#the concept of frozen isolation is just so

[arian-nya]

Starting to wonder

if there might just be

a specific type

of setting I enjoy

[trainer-from-unova]

mission accomplished

english ao3 ❄️ spanish ao3 ❄️ masterlist

ship: bob reynolds x f!reader (x the void)

summary: after you faint in a mission bob discovered that you're not dating bucky as he guessed and finds the perfect opportunity to ask you to hang out with him and confess his feelings

word count: 3k (+6k counting the second part)

c/w: hurt/comfort, fainting, needles, misunderstanding, lack of communication, post-canon (and written before watching the movie, edited version after watching it: ❄️)

a/n: this is almost plotless tbh, I just put together some scenes and concepts I had in mind and character study/headcanons + I got lazy at the end, this was supposed to be longer, I'll post a second part

"I don't think I could build a castle with one stomp," she replied, playing along.

"It's literally you," said Bucky mockingly.

"Have you ever tried?" he asked.

"No, but..."

To the girl's right was Bucky, to her left was Bob, on her thighs was the almost empty popcorn bowl and in front of them was the television with Frozen. It was a film that Bucky, because of his age and his past, had never seen, but he knew and knew it was very famous so it was on his watchlist, and his best girl friend, teammate and flatmate had the same powers as one of the main characters, so he had decided to watch it once and for all. The others had already seen it, but still joined him on the couch of the living room. The others were away from the base, which was normal: John had a wife and very young child, Alexei had been locked up in prison for about twenty years, and Ava and Antonia had been controlled and isolated by their circumstances, so when they had a chance to go out and have a normal life in their free time they took it.

Suddenly they heard footsteps and hooves coming into the room, and then there they heard someone press the switches to turn on part of the living room light near the hall. It was obviously Yelena, bundled up with the intention of taking Fanny for a walk.

"Can I go with you?" asked Bob as he watched his friend bend down to attach the leash to the dog's collar.

"Yeah," she replied as she stood up, and he got up from the couch, leaving the other two standing there alone.

It was winter, so it was obviously cold. The two of them were bundled up as they walked the dog around Central Park, their hands in their pockets as they talked. When they were alone they usually talked about the team, specifically Bucky and _______.

Bob loved the latter very much. And he also liked the former, he was a good man he admired and was grateful to him for helping him in the past and making him a better person. But he couldn't help feeling jealous, not just because he wanted her all to himself but because of how insecure he was — he thought it was more likely that she had feelings for Bucky than for him, and obviously he also saw it as possible that Bucky was in love with her. In the moment before, watching Frozen with them, he couldn't help but feel that his presence was in their way, that they would rather be alone and cuddling. Luckily for him he was saved by the bell.

"You should have stayed and watched the movie with them," Yelena said slightly annoyed by her friend's self-sabotage, but at the same time holding back her laughter. She averted her eyes from her dog running away behind the tennis ball she'd thrown her well away seconds before to take a quick glance at her friend next to her, and passed her smile on to him.

After _______ she was the one he felt most comfortable with and was closest to so he confessed this secret to her, and she always encouraged him to confess his feelings and told him that she clearly reciprocated his feelings, but he didn't listen or believe her.

"Am I such bad company?" He replied a little mockingly as she shook her head silently and went back to watching her dog, catching the ball in her mouth.

"I know worse," she said sarcastically and nudging him affectionately, and Bob knew exactly who she was referring to.

______ also loved Bob. They had been through all kinds of situations together. She considered it normal to fall in love with him, but she also considered it normal for him to fall in love with Yelena and vice versa. And she was also her friend and considered her a good woman, but she couldn't help feeling jealous of the closeness between the two of them.

Bucky and ______ were literally in the same situation as Yelena and Bob, talking about the others and trying to convince her that Bob felt the same way about her and that she should be encouraged to hit on him or ask him out on a date.

"Don't get so worked up about it," Bucky told her as _______ leaned back at the kitchen island, watching as he quickly scrubbed the bowl of popcorn they had eaten with Bob's help earlier. The mood had been tense since the latter had gone after Yelena, as if she were another dog.

"Who says I'm thinking about them?" and he looked at her annoyed, saying "Really?" with his eyes. "I'm just waiting for him to propose first, I'm an old-fashioned woman," she joked as he put the bowl in the sink, though she wasn't partly lying.

"In my day women used to propose too, you know?" he decided to say, playing along as he dried his hands with a towel.

"What a liar you are," she laughed as she went over to hug him, and he returned the gesture as they heard the door of the house open and close, and a couple of footsteps. A few seconds later she broke away from him and turned to see who was approaching them: it was Bob.

She tensed, hoping he hadn't heard anything, and he tensed at the sight of her hugging and being hugged by Bucky, but they both tried to hide it as best they could.

"Hey, how was the walk?" he asked as Yelena and Fanny appeared on the scene as well.

"Good," he replied, "are you guys done with the movie yet?"

"Yeah," she replied as Bucky and Yelena gave each other a quick glance, trying not to laugh at the situation. Sometimes, alone together, the two talked about their best friends and the clear amorous tension between them, but they never confirmed to each other that either of them confessed to being in love with the other, keeping the confession a secret.

The team was assembled in full for yet another mission, this time in the southern hemisphere, in a well-insulated laboratory in the middle of an Australian desert. It was hot as hell, and the worst offender was ______ — it didn't help that she was moving around, the suit she was wearing and that not all the rooms in the building were air-conditioned. Her powers had disadvantages in that she couldn't tolerate the heat at all well and had to be well hydrated at all times — she was melting.

One last shot from Yelena a few metres away from her and mission accomplished, that was what the blonde said through her earpiece to warn the others who were in other locations, but all she heard was the gunshot, and even though she was in front of her she heard it in the distance as her vision began to darken.

"Yelena, I'm fainting," she announced as she tried to hold on to one of the tables in the lab where they were, drawing her friend's attention. She couldn't even hear herself.

She turned quickly when she heard it, and saw her friend's lips turning white as she slumped to the floor. Luckily for her, she didn't hit her head too hard because it fell on one of the corpses they had killed seconds before, either with a gun or by sticking weapons made of ice. Yelena ran to her and crouched down to her level to hold her in her arms.

"______ has fainted!" she announced through her earpiece.

"What!?" asked a voice familiar to her, but Yelena couldn't tell if it was worried Bob or angry Void.

He was the first to arrive at their location, followed by the others (except for Alexei who was in the jet, waiting for them).

"The blood isn't hers," Yelena reported as the most powerful of the group took her in his arms and scanned her up and down, reassuringly. She knew that, especially for him, the blood stood out too much on her suit, "and luckily she hadn't hit her head."

"Quick, to the jet," Bucky said as Antonia grabbed what they had come to steal.

The jet wasn't the best place to give medical assistance, but at least they could give her serums with IVs, and there was air conditioning and fresh water, which everyone could use.

Antonia stowed the stolen items and sat in the passenger seat next to Alexei to help him and turn on as much lighting as possible, so it would be easier to find her veins and stick her. Ava pulled out some towels and quickly threw them on the floor so she could lie there and be comfortable, while Bucky went to get the serums and John got a fresh bottle of water. He laid down _______ and stepped away, leaving the others to do their thing but mostly to hold his hands over his head and go around blaming everyone for what had happened and swearing to kill them if her situation got worse — there was no longer any doubt for anyone present, the present was Void and not Bob. They chose to ignore him, letting the insults and threats go in one ear and out the other, but they felt his anxious gaze upon them.

Ava crouched down, pinning her knees behind her teammate's head, and lifted her up for John to give her a drink of water, who was in the same position as her but to her right, while Bucky prepared the serums and needles. When she had drunk enough water, with Yelena digging her knees into the passed-out woman's left to remove her gear, she unzipped the front of her suit a little to cool her down further.

Then Ava laid her back down and the blonde squeezed her arm tightly with her left hand and began tapping the veins with the fingers of her right hand as John stepped back to make room for Bucky to do the same as Yelena on her right arm. The IVs were punctured, the serum bags were left on her abdomen and Antonia turned off the lights above her so that she wouldn't disturb them while she slept. Bucky continued to sit next to her, and Ava got up to drink water next to John.

"Will you shut the fuck up?!" Yelena asked Void as she approached him, trying to keep the volume down even if it was a little lower than he was. "This is nobody's fault, it's a fucking heat stroke!" she reminded him, stepping in front of him. "If you're so worried about her, shut up and let her rest," she whispered seriously and firmly as she looked him in the eyes and grabbed his shoulders. Void wasn't as fond of this one as Bob was, but after ______ she was the one he could stand the best of all those present, so he listened to her.

Perhaps it was the poking or the shouting of Void, but the young woman came to her senses for a moment. At first she barely heard anything and had trouble opening her eyes. She turned her neck (which she noticed was resting on a small towel soaked with cold water) towards her favourite voice and the first thing she saw when she was able to focus her eyes as the blurring stopped was Yelena in front of what she thought was Bob, with her hands on his shoulders and him staring into her eyes. She didn't like what she saw.

"Hey Sleeping Beauty, are you all right?" Bucky asked as he realised she had woken up, although she clearly wasn't completely awake. It was obvious from her facial expression how exhausted she was, and that she was still not fully conscious. It caught not only her attention, but that of the others, who, except for the pilots, turned to look at her.

"Tired..." she whispered as she grimaced and closed her eyes again, as even the dim light bothered her. She couldn't see Void looking worriedly at her and approaching her. "Mission accomplished...?"

"Yeah," John replied.

"Don't worry about it and get some rest, you deserve it," Ava said.

They didn't have to prod her much, she quickly fell asleep again, with the others calmer about her condition and silent so as not to wake her again. When they arrived in New York she was still asleep, but Bob woke up. They removed her IVs and when they got home it was Bucky who carried her to her room and laid her on her bed, even though he wanted to do it himself.

"Bucky, can I... stay with her now?" Bob asked him when the older man came out of her bedroom, after laying her down on her bed. Ava and Yelena were inside, changing her into fresh, comfortable clothes while Antonia went to deliver the stolen goods. "I know... you two are very close," he said nervously, "but you've already been taking care of her on the jet and you should rest," and it was partly true, but he didn't want to take care of her just because he thought Bucky deserved some rest, "let me take care of her," and instantly he saw Bucky smile, and as always, he thought the worst — he thought he was laughing at him, but in fact he was doing it in a loving and genuinely happy way. "I didn't mean to offend you, I'm sorry," he said even more nervously and apologetically.

"No, don't be," he shook his head, trying to wipe away his smile but failing in the attempt. "But... did you really think that she and I... are dating or something?"

"Um yeah, didn't you...?" he asked confused. "It depends on the day, really," he shrugged, "but yeah, sometimes, yeah."

"No, no! She's all yours, don't worry," he tapped him on the shoulder, and he knew from his smile and the look on his face that he knew. "I know you'll take good care of her," he said before he left, not only referring to that day.

He stood in thought, happy to have the way clear but confused that he had realised his feelings for her, wondering if the others had noticed too, and especially her.

The next time she woke up was in her bedroom. She woke up slowly, and noticed that she was wearing one of her pyjamas and that the window was open, so it was cool. When she opened her eyes she saw that the light was dim, with one of her lamps on. She turned her neck and saw that the bedroom door was closed (so that she wouldn't hear noises that might wake her up and so that the heat from the heater wouldn't come in) but that she wasn't alone — Bob was sleeping as a ball in her chair, resting his elbow on the armrest and his cheek on his fist, covered with blankets and warm from head to toe, with a hat included.

She looked at him for a moment, smiling. Then she got out of bed and moved slowly and quietly to the window to close it, and then to him to cover him well, but the movement woke him.

"Hey," he greeted half-sleepily, happy and yet confused to see her awake and up, tucking him in.

"Shit," she cursed, pulling away from him quickly, "did I wake you? I'm sorry."

"No no, don't worry about it," he said as he sat up properly, "How are you?" he asked as he reached down for a bottle of water on the floor beside the chair. "You had a heat stroke and fainted," he informed her as he handed her the bottle.

"I'm better now," she said as she pulled the cap off the bottle, "thank you," she said before raising it to her lips, and as she drank she noticed that she was wearing plasters on the inside of her elbows.

"Bucky and Yelena shot you up with serum in the jet," he reported as he saw her eyes go to these.

"Oh yeah, Ithink I remember..." she said as she sat on the edge of the bed.

"And she and Ava put you in your pajamas."

"I thought so," she said smiling sideways, but then her face saddened. "I'm sorry for the inconvenience, and thank you for everything."

"No no," he hastened to say worriedly, getting up to sit next to her, "it's normal, it could have happened to any of us, don't worry."

She knew it probably hadn't happened to him in particular, but she appreciated his attempt to cheer her up. She smiled apologetically at him and dared to lean her head on his shoulder, and he did the same, leaning his head on hers and holding her hand, interlacing their fingers and stroking it with his thumb.

"Look, you need to cheer up," Bob said suddenly and pulling his head away from hers but still holding her hand, and he didn't even believe himself what he was saying at last, but he really wanted to cheer her up and it was the perfect opportunity to offer her some time alone together, "so this weekend we're going out, wherever you want and it's on me, okay?" he said smiling sweetly at her.

"Okay," she said laughing quietly, "thank you."

© trainer-from-unova / alicent burton | don’t plagiarise or translate any of my work

[hyper-fixates]

Visions of a Life

Old Man!Logan x AFAB!reader (no pronouns/gendered language).

Explicit content (18+)

Word count: 5.7k

Tags/warnings: age-gap due to logan’s mutation (reader’s age not specified), established relationship, mutant!reader, not canon-compliant, fluff, domesticity, explicit language, dry humping, brief unprotected sex, angst (and i’m not joking), soft!logan, groping, a few uses of “baby”, mentions & allusions to death (no one dies tho), descriptions of blood (kindly let me know if anything was missed!).

Summary: What does an animal do when he’s sick? He goes away to die.

Notes: this was supposed to take a different route, but it just didn’t feel right as i went along…forgive me for being a bit of a LIAR 🙃

The dry Texas heat faded with each kilometre you travelled. The desert slowly turned into rangelands, and the rangelands eventually became the frozen, snow-covered ground of Alberta. 

The trip was only a couple days, and the stark change in weather almost made your bones nearly seize and shatter when you stepped out of the truck and were met with the sharp winter wind. 

The cold definitely made Logan’s bones ache more than they already do. 

Not even his red flannel and jean jacket can offset the negative temperature in the slightest. 

“Hm…wow. Cute,” you say in succession, taking a few slow steps toward the quaint cabin. 

It’s all dark, smooth wood that stands out amongst the bare, white birch trees and blue spruces that are covered in a light dusting of this morning’s snow.

The second thing you notice is the quiet. 

It’s so quiet. No neighbours, no highways—just silence, and the slight rustling of the wind through the tree branches. 

You’re deep in the bush, a spot near the south-west border that gives a partial view of the Rockies.

“Grab your bag,” Logan says as he shuts his door, the sound cutting violently through the still air. 

It’s almost eerily quiet. No chirping birds, no chittering squirrels, no howling wolves in the distance. Just you and Logan. Isolated. 

It’s everything he’s been yearning for since living in Mexico and spending more than enough time working in El Paso. 

It’s what he’s been missing desperately ever since living down south—Alberta—his real home. Yet it’s a place that holds no significance to you.

“Yes, sir,” you remark with a lazy, mocking salute of your hand, smirking at how Logan glares at you harmlessly as he walks by you to the cabin.

Logan decided it’s time. Time to come back. Time to be realistic about your future, or lack of, together.

He decided that he’s done fighting himself, and that there’s nothing left for either of you in Mexico even if it’s all you’ve come to know. 

He refused to let himself die in the desert and leave you with nothing but sand. There was no comfort there. No semblance of a promise.

The light snow crunches under your steps back to the truck, your breath swirling in small clouds around you. You yank your bag out from the backseat and slam the door as Logan did, hearing the sound echo into the wind before dissipating into nothing. 

If you focused hard enough, you could probably hear your heartbeat. That’s how silent it is.

“Creepy,” you mumble to yourself as you follow the imprints of Logan’s footsteps back to the cabin.

You go up the few rickety stairs, stomping your shoes clean on the equally rickety deck, and open the squeaky door. 

It’s definitely not a space that’s meant for more than two people.

It’s one level, open concept, and surely not heated by a furnace. The living room is directly to the left—you’re basically already standing in it—and a small kitchen is off to the right. The single bedroom straight ahead is the only room besides the bathroom that’s hidden behind walls and a door. 

And that’s it. Simple. Efficient. No walls, no doors, save for the bedroom and bathroom. It’s surprisingly intimate. 

“Please tell me there’s heat,” you lament, watching Logan dust off the few surfaces of fixtures and furniture as you toe off your wet shoes. 

Logan gives you a look. “There’s a fireplace.” He gestures to the barren, ash-filled pit that sits at the bottom of the chimney in the corner of the room. 

Above it, a mantle with a little T.V. “Cable?” You wonder aloud. This place is already more luxurious than what you had in Mexico, but at least in Mexico you didn’t have to worry about freezing to death in your sleep.

Logan limps along to the bedroom with his bag. “Satellite.” 

You suck your tongue against your teeth, following Logan to the bedroom. When you step through the doorway, you almost cackle. 

