#sorry tumblr gang had to let that one out

[archduke-enver-gortash]

rolling around on the floor (literally)

[sameschmidtdiffname]

Tumblr WILL NOT let me post the fic and this ask at the same time and I've tried legit five times. So THANK YOU anon for the request and I'm sorry for the weirdness in uploading. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy this!

My Ghost.

Billy x Gender Neutral! Reader

Summery: You don't know what happened that night. Things were fine, life was good, then your partner is on the news for all sorts of shit you never would've thought him capable of the day prior. He was dead, he was evil, and you were trying to move on. But what's the proper etiquette when the dead show up on your door unannounced?

Tags: No use of Y/N, hurt/comfort, fake death, mentions of drinking, drug use/dealing, grieving, arguing, cursing, flashbacks, brief suggestive scenes, suicidal thoughts.

Other Works in This Series: 'Repentance' (Prequel to 'My Ghost') • 'Lapses' (Sequel to 'My Ghost')

Notes: The way I've been trying to upload this for two hours. Oh my fucking God. Anyways, everyone say thank you to anon for getting me to write something that doesn't make God cry.

-¤°》◇《°¤-

I'm not hard to please, but I'm not desperate despite what the rumors may say.

People enjoy gossip. People who don't know fuck all about you. And my standards are fine. Were fine. And I don't mean standards such as 'buys me flowers everyday' or 'doesn't deal coke.' I mean standards such as 'is a decent fucking person.'

"That's what I thought you were up until all of this fucking... disappearing for months!" I scream, anger fueling me. I don't let the other emotions win out, don't let them have a say. Because if I do, I'll be too conflicted and overwhelmed and then I'm gonna cry, and that's not fair.

People had warned me he was trouble. Terms such as 'wannabe cowboy,' 'rebel without a cause' were tossed around in warning. But to me, he was just Billy.

Then he was dead.

Now, he was here. He showed up at my door nine months after leaving me with a small little keychain on the kitchen table and a soft kiss on my forehead, saying he had some plans for that evening. But he'll be back soon.

Then he was on the news. And a gas station blew up. Gangs, stolen vehicles. He was probably dead. Things would be easier if he was dead.

Fine. Maybe I initially ignored warning signs. Maybe I was distracted by his handsome side profile, too busy admiring his nose to notice the occasions it was dusted with the trace of a fine powder. Maybe his hands were too beautiful for me to realize they were slipping money to men in dark jackets when we went out to the rougher parts of town. But he was mine and I was his, and overall he was a good person.

He was alive. He was alive and I was mad because if he was dead then at least it would be valid that for nine months I have had to deal with the accusatory stares of our neighbors assuming I knew, the pity from my loved ones, and the betrayel that kept me awake at night. It would mean he hadn't left me to deal with his repercussions, that maybe there was a valid excuse. An undiagnosed brain tumor that finally gave way to insanity, a gun to his head. Something that was not the worst case scenario of just... being an awful person. I could let his things rest around the house undisturbed, hiding from the world and waiting to find the courage to join him one day and living in denial in the meantime. What the fuck was all of this?

"I couldn't tell you," he keeps saying. "It was better if you knew nothing until I was sure I could come get you."

"Why didn't you just take me with you from the start?" I ask. I've been pacing the floor for the past twenty minutes ever since he showed up. It was better than throwing every breakable object in the cheap, worn down shack of a house at him, which was my second instinct. My first was to pull him into my arms, draw the curtains shut and hide him away so that he'll never leave again. Like an idiot.

He laughs bitterly. "You would not be asking that if you knew what the fuck I went through," he says. His words sound like they should be angry, but there's this lightness to them like he can't let himself think too much about it. It just makes me angrier.

"Don't fucking laugh!" I snap. "Do you think any of this is funny?"

"I think you're funny when you're mad," he deflects, smiling. "You got this whole routine. Pacing, nose twitching. I like the Shirley Temple stomps, like you're a kid."

I groan loudly, the noise almost sounding like a low scream in my throat.

"You owed money to fucking- who?" I yell.

"The details don't matter-"

"When I have been grieving your death for nine months, they fucking matter!" I snap. His brows furrow, his hands mid air as if to say 'the fuck did I do?'

"You know me, okay? I don't get caught," he says as though it were obvious.

"I know fucking nothing!" I practically scream.

When we met he was just a guy at a bar, handsome, wearing that same ridiculous jacket that I couldn't help but stroke the white fluff on, tequila running through my veins.

"Can I help you?" He asked, smirking.

"Just wanted to see what it felt like," I said.

"Wanna feel something else?" He asked, his chin resting on his head.

"Oh, fucking gross. Fuck o-"

"I was talking about this," he said, whipping out his keys to show off an odd, weirdly shaped keychain with short, stiff fuzz. "Don't call me a pervert just cause you're one."

He was smiling. It was an easy smile. Careless, happy with life. I loved that smile. It meant things were always alright as long as he was smiling.

He was smiling on the photo they used for the manhunt.

We'd danced the whole night. He didn't know hardly any of the songs, causing him to be off beat. I was too drunk to keep time, so I stepped on his leather boots enough times there was a visible scuff on the top of one by the end of the night. I always felt bad, offering to replace or help pay to fix it. He wouldn't let me.

"They're a keepsake," he'd insist. "A living memory." He wore them everyday.

He's wearing sneakers, today.

At the end of the night, I stumbled out of the bar with a note in my coat pocket. It took two weeks for me to wear that coat again, and when I found the slip I'd almost thrown it away, assuming it was something dumb. But when I saw the worst handwriting in the world displaying a number belonging to someone named 'Keychain Guy,' I almost couldn't wait to call.

"Bullshit," Billy snaps. "You know me better than anyone."

"Don't say that," I say, putting a hand out protectively to keep him away. "That's exactly why everyone thinks I was just fine with that whole- fucked up thing!"

A gas station burned. A stolen vehicle. People were dead. People were dead.

Billy was presumed dead.

There was no funeral. He had no family, and none of mine wanted to put money into something that would be protested by the whole town anyways. No body to bury, nothing to do but gather up his things and smoke what remained in his stash until people came to nurse me back to life. By that point there wasn't even relief in drugs. The taste simply reminded me of better times cooking in the kitchen as we blew the smoke into each others faces, or worse. Better. Whatever.

I never questioned when Billy went out of town. I knew his work had details I didn't want nor need to know. Money was tight. But Billy always came home with little things whenever he went on unexpected trips. Knick knacks, snacks, some item I'd seen at the store and picked up to make a comment about. Had he been particularly forthcoming about his dealing when we started dating? No. He said he worked for a local small business, which technically isn't untrue. But about six months in, he was the one who approached me and sat me down at the small, rickty round table to tell me the truth. And that's what mattered to me. The economy is shit and it's not like it was meth, so who am I to judge?

About a year into it, I was begging for him to do something else.

"I don't like you disappearing," I told him. "I'm scared one day you're gonna piss someone off and that'll be the end. Then what am I gonna do?"

"Then you're gonna make sure they don't fuck up my face during the embalming process for the funeral," Billy said around his hand rolled cigarette. I whip the small dish towel at him, making him laugh and protect his small ashtray that I made him for Christmas the year prior. It was shitty, uneven, and I'm 99% sure a fire hazard. But he wouldn't use any other ones unless I was the one who bought them for him, and even then he favored this one. 'When this place goes up in flames,' I thought, 'I'll regret that gift.'

I'd kept it by the kitchen window every day since he'd died. "Died." It was his spot.

He moves to sit there now, looking in his pockets for the small box of prerolled cigarettes.

"People know you weren't involved," he says dismissively.

"Your friends know. What about the old ladies at church? The checkout clerks at the store? How about the fucking mailman?" I shout, convinced I'm still talking to the dead. "You think they know the ins and outs of the local psychos support group?" I ask, gesturing and stepping closer.

I was the local outcast now. Not to be trusted, not worth kindness. Shame was my title, and when Billy appeared on my doorstep at an hour where only I was awake I was sure I'd caught the same awful disease that must have been what sent him spiraling that winter day. It wasn't until he pushed the door open fully, taking me into his arms and pressing a warm kiss to my lips that I knew he was real. It was a feeling I was in the early stages of forgetting, blurry and cold. But here he was, the stubble on his chin a bit longer and his ears missing the small hoops that had glittered in the sunlight when he walked out the door.

Then I'd pushed him away. And the fight began.

"I'm not a fucking psycho," he argues. His hands pat around his outfit, searching. "You got a lighter?"

"Fuck off." I kept his favorite in my left pocket. I had to be careful what things of his I wore or kept on my person. People close to me knew I would have never condoned his actions, but even they had glared at me in the early wake of Billy's death when I dared to wear one of his shirts out of the house, or more commonly one of his thick leather jackets. But a lighter can be hidden, and unless you had borrowed it you wouldn't know it had specifically been his. So I kept it with me all the time, just feeling it next to my skin with the only barrier being the fabric of my pocket. Without a thought, I cover the small item as though he can see right through me. Picking up on the hint, he's rises from the table and begins walking over to me.

"Don't be a dick, just let me borrow it," he says, holding out his hand.

"Fuck off," I snap.

"You've said that. I just need it for two seconds," he says as his hands begin to gently grab at me, one on my shoulder and the other dipping into my pocket.

"Get the fuck off of me!" I yell, slapping at him.

"Just let me have-"

He cuts himself off as he pulls out the lighter from my pocket, his thumb grazing over the printed picture. The Statue of David. He'd bought because it made us laugh. One side was the regular statue, the other a close up of its small genitals with cursive writing underneath spelling the art piece's name.

"Oh," Billy says quietly.

We stand for a moment, silent. He doesn't seem sure what to do. My lungs burn with unheaved sobs. I fucking hate this.

"You were gonna come back," I finally say quietly. I hate how my voice sounds when I'm upset. I hate that I'm wearing his dogtag, an item he'd bought at a World War II museum in middle school that he gave me for our first Christmas because we were both too broke to actually buy each other anything, hence the poorly made ashtray. I hate that when I sleep at night it's in his clothes that I rarely wash because the idea of losing his smell makes me want to scream. I hate that his scent is different from the bottle of cologne he kept next to my makeup, one time spilling all over the entire bathroom counter because we'd gotten too wrapped up in each other, dragging our nails down each others backs and watching ourselves in the mirror until one wrong move of my hand revealed he'd been a bit too careless about screwing the lid back on earlier in the day. I'd always warned him about that.

I'd been in the bathroom putting on my permanently scented blush when I got the text.

"I was going to," he said softly. "Then I couldn't."

"So what?" I say, not daring to turn and face him, choosing instead to stare at where the cheap, old wood paneling of the wall meets the shaggy, stained carpet that you have to wear shoes on due to the staples that have begun sticking out of it. "You just propose to someone and then pretend to die?"

Valentines Day was an awfully cheesy day to do it. So it's a good thing it was a technicality.

The day had been lovely. Billy had saved up a little to take me to a local hibachi place, telling me to wear my best outfit and jewelry. It was slightly overkill, but it's the small things in life, isn't it?

We'd come home with a bottle of wine, a low budget movie to ignore and hands searching desperately for each other.

"I love you," he'd said between pants. "You're mine."

"Buy a ring," I'd dared. Our minds were buzzed, the bottle half empty and our clothes thrown away without care. Took me weeks to find his both of his socks.

I hadn't meant for him to take it seriously. But I guess he decided it was time.

Two days later I thought it was odd when he walked into the house with my favorite lunch. It wasn't expensive really, we just usually got it for special occasions or days that had been mentally harder for me. And things were normal that day. I was getting ready for my shift, running around like I always do trying to make sure I've got everything.

"Your coffee's in the cup, will you just sit down?" He laughed, watching me. I quickly collected the take out box, sipping my coffee and wincing over its temperature.

"Fuck, that burns," I cursed. He wrapped his arms around me, trying to get me to sit at the table. "Baby, I can't," I protested softly, but I was laughing. He was peppering me in kisses, giving me those big puppy dog eyes everyone knew were my weakness. He wanted for nothing so long as he looked at me just like that.

"Just this once," he asked, pressing a kiss to my cheek. I couldn't help the blush and giggle that rose from me, but I also couldn't be late.

"I'll make up for it," I promised, slipping away and running into the bedroom to get my shoes. When I ran back in, pulling them on and coming to kiss him goodbye, I nearly fell over when I saw him on one knee, smiling and looking at me like 'I told you so.'

I don't like how itchy the ring feels on my middle finger as I twirl it in thought.

"You don't know what happened," he pleaded, his hands still on me. "If you would just listen to me-"

"The news gave a pretty good description, William. I don't think there's missing pieces in my head, unlike you," I say coldly, detaching from myself so to not have to deal with my emotions. This makes him stiffen, pulling away and resuming his place at the kitchen table, lighting his cigarette and placing the ashtray in front of him like nothing has changed when everything has.

It feels like I'm out of time. Like I've been shoved into a picture of what my life looked like before. Except the house was never this clean, clothes always scattered about. Not just in a fit of passion, we just had bad habits when it came to picking up. Billy would always say the chairs are more decorations then they are seats, anyways. "Why would you use those when you have such a nice seat here?" He'd ask, wiggling his hips and placing his hands behind his head, making me laugh.

Billy never looked so well put together in the house, usually in a wife beater and his hair framing his face. He'd always joked he looked like a dirty hippie around me, and I'd always show him how much I liked that. Not that he looked fantastic now. When we went out he was known for putting in effort. He always had more hair products than me, which I found funny. Though he refused makeup. Once I'd managed to talk him into eyeliner. 'Guyliner' I'd teased. He liked it, but said it should stay between us with a wink before asking where to get dinner. Now he sits before me in clothes obviously stolen to help him look unremarkable, his hair shaggy and uncut, so different from the man I loved.

"Who are you?" I asked him. That man didn't shrink away from accountability.

He sighed, smoke swirling around him as he wipes his face with his hand.

"I don't know. Can't tell if I'm better or worse, to be honest," he admits softly. His eyes look haunted, heavy bags underneath. It's the way his shoulders sag as though his will to go on is slowly draining from him in this very moment that makes me want to break now. Like whatever reason he had for still going was fruitless.

I didn't like the way we mirrored each other like this.

I slowly scuff my feet towards him, tapping my fingers against the back of the wooden chair before pulling it out to sit across from him. It's a start.

