#which is one of the few things that hasn’t changed about it since i created these guys

[sourtoasterstrudel]

LOOK AT MY KIDS. I love these two so much, Lionel (sweater vest) has been with me for like 2 or 3 years now which is wild. He means the world to me so I’m really excited to show him off. Not to mention spork (werewolf), my little mud eating freak, though she’s only been around a couple of months. I was messing around with some new pens, trying out some new textures with colouring.

Most of what i plan to share about them will be more oriented on either their friendships or their town, Wormwood. Wormwood itself is a strange little Canadian ex-military town surrounded by forest. My idea for wormwood is for it to essentially be a mix of gravity falls and twin peaks, taking the light hearted strange creatures from gravity falls, and mixing it with the weird murder mystery aspect of twin peaks, as 19 people in wormwood all disappeared from their beds without a trace; Li was one of these people, but for some reason, 10 years later, he came back, though he wasn’t exactly in the same condition as when he left.

One of my favourite facts about wormfood that i really have no way of squeezing in there so i wanted to just mention it— there is physically no sun in wormwood. The sun just doesn’t seem to ever pass over wormwood or ever give it any sort of light. Luckily manmade lightsources have become all the rage in the past few centuries

[glassartpeasants]

One Piece Asylum AU idea

things are subject to change but here is a little short

~~~~

Characters include: Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, Law, Kidd, and Killer

GN!Reader for the moment

Warnings: drug use, mentioned death, murder/manslaughter, hallucinations, mental illness's, abuse, medical malpractice, slight gore, depression, made at work, kinda spoilers for Law's and Sanji's backgrounds, i tried my best to incorporate some things from each backstory into this so-,I AM NOT A MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL SO I DO NOT KNOW IF THESE COULD BE ACCURATE

~~~~

“Patient's name is Monkey D. Luffy. He was brought here by his grandfather after he failed to thrive following the death of his older brother.” Handing you the clipboard, the head psychiatrist looks at you before continuing. “He’s convinced himself he’s a pirate and trying to become ‘King of the Pirates’ with his ‘nakama.’ We believe it’s a coping mechanism and trauma response to witnessing his brother's murder.”

Looking through the pages, you read the test and charts. Upon seeing a particular line, you raise a brow. “Believes he’s made of rubber?”

“Ah, yes. It’s part of the world he’s built in his head. He thinks that things will bounce off him and that he can’t get hurt if he falls from heights. It’s caused multiple bruises and broken bones. One includes the broken femur he just recovered from. He’s a high fall risk due to these delusions.”

“That’s so sad. Creating a whole world just to escape the grief. I can’t imagine the pain of watching a loved one die in such a horrific manner.”

“Surprisingly, this pirate world is common in this hospital. Don’t know if it’s Luffy’s influence or if it’s a common escape method that hasn’t been fully researched yet. But it is a very regular delusion in here.”

“There’s more…pirates?”

“Yes. Three crews, to be exact. At least for now. Luffy’s charmed his way into a few other patients' minds and convinced them to ‘join his crew.’”

“Really? Who are they?”

“There's a lot. Are you sure you want to hear them? It can get pretty disturbing and slightly gut-wrenching. New World Asylum isn’t known for the mild cases.”

A sense of unease fills the pit of your stomach, but the curiosity is too much to endure. “I’m sure.” Nodding, the head psychiatrist leads you to a big hallway. The doors are thick metal with name plates on each surface. As you approached the dark, eerie hallway, it felt like a horror movie.

The head psychiatrist hands you a pen and a small notepad. “Take notes, rookie. If you want to survive, I suggest writing down as many notes as possible.”

“After Luffy, we have Rorona Zoro. Brought here by police after a welfare check discovered he was living with the decaying body of his lover after he accidentally killed them.”

“What? Why is he here instead of prison?” You question, looking at the psychiatrist with furrowed brows.

“It was an accident. He used to collect swords and practice swordsmanship, which had him collecting a total of 3 swords. One of them accidentally killed his lover when they sneaked up behind him when he was drunk, spooking him. He killed them instantly, thankfully, slicing them in half. In his despair, he kept the body with him for two weeks. His boss was the one to call the cops to check up on them since he hadn’t left the apartment or contacted anyone in the said two weeks.”

“That's so sad, but…that still doesn’t explain why he isn’t in prison?”

“After the death, he continued to speak to them like they were alive, and when the cops tried to separate him from the body, he flipped his shit. It turned into a standoff that lasted about four hours before they finally managed to take him down. Often gets aggressive and has violent outbursts when he has moments of ‘clarity’ and ‘can’t find them.’”

“Oh…”

“He’s part of Luffy’s ‘Straw Hat Pirates.’ From our observed behaviors, he seems to be the second in command. He now claims to be striving to be the best swordsman for his deceased lover.” Writing down the minor notes that you could, you continue to follow.

“Next up, Vinsmoke Sanji. After suffering years of abuse that he refuses to speak about, he attacked them ruthlessly. The only one surviving of the massacre was his older sister, who he deems ‘free of retribution.’ They counted him unfit to stand trial and sent him here. According to Luffy, he’s the cook for his crew. As far as we know, he’s never stepped foot in the facilities kitchen.”

Remaining speechless, you follow and try to calm down how your mind seems to run at a million miles per minute. How many people did this place have that believed they were pirates? Was this all Luffy’s doing? Influencing people into believing his world?

“Trafalgar Water D. Law. A raging wildfire took out his entire town overnight when he slept as a child. He has it in his mind that the government did it to hide the fact they were experimenting on them. A man adopted him only to witness his murder after his adoptive father got into an argument with a family member.” Your heart burned as you listen to the recounting of his story. Losing your whole world overnight twice sounded like hell.

“The next thirteen years seemed to go by quickly and relatively calmly. He’d gotten his medical degree to be a surgeon. He was known far and wide as a great doctor. It wasn’t until people began to find out that he'd been secretly experimenting on people. Trying to find a cure for an unknown disease that he claims killed his family.”

“The one that he blamed on the government?” You raised your brow, trying to comprehend what could possibly be going on in the man’s mind.

“Yes. It also came to light that his partner, who was constantly sick, was being poisoned by him. He always fed them a small amount of some drug, so they were too weak to do anything other than depend on him. Just so they couldn’t leave him. And just like almost everyone else, they concluded that he's not in the right mind to stand trial and sent him here.”

Walking past Law’s door, a sense of despair hits you, making goosebumps rise on your skin. You could hear him talking to himself, but what he’s saying was unintelligible. “He talks to his deceased sister a lot. Blames himself for not waking up his family in time to save them from the fire or warn them about the ‘sickness’ they had. When talking to him, don't be spooked if he starts asking you about your upcoming ‘surgery.’ He’s restrained in a jacket like Zoro."

"He’s another victim of Luffy’s influence, as he also now believes he’s part of a pirate group. But this one, he’s the captain of. He calls them the Heart Pirates. Another thing he discusses frequently is Corazon. We have yet to figure out who or what that is.”

“I’ll…keep that in mind.” The pen scribbled relentlessly on the paper, seeming never to stop as words repeatedly filled the small, lined paper.

“Good. Next up is Eustass Kidd.” Moving forward, next to the head psychiatrist, you are shown a door made of even thicker metal than the others along the hallway. There were even twice the number of locks on the door compared to the ones you've seen.

“Why are there so many locks?”

“He’s the most aggressive and hostile. It’s gotten to the point of him being unable to leave his cell and being chained to the back wall-”

“Let me out of here, you stupid-” A scream of pain came from behind the heavy metal door, causing you to rush up and slide open the slot in the door to check up on the man behind it.

“Sir?! Are you okay?!” As you opened the small opening, you were met with orange orbs staring right at you. Firey red hair could be seen from what little light was in the room. For a moment, the air seemed cold, quiet, and uncomfortable.

CLANK

Not a second passed before the man in chains jumped to his feet and rushed at you; the chains holding him back and the door separating you two did little to quell the scream that left your throat as you fell back on your butt. 

“He never learns.” The head psychiatrist sighs before you see her push a button on a small remote in her hand, leading to another scream of agony in the room.

“W-What are you?” Wide-eyed, you look at her.

“Shock therapy. It’s part of his treatments.”

“But hasn’t that been proven to be ineffective?” A stone stare was all you got, and it made you want to shrink and crawl into a hole to hide. Why would she use a technique that has proven ineffective? As punishment? There had to be some sort of explanation. There is no way they would use such primitive methods in this modern day. Unnerved, you slowly stand up, your eyes never leaving her hand.

“Moving on.” Quickly rushing forward, she moves to the final door. Not sparing you or the chained man a second glance.

Looking at the tiny slit in the door, you exhale a silent, “I’m sorry…” Swallowing down your saliva, you move to her side once more. What once was a calm introduction now felt wrong. The coldness of her actions shows a dark side that makes you want to run far, far away. What could he have done to get here and be treated like some sort of animal?

“What did he do that caused such treatment?”

“He was in a rock band, but there was an accident at a bar where he must have taken some substances that caused a manic episode. Whether it was knowingly or unknowingly is not charted. However, the episode caused some harsh hallucinations, which resulted in him running into oncoming traffic and getting hit by a car. The aftermath was multiple surgeries and the amputation of his left arm. Once he was awake and saw the damage, he freaked.”

“Freaked? Did they not explain to him what happened?”

“They tried, but from forced brain scans and multiple behavior therapists later, it was revealed that the accident had knocked some screws loose. Putting him in an eternal warped state of mind. A constant state of psychosis in a better term. No amount of medication has helped him. He’s a lost cause. No doubt he’ll be here for the rest of his life.” Frowning, you follow her to the next and last room in the hallway.

“Last but not least, Killer.”

“Killer?” You look at her in confusion. What kind of name is that? Is she pranking you?

“Yes. He was and still is Eustass Kidd’s best friend and the only person who can calm him down when he’s on a violent rampage after somehow escaping his room.”

“How did he get here then? Was he also in the accident?”

“No. He came a month after Eustass was sent to us. After Eustass’s spiral, he spiraled into his own depression after losing his best friend, and he turned to some drugs to soothe the pain. And just like his friend, he caused irreversible damage to himself after going on a drug stupor after his lover broke it off with him cause he was ‘too depressing to be around.’”

“What did he do?...”

Sparing you only a second glance, the head psychiatrist looked to be holding back a chuckle. “He used a sewing needle to stitch his mouth into a smile before going back to his ex’s house and trying to beg for them to take him back, saying he ‘fixed himself. ‘The cops took one look at him and sent him here.” An icky feeling rose in your gut at her reaction. How could she find something so horrific to be funny?

“That's horrible…it’s so disturbing how fragile the human mind is.”

“It is. Oh, something I forgot to mention is that Luffy’s influence hit them, too. Eustass took his words as a challenge and made his own pirate group, including Killer, called the ‘Kidd Pirates.’”

“How original?”

Stopping suddenly, the lady turns to you. “Now that you know them. It’s time for you to get ready.”

“Ready? Ready for what?”

“Ready to meet your new patients, Dr. (Y/N). I’m sure you’ll love it here at New World Asylum.”

[bagerfluff]

Early Morning Pretties

Casper x Non-Binary Reader

Prompt - Watching the other sleep

You didn’t know if you could handle this.

What couldn’t you handle? How fucking cute Casper looked when he was asleep. You woke up about an hour ago. You were supposed to be getting ready for work

But one glance at Casper left you star struck.

