#every time someone asks about their head I have to decapitate

[balrogballs]

"Bilbo had assumed accusing an elven lord of Tookishness in his own house would result in swift decapitation and not a decades-long camaraderie that both parties truly cherished, but it seemed that in this regard too, the Lord of Imladris defied expectation."

The Peculiar and the Deranged: Moments between Bilbo Baggins, Elrond Peredhel, and the most unprecedented friendship in Middle-Earth, under the cut!

(aka this friendship wasn’t leaving my mind so I wrote this on my phone and drew this with the 3 pencils I had on a train because I’m incapable of being normal about anything)

on Bilbo's first visit to Imladris, featuring Estel's pet snake:

"You had a rat?" Bilbo blinked, hoping Elrond wouldn't notice the snake he was glaring at had initially been curled around his own neck. "Sir."

"I did not have a rat," corrected Elrond imperiously, looking every bit the lord of the valley. "I would never have a rat, I do not approve of rats. My daughter had a rat. Lothinvar, it was called, the bane of my household. Until this terrible creature wormed its way in. The snake that is, not the child, though Estel is not in my good books at the moment either."

on the return journey, after the death of Thorin Oakenshield:

"What can I do? How can I ever move past this?" Bilbo asked quietly, unsure why exactly he was pouring his heart out to a being six thousand years older than him, who must have faced far greater sorrows.

"Grief," Elrond replied, staring intently at him, "tricks you into thinking it’s all you have left. As though if you let it go, even for a moment, you betray him. You hold onto relics like lifelines, thinking what else is there to keep Thorin alive in your mind? It is a lonely life, Bilbo. It will turn you into the loneliest person in the world."

"Is there no way out?" he gasped, looking up at the elf.

"Start small. A smile, perhaps, when you think of a joke he made," Elrond said steadily, like he was reciting a recipe. “And then, try telling someone about him. Perhaps you could tell me. Something new each time you visit, perhaps.”

“You say it like you have experience of it, sir,” ventured Bilbo. “Like you know it by-heart. Did you get past it?”

“I did,” Elrond’s voice was confident, too confident. Bilbo chose not to probe.

"Thorin's nephews?" Elrond asked later, after Bilbo had gathered himself together, mopped himself up. "They were slain too? Both?"

"Yes, both."

"That is good," Elrond had said with a blank, intense smile etched into his features. "That it was both at once."

"What?" Bilbo sat up in shock, spluttering. "Good? What is wrong with you?"

"Were they not twins? Thorin's nephews I recall were twins, no?"

"Brothers. But what difference does that make? What do you mean good? I beg your pardon, my lord, that's an unhinged thing to say!"

"Oh. I am sorry, Bilbo," Elrond shook his head, the awful, blank expression still on his face. "I am sorry, I spoke without thinking. It is only that I had thought they were twins. Do forgive me, I misunderstood, and spoke out of turn."

"Don't worry," Bilbo sighed, finding to his own surprise that he could manage a laugh. "With names like Fili and Kili, it's frankly a surprise they aren't."

He still thought it was a rather unhinged thing for Elrond to say, but, well — Bilbo Baggins had always been fond of the peculiar and the deranged.

on a visit to the Shire, sharing burnt scones

"Cel was — is — remarkable. She had an exceptional appetite for burnt bread: she would go into the kitchens and instruct the staff to deliberately burn sweetbreads, just because she loved the crunch, apparently."

"She sounds like a Shire lass through and through."

Elrond laughed, shaking his head: "I am certain had I brought her to visit, she would never leave. Though she is not made for the rustic life. A total terror of any creature on four legs. The first time I spotted her she was in a garden, standing on the bench screaming, because she had seen an enormous beetle scuttling around the grass."

"Oh, so it was a damsel in distress situation, eh?"

"Quite the contrary," he admitted. "She threw a pair of gardening scissors right at my head, and called me utterly disgusting for the crime of allowing beetles to exist on my property, and threatened to cut off my hair with the same scissors if she ever came across another one. And mind you, this is Celeborn's daughter, and that soul would have married an Ent if Galadriel hadn't come around."

"Well, that truly is a surprise! Did she not even like dear Arwen's little rat?"

"Oh, you remember the rat!" Elrond's eyes shone, genuinely delighted. "If I remember right, she paid our boys to get rid of it and told Arwen she had sent it to, well, your people."

"I will be certain to invent an illustrious Shire-based family tree for the rat, if your Arwen ever gets around to asking."

on a Yule visit, when Bilbo forwent self-preservation, featuring the same snake:

"Oh, it was not I who named the snake after the Mariner, it was my… other father."

"That's impressive, sir. Quite bohemian."

"One would wish," Elrond muttered darkly, pouring himself more wine, as if all the talk of snakes had driven him to drink. "Estel is friendly with Maglor, who along with Maedhros, raised my brother and I. And I had banned all talk of pet snakes until Maglor showed up last year with a present for Estel: his very own snake named Gil-Estel, which they both insist has nothing to do with the Mariner and is simply a play on the child's name. Which I would have believed, if Maglor did not also own a remarkably ugly cat named Thingol."

"When they say you are Half-Elven, Lord Elrond," Bilbo blurted out, after a short, surprised silence. "Do they mean the other half is merely mortal man, or…?"

"Yes, the other half does indeed refer to mortal men," blinked Elrond in surprise, looking something other than perfectly composed for the very first time. "Do you… suspect otherwise?"

"Oh, I was certain there was a bit of Hobbit somewhere. Just your life, you know, your family, all of it," he waved his hands about the valley. "It's a little… well, Tookish."

"What in the world is a Took?"

on a midnight wander in Minas Tirith on the morning of Aragorn’s wedding to Arwen

When Bilbo came across the figure sat on the steps, he was ridiculously old and his memory even more ridiculously ragged, so he didn’t know why it was that he thought, reflexively, it will turn you into the loneliest person in the world. He didn't say a word though, only reached out a hand and sat beside the figure. Elrond didn’t say a word, only grasped the offered fingers so tightly Bilbo's knuckles turned white, held on as he shook. When it passed, he looked away and apologised, sniffing. "Forgive me, my friend, I do not mean to get melancholic, especially not on a day of such joy. I —"

Bilbo cut across him, too old to deal with the elvish tendency to be completely insufferable.

“How did you get past it the last time? With your brother?”

"I have one of the longest memories in this land, yet I cannot truly remember this one thing," the elf smiled bitterly, tapping his nails on the stone steps. "I slept, I think. A lot. I shrunk out of the world until the sheer pain of it no longer clawed at me. But I cannot do that, Bilbo. Now, I have duties, responsibilities. I have kings to oversee, a valley to hand over and a people for whom I must keep up something of a brave face. There is no longer any room for the small death I was permitted last time."

Elrond sighed. "You must think I am terribly privileged, or that I have too grandiose an idea about my place in this world."

"No, I was just thinking how unfair it is," said Bilbo quietly. "So unfair that for you there is a last time and now a this time."

Elrond, in tears again, was looking at him with an almost obscene gratefulness, as if Bilbo had done him some enormous kindness and not something any friend would do, looked at him in a way that made the hobbit think again, inexplicably, the loneliest person in the world.

“I’m sorry,” said the lord, catching his friend’s expression. “You should not be h-“

"Shut up," Bilbo huffed, looking truly offended, rolling his eyes. "You're insufferable, do you know that? Stop acting like you've jumped off a damned cliff before my eyes, Elrond. I'm starting to think elven history would have been a lot less bloody and tragic had more of you — and I mean that Fëanor, mainly, but the rest of you too — appreciated the value of a good cry. Emotional constipation is just as bad as the real thing, you know. And you can be sure I'll tell old Fëanor that to his face when I see him."

Elrond blinked, then laughed. "Oh, Bilbo, I am glad you found your way back to Imladris this year, I truly am."

"And I, in turn,” Bilbo found himself saying, cursing the fact that his memory decided to make its wondrous reappearance that night. “Am equally glad our mutual friend Aragorn tried to bribe me to put his pet snake in your office that very first day."

on a ship in the sundering seas, far too early

"Suffering from a spot of morning sickness, are we?"

"My apologies, Bilbo," Elrond stumbled back into Bilbo's cabin from the privy, looking only slightly less green than he had when he left it. "Please do not make any sudden movements."

"I am only pleased that you and I are now such intimate friends that you feel comfortable enough to throw up your breakfast in my bathroom. Maybe you should come around and do it every morning to wake me up, like the world’s most useless cockerel."

"It was not by choice, as you very well know," Elrond muttered, downing a swig of ground herbs and honey from a bottle in his pocket. "My mortal heritage does, unfortunately, mean there are some weaknesses to the constitution. Perhaps this is why it was Elros who took ship for Numenor and not I."

"Well, that, and you couldn't resist micromanaging six thousand years of Middle-Earth now, could you?" chortled Bilbo, settling down in a plush chair and laying his walking stick by his side. "Mortality is all well and good, but heaven forbid you lose a chance to develop domestic policy over the continental grain trade. Besides, and I don't want to be the one who brings it up, but…"

"Elbereth, what now?"

"Your father was known as the Mariner, you know," Bilbo snorted. "As in, the seafaring sort, no? It would truly be such a shame if someone were to… write a poem about the mis-inheritance of seasi—"

"Write that poem, Bilbo Baggins, and I will personally petition Ulmo to turn you into seaweed."

in the house of Elrond in Aman, with the chattiest woman Bilbo has ever encountered (which is saying something)

"I only burned that layer because you made me do it, mind you. You really are as remarkable as he said you were," Bilbo blurted out as she picked out pink sugared biscuits with a dark crust that he knew to be from burning. He had even spread jam on them for a second layer of sweetness. "Mad and irritating, to be frank, but remarkable. I am truly glad to know you, Celebrìan — not as Elrond's wife, but, well."

He gestured at her weakly, meant the peculiar and the deranged. She understood.

"Yes, I do pity all the folk that know me as Elrond's dead wife," she wrinkled her nose, sitting down by him and grabbing a second burnt biscuit. "And considering my poor husband's approach to grieving, and all the laments Lindir said he's made him compose, that is what most end up knowing me as. It is quite a pity, I am as you say, delightful. Oh, Bilbo, this is amazing! So wonderful, I didn't think pastries could be this sweet!”

"No, not when your cheapskate of a husband is in charge of the rations," he said in a carrying whisper. "In the Shire though, we know how to live."

"Who are we referring to as a cheapskate then?"

"The elf who implemented a sugar tax in his valley," said Celebrian dryly. "You may know him. Have a biscuit!"

"I would truly rather nail myself to the birch," he said dryly, picking up a piece of bread. "I do not get the logic behind oversweetening victuals. Impractical, unnecessary."

"Oh," Celebrían clapped her hands to her mouth. "Of course! The Lord Elrond grew up amidst the War of Wrath! Surely, he has not mentioned that to you, has he? He never does!"

"Ah, that he was raised in military conditions by a couple of kinslayers?" chuckled Bilbo. "No, not at all. Not once. He certainly never brought it up in our first ever conversation. Should we ask him to expand?"

[hexologh]

ΉΣX — “ If dangerous why friend shaped? ”

BY : HEXOLOGH

Sun Wukong, Six-eared Macaque, Azure, Tusk and Peng reacting to you telling them your a Pixiu.

(Pixiu is a mythical hybrid creature with the body of a lion, the head of a dragon, and wings.)

˚˖𓍢ִ໋₊˚ʚ 🌟🐵 ₊˚ 𝐒𝐔𝐍 𝐖𝐔𝐊𝐎𝐍𝐆:

So that's why you karate-chopped him into a mountain when he tried to scare you for a prank. Makes so much sense now.

You’re casually like, "Yeah, I’m a Pixiu." And he’s just staring at you with a blank expression, still processing the fact that you broke four of his ribs with one slap, and you barely even noticed.

“I mean... not everyone gets smacked through a mountain on their first date... But hey, no biggie, right?!”

He’s laughing nervously while secretly holding his ribs.

But, plot twist, this only makes him like you more. Wukong is head over heels for how badass you are. In fact, being a Pixiu just cranks up the dial on his simping by 1000%. Expect an endless stream of over-the-top, cheesy pick-up lines.

“Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?”

“Are you saying I’m Satan?”

“Uh—😨… no?”

Oh, but wait, it gets better. The minute you start doubting your horns, wings, or tail, Wukong is on you like a PR campaign. He’s already giving you a pep talk while admiring every single feature.

“You’re telling me you don’t think your horns are gorgeous? Horton hears a lying ass bi—”

If you try to hide your wings, he’s instantly pouting. He’ll say stuff like, “But they’re so cool! Why would you hide those?!” He’s so fascinated by all your Pixiu traits that his eyes start sparkling like a fanboy.

If you keep them visible, though? Oh, he cannot stop staring. His tail’s wagging, legs swinging, head resting on his hands while his eyes follow your wings around like he’s hypnotized. It’s borderline embarrassing.

One time you caught him just absentmindedly trying to groom your tail like it’s his. He immediately stopped, awkwardly laughing, “Uh, force of habit?” Sure, Wukong.

He's so interested about your stories since your older than him—Wait...You have a criminal history..?

Oh!

....

Hey..

A...Answer the question....

..HEY WHERE ARE YOU GOI—

˚˖𓍢ִ໋₊˚ʚ 💜🙉 ₊˚ 𝐒𝐈𝐗-𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐌𝐀𝐂𝐀𝐐𝐔𝐄 :

He’s surprised, but at the same time, not really? I mean, let’s be real. The first time the two of you met, you elbowed him so hard that his head made a crater in the ground.

“Wait—you’re a Pixiu?” Macaque says, blinking.

“Yeah. What did you think I was?”

“I mean, I knew you weren’t normal, but a Pixiu? That explains the permanent dent you left in my skull.”

Not that he's complaining. In fact, even though you introduced yourself by nearly decapitating him, it might be the closest thing to a love story he’s ever had. Macaque is the type of emotionally-damaged guy who equates physical damage with affection. Yeah, he’s a mess.

Poor monkey, lettuce pray for him 🙏🏼.

What really makes him melt, though? Your tail. If you two ever sit close, Macaque will wrap his tail around yours, and it’s the cutest thing ever. It’s so natural for him to do it, and he doesn’t even notice he’s doing it until you do.

“Uh… Macaque? Your tail.”

He glances down, sees them tangled together, and casually says, “Oh. Right. My bad…”

You raised an eyebrow.

“…Or maybe it’s not.”

He tries to play it cool, but deep down, he lives for that tiny connection. His love language is physical touch and acts of kinda violent service, so expect him to drag you into playful sparring matches constantly.

Fighting with you helps him relax. You both get to blow off steam, even if he limps away with a broken leg afterward. “So worth it,” he grumbles, giving you a smug grin through his bruises.

“Oh? You’re still standing? Guess I went easy on you.”

“You’re on crutches, Macaque.”

“Details.”

One of his favorite things is getting to ask you for wisdom since you’re older and wiser. Sometimes it’s serious, and other times… it’s not.

“So, what should I do if someone’s annoying me?”

“Punch them in the throat.”

“Good advice.”

But when it comes to your temper? He learned his lesson the hard way—when you punched a deity into the stratosphere for joking about hurting his feelings. Never again.

Since then, he makes absolutely sure you’re happy. He knows not to even joke about upsetting you, because if you get mad? That’s a one-way ticket to Oblivion.

Never again ....

˚˖𓍢ִ໋₊˚ʚ 🫐🦁 ₊˚ 𝐀𝐙𝐔𝐑𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐍:

He perks up immediately when you tell him you’re a Pixiu. It’s like his lion brain short-circuits for a moment—eyes wide, jaw slightly dropped. Then, he gives you that noble, dignified smile he’s known for.

“Oh really? That’s exciting! I’ve read about your kind, but to meet one…”

You know he’s about to start gushing.

He’s not just curious—he’s obsessed. You’re a rare being, and Azure is the kind of guy who appreciates rare and powerful things. He’s practically asking for a Pixiu 101 crash course.

“Tell me everything—do you guard treasures? Can you summon storms? How many mountain ranges can you break in half?”

You blinks slowly with a neutral expression, “I mean, I once broke a boulder with my face.”

Azure is swooning, “Magnificent..”

If you ever feel self-conscious about your wings, tail, or horns, don’t. He treats them like royal artifacts. He might even get you a personalized grooming set for your horns. He's noble but extra.

