopped him, “You are too headstrong for your own good. I know you want to keep fighting, but I think it’s time to be done. I told Dr. Baker no more medicine…”

Hanging his head down, he knew she was done. She had tried for long enough, and probably longer than she wanted, but she did it for him and now it was time to respect her wishes. His eyes welled up with tears, “What am I supposed to do without you?” Thinking about how he was her world and how much she meant to him. She raised him by herself, uprooting their lives from England because the opportunities were better here and now he was this trauma surgeon who couldn’t save his mother. 

Smirking, “Well, I can hope you’ll get married to a nice woman, have babies and get everything you want in life.” She held his hands in my head wiping his tears, “You will always be my son… even when I’m gone."

[nidhoggssoultrap]

Headcanon Part 3

Dress up game...one character...inspired all this...wow. But, I was able to dig up some old “flames” because of this, so it’s all good.

Previous “Headcanons”:

https://nidhoggssoultrap.tumblr.com/post/190472389157/my-headcanon-nidhogg-louie-and-yvette-mostly

https://nidhoggssoultrap.tumblr.com/post/190581277697/headcanonsvingettessnippets-part-2

1. Since I have a special fondness for Camaros, I decided that Nidhogg will be driving that. A powerful black one that is a blast to drive. >:) My biases are showing, I know.

2. My "adaptation" is a cross over with Ultima. This is a very old series that has been an inspiration for years. Want an old school RPG to play? Try the Ultima series. The NES port of Ultima IV, Quest of the Avatar is excellent. But, the PC versions are better with Ultima 7 being considered the best and unfortunately going downhill from there. Still, it is an amazing old school series that is worth checking out and they are either free or low cost. Anyway, the Blood Curse problem is solved by instituting a "Virtue System" with Louie as one of the "Avatars", a shining example of virtue. Yvette will be one too as will quite a few others. The "True King" used to be like this, but because of his curse, he lost all virtue and is no longer an Avatar.

Nidhogg had NO idea that Louie was such a thing. No one did until he revealed it after the fight. Nidhogg had been trying for another power and as stated in the second batch of headcanon, he failed. Because of this, he is hit with a second curse, one that is not only painful, but scarring. Unlike the Blood Curse, only an Avatar can alleviate the pain once it flares up and there is no way to free someone from such a curse.

The "Fail Curse" basically means that you must follow the path of the Avatar and live in service to them. Failure to do so means being burned alive. Since Nidhogg isn't stupid or interested in killing himself(he did, however, consider it), he follows that path. The scarring goes from the heart and covers the upper left side of the body, except for the neck, face, and private parts(think heart attack area and that's generally where the scarring is). Still, having such scarring puts someone at a disadvantage in styling contests. The "Scarring" is the term I will be using in my "headcanon".

3. Remember the "He can't keep getting away with this!" Yvette says about Nidhogg? She tells Louie this and he point blank says, "he's not going to." This one came up recently, but I'm going to roll with it. It's based on something that apparently happens in a new Yvette Dreamweaver. After the death of Lunar,  Louie decides to pay her a visit in Lillith due to their mutual connection to Nidhogg. She's seen Louie before in Apple(first while he was on his motorcycle and second at a restaurant bar)  and thought he was "gorgeous." She considered the woman he loved "a very lucky woman". Nidhogg was NOT happy with this, but he acted like it was "no big deal". Anyway, Yvette and Louie tell each other about themselves a bit and he reveals that not everything about the Prime Minister is false, but does confirm that the Colonel is the "genuine article".  Yvette is sorry about Lunar's death and, of course, so is Louie. They agree to work together to stop Nidhogg. This would happen while Nikki and Kimi are in Apple dealing with Reid.

4. Speaking of beach theme in the last headcanon, Nidhogg's idea of "beach theme" is a t-short and boxer shorts. That's it. He's the same way with the Pajama theme.

5. I have another bunny involving Louie taking advantage of Nidhogg's love for him. It's basically a plot to steal back the White Blossom. It's a "date" that ends in "bedtime" and well, Louie succeeds in stealing the White Blossom. Needless to say, Nidhogg is well...displeased at being so used. It does not end for either one of them as they fight at the grave of Louie's father. Yea, mean bunny. I get those sometimes.

6. Nidhogg's parents were high ranking NCOs in the military. His father(I named Liam) was a "King of Cups" sort while his mother(Madam Zosha) was a "Queen of Wands." If one had to choose, it's agreed that Nidhogg took after his father and became "The Page of Swords" and ultimately "The King of Swords." He loved his parents very much and was present when they died. Liam died the same way Micheal Collins did(shot while going between cars). Zosha died soon afterward trying to avenge him. This is quite possibly his most painful memory and won't likely be surpassed. He was eight years old.  He lived for two years on his own before being discovered in Black Rock City by Louie's father. Yea, Nidhogg knows some hardship and knows how it feels to watch someone being accused of things they did not do (Liam was falsely accused of treason) and lose everything because of it.

7. Nidhogg learned to drive when he was 13. Self-taught on a manual shift jeep. He stalled only once, decided that it would never happen again and it didn't(that is, until the very end of the chase when Yvette finally fights back). He was a few years older when he learned to fly, but was quickly surpassed by Louie. However, as stated in previous headcanons, Nidhogg is a better driver.

8. There are four "loopholes" around the Blood Curse: 1. Medicines(Regent 7), 2. Inability to feel pain. 3. The ability to feel pain and pleasure as one. 4. Immune/Highly Resistant to curses. Louie becomes the 4th one due to Avatarhood.

9. It should have gone without saying that Nidhogg is a loner(which was why he was happy that Louie was similar). In fact, Shade was shocked that he would continue desiring Louie. Shade had assumed that Nidhogg didn't need anyone. Nidhogg's response? "Who said anything about need?" A lot of my favorite characters are like this.

10. Confession Bear: While thinking of the car chase story, I kind of laughed at the fact that there are two grown men embroiled in "gay drama" in front of a young woman, two teenage girls, and a talking cat. In the end, pretty much everyone knew what went on between Louie and Nidhogg, not something either of them wanted much.

11. In Headcanon 2, I made it clear that Louie was blinded by hate/rage. Because of this, some of his actions were a bit unbecoming of an avatar(this Ultima, this happens too. The point is that things can get complicated and being virtuous doesn't always work). Like: twisting and turning Nidhogg's words until it suited his purpose, ascribing words/actions to Nidhogg that he didn't actually say/do, using Nidhogg's actual words against him, and well, subterfuge. Louie succeeds in getting a good number of people to defect, but they end up siding with ORLANDO. Either way, League Tyr suffers losses because of it. Part of the reason Louie acted the way he did was due to desperation, but also the rage he felt toward Nidhogg, but it wasn't pure rage as he still loved his elder "brother"/friend.

At the end of their final duel, Louie strips him of his cape, his medals, and his weapons. He tells the girls, "If you have any last words to say to him, say them now because it'll be awhile before you ever see him again, if ever." He also uses Nidhogg's quote about fate against him("This is your fate").   All of this was done while Nidhogg suffered greatly under the "Fail Curse." Louie could have alleviated the pain while before banishing him, but deliberately chose not to.

He's also said this(when Morrison/Grey Raven was captured): "The opinions of others mattered little to your parents. Where are they now?" Er, yea...lowblow. Nidhogg's response? A raised eyebrow and he continued his argument as if Louie had said nothing of the sort and was STILL trying to persuade him to join the Night Order.

During the "chase" he finally does get to Nidhogg when he basically says, "The freedom you will bring is false!" And even worse, "I wish you had died as a child, buried in the snow with no one to give a damn about you. Then, I would have never known you and I wouldn't be cursed with the memories of you!"

He says a lot more, but that's the gist of it. Had it been anyone else, it would have the effect of a sneeze in a tornado, but because it was Louie, it, well, got to Nidhogg in ways no one else was able to. Yvette and Nikki simply angered/irritated him. Louie...well...made him cry. Er, sort of. I mean, this is Nidhogg, after all.  At that point, Nidhogg basically says "you never understood me, you never really tried" and makes a declaration that sends Louie in tears. Soon after that, Nidhogg tells all of them that there is no use arguing anymore because "you will never agree with me and I will never agree with you, so that makes things rather moot, now doesn't it?" When Louie offers a reconciliation, Nidhogg says that it's "too late now."

In the end, Louie regrets all off of it because he knew that Nikki was right: It was needless cruelty. He was also reprimanded by the Seer of the Avatar, who said the same thing and that vengeance had no place for an Avatar. Later on, Nidhogg tells him that he would have never been so cruel had the situation been reversed.

12. Of all those in the Night Order, only Nidhogg faced any real consequences. It was decided that being "Scarred" was punishment enough. Plot twist: He was set up by Ryan all along and Ryan was the one who finally inspired Yvette to become her own White Knight. Remember Ryan?

13. That power Nidhogg so desperately wanted and needed Yvette in order to obtain it? It would have destroyed him completely as his mindset was a bit "reversed" at the time. So really, Yvette and co. saved him and his soul.

14. Nidhogg, imo, is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. If he's poor, he's jealous. If he's rich, then he's a hypocrite. If he's straightforward, he's an asshole. If he sugercoats, then he's a liar. He learned early on not to give a damn what others think for this reason as his parents went through the same thing.

15. The issue is that there was only one way to settle disputes. So, the stylings contests were something that seemed freeing, but it wasn't. It was a sugar coated tyranny. Such a thing created internal turmoil, hence "false peace."

16. Confession Bear: My first impression of him in his uniform other than "OMG HAAAWWWWT" was "OMG FASCIST!" But, then I looked up the Iron Cross and found that it predates any thought of Fascism/Nazism by about 200 years.

17. Nidhogg KNEW that there would be chaos. "Of course there would be chaos! Did you think I wouldn't know that!? But from chaos will come a new order and it will be under my firm, guiding hand!"

18. Yvette looked at all the gifts Nidhogg had given her after all that had happened. While keeping a low profile in Lillith, she wondered how much contempt/disdain/hate he actually had for her. It wasn't the first time she had such "friends", but Nidhogg's deceit hurt her the most. She found that people being honest with where she stood with them was far more preferable.  She thought of throwing the gifts away, but Kiki told her that the gifts didn't do anything, so she shouldn't. Yvette chose not to. She also remembered the "I like me speech" and that she had true friends.

19. Liliana(this is the 'artist' in my fic) works as a cleaner/maid in the capital building. She is a friend of Bobo and ultimately Yvette. She draws all sorts of things, including designs. Nidhogg actually used one of her drawings to make Bunny Stockings ("That's not his style.") Unlike the thief, he gives her credit and thanks her for being able to look at her sketches. After the coup, she thinks that he may have been looking at her sketchbook/photo album to see what she knows.

20. Nidhogg has a "take all you want, but eat what you take" attitude when it comes to food. This is from the military.

[ekdmarsrem4]

REAL - PART 2 (GALLY X READER)

A/N: Hey. So here’s the second part to my Real series. Italics = flashbacks. Hope you enjoy! Please let me know what you thought! Thanks!

IV.

“Y/N?” Gally smoothes back her hair & caresses her cheek with soft, warm fingers. He traces the smooth features of her face - from the shape of her lips to curve of her jaw back up to the tip of her nose.

Still, she doesn’t wake - just hums & smiles in her sleep.

Gally scoots closer & leans over her, staring down at her with soft, lovesick eyes. Sometimes he can’t believe she’s real - maybe his mind’s playing tricks on him. Maybe she’s just a figment of the deepest, most desperate desires of his heart...

But then she moves - reaches for him in her sleep like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He gives her his hand & watches in awe as her fingers effortlessly tangle with his & squeeze.

The feeling of their fingers intertwined makes him believe she’s really there, & really his.

His to wake up next to every single morning.

His to love endlessly & protect with every ounce of strength in his body.

His to rely on & be vulnerable with.

His to cherish with everything he has.

Smiling from ear to ear, he leans down & presses a lingering kiss to her forehead. Another to her temple, then the ball of her cheek, then the tip of her nose, & finally her lips - infinitely soft & curved in a tiny smile.

He knows she’s awake when he feels her kissing back. His heart soars when her hand comes up to cradle his cheek - she pulls him closer, deepening the kiss. “Good morning.” she giggles against his mouth.

She makes every morning a good morning.

V.

Y/N stares at her leg, at the thick veins stretching from her ankle almost all the way up to her knee. She traces them with a shaky finger, winces at how rough & hot they feel compared to the smooth skin of her other leg.

“Y/N, look at me.”

She wants to but she can’t. The worry in his eyes will trigger her tears & she’s so damn tired of crying.

She can feel his eyes flicking over her - over the defeated slump of her shoulders, the slight tremble in her hands. She swallows hard, shuts her eyes tight, & sucks her bottom lip between her teeth.

Her breath hitches when his hands cup her cheeks. She can’t help but lean into his touch - it’s become instinct.

“Please look at me.”

She does. She slowly opens her eyes & meets his desperate gaze. She breathes a shaky sigh & offers him the best smile she can muster.

“We’ll fix this.”

She wants more than anything to believe him, but the persistent pain in her leg & the even worse ache in her heart just won’t let her.

“You’re gonna be fine.” Gally’s voice cracks on the last word, & Y/N feels her heart splinter at the sound. She reaches up, touches his cheek with gentle fingers. “I love you.” she says, voice strained by the batch of tears burning at the back of her throat. 

