#canonical stubborn views

[quasarzt]

ugggghh I love ur roleswap AU so much 😊!

thank you so much anon!! it’s been on my mind constantly. i’ve just been so busy with work that i haven’t had much time to actually draw lol.

anyway sketches and rambles :) using this ask as an excuse to drop this:

Roleswap meeting Canon. Imagine a friend you had for years, for a good chunk of your entire childhood, one you had a nasty falling out with that still hurts to think about to this day. And then suddenly, you meet a version of this person who’s essentially a version of someone if things were different, if they didn’t have the falling out and you had both still worked together. Imagine a version of a friend where they’re happier, they’re not using animals in their tech in a way that hurts animals. It’s basically seeing a what could’ve been type of thing. And it hurts.

I want to write a fanfic so bad about this, you have no idea. Just about roleswap in general, but also having the time trampoline malfunction and bring these two universes together. It would be PERFECT for character studies. AGHH.

[thedevotionaltour]

i havent even read enough gl to justify the feelings and emotions i have about kyle i just have the lovers heart and also something wrong with me. and my projection. in my mind he's just like me. and he would have loved college vending machine frozen cheeseburger and heating it up in the microwave at 1 in the morning because he was bored and didn't want to work on a drawing assignment on 20" x 30" paper that was due tomorrow in his freshman year. he would have loved going to the club to push off finals work that's creating the worst stress known to man in his brain. and he would love to annoy the fuck out of his roommate when high and avoiding homework on a saturday.

[brettanomycroft]

Sam fumbled Gwen’s Bonzo reveal… but he’d been primed to do so

I suspect that there's going to be a LOT of conversation around Sam after this episode, and since this episode was so good that I couldn't think of a meme or shitpost, I decided I'd throw my hat into the ring and do some character analysis instead. CW: Spoilers for The Magnus Protocol episode 18, "Solo Work" under the cut.

Episode 18 finally gave us the Sam and Gwen interaction I (and I think a lot of others) have been so desperate to finally see, and boy oh boy do I have Thoughts… none of which are new per se, but Sam’s reaction to Gwen dropping the Bonzo Bomb seems to have reinforced  the way I’ve been reading (and projecting in fanfiction oops) Sam, his personality, and his motivations.

Out of everyone new we’ve been introduced to so far, Sam has by far gotten the most explicit development and conversation around his personality. Even before episode 1, folks who participated in the ARG got a preview of our favorite baby shrimp’s personality through access to the child database spreadsheet that was, presumably, used to document the results of the experiments run on children participating in The Magnus Institute’s “gifted and talented program.” From this spreadsheet, we can gather that Baby Sam is logical, empathetic, works towards the benefit of others (prosocial), and fair… but also a rule follower and highly willing to follow the lead of an authority figure, even if it is in conflict with his personal views. The picture this information paints is an interesting one, but when taken in a vacuum leaves us with an impression of Sam as someone who is kind but lacking in backbone.

This idea of Sam as “kind but lacking in backbone” is further reinforced in canon, as Alice of multiple occasions rags on him for being “noodly” and “ickle fawn” and a “baby shrimp,” all seeming to highlight that Sam has the sort of helplessness about him typically ascribed to sopping wet kittens and baby birds. And I think that if we view Sam’s outburst when Gwen brings up Bonzo through this lens alone, it’s going to seem WAY out of character for him and a downright cruel response.

Now while I do believe that Sam is empathetic and fair and, sometimes, a little helpless, I’ve been inclined to believe from early on that much of Sam’s affable self-deprecation is a way to cover or soften what can be, at times, a tendency to be hard-headed, temperamental, a little manipulative, and petty (and I’m totally not just saying that as a people-pleaser-and-gifted-kid-in-recovery who has been projecting hard on Sam since Day 1). And it’s this second batch of personality traits, the ones that make Sam so real and interesting to me, that I think set up the disaster of a conversation between Sam and Gwen.

We have definitely seen hints of Sam’s hard-headedness and manipulative leanings in previous episodes: it comes out most often around Alice, showing his stubbornness in the form of refusing to give up his lines of questioning and curiosity about what is happening in the cases and at the OIAR; and revealing his willingness to manipulate a situation the form of subtly redirecting Alice’s focus away from prying into his crush on Celia and during the mocha incident (I have, of course, already explored Sam’s manipulative tendencies in my totally comprehensive shitpost).

And we’ve even been shown at times before episode 18 where Sam can be petty, his buzzed insistence that Alice try and keep things “professional” at work after his date with Celia being at the top of the list. The case headers filed for “Putting Down Roots” and “Pet Project” also suggest to me Sam’s ability to be stubborn and petty: in both instances, Alice and Gwen suggest a different classification than the one that Sam ultimately files. In the case of Gwen in “Pet Project,” she’s dismissive of him when he tries to ask if she’s all right.

While there’s no way to know for sure, I interpret this interaction as part of the reason why Sam ultimately disregarded Gwen’s suggestion for how to file the case—she shut him down and shut him out, and the petty part of his heart couldn’t resist ignoring her recommendation out of spite. This scene also begins to lay the foundations for Sam and Gwen’s interactions in episode 18 and, I suspect, the rest of the season.

So with all of this in mind, let’s look at episode 18. When Gwen emerges from Lena’s office, Alice has just finished shutting Sam down, again. Throughout most of this season, Sam has been desperate for some validation that the cases they are listening to are real, that whatever happened to him at The Magnus Institute was real, and that him pursuing this line of questioning and wanting to find answers isn’t a waste of his time. Alice has, of course, been not-so-gently nudging him away from this line of thinking for most of the season, while Gwen has been icing him out about it up until this point. Just about the only one who has given his questioning any air has been Celia who is, conveniently, not there. Even after Alice has her very own supernatural experience that is reaffirmed in the case Sam receives, she strongly pushes back on his idea that they should investigate and pursue this further. He understands why she doesn’t want to learn more, but it’s clear that he’s still frustrated at the end of the conversation.

Enter Gwen. Here, for the first time, it seems like she’s opening up about what is going on at the OIAR, and Sam is immediately hooked, even dropping his softer and sympathetic side when Alice tries to redirect with one of her classic barbs.

After being shut down time and time again, Sam is so eager for confirmation that there is more to all of this than meets the eye. And then Gwen says the B-word, and Sam loses it.

Sam is laughing here, but honestly? I think he’s angry, and his reaction is one of complete disbelief that Gwen would set him up like this just to, in his mind, take the piss out of him. He thinks that, at best, Gwen is having a breakdown and he’s once again being shut out or, at worst, Gwen is making a joke at his expense. Now, he’s used to being the butt of a joke thanks to being friends with Alice, but despite that we’ve never heard him call her an asshole the way he does Gwen. Temperamental and petty, turning around his hurt and anger over being stonewalled again and again to lash out at Gwen with his joke.

And honestly, can you blame him? (I can’t.)

Of course this wasn’t the ideal reaction. I have been waiting for Sam and Gwen to have a serious heart-to-heart about what’s going on forever, and Sam pretty much blew that chance without even realizing it. And I would be surprised if we get an apology out of him anytime soon, not only because this interaction is likely to push Gwen away from wanting to even be around Sam, but also because he’s not going to believe that Gwen wasn’t making fun of him or that Gwen isn’t having a delusional breakdown until he sees Mr. Bonzo with his own two eyes.

I also think this conversation would have gone very differently had Celia been there instead of Alice. Sam’s slew of psychological testing suggests he’s willing to follow the leader, and in this case he doesn’t seem immune to Alice’s general dismissiveness of Gwen. He may have even been primed to lash out at Gwen in this moment because Alice is constantly ragging on her; chameleon-like, he’ll take on the shade of the strongest personality when he’s on uncertain or dangerous footing. It’s almost a guarantee that Celia would have taken Gwen seriously, not only because she’s likely from or connected to the TMA-verse of horrors, but also because it was Celia who received the first Mr. Bonzo case. And had Celia been there to temper the disbelief, Sam would have absolutely been ready to hear Gwen out in full. I honestly cannot wait for Celia to be back in office; she’s going to walk in to these new, rancid office vibes like Troy from Community walking into the whole room on fire while casually carrying the pizza.

So, what do I think this means for the rest of the season? Well, the title of this episode seems telling: Solo Work. Gwen and Sam’s respective desires for their experiences to be validated and their goals to be taken seriously paired with the seeming dismissiveness of those around them are going to push them along their separate paths, dangerously alone. And I suspect that it is only going to be Celia or, more likely, an encounter with Bonzo, that is going to put them back on the same path—if it happens at all. Good luck, babes!

[midnightwriter21]

heyy :) can i request small scenarios of s/o asking the kny hashira what hairstyle do they like the best on them?? (like braid, ponytail, bun, hair down etc etc) some fluff!!

demon slayer hcs: which hairstyles do the hashira prefer

characters: obanai, rengoku, sanemi, muichiro, mitsuri, tengen, shinobu, giyuu

warnings: i say meanie words

an: giyuu’s kinda sucked lol i’m sorry. i don’t write for gyomei

OBANAI

i think obanai would prefer his partner to have a practical hairstyle

that way it doesn’t become an obstacle or even a danger if they come into contact with a demon

therefore he’d probably like his partner to wear their hair tied up in some way

whether it’s braided like mitsuri

or in a simple ponytail

as long as it’s outta the way and won’t become a safety hazard

bc with snake boy

your safety is his top priority

also!!

obanai is canonically down bad for his bae

so he’d also like his partners hair tied up so that it doesn’t obscure their face from his view

he likes to admire you

wants to see every inch of every expression that crosses your face

RENGOKU

i’ve said this before in other hcs but imma restate it here

kyo is the ultimate service bf

will do EVERYTHING for you

including doing your hair

that being said

i feel like he’d do your hair exactly the same way he does his

the lil half up half down thing he got goin on?

it’s the only hair style he knows how to do lmfao

but!!

if you don’t prefer that hairstyle he would absolutely learn how to do other ones

would prob ask mitsuri to teach him how to do hair

he just wants you to be happy with the way you look

SANEMI

BOYFRIENNDDDDDDD

he’s so gorgeous it makes me sick

my man’s likes long hair

now do NOT get it twisted!!

if you’re on a mission?

that hair better be tied tf up

ponytail, braids, bun, pigtails

he don’t care

but put it up

like obanai, your safety comes first

sanemi will tie your hair up himself if need be

it might get tangled… but it’ll be up

if you’re just chilling at the butterfly mansion or at his estate though…

he likes it down

he likes the way it flows down your back and frames your face

and when he’s feeling soft he likes to run his fingers through it

he thinks it makes you look more innocent and carefree

MUICHIRO

he does not gaf

at all lmfaoooooo

okay that’s a lie

kinda

i feel like he doesn’t really care about the length of your hair

or the exact style you wear it in

but i do think he likes face framing bangs

not for any real reason

just that it accentuates your facial features

it draws more attention to just how cute you are

MITSURI

oh you already know that y’all are about to be TWINNINGGGG

mitsuri is braiding your hair herself😤

i just know she’s so gentle with it too

she’s brushing your hair and detangling any stubborn knots

you don’t even feel the slightest tug on your scalp

did y’all’s moms ever pull tf outta your hair while they were doing ur hair when u were little?

i learned to do my own hair rly young cause she was so rough… just me? oh okay

ANYWAYS

yk when you used to plan to wear the same outfits as your friends when you were younger?

the whole “let’s both wear a skirt tomorrow” type thing?

that’s mitsuri but with your hair

and it’s every single day

queen

TENGEN

he does not have to be THAT fine bro tell the animators to calm down

ik they be animating him with one hand if ykwim lmfaoo

*ahem* anyways

another one that does not gaf what you do with your hair

as long as it’s ✨flashy✨

and by flashy i mean he wants it to be something that makes you feel and look confident

cause confidence is sexy af

period

now he does want you to keep up your hair maintenance

and by hair maintenance

i mean make sure that hair dye stays fresh

those split ends? trimmed

and keep that shit washed and clean too

other than hair maintenance i don’t think he’s that picky

every once in a while he might suggest a hairstyle he thinks would suit you

but ultimately it’s your decision

also i think he’s really good at doing hair

i mean the man has 3 wives already

if you think he’s not helping them style theirs… your wrong

SHINOBU

mommy? sorry… mommy?

i think she’d prefer your hair to be tied up in a bun

she likes to see your face

study your expressions

she likes being able to read you

things you like, dislike, and how you react to certain things

not only does she think you’re adorable

but she thinks your facial expressions are entertaining as well

she’s gonna help you do your hair

and she’s def the best at doing hair compared to the other hashira

she’s gonna have you looking good asf

not a hair out of place

GIYUU

water boy likes short hair

not super short

like below the chin but just barely above the shoulders

idk why i just feel it in my bones

also the cute wispy bangs covering your forehead

yeah

i can’t come up with a reason for this i just think it fits lmfao sorry

[certainlynotasimp]

Masterlist~✨

Retired Series

The Adventures of Sunny and Miggy (A Miguel O’Hara X Female! SpiderWoman! Reader Oneshot series)

Topics included: Grumpy x Sunshine, Fluff to the max, Miguel being a sweetheart, Trauma, slightly dark themes (not a dark fic, but topics such as child loss and traumatic experiences with death.), Established relationships?, pinning, slow burn?

TDLR: Who could possibly handle the stubborn, hot headed, arrogant hot leader of the Spider Society? His Sunny of course. Come see how these two just make it work.

((6/3/23: There is no chronological order to this at this point so read as you please))

Walking on Sunshine

Sweet As You

As Warm As You

Just A Bite

Come on, Baby, Cry

Grumpy Kitty, Soft Kitty

To Love and Hold

From Your Point of View

Our Girl

Just A Taste

Our Love ((Part 2 to Our Girl))

Dance With Me

Father’s Day ((2.5 to Our Girl))

Head Canons~

Miguel with an S/O with a black cat personality Miguel with an S/O with social anxiety

Miguel with a human civilian S/O ((also General relationship head-canons))

One Shots~

Cat Got Your Tongue?

[the-oblivious-writer]

Comfort Crowd

Core Four and Fem!Reader | Sam Carpenter x Fem!Reader

One-Shot: Social Media Au, No GF Au

Summary: Just you, the core four, and a few other scream characters being chaotic

Warning(s): Swearing, "kys" being thrown around (once & jokingly ofc), no gf au, best friend's older sister & age gap (sam is 25/26 & r is 19)

Notes: First time doing a social media au thing for a fic soo if you have any feedback lemme know. Hope you enjoy, this was honestly fun to make

3/7 for Seven Days Of Christmas

mindythegreat

liked by chadtheman_meeks, ambers_notafreeman, and 8,563 others

mindythegreat: can’t take these bitches anywhere @y/n @justalilguy

view all 8,432 comments…

chadtheman_meeks: I just know your asses are freezing 💀

>justalilguy: SHE THREW ME ASS FIRST

>y/n: THREEWW?? YOU JUMPED ON MY BACK THEN SLIPPED

>justalilguy: LIESS

>y/n: YOU CAN SEE IT SO CLEARLY IN THE FIRST PHOTO

>justalilguy: GASLIGHTER

>y/n: LITERALLY STFUP

chadtheman_meeks: now they're at it in the replies 😭

>ambers_notafreeman: LMAO

—

y/n

liked by justalilguy, chadtheman_meeks, and 4,127 others

y/n: we studying tf outa this exam 😤

view all 2,598 comments...

chadtheman_meeks: you spent the first 20 mins deciding on what playlist to use and then another 10 flirting with the librarian

>y/n: and you spent the first half hour giggling with liv on face time 🤨

mindythegreat: chad knows how to read??