Azure’s #1 Rule: Never let anyone disrespect you. If someone so much as looks at you funny, he’s already plotting their demise. "They don't deserve to breathe the same air as you."

“Azure, calm down—”

“I am calm.”

—Says Azure, who is ready to wage war.

He’s also super down for showing off his own lion mane in exchange for some wing flexing. "Let me know if you need help grooming your wings. I am, after all, quite experienced with luxurious hair."

˚˖𓍢ִ໋₊˚ʚ 🎗️🐘 ₊˚ 𝐘𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐔𝐒𝐊

When you drop the Pixiu bomb, Yellowtusk doesn’t react in a flashy way. He’s the most chill out of the bunch. He’ll nod thoughtfully, like he’s piecing together a puzzle that suddenly makes sense.

“So that explains how you broke that solid gold staff with one hand.”

“Wait, you noticed that?”

Tusk; casually sipping tea, “Of course. It was a decent staff too.”

He doesn’t say much, but you can tell he’s quietly impressed. He may not get all up in your business like the others, but when you two are alone, he’s soft.

He’ll sit with you in silence, enjoying the peace—because really, he’s not about the chaos the others tend to bring. Plus, he loves listening to your stories about ancient times, nodding here and there, occasionally offering a small smile.

If your wings ever get tired, he’ll immediately notice and offer a massage with zero hesitation, “You overworked yourself again, didn’t you?”

He’ll never say it, but he lowkey loves it when you flex your strength—especially when it comes to defending him or others. But when you do, he’ll just give you a simple, understated compliment.

“Impressive. As usual.”

˚˖𓍢ִ໋₊˚ʚ 🏅🪽 ₊˚ 𝐏𝐄𝐍𝐆:

Peng nearly drops his weapon when you casually tell him you’re a Pixiu. His initial reaction? A tsundere mess.

“Hmph, so what if you’re a Pixiu? Not like it’s a big deal,” he says, crossing his arms and looking away with a dramatic huff. His face is 90% red though.

But underneath that "I don’t care" exterior, you know he’s mentally screaming. You just became 10x cooler in his eyes, and he doesn’t know how to handle it. He’ll act like he’s not impressed, but you’ll catch him sneaking glances at your wings, especially when you stretch them out.

“Hey, stop staring.”

“I-I’m not staring! Why would I stare at you?!”

If you fight together, Peng gets super excited, pushing you to unleash your full power.

“I bet you can’t even keep up with me,” he teases. But deep down, he’s hoping you obliterate whatever enemy you’re facing in the most brutal, glorious way possible. When you absolutely wreck shop, he’ll just smirk and say, “I knew you had it in you.”

But if anyone else even thinks about crossing you, Peng’s temper flares.

“What did you just say about them?!”

You might be a Pixiu, but Peng still sees himself as the one who needs to protect you. Not that you need protecting, but it’s cute seeing him get so worked up about it. He’s the type to yell at your enemies while you’ve already knocked them out.

He'll also make snarky comments but immediately regret it when you flash your fangs at him.

“You’re terrifying,” he says with a blush.

“You like it.”

He turns away with an awkward cough.

"S-shut up."

[insert-random-account-name]

Crappy Character Analysis, part 11 (finale)

Alas, my ramblings have reached their end. We have the final voice: The Voice of the Hero. I saved him for last on purpose, since understanding the other voices is almost vital to understanding his character. If this is the first post of mine you see, do me a favor and check out the other parts first, so you can truly appreciate how special this character is.

part 1 (Broken) part 2 (Skeptic) part 3 (Cold)

part 4 (Paranoid) part 5 (Stubborn) part 6 (Contrarian)

part 7 (Smitten) part 8 (Opportunist) part 9 (Cheated)

part 10 (Hunted)

VOICE OF THE HERO

Hero is probably the most nuanced character in this entire game. He is the very first voice you get, and the only one to appear in every chapter of the game. He’s also far more complex than the single-minded voices that are also populating your subconscious. His first line is questioning whether or not you’re actually going to slay the Princess, yet if that’s what you decide to do, he goes along with it. He’s a lot quieter than most of the other voices, and allows you to make your own decisions. Once you start getting to Chapter 3’s, he fades into the background, only offering one or two lines when things start getting really out of hand. He seems mostly unable to exert the same control over your body that the other voices do, and is perfectly fine with going along for the ride. In his appearances, he acts as the voice of reason, trying to find the best option for everyone. In many cases, he tries to compromise, even when both the Narrator and Princess confirm that you’re going to have to make a choice eventually. I would make the argument that the Hero is the closest to an actual person than any other character.

Hero is simply someone who is trying his best. You get him the second you make a choice. He represents free will, and the natural feeling to question anything you’re told. He wants to do the right thing, and murdering a Princess is not in those bounds. However, he is incredibly loyal to you, the decider. He recognizes that all decisions come down to you. Even if you make a choice that Hero strongly dislikes, he still sticks by you, doing his best to spin something positive out of the results. His normalcy also adds a balance to the extreme personalities the other voices host. When Hero is surrounded by irrational voices, such as the Smitten or the Broken, he acts as a voice of reason (Example, telling Smitten that the two of you can’t be in love, since you just met). Around more grounded voices, such as the Skeptic or the Cold, Hero is more prone to panic (Example, him asking whether you can “put back” the Prisoner’s decapitated head). He is also incredibly courageous, not only staying strong in the course of the main game, but assisting you in the final confrontation with the Princess.

Even more important to the Hero’s character is that every subsequent voice comes from him. Each fragments off from the whole, and then takes that piece and grows it to an extreme. This is why the Hero has more nuance than the rest of the cast; he is a bunch of personality traits combined, rather than one or two. This is why there are times he shows empathy, or falls in love, or opts for violence. The Hero represents a person so well that he often echoes the thoughts of people playing the game. 

Finally, you can’t talk about Hero without mentioning the final cabin scene. He is one of the two voices to side with you if you are rude to them in every mirror scene. One of my favorite moments is when he offers to narrate the cabin for you, and if you agree, stumbles through a half-hearted description, meant more to try and cheer you up than actually paint an image. No matter what choice you make with the Princess, the Hero is loyal to the end, justifying your every action. The saddest part of the “Leave with Her” ending is leaving him behind, yet he understands that the two of you have a story to finish, and he knows that he has done his job. Still, if you leave with the harsh Princess, he still takes joy in her calling you “Hero”. The voice of the Hero is the most popular voice for a reason, and I hope I did him justice.

[g0dwat3rwritings]

How's about head cannons for the bishops + the Lamb

𝐀𝐥𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐲!!

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: 𝐌𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝

𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩: 𝐍𝐨𝐧𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜 (𝐘𝐨𝐮'𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧)

𝐓𝐲𝐩𝐞: 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐦𝐛

The Lamb has a habit of making dirt balls and throwing them at Narinder for fun.

This is practically canon and no one can change my mind.

Also, depending on when you come in the picture, they will leave little love notes for you.

The funniest part about the letters is that they don't leave a signature, they just write 𝐁𝐚𝐚𝐚 and you know it's them.

Despite being a lamb, they have the ability to watch people like a hawk.

And by that, I mean they have an incredible attention span, as weird as it may seem.

𝐒𝐡𝐚��𝐮𝐫𝐚

Shamura sews. A lot.

They could, and would, remake the entirety of all the bishops outfits by themself.

When they read, if you're in the picture, they prefer to have you sitting on their lap instead of at their side.

As odd as it may seem, kisses from Shamura are the best.

Shamura counts doors and windows when they're bored.

They'll go around their temple and count every door and every window.

𝐊𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐫

Kallamar loves to dance but is far too scared to perform in front of anyone, that includes his siblings.

He can draw, and well.

He'll sometimes wander into his siblings territories and draw what he sees.

Once you come into the picture, he has a habit of drawing you.

And pretty quickly, his sketchbooks become full of drawings of you.

Of course, he would only show you them if you asked, but besides that, you're never seeing them.

𝐍𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫/𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐖𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐬

He bites The Lamb, a lot.

And it's not on purpose, it is a purely subconscious thing. And it's not a kinky thing either.

When you come into the picture, he is all over you.

Kisses and hugs galore. In private, of course.

He pouts when you have to leave, like. literally pouts.

Depending on how long you're gone, he'll be stubborn and pouty until he gets some sort of reassurance that you're not planning his demise.

𝐇𝐞𝐤𝐞𝐭

She needs help to change her bandages, she can't do it on her own.

There's been times when she's croaked and it hurt her throat badly to the point she didn't talk for the rest of the day.

Leshy also laughed at her for it and she beat his ass 🧍‍♂️

She has a habit of kissing your throat lightly.

Not your neck, under your chin where your throat is.

Cuddles are a must for her, obviously in private, but she's in need of a little love.

𝐋𝐞𝐬𝐡𝐲

Leshy, being the Bishop of Chaos, is.. well.. chaotic.

He will bite your ears out of nowhere and feel zero (0) shame.

His branches wiggle when he's happy.

If he gets extremely excited or extremely happy, there's a possibility they'll fall out.

And when they do, he'll just be dramatic and stare at the branch on the ground like someone's decapitated head just rolled toward him.

He will pick you up and you have no choice in the matter.

[dadsbongos]

851 words. jimmy wants to kill your mom for you ~~~

Have you ever wanted someone dead?

Jimmy has -does- and it burns him up from the inside. This time hotter than the rest because last time he said it out loud he had a beer bottle thrown at the back of his head. 

Even now something in the back of his throat won’t let him get it out, despite the closest object to you being a tinky black remote. So he watches, silently, as you fold one arm over the over across your chest and bare down the woman that bore you. 

Beneath scratchy teal sheets pulled up to her chin, she sweats simply sleeping. Over those sheets run thin clear tubes, looping around the back of her head and pumping up her nostrils with crisp air. A white slat is pulled over her lap, plastic cups painted with brown and yellow mush streaks littered over it. Spoons drying into each bowl. Jimmy would never be able to guess how much each little scrap is running on your wallet, and he doesn’t care to… or at least tries to tell himself he doesn’t.

Unfortunately, it’s all he thinks about. 

Centered in his chest, just a skosh right of his heart and way above his gut, is that burning sensation telling him the same things over and over. With every visit, the whispering gets louder.

Your mother had insurance, but he’s seen you bent over the kitchen table mumbling about hospital bills either way. Not to mention, with the sour way things look, funeral bills eventually.

“She’s sleeping,” he bites, boot clacking impatiently on the linoleum. 

“I know,” tone firm enough to tell him everything you didn’t say. Conversation fizzles out there for now.

Jimmy knows. You know. Nurses know.

Without that tank clicking oxygen into her chest, she’s gone -- maybe a brief sputter, the final kickback of a motor skimming the bottom barrel for oil, but she’ll die. 

If Jimmy meandered over to the other side of the bed where you weren’t able to see, and if he pinched the tube between thumb and forefinger long enough then she probably wouldn’t even rouse to fight. Twitch, maybe.

You’re better for it, if he does.

He asked you once why you’re trying so hard, pushing so fiercely and more stubbornly than he knows you’ve pushed anything (i thought you hated the old bitch). You just told him to mind his business (fuck you, jimmy, that’s my mother).

Suddenly, you take a step back and shudder, wiping both hands down the length of your face and sniffling, “I gotta pee.”

Red eyes peek at him from between stiff fingers, cracked apart over your cheeks. Bent brows and wobbling lips. You’re not gonna piss, you’re gonna scream into your hands and cry. Which he’s sure the hospital bathrooms see more of than any other fluid.

Jimmy blinks up at you. If you’re going to the bathroom you’re not here.

“Don’t fall in,” he mumbles.

Nodding and patting him on the shoulder as you pass, Jimmy can see the tear glittering down your lashes before you make it out. As soon as your body’s faded from view, and your footsteps fall a little quieter than before: he’s up on his feet. Dirt-stained sneakers cake across the waxy floors, squeaking right up beside your mother.

Brown eyes flick up between the steel door frame once before he’s reaching down for the clear tube -- hesitating inches away, just long enough to visualize his mugshot on the news.

Euthanasia is only legal in dogs, he thinks. Technically, even though she’s got all the conversational skills of broccoli and lays here like a metal beam, this is murder. Could probably get him locked away for the rest of his life. Put behind rusty bars with gnarly types: real murderers, the kinds that decapitate and cut their girls open. Jimmy wouldn’t do that to you, he just wants to kill your mom.

Make your life a little easier.

Her still sucking wind through these flimsy pipes is draining your savings. Gray hairs scattered across your pillow, at this rate the stress of her being alive is going to put you into the grave. Every crash like this is always preceded by her spontaneous burst of good health; she’ll run a marathon just to end up in the ER next month. Pushing and pulling, snuffing out hope just as it flourishes. 

The bipolarity isn’t good for your health. Neither would be having your boyfriend arrested for Mom’s murder.

So he steps on the tube with his foot instead. Shirking hard on the toes to make sure all that sweet air pinches right the fuck off.

Just as he thought, she doesn’t pop up. Barely scrunches that wrinkled, angry face before the twitching starts. First at her shoulders concentrating around the chest, then her legs, and then her hands. Cinching around thin teal sheets like they could do anything for her. They don’t even keep out the cold.

Getting the final act of bereavement finished will be better for you, he knows that. In a weird way, he’s just trying to help.

[autisticfunfact]

Just kinda wrote the best poem I’ve ever written in my life and it is about bbc’s merlin

You’re called friend

Our love began in candlelight,

In the woods under the bright new moon,

The sun blaring on our backs in your city’s streets.

I smiled at you and you smiled right back

I threw my fist against your face

You caught it in your hand,

Because I called you friend.

I called you friend.

You threw your knives like sport,

Now there’s one wobbling

On the back of the chair you were sitting in.

And I want to fall to my knees

And thank the blade for existing,

For without it I would not have you.

There’s a sword stuck in stone

I forged in my breath,

And left behind for you to lift.

There’s always something sharp between us,

We can never get too close

For fear it would cut us apart like Zeus.

So I called you friend

I called you friend

The lies I tell you cut my tongue

Like a shard of obsidian.

I can never get too close, while I hold you close

I stand behind you, always behind you.

And the sword you hold out looks to me a shield

It decapitates like it protects

And it sings with the blood of my kind.

And I called you friend

I called you friend

You marry, you’re happy,

I cut my teeth on lava glass.

I give my trust, a very fragile thing

And this boy breaks it like anything.

He picks up a shard and from it,

The sister of your blade breathed into existence by a sister of mine.

It hangs over your head like a butcher’s knife,

I break my teeth on lava glass.

Still I called you friend

I called you friend

For once in our lives we forget

The sharp thing in our sides.

And that’s when I see it for the first time,

Sticking out your chest, blood red and wobbling

Like my breath, like the knife when we first met.

Finally I spit out that obsidian,

You look at me, horrified,

But you let yourself get past.

For the first time in our lives

There is no sharpness in our midst,

The only thing that cuts

Is that peace in your guts.

I hold you close

They called us friends

You lean up for a kiss

They called us friends

Now it’s been so long since

I felt your breath on my face,

And all my kind are gone,

All our songs are sung.

My bones ache with every move

Like volcanic matter supercooled.

I see you face in the writing on the wall.

Someone asks me about my sadness,

I tell them about you, my friend

I tell them about you, my love.

[a-bad-case-of-the-stephs]

What're some Steph Brown moments you think should be talked about more?

Thank you sm for asking me this…

This one is actually really hard for me to answer because I think society should be talking about every stephanie brown moment all of the time. Additionally, I genuinely don’t think I can tell what moments w her are underrated anymore.

That being said I have made a list:

1. This Scene w Crystal in cataclysm

Robin #54

Really shows some extremely interesting parts of their relationship. This is like one of our first indications Crystal and Steph’s relationship might be on the mend. We get a look into how close they are despite their many issues. We have a minute where Steph jokes about Crystal blaming herself for the quake “too” implying Crystal often blames herself for things out of her control, which as I’m always discussing is a Stephanie Brown classic trait. The idea that this is something Crystal might do as well is so compelling to me. And throughout it all, we have Steph trying to protect Crystal, taking care of her, even tucking her in like a parent would their child. (Cough Stephanie brown parentification cough cough)

2. This panel from GK37. The way Batmans silhouette steps forward while Steph’s silhouette stands starkly still. The purple overcast sky with the flakes of snow (the whole weather/environment in gk37 kills me). The emphasis on ‘go to hell’ as after a comic of bargaining Steph finally comes to terms with the fact that she can’t rely on anyone else, that Batman going to her and telling her she could be something, that she could be good meant absolutely nothing to him. Amazing. Imprinted into my brain.

