#im finally reading the shatter me series and god where have i been

[maisha133]

We have an entire chapter in Unravel Me of Aaron Warner confessing to Juliette that she is the love of his life and how he cannot literally breathe without her AN ENTIRE CHAPTER and then in ACFTL we just get a meager “I love you” from Jacks

lmaooo still salty about how this book went

[turtlemagnum]

ok, gonna try my hand at compiling my thoughts on fist of the north star first. here goes nothing! warning, this post is gonna be Long, open the read more at your own peril.

i think the best way to go about this might be roughly chronologically, so i'll start at the start. i think it's interesting how very early on, the conceit is "there is but one practitioner of hokuto shinken and but one practitioner of nanto seiken, and they are sworn to never fight lest the world fall into Chaos..." and that degrades very quickly past the first arc. i will say that overall, the shin arc is a very fun, enjoyable and relatively quick watch, with mostly interesting fights, decent character designs and a mostly compelling narrative. i think one of the standout parts, to me, was when shin was actually defending yuria from his former goons while they tried to revolt. it definitely added a certain texture to shin's character where he had previously been just 100% straightforwardly the bad guy, instead of being 99% that. also there's the devil rebirth fight and that time ken killed The Entire United States Military in the same episode that he punched a wrecking ball so hard that it shattered like a christmas ornament. now that i think about it, the leader guy of the former US military was actually probably the first time we see nanto seiken used by someone who isn't shin, and i remember it being kind of a big deal that shin had violated their sacred traditions to such an extent, y'know? how quickly that went out the window

something that's been consistently good in the series was the music. the fight music, the ambient stuff, and especially the openings. all 3 of the openings are S tier, but i will say they never quite top ai wo torimodose, it's just that fucking bombastic and fun, y'know? at the same time i wouldn't stab somebody for thinking silent survivor or TOUGH BOY are better, they're all fuckin great even if in different ways at time. honestly i'm mostly surprised that an anime from back then had more than one opening, much less 3. from what i can tell that shit wasn't nearly as common back then as it was today, so i think it speaks to how deeply popular the series was back in its heyday. hell, OG dragon ball got just one and im pretty sure DBZ barely got two. i hope one day i'll be able to make music as stellar as the hnk soundtrack, really.

something that bugged me about early fist of the north star is how every fucking woman looked like yuria, just sometimes with different hair. this definitely got better as the series went on, and i have no idea if this was a problem in the manga too, but by god is it glaring. thankfully that seems to clear up ironically after mamiya is introduced, who is explicitly portrayed to be the spitting image of yuria. i think the first time i noticed that women finally look like unique people and Not Just Yuria was that one martial artist who fought with roses and shit. side note but i genuinely loved her design, the show got really sexist about her being a Femoid who fights but setting aside that i really loved her. i should learn to draw her. anyways, i like how the series improved over time in that regard, at the very least

one of my biggest problems in the series starts with shin's death. i remember when shin first died and he burst out crying, i had assumed it was just a fucked up manipulation tactic like the yuria doll, but apparently we the audience were expected to take it seriously? and like, this began a longrunning trend of a villain being like, absolutely irredeemably evil, like puppy crusher machine, baby eating, torment nexus evil, and then at the end they're all like "i just wanted 2 play on de play groundt...." and we're expected to take that seriously???? like, i'm all for moral nuance and complexity, and there are times where this whole shtick was done more tolerably than others, but in my opinion they never actually redeem somebody in a way that's satisfying. a redemption arc has to be, y'know, a fucking arc. and even if you're trying to do a redemption = death thing, the thing that makes that trope work is that they die doing something, y'know, actually good???? the reason anakin's redemption worked (aside from actually being foreshadowed pretty blatantly) was because he actually saved lukes life and died in the process. he did a good thing and died because of it. meanwhile shin, he still fought ken right up until the end and acted like nothing was out of the ordinary until he was literally seconds from dying. at least raoh had it built up to a little bit, like jesus fucking christ.

now, i will say that the arc from roughly jagi's introduction to the first fight with raoh is the best fist of the north star gets. if you're thinking about watching the show but don't wanna commit to 150ish episodes, i'd recommend watching from the beginning right up until the end of the first raoh fight. i feel like that's still be a pretty compelling 50 or so episodes, and it has literally all the best bits within it. honestly kinda sad that the show peaks approximately 1/3 of the way through it, but what can you do. anyways, enough backhanded compliments; jagi is probably the best all around villain in this series. he's an absolute bastard, he's one of the first characters in the entire show to just straight up pull a normal gun on people, and he inspires one of the most cathartic moments in the entire show. this is around when we first get into like, the soap opera shit, right? first it's a bit contrived but still cool as hell that rei is a new nanto seiken practitioner, aside from That One Scene he fills the deuteragonist role pretty nicely and is honestly the gold standard by which the rest of the series' guys can be judged off of. he's no ein or juza, but to be fair basically nobody is.

anyways like, that cathartic moment i was talking about. it was just after jagi admitted to ken, taunting him with the fact that he's actually the reason shin kidnapped yuria, and he's the reason yuria died. this, alongside the "actually the main character has 3 secret brothers that we just havent mentioned until now, and theyre ALSO hokuto shinken practitioners" is very like. soap opera/bad fanfic-y, right? but it works because in execution, it's still pulled off well, and we're still nowhere near the bullshit horizon we'd skyrocket past by the end of the series. so, when ken's finally killing jagi, there's a moment where he says something to the effect of "this is for yuria, and...." and you just know what he's about to say next, but he hesitates, and when he finally says it it's so damn satisfying, "and for me!" and the thing is that it's a deeply compelling moment for a variety of reasons.

so, the thing with fist of the north star is that, in a lot of ways, it's very analogous to a superman story where the question is almost never "will the main character lose this fight" because he's so insanely fucking broken, right? the real question is, "will this character protect those he cares about in time", that's where the tension comes from, and it comes from the fact that he is in fact a hero. that's how you write a compelling overpowered protagonist, you give him either people to love or just a love and respect for all life in general and so that always gives you stakes. i get that to a lot of people, the question of "will ken save this nameless chicken farmer?" isn't a very compelling one. but to me, it is, because he cares so deeply about it that i start caring about it. in the words of aphex twin, "i care because you do".

so, the thing is up until now ken is a very selfless character. it's to such an exaggerated degree that it becomes fairly evident that he has very little regard for his own safety or wellbeing. in the first arc, aside from helping whoever he happens across he's motivated exclusively by rescuing yuria. every fight he has up to this point isn't even for himself, really, and there's something almost sad about that. he doesn't allow himself to have needs. so it's actually very satisfying to see this strong, principled man admit that he has in fact been hurt, and that he's not just doing good for those around him but for himself as well. and it's a very natural character progression that you don't even realize is happening but also makes complete sense. there's something deeply compelling to me about a man so devoted to helping others that he has to actively learn how to live for himself, y'know? i feel like that's a relatable struggle to a lot of people, really

i will say i have one gripe about the jagi fight, and it's that it's almost perfect except for the fact that jagi dies laughing. at first it's seeming like he's gonna die in agonizing misery like he deserves, and it's satisfying well up until the point he starts to laugh on the way out. and like, i understand why it was done that way, and i'm pretty sure it was meant to be haunting, but it honestly just felt like it undercut an otherwise great moment, y'know? i want that motherfucker suffering god damnit, its what he deserves.

there's not much to say about the arc up until the first raoh fight, really. toki is really fucking cool, i love me my apocalypse karate jesus boy, and the fight with that uighur guy was really good setting aside the weird racial thing of having a character that's of a certain ethnicity and just naming them that ethnicity. like, imagine if there was just a guy in a show named Jew, and he's canonically supposed to be jewish but it's never really addressed, like that'd be weird right

i will say, the raoh fight was fucking precious, easily the best part of the entire series. it has this amazing and complex rhythm to it, where every character who tries to fight raoh ends up trying their own self sacrificial bullshit move only to be thwarted by the next guy, until there's essentially like 3 or 4 different fights going on at the same time. it's also nice seeing ken get straight up hard countered for once, like straight up he gets just as fucked up as raoh does and it makes raoh that much cooler of a villain. up to this point, ken is like, essentially invincible. he's basically post apocalypse aikido jesus, poking people so hard that their disabilities are cured and punching people so hard that their entire bodies explode like he's got the bloody mess perk. so to see someone even break even with him is a damn impressive thing, it instantly establishes your villain credentials y'know?

the thing about raoh is that i love him, very much, but i very much hate how he was handled near the end. the fights with him after the first one are very eh, the penultimate one is close to satisfying but then there's that whole "and then he randomly got away with yuria and now he's gone!!!" bullshit, and i get what the final one was going for and it's kind of built up to but i still didn't exactly like it, y'know? for what it's worth, raoh's redemption arc was probably the most well set up in the entire series, but it still wasn't actually y'know. good. like, the way we're introduced to him is by him being Ken-Oh, King of Fists, and he's this fucking tyrant who recruits people to be his slaves by giving them the ultimatum of "willingly brand yourself as my property and then be my slave for the rest of your short life or get burnt to death", and we're shown that his goons are inches away from burning lin, a literal baby child, to death. and we're supposed to just buy that he's actually not that bad at the end???

like, something i wish this series would just fucking do would be to have their villains just fucking own their villainy right up till the end. they do it before the end!!! one of the first bits with shin has him literally monologuing about how cool & good it is to be evil before busting out one of the greatest evil laughs i've ever heard from a voice actor in any media ever. the best villains are pretty consistently That kind of evil, like the kind of evil that'd make the average disney executive go "hey maybe we can chill a bit out here real quick", and that'd be wonderful if they were unrepentant about it!! it feels really forced!!! imagine if like, frieza, before the bitter end, went all "hmm, maybe i do regret blowing up planets and spending my days being space hitler...." that wouldn't've fucking worked!!! there is, in fact, such an intense degree of evil in fiction that it just doesn't make sense for them to immediately go "hmm yeah i'm a good guy now. right before i die. how about that :)". it's deeply unsatisfying every fucking time, like my god

there's something to be said about the queer coding in this show. i remember in one of the earlier episodes, there was this bear dressed as a BDSM cop and his two goons were scantily clad twinks, and internally i went "haha that's kinda gay" before he straight up kisses random dudes before he kills them. and it hit me like "oh. he IS gay..." and it's like. i don't think that's even the gayest thing in the series, really. there's that one scene where two fang clan dudes are checking out rei and the one with the binoculars is like "woah, this guy's real pretty!" and the other dude is all "well, not as pretty as me right bro???". and then there's just yuda, in general. relatively uninteresting villain, but him dying in rei's arms admitting that his motivation in trying to kill him was that he was the only other man who he found beautiful, like. i don't think there's a heterosexual way to interpret that, really! and that's even setting aside the hideous makeup he's always in! and that's not even mentioning yuria's brother wanting to "see what she(yuria) saw in him (ken)" and as a consequence, wanting to die by his hands. also ein is a bisexual icon who canonically thinks ken has a pretty face and i love that for him

the next bit after yuda was, i believe, souther and shu. now, i think souther might've been the only villain to outright defeat ken up to this point, and i think there's something that could've been interesting about that if souther just wasn't like, aggressively fucking boring. i think he's also the introduction to ki blasts, so that's cool, but the most interesting bits about the souther arc were the bits with shu. shu was a homie, very speedwagon-esque in terms of vibes if not functionality, i liked watching him at work. i will say that shu was probably the point where nanto seiken was wearing out its welcome, we're at like 4 or 5 guys whose main deal was nanto seiken and their entire fighting style could essentially boil down to "cut em into bits" and the only real variation was the shape of the bits people were cut into. i think this might've been the prevailing attitude at the time too, because they definitely pivot away from nanto seiken after this in favor of other, usually dumber martial arts

i will say that this series is, usually, very good about respecting character deaths. with one piss stained exception, characters pretty much always die and stay dead forever, meanwhile i feel like in series less committed to death mattering would've still had toki or rei around by the end of it. the exception is, of course, yuria. it was to give yuria and ken a happy ending, at least for a little while, and honestly while i kinda hate the concept the execution was still fairly competent so i didn't outright dislike it overall. i think it's stupid and retcon-y and at times feels like yet another excuse to make shin seem like less of a bad guy, but it still felt nice to know that yuria got the spend the last few years of her life with the man she loved

i liked ryuga for what he was, mostly just because he wasn't yet another fucking nanto seiken user. he's probably about on par with the elemental guys that'd go on to die to raoh, juza excluded. which brings me to, the man who is tied for Best Boy, juza of the clouds! i.e., my current profile pic. i like juza. he's probably the best thing to come from the series post the Peak arc of jagi to raoh. one of my first criticisms of the characters in this show was something to the effect of "look, if you're a handsome, muscular guy who's also ungodly fucking powerful in terms of martial arts in a world where martial arts is fucking magic, And you're in a post apocalypse? all i'm saying is that you could have basically any girl you wanted CONSENSUALLY, like seriously shin just ditch yuria and build yourself a harem of all the women that look exactly like her". and juza did exactly that, and i love him for it. i'd like to think i'd be like juza, in his universe, not quite the top of the totem pole in terms of raw power but still well above every normal person, saving women from being abused and letting them join my harem if they want, living in a fucking castle with a pool/bathing house? that's the dream, man. that's the fucking dream.

now, that's setting aside juza's whole "wanting to fuck his sister" thing. like, to be fair, yuria's his half sister, but seriously dude what the fuck is it with everyone in this show and yuria. ken and all 3 of his brothers were into her, juza was into her, shin was into her, if there is a man in this show and he knows yuria there's like an 80% chance that he wants her. what's the fucking appeal? like yeah, she's pretty, sure, but so are all the women in this show!!! personally i'd rather date like, a martial artist lady who could actually defend herself, but that could just be me. well, that's like the only thing wrong about juza to me, and honestly while that's a pretty significant flaw you can still say he's literally one thing away from being flawless, so that's pretty cool. god i love him

now's about when we get into hokuto no ken 2, where the main difference is that lin and bat are actually useful now and i'm pretty sure lin wants to fuck kenshiro now, which still weirds me the fuck out. my other favorite character in this show, ein, is the most american fucker on earth. like literally he wears an american flag suit, has blonde hair and blue eyes, is a fucking bounty hunter, and literally rides around on a killdozer driven by what i'm pretty sure is a slave. literally cannot get more american than that, i just hope that the slave guy is like a former bandit or something. little known fact about me, one of my biggest turn ons in a piece of fiction is when a character is a bounty hunter. something about bounty hunters just fuckin gets my brain goin, y'know? i remember when i played the GTA online bounty hunter quests, they were straight up some of the most fun i've had with GTAV and i still think i'd enjoy playing a game where that's the main mechanic. also, at first glance he's a wife guy, but it turns out he's a loving father which makes him even better. it's even acknowledged in universe that he's cool as hell!!! i love him dearly

viceroy jakoh is a decent villain. he's enjoyable to see die, at least. we also meet falco, who's a homie, and honestly i think it's pretty badass that he's a canonically disabled character who's shown to be strong and capable and yet is still clearly held back by his disability. he's a bit like a proto edward elric, in that regard. honestly one of the most sharp inhale inducing scenes of the show was when jakoh swept his prosthetic out from under him and then proceeded to beat the shit out of him, frankly that was an egregious way to make a villain hateable and it was honestly very effective in that regard. gento koken is ok i guess. at least it's not nanto seiken. honestly that whole "celestial emperor" thing felt rather contrived, but eh.

ok so, around this point in the show is when one of its worst aspects really starts to become apparent. so like, it starts out relatively normally when ken is shown to have a few brothers that we didnt know about. it's not that absurd, it makes some amount of sense, the hokuto brothers remain some of the best characters in the entire fucking show. and now all of a sudden, yuria has a brother we didnt know about, and a half brother, and now we meet raoh and ken's biological bigger brothers and after a certain point it just feels like bad self insert fanfic, y'know? and that's what kaioh is to me, it feels like somebody thought raoh was cool and thought "heh, what if i made my own OC that's raoh but even BIGGER and STRONGER and MORE EVIL", like that's what kaioh feels like to me. and then ken's bio brother is just ok, i already forgot his name despite it not being that long since i watched the final arc

but the thing is that kaioh is just like, arguably the most cartoonishly evil villain out of the entire fucking series, seemingly completely unrepentant, literally regularly talks about existing in the "Dark World", straight up kills his own sister just to make ken's brother wanna kill ken, the dude is just bitter and evil the whole way down, so when he pulls that "i just want 2 play on the played ground" bullshit it rings especially hollow even by the standards of the show. god, fuck kaioh, he's just poorly executed overall

the biggest part of hnk2 that i actually liked was shachi. i liked how he was essentially a stupid kid that lucked into being taught unearthly powers basically on par with hokuto shinken, and as such got a big head over it even though at his core he was still a good kid. hokuto ryuken sure felt fuckin contrived, it kinda felt like the writer(s?) noticed how the hokuto brothers were some of the best, most interesting characters in in the original series, and were just like "yeah let's do that but again", and while i guess it doesn't not work it also doesn't work all that well either. hokuto ryuken sounds cool though, even if "north star lapis lazuli fist" doesn't.

another thing i liked about the last parts of the show were that, while definitely not martial art wizards, bat and lin were still deeply competent fighters and put up a consistently good fight against Real Fucking Fighters, which you really wouldn't expect from bat's cowardly ass growing up. i will say that i always thought lin would make a good successor to hokuto shinken, but that might just be wishful thinking. there is a quite prevalent undercurrent of misogyny in this series, and while i understand that it wasn't exactly uncommon in the 80s, i gotta say that i still feel like they could've done better. i dunno

all of this is to say that i liked fist of the north star, very very much. i'm not sure i could recommend it without a laundry list of caveats and disclaimers, but i will say that if my interminable bitching hasn't put you off of it, it's probably for you. it's got a lot of good fights, it scratches that little kid part of your brain that thinks it's so cool to see a guy get kicked in the dick so hard that his entire body explodes, it has great music and mostly competent writing. if you think about it too hard, you will cry, so don't do that, just go along for buronson's wild ride and fuckin enjoy yourself. i probably wouldn't recommend it to someone who's not like, already an anime fan and already likes shonen though. it feels very of its genre, if that makes sense. which i guess it should, given how foundational to shonen in its modern forms as it was

[ficrecsbybu]

WinterIron fic rec 2021: Part I

Note: this fic rec consists only of Bucky Barnes/Tony Stark fics. the only Stucky & Stony you might see is as past relationships but that’s it. it’s also complete works ONLY. also - no underage stuff 🔪.  if you have any requests for Winteriron fic recs (for e.g non-superpower au, only one shots, series, hardcore smut, post-tws, college au, not team cap friendly fics, bodyguard au etc.) you can send me requests ^^. anyway... enjoy 😉 

✨ The Guiding of Death by RayShippouUchiha

“That whole Merchant of Death thing,” someone off to the side faux whispers, “makes a lot more sense now.”

It echoes across the bridge like a gunshot. 

Rated M, Hades & Persephone AU, Canon Divergence, always female Tony Stark, not Team Cap friendly. word count: 41391

(note: listen... I know het pairings and/or gender bend is not popular and I never really read those in general BUT this is straight up one of the best fics I have ever read so I NEEDED to share this with y’all...✌️)

✨ Forms of Love by bear_bell

Tony's the bad guy, after all. He's used to it. He's fine with it. He's good at it.

Only now, there's something far worse loitering around the tower - The Winter Soldier. No one notices the guy at first, but when they do, Tony figures that he should have the soldier's back.

Birds of a feather should flock together, and the bad guys should start a book club.

Rated E, Post-CW, Bucky Barnes & Winter Soldier are Different Personalities, Team Iron Man. word count: 33591

✨ Looking at You by NotEvenCloseToStraight

Bucky looks for so long that now all he wants to do is touch and hold and fix everything. But Tony can barely be in the same room as Bucky, cant even look him in the eye. So Bucky doesn't know what to do about Tony, but he is determined to do something. Because all he wants is to look at Tony, and see Tony looking back with a smile.

Rated E, Post-CW, PTSD, team heals, mental healing, forgiveness, angst with a happy ending. word count: 28,168

✨ I'll Be Your Bodyguard (If You'll Be My Security Blanket) by NarutoRox

When one of Loki's pranks gone wrong leaves the team with a young Winter Soldier in their care, they know they're going to have their hands full. Especially since this newer, tinier version of Bucky seems to have a bodyguard complex - and a particular attachment to Tony.

Rated T, kid fic, age regression/de-aging, de-aged Bucky, tiny bodyguard Bucky. word count: 4,993. 

(note: finally something CUTE. Im so sorry for being such a slut for angst and heavy stuff 😅)

✨ Fate Strings Not Required by Akira_of_the_Twilight

Tony took the hint.

Tony wrapped his hand around the new guy’s elbow. He kept his touch light and breakable in case he’d misread the cue.

“Just some guy claiming to be my soul mate, babe.”

The new guy’s eyebrows rose to his hairline in surprise. He chuckled and gave the first guy a smirk. “Strange. Last time I checked we were soul mates.”

Rated T, AU - no superpowers, AU - soulmates, Bodyguard Bucky Barnes, age difference. word count: 7,032.

✨ Shameless  by Finely Honed (jaqen_hgar)

Tony isn’t actually sure which of them starts it—he’d like to take credit, but if he’s learned anything it’s that Barnes is by no means a wilting flower. Besides, the start doesn’t matter as much as figuring out who’s going to actually finish it.

rated M, flirting, dirty talk, sexual tension. word count: 2,560

✨ Winter Wooer by salytierra

Winter may not be the most pleasant guy to live or share your body with, but he isn't nearly as destructive as everybody expected him to be either. He likes to brood in the corners, watch British TV, and freak people out. And Tony. He really, really likes Tony Stark. There's just one problem – Bucky's pretty sure he doesn't feel the same way about the guy.

Rated M, Bucky Barnes & Winter Soldier are Different Personalities, team as family. word count: 8,726

✨ Even Darkness Must Pass by Finely Honed (jaqen_hgar)

“Fake it till you make it,” Bucky whispered to himself, swallowing around his panic. Sam had drilled the idea into him, and it had become a mantra of sorts, something to hold onto when all he wanted to do was blend into the shadows and disappear.

“You’ll be fine.”

Steve placed a warm, strong hand on Bucky’s shoulder and squeezed, his super soldier ears having picked up Bucky uttering the now familiar saying.

Bucky nodded, tried to believe his own words, and followed Steve onto the common floor, a wall of sound hitting them as they entered.

rated M (but mild sexual content), parent Tony Stark, Bucky Barnes recovering, team as family, of love and hobbits 🧝🏻‍♂️. word count: 15,289

✨ Paths Are Made by Walking by Potrix 

The road to recovery is long, winding and a different one for every person walking it. Bucky chooses to help himself the only way he knows how; by doing what he does best.