Gally’s lip quivers. “I love you too...which is why I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.” He kisses her forehead, lets his lips linger against her skin for a few precious moments. “Not after I just got you back.”

“Gally--”

“No.” he says, shaking his head adamantly. “There’s a way- we’ll find a way to fix this- we’ll get you better & everything’ll be fine...you’ll see...I’ll show you.”

VI.

“No.”

“Gally...we have to have this conversation--”

“No.” Gally tugs her to him, clutches her impossibly close with his face buried in her neck.

Y/N can feel his lips trembling against her skin.

“It won’t come to that.” she hears him say, voice shaky & vulnerable. She knows he’s biting back tears.

“I can’t turn into one of them, Gally.”

Gally flinches at her words, almost whimpers against her. “Stop.”

“If we can’t find a cure--”

“Please...don’t...don’t say that.”

Y/N pulls back & takes Gally’s face in her hands, forcing him to meet her gaze. The tears in his eyes break her heart - they trickle down his cheeks & between her fingers. “I’m getting worse, Gal. Every day. You see that, I know you do.” She rubs her thumbs across his cheeks, cradles his clenched jaw. “Winston didn’t let himself turn into a monster...& I won’t either.”

Gally’s legs almost give - he understands what she’s saying, what she’s willing to do. It makes him sick & panicked & terrified beyond words.

“Y-You...you can’t.”

Tears track down Y/N’s cheeks now. “I will if I have to.”

Gally stares at her dumbly before grabbing her shoulders & gripping them tight. His fingers dig into her skin - desperately, pleadingly, but not enough to hurt. “Listen to me.” he tells her, voice stern & resolute. “It will not come to that, ever. There is a cure. If we can’t find one, we’ll make one- I don’t care what it takes, we’ll do it.”

“Gally-”

“Don’t you give me that “let me go” crap. I won’t, Y/N- I’d sooner die.”

Thanks for reading! Any and all comments/feedback/re-blogs are greatly appreciated!

[gisapot]

In defense of Dionysus (written 12-03-2017, posted 12-03-2019.)

It is officially the anniversary of the last creative nonfiction piece I wrote. 

I did not realize it has been two years since I wrote this piece, the piece that I consider my magnum opus; two years since my grandfather had passed.

Posting this today of all days was not intentional. I did not intend to post this here because I had bigger plans for this piece; a greater exposure than this tiny blog only my friends and students know and avidly read (not that I am ungrateful for your support). I wanted to see this in print.

I wanted to submit this to Katitikan for its ‘places and spaces’ issue, but to submit this means to remove a thousand words from this five-thousand-word monster, and removing a thousand words is an insult to the integrity of the story I want to tell. To remove a thousand words is to break the legacy of my grandfather.

Another reason why I wanted to post this is to address a comment my mother had received on a photo she posted on her Facebook of her and my grandfather. I do not know if that was their last photo together. She shared the post to share to her world that it is the second anniversary of her father’s death, and someone said, “maayo gyod an badlungon kay ma mis gyod sa tanan!” 

Instead of posting a position paper in defense of my grandfather and his merits, looking only one-sided and biased towards the man who raised me, I want to show you this piece, in its entirety, in my grandfather’s entirety. 

Who really was Antonio Gulane? 

Dear Grandpa: A Story of The Kulafu Warrior.

Dear Grandpa, today is the third of December, twenty-seventeen. I am in the new house, the one you begged my mother to buy for you before you passed: the one-story house made of cement and stone. It has barely been a month since we got the house when you decided to christen it with your quiet passing, bringing in faces old that I’ve never seen in years, and new ones my mother insists I’ve met longer than my brain can recall.

Dear Grandpa, this asphalt house is the first permanent one we have had in a long time. How many houses have we lived in? I don’t know the number, but I know each and every one of them, complete with tiny slivers of memories that are distinctly of you, Grandma, your white chino shirts with her tie dye skirts and half-slips. I remember your loud insistent shouts and your ribs protruding through your thin brown skin as you sit at midnight half-naked, inhaling the smell of Mighty Red, Marlboro, or some lumboy leaves you roll on your own. The smell of it mixed with Kulafu has permeated every household we occupy, radiating out of your rotting yellow teeth as soon as the clock strikes one in the afternoon. Textbooks always told me these were signs of a broken home life, a dysfunctional family. To me, it became a sign that told me that I was home, no matter where I was.

I.                   Basement

I remember very little about the basement, but I do have pictures of it developed like pictures used to in those times Kodak and Konika were the epitome of photography technology, Richard Gomez’ face on the packs of the finished images. There were blue green walls, and it was constantly dark down there because there no natural light came in. The wooden jalousies were sealed shut and dusty, not really helping our cause. Our TV was a small black box always tuned in to ABS-CBN, and one picture showed it frozen on an old Colgate commercial along with my memory of my first Christmas. You were there with Grandma, candid shots of you making me laugh so that I would smile for the camera. I was a chubby child with skin as pink as the girls endorsing Pond’s for a healthy pink glow, a vast contrast to your dark lumad skin, even more elaborated by the harsh automatic flash of the film camera. Grandma always shied away from the light of it with a bashful grin that took on not only her face but in the lift of her shoulders, carrying me up to cover her face. You, however, were not afraid to show your grimace to a device that immortalized your state: displeased that your photo was taken, but not mad enough to be violent.

           I am thankful these photos exist to give me a sight of my childhood that I remembered better through scents. I remember nothing, no experiences and no objects, but I do remember the smell of a very big pink bottle of Johnson’s baby powder, your alcohol, Tatay’s aircon-scented laundry, pungent socks, and your cigarettes.

II.                Village

There is always this notion that when the word ‘village’ is present in the address you write on forms, you were someone with money and stability enough to live in a place that had security guards stationed at every entrance. We were renting this house, and I do not remember what it looks like nor do I have the pictures to actually believe that we lived here. There must be a gap in my memory, but I forgave myself long ago for not remembering anything. But I do hear stories from you and Grandma about my childhood: I liked Uncle Dennis’ Lucky Me mami noodles – the one in the blue packet (is it still in production anymore?) – because it smelled like gas. I didn’t eat it, I just smelled the smoke coming out of it. Every afternoon at five, Uncle Dennis and Grandma would take me for a walk to ‘get some Fita’, which was a codeword for fetching Nanay from the corner. You recalled that I never went with them if there was no Fita involved, so my mother resolved to buy Fita before she got to the corner leading to our house so I would greet her by sunset.

It was a quaint village but we had to move away for reasons I still cannot understand to this day, but know well enough that what happened made my mother lose the face to show to her in-laws. Just because she was a tiger does not mean she held the power; her in-laws were kings of the jungle. Grandma maintains we were nothing at the time. We had no one to our defence. We were ants next to them in the grand scheme of things, we could not talk back when the perpetrators had money and we did not, ruling the gated compound as they did. I never believed you to be one to run away from a fight. It did not seem like you or Nanay to be quiet or behaved when mouths start running the way they did towards us, but you just let it happen like it did. We moved houses before I could remember anything constructive of it, or take any pictures to remember it by.

III.             Pardo

There is something in Pardo that always drew me in. It seemed like a place that was alive, crowds of people coming in with the setting and rising of the sun every day, judging by the plethora of jeepneys that headed that way. I know that because of my constant commute to school, a small Montessori school, girls in bright red uniforms and at least one boy per batch in grey t-shirts. Other than that, I remember nothing that had to do with what was outside the house except the potted plants lined up by the patio that you sat next to, where you were supposed to be smoking your afternoon away. But you were not there, not at the house, not in any of the pictures. I never saw you in that year. I think you hated the place, or the stampede that came with it, or something else. All I know is that you were never there. Your sister stayed with us instead, a skinny woman with short hair who took orders for empanada from Nanay’s friends. I don’t remember you, but that does not mean I have no recollection of whether or not you were there. It means that I know for sure that you were not there, so I had nothing substantial to remember you of, unless it was Christmas.

I remember you distinctly during our only Christmas in that house, hiding in the darkness of the alley behind the back door where a big blue tank stood. You crouched there, smoking while Nanay and Tatay took pictures of me posing in front of the Noche Buena. I have a picture of that moment, smiling cutely while Grandma stood with her back turned away from the camera facing the door that led to the blackness. I remember she was scolding you in harsh whispers to turn the flame of your cigarette off and come inside to join the festivities, to not be a Grinch on Christmas. Once the photo was taken I got down from the chair I used as a stool, towering adults walking past me – both uncles, Nanay’s younger brothers – who tried talking you out of sitting outside. If you did not feel like socializing, there was always a TV. Your indifference towards Christmas was evident.

           The concept of time is longer the younger you are. I look up at the clock as they plead you to come inside and eat some bread or ham, or an apple, whatever; it was eleven in the evening. You finally got up at three minutes later, but it felt like three hours. I wonder how that is so. When you walked past me, I wanted to ask – something, nothing, I don’t remember what I wanted to ask from you. But you just moved me aside and did not give me attention, and you sat on the sofa and I just stared, and I brushed it off. You were offered alcohol, and you asked for a bottle of Kulafu. I did not move. The moment I write this is when I remember that was the first out of two times where you did not make time for me. You always did.

 IV.             Sugar Apple

Since I was a child I always amused myself with the thought that Tisa backwards was ‘atis’. Of course, now that I am older I have come to realize that this is not true. But it also entertained me that this presupposition of mine was proved true with the sugar apples growing by the barbed wire fence right outside our house that closed the compound in. We were renting a bigger house this time, in a compound of three houses owned by a nice drummer amputee named Tony. I remember the whole town calling him Tony Kimpay like it was his full name. The house had light blue walls and a smooth ground floor that required a whole box and three-quarters of red Starwax and two coconut husks to shine. There was a second floor (a second floor! Only rich people had second floors, thought three-year-old me) where the floors were made of wood, and it was in this house where I learned that you never slept at night.

You sat outside from ten at night until six in the morning with a box of cigarettes, a mug of Nescafe coffee and three bottles of Kulafu, guarding the house in lieu of a dog or a security guard. You would entertain yourself with the ducks Tony owned, chasing them away once they started quacking at four in the morning along with the crowing of the chickens. It was from you where I learned to not fear ducks. And when Nanay’s cousin Dinah came to live with us while she went to college and told me to stay away from ducks because they bite, I did not believe her. They always run away from me because you taught me that I was bigger and more terrifying than any bird.

Sometimes you plucked the sugar apples and cut them in half to share with the family, but I never ate them. Instead, I was interested in the eba that grew next to it, eating it raw and with no salt to neutralize the taste. I loved how sour it was. I have pictures of me giving eba to my cousins who visited the house. Behind the camera, you turn your nose up away from the eba, because you did not like that I like them and preferred that I ate sugar apples instead because at least that is a fruit that made sense.

My first brother was born by then, and I did not remember an instance where you touched him. By then, people from the neighbourhood or Nanay’s friends from work came by to visit and coo at him. I would get jealous and insecure, because there is a baby stealing my mother’s attention, like all three-year-olds would feel when they have a new sibling. Because of the afternoon crowd on the second floor of the house, you woke up from your afternoon nap and went outside for a smoke to calm down to avoid snapping at someone. I followed you outside because I hated how Nanay did not give me any attention, all given to that stupid baby. An adult grabbed me, I don’t remember who it was but I know I insisted on going with you. You took a seat on a plastic stool Grandma uses for the laundry, and told me to go back inside once you lit the cigarette stick. I obey. I walked towards the door when I accidentally kick over last night’s Kulafu bottles. I turned around to pick them up, but you told me to leave it and go inside in that annoyed tone you spoke in when everything is not in order. Despite that, you crouched down and picked the bottles up without further complaint. Irritation was a trademark on you, a trademark I have come to not just learn, but to inherit.

 V.                Parrots

From the house with the ducks and the star apples and eba, we moved to a white house with a gate. It was not that far from the previous house, it was on a hill right behind it. The house was white, the inside also white except for the master bedroom which was decorated with faded yellow wallpaper. A few months after we moved there, Tatay bought me a pair of birds – a boy and a girl – for no reason at all. He just thought it would be nice to have a pet. They were yellow-green birds and I thought they were parrots and insisted that they speak after me. Under the cage of the birds was a wooden stand for your own rooster. It was then I learned that you liked cock fights, you bet on it and joined it even with the constant reports on the radio that these betting games were illegal because it went against animal rights or some random reason I thought of as a child that would rationalize the world.

I still do not know if the birds Tatay got me were parrots or not, but it is an appropriate analogy for you and K: at the age of three with a head as big as a basketball, he admired you for everything you did to the point that he copied your every move, especially your skill in many types of martial arts. Now as I am older and I look back, I think of the credibility of your claim, if you were really an expert as you said you were. But at the impressionable ages of seven and three, we believed you to be the Filipino Bruce Lee as you introduced yourself to be. You taught K how to use nunchucks and a bit of arnis with a stick you conjured out of nowhere, and I wish I had pictures to prove that you really did teach him and he learned well from  you, but all I have are pictures of K alone carrying his nunchucks obsessively everywhere he went. He threw a fit every time he was told that he could not bring them to social events or inside malls because it was ‘unfair’ and he really wanted to show off what he knew.

He was so much like you. He copied almost everything you were. You two were so alike in the shortness of fuse and how you both wanted everything to go your way or you would have to resort to violence. K would wrestle anyone who said no.