4. Steph’s conversation with Natalia about the stars in Robin 104. Gorgeous panel with an interesting look into Steph’s brain.

5. The Riddle scene in Robin 113, because I’m not smart enough to break down the Riddlers riddles and put together the implications which I assume are there and I want someone else to do it for me. Additionally, the lighting is absolutely gorgeous as we get to see Steph at this low point.

6. Robin #92, the scene where Bruce talks to Steph about the future, deeply unsettling her to the point that months and months later at the very start of war games she’s still thinking about it

7. The moment after Tim Drake’s birthday gaslighting bonanza where he commiserates with Steph abt getting tested by Batman. I’m imagining that he feels guilty for his role in her own test. For the record I’m hallucinating that guilt. I think it’s possible Lewis straight up didn’t know how Tim lied to Steph in Batman Family. But on the other hand the parallels to GK37 are insane and clearly there for a reason. Thinking about this lots. The repetition of “I know” vs “go to hell”. Their reversal of roles…I’ve already blabbed abt this on my blog but I’m still putting it here also bc I’m thinking abt it always.

Robin #120

8. All of GK22 as a reflection of how Batman’s loneliness post officer down is actually inextricably connected with his decision to sanction Steph as Spoiler. But specifically this scene because it makes me sick and ill and because it’s my header. Love the decapitated head side eyeing Batman.

9. Okay last one. One moment I’ve been thinking about a lot recently is Stephanie’s first interaction with Batman post War Games. Like the first thing she says to him after returning from her faked death is her essentially asking permission to patrol in Gotham.

Robin #174

Which is so fucking insane. She was unironically and genuinely spiritually broken by the events of war games. One of the very core tenets of her characterization, her willingness to be Spoiler no matter what regardless of the consequences, is fractured and entirely reversed. I have a lot of thoughts about this, and in general how post war games pre bg2009 Steph has healed physically but something big has clearly changed in her and not for the better. If you ask me, that period of time is stephanie brown at her lowest point. Will be posting abt this more eventually because writing this out has given me worse brain worms than normal.

Thank you so much for the ask again, sorry this took me a second I kept writing out way too much. I’m unfortunately a rambler at heart. Would love to hear anyone’s thoughts on any of these moments or other moments I missed.

[save-the-villainous-cat]

Could you write a spicy thing with a villain and hero who’ve been fighting for a long time and basically see each other as friends or friendly rivals at this point, and the villain starts trying to flirt, expecting the hero to just brush them off, but the hero flirts back— like, really well— and it’s agonizingly (sexually) tense for a moment and then the hero just snatches the moment away with a joke and a wink, leaving the villain dumbstruck?

Very specific I know— it is absolutely okay if you don’t want to do it, no pressure!! I love your writing style <3

"Oh my god," the hero gasped. Their lungs burnt from the fight and they needed to put their hands on their knees as they took in greedy gulps of air. Sometimes, they asked themselves why they had chosen a job which forced them to do physical activities. What an actual nightmare. "That was..."

"Unexpected, yeah." The villain next to them looked down at the bodies and they seemed fairly unimpressed. They were completely calm, not even breathing heavily. They had been efficient and the hero would've found it unfair if the villain wasn't so nice about it.

"Unexpected? I thought we were gonna die." Slowly, their body calmed down. Their racing heart found a rhythm even the hero could agreed with. Their gaze turned to their nemesis whose eyes were basically glued to the hero. At times, the villain looked at them like they were the centre of the world but the hero figured, they did that to everyone every once in a while, just to freak people out.

"I thought no one was supposed to be here," the hero said. The mission, in its entirety, was rather simple: break into the facility to steal documents and get out alive. The team-up was spontaneous. Months ago, the hero would have been suspicious but now, the villain was rather an annoying friend they disagreed a lots with than someone they wanted to decapitate.

"That was the plan." The villain tilted their head and closed their eyes, as if they were trying to gather their thoughts.

"We need to be more careful," the hero said. "Security seems to be more intense than we thought."

"Nothing we can't handle." The villain shrugged. "You're bleeding."

"Wha—?" The hero followed the villain's gaze and, indeed, there was a huge cut in their biceps. The hero hadn't noticed it, hadn't even felt any pain. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, they could see this being a problem.

"Sit down."

"I'm okay," the hero answered.

"You're not okay and I won't catch you if you fall over. Sit down." The hero rolled their eyes and (reluctantly) sat down. Immediately, the villain was on their knees and held the hero's arm, observing the injury. Luckily, they had thought of bandages which was something the hero never did. They wondered if they should start carrying those around with them.

"You're being dramatic." The villain's hands worked fast as they bandaged the hero's wound. It hurt more than the hero wanted to admit. Whenever the villain was a little too harsh, they swallowed a groan. "It's just my arm."

"Yeah and in an hour it's just your pretty face." The hero stared at them. Admittedly, their face felt quite hot. Suddenly, they were all too well aware of the proximity between them. The villain's fingertips were warm and they were gentle, despite the raging pain the hero endured. The villain was kind and funny. They cared enough to make the hero greedy for more.

Someone they could give everything, the good and the bad. The hero wished they could be that person for the villain and vice versa.

Was it a sarcastic comment, though? Or did the villain mean it? Did they really think the hero was pretty? And not this broken thing that needed help? God, the hero sometimes really felt like they weren't anything more than a burden. Even back then, the villain had done most of the work.

"I don't have a problem with that," the hero answered quickly. "If it means that you'll be on your knees for me again."

The villain stopped and looked up. Their eyes found the hero's before they dropped down to the hero's lips. Shy. The hero had managed to make the villain shy. Even though the villain had always tried to portray someone heartless and cold, they were blushing now and the hero's heart was beating so loud, they feared the villain could hear it too.

Sometimes, they wished they weren't enemies. Sometimes, the hero hoped they could trust the villain forever. But they knew that was a dream and they were scared of the day when it turned out that the villain would betray them.

"I-" The hero watched them swallow.

God, they wanted to kiss them so bad.

"We should go," the hero said. They forced a smirk and winked. "I doubt the documents will fly away but you never know."

"Oh...yeah..." The villain watched as the hero stood up and for the rest of the day, they seemed rather distracted.

[myths-tournaments]

Awful Characters Round 2 Part 1 (2/8)

Propaganda under the cut!

IANTHE TRIDENTARIUS

Her number one hobby is ruining every person's that she knows life. Her second hobby is being soooo slutty about it despite looking like a literal wet rat. Her third hobby is having an extremely unhealthy relationship with her twin. Her other hobbies include cannibalism, wearing a maid outfit, being extremely convinced she is the main character, the badboy sexy love interest and the villain. 'Why', you may ask. Well, the answer is, for shits and giggles #justgirlythings i, aswell as literally everybody else in the fandom have gone through the pipeline from hating her to desperately wanting to fuck her. expect for i still fucking hope she dies and doesn't come back for good. (that would literally solve all of everybody's problems) as god intended (EXPECT FOR. one of her hobbies literally is gaslighting god) She is fucking horrible i will love her until i die and even after that

parks and recs jean ralphio voice she's the woooorst!! The moment she learns she has to kill someone to become a Lyctor (aka a more special necromancer), she doesn't hesitate to kill and cannibalize the guy who has been her cavalier since childhood… cavalier who she also totally bullied as kids, she was allowed to choose one guest for her and her twin sister's birthday party each year, and she would always pick whoever she thought her cavalier didn't want to see there! While other characters are shown to regret the process of becoming a Lyctor (which involves someone close to them dying)/were forced into it because of circumstances, Ianthe has absolutely no regrets, she believes she did what she had to do

The author once said of Ianthe: "I don't think she's been nice to anyone, if she has I'll go back and change it." She killed and ate the soul of someone she has known all her life so that she could become a necromantic saint and tormented him plenty before that. General negging, ganging up against him, always inviting people he didn't like to their birthday parties. She doesn't regret killing him. I think she is repulsed by the idea that his digested soul is affecting hers. She helped her crush lobotomise herself so she would be in Ianthe's debt, and later lied and said she didn't see the corpse of a woman her crush killed under her bed (why did she do that? I do not know). She has a bone arm because her original arm was cut off, she hated the replacement so her crush cut THAT off and grew her a new one out of just bones. She had it gilded and only after that did she decide to help her crush deal with the person who had been repeatedly trying to kill her. She wants so badly to be the main character but people keep interrupting her villain monologues.

she has her own content warning tag

She's such a bitch to everyone all the time, she causes nothing but problems, she tries to do a villain speech but fumbles it because her tummy hurt, she is the awfulgirl of all time

THE SKULL

he is an evil ghost who used to be an assistant to a mad scientist gravedigger. accomplice to murder and torture and general evil scheming. now he lives in a jar and is besties with a teenage girl. and by besties i mean he encourages her to kill people and constantly cheers when her friends almost die. overall a silly little decapitated head <3

It is literally a skull in a jar. (More context if you don’t know the books/show: it’s a ghost source that’s been trapped in a silver container so it can’t escape. And it’s exceptionally powerful which means it can actually communicate with mc.) It frequently encourages the mc to commit various morally reprehensible acts such as homicide (she never does). When it was alive, it was a teenage boy who was apprenticed to an evil scientist.

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

A Rite Of Passage: Part One

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~2.3k

Summary: A case brings you to a small town in Texas that is close to Mexico's border. Someone is killing people who illegally cross the border, and he's a lot closer than you think.

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill

Season Five Masterlist

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there are any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them.

x

"A lion's work hours are only when he's hungry; once he's satisfied, the predator and prey live peacefully together." - Chuck Jones

"Hey, where's Hotch?" Emily asks when she walks into the briefing room.

"Budget meeting."

"Maybe he'll give us a raise," Derek jokes.

"They're cutting, not raising. I just hope they don't take the coffee."

"I'd quit," Spencer says.

"Oh, yeah. That'll save 'em like fifty bucks a week."

"Hotch will meet us on the plane," JJ says when she walks in.

"Where are we going?"

"Last night, three decapitated heads were found in front of a sheriff's station in the small border town of Terlingua, Texas."

She passes out the file on the victims which includes pictures of their crime scenes.

"Three victims at once?"

"Actually, they appear to be in different stages of decomposition."

"The ME confirmed that one of the heads is a day or so old. The other two appear to have died a few months ago, but the wound edges suggest that they were decapitated recently," JJ explains.

"There is dirt in their mouth, ears, and nose. At some point, these two heads were buried and then dug up."

"Okay, so why the sudden need to display them?" Emily asks.

"The need may not be so sudden. In Mexico, in 2009 alone, ten heads were in coolers and the people belonging to these heads were killed just hours before they were found. It's the result of a battle between feuding drug cartels."

"The DEA isn't interested?" you ask.

You'd think the Drug Enforcement Association would want a crack at this.

"They asked us to take a look at it. Considering the different decomposition, this might not even be about drugs."

"Alright, what do we have?"

"Well, the victims are two males and one female so there isn't a gender preference. Staging the heads in front of a sheriff's station is aggressive. All three victims are Hispanic and unidentified. Terlingua has a large illegal population. It's made IDing the victims that much harder."

"He might be trying to make some type of political statement. Volunteer border patrols do a lot of personal policing down there. Groups like the Minutemen prize law and order above everything else, and those patrols serve their political agenda. Murder would be bad for their image," Spencer explains.

"Staging the heads in front of a police station suggests that the unsub might be local. He'd have to have knowledge about how to do something like that without being seen. So, what we have is hundreds of miles of unincorporated desert and an endless supply of anonymous victims crossing the border every day."

"It's a serial killer's perfect storm," you sigh.

As JJ said, Hotch met you at the plane when he was done with his meeting.

"Explain this to me. The unsub hunts along the US-Mexico border. How big is that area?"

"Over five thousand square miles of desert," Spencer answers at the same time as you do.

The entire team stares at you two and you look away with heated cheeks.

"He could have gone undetected for years," Hotch says eventually.

"Why announce himself now?"

"What do we know about crime in Terlingua?" Rossi asks.

"It's a stop-over town. Immigrants stay only twenty-four hours before moving on, but that also makes them narco-trafficking hubs. Outside of immigration violations, most of the arrests are drug-related."

"That, my pretties, is an understatement." You look to your left and see Penelope's face on the screen. "Anyone familiar with the Lugo Cartel out of Baja, California? Their greatest hits include multiple brutal murders along with importing and distributing nearly two tons of cocaine and copious amounts of heroin between 1990 and 2009. Now, if we get in our BAU time machine, flash forward to now, a super cheap, highly addictive, and totally impure form of black tar heroin just showed up on the streets of Terlingua, and the DEA thinks the Lugo Cartel is directly responsible."

"They're expanding their operation which is often announced by a wave of violence. The Lugo Cartel killed two DEA agents last year. We're going to need to watch our backs. To Cartels, the Feds are fair game. There's even usually a bounty, so we're going to bring in the toys," Derek talks about the big weapons.

"Be careful with those. I don't need broken MP-5s on our budget," Hotch says.

"Guys, here's the thing. I don't think I technically have authorization to carry a weapon like that," Spencer says.

"You don't," Derek and Hotch say at the same time.

You reach over and put your hand on his arm. You want to grab his hand but he still has a gross ick when it comes to germs. Yes, he held your hand when you were going through it with prison but that was because he decided to. You don't want him to feel like his choice is being taken away when it comes to germs. Instead, you touch something much safer like his arm.

"You know, we're going to have a victim pool that is extremely hesitant to talk to us."

"Prentiss, you and Morgan start with the migrant community, see what inroads you can make. Stress that we're only there to catch a killer. Rossi, Y/N, and Reid, the ME is waiting to show you the heads."

"Maybe they can tell us something," you say.

The entire department only consists of five people including the sheriff. When Hotch and JJ got to the station, eight men were posted outside of it. The fact that they had eight despite there only being five officers inside shows that they outnumber them, asserting their dominance. Deputy Ronald Boyd isn't too worried about it only because those eight men are just a handful of men who work for Omar Morales, the head of the narco-trafficking ring. They picked him up this morning outside of town where he was heading to the airport.

Deputy Boyd would have talked to him only Sheriff Eva Ruiz wouldn't let her men talk to him. Hotch is worried about the men outside but she plans on ignoring them thinking they'll get hot and tired and go away on their own. The reason why she won't let her men talk to Omar is because she doesn't agree that they arrested the right man. The heads at the police station, in her opinion, are a message that demands for her to butt out. Just in the six months she's been Sheriff, there are more than twenty missing immigrants; that's more than three a month or one victim a week.

There hasn't been an official investigation because no one wants to be the snitch. However, she believes that someone has been killing for a lot longer than they let on. The Lugo Cartel kills to send a message, it's how they communicate but Eva seems to think otherwise.

You walk into the ME's office where there are heads in jars so that they can be preserved. You touch the side of the glass and allow the energy to paint you a picture. Fear. Desperation. The victims are running through the open desert as someone wearing a mask is chasing them on a quad made for the terrain. The victims are terrified for their lives but the unsub doesn't show any mercy.

"You know, contrary to popular belief, decapitation is not that easy," Spencer says, bringing you back.

"You don't often hear popular and decapitation In the same sentence," Rossi says.

"You'd need to strike on the weakest point of the spine. It's normally between the C3 and C7 vertebrae. There are multiple strikes but they don't show any hesitation."

"I realize you didn't have much to work with here but outside of the obvious, was there anything unusual about these victims?" Rossi asks the Me.

"The second victim appeared to have been blind, if not completely, then he had cataracts bad enough that it was difficult for him to get around."

"What about the other two?" you ask.

"No."

"I only had their teeth to go by but the most recent victim is older as well as the first one, the woman. It'll take some time to get an accurate age but I'm confident that they were older.'

"We're looking for something that we call a signature. Something that all the victims shared like a physical mark or something postmortem."

"I don't know if this is what you mean," she grabs the reports on them, "but they all had sand residue in their noses and throats."

"Could that be from being buried?" Spencer asks.

"Possibly, but the trachea and the nasal passage were kind of torn up. If I had the lungs here, I'd guess that they were full of sand as well like they breathed in the sand enough to lacerate the passages."

"They were running," you say. "The unsub chased them on quads through the desert. Trust me when I say he didn't show any mercy."