"So if you tell me," I say slowly. "Am I going to wish you were dead?"

He doesn't look at me. "I don't know."

Great.

The night is long. Morning comes without an invitation, the blue sky beginning to glow through the shitty blinders I always told Billy we should replace one day. I understand less than when we started, we've both cried more than once, and between our fingers is cigarette stubs and the feeling of each others skin, hands laced together as though another click of an old remote to an outdated TV with batteries you had to rub against your shirt to make work would reveal the smouldering remains of a gas station, displaying the estimated body count and deeming one of us as a devil of the worst kind, ripping us apart.

"Jesus," I say when it's over.

"Yeah," he says. "So, needless to say, my anxiety is shit now."

It isn't funny. It's a tragic statement. But when we both glance into the others eyes, it's his small little smirk that makes me laugh like I haven't since my mother sent me the local news report with his picture covering the front page. The same one that shows everything is still okay.

"I'm sorry," I say. Then the laughing turns into sobbing, and then I can't breathe. And I really am sorry.

I'm sorry I couldn't help him. I'm sorry he went out on a romantic whim and borrowed money he shouldn't have for the ring I was too ashamed to wear on the proper finger. I'm sorry he couldn't come back for me. And I'm sorry for hating him when he showed up unannounced at my door.

"Hey," he says gently, standing and crossing to me, removing his jacket and wrapping it around my shoulders to comfort me. It's unfamiliar, evidence of a life he wouldn't have led if he had just stayed by me and it upsets me, but his lips against my wet cheeks ground me, familiar and soothing me, coaxing me into wrapping my arms around him, clawing my trembling fingers through his hair. Still soft. Still combed.

"You can't stay here," I choke out.

"I know," he says quietly. There's nothing for a long time, our bodies shaking as we cling to each other. In our arms are the unspoken months of grief. Of his longing for our home, of my insanity. Death looms over the furniture, light hidden away lest it take away my sacred treasures I'd used to keep his spirit close to me.

"I can't lose you again," I say.

"I know," he says, smelling my hair and placing a soft kiss on top of my head. "But I can't promise stability if you follow me."

My brows furrow, my mind racing in confusion, my hopes rising. Follow?

"I know a guy," he says quickly, his arms tighter as if scared I'll turn away. "Says he can get me a new identity and a one way ticket to somewhere. I don't know where yet, but it's worth a try."

My fingers trace his back, swirling invisible patterns over his shirt. He'd always liked that after a rough day. I can feel the tension begin to slowly fall away from him at the contact, his breathing growing deeper and more steady. "And you want me to come?"

"Need," he corrects. "I don't regret leaving you, but I can't stay away. Even if it's more kind to let you mourn and find a better life."

A new life. A new identity. New name, new everything.

Maybe I am insane. Maybe this exactly the kind of mental break Billy had that day. Maybe I was doomed to follow his spirit no matter what. Maybe this is a second chance. Maybe God had granted me a mercy I'll never be able to repay, no matter how many night I spend in worship at a church or between this man's legs. Maybe I'd spend every day looking over my shoulder, paranoid and eventually turning cruel to strangers so to keep this one person everyone told me to let go of from the very beginning.

But the same Billy.

"Can he do a marriage license?" I ask after a long silence. I can hear him laugh, pulling away to look at me.

"That eager?" He asks softly, his eyes gentle, thumb stroking my cheek. I lean into his touch, softly placing a kiss on his palm.

▪︎》◇《▪︎

"Well," I say, "I already have the ring."

Masterlist

As cute as this was, please have better standards than the Reader I wrote in this fic. No man is worth that. I am DEADASS. Anyways, love y'all <3

[honeyhae-svt]

✧.*⑅˖♡On My Command MASTERLIST♡⁠˖⑅*⁠.⁠✧

heya, heya, heya! aeya here!: I jus' want to let yk that requests are now open! Feel free to suggest and I will be writing it, hehehe. —bummer, no one wanna though.

My first ever story & series posted here on Tumblr! Yey! Promoting my Wattpad >w< @muuimihanmal_writes - The link is from Wattpad also posted by me ^^ but dw, if you dont have a Wattpad acc, just check the chapter down below!

On My Command

SEVENTEEN FANFICTION (Series)

AFAB!READER x SEVENTEEN - MNDI

GENRE: Mafia, Businesses, Dark Romance, Smut, Gangs, RomCom, Action, Fem!Reader x Mafia!Seventeen, Baddie!Reader x Businessmen!Seventeen

Status: ONGOING

⚠️ WARNINGS ⚠️: Smut, Kissing, Oral Sex, Unprotected Sex (though some have), Mention of Birth Controls, Gunshots, Blood, Fingering, Squirting, Language, Manipulation, Fighting, Action, Pet Names, Size kinks.

♡-Mention of other groups like TXT, EXO, ENHA, G-IDLE, LE SSERA, NCT DREAM, RIIZE (THIS IS A SERIES SO IG I WILL BE ADDING MORE TO THAN THESE WARNINGS) - MDNI OR I WILL BLOCK THOSE WITHOUT AGE INDICATOR ON BIO

READER IS NAMED LI MEI QIANG!!!

>>>> IMAGES ARE FROM PINTEREST so yeah, ctto. Also, there will be a 1st person POV 'cause I like starting from Y/N's POV at every story I make. Lmao. Enjoy babies. ♡

PREVIEW: YN POV: I had always thought I would live out the rest of my days aging quietly and dying a mundane death. My life seemed devoid of surprises until I turned 23. Suddenly, I found myself entangled with businesses, gangs, and even dangerous mafias. Who could have imagined my life would take such an exhilarating turn? At last, I had something new to experience in my previously dull existence. Now, I could finally put my unique ability to good use-an ability to manipulate, honed by my deep understanding of psychology, in situations that were both serious and thrilling. Would I able to handle this serious turn of events? You're damn right I can.

> CHAPTER 1

> CHAPTER 2

> CHAPTER 3

-AEYA HERE!: Sorry guys, I recently only uploaded this story on Tumblr so yeah, still working on other chapters (hehe) Please keep in touch with me, (cause like I said, I will also be posting my Heeseung & Sunghoon FF here too this September) I won't be creating a masterlist (yet) but SOON I will!

Do check this story out on Wattpad since I've already uploaded a bunch of chapters there (though still unfinished) but yeah, busy with schools and stuffs as well so I don't think I can update frequently. PLEASE ENJOY

[heavenlymorals]

Why are you always trying to paint Arthur as a misogynist? When he clearly isn't??? I like your posts by why do you hyper fixate on stuff like that?

Hello anon and thanks for the ask.

Well, quite simply, I "paint" Arthur as someone who actively believes in and enforces gender roles because he does so in the game. It's a part of his writing and his character. The canon Arthur is NOTHING like how the fandom here on Tumblr portrays him as. That's also a reason why I started making these posts because I honestly hate when fanon becomes the accepted truth of characters and not the actual canon. It happens all the time.

I'm a very pragmatic person and this will show in my posts. I don't care about what characters COULD be and I focus more on what they ACTUALLY are. That's why my retrospective posts are usually looked at through a psychological, sociological, cultural, feminist, and/or literary point of view. I look at characters and learn things about them through their actions and words, as well as the time period that they are a part of. I do not care at all about making characters seem morally better, especially when it comes to historical attitudes because those historical attitudes aren't as historical as we make them out to be.

They still affect us every single day and only recently have we started pushing back- that's also not mentioning cultures where these attitudes are STILL encouraged, which then changes the way people think. Understanding historical attitudes allows us to understand not only our own cultures better, but people as well and why they do the things they do.

Now let's talk about Arthur. Arthur is a man born in 1863. Women couldn't even get a credit card by themselves without a man till 1974. To put it quite simply, he lived in a time era where women had almost 0 rights and those women who did succeed in life usually had some sort of male support. People supported this system, both male and female. Did you know that when the suffrage movement began, most American women didn't give a fuck because they believed that was men's duties, not their own? Point is is that even if Arthur is a lot more lenient regarding this stuff, he still actively believes in it because of how pungent it was in the society he lived in.

The first mission we have with the female gang members is heading to Valentine. The first thing he says to them is whether Miss Grimshaw could spare them from their domestic chores, already showing that in the gang, the girls' main duty is the domestic work and that Arthur supports this. Later in that mission, when he chases down Jimmy Brooks, he puts Uncle in charge of bringing them back home, even though he is an old ass man and they are three young, healthy, and capable women. In one mission, you got two examples of Arthur being an active encourager of gender roles.

And then there is Sadie- when she expresses her frustration over the work she has to do, he tries to shut her down. When she gets her pants, he mocks her: "You get a pair of pants and all of a sudden you think you're Landon Ricketts?" When she asks Dutch when she can go robbing with them, both him and Dutch laugh her off. When they bust John out of prison, he does it with her cuz literally no one else would help him and when they escape on the boat, he gets visibly annoyed that she doesn't take his hand. There are even more examples of things like this when he antagonizes her, but that's just the main game.

And there is the antagonizations of women performers. "Women shouldn't be doing this." "Go make someone some supper." "Go back to the kitchen." "This ain't ladylike." I'm sorry, but these need no explanations. His antagonize lines are just as canon as his greet lines and the fact that he says stuff like that shows that he believes in gender roles. It's an active part of his belief system.

There are so many more examples of this and the majority of them are subtle but I come from a culture that still treats its women like the 1800s treated theirs so when I ever pick up on these things, it's cuz I've lived it before.

And my final point- this is a historical game. Rockstar made sure to be as accurate as they can in regards to the time period- so characters not only react to historical attitudes but they are a part of it as well. Same goes for Arthur. He's a historical character with a historical background and historical attitudes- and that comes with the good, like chivalry, and the bad, sexism. You shouldn't play a game like RDR if you're expecting characters to feel modern in their thought processes.

Thank you and have a great day.

[yuikomorii]

Helloo! I don’t know if you remember me but I sent you once something about Yui in LE and now, after I played some routes, I can confirm that she’s my last fav Yui. 😬

// I have a complicated relationship with LE Yui, haha. I appreciate her for being more lively than CL Yui, but she mostly gave me the ick because she was definitely one of the most annoying LE characters.

I typically don't mind characters that are represented as jerks and upright mean, since you know what to expect from them, but I really dislike when characters who are portrayed as goody-shoes, do such messed-up and morally wrong things.

When I first went through LE, I didn’t start with Ayato’s route, given that I heard from many people about how tough it is and I wasn't emotionally prepared, so I started with others. I didn't like how she talked ill about her lover behind his back (more than once) and how her foolishness caused her to disclose critical secrets to people she shouldn't have and get into more troubles than normal. Nonetheless, I didn't think she was too bad… until Ruki's route, where she convinced the Mukami brothers that Karl wasn't a bad person because he returned their lives to "redeem" himself when we all know he only used them as pawns. But, if I thought THIS was bad, Ayato's LE route came.

~Things wrong with Yui in Ayato’s LE route~

1. Yui tried to convince Ayato that despite the fact that Cordelia abused him, “she only did it because she cared about his future”. And then had the audacity to act surprised when he started feeling sick.

2. The main reason why Ayato didn’t want to trust Richter, wasn’t necessarily his trauma, but the fact Richter actually hurt Yui and, in his book someone hurting his girlfriend is unforgivable. Nevertheless, when his brothers started a scandal about Richter and all ganged up against Ayato, not even letting him express HIS point of view, Yui did nothing but stand there staring. Although, after Ayato blew up the mansion again as a result of reactive abuse, she acknowledged that his brothers attacking him like that wasn’t right, but she still didn’t say it out loud to defend him, when she knew the reason behind his actions.

3. After Reiji and Ruki became Ayato's enemies, she went to them without telling him, which made him concerned, to convey her man's sadness and loneliness. I'm sorry, but this was the dumbest plan ever, considering that it was evident they wouldn't have cared about it, and hearing such a thing made them even more eager to mock and plot his downfall. In the end, despite her good intentions, she solved nothing but made things worse, including being bitten by Reiji, which caused Ayato to lose his mind. Based on the previous events, I'm not shocked he believed she would betray him.

4. The scenes in which Ayato began acting coldly towards her were my favorite parts of his LE route. In other LE routes, after doing or saying stupid things, the disputes were resolved in the next chapter or those actions were never mentioned, but I enjoyed how she was actually humbled here. I love Yui in general, but in LE, she deserved this treatment.

5. I assumed she had learnt her lesson, given that Ayato still cared for her despite his coldness, but then she goes to the Viboras to prove herself worthy of his trust. I liked how she tried to solve something (even if she didn't), but what made her behavior even WORSE was that 1) she justified Ruki giving Ayato a hard time and joining forces with the Church to kill him, and 2) she talked ill behind her lover's back despite telling Ayato the exact opposite face to face. I understand that Ayato didn't act very king-like, but at the same time, no one truly took him seriously or believed in him. Also, idk, but she should have tried to defend him, at least this time, instead of empathizing more with someone who hurt her man—?

Credit to: dialovers-translations on Tumblr

I also find it amusing how LE is the only main DL game with no wedding at all, especially since Ayato was usually the one to marry her. I think he secretly didn't want it in LE, given that he didn’t even think of proposing. :”)

She’s definitely not a bad person though, but she kinda started acting up. I think that’s another reason why I don’t want a new game. I’m afraid they’ll ruin her even more. T-T

[luckykiwiii101]

I’m turning off anons! Lmfao the audacity y’all have to bully me. Post it with ur actual account then. I’m literally just 15. I’m just trying to help people manifest their dream lives and you are just bullying me. Now how is that what i get in return for wanting to see people succeed?! Wow. I’m also still on my own journey to manifesting my dream life. I created my blog to spread what i’ve learnt. And i’ve learnt so much since i came to tumblr. I’ve entered the void state a few times but struggled to be aware. The times where i’ve entered and woken up in the void state aware is when i had no clue what it was! I made that clear ages ago!! Stop trying to accuse me of lying! Tf?! Why on earth would i lie? What would i gain from lying?! Tell me?! Just because of your disbelief in your ability does NOT give you the right to come on my blog and accuse me of lying! PATHETIC! Also if you’ve manifested your dream life i doubt that you would still be roaming tumblr reading posts about how to manifest your dream life. The idiocy. And to say that “It’s not bullying”. Bro yes it is. Tf. How about YOU go learn what bullying is. It wasn’t a one time thing, multiple people are ganging up on me now. But carry on. Low lives.