Despite the contrast – K a pale milky white while you were a reddish brown like Kulafu – you taught him to be like you and he had grown so attached to his childhood hero that it no longer looked adorable to me as the older sister, but scary. This turned terrified the moment you took an afternoon nap and started kicking in the air like you were fighting someone, asking if your enemy in your dream was going to fight back. K thought you were so cool.

Nanay always tells me that she understands because she is always at work that K was imprinted by you and grandma instead of her and Tatay as the actual parents, but I could not understand what she meant. It just did not reflect the families on textbooks, where the children were close to their parents and their grandparents lived in a separate house. How close he became with you and Grandma was beyond me. He insisted to sleep on your bed, eat out of Grandma’s hands, and sang the lyrics you whispered in his ear before he ever learned how to read. There was no doubt in his mind that you were invincible, and you were the best example.

 VI.             Dog

We lived a year in that white house. Half of that year I dazedly spent in hospitals because of a severe case of dengue. That year was a bad year for us, it was some sort of bad omen. Nanay decided to move us to Mandaue, a whole city over, because it was safer there from mosquitoes and it was closer to her workplace. Other than that, Tatay was an architect for a new private elementary school that was just erected there, and he decided to send Yelcin and I there. It was in a big compound owned by a chubby old man with droopy skin that made him look like a wrinkly dog. He looked even worse with his constant frown. You did not like him. You liked his sons instead because they drank with you Kulafu with you at two in the afternoon to stay awake instead of being so uppity like their father.

We got a dog too, a female golden retriever we aptly named Goldie. You did not like her at first because she was a non-human creature that came into the house and chased after me because she liked me. You got very angry with her because she wormed her way to the bedroom I shared with Nanay and Tatay, but then insisted she sleep at the foot of my bed to watch over me, and suddenly I see you sneak out chicken leftovers from my breakfast to her dog bowl in the morning. That is when I knew you started to like her.

You sat outside with her in the afternoons. With that you brought some noise, you talked to her and told her to behave and you would give her a dog biscuit shaped like a bone whenever you got bored. You were not quiet anymore. You would bathe her religiously on Saturday mornings before I woke up, and fed her strange things for her meals like fish and some malunggay leaves. She ate them gratefully, like it was not dangerous for her poor dog stomach to eat such things.

You did everything for Goldie. You treated her like your own child, spoiled her with all the dog treats in the world and reprimanded my mother if she did not bring home any more treats for the dog when you ran out. You built her a cage made of metal grills and spare raw coco lumber that you demanded  Tatay to bring from his site visits in Catmon, the plastic flooring for the only thing authentically pet-shop about that cage. You made Dennis buy some metal roofing  from the construction supply shop around right outside the corner of the street, and you built her a home with your bare hands. When it was done, you put Goldie inside, locked it, and hid in your bedroom with Grandma without a word and took a happy nap.

 VII.          Protection

We had a house. It was in Opon, it was bound to PAG-IBIG housing loans, but we had a house. It was in a middle-class subdivision whose houses all looked the same, so our minimalist white and brown and green house with a terrace and an outdoor garden with Bermuda grass stood out. We had our own rooms, mine was pink and V’s was blue with a bunk bed since Nanay was pregnant with her third child and we were preparing for him. Nanay and Tatay’s room was a bright yellow with brown furniture. And yet you refused to see us sleep in our own rooms, us kids having to sleep in our parents’ room, on the floor with some mattresses, so that we do not get too hot in our own rooms. It was apparently better in the air-conditioned room, and it was so you could keep an eye on us all together.

We had a car too. It was a secondhand blue Nissan Terrano with a spare wheel on the back that we bought from your cousin who married into a rich family. We did not use the car much, but you took it out for spins around the subdivision so that it would not ‘gather dust’. I still do not know if that really is a valid concern for cars.

Your habits did not change: you still sat outside the house at midnight with your coffee and Kulafu and cigarettes, except now people stop in front of the house to take pictures, and you ‘shoo’ them away to keep them from plagiarizing my father’s work. (I will find in later years that they still succeeded in copying my father, what with subdivisions being erected that now use the same color scheme and the same layout and plan. It irritates the both of us. Whatever happened to intellectual property rights?)

           You hated the location, however. You hated that it was an entire city away from where we went to school and we did not get enough sleep. We passed out in the car the moment we get inside, to catch up on some sleep, wake up dazed and lost in school, then come home tired and lethargic to do any of our homework anymore because of how tired we were. We were practically in hell.

           Location was always the problem, wasn’t it? We just moved to the new home that was finally ours when it struck: Nanay was laid off of her job and had nowhere to go. With piling debts and deteriorating health and a baby who had more needs than her grown children, Nanay decided to work overseas.

           You were so violently against it. You were so mad. You did not want the family to be separated. Everyone should stay in one home, together, no matter the circumstance. It was all or nothing for you. But Nanay had already made up her mind, bought a ticket out, found a job that was waiting for her, all that was left was to leave for it. You did not look her in the eye that day she left, staying outside right in front of the car, like you were a boulder that could stop it from moving.

VIII.        Following

I remember very distinctly the moment K cried at the airport as we left Singapore after our first Christmas there. He was crying terribly hard, hating the fact that the family he grew up in, his own universe of discourse, was pulled apart into two different fabrics of time and space. It was difficult to be together now. He rolled on the floor of the then-existing budget terminal of Changi Airport, causing a scene, asking why we could not stay with her and be a happy family like those families in textbooks. He wanted to be with Nanay, with Tatay, but also with you and with Grandma and Uncle Dennis and Uncle Julius and their wives Elsa and Janice respectively, both parents and parental figures. K used to be the type that got so attached.  I cannot say the same for now, however.

When Nanay said she was working on our immigration to follow her to Singapore, K was excited. You, however, did not say anything. I think you have learned from when Nanay left the country, but you made us promise to call you by Skype every day while we waited to start schooling there. You could not bear to part from us, you and Grandma, but when was the best time to leave the nest, to be honest? And we belonged with our actual parents.

And every day like clockwork since we left, we called you through video call, your brown skin a bright white like the shirts on Tide commercials, asking how we are and what we are doing, same as yesterday. The call sits for two hours as we watch you nap on the wooden floor of the rest house, and when the computer overheats, you tell Dennis to shut it off and you slither away on the floor to your room, not showing that you are crying because of how you miss us. But it is okay, I know you console yourself, because Janice is pregnant, and you are sure this kid is not a kid you will let go.

When we left the country, you had no reason to stay in Cebu anymore, so you loudly declared to the entire family that you were all going back to Medellin where they grew up and where you raised them. There was a rest house there that Tatay constructed for us; somewhere we can sleep in whenever we visited Medellin for the weekend. It was a hut, brown with nipa leaves weaved together for the roof. Everything was made of wood except for the foundations and the bathroom, the cement wall painted green on the outside. Inside was tiled and decorated with seashells Tatay paid your nephew to collect from the beach behind the house. You spent your days there lying on the ground like a dog, never breaking your afternoon-nap-and-Kulafu-at-Midnight ritual like always. Sometimes you got bored and killed flies, made your own barbecue, and even built an extended hut for Grandma that you used as a convenience store. You would participate in secret games of masiao that another one of your nephews is a runner for, you and Grandma arguing about the how she calculated her own numbers and why yours is different, until the tumor in your stomach you kept joking about started hurting too much for you to laugh about it anymore.

 Dear Grandpa, throughout these homes we have come into, you repeatedly made me promise throughout my childhood to build you a concrete house that you can call your own. You called our constant moving a hassle and the hut that my father made for you not sturdy to withstand storms. You told me you were tired of the city, and asked me to build you a house in your hometown of Medellin, as big as I want, as long as it was strong and brave and could shelter you from the heavy storms.

Dear Grandpa, we have a home now. It is a bright yellow house in a subdivision a little ways away from the park that displayed an old train from Central that used to carry the sugar cane. The time is one-forty in the afternoon; I am sitting in front of your white coffin with a towel in my hair, and if I move to tilt my head rightwards I can see the bottle of Kulafu I bought for you as an offering. I am alone, save for the people passing by to get food, more ice cream, beer, or arguing about the wi-fi connection. Your Photoshopped portrait sits on top of your viewing glass, staring at the flurry of movement with your intense judging glare and thick eyebrows. You look angry in the photo, but Uncle Dennis says you were about to laugh as the photo was taken, and if I stared hard enough, I can almost see the moment that you do.

Dear Grandpa, you were powerful and strong-willed and loud for all the right reasons. You were never weak, and you never allowed people to spread nonsense about our family. I pretend not to know that the reason for your loss is not deterioration, but a dangerous formation. I pretend not to know that your every day habits are the cause of your passing. I pretend that you’ve never participated in vices in your life; it is in the Filipino culture, Nanay says, that once someone passes, he is an angel.

Dear Grandpa, I miss you very dearly. As I write this I keep erasing words and adding some more, getting distracted by the noise from the children and doors opening and San Miguel bottles tinkling against each other. This is the sound of our family, even as the shape of our living arrangement changes like the sky when it nears a storm. Dear Grandpa, in the years I have grown under your care we did not have a house whose deed was truly ours, but you have shown me the meaning of home and helped me remember it as my own now, as part of who we are: we are fighters, the heat of your Kulafu blood flowing through our veins – we are warriors.

Dear Grandpa, we might be so far away from each other, even further now that you have passed, but as I grow older and help Nanay and Tatay finish this house in your name, I will remember the way we have come, and how much further I have to go. In front of your coffin, I bow my head to mourn, but my blood boils hot under my skin – I will stand like you on this ground and do what I can, defending your name.

And if I can help it, Dear Grandpa, we will not move again any time soon.

[ghostlywritten]

When I Was Your Man VII.

Words: 5,5k+

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I II III IV V VI

I woke up, almost unable to open my eyes with how puffy they were. A piercing headache made me nauseous and I shot up to run to the bathroom when another ache in my lower region caused me to drop back with a groan. ‘What the hell happened?’

Blinking heavily, I wondered why it was so cold when I realised I had no clothes on.

“Oh my god,” I moaned, weakly lifting up the blanket to confirm my fear. “Why am I naked?”

“That’s what happens when you have sex,” a voice spoke up and I flinched in surprise, gathering the blankets up to my chin. Peeking over my hands I noticed my husband leaning against the bathroom door, fresh and fully clothed. I envied the way he effortlessly looked good and wondered what I must be looking like. If it was as bad as I felt on the inside, he would probably file for a divorce before I could. Wait-

“I had sex??” I asked, shooting up again, wincing.

“...Yes,” Antoine said, his small smile fading, “Don’t you remember?”

“Oh my god,” I lifted the blankets up, noticing splatters of blood on the sheets, “Oh my god.” I had lost my virginity and couldn’t remember it.

“Are you alright?” Antoine inquired softly and I heard him step forward.

“Don’t come closer!” I demanded and he stopped, putting his hands up in defense, “Not the reaction I usually get after sex...is that a playing-hard-to-get game, because that train has left the station.”

“Oh my god,” I said miserably, my hungover brain not being able to conjure anything up but that sentence.

“Hey, it’s alright if you don’t recall what happened. It’s not like it was your first time,” he ‘reassured’ and I gave him the hardest death glare I could muster up. He didn’t even know I had been a virgin up until last night! I felt slightly humiliated and extremely vulnerable.

Grasping the blankets tighter, I pulled them up until my entire body was covered, an uneasy look crossing my face when pain shot up from my abdomen.

“How do you even remember? You usually forget everything when you get drunk.”

“Well, yeah. But I somehow get sober during sex no matter how drunk I am,” Antoine explained with a shrug and I sighed.

“Can you tell me exactly how this happened?”

“Classic missionary position,” Antoine said with a grin, holding up his hand for a high-five.

I groaned. “No, not that. I mean, how did we even end up having sex?! We’ve never done it before.”

“Oh that,” Antoine cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck, “I guess, it kind of happened after you got drunk, too. It’s all a bit hazy, I only recall the actual act, to be honest.”

I held my throbbing head, cursing myself. Was my life some kind of drama? Or a reality show? Why did this have to happen to me? Having sex for the first time and forgetting it?

“I’m a nut case,” I mumbled to myself, holding my abdomen. It hurt so bad it pushed back the urge to throw up all the content from drinking. For now.

“What- no. Come on, Addy,” Antoine said, sitting down on the sheets and placing a hand on my shoulder. “It’s all good. I mean, I guess it could have been more romantic and I think I was a bit rough, which is why you’re probably hurting down there but you seemed like you enjoyed it las-”

“Antoine, please,” I begged, shaking his hand off, “Can you just leave?”

“What?” he asked, a flicker of hurt in his eyes, “We had sex and you want me to leave?”

“I really feel like shit right now and need to sort myself out,” I explained, biting my lip, “I might even remember something when I’m alone with my thoughts.”

Antoine nodded though still frowned when he got up hesitatingly, “I will...just head to breakfast then.”

“Fine,” I said, waiting for him to go.

He took one step to the door before he turned back around, “You sure you’re going to be alright alone?”

“Yes.”

“Okay...do you maybe need some painkillers or something?”

“I will get them later-”

“I can get you some! Will just take five minutes!” he suggested eagerly, already rushing away but I stopped him, “It’s fine, really. Please just go eat breakfast. I’ll be down soon.”

“Ok,” he mumbled disappointed, “If you need anything, just call me.”

“I will,” I reassured, sighing deeply when he finally left. ‘First of, get rid of the bloody sheets,’ I ordered myself, going to stand and pick up a bathrobe when I almost fell face first from the soreness in my lower region.

