#self destructive time travel just Fits So Damn Well!! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

drxwsyni · 4 years ago

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show me heaven, take me to hell︱okkotsu yuuta x f!reader

“Going so long ensuring that you wanted him and nobody else ended up having adverse effects, all this time spent putting you first had turned him selfish, and he didn’t quite care anymore. He needs you—all of you, anything less for any longer and he might just go mad.” a/n: this is my part for @seita’s corrupt-a-virgin collab! i was really excited to write a fic with this prompt, and this collab was super fun so pls go check out the other writers involved!!! words: 3.7k warnings: ALL CHARACTERS AGED UP 18+, noncon, somnophilia, virginity loss, rough-ish sex, oral (f. receiving), fingering, choking for a quick moment, creampie, a little praise, heavy stalking & obsessive behaviour, gen. yandere themes

Yuuta liked to think he had control over his emotions—but peering down at you, he knew that was far from the truth. How those emotions manifested was what he could control, because if it weren’t for the steely expression cemented into his face, he’d be sure you’d know of all the debased things running rampant throughout his mind.

And yet, he doesn’t fear the falter in his masquerade right now.

You’re fast asleep, none the wiser to the looming figure of your boyfriend, locked onto the way your chest slowly rises and falls in a rhythmic manner. How his eyes nearly gloss over as they travel down the curves of your body, half exposed as you’ve only pulled the sheets up to settle around your waist.

Yuuta reminds himself to breathe, exhaling a little too shakily, wondering to himself how he’s made it this far. He was a damn good actor, and he knows that fact currently stood as the only thing that’s gotten him to where he is today.

If he thinks back, it’s hard to even find one moment out of all the time he’s spent with you in which he’d shown you his genuine self. Hell, the very first time you spoke to him wasn’t even honest. He remembers asking you your name after introducing himself, lying through his teeth because he already knew what your name was. Yuuta knew what rank you were (well below his), your cursed technique (too weak to really protect yourself), how long you’d been working alongside Gojo (two weeks―starting the day after Yuuta had gone overseas). But he still asked, enamoured with the way you bashfully looked down at your feet when he praised you for being able to put up with the white haired sorcerer so far.

Another lie―how he claimed he’d love to team up with you and show you around, when it was just to keep you as far from any real danger as possible.

But you didn’t know that, going along with each and every falsehood that left his mouth. Lie after lie, he’d draw on the knowledge of you he’d spent months gathering, gradually molding his character into whichever form earned those soft little gifts of affection. Becoming the person you wanted, the person you needed, slowly until you recognized him as someone special. Yuuta did everything right—only to be completely overwhelmed now that he had you alone.

Because of course suppressing himself wouldn’t work out in the long run. Burying the desire that felt goddamn near insatiable, ignoring the feeling of it festering, growing into something ugly and uncontrollable—the kind of thing he saw in others, and exactly what he was trying to protect you from. But Yuuta wouldn’t let himself believe that what you really needed protecting from was him, even though standing over you now, proof of that reality was finally beginning to surface.

Just for a second, maybe not even that, it crossed his mind—just a taste couldn’t hurt, right?

The bound passion he could never let see the light of day unraveled in the dead of night. You were just so tempting, blissfully unaware of the danger towering over you, a vulnerability that tore away at the seams of his self control.

Yuuta felt the first thread snap, a barely there fracture to spur his irreversible descent into self-destruction.

Moving without really even thinking of any future consequences, long fingers that were calloused from battle and endless training reached to where the sheets atop you rested. White, silken and gleaming under the moonlight, he carefully, calculatedly pulled them down your body. Letting it pool at the foot of the bed, he slowly appraised your sleeping form.

An almost inaudible curse left him, whispered under his breath—he didn’t even notice the way your sleeping shorts were discarded onto the floor before peeling back the sheets, but he couldn’t miss it now. Maybe...you wanted him to find you like this?

No...he knew you weren’t that daring. The two of you might be dating, but all those past insistences of not wanting to move too fast, dancing around intimacy like it was the bane of all evil alone told him that this naivety was genuine.

There was that, and the fact that you were staying in his guest bedroom. Too shy to sleep in the same bed, how cute. He was all too understanding just a few hours ago, leaving you for the night and planning on retiring to his room. Only he was drawn right back to where you lay, realizing it was yet another subconscious lie to tell you he was fine with taking things slow, giving you your space.

He wasn’t even supposed to be in this room—there was absolutely no way you planned on Yuuta finding you like this.

A voice in the back of his head warns him, tugging at his subconscious to leave you be. Yuuta ignores it for the first time, crossing a new boundary, knowing that it won’t be the last.

You’re sprawled on your back with the hem of your oversized shirt riding up just a little.

A little too much, he thinks, eyes travelling lower and lower until they land on the lace trim of your panties. Thin, adorned with a small bow at the top. His fingers itch, wanting to feel the fabric for himself, likely soft in comparison to his rough hands.

Yuuta props one knee up onto the bed, the mattress sinking slightly with his weight. With one more glance, just to make completely sure you’re still fast asleep, he allows his fingers to trace up the inside of your leg. Gliding along your calf, then meeting the soft plush of your thigh. Your muscles don’t even twitch, unmoving as his hand gradually creeps higher, higher, higher.

All he needs is to be closer, something to tide him over until you’re willing to let him in. He wants to know just what it feels like to have you under him, little weaknesses you hold that nobody else knows of.

Just a taste, he reminds himself.

Yuuta peers down at you, relieved and on edge at the same time when the tips of his fingers brush against the cotton fabric of your panties. Ever so lightly, his ring finger dips lower, gently pressing against your clothed slit.

The heat between your thighs makes him shiver, warmth pulling him in impossibly closer. Your legs are spread just enough for Yuuta’s hand to fit perfectly in between them, almost invitingly so. He feels like all of his nerves are standing on end, vibrating as just the simplest touch has such a large effect on him.

It’s a familiar feeling, despite always looking at ease, he frequently had to mask these turbulent emotions inside him so that he didn’t scare you away, just as so many others did. This new sensation, not having to worry about constant control, it was unimaginably refreshing. He didn’t want it to end.

You don’t seem to be stirred in the slightest, which is good, because he’s not quite satisfied. The both of you did have a tiring day to be fair—now making you a heavy sleeper. Yuuta deems it a saving grace, curiosity unquelled in wanting to know how far he could push his luck.

That same singular finger travels along the dainty fabric, gently dragging up your folds until stopping at your clit. Experimentally pressing into it, Yuuta spots the way your brows just barely draw together for a moment. The sound of your breathing meets his ears, turned airy as your lips part when he begins rubbing back and forth, a light friction that makes your sensitive, untouched body react unconsciously as you continue to sleep.

Yuuta thinks for a second of how you touch yourself when you’re alone—if you do as he is now, teasing your clit, making you squirm at the light stimulation. You’re not waking up, but your body is still reactive even in this state. With how your panties hug the curves of your body, how he presses them into your heat, it’s not hard to see the small patch of your arousal already leaking through.

It’s cute, you’re so much more honest when you’re asleep.

An idea strikes him, coming more as an intrusive thought than anything helpful, but it’s dangerously enticing nonetheless—if he could make you cum without waking you up. Earn a glimpse of what he hoped you’d let him see eventually.

You look like you want it, chest rising and falling a little heavier, and when he pointedly nudges your clit with the smallest increase in force, your breath hitches.

It would be cruel to leave you like this—Yuuta isn’t a cruel man.

He’s doing this for you now, not himself. It’s repeated in his head, words reassuring as he slinks onto the bed. His grip is delicate, pushing your thighs apart a tad bit more, just enough to make room to lower himself between them.

Eye level with your heat, the scent of your arousal washes over him. He can’t help but place a few ghosted kisses on your inner thighs, a quick nip at the supple skin that leads to a trail of the same before his lips hover over the seat of your panties.

Through long lashes, he focuses on your face, almost shuddering with you as his tongue comes into contact with the patch of wetness, dampness growing as he licks a slow strip up over the cloth. Yuuta repeats the action—once, twice, three times, then loses count. His movements are slow, soft and steady, taking what he can get but soon becoming frustrated with the barrier in his way.

The hands placed on your thighs twitch, and it only seems logical that if he wants to finish what he started, he needs to make things a little easier for himself. An unnatural strength imbued with cursed energy flows through his palms. He’s eager, doing it without thinking, not realizing the force he puts behind his actions until the seams of your panties tear with almost no resistance.

Yuuta’s eyes widen slightly, because his plan was to merely push the fabric aside. But that problem can wait, especially when he can’t.

The offending fabric is casted aside, and Yuuta knows he wants to take his time. Testing the waters, his thumbs come up to spread apart your soaked folds, taking in the way your hole clenches around nothing as he gently blows cold air against it.

He’s not shocked to find your muscles twitching so easily now, reacting to every little thing he does. Not shocked, but it does make him greedy. It makes him want to abandon caution entirely. Taking his time turns out to be a lot easier said than done—when his tongue places a few kitten licks onto your clit, the near sinful whimper that escapes you has his lips latching on and sucking instead.

You’re always so quick to flee from him, Yuuta can barely get a lasting kiss in before you push him away. To hear that leave your mouth, intentional or not, it’s dangerous. He’s starved for intimacy, starting to lose sight on why he’s worked so hard to become close with you, drowning in the thoughts of why he instead wants to rip that safety he provides from you entirely just to see the things you keep hidden from him and everyone else.

There’s his own personal heat building, hips grinding into the mattress now and then to relieve the ache you don’t even know you’re causing in him so quickly. It doesn’t do much, if anything it only makes his resolve weaken, low groans making their way up his throat and sending soft vibrations onto your sensitive nub.

His tongue darts back out, flattening as your hips buck against his face, trying to gain more friction.

And all it tells him is that you want this—just as much as he does. You’ve never told him, but you don’t need to. Your body speaks for itself.

The wet muscle pushes past your entrance, Yuuta’s nose bumping your clit every time his head jerks when his tongue curls against your walls. From how your body tenses, the feeling unmistakable under his large hands, he can tell you’re getting close.

All the breathy sighs and whines leaving you, the overwhelming taste of you on his tongue and in his mouth, it clouds his judgment more and more as each second passes.

Yuuta forgets about the hard work he’s put in to keep you safe, to make sure you ended up choosing him over everyone else. You’re intoxicating, and he can’t get enough. There’s no such thing as just a taste, not when he’s stopped trying to hold back and instead starts trying to devour you.

You deserve more, he thinks, coating his ring finger with your slick, teasingly swirling it around your entrance before letting it sink into your heated pussy. It reaches far deeper than his tongue, and with a few thrusts, curling his finger inside you, Yuuta finds what he’s searching for as you tense hard around the slender digit. His mouth returns to your clit, sucking and flicking it with the tip of his tongue.

Yet no matter what he does, it’s still not enough. He wants to watch you finally fall apart, wants you to stop pushing him away.

And he realizes, it’s not a want, but a need. One that can’t be satisfied as easily as he thought when he first removed the sheets from your unsuspecting body. Going so long ensuring that you wanted him and nobody else ended up having adverse effects, all this time spent putting you first had turned him selfish, and he didn’t quite care anymore.

He needs you—all of you, anything less for any longer and he might just go mad.

Yuuta can’t think straight to save his life, he’s hooked on the way your body shakes beneath him, adding another finger pumping in and out of you, groaning against your clit as he desperately ruts against the bed.

You’re responding so well, it only confuses him more as to why you haven’t let him take care of you sooner, as clearly you needed him like this. He can practically hear his name fall from your lips, airy and begging him for more.

His eyes are screwed shut, and yours are open.

“Ahh—Yuuta...wh—ngh”

Those calloused fingers know just how to make you shake in pleasure, not relenting as you suddenly cum around them. He feels your swollen clit throb, over and over against his tongue.

When you start to convulse, near pained whimpers leaving you, he finally stops.

He’s frozen for a moment, your full awareness dawning on him.

A sheen of sweat clings to you, chest heaving, heartbeat going a mile a minute and hammering against your ribcage. You were falling back down from the high that made you see stars, the closer to reality you got, the more you understood what had happened.

The fear would hit you first, and it’d be fast—you’d scream, fight, try to leave him.

Yuuta knew this, he knew you, and so he moved faster.

Before you could make another sound, panic rising in your throat, a firm hand clamps over your mouth.

And god, you look fucking terrified. Both hands flying up to push him away, nails biting into his wrist while tears begin to well in your eyes. Irises swirling with fear, confusion, betrayal.

It should make him feel guilty, it does—but it’s not enough to stop him from wanting to make it worse.

His palm stays cemented over your mouth, muffling your cries. “Shhh, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

It’s not, all your squirming does is grind against his aching cock. And he’s so far gone that he might as well go further—he doesn’t even try to stop you. The hand over your mouth pins you down well enough, your body so much weaker compared to his.

“M’sorry, just—fuck…”

You’re not calming down, struggling harder with each second that goes by while Yuuta fights to hold you still.

“It’s alright, baby, you’re okay.” With everything running through his mind, the only thing consistent and true is that he has to be inside you.

His free hand grips the waistband of his sweats and boxers, hastily pulling them both down at the same time. He hisses when the cold air of the room meets his cock, slapping against his abdomen. He’s already in between your legs, and you’re still trying to get away, hips lifting off the sheets as your legs helplessly kick. Your movements are uncalculated, frantic—it’s an accident when his cock brushes against your heat.

You squeal at the contact, but there’s nothing you can do to stop him from rutting against you, length sliding between your folds and coating him in your slick. A slight shudder runs through you as the tip of his cock catches on your puffy clit, repeatedly nudging it with each thrust.

It’s not enough. Not before, not now, he can’t seem to satisfy whatever want inside him has broken loose, and you’re forced to deal with it all because he couldn’t keep himself in check.

“Just relax, okay? Gonna make you feel good...promise you—”

Yuuta practically chokes on his words, lining himself up with your entrance, unable to stop his hips from pushing himself inside you all in one go. Blood rushing behind his ears drowns out the sound of your whimpers, lost in the way you keep sucking him back in when he goes to pull out. So goddamn tight—Yuuta’s glad he’s made sure he was the first to get to you, despite the circumstances.

He’s a mess, you’re a mess, it’s sloppy and it’s perfect, because the quick back and forth of his hips goes so deep that he’s grinding against your clit with each thrust. Your whines are in tandem with his movements, pain mixing with the building warmth spreading throughout you.

The body draped over yours is so much larger, broad shoulders blocking out the moonlight as Yuuta keeps himself propped up above you with a hand beside your head. The one over your mouth disappears, lightly wrapping around your throat for better purchase instead.

It’s too easy to lose himself now, letting his guard down—and you jump at the chance.

There’s a shove to his chest, and then he’s being kicked down the bed. The door is on the adjacent side of the room and so to make quick time you scramble across the bed sheets. Of course, a hand too cold clamps around your ankle, and it feels like he’s about to crush the bone beneath when Yuuta drags you back.

All your pleas go ignored, and he’s suffocating as your body is pinned against the bed by his own.

A lanky yet toned arm snakes around your waist, lifting your hips to meet his. “Just a bit—” there’s a pause, groaning as he drives his cock right back into your pussy, “—bit longer…”

Yuuta hasn’t completely forgotten why he decided to take things this far, his free hand reaching down to toy with your clit. With the new angle, his cockhead hits that soft, spongy patch that has your walls fluttering around his length.

Your fighting spirit diminishes more and more, not much strength to begin with in how you were woken up, only worsened by the way the coil in your stomach keeps tightening. When you go to shove the arm wrapped around your body, it’s not genuine, not completely at least. You’re overwhelmed just as much as him, and letting it happen doesn’t seem all that bad.

Slick is dripping down your thighs, the sounds of skin slapping against skin echoing throughout the room alongside his grunts and your airy moans.

There’s a shake in your body, legs unable to keep themselves up as your voice breaks through the noise. “Yuuta...p-please…”

It doesn’t matter what it is you’re begging for exactly, but he tries to console you anyways. “I’m right here, baby. Just let go for me…”

The pads of his fingers press harder circles around your clit as the cant of his hips picks up.

You’re reaching your end, unmistakable in the way you tighten around his length, your muscles contracting and releasing. Yuuta is right behind you, thrusts growing erratic, barely pulling halfway out before sinking in again.

“Ah—that’s it, cum for me, good girl—”

There’s a moment where you go quiet, body locking up and mouth opening into a silent scream. It’s enough to have Yuuta’s body reacting much the same, a harsh ‘fuck’ leaving his lips before painting your walls white. There’s no thought to pull out, just that he wants to relax with you in his arms.

You’re trembling, aftershocks washing over you in waves, especially when he slowly drags his cock out and past your g-spot before leaving you empty.

Yuuta finally releases you from his hold, watching as you slump pitifully into the mattress. There’s a trail of his cum leaking down your slit, a little pool of it forming on the sheets. You look absolutely ruined, face turned and smushed against the bed—he can see the tears heavily wetting your cheeks, mouth agape as your chest heaves.

And he just...stares. Somewhat out of breath himself, hunched over, unmoving otherwise while realization crashes down on him.

You’d never forgive him, you’ll leave the second you get the chance. What Yuuta’s done to you is irreversible.

...As far as you know.

It’s always been like this, he thinks. Yuuta keeps you endlessly in the dark, meticulous pre-planning to make sure you’re protected always. And so he steps away, tucks himself back into his boxers, pulling up his sweats and grabs his phone. It looks like you’ve pretty much fallen asleep, which makes his job easier.

Plan A through Z, Yuuta has something to fall back on no matter what.

The screen illuminates his face, fingers swiping until Inumaki’s contact shines back at him. The cursed speech user owes him a favour, and there’s no time more perfect in Yuuta’s mind than now to cash it in.

A deep sigh from him sounds throughout the room—you won’t remember this happened, none of it. Yuuta will clean you up before Inumaki arrives, use reverse cursed technique to handle any wounds you may have, and then he’ll have his friend make you forget anything past going to bed.

While he still wants to keep you safe, keep you pure—it’s no longer for the same reasons.

Darkened eyes land on your weakened form, and Yuuta knows this won’t be enough for him. You’ll push him away, he’ll get impatient...the rest is predictable, to say the least.

His message sends, phone turning black.

Somehow, he’ll need to find a way to earn more favours.

#yandere jujutsu kaisen #yandere yuuta #yandere yuta #jujutsu kaisen smut #yuuta smut #jujutsu kaisen x reader #tw noncon #tw somnophilia #tw choking #tw stalking #tw virginity loss

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alienssstufff · 2 years ago

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so why'd you classpect c!grian as a witch of time? (personally,i always saw him as a witch of breath)

WITCH GRIAN REALNESS!!!!!! OK OKok ok ok hehe >:]

[ GRIAN : Witch of Time ] Looking through analysis of both aspects now, theres interestingly a lot of similarities between Breath and Time (whwhw maybe thats why June and Dave got along so well--) so either for Grian makes sense!

Tbh I went with time cuz red really is Grian's colour-- BUT also chose it for the words Time is associated with: Mechanical, Repetition, Masculinity, Destruction, Endings, Choice, Precision, Impatience -- Very very Grian-sounding /)-w-(\

-continued undercut-

Characteristics-wise like Time players (and Breath too!), Grian is constantly on the move. to quote the official Extended Zodiac I like this extract: "Those bound to the aspect of Time are fighters, full stop. Their lives are often marked by struggle, not so much because fate has it in for them, but because they are fundamentally incapable of just accepting things as they come. They value action over passive acceptance, even if that may not be the wisest or safest choice." He's annoyingly stubborn but he's determined!

The whole thing with Time also fits comfortably with Grian's lore in both Hermitcraft and the Life Series - having evidence to canonically time travel in both universes: >HERMITCRAFT: Direct connections with S7 and S9 Grumbot. In a way, the machine in the S8 finale - potentially (well my hc) connecting with S9 also, the subtle mentions for Boatem across Grian and the other Boatem Crew in S9. Straight-up just the whole concept of Grian wanting to use architecture from different eras of history on his S9 build saying it came from the Rift that He made/came out from. >LIFE SERIES: Watcher Lore and the whole theory of the life cast being stuck in a time loop each season because of Grian.

Which segways to his class as a Witch: "One who Manipulates Time", manipulates the ending for himself. A good example of this being Watcher!Grian actively blowing up Scott in Last Life - but also his win in 3rd Life, and in a way him indirectly controlling the fate of the final soulbound pair in Double Life because of the rules he made up "<grian> there can only be one winner". All in all even if his Watcher self made up the rules, Grian (in game) is rebellious to break them: >3RD LIFE: Him choosing to remain allies with a red life (Scar) when he's still on green. >LAST LIFE: The lengths he was willing to go to drag himself out of red life. Eg: threatening to throw Scar in a Death Loop if he didn't give him and Joel a life. >DOUBLE LIFE: Him rejecting his soulbound fate with Scar (damn there's a lot of Scar in these) by having a secret soulbound with someone else (BigB).

Finally I end with this extract from @//dahniwitchoflight: "It may be weird, it may not work right, but it will be new and different for sure. They might also manipulate others by repeating ambiguous things over and over until it sounds truer. They might use someone’s fate or destiny against them. Maybe they will manipulate someone’s memories or use the threat of destruction"

#ask stufff #stufff rambles #grian #classpect #long post

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aion-rsa · 3 years ago

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Doctor Who: Perfect 10? How Fandom Forgets the Dark Side of David Tennant’s Doctor

https://ift.tt/2URb21b

As recently as September 2020 David Tennant topped a Radio Times poll of favourite Doctors. He beat Tom Baker in a 2006 Doctor Who Magazine poll, and was voted the best TV character of the 21st Century by the readers of Digital Spy. He was the Doctor during one of Doctor Who‘s critical and commercial peaks, bringing in consistently high ratings and a Christmas day audience of 13.31 million for ‘Voyage of the Damned’, and 12.27 million for his final episode, ‘The End of Time – Part Two’. He is the only other Doctor who challenges Tom Baker in terms of associated iconography, even being part of the Christmas idents on BBC One as his final episodes were broadcast. Put simply, the Tenth Doctor is ‘My Doctor’ for a huge swathe of people and David Tennant in a brown coat will be the image they think of when Doctor Who is mentioned.

In articles to accompany these fan polls, Tennant’s Doctor is described as ‘amiable’ in contrast to his predecessor Christopher Eccleston’s dark take on the character. Ten is ‘down-to-earth’, ‘romantic’, ‘sweeter’, ‘more light-hearted’ and the Doctor you’d most want to invite you on board the TARDIS. That’s interesting in some respects, because the Tenth Doctor is very much a Jekyll and Hyde character. He’s handsome, he’s charismatic, and travelling with him can be addictively fun, but he is also casually cruel, harshly dismissive, and lacking in self-awareness. His ego wants feeding, and once fed, can have destructive results.

That tension in the character isn’t due to bad writing or acting. Quite the contrary. Most Doctors have an element of unpleasantness to their behaviour. Ever since the First Doctor kidnapped Ian and Barbara, the character has been moving away from the entitled snob we met him as, but can never escape it completely.

Six and Twelve were both written to be especially abrasive, then soften as time went on (with Colin Baker having to do this through Big Finish audio plays rather than on telly). A significant difference between Twelve and Ten, though, is that Twelve questions himself more. Ten, to the very end, seems to believe his own hype.

The Tenth Doctor’s duality is apparent from his first full appearance in 2005’s ‘The Christmas Invasion’. Having quoted The Lion King and fearlessly ambled through the Sycorax ship in a dressing gown, he seems the picture of bonhomie, that lighter and amiable character shining through. Then he kills their leader. True, it was in self-defence, but it was lethal force that may not have been necessary. Then he immediately topples the British Prime Minister for a not dissimilar act of aggression. Immediately we see the Tenth Doctor’s potential for violence and moral grey areas. He’s still the same man who considered braining someone with a rock in ‘An Unearthly Child’.

