#he does it because he's traumatized and it's all he knows AND because he's a sweetheart. it's both. and god that's like really cool to me

[kenwio]

Joker's kid! reader : how batfamily would react on them trying to end their life

Route : recovered dove

Please read warnings before reading this one!

If you do not feel like reading it, it's okay! (Spoilers will be at the end of this part) Please have tea or hot cocoa, and read relax 💖 and remember there are people who care and support you 💖 I'll be posting more fluff in future parts

Warnings : heavy topics, mentions of death, implications of self-destructive behavior and suicidal behavior, hurt/comfort, traumatized characters.

Idea for this part from this ask here . I also used this idea for comfort part form here

Author's note : I'm including this part in route: Recovered dove only because I want to show that mental healing of Joker's kid is a long way, it had ups and downs, but in the end they have family who acres about them now.

You don't know what exactly triggered it. Maybe it was the fact that everyone started discussing break out in Arkham asylum instead of the usual breakfast convention, maybe it was how Bruce said he didn't have time for you, maybe it was how Alfred was distant today, so you thought something wrong, maybe it was that Dick ignored you today, maybe it was that Jason's aggressive demeanor when you saw him, maybe it was Tim's comment when you brought him coffee, maybe it was Damian's harshness when you meet him near your room today.

That all made you feel so lost. To see them all being unwelcoming to you again was overwhelming. Is it because your father is free again, and they thought you'd be helping him? Wait if your father is free... he will want you back. You don't want back! No! You don't want to be with him again! You do not want to be experimented on again, be beaten up by him again. You thought it was finally over, that you were taken away from that life, never to return. You thought you found family! Why does he have to ruin your life again? He drove her away from you already, the only person who protected you before Batman and his birds, the only person who was your family before them, your mom ... and now he is doing it again; he is taking your family away again! But were they your family? You thought that Bruce was thinking about you as his own child, you thought that Alfred was proud of your progress, you thought that Dick was happy to spend time with you, you thought that Jason was enjoying your shared reading time, you thought that Tim liked to study with you, you thought that Damian finally accepted you. Were you wrong? Was it all a lie? Did they want to use you as bait for your father? Or did they think you would be able to tell them something about him? Was that a reason why they got close to you? But now that they see they were wrong, and after they made sure you didn't know anything, they decided to drop the act?

Was it all a happy dream that's just ended? If it was a dream, you don't want to wake up to the nightmare of your previous life. You can't take the suffering anymore. You need to make it stop to end it, to end it all.

You didn't know how long you were in you were in your thoughts, when you got up. You wanted to live. The room that became your own, became your safe space now felt like JOKE. You needed to get away from it. You struggled to open the window, as it required much strength from your shaking hands. But you were persistent in your efforts to open it, and in the end window opened. You looked down, it was quite high, and you knew that for your body, which was unlike theirs, weak and fragile, it would be enough. You've seen a grown man die when he fell from his high back in a crime alley, so for you, it will definitely be enough. Oh, crime alley, you don't want to go there. You don't want to return to life with Joker. You stood up on the windowsill, looking at the green grass down, feeling the cold night wind against your skin. Your head felt heavy, ringing in your ears just made it all worse. You took one step, and you felt incredibly calm. You took another step, only to be pulled away from the windowsill on the ground and held up. You didn't register the loud voice, the way someone was shaking you. You just sit there staring at nothing in particular, not even able to cry because of how tired you are.

In the meantime, Damian, the one who pulled you away from the window, had already called everyone and was trying hard to make you snap out of it. Yet it was not helping. When Bruce arrived, he moved Damian, who was looking at you with extreme worry, aside. Bruce recognized your expression; he had seen it before - thousand-yard stare - your own mind was protecting you from whatever you were feeling. As he was trying to help you, holding you against him, trying to soothe you, the rest of the family arrived in your room, seeing scared Damian, worried Bruce, and you... you looked so broken. It was too hard on them all

A few hours later, when you fell asleep after you came to your senses and cried for a while, Bruce and others started figuring out what made you feel this way. And it didn't take long; they are a family of detectives, after all. And this all made them feel really bad, guilty. As it turned out, on this day, you were too unlucky to notice only the bad sides of things.

There wasn't any breakout In Arkham asylum. Turns out, the lead they were investigating turned out to be false. Bruce, indeed, was busy, but he failed to communicate this in the normal way: he only added that he would try to make some only by the time you stepped away, which he didn't notice. Alfred was distant because he had a migraine today, but he still wanted to work around the house; there were too many chores to be done in the Wayne manor. Dick didn't mean to ignore you, he was too tired after his few nights of being up and he just failed to notice your quiet presence, being too busy thinking about his bed. Jason was behaving aggressively because of the lead about break out from Arkham asylum, which was the one that he followed for his case, and since it was false; it took the case he was working on back to square one. Tim actually was mumbling about his case, quietly cursing criminals, and not you; just like Jason, he had too much trouble because of that stupid lead. Damian stepped in at the last second to help you avoid stumbling and falling when you were waking in your room, which resulted in his harshness to you, but you were too deep in your panic to notice that his gaze was more worried than angry. If Damian wouldn't have been worried and decided to check up on you... non of them want to think about it.

They spend night in your room and in the morning, they talked to you, communicating how things actually were the previous day, and expressing how important you were to them.

It was a shock to everyone. Even Bruce thought it was going fine, that your session was working and helping you, that you were feeling safe, and that your relationships with the rest of the family were getting better. And he knew that what happened damaged the whole family because they almost lost you. He regretted that he didn't phrase his words correctly, feeling like he failed to show his care for you. He knew he should have been careful with words, he knows how impactful they can be. And since he said he hadn't got time for you he started making time for you. He wants you to know that he cares for you and he will make time for you wherever you need him. His one daily check-up became 2 check-ups, and when he had more free time, he checked up more. He pays extra attention to you. Even your little sneeze will make him worried to the point of examination in a medbay. He stays with you, and sometimes talks with you, encouraging you to open up and share your opinion and feelings. He tries to lessen the influence of "bad guidelines" (that were with you because of Joker) in your head. He helps you talk through your feelings, helps you show them and process them. He reminds you that you are cared for now. And he promises that he will protect you. After hearing you out, learning your fears and insecurities, and when he learned out that most of all you are afraid to go by your father's way, he promises you that he will do everything in his power to prevent you from taking this way. Bruce wants you to be happy, to make good memories. You already got unlucky with your father, who made you experience hell, but Bruce will try to be the best Dad he can for you.

Alfred felt so guilty. He knew you needed care, but he was distracted. He feels like he let you down, by forgetting how fragile and sensitive you are. He knew you were struggling; he had seen it himself. If only he had paid you more attention. But Alfred, better than anyone else, knows that he shouldn't be focusing on the past; he needs to work on the present, and he needs to make sure you feel better. He makes sure to make you more happy while he can. It's always your favorite tea at the tea time you share, with his cookies, of course, which he bakes with you from time to time. It's always your comfort shows or documentaries on TV when you two watch something. He also makes sure no one dares to make you feel uncomfortable, even if it will make him look around like Hawk. But Alfred understands that he can't always be around; that's exactly why he makes sure that he teaches you at least a few techniques that would be able to help with worry and anxiety, and he practices them with you. You are his little star, who may be really quiet but still efficiently lights up his days, and he doesn't want to lose you. When you share that you are afraid your family will reject you, he personally goes to everyone, making sure that they won't be saying something that contains a message. He wants to see you all grown up and happy in the end; he will work hard to make sure your life in Manor will be good.

Even when Dick just heard how Damian called for help for you, he felt shocked, what to say when he saw and understood the situation. What do you mean his baby sibling tried to make their life end when he was blissfully unaware, sleeping in his old room? How? What he missed? Just a few days before, you seemed on your way to becoming the happy sunshine of a kid, and now that has happened? He is your older brother and he missed all the singes?! He needs to sit down. It's too hard to accept this version of reality for him. The reality is that he can lose another member of the family. He knows what it is like to lose a sibling, and he will never want to experience it or feel this pain again. And knowing that it's you who tried to end your life makes it all worse. He tries to understand what pushed you, trying to see what he can do to prevent this from happening. He also tries to distract you from all the negativity in your life with quality time and different activities. The incident shook him hard, and while he hoped to introduce you to cuddles differently, he had to do it now. He needs to make sure you are close, still warm, still safe, still alive. And it seemed like cuddling with him made you calmer; you didn't even realize how touch-starved you were until then. It became a sort of comforting ritual for both of you, cuddling, sometimes just cuddling, sometimes while watching something. While cuddling he often says sweet words of reassurance to you. And while he knows he can't stay in Manor forever, he makes sure you know that he is always here for you, just a call away.

Jason was mad at himself for allowing himself to snap at you earlier. He feels incredible guilt that he was the reason that you were in that state. For a few days after, he could only watch you in your room or living room until he talked about his feelings and the incident (how he calls it because he can't speak that out loud, it physically hurts him to admit it) with Bruce and Dick. He started slowly approaching you, continuing your reading sessions, but also, sometimes, he decided just to start talking with you. He shares with you his experiences in the crime alley, and you share yours; you both know that only you two in the whole family could understand the full horror of this place, and that's aside from the fact that both of you know the full horror of Joker. He says to you that you'll never become like him, because he sees you are different. Jason tries to comfort you, yet he knows he is not ideal in it, but he is willing to try as much as he can just for you. He can understand that you feel lonely; he can only imagine how lonely you get when all the family is busy with vigilante work. It got him thinking, remembering. He remembers times when he was still Robin, and sometimes, when he got hurt, he stayed in his room alone, and. he hated it. Back when Dick gifted him a plushie of a bat, and now, in another attempt to comfort you, he brings this old plushie to you. He tells you that this plushie kept him company and protected him from everything bad, and now it will protect you, and now you'll never be alone anymore; your family's love will be here for you.

Tim was second after Damian to arrive in your room. This sight horrified him. He just froze, in shock. For once, he didn't know how to act or what to do. After everyone made sure you were okay, and his brain began working again, he started to do what he knew best - investigating and researching to find ways of how to help you, trying them with you in the meantime. Art therapy? He tried to hold a few sessions with you. Special games? You both alredy beating third one. Special music? Here is his player, listen when you want. He becomes more attentive to you, noticing every little detail. He knows as a person who likes studies like him, you would want to learn more about your mental health and how to care about yours. He found a way to explain the basics of it all to you in a way that is easier for you to understand, and only when she reads articles (that he chose, of course) about mental health and coping mechanisms. You want to cuddle with him while reading? Good, he will do it (he is happy that Dick showed you how to cuddle and totally not jealous). You want to stay with him while he works? Okay, sure, he is here for you. He makes sure you can ask him anything; he reminds you that you are safe with him and with others. So when you ask about Arkham and your father there he makes sure to show you that Arkham is hard to get out (even if it's not true).

Damian didn't like how it felt to see you on the windowsill. He doesn't like how it feels to see you in this state. He doesn't like fear. But fear made one thing clear: he cares about you. He hadn't understood how important you became until that incident happened. You are his sibling, and even if he did not choose you, even if he was against the idea of you being in the family at first, now he knows you held a place in this family like everyone else. And now he knows that he will do everything in his power to make you safe; he will protect you even from yourself. He asked Bruce to install precautions in your room. He follows you like your shadow everywhere you go. He makes sure that there is no danger in your way. He checks up on how you sleep after patrols. He makes sure to be nicer when he is around you, and he heads to ask Father, Pennyworth, and Grayson how exactly to behave around you. He joins in Tim the research of ways for you to cope with traumas or ways to comfort you, and when he sees articles about how communicating with animals improves mental health, he brings Titus to you, and when he goes for walks with Titis he makes sure to take you on them too since he also found out that walks improve mental health, and since it's walking with Titus it's beneficial in double. He protects you and he cares for you even if he struggles with proving it

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Thank you for reading! Feel free to share your opinion and have a good day 💖

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Spoiler:

Next chapter connected to this (click here) and after that I'll finally write about Joker's kid! reader hair dyeing adventures

[suzukiblu]

Day two of February's first weekly WIP behind the cut; “the puzzle trap sex-room”. content warnings: past grooming, past sexual abuse, past statutory rape, past dubious consent, CURRENT unhealthy coping mechanisms, immediate fallout of sex pollen/death trap-induced sexual coercion, and a POV character who does not understand what the problem with any of that is, he’s FINE, Jesus, lay off already and let him live his life. So uh, you know, just Kon’s … entire pre-YJ dating history, pretty much? Pretty much that, yeah. (( chrono || non-chrono ))

“Shut the fuck up, I give even less of a fuck about your fucking opinion, your opinion doesn’t mean shit when you couldn’t even tell the truth about having a fucking condom on you, you fucking shithead!” he snarls at Robin as he whips his head around to glare at him and rips the entire computer console apart at the same time and also the pair of motorcycles off to the side and definitely a couple tool chests, because the alternate option is punching somebody in the fucking teeth. Just–fucking–he knows he picked a pretty shitty way to do it, but he did literally just save the guy’s life, and he did it without fucking lying to him or yanking his stupid fucking hair about it! 