Or, alternatively; the one in which Tony is a mess and accidentally kick-starts Bucky’s protective mother hen instincts.

rated T, post-TWS, fluff, humour, getting together, idiots in love. word count: 4,744.

✨ Rise In Perfect Light (Be Not Fearful Of The Night) by RayShippouUchiha

At first, the new element singing in his chest, Tony doesn’t understand what he’s done.

Doesn’t understand the full consequences of his actions.

But, to be fair, there’s no way he really could have.

Not even a futurist like him could have ever seen this coming.

rated G, post-CW, past Stony, angst with a happy ending. word count: 3,589.

(note: this fic is SO BEAUTIFUL. lemme just asjkdjnsjkdm)

✨ and amidst the ruins, there was you by TheKitteh

With everything resolved - post the Berlin conflict, Siberia and the rogue Avengers' return - Tony relishes in the clarity of what the team is now. He can finally see the well-defined lines, he can rely on solid rules and the chain of command. He's settled into his life like never before.

That is, until one day, an unhinged sorcerer with no grasp on his magic shatters that new-found balance.

As a result, half of Tony's soul is now gone, but he's willing to do anything to get it back.

rated T, post-CW, canon divergence, au - Dystopia, Dimension Travel, magical accidents, slow burn, getting together. word count: 36,976

✨ and so we unfold by TheKitteh

Senbazuru. Thousand Cranes.

An ancient Japanese legend that promises anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by the gods. Some stories believe you are granted happiness and eternal good luck, instead of just one wish, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury.

Bucky’s not big on believing in any legends, not after all that has happened. He just wants to create something for a change, not destroy.

He needs to prove himself that he can be trusted to handle something delicate. He doesn’t need a promise of a wish come true. He just,- needs to do this for himself.

He doesn’t need noticing how sad, tired Stark looks. Doesn’t need to want to do something for the man, when he can barely do anything for himself.

rated T, CACW canon divergence, getting together, reconciliation, POV alternating, Bucky Barnes recovering. word count: 14,449

✨ Spilt on the Ground like Water by tisfan

Tony has been black-bagged and illegally held at the Raft. Steve has no intentions of going to rescue him.

But the Winter Soldier isn't going to leave him behind.

rated E, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, implied/referenced torture, frottage, dub-con, mention of part non-con (HYDRA trash party), not Steve friendly, suicidal thoughts, touch-starved. word count: 10,853

✨ Norns, Save Us (From Ourselves) by phlintandsteel

It’s been ten years since half the universe was dusted.

rated E, post-IW au, A/B/O verse, Omega Tony, Alpha Bucky, Soulmates, Peter & Harley playing matchmaker, still recovering Bucky Barnes, not Steve Rogers Friendly, angst with a happy ending. word count: 37,324.

✨ Change You Like A Remix by ficlicious 

No one ever said Avenging would be easy, but Bucky could have really used a memo about the weeks where the hits just didn’t stop coming. He’d probably still have signed his soul away to the gods of spandex and paperwork, but a heads up woulda been nice before he nodded and smiled and took up residence in the house sanity fled when the Avengers moved in.

---- Soulmates, misunderstandings, snark, genderswap and sleep-deprived Avengers abound. Tony's a woman. Must be Friday.

rated E, AU - soulmates, established relationship, temporary gender swap, jealous Bucky Barnes, misunderstanding, miscommunication. word count: 10,494.

✨ Getting to Know You by orbingarrow

It had been an adventure, navigating the sweetly apologetic Bucky Barnes, who haunted the tower most days, and the the Winter Soldier, who occasionally inhabited Barnes’s body. The Winter Soldier was not apologetic; he was scary. And he was currently chilling out, uninvited, in Tony's lab.

“Leave,” Tony said, because Tony was either a dead man or not, and there wasn’t much he could do about it before coffee.

“Or you could give me permission to be here,” the Winter Soldier suggested.

“I don’t let strangers poke around my stuff,” Tony grumbled, as he walked past the Soldier to take a seat at his workbench.

“Easily solved,” the Soldier deflected. “Get to know me.”

-This is what happens when Tony does.

rated G, Bucky Barnes & Winter Soldier are different personalities, fluff, Clint Barton is a good bro. word count: 9,470

✨ Safe House by ali_aliska

For years, Tony had successfully kept his secret. Neither the world nor his team knew he was Iron Man and as far as he was concerned, everyone was better off that way. On his best days, Tony Stark was not someone people liked and trusted, so the last thing Tony wanted was to tarnish Iron Man’s good reputation by revealing the truth.

But then SHIELD falls, the Avengers face disarray, and a stray Hydra assassin forces Tony to go into hiding—and where better than the safe house he had just crafted for the Avengers and their own ex-assassin ready to come in from the cold?

Tony plans to hide away from everyone in his makeshift workshop until the coast is clear and he’s safe to go home. No one would care to spend any time with the reclusive, arrogant billionaire anyways, right? Iron Man is the one everyone wants around.

Bucky Barnes, on his own journey to reclaim his life and identity, seems to disagree with that sentiment.

rated T, post TWS, canon divergence, au - Secret Identity, mutual pining, team as family, slow burn, misunderstandings. word count: 89,533

✨ Versace on the floor by withered

The modern man’s armor is his clothing, and Bucky wants Tony out of his.

rated T,  post CW, Bucky Barnes & Winter Soldier are Separate Personalities, Barnes & Soldier & their hard-on for Tony, not team cap friendly. word count: 2,127 

[crow-in-a-teapot]

tower of nero spoilers

i have just finished the tower of nero. and before i go searching for other people’s thoughts and art and more of the characters i love so much, i want to write down some of my own thoughts because i know as soon as i delve into that ‘ton spoilers’ hashtag there are going to be complaints and criticisms and so much that i don’t want to hear, or essays that’ll make me upset, or things that’ll change my perception on the book (because on this website people really love to hate the trials of apollo).

i want to start with: i loved it. it didn’t feel earth-shattering or huge and momentous like some of my favourite riordanverse books (house of hades, the blood of olympus, the last olympian and maybe some of the magnus chase books take those pedestals for me) but it was satisfying. and i think it was satisfying because it in no way felt like an ending. whether because eventually rick will write that will-and-nico-go-through-tartarus-and-save-bob novella, or because we (or at least i) will continue writing and imagining and creating for this world i don’t know. he didn’t wrap up the story in a perfect little bow like ‘nineteen years later’, he simply put it on pause. gave us a glimpse of where every character was at at the end.

the only thing that makes me so angry and upset is that i did manage to get some spoilers for moments that i know would have been so good to experience for the first time if i hadn’t been spoiled for them. the moment where rachel mentions penguins in a mansion near her house, nico getting mental health advice from mr d, the fact that will and nico were going to be in the book for so much of the story, but the big thing was literally spoiled for me two days ago, it was the reason i sat down to read it as fast as possible because i was terrified of getting more spoiled and not being able to experience the moments for myself, was that piper had a girlfriend. i know that reading that for the first time would have been so cool and surprising, and the fact that when it came up for a moment in the last couple pages all i felt was disappointment because it was spoiled for me and because it was now tinged with whatever that person was saying about her having a girlfriend.

but i still had some warm fuzzy moments, the two parts where apollo thinks he’s going to die but nico comes up behind him - so good. impeccable. 

Leader Guy spat. ‘Now, I kill you.’

He raised his sword... and froze. His face turned pale. His skin began to shrivel. His beard fell out whisker by whisker like dead pine needles. Finally, his skin crumbled away, along with his clothes and flesh, until Leader Guy was nothing but a bleached-white skeleton, holding a sword in his bony hands. 

Standing behind him, his hand on the skeleton’s shoulder, was Nico di Angelo.

and

Nero raised his hand, ready to give the kill command, when behind me a mighty BOOM! shook the chamber. Half our enemies were thrown off their feet. Cracks sprouted in the windowsand the marble columns. Ceiling tiles broke, raining dust like split bags of flour. 

I turned to see the impenetrable blast doors lying twisted and broken, a strangely emaciated red bull standing in the breach. Behind it stood Nico di Angelo.

gods. poetic brilliance. i can’t believe i’m still a nico di angelo stannie in the year 2021. in five years i have not changed (ever since the tv show announcement last summer i have managed to morph into myself from 2017)

from here i’m not sure where to go next i kind of want to go through everything, except it’ll be more difficult than my tyrant’s tomb reaction because i wasn’t reading on a kindle and thus can’t just do funny little reactions to screenshots of quotes, so i’ll just skim through the book page by page and see what i can comment on (i’m not planning on doing analysis today, no thank you, just enjoying the end of my childhood and trying to squeeze as much out of it as possible)

i have an emotional attachment to mr. snake from the very first chapter, and am very upset that he’ll never get off on his baltimore stop and get to see his wife, lu had no reason to shoot and kill him like that.

that brings me to lu, i liked her, it was interesting to see how rick kind of brought in not only the overarching theme of abuse, but also people who let the abuse happen, i have more i could say on this i’m too lazy to right now, and i promised no analysis - or the fact that Lu had conspired to make the show non-lethal to spare Meg’s feelings rather than - oh, I don’t know - refusing to do Nero’s dirty work in the first place and getting Meg out of that house of horrors. 

And are you any better? taunted a small voice in my brain. How many times have you stood up to Zeus?

Okay, small voice. Fair point. Tyrants are not easy to opppose or walk away from, especially when you depend on them for everything.

the parallels to meg and lester heading to percy’s apartment, and then to camp half blood to the hidden oracle was so cool to read, every callback to the hidden oracle just there to remind us readers exactly how far apollo has come and how he’s changed; the entire chapter with sally, paul and estelle just felt sickly sweet, it just didn’t seem real how wholesome and good that family is, like i get why apollo broke down and just sobbed in that shower.

also rick really saying acab again in toa, i thought he was done after that elf cop chapter in magnus chase (the magnus chase series is a masterpiece) but apparently not, with A ‘good cop’ is still a cop... still a part of the mind game.

the grey sisters, i forgot about them completely but this threw me back into was it the sea of monsters when annabeth summoned them? i’m not sure, it could have been the lightning thief either, they really remind me of the disney hercules movie. the whole ganymede paragraph was gold, i love gods being canonically confirmed lgbt in the riordanverse. i also love the whole eye-tossing part - 

‘He will crush our eye,’ Anger cried, ‘if we don’t recite our verses!’

‘I will not!’

‘We will all die!’ Wasp said. ‘He is crazy!’

‘I AM NOT!’

‘Fine, you win!’ Tempest howled.

also, the explanation for why dionysus chooses to look the way he does was perfect, because it was something i often wondered about and wasn’t expecting to get an explanation for, and i imagine the whole mythological dionysus to look like.. well like a more feminine apollo i guess, beautiful in a gender non-comforming way.

Other Olympians could never comprehend why Dionysus chose this form when he could look like anything he wanted. In ancient times, he’d been famous for his youthful beauty that defied gender.

... 

In retaliation, Dionysus had decided to look and act as ungodly as possible. He was like a child refusing to tuck in his shirt, comb his hair or brush his teeth, just to show his parents how little he cared.

every scene with nico at camp just BREAKS ME, i would throw in screenshots of every damn quote but unfortunately, as said above, cannot and would rather not type every one; we’ll start with, obviously apollo confirming to him that jason is dead. 

He didn’t look angry exactly. He looked as if he’d been hit in the gut not just once but so many times over the course of so many years that he was beginning to lose perspective on what it meant to be in pain. He swayed on his feet. He blinked. Then he flinched, jerking his hands away from Meg’s as if he’d just remembered his own touch was poison.

ugh then will talking about how nico’s doing, confirming that he’s suffering with ptsd, mr d giving him advice, helping him sort though what voices in his head are real and which ones aren’t, then the paragraph that just recounts every horrific thing poor nico has been through, how will has to reassure him that he’s okay and ‘with friends’ when he wakes up after shadow travel

will’s kindness to apollo, buying him clothes, and apollo finding seymour the leopard’s head in his bed, put there by mr d aaaa AAAA A A A A A THE ORDINARY, EVERYDAY CAMP HALF BLOOD THINGS..

i could go on for years and years about how much i appreciate rachel having a big role in this book, and the visit to her apartment, everything, her art, the fact that she got what she wanted, she’s going to PARIS to study ART, she isn’t forced to be someone she’s not by her dad, and gets to be a big part of a demigod mission and not stand on the sidelines for once.

i love that her landscapes are still visions, that she still paints the quests demigods go on - the burning maze, jason’s funeral pyre, caligula’s ships; and how nico ~appreciates art~

‘And, hey, di Angelo -’ she pushed him playfully away from the canvas he’d been ogling - ‘don’t brush against the art! I don’t care about the paintings, but if you get any colour on you, you’ll ruin that whole black-and-white aesthetic you’ve got going.’

i. love. rachel.

WILL GLOWS!! THE HEADCANONS FROM LIKE FIVE YEARS AGO THAT YOU’D SEE FLOATING AROUND ABOUT HIM MANIPULATING LIGHT!! CONFIRMED!! CANON!! AMAZING

I AM  OBSESSED WITH THE TROGS, I LOVE THEM, THEY ARE GREAT, not gonna lie, i was expecting something more dramatic and spooky with how worried will was and how dionysus was going.. visiting the cavern-runners isn’t ♫ good for your mental health  ♫ but the little hat frog gremlins were a good addition. i like them very much and their funky little soup shenanigans. quoting the ghost king himself: trogs good. nice hats. (IM SORRY I KEEP MENTIONING HIM BUT I JUST) also how apollo starts wishing for breadsticks a s ajoke and theY STRAIGHT UP HAVE BREADSTICKS? HUH? WHERE DID THEY GET THE BREADSTICKS FROM??

yeah, i’m also still very much upset by every mention of jason grace, it’s funny how ever since his death in the burning maze i have grown to love him more and more and that’s not fun for me, for that boy to become one of my main comfort character’s and have his death and sacrifice and nobility mentioned every few chapters. i’m pretty sure i cried when he appeared to talk in apollo’s dreams, and this time the tears weren’t from the effort of keeping my eyes open and working for hours straight reading this book (i remember staying up until 2am to finish the sequel to beautiful, broken things, it was very much worth it)

‘All right, Jason. We miss you, though.’

ALSO. THE FACT THAT THIS KID. THIS CHILD. HAD TO THINK ‘BUT IF A HERO ISN’T READY TO LOSE EVERYTHING FOR A GREATER CAUSE, IS THAT PERSON REALLY A HERO?’ A KID ISN’T SUPPOSED TO THINK ABOUT THAT AND BE READY TO SACRIFICE THEMSELVES FOR THE GREATER GOOD,, i,, ugh,, he’s supposed to be finishing school and designing temples not being the perfect hero and soldier,, spain without the s,,

as @couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name said: ‘thinking about how ghost! Jason didn’t seem to understand why Apollo was so upset about his death because he’s been raised to believe a hero’s sacrifice is noble and his life doesn’t matter in the grand scheme and also if he doesn’t understand why the person who watched him get horrifically killed is so torn up over his death he probably doesn’t even realize his other friends are grieving him..’

IM SO UPSET THE ARROW OF DODONA IS DEAD D: IT WAS ONE OF MY FAVOURITE CHARACTERS ALL THE FUNNIEST MOMENTS WERE BECAUSE OF THAT ARROW AND IT'S DEATH WAS SO SAD WTH LIKE WE FIND OUT HOW USELESS THE ARROW FELT AND HOW THE GROVE OF DODONA ALL THOUGHT IT WOULD BE CRAP AND WOULD FAIL APOLLO AND THEN ONCE WE FEEL BAD FOR IT, IT DIES??

the entire python battle was pretty grim, there is a part of me that's like because this is the last book series i would have loved say the magnus chase and kane chronicles gang in a giant battle with everyone like the battle of manhattan but even more dramatic, but even so, i did appreciate that python battle and the whole almost-falling-into-the-depths-of-tartarus thing.

him talking to artemis was cool, but JESUS: 'I turned and strode out of my room, trying to recall how the god Apollo walked.' like that HURTS. it was such a huge culture shock for apollo to go throught this huge character arc and be so human and understand the pain of others, to be around gods again who are so.. apathetic. also, zeus. 'Interesting how he put that: I had done him proud. I had been useful in making him look good. My heart did not melt. I did not feel that this was a warm-and-fuzzy reconciliation with my father. Let's be honest: some fathers don't deserve that. Some aren't capable of it.'

OKAY OKAY SO THE END?? CHIRON TALKING TO A CAT (BAST) AND A SEVERED HEAD (MIMIR) ABOUT SHARED PROBLEMS WITHIN THE PANTHEONS!! WILL AND NICO RECEIVING A PROPHECY FROM RACHEL TO GO TO TARTARUS AND SAVE BOB!! THE HUNTERS OF ARTEMIS, INCLUDING THALIA AND REYNA BEING BEST FRIENDS (qpr.. qpr..) HUNTING THE TEUMESSIAN FOX!! PERCY, ANNABETH AND GROVER, THE ORIGINAL TRIO, GOING ON A CHAOTIC ROAD TRIP TOGETHER!! - SO MANY STAND-ALONE SET -UPS PFSJSJSJ

okay quick word on the reunions at the end: funny little elephant visitation program with livia and hannibal. love that for them. calypso and leo's relationship seems rocky and complicated, but that's to be expected, i think even if they do get properly back together again it might not last long, because it does pretty much feel like a teenage relationship where the two aren't very compatible, but we'll see. hazel and frank are so funny with their gold plated necklaces. lavinia - tap-dance icon. almost cried at the mention of jason's temple-extension plan again. percy not being sure about what he wants to do in college is accurate and i like that that's left to be up-for-interpretation (rick does THE MOST for the fanfic writers pfsjsj). i am OBSESSED with aeithales, like i hate deserts so the burning maze setting is not my favourite but GOD that HOUSE, the vibes are off-the-charts. i'd love a house made of living trees that's also a greenhouse filled with dryads. meg gets a unicorn. that is so great.

i kind of wish the book hadn't ended with 'Call on me. I will be there for you.' because every time I imagine the friends theme song and i don't think that's the vibe he was going for, BUT i do love him talking to meg, that was genuinely emotional - 'You'll come back?' she asked. 'Always,' I promised. 'The sun always comes back.' ; i really wish it had ended with that, but i guess apollo does tend to break fourth walls and talk to the readers, like a lot of the protagonists of riordanverse books.

[mingot-studios]

Things currently polluting my mind (will be added to as i think of things)

 How bad the Star vs. Finale was, and weather i should even bother trying to watch the show again at this point

The fact that the next JoJolion chapter is coming out soon and I STILL haven’t read 107 with my mom even though I’ve already read it

Not being caught up on One Piece and having 0 IDEA of whats happening at this poin as well starting to flaws with the series (racism, transphobia, and homophobia) that i knew was there but chose to ignore and weather it should hinder my relationship with the series. Also wanting to murder Oda for demoting Franky to ‘Pervy Grandma’ (srsly wtf oda)

Upset Infinity Train was cancelled even though i never watched it, and wonder why the fans cry for it to come is suddenly not happening?

The fact i’m going to be returning to in person schooling which is my personal HELL

my brother leaving for college upstate (Me and my brother have never really been that close, we fight alot but I cant imagine life without him)

The fact that my procrastination has gotten so bad that I nearly had to retake PE, World History, and English

The Owl House coming back on the 12th but i had downloaded the first 2 episodes but haven’t watched them and debating if i should, also having a meltdown  over Disney screwing the show over and having its third be 3 or 4 (i cant remember) 44-minute specials

The fact that me and brother STILL haven’t finished our Yume 2kki Let’s Play

I haven’t been watching anime regularly with my mom

I haven’t posted anything to my DeviantArt or YouTube in months

I have so much energy right now but no outlets

I still haven’t tried out my drawing pad i got for my birthday last year

I have so many drawing ideas but my spiral sketchpad is filled up and I have yet to get a new one

Ive many intricit and detailed story ideas that i know im gonna forget if i dont write them down bu due my procrastination i haven’t done so im prolly gonna lose everything

The fact Thurston Waffles hasn’t posted anything since late April as well as the fact that he’s got Kidney problems

So many ideas for videos but I only have WindowsMovieMaker and the HumbleBundle my mom got me idk YEARS ago won’t install

I’m gonna be 17 at the end of September, which i only have until next June before I graduate High school, have to give up my Chromebook, start thinking about college and getting a job, possibly moving out and living on my own, the knowledge that my parents are in their late 50′s and early 60′s so hey might be gone sooner than most parents and I dont know how to function without my parents doing everything for me

These weird tingles ive been getting in my body for he pas couple days

The fact that im not gonna a kid soon and im gonna have to grow and stop doing whatever i want whenever i want and i’m gonna never accomplish my dream of creating a successful cartoon and will probably end up at a dead end job I HATE just to make ends meet and eventually dying alone because I dont wanna be in a relationship or have kids

Everything is too overwhelming. The light, the sound, my thoughts, its all too much. I wanna curl up into a tiny ball and disappear from this awful experience called life

Capitalism

i hate being so passionately when i’m upset, everyone else is calm but i have meltdowns and freaks outs over things i shouldn’t even care about or are miniscule (Comes with being autistic i guess)

I have 0 patience and i hate it

I’m starting to regress back to being a childish brat after all the progress i’ve made

i’m constantly surrounded by either criticism or praise that contradict each other so i dont know what to believe about myself

the fact that i have so many great story ideas but i cant write a cohernt thought with proper grammer or sytax or spelling o save my life, nor the art skill or the patience or the tech to draw comics

i haven seen my therapist in days and i need help but i know im not actually gonna change 

having gender panic

I have no in person friends and ive forgotten how to interact with people

ive become a noodle limbed nerd

Ive gotten super skinny

I want someone o break through my shell and help me change bu I know thats just a fantasy and im the only one who can do that but im too lazy to put effort into it

everything i used to enjoy suddenly feels tedious monotonous repetitive and uninteresting

I feel trapped and scraed 

The fact after being bulied so much the only way i can really assert myself is to get violent and angry because they would want me breakdown and cry

I have this image in my head of who i want to be; And badass that people including adults, are scared of and know not to fuck with me or they’ll get hurt (Basically Jotaro, bu I’ve had this image since before i even knew what jojo was) And the fact I KNOW that i’s a pointless endever and that i only dig my own grave when i get mad but its like ingrained Branded into my my psyche so im always going to larp that vision of myself but not get anywhere and only regress further

I want to address my problems and change but I never do and stay static and regress

I cant take crticisim even though i know its true

The reason im so scared of writing fanfiction is because i know its gonna be a mess despite what i think is a great story and people will end up mocking it and what little self confidence i have will shatter

Star Vs wasted potential

the fact that I dont know where to take the whole “Rubi dies at the  end of he first season but comes back o life except she’s not actually she’s just a walking meat sack containing an anchint eldritch god that will, sooner or later, burst out of her and destroy her body, and she’s fighting for control of her ow body due to Skarlotus trying to devor her soul and Data’s medience is only delaying the inevitable” storyline of my concept cartoon, The Crypto Club

I have an AMAZING idea for an Invader Zim storyline that has fascism, rascism, mass genocide, child soldiers, political intrigue, propaganda, baiscally space hitler and more (okay that came out sound REALLY bad, but NONE of it painted as good!) It also involves Zim and Dib coming together to stop an even bigger threat and there is a really ironic ending that brings my OC GA83′s story full circle

[weepingvoidpenguin]

The Gods’ Blessing (Pt. 5)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4,

Summary: In your world, everyone had a soulmate. That’s just how things went. Everyone had some sort of Indicator that their other half was out there, be it telepathy or a red string that connected these two strangers. Yours was one unspoken of, in fact, you’d never heard anyone say that they had the same Indicator as you. And because of this rarity, you longed to meet the person who could gift you with what you lacked, maybe not so much so to be with the person but more so to finally see what others took for granted. Yet, you held onto the hope that one of your best friends was your Meant-To-Be but he has his eyes on another girls and the little green monster slowly engulfs you at the deterioration of your hope.

