#god I love writing these two lmao

[nekrosmos]

This is still sending me into another dimension

[fatedroses]

When a test of a prince's taste backfires horribly. Or, how Alisaie gave herself psychic damage for not realizing this man may not act like how she imagines and she's suddenly being thanked for giving the worst food on the star to him.

(or, even, indirectly giving Meteor and Tsukiko psychic damage as Meteor refuses to let Zenos eat that god forsaken bread and has to hold him back like a misbehaving cat away from it.)

[volivolition]

part of that "raising a kid au" i was working on, this is almost definitely not how skill checks work and i don't even know if i'll include this, but for now i think it's. so funny kjkgj

[mrsoharaa]

you didn't think too much into the simple graze of the newest spider-mans fingers gently brisking over yours as he takes his leave. the sweet, noble male that personally tended to you from your former strenuous, chaotic mission that led you to having a wounded leg. thus putting you right into the spider society's med bay.

you wave him off with a friendly smile, your eyes quickly sweeping over ever so attentively to the left to note Miguel's intent stare. pretty globes of soft cardinal leering behind the new, overly tending spider-man leaving the medical room you resided in. bearing directly into the back of the generous mans skull with such fueling rage and hatred.

his hardened glare sweeps back over to meet yours through the crystalline glass of the mirror into your medical room. thick brows that once tightened ever so firmly and searing wrath pooling into those glorious irises of pure ruby, immediately softening to your delicate gaze. a tinge of hurt and remorse instantly building up in the conflicted mans chest, immensely.

your heart flutters against your own, capturing the shorten, soften gaze of swarming distraught and longing clinging into those beautiful, intense eyes of his. your lush lips slowly part from each other, attempting to gather words to accumulate towards the man — but only failed, inescapably, when everything within you blared at you not to engage with him. not to engage with the very man that put you through with so much unbinding hurt and betrayal. the very same man that slowly, treacherously broke and tore you from piece by piece.

your pupils dilate, closing your agape lips promptly as your fingers crumble amongst the thin sheets of the medical beds bedding. you turn your head, shielding back the hot, thick tears swelling at the brims of your lashes. trying to not crumble before the very man that you inevitably fell in love with, during your previous time together (during your little "stress distressing" lascivious sessions).

the very same man that slowly, treacherously broke and tore you from piece by piece. promises of unfulfilled, unattainable pledges of comforting enlightenment and console, crumbling with the shattered fragments of your broken heart.

[dailykugisaki]

Day 355 | id in alt

I was out here just "Wow I should color this so they know I'm gonna put air Jordans on Kugisaki Nobara fortnite tomorrow" then I didn't and just slapped some random shit on. She looks nice though.

[wakeywakeyjakey]

I'm 35,000 words into writing a longfic about the Batman/Bruce/Matches DID system and I'm obsessed with it. It includes Bat/Joker, Bruce/Harvey, and Matches/Harv and the differences in each of those dynamics is 🤌

(Batman and Bruce know about each other but they don't know about Matches and Matches doesn't know about them--what could POSSIBLY go wrong?)

[sharknark]

⬇️rant about a really good hengren (reverse renheng) fic i read. link at the bottom give it a whirl

i've never read a fic so well-catered to my tastes before in my life and the best part is that i was so caught off guard by how good it was cuz the tags and summary had me like "right this is some omegaverse-esque, rawr XD mating shit"

but from the very first paragraph i realized it wasn't just ao3-typical possessive mating shit it was (dare i say) IN CHARACTER possessive mating shit. underappreciated dan feng lore is the two hearts shit, duty expects him to smother his own empathy and perform cruelty obediently (and that being in his dragon form literally numbs his empathy towards mortals) but then it's flipped around and he's criticized for being too heartless

there aren't a great many english fics that take advantage of the 'numbed empathy' thing, so this fic using that to explore the toxic codependency that drove dan feng to making yingxing immortal in the first place is so!

dan feng's dragon heart prioritizing it's own indulgence and power, his human heart screaming against it for empathy and restraint, but both hearts united in this possessive adoration of yingxing... dan feng is possessive to the point of harming his partner, forcing them to take his affection, inherently contradictive to the protective impulse to see the other unhurt.

dan feng makes yingxing immortal in a really sketchy operation, despite knowing that yingxing is literally defined by his pride in being a short-life. he wants yingxing to be with him so badly that he does the one thing that would hurt yingxing the most, too blinded by possession, this sickly overbearing affection, to empathetically respect yingxing's death.

yingxing lived cramming every second he could into his craft and his goals precisely because he has so much less time than all the immortal species around him, but when he's forced into immortality, his hands are scarred and ruined past the point of ever crafting again. he suddenly has so much time, all this time he would've cherished as a mortal, but is totally useless to him now that his purpose for living and passion is gone.

so there being a scene in this fic where dan feng is moping "yingxing doesn't wanna fuck because he's glued to his workshop", being followed up with a scene of dan heng fucking blade while kissing his scarred hand and crying that he's "so sorry", yeah no shit asshole, his dragon heart got what it wanted, blade has all the time in the world to fuck and nothing competing for his now limitless attention and no one's happy about it.

as arrogant about being a short-life as yingxing was, it really is compensation for the discrimination he faced for it. other immortals looked down on him, so having dan feng, THE top dog, be so deeply enamored with him stirred his own toxic codependent urges. he was so desperate to have dan feng's eternal regard that he's willing to die for him (as in the sedition), his death being the force cementing his place in dan feng's heart forever.

so the fic having yingxing ruminate on this, that he had hoped for dan feng to love him even centuries after he inevitably died, only for the fic to end with:

yeah yingxing... you left an impression... he made you immortal.... everyone's upset by this

(that's what makes dan heng forgetting blade was ever yingxing to begin with all the more painful because, you went and turned him immortal and when it backfired horrifically you went on and fucking forgot, bitch i'd be pissed to the point of centuries long bloody pursuit of vengeance too.)

here's the fic go read it and leave kudos and a comment, technically porn but i got so invested in the character study that part barely registered. also yeah if you hadn't realized already super dead-dove:

blah blah "renheng is toxic" sorry that's why i like it

[cassmouse]

To this day I don't understand how Ghostbusters Frozen Empire had the budget to hire all of these absolutely incredible actors, a surprisingly excellent cinematographer, a SFX team that's second to none, AND a phenomenal composer (HE WROTE THE 2005 PRIDE AND PREJUDICE SOUNDTRACK FOR FUCK'S SAKE)- and yet STILL couldn't manage to hire even semi-decent writers (this also applies to Ghostbusters Afterlife actually)

(whoever came up with the Phoebe/Melody plot goated tho)

[moongothic]

In reference to this post; I was gonna reply in the comments but once again, it got too long, and I figured I might as well make a brief post about this because shit's interesting but the OG post was getting so long I didn't want to extend it any further. So. New post.

