#it has been some trying times up in this bitch

[ittybittyfanblog]

Error 404: (Self-Aware!AU, Sylus Edition) – Pt. 10

Summary: A LADS self-aware!AU featuring Sylus and a player. That’s it, that’s the plot. Tags: player!reader x sylus, fem!reader x sylus, reader x lads, self-aware!au, strong language, family issues, generational trauma, self-growth, personal issues (and dealing with it), hurt and comfort, hmmmm…. let’s leave it at that for now :) A/N: Final chapter, guys! Thanks so much for reading <3

Pt. 1 - Pt. 2 - Pt. 3 - Pt. 4 - Pt. 5 - Pt. 6 - Pt. 7 - Pt. 8 - Pt. 9 - Pt. 10

“Oh, what the hell—since when do you cook?”

“Bitch,” you laugh, nudging past them, the ceramic pot still steaming in your hands. “Do you want the risotto or not?”

The scent of garlic and pecorino permeates the air as you stand in front of the small foyer of the duplex where your friend—questionable, at the moment—lives. Your most recent culinary masterpiece, deemed safe (enough) for public consumption, rests between your hands in silent offering to the skeptic figure who’s barring you from crossing the threshold. 

It’s still warm, and you’re not one to brag, but you think you’ve outdone yourself with this one. Not that it matters—everybody’s a fucking critic these days.

“Risotto?” Khol parrots in disbelief. “You don’t show up in forever, suddenly you’re all cuoca straordinario or some shit. Get out of here with your Mario ass–”

“Don’t mind them,” Anna interjects from behind your biggest hater, all cheer as she plucks the pot from your hands. “This smells amazing, actually. Come in!”

With that, she vanishes inside, leaving you and Khol alone in the doorway. You give them a knowing look.

“Oh wow,” you remark, all mock surprise. “You live together now?”

Khol rolls their eyes, already tired of you. “You missed the biggest arc of the last five months, but yeah.”

You step inside, and right away, something feels… different. It could partly be due to how much time has passed since you last visited, and it’s clearly still their place—the brooding industrial-emo aesthetic remains intact, still suspiciously close to resembling the lair of an angsty comic book antihero on acid—but it’s been overtaken by bits of boho-chic scattered all over the space.

Where there was once nothing but charcoal, vinyl, and concrete, there are now textures. Colorful woven throws drape artfully over the arm of the leather Eames sofa they won off a Craigslist bid. Tasseled pillows have multiplied across every seat surface like some kind of fabric-based contagion, while pothos vines dangle lazily from macramé hangers, stretching towards the moody Edison bulbs like they’re trying to escape the existential crisis of living here.

And then there’s the rug. Oh god, the rug. 

A comically massive tufted ‘Flower Power’ rug sprawls across the center of the room, a swirling explosion of pinks and oranges—a final, cutesy fuck you to the apartment’s formerly depressing atmosphere before Khol’s new roommate staged her cheerful coup.

It should’ve been a hilarious sight, like a chaotic school art project where every kid picked a different medium to color and refused to compromise. But somehow… it works? 

Against all odds, the goth cryptid and the hippie gremlin have found domestic equilibrium.

“Love what you did with the place, Anna,” you call out, toeing off your shoes at the door. “It doesn’t look like a twelve-year-old’s fantasy bedroom anymore.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Khol laughs, shaking their head. “As if you’re one to talk. Last time I visited, you still had that stupid-ass sofa. Is it still there?”

You sniff haughtily. “Excuse you, but that’s a custom piece. You wouldn’t get it.”

"Alright, you two," Anna says, leaning against the archway between the living room and kitchen, one hip propped against the frame. "Both of you have terrible taste in decor. Now, I have a fabulous Prosecco to pair with the risotto." She tilts her head, shooting her partner a pointed look. "Khol, darling, be a dear and grab the crystal from the cupboard?"

"Whipped," you sing as Khol, predictably, does exactly as told. They don’t even bother with a comeback, just flashes you a lazy middle finger over their shoulder as they disappear from view.

You grin, shaking your head. The moment stretches into something easy, comfortable. It’s nice—being here, bantering like no time has passed. You let yourself sink into it, tugging off your beanie as you cross the room.

The creaky couch welcomes you like an old friend, and you flop down unceremoniously, stretching your legs out, rubbing your feet against the oversized monstrosity of a rug that is... honestly, pretty fucking comfortable, actually.

Anna follows suit, settling beside you with far more grace, tucking one foot under the other.

She watches you for a moment, expression warm but slightly inquisitive. “We haven’t seen you in a while.” 

You exhale, tipping your head back, staring up at the beams on the ceiling. "Yeah, sorry. Been a little out of it these past… couple of months, I guess."

Anna makes a quiet noise, something between understanding and acknowledgment. "You’re doing okay now?"

The easy answer sits on your tongue—yeah, of course. An automatic response, a reflex built from habit. Another front to put up, another lie to slip behind.

But you’ve been working on this. So instead, you take a breath and say,

"Not… really." 

The words feel foreign, heavy, but oddly freeing as they leave your mouth.

Your gaze flickers to the side table—framed photos of Khol and Anna, smiling, sunlit. You don’t linger.

“I mean, better now compared to, maybe, a few weeks ago. I’m getting there.”

Anna’s brows lift slightly—not in surprise at the sentiment itself, but at the fact that you admitted it out loud. There’s something thoughtful in her expression, something softer around the edges. “Good. That’s good.”

You can tell she means it. Maybe even more than you expected.

"Yeah."

There’s a brief lull. You catch yourself tugging at the edge of your cardigan—a nervous habit you never quite broke. The warmth of the apartment is settling in you quite comfortably, but there’s something about sitting still under Anna’s gentle scrutiny that makes you restless.

From the kitchen, there’s the unmistakable clink of glass, followed by a muffled, “shit.”

Anna exhales, long-suffering. “I don’t know why I even bother buying nice things.”

“‘Oy,” Khol’s voice carries from the other room, “get in here and help. We have, like, seven things to carry.”

You take that as your cue, trailing after Anna into the kitchen. Between the three of you, it’s quick work—bowls of warm, brothy risotto in hand, glasses of white wine balanced carefully between fingers.

By the time you step back into the living room, Khol is already dropping onto the blue accent chair near the window with all the dramatics of someone who’s worked far too hard for far too little.

You settle into your usual spot, Anna beside you. You don’t touch your food. Your appetite’s still in remission, though it’s been steadily improving lately.

Khol notices. “Now, why the hell aren’t you eating?” They shoot you a side-eye like you’ve personally offended them. “I knew it. You put something in this, didn’t you?”

“Jesus, Khol,” Anna sighs, exasperated, already two spoonfuls in. “Your diet was literally gas station burritos and eight-pack Coors before I moved in. You’ll live.”

She pauses, though, casting you a look. “Don’t get me wrong—this is really good.”

“Ha,” you retort as Khol prods suspiciously at a floating mushroom. You glare. “Are you fucking kidding me—”

“Alright, alright.” With an exaggerated sigh, Khol finally takes a bite. They chew once, twice—eyes narrowed in concentration, acting like some hard-ass seasoned judge from Top Chef. You can practically see them digging for something snarky to say—until, begrudgingly, they nod.

“Shit. This is actually pretty good. Who are you?”

You preen at the praise.

For a while, there’s nothing but the quiet clinking of spoons against ceramic, the occasional satisfied hum. It’s… nice. Comfortable in a way you haven’t felt in what feels like forever.

You’ve missed this.

Missed being here. Missed being with people.

Somewhere between the second glass of wine and the last few bites of risotto, Khol angles their head toward you, their curiosity piqued. “How come you’re free today? You on leave or something?”

You swirl the drink in your hand, watching the light catch on the amber surface before answering. “Oh, I quit my job.”

There’s a beat of silence. You don’t know what reaction you were expecting, but Khol just blinks at you. "Huh. Finally."

Anna looks mildly more concerned. "You quit?"

You nod, stretching your legs out beneath the coffee table. “Yeah. The OT was getting ridiculous, and they had me working night shifts again. That was kind of the last straw for me.”

Khol grunts in agreement. “Good fucking riddance. That job was killing you.” They pause for a beat, turning serious, contemplative. “You’re not hung up about it, are you? You’ve been bitching about that job for ages.”

You exhale through your nose, staring at the rim of your glass. “Yeah, no. I’m glad I left.” The words come easily, and they’re mostly true. But still—there’s something about suddenly having all this space, this aimless in-between, that makes you antsy. 

A thought strikes you, and you glance up. “Hey, you know if Marion's still looking for someone to work part-time at the bistro?”

Khol raises an eyebrow. "You looking to apply? It’s minimum wage, just telling you in advance."

"That’s fine," you assure them. "I just need something on the side. I’m doing freelance work right now, I just want something to fill in the gaps."

Anna perks up at that. "I think that’s a great idea. I can hit up Marion later, but I’m pretty sure they’re still looking."

Khol stares at you, and for once, they don’t have a quip lined up. No sharp-edged humor, no quick banter—just a quiet look of something almost foreign on their face. Pride. Maybe even relief. You’ve worried them. The realization jars you like a pebble dropped into a clear pond, sending ripples through the stillness of your self-imposed isolation. You hadn’t meant to, not really. It wasn’t like you deliberately wanted to disappear... But you did, didn’t you? You let the days blur into weeks, then months, telling yourself naively that no one would notice if you just—vanished for a while. Five months, to be exact.

You press your lips together, clearing your throat against the tightness creeping in. “Thanks,” you say, quiet but sincere. “Really.”

Khol snorts, and the moment shatters. “You can show your thanks by knocking ten percent off the cocktails when we visit.”

You roll your eyes, feigning exasperation. “Get me the job first, and I’ll see what I can do.”

Anna grins, raising her glass. “Now, that’s the spirit.”

––––

You get the job.

You stand in front of the fogged-up mirror, dragging your palm across the wet glass. The reflection that stares back is warped, smudged—half-formed, half-there—but unequivocally yours. 

A month ago, you wouldn’t have been able to say that with certainty. Back then, the figure in the mirror had been more ghost than person—distant, spectral. Fractured. Someone you watched from the outside, not as a host of the flesh you inhabit. 

Now, though, the pieces are starting to slot back into place. Some are still missing, and others don’t quite fit as they once did. You doubt it will ever return to how it was… But slowly, a familiar shape is coming back into focus. More than the shadow of a woman, but you.  Time moves like water carving through rock—gradual, barely perceptible, but steady. Inevitable.

The shifts are diminutive. A morning where you wake up feeling less crushed by the weight of grief in your chest. An afternoon where you suddenly break into laughter, and you realize it’s the first time you’ve heard it in weeks. A quiet night where you go to bed without feeling like you’re stuck frozen in an endless loop of wishing, waiting for the impossible.

You’re here, alive. Present. And for the first time in what feels like a lifetime, you’re doing more than just holding on.

(You think he’d be proud of you.)

And the thought doesn’t leave you aching the way it used to.

––––

“You think I can handle taking care of another living thing? Like a plant?” You ask Maru, glancing at him lounging by the window, right where a sliver of afternoon sunlight spills across the floor. “I mean, I raised you well enough, I think. But you’re pretty self-sufficient anyway.” Maru looks unimpressed. His tail flicks once—dismissive, uninterested—before he returns to grooming himself, utterly indifferent to both your question and your sudden enthusiasm for gardening. “Well, if your dad can grow plants in that dungeon he calls a base, I’m sure I can manage,” you mutter unconvincingly. “How hard can it be?” 

–

By the middle of the second week into your little project, you begrudgingly admit that your tiny repotted begonia isn’t exactly thriving. You don’t want to be a pessimist, but the (browning) margins seem to curl inward—more than they should, if the reference pics on that “Indoor Succulents” blog you’re subscribed to are anything to go by. 

You eye it dubiously, trying to stay gung-ho about the whole thing, forcing yourself to look up care tips again. It’s just a plant. Not rocket science. So you do the research, gather more supplies, and give it another shot. You reposition it closer to where the sun lands—earning a disgruntled hiss from the sunbathing feline—and sprinkle a careful amount of water just beneath the leaves, closer to the root. Then you lean back, waiting, tapping your foot impatiently like it’s supposed to just... fix itself.

–

The next few days pass with you watching it more than you’d care to admit—checking, hoping, second-guessing yourself. 

You narrow your eyes at the leaves, more russet than Inca Flame red, still hanging limp like a sad testament to your lack of skill. 

But you keep at it, because you’re nothing if not stubborn.

–

A single flower has bloomed.

You stand there, spray bottle in hand, caught in quiet awe at the metallic pink sprout peeking through the foliage. It’s small, delicate, barely more than a bud, but unmistakably there—nestled among heart-shaped leaves that, for the first time in weeks, look alive. Brighter. 

A faint smile tugs at your lips. It’s not groundbreaking, not by a long shot. But it’s something.

The fragile blossom clings onto dear life, stubbornly seeking the sun rays, inching toward the warmth it needs to grow—larger, stronger.

You can’t wait to bear witness to it. 

––––

You’re not entirely sure how you ended up in this situation; all you could recall past the sweat blurring your vision is the memory of being in front of the reception desk, pen in hand, scrawling your name onto the sign-up sheet for beginner boxing lessons. 

It’s not… something you planned on doing, really. You’d been showing up for the past week, trying to convince yourself that fitness was something you could get into. Something you could stick with. But this one’s more of an impulse decision, fueled by a mix of post-workout endorphins and the misplaced confidence that sometimes follows after an extra few—unpremeditated!—minutes on the elliptical. 

It all started with a casual glance at a flyer taped to the wall beside the water dispenser.

GET TOUGHER, FASTER, STRONGER! SIGN UP NOW!

The cheesy tagline stared you down as you were in the middle of refilling your teal green AquaFlask. And for some dumb reason—sheer curiosity, definitely not because it reminded you of a certain someone—you thought: Why not?

Before you could talk yourself out of it, you’d marched straight up to the nearest staff at the counter, credit card in hand, and asked to sign up. Now, as you stare at the buff woman currently goading you to hit harder, reality sets in and you feel a little lightheaded. Even slightly delirious.

“Up, up–” your trainer urges, somehow not even remotely out of breath, despite being thirty grueling minutes into the session. Meanwhile, you’re standing there, red-faced and sweating like a fucking pig. “Keep your arms up at all times, alright?”

You pant, nodding weakly, fixing your posture. She gives you an approving nod in return.

It’s part of the whole self-improvement thing, anyway. Pushing yourself. Fitness, jazz, and all that. You’ve never had much inclination for sports or anything remotely physically taxing, as far as you can recall.

…Or maybe that decision was made for you the moment you tried out for volleyball in high school and took a spike straight to the face. A memory so humiliating, that your brain did you a favor and buried it deep in the recesses of your mind. 

But things are different now! You’re trying new things. You’ve done wall climbing, aerobics, even pulled a hamstring attempting HIIT Tae Bo. And if getting punched in the face is the next step in this… wellness journey, then, well, so be it. You’ll take it with a brave face and, hopefully, minimal bruising to both body and ego.

You slog through two sets of combos and thirty jab-straight-hook-uppercuts, punching like your life depends on it. You’re wheezing like an asthmatic child, and you’re about one bad punch away from toppling over.

Then, mercifully—

“Okay, that’s enough for today.”

Oh, thank god.

“You did good,” she tacks on, flashing you an encouraging smile, like you didn’t just spend the last half hour flailing at the focus mitts with all the grace of a wrecking ball.

You stare at her, unconvinced. Did I? Because from where you’re standing—wobbling, really—you’re pretty sure you looked closer to an overstimulated toddler throwing hands with gravity, but sure. It must’ve been in the fine print, to segue in a little positive reinforcement. Probably to keep people from bolting after the first session. 

Not that you’re planning to. No, of course not. You’re just... reevaluating some things. Like your life choices. And your capacity to lift your arms tomorrow. As you trudge your way out of the yoga-studio-turned-boxing-area, still gulping for air and very aware of the soreness settling into your limbs, someone calls out.

“Hey! Wait up!”

You turn your head, blinking in confusion. A guy—mid to late twenties, give or take—jogs up to you, looking offensively too fresh compared to how you feel. “Oh, hi. Sorry, do you mean me?”

He laughs as he slows to a stop, running a hand through his shaggy hair. “Yeah, you. I saw you training with Coach. Just wanted to say—you’re improving.”

You blink. Wait, what?

A wave of mortification rolls through you. Shit, you didn’t know you had an audience. “Uh—thanks, I guess?”

You shift your weight awkwardly, clutching your boxing gloves tightly against your chest.

His grin turns sheepish, as though he realizes how that might’ve come off. “Fuck, sorry. That came out weird, didn’t it? I swear, I wasn't, like, watching the whole thing or anything.” He makes a vague gesture to his left. “The studio’s right in my line of sight when I did my TRX reps. Hard not to notice.”

You force a smile. “Ah, yeah. Figures.” 

“I’m Byron, by the way,” he offers, sticking out a hand.

Now that you get a proper look at him, you notice he’s got this kind of… geeky charm going for him. Curly hair, sleepy brown eyes behind round, rimless glasses, and shy boy-next-door vibes—except for the fact that he’s jacked.

(Honestly? Work.)

You give him your name, still smiling awkwardly. You’re about to wave goodbye and turn away when— “So, what are you doing later?”

Um.

You hesitate. “I’m, uh… heading straight home after this?” Your voice comes out a little more uncertain than you intended, mostly because you’re not really sure why he’s still talking to you.

“Yeah, ‘course,” he replies quickly, glancing down like he’s suddenly nervous. “I just… thought I’d ask if you’d wanna grab coffee sometime?”