Teamed with Rose Tyler, a companion of similar status to Tennant’s Doctor, they blazed their way through time and space with a level of confidence that bordered on entitlement, and a love that manifested itself negatively on the people surrounding them. The most obvious example in Series 2 is ‘Tooth and Claw’, where Russell T. Davies has them react to horror and carnage in the manner of excited tourists who’ve just seen a celebrity. This aloof detachment results in Queen Victoria establishing the Torchwood institute that will eventually split them apart. We see their blinkers on again in ‘Rise of the Cybermen’, when they take Mickey for granted. Rose and the Doctor skip along the dividing line between romance and hubris.

Then, in a Christmassy romp where the Doctor is grieving the loss of Rose, he commits genocide and Donna Noble sucker punches him with ‘I think you need somebody to stop you’. Well-meaning as this statement is, the Doctor treats it as a reason to reduce his next companion to a function rather than a person. Martha Jones is there to stop the Doctor, as far as he’s concerned. She’s a rebound companion. Martha is in love with him, and though he respects her, she’s also something of a prop.

This is the series in which the Doctor becomes human in order to escape the Family of Blood (adapted from a book in which he becomes human in order to understand his companion’s grief, not realising anyone is after him), and is culpable for all the death that follows in his wake. Martha puts up with a position as a servant and with regular racist abuse on her travels with this man, before finally realising at the end of the series that she needs to get out of the relationship. For a rebound companion, Martha withstands a hell of a lot, mostly caused by the Doctor’s failings.

Why David Tennant Lost Hannibal Role According to Bryan Fuller

By Kirsten Howard

Staged: BBC Comedy Confirms Sheen & Tennant’s Double-Act Greatness

By Louisa Mellor

Series 4 develops the Doctor further, putting the Tenth’s Doctor’s flaws in the foreground more clearly. Donna is now travelling with him, and simply calls him out on his behaviour more than Rose or Martha did. Nonetheless the Doctor ploughs on, and in ‘Midnight’ we see him reduced to desperate and ugly pleas about how clever he is when he’s put in a situation he can’t talk himself out of.

Rose has also become more Doctor-like while trapped in another reality, and brutally tells Donna that she’s going to have to die in order to return to the original timeline (just as the Doctor tells Donna she’s going to have to lose her memories of travelling with him in order to live her previous life, even as she clearly asks him not to – and how long did the Doctor know he would have to do this for? It’s not like he’s surprised when Donna starts glitching). Tied into this is the Doctor’s belief in his own legend. In ‘The Doctor’s Daughter’ he holds a gun to Cobb’s head, then withdraws it and asks that they start a society based on the morals of his actions. You know, like a well-adjusted person does.

What’s interesting here is that despite presenting himself as ‘a man who never would’, the Doctor is a man who absolutely would. We’ve seen him do it. Even the Tenth Doctor, so keen to live up to the absolute moral ideals he espouses, killed the Sycorax leader and the Krillitanes, drove the Cybermen to die of despair, brought the Family of Blood to a quiet village and then disposed of them personally. But Tennant doesn’t play this as a useful lie, he plays it as something the Doctor absolutely believes in that moment, that he is a man who would not kill even as his daughter lies dead. It’s why his picking up a gun in ‘The End of Time’ has such impact. And it makes some sense that the Tenth Doctor would reject violence following a predecessor who regenerated after refusing to commit another double-genocide.

In the series finale ‘Journey’s End‘, Davros accuses the Doctor of turning his friends into weapons. This is because the Doctor’s friends have used weapons against the Daleks who – and I can’t stress this enough – are about to kill everyone in the entire universe. Fighting back against them seems pretty rational. Also – and again I can’t stress this enough – the Daleks are bad. Like, really bad. You won’t believe just how mindbogglingly bad they are. The Doctor has tried to destroy them several times by this point. Here, there isn’t the complication of double-genocide, and instead the very real threat of absolutely everyone in the universe dying. This accusation, that the Doctor turns people into weapons, should absolutely not land.

And yet, with the Tenth Doctor, it does. This is a huge distinction between him and the First Doctor, who had to persuade pacifists to fight for him in ‘The Daleks’.

In ‘The Sontaran Strategem’ Martha compares the Doctor to fire. It’s so blunt it almost seems not worth saying, but it’s the perfect analogy (especially for a show where fire is a huge part of the very first story). Yes, fire shines in dark places, yes it can be a beacon, but despite it being very much fire’s entire deal, people can forget that it burns. And fire has that mythical connection of being stolen from the gods and brought to humanity. The Time Lord Victorious concept fits the Tenth Doctor so well. Of all the Doctors, he’s the most ready to believe in himself as a semi-mythic figure.

Even when regenerating there’s a balance between hero and legend: the Tenth Doctor does ultimately save Wilfred Mott, but only after pointing out passionately how big a sacrifice he’s making. And then he goes to get his reward by meeting all his friends, only to glare at them from a distance. His last words are ‘I don’t want to go’, which works well as clearly being a poignant moment for the actor as well, but in the context of Doctor Who as a whole it renders Ten anomalous: no one else went this unwillingly. And yet, in interviews Russell T. Davies said it was important to end the story with ‘the Doctor as people have loved him: funny, the bright spark, the hero, the enthusiast’.

It’s fascinating then, that this is the Doctor who has been taken to heart by so many viewers because there’s such an extreme contrast between his good-natured front, his stated beliefs, and his actions. He clearly loves Rose and Donna, but leaves them with a compromised version of happiness. They go on extraordinary journeys only to end up somewhere that leaves them less than who they want to be, with Russell T. Davies being more brutally honest than Steven Moffat, who nearly always goes the romance route. Davies once said to Mark Lawson that he liked writing happy endings ‘because in the real world they don’t exist’, but his endings tend towards the bittersweet: Mickey and Martha end up together but this feels like they’re leftovers from the Doctor and Rose’s relationship. The Tenth Doctor doesn’t, as Nine does, go with a smile, but holding back tears.

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It’s a testament to how well written the Tenth Doctor is that the character has this light and shade, and with David Tennant’s immense likeability he can appeal to a wider audience as a result. It’s not surprise he wins all these polls, but I can’t help but feel that if the Doctor arrived and invited me on board the TARDIS, I’d want it to be anyone but Ten.

The post Doctor Who: Perfect 10? How Fandom Forgets the Dark Side of David Tennant’s Doctor appeared first on Den of Geek.

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dizzydancingdreamer · 4 years ago

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Men who I think would be soft for their baby for no other reasons than because I want them to be, in no particular order but still numbered ten to one because I like countdowns...

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Part two —> part one here

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This one’s for you @activist-af, no Finn and Kol erasure here Lottie

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10. Raleigh Becket

A really good man who is a little too impulsive at times and has pretty much no sense of self preservation and always seems to get himself into worsening situations

Is so fucking soft for his baby that it’s insanity

His baby is in no way the same kind of super soldier he is, she’s literally the softest baby in the world, and he’s just so careful with her

Like he follows her around the compound and just makes sure she’s okay

Eats every meal with her, shares a room with her, literally does pretty much everything with her just in awe

So many cuddles before and after a mission, lots of reassurance, kisses her entire face everywhere at least twice and has to get practically dragged away

Endures so much teasing from his partner

I don’t care if his character is suited for a dominant female you can’t change my mind on this one this man is soft as fuck

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9. Ambrose Spellman

A reformed radical warlock who has been locked in one house for a hundred years and is itching to go on a self-destructive bender after cleaning up his family’s messes for years

In absolutely no position to be in a committed relationship but I don’t give a single fuck

He would follow his baby around like a damn puppy when finally free of the Spellman residence

Oh she wants to go to witch school? He’s tagging along

She wants to go travel? Lead the way

The park, carnival, movie theatre, cafe, literally endless places he would follow her

Would read to her as she falls asleep and tell her all his little bits of knowledge on things that he collected during his time stuck in the house

A soft man that is final

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8. Richard O’Connell

Cannot survive a normal, mundane life because it’s “too boring” for a man like him and would risk it all for a mummy invasion even if it means that he dies in the process

But by god he is so fucking soft I just know it

Keeps her safe at all costs even when she pouts at him and makes him take her with him when he travels

Refuses to leave her side when they go abroad because his track record with ancient curses is not great and there’s no way he’s letting some gross ass mummy hurt her

*dramatic gasp* HE ACTUALLY REFUSES SOME DANGEROUS MISSIONS FOR HER???

Does the thing where he leans into her hand when she touches his face and like kisses her palm

Definitely sleeps curled around his baby and wakes up at the slightest noise ready to hurt any intruders

I would literally do anything for this level of soft

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7. Finn Mikaelson

A one thousand year+ original vampire who has absolutely zero sense of self preservation and actively seeks death because of how much he hates himself and would gladly bring his family down with him because mommy said so

Doesn’t quite fit the full dominant image but I don’t care he fits the soft part 1000%

Would bring her with him when he goes to see his family and is always wrapped around her the whole time

Endures all the teasing that would come with that for her because she’s?? Just?? So?? Cute and perfect???

Literally a thousand years old and would still absolutely crumple for his baby in SECONDS

If she cried it would literally be game over

There would be two people crying

He would be crying MORE than her

Epic date night planner, meticulously detailed, would pay so much attention to the things she likes and picks up on even the smallest clues

God he’s so soft I want one

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6. Clint Barton

Largely pushed aside Avenger who has been evil in the past and appears at times to miss the evil a little too much

This one doesn’t even need an explanation, I’m literally right and this one has proved himself countless times

This man is the love of my life so yes: I am biased

Badass, sarcastic, cold archer Avenger by day; soft, caring, gentle man by night

Goes home, soaked with blood and sweat, and pulls his baby into the shower and just sags into her arms

Lives for her fingers in his hair after a long day

And bubble baths with her

Has gotten in trouble countless times for skipping important meetings but does not give a single fuck about it

Teaches her archery and doesn’t yell once (which is a feat pointing to his softness because once he tried to teach Nat and they yelled at each other the entire time)

HE IS SOFT, CASE CLOSED

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5. Bellamy Blake

Incited a radical uprising in a highly dangerous and sensitive situation for really no reason at all other than the fact that he wanted to be the de facto leader of something

As per usual, I don’t care about canon characteristics this is my world I can do whatever I want

Every bone in this man’s body is a protective one

Yes, every single one (No, I’m not sorry about this)

Does not take shit from anyone about her, has definitely shut an entire group of people up for talking about her badly

Gets so nervous when she does anything even remotely dangerous and when she does he’s stuck to her side like glue

He’s so touchy and talks so quietly to her, not because he doesn’t want anyone to hear him call her his baby but because he just literally can’t bring himself to raise his voice he’s that soft for her

Does everything in his power to make sure she’s comfortable which is by no means easy in the slightest

So many forehead kisses that it’s almost barf worthy but he doesn’t care because she loves it and that’s all that matters

The radical leader is a fucking puddle of softness for his baby and that’s final

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4. Loki

A trickster god who always teeters precariously on the edge of good and evil and no one ever knows which side he’ll favour at any given moment

Except when it comes to his baby then he’s good duh

Tiptoes around her because he would definitely be the type to go for a baby who jumps easily and he’s loud and kind of clunky so he’s always just slow and gentle

So much gentle teasing and giggling like oh god it’s tooth rotting sweetness

He takes her hands and just puts them on him, like his chest and cheeks and jaw and arms

Anywhere he just wants her touching him all the time

He rests his chin on her shoulder or head and reads whatever she’s reading or watches her go about her hobbies, kissing her cheek in between

This girl would never work a day in her life she would be ridiculously well taken care of

Would burn down a city for her with little provoking

As soft as butter for his baby

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3. Kai Parker

Bringing back the “needs a therapist, not a girl” but sprinkle in a touch of volatile daddy issues that has created a man so hyper reactive to every negative situation whose only solution is to lash out because he figures no one loves him anyway

But sweep all that aside because fuck it, I don’t like it

He would worship his baby 110%

Is the type of man to let her do his nails and put as many face masks as she wants on him

Can’t sleep without her literally on top of him

He so clingy and touchy, loves when she grabs his hand, internally screams whenever it happens

Has for sure killed for her that isn’t even a question it’s just a fact

“He didn’t do anything” “he looked at you” “but Kai” “but baby”

Would do it again

I DON’T CARE: HE’S SOFT FOR HIS BABY

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2. Jasper Hale

A literal once upon a time confederate soldier who made child soldiers for his dom-vamp girlfriend because he was “in love”

This man has ripped so many heads off so many bodies but I don’t give a single fuck I know he goes home to his baby and just picks her up and does not put her down

Face it, his family is rich, he doesn’t have to do anything, naps are definitely a big part of his routine and he’s always just snoozing with her on the couch, pulling her onto his lap and pulling a blanket off the back and they’re just asleep

Goes out for dinner with her, makes it through maybe twenty minutes, the entire time he’s waiting for it and then boom, the puppy eyes, game over, they’re home in minutes

Has skipped so many family functions

Will make any excuse to just go the fuck home

Sometimes he doesn’t even make an excuse he just fucking leaves

He’s touchy too I just know it look at that face the man lives for contact

The verdict is in-- 100/10 SOFT

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1. Kol Mikaelson

Perhaps the angriest, most volatile, I-hate-the-world-and-everyone-in-it, thousand year old+ original vampire who has been stomped on so much and died so many times that he has no true sense of the world, trust, and love left

Oh GOD this man, this FUCKING MAN

THE SOFTEST MAN HOLY SHIT

I don’t even care what y’all think about this one Kol is so damn soft

This man is the inventor of cuddling

And he doesn’t give one single fuck about where and when I just know it

Family dinner? The witch market? CHURCH??

It doesn’t matter, he’s pressed against her

Oh god this man is protective

Maybe a little possessive too

I don’t care

His family calls him unpredictable so hey he may as well live up to it and burn down a bar or two or twenty for his baby

Shows her all of his witch things and rambles about them all

Is always pulling one of his shirts or hoodies over her head

AGAIN BUBBLE BATHS I JUST KNOW IT

He likes washing her back and just getting to be alone with her

He likes it even more when she washes his hair like he just sinks to his knees and closes his eyes and gives into it

GOD MY HEART IS BEATING SO FAST FOR HOW SOFT KOL IS

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#Kol mikaelson #loki #kai parker #bellamy blake #jasper hale #ambrose spellman #finn mikaelson #clint barton #hawkeye #raleigh becket #rick o'connell #the originals #the vampire diaries #the avengers #twilight #pacific rim #the mummy #the 100 #the chilling adventures of sabrina

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j-pankratz · 4 years ago

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The Slumber that Creeps to Me

Geraskefer. 7208 Words. Rated T. Jaskier pulls an extreme all-nighter (read: 60+ hours) to finish a paper he procrastinated on, and finds at the end of it that sleep does not come as easily as he’d hoped. Tags for: Sleep Deprivation, Self Destruction/Lack of Self Care, Hallucinations, Nightmares, Overstimulation, Hurt/Comfort, Whumping the Bard, very loving partners, and a happy ending. <3 AO3 link in the reblog!

As with most disasters spurned by his own cockiness, Jaskier felt as thought that all in all, the situation could have been worse.

The idea to have Geralt and Yennefer spend the spring holiday break at Oxenfurt was, in his defense, ingenious. His students weren’t around, the weather was gorgeous, they all had varying degrees of business in the city, and they could fuck each other senseless at any hour of the day. In a bed. A nice one, provided he was a legitimate professor, now. Well, visiting. Well, it was complicated. But they were his rooms, and that’s what mattered.

When Jaskier gotten the prestigious offer to write the season’s main article for the Continent’s most respected Bardic Journal, he’d just sort of figured he’d… fit it in, somewhere. He had seventeen months, which was plenty enough for him. Then he’d just work with the editors, and have a centerfold piece. It was an honor. He was excited about it! He’d meant to get to it sooner, but decided the summer before that he’d devote the winter to it. But… he’d… he’d been distracted. It wasn’t often the entire family gathered at Kaer Morhen. So, he thought, he’d do it later.

But the first few weeks after winter were, of course, spent with Geralt. And the week after that, a trip to the coast, where he’d played a festival and met up with Ciri, who was becoming an amateur critic herself. And then by pure, absolute happenstance, after 3 more weeks of travel he happened to end up at an inn that he definitely hadn’t heard Yennefer was staying at. So that more time gone. And then he’d arrived in Oxenfurt, and he’d really meant to get to work on it, but there was so much to prepare for! He wanted things to be right for them.

And then Yennefer and Geralt had actually arrived, and the idea of anything possibly being more important than their presence flew his mind.

And now, here he was. If he wanted to get it in on time (unfortunately, that wasn’t a suggestion in this case, more of an actual, terrifying requirement,) he’d need to submit it in… gods above, less than three days. 60 hours, if he was doing the math.

There was no word limit, nor a minimum. But, ever the maximalist, he knew it was going to be… long, if he was going to do it right. They’d edit it down, but it was the focal point of the journal, they’d been leading up to it for ages now. Ahh. Well. There was only one thing for it, he supposed.

“I’m working through the night on my paper!” He’d announced that morning, sitting straight up in bed, jostling his sleepy lovers. “No one bother me! I will be at the dining table until further notice!” He swung himself out of bed and made for the door.

“Pants,” his lovers chorused together.

“Right!” he'd said, and marched back into the room.

He’d pulled all-nighters in his youth. In fact, he couldn’t count the times he’d worked through the night, deposited a composition or essay on his professor’s desk with some polite conversation and maybe a wink, and then promptly fallen asleep during the lecture itself. Just a 15-minute power nap, really! Then he’d be back up and at it again, working through another night just to sleep through the weekend. He’d done it before, he could do it again.

Well, it’d been 25 years ago, but that didn’t change much, did it? He still felt spry, agile, hearty— hell, he’d spent the better part of the last twenty odd years chasing after a Witcher, and later an additional princess and mage— surely he should be in better health now!

This was completely accomplishable. Admittedly, he could have written this sooner… but he hadn’t, and here he was.

Geralt and Yennefer both set out early on different errands, leaving the bard to some peace and quiet. Relatively.

He spread his work and references out before him. 7 books, 4 pamphlets, his favorite quills, a hundred fresh pieces of parchments, his lute at his knee. “Alright,” he said aloud to his empty Oxenfurt apartment, “Just sit down and write the damn thing. Sitting part, definitely done. Writing next. Just… write.”

He stared at the page.

“No! No, no, do not be impossible about this. Just start the thing.”

The page stared back.

“Ah, blast,” he muttered, rubbing his eyes. This was fine. Just… do the awful, disgusting part of beginning, and then he’d be off. The sooner he started, the sooner he’d finish, after all! He took a breath, and put his pen to paper.

Yennefer returned a few hours later, a book and small parcel in hand. Jaskier looked up to see her sweep through the room, a commanding presence, though she didn’t acknowledge him yet. A few waves of her hands and a pot of tea was put on to boil, her hair was put in a bun, and three mugs were floating down from a shelf.

“Lovely to see you too,” he smiled as Yennefer poked through the tea collection. He could practically hear her fond eye roll. She neatly plucked two from one box and looked back at him in question. “Ah… peppermint, if we’ve got it?” and she turned back to the cupboard grab it.

“Any progress?” She finally asked.

“A bit, actually!” Jaskier said cheerfully. It didn’t look like much, but he’d done half a page with almost no errors, and he’d made plenty of notes in the margins of the books he’d need later. It was better than he’d hoped it’d be going by this point, at least. He was kicking academia’s ass. Or, he would be.

The kettle whistled and Yennefer poured the tea, bobbing all three of the tea bags up and down as they steeped. He watched her lean against the counter, casual, relaxed, gorgeous, before realizing she was staring back at him. “Um! Yes, no, definitely good. Got a lot of… those words, you know, they are definitely here. Looking very sexy. The words! The writing is looking… very sexy, very curvy… letters. Sensuous words, you know.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Sensuous words.”

“Yeah, yes. Like… contemporaneous… and… iguana.”

“Iguana.” She let out a little huff of a laugh and something in Jaskier’s chest tightened and loosened in quick succession. And in a moment she was there, sliding him a large mug with the carving of a rather playful looking bear on one side, batting at a butterfly.

“Oh! My favorite. Thank you, thank you.”

“Mmm,” she said before waving a hand to cool down their tea a bit. She took a seat opposite him, scanning an eye over the table. “Think you’ll be done by tonight?”

Jaskier laughed. “Darling, I’ll be lucky to be done by tomorrow morning.”

“You’re planning to stay up all night, bard?”

“Unfortunately.” He took a sip. “Should be done by tomorrow afternoon, if I keep steady at it.”

“After tea, of course.”

“Of course.”

Yennefer stretched out a bit, kicking her feet onto Jaskier’s lap and rolling her neck. They sat there a moment, sipping, pausing, drinking in each other. There was something nice about taking a moment of stillness with someone just as frenetic as he was, someone who was usually just as itching for something to do, even if she went about it differently. The grace of choosing stillness, he thought, was not something to ignore.

Yennefer reached the end of her mug and tapped its ceramic walls lightly.

“What’s next for you?”

��I have to refresh my potion stock, so I’ll be at the market for supplies. You sure you don’t want to take a break and join?”

Rat’s ass. He fucking loved the Oxenfurt markets. “I’m afraid I can’t. Academia calls.”

“Who does it call for, exactly? What’s that I hear…” She cocked her head and listened intently. “Who is it calling for… is that… V… Val… Valdo?” Jaskier hefted her feet off of his lap in protest, and she laughed. He plucked his quill from its stopper, and went back to hovering over his paper. Introduction mostly accomplished, now he had to really lead in to his point, give some proper context. He flipped through a book beside him.

Yennefer rose smoothly from the table and went to move her mug to the sink. “When Geralt gets in, tell him I need toadflax and bluebells from him? Might as well put him to use.”

Jaskier flipped through the pages, thumbing through for a note he’d sworn he’d made ages ago, when he belatedly tried to register his mage’s words. He could have his fun, too.

“Blue…Yennefer, you want me to tell Geralt that you need blue balls from him?”

“Bells! Bells, you absolute child!” she said. “Honestly. Blue balls? Really, Jaskier?” He was giggling. “I don’t need to ask to give either of you blue balls.”

“Exactly, Yennefer, you provide that service for us anyway, free of charge!” A balled-up napkin hit him in the head and he laughed joyfully.

“I can’t stand you. I’m leaving, you’ll never see me again.”

Jaskier looked up through his grin and met her twinkling, happy eyes. “Tonight then?”

“Tonight,” she agreed, and left with a quick ruffle of his hair.

“Still working?” Geralt said as greeting later in the afternoon. The desk was neater than Jaskier expected it to be this far in, only a few books open, dog eared and marked in colored ink. He’d written a page and a half since Yennefer left, and it was good, it was, but he’d need to go back and make edits later. His long empty mug of tea sat far across him.

“Mm,” he agreed, continuing to write. “Ah, Yennefer came through earlier,” giving a gesture to the waiting mug of tea on the counter. Geralt made his way over to the mug, and gave it a small igni to warm it. He smiled fondly down at the drink—what a terribly lovely sight he was. Warm here, and safe. Couldn’t it be like this always? The three of them here, comfortable and happy? No, he supposed, but gods how he wanted it.

“She’s at the market now,” Jaskier continued, “wanted me to ask you about...” He lifted his pen and squinted. “Ah, toadflax and bluebells.” He looked up at Geralt, smiling. “Blue balls,” they said together, sporting matching shit-eating grins, Geralt’s albeit much smaller. “I made the same joke myself,” Jaskier added.

Geralt snorted. “How’d she take that?”

“Oh, as well as you’d hope. We’ll never see her again, of course.” He turned back to his work, reading over the last paragraph. He could feel Geralt approach to stand behind him, and while he’d normally shoo his witcher off, he was too deep in concentration to bother.

How long was too long to linger on the progression of oral storytelling to bardship? It’s not like he could ignore it, (Geralt’s hand came to grip his shoulder, a thumb rubbing against it tenderly) as it was a crucial tenant of the argument— but there was plenty to be said for assuming the literacy and foreknowledge of the reader. (He leaned in to get a closer look at Jaskier’s page, the soft warmth of the tea in his other hand bouncing off his chest) But this was to be in a journal often referenced by first years, and he knew how much he would have loved a paper that had everything all in one—

“How’s it going?” Geralt asked softly in his ear.

