#usually my dreams are trauma. and me dying. sometimes both.

[robotsafari]

i had a dream where something was off with riku’s shadow…

(this art is so sucks i made this when i was tired and less experienced which ended up making riku look so much skinnier than how i normally draw him post-kh2 can you stop engaging it with pretty pweeease)

[arielstruggles]

Confrontations and All

The Dawn of Regret ch.3

Pairing: Joel Miller x Fem Reader

Summary: Sometimes, a bad incident leads something good. You finally decided to confront with Joel and set the record straight.

W.C: 4.1k

Warnings: Smut (mdni), oral (giving and receiving), mentions of death, mentions of traumatic events, slight angst, big fat age gap as usual, praise kink, fluff, cum eating (?) that's it i guess.

A/N: I don't want to rush anything so i understand if you find it a bit boring sorry:( I have a final for this in my mind and if i don't change it, it will be heartbreaking. Like really. But in order to do that i have to deepen the story. I am not sure if will use that ending though. Anyway, if you read this ilysm, enjoy!

you can read chapter 1 and 2 in here.

Normally, you'd feel happy. He was sleeping in your arms, there was not even inches between your bodies. It’s like a fever dream. But considering your unresolved issues, you don’t feel happy at all. Quite the opposite, you feel uneasy. You don’t even know what you are supposed to do now. You had a crush on him, you fucked then you had hell of an argument, you acted like nothing happened even though it broke your heart into million pieces. Because he didn’t even care, or at least you thought so. But he saved you, so maybe he… you don’t know. When he sleeps and you wrap your arms on his torso from behind, when you can smell him… It is impossible to think straight. It should not be this complicated right? If he wants you then he wants you if he doesn’t then he doesn’t. But it is not that simple. Not with Joel Miller. He has so many different layers, whenever you think you reached him there is another layer. His moral codes and traumas cause him to thicken his shell brick by brick. So, it is not that easy for you to reach him. Even now, you can’t guarantee that he’ll be an easy person. You have experienced something deep, it definitely changed the direction of your relationship, or at least you hope so, but even then, it won’t be easy to get along with Joel. Not that he is a bad person, no. but because he is a complex man with hell of a past. Maybe he does not want to deal with someone like you or maybe he does not find you attractive enough you don’t know. Your eyes dart into his relaxed features. His brows are not furrowed, he does not look at you like you are garbage. He does not seem mean or scary. He seems like an angel. The greys in his hair are more visible than ever since you are able study him carefully. His lips are slightly parted. His chest raises with each breath he takes in. You want embrace him tightly, you want to say him that everything is gonna be okay but you don’t even know if it will ever be. He looks so handsome, oh he is really handsome. Your body feels with desire. You imagine yourself on your knees before him, wrapping your lips around his thick cock; veins pulsing inside of your mouth, cuming inside your mouth while he strokes your hair. You lick your lips thirstily. The images in your mind are so clear that you can feel the salty cum inside your mouth. You want him to take care of you, you want him to protect you. After all those lonely years, you crave affection. You know he’d do that perfectly. But you are not sure if he is willing to do that.

You hear him humming so you put your head back into pillow immediately afraid of getting caught. “I know you are not sleeping.” A blush blooms in your cheeks in return he chuckles. As if your body gets the signal you feel relaxed instantly you didn’t even know you were holding your breath. He laughs which means it is not gonna be a bad conversation. “I guess I was not sneaky enough.” “nah, I’m just at alert. I felt when your hands got off of me.” silence lingers around the room while you both lay in bed. Ten minutes ago, you were imagining blowing him but now you want to cuddle and get cozy. But you can’t help the uneasiness grows inside your chest. You are dying to ask him about your “future”. You are not sure the response he’ll give you so you can’t convince yourself to ask but not knowing is the worst. A sigh leaves your lips and Joel’s eyes focus on you. You stare into each other’s eyes. His warm chocolatey eyes are like heaven’s gate in the middle of an apocalypse. You want to erase the stupid smile forming on your lips but you can’t. For a brief moment you forget that you basically mean nothing to him. “You must be starvin’ gonna getcha something to eat.” He says and moves but you grab his wrist tightly “don’t go.” You are needy in a degree that is embarrassing. “’kay” he says and stays in bed with you. When he pulls you on his chest, it surprises you. You are not used to this. “Joel?” he does not say anything but hums to encourage you to talk. “Don’t think I’m putting pressure on you or anything but what’s gonna happen now?” he sighs in return. “Dunno sweetheart.” “Look, I understand if you don’t like me or anything like that but you’re giving mixed signals.” “I am trying to push you away but your stubborn ass finds her way around me.” you want to refuse but it is sort of true. “I am in no position to decide for you but whatever you’re feeling right now, whether it’s shallow or deep don’t get too attached to me. My days are numbered. Even if everything works out, I am thirty years short of life compared to you.” “Ah, Joel! Stop with that bullshit please. Stop using that as an excuse.” For the first time you have known Joel you are able to confront him properly. “that ain’t an excuse that’s the damn truth.” “what’s your real concern? You scared of people judging you because you fuck someone whose half your age? Are you scared Joel? Are you a coward? I don’t expect anything from you if that’s your concern. Just let me love you.” as a response he kisses you passionately. “Know your place missy, I ain’t a coward. I’m just trying to protect you.” you kiss him back and climb on his lap, his large hands grab you by the waist; thumbs drawing circles on your shirt but you can feel his touch in your bones. Your kiss deepens with each passing second, you bite his lower lip. With the moan falling from his lips, you grin. Your tongues dance with each other harmoniously. You press yourself down on his cock. Heat spreads inside your core. “Joel, I need you.” “tsk tsk tsk I don’t think you deserve to get what you need right now.” He says huskily. “What do you mean?” “I’m still mad at you for leaving your goddamn house all by yourself. You were a bad bad girl, got this old man all worried.” You whine in return. “Joel, that’s not fair.” He holds you tightly and picks you up to living room and leaves you on his couch. “Now be a good girl and you may get your reward at the end of the day. Imma get you something to eat.” He leaves living room and heads to kitchen leaving you alone.

Different thoughts race in your head. You are not in a relationship and he made it clear that he is not exactly happy about this whole age gap thing, but he is not reluctant to fuck you either. Maybe he just sees this as just a physical thing. Well, at any rate you are willing to be with him. Even if the feeling is not mutual, he is trying to take care of you. That’s more than enough. Your body overflows with excitement. He is preparing you something to eat, he said at the end of the night he may fuck you. Your one time sex was good but unexpected and resulted with failure. This time he also seems like he wants it. He acts so confusing you think, but at least he wants me.

While joel prepares something to eat he fights with his demons at the same time. Even though, he is willing to give it a shot, the guilt is nestled on his chest does not give him a break. If you were not in a vulnerable position, if you were not in the hands of some sick men earlier he would already send you back to your home. But right now, he can’t. He does not want you to be alone. He is scared. What am I doing? I’m an old bastard whose good days are over, am I taking advantage of her? he thinks. But right now, he can’t. The best he could do was finding a lame ass excuse to not to fuck you right there in the bedroom, he was not aware that it unlocked different emotions in your body. The moment he realized you liked it he decided to try. For your sake or maybe his. He is not in love with you, he is not even sure he feels something romantic towards you. But he wants to protect you. He does not know, every time he does something for you; your feelings get deeper and deeper. He does not know it is not just a physical attraction you feel or it is not appealing to be with him because he is a forbidden fruit. You are amidst of a sea of emotions which is about to swallow you whole, he is on the shore. You both don’t know if he will join you or leave you there to drown. Joel Miller does not deserve to be loved and cared for in his own eyes, that’s why he can’t wrap his head around the fact that someone cares for him without having an expectation.

When he comes back with two plates in his hand and sits right beside you, you feel like an actual couple. The one that two people shares everything from kisses to their foods, you let your delusions fool you. You pat the spot right next to you and he obliges. He hands you your plate “It’s the best I could do.” He smiles apologetically. But in your eyes, this is better than any high-quality restaurant meal. It shows he cares for you. Although you want to tell him that you can’t be sure if it’d cause an awkward silence or not so you decide to unease the mood. “I can tell you’re not a five star cook.” Your tone makes it clear that you are not serious. “Don’t expect too much from an old man.” He chuckles, his dimple deepens. You let your intrusive thoughts win and dip your index finger in his dimple. “What the hell!” he exclaims. “sorry.” You grin widely, he chuckles. “not in my 56 years of life time someone fingered my dimple.” You laugh at his words. “well, every day above the ground we experience something new, am I right?” he nods, a ghost of a smile shadows his lips. The moment feels so domestic. You stole a couple of glances to study his face. You want to stroke his hair, caress his cheeks. A part of you is able to see the man behind the façade for a split second. A man, who needs affection as much as you do. He is not a bad man, you are sure of it. He does what he does because of the pain that hardens his heart. Losing someone is not an easy thing that you can get over so easily.

The watch on his wrist always got your attention, you wondered why he never takes it off. It does not work it is obvious. The glass of it is broken. “Why you always wear that watch?” you ask between your bites but you instantly regret it when you realize the sadness that creeps up on his face. You want to assure him, you want to say sorry I think I have crossed a line you don’t have to answer but you don’t do any of it. You probably messed up, your already weird relationship will go weirder. You feel so small, you want to blend in with the couch that you sit. “It reminds me of my daughter.” You can’t say anything back. You thought he would brush it aside but he answered. “the bullet that crack the watch also took her from me. I could not save her. I never wanted to live in a world that she wasn’t in it. I was a bad dad and I am ashamed of it, I could not save my baby girl. It took less then ten minutes for her to die. I watched it every second of it. I don’t deserve to live peacefully after leaving her to death. The watch makes sure that I remember every second. Time stopped when I lost her, no need to use a watch that works because I’m still in that moment, never moved on.” His honest explanation hurts you more than you could ever imagine. You feel disgusting for trying to hurt him with bring her daughter into your stupid fight weeks ago. You want to apologize; you want to hug him and tell him that everything is gonna be alright but you know that’s some bullshit. Your gaze intertwines and he catches the apology in your eyes. “You don’t have to say anything, silence is the best answer sometimes. Also, I hate hearing she would want you to be happy bullshit.” You nod in return because honestly even if he expected you to say something, you could not. You both finish the rest of your plates in silence. He grabs your plates and takes them to the sink in the kitchen you can hear the water running. You sneak out to kitchen and wrap your arms around him behind, pressing your face to his back. “Am I being a good girl?” you mutter. A smile forms on his lips “It’s early to decide.” Your body moves with him when he washes the plates and dries them since you hold him tightly. You can’t help but feel warm and fuzzy, it’s almost intoxicating. The way your bodies pressed into each other, your arms around him… “you are a one needy thing.” He mutters. You don’t fight back. You walk back to the couch and sit down again. “Joel?” “hm?” “do you have any books?” “I got a couple of but you would not be interested.” “you don’t know about that.” he sends you an amused look and walks towards his room then returns with two books in his hands. They are about construction, so yeah you would not be interested but still you don’t want to admit it. “Oh, I love construction!!!” You cheer with a fake enthusiasm which sounds faker than you expect. “Really now?” he raises his brows and sits right next to you. “Of course!” you try to stop yourself from laughing but when he laughs you fail to do so. You grab the book from his hands and start reading out loud. “You know, it is pretty interesting.” “Stop with the bullshit.” He chuckles. You continue reading and he listens every word intently as if you are revealing the secret of immortality.

The book is pretty boring to say the least, it does not interest you at all. When he lays his head on your lap though, your words choke on your throat and it feels worth every sentence you have read. Different emotions flood through your body. You can hear your heart beats in your chest. You quickly get yourself together and continue reading and he listens, swallows every word pouring from your lips. After gathering your courage one of your hands find her way in his hair, stroking softly. For a moment, you both let yourselves to forget the talk you eventually have to do. You didn’t resolve anything. You didn’t apologize or come to terms with your actions. You simply ignored everything because of your hostage situation. You feel his soft, greying hair; he feels your fingers rubbing his head. Your voice feels velvety to him. He wants to resist. This feels like a violation of a territory that should be handled carefully. But he feels so peaceful that he does not care. You put the book aside and watch his face. You gather all your courage and clear throat before talking. “You broke my heart Joel and I know I also crossed a line. But your words were harsher than mine. Yet I can’t stop from feeling something towards you. All it takes for a smile to grace my lips is just a couple of nice words from you. Your presence alone is enough to make me want to keep going. I don’t expect you to love me, but don’t push me away. Please.” He is baffled by your words. He wants to say no, he wants to say you’re young and he is an old rascal but he can’t because your words stroke his ego. He simply nods. Silence fills the room one more time before he decides to speak. “I can’t promise you anything, but I’m in no position to decide for you. You are free to do whatever you like. But I can’t love you. Don’t expect some emotional response from me.” though his words shatter your heart at least he lets you in, this is an invitation that you can’t decline. “I won’t.” your hand makes its way to his face and caress his cheeks. In your eyes, he is just a broken man who deserves to be loved beneath his grumpy surface.

After reading almost an hour you get bored. “Am I being a good girl?” you ask again, your body wants him. You want him. he then sits up and faces you instead of laying on your lap. “What do you think?” “I think I was being a good girl.” “hmm?” he looks at you, his eyes twinkle with amusement. You know he desires you as much as you do, on a physical level at least. Your hands slide on his crouch, slowly stroking him through his jeans. You burrow your face on his neck. “Joel, let me take care of you.” you whisper. You lick his neck softly while your fingers continue stroking him. With a sudden motion he pulls you on his lap and kisses you deeply. You suck his tongue and he responds you with a low whimper. You are throbbing on his lap wetness spreading on your underwear. When he bites your lower lip you giggle. He wraps his arms around you and picks you up to his bed. You sit at the edge of the bed on your knees and he stands before you. Even if he does not say anything out loud you know what he wants, to be fair you are dying to give him a head. Not without teasing him though. You nuzzle against his hard cock through his jeans, move your face up and down, he growls grabbing your hair from the back of your head and presses you more. This time he is at your mercy. You unbuckle his belt and pull down his jeans but don’t touch his underwear. Thin material allows you to realize that he is as excited as you if not more. When you kiss the tip of his cock he gasps. Though you want to swallow him whole seeing him whimpering and whining is much more enjoyable. When you finally pull down his underwear his thick cock waters your mouth. It’s all ready and sensitive waiting for you to take care of. You take the tip in your mouth while tilting your head up to see Joel’s features. He bites her lips, eyes glistening with expectation. Your deliberately slow movements drive him crazy. The tip in your mouth, you just watch him. Eyes shut tightly, brows furrowed, biting his lips. When he moves your head with his hand you slightly bite his tip. Unexpected pain mixed with pleasure leads him to moan loudly. It feels like the greatest song ever created. Once you take if off of your mouth he whines. You spit on your palm. One of your hands moves up and down on his length while you leave sloppy kisses on the tip. He can barely stand up, he feels weak on the knees. When you finally take half of his cock in your mouth your hot breath overwhelms him. Your lips wrap his cock, you can feel him pulsing inside your mouth, just like you imagined. He guides your head up and down. When you take it all your eyes tear up you can feel it at the back of your throat. It’s too much, you want to gag but then you get use to the feeling. “Such a pretty girl, taking me with her mouth so well.” He coos. You make a muffled noise as a response to his praise. While he guides you through his cock, your hand grabs his balls. You squeeze slightly. You feel his hips stutter. When he fills your mouth with his salty cum you swallow it whole. He watches you in awe. His thumb wipes out your chin with his thumb and he pushes his thumb inside your mouth you suck his thumb. Though he feels slightly embarrassed for coming so easily he feels so satisfied.

You throw yourself to bed on your back, panting. He climbs on top of you. He realizes your questioning gaze “It’s my turn to take care of you.” “you’ve been such a good girl, took me so well sweetheart.” He strokes your cheek. He presses his knee to your clit, the fraction of clothes sends shivers on your back. You nod eagerly while dripping on your underwear. He moves his knee up and down while watching your every movement like you did to him earlier. He leans on you and kisses your neck sloppily. While rubbing his knee on your cunt. He takes off your shirt and bra, exposes your hardened nipples. Leaning on your breasts he burrows his face between them. His breath tickles you. The moment he licks a stripe on your tit you whimper. “needy.” He chuckles. You are not sure but you feel like his voice gets huskier when he fucks. He peppers your whole torso with kisses and makes his way down to your pussy. He kisses you through your jeans like you did to him while his knee still pressed to your clit. Then he takes of your jeans and panties. When his knee loses the contact with your pussy you whine but the moment you are fully naked, he presses his knee back again. Now you can feel his jeans fully. He leans on to kiss you while grabbing your tit and toying with it softly with his thumb and index finger. You can feel him everywhere. You moan into his mouth. His hands roam around your body, touches everywhere while his lips on yours. You break the kiss “Joel… please.” He chuckles. You can see his hardening cock. He continues moving his knee up and down on your pussy pressing is ever so slightly. You feel you’re close and he didn’t even finger you. “Joel, I’m close.” With your warning he stops moving his knee. You whine in return but when you feel his mouth sucking your clit you don’t even care. He warm mouth is all over your cunt. He pushes his tongue inside you and plays with your clit. When you come inside his mouth, he also swallows you whole. After you finished, he lays right next to you and takes you in his arms resting your head on his chest. You both pant heavily. “we’re not done yet.” he kisses your forehead you both chuckle.

