#death cannot save either of them I need them to absolutely fucking rot

[kamurawaffles5684]

A real shame, huh.

what do you mean elon musk did a nazi salute on live tv at the united states presidential inauguration twice and is now erasing the evidence off the internet by replacing the footage with the crowd cheering instead?

would be a shame if people reblogged this, wouldn’t it?

[hpalways]

The Signature || Zhongli

Yandere! Zhongli x Reader

Please make sure not romanticize toxic relationships. I do not condone this behavior whatsoever. 

AMBER eyes were stuck on you, never once leaving your form. They belonged to the Geo Archon, Zhongli, the attractive man you befriended not too long ago. His long ebony hair had left its hair tie, drooping loosely over his shoulder like a soft waterfall as he rested his hands on the surface of the desk -- the desk in which you were forced to sit at. 

In front was a long piece of parchment, handwritten by the male delicately. On it stated:

An agreement that [Y/N] will stay by Zhongli’s side forever. The signer will not speak, look, or stand near anyone other than Zhongli. The signer will be cherished, so they will also have to cherish the other party. They will enjoy their lives to the fullest, as long as they do not step out of line and make sure to follow the rules laid out to them. 

[Y/N] will never stop loving Zhongli. They will speak of topics in interest to both parties. They will drink tea and spend mora for the two of them. They will unconditionally love Zhongli. They will love Zhongli. Zhongli will love them. For an infinite amount of time. Forever and always. Always. 

They will never die. They can not die. 

DO NOT EVER DIE.

Punishment will come if they dare break the contract. The signer knows what this means. 

Signed: _____________

The hand on the pen was gripped so hard, your knuckles had turned white and it shook. Your breath was shallow; A headache began to pound. His eyes would never leave. You were his priority now. Every action was a ticking bomb -- anything could set him off easily. 

You didn’t want to fucking sign it. You knew it was a death trap, but did you have a choice? Not really. 

Zhongli noticed your torn expression, so he tilted his head with a quiet hum. “Is it that hard to sign something?” he stated coolly, his gloved hand brushing over yours. The leathered feeling sent shivers down your spine, and it took everything not to cringe away. 

“I was just… thinking,” you murmured. He raised his brows slightly, quickly interested by your words. Maybe you could buy some time and figure a plan out to leave this room unscath. Luckily enough, the God of Geo was a man who often went on tangents. “I was thinking about the first day we met. You made me pay for your tea at the teahouse.”

He nodded eagerly, stroking the bottom of his chin in thought. “Why, yes. I can remember that day as clear as the skies of Liyue. The tea made for me was quite striking. Made of violetgrass and it tasted delightfully smooth too. Then you came in and made it taste even better. You were all dirtied from battle, seeking for a nice drink to be refreshed on. It caught my attention immediately, but when you offered to pay for me, I knew you were the one.”

He described the meeting in a dreamlike tone, oblivious to the jarring reality that sank its teeth on everyone like a poisonous snake. You shouldn’t have paid for him that day; you shouldn’t have even made eye contact and spoken to him. This was the consequences to your failure of judgment. You could only now sow what you reap. 

He swerved around the desk, growing ever closer to you until he was right next to you. His warm breath hit the side of your face, the smell of soft mint wafting up your senses. “Now… let’s not get off track here. Sign this, my love. I promise you it’s not that hard.”

Dammit. He was too focused on the contract that you barely had the time to brainstorm. Nothing was coming to mind. 

Footsteps echoed throughout the office of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor. You turned around in desperation, hoping it was someone who could save you from such a situation. There, stood a merchant, his hand holding advertisements to his stalls.

“Hello, I’ve come to--”

When his eyes landed on you, the figure beside you had made his move. Zhongli grabbed his polearm and with a clean swipe, beheaded the speaking man. The body-less head made a perfect, slow arc in the air before dropping to the ground with a sickening crunch. You let out a gasp, panting raspily in shock, stomach twisting within itself in nausea at the sight. What… just happened? That man just died. Oh god. Oh fucking goodness. You suddenly realized something. Help wasn’t ever going to come. No one could best Zhongli. He was a god! 

“Why did you… do that?” you choked out, gulping down the huge lump in your throat. As a pyro vision user, you had your fair share of witnessing deaths. But this was wrong. Someone innocent died for coming into this room. On account of you. He died because of you. 

“On the contract it’s stated that you cannot look at someone. Besides, he interrupted our moment.”

“I haven’t even signed the contract yet!” you cried out in hysteria. This was a nightmare. An absolute nightmare. 

“Oh,” he said, blinking in surprise. “That’s right. You haven’t. Well, this serves as a warning.”

You could never leave him. Trapped in a glass box within all corners, you were to be suffocated by his presence forever. There didn’t need to be a contract; you were already in one. He would kill your loved ones if you didn’t -- he knew of the weakness humans had, for he lived long enough to observe. He had guilt tripped, blamed you for it all, and knew that you would indeed succumb. The deaths were caused by your actions, painting you in red of a blood bath. 

The pen made its move. Ink bled into the paper, marking it as a tattoo. Indeed. This was permanent. It would continue to haunt you for the rest of your life. The writing was barely legible, pressed down so hard it became jagged like shards. 

[Y/N] [L/N] was finally written on the goddamn page. 

Gods were so selfish. They truly didn’t like to share-- whether that’d be war, the world, or the love of their life. If only you had known beforehand. 

“This is marvelous,” he exclaimed, his expression brightening up. He looked so joyous at the signature, lapping it up like a starved dog. His reaction was so unnerving, especially since the dead body was still in the room, rotting away like the corpse it was. Disgusting. Your hands and his were bloodied and he had no shame. “[Y/N]...” He raised your limp hand and kissed the back of it. “I love you. We shall be bound by this contract. Know that I will protect you, no matter the cost.”

You stayed silent. He was trying to make it romantic, but this entire thing was surreal to you. Either he was ignoring your lack of response on purpose or he did not notice. Tucking the contract away into the pockets of his brown, gorgeous coat, he eyed his hair. 

“Tie my hair, my dear. I’ve always wanted to feel your warm hands on me.”

You nodded robotically in response, getting up from your seat to reach the towering male. His cheeks flustered when your fingers weaved into his soft strands. But it was cold. They felt like weaving spider webs, ready to entrap a poor bug victim into its complex trap. That was what you were. Every second spent was eating you away, until you were nothing but dust.

[twilightofthe]

(oops a little late to the game) Unpopular opinion! Although I think that Padme's death in ROTS wasn't completely out of the realm of possibility (i.e. she absolutely could've given up the will to live, that's a thing that can kill humans!), I also think it was pretty sexist for LF to kill her off because her emotions were too strong/she didn't have the will to live without Anakin anymore.

(Ask game found here)

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

Thank you for this one! Ok so this is definitely a very complicated answer for me

Firstly, we gotta address the matter of the fact that Padmé, narratively, unfortunately needed to die in Revenge of the Sith. She needed to die because the sad truth was that she was dead, canonically, by the Original Trilogy, as both of her children confirm her as dead. This was a good 8 years before the Disney purchase. There were no other streaming service shows or lesser known comics coming out at this time that would show us what was going to happen in canon after this movie. If you wanted to give Padmé Amidala, one of the three main characters of this movie trilogy, a solid ending to her character and story, she needed to die in Revenge of the Sith.

So yeah, Padmé did HAVE to die here.

Now did Lucas do it well enough to give her character justice? No, in my own opinion I wouldn’t say so. He cut most of her written plot that was about her forming the Rebellion and standing up to Palpatine and actually finding herself on a different side than Anakin, all of that was cut out of the movie. I feel that was detrimental to her character, as what we have left is pretty much just her being the distressed mother to be that Anakin obsesses over. I feel her remaining plot that was left for her in the movie revolving near-entirely around a man is definitely on the sexist side, and her death also revolving completely around a man can be seen as a part of that larger issue.

But Padmé’s death on its own, without the rest of the movie in context? I don’t know if I would call it a particularly sexist death. Like, I really don’t think I could call her death a fridging like I would say other prequels-era Star Wars ladies’ deaths were— notably Shmi, Satine, etc. —because while yes, Padmé’s death did make the male main character sad and drive his motivations afterwards, she was not killed off just to make the male main character sad and drive his plot.

Padmé was killed off for story continuity as she had already been canonically dead before the original trilogy for at this point around 25 years, so she needed to die. Of course it was gonna upset Anakin/Vader because the dumbass decided to pull all his violent murderous bullshit that most male characters with fridged women pull while the woman in question was still alive.

So no, I wouldn’t say Padmé’s death is a fridging. You however mentioned specifically the whole “lost the will to live” part, which is something else, and I don’t know if I would call that sexist either.

Yeah it fuckin’ sucks that in a universe where any old Darth Spite can survive falling down a hole after getting chopped in half/blown up, where the universe personally pulls time travel fixits despite continuity to save you if the director the universe likes you too much to let you die, where the woman in question’s husband just got triple amputated and flambéed and is up and kicking like an hour after getting fixed, where Breha Organa and Fennec Shand can just get brand new roboguts to replace any of their internal organs getting destroyed— it SUCKS that in that universe, Miz Amidala unfortunately cannot escape the diagnosis of Terminal Sad.

But they never say that she can’t go on just because of her emotions over losing Anakin; in fact, her last words are a fervent belief that she hasn’t lost Anakin, that he can still come back, that she still loves him even after he tried to kill her and destroyed her life’s work. I think it’s a combination of all of the different kinds of heartbreak. Her husband helping commit a genocide, yes her entire life’s work she put all of herself into burning to the ground around her, Jedi who were likely her friends all being dead, ALL of that weighed on Padmé. ALL of that was likely a part of her just not having the strength to take any more of this bullshit. Yeah she had two new babies, yeah there was the Rebellion. New children aren’t all sunshine and roses, especially when you’re a newly single parent and your not-so-deadbeat father is trying to hunt you down and is also a murderous fascist. Being part of a rebellion against a corrupt authority??? Fucking SUCKS. Activism and standing up and doing the right thing and fighting to take down the authoritarian power structures is WORK and it’s HARD and it is EXHAUSTING. It’s not a shining crusade of light and hope. It’s gritty and dirty and time consuming and it kills people. Padmé’s been throwing her entire sense of self into serving others, fixing the government, since she was twelve years old. She’s been conditioned to it. It’s all she’s BEEN doing. She has never seen a therapist in her LIFE. She just went through a grueling labor after being strangled by the one she loved most.

The more and more I watch this movie and the more and more I’ve looked back at my own mental bullshit, I can’t help but watch her death now and be like “ok yeah, I get that. I get just not being able to fight anymore, even if it’s The Right Thing To Do to pull yourself back up no matter what.”

I personally actually do subscribe to the theory that Sidious drained Padmé’s life force and used it to save Anakin because I love how it’s a painfully ironic end to the unhealthy and tragic Anidala relationship, that it’s sad for both of them, just because that’s the exact kind of Star Wars bullshit that is fun and makes sense to me. But even if Padmé just genuinely died from not being able to go on, just, I can’t really see that alone as anti-feminist anymore

[recurring-polynya]

Hey this is for our Redhead's bday. Its like a fluff and angst with a happy ending. Is it possible to make a Renruki based on Hanahaki disease? Do you know about this fanfic trope? Its like a person who doesn't know or think their love is requited, will cough up petals. They can only be saved with a confession or accept that they cannot be together with their love interest. I don't want it to sound too morbid. Let me know if its possible.

Wikipedia description for better understanding:

Hanahaki Disease is a fictional disease where the victim of unrequited or one-sided love begins to vomit or cough up the petals and flowers of a flowering plant growing in their lungs, which will eventually grow large enough to render breathing impossible if left untreated. There is no set time for how long this disease lasts but it may last from 2 weeks to 3 months, in rare cases up to 18 months, until the victim dies unless the feelings are returned or the plants are surgically removed. There is also no set flower that blossoms in the lungs but it may be the enamoured’s favourite flower or favourite colour. Hanahaki can be cured through surgical removal of the plants' roots, but this excision also has the effect of removing the patient's capacity for romantic love. It may also erase the patient’s feelings for and memories of the enamoured. It can also be cured by the reciprocation of the victim's feelings. These feelings cannot be feelings of friendship but must be feelings of genuine love. The victim may also develop Hanahaki Disease if they believe the love to be one-sided but once the enamoured returns the feelings, they will be cured. In some literature, other symptoms can be fever, uncontrollable shaking, loss of appetite, low body temperature, and hallucinations. Even after curing, with or without surgery, there can be irreversible damage to the lungs and, although very rare, in some cases the disease cannot be cured.

Ha ha ha, of course I have heard of Hanahaki disease, my brain is 100% rotted by fanfic.

I. hate. Hanahaki disease. It is probably my #1 most hated trope, up there with every single soulmate thing that treats love like some sort of inescapable destiny and strips the characters of any agency. To me, falling in love may be more or less involuntary, but the choice of whether or not to pursue it is the very crux of romance.

In any case, I was just going to... not do this one, except that I walked around mad for half a day and then wrote this up in, like, two hours. This sounds terrible, but this is actually an ideal day for a writer! I am really happy with how it came out! Thanks for the prompt!! I mean this with absolute sincerity!

Warning: Bad language, because Renruki aren’t any happier about any of this than I am.

Read on ao3 or ff.net

🌺   🌺   🌺  

“How the fuck,” asked Rukia, “did you get that into my house?”

Sitting on Byakuya’s good tea table was a heavy green glass bottle of Rukongai’s worst rotgut. And two saucers.

Sitting cross legged and cross on the other side of the table was Abarai Renji.

“I told the captain it was necessary. Sit down.”

Usually, Rukia would take being ordered around like that as an invitation to call him names, but there was something angry and serious in Renji’s tone, so she sat instead, and let Renji pour each of them a saucer of something that smelled like lamp oil. Silently, they tossed back their drinks.

“You want to tell me what this is about?” Rukia asked as Renji refilled.

Without speaking, Renji pulled a carefully folded handkerchief out of his kosode and slid it across the table.

Rukia’s hands clenched into fists.

“Go ahead,” Renji said offhandedly, sipping his sake.

She didn’t want to. She knew what it would be. But she did it anyway, reached over and flipped open the handkerchief to reveal a handful of mangled, half-rotted flower petals. Hot rage ran through her veins. “Are you going through my trash now?” she demanded.

“No, I asked the captain to,” Renji replied coolly. “I assume he had someone do it for him, but he didn’t say.”

“Fuck you,” Rukia snapped.

Renji stared at her, his eyes cold and angry. “That night we camped in Hueco Mundo. Before we caught up with Ichigo and the others. You coughed up half a camellia and a good inch of stem in your sleep. I… figured we had more pressing concerns at the time, but I asked your brother to keep an eye on you after we got home.”

Rukia took a gulp of her drink. “Well, congratulations, Detective Abarai, you cracked the case. You’re so smart that I’m sure you know how these things end, so we don’t need to discuss it.”

Renji squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and then opened them again. “It doesn’t… it doesn’t have to be a death sentence, you know?”

“It’s complicated,” Rukia grumbled. “I’m not explaining it to you, but it’s not… solvable, and I can’t… I won’t give up. Not this time.”