Oh.

It takes a moment for the question to fully register. The first thought that pops in your head is: Wait, how does he know I’m a barista?

… The second thought is one of pure disbelief. Holy shit, did I just get asked out? At the gym? By the Temu version of Peter Parker?

Your face burns hotter than it did mid-workout, caught completely off guard.

“I—woah, um.” You stumble over your words, eyes quickly darting away from him. “Sorry, I already have… a boyfriend. If—if that’s what you’re leading up to.”

You say it like a question. He picks up on it.

“You don’t sound too convinced,” he comments with a light chuckle, shaking his head. “If you’re not interested, you can just say that, you know.”

A prickle of irritation flares up, followed by something sharper—something that stings. You push it down. “No, he’s just… not around.” “Ah.” He clicks his tongue sympathetically. “Long distance?” “…Yeah.” You have no idea.

He shrugs, undeterred. “Alright, no pressure. We could always just hang out as friends, if you want.”

I… don’t think I do. “Um, maybe?” you answer instead, forcing out a laugh.

“Oh, come on,” he says, his grin widening. “You can even introduce me to your boyfriend,” he emphasizes the word out, “when he gets back. Does he work out? We could all hit the gym together.”

Social anxiety is afraid of this man, you think belatedly. Unfortunately for him, you’re the very embodiment of what fears him.

You’re so out of your element that all you can manage is, “He boxes too, actually.”

“Yeah? He any good?” 

That gets an involuntary snort out of you. Unthinkingly, you say, “Could probably beat you up.”

Byron laughs, startled but amused, shaking his head as he raises his hands in mock surrender. “Alright, alright—message received.” He flashes you a wide smile. “Well, if you change your mind about the coffee, I’ll be around.” He jerks his chin toward the pack fly by the corner. “There, usually.”

Okay, nerd. Despite yourself, you can’t help but find the whole thing slightly hilarious. Then again, you find humor in the dumbest things. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

You offer him a quick, half-hearted wave, trying (and failing) to mask your embarrassment with an exaggerated, too-casual show of nonchalance. It’s so painfully awkward, you can feel yourself internally dying from the cringe of it all.

Without another word, you spin on your heel and start speed-walking away, practically running back to the safety of your personal space.

Smooth.

––––

It’s another relatively easy night at the bistro. You’re on the last two hours of your shift, and you’re carrying a single glass of roseberry mule to serve at table four. As you round the corner, you catch sight of a student, glasses perched low on her nose, completely absorbed in a thick coursebook on Programming Languages. Papers are scattered across the table, and she looks to be utterly engrossed in her readings, unaware of the world around her. 

You don’t want to bother her more than necessary, about to set the drink down on the only clear space—by the iPad propped up on a tablet holder to her right—when something red catches your attention.

A familiar pair of crimson eyes stops you dead in your tracks.

For a moment, you feel like you’re suspended in time. The sharp memory of a similar instance where you’re in her place, and he’s there, keeping you company while he’s polishing a gun burns through your brain, and you don’t–you can’t think—

You stand there, rooted to the spot, wide-eyed and unmoving. Then, the girl’s gaze shifts to you, and a hot flush spreads across her cheeks, betraying her surprise.

With swift fingers, she locks the screen with a quick flick on the power button, pulling you away and breaking you from the echoes of the past.

“Oh, shit,” she giggles, a nervous edge to her voice. “That’s embarrassing.” 

You shake your head, forcing yourself back to the present moment. “No—no, don’t worry about it,” you chuckle weakly, setting the drink down beside her with shaky hands. “Cute guy, honestly.”

That makes her giggle louder, her eyes bright with an almost conspiratorial glint. “Oh my god, you have no idea.”

Fuck—you can’t breathe.

––––

The night hangs thick with stifling heat, accompanied by the steady ticking of the clock as you catch your breath, your broken moans too loud in the heavy silence. The sheets cling to your feverish skin, damp and uncomfortable, as your body moves in a rhythm that feels unnatural now, but still—but always—familiar.

Your chest rises and falls in shallow, rapid breaths as you force the draconic toy deep inside you. The heat, the fire—it licks at your skin, making your whole body yearn for more. To chase more of the feeling, to chase more of the memory of him. 

Errant strands of hair stick to your forehead, your chest flushed and burning, a quiet throb spreading through you with every friction, every desperate movement.

Your body aches, a relentless thrum urging you to push deeper, to find something—anything—to fill the gaping hole inside you, a wound you’ve tried to stitch shut over months, now threatening to tear its way open again, once more ripping from the seams. 

A sharp pressure builds inside you. Your body stretches too far, too much, struggling to take in what it can’t quite handle. It burns in a way that hurts, but you need it. You need to feel more, to fill the emptiness, to grasp at something that feels real.

“Yours, yours–” you tremble, desperate. “Yours. Just yours. Please.”

-

-

-

You lie in the wake of it—pleasure fading into something heavier, regret creeping in like a shadow, waiting as always.

“I miss you,” you whisper in the dark. You always do.

You try to ignore the pull of it, the sharp descent that comes with the high.

You were doing so well.

But it’s fine. You’re fine. 

Everything’s fine.

The words swirl and echo in your mind, until they’re swallowed by sounds that ring hollow. You let the moment wash over you, sinking beneath the weight of the tides, where sorrow and longing blur with the fleeting warmth of what you can’t keep.

Tomorrow will be another day. Another chance to try again.

For now, you let go of your grip on the fragile raft of sanity you’ve built, painstakingly, for months on end.

Tonight, you let yourself drown once more in the somber depths of loneliness and despair, confined within these four walls that feel—once more—like a penitentiary.

––––

The plane begins its slow descent, and through the window, the world comes into view—large swathes of land interrupted by winding roads that seem to follow no rhyme, nor pattern. A river glints faintly beneath the fading sun, while the sky turns a dull blue, a washed-out slate, streaked with the last embers of daylight.

Below, the small city stirs.

Tiny specks of color flicker to life, lanterns strung along the streets like beads on a thread, marking the season, an ending, and the inevitable turning of time. A chill hangs in the air, the wind whipping past you from the half-open window of the taxi, sharp and crisp in a way that you can only find in the province.

Your hometown. 

It all rushes past in a blur of light and shadow, an eclectic mix of old and new—some buildings unchanged, others unfamiliar, as if they’d sprung up in the years you’ve been away. It’s been a while since you last came back, long enough for the roads to feel... foreign, almost. Though muscle memory stirs when the car takes a turn. One you could have easily navigated even with your eyes closed.

Only your sister lives here now, her and her family—a couple of hundred miles far. Far enough to feel like another world, yet close enough for the past to catch up the moment you lay eyes on the old two-story house tucked away on the quaint cul-de-sac of this suburban neighborhood. 

The residential property was left to her, scrawled onto the title in an act of generosity, perhaps. Or maybe as a weight your mother never intended to carry, something meant to anchor her eldest child while she carved a different life for herself elsewhere. Free-spirited as she is, she left with the ease of someone shedding an old coat, slipping into the shoes of another, barely a glance over her shoulder.

But houses remember. And as you step out of the vehicle, your feet meeting the rough asphalt that once belonged to your childhood, you wonder if they remember you too.

"Maru, Maru!" Your five-year-old niece cries the moment she spots the grumpy feline peering through the mesh of his portable prison.

"What—no excitement for me too?" you tease, ruffling her hair. She giggles, scrunching up her nose.

"Auntie, hi! Hi!"

You snort at her enthusiasm, setting the carrier down. The second you pull at the zipper, Maru springs out, landing with a soft thud before stalking off with his usual air of disdain. Your niece shrieks with delight. 

"Ah! Cat!"

"Well, there go the chances of her socializing with her brother," your sister remarks dryly from the doorway, sauntering closer. "Hey, stranger."

"Hey," you greet, hoisting a handful of paper bags. "Where do I dump these?"

She eyes the bags. "Any of those for me?"

"You have three kids, and one of them insisted on a Lego set. Do you know how much those cost?" You shoot her a flat look. "You’re getting socks."

"Wow, stingy." She huffs but takes some of the bags anyway, hitching one onto her hip as she grabs your other hand-carry.

You step inside, and the house greets you with a riot of lights and color. Plastic tinsel and bright string lights drape across every visible surface—along the bannister, around doorways—leaving no space untouched by the festive chaos. A Christmas tree stands proudly in the corner, nearly buried beneath an avalanche of baubles and sentimental ornaments collected over the years.

The room feels swallowed by the exuberance of it all, an almost overwhelming jamboree of holiday cheer.

It’s gaudy, excessive, and completely over-the-top, but beneath it all, the bones of your childhood home remain unchanged—familiar in a way that settles deep in your chest. The Narra wood floors are still scuffed with the marks of time, there’s still the distinct tang of turpentine mixed with waxy resin and citrus you’ve long since associated with home, and the odd decorative masks still line the far wall, their painted expressions frozen mid-celebration.

Your eyes land on the canvas floater above the mantel—a whimsical cross-stitch of three women flying kites, their stitched dresses rippling in imagined wind. You remember it well, though you never quite understood why your mother had chosen that particular scene to painstakingly sew into existence. Still, it belongs here, another piece of the house's patchwork history.

Your gaze shifts to the couch, where Andrew, your sister's husband, is sprawled out, one arm lazily draped over the backrest, the other holding his phone.

He flicks his gaze up at you, offering a half-hearted wave before turning back to whatever has him so absorbed on the screen. Beside him, your three-year-old nephew is perched on his knees, bouncing with energy as he mirrors Bluey's movements on the TV with exaggerated enthusiasm, his tiny arms flailing in childlike glee.

You sigh inwardly, rolling your eyes. Typical.

“There’s a few more hours before dinner. Want to hang out in the kitchen while I roast the ham?” She asks casually, setting down your bags by the foot of the stairs. “Actually, scratch that—you’re in charge of the punch.”

“You just want a head start on the drinks,” you tease, the banter flowing easily between you. “Hey, where’s the little squirt?”

She points toward the small crib, near the island counter. “She finally stopped crying, thank god. Don’t wake her up, or you’ll be the one in charge of putting her back to sleep.”

The two of you slip into the kitchen, where the air already carries the promise of dinner—cloves and brown sugar blending nicely with the lingering scent of citrus. A tray of ham sits on the counter, prepped and ready, the scored surface glistening under the fluorescent light. 

Your sister pulls a bottle of Luisita Oro Rum and Agimat Gin from the second-to-last cupboard and places them on the counter in front of you.

"Go ham," she quips.

You give her a flat look. "You think you’re funny.”

She shrugs, unfazed, and turns her attention back to where she’d left off before your arrival. 

The two of you fall into a natural rhythm, the kind that comes from years of cooking together. You work your way through cans of Del Monte, the metallic clinks filling the space as you drain the syrup and dump chunks of mixed fruit into the large punch bowl.

Your sister leans against the counter nearby, arms folded, her gaze fixed on the oven door, as if sheer willpower alone could make the meat cook faster.

In the background, the soft drone of the TV drifts in from the living room, punctuated by your nephew’s occasional giggles.

There’s no rush, no need to fill the silence with anything more than the occasional clang of utensils against glass and the low humming of kitchen appliances. The day is winding down to a close, and for now, everything is alright.

“So, Mom called,” she says casually, one arm braced on the counter as she leans in, glancing at you. “Kept calling, actually.”

“Mm.” You reply noncommittally, shaking the last can’s contents into the crystal bowl, watching as the fruit chunks bob lazily in the pool of alcohol.

“She’s worried about you.”

You don’t answer.

“She was. She is.” Her voice shifts, more serious now. She watches you closely, noting your lack of reaction. “You know that, right?”

Your fingers tighten around the can opener, but you pull your gaze away from the bowl. “I know.”

She sighs, resigned, already familiar with this song and dance. Familiar enough to know there’s no winning this one, not tonight. Not anytime soon. “I am too.”

You blink, before looking away. “Oh.”

And maybe she does worry—your mother. But any hope of truly knowing is swallowed by the chasm between you, the one that keeps your conversations at surface level, never breaching the depths beyond. 

Your body, born from hers, perhaps more alike than you realize, might have been brought into this world with the same pains that she’s carried. The pains of separation. The unresolved hurt of being unwillingly removed from your person—her former husband, your father—and that if you and your mother were closer, you could have opened up about your own situation. Perhaps then, you wouldn’t feel like a ship that has lost its ballast, drifting endlessly in the same turbulent seas for the longest time.

But you are your mother’s daughter, and she is her mother’s daughter. There is the truth that the women in your family are not the best communicators, nor do they wear their hearts on their sleeves. So you were born mute and overly sensitive. Pain drips from you, unnoticed, like a purposeless leak in the heart. You’ll carry it with you until you die.

“But you look… okay,” she observes, cocking her head. “Are you okay?”

You swallow. For the same reason you compare your mother to a storm you can't outrun and your sister to an intermittent drizzle, you find it easier to admit, “I haven’t… been okay for a while.” 

Not wanting to bring the mood down, especially on a day like today, you quickly add, “Things are better now, though.”

She huffs out a laugh, shaking her head. “Could be a little more specific there, but I’ll take it.” She gives you an exasperatedly fond look. “You let me know if that changes anytime soon, ‘kay?”

Your lips quirk in the faintest semblance of a smile. “Yeah, okay.”

–

It’s ten minutes before midnight.

You’re leaning against the island counter that separates the kitchen from the living room, nursing a glass of the fruit punch (though it’s mostly gin, with the teensiest amount of fruit), watching your sister’s family at a distance as they eagerly wait for the clock to strike twelve. The blinds of the large living room window have been pulled up, giving an unobstructed view of the sky, ready for the first firework to light up the dark.

For a moment, you feel like an outsider, watching through a lens, as if you’re not quite part of the scene. There’s a strange sense of detachment—voyeuristic, almost—as though you're peering in on a private, intimate moment. 

Your sister cradles the infant in her arms, and that all-too-familiar pang stirs to life—the same one that always does when you look at her.

You can't quite place what you're feeling, exactly. It’s tumultuous, and it’s complex. Andrew’s practically dozing off in his seat, and you see your sister shake her head in mild annoyance. Your nephew, fighting to keep his eyes open, starts to fuss.

Something tightens inside your chest.

“Andrew,” she hisses, startling the man awake. He blinks, disoriented, before spotting their son and the early signs of an explosive tantrum.

He sighs, and pulls the boy closer to him. “Hey, hey, little guy. Look at the sky. In just a couple of minutes, the lights are gonna go boom-boom.”

Your nephew sniffs, his eyes blinking up at him as he processes the words. “Boom-boom?”

“Yeah! Just like the one we watched on TV!”

The kid’s face visibly perks up at that, bad mood quickly forgotten. “Boom-boom!”

You watch as your sister’s gaze softens, and a small smile replaces the earlier frown on her face.

And in that instant, you understand.

You look at your sister and, for a brief moment, all you see is a wretched mirror of yourself. She is all of your fears, all of your failures, and all of what you could’ve been rolled into one. Barely in her mid-thirties, and yet already carrying the weight of a family: three kids, a husband who feels like a faded echo of your father—a man who didn’t quite measure up, who never did, and just as unreliable. 

You feel the suffocating weight of it all, of being tied to a place that’s meant to be a home but feels more like a tomb, marking the passing of dreams unspoken. She’ll grow old here, buried in the same soil you both sprang from, fading into the landscape of this town that swallows its own.

You look at her and you almost feel the repressed pain of missing the last semester of college to give birth, the lament of a missed opportunity that life has stolen from her. 

You feel her pain as if it’s yours. You feel it in the marrow of your bones—her blood flowing through you. “3…” You look at her, and it feels like seeing someone bound, held down by an anchor around her foot, unable to break through the surface of freedom. You look at her and you see dreams once aglow, reduced to cinders. You look at her and see—

She glances up at you.

Oh. “2…” In the fleeting moment where your eyes meet—eyes you two share with your mother—you feel so small.

Just a kid. Shortsighted and unfairly dismissive. Too blind to see your sister’s quiet victories, too selfish to admit you’ve diminished them just so you could feel less alone about your own failures. A child grasping for meaning, unfair in the ways only children can be. “1…” And in the fraction of a second before midnight, it's as if you’ve been doused awake. 

You see her anew—what seemed like monotony is really the bedrock of stability; tenacity in place of routine. An almost single-minded doggedness to make something out of this life. You see the steadfast strength she possesses, the kind that gets her up every morning, to face the world and all its demands without question. With purpose. 

You see resilience. Compassion. Traits that you’ve always lacked, that you’ve long resented, the same traits your mother never learned to embody.

And now you see your niece in her arms, born from this, and you name the indescribable feeling that dwells in you—borne from the pure look of adoration in your sister’s eyes for her youngest daughter—as envy.

You know, with utmost certainty, that she will be okay, because she has your sister as her mother, and she is so, so loved.

As you watch them, something inside you shifts—a deep, aching realization. 

You see… home. Something you've always longed for but never truly found. “Happy new year!” The spell breaks. The two of you startle at the sudden eruption of fireworks, the distant chorus of car horns blaring from the streets outside.

Your niece and nephew jump and shriek, their laughter ringing through the room, celebrating something they barely understand but find joy in anyway. The baby in your sister’s arms lets out a wail at the commotion, and she is soothed instantly with murmurs of soft assurances. Her husband struggles upright—then, with no small amount of effort, leans forward to press a kiss to the crown of her head.

The image before you is far from perfect, but it’s theirs.

“Auntie, auntie!” The little rascals cry out in unison, their voices overlapping in excitement. “‘appy n’year!”

A breathless, almost pained laugh escapes you. Still, you smile as you respond with your own, “happy new year!”