 “We gotta clean up.” “I thought we were not done yet.” “I’m an old man give me a break.” You both laugh. He rolls up from the bed and goes to bathroom, preparing the bathtub for both of you, making sure the water is not too hot or too cold. Then he picks you up and carries you to the bathtub. He gets in the tub and pulls you in his lap. You press your back on his chest, feeling his chest heaves with each breath. He takes the shampoo from the side and washes your hair. His touch is so soft compared to ten minutes ago. His fingers moving on your scalp so tenderly. It is ridiculous. For a man who claims there is nothing emotional on his side his actions are so affectionate. He may not be loving you, but you can live with this. Feeling his warmth right next to you is enough. For now. “Joel?” “hm?” “what are we now?” “I was wondering when you will ask this. I don’t know sweetheart. And as I said earlier, I can’t promise you anything.” “I’ll make you fall for me.” “will ya now?” he chuckles. “yes.” “I wouldn’t be so sure.” You are certain though. He is going to fall for you. Maybe not now but eventually. He knows it too.

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

tags: @eliza-8 @orcasoul @joeldjarin

[gayundertaletrash]

Nightmare headcannons ✨

These are just headcannons I have for my favorite goopy boy. Some are from other people but a lot are from me.

(Trigger warnings- mentions of abuse, maybe body horror, animal death and eating, cannibalism, trauma, eating and sleeping disorders, self h@rm)

- Nightmare is FtM and uses he/it/king pronouns (I image he loves the idea of neos and xenopronouns to). He is a gay man, and is aro-specrum. To be more specific he is aro-specrum and cupioromantic, along with queer platonic. He is also ambiamorus.

- He is married to Cross, is dating Killer, and is in a QPR with all the Bad Guys+ Error, Lust, and Blue.

- Nightmare is generally very quiet and doesn't engage in conversion unless invited. He prefers to listen to others. His main love languages are quality time, physical touch, and giving gifts and acts of service. With the last two though, he doesn't like it when others give him gifts or do things for him. He likes to be the provider.

- Before his corruption he was pretty short (5'2) and is still short in his Passive form. After his corruption he grew to 7'6. He can change his height but prefers the height his goop makes him naturally. He has gotten very used to others being scared of how tall he is and doesn't care very much anymore.

- Because of his corruption, he is kinda uncanny. Certain features about him aren't normal looking. He has really long fingers that end in extremely sharp claws. His bones kinda clash together, an example is his ribs, which are melted together kinda, so he doesn't actually have individual ribs. His eye is also slanted and looks exactly animal-like. He has sharp teeth, and has rows and rows of smaller sharp teeth that go down his throat. He also purrs and growls like an animal. In all he looks less skeleton-like the longer you look at him.

- Nightmare use to be very abusive to the Bad Guys. After years of being a complete ass, he began to recognize his behavior and turned it around. He is now past his abuse and has made up to them all. He still has a lot of guilt from it, but knows he is better now. He started changing his behavior before Cross joined, so Cross beaver really got the bad part of Nightmare's behavior.

- Nightmare is made of two beings. There is the host body/soul which is Nightmare. And then the goop. The goop is an older creature that had followed Nim when she first came to the Undertale Multiverse. The goop and Nightmare live together as one, and can't separate without both dying. The goop can retreat back inside Nightmare though which makes him become passive. Nightmare has named the good Corrupt. Corrupt is a hive mind though, and is just the whole 'hive' acting together. Each of Nightmare's tentacles are part of this 'hive'. Each tentacle is named. They are named Jupiter, Venus, Orion, and Reginald.

- Nightmare is kinda animalistic. Thai is mostly because of Corrupt though. Nightmare purrs and growls, along with other noises like squeaks and chirps. He also makes nests sometimes. Nightmare also can ( and craves) meat. Usually he gets this from small animals like mice, rats, and bird which he can eat in one bite. But he has been know to eat just about anything fleshy. This includes dead deer, dogs, rotten meat, and sometimes human or other monsters. He still acts very proper though even as he eats a half rotten deer.

- The only reason he has eaten human or monster is to help Horror. Horror, like the rest of his au, had become addicted to the taste of humans and monsters. He hates the fact he craves is and Nightmare is trying to get him off it. But because it is such a strong addiction, he has to do it slowly. Sometimes, to help the process along, he will tell Horror he is feeding him human, while feeding his something like pork. The actual human meat Nightmare has eaten himself.

- Nightmare sucks at understand most social norms. After Dreamtale and Dream being trapped in stone, Nightmare pretty much locked himself away for over 20 years. During those 20 years he forgot how to be a normal person. It isn't uncommon to find Nightmare walking around the castle in little to no clothes, or have him walk in while one of the others are changing and just sit down and start talking. He doesn't care about norms very much either, so as long as the others are comfortable, he will do just about anything he wants.

- Nightmare has a lot of mental health and physical health problems. He has insomnia and hates sleeping also because of past trauma. He has a purging disorder, which is not binging but still forcing yourself to throw up. Nightmare is trying to get better about both of these things and is slowly making progress. He also has seasonal depression, C-PTSD, anger issues, and self harm tendencies. He is slowly getting better though.

- Nightmare loves gardening, and has a giant garden filled with flowers. He loves his roses though, which he takes great care of. He has an area of flowers dedicated to certain events, and will plant a flower if something good happens. He also plays the piano and has an old one in his study. His study is what he calls his library, which takes up an entire tower in the castle.

- Nightmare is very protective of the Bad Guys and considers them first before anything else. If he had to choose between them and the whole multiverse, he would let the multiverse die and teleport them all to a different Multiverse. He loves them dearly.

Ok, that's all I have for now, hope you enjoyed. :))

[the-green-divine]

Bitch has a mild amount of her shit together, courtesy of writing some self-indulgent Jefferson murder fic in which Rachel survives. I am still bananas over Life is Strange: Before the Storm. It might be my new favorite game in the series (previously True Colors, which is also good, go play it.)

So what about it made me bananas? Overall, the way the game shows Chloe’s day to day life in a way Life is Strange (1) didn’t. LiS1 has absurdly high stakes, a moral conundrum (sort of), serial killers, missing girls, asshole adults, oh my! You get a fair few normal moments between Chloe and Max, which typically end in Max rescuing Chloe from dying through her rewind.

We also don’t really know how Chloe got to where she is in the first game, or what she used to be like. We get hints, and Chloe’s core character is definitely someone who loves fiercely but has been hurt so much and so badly that she’s had to withdraw almost completely to survive. Before the Storm (BtS) shows us Chloe, and gives a path for why she is in such a bad place in LiS1.

I thought I might do this by episode, but I really can’t. I gotta take it by character, so let’s get the worst out of the way first: David and Joyce. Fuck I hate them both. David is an abusive piece of shit who manipulates Joyce and Chloe both. When Chloe offers up something about herself, he makes it about him, his trauma and grief, and demands she respect it when he has made it clear he has no respect for her. If she refuses, he immediately turns violent. Fuck David

And Joyce. The enabler to David’s abuse, because Chloe’s such a problem child. At the end of episode one, I saw “You were mean to Joyce” as a decision point and laughed. I wasn’t mean to Joyce, I picked the honest option. To Joyce in BtS, anything that doesn’t support her completely, and her delusion of a happy family is mean and petty. She “both sides” every argument between Chloe and David, and when Chloe tries to tell her how she feels, Joyce shuts her out. Chloe spends several days after getting suspended not at home, and Joyce never asks where she was. She doesn’t want her daughter. She sure as hell doesn’t deserve her.

Moving on: Rachel. I liked Rachel a lot. Mostly I knew her from LiS1 and fics, many of which paint her as a manipulator, some as an outright villain. I didn’t see it. I saw a teen whose smart but easily bored, and has the usual amount of teen stupidity (no offense to any teens who see this, you don’t necessarily get less dumb as you age, you find new ways to be stupid.) She fucks up, but she’s also going through probably the worst week of her life during BtS (so far.) She’s impulsive and (I believe) too prone to lying as the easy way out, but she’s also got James Amber for a dad.

Jimbo is where this game gets confused. They clearly show he IS a liar and a manipulator, but seem to try to walk it back sometimes? I’m certain he’s gaslit both Rose and Sera into believing he (and only he) knows what’s best for Rachel, and did such a great job on Sera she is nearly killed and still tries to defend him as a good father for Rachel. Ma’am. No. (I’m actually headcanoning that Sera did die from the overdose, and Chloe talks to her ghost - seriously, just a short while before she spoke to ghost William, and her journal makes it clear that she’s no longer easily able to differentiate between dreams and waking.) He sucks, but he could have been a much stronger villain.

Really, that’s my thing with all the LiS games: they could be much stronger if they dropped the high stakes sudden conspiracy twist, and stuck to their themes. BtS is about the powerlessness of being a teenager, surrounded by adults you can’t trust because they have shown, repeatedly, they don’t care about you as a person. It’s about the light at the end of the tunnel, if you’re living in an abusive home, as Chloe and Rachel both are. The hope and sweetness of youth, and the way the world shifts underfoot as you become an adult. Where you’re no longer sure of what you once knew.

That’s how I see Chloe. Someone so strong, and brave, and smart, shut down by a world that is increasingly hostile the more she speaks her mind. Despite not really liking the scene with Damon in the junkyard, my mind went to the scene on the beach in LiS 1 where Frank threatens Max. I’m sure she was thinking of how she froze up and it nearly got Rachel killed. BtS enriches Chloe immensely as a character, and shows us Rachel, who before we only knew from others’ memories, idealized or not.

There’s a lot not to like, and some disturbingly out of character scenes, Victoria’s drugging chief among them. But fuck canon, every writer loses their shit sometimes. That’s what fic is for. I’m really glad I played BtS.

i finished my first before the storm playthrough and bring you this live reaction:

AAAaaaAaRrrGggGHhhH

more to follow as bitch gets her shit together

[jessmalia]

heartless | 06. only fools

pairing: henry mills x oc a/n: you’ll need to remember some details from this for a certain future chapter. jo this is just a giant puzzle��i’m giving to you to solve.  warnings: it’s the therapy chapter, guys. there will be talk/themes of trauma, ptsd, anxiety attacks, nightmares etc. also mostly unedited.  wordcount: 1195

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“So, tell me about these nightmares you’re having.”

  “Well, they’re usually pretty much the same,” Max said. Her hand was tracing the spot on her thigh where her dagger had been strapped to the night before. She had to admit that one advantage skirts had over pants was that it was significantly easier to hide a dagger underneath them. She had to keep it in her bag now, which wasn’t nearly as easy to access. “I’m always in this dark forest, and I… have this feeling that I’m in danger. Like there’s something, or… someone, hiding behind the trees.”

  “But you don’t know what?” asked Archie.

  Max shook her head. “No, I have no idea. And whatever it is, it never shows itself.”

  “And what’s the other recurring imagery?”

  “Well… water. I see a really big ocean, and sometimes I feel water streaming around me. My hands start… shaking a lot. And then,” Max swallowed, “there’s the sound of a little boy screaming.”

  “A little boy screaming? Is it Henry?” Archie asked.

  Max decidedly shook her head. “No, it’s not Henry. But I have this feeling that I know who it is, but I just can’t,” Max took a deep breath, and the slightest chuckle escaped her, “remember. Every time I feel like I get closer to discovering his identity… but it never happens.”

  “And what does his scream sound like?”

  Max swallowed. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I mean, is it a scream of joy? Pain? Or horror?”

  Her hands were shaking again, tears gathering in the corner of her eyes. “His scream sounds like…” she took a deep breath once more, trying her best to calm herself. “He sounds like he’s dying.”

  Whatever answer Dr. Hopper had expected, it seemed that wasn’t it. Shock and sympathy were woven into his expression. Max needed to change the subject before he attempted to comfort her.

  “And then, there’s my panic attacks,” she said.

  Archie blinked. “Yes, of course. When do they happen?”

  “They’re usually… they’re often triggered by things that remind me of my dreams. Like walking in the forest at night, or even just thinking about them sometimes.”

  “And during these anxiety attacks, do you see and hear the same things as in your dreams?”

  Max nodded.

  “And do you ever, aside from the anxiety attacks, see these things when you’re awake as well? Sort of like vivid flashbacks?”

  Max nodded again. “Yeah, how did you know?”

  Dr. Hopper forced a tight smile. “Just a routine question. Could I ask some more of those?” he asked, and upon Max’s confirmation, he continued, “Do you feel detached from others around you or have difficulty maintaining close relationships?”

  “Yes, to both,” she said, finding her answer reasonable since the only close relationship she’d ever had was with Henry.

  “Do you have negative thoughts about yourself and the world?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you often feel emotionally numb and have difficulty experiencing positive emotions?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you drink or smoke?”

  Max’s eyebrows rose. “I’m thirteen,” she snarked.

  “Well, that doesn’t stop everyone.”

  “No.”

  “Do you have any trouble concentrating?”

  “Only my whole life,” Max scoffed, watching Dr. Hopper write her answers down. “So, what’s your theory, then?”

  Archie looked back up from his notepad. “Excuse me?”

  Max raised her eyebrows once more, unimpressed. “Those aren’t regular ‘routine questions’, they’re routine questions for the theory you have. Now, spill.”

  “Well, it’s much too early to do a proper diagnosis.”

  Max groaned. “Don’t you think I know that? But isn’t someone usually informed about any thoughts and theories you have before you diagnose them? I know I’m only 13, but it’s not like I have any family around. So just spit it out. I can fucking handle it.”

  “Well,” Dr. Hopper said, quite shaken by her harsh tone, “all your symptoms point quite perfectly to the same thing, post-traumatic stress disorder.

  “PTSD?” Max asked, quite surprised.

  Dr. Hopper nodded. “Yes, the only strange thing is that from everything you’ve told me about your life, you don’t seem to have experienced anything traumatic enough to trigger such a disorder. It’s like you’re haunted by memories that never happened.”

  Max's posture straightened, and her eyes narrowed. “Or like… I’ve forgotten them.”

  “Ah– well, yes,” Dr. Hopper spluttered, “I guess you could put it that way.”

  And then it hit her. The one thing that could explain all of this. Everything Henry was saying about this place was true. She realized how perfect sense it made as she thought over everything that had happened since Emma got there. That, plus her apparent post-traumatic stress disorder when she hadn’t even been through something that traumatic, cemented it for her. There was no way this was a coincidence. And then she cursed herself for not figuring it out sooner. Of course it was true! Henry believed in it. That should’ve been enough to convince her. Only a fool wouldn’t believe in Henry Mills.

  “I need to go,” said Max immediately, rushing out of the sofa and towards the door.

  “W-what? Why? Max, we’re not finished yet.”

  She grinned. “I don’t think therapy is gonna bring back my cursed memories, Dr. Hopper.” And with that, she dashed out the door.

–––

Henry opened his bedroom window, and Max greeted him with a bittersweet smile.

  “Hi,” she said softly.

  Henry smiled. “Hi,” he said back, voice just as low as hers, before frowning slightly. “How was your appointment with Dr. Hopper?”

  Max sighed, before climbing in through the window and sitting down on Henry’s bed. He took a seat beside her.

  “We talked about my nightmares,” she said, keeping her eyes on her lap, “and my panic attacks, and, you know, all the other issues I’ve got. Like detachment, fear of intimacy, the works…”

  Henry nodded, rubbing soothing circles across Max’s back.

  “And, well… Dr. Hopper said that all of my symptoms point to PTSD, but that it didn’t make sense because I’ve never been through anything bad enough to trigger that…” Henry knew where she was going, but that didn’t make it any easier. For once, Max wasn’t crying; her eyes were dry, but… that only worried him even more. She turned to look at him as she continued, “Henry, these dreams I keep having, they’re not just memories… they’re trauma.”

  Henry immediately reached forward and gripped Max in a tight hug. She smiled despite everything and buried her face in the crook of Henry’s neck, letting herself sink into the embrace.

  It was weird, in a way. Max had absolutely no recollection of her previous life, and yet, somehow, she knew that Henry was the best thing that had ever happened to her. She would do anything for him.

  Soon they parted, and Max’s gaze met Henry’s determined one. Henry had beautiful eyes. It had always been her favorite part of him. There was this light in them; this beautiful beacon of hope and good. Max wasn’t the sort of person who opened up easily to people, but Henry was the exception, and that light behind his eyes was the reason she knew she could trust him.

  “We’ll get through this together,” he promised.

  Max nodded. “Okay.”

–––

A/n: I know that it’s common for people with PTSD to repress and forget their traumatic event, I’ve done my research; so Archie’s confusion doesn’t really make sense but sssssssshhhhhhh.  But, I mean, it’s not like he’s actually an educated therapist he’s just some cricket so I guess it does kinda make sense anyway. 

heartless taglist: @jochase​

[xhanisai]

AU where the current holders of the miraculous have dreams about the previous holders

- They only dream about the holders before them- not the holders before the previous ones (for example, say Laila is the current holder of the butterfly and the holder before her was Maya. The holder before Maya was Ali. Laila will only dream about Maya whilst Maya have dreamt about Ali).

- The dreams are in the POV of the previous holders; you would only see things that are happening through their eyes and have no control over their bodies. You will also feel the same things the holders are feeling. The dreams are only possible if the predecessor before the current holder has passed away.

- The last holders of the Ladybug and Black Cat miraculouses were Bridgette Zhōu and Felix Gray (The PV predecessors of Marinette and Adrien). They were born in England and fought and died during the end of the second world war in 1945. 

- Bridgette went by as Ladybird whilst Felix went by as Black Cat. They were sixteen when they received their miraculouses by Maître Fu.

- So Marinette, ever since gaining the earrings, would dream about Bridgette and the events that unfolded during her time. Adrien would dream about Felix on the other hand. 