+ Calling me rude? Okay! Of course i’m not going to respect people who disrespect me. Tf? Want me to sugarcoat it and act like a princess? Want me to just let them disrespect me. “Oh sorry, i’ll do whatever you want. You’re right. I am a low life and an embarrassment and a liar”. AS IF! I’m none of those things and you know it. You’re just reflecting your assumptions about yourself onto me! LMFAO the irony. If you really hate me then go block me and stop reading my posts? It’s that simple? I’m not here to convince you that i’m telling the truth. You can choose to believe in me or not. It doesn’t change the fact that i have entered the void state. Want me to take a picture of my void state and send it to you? Tf? Loa is based on faith and you want proof? You don’t even have faith in yourselves. You need picture proof for everything don’t you?

+ I’m going to stop posting. Unless they are success stories. I’m not giving you guys any more advice. I’m sick and tired of the people on this app. I honestly never thought i would be one of those bloggers that would be bullied on this app. I’m turning off anons so i know that half of you won’t want to send your success stories and i’m fine with that. You can priv message me and if you want to be anonymous i’ll crop out your username and pfp.

Edit: NO WAY!!! I was just abt to turn off anons and decided to look at my inbox and someone accused me of faking the success stories?! WHAT?! I’m sorry what?! They said “it’s you down to the way you type”. WHAT?! That is the most ridiculous thing i’ve ever heard. It’s disheartening. I actually felt the pit in my stomach when i read that. People just assuming the worst about you feels horrible. But it just shows their lack of disbelief in themselves. I did not crate my blog to chase clout wtf?! Why would i spend 2+ hours perfecting my posts so you guys can read them. All that for clout?! I think NOT.

Look at these:

(The way they’re all anonymous says a lot).

+ The amount of bloggers you guys have done this to is CRAZY. Smh 🤦‍♀️

[shcyc]

! KINKS

i am so sorry for the long post but tumblr fucked up my format so i cant add the “readmore”

synopsis: haikyuu men and their kinks! — msby4, meian, shion

cw; kinks. these are just my opinions so yah

HINATA SHŌYŌ

don’t let this man’s good and innocent looks fool you, he’s a fucking sex machine and im sure he has a lot of kinks but if I had to pin it down to two, its definitely praise and size kink!

tell me he wont call you names like pretty girl and sweetheart <3 likes it both ways for praise kink — if you tell him how good he’s making you feel, he’s gonna fuck you into oblivion, like you probably wont be sleeping till morning (not that I’m complaining)

him being "small" his whole life honestly deflates his ego a little — so when you whimper and claw at him as he pushes inside you because of how big he is, he can't help but get even harder, stretching you out even more

SAKUSA KIYOOMI

he’s so mean, we all know that, so we aren’t surprised when he runs that dirty mouth of his whenever he fucks you hard — so degrading and dacryphillia are probably his top two kinks!

but sometimes, I feel like despite him being mean all the time, he just really likes soft sex and the intimacy the two of you share during that period it’s just something very precious to him

his favorite thing would be seeing you on your knees, dick in your mouth as you tear up while he thrusts himself into you — he just thinks you look so pretty whenever he does that while you struggle to make him feel good

MIYA ATSUMU

dacryphillia and probably exhibition / voyeurism? you crying because hes stretching and fucking you out so good makes his head fuzzy and will have him weak in the knees, though he’d never admit it because you’d tease him — he just loves seeing your puffy eyes and tear stained cheeks when he pleasures you

likes to watch and be watched. wants to see you pleasure yourself and moan his name, he wants / hope people watches when he fucks you to show everyone how good he’s making you feel

won’t be surprised if he was the one to suggest a gang bang with the rest of the MSBY / inarizaki team! (sounds like a new smut idea)

BOKUTO KŌTARŌ

hes such a baby so cute so precious! but bondage and overstimulation is in my head whenever I see him — he likes to see you all wrapped up and presented to him on the bed, just for him to “unwrap”

ok but tie his wrists up when you wanna take control and he will worship you like you’re his god (which you technically already are in his mind) — but yes he likes it both ways! tell me otherwise

he overstimulates because — one, you’d be crying and begging him to stop / for more. two, he gets to go again and again until he passes out. three, both of you feel good, simple as that

MEIAN SHŪGO

ah the captain <3 this man is another sex machine! he’d edge you so much because its both enjoyable for him and you, which is similar to bokuto — more so for him because he gets you hear you whimper and chant his name over and over like a prayer

manhandling! (is that a kink tho?) I mean, he’s just so big and strong that he can’t help but “throw” you around like a doll — side note: he calls you doll and I think that’s pretty cute!

I also think he’d be really into degrading you — fuck, he just can’t help it, you know? you’re so cute underneath him, the dirty words just slip right out of his mouth like honey

INUNAKI SHION

based on haikyuu wikipedia, he teases a lot so I’m assuming he’s into teasing but that isn’t really a kink so I would believe that he has similar kinks to hinata and atsumu? praise / degrading and exhibition

I feel like his praises would sound degrading — “such a good little slut for me”, etc. he’s mean but definitely on the kinder side (though I do think he can be quite rude and mean at times)

and he’s probably the type to pretend he doesn’t like exhibiting but would be so down to watch you try to finger yourself and fail terribly just so you can whine and beg for him to help you!

© 2022 shcyc — this one is for @shuian because I missed you so much <3

[youthnighttarot]

Who’s watching you….???👀🗣️👂🏾(Tarot Reading PAC)

Ok let’s find out who’s watching you…?

Pile 1 Pile 2

Pile 3

🔮 Welcome to my tumblr!! I’m 🔮youthnighttarot🤗

💜I hope you enjoy the reading and find some level of entertainment and insight

Things to know

💜This is for entertainment purposes only and, not to be taken seriously

💜Take what you resonate with leave the rest

💜All feedback is welcomed as longs as it’s respectful

✨Take a breath before you choose your pile

Pile 1

Tarot Cards Pulled: KoS, Strength, AoW, Devil (rv), 4oP (rv)

Oracle cards: Religious Beliefs, Institution, one sided

So immediately, what I first got is that that television show on Netflix called you like, someone could be stalking you, someone could like just be lurking in the shadows I don’t know it’s like an icky energy. I keep hearing you, you, you. So maybe it could be yourself or someone like yourself. But I really resonate more with YOU the Netflix series. So whoever’s watching you pile one they are extremely courageous/brave.

They know how to think on their feet and they have a high level of quick wit. They know how to seize the moment and this can bring a lot of new opportunities into you life. This could also be you or the energy that you’re about to step into in the near future. Regardless there are countless opportunities and new beginnings/projects coming up for you pile 1 congratulations. And this person may be beneficial to helping you succeed. (I heard a group of y’all)

This may also be someone who’s head strong and quite impatient…this may be exemplified when speaking about their passions. This person may have dealt with obsessions, addiction, or bad habits which caused them major grief but, they are moving on and freeing themselves from the bounds of their addictions whatever it may be. This person is no longer holding on to unhealthy habits and attachments their finding a new them.

Quick Messages

👁️Someone who could be apart of an Institution/Industry

👁️Someone who can often be viewed as one-sided

👁️Someone with Aries placements or Aries energy

👁️Hiding true nature about one’s spiritual/religious beliefs

Pile 2

Tarot cards pulled: Judgement, AoC, AoW, 3oC (rv), KoC

Oracle cards: Attraction, Six attacking one, Ignorance

The person watching you has had sometime for self reflection. To really evaluate themselves or you or, this may be you. (Take it as it resonates) They want to start a new with you and offer you this cup of love, they are here to offer you passion New Romantic beginnings….which could lead to love and even pregnancy. (Be careful) You or they may have made a snap judgement about each other and never got the real chance to see a connection bloom or, this may happen in the near future.

There has been some sort of self awakening between you two or within yourselves. This could be someone who has been working on something significant within their life or, they’ve done the hard work to get where they are mentally. This could be highly focused individual, especially in regards to career, stability, money, and balance. This could have been a past lover/friend/family member who used to gossip about you or a had a bitchyness to them. Alternatively this could be someone who isolates and shuts themselves away for social interactions.

This person has great wit but uses it impulsively instead of strategically. For like one person this person may have been the wrong choice for you and you may have gotten pregnant and ended the pregnancy. (I’m so sorry) I think this person fights people with their mind and their communication style. They are definitely a smooth talker so I’m getting masculine vibes here. They’re like a bad-ass alien Lml.

Quick Messages

Someone who may have to travel overseas to meet you

Someone who you’re very attracted towards or vice versa

Someone who may have been ganged up on or may have hanged up on you (may be where the gossip is coming from 🤷🏾‍♀️)

Someone who may have feigned ignorance in the past to get over on you/ they had someone do this to them

Extra🧚🏾‍♀️: Also may be Aquarius or have Aquarius placements in their natal chart

Pile 3

Tarot cards pulled: The Fool (rv), KoC (rv), 2oC (rv), 10oW

Oracle cards: Risky action, Free self from demands and expectations, gaining clarity (rv)

Someone who may be indecisive about you or about a situation their going through. This person doesn’t want me to know their giving me suck a hard time shuffling 🙄🤣. They may have a lot of hope or faith one it comes to their life’s journey; to many they come off as a foolish individual. They could be overly emotional/optimistic to the point it could become detrimental later down the line for them. They could be extremely gullible and naïve yet they’re grown as hell.

They have a lot of distractions in their life and you happen to be one of them. This is a careless person who does not have the emotional intelligence to carry out any social tasks let alone any type of relationship. They have no real plan in life and when they get a leg up they shit on that person. They could have taken advantage of you financially when they first came into your life or, when they do eventually come into your life. They constantly had irrationally moody fits with people which caused them to lose out on career opportunities/advancements.

This is someone who is unbelievably unbalanced and you both are definitely opposite who do not attract. They may be extremely overwhelmed right now because, they have no clear direction in life…they’re quite miserable. They are holding on fighting to things they have a passion for but they are emotionally unstable and this causes major tower moments within their life. They could suffer from a depression but use this as an excuse to manipulate people. It’s just weird energy overall steer clear of this person. (or people I hear👀)

Quick Messages

They may say things that really rub people the wrong way

They take a lot of unnecessary risks with little to no reward

They have yet to gain any real clarity from the terrible decisions

Extra 🧚🏾‍♀️: This is for you pile 3 free yourself of what you expect this person to be/do because they’ll keep constantly disrespecting you

Call me beep me if you wanna reach me🔮📱

💟 @youthnighttarot ~ tumblr

Email~youthnighttarot1111@gmail.com

💟 youthnighttarot1111~ PATREON EXCLUSIVES

[chaotic-starlight24]

Dallas Winston Backstory Headcanon

So I apparently wrote so much stuff that Tumblr won't let me post my Dallas headcanons altogether! So it will be divided into several parts. Dallas has so much potential as a character and everything so I got into the zone and wrote WAY MORE than I needed to :,) So if I write not as much for other characters that is why! Sorry if anything is ooc, I tried my best!

Warnings: Death, Violence, Angst, Mentions of abuse, Neglect, all the things you expect with Dallas

Pre-Tulsa

I noticed a lot of people headcanon Dally as Russian (WHICH IS NOT A BAD THING!!!) And I feel that’s reasonable. But I also feel that one of his parents is scandinavian. Light hair, blue eyes, and a tall frame are all very common characteristics of Norwegian and Swedish people. So let’s say Norwegian-American mother and Russian father?

We all know his home life was horrible. His mother was a bit nicer to him than his father, but quickly fell to being an alcoholic and drug addict. So while he was 1-5 she was okish, mainly just doing the basic things. Then past that it was left to his older siblings and he had to help with the younger ones. There were a total of 5 kids and he was the middle child. Then when he was around 9, his father came home in a drunken fit of rage and started a fight with his mother. Which eventually ended in him sh**ting her. Dally wasn’t exactly close to her, she was not a good mom in any way, but seeing your own parent killed in front of you takes a large toll on you. So that was when he ran out.

Throughout his childhood he had already started to hang out with a couple gangs of hoods around the city. So after running out he just joined in with them. They were horrible influences to him and several times Dally found himself helping in beating a teenager into the pavement after he forgot to pay in time for their dr*gs. The main gang he hung out with were dealers and also helped with…disposing of other people who caused a little more trouble than liked. The main leader of the gang was a kid nicknamed Snake Eyes. (For the newsies fans, he was a rougher and tougher version of Spot Conlon) Dallas looked up to him and learned a lot. Snake Eyes wanted everyone in the gang to have a nickname so it was harder to be caught. Dallas ended up with the nickname Southern blade since someone mentioned that they heard Dallas was a city down in the deep south. Dallas helped out with a lot in the gang. But he was also still a younger guy. So he was mainly tasked with stealing things, sneaking Snake Eyes into places, and aiding in a fight if worse came to worst.

He was taught that he had to be tough, be brutal if he wanted to survive. So he was. No matter what they were doing he convinced himself he had to do it to survive. Snake Eyes didn’t exactly have a soft spot for him but he looked out for him since he was younger than the other boys. He gave him a stern talking-to after Dally got caught and thrown in jail. But he still bailed him out. The rest of the gang pushed Dally around a lot more and he got a couple scars from these “play fights”. Snake Eyes killed the guy who did the worst though, he had thrown a knife across the room and was aiming for Dallas. Dallas only ended up with a large scar across the bridge of his nose but that guy ended up with a lot worse. Snake Eyes has laid a hand on Dallas whenever he gets super upset, but never enough to leave more than a bruise or a mark. (Not that that is justified in anyway)

Several of the guys catcalled girls a lot and definitely said some very inappropriate things. Which of course led to Dally learning from them. Should they have taught this 10 year old to be one of the smoothest talkers in Brooklyn? Nope. Did they? Oh yeah they did. But of course no girls took him seriously.

Snake Eyes drilled it into Dally’s head what to do when disrespected. Dally would watch him deck a guy for sneering in his direction. So Dally quickly picked up on it and Snake Eyes even taught him to be stronger. 

