#his story is very tragic

[vasilissadragomir]

no i see the vision completely and you wouldn’t even need to kill the love triangle outright!! just centering their friendship over the love/conflict with peeta would make so much of a difference.

and as i wrote this, i realized this is EXACTLY how the trilogy went from gale’s perspective.

like imagine if gale actually believed her when she said she was acting for the cameras because he could tell how uncomfortable she was in the cave. they’re best friends—he truly sees her and knows her. he knows how she thinks and, also, understands the strategy. he’s proud she’s doing what she can to survive, to come home to her family. to him. sure, he’s a bit miffed about The Kiss, but he’s already been surprised by katniss’ acting skills, so maybe she is better than he realized. and when she tells him it was all haymitch’s idea, he chooses to believe her.

and then six months of not talking to peeta confirms what he was already 99% sure of, that she’s not actually interested in peeta. so gale tries to be there for her and understand what the games were like. and her increasing affection MUST be a sign he’s getting it right, and not a result of her desperately clinging to the ONE thing at home that, at face value, hasn’t seemed to change, seeking what’s no longer there in the singular act of being out in the woods with him that used to bring her comfort, right?

and when he kisses her, it’s what he truly believes to be a ramp-up of what’s already been happening. so he’s confused when she doesn’t fall right into his arms, head over heels in love. and he’s even more confused when she goes on the victory tour and comes back with a newfound interest in peeta. then katniss is telling him that about snow’s threat, and the tension in the districts, and all the sudden he understands why she’s distracted from romance. why she’s not ready to pick up where they left off. but what he doesn’t get is why NOW she wants to run, when she never did before. now, when she has actual power and can use it to light the real spark of revolution and change the fate of the people of the districts. that’s bigger than any romance they may or may not have.

and yes, he knows she didn’t ask for that power, he knows the risks just as well as she does, but to not use it is unforgivable. but before he can process their latest divide, he’s been whipped, and she’s kissing him. and he knows she’s solidly picked him. but then the reading of the card happens, and they both know she’s going to die. and as he’s spending his few precious hours of free time training her, peeta, and haymitch for the games, he realizes she’s going to die not just because of snow, but because he’s training katniss on how to save peeta. he sees that, even if there was a chance she’d survive, she’d still pick peeta over herself. she’d rather die than come home to him again. and it’s especially devastating because, as he comes to know peeta, he understands why.

it’s all cut and dry until he watches peeta open the locket on the beach and sees his own face on the giant screen in the town square. peeta surely knows katniss intends to die for him to live, so why would he use gale to try and change her mind?

and then it clicks. peeta isn’t from the seam. he doesn’t understand owing. he doesn’t get that katniss cannot live while peeta dies. not just because she cares about him, but because she still owes him so much. so, from peeta’s perspective, it must mean she needs reminding of someone that she cares about more than peeta. and peeta thinks that’s gale. and because peeta has proven by his actions in both games that he has so little self-worth, gale knows for sure that peeta would happily die if it gave katniss a chance to live.

for a moment, he feels foolishly and selfishly hopeful that even his competitor for katniss’ heart thinks gale is her true love. but then he watches The Kiss Part II, and it all comes crashing down again. because in this moment where peeta expresses his vulnerability, his pain, she kisses him, just as she kissed gale after his whipping. which means that when she kissed gale, it was because he was in pain. except, when she kissed him, it wasn’t at all like how she’s kissing peeta right now. there’s a desperation in her actions on the beach that never existed with him. and he comes to the conclusion that while she initiates kisses with both of them because they’re in pain, she kisses peeta like that because she can’t survive without him. what he doesn’t know is if it’s because she owes him or because she loves him.

but he doesn’t have any time to figure it out because suddenly he has to save whoever he can from the annihilation of his town. he saves his family and hers, but he can’t get peeta’s. so now gale owes peeta, too. everyone has lost everyone and everything. he’s so blinded by the trauma and the anger and the hatred that something as frivolous as who katniss loves is entirely irrelevant. all that matters is that she gets out of the arena. and when he sees her, he’s so relieved that his best friend escaped again and so, so sad that he has to tell her that her home was destroyed that he just wants his friend. for her to be there for him like he tried to be there for her after her first games. to be there for him in a way she couldn’t be as he spent a whole year going into the mines all day every day and watching his family starve.