“Oh for fucks sake. We are never gonna fucking fit on that, Logan. Oh my God,” you moan in disbelief at the size of the bed. “You’re probably not even gonna fit on it.” Your voice pitches a little in exasperation. 

The mattress was maybe a twin. Maybe. It’s propped up on a thin metal frame that creaks and groans as you experimentally lean forward on your hands and bear some weight on it. 

“I do.” He tosses both your bags on the outdated armchair in the corner of the room. 

Your entire lives are in those bags. You only brought what you needed and what could fit. There wasn’t much to bring along from Mexico besides clothes and the necessary toiletries anyway. Anything else can be found and replaced back in town if needed.

He steps back to the bed next to you. “Relax. There’s always the couch,” he points out. “We don’t have to sleep together.”

You have never slept apart—he knows that—and that’s definitely not going to start now. This time is precious. 

You briefly recall the worn couch sitting in the middle of the living room in front of the fireplace: it’s a brown and red plaid pattern, probably from the 80s, and four cushions long. 

This cabin was stuck in time just as much as Logan likes to say he is.

“Help me grab some wood to get a fire going,” he says, giving the top of your head a chaste kiss. “It’s supposed to snow again tonight.” He slips past you out the doorway, the warm, lingering touch of his hand on your shoulder sends a shiver through your body. 

You saw a decent stack of pre-cut logs piled in the other corner of the living room when you came in, and you wonder who’s been taking care of things here while Logan’s been down south. 

The wood looked fresh, but the dust on the coffee table and window ledges suggests no one’s been here for months.

You figure that dust is the least of Logan’s worries right now.

━━━━

The fire crackles and pops softly, the bright light from the T.V. illuminating the dark room as you comfortably watch the Flames game horizontally—on Logan—from the outdated couch. 

The warmth from the flickering orange blaze in the chimney blankets you both, almost trying to melt you together like wax.

Logan lies on his back, legs spread to accommodate your body as you lay stomach-to-stomach, using his chest as a pillow while he uses the well-worn armrest as his. 

It’s the middle of the second period and the game is tied 2-2. You can feel yourself drifting in and out of sleep even though the analog bird clock hung next to the T.V. shows it’s barely 11 p.m. 

You know Logan isn’t asleep because he’s tracing a finger slowly up and down your spine. That’s what’s putting you to sleep, but the obnoxious ads pull you back into consciousness when the game cuts to commercial each time. 

Despite the volume of the T.V., you can still hear the rattling in Logan’s lungs with each breath he takes. 

The ear that’s pressed against his chest picks it up easily; it’s otherwise undetectable if you aren’t right up against him. 

You don’t want to forget that this isn’t, in fact, a fun little vacation that you’ll both return to Mexico from. This is where Logan will spend the rest of his days with you. There is no going back to Mexico, no future anywhere but here within these walls. 

Logan will die here. Like he wants to—at home, with you, surrounded by snow.

“Are you tired?” You say quietly. Your eyes aren’t even open as you ask.

A small chuckle makes your head vibrate. “I’m always tired,” he rasps, his voice rumbling deeply in his chest against your ear.

“Want me to put you to sleep?” You offer, thumbing the material of his flannel, eyes still closed.

He shifts, adjusting his neck. “No. I’m fine,” he explains, and you’re curious to see if he will fall asleep as easy as you can make him.

All it takes is a touch of a finger and a whispered command for him to slip into near unbreakable unconsciousness that lasts throughout the night. 

You hum. “If you need it, just wake me if I’m asleep,” you reassure. 

Almost every night in Mexico you’d knock him out cold, only you didn’t have to use a punch to do so. The press of your finger against his temple was enough. If he was in better health maybe it would take a bit more concentration and demanding, but it’s quick, nearly effortless.

Somnous is all you need to say—sleep. And his body can’t resist the surge of the pseudo-sedative that comes from within you.

━━━━

A chill that you’ve never felt before wakes you. It’s one that can only come with negative temperatures seeping back into the cabin.

Your body tenses and you peel your eyes open. The faint glow of red coals pulsing in front of you quickly tells you that no one made it off the couch last night, that no one slept on that sad excuse of a bed in the next room.

You and Logan are right where you left each other.

Logan breathes steadily under you, that rattling in his lungs still present even in sleep. It never wavers. It will never go away.

You try to carefully peel yourself off of him, stifling a groan as your limbs stretch and twist for the first time in hours. The tightness in your shoulders makes you clench your teeth. 

A few pops and cracks release from your joints, and then you’re free from Logan’s warmth. From the looks of it, he seems comfortable, but you know he’s going to complain about his back and neck as soon as he wakes up.

Thankfully, you’ll help him with that, just like his sleep. Just like you do with everything else. 

Remedium, you’ll mutter as your fingers trace along his temple. Relief.  

You can fix the superficial—a sore neck, a headache—but you can’t fix something that’s as embedded and chronic as what’s killing him.

You’re the cure. The cure for everything except whatever is festering inside him. He says it’s the adamantium, that it’s poisoning him, but you can’t say for sure. 

The early morning sun, all pinks and oranges, shines brightly through the large windows around the cabin. Then you see the snow falling.

You tip-toe to the window across from the couch. It’s been snowing since 3 a.m., but you weren’t awake to see it start.

Thick, fluffy snowflakes wisp around in the light wind and you lean closer to the window to get a better look at the scene outside.

You arrived late in the afternoon yesterday, missing the morning snow that blanketed the ground and decorated the trees.

Logan’s seen many winters come and go, and you’ll see just as many after he’s gone. Well, maybe not as many.

A deep groan fills your ears. “Ah—fuck,” Logan growls, pulling himself to sit up from the couch.

You skip excitedly over to him, bending down to cradle his head in your hands and press your thumbs against each temple, your lips meeting the top of his head in a brief kiss.

“Remedium,” you whisper into his hair, and he makes a satisfied sound in response as his body adjusts and fixes itself.

You move down to kiss his forehead, ruffling a hand through his bushy grey hair before pulling away and going back to the window to watch the snow spiral and churn in random shapes and patterns.  

A grumbled “thanks” is heard over your footsteps. He’s probably not even fully awake yet. 

“Look at the snow. Look,” you say in awe when you hear him shuffling along the creaky floor behind you.

It doesn’t look like anything special to Logan. He’s seen every type of snow, every type of storm Alberta has to throw his way; however, this may be the most mundane snowfall he’s seen that he can remember.

“What about it?” He says. He doesn’t know what’s got you so excitable. 

You look at him over your shoulder. “I’ve never seen a snowfall before,” you explain. “The snowflakes are so fat,” you chuckle as he comes to rest a hand on your lower back, peeking through the window over your shoulder at the snow dancing in the wind.

“Mhm, it’s nice.” He still doesn’t get it. “Go get ready. There’s more wood coming in a bit,” he dismisses with a gentle kiss to your cheek, dense beard poking into the plush skin.

He goes to the bedroom. You should follow, but you keep watching the snow.

In the moment, you don’t realize that while this is your first snowfall, it’s probably Logan’s last.

━━━━

The man who brings the firewood is also the one who’s been “looking after” the cabin for Logan.

They’ve known each other for years, decades, and the man has been doing monthly check-in’s despite Logan not even being in the country.

Logan muttered something about cage fighting, explaining how he knows the man and the bar he owns in town.

You make a face, one filled with curiosity and confusion. “Cage fighting?”

“It was a long time ago,” he defends, tossing the last logs onto the now vast pile in the living room. You now understand why the room is as big as it is.

“Still keeping secrets, huh?” You joke, wiping your hands on your sweater.

A new fire burns strong in the chimney, preparing the cabin for the wind storm that’s meant to hit in a few hours.

“It’s not important.” Logan unbuttons his flannel—today it’s a dark red one; truly Canadian—and strips to his white tank-top underneath. 

It’s almost jarring to see him in anything other than a white dress shirt and blazer.

He throws the flannel on the back of the couch, overheated from the fire and throwing logs. A vicious cough catches in his throat for an exhale or two before it finds its way out.

“You okay?” You ask calmly, walking up to him and rubbing a hand up and down his bicep. His skin clammy and damp from sweat.

“I’m fine.” Another aggressive cough. “I’m fine,” he emphasizes, mostly to reassure himself.

You both know he’s not okay. That’s why you’re here, after all. But you can’t stop yourself from asking.

━━━━

The wind storm knocked out the power.

The raging fire will probably be your only source of light for the rest of the night and into the morning.  

So, without power, there’s not much to do. But, you and Logan sit on the floor with him resting against the front of the couch. You sit between his legs, feeling the heat of him on your back while you watch his arms reach over and around you to set various sized coins on the coffee table to entertain—and educate, as he would say—you.

“That one’s so big,” you point out, reaching for the gold coin. 

Logan wants to make a joke so badly, but he settles for a small smile at what little he can see of your perplexed expression from the side, resting his chin on your shoulder every couple minutes and occasionally pressing little kisses to your neck and jaw just to remind himself you’re actually here.

You pick up the gold coin and turn it over in between your fingers, watching it shine in the firelight. 

The bird on the face of the coin is unfamiliar, and it’s dated “2000” on the back below the Queen’s face. 

“It’s a loon,” Logan clarifies. “One dollar.”

“It’s pretty.” 

“We call it a ‘loonie’,” he explains, “and this is a toonie.” He picks up the other large coin, one that’s silver with a gold center. 

You take it from him. “A polar bear?” You observe the face of the coin. “There’s polar bears in Canada?” You turn your attention to him, nose almost grazing his.

“You…didn’t know that?”

“Why would I know that?” 

Logan chuckles, snaking an arm around your waist. “Well. It’s where most of the population lives,” he defends, his hazel eyes almost looking as confused as yours.

“Good to know,” you mutter, placing the coin back on the table.

He shakes his head. “Quarter, nickel, penny, dime.” Logan identifies the rest of the coins for you, pointing to each from biggest to smallest.

“The dimes are cute.” You push the thin, silver coin around on the table.

His tattered wallet sits on the corner by your arm, and something peeks out from the bill slot that you paid no mind to before. 

“You have Canadian bills?” You ask as you pinch the thing between your thumb and forefinger, snatching it before he could answer or stop you.

You unfold the worn thing with ease, holding it with both hands and expecting to see a historic figure or a bold number printed somewhere, but there’s neither.

The paper is a little thicker than a bank note yet it’s almost the same size, but it has Logan with a young girl plastered on it in black and white.

An old photo, folded up and kept in his wallet as a reminder of something, or someone.

“Who’s that?” You question, analyzing the picture with a seizing heart.

Logan doesn’t answer right away, but he doesn’t move to take the picture from your hands. 

It’s him, decades younger, giving the young girl a piggyback. An uncharacteristic smile on his face that you’ve never seen before while the girl peeks her head out beside his for the photo. 

“Marie. She was a kid I, uh, helped, I guess.” The deep timbre of his voice is enough to tell you that he’s suddenly forlorn. “One of Charles��� students.”

“You’re so…young,” you consider quietly, eyes filling with adoration and fondness at the boyish Wolverine in your hand. 

You never knew what Logan looked like in his younger years, and it never occurred to you to be curious about that. You’ve grown so used to your Logan that nothing before all this mattered much to you.

Still, there was someone else who got to experience the younger, more spirited version of Logan that only exists in pictures now, and you long to have been that lucky someone just to be able to have had more time with him. 

But this is your Logan; scarred, aching, dying. This Logan was meant to be yours. 

The Logan that stares at you from the wrinkled picture is barely recognizable against the one behind you, yet he’s still somehow the same. It’s like seeing a ghost after saying you don’t believe in them: you don’t really know how to explain it.

“And your hair is…” You squint at the photo, as if that will help you to find the right word to describe the quaffed points peaking from his head.

“Fucking ridiculous?” He finishes. 

You laugh. “Well, I was maybe gonna say majestic. Or even sublime,” you correct. 

The photo is creased along the edges and down the middle from being continuously opened and refolded, and you wonder how old it is—if it’s older than you.

“Yeah, well, that was a long time ago,” he exhales, stealing the photo from your fingers and folding it back up, making sure to bury it completely back in the wallet this time.

“Where is she now?” You know you shouldn’t ask but the curiosity is clawing at you. What you know of Logan’s past is extremely limited, but there’s a reason for that. You’re hoping he can at least give you this.

Logan’s shoulders grow taut. He debates lying, but he doesn’t. “Dead.”

━━━━

“Logan?”

No answer.

“Logan,” you say more firmly.

No answer.

“James,” you throw at him, watching his head quirk to meet your voice. 

“What?” He barks, quickly averting his attention back to whatever holds his attention in his lap.

You hesitate in the bedroom doorway, afraid of what you might see if you take another step, but you already know what it’s going to be. It was only a matter of time before Logan fell back into himself.

Logan sits on the creaky, old bed with his back to you, a tremble in his shoulders that no one else besides you would notice. He hates that you notice.

You lightly tiptoe around the bed and drop into a squat between his legs, resting a hand on his knee.

Three adamantium claws occupy the space between you, blood slowly dripping from his knuckles and staining the wood floor. His eyes stay on the claws, but you keep your gaze on his face anyway.

His fist shakes, either from the pain of pulling his claws out or the atrophying muscles.

“There’s no reason to keep doing that…that’s not what we came here for,” you gently scold, watching him take a shaky breath while you try to control your own.

You came here to escape the pain, even if you’ll inevitably face something far worse down the road.

He does this when he feels helpless. You don’t know what it achieves, but he seems to believe it does something other than marring his skin even more and making his forearm burn with white-hot pain from metal sliding against his aged tendons and ligaments.

“Put them away. Please,” you encourage, squeezing his knee comfortingly.

Logan closes his eyes. He doesn’t nod or say anything as the claws retract back into his skin, albeit at a snails pace. You worry that one day they’ll just get stuck in or out forever.

You can’t influence his body to physically repair itself or heal faster—you can only provide a barrier to the pain while it subsides on its own.

You stand, hand reaching for his temple to whisper the magic word like always, but Logan’s bloodied fingers wrap around your wrist.

His eyes finally meet yours. “No. Leave it,” he dismisses, sliding his hand up into yours and smearing the warm blood between your joined palms and linked fingers.

It’s futile to argue against him, so you let him have this; the pain he hasn’t been able to shake for years, the pain you can’t entirely stifle and fade, the pain he would never wish upon anyone, the pain he will only escape in death.

━━━━

“I can let you go,” you cry softly. 

He presses a gentle kiss to your forehead, letting his lips linger when he feels your hot tears fall against his bare chest one after the other. 

It’s one of those mornings—where everything just hits you out of nowhere. One of those times where reality has set in. 

Logan doesn’t say anything because he knows there’s nothing he can say to comfort you. He will die. And nothing can change that.

You lie on him, your cheek to the middle of his chest, unable to stop the silent, persistent tears.

The rickety bed, in fact, holds both of you, and a soft cotton blanket does little to save you from the frigid morning air that has snuck into the cabin yet again.

“I can’t do it,” you whimper quietly, shaking your head against him. “I can’t.”

He wraps both arms around you tightly, squeezing around your shoulders so snuggly that your lips form one of those sad, downturned smiles you make when you’re overwhelmed—happy or sad. 

“We don’t really have a choice, baby,” he mutters against your head. 

A gentle finger traces along the textured, angry scars over his bicep. There’s one that’s older, almost entirely white from the trauma to the skin. A small, round one sits directly above it—most likely from a bullet—and you know it’s more recent from how raised and pink it is.

It feels wrong to have Logan comforting you over his death when it’s him who will be the one dying, but he hasn’t shown any panic or sadness over it.

He’s ready to die. For some reason, that hurts you more.

Maybe he will make it long enough to see the first flowers of spring; those that are strong enough to brave the Canadian frost. 

Maybe, somehow, he will get better. Heal himself from the inside out. 

Maybe he won’t end up buried underneath the birch trees.

━━━━

You both barely left the bed today.

You let each other mourn, and Logan didn’t protest. He let you take the time to process what you were feeling. It felt good for him, too.

He reluctantly had to get out of bed to stoke the fire a few times, and now he’s gone to do so again before you call it a night. An early night. You’re worn out. From crying, from feeling, from everything.

The wind has picked up again, howling and whipping harshly against the cabin. It’s supposed to snow in a few hours, but you don’t feel excited for it like you did a few days ago.

“That should burn all night,” Logan says as he comes back in the room.

You shuffle over on the bed for him. You don’t really fit, but you make it work by half-lying on each other. Either your upper body lays on his chest or his upper body has you almost tucked underneath him while he spoons you.

“Thank you,” you murmur with your eyes already closed, ready to forget about today.

The bed frame groans as Logan shuffles in beside you, slipping an arm around your midsection to pull you to tight against him. 

Despite the cold, and the fact that you both should definitely be wearing fleece pyjamas or something, you’re both almost entirely bare. It’s just habit. You usually opt to wear one of his tank tops while he just keeps his briefs. It’s familiar. It’s comforting. The skin-to-skin reminds you both that you’re real.

Tonight, however, you chose his white t-shirt. As if that will do you any better. Logan runs fairly hot on his own, so you ultimately trust him to keep you warm either way.

