#it would be devastating and traumatic to lose a loved one suddenly but think about yourself first and your integrity

[shylilbunny15]

It's like a reader/author turned villain!!! Think about it. Is this how our characters would react if they were to come into the real world/ if we came to their world and they found out we created all of this?

It makes me want to make a short series with this!!

Imagine you're an author and you get transported into the book you created. You befriend the characters and the MC. Helping them through their trauma, and adventures. Later on deep within the friendship/relationship you reveal that you are an author and they are all characters within the book you created. You prove this by writing a quick incident (ex: you write that the MC's teammate suddenly feels nauseous and sick) that shows true. MC is definitely devastated. The days you all spent together, bonding, laughing. MC tries to reason and reassure themselves that you definitely were having fun and enjoying spending time with them. However, you agree, adding on that you needed to build good plot armor and relations to get a good thrill and continue the story since you were stumped with writer's block.

MC starts to feel sick, and confused, other characters begin to question your loyalty and why you would manipulate them. It suddenly dawns on them that if you created them and the story, why did you put them through the hell that they had gone through.

Why did they have to go through so much trauma, losing loved ones, killing innocents, causality that were completely unnecessary, etc..

Your only response, " Every story needs a good complot".

MC finds themselves unable to process how someone could be so considerate, sweet, and kind; only to reveal colors of manipulation, deception, and cruelty.

As if reading MC's mind you smile with malic claiming " Sadist. Anyone with artistic views has it in them. I'm just not afraid to show it".

You look down, smiling to yourself, before letting out a hysterical laugh "it's insane..I thought I would befriend you all the moment I found out I was transported into my own writing. However, I immediately realized I could make the error more interesting if I can interact with you all. Keep it at a peak, never having a dull moment..and you all so stupidly gave me the props to write a masterpiece."

MC and everyone else were shocked. Mortification exhibit on their face.

" Don't look so surprised, you all have been going through problem after traumatic problem. You should have known something was going to happen. It's fantastic. Watching yourself do all of this work, hoping something good will come out of it. It did, something greater than I ever hoped to write. However..I became the Villain and I'm only getting started".

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Just an idea. 🖤🐇🖤

#170

"You did it? You created all the horrors I went through?" The book character quivers.

"Yes," the author sighs.

Tears trickle out of the book character's eyes. "Why?"

"Plot. Suspence. Charater development," the author answers. "People do like to read it."

"You're sick."

The author smiles. "Maybe I am. But that sickness created you, your world. And, better yet, people pay to read it." The author gets close to their book character, "you only exist because of me."

[xamaxenta]

Unpopular opinion when will people stop asking for money from strangers online

[guardianspirits13]

Okay so with everything going on right now and all the exciting new information, there is one thing I see being overlooked a lot, and that is something I want to talk about: Natsuo Todoroki.

In almost every scene he appears in during the manga, he mentions Touya, and I really want to try to imagine the sort of effect this new information will have on him.

Natsuo and Touya have a clearly established relationship as kids, and while Fuyumi says they played together a lot, in one translation of a the scene in 253 Natsuo says that Touya used to tell him everything, implying that they also talked openly about what Endeavor was doing to their family and how they felt about it.

Natsuo was entirely ignored by Endeavor as a kid to the point where his existence was hardly acknowledged, and with information from the new light novel we know that Rei hardly took care of him either after Shouto was born. Natsuo would have been about four, not nearly old enough to do things on his own and was likely raised mostly by his older siblings.

Now imagine what it was like for Natsuo when Touya died. He would have been 10 at the most, and however Touya died (and I say died because it was considered a hard fact to the Todoroki family for almost a decade) and wether or not he witnessed it does not change the fact that it has been one of the most traumatic, defining events of his life so far. Not only was he still very much a child, Touya was likely his best friend and the single person he could rely on. Touya and Natsuo helped each other through the trauma they were both experiencing, so I can’t even imagine how devastating it would have been for Natsuo to lose his sole support system so suddenly without any grief counseling in sight.

If you think about it even now, at the core Dabi and Natsuo share strikingly similar viewpoints on hero society as a whole, and they both despise Endeavor for the same reasons. They also both seem to be very emotionally driven and have internalized their feelings that show only under stressful circumstances.

I am going to attribute the different outcomes in who they are now to Natsuo still having a stable home and Fuyumi to help him cope, and whatever happened to Touya he was almost definitely homeless and alone so it was easy for him to fall in with a group of loveable societal rejects (although I very much want to know exactly what he did for the years between ‘dying’ and joining the league).

So now finally, I will try my best to predict how Natsuo might react to the information that his brother is alive, especially assuming he finds out through the same video that Rei does. Horikoshi went out of his way to establish a relationship between the two, so either way it will definitely be heartbreaking.

First off is knowing that Touya is alive. Even with that information alone and nothing about Dabi himself, it would not explicitly be joyful. A huge part of who Natsuo has become is because of how his past-e.g. losing Touya- has shaped him. A significant example being that in the new light novel we learn that he wanted to be in the medical field to help people in situations like his mother ‘whose hearts have been hurt’. I think before any sort of positive emotion this information will definitely rattle him to the core, as it has Shouto and Endeavor. This is not just about Touya being alive, but it’s about how much of Natsuo’s life has been shaped by his death. I’d imagine under normal circumstances some form of joy or excitement would set in after the initial shock, but judging by the content of the video I can’t imagine that.

And finally we get to Touya’s status as a criminal, terrorist, and his admission to murdering over 30 people. I’m going to re-iterate what I said before, that Natsuo obviously looked up to his brother, and the image of teenaged Touya that he has been imagining and hearing in his head for the past decade is so drastically different from who he is now. **Now we have no reference point for how Touya was as a kid, wether or not he exhibited early antisocial tendencies or wether he was as kind and protective as the fandom seems to think of him. My point still stands that Natsuo looked up to him as a kid and immortalized him in his memory, so the cognitive dissonance between the Touya he knew and the Touya that we see now will also be destructive.

**Another side note, I wrote this before I saw the translation that Touya considered kiling Shouto while they were kids, which is certainly chilling and adds a whole nother level to this mess, so take that as you will

I honestly have no idea how he will react based on this last point.

One one hand, Natsuo is known for his brutal honesty in expressing how he feels, and this could be no different. There is definitely the possibility that he could blame Touya for abandoning them and betraying them, along with the horror of knowing how many people he murdered.

There is also a much different response to anticipate, mainly because Natsuo is also a very sympathetic person with a particular soft spot for his older brother, and may choose to view him as more as a victim.

Horikoshi is an incredible writer and is very capable of portraying subtle and complex emotions in his characters, and he is also well known for uncanny parallels and coming full circle in his writing, so I have theorized for a while now that the sibling’s responses to Touya’s return might be opposite to their willingness to forgive Endeavor, based mostly on their relationships with both of them. I think it would be poetic if Natsuo (who again is very emotionally driven) would have an initial response of just wanting to reunite with his brother and willing to overlook his transgressions in the moment, Shouto would still walk a middle line of being very conflicted and unsure, and if Fuyumi would blame him the most, for abandoning her and inadvertently leaving her to sacrifice most of her childhood and getting a higher education to look after the house and her younger brothers, as that had been a shared responsibility previously.

If you made it this far in the post, thank you so much for reading! Most of this is just speculation, but it’s been on my mind for a while so with the final reveal out of the way I have long been prepared to rant about the significance of Touya in Natsuo’s life and how his return would affect him. I’d love if you’s be willing to share your thoughts on all this before the next chapter.

Peace!

[therealvinelle]

What do you think the Cullens would do if some person they were talking to, out of nowhere just quite literally exploded in front of, and on them? Kinda like in that movie Spontaneous. Would they lose control and slurp up the mess on the ground, (and themselves) or would their bloodlust be curtailed by shock of wtf just happened?

I'd say something witty about how this is a strange anon to receive, but holy jesus you've sent me down a rabbithole.

Here's a trailer to the movie Spontaneous. It looks amazing. Kevin Feige wishes this had been his plot for Infinity War.

Here's a trailer for the movie Spontaneous Combustion, which I found by accident while searching for your fic. This looks amazing too. Can't believe Marvel didn't buy the rights to this guy.

I'm serious, people, you definitely want to watch these trailers. I just about died laughing.

So, on to your ask.

In the spirit of your ask, which implies a level of randomness, I thought the people blowing up should be random too. So, being in the mood to procrastinate through spending way too much time on tumblr things, I wrote a program that'll generate for me random Twilight characters.

Unsure whether the explosion should kill vampires or not, I generated an answer. The answer is yes, any generated vampire dies.

Without further ado:

Alice watches Vladimir blow up.

Alright, alright.

The first question to be answered here is why Alice is in Vladimir's presence in the first time. In canon they only meet once, at the end of Breaking Dawn.

For the sake of simplicity, we'll have Vladimir blow up then.

The Cullens and the witnesses are all celebrating being alive, when Vladimir suddenly explodes.

For the sake of the ask, Alice is sitting closest to him when this happens and making conversation.

Her first thought is utter shock. Not just that he blew up, but that she didn't see it coming (she wouldn't, because I randomly generated him. No decision was made). Her second thought is horror.

The Cullens just confronted the Volturi, now mere hours afterwards their allies are blowing up.

Holy fuck, Aro has a gifted ace up his sleeve, and he's using it to kill them remotely.

Panic ensues, not just for Alice, but among all the witnesses. Some of them refuse to leave, Bella has to shield those 24/7, though given the belief that her gift is psychic that doesn't make them feel very safe.

The others decide to go after the Volturi and beg for mercy, assuring them they never meant to challenge them.

Aro, of course, is very confused, but agrees. Why, yes, he does have a vampire who blows people up. Yes, yes he does.

Bella watches Aro blow up.

Oh I'm dying laughing at this one. And wishing I'd put this down for Carlisle, that would be even funnier, but alright.

Bella is walking about post-Breaking Dawn, minding her own business, when suddenly Aro appears in front of her. He looks around himself, utterly surprised by his sudden deplacement, and then blows up.

Bella has been living in terror of this man for years.

In Volterra he had his servant torture her and Edward and then made ominious threats, then a few months later the Eclipse disaster unfolded, finally we have Breaking Dawn where he showed up to murder her and everyone she loved.

Her shield may be powerful, but for as long as Aro was alive her family was never truly safe.

His untimely implosion changes all of that.

I imagine after a long moment of incredulity, Bella burns the rubble, just to be sure, then tells her family the joyous news.

Carlisle gives the guy a funeral. It's weird.

Carlisle watches Vassilii blow up.

Close call, due to my not switching out the names we almost had Angela. In which case Carlisle have stood there, covered in blood and in shock for several long seconds, before bringing out the bleach and gasoline for a crime scene clean.

As it is, Carlisle is minding his own business when suddenly an immortal child dressed like a medieval Eastern European appears before him. It says something in a foreign language that might mean "hi", he doesn't know but he says "hi" to it back, then the child blows up.

Carlisle stares at the rubble for a very long time, wondering if he is perhaps losing his mind. If, perhaps, Aro was right about animal blood being a slow suicide, and Carlisle has finally hit the limit for how long a vampire can go on without human blood.

He burns the rubble and prays for the child's soul, as an immortal child is doomed anyway, and keeps his silence about what happened. In part because there's a solid chance this was all in his imagination.

If Aro ever touches his hand again, and sees the immortal child that he burned a thousand years earlier resurrect, travel through time, all in order to blow up in front of Carlisle, he... well there comes a point where you say "nothing to see here" and refuse eye contact with the universe glitching.

Edward watches Randall blow up.

Randall, for the ignorants, is one of Carlisle's friends that came to witness for the Cullens in Breaking Dawn.

Suddenly he appears in front of Edward, says hi and how do you do, and then he blows up.

Edward tells Carlisle, who is saddened by this, and they try to piece the guy together. They fail.

Edward sends a somber thought to this noble man who agreed with Edward that the Cullens are awesome enough to be worth dying for.

Emmett watches Mary blow up.

Emmett will never admit it, but it's the coolest, raddest thing he's ever seen.

Esme watches Eleazar blow up.

Oh boy.

The Cullens are visiting the Denali. Irina has not been dead for long, but given the crystal clear memory of vampires, and the loss they already suffered (Sasha's death traumatized them) it doesn't really matter how long it's been, the Denali are devastated anyway.

The whole coven is as fragile as it can possibly get.

Then, Eleazar goes to join Esme in the kitchen, and explodes all over her and the kitchen.

The remaining Denali and the Cullens are called to the kitchen by the sound of Esme's screaming, and find her in hysterics, surrounded by gray rubble.

The Denali are near catatonic with grief at this point, while cooking has been ruined for Esme. One moment you're making food, the next people are exploding all over your kitchen.

Yeah.

Esme is not okay.

Jasper watches Nahuel blow up.

It's a shameful moment in his life.

But, hybrids are edible.

And that blood was splattered all over him.

Jasper has the worst control fail of his life, worse even than when he failed with Bella because this fail means he can't be around Renesmée anymore.

It's miserable all around.

The one highlight here is that it didn't happen when they were headed to the Volturi trial together.

Rosalie watches Emmett blow up.

Jesus christ, random Twilight character generator, just when I thought you were just going to give me boring results.

Not only does Rosalie lose the love of her life, the guy who kept her together, the one good thing she had going for her who made her life worth living, but he did so right in front of her, blowing up out of nowhere.

There's no explanation to be had, no culprit to be found, no reason for it. She had no goodbye, just as she can have no revenge.

She will never have closure.

Renesmée watches Renée blow up.

We go out on a high note, my god. Well done, generator, I'm laughing.

Renesmée is curious enough about her grandmother to go to Florida. She was going to watch from afar, but finds herself talking to the woman who raised her mother.

It's all going well until Renée suddenly explodes all over Renesmée.

Renesmée's first thought is nothing, she's in shock.

Then...

Well, she was controlled as an infant, so I don't think an adult Renesmée would lose it unless under extreme circumstances, like if she encountered a singer.

More, though, Renesmée might have any reasons of her own not to drink human blood, but she has been raised with this being a big no-no.

So she shouldn't.

However...

Is she ever going to get a better chance?

Ethically, she could easily argue this is the right choice. No one will be negatively affected by this, at least not directly.

The human is right there, already dead, and there's no body so while Renesmée does have to clean up the gore. Hell, if she laps up the blood on her clothes and the ground she will be cleaning up. Why waste perfectly good blood?

If Renesmée Cullen is ever going to have human blood, this is it.

It will come down to how much she respects her grandfather, and how important she believes Renée was to Bella.

-

Bonus, because I'm having way too much fun with this:

Bree watches Atheonodora blow up.

Bree is minding her own business when suddenly a vampire unlike any she has ever seen before, one with hazy eyes and odd skin, appears before her. They stare at each other. Then the woman blows up.

Bree takes this to mean that exploding is apparently something vampires just do sometimes, runs off in a panic and, sobbing, tells Riley.

Riley, having no idea what to make of any of this, tells her it was those evil yellow-eyes with their witchcraft and sorcery.