You’re tired—tired of running, of measuring yourself against the ghosts of your past. Tired of carrying the weight of a childhood that’s left you with more questions than answers, of making excuses for wounds that should have healed long since. You've spent so much time mourning the growing pains, the irreparable, that you never stopped to see what’s in front of you. 

This moment, this realization, feels like the final missing piece in the fractured puzzle of who you are.

The new year arrives, marked by the crackle of fireworks and the loud cheer from your family.

This time, you won’t hesitate. You’ll choose to embrace the change, both good and bad, with open arms. With the quiet resolve of someone finally ready to move forward.

You lift your gaze just as a brilliant burst of red explodes into the night sky, its iridescent glow bleeding into a softer silver before fading into the dark. 

A warmth settles deep in your chest—bittersweet, but steady. A quiet peace.

Happy new year, my love. . . . . . . .

.

.

.

.

. . .

The air at the threshold of Vagrant’s land is restless. Volatile. A hazy distortion ripples through it, folding and unfolding, like a lost mirage—an area of transition between worlds. Porch collapse, he calls it. 

Sylus has stood here countless times, watching the way this anomalous disturbance twists the very fabric of this reality, how it flickers in and out of form, erratic. Impossible to predict. 

It had taken him longer than he likes to admit to understand the phenomena for what it’s truly worth. Not just an alternate space caused by some spartan energy field. Not just any other protofield. But a thread. A connection. A door. 

A fault line between realities, an entryway that hums with the possibility of you.

Since the moment the idea took hold, he had thought of little else. It has consumed him in every waking moment; his entire being seeming to bend toward a singular purpose—getting to you. He had torn through endless streams of data, followed every unstable pulse of energy, mapped its fluctuations down to the smallest inconsistency.

Nights bled into days, and days bled into weeks, until he can no longer keep track. Not that the passage of time meant much to him at this point. 

He’s worked tirelessly through the stillness, through the storms of uncertainty, through the aching silence left by your absence. Ever since you’ve exchanged your temporary goodbyes. 

He had measured everything he could—the unstable frequency of radio signals streaming through the interstice. He had traced the influx in real time; recording the rate of deterioration, isolating the waveform, and filtering out outside interferences. 

But for all the data he gathered, for all the precision in his calculations, the core of this phenomenon remained just out of reach. His knowledge on the matter is rudimentary at most. He could waste years observing for abnormalities, trying to decipher how its presence has disrupted the very threads of this universe, but the why and how of it all will still elude him. 

Still, theory matters less than function. He doesn’t need to understand the full depth of it. He only needs to harness it.

It’s a gamble.

Contrary to whatever reputation he’s earned for himself, Sylus has never been one to play his cards recklessly. He deals in certainties, in probabilities stacked in his favor, in risks that—while dangerous—are still within his grasp to control. He has never been the type to leap without knowing where he’d land.

But this is different.

He has never needed to, before. Never had a reason to throw himself into the unknown with no assurance of survival, no way to predict the outcome.

He had no reason to—until you.

Now, it matters less whether or not the odds of his survival are abysmal, that he has no precedent to follow. That your world might reject him entirely. None of it matters. Because if the choice is between staying and never reaching you, or plunging into the great, endless unknown—

He’ll take the leap, every time. Without hesitation. 

He’ll leave this world behind, step beyond the edges of everything that has ever defined him, and venture into lands unseen, uncharted. Unknown. He doesn’t know what awaits him on the other side. If he’ll make it there in one piece. If he will make it there at all.

Sylus has never really questioned why he’s the anomaly in this world. The curiosities of his existence are yours to ponder. After all, he finds that he doesn’t care much of the answer as much as he cares about being with you.

Because wherever you are—that is home. 

He takes a step forward, and the universe dissolves into a blinding light.

-

-

-

Sylus wakes to the sensation of weight.

Something presses on him heavily, sinking into his limbs like gravity itself is wrapping around him for the first time.

The ground beneath him is unfamiliar, uneven—tangible in a way he’s never felt before. His fingertips press into the damp earth, leaving the faintest imprint, yielding beneath his touch. The scent of soil rises around him; a rich, bitter brown. 

This world does not recognize him, yet it cradles him like its own all the same.

Above, the sky erupts.

Fireworks split open the night, streaks of color exploding and dissipating in an instant—too fleeting to hold, too bright to ignore. A flashbang of incandescent reds and fluorescent greens, followed by bursts of crackling gold and shimmering silver scatter into tiny pinpricks before fading into the darkness.

The air is heavier here, denser in a way that feels almost… alien. It clings to the contours of his new form, seeps into his lungs with every breath. 

And oh, how it burns. Not in pain, but in its sheer presence. It rushes into him not as mere oxygen but as something real. Something palpable. He’s lost in the sensation. 

He exhales. Then winces. 

Immediately, he feels it—the weakness. The brittleness of this new body. Gone is the invulnerability he once wielded so effortlessly, the certainty that nothing could touch him unless he allowed it. 

That certainty is gone now, stripped away the moment he crossed the threshold.

He is flesh and bone. Finite. Mortal.

A lesser man might have feared it.

But in the middle of this empty field, miles away from civilization, Sylus can only laugh. 

He tips his head back, reeling from the sheer impossibility of it all, eyes tracing the brilliant display above—as if committing it to memory, a coronation of sorts. Of existence. Of arrival. Of a life finally his own.

Reborn. And for the first time in his existence, he is alive.

––––

It’s summer—the summer that marks two years since he left. 

Two years. It’s enough time to feel the weight of it, but not enough to make the events feel like something that happened a lifetime ago. 

The seasons cycle once more, as they always do, pushing time forward with a steady, indifferent rhythm. And with that change comes a familiar pang—a bittersweet ache, neither grief nor regret, just the weight of knowing that nothing stays the same. Mono no aware. 

You’re closer to thirty now, and the thought doesn’t terrify you as much as it did before. Your hair’s in a pixie cut—short and sleek, although the edges are a little ragged from the half-assed trimming you gave it a few days ago. 

It would have made you feel stupid, once upon a time, for trying out something drastic for a new look. Instead, you just take it for what it is—one more thing you did because you wanted to. Like the rest of the choices you’ve made over the past two years. It’s yours. Uneven, impulsive, maybe a little questionable. But yours.

It’s liberating. Even if it makes your head look like a pencil. 

The voice—the one that picks at your face, your body, your thoughts, everything down to the last imperfection—never really shuts up. It’s quieter now, easier to ignore, but it still lurks in the background, waiting for an opening, a moment of weakness. Maybe it always will. Maybe that’s just the price of being human.

But you don’t fight it anymore. You don’t let it drag you down to a breaking point. You carry yourself differently now, you'd say. No pep in your step just yet, but you don’t feel the need to drag your heels either. Literally and figuratively. 

The change has come in waves—sometimes gentle, sometimes harsh—but it’s there, marking you, marking the passage of time. Just like the earth, just like the seasons, you’ve shifted and grown. And perhaps that’s enough.

The sky is ablaze now, a deepening canvas of pinks and purples as the sun sinks lazily to the west. The fiery orange light spills through the large windows, bleeding into every corner of the room, and the world outside seems to slow, caught in the hour before dusk.

You’re behind the counter, wiping down plates with the kind of ease that comes from repetition, the motion so ingrained in you that it barely registers anymore. It’s all routine—the rhythm of it, the quiet hum of the bistro, the clinking of porcelain. The air is thick with the sticky smell of warm pastries, and it’s the sort of evening that feels almost liminal. A moment suspended in time.

You hear the soft tinkling of the door chimes, signaling the arrival of another customer. 

It’s a soft, unassuming sound, barely noticeable against the evening lull. You swipe your hands across your apron, turning on instinct, your mouth already forming the usual greeting. 

“Hi, welcome to—”

The words die in your throat.

It’s a slow unfolding—almost a gradual realization that stretches across the seconds like the last rays of sun dipping beneath the horizon. He stands in the doorway, a figure outlined in gold, and his presence fills the space between you, no barrier that separates, and it feels... impossible. Unimaginable. Inevitable. 

His height is the first thing you notice. He’s taller than you expected, and you know he’ll tower over you, even at a distance. His hair is dark now, the color of midnight, almost—not the silver you once traced with your fingers in your mind. The cut is still similar to what you’ve always known it to be, though a little more unkempt, as if he’s lived in this body long enough for it to take on its own wear.

Then his eyes. The red is gone—no longer the shade of crimson that used to see right through you, those sanguine pools you once loved. In its place, a stormy grey, deep and impossibly expressive, pulling you in like an undertow. The color is striking, alien in its own way, yet there’s a warmth buried beneath it—and the familiarity of it tugs at you.

Even with the changes, even though you’ve never met the person standing in front of you, you’ll know him anywhere. 

There’s a shift in the room, a subtle, yet unmistakable change in the air. It’s as if the whole bistro has drawn in a breath—and you with it. Time stretches thin, each passing second expanding into what feels like an eternity.

Your eyes lock—and for a moment, nothing else exists. 

It’s as if the world has shifted off its axis. Or, perhaps more accurately, it’s as though a piece that’s always been missing has finally snapped into place.

Something settles in you, something foreign and indescribably familiar at the same time.

Sylus smiles.

“Hello, my love. Have I kept you waiting?”

It feels like home. 

____

“Now I found myself this kind of love, I can't believe it I'll never leave it behind I thought I'd never get to feel another fucking feeling But I feel— This love, this love, this love Oh, I feel it.”

End A/N: So this is done! Wow! I'm kind of proud of myself for writing something this long in the span of, idk, three months? Basically, the entire duration of my "vacation" back home. Now with another term and a busier schedule coming up, I really wanted to finish this series before life catches up to me. *sobs* Anyway, I'm so, so happy about the reception of this fic, and you've all been so sweet :') Again, thank you for reading! I'll see you in the spin-off, or whatever shit I put out next haha <3 Tagging: @xxfaithlynxx @beewilko @browneyedgirl22 @yournextdoorhousewitch @sunsethw4 @stxrrielle @mangooes @hrts4hanniehae @buggs-1 @michiluvddr @ssetsuka @imm0rtalbutterfly @the-golden-jhope @beomluvrr @bookfreakk @ally-the-artistic-turtle @sapphic-daze @sarahthemage @cchiiwinkle @madam8 @slownoise @raendarkfaerie @sylusdarling @luminaaaz @greeenbeean @vvhira @issamomma @shroomiethefrogwhisperer @blueberrysquire @lovely-hani @fiyori @peachystea @aeanya @sylus-crow @queen-serena88 @xthefuckerysquaredx @rayvensblog @poptrim @goldenbirdiee @amerti @angstylittleb1tch @reiofsuns2001 @j4mergy @touya-apologist @gladiolus-mamacitia @btszn @wrimaira

[andhumanslovedstories]

Something I've been thinking about in regards to the difficulty of writing about my job in the healthcare profession is that there's very different conversations happening at the same time. The first is that this is a job that gives us a lot of power over vulnerable people that is easy to abuse and easier to be passive about. The second is that people will never not bitch about their jobs.

What if a customer service job was high-stakes? That's nursing. It's not the only part of nursing, but cmon, anyone who has worked a public-facing job knows how some people can be. Hospitals are full of people having the worst days of their lives while also being tired, hungry, lonely, and bored.

Plus, it's not just the general population you're dealing with. Hospitals have a disproportionate amount of very difficult people. To draw some examples from my own direct experience: the dementia patient had become too violent to stay at home (unfortunately common), infected chronic wound guy who is so racist that his facility will not take him back, confused patient who screams unceasingly 24 hours a day until she passes out, sexually inappropriate guy who needs two caregivers at all time, another racist patient but this time they're also sexist, banned from multiple shelters for assaulting the staff, etc. Or what might be the most common: person who is too sick to go home alone but no one they know will agree to take care of them. Like, have any of you cut off horrible relatives or abusive partners? People who were in whatever way unacceptable to be around? Would you like to take care of them? And you KNOW they're also not doing any of the stuff that would help them heal so it seems like they will never leave.

I think the gap between healthcare as a Duty versus as a Job contributes to hostile conversations. When you're complaining about your Job ("that moment when you let a call light ring for a while in the hopes someone else answers this time because that patient is annoying as hell"), it's frustrating to get a response that solely looks at the situation through the lens of a Duty ("all patients deserve the same level of care and shouldn’t be ignored.") And it's also frustrating to have these legitimate criticisms ignored or disputed because people are like "it's not that serious, calm down, let nurses vent." And it’s also frustrating to feel so intensely monitored in your free time because of your job. And it’s also frustrating to see people in their free time display qualities that seem like they would have big, negative impacts on their job.

Thinking on this topic, I keep coming back to this one memory. There was a time when I responded to a Code Blue (cardiac arrest, guy’s heart has fully stopped) and was the fifteenth or so person to arrive. The room's full of critical care nurses, I'm not the direct care nurse, the rest of the floor is quiet. So basically, I'm useless to the emergency situation. I ran into a coworker who also responded to the code. I hadn't seen her in a minute, so we caught up. She showed me the new stickers on her water bottle. I don’t remember the exact sticker, but I believe it was a nacho-based pun. It was a pleasant chat.

Meanwhile during this entire conversation, within eyesight of where we are because we’re waiting around to see if we’re needed, people are trying to bring a patient back from the dead. What was happening in that room is life-or-death--to the patient. For me, it was an interlude during a forgettable shift. I only remember that code because the discrepancy between what I was experiencing and what the patient was experiencing was so stark. I don't even remember if the patient survived or not.

None of the patient’s family was there. If they had been, we would have removed ourselves further or not talked so casually. Probably. But if the spouse was there, it would be so insanely insensitive if we tried to include the patient's spouse in our chat about fun stickers. If me and that nurse had been casually in a different hallway chatting, it would be very abrupt for the patient's spouse to walk into our conversation and explain how the patient's death would be so hard on the kids. One of these examples is way more sympathetic and understandable than the other. And I want that spouse to feel comfortable coming up to me and discussing that! That’s part of my job! But also, you can get why that would be a distressing interruption to a moment of downtime.

In both cases, the people in the conversation couldn't be further apart in tone and investment. Neither of us are being bad people. We just should not be talking to each other. And the nature of the Internet and public posting is sometimes talking about my job feels like it's me, my coworker, the spouse, and the revived but severely affected patient in single group chat.

[munsonsmixtapes]

I Have You Strung, Strung in My Web

Billy Hargrove x Hopper!reader

You and Billy try to make it clear that you want more, but you keep missing each other.

part one

The bed shakes and squeaks as Billy pounds into this girl-what what her name? Jamie? Jackie? Definitely something with a J, but that doesn’t matter. Her usually just calls her “bitch” and she responds to that quite well.

She’s responding exactly the way he wants her too, so close to coming, but he doesn’t care. He actually couldn’t give less of a fuck. He’s only going this to get over you. He knows the only way to get over someone is to get under-well in this case, on top of-someone else.

But it’s not working. In fact, all he can think about is you and the way you made him feel so good. He wants that again. He wants it so bad but he’s not going to ask you not matter how much he wants to.

You have to initiate it because if Billy does, he’s gonna look like a goddamn pussy. He wouldn’t even know how to initiate it. He’s always the one being approached, and he certainly doesn’t fuck the same girl twice. That’s not who he is.

Then what makes you so different? Why are you the one he wants to break all his rules for? He doesn’t know but he wishes he did, wishes he could make sense of his feelings. Because being around you makes him feel like he can be himself. He doesn’t have to put on that persona he does with everyone else.

He zones back in as the girl finishes and he’s never been so eager to pull out, so he does. He didn’t even come and for the first time, he doesn’t care. He just wants her out so he can be left alone.

Thankfully, she knows her place and is quick to leave without even so much as a goodbye. Billy just stands there, facing his closet, now feeling like he needs a shower. He really needs to wash off this girl’s perfume along with the entire experience because now he feels dirty.

He heads to the bathroom and as soon as the faucet is turned on, he immediately feels a lot better. He stands there as the steam fogs up the mirror and as he wipes it away and looks at his reflection, he can’t help but think that he doesn’t recognize himself. Is that a smile he sees? Who hell is that staring back at him? He has no idea but he kind of likes it.

He gets into the shower and feels himself relax. In here, no one can bother him. Not his dad, not Susan or Max, and especially not you. Then why are there flashes of the two of you showering together in his mind?

He wants to have you pinned against the wall as he fucks you senseless, showing you who’s really in control. He let you take over that one time, but if he were to fuck you again, he’d be the one in charge. That’s how he operates, how he likes it. How he needs it. He has say about anything else in his life so sex is what he relies on in order to have some control.

After he’s out of the shower, he’s thinking about calling you. You told him not to be a stranger, but he’s nervous to actually give you a call. He also doesn’t want to go ask Max for your number because he’s sure that she’ll tease him about it.

He wonders if you’ll be home if he just shows up. Or maybe Chief Hopper will be there and grill him about his intentions with you. Yeah, he doesn’t want that. He knows your dad doesn’t approve of him, that much is clear. He’s been arrested for so many fights that he’s seen Jim Hopper more than his own father.

What would Jim say if he knew what Billy and his daughter had gotten up to the other night? He definitely wouldn’t make it out of the cabin alive if he ever found out. Because you’re Jim’s little girl and he’ll always think of you as such no matter how old you get.

He decides against contacting you altogether as he gets dressed. He wouldn’t know what to do or say and figures that you’ll reach out eventually. At least, he really hopes so.

“So you really went and did it?” Steve sighs as he looks at you from where he’s sitting on his couch. He’s there for your Friday night movie you do every week and the two of you are just waiting for the others to show up.