But I'm also going to make this a lowkey follow-up to this post, where I briefly talked about whether or not Crocodile is worthy of a redemption. Because I did have multiple people reply to it, mentioning they don't think Crocodile needs a redemption, which isn't wrong. Villian redemptions come down to personal preference (some people like them more than others generally speaking), and the specific circumstances of a character and the story they go through. (Personally, I am a fucking sucker for a good redemption story, and One Piece? Has how many redeemed villians? Kuma, Hatchan and Bon-chan? Perona too? Buggy and Mr 3 if we're generous??? I'm sure I'm forgetting someone, but the ratio is quite low is my point) The reason I want to bring that up again, is that depending on what Crocodile's trauma really boils down to (**since we don't know for sure what it is**), it could go against the very core messages of One Piece if he just dies without that trauma being resolved. And at the same time, if his trauma is what I think it is, then he can not heal from it without being redeemed. And the opposite is true as well, if his trauma isn't what I think it is, then he doesn't need to heal from it, and he doesn't need to be redeemed. I do have a whole separate post slow cooking in my drafts right now so I don't want to go too deep into that subject here and now. But the point is. If we want Crocodile to open up and be vunerable and heal from his shit, it means he's either getting a redemption arc or redemption in death. The latter is way fucking sadder, but again, a whole separate post.

BTW quick apology but I figured since there's a bunch of shit in this post that I've written about separately before, I might as well link to those posts for like context, so people can get where I'm coming from with my nonsense while keeping this post brief-ish

BUT ONTO THE ACTUAL SUBJECT As I have kind of mentioned before, I do think Crocodile probably has multiple layers of trauma going for him

We know losing to Whitebeard Did Things to his psyche for certain

I think it's very plausible he might've been betrayed by his former crew if he ever had one

I think it's likely Dragon didn't take too well to him transitioning

And between that and Crocodile already having tried to kill Luffy multiple times, he probably believes his son would never accept him as his other dad, especially since he already hates him.

(And I do think it's likely he might have some additional early childhood trauma based on how Oda writes these things normally but whatever that could be is an absolute mystery)

And if I'm right and those are (some of) the different layers of his trauma, then for Crocodile to open up and heal from it you'd need to do it step-by-step, layer by layer

I think Luffy accepting Crocodile would be the most important thing, above all else. Because if Crocodile loving and caring about his son is the only shred of humanity left in him, if Luffy is the only thing Crocodile cares about anymore while believing no one else will ever do so for him, then having that feeling returned is the key to getting Crocodile to just start to heal. If his son can't accept and forgive him then what would it matter what anyone else thinks? In my mind, Luffy is The Sledgehammer that can break Crocodile's walls.

But that's the first layer, the first step to getting Crocodile to become vunerable

If he does have that betrayal-based trauma, then I think finding people who would actually follow him and be loyal to him would help him heal on that front. And... This probably sounds strange, but I think Mihawk is the best candidate for it. Not just because he could be to Croc what Zoro is to Luffy (in many ways), and not just because of the Romancing SaGa 2 comparisons, but because Crocodile does already seem to respect Mihawk on some level. Like he specifically invited Mihawk to start Cross Guild with. IDK if they have like shared history before or if it's just because they're Fellow Former Warlords or simply because he knows Mihawk is strong and in a vunerable position (after losing his Shichibukai Rights) or what, but despite Crocodile saying he doesn't trust people, he seems to trust Mihawk enough to invite him. And he seems to respect Mihawk's opinions on things, like he might view themselves as equals. So if Mihawk, The Greatest Swordsman In The World of all people, genuinely expressed faith and loyalty to Crocodile... Yeah, I think that would do a lot for Croc. Especially if Mihawk found out about Crocodile's baggage and chose to follow him despite/because of it.

But if we want Crocodile to Heal ALL THE WAY. He and Dragon need to have a talk.

Which will not be easy, considdering like.

Look at that fucking expression on the panel on the right. Dragon is more than likely beyond furious with Crocodile over what he did in Alabasta. And for good reason. And frankly, I can't tell if they can ever come back from that.

(Sidenote, but this page these panels are from (from Chapter 1058) follows immidiately after the page where Buggy introduces Crocodile and Mihawk to Cross Guild, Dragon's placement on the bottom right of this page matching perfectly where Crocodile was placed in the previous page. So considdering what Dragon says and the expression he makes... Man, if there ever was a way for Oda to tell us what Dragon thinks of Crocodile without explicitly having him say it, yeah, this would be it)

And I'm sure that even if Crocodile got over whatever heartbreak might've happened between him and Dragon and just moved on... The fact that Dragon never called Crocodile and warned him about their son being a pirate, with a bounty, who might be on his way to the Grand Line, where he could stumble his way to Alabasta, where Crocodile was famous for his Pirate Crushing Heroics mind you... Yeah. Crocodile would have a perfectly understandable reason to be furious at Dragon too. He almost killed their son without knowing because Dragon never warned him, never told their son's name to him, never told his OWN full name to Crocodile.

So needless to say.

They have a lot of differences to overcome. Things they've done that they'd both need to look past, forgive and forget. Somehow. And I'd be lying if I didn't admit I'd find it damn near impossible to happen.

But can you imagine, if despite everything, Dragon still loved him? And was sorry about whatever the fuck happened 19 years ago? And didn't want to lose him again?

I think that would be the thing that would help Crocodile heal all the way in the end.

If Luffy is the first step, then Dragon is the last.

[reapersmarch]

tell me lies, and i'll justify them look before you leap, orrr, what happens when it all comes tumbling out start here prev • next

a note from me to u: this is (very slightly) canon divergent in the sense that I wanted to write a very specific confrontation between ricardo and bel and even though I think placing it in the canon "legs broke" ending would have worked just as well, I think the stress would've killed him and would've just been... kinda depressing honestly, so. slight divergence of "they narrowly avoided the semitruck and now have to deal with the fact that bel told him he's entropy", so please be advised and enjoy!

There are no two ways about this, and no sense in mincing words: this fucking sucks.