Jaskier waved a hand over the mess before him. “You know. It’s fine, I’m just not sure at what point I’m lingering on points to excess.”

“Mm,” Geralt hummed understandingly. “Tell the story. Trust your gut.” He gave Jaskier a nuzzle and light kiss against his cheek before taking up the empty mug off the table and walking off further into the apartment.

“I always do!” Jaskier called back. Mm, if only this were as simple as telling a story. Well…Oh—if he spent this paragraph referencing the progression it would end up taking up more room, be a run of the mill lead-in, but if he wrote the actual history as a short story itself, now there was an idea, he could make his point and give the context. Oh, fuck, brilliant—

“Back soon,” Geralt was saying as the front door slipped shut, but the bard was too lost in his work to do more than give a small nod of his head.

The sun was falling, making a graceful bow into the horizon. Warm light spread out over the streets of Oxenfurt like the last pushes of tide, ebbing, and flowing, and sinking back into night.

“Ah, fuck,” Jaskier muttered, crossing out a spelling error with a snarl.

His shoulders ached, and his lower back was going to be the death of him. He was on page 7. All he could see was the work ahead of him, winding off ad infinitum. If he didn’t pick up the pace, he might have to go 60 hours straight—he shivered. Not ideal. He took a breath, stood up and stretched a bit, his muscles groaning in thanks. A quick bathroom break later and he was sliding back into his chair, still warm, his papers grinning up at him, sardonic.

He’d take a meal break at 10 pages, he told himself.

He stood to stretch and his head swam. Well. Plenty of reason to stay seated, he supposed.

Geralt and Yennefer returned at 12 and a half pages. He turned his head in greeting, and when he looked back he got the first real look at the table in hours—it was a disaster, crumbled pieces of parchment, empty quills, and little notes strewn everywhere. Some books propped open, the pile of parchment looking more like a mountain slope, an empty glass from when he’d chugged water hours ago.

His loves were clearly a few drinks deep as they came through the door, and completely unmarred by the woes of academia. Bastards, honestly.

“Hi, hello, hope you had a good evening, I—”

“Come to bed,” Yennefer said, suddenly right behind him. Two small but firm hands came to his shoulders, rubbing deeply.

“Ah! Oh, fuck—oh, yes, darling, right there—”

Geralt came to his other side, tipping his head up for a kiss, which he moaned into. His witcher’s tongue was soft, pleading, tempting him—his mage’s hands pushing almost painfully against his aching muscles. He wanted to cry, it was so good. It was so different than the last… however many hours it had been that he had been sitting here. Geralt pulled away, and Yennefer’s hands came to rest as well.

“So?” Geralt asked, his voice deep and velvety. “Bed?”

“I…” gods, who had he become? “I can’t. I want to, I just—”

Yennefer placed a kiss to the top of his head. “It’s fine,” she said, and he knew it was, but he hated denying them something they all wanted. “Have you eaten?”

Jaskier frowned. “Fuck. Not really.”

Geralt sighed and went to the pantry. “You’re getting a sandwich,” he grumbled.

“Ooo, Geralt, dear heart, would you heat it up? Use some of your,” he wiggled his fingers “your witchery magic?”

Geralt turned and glared. “You’re getting a sandwich.”

“He’s so mean to me,” Jaskier muttered to Yennefer, “I can’t believe he’s so mean to me.”

His mage snorted a laugh into his hair. “You’re really staying up all night, then?” She waved a hand and the curtains around the room swept shut, and his lantern began to burn steadily.

“Looks like it,” he sighed. Geralt retuned a moment later, plated warm sandwich and glass of water in hand.

“Fuck. Thank you.” He took it and took a bite, suddenly ravenous. He looked up at both of them, staring down in fond amusement. “Fank—” he swallowed his mouthful of sandwich. “Thank you both, truly. I’ll be up a bit. If you need something, call, yes?”

They rolled their eyes. “He tells us to call if we need anything,” Yennefer muttered. “Don’t get into any trouble,” she said, and with a peck on the cheek from both of them, they disappeared into the bedroom.

He looked back at his work.

Okay. 12 ½ pages in. He could do this.

At 15 pages, he felt ravenous again, and made a second sandwich. Not as good as Geralt’s. Geralt’s sandwiches weren’t even that good, but they were made by Geralt, which added a certain kick, a novelty he adored.

He drank another glass of water and shook his head. Back to work.

At 17 pages, sometimes the world swam before him. He gripped the edge of the table. Fuck.

He was so tired. 23 pages. He kept writing.

It was terrible. The whole paper was a mess. Nothing made sense and people were going to laugh at him. 25 pages.

He heard a sound. Was that Geralt rising for the bathroom? Was it an intruder? Light crept in through the window. 27 pages.

There was a ringing in his ear. His writing was getting increasingly larger. 27 ½ pages.

Geralt gave him a soft nuzzle to the top of his head before padding through to the kitchen. Jaskier’s heart ached. His bones ached. Writing was hard but right then it felt impossible. 27 ¾ pages.

Geralt lingered, and Jaskier felt his nose twitch. He tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for him to leave. He couldn’t have any distractions right now. He shut his eyes tight until he heard the bedroom door close once more.

Yennefer entered hours later, sweeping the curtains over with a flick of her hand. Bright light flooded the room, painting the desk in all its full, disgustingly messy glory. “Well—”

“Could you ask next time?!” Jaskier snapped. “Some of us need consistency to concentrate!”

Yennefer raised an eyebrow, and they stared at each other. Some part of him wanted to slap himself but the rest was just so irritated. Who’d she think she was, anyway?

After a moment, the mage turned and left with a flick of her hand to sweep the curtains shut again.

“Headed out,” Geralt said at 30 pages. “Contract.”

“Good,” Jaskier muttered. “I mean. Good that you’re—fuck. Whatever.”

Geralt stared. “You need rest. It’s been more than 24 hours.”

“I need to fucking finish.”

“Yen said—”

“I’m sure she did,” Jaskier muttered, driving his heels into his eyes. Gods, his eyes burned. Silence hung.

“She portaled out this morning.”

Jaskier rolled his eyes. “Great. Love that. I’m a fucking disaster, thank you for the reminder, Geralt.” He waved toward the door. “Don’t you have a contract?”

He turned back to his papers, shifting around to look for page 11, and didn’t think about how long it took before Geralt left the apartment.

His hand was shaking but he was at 34 pages. He still had so much to say. Fuck. But he was in it now.

He scarfed down some soup that was mostly broth at some point, and he’d under-salted it, but it was something. His eyes kept going blurry; traitorous things.

The bear on his mug was plotting his downfall.

38 pages and Jaskier felt like the gods themselves had gifted him with the knowledge he now bestowed onto meager commoners. He was a genius.

At 43 pages, he had stopped to lay out the entire essay on the ground, so he could see it all. The words sometimes swam before him, and he had trouble remembering what he was meant to say next. Once, he looked up, confused as to where he was. And then, at 44 pages, the guilt of snapping at his dearest loves, the weight of this behemoth paper he wasn’t even sure he could finish, and his own self-doubt crept in and seized him up, leaving him breathless and in tears for… awhile. Everything hurt. He had to keep going.

At 48 pages, he saw a griffon fly through his window, and he named it Kalvin. He turned whatever color Jaskier wanted him to turn, which was very considerate of him. Kalvin was his only friend now, and with a little convincing, might become his editor, too.

At 55 pages his chest seized, and it was hard to breathe for a moment. He closed his eyes but—no, no, couldn’t do that. If he fell asleep now, he’d never finish in time. He tried to relax, got some water, leaned against the counter. Everything was a mess.

He sat back on the floor, his work around him. Keep going.

“I don’t think there’s anything about anything that I have to be doing right now. Kalvin, you’ve… you’ve got to understand, this could be my finest work! It’s good. It’s pretty good here in… in this part, here. In that other part it’s just okay, but that’s why you come in with your big claws and you’re gonna. Rip up the bad parts. Don’t rip up the good parts. Right? Yeah. Do you think they’ve forgotten about me by now?”

He looked down. 57 pages. Took a long blink.

“Yeah,” he said softly, “That’s fair.

He had to write two extra pages so that he could skirt around referencing Valdo Marx’s work as anything other than a contradictory point. Maybe it would have been fun to use his own writing against him but he didn’t want to give the satisfaction of being referenced positively in a centerfold piece.

He lost the essay.

“Fuck—oh, gods, where did—”

He turned around, looked down. Oh, there it was.

“Thank fuck.”

The curtains were still closed and the charmed lantern was still burning, but Jaskier knew it was night by the time he reached 63 pages and Geralt came in.

Jaskier looked up from his spot kneeling on the floor. Geralt looked fine. He was a little dirty. There were some gushy bits. Probably blood. He was tired. Or just mad. Maybe he hated Jaskier.

“You’re still—?!” Geralt asked, looking at Jaskier like he’d just said a griffon named Kalvin had flown in the window earlier and now they were friends.

“I met a griffon,” Jaskier heard himself say. Geralt stared. “We’re friends now.”

“…You need to fucking sleep.”

“No.” Jaskier went back to the margin he’d devoted to drawing circles in. “Sorry ‘bout earlier.”

Geralt sighed. He might have talked but Jaskier didn’t hear, just kept writing.

“How often has that been happening?” he heard Geralt ask.

“What happening?”

“Where you fall asleep for a moment.”

“I haven’t! Fallen asleep.”

“Fuck,” Geralt said. He looked very nice, except for the goop all over him. Well. Even that wasn’t so bad, when the underneath bits were Geralt. His Geralt. Looked so warm, so strong, so able to carry him.

“Later,” Jaskier replied, and went back to his words. The familiar pop of a portal sounded in the bedroom. Their eyes lingered on the direction it came from, but Yennefer didn’t open the door. They looked at each other, and then back at the door which remained very much shut. “She’s mad.”

“Yep.”

“At me.”

“Yep.”

There was a pause. “Are you covered in blood?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Oh.”

“Not mine.”

“That,” he said pointing to the Witcher, “is good.”

“Mmm.”

“Sticky though.”

“Definitely sticky.”

Yennefer came out of the doorway, and Jaskier blinked. When he opened his eyes again she was much closer than she’d been and was in the middle of talking. Magic, he assumed.

“—yourself very lucky, bard.”

“Yeahh,” he said. “Sorry. ‘Bout… Sorry.”

She huffed and crossed her arms. There was a look in her face. Eyes? And her mouth. It was hard to name. Words were hard, when they weren’t the words he desperately needed to write.

“—for a while,” Geralt was saying. “Jaskier. How close are you to finishing.”

“Soon!” Jaskier said. “Soon! Soon. Due… 1pm tomorrow. What time is it?”

“10pm.”

“Fuck. Psshhh. I can… I can do it.” He looked up at Yennefer. “Sorry. Really. I… I’m just tired,” he admitted. “Shouldn’t have snapped. Not fair to you.”

Yennefer stood there, arms folded, emanating some emotion Jaskier had lost the concept of around page 41. Geralt walked further into the apartment, into the bedroom. Oh right. Blood armor. Ick.

He went back to writing and tried to ignore the desire to cry again, and then suddenly Yennefer’s shoes were in his line of vision.

“Let me read it,” she said.

“Oh.”

They stared at one another. She had such a pretty face. He might have been smiling. She rolled her eyes and then came to sit next to him. She quickly found the first page and began.

Halfway through it, he spilled ink on the bottom half of page 64, and wept. Yennefer gave him an attempt at a comforting pat on the back.

Yennefer had read the pages and risen; “It’s good. You need edits, but it’s somehow decent. Good. Whatever. A little… loose, toward the end, though,” made herself a cup of tea, and entered the bedroom.

Either a few moments, or 20 minutes later, Geralt emerged.

“What are you at now?”

“69 pages.”

“Nice,” Geralt said.

“Ha. Yeahhh,” Jaskier agreed.

“That’s not what I—” Geralt sighed the sigh that meant his face was going all pinch-y. “Close to the end?”

“Mmm. What is the end, really?” Geralt made a different pinch-y face. “Soon.”

“Come to bed tonight, Jaskier.”

“I’ll try,” he said. He blinked, and Geralt was gone.

There are a lot of words in an essay that are very hard to spell.

Jaskier ate the rest of a loaf of bread.

For a while, he swore he walked the streets of Oxenfurt while still warm in his professorial housing.

Kalvin’s accent changed three times and at one point he was on fire.

85 pages.

Geralt woke first, as always; There he was! That was his love. So much of his heart.

With shaking hands, Jaskier had brought himself up to sit in his chair, and sat staring down at his work. He looked up at Geralt with a lopsided grin. “I did it,” he said weakly.

“Need help putting it together?”

The tears fell so quickly he didn’t realize it was happening. “Really?”

Geralt sighed softly and knelt down, organizing the papers.

Yennefer emerged a bit later—There she was! His love, a chunk of him was hers entirely. He smiled. “Look!”

“Mmm. And now you can sleep.”

“NO!” Jaskier cried and leapt to his feet, “No, no, now… now is presenting time. To… the editors. Not Kalvin. But I turn it in… and then sleep,”

He had a sudden burst of energy, and tried to step over Geralt and the papers, but fell into the table instead, before the Witcher steadied him from below.

“Ohhhh, thank you dear. It’s time for… presentation! Mm.” He leaned into Yennefer’s warmth at his side, though she did not wrap her arms around him as he’d hoped. “Help me pick out an outfit.”

He blinked. Yennefer was in front of him now, looking at him with a frown, her hands around his waist. Geralt’s hand was against his forehead. “No! Stop that! I’m fine. I’m fine! See me! Fine. It’s action time. Let’s go!” and he marched off to the bedroom.

The floor was suddenly very close to his face.

“Did I—”

“You fell on your face.”

“Have I—”

“You’ve asked three times now, yes.”

There should have been fanfare when he turned it in, but there was only the grateful smile of Edmond, the young new assistant, a firm handshake, and a promise he’d hear back from them very soon, for a quick summarization of their initial thoughts. Or, he’d used all those words, Jaskier forgot which order they’d come in.

The three returned to the apartment, and everything happened very slowly and so quickly he found it hard to keep track. There was definitely a bath drawn for him—gods, it had been days, hadn’t it— oh, fuck, he was gross, wasn’t he—a full meal, and a celebratory drink. He’d made a few good jokes, and all he could see were Geralt and Yennefer, smiling at him. An empty glass. A bar of soap. A long quill. A messy table. A pile of books and an empty mug. They deposited him on the bed for sleep, and left together.

Jaskier lay there, waiting for sleep to take him.

It did not.

He was so tired he could cry. He did, a few times. He couldn’t think straight. All of it, everything, hurt. His body ached. He tried to soothe himself down alone, rocking himself in the hopes it would work. But nothing.

What if he could never sleep again? What if he would always be awake, forever? What if this was how he died?! Oh gods, he didn’t want to die! He still had edits to approve!

Eventually, he could feel himself getting closer. He adjusted himself, lay on his back and took deep, measured breaths, kept his eyes closed but relaxed. Okay. Okay. Sleep.

He was falling, so violently and so fast that when he jolted awake, he forgot he’d been lying on a bed in the first place.

Fuck.

He tried again. It happened sometimes, it was fine. He’d be fine.

He tried breathing deeply once more, trying to let the distant scents of Yennefer and Geralt now embedded in his pillows overtake him.

A fear so powerful it gripped his heart and twisted, whispered to him, ‘this is what dying is, you’re going to die’ and he once again jolted awake. He threw his head back against the pillow and winced; even that hurt.

Fuck. Fuck.

He kept trying. Over, and over, he’d get so close to sleep and then right at the precipice, something would yank him out of it.

Once, he saw Yennefer falling off a cliff. Another time, he saw Geralt stabbed through the chest. At some point, he saw Ciri screaming, and his hands flew out to pull her close, only to find nothing there. Sometimes it was himself falling, and sometimes it was the world below him falling instead.

He’d really done it this time. Stayed awake so long, sleep had abandoned him entirely.

It felt like twelve years before Yennefer and Geralt returned, slipping into the room quietly. He sat up in bed, startling them both.

“Please,” he said quietly, “I can’t. I don’t know why I can’t I just—I can’t. My body won’t let me, I want to but I can’t—”

“How the hell—” Yennefer started, walking over to him with a palm out to check for a curse, maybe? It didn’t matter. He wrapped her hand in his and clutched it to himself, desperate for her. She was so warm. So alive.

“Fuck,” Geralt sighed, “It’s been nearly 70 hours already, Jaskier.”

“Let me just put him down with magic,” Yennefer started, but Geralt put a hand up.

“We can’t. It’s a temporary fix. if he can’t fall asleep on his own without magic, it’ll get harder and harder for him. We need to get him to fall asleep without it.” They looked down at him. What a disgrace he must look like, how pathetic he was. He turned his face away in abject shame. He couldn’t even fall asleep right.

While he looked away, Yennefer tore her hand from his as she and Geralt discarded their clothes into heaps beside the bed, crawled beneath the covers on either side of Jaskier. They hated him. They must. How could they not?

“It’s fine, you don’t—fuck, sorry—”

Geralt shrugged. “Don’t be. I know how bad it gets. It’s different for a Witcher, but no sleep is the whole reason we met Yennefer.”

“Oh, yeah,” Jaskier said softly.

“As I recall, the solution then was to have vigorous sex on the floor.” Yennefer ran a finger along Jaskier’s chest. “Sound appealing?”

“I—yes, Yennefer, it sounds appealing.” He fidgeted, tried to focus on the feeling of Yennefer’s delicate touch. He was oversensitive enough that it felt like fire, but nothing… stirred, and each word he spoke felt like he was pulling honey from his tongue. “I don’t… much as I’d like, I’m not sure I’d be... up for it right now.” Yennefer’s head fell against the pillow and she flattened her hand, ran the palm up his chest to rest above his heart. Pressed a kiss there.

He closed his eyes and tried to breathe deeply, but they were looking at him, he could feel every inch of their gazes and it was all too much. He whined in agony. “I can’t do this. Fuck. I can’t, just put me out. We try it again tomorrow, I—”

“Jaskier. You can. Tell us what you need and we can help you,” Yennefer said, sweet but firm. And that was her, wasn’t it?

He couldn’t think. Wanted to. Wanted so much. Wanted to be asleep.

Jaskier curled up on his side, exhausted of being exhausted, when he felt Geralt slide up closer behind him. “Can I hold you?” he murmured into the bard’s shoulder. Jaskier nodded, and felt Geralt’s arm come around him and under his own arm, felt it slide up his chest and cross it protectively.

“Feel good?” Jaskier nodded, and then cracked his eyes open, met Yennefer’s, concern palpable.

He lifted one arm just slightly. “C’mere?” And she did, curled into his arms and around him, tucked her head under his, kissed the top of Geralt’s fingers. He held her close, and was held by the two in turn. Breathing, somehow, felt easier between them.

“Breathe, bard,” Yennefer urged him softly. Geralt buried his nose in Jaskier’s hair, took in a deep breath, and Jaskier tried to follow.

They breathed softly, all together, slow and safe. Soon, he was drifting into sweet oblivion.

‘You,’ Fear said, wrapped around his sternum, ‘will crumble, the moment you let go of wakefulness.’ It gripped him, and tugged him back to reality.

He jolted again. “Fuck, dammit, cock wringing—”

Yennefer pulled back to look at him worriedly. “Is that what’s been keeping you up?” she asked.

“It’s, I don’t know, something just pulls me back, I try to fight it but…”

“Mmm,” Geralt agreed. “Sleep starts. Happens sometimes.”

“The hell are sleep starts?”

“They’re… when you’re too on edge to sleep, or just haven’t in too long, brains… fizzle. Keep you awake. It’s a survival instinct—it makes you think you’ve got to stay awake to stay alive. Feels like falling? Or… a shock. Sometimes other things. Hallucinations.” Geralt pressed a kiss to the back of his head. “It’s scary. It’s meant to be. Your body thinks it’s fighting for its life.”

“I am never letting you doom yourself like this ever again,” Yennefer said, and while it was probably meant to come out angry, she just sounded worried.

Geralt hummed and agreement. “Try again, we’ve got you. We’re not letting go.” Jaskier took a breath. They had him. They had him.

Yennefer lifted a hand to Jaskier’s temple. “May I?” And he let her in, easier than breathing. She gave him Ciri laughing, wind chimes on the breeze, the soft roar of the coast. Geralt hugged him tight, ran his other hand through Jaskier’s hair, tried to keep the bard’s breathing aligned. Now, what had he ever done to earn these two?

Soon, sleep came to him again, and he could feel Yennefer ready to soothe anything that came for him in his mind, Geralt ready to defend against anything that dared hurt his resting body. The darkness crept in, and he felt peace.

Geralt was reaching for him, falling, bleeding, screaming.

“FUCK!”

“Shh,” the real Geralt hushed him. “We’ve got you.”

“Fuck, there’s got to be something else,” Yennefer groaned. “What’ve you tried so far?”

“I have tried… to fall asleep.”

Yennefer and Geralt both huffed small laughs. “No. Positions—”

“Only the good ones.”

“Meditating?” Geralt asked.

“Darling, I haven’t had a thought in my head in hours. This is meditation.”

“Drugs?” Yennefer asked.

“I will try the drugs!” Jaskier said with a drowsy cheerfulness, as Geralt replied “No drugs. No.”

“Ugh,” Jaskier groaned, and shifted to lie on his stomach. Oh. This was… better. He nestled into the pillows, and a soft contented sigh drifted from him.

“That feel better?” Geralt asked as he ran a hand up and down Jaskier’s back. “Mmm,” Jaskier replied. Yennefer’s hand joined Geralt over his chest. Oh, they were going to make him cry.

And then it was too much, too much feeling, like his brain couldn’t handle all the sensation, and he felt Yennefer come to pause, and a moment later, Geralt’s hand as well. ‘That better?’ Yennefer asked in his mind. Jaskier gave her the memory of his favorite hug with her, warm and happy as her legs wrapped around his waist, and his favorite with Geralt, crushing and firm and full of too many emotions to speak aloud.

“Could…” he said softly, “Just. Talk? Not to me. Just… to each other. Just wanna hear you.” He could almost hear their smiles, and felt as they settled in on the pillows beside him, arms and hands intertwining on his back. Yennefer’s head on his shoulder, the gentle planes of Geralt’s chest on his other side. “If you need us, Yennefer and I are here. We’ve got you. You’re safe.”

He nodded into the mattress, cool and soft below him.

“Goodnight, Jaskier.”

“G’night Yennefer.”

“Goodnight, Jaskier.”

"G’night, Geralt.”

He started to fade into oblivion, but stopped himself before he got too far. Not fear, not anxiety, a conscious stopping. Somewhere above him, Geralt was telling Yennefer about the contract from… sometime in the past few days, and Yennefer was telling her own story about some town gossip with a woman and her hens, which, it might have been a metaphor, but he’d basically forgotten what those were by now. He breathed deeply, felt their words flow through him, and when he felt brave enough, he let go, trusting they would catch him.

He could have sworn he heard wind chimes, somewhere.

The small amount of light filtering in through the curtains was golden when he awoke. His head both ached and felt light as a feather, his muscles screamed and cried but half of it was in relief. He gave a small stretch and yawned. “G’morning,” an amused Geralt said to him, lounging in a chair he’d brought beside the bed, reading a book. His legs were propped up on the bed beside the bard’s and Jaskier stretched to bump their toes together.

“What time…?”

“You slept 13 hours.”

“Fuck.”

“You probably need more.”

“Yeahhhh.”

“Feel alright?”

“Like a real human being,” he said. “Hungry, though.”

“Mmm.”

Yennefer slipped in the door, but, noticing Jaskier was awake, rose a hand. “May I?” she asked, voice dripping in sarcasm, gesturing to the curtains.

“You may,” Jaskier offered, covering his face with his hands. “Ohhhh, gods, how bad was I?”