>chadtheman_meeks: fuck you.

justalilguy: I see you've started without me 😒

>y/n: WE WERE SUPPOSED TO MEET LIKE TWO HOURS AGO??

>justalilguy: IT'S NOT MY FAULT MY ALARM DIDN'T GO OFF

>y/n: WE WERE MEETING AT 4 HOW MUCH SLEEP DO YOU NEED???

samcarpenter1997: @justalilguy This is the study session you slept through?

>justalilguy: sam?? since when did you have insta?

>samcarpenter1997: Mindy helped me set up an account

y/n: @justalilguy why have you never told me that your older sister is so breath taking? that's breaking girl code 😔

>justalilguy: no. just no. stay away from her.

>y/n: I was just making an observation? btw can I come over?

>justalilguy: NO.

>y/n: so in 30 mins work? great! tell sammy I won't be long

>justalilguy: YOU DID NOT JUST-

chadtheman_meeks: @justalilguy it's a canon event.

>not_ethanlandry: she hit on my sister too

>justwes: and mine

>livvy: mine too

>ambers_notafreeman: same.

>justalilguy: @y/n you have a fucking problem

—

y/n

liked by ambers_notafreeman, mindythegreat, and 8,752 others

y/n: bro's too stubborn to admit she needs help reaching the top shelf

view all 4,673 comments...

ambers_notafreeman: lmao she's so short not even tip-toeing would help her reach

>mindythegreat: rip amber

>livvy: was nice knowing you ames

>justalilguy: oh? well if I'm so short then ig I can't kiss you

>ambers_notafreeman: I didn't mean it in a bad way bby 😢

>justalilguy: there's a good way? please. enlighten me.

ambers_notafreeman: @y/n wat do I do.

>y/n: hm? oh, sry, I was too busy laughing at your ass being in the doghouse for the 3rd time this week 💀

>ambers_notafreeman: kys.

—

samcarpenter1997

liked by y/n, mindythegreat, and 6,732 others

samcarpenter1997: (sam? putting a caption? funny.)

view all 4,873 comments...

y/n: KSHFSKH I mean- Gorgeous as always 💕

>samcarpenter1997: Thank you! 🙂

>justalilguy: GTFO OF HER COMMENTS as for you @samcarpenter1997 wtf was that???

>samcarpenter1997: Your friend gave me a compliment. I literally just said thank you.

>justalilguy: since when do you actually reply to comments?? second of all, THE EXCLAMATION MARK AND EMOJI??? Sam. for you, that's basically jamming your tongue down her throat

>samcarpenter1997: I was just being polite, you're really overthinking this

>y/n: yeah, @justalilguy just listen to the drop dead gorgeous woman

>samcarpenter1997: @y/n Talking about yourself?

>y/n: oh!! 🤭

>justalilguy: I've died and this is hell.

—

y/n

liked by samcarpenter1997, justwes, and 9,892 others

y/n: me and my fav drummer boy @juswes are back at it again

view all 8,992 comments...

justwes: anything for my favorite guitarist 😊

>y/n: ❤️

chadtheman_meeks: I better be the first to hear it!

>y/n: was there any doubt??

samcarpenter1997: That guitar looks good on you

>y/n: bet you'd suit me better

>samcarpenter1997: We could test that theory

>y/n: oh, how I'd love to

>justalilguy: what. the. actual. fuck.

—

mindythegreat

liked by ambers_notafreeman, chadtheman_meeks, and 8,968 others

mindythegreat: LMAOO guess what she just walked in on

view all 8,572 comments...

chadtheman_meeks: I KNEW IT I KNEW IT

ambers_notafreeman: @justalilguy I just got your text, I'm so sorry babe 😭

>justalilguy: IN THE FUCKING LIVING ROOM

not_ethanlandry: I don't get it?

>justwest: same

>chadtheman_meeks: y/n and sam were making out and Tara saw them...

>justwes: OH...y/n's gonna be annoying asf now right?

>chadtheman_meeks: 100%

—

y/n

liked by samcarpenter1997, nik, and 6,432 others

y/n: LOST IN THE LABYRINTH OF MY MIND

view all 5,897 comments...

justalilguy: this is my new waking nightmare.

>chadtheman_meeks: I tried to warn you

>ambers_notafreeman: you should see the look on her face rn

nik: aww, you guys are so cute together 🥰

>y/n: thank you anika<33

not_ethanlandry: you said you weren't looking for a relationship?

>y/n: with you. I wasn't looking for a relationship with you

>not_ethanlandry: noted

mindythegreat: @ambers_notafreeman pay up

>ambers_notafreeman: @y/n you couldn't have waited another week before posting how down bad you are??

>y/n: the heart wants what the heart wants

samcarpenter1997: 🖤

>y/n: 🤍

>samcarpenter1997: Are you coming over later?

>y/n: ofc I am 😉

>samcarpenter1997: Then I'll see you later, beautiful

>y/n: skhfkhfksh see you 🥰

mindythegreat: @justalilguy weren't you just telling me you think they look good together?

>justalilguy: MINDY

—

chadtheman_meeks

liked by justalilguy, ambers_notafreeman, and 8,997 others

chadtheman_meeks: @y/n was supposed to put them in for 10 minutes...she put them in for 30 😐

view all 8,542 comments...

justalilguy: @y/n how tf do you mess that up

>y/n: I don't appreciate being attacked rn

>justalilguy: hm?

>y/n: ...I wanted them a extra crispy

>justalilguy: you're such a dumbass sometimes 💀

>y/n: actually I'm just a girl

ambers_notafreeman: @y/n aren't you always saying how you'd be a housewife for the right woman and shit

>y/n: that still stands!!

>ambers_notafreeman: how do you expect to do that when you can't even bake cookies??

>y/n: wow. I wasn't expecting such sexism from you- chad maybe but you? it's the betrayal for me 😦

>ambers_notafreeman: idk how I tolerate you

>chadtheman_meeks: um hello???

—

y/n

liked by justalilguy, samcarpenter1997, and 9,896 others

y/n: Merry christler🎄❄️

view all 9,047 comments...

-----------

A/N: Tara and R in a nutshell (poor chad getting caught in the middle)

[starry-bi-sky]

miscellaneous danyal al ghul things

specifically about the danyal al ghul from my post/prompt here and i wanna get my misc. headcanons/thoughts on him (especially in his early stay with the fentons) out here before i make any other danyal al ghul aus

list under the cut because whoops this got longer than i expected. which really i should have expected

the Fentons are unaffiliated with the League, which was perfect for Danny faking his death.

he struggles with empathy. Empathy was not taught nor encouraged while he was with the League, so it's a skill that's been pretty stunted. At 15 he's better at empathizing with people, but he still struggles with it. He's pretty bad at reassuring/comforting people and usually acts as an emotional rubber duck for Sam and Tucker to vent to if need be. He sometimes offers blunt and sometimes mean opinions, especially if its about another person.

Sam and Tucker do not know he's an ex-assassin, they are however, pretty positive that he used to be part of an eco-fascist cult with a focus on martial arts?? They've been helping him tone down some of his more,,, extreme views on humanity ever since they caught wind of his more extreme ideologies.

He and Sam are still avid environmentalists and feed into each other quite a bit. They spend plenty of time at protests and pestering the school into more eco-friendly options.

Dash is not dead on the sole fact that Danny knew he had to lay low in Amity Park and killing someone was not, in fact, 'laying low'.

he did, however, traumatize him when Dash first tried to bully him. Safe to say, Danny is not bullied at school and neither are Sam and Tucker.

Danny didn't make any friends in his first year at Amity Park. He was surly, grumpy, standoffish, more stubborn than Sam, and pretty self-important about himself. Jazz was trying to teach him against these things, but she is a 12 year old unaffiliated with the League. Danny did not respect her nor listen to a word she said. It wasn't until like, year two that he finally started paying to mind what she was saying and slowly started to improve on himself

Sam approached him first, he rebuffed her quite harshly, and then Danny approached her sometime afterward when he overheard her talking about environmental rights. Sam completely ignored him though when he agreed with her, and Danny had to later learn that he needed to apologize for being rude to her when they first met. He did so eventually, and they started to talk more with Tucker and Sam.

Danny's a bit more reserved than he is in canon, although he steadily learns how to act as a regular teenager when he's out in public. He's a bit more friendlier at least, although when he's around Sam and Tucker he drops the act. He still has a somewhat formal way of talking, it's just become more casual after a lot of ribbing from Sam and Tucker. When he's angry or annoyed he starts talking poshly though.

His humor is relatively the same as in canon, if somehow dryer and more insulting at some points

Those rare moments where he gets really pissed usually ends up with him insulting someone in arabic or any of the other languages he picked up from the league. He is the go-to for Tucker's Spanish homework. (Tucker makes that mistake and learns that Danny is a very strict teacher)

while Danny doesn't view the Fentons as his parents, even five years after living with them, he does respect them to some amount. He respects them enough at least that when Vlad Masters comes sniffing around, he is suitably offended on both Maddie and Jack's behalf. And when he finds out Vlad was the one who tried to kill Jack and tried to tell him to renounce him as his father/parental guardian, danny threw a suitably sharp object at him and insulted him quite horrendously

Vlad still wants him as his kid. In fact perhaps even moreso after this.

Danny trains with Maddie to keep up with his training. It's not quite the same but it prevents him from getting completely rusty

Sam and Tucker know that Danny has a little brother, but nothing else beyond that other than Danny cares about him quite a lot and that he got his facial scar from keeping him safe.

Danny cares about Sam, Tucker, and Jazz quite a bit, but he struggles to convey it. Especially early on when he realized he cared about them and like instinct started being harsher to them and more critical of their actions. This resulted in quite a few arguments with Sam and Tucker and Jazz until he got sat down and told outright that the way he was treating them wasn't okay. It's a process he's still trying to unlearn even at 15. He has become kinder towards them as a result, and has begun looking for what they did right rather than what they did wrong.

He harbors a lot of guilt over how he treated Damian in the League, and its a pretty big conflict he has with himself since he's torn between telling himself it was for the best to make sure Damian survived the League, and feeling like crap over how harsh/critical of Damian he was and realizing that he probably could have come up with a better way of training him despite being a child himself at the time. Danny comes to the realization that more than anything, that he just wants to apologize.

His ghost form, specifically is outfit, is a combination of his hazmat suit and his uniform from the league, and he carries a sword with him. He also doesn't know how to react to Dani, honestly. Although it is fair to say that he figures out she's a clone instantly because of her whole 'I'm your third cousin once removed' thing and he freaks out. She spills the beans pretty quickly after that. And Danny is pretty skittish around her - or the equivalent of skittish. Her being younger than him kinda reminds him of Damian, so he's uncomfortable by her presence but learns to warm up to her.

[writing-for-life]

The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known

Or: Does Morpheus really have commitment issues?

[Bear with me, I’ll get to this panel 🤣]

I’ve read many times that Morpheus supposedly has commitment issues, and it always has me scratching my head a bit…

I personally rather think he is desperate to commit. He so badly craves a serious relationship that he is prone to rush into it and build it on wonky foundations, but he has certainly no commitment issues as we would commonly understand them.

Is it in his nature though to be truly seen and understood when he is [a] Dream? And can dreams ever last? These are the much more interesting questions in my view. Let’s have a look at the romantic relationships we know of…

Killalla: Walked out on him. That wasn’t his lack of commitment. If anything, he came on a bit strong while she was still assessing her feelings for him.

Alianora: He fully committed to her despite basically being bullied into it by Desire. And they were happy for “a goodly while”. For those in doubt: “Goodly” doesn’t mean “a bit”. It means “great, large, long.” And the fact that Alianora couldn’t go back to her own plane because she had stayed in the Dreaming too long corroborates that they were together for a long time. Probably longer than any human relationship ever lasts, because I doubt “a long time” means “a couple of years” for someone who is 12 billion years old.

And now I’ll sandwich the relationship we hardly know anything about between some random (?) panels to also make a point why I think it might sit here in the timeline…

Titania: Who knows. Sounded like an affair, and as if they both had no intention of committing. He was clearly very fond of her though, and I can never shake the feeling that we should look a bit deeper into AMND and find the parallels between Auberon, Titania (not hard, and they are pretty much pictured as estranged) and Bottom. There are many ways to get confused with a jackass, you know? 🤣 Plus, Bottom is the one who gets to play Pyramus in “Pyramus and Thisbe”. That’s the ultimate blueprint for “Romeo and Juliet”: Ill-fated love of catastrophic proportions, people are dead by the end of it. That’s why I often wondered if the affair with Titania was actually pre-Nada, and the inspiration for Shakespeare wasn’t random (it wasn’t random for The Tempest either). I mean, it wasn’t random anyway because it was a parting gift, but I also don’t think it was entirely random with regard to their relationship. Wild head-canon of course, but maybe not that wild (he also says that Wendel’s Mound was already a theatre before humans walked the earth, so there’s that)? And even if he wasn’t committed (we quite frankly don’t know if he intended to but she didn’t or couldn’t), she and the Fae meant enough to him to give them a play as a parting gift.

Nada: Killed herself after one night, but that wasn’t down to lack of commitment on his part. Again: If anything, he came on far too strong, wanted to be with her and was far too pushy about it.

Calliope: We don’t know how long they were together before they had Orpheus. Could have been a while, could have been only a shortish time. But even if we assumed they had him fairly quickly—they were still together when Orpheus, who was mortal, got married to Eurydice, so even if he got married young, we’re still talking something in the realm of +/- 20 years, and that’s the absolute low-ball-estimate. And while they had started to drift apart (considering what we know from Calliope), they were still on good terms and had no intention of splitting up until the whole Orpheus drama caused a rift they couldn’t mend. Again: That’s not someone who has commitment issues. It’s a relationship breaking down over hurt, stubbornness and grief.

Thessaly: Again, she was the one who left him and caused his dramatic interlude in the rain. Were they ill suited? Yes. Did she feel neglected and went into a strop over it? Yes. Did he not get that she felt neglected? Also yes, but that’s not lack of commitment. That’s his not getting that people aren’t mind readers (must be hard if you’re probably one yourself 🤣) and, by and large, need assurances of love. He doesn’t get that these women don’t understand they have his love; he can’t grasp that line of thinking because it is all so clear to him when he loves someone: They have him, what’s the issue? Is that a not so great way of (not) communicating when you’re having a relationship to someone? Absolutely. Is it a commitment issue though? Absolutely not.

I think Morpheus doesn’t really have commitment issues in romantic relationships—wouldn’t that almost be antithetical to his nature? Rules and responsibilities. Yeah, about that one…

What I do think is that he struggles with the mortifying ordeal of being (not) known by his lovers. Because how could he? He is Dream. That is his problem. Dreams cannot be fully known or understood. He is very eloquent but at the same time a very… confusing communicator. I don’t want to say “bad”, because I feel that’s not getting to the bottom of it. Again, it is the nature of dreams to be confusing and strange, open to (mis)interpretation, hard to grasp and understand. And they also stop being dreams once they become real. All of that is true and hence makes relationships both hard for him and those involved. Is he truly not willing to commit though?