“Jesus, how am I supposed to walk like this?” I groaned, limping towards the bathroom and putting on one of the bathrobes from the hotel. Limping back into the room, I cursed, “I can’t walk like this. Everyone will question it, for god’s sake!”

Picking up the hotel phone, I called up for a maid to change the sheets. Whilst waiting for someone to come, I walked around, trying to adjust to the pain.

“At least I don’t have to throw up from all the alcohol,” I mumbled to myself, though the nauseous feeling stayed, almost making me wish I would vomit everything I had digested the past 24 hours.

A knock on the room made me hurriedly limp over, a maid standing with a fresh batch of sheets in her arms, “You needed a change?” she asked with a friendly smile and I sighed in relief.

“Yes, please,” I gestured for her to walk in front of me so she wouldn’t see my pathetic walk. The maid pulled off the sheets from the bed, halting when she saw the blood with a nervous look. Glancing at my pale, frowning face she gulped, “Is everything alright, miss?”

If possible, I paled some more. ‘Shoot, what do I say?”

“Miss? Do you need a doctor?” she asked worriedly and any other time and place I would have felt touched by her distress for me.

“E-ehm, no. No, of course not! I...just got my periods...and it was surprisingly early, so I wasn’t prepared,” I stammered, tightening the robe around me, “Yeah...that’s what happened.”

The maid seemed to believe me as relief flooded her features, “Alright, I will change the sheets and then go.”

“Thanks. Do you mind if I leave you alone to take shower?” One shake of her head was enough for me to rush over to the bathroom, trying to walk normally. As soon as I shut the door, I leaned against it. “I’m too hungover for this,” I grumbled to myself, rubbing my throbbing temples. Opening the door, I put my head out, “Oh and could you get me some painkillers?”

The maid, slightly startled, nodded with another schooled smile and I thanked graciously, “You’re a lifesaver. Just leave them on the nightstand. Thank you!”

Taking a shower had never been so refreshing before and even though I still felt like used shit, I tried not to think too much about it. I would probably burst out in tears otherwise.

How could he have actually let this happen? Didn’t he love Cateline? He just cheated on the woman he cheated on me with. A small part of me wanted to rub that in her face, but the bigger part would know exactly how she would feel if she found this out. Would he pretend he never cheated on her like he was doing with me?

I sniffed slightly as I limped towards the diner, “So much for not thinking about it,” I mumbled to myself, rubbing my eyes. The painkillers had yet to kick in for the ache both in my head and downwards. Right now, I wished I could have talked to my mother, but feared what she would say about all this. She would probably be happy, regardless of how I felt about it.

I once again realised how alone I was in that moment.

-

“There she is, the drinking queen!” Giroud greeted me as soon as I stepped up to their table with a forced smile. I clenched my teeth against the pain and sat down next to Antoine and across from Jennifer, who gave me a suggestive wink.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said immediately when she opened her mouth and she closed it back, giggling.

“Oh, you mean you don’t know that you got absolutely smashed last night and had a heavy make-out session with your hubby?” she asked and I placed my elbow on the table to shield my face, causing them all to laugh.

“This must have been the first time I’ve seen you let go of all manners of society!” Jennifer said with a full-blown grin.

I groaned, “It’s too bright.”

“What?”

“Your white teeth, stop smiling,” I grumbled and she chuckled, resuming her food. Antoine rubbed my back, pushing over some painkillers and I took them even though I already had some.

“I know you have to cure your hangover, so we can drop the sightseeing plans and just hang in the room,” my husband suggested in a soothing tone.

The football players had the day off since we would fly out this afternoon to our next destination. The managers had been nice enough to book a later flight instead of early in the morning as they usually would, knowing we would all need to cure our hangovers.

Turns out, most were fresh and in a good mood, still pumped with a little adrenaline from their last win. Like Antoine for example.

“No, it’s fine. You guys can go, I will just lay in bed and pretend to be dead. Maybe the headache will disappear that way,” I replied and they laughed at me.

“Come on, you just need a hearty breakfast and you’ll be good to go,” Giroud said, pushing my plate filled with waffles and sandwiches closer to me.

“I don’t know...”

“Please, we haven’t done anything together, yet,” Jennifer butted in as well, giving me her puppy eyes, “Besides partying.”

I glanced down fearfully at my abdomen. Walking around didn’t seem so pleasant right now. On the other hand, I had read online that it would help reduce the pain faster than simply lying around.

Hours later I would regret being that optimistic.

“Why do I even listen to the internet?” I grumbled, holding onto Antoine’s arm. He had insisted on staying glued to my side during the entire sightseeing tour, which I didn’t complain about since I needed the support.

He had seemed to notice that I had trouble walking and kept shooting me apologetic looks. “Are you tired? Should we go back?” he asked every five minutes, brushing my hair soothingly.

I smiled tightly. “It’s fine.”

He narrowed his blue eyes, “Whenever you say ‘fine’, nothing is fine.” I chuckled, tiredly leaning against him. He immediately wrapped his arms around me and I sighed. Why did I always have to feel so safe being close to him? When he was the main source of all my misery.

“I don’t want to rest now. It will mess up my sleeping schedule,” I said.

“Your sleeping schedule is messed up anyways,” Antoine commented, chuckling when I punched him lightly in the stomach. “Have you...remembered anything from last night, yet?” he asked tentatively after watching Giroud taking pictures of Jennifer for a while.

I shook my head silently. Antoine stayed quiet as well but I felt his thumb rubbing circles on my side. He nuzzled his face into my hair and I relished in the sensation of having him this near to me. “Don’t worry, we can repeat last night to refresh your memory if you want,” he suggested with a boyish grin, nudging his forehead against mine. I furrowed my eyebrows slightly. Wasn’t that a drunken mistake for him? He was unofficially with Cateline, why would he- ‘How can you live with yourself?’ I asked him in my mind. Was he seriously going to fool us both now?

I bit my tongue to stop the anger from lashing out. This was going way too far, had been going way too far for too long, but I couldn't say anything. If I were to reveal I knew about all he had done, I would have to immediately file for a divorce and leave. And I couldn't financially support myself enough yet to do so. As selfish as that sounded - simply staying for money - I had basically no choice. Ending up homeless was definitely not on my agenda.

I had to wait so I bit my tongue to contain my anger.

“Hey, lovebirds. Stop clinging to each other for a second and take a picture of us!” Jennifer demanded, waving us over. Antoine laughed, unwrapping one arm and leading me towards them with the other whilst I schooled my expression.

The rest of the day was spent taking pictures together, ‘ooh’ing at every building, cathedral or whatever before we had to get back to the hotel to pack our things and leave. I couldn’t say I didn’t enjoy the day at all, it was almost as good as Antoine’s and I’s trip to the campus.

The pain in my head left completely and whilst I was still sore down there I figured it would disappear after a good sleep.

-

Blinking, I woke up from the haziest dream I ever had. It had looked like I was stumbling down a hallway with a man in my arms, getting pushed against the door and toppling over when it got opened. It ended with a drop in bed and I woke up just when someone was climbing on top of me.

“What the hell?” I mumbled, feeling strange. A muscled arm sneaked around my waist over the sheets.

“Morning,” Antoine murmured, snuggling closer. I glanced to my right to see his face placed on the pillow directly next to mine. My heartbeat halted at the sight of his angelic features, from the curve of his nose to the long eyelashes hiding his beautiful blue eyes to the corners of his lips slowly moving upwards. “Stop staring, you creep,” he said, his voice deeper and heavy with sleep. I bit my lip, belatedly looking away when he opened his eyes.

“I wasn’t staring,” I denied, inspecting the plain ceiling.

Antoine chuckled, pulling himself up on the elbow to hover over me. “Sure, because the ceiling is a better view than your husband, hm?” he asked, leaning forward over me, propped up on his elbow. His cologne reached my nose and I inhaled it deeply as discreetly as I could, trying to keep my eyes on upwards and not flicker to his toned bare chest.

“Way better, look at how beige it is.”

“It’s white.”

“Shut up.”

Antoine laughed and I couldn’t stop myself from admiring his cute smile. Damn, why did he have to be so attractive?

“I wonder how I could get my wife’s attention then,” he mused, faking a thoughtful look, “I can’t lose against a ceiling now, can I?”

“Absolutely not, but it’s quite the hard competition,” I played along, always feeling more comfortable during our familiar banters.

Antoine sighed dramatically. “What to do, I wonder,” he said, a mischievous glint in his blue eyes and I raised an eyebrow.

“What are you planning?” I asked warily when I saw his hands sneak to my sides, “No, wait! Wait, you won!” I immediately surrendered, pushing against his chest.

“I haven’t even started yet,” Antoine chuckled, but didn’t move to tickle me thankfully.

“You won still. What’s a ceiling compared to you?” I scoffed, laughing nervously. Antoine’s fingers left my sides, amused. “Never thought I would have to compete against a ceiling and actually feel so satisfied winning.”

I breathed out a laugh and he gazed down at me, a warm and tender look that I hadn’t noticed before. Our smiles faded when the atmosphere shifted and even though it was a weird timing I got reminded of what I had dreamed of a few minutes ago. I watched Antoine’s eyes trail over my features like I had previously done before they rested on my lips. I felt the sudden urge to run my tongue over my dry lips self-consciously but that only made his blue irises turn a dark, stormy colour.

“Ant-” I was just about to break the silence anxiously when he cut me off, placing his lips on mine. I gasped and he immediately granted himself access into my mouth, deepening the kiss. My eyes fell shut at the sensation and I couldn’t help but reciprocate. A blissful sigh escaped him and I felt him smile as he pushed himself closer until his chest was flush against mine, careful not to crush me whilst he weaved one hand around my neck. I let my own wander up to his back, fisting his hair when I couldn’t control the rush of emotions running through my body. A low groan escaped him and his demeanor turned urgent, almost aggressive and left us both breathless.

I reluctantly pulled away when I needed air, cursing myself for not being a vampire. Antoine, who seemingly was one, kissed down a trail to my neck, one arm moving under me to pull me even closer. I gasped when he hit a sensitive spot, goosebumps erupting on my skin. A moan almost escaped me as he kept on sucking when a knock on the door interrupted us.

“Rise and shine, Anto! You’re late for practice!” Giroud’s voice reached my ears, instantly killing the mood.

Antoine groaned in annoyance. “Just the perfect timing.”

I giggled slightly, causing him to smile and lean his head against mine. “You should go, you have work to do,” I said quietly, nudging his nose with my own. He smiled with his eyes closed but whined, “I don’t wanna leave though.”

“Oi! Antoine! You’re hearing me?!” Giroud inquired.

“Yes! I’ll be right out!” Antoine pushed himself up and shouted, causing the other man to yelp in surprise. He leaned back down with a pout and I almost drowned in his ocean blue eyes when he pecked me. “I’ll be back at 2. Promise.”

Nodding, I looked towards the clock on the wall and groaned, “It’s 8 AM? I’m up way too early.”

My husband chuckled, putting on a grey shirt. “Just sleep until I come back.”

“Kay...,” I mumbled, snuggling into his pillow and feeling him kiss my forehead before he left.

-

“They’ve won,” Jennifer said. She had only whispered in her shock and yet I could hear her clearly even though the mass around us was clamouring in their joy.

Nodding, I watched the entire team of France including managers, coaches etc. run around the field as soon as the referee gave his last whistle of the game; France had won the World Cup.

“They’ve really won!” my friend next to me exclaimed, having mumbled that sentence over and over again until reality hit her. She hugged me tightly from the side, breaking me out of my stupor as well. Laughing joyfully I wrapped my arms around her as well. Over her shoulder, I could see his parents and grandparents cheer loudly with moist eyes and I almost had the urge to spill some tears as well.

Letting go of Jennifer I looked back towards the field, searching for Antoine. He had his hands fisted over his mouth, seeming close to full-out brawl as the pressure finally got lifted off his shoulders and all the hard work paid off.

I couldn’t have smiled any wider, feeling a sense of pride to call him my husband (for now) as we watched them get their medals and lift that Cup.

Not a second later when the formal ceremony was done did the players run over to the France corner to celebrate with their fans, including us. Antoine spotted his family fast, grinning and waving the Cup in his hands towards them.

I laughed when I saw his parents wave back with his jersey, a rush of happiness coursing through me for them. ‘They must be so proud...,’ I thought with a smile.

“Addy!” Antoine shouted and I turned back around to see him jogging over, handing off the Cup to Umtitti. Moving forward, I leaned down against the railing, grinning down at him.

“Congratulations, Spongebob!” I shouted and he laughed in joy.

“Come down!” he requested and I obliged, pushing my way through the crowd to get to the only spot where you could get out onto the field, pulling Jennifer along with me.

As soon as a security guard let us through I glanced around for my husband, only to find him heading straight for me. He grabbed my face with both hands and smashed his lips against mine. I would have fallen backward if he hadn’t had a hold on me. Gripping his shirt I pulled him closer, sighing blissfully against his mouth. I would miss this.

“We’ve won,” Antoine said breathlessly, dazed as if he couldn’t believe it.

I nodded, “You did!”

“We did,” he insisted, pecking me. “Without your veggie soup, we wouldn't have gotten far.” I burst out in laughter at his serious gaze and shook my head. Sometimes, he was too sweet.

“Well, I certainly got my reward just now,” I replied with a cheesy grin, which he reciprocated.

“There’s more where that came from,” he whispered against my lips and I shuddered at the faint touch. Pulling him closer, I claimed another kiss, knowing I was getting dangerously addictive of this. I felt him smirk as he snaked his arms around my waist, leaving no space between us.