Superboy still feels shitty about yelling at Robin anyway, because Robin snaps his mouth shut with a guilty wince when he does and also because it means that he’s yelling at the guy who was drugged out of his fucking mind for all of this and who is the least at-fault in this situation instead of yelling at, like, the judgemental pricks who wanna patronize him like he’s stupid and act like they think he’s incompetent and useless and too fucking “traumatized” to fucking be trusted to fucking function, apparently, when he’s not even traumatized, for fuck’s sake! 

And Robin–Robin should at least be kinda on his side here, goddammit. Or like, not–at least not against his side, anyway. Robin’s–he’s– 

Superboy feels way shittier about the fact that a guy whose life he just saved while he was too drugged-up to save himself–a guy whose life he’s saved before, even, who he kinda–who he thought maybe, like–maybe might’ve, like–like, he doesn’t think they’re friends, he’s not an idiot, but he just thought . . . he thought maybe they were gonna be, someday. He thought maybe Robin even thought that too. 

Now he just thinks–now he’s just fucking pissed, and not gonna fucking apologize for fucking yelling at him because–because–

Because he thought they were–he thought Robin would at least be on his side, even if he didn’t try to say anything in front of Batman. Thought Robin would understand how fucking stupid and ridiculous and insulting this whole fake-conversation/full-lecture bullshit is, and–

And they were both on the stupid livestream together, and no one's ever gonna let that damn thing go away because for starters there's clear audio and video of a Bat on it, which is fucking rare enough, and also there's his stupid ass and S-shield on it, the idiot who went out of his way to get as famous as he could and sell his stupid face everywhere he could and–and–

And now the whole goddamn fucking world can just–can just fucking google how he looks when somebody's calling him a whore and shoving their stupid dick in his stupid face and–and– 

He doesn’t–he–

[pursued-by-the-squid]

vii. stage fright

pairing: gi-hun x gn!reader x in-ho

word count: 12.5k

ao3 | masterlist

“You should eat.”

Rolling over onto your side reveals Gi-hun, standing over your bed with a frown. “I’m not hungry,” you mumble before returning to your original position.

“You need to keep up your strength.” The mattress dips down by your feet and the bed creaks softly as it adjusts to Gi-hun’s weight. He seems to start a sentence a few times, his inhalations quiet yet sudden, but whatever it is he wants to say seems impossible to speak aloud. In the end, he relinquishes himself to an awkward pat on your foot.

How many times have the two of you been here? Each of you lost to your own grievances, trying so hard to push through the fog and failing every time. How many times has he texted you a reminder to get to bed early, to be careful when you go out the next morning, to eat something filling before class? How many times have you tried to do the same in return?

“I’ve lost my appetite,” you tell him, even as you’re moving to sit up and swing your legs over the edge of the bed. “The thought of eating anything makes me feel sick.”

Gi-hun nods once in comprehension, his eyes suddenly softer as he watches you. “I understand,” he murmurs. You try not to think about how much it makes your heart flutter knowing that he cares.

It’s that very understanding, you think, that leads you both to the meal line. Neither of you wants to eat, but neither of you wants the other to go hungry. Eating will keep his mind sharp, it’ll make him faster and stronger, and it will do the same for you of course, it’s just that you can’t stop thinking about all those people… All that blood…

Try not to think about it, you tell yourself, but it’s so much easier to say than it is to do. Everywhere you look is a reminder of just how dire your circumstances are. The ominous piggy bank hanging overhead, the player count, the blood still on Gi-hun’s face, each of them a ghost intent on haunting you. How can you possibly–?

“[___]?”

One moment you’re lost to the horror of it all, and the next you find yourself blinking up at the face of the last person you would have ever expected. “Young-il-nim?”

Your first thought is that you’re imagining things, so traumatized by the first game that you’ve fully lost it, but then – oh, then he’s smiling and he laughs, and it’s him, it’s really him.

“Oh my God,” you cry, throwing your arms around him in a desperate embrace. “What are, what are you doing here? How did you-? Why did you-? Shit, are you okay? You’re not hurt, are you?”

Young-il chuckles to himself as your trembling hands go scrambling over his shoulders and chest to check for injuries. “I’m alright,” he assures you, as if he hasn’t a care in the world. But then his expressions shifts and he ducks his head to try and catch your eyes. “But what are you doing here? You don’t belong in a place like this.”

A brief image of the masked man invading your home comes to mind before you banish it. You shake your head. “It’s a long story,” you sigh, “and difficult to explain. I…” Words are lost to you. You have so many thoughts buzzing inside your brain that it’s difficult to think clearly, to conjure up the shapes and sounds you need to explain yourself.

“It alright,” he says after a moment. You catch him glancing to the side, meeting Gi-hun’s eyes over your shoulder, before looking back to you. “Eat first. I’ll find you after and we can talk then.”

He nods his head respectfully to both of you before walking off, food in hand and the numbers ‘001’ sewn to the back of his jacket. Something twists painfully in your gut, probably the knife he’s just lodged between your ribs.

“Who was that?” Is it your imagination or does Gi-hun’s voice sound deeper than before?

“A friend.” But now the words are sour on your tongue. Because Young-il was the one to break the tie. Young-il was the one to trap you here for another game. Young-il was the one who stood up against everything Gi-hun has been fighting against, and your face is awash with shame because of it.

“Young-il-nim.”

From his spot on the steps, he’s forced to tip his head back to meet your eyes and for a moment, you almost forget the reason you’ve sought him out. His hair is different, you suddenly realize. It swoops over his temples, soft and boyish, and it changes his face just so. All those harsh edges you’ve grown accustomed to are rounded out, less garish despite the fluorescent lighting and the terrible circumstances. And still, the blue patch on his chest marks him as a traitor. It may as well be soaked in your own blood and Gi-hun’s for what it’s worth.

He smiles and gestures to the empty space on his left with his elbow. “Come and sit.”

How can he be like this? How can he sit there and look at you with such blatant fondness, how can he still have an appetite after the things you’ve both just witnessed?

Your voice comes out much harder than usual once you finally find it. “What are you doing?”

Confusion flickers in his eyes. “Eating?”

“No. Here. What are you doing here? Why did you vote to stay?”

Young-il glances down at the X on your jacket, nodding, and the light-hearted tint to his smile finally fades. “I’m sorry.”

Your legs kick into gear before your mouth does, bringing you to the step just below his. You can’t quite bring yourself to sit beside him, to allow yourself that familiarity or closeness when his betrayal still sits heavy in your stomach, but this is not a public conversation either. You’re not here to embarrass him.

“You’re angry.”

“Can you blame me? People died, I almost–”

“I know,” he sighs as he hangs his head. “I know.”

“So why?”

Young-il’s expression turns distant, serious. “It’s complicated.”

Yeah, there seems to be a lot of that around here. But there’s something more, something he’s not telling you. He’s usually decent enough at keeping his more intense feelings close to his chest, but for once you find that you can see the intricacies of his heart quite easily. Regret and uncertainty are the most obvious to you, yet there are others lingering in the creases of his eyes and his mouth, things you don’t know how to put into words but that strike you as profound all the same.

“Your business, is it… Did something happen?”

A shadow passes over him, then, that flicker of something cold and distant that you’ve seen only once or twice before. He nods thoughtfully. “You could say that.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

His mouth curls into a frown. You might almost consider it a gesture of concern. “And make you worry needlessly? There’s nothing you could’ve done even if I had.” He looks over your shoulder again, surveying the room, his throat bobbing near your eye level. “I could ask the same of you, but I’d wager I already know the answer.”

You huff, irritated and frustrated and a million other things, turning so he’s behind you as you open your dinner. “It’s not what you think. I didn’t come here for the money.”

The toe of his shoe nudges into your back, drawing your attention. “You let that recruiter talk you into it?” Young-il tsks. “What have I told you about talking to strangers?”

He’s only teasing, of course. You know that. But even as a joke, the words hit too close to home. You’ve never told him about your encounter with the ddakji recruiter. You’ve never told him about how you met Gi-hun. You’ve never told him that since coming to Korea, every problem you’ve faced has arisen in part because you were stupid enough to engage with a stranger. Before now, you never had any intention of telling him any of it.

You eye the dinner tin in your hands. It smells good enough, but you still feel a bit queasy. You’re not sure if you’ll be able to keep it down or not.

“It wasn’t the recruiter that got me here.” It’s easier to tell him when you can’t see his face, for some reason, when you’re pretending that it doesn’t rip you apart just to admit the truth. Poking your utensil at the rubbery looking egg in your tin, you let out a sigh. “Someone took me.”

The muscles in his calf go tight against your back. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I was kidnapped. One of them.” You nod in the direction of the dinner line. “The men with the masks.”

His voice is softer when he replies. “You didn’t call the number like the rest of us?”

“No. I promised Gi-hun that I wouldn’t, but I guess… I guess it didn’t matter, in the end.”

Glancing down at your food is a challenge, actually eating it is even harder. It tastes like sawdust in your mouth and the instant it hits the back of your throat, you gag, very nearly spitting everything out on the floor. You don’t, thankfully, but it takes a long swig of water to ensure that the food stays down.

“Why would the soldiers want to kidnap you?” he asks once several long minutes have passed. You can hear the low clinking of his dinner tin behind you as he presses the lid shut.

Your first instinct is to claim ignorance, and it wouldn’t even be a lie if you did. You have no connection to these games, no desire to play, and no reason to stay. Gi-hun provides you with everything you need. But that’s just the problem, isn’t it? Gi-hun is the sole connection you have – you shredded the ddakji woman’s business card ages ago, the night you swore to never play the game again, and you shredded the last one too.

Your attention narrows in on a single grain of rice, as if it holds all the answers you seek. “I can’t help thinking it’s because of who I know,” you admit, reluctantly.

You glance up and over your shoulder in time to see Young-il fixing his eyes on something across the room – Gi-hun. “Player 456?”

You nod quietly in agreement.

“Isn’t he the one who’s played before?”

Another nod.

“So, he’s a friend of yours, then.”

The distant recollection of a night long since passed floats across your mind’s eye. That night seems so long ago now. Sure, it’s been a couple years, but it feels like even longer now that you’re here, as if the businesswoman and the ddakji are memories of another life.

“He warned me about this place, told me he didn’t want me dragged into all of this. That’s why I called you, you know – that one time, a few months back? I thought someone from this place had killed him and you were the only person I could think of to go to when I thought he was gone. And then last night, before the soldier, he came to say goodbye and I thought…”

You’d thought a lot of things. But you hadn’t thought of something like this ever happening.

“I guess it doesn’t matter what I thought. I’m stuck here now.”

It isn’t something that you mean to imply, but there’s an unspoken ‘no thanks to you’ that haunts the space between you. It’s not entirely his fault. Young-il has his own problems that he has to work through, that much is clear, and he has no way of knowing all the chaos going on in your personal life. If you have blame to place, it can’t rest solely on his shoulders, but that doesn’t make the reality of his vote any less painful or disappointing.

The stairs behind you groan as Young-il stands, the long shadow cast by the overhead lights falling lengthwise across your body. “You know,” he begins, steadily easing himself to the ground level on step at a time, “if your friend has played before, maybe we stand a better chance at winning the next round.”

Huh. That hadn’t even occurred to you. You were so busy being scared out of your mind that you hadn’t stopped to think there might actually be some hope. It’s slight, of course, and mostly obscured in your mind by the splatters of blood and lifeless bodies you saw on the field today, but the hope is there nonetheless. If you can survive the next round, then…

“Do you think there’ll be another vote?”

“Yes,” he nods, “after each game.”

Your shoulders suddenly feel a little lighter. “Then we could make it long enough to get out of here, vote a second time and go home.”

Young-il purses his lips in consideration. “Maybe.”

Before he can elaborate any further, a shout echoes across the room. It starts somewhere over his shoulder, near the middle or front of the room where a group of three younger men have gathered. You and Young-il both turn toward the sound just in time to see one of the men fall to the ground while the other two loom over him, slamming their feet into his body over and over again, and every time he tries to stand, they smack him down. They’re hitting him hard. The man on the ground isn’t fully screaming, but he’s clearly in pain.

You’re on your feet before you even realize it. There’s nothing you feel you can do, not without risking one of the attackers turning their vengeance onto you, but it flips your stomach to see someone being beat so mercilessly. You cast a quick glance around the room – none of the other players nor any of the soldiers stationed near the doors look inclined to intervene.

“God, they’re gonna kill him,” you mutter, more in disbelief than anything else. Isn’t someone going to stop them?

Someone, apparently, means Young-il. When he first moves, you think he’s trying to get a closer look. Because of course he’s intrigued by the violence, you think with a slight roll of your eyes. God forbid he, or anyone else here, do something actually useful, but he surprises you. Instead of observing, he acts.