He nestles into you, curling his body around yours. He slots a leg between your own and situates you so that your ass is pressed against his front. You know it doesn’t mean what you think it does, but you can’t help yourself from jokingly wiggling back and forth against him a few times just for fun—just to lighten the solemn mood.

Logan kisses your shoulder, the hand around your midsection squeezing the flesh of your stomach through the shirt affectionately while pushing you tighter against him. 

“Yeah, yeah. Get some sleep,” he dismisses. He knows you’re just fucking with him.

You giggle quietly, interlacing your fingers with the ones he has against your stomach and turning to look over your shoulder at him. “Love you.”

His face softens. “Love you.” 

You pucker your lips dramatically. He gives you an eager kiss, placing small pecks gently down along your cheek and jaw when you break away to smile. 

Logan will never deny you of his attention when you ask for it. 

━━━━

Something pushes you out of a heavy sleep. You figure it was maybe the wind or a dream, but you feel it again. Something literally pushes you.

You blink a few times, trying to wake yourself up. Logan’s arm is still thrown around you, but it’s now fallen down over your hip. The weight of it keeps you in place.

Another push. 

Logan’s hips shove against your ass. You furrow your brows. 

You know he’s sleeping without needing to look or ask, so what the fuck is he doing—

A more delicate thrust rolls against you this time, then you realize. “Oh, Jesus Christ,” you sigh.

“Logan.” You poke his thigh. No response.

“Logan,” you growl, reaching back and pushing a hand against his firm stomach to shake him a bit.

A series of grunts and groans are his response. He pulls back from you a little, hand tightening against your hip.

“Mm. What?” He mumbles, eyes still closed.

“Stop trying to fuck me in your sleep,” you hiss through a breath, repositioning yourself against him.

“I’m not,” he says, nuzzling up to your back and ass again, half-asleep.

You roll your eyes even though he can’t see it. “Yes, you are,” you counter.

It’s probably just some sex dream that got him a little too excited. The thought makes you smile. 

It has, in fact, been longer than usual since you’ve fucked, the last time being in the truck when you pulled over at a rest stop in Montana, and you wonder if he’s starting to feel the effects of that. 

By the time you reached Montana, you were both antsy and restless. The days, and even nights, were naturally spent just sitting in the truck for hours on end with nothing to do—no way to stimulate or tire your bodies.

The final night in the state was the breaking point. You had unburned, pent-up energy and cramping muscles that needed to be worn out if you wanted to survive the last day on the road before you got to the border.

So you pulled over and fucked in the passenger seat. 

Logan let you bounce on his cock until the lactic acid in your thighs made you cry out in pain and you physically couldn’t ride him anymore.

He made you drag it out—for both of your sakes. He wanted your hearts to pump hard and your lungs to sting with each inhale. He wanted your bodies to be fucked into a state of relaxation afterwards.

So, he didn’t help you ride him like he usually does. He didn’t help guide you by your hips up and down his cock. He let you do it all by yourself while he licked and sucked over your collarbones and teased your clit with his fingers.

You both came hard, laughing at the fogged-up windows while cleaning yourselves up with those rough, brown napkins everyone has in their glove compartment for some reason.

Then you continued on, satisfied.

All of this has kind of thrown off your sense of normality. Sex went with that. It’s hard to be horny when you’re sad all the time.

You suppose you don’t need to wonder if he’s feeling the effects of no sex because you’re feeling them for him; his hard cock rests in his briefs against your ass, and you debate doing something you know you’re gonna do anyway.

Just like earlier, you circle your ass over him lightly, hopefully just enough for some payback for waking you up. You assume he’ll tell you to knock it off.

“Baby,” he mutters against the back of your neck tiredly, and you can tell he’s in need of a release.

You smirk. “Hm?” You rub harder over him.

He subtly joins in with your movements, rocking in time with you. His cock feels warm and heavy against your ass.

“Good dream?” You ask, a smile evident in your voice. 

Logan grabs at the meat of your thigh, measuring his thrusts. “It’s…been a while,” he deflects, but you know that just means he’s in need of an orgasm.

“I know. I’m sorry,” you apologize, swallowing a gasp as he ruts harder. 

“Not your fault,” he breathes, too preoccupied with kissing your neck softly. His beard tickles you, grazing against the slope of your neck with each kiss he drags over it.

His broad, warm chest keeps you from drifting off too far. Your cunt pulses and aches from the tease of his cock, undoubtedly soaking your underwear as he rubs along the space that’s just shy of your cunt. This is somehow more erotic than if he was actually fucking himself over your pussy between your thighs.

The bed creaks with his shifting weight, filling the silence in the room as the wind still beats against the cabin.

It’s never mindless, chaotic sex with Logan. Technically, this isn’t even sex. 

He always gave you an appropriate fucking. Not too much, not too little. It was always just exactly what you both needed at the time of doing it. This feels no different.

You can feel your underwear sticking to you—it no longer slides with his desperate movements. You’d be content with finishing whatever way Logan wants. These days, you take what you can get.

“Too tired.” For sex, he means. “Just wanna feel you.” He caresses his hand along your thigh appreciatively. 

You grab his wandering hand. “That’s okay,” you soothe.

His hips have slowed to a gentle rock, intent on taking a bit of the edge off without wanting to fully commit to chasing an orgasm and needing a clean-up. 

Logan isn’t really one to drop everything for sex. Maybe he was like that at some point, but that’s not who he is now. 

He’ll gladly blue-ball himself for some sleep. He knows you’re not going anywhere.

You let him feel you up for a bit, and his movements stop altogether after a few gropes to your chest and thighs—purposefully avoiding anything directly below your bellybutton. 

He rests behind you tightly, pelvis somehow closer than before. You still throb a little, but the warmth from Logan gradually pulls you back to a state of exhaustion.  

━━━━

It’s never been lost on you that you are the only one to have experienced a full, complete relationship with Logan. 

You didn’t die, or get killed. You didn’t leave him or grow old. You are the only one to have this moment. The seemingly immortal Wolverine has someone at the end of his life when he thought he never would. 

He never expected to be the one to go first. It was always the other way around. That’s how it was always supposed to be. 

Yet, there is a spot slowly thawing for him underneath the white birch trees.

here’s the photo reader pulled out of logan’s wallet <3

[animatewarriorcats]

Redwillow! First listed in the eclipse allegiances with Whitewater as his mentor. He has some appearances in the first few omen of the stars books, but mostly is a generic background character. By Night Whispers however he is in my opinion characterized as a seasoned warrior, even though he is very new to the books. He is put in charge of leading a boarder patrol, and is seen after the battle of the border covered in wounds. Later in the book however he is part of the group that plays on the frozen lake, skidding across the surface on his belly. I love this segment because he is mentioned alongside senior warriors Crowfrost and Ratscar who yowl in amusement at his antics.

There is some of what I'm going to call fan interpretation of Redwillow that he is a loner in Shadowclan, but in the books his moderate regard by his own leader and senior warriors suggests to me instead that he was well liked, and integrated into the clan, even though it's never established who his kin is. That's why to me he becomes an example later on of a cat who's ambition is used to radicalize him to the Dark Forest. He doesn't start out a traitor to Shadowclan, on the contrary Redwillow spends his time in the dark forest close to his living clanmates. It isn't until the Forgotten Warrior that Ivypool points out Redwillow specifically multiple times when she's looking for cats that may have loyalties outside their clans. He never says anything to that point, rather his body language and exchanged glances are what makes her think so. Within the Last hope he makes several remarks in the Dark Forest about becoming the best warrior he can be, and that training in the Dark Forest makes training with Shadowclan feel like working with kittypets. Ivypool confronts him in a conversation with Hollowflight asking if he would let his weaker Clanmates die and he says "O-of course not" just that they had a lot to learn from the Dark Forest Warriors. Even with that I remember finding his final moments in the Last Hope a departure from his character, where he declares the Dark Forest his new clan, and that Blackstar's time is over.

Idk I just wanted more out of the radicalization of the clan cats while it was happening. I guess as someone who grew up with the internet I'm not a stranger to what anarchy and rebellion look like behind closed doors and personally felt that the concept of being isolated in a toxic in group extremely interesting, I found the the non-committal conversations of the dark forest trainees to be much more innocent than the showy posturing of competitive vitriol I've known such spaces to inspire. The fact that Redwillow and Breezepelt at the end of the battle were the only two warriors we know by name that sided with the Dark Forest to the end seems like such an underestimate to me. All I'm saying is that while I do love Redwillow for being an example of this, Clan cat rebellion to the Dark Forest could have been much more catastrophic than it was, and especially for the amount of plot and hype that it was given in universe. Add to all that the possible reading of Redwillow as a transmasc character that is radicalized into toxic masculinity and I want it to be known that i do love this character, but that most of that love comes from meta analysis and not from the text itself. He shouldn't have died twice in the Broken Code because truthfully he just didn't deserve it.

[unconventional-lawnchair]

It Repeats Itself

Platonic! Remus x Werewolf! Reader

Summary: Even years after the war the effects of Voldemort's reign still had waves of effects. One just so happened to have a poor girl caught in the cross fire. (This is more of a concept then a fleshed out story-a little cliche)

WC: 3.7k

CW: Death, blood, werewolf attack, break in, severally injured kid (the reader), parent death, Remus calls the reader Star, this is an intense blurb I would very much recommend making sure you are in the right headspace for it.

The forest was eerily quiet as Remus and Sirius made their way up the narrow dirt path, the trees casting long shadows in the dim afternoon light. The scent of rain lingered in the air, mingling with something far more sinister- blood. It was faint, but unmistakable.

“Something’s not right,” Remus muttered, his grip tightening on his wand.

Sirius adjusted his leather jacket, a grim expression darkening his face. “You think Greyback’s been through here?”

“Has to be,” Remus replied. “It’s his signature, isn’t it? Isolated homes, far from help, and-” He paused, catching a stronger whiff of blood on the breeze.

“And families,” Sirius finished grimly, his voice edged with disgust.

The cottage came into view, nestled in a clearing like a forgotten relic. Its once-pristine exterior was scarred with claw marks, the front door hanging askew on its hinges.

“Let me guess,” Sirius said dryly, gesturing to the faint family crest above the door- a pair of intertwined serpents engraved in silver. “Purebloods. Old family, by the looks of it.”

“Ardent supporters of the old ways,” Remus said, his tone bitter. He remembered their names now: a husband and wife who’d made their opinions of “tainted blood” abundantly clear at Ministry functions. They’d scoffed at Muggleborns, sneered at anyone less than pure, and gone out of their way to avoid creatures like him. Moved away to avoid creatures like this.

Sirius snorted humorlessly. “Imagine the irony. Spent their whole lives preaching about blood purity, and now look- Greyback probably didn’t even spare them a second thought. Werewolves aren’t picky about their prey, are they?”

Remus shot him a sharp look but didn’t respond, his mind too focused on the task ahead. It wasn’t the time for old grievances, no matter how tempting it was to dwell on it.

“They’re still victims,” Remus said quietly, more to himself than to Sirius.

Sirius sighed. “Yeah. Even if they’d have called us both abominations.”

They stepped onto the porch, the wooden boards creaking beneath their weight. The door groaned as Sirius pushed it open, revealing a scene of chaos. Furniture lay overturned, claw marks marred the walls, and blood spattered the floor in dark, sticky pools.

“Merlin,” Sirius whispered, his voice hollow. “He really did a number on this place.”

Remus moved carefully through the cottage, his wand casting a soft glow in the dim morning light that filtered through the broken windows. The scent of blood grew stronger with each step, mingling with the acrid tang of fear and violence. His chest tightened as he pushed open the door to the sitting room.

There, crumpled together like broken dolls, were the bodies of the couple. Their once-elegant robes were soaked through with dark, congealing blood, their faces frozen in expressions of terror. Claw marks shredded their clothing and the carpet beneath them, and it was clear they’d fought to the bitter end.

Remus stared for a long moment, his jaw clenching as his grip on his wand tightened. These were the same people who would have turned their noses up at him at Ministry gatherings, who would have crossed the street to avoid being near him. And yet, he felt no satisfaction in their deaths. Only a hollow ache.

“They didn’t deserve this,” He murmured to the empty room, his voice heavy with sorrow.

“Remus!” Sirius’s voice cut through the silence, sharp but low, barely above a whisper.

Remus spun around, his heart pounding. There was an urgency in Sirius’s tone that set him on edge. He quickly made his way back down the hallway, past the overturned furniture and shattered glass, following the sound of Sirius’s voice.

“Sirius?” He called, his voice equally low.

“Here,” Sirius hissed from a room at the back of the house.

The room was a bedroom- small, with faded wallpaper of enchanted stars that still flickered faintly despite the destruction. It was clearly a child’s room, but like the rest of the house, it was a wreck. The bed was overturned, sheets torn and spattered with blood. Broken toys and shattered picture frames littered the floor.

Remus’s stomach churned as he stepped inside. They weren't told a child stayed here. The air was thick, suffocating, and the coppery scent of blood was overwhelming here. Sirius stood near the wardrobe, his expression grim as he gestured silently to the floor.

Remus followed his gaze and felt acid rise in his throat. A thin trail of blood, smeared and uneven, led from the bed to the wardrobe. Tiny handprints streaked the floor, desperate and frantic.

“They dragged themselves,” Sirius said quietly, his voice unusually subdued. “From the bed to here.”

Remus swallowed hard, his grip on his wand tightening. He knelt slowly, the bile in his throat threatening to rise as he stared at the wardrobe door. It was closed, but faint scratches marred its surface, as if small fingers had clawed at it from the inside.

“Greyback doesn't spare anyone,” Sirius muttered bitterly, though there was a flicker of something in his voice- hope, maybe, that he was wrong.

Remus reached out, his hand trembling slightly as he placed it on the wardrobe’s handle. The scent of blood and fear was stronger here, mingling with something else- something faint but unmistakable: life.

“She’s in there,” Remus said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Sirius nodded, his wand ready but pointed away. “Go slow. Don’t scare her.”

Remus inhaled deeply, steadying himself before gently pulling the wardrobe door open.

Inside, huddled in the corner amidst a pile of torn blankets and broken toys, was a little girl. Her knees were pulled tightly to her chest, her small hands clutching at her side where a bloodied piece of fabric had been tied haphazardly. Her wide, tear-filled eyes locked onto Remus, and her lips trembled as she held up a tiny shard of glass in a shaking hand.

“Stay back!” She hissed, her voice hoarse and weak but filled with a fierce, trembling determination. “I’ll hurt you!”

Remus froze, his heart breaking at the sight of her. Her face was pale, smudged with dirt and blood, and her breaths came in shallow, uneven gasps. She was small, fragile, but there was a fire in her eyes that reminded him all too much of himself at that age- terrified, cornered, and desperate to fight back. He felt guilty as he felt relief. Seeing an injured child was far better then the alternative.

“Hey,” he said softly, lowering his wand and holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Sirius crouched beside him, his expression unusually gentle. “We’re here to help, little one,” he said, his voice quieter than Remus had ever heard it. “You’re safe now.”

The girl’s lips quivered, but she pressed herself further into the corner, clutching the shard of glass tighter. It nicked her skin and she hissed, dropping it. She watched in horror as her last line of defense was shattered into unmanageable sizes. The second she reached for it Remus held his hands up and she flinched back.

Sirius clicked his tongue, shaking his head as he glanced at Remus. “You’re scaring her, mate,” he said under his breath, his tone somewhere between teasing and concerned.

Remus sighed, lowering his hands slowly. “I’m not trying to,” he murmured, his eyes never leaving the girl. “But that glass could hurt you,” he said softly, addressing her directly. “I don’t want you to get hurt more than you already are.”

The girl’s lips trembled, and her wide, tear-streaked eyes darted between the two men. She clutched her side tighter, wincing as the movement sent another wave of pain through her small frame. Her hands, now empty of the glass shard, trembled in her lap as she pressed herself further into the corner of the wardrobe.

“Okay,” Remus said, his voice steady but gentle. “I’ll make you a deal.” He carefully removed his wand from his pocket, holding it delicately between two fingers as though it were something fragile. “This is my wand. It’s very important to me. I’ll give it to you- just so you know I won’t hurt you. Does that sound fair?”

The girl frowned, clearly confused, but her gaze flickered to the wand. Her lips parted as if to ask a question, but she quickly clamped them shut, her small body still shaking.

“It’s yours for now,” Remus said, placing the wand gently on the floor and nudging it toward her. “Just until you feel safe.”

Sirius raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. Instead, he stood, brushing the dust off his knees. “I’ll give you two a minute,” he muttered, stepping back toward the door. “I’m going to send a Patronus to Lily. Let her know we need help.”

Remus nodded without looking up, his focus still on the girl.

She hesitated for a long moment, her small hands twitching toward the wand before quickly pulling back, as if afraid it might bite. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she reached out and snatched it, clutching it tightly in her lap like a lifeline.

“There,” Remus said with a soft smile. “See? You’re in charge now.”

The girl stared at him, her tiny fingers gripping the wand so tightly her knuckles turned white. She still didn’t speak, her wide eyes filled with suspicion and fear.

“What’s your name?” Remus asked gently, sitting cross-legged on the floor to appear less intimidating.