- At first, both were confused and horrified by this, especially after having to witness the brutal battles and war in first person and not having the power to help the way they want. They wouldn’t dare to mention this to each other in the beginning, unsure on how to approach the subject and completely traumatised too.

- They are quick to mature, especially in their civilian lives. Alya has noted that Marinette often wears a distant, sad look on her face, as if she’s weighed down by the burdens of the world.

- Nino was also quick to realise the tired yet determined gaze that Adrien wore, as if he was burning with the desire to protect everything he treasures as well as grieving for the things he’s lost. Though, the boy is an excellent actor and it’s really hard to see him unless you’re Nino. 

- Since Marinette is far too distracted with coming up with plans and connecting dots to find out who le Papillon was, she’s not able to see how deep the changes were within Adrien, mainly focused on protecting her loved ones, especially her Chat Noir.

- Adrien on the other hand keeps a constant close observation on Marinette. She’s one of the few people out there that he really likes and cherishes so seeing her becoming more distant and tired and sad also upsets him.

- He starts to suspect about Ladybug’s civilian identity, especially after Plagg noting that he’s fallen for Marinette and LB for the umpteenth time. 

- Marinette is also in love with both Adrien and Chat Noir (though she doesn’t like to admit the latter). She doesn’t make any attempts on romancing because she fears that it would be taken advantage of by le Papillon one way or another.

- Chat Noir is only a little flirty with Ladybug, also held back from the past holders and the current villain from fully attempting to romance her. Adrien is still soft and sweet with Marinette, always making sure she’s relaxed in his presence (Though, strangers can see that the feelings between ladynoir and adrinette are mutual).

- Both Adrien and Marinette love to spoil their kwamis with all the sweets and cheese the little Gods desire. The duo couldn’t fathom the guilt and trauma from their predecessors so how were Tikki and Plagg dealing with all the lives of their past holders? 

- The bond between Tikki and Marinette and the bond between Plagg and Adrien is super, super strong.

- What finally causes Ladybug and Chat Noir to snap and communicate with each other regarding the dreams is when they finally dreamt about Bridgette’s and Felix’s last moments. These moments were the most haunting and painful out of them all.

Bridgette laid in a distraught Felix’s arms, a fatal wound in her chest, an ugly crimson growing on her clothes, yet a soft, subtle smile rested on her lips. With all her energy, she mustered up the strength to cup the sobbing boy’s cheek, as if Big Ben wasn’t being bombed to smithereens behind them and as if they weren’t surrounded by walls of deadly fire.

“Please...don’t close your eyes...don’t leave me...you’re going to be okay,” Felix choked, leaning into her touch which only grew terrifyingly colder and colder. He has to save her...he has to!

“D-Don’t cry, my sweet love,” Bridgette attempted to grin further and cooed at her lover, blind to Tikki’s vice grip on her blood stained school uniform and Plagg’s gape of horror. “I...I need you to run, Felix. Please-”

“What!? Don’t be ridiculous! I’m not leaving you! Not now, not ever!” He held her closer to him, tears cascading down his usually stoic face and mind scrambling for a plan. “I’ll save you, like always! And no one will dare to hurt you again-”

“Please...you’re already hurt. Please, live for me...”

“Bridgette...there’s no point in living if you’re not there with me, and that’s final!”

.

- Unfortunately, the duo met their demise from a direct bomb. Fu and Marianne had no choice but to take the miraculouses off their corpses as they were on the run, no time to mourn for the poor teens. 

- Because of this dream, Chat has vowed to protect his Lady, no matter what, to ensure that she never has to go through the same pain as Bridgette (and also so he never has to mourn for another woman he’s loved with his everything).

- Ladybug has also vowed to ensure that they would never get into a situation like that, ever. The last thing she ever wants is for her partner to go through that pain. 

- Sometimes, Marinette would find herself clutching her chest, as if she’s been shot, only to realise that they’re phantom pains from Bridgette’s fatal wounds and battle scars. Sometimes, the pain is enough to make her blackout. 

- Similarly, this happens to Adrien too. Especially since Black Cat often got hurt during the war when fighting against the opposition. 

- Both Marinette and Adrien have seen this happen to each other, not only as civilians but as their hero identities as well. They’re both 100% certain of their suspicions regarding the identities but are yet to address it.

- They get into arguments when Chat keeps on sacrificing himself. Both of them wanting to protect each other so badly, it hurts. The horrors of their predecessors’ lives and failures branded into their souls. 

“You are the most important one out of us both! You can bring everything back to normal! Of course it makes sense for me to take that hit for you-”

“We are a team! I can’t do this without you and you know how much I hate seeing you die before my eyes over and over again!”

“But you bring me back every time-”

“That doesn’t stop it from hurting, you stupid cat! How would you feel if the person you love the most kept dying in front of you!?”

- After accidentally blurting out her confession, Ladybug attempts to run away, only for Chat Noir to hold her back by the hand. He then gently hugs her from behind, face hidden on the crook of her neck.

“I do know how it feels, Marinette. I do...” Chat held onto her tighter when she gasped, waiting until she relaxed before he carried on. “Every time I dream about that night, I feel Felix’s pain as his Lady died in his arms. I feel his guilt, his self-hatred, his grief, his heartbreak...everything.” 

Lifting his head, Noir turned Ladybug around, his frown deepening from the tears that ran down her cheeks. He then brought his lips to one of her eyes, kissing away the tears with a softness that would rival even a mother’s touch to a new-born’s skin.

“I’m sorry I made you feel that way...I love you so much that I can’t bear to see you die, ever,”

- From then on, they come to a compromise that they’d work as hard as possible to keep either of them from dying for each other.

- It’s hard and difficult but now that they have each other in their civilian lives, as well as letting Alya, Nino and Marinette’s parents into the secrets, the burdens eased. Fu allowed them to do this, knowing that the burden is too much for a singular person to handle on their own. Together they all became one excellent support system.

- Thankfully, there are pleasant dreams from Felix’s and Bridgette’s lives as well. Such as: first time meeting, ballroom dancing, walking in the gardens, etc.

[fyowhore]

Hello! Duck anon here again!

This is weird. A matchmaker who is not loaded with requests? :0

Um, ok, here we go then! (///￣ ￣///)

**

I am a girl, 21 years old.

I prefer men. (There aren't many women in BSD though, so there's not much choice. XD)

I like men who value their family and wish to start one too. I love men who are initiative and have goals that they try to reach. My partner's motive needs to be about helping people, making them happy, because only then a person would strive to be kind no matter how much he/she struggles. I am also not very good with earning money, so I want my partner to be good at it or else we are both dying in some dark alleyway poor and in love. XD

I like to laugh, so my partner's humour shouldn't be bland. Even though I can be serious and most people think I am strict because of my stern face, I don't think that a serious person x serious person is a very good combo.

However, I also know that I am very lazy, so I really need someone who would put me in line to do work instead of anything other than that.

**

I love my sister and we are inseparable. Wherever I go, she goes. Whatever she does, I do. We like to laugh together and our conversations are usually silly and useless. (My mother compares us to birds, because we cheerfully 'chirp' about nothing.)

**

I love writing. I want to become a teacher, but if that dream fails, I will be a children book writer for sure.

I like drawing, but I'm not that good of an artist like my sister.

I like watching anime (Spy X Family, Komi-san Can't Communicate, Yo Boy Kongmin, Mob Psycho 100, Haikyuu are my favourite actually), but I don't do it lately.

I like watching character analysis and theories. Sometimes I listen how a certain author came up with certain ideas.

**

I don’t like people who don't pick sides and change their opinion according to what the others say. They look weak.

I don’t like people who don't accept how they are, yet they tell that they love themselves. To sum it up, I don't like liars who don't want to admit that they have personal problems. I really want to slap them to bring them back to their senses.

I generally don't like liars who refuse to see the truth that stands right in front of them. Lying is OK on some occasions and it can save you from an unnecessary conflict at times, but there's a limit.

Oh, I also don't like rice and pudding. Yuck. I prefer sweets. >:P

**

I have very bad hair (they don't grow well, hence they are short) and they are brown/blonde. I have acne (I have lots of dark postacne blemishes and there are acne scars on my face. Luckily, there aren't as many pimples nowadays.) I am 178cm/5ft9in. I have a very poor eye sight to the point I can't see a person's face two meters away from me, but I refuse to wear glasses because I look like a strict teacher in them.

**

I think that's all. I hope it's not too much! ^^;;

Remember to take rests! :D Have lots of inspiration for your stories and other hobbies! ~✨ I hope you're having fun with your writing! C:

He might be soft hearted but…

I think Atsushi could be quite a nice fit! He probably would also adore the idea of a family and providing for children instead of leaving them alone. His family would be based in peace and reassurance and I think it would be the gentle environment anyone could hope for. He’s a little awkward for sure but I think he’d also appreciate your jokes, and someone sterner who’s better at reinforcing both of your boundaries.

Working at the ADA together would be perfect, he takes the dangerous work and you could either do something similar, or stay behind and work on safer jobs. It’s a good environment for struggling with work, considering everyone puts up with Dazai, you needing a break every now and then is more than fine.

He’s a sappy man and I think you’d only help him grow further past his traumas. Sometimes he lies to himself, which you’d quickly put a stop to. Or at least heavily encourage him to quit it. He’s insecure but I fully believe a relationship is working towards the betterment of yourselves together. It shouldn’t be an Olympian task but feeling like you’ve earned a safety and love can’t compare to everything coming easy. Past that… not liking rice? Fine by him, that’s just more of his favourite food in the world for him! But he’d obviously accommodate for you.

As for your appearance, even if you were insecure about it… it wouldn’t bother Atsushi. Not at all, never could he think to judge such uncontrollable conditions. He’s scarred too, it’s for different reasons but I think he’d find a certain beauty in it. I also think he’d appreciate the fact you love your family. He never had it, and can only hope they’d love him too.

I hope this is a nice result for you my lovely Duck anon! 🦆 You stumped me a little at first but I can absolutely see the lovely tiger man being supportive, and you talking some sense into his trauma fuelled anxiety. He doesn’t mean to be the way he is, it’s just a hard life sometimes ✨

[supremeinlilac]

Greiving for something not lost

Sally Mckenna x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 5.1k

Warnings: Canon death, mentions of suicide, grief, slight mention of nsfw activities but it’s literally nothing.

A/n: Here’s the exchange gift for @cissa-calls , and I hope it’s not too dark for you :/ I researched a lot of Greek Mythology because you said you enjoyed it so it’s based around a myth, although as always I got carried away so it ended up only being a small portion. I hope you like it :))

Instead of taking the direct route to the Cortez, you idled down the backstreets of LA, one hand stuffed deeply into your pocket as you scuffed feet against stones on the path. It did little to clear the fog in your brain after yet another argument with Sally, it was always too loud in the city and you seemed to never be able to silence it enough to think.

Sally had promised you, time and time again that the next job would be the last, and you clutch at the hopes that each time she’d be telling the truth. Each time you’d fumble with fingers against the hem of her jacket and beg her to stay, and she’d pry them off and tell you not to follow her.

“The Hotel Cortez is not a place for you babe,” she’d say, and then she’d be gone.

Usually, you’d accept that, and would wait by the window for glimpses of her silhouette along the street when she’d returned. Your heart would thrum in protest against your ribs almost painfully until you’d see her safe again. This time, you’d both cried and fumed. Neither understood the other, neither wanting to admit that they feared what that meant.

Your other hand held a small spray of white anemones, and an apology scribbled on paper. You had to rehearse it before you met with her again, she seemed to be able to sense when you weren’t genuine. You’d wanted flowers of a darker colour, they were more Sally, but had had to settle with that of purity and innocence. Not Sally at all, but you were still too proud and stubborn to stalk around more shops to find the perfect gift for her when you’d both been in the wrong.

The detour meant you’d probably find your girlfriend already high, stumbling aimlessly around rooms with that grin on her face that always made you want to kiss it off her. No doubt that tonight would end as it always did. Possessive and passionate in your shared bed. Sometimes you wouldn’t even reach it. Sorry with Sally was always spoken through sex.

The thought of apologising through kisses and softly idle fingertips had your pace quickening, and the guilt heating up within you. You didn’t like fighting with Sally, and you sure as hell didn’t like what you fought about, but you loved to bribe her back to you this way. But as you turned the corner to the hotel, the guilt in your stomach dropped into that of dread, and a lump formed so quickly in your throat that you felt you would choke on it with what you saw.

Aphrodite had warned Adonis about the dangers, just like you had Sally, and yet, here they both lay. It was as if her body blurred into two with your tears, two lovers, separated by the cruel twist of deaths knife in a hollow chest.

You seemed to be able to do nothing but stagger towards her, vision smoky and you prayed it was a dream. That you may stir in the sheets beside Sally, and she’d reach to still your tremors like the silent hand of a god against the rumble of an earthquake. Be still my love, do not fear what can not hurt you. I’m here, reach for me.

Now, you wished for something as merciful as a dream.

Her face paled to grey as you neared, and the world seemed to fall away. Passers by seemed unaffected as hurried feet carried them home, anxious to block out the city with thick blinds and gentle music. Your despair willowed to nothing, a commotion simply on the other side of the road wasn’t a rarity. The city had seen it all before.

It turns out the Hotel Cortez wasn’t a place for her either.

You felt like throwing yourself to the ground beside her, bare knees scraping against the harsh pavement, yet you’d welcome the pain beside your lover. White noise filled your ears, and only the blaring of car horns could cut through its insistent ringing. You couldn’t even hear yourself crying for help to anyone who might listen.

Her eyes were wide, glassy and pleading, but you saw no life in them. The glass gave way to murky water and it was clear you’d reached her too late. Defeated, you crumpled beside her, flowers forgotten in leu of pressing lips to her temple and whispering the apology as if it may be heard by her soul and it might return to her body. To you.

You wanted to close her eyes with gentle fingertips but feared that if she stopped seeing you then it would be the end. That it would mean she was gone.

A flower sprang where he lay, hours after Adonis’ death, a deep crimson anemone that bore the shade of his blood. Born from the sweet nectar from Aphrodite’s hand, the wildflower bloomed. Beautiful trauma.

The flowers on the ground by your side seemed to wilt, sensing the sour odour of deaths passing, they hung their heads in mourning and shrank into their petals. Heavy with grief. White anemones turned red under the suns dying love, its light bowing behind the buildings so it may pretend to have not bared silent witness to souls divided.

Aphrodite pleaded for her lover’s life in the underworld, so he could be with her once again in life. You would have plead as she did, knelt and sold your soul for Sally to be returned. You would have done as Aphrodite did, if you thought it would help. If you thought that someone could see your pain and render it pure enough to grant the impossible.

In the real world, there are no gracious second chances for such a fickle thing as love.

And now, it seemed that the Hotel Cortez would be her place, tied to her always in death.

You stayed by her side until the coroner arrived to take her away. You couldn’t cry, instead just watched through eyes of steel as the back doors of the van were slammed obnoxiously, ringing in your ears long after it had pulled away and been lost to the traffic. You vaguely registered someone’s hand on your shoulder, a soothing motion, talking as if underwater, muffled and unintelligible. You felt like you were barely clinging to driftwood on an unsettled sea, each swell of a wave bigger than the last.

In shock- you heard someone say. Suicide. That broke your haze.

When you’d got home that night, the silence had screamed at you. It had been too quiet to sleep, and you ached for the way she’d blast music loud enough to warrant the neighbours complaints the next day, so you’d have to bake horrendously in the kitchen cookies as apologies. Or when she’d strum against her guitar and the gentle tones would pull you from your work and into her lap to watch her fingers manipulate the instrument into art.

You craved the shrill laughter of Sally when she’d prank you childishly, how she’d pull you towards her and you’d see how joy creased her face beautifully. You’d always want to make her laugh and brush the pads of curious fingers over the dimples formed and make her shy away.

You’d never hear her song again, you realised, blinking away tears when the guitar propped in the corner caught your eye. Chest heaving painfully, you half wanted to grasp it by the neck and slam it against the ground over and over until anger diffused and you could cry into its shards. The other half, the winning half, wanted to pick it up and set it against you, ghost fingers over its strings so the thrum was barely audible. She’d played this tune, taught you this tune, and you vowed you’d never forget it. Fingers in her shadow, you ran them over the smooth wood, eyes closed and head back on the sofa.

She was everywhere in the apartment, and it only served to remind you that she was also nowhere.

The suffocating hands of her absence pressed against you, a ribbon of blackened ash around your ribs, until they threatened to crack under its pressure. Was it possible to miss how she hurt? Your lover, with her wild hair and glassy eyes, you could see her as she was, you would drunk in how she would move. Dancing slowly in an empty room, as if the world were watching her.

Wild hair was born to writhing snakes, and you feared to look directly into her eyes now. Death had claimed her as its own, and you refused to accept her insistent fate. She’d return. You’d look into her eyes and see that of your lover, and not of Medusa. Lungs of stone, how could they swell to receive the gift of a breath without her beside you?

Now you drowned the guilt, drunk in its depths instead of in her eyes.

Stuck in endless loops of questioning what if. What if you hadn’t taken the detour, what if you hadn’t argued, or if you had made her stay instead of letting her leave the apartment? Would she still be alive?

It wasn’t your fault but oh, how that option seemed so sweet in this moment. To be swarmed with an actual reason to hate, how it would be easier than the reality. You’d rather have yourself to blame than have no one. Responsibility for actions you weren’t even sure of. Questions unanswered by police, that would remain unanswered because the only person with the solution was gone. What had happened?