What made Dallas leave was when a real big fight broke out. Heaters and blades were pulled out on just about everyone. This larger gang leader was trying to take over and Snake Eyes ended up with a shot to the chest. Dallas tried to stop the bleeding because he didn’t like this new leader but Snake Eyes just told him it was for the better. He told him to hop trains and go as far from his past as possible. He also gave him his St. Christopher necklace and snake ring. So Dallas ran out of NYC at 11 ½. Snake Eyes was in no means a good person, but he was a older brother of sorts to Dally. Another person Dally loved, ripped away from him.

Dally grew up that day, he began to believe he shouldn’t care about anything since the world would just take it away from him. But luckily he never had it on his mind that maybe he should leave this world. He followed Snake Eyes' advice and began his journey, planning to try and make it to the deepest part of Texas.

Part two will be his travels pre-tulsa!

[strawberrylabs]

Can you do a Larry Johnson X reader with ADHD, Fluff story

(A bit more info abt me: I have style my hair in an Afro with bangs just above my eyebrow which is dyed black, I’m black but with light skin, I curse a lot and I’m usually seen as loud or childish, and I’m an ENTP)

And can it be in a setting where we go out to an arcade or smth?

Please and tysm!!

Arcade Date!

Larry Johnson x Adhd!reader

Im so so sorry for how long this took! Tumblr keeps eating my posts and I didn’t realise this one had been eaten too until today ;-; this should’ve been posted months ago </3

Anyways! Technical issues aside! Hope you enjoy!

“Fuck yeahh!! Beat that score Larry!”

“You’ve gotta be cheating! There's no way you beat my score! Sal! You’re with me right? Y/n’s cheatin!”

Said blue haired male looks at the two lovers hunched over the game as he sips on a slushy. 

He doesn’t know why he’s here. He knew you guys were going on a date, he just had to make sure you two behave and don’t kill anyone. He now regrets his decision.

“Uh.. soooo… Im gonna go over here”

“Hey- Sal! Get back here, don't walk away! You gotta help me beat y/n and their freakish hyperfocus!” Larry calls after his best friend before turning to face you, who was still clicking away at the game, unblinking.

“No fair! I didn’t know you hyperfixated on this game recently! You have ADHD superpowers!”

You chuckle

“Actually, I told you about it last week- Yeah! Beat the score again!”

Larry groans as he grabs your hand and drags you away from the machine.

“Alright! Next game! This time I’m gonna beat your ass!”

“Oh yeah? Not if I beat your ass first! I’m a pro gamer, you don’t stand a fucking chance!” You proclaim loudly, causing a startled mother to cover her child's ears and glare at you for your use of profanities.

“Oops.. sorry” You give a little apology wave as Larry laughs at you

You punch his arm lightly before making your way to a claw machine.

“Come on man these things are rigged!” Larry protests as you fish out your coins from your pocket.

“What, are you that bad at a silly game?” You tease him as you insert the coin.

You try your hardest to grab a little alien plush in the middle, but even when you grab it, it drops as soon as the claw lifts it into the air.

You groan

“This thing is so rigged!” Larry laughs at you again.

“Told you dude! Let me try” Larry lightly pushes you away to try win the alien plush.

After way too many attempts, and lots of money spent on the claw machine, Larry manages to hook the claw on the tag of the alien.

You both gasp and you grab Larry’s arm as the claw moves to the slot in the corner, waiting with held breaths.

When the alien drops in the prize box you both scream and start jumping while pushing each other back and forth, earning you some strange looks from people nearby.

“Yes! You did it!” You laugh

“That I did. I believe you owe me an apology” Larry grins at you

“Ugh, fine. Maybe you’re not as crappy at games as I thought.” 

Satisfied, Larry grabs out the alien and looks at you before handing it over.

“For you, milady” He dramatically bows while putting on a silly accent.

You laugh “You’re so cliche”

He stands up straight and smiles as he pulls you into him for a hug.

You both freeze as you hear a camera shutter.

“Nice, can’t wait to show this to the rest of the gang.” 

You turn around to see Sal standing there with his phone, pointing it at the two of you.

“Sal! You prick! Give me that phone!”

“Dammit Sal! Get back here!”

You and Larry proceed to chase a laughing Sal around the arcade before the three of you are told to leave by the employees.

“This is why I can’t let you two go anywhere unsupervised.” Sal tuts

“Excuse you! If you hadn’t taken that photo, we wouldn’t have been kicked out!” Larry nods his head at your statement

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Sal don’t gaslight us!” 

 Cue you and Larry yet again chasing Sal back to the apartments.

Little did you know, Sal posted the photo, and a video of you two chasing him to a group chat with the gang.

Sally Face: *1 photo and 1 video* Yeah, they’re definitely made for each other.

I hope you enjoyed it!

-Strawberry🍓

Masterlist

Rules

[shadowglens]

like kerosene (on a flame of doubt)

fandom: read dead redemption 2 warnings: canon typical violence, blood and gore characters: alma mcarthy (oc), john marston, dutch van der linde, arthur morgan, assorted original side characters word count: 7,826 overview: alma mcarthy joins the van der linde gang, circa 1891 BEFORE READING: please open in a new tab as it's very long and tumblr formatting is terrible on dash 😭

1891, Wyoming

“I want those stalls all mucked out before lights out, you hear?”

Alma rolled her eyes so hard she thought they might disappear into her skull. “I ain’t your servant, Jeremiah. Do it yourself.”

“Listen, girl.” The slapping of his boots through mud bounced between the walls of the livery as he stormed towards her. “While you are under this roof, taking my gold and tending my horses, you will do what I goddamn fucking say.”

Evening was drawing near. Distantly, if she strained her ears over the sound of her associate’s - sorry, boss’ - incessant droning, Alma could hear a pair of coyotes calling to each other in the nearby hills. One of the horses in the stall closest to her stamped it’s foot with a huff, whether at the threat of wildlife or Jeremiah, Alma wasn’t sure. She absently reached to hush it as the man’s squelching boots finally brought him to stand before her. 

His cheeks were crimson, a vein popping on his forehead and disappearing all the way up into his receding hairline. The horse, a beautiful roan mare, was now at the front of her stall and huffed sharply enough that Jeremiah’s neckerchief fluttered. “Wasn’t I fucking clear, girl? Pick up the goddamn rake and get to work.”

Jeremiah Owens wasn’t a particularly kind man, in the grand scheme of the things. He only knew how to yell or curse, smelt not-so-faintly of manure, and Alma was fairly sure he had never bothered to remember her first name. Girl this, girl that. Still, she fought the urge to stamp her foot like a petulant foal. He had never laid a hand on her, for starters, and shouting aside, he had given her free use of the small loft space above his office. Right now, he was the only thing separating her from the warmth of this livery and the rain-soaked emptiness on the horizon outside. 

“I’ve gotta do up the papers for those mustangs,” she snapped, biting down the fire in her gut. “Mr Darlington was due to send one of his boys tomorrow mornin’ for them, or did you forget?”

That was the other reason she liked Jeremiah. When she’d turned up on his doorstep just under nine months ago, looking like a starving rat no less, he hadn’t just offered her a job - he’d brought her in on the less-than-reputable side of his operation. More than that, he’d let her help with it. Storing and feeding horses was one thing, but a horse fence was an entirely different beast. A lucrative one, too. She knew he had a few hundred gold stored somewhere in the basement of his house, she was sure of it. 

“I ain’t smooth-brained, girl.” Again, she rolled her eyes. Again, he glared. “The papers are already organised. Just muck the stalls out.” At that, he stormed back the way he’d come, no doubt to the comfort of his small house up the way. 

“O-kay boss,” she sing-songed, mostly to piss him off. 

To his credit, he didn’t bother turning back around. 

In truth, Alma didn’t mind the cleaning. It was mindless, sure, and it left her muscles aching every night in her sorry excuse for a bed, but at least it kept her busy. Didn’t give her too much time to think. If she had time to think, she started remembering, and that led nowhere good. 

She worked her way through the stalls as the daylight finally slipped away below the horizon. The roan mare was a legit purchase on Jeremiah’s part, currently the only one in the livery. A group of men had brought in a trio of mustangs a few days ago, beautiful beasts captured from somewhere over the mountain, and then there was the stallion. 

He was a huge Thoroughbred, proud, a striking blood bay colouring. Alma was sure he’d been nicked from one of the local ranches, but it wasn’t her or Jeremiah’s jobs to ask those kinds of questions. Either way, she’d be sad to see him go, even if he would fetch them a fortune. He was magnificent. 

Alma had reached his stall, and was about to sneak him a sugar cube, when something clattered to the ground at the opposite end of the stable.

The stallion jerked away from her hand, startled, as Alma too spun on the spot. 

Her hand went to her hip on instinct. Her revolver, as always, was holstered. Jeremiah had fought her on it for about a week before a wannabe gunslinger had held them both up over ten dollars. She’d been armed while working ever since.

The livery was deathly silent. 

Most of the lights were off by this time of night, only one illuminating her end of the stable and one in Jeremiah’s office. The office where the sound had, undoubtedly, come from. Alma crept in that direction, keeping her shoulder tight against the stall doors and the shadows they cast. There was only one place Jeremiah ever was at this hour, and it for sure wasn’t working. Lazy bastard.

A shape darted past the office window. 

Fury, at being robbed, at being stolen from, gripped Alma, and before she could think of any common sense she was sprinting for the door. 

The hinges were always loose and creaking, and even her slight frame sent the door slamming open as she barrelled into it. The shape turned out to be a person as the door also slammed into them, sending them careening into the far wall with a shout. Alma twisted, revolver drawn.

It was a man, scrambling to his feet while one hand gripped his nose. There was blood covering his chin and throat. She couldn’t see much of his face through his curtain of dark, greasy hair, but she could hear him cursing under his breath.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Alma snarled, gun aimed between his eyes where he was leaning back against the far wall. 

“You broke my fucking nose!”

She took a step towards him, gun still up. “You were trying to steal from us!”

He shifted, spat a glob of blood in her direction. He spoke like a street rat, kind of looked like one too, but his clothes were just a little too nice to be one of the petty thieves Alma was used to seeing around town. The leather of his boots, though now muddied, was clearly well looked after, and the holster for his own revolver looked well made. Maybe he was from a gang? Jeremiah had grumbled that there were a few that rode through every so often, but usually they brought good business to the livery.

“What do you want?” she snapped. Back in the stables, she could hear the mustangs cracking a fuss at all the commotion. 

He scoffed. “Your money. What, are you simple?”

“Fuck you!” Alma glanced quickly at his gun - still holstered. “Give me back anything you’ve taken. Now!”

Despite the gun pointed at his forehead, he had the audacity to laugh. “Or what? You probably don’t even know how to use that thing.”

Oh, this greasy fucker. 

The Alma from five years ago would’ve baulked at even holding a gun. Her Pa had taught her how, of course, but she’d been a proper little girl back then, with parents who loved her, and a warm home to run back to if things got too hard. 

Five years was a long time.

The man’s left arm, the one not gripping his broken nose where it was still streaming blood down his face, twitched closer to his holster.

No you don’t.

Alma shot him.

“Fuck!” he screamed as the shot rang out through the office and livery and the land surrounding it. The horses cried out, an owl scattering from the rafters and into the trees beyond at the sudden noise. His body slammed back against the wall, broken nose long forgotten as he clutched helplessly at his shoulder and the rough line the bullet had drawn through his skin. He was lucky she’d only grazed him and not put it between his eyes.

Alma stormed up to him, lunging, and before he could react she had his revolver in her free hand. “I said, give me back anything you’ve taken!”

She could hear Jeremiah shouting for her up at his house.

The man dropped to the ground, one shaking hand held palm-out as the other tried to stem the bleeding. Alma was close enough that she could see the sweat on his brow and the wide-eyed look on his face, like a startled filly. It was barely a flesh wound. He really hadn’t thought she’d shoot him.

Belatedly, she realised he was barely older than she was, maybe even the same age. More a boy than anything. Just like she was barely anything other than a girl.

“ - all of it!” he stammered. She hadn’t realised he’d been talking. “Get away from me, you psycho!”

He’d emptied the small satchel at his hip, sending an assortment of trash and stolen goods scattering to the floor. A few wads of cash, a stack of fraudulent papers that Alma had hand-written herself, a pack of cigarettes, a few twigs and rocks, a tin of gun oil that looked like it was nothing but dregs, and a little pocket knife. She took the cash and papers, thought for a moment, then pinched the cigarettes too even though she didn’t smoke.

She glared at him, raising both guns again. “I’m the psycho?”

“You shot me!”

“You deserved it,” she said, backing up to slam everything back onto the desk. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the drawers all sitting wide open. Subtle. “Now get -” she started, breath caught at the adrenaline coursing through her veins, “now get the hell out of here before I really shoot you!”

The man - the boy - just stared at her. His nose, thankfully, had stopped gushing blood all down his front, although now his arm was stained russet too. His shirt was well and truly ruined.

Alma marched over to the window he’d apparently crawled through and slammed her hand against the frame. “Are you deaf?! I said go!”

That seemed to shake him out of whatever daze he’d fallen into. She tracked his every movement across the office, guns still razed, and simply glared as he awkwardly tried to clamber back out the window with only one good arm. She slammed the butt of his own gun against his back as he went, sending him tumbling into the mud outside.

He cursed, stumbled and slipped, before righting himself and sprinting for the edge of the property. If she squinted, she could make out the shape of a horse hidden just beyond the treeline. 

“And don’t come back, you bastard!” she screamed after him. 

Jeremiah chose that moment to burst into the office, door slamming open the exact same way it had moments before. “Alma!”

She leant back against the wall beside the window, a gun still gripped in each hand, and raised an eyebrow at her boss. “So you do know my name.”

“What happened? Did I hear a gunshot?” He eyed the leather-wrapped revolver in her right hand. Alma almost laughed when she realised he was only in sleep pants. Maybe the old geezer did care after all. “Where did that come from?”

“A gift from a thief. Don’t worry, I chased him off cause, unlike you, I care about this business.” 

Jeremiah just gawked at her. “You shot him?”

“Would you rather I let him take all your cash and papers and everything not nailed down?”

“Well, no, but …” he only then spied the blood smeared on the wall and floor. “Hells, girl. How many times did you shoot him?”

Alma scoffed at him as she inspected her new revolver. “Just once, barely. I’m not a monster.”

...

One of Jeremiah’s cousins, Gregory, came by the next day to help shore things up in the wake of the attempted robbery. The man was Jeremiah’s opposite - tall, rotund, intimidating - which Alma supposed was a good thing. It’d hopefully scare any other would-be thieves off, at any rate. 