“Boys, what are you doing in the middle of dinner?” His voice cuts through the cursing and the flurry of fists and feet against skin. One of the men left standing, the one with the purple hair, glowers at him as he approaches. “No fights during mealtime. There are elders present. Mind your manners. And two against one? Aren't you embarrassed?”

You’ve… never heard him speak like that before. With you, he’s often quite easygoing, soft when he needs to be and rarely ever stern unless he’s concerned about something. But with these men, he does speak sternly. His body moves with the ease of a man who has no doubts about his own strength or perception.

The man with the purple hair – Thanos, you think you’d heard – curls his mouth into a sneer. “You're lecturing me when you ended up in this shithole too?” As he advances on Young-il, you’re immediately taken aback by the amount of disrespect – he’s gesturing rudely, swaggering into Young-il’s personal space, quirking his eyebrows as if to suggest that there’s nothing about Young-il that he takes seriously. “Dude, stop running your mouth and take care of your own damn kids.”

You’re so stunned, you almost forget to breathe.

Young-il is equally surprised. Even from far behind him, you can see the way his body stills. “What did you say to me?” You can’t see his face, but honestly, you don’t need to. You can hear it all in his voice, can read it in the line of his shoulders.

“I said save the lecture for your own damn kid–”

The speed with which his arm shoots out is startling. You don’t even see it, really. One moment, Thanos is yapping his face off, and the next, Young-il has his fingers digging into the tendons of his throat. He twists his arm just so and the other man bends unnaturally at the waist to accommodate him. Then the other player – 124 – surges forward with a swear and you feel your heart leap into your throat, terrified your friend has just gotten himself into a fight that he cannot possibly win, but then Young-il kicks him in the shin and 124 goes sprawling on his back.

When you’d asked yourself if someone would do something to stop those two, this isn’t what you’d had in mind. Young-il isn’t ancient or decrepit by any means and he clearly thinks he can handle himself, but these men are younger than he is. What if he gets–?

His fist smacks right into Thanos’ chest, doubling him over as Young-il takes the opportunity to loom over him instead. This will be it, you think, a surprisingly swift punch to the sternum and it’ll all be over. He’s already proven himself, already made a fool of both these players.

Thanos raises a hand quietly, begging for him to stop. Only he doesn’t. Your feet are already carrying you to the floor, your dinner abandoned as you watch Young-il grab his hand, twist, and use the momentum to slam the other man into the ground. For a moment, they’re both frozen like that, Young-il lowered onto one knee with his fist raised while the other chokes and squirms helplessly beneath him.

You’re no longer worried about the poor player that had started this whole fight, you’re worried about the man who had attacked him. He’s choking and Young-il won’t let go. You can see his entire body shaking, his face flushing as his mouth twitches, his fist rising higher. He’s gonna kill him instead.

“Young-il!”

There’s no way he can’t hear you, but you’re terrified that he’ll ignore you anyway. He wouldn’t kill this guy, would he? He doesn’t seem the type. But the grip he has on Thanos’ throat is too strong, too intentional, and you’re just about to rush in and pry him off the man when he finally lets up. The other player takes a deep gasp, hands clawing at his neck as he recovers the breath Young-il had squeezed out of him, and then the entire room is bursting with applause. For the life of you, you cannot fathom why.

How long have you known him now, a couple years? Never, not once, in all that time has he ever said or done a single thing to make you look at him as anything other than what he is – your friend, a lover of coffee and fine art, a dedicated businessman with a tragic past and a penchant for terrible jokes. He was and always has been Oh Young-il, nothing less and nothing more. But as he clambers to his feet, his head bowed bashfully as he accepts the praise offered to him, you find yourself wondering if there isn’t just a bit more to him than he’s let on.

And though you’d never admit it, you’re also a bit… flushed. Seeing him react so effortlessly, witnessing the strength you never knew he had – it’s stirred up a bit of warmth in the pit of your stomach. You don’t really want to consider what that says about you.

He returns to you some moments later with his eyes averted. There’s something lingering on his tongue, perhaps an explanation, but he seems hesitant to give it and you’re equally hesitant to ask for it. Still, you’d be a fool to overlook how deeply Thanos’ words had affected him.

“Are you alright?”

Young-il nods as he passes, taking your attention with him. “I’m not hurt,” he assures you. He’s moved to pick up your dinner tray, as well as his own, stacking them on top of each other in his hands.

You reach for your water bottle before trailing after him, following his path to the front of the room where the trash cans are. “That’s not what I mean.” He’d told you to lecture your own kids, you think, and you snapped. He became someone else entirely, someone you don’t recognize, and that worries you. It also eerily reminds you of someone.

If he intends to respond, he shows no sign of it. He makes light work of your trays, emptying them of any leftover food before handing them and the utensils over to the nearest guard, a Circle Mask manning what remains of the dinner station.

“Young-il-nim.” You try to catch his eye when he turns to you once more, but he’s remarkably evasive, which only serves to further unsettle you. “Are you going to ignore me, or…?”

And that, at last, is enough to grab his attention. His shoulders drop with the weight of his sigh. “What do you mean, [___]?” If you didn’t know any better, you’d actually think he was upset with you.

“I mean, you…” There’s a flash of fists in the back of your mind, of Thanos choking. “I’ve just never seen you do that before.”

He lifts an eyebrow, then, as his expressions shifts from irritation to derision. “Does it bother you?” he asks.

Is that what he thinks? That you’re bothered? “No. But I didn’t think you were going to stop and that worried me.” It’s more honest than you had intended to be and you feel stripped bare because of it, like Young-il can see right through you because of your vulnerability.

You wish you knew what he was thinking. While you’re at it, you wish understood your own thoughts just as much as you wish you could fathom his. This – beating a younger man to a pulp simply because you’d expressed concern over an unfair fight – feels like something you should’ve known about, though you can’t help feeling like that’s a pretty ridiculous expectation to have. When would it have been relevant to reveal his secret self-defense moves? And why? Is it even fair of you to feel wary of him when it was your instigation that had prompted him to act in the first place?

Something dark flickers in the very depths of his eyes, something you don’t understand, but it’s gone before you can linger on it. His attention settles just past your shoulder, in the direction you’d seen Gi-hun and Jung-bae go to pick at their meals, and then he looks to you once more. Whatever darkness you thought you’d seen is long gone.

“Why don’t you introduce me to your friend?”

Gi-hun and Jung-bae have settled in the far corner. You’d noticed earlier that some of the other players had gathered around them at one point, likely asking any number of questions now that they knew a previous winner had returned. They’ve even made a new friend, from what you can tell – a very expressive younger man with long hair, number 388 – though Gi-hun seems less enthused about the younger man’s presence than his friend does.

You have no reason to hesitate when it comes to introductions. Gi-hun is your friend as much as Young-il is, yet you still feel the pull of uncertainty in your gut at the idea. They’ve been separate for as long as you’ve known them. Young-il is more of a school friend than anything; the coffee dates (not that they’re dates because they’re not), your initial meeting, all of it had happened on campus. Gi-hun is your strangely wealthy friend who keeps to himself and lets you fire weapons in the depths of his abandoned motel. One of them is clearly more normal than the other. And only one of them has kissed you thus far, so there’s also that.

You try not to think about it. Every step you take brings you closer to Gi-hun, who has not pulled his eyes from you for more than a second, not since Young-il suggested the introduction. Every step brings both halves of your life closer and closer together, and you feel a bit nauseous because of it.

It’ll be fine. You don’t even have anything to worry about. It’s not like Young-il’s betrayed everything that Gi-hun stands for with a single vote. It’s not like Gi-hun still hasn’t addressed the fact that he kissed you last night and he’s about to meet the only other person in the world that you could possibly consider kissing after him. Not that you would.

Ah, shit. Here goes nothing.

If it’s shame that begs you not to lift your eyes in Gi-hun’s presence, then that’s something you’ll be keeping to yourself. “Young-il-nim, this is Jung-bae-nim and–”

“You said you've played these games before, sir.”

Your mouth is still hanging open, Gi-hun’s name still caught between your lips as Young-il quite literally talks over you. He’s never talked over you before, not ever. And neither does he stop. He waits only for Gi-hun’s acknowledgement – a hesitant inclination of his head – before finally continuing, and he doesn’t even spare you a second glance when he does.

“I pressed the O button because of you. Honestly, I was scared. I wanted to quit and leave. But you made me think maybe I could play just one more game.”

And you’re not offended in the least by his startling new rudeness. Not at all. Certainly not enough to snap your jaw shut with an audible click.

Jung-bae’s eyes suddenly alight with excitement. “Some of the other players said that!” He turns eagerly to his new friend with a grin, then nudges his elbow into Gi-hun’s ribs. “You see?”

Gi-hun is not amused and for once, you feel comforted by that. You don’t shrink when his gaze lingers on you, you return it confidently, if only because you’re less irritated with him than you are with Young-il. He braces his forearms atop his knees, his arms stretching out as he looks back and forth between you.

“If you had pressed the X,” he finally says, “everyone here would've made it out alive.”

Young-il hums lightly in response. “That's right. I was the last to press the O button,” and it’s remarkable, really, how unashamed he is to admit it. “But there were 182 more people who wanted to stay.”

“And there were also 182 people who wanted to leave. [___] included.”

Three sets of eyes settle upon you. Oh. You don’t like that. You don’t want to be brought into this discussion and you certainly don’t want Young-il to be looking at you like that, like he’s only just noticed you exist. You don’t like that everything you thought you knew has suddenly been flipped on its head, without rhyme or reason, and you don’t like that you’re left trying to fit the pieces back together entirely blind.

Gi-hun raises a brow. “You are friends, aren’t you?”

“We are.” He smiles and for the briefest moment, you feel like you’re watching a stranger rather than your coffee companion of two years. “But you’re a previous winner, Gi-hun-ssi. Why would you allow a friend to come here if it’s so dangerous?”

You don’t think much of him using Gi-hun’s name – why should you? But for Gi-hun, it seems to startle him. His eyes sharpen as they flicker across Young-il’s face, studying, searching, and then, “How did you know my name?”

You blink, pausing to look between the pair as you suddenly realize that you’re not sure you’ve ever explicitly used Gi-hun’s name before, not with him.

Young-il, to his credit, takes the inquiry in his stride. His smile falters for a moment as he tries to explain himself. “Oh, I… I heard [___] using it earlier, in line for dinner, and I thought I might try it.”

Did you? You can’t remember, though you aren’t sure that it really matters. You’ve loudly proclaimed Gi-hun’s name a handful of times since your reunion earlier today, so even if you hadn’t said it in line, it’s likely that Young-il noticed and made the connection himself. He’s always been perceptive like that.

Young-il leans in, his voice lowered and his face softened with an unspoken apology. “Does it bother you?” Just like he’d asked you only minutes prior.

A chill starts at the base of your spine. The air is thick with tension, both men gravitating toward one another as if there’s some grand competition going on that you’re entirely unaware of. You don’t like that either.

But before the tension can rise any higher, Jung-bae jumps in and attempts to diffuse the situation. His hands go fluttering about in the empty space between them, using some clever turn of phrase to smoothe out all the surface level ripples that have already transformed into waves rocking against your boat. A truce is formed, superficial at best, but it clears the air enough for you to breathe and for that, you’re grateful.

He keeps thinking about tomorrow. He keeps thinking about the sugary sweetness of dalgona on his tongue and the possibility of a pistol lodged against the base of his skull.

Gi-hun closes his eyes and takes a breath. It doesn’t change anything. The light from the pig lingers behind his eyelids as much as the thought of watching you bleed out and die does. The cool chill of a late night still clings to his bones, even among so many bodies. Or perhaps it’s Gi-hun who is cold. Perhaps he’s already dead and this is merely a delusion brought on by a half-sane mind in its final throes.

That would certainly be easier than the truth, wouldn’t it?

The stairs that lead to his bed creak beneath the weight of a foot, then another, and Gi-hun opens his eyes to see you standing close enough to touch. From this angle, the light doesn’t catch your face; you’re simply haloed, some bright and shining thing that he’s dragged with him into the pit of damnation.

“Hello.”

He hates that you sound so timid. You sound like the fragile student he once met in a snowy alley, not the passionate and bright-eyed person he knows you to be. But then, he supposes that it’s hard for you to find that spark he’s grown so accustomed to when you’re trying desperately to claw yourself out of a grave that is constantly demanding to swallow you whole. Unfortunately, he knows the feeling.

“Hello,” he replies. It feels forbidden to smile when he’s blockaded by memories and ghosts, but for you, Gi-hun finds that he can do all kinds of things. Even attempt a smile.

“Can I sit with you?”

Eyes darting first to the timer behind your head and then to the small stretch of open mattress by his feet, he nods haltingly, drawing his legs in so they’re folded atop on another. “Of course.”

There are no butterflies fluttering in his stomach when you sit on his bed. There’s no distant tremor in his hands or the drifting of his mind to far off places, imagining the sort of things he’d allowed himself only two nights ago. This isn’t the Pink Motel. He doesn’t know why he expects to feel the same stirrings in his gut that he usually does when he shares his space with you.