[mynotsohealthyobsession]

It's me

Book: Bloodbound

Pairing: Adrian Raines x MC

Warning: Mention of death / Slightly angst / Fluff / A lot of fluff / Like you will have a diabetic coma after kind of fluff 😜

Words: 1.217

Prompts #1, #8 and #13 from this beautiful list made by @creativepromptsforwriting ♥️

**Tags in the reblog**

There weren't many things that could harm Adrian like the thought of Amy suffering. Every time he had seen her looking pained at Lily's photos. The times that she had been lost in her thoughts, clearly concerned, probably remembering the night of the fight against Rheya or Gaius. Perhaps thinking about the day she woke up or the darkness she had felt after defeating Rheya, shivering a bit afterwards. Whatever the reason was, it always made his heart hurt. But there was one moment that simply devastated him.

When a nightmare disturbed her sleep, she normally woke up, searching for him or simply cuddling as close as she could to his chest. However, on rare occasions like this one, she couldn't regain consciousness without help. Those nightmares were the worst, making her revive her most traumatic experiences and putting her deepest fears into images.

The low whimpers came from his side as his eyes flushed open. He heard her distress as she turned, curling into herself, her face contracted in a mix of sorrow and fear. A lonely tear fell from the corner of her eye, disappearing in her hair. Nothing could ever hurt him more than this.

"Amy…" He murmured, his hand slightly brushing her cheek, trying to call her attention without scaring her even more. "Wake up." She kept sleeping, tense and frightened, clutching the front of the t-shirt she was wearing. "Amy." He repeated a little more loudly. His thumb dried her skin as his other hand took hers, giving it a squeeze. "Open your eyes, love." She sobbed a little and his hand caressed her arm, giving it a tightly gripping above her elbow and kissed her forehead. "Please Amy, wake up." His fingers gently moved her hair out of her face, placing it behind her ear. He didn't want to raise his voice at her or shear to wake her, she was afraid enough.

Suddenly she jolted up, gasping. Her breath came fast and labored as her heart beat panicked in her chest that kept coming up and down erratic. Her gaze roamed the room until they connected with his. "Adrian?" Her eyes filled with tears as she lifted her hand, hesitating, stopping halfway, as she was scared he would disappear at her touch. "Are you really here?" Her voice was just a bit louder than a whisper, desolate.

"Yes, I'm right here."

"But I saw you die." The anguish in her words and face was worse than any wound that he had ever had.

"It was a nightmare, Amy. I'm truly here."

"I saw you becoming ashes. Rheya attacked you and you--"

"Amy, please look at me." Her eyes focused on him, observant but still frightened. Without taking his gaze from her, he placed his arm in front of his mouth, doing a long and deep cut with his fangs on his forearm, and extended it forward, showing it to her. Before the slash started to bleed like a normal injury would do, it closed in front of her eyes, leaving his skin healed and smooth once more. "It's me, love. I promise." She outstretched her hand and touched where the gash had been, sighing with relief and moving closer, tightly hugging him. His arms held her against his chest as she kept sobbing. "It's okay. I've got you."

"It felt so real." She rested her face on his shoulder. "I could feel your ashes on my hands."

"It was a bad dream but it's over. I'm with you and we are fine." He kissed her head, never loosening his embrace around her. “The nightmares are just an illusion. I’m really here.”

"I was so scared that you were gone. We had been so close to losing each other so many times and…" She took a flattered deep breath. "I thought I had lost you for real."

"I'm not planning to leave your side any time soon. I will always be with you, Amy." His fingers thread in her hair, stroking the back of her head, barely calming her. "You had to bear with me for all eternity, love."

A quietly chuckling came muffled from his shoulder. "Do you promise?"

"I swear." He could hear her heart still beating with frenzy in her chest and feel a couple of distant tears falling on his clavicle. "I've never seen you this shaken after a nightmare." Adrian quietly commented, concerned and filled with sadness, in her ear.

"It's the first time that it seemed so realistic." She hadn't separated from him, not even an inch, still firmly clinging to him.

"Tell me what can I do, love." He continued hugging her, pressing her against him.

"Stay like this. I need to feel you." There was a hint of grief in her words. "I need to know you are here."

"It’s alright. I’m not going to let go." He moved his face to the side, planting a mild kiss on the side of her head, and sneaked the hand looped around her back under her t-shirt, gently caressing that spot, letting her feel him on her skin. "I wish I could do more…"

"You are doing more than you realize, Adrian." She sounded more composed, finally starting to calm down. "It's just that, back then, it always scared me that Rheya would go directly after you. She knew how I felt about you, even before we said it to each other." She turned her face into his shoulder, sweetly brushing her lips on his throat. "I know we defeated her but…"

"I know, my love. I feel the same about Gaius." He felt her breath on his neck again, a lot more peaceful.

"Really?"

"Absolutely." His arms tightened around her frame almost involuntary. "He killed you once, Amy. And to know he's somewhere out there, even after helping us and knowing that you can take him down, sometimes still terrifies me."

"You think I made the wrong decision about him?" She sat on his lap, maintaining a grasp on his neck.

"No. After hundreds and hundreds of years under Rheya's control, it was the right call." He kissed her forehead and leaned his own down to rest against hers. "But it doesn't change the facts."

"I believe that too." Her arms slipped until her hands lay on his chest.

"Do you feel better?"

"Mhm. A lot." Her mouth covered his in a mellow and candied kiss, without rush, enjoying even the smallest friction between their lips. "Thank you."

"My pleasure." He brushed affectionately her nose with the tip of his a couple of times, adoring the smile that had blossomed in her face. "I love you."

"I love you too, Adrian." She seemed a lot more collected as they lay down on the bed.

"You should try to sleep, love, you look exhausted." She moved nearby again, nuzzling against him.

"I am but... I'm scared to revive that dream." He pulled the cover over them, hugging her waist and his palm flat on her back, softly bringing her close to him.

“Just close your eyes. I will still be here when you open them again, holding you exactly like this.” He kissed her tenderly and delicately. "I won't leave your side." The thumb of his free hand was gently grazing her cheekbone. "I promise."

✨

[meganwritesfanfics]

Fresh Bruises (Josh Lyman x Reader) Part 3

Warning this story contains mentions of Domestic Abuse 

It was another half an hour to almost an hour before Abby reappeared. Donna had fallen asleep her head resting on Josh’s shoulder. He knew he should be tired, he should be exhausted, it was 3 in the morning, and he had only gotten maybe an hour of sleep the night before. But he couldn’t sleep, he barely blinked because all he could see was Y/N lying motionless in his arms. 

“Josh,” Abby started when suddenly a dozen secret service agents came into the waiting area. The staff knew what to do as they quickly ushered everyone in the room to a different waiting room, the commotion waking Donna. 

After the room had been secured President Bartlett and Leo walked in, and Josh quickly rose to his feet. 

“Sir you didn’t have to come,” He started but Bartlett just pulled him into his embrace. 

“Nonsense Josh, have you heard anything?” 

“The surgery went well.” Abby said and Bartlett quickly patted Josh on the shoulder with a smile on his face. 

“But,” Josh said noticing that Abby’s demeanor wasn’t a happy one. 

“But, her head injury was worse than they had originally thought.” Abby said and Josh sat back down looking up at her as a child would look up at a parent.  “She’s in a coma Josh.” 

Josh just stared at Abby, mouth agape. 

“Oh Josh,” Donna said her voice cracking hard as she wrapped her arms around him, trying her best not to cry. 

 “What are our options, are their specialists we can see what…” Jed started as he and Abby walked down to talk. 

Josh wasn’t sure when Leo sat down next to him, but the next thing he knew Leo was grasping his hand tightly. He didn’t say anything, didn’t try to tell Josh everything was going to be ok. He just sat with him, letting Josh know he was there. 

More time passed and Josh hadn’t spoken, hadn’t moved, hadn’t cried since Abby told him the news. 

“Josh,” A voice spoke softly and he turned to see Leo still sitting next to him, but now he had a cup of coffee in his hands, Josh noticed there was another cup sitting on the table next to him. “Abby said she doesn’t think there is going to be anymore news for a while, why don’t we take you home so you can shower.” 

“No, I have to stay, Y/N might…” Josh wanted to say wake up, but he couldn’t bring himself to because he still hadn’t fully processed everything that was happening. 

“Abby is going to stay with Donna, they will be here when we get back, but Josh I think you would feel much better after a shower and a change of clothes.” Leo insisted 

For the first time since they had gotten to the hospital, Josh finally looked down at himself. He was covered in blood, his white shirt was stained red and his shaking hands were caked with Y/N’s blood. 

Before he even had a chance to say anything else, Leo was pulling him to his feet and ushering him out of the hospital. 

Neither of the men tried to speak as they made their way to Leo’s car nore did they speak on the drive to Josh’s apartment. 

Josh stayed staring at his hands trying to get them to stop shaking. His breathing was erratic and he was trying not to have a full blown panic attack, but it was incredibly difficult as he sat with the blood from the love of his life covering him. 

“Josh,” Leo said as he looked over at him noticing the sound of his breathing. “Josh, you need to breath.” 

“What if she doesn’t wake Leo, she is my whole world. I can’t…” 

“Don’t think like that Josh, Dr. Bartlett is making sure that we get every specialist in the country on the case. Y/N is going to have nothing but the best care, Jed has insisted on it.” 

“The President can’t…” Josh started. 

“Josh, you are family, he’s going to do whatever he can to help you.” 

The young man couldn’t help but get choked up hearing this. He had always considered the staff of the rest wing and the President to be his family. They had all been through highs and lows together, but actually hearing the word family come out of the Chief of Staffs mouth, really solidified everything. 

By the time they had reached the apartment Josh had calmed down. He felt like for the first time that whole evening/morning he could breath. 

The two men made their way into the apartment. Josh quickly rushed around picking up the papers and boxes that littered the apartment. He couldn’t remember the last time Leo had been to his place, or if he ever had, but he didn’t want him to see how terribly disorganized he was. 

“Josh, I have seen your office, I expected your house to look much worse, Y/N must be a good influence on you.” Leo laughed causing Josh to stop looking back with a smile on his face. “Now go shower and get changed.” 

Josh started his way towards the bathroom, but as he passed each room his mind began to flood of the memories he and Y/N had there. 

It was 2 am by the time Josh had finally gotten home from work, and instead of going to bed, he immediately made his way to the couch pulling out the files he had brought home, to read over them before he had meetings the next day. He probably had gotten through 10 pages before he was passed out on the couch. 

“Josh,” He heard someone whisper but he didn’t move he just kept his eyes closed, his hands barely hanging onto the files. Someone sighed as they reached down to grab the files out of his hands, and then he felt a blanket be placed over him. 

In an instant he opened his eyes to see Y/N standing above him and he smiled as he grabbed her waist pulling her on top of him causing her to squeal. 

“Why didn’t you come up to bed.” She said as she snuggled into his chest as he wrapped his arms tightly around her. 

“I had some stuff I need to finish before my meetings tomorrow.” He yawned kissing the top of her head. 

“You know that if you try to read those files this late that you are just going to fall asleep. You always do.” She giggled. 

“And you are always there to tuck me in. Maybe that's the real reason I do it.” 

“You are quite a frustrating man Joshua Lyman.” 

“But you love me none the less.” 

“Oh I do love you, I love you so much.” Y/N said looking into his eyes with such love that Josh thought he might cry. 

“I love you too Y/N, more than I ever thought possible.” Josh said kissing her. 

The two spent the night on the couch, and although he woke up sore, Josh still credited it as one of the best nights of his life. 

Josh couldn’t hold back his tears as he continued past the kitchen 

“You are not the only one with a career Josh!” Y/N screamed as she turned back to look at the food she had cooking on the stove. 

“I’m not saying you don’t I’m just saying…” 

“You are just saying that your career should always come first and that I should drop every single thing that I am doing to support you in your career.” Y/N hissed as she aggressively turned the stone off, turning back to look at him. 

“Well yes since my career actually m…” He started but his eyes went wide when he realized what he was about to say. 

“Because your career actually matters, is that what you were going to say Josh,” Y/N said, the anger completely gone from her voice. “Go ahead and eat. I'm not hungry anymore.” She said as she stormed upstairs. 

“Shit,” Josh thought as he made his way after her. 

As he cautiously made his way towards their bedroom, he could hear the sound of Y/N crying and he quickly walked in. 

“Y/N,” He started and that’s when he saw her packing. “What are you doing.” 

“I’m going to go stay with Ainsley,” She sniffed wiping the tears from her eyes. 

“You would rather stay with a republican than with me,” Josh teased but Y/N just gave him a devastated look. “Y/N I’m sorry I didn’t mean what I said.” 

“My job matters Josh, I know its not the life altering decisions like you make but to those kids, the ones whom I am their only voice during a time that is extremely traumatic for them, it matters.” Y/N said her voice cracking hard, 

Josh quickly rushed to her side putting his hands on her face. “I know that honey, I do. I was just upset I really didn’t mean it. Your job absolutely matters. I am constantly in awe of what you do and how you help people. I brag about your job to everyone. My mother when she calls she asks how your job is going long before she even asks about me.” 

Y/N laughed as she wiped her tears away. 

“I was just upset because I really wanted you to come to the gala with me. I feel a lot more confident when I have you next to me.” 

“Josh, you were plenty confident when I met you.” Y/N said as she back away turning back as she started to unpack the suitcase. 

“It was a nice little act,  but in realty, I feel my most confident and strongest, when you are by my side holding my hand, because I know if I have you I can face anything.” Josh said as he wrapped his arms around her waist burying his face in the crook of her neck. 

“For how often you are an ass, you really know how to make up for it.” Y/N sighed as she turned around kissing him softly as she wrapped her arms around his neck. 

“I’ve learned to admit when I’m wrong. Because I would rather grovel for your forgiveness than lose you.” He said seriously. 

Y/N smiled as she ran her fingers through his hair. 

“You won’t ever lose me Josh.” 

By the time Josh made it into their bedroom he was a sobbing mess. Every room in the house gave him flashes of the beautiful memories he had with Y/N, and he felt like everything was slipping away. 

Josh slowly rolled over, for the first time in a long time he had actually slept well. And he knew exactly what the reason was. As he opened his eyes he smiled looking at the beautiful girl laying next to him asleep. 

Last night was the first night Y/N and Josh had spent together. And as Josh took in the sight of her snuggled up next to him, her beautiful Y/H/C against her Y/S/C, he realized that he was in love with her. 

“You are staring, Joshua.” Y/N smiled as she opened her eyes smiling at him. 

“It’s hard not to stare, you are so beautiful Y/N.” Josh said as he leaned forward kissing her. 

“You are just saying that because I am lying naked in bed with you.” She laughed. 

“You could be wearing 30 layers of clothes and I would still think you are the most beautiful woman in the world.” 

Y/N kissed Josh again as she pulled him closer. 

“I mean I’m not saying that you being naked in bed with me is a bad thing by any means.” Josh laughed as he flipped over so he was on top as he kissed Y/N passionately. 

He kissed her for a while before the two broke apart and Josh stared down at her. She looked up eyes filled with curiosity.