Warning: Like 1 F-Bomb, angst, reader being reckless

Word Count: 4.3K

Author’s Note: I’m literally so sorry this took so long to come out but I lost motivation to write and randomly got it back and now I know where I want to take this story so I’m dedicating some time to this series again. ALSO I wanted to thank EVERYONE from the bottom of my heart who has asked to be tagged or complimented my writing it means SO MUCH and helps me continue to write. Everyone who has requested to be tagged will be; I’m just dumb and didn’t know I could privately respond to asks and I didn’t want to spam my page with answers so... yeah I know, I’m dumb lol ENJOY

(CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO FIND THE ORIGINAL GIF FOR MY STORY BECAUSE WTF I SPENT LITERALLY 30 MINUTES LOOKING FOR THE RIGHT ONE BUT COULDN’T FIND IT AND I USED THE SAME TAGS AS ALWAYS AND YES THE GIFS ARE STILL THERE SOMEONE HELP PLS AND THANK YOU) (AND ALSO LITERALLY CAN’T ADD A READ MORE LINE BECAUSE I COPY AND PASTE FROM WORD SO IM SORRY TUMBLR IS JUST TRYING ME TODAY)

  You let the thunderous knocks at your door rack for nearly five minutes before you trudged out of bed with your blanket still encased around you. You kept your eyes glued to your carpet, watching as your feet slid along the floor on your way to the door. Your hand hovered over the knob as hesitation ceased your actions. 

  What if it was Peter at your door? Your heart twisted at the thought and you couldn’t stop how your hand shot out and grasped the handle. Damn how your body could betray you. 

  You noticed how your actions slowly became less your own over the past few days. Naturally, you could sit, lay, stand, eat, drink and etc. on command but whenever the thought of the brunette boy shattered its way through the walls you’d created, your hands flew towards your phone every single time. You had desired Peter, desired for him to reach out to you and clear the air, answer the questions consuming your mind, just talk to you in any way. Maybe his words wouldn’t make you feel better but at least his voice would soothe the storm brewing in your stomach.

  You had skipped school the last two days, claiming to have a fever to your mother who, as a doctor, knew better. But she was an understanding woman and gave you the time she suspected you needed to deal with whatever was bothering you. She’d tried to get you to talk but each attempt was met with silence and isolation so she left you be, only occasionally leaving a warm drink on your nightstand.

  You hadn’t just isolated yourself from your mother though; you’d completely disregarded the messages you were getting from MJ and Ned. You tried to keep away from your phone, in all honesty. You wanted to disconnect, to just feel what you felt and ride the wave until the waters soothed themselves. But with the amount of times you’d checked your inbox for a new message from Peter or merely went back to read old texts that used to bring a smile to your face, you’d say disconnecting had failed miserably. In fact, every time you checked your phone only made the sinking feeling in your stomach liven with a fresh ache and you’d lay right back down.

  Your window remained locked now. For the most part. Some nights, for about an hour or so, you’d unlatch it, idiotically hoping that somehow Peter would be aware of your actions and know that you, in a moment of weakness, wanted to see him again. That your silent invitation had been noticed and he would come running to you. But, of course, it didn’t work like that.

  You were released from the deep constraints of your thoughts with another set of rapping on the door. You sighed and brought yourself to look through the peephole only to be met with an eye already glaring through it. You let out a quiet shriek at the expression strewn about MJ’s face and slowly unlocked the door.

  She didn’t wait for you to open it though, taking matters into her own hands and flinging the entryway open to storm through and slam shut behind her. You stood frozen, watching as she glowered with her arms crossed over her chest. You two stood in silence like that for a few moments and she continued to stare, waiting for you to give an explanation for your behavior for the past few days.

  She knew better than to think you were sick. Even when you were sick you always messaged her back but this mood was something she had yet to experience in all her years of friendship with you.

  “So?” She practically snarled and you gulped.

  You scanned her up and down. She was entirely on the defense here. Her arms crossed, foot tapping on the ground and the disapproving look of the century plastered on her face all scrambled together to serve you one very pissed off MJ.

  She waited for a response, not breaking her composure for even a fraction of a second. The anger radiating off her body was more than you could handle in the moment, especially when it was accompanied with the sorrow encasing your very being.

  Her expression softened in the slightest as she studied you, noting how you couldn’t meet her gaze, not that it had been a warm one to begin with but still. Your hair was in shambles and the deep, dark circles under your eyes conveyed more than you were willing to bring yourself to admit. And when you finally looked up at her she took your desperate embrace with ease; all of her anger diminishing as she held you.

  “Hey,” She soothed, running her hand up and down your back through the blanket, “what’s going on?”

  You looked up at her, only slightly pulling back from the hug, “There’s something I have to tell you,” ~   That first day that you had kicked Peter out of your apartment he didn’t go on patrol that night. He was too distraught. Instead, he trudged home with his head hung low and his thoughts drowning him in regret.

  He’d been weak that afternoon. He couldn’t help it. It’d been so long since you two had hung out together alone, aside from the rare occasion last week, and so much had happened within that time. 

  That first night, when the two of you kissed and the stars had come to life for the first time in his existence, everything in those few moments had been perfect; no, better than perfect. The world had burst to life under your touch and suddenly his years of yearning and longing for you had made sense. The world had been right and just for once. For one goddamn minute.

  And then, because of that moment that he hungered to relive again, he’d lost you. Maybe permanently. 

  How could he have been so stupid? How could he have just given in to the desire pining for your touch? He couldn’t have helped it. The way you looked, the smile gleaming on your face, the way you were straddling and hovering above him; it all called out to him. You called out to him. His eyes traced down from your eyes to your neck and then lower to the bit of exposed cleavage in his face. He blushed in the moment, feeling guilty for letting his mind wander to those treacherous places that caused his imagination to spiral. And, oh, how his thoughts spiraled. 

  That need to touch you, to hold you, to kiss you, to be with you had made him weak in the moment. But had it really been so wrong to give in? After all, you are his soulmate and if it were okay to touch anyone the way his body had urged him to, why not the person that he was meant for and was meant for him?

  No, it hadn’t wrong to give in because from the look that glazed your eyes and elicited your body when you connected, he knew you wanted to give in too. He knew you wanted to be with him just as much as he wanted to be with you. 

  And that’s why he wanted to go over that day. He had planned to tell you everything. He even had his suit in his backpack to show you but then it all went wrong. He’d prematurely exposed the truth but in a way that made it seem secretive. He hadn’t meant to be secretive; he was just scared.

  Plus, he finally had the girl he’d been working to get for the past few months and he had to just throw that all away. At that point, his feeling for Liz were real just miniscule compared to the ones he attempted to drown out for you. Not to mention, Liz liked Peter as he was without the hero complex but (Y/N) liked Spider-Man, a literal superhero. 

  Maybe that had been the reason that (Y/N) had kicked him out so quickly. Was she disappointed that her mysterious hero had turned out to be none other than Peter Parker? Was being Peter really that bad in her eyes? No, (Y/N) loved Peter . . . platonically. 

  But Liz . . . Liz liked Peter, not Spider-Man. (Y/N) didn’t want her shy best friend, she wanted her mysterious hero. (Y/N) didn’t like Peter for who he was, only who he presented himself to be. Her feelings were solely based on a hidden character under the red and blue suit. She didn’t want Peter Parker. She couldn’t want Peter Parker. Peter Parker wasn’t enough for her and he never would be.

  He shook his head at the thoughts, hating how his conclusion could tug at his chest so fiercely. Nonetheless, he let himself fester on that idea until it became his mentality.

  (Y/N) was not interested in Peter. ~   You could hardly communicate everything that had happened over the course of the last few weeks to MJ with all the tears and sobs interrupting the story. She caught onto the gist of it, though. Peter was Spider-Man, Spider-Man was her soulmate, Peter was with Liz, etc. 

  She let you cry until you fell asleep that night and she stayed with you the next day so she could force you to go to school, even if it was Friday. 

  Her alarm woke you up the next morning and you groaned as you shoved your pillow over your ear to drown out the sound. MJ rolled around, cutting the alarm off and cuddling closer to you before shoving you out of bed.

  “What the hell?” You asked, reaching out for the pillow that was pried from your hold. 

  MJ held the cushion just out of your reach and dangled it in the air, ���Good morning!” She cheerily shouted, very unlike herself.

  You groaned in response and shoved the blanket over your head just for that to be ripped away as well. “Get up, you’re coming to school,”

  A huff escaped your lips as the sunlight shone even from behind closed eyelids. You wanted to argue and stay home but you would just get hell for it and end up going to school anyway so you used that time of argument to get ready instead. MJ had woken you up early enough to let you shower, as you hadn’t recently, and made breakfast while you got ready.

  In the stillness of your room, you observed your reflection in the mirror. Your eyes were still puffy from the crying and there was a slight dry rash from wiping your nose so much but other than that, you looked practically normal. You ran your hands down your body, hating that you put in a little extra effort in your looks to catch Peter’s attention. In the midst of shamefully admiring yourself, you caught a glimpse of the pictures tacked onto the wall behind you. You whirled around and your gaze landed on the brightest of them all. A picture of the four of you sitting in the grass, MJ on one side of you and Peter on the other. You removed the tack from the photo and smiled down at it. The picture had been taken the first time you all hung out together, the same day you’d told MJ about your feelings for Peter only to be met with a knowing look from her. She could read you like a book that woman. 

  “Hey, breakfast is ready-” MJ burst through the door and cut herself off at the sight of you. “What’s that?”

  “Do you remember this photo?” You asked, holding it up for her to see.   Her eyes softened and she had a small smile, “I have this same picture in a drawer somewhere,”

  “Do you remember what I told you that day?”

  MJ looked up at you, her eyebrows furrowed as she waited for an explanation.

  “That’s the day I told you that I thought I liked Peter,” She looked down at the photo and handed it back to you, “It’s like . . . since the beginning it’s been him. It’s always been him.” You placed the photo back in its original place, “And now I know why,”

  Later that day in the cafeteria, the table had been full of tension. MJ throwing glares at Peter, Peter brushing them off his shoulder, your head crammed into a textbook, Ned trying to break the tension and Liz having no idea what the hell was going on. 

  “You guys are so cute together,” MJ cheerily spoke up after a while, looking at Peter and Liz’s interlocked fingers.

  “Thanks,” Peter stated bluntly, his gaze fixated on MJ.

  “I just didn’t think you would end up dating a guy like that, Liz, but now that I’m looking at it, it makes sense,”

  “A guy like what?” Liz raised an eyebrow, concerned there was something about Peter that she didn’t know.

  “A liar-”

  “MJ, can you help me with this equation?” You interjected, hoping she hadn’t heard what MJ said.

  “I don’t know why you’d need my help, you’re the best one here at math,” she slyly retorted, not once breaking her eye contact with Peter.

  “I’ll help you,” Ned spoke up and the both of you exchanged worried glances. It suddenly dawned on you that Ned probably already knows Peter’s secret; which means, he already knew about you as well.

  “Anyway,” Liz spoke up after a few tense moments of silence, “I’m throwing a party tonight at my place, everyone’s invited!” 

  “And why would we-”

  “Sounds fun! We’ll be there!” You spoke up quickly, glaring at MJ to shut her up. She rolled her eyes but sat back in her chair and complied.

  You’d kept your head down for most of the lunch period but had to snap your attention up to keep MJ tamed. Your gaze wandered over to the direction you felt a pull coming from and was surprised when you met Peter’s gaze. You were almost frozen, caught in a mixture of crying, panicking and keeping it together. Still, you couldn’t pry your attention from Peter so you dwelled in it instead. 

  He looked tired. The dark circles under his eyes were more apparent than usual and his hair appeared to lack a bit of life, the curls on his face falling flat rather than their normal bounciness. You let yourself study the man before you and that’s when it happened again.

  Instead of his normal physique, an outline of his person took form and the wounds on his body glowed to catch your attention. He had a few cuts and scrapes here and there, some bruises on his shins and forearms, not to mention the busted eyebrow that you’d failed to notice under what you assumed was makeup. You squinted your eyes at this and Peter seemed to catch on to what was happening. He grew uncomfortable under your gaze and forced yourself to retract it, fighting the urge to reach out your hand and place it over the split skin on his face. Not that he’d appreciate it.

  You sighed and closed the textbook before shoving it in your bag and standing up seconds before the bell rang. MJ followed suit and walked you to your next class, knowing you usually take the route with Peter and punched your shoulder lightly when it was time for her to go.

  “Meet at my locker after school? I need help picking an outfit and we can stop by your place to pick some stuff up,” 

  MJ nodded in agreement and you turned to enter the classroom but walked into a hastily walking Peter. You reached out your hand to steady yourself and grabbed his forearm which, unfortunately, was not covered in fabric.

  The warmth in your fingertips soon sprawled all over your body and you could moan at the ease it brought along with it. The ache in your heart subsided and the strength of the pull towards him tripled until you really were being shoved against him, your chest pressed against his own and his arms wrapped around you as if to keep you there.

  You wanted to pull away but the fact that Peter was even holding you right now soothed the agony in your bones and you needed this for just a few seconds more. You let the sensation overtake you, submitting yourself to its enticing comfort and when Peter’s hands gripped the back of your shirt tighter to pull you deeper into him, you let him.

  This was right. Being with him was right. How could it not be? How could being with your soulmate be wrong? The two of you were literally made for each other as were all soulmates but there resided something deeper between both of you that caused a very physical gravitational pull to one another. Though you’d heard of instances similar to that, you’d never heard of it being physical, only an emotional pull. And that physical pull somehow forced you two into each other’s arms where you were fighting the urge to give in.

  With the little strength that you could muster, you pried yourself from him and you exchanged a worried glance with each other, “Did you-”

  “Feel that? Yeah,” he said, bewildered at what just happened.

  “So, you didn’t-”

  “Pull you? No. And you didn’t-”

  “Suddenly forgive you and throw myself into your arms?” You spoke with venom and cocked your head to the side, the little distance between you allowing some of your anger to return. “No,”

  Peter wanted to roll his eyes and brush off the comment, he really did but he could see through you. The pain you tried to hide was laid barren for him, he couldn’t miss it if he tried. It shouted for his attention, demanding his explanation and wanting nothing more than to dissipate and leave you at peace. But he couldn’t grant you that. He couldn’t bring himself to beg for you when you didn’t even want him; at least, not the real him.

  You finally walked away and took your usual seat in class, forcing your gaze down so you wouldn’t accidentally make eye contact with Peter as he took his place next you. You chuckled at that. ~   Liz’s house buzzed with energy, most of the people already arrived and under some kind of influence. You had to give it to her, she knew how to throw a party. Not that you’d been to very many of them considering MJ was your best friend.  

  MJ appeared beside you with two cups in her hand and offered you one, “Oh, I figured you were going to chug them down simultaneously,”

  “Don’t tempt me.” She laughed and you took a gulp from yours, finishing it off in a few seconds, “Maybe you would like to do that, though,”

  You smiled sheepishly, “I’m gonna get another one,”

  “Make sure you leave some for everybody else,” she hollered over the music.

  You giggled and sauntered over to the table, ignoring the beginnings of a lure coming from your left. You plucked one of the cups up and brought the brim to your lips, letting the liquid burn its way down your throat and rejoined MJ.

  “Hey, so I was thinking,” you started, keeping your focus anywhere other than where it wanted to be, “where did you hear that story about the gods and the stars and all that?”

  “Huh?” She shouted over the music and despite the volume of the noise, you could still filter out Peter’s voice through it all.

  You grabbed MJ’s arm and pulled her towards the door, “Outside!” You shouted and she followed.

  Once the fresh breeze hit your face, you took a deep breath in, attempting to clear out any negative emotions. MJ took your hand and led you away from the front of the house where quite a few people were still crowding around and settled on the rooftop. She grabbed a ladder off the floor and held the ladder while you climbed up.

  “What were you trying to say?” She asked once you two had gotten comfortable.

  “I was asking about where you heard the story about being chosen by the Gods,” you stated, taking a sip from the cup and already feeling a slight warmth in your cheeks. This cup was definitely stronger than the previous one.

  She cocked her head a little and raised an eyebrow in confusion.

  “You know! About the Gods’ choosing a few special spirits to have this intense love or something,”

  “What are you talking about?” 

  “Like, about my Indicator and the stars and my soulmate,”

  Her eyebrow remained raised in your direction.

  Now it was your turn to get confused, “The story you told me when we were all at your house watching movies. The day I went on the first date with Brad,”

  “Dude, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she admitted, a concerned look on her face.

  “Yes, you do! You’re the one that told me that story, how could you not remember it?” you practically yelled. “When I got mad because of Liz and Peter and went to your room, that’s when you told me!”

  “I remember you being bothered but I figured you needed a breather so I let you have it,”

  Was it MJ that had told you? You scoffed, yes, of course it was. Who else would it be? She was the one that walked into the room and comforted you.   “MJ, stop playing,” you scolded.

  “(Y/N) . . . are you feeling okay?” she asked and you glared at her in response. “Dude, I swear I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  You shot up from your spot and struggled to find footing so you raised your arms to balance yourself. You had drunk a little more than you thought but managed to steady yourself. MJ held out a hand to you in caution, raising them to catch you.

  “Something’s not right,” you said, taking a small step back from your friend. You were certain it was MJ in the room with you, the memory was clear as day.

  The reason you had even brought it up in the first place was because you wanted to know where she heard the lore from considering you’d never heard anything like it. You had been ashamed of your Indicator because you’d never come to know of any other person who had the same one as you ever. Not even in the history books. It was just completely unheard of. So, why would MJ know the legend? 

  “(Y/N), sit down.” MJ ordered, her words concrete.

  “No, no, no, no, this doesn’t make sense,” you spoke aloud, your mind trying to understand the events of that night. You took half a step back from MJ as if the added distance would deny her truth. And it was her truth. You could always tell when MJ was lying, years of friendship could attest to that but her words were genuine and her confusion was too.

  “Stop moving, (Y/N),” she growled, slowly coming closer to you.

  You created the same distance from you as before and she stopped her movements altogether, her eyes glued to the back of your foot. You tried to wrack your brain around it but no matter how you tried to understand it, it just didn’t make sense. How would MJ know the lore for your Indicator when you’d studied extensively to try and find something-anything to make you feel less alone in your path. How had she just randomly come across such information and why hadn’t you asked her right then and there where she heard it from? 

  “(Y/N)!” You heard your name shouted from behind you and whipped around, the force of the action causing you to tip over the edge of the roof and your heart stopped as you watched MJ jump out to catch you.

  The fall was quick but scarier than any rollercoaster you’d been on. It elicited the same sensations but held more finality to it. 

  “(Y/N)!” MJ screamed from above but you kept your eyes glued to the ground when a figure swung into your line of sight and clung onto you in midair before landing on a patch of grass on the side of the house. 

  The action had knocked the wind out of you and you struggled to regain your breath, your eyes glued to your feet and how they rested against the ground. MJ flew down the ladder and raced with Ned to get to your side. She hadn’t even reached it before she started yelling at you.

  “Are you fucking crazy?” She yelled, kneeling by your side and encasing your face in her hands, failing to draw your attention to her.

  Your body shook uncontrollably, the fear from before just now catching up to you. But it wasn’t the fear from nearly dying. It was from whoever the hell you spoke to in MJ’s house. 

  “Can’t you see she’s scared?” Peter yelled at MJ and you winced. You’d never heard Peter yell like that before.

  Peter picked you up and placed you in his lap, his hands attempted to center you in on him but you merely looked through him. You were out of it and you couldn’t bring yourself to come back to the present.

  “(Y/N),” Peter whispered, worry and fear laced in his tone, “Are you okay?”   It took a minute of letting the fear make its course through you before you zeroed in on Peter’s expression. It was the warmth coming from his hands that brought you back.

  “Who was she?”

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[internalsealpanic]

I Will be Your Tim Drake for Tonight (3) (Jason Todd/ Reader)

Summary:  Preferring to do anything but your physics project, you decide to accepts Tim’s proposal. It’s simple. He does your project, you try to figure out whether Jason Sionis is criminal. Easy, right?

masterlist

A/n: This takes place in a world where Jason is adopted by Black Mask. Inspired by Building Interest by Zoeleo.The events and characterization in this story are very heavily based on Zoeleo's Long Term Investment series. It is fantastic and I really highly recommend all of her fics.

a/n: For clarification, Reader does have psychic powers but it only lets her sense people's emotions physically. No mind-reading. Her power is more like an overactive sense of empathy which may force her to dissociate into someone else.

There will be violence and mentions of alcoholism (used as coping mechanism for physical pain) and chronic pain.  

As for the additional warning, an animal is harmed but it is barely described. I could not bring myself to actual describe it but the aftermath is described.

I also just converted this from an OC so I apologize for any grammatical mistakes.

Without further a do:

Your stomach drops.

Fuck.

Of course, Damian just had to be the one to pick up.

"Hey baby bro, could you pass the phone to dad?"

"I'm sorry who is this?"

This little shit.

"You're such a kidder! Dami, it's me, Tim. "

“Ah yes, Drake-” You can hear Tim choke in the background. “What do you want?”

“Please Dami just pass the phone to dad, I- I really need to talk to him”

“Very well,”

“Tim?” The voice sounded like Bruce’s but the intonation was all wrong. The voice changer Tim and Babs were working on seems to have made progress.

“Hey dad, I- uh. I might have gotten kidnapped.”

Tim makes another choking noise. “Might have?”

“I was at the party. I think I had around 13 drinks. 13 ! Can you believe it? I felt like a right sailor after that, like the harbor workers, y’know? Anyway, I was taking a smoke-”

“Enough!” The large man roared, snatching the phone from you. “Send us $100 million by tomorrow or your kid’ll be shark bait!” Who says that anymore?

“Of course! Of course! I’ll have the money sometime this evening. Please don’t hurt him.”