“I didn’t mean that,” Renji continued, his voice quieter. “There are ways to… manage it. Live with it.”

Rukia’s brows furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s a disease of the soul, y’know, not the body, which is why humans don’t get it. With a strong enough will, you can keep it in check. The key, the thing that really lets it get ahold of your lungs, is when you start to lose hope.”

“You want me to live in denial, then?”

“No, not quite. But there’s some… techniques. We live a really long time, Rukia. Things may seem one way now, but… but who’s to say how they’ll be in sixty or seventy years, right? I mean, it’s not easy, but if you can imagine sort of… jarring up your feelings and packing them away for later.”

“Like pickles.”

“Yeah, like pickles.”

Rukia finished her saucer and reached for the bottle.

“Another thing that works sometimes is to try to…” Renji gestured helplessly. “Reframe it. I’m sure you’ve read poems about courtly love.”

Rukia made a face. “I fail to see how reading old-timey thirst poetry about wasting away from wanting to sleep with someone else’s wife is going to help anything.”

Renji’s face took on a pained cast. “Yeah, I guess some of them are like that. But being in love with someone who doesn’t love you back doesn’t mean your life is...meaningless. There can be something really beautiful and noble and sorta romantic in and of itself about loving with no hope of reciprocation. That you can still be of… of service to a person, even if they never notice you.”

“Renji, that’s fucking nonsense,” Rukia informed him, topping up his drink as well. “Where do you get these ideas?”

“Or you can just really absorb yourself in some goal. Be so busy you don’t have time to worry about love. Time passes quickly when--”

“Renji, just stop. I know you’re trying to help, but I’m… I’m sick and no amount of made-up wishful thinking is going to make me better.”

Renji’s face rapidly cycled through a number of emotions, like he kept coming up with things to say and then biting his tongue instead. “It’s not fucking made up, okay? People have lived with it for years, you know. Decades. Fuck, Rukia do you know selfish this is?”

“‘Selfish’?” Rukia echoed incredulously. The alcohol was starting to hit, and it made her feel unmoored, a raft floating in a sea of her own grief and anger. What did he know anyway? He was married to his job and his duty. The truest companion, the most generous soul, so free with his heart to everyone he called friend, but he didn’t know jack shit about being in love. Renji was the most transparent person in Soul Society. If he had ever fallen in love, it would have been public knowledge. Maybe his heart didn’t even work that way. What the Hell did he know?

“Yeah,” Renji spat back. “Selfish and cruel. How can you love someone-- even if they don’t love you back-- and-- and-- let yourself die from it? What kind of a monster would do that? You can hold on, Rukia. You’re so strong, I know you can. Just… just listen to me, for once. I can help you.”

Rukia felt her eyes burning, so she grabbed the bottle and took a long drink from it until her whole face burned. “Fuck. Off,” she replied, slamming it down on the table.

“I won’t,” Renji growled. “Ichigo cares a lot for you and it would kill him, Rukia, you hear me? You can’t do this to him, or-- or the rest of us, either.”

Rukia stared at Renji uncomprehendingly. The room was starting to swim. “What the fuck does any of this have to do with Ichigo?” She suddenly felt very tired, so she folded her arms and put her head down on them. “You fucking dumbass.”

[snickiebear]

Hello hello nadia, i’m in a leesaku mood today so pls indulge me with a three-sentence fic for this lil prompt “you are my best friend and I’ve known you platonically for years now but every time you look at me I get fireworks in my chest and butterflies in my stomach” tysm ilyyyy ❤️❤️❤️❤️

haha... this is, two days late. NIASDUKDSK IM SO SORRY THANK YOU FOR THE REQUEST YOURE THE BEST ILY

side note: this is.... kind of what you wanted? AND LMAO ITS NOT THREE SENTENCES AGAIN WHOOPS

side side note: this is now crossposted bc i liked it a lot tbh :")

a cocoon in the heart, a spark in the brain.

It starts with a glance. An innocent, fleeting look. Naruto’s smile is too bright to look at for more than a handful of seconds and Sasuke’s glare is too dark to find anything of interest, so Sakura glances away, as she always does.

She glances away and there is Lee, dirtied and bloodied but he holds Neji’s hand, Tenten tucked under his arm, and is laughing, tears streaming down his face. He must have felt her eyes because he looks over and sends her a beaming smile. 

And. And her heart picks up, her breath catches. 

She quickly looks over to Naruto and Sasuke, being blinded by the light and dark both, and tries her best to not think of why one look from Lee can breed butterflies and moths in her stomach. 

.

.

.

They rebuild the village and everyone endures. Sasuke leaves once more because he is a boy who has never known staying, he has never stayed long enough to put roots in, to know how to stay. So, Naruto and Sakura let him go. 

(If she is being honest, Sakura is more than happy to have him leave. Sasuke will always be a rotten fruit in the tangle of her feelings, something that she will never quite understand, something that will haunt her no matter what she does. If he is not there, she does not have to think about it. He’s like a curse, and it hurts her to think that but it is true.)

Kakashi is the Hokage and Sakura is still laughing at him, clutching her stomach and howling at her friend’s “misfortune” as he calls it.

“Mah,” Kakashi half drawls, half pleads. “Must you laugh at your poor ex-sensei?”

Naruto is losing his absolute shit as they clutch each other to stay standing. “Kaka-sensei you do not look good in white.”

“It,” Sakura gasps, wiping tears from her face, “It-It really washes you out!”

Naruto’s knees give out and they both tumble to the ground, a mess and tangle of laughing limbs and leaking eyes. 

Kakashi sighs heavily from his desk but she knows he’s having just as much fun as they are. Kakashi is her best friend, she knows how he is when he’s drunk out of his mind and when he’s trying to bite back laughter. 

The door swings open and Lee steps in with Team Gai flanking him. Neji recovered incredibly well thanks to Sakura’s magic hands (as Naruto has deemed them) and they’ve been taking low ranking missions since he was deemed fit to return to duty. 

It takes a few moments for Sakura and Naruto’s heaving, snorting laughter to subside as Kakashi clears his throat, his eyes crinkling up in the way Sakura knows he’s really trying not to laugh. 

She looks up and glances at Lee, to find him already watching her, his eyes soft and smile softer. Sakura is a God Slayer along with Naruto and Sasuke, she has faced down hundreds of opponents with only her raw fists and come up victorious, she has dragged people back from the brink of death with a tap. 

Sakura does not blush. Out right refuses to. 

“Hey,” All breathless and raw from laughter.

Lee’s smile widens as he steps forward to offer his hand, she takes it without hesitation and thanks the God whose heart she ripped out that he was wearing gloves. She can feel the heat through them nonetheless. Sakura does her best not to shiver as their eyes meet. 

“You guys heading in or out?” Naruto asks after he hauled himself onto his feet, not hiding the way he eyes Lee and Sakura’s hands. The entire room’s eyes are on them. 

“In,” Tenten says slowly, and Sakura does not blush as she carefully extracts her hand from Lees and does not think about why there are fireworks exploding within her mind, why she misses the heat and the way his hand encompasses hers. 

.

.

.

She sees him everywhere now. 

At the Rusty Kunai, at the training fields, at lunch, sometimes even in the hospital. And every damn time he smiles at her, she feels like she’s coming back to life and being stabbed in the heart. 

Sakura has no idea if this was love or just lust. What she felt for Sasuke was not love, that was obsession and cruelty. She had crushes on civilian boys but they were too soft, unmarred compared to her countless scars, visible or not. 

Ino stares at her as if she’s the stupidest person in the world and Sakura smacks her for it. She hopes it leaves a bruise. The Bitch. “Stop giving me that look, Pig. I’ll hit you again, don’t tempt me.”

Ino glares as she rubs her arm, sticking out her tongue. “It isn’t my fault you aren’t using that big forehead of yours! You’re telling me that you two drink together, train together, you go to lunch together, he even visits you at the hospital because he knows you haven’t eaten or slept. And then you tell me you get all those stupid fluttery feelings and you don’t know what it means?”

And well. When she puts it like that. . .

Sakura pouts and crosses her arms, “It's confusing!”

“You’re a genius. An actual genius, Sakura.” Ino deadpans. “Your IQ is literally right next to Shikamaru’s. Lee has been in love with you since we were twelve! There is no way you don’t know what this means.”

Groaning, Sakura slumps into Ino’s lap, hiding her face in Ino’s thigh. “When did you become so smart?”

“When I made out with Hinata and then fucked her.” Ino says easily and Sakura laughs. “What? Don’t laugh! It's true!” 

Ino cackles when Sakura pinches her calf.

.

.

.

Lee moves with such elegance that Sakura aches with it. 

This boy made man who had known nothing but sweat and hardship, who still cups things with such tender and care, who moves so fluidly and hits so brutally.  

They are both the earth, solid and unyielding, they are the water, the hills, the mountains. They are unbreakable because they have broken themselves apart, pushed themselves past the very limit to reach where they are.

Sakura and Lee are 20 and they have saved the world. 

Now, they tear apart the training grounds just to keep life interesting. 

With every dodged fist her heart quickens because Lee is smiling and laughing, calling friendly taunts as she grins right back. 

This is nothing like Team 7’s spars, all bloodied teeth and snarling as Sasuke underestimates her again and again and again. Kakashi, Sai, and Yamato know better. Naruto is learning slowly. Sasuke never pays attention enough to know.  

No, sparring with Lee is like dancing, is like thriving, and a fresh breath of air at night as fireworks light up the sky and a butterfly lands on your nose. 

She lands a kick to his ribs and spends him flying back as she advances swiftly, pinning him down with a hand on his chest, knees on either side of his hips. 

A long pause as they try to catch their breathes.

They’re both breathing heavily, Sakura cannot tear her eyes away from him as he reaches a hand to tuck loose hair behind her ear.

“Lee,” She breathes, ignoring the way her face burns and the way butterflies have swarmed her insides, how her heart is raging against her ribcage. “Lee I-”

“Sakura.” Lee says, voice deep and rumbly and cracking. “Sakura, will you go out to lunch with me? Forever. Well, hopefully forever- you are so very Youthful, you are incredibly Strong, you do not need my protection, but Sakura, let me protect you anyways, just as you will me. Sakura-”

She channels her inner Ino and leans down to kiss him, all lips, teeth and tongue. His hands settle on her waist and he flips them without breaking contact and if they weren’t in public, well. . .

Sakura pulls back breathless and wide eyes before forcing the words out, “I’ve known you for years Lee, you’re one of my best friends.” Her hand on his chest can feel the way his breath catches, the way his heart is pounding. “Everytime you look at me I get fireworks in my chest and butterflies in my stomach. They’ve bred and infested my very insides, my brain blooms and rots with the thought of you.” 

He is shaking beneath her, staring at her as if she is Divine and Righteous and she cannot think of anything else she would want except his eyes on her. 

“Lunch?” She breathes, hand at the base of his neck. “I would like to have lunch with you. Forever. If the offer still stands.” 

Lee smiles wide and bright as he stands, pulling Sakura up with him, “The offer will always stand, Sakura. For you, there is very little I would not do.”

She kisses him again and hand in hand they go to lunch.

Facts:

The very first day Lee saw Sakura a cocoon formed within his heart, everytime after that more would form, more would crack.

The butterflies and moths have a home in his heart but only come alive when they see her.

They never die, no matter what he does.

He saw her crack the world open with a first, saw her tear open a God’s chest. He was the first thing she looked at after. He thought he would become alight with it all.

Lee loves Sakura. He always has, he always will. His heart has a butterfly garden full of fireworks just for her.

Her laugh makes his skin prickle, makes his muscles loose. He is addicted to it.

She looks at him like she sees the green of the trees and the blue of the sky. Lee revels in it.

Sakura loves Lee and it nearly breaks him.

He will take her out to lunch until the day they die and well after.

The butterflies and moths and fireworks never go away for either of them. It is the beauty of it all.

[therenlover]

heyy jac I first wanted to say you are amazing, thank you for going out of your way to give us tfatws content. it brightens up my day whenever I see you post. I was just listening to your zemo playlist and I’m one of those people who when I listen to a song I love to make scenarios in my head. I was wondering if you could walk us through some of your favourite songs on the playlist and tell us how you associate them with zemo. I’d love to hear your thoughts on some of the songs. (if that isn’t too much hassle sorry if I’m being annoying lol).

 Anon, you are currently my favorite person in the whole wide world. I absolutely want to give you my favorite songs on the playlist and tell you exactly what I see when I hear them, and you have given me an excuse to do so. This post will probably be long as hell, so I’m putting it under the cut. 

Foolish To Think from A Gentleman’s Guide To Love and Murder

We all know Zemo is a baron, but like... we don’t know how powerful baron’s are in Sokovia. We also don’t know pretty much anything about his childhood or rise to power. I am a firm believer that he’s been ever so slightly unhinged even when he was still just a normal dude, so this is him deciding “you know what, I’m about to climb my way up the Zemo family ladder however I need to,” This, in my mind, is the epitome of fresh faced, 18 year old, canon Zemo ready to go fuck some people up for power. 

If Music Be The Food Of Love arranged by David Dickau

During his rise to power, still just a normal dude, Zemo falls in love with his wife. I’m a big believer in the fact that, because Zemo was raised as royalty, he knows a whole lot of pretentious shit like Shakespeare and recites it to his partner to be romantic. The line “Though yet, the treat is only sound, sure I must perish by your charms unless you save me in your arms,” is what he used to woo her early in the relationship. So cute, it would be terrible if something bad happened to her...

Bogoroditse Djevo arranged by Arvo Pärt

This one is more of a scene I get in my head. It’s a Christmas tune, and I can see him, his wife, and their infant going to their first Christmas market as a family in Novi Grad. Just... walking from stall to stall, giggling at the performers, eating the food, buying little gifts for the baby to remember the occasion. It’s a calm before the storm.

The Swan by Camille Saint-Saëns

This song, in the playlist, marks the death of Zemo’s family. In the past, dancers have interpretted the melody as a badly injured swan, slowly struggling as they die but still being graceful and elegant as they do. As he searches through the rubble, his hope slowly dies, and in the end his hope dies where his family did. Thus begins his descent into madness in...

Daemon Irrepit Callidus arranged by György Orbán

Daemon Irrepit Callidus is Zemo’s descent into madness. From this point on, he slowly loses his softness. The tone of the songs is often much more modern, pulling away from his roots as a baron and man of high status and leaning into something more gritty for much of the Civil War era in the playlist. He has descended into hell and he believes there is no turning back from here. 

Songe d’Automne performed by The White Star Orchestra

Reportedly (by Harold Bride, surviving Jr Telegrapher who was washed off the deck as the ship sank) this was the last song the orchestra played as the Titanic sank. Zemo is going nuts. ‘Nough said.

If I Believed from Twisted

This song, along with a few more, is an outlier in the Civil War era. It represents his reasoning for what he’s doing. I imagine this song is the feeling he has after he listens to his wife’s last voicemail. He’s doing everything for her, burning a whole superhero organization to the ground so that he can assure nobody else has to live through what he did, but he can’t deny that a part of him wishes he could just bring her back no matter how illogical that is.