The pressure seemed to build up in your head, an unbearable thickness of thoughts that had nowhere to go but to force themselves down your throat so you’d choke on them, and the feeling of sickness would resurface. They’d swim in your gut like parasite and never still.

It was worse at night.

Distractions were less and your emotions ran so far above you on blackened clouds, so out of reach that you doubted you’d ever be able to wrestle them back into submission. Would they eternally be dancing in mockery and pulling at marionette strings in your limbs? A shell of your former self, only held up by unpredictable emotions that could burn you with their ice just as much as their fire.

After your first day back at work after the incident, you’d returned home exhausted, wanting nothing more than to collapse into yourself on the sofa and cradle one of her jackets. You forgot the lock the door on your way in, and remembered hours later, after the sun had drooped once more that you needed to lock yourself with your thoughts again for the night.

You reached into your handbag, searching for something that seemed menial now, and instead your fingers curled around her packet of cigarettes. You stopped, hand still in the bag, and your breath caught painfully in your throat.

It had been the first since that night, raw and salty tears that burned your eyes red and blurred your vision. The kind of crying that wore you to nothing within minutes and had you clutching bony fingers to your chest as if to pry open ribs and reach your lungs. You couldn’t breathe.

Everything caught up with you, and you felt as if you were falling alongside her, scrabbling to find purchase against nothing. The rational side of your brain knew that you wouldn’t crash to the ground, but you couldn’t help but be brought back to her side in that moment, a whirlwind of emotions that you couldn’t control, circling your head in a way that made you dizzy with your grief.

Her pale face, mottled with the tears of her death invaded your mind, the blood staining the pavement. Suddenly you felt hot with it, as if the sticky blood was covering you, pulling you to drown. You could smell its invasive metallic scent, almost taste its musk in your throat with every breath. It was thick, and you were clawing at your arms to try and wipe it away. It was everywhere, and then it was nowhere, and you wondered why you’d been tricked by grief in the first place.

Shaking, your fingers had flipped open the packet and picked one out. You didn’t smoke, yet trembling hands found the lighter and lips found the filter which already had a smudge of red on it. Almost as if Sally had gone to light it but changed her mind, discarding it back for later use. She never used it again, now it was you that drew in an unsteady breath, drawing the panel door to the side as you took the rest of the cigarettes onto the small apartment balcony you both shared to smoke them, alone.

There was really only room for one person out there at a time, yet you and Sally would huddle together on the nights when the city would keep you awake, and she’d wrap pale arms around your waist and nuzzle her chin into the crook of your neck. Passing her cigarette back and forth you’d overlook the streets below and watch the living.

You’d both used to wonder what it would be like to lead the lives of those people below, those on their way to work before the sun even surfaced over the horizon and set its path for the day. Working before the pair of you had even been asleep. The banality of their routine, oh, how you both pitied them. They’d work boring jobs to pay the rent for the whitewashed walls they’d come home to each night, eat the same meals at the same time, prepared by wives wearing lines of age, deeply set in valleys on their faces. These people always looked older than their years, tired and worn from work and children born to save a marriage already lost.

You’d used to pity them, yet now, you craved the intimacy of a boring life with someone you loved. You’d rather the predictability of this life than the one you had now. Nothing.

On the balcony, you smoked all the remaining cigarettes in the pack. Usually, you didn’t smoke, but you did, just to feel close to her again. Curling your fingers around the butt the way that she used to, and blowing the smoke out, watching it furl and twist into the cold night. You craved the warm roughness of her hands.

She’d kiss you with the lingering taste of those cigarettes, and you’d grown addicted to it. Still, once you’d finished the packet, you’d found yourself unable to rebuy them.

Slowly, you forgot its essence. You felt like you were forgetting her.

In the news, you waited for them to show a photo of Sally, one detached from everything she’d grown to be, beside a headline of death. The low hum of the city news was background noise to your grief, and you ached for someone to care enough to tell about her passing. For weeks, there was nothing. There was nothing and then there was everything, all at once, and in that moment, you knew that you would’ve preferred the nothing.

They said she’d jumped.

They hadn’t known her, and they said she’d jumped.

How dare they when you’d screamed at them until hoarse that she would never, that she promised she would never? The quick solution, one that wouldn’t raise questions, or demand the precious funds of the very system she’d been cheated by, to fork out for justice. She was an addict, they’d said. Painting the sky above her head an angry black, with clouds that swirled with viscous intent. She was a junkie, and therefore the answer was simple.

Death had been an inevitability with a life like that, habits like that. A person such as that.

You wasted grief on your anger, long nights where you’d clutch the phone to your mottled cheek with whitening knuckles, cursing everyone who’d rendered your love unimportant. You’d fall asleep on hold to police that had no more answers for you, no more pitied excuses and apologies for a loss they knew nothing about.

And it was on one of those long nights, when you sought for comfort that could be not offered by the living, that you reach for the memory of the dead. Running fingers deliberately slowly over the clothes that hung in the wardrobe, fingering through her dresses on the railing before slowly closing the door again, leaning against it and sinking to the floor.

You’d opened all her drawers that night, some for the first time. Spritzed her dresses with her perfume that still stood on the mantle, revitalised Sally in the apartment with her smell. It was as if you were back to then, when she’d return from work, stroppy and tired, yet still reach for her perfume and generously sprayed the air that she’d then dance into.

Picking one of her band shirts out of the drawer, you slipped your shirt off and replaced it with hers. It was soft cotton, the one she’d most frequently sleep in, and it brought you warmth like her hugs used to, arms enclosing you and grounding you in moments of fear.

You slept in it that night. Telling yourself that that would be it and then it would return to the drawer. But one night stretched painfully into three, and you found yourself unable to sever the small mercy you’d given yourself in wearing her clothes, the attachment to her that only you would know when you walked the street. No one else knew the chain you wore were hers, the boots, the dress. No one knew sally because there was no one left to know.

It had been a year since that day.

You’d woken with a headache and turned over in bed, wanting to shelter yourself from the day with blankets, sleep until the moon shone and the day turned into the next. You knew you could do that, but guilt had you pulling on the covers and groaning as the sunlight poured like liquid through the slit in the curtains.

It was going to be a long day. You already felt tired.

Pulling one of Sally’s band shirts over your head, you traipsed sluggishly through the apartment, purposefully ignoring the mess, like she would after a night of drinking. Not that it mattered today. You unhooked Sally’s oversized jacket from the peg and slumped it over your shoulder. Today was the day, you’d decided. You were going to visit her grave.

In the past year, you’d planned to visit her grave on several occasions, but avoided it at the last second. You couldn’t stand the thought of Sally trapped there, tied to the soil when she should be dancing upon it with you.

Sally couldn’t be tied down to a single place, she moved freely, without reign. It was how she liked it, and how you’d learned to love her. Labels had never been her thing. And now she was labelled on stone, with a corny phrase that she’d hate, with a date too early, a life too short. Sally deserved to be free.

She was the wind, unpredictable and changing and wild, she would go where she pleased and return on the breeze. Sally would’ve hated being buried, and yet through the selfish need to have a real place to visit her, she had been. You can’t capture the wind in bare hands, can’t collar it or tame it and make it beg. It controls you and you have no choice but to concede to it.

That was Sally.

Even now, a year later, you found yourself faltering. The gates of the cemetery loomed ahead of you, and your hands bunched at the material of your pants nervously. You could feel it calling, begging almost, for you to simply reach out and push the gate open with a metallic creak of protest. To visit the place you’d always avoided.

But just as you always did, you lost your nerve, sighing and peering down the road for a reason to be drawn away. For a distraction, even just for a moment. An excuse to gather your thoughts just enough to face your lover.

A corner shop caught your eye, with the newspapers in the windows just begging for customers. How convenient. Stuffing hands into pockets, you strode over the road with new purpose.

Dragging yourself down the claustrophobic aisles in the store, you distracted yourself with exited colours on packaging, picking items of shelves and replacing them further down the aisle. You didn’t care for tidiness today.

When a shop attendant asked you if you needed any help, you gave him a sad smile in appreciation and picked up a small bunch of white anemone flowers, her flowers. Last year, they’d been a peace offering, this year, an apology. The employee shuffled along again, and you set your eyes down to the floor.

Flowers in hand, you made your way to the till, placing them delicately onto the counter and fiddling for coins in your coat. You hadn’t planned on buying anything, so neglected to bring your wallet. Luckily, this was a coat you’d not worn since Sally’s death, and she was a fan of keeping loose change in the deep pockets.

“Is that everything for today?” the woman behind the till chirped with the voice of someone with long experience in public services. It cried out in tired falsity, in ‘how long have I left on my shift?’ It was a line well-rehearsed and overused.

Just as you were about to nod in answer, your eyes caught the tobacco cabinet behind the bored check out assistant. “What brand?” She asked pointedly, and you stared dumbly past her. Had Sally ever bought cigarettes from this store? Shaking out the thought from your mind, you answered her, asking for Sally’s brand and quickly paying and leaving.

Outside the shop, you held the package tentatively in your palm, fingering at the packaging as she used to when she was nervous. She’d wrap a tune with her chipped nails against the boxes edge, and you’d coax it from her, and dip her under the moonlight in your arms. Now, holding the cigarettes held no comfort for you, feeling both foreign and familiar, it left you aching for her.

Still, you found yourself unable to visit her grave. It was all too real to see where she lay. You needed something tying Sally to you that wasn’t so physical. You laughed to yourself. How ironic it was, to force her into a grave for something so trivial as to have a place to call her resting place, only to find yourself too weak to face your choice.

Instead, you took a left, and then another, and then a right, and continued until you could no longer smell your own fear in the air with the concept of her grave. Deeper into the city, where the pollution stained white houses grey, you could breathe clearly again. Guilt will consume a person, clog their lungs with it until their breathing is laborious and the weight drags them down into their thoughts.

You’d walked this route before, one year before, with white anemones and an apology in hand. You’d never gotten to tell Sally what you’d wanted, but perhaps you’d take her the flowers, and smoke her cigarettes in the window where she’d fell. You’d tell her what you didn’t get the chance to.

The hotel was just as you remembered it, flickering neon 34w`lights that read ‘Hotel Cortez’, and the eery alleys and parked cars that seemed to be in the same position as the year prior. It was as if time had paused, hotel residents left their cars and had never returned to them.

You weren’t really aware of yourself in that moment, feet leading a silent path as you found yourself stuck in a memory. When you reached the place you found her, your feet faltered, and you couldn’t tear your eyes from the paving.

The pavement was clear, physically untainted, and any normal pedestrian would question your loitering. But although it appeared to be clean, you know because you’ve seen, you’ve remembered. The pain that would still remain, deep in the cracks of the paving stone, no matter how much scrubbing the clean up team undoubtably did after Sally’s body was removed, they couldn’t remove. They couldn’t fade the scarring, or the feeling of death that overcame you when you stared at the place she’d laid.

Someone bumped your shoulder as they passed on the street, muttered remarks about people standing in the middle of the street, and you raised your eyes to watch them walk away. When you looked back at the stone, the connection to it had been lost, and you found yourself unable to re-enter the trance you’d been in.

Pressing through the hotel doors, you left the light of the sun behind, left the living, and joined the death of the dusky lobby. Wondering through its room, you imagined Sally doing the same, with confident strides and a purpose. It was a nice place for downtown LA, you had to admit, but you couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that came with it, of being watched by invisible eyes in the walls. The feeling one gets when you visit a place where death rules over occupants.

You looked up to the next floor, and swore you saw a flash of an animal print coat moving behind the barriers. No. Must’ve been the lighting change from coming inside.

A woman pointed you towards the bar, and you nodded towards her. Did all visitors come for the hotels bar? She seemed to know exactly what you needed, tired eyes searching for something not quite there.

In the bar, you drank and you smoked and spoke with the woman behind the bar who must’ve noticed the void behind your eyes. She didn’t question you, why you were alone, just slid extra drinks across the table with a wink and a smile. You didn’t return it, opting for a grateful grimace instead.

All of a sudden, the smell of Sally’s perfume seemed to melt into your senses, overpowering that of the cigarette, and the liquor, until your head swam with memories linked with its scent. You didn’t remember spraying it this morning, and it confused you. It was so strong, and real. It didn’t seem like your brain was tricking you with its musk, like it so often would with a silhouette against the apartment window.

Suffocated by Sally. You drowned in its poetry.

Searching for its origin, your eyes roamed the bar. It was real, you figured. Turning on the bar stool, your eyes met those that you thought you’d forgotten, and you found they were exactly like you remembered. Sally stood, leant against the wall opposite you, arms folded at her chest yet wearing cheeks stained with tears and widened eyes. You scrambled out of your chair, and the world fell away from you. You didn’t even try and catch it when she was next to you.

You palmed at your eyes, begging yourself to wake up from what must be a dream. Despite knowing she wasn’t real, you ached for your mind to stay in this fantasy so at least you wouldn’t be alone. Removing your hands, you felt yourself lighten. Sally remained still, unmoving yet she was closer that ever. You could reach and brush against her cheek if only your arms would cooperate.

“Y/n?” she breathed, in that choked up voice, and you were falling again.

As if trapped in a dream, you startled awake with the feeling of cool fingers massaging against your scalp. The room was foreign, and it smelled like her. Foreign, yet startingly familiar as if you’d been there before.

Sally was curled into your side, and your breathing laboured again. You didn’t understand how she was here, you- you buried her. Sniffling broke your doubts, and Sally adjusted her head atop your chest. When you wiggled beneath her, her sniffs turned to coos, and her fingers in your hair and clutching your top were soothing at your cheeks.

“I love you, I’m here,” she flustered, worrying her lip between teeth, and you could see the moon in between buildings outside the window. It watched you with bated breath and shone onto her pale skin until her tears seemed to shine. “Say I love you Sally.”

Sitting up against the pillows, you caught her face in your hands, cupping it so she couldn’t move away as you remembered the outlines of her eyes, lips, the curve of her jaw and cheekbones. “I love you,” you found yourself admitting, tears welling in eyes that couldn’t believe what they were witnessing, “are you real?”

“I’m-” Sally started, faltering as if she didn’t quite know the answer either. “I’m here.”

You wanted to apologise anew, whisper the memorised speech that you’d spoken to her that night, but the words seemed to catch in your throat, sharp like the barbs from barbed wire were caught against the delicate skin. Instead, you pulled her in to brush lips against hers, testing slowly if they actually would meet and not melt through what your mind was making up.

They did meet, and you muffled a wail against hers, all the pent-up grief for the woman you were now kissing resurfacing. Fingers clung to her coat, which was still soft beneath your touch, and you pulled her closer to you. She cried, and you cried, and hands met to brush them away.

“I missed you baby.”

You didn’t stop to think about what it meant that she was here. Focusing only on her hands linked firmly in yours, and how she deserved to feel the taut string of a guitar again. You’d bring it to her, and she’d play her song. You’d hear her voice and feel the vibrations of her throat against your lips as she sang.

You’d do it all again.

Time you thought was lost was now frozen, suspended in a single heartbeat. She hadn’t aged a single day, and yet her eyes showed more trouble than you’d ever seen. You couldn’t wait to return and kiss away her worries, reintroduce yourself and love her and be loved like you both deserved. But for now, you were content to simply exist in her presence again.

You wouldn’t take her for granted.

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[weasleylangs]

in the summer sun - f.w

Pairing: Fred x Fem!Reader but honestly it’s just a whole Weasley family slice of life fic. Summary: The war has ended and the Weasley’s appreciate their family now more than ever. Warnings: Mention of the war, mention of Fred having a near death experience, mention of PTSD, anxiety, nightmares and injuries, opening scene involves an anxiety attack, fuck is said twice by the way. Word Count: 3.1k

A/N: This fic is inspired by this ask I received from Kai @weasleyclaw for the ‘send me a made up title game’! The warnings sound scary, but I promise this is a super fluffy slice-of-life fic with Fred and the reader, just existing after the war! Fred lives, obviously but he still had an accident and in reality, he’d be going through a lot of shit and I didn’t want to ignore that!

I am in no way romanticising mental illness and trauma, I myself struggle with a variety of mental illness and trauma and representation is super important, babey!!!!!! Proper support is important!!!!!!

I still can’t decide if I love or hate this but.... [schedules while I’m asleep]

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

Fred sat up quickly. Heavy and ragged breathing coursing through his lungs as he struggled to catch his breath. He couldn’t even remember what he was dreaming of now that he’s awake, only remembering flashes of green and a loud ‘bombarda maxima’ before being shocked awake by his anxiety and fear.

He’s been plagued by nightmares for three months, ever since he was fighting in that seventh floor corridor and the wall came crashing down on him. He knows it’s normal to be haunted by these memories, he almost died, for crying out loud, but he would really like to have one night where he sleeps through it without being jolted awake. 

He could feel the pressure in his chest get stronger as he struggled to breathe as he checked the clock on the bedside table. It reads 6:30am and when he looks out the window he realises the sun is already rising and the summer heat is making it into their bedroom. His girlfriend of five years sleeps in the bed next to him, snoring lightly having not been woken up by his oncoming anxiety attack.

Fred struggles to remember the grounding technique she taught him when he had his first attack. She’s his biggest supporter, always there when he needs her, but he wants to get better himself . He doesn't want to rely on her for the rest of his days no matter how often she reminds him it’s okay and that she wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.

He’s got his legs swung over the side of the bed, his body closing in on himself when he feels the bed move and arms wrap around his middle, “Breathe, Freddie, and tell me five things you can see,” she whispers gently in his ear.

His eyes darts around the room, searching as he tries his best to breathe, “The tree outside our window, the lamp, that chair,” he struggles to speak as his breathing is laboured, “your book on my bedside table, my slippers…”

“Good job, my love. Now, four things you can touch.”