He just looked so angelic. So now you were sitting next to him watching him sleep. The sight was way too cute. Casper was laying on his side of the bed, cuddling azrael.

Which was the cutest thing you’ve ever seen, you already took a picture of it. His hair was spread all over the pillows, slightly fuzzy from sleeping.

It creates a ring of sorts around his head. His shirt was pulled up slightly and the blanket was tangled in his legs.

Leaving you a nice view of Casper’s waist, you might have stared at it for a few minutes before looking away.

He was on his stomach, head turned towards your side of the bed. Despite that, azrael was still held tightly.

Since Casper didn’t bring any clothes and hasn’t had anything to get some from his place, he’s been using yours.

Which is the best sight in the world. Right now he was wearing an extra pair of pajamas that you had in a box. Long sleeve shirt and pants, with the sleeves and legs rolled up.

Casper only had a few clothes at your place so far. He said it was dangerous to go to The Underworld since he was on the run.

So he only went a few times so far, that just means more opportunities to see him in your clothes.

It left you a nice few of Casper’s skin, slightly littered with scars.

The light morning light that shined in though your windows covered Casper in a morning glow. You moved your hand over to Casper’s face, brushing some hair out of his face.

As if Casper knew your hand was close, he leaned his head closer to your hand. You rested your hand on his cheek, rubbing it with your thumb. Despite being under blankets and it being warm, Casper’s cheek was cold, but that was just Casper.

You saw Casper smile in his sleep, making you smile. Casper moaned and moved in his sleep, opening his eyes and looking at you. “Good morning, pretty”, you whispered.

Casper rolled over onto his side, azrael still in his hand. “Morning sunshine”, Casper said groggily, still rubbing his eyes. You moved your hand from Casper’s face to his head, playing with his hair.

Casper sighed and laid back down, moving closer to you. Casper moved next to your leg and grabbed it, holding your leg and azrael as he closed his eyes.

You let out a little laugh, “I have to go to work”, you told Casper while playing with his hair. Casper made a sound that mimicked a growl, “no, mine”, he whispered into your thigh. You looked at Casper, he had a pout on his face.

It looked adorable.

You felt Casper hold your thigh tighter. You smiled, “what am I going to do with you. You know the bills don’t pay themselves”, you told Casper though you knew it would do little to change Casper’s mind.

Casper didn’t say anything, that’s when you knew he had fallen back asleep. You shook your head and leaned back on your bed’s headboard. You pulled your phone out of your pocket and sent a text to your boss.

Looks like you're staying home today.

[kenobiwanx]

Happy New Year!!! 🌟

First of all, I want to thank each and every one of you. Thank you for supporting me and my art. This past year was a good one for me, and that's thanks to all of you!

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I live by my art. This is my full-time job—it’s what pays my bills. And 2024 started off great: I received commissions every single month, something that hadn’t happened in previous years. That was a huge change for me, truly life-changing. I’m so grateful to everyone who decided to spend their money on my art, to trust me with your ideas, characters, and stories. It means SO much to me, and I say this from the bottom of my heart. I put everything I have into creating the best art I can for you, truly. When you message me saying how much you loved it and how much my work means to you, I cry for real. It moves me deeply. So thank you for all the kind words and support.

This is going to be a long message because I feel like I need to thank you and share a bit about myself. So, if you read all of this, you're a warrior, lol.

I don’t usually share much about myself or my personal life, but here are a few things. Well, I’m from Brazil—you probably already know that. I’m a self-taught artist, and honestly, I’m like that with everything I know how to do. I love learning on my own with the resources I have available. When I set my mind on doing something, I go all in. Drawing came into my life as a form of therapy, a way to focus on something other than my negative thoughts. I’ve always been a very anxious and depressive person and went through a lot of trauma that made things worse. Since I didn’t have the resources or support to seek professional help, I tried to find my own way—and that’s how I learned to draw!

I won’t say I’m 100% okay now because life hasn’t been easy for me. I lost my mom to breast cancer six years ago, and it had a massive impact on me and my mental health. She was my rock, my world, and losing her was devastating. She fought the disease for five years, and during that time, I was the one taking care of her, keeping the house running, and looking after my two younger siblings. I was just a teenager, but I suddenly had so many responsibilities. It messed me up a lot, but if I had to do it all over again just to have more time with my mom, I would.

I wish she were here to see how far I’ve come with my art because she was the only one who supported me back then. I know she’d be so proud of me for not giving up.

I used to do realistic traditional art before, spending a whole month on one piece. It was fun for a while, but it was just a hobby—I only sold a few pieces to family members. Then, in 2020, during the pandemic, I decided to switch to digital art. I wanted something that gave me more freedom to express myself creatively, and digital art offers that. So, I started learning. And guess who became my muse for this journey?

Yep, Pedro Pascal, lol. From my very first digital drawing, he was my go-to subject. And let me tell you, those early drawings weren’t great, poor guy, lmao. But thank God, I improved! I’m still drawing him to this day, and he’s been a huge reason I’ve gotten so many commissions since most of them are of his characters. I’m incredibly grateful to him and the roles he plays.

Anyway, I’m working on rebuilding myself, trying to move forward, achieve my goals, and take things step by step. This Christmas, I was able to buy a huge drawing tablet, which was a big milestone for me. I used to do everything on a small tablet, so this was a major upgrade—and it’s all thanks to everyone who commissioned me this year. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I hope 2025 will be just as good. I hope you’ll all stick with me and keep asking for commissions, lol. I wish you all the best in life, that you achieve everything you dream of, and that you stay healthy. Please take care of your mental health too; it’s just as important as your physical health.

I have a lot of personal projects I want to work on this year—art ideas I’ve set aside for years that I hope to finish in 2025.

This year, I plan to open commissions every month. The only exception will be if my waitlist gets full before I open them officially, like who Dm me to reserve a slot earlier, which happened in December. My DMs are always open!

I’ll also be updating my price sheet, adding new information to my terms and conditions, and increasing my prices. It’s been about two years since I last updated them, so it’s time. But don’t worry—it’ll only be an increase of about $10-$15. I still want to keep my art affordable for everyone.

I’ll sort all of that out in the coming days, so stay tuned for updates!

My January waitlist is already open, and there are a few people in line. If you want to reserve a spot, feel free! Just keep in mind the price adjustment I mentioned earlier.

I think that’s everything! I know this was a lot of text, lmao.

Thank you again, everyone! Happy New Year, and I love you all! And I love you, Pedro Pascal!

[the-universal-sun]

Do you have any little Fiddleford hcs?

I haven’t really thought about before, but you’ve inspired me. Thank you! Please let me know if this is what you were thinking of!

I don’t really think he’d start regressing until after the memory gun is created and Ford goes through the portal. His mind is in shambles, he’s stressed, anxious, and neurotic all the time basically. He’s probably homeless/living in the dump at this point, too. So all that combined leads his mind retreating to a safer age, a younger age. It’s the one good thing besides the Society that he has.

Now, let’s imagine he goes to the Mystery Shack to confront Ford after a memory is triggered and he finds Stan instead, after Stan explains his connection to Ford, Fidds tells Stan that he used to be Ford’s research partner but left for reasons he couldn’t and didn’t want to remember. Stan, feeling sorry for the squirrelly little man, offers to drive him home, but when they reach the dump he’s been staying at, he offers Fidds to stay back at the shack. He doesn’t do it out of kindness, though a part of him is sympathetic given he was homeless for a decade up until a year ago, but because he thinks he can convince Fidds to help him with the portal. Stan’s a conman, so it doesn’t take him too long to get Fidds to agree to stay, just for the winter at least.

I would imagine that they don’t spend time together until Stan convinces Fidds to help with the portal, which took weeks to do. And he’s still not happy about and refuses to go down to the basement. He’ll do the equations and teach Stan the engineering bits, but that’s all he does, and he’s only doing that much because Ford still is his friend.

Onto the actual headcanons:

- Stan doesn’t really notice anything too out of the ordinary at first, Fiddleford is already an odd, fluttering, and anxious mess with a fractured mind, so seeing him act less like an almost 30 year old and more like a 7 year old isn’t out of the question, who knows the effects of the memory gun?

- It only clicks for Stan after living with and observing Fidds for a couple of months. Stan is actually not surprised or weirded out. He’s lived on the streets for 10 years, he’s seen his fair share of different behaviors, and this is one he actually sort of knows about. One of the prisons he was in made him go to weekly group therapy and this was brought up more than a few times.

- For all the fronts that Stan puts up, he’s a deeply caring and emotional man when it comes to his loved ones, and Fiddleford wiggled his way into his heart quite easily, so he’s going to look after the little guy. That being said, he won’t make it obvious that he knows and cares (he’s being so obvious it’s painful). He speaks softly to Fidds when he notices him feeling smaller, offers kid friendly food and shows, and doesn’t let him work on the portal’s math. And sometimes rocks him to sleep. He’s not obvious at all.

- Fidds is a smart man, he knows what’s going on, he knows that Stan knows what’s going on. But he doesn’t mind so much, having Stan there just helps his anxiety and quiets his mind. Plus, he hasn’t been called “Little Fella/Guy” since he was actually 7 years old, and it feels nice to be taken care of instead. He took care of his 5 younger siblings, his cousins, Ford, his own family, technically he takes care of the town with the Society of the Blind Eye, so this is a nice change

- He does have the energy and eccentricity of Old Man McGucket when regressed. He’s just a boy from the south who loves to run in the dirt and hock loogies sometimes. Stan encourages it, encourages Fidds being loud and playful and full of energy, something he never got to be. It was beaten out of him, but damn if he ain’t gonna make sure that his boy can experience childish joy

- You know how sometimes kids from the south have the strongest and cutest country accent? That’s how Fidds sounds when regressed and Stan cannot get enough of it. He usually hates the accent, but coming from his Little Man? It’s the best sound he’s ever heard, and if he hears anyone making fun of it, he’s punching their lights out

-Fidds is an engineer at heart, always has been, so Stan swipes him some wooden stacking blocks, some child’s robotics sets, and some advanced looking Rubix cubes. Of course when Fidds is feeling overwhelmed and super anxious, not wanting to think for a little bit, Stan acquired some kid friendly books from the library, some crayons and marker, and regular old printer paper

- About every picture Fidds ends up drawing gets put on the refrigerator by Stan. He’s so happy and he loves them

- I headcanon that Stan shows love through home made gifts and quality time, like with Dipper and Mabel’s fishing hats and the time he spent with them, so he makes gifts for Fidds. He’ll draw with him and give him the drawing to keep afterwards (they’re all in Fidds’ little treasure/memory chest), he’ll spend time learning and making food he grew up eating, home made biscuits and gravy, buttermilk pie are the first he learned and are what Fidds wants to eat the most. He hand sews stuffed toys for him, Fidds’ favorite is a dog that was made with different cloth patches, he carries the affectionately named Copper with him everywhere

- Fidds loves being with Stan, his Bubba, he loves the care he can see and feel with each action. His soft touches when Fidds gets into a fit, his soft voice, he never yells and somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows why, but his head is too fuzzy to think on it. Fidds was always the one in charge, the big brother, so it’s nice having his Bubba take care of him. He gets fed, he stays warm, and on the days when Fidds feels awful in his mind, he gets wrapped up in a blanket burrito and just held and carried everywhere, all day. He loves Stan

- When Fidds gets scratches and scrapes from playing outside, Stan kisses his boo boos for healing and puts a colorful bandage over it. And then kisses them again for good luck

- His juice has to be watered down or he’s bouncing off the walls and talking a mile a minute, which is cute and all, but not when it’s been nonstop running for 4 hours

- He once had an accident after a nightmare during his nap. He just sat there sobbing until Stan came, he was so scared that Stan would be disgusted and would yell at him. But when Stan found him, all he did was whisper a soft “Little Man”, pick him up, and bring him to the bathroom to give him a warm bath, wrap him up in a burrito with a clean blanket and Copper, and rock him back to sleep.