but peeta didn’t come with her. she goes into a state of psychosis, so she can’t be there for gale because she can’t even function herself. and he knows he’s right that she can’t survive without peeta. he’s so angry at the people who did this to her, who took his best friend and replaced her with a shell of a person, who destroyed his home and 90% of his community, that he’s prepared to do anything to end their power. he knows he can help, too. snares, traps, strategy. he was born for this. he’s been training for this his whole life. and finally, he’s being recognized for it, by none other than the leader of the rebellion.

katniss never wanted the power she got, but he did. not for selfish reasons. but because he knew he had it in him to change the world. and now, for the first time, he has some. for the first time, he’s not being told to quiet down or forget about his ideas, his beliefs, his feelings. the leader of the rebellion is not just entertaining, but validating his worldview. she values his opinions enough to use them. and he wants katniss to come back so bad so he can share this with her, like they used to in the woods. so they can be themselves again.

and slowly but surely, she does come back. they hunt, they talk, they eat. they argue, yes, more than ever, but she’s still not recovered and, well, neither is he. he’s accepted that she chose peeta, even though he hasn’t figured out if she chose him because she owes him or loves him. sure, there’s a sliver of hope that she chose peeta because she owes him, but it’s not that important right now, because at least he has his best friend. a best friend he can fight alongside for their freedom in district 8, just as he they always dreamed of.

until he doesn’t. because he goes to rescue peeta. mostly for her, but also for him, because of that damn sliver of hope. and a little for peeta, because he really is annoyingly likable. but when he returns wounded, he knows she’s in the hospital for peeta. when she looks at him, she’s seeing right through him. confirming he’s alive and nothing more.

so when she says she’s writing peeta off and is kissing him while they’re in 2, he knows she doesn’t mean it, even if she doesn’t realize it yet. because she’s reckless in a way she’s never really been before, and he knows her. he knows that the moment that peeta returned hijacked, she lost her will to live. she’d rather die than live on a planet where peeta, the real peeta, doesn’t exist. so he finally understands it doesn’t matter if she chose peeta because she owes him or because she loves him—either way, she can’t survive without him.

but he doesn’t really have the wherewithal to be hurt about anything romantic because of the look in her eyes when he proposes his plan for the nut. his brilliant plan that no one, none of the experienced adults, none of the victors, even, were able to come up with. the plan coin herself agreed with. because this plan, despite its efficacy, has irrevocably changed something between them. and yes, it’s been changing for a while, but not to this extent. the way she’s looking at him, as if he suggested killing a mountain full of innocent people, is not a look she’ll ever take back.

it takes watching the boulders tumble down the mountain, hearing the rumble of the avalanche, smelling the blood from the wounded, for him to see what she sees. his father, her father, condemned to a death in the mines to which they were shackled. these were not innocents, no, but they were people. people oppressed by the capitol, just like him. not quite as bad, much like the people from town in 12. but not taking tesserae didn’t spare them in the end, did it? his stomach is in knots, but coin assures him that it was for the good of the cause. and not just the cause, but for the majority of the people in district 2. so he decides to believe the ends justify the means.

they’re sent to fight. and at least he and katniss are on the same side. because he knows she’s there to kill snow. and while he’s there to win the war, his loyalties to his friend will always take precedent. especially since her goals and his happen to be aligned. but then peeta is sent to join their unit. and he knows that the only person who could have authorized that is coin. the very same person he’d followed down the path of trapping and killing a whole mountain full of miners.

at this point, gale knows the chance of katniss ending up with him are gone. it’s confirmed by her outburst, her anger, and ultimately, her kissing him outside the sewer. but he needs to salvage their friendship, because at this point the only other person he thought he could trust has made a choice that would unequivocally sentence katniss to death.

so the only thing left to do to keep their relationship alive is to do what is necessary to restore katniss’ will to live. which means helping peeta remember who he is. and to do that, peeta needs to know what’s real and what’s not real. especially about katniss herself. so, that night in tigris’ cellar, gale lays it out for him, clear as day. he explains katniss’ thought process so that peeta can understand her calculus. he knows it to be true because he knows her like he knows no one else. or at least he thought he did. because when he’s captured, she doesn’t shoot him.