“Yep,” you nod, knowing that he has no interest in hearing anything about it and you respect that.

“Gross,” he grimaces. “Did you…enjoy it?” He honestly just wants to make sure you’re safe and that’s it. He feels like your older brother sometimes even though you’re the same age. He just wants to protect you.

“I did, actually,” you nod, trying really hard to keep the smile off your face. “ And he did too. I sense that he’ll be calling me any minute now.” You glance at the watch on your wrist. Billy hasn’t called you all weekend which doesn’t surprise you. Calling isn’t really his thing and you don’t care anyway. You guess it was only meant to be a one time thing.

“Yeah, good luck with that pipe dream,” Steve scoffs.

“It could happen.” You’ve now crossed your arms over your chest and Steve can’t help but laugh at your optimism.

“Need I remind you that we’re talking about Billy Hargrove. He’s not me.”

“And thank god for that,” You reply as a knock sounds at the door. You head over and open it to see Robin on the other side. You usher her inside and take the six pack of beer she’s carrying as she follows you inside.

Steve takes the beer from you and takes them to the kitchen, leaving you alone with Robin. The two of you take a seat on the couch as you wait for the others to arrive. Robin is someone you feel like you can tell absolutely anything to. There are things you can discuss with her that you just can’t talk about with Steve.

You want to tell her the truth about Billy. That you’re convinced he’s the best you’ve ever had and you’re desperately waiting for him to call you. But you don’t. You can’t. You know how much she dislikes Billy and you supposed she has a right to because it’s for the same reasons why you hated him.

But now that you’ve slept with him, you’ve seen a different side of him. It was softer and gentler and you wonder why he’s not like that all the time. You’re sure that he could get more women into bed if he behaved just a little bit more like Steve. But the day that happens is the day Hell freezes over.

“So what’s new with you?” She asks, scooting closer just in case there’s something you want to say that you don’t want Steve to hear.

“Just been reading,” you reply, which is partially true. You have been reading a lot. So much so that you’ve already finished all the books you own and had to buy a couple more to hold you the last couple weeks of summer.

She eyes you suspiciously and you know that she can tell that there’s something you’re not telling her. She always can. But your lips stay zipped. She’s not getting anything out of you. And you can’t imagine how she would react when you told her that you slept with Billy Hargrove.

“What have you been up to?” You ask, giving her a little nudge. “How has it been with Vicky?”

“Really good,” she replies and you can see a blush creeping up on her cheeks.

“Good,” you nod. “I’m really happy for you, Rob.”

“And I’m happy for you,” she nudges you back. “With whatever you’ve got going on.” She winks then stands from the couch. “I’m gonna go get a drink.”

“Robin-“ you’re about to chase after her, but there’s another knock at the door before you can. Nancy, Jonathan, Argyle, and Eddie are on the other side, all holding what you asked them to bring except for Eddie who always conveniently forgets every time. You’re not even sure why you even ask anymore.

You usher them all inside and once all of the snacks are on the coffee table, they all take their favorite spots in Steve’s living room. You’re on the couch next to Steve and he starts up the movie which just so happens to be a horror movie that he’s actually terrified to watch.

As you look around at your friends, you hate that you’re wishing that Billy would call, even worse, that you want him right next to you as you cuddle into his chest. You want to cuddle into his chest at the particularly scary parts as he comforts you, telling you that he;s going to be okay as he rubs your back sympathetically. What is wrong with you? Why are you even thinking about him in that way? You slept with him once and automatically think he’d want to be your boyfriend? This is Billy Hargove and Billy most certainly doesn’t have girlfriends.

-

Billy keeps to himself the rest of the day. He doesn’t even go to work because he’s afraid of running into you. He doesn’t want to do something he’ll regret like telling you that he likes you or something. He just holes up in his room and thinks about nothing but you, wondering what you’re up to, if you’re thinking about him like he is about you.

You’ve fucked with his head, used some sort of sorcery on him because he’s never felt this way about anyone before. He wants to see you so badly, even just a glimpse will help. So before he can stop himself, he’s throwing on his shoes and hurrying out the door so fast that Susan isn’t even able to ask him where he’s going. To be honest, he doesn’t even know.

But when he pulls up to your house, he realizes just how crazy he is. Why is he showing up unannounced? He could have at least had the decency to call first. But that’s not him. It’s just like Billy to randomly show up without even so much as a phone call. He doesn’t know why, but he just feels like you deserve better.

He nervously knocks on the door and is taken aback when Jim Hopper answers the door. He looks like he really doesn’t want to be bothered and Billy is so close to just making a run for it. Jim is standing there with his arms crossed over his chest, surely wondering what the hell Billy Hargrove is doing at his house.

“Hargrove,” Jim greets and Billy nods, putting on his most charming smile even though he knows it won’t work here.

“Jim, hi.”

“That’s Chief Hopper to you,” he crosses his arms over his chest. “Now what do you want?” Billy really is considering leaving because he actually doesn’t know what he’s doing. But then he sees a tiny glimpse of his sister and for once, he’s actually grateful for her existence.

“I’m actually here to pick up my sister. Dinner is soon and Susan wanted to make sure that she was home for it.” He’s smiling even weirder now, so proud of himself coming up with that on the fly.

“Max,” Hopper calls out to the girl and she’s quick to head over to him, her eyes widening at seeing her brother at the Hopper residence twice in one week. “Your brother is here to pick you up.” He says the words like he doesn’t believe Billy and he doesn’t. But he’s going to let him off the hook. This time, at least.

Max heads out the door and as soon as it’s closed, leaving her alone on the porch with her brother. She glares at him, one of the few people who can see through Billy’s bullshit. He’s up to something and she knows exactly what it is. It’s no secret that there’s something going on between the two of you and she’s going to do everything in her power to get the two of you together. Why you would willingly want to spend time with Billy, though, she has no idea.

But if she’s going to help him, he’s going to do something for her. That’s the deal, the only way any of this is going to work. It’s going to take a lot of work to make Billy boyfriend material, a chore in itself, for sure. She wonders how much she can get from him if he offers to help. Because at this rate, he’s going to need all the help he can get.

“What the hell was that?” She finally asks as she follows him down the steps. He’s walking so fast that she can barely keep up.

“Nothing,” he replies as he throws the driver’s side door open, Max heading over to the passenger seat.

“Nothing, right,” she winks as she gets into the car and for once, Billy actually makes sure that she’s fully in the car before he speeds down the road.

-

You and Steve finish cleaning up his very messy living room after the movie. You’re the only ones left. Steve’s going on and on about how unrealistic the movie was. But you’re not listening. You’re wondering why Billy hasn’t called and you don’t know why you care. Clearly it was only meant to be a one-time thing and you were just reading too much into it.

You can get his pretty moans out of your head. Images of his head leaning backwards, those sounds falling from his lips flash across your mind. You need to just get over him. Life’s too short to be anxious about getting a call from a boy who wouldn’t have even given you the time of day of sex hadn’t been on the table. Isn’t that the only reason why he agreed to meet you?

After everything is cleaned up, you say goodbye to Steve and make your way home. Only, you’re not turning onto the right street. You turn left when you’re supposed to go right and now you’ve ended up on the road that you’ve driven down so many times. You recognize every house since you bring El here almost every day before you go to the pool.

You honestly don’t know what you’re doing. You’re not thinking straight and are clearly blinded by your anger. And why wouldn’t you be? You’re so mad at Billy and you feel like he deserves to know how you feel.

You stop in front of the house you could draw from memory then quickly get out of your car. You’re stomping up the driveway and towards the front door, knocking furiously before waiting for someone to answer it.

Just your luck, it’s Max who’s on the other side. She gives you a suspicious look but then it quickly turns almost into pity. You can do so much better than her brother and she has no idea why you’re settling.

“He’s not here,” she tells you and actually feels bad when your face falls. “You just missed him, actually. But don’t worry, I’ll tell him to give you a call.”

“Thanks Max,” you smile lamely and she mimics it before closing the door.

You make the drive home and lock yourself in your room for the rest of the night, trying your best to not stare at your phone that sits on your desk. You’re silently begging it to ring, but when it reaches midnight and there’s no call, you eventually just decide to forget about the whole thing and go to bed. From now on, in your mind, Billy Hargrove doesn’t even exist.

[curly-fry-3]

i have a request. I don't know if they are still open but here we go. Dean x reader, where reader is possessed and tries to kill the brothers, but they exorcise her. She has weak health so when the demon is out, she gets ill. Fluff after that. Love your writing!

𖦹Possessed𖦹

summary𖦹 You get possessed and Dean takes care of you

pairing𖦹 Dean Winchester x Reader

word count𖦹 1,190

notes𖦹 I hope you like this. this is my first time writing a fight scene so it might not be spectacular. also just fyi, learned this the hard way, writing someone who's possessed it HARD

also I didn't fully proofread it, I kinda skimmed it (sorry its like midnight and I have school tomorrow lol)

Holy shit. This is probably the worst you've ever felt. Being trapped in your mind with no control over your actions, demons suck. Of course you would be targeted, being close with the Winchesters always got you in trouble–damn Dean and his charming smile that lured you in. You and Dean had been together for almost a year, you two had met through Bobby when he needed help translating some ancient spell. Of course Dean hit on you like there was no tomorrow and of course you fell for him and you've been going strong ever since. You help Dean and Sam with researching and questioning people for information. Dean would die before he let you actually fight, especially because you already got sick so easily, he didn't want more strain on your body. That's how the demon had found you.

You were walking back to the motel after questioning the victim's husband. It was dark out and you had this creepy feeling, like someone was watching you. You had quicked your steps, hoping to get back to the motel–and Dean–before something could jump out at you. Unluckily for you, you were being watched by a demon, and you would never be able to outrun it. When the black smoke entered you and you were no longer in control, your body continued to head to the motel–to Dean and Sam. You tried to take control of your body, you have no idea what you would do to them but you know it wouldn't be good, but you weren't strong enough.

Soon you made it to the motel and walked through the door, strolling in like nothing was wrong. Sam was sitting at the small table near the door on his laptop and dean was laying in your shared bed reading up on some lore. When you enter Dean looks up and smiles at you in greeting “hey babe, any leads”

“Oh no nothing” the demon said, taking of your suit jacket and shoes and sitting on the bed next to dean

Dean looks at you confused “sweetheart, is something wrong”

“What, no, why” the demon responds, pretending to be just as confused

His face hardens as he gets up from the bed and stands against the nightstand, reaching for the demon blade in the top drawer behind his back. “You're not her”

Sam is listening in on the conversation and immediately goes into battle mode when he hears Dean's tone. He stands up as well and reaches for his gun on the table next to him, silently sizing you up.

When the demon realizes it's been found it drops the innocent act and you stand up facing the boys, getting ready to fight them. “Oh you're very observant, Dean, you know I thought I had about an hour till you figured me out…guess I'm not that great of an actress.” The demon says, with a sinister smile on your face. “Oh well, i'll still get to kill you two” You look over to sam. “Don't try and pull a fast one, I know you don't wanna hurt this little meatsuit.” You turn back to dean “especially you ... .you know, her first thought when I took over for her was that she didn't wanna hurt you…so sweet it makes me sick. You two are just gross.”

Dean look at you with a warning gaze “don't you dare hurt her, you son of a bitch”

The demon chuckles “oh, baby, you're gonna be the one doing all the damage” 

A look of realization flashes over Dean's face and he drops the demon blade in his hand–he would never hurt you. You pull out the knife from your belt and lunge at him. He dodges your attack, tripping you, and you end up on the floor, Your knife across the room, with him standing over you, Sam in his duffle bag getting holy water. From your position on the motel carpet you quickly kick upwards, hitting Dean in the balls. While you're getting up, Sam comes over and you punch the back of his knee, making him bend forward–losing his balance. Before you can get far, Dean has recovered from his hit and grabs you and pins you down. “Sam now!”

Sam splashes you with holy water and begins exorcizing you. If you thought being possessed sucked, being exorcized was ten times worse. By the time it was done you were so weak you couldn't home yourself up. Thankfully Dean was holding you. “Shit, baby I got you”

You look up at him weakly with tears in your eyes “I'm so sorry. I tried to take control, I really tried.”

Dean gently lays you down on the bed, giving Sam a look saying that he needs some alone time with you. He brings his attention back to you as Sam heads outside and you continue to apologize. “Sweetheart, it's not your fault” he starts taking care of you, changing you out of your FBI uniform and into your pajamas. “Don't, even for a second, think that it's your fault” He pauses after you're dressed and wipes the tears from your eyes as you're propped up on the pillows. “Are you comfortable baby? I know that was a lot for you.”

“I'm so tired, my body aches” You complain looking up at him with red rimmed eyes “I didn't wanna hurt you”

He looks at you with a reassuring smile “trust me, you didn't”

“But i kicked you in the balls” you say concerned

He grimaces at the memory,“And I handled it” Dean sits on the bd next to you and rubs your calf comfortingly, “do you need anything”

“I just want you to hold me” you answer, pulling him down into your embrace

He immediately reciprocates your hug, wrapping you in his warm comforting arms, You let out a deep breath of air in relief, your achy muscles already feeling better. When Dean gets situated next to you melt into his arms and rest your head on his chest. “Better?” He asks

“Way better�� you confirm. “You always make everything better”

He softly smiles at your statement and kisses the top of your head. He rubs your back in soothing, comforting motions. “I try”

You look up at him guiltily, “I should be the one comforting you, I tried to kill you”

He shakes his head in disagreement, “that wasn't you. And besides, you're way too weak to do any comforting. That demon did more damage to you than me.”

“I still feel bad” you look away, sheepishly

Dean playfully rolls his eyes and his hand stops its movement on your back. “Dont…I love you ok…I just wanna make sure your ok”

You look back to him “I love you too”

Not needing to say anything else, you curl back up into him and his hand resumes it's comforting pattern. Sure, being close with the Winchesters made you a target to monsters across America, but Dean was always there to protect and comfort you.

You kiss Dean's chest then mutter into his shirt, “I really need to get that anti possession tattoo.”

sorry if there are any typos

love y'all

[luvfae]

BREAKING POINT

summary: your relationship with su-bong has reached the breaking point

parings: thanos/choi su-bong x f!reader

warnings: toxic relationship, breakup, fighting, swearing, angst

You and Su-bong weren’t always toxic.

There was a time when your afternoons ended curled up on the couch, tangled under cheap blankets, sharing earbuds while watching corny movies you’d both pretend to hate. He’d trace lazy patterns along your arm, whispering sweet nothings like they were promises he’d keep forever.

Now, they ended in screaming matches—words sharp as knives, thrown like punches. Doors slammed. Walls bruised from fists that couldn’t find softer places to land. You weren’t sure why you hadn’t broken up yet. Maybe because you were high school sweethearts, clinging to nostalgia like it could save you. Maybe because you shared an apartment neither of you could afford alone. Or maybe because your families were so intertwined, both of your mothers waiting for the day Su-bong would propose, blissfully unaware of the chaos behind closed doors.

It wasn’t always like this. You’d lived blissfully in love until you moved in together. That was the breaking point. Being broke. Struggling to scrape together rent. The glow of young love dimmed fast under the flickering fluorescent lights of reality.

Su-bong had quit his job the day he decided his true passion was rapping.

“We’ll be rich one day, baby,” he’d said with that reckless grin, as if dreams paid the electricity bill.

He started calling himself Thanos. You hated it—it reminded you of that stupid Marvel villain. But you’d supported him anyway, picking up a second job just to help you both survive while he entered rap competitions, lucky if he placed third.

“Maybe you should get a job,” you’d suggested once, your fingers trembling slightly as you held an overdue bill. “Just until you break out.”

“I’m so close, baby,” he’d replied, eyes glassy with conviction—or maybe it was just the weed. “If I get a job, it’ll hold me back.”

And like an idiot, you let him off the hook. Again.

That’s when the fighting started. Not the small, petty bickering every couple goes through. No, this was different—raw, ugly, and constant. What used to be occasional arguments turned into daily rituals, both of you clawing at each other like you were trying to draw blood.

But tonight? Tonight was the breaking point.

You came home from a grueling night shift, exhaustion dragging behind you like a shadow. The apartment smelled like stale smoke and cheap ramen. Thanos was sprawled on the couch, stoned out of his mind, an empty notepad balanced on his stomach—the same notepad he’d promised to fill with new lyrics today.

“You didn’t write anything?” you asked, your voice flat, holding back the fury simmering beneath.

He didn’t answer. Just stared at you, glassy-eyed, taking another lazy puff from his joint.

Something inside you snapped.

You marched over, snatching the joint from his fingers.

“Hey!” He shot up, stumbling slightly, trying to grab it back.

Without a second thought, you walked to the kitchen sink and drowned the joint under cold water. The hiss of it dying felt like the only satisfying thing you’d experienced all week.

“This is my process, Y/N,” he spat, running a hand through his unwashed hair.

You scoffed, crossing your arms, your chest tight with rage. “Your process? Sitting on your ass, getting high, and pretending you’re the next fucking Kendrick Lamar?”

His face twisted with anger. “I’m working on it!”

“Oh yeah? Looks like you’ve been working real hard—on being a useless, selfish prick.”

That was it. The final straw.

He punched the wall so hard the drywall cracked, dust falling like snowflakes.

“Stop talking to me like that, you fucking bitch!” he roared, his face flushed with fury.

But you weren’t scared. Not anymore. You were past fear.

“Finally!” you snapped, stepping closer, your face inches from his. “Some fucking emotion. Maybe you can channel that into your goddamn lyrics instead of punching holes in the walls I pay to fix!”