- Stan loves taking care of Fidds, he likes being needed sure, but he truly does care for Fiddleford, whether he’s the genius engineer helping his get his brother back, or his Little Guy, who loves to draw horses and pigs and can solve a Rubix cube in 15 minutes. And Fiddleford loves Stanley, his best friend who’s helping him stop with the memory gun use and eagerly listens to his engineering lessons, and his Bubba who draws with him and kisses his boo boos when he falls down

- In conclusion, Fiddleford H. McGucket is just a little guy

[pearlofthewoods]

Spuffy band-fic ramblings (long-post)

I think about this scene so frequently because…"Well, I sing.” 

Yes, of course he does. That man was a poet, he could write such gorgeous lyrics, and no one can tell me Spike wasn’t an active part of the rock scene in the 70s.

Honestly, a whole Spuffy band fic has been marinating in my brain for like a good 6 months now, (like seriously, it even has its own playlist, that’s when u know it’s getting real)… but since I’m only a baby writer I wanna get some writing practise in before I embark on the project, so that I can do it justice. 

However as I literally cannot keep these thoughts to myself, allow me to invite you into my brain for a while. 

(Be warned I'm basically spoiling half the plot of a future fic under the cut so scroll away if u only wanna read it when, or if, it gets written.)

So in my fic idea, there’s a huge underground vampire music scene (particularly in LA), since because vampires are immortal, they’ve lived through so many different eras of music that they have a really deep understanding of music history. They’ve seen so many famous bands live etc (which obviously is one of the few human experiences open to vampires, since so many gigs take place at night and are tied to nightlife culture). 

I’d also say that since vampires have no need to work, if they can get their hands on instruments they'd have plenty of time to practise/dedicate themselves to the craft. 

One head-canon that I have comes from the idea that Billy Idol “stole Spike’s look” from him. What if he stole something else too?

Bear with me here. 

Vampires don’t age, so they could never risk becoming famous in the human world, since people would very quickly notice that they weren’t human. Vampires need to keep a relatively low profile. They also can’t really make money easily from music by playing for other vamps, cause it’s quite unlikely the vampire scene has much money flowing around. Why would it? Everyone can just steal/mug to get what they need.

So in the vampire music world, they’d mostly just be playing for each other to stave off the boredom of eternal life, but with no worries about finances or putting food on the table. 

And dear God that music would be experimental, with none of the usual restraints of human life.

Like I think their music would be very interesting/ outside the mainstream. Perhaps they’d play stuff from entirely different decades which had completely gone out of style, but not amongst vampires who never aged/got uncool (unlike the humans who played it)….

Vampires would also have so many different first-hand musical influences that they’d create the most weird and wonderful sounds. Think Spike’s Victorian musical upbringing mixed with jazz mixed with rock, mixed with… well, you get the picture.

And tbh I think some people would try and capitalise on that, on that raw vitality. Perhaps there’s a demon who records demos secretly in the crowd or steals entire songs and sends them to someone in the know in the music industry. And since vampires don’t exactly have passports, social security numbers or any real documented presence at all, there’s nothing they can do about it. Like what if, in this fictional world, Billy Idol didn’t just steal Spike’s look, but his music too? Frankly, it'd explain the resentment.

Anyway, in my head Spike hasn’t played music for a while, he took a break to look after Drusilla and then got wrapped up in the scoobies and their shenanigans. 

But after Buffy dies? He needs somewhere to put all those emotions. He needs to write goddamn it, he hasn’t felt heartbreak like this for a long, long time. He’s not used to death, he doesn’t know how to deal with it. No vampire does.

So when he’s drinking away the pain in Willy’s one night, some demons he used to know are down from LA and offer him an open spot to sing with them at a new demon club. Spike’s about to turn it down, but they tell him things have changed. Like Wolfram and Hart, demons are all in business now, and this new club will pay.

Spike doesn’t need money… but Dawn does. Tara and Willow won’t tell him anything, (they don’t want to be put in the moral position of whether to accept mugging-proceeds from Spike), but he knows that finances are tight. And this is something he can do for Dawn, and in a way… for Buffy.

So Spike joins a band!

I think he’s probably pretty famous from his past in the 70s vamp rock scene, but this time he wants to change up the music genre. He wants a fresh start. It’s the nineties goddamn it, and he’s certainly not the same vampire he was twenty years ago. He’ll play, but he’ll play on his terms. 

I imagine his newer music to basically be Jeff Buckley’s (my fave 90s musician), which I know might seem a bit melancholy for Spike, but with his current grief, it feels quite appropriate.

Tbh since I basically know nothing about music and can’t even imagine lyrics for toffee, I'd probably even just give him Jeff’s discography and call it a day. It’s fanfic I can do what I like. Grace? Spike wrote it. Job done. 

For example, the lyrics to “Opened Once”?

"In the half-light where we both stand

In the half-light you saw me as I am

I am a railroad track abandoned

With the sunset forgetting I ever happened

That I ever happened"

Half-light = the twilight, the safest time of day for vampires (to quote Edward Cullen, sorry lol). also a metaphor for the place between the vamp world and the human world. A place where Buffy and Spike "both stand", as she’s the slayer and he’s a vampire that can’t hurt people.

‘You saw me as I am’ - After Buffy's resurrection, Spike’s the only person who truly understands what she’s been through, and the experience of crawling out of your own grave. They meet each other where they are.

‘Railroad track’ - ‘railroad spike’. Railroad is a pretty unusual and archaic way of phrasing that word. At least where I’m from. ‘Railroad spike’ is too good of a coincidence. 

‘Sunset forgetting I ever happened’ - Spike doesn’t get to live in the daylight. the sun (and the sunset) are both out of reach for him without the danger of dusting. He doesn’t fully feel like a true vampire anymore, but the human world won’t accept him either. In fact, his human life was so long ago that even the sun itself has forgotten William Pratt.

I also think Spike/ Jeff Buckley is a fitting parallel  since, if I stick to major-canon events, Jeff’s unfortunate passing very early in his career would also fit roughly timewise with Spike’s death at the end of season 7. 

The last unfinished album that Jeff struggled so hard to write? The one Spike wrote when he was getting over his ensoulment and entirely reevaluating who he is, and what that means for his music.

Unfinished final album? Yes. Unpublished? No. 

Because when he accepted wearing that amulet, Spike had a pretty good idea he was going to die. So he did something a vampire never plans to do. He wrote a will. 

If he’s dead, there’s no more worries about fame exposing his immortality right? So his music is published posthumously in the human world (with some bullshit about his talent going undiscovered by the industry during life).

And combined, the proceeds pay for Dawn’s college bills, and lift all of Buffy’s financial worries from her shoulders. 

In the end, that’s Spike’s last gift to Buffy, his music, his poetry…and it finally allows her to rest. 

[thievinghippo]

First line/page WIP meme

Tagged by @aldisobey and figured why not? This fic is called 'a tangled funeral pyre' and will focus on the consequences of Rook attempting the lichdom rites forty years after the events of the game. This first section is a flashback

Tagging anyone else who wants to join in! I would love to see the cool stuff you're all writing! :D

#

“She’s keeping something from me.”

“Emmrich…”

Emmrich can only drop his head at the disappointment he hears in Myrna’s voice. Which is the last thing he wants to hear during their monthly tea. For almost twenty years now, since the defeat of the elven gods, they’ve met for tea in Myrna’s apartments in the upper levels of the Necropolis.

“Rook is allowed secrets, of course,” Emmrich says, staring at his hands. It’s not as if he doesn’t have any secrets himself. They are not his, though, but those of the Necropolis. Things that only the liches are allowed to know. “But in almost twenty years, she’s never deliberately hid something from me.”

The last few days… Her aura is different, somehow. There’s a nervousness he hasn’t seen from her before, not even before Teardrop Island. Something is clearly worrying her and the fact that she hasn’t confided in him breaks the heart he no longer has. All he wants is to be a source of comfort to her for the mortal years she has left.

“Have you considered inquiring about the change?” Myrna asks. She takes a sip of tea then places it down carefully on the saucer. “I will admit, I did sense some sort of distraction within Rook when we went to the theatre the other night.”

“And it was such a good production of The Tyrant of Minrathous,” Emmrich muses, thinking about the one of the many plays, songs, and novels that have been created about their adventures defeating the elven gods all those years ago.

“Speaking of that night, did I notice correctly that you’ve aged your glamour slightly?”

Emmrich tightens his grip on his cup of tea. While he hasn’t drank anything since lichdom, if the cup is hot enough, he can actually feel the warmth in his bones. Somehow, that warmth is a small comfort that he’s treasured, considering he’s lost so many others.

“Only five or so years. Rook believes that I should just let her catch up to my glamour. Maybe someday.” A day he refuses to let himself think about. He never allows himself to dwell on the fact that each day is one less he has with her.

“Why not have your glamour match her age? Truly, I was surprised you did not when you first crafted one.”

“Oh I very much considered doing just that,” Emmrich says, thinking back to those nights when he debated on his glamour, even when so many other pressing duties awaited. “If I recall, I believe I decided on changing my age would be cheating.”

Myrna simply tilts her head and takes another sip of team. “Cheating?”

If Emmrich still had an eyebrow to raise, he would raise one now. “My dear Myrna, I know Vorgoth would have mentioned the conversations we had about my insecurity regarding my age and my relationship with Rook.”

To her credit, she nods instead of trying to deny it. Vorgoth really is the worst gossip in all of the Necropolis. “I might remember hearing a thing or two.”

It’s that moment Emmrich senses something deep within the Necropolis. A sudden tremor that only a lich would have the ability to sense. He places his teacup onto the table and focuses. He looks to the beating pulse of the Necropolis itself and feels a pull.

“Myrna, please accept my apologies, but I am being called to a pressing matter.” 

Emmrich stands and focuses his energy, trying to see exactly where he is meant to go. The uncreatively named Lich Hall, down in the deepest recesses of the Necropolis. Where only the four unliving lich lords have access.

Four lich lords and any member of the Mourn Watch who has discovered the first step of the journey to lichdom.

Suddenly he can look back at Rook’s aura with perfect clarity.

[dean-winchester-is-a-warrior]

The Dangers of Hope Ch. 3

Series Summary: When Y/N shows up at Camp Chitaqua with her little girl in tow, her bloodshot eyes leave no doubt that she's infected. Or is she? Everything Dean has come to know for certain over the last five hellish years, is about to be challenged.

Pairings/Characters in the series: Endverse!Dean x Reader, Emma (OFC), Castiel, Sam Winchester, Lucifer, Michael, Zachariah, Risa, Johnston (OMC), Patrick (OMC), Theresa (OFC), other survivors and soldiers.

Series Explicit 18 +/Warnings: Show level violence, some gore, angst, smut, fluff all the usual for a series of mine. ❤️ Endverse!Dean (that's a warning for his anger and callousness as well as his extreme hotness. 😁) Each chapter will have their own specific warnings.