when the second bomb explodes, he knows that everything he believed, everything he thought he knew, was wrong. he can tell because beetee feels the same. coin didn’t just use their brains. she weaponized their anger. gale wasn’t sure he was okay with that when he was trapping an enemy. but now, now that prim, someone he loved like his own sister, was in that pen, he knows it was all wrong. katniss had been right. and the thing that changed between the katniss in the woods the morning of her reaping and the katniss in this hospital bed in the president’s mansion was peeta. so when he tells her that the only thing he had going for him was protecting her family, he didn’t mean romantically. he means as a friend.

because gale realizes that even though he thought he couldn’t survive without katniss, the truth is that he can. he might love her now, but what he needs his own dandelion in the spring. so, once katniss does what must be done, he goes back to the place where he first felt the shift. the place where the mountain tumbled. his first arena. and there, he meets a girl. a girl with tan skin and soulful brown eyes. a girl who loves district 2 and its people and shows him the beauty in this place he hated enough for destroy. a girl who loves more than she hates. a girl who makes him want more than just to survival—she makes him want to live.

I know the love triangle represented Katniss choosing between war and peace but like. I would have loved Gale and Katniss just being besties. Best friends who could tell each other everything.katniss would get home from the victory tour giggling and kicking her feet about Peeta with Gale nodding as he listens to her yap. Gale telling Katniss the tea that happened while she was away. Katniss watching her best friend slowly get radicalized and manipulated by Coin.

Katniss's best friend, who she could tell anything to, being the one who caused Prim's death in the end.

[ellenchain]

kissing the trauma away

[mothintheflames]

not to throw hands on main but it's crazy that some of y'all will forgive a boy for planning to kill someone (in exchange for a soul tbf), rejecting a love confession in her stead and falsely claiming that she's actually going out with him, refusing to accept no for an answer, and going into her house without her permission or knowledge to steal from her, but will hate on a girl for rejecting his romantic advances because she did it on the grounds of a trait that he couldn't control.

[mochii-derogatory]

ive been watching the dog motif show... why is no one talking about this guy. isaac lahey come home from france,,,, sweet boy,,,, we miss you,,,

[salty-an-disco]

I disagree with Narrator in a very fundamental and philosophical level, but you know, even if I agreed 100% with his worldview and the reality he wants to bring about, I’d still think he’s wrong for taking matters into his own hands and changing THE VERY FABRIC OF REALITY affecting people in the entire universe, simply because HE thinks he knows what best for the world.

Like– that’s why I find him so fascinating, it’s not only the fear of death or disgust towards the very concept of change (tho that is very funny and interesting in its own right), but the utter arrogance to champion himself Savior of the World without EVER considering that maybe– just maybe, people might not agree with what he plans to do.

Like. Hubris indeed, and he even has the gall to say, “you can still do what you must and kill her” when we call him out on it. Like. Wow. I want to study this guy under a microscope.

[mohntilyet]

Personal headcanon about the "you picked the wrong dellamorte" line, I don't think illario actually likes rook outside the context of them being someone close to lucanis. Like rook on their own isn't much to him, but when they meet it's yet another person talking about his cousin (why isn't he good enough for whatever job they're hiring for?) and on top of that they somehow bring him back from the dead (another whole can of worms for illario). Now he starts turning on the charm, but whether he's actually interested or this is just one more thing his cousin has that he doesn't and it gets under his skin, who knows. Either way, rook ignores illario, the guy who lives off his charm, and is instead interested in the guy who's never even dated before and thinks giving someone a knife is how to flirt. Infuriating

NO THANK YOU !! i am genuinely sorry if i have ever implied illario is into rook like i see some takes about it and unless it like ties into your rook's personal backstory i don't seriously think he's romantically jealous. at all. my enjoyment of that line stems from illario's pathological need to make it about himself and not see his strengths but what lucanis has, and therefore what he doesn't. he's annoyed enough to try and goad you in the middle of a fight about the 'wrong' dellamorte and completely blind to the fact that the venatori are at best, a stupid fucking alliance, and at worst, a cult that will devour the crows from the inside out and illario would have been the one to give them the keys. he sees lucanis make allies, needs his own, and instead of charming the other talons/houses as he should, he (probably spitefully) picks the venatori. or maybe he just thought it would be easier. ugh he makes me want to telekenetically throw him around

[user2718273]

Having big feelings abt her again

[group-dynamic]

Bartender: Hey, man, how's it going?