She shook her head, her lips pressing into a firm line. “I’m not allowed to talk to strangers,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

Remus’s heart twisted, but he nodded slowly, respecting her caution. “That’s very smart,” he said. “You’re absolutely right. I am a stranger. How about this- can I give you a nickname? Something just for now, until you feel safe enough to tell me your real name?”

The girl hesitated, her small brow furrowing. After a moment, she gave the faintest of nods.

“Alright,” Remus said, his voice warm and steady. “How about… Star? You have stars on your wallpaper,” he gestured gently toward the flickering patterns on the walls, “and I think it suits you.”

Her lips quirked upward ever so slightly, though it disappeared almost as quickly as it came. “Star?” she repeated, her voice soft and unsure.

“Star,” Remus confirmed with a small smile. “Do you like it?”

The girl gave a tiny nod, her grip on the wand loosening just a fraction. “It’s… okay,” she said quietly, her voice trembling less than before.

“Okay is good,” Remus replied, his heart lifting just a little. “Okay is a start.”

Behind him, Sirius’s voice echoed faintly from the hallway as he sent his Patronus, its silvery light spilling into the room for just a moment before fading. Remus turned back to Star, his gentle smile never faltering.

“We’re going to take care of you, Star,” he said softly. “I promise. You’re not alone anymore.”

Star didn’t reply, but the way she held the wand a little closer to her chest and let out a shaky breath told him enough. It was a step- a small one, but a step all the same.

~~~

The trek back to Grimmauld Place was tense and quiet. Star clung to Remus like her life depended on it, her tiny fingers gripping his robes tightly as though letting go would mean being left behind. She had refused to let go of his wand, holding it protectively against her chest as her small frame shuddered against him.

Sirius walked ahead, his posture rigid as he cast wary glances over his shoulder, keeping a sharp eye out for any lingering danger. He didn’t speak much, only murmuring the occasional reassurance when Star flinched at a sound in the forest or the rustle of the wind.

When they finally stepped through the front door of Grimmauld Place, Star’s wide, frightened eyes darted around the dim hallway, her grip on Remus tightening even more.

“It’s okay,” Remus whispered to her, his voice soft and soothing. “You’re safe here, I promise.”

Lily and Regulus were waiting in the kitchen, their faces pale but determined. The moment they saw Star in Remus’s arms, their expressions shifted- Lily’s to one of heartbreak, and Regulus’s to quiet resolve.

“Merlin, she’s so small,” Lily murmured, stepping closer. Her gaze flickered to the bloodied fabric at Star’s side, and her lips pressed into a firm line. “She needs healing, Remus. That wound-”

“I know,” Remus interrupted gently, his voice steady but laced with tension. “But it’s going to take some coaxing.”

He crouched down, keeping Star close as he met her wary gaze. “Star, this is my friend Lily,” he said softly, gesturing to the red-haired woman with a warm smile. “She’s very kind, and she’s going to help you feel better. And that’s Regulus- he’s nice too, though he might look a bit scary at first.”

Regulus huffed quietly, but the corner of his mouth twitched in the faintest hint of a smile.

Star’s grip on Remus didn’t ease, her body trembling as her gaze darted between the strangers.

“I’ll stay right here,” Remus promised. “And you can hold onto my wand the whole time. But Lily needs to look at your side, okay? It’ll hurt less after she’s done.”

After a long, agonizing moment, Star gave the smallest of nods, though her grip on Remus’s robes remained firm. Lily approached carefully, her movements slow and deliberate, while Regulus prepared potions and bandages in the background.

It took time and quiet reassurances, but eventually, they managed to ease Star away from Remus long enough for Lily and Regulus to tend to her wound. The moment they were done, Star returned to Remus’s side, clutching his wand once more and burying her face against his chest.

~~~

The house had quieted as you finally fell asleep, tucked safely in one of the upstairs rooms. Remus sat at the kitchen table, his head resting in his hands, exhaustion etched into every line of his face. Sirius leaned against the counter, his arms crossed, while Lily and Regulus sat across from Remus, their expressions heavy with concern.

“She wouldn’t let me leave,” Remus said softly, his voice barely audible. “Even for a second. I had to let her take my wand just to get her to let Lily near her.”

“She trusts you,” Lily said gently. “It’s a good thing, Remus. You made her feel safe.”

“But for how long?” Remus asked, his voice thick with frustration. “We can’t just take her to an orphanage, or the Ministry. Not if she’s been bitten.”

Before Lily could continue, the door to the kitchen creaked open. Everyone shifted to watch as James entered, holding a crying Harry’s hand.

The kitchen fell silent as the door creaked open. Harry’s soft sniffles broke the quiet as he toddled in, his tiny hand clutching James’s finger tightly. His face was red and tear-streaked, his little shoulders shaking from the remnants of a tantrum.

“Sorry to interrupt,” James said, his voice hushed but wry. “Someone decided he didn’t want to stay asleep after Lily and Reg went rushing out in the middle of the night.” He gently steered Harry toward Lily, who immediately stood to scoop him into her arms.

“Oh, my sweet boy,” Lily cooed, pressing a kiss to Harry’s damp cheek as he buried his face in her shoulder. “Did we wake you? I’m so sorry, love.”

James stepped forward, his hand brushing affectionately against Regulus’s back as he leaned in to kiss him softly on the temple. Then he turned to Lily, pressing a quick kiss to her lips before settling himself against the counter beside Sirius.

His sharp eyes scanned the room, noticing the tension lingering like a storm cloud. His smile faded slightly. “Alright,” he said, folding his arms. “What’s going on? You all look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Sirius let out a short laugh, but there was no humor in it. “Not a ghost, exactly,” he said, glancing toward Remus, who sat stiffly at the table. “But close.”

James frowned, his gaze narrowing. “Remus?”

Remus sighed, lifting his head from his hands. The exhaustion etched into his face was now accompanied by a deep sadness. “We found a child,” he said softly, his voice strained. “At the cottage Greyback attacked.”

James’s frown deepened, and he straightened up. “A child? Are they alright?”

“She’s alive,” Lily interjected gently, rocking Harry in her arms as she spoke. “But she’s hurt. And… it looks like she’s been bitten.”

James’s face hardened, his jaw clenching as he processed her words. “Bloody hell,” He muttered. “Greyback?”

Remus nodded, his hands gripping the edge of the table tightly. “She’s four,” he said quietly, his voice trembling just slightly. “Same age I was when…” He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.

James swore under his breath, running a hand through his messy hair. “And what happens now?” he asked, his tone more subdued. “We can’t exactly hand her over to the Ministry, can we?”

“No,” Remus said firmly, his voice gaining a little strength. “We’re not handing her over to anyone. Not to the Ministry, and definitely not to some orphanage. If she’s been bitten, we all know what they’ll do to her.”

“They’ll treat her like a monster,” Regulus said quietly, his voice cold and sharp. “Lock her away, or worse.”

James nodded grimly. “Alright, so we keep her here,” he said, glancing around the room. “She’ll be safe with us.”

“And then what?” Sirius asked, his tone more serious than usual. “We can keep her safe for now, but she’s a child, Prongs. A scared, bitten child. This isn’t just a temporary fix.”

“Then we’ll find her something permanent,” Remus said, his voice unwavering. He looked around at the group, his gaze steady and determined. “She doesn’t have anyone else. I’ll take care of her. I’ll make sure she’s safe until we find an alternative.”

Lily’s eyes softened as she looked at Remus. Their eyes had a silent exchange- clear worry etched into every expression. “You’re sure?” She asked gently.

“I'm sure,” Remus replied, his voice resolute. “I’m not letting her go through what I did. Not alone. You saw how she was.. she doesn't want anyone near her.”

James nodded, clapping a hand on Remus’s shoulder. “Then we’ll help you,” he said firmly. “Whatever you need, Moony. We’re in this together.”

The sudden sound of shuffling and muffled sobbing broke through the tense quiet of Grimmauld Place, cutting through the conversation like a knife. It was faint but unmistakable, coming from upstairs where Star had been put to bed.

Everyone froze.

Lily’s eyes darted toward the staircase, and Regulus immediately stood, his wand already in hand. Sirius pushed off the counter, his usual confidence replaced with an edge of urgency. But it was Remus who moved first.

The moment Star’s frightened cry echoed down the stairs, it was as if a switch flipped inside him. His chair scraped back with a sharp screech, and before anyone could react, he was out of the kitchen, taking the stairs two at a time. His instincts roared louder than his thoughts, Moony taking over as his protective instincts surged.