“Genuinely awful,” Yennefer said, as Geralt was saying, “There’s been worse.”

“Normally I’d withhold this,” the mage said, withdrawing a small envelope from her pocket. “But, under the circumstances…” she cleared her throat.

“To one Julian Alfred Pankratz. We were extremely pleased to receive your manuscript yesterday afternoon. Our editors are will have their notes to you by the weekend, but we wanted to reach out and extend our most sincere compliments on your work. It is—oh, a flood of adjectives, I’m skipping these. Etcetera, etcetera, sucking your dick, etcetera alright, here—and meticulous in construction. We can tell,” Yennefer said, dragging out the final sentence, “you made good use of your year of writing time to complete the work.” Jaskier and Geralt by this point were holding back true howls of laughter.

“And won’t you believe it, there’s more. Ahem; we have a number of suggestions and questions already, but encourage you to get your well-deserved rest as we prepare our feedback. We are grateful to work with you, and thank you again for your stunning entry. There’s a postscript,” Yennefer added. “As a quick and personal note, we cannot have helped but notice the nature of your penmanship; we mean no offence, but would encourage you to see a doctor of the eye to fit you with some spectacles.”

“My—my penman…? What’d—” and Yennefer, who had clearly been waiting for this moment, brought out a rather crumpled piece of parchment with an ink stain at the bottom—ah, yes, the original page 64— and showed it to him. His eyes were… gods, they were aching, but he was clear minded enough now to see that each line had become at least twice it’s normal size. The lines were far from straight, dipping and bending toward the edge of the paper, the letters changed directions at random points, and a fair amount of the words were smudged so completely they were hard to make out.”

Jaskier stared in horror.

“They. Is that. Is that what it looked like? Really?”

“It’s worse than most of the ones that made it in,” Geralt said, carefully.

“Most?!”

“You drew pictures on one of them,” Yennefer said.

“Oh my god. They…they must…”

“Adore it, clearly,” Yennefer said, setting aside the paper. “It wasn’t worth the strain, and you’ve definitely firmly embarrassed yourself, but they’re either embarrassing themselves by fawning praise on you,” she said, sliding onto the bed, “Or you’re actually just… very knowledgeable and talented, even when addled by sleep deprivation.”

There was a pause, Jaskier soaking this in; it hadn’t been worth it, exactly, but it wasn’t all bad. In fact, it was quite good, and Yennefer was complimenting him outright, so, very good.

“Or both,” Geralt added.

“Definitely both,” Yennefer agreed.

Jaskier groaned. “You can’t be mean to me. You’re in my house and I am extremely tired, which means that you, by law, must kiss me and tell me nice things about myself.”

Geralt laughed, light and free, and Yennefer slunk slower down into the bed. “You get no kisses,” she said, “You get sleep and rest.” She grabbed a pillow from under her head and plopped it delicately onto Jaskier’s face.

“Boo,” Jaskier said, muffled beneath the thing. He closed his eyes. Geralt muttered something, and Yennefer gave a snort of laughter, and then there was silence.

“Are you two kissing up there?!”

More silence.

“UGH,” he groaned, and sunk into his soft, sweet mattress. Oh, beautiful mattress. How he adored it, how he adored his two loves on top of it. He listened to their kissing, soft, and sweet, and knew he’d join them soon. But it was so warm down here. Even as one of them removed the pillow, he could only bring himself to open his eyes for a moment, to see them both leaning to kiss his face gently, before returning to each other. He took a long, deep breath, and listened to them swirl around him, until all he could feel was their love and the sweet caress of his pillow.

#Geraskefer #Jaskier Whump #Soft Geralt #Soft Yennefer #The Witcher #Witcher Fic #jaskier #geralt #yennfer of vengerberg #sleep deprivation #insomnia #hurt/comfort #Witcher Whump #Butterbard's Fics

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chidoroki · 4 years ago

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In Defense of TPN S2

Okay, so before y’all start throwing your salt shakers at me, let me explain. Yes, I’m just as upset and annoyed with how the second season decided to cut out so much content that us manga readers were finally hoping to see: no Yuugo, Goldy Pond arc or GP Resistance, Lucas or Glory Bell escapees, Adam, poachers, or Cuvitidala Search. Since this season also (sort of) reached the 2047 time skip, we were also denied of the Paradise Hideout, Jin, Hayato, Ayshe, the Seven Walls & Imperial Capital Battle arcs and Alex due to the anime’s so-called “original story” idea. While some manga events still took place (B06-32 getting blown up, the trio’s reunion, Norman’s time at Lambda, the cursed blood and the Grace Field raid), they were all significantly changed and barely held the same emotional impact, as we see very little to no build up to these moments. Several volumes were skipped completely and despite others being touched lightly, we unfortunately missed out on major character development for everyone, most notably for Emma, but also the lighter side of things such as chef Ray, medic Anna, Rossi learning morse code, Minerva!Norman, etc. There’s honestly so much of the main story to talk about and I totally understand why we’re all so ticked off, especially since that darn slideshow did absolutely nothing to calm our hearts at the end of ep11.

However.. I’m not gonna stand by and say this season was worthless. Highly disappointing given everything I just mentioned of course, I get it, so don’t curse me out just yet. People can trash talk it all they want and I’ll sympathize 110%, but I personally won’t do so. I love this series too much and that’s a huge reason as to why I didn’t drop this season. Usually whenever I start a new series, it’s because I become interested in a character or two. I find that no matter what happens in that series, whether the story intrigues me or not, I’ll continue it if only to see more of that character. If the story is good, it’s just another plus for me to stay addicted, so while this season totally missed their chance to adapt the wonderful source material of my favorite series, I stayed to watch Emma, Ray and all the other children I’ve grown to love over the past two years. Another reason why I stayed on this train wreck was because of how thought provoking it became as turned into yet another guessing game for me. After first watching the OP and even more after ep3 aired, I kept wondering what would they include or leave out. How would they handle this scene if this and that were already changed? How would they fix this problem if so and so isn’t here? It felt like I was watching season one blind all over again; seeing all these little clues sprinkled everywhere and yet not having any idea on how the story was going to continue or end got me excited. That’s why I came to love this story in the first place, so having the chance to feel that again alongside characters I love so dearly.. it was fun for me (until the slideshow punched me in the face). While many people will look at this season and declare the manga and first season are both superior (which they are, I agree), I’m still sitting over here like “oh look, more content!”

With all that nonsense out of the way, I thought I would go ahead and ramble about everything I believe the second season did well enough, because if I can take any heat off this adaptation then you’re damn right I’m gonna try. So if you’re wondering why on earth a manga reader even mildly enjoyed this season, it’s honestly just the little things such as a decently adapted or improved panel/scene, any new, interesting elements the anime may have included, or other personal favorite moments of mine.. which there were a lot of.

So no negativity past here kiddos, we’re gonna be as optimistic and lively as an orange antenna.

(mild manga spoiler warning, I guess? but I’m sure it’s nothing y’all haven’t heard us readers mention/complain about already)

- If you’ve read any of my reactions to this season, you would know how much love I have for “Identity.” Not only is the song still an absolute banger, but the opening sequence itself is fantastic. From the contrast between human vs demon, the cameos, the symbolism, the match cuts, the build up to the chorus.. just everything. I could talk about it endlessly and watch it several times over and still be impressed.

- Lani’s stupid fall.

- How clearly it shows Emma’s condition becoming progressively worse.

- Her scream.

- Ray’s apology, especially how soft his voice was when saying “sorry, Emma,” and the smile he gives after she tells him not to worry about it.

- And his entire promise to keep everyone in their family safe. Oh I was so happy to finally hear him say that.

- This exchange between Don and Gilda.

- Rossi and those darn faces he gives us. This boy is such a mood.

- How involved the younger kids were so they don’t feel like they were just.. there, which served as a reminder that everyone from Grace Field is smart, not just Emma and Ray.

- How pretty the demon forest looked at night when all those odd creatures started glowing (even those darn goowee).

- So happy with how this panel was adapted. That smirk of his is everything.

- The fact they remembered a small detail such as the bell.

- Knowing now that they cut so much out of the manga, I’m glad we at least got the hug.

- The ending sequence gave us a small look at Sonja and Mujika’s travels by themselves. “Magic” is also so very calming to listen to.

- How the children hug both Emma and Ray, as manga only had our girl receiving the hugs.

- Sonju & Mujika’s voice actors fit them perfectly.

- How impressed Ray was when he first tried their cooking. No wonder he was so eager to learn how to cook.

- Sonju’s story about the demon world from ch46-47 practically adapted word for word.

- While the manga also shows us how frighted the duo is upon learning they’re living in the worst case scenario, it’s seeing them and their hands physically shake that help push this scene a little bit more (not that you can tell this by a still frame but trust me).

- Their synchronized smirks and how well their excitement was not only animated but how genuine and real it sounds too. Emma’s laugh and the fact they made Ray of all people sound hopeful is fantastic.

- They kept the small Ray from this panel and made him better.

- I just love seeing him be optimistic.

- The entire scene when Emma & Ray are both scolded by the younger kids for acting so recklessly is perfect.

- They kept this tiny comment of Nat’s.

- Finally getting chef Ray and hearing how confident he is with his cooking skills already.

- Seeing other children like Dominic pick up archery and be surprisingly good at it.

- Anime pushed Emma’s quick learning ability further with archery by showing us how easily she could land a bullseye even after hitting something midair.

- How well they animated Emma’s first kill, from following the arrow as she pulls it back to when she releases it as it flies towards the bird’s eye.

- The fact that this scene and the next both used a water droplet to symbolize death just like we saw during season one with Conny and Norman’s shipments are so satisfying.

- The gupna scene and how well it emphasized Emma’s reaction to taking a life and how upset/bothered she was in doing so. The addition of a butterfly helps as well, as it’s another way this series tends to convey the idea of death. (you remember how many the OP had, right? tons.)

- I only just noticed that Ray is seen looking at a similar butterfly in the following scene as well.

- The anime doing this panel justice. Ep2 is probably the episode that follows the manga the closest and did real well in regards to that.

- Ray beating Sonju at chess.

- Chris knowing exactly which way to go without using the compass, which makes sense as he was seen mapping out the surrounding area in the previous episode.

- The kid’s adorable little freak out.-

- Giving us a better idea on how large the reference room of the B06-32 shelter truly is.

- Finally being able to hear our boy Nat play the piano. The fact that his first song is named “Nat King Cool” as a possible reference to Nat King Cole is also great.

- Rossi being an accurate representation of the manga readers while watching this episode.

- Chris being his cute self.

- Seeing Ray’s sleeping face after the manga denied us so many times by hiding it.

- It’s.. close enough. We love our chef.

- I love the idea that Nat plays a couple songs before everyone goes to sleep. That’s so precious.

- SHE!! With her hair down!

- Rossi teasing Don and the fact that just mentioning Gilda is enough to scare him.

- It remembered that Gilda has a tendency to count all the children.

- The level of confidence Isabella has in her kids.

- Ray being oh so close to shooting a human with an arrow.

- This hug.

- Chris leading the group through the underground tunnels, which he also does in manga but we learn earlier in this ep it’s due to all the time he’s played down here.

- Because of his extensive knowledge of the shelter’s layout, Chris also guides everyone to one of the secret entrances to escape after he realizes the intruders are only stationed at the main two.

- Ray’s first demon kill is smooth as hell.

- Curse this scene for being so dark because that damn smile Isabella gives us is amazing.

- Since Andrew was cut, Chris and Dominic survive the aftermath of the shelter’s destruction without any injuries.

- Although we weren’t expecting to see their older 2047 selves this soon, they look good okay?

- The emotion in her voice throughout this entire scene (probably the closest we were ever gonna get to Emma doubting herself in ch109/114 too).

- Please just let me enjoy this moment when Ray noticed her negative thoughts and stepped in to help just as I expected.

- Vylk and that goofy smile of his.

- Watching the duo communicate without words during the chase through the demon town.

- Our girl clearing this jump effortlessly.

- Norman’s squishy cheeks.

- Ray’s slap could’ve been better, I know, but at this point I’m happy they still included it.

- The fact we can see Ray’s face during the reunion hug this time.

- And this hug.

- Remembering the small panel of Ray noticing Emma’s bluff.

- Finally hearing this conversation because both voice actors do a wonderful job with it and thankfully the dialogue is on par with the manga as well. Also that one moment when the shadow falls across Emma’s face like that.

- Gilda comforting Alicia after her nightmare.

- The scene is very dear to me so of course I appreciate every little panel we can get.

- How carefree Ray sounded with his “Nopes.”

- How I only realized just now that this panel was also adapted.

- Okay so who’s brilliant idea was it to have the sun rise towards the end of this conversation as Ray helps Emma regain her confidence? I just wanna personally thank them because it was a genius move and I’ll treasure it forever.

- They kept Barbara’s slip-up.

- Like our demon friends, I think the Lambda crew’s voices fit them rather well, although Zazie’s was totally unexpected, like dude you’re 5, why is your voice so low?

- Another “it could’ve been better but at least they included it” moment.

- Vincent’s smile here cracks me up and I don’t know why.

- Barbara’s anger.

- The short snippet we get of the ch126 conversation when the duo was visiting Chris.

- The table from Barbara’s outrage was never magically fixed like it was in manga, so we get this nice shot of Norman reflected in the broken surface.

- The trio’s conversation about the royals and cursed blood follows manga relatively well.

- Anime did this panel better, I’m sorry. Thank you for showing my girl getting angry.

- This frame of Ray.

- This comment of Norman’s that made me wanna slap him.

- How Norman’s face is constantly in the shadows during this scene, which is something his office at the Paradise hideout probably wouldn’t have given us, so hurray for this location instead.

- How he and Emma bicker over how many days their deal should last.

- When the camera shifts in and out of focus during Barbara’s seizure.

- How this scene hid Norman’s face until they revealed the demon the crew killed.

- It really is the small details that make me happy.

- This smile of Don’s.

- I’ll take all the hugs I can get.

- Emma and Gilda’s little headbutt.

- Why does my boy look so grown up and handsome here? Hello??

- I suppose I have to give credit for Peter’s voice actor too hm?

- Actually making Smee a bit more relevant.

- Since the fight against Legravalima was cut, this shot of Zazie is the closest we’re gonna get to seeing him without his paper bag, but it does improve on that one panel of him at the start of ch153.

- Seeing more of Norman’s time at Lambda as well as the aftermath of the explosion.

- While this scene pales in comparison to its manga counterpart, having the sun set behind him while Norman delivers his famous line was still a decent touch. It’s a nice contrast to the sunrise in ep6 and I enjoy it very much.

- Wild demons managing to somehow successful jump scare me not once, not twice, but three times in a single episode.

- Emma getting back up to protect her family despite her injury. (i mean, it’s no ch93 comeback but oh well)

- Ray getting in another decent shot at a demon.

- This face of his.

- Seeing just how quickly the drug causes the demons to degenerate and all the chaos it causes.

- Actually showing Norman attacking a demon rather than just saying he killed Yverk off panel in ch153.

- Hate me all you want but the anime did this panel better too.

- The ch153 discussion is more or less the same but the fact they added in Norman looking to Ray for help and just having him snap back instead was priceless.

- Sonju’s grin.

- The scene when Norman stops Zazie’s attack may only last like five seconds but it’s wonderfully animated and I find myself replaying it countless times.

- How to make the manga readers and anime-onlys panic with just one sentence:

- Isabella being clever as ever by leaking false info into the radio the escapees have to lure them back to Grace Field.

- I just think Emma looks so mature and pretty here?

- Had Norman actually apologize to the demons.. or was just about to anyways.

- Demon Emma is precious and must be protected.

- The adorable mixup between both Emmas.

- I haven’t a clue on where or how the kids managed to gather all the supplies to create several hot air balloons and explosives.. but they did, somehow, and I’m impressed because I’m assuming that all happened within a day.

- Ma’am, could you be any more smug?

- Simon! And he ends up surviving!

- Having Sonju fight alongside the Lambda crew.

- Which reminds me that this is possible since the Imperial Capital battle didn’t happen (yet, in this timeline), so the three of them never received their injuries from Legravalima either.

- The smoke bombs, only because I remembered how Sonju used them back in ep1 while rescuing Ray so it’s nice to see them being used again.

- Showing Norman actually use a bow and arrow this time. He also hits his target on the first try through a smokescreen.

- Ray having enough strength to knock out two demons with a simple metal pipe. In ch169 he’s seen holding down a grown man so yeah, I can believe this as well.

- Having Jemima, Yvette, Rossi & Mark disguises themselves as shipments in order to rally up the other Grace Field kids. Mark’s face and the noise he makes upon seeing Naila again is also precious.

- Peter actually falling for Vincent’s trap.

- Getting one young child to listen to you is hard enough, but Emma manages to get about 183 of them (yes I counted, give or take the four who also disguised themselves) to follow her orders in no time flat.

- Phil helping with the plan to lead all the children to the elevator.

- It made me nervous upon seeing it but they made the Day & Night ceiling real pretty.

- I knew the reunion was coming and still cried.

- Take all my hell yeahs.

- I could listen to her say this on repeat and be overjoyed every single time.

- She’s beauty, she’s grace, she’ll point at gun in your face.

- Getting to witness someone shoot at Peter since no one did so in the manga? Wonderful. Having that person be Isabella who literally lands a perfect shot not even a full second after he pulls out that disc? Perfection.

- Mujika and Vylk bringing in hundreds of civilian demons as reinforcements.

- James!

- Those real quick shots of the ancestors because I had given up on thinking we would’ve seen them at all since the Seven Walls arc was skipped.

- I’m actually surprised they kept his death in and it’s as harsh as the manga.

- Ray confronting Isabella with the addition of this line.

- This panel being animated along with Emma’s thoughts from ch177 towards Isabella even though that chapter’s major event didn’t happen.

- I certainly can not forget about this hug.

- At least anime!Emma told the boys her plan before reaching the door, or didn’t keep it a total secret? If not then I’ll praise the boys for accepting her crazy idea regardless.

- Boy, do you know how much I love you and your smirks?

- SHE. STAYS. ALIVE!!!

- Vincent and Norman’s little fist bump.

- Different but close enough. Still cute though.

- The amount of emotions this one shot makes me feel is limitless. Catch me crying tears of joy over it for the rest of my life.

- Having Phil not only getting the chance to see a train but to ride one as well.

- This pretty shot of Gilda.

- As well as this beautiful one with Emma and Mujika.

- They gave us older Phil. Not sure how much older but he’s still adorable.

- Lastly, the goddamn soundtrack! Of course we heard a bunch of the songs from season one, but the new ones such as “The Evil-Blooded Girl” and the Arabic version of “Isabella’s Lullaby” are absolutely fantastic. I still have to listen to full soundtrack but from what little bit I heard of such songs such as “Nat King Ballade,” “Crisis,” “Norman’s Lament,” and “The Temple Ruins,” I’m sure every track is an absolute joy. I’m so happy we had Obata back for this season.

And that’s the end of it, I guess? Of course it’s not a perfect list, as the majority of it was just personal favorites of mine but oh well. (this is just as long as ray’s birthday post too, oh lord)

I’m not gonna be one of those manga readers who continuously nag people to go read the original source material, because that’s annoying and I understand that some people just might not be up for it. They might watch a series, take it all in and then move on to the next one. Others might want to find out about every little detail and invest more time into the story. It’s totally fine to enjoy a series your own way and you shouldn’t feel pressured to continue something you’re only mildly interested in or feel bad that you love something others might despise. Just do whatever makes you happy. If you wanna check out the manga and see why us readers love it to pieces, then I promise it’s worth it, especially if you enjoyed the anime or wish to see more of any character.. or the entire story. If the manga ain’t for you, then I hope the anime did something for you. It definitely could have been better though, I can’t argue with that.

Whether you’re anime-only or manga reader, can we all still hope for a remake? This season had more flaws than any amount of praise I could give, but if years down the line we get the FMA: Brotherhood or Hellsing: Ultimate treatment where the next anime adaptation follows the manga perfectly, you know I’ll be all for it. I’m too deep in this TPN hole and I’ll probably never leave.

#the promised neverland #tpn anime #chidoroki used chatter #dont worry.. im still sad as hell about this adaptation.. this season just gave me a little excitement.. thats all #hey i re-watched this season so you wouldnt have to #..not like that says much considering ill probably go ahead and watch the dub too.. ah something is seriously wrong with me

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sagamemes · 4 years ago

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critrole sentences starters — 100 quotes from 100 episodes. critrole just posted a list, so here’s about 100 lines of dialogue compiled, edited, and occasionally split into smaller pieces for roleplay purposes. topics and tone shift... wildly. and as usual, alter anything you want to make it fit your muse better. tw: murder, death, self-destructive intent.