“What’s wrong Josh,” Y/N smiled. 

“I love you.” Josh said. “I love you Y/N.” 

Y/N stared at Josh for a moment eyes wide. “I love you too Josh.” 

As Josh got in the shower and he watched as Y/N’s blood dripped off of him and down the drain, he let out a devastated scream as he pounded his fists against the tile.

[heyyyharry]

Chapter 15: Marry Me

(from ‘The Winter and The Crown’)

…in which they get married.

Warning: SMUT

Word count: 5k

AU: queen!y/n, commander!harry

Description: Y/N and Harry set off on a new adventure to find ‘the cure’ for an ancient curse, meanwhile, the enemies are plotting to take her kingdom.

Wattpad link (Reyna as Peach | Y/N)

A/N: Mary explains everything pretty clearly in the last scene. I hope it answers all of your questions :)

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A letter from Calanthe arrived the day after the dance. Y/N opened it in the presence of Harry, Lance and Jo.

“What does she want?” Jo asked impatiently while Y/N read it at her desk.

“Why are you here?” Lance asked Jo. He was standing by the door with his sword drawn and rested by his side. He’d been more guarded since last night as was she and everyone else in the castle.

“Why can’t I be here? Is it because of my sex?” Jo retorted, for a second forgetting that Lance was a king. Y/N could not blame her. It must have been devastating for Jo to be the last of them to find out about Mary’s betrayal.

“No,” Harry told Jo as he leaned forward in his chair with his hands together and elbows on his knees. “It’s because you’re a maid.”

Jo shot him a pointed look. “I’m Her Majesty’s Lady-in-waiting.”

“A maid,” Lance chimed in.

Jo flicked her gaze between the two of them. “Are you two best friends now or do you just collectively hate me?”

Harry and Lance exchanged looks before turning back to Jo. “You really want us to answer that?” Lance jokingly asked.

“She’s here because I trust her,” Y/N said, rising behind her desk. Jo made a face at Lance, and he burst out laughing.

“What does she want?” Harry asked Y/N.

Y/N folded the letter and put it aside as she leaned against the desk, arms crossed. “She wants the witch to be returned to Theros.”

As expected, Jo was the most horrified at this news. The real reason Y/N had asked for Jo’s attendance was that she cared about Jo and would never want to make a decision that would hurt her friend.

“Let’s do that,” Harry said.

“No!” Jo and Lance objected at the same time.

Harry froze and blinked blankly at them. Y/N felt bad that he didn’t know the whole story. She couldn’t figure out how to let him in without having him carry all her heavy burdens. Harry would always do too much for her; she didn’t have the heart to drag him deeper into this.

Lance cleared his throat. “We need her. She may have insider information.”

“I don’t trust her. She set Y/N up for death,” Harry said, his face twisted with anger.

“Mary knew the forest wouldn’t harm Y/N,” Lance calmly told Harry while his eyes stayed fixed on Y/N. He knew no matter what they all said, it was up to her to decide Mary’s fate.

“I don’t want her to have Mary,” Y/N said.

Jo clutched her chest in relief. Lance sighed and looked over to Harry, who seemed the most confused.

Y/N took a deep breath. “Calanthe says she’ll be at the border in two days, and she wants me to be the person who brings her the witch.”

“She doesn’t only want the witch,” Harry said through clenched teeth. “It’s clearly a trap.”

“Don’t go, Y/N,” Jo pleaded, her face pale with fright.

Lance said nothing; the look he was giving Y/N had conveyed every single one of his thoughts. Y/N studied each of the three faces in front of her, and her heart stung a little. These people all knew what it was like to lose her. She didn’t want to put them through it again. However, she had to be pragmatic at this point and not let her feelings get in the way. Whatever was best for her kingdom would be best for her, even though it felt the complete opposite.

“I’ll go without Mary,” Y/N said, not making eye contact with anyone. “Just me alone.”

“That’s suicide,” Lance broke his silence.

“I have to agree with the King,” Harry mumbled. It sounded as though he was in pain to say that.

“Maybe one of you should go with her,” Jo told the men.

Y/N shook her head. “She only wants me and the witch. I’ll go alone.”

“She’ll be waiting for you with her army and they’ll take your head, Y/N,” Lance snapped, his grey eyes piercing at her.

Y/N looked up and met Harry’s intense gaze begging her not to do this.

“Maybe I can have an escort,” she sighed, “but Calanthe specifically says in this letter that my betrothed cannot be there with me.”

Harry and Lance exchanged looks. Though neither of them said anything, Y/N knew exactly what was on their minds. She hated that they were put in a situation where it only benefited her.

“She wants to negotiate now?” Jo asked, her voice fragile. Y/N assumed she was scared for both Y/N and Mary.

“Apparently, she wants to talk. And she says that she’ll be there alone.”

“And you trust her?” Harry asked, raising both eyebrows as he stood up straight. “You want to rely on the promise of the woman, who’s only life goal is to ruin your life and make you pay for your father’s mistakes?”

“I don’t trust her,” Y/N said. “I trust myself. I know she and the Monks don’t want me dead. At least not before the battle. She’s causing all this chaos to trigger us to strike. She sets us up, blames us for killing George Wallace and is most likely going to use that as an excuse to invade the North. And she’s ready. I know she is. But so are we. I just want to hear what she has to say. Two can play this game. And I’m not afraid of anyone. Certainly not Calanthe.”

“It’s up to you,” Lance sighed. “We can only tell you what we think is best, but we can’t tell you what to do.”

Y/N frowned. “I still want your support.”

“You have our support, Peach,” Harry said though he didn’t sound so confident. That was good enough for her. She would not be able to go through with it without his approval. Despite what he might think, his feelings mattered to her.

“Absolutely,” Jo said anxiously.

“Well, at least I still have this ring to know if you’ll survive,” Lance said, showing Mary’s ring on his left hand as Jo shot him a glare.

Y/N let out a laugh then mouthed, ‘Thank you,” to him.

Lance gave a shrug and pushed away from the door, stretching his limbs. “If that’s all, I’d like to leave. I’m going to check on Mary. Are you coming, Jo?”

Jo bit her lip, glancing at Y/N. “I don’t know if I should. I don’t want to look at her right now.”

“You can’t just avoid her forever,” Y/N said. “She’s been through some traumatic events. You might be able to cheer her up.”

Jo took some time to think before letting out an exasperated breath. “Fine.”

She wished Y/N goodnight and followed Lance out of the room, leaving Harry and Y/N alone with each other. Silence sank in. For a long moment, Harry and Y/N just stood quietly, stealing glances at each other.

Suddenly, Harry chuckled.

“What?” Y/N asked.

“Nothing.” He pressed his lips together. “Would you like me to go as well?”

“No. You can stay,” she said, returning the smile.

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Harry told himself to not trouble Y/N anymore by talking about this, but he could not shake off the fact that she would keep running back towards danger. He’d almost lost her last night. He couldn’t risk letting it happen again.

As she turned her back and remained silent, he had trouble doing the same.

“You don’t have to go alone. I’ll go with you. She just didn’t want Lance to be there, and I–”

He stopped talking and pacing as soon as he noticed that Y/N hadn’t been listening. She was staring out of the window, silent as a ghost. At first, he thought she was just pondering over Calanthe’s letter. But then her shoulders began to shake.

“Peach?” he asked quietly, moving closer and taking her by the hand.

She was crying when he turned her around. He hadn’t seen her cry since that night on the cliff. In fact, she hadn’t shown any emotions since they’d returned to the castle. His heart dropped as he cupped her face while she sniffled, trying not to look at him.

“I’m sorry,” she uttered painfully.

“Why?”

“I’m c-crying...”

Harry pulled her to his chest, putting his arms tightly around her. “Why are you sorry for crying?”

“Because,” she sobbed, “because...I don’t think I’m supposed to…”

Those words were like knives going through Harry’s heart. He held her closer and whispered into her hair, “You don’t have to be strong when you’re with me.”

She said nothing, wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed him in a tight hug. They hadn’t been intimate since they’d left the woods, and for a while, Harry had feared that the girl he loved had never made it out of that place. Now, seeing her break down right in his arms, Harry didn’t know if he should feel relieved or concerned.

“When I told you you were free to leave as soon as we made it back,” she said, her voice brittle, “I meant it...you can still leave this place.”

“Don’t you want me around anymore?”

Y/N pulled back, her contorted face made his heart ache. “I do. I’ll always need you. But...you didn’t sign up for this. You can still be happy. You told me you wanted to see the world. You can still have that life, find yourself a normal wife to love and cherish and spend the rest of your life with. This isn’t normal. I wish we could talk about the future and kids and a family and not death and war and uncertain fates.”

“Peach, stop–”

She shook her head fast and cradled his face in her hands. “It’s killing me, Harry. I don’t want to see you miserable, but I...I c-can’t make you happy anymore.”

“Hey, enough.” He grasped her wrists and gave her a shake just so she’d snap out of it.

Startled, she gawked at him with glassy round eyes. His fingers drifted to her face. Her breath caught at his tenderness.

“I want you,” he said. “All of you. It means I want this. I want your darkness. I want your pain. I don’t want you to ever feel like you’re suffering alone. You don’t have to even love me back for me to love you, Peach. I’m not going to leave you just because you’re carrying more baggage than you could bear.”

A tear rolled down her cheek and he wiped it away. She shut her eyes, taking a shaky breath. “I don’t want you to get hurt again,” she said.

He smiled sadly. “Hey. You got stabbed. I didn’t. Lance didn’t either, and he was the one without a sword. So you don’t have to worry about either of us. Just yourself.”

Y/N snorted as she rubbed her nose onto her sleeve. “You just had to bring that up, didn’t you?”

“I enjoy making you smile while you’re crying,” he said, lifting her chin. “That’s why you need me in your life. I don’t care what people expect from you, love. I just want to be there for you.”

Y/N’s lip quivered. She took his hands in both of hers and pressed them to her chest. He could feel her heart racing. “I’m sorry for pushing you away…”

He chuckled. “And I’m sorry for disobeying that order. I know you love me, Peach. You’re the only girl who would jump off a cliff for me.”

“You mean I’m the only crazy one?” she said, giggling through the tears.

He rolled his eyes. “I’ve known from the start. I told you you were crazy when I saved you from the river.”

She nodded, her lips curled gently.

“That’s how it works,” he added and brushed their noses together. “I save you. You save me back. Life could be easier without you, but I love myself a little challenge.”

Y/N pursed her lips, her brows drawn together, and Harry was afraid he’d said something wrong. “What is it?”

She squeezed his fingers before bringing them to her lips. “Marry me.”

Harry’s mind went numb for a second. He blinked at her, astonished. “Are you insane? We can’t just–”

“No one has to know.”

At this point, he was convinced she was unwell. “Peach, that’s wrong. You’re betrothed to Lance.”

Y/N shook her head fast. “A marriage based on an alliance will never be true. Lance and I both know that.”

As hard as it was for Harry, he had to say it. “I don’t think it’s untrue for him, Peach. The way he looks at you.”

Y/N’s eyebrows sloped. She sucked in a breath and averted her thoughtful eyes.

“I will always care for Lance,” she admitted, “and I want him to be happy and safe. So in a way, you can say that...that I do love him. However, the love I have for him is based on the purpose of survival. I can count on him, and he can count on me. We protect each other and the people around us. That is all.” She turned back to Harry, her eyes glimmering in the candle glow. “What you and I have is so different. I’ve loved you since the day at the river. When there was no danger or enemy. Just us being kids. And I know a lot has changed since, and things can’t go back to the way it was, but I’ll always love you the same and always want to be with you.” She slid her hands down to lace her fingers with his. “So...will you marry me?”

Harry could not stop the beam from spreading across his face. He knew this was wrong, but it was all he wanted and more.

“We don’t have any witness,” he blurted, making her giggle.

“We do. Us.” She looked heavenward. “And my parents.” Harry supposed he must seem so silly because she broke into a laugh when she saw the look on his face. “Just say yes, please? I’m a very proud person. You won’t like it when my pride gets hurt.”

“Are you proposing or threatening me?”

Without breaking eye contact, she took his left hand, slid her gold ring off his finger and kissed it. “Depends on your answer,” she replied with a smirk.

He snorted. “You know I’d just say yes to anything you ask.”

“Good.” Her lips curled as she put the ring back on his finger. “It’s official. We’re husband and wife.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.”

“I’m the Queen. It works when I say it does.”

Y/N didn’t wait for Harry to come up with a remark. She grabbed him by the collar and tugged him in, locking his mouth with her own. She kissed him wildly. It had been a long time since they’d kissed like this. Harry never wanted this to end. Every touch of her fingertips increased the hunger in him. But he wasn’t going to let passion cloud his judgements. He would not pressure her into doing something she wasn’t comfortable with.

“Are you sure?” he asked breathlessly when they broke apart. “We don’t have to.”

“I want to,” she breathed, drawing him back into her. “Do you?”

He nodded, kissing her slowly. “I always want you. I missed you.”

“Show me.”

She slipped both arms around his neck and held him tightly, returning his kisses with equal desire. He knew they were spiralling down the pit of disaster, yet he didn’t want to stop.

The next thing they knew, his shirt had come off and her dress was on the floor. He lay her down on the bed. His hands cupped her breasts as his thumbs played over her nipples. She trembled and moaned into his mouth as she ran her hands up his broad back.

Pausing, she gazed up at him. “You’re so handsome. I love you.”

“You love me for my looks?” He laughed lowly into her neck. “Ouch.”

“That’s just a bonus. I love you for you.”

Harry smiled into her skin. “I’m flattered.” His voice a husky whisper. “And you’re so beautiful, love.”

Drawing in a quick, hard breath, her body tightened instantly in response to the wetness of his tongue over her nipple. She arched up into his mouth as a way of begging him not to stop. Knowing she’d only let herself be so vulnerable and helpless when she was with him, Harry’s heart doubled its side. He lifted his head to kiss her mouth again. He wanted to take it slow, but he knew this was torture for both of them, and he was dying to feel her again.

She pressed tight against the whole long length of him. It was evident how wet and ready she was. He slipped his fingers down between them and felt her there. His jaw dropped, mouth hanging open. She snuggled closer, her skin damp and hot and smooth. As he began to move his finger inside her, he could feel her heart pounding and her breath caught. He suckled her breast, giving it his full attention. She cried and tightened her fingers in the curls behind his head. She squeezed her thighs around his hand as he slipped in two fingers. Then she started rocking her hips.

“Easy,” he chuckled as she aggressively tugged his trousers down. His breath caught when she wrapped her fingers around his hot and hard length. She gave it a few strokes while kissing his mouth.

“Want you now,” she begged.

He couldn’t manage a single word, only nodding like a fool as he wrapped his hand around hers then rubbed himself against her soft, wet folds. Slowly, he worked his way inside. “Gods,” he gasped. “You’re so tight, love. Is it painful?”

“No,” she replied, swallowing hard. “It feels good.”

Harry was spending every ounce of control he had going slow to not hurt her. “Just tell me,” he said through clenched teeth. “If it hurts too much, we’ll stop.”