Chapter Warnings: None really. Angst. Dean being a bit of an asshole. A brief, near sexual encounter. Smidge of fluff.

Word Count: 3,654

A/N: So, I've had this idea for quite a while. Basically since I watched The Last of Us. I loved Pedro in the role of Joel, but I kept thinking how incredible Jensen would have been. Which then made me think of how amazing he was as Endverse!Dean which then led me to this idea. Lol! I've stolen the premise of Ellie's storyline from TLOU, but made her a grown up, a reader insert, and a love interest for Dean.

If you've never seen TLOU, don't worry - you don't need to have seen it to understand this story. 😊

I've taken some liberties with the Endverse in my story, changed a few things from canon, but kept lots of things too.

I sincerely hope you enjoy the story. It will be ten chapters and I will do my very best to post one chapter every weekend. ❤️

A/N 2: So, here I am with chapter 3. I hope you enjoy it! Thank you so much for all the very kind comments that this series has received so far. You're all fabulous.

Series Master List || Tag Lists

The dividers below were created by @saradika

The next morning Dean was sitting at the table in his tent, listening to the camp waking up around him, when his tent flap opened and Cas strolled in. Dean rolled his eyes.

“Jesus, we gotta put up a piece of wood on the tent poles or something so people can knock.” He said in a surly and growly, early morning voice. When Cas didn’t respond, he challenged him with an even surlier tone. “What? Why are you here?”

Cas walked further into the tent. “I saw you gave Y/N back her daughter.” Dean raised his hand and then dropped it, conceding the point. “And,” Cas continued, raising his hand in the air and waving it slightly, “no more manacles.”

Dean spread his arms wide. “These are all things I already know, Cas; why are you telling me this?”

Cas shrugged slightly. “So, can I assume this means you no longer think she’s going to turn into a monster at any minute?”

Dean blew out a puff of air. “It means, she’s been here a week, and hasn’t turned yet. And since that isn’t really something that happens to people who get bit, I think I can be reasonably certain she won’t turn, randomly, out of the blue one day. And I gave her back her kid so she can look after her, and I can get Risa back as a soldier instead of a nanny.”

Cas wore a very enthusiastic expression as he moved closer. “Come on, even you have to admit that this is exciting.”

Dean arched a brow. “Exciting?”

Cas’ voice became awestruck. “Dean, this is the most hopeful sign we’ve had in…years!”

“Aw, don’t come at me with that hopeful bullshit!” Dean’s scowl and fierce countenance was immediate and slightly intimidating, even to the angel. 

“Hope is nothing but a fucking lie, okay? We know it. We HOPED we could stop Lilith breaking seals and we didn’t, we HOPED we could stop the apocalypse, but we failed at that too. We HOPED we could save everyone, and well, we’re doing a pretty piss poor job of that, aren’t we? Every single time we go out on a raid, I hope we come back with the same number of people we left with, but it doesn’t happen very often, does it? We hoped -” 

Dean cut himself short and swallowed hard, lowering his voice. “We hoped that Sam would be strong enough to say no, but…he wasn’t. I hoped I could save him. And-” He cut himself off again and rubbed a hand hard across his face. 

“So just don’t come at me with ‘hopeful’.” Dean said, sneering the word.

He tapped his fingers against his chest. “Cause I gotta live in the reality of this situation. And look, if you wanna hide away from that reality, you wanna get blitzed and bombed every day, and pretend like you’re some kind of sexual guru, fuck around with dozens of girls, I don’t really give a shit. Okay? Do it. But I,” he banged his chest with his whole fist this time, “I have to live in the reality of our lives.”

Dean stood up and stepped closer to Cas, swinging his arm out sideways. “And the reality is I have no fucking clue why that woman hasn’t turned.” He shrugged dismissively. “Maybe the person who bit her wasn’t fully turned themselves, or maybe they didn’t fully break the skin so it didn’t take completely. Who knows. All I know is that she’s probably not gonna turn and so now we’ve got one more mouth to feed. Two, actually.” He said holding up two fingers. “And two more people draining our resources.”

He stepped back and turned away, giving Cas his profile. “That’s the reality. So you wanna join me in it, great. If not,” He turned his head to look at him, lifting his hand towards the entrance, “there’s the door. Or, you know, the tent flap.”

He dropped down onto the chair he’d vacated and rubbed a hand across his lips. He looked up when Cas spoke softly. 

“I don’t wanna live in this reality, Dean. I just can’t anymore. So I choose hope, I choose to be hopeful that maybe she marks a change, maybe things can be different. I’m telling you, this reality isn’t the only option.”

Dean shook his head. “It’s my only option. I learned a long time ago, and you should’ve too - hope is dangerous. Reality can’t hurt you like hope can.”

Cas’ expression was discouraged and disappointed as he nodded, looking away from Dean. He said nothing more as he turned and walked away.

***

A little while after Cas left, Dean moved out to his campfire and cooked and ate his ration of eggs and potatoes. As he drank his coffee, he was actively trying to push the argument with Cas out of his head. He had a camp to lead, he didn't need this crap clouding his judgment.

It was ridiculous to think the woman represented some kind of new hope for mankind. He rolled his eyes at the very notion.

Still, he found himself calling out to Johnston as the soldier walked by. The man stopped abruptly and turned fearful eyes on Dean. It drove Dean a little crazy that after more than two years of Johnston serving the camp, of protecting it and helping to run the day-to-day work and activities there, he still seemed petrified of Dean. 

I can't possibly be that scary, Dean thought with a deep scowl. Not like I've had him flogged for looking at me wrong or something.

Dean rolled his eyes and tried to ignore the fear radiating from the other man.

“You settled Y/N and her daughter?” He asked.

Johnston's blue eyes were slightly bulging and his prominent Adam's apple moved up and down as he swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

Dean waited a minute for him to elaborate before prodding him gruffly. “And?”

The other man seemed at a loss and Dean snapped his fingers impatiently. “And where did you put them?”

Understanding finally lit in Johnston's eyes and he began nodding. “Oh, yes sir. I put them in the southwest corner. Fourth row, the tent on the end.” He seemed proud to get that much out. But then he raised a finger. “Oh, the tent is red.”

Dean nodded and waved at him. “As you were.” 

Johnston saluted (even though Dean had told him a million times not to) and hurried on. Dean sighed deeply and without thinking about it too much, he headed in the direction of the red tent. 

When he got there he shouted out a hello, feeling slightly foolish and vowing then and there to make it a project to put some kind of wood near tents’ openings so people could knock.

The flap opened and Y/N's face lit up with a beaming smile when she saw him. “Hi!” 

Not knowing what to do with her enthusiasm, he just nodded. There was a slightly awkward moment and then Emma, her big blue eyes staring up at Dean, poked her head out from behind her mom, keeping her arms tightly wrapped around her hips and leaning her head into her side.

Y/N lifted her arm a little so Emma could shuffle out from behind her a bit more. She combed down Emma's slightly flyaway curls with her fingers and then settled her hand on the little girl's thin shoulders.

She gestured to Dean. “Say hi to Mr. Winchester.”

The little one just pressed closer and looked away from Dean to bury her face in her mother's side.

Y/N gave him a slightly chagrined look. “She isn't usually this shy.” She said by way of apology. 

But Dean simply shook his head. Unlike Johnston, he understood all too well why this blue-eyed moppet was scared of him. She'd watched him nearly end her mother's life - not something she was ever likely to forget.

Dean hated that that realization came with a trace of guilt. Feeling very annoyed with himself, he straightened up and nodded curtly.

“Good.” He said succinctly, responding to nothing. “I just wanted to make sure you were settled properly.”

He turned in an abrupt about face and started walking away. 

“Dean, wait!” Y/N called out to him. He turned back to see her wave Emma back into the tent and head towards him. When she reached him she wore her bright smile again, and he frowned deeper as a result.

“I wanted to ask you about something.”

Dean said nothing, waiting for her to continue. She seemed to be a little nervous, fiddling with her hair. She finally clasped her hands in front of her and continued. 

“So, I was talking to Eric?” She said as though it was a question. Dean did give her a puzzled look.

“Eric?” He asked.

Y/N had opened her mouth to continue talking, but then closed it and gave her head a shake, pointing to the side at nothing in particular. 

“Eric Johnston? The…soldier that brought us to this tent and helped us set it up.”

Dean nodded in recognition. Yes, he remembered now, that was his first name. He never used it. “Right.” He waved her on. 

“And I was asking about school for Emma, but he said there isn't one.”

Dean shook his head. “No, the parents, guardians, they look after that themselves.”

Y/N nodded. “Yes, but I was thinking…well, I was a third grade teacher in the…before.” She thumbed behind her as though their former, normal lives were just right behind them, around the corner, instead of existing eons ago.

She shrugged. “So, I was thinking that maybe I could start a kind of school for the kids here. Eric figured there were about 35 or 40 of them. So I thought we could hold lessons somewhere outside most days, but if the weather's bad, maybe we could use the main cabin.”

Dean was scowling harder now, so she rushed on. “It would only be for a few hours a day. Wouldn't be anything spectacular, but it could help them with reading and math, and just some basics. Keep the kids' minds occupied and give their parents a couple of hours on their own.”

She shrugged. “It's nothing much, but it might help people feel a little more hopeful about the future.” She finished with another bright smile.

Dean felt his ire rise with that word again - hopeful. This woman was going to upset everything, tip the precarious balance of the camp on its head. 

He shook his head angrily. “We don't do shit like that. This isn't a fucking gated community, okay? These are survivors who get by together. That's it.”

Y/N's eyes were so earnest it almost hurt to look at her. “But, don't you see, it could be a community. Not gated, but open. We could do more for each other than just survive.”

Dean crossed his arms over his chest. “Look, if you're unhappy with being here, we can happily help you on your way.”

Y/N raised her hands. “No, of course not, that's not what-”

Dean cut her off with a cold, hard voice. “And you can't teach kids like this.” He waved a hand towards the red rings encircling her irises. “You'd scare the shit outta them. Take one look at you and freak out, thinking you're gonna turn into a monster any minute.”

That pulled Y/N up short and Dean could see by her slight flinch that his words had hit home. She was quiet a minute and her smile was dimmed as she nodded.

“Right. That's…no, you're right.” She gave an imitation of a chuckle. “There aren't many mirrors around, so I…sometimes I forget about…” she gestured to her eyes.

She shook her head. “I was just trying to find a way to be helpful, you know.” She shrugged. “But yeah…” She trailed off and Dean felt a sick gnawing sensation in his stomach as she gave a final dull smile. 

“Okay, well thanks.” She said as she turned away. Though what she could have possibly been thanking him for, he had no idea.

He thought about Cas’ disappointed expression, and Y/N's bent smile and he gritted his teeth. This morning was not going well for him.

The day didn’t get much better from there. He spent most of it planning their next raid for canned goods. They were running low, and it was September already. Over the next couple of months they’d have to make sure they had whatever they needed for the winter. Once the snow hit, the winter roads were sometimes impassable for weeks at a time. 

They were having to go further and further out from the camp to find supplies. The area was becoming picked clean. There were four or five other, smaller, groups of survivors within about a hundred square miles of their camp. For the most part they all rubbed along together alright, pretty much just leaving a big buffer of space between the camps, and leaving each other alone.