Then he remembers kissing you and he ducks his head in shame.

You take the far end of the mattress as expected, but it rather feels like you’ve placed yourself on the far end of a canyon. “I don’t want to talk,” you tell him, voice soft and uncertain. “I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t want to. I just… don’t want to be alone right now.” Your feet dangle listlessly over the edge of the bedframe. “I can’t sleep.”

Gi-hun recalls feeling the same way on his first night. So much of this is painfully familiar. He almost wonders if Sang-woo’s spirit is watching him now, studying him from somewhere among the beds or lurking in the Squid Game field. He keeps expecting to see him every time he turns a corner. What would he think of the man that he’s become? The mattress squeaks when you adjust your posture and Gi-hun suddenly finds it hard to breathe. What would Sang-woo think of you?

It doesn’t matter, he tells himself, so why does he care?

“I’m sorry.” Your apology draws him blinking from the recesses of his mind. “For everything. I know this isn’t what you wanted.”

Of course it isn’t, but why on Earth are you apologizing? “It isn’t your fault,” he starts.

“Maybe. But I still feel bad.”

Following the path of your attention leads him to a bed several paces away, closer to the main floor than his own bed. Your friend Young-il is settling in for the night, one of his legs drawn atop the mattress with the other hanging off as he contemplates something far beyond Gi-hun’s reach. And for the first time in months, probably since the night he followed your friend out of the university parking lot and all the way to his hotel, Gi-hun feels angry.

It’s a different kind of anger than the one he’d directed at you just today. That was an anger born of fear and helplessness and the realization that he’d put you in danger, born of his own guilt and his own affection for you. This? This is not that.

He’s not entirely sure what it is, but he knows that he feels it whenever you look at Young-il or Young-il looks at you. You have nothing to feel guilty for. You haven’t done anything wrong. It isn’t your fault that Young-il voted O and it isn’t your fault that you’re here, and he hates that you feel otherwise.

“You aren’t the one who should be apologizing.”

There’s more he could say, more that weighs on him, but he isn’t sure how to express it. He isn’t even sure if he should. What if he loses you tomorrow? And what if he doesn’t? What if the game isn’t dalgona? What if he’s the one who dies and you’re left alone with only Jung-bae and Young-il to protect you? A bitter piece of his heart flares up at the thought and he pretends not to think about what might happen if Young-il were to die instead because that’s not the kind of man he wants to be.

Instead, Gi-hun shifts around on the mattress until he’s mirroring your posture, his legs dangling over the side as he moves the pillow and blankets around. “Stay here tonight,” he says in response to your voiceless question.

Your eyes flash wide for a second. “With you?” And if he thinks that you sound either horrified or intrigued by the prospect, Gi-hun tells himself that it doesn’t matter either way.

“I’m not sleeping.” He’s going to be watching over you for as long as he can manage. It’ll be a good distraction and it will keep you safe, and he needs both right now more than he needs anything else. “It isn’t good for you to sleep alone here. And someone should keep watch.”

What little light is reflected in your eyes shimmers like water in a glass. “Watch for what?”

For the murderous bastards who like to take out their competition while they sleep, what else? But he doesn’t say that. He doesn’t want to scare you and he knows already that detailing the horrific possibilities of the Games right before you go to bed is a recipe for disaster.

“Sleep,” he insists. The bedding is nicely arranged now, as nice as he can make it for you, even though he wishes he could do more. What if you get cold in the middle of the night? What if you overheat in your jacket? Or you get thirsty? He can’t fix any of those problems. He can only give you his protection and pray that it’s enough.

Your protest is already half spoken by the time he’s drawing himself out of bed and prompting you into the space he’s just vacated. It takes some maneuvering and no small amount of whispered requests, far gentler than Gi-hun actually feels under the weight of his memories pressing in against his skull, but finally he manages to convince you to lay down. He tucks himself into the farthest corner of the bed, hoping that your legs have enough room, that you won’t mind him being so close for so long, and he watches the minutes on the display steadily count down.

There are less than ten minutes until lights out when Young-il decides to approach him. “Gi-hun-ssi,” he nods respectfully, his hands already pressing against his thighs as he takes the steps one at a time. His eyes wander over your sleeping figure and Gi-hun has to fight himself not to snap and make a fool out of himself simply because another man happened to look at you.

“Asleep,” he says, if only to fill the empty space with something other than his animosity.

Young-il nods in understanding. “I’ll be quiet, then.” A beat. “Could we talk?”

No. “Sure.”

The narrow space between rows of beds is taken up entirely by Young-il’s body. Perched upon the highest step, it places him at about eye level. Gi-hun’s not entirely sure he likes that. “I think I was out of line before,” Young-il finally sighs. “I'd like to apologize. I'm sorry.”

What he wants to do is tell your friend that he doesn’t care for, nor does he accept, his apology. What he wants to say is that he doesn’t like the way Young-il looks at you, all appraising eyes and quiet confidence, and he doesn’t like how Young-il has stolen almost all of your attention since the moment he appeared. He wants to say it all, but he doesn’t because his mother raised him better than that and Gi-hun has never been one to be purposefully rude except on very rare occasions.

This isn’t the time or place. So, he’s gracious. He bows respectfully to Young-il and allows the apology to settle in the space between them, even if the peace it offers is fraught. “No, I laid all the blame on you.” Even if I was right to do so. “I was out of line.”

And that, he hopes, will be the full extent of it – whatever it is. He’s not interested in having a full conversation with anyone right now, but even if he was, Young-il would be at the bottom of the list. He’s strange in a very off-putting way; quiet, observant, he makes you laugh sometimes, from what he can remember, and he’s able to fight off two younger men and make it look easy. That’s not normal. And then there’s the way that you had followed him during dinner like an alley cat chasing after scraps. You don’t do things like that.

“May I ask you something?”

It takes a minute, but Gi-hun eventually relents, inclining his head just slightly.

“Why did you come back to this place? You said you won and made it out.”

He swallows heavily. “I did.”

“Then why return? You got all the money, didn’t you? Did you spend it all?”

He spent some of it. He wanted so badly to let that money rot in the bank and to never touch a single won, but then Il-nam had happened. Then you had happened. Then so many things kept happening and he thinks that somewhere along the way, he lost sight of what he had set out to do. To remember, to protect.

“That money doesn't belong to me,” he mutters, and it’s like he’s back on the Squid Game field, watching the rain mix with the mud mix with the coppery tang of metal and blood. “It's blood money for the people who died here. The same goes for the money up there.”

“You don't have to think of it that way,” and where he expected to find judgement, he instead finds some gentle, understanding thing tucked behind the corners of Young-il’s words. “It's not like you killed those people and saving that money won't bring them back to life.”

Maybe it’s just the ghosts lingering in his head and his heart. Maybe he’s just a sentimental old fool, but there’s something about the way Young-il says it that reminds him of Sang-woo. He closes his eyes and wishes, probably for the millionth time, that he had been the one to die here three years ago, not Sang-woo. Not Ssangmun-dong’s golden child.

Young-il exhales through his nose, drawing Gi-hun’s attention and prompting him to open his eyes again. Where there had once been a glint of determination, now Gi-hun sees something far more vulnerable. It’s suspiciously disarming. “Not all of us have the luxury of mixing our morals with our money, Gi-hun-ssi. Some of us,” he says, and his voice begins to waver, “are forced to play the hand we’re dealt, blood money or not.”

Curiosity gets the better of him. “And what sort of hand were you dealt?” It isn’t asked unkindly. Gi-hun recognizes regret when he sees it and there’s no need for him to be cruel, but he does want to know.

Silence expands between them, permeating every atom of space until it’s so overwhelming Gi-hun thinks he might collapse beneath its weight.

Finally, Young-il speaks. “My wife.” And Gi-hun suddenly feels like he’s going to vomit. All this time, he’s been seething over a married man who happened to have befriended you. What kind of asshole is he?

“My wife was very sick. Acute cirrhosis, the doctors said, and she needed a liver transplant.” The slight waver in his voice becomes stronger, fluctuating as Young-il finds the strength to continue his explanation. The explanation Gi-hun demanded of him. Now he suddenly wishes he’d never opened his mouth to begin with. “When she was going through the tests, we found out she was pregnant. The doctor suggested a termination, but she wouldn’t listen. Said she'd give birth even if it killed her.”

Gi-hun realizes with a start what Young-il’s clenched jaw and sudden stillness means. He knows because he’s been there before, forced to pour his grief out to whichever person demands a little too forcefully to know what haunts him in the late hours of the night. God, he’s such a prick.

“I couldn’t save them,” he says, and his voice finally gives way. Unshed tears catch in the glow of the money pig and Gi-hun feels like he’s just had his throat torn out. “I need that money to pay off the debts. The hospital bills, the funerals – it costs something, Gi-hun-ssi. Perhaps it is blood money, but it’s still money.”

He can’t imagine. In some ways, he doesn’t have to. Ga-yeong is still alive and he stopped loving his wife a long time ago, but they’re no longer a part of his life. They may as well be dead to him – he knows he’s dead in their eyes anyway. Just another corpse slipping through the cracks of a broken world.

I’m so sorry. He doesn’t have to like Young-il to say it and mean it, but even still, the words stick in his throat. Just moments ago, he had imagined this man dead on his back, unable to touch you or taint you. He’d let his personal feelings get in the way of what really mattered. Young-il could pull a knife on him this very moment and it still wouldn’t justify anything that Gi-hun’s thinking or feeling about him, and he needs to remember that. He needs to remember what he’s here for.

He glances over at you, watching your face as you snore lightly. It’s a poor imitation of a similar situation that feels so far away now, it can only be a dream. The motel. His bed. You, safe and secure. His. That had never been the plan. But then again, he’d never had a plan when it came to you. For all the good it did you both.

He shouldn’t have kissed you. He wanted to, but he shouldn’t have done it in the first place. It should have stayed a secret desire known only to the depths of his shattered soul and the bullet he still deserves to bite. All it’s done is complicate matters. It’s made him twitchy and on-edge, made him grind his teeth down to the bone and search for enemies where there are none. It’s made him turn on a man who could very easily have been a friend if he weren’t so busy being blinded by his own desires.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he’s relieved that the words finally come.

Young-il merely shakes his head. He’s probably heard the same turn of phrase too many times to count by now. “It’s forgiven.”

The timer overhead flashes a one minute reminder and just like that, the spell is broken. Reality comes crashing down upon shoulders. There’s an awkward exchange of glances and half-hearted smiles, murmured farewells, and then Gi-hun is left with his legs dangling off the side of his own bed and the sound of your steady breaths.

The lights click out.

Slowly, so as not to wake you, he leans his weight back against the bedframe and positions himself so he’s facing the wide-open stretch of floor in the center of the room. The X and O carved there are the only lights that still remain, casting his surroundings in faint shades of blue and red, so faint that he can hardly make anything out.

He sighs. It’s going to be a very long night.

In-ho watches the soldiers as they work. It’s strange to be here once more, to be a part of the Games after so long. When he had made the decision to enter, it had mostly been on a whim, an impulsive choice driven from the frantic desire to control, to break, to bend you, Gi-hun, and the Games to his will. He hadn’t stopped to consider all the additional benefits he might reap from this harvest.

Already, a ridge has formed between you and Gi-hun. Something changed in him last night, In-ho had seen the shift, though he still doesn’t know what to make of it. Gi-hun had allowed you to sleep in his bed – and how common a recurrence is that, exactly? – but has hardly spoken a word to you since. Every time you try to meet his eyes, he smiles faintly, nods, and withdraws into himself, and the pain of that dismissal is written all over your face.

That hadn’t been entirely intentional. It is beneficial, no matter how confounding, and he plans to utilize it as best he can because Thanos rattled him last night. That bratty remark about his children had sent him over the edge and it had only been the sound of your voice that was clear enough to cut through the maelstrom of his fury, to bring him back to himself. That had rattled him too and, much like the gallery, In-ho had handled it poorly. He was too short with you, too fixated on a philosophical spar at Gi-hun’s expense, and had unintentionally pushed you away as a result.

He needs to fix that. Curious how the opportunity presents itself almost immediately.

The arena is presented, the instructions are given, and the timer is set. Gi-hun is entirely unprepared.

“Aren't we playing the dalgona game?” demands another player – number 100, who In-ho is sure he saw lurking about and asking questions of Gi-hun over dinner yesterday. But what truly catches his attention is the mention of dalgona.

It takes everything he has within himself not to laugh. Had Gi-hun really expected all the games to be the same as before? While In-ho hadn’t anticipated that Gi-hun would be so keen to rejoin the Games, he and every other Front Man in the world prides himself on his ingenuity. It’s a part of the job description. VIPs aren’t interested in the same old tricks each year. It would be foolish – no, truly stupid – to assume that the Front Man would not alter the Games to discredit or disadvantage Gi-hun in his mission for vengeance.

“No,” Gi-hun finally says as he hangs his head, “it doesn't look like it.”

“What's the game then?”

Yes, Gi-hun, tell us what game should come next. Show us all how carefully thought through your plans are.