Not that they had to worry. The next few days were entirely uneventful. Mr Darlington sent a few boys down to pick up two of the mustangs, and paid triple what they were realistically worth without batting an eyelid. Jeremiah had made her hide the Thoroughbred out back before their arrival, just in case their suspicions rang true.

Alma had also convinced Jeremiah to let her man the fence after her little display the other night. That’s where she was that morning, perched on a stool behind the cut-out in the wall with her head propped up on one hand, when a man on a beautiful white stallion came trotting down the path. Even from a distance, she could tell she wouldn’t like him. The moustache alone put her off.

“Why, good morning to you miss!” he cawed. In the morning sunlight, the red of his waistcoat shone like rubies. “Fine day, isn’t it?”

Alma just stared at him. “I suppose.”

“Quite an establishment you’ve got here.” He hitched his horse by the post at the livery entrance, then waltzed over to where she was perched around the side. For a new customer, he sure knew his way around. 

“It ain’t mine, sir,” she said, fighting to smooth her brow against a brewing frown. “Can I help you?”

He was right before her now, smiling with too many teeth and his silly slicked-back hair. “Forgive my manners. Dutch van der Linde.” The hand he held out was tanned, roughened, yet adorned with rings of all metals that glinted as he moved. An unusual combination. When she simply looked from his hand to his face and back again, the man - Dutch, apparently - simply smiled and shifted to clutch at his gun belt with a hip cocked. “I was hoping to discuss a proposition with you, if you’d be amenable?”

Oh boy. “Unless it’s to sell that pretty horse of yours, sir, the answer’s no.”

“Now, now miss, don’t be so rash.” Alma felt herself tense, toes curling in her boots where they were hidden behind the counter. She could image Jeremiah in her ear, insisting that she be amenable to all customers lest she drive away business. She forced herself to breathe as Dutch kept yapping. “I’m here to propose an offer to you, specifically. You see, one of my boys said he ran into you a few days back, said you had a bit of a … disagreement?”

Any pretence of her being a good salesperson flew out the door at that. So the greasy fucker was back to haunt her then. She pulled her revolver from the holster at her hip before she could stop herself, jumping off her stool in the same moment. Trust her luck that the moment Gregory was nowhere to be seen was the moment she needed him. 

Dutch, to his credit, didn’t even flinch. Instead, he held up both hands in surrender. Still smiling. Still too many teeth. “Easy miss, I’m not here for what you think. Like I said, I have a proposition.”

Alma scoffed. Kept her revolver raised. “My mumma didn’t raise no fool.”

“I can see that. But I truly mean you no harm.” Dutch breathed out a laugh, or maybe it was a grimace? Alma could quite read the way his face twisted. “From the looks of John’s nose and shoulder, she apparently also raised quite a fighter.”

Was this the boy’s - John’s - father, then? Uncle? Alma supposed there was a bit of a resemblance with the dark hair, but it had been nighttime. Maybe she was misremembering. “Yeah well maybe you need to teach your boy some proper manners. Didn’t you hear it’s rude to accost a lady in the night?”

Dutch laughed properly then, glancing to his feet for a moment as if to collect himself before lifting his gaze back to Alma. His brown eyes assessed her. “Now, there is fire in you, miss. I knew I’d like you. ”

“The feeling’s not mutual.”

Another laugh shot from him, short like gunfire. “Hah! Now, where was I? Oh yes, I came to thank you for not killing John on sight, the boy was foolish to steal from such a … reputable establishment such as this one.” He waved his hands at the livery in question with an eyebrow raised. “I’d also like to offer you a job, of sorts.”

“Sorry to disappoint, but I’m already gainfully employed, if you couldn’t tell.” Alma glanced behind her, hoping fruitlessly that one of her associates would actually be found in their place of work when she needed them. Alas, all that greeted her was the beautiful Thoroughbred with his ears perked in her direction. She kept her revolver gripped.

Dutch, apparently oblivious to her distraction, or perhaps not caring, soldiered on. “But does this place truly bring you satisfaction? Purpose? You’re clearly an intelligent young lady and have a mind for business and horses, and I just happen to find myself in need of someone with such talents.” He reached into a pocket of his coat, slowing as he saw her grip on her revolver tense, before producing a few pieces of paper. He gently placed them on the counter between them. Alma couldn’t help but gape a little when she recognised her own handiwork. “I’ve seen how you operate. Smart idea, faking the papers to get a higher price. I bet you’re making a killing out of the rich fools around here.” He paused again, for dramatic effect or to assess her reaction, Alma wasn’t sure. “Wouldn’t you rather put your skills to better use? Me and mine can offer you that and more.”

Alma fought the urge to ask where he’d got the papers from. “Let me guess? By ‘better use’, you mean scamming people for you, rather than this business? You must think me a proper idiot, just like that John of yours.”

It was an insult, and she’d meant it as one, but Dutch only kept smiling. Something in his eyes had sparked. “Think bigger! The government would see us civilised, chained up, would see our freedoms taken away. The rich folk around here no doubt deserve to lose some cash to you, sure, but a woman with your talents could be doing more than taking coin from a few oblivious ranchers. You and me and the others in my community? We can make a real difference.”

Surely he was a fool. The government? His community? Alma had seen how the law and the government treated people who didn’t fit in, people who lived outside the confines of society, and it weren’t pretty. As much as she hated the system sometimes, she had no desire to slide back into the fear she’d only just managed to crawl out of. 

Then again, what had her parents gained by being dutiful citizens? They’d been happy, for a time she supposed, but what were they now other than six feet under with no gravemarkers for Alma to visit? They’d done what they were told, had tried to live the great American dream, and it had torn them up and spat them back out like they were nothing. 

Worse than nothing. 

Still. Going in guns blazing surely wasn’t the solution either. No matter how many big, pretty words people like Dutch used to decorate it.

Gregory had apparently decided to finally do the job his cousin had asked him to, and Alma could hear him trudging through the stable in her general direction. She forcibly shook herself from her thoughts and perched back on her stool. “If it’s all the same to you, I’m mighty fine sticking to scamming the rich folk around here. Thanks, but no thanks.” She rested her revolver on the counter between them. “Now, if you don’t have a horse to trade, I think it’s time you left, sir.”

If Dutch was disappointed, he didn’t let it show. He simply smiled and held his hands in mock surrender, rings glinting again. “Well, if you change your mind, my associates and I will be in town for the next few days. We’ll be in the saloon, or nearby at the very least. You have a good day, Miss …?”

Alma bit the inside of her gum. Threw caution to the wind. “Alma McArthy.”

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss McArthy.” Dutch started walking backwards to his pretty horse with his pretty waistcoat and perfectly styled hair, and smiled. “Think about my offer?”

“Don’t count on it,” she called after him.

Gregory was beside her now, leaning over her shoulder to glare at Dutch’s receding form. His horse was small, fast no doubt, but he took his time trotting back up the path and over the rise. Alma kept her gun out until he was fully out of view.

“He give you any trouble?” Gregory grumbled, arms crossed. They were as thick as small trees.

Alma sighed, rubbing at her forehead. “Nah. Just … wanted to sell me something. I told him to sod off.”

“Hmm. Good.”

...

Alma was tossing and turning up in her loft above Jeremiah’s office, as she had been for the past few hours, when the gunfire started.

She tumbled from her cot, landing with a thud while her eyes adjusted to the near-pitch darkness. 

Another gunshot. Glass shattering. 

She fumbled across the small space for her gun belt, her revolver and the boy’s still tucked in their holsters. Lunged, then, for her coat where it hung on a hook haphazardly nailed into the far wall. The off-white of her sleep shirt near-glowed in the dark; even with her coat tugged on, her knees were still exposed. 

Another gunshot, another, another. Screaming. The horses were whinnying. 

A bullet shot through the wall of her loft, sending a spray of splinters towards her. Alma threw herself backwards on instinct, heart a drumbeat in her ear, and almost tripped over her boots where she’d left them scattered at the end of her shift. The whole livery was writhing as if in pain, had come alive with screams and gunfire. 

“Serves ya right!” someone - not Jeremiah or Gregory - was shouting over the cacophony. “Thieving scum!” 

It had been a relatively quiet few days, besides that boy trying to rob the place. Surely Dutch hadn’t returned? He had been a pompous ass with a stick a mile up his ass, but he hadn’t seemed to have any ill-feelings towards her or the stable. 

Alma went to make for the door, thought better of it, and tugged open the window instead. It was still at least a few hours before sunrise, the sky more stars than anything, and her eyes were still stuck with sleep. She couldn’t spy movement in the nearby treeline, but from this angle she could see figures darting about towards the front of the livery. 

“Come out here, you fucking coward!”

“Burn the place to the ground!”

“Flank them!”

It wasn’t too high of a drop, maybe a few metres. 

Another spray of bullets cut through the loft floor.

Alma jumped.

The grass and mud cushioned her fall enough that she didn’t snap both ankles on impact, and she never thought she’d be praising mud in her entire life. She made to run, slipped, fell flat on her front, and her sleepshirt was well and truly soiled now. Her mind unhelpfully supplied an image of the boy as he’d fled, bloodied and muddied as he’d been, as she now half was, and she cursed at herself. She could taste manure.

“Get the fuck outta my property!” That was Jeremiah. Alma raced to peer through a ground floor window, the glass shattered by bullets, and spied him crouched behind a stall with his rifle gripped in shaking hands. He was in the same state of undress as she was. “You good for nothing inbreds!” 

The remaining mustang was rushing its stall, as if in hopes of breaking free, and Alma could hear the roan mare crying out at the top of her lungs. Movement caught her eye towards the entrance, and she caught sight of the Thoroughbred’s tail disappearing out the stable doors with someone atop him. 

Her heart dropped into her stomach.

Alma left her window behind and crept further along the outside wall, until she could just make out one of the men that had been decorating the livery in bullet holes. He was tall, criss-crossed with scars and looked as if he too had slipped in the mud at some point. Even through the grime and the black dots of her panic-riddled vision, she would recognise the family crest stitched into his coat collar anywhere.

The Darlington’s.

Well, shit.

The quickly-receding outline of the Thoroughbred disappeared over the rise. Alma wanted to punch something, shoot something, wanted to set the whole damned lot of them on fire. It was their own faults for being so complacent in guarding their property. Now, not only had a couple of hundred dollars worth of gold just run out of the livery, but it had left a trail of bullet holes in its wake. 

“ - pay for this!” The Darlington’s, those who weren’t in the process of also stealing the remaining horses, were still exchanging gunfire with Jeremiah. The mustang was giving them more trouble than it was worth, but a duo of fools were trying helplessly to muster it into submission while also avoiding getting a bullet between the eyes. 

“Darlington’s just lucky his whole goddamned stable isn’t here!” Jeremiah shouted. “Ain’t my fault he can’t keep his own things nailed down.”

“Speak for yourself, asshole!”

The roan mare was halfway out the door now, a rider grasping for her mane as they hoisted themself atop her. The swarm of gunmen was actually less than Alma had initially thought. She pulled her revolvers, crouched, aimed for the nearest idiot’s forehead.

Gregory was tackling the man into the muck before she could fire.

The two men went flying. Gregory was twice the man’s size, if not more, and easily had his opponent straddled with a fist flying towards their face before Alma could even blink. Once, twice, he slammed his fists down, spit and blood flying with every impact. Once, twice, she heard something crunch. 

Alma shifted her focus to one of the men trying to tame the mustang. Breathed. Fired. Unlike with the boy, she aimed properly this time, and the man crumpled satisfyingly as her bullet tore through his chest. The mustang reared back at the sudden freedom, sending the other man scattering away to avoid a hoof to the temple. 

Jeremiah seemed to be gaining ground too, his rifle picking off another Darlington. Alma should try to flank, get behind - 

Screaming.

Distantly, she recalled a gunshot. 

When she twisted, Gregory was looking right at her. He was still straddling the now-twitching corpse beneath him, his fists mangled messes, and his entire front was drenched in crimson. Not from his victim, though, she realised. Alma jerked forward on instinct, her body no longer her own, as she watched half his internal organs pour out of the newly-carved hole in his gut. She wasn’t sure if she was screaming. It didn’t matter. The thud of his body toppling to the mud forced her to her knees.

“You fucking bastards!”

Laughing. “Payback’s a bitch, Owens!”

“You fucking bastards!”

Hooves thundered past. The mustang, maybe. Alma forced herself to move, to throw herself behind the cover of a stall, as the gunfire kicked up again. Jeremiah was still cursing, still shouting, still firing.

She shouldn’t care so much. She’d known the man for barely a day. Her fury built, threatening to swallow her whole. He’d barely said two words to her. She wanted to kill something.

All at once, the sound came rushing back to Alma. The livery felt as though it was falling down around them. She spat out the taste of bile that had thundered up her throat, adjusted her grip on her revolvers, before standing and picking her next target. Most of the Darlington’s had fallen back to the stable entry, what with all the horses now having been properly stolen. There were still enough of them to be a threat though. Alma managed to clip one man’s shoulder, almost got another in the chest before he dived for cover, sent one falling back with a hole between the eyes.

Jeremiah cried out, deeper in the stable. Alma spun; despite the carnage, she could just make out his balding head through a hole that had been blasted through the stalls. A shadow was looming beside him. Seconds later, she could fully make out the man that had crept through the back door. 

The gunfire stopped as Jeremiah clearly struggled against his attacker. Alma, any hope of stealth long abandoned, sprinted for the pair. Gregory’s corpse. The rancher’s corpse. Her parents' corpses. Gregory’s corpse. The rancher’s -

She’d almost made it to them, had her revolvers raised, when someone slammed into her. 

Manure came rushing up to her, and for the second time that night she was rolling in it, hay and shit caught in her hair and coat. The bare skin of her legs tore against the debris of the livery floor. Her attacker, a wiry man with copper hair, immediately flipped her. She opened her mouth to scream, but the sound died before it could erupt from her throat as he slapped her hard enough that the stars were suddenly inside the stable.

“Now, now, who’s this, Owens?” the wiry bastard asked, smiling as he grappled with her flailing arms. Not again, not again. “She’s a little young for a whore, ain’t she?”

Jeremiah had slumped back against the stable wall, but the fury in his eyes could have burnt them all to the ground. “Get off her, you sick inbred!” 