However, Dean was starting to worry about what would happen now that resources and supplies around them were starting to run out. In this last year, they’d started having to drive hours and hours away from camp to find un-ransacked grocery stores and restaurants in the abandoned cities. They could manage it because of their size, but some of the smaller groups had very few working vehicles, making it harder for them to travel. Dean worried what would happen when they got desperate. 

He wanted to be ready for winter.

So, he tried to spend the day planning the best route to hit as many cities as they could without hitting too many known Croat hives, or cleaned out cities. But he kept getting interrupted by his soldiers. The concerns of the camp were unending, and sometimes felt completely overwhelming. 

The morning kept being interrupted by issues and grievances his soldiers brought him from some of the camp inhabitants. He tried to put out as many fires as he could, while continuing to plan the raid.

Then he ended up spending far too much of the afternoon talking about drainage and irrigation with the young guy who used to be an engineering student, and an old farmer who’d spent his whole life in the fields. The two very different men were teaming up to try and see about making bigger winter crop plots this year. They’d grown some winter vegetables last fall and winter, and even that small amount of fresh food had made a big difference in the health of the campers. So this year they were hoping for more. 

Finally the men went off to plan some more and Dean folded up his maps. He hadn’t made much headway into the raid route, but the light was getting low; he’d have to come back to it. He fried up some spam and a few of the cooked, frozen potatoes they’d put up in the spring and sat beside his fire for a while before tossing water on it and going inside his tent. He lit a lantern and started to try and look at the maps again, but he was interrupted by Risa.

Dean lifted his chin towards her by way of greeting. She came forward and dropped a small piece of machinery on his table. “Here’s the piston for that Ford we towed back last week.” She said, referring to the truck they’d found abandoned on the side of the road with no owners in sight. “Should work.”

Dean nodded. “Great.”

Risa lingered a moment and then walked closer to him. “How are you?”

Dean shrugged. “Fine.”

She moved forward to stand between his legs and then reached out to run her hands over his cheeks and down his neck. She bent over and pressed a brief kiss to his lips.

“I miss you.” She said, her voice softer and more intimate than it ever was when they were soldier and commander. “You haven’t been to see me in weeks.”

“Sorry.” Dean said gruffly and then let her kiss him again, kissing her back for a moment before pulling away. 

Not willing to give up, Risa straddled his outstretched thighs and reached for his zipper. “It’s okay, I bet I can find ways to entice you back.” She said, dark brown eyes flashing with heat.

But Dean grabbed her hands and pulled them away. He kissed her briefly to try and ease the sting of his rejection. “Sorry, not tonight.” He nodded towards the maps on his table. “I’ve got shit I gotta finish.”

Risa bit into her lip, looking down at their hands entwined in his lap, and then nodding before she stood up. She lifted her mouth in a smile. “Yeah, sure. ‘Kay.” She nodded again and pointed to the piston as she left. “Let me know if that works.”

Dean sighed as his tent flap fell back into place. And that was the third person he’d disappointed today. Without his permission Y/N’s face floated into his mind. Despite what he’d said to her, he couldn’t deny how beautiful that face actually was. The red pigment in her eyes made no difference to that beauty.

He couldn’t erase the image of her crestfallen expression when he told her she’d scare the kids. That was complete bullshit and he knew it. Five seconds in her shiny presence and the kids would be eating out of her hand.

He growled slightly as he could feel himself caving. But would it really be so bad to let her teach the kids somewhere? They’d have to stay out of the way, and she’d have to keep them all quiet when they were together in a mob. But it might actually free their parents up for more of the endless tasks it took to maintain the camp.

If he let her do it, he’d have to make sure she knew he was only saying yes so that they could have the kids out of the way for a while. This wasn’t some hopeful mission for the future. It was just a practical solution for improving the camp.

He nodded. Yeah, I'll tell her tomorrow. 

But even as he though it, he got up and walked out of his tent, moving towards the southwest corner of the camp. Within a couple minutes he was standing in front of the red tent and again found himself clearing his throat and embarrassingly calling out a hello, like he was the Avon lady.

Y/N poked her head out of the tent and smiled. But she lowered her eyes a little and wouldn’t look directly at him. He wanted to punch himself.

“Hi.” She said softly, and then stepped out of the tent into the cool, late evening breeze. She waved towards the tent. “Emma’s sleeping.”

He nodded. She rubbed her arms and he frowned. “Didn’t they give you a jacket?” Then he noticed she was still wearing the grubby clothes she’d been wearing when she came. “And clean clothes?”

Y/N nodded and even in the dusky twilight Dean could see her blush. “Yes, but I realized…I’m all dirty.” She shrugged. “Nothing but basin baths for weeks. I’d like to get cleaner before I put on the clean clothes. One of your soldiers said there was a place where people went to bathe nearby. But he didn’t have time to take me.”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, there’s a river about four miles south of camp. It does the trick. I’ll take you tomorrow.” 

He scowled; he didn’t know where that offer had come from. He could have had one of his soldiers, or any other camper really, take her out to the river. But he didn’t rescind the offer and Y/N nodded happily.

“That would be wonderful.” She said rapturously. 

Dean nodded curtly again. “Yeah. And uh…you can do the school.” Y/N looked directly at him now and her face was surprised, but clearly thrilled. 

“Really?” 

He nodded and scowled. “Yeah, the kids'll get over it." He said with a nod to her red eyes. "But just make sure you all stay out of the way of the work in the camp. And let the parents know we’ll have some work for them during the hours their kids are gone. We can use the extra hands.”

Y/N nodded. “I’m sure they’ll be happy to help out where they can.”

Impulsively it seemed, she threw her arms around him, squeezing his arms tight to his sides as she hugged him. Shock coursed through him and he didn’t know how to move. Thankfully it was a brief hug and she was soon pulling away.

“Thank you so much, Dean. I’m so excited. I think it’s going to make a real difference. Just wait.”

As she bid him goodnight and bounced back into her tent, he shook his head, frowning deeply. 

Fuck, he thought, everything is too different already.

Jensen RPF and Any/All Characters: @lyarr24 @lacilou @deans-spinster-witch @globetrotter28 @suckitands33 @akshi8278 @evznackles @jackles010378 @impala67rollingthroughtown @krazykelly @candy-coated-misery0731 @envyaurora95 @spnwoman @deans-baby-momma

Dean Fics Only: @roonthelittlespoon920 @slamminmine @zepskies @deangirl96

Any/All Fics Regardless of Character or Fandom: @kazsrm67 @slut-for-evans-stan @sexyvixen7 @nancymcl @waywardcheshire

Everything Incl. Fan Edits: @k-slla @leigh70 @eevvvaa @kickingitwithkirk @foxyjwls007 @notinthislife50 @roseblue373 @mishkatelwarriorgoddess @avanatural @mrsjenniferwinchester @all-alone-he-turns-to-stone

[notwiselybuttoowell]

In 2014, the Guardian asked me to nominate my hero of the year. To some people’s surprise, I chose Russell Brand. I loved the way he energised young people who had been alienated from politics. I claimed, perhaps hyperbolically, he was “the best thing that has happened to the left in years” (in my defence, there wasn’t, at the time, much competition).

Today, I can scarcely believe it’s the same man. I’ve watched 50 of his recent videos, with growing incredulity. He appears to have switched from challenging injustice to conjuring phantoms. If, as I suspect it might, politics takes a very dark turn in the next few years, it will be partly as a result of people like Brand.

It’s hard to decide which is most dispiriting: the stupidity of some of the theories he recites, or the lack of originality. He repeatedly says he’s not a conspiracy theorist, but, to me, he certainly sounds like one.

In 2014, he was bursting with new ideas and creative ways of presenting them. Today, he wastes his talent on tired and discredited tales: endless iterations of the alleged evils of the World Economic Forum founder, Klaus Schwab, the Great Reset, Bill Gates, Nancy Pelosi, the former US chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, Covid vaccines, medical data, the World Health Organization, Pfizer, smart cities and “the globalist masterplan”.

His videos appear to promote “natural immunity” ahead of vaccines, and for a while pushed ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as treatments for Covid (they aren’t).

He championed the “Freedom Convoy” that occupied Ottawa, which apparently stood proudly against the “tyranny” of Justin Trudeau’s policies. He hawks Graham Hancock’s widely debunked claims about ancient monuments.

A wildly popular clip from one of his videos about the Dutch nitrate crisis offers a classic conspiracy theory mashup: a tangle of claims that may be true in other contexts, random accusations, scapegoating and resonances with some old and very ugly tropes. He claims that “this whole fertiliser situation is a scam”. The real objective is “to bankrupt the farmers so their land can be grabbed”. This “shows you how the Great Reset operates”, using “globalist” regulations to throw farmers off their land. He claims it’s “connected to the land grab of Bill Gates” and the “corruption of companies like Monsanto”.

In reality, the Dutch government was forced to act by a legal ruling, as levels of nitrate pollution, largely from livestock farms, break European law. Its attempts to curb this pollution have nothing to do with the World Economic Forum and its vacuous rhetoric about a “Great Reset”. Or with Bill Gates. Or with Monsanto, which hasn’t existed since 2018 when it was bought by Bayer. So why mention them? Perhaps because these terms have become potent click triggers.

Brand is repeating claims first made by far-right conspiracists, who have piled into this issue, claiming that the nitrate crisis is a pretext to seize land from farmers, in whom, they claim, true Dutch identity is vested, and hand it to asylum seekers and other immigrants. It’s a version of the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, itself a reworking of the Nazis’ blood and soil tropes about protecting the “rooted” and “authentic” people – in whom “racial purity” and “true” German identity was vested – from “cosmopolitan” and “alien” forces (ie Jews). Brand may not realise this, as the language has changed a little – “cosmopolitans” have become “globalists”, “aliens” have become “immigrants” – but the themes have not.

On and drearily on he goes. He manages to confuse the World Health Organization’s call for better pandemic surveillance (by which it means the tracking of infectious diseases) with coercive surveillance of the population, creating “centralised systems of control where you are ultimately a serf”.

Some of his many rants about Bill Gates are illustrated with an image of the man wearing a multicoloured lapel badge, helpfully circled in red. This speaks to another widespread conspiracy theory: those who wear this badge are members of a secret organisation conspiring to control the world (so secret they stick it on their jackets). In reality, it shows support for the UN sustainable development goals.

Such claims are not just wrong. They are wearyingly, boringly wrong. But, to judge by the figures (he has more than 6 million subscribers on YouTube), the audience loves them.

Some of his theories, such as his recent obsession with UFOs, are innocuous enough. Others have potential to do great harm. There’s the risk to the people scapegoated, such as Fauci, Schwab and Pelosi: subjects of conspiracy theories often become targets of violence. There are the risks misleading claims present to public health. And bizarre stories about shadowy “elites” protect real elites from scrutiny and challenge.

While I’m not suggesting this is his purpose, it’s a tactic used deliberately by powerful people to disarm those who might otherwise hold them to account. Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, had a term for it: “flood the zone with shit”. As Naomi Klein has shown, the Great Reset conspiracy theory was conceived by a staffer at the Heartland Institute, a US lobby group that has promoted climate denial and other billionaire-friendly positions. It’s a bastardisation of her shock doctrine hypothesis, distracting people from the malfeasance of those with real power.

[tamelee]

What do you think of itachi? Do you think he was good or bad? As a brother? As a person, character?