I still find that hard to believe…

[angelbarelywrites]

♡ scenarios | dating billy

♡ fandoms; The Boys

♡ characters; Billy Butcher

♡ reader; gender neutral

♡ cw; explicit sexual content

♡ notes; he’s the bane of my existence + love of my life tbh

reader isss implied to be working with Billy and in my mind a supe but i made it ambiguous since i didn’t write a meeting section :v but i love the idea of Billy falling for a supe so much

•┈••✦ ❤ ✦••┈•

I. Kisses/ PDA

> he doesn’t like PDA…or at least that’s what he claims

> Frenchie and Marv give him shit- and Hughie is so supportive it makes him angrier than the others giving him shit

> but tbh they’re all happy to see him happy, and he knows that somewhere under that thick skull off his

> so when you give him a kiss or hold his hand or hug him in the base he grumbles, but he never pushes you away or actually complains

> and sometimes he’ll haphazardly pull you against him without saying a word, cheeks a bit pink as he mumbles something into your hair

> usually a ‘good job’ if it fits the occasion, otherwise a comment about how his coworkers are idiots

> now undercover, it’s a different story

> everyone is a potential threat then- and even worse, everyone is potentially going to bother you

> if he even gets a whiff of someone looking you over he’s got an arm around your waist and a hand not so subtly on his holster

> if you want to get any actual surveillance done you have to shoo him away so he doesn’t scare anyone off

> and even then he’s checking in way more often than he needs to

> it’s hard to get mad at, because it’s sweet in his stubborn, assholeish way

> and if you don’t care about surveillance it’s easy to get him riled by playing into it

> and then he’ll kiss you hard right in front of whatever chucklefuck was eying you

> “hope he’s enjoying the bleedin’ view”

> he’s a big cuddler when you’re alone- another thing he’d never admit

> but he loves when you snuggle up with your head on his chest, listening to his heart and nearly dozing while he goes through files

> or when you’re exhausted on the van ride home and make sure no one is paying attention as you hold with his hand in the front seat, rubbing his probably bloodied knuckles and pressing soft kisses them

> he likes your little late night rendezvous the best, though

> you’re both bad at sleeping, so most nights in the base he’ll find you in the kitchen near midnight brewing chai

> you’ll be sitting on the counter in one of his shirts and smile brightly despite the bags under your eyes

> and then when he comes over and puts a hand on either side of you, you trap him in your legs

> the kisses are sometimes heated, sometimes chaste

> but either way you enjoy the tea, and spend the rest of the restless night together

II. Sharing a bed

> when you’re all living in hiding, space is tight under the pawnshop

> you’ve both got shitty little twin beds, and he’s always complaining about space

> but the nights are getting cold and the heater barely works, so you hatch your evil scheme

> evil scheme might get giving it too much credit. like way too much

> all you plan on is asking to snuggle and never leaving his bed

> but he’s taking forever to get whatever he’s doing done, and you’re tired

> no biggie, you’ll just crawl in and wait for him so you can ask

> the next thing you know it’s two a.m. and he’s nudging you

> “oi. who said you could be in here?”

> you whine and give him the biggest pout, eyes all hazy from sleep

> and not wearing all that much either

> he sighs but you can hear the smile in his voice “c’mon then love.”

> before you can scooch over he’s pulling you on top of him completely, making you feel tiny on his broad chest

> he tried not to seem too delighted when you’re there again the next night

III. Let’s get kinky

> listen. i swear i don’t think every character has a daddy kink. just all the ones i’m super attached to

> but he canonically referred to himself as daddy and that’s not leaving my brain anytime soon. so.

> he refers to you as so many sweet nicknames- and he likes to pair them with a healthy mix of degradation and praise

> “you’re a filthy fuckin’ whore aren’t yah sweetheart?”

> his default is rough. he’s a frustrated man, and he’s been pent up for a while now

> but you can take it. probably.

> he likes choking. and spanking, he loves when you’re a brat and he can bend you over his knee

> mostly because then he can finger fuck you right then and there when he’s done and make you a complete mess

> if you wear makeup he thinks it’s twice as nice with your lipstick smudged and mascara running down your cheeks

> and you look prettiest to him on your knees, already a bit teary and sucking on his fingers until you’ve earned the real thing

> he wants to breed you so bad it makes him look stupid. (tbh not literally, even if it is possible, but god the dirty talk is so good that it doesn’t matter)

> his favorite position is reverse cowgirl- he loves seeing you whine and slowly ease yourself onto him

> and to me- he’s an ass man lmao, he loves watching it as you bounce on his cock

[heizlut]

Hidden In The Sand

cw: none, very fluffy, kinda angsty?

tags: fem!reader, canon!rafayel, pining

m!list here

The gentle sea breeze and the sound of waves rushing up to the shoreline filled your senses. Rafayel insisted on taking you to Whitesand Bay by his home, stating that he wanted to avoid the unfinished paintings that were scattered about his place. He claims that if he can’t see them, they disappear from his mind and he can have a break from the constant self pressure. After rolling your eyes at his statement, you relented and joined him. It’s not like he was going to give you much of a choice anyways, especially with the childish pouting he tends to resort to when he doesn’t get his way.

The two of you walked along the shoreline, shoes in hand, as Rafayel rambled on about anything and everything. You listened half-heartedly, more immersed in the relaxing sensations that came with being by the water. You stop without telling him, your eyes lingering on a pink-white shining clam stuck in the sand.

“And then you know what I said next? I-”, Rafayel stops, finally noticing you weren’t right beside him anymore. He turns around and sees you kneeling down in the sand, retrieving the clam you had spotted and he pouts, “Hey, I was in the middle of a very important story and you’re more interested in some clam?” You raise an eyebrow at him and chuckle, “Jealous of a clam now?” “Hmph…”, Rafayel crosses his arms and deepens his pout, looking away from you.

You go back to studying the clam then bring it close to your face and whisper an apology to it before opening it. Inside is a small beautiful pearl and you smile at your find, softly thanking the clam. Rafayel finally looks back to you and his expression melts when he sees the way you look at the little pearl, not missing the way you had apologized to it and thanked it. Everything you were doing was like a tug in his heart. Why were you always so kind, especially to things that could not return the appreciation?

Also, why couldn’t you look at him with such adoration…? When you straighten up and hold out the open clam for him to see the pearl, he pouts again, “It’s just a pearl. What’s so special about it?” Now it’s your turn to pout, “It’s nice that a clam can produce something so beautiful.” When you bring your find back closer to you, Rafayel huffs out a breath and hold out his hand, “Fine let me see it. Maybe I’ll see it in the way you do.”

Stubborn as you are, you refuse, “Nope, you lost your chance! Find one for yourself.” He huffs again and looks away, “Nevermind then. I didn’t want it anyways.” You glance at him. Rafayel’s purple locks gently ruffle in the sea breeze and he looks to you from the corner of his eyes. He looks slightly startled when he catches you already looking at him, “What?” You smile a little, “If you don’t want the pearl, then what do you want?” The question throws him off guard. He blushes to his ears and turns his head from your view, “I’m perfectly fine without anything.” You just shrug and tuck the clam and pearl into your bag, “Should we continue then?”

Rafayel only nods, not exactly wanting to speak as you two continue down the shoreline. The answer he really wanted to give to the question of what he wanted was ‘You’. But how could he say that? What if you didn’t return the sentiment? He pauses. Why wouldn’t you return the sentiment? He was the most handsome man, there was no way you could turn him down.

Rafayel laughs to himself at the battling thoughts in his head, earning him an amused but slightly confused look from you, “What’s so funny, Raf?” The nickname makes his heart flutter and he fumbles over his next words, “I-it’s nothing..” He clears his throat awkwardly and puts on a smile, “Let’s just head back, I’m bored now.” You roll your eyes as you laugh, “Typical. But do you really want to go back where you’re forced to face your unfinished works”, you tease. “Ugh. Don’t remind me. I’ll be up all night trying to finish which means you have to join me and make sure I don’t fall asleep”, Rafayel plays right back with a smirk. You raise an eyebrow, “Oh is that so? And what if I fall asleep?” He gives you playful look, “Then you wouldn’t be a very good bodyguard, would you?”

Hours passed and it was late into the night. You tried so hard to stay awake as Rafayel did his best to finish his art pieces, but ultimately you had fallen asleep on his couch; your hand lightly holding onto the little clam. “Suddenly so quiet… You’re never this quiet. What are you-”, he cuts himself off when he faces you, taking in your sleeping form. He smiles softly to himself and lets out a breath, crouching down by your face.

Rafayel gently tucks a stray strand of hair behind your ear as he admires you. His eyes fall to the clam and he feels an ache in his heart. His smile falls a little as he remembers the way you admired such a silly little thing. Why couldn’t you look at him that way? Have you ever looked at him that way? Rafayel sighs, running his fingers through his wavy hair as he straightens back up. He turns to the piece he was working on, now losing touch with it and his eyes laze over to a blank canvas.

There’s another tug in his heart when he feels newly inspired to create something different. The brush glides against the canvas as various yellows, blues, whites, and browns cover the canvas. Several hours later, he steps back and admires the first finished painting he’d completed in a long time. The ache in his heart is back as he studies it, but he does his best to ignore it and goes to his own room to sleep.

It’s not much later when you finally wake up, fingers grazing the clam that holds the beautiful pearl. When you sit up and rub the sleep from your eyes, the first thing that greets you is the new painting.

It’s you. On the beach, with your painted hair blown softly back in the gentle breeze as you look at your open clam and pearl with the most beautiful, adoring expression on your face. In the corner of the painting, there is an outstretched hand that reaches for you, as if it was begging for the attention of the painted version of you…

[lxmelle]

Gojo’s letters & the implied parting message (Part 2)

I came across a view on Twitter (now X) that was interesting that I probably would have never thought of myself. While I may not agree with it 100% on its own, I can totally see the value in it and I wanted to share it here, seeing as how others may appreciate the perspective too. I’ve added my own thoughts which you’re welcome to read… Then you can make up your own mind about your personal interpretation 😊

So the sentiment is as follows:

At the end of HI, past-Gojo casually went up to Megumi to tell him that he killed his father, showing us that he is a little tactless. But, upon being told what Megumi wanted, he respected that Megumi didn’t want to know and accepted this for 10 years.

Despite that; however, we can infer from things we have been shown that he has always wanted Megumi to know. He was probably waiting for a good time. (As we know, Gojo doesn’t really impose his view onto others.)

Knowing there had to be a time where this message was delivered, he prepped the letter that would only be delivered if he (Gojo) died.

And what better timing & purpose, if it could help Megumi absolve any guilt he might have over (his body) killing Gojo? (Because him being dead meant Megumi likely killed him, thanks to Sukuna.)

According to the person whose Twt I read, they felt that Megumi’s laughing reaction was due to Gojo’s uncharacteristic consideration for him.

In other words, he was relaying it after he died to Megumi as a way to say: You got this cuz I’m dead. “And if you think your father is out there somewhere, he isn’t. It was me who killed him. Soz!” So don’t feel guilty.

Hm. Well, this was kind of echoed in at least another tweet and there were a few who made it out as if this was a fitting interpretation.

I also gathered from my last post on this subject, that Megumi was chuckling out of fondness, like “Geez, that’s so typical of you, sensei.”

But I do personally think it’s important to underline the fact that Gojo has always put in the effort to understand people even if he struggled to show it, or showed it clumsily. (Just like, “have you had too much somen?” - as said to Geto, back in the day.) So maybe it seemed uncharacteristic to Megumi, but I hope as a reader, we understand that Gojo had his own ways of being kind.

After all who can blame him if he didn’t quite fully understand what it meant to have blood family, being separated from his own? Born as an anomaly - a mutant amongst mutants. Who felt like others (flowers) couldn’t never comprehend a creature — and who could, unless they were bestowed with some monstrous skill themselves? (Like Geto, and Gojo had hoped, Sukuna... but the latter clung onto his stubborn self-protective belief of not needing “love” (compassion) until the very end, choosing to die instead of taking Yuji’s hand - another post on this another time).

And Gojo, after having been told last words from Toji and Geto about the importance of family, he may have gathered that it was better for Nobara and Megumi to know, than to have it concealed from them. Hence, the letters.

Know your family. Then decide who your family really is.

My own thoughts about the theory are as such: Gojo may have really wanted to tell Megumi that it was he who killed his father, because this was the only person he killed without a reason. (…that we know of: Gojo was canonically shown to have only killed two humans - Toji & Geto).

After Geto left, the parting message was: “don’t kill anyone other than me” - in other words, don’t do what I did, because that will make you lonely. If you need to kill, kill if there is a clear purpose or meaning in it.

This was his last lesson delivered to Gojo. We know his parting phrase was imbued with meaning due to everything we saw in HI and the draft words that Gege released from chapter (78) - important enough to make it to the exhibition and Gojo’s JUMP GIGA Character Book.

Geto played a significant role in him smartening up, how to connect with others, how to empathise with people, to think about what his responsibilities were as someone with strength.

So Gojo telling Megumi this was almost as if to say: you can stop wondering about him now; you weren’t left behind. I killed your father. You don’t have to feel responsible for it because there was meaning in it too.

In words Gojo might use: I killed him, you killed me. We’re even!

I guess it’s not only because Megumi couldn’t help it being Sukuna’s vessel. But also that he avenged his father’s death. All of Megumi’s thoughts relating to his father and Tsumiki as above: Retribution, karma, discipline… fairness and Megumi deserved happiness too.

And he chose to live again, starting by living for Yuji. A new purpose… he didn’t want Yuji to be lonely.

A loneliness I think he knew all too well.

He can add on more family after that. Nobara. Etc.

That’s it I guess. Thoughts?

[nalgenewhore]

give her his onliness

elide x lorcan, canon-divergence/circus era, NSFW + feelings, shifting allegiances, word count: 5347

It’s hot, and the smoke in the air mixes with the humidity to form this oppressive fog. 

Lorcan feels like he hasn’t had a full lungful of air in days. The weather tightens the lead on his temper, and he’s forced to bite back a snappish remark every other minute. 

He’s laying on the riverbank now, his shirt, boots, and socks discarded beside him. Once the sun goes down, he’ll be forced to put on that sticky, dust-collecting oil and go back on that pathetic stage to entertain the peasant masses. He is not a gifted nor humble performer, but that doesn’t deter the bold and foolish few who proposition him after. 

As if he could want any of them. 

He knows now what it means to really desire someone, and not only as a means for his pleasurable ends. Since that night in the oracle’s tent, he thinks of one thing only, dreams of one thing only.

There's rustling in the trees across the river. He slits open his eyes, making no other movement, to find the subject of his desire. 

Elide puts her hands on her hips. His lips twitch - she’s so wondrously stubborn, a trait he would loathe in anyone else. She actually bared her blunt teeth at him once, the brave little thing. 

“I know you’re awake,” she accuses him. “We have work to do, you know.”

Lorcan shuts his eyes again. “I am not eager to return,” he says. “If you are, feel free to go.”

The next thing he hears is a soft splashing, and then she’s standing over him. Elide drops her skirts. “What are you doing?”

“I believe it’s called relaxing.”

She nudges him with her foot, and faster than she can react, he captures her ankle. She gasps, hopping slightly to retain her balance. Lorcan lets go when she stumbles so he can catch her falling. Elide glares at him. “You did that on purpose, you brute.” Her small palms are pressed into the muscles of his chest. 

“Sit,” he says. “Relax.” He sets her down on the rocks beside him. “We have time.”

Elide huffs a humourless chuckle at that. They don’t, really. They can pretend they do, they can carve it out of stone. He sees the tension around her eyes melt; she relents in silent agreement. 