How Does A Moment Last Forever (Music Box) from Beauty and the Beast

This is, again, a softer moment. He looks back on the time he spent with his family and tries to keep it safe in his mind. It anchors him to reality and keeps him focused on his goals. The end is coming soon in his mind, so he clings as hard as he can to those remaining memories of peace.

Dies Irae arranged by Giuseppe Verdi

He sets the Winter Soldier loose murders all the remaining soldiers in the Hydra base on his day of reckoning. Yeah, that’s basically it, it’s just hype music as he has his big moment.

As The World Caves In by Matt Maltese

His plan has been carried out and now Zemo is simply watching as the world caves in around him. He’s succeeded in all of his plans, the avengers are crumbling, he’s listened to his wife’s voicemail one last time and now he’s ready to be dead. He thinks this is it. Well, until he’s taken into custody and locked up forever. 

Leonardo Dreams Of His Flying Machine arranged by Eric Whitacre

My man Eric is coming in clutch once again. This is Zemo, brilliant mind and all, stuck rotting in jail. He has nothing but his dreams of grandeur to tide him over So, he dreams. He dreams of escape, of his family, of what waits for him once he dies. 8 years of dreaming pass before Bucky finally approaches as Lacrimosa plays.

Lacrimosa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Fuck you, Mozart. You’re only here because you played in the show. Moving on. 

The Sweet Escape by Gwen Stefani 

You cannot tell me that this isn’t what was playing in Zemo’s head as he escaped from maximum security prison and rolled up to that warehouse looking all hot and mysterious. 

Sibella from A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

Look who’s back! This time, though, I included this because I am adamant that Zemo fucks someone he used to know while he’s escaped and they have a big dramatic love affair. Like, he just does. I don’t make the rules. 

WAP by Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion 

Zemo would just love WAP. He says all that woke shit, so like, he vibes with female empowerment and the idea of them taking back their sexuality. He also loves the annoyed look on Bucky’s face when he plays it, so it stays on the playlist. 

The Man I Used To Be from The Count of Monte Cristo

Now, this one is more speculative, but I feel like Zemo will have a minor change of heart. he won't suddenly be a morally straight good guy to the bone, but I think he’s seriously rethinking his ideology and at some point, he might find a way to let go of a lot of the pain and remorse he’s been carrying around. 

No More from Into The Woods

This song, in my mind, takes place at the Sokovian memorial. Zemo is there and he’s so tired of running and fighting and grieving. He just wants to be okay again but he doesn’t know how to. He has this mental moment where he’s asking his deceased father for help and yet the memory (ghost?) of his father, who he resented for most of his life, isn’t helping him straightforwardly. He has to figure it out for himself in the end. This line speaks to me most. “No more giants waging wars. Can’t we just pursue our lives, with our children and our wives? Till that happy day arrives, how do you ignore...” 

and finally...

Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep arranged by Laura Farnell

Of all the songs on this list, this one was the only one I was absolutely certain of including and I knew it had to be the last song no matter what else I included. Its contents, a famous poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye, could refer to either Zemo or his family. In the case that he visits the monument, it could be the feeling he gets there. Finally, he knows that his family is somewhere better, not buried under the rubble of his home. He’s finally free. 

If he dies at the end of the series though, it takes on a whole new meaning. It’s about him, how he isn’t trapped by his mortal body anymore. He’s now everywhere, both a constant reminder to the world of the atrocities committed in Sokovia and a testament to how powerful a father’s love for his family can be. Once again, he’s finally free to reunite with those he loves, but this time it’s he who isn’t truly dead so long as people heed his life as a warning. 

Wow, this was longer than I thought it would be even when I cut a few songs... I hope you enjoyed!

[threephasebird]

Hello friend, it's Nicole from TAD discord, so sorry for awkwardly & randomly sliding into your dms. I've noticed that you've been reblogging a lot of The Untamed recently and I have just finished The Untamed & literally cannot think about anything else. I'm obsessed. Anyway, I've also noticed from your blog that your favorite seems to be JGY and I find that *fascinating*. He's very much not my fav, but he's such a complex character that I would love to hear your thoughts & feelings & analysis?

And to be completely clear, I will never try to debate with you or say your opinions are wrong or immoral or anything. I'm not an anti, I've stanned plenty of villains in my time. I'm just genuinely curious. I think the fact that you have such different feelings about this character is part of the beauty of stories and a testament to how complex and smart this particular story is.

Hello friend! First of all, thank you for your ask -- I love talking about my fictional faves, so there’s no need to apologize at all! There are definitely people out there who have already posted much more cohesive and succinct character analysis for JGY, but I’ve sat down for a bit to find an answer to the question of why I, personally, like him so much. I ended up finding six possible ways to answer this question, which I’ll list below and then go into (a lot) more detail under the cut. Hope you enjoy!

1) I like him because his motivations as a villain are complex and understandable

2) I like him because there’s no easy solution to his conflicts

3) I like him because he interacts with the story in a unique way

4) I like him because when we see him on top of his game, it’s fun to watch

5) I like him because LXC likes him

6) JGY is very small and has dimples

So, onward! (2.7k)

1) I like him because his motivations as a villain are complex and understandable

One possible way of looking at JGY is that throughout the entire story, his end goal is to eliminate all of the Jin family and come out on top as sect leader, chief cultivator and most powerful person in the cultivation world. However, I personally find it more intriguing to think that his specific plans shifted throughout the story and that he didn’t follow a long con the way NHS did, but that the common ground in everything he does is that he’s motivated by wanting security. Then, everything that he does afterwards is a step-by-step escalation when no matter what he does and how far he comes, his goal is always dangled right in front of him, but ultimately impossible to reach.

When he joins the Nie clan, on a superficial level it seems that this place could offer him the security he wants and needs, especially with NMJ protecting him -- but on the flip side of the coin, no one apart from NMJ and NHS seem to respect him, and his security entirely depends on NMJ’s goodwill. It’s an exteremely fragile position that could probably only ever last for a limited amount of time. Even if JGY never killed the guard captain and wasn’t thrown out of the Unclean Realm, how would the future have looked like for him? NMJ’s life expectancy was low to begin with, and once he had died (of natural causes, in this hypothetical case), NHS wouldn’t have been able to hold the same protective hand over JGY as his brother, and JGY would have become the disrespected advisor to the disrespected clan leader. (On a side note, I personally don’t think JGY released XY to get the yin iron -- I think it makes more sense that he wanted to use XY as bargaining chips against WC, seeing how he goes to free him immediately after WC asks for NMJ to release XY, to save the Unclean Realm and, in extension, his own ass.)

After JGY is thrown out, he’s basically out of options -- it’s go big or go home, because which other clan would take him in now? So he sets his sight on being recognized by JGS once more, and in order to succeed, he derives the plan of becoming a spy under WRH and do something so “heroical” that after the war, JGS has no other choice but to accept him into his clan. And at first, it seems like he succeeds and that he finally gets everything he wished for -- his father recognizes him as a son and gives him a position, he’s part of the Jin clan, he has power, he’s secure! But then it turns out that he was wishing on the monkey’s paw. His father doesn’t truly recognize him, and even in the Jin clan he’s disrespected (by JGS, by Madam Jin, by Jin Zixun), he doesn’t truly hold power (he just has to do whatever JGS tells him to), and he’s not secure (JGS instrumentalizes him because he’s useful to him right now, but does that mean he’ll be useful forever? So there’s a constant threat there).

I think the only reason JGS officially adopts JGY is that it allows him to claim the victory over WRH for the Jin clan and to expand his own power. Instead of JGY being recognized, JGS instrumentalizes him from the very first second and to make it worse, he makes JGY his attack dog the same way WRH did. I think the things JGY does under both WRH and JGS are absolutely horrifying, but I can’t help but also feel horrified for him. Under WRH, I think he tells himself that whatever he does is the lesser evil because it’ll end the war quicker, and that it’ll all be worth it in the end, and as a result, he loses parts of his own humanity there. And then under JGS, it’s the same fucked up shit again, except that this time, he also wants so very badly for JGS to value him, and in addition, he’s also completely out of options now. Without wanting to excuse the things he does under JGS, the only alternative at this point is for him to leave the Jin clan and the cultivation world as a whole, and I do think there’s a definite possibility that JGS would have him killed if he did because he knew too much about JGS’s plans.

Without passing judgment on his involvement in JZX and JZX’s deaths, as well as him killing NMJ and JGS for now (the latter being the one thing that I’m personally most horrified of), I don’t see JGY as a villain who enjoys being the villain the way XY does. I think he’s constantly horrified at himself and compartmentalizes to a degree where he’s actually derailing his own plans. Him throwing out XY immediately after killing JGS reads to me as him wanting to close the chapter of everything they did under JGS -- I think he must have acted out of a visceral emotion there or else he wouldn’t have left XY to die at the side of a road so carelessly (and, in effect, allowed for someone to live on with detailed knowledge of his own deeds). After rising to power (and finally, seemingly, really getting the security he’s always wanted), he doesn’t use that power to become WRH 3.0, but instead to do genuinely good things (such as building the watch towers). That’s not supposed to mean that him not being a cruel despot makes up for everything he’s done, but I find it interesting to think about from the perspective of, what kind of person could he have been if this opportunity had been given to him freely -- if his own class and social standing didn’t prevent him from that? I think he’d have become an incredibly powerful cultivator and clan leader if he’d have the same privilege as JZX.

In a way, I see JZX, WC, and JGY as narrative foils. WC shows us who JZX might have become if JGS treated him the same way as WRH treats WC. But, JGS doesn’t -- he shields his own son from this part of the Jin clan, and basically allows him to live in a completely different reality as JGY! JZX’s whole character arc is one of personality development, and becoming a hero, and falling in love -- he doesn’t have a clue about his father wanting to get his hands on XY and the Stygian tiger amulet and arguably about at least part of the war crimes he commits against the Wen clan. It’s not part of his life. In a way, JGY is the sacrifice being made to allow him to live his life unaware because in him, JGS found someone else to do his dirty work.

2) I like him because there’s no easy solution to his conflicts

Sometimes, when you want to be a villain apologist, all you need to do is point at one or a few bits of the story and say, “well if they hadn’t done that...”. (See, for example, Anakin Skywalker -- you wanna write a RotS canon divergence fixit? Just have Obi-Wan come back approximately one hour earlier and you have it, because before Anakin kills the Jedi even the Younglings he’s basically completely redeemable.) With JGY, you don’t get to have that. There’s no single turning point where you could say, “if he had picked the other option, he could have had a happy ending”. And part of the reason for that, which makes him a tragic character in my eyes, is that he crucially lacks options at many turning points.

In order to write a canon divergence AU for JGY where he comes out unscathed and redeemable, you’d have to go pretty far back in the story, and even then, you’d have to work hard to find a solution to his story that doesn’t a) rely on someone saving him (such as: LXC brings him to Cloud Recesses, or: JGS has a change of heart, frees his mother, and sends them a comfortable monthly pension), b) having him be dependent on someone else’s goodwill (such as: staying in the Unclean Realm in a delicate position).

If we don’t want to go back right to the very beginning or change fundamental parts of the story, well... As I’ve mused about above, if we let him stay in the Unclean Realm, he’d have never reached his goal of security either. If he never became a spy during the Sunshot Campaign, he wouldn’t have been accepted into the Jin clan and would have been out of options. If he never committed the atrocities for JGS, JGS would probably have kicked him out or killed him. (I do think there’s a lot of truth in what JGY tells NMJ in the empathy flashback, on that instance.) If he didn’t kill NMJ, there is a distinct possibility that NMJ would have killed him -- we see him try three times on screen, after all. (I’m leaving out the parts about him being directly responsible for JZX’s and JZX’s death in the show, as well as for controlling the corpses at Nighless City and JYL’s death, because it’s not in the book and I think it takes away from WWX’s character. As for QS’s and their son’s deaths...I personally do not see strong motivation for him to kill them, but in the end, we just don’t know which is, on a side note, a thing I really like about The Untamed/MDZS! Sometimes we just don’t know because the only people who know for sure can’t tell us anymore.) One option could be for him to confide to JZX, bring him over to his own side, and non-violently overthrow JGS, which would be a good and satisfying ending both to his and JZX’s character arcs -- but I also think there’s a high possibility JZX would hold JGY responsible for what he and JGS did, and never trust him with power again.

(Again, one thing I really do not wish to excuse away is how he killed JGS, and I just. Desperately wished he didn’t.)

I’ve been going over and over the possibilites for fix-its and canon divergence AUs, but in the end, I’ve arrived at the conclusion that the only real choice JGY has throughout the story is whether to remove himself from the narrative or stay in it. He could make the choice to give up his mother’s dream, reject his father, and leave cultivation world (and, on a meta level, the story!) to become a “nobody”. (Small side note, though -- living on which skills?) If he doesn’t -- well, as soon as he enters the game, the cards are stacked against him.

To pick up on the meta level comment, I do find it fascinating that in a sense, JGY not only has to struggle for respect and recognition within the story, but that what he does also serves to keep his character part of the story. He could choose to give up and leave (and thus come out of the story redeemable), but then he wouldn’t be part of the story anymore.

3) I like him because he interacts with the story in a unique way

Continuing with the last point, JGY interacts with the story in two unique ways that distinguish him basically from all the other characters. He’s not actually supposed to be part of the story, but that he basically claws his way in. But that also means that his class and social status cannot be removed from any of the conflicts he encounters in universe -- they’re at the heart of all of them. In the empathy flashback, he says to NMJ, “You always scold me for indecent scheming. You always say that you are just and straight [...] A decent man shouldn’t resort to devious stratagems. [...] You’re of noble birth and have profound cultivation. What about me? How can I be the same? First, I don’t have the foundation of cultivation. No one has ever taught me that since I was a child! Second, I don’t have any background. Do you think that my position is very solid in the Jin clan of Lanling?” What I find so intriguing about this scene is that he’s right when he says he’s different from the others both in text and on a meta level because most of the other characters are never faced with the same decisions and have a natural place within the story (apart, to some degree, WWX and XY, where also interesting parallels can be drawn). And the other characters are, in a way, self-righteous to judge him when almost none of them come out of the story without blood on their hands -- WWX’s revenge, JC torturing demonic cultivators after WWX’s death, and so on...The entire cultivation world (even NMJ! even LXC!) were complicit in the war crimes against the Wen. But when the cultivation world turns against JGY, they are the most appalled by the things I as a viewer would be the most lenient towards (murdering JGS), and don’t care at all about the thing that horrifies me the most (murdering the sex workers).

There’s an interesting post by @pumpkinpaix​ analysing how class dynamics work in the story, which I highly recommend! I don’t want to repeat what has been said there already in much better ways than I can, but among other things, it makes some really interesting points about how much JGY’s class is tied with his motivations.