Tim, God bless him, does not laugh. Tim’s acting needs some work but he sure does know how to act worried.

The line dies and they tie you back up to the post.

“What the hell?!”

“We have to make sure you don’t just runoff.” The large man says tightening your bonds. Truthfully, you’ve felt far worse. After all, corsets exist. However, this was still a close second.  

“Do I look like I could outrun a snail?”

“He’s got a point boss. He looks like he hasn’t even seen the sun in ages.”

This, you decide, is true for Tim. When was the last time he went out before dark? Maybe he got sunlight when he stayed over at Eddie’s place.

The large man grabs Jason by the collar and throws him to his men.

The 3 men kick and curse at him. They mock him and beat him down. They wail on him with their fists, their steel-toed shoes, and sometimes brick. Jason takes it all with a crooked grin and a sharp tongue. You watched in awe. Even on the floor, Jason looked sturdy, ferocious, and indomitable.

"They all break, sweet girl."

Jason is on a tiled floor. No, he should be on concrete. His blood is on the tile. They’re hitting him. They’re hitting him with a bat. No. They aren’t supposed to be holding a bat. They were kicking him but now they’re holding a bat. No, She’s holding a bat. There's supposed to be three of them, three men,  but their forms coalesce into her .  You can hear his ribs cracking. Next are his legs. His legs are always next. Then his arm. She'll break each bone in his arms and his hands.  He’s wheezing. His voice sounds hoarse. His voice is too hoarse. He sounds like he’s been starved and dehydrated for at least a day. They’ve only been here for an hour. That isn’t right. Oh God! Now she had a cleaver in her hands.

No!

No!

He doesn’t need to die. She can’t.

no.

No.

No!  

 The scene crescendos as the tall, dark, sinewy silhouette towering over Jason raises the butcher's knife above her head.

“Harder, daddy!”

“Son?”

The scene of the kitchen fades and the shit-eating grin on Jason melts into view which shifts from amusement to confusion then back to amusement.

You blink seeing his stupid grin far too clearly.

You let a bark of gut-busting laughter out as you strain against the rope. Your brow pinches with concern but based on the scowls you’re receiving they're more focused on the fact that you were laughing like a mad man.  

Jason looks like he’s about to laugh from the absurdity as well when the man in charge picks him up again tossing him into a chair. The other men tie him down binding his wrists and ankles.

"I've had worse." He spits out.

The phone rings again, the dial tone echoing. Jason looks like hell with his face swollen and bruises beginning to bloom on every surface but he still looked like he was 5 seconds from starting a fight.

The large man punches Jason hard in the gut knocking the air out of his lungs as the dial tone cuts off.  “Hear that, Sionis? Your little bitch is pretty soft.”

Oh God, are they serious?

“Who is this? Nevermind. You ok there, sweetheart?” Roman Sionis’ ‘concerned’ voice carries over the line.

They are.

“Nothing I can't handle, daddy.” Jason chuckles with the utmost casualness. You, on the other hand,  instantly want to disinfect your brain. Thankfully, before your mind could wander somewhere it can't return from,  the big man growls into the phone.

“Don't you recognize the voice of the man whose life you've ruined?!”

“You've gotta be more specific than that. I've ruined quite a few lives but I would like to know whose brain I need to put a bullet in.”

“IT'S ME  BRUNO HARDIN!”

“Doesn't ring any bells.” Roman deadpans almost sounding completely disinterested. “Sweetheart, you remember anyone like that?”

“Nope,” Jason replies letting the p pop. It seemed like a strange sort of triumph before it all crashes down with another swift punch to the ribs.

You stare at the strange scene torn between amusement and horror.

“Take this seriously!” Bruno roars.

"I'm taking this about as seriously as it deserves."

A part of you thought 'yeah this is ridiculous enough to warrant nonchalance' while the other part wanted to scream.  On one hand, even you found his identity anticlimactic. Doesn’t he know just how many small-time businesses Roman has ruined? He’d be lucky to get into the top 50. It’s not like he was running a pretty ethical establishment either.  On the other hand, your freaking kid is getting the shit kicked out of him. Emote damn it.

“Jason. Don’t you worry. Daddy’s going to take care of this. Your Uncle D happens to be in town. He’s on his way to pick you up. Love you, baby. See you soon.”

The line dies. Your stomach sinks further somehow. You don’t know if the nausea is due to the fact that the line died, the threat, or the number of times the word ‘daddy’ came up. Who the hell is Uncle D? How is he supposed to help? Your gaze trails to Jason who is now lowering his head to the floor seemingly tired. Maybe that last punch finally drained the fight from him.

“You're all so fucked.” Jason barks out in a fit of laughter. The men around him, jumping from the volume of his voice.  

Bruno grabs Jason by the collar and begins to shake him as if the  “Shut the fuck up you little bitch! Whoever your Uncle D is he's-”

“Deathstroke”

You feel like someone kicked you in the chest. First of all, Uncle D? Really? You guess that there are worse hills to die on. This was somehow weirder than hearing Faust and her siblings call him pops. Second of all, Fuck. You'd never gotten your asshanded to you by Deathstroke but based on how banged up the Titans looked after fighting him this wasn't gonna be pretty.  All you could hope for was that you wouldn't get caught in the crossfire. Although, the image of Deathstroke grudgingly letting a kid call him Uncle D lightens your mood a bit.  

Bruno throws Jason on the floor hard enough for his body to bounce. Like Jason earlier, Bruno is radiating murder.

Just run, you thick motherfucker.

You, being the ‘nice’ Wayne kid that you are,  try to tell him as much but sadly that was halted by shattering glass. A flurry of black, orange, and metal crash through the glass and cut through the crowd of men.  

They fire at him, panic making their faces even paler. They hit him, bullets sinking into his flesh, blood splatters but none of it fazes him. He skewers and cuts them down with ease. His swords and suit are liberally decorated with their blood when it’s all done.

He steps over Bruno’s body. From the grunt that comes out, Bruno is still alive. Dumb bastard doesn’t know how to play dead. He’ll die from blood loss anyway.

“Hey, kid-” Deathstroke greets tersely,  picking up Jason’s nearly limp body.  “We’re gonna get you home.” He slings Jason’s arm over his shoulder.

“Wait!”  

Deathstroke stops sounding slightly annoyed.

Jason turns to you, who’s still unhappily tied to a post.  “We gotta get him out.” He rasps.  

“Kid, you’re the only one I’m getting paid to rescue.”  Deathstroke helpfully informs as he carefully adjusts his hold on the struggling young man. You blow out a breath somehow more irritable than scared.  “Just cut me out. I can make my way back just fine.”

“Walk in Gotham, are you stupid?” Jason hisses. The concern bleeding through.

“Which one of us charged at their captors while they were armed?”

Jason scowls at you with a petulant twist in his lips. “Yanno what,  Leave ‘im.”

“Ok, ok, I’m sorry and yeah I’ll be fine. I know where to avoid. Just please don’t leave me with them” you plead, throwing away any pride you held as you glance at the most likely dead bodies. Deathstroke cuts you out. Your skin feels raw but you’re otherwise unharmed.

You walk out of the warehouse and Dick practically throws himself at you. “Oh thank god, they didn’t shoot you in the head.” He mumbles into your wig.  

"Why would you think they would shoot me in the head?"

Dick pulls back and frowns at you through the domino mask.  “You aren’t exactly the most pleasant-”

“ We were model hostages.” you squawk.

Jason snorts far too loudly to be helpful.

You glare at him but you weren’t about to say fuck off to him while he has one of the world’s deadliest assassins right next to him.

Deathstroke coughs.  “Well if you don’t mind we’ll be taking our leave.”

Dick holding you protectively, glares but says nothing. Maybe he does but you faint before you can hear it.

A/n: Thanks for reading!

[bloopbyoop]

weep woop

ayo. ive read my scheduled email and its time for freewriting shit again. lmao. I want this post to be like a small light from a lit match stick inside a very hollow, icy, and numbing cave. (sounds cartoonish right? I know. Im obsessed with Adventure Time.) I want all people to be genuinely happy.  Spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Upon reaching my 24th anniversary in this world, I finally learned how to truly embrace all my emotions. Some are more overwhelming than the other, but we have to heed in our treacherous yet perplexing minds that everything is fleeting and we are in control. The feeling of extreme sadness fades, but so does joyful states. Everything can change in a matter of minutes or years. You are in control of all your emotions. You are in control of all your life choices. Your actions. Your words. Your perspective. It feels weird to actually write about it. I've wanted to talk about it. I never wanted help from anyone as I firmly believed that I was alone. Sure, I have a family and friends, but it is hard to see that when your head is clouded with negativity. I've even come to the point where I was too overwhelmed, I found being physically hurt less painful. The pain I felt distracted me from what I was thinking. My mind tended to go bonkers. lmao. But bro, I was so good at concealing my bonkers mind. It's easy to fake any emotion that you have. Slap anything sunshine-y or happy to anything and people would believe you. It went on for years. Long story short, thousands of bracelets collected, it became worse. The physical pain could no longer withhold the emotional pain. Couldn't sleep. Couldn't stop thinking. And voila! I found a good amount of self help books (from tumblr) and novels. Novels that brought me to different places. Self-help books that made me understand what I feel and what to do. I've read that taking the easy way out will leave everyone sad. AND IN THE FIRST PLACEEEEEE, I NEVER WANT THATTTTTTT. I want everyone to be happy. I would act foolish and do dumb shit to make everyone happy in a heartbeat. So, that idea made me push a few more years. Later on, the crippling shit came crawling back again to my head, sooooooo I needed new shit to keep me distracted again. Films, series, music, and short clips from YouTube helped me out a lot. Every single time that my mind is going to think like anything that can think of, even to the point that I was just going to think that I might be hungry, I'd watch something. There's just something about silence for me. Because of this new habit of mine, I've learned more about myself. I love different types of things. I like horror. I like thriller. I like comedy. I like romance. I love all types of films, but there is something about the horror genre that interests me. I still can't point out what, but I love watching horror films. With regards to music, I've learned that I love Indie, Punk Rock, Rap, and Pop. We all can't like a specific genre. It's stupid to ask "what genre of music do you like?". It's not actually stupid-stupid, it's just stupid. Ya know? Anyway, passing this phase, I needed to find something again because it's not doing the shit that it was supposed to, I tried investing more time on video games. By investing more, I mean a whole shit lot. I love video games since I was young cuz.... u know.... they keep u... try to guess it! oh yeah. you got that right! distracted! I love the aggressive plays and trashtalks that my friends and I make. The short stories we tell one another. The rants. The lame jokes. The late night we sound drunk but we are not drunk jokes. The roleplays. The lame jokes. The memes. And once again, The lame jokes. Something about lame jokes and the laughs and curses after that always gets me every single time. Oh shoot. Yup Yup. Few years later, I finally noticed the pattern that my sadness is temporary. I got over it one way or the other (or another. depends on how you wanna read it. i dont wanna say another cause i might write about one direction like what im doing now so-). Happiness is temporary as well. But, we are the ones who are actually in control of our emotions. If you wanna feel sad, be sad for a while. You're getting too sad? Try hanging out with your funny friends. Can't do that? Find an alternative. Watch a movie, knit a sweater. Anything your mind could think of as long as it will keep you mentally distracted from being physically and mentally hurt. I do have a few notes though. We cannot and should never assume what people are going through. It may be petty for you, but it may be very crucial to them. So never everrrr say things like: -Some people have it worse than you -At least you have ..... These sheetsss are annoying as heckkk and could really down someone. I know it is not your intention to annoy but people react differently. alsooooooo, it is not okay or normal to hate on things for bandwagon. that is just plainly crazy and stupid. let people enjoy things. anddddddd never suppress your emotions. admit what you feel inside and try to think of a way to resolve ittttt. keeping it to yourself will just make it worseeeeee. find your own outlettttttttt. hihihi ️ alsooooo. being more spiritually full with God's words and ideas really help me to be spiritually happy. ps. im christian but i dont discredit other religion and even applaud other religion's ideas and beliefs. this is a really long, selfish post so i might as well recommend some things I like : Songs with their lyrics that made me go through life. “I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier” -All These Things That I've Done, The Killers “It's not too late, I'm still right here” -Breaking Your Own Heart, Kelly Clarkson "And the salt in my wounds / Isn't burning any more than it used to / It's not that I don't feel the pain / It's just I'm not afraid of hurting anymore / And the blood in these veins / Isn't pumping any less than it ever has / And that's the hope I have / The only thing I know that's keeping me alive" -Last Hope, Paramore “There is not a single word in the whole world / That could describe the hurt / The dullest knife just sawing back and forth / And ripping through the softest skin there ever was / How were you to know?” -Hate to See Your Heartbreak, Paramore "It's holding on, though the road's long / And seeing light in the darkest things And when you stare at your reflection / Finally knowing who it is / I know that you'll thank God you did" -1800, Logic "Did some things you can't speak of / But at night you live it all again / You wouldn't be shattered on the floor now / If only you had seen what you know now then" -Innocent, Taylor Swift (My bb) "10 months sober, I must admit / Just because you're clean don't mean you don't miss it / 10 months older, I won't give in / Now that I'm clean I'm never gonna risk it // Rain came pouring down when I was drowning / That's when I could finally breathe / And by morning gone was any trace of you, I think I am finally clean" -Clean, Taylor Swift “I guess I always knew / That I had all the strength to make it through.” -Believe in Me, Demi Lovato "I'm addicted to the madness / I'm a daughter of the sadness / I've been here too many times before / Been abandoned and I'm scared now / I can't handle another fallout / I am fragile, just washed upon the shore / They forget me, don't see me / When they love me, they leave me" -I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me, Demi Lovato “I'm overwhelmed / I need a voice to echo / I need a light to take me home / I need a star to follow / I don't know” -Nightingale, Demi Lovato "I'm a walking travesty / But I'm smiling at everything. // Arrogant boy, Love yourself so no one has to." -Therapy, All Time Low "I tried it once before but I didn't get too far / I felt a lot of pain but it didn't stop my heart. / But maybe I'm alive 'cause I didn't really wanna die / But nothing very special ever happens in my life / Take the blade away from me I am a freak, I am afraid that / All the blood escaping me won't end the pain / And I'll be haunting all the lives that cared for me / I died to be the white ghost / Of the man that I was meant to be" -Ghost, Badflower "Are the pieces of you / In the pieces of me? / I'm just so scared / You're who I'll be / When I erupt / Just like you do / They look at me / Like I look at you" -DNA, Lia Marie Johnson Movies and series to try : -The Perks of Being a Wallflower (The book is bomb af. if yall havent tried, ur missing out) -The Kings of Summer -Never Let Me Go -The Art of Getting By -Silver Linings Playbook -Winter’s Bone -The Lovely Bones (The script. The words) -Me and Earl and the Dying Girl -American Horror Story -Black Swan

pps. remember that every one has their own pace and point of view. don’t push yourself too hard, and don’t overthink. give yourself time, and respect all your emotions. analyze them but not more than like 5 minutes as anything beyond that might cause you to overthink and be sadder. and sad is not rad. hehe. you got this. you got you. self love is the best even though it can be tricky to do. nobody else is like you. you’re the only one of you (i just remembered me.......... i might have hummed it while typing it mid sentence). consider other people’s opinion but do not let it cloud your own judgement as you know yourself best. dont let other comment’s define you. spread love. vibe people you vibe with. ayeeee lets go!!! 

ppps this is my last post bc im happier now and know myself better. i no longer limit myself on the age that I want. I want to live as long as how God wants me to be. hehe. 

x :D

[softlyjiminie]

happy birthday, my love | p.j.m

⇢ pairing(s): boyfriend!park jimin x reader.

⇢ word count: 1.3K

⇢ genre: fluff, angst, long distance relationship!au, idol!au.

⇢ summary: it’s one of those birthdays, where jimin is without you and the distance is killing him.

⇢ warning(s): please read!  a little angst, swearing.

⇢ author’s note(s): hi guys! its currently 11:40 something pm GMT time so i'm posting this little drabble while it’s still jiminie’s birthday, i hope you goys enjoy!

“happy birthday, my love!” was the first thing you said to jimin as the screen illuminated on his computer. he was in his usual spot in whatever hotel room it was, by the the balcony with the lights streaming in through the curtains. it’s about mid day, october twelfth and jimin has a few hours to kill before show time. a small, albeit, sad smile dances across his lips as he watches you pull out a party popper and laugh until he sees your smile lines. 

he tries to ignore the dark circles under your eyes from staying up late. it’s midnight for you and he knows that you’re tired. he ignores the time zones and puts on a front. because he knows that you stayed up just for him. 

“thank you my darling.” he nods simply, fingers decorated with rings, touching the screen as if you were holding hands. you mirror his actions, beaming when the party hat you wore tilts to the side. jimin’s heart aches. 

“i know there’s twelve more hours for you,”  you whisper into the darkness of your own room, bound by blankets and headphones tucked in. “but i wanted to be the first, even if i am early.” 

jimin nods, hiding his wince whilst you hide your yawn. you speak again. “why aren’t you smiling?” 

“i can’t,” he mumbles back, the habit he has of driving his hands through his thick black hair coming forth again. his heart sinks in his chest at your disappointed face, knowing you stayed up for this call to see him. “not when you’re not with me like we planned.” 

he sees your frown, he knows you’re hurt too. “my love, you know i’m impossibly sorry that i couldn’t  make it, things came up and i just can’t afford it-“ you try to reason with him, memories of this same conversation relaying in his head.

“let me bring you out here...let me do something for you...” 

you shake your head, and jimin leans back in his chair. he admired your humbleness, he loved how stubborn you were but he craved you to be close and to feel your skin on his. cherry lips between your teeth, you sigh and reach out to the screen with your hand again. “you know i couldn’t take a gift from you, especially on your day.”

he nods painfully, looking away and avoiding the lump in his throat. he won’t say much to you know, the ache in his chest growing like the distance between you. the next few moments are spent in an overbearing silence, you watching jimin and jimin watching you. a knock on his door raising a sad smile to your lips as you lean forward and press a kiss to the screen. 

“happy birthday my love,” you whisper, a slight waver in your voice as you tilt your head to look at him. “i love you.”

jimin didn’t have time to say it back.

he smiles but his heart does not smile with him, you’d think being surrounded by thousands of fans who were all there just for him, he would have his spirits lifted. 

but jimin was tired, his body was stiff and his heart ached. he couldn’t see your face in the crowd like he had planned. he couldn’t feel happy. 

and yet, in honour of his birthday, while his beloved army sung their hearts out for him, jimin smiled. his crescent moon eyes creasing at the corner to the point where he couldn’t see, and where the tears wouldn’t fall for all of them to see. 

the stage lights dimmed and he begun to descend back stage, where his body sagged and his emotions reined free. namjoon was on next, giving jimin a pity full  grin as it was all he had time for. the stylists dabbed and danced around jimin, fixing his hair and touching up his make up. his bottom lip couldn’t help but wobble when seokjin approached him, concerned.

“jiminie...” elder mumbled, drawing the attention of the others members dotted around the room. “how’re you holding up?” 

the younger let the dam break, curling into his hyung who wrapped him up in his broad arms. jimin cried, like a child, he cried as tears fell and drifted down the apples of his cheeks. “i miss her hyung, i want to go home, i miss her.” he sniffled, not caring about the stage make up that had begun to run.

“i know you do chim but-“

“no...you don’t know!” the dancer counters, his chest heaving from heavy emotions and words that weighed down his mind. “you don’t know what it’s like to not see her everyday, to not be able to hold her whenever i want, to kiss her whenever i want. ive been looking at her through a screen for this entire time, touching the screen at the same time as she just to feel something. every time we travel i feel us getting further apart and i see her heart shattering but there’s nothing i can do because i can’t comfort her. i can’t even comfort myself, hyung...” 

the room was rendered silent, the only sound coming from namjoon performing on stage. jimin’s breathing was ragged, his hyungs and the maknaes watched over him worriedly. jungkook and taehyung being the most concerned, jimin was usually so bright and it pained them to see the oldest of their trio hurt so badly.

yoongi gave the singer a light massage to his back, a sort of comfort. “let’s get through tonight jimin, it’ll all be over soon.” 

at 00:00 on october thirteenth, jimin hit the soft sheets of his five star hotel bed. his dark hair splaying out across the whites, as he lay in silence. it was his birthday now. he was meant to be a year older, a year wiser. and yet he felt that he’d only stayed the same. 

if you were here, you would tell him how he didn’t need you to feel changed. that you didn’t complete each other but we’re instead equals, soulmates. but him being him would always feel as if a piece of himself were missing without you. 

his only wish for midnight, was for you to be with him on his birthday.

“room service!” someone calls from the other side of the door, knocking gently. he didn’t order anything, jimin frowns, rolling over and putting his phone down. dozens and thousands of notifications streaming in from his fans to wish him a happy birthday. he didn’t want to move.

the person knocks again, only irritating jimin as he tries to cover his ears and drown in his own self sorrow. knockknockkock, room service! they call again and again until finally-

“park jimin i swear to god if you don’t open this door right now i’m going home.”

 his head full of midnight black hair pops up at the sound of the voice, stumbling out of bed half dressed and rushing to the door. jimin wastes not a second longer tearing it up and throwing his arms over you, not even giving you a second to register what’s happening.

his brain is frazzled, a series of short circuits with a million and one burning questions to ask. you’re here, with him. in the flesh and blood, the touch of your hand on his cheek bringing him back to reality as it sears through him. “Y-YN?” he breathes, whiskey eyes fluttering across your face as if you confirm you’re real. “how did you get here? when did you get here? what are you doing here?” 

“so many questions, my love...” you smile, pressing a small kiss to jimin’s nose as he holds you close. your scent relaxes his racing mind and his heart finally smiles along with him. “the boys did a good job keeping it a surprise, i planned to show up during your set onstage, but i got delayed a bit, but im here now and for the rest of the tour!” 

jimin hugs you close, nuzzling into your neck as he inhales. he doesn’t need to say much for you to know that he loves you. and instead of speaking, you hold him tight and whisper.

“i’m here now, happy birthday my love.”

[stimmypaw]

Stimmypaw reads Darkest Night! The fourth text post!

Back with these uh live reading comments! Remember those? yeah! I'm on the fourth book of Warrior Cats: A Vision of Shadows :D I read The Apprentice's Quest and Thunder and Shadow and Shattered Sky and now!! I'm here :D and boy did I have a time. Click read more to see it!

NEEDLETAIL?????????

Needletail???????????

What?????

OH???????

Wh THIS GUY IS TALKIN 2 DEAD PEOPLE????

HOW WHO IS THAT

OH MY GOD

These guys are weak and dumb skyclan is epic and sharing the territory with them is good, but of course sparkpelt isn't dealing well with change wink wink nudge wink nudge nudge huh???? (this is a nod to how I project into her and say shes autistic)

I am getting anxious for tinycloud SERIOUSLY how much longer until those kits??? Everyday you show up and its WOW my tummy ssure is HUGE AND BULGING I just Wonder Oh When They'll Be Born, probably pretty soon!!! :) and then they arent!!!! Birth dammit!!!