She exhales a sigh that’s too weathered. Lorcan reclines once more and reaches out to press his hand against her back. It may seem casual to an outside view, but the touches between them are never casual. She relaxes when he strokes her spine with his thumb. “It’s too hot,” she complains.

“Take off your clothes.”

“Lorcan!” she snaps, twisting to glare at him. The heat makes her irritable. 

He lifts his hands. “I won’t be anything less than a gentleman.”

“You don’t know the meaning of the word.”

He chuckles, “I am not propositioning you. It’s hot, and the river is cool. Bathe in it.” Her eyes are still narrowed. “I won’t look.”

For some reason, that doesn’t eliminate the irritation lining her face; it switches to something else, equally bothered. Lorcan shuts his eyes, too tired to decipher whatever that means. He listens to her stand, and then articles of clothing drop onto the stones, something landing on his chest.

He keeps his eyes shut as she walks away, her steps uneven. Lorcan sends out a little strand of his magic to brace her ankle. Elide hums a bit, and the water splashes as she runs forward with a laugh he seldom hears.

It makes a crooked smile appear on his face. Her joy, to him, is something precious, which he doesn’t fully understand. For the first time in a while, not knowing something doesn’t bother him; he lets it be as it is.

“Lorcan,” she calls him.

“Hmm?”

She clicks her tongue, “Lorcan.”

She wants something, his attention maybe, and he knows it. He smirks to himself. “Yes?”

Next, she does something he doesn’t expect and splashes him. Lorcan sits up with a raised brow. Elide looks back at him with a coy smile, delight shining in her eyes. She moves her hands to splash him again, and he warns her, “Don’t you dare.”

Elide cocks her head to the side. “No?” She pushes the water harder, some of it hitting his torso. 

Lorcan stands up, fully ready to charge her and make her regret it, but something tears her gaze from his. She backs away, but not from him, with wide eyes. “Lorcan,” she whispers. He turns and sees that snivelling man, Nik, skulking in the brush. 

Anger rolls through him, and no small amount of fear - how did not sense another’s presence? Lorcan moves in front of the mortal man, his lips curling back from his teeth. “What do you think you’re doing?” He looms over Nik, ready to wrench the man off his feet, but Elide as his ever-present observer curbs his murderous urge. “Spying on another man’s wife while she bathes?”

“I- I--”

He reaches down anyway and pulls him to his feet so he can shove him backwards. “Leave, or I will rip your eyes from your skull,” Lorcan seethes. He lowers his voice so Elide can’t hear. “Do not push me, boy. If you think you’ve learned what pain is, I guarantee I can prove you wrong.”

Nik scrambles away, and the scent of his fear makes Lorcan’s nose wrinkle. He watches the man until he’s gone, then faces Elide.

She’s coming out of the river now, stumbling because her arms are wrapped around herself. Lorcan goes to help her. “Elide.”

She shakes her head and lets him pull her close till their bodies press together. Elide won’t look up at him.

“You’re alright,” he tells her.

She doesn’t respond.

Lorcan loosely holds the side of her neck, his thumb brushing her jaw. “Look at me,” he says softly. With a roll of her eyes, she does what he says. He strokes her jaw again. “You’re alright. I’ll always make sure of that.”

Slowly, she nods, her hand lifting to hold his wrist. “I know.” It seems like she means her words.

Whatever peace they found in this oasis has been ruined, and they won’t stay here anymore. He hands her his shirt to dry herself with, but Elide ends up donning it. Lorcan doesn’t let his surprise show as she folds back the sleeves.

He collects the water pails and doesn’t let her carry anything. They’re silent as they return back to camp. Nik avoids them, the only smart thing he’s done today. 

Lorcan has no time to talk with her more because Ombriel steals her away to dress her in that ridiculous costume and Molly snaps commands at him. 

✵✵✵✵✵

Outside, Molly rings the big bell to signal the end of the night’s show. 

Elide wears a brittle smile as she ushers her last customers out of the tent. The minute the fabric doors fall back into place, she rips the gods-forsaken headdress off. She hobbles towards the back where she stashed a jug of water and some cloths. The thick make-up she wears feels like a mask.

She wets a rag and drags it over her cheek, scrubbing at the white paste. She has no idea how something can be both oily and tacky at the same time. 

She’s so wrapped up in her need to feel clean that she doesn’t notice the figure approaching from behind.

A hand lands on her shoulder, and she nearly jumps out of her skin. 

Elide whirls around with a soft shout, her hand dropping to the knife stashed in her waistband. 

“Woah,” Lorcan says, realising his mistake. He backs away with his hands raised. “It’s me, just me.”

Her eyes fall shut. She sighs and reaches out to push his stomach. “Don’t do that.” Elide steps closer to him, needing a refuge. When Lorcan backs away, shirking her presence, she gives him a hurt look.

He shakes his head, explaining, “I’m covered in oil and sweat.” He rolls his shoulders. “I need to clean myself.”

“Here,” she passes him a few cloths and a jug of water.

They work side by side in tandem, cleaning themselves as best they can. Elide wipes at her face until no more white paste comes off. There’s probably more, but she’s too tired to care. She sits down at the table and stares into nothing while Lorcan finishes up.

He joins her a little while later, his long legs stretched out. He’s looking at her, but his gaze is just a little bit off-centred. 

“What?”

“You have some more,” he says. Lorcan reaches under her chair to tug it closer; Elide gasps through her nose at the display of strength. “Let me get it.”

She indeed lets him. He’s gentle with the rag, softly wiping the spot behind her jaw and her ears. 

He watches her face, depthless eyes tracking every emotion even in their absence. “What’re you thinking about?”

She rouses slightly. Her gaze meets his, hopeless and flat. “I can’t stay here,” she tells him in a hushed tone. “I have to leave.” Elide rubs her sternum with the flat of her palm. “I feel it - in here. I’m not safe.”

“Because of him?”

“It’s not just- today.”

“Where will you go?”

Elide swallows. “Anywhere. I’ll make it work, I’ll find another way.” She lowers her voice even more but knows that he’ll hear it just fine. “They look at us like we’re commodities, Lorcan. They’ll sell us out to the highest bidder.”

“So you’re going?”

“As soon as I can,” she vows.

Lorcan looks at her with heavy eyes, saying something she can’t quite decipher. He puts the cloth down. “It’s late. Bed?”

Her lips quirk with an appreciative smile. 

They stand up to leave together, and Elide slips her hand in his elbow. As they walk out, she realises belatedly that her companion is still shirtless. It wrinkles her brow. She asks, “Where is your shirt?”

“Sold it. Got a silver piece this time.”

“Look at you,” she teases, her worry lifted for a moment. “What ever will they do without you?”

Lorcan glowers at the straggling circus-goers that stare at him. They’re shameless, barely even noticing the male’s supposed wife hanging off his arm. His nostrils flare when he sees a familiar piece of black linen clutched against some blushing farm girl’s chest. “Do they have any shame?”

“No, none,” Elide shakes her head.

He mutters something about manners, and she stifles her laughter against his arm. Who would’ve thought that Lorcan Salvaterre could say anything about other people’s propriety? He shrugs off her touch so he can wrap his arm around her. She allows a smirk to show. 

They stroll past the caravan and go further, their tent near the forest line. 

Just as they’re almost out of ear shot, someone stops them. “Where’s your earnings? We settle every night.”

Lorcan looks over his shoulder with flat eyes. “You’ve had my wife working since sunup, and now we will rest. You’ll get your cut in the morning.” He’s almost daring Molly to say something.

Elide tugs on his belt.

He shifts his eyes to her, and she softly shakes her head, telling him to let it go. He lets out a long suffering sigh. She pulls him along with her, too tired for any more conflict. 

Once they’re in the tent, Lorcan puts up a shield of his magic so that it will block any sound or signs of movement from outside even when the candles are lit.

He takes off his boots and pants before reclining on the thick bedroll. Lorcan stretches his arm over his eyes, listening to Elide undress. 

She lets out a long breath as she kneels. She swaps her heavy skirts for his buttoned shirt, bare beneath it. Next Elide begins the painstaking process of taking down her hair. The one kind thing Ombriel has done for her is give her a little bag of pins. She pats her coiled braids to find each little metal twine and pulls them out.

Once she’s sure they’re all out, she tries to uncoil her braid, but it holds fast. Elide tips her head back in exhausted frustration, groaning.

She senses more than hears her companion sit up. He passes his hand up her back till it braces the back of her head. Elide mumbles as she turns into him, “Do it for me.”

Lorcan doesn’t say a word as he looks over her scalp, picking out every pin she missed. Which, as it turns out, is quite a few. She thinks he’s going to stop now, but he also undos her braid. Elide leans her cheek against his chest. They sit in a comfortable silence, and he starts to stroke her hair. It’s slightly awkward at first, like he’s petting something, but it becomes more natural soon enough.

He asks when she hasn’t moved for a while, “‘lide? Are you asleep?”

She hums, “Not yet.” She lifts her head up. “Are you tired, Lorcan?” He raises a brow. “Because I am. I feel like I’ve been tired all my life.”

It’s wrong, he thinks, for someone her age to be wearied. He should not feel that her soul mirrors his. “Lie down,” he says. “I’ll let you sleep.”

They both know that’s not the kind of exhaustion she speaks of. His side prickles, cold now that she’s moving away. He returns to his spot and watches her when she reclines, about a foot of space between them. She curls on her side, facing him. Lorcan reaches out, “C’mere.”

Elide’s eyes open quickly. She looks surprised as she eyes his outstretched arm, the space he’s providing for her on his bedroll. She goes to the protection he’s offering. 

Despite the difference in their size, they fit together so well. The dip between his shoulder and torso provides the perfect crook for her cheek. She hesitates slightly, not sure where to put her arms. Lorcan drags his fingers up her forearm till their hands meet. 

They remain silent now. Elide looks up at his face. The flickering candlelight casts shadows across his harshly hewn features. His cheekbones jut out, just as proud as the aquiline ridge of his nose. She swallows when she stares at his lips, full and round. 

She wants to feel them against hers once more.

Elide moves a hand up to his jaw and turns his face towards hers. His eyes open, just a bit, a question in them. Before he can ask it, she kisses him. It’s a little off - she’s still new at this, unfamiliar with the mechanics of it all. 

Lorcan responds slowly, guiding the embrace into something smoother, less choppy. Elide feels herself sinking into it. She cups his face as he pulls her closer. He shifts onto his side so there’s more room for her to be pressed against him. 

The hand that held hers moulds to her waist. 

Her breath comes faster when he forces them to part. He stays close, though, and they share the same air. “What do you want?”

“You.”

He rubs her side. “Like how you wanted me the other night?”

She nods, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth.

“D’you want to fuck, Elide?”

She recoils at the term, denying its aggression. “No,” she says. Her eyes search his. “I want to be with you,” she presses her palm over his heart, feeling its thunderous beat. “I want you .”

His face softens. Lorcan brings her back to him for a gentle kiss. She doesn’t know why he does that. It’s like he’s trying to force her back by being too harsh.

Elide lets those thoughts float away. She parts her mouth when his tongue slides over her lips. 

His tongue against hers makes that tight, expectant feeling return to her belly and lower. He slopes a hand down her spine to her backside. She inhales through her nose, exhaling with a soft moan. 

When Lorcan pulls his mouth from hers, she lets out a disappointed sound that he quickly soothes, kissing her jaw instead. She tips her head up for further access, her hand curling around the back of his neck. “Yes,” she sighs, biting her lip as he sucks at her skin.

He teases her with the edge of his teeth and finds that one sensitive spot. She shudders slightly. 

Lorcan hums against her throat.

That spark blooms in her centre, making her twist her hips for relief. His hand moves to her thigh so he can bring her leg over his hips. Elide swallows, her breath faster. Slowly, she rocks her hips against him. She could cry at the reprieve it gives her.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Take what you want.”

It’s not enough.

She realises she spoke aloud when he lifts his head, now helping her movements. “Is that what you need?”

Elide shakes her head, chasing his lips. “More,” she mumbles against them. The feeling of his shirt against her skin is too warm now, she wants to feel his flesh instead. She scrapes her fingers down his chest, following the dark hair that trails beneath his waistband.

Lorcan catches her hand. In a quick motion, he’s got her flat on her back, wrist pressed against the padded ground. “I can give you more,” he swears. “I can give you everything.”

She nods, wanting that. She thinks he’s going to kiss her again, but he props himself up on an elbow. Elide waits in anticipation.

He fingers one of the buttons on his shirt, asking her permission. Elide nods again, battling against the urge to rut her hips against his thigh. 

As the shirt falls from her body, the cool air makes her shiver. His gaze falls to her chest, as he’s wont to do. She smiles to herself, slightly smug. Unlike the other times that people gawk at her body, she likes seeing the desire force the black of his pupils to overtake his iris. 

Lorcan drags the backs of his fingers up her stomach till he can grasp her breast. She curves her spine into his touch, a gasp falling from her lips when his thumb circles the peak. He lowers his mouth to the other one, lapping at it before pressing it against his teeth. 

Elide moans loudly before slapping her hand over her mouth. 

He looks up, then softly draws her hand away. “They can’t hear,” he promises. “The shield blocks it.” A strand of his magic snakes up her leg from her ankle. It feels cool against her hot skin. The inherent danger behind it makes her grow wet like last time. 

She squirms a bit. He kisses the heavy underside of her breast and then tracks his lips lower, to the cradle of her hips. Elide pushes herself up onto her elbows, “Whatareyoudoing?”

His thumb strokes the inside of her thigh, soothing. “Do you trust me, Elide?”

She nods choppily because she does, but she has no idea what he’s trying to do now, nor why he’s so far down. Lorcan presses his lips to the hollow of her hip, making her head tip back. “Oh.”

“Last time,” he murmurs, brushing kisses across her pelvis to the other hip. “I used my hand, remember?” She huffs a laugh - how could she not? He grins against her skin, then nips at the delicate flesh stretched over her hipbone. “I want to use my mouth this time.”

“People do that?” she asks, purely curious. “You would put-” she gestures, “down there? How?”

“With my tongue,” he says, then drags it over the junction between her leg and centre. “Or my teeth,” he bites her and sucks to create a little mark. “And my lips.” He kisses her then, hands sloping to the undersides of her thighs. 

“But… why?” Elide feels her cheeks growing red. She’s had it in her head her whole life that her own body is something to shy away from, an unfortunate embarrassment to deal with.

“I like making you feel good. And it will, I promise.” 

Elide nods as she breathes hard. “Yes.” She crashes onto her back, her arms giving up. He guides her legs over his shoulders, and when she doesn’t know where to put her hands, he guides them to his hair.

She grips the silken strands with a hum. 

Her eyes fly open when his thumb splits down her slit, his tongue lapping at that spot. She moans a bit, eager to watch him. 

She tries to pay attention as he uses his mouth on her, but with every moment, that arousal within her heightens till he’s stroking her towards that end - the climax.

His tongue dips inside her, curling against the front for a second. Then, he’s pressing sloppy kisses against her cunt. Lorcan’s hum vibrates through her. Elide gasps, not quite sure she’s breathing properly.

Apparently she’s moving too much since he bars a corded forearm across her lower stomach. She tries to push her hips against it, but he holds her fast.

Lorcan sucks on that little bundle of nerves, flicks the tip of his tongue against it. 

She starts babbling, saying all sorts of stuff but what comes out are repetitions of his name and ragged breaths.

Her release catches her by surprise, so much quicker than before. She feels her body tightening again and she stops breathing for a second. Elide pushes up on his arm without realising how tight her legs are around his head. Her fingers find purchase in his hair to pull ; she needs something to keep her on this earth.