Hotch is able to talk to Omar who isn't too happy to talk to a Fed. Omar is cocky and arrogant only because he knows he or his crew didn't do these murders. If Omar had, he'd gut the victim from crotch to chin then leave the intestines open for the animals to eat. He'd send his hand to his wife, his eyes to his mother, and his tongue to his kids with a note saying their Daddy had died wetting himself. Omar doesn't believe that these murders are a message, none that he recognizes.

Hotch asks him about what he thought of the recent murders only because Omar likes to be a man in control. He has an army standing guard outside the station who will protect him because Omar has somehow convinced them that they need him, and Hotch expects to believe Omar doesn't know what's going on in his town? What Hotch is looking for, according to Omar, is Santa Muerte, the Saint of Death.

The Saint of Death is a drug dealer's version of a doctor's Raphael the Archangel or a cop's Saint Jude--someone they pray to. Omar has learned that someone loses track of the ways they can die when they cross the desert from Mexico. Sometimes, it's easier to blame a superstitious figure than someone real. Santa Muerte has been coming up more and more with the illegals Eva sends back, the coyotes she arrests, and the drug traffickers around town. All of them are afraid.

Evan once handled a homicide where her only witness was a four-year-old girl. She told Eva that her mom and dad were killed by a dragon. It turned out that the bad guy wore a green rainsuit with a pointy hood. To the little girl, it looked like a dragon. So, when hundreds of people are talking about the same monster, it's a sure bet that something is going on. They don't know what to call it so they settle on Santa Muerte.

With a town like this, you're not surprised that by the next morning, another murder has surfaced. This time, there is a head on a post right outside the Sheriff's house. The team heads over there along with some of her own men. You get there before her men do and you approach the head that hasn't been moved. You slide some gloves on and touch the side of his face delicately. This man was trying to cross the border last night with his family. He fell to the ground after not being able to continue either because he couldn't physically or he was sick. It doesn't matter. He was the only one left behind so the unsub targeted him until he killed him.

"I told you we should have kept that bastard locked up."

Eva let Omar go because there was nothing she could charge him with. The officers only had assumptions that he was involved with no evidence. You turn to look at Deputy Boyd and freeze in your steps. He walks past you without so much as a glance in your direction but he doesn't need you. The energy surrounding the head is the same as Deputy Boyd's. He either killed the man or he knew about it to move it to Eva's house. Your first instinct is to shout to the rooftops that Boyd is the unsub but you have to think about this through Hotch's eyes. He'll want evidence so you keep your mouth shut for now.

"I'm telling you for the last time, Boyd, go back on patrol," Eva says.

Boyd rolls his eyes but does as he's told.

"There isn't any decomposition. It's a new victim," Spencer says.

"He's becoming more focused on you, Sheriff. May I have a word?" Hotch asks. He and Eva step off to the side but you can still hear them. "It's clear that this is personal."

"It always was."

"How's that?"

"Look, I have no idea how many of these people have gone missing over the years, but one thing is clear. I'm the only one who seems to give a damn. That's as personal as it gets for me."

"We're here because we care."

"All I've got is a bunch of stories and superstitions. What if it isn't even happening?"

"Sheriff, I can't tell you how long this has been going on but something's definitely happening now. From the way the unsub is acting, it's obvious that you've touched a nerve. Whoever he is, I think you've probably talked to him."

Damn right, she has. He's right under her nose and she doesn't even know. You don't want to talk to her about this now because you don't want to freak her out when you don't have to.

"I've talked to anyone who will listen—drug dealers, immigrants, and even business owners."

"Well, one of them is your Santa Muerte and he's feeling the pressure. When we get back to the station, I want to go over every single interview you've done."

"How? Who are we even looking for?"

"We have a profile to give you and your deputies."

"Hotch, a word?" you butt in. He steps away from the Sheriff and joins your side. "I know I need evidence but you want to know what I saw when Deputy Boyd showed up? His energy matches the one on his head. I didn't see anything else but that can only mean one of two things—he's the one who killed him or he knew about it."

"Pay attention to his behavior during the profile. After, get your evidence."

x

Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary​​​​​​ where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

[darthrevan-lord-of-the-sith]

a worse foe

The blaster bold freezes in mid air, and Krell and the clones all stare at it as it crumbles to nothing.

"Fives," a voice, filtered through a voice modulator, says softly. "Take Dogma's blaster."

Lord Revan is standing at the entrance to the cellblock, tall and imposing and crackling with the energy they know as the Force. Fives takes the blaster from Dogma and unarms it, then tosses it aside. Dogma looks small at his side as Revan approaches, and lays a gloved hand on the side of his neck, thumb brushing just above where Dogma's blacks end.

"It's alright," Revan says softly, and leans forward slightly. Dogma meets him, resting his forehead against the cool, emotionless metal of Revan's helmet. "Fives, take your little brothers back to the barracks. Rex, can you stay?"

"Yes sir," Rex says. "Jesse? Kix?"

"We can stay, sir," the troopers answer.

"Good," Revan says, and everything is quiet as Fives gathers Tup and Dogma and heads to the barracks.

Once they're gone, the rumbling Rex has felt in the air becomes a roar, and then Krell is slammed against the wall.

"You don't scare me," Krell snarls. "You carry his name, but you are just a knight wearing old armour."

"Is that so?" Revan says, quiet. His hands go to the release clasps on his helmet, there's a hissing sound as the suit depressurises, and Revan lifts the helmet free.

It falls unceremoniously to the floor, and the sound echoes out across the room.

Rex sees Krell's throat contort as he swallows.

Revan's eyes are burning, flickering from red to gold to green, every line of his handsome face twisted in rage. His hands are clenched, muscles shaking, the Force roiling around him like a cloak. "You believe you can control the Dark?" Revan asks, and he pulls an unfamiliar lightsaber from inside his robes. "You believe you could be a Sith? You are nothing. You are an insect, vermin, compared to the Sith I have known. Have trained. Have inspired!"

The saber lights, and a ruby blade illuminates the room.

Krell's body is lying smoking and decapitated only a few hours later, tortured with lightning and lightsaber and terrible mind tricks that leave him screaming and babbling for mercy. For death.

Rex doesn't feel sorry for him as he picks up the decapitated head and hands it, smoking stump and all, to Revan, whose eyes still flicker between red and gold and green, but he's relieved to see the green appear more often than any other colour.

"Did Wolffe tell you?" Revan asks, taking the head and shoving it into a cryo-bag. "About-"

He holds up the lightsaber with the red blade, giving Rex a pointed look.

"You being a four thousand year old Dar'Jetii who is also the hero of the bedtime stories Fett used to tell the CC's?" Rex says. "No. General Skywalker complains about you a lot, some of that confidential information slipped out and Ahsoka filled in the rest."

Revan nods. "I want Dogma transferred," he says. "The 104th would be better for him that the 501st, he's lost his trust in the Jedi...Plo will be good for him."

"Permission to speak freely, sir?" Jesse asks.

Revan nods, and picks up his helmet.

"You'd be better for this army if you took command," Jesse says. "If you're really...really the Conquering Jedi-" Revan sighs at the title "-then you should be leading us, not the Council, not the Senate. You...you've done this before. You beat a better army than Grievous and Dooku."

"Mand'alor the Ultimate was a challenging opponent, yes," Revan says. "But after, the Republic faced a worse foe, one I could not defeat."

"Who?" Kix asks, always one for the stories. His eyes are big and full of wonder.

"Me," Revan says, and puts his helmet on. "The reason the Jedi don't want me heading an army is because they're worried I will turn it against them, like I did the last time someone gave me an army."

"But you wouldn't!" Jesse exclaims.

"Maybe I might," Revan says. "Perhaps I might start a war over you all."

[genderfluid-insomniac]

I saw your thing about the reader insert being skeptical of Sun Wukong's immortality so I want to answer your wish and request a reader who is studying medicine being skeptical of it and being very worried about the reckless nonsense he gets up to.

Maiden…..you don’t know how happy I was when someone requested this because I love the idea that someone just thinks his immortality is just a claim (despite everything they’ve seen) and refuses to admit that he’s basically indestructible until he literally proves it. I was giddy while writing this cause I love messing with Wukong. Hope you enjoy!

“This bitch isn’t immortal!” “Let’s test that theory.” /// Sun Wukong x Skeptical!Wary!Nurse!reader

You are very wary of his recklessness and honestly have a bit of doubt about his immortality (Wukong is actually shocked that his s/o would doubt his ability to be indestructible), getting in debates with him literally grabbing a sword or knife and going to stab/decapitate himself before you knock it out of his hands. After every battle, whether it’s training or an actual fight, you’re always there to patch up MK and your lover and check on their injuries.

MK is very grateful but the monkey king is indifferent to your pleas, repeating the phrase “Don’t worry sunshine. I’m immortal like 5 times over…or something…I’ve lost count.” and showing his now healed injuries much to your surprise. If you go and ask Macaque (or some of his other friends if you can even find them in the heavenly realm or underground) then he’ll absolutely confirm that he’s fully thrown a mountain at the king and he just got annoyed in response.

He’ll genuinely start doing fatal things to prove his immortality like jumping from the top of flower fruit mountain without stopping or sleeping in a stream or beneath the waves or the beach because it’s been a while since he’s been told to prove it and he always has fun doing it. The monkeys don’t bat an eye at this since they’re familiar with their king's behaviors and some of them will try to calm your nervous self down since you are their queen, patting your head and chirping at you.

It’s finally after 2 weeks (and turning down Macaque’s offer about being happy to test it) that you fully believe that your Sun Wukong is immortal nth times over and make him promise that whenever he gets hurt he’ll come to you to get patched up. Also, do not hide major injuries with glamor or any deflections with humor.

[velvetyraincoat]

I enjoyed the show because it scratched that KotOR itch that I desperately crave, but I can’t get over just how many scenes in The Acolyte didn’t make very much sense.

It feels like a lot of characters ended up making strange decisions purely for the sake of plot and I kept having moments where I felt like I was an idiot or like I missed something.

I made a list of big holes that I had trouble filling in my own head. Maybe someone smarter than me can explain this show to me.

Spoilers for The Acolyte S01 below

- After Sol rescues Osha and she clears her name, she says that she wants nothing to do with the situation and that Mae is the republic’s problem. She’s very clear as to what her desires are and they devote a bunch of time giving her goodbyes and then trying to sneak off. Then Sol is like “but what if you helped me??? 🥺”. And she’s like ‘ok’, and changes her mind without any hesitation. Why?

- Why did Mae decide to tie up Manny Strangerface on Khofar and give up on her quest? When this happened, I assumed she was just making up an excuse to ditch him, but it turned out genuine which was really weird. Mae has devoted her whole life to killing these people. She also called her sister Jedi scum earlier and didn’t seem to bear any real attachment to her. Where did this change of heart come from?

- Why did Darth Nobody make his dramatic appearance and morb all over all those Jedi guys? Why not just kill Mae earlier when she tied him up? Surely if he can kill a whole squad of Jedi, he can Force his way out of a stupid rope trap.

- On that note, how is it that Jecki, the padawan, is capable of squarely holding her own in an extended fight scene against a guy who just three-man solo decapitated a bunch of Jedi knights in two seconds?

- Yord gets instructions to take Osha back to the ship, despite Osha’s protest to stay. But then Osha has a vision of her sister and suddenly Yord is like “ok that checks out guess we’ll turn around then”. What?

- The thing with Pip as a flashlight. Why didn’t Powerful Sith Guy just use the Force to pull it off of himself? Seems kind of obvious, no?

- Mae stuns Osha and then clothes swaps with her. Didn’t Mae just renounce her dark side master in the name of her love her her sister? But she’s going to just leave Osha to be found by her master now?? What? Why?

- Everything about Darth Swole Guy after he picks up Osha and nurses her back to health. We just saw him being the world’s biggest dickhead, but he’s nice now? Why? Osha even asks him why he’s being nice to her, lampshading the question, but it just never really gets answered. Guess he’s just a nice guy now.

- Everything with Mother Aniseya. We’re expected to see Ascension as this big culturally important thing that the Jedi are butting into, but none of it seems particularly important to Aniseya (the coven leader) who is willing to just look the other way and let Osha do whatever she wants (valuing her individualism the same way the Jedi do). The cultural relativism plot sort of breaks down when the two cultures don’t have, you know, conflicting values.

- Every single time there’s a question of whether to go with tradition or let the girls do what they want, Aniseya actively steps against tradition in the name of ‘it’s what Osha wants’. If the leader of the coven can say that it’s not that important and let Osha leave, then why is it bad for the Jedi to interfere? It don’t make no sense.

- In the finale, why does Osha agree to train with qimmy again? She says she will take her sister’s place, but why is this an option? Also, why doesn’t he want to kill Mae anymore? Didn’t he want to kill her for being weak or whatever back when he was still Darth Scaryguy the first time they met him?

- Why erase Mae’s memories if they are just going to leave her to the Jedi anyway? The whole Vernestra questioning scene where Mae does the Rosemary Kennedy bit just felt so weird, gross, and unnecessary. “Who am I? What is this place and how did I get here?” — Dude me too, Mae. Questions I ask myself when watching The Acolyte.

- Why leave her alive at all even? Why not just kill her and tie off the loose end? Isnt that kind of show of strength what the Sith are known for?

- Why torch Sol’s reputation at the end? If you have no moral backbone and are already about to admit there was an evil Jedi guy but are really Sol’s friend, then just put Mae on trial. You literally have her in custody. Why not just execute her and call it a day?

look I really want to like this show. The casting is fantastic, the acting is overall pretty good, and the special effects are so incredibly cool and perfectly capture the vibe of an older time in the Republic era. I wish I could say this show was amazing because it panders to the exact kind of Star Wars shit I love, but it’s so incredibly hard to get past the fact that the writing is so internally incoherent with its own plot and characters.

[oddeyechrollo]

virtual angel (3)

better now, super now, hyper now

WARNINGS: 18+ only. will block minors or ageless. HAVE AN AGE OR I WILL BLOCK IDC IF YOU PUT “adult” not good enough! flaying, mentions of rape, ptsd episodes, torture, decapitation, snuff film, mentions of suicide, reader self harms, hallucinations, trafficking, a lot more tbh

synopsis: chrollo invites the troupe to the cabin, a long awaited conversation begins.

authors notes: please leave comments :3 it doesn’t get much darker than this promise (this is probably a lie) also… i rly don’t wanna italicize this i don’t wanna reread 10k words rn 😭 the ao3 version is here if you’d prefer that 🤍

once i met you, i found my instincts.

february 28th. 5:55 am, in between the forest and hideout.

aerith fell asleep in your arms sometime after leaving the house, finally able to rest. your friends noticed the blood on your right arm and how empty your eyes were. they could use nen too, they can pick up on most things you wish you could hide from the world. they both offered to carry her but you only held her tightly as you declined.

you decided that aerith had enough of men for the night, that didn’t exclude shalnark or chrollo. your gift of discernment told you that you could still trust them with your life, but this wasn’t about you. this is about aerith and her comfort, but it didn’t help settle the guilt in your stomach.

nico did this, your fiancé hurt your friend. someone he’s known since meteor city, someone his sister loved and adored. you made excuses for his recent behaviors, ‘he misses his neti, he doesn’t know how to cope, he just needs time…’ you felt neglectful. even now with your friends, you hardly spoke a word. you think you heard someone ask you a question, but everything besides aerith and your guilt were distant as you continue walking ahead of the group. all you could think about was nico’s abandonment and how you yearned to run him over with a car. vehicular homicide wasn’t below you, if anything you’d put the car in reverse to make sure you really crack his skull. neti wouldn’t want that either, but dammit, she was dead. if you killed nico, you would beg her for forgiveness all the way from hell.

ecco’s presence is in the area, at least within 50 feet. he’s running in your direction, and every step he takes fills you with more anxiety. what happened between him and nico just now?

”[naaaaaaaaame], how are you feeling?” you could sense chrollo scrunching his face at the sound of ecco’s boisterous voice. ecco now stood alongside you, appearing out of nowhere.

“what happened with nico?” your voice was weak, but you continue walking.

“lets talk about it in the morning, are we walking back or can i just use portal 3?” he offers, you and heejin halt and say “portal 3” unanimously. he nods excitedly, “give me a minute, i got this!” he exclaims joyfully.

“what’s portal 3? how does it differ from portal 2?” shalnark pipes in from the back.