I think a whole lot about Itachi, but I don’t have a strong opinion that leans either way nor do I think it can be so easily categorized. The story explains Itachi’s actions, but there’s a lot of criticism right? People feel like Kishimoto didn’t stay consistent or changed his mind on Itachi too suddenly. Personally, I don’t think ‘a change being sudden’ is really the problem, but there is lack of foreshadowing deeper-seated feelings Itachi may have had about certain situations. A little sub-text to refer back to after the revelations later on in the story would’ve been nice. (And uh, well, there’s the system issues.)

I’m referring mostly to this scene:

In storytelling, stakes are crucial as they provide all the motivation a character may have to make a decision (especially the drastic ones) and I feel like Kishimoto hasn’t done that as much as I know he could’ve with Itachi. He didn’t truly show, nor prove, how disastrous it would’ve been if Itachi decided differently. Especially since the aftermath of the complete annihilation of the Uchiha aided in a repercussion (Obito’s plan for example) which may be more consequential than “a possible civil war”. There shouldn’t be any room for “it may not’ve been necessary” in this scenario. But in some of these cases the stakes of Itachi's actions are muddied by alternative possibilities (a tricky thing, writing) and so… it weakens the narrative impact Kishimoto tried to create imo. Both regarding the system, as well as Itachi’s intentions towards Sasuke and the way he went about it. Also, because Sasuke demonstrates throughout the story how perfectly capable he is to develop his abilities and pursuing goals that he prioritizes in every moment. (Hence, Naruto and Sasuke could’ve really been in each other’s shoes.) As well as the whole reincarnation thing that dilutes the stakes because some alien-guy with a staff comes in later to power-boost their asses anyway. 

(Personally I would’ve loved to see the story delve more into Itachi’s internal struggle with war, how he felt growing up and the topic of 'sacrifice' to put less focus on ‘duty’ and Shinobi being ‘tools’ or the meaning of a clan since the Hyuga weren’t treated the same so yeah what is a clan anyway then, but imo that applies to several more characters.)

Hm’ many conversations about Itachi often revolve around justifying or condemning his actions. However, I think (and I don’t say this often because I’m a strong Kishimoto-defender lol) that the valid criticism regarding Itachi could’ve been corrected with a few tweaks within the story itself. (Even a few panels tbh, just to provide the necessary context or clarity.) Despite issues, I don’t think Itachi is a poorly written character. I enjoy morally-grey characters, I just think in this case, it’s not sufficient enough for what it was trying to be… if that makes sense at all? 

Tbh, it’s a lot more satisfying to measure a character like Itachi through Sasuke’s perspective. His journey provides the necessary lens to determine whether to agree or disagree. I feel like many pro-stans project their own feelings about Itachi onto Sasuke, but whether they align or not, he has his own conclusions eventually. It's what the story shows is 'right' not what you personally think is 'right', yeah? The complexity is what makes Itachi a good character to me, but story-wise as a person I don’t agree with his actions and I think Kishimoto could've presented things better to suit the narrative he's going for. 

[rosethornewrites]

T & G reading since 10/30

Finished

Teen:

a Ghost and a Requiem, by 7potato (🔒)

Wei Wuxian was dead.

He didn't remember much, but that's nothing new. He had mere flashes of reality that broke their way through the fog of... wherever he was.

His clearest memory was of a song.

Or: Wei Wuxian remembers what happened to him while he was dead. Things change accordingly.

The Nerd and the Jade Prince, by Asmayi

Best friends Wangxian drift apart as they grow older Or so Wei Ying thinks.

A fic created from a threadfic

you and me, by googiefvcks

lan wangji is hiding wei wuxian in cloud recesses and they're safe, for now. but the weight of the world is on their shoulders and some friendly banter can quickly turn into some deep, painful, emotional talks.

major plot spoilers warning!!

Demonic Possession and other Misconceptions, by LegacyWorks (🔒, 3 chapters)

Wei Wuxian knows from a young age that he’s a spirit. It’s the only thing that makes sense. This body clearly isn’t his, there’s no way. It doesn’t look right. Every so often he sends a quick thanks and a prayer to the Wei Ying who died all those years ago, the one whose body he’s inhabited his entire conscious life. He hopes that the original Wei Ying’s parents are with him now, even if Wei Wuxian misses them.

It takes meeting Huaisang to realize that maybe Wei Wuxian isn’t actually possessing his body. What even is gender.

this river runs to you, by sundiscus

Framed by the soft morning light, sleek hair swept back and pale blue robes not even slightly rumpled, he looks almost inhuman.

He looks like the last person who should be knocking on Wei Wuxian’s door.

In which Wei Wuxian is a curse worker secretly searching for a lost dragon, Lan Wangji is his new assistant, and the two things may not be entirely unrelated.

And The World Went On, by GrapefruitSketches

Day 12: Rebirth (Untamed Spring Fest 2020)

Lan Xichen leaves seclusion. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji persuade him to talk to them about it.

Wei Ying has a very weird day and Wen Chao gets threatened, by Backwards_and_forwards_unpredictively (2 chapters)

In the middle of the Wen Archery competition, the Yiling Lazou drops in. Literally.

(AKA Various drabbles where Older!Wei Wuxian drops in on 15/16 year old Wei Ying)

General:

Loving You From Where I Stand, by GusuBunnie

It hasn’t been long since Wei Ying moved into his new apartment— a mere 6 months, but nonetheless, he loves it. The place was cozy and suitable for a single person like him. Every convenient stop was within walking vicinity and it was a very nice neighborhood. But the most alluring thing, for Wei Ying, was the handsome man who lived in the complex across from his.

Or

Wei Ying is helplessly and deeply in love with his neighbor even though they have never talked.

Jin Zixuan Does the Time Warp, by marigold_sigil (🔒)

Happy endings are not created by wet noodles like Jin Zixuan. Maybe if Lady Fate pushes him two decades into the past hard enough, he’ll actually manage to pull it off. Neither of them think this will really work. Jin Zixuan should have more faith in himself.

Or : How Jin Zixuan trips and stumbles his way into making friends, subsequently keeping everyone alive except the people who don’t deserve it.

Painted Fans, by LaenaEverwood

There are rumors of cultivators randomly falling unconscious in this remote town near Qishan, the victims passing away within a few weeks.

Recently it had claimed another victim.

"Hanguang-jun, I have been given news that may be of great importance. It is from the head disciple Lan Sizhui, regarding Senior Wei."

The brush in Lan Wangji's grip nearly snaps within it's strength.

Or, wwx is found unconscious under an unknown spell, and everyone isn't stopping until he wakes up from his sleep.

redemption, repentance, by stiltonbasket

Five months after the Sunshot Campaign, Jin Zixuan travels to Lotus Pier to ask for Jiang Yanli's hand in marriage.

Waiting on the Night Hunt, by JustAWanderingBabbit (🔒, 10 chapters)

A few post-novel pieces wherein Wen Ning gets some respect. Though he has to work for it.

C1: The Abyss Looks Back

C2: Finding a Use for Stray Dogs

C3: Stepping out of Isolation

C4: Blissful Ignorance, Wretched Knowledge

C5: The Dead Travel Fast

C6: An Arrow's Flight

C7: Learning Experiments

C8: Hide & Seek

C9: The Price of a Thing (read before Pieces of Us fic if you're reading that one too.)

c10: Home is the Hunter

there's a world inside where dreamers meet each other, by harborshore

Lan Zhan dreams. And waits.

Lan Zhan gets glasses…and Wei Ying sees things differently…, by Liebing

This fic is inspired by this adorable art that @kunogi drew from my suggestion on Twitter!

Lan Zhan in glasses

One day Lan Zhan comes to school wearing glasses and Wei Ying loses his god damn mind…

painted in light, by curiositea (🔒, 2nd in a series)

Sometimes Lan Qiren wonders if his nephew resents the rabbits, even if only a little, for making it impossible to completely bury his grief. Are they companions or yet another reminder? Lan Qiren has always prided himself on knowing his nephews, understanding A-Zhan’s reserve and A-Huan’s polite façade. But, without the rabbits, he wonders if he would know just how deep—how down to the marrow, the very atom—A-Zhan’s grief goes.

—

or, a small meditation on a loved one's grief.

I Tried to Be Nice, But My Boyfriend's Bunnies Want To Beet You Up, by katje (🔒, 2nd in a series)

If you had told Wei Ying a few months ago that he would be desperately trying to hold two twenty-five-pound rabbits (who were far heavier than they should be because of their indulgent fathers who were incapable of refusing them treats) back from completely decimating Awful Su She’s stock of bok choy while trying to run his own booth at the Farmer’s Market, he would’ve laughed at the absurdity of the mental image of that statement.

But, dear reader, that was not only a mental image, but Wei Ying’s reality every week for the entire summer season.

OR

Wei Ying and his continuing battle to have one (1) moment of peace at the Farmer's Market

since then i am because you are, by sarahyyy

Lan Wangji nods. “If you must marry,” he says again, “don’t let it be with anyone else.”

“I don’t think you understand the concept of marriage, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says with a smile. “I don’t think I can marry myself.” He lets out a laugh at the thought, before Lan Wangji’s words click in his head. “Unless you mean…”

Lan Wangji holds his gaze.

“Jiang Cheng?” Wei Wuxian asks incredulously.

Unfinished

Teen:

Rabbit Charm, by aoeros (🔒)

“You gotta promise me that when you’re back home and settled in, I’ll be the first you come to see. Because I’m going to miss you more than anyone else will, Lán Zhàn. Except your brother, of course.”

“Of course. I promise to come find you first after I’ve settled back in.”

“Great! Then I promise to call you whenever I can. And, I will definitely not forget you.”

I got kidnapped by a model???, by yamadori (Katsumi27)

In retrospect, it was only a matter of time. As much as he wanted it and believed it to be possible, it was silly to think he could get through art school on Madame Yu's dollar. No, it's definitely better this way.

Wei Wuxian finally gets kicked out of art school. In the past three months not a soul from his old life has heard from him and he'd like to keep it that way thank you very much. And although it's been far from easy, things are starting to look up for him. That is, until he's dragged bodily into a world of vanity and flashing lights that he has no business being in and shoved into the arms of the worlds most gorgeous man (or at least man-shaped heavenly being, Wei Wuxian is convinced he can't be mortal).

Lean On Me (An Anthology of Jin Ling's Uncles), by thesassyredvulpes

Six months after the events of the Guanyin Temple, the sixteen-year-old Jin Ling rises to his new role as Clan Leader Jin. As the youngest clan leader in history, he faces challenges and looks to different figures in his life for guidance.

Six men individually offer their insight to the young man, and through him, recall their own stories and identities.

A collection of short stories, inspired by the song lyrics of "Lean On Me" by Bill Withers. Borrows both canons of the Untamed and The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, but leans more towards the live-action.

Story One: Sorrow (Jiang Cheng)

General:

An Unforseen Shift, by Remma3760

Wei Wuxian found a resentful sword deep in the bowels of a famed beast. He took it. That turned out to be fortunate since, it would seem, the sword had more than one purpose. That sword was the key to their escape from certain death trapped in the cave of the Slaughter Xuanwu.

The Unintended, by Indelible_Faith (TheWaterGoddess), Thedivinewriter_20

Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang have a perfect plan. Get Lan Wangji to confess how much Wei Wuxian annoys him out loud. And Jin Zixuan to confess his ill-treatment of Jiang Yanli in a similar manner.

Perhaps “confess” was the wrong word used here… because this is not turning out how they imagined it, at all!