Her wrists were now pinned above her head. Alma could feel the cool evening air on her legs as her sleep shirt rode up. Someone else had moved to grab her feet where she had been kicking them. Not again, not again.

The man that had attacked Jeremiah now leaned over her boss. He had a bloodied knife in one hand. “I was gonna put this little lady out of her misery, but I think I’ve changed my mind. After all, who’s gonna keep this place running, once all that blood catches up to you, huh old man?”

Alma screamed, writhing, and earned herself another slap. 

The man with the knife wandered over to Alma then. Dark hair swung in his face as he crouched beside her and held the butt of his knife to her temple. His breath smelt of tobacco when he said, “We’ll be seeing you mighty soon, little lady. In the meantime, lights out.”

Darkness.

...

By the time she woke the next morning, her head was pounding so hard she could barely see straight, the livery was burnt to its foundations, the horses were all long gone, and Jeremiah was a cooling corpse laid out beside her.

...

Everyone stared at Alma as she burst into the saloon.

The place was quiet, which she supposed was to be expected given it was barely midmorning. Too early for the nearby ranch hands, too late for the drunkards. A small gaggle of men were half-heartedly playing poker in the corner; the sight of her dripping blood and stinking of manure in the entry grinded their conversation to a halt. 

She wasn’t sure if she recognised anyone. She didn’t care. This town, and these wretched people, would soon be lost on the horizon behind her.

“Jesus,” the barkeep shouted at her across the room, “get lost, girl, before I throw you out myself.”

Alma ignored him.

She hadn’t bothered to change out of her soiled sleep shirt. Couldn’t, not with the livery burnt to the ground along with any of her belongings. They’d left Jeremiah’s house standing, for some reason, but the place was better left to be the mortuary it now was. The rifle slung over her shoulder was the only remnant of the place she’d had the heart to grab before making the long walk into town. Her hair was a matted mess down her back, and her knees were still lazily oozing blood where they’d been scraped raw on the stable floor. A drowned, beaten rat likely looked better.

Her heart was still pounding in her chest. Alma was sure her jaw might snap in two at any moment with how hard she had been clenching it since waking up a few hours ago.

It wasn’t the first time she’d been forced to flee after a massacre. Any respectable, well-mannered girl of society would scarcely be seen in public alone, or at least without a good reason, lest it bring scandal. For Alma, she felt almost called to it, like a compulsion she just couldn’t shake. Always catastrophe. Always running. Always one. One day she was sure she’d run out of horizon to swallow her up. Either that, or her own fury would do it for her.

“Did ya hear me, girl? I said get lost!”

She had the rifle pointed at his forehead before he could blink. “Shut up,” she snapped, even as the sound of guns suddenly being drawn ricocheted through the saloon, “before you make me lose my goddamn fucking temper.”

“Put the gun down!” one of the patrons yelled.

The barkeep raised his hands, leaving his dishcloth to fall forgotten to the floor. “Woah, easy there missy.”

Alma chewed on her gum to still her raging thoughts. “There’s a man in town, said he’d be nearby for the next few days. Dark hair, moustache, fancy clothes. Goes by Dutch. You know him?”

The other patrons were still shouting at her. The barkeep’s eyes kept dancing between her, the rifle, and undoubtedly the guns pointed at her own head. “I ain’t answering no questions with a gun between my -”

“Do you know him?” A piece of her spit landed on his cheek.

“Who’s asking?”

Alma risked glancing to her right, towards the back of the saloon, and there in all his pretend finery was Dutch Van der Linde. The pomade in his hair was still stiff as bricks, and his outfit remained largely unchanged from when she’d seen him a few days ago. His boots were muddied at the edges, but at a quick glance he didn’t seem any worse for wear. Definitely not like he’d been involved in a major shoot-out or arson attack. 

Dutch’s gaze was cold where it landed on her. One of his hands was gripping his gun belt casually, although she didn’t doubt he was quick on the draw. It took him a moment, his eyes bouncing around her face, before they sparked in recognition. “Miss McArthy, is that you? By God you look miserable.”

“It’s been a long day.” Alma glared back at the barkeep, her nose scrunched, before begrudgingly lowering the rifle. “I’d say thanks for the assist, but I figure you probably deserved the bullet.”

The barkeep, for his part, seemed less phased without a gun in his face. “I weren’t lying, girl. Get the fuck out of my establishment. You ain’t welcome here no more.”

“Or what?” she spat, Dutch forgotten for the moment. “You’ll call the sheriff down on me? That good-for-nothing asshole couldn’t even jerk himself off if he tried .”

Someone coughed out a laugh by the stairs.

“Now, now, what Miss McArthy means to say,” Dutch said from where he’d suddenly walked up beside her, “is thank you for your incredible hospitality. We were just going, weren’t we my dear?”

“Don’t put -”

Dutch gripped her forearm. “Weren’t we?”

There were too many guns surrounding her, and she wasn’t a total fool. She’d have to find someone else to beat her anger onto. Maybe Dutch and his perfect little waistcoat would do. The look he was sending her made her insides boil enough as it was, but she eventually relented and let him drag her towards the back door.

They passed the stairs and another soft laugh escaped one of the two figures leaning there. Dutch wasn’t even looking at her as he led them outside, but called over his shoulder, “Come along, boys.”

“Real charmer you’ve got there, Dutch. I’m surprised you two didn’t get along better, Marston.”

“Oh fuck you.”

Alma waited until they were outside proper before wrenching her arm free. She still had the rifle gripped in one hand, and spun with it loosely gripped to glare at the trio. Dutch had stopped to assess her with his arms crossed, hip cocked as usual, and despite the commotion inside there was the ghost of a smile on his face. The young man beside him was as tall and broad as an oak tree, with hair like dirtied sand and a healthy spray of stubble across his jaw. He was in the process of jabbing a younger man beside him, who was all wiry limbs, dark hair and - 

“You?!” Alma shouted, stomping a step forward. 

The boy - John, if she remembered Dutch correctly - flinched back on instinct, which just seemed to make the tall man laugh. 

“Stay the hell away from me!” John shouted in the same moment that the tall man laughed, “Watch out, Marston, or she’ll skin ya alive.”

“There will be no skinning,” Dutch said with a sigh as he stepped between them all, and Alma wondered again if he was the boys’ father. “Miss McArthy, this is Arthur Morgan.” He indicated the tall man, who was still laughing under his breath. “And we all know you’re well acquainted with young John Marston.”

She just glared at them. John glared right back. Alma didn’t miss the way he rubbed absently at his shoulder.

Dutch apparently took that as an invitation to continue. “Introductions aside, I must ask, Miss McArthy, what brought you to be in such a state of disarray? I’m understandably thrilled that you’ve come to discuss what I offered but, I’ll admit I wasn’t convinced I’d ever see you again.”

There wasn’t any pretty way to describe a slaughter, she knew that from experience. Judging from the copious weapons strapped to the three men before her, she figured they weren’t squeamish. Still, she’d rather not think about it. “People change. It’s human nature, in case you weren't aware.”

He laughed. “That fire’ll sooner get you into trouble you can’t fight your way out of, miss.” He took a step towards her, hands in his pockets. “The truth?”

She glanced at John and Arthur, but they were both leaning against the back of the saloon, spectating. Fabulous. 

“You said you and your ‘community’ were out to make a difference. That you help people, take from the rich, that kinda thing.” She swallowed the bile and fire in her throat. “Turns out those oblivious ranchers you were talkin’ about weren’t so oblivious after all.”

Dutch, for his part, did look genuinely struck as the truth settled in his mind. “The stables?”

She shrugged, indicating her ruined form. “What’s left of it is standing right here.”

“I am sorry, miss. Truly.”

Alma scoffed. Began to pace, rifle still white-knuckled in front of her. “I ain’t here for your sympathy. I came for your help.”

“Dutch is many things, Miss McArthy, but he ain’t a god.” Arthur leaned forward as he spoke, his face half obscured by his hat. “Can’t turn back time, I’m afraid.”

She fought the urge to walk up and hit him. “You think I’m simple? I’m no fool.” He held up his hands in mock surrender as John snickered beside him. She turned her gaze back to Dutch, who hadn’t entirely dismissed her. “I know who did it. I know where they live. You help me settle this debt, I can make it worth your while.” 

“As sorry as I am to see you in such a state, Miss McArthy, my people and I don’t operate on revenge.”

“Bullshit you don’t!” she snapped, stepping so close she could smell Dutch’s cologne. “You’re outlaws, aren’t you? A gang? Don’t think I don’t know exactly what you lot are. ‘Community’ my ass.”

Arthur took a tentative step away from the wall, the line of his shoulder suddenly sharp. Dutch simply held her gaze, and when he spoke his voice dripped of barely-contained venom. “You’re walking on mighty thin ice, miss. Best you don’t stomp too hard.”

“I ain’t judging you. We all do what we need to get by. Hell, I’m not saint.” Alma indicated her blood-stained clothes. “I know what you are though, what you do.” She jabbed a finger into his chest despite the way he towered over her. “You said you like sticking it to rich folk. Help me do that and I can guarantee you coin for your trouble.”

The little patch of grass behind the saloon was quiet for a long moment. John had started pacing a little, still scratching at his shoulder. Arthur was watching Alma’s hands where she was gripping the rifle.

She knew she had Dutch hook line and sinker when he tilted his head, all predator. “How much coin are we talking, exactly? And from who?”

“At least a few thousand, probably more.” Arthur whistled at that. “The Darlington’s own a big ranch west of town. Follows the river, has the big fuck off homestead planted in the middle. You’ve probably seen it. They took all our horses before sparking their matches, and I’m sure there’s a few more on the property worth pinching. Their Thoroughbred stallion alone would fetch you seven hundred.”

Dutch raised an eyebrow at her with a hand on his hip. “So you expect us to not only break into a heavily guarded ranch, but also walk out of there with multiple horses that we’d then need to resell? And the establishment where we’d do such a thing just got burnt to the ground.”

John was looking at her like she’d hit her head.

“You’re outlaws, aren’t you? Surely you do this sort of thing all the time?”

“Not exactly,” Arthur said, but he was scratching his chin in thought. “I know the place, Dutch. Hosea got talking to one of the ranch hands yesterday at the store. Could be worth our time.”

“Of course it’s worth your damned time!”

 “I’ll be the one who decides that, thank you miss.” Dutch planted a hand on her shoulder. “After we do this, and it pans out, what do you say about my offer? A young lady like you would be wasted on the streets in a backwater dump like this, and I’d hate to see you suffer.”

The man was as slimy as a snake and half as pretty, but Alma wouldn’t pretend that the offer wasn’t … tempting, especially given her current circumstances. Her mumma had always warned her away from trusting powerful men, especially those with only illusions of it, but what choice did she have? She’d been burned before, and she’d likely be burned again. If they didn’t do it, she’d surely just do it to herself.

His questionable company and fashion taste aside, Dutch didn’t seem entirely insane. Arrogant, prideful - sure. At least in that regard he was honest about his intentions. Jeremiah had been a weak man, at his core, and Dutch seemed as far from weak as you could physically get. Arthur, too. John … well he didn’t count.

Alma looked at Dutch and sighed. “So you’ll go to the ranch?”

“Let’s just say you’ve sold me on the idea,” he said with a smile, squeezing her shoulder where it was still gripped in his hand. “Besides, you were right. I do like knocking rich folk down a peg or three, especially when we profit from it. It’s good for my soul and pockets.”

A chill wind rushed between the buildings. Alma remembered her state of undress, and ached for warmth and a home that no longer existed. When she met Dutch’s eyes, she saw burning. 

“If it pans out. We could all be riddled with bullets in a few days.”

“That’s the spirit, Miss McArthy!” Dutch laughed, clapping her on the back. “Arthur, see about getting the young lady cleaned up and fed, won’t you? We’ll head back to camp and start talking out this plan.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” John shouted, eyes wide as saucers. “You’re letting this psycho stay, just like that?”

Alma spat back, all venom, “Says the greasy rat who smells like he crawled out of a gutter. What are you good for anyway, besides annoying everyone?”

Dutch just rolled his eyes and walked off, calling after John over his shoulder. Arthur met Alma’s eye with a smirk, before turning to ruffle John’s dark hair where he still stood, gawking. 

“Oh, little Johnny Marston here is good for lotsa things. Failures of plans, entertainment, target practice -”

“I hate you both,” John grumbled as he stormed off after Dutch, who had already disappeared around the corner. 

Alma couldn’t really find it in herself to laugh, not crusted with blood and manure as she was, but in another life she would have. As it stood, she just slung the rifle back over her shoulder and winced as the movement caught on her bruised side. The pain made her remember Jeremiah and Gregory, slaughtered and left to rot in the sun, and she had to swallow bile for the third time that morning.

If Arthur noticed, he thankfully didn’t say anything. “I think you and me are gonna get along just fine, Miss McArthy.”

In the almost-midday sun, the blue of his eyes glinted. “I wouldn’t be so sure, not with the company you keep.” He laughed under his breath. “And … just Alma is fine, if it’s all the same to you.”

He waved a hand in the general direction of the main street, and Alma down a nearby alley beside him. His shadow engulfed her. “‘Course. Let’s get you cleaned up and pretty before we all get shot by your ranchers tomorrow.”

“Don’t blame me for being realistic. And they ain’t my ranchers. I’d sooner see ‘em gutted like pigs for what they did.”

Arthur looked at her with a raised eyebrow, shaking his head, but kept pace with her as they headed towards the local hotel. “Miss Grimshaw is gonna love you.”

...

Two days later, Alma was fleeing the Darlington ranch with a few hundred dollars in her pockets and a freshly stolen mustang mare underneath her. A week later, she was halfway across the state with a gang of outlaws known as the Van der Linde gang. 

And that, as they say, is that.

...

TAGLIST:

@nokstella, @celticwoman, @florbelles, @zahra-hydris, @arborstone

@kibellah, @carrionsflower, @fenharel, @daerans, @fashionablyfyrdraaca

@loriane-elmuerto, @imogenkol, @knakrack, @roguecritter

[bellaxgiornata]

Falling For the Devil [Part thirty-nine: "The Secret Santa"]

Pairing: Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader

Summary: You join Matt, Foggy, Marci, and Karen for another yearly game of Secret Santa at Josie's.