His nostrils flared, his chest heaving. He stomped toward you, grabbing your shoulders, slamming you against the hallway wall so hard your teeth clicked together. His eyes were wild, dark with something ugly—something feral.

For a second, you thought he’d hit you.

“Do it,” you hissed, your voice low, daring. “Hit me. I know you want to.”

His jaw clenched so tight you heard his teeth grind. But he didn’t.

Instead, he shoved you away, breathing hard. “Fuck off,” he spat. “Grab your keys—my keys—and get the fuck out.”

You straightened, your chest heaving, a bitter laugh escaping your lips. “Your keys? Oh, right. The car I make the payments on while you sit here jerking off to your SoundCloud stats.”

His face darkened even more. “It’s my car, isn’t it? I paid for it. You’re lucky I even let you drive it, you stupid bitch.”

Something inside you fractured.

“You mean the one car we have because I had to sell mine after you quit your job and we couldn’t afford fucking groceries?” you shot back. “You should be lucky I haven’t driven it off a fucking bridge—with you in it.”

“Fuck you!” he roared, stepping toward you again.

“Fuck you too!”

You stormed down the hall, slamming the bathroom door behind you, locking it like that flimsy latch could hold back the weight of everything that had been building between you.

You collapsed onto the floor, your chest tight, trembling with a mix of rage and something worse—grief. Not for him. For you. For the girl who thought love could fix everything.

The shower ran, hot water scalding your skin as you tried to wash it all away—the resentment, the anger, the regret. But it clung to you, thick as blood.

When you stepped out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, the apartment was eerily quiet.

Thanos was gone.

At first, you thought he’d just stormed off to cool down like he always did. But then you saw it—your purse dumped on the floor, your wallet missing. The car keys gone.

And so was the car.

Your stomach dropped. You rushed to the window, heart pounding, but the parking spot was empty.

That motherfucker left you stranded.

Su-bong stumbled through the front door at 5 a.m., the dull throb of a hangover already creeping in as he tripped over his own feet. His head swam with the remnants of cheap liquor and bad decisions, but he didn’t care. Not really.

Not until he saw you.

You were curled up in bed, fast asleep, but your face—red, blotchy, swollen from hours of crying—made something inside him twist painfully. He knew you’d been blowing up his phone. He knew you were worried, angry. And he knew, deep down, that you had every right to be.

He cared. Fuck, he cared. But he was still so angry that you didn’t believe in him. That you looked at him like he was a lost cause.

So, he didn’t crawl into bed next to you. Instead, he crashed on the couch, pulling a throw blanket over himself, fitting in a pathetic three hours of sleep before you yanked him back into reality.

8 a.m.

“Where the fuck have you been, Su-bong?”

Your voice was sharp with anger, but underneath it, he heard the hurt. The exhaustion.

He blinked up at you, groggy, his skull pounding like a drum.

“You can’t just walk out and ignore my texts.”

He said nothing. Just rubbed his temples, trying to block out the blinding morning light.

You exhaled sharply. “Get up. You stink. Take a shower.”

For once, he didn’t argue. He just dragged himself to the bathroom, stripped off his stale, smoke-stained clothes, and let the scalding water wash away the night. He emerged fresh, but no less hollow.

When he walked into the kitchen, you were at the sink, scrubbing dishes with too much force, your shoulders rigid. He watched you for a moment before speaking.

“You can’t even have a serious conversation without lashing out,” he muttered. His voice was hoarse, raw from the yelling he’d done last night. “Look at you. It’s pathetic.”

You froze. Your grip tightened around the glass in your hands.

Then, before either of you could process it, you turned and hurled it at him.

Glass shattered at his feet.

“What the fuck?!” he bellowed, stumbling back. “You crazy bitch!”

“Why are you starting again?” you snapped, voice shaking with frustration. “Was last night not enough for you?”

He scoffed, running a hand through his damp hair. “I’ve lost my voice because of you,” he hissed. “I have a battle tonight. How the fuck am I supposed to rap without a voice?”

You let out a dry, bitter laugh. “Oh, I’m so sorry for making you lose your precious fucking voice,” you said mockingly, tossing the dish towel onto the counter. “Your stupid fucking voice that hasn’t rapped in over a month.”

You jabbed a finger into his chest. He slapped your hand away.

“Get the fuck away from me,” he growled. “You’re the worst thing that ever happened to me.”

The words sliced through you like a knife.

You went still, eyes widening as tears immediately welled up. And just like that, all the fight drained out of you. You turned away from him, your breath coming in sharp, ragged gasps.

His stomach dropped. He regretted it the second it left his mouth. Because it wasn’t true. It was the furthest thing from the truth. You were the best thing that ever happened to him. And he was ruining you.

“Fuck you, Su-bong,” you choked out, your voice breaking as you stormed down the hallway, slamming the bedroom door behind you.

He stood there, frozen, guilt crashing over him like a tidal wave. His fists clenched at his sides. He had no one to blame but himself.

You shouldn’t have to work two jobs while he chased a dream that barely paid for a pack of ramen. You shouldn’t have to come home to this—to him.

And the worst part?

He was so fucking close. Close to making it. Close to giving you the life you deserved. He just needed you to hold on a little longer.

But he knew. He knew.

This was the end.

He let fifteen minutes pass before he finally mustered the courage to open the bedroom door.

You were curled up on the bed, sobbing into your pillow.

His chest ached at the sight.

Slowly, he sat beside you, hesitantly reaching out, his hand hovering before finally resting on your back. He rubbed slow, soothing circles, but you didn’t lean into him like you used to.

You didn’t hug him back.

You just pulled away, as if even his touch was too much to bear.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. And for once, he meant it.

You wiped at your swollen eyes. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Mhm.” His throat tightened. “I know.”

“Maybe one day,” you whispered, voice small and broken. “But not today. Not tomorrow. It’s ruining me.”

The words settled between you like a death sentence.

He swallowed hard, nodding.

Because you were right.

There was no fixing this. No taking back the things that had been said, the damage that had been done. The love was still there, buried under the wreckage, but love wasn’t enough anymore.

And maybe it never was.

10 a.m.

You packed your bags.

Su-bong didn’t stop you. Didn’t beg. Didn’t try to convince you to stay.

Maybe because he knew you weren’t just leaving him.

You were saving yourself.

When you reached the door, suitcase in hand, you hesitated. Looked at him one last time.

His red-rimmed eyes met yours. He looked wrecked.

“Take care of yourself, Su-bong,” you murmured.

And then you walked out.

And this time, he didn’t follow.

[autumn-sweet-fae]

Ok so I was thinking some more about that Zaun fam au fic concept, and my brain came up with a few more additions.

For Viktor:

Viktor has a scar of the acceleration rune stone imprinted onto his left palm. Also starts to show small signs of being touched by the arcane (like his hair naturally growing those blonde streaks he had again)

Viktor was at first resistant to being loved and cared for after all he has done in his past life, but the adults are persistent. They see how he suffers from nightmares and struggles to even speak most days. They notice his talents for gadgets and are supportive. Vander introducing Viktor to Benzo and his shop while Silco has stolen engineering books smuggled in from Piltover.

The memories of Viktors past start to blur over time. No longer sharp enough to cut him as they once did. He often wonders about Jayce, and is often caught staring at his scarred hand. (He might tell his found family a lil about Jayce, being someone he was very close to and was separated from, but not much else)

Now, a fun overarching element to this story, to build up an antagonist for the extra Drama. After all, the goal is to soften up Silco by inflicting fatherhood onto him earlier, so this would be a great chance to introduce the other bad bitch chembaron of Zaun,

Renata Glasc

Health wise, I think Vander and Silco would want to get Viktor properly checked up, and would take him to the best pair of Doctors in all of Zaun at the Glasc family clinic.

The married Doctor duo are treasured and protected in Zaun. Their clinic being neutral territory to any potential gang violence. A policy their fierce daughter Renata and her friends will enforce.

(Silco and Renata Glasc would be friends. She also runs a side business scamming topsiders to help support the clinic, and Silco helps her cover her tracks and smuggles needed supplies.)

Viktor trying to answer the doctors questions about his health without sounding like an adult who’s been in and out of hospitals for over a decade would be funny. He does steer them in the direction of his lungs and gets an X-ray. They find concerning minor damage that, if untreated, could progress into something worse in his future.

So Viktor leave the clinic with a bottle of their specially made medicine, an inhaler, and instructions to carry a breathing mask on him at all times and to use when needed. It’s all so much more than he could have hoped.

Meanwhile, Silco and Renata’s side hustle does very well for the next few years… until it all comes crashing down.

One day, Renata stops at the Last Drop after returning from a job in Piltover, planing to accompany Silco and Viktor to the teenagers next appointment, and to talk business in the way.

Only for them to reach the clinic and find both it and the surrounding buildings engulfed in flames.

Enforcers are holding the line, preventing anyone from crossing to fight the flames or try to save anyone. Insisting that they have it under control and that a crew was on the way.

Silco and others manages to distract them enough to Renata to break through and disappear into the burning clinic.

It’s not until after the flames are finally put out that Renata is found, alive but her arm horrifically burned beyond all use. Her parents are little more than charred remains.

Later, after Renata had her dead arm removed and is recovering in a spare room at The Last Drop, as her own home is currently cinders, she tells Silco what she saw. When she was in the burning building. When she found her parents bodies, with their necks sliced open and heir lab ransacked. The fire was just a cover up… her parents were murdered. And she Knows it was Piltover doing.

Once she’s healed enough, she leaves, but not before she makes sure to thank Viktor. If she hadn’t stopped by to walk him and Silco to the clinic, she very well might have been murdered as well. She won’t forget this.

It’s after these murders of such beloved members of the community that the unrest in the undercity is reaching a fever pitch.

The bridge riot takes place only weeks after.

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

Damn, why are you so popular?

I 100% guarantee that if you were to ask random people on the street, adult and child alike, to name a dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus rex will be in the top 5. To not know about this dinosaur would imply you grew up in a hole behind a rock in a cave.

Tyrannosaurus, why are you so popular? You're like a pumpkin spice latte; the basic bitch of the dinosaur world and yet you are beloved by pretty much everyone. WHY?!?!?!?!?

Is it because you have one of the most badass names in scientific literature? I mean, Tyrant Lizard King has a nice ring to it.

Maybe it has to do with the sheer size and bulk of this animal. There aren't many terrestrial predators that could compare (yes there are other dinosaurs but we are focusing on this one this month). Tyrannosaurus could reach upwards of 40ft long (12 m), with a skull a little over 5 ft long (1.5 m) and teeth the size of bananas (around 12 in). It had a bite force strong enough to penetrate concrete.

It could simply be that it has been featured in films since post WWI. I mean, in 1933 King Kong famously fought one and has done so in many remakes.

This is a horrible rendition of a Tyrannosaurus too. I mean, come on, why do modern movies keep showing theropods with their teeth like that? It's so stupid! Anyway, there are other less horrendous tyrannosaurus depictions in film.

Three-year-old me would not have included Barney though. I couldn't stand him. However, he technically is a Tyrannosaurus and he has probably instilled the love of dinosaurs in many children so I can't be too upset with him.

There is, of course, the famous Sharp Tooth from The Land Before Time which was a boss movie that I grew up on.

The most famous is probably this girl from Jurassic Park though. The roar is easily recognizable, she was a beautiful puppet, and let's face it, she had some of the best scenes in that movie.

It's also turned up in many other TV shows like Doctor Who (a few times), Primeval, Power Rangers and Transformers.

You can also find it in a few novels including The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, We're Back! A Dinosaur Story by Hudson Talbott and the Dinosaur Lords series by Victor Milan.

Whatever the reasons, everyone knows this dinosaur and this month we're going to delve into Tyrannosaurus and it's family members. Fair warning, there are some VERY strong biases when it comes to tyrannosaurs and while I don't study them for that very reason (and let's face it, T.rex really is just a basic bitch), I don't totally dislike them and there are some pretty cool ones, so look forward to that.

(Like this one from New Mexico with a super badass name but I will save that for a later post.)

If Tyrannosaurus is your favorite dinosaur, maybe you can sway me to think they aren't so bad...but good luck. My dad has been trying to sway me for 30 years to no avail. Tune in tomorrow for some bone-crunching trivia! Fossilize you later!

[thatonefandomweirdo]

People want a flawed female character and yet they can't even handle Poppy.

"Poppy is evil" theories here and "I wanna punt Poppy" there

So sad. Poppy is a traumatized kid who got experimented on over and over again, got contacted by the Prototype disguised as Ollie to find out every bit about her while they were both constantly being taken apart. So he could later use that against her. The Prototype lied to her, saying they would leave after The Hour of Joy, which is why she initially agreed, only to then be told after The Hour that they would stay there forever since leaving would have people know they exist. People would continue to hurt them and people would be experimented on just like they had been. And she knew he was right. She just misses her dad, Ludwig.

But because she disagreed with whatever experiments he and Harley were doing, the Prototype locks her inside that case for years where only we finally let her out.

Initially she just wants to let us leave, but after defeating two Bigger Bodies? Defeating Huggy Wuggy might have just been luck, but defeating Huggy Wuggy AND Mommy Long Legs? That's skill. So she decides we are her best bet against the Prototype.

She has decided the Prototype's way isn't the right way, but killing everyone would be better. The human orphans are important, they can still be saved. But the Prototype, she herself and any other toy needs to die so this can never happen again. She doesn't like it, but it's the only way out she sees. Otherwise, she will just continue letting toys cannibalism one another like the Prototype currently is.

But then everything goes up in flames. Suddenly everyone is dead, she only has us and Kissy. She wouldn't suspect Ollie of any potential sabotage. She has known him for over 10 years! Since before The Hour of Joy. The Prototype would never have manipulated her for that long. But he has. And he threatens her with putting her back inside a prison she cannot escape from. So she runs, because she is still a scared little girl that has been trying to put on a brave face

You can disagree with her actions, but it's not like she had no reasons to do them. All the kids we met were put through the ringer and trying to act like Poppy is some evil bitch rather than a scared little girl when the game has shown the lengths these kids go to time and time again? That's missing the point

[wryuxim]

this has been in my drafts way too long, and again, i suck at writing, but i’ve really needed to say this. how the hell is millionsummers so normalized in the fandom? well i know why, but it’s honestly crazy to me how 90% of the pretty small amount of legato fans in existence ship him with knives. like do you even understand his character? sure if you haven’t read trimax (like too many people) you literally wouldn’t know anything significant about him since he’s just kinda there in the other iterations. all you’d see is evil guy x bootlicker right hand that have minimal interactions with each other. don’t get me wrong, i could get behind that. like it even. but the issue is that there’s more to it than just that. even if you haven’t gotten to legato’s backstory in the manga, it’s clear from the start that the way that knives treats him crosses the line of average evil toxic yaoi bull. like literally the very first time we see them interact knives casually shatters every bone in legato’s body bro. causing irreparable damage and rendering someone a quadriplegic(?) after they were probably trying to get you a new body for the past 7ish years is so romantic, right!! He also just disregards him as a person and is generally shitty and all that which is kinda mean of him to do ngl. yeah you could say erm actually knives does care about legato though, he’s just too much of a stubborn bitch to show it!1!1!!1!! and i agree with that (to an extent, not getting into it though) but like…that doesn’t excuse the fact that he’s literally abusive. and that isn’t even considering literally everything about legato himself. he was horrifically abused for as long as he could remember. he doesn’t know what a healthy relationship of any kind is. he chose to serve knives (despite being well aware of how he was) because he never knew a life outside of that. he thinks that’s all he’s good for and knows he won’t be anything more to knives, yet still kills himself trying to prove his worth. knives is someone he is unhealthily dependent on who causes him to become more and more self-destructive. just because knives isn’t the same as his previous abusers doesn’t mean it’s not just another shitty situation he fell into. i do think legato’s feelings towards knives could be some sort of crush, but it’s more of a one-sided obsession than anything. to think that it’s an actually good cute little pairing baffles me. i think what i’ve said so far is enough of an argument, but there’s still my main point left. i held back on this till now because of the crazy amount of people say he wasn’t for whatever reason, but legato was a CHILD when they met. like do y’all SERIOUSLY think he’s an adult here??

i really don’t want to pull up panels from his backstory flashback, but you literally cannot convince me. nightow didn’t need to state it outright for it to be pretty obvious that he was a kid. we see how he draws other characters when they were younger as reference so you can clearly see the differences in proportion. i mean just compare it to how he looks throughout the rest of the manga, especially near the end. just because he doesn’t have a confirmed canon age doesn’t mean that there wasn’t an intent there. y’all are grasping at straws to justify it.

also the same applies to elendira (x knives) because of the super secret third legato flashback:

i won’t count this as proof for legato because tristamp (though a separate canon) kinda muddies it, but woah she’s not an adult. also irrelevant but knives was smiling at him 😞😞 i’d like to think he was nice to them at one point but this isn’t about that. the fact that people probably take this to fuel their millionsummers makes me very very sad.

back on topic though, there’s another side of the copium spectrum. i can’t believe i have to say this, but i’ve no joke seen people say that legato and knives were both teenagers when they met as if that makes any damn sense. the twins are both confirmed over 150 years old. in trimax, the july incident happened ten years by the date before the events of the last few volumes (cited in my last post), and legato doesn’t look all that different in the two flashbacks. and the flashbacks or any other evidence i could pull out my ass don’t even actually matter because knives is old as fuck and legato is obviously a normal human age. again, it’s just straw grasping bro so please give up 😭🙏

and if you don’t give a shit and loooove grooming mentally ill teenagers you pick up off the streets then fuck off?? you’re gross and legato would hate your ass. i probably have more to say but i can’t think of anything rn so that’s it for now. millionsummers is cringe and this fandom is a prison. but like a cartoon one where the bars have large enough gaps between them to walk through.