And that doesn’t even really begin to cover it.

In fact, there probably aren’t enough words in the English, Welsh, or French languages for you to begin to describe what, exactly, you’re feeling here. Awkward. Tense. Edgy. Uncomfortable. But, none of those are enough, either. It’s more like… you’ve been in a dead sprint for so long, your lungs have finally given out, and you know that the only way this ends is in death.

No one to come save you, no way for you to crawl your broken body out of this one.

You condemn yourself to your fate, and stretch your neck across the block.

The executioner, this time, takes the shape of Ricardo’s side profile as he drags a hand down his mouth, turning over and over and over what you’ve just told him.

There’s a saying that you’ve always been particularly fond of—if you smell shit everywhere you walk, check the bottom of your shoe.

Or: you are the lowest common denominator. 

Your strength was never math—it was always science, a natural inclination towards it, which is ironic given how much math there is in astrophysics. You were only ever a casual observer, though; never really one to know the exact application of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, but you knew what they felt like. 

The first law states that energy cannot be created or destroyed; only changed. You suppose that’s true enough. It did hurt, when you fell from the heavens. It hurt when you felt your wings melt, the wax burning skin like molten glass as the ground rose to meet you, kiss you, embrace you like an old lover. When you felt everything in you shatter and shake, stain the concrete, rearrange at the molecular level until you were no longer you, it hurt.

So, maybe you can’t destroy energy. You can fundamentally change it, however. You can destroy a person—ah. But you’re not a person. You never were. Let’s try again.

You can destroy a thing. Push it to the brink of ruination, only to bring it back from that point and say, “See? You were fine. You were just fine.” Do that enough times, and eventually the thing breaks. Machines slow and rust, clothes get holes in them, regenes snap and bend and morph until they do what they’re supposed to. They break.

And then what? The energy changes. Sidestep dies, Entropy is born.

If the first law is the making, then the second law must be the unmaking.

It states that when energy changes from one form to another, entropy in a closed system increases.

Funny how that works out.

But that’s true, too.

When did you start tearing yourself apart? When he entered your life again? When you let him enter your life? When you handed him the scalpel and lay yourself down across the operating table, guided his hand to your chest and said, ‘cut here’?

There is a bitter edge to the very idea that he occupied so many of your thoughts, had you tearing yourself asunder every other night, but you could never tell if you took root in any of his. That the bliss of silence could just as quickly be replaced with the violence of static—you never knew just how violent static could be until you met him, that it was even capable of doing that kind of damage.

Anchors, as you are learning, can be used to sink as readily as they can to secure.

So. Yeah. It’s you. You’re the through line here. And so is he. And you’ve just confirmed that for him.

He was bound to figure it out eventually; you couldn’t hold it together long enough to keep the division separate. The lines of Sidestep and Entropy blurred into one another forever ago, when you decided to stop and do good, be good. You just couldn’t stop being Bel, even if you wanted to—and you desperately wanted to.

In your ardent need for affection, your unholy want for companionship, you lowered the drawbridge, and you took everyone in. You put the crown to his head, made him king of your domain, and couldn’t fathom how you were dethroned.

“Ricardo—”

“Don’t.”

He’s not done processing, it seems.

That’s fair. You might not’ve even foreseen this conversation, but he had an entirely different vision of how this would play out in his head.

(Not that you would know.

This is all just conjecture.)

The smoking wreckage of this barely functional car that you managed to veer into a back alley in an industrial zone is not where he pictured having it, for one. For two, he thought you were related to Hollow Ground, somehow.

Also kind of fair. You did have an uncanny resemblance to one another, one which you are not in a place currently to dissect, and he did spot you exiting his… lair, you guess.

You have a sneaking suspicion that neither of you expected to live through that encounter, and now that you have, it’s like holding on to a lit firecracker and waiting for it to blow your arm off.

“I’m sorry,” he lets you say. You’re not sure why. You don’t know what you’re even apologizing for, and it rings remarkably hollow when the ripple effect of your actions outweighs whatever guilt you could possibly be feeling. He does not acknowledge this though. He can’t even look at you right now.

You’re not sure if it’s better or worse that you told him the truth. Maybe letting him believe his conspiracy theory would have been the safer thing to do, but you have always laughed in the face of safety.

“I think,” he starts after an eon, “the part I hate about this the most is that I still love you.”

There it is, the axe. The blade right at your neck.

He told you this already. In his apartment when you let yourself be convinced to stay the night; let him talk you into his bed, let him hold you and tell you everything you’ve been wanting and waiting to hear, what you foolishly refused to see across all this time—the second time you’ve ever shared a bed. Quite possibly the last.

He told you he loved you, and the weight of that crushed you instantly.

It was fine when it was just you—burying yourself in years of regret, choking back every almost half-muttered declaration, and forcing yourself to be content with whatever you had going on. It wasn’t so much a problem when you were two ships passing in the night; everything you were experiencing was all self-inflicted. Sure, it was miserable. Sure, you thought it would be kinder to drive your car into the ocean. But you had a handle on it. Mostly. It was contained, even if you couldn’t keep it from showing in your face. Even if you couldn’t hide the way you still look for him first in a room, or the way your hand always manages to find his arm when you need it—a steadying point on the horizon.

It was contained. You never let it spill out of you in more than a trickle.

This, though.

Sitting there and being told it’s reciprocal, that he loved you—still loves you, somehow.

This is killing you.

He loves you, and you still can’t unstopper the bottle.

Not because you don’t want to—you would love to. You have been shouting it with your actions for years, you have been howling it, without ever saying a single syllable of the sentence that is piercing through your skull, currently.

You can’t uncork this because the truth has to come out, and when the tell-all gossip column finally spreads the word straight from the devil’s mouth to his ears, he’ll hate you, and you’ll still love him.

“I don’t know what to say,” you tell him, because you don’t, and you can’t stop looking at him but he won’t look at you.

“Were you ever going to say anything?”

“Eventually,” you try to assure him. You can’t really assure him of anything, but you are baring as much of yourself as he’s willing to see. “It was always—I wanted to. Ricardo, I really, really wanted to, but—”

“You couldn’t.” He finishes for you.

You don’t have anything to add, so you purse your lips and fidget with your hands for a while. He doesn’t say anything else, still gazing out the window as though something fascinating will occur there.

“Ricardo, please, just… look at me. For a second. Please.”

He doesn’t.