His hands grab hers, “Your hands,” he says as he turns to face her, “the duvet, my shirt and…” His hand moves, from her hand to cupping her face, “your hair.” 

This continues, Fred rattling off three things he can hear, two things he can smell and one thing he can taste before he realises his breathing has slowed down, his hands have stopped shaking and while the pressure in his chest is still there, it’s been alleviated and he knows it’ll disappear in a few moments. 

Y/N whispers soft praise in Fred’s ear as she lays him back down in their bed. She’s so proud of the progress he has made in just a short few months. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

He shakes his head, while he barely remembers, he knows it’s the same nightmare as usual. Hogwarts, duelling, wall comes crashing down and Fred almost dies. It’s more of a flashback if anything, that he’s constantly reliving the worst day of his life.

“That’s okay, we can just lay here and rest before we go to your mum and dad’s… If you still feel up to going?” Y/N knows when nights like this happen, Fred usually wants to stay in bed and recoup his energy and try again the next day. 

“No, no, we have to go,” he says and it’s not because it’s an obligation, he truly does want to. After almost dying, after spending almost a year without knowing if Ron, Harry and Hermione were okay, after Bellatrix Lestrange threatened to kill both Ginny and his own mother and with Percy reconnecting with them all, he appreciates family time like he never did before. They all deserve to have happy, carefree and relaxing days and that’s what today is meant to be for them all.

“If you’re sure, my love,” she whispers, pressing a soft kiss to his neck. Fred probably won't fall back asleep, the sun has risen and while he won’t admit it, he’s too scared to try and sleep again. But he doesn’t mind, he’s perfectly content having Y/N fall back asleep in his arms and sometimes, rarely but sometimes, her soft snores lulls Fred into a light, undisturbed sleep.

-

It’s lunch time by the time Fred and Y/N apparate to The Burrow. Fred’s still recovering physically from his injuries - having your entire body crushed by rubble does that to you, so he happily side-along apparates with Y/N instead of solo floo’ing places. 

When they walk into the house, they’re met with a chorus of hello’s and Molly dragging Fred into a hug and kisses his cheeks repeatedly, and then continues to complain that he has no meat on his bones and that he needs to be eating more while shoving a muffin into his hand. 

George is snickering by the table because someone who isn’t himself is finally being on the receiving end of his mothers affection and he has Angelina Johnson awkwardly beside him. When Y/N raises her eyebrows at him, he mouths a ‘I’ll explain later’ before winking and walking Angelina over to her. 

“Hey, Angie,” she says, pulling the girl into a hug. While they were never close at school, considering Y/N wasn’t a Gryffindor, they still got along when the time arose, “didn’t know my little Georgie here got himself a bird.” 

George groans at the fact Y/N completely ignored him and Angelina blushes as she tries to hide her face behind her hair, but Y/N can see that she’s smiling and not at all bothered by the teasing, “Hey, I’m only teasing, come here!” she says as she pulls the embarrassed girl into a tight embrace. While Y/N drops the subject of Angelina and George finally getting their lives together and dating after years of pining, George knows Y/N is going to corner him later and get the answers out of him.

Hermione and Ginny quickly run down the stairs and grab Y/N, pulling her into a hug as well. Soon enough, the entire family is trying to squeeze inside the living room - including Bill and Fleur who always turn up for the Weasley get together and even Charlie has taken extended leave from his job in Romania to stay and spend the summer with everyone. 

Because of the overcrowding, Ron whistles loudly, grabbing everyone’s attention, “Who wants to play a game of quidditch and let mum have some peace and quiet?” Immediately Harry, the twins, Angelina and Charlie are out the door, already fighting about teams and position. Y/N briefly hears Harry whine ‘I want to be on Charlie’s team but he plays seeker’ as their voices fade. Ginny stays back, wanting to catch up with Y/N for a bit and promises to join everyone later.

Fred loves nothing more than spending time with his siblings. Growing up as a twin, he’s had someone constantly by his side, but he loves his huge family more than anything. George and he spend 5 minutes fighting over who gets to be beater until they just decide they’ll just be on different teams before they realise they don’t have enough siblings for a full team anyway, meaning the beaters are out of the equation.

This causes the twins to just start jokingly fighting over who plays chaser before Ron and Harry has to break it up so they can actually play. 

Fred adores flying. His hair has been growing out and the wind through it as he flies is one of the best feelings in the world, he thinks. It makes him forget all his worries, his only focus is snatching the quaffle out of George’s slimy grip and getting it past Charlie, who’s playing both keeper and seeker for the other team to make up for the lack of players.

“Oi, Ickle Ronnikins,” he calls out from his broom, wobbling slightly as he yells to get his brother’s attention, “mind paying attention to the match and not your girlfriend? George is getting every shot in, mate,” He’s teasing of course. They can see the girls through the window and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t sneaking glances at Y/N.

Meanwhile, the three girls sit at the kitchen table chatting amongst themselves and Bill and Fleur are outside in the garden when Percy and his girlfriend turn up. There’s tension in the air, there always is when Percy turns up. It’s not that no one wants him there, but given his history of being a ‘right prat’ (Fred’s words), everyone is cautious. 

But he goes right up to Molly, pulling her into an embrace and kissing her on the cheek and then turns to his dad and gives him a hug. 

“Hey Gin, Y/N, Hermione,” he gives them a curt nod as they say hello back before pulling the girl beside him closer, “this is Audrey, my girlfriend. Do you guys mind hanging with her while I go find the boys?"

The girls, of course, nod. “How long have you and Percy been together for?” Y/N asks as the girl sits and she hopes she isn’t coming off rude. She’s been with Fred for five years and never met Audrey and Hermione’s been in the Weasley’s lives for even longer, so it’s clearly a recent development. 

“Around this time last year… With everything going on and Percy not being on speaking terms with everyone, we haven’t really had the chance to meet…” she trails off and Y/N senses the awkward tension rising, so she grabs Audrey’s hand in a reassuring matter.

“Don’t stress about that. You’re here now and you’re family,” while Y/N isn’t officially a Weasley, her and Fred have spoken about their future together on numerous occasions so she doesn’t feel like she’s speaking out of turn offering ‘Weasley Family Status’ to Audrey, “I’m Y/N, Fred’s girlfriend.” 

“And I’m Hermione, Ron’s girlfriend,” Hermione adds and before Ginny even speaks, Y/N interrupts her, “You’re obviously a Weasley, Gin,” and the girls all start giggling.

“I’m Ginny, Harry’s girlfriend!” she exclaims proudly when all the girls finally calm down and it only sets them off again.

What the girls don’t notice is that Molly’s watching them, with a smile on her face. She’s always wanted daughters - she loves Ginny and she loves every single one of her sons, but she wishes she had been able to give her a sister. But watching the scene unfold in front of her, how these girls welcome Audrey so easily into their lives, Molly’s eyes well with tears as she realises she has the most wonderful daughter and future daughter-in-laws a woman could ask for. 

“How’s Fred doing?” Ginny asks. Of course, everyone’s suffered from the war, but everyone is constantly concerned about Fred. 

“Between seeing his psychologist and his physical therapy appointments, he’s doing really good,” she says, looking out the window and she laughs as she sees Fred holding Ron in a headlock, shouting something about how rusty he is at keeper, “there’s days it’s hard, and he has really bad nightmares sometimes, and there's days where they make him not want to leave the house but he had one this morning and was determined to get here today. I’m really proud of him.” 

Molly rubs Y/N on the shoulders, almost like a thank you for being there for Fred through it all as she places muffins in front of all the girls and takes her own seat. She takes a moment to scold Arthur for trying to repair the muggle radio playing he’s stolen from work before joining in on the girls’ conversation as they eat. 

The sweet moment is interrupted by a voice that is clearly Percy’s shouting and both Y/N and Audrey’s automatic assumption is that the worst has happened. Especially when Y/N hears the familiar voice of her boyfriend shouting incoherently. 

All the girls rush out the door, expecting to break up a fight but that isn’t what’s happening. Instead, Fred has Percy on the ground, rolling around in dirt and they’re both laughing . Molly has to excuse herself, tears welling in her eyes at the sight of Percy being accepted by his brother. 

“What’s going on here?” Audrey questions. It’s clear she’s still weary, worried that at a moment's notice, Percy’s siblings will turn on him and forget his apology. Fred looks up, winking at Y/N before looking at Audrey and flashes her a cheeky smirk, “Perce said I suck at quidditch.” 

Everyone rolls their eyes at this as Y/N grabs Fred’s hand and pulls him up. She lives with him, so one would think that the time spent apart at The Burrow is no big deal, but secretly Y/N has always been super clingy, wanting to always have Fred in her sights, and it's only worsened now they live together.

“Hi Freddie,” she giggles, tucking herself close to his side despite the summer heat blasting down on them, “I miss you.” she whispers.

Fred lets out a cackle of a laugh, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and leading her to the tree they always sit under as he tells Ginny to take his spot on their makeshift quidditch team. Secretly, he was hoping to get away from the game because he needs a break and maybe an attempted nap under the tree. 

He settles down first, stretching his legs out as he leans against the trunk and then he pulls Y/N down to sit between them and to rest her back against his chest. This has always been their favourite way to cuddle.

“What’s the go with George and Angie? I knew they were going on dates but...” Fred asks, and Y/N shrugs. “He just said he’d fill me in later so I’m still waiting. But she’s at family day, so it must be getting serious.” Fred hums behind her, resting his chin on top of his head as he watches his family on the makeshift field in front of them fight over quidditch rules. George is trying to teach Percy fake rules and Ginny’s smacking him over the head as he laughs at the confused expression on Percy’s face. 

To their right, Arthur’s got the radio working and he’s charmed it to blast 80s muggle music loudly for the entire family to hear. Bill’s dragged Fleur to dance around with him and Arthur’s trying to get Molly to join them. Charlie’s sitting with Audrey and Hermione, probably droning on about dragons as usual and the girls listen intently, gasping when appropriate. 

“What are you thinking about?” Y/N asks. Fred is never this quiet, usually speaking every single thought that comes to his mind without any sort of filter. It’s gotten him in trouble a fair few times, from both his mother and Y/N. 

“I’m just happy,” he says quietly, tucking his head into her neck, and Y/N doesn’t miss the crack in his voice, “I’m so happy I’m here with everyone.” She shuffles in her spot so she can sit and face Fred and he can’t meet her eyes because his own are welling with tears.

“Don’t hide, my love, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” she coos as she cups his cheeks in her hands. He leans into her touch and smiles as he sniffles. 

“I know, it’s just…” He trails off and Y/N knows what he’s going to say. He almost wasn’t here and that thought haunts the both of them more often than they’d like to admit. “I know, but that doesn’t matter, because you’re here , and I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am you are,” she whispers, pressing a kiss to his cheeks.

“I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you,” he says and Y/N’s heart swells. Marriage and lots of ginger babies has always been in their life plan, but hearing Fred say it, so, so vulnerably, almost brings her to tears. “Forever, Freddie, you promised,” she replies and he leans forward and presses a soft kiss on her lips. 

He’s always promised. He promised forever when they were 16 and they’d only been together for a year as they danced at the Yule Ball until 12am. At 17, when he admitted he wouldn’t be finish the school year. He promised once again at 18, before he flew out of Hogwarts with George. At 19, straight after George had his ear cursed off and he was sick with fear because the war was real and happening.

At 20, they were fighting in their school and he’d promised, ‘We're surviving this fucking thing and I’m marrying you as soon as I can.’ 

They pull apart and Y/N is smiling at him, adoration filled in her eyes as Fred feels around in his shorts, clearly trying to grab something. When he pulls it out, Y/N’s eyes catch the small, velvet black box and while she doesn’t want to get her hopes up, her heart is racing.

“I’ve been carrying this everyday, waiting for the perfect time,” he chuckles, shaking his head. You’d think Fred Weasley would have a huge and bizarre proposal, most likely with fireworks and dancing gnomes somehow, but in reality, this is perfect. He’s surrounded by his loved ones, there’s no war and he wants nothing more than to officially make Y/N a Weasley. 

“Is that now, Freddie?” she says and he nods, smiling. Y/N thinks he’s never looked happier in his life. He knows what her answer will be so he doesn’t feel the slightest bit nervous.

“I promised you, we're surviving the war and I’m fucking marrying you as soon as I can, so here I am,” he pops the box open and Y/N gasps. It’s nothing extravagant but she doesn’t mind. Small and classy, just like she’d always wanted and she doesn’t even realise she’s crying until Fred’s hand wipes her tears with his free hand, “Will you marry me?” 

She barely gives an answer, nodding her head violently as she wraps her arms around his neck and presses her lips to his. Their teeth clash and they both laugh at Fred not being prepared to be jumped before getting a verbal response. Y/N pulls away and puts out her left hand, “Of course I’ll marry you.” 

He slides the ring on her finger and it’s a perfect fit. They continue to sit in front of the tree, watching their family but Y/N constantly catches herself looking at the diamond ring sparkling in the sun and she’s decided she’s never been happier as well.

Everything is perfect, because it’s the calm after a very, very long storm and she’s never taking family for granted again.

[samstree]

hi dear!! what about 37 for the pining prompts?? only if you feel like it 💞💞

37. "Characters cannot touch for plot reasons." Thanks for the prompt Chrysa!! Here's more empath!Jaskier!

Unfinished Story

Empath!Jaskier, 2.4k, soft geraskier, ciri has a nightmare, hurt/comfort, mentions of past violence

Part of the Empath AU 

Read on AO3

Ciri’s scream pulls Geralt out of his doze.

He springs up immediately, knocking Jaskier’s arm out of the way. The bard grumbles something incoherent on the bedroll before fully waking. “G’ralt, what is… Oh, shit.”

The scream continues, Geralt’s medallion thrumming because of the chaos carried by the sound. The ember is dying but the moon provides enough light for him to see Cir in a fetal position, her face buried in the crook of her elbow. Her ashen-colored curls obscure the view.

Geralt half-scrambles to her side, familiar panic seizing his heart. It’s been so long since she had a nightmare this bad, so long that it’s taking him a second to react.

“Ciri.” He shakes her shoulder gently, but she flinches away. The smell of fear rolls off of her in waves. “Ciri, wake up. You are dreaming.”

The sharp wail trails off to a quieter one, but her eyes stay shut, her brows agonizingly knitted tight. Geralt tries to soothe her by stroking her hair, only to have her snatch his hand and holding onto it for dear life. He squeezes, hoping it’s a comforting gesture.

Each of Ciri’s cries sends a pang of regret in Geralt’s chest. If only he could go back in time. If only he had found her earlier, before the horrors of Nilfgaard—

“Hey, let me help.”

A hand falls to Geralt’s shoulder, and Jaskier meets his gaze in the dim light, the bleariness in his eyes completely gone.

Please, he wants to say. The word gets interrupted by the girl’s writhing.

Jaskier takes over Ciri’s hand, despite her reluctance to let go of Geralt. She clings to him during bad dreams, even when she can’t properly wake up, but the witcher knows it’s important not to touch either of them right now. The wolf medallion vibrates more as the empath works, calming her through the touch.

“It’s okay…” Geralt murmurs helplessly to the girl still asleep. “It’s okay, cub. We are here.”

The empty space around Geralt is excruciating. Under the clear night sky, his witcher senses allow him to see the two of them basked in the silver moonlight—Jaskier kneeling at Ciri’s side, one hand clasped around her wrist and the other carding through her curls. The girl’s pained expression eases slowly.

“Oh… Don’t be afraid, sweet girl,” Jaskier shushes her, the flow of chaos buzzing in the air. “Let me take your fear away, all right? Don’t fight me. Let me in, so you won’t be scared anymore…”

The bard continues to murmur sweet nothings to the girl, easing her resistance to his empathetic powers. At this point, Jaskier’s magic is like a second layer of skin to Geralt, gentle and warm and weaving around their hearts. Even when it’s not directly used on him, he feels somehow pulled to their connection.

To Jaskier and Ciri.

His empath bard and his child surprise.

Two halves of his world.

Jaskier’s eyes are closed to concentration, taming the waves of Ciri’s distress. The action exerts him, Geralt can tell from his elevated heartbeat and the slight slump in his shoulders. The witcher catches himself before he reaches out subconsciously. The gnawing urge to help almost makes him scowl in frustration.

Inaction has never been Geralt’s strong suit.

Finally, finally, Ciri’s eyes flutter open. She’s holding back the tears, as always, even when she’s confused from these dreams, even when she’s reliving her past and desperately searching for her family in the present.

“Geralt?”

Her voice is so small and he has to lean in to hear.

A relieved sigh escapes Jaskier’s lips as he lets go of the girl’s hand. With the magic dissipating, so does the stench of fear. The air settles. As soon as the medallion stills, Geralt surges forward to put a hand on her arm, so she knows he’s here.

On Geralt’s periphery, he senses bard stand and walk to the other side of the campfire—the empath usually needs a moment to collect himself after absorbing someone’s emotions—but right now Geralt’s focus is on his child.

“It’s okay. You are safe, Ciri,” Geralt whispers.

“I dreamed—”

“You are not there anymore.”

“It was burning…I—there was fire… and the man.” She sniffles, stubbornly refusing to cry. His child is tough, probably too tough for her own good.

“It wasn’t real.”

“Because you found me?” There’s a sliver of doubt in her voice that Geralt wishes more than anything to remove.

“Because I found you, Ciri,” he reassures. She’ll need reminding tonight. “You are my destiny and more. I’m here so you’ll never have to be lost again.”