I only let go when I tasted the salt of his tears against my lips, brushing them away as he grinned from ear to ear with his skin flushed. “You did so well,” I told him and his blue eyes softened, emotions flashing in them that I couldn’t quite decipher but caused warmth to bloom in my chest. He hugged me tightly towards him, holding the back of my head with one hand and the other firmly wrapped around me.

“Thank you,” he whispered into my ear, kissing the shell of it tenderly.

-

It was safe to say that we had a party and even though a lot of their parents were around (and in Antoine’s case his grandparents, too) the players got wild. Wilder than the nights before.

I glanced at Gran next to me nervously as she observed the dancing crowd of men in front her, yelling the lyrics to a French song from the top of their lungs, “They’re usually not like this.”

“That’s quite alright. I find this very amusing," she replied good-naturedly.

“Good, because what I just said was a lie.”

Gran chuckled, patting my arm. “I figured,” she said before she fully turned towards me with a mischievous glint in her blue eyes that reminded me of Antoine’s. “So, I’ve noticed my grandson and you getting cosy.”

I flushed red, glancing around for my husband. Of course, I couldn’t spot him. “Um, yes. We’ve gotten closer,” I admitted shyly and she smiled warmly at me.

“I’m so happy,” she replied, “Your patience has paid off. Haven’t I told you he would warm up to you?”

I smiled back wordlessly though it disappeared as soon as she turned around when her husband called for her attention. “I cannot stand this loud music, I’m not fifty anymore,” he complained, “Let’s head to bed, honey.”

Gran sighed, placing her drink down. “Fine. Though I have to add you said the same thing when you were fifty.”

I giggled, bidding them goodbye. Antoine’s parents had left for bed long ago since they had to fly back early due to work. It was a bit sad to see they didn’t even take a week off for their son, who just won the freaking World Cup, but on the other hand, I could guess with 99% accuracy that my parents would have done the exact same thing.

“Ads, what are you doing standing around like a wimp?” Jennifer exclaimed, tugging a drunk Giroud along with her.

“Yes, Addy. Get the drinking queen mode on already!” he demanded, pushing a drink in my hand.

Before I could reply I felt a pair of arms snake around me and a hard chest against my back, taking the drink away from me. “Sorry, guys. Ads has to stay sober,” Antoine said, putting the cup down.

“Why?” I asked though I didn’t mind, not wanting to have another mental blackout.

“Because I want you to remember everything tonight,” he whispered into my ear, his voice getting deeper.

“What do you-” I cut myself off when he started nibbling on my earlobe, “Antoine!”

“That’s my name,” he whispered huskily, wrapping an arm across my chest, “Wear it out.” My eyes bulged at his words. What had gotten into him? I wiggled around to face him, the Giroud pair having left already with a simple, heart-warming comment ("Disgusting") to continue their dancing.

“Are you drunk?” I asked, narrowing my eyes suspiciously when he shook his head.

“If you don’t believe me, test my breath,” he challenged with a grin. I was tempted to accept the insinuated offer but decided to tease him a bit so I shrugged.

“Nah, I believe you.” His grin dropped into a sour look before he quickly dove down to claim my lips, interrupting my giggle. My eyes widened in surprise before I gave in, letting him dominate. He grasped my hips tightly, pulling me against him and I bit his lip to contain a moan, feeling my cheeks go red at what we were doing. I wasn’t drunk this time to ignore the others in our vicinity.

“Antoine, not here,” I mumbled, retracting and pushing him away when he leaned forward, growling in frustration at the loss of contact.

“C’mon then,” he demanded, taking my hand. My heart fluttered slightly at the prospect of what was going to happen when he dragged me through the crowd and out of the room. And even though my mind was trying to fight against it, I didn't have it in me to go against my heart. And body.

-

The Russian dream ended way too soon and I almost dreaded going back to France. It was like everything good happened here and leaving for France was like leaving an alternative universe, where Antoine's and I's relationship could be good. Wishful thinking it was.

We had stayed for another day before we had to pack our things; A whole nation was waiting for the boys, after all, to get the Cup home and celebrate with them. I smiled, watching Antoine fool around in the lobby with his friends whilst I waited for the front lady to clear up our check out from the hotel.

"Alright, you're officially kicked out," she said, giggling at her own joke. 

I snorted, "Thank you."

"I'm sorry, I can't help saying that everytime someone leaves. The reactions all vary and are so funny sometimes," she explained and I smiled.

"You seem to enjoy your job," I noted, observing her natural smile. It didn't seem fake at all like I was used to from service staff.

"I do. This is my dad's hotel and I'm going to take his place one day," she babbled, "He said I would have to start from the lowest spot and work my way up to understand the true meaning of owning a hotel...I started off with cleaning toilets."

I cringed at that but couldn't help but laugh at her enthusiasm. "I wish you the best of luck," I said and realised how I actually meant it. This was probably the first time I had bothered to have a conversation with a staff and found myself genuinely enjoying it.

"Thank you so much!" she exclaimed, seemingly close to tears and I panicked, quickly bidding her goodbye. I could barely handle my own tears, how was I going to comfort someone else even if they were from being happy. At least I hoped they were happy tears...

"Ready to go?" Antoine asked when I reached him.

"I made the receptionist cry."

"What?"

"Huh? Nothing," I shook my head to snap out of it, grasping the handle of my suitcase, "Let's go."

Antoine looked at me puzzled before deciding not to ask, wrapping his arm around my shoulder instead. "Right. Let's go home," he said, pecking my lips.

I forced a smile, a feeling of dread hitting me whenever I thought of 'home'.

-

After the long, gruesome hours of being stuck in a plane, we had finally arrived at the Paris Airport. Though I had to admit, it wasn't as bad this time since Antoine kept showering me with kisses either on my lips or all over my face.

"Will you stop it already?" I demanded half-heartedly when he once again turned to me to attack my skin.

"Yes, Anto. Will you please stop?" Pogba groaned from behind us. "I can't handle this sap show. It's like watching Dani's soap operas."

"Hey, they're not that bad," his wife next to him defended.

"What? The soap operas or these two?"

"The soap operas, of course."

I laughed, turning around to see her but faltered when I saw her give me the same death glare as usual. I did say I wasn't bothered by it to Jennifer but this was seriously getting ridiculous. Why did she hate me so much?

Pondering on possible arguments, I only came up with one conclusion: She was dumb. I shrugged to myself, 'Better than nothing.'

"I can't wait to get home," Antoine mumbled, nuzzling my neck.

"Why? I won't sleep with you today," I said and he gave me deadpanned look.

"That's not- wait, why not?" he pouted and I laughed, pecking his lip. "We already stayed up all night yesterday because of your needs. I crave my beauty sleep."

"Excuse me? My needs?" he protested, "Who was the one, who scre-" I quickly placed my hand over his mouth, glancing around in hopes no one had heard whilst he kept talking, his words muffled.

"Shut up, I was kidding," I huffed, cringing when he licked my palm.

"Good, because I'm definitely going to repeat last night," he grinned and I groaned in annoyance though on the inside I could already feel the excitement building. I had definitely been missing out in the past. "But that's actually not what I meant. I just miss France. And I can't wait to celebrate with everyone there," he said and I smiled fondly when I saw how eager he was.

"You will tomorrow," I said, caressing his cheek that had gained quite the attractive stubble the past days. "I love your stubble," I remarked randomly, causing him to grin, "I know, that's why I let it grow." I bit my lip, not wanting to kiss him in public but yearning to do so. "It makes you crazy, doesn't it?" he asked cheekily, teasingly leaning forward until I could feel his breath on my face. "It makes you wanna do things you usually wouldn't do, right?" he continued, stroking my neck with feather-like touches that caused my heart rate to shoot up. "In front of all these peop-"

"Shut up and kiss me," I cut him off, pulling him close by his collar to finally crash my lips against his. Screw modesty, that was the best make-out session ever.

Our lips were raw and red by the time the intercom announced our descent. "At last," Pogba mumbled behind us and I tried to stifle my giggle whilst Antoine simply took a hold of my hand, lovingly intertwining our fingers together.

It took us ten minutes after landing to get out of the plane, another fifteen to get our suitcases and when we got out of our terminal a seemingly endless human traffic preventing us from moving any closer to the exit. Football fans had found out when and where the French team would arrive, cheering loudly as soon as they spotted them with cameras flashing. Placing some dark shade sunglasses on I tightened my grip around Antoine's hand as we tried to push through the crowd whilst he was busy thanking each of them in his own earnest way, feeling my heart warm when he occasionally glanced back to check if I was okay.

Eventually, a security squad came to help us go and from then on it went a lot smoother even though the cheering crowd kept following behind us. I sighed in relief, it had been quite suffocating. 'I don't know how celebrities handle this,' I thought to myself when I spotted the last person I wanted to see.

She was walking in our direction but it was a large space, to a stranger she would simply look like she was passing through. But I knew better and quickly looked another way when her eyes settled on Antoine's figure. Watching from my peripheral view, I noticed how she was trying to gain his attention, walking into his line of sight, and I gritted my teeth.

His gaze almost immediately found hers and my heart broke at the small smile that grew on his face. He didn't have sunglasses on so I could clearly see the fondness in his eyes when he looked at her whilst he was holding my hand.

Quickly shaking him off I wrapped my arms around myself, swallowing harshly. His head snapped around at the loss of contact and he seemed to come out of a daze, clearing his throat. "Ehm, I'm going to head to the toilet real quick. Wait for me in the car?" he suggested with a simple grin; the same grin he gave me all the time in Russia. And I had never been able to discern whether it was fake or not. But now I knew.

"Sure," I muttered, glancing over his shoulder to see Cateline impatiently tap her foot against the floor, biting her lips in anticipation. A searing knife of jealousy and rage cut right into my chest and I clenched my jaw tightly. 'She should know what it feels like.'

Grabbing Antoine's arm, who had already turned to walk towards her, I quickly pulled him by the front of his shirt and smashed my lips against his.

 Right.in.front.of.her. 

My husband stiffened in surprise but melted when I ran my tongue over his lower lip, biting down. It seemed like he didn't know what he wanted himself when he grabbed my hips, uncertain of whether to push me away and draw me closer. Opening one eye I felt a cool rush of satisfaction when I saw her crestfallen expression; the same one that had been on mine when I caught them. 

Whoever said revenge was not the solution clearly never knew how good it felt.

I could barely contain my shit-eating grin when I let go of my husband with a “Don't make me wait too long.”, watching him stumble away with flushed cheeks and breathing heavily.

VIII.

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[dragonwitch77]

Death’s Flower ch 2

“Stupid kid. Stupid gods.” Snatcher grumbled, stomping down the seamlessly endless steps that descended down to his realm. A realm that only housed beings that had left the mortal world for good, where there is nowhere else to go when their life came to an end. A domain that had many names.

The Underworld. The Realm of the Death. The Underground. The Forsaken Place. The Domain of the Snatcher.

Pretty much those names were enough to fill in the mortals and gods alike of what was down there. Being the God of Death, souls of mortals were sent to his domain to be dealt with after their parting from the living world. It was his sole duty alone to do this task, whether he liked it or not.

And he didn’t mind it one bit.

In fact he liked that he was the God of Death. If it meant that others feared him and left him alone, then he didn’t mind reaping a couple hundred souls each day. It was fun to see others squirm in his presence, fearing when he might snap and attack them or prank them out of the blue. He may be the God of Death, but he had to have some fun once in a while.

He took in the site of his world as he reached the final step, standing on it as his eyes gazed over the world he ruled. Some would say that his domain was a dark place that didn’t even have a speck of light in it, but he could prove them wrong once they saw what a wonder his world was. It was like a kingdom of darkness, the only light coming from the pools filled with souls he had yet to judge, varying from bluish greens to deep purples and sky blue. As long as it wasn’t too colorful, his world was perfect.

“Boss! Boss!”

Almost perfect.

“What is it?” Snatcher sighed, stepping off the final step, letting the earth return to its natural state as it closed up behind him for another year before he could leave again.

His minion, one of many identical beings that swore their service to him, fell to the ground in front of him in a clumsy manor. Picking themselves up, they stood tall, or as tall as their pudgy small round body could only reach the height just half way to his knee. “Boss! Thank the Sisters you’re back! We just got a new batch of souls! It seems like a bunch a them had drowned.”

Snatcher rolled his eyes, sighing heavily. “That’s the third time this month. Honestly, how many idiotic mortals are going to die before they realize that fishing out in a storm is NOT a good idea?!” He walked past the minion, grumbling to himself as he went deep into his domain. “What’s the status on our current pools?”

“W-well, we’ve managed to sort out all the young and old into the pools they should go in. Few have tried to escape.” The minion followed behind him, listing off the things that had happened while the deathly ruler was gone. “The dogs were getting restless after you left so we set them lose on some damned souls to keep them occupied. A child recently died of an illness. Someone was stabbed to death. Moonjumper is here. And we still—OOF!”

The minion fell backwards, looking up at the long black hair of their master.

“I’m sorry.” The minion coward as Snatcher slowly turned around, his eyes illuminating in the darkness, staring down the minion. “Did I hear that right? Did you just say, Moon. Jumper. Is here?!” A deep growl emanated within Snatcher’s throat as his cape began dancing with power.