[biibini]

hiiii i love ur writing!!! if ur doing requests... can u do high school au teen mizu (like 16 or 17) x reader where the reader and mizu are in the same grade (preferrably with an artist/nerd reader) (this is very self indulgent) i would love that so much!!!

high school!mizu AU x artist!reader

tags: high school AU, teen mizu, reader is an artist, assume this AU is completely different from college!mizu that i usually write, cringy, vines are mentioned,

a/n: hs was a while ago but ooo i just have some thoughts on teen!mizu. writing this and looking back on high school made me internally cringe but i was free. currently tweaking from job apps like pls pls hire me plssss

teen!mizu is kind of… how to put in… an awkward loser mess of a student

in college, she def grows up more and becomes her own person and fades out of that awkward phase-ish

but in high school?

kinda maybe sorta pathetic loser behavior

(she’s just an awkward kid, like most ppl in high school… trust me, ive been there too)

but she won’t really make small talk with other peers that she doesn’t recognize,

awkward with eye contact,

she never really nailed that down until later on,

when called on, she doesn’t really pay attention so she ends up saying the wrong answer half of the time

and when she does get called on, all of a sudden she can’t get her hand up without having to fight for a say against her friend akemi, little miss know-it-all

teen!mizu references the most niche tiktoks, most notably, niche vines.

yes. u read that right. vine compliations on youtube.

there’s at least a playlist of 1 hour compilations with titles starting with “TRY NOT TO LAUGH Best Funny Vines of the Year!”

she would probably in one of her classes goofing around with ringo and rip a “whoever threw that paper, your mom’s a hoe”

(iykyk)

does it make ringo laugh? yes.

he would also be spitting the same thing, word for word, bar for bar with her.

but she would never reference that outside of her friends

teen!mizu would not care ab classes

yes, she’s smart but she wont apply herself too hard because at the end of the day, its whatever

don’t worry, eiji would always berate her ab her work ethic despite the A’s and a rare B he would see on her grades

taigen would always be a pain in the ass, constantly nagging her to at least try and “lock in” so he can get a better score than her

he ends up losing to mizu every time by 1-2 points

“This cannot be real, chat.”, Taigen yells.

The buzz of the school bells ring over Taigen’s bitching, thank god. The signal of the end of the school day meant to stop all thoughts about calculus, chemical reactions, or the meaning of the green light emitting from the lighthouse. Time to go home and be away from everyone, minus Ringo, of course.

Mizu shrugs, showing off her grade on the recent pop quiz. Written on her quiz was a 96%, circled in a bold red pen.

“It’s real.”, she claims, waving the quiz in front of Taigen’s beet-red face.

“Every fucking time bro.”, he groans.

In front of Mizu’s tracks was Akemi, waving her paper around like a flag, with a smug look plastered on her face.

“Oh, it’s real.”

She pushes her paper in front of Taigen and Mizu. Circled on her paper was her result: 100%.

“I can never win.”, Mizu sighed.

teen!mizu would NOT know how to act around crushes

a cute girl would pass by and she would end up staring too long,

get caught looking at their direction,

or end up bumping into the wall

totally doesnt happen often it happened 3 times

she has confidence in herself but the second she gets to the point of a real conversation, it’s out the window and dying on the floor

and when she does get a chance to talk, it typically doesn’t go the way she thought it would

and she’d end up asking the same question again

“What did you get on the quiz?”, Mizu asks, placing her hand by her scalp oh so nonchalantly.

“Didn’t you just ask me?”

Her eyes widen in panic, realizing her idiotic mistake.

“Shit, uhhh…I just uh… thought you couldn’t hear me.”

yeah she never talked to that girl for the rest of the school year…

although when it came to you, things were a lil different

teen!mizu kind of… maybe… lowkey… had a thing for you

not necessarily a huge romantic crush, but more of a friendly crush that stemmed from the little moments of interaction during art class

yes she would replay those moments again and again in her head

and prob go crazy over how idiotic she sounded

at first glance, you didn’t stand out to her

just another person she didn’t know

but your interest and focus on your artwork got her attention in a rowdy environment

while everyone else during the free period was ditching school, hanging with friends, or on the rare occasion: seeing their teachers for help, you were patient amidst the chaos in the art room

with akemi bickering with ringo over which glaze they should pick for their project

and on the other end of the classroom, taigen and his posse of bros cursing at their work

there in the middle of the classroom was you

Among the swarm of curses and bickering, the art room was usually the rambunctious classroom during free period. At Kyoto High, teachers and students were never familiar with the concept of peace and quiet.

You, however, were the rare few.

Mizu’s gaze went across the large industrial table, observing your calm movements amidst the chaos on your left and right. With Ringo pointing out all the flaws of each project choice and Taigen’s friends screeching in stress, you were focused on your carving as if no one in the world existed in that moment.

Your face, calm and focused, struck a dry chuckle out of Mizu. Her eyes glanced up to your eyes, gentle yet determined, while your head bopped to whatever song you were playing through your wired headphones. She then got distracted from the gloss from your lips, making them look rather soft and plump.

Maybe even kissable.

Wait what?

Mizu shook away the thought, placing her hands on her own project in order to distract her mind.

With a deep breath, her mind cleared. The scene in front of her was a comical one, regardless of your pretty face. However, this was the time to be focused…

Right?

teen!mizu would practically pray that you were there in the art room during every free period

hoping to find you at the same seat, surrounded by chaos every time

and every time, mizu would sit across from you in silence, partially in awe as well

although you’ve kept your focus on your handiwork, you weren’t oblivious to her presence

every free period would run like clockwork

it was comforting to know a familiar place but you never shared any classes with her

teen!mizu , eager to know you more, ends up confining in akemi ab her little art class crush for the sake of information

after getting another pep talk by akemi about how to just “relax and be yourself”, she finally spilled the beans

“From what I know, her name is Y/N and she’s a transfer.”, Akemi answered.

“From where?”

Akemi quickly types on her phone, her nails clanging against the screen. Before Mizu could even read the text, the phone immediately buzzed.

“Tokyo High…”, Akemi quickly responded, “Damn, you picked a smartie and a hottie.”

Akemi quickly whipped around her phone, showing Mizu a golden treasure: your Instagram account.

“How did you—”

“Don’t question my ways, just get to know her a little before you stumble your words.”

Mizu huffed in response, trying to focus on any signs of a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend, if she’s lucky.

Thank god for Instagram highlights.

It didn’t take long for Mizu and Akemi to find your love life. An old highlights section with a little heart as the title, showcasing your history of significant others, including a girlfriend.

A smug smile grew on Akemi, always proud of her spy work.

“Bingo.”

teen!mizu, now filled with hope, interacts with you more, little by little with a “you’re here for free period again?” or a “how was your day?”

those little interacts continued to grow her crush on you

although its a friend crush, she couldn’t help but grin a little when you asked to sit next to her during the free period

after finding out you were in the same grade, teen!mizu‘s heart definitely exploded in glee

“Are you okay? You look a little hot?”, you question in concern, looking at her flushed cheeks.

“Oh, um… yeah, it’s a little hot in here.”, Mizu quickly responded, feeling the heat rise to her cheeks.

Underneath her totally normal response, she was in panic because:

A. You’re in the same grade as her. That increases the chance of you guys potentially spending more time together.

B. You just called her hot.

C. Your leg is currently 4 inches away from her leg…

“It’s okay!”, you reassure her, “It’s probably from this weird heatwave. The art room can get a bit stuffy from the shitty AC.”

She somehow thanked the universe and the sun rays at that moment. Mizu zipped down her jacket, pulling the entire thing off and playing along with her response. Little did she know a pair of familiar eyes next to her was watching.

Did you also have a crush on her? Maybe.

Did you want to talk about it? Absolutely not.

Did you stare at her arms, well toned from fencing, as if they were the last piece of juicy meat on earth? Mm…Yes.

You quickly whipped back into place as Mizu fixed her posture, now facing her upcoming project. However, Mizu caught a glimpse of your gaze without notice. Her heart skipped a beat.

One quick glance at your stiffened posture confirmed her curiosities: mutual (potentially romantic) interest.

She looked up at you to meet your gaze. Although everyone was talking, it had felt like time had slowed down between the two of you.

Before Mizu could open her mouth, the bell buzzed, signaling all students to move on to their next class.

You quickly gathered your things, before basically sprinting out the doorway.

“See you tomorrow!”, you waved goodbye, smiling at Mizu.

Mizu waved back, her heart practically palpitating from whatever just happened 30 seconds ago.

Oh, how she couldn’t wait for the next free period tomorrow.

[eisforeidolon]

//Hellers still going on about “Watching Over Me” being about Cass. Claiming Jensen confirmed it in a meet and greet. It’s funny they never have video proof beyond, “Misha said it”.//

I was at that M&G, well hellers have probably claimed he says this at every M&G, but I was at A M&G where an idiotic heller asked if Jensen had written a song about Castiel. Jensen laughed at the idea. The rest of the people present rolled their eyes so loud you could practically hear it. Heller took that as confirmation and ran. She also took JA avoiding answering because the show was still in progress if some stupid destiel related shit (I can’t rember the exact question anymore, thankfully) was going to happen in the Winchesters. She full on dominated the conversation, heard what she wanted to hear, ignored actual answers and common sense, and ran with it, telling everyone her lies as soon as the M&M&G was over. We also had to sign. NDA's, so she’s an untrustworthy little bitch who broke the rules immediately, aw well as a liar.

Thanks for the report of what happened (at least that time), anon!

The thing is, we know they're delusional liars. We've seen it even when they can be easily fact checked. These fuckwits have tried to lie about what's been said in main panels before, either by 100% making shit up or just trying to sell hilariously stupid misinterpretations and wild fantasized projections of the meaning they want to hear. (DestieI is real? Where is it real?! Totes just Jensen upset people can't see the obvious and telling them to look harder because it's everywhere!!!) These are panels with a large room full of mixed fans where there is almost always someone making a recording. And yet they lie and assert blatantly brainless reinterpretations as fact that obviously don't represent what was actually directly said.

Like, is it a desperation to have the attention from other hellers for the five metaphorical minutes before the videos come out? Do they delude themselves into thinking if they just build enough enthusiasm online for the lies, the actors will totes have to change their opinions because it's popular (since drowning in the heller bubble always makes them ignore the GA and the entire rest of fandom exist)? Do they figure if they get their bullshit out fast enough it will get added to the list of heller "proof" and they just don't care only other gullible hellers will buy it? They do genuinely seem to think if they just come up with a long enough list of batshit nonsense - no matter how blatantly false, specious, and outright absurd it all is to anyone not in the cult - the world will have to validate them!! Uh, no.

So yeah, it only picks up an extra degree of absurdity when they make uncheckable claims about what Jensen said in a supposed-to-be confidential M&G or other relatively private interaction. Like, I wasn't there, so I can't objectively know if your story of what happened in that M&G is true either. But unlike theirs? It actually lines up with every other public, recorded, verifiable reaction Jensen has ever had to the idea of that ship being canon or something he has interest in. The level of self-delusion to carry on as if that doesn't matter is just ...

[crimsonxe]

At this point they need to make a good will bridge to those that they stabbed in the back (and idgaf if you, no this isn't just from this post its from looking at your entire set of Pricefield posts hoping to get context to not be pissed off; but here we are). Especially with Michel of Dontnod aka the true canon makers in regards to Max and Chloe having stated that Pricefield would never break up; thus bringing Chloe back going to re-aligning the DE AU branch with the main canon.

"unforeseen reason", dumbass its called a connection, chemistry, and having gone through shit that fire-forges a bond. Also fuck off with this "losing Chloe leads to growth beyond the past"; reconnecting with Chloe can just as fucking easily deliver ACCEPTING the past, dealing with & healing from her trauma, and finally finding herself in the position of being ready to step forward WITH Chloe. It would be a matter of ACCEPTANCE & HEALING to move forward with the one that's always had her fucking back. The notion that she should just drop Chloe and "move on" is utterly fucking disgusting and very damn much biased, but I'll get to that. You clearly like Decknine don't have a damn clue about the characters, which is rich since in other posts of yours you try to frame Pricefielders as the ones wrong about them. Probably even defend the character assassination done to both Max and Chloe in DE. Hell your bitch ass just nonchalantly saying to kick a 10+ years old fucking iconic LGBT+ ship that has been said would NEVER break up by the true canon makers; that went through hell for each other including Max literally breaking time itself for Chloe; that has unmatched chemistry to the side says plenty about your very biased view.

No, its very much bias and if anything having Chloe there amps the potential storyline due to her & Chloe's relationship in this Decknine AU branch. Having Safi pulling on strings between Chloe and Max, that forces them to reconnect = great "villain" styling. While Safi is definitely better than Amanda (she at least has some damn sharp edge to her), she is NOTHING in comparison to Chloe.

Oh so your dumbass is fine with her being attached at the hip to Amanda/Vinh (the chemistry-less lipstick lesbian and the Nathan Prescott cleaned up preppy asshat); or Safi the seeming villain that at least does have some chemistry with Max just utterly lacking against Chloe. I also find it fucking hilarious how you literally throw open the door to all 3 of them, but won't offer a 4th option. But clearly your ass isn't biased, right?

This is pulling a later post into this which has to do how Pricefielders only focus on Chloe and take issue with DE cause of no Chloe vs. BtS that has her w/ Rachel. As someone that very much enjoys BtS, ships AmberPrice, Pricefield, and Amberpricefield (which the LiS multiverse thankfully allows all to exist) I can say that DE character assassinates the fuck out of Max and Chloe. I can also say that you're a fucking moron to think that LiS1 doesn't revolve around Pricefield and instead is about "violence against women"; that's an element within but isn't at the core of the damn game. I can say that Amanda (lipstick fucking lesbian) and Vinh (fucking Nathan cleaned up ass) are utterly fucking lacking, which makes the forced character assassination done to open the door for them that much fucking worse. Chloe wouldn't up and leave Max, because as of the halfway point of LiS Max had entered her walls and that locks her in, she also wouldn't make fucking threesome comments about a rando or other guy; Max wouldn't just give up on her relationship with Chloe, wouldn't be thirsting after every person, sure af wouldn't even in her journal use Rachel as a barb against Chloe, wouldn't be into a Nathan Prescott type, and several other details (punching Alderman, siding with Safi). That's not even going into outside of them details that DE utterly fucked up. Personally I'd want them to reveal that DE is just an AU branch within the multiverse by having its Max run across the actual main canon branch that has GREEN-haired Chloe and her Max living together happily as DontNod set up for Bae route people in LiS2; while also repairing her own relationship with her Chloe leading to a choice in the end. Unlike you I'd even say that in that choice there'd be 5 options: Vinh, Amanda, Safi, Chloe, and alone.

Clearly your ass is in the minority camp of things, especially considering the disdain towards DE that goes beyond just Pricefield. Hopefully the shake up in regards to the creative team brings in people that actually know the characters to try to fix the garbage fire that DE is currently. I'd beg them to bring in Emma Vieceli that handled the comics, which did everything DE attempted to do BETTER and before it; including respecting DontNod and their damn canon.

this is probably going to be EXTREMELY controversial so i dont expect ANYONE to agree (please dont hate me 🙏🙏🙏‼️‼️‼️) but i REALLY DONT WNAT CHLOE BACK IN DE2. I HAVE REASONS!!!!!!!!

1. i think that it'll be viewed as a cash grab and like pricefield / chloe fans r never happy sooooo

2. if chloe and max were to get back together for some unforeseen reason i think that woukd ruin max's potential growth in de2 in my opinion. like i PERSONALLY think that her 'losing' chloe should help her move on from the past and should be portrayed as something that can help her move forward instead of dwelling on what could have been (as taylor swift once said, everything you lose is a step you take 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️)

3. i think she'd be so out of place and id rather have de2 focus on max and safi's relationship and this highkey sounds lkke bias because of my fixation but i PROMISE YOU its not.. mostly...