4) I like him because when we see him on top of his game, it’s fun to watch

Aside from any analysis, part of the reason why I like him so much is that when he’s acting as a villain, he’s just so much fun to watch. When WWX breaks into his vault in paperman form and JGY has approximately 5 minutes to get rid of the head, the torture bench (?) and anything suspicious, contact and inform Su She, run to a different building and come back, and nonetheless he manages to convince everyone but WWX and LWJ that he’s the victim in this situation, it’s just. Peak entertainment? For a short time, he’s on top of the game, and then he’s backed into a corner and becomes sloppy, and finally loses it all due to sentimentality (if he didn’t want to take his mother’s body with him and say goodbye to LXC, I’m sure he could have fled the country). I think Zhu Zanjin did an amazing job as an actor to portray how JGY is constantly assessing everything, how 23638 emotions flicker over his face in half a second, how his whole body language shows the constant anxiety and pressure and stress and fear he’s under, and how we actually get to see in his microexpressions when JGY chooses a path and commits to the acting and emotional manipulation to follow it through.

5) I like him because LXC likes him 

Here’s a secret: Actually, LXC is my favourite character. And LXC loves JGY a lot. So I’m kind of contractually obliged to at least love JGY a little bit as well?

On a more serious note, I’m very intrigued in their relationship because I do think what they had was genuine. I view it as two people being very open and honest and true with each other, while placing a lot of things outside the brackets and crossing them out. LXC even says that he was aware of some things JGY did (which ones? how? I need to know) but that he justified them to himself. I think they both realised that they could have had something very special, but under the given circumstances, LXC wouldn’t have been able to help JGY (see: point 2) even if he knew everything. Still, they were obviously very close and trusted each other as much as they could. I think in the end, when LXC seemed to have decided to stay and die with him, JGY pushed him away because he was the only genuinely good part of his life, and he felt like he couldn’t rightfully deprive the world of LXC. It’s all very tragic, and I’m very intrigued to explore what they could have been in a slightly softer world.

6) JGY is very small and has dimples

I can only speak for myself, but when I was watching, I was so prone at any point to believe in him no matter what was revealed. Look at him! Could this man do something wrong?

[dreadnought-dear-captain]

Steve’s Ending: What the Fuck Just Happened?

                            ************WARNING*********** 

BIG-ASS ESSAY WITH SPOILERS FOR AVENGERS: ENDGAME AHOY

I have been largely out of the fandom sphere for a spell because of personal stuff that went down and then subsequent Endgame anxiety (I’m sorry, I really will get to some BW asks as soon as I’m done reeling from this film), but I wanted to get out some thoughts about Endgame while they are fresh in my mind. I have seen Endgame twice since its release. I saw it Friday morning, debriefed with my beta @pitchforkcentral86, and then turned around and bought tickets for an evening showing the same day. Why? Because I had to process Steve’s last scene. I had to see it twice just to comprehend what the hell happened and then try to interpret it. I went through several hypotheses and waves of accompanying emotion and then came to a tentative personal conclusion about what the hell Steve’s ending is to me.  But first I had to ask— Is this a true happy ending? Is this lazy writing? Is this a character assassination? Is this a legitimate choice Steve would make? Some combination of the above? So, here go my hypotheses—

Hypothesis 1: This is a legitimate happy ending for Steve and his timeline.

If you only look at the images shown to us and don’t devote much thought to the implications of Steve’s choice for other people in the world, it might appear to be a beautiful ending. After a decade-and-a-half of compass-gazing and pining for the good old days of segregation and boiled food, Steve gets what he wants. He gets the person who is — surprise! — “the love of his life.” This plays into the ongoing narrative that Steve has never been able to find contentment in the modern world or with modern people (some of whom he refers to as “family,” interestingly enough). This hypothesis also assumes that he can only be happy if he is with one woman, because he assumes shared life experience is a prerequisite for partnership, which means that he has essentially preemptively foreclosed on any relationship with anyone who is not Peggy.  Since Bucky’s name has barely even entered Steve’s consciousness lately, except to emotionally whump his past self into not choking him to death, even their friendship seems to be a question in the last two films in this series.

So if we take the arc of these films into consideration, including the last two films, he has apparently resigned himself to a position of “Peggy is my only viable romantic relationship, and she is dead, and I am incomplete as long as this is true.” When you write this thesis for Steve Rogers, which is a sad thesis indeed, this ending might seem like a relief for him. (It could also be argued that it is terribly lacking in resiliency and flexibility and is naive, at best, in terms of what is love versus infatuation versus idealization.) Problematic in this happy ending scenario: The writers clearly did not consider the second and third order effects of this decision. They just needed to tie up Steve’s timeline and get Chris Evans out of the franchise, and this was a way to do it that resonates at face value. Man out of time gets put back in his time. Gets love. Quote: “It was beautiful.” Ignore all of the following and more: -There will now be two Steve Rogers in this timeline. -One of them will presumably be with Peggy Carter for at least a good chunk of time, unless things went south. -Peggy Carter is the director of SHIELD. Her close associates are undoubtedly known to them as a result. -Thus, Steve Rogers probably could not just stay hidden in the pantry. SHIELD would want to debrief him. They would want to know how the hell he got there. Questions would get asked. This could not remain a secret forever. -Is Steve Rogers going to sit out history? Hang on the couch while the world burns, shield unused? -Is Steve Rogers, knowing that Bucky is alive, going to leave him to rot with Hydra? -Even if they made some sort of arrangement beforehand, like Bucky saying it’s okay, don’t come get me, would they both sit well with continuing to let him kill all of the innocents he killed? -If Steve did go get Bucky, he would likely find him some time in the span of however many years he’s in the past. The future would be completely changed. -If he intervened and found Bucky, Sam Wilson would not be Falcon because TWS would not happen. This version of Bucky would not exist. This end scene could not happen. -Thus, this does not seem to be something that Steve chose to do during his life with Peggy. (Debunked-ish, along with other “Back to the Future” science hereafter, below) Which brings me to my second hypothesis about this ending. Hypothesis 2: This was thought out, but it represents writers Markus and McFeely’s disconnect from the character they built. This is where the “there is no way in hell Steve would sit on the couch where the world burns, where Bucky suffers with Hydra etc.” argument comes in. This taints the ending in a particularly sour way, because they have labored so hard to build an image of Steve as someone who would wreck the world to save Bucky Barnes from harm and stop at nothing to prevent serious harm in the world where he could. It’s what he wanted in the first place! It’s where we all started in TFA! The Steve we know and love would want to go to Korea. To Vietnam. He would want to stop the Khmer Rouge and all the bad shit he could intervene with. Right? And his ass would try to save Bucky, especially knowing exactly where he’s kept! Right?? He would keep going and going until he was worn down into a nub of nothingness. Right??? Which meanders me to— Hypothesis 3: This was a decision that Steve Rogers made that is plausible for his character and was deliberate on the part of the writers. Second and third order effects included. This may be a stretch, but I think it could be argued on the grounds of good becomes great, bad becomes worse. Steve does nothing by half measures, an intrinsic trait that is amplified by his transformation. I have always argued that Steve has a very real selfish streak, or else he never would have tried to enlist in the Army so many times knowing he is absolutely unqualified to serve. Serving in his original condition would have put so many lives at risk, and others would have had to pick up his slack, because he would have been next to physically useless in combat as small Steve. But he would not accept reality, and he would not accept a “lesser” form of helping because it had to be the way that served his ego and his sense of rightness and justness for himself, consequences to other soldiers and the mission be damned. It was myopic and self-serving. And if good becomes great and bad becomes worse, maybe this is a form of that. Maybe he and Bucky agreed (because they were clearly in cahoots with that final scene business) that he would not intervene and rescue him, because then there would be no Falcon, or simply on the principle that the timeline must remain as undisturbed as possible. And maybe this one time, Steve didn’t say “fuck you, Bucky” and do what was right. Maybe Steve Rogers was done. Fucking done. Maybe he realized that what he first wanted at the beginning of TFA is not tenable. That he can’t fight forever. That he, like Tony, needs to rest, and that he can’t do that in the modern world. Which is interesting, because he essentially becomes Tony Stark v1.0 in the end, only caring about himself and his own. And Tony Stark becomes Steve Rogers, making the ultimate sacrifice for mankind. So Steve enjoys a life with Peggy while the world burns because he just can’t do it anymore. He’s paid his dues and he’s done being Captain America or Nomad or anyone else. (Wonder how she likes that version of Steve...?) Though how he could possibly say “It was beautiful” is utterly beyond me. I can’t fit that into this hypothesis, unless he has compartmentalized so hard and so well that he has forgotten about Bucky’s existence completely. And if he has, this is a very sad ending for his character.

There are probably many other hypotheses out there. They just didn’t percolate through my mind yet.

Which brings me to some things @pitchforkcentral86 brought up:

Why was Tony Stark’s arc so perfectly completed, so beautifully closed — truly, even I shed a tear — when we have to sit here writing stupid billion word theses on a nearly defunct blog site, grasping for straws, scratching our heads, wondering what the fuck just happened to Steve Rogers? It’s like getting to know somebody for eight years, being told the same stories about their behavior, learning their values system, their truths… and then being thrown a parting image that can only make sense if  a) the writers cannot be trusted — and maybe could not be trusted this whole time, or b) the character is actually not the person we thought he was.

Is either of these what we want to be left with as we close this phase of the MCU? Either the writers failed or Steve Rogers is not the person we love? And do we really not get to see Bucky and Steve’s friendship arc get closed in a meaningful way after building its depth for three movies? Are we really supposed to count a cheap recycling of a TFA line and some shimmery-eyed SebStan woobieface (TM) and some secret time travel hook-up conspiring off-camera (AS THEIR ENTIRE RELATIONSHIP HAS BEEN SINCE CIVIL WAR, PRESUMABLY, OFF-FUCKING-CAMERA) as “closure”? So, what do I think? I think this was lazy, crap writing, and I think Markus and McFeely thought we wouldn’t consider the timey-wimey implications too much. I think they know this character, and I don’t think they figured this would assassinate his character. I think they just really, really needed to tie this story up in a superficially pretty bow, and they couldn’t kill off both Tony and Steve, so they needed to give him something that took him out of the franchise. And that scene at the end with Peggy was aesthetically BEAUTIFUL. I smiled the first time, ear to ear, until my brain kicked in two minutes later and realized what it meant. They have been building up to this forever, kindling Steggy pretty much every movie. We Stucky people are all like yeah, yeah, Peggy, so sad, but the films have been consistent all along about saying a) Steve is a man out of time, and b) he loves Peggy Carter. (However you wanted to interpret that love... until the support group, where the interpretation is made for us). Support group side note: First, I squeed that Steve was running a support group in what I’m pretty sure is a VA auditorium. And on one hand, I loved the super chill gay Russo cameo and Steve’s untroubled reaction. Three cheers for the first openly gay character in the MCU [eyeroll]. But also, it felt like a total concession, like okay all you Stucky idiots we’ve been queer baiting over the years, we are gonna drop an A-bomb your little kingdom, but look, at least Steve isn’t a homophobe! See? He’s cool with the gays and so are we. Thanks for playing. Maybe you’ll get a REAL queer character in the next phase of the MCU! (If you even stick around after the shit we’ve just pulled.) But this laziness is problematic, because it feels terrible and discrepant. Intended or not, it does have serious implications for the timeline and/or the character, and the final scene existing the way it is potentially means at least one of two things: 1. Time doesn’t work the way we think it does. (In other words, what if there is a world where time travel Steve did all these good things like free Bucky, end the Vietnam War early, etc.?) However, since he is here on this bench with Bucky and Sam, dropping off this shield, this is implausible. If he just disappeared for good and Bucky explained the situation with a tiny, knowing smile, then it would be possible that he started an alternate reality where he did all these very Steve-congruent things and freed Bucky in that timeline, which would not affect this one. Wouldn’t that be nice? I could live with that. Just disappear into the sunset and we can write fics to fill in all the gaps of his Steve-ness. His core character is retained. Hooray. 

But if he started an alternate timeline, he would not be here with Bucky and Sam like this in the original timeline as an old man, which suggests that he jumped back in the same timeline. Unless they invented technology to jump between timelines. Or Dr. Strange jumped him back to this bench just to drop the shield off and high five with Sam and then is going to take him back any second or some dumb shit that has no basis in anything we have seen on screen (see @pitchforkcentral86’s point above about grasping for bullshit just to make sense of this). Or it means that— 2. Steve did not do anything and did not give a fuck about it. Both of these are terrible. Terrible. I would rather have had Steve die than have this ending. And this has nothing to do with Stucky for me, because Stucky is mostly just a fun fandom thing for me. I don’t mind that he ended up with Peggy per se. It’s the implication that he didn’t save his friend, knowing EXACTLY — geographically and historically — where he was, not only saving Bucky but also all the innocent people Bucky would kill. OR I hate the implication that the smug motherfucker let Bucky rot — perhaps per their agreement, maybe he kept a promise, whatever — and he had the gall to call it “beautiful.” And this is after Markus and McFeely slaved for three movies to convince us that these are best fucking friends from childhood who are with each other “‘til the end of the line.” At the very least, even if they are not going to be physically together, friends do not let friends suffer for decades at the hands of Hydra, and if they do, they do not fucking enjoy themselves while it’s happening. If this is the Steve they are leaving us with, I do not want him. And I kind of don’t know what to do now.

Am I missing something? Please tell me I am. I’m desperate for a way to make sense of this. Truly.

OKAY, EDIT: 

@koubashii  very kindly sent me a message reminding me that Bruce spent quite a bit of time belaboring on the point that changing the past doesn’t change the future. She reminded me that Nebula killing her past self didn’t obliterate her from existence. I did forget about all this. So I can’t use Sam and Bucky Prime’s existence in their current form as evidence that Steve did nothing, if he went back in time. Point taken. THANK YOU!! 

(Edit: As far as I can gather from some research from actual astrophysicists and not MCU Bruce Banner, this “changing the past doesn’t change the future” stuff is just one small theory and does not appear to be the prevailing theory. However, this is the quantum realm, so we can make up all sorts of silly rules about infinite possibilities, infinite realities, yada yada, because nobody understands quantum physics except Hank Pym. Comic book science wins again!)

So, if he’s creating a separate timeline, let’s say he rescued Bucky early. Is there another Bucky running around with him? (New fun theory to make the pain better: He danced with Peggy, had a good time, went to find Bucky, married HIM, and that’s why he doesn’t want to talk about it with Sam. THERE. Fixed it.) 

But this still suggests that he broke off into an alternate timeline, one that did not disturb the current one. So if he went off into this entirely new timeline, how did he bounce into this old one? Pym particles? Sure. Fine. Comic science Whatever. Maybe he gets some. Did he just drop in by the lake and pop a squat on the bench right before Bucky told Sam to look? Sure. Was he there the whole time? Perhaps. Fine. Who the hell knows. 

So, one possible explanation is that there IS an alternate timeline where Steve did the right thing. And he jumped back here because Pym particles. His character’s integrity is potentially saved and who the fuck knows who he ended up with in the end. Let your imaginations run wild. It’s too late for Bucky Prime to get saved, poor Bucky. At least he has Sam and their upcoming Disney spinoff series, which sounds like a fucking joke when I write it (but srsly I’m dying and cannot wait). 