“portal 3 can teleport us back home, it’s much larger than portal 2 and 1, so he can only have it set to one place at a time. ecco’s only changed it after we switched bases.” heejin explains to your friends as a 5 by 5 portal appeals on the ground. this one has orange instead of blue edges, but looks the same otherwise.

“it’s done, i have to be the last one to go through, it’ll disappear after that.” ecco explains to the men. you step into it with no hesitation, wanting desperately to rest. “you should wait on shalnark and chrollo’ a voice of guilt rang in your head. you’ve been ignoring everyone since you started walking back, at least take them to one of the spare rooms for now.

heejin walks through the portal and into the gardens you planted in the backyard of the cabin. some of the children who chose to stay under your watch helped you plant them, and so did aerith. you couldn’t take all of the credit. next came chrollo and shalnark who gawked at the rows of flowers and trees surrounding the patio, and finally ecco. chrollo was mesmerized by the cabins structure, it didn’t have the other hide outs beauty but this felt more comfortable.

“you live here,” chrollo states more than ask, “… it’s beautiful.” he compliments. you smile at your old best friend, a quick thank you escapes your lips.

“i’m gonna put aerith in her room, come inside. i’ll go back of the living room once i’m done.” you explain to them, “we have a lot to talk about, but i just wanna sleep.”

-

shalnark got along well with ecco, as soon as they stepped into the living room shalnark had pointed out the video games on display by a flat screen tv. they both talked about whatever systems they have and their favorite “over watch” characters, whatever that was. while you and heejin went upstairs to aerith’s room, chrollo investigated the cabin. the room was exceptionally large with a conversation pit and green couches, and was decorated with paintings and pictures of you and your friends. there were a few taxidermy insects too. there had to be at least 3 stories to the cabin, how many people lived here? everything felt cozy, from the scent of the forest and candles to the bookshelves filled with novels chrollo would need to investigate later. blankets were on the two couches in the conversation put you had, all deep and rich colors. there was an entrance to a dinning room near the stairs you went up, he was sure the kitchen was near too. on the opposite side was a dim hallway.

“i’m back, i’ll show you to your rooms,” you weakly smiled at boys as you walked down with a sigh. heejin would spend the rest of the night with aerith for now.

“actually, i’m pretty energetic still. shalnark, we have a gaming room by mine if you wanna stay up too or whatever…” ecco trailed off as he nonchalantly looks away. shalnarks face brightens up, “dude, you have more than this? hell yeah! i won’t fall asleep for another 5 hours anyway.” he nods and follows ecco, but not before going up to you and giving you a hug.

“get some rest baby sis, i’m happy we’re with you.” shalnark admits with a smile on his face. you hug him back and kiss him on the cheek as you both let go.

“nighty night, yuna said she would be on watch for the rest of the morning. i’ll take over her shift after, so don’t worry [name]. come on my bowl-headed friend, my hallways on this floor!” ecco calls out to shal. they walk away and you’re left alone with chrollo after what felt like eons. you turn around to face him and engulf him in a hug before you could say anything. his arms wrap around your waist, holding you tightly. you smelled like blood, lavender, and laundry detergent.

“you have no idea how much i’ve missed you.” you whisper as you bury your face into his white, bloody shirt. “not your blood right?” you mumble as you poke him. chrollo shakes his head and you dig your head deeper into him. his hand snakes up to your hair and gently scratches at your roots; you always enjoyed that as children. you groan and pull away slightly, still keeping him in your arms, “let’s go to my room, yeah?”

-

the concept of you having your own room instead of sharing a small cottage with your nanny and shalnark put chrollo at ease.

your room was a treasure cove of information to chrollo. you had a king sized bed to the right of the entrance with soft pillows and plushies. your sheets were pastel green with accents of pink and white. in the corner by your bed was a large cat tower and a green pet bed, and there were a few posters around the vanity to his left. some kpop group he would search on the internet later. you had a balcony too, he wonders what view you had during the day.

“i’m gonna go change real quick, i have some spare clothes you can borrow.” you walk into your closet and shut the door behind you. chrollo hears an off “meow” coming from under the bed. he walks over, curious about your- uh, thing as it pops its head out. the odd creature had fur like a siamese cat, brown in the middle of its face but a soft beige everywhere else. it lacked whiskers though, so it wasn’t a cat. its ears were circular and bigger than its head. chrollo extends his hand towards it, but it meows in response, covering its face with both its ears.

the closet door opens, you’re back, and dressed in an oversized band t shirt and black shorts. he notes the bandages on your forearm and tattoos he’ll make sure to as you about later on. you’re holding clothes in your hands, he walks up to you and accepts them. “what’s that thing under your bed?” he ask as you turn to the creature.

“ravi! don’t be shy, he’s my friend,” you speak out to the- ravi i guess. the animal rushes out as you squat down and reach your hands out to it. the rest of its body was beige with dark brown strips around his legs and furry tail. it began to flap its ears and fly up into your arms, sweetly meowing at your touch.

“this is ravi, he’s a remlit. they’re kind of endangered and you’re not supposed to keep them as pets, but i found him as a baby after poachers killed its mom and siblings about 3 years ago. i felt bad so i took him in.” you explain to chrollo, “they don’t like most people and they’re pretty aggressive, he probably would have attacked you if you were alone.” chrollo couldn’t picture the small creature as aggressive from the way it mewled for your touch.

“he’s adorable, do you have any more pets?” the thirst for knowledge persist.

“hm, heejin has a cat and so does yuna, our other friend you’ll meet tomorrow. one of the children has a parrot, but that’s it. oh! and ecco has tarantulas.” chrollo smiled at the thought of spiders being present in your life, even if it was through your irritating new best friend.

chrollo goes into your closet to get dressed, most of your clothes were black, which was odd considering how colorful your room was. he shreds off his used clothing and folds it neatly into a clothing bin you have. you’d given him a sonic the hedgehog shirt (it was clearly the same size as your band t, why couldn’t you wear this one?) and black basketball shorts. he walks back out into your room, you’re sitting in the middle of your bed with ravi flying around your head in excitement.

“come here,” you pat your hand onto the mattress and he follows obediently. sitting next to you as ravi lands on your lap.

“did you have to give me the sonic shirt? was it necessary?” chrollo suddenly wines out of nowhere. he hasn’t done that in years, what the hell? you grin as you look up at him.

“oh i have a lot! just thought this would be funnier.” you giggle. his face deadpans for a moment, but he laughs too. the lighting was dim, you turned off the big light and turned on the glass stained lamp on your nightstand. your blackout curtains covered any light that would come in from the sunlight.

“will you sleep in here with me? i don’t-“ you halt, clearly uncomfortable with your own words as you look away from him awkwardly. please don’t ever stop talking.

“no need to explain, i feel the same way.” he assures you. you look back at chrollo and smile. your eye bags were worse than his, you needed to rest. you move your body under your warm comforter and chrollo crawls under your sheets too. they smell fresh, just like the detergent on your clothes. your remlit crawls by your head and lays itself on the opposite side of chrollo.

“when are you gonna leave?” you whisper out to him. chrollo turns his body to the right and looks at your soft face.

“not anytime soon, if that’s okay with you.” chrollo smiles, reaching out to move some hair strands out of your face. “some of your hairs are grey.” he notes out loud.

“yeah, my hair turned white after being kidnapped. most of its gone back to normal now but these front strands won’t leave,” you rant, “i don’t wanna talk about all of that right now though. is pakunoda still alive?” you change the subject. he smiles at you while nodding.

“all of the troupe members are alive, it’s still just the original members but i’ve been thinking of adding a few more.” he explains.

“you guys are still acting? that’s… i’m glad.” you smile at chrollo. he hates to break the news, but remembers you’re actions tonight and realizes you’re probably as mentally unwell as he is, if not more.

”oh… i forgot i have a lot to update you on too. after you were taken we found sarasa-“

“don’t.” you flinch away from him, sitting upright. how could chrollo be so careless? of course talking about her death would cause you to negatively react! where was his common sense?

”im sorry, ill drop it. the point is we’re thieves now, have you heard of the spiders?” your body relaxes a bit as you nod and gasp.

“i’ve heard of the spiders, nico said he’s fought one of you before, and that it wasn’t worth the trouble. that was his way of saying he got his ass beat.” you rolled your eyes at the thought of your ex finance. “a blonde man with slick-backed blonde hairs… who’s that? shalnarks hair is in a tragic bowl cut, so phinks?” you connect the dots slowly. chrollo nods, what a small world.

“he slicks his hair back sometimes, and it’s very likely he got into a fight.” he confirms.

“why spiders? why not stick to the troupe? you asked curiously. chrollo purses his lips together.

“i’ll explain my motives when you’re ready to hear them. right now you’re sensitive, i can’t do that to you” he politely declines your request. you nod back, grateful for his consideration.

“can you tell them to come visit? i wanna see them all again… i can’t believe my angel’s a thief!” you joked. chrollo smirks, reaching for his phone on the nightstand.

“i’ll text the coordinates right now, i’ll surprise them even! and are you really shocked dearie? like you said, i do it for “the greater good.” the memory of you scolding him for stealing grapes all of those years ago flashes through both of your minds.

“good! i always wanted to go back and see if you were okay… but i would have awful night terrors and hallucinations on the way there. it’s… it’s hard. and that’s fine, i don’t care if you’re a killer or a thief. i’dnever judge you for the sins i’ve committed.” you reply. chrollo finishes sending his location to the rest of the spiders and puts his phone back. your response warms his heart, he hasn’t felt at peace in so many years. a wave of emotions hit him again. chrollo lays down next to you and holds onto your face with both of his hands. they’re rough, but gentle on you.

“i spent years searching for you… i thought you would hate me and the person i’ve become and i thought i would have to beg on my knees for forgiveness. [name], i haven’t felt much since you’ve been gone, but right now it’s overwhelming,” he admits, a few tears roll down his cheeks. you move your right hand to wipe the tears off his face.

“turn around.” you command, and he follows suit. chrollo was used to bring the one in charge, but he’d be damned if he didn’t listen to you.

you wrap your arms around him as he lays on his left side. “i’m not going anywhere now, okay? get some rest, we need it chrollo.” you whisper by his ear.

you fell asleep a few minutes later, but chrollo continued to cry for a while as you held him. your warmth lulls him to the first deep sleep he’s had since he was 11.

-

february 28th, 2:04 PM, in the cabin the woods. the moon has set.

chrollo wakes up to an empty bed. the room is still dark, but some light passes through the balcony door. your remlit was staring at him intensely from his cat tree. chrollo waves at it, hoping to win its favor. if you loved that thing, then damn it all he would love it too.

there was a note on top of his phone written in fluent jannan.

“there’s a spare toothbrush on my bathroom sink for you. i’ll be downstairs taking care of a few things. - your dearie <3” your handwriting was rough, but it had its own charm to it.

chrollo gets up and goes to the bathroom, deciding to shower. you had a rose scented shampoo and conditioner pair with lavender body wash. it felt nice to smell like you.

after he finishes and finds a different shirt that didn’t have sonic the hedgehog, he finally exits your room, immediately bumping into a small child.

”who are you and where’s my big sister?” the boy frowns at him. he has black hair and eyes, with a bony face structure and a pale complexion.

“i’m chrollo, im a friend of your sister-“

“why are you in her room?” he interrupts, chrollo hasn’t seen the boy blink once.

”she let me sleep in here-“

”big sister doesn’t let just anyone in her room. how are you her friend? why hasn’t nico kicked your ass already?” chrollo truly loves children, but this one was already making his eye twitch. he still hasn’t blinked either. before chrollo could open his mouth, a woman with brown hair and a sharp smile exits the room adjacent to yours.

”ralis, you’re the weirdest little boy here, so you have no place to judge! more of big sisters friends are arriving soon, you need to be nice.” she says to ralis, the unblinking boy.

“i’m yuna, one of [name]’s friends. she’s downstairs right now and already informed us of everything. your cute little partner was there too! i think they’re in the living room.” she reaches her arm out for chrollo to shake, her hands were very firm. she was dressed in pastel colored street wear and had multiple star clips in her straight, lilac hair. “oh! when will your friends arrive? ecco’s on guard right now and i need to inform him of anyone coming near the house-“

”is it true that nico hurt aerith?” interrogates ralis and his odd eyes. yuna frowns towards him, a look of confusion on her face. chrollo didn’t feel like it would be his place to break the news to the poor kid.

”how did you hear about that? were you hiding in the stairs again?” yuna snaps back, sighing. “only the adults know right now, we’ll break the news soon. if you see him near the house, tell us immediately.” she warns.

“lucas and agitha know too, we were all hiding under the stairs… i just didn’t believe it.” ralis admits. he poor kid looked more depressed as the seconds pass.

nico seemed weak to chrollo, he could easily strategize a way to defeat him if someone were to tell him the extent of his hatsu, if phinks wasn’t worth the trouble, he wouldn’t last a second against chrollo. he smirks at the thought of it, but maybe you deserved the final blow.

”is he gonna hurt big sis?” ralis reminded chrollo of himself after sarasa’s death. the boy looked sickly and unhappy, as if nothing could take away the feeling of emptiness. everyone he’s met here was from meteor city so far, how did you all wind up here?

”no! but we’re guarding her extra- just in case.” yuna explains as she rubs her hair. ralis stresses her out sometimes, it was hard to appease his curiously without him being negative.

“my troupe members are strong, we’ll help keep her safe from nico,” chrollo assures ralis, who finally blinks when he looks chrollo in the eyes. he doesn’t respond but walks past both of the adults instead. he enters a door that was closest to your own bedroom.

“sorry about ralis, he adores [name] and is kind of protective over her. he’s nice once you get to know him. kinda of, he’s still a pain in the ass! anyway, when are your friends coming?” chrollo reaches for his phone in his pocket, several messages appearing.

“pakunoda, phinks, and feitan should be coming in sometime today, the rest are out of the country and will take more time.”

-

chrollo finally made his way downstairs, noticing the curious eyes that followed him as he moved about the house. two children, must have been ‘lucas and agitha.’ if they were imprisoned like you, then he could understand their animosity. shalnark was laying on one of the couches with a blanket thrown over him, he was watching an odd show with a floating fry box and a drink that could talk.

“hey chrollo, little sis is outside in the gardens right now. i think everything from last night is finally hitting her, she was quiet this morning.” shalnark greets. “i’ve been awake this whole time, i might crash out soon. ecco’s pretty cool, don’t get all jealous on him.” shalnark smirks at his boss, chrollo’s face is unwavering as he passes his fellow spider.

“i don’t know what you’re implying, you should rest.” he shrugs off. shalnark laughs and heads out into the same hallway as last night. “sure! whatever makes you feel better. nighty night chro!” he yelled back.

chrollo was not jealous, was he upset that you have another best friend? that you bonded with someone else in a way that you only did with him? that there was secrets between you two that he wasn’t apart of? no, he just found him more irritating than the average person.

when chrollo opens the back door to find you, he’s definitely irritated at the sight before him. you had your head rested on ecco’s shoulder. he was shirtless- because of course he was- and his olive skinned muscles were a bit too reflective and toned for the average person. he places his arm around you-

slam!

cbrollo didn’t realize his own force when he closed the door, he hopes you don’t think he’s a rude guest. you both turn your heads at the same time, you had definitely been crying, your eyes were puffy and red. yet you smile brightly at the sight of him, while ecco only smirks. ugh, so aggravating. couldn’t he leave?

”chrollo! come here! i wanna learn all about my bestie’s childhood friend!” ecco was surely mocking him, he had to be with that damn grin on his face.

“good afternoon, ecco, dearie.” he smiles at you both. ecco rolls his eyes and giggles.

”dearie?! i didn’t think you liked me that much, honey.” ecco winks at him, causing chrollo to drop his smile for a millisecond. unfortunately it was enough time for your blue haired bestie to catch. “i was referring to [name], you’re rather chipper aren’t you?”retorts chrollo as he walks up to the stone bench you two were on. you were giggling as you stood up to hug him.

you showered this morning, the smell of blood was gone and replaced by that of smoke and roses. he strokes your hairs gently and closes his eyes, imagining a world where ecco wasn’t here. “good morning, angel.” it’s been so many years since chrollo enjoyed the privilege of hearing you call him angel.