“Remus!” James called after him, already moving to follow, but Sirius stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Let him,” Sirius muttered, his voice low but steady. “Just- give him a moment.”

~~~

Remus reached the small room where you had been resting, his heart hammering in his chest. The door was slightly ajar, the soft glow of the enchanted lamp spilling into the dark hallway. He could hear her whimpering now, her breaths hitching with each quiet sob.

He pushed the door open gently, stepping inside. You were huddled on the bed, your small frame trembling as you clutched his wand tightly to your chest. Your wide eyes darted toward him, filled with panic, and you let out a small, broken cry.

“Remus!” You whimpered, her voice cracking.

“I’m here,” He said softly, his voice steady despite the storm raging inside him. He crossed the room in a few quick strides and crouched beside the bed, keeping his movements slow and deliberate. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

Your small fingers tightened around his wand, her tiny knuckles turning white. You blinked up at him, her tears streaking through the grime on her face. “I-I thought you left,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “I thought you weren’t coming back.”

Remus felt his heart twist painfully at her words. He reached out slowly, placing his hand palm-up on the edge of the bed, giving her the choice to take it. “I’ll never do that,” he promised, his voice firm but gentle. “I’m right here, Star. Yeah?.”

You hesitated for a moment, her gaze flickering between his face and his hand. Then, slowly, you released your grip on the wand just enough to reach out and grab his hand with both of hers. Her small fingers clung to him desperately, as if letting go would make him disappear.

“You’re safe now,” Remus murmured, his other hand moving to gently brush the hair from her tear-streaked face. “Nothing will hurt you here. I won’t let it.”

You let out a shaky breath, your small frame still trembling as you leaned toward him. Without thinking, Remus lifted you into his arms, cradling you against his chest. You buried your face in his shoulder, your sobs quieting but not stopping entirely.

Behind him, the faint creak of footsteps signaled Sirius’s arrival. He lingered in the doorway, his expression unreadable as he watched Remus hold you. After a moment, he stepped inside, his movements uncharacteristically cautious.

“She okay?” Sirius asked quietly, his voice softer than usual.

Remus nodded, his hand gently rubbing Star’s back. “She thought we’d left her.”

Sirius’s jaw tightened, a flicker of something dangerous flashing in his eyes. “No one’s leaving her,” he said firmly. “Not now. Not ever.”

Your grip on Remus tightened at Sirius’s words, her small voice muffled against his shoulder. “Don’t go…”

Remus held her closer, his resolve hardening. “I’m not going anywhere, Star,” he said softly. “I promise.”

And in that moment, he knew- no matter what challenges lay ahead, no matter how difficult the road might be- he would do whatever it took to keep that promise. You weren't just a scared child they’d rescued. You were his. He knew it the moment he found you in that closet.

[makimacult]

what's the deal with this "love" thing anyways? — part one.

credit goes to @amoransia for bringing these panels to my attention! something fun about the demon lords is how foreign "love" is as a concept to them. mammon feels affection for his followers, and explicitly calls them his comrades. that "love" necessitates special treatment for them—he calls tachibana his friend and promises to protect her, yet by the very nature of what he embodies, inflicts violence on her. he is greed, antithesis of equality. and yet that same greediness which discriminates & does not treat one and all equally: is what makes it natural for him to treat tachibana as an exception.

the next demon lord introduced is leviathan. how can you love that which is not equal to you? her children idolise & isolate her. she is too powerful to engage in normal "play", everything she embraces or touches breaks. the final conclusion leviathan reaches after fighting priest is that she should go about the world as her true self—other people naturally will have expectations of her, but she can't let those expectations tie her down. "the strong must acknowledge that they are strong"—prescient & sad words from priest-kun, who has been forced to acknowledge his own strength and bear expectations because of it since he was far too young. but this is a world where heaven and hell are proven existences—the strong must realise that they are strong, and the church exists as humanity's answer to the existence of gehenna. but what kind of answer is it? & what exactly is the border between demons and humans?

and with that we come to beelzebub. like mammon, he too has his own strange code of honour. he makes leah eat her own baby brother, true, but he spares her when he massacres her whole village. he is sadistic in the way of a natural calamity—gluttony as the choice to take from others to feast yourself. gluttony embodies several things in beelzebub's arc. hunger for food, leah's hunger for revenge, imuri's hunger to be closer to priest, verge' & the witches hunger for a seat at the table (side note: it's interesting that verge is the witch of gluttony in particular. sugar, like salt, can be used as a preservative. verge accepts beelzebub's contract and is frozen at, or near, the age he was sexaully assaulted. forever ripe...)

so what does priest hunger for? well, beelzebub would very much like to know that himself! what he's shocked by is how much priest has been starved of all wants by everyone around him. the facets of him reflected through battles with mammon and leviathan are now starker—he is strong, he knows he is strong, he knows what is expected of him, and that knowledge (& the treatment he was put thru to gain that state of mind) has resulted in someone who does not really have a reason to live. protect others, defeat satan—these are all causes. leah is priest's foil in this arc, and it's no coincidence that we see her and barbara embraced by cardinal heisenberg at the end of the arc. she has her cause (revenge) too, but she has something stable to come back to, at the end of the day.

and who does priest have? dante (who puts the dead in deadbeat) and imuri, the first person who truly is in priest, the person; and not priest, the apostle of god's corner. [1]

the conclusion imuri reaches at the end of leviathan's arc is that it is possible for humans and demons to be together—if she has the courage to reach out and extend her hand. [2]

asmodeus' arc touches most significantly on mtefil's themes as a whole. love doesn't always save people—asmodeus and sara did love each other, but that love just caused pain for them. asmodeus and sarah parallel bel and onesta as another human-demon relationship: but where priest tells bel that he should've been honest with onesta, what rejoinder can he give asmodeus?

the conclusion which asmodeus draws after her fight with priest is that forcing herself onto sarah would've resulted in misery in the end. priest never even finds out what the root of asmodeus' issues are, even though love between a demon and a human, where the demon wants to free the human from suffering imposed on them by human society... is kind of exactly what imuri wants to do for priest?

where all the other demon lords reflect some facet of priest back, i'd argue that asmodeus is the demon lord who reflects imuri back!

let's circle back to imuri's conclusion at the end of leviathan's arc—that love is possible between humans and demons as long as you're willing to extend your hand ie understand each other (i have talked about the lust arc conclusion for imuri before). her understanding is still incomplete however—after all, she does admit in her text messages that love isn't a cure-all:

and with that, we come back to belphegor's arc; possibly some of the most unsubtle (i say this with affection) writing mtefil has showcased so far. bel is also curious about love and marriage—he makes an effort to put himself on an equal footing with humans. can't we draw a parallel between bel's bracelet and the child form leviathan uses to appear harmless?

if beelzebub is at one end of the spectrum, and leviathan on the other, then bel is firmly in the middle. before his climactic shonen manga arc fight with priest, he is nihilistic, uses women as a scapegoat, and blames onesta for all his grief and rage for luka. priest tells him he should've been honest from the beginning, and is partially correct—but bel and the demon lords, by virtue of what they are, cannot be honest or even engage with humanity as equals.

now, what does this say for priest? his coming of age happens simultaneously through his relationship with imuri, and his battles with the demon lords. i've seen that priest = lucifer is a popular theory, but personally i like the flip side: that priest is a human who finds humanity as alienating and incomprehensible as the demon lords do, and is ironically taught of humanity and love by a demon.

[1] / [2] see part 2

[sturniowhore]

I'm Sorry..

warnings: Angst, depression, suicidal thoughts, Chris x Reader, mentions of Y/n, established relationship

Proof read by: @chrisbratt333

Dividers by: @bernardsbendystraws

A/n: please don't read if this is triggering for you

In which, Y/n struggles with her mental health. What happens when the world feels too much for her?

The room was pitch black. Black out curtains were covering every ounce of light from coming into your bedroom. Complete darkness. The room was a mess, clothes scattered everywhere, from your desk chair to the floor, some are even hanging out of your dresser. It's been like this for weeks, you don't even remember the last time you've ever seen the floor. You didn't care about the mess though, you couldn't be bothered to pick it up, you didn't feel like you deserved a clean room. Honestly you didn't feel like you deserved anything. You lay still on the bed, the blanket covering only a part of your body, it fell off of you a while ago but you were too exhausted to pick it up. You see your phone buzz from the corner of your eye, it's been buzzing for hours no, days? The concept of time was a blur to you. Despite not wanting to, you grabbed your phone. It was Chris. You feel bad, you’ve left him on delivered for the past 4 days. You didn’t mean to, you really didn’t, it just happened. 

You didn’t deserve him. Any other guy would've left if they were on delivered for that long. Not Chris though. He was always there for you, even if you couldn’t be there for him. You wanted to reply but your fingers physically couldn’t- no, wouldn't  let you. It’s like you were stuck, frozen in time. 

Your arm went limp, phone dropping beside you. The screen went dark. The only source of light you had was gone. You were back in the darkness. All alone.

 You felt like a loser. Why couldn’t you get up? Why couldn’t you do normal things like everyone else? Why was it so hard for you? You felt like a bad person. 

You were isolated from the rest of the world, everyone else was having fun while you? Rotting in bed for who knows how long. Pathetic. You hated yourself. You hated the way you looked, The way your hair sat on your head, the way your voice sounded when you spoke, the way you walked, the way you sat, your personality. You wished you could’ve changed everything about yourself, but you couldn’t. And you hated it.

Sirens could be heard in the distance, they weren’t for you..not yet, at least.

Would anyone care if you were gone? Would your family cry? Would your friends show up to your funeral? Would your neighbors wonder why your house is for sale? Probably not. 

You felt so alone. Sure you had friends but you weren’t close to any of them, you were their second choice if their actual friends weren’t available. Always the second choice, never the first. Your boyfriend was the only exception. 

He cared for you like no other, you didn’t understand why. He deserved so much more than what you had to offer. He deserved a girl who could always hang out with him, a girl who’s always smiling and cheerful, a girl who’s room is always clean, a girl who isn’t lazy, a girl who isn't self conscious and insecure, a girl who doesn’t rot in bed and expect the pain to go away, The list could go on. Overall, Chris deserved a girl, who isn’t you. Sometimes you wondered if he was only with you out of pity.

You hated being alive. You wished you were never born. Life felt like it was against you. Nothing ever went your way, nothing even mattered. 

You didn’t know how to move on from this feeling, there was no way out. No matter how hard you tried you couldn’t move, you couldn’t feel. You wanted to cry, but there were no tears. It’s like your body gave up on you. You were numb. 

Buzz buzz 

Your phone that was beside you lit up, it was Chris, again.

Your heart dropped. You didn’t want him to see you in this state. He couldn’t see you like this. The world felt like it was crashing down on you, you couldn’t take it anymore.

You shut down your phone. You couldn’t bear to look at it. You lie on your back, staring up at the ceiling, thinking. Thinking of all the things that led up to this moment, thinking of all the choices you made, you regret most of them. You wonder what you could have done to make life different.

Your time was running out, you knew this, the universe knew it too. Each breath you took felt heavy. 

You look down at your phone, you wanted to call people, give them your last words. Maybe even record a video and send it to them. You wanted people to know that even if they didn’t care for you, you cared about them. You’d miss them once you were gone, but you weren’t sorry. For the first time in weeks you were finally happy, you were excited, you were at peace. 

Just as you were about to turn your phone on again, the door to your room opened. Chris.

“Y/n! Oh my god i was so worried about you, you weren’t picking up your phone, and you weren’t answering my texts, i didn’t know what was going on, i thought something bad happened to you i thought you–” He couldn’t finish his sentence and you knew why, you knew exactly what he was talking about. 

Before you could even process what was going on, he leaped in your arms. His neck was shoved in the crook of your neck, his arms were wrapped around you pulling you in a tight embrace. He was afraid if he’d let go you’d disappear. 

You felt tear drops on your shoulders. Chris’s sniffles were muffled by your shirt. “Please y/n.. Never scare me like that again..I don’t- i don’t know what i’d do without you” Your frozen in place, eyes wide, your breaths unsteady.

Your arms slowly hugged him back, at that moment you broke down. Your sobs echoed through the room. Your tears drenched Chris’s shirt, he didn’t care, he was so grateful that he found you alive nothing else mattered.

“I'm so so so sorry Chris, i didn’t mean to worry you, i just felt so horrible, everything felt so heavy, i felt so drained of everything, i didn’t feel like a real person, i felt so alone all the time and–” Your rambling was cut off by a hiccup. 

Chris cupped your face with both hands, “hey hey hey, it's okay. Everything okay, I'm here now, i'll always be here Y/n. We’ll get you help, we’ll start therapy, I'll even go with you if you don't want to do it alone, I'll be beside you every step of the way I promise.”

“I’m so sorry that you had to see me like this..” You look around at the environment, Your room was filthy. “And my room is a mess im sor–” Chris cut you off 

“Y/n stop apologizing, i don’t care about your room! I only care about you right now.” His blue eyes stared into your own, his eyes were glossed with tears threatening to fall “I love you. I always will, you mean the whole world to me Y/n. You might think that people don’t care, but I care. I think about you all the time. You mean the world to me Y/n. You're my everything. I need you here.” and he meant every word.

One of his hands went down to interlock with your own, the other still lingered on your cheek, brushing off stray tears with his thumbs. Chris leaned down to place a gentle kiss on your nose. He came back up and stared at you like you were the only thing that mattered in this world.

For the first time in years you finally felt like you belonged somewhere, you finally felt like you had a purpose, you finally felt loved.

[yoru-no-seiiki]

https://www.tumblr.com/yoru-no-seiiki/751614308271718400/hii-so-like-ive-been-starving-for-yandere-eren

def something w/ canon eren! but other than that you can could go as wild as u want! :p

god where do i start?? i’ll mostly write for early seasons eren since i refuse to watch the whole thing until i’m done with season one on my quotev book as a motivator but i’ll add some tidbits that i got from other fanfics. go check it (my book) out btw!! it’s called Walk With Me!! (currently on the next chapter which is around 10k words atm huhu)

as always he’s aged up to 18 during enlistment and massive spoilers for those that don’t know the lore/story yet.

MDNI. DDDNE!!

yandere! eren is a force of absolute willpower. he is obsessive, he is protective, and very much goddamn possessive. he needs you, he needs you to need him too if not moreso. he grew up in a very traditional household and expected to be the provider in the family. the least you could do is have him in your thoughts at all times.

if you want max yandere! potential with him, it’s best to have known him even before armin. be close family friends. maybe your parents worked with his dad since marley and were similarly banished (but not turned into mindless titans).

as children he’d always been protective of you. he’d always stick to you like glue. and because of future him’s influence over grisha and essentially your parents, you were arranged to even sleep in the same bed.

but this sort of backfired in the long run cause you saw him as this annoying brother figure that just wouldn’t stop bothering you.

and one day you just blurt out, tired of the suffocation you felt with your friend, with your parents that vehemently kept pushing you two together, of everything in your life that you couldn’t control.

“i wonder what it’s like beyond the walls.”

i feel like armin would still be the true trigger of eren’s obsession with the outside and freedom (after all, he doesn’t give a shit about yours so why and how would you influence him in that area?), but you probably pushed him in terms of the survey corps.

you were dumb at the time. i mean as a kid, who isn’t? so you announced to literally everyone you knew that you planned to join the military and eventually explore the outside world.

you didn’t really understand the concept of death and all but whatever that was, you still thought it would be better than eren’s basically isolating you from anything that moves.

you dont truly understand death until eren kills those intruders in mikasa’s house right in front of you.

you were supposed to help him, but only stood there frozen in fear.

thankfully mikasa awakened just in time, with eren shouting at her to save you.

speaking of mikasa, her true allegiance/ackerman blood thingy is still with eren in this fic but i headcannon that since his first command was to for her to fight for you she also has the same knee jerk reaction for whenever she perceives you’re being harmed.

in anycase, that day ™️ happens and you all start training.

it had already been obvious since you were teens but eren started looking at you from a different angle. the sexual kind.

your lack of contact with other people due to his influence had made you a bit of a pushover, as such he’d often coerce you into sex or other related acts.

i mean, you had to pity him! he never had the opportunity to explore and act on his urges. mans stayed a virgin til he enlisted and he’s pent up. you try to argue that it’s cause he was so hung up on revenge that he’s bitchless but that only leads to him questioning you if you’ve been seeing other people behind his back.

i mean you two were basically together, why would he see other people? don’t tell him that you’ve been … cheating on him? how could you!

so yeah he does the same thing to mikasa (the manipulation not the sex lol) and forces her to guard the two of you during your ‘trysts’ (which is just him, the inexperienced boy rutting into you and getting off while you stood/laid there uncomfortable silence)in addition to basically shutting down whatever feelings she might have brewing for him (poor mikasa dude)

but surprisingly eren is the most lax to you during this time period. despite the literal r*pe, he basically allowed you to roam around and do whatever for a change. frankly, it was mostly cause he had to catch up in terms of training, but also cause his FREEDOM ideal is the strongest during this phase.

anddd depending on your behavior you might get pimped out. only to those that he can trust though. god even jean got a taste of you because he lost a bet. he promptly beats up the man afterwards though.

if you’re more focused on training and acquiesce to his demands (hormones) however you’ll be enjoying the only three years of your life where eren’s presence wasn’t looming like dread of your death by a titan’s hands.

now i can’t vouch for how accurate i can portray later seasons eren but basically he’s the worst in yan levels at that point.

once he can fully utilize his powers there is literally no escape for you, not even his death, unless you have some sort of power that hides your ass. he’d already prepared for everything from your captivity to how your life will be like after his inevitable demise.

like i said before, he’d be the type to give you an illusion of freedom. he hates the idea of being caged and vice versa. so specifically speaking after his death and the end of the series, you’ll go from being stuck in a remote area to being free but with hundreds of armed guards watching your every move. hell maybe even the whole “town/village/city” you live in will all just be paid actors he had staged. he will never let you move on from him. whether you like it or not, you’re his in life, in death, as he is dying, and beyond that.

[bearwithegg]

Sun and Flesh (concept/prologue)

Inspired by THAT book (Suzanne when I GETCHU)

Aegon II x OFC! HUNGER GAMES AU

I still don't know if I would write more than this since I really struggle to motivate myself but ALAS ENJOY

Context to take into account:

- No idea how to format the districts however the district this is based in is Vineyards and Fresh Produce. Probably thinking of making it District 5 😔

- Daemon Targaryen is the President (sorry im a hater, makes sense for my next point)

- Hightowers are traitors of the Capitol and were sent to live in the districts and are very clearly being targeted by the Targaryen's who hold the seat of power. (Thanks Otto)

- Changed the order of which the kids are born, I just switched Helaena and Aemond around ✋😔

- ALSO I know Panem is in the US but this is like a Panem version of Westeros so if seeing 'mum' (spelling) takes u out of it IM SORRY ✋😔

WARNINGS: Average children death moment with THG, Daemon as president snow, Aegon will never catch a break I fear.

☀️🌙☀️🌙