Dark eyes trembling with uncertainty flicker aimlessly across the stretch of dirt beneath their feet. “I'm not sure.”

So when Player 100 turns on Gi-hun and demands, “What? You said you’d done this before! Was that all bullshit?”, In-ho is not surprised. Players turning on one another is an inevitability that Gi-hun should have accounted for.

Still, his obvious discomfort and shame is another victory mark on the scoreboard In-ho hides at the back of his mind.

“I'm sorry,” he says, pleading for compassion from a man who has clearly never said a kind word to anyone in his life.

“Sorry won't cut it!”

Gi-hun is trembling now, his entire body flinching with every cruel word flung his way. He folds in on himself like a child folds under the weight of a parent’s belt, and In-ho watches. Will he not stand up for himself? Is he content enough in his self-loathing to take abuse from a man who would kill him in an instant if the opportunity arose?

“You talked like you knew everything! All these people believed your bullshit! What are you going to do, huh? Will you take responsibility?”

He thinks to insert himself into the fight, to diffuse the tension and endear himself further to Gi-hun and his cause, and perhaps even regain your trust in the process by defending the man you so clearly love. But for once in his life (or rather, for the second time), In-ho is too late.

“Excuse me, sir.” There is no feigned politeness in your voice, no deference to your elders in your words or tone. If anything, the tacked on ‘sir’ sounds more like a slap in the face than a term of respect. “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”

Player 100 blinks back his shock, tripping all over the practiced insults he is so eager to distribute. His face goes red and his mouth falls open, gaping like a fish, until he finally manages to compose himself a few moments later. “This has nothing to do with you.” He closes in on you then, and In-ho sees it before you do, all the rage that’s beginning to boil over, the quivering fists and bared teeth, and he feels the shock of it in his stomach.

“Then it has nothing to do with you either,” you retort, and you go so far as to take a step closer to the man. Are you insane? “You don’t get to talk to him like that.”

It isn’t instinct that drives him to press his chest into your back. It isn’t instinct that pushes him to glare a pseudo-bullet hole into 100’s head. It is simply the movement of a chess piece across the board. “That's enough,” he utters, and the word is final.

And he expects to be rewarded for it. It was a calculated move, intentional and deliberate down to the weight of his body against yours and the timbre of his voice. That’s why he feels so unmoored when, rather than turning to thank him, you immediately rush to Gi-hun’s side. That’s why he’s left blinking at the empty space you’ve left behind and wondering what crucial part of his plan he’d missed. There is no other reason for the taste of bile in his throat or the slamming of his heart against his ribcage. None.

He takes no pleasure in your rejection, either. That’s what he chooses to believe. When Gi-hun accepts your comfort for a few treasured moments only to then pull away when he’s had his fill, to not allow you to dote on him, your reaction is so immediate and so blatant that the entire group can see it. Jung-bae and Dae-ho at least have the courtesy to look away and offer you a second of privacy; In-ho does not.

You chose this and he wants you to know that he knows. He does not look away when your eyes land on him. He does not soften his gaze. Rather, he tilts his head as if to say, I stood up for you. What has Gi-hun done?

The next ten minutes are unbearably awkward. The five of you already constitute a team, so no need to search for any further additions. Dae-ho officially introduces himself, only to immediately stick his foot in his mouth by inquiring exactly how everyone knows each other. Your eyes land on In-ho, then slide over to Gi-hun, and none of them answers. If he were watching this from the observation deck, it might almost be humorous, but he’s not and it isn’t. In truth, it’s painful.

Jung-bae is in the middle of a remarkably boring re-enactment of the time he and Gi-hun had gone out for soju as teens when another player approaches. In-ho has never been so relieved by a distraction in all his life.

“Excuse me,” she says sweetly, “can I join you?”

Jung-bae already seems displeased by having his story interrupted, but he softens his frustration for the girl’s sake. “Sorry, we’ve already got five people.”

“Please.” She takes a step closer, pushing herself slightly into the loose arc the five of them have formed, and takes a turn looking at each person. There’s something about her that gives In-ho pause, something he can’t put his finger on. “Help me. I’m pregnant.”

The girl rests her hand on her stomach, just over the little swell of life below her ribcage, and for a moment In-ho is very far away. He sees the hospital bed, the IVs and faded scars of needle pricks along Min-jung’s arm, he sees her sallow face, and he feels the same blinding needing to protect, defend, defy. To save. It passes quickly enough, but leaves him off-centered and irritable. Vulnerable.

He casts his eyes to Gi-hun first, curious to see just how the mighty hero of the Games plans to handle the situation. He flounders, of course, and In-ho isn’t surprised. Jung-bae is the one to break the news, apologetic and kind, but with the weight of the world on his shoulders because they all know they’ve created a decent team. They all know what it means to turn her away. That’s why it surprises him when yours is the voice that rises in response.

“I can… I can find another team.”

He and Gi-hun both share the same exclamation. “What?”

Your face practically folds in on itself with the force of your emotions. You don’t hide your compassion very well, but neither do you hide your fear – you’re uneasy about leaving the security your team offers you, however false it may be, but you’re equally uneasy about putting a pregnant woman at risk. And while he would never admit it aloud, In-ho finds himself sympathetic to your predicament.

Gi-hun’s mouth is pressed into a thin line, his frustration written into every crease and dimple in his skin. “It’s safest for you to be with us,” he asserts, reluctantly.

“But Gi-hun-a, she’s pregnant!” As if Jung-bae hadn’t already elected to turn the girl away.

He looks to Gi-hun once more, studying, noting every twitching tendon and flicker of regret that cuts across his face. What will you choose, Seong Gi-hun? Which horse is most likely to win the race?

“It’s alright,” says the girl with her soft doe eyes and pregnant belly. In-ho does not see his wife in her. He doesn’t. “I’m sure I can find another group.”

“No!” you exclaim, scrambling forward to take her hand in both of yours. Then your voice drops, it softens and shakes with the certainty of your sacrifice. “No, you should stay with them. They’ll keep you safe.”

You guide her to stand in the perfectly sized space between himself and Gi-hun, your brows now furrowed as you seem to be searching inside yourself for something. Then your chin tilts up and your gaze lands on Gi-hun. Several seconds tick by as you survey his face, so raw and exposed in a way In-ho isn’t sure he’s ever seen on you before.

The cold slice of bitterness cuts across his lungs at the sight. What can Gi-hun do to save you beyond sacrificing someone from his own carefully constructed team? You should be looking at him like that. He is the only one here with the power to save your life, the only one who might possibly be swayed by your fear and desperation.

“Gi-hun-a.”

And something deep within In-ho’s stomach twists in delight. He knows better than to raise his expectations after the countless hundreds he has seen fight and die in this very room, but logic cannot always outweigh intrigue, not for him.

Jung-bae leans forward, casting his old friend a smile. Sweat is already beading along his hairline. “Let them both stay, Gi-hun-a. I’ll go find another team.”

That something in his stomach lifts higher until it’s crackling like a firework behind his ribcage. Another gamble. The stakes are higher, but so is the reward. The question is whether or not Gi-hun still feels inclined to betting on horses the way he once did. In-ho already knows the answer, but it’s Gi-hun’s self-realization he wants to see, the inward understanding and acceptance that In-ho found for himself years ago. Which of your pawns will you sacrifice first, and which of them will come back when the clock runs out? Who deserves to live, Gi-hun? And who deserves to die?

It is Jung-bae who makes the decision in the end, and the loss of Gi-hun’s conflict is admittedly disappointing, but the Game hasn’t started yet. There is still victory to be found and In-ho will find it. The Front Man always does.

Ddakji. Biseokchigi. Gonggi. Spinning top. Jegi.

You’ve never played a single one. There are games that are similar enough in your home country, but the rules or the materials are slightly different. Different enough that you don’t have nearly as much confidence in your ability to successfully play any of these games as you wish you did.

Ddakji is a blatant no. Even though you’d managed well enough against that businesswoman all that time ago, it still feels wrong to play. You promised Gi-hun you never would again and that suits you just fine. The pregnant girl, Jun-hee, takes it, much to your relief.

Gonggi goes to the boisterous gentleman, Dae-ho. He says he grew up playing it with his sisters and seems confident in his skills, which is more experience than the rest of you have put together.

“That leaves biseokchigi, spinning top, and jegi.” Gi-hun looks to you. “Which do you think you’d be better at?”

You try very hard not to look as deeply panicked as you feel. “Which one’s the easiest?” It’s not a question that inspires very much confidence, you know that, but in truth you’re not sure you’d be very good at any of them.

Young-il and Gi-hun share a rather pointed look, which doesn’t help your confidence in the slightest. Defeat already feels imminent. You should’ve picked another team, at least that way your friends would be more likely to survive. Jun-hee and her baby, too.

“Don’t say that,” Young-il chides when you find yourself admitting as much. He rests a gentle hand upon your shoulder. “We’re a team, [___]. We’ll work together.”

“That’s right,” Gi-hun nods. “Why don’t you watch the first round and see how they’re played? You can decide which one is best for you.”

And it would have been such a brilliant idea if the first team to go hadn’t been brutally slaughtered. And the second team too. How are you meant to have any faith in yourself when the Korean-born players ahead of you keep getting themselves shot because they can’t throw a damn rock? You haven’t even had a chance to see jegi played yet because no one has made it that far.

“Don’t panic.” But no amount of kind and quiet compassion from Gi-hun, or even Young-il, is enough to calm your nerves. “[___]. [___], look at me. Look.”

You hesitantly lift your eyes to meet his. For a moment, all you can see are the bodies dropping to the floor behind him, the blood, you can hear the screaming and the gunfire. But then he reaches for your hands and holds them tightly.

“Think back to when you were a child. What kinds of games did you play? What were you good at?”

You try very hard to do as he asks. At the very least, it’s a distraction from the death that looms all around you. Searching your memories doesn’t offer as much hope as you would’ve liked – nights spent playing board games or reading, or the few activities you were decent at when you would go to recess. There’s not much that transfers over. Until, quite suddenly, you remember something.

“I used to skip rocks,” you tell him, a smile finally winning over the despair that’s been clinging to you like a second skin. “At the lake. I was good at it, too. That’s close enough to biseokchigi, isn’t it?” Just by watching the other players, the actions look comparable enough. It takes a certain amount of precision to make a rock skip smoothly over the water, as it takes a certain amount of precision to hit a target.

Gi-hun nods amicably. “Good. That’s good.” He squeezes your hands one last time before finally releasing them and you miss his touch immediately. He keeps you grounded whenever he’s near. “Young-il-ssi. Which one are you better at – jegi or spinning top?”

“I’ll take whichever you pick for me, Gi-hun-ssi.” There’s a softness to his voice, something that you wouldn’t have expected to hear in the midst of all this bloodshed. But Young-il continues to surprise you, as he has since you met him.

Gi-hun seems as surprised by Young-il’s deferment as you are, though he doesn’t speak on it. You can see him trying to work it out in his head before finally giving up. “Then… I’ll take jegi.”

The decisions are made just in time for the next round of teams to start playing. You can’t make out the team on the opposite end of the room, but you recognize one of the players on your side – Hyun-ju. She’s teamed up with several others you haven’t spoken to yet, but the mother player and her son are with her. That’s good. They all seem to have a good head on their shoulders and while you aren’t happy that Hyun-ju voted O, you don’t want her to die either. You end up rooting for her louder than any of the others on her team.

It's a close call. The woman playing spinning top makes several mistakes when it’s her turn and it very nearly costs the entire team their lives. There are several stretches of awful, agonizing seconds where you forget to breathe. So many people have already died today. You don’t want Hyun-ju to die, you don’t want her team to die. You want to believe there’s even the slightest glimmer of hope for the rest of you.

They make it to jegi. Everyone turns around. There are only seconds left on the clock. You can’t look. You can’t bear to watch their bodies get riddled with bullets. Everyone around you is shouting and jumping, and then the clock runs out and there’s no gunfire, no bullets, no blood sprayed across the rainbow track.

You open your eyes to see one of the soldiers unlocking the restraints on Hyun-ju’s ankle. And then you feel Dae-ho jerking you by the shoulder and spinning you around so he can hug you. They’re alive. Jun-hee looks up at you with the truest smile you’ve seen on her yet. You don’t realize until your eyes start to sting that you’re crying.

They’re alive. There’s hope!

Things don’t seem so bleak after that. More players die, yes, but more players survive too. You have to keep your chin up so you don’t fall back into your despair. Despair won’t keep you alive. You and Dae-ho huddle together at one point so he can practice his gonggi skills. Jun-hee sits quietly beside you both with a hand on her stomach, content to watch you both. You try to strike up a casual conversation with them, something to draw your minds away from the dwindling player numbers, but your heart isn’t really in it. Neither is theirs. You’re all too preoccupied to care that much.

When he takes a moment to think on it, In-ho is genuinely surprised to realize that he’s enjoying himself. When another team wins, the celebration is contagious. More than once has he found himself grasping at Gi-hun’s shoulder, his mouth cracked open to laugh and shout, his heart pounding with the joy of community and the relief of hope.