Me: Yeah, you know, it's good. Just thinking about how Gil Galad's kingship was haunted by Elrond. Like his first great failure after being crowned when he'd barely come of age was showing up too late to stop the destruction of Sirion. How he probably felt a deep personal responsibility to find Elwing's missing boys at least but couldn't even do that. Like, I know he probably got redirected by Cirdan toward all those refugees and stuff, but he probably really wanted a win, especially because he was kinda orphaned by then himself and knew how cruel fate was to the sons of greater destiny. Like all his family who'd been king before him died, like, horrifically? And then when Elrond returns all fine and he comes to Lindon and he's chosen the fate of the elves, Gil Galad's physically haunted by him again. See, but this time he chooses to be haunted by Elrond. Because I think he wants to fix what he sees as his first great failure by restoring a bright future for this kid which was robbed from him when Sirion fell--and it's probably like he wants better for him than what he got, too, because he got this kingship in exile thrust upon him when all he was doing was hanging out with Cirdan making ships or something with the other non-combatants and refugees like he and his mother who were fleeing war and violence and he was like fourth in line to the throne so he probably found out in one fell swoop that all his family's dead and oh, you're king and your destiny's out of your hands. So he's like, I'll make Elrond herald and give him all the experience and guidance on this leadership stuff I never got while also giving him better control of what kind of future he has. Then--get this--he never even marries or has kids and when his reign is coming to an end. . . Which, by the way, he probably foresaw his own death which is fucked-- because he gives Elrond his ring before the war of the last alliance, metaphorically making him his heir and also giving him the opportunity to shape his future. . .Yeah, yeah, cause Elrond wouldn't have been considered suitable to be a lord or a king or anything after he was raised by wolves the sons of Feanor. So when Gil made him herald it was like helping him gain political experience and any status he lost. So anyway, then Gil Galad dies, but in some ways he's spent a greater part of his life dedicated to the act of restoring Elrond to the path he should have been on in an alternate reality where he was raised as Earendil and Elwing's son and like correcting that first failure--but also changing Elrond's fate because Elrond has the ring, like, he literally has Gil Galad's legacy and power in his hands, something he wouldn't have had (or needed?) before. But he decides he won't be king. He'll use that power to guard the place that fulfills the legacies of both him and Gil Galad. He's rebuilt the home he lost, something Gil Galad was trying to give him, and then he makes it a place for all the orphans and the wounded and the refugees--like he even fosters a bunch of future orphan kings and like--

Bartender: Like the ending of Hamilton?

Me: *mumbling into my empty glass* Yeah, exactly like the ending of Hamilton.

[bobosbillionsknives]

(not shipping content)

It's one of my biggest headcanons ever that Vash does NOOOT like his birthday dude I just can't believe it...Knives however. Biggest birthday enjoyer ever. He is the special birthday boy. 🤗🤗🤗

Knives usually leaves Vash alone but Vash KNOWS Knives is going to make an effort to show up on their birthday and it stresses him out so bad. Especially if the July incident was on their birthday...that would leave horrible memories for him. 😭 Not to mention how painful remembering his first birthday with Rem would be. Plus Knives would act so bitchy about it like wooow dont even want to see your own brother on your birthday wow. I get it I'm just the worst ever ..🥀 Vash would be so over it.

I feel so strongly that Vash is the introvert while Knives is the extrovert. Knives self isolates out of fear and disgust of humans but he secretly thrives while talking to others. Especially if they have strong opinions he can argue against (definitely a debate bro). If Knives had a normal childhood he would've loved big crowds, he has absolutely no social awareness or shame . Or filter. He'd talk to anyone who'd listen. Knives drives himself absolutely insane with his own isolation. All he really wants is social connection, something he's convinced himself is impossible with humans. That's why he's so fixated on getting Vash to stay, he feels Vash is the only person he can actually talk to. Vash on the other hand, would do anything for 5 minutes alone. He is constantly pushing away Milly, Meryl, and even Wolfwood. He cannot let anyone know him beyond his silly guy persona. He especially doesn't like being celebrated (doesn't think he deserves it. 😂😂😂) He is constantly trying to skip out on the parties towns people throw for him, leaving without saying goodbye. (He does like getting drunk tho...makes talking easier) He'd never EVER share his birthday with anyone. Especially not Wolfwood or the girls. Knives however, would tell EVERYONE !!! (like how the entire Gung Ho Gun knew Knives had a brother, but Meryl had no idea Vash did. I think Knives loves talking about himself and his tragic past, painting himself as the forever victim to absolutely anyone who'd listen. To Vashes absolute horror 😭.) Vash is constantly drained from forcing himself to perform socially. He loves people and talking to them but he just needs like. 8 hours of alone time to properly function. That's why he gets so bitchy with everyone sometimes lol. She just needs a naaaaap omg 🤦‍♂️. But he feels guilty for being snippy and tired so he'll force himself to be social anyway. Which makes it worse. Love hiiim !!!! 😍 Either way they're both hurting themselves when they behave like this.