You reactively reach for his hand, then stop yourself halfway, fingers curling in on themselves. You don’t deserve comfort. You have no right to ask for it.

You betrayed his trust.

You may as well let your head roll.

Your hands find the hem of your sweater and lift until the flesh of your abdomen is exposed, intricate lines of bright orange crisscrossing in every direction.

He finally looks, but you can’t anymore.

“This is why,” you state, as though it’ll answer everything—and in some ways, it does.

This is why: I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t be honest. I never let you in. I never asked for help. I tried to lock you out. I was afraid of you. I'm sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.

Take your pick.

“After Heartbreak,” you drone, like you’ve numbed yourself to it, “I didn’t exactly have the best time.” Understatement of the century. “I’m sorry you mourned. I’m sorry you had a funeral, and that, in your eyes, I’m dying a second death currently, but I fucking had a good go of it, Ricardo. When they hauled me back to the Farm, they poked and prodded and so much worse. They fucking—please don’t look at me like that—they put me back together so they could split me apart again, and do whatever else they wanted, because it didn’t matter; I don’t exist. ‘Less than’—isn’t that what you said once?” He flinches.

“I didn’t mean—”

“It doesn’t matter what you meant.”

You let your sweater fall back into place.

“When I was there, they did everything within their power to keep me out.” Two fingers against the temple. “Went so far as to take something they knew had the potential to fuck them up worse than I ever could, they were that afraid of what I would do. You…” With thumb and forefinger, you rub at your eyelids, exhausted. You sort of wish you could gouge them out. “Sometimes, not being able to feel you is nice. It’s nice not hearing everything so loudly, knowing that I don’t have to try to shut you out because you can’t let me in. Knowing that I could relax because it’s just you—it’s Ricardo, it’s Charge, it’s just my shadow. But on my worst days, you fucking… you feel like them, Ric.”

You feel like you’re going to vomit.

“You feel just like them, and then my shadow isn’t comforting anymore, and suddenly, I’m afraid of the dark.”

You pivot before you’ll let him acknowledge any of that. You don’t want it acknowledged. You don’t want to know what he has to say about any of it. Maybe that’s selfish. You don’t care.

“So that’s why… Entropy. The only way I could see how to fix it was by becoming Entropy and giving the public something to rally around. Voice of the fucking people and all of that bullshit,” you chuckle in spite of yourself, dropping your head back against the seat. “Which meant that by default, I couldn’t tell you a thing. Even if you wanted to, there wasn’t a way you could help me that wouldn’t also make you a target,” you say, “and I couldn’t trust myself around you.”

That’s a fairly important distinction.

You didn’t trust him enough to reveal anything, this is true. The Rangers were staunchly in the adversary bucket given the nature of what they are. But you didn’t trust yourself around him.

You couldn’t trust that you wouldn’t unhinge that jaw and speak. You couldn’t trust that you would be able to control yourself.

You were right.

You threw yourself at him, hoping the landing would be softer this time, and it was worse.

“You’re right,” you hear yourself say, head lolling to the side to smile bitterly at him. “The worst part about all this is that I still love you; I can’t make myself stop. In seven years, I couldn’t make myself stop. It’s pretty stupid, actually, because I knew, deep down, that you were just like that. Ricardo Ortega, the flirt. The unfairly handsome, outrageously friendly Marshal Charge. You knew how to make someone feel like the most important person in the room. That was just you, but I couldn’t stop myself from falling for it. No one had ever looked at me the way that you did, and I—”

He kisses you.

He kisses you and kisses you and kisses you, like you’re the oasis in the desert and he hasn’t seen water in weeks. He kisses like a man starved, and you’re the last thing he’ll ever taste. He kisses like he loves you—still, despite—and it knocks the breath from you.

He pulls back enough your lips are just barely grazing, stroking his thumb along your neckline and pressing your foreheads together.

“—I just wanted to feel alive,” you finish. 

And you do. You feel more alive than you ever have in your thirty years, and now he’s looking at you the way he always did, seeing you, intent on you, and you realize—he has always looked at you this way. When his eyes fixed on you, they were waiting for you to notice. Even here, in this barely functional car in the back alley of some industrial zone, where you thought you were going to puke your innards out from the stress of this conversation.

The only thing you did vomit up was words, so that’s incredibly impressive for you. 

You were surprisingly calm about the whole thing. You don’t think you are physically aligned with your body at present, so this is probably the biggest contributing factor, but maybe that therapy session did you some good after all.

“You’re an idiot,” Ricardo tells you gently. “The biggest idiot I’ve ever met. The biggest, prettiest pain in the ass idiot to deal with.” And you laugh, even if you do feel yourself wanting to cry. “You still look like you, Bel, at the end of the day. This is just you on a really bad one.”

“The worst fucking day imaginable, really,” you manage, muffled against his shoulder.

“Yeah. But you’re still you, and that’s all I care about.”

[skitskatdacat63]

This is my personal crossover event of the century

[seventh-district]

Could've left me just the way you found me, but you came and put your wings around me. You went out of your way, to fix what you didn't break.

This song is so incredibly Sam & Darlin' coded and no one can tell me otherwise.

[lots of lyrical analysis below the cut] [there's also a short little fanfic blurb of them stargazing down there too (this post got really out of hand lmao)]

For those not fully caught up, note that the following commentary contains various spoilers for Sam and Darlin's stories.

Note: Unfortunately this song is gendered, using the word 'girl' several times. Which sucks a little bit for immersion purposes, not only for keeping Darlin' gender-neutral, but also because I see this song as a duet between them, and Darlin' obviously wouldn't be addressing Sam with the word 'girl' either. So! As with most songs on their playlist, we're just gonna mentally omit any gendered terms we come across.

Side note: Frustratingly, this is one of those songs that didn't really even need to gender the subject in the first place. No part of the story or message is lost without it. But alas, many songs are like that, and so the playlist-makers of the world shall continue to suffer. [/lh]

Anyways, preamble's over. It's lyric time now yay!

Sam's Part

I was a ten-year train wreck

Technically for Sam I suppose it was 13 years, but ten is close enough (and 'ten' admittedly flows a lot better in the rhythm of the song than 'thirteen' would.) Anyways, we're not here to split hairs, (I have to remind myself), we're just here to point out similarities.

In Sam's Dec. '22 HBW, he says "For the last 13 years or so I haven't had to care too much about how I look. Seemed a little redundant after turnin', considerin' I didn't wanna be around much'a anybody anyway."