Y/N’s hands tightened on his shoulders as she arched her back and pushed back at him. To his surprise, she laughed. “Why are you acting like it’s my first time?”

“I’m sorry for caring about you?” he said between harsh breaths, smiling and kissing her cheek. Then, he thrust back inside her, seating himself fully where he most wanted to be.

She cried out, from pleasure, not pain, cupped his face and pulled him down to kiss him again. Her legs locked around his waist, refusing to let him leave her body. The fire spread up his legs and so he moved his trembling hand between them and rubbed her hard and fast. She tightened on him until it hurt, but it was the kind of pain he wanted to feel every day. She cried again with raw pleasure wrenched from her chest as he wrapped her in his arms and pumped into her.

“I love you,” he gasped, squeezing her thighs and going faster. “I love you so much.”

She arched into him, crashed by the second wave of pleasure. He caught her screams with his lips. Stars exploded behind his eyelids, and he could hear her whimpering his name again and again.

They lay still, legs tangled in between the sheets until the sweat on their skin was cooled by the wind through the opened window. Harry groaned as he propped himself up on his elbows.

Y/N caught his wrist before he could get up. “Where are you going?”

“To close the window.”

“No. Stay. I’m not cold.”

“I am,” he chuckled but lay down anyway and snuggled up against her. She giggled and tugged the cover over them, pulling him close to her chest.

“You’re such a Southern boy.”

“Thank you, Ice Princess.”

“Hey, I’m a queen.”

Harry grinned up at her and lifted his head to kiss her on the lips. “Well, Your Majesty. I’m coming with you to the border.”

Y/N’s smile dimmed as soon as she heard. He assumed she was having flashbacks of the last time they’d travelled to the border. Only one of them had made it back.

“No, you’re not,” she said.

Harry shook his head. “Dead or alive, we stay together. I can’t risk losing you again.”

Y/N groaned as she rolled her eyes. Harry braced himself for another argument, hating that he’d ruined the moment in which they both pretended to be two lovers without titles and responsibilities.

Surprisingly, she combed her fingers through his hair and said,  “All right. We’ll go together.”

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“How are you feeling?”

“Much better. Thank you, Your Majesty,” Mary told Lance, yet she was looking right at Jo. Jo hadn’t said a single word to her since last night. In fact, she had been expecting Jo to visit her after the attack. She’d heard that the Queen had been hurt, so Jo must have been by Her Majesty’s side this whole time. Mary knew it was Jo’s duty, yet she could not help but envy the Queen. Y/N had everyone caring about her.

“I know this is a tough time for all of us,” Lance said, standing with his hands behind his back. He looked relaxed at all times, which made Mary wonder how bad a situation must be for him to lose his composure. She wouldn’t want to find out, though. “My Queen received a letter from Calanthe today,” Lance went on. A line appeared between his dark brows. “She demands you to be returned to Theros.”

The news stopped Mary’s heart for a second. She couldn’t breathe. She clutched Lance’s wrist, causing him to flinch. “Please, don’t! Let me talk to the Queen!”

Lance regarded her with a sympathetic look as he gently pried her fingers off him. “Y/N will go alone,” he said. “That’s the difference between her and Calanthe. She’s not sacrificing innocent people for her own good.”

A sense of relief washed over Mary only to drown her in guilt. She was the way she was now because she’d blamed Y/N for all of her misery. Meanwhile, Y/N was protecting her. If she survived this somehow, she’d have to spend a lifetime regretting all her selfish mistakes.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Lance said, eyeing Jo before he spun on his heels and marched straight to the door.

The door was shut behind the King, and Mary turned to Jo, hoping she’d start the conversation. Jo idled for a long moment, just staring at her feet, probably trying to decide whether she should follow Lance or stay. Mary half wanted Jo to stay and talk to her, half wanted Jo to leave so she could pretend she and Jo were still on good terms.

Jo finally made up her mind. She padded across the room and sat down on the edge of Mary’s bed. Mary’s muscles were still sore from the chase last night, so she sat still with her back against the pillow when all she wanted to do was get closer to Jo.

“I know,” Jo broke the silence.

Mary’s stomach dropped. “What?”

“I know the truth. About why you came here.”

With Jo looking at her with that much disappointment, Mary wished she ceased to exist. She reached for Jo’s hand only to be pushed away.

“I can explain–”

“Please do,” Jo said, her face twisted in anger. “I’m so tired of seeing the people I care about get hurt because of you. Have you ever done anything right since you got here? You’ve been ruining lives. Y/N almost died last night, and she’s going to put herself in danger again to protect you.”

Mary swallowed hard as she dropped her head. “I-I’m sorry.”

Jo let go of a harsh breath. “If something bad happens to her, I will never forgive you. Because when I have to choose between Y/N and someone else, it’s always going to be her.”

Even though Mary knew it already, hearing it from Jo still hurt. “I understand,” Mary mumbled. Her hands started shaking, so she clutched the sheets. “I’m sorry for lying. I can tell you everything right now if it means I can gain back a bit of your trust.”

Jo frowned as she looked away. “Go on.”

Mary nodded, taking a deep breath. “At the beginning of time,” she began, “the four high courts didn’t exist. One hundred kingdoms were independent of one another. When Lokesh became King of Isolde, the Monks convinced him that he was the chosen one and it was his destiny to rule over one hundred kingdoms. And so Lokesh and his three brothers started invading the other kingdoms, until the rulers of what we called the low courts today had to give up their reigns to Isolde.

“However, with greed running in their blood, Lokesh’s brother did not want to hand full power to their brother. It was the beginning of the civil war that lasted over a year. Lokesh wanted to win so badly he sought consults from The Monks, and they helped him make a deal with the Gods to trade his firstborn for victory.

“He didn’t have a queen yet, but he was madly in love with a witch, who was a member of the society. The witch was with child and unaware of her lover’s cruel intentions. Lokesh’s army was winning when the Monk came to the witch’s house to collect the baby. Scared and heartbroken, she set her house on fire and ran away with her child. They both fell through the ice and died in the lake.”

“She was the witch in folklore,” Jo said when Mary paused.

Mary nodded. “Yes. And without the child, Lokesh couldn’t win. None of the brothers did. The one hundred kingdoms were then divided into four high courts. The Gods were angry at the brothers’ selfishness and cruelty, so they stopped the seasons from changing and let Isolde suffer from the cold all year round.

“Every day, Lokesh would come to the lake to mourn his lover and child. Then one day he never returned, and the crown was passed onto his cousin. Y/N was the only one who could find the lake because she shares the late king’s blood. But also because it was believed that the witch and the king had unfinished business and so they would keep meeting in different lifetimes as different people until they set things right.”

“So Harry and Y/N…”

“I thought it was Harry, too,” Mary said. “But then Lance showed up. And now I’m sure it’s Lance.”

Mary expected Jo to call her crazy or a liar, but what Jo said to her was, “Are they going to end up together?”

“Lance and Y/N?”

“Yes.”

Mary lifted her shoulders in a half-shrug. “I don’t know. Every lifetime is different. But as far as I’m concerned, soulmates don’t have to be lovers. And not every kind of love is the same.”

Jo pondered over the given fact, her brows furrowed as she pinched her bottom lip between two fingers. “What does this mean for them?” she asked after a moment. “Will they have to sacrifice themselves?”

“Not...necessarily,” Mary said. “I know Y/N is the saviour in my sister’s prophecy. Lokesh started this mess, and she’s going to end it. We just don’t know how.”

“So why didn’t the Monks choose her instead of Calanthe?” Jo asked.

Mary laughed dryly. “My theory is that they know they cannot control Y/N. She’s a wild horse. Calanthe is a house cat. If Calanthe wins, and Y/N is dead. The Monks can take over one hundred kingdoms. But if Y/N wins, chances are nothing will change, or she’ll give independence back to the low courts, and the world will be as it was at the beginning.”

Jo raised both eyebrows, looking intrigued yet worried at the same time. “So Calanthe’s a puppet?” Mary nodded. “Does Y/N know about this?”

“Not yet. Do you think I should tell her?”

“Yes, before she’s going to meet Calanthe,” Jo said, rising from the bed and smoothing the wrinkles on her skirt. “Well, I must go now. Rest well.”

The words piled up on Mary’s tongue as she watched Jo make her way to the door.

She had to say it.

“Just so you know.” Jo stopped and slowly turned around. Mary took a steady breath. “I may not be strong like Y/N, but I care about you, and I’m not going to let anything or anyone hurt you.”

Jo tilted her head, her expression so unreadable that Mary didn’t know what she was expecting. Jo said nothing at all. She just left, shutting the door without making a sound.

[cry-stars]

for the angsty ask meme:

3. What is your OC’s worst memory? 9. What is the greatest sacrifice your OC could ever make? Under what circumstance would they make it? 22. What is your OC the most guilty about?

for Onyx?? Give me old man angst, any universe is fine

Thank you for asking about my old man!!!! This is so long I'm sorry fdhjkfdhjkfd I talked about Lumiverse mostly, but mentioned how things would be different in other universes.

3. What is Onyx’s worst memory?

I think that, in Lumiverse, Onyx has had three worst memories, and just as he’s starting to “get over” the past one, a new one opens up the wound again :’)

The first one would be the death of his parents; this happens in every universe, and happens when he’s around 16-18. They die very suddenly and traumatically, and Onyx irrationally blames himself for it, despite having nothing to do with their deaths, somehow believing that some bad thought he had toward them, like maybe being angry at them for some reason, was what led to them dying.

The second one would be the moment that his ex-wife left him for good. At the time, he didn’t know that it was the last time that she would drive off into the distance, but looking back, he can remember every detail of that moment. And just like the memory of his parents’ deaths, he keeps wondering what he did to cause it.

(The details are a bit different in WFKF, but there’s a similar last time he sees her which really messes him up. And since she was just Onyx's Club Penguin girlfriend in the high school AU and they were never actually a couple, he doesn’t have this same level of Traumatic Memory here fdhfkdhjkfjd he still misses her though and wonders why she ghosted him; it’s part of why he’s a lot calmer and more well-balanced in the high school AU though I think)

And the last worst memory would be when he thought Shirley was dying. That was the worst of them all for him. He truly thought that he was going to lose the man he loves most in this world, the person who changed his life and taught him so many things, his best friend and true love. He still remembers every moment, the feeling of Shirley’s lifeless body in his arms, and the way his voice sounded over the phone. He can’t go back into Shirley’s old house without panicking because it reminds him of that time. He tries not to bother Shirley about it though, since Shirley’s the one who actually went through the heart attack and he doesn’t want to burden him, but he’s very clingy and overprotective ever since that moment. He’s never going to let something like that happen again.

9. What is the greatest sacrifice Onyx could ever make? Under what circumstance would he make it?

It’s cheesy, but I think that the biggest sacrifice Onyx could make would be to let Shirley go if that’s what he wanted. I kind of imagine that there was a time about halfway through their business partnership where Shirley considered working for a different company, or starting his own business. Onyx would’ve been devastated if this happened, of course, and I think he was really tempted to buy Shirley’s loyalty and friendship, thinking of all sorts of things he could offer him to make him stay. But he couldn’t do that in the end. He only wants what Shirley wants, and if Shirley wants to leave, Onyx would let him. But it would break his heart to do it. I don’t think the business would last much longer after Shirley left; Onyx would shut things down and hide away from the world.

22. What is Onyx the most guilty about?

It’s definitely the way that he treated CJ growing up. It’s even worse in WFKF, where Onyx was so depressed after his wife left him that he literally locked himself away in his bedroom for months, and CJ had to take care of herself, until she couldn’t take it anymore and ran away to the circus. In Lumiverse, it was slightly better, where he still took care of her needs, but pretended that money and presents would solve everything, and gave her a ton of things while almost never spending time with her.

There’s not really any coming back from what he did in WFKF, although the two of them awkwardly meet up a few times a year to watch a movie or have tea, and Onyx watches her circus shows pretty often without telling her he’s there. He never reaches out to her though, knowing that she really is better off without him. In Lumiverse, Onyx still believes that she’s happier without him, but does make an effort to spend time with her after his depression gets better (and spoils her rotten… she doesn’t need a car to match each of her outfits but he gives them to her anyway fdjkhffd). But he still has massive amounts of regret over how he acted when he was younger, and refuses to repeat the same mistakes with his granddaughter Lumi or with any future grandkids he might have.

[zarathelonewolf]

A post about BNHA CHAPTER 327 will be coming soon, plz stay tuned... I need to read the translations first.

It seems to be a chapter about the class taking care of Midoriya, and spending some time with him while he recovers from his days as a semi-vigilante.

I don't think I'll say much about it, even when I write the post, because it honestly looks like more of a filler chapter... It certainly doesn't seem to me that it will be fundamental to the plot.

It makes me happy, however, to see Midoriya and the rest of the class truly reuniting... while All Might spies from the windows (All Might, you're so funny sometimes!). I liked seeing the students together once again, after the hardships they've endured.

Also, to those that don't like the arc because the trauma that the kids have gained through the war wasn't shown... I respect your opinion, because at face value it may seem so, but I honestly think that the kids did have (and still have) psychological consequences, maybe some are still dealing with them... They are a key part of their characters now.

However, this isn't shown. It isn't outright told, and this seems to be a problem for many.

I understand, but I like the arc regardless. We haven't been shown how the kids faired with their trauma, so I'm imagining it instead. I'm trying to think about how they may have felt while they dealt with their insecurities as I read the Manga. It can be done: in my opinion (which you can absolutely disagree with) if the author doesn't outright show something, sometimes it would be proper for the reader to imagine how things went and the outcome by themselves, without necessarily condemning an entire arc for it.

We were, after all, shown how the crowd (which simbolizes the population) was so tremendously scared of the danger Midoriya could bring that they didn't even consider how Midoriya himself may have been in a similar situation: full of fear, sometimes paranoia, bordering on the obsession, to find All For One... All while feeling the weight of his multiple quirks on his shoulders.

There are also other citizens, like the lady in chapter 326, that still believe in the heroes and they still hope that they will be able, someday, to stop AFO once and for all. So they clean after the other's vandalization, and look up to their protectors still.

Some may argue that it doesn't explain the entire situation, and that it doesn't really show the real devastation brought by the new circumstances, but it could be a starting point for the mind of the reader, that can start thinking about these things by themselves as they read the author's work and get their own ideas out of it in the process.

So we aren't really shown how the kids dealt with the war's events in the aftermath, but honestly...

From their eyes full of tears as they looked at Midnight's corpse, the devastated glance Ochako gave to the desolate battlefield, and their matured faces as they decided to trick Endeavor into going to UA and their resolve to find Midoriya, I have deduced this: the trauma didn't go away suddenly after the battle. It is a thing they are still carrying with them: they have gotten stronger and more mature, even though they didn't do so in the best way, and they are looking at things with new eyes. It isn't a good situation, they certainly don't like it, and the loss of their teacher could be something thay still have on their minds., but they have managed to hold on, and by doing so they are showing to their traumatized selves and to the reader that they want their resolve to fix things to be stronger than what's dragging them down, since the people they love and the civilians are hoping for a better future.