And there are still problematic things with this narrative for me, such as the idea that Steve’s entire happiness hinges on one woman he barely knew, largely because she didn’t scoff at him when he was smol and I will be DAMNED if Peggy kept his picture on her desk, and there is no effing way that she would even have her back to the door, but whatever. And I still hate that Steve and Bucky’s relationship arc was treated so horribly by these last two films. NO HOMO, indeed. Just in case we got the wrong idea from the intensity of the relationship that the MCU created for us. I will be posting more on this later. 

AND STILL — we should not have to work SO HARD for this kind of "meh” explanation. You should not need a group effort to make sense of your character’s ending, after so much wallowing in despair. And this might still reek of bullshit to many of you. I need to percolate more. 

Pym particles and Wakandan Vibranium trauma-healing brain magic — quick and dirty shortcuts for real character development. Thanks, MCU. Consider my brain exploded.

[no-nipplesonlybunnies]

This is a photo of Germans carrying a very large wheelbarrow full of cash during the period slightly before the second world war.

Between the first world war, the 1918-1919 Spanish Flu epidemic, and very poor management of the financial markets the crash of '29 destroyed the world economy. Millions were forced from their homes, millions around the world starved to death as the supply chain was so deeply disrupted that even the little food available was often rotting in the fields because the farmers could not get it to markets.

The early 1930's in the United States saw the dust bowl era and the Great Depression come together to cause poverty and starvation here in the most wealthy nation in the world. People left the midwestern farming states and went to California, Oregon, Washington, and even Alaska to start over and try to survive, some did well, most did not, many died in abject poverty.

Now for those few who have followed me over from my previous tumblr, m2gmt, you'll will be asking yourself "what does this have to do with bunnies and nipples, or the lack thereof? " and I'm going to answer that question now.

If you are a young girl reading this you don't have the understanding of just how bad the Great Depression was, your grandparents weren't alive then, very likely your great grandparents were not either, mine were, they went through it trying to raise a family. Thankfully they were farmers, able to feed their own families with the food the grew, the animals they raised, and they made it through with only minor suffering. Many were not so fortunate, many died who should have lived had it not been for the economic and social distress of the period.

Those of you under 25, my main target audience right now, have the idea that the government is your savior, and you are so wrong as to be ludicrous in your assumptions. Government cannot save you, the government has no money it did not forcibly take from those who earned it. I don't want to hear a fucking word about how "everyone has to pay their fair share" you haven't earned a fair share of my money, nor have I earned a fair share of yours, or more to the point the fair share is exactly ZERO! Almost none of you would steal from another person, you know it is wrong, and you are good girls and not thieves, hiring the government to do it for you is the same as stealing it yourself, but here comes the bigger issue. Soon, very soon, the way the state governors are shutting down the economy in order to "flatten the curve" is going to mean there will be no money for governments to steal and give to you. In fact with over 15% of the normal GDP for 2020 already having been spent on the stimulus and corruption package passed by congress, we are already fucked, and the longer the economy stays shut down, the worse this will be, and it is just a matter of time before the stock markets all crash and burn. Currently the only thing keeping that from happening is the United States president, Donald Trump, and the left is trying as hard as it can to remove him. We aren't going to argue politics either, I am older and far more intelligent than you, and I know exactly what I'm talking about.

I listened to my grandmother and great grandmother telling stories from the depression, and my uncles and great aunt as well. The stories were often sad, but humorous, and told of a time when people did whatever was needed in order to survive. The girls looked for a strong man, a man who was not polished and wealthy, those men had girls already, but who could keep them safe and feed them. Some girls turned tricks for food, fucking strangers for milk and bread so their brothers and sisters could eat. Mothers who had lost their husbands in the Great War, WWI, often got with men who had sex with them and their daughter in order to have a home and food. Things were done and winked at because the situation was just that bad.

Right now, today, some of you are worried about your next meal, and with good reason, because you aren't sure where it will come from, and rightfully so. Many of you are soon going to lose your housing, some may already have done so, and still more will be in the same situation in a matter of weeks, no one is exempt.

It is about to get really interesting, and most of you have no clue as to how bad it will be. The boys your age are utterly useless on the best of days, now they are an absolute liability to you. The skinny jeans, manbun soy boys are incapable of taking care of you, and even though you may think you can take care of yourself, you can't. You will need a very different sort of man.

Me, I've seen battle on four continents before I was 21, speak multiple languages, can repair a diesel engine, kill and butcher cattle and game, routinely catch crab and fish, and even without a single dollar I can take care of a girl if I choose to. I'm one of the absolute most violent and dangerous men you'll ever meet, and yet I'm polite, well educated, and well read. I'm not Rambo or James Bond, but I'm no soy boy, and I damned sure don't have a man bun, those boys are, justifiably, terrified of me and those like me, we are the apex predators of the world, no bunnies unless you are talking about this kind.

(Yeah, I like Catshit 1, sue me)

So, what is this post about?

It's about you girls making the choice to be with a man who, in exchange for your sexual slavery to him, will take care of you during the coming instability and economic disaster. If you want to know more send me a PM and we can chat.

[rockettransman]

this is about gabe

TW: death, suicide

January is Gabe’s birthday month. He would’ve been... twenty? Twenty-one, I think. I’m pretty sure he was older than me. More than me in a lot of ways. Better looking, more annoying. Ruthless. Cold-hearted. More aloof. I was too much. Too analytical. Too emotional. Too quick to react. Too quick to shut him down. Too quick to threaten him right after he said something degrading. For a long time I wanted to get a memorial tattoo (the empty folding chair the school didn’t save for him with his graduation gown atop it) but I don’t know why. The guilt I live with is greater than the memory of him being such a complete jerk to me. I never imagined I’d wrestle with the grief of losing someone like this. Grief is supposed to be linear. It’s supposed to make sense. You lose someone you love. You miss them. It isn’t fair. You want them back. You’d do anything to see them again, to hear their voice, to feel their touch. But this? Man, this was the one kid I swore up and down I’d be at peace if he fucking died. Of course, it was all hyperbolic. I never wanted him to die. I just wanted him to stop being an asshole to me every waking moment. I hated him. I fucking hated him. He was my own living nightmare. This grief isn’t “I miss him because I love him.” It’s “I miss him because I want to apologize.” I’ve went around circles for years about how I feel about him. I feel guilty for being as mean to him as he was to me. I wish I could take it all back. I wish I could say I’m sorry. I wish he could know that I never wanted to hurt him so deeply that I contributed to his death. I feel a lot of shame and regret. Realistically speaking, I know that I alone was not the cause for his death. But I feel like I had to be some part. I was mean. He told me I should cut myself some more, I told him he should shut the fuck up before I knocked him out with his math textbook. He teased me because it was so, so easy to get under my skin, and he loved that. I hated Gabe. I vehemently loathed him. I wanted nothing more than for him to fucking rot. And I guess I got what I wanted.

It’s dragging on to three years pretty soon since he’s been gone. I used to have his dad on Facebook. He’d make posts and live videos about how despite how tragic and harrowing this was, he still finds joy in the Lord, and knows that God will provide and keep him safe and provide all he needs. Even after losing his son, he is finding joy in all that he can. It got to be too much for me. He thinks we were friends. We were not. I decided that we were sworn enemies. Maybe I wasn’t all that much to him. Just an extremely insecure kid he knew he could use to his advantage. But he absolutely haunted my high school days. I hated him. I wanted him dead. I wanted him to feel as awful as he made me feel.

He was the only one in my math class who always called me Noah, a month after I came out publicly. Consistently. Always. No questions asked. It had its caveats, though. Sometimes he spat my deadname just to see me get all riled up. But still, I saw the respect he held for me and my identity by using Noah when no one else would. He was human. It was hard to see most days.

The last memory I have of him is getting into a fight in the cafeteria. I think I saw him wiping blood off his face. His solid pastel-colored shirt in a flash. His tan skin hitting the floor briefly. Officers came to break it up. I looked away, and laughed with my friends. “He is such an idiot. Getting into a fight over stupid shit on school grounds.” Three months later, he killed himself. He either shot himself or crashed his dad’s car. Maybe he crashed his dad’s car and decided that was his breaking point. Maybe he didn’t shoot himself. Maybe the accident was on purpose.

It will never not disturb me that Gabe and I were both extremely suicidal at the same points in our lives, but I was too blinded by red rage to see he was hurting. He hid it well, I guess. Always cracking jokes and picking on people and acting out to be the center of attention. Briefly, he mentioned his rocky home life. And briefly, my heart ached for him. That was until he leaked the app of where to find a girl’s nudes. And then, I was spitting fire at him. I never had the guts to get in his face, but god knows I wanted to knock his fucking lights out. He was a vile boy. So selfish and ignorant and mercilessly mean. I hated him. Still, I never wanted him dead.

I write a lot about him. I have nightmares about him sometimes. I hallucinate him sometimes. I don’t even have nightmares about my real trauma I experienced six years ago. And he was the first thing I vividly hallucinated.

The day I found out he died, I sobbed. I screamed. In my bedroom, with the door open, in the arms of my girlfriend. No one in the house came to check in on us. My parents, who are cognizant of the quietest snick of a door clicking into the frame, did not investigate. I screamed for what felt like hours. My mother gave me a dollar store card three days later saying “I’m sorry to hear about your friend” with a candy bar taped in it.

For days and weeks afterwards, I listened to the same two Hamilton songs (It’s Quiet Uptown & Burn) biking up and down Palmer in a haze of numbness. Constant biking, not sure where I was going, feeling the damp humidity of promised rain against my cheeks. Gabe is dead. Gabe is dead. Gabe is dead. I had a lot of nightmares about him not actually being dead. It was a sick prank he pulled on everyone. I got to throw myself into his arms and sob and tell him I was sorry, I was so sorry, and I was so happy he was alive. And then I’d wake up, and the breath would be knocked out of me. I’d disappear under the fog of grief for another excruciatingly long, empty day.

Initially, it felt tremendously like it was my fault. I was rude and mean to him just as he was to me. If he made me as suicidal as I was, surely I made him feel the same way. But I know that days before he died as he was planning it, moments before his death, I was the furthest person from his mind. Was he scared? Was he worried for his father and his sister and his brother? Did he pray to God? Did he ask for forgiveness? Was he angry? He was not thinking about how I, red-faced, embarrassed, angry and stuttering, told him to shut the fuck up in history class. Two and a half years later, I cannot get him out of my brain.

I’ve been mostly okay with accepting the fact that I did not hurt him as much as I’m sure I did. His suicide was not my fault. But it’s hard to let go completely. Every time I think I feel peace, guilt worms it’s way back in. Will I live with this forever? When I am forty-five, will I think about Gabe? Will I remember anything about being seventeen? I hope so. I miss being seventeen. I miss the people I wish I could’ve treasured more. I wish I saw Gabe as a human being. Not a ruthless monster. I know now he wasn’t. I’ll always be sorry. Happy birthday, Gabe. Hope you enjoy drinking legally. Hope you drink something better than a stupid bud light. Try a white claw. I think you’d like it. I miss you. Take care.

Love, Noah

[xaz-fr]

The Story So Far

Sizes for pics are ALL over the place cause I’m in the public library and away from my normal images. Forgive me on that OTL

ANYWAY. Ready for Azazel to remind you he’s an absolute scum bag and you absolutely should not like him in any way??? Yeah me too

@griminal-rising @deadpool-scar-bro @hikayelastoria @cornsnoot-fr @redlion-fr @mushroomdraggo @murdoch-fr @tales-around-sornieth @frxemriss@rainhearts-hatchery @rexcaliburr-fr @onikuma-fr @serthis-archivist @fitzfr (let me know if you’d like to be added to the lore pinglist)

WARNINGS: 

attempted rape, mention of past rape, child abuse, child death, derogatory language against women, domestic violence, assault, threatening violence against women. There is NO rape actually in this story. Just talk of it happening but no one actually gets hurt like that.

PLEASE let me know if I missed any TWs. I want to be thorough in the warnings so no one reads this not knowing what they’re getting into.

Three Foot Casket pt 1

Azazel was wary. Astra had been in a good mood. That was never good. She should have no reason to be happy either. Usually she was just miserable but recently… happy. And he found her in her nesting room often. That was also unusual. For a blind moment he was worried he'd broken her. That wouldn't do. Or maybe she'd finally come to her senses and decided to stop being a slut and realize he was the better option. She really was very lovely. Beautiful even. She was just disgusting on the inside. But so was he. They really would have worked out rather well if she wasn't busy opening her legs to someone else.

He was making his rounds past the hatching room. He was more attentive of them than usual. He was quite done with her spiriting his children away from under his nose. Those were his children and she had no right to give them to Johanna.

The door of the room was open half way. He carefully opened it a bit and then slammed it open furious. The nest was empty! Again!

“Astra!” he bellowed and stormed up to her room. He seethed and twisted the knob with magic worked into his muscles. The lock broke. “Astra!” he barked and saw her on her bed, half behind the curtain that hung from the ceiling from a single point.

“You don't have to yell, Azazel, I'm right here,” she said and his eyes narrowed. Then he relaxed, confusion radiating through his entire body. In her lap was a hatchling. A skydancer with bright orange down with floral designs. His brow furrowed as his anger slowly leached out of his body. What… was going on?

“Uh…”

“Did you need something?” she asked him sharply.

He shook himself to bring himself back to reality. “Where are the other two, slut?” he asked cruelly.

“Fuck you,” she said even as she pulled back the curtain a bit and saw two skydancers curled up on the bed, sleeping on each other. They were practically the same dragon save that one of them had lighter horns than the other.

Azazel couldn't move. He was stunned stupid. For years he'd been fighting Astra on sending them to Johanna. She always snuck them out in the dead of night or when it was light out, knowing he wouldn't go above ground. Not while that horrible Abbadon was allowed to prowl the surface. He just stared at Astra as she gently stroked the hatchling’s crest. “Did you need something, Azazel?”

He stumbled forward. At last! After so long. She didn't protest when he came close. Then he grew wary again. Why was she being so calm? She'd done something. “What did you do?” he asked her.

“Nothing I wasn't already doing, you horror,” she said and pet the hatchling. He looked down at the hatchling in her lap. It looked… normal. He looked at the twins and his brain was slow to understand what he was seeing. He looked down at her. The color of their pelts was wrong. There was no way these were his children. Astra and his children were orange, yellow, and green. The twins were brown. Darker than Astra’s natural colors and there was no way that could happen unless-

“You-- slut,” Azazel snarled.

“Says a rapist,” she hissed back. “Hey!” she yelled when he grabbed the orange hatchling in her lap by the neck. “Let him go!” and she lurched to her feet even as he lifted them up and examined them. “Azazel!” she hit him but he shoved her aside. Darkness coalesced around his fingers and the hatchling screamed as needles of darkness pierced their skin and splattered blood across the curtain. “No! You monster!” she screamed. The twins had woken up now and were pressing to the edge of the bed.

He turned his sun-like eyes on her. He dropped the lifeless hatchling and it splattered to the floor. She stared at him with wide green eyes. For the first time she looked afraid of him. “When will you get it through your pretty, stupid, head that you are mine?” he snarled and grabbed her by the neck with his bloody hand, shoving her back down to the bed by the throat. She clawed at him. “You were promised to me and you couldn't even keep your legs closed long enough for me to arrive?” he was furious. “You were a girl and already a whore,” he lifted her up a bit and slammed her back down on the mattress.