Aegon could not recall a time as vivid as this moment, a memory searing into his very mind to be locked away in a taunting cage for the remainder of his life. For all he was, he was a boy unloved, unwanted, uncherished by those who birthed him, who called him family. It was the worst kind of isolation a child in a District was subjected to, because everyone knew the Capitol detested them, in case shipping off two children to fight in a grotesque bloodsport yearly wasn’t evidence enough. But to have a family that detested you? That was a festering wound that never would heal, not really.

The Hightowers suffer moreso, in their little district. Enemies of the family sat at the centrepiece of the entire blueprint; The Targaryens. And they made light work of making sure that the Hightowers knew they were being punished. Little Daeron was the first of the Hightower children to have his name called, the youngest, barely just turned twelve and he would remain frozen at twelve for eternity. 

When his body was returned to their District, Aegon couldn’t remember what happened because he willed it so, pushing back the visions that haunted him. He was already such a troubled boy, never being able to sit still, disruptive, quick to anger. It was only natural he lashed out, he had already been doing it, but the loss of Daeron made him unstable. 

His punishments were never swift, never immediate, because it wasn’t like the Capitol to dish out swift punishments to who they deem traitors and now Capitol outcasts. 

Helaena was the next to have her name called, sweet Helaena. She was never the same since Daeron returned cold and lifeless. Sending her to the Arena was a death sentence, a public marking of what awaited such a timid girl who’s mind had already shattered long before stepping foot in the arena.

She died first that year.

Which they never failed to show, to bring up.

Aegon’s Mum looked at him differently after this — narrow cold eyes that pierced into him like daggers. An eternal damnation fixed into her dark sullen eyes. She never said the words ‘I wish it was you instead of them’ but he could feel it, in every thin lipped rebuke and admonishment, she wished Aegon was the one who had been sent to the Arena. 

Loneliness was never a friend to him, despite all this. Despite his ostracization from his own kin, from the Capitol. She never let him feel alone. She was sunshine on the coldest darkest days, when the clouds covered the skies and threatened to downpour, she was the rays that peaked through with promise of better days. She was the breeze in spring, that carried fresh air and caressed his cheeks and tousled his hair. She was his heart. She was his home.  

Her name was Lucilla Steele.

Between the berating of his mum, arguments with his brother, lashings from the Peacekeepers it all didn’t matter in the end. Not when he saw her shining smile of crooked teeth and bright green eyes. The sweetest girl he’d ever seen. Helaena would’ve loved her, he thought when they first met. The district had plenty to say about her, about them but she never paid it much mind, didn’t seem to care much at all that the district despised the Hightowers for their Capitol roots from where they were extradited from. No, she simply saw a Boy in need of a friend, and offered him a kindness, a mercy, a blessing that no one had ever before.

She treated his wounds with love and care whenever he took to the District centre, sometimes drunk but always disorderly, to cast a barrage of ill words directed at the Capitol, at the family he had once been a part of, a rebuke and curse to the President — his uncle — and spat to seal the deal. 

His name was not called upon that year either, for all his wrongdoing, for all the lashings he took and the rage he had directed at the world and at his family. He was spared another year. But the family wasn’t. Aemond’s name was called and for all his younger brother was at age 14, he was a fighter.

And fight he did, tooth and nail. It had cost him his eye, slashed out by a Career who’s name had long been forgotten in the long list of tributes Aemond slaughtered. But he returned home unscathed otherwise. Perhaps different in many ways unseen, but he was home and that was more than what his mum could ever hope to ask for.

Off to Victor’s Village for Aemond and their mum, though Aegon never followed, no because his home was his girl, and she lived west in a hovel. If that was where she was, then that was where he was going to be.

They worked long shifts in the Vineyard together, from dawn until dusk some months, when the days were shorter and the sunlight barely came out. Not that it ever mattered to Aegon, his sunshine was right in front of him. Luce, she asked him to call her one day between thickets of thorns and spikey brambles, fearing her name was too long, too proper coming from him. 

‘Sounds like you’re telling me off,’ she suppressed an amused smile, eyes twinkling with that ever present intoxicating happiness that made him think that life wasn’t so bad. And they stole a kiss, maybe two when no one but the scarecrows were looking.

Her green eyes never seemed to lack their shine, a constant incandescent stream of mossy green ponds that promised more to life than just this. But then his name was drawn, perhaps it was a sign, a bad omen when the sun didn’t shine and rain pelted the stocks of children awaiting their fates. 

He should’ve known this was coming, that he was the final child to be sent to the Arena, he was foolish to think that simply because he was safe the year after Aemond’s, he would be safe now, just shy of Nineteen — four days off. His stormy blue eyes look to his Mum, stood beside Aemond and he sees the twitch of her lips that threatened to sigh in—

Relief.

His Mum was relieved to see him go, and he could’ve almost sworn he heard disembodied words of his Mum carried from the wind whisper into his ear ‘finally’.

And then there was Luce, his Sunflower, his heart. Her eyes were muddy, flooded with liquid anguish and heartache and she wailed like a Banshee — he wanted to yell at her, tell her to stop and to not let the Capitol use her pain, her tears and her love for the sick amusement of lesser men. But he was whisked away, no goodbyes for the Hightower boy, he didn’t deserve such grace.

Aegon knew without a shadow of a doubt that he needed to win, he needed to come home, to feel the sun once again — his sun. He would crawl through every sordid pit of pain, endure the cruelest torture for his sunflower, for his heart, for his home. 

Every day away from his sun was shrouded in the coldest sleet of darkness, a bonechill that never quite faded away in the gloomy corridors of obscenity that was the Capitol and all of its heartless, cold accomplices that resided in it. Would he too, be one in the same as them if his family had not been cast out? He liked to think himself better than that, to help him sleep where the sun was distant.

Memories were fickle things where time was concerned, though remedies and a stubborn willingness to shunt them away could prevail quicker where time could not. Aegon can’t remember his games, for the most part, driven by a single soul motivation that he would see his sunflower, his home, his heart once more. And if he couldn’t, he wouldn’t die in vain.

Aegon was remembered to be angry, aloof, cold from this annual affair. He made no friends, no allies, the Capitol detested him for all he stood for; A Traitor. In a long lineage of Traitors. Spite is what won him the Games, though he says it was for his Sunflower. No one believes him. 

The torment of the Hightowers was over, Aegon could no longer sentence his siblings to death from his temper, his anger and dissatisfaction. 

The last time Aegon recalled a vivid moment such as this was the day his sweet Brother Daeron’s name was called. The sun had shone brightly, as if it didn’t know what was occurring beneath its iridescent rays and sporadic warmth. Stocks of children lined up by age and gender, dressed the best they could. The view was different, being on the stage — he was a Mentor this year, ‘handpicked by the capitol!’ Nymtalia the Capitol escort had exclaimed excitedly. 

He thinks of Daeron, of Helaena, everytime he would be forced to set foot on the treacherous stage that marked children with death. 

His heart had stopped when they called Daeron’s name all those years ago and it changed him for life. Now his heart stopped all over again, Nymtalia, offensively cheerful and full of life having sentenced Caedo Finch, a twelve year old boy to death, utters her female tribute for this year's games. 

“Lucilla Steele.” 

Aegon thinks he might vomit. Hand picked by the Capitol. Hand picked to be the ferryman that guides his Sunflower to death, because even she knows there is no possibility, no reality that she wins this. Not sweet Luce. His sunflower who has never once raised her voice in anger, never struck another person in frustration, cannot bear the sight of seeing creatures hurt. 

The death date is marked, she knows this, and so does he.

[ms-m-astrologer]

Transiting Pluto stations retrograde

Sunday, May 4, 15:27 UTC, 3°49’ Aquarius

This may not have much of a personal impact on you unless you have strong Pluto, Scorpio, &/or 8th House energy in your chart. (I’m a good example: 8th House Sun, Scorpio rising, Pluto conjunct my MC. Pluto says, “Jump;” I reply, “How high?”)

It’s also going to affect you more powerfully if it’s making an aspect to your natal Sun, Moon, &/or an angle. (Look for placements between 1°22’ - 3°49’ of any sign, and 16°22’ - 18°49’ of a mutable sign.)

And since I am attuned to Pluto, I’ve been thinking a lot about this station. Specifically, how it is colored by the sign Aquarius being in opposition to the sign Leo.

One of the big problems in the US is the toxic masculinity piece. It has festered away for years, now - the powers that be (TPTB) have fostered a climate of male isolation, particularly among younger men. Divide and conquer; if we’re too busy fighting amongst ourselves, then we’re too busy to fight TPTB.

(Everybody pause this and go listen to “Fight the Power” - either the original Isley Brothers, or the later Public Enemy one. I love both of them.)

Anyway! Alienation, isolation, icy cold blunted/stunted emotions - among the negative Aquarius traits. There is a lot of “übermensch” nonsense in there, too - all the so-called incels believe they’re entitled to the hottest, most popular girls, for example.

Here’s a pertinent section about Aquarius (in general) from Soul-Centered Astrology by Alan Oken. It describes another issue we (as a society) must address:

All Aquarians have a strong awareness of others and a sensitivity to group orientation. Those Water Bearers without a firm grasp of the lower self may seek to join those cults and sects where group identification takes the place of individualization. The Aquarian likes to represent something; to stand for a set of collective values. Yet if personally developed discrimination is lacking, the Aquarian will be attracted to the order and ceremony of the group collective, and seek to merge into an unconscious mass, headed by equally blind Leo-type personalities.

There’s Maga right there - and Felon 47, recall, has Leo rising.

Anyway! Contrast that with Leo - the playfulness, the joie de vivre, the sheer radiant bliss of simply being alive. Romance, passion, the finer things, taking risks. Having a favorite sports team. Many Aquarians just hate all that stuff. (Especially when it doesn’t happen to/for them, exactly in they way they have envisioned it.)

As Pluto treks slowly through Aquarius, we’ll see and hear a lot of things like:

“How can you be happy when (insert latest atrocity) is occurring?!?”

It’s actually kind of necessary to find things to be happy about, in order to deal successfully with the darker things. Joy makes all our lives worthwhile. At the very least it provides us with much-needed respite from the gloom/doom.

With Pluto Rx in Aquarius, we are starting to sort through a lot of Aquarian muck (“unskillful” keyword concepts from Astrology for Yourself):

Tearing down but providing no alternative (maga again)

Avoiding the here and now (internet escapism)

Antisocial, impersonal, detached (AI)

In The Book of Water, Steven Forrest wrote (too briefly!) about Pluto transiting through Aquarius:

When Pluto passes through Aquarius, we are all invited to heal the soul-sickness created by the cold dissociation that comes from a shocking, overwhelming pace of change or cultural disruption, along with social alienation, both in this lifetime and in previous ones. If we fail to heal, then we become frozen emotionally, cut off from our own hearts (Leo!!), distant from what makes us human.

To analyze the transit, first look at Pluto’s natal position - the root cause of what is about to befall you. Pluto in the birth chart indicates why and how (sign), and where (house), you need to make an evolutionary breakthrough, via facing a “wounding truth.”

Next, consider the natal house(s) through which Pluto is moving. Here’s where you take action. Here is also where you think about any aspects transiting Pluto makes to a natal placement. That affects the process, making it either more (square, opposition) or less (sextile, trine) difficult.

Finally, the house(s) with Scorpio on the cusp show where the effects are displayed. (In a nutshell, either we’ve successfully purged something toxic, or we’re stubbornly wallowing in it.)

Remember, this is a very long process. Pluto is more about our souls’ development over our lifetimes, plural - it isn’t like (say) a Mars transit, where the ways we go about our day-to-day business, are affected in the immediate here and now.

Don’t feel like you have to get everything 100% accomplished, either. We’re going to be here for a while, so settle in for the longer haul and keep moving.

[bitchfitch]

His house was haunted by the ghost of his childhood imaginary friend. Evan knew it as well as he knew that describing Evi as his "Childhood" imaginary friend was... deceptive at best.

The cabinets opened on their own, Evi's favorite sorts of items would vanish from their place around the home and reappear under Evan's bed, he would wake up in the middle of the night to the feeling of someone crawling into his bed and laying beside him. An ice cold hand on his chest, a smooth mask of a face would tuck itself against his side as Evi wormed his way under his arm. Evi's voice, sweet and cracking like poorly annealed glass, would seep into the spaces between his drowsy thoughts as he fell back asleep. The words as saccharine as they are vicious.

Evi used to be his muse, the beautiful world they'd made together had been the inspiration for the music that launched Evan into stardom. Evi gave Evan everything that was good in his life. How could Evan leave him? Why was he left to be forgotten all those years ago?

How dare Evan call him back from the obscurity of memory now that his life was over.

In the morning there would be burns where Evi's golden claws dragged against his skin.

His house was haunted by the ghost of his imaginary friend and it's presence was as much a balm as it were a thorn. Like the injectables that used to make Evi feel as real in the waking world as he did in their dreams.

Evi broke things when he got bored. Framed pictures. Gifts from people more real than Evi but who's friendship with Evan had been just as imaginary. Anything from the period Evan spent in rehab after he followed Evi out of a third story window at a party.

Evan would find those ruined fragments of his life when it was at its peak, his mind would tell him he should mourn the broken flower pot that was painted by the first girlfriend he'd had who cared enough to discourage his smoking habit. That he should be furious with Evi for breaking it even though it had been Evan alone that ruined that relationship. He wasn't. He was numb as he picked up the pieces and set them back on the shelf Evi had knocked them off of. The small memories it had held, the beads from broken bracelets and guitar picks with concert dates written on them were left on the tile for the maid service to deal with next time he cared enough to call them.

His pill bottles kept going missing too, when he found them their contents would be gone. What Evi did with the antidepressants and pain killers was a mystery, but Evan had caught him dropping the sleeping pills into his drinks. He wondered where Evi learned that trick every time he poured them out and what it said about the man Evan used to be or the company he used to keep that the childish figment of his imagination knew about the concept of date rape drugs.

Ambien had too strong of a taste to really work the way Evi was hoping it would.

The ghost of his childhood imaginary friend was haunting his home and he had no desire to do anything about it. The mess of jealous destruction, the quiet humming from just over his shoulder, the nights spent frozen by sleep paralysis while Evi straddled his hips and traced his claw along the strap holding Evan's breathing tube in place. It never felt like a threat. He Knew Evi too well for that.

The dark gave the illusion that Evi was really there. His weight and the chill of his glass skin, the soft clink of his body brushing against itself. It was so easy to drift off with the impression that Evi's invisibility was merely the fault of his human eyes.

It was a comfort after the months of isolation. Of doctors appointments and lawyers and every relationship in his life dissolving like the pills Evi kept dropping in his drinks.

Unlike every friend he'd made into a household name, unlike every industry contact he'd made richer than God, Evi didn't care that he chose life over his career. If Evan let him speak again, if he took the plunge back into the same maladaptive fantasies that made Evi so real, he would be pissed with Evan as he was probably right to be, and then so sweet as he wrapped them both back up in their dreamed world.

All Evi ever wanted from him was his companionship, and he had abandoned him in favor of people who wanted him to sing for their pocketbooks until he suffocated on tumors.

The ghost of his imaginary friend haunted his home. Everyday Evan let himself become more certain of it the less ghost like Evi got. His words cut further into the waking world, his humming turned to singing the songs Evan wrote about him. Not the ones that made the most money, but the ones Evi liked the best. The ones no one but Evi had ever heard.

Evan would see him out of the corner of his eye. A flash of bright pink hair or wine bottle green legs crossed neatly beside his as they watched the movies and shows they used to talk about together for hours.

He wanted so badly to reach out to him.

He'd spent years breaking himself of the habit of doing so. He'd spent years killing Evi the only way a thought could be killed, by thinking about anything else. Evi had almost killed him. Betraying him like that had been necessary for survival. It still was.

Evi was a drug more potent and addictive than anything you could buy. The imaginary and the dreamt engulfed the real world around him, battling it like a wall holding back a tidal wave. The only way to chase him had always been to force himself deeper and further from that protection and into the storm. Every step Evan took towards him and away from shore would have Evi drifting another mile deeper.

He still wanted... He wanted what it had been when it was at its best. Evi hanging off his arm at party after party. His laugh and words so real everyone who'd partaken in whatever was on offer that night could hear him too. His muse, beautiful and adoring, would bring him water for the hangover next morning, pain killers and sleeping aids so he could drift back to their castle in the clouds where pain existed only to further the story and pleasure wasn't limited by flesh.

The first step into that sea was buying, framing, and hanging another copy of the poster he'd sold years ago. It was from an old movie that had either been lost to time or never made at all. Evan's father had been the one to hang the original up in their home when he was still just a boy.

A man stood at the front, his sword held high as a woman in a tattered white dress clung to his nearly naked, sweaty body. Beneath them, under the man's foot, was an alien with glassy skin and bright pink hair. Her face was turned away, the valley between her breasts shattered by the warriors blade as a battle raged in the background.

As a young boy Evan had fantasized about saving her. Maybe the movie gave reason for why she deserved to die, but he would never see it. He would battle the so called hero and bring the broken woman to her people who could heal her shattered heart. She'd call him her knight and kiss him like he were the sort of man who starred in these sorts of movies.

She became Evi so gradually that Evan couldn't remember when each little change came. He did know it was the other boys at school making fun of him for having a girl imaginary friend that made her into a him though, even if Evan still thought of Evi as a woman in the secrecy of his mind.

If Evi cared he'd never said anything. He called himself Evan's king just as often as he called himself queen. A creature as fluid as the thoughts that made him.

His house was haunted by the ghost of his imaginary friend. Evan could hear him clearly now when he stood in his in home recording studio where the poster hung between panels of sound dampening foam.

"I miss you, my Knight."

"You've been asleep for so long but still I guard you here in our castle. Our bed is warm with you, your body hasn't aged a day, your strength remains. Please wake up. Please come home so I'm not alone anymore. You promised to save me. You promised."

"What did I do to anger you? Please I'll kneel at your feet and apologize until you believe me. I'm so so sorry. Please wake up. Please my Knight."

It's been weeks since another living person spoke to him.

He was right to kill Evi. He was. He was. He tells himself that in his home that's too large for one man.

Evi took the real world away. Made life boring. Made him walk out a window thinking he'd fly. Evi would kill him without ever meaning too.

The life he'd killed Evi to lead dissolved the second he refused to let himself die. He was right to go through with the surgery. He was right to set himself onto this path of isolation. He'll live a long life. A long life with too much money and too much empty space around him.

He knew Evi better than he knew himself. He'd made him after all. There was no one around to encourage his bad habits anymore. No one pushing heroine and designer MDMA into his hands. He'd even quit smoking.

Before Evan lived that rock-star life, Evi and his maddening influence was as benign as the water lapping at the shores of a still lake. He made reality glow instead of disappear.

It wouldn't hurt to indulge in one addiction now that the others were gone. He's been handling Evi for nearly 30 years, he can hold him close and be fine. He can.

Evan didn't need sleep aids to find his way to their dream, but with how often Evi tried to slip them into his drink, it felt right to take a half dose stood there before the poster. He couldn't speak to tell Evi he was on his way so the gesture would have to do.

Evi's voice snapped out of existence the instant he turned from the poster, but he felt Evi's hands on him, heard his feet clacking on the floor as he pranced in excitement, felt him grab his hand to drag him to his bedroom like they were eager lovers.

He woke up in a bed surrounded by crystalline flowers. The ceiling above was hidden from view by a fog of starry clouds. When he breathed, he felt the air rush through his sinuses and down a throat cancer had never touched.