But, then again, this is how I see it. You are perfectly free to disagree.

I really think this was a much deserved chapter for the class: they are smiling together, and talking with Midoriya.

I can only hope that, once it is all over, they will get to have moments like this again, and that even when they become heroes they won't lose sight of each other, and keep being a team.

The team that rises, bringing forth a new generation of Heroes.

[vex-bittys]

I suppose this is taboo, but oh well. What would the surviving lamias' responses to their owner being murdered be? (Both in front of then and not.) (Just thinking about this made me feel bad for them. ;-;)

Warning: death mention, angst

*The first thing to worry about if someone they cared about was murdered in front of them is shock. All bitties share a bond with their owners and usually love them very deeply. Losing an owner in any way could be very traumatic, especially if they see it happen.

Papython (UT!Papyrus): devastated either way, truly believed that anyone could be good, so it’s very hard for him to accept that one person would do this to another

Corny (UT!Sans): becomes very lethargic and depressed at the loss of the owner, will 100% use Karmic Retribution if he sees the person who did it

Krait (Gaster): shocked and saddened, if he sees it happening, though he is a pacifist, he may actually bite to prevent the murder, killing the murderer would weigh very heavily on his conscience though

FireRing (Grillby): may become very withdrawn if he loses his owner suddenly, if the owner is killed in front of him, he would fight to try to save them by using his flames

Honey Bo (US!Papyrus): really struggles with the sudden death of someone he trusts and cares about, seeing it in front of him only confirms that he should trust no-one, will become bitter and unlikely to seek out another owner

Pygmy (US!Sans): the news hits a Pygmy hard because he tends to be so cheerful and carefree, he’s not even sure how to react, a Pygmy would be extremely shocked to witness a murder and may become withdrawn as his perception of the world changes

King (UF!Papyrus): blames himself for not being their to protect his owner, if he sees it happen the shock may damage his SOUL because he prides himself on keeping his owner safe, would definitely attack the murderer during the act, but would likelt succumb to grief afterwards

Coral (UF!Sans): losing his owner so suddenly and in such a violent way creates a Cherry Coral, he doesn’t know how to process these emotions, he doesn’t know how to feel knowing he can lose everything in a moment, if he witnessed it, he will shriek and attack immediately

Chain (SF!Papyrus): the sudden loss and the breaking of the SOUL bond would dust him, but if he saw it, he might have time to use KR or a blaster to punish the person

Mamba (SF!Sans): how could this happen to his human? the Mamba becomes obsessed with vengeance because he doesn’t know how else to channel his sorrow, if someone took his owner from him, he wants that person to suffer like he is suffering

[ladykailolu]

I've been watching Blameitonjorge video,

Blameitonjorge is a YouTuber who makes spooky-themed documentaries,

with a fascination for things that go missing, such as lost media or missing person's cases.

I can't help but imagine what goes through Gyro and Johnny's heads as years go by and their three daughters are missing.

Like, Gyro was quite apathetic towards them and is/was a bit of a butt face to everyone but Johnny.

So would he care that much or what? I know he'd probably be somewhat upset, but how much?

I just love some angsty shit.

And for bonus angst (based on certain spooky videos)

Imagine Gyro and Johnny get called about Paxe, Maggie, and Sadie,

Only to learn that the three of them were found dead.

I meant what's worse, never knowing what happened to your missing children, or learning that they died.

Ok so that led me down a little rabbit hole in watching videos detailing people's sudden disappearances and murders lol

Anyway, I believe for Gyro that it would be a case of suddenly realizing what he had lost. Sure, he wasn't very attentive to those three girls when they lived with him--Johnny mainly looked after them, Sadie-Mae would frequently try to run away (and he believes that it was just to annoy him), and Paxe would fruitfully compete for his attention. Even Rina proved to be a more attentive and better parent when she cared for Marco and Julia when they were young! And perhaps Gyro didn't realize that when he muttered "I should've pulled out," thinking that the girls couldn't hear him, it was in fact the last straw that caused them to leave.

I think for the first few days or weeks, Gyro would be hella annoyed with the girls because he assumed that they were just hiding out somewhere for a few days to ultimately force him to chase after them. But then weeks turn into months and months into years, and he realizes that something quite different was happening. And that's when the severity of the situation would hit him. That's when he would realize that he lost something pretty frickin' important. The paternal instincts kick in, so to speak, and he rides around, combing every bit of land he could to find them, but it was useless. Each passing day made him felt like they weren't ever coming back and possibly died. He would feel agitated and frustrated all day, lashing out at anyone for the smallest reason, including Johnny.

At some point, he would accept the situation (maybe nearly a decade into their disappearance) and try to forgive himself, even though he knows damn well that he can't. So, he turns towards Marco and Julia--the two children whom he fathers and are still here--and resolves to be a better dad by attending to them. He still couldn't just give up though, so it's like he lived with one hand on the door handle and one hand off of it.

As for Johnny, he surely grieves with Gyro over the loss of those girls. He too looks for them in high and low places for the first few years, but nothing comes from it. He also keeps friends in the loop, like HP and M&M, in the hopes that somebody sees them, but that has been fruitless too. I guess he heals from it a little faster than Gyro, because after 13 years into their disappearance, he lives carefully and avoids mentioning the disappearance openly. He's still traumatized from it and assumes that they would be dead by now, and so avoids entertaining the thought that they could still be out there. He still cares for them, but he's afraid of going through that pain again and bringing Gyro along with it.

And oh my god, how DEVASTATED they would be if they heard that those girls died! You know that Johnny would cry about it to grieve, and Gyro would come close to it. Instead of crying, he would lose a lot of the energy he once had, and any remaining energy would come out as angry outbursts. Johnny would see him mope about in the house, or stand in the doorway of the childrens' room (all five kids slept in the same room) and stare at the empty beds in turn. They try not to show this pain in front of Marco and Julia, who were young when the disappearances happened, and they also are stricter with their surviving children.

Broski, just imagine the guilt that Gyro would feel because he's been struggling to accept fatherhood for a while. He admitted to himself that he never wanted children in the first place, and I guess now he's reckoning with his wish. His children were gone.

Tbh I think that it's worse to have a child remain missing and never knowing what happened to them because you don't receive closure. If you know that your child's dead, at least you have closure and can prepare funeral arrangements and begin to heal. Neither is pleasant and both still hurt like a bitch.

ALSO!!! Imagine Gyro's sudden bout of guilt when he DOES see these girls again! Like, M&M writes to Johnny and Gyro, asking them to come visit her because she needs help taking care of her shop or something or other. Basically, she asks her old friends to visit, and they agree. This is when M&M takes on the girls as apprentices in her shop, so I'm imagining Gyro walking past the front windows of the shop and suddenly stopping when he hears Sadie-Mae's laugh when he recognizes it. He KNOWS it's her laugh! Therefore, it MUST be her! I was also thinking that maybe Gyro also overheard her laugh in a general store in the same town and looked around for the source but he couldn't find it. Maybe the girls visited the same store to pick up supplies at that time. Anyway, it's been driving Gyro mad so he told Johnny all about it. He just knows instinctually that it must have been his daughter (as that is a phenomenon that happens with parents recognizing quirks in their children even after years of being apart). Johnny is hesitant to reopen the case and relive the trauma, but Gyro recognizes this as a potential second chance. He barges into M&M's store and carefully looks over the girls he finds there--M&M is nowhere to be found, but his three daughters, all grown up now, certainly are. They tend to sewing/knitting tasks and general straightening up around the shop. They're a little surprised to see a man barge into the store. It's a little awkward and silent because they're studying each other, but then M&M returns to the front counter and happily greets Gyro, her old friend. She introduces her new apprentices in person (and by name), and that's when Gyro finally knew. His girls were alive and in front of him. Shockingly, they looked so much older and more mature than the little kids he remembered seeing on that horrible day 13 years ago.

[ms-interpretation]

Going through the screenshots I’ve taken I realized that Lee Gon literally meets a different version of each of his parents in episode 14 & 15. When he travels back to the Night of Treason there’s this moment of him kneeling down taking in the sight of his dead father, even closing the former King’s eyes. This takes place right after he has saved his younger self and ambushed Lee Lim and the other traitors (which ensured that they didn’t get hold of the piece of the Manpasikjeok his young self was hiding). The ensuing emotional beat of Lee Gon’s grief is something the drama quietly let’s play out. There’s no big dramatic scene of the dying King talking to him while dying in his arms or a meaningful inner monologue of Lee Gon reflecting on this moment (while spelling out what he feels). No, there’s only the still emptiness of loss as the snow keeps falling over them. Not to be all poetic about it but that calm emptiness is fitting, since Lee Gon was left an orphan by this event and his life has therefore been marred by absence. It becomes more and more clear to me the more I think about it why young Lee Gon would naturally start to obsess about the ID-card left by his mysterious savior. He has since grown up as an orphan and thus seeing his father like this now must be akin to seeing a ghost (insert Hamlet reference here). We already know from the flashback in episode four that his father’s death left an emotional scar, as the room had been left empty and untouched until that moment when Lee Gon decided to return to retrieve the Four Tiger Sword to embrace his destiny (while clearly still grieving, remembering his father, as he did so). After traveling through time and managing to return to the present and being reunited with Jeong Tae-eul he then meets his doppelganger’s (Lee Ji-hun’s) mother. 

Their encounter is strangely moving. They are both incredibly affected by simply only seeing each other, which is not that strange given that they are each in essence looking at the ghost of a loved one. Lee Gon is seeing whom his mother could have been had she not passed away due to illness and Song Jeong-hye is seeing what her son would have looked like had he been allowed to grow up. Ghosts in literature have been metaphors and/or symbols for different things throughout the years. Sometimes they are regrets, at other times memories, or they might even be the physical manifestation of trauma (this occurs in ‘The Haunting of Bly Manor’, the ghost of the protagonist’s ex-boyfriend who died in such a way to traumatize her literally ‘haunts’ her for the first few episodes). In this scene and in TKEM the doppelgangers are essentially and paradoxically living ‘ghosts’. Jeong Tae-eul even went looking for her mother’s counterpart in episode six, hoping that things were different enough in the Kingdom so as to mean that she was alive and well. Doppelgangers become ghosts for the ‘world-crossers’ since they are nearly quite literally the physical manifestation of ‘what could have been’ if the world-crosser’s loved one was still there. 

I’m no expert on grief nor loss but I know that a defining aspect of losing someone is of course the experience of the fact that they - to be literal - are not there anymore. The living are left with only the memories and this horrible heartbreaking emptiness i.e. the experience of the lack of that person. I would actually also argue (and contradict myself) and say that the living may also be left with the love of that person. We see this in how Lee Gon remembers and embraces his destiny by remembering his father in episode four. There is of course still that emptiness of loss left behind. Lee Gon and Song Jeong-hye are however suddenly each in turn confronted by a ‘living ghost’, by the living doppelganger of whom they’ve lost. It is regret and the horrible sight of what could have been, what should have been, for Jeong-hye and a physical reminder for Lee Gon of the absence he has grown up with (as he is confronted with the parental grief of someone who deeply loves their child, who is a different version of him). At this point Lee Gon has not only lost his parents but also his uncle Prince Buyeong, whom Lee Lim killed precisely because he wanted to break his orphaned nephew’s spirit. Both these characters, Lee Gon and Song Jeong-hye, have in common how Lee Lim almost completely wrecked their lives one fateful night. They have both suffered terribly due to his greed and have both had to live with that trauma for the last 25 years. Lee Gon, being the hero of this narrative, being currently in the process of confronting and stopping him, once and for all. They also have in common how they are haunted by the fact that there was that one person they couldn’t save. For Lee Gon it is his parent(s) and for Song Jeong-hye it is her son. And it is strange that in a way, the people they’ve lost is suddenly right there, in front of them. They are confronted with a living, breathing, thinking person who in some ways actually is the person they have lost. We don’t know much about Lee Gon’s mother, but we do know that he takes after her by being scientifically inclined and being someone with faith (episode 12). We do know from seeing Song Jeong-hye that she is also someone with faith (being Catholic) and we can determine from watching her that she is open-minded and curious as she takes the time to listen to FateKid, exhibiting the traits which probably made her counterpart become a scientist. Lee Gon thus have in common with Song Jeong-hye the traits he inherited from his mother, which are his only remaining link to her.

The doppelgangers of the TKEM universe are intimately connected, they are not simply random people with the same faces. We see this (as previously stated) in how Song Jeong-hye is, as Lee Gon’s mother was, a Catholic and in how several of Jeong Tae-eul’s work colleagues are police officers in both universes (beliefs, values and certain choices remaining the same between the two worlds). After Lee Gon resets the universes we meet a grown-up Lee Ji-hun who is in the military. Like Lee Gon he chooses to be someone who puts himself forward to protect people/the nation and very likely certain ideals. We see this brave impulse in them both early on when they are each in turn confronted by Lee Lim. Perhaps in the case of Lee Ji-hun it is also a consequence of growing up in an abusive household. Of course there’s Luna who is seemingly very different from Jeong Tae-eul, but similarly to our heroine she does actually have a good grasp on right and wrong. She is shown believing in the concept, not being amoral and she keeps herself to a sort of moral code. She knows that what’s she’s doing is wrong. Talking to Fate/FluteKid she expects to be punished for what she’s about to do (infiltrating Tae-eul’s life and possibly killing Lee Gon) and while she feels like she has been dealt an unfair hand she doesn’t (I think) ever claim that what’s she’s doing is right. Does that make her a good person? No, no it doesn’t, since she still chooses to do horrific things to innocent people. But it reveals that she is more similar to Tae-eul then what the hardened criminal/righteous police detective contrast might at first suggest. This makes the meeting of Lee Gon and Song Jeong-hye more tragic in a way, because they are almost family. The “details” of life however do, in the end, make all the difference. Our circumstances, choices and relationships play a huge part in who we become. Neither Lee Gon nor Song Jeong-hye however did tragically get to spend much time with their loved one, and therefore the people they miss do actually come closer to being each other than what one might at first think. They both miss a person, who in a sense, never existed (a Lee Ji-hun and doppelganger of Song Jeong-hye who survived). Not to become too philosophical but an identity defining difference between Lee Gon and Lee Ji-hun is the fact that the latter didn’t grow up while the former did. Similarly a defining difference between Song Jeong-hye and Lee Gon’s mother is that the latter died due to illness. There are other incredibly important differences as well, they are importantly of course separate people with different relationships and histories, which is why Lee Gon and Jeong-hye end up being closer but not close enough to what the other person is missing. I do however believe that it is good to when confronted with characters and scenes like these to truly reflect and question what it is that makes us who we are - which is what the very concept of doppelgangers invites us to do. 