[voidandabyssal]

Mmkay im gonna talk a little on lusttale.

Now Im not gonna lie, I know very little about the original lusttale, only that there was a lot of controversy around it; supposedly because it glorified sexual assault and sexualised children? I don’t know how true that is tho, so take it with a grain of salt.

But it’s an interesting au anyways, so I’m gonna have my own take on it!

Chara and Asriels death was the start of a slow decline for Monsters. Everyone fell into a dark depression, hope was lost; and though eventually people moved on from their lost heirs, things changed.

Fertility rates dropped shockingly low. Children were becoming increasingly rare. Extinction was becoming a very real threat for Monster kind.

King Asgore ordered the royal scientist to find a fix for this issue.

The lust serum was created. Not that thats what they called it at first, thats just the popular nickname the inhabitants started to call it.

Toriel is one of the few monsters not to have taken the serum. Instead she, and a few dozen other adult Monsters decided to start residing in the ruins. There isn’t as much tension between herself and asgore. He was more then happy to let toriel live there if she pleased (its not like their marriage was thriving anyways).

Though he was saddened at the thought of never having another child like Asriel again.

When Monster children are born, they may spend a few months to a few years with their birth parents before being sent to the ruins

There, they are communally raised alongside all the other children by Toriel and her Keepers. Once they reach the age of majority, they’re given a choice.

Either take the serum, and thus be able to leave the ruins and enter into Monster society with all the freedoms of an adult,

Or stay in the ruins. They would join Toriels Keepers and would help raise the children of the underground. In this case they wouldnt take the serum. They’d be the caretakers of all the little children.

Monsters primarily focus on the lust aspect of a relationship nowadays. A wedding hasn’t happened in a very long time

Most relationships are either casual or very short lived. Some Monsters aren’t even sure love is something they can feel anymore,

How could they when lust is all they’ve known?

Passion (LT papyrus) is a pretty flamboyant guy. His dream is to work for the royal guard and he has a huge soft spot for anything (or anyone) cute looking.

Passions also a hopeless romantic, he’s daydreamed about his one true love since he was a babybones. Which frequently leads to him excitedly jumping into new relationships and then getting heart broken only weeks or months later when he realised they aren’t actually who he imagined they were and breaks up with them.

Him and Undyne have been besties since childhood, Dior jokes that they must’ve had the same mother with how close they are.

Passion worries for Dior, he’s his brother and he can see how depressed Dior gets. Passions not blind, he knows his brother well enough to see through that facade.

Dior (LT sans) is a hard working man. He works at Grillbys as a sex worker. Grillby allows him and his brother to eat and drink there for free so long as Dior keeps bringing in customers.

He’s worked there since he left the ruins. Him and Grillby are pretty close friends. Probably the only person aside from Passion he actually likes.

Diors a real fashionista, he loves designer clothes, shoes and perfumes. Nothing makes him more powerful then a good looking dress and powerful set of high heels.

Very pessimistic man under all those smiles though. He thinks Passion is naive. Love doesn’t exist! Thats something for fairytales and babybones!

he’s worked long enough to know that everyone is just looking for an easy way to relieve stress. ‘Love’ is just some fancy dressed up word for lust!

[bahbahhh]

begin again

a lot of change happens in between Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. let’s fill in the gaps. zelda pov | zelink | totk spoilers | multichapter| rated T zelinkweek2023 | @zelinkcommunity [story index] [also read on ao3 ]

Again, I can't thank @zeldaelmo enough. It has been an absolute honor to have your eye and your ear! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

chapter 7

for zelink week "free day"

Her cot is gone. 

Zelda stares at the empty spot on the second floor of Purah’s Lab, adventure pouch dangling on the very tips of her fingers. She caught it just before it dropped onto the floor. She had meant to deposit onto the cot, eager to relieve the extra tension from her tired shoulders when she noticed it was missing at the last second.  

She narrows her eyes and glances about the room, everything ordinary and untouched, save for her trunk of belongings, which is also missing. She frowns at this, having wanted to spend her free time reviewing Tauro’s research notes again. In addition to possibly connecting the Thyphlo Ruins to the Zonai, he recently presented evidence that the Labyrinths in Akkala, Hebra and the Gerudo Desert are Zonai as well and hypothesized that the Zonai maintained a presence in the sky and below the ground.  

Something about the Zonai has caught her attention, a tug on a line from the depths of the past. Sure, it could just be her energy shifting from one technologically advanced civilization to the next, but whereas the Sheikah Technology felt more like an escape, the Zonai and their ruins feel like a calling. 

Who knows. The fact of the matter is, right now, it's all missing with the rest of her things. 

Recently, Purah has been reorganizing parts of her laboratory at random. She claims it’s another bizarre side effect of her re-aging. Symin thinks it's the result of being held responsible for cleaning up after herself. 

Zelda sighs and back peddles to the stairs, pulling the strap back over her shoulder.

“Purah?” 

Zelda descends into the main floor and nearly trips over a box of scrolls. Dozens more clutter the space; filled with papers and construction parts and other miscellaneous items. Zelda spots fishing nets, a dozen yellow paper lanterns, and massive coils of hollow wire, but her belongings and the Sheikah Director are nowhere to be found. Link isn’t here, either. Not that she was expecting him, he told her early in the day he would be with the Hateno monster defense team, helping to clear out a hoard of bokoblins that moved into the Milda Woods to the west of the village. Since he’s teaching them how to properly handle the monsters and safeguard the woods with traps more efficiently, he estimated it would take a while. 

She, on the other hand, spent the majority of the day helping a man Bolson with the final touches at the school. Zelda originally commissioned Hudson to help her build out Hateno School, but he wrote back with the recommendation his former boss be the one to handle it as he was responsible for the revitalization of Hateno following Calamity Ganon’s attack. 

There is something to be said about starting something and being able to see it through, you know? Hudson had written. 

Zelda formally nominated him for a position of leadership in New Hyrule the same day. 

Bolson showed her how to put together the small chairs, explaining where to put the nails to create a lasting, sturdy joint. He also taught her how to hold the nails to minimize the risk to her fingers under the glare of a hammer. When they were done, he shook the sawdust out of his thick fur collar, kissed her on the cheek, and handed her the blueprints so she could put together more in the future. She’s got a few splinters she’ll need to dig out of her fingers, but they come with a sense of accomplishment and hope she hasn’t known in over a century. 

Zelda peers into the kitchen. “Symin? Purah? Hello?” 

The lab is completely empty. She crosses the room, pushes the door open, and steps back out into the fresh air. The village of Hateno is always busy in the afternoon. Today, there is a nice breeze turning the giant windmill blades lazily. There has been recent talk about updating the village face, specifically the market front to entice more travelers. There is a rumor that a new business owner, a fashion designer, has proposed integrating mushrooms into the architecture.

Zelda wonders if the windmills will stay.

She has a few books at Link’s place, so she decides to head that way while she looks for Purah. She’s almost immediately stopped by a group of children, the same she will be teaching once the school is open. One of the children asks about the first day of school and another formally requests - please, oh pretty please, Miss Zelda! - they have a designated time every day for coloring. Zelda sends them on their way, slips into Kochi Dye Shop, and asks if Sayge can donate some dye for her to make courser beeswax crayons. 

“Basic colors, okay? Or, I could experiment and come up with an extensive palette for you, if you like?” Sayge says, filling up five small vials with concentrated ink. 

“I think this is a great start, thank you so much. Perhaps you would be interested in presenting to the class in the future? I wo—”

“Say no more! An opportunity to share the traditional craft of Hateno dyeing with the younger generation? It would be my honor! ‘We live–”

“To dye!’” Zelda smiles and takes the vials. “I’m writing out a curriculum with Symin. I’ll let you know when it makes sense to have you come in.”

“Splendid! Oh, and–” He looks over her shoulder and she knows he’s searching for Link. Sayge continues in a hushed voice. “About that order we discussed. I’ve almost landed on the correct shade of blue. Should be able to replicate the tunic exactly. I do have additional armor I’d recommend to go with the piece, in order to protect it from wear and tear moving forward. How do you feel about leather?”

“If it will offer protection without restricting mobility, I think that’s great.”

“Come by in a week or so. I’ll send Link on an errand and then I’ll show you what I’m thinking.” He winks at her.

Zelda tucks the ink away carefully and smiles. “Perfect.”

Pruce waves her down as she passes the East Wind. He anxiously invites her into his shop, shuts the door to prospective customers, and immediately asks for her thoughts on phasing out the bomb arrows. Apparently, he had been threatened with a fee by Reede for improper dangerous weapon storage. Zelda can tell he’s offended and embarrassed, having previously displayed the explosive arrows in a straw basket for anyone, including a curious child, to handle. She gently reframes this as an opportunity to be a model business owner and that seems easier for him to stomach. He donates his entire stock of arrows to her for Link and the monster defense efforts. Luckily, she has a quiver in her adventure pouch that she pulls out and attaches to her belt so she can carry them safely. 

Prima catches her just outside the shop and enthusiastically introduces Zelda to her fiance, Worten. They’ve met, many times, and Zelda was made aware, multiple times by Prima, of the engagement, and still she smiles and waits for Prima to finish telling the story of how he proposed. 

She makes it a few more steps before a Zora warrior stops her. There has been more traffic from the Zora through the village in recent weeks, a source of massive curiosity with the children (and most of the adults, too) who had never seen the “fish people” from the north, except for during the Restoration Summit almost two years ago. They come up from the Necluda Sea from Hateno Bay, restocking supplies, sending messages back to their Domain via courier. Divine Beast Ruta was put to rest in the deep waters of the ocean, an arrangement struck with the settlement of Zora that call the seas home. Apparently, Prince Sidon had been hidden away there for protection for a time during his youth after Calamity Ganon’s siege and Mipha’s death. He formed a strong bond with the Princess there. 

The Zora shares, rather cryptically, to be on the lookout for “exciting” news from Zora’s Domain, regarding Prince Sidon. There have been rumors of leadership following in Impa’s footsteps, whispers of the great Zora King finally stepping down from the throne. The Rito are already turning feathers. Most recently, Zelda heard Teba was the popular choice to ascend. 

She parts ways with the Zora, who heads back in the direction of the bay, and picks up her pace to convey urgency. Not that she minds the interaction, she sees all the hands reaching for her now, and finds great purpose in the quiet ways she can nurture Hateno Village especially, but sometimes it takes her an hour, like today, just to walk from one side of the village to the next. And now that Purah has seen fit to move all her things without much consideration to the very specific order to her chaos or the possessiveness of what little Zelda has to her name, her cot feels more impermanent and insecure than ever. 

If only she had a hidden place, like her study in the tower, where she could keep her things and be with her thoughts in peace without worry of interruption…

She spots Link’s house on the hill.  Zelda glances to the west, at the empty spot in the horizon atop Marblod Plain where the Hateno Sheikah Tower once stood. When the shrines were finally all gone, they realized the blue flames inside the towers and the furnaces were dying off. Without power, the towers began to crumble in on themselves, leaving a pile of rubble and dust that will be dealt with in time. Purah intends to go through what remains to see if anything can be repurposed for the new towers, but by the looks of her laboratory, the design is better suited with materials that are new and synced to her Purah Pad. The skeletons of the Sheikah furnaces will be tossed off the cliffs and into their respective surrounding sea by the Sheikah this summer.

Like pyre ash. 

She’s so distracted by the finality of it all and the comfort she feels that she almost runs into him.