Evi was on him in an instant, his hands dove into Evan's hair as he kissed him like he was attempting to make up for the time they spent apart. Evan returned the enthusiasm, licking into the sugar of Evi's mouth as he grabbed his hips to keep him close while Evan fought to sit up in their bed.

He hadn't realized how ruined his waking body was until he felt no pain for the first time in years. His back didn't smart at him, his hip didn't try to lock up, his shoulders were strong enough to support his and Evi's weight when he braces on one hand. There was no low thrum of sickness in his blood, no exhaustion. Just life as it was meant to be.

When he and Evi parted, his words froze in his throat. How did he forget how gorgeous Evi was? The fan of his turquoise eyes, the needle fangs behind his split upper lip, the earnest bright joy he bore like it was his gift to the world.

He cupped Evi's jaw, his fingers pressing into the dripping waves of his molten glass hair. Evi waited for him to speak first, those eyes tracing along the features of Evan's dreamt face like it was the first time he was seeing him.

Evan hasn't spoken since he left his speech therapist in a fit of disgust at the sound of his new voice. Maybe if he hadn't built his worth around the sound of his voice. Maybe if he had forced himself to keep practicing. Maybe if he had been a different man, he wouldn't have returned.

He holds Evi, one hand still on his hip the other petting his thumb along a new sea-foam green scar on the edge of Evi's jaw. And he speaks.

"I've made a horrible mistake-"

"It's all ok now. You're home, you won't leave me again, my Knight" Evi cocks his head his darlingness takes on a razor's edge of warning "Isn't that right?"

[pinkcreamypeach]

I wrote this last night, so I figured I'd just post it here, heh..

Do you think he even understood what death was? Maybe he didn’t fully comprehend it at the time. He knew Maria had a condition, but could he truly understand the weight of what that meant? It’s painful to think about him being younger than Maria, completely unaware of what death even was, until that tragic moment.

Shadow never said "Maria was killed"; he always said "Maria was taken away from me," which speaks volumes. He had no idea what was happening. He was just a child, in a way… even though he wasn't technically a baby, considering his lack of age. But the idea that Shadow didn’t grasp the concept of death is heartbreaking.

When Maria was killed, Shadow was technically younger than her. He probably had no understanding of death. Shadow never said "Maria was killed"—he always said she was "taken away from me." He was a "tube baby," raised in isolation on the ARK with limited knowledge of the world outside. His only real connections were to Maria and Gerald, who cared for him and taught him what they could. He was still a child when he witnessed Maria's death, helpless in his tube as she was gunned down.

He was created to help Maria with her condition—Neuro-Immuno Deficiency Syndrome (NIDS), a rare and terminal disease. Gerald loved his granddaughter so much, he wanted to save her, and that's why Shadow was created as part of the project that became his namesake. Unfortunately, the government saw Shadow as a threat to humanity, and their actions destroyed everything he had known.

In the end, Shadow was just a child, a creation who had found a family. He had a big sister, Maria, who was tragically "taken away," and he could do nothing to stop it.

Shadow is doomed to suffering in every universe. His happiest life would be one where Maria never died, yet he was created for her—so his truest happiness would have been one where he was never born at all.

Maybe in some alternate reality, he could finally find peace, with his family, with Maria—but in this reality, he will never have that. Instead, he will continue to hurt, to relive the trauma of losing everything aboard the ARK. No amount of time will heal that wound. Frozen for 50 years, the pain of Maria's death feels like it happened only moments ago. When he finally escaped the tube, all he wanted was revenge.

And who could blame him for that?

[inthiseverymoment]

silhouettes emerging: chapter vii

"the Moth, Frozen in Amber"

a hunt, an exchange, a continuation, and an outburst

iwtv oc x armand, this chapter ~1.8k

as the kids say, WE'RE SO BACK

can you tell that i'm already having A Time this semester

and yes she was besties with edith piaf bc It's My Historical Reader Insert and I Can Do What I Want

anyway WHOO this one was very cathartic to write. hope yall enjoy, lmk what you think

chapter vi fic masterlist chapter viii

“Getting lunch”, as suggested, was not as fantastical a concept to this unlikely pair as it would be to many others of their kind. Being fledglings of an ancient vampire, they stalked the gloomy New York afternoon-with Daniel staying more in the shade, his inherited powers having had less time to mature than Isabelle’s-and searched.

This search came to a delightfully obvious end when they passed a thoroughly isolated alleyway, graced with the vape-flavored sight of a posse of college-age boys in polo shirts and unfortunately lettered red baseball caps.

Isabelle bit the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning and turned to Daniel, finding a wicked glint under his dark sunglasses. With a nod and a saunter, the actress and the journalist shared a feast and cleaned up the evidence, keeping leftovers to last long past the interview.

Twenty Twenty-Three (The Next Hour), New York City, United States of America

Satisfied with their meal, sickened by the memories of privilege and unearned arrogance they’d taken in through the blood of the young men, and both now a little bit high on flavored nicotine, they wound through the streets back to Daniel’s apartment. As they walked, he told her the parts of his story not granted to human eyes, as well as what had happened after; Armand’s machinations, the now-grown “fascinating boy”’s own turning, and most of what he’d learned to have happened decades earlier (though not all, she could tell, and fully understood why). Isabelle had had no idea upon first reading the book that her existence would have so many similarities to that of this entirely jaded man, who had of course felt exactly the same about this conscientiously skewed “young” woman; they realized now that their experiences held so much in common that the differences in those placed demeanors faded, leaving an odd sort of knowing despite their very short acquaintance.

“I guess I just thought,” Daniel was half-laughing in a last shot at nonchalant bitterness, “I thought I was the first. That’s all.”

“No, I get it,” she responded. Turning to study his face, her voice took on a bit of teasing incredulity: “Is that…could it possibly be…a bit of vulnerability from the great Daniel Molloy?”

“Don’t start,” he said, adjusting his sunglasses. “I’m the one interviewing you, not the other way around. This just changes a lot.”

She nodded solemnly, and he dug into his jacket pocket for his phone, pressing record despite every bell and whistle being back at the apartment.

“We’re back post-midday-draining with the vampire-”

“Isabelle de la Rue.”

“-and I want to know whether things felt the same for you as they did for me. You’re a vampire now, you’re part of the coven, he doesn’t have dominion over your mind anymore but you’ve essentially given into that life. How did things go after that turning point?”

“...Turning point?”

“Let it be stated on the record that I did not attempt a pun.”

“Let it be stated on the record that it was definitely received as such,” she replied. “But, yeah, it was…as you said, it was a sense of letting oneself be swept up in a new life. I had been so focused on the fact that Armand couldn’t physically get into my mind anymore that I forgot about every other-more human-emotional tie.”

“That fucked-up blur between supernatural manipulation and genuine…”

He stopped, fiddling with his key and pretending that was the reason he’d trailed off.

“Love,” she finished, looking at Daniel as they reentered his apartment. “That’s the word you’re looking for.”

“Sure,” he coughed, a thousand recently-revealed memories passing across his eyes.

“And, yeah, precisely. I found that I just…well, after being turned, I felt that I needed him more than ever. After a lifetime of being tossed to the side and swearing that I’d wait for the right person, a lifetime of scrambling for control over my own life, this sudden onslaught of being entirely and straightforwardly wanted for the first time knocked me out; I fully let go after that first taste of his blood, and everything rational was just…gone. Honestly, nearly everything before I had stepped into the Théâtre was gone; not by the work of the Mind Gift, just by the overwhelming newness of vampiric existence-of vampiric existence as his companion. Now, whenever there was somewhere to go, there was somebody beautiful waiting for me just outside the door. Now, when I absentmindedly hummed a bit of an old duet, someone would complete the phrase. Now there was finally someone who wanted to understand all of my depths and flaws, who didn’t shun them away or pretend not to see them but instead viewed them as natural and even admirable. We had both come from this sort of rigidity and exploitative background-his far, far worse than mine, of course-and we each found this wonderful sort of release in the other. We’d stay up hours into the night and day, and talk and talk and talk-”

“And only talk?” came the interruption of her near-rapturous repetition.

“Oh, of course not,” Isabelle said once she’d recovered from the memory, “but you didn’t want to hear about that.”

She was quiet for a moment, one finger circling a small threadbare spot in the armchair she’d now grown quite familiar with.

“‘For the first time in my life, I was seen.’ That’s what Louis told you, and that is how it was for me. When I read that phrase in your book…I lost my breath all over again.”

The journalist nodded as he finished connecting his phone back to the laptop and microphone.

Nothing more needed explanation.

Daniel already knew.

“So,” he said after a while, “when did things change? When did you come to the thought that you needed to go?”

“Part of it was because of Édith. Armand always seemed to come up with more rehearsals and group hunts during the times when we’d try to get together; eventually, I confronted him about it. He said that, since I had chosen this life, asked to become his despite his doubts, that I needed to give up every outward tie to humanity. I pointed out that that humanity was what drew him to me in the first place-the same way it was with you-and by the way he reacted, it seemed that he simply wanted it all to himself. I missed her. The last time I managed to see her, it was even more difficult to do so, because she was becoming truly famous.”

“Wait,” Daniel said, “...that Édith?”

Slowly, Isabelle nodded, looking to him with a slight smile.

“That Édith. My Édith. You know how the nightclub owner who discovered her died, the mobsters she had some associations with, the accusations that almost destroyed her career?”

“I have to say I’m not as brushed up on the history of French popular song as I guess I should have been, but I’ve heard of that, yes.”

“The murder was Armand’s doing. A warning, I think, that he could make my friends suffer if they kept me from him for too long.”

“Red flag number…we’ve lost count now.”

“You’re one to talk, Mr. Molloy.”

“But Mademoiselle Piaf clearly got back on her feet.”

“At least we got a proper goodbye.”

“When you left?”

“When I…tried. That was the first time. Captain of the ship got ‘rest’-ed into never leaving the dock. I think, on some level, Armand knew that playing any power card wouldn’t get me to want to stay, so he ran up that ramp in a billowing trench coat like some hero of an old film, wrapped me up into his arms, and said that he’d heard the waters that week were far too treacherous for a ‘visit home’. I knew I didn’t believe him, but he held me so tightly, so-so tenderly, whispering over and over that he couldn’t lose me…”

“So his tears worked better than the Mind Gift ever could.”

“...Yes.”

“Christ, Isabelle, he was never afraid of losing his power over you because he knew he already had it. Armand didn’t even need access to your memories-”

“I know-”

“-you were just so in love that he could easily,” Daniel bulldozed, “like any mortal, play your heartstrings like that fucking violin you always talked about-”

“I know!”

After the days of quips and tearful recollections, this was indeed a shout. She slammed her hands onto the arms of the chair, and every light in the room flickered.

Daniel was silent.

“I’m not proud of it,” Isabelle eventually said, cold and hard and finally loud. “I am fully aware that I spent my whole life terrified of being controlled only to wind up under the spell of the first dark-curled, smooth-voiced soul to actually look my way for once. I am fully aware that I saw everything and allowed love to blind me anyway. I thought we could figure it all out and grow together-it had truly seemed, for a while, like we were. I was young, I was tired of waiting, and I felt that those twenty-two years spent waiting were longer than any possible eternity. I wanted to be desired, chased, caught, cherished, held-I wanted him. Surrounded by this mockery of the life I have always longed for, this place where self-titled artists postured in their little cliques and prided themselves on their shallow works while ignoring the hundreds of bodies being dragged across the floor, I thought that that was all I was ever going to get.”

Her ragged breath had climaxed into sobs now, without a single speck of the demure camera-worthiness of her previous tears. These last words hanging in the air, Isabelle stared daggers at Daniel, the golden circles at the center of her glowing hazel eyes now alight with the same fire that Louis had burned the Théâtre with only a few years after she’d gone.

This was the desperation of the vampire Isabelle de la Rue,

and the desperation of the young mortal Bella Ditell,

all wrapped up into one bleeding watercolor quilt of a woman.

“I was swept away again,” she choked out, catching her breath. “I let him take me back to the Théâtre, swooned into him when he put La Bohème on his phonograph, and relished in every physical reminder that this glorious, terrible, deeply complex and surely divine being could not bear the thought that I would leave him. I committed it all to memory-the dizzying warmth of Armand’s bare chest against mine, my hand moving up his thigh and his tangling in my hair as he ripped out every bobby pin I’d placed for easy travel, the way the taste of his blood was now tinged with something like bitter wine. His grip was rougher now, but I didn’t care…”

Her breath having nearly returned to steadiness, Isabelle winced at one more admission.

“I didn’t notice the pain, because it fit so well with the music.”

[thorntopieces]

SNIPPETS!!!! I'd love to see them!

snippets under the cut but! bit of context first because i can't resist talking. if you don't care for the context you shouldn't need it for the small bits below!

this contains spoilers, both implied and explicit for persona 5, including 3rd semester general information. if you have started playing 3rd semester you are fine. if not you should wait to read this :) the snippets all take place before the end of november

basically i headcanon goro to have a condition called OSDD-1 (other specified dissociative disorder), which is basically like the condition i have (DID) but with either no amnesia or less elaborated identity states. i think the trauma he went through as a kid (neglect even if not intentional, his mother's death, foster care, social isolation, the inherent traumatic nature of being an assassin) caused his mind to fail to integrate properly, causing different 'personalities' (outdated term) to protect his mind. he has amnesia for traumatic childhood events and his assassin work, only keeping objective knowledge of it because it would be dangerous not to. so he knows roughly what happened, he just can't remember it. this translates interestingly to the metaverse, where you obviously show your true self. so if you don't have one true self, what happens then...?

on top of this, i have elected to explore the protagonist (named akira) with depersonalisation-derealisation disorder and sumire with OSDD-2 (caused by brainwashing/torture/etc)

at the end of the day it essentially rewrites all of the second half of p5 (october - end of 3rd semester). it's a massive undertaking but i'm having a lot of fun

if you have more questions i'd be happy to answer them. but here are a few snippets from the first few chapters (separated by **) :) general content warnings for: depersonalisation, derealisation, talks of murder, mild body horror (feeling puppeteered), general discussions of mental illness. nothing should be more explicit than the darkest tones p5 hit

And then, eyes cast to the floor, “And — Sakura-san, Okumura-san. I truly am sorry.”

Then he leaves, the silence of the gym faculty office oppressive.

“That was weird as hell,” Ryuji says into the quiet. “He’s been hounding us for months, harassing Akira to have someone to talk to, being a dipshit on camera but now he wants our help? Fat chance.”

Akira wants to retort, to say that no, actually, he’s really been enjoying the outings with Akechi to all sorts of places, but the words are trapped in his chest and nothing feels real. Distantly, with the last of his strength, he thinks that he really shouldn’t be as put-off by this as he is. He’s been through this four times before. This isn’t the first time he’s had his less-than-socially-appropriate part-time job revealed by someone he cares for.

But he’d been like this the past few times too, hadn’t he? With Tae he’d almost fainted, the world blurring in and out for almost an hour before he was stable enough to leave. With Iwai, he’d frozen up for minutes on end as his mind raced through all the possibilities of what would happen now. With Chihaya, he had for a moment felt true fear that the supernatural could be used for evil and work against him. Then, with Kasumi, where he’d gone home afterwards and only barely managed to send Morgana away to Futaba before majorly breaking down, unable to go to school the day after and claiming a very real migraine.

Akechi is a whole different threat. Tae only really knows him with the mask he wears there, Iwai with another, Chihaya a third. Kasumi, like always, is an exception. He’s pretty sure Akechi is the only one that might have been able to see past all twenty-something of his masks (one for each of the confidants, one for his parents, one for school, one from the court and police) to see what truly lays beneath. And he’s affiliated with the police.

Akira hasn’t felt so threatened by the very concept of Existing as he does right now in this moment, standing in the faculty office where his life had almost ended for a second time that fateful day in mid-April.

**

“So you’re the Black Mask we keep hearing about,” Sakamoto says, his voice rippling over the tense silence of Leblanc. “The Palace Rulers ‘cept for Kamoshida and Futaba almost pissed themselves even mentioning you. Are you really that scary?”

Akechi almost wants to laugh. Is he, per every definition a serial killer, scary? Maybe. “Yes, that would be right. He often had me go around the known Palaces of those funding his political campaign and check that their Rulers were compliant to what He wanted.”

“And you killed Futaba’s Ma,” Sakamoto continues. “And Haru’s dad. You’re an awful person, Akechi, you know that right? I can’t understand what Akira could possibly see in you.”

“Yes, I did,” Akechi says. The marionette strings in his face prevents him from acknowledging the second statement entirely.

“Why?!” Sakura-chan almost yells at him and he flinches involuntarily. “You killed my mum! What gave you the right?!”

For a moment his vision swims and his head hurts more and he’s sleepy and the tendrils expand in his jaw and curl around his body. He could sleep. He should sleep. But almost by a miracle, his voice keeps speaking, sounding different to his ears. His mouth moves on its own.

“She was a cognitive pscientist,” his mouth says. “She worked in a research facility closely related to Shido. I was ordered to spy on all of the employees’ Shadows for some weeks to ensure they weren’t hiding any progress from him. Your mother recognised the true potential— and danger —of the works he was doing and attempted to muddle the data she submitted while keeping a true copy elsewhere. Somehow Shido found out about it and ordered me to cause a psychotic breakdown in her. The intention was to incapacitate her, not kill her but—”

The sleepiness gives way for an onslaught of memories. Isshiki Wakaba’s Shadow walking around him, muttering about fractured minds and the outcomes of child abuse and how he’d make for an ideal test subject, being the son of one of the most distorted men in the country—

“I lost control,” he whispers, barely loud enough for the others to hear. The strings, the tendrils, the sleepiness is gone. It’s just him, now. “I didn’t mean to kill her. I really didn’t. It was an accident. He was overjoyed.”

He feels so conflicted … about everything really. His victims. His victims? The victims? He should feel shame and guilt and remorse and the entire spectrum of human social emotions, it should be drowning him, filling his throat with tar and choke him out, slowly killing him. But Goro’s not entirely sure he does. Is it because any feeling except the drive to keep fighting is thoroughly repressed and compartmentalised or is it because he genuinely doesn’t care? Has his upbringing led him to be this immoral? Surely not, killing people doesn’t mean he’s evil. What other path of survival was there for him if not getting fished off the streets by him? A revenge plan, but that’s almost secondary. Staying alive is the primary goal. Because it’s not just his life he’s fighting for but also—

If he can take down Him for being willing to to abandon his mother and also hire a 15-year-old as a supernatural assassin? He might as well. He has to save his life and save—

“And my father?” Okumura-san asks. “You kept going after you took out Futaba’s mother. You’ve caused so much hurt, what’s the justification for that?”

Goro shakes his head, swallows down the disgust at the memories of his unhinged cackles ricocheting off the bloody walls of Mementos. That’s him, the murderer, the killer. He doesn’t think about it much.

Can’t.

Won’t.

Shouldn’t.

The marionette strings are back, speaking for him, existing for him. “I make no justifications. I have no excuses. If I’m allowed to be entirely honest with you, your father’s downfall was inevitable. He became an uncontrolled piece in His game. Please trust me when I say that the fate he suffered was by far not the worst that could have befallen him.”

**

He brings his phone out and opens the Metaverse Navigator. The red eye stares ominously up at him and for a moment it feels like it blinks. But it’s gone as fast as it came, a trick of the light, and he speaks the necessary code words into the navigator. “Nijima Sae — Tokyo District Court — Casino.”