A tiny smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. Geralt tucks away a strand of hair on her face and watches her eyelids droop heavily.

“I’m not. Not now that I’m awake.”

He returns the smile, although she can’t see it that well in the shadows. “That’s because of Jaskier.”

“Oh.” She searches for the bard. When Geralt looks back at the empath’s silhouette, he’s leaning against a tree, a few paces away from camp. “Thank you, Jaskier. Again,” she says.

“Of course, princess,” Jaskier says softly, “I know how scary nightmares can be, no matter how long it’s been. Those things may have happened a long time ago, but sometimes…they come back and haunt when you least expect it.” He pauses, looking to the distance for a moment. “I’d chase them away for you any time.”

She murmurs another thanks before her eyes close with exhaustion.

“Go back to sleep,” Geralt tucks Ciri’s blanket in, before taking her hand again, his thumb tracing a little circle on her skin. “Sleep, cub. We’ll be here. Both of us.”

It doesn’t take long for her to fall into a deep slumber, peacefully this time. Geralt sits next to her for a while longer just to be sure. When he finally leaves Ciri’s side to see to his bard, Jaskier is still standing with his back against the tree. He seems to be miles away, his expression hidden in the shadows, distant and inscrutable.

“Jask?” They are far enough from the girl but Geralt keeps his voice low.

With a surprised gasp, the bard notices him approaching and almost flinches. “Don’t—”

“Don’t touch you, I know.”

Jaskier rests his head on the tree bark. “Just for now.”

Geralt’s fists clench and unclench at his sides. Using those powers takes a lot out of Jaskier, and it leaves him unbalanced. The empath is so wary of hurting him by accident when he’s like this, with raw energy still rippling under his skin.

But in truth, Geralt doesn’t care. He wishes Jaskier could let him in, let him share the burden. Right now, with the space between them, he’ll have to rely on words instead of action.

It really isn’t his strong suit.

“Another nightmare… ” he decides to distract the bard while he recovers. “It’s been too long since Ciri had an episode. I thought it was all over.”

“Time doesn’t heal all wounds, Geralt,” Jaskier breathes. “We should all know better.”

Geralt frowns at the haunted look on his bard’s face. The tips of his fingers reach forward again, but he quickly hides the movement by crossing his arms before his chest.

“You sound like you are speaking from experience, Jask.”

“Do I?”

“Hmm.” Geralt’s stomach turns at the way Jaskier speaks about the girl’s trauma. “You know if you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

Jaskier squirms, chewing on his lower lip. Now he’s truly nervous, tense even. The witcher sees the way his posture stiffens and quickly adds, “Or not. Uh—it’s okay if you don’t—"

“No,” Jaskier interrupts him, shaking his head, “No, I want to tell you. I should tell you everything, at this point.”

Silence hangs between them as the bard adjusts his breathing. In and out, like he would before a performance.

“Years ago, when you first identified my powers” Jaskier chooses his words cautiously, the moon shining in his eyes. “I asked if you would use silver on me.”

Geralt’s heart sinks. “I would never, Jaskier. I—How could you ever think that?”

“Oh, relax, my love. I know.” the bard chuckles tightly. “Even back then, I knew you to be a decent man under all the gruffness. You wouldn’t even harm those confused monsters who drifted to human territory on accident, remember? You claimed that your life was just coin and contracts, but to me, it was clear that you were so much more.”

“You are not a monster,” Geralt argues.

“No, but someone else might think differently.”

The leaves rustle in the breeze, the air cooling as the night stretches on. Without the blanket, Jaskier shivers with only a thin chemise on his back. Geralt’s body gravitates toward him of its own volition. Fuck it, if he can just hold Jaskier right now…

“I was thirteen.” The bard is lost in memory. “This man, a magic user, came to our door. It was just me and my mother. He somehow knew about our identities and asked for her help. You see, she had been keeping it a secret for so long, so she couldn’t trust this man, this mage, who somehow just knew that we were empaths.”

He lets out a shuddering breath before continuing.

“His request was… weird. Something about a king or a royal court. I remember thinking that whatever he said sounded so sinister, it couldn’t have been any good. Mum sent him away on the spot, but afterwards she got so scared, like he’d come back again or something. That night, she barred the door and told me to hide in a storage chest. I refused, so she made me. She kept me obedient the entire time.”

Geralt frowns. “Her powers were the same as yours?”

“Stronger.” Jaskier starts pacing, a few twigs snapping under his feet. “She didn’t need contact to manipulate someone’s emotions like me, and she could influence many at the same time. I’m not as powerful—my father was human.”

“What happened next?” Somehow, Geralt knows the story will not end well. A mage usually means trouble. Or in this case, the shadow hidden behind Jaskier’s bright smiles and chirpy songs.

“She kept me calm the whole night, even when she wasn’t with me, but I could feel her fear. It’s was like an undercurrent beneath my skin. I could feel her emotions change. Then I heard the sound of fighting, but I couldn’t get out. I couldn’t go and help her…”

The salty tang of tears assaults Geralt’s nose, but they don’t fall. Jaskier looks up to the sky to hold back the grief that makes his hands tremble.

“Everything got fuzzy after that, but I still remember the pain and the despair. It was like a part of me was hurting with her. Part of me still does, during some nights.” Jaskier closes his eyes in agony. “When I got out the next morning, no one was there. Our home was wrecked, ruined. There was… There was so much blood, Geralt. I—I couldn’t…”

“Oh, Jaskier.” Geralt watches as Jaskier’s shoulders shake, whimpers choking in his throat. Under the night sky, the bard retreats into himself, making his frame look so much smaller. He sways a little and Geralt extends his hands again, hovering by his elbow. “Can I please touch you now?” he pleads.

With a sniffle, the bard composes himself. He flexes his hands to see if his magic is in check. “I think so, yes—oh.”

Geralt pulls Jaskier in for the tightest hug, his arms wrapping around the bard’s frame protectively. Through the thin fabric of the shirt, he can feel another shiver running down Jaskier’s spine, so he rubs small circles into his back to get some heat back in.

He breathes in Jaskier’s scent, not knowing if the lingering stench of fear is from Ciri or the bard.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Jask…” Geralt keeps murmuring into the soft hair by Jaskier’s temple. Gradually, the bard sags against his shoulder, letting himself be soothed and supported. Geralt then places his lips to the skin under Jaskier’s ear, and then his cheek, his chin, all the while holding him impossibly close. He’s ready to help the empath restore his energy with all the brimming love in his chest. “Do you want me to…”

“No,” the bard shakes his head. “I’m good. For now.”

They stand there for so long, swaying gently while the world sleeps, before the bard speaks up again.

“I looked for her, and him, at so many courts.” Jaskier’s slightly colder fingers rest on the nape of Geralt’s neck, buried into the hair there. “No mage fit his description. No trace of her either. I think that deep down, I already knew that she was gone, even back then. Otherwise, I would have felt her in there somehow. No matter how far away she was, but all I had was just this emptiness. I was alone since then.”

“You are not. Not anymore.”

“No,” Jaskier pulls away, the tears have dried. Geralt brings the pad of his thumb to trace those streaks anyway. Under his touch, Jaskier smiles. “You see, back in Posada, I met this witcher, a dashing and heroic one. He fell for me so hard that he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving without me, so he begged me to become his travel companion.”

“And you agreed?” Geralt chuckles.

“Not at first, but he wore me down eventually.”

The bard is the most ridiculous man Geralt knows, and yet here they are. Shaking his head in amusement, the witcher steers his bard back to their bedrolls. As they settle back into their usual position, Geralt can’t help but pull him closer, making sure they are touching from head to toe.

The cover sets heavily over Jaskier's body, slowly warming up his skin. His heart beats against Geralt’s ribcage steadily, showing with solid proof that the empath has survived those horrors.

“I found you too, Jask,” he says, pressing a chaste kiss between Jaskier’s brows.

“Good.” The bard's reply is muffled by Geralt's skin. Not far from them, Ciri is still breathing evenly, sound asleep. Geralt has everyone he needs to protect right here with him, tucked away from their separate demons.

And yet, his mind drifts to Jaskier's story. It’s a tragedy with no end and no closure. There was never a body to bury, no vengeance to seek either.

Somehow, he doubts that an unfinished story will stay unfinished.

---

Tagging: @rockysstupidity​ @flowercrown-bard​ @alllthequeenshorses​ @mothmanismyuncle​ @theultimatenerdd​ @percy-jackson-is-sexy-​

Please feel free to tell me if you want to be removed or added to the list <3

[myoddessy]

🩰- spin the bottle!

can i get a ship w stranger things please?

looks wise- I’ve just recently dyed my hair red, I stand at 5’2, I’ve got kinda big ears. im pretty lanky ngl, I have hazel eyes and my style is pretty much anything comfortable! I’ll wear nicer clothes going out, but if I’m not I’ll prolly be wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants.

Personality— im an Aquarius, I’ll date any gender and im awkward. my family tells me I have a HEAVY rbf, but im kinda nice if you get to know me. I’ve been through a lot so I’m not like a really happy person per say, but my humor is my strong suit. i usually get through my trauma with sarcasm :) I have bad anxiety, to the point where sometimes I can’t even talk to my own family (mostly social situations). If I had the money to afford a style, I think it would be more earthy than anything.

Hobbies— I don’t know if I have any really. BUT I think I’m a pretty decent writer and I spend a lot of my free time writing. I also enjoy being outside often.

idk if this was enough but I hope so :)

i ship you with... jonathan byers !

ngl this was a difficult one for me to choose and i was leaning towards nancy wheeler for a bit but i feel like jonathan would suit you better.

he knows what it's like to be anxious in social situations, and he knows what it's like to not be able to talk to those you care about for it. he would never ever dream of pressuring you into telling him things, but you guys definitely have a code where if you're extremely overwhelmed or just want to leave somewhere, you tap the other's wrist two times and you'll be dragged out of the door faster than your company can blink.

i feel like you and will would vibe and that would make jonathan fall even harder for you because will is one of the most important things in his life and so are you! so you two getting along is perfect in his eyes. i love the thought of him with a writer partner so much.

he's definitely the type of bf to take pictures of anything remotely interesting he sees through this day and have them to you in a big pile to see if anything gives you inspiration.

if you based a character off of him, he'd die and then resurrect himself to kiss you until your both a laugjing and grinning mess.

[dreamsmp-au-ideas]

It’s time for more Marvel SMP brainrot. This time I got some ideas on how the first Avengers movie would go. A.K.A, all the adults (especially Schlatt) get fucking heart attacks as Tubbo and Tommy keep on sneaking on the dangerous shit they get into.

For what already happened, I’d imagine that Tommy was found by SHIELD because of some digging and we already got him moving in with Wilbur and becoming his younger brother. 

Tubbo is the nephew of Schlatt that he has to watch for a little and Tommy and him hit off instantly.

Fundy just met Wilbur and is now living with him and is about to be adopted.

Niki regained her goddess status and Punz is now working for Dream.

Techno already met Tommy and Tubbo after Wilbur and a very reluctant Schlatt stopped a rather messy explosion from happening caused by one of the Dream Team members.

Right so now that’s out of the way, we can get onto the movie. Long post ahead so sorry about that. It under Keep Reading.

So we’re going to get the beginning like how the first Avengers started. We got the whole experiment and Eret, Phil, Sam, and Puffy noticing that the Space Stone is getting really unstable and that someone is opening a portal from the other side.

Out comes Punz, George, and Sapnap. Yeah we're going to have three antagonists in the first movie. Punz may be the Loki of the au but I want Sapnap and George be there so we can show the character development between that and when we get to the El Rapids side of the au.

But back to the main story, we got those three coming out and obviously Sam, Eret, Puffy, and Phil are all on guard. Sam, Eret, and Puffy recognizes Punz’s from Niki talking about him when she was on Earth.

Meanwhile Phil immediately recognizes Sapnap from the footage Techno gave him when he first started trouble in the second installment in Wilbur’s arc. He has caused so much arson in the time he was there.

So you got all of them being cautious around the three while they just argue about what to do. George is holding the spear and when people try to shoot them, you got Sapnap, George, and Punz immediately take them down like they’re nothing.

We then get the usual bit, Eret gets brainwashed because of the scepter and several other SHIELD members do as well. Puffy, Sam, and Phil escape while George, Punz, Sapnap, Eret and some other SHIELD agents take the Space Stone.

Sapnap then causes some minor arson despite Punz and George telling him no and there is a huge explosion.

Phil then calls Techno to come back from his mission and Sam comes in to tell Wilbur about going into the SHIELD base because this seems like a reason to call the Avengers initiative Phil. It doesn’t matter that you still have some family shit to work through, you got to go and call in Wilbur. 

Fundy was also there so Sam pretty much killed two birds with one stone when he visited. Both Wilbur and Fundy both agreed as long as Fundy won’t be detained the moment this is all over.

Tommy and Tubbo unfortunately are there as well and overhear the adults talking about this. They want to help too! They got cool powers and they could totally beat up bad guys! Course Wilbur and Schlatt would object to that. So they did the one reasonable thing everyone should do! Sneak into the airship using Tubbo’s cool magic and their extreme stealth!

Wilbur only finds out that Tubbo and Tommy snuck on after getting a panicked phone call from Schlatt saying that the kid is missing. Cue panic from Wilbur and Fundy.

Phil, Wilbur, and Techno do not have a great relationship with each other now so it’s rather tense between all of them. Tommy tries to ease the tension by making jokes and stuff but that just leads to the three of them saying that he’s a child and that he shouldn’t even be here. He shouldn’t go and concern himself with these and let the adults do their job. (Tubbo and Tommy is definitely going to sneak on the Quin Jet)

Fundy tracks where the Tesseract is and we cut to Punz, George, and Sapnap being contacted by Dream using his god powers. We get some praise to George and Sapnap while Punz just looks at Dream with nothing but suspicion.

Dream then requests a private talk with Punz and the tone completely changes. We got Punz being pretty indifferent on the outside with Dream’s threats of punishment if he fails this but you see some signs that he is indeed nervous. You got him pulling on his sleeve a little and wincing a little sometimes.

Straight to Germany and the gala. Punz decides to be the one who does the little eye disection while George and Sapnap be the defense and take down the guards to have as much of a distraction as possible so that Eret can get some Iridium to make the portal.

Meanwhile on the Quin Jet we get Techno about to drop in with Sam manning the wheel and Tubbo and Tommy somehow snuck on board again. This gives Sam, Wilbur, and Techno several heart attack because what the fuck. How do you keep sneaking on to everything. Please just stay in here.

We get Punz, George, Sapnap terrorizing a few people to be a distraction and then we get Techno dropping in all badass like.

(Punz speaking a language only Techno would understand and wincing a bit: Please don’t tell me those are children right next to you.

Techno looking and seeing Tubbo and Tommy in good disguises and armor: Oh my god.)

We get a rather cool fight between Sapnap v Tommy, Techno v Punz, and George v Tubbo.

Wilbur then comes in and they “capture” Punz, George, and Sapnap. Wilbur, Techno, and Schlatt on the phone then lecture the children and that’s when Niki comes in and grabs Punz. Cue Wilbur and Tubbo jumping in to get them. Techno then has to calm a panicked Schlatt as he hears Tubbo jump in after Wilbur.

You get Niki trying to get Punz to come home and stop the little invasion on Earth but Punz just refuses. Saying that it’s what he’s paid to do and that it has to happen now.

Wilbur interrupts that conversation and we get a brief fight scene between them before Tubbo comes in and shoots magic at Niki. Niki then stops because wait, you’re a child. Why is there a child there. Wilbur is slowly just getting more grey hairs as he sees Tubbo there.

Some talking later and we get Niki joining the team at the base and Punz, George, and Sapnap getting imprisoned in the glass thing.

We get Wilbur, Tubbo, and Fundy hacking into the SHIELD systems and digging deep into what Phase 2 is, got Tommy deciding to do it manually, Niki talking to Puffy, and Techno deciding to talk to Punz, Sapnap, and George separately about their plans.

Now Punz, Sapnap, and George aren’t as manipulative as Loki was in the first Avengers but Punz will go and point out how him and Techno and him aren’t that different. They both have red on their ledger and yeah.

We get the argument between the SBI family, Fundy, Niki, Tubbo. We get Eret attacking the airship and we get all the usual stuff that happened on the airship.

Wilbur reluctantly lets Tommy and Tubbo help fix the airship, Niki gets sent down by Punz, Fundy crashes to the ground, Techno and Eret fight, and we get Sam almost dying. :’)

Punz, George, and Sapnap escapes but this time we get Punz telling the other two to get back to Dream’s main fortress and that he can handle it here. Totally not because he knows there is a big chance of them losing and he doesn’t want Sapnap and George to be punished for it. Shut up. He isn’t soft.

We get the usual pep talk by Phil and him slightly pushing them to the right direction using some planted cards. Niki picks up her spear and heads to the city.

(Phil: You guys are Avengers.

Tommy: Ew. That sounds gross.

Wilbur: Got to admit Phil, he’s got you there.

Tommy: We should be called the L’Manbergians! Since like most of us here are European. Sorry Techno.

Techno: Don’t include me in the naming scheme.)

Fundy meanwhile is in a tower of bricks and sees this dude in a multicolored hoodie who give him a bit of pep talk and a pants and shirt. Fundy was about to thank him for it but then when he looked back, only particles of green remained.

Tubbo and Tommy are now allowed to go with the L’Manbergians on the condition of having an adult near them at all times. So Techno is babysitting the children and trying to not let them get killed.