4. i think that max should grow by herself i really dont think she needs to be attached to chloe by the fucking hip.. like i would be so fucking ecstatic if you got to be with amanda/vinh/safi at the end of de2 but i think the most realistic ending would be for her to be by herself, not FOREVER, but for a good amount of time for her to be secure with being by herself because i personally think max is extremely codependent with chloe.. if .. that makes sense

[thedriftcr]

i live

[sunsetsandsunshine]

If I may request a Rise fic!! I’m a huge sucker for comfort/cheer up tickles, so could you possibly write a disaster twins fic with Lee Leo and Ler Donnie where Leo’s been having a pretty bad day (because of what is your choice!) and ends up feeling self conscious about himself and stuff, so Donnie decides to cheer up his twin!! Please don’t feel rushed and make sure you’re taking care of yourself ^_^

~ 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚙 𝚋𝚎𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚔𝚕𝚎𝚜𝚜!!! ~

💜💙 𝙵𝚒𝚌 𝚛𝚎𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚢: 𝙰𝚗𝚘𝚗 𝙽𝚘𝚗𝚗𝚒𝚎 💜💙

·̩̩̥͙＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚𝙼𝚂𝙺𝙽𝚂𝙽𝙺𝙼𝙳𝙽𝚂𝙹 𝙽𝙾𝙽𝙽𝙸𝙴 𝙾𝙷 𝙼𝚈 𝙶𝙾𝚂𝙷 𝚈𝙾𝚄. 𝙶𝙴𝚃. 𝙼𝙴!!! 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚔 𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚘𝚑𝚑𝚑𝚑𝚑 𝚖𝚢 𝙻𝙾𝚁𝙳 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚝 𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚖𝚢 𝙹𝙰𝙼!!! 𝙴𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚌𝚒𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚒𝚝 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙳𝚒𝚜𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚃𝚠𝚒𝚗𝚜…𝙶𝚘𝚍, 𝙸 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚜𝚎 𝚝𝚠𝚘 𝚝𝚘 𝚍𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑. 𝙻𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚕𝚢..𝚑𝚞𝚛𝚝/𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚜𝚎 𝚝𝚠𝚘 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚕𝚎 𝚖𝚢 𝚙𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚕𝚎…𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚒𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎’𝚜 𝚘𝚕𝚍𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚠𝚒𝚗 𝙳𝚘𝚗𝚗𝚒𝚎??? 𝙻𝚎𝚐𝚒𝚝 𝚖𝚢 𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚖 𝚏𝚊𝚗𝚏𝚒𝚌 𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎!!!˚*• ̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*＊·̩̩̥͙

𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: 𝙷𝚞𝚛𝚝/𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚝

𝚆𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚜: 𝟺,𝟹𝟿𝟺

𝙻𝚎𝚎: 𝙻𝚎𝚘 🐢💙

𝙻𝚎𝚛: 𝙳𝚘𝚗𝚗𝚒𝚎 🐢💜

𝚂𝚞𝚖𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚢: 𝙳𝚞𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊 𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗, 𝙻𝚎𝚘 𝚍𝚘𝚎𝚜 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚝𝚞𝚙𝚒𝚍…𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚎𝚕𝚜𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚗𝚎𝚠, 𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝?

(𝙰/𝙽: 𝚂𝚠𝚒𝚖𝚜 𝚒𝚗 𝚖𝚢 𝚜𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚜𝚎𝚊 𝚘𝚏 𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚜𝚝…𝙱𝚞𝚝 *𝙰𝙷𝙴𝙼* 𝚖𝚘𝚜𝚝 𝚒𝚖𝚙𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚕𝚢: 𝙳𝚘𝚗’𝚝 𝚋𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚐𝚞𝚢! 𝚃*𝚌𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚔/𝙽𝚂𝙵𝚆 𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚜 𝙳𝙽𝙸!!!)

𝚃𝚊𝚐𝚐𝚒𝚎 𝚝𝚊𝚐𝚜:  @shut-up-jo @itzsana-kiddingmenow @aceofspades-doodles @ziipzeepzop-eez

@tmntheadforever123 @rice-cake-teen10 @aninabanina6969

@savemeafruitjuice @cedarrthefluffylee @saturnzskyzz @titters-and-tingles

@someone1348 @my-l0v3r-v3rse @snipersiniora @mistyandsnow

𝚆𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜: 𝙰𝚛𝚐𝚞𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚕 𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏-𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚖 𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚢𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚊 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚘𝚛 𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚌 𝚜𝚑𝚞𝚝𝚍𝚘𝚠𝚗, 𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚜𝚝 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐. 𝙿𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚎 𝙿𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚎 𝙿𝙻𝙴𝙰𝚂𝙴 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚊𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚔!!! 𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚊 𝚍𝚘𝚘𝚣𝚢…

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚𝚃𝙴𝙴𝙷𝙴𝙴 𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚜𝚝 𝚖𝚢 𝚋𝚎𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚍 🕺🏾✨💞🎶˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊·̩̩̥͙

“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me again.” Leo grumbled under his breath as he rested his mouth on his palm, glancing away from his brother as he sighed loudly. 

“Well maybe if you weren’t so fucking reckless I wouldn’t need to.” Donnie growled lowly, glaring down at his twin.

“I’m not a baby, Don. I don’t need to be supervised like I’m some bomb triggered to explode.” The younger said in exasperation, lying down on his bed whilst grabbing a comic book to read off of his desk.

If Leo was going to be told off and scolded by his dear beloved brow-loving brother, he should at least have something to occupy himself with in the meanwhile. 

The softshell groaned eternally at his little brother’s action, quickly snatching the piece of literature out of the other’s hands and throwing it effortlessly to the ground. 

Uninterested lime green eyes locked with a determined yet fierce light golden, both of them refusing to look away or blink to show their dominance.

But after a while, the red eared slider grew more impatient, looking away again as he picked a hangnail on his thumb, “If you’re going to yell at me, can you just get it over with? I saw a reddit post predicting what’s going to happen in The Umbrella Academy season four and I need to read it.” 

“You can read that later, Nardo. I promise you, that reddit post isn’t going to fly away.” The elder said as he pinched the bridge of his snout, “What I need you to do right now is acknowledge what you did today was stupid, alright?” 

Leo looked away from his older brother, scoffing lightly, “I do stupid things all the time. What stupid action of mine are you wanting to scream at me for this time?” 

The softshell turtle took a couple deep breaths at that comment, drumming his fingers on his left arm in a soothing motion because he was NOT going to give into the urge of strangling his twin brother…

…No matter how much he deserved it.

“I’m not planning on screaming at you— that won’t help anyone or anything.” The purple banded turtle explained calmly…but you could see and tell he was starting to lose his paitence. 

“But you want to.” The red eared slider pressed on. 

“Leo…please. I don’t want to argue right now.” 

“We’re not arguing. We’re just kindly discussing my oh-so stupid descision that unfolded earlier today, right?” The younger twin smirked smugly, his eyes locking once again with his brother. 

When it came to arguments, the leader in blue always had this wonderful tactic to avoiding things: attempting to annoy the other person so much that they drop the subject they wanted to discuss with him completely.

It always worked with Raph…which the red eared slider didn’t know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

But the only downside of doing this tactic was his dumb twin saw right through it…

…And Leonardo despised it. 

“Nardo…you know what I’m referring to. And stop picking, please. Your going to hurt yourself.” The older attempted to say in a tranquil voice, but it personally just sounded like he was one second away from losing. his. shell.

“I sadly do not know what your referring to.” The blue cladded teen said coyly, picking on his hangnail more desperately now, “Care to enlighten me, Tello?” 

Donnie’s expression hardened ever so slightly at his younger brother’s absolute persistence on annoying him out of his right mind so he could eventually drop the subject…but the softshell turtle was not budging.

His twin would have to try way harder than that.

“I’d love to.” The light golden eyed mutant said in a fake sweet tone as he walked over to lean his shell on Leo’s closed door, crossing his arms in disaproval. The elder grabbed his brother’s sword, planting it right next to his foot so the blue banded turtle couldn’t reach for it. 

The red eared slider’s cocky grin turned to a small grimace (shake) as he soon came to terms with what his older brother was doing…

…He physically could not leave from this conversation…literally.

Leonardo crossed his arms, trying to mimick the other’s serious demeanor but was only met with an icy glare in return. 

“What you did during today’s mission was completley reckless and idiotic, Leonardo…and you know it.” The second oldest said, “I had that thug exactly where I wanted him but noooooo. Because you saw me trip you thought it would be a spectacular idea to throw yourself on top of me as that hooligan tried to hit me with his bat!!” Donatello seethed. 

“We’ve been over this multiple times, Leo! There was no reason for you to do that!” The light golden eyed teen yelled, his glare only hardening more as he saw the younger stuttering over his words to try to defend himself.

“I’m not done.” The taller teen growled, all of his calmness and collectiveness thrown completley out of the window.

The slider slightly flinched (which went un-noticed by the other) at his brother’s genuine angry tone, his left leg fidgeting and bouncing up and down like crazy. 

His tactic was really starting to not work in his favour at all…

“Just…stop putting yourself in the middle of danger like you’re just expecting the rest of us to just watch. We’re your family…and most importantly, we can defend ourselves just fine.” 

“Well ihisn’t that hypocritic!” Leonardo scoffed before creasing his eye ridges together in genuine confusion, mumbling to himself, “Hyp…uh…hypocrotic? Hyp…Hypocratic…?” 

“Hypocritical?” The older deadpanned.

“YES! THAT WORD!” Leo said, “When we were fighting Kraang Prime on the ship and he went to take a blow at Mikey…what did you do?”

Donatello scowled, his eyes not leaving his twin, “…I went in front of him and shielded him with my mystic tech.”

“Exactly.” The lime green eyed mutant scoffed, “And how is that any different from what I did, hm?”

“BECAUSE I HAD A PLAN!!!” Donatello shouted, “I planned to accordingly go in front of Mikey so my sheild could protect both him and me. Did it end up turning out perfect? Fuck no. Kraang Prime slashed right through it and me and Mikey went tumbling towards the ground…” The glasses wielding teen said through clenched teeth. 

The light golden eyed teen rubbed his face tiredly, his hands clenching and unclenching in frustration, “But I had a plan. You on the other hand, just zoomed recklessly on top of me and hoped for the best.”

“…I saved you, didn’t I…?” The younger twin mumbled out meekly, causing Donatello’s blood to absolutley boil. 

“That’s not the point!!!” The elder said as he clenched his hands at his sides again.

“Then what is?!” Leo said desperately, “Because from the looks of it, it just seems like you want to yell at me for just doing my job.” 

Leonardo pulled on his mask tails anxiously, trying to calm himself down but ultimately just making himself feel worse by doing the action, “I’ve been trying to be a better leader—“

“Leo—“

“—For you and Mikey and April and Raph and Casey and C.J. a-and Dad! But it seems like no matter what the hell I do there’s always something I’m doing WRONG!!!” The younger twin shouted, blinking back tears as he glared at the ground as if it took his Jupiter Jim comic.

Which…it did. The blue banded mutant wanted it back now, actually…

“I saved you! I-I didn’t even get hurt by doing it but somehow there’s an issue…” The lime green eyed teen murmured, both of his legs bouncing up and down as he tugged on his mask tails harder, “There always is…”

“Leonardo can you please just listen to me?” The older twin said in irritation. 

“But Don I’m—“

“No, Leo! Just listen! That’s all you need to do!” Donnie snapped as he cut his brother off, “I don’t want you leaping head first into harms way! At all! Especially if you don’t have a plan!” The softshell turtle exclaimed as he flapped his hands against the side of his thighs, but his eye contanct remaining on his little brother.

“Oho so now you don’t trust me well enough to know that I can handle myself in combat?” Leo said in a last desperate attempt to make his brother drop the conversation.

“I…” The young scientist’s eye twitched, his eyebrows creasing together as he had to physically restrain himself to not beat the ever living crap out of the other teen, “THIS IS NOT ABOUT TRUST, NARDO!” The light golden eyed mutant screamed desperately, his hands flapping faster as the red eared slider shrunk at his usage of tone, “This is about you not even thinking about what would happen to yourself when you do reckless nonsense like this.”

Leo glanced to the side, his eyes watering as he bit the inside of his cheek.

He just wanted to help and be the leader his brother’s deserved…

But he always found a way to fuck it up without even noticing, huh?

"You don't think about what could happen to you and I hate it!” The elder cried, “What would’ve happened if Raph didn’t come behind the guy and knocked him out cold at the last second, huh?! Would you have just stayed right on me as he continued to beat you with his bat?!”

Leonardo bit the inside of his cheek harder, his legs bouncing up and down more as his fingernails dug unforgivingly into his arms, “I-I’m sorry, Donnie—”

“Or would you have tried to fight him instead?! Mind you, you dropped your sword before coming to me so you’d have no weapon to defend yourself.” 

“You don't think about how much it scares me when you do dumb shit like that! I hate seeing you get hurt…I freaking loathe it.” Donnie rested the back of his head on Leo’s door, taking a couple deep breaths and hugging himself in an attempt to calm himself down.

Jeez…when the hell had he started yelling? His throat stung like a bitch now…

And when had he started shaking like a bobby head?!

The older twin’s expression softened, pinching the bridge of his snout once more, “I care about you…so fucking much, okay…?” The purple banded turtle said gently as he gradually started to simmer down and become more calm, “Your my twin…my little brother. And I hate to be repetitive but I-I just despise seeing you hurt…physically or emotionally…so please just…”

The young scientist’s eyes widened, peering down at his brother who did not seem to be following…at all. 

Leo’s eyes were wide as saucers as he hit his arm with his fist repeatedly whilst obviously trying to suck in whatever tears dared to try and escape. 

The taller turtle basically ran to his distressed twin, trying to stop him from harming himself any further but was only met with a low grunt.

Shit.

Shit. Shit. Fucking shit. 

Wonderful job, Donatello! You yelled at your brother so much he shut down!

Even though you knew he can’t fucking stand being yelled at and the whole point of you even being here was to explain what he did wrong collectively and calmly because that was the exact oppositeof what Raph does when he’s worried…

But no! You yelled at him anyway.

Wonderful job, Donatello…wonderful. job. 

The older twin sighed sadly, gently grabbing his brother’s wrists so he would stop hitting himself. The two brother’s shared eye contact once again, an unsure lime green meeting an understanding yet uncertain light golden.

“Nardo…” The softshell started, squeezing the other’s hands gently, “…Are you with me, bud…?”

Leo just nodded quietly, squeezing back. 

“God…Nardo I’m so sorry…” The older muttered, “I don’t…I don’t know why the hell I lost my cool like that. I-I’m sorry I yelled. I shouldn’t of yelled…I-I just…” Donatello sighed, squeezing his brother’s hands once again. “I’m not angry with you. I…I was just frustrated.”

“Well, no…let me rephrase: I am angry with you— livid even. You know damn well enough that when you do those kinds of things my heart literally jumps out of my shell. I need you to put into consideration that I would like to live to at least seventy-seven…”

The younger twin giggled wetly, fidgeting with his brother’s fingers as he spoke, “…Why seventy-seven?”

“Albert Einstein died when he was seventy-six…I can and will outlive him.” The light golden eyed teen said matter-of-factly, “But back to what I was initially saying…I know you meant well. You saw that I was in trouble…and you dropped literally everything in order to help me get out of said trouble. You don’t think of what happens to you…you just do it because you’ll know if you do we’ll be alright…”

“I-I just…I just wanted to protect you…I-I just wanted to help…” Leo tried to explain.

“I know. I know, Lee…” Donatello sighed, rubbing the slider’s knuckles gently with his thumb, “But you need to understand that with you trying to protect us that way, your putting us in the same situation your trying to keep us away from.” The elder explained lightly, smiling softly as him and his twin’s forehead’s touched. 

“You’re getting hurt— or at the very least almost getting hurt. We’re feeling the same anguish and guilt you would feel if any of us did that. I get that you want to be a good leader and shit…but you can lead well without doing that…okay?” 

Leo fiddled with the other’s fingers a bit more, his bouncing leg starting to calm a bit, “I’ll…try to be more careful when it comes to me protecting you guys like that. When I see you all in trouble…I just…react. I don’t really care about what happens to me as long as you guys end up okay. But…I’ll try to be more careful. And if I ever end up, like, being a bit too reckless…you can just tell me…deal?”

“Deal.” Donnie nodded, squeezing Leo’s hands one last time before letting go, wiping his twin’s eyes with his hoodie sleeve, “Now please stop crying or you’re going to make me start crying.” 

Leo snorted, examining the other’s now tearing up expression, “I think it’s a bit too late for that…” 

“GAH! FUHUCK!” Donnie cursed, wiping his own eyes as the slider laughed loudly at his exclamation.

.

.

.

.

.

.

“Leo…don’t you think you’re getting a bit too big for this…?” Donatello grumbled as Leonardo was on his lap, getting all nice and comfy as he rested his chin on the older’s shoulder. “Noooope.” Leo drawed out, making a dramatic popping noise at the end of the 'p', “'Sides, this is what you get for making me emo earlier.”

“…I said I was sorry…I didn’t mean to shout at you like that. I was just concerned…” 

“I know that, you worrywart. I was just kidding.” The lime green eyed teen said lovingly, squishing his brother into a tighter embrace. The older let out a short shriek at the hug but of course didn’t mind the other being so clingy. 

If the young scientist really and truly did mind? Leo would’ve been pushed to the floor by now. 

The two twins shared a comfortable silence…well…a semi-comfortable silence.

The purple banded teen felt…off. His younger brother had this…look in his eyes; like he wanted to say something but was afraid of what Donnie would say or how Donnie would react.

Which was so damn dumb Donatello didn’t even know how to explain it.

“…There’s something else on your mind.” The taller turtle hummed, his suspicions only rising as the other glanced to the side. “Uhm…no there isn’t. See? This is why I call you a worrywart.” Leonardo said, tapping his fingers on his thigh nervously. 

Very convincing Leo…very convincing.

“Don’t even try lying to me, Leon. My older brother and twin senses are tingling. You can’t argue against that kind of logic.” The scientist said matter-of-factly. 

“What are you, Spiderman?” The younger snorted. 

“We shall never know.” The older shrugged, a small smile spreading to his face as he saw the other snort softly at his statement, “Now stop deflecting. Spill.” 

“…Can you…adjust my elbow braces…?” The red eared slider muttered.

“…Why can’t you do it?” The other questioned. Not in a malicious way; he was just genuinely curious. 

“I like it when you do it. You make it more firm, y'know?” The blue banded turtle whined dramatically, “Pleeeeeease?”

“Ugh, Jesus— fine. But drop the pout…you look ridiculous.” The taller mutant sighed, lightly grabbing his brother’s arm as he readjusted the braces. 

The purple banded turtle meticulously took off the other’s left arm brace, tracing his twin’s elbow to make sure it was healing correctly— which the slider couldn’t help but wriggle slightly to.

As the older twin put the brace back on, he looked at the other turtle in complete worry, “…Why are you squirming around so much?” Donatello asked in confusion. 

“…No reason.” Leonardo stated, but let out a tiny squeak as Donnie lightly pinched his forearm. 