“Oh, my gods,” she cries out. “Lorcan, Lor…”

He rises above her, and her legs fall to his hips, calves lying across his backside. Lorcan joins slowly, busy with tracking kisses up her torso. She slips her hands to the sides of his neck when he presses his lips to hers.

Elide blushes, realising she can taste herself. She notices a second or two later that she doesn’t mind it, actually. 

She opens her legs to let his body fit between them. One of his arms slips under her body and he winds his fingers in her hair. Their bodies grind together. She can feel that hardness beneath his undershorts. It makes her bite his bottom lip.

Lorcan chuckles, “Vicious.”

She grins against his mouth. Feeling bold, she trails her hand down his stomach. She relishes the way his body shudders, his head bending to watch her hand. Elide scrapes her teeth against his jaw and pushes her hand lower. 

He groans, pressing into the contact. “Lochan,” he bites out, his voice rough. “I, fuck…”

Elide nods even though he hasn’t asked her anything. “Please,” she says.

They part so they can both rid themselves of all clothes.

When they come back together, he kisses her deeply. Elide holds his shoulders, relishing in the way his weight bears on her. 

Lorcan fists himself to slowly drag his cock up and down her sex. Small noises fall from her lips, muffled by his, as he teases her. She moves her pelvis in time with him. “Please,” she repeats. “I want it.”

He hums, notching the head of his length inside her. Elide swallows. “You want it?”

She nods and is rewarded by another inch. “You want me?” he asks.

“Yes.” The word escapes her throat, desperate.

He continues like that, teasing her with a slow entrance while he asks her questions, only moving when she answers.

Elide feels like her lungs are in her chest when she’s taken all of him. She can feel him in her, and the walls of her sex flutter errantly. She puffs out some air, her eyes unable to focus on anything.

“Breathe,” he tells her, stroking her side. “Elide, breathe.” He inhales and exhales dramatically until she starts to copy him, her gaze locking on him. “Look at me, just me.”

She exhales shakily as he pulls out to thrust back in. Elide swears she’s trying to focus on him, but with every roll of his hips, her eyelids flutter. She wants to lose herself to this feeling. Whatever moment of peace they can steal away, she wants to stay in it.

“Lor,” she moans out.

He slips his arm under her knee and pushes it closer to her chest. He hits deeper now, each stroke rubbing against that spot inside of her. “Elide,” he pants, “Elide, Elide, Elide, darling.”

His breath is ragged and his head bows to press their brows together. Elide arches her back with a moan when he thrusts into her, her hands squeezing his shoulders. 

“‘lide, I promised to keep you safe,” whispers Lorcan, panting. “Elide, don’t go, don’t fucking leave me.” His voice is that of a broken person. It sounds like he’s on his knees before her. The most feared male throughout the kingdom begging her to stay. “I—“ he cuts himself off with a pleasured groan, his hand sliding down from her waist to grab her thigh, “I want—“

She presses her lips to his, hoping her answer was clear through her kiss. It’s hungry and deep like she’s trying to meld them into one being. Lorcan responds similarly, stilling inside of her with his hips pressed tightly against hers. A lump of emotions form in her throat and her eyes sting with tears. No one has ever wanted her to stay, no one has ever pleaded for her the way he does. Nobody, nobody, nobody, in her whole life. 

Tears leak past her lashes, trickling down her temples. He must realise because he draws back with a sharp inhale. Elide makes a sound of protest, wanting to tell him to ignore it, it’s not the time—

“Darling…” he murmurs. He hangs his head in defeat. “Don’t tell me. If you’re going, don’t tell me.”

She blinks up at him, her hands cupping the sides of his face. “Look at me,” Elide says softly. 

Lorcan shakes his head, mumbling something indistinctive. He tries to shift, to pull out of her, but Elide tightens her thighs around his hips. 

“Look at me,” she repeats. 

He slowly drags his gaze up to hers. 

“You are stupid,” Elide says. His brows draw together and she runs her finger over the crease that forms. “You are the stupidest male that has ever existed if you think that I-“ her voice catches and she sniffles, “would leave you .” He raises his head, stricken with wordless surprise. She rolls her eyes, clicking her tongue. “Och, you’re making me cry.”

A small smile glimmers on his lips, and Lorcan dips his face to kiss her soft skin. “Forgive me, darling.” She hums neutrally and he slowly rolls his hips, pulling out and filling her again. 

Elide gasps wetly, still tearful. Her hands immediately grab his shoulders once more as she squeezes her thighs around his hips. She lets out a low moan, her head falling back, “Oh…”

Her arms wrap around his neck to pull him closer. In this new position, she’s barely giving him any room to move, but he makes do. Elide thinks that the last time they did this, her first time ever, it was pleasurable and he satisfied her, but now, this is something else entirely.

She sighs into his ear, then bites the lobe. Lorcan’s teeth press into her neck, long canines almost breaking the skin. It makes her tip her head back again; she wants him to do it. Instead, he simply kisses her pulse and whispers, “Not yet.”

A moan breaks from her throat, maybe it’s the implicit promise or his touch, but whatever it is, Elide wants more. She tries to squeeze her legs tighter, wanting him closer, wanting him deeper. “Lorcan,” she pants. She makes a frustrated sound.

“Mm, what? What d’you need?”

“More.” She swallows. “You, I need you.”

Lorcan swears to her, “You have me.” He’ll give her anything she asks for, go to any length to preserve her contentment. He’ll bleed out to see her happy smile, one she wears in utter serenity. Just to stop himself from telling her, he kisses her. 

Elide arches into him as she inhales sharply. She slides the pink tip of her tongue across his lips, which part on an exhale. Their embrace grows deeper and brings them even closer. 

His weight bears on her when he grinds his hips against her pelvis. Elide shudders a bit, feeling it float out there - it’s so close. She whimpers softly and pulls away to stare up at him. His laboured breaths fan over her cheek. 

An attempt is made to tell him, needing someone to ground her. Her mouth won’t form the words, though, and it gets harder to think, her mind fuzzy. 

Lorcan nods. He understands her. “I know,” he murmurs. “Just feel it, it’s alright, darling.” He fucks into her a little harder, losing his control, and she moans, a wild and loud sound. “Let it come, ‘lide.”

She shuts her eyes when her body starts to tighten. Air doesn’t leave her chest as easily, and she thinks she’s about to faint. “Please,” she sighs. “I,” she swallows, “I want it…”

Elide cries out his name as she finishes. He bites her at the peak and lets his canines break skin. She holds the back of his neck so tight her nails make crescents. Through it, his hips don’t still, which both prolongs her pleasure and overwhelms her scrambled mind. 

She gasps when he reaches his own end, pulling out quickly. Lorcan cums with his face in her shoulder, his fingers digging into her hard. Elide blushes when she feels his spend smearing across her stomach.

The tent fills with the sounds of their uneven breathing. They lie together as sweat and his release cools rapidly. 

Goosebumps appear on the sides of her thighs. She grunts softly, nudging Lorcan. His hand rubs the outside of her leg. “What is it?”

“I’m cold.”

He presses his lips to the purpling skin where he dug his teeth in. He whispers an apology that she shakes her head and pulls his face up to kiss. “Don’t, I wanted it.”

He groans with some frustration. They exchange soft pecks until she knows they must part. Elide hated this part last time. She felt alone the second his back turned, even though he was only fetching her a shirt and a cloth to clean her with. 

This time, she still feels off but doesn’t fear being abandoned. Her body sinks into the thick bedroll, and she hugs her arms over her chest to stave off the chill. She lets her eyes fall shut; they’re begging for it. If she tries, she still might not move at all.

“Darling,” he says softly. Her heart warms at the term, and she lets him pull her up. Lorcan tosses a scrap of fabric into the corner after wiping her stomach clean. Elide feels sluggish as he helps her into his shirt once more, a different one this time. He smooths her hair back.

She smiles a bit, then pitches herself against him. “Sleep?”

Lorcan hums in agreement and they lie down once more. She curls against his side. He’s never been one for intimacy post-coitus, but with her he wraps her in his arms so she’s pressed into his chest. A blanket covers them and could offer her sufficient warmth, yet he endeavours to keep her close. His hand fits in the cradle of her waist.

Elide idly traces the line of his collarbone, tiredness forcing her words to slur. “Will you come with me?”

“I will.”

“For how long?”

“However long you want,” he murmurs, a vow.

She wonders outloud, “What if I want you forever?”

“I will be with you always.”

She smiles against his hot skin and drifts off with a warm feeling in her chest. When they wake to steal away before the sun, she’ll realise that it’s hope.

✵✵✵✵✵

an: ive had the last scene rolling around my head for a while but didnt know where to fit it, so im pretty happy abt finishing this! we'll see if this writing/posting thing continues but i am headed into finals soon soooo boo!

tag list: @sassyhobbits @empress-ofbloodshed @celestialend @the-regal-warrior @shyvioletcat @icecream52 @elentiyawhitethorn @goddess-aelin @julemmaes @sunshinebingo (lmk if u want to be added/removed)

[despairots]

#𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐍: SATOSUGU

「 satosugu x star plasm vessel! gender neutral! reader 」

GENRE: fluff and angst at the end i think

CONTENT WARNING: swearing, can be viewed as romantic or platonic, r! is the same age as them, canon violence, r! sorta takes riko’s spot but it’s much different actually, r! is the star plasm vessel by force, r! dies i think??? (edit: theyre get reincarnated).

AUTHORS NOTE: sorry for the lack of posts!!! im working on 2 big projects and its been taking up my motivation :(

star plasm vessel! reader: who was forced to be the vessel for tengen and having no choice but to live their life to the fullest until they’re merged.

star plasm vessel! reader: who has no interest in being protected when they’re bounty gets posted and hearing the white haired boy argue against them and whining about how he didn’t want to do it in the first place.

star plasm vessel! reader: who’s extremely clever and is a burnt out prodigy.

star plasm vessel! reader: who drives satoru and suguru insane by telling him that you can take care of yourself and doesn’t need his or suguru’s support or help.

star plasm vessel! reader: who starts realizing that maybe their help isn’t so bad when they recapture r!’s caretaker and spend the rest of r!’s bounty time in okinawa.

star plasm vessel! reader: who starts realizing that their life will end when they get back to jujutsu high to merge with tengen.

star plasm vessel! reader: who still hasn’t finished their bucket list when they get to the barriers of the school and hides their sadness under ignorance.

star plasm vessel! reader: who gets shocked when they see satoru get stabbed through the chest by a man they once recognized.

star plasm vessel! reader: who watches the two strongest sorcerers time up to pull this man back from satoru before he tells suguru to take r! to tengen.

star plasm vessel! reader: who hesitates but reluctantly agrees and follows suguru with their caretaker right behind them, worry settled deep in their chest.

star plasm vessel! reader: who starts getting emotional and regrets leaving everyone behind and telling how they feel about merging with tengen to suguru.

star plasm vessel! reader: who suguru and satoru care about a lot despite how stubborn they were and who suguru and satoru warm up too.

star plasm vessel! reader: who suguru reaches their hand to in a way to tell them they could go back and live life the fullest with the two boys and r!’s caretaker.

star plasm vessel! reader: who suguru watches with wide eyes when a bullet goes through the side of their head when they were about to touch his hand.

star plasm vessel! reader: who’s the reason why satoru and suguru aren’t the same and the reason why suguru left.

star plasm vessel! reader: who gets reincarnated 2 years later and has the memory of their past life and tries to search for the two boys.

star plasm vessel! reader: who gives up the search before seeing the white haired man pass by them in the winter, a blindfold instead of the sunglasses they remember he had (r!’s the same age as him rn).

star plasm vessel! reader: who catches his wrist before he disappears once again and stares at him with wide eyes and muttering his name.

star plasm vessel! reader: who makes satoru’s memories of the past rush in when he hears you whisper his name a second time before you hug him, repressing your tears.

star plasm vessel! reader: who settles down in a nearby coffee shop with him while satoru tells them what happened the past years.

star plasm vessel! reader: who starts thinking it’s their life because of how late they realize that they wanted to live.

star plasm vessel! reader: who satoru tells that it’s not their fault and instead partially his fault because he couldn’t hold the man back to reaching you.

star plasm vessel! reader: who stays with satoru as the years go back, eventually being introduced to his students and getting mistaken as his s/o.

star plasm vessel! reader: who’s there when they see suguru for the first time in years with his arms slung around yuta’s shoulders, trying to convince him to join.

star plasm vessel! reader: who refuses the urge to hug suguru when they realize it’s not the suguru when they were 16 and instead a criminal.

star plasm vessel! reader: who suguru refuses to look at, afraid that the memory of them dying infront of his eyes replays again but still grateful that they were alive and there.

star plasm vessel! reader: who’s there when suguru dies and satoru silently weeping at the loss of his bestfriend and his one and only.

star plasm vessel! reader: who tries their best while comforting satoru and his other friend, shoko, who they met a few years ago prior to coming back.

star plasm vessel! reader: who feels a rush of cursed energy and realizes that suguru is back and completely different.

star plasm vessel! reader: who doesn’t believe it and wants to see it with their own eyes and goes to shibuya without anyone knowing.

star plasm vessel! reader: who watches gojo go unhinged with admiration, yet shock, in their eyes while he massacres the curses.

star plasm vessel! reader: whose eyes widen when they see suguru with stitches all over his forehead and comes to the conclusion that it’s not suguru.

star plasm vessel! reader: who watches gojo get lost in the memories of him and r!, and eventually drops his guard silently to the point where he gets restrained.

star plasm vessel! reader: who gets dragged out of their hiding spot by mahito while trying to thrash free, a scowl present on their face.

star plasm vessel! reader: who starts getting concerned when they’re dragged up to the feet with a knife against their throat, watching satoru’s face go to worry.

star plasm vessel! reader: who watches the interaction between satoru and “suguru” eventually getting shocked when the body of suguru starts choking himself out.

star plasm vessel! reader: who starts pushing against the body that’s keeping them from running when they see gojo’s about to get sealed.

star plasm vessel! reader: who gets hopeless when they see satoru no more and instead, inside the prison realm… until it falls to the ground.

star plasm vessel! reader: whose eyebrows knit when they see suguru’s body react to seeing them.

star plasm vessel! reader: who inches away with the same scowl when kenjaku nears his face close to theirs and commenting about how r! was the reason why everything went to shit in the first place.

star plasm vessel! reader: who eventually gets released by the commands of kenjaku and suddenly seeing a different view instead of the train station.

star plasm vessel! reader: who waits, and waits, until satoru is released from the prison realm.

[cry-ptidd]

Laura genuinely makes me so sad, like I cried all silly sometimes ago cause we have a similar past but I went on and she’s like you know..stuck and I wouldn’t want that for anyone :( even if she’s fictional and a killer. I just wish to be kind to her for a moment and tell her a lot of women or really humans feel her pain, that it didn’t turn all of us into monsters. I guess it’s why I’m attached to her because I get it I do, but also…why I hate characters that have SA in their backstory cause it’s really depressing. She’s an amazing character but I can’t help but still wish her punishment and somehow through it all. Peace. That she gets all the punishment she needs and gets some peace right after..a good for good slumber. Even if she doesn’t get that, or feel worthy of it.

This ask actually made me a bit emotional, im gonna be honest. It's one of the most sincere messages I've gotten i think? I am very sorry about what you went through and I will do the same thing you'd do for Laura and tell you to please remember you're not alone and that i believe in you as a person, and that you're still able to move ahead despite everything that's hurt you.