Cherryfall cut the sick and hurt cats some slack jeez youre Fine, youre not feeding half the forest and you have THREE medicine cats ready to help you if youre not feeling well

Bastard Cherryfall I hate you /lh

Dovewing and Tigerheart have relationship drama again. What is UP with those two I simply do not understand them

Watching Bramblestar trying to control this bizarre situation is actually funny he is so close to screaming "PLEASE dont be mad :c"

SOON WHEN???? JUST KIT THOSE KITTENS DAMMIT

Get her, Alderheart

They LITERALLY said something about sharing the territory, they were like "Stars have five points baby and we need those 5 clans togetherrrr" what else do these cats want??? I know its a big change but its necessary

Wait everyone shut up that cat is named Podlight this is so important to me

Dang these cats are really still struggling :c I wish they didnt blame each other

Harestar is so cool

What the FUCK mistystar????

God what a disaster of a gathering Starclan is gonna be so pissed everyone is doing the opposite of what they should

I was holding my breath oof

I hope thunderclan gives some territory too thats too small a space for Skyclan

Oh boy oh boy oh boy i am Anxious for these Kitties

Violetpaw is me having nightmares every night

Macgyver is a heavily gringue name and I have No Clue how to say it how the hell do you say it

Update its either Mick Guyver or Mac Guyver apparently

Its fun to see how different the sisters are from one another, I love them both

I also love their mom with the name identical to puddleshine wish I got to meet her

IM CRYING BRO........M...MDB.....NFBANN.....VIOLETPAW BELONGS MY DARLING MY DAUGHTER

Sadly Twigpaw is for gender binarism 😔 /j

Twigpaw is often in her thoughts and doesn't pay attention to anything around her and I love her for that

Bad news Finpaw is gonna lose his tail, good news I can draw his tail fin-shaped

Puddleshine surgeon moment!!!

I love Graystripe and Millie

And I love that being flirty is a part of Sparkpelt's personality, I don't know what Alderheart is talking about she's always been dandelion-headed

Ok this is epic, I’m glad we’re breaking gender roles in Warrior Cats my heart dropped when the books called Briarlight cr*ppled, that’s the thing they promised not to do anymore recently right? I’m not sure but, I could use some uh less ableism on my Warrior Cats, the series is old but the newer books should be better, so yeah, good modernize these cats babyyy

OH COOL Skyclan journey!!! Fun I hope they find someone :] also fuck Molewhisker and Cherryfall bastards.

Jayfeather is gonna miss Alderheart too much for him to leave hehehe

ALL of Starclan showed up just to call out Riverclan pahahah

oooo is shadowclan haunted?????

FINALLY TINYCLOUD IS KITTING YES GOD YES GO QUEEN GOOOO!!!!

I wonder why Twigpaw wants to stay behind, there has to be more than just the camp stuff

"I wish I were more positive like Twigpaw, but at least I'm just as scarred by the death of my loved ones as my dad :] I like being like him"

Violetpaw witnesses a car crash 😔 that was a bit messy what happened to those cars also why the hell was one of them smaller was it a bike??? Or ???? Idk what's up with it!!!

Needletail just happens to have slow-down turned on for her on the discord chat so she can only say like a few words each hour :/ why the hell is she here tho Violetpaw needs to get OVER your death!!!!

This short exchange has made me love Dewpaw

Also, I love Twigpaw, I still wonder why she stayed behind tho

Ahh, is it cus she feels too estranged from her family :c ? I wish her mom was around maybe that would help

Jee Twigpaw be a tad more empathic, I can see Twigpaw struggles with that sometimes

You can't cheer him up right now he's grieving, just find him on common ground, talk to him, don't try to make him happy just try to keep him company

Oh wow finpaw that's a dangerous thing to say I hope Twigpaw doesn't crumble under the pressure to never be sad because people like her because she's happy and her being sad would be bad

ALSO I JUST REMMEMBRERD UH TWIGPAW MENTIONED BRIARLIGHT BUT BERRYNOSE IS RIGHT THERE???? HE IS RIGHT HE DIDNT DIE OFF SCREEN IM SURE OF IT WAIY

BERRYNOSS IS RIGHT THERE I CHDCKED!!!! HE LOST HIS TAIL TOO AND HES A GREAT WARRIOR, TWIGPAW!!!! YOU SHOULD HAVE MENTIONED IT ITS MORE RELATABLE

Okay I'm glad they're getting along this is nice

Oh look twigpaw you Are like your father :] this is cute

Skyclan begins to fish competitively I'm glad

I like it when medicine cats bicker about their leader's behaviors ehheheh, Jayfeather talking about how weak Shadowclan is, Alderheart being annoyed at his father for wanting to stay silent, the others worried about the tensions this is all cheff the kisser

Jayfeather spitting the truths about how Starclan doesn't know shit, and he is very much one to speak

Puddleshine: Rowanstar stepped up the patrols :c

Leadstar: He has warriors enough for that?? Damn good for him

Dang poor Skyclan I hope they manage stuff better soon

Oooo the girls are fighting!!!

Alderheart starclan anxiety time dang

Sheep :]

Needletail :[

I'm sad Ravenpaw isn't here, this is a lovely reunion scene but knowing Barley will be alone when they all leave breaks my heart

Oh, maybe not, but if they stay I'll be sad also cus Skyclan needs its warriors

Aw man, Twigpaw is struggling :c

OUCH

I WANT SKYCLAN 2 SWIM THO......

Omg crimes

That sounds kinda possessive twigpaw!

DOVEWING?????

T

WhHAHAGAHAHA WHERE DID THAT COME FROM

omg tigerstar 2 real

Whats he gonna do to rowanstar???

ALRIGHT THATA OVER THEN PAHAHA

Aw, I'm glad they're having fun tho, and that twigpaw sees herself as skyclan

Alderheart, as he meets someone for the first time in a while: ARE YOU OKAY???

Blackstar protagonist moment

The medicine cats: our gods are toying with us again and destiny is uncertain

Leaders: I cannot DO this right now PLEASE leave and let me care for The Real Issues

Alderheart: YOU WILL hang out at my house Willowshine this isn't up for debate

Riverclan suffered enough and it's their turn to throw a tantrum about it, honestly good for them hsghahah

Alderheart asks his father to go on a quest to check people's feet

WHAT THR HELL IS A CANTANKEROUS

Alderheart and Willowpelt sitting there watching Shadowclan fight

This is really funny

HEWWO????

Puddleshine, in his eyes: help help

I love Skyclan

Ok this sounds like it's gonna be very very fun

Mission impossible: Escape From São Paulo

Oh, is Fallowfern deaf? That's so poggers omg I wanna see more of her

Edit: fallowfern is an elder that lost her hearing with age and retired after that happened :/ boring

I love leafstar so much

Juniperclaw: aren't you gonna punish her????

Leafstar: why

Juniperclaw: when I tell rowanstar he's gonna be pissed

Leafstar: don't tell him

Juniperclaw: the fuck is wrong with you and your clan??? Where is everyone???????

Leafstar: busy

Icon

I don't trust abled people specially able-bodied people telling disabled people they just have to train harder and feeling sorry for yourself won't help.

But this is the closest to a positive message to disabled people we have ever had in warriors so I guess I'll take it but I want better

IVYPOOL!!!💖💖💖💖💕

Dang ivypool what a way to show someone you miss them hahaha

Twigpaw: uhhhh how's dovewing?

Ivypool: what do you mean did she do something illegal I'm sure she did

Ivypool is a seriously funny character WHY are you yelling at the young adult about your sisters illegal activities she doesn't know anything about it!!!!

Alderheart goes on an adventure

Feet inspector on the road!!!!

Jasper is so funny I love him

Omg what's he got against clan cats??? What's his sad backstory????

YEESSSS SPARKPELT MY LOVE 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💕💕💕💕💕💕💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💕💕💕

Sparkpelt your opinion sucks but I love you

I'm really really glad they had this moment this is really sweet, they hadn't talked for a while but this is genuine like, we hadn't had this sort of relationship in so long in the books with just, dialogue yknow??? THEYRE TALKING ABOUT THINGS

And the pause Sparkpelt takes between her speaking to fix what she's saying "I'm sorry for saving you :c no wait uhh not exactly but like" this is so good so natural so fun I love you sparkpelt

I get why she has a diferent opinion on Skyclan it's good for someone close to Alderheart to have a different mindset from him and for him to have someone like uh be opposites from him a lil yknow contrats his characteristics makes both siblings fun round and full of kitty do you get what I'm saying???

I love this

I love Sparkpelt, love her lil anxious moments, love her, love that she just wants to fool around with toms and enjoys Larksong but doesn't want to get serious you go girl

They wanted to write smart-ass they wanted to write smart-ass so bad

They're doing this in the rain?????

I'm quite certain Violetpaw is a young adult by this point its valid for her to go

Wh why did you let your cat out in the rain dude!!! When it comes back it's gonna dirty up the whole place it's wet out there!!!! And the cold is gonna get in the house!!!!!!!

I WAS HOLDING MY BREATH OH LORD

That was SO INTENSE AND SO FUNNY AND SO MUCH, IM SO GLAD SHE MADE IT I GOT SCARED

Oh this is so epic

That moment when your cat nearly dies and then it runs off and you go after it and then a bunch of other cats show up and start running with it

I hope Twigpaw can see the others soon

Glad to see her keeping her medicine cat knowledge ehehehe

???????

Sandynose I hate you you are so abled

Sandynose: I don't want my son to feel distanced from his peers so I'm distancing him from his peers

DOVEWING???

SANDYNOSE SHUT UP IM GOING TO KILL YOU ANS MURDER YOU

I'm so upset with Sandynose WHY isn't leafstar seeing this WHY DOESNG ANYONE SEE THIS SOMSONE PLEASE CONFORT AND LOVE MY CHILD TWIGPAW DOESNT DESERVE THIS

Angry sad upset why

Piscina

Thanks graystripe

Ok who's dying this time

Ok no one just a background cat got hurt he will survive otherwise it would be relevant

This was intense though what will happen now???

YES FINALLY

Oh this is lovely so good they're here!!! The rest of skyclan has arrived and we are all happy together

That dream felt good

NEEDLETAIL??? AGAIN

Where were you at!!!!

What!!!

Check this man's feet how many toes are there this could be good

What

Hegshahwha what the fuck is up with this guy

Okay I like him

Ohhh THATS tree

Change your name if you don't like it you sound trans already

Yeah nothing makes one smarter like dying

This is very fun I'm excited for more of whatever happening

Twigpaw :c

HIS SNIFFLES

Oh no

Hhhhnn I want Twigpaw to be happy so bad, I hate seeing her struggles

Sandynose you are so evil and very detested by me

You can and you SHOULD feel angry at Sandynose he SUCKS and he is being needlessly mean at you!!!!! There are much better ways to bring up the possibility that maybe you'd be happier with thunderclan!!! Fuck off Sandynose

Oh so Snowbush hasn't improved, maybe he will die?

Poor Alderheart

Oh fuck there he goes

Yeah

Aw man, rip to the background cat

That was a heavy death too

Aw, I was hoping the rest of Skyclan would show up before the gathering, maybe just after it???

I wonder what's going on in Shadowclan

TIGERHEARTS MISSING HUH???

The couple was kidnapped

HUH????

Oh my lord oh fuck

Can't anyone step up to lead why do they depend on Tigerheart so much???

Jesus christ

Alderheart kills his gods

This is so chaotic and funny I'm worried as hell for shadowclan but excited a lot is happening

HI TREE AGSGAHAH

Tawnypelt >:(

Puddleshine: WAIT DONT KICK HIM OUT, CHECK OUT HIS FREAKY FEET INSTEAD

Oh dear

Twigpaw :c

TWIGPAW :CCCC Man rememebr when I said I hope Twigpaw doesn't crumble under the pressure of being happy for others? yeah

GET OUT SANDYNOSE I DONT CARE YOURE BEING REASOMABLE FOR ONCE YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN LATER

:C

I'm so heartbroken for them

Uh pdhsgahab okay then

Bye finpaw

Wow that was easy for him

This is fun

I'm still sad as hell

Okay there's a lot going on right now wow

The owl scene was funny as hell to picture, this dramatic prophetic moment and the cats just "uuggh is that a prophecy??? Nooo"

Okay so

There's some shadowclan cats missing, considering the many sleekwhisker maps I'm sure she's up to no good but I have no clue what happened to the others and I hope they're okay

Wow! That was really something

Fantastic ending to a very good book its, definitely a different energy from the third but I'm really enjoying this I'm still excited as hell!!! I got worried things would get kinda bad from here but nope!!!! Very fun stuff for now this is very very good and I am enjoying it

This is definitely one of the most fun arcs I've read so far!!! The drama the stakes the little moments everything is tying together really well into a very fun story I'm enjoying a lot!

I worry for Twigpaw and hope for her happiness, and Violetshine too, hope her and Hawkwing deal well with missing her. Tree is being interesting. Alderheart wasn't much of a focus here but always fun to see him trying to solve the damn prophecy no leaders seem to care about. Mousewhisker was okay??? Lots of very fantastic turns for all events and uh let's see where this all goes next!!!

[sansbun]

INTRO | PART 1 | NEXT

Word count: 1.1k

Warning: mentions of bullying, slight mention of death, racism, depressing themes.

They say the less you know, the better. Clearly I didn’t understand what everyone meant by that. It’s not that I was against finding out, but I definitely didn’t expect I’d figure out in such a agonizing way..

Let me take you back in time where my life slowly started changing before I could even register it, shaping it into the bittersweet chaos that it’s now.

I was born here in South Korea, in a somewhat small town near Seoul. Personally I don’t recall many memories apart from being bullied as soon as I entered school. I don’t have the typical looks you see, I was a little more.. “sun kissed” then the kids here and my facial features also made me stand out from the crowd, not in a good way of course. I was always picked on and made fun of, but that didn’t really bother me at such a age. I was too clueless and young to understand any of their actions and remarks towards the color of my skin.

However things began to get worse once it wasn’t only my classmates picking on me. When the teachers joined in on the name calling and mistreating, my parents did all they could and even made me transfer schools, thinking the situation would get better. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. Not the first time, not even the second time and definitely not the third time around.

It only got worse as name calling turned into taking away privileges, that the other kids had. For example, not letting me use the restroom, resulting me in peeing myself in front of the whole class. Not only did that further fuel the bullying and I became a laughing stock, but it also caused me a series of health problems when it occurred in winter, for obvious reasons.

My parents couldn’t do anything anymore as no matter how many times I switches schools, they somehow always had a problem with accepting me and respecting me, weather it be the classmates or the actual teachers.

The final straw was my beloved grandfather passing away due to an accident. I was only 9 years old when my whole family flew to America to start a brand new life. Since then I only remember happy memories as school wasn’t a constant nightmare anymore. I felt more at home and welcomed in a country I’ve never been in, then in my own country.

I couldn’t even speak english properly, yet nobody judged me for that. Nobody mocked me for being different. There were many kids like me who went through a similar process and soon enough, I started making friends and stepped out of my shell.

I was always a shy kid, but at this point I bloomed into a social butterfly. Always excited and running around somewhere. I was a really good student actually. My grades were high and I had good manners so I was never in uncomfortable situations in school. I even got my classmates to hang out with me after class! Soon enough I found out I have a huge passion for dancing, as I spent most of my days making up choreographies with my best friend. Sometimes we’d even stay up past midnight, practicing over and over and enjoying every second of it.

She was a little older than me, taller than me, and obviously more skilled compared to me. And that’s exactly why I adored her so much. I looked up to her. She was like a older sister that I never had. We would dance for hours and hours. I felt truly happy at that point in my life, my family was happy and safe, I had friends and i finally wasn’t scared to be myself.

But one day it all changed, I woke up confused with no answers. It was so sudden.. I went from getting ready for school, to packing up my bags and saying goodbye to my best friend. What exactly happened? Ah I still don’t have answers till this day, but at that time the only thing I knew was that it was my dad’s fault.. and I still can’t bring myself to forgive him from taking the freedom he once gave me.

Everything happened so quickly. I remember crying so much that I couldn’t see.. so much that I most likely knocked myself out, as I remember waking up in the middle of a very long airplane flight. It was like my whole life was shattering. The fear of being unsafe once again really got to me. I felt so helpless.

My friends.. they’re taken away from me again. Why is it that everytime im close to someone, they dissapear? Why must fate always tear me apart from the people I care about? That’s probably not what a kid should be feeling or thinking about but here we are. I had no idea what was coming, I was scared but I truly didn’t imagine it would be this bad..

It went from being happy around everyone to being afraid of people, even being in a room with a few people made me anxious. As if adjusting to a new place wasn’t already hard for a kid in their early teens, the bullying had to start once again. This time with my peers acting as if I was invisible, as if I didn’t exist. I guess it started out as a joke, making fun of my accent, to me not being able to spell in my own language due to not speaking it while I grew up in the states.

But soon it turned into pretending like they don’t see me, hear me or awknowlege my presence. Little by little it got worse, from trash talking about me while I was in the room, to denying to talk to me and partner up with me in class, all the way to throwing out my belongings in the trash.. including my school work, contents of my backpacks and even my shoes..

We weren’t exactly well off and those shoes meant a lot for me, they were from my dad who managed to find me the same pair of shoes as my favorite group at that time, BTS. I danced in those shoes, I went to school with them, actually now that I come to think of it.. they were my only shoes that looked presentable.

We worse slippers in school, and on that particular day I came home very late, humiliated and with my head full of thoughts and questions on why others dislike people like me so much. I spent a few hours looking for my shoes, even the teacher didn’t understand, but when she found them in the school trashcan she didn’t even stand up for me.

She thought I did it on purpose to make the other kids look bad.. however when the principal found out she had a talk with those girls which resulted in them being even harsher with me. Thank god elementary is over and I’m finally in high school.

A/N: After a very long wait it’s finally here! Sorry it took so long I had a writers block and couldn’t get myself to finish it, I wasn’t proud of the way it turned out at first but I hope you somewhat enjoyed reading this and that it didn’t make ur mood drop 🥺

[flamehairedwritings]

The Fire In Your Eyes: Chapter Twenty Eight

Characters: Arthur Morgan x Original Female Character

Rating: The whole series will be E, 18+ ONLY for violence, gore, character deaths, animal deaths, parent deaths, swearing, grief, sexual themes and unprotected sex, mentions of miscarriage, hanging.

Summary: Saved by Arthur Morgan when her town is attacked, a young woman’s past comes back to haunt her when she has no choice but to join the Van der Linde Gang.

Some scenes and dialogue have been taken from the game!

Read on AO3

The Fire In Your Eyes Masterlist

Please don’t copy, steal or re-post my work; credit does not count.

—

Absolution

“You’re a God damn idiot.”

Clenching her jaw, Ada raised her eyes to the woman whose life she was trying to save.

“Excuse me?”

Shaking her head, Sadie raised her eyebrows, practically wheezing out her breaths. “You’re an idiot. You’re not gonna go with ‘em? Gonna stay here with the sick and dyin’?”

“You’re not dying,” Ada muttered, the words cutting at her again as she pressed the scarf hard against the wound.

Sadie hissed out a sound that was a jumble of a curse and a prayer, having to take a few breaths before she spoke again. “Well, I’m gonna go.”

Christ, she’s even more stubborn than Millie.

“No, you’re not.”

“Yeah, I am. Was gunna go even if you hadn’t’ve stayed. Just thought it’d get y’all off my back if I agreed with ya.”

The hand Sadie pushed her away with was gentle, but she also used the grip to help herself up, inhaling a sharp breath. Ada’s mouth dropped open as she looked at her, releasing an exasperated breath. Meeting Charles’s gaze incredulously, she raised her eyebrows.

“Charles, please help me here.”

The wounded man, leaning against a rock and sat in the snow, just shrugged his good shoulder as he shook his head. “You know we can’t stop her.”

She looked to Sadie again and found her smiling faintly as she reloaded her guns.

He was right and Ada hated it.

Licking her lips, she released another breath, this one resigned. “Fine, all right. But please just let me tie this around you.”

“Fine.” Sadie raised her arms to give Ada space as she rose up on her knees, winding the scarf around her torso and tying it tightly.

Once she was satisfied, Ada stood, wiping the blood from her gloves onto her coat. She hoped Abigail wouldn’t mind too much, all things considered, and, well, if she even survived. Glancing at Sadie, she didn’t know how the other woman was still standing. She was leaning against the rock, but the determination and fury she could see on her features must have been what was keeping her going. Ada wished she felt even a small drop of that. She still just felt nothing. Even when she’d watched Arthur and John go ahead, no emotion had overwhelmed her, no fear, no anxiousness. She knew she was pushing it all away, that at some point she’d break, if she didn’t die.

She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that, too, as they’d made the journey to the mountain and up it.

I could die at any moment.

The thought of something so final, so shattering to those that she loved, happening just... it was just a possibility. Not something that she would endeavour to avoid, just... something that might happen. And she didn’t know why. Numbness just overwhelmed her.

“You comin’?”

Sadie’s voice brought her back to the mountain, her eyes darting up to her. Her friend’s eyebrows were raised but concern was starting to seep into her gaze. Ada didn’t want to see it. Nodding, she cleared her throat as she looked to the path ahead.

“Yeah. Sounds like they’re making their way through.”

Shots echoed up from wherever the men were, a small comfort to them.

“That it does. Charles?”

Ada turned just in time to see Charles nod as he got to his feet with a jagged breath. “Yeah, I’m comin’. Don’t know what good I’ll do, though.”

“Just watch our backs,” Sadie said with a small smile, gun gripped firmly in one hand. “Now let’s go.”

They came across the three dead men in the snow, uncomfortably close to where they’d been, and moved over them, Charles hanging back for a couple of moments to take what ammunition he could find. Bodies littered the way as they followed John and Arthur’s boot prints in the snow, crimson blood staining the white, though they were still cautious, glancing up at the cliffs every few moments; Ada wouldn’t put it past any of Micah’s men to be lurking around, waiting. They could still hear the faint sound of gunshots, too, though they were growing closer.

Sadie stumbled, her boot falling further than she thought it was going to in the snow, and she cursed as the movement pulled at her side. She waved Ada off, however, as she approached to help. “I’m fine, I’m fine...”

They continued on, making their way through a narrow pass, and from the sounds of the shooting, Ada knew they had to be close now—

An explosion erupted, making the mountain shake.

“Fuck...” Ada gasped as she leaned against the rock, gripping onto it.

Sadie and Charles were doing the same, desperately hoping no fragments would break off and rain down on them. It held, though, and as the land settled, they glanced at one another.

They quickened their pace. Sadie moved surprisingly quickly ahead of her, but Ada hated the sound of her breaths, laboured and pained.