Hope.

He sees it on your face as clear as day. As often as he has found himself cheering and clinging to Gi-hun, he has felt you do the same to him. Both of them, in fact. Your smile has seared itself into his brain, your hands have clutched at his jacket and Gi-hun’s shoulder, and In-ho has found himself truly lost to the rush of it all.

The Games hadn’t been like this when he had been the victor. There was no camaraderie in the arenas he’d spilled blood in. Hope was a fleeting thing for him even then. He’s amazed at just how much can change in the span of a few years, aided by the illusion of friendship.

Jung-bae’s voice calls across the courtyard, then, drawing the entire team’s attention. “Hey!” He lifts his arm high in the air as one of the soldiers latches his ankle in place. “We'll see you again at the finish line!”

In-ho very highly doubts that.

“Yes!” cries Dae-ho, a bit too loudly for his tastes. It makes his ear ring. “We'll see each other again!”

“Gi-hun-a!”

In-ho can feel Gi-hun’s body go tense against his, his shoulders suddenly rigid as he smiles bittersweetly at his friend. In-ho already knows what he’s thinking; likely, it’s the very thought he’d had when faced with the possibility of being separated from you – that he can’t control the outcome of the game if you’re out of his reach.

For the sake of the game, though, he pretends to care. “I believe in our team,” he says as Dae-ho loops one arm in his and Gi-hun does the same with the other. He smiles. “Both our teams. Plus, we have the previous winner with us.”

Suddenly, you lean forward and gesture frantically to get his and Gi-hun’s attention. “Let’s not rush ourselves, okay? If we try walking too fast, we’ll trip and fall and that’ll waste time. Yeah?”

In-ho finds himself nodding. He finds that his smile is a touch more genuine. “Good plan,” he nods, and Gi-hun is quick to agree.

One of the soldiers raises their pistol in the air. In-ho’s heart gets caught somewhere between his stomach and his shoes.

Bang!

Ddakji comes first. The girl gets it on her first try and he’s elated. He swallows up the rush of adrenaline that her success brings and goes blindly chasing for more, his vision tunneling around  the stone you’re meant to throw.

“Take your time.” He doesn’t mean to say it, doesn’t plan or rehearse it, it just comes out of him as naturally as anything else might.

Dae-ho nods eagerly beside you. He’s wringing his hands as he tilts out of your way, pressing his shoulder against In-ho’s. (Strangely, he finds he doesn’t mind it.) “Yes! Deep breaths, [___]! You’ve got this!”

But you’re already waving your free hand in his direction. “Ah, quiet, quiet! Let me think!”

The arena falls quiet save for the thundering of In-ho’s pulse and the steady, measured pace of your exhalations. You lower yourself into a partial crouch, feet wide, elbow out, and your lips parted. One second ticks by. Then another. Your shoulders rise and fall with another deep breath and then–

The intercom blazes to life. “Fail.”

Shit.

“It’s okay, it’s okay! We still have time!” Gi-hun exclaims. He’s pointing wildly at the clock and In-ho is grateful for it because it reminds him of where he is, who he is. Not even a full minute has passed yet. Everything’s going to be fine.

It takes about fifteen seconds to retrieve the stone and march back to the starting point. One minute gone, four minutes to go. He might be a bit nervous, but he isn’t truly worried. A lot can happen in four minutes. And besides, he gets a rare chance to study you now. Watching you calculate your next move, cataloging the distance between yourself and the target stone, hefting the weight of the other rock in your hand as you think – it’s exhilarating.

You’re about to throw again when his eyes drop and he practically lurches forward, almost pulling everyone off balance so he can swing his arm out in front of you. “[___], your feet!”

You were standing directly on the line. It would have disqualified your throw and wasted even more time. Self-preservation. Survival instinct. That’s all it is. So why does he get such a buzz from wondering what might have happened if he hadn’t said anything at all? How your face might have contorted when you suddenly realized you’d doomed your entire team?

He loses the opportunity to know for sure when both stones go tumbling top over bottom and the soldier for this station raises their arms overhead. “Pass.” Even so, he cheers just as emphatically as everyone else.

They march steadily on. The entire team drops into a crouch. You and the pregnant girl lean into one another and In-ho does the same on Dae-ho’s other side. His knee knocks against Gi-hun’s and rather than pull away, he embraces it. Camaraderie. Fellowship. Hope. It’s as thrilling to embrace them once more as it is to level a semiautomatic at a traitor’s head and squeeze the trigger.

Dae-ho rubs his hands together. His fingers are deft, his body light, and in seconds – seconds – he’s flawlessly performed each round of gonggi and elevated them to the next part of the challenge. In-ho cheers for that too, and it’s the truest thrill he’s felt in years.

Spirits are high as they round the track. He can hear you and Gi-hun chanting in time, can hear Dae-ho’s excitable mutterings. He can even feel himself smiling again. Apart from your initial slip-up, things are going perfectly and there’s still almost three minutes left on the clock. It’s just such a shame that the VIPs crave a bit of excitement, isn’t it?

The twine is slick with blood and sweat when he picks it up. The top itself is slightly dented along the edge and its lower point dulled after too many landings, but it’s still useable. He had ensured as much himself just last night, but the others don’t know that. As far as any of them know, Young-il could be horrific at spinning top. Young-il could be the one to get them all killed.

He transfers the top into his non-dominant hand and with a flick of his wrist, the top goes sprawling onto its side.

Gi-hun squeezes his arm amicably. “It’s alright. We still have time, Young-il-ssi. Everyone! One, two, one, two, one–”

He restrings the top, stopping only to spare the timer a glance. Nearing the two minute mark, which means he has enough time for one more delay, maybe two if he’s fast enough. He pushes Gi-hun out of the way – rather nicely, actually, all things considered – and positions himself accordingly. He doesn’t even mean to toss it backwards like that.

“Shit, I’m sorry–”

“Ah, it’s okay,” Gi-hun mutters, even though it’s not, even though his voice is wracked with tremors.

He smiles when he hears your voice, how you’re trying to offer him a bit of encouragement but it falls flat because you don’t think he can do it. Because you’re afraid. Because you believe more in Gi-hun than you do in him.

That’s alright, he thinks. Assuming he doesn’t get you killed in the next two minutes – and he knows he won’t because he’s planned for that too – he’ll be able to teach you a decent lesson in patience and faith.

A minute thirty. He has time enough.

In-ho blinks dejectedly at the top in his hands. His heart is caught in his throat. Even when he screams, even when he slaps himself so hard that it makes his ears ring, it sits there like a lump of food that refuses to go down. And he chases that feeling too, allows the dread to settle in his stomach and run cold through his veins.

“You goddamn idiot! You fucking idiot! What’s wrong with you, huh?”

Voices are clamoring over one another. Hands are scrambling and bodies are leaning away. The timer ticks down another few seconds and In-ho fights the urge to smile because there you are. Eyes wider than ever before, your mouth and brows puckered with concern as you reach across Dae-ho’s body and try to soothe him. Gi-hun beats you to it, of course, but he gets what he wants in the end.

“Pass.”

He’s never found jegi nearly as interesting before as he does now. He doesn’t know where to look. He wants to capture it all, every fleeting micro expression and frantic breath, every tense muscle and colorful swing of the jegi. The last non-adrenalined, partially composed piece of his brain that still functions notes the idea of rewatching the game footage once he returns to his apartment. And then he’s not really thinking of anything logical or composed at all because he’s shooting his foot out to save the day, to save his own life (he doesn’t need to), your life (he doesn’t need to), to save Gi-hun, Dae-ho, and the pregnant girl’s lives (he doesn’t need to, but he does it anyway).

“Pass.”

The finish line comes into sight, a pink band that breaks across his chest. How strange to think that such an insignificant thing can make the difference between life and death. How strange to find himself crying out in the embrace of a friend and finally, finally, feeling alive.

And then he sees that flash of pink in the distance. Guns raised, legs stanced. He meets Park Jung-bae’s eyes for a fleeting moment before the gunfire starts, and then the only thing he can hear is Gi-hun’s throat ripped raw from the force of his own grief.

[crimeronan]

im a teenager with seasonal depression and a shitty fatigue causing disability and adhd currently still in highschool and: the way you talk abt minors right to autonomy, and How School Sucks, and everything related to that is. The Most Soothing Shit i hear all day. like. reading some of your posts abt how Good graduating early and being a Problem Child was for you was So Damn Calming.

most ppl immediately go to sooth me with the "but you Are smart, and you just need to try harder!! your life isnt entirely ruined today :) just go to school tomorrow and be Good and Learn and you'll be fineee. you aren't one of the bad ones, Dont Worry :))" and that makes me. invent new types of panic attacks and neuroses on the spot.

but having an Actual Adult whos like "no. school can infact be the fucking Torture pit for some people and it is So Utterly Fucked Up how Anyone can make you do Anything, actually. you arent a bad or damaged person this is Normal and your value isnt dependant on Schooliness. do whatever makes you least likely to kill yourself. you dont owe them shit, especially not being Good. be a problem, take up space."

is. genuinely the nicest thing Ever. to me. like. Makes me Kinda Want To Cry nicest thing ever. anyway yea. thanks for that.

ahh, this is lovely to hear. but i'm so sorry you're going through this.

i remember being in high school in 2011 when the gay teen suicides were national headlines, and everyone had Opinions on it, and the "it gets better" trend was everywhere, and -- while those videos did do a lot of good!! -- they just kind of made me more furious?? because i was so mad at all these adults basically saying, "yeah, high school is an institutional pit of death and horror, but eventually you'll be 18!!" i was like hey. Help Us Now.

it was actually the song "make it stop" by rise against that gave me any peace or sense of belonging, because. here was a band i loved full of straight dudes (as far as i know, anyway) who were just fucking MAD. they were righteously angry!! they gave a fuck what was happening!! and lyrics like "the gatherings hold candles but not their tongues" rang SO true to me, as someone who was dealing with endless "oh, so sad he died, but there was something wrong with his brain" discourse.

the memory of that has made it REALLY easy to hold onto my anger in adulthood. because sometimes kids don't need "it'll be fine, just hang on :)" they need "you're gonna be okay, but FUCK ALL THIS."

it's truly fucking Unconscionable to do what we do even to neurotypical, able-bodied teens with good home lives. i want to say i can't imagine being a teen with chronic fatigue and ADHD going to classes eight hours a day.... but i can!! i did that!! and almost died!!

i honestly think the lack of autonomy in the US school system is traumatic For Everybody. different levels of trauma, for sure! but i think that's part of why adults seem so disconnected from our teen years and can't remember the realities of being an adolescent. we overwrite the horrors.

the good news is: it Does get better after school. astonishingly so.

in the meantime: you don't owe anyone Anything. literally your only job right now is to survive. do whatever you need to do to not kill yourself or end up in jail. don't worry about anything else. i promise it Does Not Matter As Much As People Say It Does.

[amageish]

Why I think Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man's Nico Minoru is already a witch

I see some speculation about Nico potentially discovering her magical powers in the new Spider-Man show... I'd like to propose a different reading.

I think she already has them and is trying to avoid using them.

Looking at the prequel comic, there's a few extra details about Nico's life that haven't yet been mentioned in the show. She is confirmed to be in foster care, living with the O'Hara family (a reference to Spider-Man 2099), and is confirmed to be originally from LA, like she is in the comics. This suggests that her parents are already out of the picture.

She is also noted to have experiences dealing with mobsters.

From Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (2024) #1 Written by Christos Gage with art by Eric Gapstur and Jim Campbell.

She mentions a vague "we" when she discusses the mobs of LA and then warns Peter against trusting the police to deal with this problem.

From Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (2024) #1 Written by Christos Gage with art by Eric Gapstur and Jim Campbell.

All of this really makes me think some version of the events of Runaways (2003) has already happened in this universe. Nico and the Runaways discovered their parents were evil, their parents got arrested or killed, and Nico ended up moving to New York, looking for a fresh lease on life.

From Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (2024) #1 Written by Christos Gage with art by Eric Gapstur and Jim Campbell.

Now, in the show itself, she immediately is casting doubt on the morality of Norman Osborn, claiming anyone that rich must be up to shady things to maintain his wealth and power... That could be because her own parents were rich people who hid their super-villainy under a mask of philanthropy, just like Osborn does.

Furthermore, we know she is going to be sparking up a friendship with Harry Osborn in the coming episodes... Perhaps she could be helping him as he goes through the same traumatic realization that his father is evil that she went through with her parents back in LA?

I think Nico is a witch who is traumatized after the reveal that her parents turned out to be evil. She is looking for an all-new start and is trying to avoid using her superpowers... but will learn from Peter that she should use them to protect the people she loves - great power, great responsibility, you know the song and dance.

Furthermore, perhaps there was a reason the symbiote in episode one was attacking her specifically. Perhaps she will begin training under Doctor Strange, as she was recently established to have done in the comics in a flashback back-up story... Idk. We'll see!