Knives is definitely the yapper while Vash just listens. I feel like Vash would appreciate not having that pressure to constantly respond. Even if Knives can be overbearing, I do think they enjoy each other's company. When they aren't... trying to murder each other. Nobody knows him like Knives does, it would almost be relieving not having to pretend to be happy all the time. He can perfectly morally justify being as mean to Knives as he wants to be !! And he wouldn't admit it, but he does enjoy listening to Knives complain about nothing. He thinks it's funny. Knives is just happy to be with someone he's deemed worthy of his time. He views Vash as his equal, someone he actually trusts to confide in. They are the opposite and also the same in every way life is so beautiful I love these guys.

It would also just be such a cute subversion of audience expectation if Knives, the self proclaimed people hater, was a people person. I think that's sooo interesting and makes so much sense with the context of his desperation for the approval of humans when he was a child. I think kid Knives would've tried to argue that celebrating something everyone goes through is pointless, but would love all the attention anyway. Even be a bit resentful that it was Vashes birthday too if he didn't seem to appreciate the attention as much. As he got older hed mellow out and warm up to the idea of having a birthday and sharing it. Mostly as an excuse to talk to Vash and make everything about himself again. Lol. Plus I think he likes organizing parties. His dream is to have that sweet 16 fantasy the humans in the old world used to have. He actually wants to be normal is the thing. They both do.

[buqbite]

it's kinda fascinating to me how welt has been "at the end of his life" for like. several decades by now. he goes on and on about how old and weary he is and how "his job is done" and his story is over but- oh wait i just realized i can phrase this in a very funny way- he's kind of sorta immortal now because he got the herrscher core back, so he's really just stuck in the epilogue for all eternity

[rainofthetwilight]

why tf are people on nintwt complaining about arin 'whining'????? tf was he whining about????????

like imagine having a character who's deep in self doubt and grief and no one around him is helping with that or taking him seriously, and calling that whining.......

[yesterdayiwrote]

So... quick update on the Eurovision situation

The EBU decided that Israel can compete despite their country being under an active Genocide investigation by the ICJ. Their delegation have gone on to antagonise other contestants by filming them for their social media without permission and refusing to remove it when asked, harass journalists who have questioned if their inclusion is appropriate, and their commentators have made horrendous comments about the Irish contestant... all without sanction.

Meanwhile the Dutch contestant got into an undisclosed 'incident' with a female member of the production crew and they've referred it to the police and flat out disqualified him from the contest with less than 12 hours notice...

Which seems like a tremendous act of double standards at an event that is already marred by serious controversy. Obviously the second is not acceptable, but very difficult to understand how the first somehow... is?

[thatswhatsushesaid]

Who are your top fave characters from each mxtx novel? 👀

i'm going to exclude svsss from this list because i haven't finished it yet and therefore all of my opinions are just based on hearsay. but for the other two:

mdzs

1. jin guangyao (obviously); the antagonist of circumstance who but for a trick of fate and authorial intent could have easily been the novel's protagonist

2. lan xichen; the very best of men 🥹 truly the person with the kindest heart and (in my opinion) the most tragic ending in the novel*. also i'm xiyao trash, who's surprised

3. su she; he and i are the same person honestly

4. jiang cheng; i think if i was going to go insane about any of the core cast, i'd probably go insane over jiang cheng. and i probably would have, if jin guangyao didn't exist! sorry, jiang cheng.