She hated more that the mountain was now quiet. They couldn’t be dead. They wouldn’t be dead.

They’ll be fine, they’ll be fine, they’ll be fine.

It wasn’t until, as they moved up a hill to an empty camp, they heard John’s voice that she felt herself take a proper breath, her shoulders dropping. He was calling for Micah, and as they came over the main peak of the camp and saw the watchtower, she saw the two men approaching it, alive and well, John continuing to call out.

“Ada.”

Tearing her gaze away, she looked to Sadie who was pointing to something in front of her. Following the direction, she found a sniper rifle propped against a crate. Shouldering her Repeater, she grabbed it, swiftly checking the condition and if it needed reloading.

“All right, good,” she murmured once she was satisfied, licking her lips and glancing up at Sadie. “You two stay...”

She trailed off at finding Sadie’s and Charles’s backs to her, their bodies rigid. Moving closer, her heart stuttering, she followed their staring gaze down towards the watchtower, and saw him.

Micah Bell stood before a firepit, arms lifted as he spoke though they were unable to hear his words.

“Oh, God,” Ada breathed, her grip tightening on the rifle. “He’s really here.”

“Yeah, he is,” Sadie murmured, a bite to her tone. “And he’s all alone.”

Ada’s gaze darted about the small camp down below and oh my God, he is.

She could feel a strange excitement starting to radiate off of Sadie as she shifted her stance.

“We could take ‘im alive,” she murmured to them, nodding. “We could take ‘im alive and let people see ‘im swing for his crimes. Get us all a decent reward, too.”

Ada glanced at Charles, who although he looked like he very much needed to sit down seemed to still be alert as he met her gaze, and she realised they could. They had the advantage here; it was five against one, no matter the state two of them were in, and there was no way Micah wouldn’t have sent his men out to face Arthur and John before he did... they could see him brought to justice and so could many others.

Nodding slowly, Ada licked her lips again. “Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I have an idea.” Turning to them, she held the rifle out. “You two stay here and keep an eye out with this, I’ll go down and—”

“Nah, lady, I’m goin’,” Sadie cut in, one side of her mouth lifting. “You’re stayin’ up here and keepin’ us safe.”

“Sadie, you can’t—”

“You got the steadiest hands here, Ada.”

Ada opened her mouth, then closed it as her gaze darted down to theirs. She wasn’t wrong there. Sadie’s were shaking slightly and Charles could barely hold his own gun now.

“Right, fine, I—”

Gunshots suddenly broke out down below and they flinched, their eyes darting to the men. They were firing at one another, John and Arthur taking for cover as Micah moved backwards, firing relentlessly at them.

“Shit...” Sadie hissed as their eyes fixed on their friends. “Ada, we don’t got time to argue about this, I’m goin’ down there now so you watch our backs, all right?” She continued even before Ada nodded, “If you need to take a shot and kill ‘im, do it, but we can take ‘im alive.”

“Okay, please be careful.”

“Oh, I will.”

Ada and Charles watched her duck low and move swiftly down the hill towards them, heading to the edge of the cliff. Gritting her teeth, Ada lowered to the snow, settling on her stomach, and aimed the rifle, peering through the scope at Micah.

Exhaling a long, slow breath, she settled her finger over the trigger.

—

Arthur’s heart, which he thought had stopped moments ago, was now racing.

Dutch was here. Alive. And with Micah.

He hadn’t changed, except for now having a full beard, and he, too, had a thick coat on. The large rings Arthur could have drawn from memory were still adorning his fingers, and his guns, one pointed at him and John, the other at Sadie, were the ones he had always had and prized. Arthur didn’t know to say, what the hell to do, but he didn’t have the chance to think anyway.

It happened so fast.

Micah spun, knocking Sadie’s arm aside and grabbing her. They grunted as they wrestled with one another, but Arthur would have been ashamed to have admitted later, if he’d had the chance, that he hadn’t been able to tear his gaze away from Dutch to see how she was doing. He felt John beside him, tense and hissing out curses as he watched, but Arthur just looked at Dutch, and Dutch looked at him.

The older man must have heard Micah greet them, must have had a few, private minutes as they’d shot at one another to process that he alive, so Arthur hated that his own feelings must have been playing out on his features now for all the world to see. His lips were parted, his eyes were wider and his gun wasn’t even raised. 

Dutch’s own features were expressionless.

Arthur had convinced himself, about a year or so ago, maybe even before, when Millie had been born, in a moment of pure happiness and contentment, that he’d forgiven Dutch, that, yes, he’d fucked everything, not handled it well at all, but he’d been doing what he’d thought was best for everyone around him.

Time had a fucking awful way of softening memories.

He saw now, despite everything that had happened, he’d still been trying to justify Dutch’s actions, to give him the benefit of the doubt... yet here he was, with Micah the rat still, and pointing a gun at him.

Dutch was the first to look away when Sadie released a yell through gritted teeth as Micah hauled her up from the snow where they’d been grappling and held her tight against him, his gun pointed at her head.

John was aiming his own gun at them, furious energy crackling through him as he just about managed to stop himself from lunging forward.

Micah knew this, a smile pulling at his lips as he gestured his gun at them. “Now, boys... Now... What were you sayin’?”

John swallowed hard, not knowing what the hell to do. Glancing briefly at Arthur, he found the other man frozen still, his fucking gun not even pointed at either of them, and not saying a damn word, just staring at Dutch. Looking himself towards the older man, John jerked his chin at him.

“What the hell are you doin’ here, Dutch?”

He just had one gun raised now, at him and Arthur. “Same as you, I suppose.”

He sounded so... unlike Dutch. Weary, John would have even said, like none of this mattered.

Micah, on the other hand, was drinking in every single moment. “Dutch and I are teamin’ up once more... We got money... We got dreams...” Glancing at Dutch, his gaze returned to John, his smile widening. “... Join us, boys... Join us.”

Arthur still wasn’t saying a fucking thing and John’s heart was pounding against his ribcage. He was aiming at Micah, the man’s arm still tight around Sadie, but he didn’t trust that Dutch wouldn’t fire at any moment and just kill him, end what he’d tried to let happen in those last few days. Licking his cracked lips, he exhaled a short breath.

What the hell was he supposed to do?

— 

Ada could hear her own breathing as she stared through the sniper-scope, her blood running cold, body frozen, and it wasn’t because she was lying in the snow.

“Is that...” Charles breathed beside her, “... What the hell is Dutch doing here?”

“I don’t know...” she heard herself whisper, “... I don’t know... I don’t know...”

This changed everything.

The fact he was still with Micah, after everything... She’d watched him walk away from Micah on that mountain, that was the one thing he’d done right in those last few days, the one thing that had given him a shred of redemption in her eyes over the years, yet here he fucking was... and he was aiming at Arthur.

She looked at her husband, saw how rigid he was and knew it wasn’t from the cold. There had been some dark days after the mountain, when he’d been recovering both physically and mentally. Days when he’d convinced himself he could have saved Dutch, that it had been his fault for not noticing the change in him sooner and the terrible things it had led to. She’d had to hold him, tears in her eyes and on his cheeks, and tell him over and over that he’d done all he could and it wasn’t his fault. It had taken some time, years, even, but on a quiet night soon after Millie was born, as they sat on their porch watching the sun set, he’d told her he'd forgiven Dutch. She hadn’t understood why or how he could, but she saw how at peace he was then at having done so, how relieved he was... and now that had been completely undone.

She didn’t think it was possible, but she’d never hated Dutch van der Linde more than she did right now.

Charles’s jagged gasp tore her from her thoughts and she watched as Micah drove Sadie into the snow, trying to wrestle the gun out of her hand. 

Lifting her head suddenly, Ada shoved the sniper rifle towards Charles, her heart racing.

“Stay here,” she murmured as she pushed herself up, “Don’t hesitate to pull the trigger.”

—

He wished he was just a few inches closer to Arthur so he could elbow him out of whatever had overtaken him without it being obvious. If he’d had time to think about it, he would have thought Arthur would have been enraged at the sight of Dutch, would have been demanding to know what the hell was going on, would have at least been aiming his gun at him, finger on the trigger.

But no, his brother was still silent.

Adjusting his grip on his gun, John kept it fixed on Micah. “Let her go.”

Sadie was staring at the ground, and probably wouldn’t have been upright if it hadn’t been for Micah’s grip, and the man just continued to smile.

“Now, I can’t do that, John.”

John could feel himself growing desperate and that was the last thing he wanted to show right now. “Dutch... Dutch, c’mon now!”

Dutch gazed at him, still expressionless. “You shot at me, son.”

“You shot at us first.”

All their eyes darted to Arthur as he finally spoke, his jaw clenched, voice tight.

Here was the anger now, and it seemed it had instantly provoked it in Dutch, too, his words bursting out of him.

“You betrayed me!”

“I could say the same thing. You left John for dead, me for dead. Didn’t even look back, after all them years.” Arthur’s tone was as cold as the silent air around them, though his gun remained by his side.

Dutch pressed his lips together, taking a few moments before he spoke. “I was tryin’ to do my best... you... you just cared for yourselves.”

“I think differently. All I ever did was care about you. I gave you my life, twenty years of it. Nearly died tryin’ to save you from this rat, yet here you are.”

The two men gazed at one another, silent as Arthur’s words lingered between them. It was Micah who broke the quiet.

“Join us, boys, c’mon... It doesn’t have to be like this...”

His arm was slightly higher around Sadie now, practically choking her, and she released a stuttered groan, trying to pull at it.

“Let her go!” John demanded, trying so hard to not take a step forward. “She ain’t well!”

“Do as he says.”

Micah’s barked laugh died on his tongue, and John felt relief wash over him as Ada appeared a short distance from his side, her Repeater raised.

Her gaze darted from the blond man to Dutch, and she saw nothing cross his features as he stared at her. 

And then a muscle in his jaw twitched and he raised his other gun to her.

“You—”

Arthur’s revolver ‘clicked’ as he aimed it at Dutch, the older man stilling instantly as his gaze shifted from the gun to him.

“I see,” he murmured.

“Yeah,” was all Arthur said, gaze fixed on him.

Micah’s laugh returned, long and exuberant. “Ooh, well, well, well, if it ain’t her majesty herself, still alive and kickin’!”

“Let her go.” Ada ignored him, echoing John’s words.

He sighed, grinning. “C’mon, now, I don’t wanna kill any of ya when we’ve just reunited. Join us! You can come, too, Miss Prissy Missy! If you’re good...” He tilted his head, leaning it against Sadie’s, the blonde woman gritting her teeth as she snarled. “Or are we just gonna stand around glarin’ at each other?”

“Dutch...” John’s voice silenced them all, even Micah falling quiet. He shook his head slightly as the older man met his gaze. “... Dutch, we all did our best for you. Ain’t our fault things turned out the way they did.”

He was silent.

“Killin’ us won’t solve anythin’, Dutch,” Arthur murmured, pulling Dutch’s gaze back to him. “John’s right, we did our best, and... Well, we came here for Micah, not you.”

Micah chuckled lowly, holding Ada’s gaze as he tightened his arm around Sadie. Ada grit her teeth, her finger hovering over the trigger.

Dutch looked between his two former gang members, former sons. It felt like a lifetime before he spoke.

“Do you remember the last time we were up in the mountains, all of us together... How long ago that was...”

John shifted slightly, unease weighing heavily on him like a rock. What was the point in this?

Arthur shifted, too, resting his weight on one foot as he nodded slowly. “Yeah, long time ago. Lot of things have changed since then, though, huh. Now John and I, we got families. He’s got Abigail and Jack, and Ada and I... we got a kid of our own, Dutch, and we wanna get home to her.”

Dutch gazed at him.

Micah barked out a laugh, raising his eyebrows at Ada. “You let cowpoke over there reproduce? Hell, the Lord save us all. What’s her name? Oh, go on, tell me,” he prompted at her silence.

Ada felt her lip curl as she stared at him, not knowing how she wasn’t pulling the trigger. 

"Amelia.” Arthur answered Micah, though his eyes remained on Dutch. “We call her Millie.”

Dutch still didn’t say a word.

“Ooh, well, congratulations on little Millie. Can’t wait to be introduced...” 

Micah laughed as Ada tried to take a step towards him, but John had swiftly reached out and grabbed her arm, keeping her in place.

"You fucking son of a bitch...” she hissed, her grip so tight on the Repeater her hands were almost shaking.

“You there when he killed that little girl, Dutch?” Arthur asked quietly, like it was just the two of them on that mountain.

Silence.

Ada and Micah weren’t looking away from one another, and Sadie was staring at her, too, wheezing out her breaths. John had released Ada’s arm but kept his hand slightly raised, just in case she went to lunge again, though he had half a mind to not stop her, while his other hand kept his gun trained on Micah, too. Arthur was still to the other side of him, so still... and Dutch... Dutch was silent still.

It enraged John, how passive he was, how unfeeling, and that he was here with Micah. He just couldn’t believe it. After all these years, after what Arthur and Ada had told him happened on that mountain...

“Say somethin’, Dutch!” he snapped suddenly, tired of the older man just standing there, like he hadn’t chosen this. “Say somethin’!”

Dutch glanced at him. “I ain’t got too much to say no more...”

They barely had time to take a breath.

Raising his other hand, Dutch aimed the gun held in it at Micah and fired.

The bullet tore through his torso as Sadie lunged out of his grip, falling to her knees. They should have gone to help her, but Ada, who had inhaled a sharp breath, and John and Arthur were frozen in their positions, eyes wide, lips parted.

Yet no one was more shocked than Micah. He stared at Dutch, watching the man holster his guns as he swayed slightly. Touching his gloved fingers against the hole in his chest, as if he couldn’t believe it was real, he marvelled, “You shot me.”

Then, he laughed, the sound horrible and low. Sucking in a breath, he nodded, teeth dragging over his lower lip.

“You shot me pretty good.”

His head rolled to the side, his eyes fixing on her, and Ada knew it was going to happen. Micah swiftly raised both of his beloved guns and aimed them at her and John. She didn’t hesitate. He was fast, but she and John were faster.

The sound of their bullets echoed across the snow, and not one of them was Micah’s. They buried into him and a spluttered, stunned groan slipped from his lips. He suddenly pressed them together tightly, confining strange sounds to the back of his throat as his arms dropped to his sides, his guns clattering on the rocky ground as they fell from his grasp. He gazed at them and his body turned a few moments later in a strange, jerking motion. His back to them, he took a few steps forward as he nodded again, raising his hands slightly, questioningly, and then his legs gave out. Collapsing forwards, Micah Bell died a second before he hit the ground.

Swallowing hard, it was several moments before Ada lowered her gun, her hands shaking.

She couldn’t believe it... she just...

“Thank you...” John said suddenly, stumbling over his words, no one else knowing what to say, the gesture awkward, but... Dutch had saved them. “I... I, uh...”

Her eyes darted to Dutch, who was gazing at John, then to the two men. They looked so utterly lost. They were boys again, for the briefest of moments, looking to their leader, father and friend in where to go from here. Arthur’s gun was by his side, as was John’s, and neither of them knew what to say. Was there anything to say?

Dutch didn’t seem to think so.

As John tried to find words, Dutch started to walk. When he passed the men, something akin to... disappointment shrouded his features, or maybe even faint contempt, anger. Or all three.

“Dutch.”

The older man paused at Arthur’s voice while John holstered his gun and hurried over to Sadie who was trying to get on her feet with a grunt. As Dutch turned to him, Arthur held the gaze of the man he’d have once died for, weariness overtaking him.

“We’re doin’ you a mercy here.”

Dutch didn’t react to the gentle warning, and for a few moments Arthur thought he wasn’t going to reply. 

“Maybe it is I who is doing the mercy.”

The warning had been reciprocated.

He turned away again as Arthur wet his dry lips, his heart pounding. He watched the man continue on, not looking back once.

Ada watched him, too, stepping to the side slightly so he could pass her. He paused before her, though, his eyes meeting hers. She didn’t look away and didn’t react, even though she had no idea what he was searching her gaze for. She didn’t know what possessed her to say it, either, as the silence went on. Perhaps it was the manners her mother had drummed into her.

Licking her lips, she cleared her throat. “I hope you can find happiness.”

She could have yelled at him, could have demanded justice for the death of her father but... what good would it have done? What would have been the point? Dutch was leaving without a fight, and he’d done them a favour. It would almost have been cruel to challenge him then, to execute him. She’d come to terms with the events of her life anyway, and killing this man wouldn’t bring her father back. Part of her told her she was just trying to be superior.

He gazed at her, mouth in a thin line, and she thought she saw a shine to his eyes.

She thought it was regret.

It was too late when she saw the rage that flooded his features.

Dutch lunged. 

He drew one of his guns in the same moment that he reached out and gripped the front of her coat, yanking her forward against him as yells erupted behind him. Her eyes were wide as she gasped, the Repeater falling from her hand, and she couldn’t look away from his furious gaze as he pressed the barrel of the gun against her chest.

A gunshot rang out and she flinched with a sharp gasp.

Dutch stared down at her, face inches from hers, exhaling short, harsh breaths. Tears slipped from his eyes as he blinked.

And then he choked as blood trickled out of the corners of his mouth.

He used his grip on her to steady himself now as he turned his head to look behind him, a quiet, strained sound coming from the back of his throat. 

Arthur didn’t move, his gun still raised, his breaths, visible in the cold air, coming slow and long.

Dutch released another strange sound, and his legs gave out. His gun fell from his hand as he dropped down to his knees, and he now gripped at the bottom of Ada’s coat. Wheezing his exhaled breaths, his other hand went to the hole in his stomach, as if, like Micah, he couldn’t quite believe it was real yet. He made another faint sound at feeling it. His hand resting over it, he gazed at the white snow behind her, his breathing jagged. His eyes moved after a few moments, trailing their way up towards the sky. A bird flew across the grey vastness of it, and when he blinked again, following it, tears dripped down his cheeks. The sun was trying to break through the thick clouds, a few shafts of light illuminating the dark feathers of the bird, before they were gone, vanishing as soon as they had come. His hand slid from her coat as he grunted, his body hunching over slightly, and his eyes fell shut. 

It was another moment or so before Dutch van der Linde collapsed onto the snow, dead.

Arthur stared at the body, finally lowering his gun. He exhaled a shaking breath, his shoulders dropping. Glancing at John, he found the younger man looking at him as he held Sadie up, eyes wide, but not shocked or saddened. He just nodded, and Arthur returned it, relieved beyond words that the guilt he had expected wasn’t coming. He returned his gaze to Dutch’s body, and he felt like he could breathe properly for the first time in a very, very long time.

It was Ada’s heaving sob that finally made them all tear their eyes away from the body.

Tears ran down her flushed cheeks as another sob escaped her, her hand pressed against her left side, just above her hip.

Blood was spilling through her fingers.

“Oh, shit...” he heard Sadie gasp.

Arthur felt like a knife had pierced his heart as he swiftly holstered his gun and strode towards her. “Ada... Awh, shit, oh, sweetheart...”

Reaching her, one hand gripped her shoulder as the other pulled hers away from her side, and he froze, staring at the wound that was bleeding profusely. Pressing both their hands firmly over it, his eyes darted up to meet hers, his chest twisting unbearably.

She was crying so hard she was barely able to take a breath but she was mumbling over and over in between her sobs something he couldn’t make out.

“What’s that, sweetheart? Are you okay?”

“Fuck, shit, here, take this...”

He watched her try to take a breath as John suddenly appeared at his side, holding out a strip of material he must have torn from his shirt. Arthur took it with blood stained fingers and nudged her hand away before pressing it over the wound. 

She hissed as her features crumbled, and managed to take in enough of a breath to say clearly, “... it’s over, it’s over... it’s over...”

Her gaze dropped to Dutch’s body beside her as she sobbed, every feeling she’d suppressed in the last several hours overwhelming her.

It was over, it was truly, truly all over.

Arthur’s hand went from her shoulder to her cheek, cupping it and stroking it gently with his thumb as he tried to meet her gaze. “Yeah, they’re both dead, sweetheart, it’s okay...” He swallowed hard as he felt the blood against his fingers. “... Oh, my darlin’, shit, I’m so sorry, I-I didn’t mean for you to get hurt, I thought with the angle you were at— Woah, hey, hey...”

Her legs had buckled and he caught her. Murmuring low, soft words, he swept her up into his arms, holding her against him.

The motion had pained her, he had seen it, and she gazed up at him, tears falling thick and fast down her cheeks. He swallowed again, having to blink to clear his vision.

“I’m so sorry, Ada, you’re gonna be okay, though, all righ’? We’re gonna get you some help.”

Her lower lip was trembling. “I’m fine... It hurts but...”

“All righ’, okay, we gotta get you to a doctor, though, all righ’? You, Sadie and Charles, okay?”

She nodded, one hand gripping at his coat as the other pressed the strip of John’s shirt against the wound. “I’m fine...”

He knew she was lying.

“Money...”

Blinking again, the voice almost startling him, he looked over at Sadie who was leaning against the wooden shack, looking so drained.

“What?”

She nodded at the watchtower, raising her eyebrows as she coughed. “Money from Blackwater should be in there...”

Arthur’s gaze darted to John’s before back to Sadie. “Really?”

She tilted her head, arching an eyebrow. “You think I’d say somethin’ like that if it weren’t true?”

Running his tongue along his teeth, Arthur exhaled a breath. “We gotta get off this mountain and find a doctor.”

Sadie chuckled, standing upright. “I ain’t leavin’ without it, we deserve somethin’, don’t we?”

Arthur glanced at John again, watching him already heading towards the tower. Adjusting his grip on Ada, he shook his head.

“You can do all the searchin’ you want, I’m gonna get back to the horses and you should be righ’ behind me.”

Sadie waved her hand, nodding. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, right behind ya.” Taking a breath, she looked to Ada before back at him. “She okay?”

He nodded as he turned, heading for the hill. “She’s gonna be fine.”

His heart was thumping against his ribcage. Strawberry was miles away and he wasn’t familiar enough with the land anymore to know what ranches were around and if they would have a doctor, so that just left—

“Arthur.”

He paused at Sadie’s voice and turned back to her, having to bite back a snapped retort as he raised his eyebrows.

Her lips were pressed together, the weariness having returned, and sympathy with it. “Closest town is Valentine.”

His jaw moved. “I know.”

He continued on up the hill, gritting his teeth as he pushed through the snow. Had enough time passed? Would they have forgotten about him and the gang? Would a new sheriff have taken over?

Truthfully, he didn’t fucking care.

Gazing down at his wife, his chest tightened as he found her eyes closed.

“Sweetheart...”

Mercifully, they opened at his voice, though not fully.

He managed a smile, his thumb stroking against her arm. “You keep those beautiful eyes open, okay?”

Her tongue drifted across her dry lips. “It’s so cold.”

“Yeah, you gave your scarf to Charles, you remember, to keep ‘im warm? Then I gave mine to Sadie to help her, and John doesn’t have one but he gave you some of his shirt. Looks like we’ve all been swappin’.”