“yeah, chipper, that’s what you wanna say,” ecco rolls his eyes, “i gotta go, i’m still on guard duty. call me if- wait, you need a new phone. just scream outta your balcony until i show up.” you pull apart from chrollo and ecco grabs you roughly by the shoulders, kissing your forehead before he jumps up the cabin. chrollo finally rolls his eyes and sighs exasperatingly.

“sorry about ecco, he’s just like that. he’s a good friend to me though, i trust him with my life.” you smile to chrollo. a soft whine leaves chrollo’s throat, making you laugh as you hug him again. “you’ll get used to him, promise.” you attempt to reassure him, chrollo scoffs but hugs you once more, weaving his fingers through your hair. you hold one another for a while, no words spoken between you two when he finally pulls away to look at you.

”why were you crying, dearie?” chrollo mumbles as he holds your face. you sigh and shake your head, looking away.

“my fiancé tried to kill one of my best friends,” your eyes started to water again as you pull away completely. “aerith told us everything. she was visiting our friends grave in swardani when one of his dragons restrained her. and- and i knew he held some sort of animosity towards her but i didn’t think he would do something like that.” you rush out as your breathing began to falter. “i feel so betrayed-“ more tears began to fall down your face. “i’m sorry, ‘m happy that you’re here and that you’re alive, i wish we could have met under different circumstances.” you wipe the tears off your face.

he was your fiancé and he hurt you, of course you were heartbroken.

“i’ll kill him for you,” he gently offers, making you giggle. “i’m serious, i’m quite good at it.”chrollo smirks.

”a killer and a thief?! angel what’s happened to you…” you trail off, “not that i’m judging, i stopped keeping track of all of the men i killed a long time ago. tell me about you though, i think i can handle things better right now.” you ask. you go to sit down at the bench and pat the spot next to it. chrollo smiles at you and sits next to you. where to begin?

”you were both missing for the performance. shalnark thought you spent the night with me and wasn’t alarmed until you were late. i thought everyone would be upset with me for having to move it back, but they all decided to help us search for you and sarasa. when we searched through the uga forest i had a sense of dread and nausea fill my body. i think i already knew that we were going to find something horrific, foresights a bitch.” he mutters, visualizing the bag the troupe found.

“who found her body?” you interrupt. you both look at one another, and you understood in that moment that chrollo was the unluckiest boy in meteor city, maybe the world. his eyebrows furrow as you nod. “i’m so so sorry chrollo… you didn’t deserve to find her in that state...” tears rolled down your eyes once more. “continue, i can handle it.”

chrollo nods, “you didn’t deserve to witness it. i read the note, i know what they did to her, what they think of us. i know they taped it all and hurt you too. i never spoke a word of it to anyone else. uvo threatened me that night, but i’ll take it to the grave.” he said solemnly. you muttered out a small ‘thank you,’ to him. “we had an embalmer fix her body, sarasa looked the same as she was before.” both of you were shedding tears now.

“you guys buried her?” you question as he nods a yes to you.

“i knew they took you, but i couldn’t fathom why they didn’t just kill you either. they didn’t mention anything about kidnapping you. anyway, i decided on a new system for us, for meteor city. uvogin wanted to seek revenge immediately, but i changed his mind. i told everyone to give me 3 years, and in that time i focused on my nen, invented a new system for meteor city, and created the dark web.” you gasp and quickly stand, giving chrollo a look of disgust.

“you… you created the dark web…” your voice shakes as chrollo’s heart begins to race. i could have definitely explained this better.

“i knew they taped you, i knew it would attract vermin like them to meteor city so that we could finally kill them. i didn’t have any leads for where you could be or who sarasa’s killers are. i needed to avenge her.” chrollo calmly elaborates, “i understand it if you’re upset with me, but please understand that nothing has fueled me in the last 9 years besides spite and desperation for our dead friend.”

“you’ve been searching for us on the dark web this whole time,” you piece together. “it’s how you found aerith… it all makes sense.” you began to laugh, madly. chrollo didn’t know what to make of it.

“holy shit- you’re gonna be so pissed off with me when i say this,” you continue laughing as chrollo remembers that your mental state is fucked. “i’ve been consistently deleting any videos of us off the dark web. jesus christ- this is so-“ you couldn’t stop laughing as chrollo’s jaw drops. you were bent over now practically cackling.

“and there’s a lot of content i’ve had to destroy or kill for! there wasn’t only the tape of me and sarasa, even to this day, i still run into videos of me as a child during my imprisonment. suffice to say i don’t want anyone watching videos of me being tortured or raped, i think that’s fair, yeah? plus… if you were going to see me again after being kidnapped, i wouldn’t want it to be a video of me being hurt.” you collect yourself once more. “we’ve both majorly inconvenienced one another, isn’t that funny?” you giggle some more and sit down next to chrollo.

at least you weren’t angry with him. he takes in your words and accepts them. there was no reason to be upset with you, you only wanted to protect yourself and your friends.

“quite the twist of faith, my dearie. but here we are. i usually take turns between searching for the video with sarasa specifically or search up different things to find you. i didn’t rule out a newer browser called blue rooms. it’s for skilled nen users who want to watch people like nico kill off women and children. even i stick to men when i kill… but while i was reading the chat in that group someone admitted that they’ve seen nico’s livestreams before. i thought you should know that.” he adds. you frown a little.

”i’ve been a horribly neglectful fiancée for not seeing all of it… he was different, but i never thought he would become just like the men he promised to protect us from…” you admit trailing off.

“yo!” ecco’s voice yells out from the top of the cabin, “emoboy! someone’s pulling up in a black car, they’re ya’ friends?”

-

you stare at the woman in front of you. her hair was longer, and her clothing style was different, but you could never forget pakunoda’s stunning face. she doesn’t notice you immediately, her eyes were too busy wondering around the cabins decor.

feitan does notice you though, and so does phinks. fei wasn’t much taller, but his black attire suited him well. so did phinks hair, slicked back did look good on him. both of them gasp, left star struck.

“you’re still so beautiful.” you meekly speak up. pakunoda’s neck snaps in your direction as she covers her mouth. chrollo enters the front door and shuts it behind him, smirking at the spiders. none of them have moved, all in disbelief.

“i promise it’s [name], no tricks.” he says.

“we all thought you were pulling our legs again about having a present in the middle of nowhere, boss… none of us thought you were serious.” phinks speaks up as he approaches you slowly. you eye him up and down and roll your eyes.

“phinks, i’m not like- an endangered species! i’m just me,” you jab as you run up to him for a hug. he was a little stinky, but his cologne was pleasant. “and boss? since when is chrollo the boss here?” you giggle. you felt phinks stiffen a little, but he laughs.

“please call me chrollo right now, i haven’t explained that to her yet.” chrollo voices as he walks to the conversation pit and sits down.

you finally let go and approach pakunoda. there were tears forming in her eyes… your first girl best friend here in the same house as the rest of them. it made you tear up too. she says your name with a smile on her face, reaching out to you as if you were an illusion. you grab her too, pulling her in for a hug. “i miss you so much my dear friend…” you whisper into her ear. she lets go momentary and kisses you on the forehead, smiling happily at you.

“i can’t believe you’re alive… i’ve missed you too.” she replies, wiping the tears out of her face. you let go of her and head to feitan, who hasn’t moved an inch since he noticed you.

”can i hug you fei fei? or do you still prefer your personal space?” you ask gently as you smile at him.

“eleven years, one month.” is all he says. feitan looked rougher, he wasn’t too bad of a trouble maker back in the city, but there was definitely an edge that’s grown to him. he didn’t respond, so you motioned for him to follow to the couches. the other spiders followed suit. you sat down next to chrollo and pakunoda.

”hey, i know this douchebag.” phinks says as he halts in front of a picture of you, nico, and ecco. you sigh and frown, you needed to take down all pictures with him soon. or at least tell ecco to do it.

“you fought my ex fiancé one night like, 2 years ago.” you mumbled out.

you felt a numbing pain over your heart, you wanted to be happy right now. you were happy- but dammit, why did nico have to ruin your reunions?

”ah yeah! nobunaga was there! i don’t remember what started it but i gave him a pretty good beating, lil’ sis! ex fiancé huh? now im glad he ate shit.” he laughs at himself and you smile.

“yeah, me too man. come sit! i missed my friends. when is everyone else getting here?” you grin at the troupe members. more tears spilled from your eyes as you took them all in. they’ve grown so much!

“the rest are in a different country but they should be here by the end of the week.” chrollo answers.

“it’s been so long- we didn’t think you were alive after what they did to sarasa… please forgive us.” pakunoda says solemnly.

”don’t ever apologize for that. i have to keep a low profile for my own safety as well as the people who live here…” you explain to them.

“who’s after you? whatever happened to sarasa’s killers?” phinks ask suddenly. it was time you tell them, it was time to give them their long awaited answers.

“chrollo, go wake up shalnark please. he’ll be in the first door in the hallway on the left. meet us in my bedroom, i don’t want any of the children to walk in here while i talk about it.“

-

11 years ago, meteor city. full moon.

“where do you think you’re going, girlie!?” you shout out to sarasa. you should have gone home with shalnark, but you managed to catch a glimpse of sarasa’s blonde hair and pink dress from the corner of your eye. she smiles at you and waves.

“i’m looking for a few more tapes, come on! there’s always treasures by the uga forest, we‘ll be safe together.” she encourages.

-

you wished you could make it stop. you wished they would let go of her and you wished you were deaf and blind and- anything to make the sounds go away.

they injected you with something and left you on the forest grounds, one of them held your head and forced you to watch as the other sawed off one of her arms, but he decided to “join in on the fun” instead. they were talking now, you couldn’t comprehend any of their words. sarasa was sobbing, you think someone else is too. you wished you could drag their bodies away from her and save her, your blood was boiling, everything was so frustrating and scary and- and- you wanted chrollo and shalnark! and uvogin… he could surely hurt these awful men!

get away get away get away from her!

sarasa screamed horribly. sending chills throughout your body.

“stop!” you managed to yell out, both of their bodies freeze for a few seconds before they regained their control.

“look at her, man! she’s got aura! give her another shot of that shit, mafia pays good money for kids that are gifted. she won’t be happy about it, but-“ you zone out again.

look at the moon. look at the moon, so pretty. so full. it reminds you of chrollo’s face. just look at the moon and calm yourself.

you feel a prick on your arm again, what’s going on?

they’re doing something awful to sarasa’s body. everything is numb. your eyes are wide open but you’re numb. your hearing isn’t though.

shes begging… she wants something.. mercy. it’s mercy.

look at the moon, don’t look down. ignore the cracking sound you heard. ignore the screams, look at the moon. ignore the blood, look at the moon- sarasa won’t stop screaming.

-

two days later. location unknown.

you felt like shit.

you were still in your yellow dress chrollo picked out for you. but now you were in a jail cell alone. where’s sarasa?

sarasa. sarasa?!

it was the only word you could think as you stood up from the floor. everything was coming back to you slowly.

you were still awake when they decapitated her head. everything else was a blur to you. your body was sore in places you’ve never been sore before, and there was blood in between your thighs.

you needed to boil yourself alive. the dress was stained too, and your body was covered in bruises. you didn’t need to know what else they did to you.

there was a camera set up on a tripod inside the cell, just like in the uga forest. you felt so sick, so disgusted with everything. the drowsiness from the needles made it unbearable to deal with it all. you wanted to go home with chrollo and nan… you’d take her cold words over this cruelty any day.

the cell in front of you has a boy with pastel blue hair inside. the rest seem to be empty from what you could see. the boy weakly smiles at you, but he had clearly been crying.

“where am i?” you whisper out to him.

“i don’t know. they brought you in yesterday with a few men, but they were all dragged away. they did a lot of horrible stuff to us while you were asleep.” he shivers out. you barely noticed the freezing conditions in the cell. he was bloody too.

“i wanna go home…” you began to cry, holding yourself for comfort as you sobbed.

“me too, but i think they want something else with us- act asleep! i can hear someone coming down.” you drop onto the floor and try to keep as still as possible.

a heavy door opens, you breathe slowly. this was too much to process. someone’s walking closer to your cell. will they kill me? will they do whatever caused the blood to come out of your thighs? your cell was unlocked and opened quickly, and closed again. someone’s crying, a lot of people are crying. no words were spoken, and you heard the door slam again.

you open your eyes and see a girl with black hair- maybe a year or two older than you- and a younger girl with dark green hair. they were both crying and a bit bloody, just like you.

you smile to the girl with green hair, she had to be at least 9. her frame was delicate.

“i’m [name], who are you?” you try to distract her. her purple eyes widen as she looks at you.

“i’m neti, and this is aerith.” she manages to get out.

“i’m [name], and what about you? what’s your name?” you turn your head to the tan blue haired boy. he’s still shivering, and he was shirtless too.

”i’m ecco, from the west side of meteor city”

“i’m from the center.” you smile at him, despite the raging pain you felt everywhere.

”we’re from the northwest, closer to the desert.” aerith whispers. her face was round and soft, she smiled despite the hollow look in her eyes.

”why did they kidnap us? i miss my friends, i wanna go home…” your eyes began to water again. “they killed my friend… they took her head off and hurt her..” you sniffle, everything became so vivid again.

“they said i have a gift, and that’s the only reason why im alive.” ecco speaks out to you. you think back to that moment those men’s bodies froze in place.

”they were hurting sarasa, and i wanted them to stop, and they did for a moment… i don’t know how to explain it, but then one of the men said i have aura… something else about people playing money for gifted kids, i can’t remember.” everything was so fuzzy yet so clear at the same time. your head was literally pounding.

”neti and i were searching for food when we both saw some… purple thing in the air… it was weird, it looked like purple air but it wasn’t, it was scary.. we tried to get away but we were knocked out. now we’re here.” aerith explains as she sits on the floor.

neti follows suit and sits on her lap. they were cute.

”you two saw something in the air and ecco and i have a gift… or aura, whatever. none of this makes sense! i’m normal!” you whine, laying down on the freezing brick floor. you didn’t care, it cooled the pain between your legs slightly.

”why is there a camera in here?” neti ask suddenly. you look away, unable to explain what they did to you.

”they record people being hurt, they forced me to watch while they did those things to you, i’m sorry.” ecco whispers the end out quietly.

people besides ecco would see whatever it was that they did to you. it was recorded, the tape compartment was empty.

”i’m gonna vomit.” you warn.

-

6 months later. the compound. full moon.

the mafia had one of the most fucked up systems no one could imagine in their wildest dreams. while in the previous holding cell, multiple children had came and gone, you learned to not get attached to them anymore. they tested your nen abilities last week to see if you were worthwhile, and now you, neti, ecco, and aerith were in a new compound. they had trained you a bit in the arts of nen, but if you couldn’t do anything with a leaf in water, you were never heard from again.

you were grateful the four of you passed together, you’d live to see another day. it gave you such minimal hope that you’d see your friends and family again.

did they ever find sarasa’s body? you hoped they never did, you didn’t want anyone to see the mess they left of her body… it was cruel. everything these people did was cruel. you hoped chrollo would never have to face such horrible atrocities.

you were an experiment, they quite literally refused to call you by your name, you were known as number 2 and nothing else.

you had an actual bed here, and roommates, and a door that actually closed and gave you privacy… and no one raped you here, that was your favorite part of the new compound.

you shared a “dorm” with aerith, neti, and two other girls named heejin and yuna. aerith was optimistic and kept you from many breakdowns, while neti needed guidance and love. it felt good to reassure the youngest in the group, she felt like a little sister to you and everyone else. heejin was distant and introverted, but she had been oddly kind in small ways in the week you’ve been here. she had snuck in an extra bread for you after dinner time, and she gave neti her water, even if it meant she wouldn’t drink anymore until the next day. yuna somehow always bore a smile on her face, but she would insult everyone in a happy tone. she reminded you of shalnark in a lot of ways. both so nerdy and happy yet ready to insult whoever.

your room had a window here, it was barred and heavily watched at all times, but it was the first time you’ve seen the sun in months.

the six of you were currently being trained by a woman named “scythe,” you’re sure it wasn’t her real name and you didn’t care. she was complacent in all of this, so fuck her.

“your purpose here is to forget your identity. you’re all from meteor city so you’ve never had one anyway. i’ll determine if you live or die.

you needed to live, you would forsake yourself it meant you would get to see chrollo and your friends again.