Laura is a character built on cruel irony and tragedy, and many of her aspects are an exaggerated version of views that i also have because of my own trauma (aversion to men, aggression, anger, spite, stubbornness) and the crimes and attitude that would make her an irredeemable character are here to kind of cement the fact she went way too far in her revenge and how being hurt an turn a person into a monster.

But, i rally have to agree with you. Holy FUCK do i pity her. She's not reveling in her evil, she's not actively trying to do more harm (not anymore), and she's just in a state of permanent self-loathing and isolation, where her punishment isn't satisfying to watch or even really clear. You don't really wanna root for her morally, you just kinda wish she'd just... stop. And take a long sleep. Just like you said, a proper, defined punishment, and then let her sleep.

I think this ask sealed the deal of me giving her a canonically somewhat "happy" ending? Maybe a mild one? Where she starts to settle down and indirectly heal alongside Integra and Seras post-canon. A household of damaged women growing alongside each other. Im sure her Creator can decide on a rightful punishment when she passes. Let's just give her a bit of leisure for now.

[hoseokslefteyebrow]

The Anomaly || JJK

Chapter 7: The Shibuya Incident

summary : In which you're isekai'd from your (own) parallel Jujutsu Kaisen universe to the canon universe.

wordcount : 2.5k

Pairing: Jujutsu Kaisen X Reader, eventually Character x Reader (idk who yet tho)

Masterlist | Next

[ Parallel Jujutsu Kaisen Universe ]

" Where are you even going at this hour? "

Sukuna glances up. He'd left the door to his room open, for no particular reason. 

Meanwhile, Megumi glances at the many cursed tools he's got spread out over his desk and bed. 

" M' gonna find the little shit. "

Megumi raises an unimpressed brow. 

" You've been looking for her for a while now. It's futile. "

Sukuna had expected the reaction. Especially from Megumi. Yuuji would've asked him to join, but he wasn't putting his 5 minute younger brother in danger like that. 

" Then I suppose I'm going for an evening stroll. Does that suit your taste better? "

Megumi blinks in annoyance. This is why he didn't get along well with Sukuna. He was stubborn, much like you. Megumi sighs, thinking for a moment before shaking his head. 

" Should I wake Yuuji and Nobara to join us? "

Sukuna glances at him in question. 

" That curse beat Y/N. And she's not weak. None of us have a change of beating this spirit alone. "

Sukuna and Megumi have a similar issue. They have a sincere issue in showing vulnerable emotions. This is probably the most sentimental they'd ever get with one another, and if you were here, you would be proud of them. 

Either way, Sukuna shakes his head. 

" We've beat cursed spirits in pairs before. The two of us will do. "

- 

Megumi doubts the two of them will do.

His eyes are wide, focused on the spirit in front of them. He's not sure if they found it or if it found them. 

" Heheheh. How cute. Two little Jujutsu students. " 

The spirit is laughing, mocking them as it looks down at them from their elevated position. 

Megumi's eyes widen, noting it's cursed energy. It was heavy, powerful. Megumi doubts this is a good idea.

" We should run." 

Of course, his pleas fall on deaf ears.

Sukuna is smirking at the spirit, his eyes wide in a kind of rage that even shakes Megumi. He knows Sukuna was a force to be reckoned with. Sukuna's heavenly pact made him one of the most powerful people around, even without cursed energy. With Y/N, he was unstoppable. 

" Where's the little shit?"

The curse raises a brow. ( Is it even a brow?), before catching on, its lips (are those even lips?), pulling into a grin.

" Ah, you mean that cute little girl?"

Something flashes in Sukuna's eyes. His hand reaching for his most powerful weapons. 

" What did you do to her?"

It's Megumi who asks, ready to summon Nue while Sukuna clicks the Chain of a Thousand Miles and Inverted Spear of Heaven together. 

The curse's eyes flash over the special grade cursed weapon. It knew it could exorcise it.

It knew it needed to avoid that from happening.

Nonetheless, it keeps up it's act, pretending to be as confident as before.

It crouches down, leaning its head on the palm of its hand as it looks at them.

" I sent her away. You won't be able to find her." 

Megumi's eyes narrow, before widening, realizing it's cursed technique.

" Rabbit escape!" 

As the shadows create a large amount of rabbits, Megumi grabs Sukuna by his collar  avoiding him from attacking. Sukuna is surprised. Annoyed too, but he trusts his classmate.

Soon enough, they're hidden away from it's view.

" It can teleport." 

" What?"

" It cursed technique must be some kind of teleportation. And it's range must be huge, considering we can't find Y/N anywhere. We can't exorcise it. We have to capture it." 

-

[ Canon Jujutsu Kaisen Universe ]

" So we're just meant to wait here?"

Takuma is the one asking the question you're all wondering.

Nanami nods.

" Yes. Our job is to exorcise a spirit if he misses it."

" That sounds awfully boring." 

" We could help him. It's a group of special grades right?"

You try your luck. You never know how it will end up after all. That feeling of unease still in your stumic.

Takuma grins at you.

" Ah right, you're from a completely different universe right? You don't need to worry. Our Gojo sensei is the strongest!"

He's beaming, yet you don't share the sentiment.

" That shouldn't mean that he has to carry that burden alone."

Nanami's eyes widen at your words, studying your expression. Nanami has met a lot of people. He's never heard anyone say words like those.

" Is your Gojo the strongest as well?"

You nod.

" Yes. He's quite the same. "

" Ooeh, what about me? Have we met in your universe?"

Takuma can't help himself, curious about where you're from.

" Yeah. We've done a mission together actually. " 

Takuma remains excited, asking you multiple questions about your own universe. You answer them as best as you can. After a moment, it falls silent again.

" Hey Megumi, where's Nobara and Yuuji? I thought they'd be with us."

He shakes his head at your question.

" Yuuji is on Mei's team.-"

His eyes glance towards Nanami subtly, like he wants to add something. He seems to decide against it, continuing.

" And Nobara is with Maki on team Zen'In."

You pout.

" There's a girl team and I'm not even invited?"

" Ah, don't worry Kamo! We're fun too!"

" Besides, you should be glad. They've got Zen'In's old man on the team. Do you have him in your universe?"

You nod.

" I think so. Never spoke to him though."

" You should be glad. He looks down on women. Maki hates him. I'm sure Nobara hates him too by now."

While the three of you had been conversing, Nanami checks his phone, subtly catching all of your attention.

" The transfigured humans who were waiting inside the building are now attacking non-sorcerers. Which is why we're ending standby and moving in." 

Soon enough he's stepping forward, shrugging his shoulders off. He lays his jacket over his arm neatly.

You wonder where he'll leave it.

" We may be acting against orders, but if we wait any longer,  it might be too late."

He sighs.

" This, my other concern is-"

Both Takuma and Megumi take his words right out of his mouth, while you listen patiently.

" The other-"

" The other veil that keeps sorcerers outside, correct?"

Takuma glances at Megumi in surprise, animatedly moving behind the two of them as they converse.

" Why deploy the veil now that Gojo sensei is inside?"

" Either something has happened inside, or they were waiting for this moment as part of their strategy. What I can say for certain is that they wouldn't move without a plan. Y/N and I focus on the enemies who lowered the veil. You two do your best to rescue civilians." 

All three of you nod in understanding.

And soon enough, all three of you enter the veil.

You wonder if the other teams were doing the same.

You're nervous.

You have no choice but to fight the disfigured humans now.

However, just as your team stepped a few ways in-

" Nanamin!"

Was that?-

" Nanamin, are you here?!"

That must be-

" Gojo sensei has been sealed!"

You lock gazes with Megumi, confirming your suspicious. This was, without a doubt, Itadori Yuuji.

Everyone's eyes widen.

" You three, change of plans. "

He turns around.

" We must join forces with Itadori at once. If he has indeed been sealed, it could spell the end for every human in this country."

Yuuji continues calling for Nanami like a child calling for his dad while you make your way over. 

In fact, he doesn't stop even when you're right behind him, until-

" Oi!"

Megumi has to hit him in order to get him out of his his trance.

" Ohh- Fushiguro, Y/N, Nanamin. And... who?"

Eventually, Yuuji ends up explaining what has gone down while the four of you were outside. Or rather- Mechamaru explains.

Apparently he's been carrying him around like an earpiece.

You follow his story, yet you can't help but notice the folded black and white fluff to your left. Wordlessly, you take a few steps towards the cat, and pet it.

It purrs in response. Megumi watches what you're doing, but no one comments on it.

" Geto did it?"

" The thing that's acting as Geto Suguru, to be precise. Shibuya is overrun with curses right now. It's overrun by special grades, weaker curses, and curse users who follow Geto, as well as transfigured humans and civilians. "

" Then attacking through the subway from neighboring stations does make sense. But in order to do that, we need that veil lifted."

" This is an emergency. We'll have to multitask."

You can see Nanami thinking as you get up from where you were petting the cat, which has now run off. Unbeknownst to you, he wanted to keep an eye on you. He couldn't allow you to die, sorcerer or not. This was not your universe. Who knows what would happen to your own if you were to die here. 

However, now that things have gotten more dangerous, he needs to be able to work without distracting himself. Gojo told him about your skills. You were nowhere near weak. You weren't the strongest either. Gojo also commented on Megumi's fondness of you. You'd be safe with your classmates.

" Some requests can only be submitted by a first grade sorcerer. I'll step outside and take care of those with Ijichi. In the mean time, I want you four to do something about the veil that's keeping the sorcerers out.-" 

He informs everyone, while walking past you. Finally, he turns to Takuma. He's seated on the ledge of the building, the cat you had previously been petting now curled into a rice ball next to him, enjoying his attention.

" Kusakabe and honorary first grade Zen'In should be inside the veil as well. If you meet them, please explain the situation  and request for their assistance. Though that shouting earlier might've done the job."

Takuma nods in understanding, his expression serious as he takes in every word. He must look ul to Nanami to react like that.

" And lastly, I'm leaving these three in your care."

And then Nanami is gone. He's disappeared through the door on the rooftop.

Takuma is quiet for a moment.

" Ino?" 

Yuuji checks.

" You guys! Before we start the mission, let me explain how serious the situation is. Starting with the two main issues with losing Gojo sensei. First! The fall of the Gojo clan. The Gojo clan is a one man team of himself. His whims and influences have saved many sorcerers.- Itadori, Kamo, you're one of them, correct?"

You nod.

" That's right!"

Yuuji looks silly as he confirms.

Takuma doesn't appreciate that.

" Take this seriously! All of those people are gonna find themselves in trouble, or worse, executed.-"

You swallow.

Why was the Jujutsu world so mean?

" The second issue is the collapse of the power balance. Those who have remained in the shadows because of Gojo will make their move.- If society is over disarray over the first, and the second will start a war, we will lose. That's how Nanami and I see it. And what do you think happens if we lose?"

Megumi looks nearly bored as he replies.

" At the very least, the age of humans in Japan would be over."

Takuma grins at him, tugging at his beanie/mask.

" I see you get the idea. Let's get going! By the time Nanami gets back, that veil will be destroyed!"

Takuma is visibly motivated, slapping a shoulder of each of you in encouragement as he walks past you.

" Let's save Gojo Satoru!"

-

[ Parallel Jujutsu Kaisen Universe ]

The two of them, were, in fact, not enough.

Sukuna finds himself wishing you were here so you'd summon that pretty blade which was as light as a feather. He could swear the sword you kept with you was simply more powerful than whatever he has in his hands now.

He hisses as he lands on top of a building harshly. From the corner of his eye, he sees Megumi do the same. The spirit was much stronger than they had initially thought. However, both refuse to give up, and soon enough, they're charging against the spirit at the same time.

The plan was originally simple enough. 

Get the Chain of a Thousand Miles wrapped around it, and force it to Jujutsu Tech.

The plan was still running anything but smoothly though.

" Two against one? That's hardly fair." 

It's mocking them though, charging up a white ball and throwing it right at Megumi. Both boys' their eyes widen. It had been physical, close up combat up until now.

It's too quick, and Megumi has no time to avoid. Sukuna throws his Chain his way, and Megumi is close to grasping it- when the white ball hits him

 First, it's a regular explosion at a decent size, nothing that would permanently put Megumi on the sidelines of their battle.

Then a huge soundwave follows, sending both Megumi and Sukuna in opposite directions.

Sukuna is quick to get back on his feet. He doesn't doubt that Megumi is too, unless he had landed harshly into a building. ( In which case he'll have to suck it up and get over it- Sukuna needs him.)

The spirit raises it's brow at him.

" You've got no cursed energy."

Sukuna scoffs, grinning.

" Yet I can still beat your ass." 

The curse grins in response. It opens it's mouth to say something, but Sukuna is done with his shit. Mercilessly, he throws the Chain skillfully his way. The curse had been stupid, probably underestimating him as it had gotten closer.

Now, Sukuna tugs it closer, bringing them face to face with one another.

" Last chance before I hand you to Gojo sensei. Where. Is. Y/N?"

The curse's eyes, which were originally wide, turn into smiling crescents.

" Why don't you find out?"

It's smiling, happy.

Suddenly, a golden ring appears below him. Sukuna's brow furrows.

And then he's falling.

He makes a mistake, holding the end of the Chain in front of him. 

Giving the curse a window to escape.

Of course it does.

And then he's falling again.

Eventually, he hits his face flat to the ground.

" Fuck's sake-" 

As he gets up, he wipes a hand over his nose. It's bleeding. He scoffs in annoyance.

He looks up, studying his surroundings. 

Wait- 

Why was he in Shibuya?

Now more annoyed than before, he huffs, finally getting up and grumbling to himself in annoyance. 

He turns to leave, intending to take the bus back to Jujutsu Tech.

However, he walks straight into...something?

He furrows his brows in confusion, glancing up, he only notices how dark the sky is now.

A veil.

Why was there a veil in Shibuya?