 “You haven’t got anything.”

He smiled again, feeling his eyes sting. “Oh, I get to have you for a few more decades, all righ’? You gonna give me that?”

He thought he saw the faintest of smiles on her lips as she nodded.

“Well, you keep those eyes open, then.”

“Okay.”

Reaching the top of the hill, he found Charles sat on a crate, a rifle in his hands, staring at the snow. Lifting his head, he suddenly rose to his feet at the sight of them and was shaking his head before Arthur could open his mouth.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t find a safe shot, I tried to but I just couldn’t find it—”

“It’s okay, Charles, it’s all righ’.” He didn’t stop walking. “C’mon, we’re gonna get you both to a doctor.”

Charles followed by his side, gripping at his shoulder again. “Ada, are you okay?”

She hummed out a sound as her reply, and glancing down at her again Arthur found her eyes still open and fixed on the sky. Tears were trailing down her cheeks, and he knew she was trying to breathe steadily.

He hated the memory it dug up from the furthest corner of his mind.

Holding her tighter, he broke into a jog, fucking grateful that it was just downhill from here. Charles kept level with him, most likely grateful that it was just declines, too.

“Where are Sadie and John?”

“Back there. She said the money from Blackwater’s in the tower.”

“What?”

“I know.”

“How the hell did Micah and Dutch get it?”

“I don’t know.”

Charles fell silent, knowing his mind was elsewhere and there would be time for questions later... he hoped. His gaze dropped to Ada, watching her stare up at the sky. He had watched through the scope as Dutch had done the same, taking in his last few moments of life. He wanted to ask Arthur how he was feeling, if he himself was all right, but... questions later. 

They were silent the rest of the way down the mountain, barely glancing at the bodies they passed. Charles stumbled once or twice on the descent, but Arthur didn’t see, having taken the lead. Charles didn’t call out to him to slow down either, knowing he wouldn’t, and Charles didn’t want him to.

They found their horses grazing near the trees they’d left them at, their heads lifting instantly at the sound of them. Charles fumbled for something in his saddlebag as Arthur strode for Titan. Noka approached idly at scenting her mistress, but Arthur wanted to hold her as they rode because he didn’t trust that she’d stay upright. Even thinking that practical thought frightened him. Valentine was closer than Strawberry, but it was still quite a ride.

“There you go...” he murmured as he raised her in his arms, settling her on Titan as he gritted his teeth.

She gasped, her lips swiftly pressing together cutting it off.

The hand that had clutched his coat now gripped the pommel, her knuckles whitening, and he glanced up at her as he took Titan’s reins in one hand and prepared to mount and sit behind her.

His heart shattered.

She looked terrified.

—

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[kinktae]

How dare you bitchin!jungkook ?! HOW DARE YOU ?!

very NOT spoiler free bitchin’ 8 asks under the cut

Y/N SUPPORT GROUP

deliciouslydisturbed365 said: I just read chapter 8 and holy fuck I’m nauseous. Poor Y/N 😭

queen-emon said: What the literal FUCK man, I just read Bitchin 08 and like im so broken. I never ever consider Y/n and I to be the same person but this time I felt like we were the same person both getting our hearts crushed by the man we loved so dearly. I AM NOT OKAY WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO ME! THIS IS SO NOT GROOVY :(

Anonymous said: Me🤝y/n Repressing our emotions

madjammil said: I am legit crying. Poor y/n! I cannot believe Jungkook slept with Kiri! My heart is broken. I thought these two were finally getting together and he goes and does this dumb shit! Smh. Aside from that, your writing was amazing as always! I love this series so much!

YARA BULLY JK PETITIONERS

Anonymous said: omg i can’t believe jungkook is rly going to get his dickie chopped off 😍😍😍 deserve! can’t wait until yara finds out

Anonymous said: Ignore jk, y/n!!! Gosh she deserve so much better than a fboi who only cares about how he feels physically!! Ahole to the max and I need her to slap him! Yara can join along the slapping game!! But srsly he needs to learn his words alone can’t mend this and I hope y/n doesn’t give in so easily cuz he deserves cold shoulders from her for a very long time and don’t just rely on charms to get his way. Ik he was trouble from the start 😔 y/n dear don’t worry you deserve better

casualxexistence said: So 👉👈 um like is there like ANy chance that we get to see our baby yara’s reaction to this 🥺🥺🥺👼 bc um well I would kinda love to see her hand both jk and kiri there asses bc they aren’t gonna hAVE ANY AFTER SHE FINISHES WITH THEM RIP

Anonymous said: dude, what if y/n hooks up with tae and starts beef between jk and him while yara bitch slaps kiri….. dude bitchin’ has such good drama theories wtf literally anything is possible at this point

Anonymous said: if yara doesn’t punch kook can I punch him? Not as the oc I meant like me BECAUSE WHAT THE FUCK

forvever-ddaeng said: I keep rereading this last part like it’s somehow gonna change or it won’t make me sad the more I read it but it’s having the opposite effect and now I want Yara to beat Jungkook’s ass smh

Anonymous said: WTFFFFFFF YARA GONNA HUNT DOWN AND KICK JUNGKOOK ASS FOR HURTING HER BABY

JUNGKOOK ANTIS:

Anonymous said: what the fuck is wrong with bitchin’!jungkook does he think with his dick i wanna kick his ass

Anonymous said: why jungkook would do something like that if he likes y/n? i would be so mad at him too like… isn’t that kind of cheating? he didn’t say if he was back together with his ex but he slept with her so that must mean something, she probably thinks it means something. he was really stupid 

omgtaehyungsmullett said: i know jungkook fucking with me, dammit 😡

Anonymous said: I DONT UNDERSTAND WHY WOULD JUNGKOOK DO THAT WHY

ausjeons said: Jungkook what the fuck!!! I could slap you silly after reading part 8 😪😩

Anonymous said: Team make jk suffer for awhile and then be able to patch things up with the oc 🤝

Anonymous said: I read ch8 last night and this weighed heavily on my mind all day like why is jk such a hoe? Like how could he just sleep with Kiri just like that. I think these children are very confuzzled with their feelings. After he slept with Kiri, did he rush to y/n bc he knew this was the end of their “relationship”? One last passionate banger goodbye 😟 my 💔 broken heart

Anonymous said: I ain’t even sad. I’m full on rage mode. WHO TF GAVE JK THE AUDACITY , THE ABSOLUTE BRAWN TO STICK HIS DICK IN KIRI AND THEN , NOT EVEN A FULL DAY LATER ( cuz yk that would be farrr too gracious ) WITHOUT A WARNING , WITHOUT A FRICKING GOOD MORNING EVEN , GOES TO FUCK OC AND THINKS THAT’S OKAY???? Good to know OC and whatever his relationship was with her was worth less than a nut😒

Anonymous said: i’m actually sad… like wow. i really expected him to go back, i really did. but even though i knew it’d happen, it still hurt, y’know? i think that made it worse; knowing that he’d go back to her in the end… shit’s fucked up, really. great job writing it. i could literally feel the emotion from this one.

Anonymous said: Bitchin ch 8…..oh wow the smut was so nice and fluffy but wtf JJK messed up big time. Honestly I don’t think he deserves oc after this. She deserves someone who isn’t so unsure of his feelings that it takes getting back together with and sleeping with someone else to realise it. If he really liked her, he wouldn’t have slept with Kiri.

Anonymous said: “ArE YOu MAd?” Srsly what brand of clown juice is Bitchin JJK drinking?

Anonymous said: TAE AND Y/N HOES BRO ENTER THE NEW SHIP FUCK JK

cchristinnaa said: Jk really did yn like a pocket pussy huh

Anonymous said: HOW COULD JUNGKOOK OH MY GOOODDDDDDDDDDD literally men aint SHIT….. the part where y/n said you got what you wanted from me🥺🥺🥺🥺 I FELT THAT ugh i love the angst

Anonymous said: Hope jk dieS from jealousy next ch. And regrets it skdhdhd :( jk. Hope they get their sht 2gether soon or im gon 😷😖😭

diortae said: me: *explaining to bitchin 8 jk why he’s a dick for calling Y/N his “pretty girl” immediately after fucking her raw the morning after he slept with his ex* 

jk: well, you know what they say. hindsight is 20/20 

me: KINDA SEEMS LIKE REGULAR SIGHT SHOULD HAVE CAUGHT THAT ONE

Anonymous said: JUNGKOOK IS ABOUT TO MEET THESE FISTS UP CLOSE THATS ON GOD THAT DUMBASS LIMP DICK BITCH REALLY FUCKED UP

Anonymous said: I HATE JJK HES AN ASS FOR GG DOWN ON 2WOMEN HE CAN JUS F HIMSELF RN

Anonymous said: JUNGKOOK IS GONNA GET HIS ASS BEATEN UGHSHHSKDHXJSJ MOTHERFUCKER WHAT? WHAT??? THIS BITCH IS A RIDE OR DIE AND UR GOING AFTER FAKEASS KIRI REALLY? FOR REAL I THOUGHT UOU WERE BETTER THAN THIS BUT NO ALL MEN DO IS LIE LIE LIE

Anonymous said: the way i closed the tumblr app when i saw jungkook saying “kiri came over last night”

Anonymous said: alright we beating jk’s ass @ noon 😤

Anonymous said: WHY WOULD JUNGKOOK DO THAT TO OC LIKE WHAT I AGREE WITH OC HE USED HER AND THAT MAKES ME 😡😡😡😡😡

Anonymous said: BITCHIN PART 8 WTFGGGG MY HEART Do be Hurting . i’m going to beat jungkook up !!!!

betysotelo18 said: It’s been a few minutes since I read part 8 and I can’t stop thinking about what could happen next… the meanwhile F U jeon Jungkook, you did wrong

Anonymous said: NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! I CANT 😭 WHAT SHOULD I DO WITH THIS CHAPTER HUUUU JUNGKOOK WTFF BRO…….. my heart is breaking for them. Why can’t they just date already wkxbdbbdjdjdjdjdjdj this is onky misunderstanding right? and thankyou for the new chapter sis hihuhihih💕💕

Anonymous said: im shocked i dunno who i hate more rn you or jungkook. my heart is literally SHATTERED he better fix this or else im traveling to the 80s just to kick his ass 😭🤬

Anonymous said: never want to punch jungkook in the face like i wanna do right now

Anonymous said: JUNGKOOK WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUCK 🤬 for the love of god rose why do u did that to me i wanna die

Anonymous said: ROSE WTF WAS THAT MAN !!! my heart it hurts and like wtf jungpuke!! Why would he do that to reader !! why would he sleep with kiri and then sleep with reader ?!? Like go siekkeksjdjejjejdbehhe i wish i can put in reaction pictures in here

CUTIE PIES

Anonymous said: Omggg thank you so so much for this chapter, for the whole fic. Thank you for sharing it with us. You are a great writter. Seriously! I just love how every chapter is so intense. Not only the smut is amazing but every detail, every action, the whole plot, all of the dialogues. I actually cried at the end I love how I can really feel everything. All the emotions. Ah and they’re so cute!!! But why was JK so weak? Even if that’s what you wanted since the beginning… I thought- BOY WTF??? :’( But seriously this is the type of thing I love, I am WEAK for this. The slow burn, the oblivious idiots that love each other but keep suffering thing. And you write it so well. Your mind!!! Your talent!!! I love it. Thank you, for real ♥♥♥ I’m antecipating the next chapter, but already sad that it’s almost ending :((( I’m gonna miss this a lot. Anyways, take your time, baby. And have a nice day! ♥♥♥ (Sorry for bad english btw)

tinievmin said: ROSE. IM IN PAIN. I FELT THE BREAKUP BETWEEN YN AND JUNGKOOK. IM SO SADDD. But not related to the plot, your writing is ART. You always make it flow so well aND WOW!!! I don’t have enough words to express how much I love your works

AND FINALLY, AN INTELLECTUAL

Anonymous said: kiri is a bitch i said what i said

[baekhvuns]

Bad Boy | Baekhyun VIII

( series masterlist )

part eight.

word count : 1.5k

pairing : baekhyun x reader

theme ( s ) : romcom, angst.

It’s been four years, four years since Eunhye’s wedding and four years since I left Baekhyun. Now I was 27, working and making my own money.

Every time Eunhye calls me, all I think about is the day I left him. There hasn’t been one day when I haven’t thought about him.

But soon I realized, we were never meant to be. It was a just a fling for 4 weeks or so, he was from a different world, and I was from a different world.

It’s not like I got stuck on him, 4 years is a long time. Here and there I dated guys, but I couldn’t settle with any of them.

It was just a regular cloudy day, I was returning from my work. Jamming out to the latest songs, suddenly I switched to the news radio.

“The Latest need just hit in, Celebrity Ji Chang Wook dating Im Yoona? Keep up with the latest news with news Korea 66!”

I shook my head at the news, suddenly my phone rang which made my car vibrate as it was connected to the Bluetooth.

“Oh hi Eunhye.”

“Joohyun, do you have any idea what’s going on right now?”

“Hmm? What’s happening.” I said as I pressed on the race.

As soon as I pulled up in my garage, “Baekhyun’s getting married.”

“What?” I blurt out, extremely shocked at her statement. I think my heart just shattered.

“Yea, Jongdae just got a call from him out of nowhere inviting us to his wedding.” She said as I leaned back at my car seat.

“Is everything between you guys okay?” She asked as I jumped up

“Yea it is! Don’t worry!” That’s a lie, I won’t even deny it.

“Anyway tell me if you get a call, so we can go together! Okay? See you later!” She said and hung up right after.

I got out of my car, shocked at what had just happened. He’s already getting married when I can’t even go on a date properly.

I scoffed walking towards my mailbox, opening it revealed lots of letters.

Getting excited I walked inside and changed into comfy clothes and sat on my couch, opening the letters one by one.

Tax, bank, electricity bill, advertisements.

Definitely not what I wanted to see, shuffling through the letters. I saw a blush champagne covered letter, intrigued I grasp it.

“Oh, it’s his letter.” I look at it, it was Baekhyun’s wedding invitation. I chucked it across the room.

My eyes slowly tearing up, I ran towards it, “Okay but I do want to see it.” Muttering I picked it up.

My hands caressing the card, opening the card I saw the names

Byun Baekhyun weds Kim Yuna

“Ah, even her names seems prettier than mine.” I smiled, sadly.

I look over the card, it talked about inviting the closest friends of Baekhyun, what the times the wedding would be held at.

But my heart just broke, reading the next line I burst out in tears.

“Where’s your favourite place in the entire world?” Baekhyun suddenly asked, I looked at him in confusion.

“Santorini, Greece. Why?” I asked as he just shook his head.

Santorini, Greece is where the wedding is occurring, we will be pleased to see you there. The card read.

I bawled out crying, “Why does he do this.” I mutter in between my muffled cries

All of a sudden, Eunhye called again, “Open the door.” I ran to open the door and once I did I hugged Eunhye tightly, crying.

“Ah why are you crying are you okay?” Eunhye inquired as she put her bag down, no she shouldn’t know about this yet.

“Yea I just bumped into the table really hard.” I wiped my tears away and look at her frowning.

“I know there’s something but you don’t have to tell me yet.” She said as she walked in.

Damn I can never hide something from her

“It’s nothing Eunhye.”

“Oh you got his card too?” Eunhye asked as she picked up the card and started looking through it

“Yea.” I go and sit next to her, there was something different about her today, or was it just me?

“Eunhye, you’re glowing!” I exclaimed as she hit me playfully denying

“Why? Are you pregnant? I mean it has been 4 years! I need to be an aunt already!” I yell at her as she just looked at me.

But then I realized, “Wait, you’re pregnant aren’t you?” She slowly nodded yes as I jumped and hugged her tightly.

“OH MY GOD! IM GOING TO BE AN AUNT!” I yell as I walk back and forth, I was beyond excited for them. Eunhye’s face showed excitement and happiness.

“Forget about this, but are you going to his wedding?” She suddenly changed the topic, as I silently cursed.

“I don’t want to.” I exclaim and plop on the couch next to her, still in the faze of the announcement. Then Eunhye faced me.

“Look Joohyun, that was the past! This is your present! Enjoy it rather than worrying about whatever happened between the both of you, I’m sure he has moved on for god’s sake he’s getting married now!” Eunhye eyed me in a hope for her pep talk to reach me.

I nodded hesitantly as she screamed in happiness, “Okay, so I’ll call Jongdae so that he can book us tickets to Greece!” Eunhye reaches out towards her phone as I stood up and headed towards the kitchen in hopes to get something to drink.

I grabbed a can of orange juice and leaned on my kitchen counter, I’m sure he has moved on now!

“He must have but I’m still stuck here.” I mumble out after sipping on my juice can,

No, Eunhye’s right. He’s getting married, that means he has moved on! Maybe I can finally move on after I see him getting married.

[ninaahelvar]

Chivalry Fell On Its Sword (12/23)

Summary: All Arya wanted so to feel normal and go outside of the damn castle. Now, through a series of unfortunate, she’s stuck with a bodyguard that she accidentally flirted with: Gendry Waters.

AO3

A/N: IM ON A FUCKING ROLL THIS MONTH! i might try to get chapter 13 out by the end of the year, but we'll see! it's been a crazy month, and I hope everyone has been enjoying an almost regular update from me. but hey! we're half way!!!!! just a heads up, there's blood mentioned in this chapter? don't know if that's an issue for people, but a heads up in case!

A numb ache held her in bed for what felt like days. In actuality, it had been a week - the news broke, and the same day it was all over. A public announcement was made, and the wording made Arya furious. She was angry and depressed, and she knew it was all because of her family, what Gendry thought of her family. Everything about Arya’s life made her angry. 

With the public now in full awareness, the Princess Arya would like to say the following. Her relationship with her Bodyguard was one that held little significance, and as of today, the relationship has ended. This has no direct result from being acknowledged by the public in any way, but it is requested that both parties have their privacy respected, especially those to which have no protection or affiliation with the royal family directly. 

What bullshit. She knew how her family had to play it, but it was still bullshit, and the public knew it too. Like Arya would ever say such fucking shit in her life, but it was done and said - the stance taken that Arya was a flippant princess, ready for a fling and to discard them whenever possible. That was who she used to be, it wasn’t her anymore. She wanted love, she wanted security, she wanted more than just being royal - Arya wanted to be happy with her life. And the fact that it was blown apart by one person, she felt sick. 

That trust was something she shouldn’t give outside of her family. Part of her thought it wasn’t right to do that, to build walls was against who she was. But walls could have kept her safe, they would have prevented her heart from breaking like it did that day. She was alone once more, unhappy with her life, and rebellion built back into her veins. She’d be running again, and it made her scared that it would always be like this, to be the princess that everyone thought was a scandal. That she wasn’t worth more than the snickering and gossip at events. 

Arya thought she may have deserved it. 

And so, her sanctuary became her bed - the safety of her blanket weighing down her floating body, one too numb to feel herself grounded. It provided the warmth she missed from Gendry’s arms, and gave her every bit of comfort she needed. Until it didn’t. She’d toss and turn at night, feeling herself cry into her pillow like some lovesick fool that couldn’t get it through her head that she deserved better. 

But Arya didn’t want better, she wanted Gendry. She needed him like air, to be with him like he were the clothes on her back. It didn’t matter how much she was in pain, or how desperately her heart wanted relief from seeing his face in her mind, it just meant that had Gendry. He’d break her and heal her in the end, and she hated him for it.

By week’s end, she hadn’t been online, she hadn’t read the texts from her family, she had barely left the radius of her bed - it felt hopeless to move when she could possibly break. Mostly, she hated the fact that she could be broken like this. It was all she could think about when the pain was overwhelming; how did Arya Stark of Winterfell become a fallen woman, too stupid to leave her broken heart behind her and get on with life.

A knock came to her door, and Arya barely budged as the door crept open. When the person came into her room, she sprung up and felt herself become alive with an emotion she hadn’t quite deciphered. Gendry had a tray in his hands, food filling plates and glasses with water and juice inside. 

Gendry looked slightly different than the last time she’d seen him. He wasn’t cleanly shaven like he usually was, stubble that was patchy and unkept, his clothes were casual as though they were going into town, but it wasn’t coordinated in any way. Arya was happy he looked like a mess - served him right, he needed to be the disaster he was before they had met, she thought.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, sitting up in her bed to fold her arms and scowl at him.  

“I heard from Hot-pie that you aren’t eating. I came with food,” he cleared his throat, moving further into her room, but he was cautious with each step he took. 

Arya gripped into her arms, finding her courage in the pain. It reminded her why she shouldn’t have been happy to see him, that getting him back was a fruitless endeavour. They would never be again. It was so short, yet the happiest time of her life. It wasn’t the case anymore. “Get out. It’s clear that you didn’t love me, you were just using me.” 

Gendry huffed, setting down the tray in front of her. “Arya, I do love you, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s over.” 

Arya felt the spike in rage, and all forms of restraint that she held were lost in a moment. Shooting up from the bed, she stormed to him, kicking the tray along the way, the dishes and glasses all shattering around. 

“You love me, but only on the condition that we remained secret!? That I was some fucked up prize you won by fucking royalty!” she yelled, agony in her words. She hadn’t even stopped herself when Gendry toppled over on the carpet, fear backing him to a corner, then having him scrambling on the ground. When he landed, his head hit straight against the chest of drawers that sat close by. Still, all she wanted to do was hold him by the collar and yell until her voice was hoarse. She saw the blood that had formed on forehead or one that seeped through his shirt. She didn’t care in that moment. 

“I never said that,” Gendry said, trying to stand back up, but he faltered, his eyes blinking 

“You either loved me without conditions, or with them. We both know which way your heart leaned.” She yelled over him as he laid sprawled out on the floor. He stared up at her, his chest deflating as her words tore into him. Truth spilled and the damage was done. Arya backed away, moving across the glass and getting back into her bed. 

In a second, Brienne came shooting into the room, scowling at the mess around. “What the hell is going on in -” she began to shout before she turned to see Gendry on the floor, and bleeding, and gasped softly.  “Gendry, you’re - oh my god, we have to get you to a hospital,” she said, examining him. Brienne managed to get Gendry to his feet, and he held onto the spot on his head, still being held upright by his superior. 

“What are you talking about? I’m fine.” He stared at Arya, the line of blood dropping down the side of his temple. He finally looked like she felt - battered, bruised, hurt. 

“Gendry, if I can see a gaping would in your face, I’m going to send you to the hospital. You could have a concussion for all I know!” 

“Your Highness,” he said, bowing before he was escorted away. The room was left in silence, a chaotic mess of pain and heartache, all strewn across the space where their love had once filled it. 

Arya fell back to her bed, her stomach aching from the lack of food, and her heart straining from her day. 