Her eyes glowed green and under her breath hissed out a curse. Sick green energy started spilling from her eyes, nose, and mouth. Where it touched his skin it sizzled and burned. He just tightened his fingers and let it burn his flesh. The smell of rotting flesh filled the room. “It’s a shame you’re a slut. I would have been proud of you for this otherwise,” he ripped his hand away and held it against his chest. The green energy rolled back up across her face and she swallowed it.

“Maybe if the first time you saw me you hadn't raped me we wouldn't be in this situation,” she hissed. “Get off of me before I rot away the rest of you.”

He chuckled darkly. “No, my dear,” and he showed her his hand. It was healed already. “You cannot rot what is already rotten. But I'm sure those little books of yours didn't tell you that did they?” He pressed her down again. Really he was impressed. It wasn't every day someone took up necromancy. Even rarer to be a Wind dragon. They were usually too sporadic to handle the meticulous nature of such magic. And he'd never come across a female necromancer. At least not one who couldn't have flayed the flesh from his body with a glance. Sweet, budding, Astra he could handle.

“Get off of me,” she snarled.

“Oh, my dear, I certainly will be. And then I'll take care of those unnecessary spawn of yours,” he smirked.

He saw her processing what he'd said. “You stay away from them,” she hissed.

“For now,” he stroked her cheek and she smacked him away. “I prefer you sweet, relax. You know it hurts less.”

“I'm going to kill you,” she hissed.

“You cannot rot what is already rotten, my dear,” he used magic to keep her hands down so she couldn't hit him. He did hate that. Usually she was complacent but today she was fighty. She just gave a cry of frustration that shook the air and rattled his head. He shook his head to clear it.

“Get off me!” she screamed and the sound was a shockwave that made his antlers vibrate.

Two balls of fluff and feathers attacked him, shrieking. As they did they almost seemed to turn into griffins with claws like Idols and sharp beaks. One clamped onto his arm with their beak and the other raked his side with their claws. Their gems glowed brightly. He'd never seen that happen before. “Cute,” he grunted and tore them off him, throwing them across the room where the hatchlings collided with the wall and lay in a heap. “I'll take care of them later,” he said and leered down at Astra.

She screamed again and he had to cover his ears against the sound. “Shut. Up,” he grabbed a pillow and shoved it over her face. He didn't intend to suffocate her. He just wanted to block out the sound. “So annoying,” he grumbled and pushed his hair back from where it had fallen across his brow. He lifted the pillow and the sound was immediate. He put it back over her face. She struggled against it, her body bucking and trying to throw him off of her. “At least scream when someone bad has happened, Astra,” he tutted. She screamed against the pillow. “Such a drama queen.” He touched her throat and traced a symbol into her flesh. The screaming stopped abruptly. “There, better,” he removed the pillow. She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out. She tries to swear at him but only her mouth moved but no sound was heard. She struggled against the magic bounds around her wrists but they held her there. “Much better,” he smirked. She looked away from him and at the wall where her spawn were still a crumpled pile against the corner. He'd take care of those things momentarily. First he needed to deal with Astra.

It was such a pity she was so beautiful, talented, and powerful and completely hated him. She would have been an ideal mate for him and he was attracted to her. And not just for her looks. The fact that she had decided all on her own to study necromancy and that she was like him attracted him immensely. “Just relax,” he touched her face with awkward gentleness and she spit at him. “Don't make this worse for yourself,” he snarled and grabbed her face harder.

He was changing his position against her when he heard a strange noise. It sounded like a growl. He looked over his shoulder at the door. “Abbadon,” he said slowly seeing the Wildclaw standing there. Abbadon’s growl deepened, his crest flaring aggressively. “You're not supposed to be down here,” he said like he was commenting on an oncoming thunderstorm. Abbadon took a measured step into the room. “Don't do something you'll regret now.”

“Get away from my mistress,” Abbadon growled. Azazel didn't like the sound of that. He looked down at Astra. He'd started to undo her pants and she was just laying there smugly.

“What did you do, hmm?” he asked her. The glyph on her throat brightened as she tried to talk.

“Azazel,” Abbadon snarled. He stepped further into the room.

“You're a naughty girl,” Azazel said and got off of her, pulling his pants closed as he did.

“Leave, now,” Abbadon snapped and a bit of acidic drool dribbled from his mouth. “Before you give me the pleasure of sinking my teeth into your throat. I'm sure Aten will forgive me of leaving him the honor.”

Azazel looked at the Wildclaw. He took the threat seriously. Few things could hurt him but Abbadon was a threat to his continued existence. He snapped his fingers and Astra lurched into a sitting position and then off the bed as he took her binds off her. Abbadon moved between him and Astra who was kneeling next to her worthless spawn, tending to them. “Always a pleasure, Abbadon,” Azazel said nicely.

“Soon, it will be,” Abbadon growled and turned his body to keep looking at Azazel as he walked towards the door.

“Until next time my dear,” Azazel called to Astra.

“Drop dead,” she called back furiously, holding one of her hatchlings against her chest. Its wing was twisted.

“Don't leave them alone,” Azazel said sweetly. Astra and Azazel just growled at him. He left the room and closed the metal door behind him. Stupid bitch.

[nish-s-random-writing]

“LaDiDaDiDa”

USUK/UKUS Hitman Jones fanfic

words:1749 summary: Jones was just having a little fun, but somehow he ended up getting tried in court. Well, he supposed it was up to his Arthur to bail him out. Again. Most likely with a lot of murder involved. warnings: blood, murder, abusive-ish-kinda relationship, death mentions, physical harm, court proceeding that isn’t a court proceeding that might offend an ace attorney fan (a/n): well, I threw the truckload in here, didn’t i? Inspiration was from the many vines of Hitman Jones with SonReal’s “Can I Get A Wtiness?”, or, y’know, the one that goes “I am the man~” Enjoy! :D

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“Your honor, if I may intrude-“

“Get your feet off ze table!!!”

“Geeze, judge, no need to be rude.”

I could feel stares on the back of my neck. I smiled, knowing the jury was paying very close attention.

Ah, yeah, I was in another courtroom this time, being tried again. It was just a little slip yesterday—myself having a bit of fun; it was simply by chance that they found me with blood on my hands. Luckily, they’d never find who it belonged too, though the murder reports frolicking around Ney York was enough for them to arrest and try a random stranger in an alley with his hands stained red. Ha ha.

Arthur would be so mad.

The courtroom was big, empty, comprising mostly of auburn wood and a marble floor. It would be easy to start a fire in here. The seats were wooden—and a little creaky. I liked the sound. I rocked back and forth on my heals, making the chair squeak, making the noise echo, and making the German judge in front of me look like he was about to have a stroke.

That would be nice, wouldn’t it? To kill someone without doing anything more than bouncing your heels.

“Stop it! You- you…! Ah, does this man not have a name?” The judge yelled and rand his fingers through a bunch of frayed papers on his desk, those of which he immediately began to organize into a neat pile. Ah, a neat-freak. Extremely easy to piss off.

“No, your honor, I was born nameless and covered in blood,” I declared with a grinning mouthful of teeth.

The judge’s blond brow twitched. “What are you saying?“

“Well, I ain’t lyin’! Not everyone’s born with a predetermined name and you can’t tell me you flew out of your momma’s vagina all squeaky clean!”

“Enough!” He growled and banged his hammer-thingy on his wooden thingy. The already quiet courtroom seemed to hush even more. Above the angry German, the clock read 11:56, almost noon. The harsh sunlight was already beaming through the windows to the right.

“You,” The judge started again. “You have no name, no record, no face recognition. Who are you? A foreigner?”

“Maybe, maybe not. I could be Japanese for all you know.”

He tucked in a breath. “You—! Be straight with me, young man!”

“Sorry, I’m, like, really gay and I find dicks hot so it’s a no-can-do there!”

He gaped like a fish, surprise on his face. A snicker or two came from the jury stands before he silenced them with his hammer.

“Listen here! You have numerous offenses already—refusal to cooperate is one of them! Having no records makes you highly suspicious. This cannot be tolerated. I am breaking numerous procedures here and it pains me so, but answer me one thing, if you will not answer anything else! Whose blood was on your hands and what were you doing with that baseball bat?”

The judge leered, inching forwards with his hands on the table. He was daring me, behind his glasses. I offered a lazy stare behind mine. Above him the clock read 11:59

“Uhh, I plead the fifth?”

His hands were rammed on the table and he collapsed back in his chair. Then he was fixing up the disturbed pile of papers.

“Hey, what kind of trial are you running here, judge-y?” I teased, leaning back on my arms behind my head and bringing my legs up on the table. “No prosecutor, no defendant. Just you and, uh, the jury?”

“I’m early. They arrive at noon. And you have no rights to speak to me!” He snapped.

“You have no rights to speak either, bro. We’re in the same boat. What? I don’t even get a lawyer?”

Right, on the spot, the clock reading 12 noon, the double doors on the other side of the room burst open in a flurry and all heads were turning. In walked a blond man in a posh, tailored, black suit, outfitted with a nice green necktie. He had a briefcase in one hand, a phone in the other, and shades over hidden eyes.

“I am Lovino Vargas, replacement lawyer for the defendant, your honor,” he introduced, Italian accent heavy, as he came to drop his suitcase next to me.

“Um, Mr. Vargas. Ah—w-wasn’t Feliciano supposed to be his—“

“My brother cannot come today. He has gone down with the cold, you see. I replace him for today.”

With a quick scan of his papers, the flustered judge nodded an affirmation. “So you will.” He breathed, relaxed, and slumped subtly into his chair. His fingers, however, remained fidgeting with the papers.

And the man sat next to me, unwilling to look my way. Still, I grinned at the sight of thick, fuzzy eyebrows above the shades.

I leant in with a whisper, “Hey, Arthur.”

“Shut up, Jones.” He muttered quietly, lips barely moving. “Jesus Christ, must I rescue you every time, you good for nothing idiot?”

“I recall a time I rescued you, Artie.”

“Shut it.”

The jury had begun to mutter and the judge was, once again, distracted by his papers. They were waiting for the rest of the court. They would never come.

“Hey, Art, when’s it gonna go off?”

“About 12:04,”

“But that’s about-“

“Oh! For the love of god!” He cried out loud, throwing his hands up in the air. The jury and judge immediately turned to him and I tucked myself into my seat, hands in my lap and head down looking meek and embarrassed.

“This, this criminal has to use the restroom, your honor! He has been bugging me for the past minute. Please, to appease this man, may I take him there?”

Despite the strange sentence, Arthur’s was as convincing as always; his voice was a holy grail of genuine emotion and persuasion. And he pulled it off, for the judge fumbled and blinked.

“Ah, y-yes. Take, um, take a guard, will you?”

Two were posted at the front door. Wearing all black, bullet-proof vests and carrying a rifle each. Arthur pulled me up from my seat. How would he handle this?”

“Oh, your honor, may we take both of these men? I do not trust this criminal.”

“Um, y-yes! You shall. Go on, then.”

Maybe it was just this guy being terrible at his job, or maybe Arthur had gotten something in his drink earlier. Whatever it was, I grinned happily.

“Thanks, Mr.Vargas. Man, I really gotta do number two, if you know what I mean.” I stated as I walked down the aisle. Both guards each took one of my arm and Arthur walked behind them.

We emerged into a brightly lit hallway that took a sharp turn just three doors down. The floor was the same white marble and a potted plant stood in the corner. I had a feeling that the bathroom was a long way off.

Upon turning the corner, everything looked the same for a long way, but the pressure on my arms were immediately relieved.

I turned to Arthur who had a bloodied stainless-steel knife in his hands. He was posed casually with his arms at his sides and stood above two crumpled heaps of black-clothed guards. He knelt, wiped the knife off on a guard’s shoulder, and stuck it back in his inner breast pocket.

“Come on, Jones,” Sighed Arthur and he began to walk down the hallway. I followed at his heels, grinning.

“Thanks, babe.”

“You don’t call me that, you fucking idiot.”

“Aw, c’mon, don’t be like that!” I couldn’t help my giggle.

Immediately, I was pulled into a room and thrown to the floor. It was an office room, with a meeting table, a few chairs, some filing cabinets and a long window on the other wall.

Arthur stood above me, sneering, his shades now off and his green eyes glinting with anger. He locked the door.

“You absolute fool!” He spat, now back to his old British accent. “Do you realize how much danger you’ve put us in? They know your face now, Alfred! You are a lead to them now.”

“Relax, Art. A fire’s gonna break out in their records room after your bomb goes off, and I put a bug in their system so it’ll crash for a bit. Also, I deleted every little bit of record they have on me, so no worries!”

Despite my obviously brilliant justification, I was met with a harsh slap to the side of my head. I laughed.

“Fucking idiot! Think you’re so cunning, so brilliant, so sneaky. You think you’re the best hitman that’s ever been, huh?” Another smack, harder, drawing blood from my lips. The iron taste… delicious. “you’re nothing but a helpless fuck who I have to bail out every time you get caught!” Another lie from him. Another smack from him. “Useless!”

“If I’m so useless, dear Artie, why do you save me each time? Why not let me rot?” I grinned, excited, biting my lip just to get another drop of that metallic taste.

And Arthur smiled back.

“Because, dear Alfie,” he said, gently cupping my chin in the hand he used to hurt me. “I don’t plants seeds just to throw away my harvest.”

In the distance, the explosion went off. The bomb in Arthur’s suitcase which would have killed everyone in that court—everyone who’d seen my face. A vibration that shook the room at the edge of my fuzzy vision. Neither of us acknowledged it.

And he licked my lip, tasted my blood, sent a shiver down my spine, before he got up and offered a helping hand so I could do the same.

And it was always like this. Well, not always.

He had to find me first. He had to break me first. He had to quench my spirit with sharp words, harsh beatings, and biting psychological hurt. He had to crush my mind and body, before resurrecting me with a renewed vigor, a different flame, a different spirit. He brought me back half-dead, and that was why I’m alive.

No, I’m not the old me. No, I’m not flawless, I’m not the best. That was Arthur. I don’t say sorry, I don’t care about manners. I’m not perfect.

But I am who I am, the man Arthur broke into shape. And he’ll keep breaking me as he pleases, despite it being enough, because in his logistics, why not?

Yeah, I love him for that.

[alixofagnia]

Dear Star Wars Diary,

Today, I went to my fourth and final big screen viewing of TLJ. It was bittersweet because I will likely not be watching this movie in its entirety again until I own it. What follows are some musings I had as I watched it for the last time, in all its theater-experience glory.

SNOKE

I don’t want to get into the whole “Kylo Ren is abusive and a mind rapist beh!” debate because it’s stupid, on several levels.

I just want to make the point: Snoke is the abuser and the not-an-actual-thing mind rapist in this story.

PAIGE and the BOMBERS

On my first viewing, I thought the opening bombing scene was insanity. Like, it was awesome and beautiful, but totally insane. I was seething: “Tallie! What happened to protecting all the bombers?! Also, why did you send so many?”