❝ welcome to [place]. ❞

❝ is that a natural thing for you guys to just attack each other in moments of stress? ❞

❝ i’ve never travelled with a bunch of people i thought would die in front of me! ❞

❝ yeah. the world does need an asshole. ❞

❝ tell you what. i start sweating real hard, i’ll let you know, okay? ❞

❝ well, my social anxiety is getting the best of me. i’m taking a walk. goodbye. ❞

❝ i think that the bust of a tiny, curly-headed 120-year-old woman needs to slam its way into the torso of that beast. ❞

❝ what do they look like, these buttons? ❞

❝ i don’t normally speak with the dead on a first date, but we’ll think about it. ❞

❝ what if we kill all of them and come back and rob this place? ❞

❝ i’m always ready to make a damn fool of myself. ❞

❝ it’s a collection of crazy tales about this weird fella. ❞

❝ i did my best. every town i went to and every town i left, no matter how they treated me, and a lot of them treated me with deep disrespect… ❞

❝ i left every town better than i found it. ❞

❝ i mean, i don’t want to impose… but i’m bleeding profusely. ❞

❝ what happens if you have a childhood, but it’s like barely a childhood ‘cause it was supposed to be someone else’s childhood, but it was you instead? is that a childhood? ❞

❝ two shit throws in a row. it can’t get any fucking worse. ❞

❝ i am your god. long may i reign. eat my fruit. ❞

❝ code: modern literature! ❞

❝ welcome to the [group]! ❞

❝ you’re very liberal with your parenting. ❞

❝ one thing that i have realized today is that i need to work on my interpersonal skills and friendship making. ❞

❝ try not to cut up my face, okay? ❞

❝ i want to say thank you for the package you sent me. i know that it was really– ❞

❝ you are blue. ❞

❝ an example, it is. ❞

❝ i’m trying to be nice. this is as painful for me as it is for you. just give me five seconds. ❞

❝ i could check my smell bag, but i trust you right now. ❞

❝ case closed. ❞

❝ i think what his holiness is trying to convey is that he will be going on a spiritual journey, and there’s only room on that train for one dude! ❞

❝ look to purchase, [name]! just look! ❞

❝ hello [title/nickname]. this is [name]. please respond. ❞

❝ that sounds like someone whose ass i would like to kick. ❞

❝ sometimes the things that are the most beautiful are the things that can hurt you the most. ❞

❝ it’s actually /[title]/ [last name]. ❞

❝ this one time i saw a bug carrying a piece of bread that was like five times its size and he was carrying upstairs, like up and then he would turn, and then up, and then he would turn. ❞

❝ fluffernutter! ❞

❝ sleep well with your bad decisions. ❞

❝ sometimes boys like it if you are a little bit aloof, a little bit cold to them afterwards, like maybe they did something wrong, and they don’t even know what it was. ❞

❝ well, i would race to the... ‘ apricot ’ and seize it so that she can’t pick that fruit. keep it for ourselves in our fruit basket, and make off and decide if we’re going to make marmalade later or not. ❞

❝ i… wait. ❞

❝ alright, let’s treat this situation with all the seriousness it demands ❞

❝ i’m really really nice, but i don’t always make the best decisions… ❞

❝ what, you don’t want a unicorn pooping on his face? ❞

❝ yes. it’s a chair. it’s a standard chair. ❞

❝ are you in love with me? ...are you secretly in love with me? ❞

❝ i win! ❞

❝ why is just my dick purple? ❞

❝ now, [name] is number two. you are number one. you are in charge. you just… dress to impress, okay? ❞

❝ what happens when a moorbounder enters a feline beauty contest? it’s a cat-tastrophe! ❞

❝ you’re not my type. ❞

❝ i am of the empire. but i am no friend to the empire. ❞

❝ it’s still you though, right? ❞

❝ you don’t get to talk anymore. ❞

❝ it’s a regular fucking turtle. ❞

❝ don’t let the irons be your strength. ❞

❝ you pick and choose your fights. ❞

❝ best not give in to a man i can crush with one hand. ❞

❝ there’s a dick hidden somewhere in there. ❞

❝ back up a little bit. so we met at like a circus. it was a crazy night. but after a while, yada yada– ❞

❝ man, you made vulnerability look so easy. ❞

❝ well, i’ve always learned that the best way to deal with your problems is to run away from them. ❞

❝ and i know that you lost your family, but we can be your new one and we love you very much, [name], no matter what happened. okay? ❞

❝ i guess in a way i’m an orphan maker. ❞

❝ i’m sorry. i was trying to do the thing. ❞

❝ i killed my family, i’’ll throw you under a bridge. ❞

❝ i heard you. ❞

❝ i don’t mean to raise my voice. ❞

❝ this is precisely the sort of attitude i’ve been saying everyone should be having. this is what i’ve been waiting for. this is great. ❞

❝ you need me more than i need you. ❞

❝ you pooping? ❞

❝ the rule is that evil dies. ❞

❝ eventually, someday someone will pray for a miracle, pray for something to save them to whatever gods are nearby, and that prayer will be answered because you’ll show up. ❞

❝ fucking seaweed wraps are the shit! ❞

❝ oh shit, are we a cult? ❞

❝ hey everybody, don’t mean to intrude. obviously, there’s a lot going on here, but we’re going to be sort of walking around for probably the next couple days and there’s some other people wandering through that are… they’re bad business. they’re probably going to do a lot of damage, possibly a fire, who knows? but we’re trying to take care of that. ❞

❝ we’d really appreciate a helping hand and we’ll try our best to stay out of everybody’s way. ❞

❝ if there’s any birds—hey up there. ❞

❝ if you’ve seen anything, we’d love to just get in and out with as little hassle as possible. thanks, that’d be great. ❞

❝ you know, the concept of gravity was first discovered by a wizard known as iz-aak newton. ❞

❝ but i would rather you put your faith in me for something more important than my curiosity. ❞

❝ it’s better to have somebody’s word broken than to have no word at all. ❞

❝ i pick and choose my apologies. ❞

❝ we will trust you if you tell us who the members of the [name] are. ❞

❝ i could be her beacon. ❞

❝ yes, i think we have a job to finish. ❞

❝ can i get a hug? ❞

❝ it’s entirely off-putting how disarmingly charming you are. ❞

❝ i genuinely do not know how to react. take that as a compliment. ❞

❝ finish it, champion. ❞

❝ kill me. ❞

❝ i smell like a crayon. ❞

❝ many fairy tales with an old crone in the woods. ❞

❝ have you ever had a blueberry cupcake? ❞

❝ stop—shut up, [name]! god-fucking-alright. ❞

❝ ignore the fucking undead, okay! ❞

❝ nothing happens for a reason. it’s absolute fucking chaos. ❞

❝ i’m asking you to open your heart to chaos ❞

❝ you were not born with venom in your veins. ❞

❝ please. please help me ❞

❝ we’re being followed by a tiny island. ❞

#rp meme #sentence starters #sentence meme #starters #rp starters #starter meme #* meme.#* sentences.#critrole #* request.

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areyougonnabe · 5 years ago

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Short Term Memory

But there can often be a lot of “thinking you love someone” before the loving truly begins. — The Man In The Red Coat by Julian Barnes

Now I am superlatively, actually awake. — The amnesiac composer Clive Wearing

Aziraphale knows it in Eden.

He watches the demon, Crawly, sprawled loose-limbed underneath the boughs of an eternally blooming magnolia, lazily swatting at the plump bees that buzz around his head, and knows he is in love with him.

On this plane, in this body, Aziraphale is subject to all the forces the Almighty has created. Gravity, yes. Electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear. And, it seems— love as well.

Adam and Eve certainly didn’t take long to get down to it, after all. Aziraphale, having observed the Garden and its inhabitants closely, knows of no possible love other than the kind that blossoms at first light, and does not wither ever after, even as the sun falls below the horizon. That is the only reference he has to compare this feeling inside him to, the sensation that throbs deep within him when he lets his eyes linger on Crawly, on the dark pool of him beneath the tree.

“I love you,” he whispers, so softly not even the bees can hear, just to know how it feels.

***

On the Ark, Aziraphale thinks of how foolish he was, to believe that he’d loved Crawly after just a few scant days in a garden, hardly even speaking to each other. Longing gazes and yearning sighs does not a true love make.

He hadn’t known then, not really, the true appeal of an argument that went on long after sunset, ideas and perspectives finding purchase before being wrestled triumphantly to the rhetorical floor. He hadn’t known all the different tones of Crowley’s voice, the demon’s magical ability to parrot and mimic, to mock and decry, to leave Aziraphale wheezing with laughter one moment and incandescent with offense the next.

But now that he does, now and only now— can he believe himself to finally, fully be in love with Crowley.

***

In Rome, Aziraphale cannot countenance his own sheer idiocy.

How could he have possibly loved Crowley, when they’d never shared a meal together? It was a childish infatuation, before this moment, before he’d ever seen food make its way past those full lips, before he’d ever seen that tanned throat bob as it drank down a dark wine.

Crowley’s hair is shorter, now, too, and Aziraphale finds it almost laughable he’d thought what he felt for this demon was love, when only on this day has he first seen the pale nape of Crowley’s neck, the full uncurtained juncture of his ear and jaw.

They order course after course, jug after jug. Aziraphale does not want the night to end, because now, and only now, for the first time in nearly four thousand years, does he really and truly know that he is in love.

***

It is the fourteenth century, and Aziraphale has not seen Crowley in ninety-six years. Every year that passes without sight of him, in this monastery high on a mountainside, hurts deeper than the last.

It was pure folly to have thought himself in love, in those times he could go centuries without seeing Crowley, and not have each separated year be a brand new wound upon his heart.

Love is only really proven by pain in its absence, surely. So only now, assigned to this most sacred of places, where Crowley could not tread even if he wished to, is Aziraphale absolutely positive he knows for the first time what it actually means to love.

***

London burns, and Aziraphale gathers his precious books, his artifacts and keepsakes, into a bag that rightfully should not be able to fit them all, and escapes outside the city walls.

There is a familiar dark shape waiting for him there, lingering in the shadow of Aldgate. Aziraphale can smell the telltale scent of Hell on Crowley, the acrid stench of a bad deed done well clinging to his smoke-stained skin.

He doesn’t need to ask where Crowley has been. His own side has warned him, in many recent holy missives, about increased activity from Below during these tumultuous times of plagues, wars, dissidence. He knows Crowley had something to do with the flames now consuming the city; to ask for details would be to invite pain. So instead they exchange mumbled pleasantries, avoiding each others’ gaze, but not willing to separate, not just yet.

“A pity,” Aziraphale is saying. “All those homes, and oh— St. Paul’s! That interior was simply divine…”

Crowley grimaces, ash-faced, and shrugs. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Oh. Oh, yes, of course.”

Silhouetted against the smoke, Crowley is wicked, and foul, and demonic, and Aziraphale loves him. Oh, he does, he does, he does.

Only real love could withstand such conditions, such determined attempts to exterminate it. Whatever Aziraphale felt before this awful day, it was untested and as such untrue.

It is only now, faced with such inarguable evidence of Crowley’s nature, and feeling a tide of affection rise within him nonetheless, feeling the urge to gather the demon into his arms and hold him there, whisper words of forgiveness and comfort, does Aziraphale know that he is finally in love at last.

***

It happens again, and again. Aziraphale curses his own stupidity, as each and every time his past self is proven idiotic, infantile, naive, simply misled. His heart bears a succession of false claimants to the crown of love, each overthrown in turn.

He did not truly love Crowley until Paris, when the demon snatched him from underneath the hanging blade of Mme. Guillotine, for love is only love when it surprises, amazes, does the impossible.

He did not truly love Crowley until St. James Park, when he refused to provide him with the means to his own destruction, because love is not love if it bends to every harmful whim, accepts every poor decision without question.

He did not truly love Crowley until the bombs fell on St. Mildred’s, because in that moment he knew Crowley must love him as well, and love is only love when it travels both ways, amplified by actions on both ends, miracles done in the maintenance of it.

He did not truly love Crowley until he handed over a thermos full of holy water, because love is not love unless it is trusting, rather than rigid and unforgiving.

He did not truly love Crowley until they shook hands in the back room of his darkened bookshop, promising to save the world together, for love can only really be love when it is committed to, promised, sealed with a touch.

***

“I love you,” Aziraphale says, between kisses to Crowley’s cheeks, his throat, the corners of his lovely mouth, here in the darkness of the demon’s flat on the night after the end of the world. “Crowley, I love you.”

“How long?” gasps Crowley. “How long have you loved me?”

“I— if you must know, I don’t believe I ever have, not until this moment. Not really.”

“You can’t be serious. You’re lying, you’ve loved me longer than that—”

“A childish crush. A mere obsession. Darling, I swear, I never truly loved you before now!“

“That’s not true. You’re being ridiculous.”

Aziraphale finds it in himself to be primly offended, even as Crowley’s fingers find the buttons of his shirt, opens them, and press into Aziraphale’s skin, shockingly cool as they travel up his chest, exploring him, claiming him.

“I’m not!”

“You are, though. You wanna know how I know? That you’re wrong? I’ve watched you. I’ve known you, better than anyone. That— that damn look in your eyes, it hasn’t changed in six thousand years, no matter what you think. I’d’ve noticed if it had, believe me. You’ve loved me from the very start, angel. From the beginning.”

This revelation does not square with Aziraphale’s understanding. It does not slot neatly into his narrative. “But I know,” he insists. “Everything before now, before this moment— it was nothing. It was all in my head. I feel it now everywhere, my dear.”

“I can tell,” Crowley smirks, his hand now traveling downwards. The smirk turns into a smile as he finds purchase, and Aziraphale gasps, shudders, clutches Crowley tighter.

“I guess it doesn’t matter,” Crowley goes on, “seeing as we’re here now, after all.”

“Oh, but it does! Love is not love unless it is spoken aloud, and only now am I speaking it, so only now do I truly love you, Crowley—”

“If I let you believe that you’re right,” Crowley says, and Aziraphale remembers their friendly sparring as the Ark traversed those many waters, remembers how naively thought he knew love then, “will you keep saying it?”

“Saying—”

“That you love me.”

“Clearly, you’ve—ah!— known this whole time,” Aziraphale says, still managing petulance even as Crowley’s swift touch between his legs increases in speed, sending shocks of sensation rocketing upwards, “so why do you need me to prattle on?”

There is silence, for a moment, just the sound of breathing from the both of them, coming heavier now, the sound of fabric rustling between them, and the sound of skin on skin, hot and human.

And then Crowley speaks, right into Aziraphale’s ear, in a voice so low, so close, it makes Aziraphale shake with the dearness of it, or maybe that’s just the rising tide of pleasure inside him—

“Let me count the ways. Because it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve heard. Because I deserve to be told, after all this time. Because—even though I’ve known, all along, doesn’t mean I ever really let myself believe. Because I love you, too.”

Aziraphale falls apart, then, beneath the weight of Crowley’s affection, physical and otherwise, cresting over into ecstasy, unlike anything he’s known, from his own touch or that of others.

“I take it back,” he gasps, winded, “what I said before, now I love you, now I really love you, Crowley—”

And he goes on, until Crowley throws his head back in joy, lets out one of those pure, gleeful laughs, and cuts him off with another kiss.

#my writing #THIS TURNED OUT WAY LONGER THAN I EXPECTED HERE HAVE IT #i'll put it up on ao3 tomorrow #good omens #rated M below the cut fyi

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whump-town · 4 years ago

Text

A Cumbersome And Heavy Body

Chapter Three: I'm Treading For My life, Believe Me

Summary: Stubborn until the very end, Aaron Hotchner isn’t going to go down without a fight. It’s just getting hard to tell the difference between fighting them and fighting the cancer.

Word count: 6103

Author’s Note: I did listen, on repeat, to the Anastasia soundtrack while writing this. Which, you would think, would make this a rather happy chapter and if you thought that... how silly you will feel in a few moments. You can find the first chapter here!

Warning: the subject of this fic is cancer and it’s treatment, cursing, maybe out of character (idk, man. hotch is weird) bonus: I’m 19 and a humanities major so obviously I don’t know anything about medicine so I’m doing my best out here

Not knowing how to think I scream aloud, begin to sink My legs and arms are broken down With envy for the solid ground

There is not a sound. Not a shiver. The floorboards do not moan lowly. No hinge gives its creaking complaint. The disturbance is a felt one. Something she feels right where her fourth rib meets her sternum. It has no name. Calling it instinct is superstitious. Claiming it as training or intuition is childish.

It has everything to do with love and fear. And love and fear alone.

“Aaron?” The comforter he seems to be forever tangled has been kicked away in his fitful sleep. In the low light of the room, the hallway light seeping in, she can see his heaving chest. As though he has run a great deal, not lying supine on his bed. “Aaron, can you hear me?” Despite the bitter scent of sweat, she can’t tell what it is that draws her deeper into the room.

Slowly, his dark eyes open, breathing rasping out as he opens his mouth to answer but no sound leaves his pale lips.

Looking over her shoulder, only after looking and listening for a sign they’ve awoken Jack, does she enter the room. Shutting the door behind her, she stifles the room to darkness. She can’t even see the hand extended in front of her. Not that she needs it. The path of his room is simple.

Two steps in there is an outfit shed by the dresser on her right side. The pant leg extends out and if she doesn’t lift her foot, she’ll trip. Three more steps in and she needs to extend her hand just a fraction to feel the cool wooden bed frame. There she can pivot herself with its aid. Step high over the sweatshirt on the floor and she’s good. Well, mostly.

She gets tangled in the comforter he kicked off.

“Em--” he coughs, letting out an achy moan. “Emily?”

She gets to his nightstand and leans heavily on the old wood, catching her breath. The damn blanket was like fighting an octopus. “Right here,” she promises, knocking all kinds of shit to the floor as she fights her way to the lamp. It comes on with a click and they both wince at its sharpness. She’s got her eyes closed, trying to allow her pupils some small reprieve, when his hand wraps around her forearm. Cold clammy fingers wrapped around her wrist. “Hotch?”

The soft hazel of his eyes is unfamiliar. “I want to go home,” he rasps softly. His chest shutters with the effort the simple request has taken. The tears in his eyes slide down his cheeks without the guilt. He strikes her. Not with his palm open and hands roughened by callouses. He does not hit her or cause her to draw back with his words. By the look in his eyes. The confusion. The pain.

“Aaron--” Once and only once does she consider trying to convince him that he is exactly where he craves to be. Mouth open, the words pushing at her tongue, she decides that will only hurt them both. Softening the look on her face, she crouches down by his side. Taking a seat on the edge of his bed.

The rash on his chest has depended its angry red, it taunts her now as the glisten of his sweat across his pale skin. Every visit to the doctor promises that it’s not as bad as it looks. It causes him mild discomfort and nothing can be done. It is a product of the radiation. To heal the wound is futile. Stepping off a cliff to avoid a hill.

“You’re feverish,” she notes, moving the back of her palm against his forehead. To her surprise, he doesn’t pull away from her touch. Not even as her fingers draw against the sharp peak of his cheek bones. He lays, compliant, eyes foggy but on her. With a fond sigh, she observes, “dehydrated. You didn’t drink the water I gave you.”

When he speaks, he sounds much more like himself. The tone costs him more than it's worth. “My throat hurts.” Which is an awful excuse but it’s the truth and she knows it’s just another part of normal life falling away from her grasp. Today it is just water but tomorrow it is the hospital. It’s the central line and the saline and the tube they’re going to place in his stomach because he’s reaching the point of inabilities.

And it is never as simple as a sore throat.

She’s tired of seeing his blood so casually wiped from his pale skin. The bags under his eyes deepened to caverns and the lakes of tears in his eyes. There is nothing she can do. The mass of cancer can be cut out of his flesh but the cells could still multiply. Quite simply, there is nothing she can do for him. Except--

“Stay.”

He mistakes her movement for the path to leave. She’s just aiming to pull the comforter back over him.

“I--” They look at each other. She sees so much burning vulnerability. “I’ll stay,” she caves and with that promise she can reach down and pull the comforter back over his body.

Already, his eyes are dropping shut. “You can--” he coughs, his whole body jarred by the movement. “You can sit, Emily. I can keep my hands to myself.”

She rolls her eyes but sits down on the corner of the bed. She takes his hand, rubbing at his knuckles when he turns his head to cough. “Shut up,” comes her hesitation reply. It feels wrong, misplaces. She wants to slip into their innocent, normal tit-for-tat banter but he’s not up for it. It’s not what he needs or is even capable of.

“Please don’t just sit there and stare at me,” he rasps.

Her face flushes. She had been doing exactly that. “If I lay down, you better not try to cuddle me.”

He huffs at that but whatever he might have said is overshadowed by his deep, nasty sounding coughs.

She reaches

“Aaron?”

“Hmm?”

She gently moves her hand across the bed sheet until she finds his. Interlacing her fingers with his she manages, thickly, “please don’t die.” His head turns on his pillow and she can feel him looking at her but she keeps her eyes on the ceiling. After a long pause, her heart beating frantically the whole way, he simply squeezes her hand. Not a promise… just comfort. Sniffling she sits up and grabs some of the blanket, pulling it over her own bare legs. “Stop hogging the covers. You’re not the only who might want some.”

As she settles down, turning her back to him, she closes her eyes. Feeling the hot stream of her tears falling over her face. The last thing she hears before she falls asleep is his hoarse voice, full of tears of his own. “I’m so sorry Emily.”

-------------------------

“How are you?”

Radiation was early this morning. He’d been lying if he didn’t admit that he gave Emily hell about it. Which he does feel fairly guilty about but she got what she wanted to he’s not that sorry. For the first time, he let her come in with him. Mostly because he didn’t have the strength to get himself out of the car but if he doesn’t dwell on that thought too much then it’s okay.

But he also knows that Emily told Garcia about this morning. Briefly, no doubt, about him being an absolute pain in the ass. Mostly how he’d let her tie his shoes. How he’d limped, leaning heavily against the wall to the bathroom and losing the meager bit of breakfast he had. Whatever she knows, she wears on her face. The worried crinkle between her brows. The downward quirk of her pink sparkling lips.

She shouldn’t be here.

Despite the ear protection Dave had spent so much time finding, his ears still ache from the rattling from the radiation machine. Every nerve in his body agitated by hot fire packers digging further and deeper into his brain. The dancers with their little tacs glued to their shoes traveling along his skin. To his legs and then up his arms. And, yet, he pushes on.

As confidently as he can manage, he forces himself to focus his eyes on Garcia. Smiling through the haggard, involuntary sway of his body. “I’m okay, Garcia. No need to worry.”

But she can see how pale his skin has gotten over the last month. How the shadow of a beard across his cheeks makes him look sicker, weaker. She knows that he won’t like her attention but she craves for Aaron Hotchner. So, she finds herself looking at him longer, trying harder to see within him. To find her boss and not the ghost he’s left behind. “We… I love you, sir. You know that, right?” She hesitantly touches his hand and as much as she thought it would hurt to feel him recoil it hurts even worse when he doesn’t.

But he’s here, isn’t he? Is it not just like her stupidly brave boss to keep trying, to keep pushing?

Hotch’s hand trembles where she’s captured it in her own and as self-conscious as that makes him feel… he can’t pull away. All these shields, blocades he’s built around himself have been his destruction. He’s pushed them away until they no longer let him near without armor of their own. Always prepared to enter the cave and find a beast. But Garcia, merciful Garcia, still just sees him. It terrifies him but he just wants someone to disregard his wishes. To throw caution to the wind and hug him. Touch him.

“I know,” he manages. He smiles, clenching his teeth to refrain from showing or saying how much better he feels with her around.

She stands, leaving his side. “Just making sure,” she confirms. She turns, her hand on his shoulder, as she takes in the state of his house. Empty. Emily has been diligent with cleaning up after them. Hotch, too, when he can manage to stand long enough to wash the dishes.

She remembers, like a blow to the heart, that Emily has fallen behind on laundry. That had been the one chore Hotch was solidly keeping up on. Emily had seemed so positive about that, only a few weeks ago. Smiling as she reassured he was very adamant to let her anywhere near the laundry (and as she suspected, his underwear) so as long as he was managing to be his usual stubborn self things would be fine. They had been. But after the nose bleeds he’s not as strong. His appetite is gone and every week when they draw his blood the odds are slowly shifting out of his favor.

He’s anemic and they gave him a blood transfusion at the hospital after the nose bleed but it hasn’t helped. Now he takes iron supplements and a pill that smells horrible and tastes even worse. He can get over the pills. It’s just two more in the sea of things he takes. It’s the fact that he can’t lift anything. Years of training and rigorous training down the drain but his knees are like jelly and his arms like boiled noodles.

On top of all that, this morning they talked about starting chemotherapy in addition to the radiation. His cells aren’t responding. So, Emily’s thoughts have been elsewhere. Not on the laundry steadily building unwashed.

“I’m going to make myself useful,” she says, getting in a quick kiss before he can put up too much of a fight. She’s not sure if his lack of response is good or not. Either way, she tucks a blanket up around him. Smiling when he just looks up at her-- there’s a flash of Hotch in his exhausted eyes. He starts to fuss with her-- she doesn’t need to clean, that’s not why she’s here (which they really don’t need to argue about unless she wants to hash out how she’s really here to babysit him).

But he just sinks into the pillow behind his head. No fight.

“Please tell me if you need help,” she says as she walks away. He hums something under his breath but she knows he won’t. She’ll just have to listen for him.

The laundry really isn’t that bad.

Emily’s room is a mess but Emily is a bit of a mess herself so it’s not that surprising. She picks up minimally. Moving anything around too much will just make Emily flustered to have been caught. So, she just picks up the towels she sees and a few pairs of shirts and pants she knows Emily likes the most and heads to the laundry room. The washing machine and dryer are down the hall, pushed aside in a closet like space.

Tossing in what she’s gathered she goes back to Emily’s room-- she’s just wasting time so she doesn’t have to go into Hotch’s room. Picking up a discarded glass of water and a few water bottles. She makes note that if Emily isn’t back in time to throw their sheets and bed sets in the washing machine. It’s always nice to have clean bedsheets.

Looking at Emily’s room she realizes she has to venture to Hotch’s room now.

She comes to linger in the living room. “You doing okay?” She doesn't get a response but she can’t really see him so she moves closer. One of his legs is drawn up, resting against the couch and the other stretched out and over the arm of the couch. When she’d left him he’d still been sitting up, fighting to stay alert through their short conversation. It’s… nice to see him comfortable.

Without thinking, she reaches down and moves her hand through his hair. Trying her best not to react to the amount of grey she sees. He moves, shifting his face further into the couch. She fears she’s woken him but his eyelashes flutter for only a moment before he sighs and stills once again.

Sighing, she leaves him once again. Blindly hoping he’ll sleep for a while if she doesn’t bother him.

His room is… exactly as she expects it to be and, yet, not.

His bedspread is a dark green color, nearly emerald and surely something Jessica or one of the other’s picked out. There are pieces of him thrown through-out the room with the finest touches of someone else left behind. For example, the books that litter every surface is him. From his nightstand, to his dresser, to a few stacked on the floor. The nightstands are old and she feels a little sore work itself into her throat at the possibility that they are a set and were probably bought for him and Haley.