The Anomaly Taglist:

@luxylucylou @kalulakunundrum @strxbxrrylover @aethersslave @jenniferrvsesi @hanatsuki-hime

[whinlatter]

sirius and ginny: a meta (part 1)

“Excuse me, but I care what happens to Sirius as much as you do!” said Ginny, her jaw set so that her resemblance to Fred and George was suddenly striking.’

are you a very brave, very reckless, very hot self-destructive rebel with a treacherous sibling and a flair for christmas decoration, harbouring complex feelings about your mother, close ties to crookshanks the cat and spend your days plagued by the memory of your worst mistakes and dark past? do you find yourself constantly being begged to stay in a state of protective confinement to save your life by a young man with a lightning scar, bad hair and crippling abandonment issues? if so, congratulations! you might be one of harry potter's chosen family members, sirius black and ginevra molly weasley! 

basically - i want to talk about sirius and ginny. these are two characters who don’t share a lot of scenes in canon but who, i think, have some clear (if overlooked) parallels: stubborn, fiercely protective of harry, self-sacrificing, admired, principled, haunted (in different ways) by traumatic pasts and betrayals, with complicated relationships with their families and entirely uncomplicated devoted relationships with someone else’s cat. their narrative arcs are successive, with ginny ascending in significance in the series during sirius’ period of decline and ultimate death. and ultimately, they’re also the two people who become, over the course of the canon series, family to a protagonist desperately seeking to build one. sirius and ginny are the two people harry in canon most worries about, wants to protect, and thinks of as someone who embodies the promise of family and home.

sirius and ginny aren’t mirror images of each other. ofc, ginny also has parallels with the only other family members harry claims in the series, lily and james (i mean, especially james - she’s literally a cocky funny flirtatious chaser with a years-long debilitating mega crush who can also catch a snitch like a champ. come on now). it’s also clear in canon that sirius means more to ginny as a hero/role model/ally against her mother than ginny ever means to sirius. nevertheless, the text puts in work to let the reader know we should think about these characters together as somehow aligned. from the beginning of ootp, there are clues and signals in the text that foreshadow ginny’s emergence as someone important to harry, and that subtly let the reader know that the baton of being harry’s ‘person’ is about to be passed from sirius to ginny, two kindred spirits, after sirius’ death. so that's what this meta is about! (consider this my 700th attempt to show that, as the popular fandom complaint/all of reddit still insist, ginny as a character, and especially the harry/ginny romance, did not ‘come out of nowhere’.)

the following meta is part one of two (and yet it's still too long! sorry about it). o in this part, i look at the period from the end of goblet of fire thru the start of half blood prince, exploring how the text sets up the sirius and ginny parallels as a way of foreshadowing ginny’s emergence as harry’s main love interest and place as a family substitute. the second part (tbc) will be what the memory of sirius does for harry’s view of his relationship with ginny, and the kind of positive - and negative - ways this shapes harry’s ideas about love and what family do for each other. i wrote this meta as a way of thinking through some characterisation choices for my current WIP, beasts. if you're following along with that fic, this meta can be seen as a companion piece especially to my thinking behind chapters ten and eleven, so hope proves helpful for some of my thinking behind the sirius and ginny friendship that appears in that project. it's also dedicated to @ashesandhackles, queen of metas, who has reminded me to post this meta precisely 9 million times because she is a long-suffering saint.

ok - sirius and ginny. let’s goooooo!

sirius and ginny before ootp

before OotP, ginny is absent from any plot connected to sirius. ginny doesn’t know the truth about sirius’ innocence, nor does she know that harry, her brother and her friend are in regular contact with sirius and that harry now as a surrogate father/big brother figure to confide in and seek comfort in.  in fact, in one of ginny’s few appearances in GoF, the narration is unusually insistent that the reader knows how little ginny knows about sirius:

“And have you heard from — ?” Ron began, but at a look from Hermione he fell silent. Harry knew Ron had been about to ask about Sirius. Ron and Hermione had been so deeply involved in helping Sirius escape from the Ministry of Magic that they were almost as concerned about Harry’s godfather as he was. However, discussing him in front of Ginny was a bad idea. Nobody but themselves and Professor Dumbledore knew about how Sirius had escaped, or believed in his innocence. “I think they’ve stopped arguing,” said Hermione, to cover the awkward moment, because Ginny was looking curiously from Ron to Harry. “Shall we go down and help your mum with dinner?” 

the only other tiny crumb of sirius and ginny we get is the news that the owl sirius bought in PoA and gifted to ron as a replacement pet for scabbers has been embraced and named by ginny. sirius gifting a tiny little spitfire of an owl that annoys ron? it's giving foreshadowing, your honour.

the reader, though, knows who sirius is to harry by GoF. throughout this book, for the first time in the series, harry has a person he can claim as something like a family: someone to worry about, someone who cares about him,who can advise, guide and mentor him, as well as offer him support and consolation in difficult times (‘someone like a parent…’) although sirius has not been able to offer harry a stable alternative home to the dursleys due to his status as a wanted man, he’s still filling a role that previously had been vacant in the series: he’s harry’s person, the surrogate parent chosen for him by james and lily. he’s close by, either by the floo or eventually living (at great personal cost) as padfoot in hogsmeade, and he’s present emotionally for harry in ways that prove incredibly meaningful to his young godson. in times of great of distress, sirius is there for harry to meet emotional needs that ron and hermione (understandably, no shade to them) can’t always meet. the floo scene early on in GoF, during harry’s row with ron, is a particularly good example of this:

“Never mind me, how are you?” said Sirius seriously. “I’m —”  For a second, Harry tried to say “fine” — but he couldn’t do it. …Before he could stop himself, he was talking more than he’d talked in days — about how no one believed he hadn’t entered the tournament of his own free will, how Rita Skeeter had lied about him in the Daily Prophet, how he couldn’t walk down a corridor without being sneered at — and about Ron, Ron not believing him, Ron’s jealousy . . . Sirius looked at him, eyes full of concern… He had let Harry talk himself into silence without interruption’.

harry derives enormous comfort from sirius’ presence in his life during GoF. he writes to sirius, he repeatedly turns to him for advice, he worries for him more than he does any other person. sirius fulfils harry’s desire to be kept abreast of important information about voldemort and death eaters, doesn’t sugarcoat news for harry, and makes him feel important, cared for and understood. (harry even shows off to sirius telling him about how much of a slay the first task was. ugh). by the time of the third task, sirius is sending harry daily owls, a constant flow of reassurance and concern (‘He reminded Harry in every letter that whatever might be going on outside the walls of Hogwarts was not Harry’s responsibility, nor was it within his power to influence it. If Voldemort is really getting stronger again, he wrote, my priority is to ensure your safety.’) when harry returns from the graveyard at the novel’s end, it’s sirius who races to his side to advocate for him and offer him both words of comfort and physical affection as he processes the traumatic series of events that constitute the climax of the book’s plot. (my personal favourite part is where harry says ‘wormtail cut me with a knife’ and the text says sirius made a ‘vehement exclamation’, which i can only assume is children’s book speak for ‘fucking hell’.) harry goes to bed: sirius stays with him, a literal guard dog as he recuperates. after the most traumatic events of the series to date, the reader is at least consoled that harry potter has a person now, someone he loves for him to worry about and to worry for him, who catches him on the other side of traumatic events and makes them that bit much more bearable.

sirius and ginny during ootp

with sirius' role in harry's life established in GoF, OotP begins with harry, cooped up and restless at privet drive, angry with ron, hermione, sirius, and dumbledore for abandoning him at privet drive and keeping him in the dark. harry arrives at grimmauld place to find an anxious ron and hermione, with whom harry is angry and frustrated for having left him out of their summer hangs and having neglected him, by his assessment, in surrey. it’s the most conflict we’ve seen in the trio in terms of harry vs ron and hermione, and sets up one of the important themes of the book, which is harry no longer being solely emotionally fulfilled by the people he is closest to, including his two surrogate parents best mates but also his godfather. when he encounters sirius for the first time after the order meeting, he finds him surly, bitter, and depressed, furious that he is confined to his childhood home, and (understandably) much less able or willing to offer harry much in the way of comfort, apology or cheering words (‘Harry, who had expected a better welcome, noted how hard and bitter Sirius’s voice sounded.’) in this sense, the book opens with harry disappointed and/or more distant from all the people on whom he most depends and is usually closest to, and that there therefore is already an absence of a certain kind of emotional support in harry’s life that the plot demands be filled.

fresh off the back of harry’s row with ron and hermione is ginny’s reintroduction to the reader. after years of being so shy in harry’s presence she was often nearly mute, the reader finds that ginny is not only now speaking, but that her presence turns out to be remarkably refreshing. from her opening scene where ginny enters harry’s bedroom at grimmauld place, the reader discovers the new ginny is confident, up to no good, in cahoots with her most troublemaking brothers trying to intercept the order meeting, enterprising in her mischief (and very happy to lie to her mother’s face about it). she’s thoroughly unfazed by harry’s great display of rage that has just startled and upset ron and hermione. (side note: in both ootp and hbp, ginny’s opening scene is her entering harry’s bedroom, which is the kind of foreshadowing i personally find delicious). everyone else is behaving pretty much as they have been up to this point, but it’s ginny who is showcasing behaviours new to the reader, a signal that she might be about to play a different role in the series than she has done up to this point.

cut to the dinner scene. sirius and ginny are in the room together for the first time. sirius is moody: though he’s still able to laugh, enjoying displays of mischief and humour (the twins and the knife), he’s more bitter than harry and the reader have seen him since PoA. it’s an important scene for lots of reasons (not least the sirius v molly beef), but it’s also one where sirius and ginny are repeatedly drawn into mental association in the reader’s mind. it’s also a great scene because the behaviour of crookshanks the cat literally serves to foreshadow the behaviour of harry james potter in ways that are frankly extremely fun.

so! the sirius and ginny hints start small. from the start of the scene, ginny is amused by mundungus the crook (a man, we will learn, so disdained by her mother):

“Some’n say m’ name?” Mundungus mumbled sleepily. “I ’gree with Sirius. . . .” He raised a very grubby hand in the air as though voting, his droopy, bloodshot eyes unfocused. Ginny giggled. “The meeting’s over, Dung,” said Sirius, as they all sat down around him at the table. “Harry’s arrived.” 

sirius and harry, sat at the end of the table, are both greeted by crookshanks, sirius’ old accomplice from PoA:

'​​Harry felt something brush against his knees and started, but it was only Crookshanks, Hermione’s bandy-legged ginger cat, who wound himself once around Harry’s legs, purring, then jumped onto Sirius’s lap and curled up. Sirius scratched him absentmindedly behind the ears as he turned, still grim-faced, to Harry…

when fred and george’s levitation goes awry, flinging a knife at sirius (now that’s how you foreshadow a death), crookshanks bolts: 

‘Harry and Sirius were both laughing… Crookshanks had given an angry hiss and shot off under the dresser, from whence his large yellow eyes glowed in the darkness…’

during the meal, ginny’s with hermione, having a laugh with tonks, a character harry has just met but whom he has already decided to both admire and like. after the meal, when harry’s cheered up a bit and had his crumble (the man loves dessert), crookshanks finally emerges from his hiding place, having been coaxed out from his sulk by - you guessed it - one g. m. weasley:

‘…Ginny, who had lured Crookshanks out from under the dresser, was sitting cross-legged on the floor, rolling butterbeer corks for him to chase.’

a grouchy character, initially drawn to sirius, but prone to lashing out and locking himself away, only to be lured back out into comfort and safety by ginny weasley? wow………. radical

after dinner, the argument between sirius and molly kicks off. sirius is arguing hard for harry’s right to know, though he makes no attempt to advocate for any of the other weasleys or for hermione. ginny’s noticeably singled out in her reaction to this scene, the text highlighting that she is particularly struck by this conflict as if it is of particular personal resonance, including someone standing up to her famously overprotective mother for once:

‘Ron, Hermione, Fred, and George’s heads turned from Sirius to Mrs. Weasley as though following a tennis rally. Ginny was kneeling amid a pile of abandoned butterbeer corks, watching the conversation with her mouth slightly open. Lupin’s eyes were fixed on Sirius.’

of course, molly loses the argument: harry gets to stay for juicy order deets (‘Sirius was right, he was not a child.’) after the row, ginny is the only person forbidden from hearing information about the order’s activities. suddenly, the roles are switched: it’s ginny who’s now furious and bitter to be kept out of the action:

‘“Fine!” shouted Mrs. Weasley. “Fine! Ginny — BED!”  Ginny did not go quietly. They could hear her raging and storming at her mother all the way up the stairs, and when she reached the hall Mrs. Black’s earsplitting shrieks were added to the din. Lupin hurried off to the portrait to restore calm. It was only after he had returned, closing the kitchen door behind him and taking his seat at the table again, that Sirius spoke. “Okay, Harry . . . what do you want to know?”’ 

it’s not just the parallels of confinement between harry, sirius and ginny that are so revealing, it’s also the dual maternal conflicts. ginny loud raging at her own mother sets off the howling relic of sirius’, serving to underline two characters who continue to grapple with maternal relationships that are complex and full of conflict, though by no means solely negative (sirius i see you sleeping in your mother’s bedroom babe. don’t think i think your relationship with walburga is just one of straight hate ok). when ginny later gets knocked down the stairs by fred and george, there’s more direct mrs weasley/walburga parallels, with the two of them literally shouting over each other during the ordeal lol. as such, the readers see that the conflicts being set up for sirius’ character in this book - frustration at confinement, conflict with a mother figure, drawn to more reckless and arguably irresponsible characters (mundungus, the twins) and courses of action - are also conflicts subtly playing out with the new ginny we’re meeting, too.

as the rest of the summer at grimmauld wears on, there are more examples of sirius and ginny foreshadowing. the scenes where the two characters interact serve to place ginny and sirius firmly in the same camp of people harry admires and has fun with, the troublemakers and the rebels. over the prefects issue, ginny not only is sat chatting with the troublemaking adults harry likes most, but actively draws sirius into conversation on the issue, likely knowing the answer will comfort harry, but also showing a curiosity and interest in sirius that suggests she admires him:

“I was never a prefect myself,” said Tonks brightly from behind Harry as everybody moved toward the table to help themselves to food. Her hair was tomato-red and waist length today; she looked like Ginny’s older sister. “My Head of House said I lacked certain necessary qualities.”  “Like what?” said Ginny, who was choosing a baked potato. “Like the ability to behave myself,” said Tonks. Ginny laughed; Hermione looked as though she did not know whether to smile or not and compromised by taking an extra large gulp of butterbeer and choking on it.  “What about you, Sirius?” Ginny asked, thumping Hermione on the back. Sirius, who was right beside Harry, let out his usual barklike laugh…’

ginny’s choice to try and draw sirius into the conversation bears fruit: sirius confirms james was never a prefect, and harry’s sour mood is suddenly lifted. (‘All at once the party seemed much more enjoyable; he loaded up his plate, feeling unusually fond of everyone in the room.’) ginny is thus beginning to provide harry with subtle comfort and reassurance, especially as sirius, struggling with his own confinement,  is taking a less active role in trying to cheer harry up. what i also like is that we have evidence of how ginny views sirius - she’s curious about him and his past, she clearly thinks he and the other new rebellious adults are cool as shit, and she’s drawn increasingly away from her mother’s cautious overprotective approach towards these resistance fighters who prioritise the fight over safety. (it is noticeable to me that ginny does not become a prefect in HBP, suggesting sirius' example proved instructive).

we see more small parallels between sirius and ginny during the cleaning scenes. the battle against grimmauld place is an important symbol of one of the important themes of OotP as a book: a battle over past traumas and their persistent and unwieldy symptoms that are seemingly never-ending. while it’s harry’s experiences that, of course, take centre stage, sirius’, too, loom omnipresent throughout the text. it’s significant, then, that ginny’s own past gets brought up for the first time in three books here, albeit briefly: 

'They found an unpleasant-looking silver instrument, something like a many-legged pair of tweezers, which scuttled up Harry’s arm like a spider when he picked it up, and attempted to puncture his skin; Sirius seized it and smashed it with a heavy book entitled Nature’s Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy. There was a musical box that emitted a faintly sinister, tinkling tune when wound, and they all found themselves becoming curiously weak and sleepy until Ginny had the sense to slam the lid shut…'

in this moment, we see sirius and ginny singled in the larger group as quick-thinking, shrewd characters, with a good instincts and common sense (if a bit of a tendency to get scrappy). their respective dark pasts are subtly alluded to. sirius whacks a spider trying to attack harry with a book that might as well be entitled my big book of family trauma. ginny, meanwhile, steps in when everybody present starts to be enchanted by a mysterious object luring them into danger by whacking it shut (gee i wonder why!) given this is the book that will see ginny mention the events of CoS for the first time in errrrr three years, it’s significant that the text is careful to draw ginny into this broader theme that unites sirius and harry, the constant reminders of traumatic pasts at every turn. we also see here the revelation that regulus black was a death eater. coming after news of percy weasley’s betrayal, sirius’ bitter dismissal of his younger brother deliberately mirrors ginny and the other weasleys’ attitude towards percy, this sense of pureblood families split over wizarding politics, often fatally. 