Eret and Puffy gets to talk because I want them to talk. Please let them talk. And Eret talks about how it felt like when he was being controlled and man that’s a lot of trauma. They’re all in on joining L’Manberg and kicking Punz’s ass. Along the way they grab some goggles to cover up his eyes since they still have the unnerving show of no pupils.

We get Wilbur confronting Punz about it and it goes well. It goes surprisingly well. Punz knows he’s going to lose but it’s still his job. Wilbur points out how Punz seems so ready to give up and tells him to surrender right now.

(Punz: Look this is my job I can’t just surrender to you guys. That would piss my employer off.

Wilbur: Sounds to me that you’re scared of this employer. Are they threatening you and your friends and family?

Punz: ...Okay I think that’s enough talking now.)

Wilbur gets thrown out of window, new suit on, portal opens. Alien invasion time.

What happens is what basically happens in the first movie. Cool fighting. Some banter. Awesome scenes and more.

Techno and Eret are all just making sure that Tommy and Tubbo won’t get severely hurt and then you just see Tommy suplex someone and Tubbo being impressive with his magic. Tubbo specifically was saying how Schlatt and the Captain are going to get heart attacks when they see this.

(They did. they absolutely 100% did. Even with the disguises they immediately recognized Tommy and Tubbo. Schlatt screamed in his pillow while the Captain is just freaking out.)

Fundy comes in, we get the regular stuff. Just stuff that happens in the first Avenger movie. Punz vs Niki is awesome. Punz gets punched by Fundy when he comes up through the tower.

Nuke gets sent out by World Council and Wilbur has to send one of them up through the portal. This is where we get Dream and Wilbur encounter. Yay! The green manipulative bastard is going to traumatize the musician!

Dream then goes on this little talk about how this isn’t even it. That this isn’t even a fifth of his actual army. You though that was an invasion? Please. That was a raid at best. He can just keep on attacking and there is nothing Wilbur can do to stop it

(Wilbur: We’ll stop you. We stopped Punz before. We can stop you as well.

Dream: Can you though? Soot, look around. I have armies at my disposal. George and Sapnap got away. You only got one of my generals and he was a fucking mercenary. You won nothing.

Wilbur:

Dream: I think it’s time for you to leave. The others must be waiting. Have a nice decent down to Earth.

*Wilbur then falls down through the portal again

Dream: Also, Soot, tell Tommy that Dream said hi.)

Regular stuff happens again. Wilbur lives and Punz is now being brought back to Asgard. L’Manberg tower is made and everyone promises to go and move in it once they get their stuff.

Wilbur is now thinking about what Dream said. What if they get a threat they can’t handle? That mindset is interrupted by Schlatt going up into the tower, telling that Tubbo's grounded and asking Wilbur very nicely where Phil is. No Wilbur I won’t commit murder, I just want to talk to the man nicely. With a brick.

So first movie ended off great. The heroes won and Punz is imprisoned on Asgard. We’re going to get Found Family stuff between arcs and we’re going to get some fluffy moments. We are also seeing hints of Wilbur’s paranoia growing but that’s not important now. That totally won’t be plot important in the future. Right?

[dystopiandilfs]

I am never been so close to anti-stan then I am right now. Dreams Twitter fanbase started the biggest hate train on him because they themselves:

1. Took his inital tweet with the drugs comment as a race issue, like it was obvious that was not the intent or even the focus.

2. Got mad at his completely rational reply to a toxic Stan that used both white and adhd as an isult - the toxic Stan was saying his fanbase will dogpile them, well if you didn’t phrase your concerns in a toxic way in a public place maybe you wouldn’t be concerned about it. Like he empasised he had no intent to relate it to rap - and they see him say rap and fucking ran with it.

3. Got mad at him for disagreeing with someone generalizing his 23 million fans as anti-black, like even his stance on stans is entirely anti-generalizing, he literally denounced any that are in the same comment.

4. Bullied him into unprivating his account because they can’t share screenshots apparently.

5. Got mad a him for tweeting a fucking heart.

Then they turn around and blame the entire thing on the antis, like no. You blew it out of proportion and reacted like shit to everything he did. You are the problem. All the responses to his last tweet are “educate yourself and reflect” and “come back with a better apology” like no. He apologized when he shouldn’t have and you cyber bullied him. They are bloody proud of theirselves for “holding him accountable“ for something they misconstrued.

He needs to delete that stan video because they aren’t worth it.

First thing i want to say is that this post is going to be joint answered as evangeline is white so this is going to be answered by her and me as im half african half american. Normally evanageline would be voicing her opinions and adding ours in if we had any but as its a racism issue she didnt feel comfortable to voice only her opinions. However shes the one writing the post apart from this bit to keep up the consistentcy of the blog page. -Trinity (Basically Trin gave her thoughts using a voice note and I slightly edited it so the sentences were a bit more coherent and added both mine and the other admins opinions as Trin doesn't really use twitter unless it's through my priv account - Evangeline)

I will say that a lot of the fan drama that you see are a smaller group that is known to attack and harass Dream and anyone who disagrees with anything. Eventhough they are a small group they mass reply to everything and make themselves look bigger than they are. Not only that but the only thing they end up doing is overshadowing the original issue at hand which is fans harassing and being racist to eachother. So a lot of what I'm about to say is mainly what this group is doing and isn't at all a reflection of a lot of fans but it is something that needs to be talked about especially since a bunch of this groups members are either white or white passing but get mad on black people's behalf and is basically setting them up.

I don't mean to be rude or dismissive but a lot of people used this as an opportunity to trauma dump. Like I know going into horrible details about what you have to deal with is the only way to get the point across sometimes however harassing Dream and spamming him with stuff like "I was harassed because I'm gay" "I was doxxed because I was Asian" is lowkey weird. Like why are you telling this random guy on the internet that you were doxxed? What is he going to be able to do about it? Also not to defend Dream but how are you going to sit there and break one of his few boundaries whilst trying to educate him.

On top of that the issue was originally how racist some of the fandom are to black people but then other minority groups started talking about how they were also being stereotyped and attacked but all this is doing is talking over other minorities. For example a large group of fans started off talking about how they were being attacked by other stans because of their skin colour but then immediately started to harass and threaten others. Like some were clearly not being serious but dming people and update accounts to retweet and spread awareness isn't the move you think it is. Obviously a lot of them were genuinely trying to spread awareness and were trying to get the respect and treatment they deserve but all of that was being overshadowed by the few that were attacking and harassing creators and fans. Then a lot of it turned into minorites fighting each other over who was more oppressed which just makes the whole thing seem like petty drama.

I will say a lot of them were lovely. I am pretty uneducated on race based issues and how certain things effect people and can be racist so I was asking a lot of questions and most of them were nice. However I also got a lot of snarky ones like "google it" to questions that weren't general like "Is it mocking to call white people crackers and token white boy if you are a white person" or "is ______ considered micro aggressions"

However as usual it went from trying to educate your creators to who is the most oppressed and who can bring up more past drama that has already been addressed multiple times. I'm not being funny but the fact that some well known Dream antis were defending Dream and shitting on stans should really tell you how non productive this is. It went from "Hey Dream this comment is a bit weird can you delete it please" to "Dream you should stop being friends with this person and you should follow this person otherwise your racist" Like that's not helping anyone. The only thing that it's doing is breaking Dreams boundaries, setting Dream up and making stans look bad.

Like people were @ing Sapnap and George telling them to "collect the racist friend" like how is that spreading awareness. The whole thing went from being a good chance to educate to a big fucking joke that just made a lot of people upset and anxious.

Honestly the whole thing was pretty fucking hypocritical like you can't talk about being harassed whilst harassing people into hearing you out. A lot of the issues seemed really gatekeepy to me as well. One that I saw constantly get brought up was that the only people allowed to say dy*e were black lesbians as they created the word. Like a big topic was a misuse of aave but not a single person actual explained what it was or gave examples all I saw was "mcyttwt needs to stop using aave language it's offensive" like you can't claim to be educating people if you don't explain. Not everyone can access websites and caards that get linked because of regions or web rescrictions so they're not helpful either.

HOWEVER I will agree that a lot of their points were completely valid like the whole thing of "Feral Feb" over shadowing BHM and whenever Dream listens to rap people complain and call it bad music are two really good examples. I listened to a few twitter spaces to learn a bit more and things that were said in there was all good info that would be genuinely helpful to know and it really did help edcuate me however not a single tweet said any of it and that's why people don't understand what they're doing is wrong because nobody explains it.

A lot of the issues that people had with Dream were so weird as well like a lot of them were self oppression and turning normal things into racism. A lot of the issues had the same energy as the 404twt fans who were genuinely mad at Dream for having a colour that George couldn't see and they were harassing him and claiming that he was purposely excluding diasbilities.

Usually we would add more but Trinity got a bit upset and stressed so she had to stop answering various asks and the other admins are all white or white passing and don't feel like it's our place to put our own opinions. We will try to answer other asks with similar thoughts later - Evangeline

[littlefoxwithbighat]

Hi! This is talking about the plot of the dream smp in a meta sense and its a bit negative. The person behind this blog wants to remind you that you can skip if it's not for you and they still love the SMP. :)

ALL DISCUSSION IS ABOUT CHARACTERS. DON'T ATTACK CCS OR I WILL STEAL YOUR KNEECAPS.

I can't lie; I'm really annoyed and worried at the way the writers are handling Tommys character at the moment, and am increasingly concerned about it messing up the plot.

I wasn't very happy with the finale. I don't think that means all is lost, I think they can pull it back but it's going to take some work. I was worried about the way that things were handled before but the green festival was actually very well handled, so my worries were mostly assuaged. But yesterday? I don't know.

The fact nobody lost a cannon death is kind of disappointing. The weight of blowing up an entire city/ (country?) brutally is somewhat lost if there is no human loss. Nobody was hurt physically and the only people this had a big mental impact on was Tommy and Tubbo, everyone else wasn't very attached to L'manburg or had gone rogue, or were detatched from the while situation. And maybe it's the fact it's happened to them before or that they still have each other or that it seems odd/ frustrating that they still care so much about this place or that it was always a losing battle and they knew it, but I dont find myself really pitying them like I probably should. And I think that comes down to character growth or lack thereof, which I'll discuss later.

Niki and Fundy have started a villain arc, or at least a violent nihilism arc, and I actually don't mind it, in fact I'm a fan but it wasnt really foreshadowed, or really just showing them cracking as much as it should have been. I would guess this has mostly been started for both of them to tie Niki into the plot and I can't blame her for wanting that. Fundys acting is very good, and I REALLY hope the writers handle this well. For Fundy, regarding the fact that his father is going to be resurrected and that Fundy is following in his footsteps... If the writers don't realise that connection and make this a big step in Fundys narrative I will scream. Also Funboo bros are very interesting character foils and I hope their relationship is maintained so that they can play of off each other and also man I just really want them to keep being friends, it's a generally positive healthy relationship that makes both characters sympathetic and we need that right now. As for Niki, her character motivations seem to be mostly centered around Tommy and on the one hand I'm like ehhhh, because Tommy's character already gets a disproportionate amount of attention in terms of narrative, and I get it, but recently he's been a bit TOO much of the protagonist for a multi-person POV improve server... and I'm apprehensive. However on the other hand this has potential for a nice confrontation between Tommy and Niki. If that happens I want Tommy to be aware that this is going to happen and not talk over Niki, and I don't want it to be brushed over. I think it would be best if it was just the two of them. This also gives a nice chance for Tommy to examine his trauma with Dream and explain his motivations and Niki to get her anger out. I also want it to end positively, because it absolutely can and lack of communication when the viewer knows how to fix it is OK as a plot device sometimes but incredibly frustrating if it keeps happening (cough, Tommy and Techno).

Ranboo is reacting to the plot amazingly and I have as usual only praise for him, go, you funky enderman boy, go.

Wilbur is getting resurrected which is a thousand percent because Will wants the plot back and honestly I don't really mind, I think he'll do a good job. However I really hope he speaks to everybody about their characters, particularly Fundy, Ranboo and Niki because I don't want their characterisation and arcs to be thrown away.

Tubbo is doing very well, and I don't have many complaints to be honest. I hope he continues to get in with the acting with no shame, because he's an amazing VA when he wants to be, but sometimes he undercuts serious moments a little too much by laughing. Same criticism for Phil actually. But both are doing good.

On the theme of that, while I don't mind tension relievers or humour in serious moments there are sometimes too many. It was a lot worse about a month back and it was improving, but it seems to be creeping back in and ehhh. It's kind of Marvel-esque and not in a good way? I think it has a lot to do with bloopers and for some reason there are loads at the moment? Like Wilburs arc had almost none and this arc there's at least 2 every moment. Which isn't always their fault but maybe they need to take more steps to prevent them.

Techno is doing OK, he's quite a meta character so I'm not too mad about him undercutting serious moments but sometimes he does do it too much or in the wrong place. Like making jokes about Connor completely over the top of Tommy and Tubbos reunion, you know an event which has been foreshadowed for yoinks, prevented them from getting a proper flow going and kind of ruined it. And that made the reunion really dissapointing, which is a shame because it could have been so cool. However his characterisation is consistent and dedicated, his goals and relationships are clear and he's getting humanised more which is nice, and his monologues are great. I'm curious to see what he does now NL'M is gone but I have total faith in him.

Now Tommy. Oh Tommy. His character is such a mess at the moment, which is a shame because there were moments I saw people doubting his character choices and I was behind him.

Firstly the relationship with Techno fell apart. That was inevitable. Tommy didn't care about anarchy and Techno didn't care about the discs and both of their goals would impede the others. But the way Tommy talks about Techno is so... No? And now I understand that Tommy is going to have a biased perspective on the whole situation, and that's fine and good, but his character is so wrong about Techno it feels weird and painful? Like even from his perspective it went down differently to how he talks about it. They don't listen to each other and it's like watching two people scream at a wall.

The issue is the relationship was fairly well developed. I struggle to see Tommy saying he saw Techno as a friend but Techno never saw him as a friend because hold on, what? Techno, here's a respiration helmet because of that one of thing you told me about your trauma, a disc because those make you happy, plus top tier armour and weaponry, plus I'm going to spend time with you, calm you down from panic attacks, hide you and protect you from Dream, let you wander around L'manburg and achieve your own goals and help you plan things out Techno and Tommy didn't get ANYTHING from that? Plus after Techno opens up about his goals and his trauma, do the one thing that would hurt him the most, (use and then betray him) and then directly oppose his goals after he helped me? Ugh. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I know he would never let Tubbo get hurt and thats fine, but there were ways around that. If you're framing this character as the protagonist, then he needs to be sympathetic or at least grow and Tommy using Techno again without remorse and then refusing to listen to his perspective or show any gratitude for anything makes it difficult for viewers to empathise with him in my opinion. Have him betray Techno and then listen to Techno when he explains why Tommys betrayal hurt him and apologise, fine. Have him listen to Techno and try and find a way to keep Tubbo safe regardless, fine. Have him betray Techno but apologetically and still trying to avoid Techo getting crushed or killed, fine. But THIS? Im sympathetic towards Tommys character but this throws away so much potential character development for Tommy, where at least he saw Techno as a person, and not only that but a nice person who despite everything has set aside everything to help him? And then for him to be exactly where he was at the end of season 1, both literally, and emotionally ? I understand this is a child soldier with trauma but this is supposed to be our protagonist and if he doesn't grow, and isn't sympathetic and destroys someone we care about, how can we root for him?

Now all of this could be forgivable, not great, but forgivable, if Tommy had moved on from the discs. The Goddamn Discs™. And the worse part is all the dominoes were lined up to suggest he had! We had his moment of "he watched me" where he realised Dream was the villain and controlling him, "I've become worse than everyone I hated" good, amazing, I see where this is going, "The discs were worth more than you ever were!" and then he retracts and apologises and you think horray! Tommy has realised the discs were being used to control him and if he doesn't care about them, they hold no value! Now he's going to realise that his friends are more important and he's going to stop going after the discs. His new character motivation can be killing Dream and protecting his friends, especially Tubbo. It's clearly angled this way, and this way the plot progresses and Tommy with it. What marvellous character development. Look at him go.

And THEN, after everything that's happened he says the most important thing is the disc and I want them back!?!? EH !!? Why... Who... Who gave the OK on that writing decision? That's so static and boring and unsympathetic! And then he's back to asking people do fight for L'manburg? What?

I'll be honest I was kind go hoping either Tommy or Tubbo would die with L'manburg. I didn't mind it they didn't, there are a thousand ways to make the plot work without them dying, but this was not a great one.

PLEASE let Tommy have some growth. Yes he's had some from not caring about L'manburg to fighting for it in season one, but that was ages ago and he doesnt seem to have changed since then in any way that really counts. And I know this is harsh and he's traumatised but you have to understand I am talking about this in a sense of characters and narrative and NOT in terms of real life. Tommy needs to be better and dynamic because he is a charcacter and I want him to be a good one.

Having said all that, here are my thoughts on the future of the SMP.

Firstly, I am worried that becuse it is such a good source of content, especially for Tommy that they will never ever kill his character and leave him fighting with Dream for eternity. And I love the Dream SMP but I've seen stories that get dragged out for plot or content, and however much you think you want it to never end, let me tell you, yes you do. It will get stale and repetitive and I want the dream smp, or at least Tommys arc to go out with a beautiful and brilliant and fabulous plot ending instead of being dragged into the dirt. And then maybe new characters take the spotlight. Just please god give it a goode ending.

I also really hope they don't throw other things away to make Tommy the centre of attention, especially if it's destructive to the plot, or kind of weird and obnoxious.