Or

You're absolutely terrified of what might be in that little black box.

[Series of one-shots about Reader meeting, falling for, and dating Matt Murdock.]

Warnings: 18+ for this series; contains humor, fluff, romance, angst, smut (like...a lot of it later in the series), language, some violence

Word Count: 2.6k

a/n: This is a fun and naughty little secret Santa installment with the gang at Josie's! And one of Reader's gifts certainly gets used in an upcoming smupdate... You can find the entire list of the installments for this series on tumblr here. And if you're enjoying it feel free to let me know!

Pulling the door open to Josie’s, you shivered from the contrasting warmth radiating from inside the bar with the cold December night outside. Tonight you noticed the bar was surprisingly fairly empty as you stepped inside, even if it was a Wednesday night. 

You heard your name almost immediately and your attention shifted to the right, landing on your group of friends all huddled around their usual table. Karen was smiling at you, excitedly waving you over. For a moment you remembered the night you came here when you'd thought Matt had invited you out on a date, spotting all of them sitting in a similar fashion to that night. A smile made its way onto your face at how much had happened since then as you shifted the bag in your hands that was hiding your Christmas presents for the Secret Santa game. Matt beamed at you as you walked towards the group, his head seemingly tracking your movements. You smiled back at him before focusing on everyone around the table.

"Hey, sorry I'm late," you apologized to the group, sliding into the chair beside Matt as you placed the bag on your lap. "I was talking to Ellison about extending a deadline on something, it…took longer than I expected."

Matt visibly tensed beside you but he said nothing. Instead, one of his hands pushed a beer towards you on the table, the movement catching your attention. 

"Already grabbed you a drink," he told you. 

Still smiling, you murmured, "Thank you." 

"Well at least you're here now, only thirty minutes late," Karen teased gently from your other side.

Across from you and sitting beside Foggy, Marci clapped her hands together over the table excitedly. There was a mischievous glint in her eyes while she glanced around at everyone. "So, do we all remember the rules?" she asked. "Close your eyes and no peaking when we put the gifts on the table," she reiterated firmly, her attention shifting to Foggy as she shot him a pointed look.

"Yeah, Matt!" Foggy called out.

Matt chuckled beside you, shaking his head. "Alright, you caught me. I peak every year behind these," he joked, pointing at his dark glasses.

Marci’s attention returned to you, that glint still in her eye. "Last year we went tame when you joined us for Secret Santa," she said, shooting Matt a look beside you, "because he asked us to. So we wouldn't send you running away scared." She wagged a finger at you and you felt your palms sweating against the bag in your lap. "We didn't necessarily do tame this year," she warned you. 

"Well now you might send me running away," you joked nervously.

Matt's shoulder bumped yours lightly, catching your attention. You turned, taking in the warm smile on his face as he gazed back at you.

"You'll be just fine, sweetheart," he assured you.

“I already gave her a heads up,” Karen told everyone. “The other week after we drew names. I didn’t want her to be too startled and I wasn’t sure Matt would say anything.”

Marci once again glanced around the table, raising a brow as she did. “Alright, everyone ready then?” she asked. When everyone nodded she smiled. “Okay, we all close our eyes and keep them closed until all the gifts are on the table. And let’s be mindful of the drinks already on here,” she said, her attention once again shifting to Foggy beside her.

“Hey,” he said, “in my defense, I spilled that drink on myself last year, not you.”

“But it was my drink,” she countered.

One of his hands rose from his lap, patting her shoulder lightly as he smiled lovingly at her. “And if I knock it over again this year, I’ll buy you another, babe,” he assured her.

Beside you, Matt cupped a hand around his mouth and called out, “Get a room!”

Marci’s head snapped in his direction, that mischievous glint back in her eye. “You might be the one needing to get a room later, Murdock,” she teased, turning her head and shooting you a wink. And then her expression returned serious, leaving you a bit nervous at her comment. “Okay, everyone close your eyes and put your gift on the table. Not directly in front of you either!”

You joined the group in closing your eyes, hearing the sound of rustling as everyone removed their gifts from wherever they had been hiding them. You slipped your own gifts out of the bag, carefully trying not to bump into Karen too much as you tried to push it on the table away from you. When your gift was on the table, you waited patiently with closed eyes for the rustling to stop.

“Everyone’s gift on the table?” Marci asked.

A chorus of affirmative responses came from the group. Soon everyone was opening their eyes, taking in the sight of the wrapped presents before you all. The moment you spotted yours, you felt your heart speed up. It was a black box with a bright red bow on it, your name written in silver sharpie. You just knew whatever was in there was going to make you nervous to open in front of everyone.

“Why don’t we go around the table this year?” Foggy suggested. “To make it easier than trying to guess numbers each time we take a turn.” 

“Okay, who wants to start us off then?” Marci asked.

Beside you, Karen perked up, practically bouncing up and down in her seat. “Oh, I will!” she quickly volunteered. 

Eagerly she reached out, finding the two gifts with her name on them. They were wrapped in the most obnoxious Christmas paper you’d ever seen–vibrant elves. You got the feeling the wrapping paper was chosen either intentionally or because it was Matt and he didn’t know or care.

And neither did Karen. Tearing through the paper swiftly, she unwrapped a small box. Immediately she was laughing behind a hand as she held it up. 

“Wine condoms?” she asked.

“Well hey,” Marci said, fighting down her own laughter across the table, “at least on the nights you drink alone and can’t finish a bottle, you’re still getting the opportunity to open a condom.”

You snorted loudly, throwing a hand over your own mouth at her joke. Matt beside you was laughing quietly, his shoulders shaking as he bit his lip. Karen rolled her eyes, grinning, as she focused on opening up the second gift. It was a coffee mug that she pulled out of the box next, covered in writing on one side. Her eyes scanned over it quickly before she laughed, glancing between Foggy and Matt.

“Okay, one of you guys clearly got this for me,” she said.

“What’s it say?” you asked her.

She glanced back down, reading from the mug as she spoke. “I’m not arguing, I’m just explaining why I’m right.”

“Hmm, sounds accurate,” Foggy joked, drawing his beer to his mouth as he glanced away. “Definitely wonder who could’ve gotten you that.”

“Yeah,” Matt mused beside you, amusement in his tone, “I really wonder who could’ve gotten you that, Karen.”

“Dicks,” she joked, balling up the wrapping paper in front of her. “Okay, who’s next? Foggy?” She glanced at you and said your name, her brows raising questioningly.

Your eyes darted towards that intimidating black box and you smiled nervously, gesturing a hand to Foggy. “How about Fog goes next?” you answered quickly, hoping to postpone opening your gift for as long as possible.

“Ohh!” Foggy exclaimed, rubbing his hands together. “I am so ready for this!”

Marci slid the gifts you had gotten for Foggy along the table towards him and you watched silently as he opened the first box. Once he'd torn off all the paper on the first gift, he slowly lifted the lid. His head tilted curiously to the side as he reached a hand in and pulled out a tie.

“It’s a tie,” he said, mainly for Matt’s benefit as he sat beside you with his head cocked to the side, brows furrowed. “But I don’t quite understand what’s on it?”

He held it up to himself, as if he was wearing it, and Karen, Marci, and you all lost it simultaneously. A round of laughter broke out at the table as Foggy glanced downwards at the tie, still trying to make sense of it. Poor Matt was still confused beside you.

“What?” Matt asked. "What's so funny?"

“It–it looks like his shirt is open,” Karen wheezed out between laughs.

“And he has a hairy chest!” Marci finished, wiping tears from her eyes.

A large smile slid across Matt’s face, one of his hands readjusting his glasses on his nose. "Please don't wear that to court," he begged Foggy.

"Oh, I don't know, Matt," Foggy disagreed, grinning as he shook his head. "I look quite sexy in this. Might even give you a run for your money on court days."

You were still fighting down laughs as Karen reached out a hand, pointing to the other gift in front of him.

"What's in that one?" she asked curiously.

Foggy set the tie back down and focused on the other gift. You chewed your lip nervously as he unwrapped the paper to reveal yet another box. Carefully he opened it, and then he reached in before slowly holding up the set of handcuffs. Marci gasped excitedly beside him.

"Oh my God, we needed new handcuffs!" she exclaimed while Foggy's face reddened a bit. "We broke ours on Halloween!"

Matt cleared his throat loudly. "Information I could have done without," he said, raising his beer to his mouth for a drink.

Grinning wide, Marci reached out and grabbed the package with her name on it. It looked almost similarly packaged like the gift for you.

"Okay my turn," she exclaimed excitedly.

She quickly untied the bow before sliding the ribbon off. Without hesitation, she opened the box–and her eyes practically lit up. 

"We have two sets of handcuffs now!" she squealed. "And oh, this looks fun." Her hand darted into the black box and pulled something out.

Your eyes went wide as Foggy's face further reddened, drawing his beer to his mouth and glancing down at the table. Karen was openly laughing on one side of you while Matt was sitting on the other side of you with raised brows behind dark lenses.

"Do I want to know?" he asked.

"No–" Foggy began, but Marci cut him off.

"It's one of those butt plugs with a tail–it's a pink bunny tail," she said.

Matt's brows somehow rose even higher onto his forehead as he also glanced away. Just as Foggy had done, he took another drink of his beer and remained quiet. 

You, across the table, were now feeling ready to bolt. If that was what was in the box for Marci which looked similar to yours, you didn't even want to know what was going to be in your gift. You were sure you'd be redder than the ribbon when you opened it in front of everyone. 

"Okay, Matt's turn," Marci announced, putting everything back into her box.

You reached out across the table, sliding the wrapped package towards Matt. He thanked you softly before he began tearing the wrapping paper open. Eventually he tore it all off, his hands fiddling with opening the box next. And then he reached in, feeling around curiously before he held up a pair of cozy socks like he always wore, except these weren't plain. You grinned at the sight of them.

"Socks?" Matt asked, head tilting to the side. "But judging by the laughter beside me, there's something on them."

"Avocados," you told him. "It says 'I want to avo-cuddle' on them."

"That seems tame after what Marci just opened," he mused, setting them down. 

He reached in and pulled out a pair of boxers next. Your eyes went wide before you began laughing at what was written on the ass.

"So boxers, but clearly something is on them as well," Matt said. He turned, shooting you a smile. "I think I only trust you to tell me what it is."

Grinning, you said, "They're green with a bunch of avocados on them. But on the butt it says–" you paused, laughing, "–'Back that Hass up'."

He cracked up, shaking his head as he set the underwear back. "I'm sure you'll appreciate these, sweetheart." His gaze shifted down the table towards Foggy, grinning. "Thanks, Fog."

You bit your lip, fighting down your laughter still at the boxers and the mental image of Matt wearing them. Across from you, Marci grinned devilishly and pushed the black box towards you. Instantly your smile faded and your pulse sped up, anxiety washing over you. Beside you, Matt's head canted curiously to the side, his covered gaze landing on you. No doubt he noticed the change in your body.

"Your turn," Karen teased, placing a hand on your shoulder briefly. 

Nervously you reached out and began untying the bow, watching as the red ribbon fell to the table. With shaking fingers you lifted the lid just enough so you could see what was inside. Your eyes immediately went wide, your heart somehow thrumming even faster in your chest. Karen leaned in beside you to take a peak before a hand flew to her mouth, covering a giggle. 

"I don't think I want to know," Foggy said from across the table. "Judging by her face."

"I do," Matt said, leaning closer towards you, his forearms resting on the table as he smirked at you. 

"Go on," Marci urged slyly, "tell your man what's in there."

And clearly Marci was the one who bought you this, judging by that coy, smug look on her face. You took a deep breath, trying to fight back the growing flush on your cheeks.

"It's uh, silk wrist ropes," you told Matt awkwardly, noticing the upward twitch of his lips. "They're red. And a, uh–" you cleared your throat, "–a flogger."

Matt's smirk only grew further on his face. Across the table, Foggy was choking on his drink. Marci clapped a hand roughly on his back as you quickly lowered the lid back onto the box, too nervous to keep looking at the items. The way Matt was staring at you while you picked up your own beer and took a few deep drinks felt like he was burning a hole in the side of your face.

"Yeah, I definitely didn't need to know what was in there," Foggy muttered. 

"Maybe you should bring those with you on your road trip," Karen teased, gathering up all of the wrapping paper from the table. 

Your face only flushed further at that thought. 

"You know, I think I might go use the restroom," you said in a rush, face feeling as if it were on fire as you quickly slid out of your chair. 

"At least I didn't go with the glass dildo!" Marci exclaimed. 

A few people around the bar turned and stared at you at that particularly loud comment. Your eyes widened in horror as your friends laughed. 

"Oh my God ," you muttered, burying your face in your hands. 

"Yeah, Marc," Matt said from next to you with a wide grin, "you'd have definitely scared her away last year."

Marci laughed loudly as you turned, darting off to the bathroom. From behind the bar counter you even spotted Josie good-naturedly laughing at you and your pace quickened. 

[panzershrike-pretz]

are there any hbowar people in the fandom u find iconic? whether it’s for their ideas, fics, gifs, edits, thoughts? jst anything really? u can list multiple btw!

Oh, hi anon! <3

I do have some, actually. To be very clear, I loves everyone of my friends, especially because of the Kinky Ron Server, but I actually do have a very VERY special spot for some people with whom I had the pleasure to become closer! Mainly, the people that made me actually want to stick around and stay a part of this amazing, amazing community in the first place, so here:

- @coco-bean-1218 - she was actually the first ever person with who I ever spoke on tumblr, I think? I wanted to read some Doc Roe fics and this blessing of a gal appeared to hand me some. If I may really be honest? It was her who made me look more into the BoB fandom and decide to start reading works, which leads us to the next person:

- @malarkgirlypop - Oh. My. God. Thanks to Claire, I started reading and ended up finding Kate's amazing MEDIC! Fanfic and if Clai was the reason I decided to read, Kat was the reason I decided to interact. Seriously, I'll never be able to thank them enough! If it wasn't for both of these gals, I'd never be here because I was a scared little shit. Also funniest person? Ever?? Yeah

- @next-autopsy - ok, if I remember correctly, I found out about Nex just some time after I found Kate and I was immediately in love. REALLY! I think Nex was the person I originally most looked up to, along with Lou. And I believe she still is. Seriously, never have I seen a more talented person? Ever?? I won't ever stop saying this but Made of Glass is the best piece of fanfic I've read in a long while and O wish I could print it out as a book!