And now there’s only him.

There is a stuffed elephant and blanket on the floor on the other side of the bed. She wonders how frequently Jack sleeps with him. Probably more than normal now.

His room is neat. She tucks his comforter back where it should be. Placing a piece of paper in the book he’d left face down. There’s a single sock with colorful, swirling patterns. A shirt that looks very well loved tucked inside of a sweater of equal wear and tear. Clothes and homely things. Hotch things.

From down the hall she hears his muffled coughs and something hard hitting the wall.

“Sir!” She hurries from his room, letting the clothes in her hand hit the floor. It’s not hard to find him. His house has a familiar, simple layout. “Are you okay?” He’s standing in the hall, facing her. Shoulder pulled in, left arm around his chest, and the right blindly leading him along.

He nods, muffling his bone rattling coughs into his elbow. “Just…” he shakes his head. “Going to the bathroom.”

She looks over her shoulder, his room and bathroom are only a few steps away but… He doesn’t look like he’s going to get there without a little help. “Could…” she chews her lips into her mouth. “Would it be okay I help-- If you just leaned on me, a little bit? For my sanity?”

He nods, simply going where she moves him. It’s not hard to slip under him. Without heels, his height advantage is much more apparent. She looks down at the floor as she works his arm over her shoulders, smiling at the sight of his socks. Her own don’t match-- a homage to Reid but also because she knows it, secretly, drives Hotch crazy. But he’s wearing a pair of polka dot socks. Each one an extreme loud variation of every color you can think of.

“Nice socks, sir!”

It distracts him for a moment from the humiliation of needing both her and the wall to walk down the hall. He looks down at his socks-- socks that he and Emily had fought long and hard about this morning. He didn’t want to wear them. He’d needed normalcy. Craved it. He wanted plain black socks that would go unnoticed. But she had won and everyone saw him in his boxers and stupidly bright socks. It had put smiles on their faces too. Even Emily’s, though, she had tried to hide it behind her book.

“Emily’s doing,” he reassures her.

They can’t fit shoulder-to-shoulder into the room so she lets him lean against the doorframe and manage it on his own. Following closely behind. “Oh, of course,” she says smiling now she’s behind him and he can't see. Though, as soon as she’s done it she wishes he would see. To see her smile and know it’s at his expense and give her one of those scowls that have always just made her love him a little more.

But instead she sits on the corner of his bed and closes her eyes. Wincing and flinching as he gets sick.

Emily had been so… afraid when she left. Garcia hadn’t understood why. Even when the information Emily was throwing at her-- hurling words, meaningless words. Now… Now Garcia is cursed with Emily's same burden of knowing.

It had all come so quickly-- that the nose bleed had been because he was anemic and that they can’t get his red blood cell count back up. “Not to fret”, Emily had said thickly with sarcasm, his white blood cells are through the rough and the product of much anxiety. That the awful cough he has is from Radiation Pneumonitis and “not to worry” he’s on steroids that make him incredibly nauseous and a complete ass. The best part? It can scar his lungs!

All this information had come so quickly that Garcia hadn’t processed any of it.

Dave had called Garcia early this morning and asked if she needed anything to do. Normally, when he asks that sort of thing, he’s asking her over to do the grunt work of cooking-- rolling breads or kneading dough-- but today when she’d happily agreed he’d had something else in mind.

So, today, while Emily goes with Dave for a long lunch she’s staying with Hotch.

The original plan was just to leave him by himself. Dave had assumed that would be alright. Afterall, two days ago when Dave had last seen him, Hotch was very himself. Stubborn and grouchy when they tried to help him do anything-- even the normal sorts of things you do for people: hold the door, pass them a plate, ask if they want anything when you go to get yourself something, etc.

Having to explain how she couldn’t simply leave Hotch had… broken Emily just a little more. Keeping herself calm, collected as she explained that she was going out with Dave for a while and she’d make sure to bring him something back. Coffee or soup (anything so long as he’d agree to eat). She had cried as soon as she stood to walk to her room, lower lip quivering at just how easily he’d caved. He’d protested everything she did all morning and now just… submits. She’d sobbed in the shower.

He annoys her to no end. Her closest friend, the man she’d left behind to search for something more in London, was a basket case. Do not mistake that. Aaron Hotchner has to do everything himself. Independence is very important to him and she’s being forced to watch him give in. Too tired to fight.

Garcia had arrived a little sooner than expected and Emily had opened the door in a towel, her mascara from that morning smudged under her eyes. Before she could get out an apology, Garcia had already assured her she had plenty of time and that Garcia would go back out and tell Dave to cut the car and come in for a moment.

And Hotch…

He’d been asleep on the couch. Sitting up, nestled into the corner where Emily had left him.

“Hey, Pen?”

Garcia hadn’t even realized she’d been staring.

“He’s got a heating pad tucked against his side, will you warm it up?”

And she’d learned Hotch is prone to chills. That along with nine awful scars, Foyet had damaged his body's ability to regulate temperature and that radiation is being a bitch. So to ease the ache in his side, where Foyet had nicked a rib that won’t ever really heal, Emily just keeps a heating pad around. It keeps him warm.

The beast of knowledge.

“Garcia?”

She hates him. For a moment. Anger and impatient it eats her alive and that’s such an awful thing to have to feel about someone you love. Why can’t he be stronger? It leaves her body in a choked sound. How could she even let herself feel such contempt for the very man who always prides her for her brightness? Loves her no matter how much trouble she drags up? Goes out of his way to remind her to always be her bright silly self?

She stands from his bed and opens the bathroom door.

He looks ashamed and she hates that.

“Have I ever told you about the time Reid and I broke a coffee pot and hid it from you for a month?” she asks before he can apologize.

His Adam's apple bobs as he looks up at her. He’s still curled into himself, sitting on the edge of the bathtub. He feels weak, useless. He couldn't even find the strength to stand and pee. Then, on top of it all, she’d been right there on the other side of the door as he vomited. By now, this is not the first apology he’s been beaten to. Emily has this infallible way of sensing them coming and quickly changes the subject to something else.

It’s… strange to see Garica practice it too.

“Please tell me that was far too long ago to be worth fussing with you over?” he asks, trembling as he accepts the hand she offers.

She smiles and tuckers herself back against him, wrapping her arm around his hips. “Oh it was a while ago,” she assures him. “Like… Gideon long ago. He was just a baby--” she keeps talking no matter what. When he whispers that he needs a break at the doorway, a whole two steps later. Tells him how terrified they’d all been of him at some point in time. How that’s all rather silly because Aaron Hotchner is nothing but a big softy. And, believe it or not, it has always been Derek Morgan breaking that secret to the rookies. That he’s not as big and tough as he looks. That a good, warm batch of snickerdoodles will melt his big icy heart so quickly--

“How many people did you tell that to?” he asks.

She shrugs, only the people that really needed it. “Do I have to give you a number if I make you some right now?”

He considers her offer. His stomach has settled a little and the smell alone would be divine. Plus, Emily had said he could pick dinner… what’s the possibility that she would cave to just letting him eat a cookie or two? He smiles, “I’d consider adequate reparation.”

“Wanna help?”

His smile falters just a bit. He can’t stand for that long and--

“We can make them at the table,” she adds, hastily.

And… he nods. Okay.

That’s how Dave and Emily find them an hour later.

Hotch is covered in flour and Garcia too. A good proper mess.

He’s wrapped in a blanket, the one from the couch, and leaning heavily on the arm propped up on the table. Smiling, content, as Garcia checks the cookies and reassures him that they need only a little bit longer. So that they come out right as the bottom is browning but not brown. ANd he nods his head like he understands when she says the point is to let them finish baking on the pan outside of the oven. That’s the secret to soft cookies.

Which, to him, just sounds like she’s saying she's going to feed slightly undercooked cookies but he’s eaten cookie dough raw for years. He’s never had salmonella but he did get cancer so obviously someone wasn’t warning him about the right things.

“What in the world did you two get into?”

“Cookies!” Garcia holds open the oven to show them. “If you wait just a moment they will be ready!” She places the dirty dishes into the sink. Throwing some water over them to make it easier to wash the dough off.

Emily raises an eyebrow at Hotch and he shrugs. She’s amused by the sight of him covered in flour and what more is to add but a submissive shrug. What can he say except he’s a softy who has always lacked the ability to tell them no?

“You didn’t let Hotch do the measuring did you?” Dave asks, stepping in and inspecting the damage done to the kitchen. Under his breath he continues, “you can tell he’s never been a math man. I’m convinced he doesn’t understand fractions.” Dave has cooked with him too many times. Hotch has never once successfully measured everything right in any dish. The amount of times one fourth has been mistaken as a half or an eighth of something rounded up to a third… it’s crazy.

Garcia glances at Hotch and he already knows exactly where she’d going-- “Well,” she admits, “I let him put the cinnamon in--”

Hotch groans from the table, a dramatic sigh as he closes his eyes and admits defeat.

“It wasn’t his fault!” It was. “There might just be a little bit too much cinnamon. It’s not a big deal!”

Aaron Hotchner brought to his knees by fractions.

-------------------------

When Hotch was in the second grade he got chickenpox from his next-door neighbor Michael. A very common thing given the time and the general mindset of “chickenpox parties”. It had been awful and itchy. His brain so ravished by the fever that he doesn’t remember a whole lot about the experience. Just that it had begun as a patch of dry skin under his right arm, perfectly wedged between two of his protruding ribs. That week of horrible fever and endless itching is the only time Hotch can ever recall his father being gentle.

He’d awoken once during that week, just after four and when his father typically arrived home, to the door shutting softly. His mother whispering to gather his father’s attention and diverge the man away from Hotch. Who, thanks to itching, had only just managed to fall asleep.

Halfway up the stairs, Hotch can remember waking up in his father’s arms. The man had shushed him softly, rocking him the way you might a child until Hotch had laid his head against his father’s chest and gone back to sleep. The gentleness of that action has haunted Hotch for years. Something he thinks about occasionally. Trying and failing to wrap his mind around something so out of character. So bizarre.

“Daddy,” Jack whines, he twists in his father’s lap. “You’re not watching, look!” His little finger demands Hotch’s attention, pointing to the TV. “Did you see it?” Jacks asks, sitting up to gauge Hotch’s reaction. “It was amazing, huh?”

Knowing his son, Hotch does try and get the boy out of the house as much as possible. Which means that lazy nights come far and rare in between. If he can, Hotch likes to take him to the park, museums, aquariums. Anything to keep his little mind crazed by the ideas of the world around him and actively engaged. Today… is not one of those days. There hasn’t been a lot of those days recently.

“The cancer is spreading--”

There’s a certain understandable science to the way that chickenpox works. They actually follow a pattern on the body when they spread. Hotch’s had curled from his left side to his right, working in the grooves of his ribs, and up his sternum.

A very similar pattern to the cancer spreading in his body.

Radiation is no longer enough.

He has two rounds of chemo and spends a lot of time thinking about what comes next. He’s going to get sicker. Weaker. Probably lose his hair. What will really be left of him when all is said and done?

Outside the rain comes down in buckets, thunder shaking the earth, but there’s nothing to the peace inside. Emily had gone around lighting candles, trying to soothe Jack in preparation for if the storm knocks out the electricity. Even if she’d managed to annoy him with her fluttering about, she’d been gentle and understanding. Making sure his shirt was buttoned to hide the deeply irritated skin on his chest.

She��s stronger than he is.

They are all.

“Asland,” Jack mumbles in amazement. He’s settled back down in Hotch’s lap, head on his thigh so Hotch can mindlessly play with his hair. Hotch can’t follow the plot of the simple movie but he’s seen it enough times to hum and mumble responses to Jack’s questions.

The Chronicles of Narnia. It’s Jack’s new favorite thing.

They’ve probably watched it now at least a dozen times.

Emily’s started having dreams about the movie.

No matter how many times he requests it though, she’ll still play it and Hotch will sit down and let Jack explain the plot again. Everytime, it ends with tears.

“I don’t understand why he has to leave,” Jack whimpers.

Hotch is struggling to fight with consciousness. Radiation leaves him haggard. Limbs seemingly attached by measly strings and joints that buckle with minimal weight. He’s got a rash up his chest that itches and burns a lot like that chickenpox rash. It’s normal, he’s assured, and they give him ointment to keep on it. Not to clear it up but rather to keep it from getting infected. Which… seems so practical if not normal. Mundane, really.

“Who?” Hotch rasps, forcing his eyes back open to squint at the TV.

Jack looks up at his father, tears streaming down his face. “Asland.” Over the course of the last few months, of course Jack can tell his father isn’t well. Everyone treats Jack like a thoughtless child, and he is child, but he’s not stupid. He knows why he has to sleep at Jessica’s and why, no matter how much Emily and Hotch make a point to only see him on Hotch’s “good” days, that his father is slowly withering away.

The thigh under Jack’s head used to be bigger. Tense with muscles not thin, almost to the bone. His father seemed to loom, towering over everything. Jack had thought him a king, a knight, a hero. Someone who, through the aches pains of it all rises triumphant and reigns on. Because his father has always been the best kind of person. Strong, vigilant, and forgiving. Surely… that would offer some forgiveness, no? An extra life in the bonus round or a break.

Hotch swallows thickly around the nausea knotting up in his throat. “Asland,” he repeats with a sigh. Right. Asland dies. They’re passed that point but he does die. For the greater good, a strategic move, but the sacrificial play none-the-less. “Sometimes,” Hotch lifts his head. “He was saving the other’s, Jack. He sacrificed himself.” He’s too tired to explain how the book was just a huge religious metaphor. “Sometimes people have to leave.”

Jack sniffles and wraps himself around Hotch’s stomach, burying his head closer. “Why?” he asks miserably.

Hotch doesn’t know. It’s never what you want but he doesn’t want to tell Jack about all of that. How at one point Jack and Haley had been the ones to leave Hotch reeling with that same question, despite logic dictating a clear answer. That Emily had done the same thing to him multiple times. Everyone on the team, really. He’s probably done it to them. If not already, then soon.

“I don’t know, buddy,” Hotch shakes his head. “I really don’t.” Jack nods his head, crying softly against Hotch. Hotch starts to rub Jack’s back, despite the ache in his limbs. “Listen…” Hotch clears his throat and Jack senses the turn in conversation. Jack sits up, looking, searching in Hotch’s eyes as he sniffles and wipes his face with the back of his hands. “I have to… We have to talk about something, buddy. About what’s been going on.”

Emily sits in the guest room and tries her best not to think about what’s going on in the living room. It was only a matter of time but… she couldn’t help but think maybe they could fix all this. It must be a matter of faulty testing. Surely, that must be the case. Hadn’t they already been through enough? Have they not lost enough?

Jessica sends her a text, Hotch isn’t answering his own phone.

Emily leaves her room, leaning out first just to see if they’re still talking. They’re not. The TV has been turned off, no sound.

Jack is curled into his father, clutching Hotch’s t-shirt in his little fist. Despite the dried tear tracks on his face, the boy looks at peace. His head tucked under Hotch’s chin and arms holding on tight, Hotch won’t be able to move without Jack noticing. Understandably, Jack has some apprehensions about his father leaving his sight.

“How’d he take the news,” Jessica asks. Her anger has melted, leaving her wilted in a puddle of emotions that she doesn’t even know where to begin to deal with. “I can’t--” she shakes her head. “I just can’t imagine it,” she whispers, glancing at Emily. “He’s so young,” she brushes her tears from her cheeks. “He can’t lose Aaron, too.”

She nods her head, she’s afraid to lose him as well. To be a child, though, living this as a reality that at any moment you might become an orphan… Jack’s only a child. He’s not even ten yet. What will he have to cling to? The cold nights come frequently and he’ll be alone. Surrounded by people but alone.

In London, there wasn’t a single moment she could step out and not get lost in crowds. It was the safest way to avoid detection. In those days, she’d clung to online Scrabble and read and rereading the letter Hotch had written her before she’d left. It was in the file with the other identities and money. While it had not been a technical element to the FBI’s idea of “everything” she might need it kept her alive.

On those cold night’s she’d curl into herself with her heating pad pressed against those old wounds and read his letter. Fingers ghosting over the ink and eyes taking in every detail. Where his hand wavered writing about Reid failing to cope. The stain of a tear beside Jack's name. Her favorite passage:

“I believe Ashley will try to leave the unit the next chance that she gets. You were her mentor and I’m afraid I have not offered her too much in claims to stake here. A part of me is partial to her staying. You were her mentor and she reflects that in the strangest moments. I hope she stays, I indulge myself in her rebellions against me. I think it reminds me of you.”

It never failed to make her smile. Take her back to the nights she’d drive home in a fit of rage or have arguments with her imaginations version of him in the shower. Cursing like a sailor but telling him how she really felt.

What will Jack cling to when Hotch is not here?

@laiba-the-person, @emily-hottie-prentiss, @unionjackpillow, @clockedstar, @baumarvel, @blakeprentiss, @qvid-pro-qvo, @aaron-hotchner187, @ssalavellan

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #cancer fic #tw cancer #tw hospital #aaron hotchner #penelope garcia #emily prentiss #jessica brooks #david rossi

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the-cookie-of-doom · 3 years ago

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📖 alternate dimensions/time travel for Steter (me trying to narrow it down, did it work?)

alternate dimensions/time travel for Steter (me trying to narrow it down, did it work?)

NOW we're cookin! (Pasted it bc as soon as I opened the answer window, your ask disappeared. Might be because of the heading font?)

I've got exactly 1 AU that fits this desc: Survivor's Guilt. (Technically 2, but the second is more of a reincarnation type story)

This story has presented an interesting problem for me, because it's technically Pitch (Peter/Mitch), except Mitch is still Stiles; just Stiles from the future. Obviously he can't tell anyone he's from the future, so he falls back on an old nickname that predates Stiles; this one drawn from his actual name. His parents usually shortened Mieczyslaw to Mitch.

So: Stiles for younger self, and Mitch for future self, but they're both the same person.

The future... does not go well for the pack. They all get killed off one by one, until Stiles is the last one standing 10 years in the future. After he buries the last one, he can't take it anymore. He's the human, he never thought he would be the last one to survive. it's not fair. So he performs some forbidden magic to tear a rift in reality and travel back to the beginning, before it all started. Unfortunately it's not an exact science, so he ends up part way through season 1, once things have already kicked off. And his younger self is damn stubborn; he has to change his plans from staying away from the supernatural at all, to keeping himself and his friends alive.

I'm going to put the rest under a cut and just copy what I have from my notes, because it's much more organized!

Stiles is determined though. Mitch gets there shortly after Scott has been bitten, and the wolf is out of the bag, and Stiles is so fiercely loyal that he won't abandon his best friend. Mitch wants to grab him and shake some sense into him, but he's a stubborn asshole and that won't work. He tries to intervene in other ways when it becomes clear that Stiles will not be put off this course, tries to keep him far away from Derek. And hindsight is 20/20, he's able to prevent a lot of things. But a lot of things still work themselves out anyway, interdimensional lynchpins that will always happen. The Hales will always die, Scott will always get bitten, Stiles will always foolishly fall in love. And Mitch hates it, having to watch Stiles make all these same mistakes over again, because he's already lived them. He's seen the consequences play out, felt the pain of everyone he loves dying horribly, leaving him the only survivor because surviving is what he does, like a fucking cockroach.

The best he can do is try to teach him everything he knows, all the knowledge he's had to pay for with pain and blood, in hopes that it will prepare him for what's coming. And along the way, something starts to unfold between him and Peter and that is just... so complicated. Mitch doesn't want to deal with that, he knows he shouldn't get involved, he's fucked up enough with everything he's doing here, falling in love with Peter is the last thing he should be doing. 10 years ago, when he was still Stiles, bright-eyed and not destroyed by the world, the kid he sees running with wolves like it's no big thing, Mitch wouldn't have even considered it. He remembers how much he hated Peter, always suspicious, watching with a careful eye. It's a distant memory, like the ghost of once-familiar perfume. More fresh is the memory of his grief, when Peter picked the wrong moment to start being altruistic, and got himself killed for it.

But he's not sixteen anymore. He's not the same optimistic kid mooning over Derek's bad boy with a heart of gold schtick, thinking he can fix him and heal the damage done by Kate (and god help him but he did, somehow). He's older and jaded and bitter, and Peter is everything ne needs and doesn't want but does, desperately. Peter, so damaged that being with him is like looking in a mirror, because Mitch has lost everything too, can sympathize with Peter now in a way he never could before. Peter would do anything to get his revenge, and Mitch would risk everything, break every sacred rule of magic, to save the ones he loves.

Peter gravitates to Mitch, drawn to his pain like a moth to flame. There's something so familiar about him, but Mitch keeps everything hidden, doesn't let any of them get close, and Peter has always loved a challenge. A good mystery is just what he needs to focus on, to temper his more murderous impulses. Now that he's older, Mitch is less Stranger Danger and more reluctantly attracted, and it's so easy to let Peter in. To not be alone anymore, after so long. Of course Peter puts it together. He doesn't say anything at first, but he watches, sees the way Mitch and Stiles interact with the world, the way they mirror each other. Mitch isn't nearly so spastic, doesn't talk as much. he's not an anxiety-ridden teen anymore, he's a broken confident adult. But they have some mannerisms that are impossible to mistake, and Peter wonders how no one has put it together yet. Then he remembers that these are stupid puppies; Scott can't be bothered with anything that isn't up Allison's skirt, Boyd and Erica only have eyes for each other, Stiles is too busy not listening to Mitch to hear the way their verbal tics are exactly the same, and Mitch does his best to avoid Derek, the only other one who may notice. It hurts Mitch to be around him, because somewhere, that bright-eyed kid that's dead and buried still loves him, and the pain of losing him will always be an open wound. Scott thought it hurt to break up with Allison, but he doesn't know true loss. But he will. They all will in the end.

Mitch and Chris get on well of course. Chris is the one that trained him into the killer he is now, almost like a second father to him. Aside from Peter, Mitch spends time with Chris, warns him about the dangers Gerard represents, especially towards Allison. Chris isn't one to blindly trust, but he does investigate into the situation when dear old daddy comes kicking around.

And when Mitch sees his dad the first time... It's some innocuous meeting, maybe they're in a bar. They strike up a conversation, John offers to buy a round, and it takes everything in him to maintain his composure when all he wants to do is collapse into John's arms and cry, because the only thing worse than losing Derek was losing his dad, holding him in his arms as he bled out, hearing his breath stop, seeing the light leave his eyes. The nightmares of that night still haunt him.

Mitch is gonna feel so conflicted about his attraction to Peter, especially at first. Bc part of him still remembers what it was like to love Derek but there is no way he's touching that with a 10 foot pole even if he's not the same kid that was in love with him, and maybe he wonders if he's just trading in for another Hale? that wouldn't be fair to anyone.

And like that is the least of his concerns, who knows what's going to happen if he starts something with Peter now. But he's been so lonely, starved for touch and affection. And Peter knows, he more than understands. He spent 6 years in a coma, longing for the same thing. He wants to give that to Mitch now, to both of them, if Mitch will just let him

it's a clusterfuck trying to deal with it, and Mitch is trying to fix things, but he doesn't know how. he's not omniscient. All he knows is that something went wrong, Y caused Z but he had no idea about X. He only knows the things he was directly involved in, and there are layers of schemes, unseen factors that will be uncovered this time around as fate continues to set itself straight even as Mitch keeps messing with the timeline

eventually Mitch has to admit that he wants what Peter is offering, desperately. He's not as cold as he pretends to be, and it's stupid to keep denying them both. He's already breaking every cosmic rule by coming back here to change things, and the universe keeps laughing in his face. So he may as well go all in here.

and maybe, briefly, Peter wonders if Mitch still loves Derek. But he doesn't; Stiles died along with the rest of his pack, leaving Mitch in his wake. Everything Stiles was is gone in him not everything, he's still fiercely loyal, hopeful beneath his jaded pessimism, enough to challenge the universe itself like Icarus on his waxen wings nothing left but the memories.