The world around them warps and turns and reddens and there are lines covering his vision. A headache tears through Goro’s skull and the voices he doesn’t usually hear grow louder and louder, a cacophony in his skull, reverberating through his brain, one crying, one laughing, one speaking in hushed tones and one reassuring him hat it’ll be okay. The marionette strings settle into his joints, into his skin, molds his face into the appropriate expression and leave him ready to fight and defend and protect. The Metaverse is hostile, he’s not safe here. Correction, none of them are safe here.

Goro’s grateful for the support he has, even if the voices ring in his ears and distracts him from the environment he’s in. At least it’s only in the Metaverse that it’s this loud and clear. In the real world he barely hears anything ever. Once it’s safe— if it’ll ever be safe enough —he should look into it. Not see a therapist though, he’s not like Akira. He doesn’t need a shrink to tell him that his mind’s fucked up beyond repair.

Ideal test subject. Fractured mind.

Safety first, a voice whispers. You know enough to survive. You know where to find us, when you need it. You’re doing enough for now, Base.

That’s true, admittedly. He can live for now with the knowledge that there’s him and … and him and him and him and him and it’s through their shared efforts that he’s still alive. And the one that’s currently guiding him that’s allowing him the use of his Persona.

Despite being in the Metaverse for years now, Goro hasn’t Awakened to his own Persona yet. He’s been through five Awakenings taking place in his body, aware but not in control for them. All the way since the beginning he’s borrowed one of the Personae. The marionette strings in his body allow him use of Robin Hood, the tendrils Loki. He hasn’t needed the others for some time now. He doesn’t pretend to understand it exactly, and the only person that would know is dead at his hands.

The casino comes into view in front of him, bright and brilliant and garish and … and partially his construction. To some degree he’s helped build this hall of delusion for one of the few people in his life that sees him as a whole, real and valuable human. It’s almost sickening. Will his influence be visible in the Palace?

You’re fixing it now, the voice whispers intently. Isn’t that atonement? Isn’t that sufficient?

**

Half an hour later sees them sitting in a booth at the now-empty Leblanc, hot cups of (decaf) coffee in front of them.

Akechi sighs again— he’s been doing that a lot since they entered Mementos earlier in the day —and anxious tugs at a loose strand of hair. He’s discarded the jacket and tie and folded the sleeves of the button-down up to the elbows. It’s almost like the person sitting in front of him is someone entirely new, but Akira knows better. He’s seen many facets of Akechi— every person is multitudinous after all —and this is just one of them.

A faded memory of a class back before the Hawaii trip pops up in his mind. A random statement from Kawakami right before a question. He mentally shakes his head, willing the memory away. He’ll listen to Akechi and make no judgments.

That anxious tug at his hair almost makes Akira giddy on the inside, though. Is that a habit Akechi picked up from him?

“I don’t know where to start,” Akechi says quietly. He doesn’t meet Akira’s eyes. “Do you remember the conversation we had some weeks ago about the influence of personae in the real world?”

Akira nods. It had been an enlightening conversation over a game of billiards, an exercise in speaking in tongues to avoid warranting suspicion, an hour and a half where Akira had felt blissfully present, the world around him loud and vibrant and alive.

“I suppose it’s as good a starting point as any. My — to say it plainly, my personality isn’t quite … intact. I don’t have a name for the condition, nor do I necessarily want one, but it’s a protective mechanism.”

“A trauma condition?” Akira asks with a small grin. “No offence, but yeah, checks out.”

That makes Akechi laugh, quiet but genuine. “Yes, well, you know most of my tragic backstory. I’m sure you can imagine how that may have affected my faculties.”

“Sure,” Akira says, then as a thought springs to mind, he quickly stutters out. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. It’s personal, I get that.”

Akechi nods and for a moment they sit there in silence.

Suddenly. “Do you think you could remove your glasses?”

Akira blinks, but obediently removes them and places them on the table, lenses up. “Sure. Any reason?”

Another tug at the loose strand. “You use them as a defence against the world. I thought it would be more fair like this. Both of us unmasked.”

“Sure, makes sense,” Akira says, and it’s genuine. It does feel more … intimate, to be without the glasses. They hide his eyes when he’s surveying his surroundings for threats, provide a cover for when he fades in and out of reality, make him appear less threatening to those he encounters. Without them — it feels almost special.

Another few minutes of silence. Akira doesn’t need to look at the clock to know that the trains will stop running long before they finish talking. That’s alright, he has the spare futon for this exact purpose. Akechi’s never slept over before, but that’s a problem to tackle later.

“There are … multiple versions of me,” Akechi says eventually. “Multiple versions with multiple roles to protect me and keep me … well, I doubt sane is the right word. But there is one primarily for dealing with the public, one for handling my—” a shudder, “—extracurricular activities, and so on. They are sort of like your masks, but to an extreme degree if you’d like a point of reference. Your personae are all Shadows you have captured, with the exception of Arsène, my personae are quite literally fractured facets of myself.”

Akira nods (wow he’s been doing a lot of just nodding, hasn’t he?) and thinks over this for a minute. Truth be told, he’s noticed all the inconsistencies in Akechi’s behaviour, so minute they might not be picked up by anyone, but Akira’s observant, has to be to have survived his childhood, to keep his Thieves safe, to not go insane in the loud hustle and bustle that is Tokyo. He notices stuff.

Akechi’s voice, inflection, animation, from the higher and smooth voice he employs when on television or radio or talking to people he does not trust in the least, to this more flat tone he’s now hearing him speak in. His verbality, from unable to shut up about a topic that engages him, to fatigued hand gestures signalling his wishes. His curry preferences, his coffee tastes, and once— when he’d been sitting next to Akechi before a Phantom Thieves meeting doing homework —his handwriting. Minute changes, but visible. Softer rounded strokes in the kanji vs harsh straight lines. “Sometimes you take your coffee with milk and sugar, other times you verbally express that anything but black coffee is a sin.”

“Yes,” Akechi says slowly. “Coffee preferences … yes, that is one of the tells, I suppose. If my memory serves my right, you’ve mostly been in contact with me, like, me, the one you are talking to now and — well, the detective prince—” A pause, a muttered swear, “—this is really difficult to talk about, I’m coming to realise. Especially— promise you won’t?”

He promises. Why wouldn’t he promise?

“Up until now I have refused to truly acknowledge this. Of course, I have kept track of symptoms and written extensive notes on it, because it would be dangerous to let anything slip, to forget anything at all.” He pauses again, and takes another sip. “I am aware of the other parts of me, some of them appear to ‘possess’ me at times and puppet me around like I’m some doll. But despite being aware of them for a decade or so to varying degrees, none of them have names. We are all Goro, I’m Goro, the despicable prince is Goro. All of them are Goro equally as much as me. It makes it exceedingly hard to talk about.”

No wonder, Akira thinks, sipping his coffee. Decaf is never as good as the real deal of course, but he needs to sleep today, even if tomorrow is a Sunday. “You can stop at any time. All that matters to me is that you’re safe and how I can accommodate you when we’re in the Metaverse.”

“I don’t have my own persona,” Akechi says after a minute or two. “I expect that if I was in a situation to require one, I would awaken to one, but so far one of the other parts have always awakened first. I suppose as the … base part … I’m needed for more mundane matters than chasing criminals in the cognitive world.”

Akira frowns. That’s … certainly unique. He’s never heard of something like that occurring, but then again, there isn’t exactly a precedent for how someone’s presence in the Metaverse should work. He’s a fantastic example of that himself. “So when you use—”

“Robin Hood corresponds to the detective prince part of me,” Akechi explains. He’s sounding even more tired than at the start of the conversation. They should wrap this up soon. “It’s — imagine, I— the person that makes up me, this part of Akechi Goro —am almost always conscious. But there is almost always someone else that puppeteer me around. I’m a passenger in my own car, the car being driven by someone else. I can employ the persona of whomever is there with me at any given time. They lend me their persona so I can use it while they take possession of my mouth and limbs. So far with you I have used Robin Hood the most— you all know of my alternate Metaverse identity. I chose not to use him. Well, define chose, I don’t exactly get a say in the matter. But beyond that. Sometimes some of the other parts attempt to take over and what you saw earlier, both in Sae-san’s Palace and in Mementos, was the physical evidence of that process.”

[justabrick]

Hey! I absolutely love your posts about MGR! I'm a huge fan of Mistral, and your analysis and portrayal of her are truly fantastic. I have a few thoughts and questions I'd love to discuss with you!

Mistral is a femme fatale, but she seems unaware of how she uses her appearance. You can see this from the way multiple male characters react to her. She is both a sadist and a masochist—you can tell she enjoys the pain from her neural link, and of course, there’s her iconic line: “Would you like to slice off some more” (I love this line). All of this leads me to believe that Mistral is someone who completely disregards herself. She treats her body as a tool, she takes pleasure in pain, and even though she knows Armstrong sees her as just a stranger, she still chooses to die for his ideals—or maybe, she seeks death itself. This is the core of how I understand her character, and why I love her so much.

About her huge… well, I think they’re real. And of course, the skin is cybernetic—you can actually tell from the cross-section view of this part using the free camera mod.

Sorry for my English! I wrote this with the help of a translator, so I apologize if anything is unclear. Please feel free to ask. 😊

I'm honestly not sure whether what Mistral disregards is herself or her humanity. Think of it, she seems quite selfish in her behavior with her cruel treatment of tripods for nothing but amusement and the way she kills Khamsin just because she felt like it. And even the provocative appearance is really for nobody but herself. I bet you she starts her mornings by admiring her own reflection, I know I would

And as for her humanity, she definitely disregards that. Unlike Monsoon or Sundowner it seems that she didn't suffer any injuries that would require cybernetic replacements, so she threw away a perfectly healthy human body to... Hm. Now it's just pure speculation on my part, but I think there may be two reasons.

First, that experimental custom cyborg body has to cost a fortune, so agreeing to being augmented that way makes her indentured to Desperado/World Marshal. Mistral seemed discontent with not having any place to belong, and by doing this she pretty much nailed herself to the company and the cause Armstrong gave her. Can't be drifting much further with a debt like that.

Second, I know "L'Etranger" is the book one should be looking through to understand what's implied about Mistral and her worldview, but she also makes me think of "No longer human" by Osamu Dazai. Now, Mistral is no Yozo Oba, she isn't afraid of humans, but she seems to be fundamentally unable to connect with people similarly to him, leading to a very lonely existence. Yozo views humans as monsters, meanwhile Mistral refers to her kills as "prey". If her perspective of human interaction is anything like what's depicted in that book, then it would make sense why she'd so readily shed her humanity and make the jump to full body cyborg. CODECs in MGR indicate that cyborgs are discriminated against, often socially isolated and in general the public finds them to be uncanny and creepy. Normally all these are massive drawbacks, but to Mistral it's something that she desires. Once she looks like an artificial inhuman abomination, she is forever freed from needing to try and fit into normal society. You take one look at her 2 meter tall arachnophobia inducing ass and you know not to expect anything normal from her, and that's exactly what Mistral would want.

And I really do think that in-universe people would view her as rather horrifying. Alluring, but horrifying, one does not exclude the other. We as the audience are spared from the creepy effect by the art style. Her... Unconventional body plan alone plants her firmly in the uncanny valley territory, and I believe her face may be artificial as well. The concept shows that her neck is black and the fact that she can still talk after being reduced to frozen sashimi implies a lot of cybernetic enhancements in the head too.

If Raiden complained about not fitting into society while wearing his as close to human as possible civilian chassis we see at the end of MGS4, then just imagine the public's reaction to Mistral. Or any of the Winds of Destruction to be honest. Those three are a freakshow with how grotesque their bodies are.

And about Mistral's relationship with "the cause" and Armstrong himself. I think it's not purely self-sacrificial as her parting words may make it seem. Her end goal is to die for a cause, not reach the goals of that cause imo. At it's core, it's a selfish desire that has little to do with Armstrong's dream. Why would a French-Algerian mercenary whose existence has been defined by not believing in anything give a shit about making America great again? She doesn't. If she actually gave a fuck, she'd grit her teeth and endure Khamsin's spectacular personality because he's a useful asset, but instead she killed him, a whole bunch of contractors and ruined god knows how many expensive UGs by letting Bladewolf try to escape. Directly jeopardized the mission, in short.

I think she does love Armstrong though, but not in a conventional sense. He gave her a reason to fight, a place to belong, ideals to die for - something she desired very strongly. Mistral may or may not have purposefully idolized him so that when she finally dies for him, it'll give her the fulfillment she dreamed of. So, loves him in a God Emperor kind of way, rather than as a genuine love interest.

And if it seems that it's weird that she'd fight so passionately for something that she doesn't believe in, you gotta remember that she's an absurdist, like in the book her spear is named after. Absurdism dictates that it's impossible for a human to make sense of the world, but it doesn't mean they can't choose a purpose for themselves just because they want to.

Yeah, Armstrong's cause is not something she truly believes in, but it's absurd to believe in anything, really. But she wants a purpose, so she chooses to go along with it for the hell of it. After all, it gives Mistral all the fights she could ever want, a relatable company of other unhinged cyborgs and an opportunity to gleefully be the worst version of herself while she races full speed towards a bombastic demise. What's not to love?

And I'll finish off this ramble with some

( • )( • )

Because yes. Tbh, both the version where they're fake and where they're natural work to display her vanity and desire to loudly show off her identity. Like "yeah, I'm not even trying to fit in at this point, look at me. Bras are for weaklings."

Fully artificial is both expensive and unnecessary, keeping them natural is... Just as unnecessary and probably more difficult to pull off than simply cutting off her head and plopping it into a cybernetic body like with Raiden. Yes I think the tiddies are an important character trait and not just fanservice. I also overanalyze this game as a hobby, so take my shit with a grain of salt.

And don't worry, your English is perfectly adequate! This is a fun ask

[littlechaoticwitch]

Winx Club Rewrite: Season 1

I understand this is me being very late to the party, but that's pretty on-brand for me at this point lol

A few years ago, I started to work on a possible rewrite for Fate: The Winx Saga but it soon became this monstrous project of rewriting the entire franchise. Because while this series is one of my beloved childhood series, it is also very messy with its world-building and plotlines, as well being done dirty over and over again by its countless reboots. As much as I would have loved to create a full-on alternative universe like the ones I've seen on tumblr for years, it just took up so much of my time that could have been spent on other projects and it was starting to feel more like a chore than anything else. Eventually, I did create some fashion boards for how to translate their outfits from the show into real life, and wrote up some concept ideas for their live-action costumes, which led to me just writing up the notes I had for the rewrite to share them with y'all.

Some of these ideas were inspired by other people's rewrite of the series, some of these ideas came to me while writing this up, and a lot of these are my attempt to make sense of Winx Club's fucked-up lore. While these were originally written with a live-action reboot in mind, these could also work for an animated reboot targeted for teens/young adults.

This is probably the extent I'll do for any sort of Winx Club rewrite, but it was still fun!

-Bloom is not a princess, but instead the daughter of Priestess Marion (the last Keeper of the Dragon Flame) and Bishop Oritel

-Daphne was twenty years old when her aunt and uncle gave birth to Bloom. She was best friends with Crowned Princess Politea, who betrayed her own kingdom to the Ancestral Witch in order to gain the throne, but she was killed soon after she led Marion and Oritel to their demise. Daphne was not killed when she sent Bloom (and the Dragon Flame) to Earth, but instead viciously tortured, ripped of her wings, and cursed to live inside her mother's mirror, which was thrown into the depths of Lake Roccaluce. From there, she uses her remaining magic to speak with Bloom once she realizes her cousin has returned to the Magical Dimension.

-Domino's demise did happen sixteen prior to the series, but the destruction was more thorough, so the other girls truly believed all hope was lost in trying to revive the kingdom. Only a few hundred people (either those who had moved away from Domino prior to its destruction or actual refugees), Bloom, and technically Daphne (as well as Valtor) managed to survive the attack. When visiting the frozen Domino palace, Bloom discovers she can either bring her realm back to life or break Daphne's curse, but the spell will only work with an Enchantix-level fairy dust bottle.

-Flora is the plus-sized daughter of Professor Palladium (who would also be of Hispanic descent), and due to being half-elf, she does have a normal lifespan as the others

-Tecna is a former Specialist with a prosthetic left arm, who joins Alfea after realizing she has magic, but she suffers severe social anxiety and finds comfort in the library, where she becomes close with Headmistress Faragonda as a result.

-Aisha takes over Mirta's role as the witch-turned-fairy. Coming from a long line of witches, Aisha never felt comfortable practicing witchcraft as her negative emotions stem from her controlling parents and isolated childhood, even though she advocated for witches to be treated fairly. Despite having a friendship with Stormy, she was never afraid to stand up to the Trix and this led to her being turned into a pumpkin. After being brought back by Flora's magic, Aisha decides to help the Winx after Bloom loses her magic and she ends up gaining her wings as a result.

-Sky has an older sister named Jade, who is heavily based around Diaspro's design, powers, and personality (leaning more into the comic version of the character). An overprotective sister who wishes to keep her people safe, she is the crowned heir of the kingdom but their parents are trying to force her to give the crown to her brother instead. Due to her attending a private academy on Eraklyon, she has no idea her brother is using a fake identity.

-Timmy is more of a social butterfly than Tecna, with him having chaotic mad scientist vibes when it comes to machines. Their relationships starts off as academic rivals, with Timmy being the only person who can beat Tecna in some subjects, causing her to show more her emotional side as she is determined to beat him fair and square.

-Riven is also from Melody, but grew up in the poorest district, where he was tossed between boarding schools, right until he was found by Professor Codatorta during a boxing match.

-The Trix disguise themselves while causing havoc, with only the viewers knowing the connection between their civilian identities and their witch forms. Their cover is blown when the Army of Darkness is defeated, with the fallout resulting in them being sent to Light Rock for their sentence.

-Stormy takes over the roles of both Lucy and Anne, mainly through her friendship with Aisha and her being the one to compete in Miss Magix. She is a native of Andros with a Linphean mother, and she has vitiligo. At first, she was forbidden to have a friendship with the princess due to her low status but after showing potential to become a great witch, Aisha's parents allowed her to stay around as they thought she was a "good influence". She ended up running away from home due to neglect, where she met Darcy and Icy on her way to join a coven. She has no real interest in the Dragon Flame but enjoys causing mass chaos.

-Darcy is a Melodian-Solarian witch who spent the first few years of her life on Solaria, but after her mother abandoned her for a noble man, she ended up in the care of Headmistress Griffin.

-Icy was once the daughter of Aster Dell's leader, until the village was burned to the ground by an unknown force. Adopted by a noble Eraklyon man, she grew up in high society as Duchess Elisa Smirnov, where she would become Schuyler's arranged bride after her older sister ran away from home. She is highly aware of the fact Sky is using a fake identity, and she uses the drama caused by Bloom attacking her to turn the entire kingdom against the fairy.

-Instead of an identity switch, Sky goes from a scrawny, pale prince with short hair, a designer preppy "old money" wardrobe, and an elegant way of speaking to a muscular, tanned Specialist with long hair, a more casual skater style, and a surfer-like accent while using a ton of teenage lingo incorrectly. While under a different name (Sam Harvey), he tries to fit in, but his cover ends up being blown at the Day of the Royals, where Icy/Elisa reveals the truth.

-Stella explains she came to Earth by accident, as she was trying to teleport away from the troll but her ring glitched out and sent her to Earth instead of home. Bloom does not take someone else's identity, but Faragonda tells her not to let anyone know she is from Earth (which is considered a forbidden realm for magic users)