I think he's mentioned or alluded to that roughly 13 year period of time more than once, but that's the one I remember best so it's the example I'm using. There's still about 4 Sam audios I've yet to listen to as of making this post, so if I'm missing some Key Lore I'll edit this later. But for now, I don't think Sam has given many specifics on exactly how bad things got during that time. Luckily, 'train wreck' is a pretty broad and subjective term, so it easily covers any degree to which he may have fallen apart during those years.

It also feels like a very 'him' way of quickly brushing over the details of his past/his hurt, as he seems to tend to do with Darlin', (not all the time ofc but it's still something I've noticed) putting his own hurt on the backburner to prioritize and attend to theirs. Even outside of his dynamic with them, I think as a healer, it's something he learned to do. And now he does it with everyone. Put on a brave face, compartmentalize things and unpack them later, etc. I could go on and on but there'll be time for that in other posts I'm sure. For now, lets get back to the song at hand.

With a last-call longneck

Due to personal reasons, I've yet to decide if I want to HC him as having used alcohol as a coping mechanism during that time. I don't recall him having mentioned alcohol much, if at all, (maybe one mention of whiskey that I don't have time to find right now) so I don't think it's necessarily canon that he did, but it's certainly possible. My personal preferences aside, I'll admit it makes for some good additional angst. (And- self-indulgently- it makes some other songs on my playlist for them more fitting.) So, for the sake of this song, let's imagine that he did.

I was searchin', I'd been hurt real bad

This one feels pretty self-explanatory given what Alexis did, (and, if you wanna get even angstier with it, whatever his family did earlier on in his life) so there isn't much commentary to add on my end.

I HC that in spite of 'not wanting to be around anybody', he- like Darlin- still had a tiny part of himself buried deep down that was, in a way, 'searching' for someone to find solace in. (No this isn't me projecting onto them both haha what are you talking about-)

Movin' on, gettin' sidetracked One step forward and five back

This is generally applicable enough that I don't feel the need to give too much of a specific example. Anyone who's recovered or is recovering from trauma knows this non-linear, back-and-forth struggle well already, and I'm sure he was no stranger to it.

If I were to give some examples though, I could point to Darlin's (and subsequently, Sam's) encounter with Alexis at the summit, or the shit that Quinn dredged up about Fredrick and threw at Sam in the interrogation room. Those are both more recent examples and I imagine these lines of the song to be coming from a place of him prior to meeting Darlin', but still, they're some instances where I'm sure he felt like the past was pulling him back in. I'm sure that there's been many throughout those 13 years that we were never witness to.

Not your fault, I was scared to fall

This line reminds me of their 'Cuddles and Confessions' audio. I don't think he ever explicitly said he was 'scared' per se, so afaik there's no specific line I can quote, but in that and every audio prior, he was obviously hesitant to admit, perhaps even to himself, that he was gradually falling for them. Even after the initial confession, there's certain limits of his (e.g. biting) that he carries for far longer, and some that I (and others) HC that he'll carry forever. So this line feels to me like him reassuring Darlin' that his reluctance isn't the fault of them, but his past.

Darlin's Part

You were the star in the pitch black Shine the way on the way back

We don't have any canon instances of them comparing Sam to a star, but I can see it being something they'd say (perhaps less poetically, but the sentiment would be there) one night while laying up on their roof watching the stars with him. Maybe they're dead-tired, talking nonsense with lidded eyes at the end of a long day, fighting sleep in favor of more time spent with him.

"What- what're you pointin' at Darlin'?"

Their hazy focus is trained on the brightest star visible in their line of sight, arm stretched out to the sky above them. "That really bright one, to the... to the left."

Sam does his best to follow their less-than-specific directions of 'to the left', their pointed finger doing little to help given the difference in perspective. Luckily, after all these years, he knows this stretch of night sky like the back of his hand, so it isn't hard to locate the brightest one. Ghosting his fingers up along their arm, he takes their hand in his and brings it back down to earth. "Okay, yeah, I see it now. What about it though?"

"That's you." They say, matter-of-factly.

"That's me?" He questions, humor in his tone.

"Mhm." They nod with finality, blinking slow.

Sam considers the odd statement for a moment before gently correcting them. "I'm uh, I'm pretty sure that's Sirius, actually."

They scoff. "I am being serious."

Sam stifles a laugh into their hair. "No- no I mean- like... what's another name for it... Oh! It's also called the Dog Star."

"C'mon Sam, at least call it the Wolf Star if you're trying to turn this around on me..."

He shakes his head and readies himself to explain further, but they cut him off before he can start. "But no- no, this one isn't about me. That's you."

He decides to play along, finding something endearing in their overtired nonsense. "Okay... then would'ja be so kind as to explain to this confused old man just how, or why that star is me?"

Their frown is audible in their voice as they latch onto the wrong part of his sentence. "You're not old, Sam. ...Do I need to tell Asher to kick the jokes down a notch?"

He smiles at their over-protectivity. "There'll be no need for that, now. Was just a joke, darlin', I promise."

They huff, but thankfully shift focus back to the prior topic. "It's... I dunno. It's just you, Sam. It's... bright. Light. Something warm, out there in the cold dark. Standing out amongst all the rest. Calling to me, stealing my attention. I... I didn't come out here looking for it, but there it is. ...There you were. In the dark. The only bright thing I'd seen in... fuck, in years. Years of chasing fleeting warmth, tripping over myself in the pitch black, falling into... places 'n people I shouldn't have. You were the light in that darkness. Even there, surrounded by the ghost of him. You outshone it. Your warmth didn't hurt. I didn't have to squint when I looked at you. You weren't the blinding sun. You were the brightest star I'd ever seen. You guided me back home."

In the back of their mind, they recall something they once heard, something about light, and time, and distance. Space. Something about... how you can see a star that's already burnt out, because it's light hasn't reached earth yet. The ghost of a star that's already died. Only still perceptible thanks to time, and distance.

They remember Sam's words, once whispered to them on this very roof.

"Whatever your choice is... I'm not gonna live forever. I made that decision a long time ago."

They think about dead stars.

They think about time.

"...-lin'? Darlin'?" Sam's calloused hand slides up their forearm, pulling them out of their thoughts. "There you are. Think I lost ya' for a minute there... you good?"

They look up at Sam, concern creasing his features, shadows cast across his face from the light of the dying stars above him.

They reach out, pulling him down into them. Burying their face into his collar, Sam's concern grows when he feels it saturate with tears. A human might struggle to hear their words, muffled against the thick fabric, but his hearing catches it just fine.