“Yohou okay…?” The glasses wielding mutant giggled.   

“I-I’m fihine!” The smaller turtle insisted, covering his mouth as he let out a loud shriek in result to his brother now lightly scribbling his forearm. “EEEEE! P-Plehease moohoove yohour hahahand!!” The younger sputtered out, hiding his face in the crook of the scientist’s neck which the older turtle couldn’t help but let his heart melt to.

“Oh.” Donatello hummed, biting back an amused laugh, “Sorry. Sometimes I forget how ticklish you are…”

“Snrt I-Ihihi’m nahat ticklish. I juhust don’t wahant your hand thehere…” 

And isn’t that quaint. 

If Donnie had a penny for every time Leo said he 'wasn’t ticklish', the softshell would be richer than Elon Musk.

“…Right. So…you wouldn’t mind me doing this then?” The young genius mused as he scribbled one hand over his twin’s ribs. “EEEEHEH! Duhuhude noHOH!! F-Fuhuck yohou!” The younger twin managed through his small giggles, pushing on his brother’s plastron to try and escape while he still could.

The elder laughed fondly at his little brother’s futile actions, hugging him closer as he lightly tickled him, “Nahardo! My brohohother in Christ gehet back here or you’re gohoing to fahall off of the bed!

“N-NOHO!! LEHET ME GO!” The lime green eyed teen screeched loudly, kicking his legs and pushing even harder on the other’s plastron, his eye’s widening in panic as his older brother casually lifted him up and pinned his arms above his head, his plastron now facing up on the bed.

Eugh boy…

Donnie grinned, sitting on the other’s thighs as he wiggled his unoccupied fingers in the air near the slider’s side, “That’s better~!”

“WAHAIT WAHAHAIT snrt PLEHEASE DEEHEE!!” The red eared slider cried, kicking his legs from underneath the scientist.

If he was going to go down…he would at least go down fighting. 

“I haven’t even touched you yet, you goof…” The older twin chuckled. 

“B-BUHUT YOHOUR GOHOHONNA!” 

“'Gonna' what, exactly?”

“TihiHICKLE ME!!” 

“Tickle you? Well, why didn’t you just say so in the first place?” Donatello snickered, using his free hand to skitter his fingers along the crook’s of the younger’s neck. 

The blue banded turtle squealed, shaking his head back in forth whilst scrunching his shoulders, “GAHaha— snrt EEEEHEEHEH oho cohome snrt OHAHAN!!” 

“What’s wrong, Leo? I thought you said you weren’t ticklish~?” The older teased.

“Snrt STHDHAHAH! Shuhut UP! IHI’M naHAT!” The younger shouted, tugging and pulling his arms to try and get his hand’s free from the other’s grasp. Donnie just laughed softly at the action, wiggling his fingers above his little brother’s stomach. 

The lime green eyed teen’s eyes widened in panic, thrashing in the hold to try and loosen his brother’s grip but the purple banded turtle did not budge even a smidge. 

Leo’s laughs became more giddy and loud as he continued to squirm, small squeals and snorts escaping his beak as his twin brother’s hand went sloooooowly to his stomach. 

“N-NOHO NONONONO DAHA— snrt DOHON!!” The smaller turtle snorted, hiding his face in the side of his arm which Donnie couldn’t help but giggle to. 

The light golden eyed mutant rested his hand on the slider’s plastron, making the younger turtle’s laugh raise almost a thousand octaves. 

“DOHON’T snrt DOHON’T DOHOHON’T snrt YOU DARE!! YOHOUR SOHO MEEHEEHEEAN!!” Leonardo whined, hiding deeper into his arm and becoming a giggly flustered mess.

The older twin shook his head fondly at his little brother’s embarrassed state, taking the opportunity to tickle the younger’s stomach while he wasn’t looking. 

Leo let out a loud scream, descending into high-pitched cackles as even louder snorts followed, “HAHAHAHELP!! IHI’M SNRT BEEHEEING SLAHAHAUTERED!!” 

“I’m quite literally only using one hand, Nardo. Stop being dramatic.” The light golden eyed teen mused whilst watching his brother snort and squirm, “And here I thought I was the dancer of the family. Look at you! You’re making up a whole dance routine right now!” He said as he let go of Leo, crossing his arms in amusement. 

“S-Shuhuhut snrt up…” The younger twin wheezed out, hugging his middles as he playfully glared at his purple loving brother. 

Then, a lightbulb went on in the scientist’s brain, a smug smile spreading to his face, “Hm…you know, Lee—”

“Dohont call snrt me thahat!” Leo giggly interupted. 

“Uh-huh. Well, Lee…did you know that the underarms are one of the warmest places on the human body?” The scientist said. 

The lime green eyed mutant cocked his head to the side in confusion, “Soho?” 

“Soooo my hands are cold. Very cold, in fact. I’d be forever in your debt if you could—”

“NO! NONOHO WAHAY IN HEHELL! G-GOHO AWAHAHAY!” Leo squealed, reaching for his brother’s wrists as the elder tried to tickle his neck once again.

Sigh…Leonardo made this too damn easy sometimes.

The glasses wielding teen wasn’t just going to miss this oh-so-definetly-not-planned opportunity! The softshell scribbled his fingers along the slider’s underarms, making the younger let out a loud squawk as he shot his arms down. 

“NAHAH AHAHAHA— snrt GEHET THEHE HEHELL OHAHA— snrt OHOHOUT!!” Leonardo cried while banging his heels on the bed. 

“What~?” Donnie hummed inocently. 

“GEHEHET AHA— snrt GEHET. OHOUT. OHOF THEHEHERE!”

“Awe…why~?”

“BEEHEECAUSE IHIT’S SOHO BAHAHAD!!!” 

“And?” Donnie chuckled, “That sounds like a you problem, little brother.” 

“AHHHAHA— snrt GAHAHAD FUHUCK YOHOU!!!”

“Pardon…what was that?” Donnie questioned as he pinched where Leo’s hip met his thigh. “N-NONO— snrt NAHAHAH!! I CAN’T— snrt PLEHEHEASE I’M snrt SORRY!! I-IHI TAHAHAKE IHIT BAHAHCK!!” 

“Nah…I think I’ll just stay riiiiight here for a bit…” The taller turtle smiled, using both of his hands now to tickle Leo into a laughing and snorting blob.

The younger weakly hit his big brother’s arms, throwing his head back as he squeezed his eyes completely shut. 

“…And you know what, Lee~?” 

“WHAHAHAT NOW?!” 

“I’m feeling…kind of famished.” The elder mused, his smile almost looking like the signature Joker’s as he saw his younger brother’s face pale. 

Leonardo scrambled to sit up, fighting with his brother’s arms as he giggly protested, “PLAHA— snrt PLAHAHEASE! PLEHEASE snrt D-DOHON’T!!” 

Donnie pinched his brother’s thighs unforgivingly, “You should have thought about that before yapping such ill nonsense about yourself.”

“WHAHA— snrt WHAHAHA— snrt WHAHAT DIHID snrt IHIHI snrt EVEN SAHAHAY?!” The lime green eyed turtle cackled, flapping his hands on the mattress. 

It took literally everything in the older twin not to coo his baby brother’s adorable actions; instead, he lightly moved Leo’s hands away, smiling evily as he lowered his head to the other’s plastron, “You don’t even know. Guess you really want this, huh~?” 

The blue banded teen kicked his knees into his brother’s shoulders and shell, throwing his head back in complete hysterics whilst waiting for him complete and utter demise. 

The softshell wasted no time blowing raspberries after raspberries in the middle of his younger’s stomach, making sure to move the other’s hands away any time he tried to push at the young genius’ head. 

Donnie didn’t feel like getting brain damage after all.

Plus, he had his signature glasses ᴅᴏɴᴀᴛᴇʟʟᴏ ᴛᴍ on! And those were trademarked…as you can wonderfully see. 

“God…can you get more ticklish?” Donatello giggled, squeezing and squishing the red eared slider’s knees with one hand and scribbling his sides with the other whilst contuinung to raspberry Leo’s stomach. 

“DEEHEE DEEHEEHEE SNRT PLEHEHEASE!!! IHI SNRT DAHAHAH— SNRT DAHA— SNRT DAHUNNO!!” The smaller turtle screamed, happy stimming with his arms on the taller twin’s shoulder.

Donnie couldn’t help but chuckle, deciding to show his twin a tad bit of mercy as he nibbled his stomach lightly. 

The slider let out bloody murder from his beak, happy tears threatening to fall from his eyes as his bubbly cackles and snorts bounced off the walls of his room.

“Jeez…I think Peppa Pig has some competition, huh~?” The light golden eyed mutant snickered.

“PLEHEHEASE!! TEHEHELLO SNRT IHI’M GOH— SNRT GOHOHA— AHAHA SNRT MYHYHY SNRTGAHAHAHAD!!!” The smaller teen pleaded.

“Do you promise to stop putting yourself in between danger and your family?” The older hummed. 

“YEHEHES!!” The younger cried loudly.

“Do you promise to go easier on yourself?” 

“YAHA— SNRT YAHA— SNRT YEHEHES!!!”

“Do you promise to accept your doing an amazing job as leader and we all love you—”

“MY SNRT FUHUHUCKING SNRT GAHAHAD!!! IHIHI SNRT GEHET IT!!” Leonardo shouted, his blush now completley blending into the red stripes on his face. 

The softshell turtle got off of the other, sitting next to his little brother as his little brother in question hugged his middles and giggled tiredly. 

“Y-Yohou could ohof juhuhust sahaid ahall of thahat wihihithout tickling meeheee…” The younger grumbled despite the evident smile on his face.

“And where’s the fun in that?” Donnie smiled back, his expression softening as Leo got up and leaned against him softly. The older wraped an arm around the younger’s shoulder, pulling him closer into a warm, protective gesture. 

“Ahand would yohohou look ahat that! Ihi got yohour emo bahad boy ahahass to smile todahay. Your eheeven hugging me~!” The blue banded leader spoke softly, his voice filled with affection as he poked his twin’s forehead cheekily. 

“You tell anyone that and I will not hesitate to deny that extremely untrue statement.” The scientist huffed, rolling his eyes fondly as his smile spread.

·̩̩̥͙＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚𝙵𝙸𝙽˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊·̩̩̥͙ 

(𝙿.𝚂.: 𝙸𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚎𝚗𝚓𝚘𝚢𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚏𝚒𝚌, 𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚎 𝚛𝚎𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚐!!!)

[thefirstknife]

New article with more details (from Jason Schreier who first broke the story). If you can't see it, I'll copy the whole text under read more.

About 100 employees were laid off in total (8%) and one of the main reasons listed is "underperformance," "sharp drop in popularity" and "poor reception of Lightfall."

So you know when for the last year and a half content creators have been shitting and pissing on the game as a full-time job and the amount of negativity and ragebait content became the only thing to make content about for them? Well they certainly won't take the blame, but I will let it be known. These people either don't understand the influence they have or they do and they're doing it on purpose, and I don't know which of these two options is worse, but I am 100% confident that their campaign of rage and hate contributed to this.

You don't base your entire community around constantly hating everything about the only game you play (despite clearly not enjoying it anymore) and somehow avoid galvanising thousands and thousands of people into perceiving the game negatively. Imagine being employees who have barely worked there for 2 years and the only community reception they've seen is 24/7 hate train for their work and then they get fired because of "poor reception" and "drop in popularity." How can they not take that personally? I am absolutely devastated for these people who delievered a banger product and who were met with an unrelenting barrage of toxic gamer children which ended up having more sway over their boss than them.

Which brings me to the next bit and that's FUCK THE CEO. He is now my mortal enemy #1. I am projecting psychic blasts directly into his brain. What an absolute spineless coward who is more willing to bow down to fucking gamers than to protect his own employees. This is absolutely rage inducing because this has happened before. From the article from 2021 about the toxic culture at Bungie:

Reading this shit from the new article absolutely fucking sent me into blind rage because I immediately remembered this. Another instance of employees suffering because of comments on reddit. And because of toxic players. And proof that leadership is not protecting employees and is instead siding with players.

Match made in heaven. Asshole gamer content creators and asshole CEOs, all of whom sit at home on piles of money made from someone else's labour. I hope they all explode. None of the people that worked on this game deserve this.

Another article with an infuriating comment from the CEO:

In an internal town hall meeting addressing a Monday round of layoffs that impacted multiple departments, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons allegedly told remaining employees that the company had kept “the right people” to continue work on Destiny 2.

"Kept the right people." Really. Veteran composers weren't the right people? Die!

Bloomberg article in full:

Bungie’s decision to cut an estimated 100 jobs from its staff of about 1,200 followed dire management warnings earlier this month of a sharp drop in the popularity of its flagship video game Destiny 2. Just two weeks ago, executives at the Sony-owned game developer told employees that revenue was running 45% below projections for the year, according to people who attended the meeting. Chief Executive Officer Pete Parsons pinned the big miss on weak player retention for Destiny 2, which has faced a poor reception since the release of its latest expansion, Lightfall. The next expansion, The Final Shape, was getting good — not great feedback — and management told those present that they planned to push back the release to June 2024 from February, according the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The additional time would give developers a chance to improve the product. In the meantime, Parsons told staff Bungie would be cutting costs, such as for travel, as well as implementing salary and hiring freezes, the people said. Everyone would have to work together to weather the storm, he said, leaving employees feeling determined to do whatever was needed to get revenue back up. But on Monday morning the news got worse: Dozens of staffers woke up to mysterious 15-minute meetings that had been placed on their calendars, which they soon learned were part of a mass layoff. Bungie laid off around 8% of its employees, according to documentation reviewed by Bloomberg. Bungie didn’t respond to requests for comment. Employees who were let go will receive at least three months of severance and three months of Bungie-paid COBRA health insurance, although other benefits, such as expense reimbursements, ended Monday, sending some staff racing to submit their receipts. Laid-off staffers will also receive prorated bonuses, although those who were on a vesting schedule following Sony Group Corp.’s acquisition of Bungie in January 2022 will lose any shares that weren’t vested as of next month. The layoffs are part of a larger money-saving initiative at Sony’s PlayStation unit, which has also cut employees at studios such as Naughty Dog, Media Molecule and its San Mateo office. TD Cowen analyst Doug Creutz wrote in a report Monday that “events over the last few days lead us to believe that PlayStation is undergoing a restructuring.” PlayStation president Jim Ryan announced last month that he plans to resign. Many of the layoffs at Bungie affected the company’s support departments, such as community management and publishing. Remaining Bungie staff were informed that some of those areas will be outsourced moving forward.

[major-comet]

#wash sarge and donut would have beaten felix to death with hammers i tell you what

elaborating on my tag from the other day because i haven't been able to stop thinking about it (also i forgot about lopez he would also participate in the hammering). part of the reason I think felix was so successful at at least mostly tricking tucker/caboose/grif/simmons is because everyone on that team was suddenly thrust into a position of responsibility that's frankly pretty new for all of them, even grif who has technically led a squad before and tucker who did all that desert bullshit. so they were all pretty preoccupied with that, and didn't have the *time* to examine felix all that closely. it's so easy to take someone at face value when you meet them under extreme stress.

wash and sarge *are* leaders already, though. leading a squad of hopeless soldiers for the new republic is nothing new for them. (and I wonder how the team assignments would have been changed? would lopez have had a squad of his own, or would he and donut have been lumped together since donut can dubiously speak spanish - great opportunity for comedy, if you ask me. OR would sarge have assumed responsibility for what would have been grif and simmons' teams along with donut and lopez, with wash then taking what would have been tucker and caboose's teams. which could lead to parallels of when grif called matthews simmons, except it's sarge or wash calling one of their soliders by the name of one of the missing four. most emotionally impactful would probably be bitters or palomo respectively.)

wash and sarge are very different people, but i like to think that every now and then their leadership brains come together on the same wavelength, even if they get to that point in very different ways. wash and felix would fucking hate each other, and sarge inherently is wary of anyone not properly aligned with a team (because it keeps ending fucking horribly for them, damn freelancers)

we also know that donut and lopez love getting up to some fuckshit from time to time - i think it's part of the red team rulebook. lopez spent a solid season or so as an antagonist, he would be ecstatic at getting to actually do something about this annoying son of a bitch. team sanctioned violence. and donut has one of the highest on-screen kill counts of the reds and blues by that point, he would've had the hammer in his hands before sarge even thought of it. (also i think felix probably would have been like, extra mean to donut because he's an easy target? and i think sarge and lopez would have one of those like "hey you can't make fun of him like that, only we can do that" type of moments that would have prompted absolutely zero self-reflection about the way that they treat donut, as is standard with these sorts of moments.)

i can clearly see the reunion between the two groups. tucker's like "yeah so we've kind of just been hanging with locus. guys fuckin Scary but eh. scary is kind of just normal for us these days. speaking of scary - the doctor chick keeps trying to jump simmons and grif to study them - keeps calling them "medical miracles" or some shit. otherwise? not a lot. what have you guys been up to?" and wash is just like. "oh, not much." and donut interjects about how the four of them totally pounded a guy together and the others have to be like "WITH HAMMERS. WITH HAMMERS." locus might even be there for the reunion, since he wouldn't have had the heads up about the guys leaving the rebel base from felix - y'know, on account of the hammering. sarge would start monologuing about everything they'd been up to, and simmons would seethe with renewed jealousy towards lopez and donut, as he perceives them as sarge's favorites out of all his kids. all would be right in the world.

has anyone thought about what if Felix and locus swapped what parts of the reds and blues they dealt with, like what if locus took caboose tucker grif and simmons, what then