- @luckynumber4 - along with Nex, Lou was another person I was most definetely a little gremlin fan of. I don't really know why but I was immediately drawn to her? And she was also one of my first mutuals; I remember the day she followed me I went insane talking about it to my friend like!!! THE celebrity of all time is following me!!!!!!!!! ITS HER!!! Anyway, nowadays we talk on Discord and I ADORE it!! Love u, Lou!!

- @xxluckystrike - I love Blu. She is so talented and kind and JSBDNWJA I love simply talking with her, her whole vibe is amazing. Also Francis is my daughter nd I won't be sharing her. She's my baby and I'll kill for her.

- @footprintsinthesxnd - ONE OF THE CREATORS OF THE BEST SERVER ON THIS PLANET???? HAD TO BE INCLUDED???????????? OBVIOUSLY????? I LOVE JESS SO MUCH HER STUFF IS ALWAYS SO AMAZING ITMAKES ME SO HAPPY I LIVE IT!!! I LOVE YOU!!! *ex,plodes tou with mind*

- @land-sh - you. You make me very happy. I love talking with you about our countries culture and having someone to relate with about the latin-american shit >:] and also you are very cool, i love when we talk and vibe kekekekeke

- @whollyjoly - finally, Em. I could NEVER let our cult leader out. Ever. This gremlin of a person here is the fucking reason Me and the Gang (Bottom Text) exists and I could not be more grateful. I LOVE YOU, EM!!! YOUR VIBES ARE INSANE AND YOU KNOW WHAT? GOOD. The Holy One. ✨️✨️✨️✨️✨️✨️✨️

(To any mutual os friend I didn't include here, I'm very sorry and i love you too! Have a catfish)

[headcanonsandmore]

it's kinda funny as you were complaining about Moffat's Sherlock I was rewatching hbomberguy's video on it... and it's because I ran into some guy who randomly started talking about doctor who with a friend specifically the anniversay that moffat did (you know where they saved galifrey and the war doctor?) and the timelords giving the doctor more regenerations and I let myself have one quiet "fuck off" as i missed the start of that conversation but still was there anything redeeming about moffarts anniversary? and didn't all the timelords hate the doctor at that point so why did they do that?

just general Moffat *shakes fist* my sister and I still haven't caught up on Doctor Who (and we love 13 and the gang so that's not the problem) and its just reasons like not wanting to see 13 go we both heard moffat coming back and went "oh no" and of course the kdrama rabbit hole we've fallen down (it is very fun) sorry for the ramble had to share

I was watching that video the other day; great minds think alike, I suppose!

I remember watching the 50th anniversary when it aired and... not really liking it that much. It was the first multi-Doctor story I ever saw, and my main thought was that Ten was written really off. It was at that point that was already losing interest in watching DW due to M*ffat's writing.

If I remember correctly, the time lords that gave the Doctor another regeneration cycle weren't the high council. *shrugs* NuWho (especially during that time) held Gallifrey in such awe that -when I eventually watched the classic series- it was a shock that the Doctor didn't much like his own people (individuals like Romana notwithstanding) and hated how stifling the culture of Gallifrey was.

Seeing Thirteen go was rough, I'm not gonna lie. You know the incarnation was something special to you when you miss them so much.

Yeah, I skipped "Boom!" because I know M*ffat's tricks by now and I didn't want to be a party pooper to the people on Tumblr who did enjoy the episode. That "on no" is basically how I reacted to finding out RTD had brought him back as a writer; like, really RTD? After he managed to fumble Sherlock Holmes, Jekyl & Hyde and Dracula? At this point, M*ffat is basically the epitome of a white man failing his way upwards.

Enjoy the Kdrama rabbit hole! I myself have a soft spot for "Hometown Cha Cha Cha" (hence why I wrote a Tegan/Nyssa AU based on the premise) and "Extraordinary Attorney Woo". :)

No need to apologise; thank you for sharing!

[bolsadefrutas]

New post!!

Sorry for not posting for some time :[ I don’t draw RDR fanart very often, and I realized that posting my own OC’s doesn’t get as much attention as my RDR fanart. It made me very sad because I draw my own characters a LOOT and love to share about them! Maybe one day I’ll be able to get them to get as much attention in here haha.

Anyway, these are some doodles I drew on magma from a little while ago :D

And Alsoo…

I wanted to add that I DO have RDR OC’s!!!!

These two are siblings; their names are Ajei (26) and Xochitl (19) Narváez. A bit of a backstory & character explanation;

Before they moved to the United States, Ajei and Xochitl lived in a pueblo back in Mexico. Their father, who left his reservation with reason to explore the world, met their mother, who was a nun at the church of the local pueblo he was staying in at the time.

The government wasn’t the best at providing for the people, especially the indigenous pueblos. In fact, wanted them gone. We all know the story and how it goes. Unfortunately, this family were also heavily affected by the wrongdoings of a corrupt governor, which caused the sickness and slow death of their dear pueblo. Not enough clean water, food, and resources. If the people in towns didn’t have it good, they sure had it worse.

Ajei started growing into the mindset of a rebel; taking away from the greedy government and give back to the people. At the age of 22, he decided to join the gang of the rebelling forces, which made him participate in the stealing and killing of the Mexican troops and their governors. Not long enough, he had gotten a bounty to his head, which also affected his alive family member; Xochitl. Ajei decided to take himself and Xochitl to the United States where they could hide low and get a proper life, since he could not be any safe in his own country. (They both were 23 & 16 at the time.)

Ajei and Xochitl didn’t really fall into a gang in the United States, but they had the knowledge of Dutch Van Der Linde, and deeply admired him. More specifically, Ajei did. Xochitl just viewed the man the same as she did to Ajei’s old leader; a man leading prideful people to their deaths just for his benefit. Whenever she mentioned it to Ajei, he’d just get upset and not listen to her for looking up to him.

They didn’t have it easy growing up, and to Xochitl, she thought Ajei didn’t learn to not trust so easily, even when a person has the same ideologies as him. In his defense, he felt sense of comfort when someone actually recognized how important his people are to him, and him wanting to search for safety in that is valid, but the boy thought more with his heart than with his brain.

The way they met Dutch…. or more accurately, one of his men, Arthur, was at Valentine. The siblings were just going to town for some of the necessities they needed at their shared home, and as they got separated, Xochitl had gotten snatched away and out of sight. As Ajei looks for her, he asks around the people if they have seen anything, including Arthur. (Arthur would have seen what happened before Ajei approached him.)

I just wanted to add this as a preference, a fictional side mission. Arthur would have the ability to either help Ajei search for his sister, or do nothing and let Ajei go on the search alone. (This would affect how Ajei thought of him in the future.) Either way, Ajei would have found Xochitl safe, but wound himself in the process.

I don’t think I want to bombard more with information about them, especially since anything after this information would contain spoilers of RDR2. I really do like these two though, I just have not drawn them enough, or like at all. I think I’ll make more content of them for Tumblr because my RDR content gets more views. IF YOU READ THIS, THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME!!

Small doodles of Ajei and Xochitl :3

[thedelusionreaderbitch]

Inej Ghafa x gn! Reader - One deep breath

A/n: you fuckers are lucky, i'm so sick right now but I decided to post anyways

Request: tumblr ate it, sorry anon, the request went something like: Inej and reader dancing around their feelings for each other

Warnings: hanahaki disease, mentions of homelessness, mentions of gangs, mentions of blood, mentions of violence, death, swearing, there is religious imagery if you squint (not christian), I think that's it? You have been warned!

The Three P's: [Pronouns used: you/your] [Pov: 2nd person] [Pairings: (romantic!) inej x reader, (platonic!) crows x reader]

The flowers took up root in your lungs before you began to violently cough them out. You curse as they come out of your throat, chocking you to the point of nausea. Tears fill your vision, and you swear at the saints when you see purple geraniums cover your hands and bed.

In the dead of night you'll slip out of the Slat using the very skills of the person who's killing you and go to a cemetery south of there. It's a quaint little thing, meant for the middle class people in Ketterdam, people who aren't poor enough to be barrel rats, but aren't rich enough to be sleazy sloths. Comfortable.

The grass there is soft, and the dirt warm, the perfect place to plant your geraniums.

Or maybe they were hers.

By day you would collect every flower, washing off the crimson from the purple and by night you would plant them. You planted them in an empty corner of the burial ground. It was nice, and pretty, as a pretty as her eyes. Meaning it was pretty enough to be buried there.

Inej was your dawn, she's what got you to the Dregs, out of your homelessness and back on your feet. Simultaneously she will also be your death, as she sails away on her ship, but comes back often enough for your stupid heart to yearn. Saints, you hate the yearning.

Saints, you hate the saints.

She's coming back again today, she'll be coming back later in the afternoon. Probably closer to midnight, in your bones you feel it might be your last. The flower stems take control of how much air gets in and out, and all you can smell around you is summer.

Inej's mother was right about them smelling like the sweet summer air, but now it wasn't sweet. It was a pounding in your head, a knife to throat, yet it reminded you of her. Of your sweet Inej, and despite the sea now staking it's claim over her scent, she still could smell like the summer air when she was happy. Genuinely, undeniably, happy. You didn't want it to disappear, and you would die because of that. Because you wouldn't let the shadow go, you wouldn't let the untouchable Wraith out of your desperate grasp.

As your time ticked by Inej had climbed into your room in the Slat through your window. The only reason you noticed she was there was the now obvious pattering of the rain outside and the fact that she was looking at you through your mirror across from your bed.

When your eyes met your lungs contracted painfully as those eyes full of everything good in this world enchanted you further into your delusions. They observed every part of your soul, and you couldn't help but look away before you would have to cough up a new round of purple petals.

"Hello, Y/n." She whispered as she came up to give you a friendly hug from behind, her arms wrapping around your middle "I missed you."

Saints, you wished she meant it in the way you did, because you had missed her in ways she wouldn't even be able to comprehend. You missed the burning of your lungs from being in her presence, you missed the way the blood would flow from your lips, because then you knew she was near. Inej wouldn't ever know that loving her was the same as suffering, that every time she looked at you, your chest would heave and you would smile at the clear malice of being in love with her.

Some part of you wanted this to all end, maybe if you had moved away from here, from her, so she could never find you then. But your heart has learned that a life without the Wraith, is not one worth living, so you'll take the flowers in exchange for seeing her.

Even if your life is to end, you'd rather take her pain, than leave, and take her love, because when you've lived for so long doing the same thing you get comfortable. The pain gives you solace, consolation that you won't ever have to see life without her, even if yours is too short for comfort.

"I missed you too." You nuzzle your head into her neck, your whispers the only sound other than the rain. Ketterdam for once is quiet, as if even she knows what is to come. "Tell me about your trip." You ask, as if it were any other normal night.

She grins and launches into a whole story about the new slavers she had been hunting, and some of the new recruits on her ship. Her stories took many twists and turns, and often they were long, but you would listen even if they went on for hours. During the time she was telling her tales of the sea, you two had drifted over to your bed, where you both now sat comfortably. Side by side, knees touching, bodies leaned forward, faces almost touching.

If you didn't know any better you would say you looked like lovers, but you did know better.

Eventually, it all comes to an end when her account of her sailing activities had finally dwindled away. All your left with is her goodbye, and those goddamn eyes, staring straight into your soul.

"Get some rest too, Y/n, it seems like you need it." She comments before she leaves.

You only roll your eyes at the Suli Girl. "If you insist."

I love you.

"Goodbye Inej."

As soon as she leaps from the windowsill you're on the floor coughing, more and more flowers, more than ever before. Purple geraniums flood your lungs and all you can think about is her.

_____________

Inej couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong when you didn't see her off when she left the next day.

She's felt like something has been bothering you for a while now, but she could never pinpoint what the problem was. Now she was back at sea, feeling as uneasy as ever, and she just couldn't shake off the feeling. That something just wasn't right, that there was something she had missed. It was as if she'd seen a shooting star in the sky, but turned around to view the moon instead.

Decidedly, she followed her gut, and her crew was now docking the decks of Ketterdam once more, and much more earlier than the last time.

When the Slat came into view, she noticed there were no lights in your room. Perhaps you were still sleeping, or maybe you were on a job.

Maybe her little lover is sick.

Although when she finds no trace of you in your room, her unease grows, finally she goes down to the crow club to try and find Kaz and see where he might know where you are.

His answer is not the one she is expecting.

It's not one she would ever dream of hearing.

"Y/n's dead," He spoke flatly, but even he, couldn't keep the grief from his voice. "They had the hanahaki disease, and chocked to death." He hands Inej a note, addressed to her. "Wylan found this when we were trying to figure out what killed them."

You were dead? But that wasn't possible! You couldn't be- you couldn't-

Snatching the letter out of Kaz's hands she begins to read, albeit with trembling hands, making everything so much harder than it already was.

Dear Inej,

If you're reading this, it means I'm gone. This letter is for you, to let you know that none of this is your fault.

I'm sorry that this is the way you found out, but it was always meant to end this way. Your love is like the sun, and I am nothing but to burn underneath your touch. For another it wouldn't have, but to me your love burns like the scorching sun.

That is not to say it is your fault, my lovely Inej, it is not your burden to bare the blame. If anything it is mine because of the choices I made. I decided that I wanted to live out the rest of my days loving you, (even if in secret) than living apart and trying to love someone else. The truth is Inej, I wouldn't have found anyone else even if I tried.

May your life be overflowing with love,

Y/n

____________

Inej was back on her ship, she had been for the last four months after your death.

Now, to fill the ever growing void in her chest she would throw herself into her work. While she's neglected to dock back at Ketterdam as it had brought too many memories. Your grin, your laughter, your stuttering smile - the way your lips had probably trembled as you chocked.

If her crew saw the bloody, black chrysanthemums she had been coughing up, they didn't say anything. Not even as her ship had started to leave a trail of beautiful carnations, because they had heard the news about her late lover. They all knew their great Wraith was now living on burrowed time.

In a corner of a cemetery for people living comfortably, purple geraniums were growing wild, as they bloomed and created more. All of it pretty enough to have your corpse laid. Where she too, in time would lay beside you, black chrysanthemums surrounding her tomb.

Lovers, too late.

Words 1577

-thedelusionreaderbitch

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