Song Jeong-hye’s grief is almost palpable in this scene and Lee Gon, the survivor confronted with his dead counterpart’s grieving mother, is also unsurprisingly deeply affected. He is clearly broken up about her fate, but is stopped when he tries to apologise. It is absolutely heartbreaking when Jeong-hye unfairly blames him for Ji-hun’s death. I do however believe that her parting words “I’m not your mother” and emphasis that he should not die for her reveals that parental love, as in the case of the romantic love between Lee Gon and Jeong Tae-eul, can also extend across universes. She could have been apathetic to his fate and she clearly isn’t. Lee Gon is later also quietly devastated by her death. This being a modern fairytale the story will end with Lee Gon doing what seems impossible, saving Lee Ji-hun and Song Jeong-hye. He rights the wrongs his uncle’s greed have caused and is partially able to do so thanks to Song Jeong-hye’s love for her son, which extends just enough as to move her to help Lee Gon. Love ends up conquering greed by extending beyond the latter’s reach through one mother who lost her son choosing to help a ‘stranger’. This after Lee Lim has been using doppelgangers’ love (or lack thereof in the case of Luna) for their families against them. 

The fact that this meeting takes place now, so soon after Lee Gon has re-lived his father’s murder is absolutely soul-crushing. It also creates a dark and tragic context for what comes next. Lee Gon comes to believe that the only way to end it all is to travel back in time, once again but this time risk his past self dying to make sure that Lee Lim is finally stopped. That is a very drastic and dark plan, but because we have these scenes of Lee Gon with Song Jeong-hye and him literally revisiting his trauma (taking in the sight of his dead father) we can easily believe why Lee Gon is so sure that this is how it has to play out. That and the fact that he has grown up as a King in a monarchy where the monarch’s chief responsibility is to ensure the safety of their people. We can tell that he suffers badly from survivor’s guilt as he sneaks away to travel back on his own, only bringing Jo Yeong when the latter intercepts him and insists, as Lee Gon hesitates, that he will accompany him. Then when they are back in time Lee Gon’s new plan consists of Yeong being back-up, making sure that Lee Lim is stopped if he himself would fail to do so. Even then, he chooses to rather risk himself than putting his friend in danger. Unsurprisingly however Jo Yeong pales when he understands Lee Gon’s plan and simply refuses to abide by his King’s request, choosing instead to prioritize saving the young Lee Gon. 

At some point I need to make a post about how all the protagonists’ heroism takes form in the choices they make and in how they are either/both saved and/or moved by the love of others’. I do hope people don’t mistake my emphasis on Lee Gon as an orphan as me invalidating his familial relationships with Prince Buyeong and Lady Noh. Lee Gon is an orphan in that he lost both of his loving parents who cared for him, not because he lost his parents-by-blood. There is also this guilt of Lee Gon’s towards Prince Buyeong because the latter had to choose between taking care of young Lee Gon or being with his immediate family. It doesn’t strain their relationship but it does in the case of Lee Gon make his remaining familial relationship heavier. In the case of Lady Noh he also feels indebted to her, as she is someone who remained in the Kingdom to look after him rather than trying to get back to her world (or simply choosing to leave the palace) after his father’s violent death. It is important to point out that of course these characters’ all freely choose to do what they do, it is part of what makes them feel truly human and heroic. Lee Gon is not to blame but of course he is still thankful and understandably, given his trauma, he still experiences some guilt. Love makes us do things for each other and as the fragile human beings that we are we might at times not feel deserving of it. Lee Gon, on his way to quite possibly sacrificing his life for everyone else, describes himself as selfish when taking leave of Lady Noh. This because he didn’t immediately return her to the Republic when he found out that that is where she’s from, being scared that she would leave. Lady Noh, unsurprisingly is not at all bothered by this revelation (and given that Lee Gon earlier asked her to ask him where he went definitely knows that he would eventually tell her) and is only concerned that he won’t be able to come back. The scene reminds me of when Lee Gon said that he won’t let Jeong Tae-eul leave, which they both knew he didn’t actually mean even for a moment. It was simply him admitting to and expressing his loneliness and fear. The consequences of Lee Gon’s trauma, being afraid to be abandoned and experiencing survivor’s guilt, is thus shown through these kinds of emotional beats and helps inform us of as to why he acts like he does. Thankfully Lee Gon is in the end able to save the two worlds, is saved himself and can even save young Lee Ji-hun and Song Jeong-hye. This due to the courage and love which moves him, Jeong Tae-eul, Jo Yeong, Kang Shin-jae and Song Jeong-hye, and which in the end causes them to prevail against the darkness Lee Lim unleashed in their worlds and in their lives. 

[halothenthehorns]

All in the Family

Chapter 144: Hermione's Helping Hand

The room was a very dangerous landing, each of them got a book to the head no matter where they landed. Frank was on a flaming red comforter on the bed with a dog eared copy, the title so faded he hadn't a hope of recognizing it until he flipped through a few pages, and even then did not follow the Muggle story.* Alice had a heavy tomb smash so hard against her forehead she saw stars, and it was over a copy of some muggle thing to do with the human anatomy a Healer would struggle to follow.

Lily groaned miserably as she removed a book on alchemy from her face, and Potter's glasses had broken where he'd faced planted a window with an interesting view of a Muggle neighborhood and still had a book on the windowsill crack a lens he couldn't even read the title of now.

Peter had to pull himself out from a whole pile of books, on top of which was Defensive Magical Theory, by Wilbert Slinkhard, and Regulus even found one on teeth he had to dislodge from his own.

Remus landed painfully on a desk, the book losing its place as the bookmark toppled out of sight he felt bad for, and Sirius even found a copy of Quidditch Through the Ages to his distaste for the first time in his life as he pulled it from where it had whacked his ear.

The silver book itself they were all supposed to be here for sat in the middle of the room with the air of innocence. For once.

"As if we haven't been traumatized by enough books already," James sighed as he tapped his glasses to fix them.

"If this room isn't Hermione's, then I'll kiss a centaur," Sirius happily informed the room at large.

"Brilliant deduction there," Lily rolled her eyes, but there was only amusement in her voice. "Did you figure that out before or after this?" She was holding a picture of Hermione in this very room, a still image of her sitting at this very desk with Crookshank's in her lap, the sun just visible on the horizon from the window.

The walls didn't house much decoration, it was simple yet charming to see so much of her personality packed into the comfortably sized room.

"The best part is, I bet this is only a quarter of the ones she owns," James grinned. "She takes most of them with her to school!"

Sirius laughed and Lily found herself smiling in agreement as Lupin tried the door, which mercifully opened. The others scattered about the house, some for the loo, some for the kitchen. Sirius made to do the latter, but lingered in the door jam to watch in fascination as Prongs hesitated, and then turned back to Evans.

There was a reluctance in him he'd seen a few times now, and he had a very good guess why James was suddenly so hesitant to engage with her. He'd been devastated by the news of Sirius' death, arguably more than him even, and it wasn't hard to follow his logic if he had to change something to keep it from happening it would be taking Harry out of the equation via her. He wished his brother wouldn't think like that, but he'd never liked Evans much himself to understand his fascination with her and so wasn't even sure how to urge him back.

When James turned back holding in whatever he'd been about to say though, Lily startled them both by asking, "so, do you know what a dentist is?" The tone was mild, maybe a little mocking, but she was now holding the book Regulus had spat out with a curious smile.

He would have expected James, as usual, to not actually know how to respond to her when she spoke like a normal human being. Instead he hesitated with an odd smile in place and said casually, "not really, but I got the idea. Teeth and such, Muggles need them cared for without a spell."

Prongs hesitated again, some torn expression lingering, before he softly asked as if speaking of her ill coming death, "how come you never took Care of Magical Creatures?"

Sirius snorted fantastically, earning a dirty look from both of them. He raised his hands in surrender and took a step back into the hall, where Remus came up and pulled on him out of sight. James turned back to watching her, still unsure if he should have asked. She'd gotten assurances on their first day from McGonagall, Flitwick, and Slughorn all the creatures came to no harm for their classes to commence. He'd watched her love of animals long after that, she'd taken to cuddling with every cat in the common room and watched the birds deliver post every morning despite receiving none of her own long after other Muggle-borns grew used to it, but that look of awe and longing lingered in her.

Just because he'd given up on the idea of her didn't mean he couldn't still learn more about her, right? It was something he'd wanted to know for years but obviously she'd never have answered before. Maybe if he tried without the flirting he'd get a better result.

And, it worked. She went a little red, but answered casually, "I was trying to prove something, to my parents, to Snape, myself. Taking Arithmancy and Runes, the harder and more difficult classes. I regret it a bit now."

Potter watched her, absolutely fascinated by her little speech it seemed. She kept waiting for that to wear off now that she was actually trying to talk to him on a regular basis, but it didn't seem to be happening.

"You can take it come NEWT year if you want," he told her, that damnable cheerful smile creeping back now as they managed the first casual conversation of their life. "Remus will lend you his notes for the OWL's next week if you want."

She laughed in surprise, then realized he wasn't joking. He really thought she was that smart she could take a class she hadn't been in for two years? "I'll, ah, take that into consideration," she tried to shrug.

He hesitated, seemed to decide he'd pushed her enough, and then finally left. He'd gotten her to laugh, that was more of an accomplishment he'd managed in his life already! He glanced the way two of his friends went, rolled his eyes, and called towards the kitchen, "hey Alice, want to show me how a muggle stove works!"

Lily blanched in fear of him burning the house down and snatched up the actual needed book, not bothering to pretend to herself she was smiling as she followed along and cracked it open, but paused to take in the rest.

The hallway was littered with cheerful hallmark signs such as 'Love, Life, Live,' and several more of Hermione through the years, but Lily kept watching the muggle photos despite the fact that they weren't moving in mild curiosity for several moments before it occurred to her why they seemed a little odd. Hermione was alone in each of them, smiling brightly, but the only one in focus. Not only no friends hanging off her arm in her primary years as she held up spelling awards and science fair projects, but her parents didn't seem in any of them either. One particularly telling one was a candid shot of a very young Hermione sitting in an empty waiting room, reading a book far too big for her lap. Only when she got to the very end of most recent photos hinted at who could have been there all these years, and it was an extremely elder lady, possibly her grandmother or even a nanny, the photo at such an angle it was clearly taken by her as well as she stood shoulder to shoulder with Hermione. The tender look of love in the older woman's eyes only leveled with the weary exhaustion in the folds of her skin. Beneath that was a hand drawn calligraphy plaque with the year and date, but no other sort of explanation except her socially awkward behavior from back at the first book.

The kitchen seemed to double as a study, there were heavy journals on multiple surfaces, Frank was flipping curiously through one that was ear marked with dates, names, and what the appointment was going to be for, another that Regulus was prodding his wand along curiously through every page seemed to house lots of studies and practices on how Hermione's parents could improve their work. She doubted he followed a word, even she probably couldn't.

The chapter title itself was unsurprising, and she went through it still laughing it was all about Harry's first act as Captain sorting out members of his team, indeed with Hermione's help. Wasn't this just a day of surprises.

Potter continued to rank highest of all in that regards. The look on his face when he found out what Hermione did was priceless.

The reason behind it she misunderstood.

"She cheated? On Quidditch! I'd expect this girl to snog Snape before I heard her do something like this!"

"She did set Snape on fire once during a game." Alice happily reminded as she swatted his hand away from the hot surface, again. He seemed to keep forgetting despite the red light and heat waves coming up from the innocent black circle. "Guess her bar goes out the window during sports," she finished with a giggle.

His flummoxed expression still seemed at war if he should be impressed or agitated at this, while Regulus was snickering relentlessly for the show as well as he said, "I thought it was brilliant, as if I want to sit around hearing about that McLaggen's temper for the games, he'll ruin what little fun we've been getting out of these."

His eyes tracked curiously as he seemed to realize his brother wasn't in here to give his opinion, but seemed distracted enough when Peter spoke, "think of it this way, you or Padfoot would have done it to some arse in the hallway if he was really saying half that shite. Does the location matter that much?"

"I mean, yes," he pouted, but if anything he looked more confused. "Quidditch shouldn't be trifled with," he finished with a hint of defiance, but eventually sighed and turned back to turning the stove on and off with the odd switch and all the numbers while she finished.

Remus let his fingers brush against Sirius' and subtly pulled his fingers before letting go. Sirius needed no further prompting before following him out of the room into what must be Hermione's parents room. Remus didn't care as he locked the door and then hugged Sirius.

He laughed in delight, immediately returning it as he said quietly into his neck, "I'm getting whiplash from you."

"I just wanted to make sure you know I'm grateful," Remus told him as he pulled back, having to remind himself not to let his hands linger. "For not beating Frank's face into a pulp, back in the apothecary," he elaborated.

The fact that Sirius never held his mood swings against him or even ever accused him of being moody because of the full moon made him wish he could snog his face off right about now. Merlin, James had barely been involved and he'd called him on being an emotional ass!

"Oh," Sirius' face did not settle into a promising expression, barely concealed anger still there, but he made such a valiant effort to push it back away Remus had to fight back the urge to kiss him again. "Right, you're welcome. If he had done it on purpose though, I can't say I'd have been able to stop myself." Moony and Prongs had made a valid point, better Longbottom occasionally forget the dangers than continue being a racist arse, but his point still stood there was a middle ground that wouldn't put Remus in pain! The Marauders all knew it, couldn't he?!

Remus really couldn't resist and let his hand brush along his cheek and settle down on his neck as he gazed into his eyes. Sirius hummed as always at the physical affection. Remus could have hugged him back in the apothecary and not been an arse about this too! This really would just have to be enough for him, he could never ask for better friends. He reluctantly let his hand drop back away with one more whispered thanks.

Sirius looked hurt though, to Remus' confusion. "Why do you keep doing that?"

"Doing what?" He denied, he really hadn't thought Sirius would realize he was starting to back off yet, as much else as he was dealing with.

"Remus, you've barely looked at me since the polyjuice prank," Sirius finally called his crap. "So if you're not mad at me, would you please say so?"

"I'm not," Remus instantly promised. Merlin if he was mad at Sirius for every stupid prank he'd never not be enraged at this one. "I'm, mad at myself." He finally reluctantly admitted.

Sirius' face clouded with concern. Even on top of dealing with James, Peter, and Regulus at once Padfoot hadn't once tried to cope a field on him for some fun away from them while in this room, and a traitorous bubble of hope still lingered in Remus' chest this could mean more to Sirius. They were just friends with benefits, he instantly reminded himself. Friends! Of course he cares, you know he does.

"Anything I can do to help?" Sirius was even the one to reach for his hand, their fingers naturally intertwining.

"It's, Harry," he finally gave a half truth, which was still a truth that the book provided. He couldn't believe he'd only been back in Prongs's kids life once so far this year with Sirius out of the picture. "Not even writing to him, I'm just, this future- I don't want to stop-" He stopped himself quickly before something stupid came out. 'Being there for you,' probably sounded way too intimate to Padfoot. Maybe if he'd actually been around Sirius during that awful Ministry fight he would have come back out of it and none of this would be thrown in their face so repeatedly!

What kind of heartless monster couldn't do the bare minimum to look after one of his best friends kids anyways? And he was complaining Sirius wasn't ready for more, he clearly wasn't capable of it either.