"Don't burn out too quick. Please. I still need you here. I don't- I don't wanna be left in the dark again. Please, please Sam. Don't leave me here. I'm not selfish enough to ask you for forever, but please. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet."

.......Whoopsies! Really, genuinely didn't mean to improv an entire scene there, good god. Also didn't mean to swerve hard into angst at the end but uh. that's what came out! so I'm rolling with it lmao. Aaanyways let's move on, it's getting late and this is a song analysis post, not a fic.

Out of nowhere, answered all my prayers

'Out of nowhere' reminds me of Sam's words from the same HBW video I referenced earlier. "You came into my life like a damn wreckin' ball. There was no preparing for that, clothing or otherwise." While those were Sam's words, not Darlin's, I still feel like they feel similarly to how suddenly Sam came into their life as well. (Not in a bad way, mind you!)

[the significance of 'answered all my prayers' edges into my own personal more headcanon-y/personal/OC-ified Darlin' territory, so we can just gloss over this one for the sake of at least attempting to keep this more universally applicable]

Picked up the towel that I threw in Took in a heart that was ruined

Again, largely self-explanatory I feel. (*proceeds to explain anyways*) I imagine that Darlin' was at the point of throwing in the towel, hellbent on a solo-mission to find Quinn regardless of the danger it posed to them. I doubt they were looking toward the future anymore, (to reference Sam,) fully willing to throw themself at their problems until they really did break.

The specific use of 'ruined' hits hard here, because after everything they went through with Quinn, and especially after he recounted it all to Sam in that interrogation room, I imagine that they really, truly did feel ruined.

Showed me the past ain't a tattoo Loved me even when you didn't have to

These lines in particular make me sick with emotion every time I hear this song, because I feel like they hit the nail on the head for how Darlin' feels.

I'll be here citing various quotes all night that I feel showcase that sentiment, but we don't have time for that! So instead I'm just pointing to the entirety of 'Quinn's Aftermath' video, and leaving you with this single quote from it.

"Everything that he said reflects nothin' on you, and everything on him."

Equally Applicable Lines

And I don't know why Why you saw something in me, baby But you saw right through All the pain, and you came and saved me Yeah, I know you didn't leave me lonely Weren't the one that put the heartbreak on me Picked up the pieces It wasn't the mess that you made Could've left me just the way you found me But you came and put your wings around me You went out of your way To fix what you didn't break

Again, I think these lines are all pretty self-explanatory, and are just as accurate coming from either one of them. To me, at least, their entire dynamic is that they saved each other, in their own ways.

(But I will admit, the final verses about 'going out of your way to fix what you didn't break' are definitely conjuring up memories of Sam in the early days, literally going out of his way to visit and heal Darlin' after their fight with the two vamps. In general, his continued/repeated healing of them after they once again hurt themselves is the very literal definition of fixing what he didn't break.

But! While we may have more blatant examples of Sam being 'the fixer' so to speak, I think he'd argue that Darlin' has done plenty fixing of their own. Physical wounds aren't the only things that need healing, after all.)

-------

[shameless self-promo of my Sam & Darlin' playlist for those few of u interested enough to make it to the very end of this wall of text. if u liked this then u might like some of the other songs on there soooo maybe go check it out and maybe perhaps give it a follow so i can get a little serotonin boost or dopamine or whatever the chemical is that's released when Number Go Up. ...okay that's it i hope u enjoyed my fixation-induced ramblings! thank u and goodnight]

[nu-fin]

One thing I think about a lot is Elias and his mum. Like, the only reason he changed his mind and decided to detonate the bomb is bc his mum wouldn’t come out and talk to him. She didn’t even want to *see* him (from Elias’ pov at least). Despite the fact that earlier in the series he was adamant that he didn’t want to have anything to do with her (although I have wondered whether that’s an idea that the Morley’s planted in his head, or maybe straight up told him to say), she’s still his mum and he still needs her. Then later in the series in the last few seconds before he ceases to exist when they’re hugging, the idea that that might be the only time in the series when he actually genuinely knows he is loved, and how the whole loop is him chasing after that feeling of being loved yet it takes the loop breaking for him to get it. Stuff like that.

[aerialflight]

i'm writing a gilmore girls fic that involves paris geller from our pandemic year 2020 going back to 2001, around the time jess first comes in to town. very slow burn between jess/paris. i have around 10k words of snippets all over my doc and an outline and i'm slowly becoming re-obsessed with gilmore girls again. what the fuck is up with this fandom that i keep going back to like an on-and-off again boyfriend??? anyway, i have no idea if i'll ever post this and i've been going back and forth on this for what feels like forever. if this sounds at all interesting, let me know.

[enhanced-operatives-division]

Greetings Starstruck enjoyers, I bring a fic that has been brewing in my head on and off for a couple months, hope you enjoy :]

[blackjackkent]

Narrator: Your stomach churns around and around. The bile within is unsettled. Each moment brings a new surge.

Gods, her head aches.

It is the worst the dreams have been in a long time. Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood. The usual visions of battlefields full of broken corpses - and more specific images, too. All those which the beast has wanted her to kill and she resisted. Isobel. Aylin. Jaheira. Dolly. Arabella... images of throats torn out and innocent blood pouring over her hands like rain...

She feels sick and feverish. She must rest - a battle beyond measure waits for them at Moonrise, the battle to take vengeance on Ketheric for good and all. She must sleep, but her brain will not settle, and her stomach spasms with nausea.

She sits up, pressing the heels of her palms into her temples, struggling to beat back the terrible thoughts.

Narrator: Your companions sleep like blissful lumps of meat.

Wyll is asleep nearby. Often he (and Lae'zel) keep watch over her in the night, helping to guard her from the dreams. He's promised he won't let her kill in her sleep again. But he cannot stay awake forever; he too knows the fight ahead will need all their wits.

She watches him through the flicker of the firelight. The man who has helped to make every good part of her that exists in between the rotted instincts and empty memories. The man she loves, and who loves her even though she does not deserve it. In his sleep he looks peaceful; perhaps he is lost in some better dream.

She stands, meaning to pace at the edge of the fire, to perhaps shed some of the nervous, anxious energy until she is too tired for the dreams to take hold... but instead she finds herself simply standing there, looking at Wyll, watching the subtle movements of his eyes under the lids, the slow rise and fall of his chest.