-

6 months later.

you forgot his name again, the boy you used to play with in… whatever place you came from. you couldn’t remember his name… his face… you would blab on and on to ecco and the rest of the girls about how amazing he was… how could you forget?

you needed to get out of here, you were losing it.

“ecco… can we run away?” you whisper to him. you’re training right now, you were slowly learning how to control ecco’s body with his blood. scythe stepped out of the room for a moment. she decided you two were stronger than the rest, so you would train together.

you were a specialist, you didn’t know what it meant but you knew you would be used by the mafia for your abilities. the dons loved having “nen genius” for protection.

“i overheard the guards say they were going out tonight to celebrate something… if we forget everyone else… i think the two of us can do it…” he replies, “my portals are getting better, i can put them through a wall and see if we can get out.”

-

2 weeks later, the white room.

your brain hurts, everything hurts so so much. you want to kill yourself but they won’t give you that option.

they found you and ecco a mile away from the compound, but scythe wouldn’t allow them to kill either of you. “too valuable to the dons, let me punish them accordingly.”

your punishment was electro therapy, and you haven’t felt the same since.

everything in this room was white, and you were stuck with ecco constantly talking and laughing about things that weren’t there.

you were lost, mentally and emotionally.

ecco kept on saying something to you, repeating the same word… what was it?

”did you forget your own name?” he jumps on your bed and finally snapped you out of your mental fog.

“my name? what’s that?” you reply in comfusion. since when did you have a name? ecco frowns and holds you by your shoulders.

”what about chrollo? you never shut up about him before!” come on, you gotta be in there!” he smiles at you.

”who’s that? are you chrollo..? ugh, my head hurts!” you’re angry again, you’ve been angry so much lately. you slam your fist against your head over and over, why can’t you remember anything?! ecco’s quick to restrain you, but you try to beat against his chest too. he holds you until your anger turns into tears. for how long would you be in this damn room?

-

one month later. the white room.

you didn’t bother getting off your bed anymore, ecco was more active than ever but you felt dead. he would force you to eat when scythe made her rounds, but overall you starved yourself and neglected every part of your body. ecco’s hair was turning white, he said yours was too.

you were tired of that color, it’s nothing, you’re nothing. you were becoming nothing and you were so damn sick of it, why couldn’t ecco let you die already?

-

5 months later. the compound.

you were released a while ago, you didn’t know when. a girl named heejin hugged you when you entered your old room and that was the only thing you remembered from that day. you were developing your abilities at an accelerated rate, you easily caught up to heejin and aerith, while neti still needed more time to develop. apparently, two of ecco’s roommates had committed suicide, you wished you could join them.

but life wasn’t fair, and you continued to live in this place.

-

one year later, age 12, maybe. the compound.

some of your old memories came back, but everything was fuzzy for the most part. you finally figured out the conditions for your ability, you named it “blood moon” since it was strongest during the full moon.

1) you would lose your sanity the more you used it. it can be regained after the moon disappears from the sky.

2) you would lose your sanity the more you killed within the night.

3) the fuller the moon, the longer the range for how far a body has to be to control.

4) you can’t use it on a new moon.

it was intense, but scythe noticed a peak in your abilities during the full moon. you’ve forgotten a lot your life, but you’ll never forget the name of the girl you watched die 2 years ago. sarasa, and the full moon was there too. it reminded you of something or someone precious to you, but it wasn’t sarasa. oh well.

-

one year later, age 13, maybe. the compound. full moon.

everything hit you all at once, the moment you saw that man.

he killed sarasa, he decapitated her, he ordered that they take you back with them instead of giving you the pleasure of dying alongside her. he was the man who first raped you, everything came back.

you needed to go back to chrollo, but that thought was minimal now. you were enraged, and he was here to watch you battle against one of his own kind. you would be restrained after you won- you were sure of it. they always came in with guns after your battles. your eyes twitched as his companions body hit the floor. you didn’t have to move your arms anymore to control bodies: it had become an instinct.

damn that felt good; you twisted his neck just by tilting yours. good, so so so good. you wanted more, if they wanted a blood thirsty control freak then fuck it! why not give them a show? the guards entered the room again to chain you down, but their bodies stopped. the men watching you through the bullet proof glass were frozen too.

it was all being recorded too, good. let them know what they’ve created. fuck it, burn this compound to the ground along with anyone else who helped participate in your destruction. you’d kill then all. you hated them!

you twisted all of their necks, besides one. multiple bodies hit the floor and a rush you’ve never felt overwhelmed your body. why didn’t i do this before?!

you never found out your rapist’s name, you forced his body to drag itself into the same room you were in; it was ugly and filled with old blood, but big enough for a fight.

”you killed sarasa. you remember?” you shiver, you forced him to take off his sun glasses as you looked into his eyes from the other side of the room. “you raped her, you dismembered her, you ordered the other man to do those horrible things to her…” you were shaking now, everything was clear to you.

”you need to die.” you yelled, forcing his heart to stop beating. he fell to his knees, clutching his heart. you think you heard him say “please,” but you didn’t care. fuck him, he needs to rot.

-

you forced opened the door to the girls dorm, 5 guns in hand. heejin and aerith were still awake, and neither of them had seen you so happy before. not a single scratch on your face, what the hell did you do?

”we’re getting out of here, now. take these and wake up neti and yuna, i’m gonna free ecco.”

-

age 14, near meteor city. full moon.

you had another dream about sarasa again. ecco had to calm you from another night terror, you could see a filthy aura present in the direction you were headed. you wanted to see them again… you didn’t know who but you needed to make sure they were-

you hear sarasa scream again, and you cry harder.

aerith approaches your shivering body, concern written all over her face. “i think you should go back to swardani, this isn’t good for you. the rest of us will go on, ill tell heejin to go with you.”

”i feel pathetic.” you sob, you start hitting your head with your fist, you did it more often than not on full moons. “i can’t even go home and see my friends- i can’t even remember their names! i don’t remember where to look for them!” you admit to aerith who listened intently to every one of your words. her own sanity faltered, but she was always the friend that you needed.

“i’ll try to look for em, okay? i’ll ask around and see if anything pops up.” she offers gently, hoping to calm you.

every full moon aerith made sure to be more attentive towards you; everyone did. it only made you feel more guilty.

”they probably don’t wanna see me again… i couldn’t save sarasa. i lived and she died- i should have died with her that night. they’ll hate me! and- and i’m surprised you guys even put up with me! just leave! i’m such a mess, why do you deal with my bullshit?!” you wanted to hurt yourself, you needed to feel pain. you quickly force aerith’s body to fling a few feet back on the trail.

you couldn’t control the insanity; it felt passive. and you just hurt your friend. why won’t they let you kill yourself already?!

”you’re the only reason why any of us are free.” aerith says after coughing, slowly standing up again. “if you didn’t live that night, we’d be soldiers for the mafia. i don’t think they’d forget you, i think your friends are waiting for you.” she reassures, keeping her distance this time. aerith loved you dearly, but she didn’t feel like having her blood controlled again.

your felt pins and needles on your head and face as you took in her words. aerith was usually right when you felt like this, you felt even more guilty now.

“go tell heejin to take me home please.”

-

a few weeks later

they would be home sometime soon, you were eager and restless; you deep cleaned their bedrooms and the rest of the house while heejin cooked a recipe from some azian cookbook she found.

it was you and heejin for the past few weeks, you bonded with her more than before. she was a bit reclusive, but the most empathic woman you’ve come to meet. her nen matched her personality, she truly cared for you and you were grateful to meet her. your typical day with her involved smoking some herb she grows in the backyard, playing video games, and cleaning. then shopping and walking around the city in the afternoon, then drinking at night. damn she could drink, she’d start pouring shots as soon as you slammed the hello kitty glass down.

knock knock!

your heart flutters, they were home!

you run up to the door and your greeted with familiar faces, and a new one too.

“heyyyyy bestie!” ecco pulls you into a smothering hug, and he definitely needed to shower! you hug back anyway, happy he was okay.

“i missed you guys so much!” you began to cry.

“oh! [name], this is neti’s older brother, nico by the way. he’s pretty chill! i finally got a guy friend!”

-

after dinner, you all gathered on the lush, black couches in the living room. ecco wanted to have a meeting. you sat next to him, always sitting on the edges of couches. yuna and aerith were next to neti, and nico sat on the floor. the couch was “too plush” in his opinion.

”heejin, [name], do you remember all of those files we stole from the compound? some of them contained maps, yeah?” aerith starts, you both nod, and you wondered where this was going.

”listen, we’re not the only victims of the dons greed. there’s thousands of people like us being held in cells and trafficked into their hands or sex rings or- anything! it doesn’t matter, the children from our city are the ones to suffer.” aerith continues.

“i agree with that, but what does that have to do with the files?” you asked curiously.

ecco pulls out a paper from his pocket and unfolds it. it’s a map with a few markings on it.

”this is a map of meteor city. i couldn’t read it at first, but i found it in those files we stole. you see these?” he points at the red markings scattered around the map,” these are holding bases for kidnapped children, before they’re sent off to wherever they’re auctioned. we raided a few of them and let the people there free.” ecco explains as you gasp and stare at him.

“hold your questions for later- let me finish. i found two more maps while i was looting their shit- oh, we got more money by the way, these greedy bastards had piles of it- anyway! they’re closer to swardani, but the point is i don’t wanna stop freeing those children. i wanna return them all to meteor city, we all do.” he finishes as you and heejin look at one another.

“we’d have people coming after us for the rest of- never mind, we already do.” heejin realizes as she smacks her head.

“i’m in, but i won’t go back to meteor city myself, someone else can do that. i won’t have any issues with killing any of them.” you confirm, heejin nods, agreeing.

“for the kids own safety, we need to keep everything as lowkey as possible. and also… we think we have a different way of tracking these guys now.” yuna speaks up, “nico and i seem to have the best understanding of it- but it’s called the dark web.”

-

age 15, the swing in your backyard.

nico was so darling; you couldn’t deny that he was attractive too. his black hair was pinpoint straight and down to his waist. he was honey skinned and smelled of flowers and musk, and liked wearing joggers with band t’s. he had a few dragon tattoos on his arms, he could summon them at will. and you couldn’t stop gushing about his voice to the girls; it was deeply melodic. yuna called you desperately in love while aerith giggled at your burning cheeks and shy composrure.

he was overprotective of neti, who was only 4 years younger than him. you understood it though; his baby sister had been kidnapped and missing for so long… he couldn’t bear the thought of losing her again. you understood the pain of having your loved ones ripped away from you; no wonder he was so passionate about killing the men like your kidnappers.

“so are you and ecco dating…? or something? he’s really touchy with you so i thought you were- and forgive me for my lack of better terms- off limits,” he blushes and looks away. you blush too, you hadn’t felt someone give you this much attention in so long, it was nice.

“no no, i see him as more of a… hm… well definitely not a lover, that’s for sure. i guess a brother? not quite that either… it’s weird. we spent most of our time with one another since we caught onto nen a lot faster than everyone else. i don’t think he’s even capable of romantic attraction, his trauma affected him differently. i don’t understand it too well, i just respect it and give him physical touch when he needs- wait! not like that!” you smack your face with your palm as he laughs. you’re definitely embarassed! but his laugh was soothing.

“i understand what you’re saying. i can’t imagine half of the shit they made you suffer through in there… it boils my blood just thinking about the stuff they did to all of you. but thank you for being honest. i uh- i asked him what was going on between you two and he panicked and said ‘i didn’t know something was wrong!’ and ran off to find you-“

”oh my god he refused to tell me why he thought something was wrong this morning and started crying until i reassured him for at least an hour,” you sigh exasperatingly so, rolling your eyes. “nico, he’s really delicate when it comes to wording… we all have abandonment issues here, i think you can understand that.” you giggle, but it was true.

you were definitely codependent with ecco and he was too. being imprisoned in an all white room with him made you oddly clingy afterwards, it just felt right to let him of all people see the worst in you. you were emotionally attached to him, and he only trusted you with physical touch. he was older than you, but he was like a little brother.

you knew what they did to him in confinement too, you would never judge ecco for hating human contact. it was rational, it was safe, it made him feel secure, god damn therapy.

”no worries, i’m glad he’s not your boyfriend.” he smirks at you- when did nico have a flirty side?

”yeah? were you getting jealous?” you roll your eyes and giggle. his rough hands suddenly grab your face, guiding you to look at him.

”think i was, for a moment, but not anymore.” he whispers, you shiver and freeze up in more ways than one. “can i take you on a date then, pretty thing?” he gently smiles down at you as you nod slowly. your heartbeat must have been off the charts.

-

age 16.

you felt dirty. there were bugs crawling all over your body and you were tired.

your friends had discovered multiple videos of your time when you had been imprisoned, but you came across one you never wanted to think about.

you discovered sarasa’s snuff video. you screenshotted the other man’s face and saved the files, even though you never forgot his face to begin with. now you just needed to find him and kill him for good.

you watched the entire video by yourself, you refused to look away for a moment. you were used to these types of things now, but seeing your childhood friend die before you all over again made your heart turn. you couldn’t stop smacking your body, the bugs wouldn’t fucking die and you felt incredibly itchy.

yuna entered the room, your smacking was probably loud again. before she could say anything you turn around and sob.

“i need you to find who uploaded this.”

-

it wasn’t the other man, you think it’s the one you killed. the computer was located in the republic of padokea and you wiped the video off the dark web. good, no one needed to see this. no one needed to disrespect your dead friend ever again.

-

you raided another compound, you think you’ve gone through every room until you hear meowing over and over. you push open a heavy metal door and see a small creature baring its fangs at you, its eyes were red and its ears were sharp. it was chained up and couldn’t escape on its own. they must have abused it. you slowly walk to the bowl by the entrance and fill it with water, you didn’t have any food on you though, just your water pouch. it slowly approaches at the sight of running water and you smile at it. as it lapped up the water a man suddenly burst into the room and attempts to shoot you down; ugh, you hated soldiers! the poor thing ran up against the wall into its corner as you forced the blood in his heart to freeze, killing him.

the creature freezes in place as you approach it, its red eyes were gone. you didn’t bother trying to take off the collar now, so you used your nen to snap the chain off its post.

“you’re free now! come on!” you wave at it to follow you. nico just got his hunters license, something you failed. maybe he knew where this thing was from. “i’ll call you ravi, you like that?”

age 17

“bestieeeee! i need to tell you-“ ecco was cut off by yuna’s voice.

”no! i wanna tell her the surprise!” she pushes him into the rose bush by the back door. you giggle as ecco screams and yuna sits next to you on a metal round table.

“what’s up guys?”

”nicos gonna-“ yuna starts.

”ask you to-” ecco interjects.

”MARRY YOU!” they scream in unison as your jaw drops.

”why the fuck would you tell me that?!” you wail out, “don’t you want me to be surprised and happy?” you question them both.

ecco gets out of the bush and takes out the thorns at his side, literally. yuna and him look at each other.

“we thought you would be excited now… plus you can’t get upset when two gossiping ass bitches gossip!” ecco replies.

“well yeah, i actually AM excited since he asked me last night,” their faces drop even more, if possible. “nosy bitches… see?” you finally display your left hand with the diamond ring. they both hurry to your side and gawk at the simple ring.

”nico’s my best man friend… and he didn’t tell me this!” ecco huffs, “oh, congratulations too i guess…” he rolls his eyes.

“yeah, because he knew you would blab immediately. how’d you find out anyway?” you reply.

“oh, i left my cameras on in my bedroom and neti was discussing it with nico!” yuna smiles, but she always had them on.

“yeah, ‘left them on,’ you’re the most nosiest people i know you gossiping ass bitches!” you laugh and stare down at your ring.

it didn’t fully make you happy, being engaged. you don’t think you’ll have that feeling ever again even if you chased it. everything’s been numb since you escaped with your friends. you were either numb or felt too much; you’ve come to accept that your emotions would never be the same. at least it made you happy when he purposed, and you did love nico! that wasn’t a doubt in your mind. he was a gentleman, a bit blunt and stubborn at times but he never waived his loyalty to you. you won’t be happier with anyone else, you may as well get married already.

-

you found a boy and two of his friends in the latest raid. all three were too injured to make the trip to meteor city so you and heejin took them back to the base instead.

a timid boy named ralis who rarely spoke.

a girl named agitha with a fierce personality.

a gentle boy named lucas who often cried for his dead mother.

all of the children you took into your care decided to go back to meteor city, you didn’t take a personally, you under understood they just wanted to see their families again.

the three kids didn’t have families, though. you would offer them a place to stay, you hope they would accept it.