Sirius had such a beautiful smile, and one he so rarely showed anyone. A smirk, his teasing grin were all anyone but the Marauders ever got to see, and Remus drank his fill in now as Padfoot squeezed his fingers while mimicking as well, tracing his cheek before letting his hand rest on his neck as they naturally mirrored each other. Remus wouldn't dream of denying he instantly felt warm and assured as he leaned into the touch even before Sirius told, "this future's a mess Moony. Don't kick yourself about this poor kids life we have no control over. We'll find a way to fix this."

He spoke with such assurance it's like they should have heard the very words Evans was reading change to match. Remus was convinced Sirius could hypnotize the moon to never be full again in that moment as he leaned in and kissed him.

It was just sweet, and gentle. There was no randiness in either of them, just a silent promise as Remus leaned back that no matter what, his words would be true.

HPHPHPHP

*Let me know what you think Hermione's favorite book is. I personally always thought it was Sherlock Holmes.

[trashyswitch]

The Strange Twin Brother

Remus was known as the strange, impulsive brother who liked causing havoc wherever he could. Here are some stories of times he traumatized people, worried people and teased people through his charmingly grotesque ways.

I'm dedicating this fanfic to a couple of my friends who LOVE dark humor.

This fanfic has some SUPER dark humor. Animal death and a couple subtle dirty jokes added in. A little bit of bondage is used as well. So read at your own risk, and enjoy the dark humor!

It was always known that Roman was the preppy, clean one of the twins while Remus was the weird, stinky twin. Roman was known for play productions, being the ultimate feminine gay and for bursting out in song randomly, while Remus was known for pulling pranks, being a less hairy Grinch and for reading smut out loud to the entire room.

But Remus was also known for just being strange in general. There have been some disturbing moments where Remus was seen covered in blood while eating a raw rabbit, some annoying moments where Remus would shout out truths about certain origins behind Disney movies, and strangely amusing moments where Remus would bring a skunk home, give it a collar and keep it as a pet despite Logan’s demands to let it loose.

And yet, Roman often chalked all these strange behaviours down to just ‘Remus being Remus’ and wouldn’t question his already screwed up inner thoughts.

Doesn’t mean things were all sunshine and rainbows...Roman would be super worried for Remus if that were the case!

One day, Roman and Patton were looking at scrapbooks of old times with the family. They were looking at Thomas’s public school wins when the front door had closed. Roman turned around, knowing that would be Remus.

“Hi Remus! Any luck?” Roman asked.

Suddenly, Remus jumped out into the living room with his bow and arrow, a blood bag and-

WAS THAT WOLF FUR?!

SHIT! PATTON’S THERE!

Roman yelped and quickly shoved Patton’s face into the scrapbook to keep the innocent boy from looking. “OW! ROMAN! WHAT’S WRONG?!” Patton shouted.

“Uuuuuh...Animal...Hide.” Roman replied.

“ANIMAL?” Patton reacted with a big smile as he tried to lift his head back up. “What kind of animal is it? Let go, Ro! I wanna see the animal!” Patton asked excitedly.

Roman bit his lip and sat himself in front of Patton’s view. “It’s dead, Pat! You don’t wanna see it!” Roman let him know.

Remus just laughed at that. “So seeing a dead wolf carcass is off limits, but seeing TONS of Roman ass is fine?” Remus teased.

Roman rolled his eyes at that. “My ass is covered, unlike that devastated wolf face you’re wearing as a hood.” Roman shot back as he continued to keep Patton’s face hidden from the still-bloody hide. “Whaaat are you gonna do with the hide?” Roman asked.

Remus hummed and tilted his head to the side, causing the animal head hood to follow to the side. “I’m thinking a coat! Or a bathrobe!” Remus declared excitedly.

“Why not both?” Roman asked.

Remus gasped and ran up to Roman, tackle-hugging him to the ground. “YOU’RE A GENIUS!” Remus shouted.

Roman flopped onto his back, a good 3 feet away from Patton. Pat lifted his head up, and quickly screamed and covered his eyes. It really was a wolf carcass! A still-bloody carcass at that! Patton picked up the scrapbook and covered up his own field of view with it.

Roman giggled and looked at the jaw-dropped wolf face that was still slightly bleeding. “Are you gonna remove the teeth and feed them through a thread?” Roman asked, pointing at the set of sharp wolf teeth.

“Probably, yeah.” Remus replied.

Remus smirked. “You should dip the ends of the teeth into some red paint to make it look like bloody teeth that just caught their meal.” Roman suggested.

“Hmmm...Paint? Or bloooood?” Remus asked.

Roman chuckled and shook his head. “Whatever you feel looks better.” Roman replied.

Remus hummed as he thought about how to do it. Suddenly, Remus snapped his bloody fingers! “How about I mix some blood INTO the paint! So it looks realistic AND sticks properly!” Remus declared.

Remus shrugged his shoulders. “You can try it. You have a closet full of craft stuff you can use.” Roman mentioned.

Remus gave Roman one last bloody, slightly furry hug. “Thank you Roman! You’re the best!” Remus declared happily before getting up and running to his room.

Roman chuckled and shook his head. What a nutjob. He looked over at Patton, who was sloooowly uncovering his face with the scrapbook. The poor guy looked traumatized beyond belief.

Logan was hanging out with Remus at a nearby park. Remus was casually sitting on a park bench with a stroller filled with a litter of tuxedo kittens. On the cup holder of the stroller was an extra large iced coffee and an abandoned knife and fork. While the kittens were left sleeping in the stroller with a cover over them, Remus was completely devouring a full rotisserie chicken with his bare, greasy hands.

Logan was sitting beside him, holding a fork and taking little bits of the chicken. Though Logan was growing slightly disgusted by Remus’s feral behaviour, Logan was able to maintain a calm, casual facial expression. Though people were staring at Remus with worry and disgust, Logan just smiled and waved at the people as they walked by them.

It was like seeing a polite englishman sitting beside a New Jerseyan! Complete opposites.

When the two of them were mostly alone, Logan slowly leaned over to Remus. “You’re creating quite the reputation here.” Logan whispered.

“I knothw!!” Remus replied proudly, his face fully stuffed with just chicken. The man didn’t even have anything to wash it down besides his iced coffee! Soon, Remus got up, moved the plate of cooked chicken carcass onto the bench, and picked up his Starbucks coffee with his dominant hand. He happily slurped down some of the ice-filled coffee and smiled with his cheeks all bunched up like a chipmunk.

“Imagine Patton seeing you right now. He would lose it.” Logan mentioned.

Remus let out a muffled giggle at that. “Gooth thin’ he’th noth!” Remus reacted, a slight bit of coffee sliding down his chin.

Logan just laughed at that and ate another piece of the chicken. It didn’t take long for Remus to resume scarfing down his chicken while taking sips of iced coffee in between. It was the perfect combination for a protein & caffeine diet.

Eventually, a guy with a black jacket, sunglasses and a large iced coffee of his own, started walking by. “What the fuck is that creature?! And WHY do I WANT ONE?!” they declared to their vest-wearing friend with a red tie.

Remus choked on his iced coffee and bursted out laughing. Logan smirked in amusement and looked up at the jacket boy. “This is Remus. He’s...definitely a strange one.” Logan introduced. “Also single.” Logan muttered.

The jacketed guy smirked and drank more of the iced coffee. “Come here often?” he asked the both of them.

Logan chuckled at that. “Quite often, yes.” he replied.

“Ith’ my ffffavorithe thpot-th!” Remus declared happily.

“Do you two have names?” Logan asked.

The jacket guy nodded. “I’m Remy. And this, my special loving beanie baby over here, is Emile.” they introduced.

“KITTENS!” Emile shouted excitedly, staring at the stroller.

Remus smiled and looked at Emile. “Yup! It’s a stroller filled with kittens.” Remus said proudly.

Emile picked up one of the tuxedo kittens and hugged it close. “It’s soooo CUUUTE!” Emile cooed.

Logan looked at Remus and raised an eyebrow. Remus looked at Logan back and nodded his head. “Would you like to keep it?” Logan asked.

Emile gasped and beamed at them. “REALLY?!” But Emile quickly composed himself. “I-I mean- Are you sure? I didn’t know they were for sale.” Emile admitted.

“They weren’t. But you look very happy with it!” Remus added. “That one’s a boy.” Remus added.

Emile looked at Remus again, still not sure if he should be taking a cat home. Remus nodded his head with an innocent smile. “I insist!” Remus replied.

Emile looked at Logan. “If you’re wondering, they have all been vaccinated from 8 weeks old till their age which is 5 weeks old.” Logan told Emile. “If you would like, we could cover your vaccination costs up until he reaches 4 months old.” Logan offered.

“Oh my gosh that offer sounds lovely! But I can pay for it myself. But could we meet at the veterinary clinic you take them to, so I can meet their vet and sign the adoption papers?” Emile asked.

Logan nodded. “Of course! I’ll give you the address.” Logan replied.

While Logan was doing that, Remus was looking at all the kittens and growing curious. But he was quickly interrupted by a wave in his direction. Remus and Emile’s locked long enough for Emile to mouth the words ‘thank you’ to him. Remus smiled and nodded back. But then: Remus picked up one of the kittens…

Remus just started staring dead into Emile’s eyes, and shoved the cat’s head into his own mouth. Still staring at Emile, he bit down on the cat, killing it instantly and swallowed it whole. Emile’s excitement for the cat quickly faded away and a big, terrified chill ran down Emile’s spine. It was here that Emile realized that Remus was most likely not in the right mind. Emile quickly patted Logan’s shoulder and pointed to Remus. “He- j-j-just- ateacat…” Emile said, struggling to even talk.

Logan looked over at Remus and immediately noticed the hanging tail that was sticking out of Remus’s mouth. Logan sighed. “How in the world are you still hungry after all that chicken?” Logan asked.

Remus laughed. “I just am!”

Emile hesitantly kept the cat they had just been given, and made a mental note to never let Remus hold their cat. EVER.

A good while later, Patton and Janus were cleaning the house while Remus and Roman were coloring in the kitchen. They both had a cup of water each, and one pack of markers laying in front of them at the table to share. Though only Remus was using all the colors due to the boy’s...strange habit of bleaching them and sucking on them.

Remus was currently drawing a blender filled with green gunk mixed with what he assumed to be blood, and something white. Whether it was milk, bone bits, drugs or...something else; no one but Remus could tell you. All they knew was that some of the green gunk was spilling out the top corners of the blender lid.

Meanwhile, Roman was drawing a completely white picture of a gigantic dog surrounding a bunch of tiny people. But the dog was not like Clifford the Big Red Dog. It was a fluffy white pomeranian! And the pomeranian had a...saxophone? It even had the word *Bork* written beside the mouth.

Wait, was that Gabe the Dog?

Remus giggled at the picture of Gabe the dog, and made a little high-pitched ‘BORK’ sound. Roman bursted out laughing at that and made an evil old hag cackle. Remus wheezed at the cackle while Patton was giggling and shaking his head at the two.

Soon, Logan walked into the room with a smirk. “Why do I hear dogs and evil witches in here?” Logan asked.

Remus and Roman both had to stop their coloring and drawing to lean back and laugh their heads off.

Logan sat down at the table as well and continued to read the astronomy book he had walked out with. But Logan quickly closed it as he cringed at the strong smell of bleach in the kitchen. “Patton, you need to stop using so much bleach.” Logan told him.

Patton turned around. “Come on, Logan, it’s not that bad. I didn’t even clean over there!” Patton reacted.

Logan tilted his head. “Are you sure you didn’t? Because It smells like you cleaned the table with it.” Logan told him.

Patton huffed and put his cloth-covered hand on his own hip. “I’m positive, Logan.”

Logan rolled his eyes and tried to ignore the bleachy smell. But it was not easy. Soon, Logan rubbed his finger on the table and smelled it.

Nope. No bleach.

He rubbed his finger on the windows and discovered that there was no bleach used there either. So, Logan looked around. “Where is that bleach smell coming from?” Logan asked as he followed his nose like a composed dog. Logan followed it till he looked down at the cups and markers. Logan sighed. “You weren’t using bleach on the markers again, I hope…” Logan asked Remus.

“Nope! Not today!” Remus replied proudly.

Logan looked at the cups and lifted them up. He smelled Roman’s cup first -much to Roman’s dismay- and placed it down.

Just water.

But then Logan lifted up Remus’s cup and smelled it:

Logan pulled his head back and coughed violently. Then he widened his eyes when he realized that half the water was already drunk!

Logan slammed the cup onto the table. “Remus.” Logan asked calmly.

Remus looked up at Logan with his teeth showing widely. “Yeeeessss?”

Logan cleared his throat. “Do you remember what we taught you about what bleach does to your digestive system?” Logan asked.

Patton gasped and threw his cloth onto the ground. “REMUS!”

Remus stifled a laugh. “Yes. I don’t remember exactly what happens, but I do remember you mentioning...death?” Remus replied.

Logan sighed and rubbed the top of his nose...only for him to quickly move his fingers away from his face out of fear of getting bleach droplets into his eyes. Then, Logan took the cup and dumped the bleach down the sink. “No more drinking bleach, Remus. It is disgusting and it can easily kill you.” Logan ordered.

Remus slowly lifted up a silver flask. “One new thing to learn about!”

Roman widened his eyes. “PATTON! REMUS HAS A FLASK!” Roman shouted.

Patton sprinted to the rescue and took the flask. “What have we told you about alcohol?! Alcohol for you, is strictly off limits! Remember what happened the last time you drank?” Patton ordered.

“The best experience of my LIFETIME?!” Remus declared excitedly.

Logan dumped the cup of water into the sink. “May the orphan children rest in peace.”

Remus bursted out in evil, proud cackles. Patton brought the flask to the sink and dumped out what he assumed to be alcohol. But much to his surprise: it was clear!

...and reeked of bleach.

Logan pulled out a baby bottle, dumped some milk into it and shoved the baby bottle into Remus’s mouth. “Drink up. Flush the bleach out of your system before your stomach and intestines burn.” Logan ordered.

Remus whined and pouted. Roman giggled at the look of a baby bottle in his grown brother’s mouth, and continued to outline the saxophone. “I’m done!” Roman declared, showing off his picture to Patton and Janus.

Remus pulled the baby bottle out of his mouth and showed off his picture as well. “I’m done as well!”

Both Patton, Janus and Logan enjoyed seeing the pictures they drew, and updated the fridge drawings. Patton would eventually scrapbook those pictures and show them off to Thomas.

One day around Halloween time, Roman was looking around for Remus in his room. But he was nowhere to be found. But things soon became more clear once he found a lined page with a creepy-looking drawing on it. Roman giggled and looked around. “Very funny, Remus! I know what your costume is now!” Roman teased.

Roman received no response. So, Roman turned the page around and continued looking around. “Remus, quit being secretive.” Roman ordered. Like he guessed though, Remus didn’t come out.

So, Roman followed the page’s advice and put the page into his pocket. Roman opened a drawer in the room that held a flashlight. He pulled it out, turned it on and started looking around. So far, there was nothing.