The voice hisses suddenly next to her. "He is an insult to the name of devils, posing as a monster with that sickly good heart."

She jumps violently, spins with one fist lashing out. She has learned - the blow is lower now and very nearly connects, skimming a hair's breadth from Sceleritas's skeletal nose, but he dodges backwards as always, his smirk stretching from ear to ear as if nothing happened.

"You could do so much better, Milady..." he purrs, coming to rest again near Wyll's feet.

"Get away from him!" she snarls. All her rage at herself, all the bloodlust of the beast, she would happily expend instead on this little rat of a creature who finds her at her lowest moments, if he was not so adept at dancing out of her reach.

Sceleritas's smile widens impossibly, straining and stretching the desiccated skin of his face. He leaps over Wyll's legs, closer to her again, that obsequious and cringing bearing contrasting weirdly with the bright cruelty in his eyes.

"I won't lay so much as a talon on him," he croons brightly. "I wouldn't rob you of that delight." He draws slowly closer, step by step, word by word, and she feels her blood run cold. "Your clever mind is penning tragedy as we speak. Your repressed Urge yearns to kill. And kill you will." His eyes narrow with gleeful malice. "Tonight... the moment you close your eyes... your favorite person will be killed."

Wyll.

Her heart drops into her stomach and her whole body begins to tremble. He means Wyll. Of course he means Wyll. There is no chance that he is lying; the dreams have already shown her that she is reaching a breaking point. All those lives she has resisted taking... it only makes the hunger stronger in the end...

"I didn't lay a finger on Isobel," she whispers hoarsely, clenching her fists at her sides as if that action alone could grant her some new conviction. "I can... control myself..."

Sceleritas laughs dismissively, as if correcting the misapprehensions of an illogical child. "It is precisely because you *didn't* touch her that you are insatiable..." he explains. "Your Dark Urge will have death, one way or another." Again that mocking smile. "Tonight."

He circles around her slowly where she stands, opening the way between her and Wyll, then stepping back into it again. "He adores you so blindly..." he hisses. "Like a pup. Don't you find it *sickening*?"

She can feel how the words pull at the beast, rousing it to fever pitch, hungry and full of rage. KILL.

She shudders, trying to force the monstrous thoughts back. Yes - Wyll adores her blindly. She does not understand it; he should have long since seen her for a broken thing and turned aside. But she clings to it with gratitude for every moment that she has it. He has made her who she is, every part of her that she can take any pride in.

She loves him. She has never told him so aloud. Does he know?

Sceleritas does. She can tell by the way he is taunting her, by that infuriating, mocking smirk.

"Have you been watching us while we are together?" she rasps out.

Sceleritas cocks his head as if in apology, as if he is not deeply enjoying putting her so ill at ease. "It is my *duty* to ensure you are making the right decisions, Master," he says, mock-sincere. "There was much... disappointment at your reluctance to kill the little Moonmaiden." He turns aside, gestures with a clawed hand in the direction of Wyll's sleeping form. "You could kill this one deliberately. I'm sure it will be considered a great show of good will. The tithe could still be yours..."

The beast growls and it resonates through her whole body; her skin tingles with the hunger. Yes. Tear him apart. Earn the prize. Let his blood spill out. A final act of love for you, to give his life under your blade...

A soft, whimpering groan escapes her and she squeezes her eyes shut. "You must be joking," she mutters, but the defiant words lack any strength.

Sceleritas's voice whispers in her ear, seeming to come abruptly from all around her. "I do not doubt you will act with the decorum befitting one of your rank..." A soft shimmer of magic dusts along her skin. "Good night, sweet Lady."

She opens her eyes and he is gone. Only Wyll remains, asleep, oblivious to the terrible conflict playing out at his bedside.

-----

(A/N: I fucking LOVE this next sequence for Rakha. For the most part, it fits incredibly well with a number of things I have already established about her story, her Urge, and her relationship with Wyll. However, it does have one critical difference which is that, as written in game, it assumes that she has not told anyone else about any of her internal struggles up to this point, which conflicts with a number of things I've written about Wyll and Lae'zel (and others) knowing about the beast and helping keep watch over her on the bad nights.

With that in mind, I have taken some significant artistic liberties on certain pieces of dialogue here. As usual, italic lines are ones from the game and non-italic are ones I've rewritten or replaced, and I've left footnotes with what the in-game actual dialogue was.)

-----

Narrator: Your companion rests blissfully, without a fear in the world.

She falls to her knees at his side. Her fingers twitch with the terrible urge to rip and rend and tear. The beast is roaring in her head, stoked to a fever pitch by Sceleritas's words and by all the blood she has denied it.

Reach forward to shake his shoulder and wake him.

Narrator: As your hand approaches his body, it wavers. It longs to close around his throat...

[SAVING THROW] Resist. Wake him up.

Terror grips her, widens her eyes to show the whites. With every ounce of resolution left to her, she slams one fist into his shoulder and then jerks backwards as his eyes drift open.

For a moment, still half-asleep and caught in some lingering dream, he only smiles up at her sitting at his bedside. "I love feeling you close..." he mumbles drowsily, reaching for her hand. "But are you sure..."

She can see the moment when the realization kicks in - when he moves from love to concern and fear. The transition claws at her mind.

"Gods..." he whispers, and reaches out towards her. "All right. It's all right. I'm here."(1)

She spasms backwards another step, out of his reach. Don't touch me. She is sure if his skin touches hers again she won't be able to control herself. "It's you--" she groans out. "It wants you--"(2)

At once, Wyll is up on his knees, all his focus coming to rest on her. His hands are spread in a gesture that is not placating but defensive - and she is glad to see it. He should be defensive; he should be ready to fight her off. She is an animal with almost no control remaining to her.

But he doesn't back away, just watches, waits. "You've got my attention," he says gently. Why is his voice so soft, even in this moment of crisis?

Narrator: As you tell your story, fatigue fills your body. Your head swims with the worst headache you've known.

For the first time she tells him everything, even the things she has held back - about Sceleritas, his deals and his tithes, his mocking taunts, his commission for Isobel's death. The words come out slowly, sticking in her throat, heavy with pain and underlaid with a hungry growl. Her head throbs blindingly, white and red by turns at the corners of her vision.

"The beast that killed Alfira will call again..." she finishes in a low, hoarse whisper. "My possessed mind will kill you..."

(A/N: BEAST! \o/ In-game called it the beast, I feel so incredibly validated rn.)