-

18 years old, a year before.

neti and aerith were missing; you and nico came home after a movie date and the front door was opened. everyone else was on a trip to meteor city after healing a few children that were saved from a mafia holding facility.

you found the note before nico did; they wanted to tease you, to remind you that the mafia and the dons don’t forget.

“check the basement.”

-

you absolutely refused to let nico enter the room, you screamed at him to go away and to find aerith but he wouldn’t budge. he kept knocking on the door.

witnin the 3 hours that you were gone, neti’s body had been flayed in the basement. you would rather kill yourself than let your lover find his sister’s body like this… blood covered the floor and her body was hung off the fan.

“let me in dammit! what did they do to my sister?!” he screamed, breaking the door open.

you had managed to get her body down from the fan, but you held her body closely and cried as you closed her eyes. she was unrecognizable, all of her skin left in a corner of the room besides her hair.

aerith was still alive, you needed to find her immediately, you won’t lose another friend tonight.

-

you found aerith being dragged into the forest not far off, she had been hurt severely and there was a nen rope around her neck.

the rope left the victim nenless, no wonder they easily captured them.

you halted everyone’s body immediately. there was three men with her but you didn’t recognize any of them. they needed to die, you decided you would be their god tonight.

-

“you’re being unreasonable!” you whisper at nico who’s pacing around the room, livid. “that’s like saying sarasa died because i was kidnapped-“

“you were a child! aerith is old enough to have done something about it!” he retorts. you spent a lot of days like this since neti’s death. you couldn’t handle the stench of the house on lucian drive anymore; everyone made a unanimous decision to move somewhere else. you would be moving into a larger cabin close to a village nearby. you hoped the move would help nico out too.

“it wasn’t her fault! they were rendered useless and i’m tired of you blaming someone who’s cared for her since she was kidnapped!” you snap at him. he’d been so cold towards aerith after neti’s death; almost as if he hated her.

“whatever- i have a hunter’s mission, i need to head out. won’t be back for a bit.” he scoffs and leaves your bedroom. you screamed into your pillow and hit yourself on the face over and over again with your fist. you hated this, you hated how much pain nico was in, but you couldn’t stand how he looked at aerith now. nothing good could come of this, you were sure.

[violettathepiratequeen]

March 16th, 2025

Hello there, gentle viewers! Welcome back to Buffy Slays, where I’ll be going through all 144 episodes of BtVS over the course of a year, highlighting as many of the GOOD moments, lines, character choices, worldbuilding moments, etc. etc. as I think people will have the patience to read. 

So, here we go! 

Season 1, Episode 4, “Teacher’s Pet.”

Xander falls for a beautiful substitute teacher who turns out to be a giant praying mantis.  (Pulled from Hulu.)

If you're reading along and haven't finished the show, consider this your Spoiler Warning for discussion of future episodes and major plot points in any and all of these posts.

Episode Number: #4 Episode Ranking: #138 out of 144. Writer: David Greenwalt

Top 5 Quotes:

“And please don't listen to the principal or anyone else's negative opinion about you. Let's make 'em eat that permanent record.” —Dr. Gregory

“Don't say dead! Or decapitated, or decomposing, I'd stay away from D-words altogether.” —Principal Flutie

“Recording bat sonar is something soothingly akin to having one’s teeth pulled.” —Giles

“This is a question that no one particularly wants to hear, but... where did they put his head?” “Good point. I didn't wanna hear that.” —Xander and Willow

“Right. Wasn't here, didn't see it, couldn't have stopped you.” —Giles

How “Teacher’s Pet” Slays:

I think Season 1 might actually be Giles’ best season… I mean he’s great EVERY time he’s onscreen, even if he’s making bad choices, but in this episode there’s just so much to enjoy. He complains about the monotony of beautiful California weather. He laughs at his own joke about Buffy having too many guys in her life. He calls up a man in a mental ward and demands to speak to him. He has, at one point, recorded himself discussing the importance of filing, and filing correctly. And he follows Buffy through every unconventional method she has of saving the day.

The science lesson at the beginning, when Dr. Gregory stands with his back to Willow and Xander and asks Buffy how ants communicate. It’s a cute scene, because Willow tries to help out, Xander is totally willing to be a body for Willow to sniff and touch in demonstration, Blayne sitting next to Buffy is kind of a jerk but cool enough to not tip the teacher off that Buffy is cheating, and Dr. Gregory knows the whole time, he just wants to make a point. It’s a sweet scene with a lot going on, and is not your typical dry classroom moment!

Dr. Gregory. Gone too soon. His character only has five minutes in the cold open, and like two lines in the previous episode, but ugh… he’s one of my LEAST favorite deaths in the whole show, and that list includes both halves of my OTP. His character is so tightly written that you can see, in those five minutes, that he’s sharp and no-nonsense, he’s passionate about what he teaches and he cares about students’ education, and he can see potential, even if it’s buried under a sullied permanent record. I totally believe that he wanted to watch Buffy grow, he wanted to hold her up in triumph at graduation in front of everyone who doubted her, he wanted to see her get scholarships to any college she chose and rub it in her face that he always knew she could do it. His death sucks, but really, we’re not here to talk about that. We’re here to talk about those five minutes, where he believes in Buffy and lets her know that he does. And Buffy takes it to heart. She cries over his death, and she studies the homework he gave her to learn how to kill the thing that killed him. He inspires her, gives her that boost of confidence, and this is not someone who knows about the Slayer thing, nor someone she is forced to work with. She is just another one of his students, but he sees the potential for greatness in her specifically, and we can see how much it means to her, and how much she’s able to push herself with even one person in her corner backing her up and placing trust in her.

Principal Flutie continues to shine! I wanted to quote back every one of his lines in this episode, because oh my goodness. The way he’s so frantic about making sure no one who saw the headless body is traumatized. He plants students in front of a counselor and forces them to “heal!” and work out their feelings, and he’s always there for a hug but not a REAL hug because the school frowns on wrong touching. He’s so nervous and earnest and intense in a bumbling way, and… yeah, this is why they continue to mention this guy’s name all the way up until S7. He knows how to make all his scenes memorable.

It’s a pretty scary thing to be ensnared by a giant praying mantis, locked in a cage, and being told she’s gonna mate with you and then bite your head off. But Xander handles it bravely; he looks around for a weapon as Buffy taught him to do, he reassures Blayne who is freaking out next to him, and he fights the thing as much as he can. Before, of course, realizing he’s way out of his depth and screaming for help. Buffy comes in to save the day, because of course she does, and he tells her he was an idiot about all this, and that she was right in warning him to stay away from the hot science teacher.

When looking for Ms. French’s house, Buffy, Willow, and Giles find the house of the real Ms. French, the substitute teacher who retired twenty years ago. They don’t know that initially, of course, and Giles tells Buffy she can’t just go kicking doors down. She sarcastically agrees that it would be wrong, and lifts her leg to kick it anyway… only to have a little old lady open the front door. I’m just… so delighted that Buffy was ready to kick a little old lady’s door in!

Buffy makes it clear from the start of this show that she’s got her own ideas about how to be a Slayer. Giles forbids her from going after Fork Guy, and she goes anyway. But the GREAT part is that she comes in the next day and tells him so. Not in defiance, not out of disrespect, not out of smugness or cockiness or because she was wrong and has to suffer the consequences of her stupidity. She was just RIGHT, she made the call, and she was right, and she lets Giles know because he’s still her Watcher, she’s still gonna inform him of what she’s up to, and she still needs his help. But she’s ready to move on from the lying thing, and he apparently is, too. It’s great for both of their characters, and sets up a lot for when Wesely and Kendra and any other number of Watchers and Slayers come in and just kinda… stare at the way Giles and Buffy operate with each other. But they make it work, beautifully and effectively.

Buffy Summers— Not Another Dumb Blonde:

It would have been so easy to make Buffy bubble-brained and ditzy, fun-loving and unserious, following her every whim and pouting when she gets in trouble, and annoying as hell. 

And some of those aspects are there. But that kind of enhances the fact that she is NOT bubble-brained, she’s not unserious, she takes her punishment when punishment is due. She’s a blonde valley girl from L.A., Miss Popularity in her old school, and still young enough to want to have fun, yes. And books, reading, studying, research, homework… never her favorite thing.

But that doesn’t mean she can’t do it. And when she tries, she tries. She finds what she’s looking for in books, she retains information and can bring it up when pertinent, and I think it’s clear that she does want to do well in school, even when she’s stressed and tired and there are world-ending things going on.

And that’s just in this episode. Believe me, I will be pointing to every instance of Buffy’s intelligence and book-smartiness in the rest of this show, because it’s there, like a flashing neon sign. 

And beyond that, she’s smart as a Slayer, even if her methods are unorthodox. Her instincts about people, demons, vampires with chips in their heads, and substitute teachers are correct PRETTY much every single time. As I said earlier, she knows when to make the call to do her Slayer thing, even without express permission, either from her Watcher or her mother. In this episode she drags the vampire with a claw for a hand down the street until he identifies the praying mantis’ house, before she stakes him. She’s smart, and she gets results. She makes the plan, she executes the plan, and the plan succeeds, more often than not. She’s not flawless, and she’s not infallible, but she is pretty damn clever for someone who still does love to have fun, and does pout when she’s upset, and does think about the more shallow and trivial things in life. She’s the perfect balance of both sides, and tipping too far in either direction would have been drastically different and more insufferable Buffy.

And… she thrives when someone believes in her. Because she’s also not arrogant, or apathetic about people’s good opinions, nor does she need people’s good opinions to go on. But it gives her a purpose, to have someone trusting her and believing in her. It gives her that trust and belief in herself, to go further than maybe she even thought she could go. A resounding theme in S7, but already spelled out right here at the beginning.  

“Ours is a Forbidden Love:”

This show (and like every other movie/show ever) has spawned its fair share of ships that were never canon, nor were they ever remotely suggested as canon. But fans can read into anything and twist evidence as they like, SO, I would like to present the two ships that I saw and secretly hoped for in this show, with my own twisted, but damning evidence.

And they’re both with Willow.

And spoiler alert: they’re both with Buffy’s ex-boyfriends.

For any episodes where I deem it relevant, I’ll be pointing out the moments I saw leading to Willow and Angel (Wangel– oof, that’s an unfortunate ship name), and Riley and Willow (Rillow– that one’s much prettier), and I hope that even if you don’t see what I see, you’ll get a laugh out of my conspiracy theories anyway!

There isn’t really any evidence in this episode… obviously they were still working on even Buffy having feelings for Angel. But it is the first time Willow sees Angel, so I just wanted to warn what’s to come, haha.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And that’s a wrap on Episode 4! Thank you so much for reading this far!

Previous: “Witch.”

Next up: “Never Kill a Boy on the First Date.” 

(Credit for GIFs in this post: @detectivedawnsummers)

[romsabombs]

GUYS the new malevolent is insane so i just thought i'd drop my notes in here✍️ ENJOY it's a lot

freaky ahh cavern

😦😦😦

SHUT UP!!!!!!!!

the man is bathed in darkness👹 john thats racist

mf literally been crucified this is so arthurs religious trauma

that is not what bones sound like i think

shes so me awful posture

me at 4am in the kitchen looking for a snack

WAIT oh yuck :/

HAHA THEY'RE IN HIS NOSTRILS

PRINCE MENTIONED

car accident thats so season 1

this is kind of like a hat in time maybe

omgg a witch :3

arthur survives the wildest shit but i think a mcdonalds sprite would kill him

AAAHHH WHAT THE FUCK!!!!😨😨 YUCK YUCK EW EW RAAAHHH

WHAAAAAT

cant we only do allat to corpses

omg spit it out john

YEAAHHHH HES DEAD

🤭🤭🤭YIPPEE I KNEW IT

omggg thats so janey :33

hes bein puppeted by the maggots thats crazy

STOP TELLING HIM TO KILL THINGS HAHA

omgg kaynes dagger <33

how can this mf be helpful

this is so tmp a bit

rotten flesh mentioned minecraft ref

HAHA WHAAT THATS SO GROSS

the maggots be like i have your fucking eyes👹👹👹👹

OMG WHAT THE HELL zombie arc

claustrophobia again

imagine harlan recording this

omg that's so sexy 🔥🔥 decapitated his ass

HAHA WE'RE ONLY 11 MINUTES IN??

LMAO john stop saying things

YES JOHN it WOULD have been helpful to know this guy didnt have any eyes

"this isnt new york anymore" thank god amiright

his head between our legs🤨

its so funny how he calls it a pinky. didnt someone on tumblr say john wouldnt know finger names

im surprised arthur still has a shirt

the flesh feels stiff😟

this guy is still alive😦 or. dead. i guess

arthur is like weirdly normal about this guy being a zombie. i know hes seen shit (no he hasnt) but come on

faroes song ☹️

YEAHH PUT IT IN YOUR MOUTHH💪

oh what😐 the prince🙄

what did he sayy

oh gross come on guys😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨 at this point just put it in your own mouth

"id like to think this is the most insane thing we've ever done" 💀

teehee they dont wanna seperate :3

YEAH! AND FAROE

"everyone we've ever loved" weak. also john doesnt care about anyone but you

"we cant afford to not use every resource anymore" HAHA this is so funny because didnt you throw away everything youve ever owned last episode

yippee welcome back vanguard :3

nothing😟 WAIT YIPPEE :3

WELCOME BACK VANGUARD‼️☝��

omg names mentioned

wait. yorick? llorick? thats the thing arthur said

its not lorick that was the guy from the dreamlands

WOAH WAIT WOAH HUH

hey what the fuck did that mean😀

omg what. rumpelstiltskin

HAHA hes so loser

OMG wait they said stanzyck right

ofcourse anna is dead bruh we were never gonna meet her

arthur and john both being "kings"😟

this tooth is so silly🥰

everyones walking over arthur today💀

they're so miscommunication <3

hey😀 hey whats that sound

DONT SAY IT ugh the prince

"ahh yes :3"

OH😨😨😨😨 A WHAT

SHUT UP🗣️👹 HAHA THATS SO SILLY

this guy is so kayne. and a bit autistic

wait r we just carrying around this skull

bro arthur sounds so tired

ooo this would go hard as a cosplay

i cant believe he has a belt

EUGH YUCK😦

ooo the black stone perchance?

ok i guess not

omg god forbid a girl has hobbies🙄

"im not saying its not risky. what im saying is, it might be worth the risk" that line goes hard

arthur agreeing to this is like a dad saying "okay fine we'll go to mcdonalds🙄"

no reward without risk✊💥

"we're in the lion's den already" "it is a hag's womb👹" HEHEHE

HAHA SILLIES HEHEHEEHE🤭🥰

oooohh johnn 😶‍🌫️

OH 😦 ohhh 😀 u have his memories

clever girl

"thanks yorick😐" "you too my king🤗" "shut up🙄👹"

yorick is so me absolutely no sense of social cues

ofcourse we'd encounter a witch here it was so obvious

"try to keep straight" pff

did john say im serving

hey yeah maybe dont go towards the light😀

LMAO LOOK AROUND? foul

when is the jumpscare happening

i have no idea what he's saying

"too much to make out" MAKE OUT?🤭

LMAO he doesnt know

pregnant meat☹️⁉️

hey i thought asking the vanguard questions would have a price🤨😀

imagine if he just crushed that zombies skull like its a good thing we just decapitated him

hes literally describing my room

you're my eyes☹️

they're acting as if the lighter would give us much light

omgg shes a little interior decorator

tapestry lore!!💪

five minutes left whats gonna happen

wuh ohhh somethings gonna happen

THE STAIRS ARE GONE!!!😬

ur literally in her home leave her alone

his ass is panicking

this is so part 18 the madness

we're trapped :( :(

"ingenious decision king🤓" "SHUT UP👹"

SPRINT!!!!!! 🏃🏃🏃🏃

OH???? 😦😦😦😦 WHAT

IMPALED???M???MNFJREJSJ HUHH

--

omggg he got marcy'd

i saw fanart of this but i lowkey couldnt tell if it was a spoiler or not💀

hot take but if he got bitten by that zombie he could prolly survive this

HUHHH bro this is like part 27 the roots. he was less dramatic about it this time tho

bro yorick finally shut up💀

sooo where did he get impaled. like if in the heart hes cooked😬