He looked around for another page or another clue to Remus’s location. Little did he realize that all he had to do...was look behind him…

Roman suddenly SCREAMED and threw the flashlight into the air! Something had wrapped around his feet and was now lifting him up! Roman shouted and grabbed at any surfaces he could, to get away. “AAAAAH! REMUS?! LET GO!” Roman shouted.

A static noise started filling Roman’s ears and a static-y image of Slenderman started getting closer and closer to Roman. Roman’s fear grew as the faceless being suddenly grew a mouth and teeth, and GROWLED loudly at him.

Next, another pair of tentacles grabbed Roman’s arms and waist, and lifted him upright. Roman gulped and pulled on the restraints, with no avail. He was utterly and truly, fucked.

Quickly, more tentacles summoned themselves from out of nowhere, and started wiggling and fluttering on his armpits, feet and lower back. Roman jumped, squeezed his eyes shut and tried to move away from the tickly tentacles as a wobbly smile grew onto his face. The tentacles wiggled and teased his armpits the most, taking advantage of just how vulnerable they were in this moment.

Roman took one desperate look at the tickling tentacles and threw his head back as the tentacles at the feet, suddenly found his toes! “Hehehehehehehey! Quihihihihit ihihihit Rehehehemuhuhuhus!” Roman giggled.

The tentacles at his lower back, started drawing up and down his spine. This caused Roman to arch and wiggle his back more. But things got even worse the moment four tentacles started tickling both his armpits! Roman squealed loudly and squeezed his fists as laughter and snorts started leaving his mouth! He couldn’t even try to cover up his mouth in any way because his hands were tied! Literally!

Then, everything quickly hit the fan the moment Remus’s tongue reached his ear. Roman guffawed and snorted at that! Roman squealed with laughter! One one hand, all Roman could think was just how disgusting and slimy it felt to have a tongue fluttering and ‘licking’ his ear! But HOLY HECK did it work! It was so much more ticklish than his toes and armpits combined!

Roman snorted again. “LEHEHEHET MEHEHEHEHE GOOOHOHOHO!” Roman begged.

The single tentacle that tickled Roman’s back, started writing letters on his lower back!

[Tickle tickle tickle]

Roman whined and shook his head. How DARE!

[Coochy coochy coo coochy coochy coo]

Roman widened his eyes and tried to tug on his restraints one more time. Of course, he was unsuccessful. “STAHAHAHAHAHAP!” Roman begged loudly.

[No]

Roman shook his head. “COHOHOME OHOHOHOHON MAHAHAHAN!” Roman pleaded.

[Fine]

Roman let out a breath of relief as the tickling tentacles lessened dramatically. But unfortunately, the black tentacle that was writing on Roman’s back, was not gone.

[Wet willy time]

Roman widened his eyes. “W-WAIT-” Roman was interrupted by the evil tongue tickling his ear once again! Roman shrieked loudly and threw his head back with laughs, snorts and the occasional cackles! All the while, the messenger on his lower back was still writing messages to him!

[Surprise!]

Roman shook his head. “IHIHI THOHOHOUGHT YOHOHOU WEHEHEHERE DOHOHONE!” Roman yelled.

[Im not done.] It wrote. [More tickles for Roman]

Roman squeezed his eyes shut and just gave up on trying to get out. There was just no trying to save himself from the clutches of Remus the slenderman tickle monster!

[Tickle tickle Roman]

[Tickle tickle brother]

[sit back. Accept your fate]

Here’s the fanart! 

Remus:

Roman:

(Drawn by a friend of mine)

[buttherainbowhasabeard]

The Father (2021)

*contains spoilers*

Based on the world-renowned and re-enacted stage play of the same name by French writer and first-time director Florian Zeller, ‘The Father’ is a very personal portrayal of a very universal experience. Not only is it a masterclass in acting by legendary Welshman Sir Anthony Hopkins, even more importantly than that, it’s an intimate and powerful portrait of a man’s life in the throes of dementia.

These days there is an emphasis on embracing ageing and the wisdom, life experiences and insights that come from a long life. For a lot of people, however, ageing gracefully isn’t an option, and instead of shuffling off this mortal coil with memories of a life well lived and their dignity and humanity intact, they have to struggle and fight their way out.

Most of us of know something about or someone with dementia or Alzheimer's and can quite easily substitute Hopkins’ character for one of our own loved ones, but the poignancy in the performance doesn’t rely on prior knowledge. We know how hard it is for the families but we don’t think about it enough from the sufferer’s point of view. ‘The Father’ puts Anthony’s upsetting, chaotic and confusing frame of mind front and centre.

Hopkins is a powerhouse, that we know, but when you think that he won his first Oscar playing the terrifyingly magnetic and metallic tongued cannibal Hannibal Lecter in ‘Silence of The Lambs’, and has now just won his second Oscar as the frighteningly forgetful and fragile Anthony in ‘The Father’, his talent and range really does astound. At the age of 83, he is still in his prime and taking on another great role, and arguably his greatest role to date.

Banal moments of everyday life are peppered with sudden shocks and utter bewilderment as Anthony battles to make sense of his confronting new world. His existence may seem small and within the confides of one room or one flat, but his struggle is of earth-shattering proportions. Although dialogue, inner monologues and interactions are often the key cinematic tools used to convey a character’s thoughts and feelings, someone with memory loss doesn’t have the neurological energy or cohesion to explain the confusion inside their heads, so as Anthony’s descent into full blown dementia escalates, the audience is taken with him. Feelings of distress, disorientation, frustration, anger, loneliness, exhaustion, and heart-break increasingly consume Anthony’s every waking hour, and as a viewer, you very quickly begin to share the same sentiments and concerns.

Stylistically, script and production design wise, the film’s psychological roller coaster ride is strongly supported by a physical assault on the senses too. Scenes are repeated with slight variations in dialogue and staging, day becomes night and then suddenly back to day again, rooms are rearranged in the blink of an eye and a revolving door of actors come and go as the same characters. It’s amazing just how claustrophobic it can get inside your own head!

You begin to wonder how many days, weeks, or months the story is being played out over, and was he in the nursing home the whole time or did we chronologically journey from his flat, to Anne’s and then the home? Did the trauma of losing his beloved youngest daughter Lucy to an accident bring on his dementia or was it predisposed? Like the disease that is rapidly ravaging his mind, the movie and the character of Anthony is complex, with emotions that run the gamut from gentle, charming and cooperative to irate, stubborn and paranoid. He was, until very recently, a man of great intelligence and independence, so losing control and purpose understandably rocks him to the core.

His daughter Anne (the always brilliant Olivia Colman and momentarily also played by Olivia Williams) has great love, empathy and patience, but like most carers, there is only so much of her father’s everchanging moods and manners that she can endure. Her husband Paul (a deliberately disjointed joint acting effort by Mark Gatiss and Rufus Sewell) barely hides his insensitivity and implies that Anthony is intentionally burdening them by exaggerating his symptoms. He mainly treats his father-in-law’s condition with contempt and cruelty, and unless it was another lapse in reality, even physically attacks him in one of many harrowing scenes.

And like the supporting cast, ‘The Father’ often has you too paralysed by indecision. No, Anne shouldn’t have to give up her whole life to care for her ill father, however when she eventually does, you resent her for leaving him when he needs her the most. In the traumatic finale, when in a brief moment of clarity, he realises the extent of his condition and circumstance, Anthony cries “I feel as if I’m losing all my leaves”. It’s such a potent and poetic line. He feels vulnerable, exposed, upset, lonely, lost and afraid. It’s impossible to sum up how agonising and isolating it must feel to know you are slowly slipping away, but this goes some way to explain it in the simplest and saddest of terms. And if Hopkins sobbing for his “mummy” doesn’t reduce you to tears then I don’t know what will.

There are brief moments of levity, from Anthony’s obsession with his watch (or lack of it) and Parisian’s not speaking English, to his energetic interactions with his young new carer Laura (Imogen Poots), but I’m not going to lie. When I say the smiles and laughs are brief, I mean just that. Ultimately, ‘The Father’ isn’t a movie that can accommodate a happy ending and it would do a huge disservice to the ethos of the story if it did. The reality of dementia is that it doesn’t get worse before it gets better, it just gets worse. Sufferers slowly and painfully fade away into oblivion and their loved ones have to watch from the sidelines, helpless to do anything about it.

I’ve never cried as many times as I did during and after this screening, but please don’t let that put you off. Although on an emotional level it’s not for the faint of heart, anybody with a heart will feel privileged to have witnessed one of the best performances of Anthony Hopkins’ stellar career and one of the most damaging and demoralising real-life issues affecting our ageing population today.

Whether by design or devastating irony, ‘The Father’ is a movie about forgetting, but for me (and no doubt so many others), it’s a movie I will never forget.

5/5 stars

‘The Father’ is in cinemas now!

[momoh-chiin]

 Hello there @c-o-v-e-t​!! First of all I just wanted to say that I always see you like the posts I upload, so thank you for the support!! I did this with extra love!!  I did this as a second part of THIS, I believe you can either read them separately or leave one ending or the other as “canon” in your mind! I don’t mind!! Order up!

“I don’t know who you are anymore” Sequel, “I promise”.

 It’s been almost two weeks. Steven couldn’t take it anymore, he missed you so badly! Hell, he knew he fucked up. He fucked up really bad. He was stressed, angry, he didn’t know what to do about himself anymore. Still, he knew you didn’t deserve to be pushed away, even less screamed at when you did nothing but be a wonderful girlfriend. A beautiful girlfriend he lost because of his own stupidity. He cried, and cried, and cried some more. He didn’t want to get out of his room, barely ate. Just getting out for the bathroom, and that would be all. It wasn’t until Connie herself knocked some sense into him that he realized that like that, he wouldn’t fix things up with you. —Come on, Steven! How do you thing SHE is doing? She’s devastated! She loves you so, so much, but you were being a jerk! She deserved to snap at some point! —Connie scolded him, while he was looking at the ground regretfully—. But… She truly misses you, Steven. Love can’t just disappear, you know? So instead of crying your eyes out and pitying yourself, go with her and apologize! Fix things between you two! —But Connie, she herself said that she didn’t want anything else to do with me. She said she didn’t know me anymore… —Because you changed Steven! But it’s not the first time you do! Take all of this and change for the better! Show her you are still the same loving Steven she fell in love with! And this time, don’t mess up. For the first time since the scolding started, Steven got his head up, gazing at Connie, trying to see for a little bit of comfort. Would he do the right thing by going to you and try to fix a long relationship himself destroyed? Connie just smiled warmly to him. She wouldn’t lie to him, they were best friends. He sighed, and nodded, a small, hopeful smile on his face. —Right! You are right Connie! I can’t just stay here feeling bad for myself! I have to fix this, I can’t lose the love of my life! — He exclaimed, confidence going back to him. His happy expression went to an embarrassed one the second he heard Amethyst yelling something below his room. —Finally, man! Took you long enough! Groaning, he just glared at Connie, she just shrugging waiting for his best friend to move.

Steven didn’t need more than half an hour to take a bath, get some nice clothes, fixing his hair the way you liked it the most, and a big bouquet of (Favorite Flowers). He knew that wouldn’t be enough to just win your forgiveness, but he didn’t like going to your house empty handed. Inhaling deeply, he knocked at your door. He waited, while his confidence slowly escaped his body; would you be mad? Would you forgive him? Would you laugh at him, while slamming the door on his face? He wanted to go back and just leave you be. However, before he could escape, you opened the door, clearly surprised to see him here. He realized you were in a pretty bad shape; your beautiful (h/l) (h/c) was now all over the place, you had the worse clothes you had, the ones that are comfortable but in really bad shape because of how much you used them, your eyes red and puffy because of all the crying. —Steven? —Uh, h-hey, (Y/N)! H-How are you doing? — He wanted to kill himself the second he said that, because he could see your surprised expression quickly changing to a sad and annoyed one. —I’m doing great, thanks — The harshness and coldness in your voice made him shiver. Damn, you really were mad at him. Steven shook his head, trying to not stutter. —Look, (Y/N), I’m really sorry for hurting you so badly. I didn’t realize I was hurting you, too inside my own selfishness to realize. You just furrowed your eyebrows, trying to remain as stoic as possible. You didn’t make him leave, so he took it as an opportunity to continue. —Ever since we were kids, I would go out of my way helping everyone. I was so busy with that, that I ignored my own problems and traumas. So, when suddenly I had to not only think and deal with everyone’s problems, but mine’s too, I just couldn’t hold it anymore. I didn’t know how to react, how to act. It lend me to being a jerk, not only to my friends, but with you, too. Your expression was softer now, seeing him try to not cry in front of you as he apologizes. —And I’m really, really sorry (Y/N). I was an idiot, and you deserve way better than me. But I really, truly love you, and I don’t think I would ever find someone as awesome, loving, beautiful and caring as you. There’s only one (Y/N) after all, the one I fell in love with — His voice now was lower, shedding some tears, not really trying to stop them at that point. You were now crying along with him. —I… I knew you had problems. Big ones, at that. But I just didn’t know what to do anymore. Not knowing if you were okay or not, feeling like being with you was a burden, but that you felt bad when I wasn’t around. It was confusing. I was hurting, and I knew you were, too. I just… Couldn’t deal with it all anymore… —And that’s fine! I am not mad, at all! You didn’t deserve anything of that, I should have talked to you and explain myself. I understand if you don’t want to be with me anymore, (Y/N). But I can’t bare being without you anymore, I miss your hugs, your kisses, the way you laugh… Please, (Y/N), I just want to be the best boyfriend I can from now on. It took you a whole minute of both of you sobbing before you nodded, quietly, a small smile on your face. Steven couldn’t help but smile as well, hugging you tightly as he kissed you deeply, you obviously kissing back. The kiss was desperate, but you haven’t seen each other for almost two weeks after a break up, so it was fair. —Mommy, what are these two kids doing? — A small kid passing with his mother stopped you, realizing you two were still standing outside at the door. Quickly, you took Steven by his arm and took him inside, slamming the door. You both stared at each other, then started to laugh. —Oh my god, the first thing we do as a reconciled couple it’s traumatize a kid! —So… Are we still a couple, then? —You don’t want to? — You teased him, a sly smirk on your face—. You know, I know that Kevin would be glad to- —Nope! — Steven yelled and kissed you again, this kiss more passionate than the other. When you both separated after a while, panting for air, he talked again. —(Y/N), from now on I’ll be the best boyfriend I can be; I’ll take you as many dates as I can, heck we can get married right now if you want! I’ll give you all my love and the only thing I can ask of you it’s for you to love me back. I will tell you everything that bothers me and never leave you hanging again. —…Do you promise? — You mumbled, looking at him directly at his eyes. He had the most beautiful loving gaze you could have ever seen. —I promise — Was all he said before kissing you again. He promised you to change for the better and never repeat what happened before.

And he kept that promise.

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WELL this is the fluff I was CRAVING!!! I hope you all liked it!! ; 7 ; I just went with the flow lol. Remember my Steven Universe requests are now CLOSED! Feel free to request something from Kimetsu no Yaiba or Boku no Hero, and I’m also soon making a new Fandom/Rules list and a Masterlist of every fandom I wrote about!

Have a nice day!! u 7 u