[Numbers, of course, increase the chances for success. But still. Surely they didn’t have to send ALL the bombers? Leia’s rank over Poe should’ve disengaged the bombers. I don’t know if this is supposed to be addressed with Poe’s cutting off communication with Leia or in an implication that the Resistance squadrons and bombers are simply more loyal and/or responsive to Poe, which is a troubling notion.]

But these are small quibbles in a bigger picture because you know what? The bomber scene is probably one of the most memorable moments for me as a female moviegoer of Asian descent. I’m not someone who actively seeks/looks for cultural representation or diversity in movies of any scale. But I have to admit…I was really moved.

The images: a lone bomber flying toward destruction and glory; a sole survivor with dogged determination and belief in her cause; calm composure in the face of Death.

Ugh. My heart.

I do like Rose, but I was more affected by Paige’s death than I felt I should’ve been, and I think it’s because I felt an added touch of pride. Here, for the film’s first lesson on failure, our teacher is a female character with a face like mine. And she literally has a single spoken line: her comrade’s name.

That is awesome.

LEIA’S LONG LOOKS

-Sensing Kylo through the Force

-Leaving Holdo on the Raddus; watching Holdo die

-Staring down the TIE fighters on Crait (Seriously! I can’t believe those TIEs stayed airborne!)

-Feeling Luke’s death

These are just my personal favorites. Carrie Fisher got some good one-liners in for Leia. But I think she was never more powerful than in her silent acting. It’s just so exquisite. I trust how J.J. Abrams and co. will handle her absence from IX, I really do. That being said, I personally feel like Leia’s death will have to be written in: after her performance in TLJ, it’s just not plausible to have Leia alive but not at the center of the action, nor is it plausible to have her alive and just never show up in the entire movie, to just have her constantly be referred to by other characters.There’s no closure there, and this is a character who demands closure of some kind in this trilogy.

People have theorized on a funeral opening the film or occurring early, and I think this is generally a good idea. It really sucks to have her die off-screen. But under the circumstances, I don’t think it would be wise to have a scene where her ship explodes or something of that nature because it seems unnecessarily cruel but, more practically, could take time away from moving the story forward; everything would have to sort of revolve around that and stall. But if the death occurs off-screen and we open on a funeral, it’s a better jumping off point for the narrative and characters. If Leia’s life in IX was going to be a plot device, particularly as it pertained to her son’s arc, then her death (harsh as it is) could also conceivably serve the same purpose.

LUKE the LEGEND

I’ll be honest: I was never a big Luke Skywalker fan. I liked him by virtue of the fact that I was supposed to because he was the hero in the hero’s journey storyline. But I didn’t feel any deeper connection to that character, although I did feel like he began to ascend to legend status in RotJ and I always liked him best in that movie. So, that’s sort of where the character ended for me; I never read any of the old EU and I didn’t have him built up in my mind the same way some people obviously did.

I absolutely love that Luke became a legend in his lifetime after RotJ. But I love that he succumbed to hubris even more. It’s so real, so human. The higher you go, the harder you fall. What I really can’t understand about all these butt-hurt fanboys, who expected Luke to always be Luke the Legend and never-stop-nevering, is that not only did you get a humanized presentation of your hero, but he did in fact re-ascend to legend status in TLJ. That isn’t bad story-telling; that’s amazing story-telling!

I can’t believe there was anyone who didn’t get chills when Luke Skywalker stalked out of that burning cave to the staccato of a stirring John Williams march. Like, where the fuck are you in your head?

Luke the Legend projected himself across worlds to bring hope to his sister, who had finally used up all of hers, and to a rag-tag group of rebels forsaken by their allies. Luke the Legend projected himself across the galaxy to apologize to the nephew he had wronged, preventing Ben Solo from adding to the blood already on his hands, thus saving him in the only way he could.

Luke the Legend gave his life to save those he loved.

What is so fucking character-destroying about that?!

HOLDO and DJ

Two of my favorite characters from TLJ were Holdo and DJ. One of the most common complaints I’ve heard/read about the them is that two excellent actors were wasted.

That is so insulting. That’s a back-handed compliment. “Oh, hey, Laura and Benicio, you guys are really super great and talented. But you were shit in TLJ. They did you real dirty.”

Because, actually, both Holdo and DJ were there in case the GA got lost and confused about the whole “failing is learning” theme. It’s a credit to the talents of Laura Dern and Benicio del Toro that they actually did as much as they did with what little screen time they had. Darth LeakyLungs from RotS had all the screen time in the world and I don’t even remember his name! (Wait, was he even a Darth? I dunno.)

Look, you can tell me that you weren’t able to care about either character. That’s fine. That’s legit. Not all characters, big or small, will resonate with everyone.

But don’t you dare tell me they were pointless or that the actors were wasted, because that’s a terrible lie and you know it.

KYLO REDEMPTION

Ahhhh, my most favorite topic.

Every time I’ve gone to see TLJ, I’ve gone in trying to be convinced that this was the end of Kylo’s arc. He’s done for. IX will be all about his actual, for real downfall, he will no longer be conflicted, he will die and he will die in the Dark. It’s finished.

Wonder of all wonders, I’ve never been more convinced of a redemption in some shape or form. It’s that final shot of him, the literal final shot of him, hanging his head, staring at the ground, where there is nothing JUST LIKE WHAT’S LEFT OF HIS BUSTED HEART.

Here’s the thing: if they weren’t intent, from the outset of this trilogy, on sending Kylo Ren on an arc of some kind (the anti-hero’s journey to Rey’s hero’s journey where they meet in the middle), then they wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to portray him as conflicted in TFA and they definitely wouldn’t have devoted AN ENTIRE MOVIE to humanizing him, all without resolving the conflict he started with. If anything, TLJ should’ve left him on a slightly less ambiguously conflicted note.

The point is if he were slated to stay and rot in hell, we would’ve left him in TLJ on that long-suffering, rage-fueled scream after Luke disappears. That’s the perfect note to end a going-nowhere arc on. If it ended there, I would 100% be on board with Kylo Ren: Irredeemable Asshole. Prepare for him NOT to finish what Vader started. (What does that even mean, btw? I’ve always wondered. What did Vader start that he didn’t finish? The 2nd Death Star?)

But we freaking didn’t leave him there! Oh no, we left him broken to bits on some dirty floor in the middle of nowhere. Furthermore, if he wasn’t going to be redeemed, we certainly would NOT have been shown that he’s still Force-connected to Rey, who now –lacking Leia– must serve as his only (corporeal) thread to the Light.

I just want one thing: Let Kylo Ren turn however he’s going to turn –Gray, Yellow, Pink, Blue, whichever color– just do it early-ish. I cannot sit through another entire movie of Flip-Flop Kylo only for him to make an actual decision in the closing five minutes.

Talk about doing a character dirty.

REYLO HUG

I don’t know why it was this one of all viewings, but today when I was watching the Austen Proposal, all I could think was, “Ehrmygawd, Rey! You need a hug! And he needs a hug! Just go hug him!”

I love Reylo, but I’m exhausting myself on this ship lol. I love and generally agree with all the metas on why it couldn’t go the way she wanted it to or the way he wanted it to. But I just kept thinking, as I was sitting there watching their sticky, weepy-eyed faces for the millionth time, Seriously. Go hug him!

Like, after being hit in the face with the blunt truth, what if Rey had said fuck it to the hand and just thrown her arms around him? It wouldn’t have fixed their problems, obviously; it actually probably would’ve made them worse.

But it would’ve fixed mine for the next 2 years!

[ellanainthetardis]

And the madnes begins! [FF] or [AO3]

25. Thirty weeks

“Lamest wedding ever.” Johanna declared as they neared the slope leading up the Village.

Snowball was running ahead, jumping into puddles of melted snow, generally having the time of his life and making Haymitch internally cringe because Effie would insist on giving him a bath and that meant he would have to do it. With the crash-course wedding the following day and her urge to make sure the house was ready for the baby, she had been in a frenzy for a week and she was tired, cranky and, frankly, a bit crazy.

Annie, Jo and little Finn had arrived a couple of days earlier and Haymitch had been very happy to see them if only because they were a nice distraction. Effie spent most of her time fussing over Finn, Annie was keen on helping her in any way she could… It gave Haymitch some room to breathe.

When he had suggested they got married, he hadn’t really understood what it would imply. Sure, the wedding party was small: Jo, Annie, the kids and her family. They weren’t going to have a huge celebration but it didn’t make it any easier to organize. There would be champagne and a cake but there would be no dancing and no big party since Effie was in no shape for that – something her mother seemed to have trouble grasping. Elindra had finally relented a few days earlier about the wedding planner and the party of the year and what not, but Effie was determined to have everything else go perfectly not to have to endure remarks and Haymitch was already very done with the whole thing.

He wanted to marry her.

He just didn’t need the pump.

Her family had been due to arrive any minute when he had dragged Johanna out of the house under the pretence of picking up the rings from the shop – if he had been forced to endure her inspecting the house one more time he would have gone completely mad.

“I mean… Trinket used to know how to party.” Jo sighed. “And you used to have the best booze. We’re not even getting a stag night or a hen night… What kind of lame stuff is this?”

“She’s almost eight months pregnant and I’m sober.” he grumbled.

Johanna rolled her eyes and buried her hands in the pockets of her jacket. They were walking very slowly and he suspected she wasn’t any more eager to get back than he was.

“That’s why you’re marrying her?” she asked. “’Cause she’s knocked up?”

“You know why I’m marrying her.” he snapped.

She shrugged. “Yeah, well… Sorry. Can’t say I ever pictured you raising a kid with a crazy chick.”

“Could say the same about you.” he pointed out.

“It’s different.” Johanna scoffed. “I’m doing it for Finnick.”

“Sure.” he humored her because she wouldn’t have taken nicely to being told it was obvious she loved the boy like her own. He tossed her an annoyed look. “You’re the worst best man ever. Wonder why I picked you.”

“’Cause I’m your last best friend alive.” she snorted bitterly.

And it kind of summed it up.

He let that sink for a while, briefly pausing when they reached the open iron gates of the Village. Snowball had his front paws on the edge of the fountain, his tail wagging left and right as he studied the bird that was hopping around on the other side.

“It wasn’t exactly planned.” he admitted a bit out of the blue because he needed to get it off his chest and he needed another victor’s opinion. Not the kids’ because the kids were his and he couldn’t burden them. But Jo, now… “But maybe it’s gonna be a good thing, yeah? ‘Cause… I’m happy, right now. It’s good, right? It’s…”

“If you’re looking for absolution, don’t ask me ‘cause I’ve got no fucking clue.” Jo asked. “You’re asking me if you’re allowed to be happy? Better than rotting alone in your house. They messed with our lives enough.”

“Seems unfair.” he muttered. “That we’re here and…”

“Yeah.” she cut him off with a shrug. “It’s damn unfair. But it’s what it is.”

“I guess.” he echoed.

They resumed walking in silence, that particular conversation buried amongst things they would never discuss again.

Snowball rushed inside the house with a joyful bark as soon as he opened the door, as usual making a beeline for Effie. Not that Haymitch would have needed that much to find her. He only had to follow the noise. Clearly, Elindra had arrived.

The living-room was full.

Katniss was awkwardly standing in a corner, looking ready to make her escape, Effie was sitting on the couch with her mother and another Capitol woman he guessed to be her sister, two boys who must have been her nephews were sitting on the armchairs with their back straight, looking very bored but determined to act like dignified gentlemen, Annie was standing next to the fireplace with Finn on her hip and Tadius was inspecting the bookshelves.

Haymitch felt a bit like he had walked in on a circus.

“Haymitch.” Tadius greeted him, sounding almost relieved.

And from what he had overheard when he had come in, he understood why. Talks of dresses, fabrics and designs weren’t exactly his favorite things either. He shook the man’s hand with a small smile, happy to see him despite his natural misgivings about Capitols.

“Haymitch, I am terribly crossed. You should have met us at the station.” Elindra declared without further ado, holding out her cheek in a manner that immediately sent him in a panic. He glanced at Effie in distress but she was biting down on her bottom lip to prevent herself from laughing and she gave him a small shrug that probably meant he should get on with it. He pecked the powdered cheek as lightly as he could but it was enough to make the woman frown. “You are shaving for the wedding naturally.”

It wasn’t a question and Haymitch chose to forget answering.

“Sorry, Mrs Trinket.” he said instead. “I had to…”

Elindra pointedly cleared her throat.

He licked his lips, annoyed that she hadn’t gotten over that fancy yet.

A glance at Effie told him it wasn’t in his best interest to make her life any more difficult than it already was.

“I had to pick up the rings.” he grated through his teeth. “Mother.”

It was nearly worth it if only to see Katniss almost choke to death and to hear Johanna’s mix of a chuckle and a gasp.

The stranger saved him from further embarrassment by standing up and outstretching a hand. He figured it was meant to be kissed but he shook it instead.

“I am Lyssa.” the woman unnecessarily clarified, sounding a bit reserved. With reasons, he supposed. The rebels had executed her husband after all. “Those are my sons, Timotheo and Bryden. Boys, greet your new uncle.”

It was uncanny how the kids simply nodded and mechanically uttered a nice to meet you. They must have been around ten but they were strangled by ties and little three pieces suits… Ridiculous.

“How charming they are.” Elindra beamed, missing the point completely, before placing her hand on Effie’s stomach. “I hope this one turns out just as well.”

He and Effie only had to exchange a look to agree that was unlikely to ever happen.

“Now, now…” Elindra declared, checking her golden watch. “Haymitch, it is time to say your goodbyes. You cannot see the bride the day before the wedding… Are you staying at Katniss and Peeta’s house tonight? How kind of them to host you… But you must be so happy for your friends, I am sure…”

That last part was addressed to Katniss. The girl didn’t have time to answer.

“We are not doing that, Mother.” Effie cut in. “Haymitch is staying here with me.”

Elindra and Lyssa both frowned.

“But you must.” her mother insisted.

“She’s pregnant.” Haymitch retorted.

“We have not spent a night apart since I moved in.” Effie added.

“But… Effie, it is bad luck!” Lyssa coaxed, grabbing her sister’s hand.

“We already got all the bad luck we could get.” Haymitch snorted. “We endure.”

The Capitol women weren’t exactly pleased with that dissent from tradition, he could tell, but they shared a look and probably decided to pick their battles because next…

“Now, darling…” Elindra cleared her throat, ignoring him to turn to her youngest daughter. “I know you said you were taking care of everything and we should not worry about a thing…”

“I know you want a simple wedding but really the thought of you marrying in less than the best…” Lyssa continued. “Do not be angry with us… We wanted to surprise you and it will be such fun… I am sure your friends will love it too…”

Effie looked wary. “What did you do?”

Haymitch hoped there wasn’t a wedding planner hiding somewhere in the vicinity.

“We might have brought a couple of dresses with us.” Elindra ventured. “A few wedding dresses for you to choose from and some spare bridesmaid dresses for your friends…”

“Five trunks.” Tadius told Haymitch behind a fake cough. “And there is another one with a suit for you, an outfit for the Odesta child as well as one for your dog.”

Johanna immediately snatched little Finn from Annie. “Hey, brainless… How about you show us around the woods? Finn gets cranky if he doesn’t get enough fresh air.”