[somereaderinblue]

Your Odysseus of Troy au made me remember a fun fact I discovered when I decided to look up gay relationships in Ancient Greece times

Now everyone probably knows that men sometimes had male partners in Ancient Greece, what most people don't know was that gay relationships was not all that and was actually really complex

Basically, the man who is the 'bottom' in the relationship was seen as to be the 'woman' in the relationship and not be a man in the eyes of Greece society (except for slaves as they weren't seen as human). There was also some weird ideas that if you were the 'bottom' you must be biologically female

Now I don't know about Troy, but it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to think that the Trojans also had the same mindset, which for Odysseus, is not great. He was taken from his homeland with his baby son, married and forced to sleep with someone against his will; yet no one thinks that is messed up and instead focuses on how Odysseus being with Paris does not make him a man and he probably wouldn't be accepted as one by the others in Troy except for Charis, Odysseus's handmaiden

Just the thought that Odysseus is treated as a woman because of his situation with Paris, which he did not consent to, is probably frustrating and a bit humiliating as Odysseus will most likely also not be treated the same after the Trojan war like before he was kidnapped

And if you want to go the route of t4t Odypen this would just mess with Odysseus as he would be thrown back to times before he transitioned with how most of Troy and Paris are treating him

Yes, one of many power plays Paris does is send Odysseus to sit with the rest of the women, i.e. wives, mothers & daughters, during gatherings. It was another bitter pill to swallow but not the most painful one; plus, it let him learn how to weave so he could feel closer to his wife.

Pre-transition, Athena's patronage fended off suitors & Anticlea herself wanted Ody to marry for true love. He wasn't 100% shielded from the uglier aspects that comes with being a woman & he's too sharp to not see the harsh truths behind any sugarcoating but he definitely had it better than most. Post-transition, his parents were supportive, Athena couldn't care less and even gave him top surgery, he had a kindred soul in Penelope & Ithaca's a close-knit community in gen that accepted him a prince who knew what he was doing.

TW: brief mentions of SA, abortion & body dysmorphia

He has none of that in Troy & Paris has made it clear he wants him knocked up. Luckily, Ody knows how to brew an abortifacient/contraceptive to ensure it doesn't happen, giving him some degree of control. He also tries to focus on Telemachus, messing with Paris & aiding Greek from the inside so he doesn't dwell on body dysmorphia.

And as much as I love happy endings, my traitorous mind also can't help but think of angsty long-term consequences like what you mentioned. Odysseus is traumatized, his reputation will never be the same & that's not even getting into what an older Telemachus will have to grapple with. Still, better to face those consequences than avoid them by staying in an even more miserable status quo.

[ammyamarant]

Kamen Rider Gavv ep 1 thoughts

Just going to watch one episode right now because I need to finish Kabuto and I need to Know what Kabuto has up its sleeve. But, the tl;dr of Gavv: Cute show, I can see how traumatized this poor kid will get by the end

Gavv ep 1

okay so I’m already reminded of W. Wonder if there will be a mentor figure that dies like Soukichi does in the first fucking five minutes of W

oh neat doors. I’ve seen Labyrinth too.

jfc how old is this kid he looks baby

yeet out of a plane and the tinkly “oh this is the world mom is from” music lmao

lbr considering the environment you just escaped from and the way you were happy to be freefalling because you were where your mom is from, I think needing some food is understating it.

"what do you have? Do you eat it?" has the same energy as my "what is gender? do you eat it?" joke

WHAT IS YOUR BODY MADE OF

Karakida I want your jacket. Give

Ah you have no communication skills. Understood

"This isn't a monster case" "So what is it?" "Woman fucking killed her own husband and shh keep your fucking voice down"

"today's harvest" and it looks like bloody organs. Hey I've seen 12 Hour Shift too.

oh you've never been allowed actual food have you

oh goddamn it I can hear Apollo aiming the dodgeball already

my dude. you got a tummy ache then gave birth to something. human women would kill for that to be their normal gestation cycle.

mm, cgi is kinda……………………

"hey now I've been fed actual food and have real energy I can make minions" yeah I mean that makes sense. People get all kinds of bodily processes back once they've been properly fed. Usually takes a while for their body to recover but hey you ain't human so I get it

this kid is so sweet and kind giving obvious main character (yeah I know it's shouma) a place to stay and some sweets to eat.

oh right the street drugs WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT HENTAI ASS THING

oh it's just a mouth. Wicked teeth.

Shouma is such a sweetheart

Also ye, I can see why Shouma is enchanted by sweets if his mom never let him have any of the family drugs.

excuse me I need to figure out a way to get into this world and beat down this addict before he hurts this kid

Shouma I would like a full rundown of what you can do because was that super speed and running perpendicular on a vertical surface? My dude? Answers?

Mm, sick monster design

Yeah, the monster and the kid both being like "hey what the fuck" to Shouma is fucking hilarious.

oh fucking ow

your mom turned into a bloody organ thing. Are we sure this isn't just a horror movie?

I feel like these minion things showing up saying "eat gummy!" shouldn't feel as threatening as they do.

OH GOD THE CRYING EYES. I'M HOWLING

"oh with the other one" lmao

I wonder what this show is like on edibles because the bright colours are fun and I had a blast watching Ex-Aid baked. Tho I'd consider that a little too on the nose considering the street drug metaphor of those dark candies

little dudes go somewhere safe that isn't under the fighting feet!

oh interesting so if he gets a lot of battle damage he can repair it by using another minion. Very neat. Wish more "battle damage" was repairable that easily. Looking at you, 3rd Birthday.

oh calling both of them monsters and Shouma just taking it is heartbreaking.

I'm definitely feeling the difference between Takaiwa and whoever the suit actor for Gavv is, but it's more "huh, that's a different way of doing the stunts" than anything bad. I do miss Takaiwa but that's mostly because he's a fucking legend. This guy's doing great, tho.

did… they repurpose the build driver for this?

takaiwa usually stood upright, even for meek characters like Ryotaro, while it seems like this guy's default stance is hunched over. iiiiiiiiiiiiiinteresting. Says a lot about Shouma in this form

okay I was about to say this Rider Kick is lame, but nah, it's pretty good.

Shouma you are sunshine and joy wrapped in ptsd. That's not even a joke I know you're fucking riddled with ptsd from just your memories of your mother alone

Shouma you are not Eiji stop being a hobo

Cute show.

[multifandom-nerds-blog]

Sakamoto Days 199!!!

They're so dumb and in sinc already. True father and son duo.

This page and the following panel. What does it all mean? That the JAA was already after Ando when Shin was a baby (and him?), before Ando dropped him of with Asakura? Although Shin does say that Ando is saying bullshit, we don't know what Shin means with that since we don't actually got to see what Ando was thinking about. (Except for trying to flee the country, which is already Andos plan.)

I do gotta add a theory I've had for a bit now. Which is that Shin was actually born with the powers, and that Asakuras chemistry simply activated them earlier than they would have otherwise. Don't know how likely that is though.

Ando points out the hypocrisy in telling someone who you can't kill while being an Assasin. Which is honestly fair, and Sakamoto doesn't even fight it, just asks where the bomb is. (And promptly goes to a straight attack.) And Shin does seem to know where the bomb is, like Taro points out later in the chap. Except maybe, could it be, that the bomb is just a bluff? Or Ando already figured out/knows that Shin can read minds after his reaction before (previous pic) and said something else? No idea. Again we are once not shown what Shin can read in Andos mind. Probably for a more emotional scene later, but who knows.

Sunglasses, Ikari, from the previous chapter attacks (with an anchor, of course, we are on a boat. Should have expected an anchor as a weapon, lmao.) And Taros instinct is already to just pick up Shin and run of with him in his arm. The fatherly instincts in him are to strong.

Meanwhile Shins trauma from being abandoned at a young age without any answers shines through strong. With, for now, the set believe that blood relation goes over anything. I can't tell if the panel of Taro is only him noticing Ikaris next attack, or if he's already thinking about what Shin is saying here. Never the less. He still immediately protects Shin, who at this point isn't a bystander, but still a kid and (for Taro at least) one that has got nothing to do with the job.

ALSO IKARI IS A CREEP. EWWWWW. GET AWAY FROM THE CHILD.

And while Taro is like constantly making sure that Shin doesn't die in all that chaos, ever since he meeting him, Ikari has no fucking issue to strangle (and assault because omg) a child. Just from the start of this flashback it's clear that Taro never liked killing when it wasn't neccesary, if at all. He saved him at first by just saying he would get rid of him infront of the thugs. He then keeps saving him over and over, even though Shin is a little shit and sends the shop owners after him. Telling him to either stay away from trouble in his way, "I'll be right back" - "don't get thrown overboard again" - from last chapter. (Even asking him if he's okay) I just really like this, seeing how despite the killing itself Taro always had something genuinly nice at him. Killing is work for him, nothing more. Not harming innocent bystanders isn't just a rule to follow, but something he deems right. Keeping a child safe in a fight, asking him "What's wrong?" and "you okay?" when the child looks sick? Even though he has obviously no idea how to act with a (traumatized) child?Just a natural instinct.

Between all that he even decides to apologise to Shin because he can't understand his feelings. He doesn't understand Shins internal struggles. However he's not just bursting out anymore that he's gonna kill Shins dad, because it made Shin upset before, and instead says that he's gonna keep the enemy busy and for Shin to escape. Again, telling him to get to safety. And In a way even telling him to just stay away from the underworld I think.

So in summary. Sakamoto Taro is an assassin here, killing is his job. But he so obviously believes that innocence exists. That other people are innocent. He also believes that you shouldn't harm children (after all children are supposed to be the most innocent). But Taro also doesn't see himself to ever be part of that. At least not yet I think.

[qoldenskies]

Poor CC Mikey really had a rougher time of unlocking his ninpo huh. Little bro becomes an adult by [checks notes] stopping his brother from a suicide attempt and then violently murdering a goddess in cold blood.

Like there IS something to say about the darkly hilarious duality of the brothers going through so much character growth in CC while also CONTINUOUSLY catching Ls

i guess there is one benefit to having all of your usual coping mechanisms under stress (leo through joking his way around it and trying to lighten the load, raph through fretting and consoling others and/or you know. smashing, mikey through brute forcing his way through it via relentless optimism) COMPLETELY gutted by such a hyper-specific circumstance built to deconstruct everything about you, and its that you literally cant do that anymore and you have to actually be honest about yourself

i think leo was the only one who really kept any act up but it stripped away the layer of facade that actually made it CONVINCING, and that was his laidback attitude. when he's wildly lashing out and bristling and attempting to start fights at the beginning, its pretty easy to determine its just out of stress. he cant hide it at all and its flimsy and it breaks down fast, and it does make him a much more honest person in the end. lying was the start of everything bad that ended up happening, and its the beginning of almost every problem even after the curse is over-- he learns the hard way that lying to spare someone's feelings isnt much different, sometimes.

all of this also teaches raph patience and mikey responsibility, both things they were capable of but didnt really have in spades. trauma doesnt always make you stronger, and i tend to find that kind of talk condescending, but in this case it did strengthen a lot of weak points for them. although unfortunately i also think it caused a LOT more issues for the future, probably more weaknesses than strengths.

they'll definitely have a lot more synergy as a team, this has ultimately brought them MUCH closer together. they're more communicative and they're actually looking back at the way things were unhealthy before all of this. although they also struggle to trust themselves, cant really handle their own anger (killing will just get easier and easier if theyre pushed to do it again), can be way too single-minded, are codependent and dealing with some pretty serious separation anxiety, and will struggle to make outside connections with other people. paranoia is a problem all of them will struggle with to an extent, and overall theyve come out of this a lot more jaded and hostile. and im not even gonna START with how many issues donnie has, you already know lol

i think a lot of the time maturity comes at a cost ,,, within itself the act of growing up is a little traumatizing, because it means losing something you'll always yearn for. and after a while it's more like looping around, giving the inner child a voice again after it's spent so long stifled. they're just not at that point yet, donnie especially.

[tarta-de-limon]

HEY YOU GOT MY FAVORITE GAYS EVER AS YOUR BANNER- me fr

anyways do you have any ocs perchance I would like to draw em

LMAAAO, THEY'RE ADORABLE, I HAD TO HAVE THEM IN MY BANNER

And omg, I do but... they're kinda cringey.

...

Anyway here they are!!!!

It's a quick drawing of all of them, they don't belong to the same storyline tho, I created them to entertain myself, and it's a sketch like this because I actually draw them traditionally, not digitally. I draw them in my classes.

They're more like... introduced characters into DC universe??? As you can see second Luan on the right is WonderGirl, so...yeah, cringey.

But I want to share their stories because I love them!!!

If you don't care, you can skip, I already gave their designs right here, so knowing their stories is kind of unnecessary??? I put some photos ahead, so you can skip the text and go to the photos if you want to draw any of them and need references!