“I-I-I-I-I’M SORRY! We tried to send him away but he wouldn’t listen!” The minion shook with fear as the dark serge of Snatcher’s power radiated. “He insisted that he needed to see you urgently, but you weren’t here!”

“WHERE IS HE?!”

“AT THE TEMPLE! HE’S IN THE TEMPLE!” The minion openly wept as Snatcher growled with rage, running towards his home.

)*(

The home of the God of Death was, as the other gods described it, not as fancy or well lavished as all the other homes of the other gods and goddesses. It wasn’t made out of white stone marble, but black cracking earth and vines with sharp thorns that held it together. It was just as big as any home fit for a god, maybe even bigger than the rest of them, but was not very appealing to look at with crumbling pillars, broken floors, skeletons of the many deceased used for decorations and furniture, and bodies of past intruders hung on the ceiling to show as an example.

But while the other gods and goddesses would find the thought of going to such place disturbing if not revolting, there was in fact one god who did not mind Snatcher’s strange taste of design.

And the only god to get on his nerves.

“MOONJUMPERRRRR!” Snatcher screamed as he burst open the doors of his home, forgetting to restrain himself as his power tore the rotten wood off their hinges and clatter to the ground in pieces.

“Ah! So he finally arrives! Though I can see he’s quite angry as a beehive!”

Snatcher growled as he spotted the god sitting in his favorite chair with a bowl of grapes in his hand. “What are you doing here you pathetic excuse of a god?! You aren’t allowed in the Underworld without permission from me!”

The god merely grinned, plucking a grape and popping it in his mouth. “Permission from you? Oh how silly but true. While indeed most do, I however can pop in out of the blue.”

Snatcher stormed his way up to Moonjumper, slamming his claws into the seat’s armrests and growled dangerously. “I REALLY insist that you stop with your ridiculous habit of rhymes you—”

“Temper temper! There’s no need of this distemper!” Moonjumper rose from the seat, shoving the bowl in Snatcher’s hands. “I only came for a visit! Now that’s not such a crime, is it?”

The god giggled, going around Snatcher as he threw the bowl filled with fruit away. Most would say that the two were look similar to one another. But while their faces did seem to mirror each other, that is where the similarity ended. While Snatcher was thin, bony, pale skinned, golden eyes, had wild long hair that reached to the floor, covered in darkness and wore pants, Moonjumper was a class of his own with his short pure white hair, blue skin, bright red colored clothing with chains wrapped around his torso and neck, wild red eyes, and scars covering his face.

And majorly legless. Everyone could spot the lack of legs from miles away. And it was no secret to how he lost them in the first place.

“You little pest! How many times do I have to beat it in you that I do not want you here?! You have your own domain! Go use that instead of here!”

“I do not wish to be this pestering! I only dropped by to see what your mind is festering.” Moonjumper grinned, floated around Snatcher. “You seemed quite tense, I should know. Tell me, what’s bothering you so?”

“I don’t need to tell the likes of you!” Snatcher shoved past Moonjumper. “I know your tricks God of Corpses! Don’t think for a second that I won’t know what you’re up to!”

“But that is not true! I really came to see you!” Moonjumper followed him, keeping a distance between them in case the Death God decided to get a little… slashy. “Say all you want with your skilled tongue of lies, I can see it in your sad eyes.”

“Stop following me.” Snatcher growled. “I’ve already got enough to deal with, and your visit is not helping.”

“Indeed all this talking isn’t much help. Shouldn’t you be searching for the thieving little whelp?”

Snatcher froze in his tracks. He slowly looked over his shoulder, glaring at the other god behind him. “How… did you know something was stolen from me?”

Moonjumper clicked his tongue, waging his finger at Snatcher. “Oh silly Snatcher, can’t you see? There’s a connection between you and me. Though knowledge and memories we do not share, you tend to let you emotions go wild without care. Though it was only just very brisk, I could feel that the balance of the world is at great risk.” He grabbed to cloak that Snatcher never took off, pulling it up so that the tear was visible for both of them to see.

“For such a precious item that you deeply tend with care, seems that someone defiled it with a horrible tear.”

Snatcher swatted Moonjumper’s hands away, tugging the cloak close to him.

“This act is quite shameful, but who is very blameful? Mortal or god? This act has got me quite awed! For stealing a piece of the cloak that belongs to none other than you Snatcher, must be feeling deep satisfactory and rapture.”

“If it were a mere mortal that stole from me, they would die instantly when they touch the piece even by a little.” Snatcher glared at the tear. “No mortal can do such a task and get away with this without consequences. Even with help from another god, the task is impossible.”

“Ah! But to have a piece taken under your nose and gone! It seems that impossible was in fact improbable along.”

Snatcher shot a dirty look at Moonjumper. “… I don’t have time to deal with you. I have work that needs my attendance.” With that he stormed off, leaving Moonjumper to giggle madly at nothing.

)*(

“Thank you for coming Caitlin. I know this was sudden with what happened earlier today and with your help with the guests.”

“It’s no trouble! I was happy to help! Plus, I hadn’t had the chance to use my whip on someone for a long time now so I felt it was necessary for some practice.” Caitlin grinned, patting her trusted whip hooked on her belt. “Besides, I wanted to see the little cutie again~! I just can’t get enough of his tiny little fingers~!” The goddess purred, making Zaman laugh happily.

“Yes. Lyvia has certainly made a cute… child…”

“… Is something the matter?” Caitlin asked, noticing the sad look in Zaman’s three eyes.

“It’s nothing old friend. Just… Lyvia never showed any deep desire for anything other than looks before. I knew she had a soft spot for children, but… to go this far to make one. Without a partner no doubt. I… I honestly don’t know how to feel! I would never allow her to sleep with any man of course! She’s still too… too arrogant I fear. I feel like she only did it for attention and has no real desire to care for her daughter.”

“Zaman, old friend, do not worry!” Caitlin took Zaman’s hand between hers, grasping it tightly. “Your daughter is taking a big step. Motherhood is rewarding and learning. She will learn to be less immodest as she cares for her new child and learn to take her responsibility well. She now has someone who will depend on her and rely on her to take care of them. I’ve seen plenty of new mothers in my time and she’s no different.”

“But what if she strays from her duty as a mother? Children need constant care after all. I would know this well when Lyvia was but a small child herself and I had to raise her on my own.”

“Ah, but that is where you are wrong dear friend. You were not alone! You had friends who were willing to help. And now, your daughter has friends that are willing to help her raise her child when she is in need of that help.” She gave her friend’s hand a squeeze.

Zaman sighed, shaking his head with a smile. “You… are a very wise old friend. And very right. I’m still worried about her, but I will give her a chance at being a mother.” His smile grew wide as his three eyes gleamed with a spark of giddiness in them. “And it will be a joy to be a grandfather. After all, someone needs to spoil my grandchild!”

“Oh you!” Caitlin slapped his arm in good fun as the God of Time roared with laughter.

“Father? Caitlin? Can you come to the garden please?” Lyvia’s voice called out from the garden, catching both of the gods attention. They shared a look before heading over to the garden.

The garden was a beautiful place, filled with flowers and fruits, with decorations that wild the imagination of any mortal, and small animals that played in the trees and sang lovely songs gifted by the goddess herself. Lyvia was seated by the edge of one of the many lakes in the garden, watching the colorful fish swim about.

“Lyvia? Is something the matter child?” Zaman asked, approaching her quietly as her child was sleeping in her arms.

Lyvia continued to stare at the fish swimming in the water before slowly turning her gaze to the moon. “… Father? How, high are the walls surrounding the garden?”

Zaman, taken by surprise by the question, shared a glance with his old friend. “Well, very high my child. Why do you ask?”

Lyvia looked away from the fish, fixing her eyes on her father. “Is it not possible to make them higher? I… would like them to be taller.”

“Now why in the world would you want that? The walls surrounding the garden are very high already.” Caitlin questioned, one of her ears tilting down in confusion.

“I know they are high as they are now Caitlin. And you are right to question my sudden request.” Lyvia stood up slowly so not to disturb her child’s rest. “But, please understand. It’s for my child’s safety.”

“The walls are tall enough for you not to worry for her safety my daughter. I made them myself and with the finest builders! Why has this worry come upon you?”

“…”

“… It’s… because of him, isn’t it?” Caitlin’s ear flattened against her head, her tail dipping down low to the ground.

Zaman sighed. “Lyvia—”

“Please father! After what happened today, I’m worried for her safety! Not fearing the God of Death is one thing, but to laugh in his face is another! Have you ever met someone who has laughed in the face, the actual face, of death himself?”

Zaman’s mouth hung open, yet no words came out. “… well… no. I can not tell you who has done such a thing.”

“Exactly! You both have told me what he is like. He will not take this lightly! What if he tries to do harm to my child? Or worse, kill her?”

“Now now! There’s no need to worry about that!” Zaman placed his hands on Lyvia’s shoulders. “Snatcher has used his one day of walking on the surface of the living. And he may be the God of Death, but he’s never taken a life of a god before!”

“But… but what about the Dark Days?”

The two older gods cringed, looking away from Lyvia.

“… Snatcher… does tend to hold a bit of a grudge against others.” Caitlin spoke quietly, her tail swishing to and fro. “I’ve seen firsthand of what he can do when he’s pushed far enough. He can turn things rather ugly real quick.”

Zaman sighed, rubbing his neck. “He’s an unpredictable one. With a variety of tricks up his sleeve.”

“Please build the wall higher father! My child must be protected from his wrath!”

Zaman glanced at his daughter, looking deep into her pleading eyes and found great worry deep within them. He looked to his grandchild, seeing the peaceful look on her sleeping face. So innocent and untainted by the world.

“… fine.” Zaman sighed with reluctance. “I shall see to it that the wall gets built taller.”

“Thank you father!” Lyvia threw her arm around her father, hugging him tightly. “Thank you! Thank—Oh!” Lyvia pulled back as her child started to cry. “My poor baby, did mommy startle you? Oh, I’m sorry.” She rocked herself, heading off for her chambers.

Caitlin watched as the young goddess walked away, turning to her old friend with a deep frown on her face. “Would building the walls higher even make a difference? Snatcher is a crafty one and you know that walls won’t stop him if he really will go after her child.”

Zaman rubbed his chin, stroking his small beard. “He is crafty. Too cleaver for my taste, and, dare I say, smarter than me and the Sisters. And terrifyingly dangerous. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries anything, but I’m sure he wouldn’t try anything so soon. But then again. It wouldn’t hurt to prepare and add a little guard to the place.”

“Yes, but would it be enough to stop him? He can be very persistent on his tasks, nothing will sway him from what he sets his mind on.” Caitlin huffed. “To think… he was once one of us on equal ground.”

“Now now. The past is behind us all Caitlin. What happened, happened. There’s nothing we can do now but more forward with time of the future.”

“… Zaman… how… how can you be the only god I know who doesn’t hold on to the past without a deep grudge? Everyone else seems to still hold it against him for what he’s done but you—”

“Caitlin, let’s just say for now that we all were young back then. Snatcher may almost be as old as me and older than you, but sometimes, you have to look at all angles before you see the whole picture.”

Caitlin stared at her friend for a moment before sighing and shaking her head. “I love you old fool, but sometimes, even with the clearness of a cat, you still remain a big mystery to me.”

Zanam smiled. “Because too much curiosity can kill the cat.” He laughed as Caitlin gave him a solid punch to the arm, leading her back inside for a few drinks before seeing her off that night.

[coeurdastronaute]

Essays in Existentialism: Monarchy IV

Breakfast was a sacred time in the palace. From the table, the large windows opened up to the spacious grounds and garden with the fountains and the flowers. Most of the year, it was all green and manicured, the promise of a great day. But come winter, it was pure magic. Even after the holidays, the lights remained up and the world was untouched and white, al pure, uninterrupted snow.

Despite the chill that remained, even into the new year, it was a paradise that Lexa loved the most. It might have been her favorite winter yet. After months in the desert and two missed holidays and proper winters, it was a whole new level of joy when the first snow came. And it was only made better with Clarke.

The palace was one of the few places that Lexa felt comfortable being open with their relationship. Of course, she snuck moments in public, but being able to be on the grounds, walking through the snow and the lights with a girl like Clarke was very new and very good. She met a doctor in the middle of a war and she fell in love.

“I think this settles it.”

“Settles what?”

“You have to come out,” the queen decided as she folded the paper and set it on the table. “Have you seen this picture?”

All that Lexa could do was stare at her mother, who didn’t seem to notice, only sip her tea with little reaction to her daughter’s surprise. It was all business despite the eggs and toast and fruit that made their breakfast.

Lexa had an entire day planned already. She was going to have Clarke over for movies and recovering from their night out last night. She was going to be sweet and she was going to cook her dinner. It was a whole day on one of those precious days off that she didn’t have anything pressing, and that the doctor of the relationship was free from all responsibilities.

And then her mother.

“Hey, everyone,” the king breezed in a second later. “I have to go to lunch with the PM today. Does anyone want to come? He’s so dreadfully boring. Never laughs at my jokes.”

“Your jokes aren’t funny,” Anya appeared a second late, kissing her father’s cheek before taking her seat.

Still oddly mortified, Lexa looked curiously at her family, as if they were all so normal, and she was suddenly further reminded how she wasn’t sure how to exist near them. Maybe if she didn’t say anything she could leave the room without another plan from her mother. Maybe if she just--

“Oh, Al, kid,” her father shook his head and winced slightly as he picked up the paper. “Seriously?”