Mitch is reliving his own mistakes getting involved with Peter, just like Stiles is with Derek, and god knows what the consequences will be this time. But they can't be worse than any he's already suffered, the total destruction and devastation of everything he held dear, leaving him a burnt out shell of a man. Peter can empathize. Can't take his pain, but can maybe help to dull it, help shoulder the burden of it, show Mitch that he doesn't have to be alone anymore

And I think I know how stiles figures out Mitch is him: something happens. One day Mitch and Peter are just doing something, it’s a pretty normal day. But then something seemingly innocuous happens and Mitch has a moment of oh shit realization and he just takes off running because Stiles is in danger

Because you know, he doesn’t know the exact dates that things happened, especially in the beginning. It was so long ago. But something will happen, some small thing burned into his memory, and he’ll remember. And he doesn’t get there in time of course, the damage has been done. Leaving stiles with a wound to perfectly match a scar Mitch has from the same incident.

Mitch does manage to avert enough to change the future. But that means he doesn’t become who he is. If the pack doesn’t die, Mitch never comes to be, he never has to come back in time to change things, never falls in love with Peter. So he ceases to exist. But even though he fades away, the memories of him don’t.

"We did it," Mitch gasps suddenly, eyes wide like he can't believe it. Something in him shifted, something intrinsic. Like a damn had broken and all of his suffering was washed away by the cool waters of relief and happiness, the kind he hasn't felt in years. Not since before he lost everything. "Peter!" And Peter is watching him with pure, unadulterated excitement, because they've averted the catastrophe that would have befallen the pack without Mitch's intervention.

And then Mitch starts to fade.

Peter is grabbing for him, but his hands pass right through like Mitch is just a ghost, and then there's less than that. His very molecules are ceasing to exist. He doesn't exist anymore, Mitch realizes. "I'm sorry," he tries to say, a second too late.

Peter is left standing there staring at nothing. An empty space. There aren't even any ashes to prove that Mitch had ever been there, vanishing between one heartbeat and the next.

Peter doesn't realize what's happened at first. Doesn't want to, his fast mind lagging behind. "No," he whispers. Everyone is staring at him. Stiles is looking on with mounting horror, Derek mirroring him. It's the Sheriff who catches him when he collapsed, arms strong around him. "No, no!" It's all Peter can say. This can't have happened, it's all a mistake. Mitch will come back to him, he has to. It can't end this way.

Distantly, Peter knows he's crying. John is too, Peter can smell his tears. Of course he is, he just watched his son fade out of existence. Of course, he still has Stiles, still gets to watch him grow. Peter has no one. Derek comes to him, followed by Stiles. He's crying too, on the ground with him. Derek has a hand on his shoulder. Melissa is covering her mouth with her hands, eyes glistening. Even Argent's stony mask has broken as Peter falls apart in front of them.

Peter throws his head back and roars, so loud it shakes the trees around them. The earth quakes, the preserve trembles in fear. But the world keeps turning, the universe continues on, ambivalent. What is one human life in the grand scheme of things?

Everything, he is everything.

#cookie writes #survivor's guilt #a nice little but of angst at the end there #thank you for the ask!

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wherearemyglassesbro · 4 years ago

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i saw that you play genshin impact, so i’m kind of curious... what’d be the axis and allies’ vision and weapons?

Uh oh...now you got me started. Be warned, it’s a long one cause I have no self control

Some key terms for those who don’t play genshin impact and want to be included!!

Cryo -> ice, Hydro -> water, Dendro -> nature, Geo -> rock, Pyro -> fire, Electro -> lightning

Hilichurls: a common enemy found in the wild. Despite looking like hairy trolls, they have a district language as well as texts, art and song that they share together making them an advanced species!

Ruin guards: another enemy. Giant, scary robot...they scare me...

Knights of Favonious: an organization of knights within Mondstat that keep order and peace :) very nice guys and gals over there!!

Mondstat: modeled after Germany

Liyue: modeled after China

Alfred: pyro, claymore, Springvale Mondstat

Alfred would be a super heavy hitter in battle but his drawbacks are that despite his energetic nature, he’s slower because of the weight of his weapon

He blows stuff up a lot and sets all of the grass around you on fire so if you fight with him...His teammates will take damage from him Jeez Louise!!!

Since we don’t have all of the nations of Teyvay unlocked, I don’t know where he’d be from! I’d have to explore to get a sense for it so for characters that don’t have a place on the map yet, I’ll mark them with an asterisk from now on! :)

Idk where he lives but I do know that he’d be a devoted member of the adventurers guild! He’s always willing to offer a helping hand to anyone in need! Wether it be helping Granny Ann make hash browns or taking comissions to go kill a huge ruin guard who’s terrorizing the town!! He’s always leaping into new jobs! He isn’t even in it for the money or rewards! He just loves helping out!

Arthur: Dendro, archer, Mondstat

Artie is a beast in battle! Shooting vine Aries at enemies to tie them up or temporarily blind them??? Sick as fuck. Keep in mind, Genshin doesn’t have any Dendro characters that are playable yet so idk how they’d fight but I think I can guess :)

Artie is technically part of the knights of favonious because he works in their library. He translates books written in ancient texts into the standard language so historians and others can read what the old civilizations had to say

Instead of having normal eyes, they’re slit like snake eyes. And he has leaves instead of hair :)

He has a little seelie that floats around at his side. He talks to it but it doesn’t really do anything but provide company to a lonely guy :’) he needs more friends

Matthew: Anemo, catalyst, *

It’s always good to have a catalyst on your team! Ningguang is a great example of an underestimated catalyst cause she can do INSANE damage man!! So I think Mattie would be the same way

Matt isn’t violent and doesn’t enjoy fighting so his in-game voice lines would say that lol

Mattie is an alchemist! Well...A student alchemist. He didn’t take up an interest in alchemy until like, 3 years ago so he’s got a lot to catch up on still! He’s doing his best!

He gets very annoyed with Alfred since Mattie is detail oriented and gentle...Alfred is not any of those things. But he still loves his brother and on rare occasions, he’ll assist him with his commissions

Ivan: Cryo, catalyst, Liyue(temporary)

Ivan would be a support character for sure but he’d do a damn good job of doing it

He’s buff but he doesn’t do hand to hand combat, he’s mastered magic for a reason

Ivan spends most of his time studying hilichurls. He writes books about them, translates their texts and acts as a peace keeper when he can. He gets information from them about the Abyss Order in return for free reign of small portions of protected land where they can live without fear of being killed

Because he’s from Schneznya(spelling?) he’s kinda expected to be a bad guy but he left a long time ago. But he still sounds like he’s from there and...He’s super pale too so there really is no mistaking where he’s from

Ivan can’t stand how ignorant humans are towards hilichurls so he does everything he can to advocate for them. He’s covered in scars from when he first started engaging with the beasts. A huge scar runs down his face but he doesn’t mind it

He’s got big, sharp teeth!! So he doesn’t often smile cause he thinks he looks weird

Francis: Hyrdo, long sword, *

Fran is underestimated when it comes to combat (like Kaeya...I see you slandering this man) but he has so much potential!

Since he’s a hydro, he is so useful for elemental reactions! If he’s paired with a cryo or pyro user, he’d totally boost them!!

Fran is a traveling entertainer, he goes between the 7 nations as a singer and actor for small stage plays. He has a crew of friends who travel with him, they’re one jolly bunch!

He always acts all nonchalant and stuff but once he’s in a battle, he’s wild. Especially if the abyss order holds up his crew on their way to their next tour destination “We need to be in Liyue Harbor in four hours you are NOT holding us back!” *tidal wave*

He’s a regular tavern hopper! A very recognizable face since he’s been banned from a handful for getting too rowdy

He can make not one, but 2 special dishes :0

Yao: Dendro, polearm, Liyue

I just imagine him as a shorter, richer and cooler version of Zhongli

He’d do that kick move that Zhongli does with his polearm oh man that looks SICK dude!!!

Yao would shoot vines out and they’d strangle enemies for a few seconds before disintegrating but if he’s leveled up enough, they’ll totally strangle those stupid hillichurls lol

Yao sells rare gems and other miscellaneous items for very high prices in Liyue where he grew up. His shop is upstairs by the Fatui bank. Rich people enjoy looking at what his shop has to fifer and will argue prices with him. They’re getting scammed for sure. He’ll list a set of cor lapis earrings as $50,000 and the rich will be like ‘I’ll pay $25,000, no more than that’ and he’ll take it!!....Cause thise earrings are worth $5000 at most >:)

Hes close with a lot of the higher ups in Liyue and is often invited to fancy lunches or dinners where they discuss policy, contracts and vendor permits. He doesn’t really get a say in any of that but he benefits from listening

Kiku: Electro, claymore, *

Kiku would be SUCH an awesome electo user are you KIDDING me??? I can see it now, him swinging that huge sword around, purple lightning bolts flying all around and he looks like a total badass? Amazing vibes

When paired with cryos???? He’d do an insane amount of damage fr

Kiku runs a small restaurant where he...runs the place...but doesn’t cook. His restaurant is extremely exclusive and people often throw fits when they can’t get in cause the wait list is over 5 years long. He’ll rest his hand on their shoulder and smile ‘is something wrong? I’d love to take a complaint if you have one’...No one has even dared to complain to his face lol

Behind the restaurant front he deals with the Fatui, buying and selling minerals or artifacts. That’s where his knowledge is at, not with food. He pays his staff to ignore what goes on behind the scenes and the locals are too busy enjoying the restaurant to question what goes on after dark

Gilbert: Pyro, long sword, Mondstat

Gil would be one of the free characters given to you at the beginning of the game but hey, I’m not complaining

He’s highly destructive and very chaotic in battle, he can do that spin move even though that’s meant for claymore users

He’s Mondstat’s biggest trouble maker. He runs an underground gambling room that sits underneath a tavern. He isn’t really into gambling but he makes a lot of money by running it

The only knight who knows is Ludwig which is not good cause...Gil pretty much bribes his brother into not telling the knights of favonious (peace keepers of Mondstat)

Gil never got his gliding certificate cause he kept flying into buildings. He broke his nose doing that lol

Lovino: Pyro, catalyst, *

I can’t add anymore images so imagine a floating, red and black orb. Lovi doesn’t get a book catalyst cause he doesn’t read :) That’s the catalyst thing I’m talking about 😅😅

My guy has the angriest in game voice lines, he’s inconvenienced by every battle, every enemy is ugly and a fuckin disaster. He’s just. Angry.

He’d be a super weak character if he needed to rely on hand to hand combat but he learned magic for a reason babey

He owns a flower stand in his country and makes all kinds of beautiful flower arrangements. He even picks his own flowers in the fields when he can (but usually pays the town’s children to do it for him to ‘teach them the value of hard work’).

Everyone knows he’s a total hothead and will piss him off on purpose just cause it’s funny lmao. But then somehow...Their hair or clothes will just...catch on fire. So is it really worth it to tease him? :/

Feliciano: Hydro, archer, Mondstat(temporary)

I feel like Feli would also be a free character, not cause he isn’t good or anything! But you always need an archer on your team!

Feli has healing properties for his team and doesn’t do an insane amount of damage but when given the right resources, he’d be a pretty sick healer

He moved to Mondstat to join the church there. He leads prayers in front of the church and sings in the choir inside.

He is the sweetest and has never committed a crime in his LIFE but he’s afraid of the knights lol he’s terrified that he’ll get in trouble and be kicked out of Mondstat forever! That would never happen but he’s a worry wart cause of his brother

Ludwig: Geo, long sword, Mondstat

Lud is the only one that I could really think of as a Geo but Geos are awesome :)

He’s a hard hitter but has like...No shield so he’ll take damage fast if you don’t give him those artifacts with shield in them or whatever lol uhhhh I wouldn’t know anything about that cause I suck at building my teams ;-;

He’d totally be in with the knights of favonious! (I think that’s spelled right lol) but he’d take his duty as a knight very seriously!! He’s a familiar face around Mondstat, the elderly absolutely adore him and the local teenage girls swoon over him which he finds super embarrassing lol

He has to work hard to keep Gilbert in check cause even though Gil isn’t a knight, his actions reflect negatively back on Lud very often... :(

Please ignore the spelling errors and terrible photo cropping on my part lol this was so fun!!

By the time you’re seeing this, ive already made full outfit red sheets for everyone mentioned above!!!! :D

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phantomphangphucker · 4 years ago

Text

Ectober Day 24: House - Sinner Are We Chap.3: The Home Of Broken Parts

Orrin sent a lot of time thinking and that could be both good and bad for those around him. One thing was for sure, even he knows the Gray-Phantom home was strange.

Orrin watches his father’s back as he walks away, out the hall doors. They had gotten into another minor brawl, not that that was uncommon in this family. Arguably it was a favourite past time for all of them. Not that his lummox of a brother was all that refined or skilled at it.

Speaking of that fool, Orrin steps back slightly to easily avoid a blast from him; spotting him glaring bloody murder at him. Orrin rolls his eyes, “are you really going to try that”.

Russet scowls at him and stalks over, “you’re supposed to stay out of the way”.

“I don’t listen to you”. Orrin sidesteps to avoid his brother’s claws, turning to follow Russet landing in a crouch, “I'm the alpha here. You’re just a little boy that prefers to hide in your room”.

Orrin rolls his eyes, easily bending out of the way of a lunge, “you tell yourself that”, sighing and stepping next to him, putting his hand to Russet’s chest, and promptly blasting him into the back wall, “and I’m more of the wanderlust type”. Turning and watching Russet pull himself out of the wall rubble, with the wall immediately repairing itself, and sighs.

Russet scowls and aggressively tosses off the little bits, snarling and clearly baring as much fang as he possibly can, “fuck you, Ori”, and stalks off with a huff. Orrin does catch the slight glance back with a hint of worry on his face though.

Orrin smirking, “fuck you too, Rusty”, quiet enough that one of the living absolutely wouldn’t have heard him. He gets it, Russet was a blowhard that felt he deserved to be the king of the roost; who just got upstaged by someone he thought didn’t give a damn. Shaking his head and turning to look up at Dove, who’s floating upside down and fiddling with the white lace frill of her baby blue dress. Crossing his arms loosely, he has a feeling she didn’t notice the animosity between her brothers. Sure they didn’t hate each other but neither would lose sleep over the other's demise; and neither have damn if the other was at home at the time or not.

But Dove... she was something strange and unfamiliar to him. Yes, he had understood from a young age and his many travels, that their family dynamic was all kinds of unusual. That most of the living and dead were far kinder and gentler than the rest of his family. Or him for that matter. That was perfectly fine with him. And other people and families were protective and supportive in a way his wasn’t, from what he had observed anyway. That’s not to say his wasn’t, his father was probably the most protective being on the planet in all honesty. His brother would have gotten himself destroyed by now otherwise. Not that Russet ever seemed to appreciate it, and not that father gave a shit if his actions were appreciated or not.

Father was quite content to protect them, destructive methods or not. While mother was much more of the ‘protect your damn self’ type. She was very big on them being as capable as possible from day one, and he knew more methods of torture than he really knew what to do with. Mother was a fighter, father was more of a scarer. Encouraging him and his brother to be more creative and dramatic about pretty well everything. Mother always gave him that weird fond look that used to make Russet gag when father was being over-dramatic.

The only dramatic bone Russet had in his body was overblowing his own power and throwing fits like an entitled brat. He also couldn’t build a weapon to save his half-life. But he had tank throwing down to an art and a knack for blowing shit up. While Orrin himself was more dramatic in the confident sense and always being the ‘beau of the ball’ in any room. He knew he could come off as quite snobbish, but he was better than the vast majority of people. And if someone had a problem with that then he’s got no problem force-feeding them an ecto-light or tripping them down a well. See he had creativity, panache; Russet was just a brute. A brute that was more mediocre strength-wise. Which was just a bit sad in his opinion. Sad in a pathetic way, not in a ‘he feels bad for him’ way. Russet has been a real bastard growing up after all. Russet never blooming into power was just him getting his comupins.

Moving his hands to motion Dove to float down to him, her sitting on his forearm. The problem he can already see with her is that she just felt gentle. And kind. Not powerful, or sneaky, or dramatic, or aggressive. She felt like the opposite in fact; which was odd in this household. Yes, she was young, newly born/formed, but even him and Russet had a feeling of danger to them from day one. Russet’s first word had been to scream ‘DIE!’ while incinerating his food according to mother. And he had always been a teeth-barer who liked fire and anything that went boom way too much. Orrin had been blown up more than a few times in his youth because of that bastard. Didn’t help that mother encouraged them both to play with weapons, bombs included. And their father had literal fire for hair and a tendency to set anything around his feet on fire. If he was somewhere recently you would know it, because there’d be foot-shaped scorch marks.

As for himself? Father said his first word, or phrase really, had been to tell Russet to ‘fuck off’ before shoving Russet over via a foot to the face. Father had apparently laughed so hard he tipped the chair over. And while the larger world viewed Russet as the ‘demon child’ all the servants of the Keep gave that title to Orrin. Mother had a collection of photos of all the times he’s scared the crap out of someone simply by being somewhere they didn’t expect. He hardly thinks it’s his fault that curling up in cupboards, cabinets, and other assorted small areas, was comfortable. It was certainly a plus that seeing that look of abject terror and shock flash over someone’s face was rather enjoyable. So what if he may have given one of the mortal servants a heart attack or two. Their fault for being weak.

Shaking his head slightly and floating off to Dove’s room, her staying tucked in his arm and grabbing his frock coat; his parents might be all over that skintight bodysuit style, but he could do without it. At least that one ghost had been nice enough to explain the best use of glamour to him. And by ‘nice’ he means suddenly very agreeable under threat of some very creative knife play. So now he could accentuate the vertically half black, half white t-shirt/shorts bodysuit he was born with. The frock coat, top hat, and cane were his general go to. Never underestimate the usefulness of a cane for knocking out people's feet or snagging some ghosts tail. The white gloves and thigh-high black heels he was also born with worked quite well he thinks. Having a leaner body than mother certainly helped. And it was very amusing that the borderline-stiletto heels confused father. As was the absolute chaos his ocean blue eyes caused. Since apparently father had neglected to tell mother that she knew him as a human. She had blown half the Keep to smithereens over that; which brother had giddily helped with.

Walking into Dove’s room and eyeing the pink-tinted white walls and plushies all around. The Keep had formed her a very different room than the rest of the family. It was incredibly foreign to him... and incredibly interesting. It said a lot though, watching her float off and scrunch up the down-feather comforter over her mouth. A teddy-bear -which is apparently something children normally had- falling off the bed, only being stopped from hitting the ground via Dove’s telekinesis; her floating it over to her and patting its head.

Him walking over, “why did you do that. It’s not like it can get hurt or even care”, and Gray-Phantom’s didn’t care if something outside of their family got hurt in the slightest. She predictably just hums at him, changing to her ghost-form seemingly purely to coil her ghostly tail around the plushie. Orrin’s not sure she’s ever actually spoken.

Shaking his head and sitting on the edge of the bed, watching her. Dove was the sweetest little thing he had ever seen. Wavy soft gray hair nearly twice her small body’s length and eyes the colour of pure amber. Pale skin so easily burned by the sun, while he and his brother were of a darker tone. She touched everything like it was the most breakable thing in the world, she was a gentle soul, and looked at everything like it was made of sparkles.

Their parents would destroy her. A Gray-Phantom wasn’t soft, gentle, or breakable; and that’s all Orrin could see in Dove.

Even her ghost forms outfit felt that way, it was reminiscent of a spandex ballerina, all white with little sparkling black stars dangling off the rim of the skirt and long flowing arm-sleeves; little black shoes and black spandex over her fingers topping it off. Father liked the stars, not that he said that, but if it weren’t for her being black and white like the rest of the family then their parents would likely have questioned if she really was theirs.

With him it wasn’t even a question if they were his parents. And Russet had their father’s bulk plus the more angular appearance to his military-esque jumpsuit. At this point people probably though the white machine guns he carries strapped around his hips were actually attached to him. Same with the military cap he wore over his shaggy black hair. Orrin gets a bit of a kick out of himself being the only one to get father’s fire hair. Even if his flames were a dark red. Which yes, was absolutely blamed on mother. Father had teased her for weeks about probably having red hair when she finally keeled over.

Sighing at the sound of an explosion. Russet was probably picking fights. Or just aimlessly blowing shit up like a rabid mutt. Russet absolutely had mother's tendency to hold grudges and overreact to the slightest slight. Dove looking up to the ceiling and tilting her head, like she didn’t understand the sound. At least she had their parents’ seeming fearlessness. Nothing seemed to startle or scare her. Even him and Russet had the sense to be somewhat cautious of new things that clearly had the potential of danger. Not that Russet would admit to that, or possibly even knew he actually did that. Dove was gentle and soft, never cautious.

Orrin seriously wonders how breakable she is, how strong she is. Mother and the FrightKnight already didn’t know what to do with her. She wouldn’t swing a sword hard enough to even give a piece of paper a paper cut. Her dainty fingers had a lot of promise for putting things together, for intricacy. But the little pistol she had put together at mothers prompting had fired flower petals somehow. Which yes, he had gotten her to use to fill Russet’s bed with flower petals. He was pissed. And in typical fashion tried to blow the both of them up. Which Dove had just stood there and took, giggled slightly even. Before pouting over there being ash on her dress. Mother teased father over her having his dodging skills. Which was fair, father’s dodging was practically non-existent even to this day. Though he could see that mother was actually just slightly concerned. The only ghosts -or halfas for that matter- that could get away without ever dodging were ones like father. And their parents' way of teaching dodging or fighting was just to get hit and shit kicked till you learned better.

Little Dove couldn’t handle that, he’s sure of that. She was good and kind and sweet. Which was strange and he was curious to see what would become of that. He also just didn’t want to see that sullied and stripped away. He didn’t want to see her become their mother. He was aware of what his parents used to be. Heroes. Which was also strange. But enough ghosts and even mortals had told of it or pointed out footage that it was undeniable. So he can’t help but wonder if Dove was a return to that. That the good that was destroyed in them rebuilt itself in her. It would explain a lot. And honestly? Orrin was well aware that their parents were not remotely good people. Evil and villainous really. Russet was just as bad, and Orrin himself was hardly better. He was more immoral and vaguely bad, rather than downright evil. Which was perfectly fine with him and the family. Dove seemed to be trotting right into the innocent sweetheart do-gooder territory though, and a family like this was bound to crush that into dust. The fact that their parents were once the good guys wouldn’t help. They knew the tricks and ways, and they knew how to break a ‘good guy’ and teach them anarchy at the very least, downright world-destroying merciless villainy at worst.

So what was he to do? He could stand back and watch things play out; he’s not too fond of that option. And a Gray-Phantom, a prince, doesn’t do things they don’t want to. And he wasn’t lying when he referred to himself as one of wanderlust, he could arguably take her away from here. Sure father could sense where any ghost, or half-ghost, was, but Orrin had made himself exceptionally skilled at glamours. If he didn’t want to be found, then he wasn’t going to be. It wouldn’t take much to get a small space amongst the living, sixteen or not he could seem older if he wanted; he could look as old as father if he wanted, older even. Age-morphing was an incredibly enjoyable power to have. Of course if he went that route then they would really be on their own, not that that was an issue to him or even out of the ordinary. And living arrangements wise it would be quite the downgrade. The living didn’t have partially nice living arrangements. Houses getting blown up or suffering some other form of destruction didn’t particularly encourage the living to build them well or fancy. Dove might mind that, or she might not care at all.

And living with mortals posed its own inherent issues, they weren’t ‘one of them’ and the living could be quite perceptive to that. If you acted like them then you could generally be fine, but he could only fake it so much and couldn’t really relate. Dove wouldn’t even know to fake it or hide her halfa status. Which if they did get found out that could be a problem, not to mention a blow to his ego. Both the living and dead weren’t entirely fond of the Gray-Phantom’s. Which he finds logical, they were dangerous threats who ruled through fear and destruction. If the mortals and ghosts could destroy or dethrone them, then they probably would; and likely without hesitation. And even if they could only destroy or harm Dove, they’d see that as a blow to the high royal family; which it would be. Sure, no ghost would with him around. Making an example of those troll giants served its purpose fabulously. Mortals, however, where much more willing to sacrifice their life for the supposed good of others. Martyrdom and self-sacrifice was quite romanticised by the living after all. Ghosts valued power, mortals valued community. Ah the differences between the strong and the weak.