So, Natalya is actually just a normal teenager, daughter of Bruce Wayne, didn't really cared about her mother so... she's dead, I guess. Maybe a one night stand. I created her because I thought it would be cute for Damian to have a gentle, kind big sister figure? In that moment I wasn't into DC in general, so I didn't know about Cass and Steph, I only watched the movies.

But then I read the comics, and well, here's her lore:

So, she's very fragile, she gets tired easily, she gets sick easily, but as a kid, she really, really wanted to be a to do sports and all that to prove Bruce and others she wasn't weak. She knew Jason and was super close to him. Then Jason died haha. She felt alone, Bruce was grieving, Dick was grieving, she gets angry, she hates everyone, then Tim takes the mantle of Robin, Natalya hates him.

Like, really, really hates him.

Uhh... Idk if this is canon or not, because as I've said before, I'm not a Tim fan...

So, in this au Tim's parents die, Natalya feels bad, kinda tries to fix things, doesn't really work.

So she's been always trying to be loud and annoying to call others attention, but after this, she kinda quiets down??? And realizes that, well, sometimes listening is nice too, yk? I remember I had this scene where she's complaining to Alfred, like; why won't he forgive me!? I already said sorry! (She's a kid)

And Alfred tells her to, well, to kinda listen to others? Because all she's listening is herself; I already apologized, I already said I'm sorry, I'm right, you're wrong.

And well, ever since then Natalya kinda calms down and learns that, well, sometimes life is life, and that she never really had a passion for sports, she didn't even liked them she just wanted to be noticed.

She realizes that what she does like is playing chess with Alfred, and well, she joins the chess club of her school, once she's calmer and nicer Tim forgives her, they become close. Everything's going just fine...

And then Damian arrives.

But Natalya is super happy, she had a little brother! And she was going to be the best sister and give him all the attention and affection she didn't have when she was a kid.

At first Damian doesn't like it. Then he kinda does. Is nice to have someone caring for you, and Natalya is just...nice. she's the type of girl that likes to take care of others, and that really likes to do little gestures like baking sweets for you when you're feeling sick.

... then she dies. Yeah. Idk why I decided she would die. She just does.

Damian revives her with the Lazarus pit, because he feels it was his fault (something, something happened, Natalya covered him with her body, she dies). I really wanna go into detail but it'll be too long.

And when she revives she's kinda traumatized! But she's adapting. Besides, her body isn't as weak as it used to. I have this scene where she's running and she realizes; Wait, I'm running. I'm not tired. I'm not having trouble breathing. I'm running!!!!

So Natalya's kinda happy, I guess.

(she ends up with a bunch of scars and her left eye is grey now. She can't see with that one. She was shot. Multiple times. I like to think her scar have like this 💥 form.

Uh... second one is Luan(19)! I actually created her, again, while I was watching the movies; wouldn't it be funny if Damian had a twin sister? So that's where the design came from. Damian in the movies doesn't look like o picture him now tho 😭😭✋✋✋ anyway, her lore? Well, as Damian twin sister: she was trained, killed, revived, killed, revived, then she was poisoned with Joker Venom, but it kind of made her crazy, she tries to blow up the whole city, she realizes last moment what she's doing, she develops like...personality problems??? (Her real self and the venom self, kind of), she runs away.

She spends time trying to find who she is, then she returns to Gotham to end a criminal organization she created while she was a villain. She refuses to talk with the batfam because she feels to guilty, because well, she kinda tried to kill them all.

That's as Damian's twin tho. As a new Oc? Idk... she's a villain... that's it. I didn't really thought about her new lore. I just really like her design. I created a boyfriend for her, when I was redesigning her to be older and just a different person. She met him when she was fighting batman and Robin, and he kinda "saved" her ("saved' because she knew he was spying on her and pretended to be loosing to see what he would do). His name is Kairos. It means: a propitious moment for decision or action. I think it's pretty accurate.

Kate is my favorite. She's such a tiny little devil I love her so much.

Her real name is Lydia, actually, she lived with her mother, a drug addict, in crime alley. When she was three or so, one day she kinda got mad at her mom, a temper tantrum, and well, she had the bad habit of hiding while she was angry.

Well she hid under the bed and just then some bad guys appeared because, surprise, her drug addict mother owed them money.

They killed her...uhhh, warning, I guess:

⚠️ They kinda... strangled her. And I have this scene where the just put her against the floor, the woman is dying, and Kate is there, under the bed, and she can't do shit because, she's a damn toddler and is scared? ⚠️

She stayed there, hidden under the bed for a whole day, just in shock, before she ran away from her apartment and just... Idk, she just wanted to leave. She was panicking, alright?

The point is, Selina finds her.

Kate is in a state of shock and doesn't really react, so Selina takes her in and gives her a new name. Kate! Like kitten, get it?

So...

She's kind of a prodigy??? She's a smart ass, she knows how to build all type of machines and is pretty smart.

So she fixes Selina's little gadgets if needed, and Selina will buy her materials so she can build her machines.

There's more lore to her but, well, let's just say this is too long already.

She kinda gets traumatized. She's fighting for her life, she cuts her hair. She heals. She becomes a better person.

I REALLY WANT TO GIVE DETAILS BUT UHG, I FEEL LIKE IT'LL BE TOO MUCH.

Anyway here's the other Luan's lore:

She's WonderGirl, she was supposed to train with Diana but Diana decides she's not ready. She's too... brutal. She fights like boxing? You see those bracelets? They extent to her hands so they turn into big gauntlets she uses to fight. So yeah, violent. The thing is like she actually has fun while fighting. She'll be jumping and giggling, and well, that's not very...sane thing to do?

She grew up in Themyscira, by a secluded group of Amazons that just taught her how to fight, and how to be 'a good warrior'.

When Damian forms his Teen Titans team he kinda kidnapped her too (because let's be honest, he kidnapped everyone, lmao). Damian feels kinda related to her??? Because Luan is always sayin: a good warrior does this, a good warrior does that. And she's willing to die for 'her honor.' it kinda reminds him to how he used to be in the League.

I honestly created her because Jon and Damian were missing a wonder to be like, Batman, superman and Wonder woman. And then I kinda liked to think Damian and Luan would have something. Honestly? This is all Djinni's fault. God, did I hate her.

But uh, then I had this idea where she kinda gets lost in time and she kinda looses her memories and...

Yeah, I won't give details. You already know why. Too long.

Oh yeah, and she used to kill. Damian taught her not to!

Anyway, that's all, I'm so sorry for my rambling, I just had to share them because I love them so much. 😭😭😭

[cute-little-fly]

I will put this in a more hot take way…

I think that believing that a woman can’t be bad for herself is the thing that is sexist.

We are fully formed beings, if we are capable of doing good deeds even after suffering because we decide that, we could also decide to do the opposite. We can also be psychopaths or have low empathy, those are conditions and mental issues not present exclusively in men.

I hate the take: “She is like that so Stolas is seen as good”.

Well, the point of Stolas behaviour is that he is a victim of abuse. His escapist fantasy of being romanced, loved and RESCUED are there because he is being constantly belittled and abused, because he never had any glimpse of those things in his life. Stolas is who he is as a result of being in the rigid Goetia family and being subjected to norms he doesn’t fit, so Stella that is completely aligned with them constantly insults him. I think things would have been better for Stolas if she was more flexible and willing to make the best she could of a bad situation. But she is not like that, and that’s fine.

This plot is carried by the characters. If Blitzø wasn’t like he is (an ambitious imp) he would have never dared to enter Stolas’s palace and steal a very powerful artifact, and also, the plot would never happen, and also the themes of overcoming societal expectations and limits. The plot happens because each of them are how they are, including Stella. They all serve a purpose in the story.

Believing that a woman can become evil only when she is hurt or traumatized by a man is a belief that for me does a lot of harm even in real life. Because then, people are less likely to believe a child that is being neglected or abused by their mom, or male victims ooor even other woman that are victims in same sex relationships. This is a hard topic I know because a lot of time female victims are also silenced and ignored.

This is not that I am proud of woman being evil, but I like to see that in Stella of Helluva Boss. Because usually, other female baddies even if they are villains are not shown as so irredeemable evil as Stella.

I think that people in general are not used to see evil female characters like this. Because, then, why they don’t have problem with Crimson? That guy is evil just because he is, too. I think is the closest counterpart to a Male version Stella that the show has, because he also killed his wife like Stella wanted to do and is from the Mafia family. I don’t see anyone saying that he is like that to justify Moxxie’s behaviour.

I always enjoy the episode when I see her on-screen (of course I hate everything that she does to Stolas and Octavia and think she is the worst, but I love to hate her). HB finds a way to make her so unapologetically evil and silly at the same time that she is fun to watch on screen. The same as Andrealphus. I want to see more of her and to have an idea of why she was like this even since they were children.

I think it might be spin-offs and adaptions like Maleficent and Cruella that caused people to think female villains aren't allowed to be completely irredeemable and heartless without a worse male villain influencing them or else it's "sexist". Which may explain the defense of Stella from Helluva Boss. Some of her defenders probably watched these films and think women are either innocent saints or only evil because they were treated badly, and just plain old nasty women don't exist. But that's what I LIKE about Stella. It's hard to find pure evil women in fiction nowadays, she's like a bird version of Mother Gothel. (Only not nearly as intelligent.) Give me more unshamedly vile and heartless female characters! Especially ones who's actions can hit pretty damn close to home for those who have experienced abuse or awful parenting from people like Stella!

[mikakuna]

are we ready to face the truth that is bruce did not love jason as much as jason loved bruce?

[autisticaradiamegido]

thoughts on dave and aradia (<>)?

day 356

BIG fan tbh. in this house we love and respect timerails

truly yall read this log and tell me theyre not cute

[donnyvibes]

Donny stood awkwardly for a moment, before leaning in to wrap his arms around her for a long moment. He couldn’t imagine what she could be talking about. “I understand, but that doesn’t mean you… need to be alone while you’re getting away from those things, does it?” He wasn’t trying to help the woman, if she didn’t want/need it, but he still wanted to be with her. Of course, he wanted to know more, but felt like it would be even hard on the woman to talk about. 

Donny stayed by the door. He already felt like an uninvited guest, as it was. Upon her return, he saw the birthday gifts, but still looked as confused as before. His eyes went wide, shaking his head at her panicked words. “Mila. No, no. I did write it.” He took the birthday card. “But, um…” He dropped his shoulders. “Mila… It’s a night light… with a heart.” His voice was matter of factly, but soft. To Donny, it felt no different than sending her a good morning message with a heart emoji, or making a ‘heart hand’ over his chest. “I heart you!” Hearing it out loud, it was a little out of place, but… 

“And this…” He raised his hand holding the card. “Doesn’t translate to ‘I love you’.” A pause. “It means ‘I like you a lot’,” clearing his throat. “‘Te amo’ means ‘I love you’.” He spoke with confidence, but still scratched the back of his head, a little awkwardly. There was a long pause as he thought of what to say next. The only thing he could come up with was to actually express his feelings. "I like you a lot, Mila." He repeated. "That's all I wanted to express here." He gestured at the card and light. Another long pause. "I don't even know what love is... That love that seems to scare you... I don't know what it feels like, but I'm sure I would know if I, uh, felt it." He cleared his throat. "But if I actually felt it, why shouldn't it be easy to say? Why does it scare you to the point of traumatization?" Referring to her earlier words. "Was it just because you thought I might be insincerely writing it in a card? Or because it was too soon, or something?"

Mila sighed and suddenly felt a tear fall upon her cheek. It was hard for her to get anything out. "Yes. There are just...things that I'm trying to get away from and I can only do that on my own. Things that I'm not proud of and things that you can't help me with," she shook her head.

" Donny.." she started as she quickly wiped her tears away and walked back into her room. She went to go fetch the things he got her for her birthday abit ago to show him. Mila walked back to her boyfriend and sniffed to clear up her throat and everything before speaking. She held up the 'I love you' night light " The I love you night light and then..." she trailed of to pick up another. Mila held up the card he got her and then turned it around to read it " Te quiero mucho is I love you very much en espanol in handwritten. Why would you send me that and then act so clue-" she cut herself off. Mila's eyes widen and she looked around abit because she was starting to panic. " Wait-unless...did you not write this?!" she asked him. ALready panicking because she was starting to believe it was written by someone else and she was looking like a straight fool. " No, no,no...this can't be happening," she mumbled as she walked away from him. She started pacing back and forth, looking out the windows abit, and suddenly started to feel her breathing get heavy.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

I'm not ready to shut up about Aveline and Carver--so, when you go see Aveline in Act 1, you can catch up with her a little bit and that's where this conversation can happen:

Aveline: "It's just one more change, though. The real end for me was Ostagar. What about you, Carver? You were there. Do you feel something similar?" Carver: No. Aveline: All right, then. Bit of a tit, your brother.

I wanted to see what she would say if Carver isn't in the party. Instead, she says this:

Aveline: Carver was there. I imagine he feels something similar. If he allows it.

......well, at least she didn't call him a tit?

[al-luviec]

still haven't moved on from zane in this episode (aka I hit tag limit again and am unhappy about it)