while harry fears his expulsion from hogwarts prior his hearing, he continues to fantasise about coming to live with sirius at grimmauld, and about being with a family member and finding an alternative home to hogwarts. sirius, as hermione astutely observes, tries to manage harry’s expectations and not to get his own hopes up: still, when harry is exonerated, sirius is visibly depressed, showing the beginnings of an emotional dependency on harry that harry feels great guilt over.when leaving grimmauld for the start of the school year, sirius, as padfoot, accompanies harry to king’s cross: unlike in GoF, though, he is spotted, and harry begins to worry much more actively about sirius’ vulnerability to capture, about his recklessness and about his judgement. concerned for sirius, and absent ron and hermione, who are in the prefects carriage, the person who stays with harry and offers him company is ginny. she sacrifices her own train journey (presumably with her own boyfriend) to find a carriage with harry and make sure he’s not lonely, bringing him to neville and luna and sorting him out after his embarassing cho run-in. it’s not a coincidence that once again we see ginny here taking care of harry crookshanks:

'“Where’s Crookshanks?” “Ginny’s got him,” said Harry. “There she is. . . .”  Ginny had just emerged from the crowd, clutching a squirming Crookshanks. “Thanks,” said Hermione, relieving Ginny of the cat. “Come on, let’s get a carriage together before they all fill up. . . '

once harry’s back at school, having left sirius behind to languish miserably in london, we see he's more isolated and alone than ever. he’s tormented by umbridge, endlessly (though often unfairly) frustrated with ron and hermione, ghosted by dumbledore, yet absent the more stable, reassuring sirius he came to know in GoF, unable to write candidly to him and faced with a much less well sirius in the opportunities they do have to speak face-to-face. as sirius’ mental health declines as he is shut up at grimmauld, his ability to support harry and comfort him starts to falter, and he becomes a much more uneven source of advice and support, particularly during his car crash floo appearance, where he’s much ruder than he has previously been (cutting off, ignoring their pleas for him to be more cautious, the infamous ‘the risk would have made it fun for james’ moment). this new sirius, clearly struggling, is much more happy to do up guilt trip to his godson than we have seen him to up this point (‘I’ll write to tell you a time I can make it back into the fire, then, shall I? If you can stand to risk it?’ - you petty little shit, padfoot). all of this serves to increase harry’s anxiety about sirius’ wellbeing and reinforce harry’s sense of emotional isolation. even sirius’ encouragement on the DA is, as hermione points out, partly bound up in more selfish motivations (‘I think he’s really frustrated at how little he can do where he is… so I think he’s keen to kind of… egg us on.’)

ginny’s largely absent in this section of the novel. in the brief moments she does appear, it’s to inject humour (eg. her impressions at the DA meeting) and in little reminders that she now has a boyfriend, no longer harbours romantic feelings for harry, making sure the reader continues to hold her mentally apart from harry. harry, meanwhile, misguidedly tries to seek out a relationship with cho chang, who is showing clear signs of her own emotional distress and inability to meet harry’s emotional needs given her own grief. still, among this, there’s still room for some small subtle sirius/ginny parallels. once the DA plot picks up, we have another little sign that ginny weasley and sirius black think somewhat alike:

“Yeah, the D.A.’s good,” said Ginny. “Only let’s make it stand for Dumbledore’s Army because that’s the Ministry’s worst fear, isn’t it?” 

“Trained in combat?” repeated Harry incredulously. “What does he think we’re doing here, forming some sort of wizard army? “That’s exactly what he thinks you’re doing,” said Sirius, “or rather, that’s exactly what he’s afraid Dumbledore’s doing — forming his own private army, with which he will be able to take on the Ministry of Magic.” 

with harry's isolation and need for more emotional support established in this first term, christmas at grimmauld offers more opportunity to subtly develop the sirius and ginny parallels, as well as to highlight ginny’s ability to fill the gaps left by sirius’ decline. after the attack on arthur weasley, the group arrive back at grimmauld:

‘Sirius was hurrying toward them all, looking anxious. He was unshaven and still in his day clothes; there was also a slightly Mundungus-like whiff of stale drink about him. “What’s going on?” he said, stretching out a hand to help Ginny up. “Phineas Nigellus said Arthur’s been badly injured —” 

could this be sirius literally lifting ginny up into plot significance? why yes it could

ofc the weasleys then argue with sirius about their right to go see their father. despite his own frustrations at being trapped at grimmauld, sirius proves the voice of reason and rational decision making against both ginny and the twins’ hotheadedness (ginny asks to borrow cloaks to go to the hospital: sirius: ‘Hang on, you can’t go tearing off to St. Mungo’s!’) crucially, though, when sirius points out that there are bigger things at stake - the work of the order and the resistance movement - it’s ginny who listens:

“Your father knew what he was getting into, and he won’t thank you for messing things up for the Order!” said Sirius angrily in his turn. “This is how it is — this is why you’re not in the Order — you don’t understand — there are things worth dying for!”  “Easy for you to say, stuck here!” bellowed Fred. “I don’t see you risking your neck!”  The little colour remaining in Sirius’s face drained from it. He looked for a moment as though he would quite like to hit Fred, but when he spoke, it was in a voice of determined calm. “I know it’s hard, but we’ve all got to act as though we don’t know anything yet. We’ve got to stay put, at least until we hear from your mother, all right?”  Fred and George still looked mutinous. Ginny, however, took a few steps over to the nearest chair and sank into it. Harry looked at Ron, who made a funny movement somewhere between a nod and shrug, and they sat down too. The twins glared at Sirius for another minute, then took seats on either side of Ginny.  “That’s right,” said Sirius encouragingly, “come on, let’s all . . . let’s all have a drink while we’re waiting…’

there’s a lot going on here: ginny’s willingness to follow sirius’ orders, but also her willingness to accept an argument based on some idea of the greater good before any of her brothers. she and sirius are aligned here, and it’s her decision to accept sirius’ reasoning that proves the catalyst for her brothers to follow. we see here how ginny has come to see sirius: someone she looks up to and admires, an adult whose judgement she trusts and whose worldview she subscribes to. (as a character prone to hero worship - see her view of her big brother bill - i think this is noteworthy, and is behind a lot of my characterisation choices for ginny towards sirius in beasts). but we also see that ginny agrees with sirius' worldview. there are some things worth dying for, and self-sacrifice is part of that.

when harry goes to sirius for reassurance about witnessing arthur’s attack, he finds sirius unable to properly console him and convince him that he was not to blame for arthur’s attack. the reader gets the impression of sirius withholding information from harry (‘He could only see a sliver of Sirius’s face; the rest was in darkness’), and the scene ends with sirius clapping harry on the shoulder and leaving him ‘standing alone in the dark’. while sirius throws himself into christmas preparations, obviously delighted to have company, harry shrinks from the cheer and isolates himself. in the end, ofc, the only person that manages to pull harry out of his dark, brooding thoughts is ginny. the text is careful to note she’s sitting beside him on the tube back from st mungo’s, when he looks very unwell. then, in the ‘lucky you’ scene, she showcases some of the same skills harry first came to appreciate in sirius in GoF. she tells it to him straight: she’s sympathetic, but not overly gushing, and she reminds him of her own intensely frightening experience which she endured alone, something harry can relate to, even if the experience of possession is not.  it’s an important scene for lots of reasons, but it’s also, crucially, the intervention that causes harry’s mood to lift, and he gets to enjoy a christmas with his godfather, the thing he had most wanted in the run-up to christmas, and which becomes the only holiday period harry and sirius ever spend together: 

‘I’m not the weapon after all, thought Harry. His heart swelled with happiness and relief, and he felt like joining in as they heard Sirius tramping past their door toward Buckbeak’s room, singing “God Rest Ye Merry, Hippogriffs” at the top of his voice.’

of course, once christmas is over, sirius slips back into a depressed, gloomy state. harry wants a better goodbye than he gives him, merely giving him a quick one armed hug (there’s a real theme throughout harry and sirius’ relationship of very sparing physical contact on sirius’ part, which is obviously a hole in harry's life ginny will fill in - er - a big way). back at school, harry returns to umbridge’s increasingly draconian rule, maks a disastrous attempt at forging a relationship with cho, and continues to feel lonely, paranoid, and angry. unable to speak to sirius properly via letter or floo - and unwilling to open the present sirius has given him to communicate directly with him, the two-way mirror - harry is increasingly sullen, a mood that only worsens after seeing snape's worst memory.

the easter egg scene is obviously important for hinny for lots of different reasons. but here i just want to highlight how the scene serves to show ginny as both the conduit to sirius for harry, and someone whose behaviour echoes that of sirius in GoF when harry first began to open up to and seek comfort in him. harry is distressed by his now complicated feelings both towards the father he previously revered and towards sirius, who seemed to encourage james’ bullying behaviour. ginny hands harry a chocolate easter egg covered in snitches: chocolate, a canonical source of comfort against dark thoughts, and an egg that reminds him of the love of parent. the act makes him suddenly emotional, though he at first denies he’s upset. ginny presses carefully and sensitively, asking the right questions to get him to confess the source of his worry, waiting for harry to take his time to speak - all behaviours that echo sirius’ own effective listening techniques. ginny’s acquaintance with sirius, and knowledge of how significant he is to harry, is important here, too, and a subtle sign to the reader that he trusts ginny with knowledge about sirius after a long time of having her in the dark about his godfather.  the reader leaves the scene having seen ginny breakthrough to harry emotionally in a way for the second time in the novel, in a way no other character has done (‘he felt a bit more hopeful…’) 

of course, the course of action ginny has set in motion is itself risky and reckless (‘anything is possible if you’ve got enough nerve’ is very marauders as a philosophy). the decision to go ahead with the plan the twins come up with is one harry sees as a decision on whether to be more like james and sirius - a risk taker - or to abandon the hero worship for the marauders he has lived with for so long. in the end, of course, it’s a win for the reckless troublemakers: he chooses to go ahead with the plan the twins have crafted and that ginny has set in motion, and to speak to sirius.

and yet. sirius is still alive - there is not need for ginny yet. for the remainder of the book, ginny has to beg to be included in the trio's plans and to be allowed to be a part of the plot to rescue sirius. she’s is often in conflict with harry, showing a lot of sirius’ bitterness at attempts at containment and to keep her out of the fighting. she grates against harry’s insistence that she is too young and inexperienced, and having to remind the trio that she, too, has come to care about sirius and wants to see him safe: 

“I’ve got a broom!” said Ginny.  “Yeah, but you’re not coming,” said Ron angrily.  “Excuse me, but I care what happens to Sirius as much as you do!” said Ginny, her jaw set so that her resemblance to Fred and George was suddenly striking. 

of course, it all ends in tragedy: sirius, desperate to go to harry’s aid and absolutely gunning for a fight after months of confinement, is killed, leaving harry alone. there a subtle clues that something has shifted in ginny’s relationship to harry and the trio in the scenes after sirius’ death, including ginny positioned as the mirror image to harry in the hospital: 

‘Harry was sitting on the end of Ron’s bed and they were both listening to Hermione read the front page of the Sunday Prophet. Ginny, whose ankle had     been mended in a trice by Madam Pomfrey, was curled up at the foot of Hermione’s bed…’

despite this, in the immediate aftermath of sirius’ death, harry is extremely alone. he is unable to work out what he needs (‘Whenever he was in company he wanted to get away, and whenever he was alone he wanted company.’) he tries to go to hagrid’s, but regrets it (‘He was starting to wish he was alone again’), leaving after hagrid reminds him of sirius’ core traits, an inability to stay out of the fight when he believes in the cause:

“But still, Harry . . . he was never one ter sit around at home an’ let other people do the fightin’. He couldn’ have lived with himself if he hadn’ gone ter help —” 

unlike at the end of GoF, harry is isolated by his grief and the revelation of the prophecy's contents by the end of this book. he goes alone to a secluded corner of the lakeshore, ‘sheltered from the gaze of passersby behind a tangle of shrubs’, and ‘[stares] out over the gleaming water’, and cries alone. there is no sirius or other person to catch him and console him in his grief. his person has died, and there’s a gap in his life again, just waiting to be filled: 

‘Wanting to impress Cho seemed to belong to a past that was no longer quite connected with him. So much of what he had wanted before Sirius’s death felt that way these days. . . . The week that had elapsed since he had last seen Sirius seemed to have lasted much, much longer: It stretched across two universes, the one with Sirius in it, and the one without.’

ginny and sirius parallels in HBP and DH

after sirius’ death, the parallels between sirius and ginny become more important as ginny moves into the centre frame as a character. at the start of HBP, harry arrives at the burrow and discusses his grief over sirius’ death with dumbledore in the burrow broom shed, acknowledging how profoundly the loss of a family member who cares singularly about him is affecting him. ('He felt stupid for admitting it, but the fact that he had had someone outside Hogwarts who cared what happened to him, almost like a parent, had been one of the best things about discovering his godfather . . . and now the post owls would never bring him that comfort again. . . .' beasts readers: there's a reason harry clings to letters!) of course, having reminded the reader of the gap in harry’s life that now needs to be filled, harry goes to sleep, the active reflection on his grief for sirius put to one side so the novel's plot can get underway. he'll go to bed mourning sirius and wake up in a sunlit bedroom. of course, ginny will walk into this bedroom too, only now things will be different: harry potter is back to the search for a loved one, for a family, and he's about to realise ginny is the one he wants to fill it. thus the start of the plot of ginny stepping into the role vacated by sirius beginneth.

so much of who ginny is in HBP is reminiscent of sirius. she frequently leaps into battle as harry’s protector (‘You’re taking orders from something someone wrote in a book?’, ‘Give it a rest, Hermione’), she’s scrappy (RIP zacharias smith), she’s funny and laughs easily in a way that less recalls sirius in the time harry knew him than sirius as harry sees him as a young man, in photographs or memories. she's the one who commits to the insane christmas decorations, determined to cheer everyone up over the festive period as sirius did the year before. she even enjoys the widespread admiration and lust of her peers, a trait that directly recalls sirius being eyed up by his peers in snape's memory. by the novel’s end, after dumbledore’s death, it will be ginny who goes to harry’s side after the climax of the plot and catch him in his grief just as sirius did in GoF, this time over dumbledore’s death: 

‘He did not want to leave Dumbledore’s side, he did not want to move anywhere. Hagrid’s hand on his shoulder was trembling. Then another voice said, “Harry, come on.’ A much smaller and warmer hand had enclosed his and was pulling him upward. He obeyed its pressure without really thinking about it.’

their breakup has sirius all over it. taking place at the lakeshore, the place where harry wept alone over sirius a year prior, harry draws on the circumstances of sirius’ demise as a reason he must break up with ginny (‘Voldemort uses people his enemies are close to.’) the breakup does little to shift what ginny has become in harry’s mind, though, and he spends all of DH thinking of her as he once thought of sirius: the person whose safety he most craves, the person he misses, someone he claims as his, and whom he associates with (now banished) hopes of a home and a family:

“It’s not a problem,” said Harry, sickened by the pain in his head. “It’s your family, ’course you’re worried. I’d feel the same way.” He thought of Ginny. “I do feel the same way.”

of course, echoes of sirius will also come into play during open war. it’s now ginny, not sirius, who is the one left behind for her own protection: in the run-up to the battle, harry finds himself once again faced with the prospect of confining his loved one for their safety, despite their desperation to fight and do the right thing. but these are thoughts for part 2…….