“What?” her sister shifted to look at the picture on the front page that her father held up for the table.

There was no escape. Lexa felt her cheeks burn though she focused on mashing up her eggs even more. She wanted to talk to Clarke, to go see her, to see how she was handling it, but she couldn’t move. Instead, she just blushed and avoided the glances of her entire family. She ruined Clarke’s life, plain and simple, and she had such a nice day planned.

“This is why she has to come out. I’m thinking I have Jean set up an interview. Just you at first, and then the family--”

“Hold on, you’re serious?” her sister balked. “That’s no one’s business.”

“I think it’s everyone’s when she’s caught with her mouth on a doctor’s neck,” her father disagreed, frowning as he turned the page to shake the images.

“I thought we were just going to ride this out and ignore it until its normal.”

“Your sister is a tad too gregarious for that method,” her mother sighed and stirred her tea. “Honestly, Lexa. There are things you don’t do in public.”

“I was-- There-- She--”

“I think your mother is right,” the king decided. “Rip off the bandaid.”

“Dad!” Anya disagreed, perplexed by it all.

“Listen, kid, you outed yourself. We all support you, but in order for us to do that, you have to get ahead of it.”

“Which is going to be difficult, since we’re already behind,” Viv sighed and sipped, her disappointment evident. She was never one to be behind in anything, but especially the press, and for the first time ever, Lexa almost appreciated her proactive nature despite what it meant.

“You don’t have to do this,” Anya promised, quickly reassuring her little sister. “Let them talk. You don’t have to make it a thing.”

“I hate saying this. You know I do,” the king furrowed, his concern showing across his Roman features. “But this is for the crown and the country. I know you hate being a symbol, but for us to be behind you, to love you, like you know we do--”

“We are behind you, and that has never been a doubt,” her mother added. “I understand now what simple words or not accepting can mean. You know better than anyone how important it is.”

“You have to give us the opportunity to publicly acknowledge and love you, Al. If the crown supports you, it means we support everyone else.”

The weight of it suddenly slopped onto her shoulders like heavy snow sliding off of a roof. It encompassed her completely, drowning in it. Lexa looked at her sister and swallowed, already knowing full well what she had to do.

Next to her, her sister picked up the paper with the stupid picture, so that Lexa got an even better look at it. It was a hot picture, and she remembered the moment clearly, or at least as clearly as someone who had a few drinks, really could remember something like that. But Clarke was so damn kissable, and she hugged her in the crowded pub, and they were unknown, or at least Lexa thought they were. Now she ruined everything, and Clarke would hate her.

“This is not how I expected my morning to go,” Lexa finally muttered, picking up her toast, shoving it in her mouth and stalking away from the table. It was as close to a confirmation as her mother would get, and she knew it.

“If you’d just gone into the bathroom, like a normal couple,” the king shook his head and tossed another paper with the same image, so it slid down the table, picture side down.

“Next time,” Lexa yelled as she made it to the hall, quite seriously.

There was something different about pulling into the palace for the fifth time, that just really made Clarke sigh and believe she could get used to it. That thought immediately came with the notion that she might have to learn to accept it. That then was followed by the idea that her picture was on every newsstand getting her neck sucked by the person that was third in line for the crown, and it all came crashing down on her.

When the car arrived at her house, she didn’t even question it, but rather got in and let Gus transport her anywhere that wasn’t surrounded by the eyes of anyone who might have recognized the Mystery Girl on the cover of the national magazine.

“I’m so sorry,” Lexa shook her head, waiting at the door to greet her girlfriend. “I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have--”

“I’m fine. Nothing to apologize for.”

“Still,” she smiled awkwardly before hugging the doctor tightly.

It didn’t take long for Clarke to melt into Lexa’s embrace. She didn’t know she needed something like that until she got it. For a moment, Clarke relaxed into her girlfriend’s arms, welcoming the warmth and the contracting of muscles that held her tight, as if they were keeping her safe and at the same time keeping her locked in place, so she couldn’t leave, clinging to her.

“We’re going to go inside and have tons of strategy meetings with people who want to protect the crown and my family. I need you to know that if it’s ever too much for you--”

“Don’t. Please. I want you and we knew this was coming. I couldn’t leave, even if I wanted to, actually. You’ve got me hooked.”

“I was going to say you have to suck it up because I’m nuts about you,” Lexa grinned. “But I like your answer.”

“I’m scared though.”

“Yeah, me too.”

It was as honest as they were going to be. No one else would know that little truth, about how afraid they were of each other, their feelings, and the world, but they said them together on the driveway outside the palace.

With nothing more than a nod, Clarke patted Lexa’s chest and reached up, tilting her chin so she could kiss the princess’ cheek. She knit their hands together before taking a deep breath and leading Lexa inside.

There were many experts. There were more experts on royal law and public policy and opinion that had to be consulted, than Clarke could ever imagine. There were so many experts about everything that was happening or not happening, that she couldn’t keep any of them straight to save her life.

Instead, she just tried to pay attention and listen to each.

Weirdly enough, she knew that the batch of publicists and important people squawking about, were still better than listening to the news. She was quite certain a blurry image was making its rounds on the evening reports. She was quite certain that many people were saying many things about who she was as a person and who they thought Lexa was and ought to be. Just the idea of it made her blood boil.

“It’s actually a dream couple,” one of the assistants explained. “Princess finds do gooder doctor with great backstory. It sells itself, minus the whole same sex thing.”

Clarke felt Lexa grip her hand a little tighter as they sat there in an office somewhere in the palace. It felt like a more official part than the family quarters. Clarke couldn't focus on much of the words, but she looked around the room and tried to memorize it all.

“Yeah, that pesky thing,” Lexa mumbled and scanned a piece of paper. “This schedule seems really heavy. There’s no way we need to do all of this follow up.”

“It’s heavy because you’re coming out. And we need Clarke to be there the following day, but maybe just in print, get some quotes.”

“Me?” Clarke furrowed and swallowed.

“You have an amazing story. You got a princess to fall in love with you.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“See? That makes it even better.”

Across the room, Lexa eyed her mother as she read through a document. Her father was nowhere to be seen, most likely smoothing over people with personal phone calls. Beside her, Clarke was a good sport, but it was all becoming too much to even handle or think about, and so she did all that she could to swallow it, until she couldn’t.

“We get you a good reporter, one who is in support of this, and we situate you as mavericks on the verge of a new millenium.”

“If that’s what will make this all go away.”

“Honey, this isn’t,” the aide smiled and shook her head. “This will never go away. You both will always have extra phrases and things attached to your name. This might become normal, but it won’t be for years and years--”

“Alright, we’re done for the night,” Lexa stood, objecting to so much of it and finally being unable to tolerate it.

“But we still--”

“I said that we are done for the night,” she repeated, not backing down.

For a moment, all was quiet, the little war room of an office stilled before slowly turning to look at the Queen. Clarke didn’t know where to look, but she thought that Lexa was always the safe bet.

“You heard her,” the Queen waved them off. “She’s done. We sleep on what we’ve discussed and make a decision in the morning.”

“Your majesty, with all due respect, there is not time to waste--”

“My daughter has much to sit and speak with her girlfriend about regarding the years and years of alleged future ignominities they must face. The world out there will not stop speculating, and we certainly aren’t going to rush.”

“Yes ma’am,” the public relations secretary nodded and bowed as he grabbed his folder. “Until tomorrow. But what shall I tell them tonight?”

“Tell them that our family is as unified as ever, and that we know that something as simple as love will not topple an ancient monarchy.”

Clarke smiled at the description, for the first time feeling somewhat at home, or at least, at ease, with the reigning monarch. She felt Lexa relax as well, which was more welcomed than anything else.

“If that fails, remind them of King Duncan and his prince consort, or, I don’t know, most of human history.”

“Yes ma’am,” he nodded. “Your Highness.”

“Thank you,” Lexa tipped her head toward the group as they left. “I cannot express my gratitude in your service for us tonight.”

“Our pleasure.”

It wasn’t until they left that Lexa flopped down dramatically onto the couch beside her girlfriend, sinking deep into the cushions as she sighed a heavy, laden kind of noise to match the somber mood she felt despite the fake hope she offered those who worked for her.

The Queen didn’t look up from her desk as she read over something, tilting her glasses slightly as she scrolled on her phone.

“How are you doing?” Lexa asked, reaching out to rub Clarke’s back after a moment of catching their breaths.

“That was it? I was expecting much worse.”

A chuckle started from the desk across the room, making Clarke smile despite herself.

“Have I mentioned recently that I like this one, Lexa?”

“Not in the past twenty minutes.”

“I just think you’re dating up is all,” she smiled and paused to read someone’s tweet in support of the rumors.

“You here that? You’re dating up,” Clarke teased. “I’m a catch.”

“You really--”

“Viv, can you call Anya. I need her to set me up a web thing,” the King barged in, with purpose. “I can’t figure out how to do this. I don’t know my email. Do I have an email?”

“I swear to God I have to get my own place,” Lexa said through gritted teeth. “They’re damn embarrassing, aren’t they?”

“Nevermind, this daughter will do,” he shook his head and sat down opposite them, where the herd of people once hovered. “I want to talk to all of these people who are saying such nice things. They even just put pictures. Little pictures though. Lots of rainbows and hearts. I’ll tell you what, we thought the internet was going to go much differently, back when it was a terrifying death trap.”

“I’m not getting you a twitter,” Lexa shook her head and sat up a bit.

“Do I have to do the curtsey thing still, or--” Clarke furrowed.

“What? No. Stop telling people that, Al,” the King made a face before returning to his phone. “How does your mother have a twitter and I don’t?”

“The internet is saying some lovely things, Lexa,” her mother interrupted her father’s annoyed fretting. “I think it’s going to be okay for you to just talk. Give an interview, and then be completely normal. Nothing changes. Things become normal.”

“Do you think Jonathan was right?” Lexa wondered. This time, Clarke's hands wandered to her lower back where they pressed and soothed before wrapping around her hip toward her waist. “That people will talk forever?”

“No. I think it’ll be interesting for three seconds, and then on to the next thing.”

“Unless we get into inheritance law, and then if you decide to have kids,” the king wagered. “That’d spark some intense debates on the floor of Parliament.”

“Alex!”

“Dad, seriously,” Lexa groaned and flopped back again.

“Why don’t we just go on a few dates, and see if we want to uproot an entire constitutional monarchy with potentially illegitimate children later?” Clarke offered, rubbing Lexa’s thigh. “I might not even like you.”

“She’s got a point,” Lexa’s father mumbled as he continued to tinker on his phone.

“If there’s a merciful God, He’d kill me right now.”

“She’s not,” the Queen reminded her daughter.

“Stop whining. We’ll figure it out. It’s not that bad,” Clarke decided, though it was more for herself than for her girlfriend.

“Have I mentioned how much I like this one?” the King grinned and finally looked up at the scene on the couch across from him.

“Just let this be over,” Lexa groaned and shoved a pillow over her own face, willing it to suffocate her so she could escape the Hell in which she’d becoming a permanent resident.

It was only Clarke’s soothing hand on her thigh that made her remember she was alive, and that was enough of a Hell.

On a fifth grade field trip, Clarke once walked through the halls of the palace. It was the part open to the public, and it was nowhere close to where she was now, but still, she remembered the sense of awe she felt. But after the day she had, after being uprooted from her home, spilled across pages and hours of news coverage, the palace itself wasn’t overwhelming anymore, but merely everything it now represented in her life.

But when it got to be too much, she caught Lexa’s eye, and earned a smile, or when she felt her head swirling with regret and missing a warzone with mortar fire, somehow, Lexa just knew, and would touch her, kiss her, or make a joke to lighten it all up and remind Clarke that for some reason, it was all worth it. It felt like it was too soon to ask the question of if it was worth it, because to ask that meant acknowledging a depth of feelings.

Of course, the scariest part of asking that question so soon into their relationship, was that she already knew the answer.

“So this is your room? Or wing?” Clarke smiled as she moved into a living room that was easily the size of her entire apartment.

“A little bigger than an old post office back room, but it does the job.”

It was decorated in all manner of Lexa. Despite where they were, despite what existed out in the hall, the ornate and the velvet and the old and the royal were all left outside, and inside was modern and classic and clean and Lexa.

An entire wall was bookshelves, primarily fitted with old books and movies. Lots of movies. Picture frames and snow globes covered everything else.

“I like it.”

“Should I take you to a guest room or--”

“I can’t believe I’m staying at your place when you live with your parents.”

“To be fair, they’re on the other side of the palace. At least a ten minute walk,” the princess grinned, crossing her arms as she waited for Clarke to finish looking. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get my own house. Maybe if they disown me.”

“No one’s going to disown you.”

“It’d be easier.”

“Your family is fighting hard for you, because it’s important. You’re important. They’re not going to let anything change that,” Clarke promised.

“But it’d mean I’d get my own place.”

“Well, in that case, I should talk to your mother about it right away.”

It took a few more minutes of bickering and bantering before Clarke followed Lexa into the bedroom. She waited for clothes and accepted the extras Lexa offered, even though someone brought a bag of her own things at some point. She washed her face and stared at herself in the mirror after stripping down and pulling on Lexa’s old PT shirt. Looking back at her were tired eyes with the hint of bags starting due to the exhaustion and trial of the day.

Hunching her shoulders there, Clarke sized up her own grit, her own strength, her own ability to weather this all. She had to have it. It was only just beginning.

“I wasn’t sure which side you wanted,” Lexa explained as she stood up quickly when the bathroom door opened.