5. wen qing; who doesn't love a mad scientist??

tgcf

1. xie lian; no seriously, i love the protagonist of this novel the best because he is everything i love about jin guangyao and lan xichen burrito'd up into one character

2. shi wudu; the heavens' cuntiest proto-capitalist, and also arguably the elder brother that the mdzs fandom wishes nie mingjue was for nie huaisang 👀 (this opinion has gotten me into at least 4 fights on the mdzs subreddit specifically)

3. pei ming; my ethical slut general. also the other half of peishui, my main non-hualian ship for this novel

4. mu qing; he did NOTHING wrong except have a bad attitude, since when is that a crime!!! (this is not serious analysis, please don't @ me with your mu qing criticism, i'm too tired for it right now)

5. jun wu; daddy 🥺

[alwaysyouuuuuu]

So i was thinking about your Wolfstar Marvel AU again (it should pay rent with how much it's spinning around my head) and like,,,, Sirius not having any kind of closure about Remus,,, he doesn't know what happened to him, they never found a body or any traces of him and then he was pronounced dead and Sirius just. Doesn't know. He doesn't even know why they took Remus in the first place. And he probably feels guilty about it too (bc ofc he would!!!). Just, the lack of closure of it all, the big question mark haunting him, up until 70+ years later when he's face-to-face with Remus again (I'm loving it)

Hi hi hi!!!! 💕💕💕 Thank you so much for the ask! I am so happy we both find it consuming haha and I agree. AU needs to start paying me hourly wages for just how much it keeps me up and wondering at night. I would be in tears and at the end of my wit, if I had to do just part of this research in school (I was not into history or any literature for school, and that's putting it mildly.) and now I do this willingly lol.

You know one of those, "I'm so glad you asked"- *7 hour long vm* memes? I fear this will end up like that. Bear with me.

Before we get into that, I'll clear up some background? So Remus was first taken along with a lot of their troop (ambush?), and they were partially injected (plot reasons plot reasons!! I feel like you can guess why!!) and the Sirius and co rescued them etc etc. And then Remus was targeted specifically.

So before the permafrost, I feel the situation was very bad for Sirius. For one, he would have agreed to the Serum in the first place because Remus was in captivity (also for the war effort, of course, but to Sirius, at that point there really was no room for question which may have been there otherwise), and then he got Remus back. Just to lose him again.

And then, to the Military and almost everyone else, Hope and Lyall Lupin lost a son, but Sirius Black lost a fellow soldier. He lost a comrade. Sure, they were friends, so him being vengeful is believable, to an extent. And no one really gets the blank look in his eyes, after.

I believe there was a quote that went like, "Should you lose a spouse/partner, there is a shared understanding of the relationship, but when you lose a friend, there's no tangible evidence, no widely acknowledged way to mourn."

Except, for Sirius, he did lose his partner, love of his life and dearest friend of so many years. And no one understands. Maybe James and Lily know, but it is the 40s. Realistically, they are quiet about it at best. For him it is both, and all the more painful. And he doesn't get exactly why Remus was targeted either. Remus was at an integral position in the OSS, unusual for his age, recruited at the very beginning, one of the sharpest minds, so it could have been that. And god, he was cold blooded when he got to fighting. But of course, he cannot shake the feeling that it was because of him.

So, in that time, the days he spent looking for Remus with James and Lily, (which really wasn't much, they would not have been allowed to!) he is partially cynical. Not to the point of self-blaming but enough to self-destruct. James tries to get him out of it, but Lily grits her teeth. She doesn't say much, because she understands, I believe, how much at that point he just wants it to end.

*BAM* permafrost.

After he gains consciousness, he would have blanked out for a while, because what even is this? But he doesn't, because after the first few excruciating minutes, when the blood is pounding in his chest, looking at every flash of light, every building and car that look unnatural, really, the first thing he processes is Moody telling him that the War is over. Good, at least something went well, he thinks.

They tell him many soldiers were rescued, because that's the first thing he asks. After it sinks in, he wants to hope, and maybe he does. Because this is real, he can see it. As outlandish as it is, he is in the future. If this can be real, how foolish would it be to hope that maybe Remus made it too? He would be old, and he would have lived his life. Maybe with someone else, and that's okay. If he gets to see him one more time, Jesus, it's okay.

They tell him what happened with HYDRA and his family. They tell him about James Potter and how he revolutionized weapons, they tell him about Lily Potter, who later went on to join the NSA. God, he gets fucking giddy hearing all of that, because it worked out. For someone, it did. For James and Lily, it did. He wants to meet Harry.

And he starts to have a nagging thought, because with how they speak of and to him, maybe they would have mentioned his known childhood friend. And Remus was known to his own credit.

So he asks, slowly about one Remus Lupin?