Secondly, I am intrigued about the prison and Schlatts book to Dream and Technos favour and the egg and what that entails and I hope they really think through those plot points carefully and make them work, and don't forget them or throw them away.

Thirdly, I am intrigued for Wilburs return and hope that he manages to fix it cohesively without too crazy a change of pace and style and keeping characters (especially Ranboo and Fundy and Niki) consistent.

I hope they prep for the future and think things thought and communicate with each other.

It might be interesting to see other countries finally discussed but I don't know how much that would intefere with other plot points so we'll see.

That's all! Reminder that this is about characters and plot and this is just a few criticisms. I love the dream smp, but there are somethings I wanted to get of my chest. Please be respectful and feel free to discuss in the notes. Also, again, no hate to any CCs!

[whumpywhumper]

Nightmare

Whumptober 2020: No 7. I'VE GOT YOU | Support | Carrying | Enemy to Caretaker

I haven’t done any Whumptober, but I said i was gonna post this when I saw the prompt fit so here we go. I think I’m also going to start jumping around in cannon a little bit and ignore the section that I’m stuck on. Get some content out and stop feeling stuck. 

Set in the future sometime :) Masterpost

Tagging: @misspelledwitch @insanitywishes @imagination1reality0 @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @voidwhump @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @walkingchemicalfire @captivity-whump @liliability @muumimafia​ 

Usual thanks to @0idril0 @rosesareviolentlyread because you guys are awesome and listen to me ramble 

TW: Nightmares?

V***V

Markus was lost in a dream where he couldn’t move, his body completely out of his control, while masked, faceless men stood around with clip boards and white coats. His brain thrummed with panic. He wanted to scream, but as he opened his mouth the viewpoint changed and a black, bulbous bile bubbled out of his mouth, spilling over his lips and spreading into tentacles that wrapped around his throat. He watched his own eyes widen as he choked. Disembodied. A spirit. A soul unable to claw at his throat to loosen the tightening, demonic appendages.

The white coats turned their backs on him as everything went further and further away. The only witness to his dying body was himself. Watching his eyes turning red and bulging as capillaries burst. As his nostrils flared, trying to suck in precious oxygen. Mouthing fruitlessly at nothing, black tentacles keeping his lips spread grotesquely around the thick shaft coming from his throat.

A gloved hand spread over his chest, the tacky texture of the latex a sensory overload to his figmented reality. It pressed, harder, and harder. Until his sternum was cracking, and the hand pressed into, no—through— his skin. Red blood gurgled up, between the unrelenting fingers, staining the white of the hand over his chest, and Markus could finally scream as the monstrosity was pushed out of his mouth with a sickening pop.

Markus looked up in horror as Christine arched above him, the reflective metal of a long knife poised above her head in both hands, fangs bared in a rictus of a smile. Her mouth opened in a low, chilling laugh as the blade slammed down between his eyes in a crescendo of pain.

His eyes snapped open as he convulsed in the bed, his elbows knocking against two soft objects with a panicked cry that echoed off of the walls. “No!”

He scrambled against the mattress, fingernails digging into the sheets, still screaming as he frantically fought to get away. “Please, please don’t!” The room was dark, no light illuminating his surroundings as restraining hands tried to trap him again, to hold him down and hurt him. Loud voices joined the cacophony, but the words didn’t make sense to the terrified witch. He ripped free of the restraining hands, panting a croaking sob as he launched himself away, toppling to the floor with a thump.

A gasp exploded out of him when the air was knocked out of his lungs, but he clambered to his hands and knees, ignoring the carpet burn as his skin gave way to his fear. He found a corner as light flooded his senses, and he cowered, pressing his back to the wall as breathless pleas scattered out of his mouth.  “Pleasepleaseplease...”

“Hey, heyheyheyhey—look at me, Markus—look at me, honey,” a voice pulled his attention from where he’d buried his face into the crook of his arms, it was sweet, low, and comforting. Holding none of the false succor that Lucien had plied him with, and Markus raised his eyes slowly.

Tears blurred his vision, but he saw Ben kneeling in front of him, hands raised like he was warding off a wild animal. Kincaid was pressed against the door jam, hand slapped over the light switch as his own chest rose and fell rapidly, eyes wild. They were both in basketball shorts, bare chested, their hair sticking up and crazy from sleep.

Markus felt a broken noise crack through his throat like stained glass, “Oh, god.” Full bodied, throaty sobs wracked him, and he couldn’t stop himself as he started bawling.  He curled up, hands fisting in his hair, and something must have let the other two men know that it was safe to approach him.

Ben’s arms wrapped around his shoulders first, pressing a kiss to the back of his head as he murmured soothingly, “shh, shh, shh, it’s okay, Bambi, just a nightmare.”

Kincaid pressed against his other side, the tell-tale song of magic thrumming as one of his arms slid around his own bare torso. “Heyyy, sweet guy, heyyy...don’t cry, we’re here, you’re okay.“ He gathered him up with a hand under his knees, pulling his unresisting body into his lap, and Markus buried his face into the side of Kincaid’s neck. “I know, sweet guy, we’ve got you. Let it out, baby, shhhh.”

He hiccoughed a wet apology, his face sticking to the other’s salty skin. “S-sorry, ‘m s-so sorry.”

“Hush, honey, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for, shhh.” Ben brushed a hand through his hair as he helped rearrange Markus’s gangling limbs, pulling a blanket off of the bed and wrapping it around both of the witches. He settled beside them, leaning against Markus’s back, breathing slowly and evenly. “Just breathe, Bambi.”

<***>

Kincaid held Markus close as he and Ben soothed the distraught witch, rocking him gently as his hand brushed up and down his back, the other stroking through his hair. Markus was still shaking, small sobs rending his heart into pieces with every sound. His neck was uncomfortably wet from the other man’s tears, and his legs were definitely asleep, but he didn’t feel any urge to move. He would stay on the floor, ass cheeks tingling, as long as he needed.

It wasn’t often that Markus let him or Ben hold him, struggling with the casual touches that made up any relationship, the lack of control making him anxious and skittish. He met Ben’s eyes as he pressed his cheek into Markus’s hair, seeing his same heartache in the other man’s honeyed gaze.

This had been the first night they’d spend with Markus in the same bed, even though they’d been together for months. The other witch had been flighty about staying or letting them stay with him. Usually sneaking out as Ben and Kincaid dropped from long shifts and hard hours.

They’d finally gotten him to agree to stay after it became obvious that he was struggling, the black bags under his eyes swallowing his face, exhaustion written in the slump of his shoulders. Now, they knew why he hadn’t wanted to stay.

He and Ben waited until Markus’s breathing was soft and easy, his lithe frame completely limp, Kincaid feeling the steady  puff of air against his neck that announced he’d fallen asleep. Ben stood first, moving slowly as he separated from Markus, so he didn’t wake him. “Alright,” he whispered, “back to bed, love.”

“Can you take him?” He gave the slightly shorter man a sheepish smile, “I don’t think my legs are gonna be able to move for a few minutes.”

Ben’s eyes crinkled at the corners, but he didn’t say a word as he gathered up their lover, keeping the blanket tucked around him. Markus gave a whimpering moan as his head lolled to the other man’s shoulder, but Ben hummed at him softly. “It’s alright, honey, it’s just me. Go back to sleep, hush.”

With Markus’s weight off of him, Kincaid had to bite his lip to keep from waking the man with his unmanly squealing. Pins and needles shot through his legs, and he spent a few agonizing moments trying to rub feeling back into the numb extremities. Ben offered him a hand after settling Markus back into the middle of the bed, where they’d fallen asleep curled around each other, and pulled him into a tight hug as he stood.

He was trembling, and Kincaid gritted his teeth, eyes squeezed shut for a moment as he held him. Ben was always like this, nothing fazed him in the heat of the moment but, as soon as the emergency was taken care of, he let himself crumble and feel everything. “I know, sweetheart, I know,” he whispered into Ben’s hair, fingers curling into the soft strands as he looked over at Markus’s sleeping face.  

Kincaid really did know how he felt, his own heart was still thudding in his chest from the jolt of adrenaline that had shot through his unconscious system at Markus’s panicked scream. His ribs ached from where Markus’s flailing elbow had caught him in his desperate attempt at fleeing, and he didn’t think he’d get the sound of his pitiful begging out of his ears even if he scraped them clean.

“He’s been struggling like this the entire time, Kincaid,” Ben said tightly, voice choked with emotion. “How—why didn’t he come to us before?”

“You know as well as I do, trauma victims process differently—there isn’t any logic there, he’s doing what he can to protect himself.”

A vigorous nod against his already wet shoulder, and Ben sniffled, “I know, fucking hell, I know. Doesn’t make it any easier to wake up to him screaming like that.”

He held Ben closer, burying his own face into the crook of the other man’s neck, breathing deeply of his woodsy musk. His hug was returned with equal fervor, a calloused hand trailing up and down his back as they swayed for a few moments together.

The sound of Markus whimpering pulled them apart, and they looked over in concern. Still deeply asleep, the other witch’s eyebrows were crinkled in distress, a slight frown pulling his expression downwards as the light caught on the tear streaks on his face. He and Ben moved in sync with each other, like they did in so many ways, Kincaid shutting off the lights as he went to the other side of the bed while Ben pulled back the covers so they could crawl in.

Markus stirred slightly as they settled around him, their arms curling over him in the semblance of a hug, and Kincaid felt Markus’s breath hitch as their skin touched. Kincaid wasn’t strong enough to get more than a twinge when he touched the other witch, but he knew Markus was extremely sensitive to the magic he gave off. “Hush, sweet guy, we’re here,” he murmured soothingly, “we’re not going anywhere. You’re safe, you can sleep, okay?”

He seemed to settle as he and Ben comforted him with gentle words and touches, breaths coming slow and easy as he went back to sleep.

“God, Bambi, you must be so exhausted,” Ben whispered quietly, and Kincaid felt his hand brush against his own as they both smoothed Markus’s hair in tender strokes.

“I knew he had to have been having nightmares, but he’s been so quiet about everything. I haven’t wanted to push.” Guilt tickled against his heart with the same amount of sorrow pressing at his chest. “We’re going to have to ask in the morning, you know that, right?”

Ben sighed, but he heard him nod, hair shifting against the pillow case. “Yeah, but let’s get him to sleep in first, okay? It’ll be easier when he’s well rested.”

Implicit in his qualification was Ben’s own reluctance to push, but they would do what had to be done to help Markus. Just as he would for them.

[boomcomplains]

It's typical. A loud noise sends a character back into a hostage situation, a war, or a gunfight. When faced with the majority of reporting on PTSD centers around combat-related PTSD (source), it makes sense that it's the shellshocked veteran we often see in books, TV, film and comics.  However, the civilian population that experiences PTSD is 13 times larger than its military counterpart. Of course, there are more civilians than those in the military, so naturally, that population is bigger. This article is not meant to dismiss those in the military who deal with very real and terrible side-effects from their time serving.

However, it does beg the question, what does a character with PTSD look like when their trauma is outside combat?

I think a very good study of this sort of character is Dr. Nicholas Rush from Stargate: Universe. There are many other characters out there that I could use, but I'm in a SGU mood today, so I hope you'll forgive me.

At the beginning of the show, Dr. Nicholas Rush is a difficult man. Unable to deal with his wife's terminal cancer, he drowns himself in work so he can avoid the pain of losing her. When she dies while he is off-world, this complicated grief drives him to focus on the mission of the ninth chevron because he has to make his absence from her deathbed mean something. After all, if he didn't succeed, he would not have an excuse. Without the excuse, he would confront the nasty truth that he didn't support his wife in her dying days because he couldn't handle the grief.

The ninth chevron leads him to the Destiny, a ship far beyond the reaches humanity could ever dream to go, with a singular but ultimately mysterious mission. His doggedness to stay on the ship, and follow the mission is likely a reaction to his own inability to come to terms with the trauma of losing his wife.

Because of this, he approaches situations from an ultra-logical world that doesn't exactly coincide with the emotional gray side of the human experience. That's why when he felt that Colonel Young was repeatedly putting lives and the mysterious mission of Destiny in danger, he decided to... frame him for murder... and when that didn't work, stage a coup.

I promise, within the confines of the show, those were actually both very rational decisions.

The coup was the last straw for Colonel Young, so he abandons Rush to die on a desert planet that has no stargate and therefore no possibility for escape. So, metaphorically, Young essentially commits the murder that Rush tried to frame him for.

It is there, on a sandy planet without food or water, that the narrative of Nicholas Rush's PTSD starts.

While attempting to escape, Rush alerts an alien race called the Nakai to his presence as tries to fix a crashed alien spaceship. For the Nakai, it's a lucky find because they are hell-bent on boarding Destiny. Why do they want to get on Destiny? I don't know. They're aliens. Sometimes you don't get to know the why when it comes to aliens.

On their ship, Rush is tortured and imprisoned in a water tank (this is important later). So for the PTSD counter, we have both abandonment and abuse to contend with. His feelings about Young essentially murdering him for doing what he thought was right for the ship are compounded with being mentally torn apart by the Nakai.

Flash forward, Rush is accidentally rescued from the Nakai's clutches due to a lot of plot points I'm not going to go into. Frankly, it's very likely most of you haven't seen the series—or have forgotten more about it than you remember—and the last thing I want to do is turn this article into a Stargate: Universe season recap.

So, back on the ship, Rush isn't sleeping, which you find out after he commiserates with fellow torture victim Chloe. It's assumed that it is for the same reasons as Chloe, which are vivid nightmares. For those of you keeping track, that is a classic sign of PTSD. The subsequent not sleeping because you're afraid of having more nightmares is also a very strong indicator.

Unfortunately, insomnia leads to emotional decision-making, usually based on your experiences in that trauma. But let's put a pin in that for just a moment, and we'll fast forward to a later episode entitled "Pain."

In "Pain", the crew accidentally bring a tick onboard that causes vivid hallucinations, some of which are paranoid delusions. For everyone who experiences this, there is little rhyme or reason why the hallucination starts, and they go with it unquestioningly.

Rush, however, is different. His hallucinations are all triggered. When under the influence of the tick, Sergeant Greer (a proponent for Young's leadership) threatens Rush. Because of this, Rush experiences flashbacks to the Nakai ship and sees everyone as a potential Nakai threat. Paranoid ideation is a symptom of PTSD. When I say "paranoid" though, I fear that this may be read dismissively. PTSD, in many ways, is a survival mechanism. It's a set of prefab reactions because you have already experienced something similar. Essentially, it's not paranoid ideation to you, because it's happened before.

It is unclear if Rush himself was affected by the alien organism, but it seems very likely that his reaction was hinged on the perceived/very real threat to his survival. The fact that it has been established that he has not been sleeping for episodes now, and his hallucinations are of past experiences—such as the room flooding with water, or seeing other members of the crew as Nakai —it seems more than likely that Rush's experiences in this episode are PTSD-related and not due to the tick.

This, however, is not our only brush with PTSD. Let's move forward to the next season, where he finds the bridge of Destiny and hides that discovery from the rest of the crew.

One of the cool things about Stargate: Universe in the first season is that they never find the bridge of the ship. They don't even know there is one because Destiny is so massive and broken, they haven't found it yet... or perhaps the Ancients were so culturally different at the time they didn't design the ship with a bridge in mind. Even if they did, there would be a fair chance the crew would have no idea how to use it.

So, Rush—who is established to still not be sleeping after an incursion with the Lucian Alliance—finds the bridge of the Destiny. Until now, he and the Science Team had been interfacing with the ship in what I think is probably a janitor's closet, so this is an incredibly important find because it is vital for the survival of the ship and the crew. Naturally, that means Rush should want to share it, knowing what we know of him from before he was abandoned on the planet and then tortured by the Nakai. Before, it was the greater good. Now, it's survival is first and foremost.

But no. Rush, instead, reasons that Young cannot be trusted with this find, and starts to lead a double life of surreptitiously guiding the ship (to disastrous results) and pretending like he's still doing things from the Control Interface Room/Janitor's closet.

But what led him to do this? After all, keeping this find under wraps leads to dire situations that compromise the survival of the crew, and indeed causes the death of one member. It is not a rational decision.

Except that it is. If there is one thing I want to make very plainly clear in this article, PTSD-sufferers reactions are rational, even if they don't seem that way to an outsider. I think oftentimes we nitpick plots in fiction because characters make decisions that seem illogical to us. Sometimes this is deserved because an author did not sufficiently help us empathize with a character, other times I think it is because we don't understand what it means to have PTSD.

You don't have to be triggered to have PTSD affect your decision-making process. You see, unmanaged, PTSD gets you stuck in survival mode. It's an undertow that drags you down with things that were true but aren't necessarily true now.

So in Rush's sleep-deprived, and exhausted state-of-my-mind, he reverts back to Young being the threat despite all the work they had done to repair the relationship. While some may be frustrated with this backstep, I can't tell you how much I appreciate that about his character. It explains the rationale for doing something irrational, and makes his character so much deeper.

The beauty of Stargate Universe is that it shows PTSD as it is. Even better, no one is excusing Rush's actions because of it, and/or invalidating his experience. It simply is.

PTSD is so misunderstood, it deserves logical, rational representation, and it gets that with logical, rational Dr. Rush. I mean, let's face it, there is logic to what goes on in a PTSD-sufferers brain, but it's logic from a different time period. Dismissing it as irrational is insulting, and I love that Stargate: Universe never does that, and I think it is exactly why Rush is such a deep and meaningful character.

In the end, I think there is a lesson writers can draw from this: don't be afraid to explore this within some of your characters. Understand their viewpoint, and what drives them to make their choices. If you do that, you will never have a boring story.