“We’ve slept together before,” Clarke smiled.

“Yeah, well, it’s been a day, and I’m not sure… things have… I don’t know.”

Nervously, the princess scratched her neck and tentatively looked at the girl wearing little more than a shirt. That certainly didn’t help.

The lightswitch snapped off and Clarke walked toward the nervous princess, not even stopping or pausing to ask permission, but rather just kissed her, right there. She kissed her as hard and as gently as she could. There was a need to it, a heavines with all the little words that got thrown around for hours, a lightness that came with dismissing them. At the very root of it all, was a simple, simple statement, and it was just that Clarke was there, and she wasn’t leaving.

“I’m very sure about all of this,” Clarke promised. “I know it’s soon. I would have wanted to wait, but I don’t think I’ve ever been more sure about anyone. I want you, Lexa. I fell for you and I don’t care about anything else. We’ll deal with it.”

“How can I be worth losing your entire life?” Lexa saddened, her face softening as she shook her head, afraid of the question she didn’t want to ask.

“You just are. That’s all I know. Life’s too short. We saw enough of it overseas. If this is what we have to deal with to be together, then so what. I’m not scared.” Arms slid around her waist, anchoring her there. She earned a smile. “I mean, I am, but I’m not.”

“I don’t think you can understand how much my family likes you.”

“I like them.”

“Tomorrow, everything changes,” Lexa sighed, leaning her forehead against Clarke’s.

“Tomorrow, everything starts,” she corrected.

“I don’t like being the center of attention.”

“I don’t know if you know this or not, but your family is kind of always in the spotlight. I hope I’m worth imploding an entire country’s history over.”

“You definitely are,” Lexa grinned and kissed Clarke back. For a second she believed that to be true. But none of it mattered. This was the future.

NEXT

[queen-of-deans-booty]

All Hell Breaks Loose Part One- Part 3

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Word Count: 1,932

Warnings: Typical Supernatural violence, language, angst, minor character death, blood, you know the usual

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Supernatural. All credit goes to their respective owners. If you’re a junkie for this sort of thing, then a tag list is the right thing for you! If you want to be a Queen, I’ll add you to that list too! Any and all comments on these are appreciated. I really want to hear what you guys think about this one!

AHHHH This season is almost done!!!!! Just ONE more episode left! If you’ve been catching along with this series, this and the next episodes is what I wan to hear your thoughts on!

Feedback is the glue that holds my writing together.

Tags at the bottom

You jolted up with a gasped, seeing how it was morning already. You were glad no one killed or tried to kill you in your sleep. You woke up to Jake screaming at you and Sam to wake up. You looked over at Sam to see him jolt awake from the nightmare he probably had.

“Sam! Y/N! Wake up! Ava is missing!” Jake said, his eyes wide. That got you and Sam right up and the three of you rushed outside to go find her.

“Y/N will come with me and Jake, just try and find her.” Sam ordered, splitting from Jake before he had a chance to say anything else. You followed Sam, looking in the other houses and buildings that littered the town.

“She isn’t here.” You said, giving up. There were so many buildings here, you doubted she went this far out.

“Okay, let’s go back.” Sam said, walking back to the barn where he agreed to meet Jake at. As you got closer, you head an ear-splitting scream that came from Ava. It seemed as if she was back at the barn already.

You and Sam rushed to the barn, busting in. You gasped in horror and grabbed at Sam’s arm from what you saw. Ava, crying her eyes out at the fact that Andy was now lying in a pool of his own blood, dead.

“Oh! Sam! I just found him like this!” Ava screamed dramatically, making you narrow your eyes at her.

“What the hell happened?” He demanded.

“I don’t know!” Her voice squeaked up a bit.

“Cut the bullshit act, Ava.” You said with a glare. She glared at you, taking a step towards you.

“Excuse me? Our friend is dead!”

“Friend? Sam, come on. She is being such a drama queen right now. I am an expert on fake crying and that, right there, was an example of this. She did this to Andy! She killed him!” You said, accusing her.

“How dare you think I did this!” Ava yelled at you.

“Come on, Y/N, I don’t think we should blame her.” Sam started to say.

“Sam, you know how good I am when it comes to lying. I know she is lying,” You said, looking at the window sill behind Sam and nodding. You pointed to it and made Sam look. “How else do you explain the break in the salt? Andy wouldn’t do it, not when he was always scared of what was happening.”

“You believe her, Sam?” Ava asked, scoffing.

“You know, she’s right. You’ve been here for five months. You’re the only one with all that time you can’t account for. Plus, that headache you got? Right when the demon got Lily.” Sam said, putting you behind him. Ava went from this scared, overdramatic girl to one who was laughing, wiping the tears from her face.

“I had you two going, though, didn’t I? Yeah, I’ve been here a long time. However, I was never alone. People just kept showing up. Children, like us who came in batches of three or four at a time.” She said with a smile.

“You killed them? All of them?” Sam asked, horrified.

“I’m the undefeated heavyweight champ.” Ava said, proudly.

“Oh, my God.” You muttered. If only looks could kill…

“I don’t think God had much to do with this, Y/N.”

“How could you?” Sam asked, shocked still.

“I had no choice. It's me or them. After a while, it was easy. It was even kind of fun. I just stopped fighting who we are, Sam. If you'd just quit your hand-wringing and open yourself up, you have no idea what you can do. The learning curve is so fast, it’s crazy, the switches that just flip in your brain. I can’t believe I started out just having dreams. Do you know what I can do now?”

“Control demons.” You said.

“Ah, you’re quick which is good. You aren’t going to make it out of here alive, Y/N. It’s either going to be me, Jake or Sam who will kill you and I can guarantee that.” She raised her hand and you looked behind you to see the cloud of black smoke come through the window again.

Before anything could happen, Jake came up behind Ava and grabbed her head, snapping her neck easily, killing her. The demonic smoke left back out the window, glad not to be controlled anymore. You gasped and watched as he dropped her body like it was nothing.

He looked up and stared at you, the evil glint you saw when you first met him was now back in his eyes.

“Sam, come on.” You said, grabbing his hand and pulling him out of the barn. Jake chuckled and he followed you two, murder in his eyes.

“Jake, whatever you’re thinking, don’t. The demon is gone now. I think we can leave.” Sam said, seeing the look in his eyes. He had eyes for you but he wanted to murder you since it was what he was told to do.

“No, only one of us is making it out of here alive and it’s going to be me. But first, she needs to die. I had a vision of the Yellow-eyed Demon. He told me what needs to be done and I have to follow his orders or I will be the one to die and that isn’t happening.”

“No, Jake, you can’t listen to him. He lies, Y/N isn’t going to die. Neither of us will. We are going to get out here. We can kill that bastard together.” Sam tried to reason with him.

“How do I know you won’t turn on me?” He asked, unsure. You thought it would be best if you kept quiet, afraid of triggering something in him. He was already much stronger than you so it wouldn’t be a fair fight.

“We won’t, Jake.” You said very gently.

“I don’t know that.”

“Okay, look,” Sam said, taking the knife you found earlier and showed Jake, placing it on the ground to show some peace between the three of you. “Just come with us, Jake. Don’t play into his games. You’ll end up dead.”

After a moment or two, Jake nodded and placed his weapon on the ground next to Sam’s. You had a feeling this wasn’t over yet and that feeling proved to be true when Jake punched Sam. Jake, already being super duper strong, sent Sam flying through the air, crashing on the ground.

“Sam!” You yelled, glaring at Jake who was walking to you.

“You’re turn sweetheart. I’ll make it quick because you seem like a nice girl but this has to be done.” He said, getting closer to you. Panic surged through your veins and you didn’t know what to do. The weapons were behind Jake and Sam wasn’t much help right now. He will kill you if he got his hands on you.

You felt yourself panicking even more when he got closer and you shot your hands out to protect yourself. A burst of magic left your hands, hitting Jake right in the stomach, sending him toppling over. You gasped, thinking how you thought only anger or Dean being hurt would make this magic come out. But you guess panic will do the same thing.

Good to know.

You rushed to Sam, sliding on the ground when you got close enough to him. He groaned and looked at you, sitting up.

“Sam, we have to go.” You looked up to see and even more pissed off Jake come storming to you. He realized that he needed to get rid of Sam before he can get to you. You barely got Sam up on his feet when you felt the wind being knocked out of you.

Jake had used half of his strength to push you away from Sam, throwing in a few punches. Sam had enough of this and he punched back, fighting with Jake. You tried to catch your breath and you looked up to see Jake and Sam fighting, Jake winning.

You groaned and forced yourself to get on your feet, looking around until you spotted the weapons on the ground. You looked back at Jake and Sam, knowing Sam could hold his own for a while. You slowly moved to the weapons, keeping an eye on Jake who seemed to be too busy with Sam to even notice you.

You grabbed the iron rod that Jake carried instead of the knife. You didn’t want to kill him, no, just knock him out until you figured out what to do with him. You finally got enough air in your lungs to start running and when Sam looked like he had enough, you raised the rod, striking Jake on the head very hard.

You made sure not to kill him but he did go down, unconscious. You dropped the rod and then that’s when you heard it.

“Y/N! Sam!” You looked up and smiled when you saw Dean and your dad, with flashlights.

“Dean!” You were so glad he was okay. You grabbed Sam’s arm and put it over your shoulder to help him walk since he was weak from the beating he took.

“Dean! Bobby!” Sam said with a weak smile, slowly but surely walking closer to them.

“Sam! Y/N! Look out!” You only had enough time to turn your head to see Jake coming at you with the knife. Your eyes widened and you shoved Sam out of the way so he wouldn’t get hurt. You were going to use your magic but it was too late.

You froze when the blade of the knife sliced through your body, coming out the other end. You gasped and looked down, seeing the bloody tip of the blade that was right through your chest. Jake twisted the knife and you gurgled up blood as he pulled you closer.

“I told you, you weren’t leaving here alive.” He said before taking the blade out and running away.

“No!!!” Dean yelled, making a run for you as you fell to the ground and on your knees. You knew what was going to happen next but you weren’t sure if Dean or even Sam was ready for that. Dean slid to the ground in front of you, seeing how pale you looked.

He grabbed at your shirt, trying to get you to look at him but you could feel your life slipping away. Sam rushed and got up, not caring about himself as he checked your wound.

“Dean, it’s bad.” Sam said. Dean pressed his hand over your wound but the blood kept pouring out. You leaned forward in Dean’s arms, too weak to hold yourself up.

“Hey, Y/N, look at me, okay? It’s not that bad. Don’t listen to Sam. Y/N! Y/N, please look at me,” Dean said with tears in his eyes., You so badly wanted to look at him but you didn’t; couldn’t. “Don’t worry, we’re going to patch you right up. You’re going to be as good as new.” Dean touched your face but you were just on the brink of death. You watched as Bobby ran after Jake, leaving you alone with Sam and Dean.

“Dad…” You said as you took your last breath. Your body slumped forward in Dean’s arms as your eyes slid close, lying in Dean’s arms.

“No! No, no, no, no, no, Oh, God, Sammy! Sam! Do something! No!!!” Dean yelled, letting the tears fall freely. There was nothing Sam or even Dean could do now.

You were dead.

The Queens:

@maddieburcham1 @ginamsmith​ @mogaruke​ @whit85-blog​ @inlovewithbja​ @spn67-sister​ @kdfrqqg​ @jarpadandjensenaremyheroes​ @roxyspearing​ @supercalifragilistic26 @mishamigose​ @cobrakai1967​ @essie1876​ @wishedworld​ @crispychrissy​ @laqueus-ludovicus​ @nostalgic-uncertainty​ @jerk-bitch-and-an-angel​ @potterhead1265​ @starswirlblitz​  @untitled39887​ @ta-n-ja​ @deans-fallen-angel-boy @scarletluvscas @notnaturalanahi​ @tahbehonest​ @stay-in--place​ @dreaminofdean @posiemax​ @donnaintx​ @mikey1822​ @alexandriajanae4​  @li-ssu​ @just-another-winchester​ @obsessivecompulsivespn​ @emoryhemsworth​ @newtospnfandom​ @mizzezm​  @goldenolaf25​ @jessikared97​ @wh1sp3r1ng-impala​ @charliebradbury1104​    @queen-of-moons-peace-out-bitches @becs-bunker​ @atc74​ @lemonchapstick​

The Dean Beans:

@akshi8278​ @mega-mrs-dean-winchester​ @winchesterandpie​ @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester​ @carribear31​ @tacklesackles​ @oreosatmidnight​ @not-naturalfangirl​ @missselinakitty​ @iam-a-cutiepie​  @kristendansmith​ @milo-winchester-4ever​ @jensenackesl​ @codyshany316​ @pheonyxstorm​ @helllonearth​ @juniorhuntersam​ @pouterpufftrain​ @ruprecht0420​ @shut-ur-face-and-get-in-the-car @carriemichelle2012​ @aubreystilinski​

Series Rewrite Junkies:

@helllonearth​ @amyisabellal​ @deanwnchstr​ @caseykitten6​ @quixoticcat​ @supernaturalblogging​ @notmoose45​ @crowleysminion​ @mina22​ @tahbehonest​ @hadleymcallister2177 @destielsangels​ @spnhybrid @oreosatmidnight​ @valerieshubin​ @seninjakitey​ @flyonlittlewinchester​ @aubreystilinski​ @rocketqueeens​  @emilygracespellins​ @earthtokace​