Katniss jumped on the excuse and the two of them weren’t exactly polite in their hurry to get out of there, even if Effie tried to smooth ruffled feathers.

“Are you terribly mad?” Lyssa sighed.

“Mad?” Effie repeated, her eyes shiny. She hugged her sister tight. “My dress is terrible. I could not find one that did not make me look like an air balloon…”

“Never fear!” Elindra beamed. “We brought only the best. We will have such fun trying them on… They might need a few alterations though. I was confident we could find a seamstress in your District…”

“I can do it.” Effie answered.

“And I can help.” Annie piped in with a small dreamy smile. “But I don’t want to intrude… I can probably catch up with Johanna and Katniss if…”

Amongst the loud assurances that Annie wouldn’t be intruding at all, Haymitch started inching back toward the door, one step at a time. It was too late for the puppy who, tired of being ignored by Effie, had wandered over to the two boys. The youngest one – Bryden, if he remembered correctly – clearly was having trouble resisting the urge to pet him. He kept tossing covert glances at his mother and grandmother… His brother wasn’t faring any better, shuffling on his seat, eyeing the puppy with open interest…

Suddenly, they looked less like Capitol drones and more like kids who were trying really hard to behave.

“There’s a playground in town.” he told Tadius. “We could take the boys.”

Escape, he meant.

The offer seemed to tempt the man greatly but his eyes were wild, a bit scared maybe.

“By ourselves?” Tadius winced. “Their nanny is at the inn. Perhaps we should make a detour.”

He glanced back at the kids who really didn’t look that frightening.

“I think we can deal.” he snorted. “Hey, sweetheart…” Rudely interrupted in the middle of her speech of gratefulness, Effie pursed her lips and tossed him a mild glare. He didn’t give her time to start ranting about manners. “I’m going to show your dad and your nephews around town, alright? This way you can have some girl time.”

Effie’s annoyance disappeared but he could tell she wasn’t quite fooled by the apparently selfless offer. “It is very nice of you, thank you.”

The boys seemed very happy about that plan. The youngest one looked up at him with big pleading blue eyes. “Can we take the dog with us, please?”

“Sure.” he smirked. He whistled once and the puppy immediately ran to his feet, which warranted impressed gasps from the children.

“Only the two of you?” Lyssa asked, sounding unsure. Her gaze darting from him to her father with worry. “Are you certain, Father? You have never been alone with the children without Nanny before, have you?”

His pride in jeopardy now that it had been implied he couldn’t take care of two ten years old by himself, Tadius bristled. “I do not plan on misplacing your children, Lyssandra.”

“She does have a point though, dear.” Elindra insisted, clearly mystified. “I do not remember you ever being left alone with children…”

“Haymitch took care of Finn plenty of times.” Annie cut him with a sweet smile he didn’t deserve.

“Can we go, Mother?” Bryden asked, eyeing Snowball with longing. “We will behave for Uncle Haymitch and Grandfather, I promise. Won’t we, Timotheo?”

How old was that kid to talk that way? Did they have proper speech lessons in the Capitol? He was ready to bet on that being a thing.

The other boy nodded very seriously, as if he was thirty instead of ten. “I will help Grandfather and Uncle Haymitch supervise Bryden, Mother.”

Lyssa didn’t really look happy about it but it seemed she couldn’t say no to her children because next thing Haymitch knew, everyone was getting their coat and they were being escorted to the door by a frantic Capitol woman.

“Please, do not hesitate to fetch Nanny at the inn if they become too much trouble.” Lyssa warned, obviously scared they would lose the children or let them get hurt.

“Tell you what, sweetheart…” he smirked, somehow understanding where her worry was coming from – the shrimp wasn’t born yet and he was already imagining a thousand scenarios where things turned badly. “I take care of your kids and you make sure Effie doesn’t overdo it, yeah? Don’t let her fool you, okay? Watch out for the signs ‘cause she says she’s fine but the next thing you know, she’s feeling dizzy. Tomorrow’s going to be stressful enough…”

“I do know how to take care of my sister.” Lyssa cut him off, almost with a vexed huff. “I have been doing it since she was born.” A poor job, she had done, but Haymitch chose to keep his peace on that. It was between Lyssa and Effie, after all. She sighed. “I will make sure she is reasonable. Do try not to lose or break my children.”

The door closed and the four of them were left alone in the front yard. At first, nobody moved. Tadius was watching the boys with obvious wariness, the boys were tossing covert glances at them, Haymitch was trying not to feel too much out of place… Then, as if their strings had been cut, the kids abandoned the perfect gentlemen act and crouched next to the puppy who seemed delighted with the attention.

Bryden outstretched a hand and then seemed to remember himself and looked at him, eyes shining with excitement. “May I pet him?”

Haymitch snorted at the formality. “You can pet him, you can play with him… Just don’t tug on his fur and don’t be too rough.”

Finn was finding it very funny to try to ride the puppy like a pony.

“How do you play with him?” Timotheo asked, tentatively touching the dog’s nose.

Snowball immediately nuzzled his hand with a joyful bark. The puppy liked kids. He was always eager to play with the ones in the neighborhood. Bryden giggled when the puppy’s head bumped in his chest, the boy lost his balance and fell backward in the thin coat of snow, which seemed to delight him.

“Do not get dirty!” Tadius panicked. “Your mother and your grandmother won’t like that at all.” He shot a warning glance at Haymitch. “We should not let them get dirty.”

The boys both looked disappointed and Haymitch rolled his eyes. “You can blame it on me. Okay… How to play with a puppy, lesson one.”

He taught them how to play tug and fetch in front of a bemused Tadius who didn’t seem willing to get involved in the game. Haymitch didn’t mind running after the kids and the dog. He found it sad that the kids were forced to be so serious all the time because it was clear that, when they were allowed to go wild, they were just as boisterous as any other child he had met.

Eventually, Tadius reminded them they were supposed to visit the District and not spend their time in the yard and they all started walking in the direction of the Village’s gates. Haymitch watched the kids run along the puppy a few feet in front of them, feeling strangely impatient for a time when it would be his own boy.

“Do you have a lot of experience with children?” Tadius asked after a few seconds, either impressed or puzzled.

“More than I’d like.” he replied, deliberately vague.

He didn’t think Timotheo was much older than twelve, even if it was difficult to pinpoint an exact age for the two boys, and he had had his share of dealing with twelve years old. Never believing that the children had a chance had never meant he hadn’t somehow gotten involved in the mentoring at some point. Effie had borne most of it. But… There had been years and children more gifted than others at making him care no matter how much he had wanted to pretend he hadn’t.

“Have you started looking into nannies or governesses?” the Capitol man asked.

He made a face. “We’re not getting one.”

“I see.” Tadius cleared his throat. “We would be willing to help if…”

“It’s not a money question, we just don’t want a nanny.” he interrupted him. He tried not to be too cutting. “We don’t need money.”

“Are you certain?” the man insisted. “Because I know for a fact Effie does not have any. I had to settle a few of her debts when she left the city. Not that she knew it was me, of course. Actually, Elindra does not know either and I would appreciate if…”

“No problem.” he promised easily enough. He waited for a second before speaking again. “And we really don’t need money.” It would have angered him if anyone else had tried to meddle in his private affairs but, truth be told, he felt Tadius had a right to ask the question. He was about to marry the man’s daughter. Any father worthy of the title would have wanted to make sure the groom could support their daughter and eventual family. It was awkward, yes, but Haymitch didn’t consider it out of the normal range of things to ask a future son-in-law. “Life in Twelve isn’t expensive and victors still get their monthly stipends… I’ve saved almost everything I got since my Games anyway… Never had real need for it. So, sure, the baby made a dent in the budget but we’re really not tight.”

“Good to hear.” Tadius approved with a nod. “Did you invest part of the money? You should invest. I can help you with that if you wish.” Before he could politely decline, the Capitol moved on to another topic. “Elindra and I will open a trust fund for your son as soon as he is born.” Haymitch opened his mouth but Tadius waved his hand. “Do not protest. We did it for all our grandchildren. They won’t come into the money until they are eighteen, at which point they will be able to use it however they see fit. I, for one, hope it will be for university although…” He sighed, his eyes on the boys that had obediently stopped at the Village’s gates to wait for them. “Timotheo and Bryden will both inherit a considerable wealth from their father at their coming of age and neither of them seemed to be eager to pursue a higher education. I had hoped one of my grandsons would take up the family business after I am gone but I fear they will follow in their father’s footsteps and become men of leisure.”

Haymitch studied the boys who looked in awe of the dog and frowned. “They’re still young.”

“They took very much after their parents.” Tadius shrugged. “Lyssandra never had any ambition and Rufus never had the means to reach his.” Regret laced his voice next. “I was too harsh with Effie in her youth. I underestimated her potential. I do not think she would have ever managed to be an architect like she wanted to… But she could have done more than capitalize on her looks.”

“She likes to play dumb.” he commented cautiously, waving the boys on as they caught up with them. Snowball darted forward and the kids ran after him, laughing all the while, sounding so free that Haymitch understood that they weren’t often allowed to go wild like that.

“Yes, I understood that only too late.” Effie’s father agreed with a small sad smile. “I never knew my daughters as much as I would have liked. They were their mother’s dolls and all those beauty pageants and hot gossips… I am a businessman. I do not understand that world.”

“Can’t say I do either.” he snorted. “But Effie’s much more than that.”

He was a bit defensive and it seemed to amuse Tadius.

“Lyssa was the easiest one. Always eager to please… Always happy…” the Capitol man shook his head. “Effie was more difficult. Elindra is used to being obeyed in every little thing, Effie always found ways to work around that. When she was thirteen… Why, I used to marvel at the way she could talk back without actually rising her voice or being rude – when she was directing her ire at Elindra at least.”

“Sounds like my girl.” he smirked, stupidly proud of her for rebelling against her gilded cage even then.

“She used to have a terrible crush on you, you realize.” Tadius mocked. “You were all she could talk about from the Quell to your Victory Tour. We lost Elindra’s father some time in between… They were so close… It pained her very badly… The first time I saw her smile after his passing was when she got Golden Tickets for the Tour. Elindra wasn’t keen but Effie insisted on going to every last event. Lyssa and I took turn escorting her. I cannot say I was a fan of it… All those young girls screaming at you…”  

“Yeah.” He made a face and buried his hands in his pockets. It wasn’t fond recollections for him, even if it amused him a little to know Effie had been amongst the crowd. “Can’t say I enjoyed it much myself.”

“I suppose not.” Effie’s father approved. “Still… The last event was a signing… I do not know what you said to her that day but she came home and declared she was utterly done with you.”

It was a part of the story he didn’t know about and he didn’t remember her at all. Why would he? She had only been a teenager amongst thousands. However he could guess he hadn’t been kind. It was only when Chaff had impressed upon him the necessity of playing nice with Capitols to get sponsors and help the tributes that he had started to behave a little less harshly.

“I don’t mind the trust fund.” he said, switching topics because he knew Effie would hate being discussed behind her back. “If it’s for the kid’s future, it’s fine with me.”

“I will settle it in his name as soon as he’s born.” Tadius offered, placidly accepting that new line of conversation. “Have you agreed on a name yet?”

“No.” Haymitch snorted. “We’ve got a list of maybes but… None of them feels right.”

The playground appeared in the distance and they walked in silence for a while, watching the boys rushing toward it with the puppy in tow.

“May I suggest Aidan?” the Capitol said, a bit awkward. “It was my father’s name. If we had been blessed with a son… It has always been a dream of mine to see another Aidan Trinket running my company.”

“Abernathy.” Haymitch corrected automatically. “And we’re not raising him up to fill anyone’s shoes. He’ll do whatever he wants. No family obligation.”

“Of course.” Tadius chuckled. “I didn’t mean to imply any different.”

There wasn’t really any time to give him an answer about names… It turned out taking two boys to the local playground was much more difficult than entertaining them in the front yard. Capitols and Districts didn’t mix well. It didn’t take long for Effie’s nephews to rub on some of the District children the wrong way and for an argument to start. It involved crying children, sulking spoiled brats and screaming mothers. Tadius was absolutely no help.

When they eventually made their way back home, Haymitch was nursing a bad headache and wasn’t as eager for the shrimp to come out. As long as he remained in Effie’s uterus, there would be no tantrums and no screwing up.

Despite the not so awesome end to the outing, the boys seemed to have taken a real liking to him and didn’t act as stiff around Tadius as they used to – something which seemed to make the Capitol man marvel.

Effie was having tea with Lyssandra and Elindra and the three of them all looked impressed enough by the fact they had brought back both children in one piece. It made him feel slightly better. At least until he and Snowball were forced to try on the suits they had brought along for the wedding.

He grumbled and raged and complained and even whined but Elindra wouldn’t be deterred and Effie didn’t save him from his fate. She was too busy fussing over the puppy with her sister – because clearly it was more important to make sure the bowtie fitted Snowball perfectly rather than saving him from her mother’s claws.

Getting married, he soon decided, was exhausting and it was a good thing they would only do it once.

By the time they finally went to bed that night, he was ready to give up on the whole thing.

“How are you doing, sweetheart?” he asked, spooning her. She was still having trouble finding a comfortable position at night and she had taken to propping her stomach on pillows. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pressed a kiss on her shoulder. “You were supposed to take it easy.”

She sighed and burrowed a little more against his chest. “Well, if I had had more time to organize the wedding…”

“Wanna get out of it?” he challenged.

“Don’t you dare.” she hissed. “Now I have a perfect dress.”

She sounded very pleased about that.  

He hid his smirk in her nape, simply happy that she was happy.

“Your dad had some things to say…” he told her because he didn’t keep things from her if he didn’t have to. He summed up the conversation about the trust fund. She didn’t look surprised though, she was probably aware of the same dispositions having been made for her nephews.

“It will be nice for him.” she hummed, rubbing her stomach. “They did the same thing for Lyssa and I. We had both already started working well before our coming of age but the money was a nice plus.”

Haymitch let out a non committing noise. He didn’t like the idea of growing up with a silver spoon in the mouth but he also couldn’t deny knowing their child would be safe from poverty was a relief. He had grown up in a world without certainty and he didn’t want that for his son.

“He suggested a name.” he added, as an afterthought.

“Yes?” she frowned. “Which one? My mother suggested Eustorgio and you vetoed it.”

“Aidan.” he said.

“Like my grandfather?” she asked, drawing circles on her baby bump. “I never knew him, you know. He died when Lyssa was two or three…”

“I like the name.” he admitted. It wasn’t outrageous for a Capitol name and it was strong. It was a good sensible name. He could see himself calling his son Aidan.

“It sounds… close to Hayden.” she pointed out carefully.

Close but not quite.

It hadn’t escaped him.

It was close enough that it could be consider a wink of sort but it was far enough that the name wouldn’t carry any memory.

“I’m good with it.” he offered.

“Aidan…” she repeated, testing it out. “Aidan… Yes… Yes, it could work. Aidan…” She groaned and he figured that meant she had been kicked. She let out a chuckle, talking to her stomach. “Well. If you approve…”  

“Aidan.” he smiled, covering her hand with his.

“Aidan.” she grinned, stretching her neck to kiss him over her shoulder.

It seemed the shrimp had a name after all.