Wyll listens in silence to the chaotic, half-comprehensible explanation. His eyebrows knit together in a worried expression. After everything that has happened, there is no way he doesn't grasp the gravity of the situation, and yet his concern seems more for her than for himself, even now.

"All right. We'll figure it out," he murmurs, deliberately calm and steady against her hysteria. "I won't let you hurt me, Rakha, I promise. Just breathe-- breathe--"(3)

Narrator: Suddenly you become drowsy. Your vision blurs and floods with yellow bile, and you faint in a dizzy blur.

It happens so fast. The beast rises and roars, slipping out of her control, and her eyes roll up in her head. She collapses sideways and her vision slides away from her and for a little while she knows no more.

Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood.

Narrator: You are not yourself. All control is gone.

She wakes stretched on her bedroll, spasming and struggling. A painful bruise darkens her cheek; someone has struck her. Her hands are tied behind her back and she is being held down by someone behind her, someone with long clawed fingers. Lae'zel.(4)

Wyll is crouched in front of her, one hand resting on her shoulder, helping to hold her down. "Hey. Hey! Stay with me!" he calls softly.(5)

She can't breathe. Can't think. There is so little of Rakha, and so much of the beast. Flailing against the hands holding her back, she jerks her head forward in an attempt to close her teeth on his wrist.

Try to bite him.

He jerks back out of reach before she can land the blow. "Shit. This isn't good," he mutters, his eyes lifting to Lae'zel for a moment, then dropping back to Rakha's face. Undeterred by her animal ferocity, he returns his hand to her shoulder. She can feel the warmth of his palm through her thin shirt.

"Whatever fiend's got hold of you," he murmurs, "it's made a battlefield of your mind."

Narrator: Your hands are raw and bloody as every inkling of your Urge yearns to tear your bindings.

"Rise up!" Wyll says sharply. "Meet its gaze. Show it no fear. And grant it no mercy!"

She wants to fight it. She wants to be the sort of person that he would be proud of, the sort of person who could meet the beast and cow it, slay it. But gods, it hurts. It hurts... it's so hungry and it is tearing pieces out of her brain...

Growl.

It starts as a whimper of terrified pain in her throat and rises into a growling roar like a wounded lion.

"That's it--" Wyll says. His voice is sharp now, trying to rouse her; she can hear the fear in it, and a grief too. The grief is new. "Gather your mind! Slaughter the fiend that stalks you!"

She tries. She tries... for him, she tries, when it would be so easy to surrender, to simply let the beast take her. For him, she would fight until her last breath... but gods... gods, it hurts...

Narrator: The night passes sick and sweating, but bloodlessly.

-----

Somewhere in that long, terrible, endless night, she passes out again. It is not sleep, not really; her head still aches like there is a knife in her temple, and she can hear Wyll and Lae'zel talking in low voices. She can feel the rough dig of the ropes on her wrists, holding her still.

Dim images drift in and out of her awareness. Isobel's face with blood pouring out of her eyes. Sceleritas's mocking smirk. Wyll's throat cut. Lae'zel's back broken. The endless black pain of the corrupted dark that surrounds them.

It is a nightmare that seems to go on for several thousand years.

But slowly... slowly... she does wake up. And the beast retreats, beaten back for the time being, returning to its low background growl.

She opens her eyes and finds Wyll watching her. He looks exhausted, his eyes sunken into his face, and wary and terribly sad. He reads the expression in her eyes carefully, and whatever he sees there seems to satisfy him, for he leans forward and unties the bindings on her wrists.

She rubs at the raw, chafed lines where the ropes sat. The pain does nothing to distract her from her exhaustion and humiliation and terror. This is the worst it has ever been.

She can't look at him as he sits down in front of her again.

"It's all right," he says softly. "It's over."(6)

She doesn't answer. She feels shattered, broken in mind and spirit. She does not deserve his soft words or his reassurance. The truth is inescapable now. She is a mad animal with only the thinnest veneer of reason over it. She could have killed him...

He reaches out gently and takes her hand between both of his. His thumb rubs over her palm just below the scored line of the bindings. "How are you feeling?" he asks. His head dips, trying to get her to meet his gaze. "Talk to me."

What can she say? How can she explain the utter emptiness in her chest, the broken lost thing that she is? How can she even begin to make him understand?

She opens her mouth... but nothing comes out. She simply, and quite unexpectedly, bursts into tears.

Sob. Say nothing.

Even at her lowest points before, she has never cried. There have never been tears. She wasn't sure she was capable of it. But they stream down her face now and she sobs and sobs, all the tension bleeding out of her. And she doesn't resist when he closes his arms around her and pulls her tight to his chest; she just cries bitterly into his shoulder until the cloth of his shirt is soaked with it.

"Should this inner fiend seek battle again," he murmurs in her ear, "I'll give it one. Let it taste the edge of the Blade."

It's an attempt at reassurance, but it doesn't land. If she can't fight it, he certainly can't. Why does he persist in believing she is worth salvaging? Why does he hold her and soothe her after such a brutal display of bestial violence?

She wants so badly to be the person that he sees in her... but why does he not see that it is impossible?(7)

"You are allowed to hate me for this," she mutters brokenly.

"Hate you?" he answers, and though his voice is still soft, the words take on a sudden weight. "The coast would sooner be swallowed whole by the Sea of Swords." His fingers drift over her back, up the back of her neck, along the close crop of her hair. "You don't have to shoulder this burden alone..."

She doesn't understand him. He deserves so much better. But with no energy left, she allows herself to succumb to the comfort, just for a little while. It is the only peace that remains to her.

-----

(1) In-game line: "Gods, what's the matter? You look like you've seen a gravehound's ghost."

(2) In-game line: "You are in a lot of danger. We need to act fast."

(3) In-game line: "You wouldn't. You couldn't. Could you? You're not in your right mind. There are healers in the city, clerics who can help. You should've told me sooner - we could've figured something out. This is what happened with Alfira, isn't it? By Balduran's helm, if only I'd known."

(4) Artistic license. Lae'zel is not involved in this scene at all in-game, but I've already established in drabbles that she helps Wyll keep an eye on Rakha and the beast.

(5) I swear to god I had not seen this scene or knew anything of it when I wrote this drabble.

(6) In-game line: "Looks like you're back to your old self. Poor Alfira - if only she'd been so lucky."

(7) One of the dialogue options here actually is "I promise I will be the person you see in me," which is excellent, but Rakha absolutely doesn't feel capable of it at the moment.