And lo and behold. They know of him of course, of course, he was Captain America's best friend. But nothing was known of him post war.

He tries to hold his face and nods, but Moody gives him a strange look. Tells him that he'll look into it for him. He tamps it down, though, there is no point in a wishful fantasy. He would have begged Moody if required, but there really is no point. And he doesn't think he can open his mouth without saying something incriminating.

Moody offers him the initiative, of course, but they tell him to take a breath, see the world, find himself first. And he does, he takes a few days. But then he gets time to think about it, to mull things over, to reevaluate his last choices. When he is trying to ease into the new world, he is busy, things are overwhelming. But once he gets home, he spirals. He remembers how panicky he had been during the first rescue mission. He had been desperate. And what if that clued them in? There were others in the OSS. So why just Remus?

It had to be him.

So he throws himself into missions, trains hard, exhausts himself so doesn't have to think. He does what he's always been doing, he helps SHIELD and doesn't question much, because he is still processing. Some things stick out but one can only handle so much, yeah? Besides, James and Lily were the co-founders.

He finds out. Well. Many things about his past and it's just so much (I'll stop or this itself will spiral to 3k.)

I feel he's quite mercurial at times in these days. Unsettled, but he keeps going. He drinks sometimes, gets shit faced. Those days are increasing, really.

Then he meets Elena.

And there is something striking about her. Such a young girl, and he can see it in her eyes that she has seen a lot. Too much. He sees himself in her. And he is protective. He is maybe a little taken aback. Because she seems so much... like an old soul.

And Elena is drawn to him too. She opens up, slowly, slowly, which she doesn't normally. But he is fiery. Like her. And they mostly have the same stances. She doesn't speak of her childhood, and so he doesn't ask. She does mention she had a dad, and though seemingly not for long, she remembers her name from him.

She seeks out his company and it soothes something in him. I feel he's a little more settled? With time? I mean it's hard to pity yourself when there is someone dragging you out to bowl and join soccer clubs, when that someone is a loner too. Even though thinking of Remus' hurts a little more each day, because he feels that Elena and Remus would get along so well. Man she even fights like him.

So when he sees Remus again, it is whiplash of the worst kind. Remus is just there. Because it is Remus and it is not, and he is standing there just staring because this Remus even fights the same. And he sees Elena standing frozen there, and it suddenly hits him that she looks... like Remus.

Except for her eyes and it is like he is watching everything from afar. All he can do try to hold Remus back. Until Neville flies them away.

Because what has his life come to?

Elena is not responding. She is not even looking at him. And Sirius is thinking a thousand miles an hour. I think he'd find out everything he can about whoever this Winter Soldier is.

Before they finally bring R in for questioning I feel S would be overcome with guilty and longing and a lot of painful confusion, really.

And mostly, Sirius is guilt ridden. Remus was in there, with them doing who knows what to him, for 70 years? He never deserved that. Sirius was outwardly rebellious. It was his family helping fund HYDRA. And then there's Elena. Is Elena Remus'? Because how in the world did Remus manage to have a kid while he was trapped in a facility?

There is something really cool about her name. if you look closely.

Outside of his blackouts, Remus solely spoke Russian to everyone around him for 70 years right? So it seems logical that's what he'd speak to elena in that environment, mind controlled half the time etc, before they were separated (she was like. 7) and he'd find it a little difficult to slip into English again, or that's what Elena thinks. So when he demands to meet her first, she storms in, defensive stance (Sirius is standing right outside by the way) but Remus just blinks. Because they said it was Elena Chernova. But it's not. It's Helena Black.

And Sirius just. Dies a little.

Basically. He is spiralling.

So is this, so I'll stop here.

Based on this post. + snippet.

[h-didanart]

Hey, do you guys remember that agony//ghost thing the FNaF lore has? Yeah? Cool

Do you guys know any of the synonyms to agony there are? Like, suffering, torment, throes, and the like? Yeah? Cool

Are you guys familiar with my Quiet Throes au//fic thing? Yeah? Cool

Agony ghost Bloodmoon. They torment the hell out of the bastard, and hang around Solar sometimes. But mostly stick around Ruin, staring at him, messing with his things, throwing stuff at him, and generally making his life miserable (as it should be)

Tw for the images below: implied suicide attempt, referenced character death, and implied torture//sa

[jerreeeeeee]

tragic actual play siblings…