From the time that Gendry and Brienne had left, Arya watching them from the window as they drove away, it was a total of five minutes before Sansa came storming into Arya’s room, throwing open the doors like she were an all powerful queen like she so desperately deserved. Yet, Arya hated that passion, for the moment anyhow, because it meant that Arya had to acknowledge whatever her sister had to say at some point, because she was always right. 

“Arya, what did you do?” Sansa shouted. Arya had found herself in bed again, curling her blankets around her and watching as Sansa stepped over the mess that had now befallen Arya’s room. 

“I don’t know. I just reacted,” Arya huffed, trying to settle back into her bed with a slumber that could drown out heartache. It was a far reach, Arya knew, but she could only pray to all the Gods,  all and new, for some form of relief. She suspected one built on rage and war helped her when Gendry had stepped into the room. 

“That’s not a reaction,” Sansa said, standing in front of Arya’s bed, arms folded and scowling at Arya like it had always been a face that Sansa had when she looked at her. Arya jumped up from her bed, throwing a pillow from the plentiful bunch that hid on her bed, hitting Sansa in a heavy lump.  

“Don’t say I’m overreacting! I’m allowed to feel like this!” Arya snapped. 

“I never said you aren’t, but you sent the guy to the hospital!” Sansa replied, voice just as raised, and just as angry.

“I didn’t mean to hurt him like that, but he deserved it,” Arya defended and the look of shock on Sansa’s face made Arya’s stomach drop. Why did she have to look at Arya like that? Like she had done something so wrong? Arya knew what she had done, and she stood by it. 

“Who have you become if you think making another human being bleed is worth the pain they caused you?” 

Arya breathed in a ragged breath, snarling back at Sansa. “You’re judging me now?” 

“For this? Yeah. Arya, he broke up with you, it hurts like hell, but he’s still someone you love. And you just...you hurt him. Physically hurt him,” she reiterated, “no amount of emotional pain you’re feeling will ever amount to physically harming another person,” she scolded, and the anger in her was something that only their mother could have infused in them. It made Arya feel sick, like she were still a child in need of a talking to.

“Just leave,” Arya spat, tossing over in bed. 

“Get back to me when you’re not maiming people for your own pain relief,” she huffed, moving out of Arya’s room in a split second, slamming the door behind her and making Arya jump in surprise.

As sun set, Arya’s stomach turning and grumbling for something that wasn’t just air, she moved from her bed. She went to her window, expecting to see someone there, but no one stood under her window smiling at her and trying to disguise the fact they were hiding a cigarette behind their back. Glancing back to her room, she was met with the mess she created, knowing her fault may not have laid with their relationship, but the aftermath sure as hell did. 

She started with her bed, making it to no longer be a mess. Covering over the love that had once creased its way into the lining linen, smoothing out her pain, and making sure only the memory would fade over time. Then, she picked up each shard of glass and porcelain. Pushing chairs to where they needed to be, fixing up her room to be her own and not the painful loss of someone that could only respond with little empathy to her. 

Then, she changed, moving out of her room and walked to her sister’s door, walking past the threshold and standing awkwardly at the brink of her room.

“So,” Arya spoke and Sansa, who was on her bed, smiling into her phone, turned and tossed it aside, a scowl replacing the job she was once feeling. 

“You going to throw something at me now?” 

“No.” Arysa cleared her throat, moving towards her sister, admitting something that wanted to get trapped at the back of her throat. “I just need a hug,” she said, voice quiet and her bottom little trembling. Why did she feel so scared. 

Sansa softened, opening her arms up and beckong Arya in. 

“Come here.” Arya barely needed the answer from her sister and she was already colliding down onto her, holding Sansa with all the effort her arms would allow. 

“I don’t want to talk about it, I just -” 

Arya stuttered before Sansa hugged her closer, kissing at her crown. “Then we won’t talk. It’s okay,” she murmured. Arya hadn’t felt herself cry like that since her family were dying in that car wreck. It didn’t matter, it felt like she had lost something just as important as family. She’d lost a piece of herself that was found within him - joy that only he could bring out, and it was forced out of her hands without even a second word. 

“Why couldn’t he want me as his family?” Arya cried, admitting the insecurity that had taken root when he left her that day. The way his words dug into her and tore about her sanity - why couldn’t he want her? Want her to be more? Want her to protect him for once? She could have done it with little effort, and yet, he took off like their time together meant nothing. She just needed to cry. 

Sansa held Arya tighter, as though the words were so painful to hear that it made sense suddenly why Arya was acting like a fool. 

By the time that her tears that stopped, Sansa had gotten food to the room, and Arya was able to eat all the things she had avoided, picking at things to get the smallest amount until she was able to stomach more.

For most of the night, they talked about everything else. They talked about Sansa’s man - who was now becoming two possible men as Sansa spoke about it being just as risky as Arya’s love for Gendry. Arya concluded that it could still possibly be Theon, but Sandor was just as easy a target. He hung around her, fawned over her even. Could Sansa find him a possibility? She did have a very kind heart, one that could overlook that man’s many, many flaws. He wasn’t the best to be around, kind of a bastard if Arya thought about it. But Sansa laughed with him, made him laugh sometimes too. It made sense. 

Then, they talked about Robb, and how Jon was very close to proposing to Ygritte at the reception. It wasn’t until midway through their conversation that Sansa remembered that Jon did in fact propose to Ygritte, the night of the reception, when they ready to leave each other. They were hidden away and Jon actually got down on one knee. Jon was going to tell everyone until Arya’s news broke and kind of spoiled the whole surprise. It wasn’t until the next night that Jon told the family. Arya hadn’t been there. 

In all, Arya spent the night with Sansa, forgetting the pain for a few hours, laughing with her sister and best friend, full of love that she had been so separated from. Arya thought she didn’t deserve it if Gendry was so willing to leave. But it had always surrounded her, willing to give at a breaths notice. She loved being loved, and having someone that meant the world to her, knowing they could never leave. 

Night came, Arya went back to bed, and didn’t dread the sleep that came. Although they were dreams that were filled with Gendry, they didn’t feel painful, just sharp memories that would fade into nothing with time. Waking, she didn’t cry and beg for the day to end again, she just woke and ordered breakfast to her room, eating alone and undisturbed as she forgot the dreams that had held her during the night. It wasn’t painful. Just a dream that meant something to her. 

It didn’t take long for her morning to be disturbed. Arya was busy flicking through her phone, blocking most things that brought up the week old scandal, and knowing it would be out of the news eventually. It still hurt to see a name that shouldn’t have been treated like that. A knock had come at her door, taking Arya’s attention from her phone.

“Arya,” a soft voice said at her door. Arya rolled in her bed, seeing her mother closing the door behind her. Arya rolled back over, cuddling her blankets closer to her chest. 

“What is it, mum?” she grumbled. Her mother was slow to make her way to her, but she eventually sat down, the weight shifting as she sat at Arya’s feet. Catelyn’s hand rested on one of Arya’s legs hidden beneath her sheets. 

“I want to apologise for how I handled everything.” 

“You were right,” Arya sighed, allowing her mum to see her. Catelyn shifted higher, sitting close enough to comfortably cup Arya’s cheek. It was a touch that she had found wonderful when Gendry had done it, but now, it was a comfort she welcomed by her mother. She had sorrowful eyes. 

“Darling,” she whispered, “your happiness is all I ever truly want. I know I’m hard on you, but I don’t do it on purpose. I want everything in your life to be perfect, and I must have put that pressure on you. What I truly wish is that you are loved and cared for, that you know you have a purpose other than being a princess. It’s why I wanted to push you in the direction of your charity causes. I thought it would drive you to be less reckless and more passionate.” 

“It did.” 

“But that boy…” she started, before she closed her eyes. “But because of Gendry, I lost sight of what made you happy. I should have been more supportive, helped you work it all out,” she tried and Arya shook her head. 

“It wouldn’t have done anything.” She sat up, looking at her mum and holding onto her hand. “Thank you, for apologising. You didn’t need to, but thank you,” she nodded. Catelyn leaned forward, kissing Arya’s forehead. 

“I love you, my little wolf pup,” she said, holding Arya close and for the first time in a long time, she felt the love that her mother could only give.

For once, it felt good to be Arya and Catelyn, mother and daughter, held in an embrace that could convey words that neither of them could quite say. It was what they needed, to free burdened hearts, and act on the things that held back two stubborns fools. 

For the rest of the day, Arya went around the palace, being followed by Pod, who didn’t say anything to her. Usually he’d quip that she moved too fast or that she needed to be more careful, or his newest adventure with a girl or guy he’d seen out in town. Instead, she was met with silence. He was either afraid of her, or thinking of a new pick up line to use on her, which wouldn’t work. 

She went to the library, looking through books that could help her build her foundation to a better extent. There were a few things she took to her bedroom, not before she visited Bran and see the new improvements to the palace to make the home more accessible to their brother. He enjoyed going down the long ramp down the main staircase, as he let the breaks go and he went down cheering. It was fun seeing her brother act like an idiot and almost enjoy the fact that he was in a wheelchair. Only a boy, she supposed. 

Laying in bed, she felt like the books were sending her to sleep, her head resting in her bed, flicking between pages that seemed to spill the same words over and over again, never continuing on from the last page. She kept reading, begging the universe to claw out her eyes, but instead, she was visited by the one person she had desperately wanted to see. 

“Dad!” Arya yelled, bounding out of her bed and racing to collide with her dad. He chuckled, holding her tight in his arms. He didn’t have his cane that day, but the slight stumble he had made Arya jump out of his arms and inspect him for any worse injuries. He held her cheek and smiled with his whole face. It made her heart race in joy. 

“Arya, sweetheart,” he said, walking them over to the small sitting area that Arya rarely used in her room. Ned sat across from her, relaxing into the chair and Arya held onto the armrests. The look of serious discussion made it clear that the scandal was finally coming to bite her in the ass. Ned sighed before he spoke. “Don’t feel bad for falling in love, and having your heart broken. It hurts, but it happens. I doubt he meant to hurt you to the depths that he has.” Arya swallowed, looking down at her lap and wishing that this wasn’t happening to her.  “I looked in on him myself after I heard about you,” he said, and Arya shot her attention back to him.

“Why did you do that?” 

“Did you know that on that morning alone, his mother was harassed by people on the street? That paparazzi came to her place of work and tried to get information from her about Gendry to publish in the paper? They haven’t opened the pub since the article came out.” 

“What?” she replied, a breath of surprise escaping her before she could trap it behind her teeth. All he did was nod to her surprise. 

“I heard that he said something to you, something about choosing between you and his family.” 

Arya swallowed again. “He did.” 

“We do the things to protect those we love. Sometimes, that hurts the people we love too. I have it on good authority to tell you, that boy loves you more deeply than either of you realise. But his mother has been, and always will be, his family. She’s all he’s ever known. He did what he thought was best to protect the closest person in his life.” 

“Why did he have to hurt me?” Arya asked, trying not to sound so pained, but it had already come out.

“He had no way of knowing what it would truly do. To either of you,” he said, and Arya furrowed her brow.

“Either of us? Can’t you see I’m a mess?” Arya scoffed, falling back into the chair and sliding down to sink into it.

Ned scoffed to that. “Sweetheart, have you even notice that he hasn’t been your bodyguard for the whole week?” 

“What? I saw him just the other day.” 

“He hasn’t been working. He came to get his things, I guess he visited you shortly before you sent him to the hospital.” 

“He didn’t get fired, did he?” Arya bit at her lip, trying to restrain herself after her outburst, holding back the fact that she did still care. Her father always saw right through her.

“No. But I gave him leave. He wasn’t in good shape.” Ned confessed. How didn’t Arya not notice that Gendry wasn’t himself? Did she no longer care or was she just so filled with self pity that she didn’t care. “I love you, Arya, and I will not take sides because you know how biased I am,” he laughed and Arya did too, “but I don’t think you were the only person broken that day.” 

Arya chewed on her lip before she looked up to her father, sympathy in his eyes. “Can you take me somewhere?” she asked. To that, he gave one single nod. 

All she wanted to do was forget it all happened, that her life hadn’t crumbled down around her because of him. But it happened, it was a part of her, a part of them and who they would be walking forward. They couldn’t erase the pain they had caused each other, nor would it do any good to glaze over broken pieces that were so clearly their razor edge anger. 

Ned waited in the car as Arya moved up the flight of stairs she had once found comforting. A secret hide away when she gripped into the banister, racing ahead of him as he laughed behind her, fingers at her waist as he got his keys from his back pocket. Now, she waited for a response from a knock that lacked any true power. 

A few moments later, Gendry answered the door. Her father was right, he looked like a mess, no shave for a week, his clothes stained with whatever meal he may have had two days before. He didn’t care how he looked. Now, he had two added bandaged to to the bunch, covering up stitches that she inflicted upon him. “Arya, what are you doing here?” he asked. 

“I came to say sorry,” she said with a shaky breath. 

“Did you want to come in?” he asked, stepping aside. 

“I can’t stay long,” she told him, moving past him. 

“I should -” 

“I shouldn’t have thrown that at you. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she interrupted, raising her chin, trying to seem like she strong. He didn’t believe her, she could tell. But it didn’t matter, he would always see her. 

“It’s okay, I deserved it,” he tried to play off, but Arya’s heart ached at the notion that he believed it. 

“You didn’t. Even though you hurt me, it didn’t mean I could physically hurt you like that. So, I’m sorry,” she apologised. 

“It’s alright, Ary - Your Highness,” he stuttered, choking on his words. Arya felt herself stiffen - even with a broken heart, she didn’t want him calling her that. She wanted everything to go back to the way it was. But the shattered mess that they were told them enough - nothing will ever get them back to the way they once were. 

“I know this hasn’t been easy. For either of us, but I shouldn’t have acted like a spoiled child about it. It wasn’t right of me,” she said, ducking her head down, her lungs feeling tight. “But you have to know…” she paused, heart in her throat. “You were the only person I’ve ever loved, and the first person to break my heart too.” 

“Your Hi -” 

Arya interrupted again, needing to get her words out. She didn’t need him to change her mind. She was going to get through this like an adult. “It was always going to hurt more with this. With you. I saw myself spending the rest of my life with you. But that isn’t going to happen. It’ll be okay, but I’ll just be a little broken until it is -” 

“Arya, please, just let me -” 

“I hope to see you back at work soon. The palace isn’t the same without you.” She confessed it. She hadn’t considered it until she was left alone with her thoughts in the ride over. Gendry had made the palace feel like home, not a place she needed to escape from everyday. It had become more fun escaping with Gendry than just doing it to live her life. He drove her to be better, want for better things in her life. “I should go. I’ve been here long enough for people to notice. It won’t happen again. I hope your mum is well,” Arya said, nodding once before she gestured for the door. Gendry opened it up again, not saying a word as she left, closing the door after she left, a soft thud of an undecided man. 

On the street, Arya didn’t want to get in the car. She wanted to run back up the staircase and yell at him for not fighting. Yell for him to change his mind and say she was worth it, that she’d always be worth all the pain in the end. Instead, she could only stare up at a place that she held with fond memories. 

Looking at his apartment, Arya knew one thing for sure; even if her heart would mend from that moment, she’d always love Gendry, and seeing him would keep that love alive. Even if it were selfish to keep him there, to keep something alive that was so willing to die, she had hope that one day it could blossom into something else in the future. Whatever ugly, mangled thing that might be. It would be theirs, and Arya would hold it close to her heart. 

Gendry looked down, waving to her. 

She waved back. 

And wondered if she’d always feel a little hollow saying goodbye to him. 

[rubberduckyrye]

god im sorry if im flooding your inbox with questions but uh got anything about ur ocs theos and richard? (sorry if i've spammed you with questions i can't tell if i've actually hit the ask button or not sometimes oof)

uhm, how about your OCs richard and theos(?)

Not the same anon but could you describe theos

I’m finally getting to these, wooo!

I’m going to mostly focus on Theos here, but if you really are curious about Richard, let me know! I just. I felt bad cause I was drawing a reference of Theos but it took a while and I couldn’t really get to Richard, sorry;;

Okay, so a little bit of history for this;

These characters are two parts of a trio that I made with @celestriakle waaaay back when we were both in the NiGHTS fandom. These characters were based off of Wizeman the Wicked, the big bad final boss of “NiGHTS into Dreams” and “NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams.” If you want to watch a let’s play of the latter (as it actually has story/a narrative to it where as the first game has only game play. Older games had their stories mostly written in the little booklets that came with the games) you can watch this here. NiGHTS is like, the OG purple gremlin child and they are such a mischievous delight. The game sadly hasn’t aged well and wasn’t like, the best of games, but I still hold it fondly to my heart and I’d say it’s got some great concepts.

Anyway! If you want just a very rough summary and not watch 5 hours of a game; Wizeman the Wicked is the self-proclaimed god of Nightmare, which resides in the Dark Ocean underneath the Dream Gate. The Dream Gate allows dreamers (called “visitors” in the game) to enter their dream worlds of paradise (or, more accurately, worlds created by the reflections of their hearts) called “Nightopia.” However, Wizeman is constantly sending his creations, “Nightmarens,” to steal fragments from the hearts of visitors (these fragments being called “Ideya,” and are Courage (Red), Purity (White), Blue (Intelligence), Growth (Green), and finally, Hope (Yellow). The Ideya of Courage allows visitors to unlock their first Nightopia, and if they can gather the remaining Ideya, they can unlock new dream worlds. In these dream worlds are little creatures called “Nightopians,” which are like… fairies, I guess, to simplify things. There’s also an owl creature that doesn’t have a clear origin, and his name is…. Owl. Real creative, I know.

Another thing–SPOILERS, IF YOU DON’T WANT TO BE SPOILED FOR THE NIGHTS GAME, STOP READING AND WATCH THE VIDEO AND COME BACK TO THIS–that is important to note here is the Nightmaren. There are three levels of “nightmaren”; Third levels - the weakest enemies, the ones you find wandering Nightopia that get in the way/stage enemies; Second levels, which are “boss marens” and are the Nightmarens who have taken the ideya from the protagonist visitors and are keeping it hidden in their lairs, and finally, First level Nightmaren; to which there are only two. A pair of “twins,” if you want to call them that. Reala is the first of the two; he is very loyal to his “master”, Wizeman, and is considered the general of the nightmaren army. He’s portrayed as cruel and even sadistic in a way. The second first level Nightmaren? NiGHTS themselves.

NiGHTS is a renegade Nightmaren that has rebelled against Wizeman for an obscure reason. Fans love to speculate on it, but there is no real “canon” reason, only hints that NiGHTS might be more ashamed of where they come from than they’d like to let on.

Why is this important? Because it ties in to Theos, and consequently, Richard and Cyrus–Celest’s character, though I won’t talk much about him here since that’s her muse/character so go ask her about him if you’re really that curious. Either way, I’ll note here that Theos, Richard, and Cyrus are all “parts” of Wizeman. Think of Steven Universe and “fusions”, except this was created long before Steven Universe was airing. So Wizeman is a “Fusion” of these three characters--though the three “humans” that make up Wizeman are called “The Fragments.”

Anyway! Moving on.

The initial translation of the “NiGHTS into Dreams” biography for Wizeman was mistranslated, I do believe, but it suggests that Wizeman is a “Visitor with no Ideya” and among the first intelligent life form to exist in the world of dreams. Long before I even met Celest, me and an ex friend/boyfriend (don’t ask) of mine laughed at the idea, but them we started pondering the logistics of that information, and created Theos. He worked on the original story for Theos (which I can’t remember for the life of me, it’s all been scrapped though) and I made up a design.

So for reference, here is what Wizeman the Wicked looks like.

Here is what Theos used to look like. Be warned, it’s old as shit art! Wow, this art is almost ten years old, holy shit–

And this is what Theos’ current design is, plus a very sinister looking goop monster.

The first design you see on the most modern design (the more obviously human looking form) is Theos when he was alive. His eyes are actually a dark, dark brown, but they are hazed over. I forget the technical term for it, but anyway, it left him blind. This was kind of a problem, a huge problem, for Theos--because he was born during the age of Sparta.

For those of you who don’t know, Spartans were very vicious awful, and if an infant was born with a clear deformity or disability, they were doomed to be abandoned in the wilderness and left to die. Theos was born blind, and very visibly so. However, his mother had died during child birth, and her last request was that her baby live a happy life. To honor that request, Theos’ father convinced everyone that his child was a prophet of the gods, and that his blindness was due to an ability to predict the future via his dreams. He warned that the gods would strike Sparta down with vicious rage if they killed the baby boy, and that when Theos does pass on from the realm of the humans, he will report his life back to the gods. He managed to convince them that Theos was, indeed, a prophet, and he was an exception to the rule for about eight years.

However, his father had grown resentful and hateful of his son for “killing” his wife, and making his life a living hell, so he decided that he was tired of it all and threw Theos into a river, where he drowned.

Before Theos had died, he discovered the dream gate, and discovered that he was a lucid dreamer. He created a creature he named “Owl” (yes, this gives Owl an origin story) and had all five of his Ideya before he died, thus had access to all of his Nightopias.

However, when he died, he hit his head on a rock and fell unconscious just before he drowned, and a remarkable series of events occurred.

First, his mind and soul went to the world of Dreams.

Second, his lucidity started to violently lash out, as he himself was panicking and in a lot of pain, and started to change his “body.”

Third, all of his Ideya started shattering.

With the unique circumstances of his death, Theos’ soul transfered from the waking world to the dream world just before he died, sacrificing his Ideya to stabilize his form as a “creature of dreams” instead of as “a visitor.” 

From there, after the horrid traumatic experience, Theos tried to seek comfort in his nightopias--nightopias that no longer had Ideya to support them, and thus were destroyed. Devastated by the fact that the world of dreams basically rejected his being, Theos threw himself into the Dark Ocean--the Sea of Nightmare--and was engulfed in the madness below.

This is where the fourth and crucial yet remarkable event occurred. You see, the goop monster depicted in the drawing I did is called “Dream Force.” The state of it in that picture, is when it takes on the negative thoughts and feelings of visitors, thus turning it into sludge and into “nightmare” force. This is a personal creation and headcanon of mine, but I imagine that the Dark Ocean is basically made up of “negative” Dream Force--or, Nightmare Force.

Now normally, when visitors die in a similar manner like Theos, they don’t last long in the dream world. Their souls eventually lose power and fade as they finally pass on to the next life. However, Theos was the first visitor to have “tamed” the Nightmare Force through his own lucid powers, and using the Nightmare Force as energy, he was able to survive for centuries--but at a cost. Being surrounded by nightmares, horrible, violent thoughts and feelings, and all that good stuff, only fueled the hatred and despair he felt. So, Theos grows more and more angry, hateful and resentful of the human race, wanting to be rid of it. 

That’s basically his story, tbh! I don’t really know what to do with him, though me and Celest are planning a rp-to-fic thing of the Fragments, so he might just star as a NiGHTS oc. 

Sorry this took so long to get to :’D I hope that satisfies you curiosity about Theos at least. I might do Richard another time.

Anyway! Thanks for asking~