But what really interests him with this idea was what will become of Dove and society should she make it to adulthood with her pure heart intact. What kind of change could that bring about. Would the living flock to her as some sort of symbol of hope. As the good princess that could reform the king and queen. Or perhaps usurp them. Would the dead see her as a chance for the Ghost Realm to flourish without all the constant destruction or ‘living’ in fear. Or would the two realms tear her to shreds in repentance for her lineage.

Regardless of his ponderings, if he wants to see this through he’ll need some sort of name. After all, him and his brother had their own titles. The Shadow Prince and The Poisoned Thorn Prince. Looking her over, watching her play with the legs of the plush animal, shimmer glittering in her wide amber eyes and smiling faintly. He finds himself breaking out into a grin.

The Golden Princess.

That would work splendidly.

#ectober #ectober2020 #ectober 2020 #danny phantom #phandom #dan phantom #valerie gray #dark grat #dan/Valerie #Villain! Valerie #implied/referenced murder #worldbuilding #fan fic #phan phic #my writing #have a fic suck my dick #phantomphangphucker #alternate tue

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bi-makes-pie · 4 years ago

Text

"I'm her best enemy" Playlist [ PART ONE - Songs 1 to 30]

Click READ MORE to see the whole list

1. Nemeses (feat. John Roderick) – Jonathan Coulton I mostly see this as being in the Master’s POV.

“Could it be that you need me To keep you out, to run you faster Promise me you'll let me be The one, the worst of all your enemies”

2. Crazy – Burn the Ballroom 12 to Missy. This one is quite cute. He does calls her mad, but we all know the Doctor isn’t exactly the perfect picture of sanity either.

“She had problems with my love connections So she bought me bullets and she made corrections (…) I'd say crazy, doll, but you've got something different I'd say complicated but that's your kind of rhythm I'd say lost and you'd say love

But you're crazy not to see That you're crazy just like me...”

3. Silence – Citizen Shade This kinda makes me picture the Doctor trying to give in and settle down with the Master (any version) while dealing with the inner conflict that they’re far too cruel for their taste.

“I found peace in your violence Can't tell me there's no point in trying I'm at one, and I've been silent for too long”

4. Dangerous Man - Little Dume This alternates between the Doctor’s POV and the Master’s. But you can also interpret it as being 100% about any version of the Doctor, since they do have a dark side.

“Every bone in my body's bad Fire's burning, the skies are turning black They say I'm a dangerous man” “Can you hear the storm's a coming I'm a silver in the lining There's a spark in me They say I'm a dangerous man Better run fast as you can Don't you look back”

5. Under Covers – LeRiche A bittersweet song about two people who had this precious friendship and love for each other, and about how distance can keep it all bottled up but once they give it a chance, they immediately go right back to the start. Just fits them very well, if you picture a happy ending to their relationship.

“I don't know why you're looking for a friend I'm right by your side But out here from a distance You won't look me in the eyes Without your love, I think I could die Then you let me in, we go back to beginnings When we were just friends hanging out on the ceiling We'll laugh about love and how we felt for one another And I love the way we make up under covers”

6. The Scientist – Coldplay A song about longing to make things right again and with little analogies involving science? I mean…

“Nobody said it was easy It's such a shame for us to part Nobody said it was easy No one ever said it would be this hard Oh, take me back to the start”

7. Renegades – X Ambassadors The “They actually stole a TARDIS and ran away together from Gallirey” AU we need so much

“Run away with me Lost souls and reverie Running wild and running free Two kids, you and me And I say Hey, hey hey hey Living like we're renegades”

8. Love is War – American Young I like how cute this song is and yet there is a bit of a dark twist. Fits them.

“Sometimes love is all that can save us Sometimes love can kill a man Yeah sometimes love is a soft touch Or a pistol in your hand Sometimes love is a white flag (...) Sometimes a cannon ball But it's worth fighting for Baby, sometimes love is war”

9. Bury a friend – Billie Eilish (Cover by Pomplamoose) Master’s POV. Can apply to any of their regenerations but I think of Simm!Master the most, since Ten tends to run towards him rather than walk away from him.

“What do you want from me? Why don't you run from me? What are you wondering? What do you know? Why aren't you scared of me? Why do you care for me? When we all fall asleep, where do we go?”

10. Come as you are – Nirvana (Cover by Imaginary Future) Best Enemies, everyone. Master’s POV again.

“Come as you are, as you were As I want you to be As a friend, as a friend As an old enemy (…) And I swear that I don't have a gun No, I don't have a gun”

11. Turn – The Wombats Academy!Era, Doctor’s POV. Theta (Doctor) clearly has a crush on Koschei (Master) and they’re both love being chaotic together.

“I like the way your brain works, I like the way you try To run with the wolf pack when your legs are tired I like the way you turn me inside and out I like the way you turn I like the way your brain works Baby, it's the crazy I like I think I saw the world turn in your eyes”

12. Run – Snow Patrol Master’s POV if he was ever able to be honest about his feelings. Some parts can easily be read as the Doctor’s POV too.

“You've been the only thing that's right In all I've done And I can barely look at you But every single time I do I know we'll make it anywhere Away from here”

13. Maps - The Front Bottoms The Doctor’s POV as their relationship deteriorates after the Academy and he plans to steal the TARDIS and leave Gallifrey and his friend behind. I had to help myself from quoting the whole song because IT REALLY FITS SO WELL.

“There is a map in my room, on the wall of my room And I've got big, big plans (…) You say 'I hate you', you mean it And 'I love you' sounds fake It's taken me so long to figure that out I used to love the taste, I would do anything for it Now I would do anything to get the taste out of my mouth (…) "And what about your friends, Don't you love them enough to stay?" And I say, "If I don't leave now, Then I will never get away." Let me be a blue raft on the blue sea, I'll blend right in”

14. Old College – The Mountain Goats This fits the tiresome, sad, manipulative and draining part of their relationship.

“The warning signs have all been bright and garish Far too great in number to ignore (…) Our love has never had a leg to stand on From the aspirins to the cross-tops to the Elavils

But I will walk down to the end with you If you will come all the way down with me”

15. Like a Staring Contest – The Future Kings of Nowhere Covers the end of their friendship and start of the new enemies dynamic.

“I'm so tired of open warfare When the point of this was to be best of friends (…) When you fall in love as hard And recklessly as you and I do It seems that the final act should have The same intensity as the first scene”

16. Poison and Wine – The Civil Wars Reminds me of 12 and Missy but before Series 10.

“You only know what I want you to I know everything you don't want me to Oh your mouth is poison, your mouth is wine You think your dreams are the same as mine Oh I don't love you but I always will”

17. Genesis 30:3 – The Mountain Goats The mentions of a past relationship and the following lines followed by drums really make me picture this as Simm!Master and Ten getting a happy but bittersweet ending.

“For several hours we lay there, last ones of our kind Harder days coming, maybe I don't mind Sounds kind of dumb when I say it, but it's true I would do anything for you”

18. Blood Under The Bridge – Frightened Rabbit Could literally be any version, but I picture Dhawan!Master and 13 making amends here, mostly because he might be crazy and frenetic but behind that façade he’s clearly way more tired than she ever will be.

“And it's alright, it's alright It's just blood under the bridge And I'm too tired to fight And you're sick of feeling sick And so am I It's alright It's just blood under the bridge”

19. Even Though Our Love is Doomed – Garbage Missy’s POV. You can interpret this like her train of thoughts and reflections starting from early Vault days to the last time we see her on-screen. Reluctance, guilt and then the resolution.

“Come a little bit closer I need to understand Why we kill the things we love the most (…) Can you love me for what I've become Love me for what I Said that I would not become 'Cause they don't burn like I do (…) And even though our love is doomed And even though we're all messed up You're the only thing worth fighting for” You're the only thing worth dying for”

20. Starlight – Muse 12 and Missy during the episodes World Enough and Time and The Doctor Falls.

“Now I'll never let you go If you promised not to fade away Never fade away Our hopes and expectations Black holes and revelations”

21. Control – Halsey This screams Missy to me, especially since she literally incorporates the character of the evil nanny in her book (The Missy Chronicles) and in Big Finish’s audio dramas.

“I'm bigger than my body I'm colder than this home I'm meaner than my demons I'm bigger than these bones

And all the kids cried out, "Please stop, you're scaring me" I can't help this awful energy God damn right, you should be scared of me Who is in control?”

22. Enemy – Woodlock End of Academy!Era. Yet another song which reminds me about their early fighting days and the end of their friendship.

This is where it begins At the start of an end I could no longer pretend No more, you walked out the door You’re my enemy

23. Why Can't We Be Friends? – The Academic The title says it all. The lyrics also mention how the relationship is always turning into something new, so I had to associate with the longest friends to lovers to enemies we’ve ever seen on television.

“This world is pointless If you're not here This world is pointless If we're not self-destructing love And it falls and it breaks and it turns into something new And it falls and it breaks and it turns into something”

24. Wish That You Were Here – Florence + The Machine Doctor’s POV, in the days when he regrets leaving Gallifrey for a couple of seconds before turning to occupy his with something else. Because he knows that even if he went back, things aren’t the same and everyone has changed – including him.

“And I never minded being on my own Then something broke in me and I wanted to go home To be where you are But even closer to you, you seem so very far

And it's beautiful but there's that tug in the sight I must stop time traveling, you're always on my mind”

25. No Light, No Light – Florence + The Machine This one makes me picture the first moment the Doctor realized his friend had changed too much and had to choose between his own feelings and standing for what’s right. This happens A LOT in the show, but I imagine realizing that for the first time was the hardest.

“But would you leave me If I told you what I've done And would you leave me If I told you what I've become No light, no light in your bright blue eyes I never knew daylight could be so violent A revelation in the light of day”

26. Dancing with the Devil – Wolf Gang This alternates between the Master’s POV and the Doctor’s POV.

“If you're the chosen one How does it feel to be loved by no one? If you're the number one Where do you run to? Can you hide behind the sun? You say that there's no oxygen again You're forcing down the lies but you always get your way Something tells me that this was all arranged You tricked me once again”

27. Skeleton Park – Kasador Master’s POV. “You know, back in the day, I'd burn an entire city to the ground just to see the pretty shapes the smoke made” (Missy, in The Lie of the Land, Series 10, Episode 8)

“When the house is on fire Air fills my lungs I satisfy desire From watching all you run Yeah the house is on fire Hear the sirens scream My hands hold the lighter It fits so naturally”

28. Elastic Heart – Longfellow What I love the most about the Doctor (all versions) is how they keep fighting for what is right despite their own feelings being hurt or despite how much it may cause them pain. I love what this character represents, and those lyrics reminds me so much of them.

“Oh why can I not conquer love? And I might have thought that we were one Wanted to fight this war without weapons And I wanted it, I wanted it bad But there were so many red flags (…) Yeah, let's be clear, I'll trust no one You did not break in here I'm still fighting for peace”

29. Bite Back – The All-American Rejects “You think you've broken me? You'll have to try harder than that” (The Doctor, in The Timeless Children Series 12, Episode 10). Same unbreakable side of the Doctor, but this time she definitively resents it a little more than usual.

“You couldn't break me in the end And such a freedom I enjoy When you're deaf to the sounds you trust If that was all you've got, my friend Then set yourself to disappoint”

30. No Children – The Mountain Goats Listen to me here: this covers the whole “They were married way before they started to hate each other back on Gallifrey” fan theory.

“I am drowning There is no sign of land You are coming down with me Hand in unlovable hand”

[ PART TWO TO BE ADDED SOON ]

#doctor who #thoschei #doctormaster #best enemies #my playlists #playlist

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aforrestofstuff · 5 years ago

Note

What do you think the OPM characters' guilty pleasures would be? I feel like Tatsu loves soap operas and Atomic Samurai secretly loves a really popular boy band, like SMAP

Thanks for your request, anon! Sorry this took me so long to get to, you were buried in my inbox lol. But I hope this was worth the wait because oh boy this required all 3 of my brain cells.

Tornado of Terror: As you said, soap operas. She also loves candy apples in canon. But...she also is a HUGE fan of those really cheesy Cosmopolitan magazines that have all of the personality quizzes and the “which hot male celeb would date you” scenarios. She doesn’t fall for it one bit. In fact, she hate reads those fuckers in the same way that people pay to go see bad movies. It’s fun.

Silverfang: Yoga and following along to some cheesy-ass 80s workout videos. I’ve said he likes yoga in a previous headcanon, but he also likes to exercise along to some obnoxious 80s pop while some dude in a leotard instructs him on what to do from a TV screen. He wears sweatbands and legwarmers, too. The whole shebang. He only does it when he’s alone, though. Sometimes he’ll try to teach yoga to his disciples as a way to help them decompress after a long training session, but his workout tapes are his best-kept secret.

Atomic Samurai: I don’t know what a SMAP is, but he’s definitely got some questionable music choices going on considering he’s... well, the way that he is. I’d say he likes to listen to old country, like Marty Robbins and Glen Campbell. It’s really funny because you’ve got this intimidating man from Japan (or a fictional universe basically set in Japan) with a badass katana and shit but inside that empty head of his, there’s just a faint “out in the west Texas town of El Paso....”

Child Emperor: Picking at scabs. He’s often on his knees fixing shit in his lab, and he probably gets burned all the damn time from playing around with lasers so he’s undoubtedly always has a wound healing somewhere. Whenever he’s working on something, he’ll just absentmindedly pick at his scabs. It’s a bad habit and he knows it, but nothing beats the feeling of peeling off an entire patch of that shit. So satisfying.

Metal Knight: Buying books. He doesn’t even read them. He just buys bigass novels with smart-sounding names to fill up his library because he thinks it’ll make his dick grow another three inches or some shit. One of the few things he likes in this world (besides homicide) is the smell of a new book. If he’s feeling particularly pissy, he’ll go into his library and just ssssssnnnnnnnnnniififfffffffffff. He spends an outrageous amount of money on it. If he has anyone over (which is unlikely, but hypothetically speaking) and they mention his library by asking something like “have you read all of these?” It’ll be one of the few times in his life that he’ll feel shame.

King: Reading and writing fanfiction based on his favorite video game/anime series. Nobody knows he does this except his small following online, of course. And even more so, nobody online knows he’s an ultra-popular S-Class hero who’s friends with the most powerful man on earth. He’s actually a pretty decent writer, he just doesn’t take himself too seriously so the plotline to his stories tend to get a little haywire and overly self-indulgent. Let him have his fun. He just wants to be a Sailor Scout.

Zombieman: Singing. He actually used to be a good singer (he sounded like a discount Steve Perry back in the day), but constant smoking really fucked up his voice. He might as well have lungs the size of grapes because he can’t carry a note for more than 2 seconds without wheezing like an accordion with asthma. He’s never sang in front of anyone before because he thinks it’s silly thing that isn’t worth showing off. Play anything from The Eagles though, and he’ll have a hard time resisting.

Drive Knight: He likes to open up panels in his arms and legs to play with the wires (basically a robot’s version of nerve endings, I’m assuming) just so he can feel something. It’s kind of sad because he doesn’t experience pain or the cold or being tickled... (I know what y’all are thinking and you’d better STOP). So he sometimes takes it upon himself to dick around with his insides and dip his toe into what it feels like to be human, even if it’s just for a little bit. He’s super secretive about it (he’s just secretive about everything, really) because he doesn’t want anyone to know that he desires something outside of being a weapon of mass destruction justice.

Pig God: His whole schtick is basically indulging in a guilty pleasure — pigging out on delicious food with no regard whatsoever for one’s overall health. Other than that, however, he does like to collect body pillows. There, I said it. All he fucking does is eat and he’s too much of a big boi to be going out 24/7, so he’s gotta be on the internet/watching anime/playing video games/reading manga during all of that downtime between his stints of doing hero work. His bed is fucking ginormous to handle all of that big boy-ness and on it, he has his body pillow nest. He rests on a throne made for kings. A true icon.

Superalloy Darkshine: Also working out along to some cheesy 80s exercise videos. His hero outfit was inspired from what those ravishing instructors would wear on the television. Well, it was supposed to be a full leotard but it ripped every time he flexed just a tiny bit so the speedo is the only thing that’s left. He’s gotta hella rhythm and keeps up with the music using little to no effort. Although, he can’t go too hard because he’s also a big boi and he’ll literally shake the entire building if he gets too turnt up. Dance muscle boy, dance.

Watchdog Man: Eating too many dog treats lol. Sometimes while he’s stationed on his little podium thing, visitors will leave him little offerings like dog treats and other miscellaneous food items/toys. He never takes them or eats them in front of people, but he often brings everything home with him after a long day just to gobble that shit up. He’s gained a little weight since he started doing it but you can’t even notice it because his suit is hella bulky. Some of it is due in part to stress-eating because being a dog and dude at the same time is hectic, but it’s honest work.

Flashy Flash: Racing shit. Whenever he’s on his travels during, say, assassination missions or hero work, he gets hella bored really quickly. So, to help with this, he’ll often race birds or planes flying in the sky on his way to his destination to see who’s quicker (it’s always him). Sometimes he’ll even play catch with himself by throwing a pine cone or something and running to the place he guesses it’ll land before it even touches the ground. He just does a ton of weird speedster shit whenever he’s bored and he’ll deny it if anyone asks.

Genos: Purposefully putting a little bit too much oil on his joints after each upgrade so he’ll be as slick as a salamander. It’s a really funny feeling to be able to move your limbs with little to no resistance without having to worry about popping or breaking anything. It just makes him feel so agile despite being like, a hunk of actual metal. If he wasn’t so uptight, he would loosen the screws in his fingers to he can bend them almost all the way back (he’s actually thought about it a few times), but both Dr. Kuseno and his 3 remaining braincells attested to that. He just likes to tinker around with his body and see what weird shit he can do. It’s a bad habit because it’s led to a few things being broken on multiple occasions.

Metal Bat: Zenko’s shitty pop music. Whenever he drops her off at school or piano practice, he’ll immediately go home and blast that shit on full volume (because he’s practically deaf from always jumping out of falling buildings and continuously blasting music in his earbuds) while doing chores and the like. He’s one of those people that HAVE to have something going on in the background as they’re getting shit done. He’d rather be caught dead than listening to the OPM equivalent of Taylor Swift because he knows Zenko would never let him live it down.

Tanktop Master: Wearing suits around the house when he’s not even going anywhere. He’s got to wear his tanktop 24/7 whenever he’s in public to keep up The Image (which he has no problem with, he genuinely loves the tanktop ideology) but he also needs to feel fancy every once and a while. So, if he happens to have the time while in between appearances, he’ll prance around in a suit tailored just for him. Because he’s so fucking huge that he had to pay someone a large sum to custom make an outfit that actually fits. He is 7-motherfucking-feet tall. 7.

Puri-Puri Prisoner: Making Valentine’s Day cards all times of the year. Listen, it gets boring as hell in prison. Sometimes the guards will let all of the inmates have a little glitter and glue to keep themselves busy because no harm can come of a little arts and crafts, right? He likes to make cards on the daily just to let all of his lovers know how much he appreciates them. If they express even the slightest amount of disdain for his creations, he’ll spent the next week crying in the darkest corner of his cell block. He also likes origami. Origami is huge in prison because it’s hella time-consuming and guaranteed to calm a busy mind. His favorite things to make are little unicorns.

Amai Mask: Bath bombs. There have been several mishaps in which he’s used a poorly-made bath bomb and came out of the tub looking like Shrek but he’s grown and lot since then, okay? After a long day or a particularly stressful concert, he’ll sink into some hot water and drop a ball of lavender-scented goodness in there. It’s become a bit of an addiction because he’s got multiple cabinets dedicated solely to his collection, but at least he always smells divine.

Iaian: Shakespearean dramas. Kama got him hooked on theater shit and he’s since ripped through all of the most well-known plays. He thinks in iambic pentameter. It wasn’t always noticeable since he’s a quiet, well-reserved guy but his fellow disciples and Kami have recently noticed that he’s developed a bit of a dramatic flair. Even worse, he’s started calling himself a knight whenever he puts on his armor. Everyone prays it’s just a phase but seeing as how stubborn Iaian is, that seeks highly unlikely. Kami is dying inside because he can’t handle another drama nerd.

Okamaitachi: Soap operas, like Tatsumaki. Kama is the most dramatic out of all of the disciples so it’s only natural that she’d like the most dramatic genre of any show out there. She doesn’t exactly watch them religiously though. She’s the type of viewer to drop off the face of the earth for three seasons and come back without knowing what the fuck is going on (because the disciples have limited access to cable due to Kami’s dumbassery and ignorance to anything technology-related), but still cry during the finale anyway because oh no these people are so hot and one of them is deaaaaaad and the other one is that person’s long-lost sister....

Bushidrill: Taking alcohol from Atomic Samurai’s stash every so often. Bushidrill knows what the good shit is and he could buy it himself if he wanted to, but why would he when there’s a perfectly good alcoholic to steal from living right down the hall? He only takes in small doses because, believe it or not—he’s smart, but Kami isn’t gonna notice regardless of whether or not Bushi takes 1 or 5 bottles at a time because the old shit couldn’t spot a purple raccoon if it was 3 feet in front of him. There have been times where Bushi has opened bottles of Kami’s alcohol right in front of him just to play God and he always, without missing a beat, says “Oh, we have the same taste. How neat.”

Fubuki: I’ve said this before in a previous headcanon, but she has a mild obsession with Victorian aesthetic. She’s got a small collection of semi-authentic ballgowns that cost upwards of a-fuckton-of-money each, but anything’s worth it to be able to play dress-up with Lily. Fubuki’s favorite thing is making Lily feel beautiful because everyone has been an insecure teenager at one point and she knows how it feels to not be comfortable in one’s own skin. This isn’t exactly a guilty pleasure because she’s not guilty about it, but it’s almost gotten to a point where an intervention is needed. She’s got so many damn dresses and sooooo much fine china....

Saitama: Retail therapy, lol. Saitama is only good at budgeting because he has no choice given how fucking poor he is, but give this boy even a little bit of leeway and he’ll buy the ugliest clothes (to which he thinks look poppin’) and the best meats without even batting an eye. His entire manga collection is the product of him having little to no self control the moment he realizes he’s got a bit of money to spend on himself. This is also the only time he’ll experiment with cooking because now he can actually afford to fuck up, literally.

Mumen Rider: Sweets! I’ve said this in a previous hc but he has a major sweet tooth. You can substitute salt for sugar in any given recipe and he’ll see it as a major improvement because he just goes absolutely buckwild for anything sweet. His pancreas is suffering, but he believes nothing feels better than curling up under the covers on a rainy day with a heaping helping of milk chocolate. The only thing that makes him feel better after getting beat to shit is a kiss on the cheek and box of his favorite cookies (and some bananas, lol).

Sonic: Like Flash, he also likes racing things. But, in addition to that, his guilty pleasure is doing his own hair in elaborate hairstyles (when it was longer). He’s pretty much homeless so he’s got a lot of time to himself in between murders. This is when you can find him sitting in the woods somewhere braiding flowers into his hair and tying it off with a moss ribbon. He’d never admit he does this because he’s a big macho man and he’d probably cry.

Garou: Spicy chips. I’ve said this before in a previous hc, but he absolutely inhales his food without even tasting it half the time so it’s not even like he gets to enjoy the flavor that much. He just likes the burn because he’s a shithead. He also doesn’t fear death or a torn-up asshole, so he’ll eat an entire family-sized bag of the OPM-universe equivalent to Takis without even batting an eye. He’s been beat to shit so many times that the agony that comes with downing so much spice is lost on him. He doesn’t even need water. It’s insane. Someone stop this madman at once.

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