“I’m sorry!” Zelda exclaims, and then upon recognizing who it is, grabs Link by the shoulders to steady herself. He laughs, a sound more frequent and unburdened since the Great Plateau, and steps into her, threading a hand up into her hair at the base of her neck.

He kisses her until she’s dizzy. 

She’s not sure she’ll ever get used to this, or if she even wants to. The luxury of this closeness, the casualness with which he always seems to reach for her, like it’s always been the easiest, most obvious thing in the world for him to do. 

“Hi,” she says when he finally pulls back. His eyes linger in a hungry way on her mouth, long enough to twist her stomach pleasantly.

“Hi.”

“I thought you’d still be gone? Did you clear all the monsters already?”

He tucks her hair behind her ears. “I lied.”

Zelda blinks. “You lied?”

He nods, looking a little smug.

“What do you mean, you lied?”

He steps back enough to sign. ‘I wasn’t taking care of monsters in the woods today. That’s tomorrow. Are those for me?’ Link slides his hand down the length of her side to her hip where the quiver full of bomb arrows sits. She shivers.

“The arrows? No–well, I suppose yes. I finally convinced Pruce to remove them from his store front. Bit of an odd and hazardous mix, you know, wheat, eggs, goat butter, explosive arrows. I suppose you can have them for the monster defense…which you said now is tomorrow?”

‘Always has been.’ He turns and starts walking them up to his house. Zelda follows him curiously, still a little too giddy from the kiss to be cross with him.  

“Why lie about that?”

‘Didn’t want to spoil the surprise.’

“Surprise?”

Link pulls out a key from his pocket and unlocks the door. His house has been almost completely gutted. The weapon mounts are gone, a few empty picture frames hanging from the nails in the wall. The furniture has been cleared out, the table empty. He’s added a stove. She can see a few boxes under the stairs, perhaps where all of his things are tucked away or the restart of provisions storage for next winter.

“You lied so you could clean out your house?” She furrows her brow at him.

“Your house.”

“W-what?”

“It’s your house. Here.” He leads her around the space and then up the stairs. The bed is there, tucked in the far wall, still under the lone window for natural light, and guarded by painted vase on the nightstand with a single flower- a daffodil - to watch over her.  She’s a little surprised it’s not a Silent Princess or another blue nightshade, but it's the first of the flowers to bloom after winter. A symbol of new beginnings.

“Purah’s going to forward all your correspondence until word gets around. I already wrote to Tauro and let him know he can send the next batch of his research here. Riju, too. You can keep the furniture or swap it out for something different. Bolson offered to help redesign the interior. Whatever you like.”

Zelda stands shell-shocked in the center of the loft. There is a desk to her left. She can smell the freshness of the cedar. He built it for her. Across the top, her research notes and books in the same chaotic order they were kept in on the cot at Purah’s. Her trunk sits ready at the end of the bed. 

“It’s really mine?”

“Your home,” he says plainly. Like he’s giving her a cube of sugar for her tea. “I’ll leave you to it. Probably should survey the bokoblin camp before the team head’s out tomorrow. Make sure a Moblin hasn’t joined them.” 

She feels him starting to move, but she can’t take her eyes off the bed. It's more vast than any cot she’s ever known, even with its twin frame, with four sturdy posts and modest pillow; there is enough room for two people to lay side by side comfortably, so long as they fit together. 

Is having a bed what makes you feel rooted to a place? Is it the memorization of cracks in the ceiling to count when you're tired, or having someone who helps you heal the cracks buried deep inside you? Is it a kitchen to escape to in the middle of the night for a slice of fruitcake or a bowl of meat and rice, or having someone who knows how to make it just for you? Is home just having the people you love simply love you back? 

She glances from the bed to the flower to Link and her heart leaps into her throat.

Zelda doesn’t feel any guilt this time, none at all, when she reaches for his hand and tells him:

“Stay.” 

[sparkywrites25]

Hey! I saw you were taking requests for AOT? Could I get one with canon Levi(like his personality matches his in the show) where reader thinks he hates her and confesses their feelings but it turns out he feels the same?

I am so so sorry that this took so freaking long to do. So much for aiming to get a request done in a week. I forgot this was all the way back in April. Three months... yikes. I also started writing this a different way and it wasn't going so well so I restarted it and I feel like this turned out a lot better than the original. Anyway I hope you like it and thank you so much for requesting this.

Summary: Reader has to let her feelings out even if it'll hurt like hell.

Pairing: Levi x Reader

Taglist: @notgoodforlife @youre-ackermine @ladycheesington

Notes: If you like my work and want to see more then please join my taglist. Form is pinned on my blog.

Looking at the stars has always relaxed you. 

Ever since you were a child, you loved to take yourself out into the tiny backyard of your family’s home in Trost, and stare up at the dark heavens which twinkled with a million lights. Your face would light up in wonder each time; your mind already flying away, creating wonderful stories in your imagination about exploring that canvas of beauty. Your mother would find you lying on the ground, watching it all as if it would change before your eyes if you so much as turned away. She’d tease you about it. Later she would tell you how much it calmed you down whenever you threw a tantrum or were upset with one of your brothers. She would send you outside to look up at your favourite sight in the world. 

As you stand on the rooftop of Trost’s Scout base, staring up at those same stars, you realize that maybe she was encouraging you to learn about perspective. How different things can look if you see them from a different angle, or how seeing the same angle with different emotions can make things shift. Your hands are rough and marked by healing cuts from the latest expedition and the weeks of training before it. The price of being strong enough to survive yet another bloodbath. You don’t see the blood or feel the pain that you did at the time all of these marks were made. But they are the same hands, changing with your experiences and with time. It’s a scary thing to think about, change, or it can be a good thing.

You exhale softly and clasp your hands on the stone wall in front of you. You can think of one thing that hasn’t changed, you reflect, despite how many times you’ve stood here and how many different emotions you’ve carried up here all this time. You’re not sure if that is something that will ever change. Maybe it’s just something that you will have to live with, to accept just like these two remaining walls of humanity have accepted that these monsters are their past, present and future. 

It’s been three days since the latest expedition. A period of rest and mourning usually follows for a few days but in the winter it’s longer. As this is the last expedition before the heart of winter arrives, the commander has told everyone to take the week off from training. Some have taken leave to be with their families. Some are just recuperating here. For some, they will be taking terrible news to their families. For others, it’s all they can do to hold themselves together. 

Normally you’d be downstairs with your squad - the Special Operations Squad - talking and trying to find some normality and peace with your comrades. Listening to Petra and Oluo argue. Teasing Eld about his girlfriend. Trying to rattle Gunther into letting slip some tidbits about his personal life. Watching the Captain drink his tea and list everybody’s cleaning chores for the week. The thought of the captain has your nerves quivering with an intoxicating energy that both excites and frightens you. You’ve never felt this strongly about someone who wasn’t a friend or family. You may have no romantic experience - and in truth, until now, you had no interest in getting any - but you know how you feel. 

It’s a fucked up situation; you’ve been reminding yourself of this for weeks now. Training with him and trying not to get distracted by his impressive flexibility and efficient fighting style. You pretend to dread your one-on-ones with the captain in sparring. You pretend that you hate having him watching you train with the rest of the squad. You lie that he intimidates you, that you wouldn’t like to be hauled into his office for anything. All the while you like feeling his attention on you. You like the opportunity to remind him of why he chose you to join his squad. You like being near him and listening to him. You like cleaning his office and talking to him as you work. You love learning the occasional little snippet about him, about what he thinks, what he’s experienced. You like putting together the thousands of little pieces that make up Captain Levi. You take great pride in the fact that he called your tea-making abilities “good” and you have to fight a smile every time he comes over to correct your cleaning. 

Ordinarily you really enjoy the post-mission hangout of your squad too. Tonight, however, the thought of it chokes you. Tonight you’re feeling the weight of the veil you wear; this veil of professionalism, of platonic feeling and comradarie wraps tightly around you. The heaviness of it makes you feel dizzy and nauseous. Even up here, taking in gulps of cold, fresh air, you can feel the veil slipping away from you. With every conversation you have with your captain, you can feel the material sliding away and you have to pull it back. You have to remind yourself that professional boundaries exist and that the reality is extremely high that the captain does not share your feelings. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him show any kind of indication towards anyone. Maybe that’s just his way or maybe he’s just private. Not that it’s any of your business.

If anything, you think as you stare up at the stars, he seems completely disinclined towards even liking you let alone everyone else. He cuts conversation short whenever you’re alone together. Your cleaning irritates the hell out of him. Often it feels like he’s sharper with you than the others. He gives you the duties furthest away from him the most. Your favourite task of cleaning his office is one you’ve done the least out of your squad. He always looks at you with neutral eyes yet he engages with the rest of the squad fairly well. You can’t help but wonder if he regrets taking you into his squad. Maybe he has too much pride to just kick you out. Or maybe he’s just waiting for an excuse?

Thinking about all of this is giving you a headache and you rub at your temples with each of your index fingers. 

“Wanna explain why you’re hiding up here on your own?”

You’re startled into spinning round at the sudden sound of the captain’s voice. Your eyes dart towards the door and to the frowning man currently closing it behind him. Holy fuck, you didn’t even hear him approach, or the door open for that matter. The shame burns through you at once. You really should have been more alert even if it is Captain Levi who appears to have mastered the art of stealthy movements. A flicker of envy licks at the pit of your stomach. In all honesty, you can only dream of being that coordinated. 

The gentle wind that had been blowing through you for half an hour has brought some hair into your face. You reach up to tidy yourself up on instinct as you straighten up into a salute. The fist over your heart presses a bit heavier tonight and you try and push your earlier thoughts from your mind. With the man himself standing there though, this is difficult. 

“I just wanted some time alone, sir,” you answer hastily. It’s not a lie and it’s not an unrealistic answer either. It’s simple. 

The captain approaches you. You note that the circles under his eyes are looking dark again. You wonder that he doesn’t at least try and sleep during quieter periods like this. But then again, maybe he has. Maybe he knows a lost cause when he sees one. 

It must be nice to be able to move on from such things, you think bitterly as you can’t help contemplating your own feelings for him. If only you could leave them behind so you could just feel…  normal with him. That would be pretty nice. The world turns silent as you muse on this. You can no longer feel the wind on your face or the cold in your skin. Everything is muted and it’s not the worst feeling in the world. You stand in that numb state, battling your own thoughts. 

After a moment, you realize that the captain is now standing in front of you. His brow is rumpled with lines of deep annoyance and his narrow eyes are fixed on your face. His lips are moving but you can’t hear his words. He speaks slowly but you can’t read the shapes that he forms. So, you blink slowly and try to focus on him. As soon as you do, the world seems to wake up again. Cold touches your face and you can hear your own breathing that sounds heavy after the silence of a moment ago. 

“Sorry sir,” you manage to rasp. Your voice sounds closed up, like you’re about to cry and you hate it. “I didn’t hear what you said.”

“Really? I’m stood right here and you can’t hear me? You mean you weren’t listening.”

Your cheeks heat up and you consider arguing with him but instead you just bow your head and turn away from him. It’s easier not to look at the irritation he’s wearing or how beautiful his eyes are when they reflect the starlight. Instead, you reach out and hold onto the stone wall, grounding yourself to the moment. 

“Hey.” This time Levi’s voice is gentle. “What’s going on with you?” 

You shake your head because, honestly, you’re not so sure yourself. “I don’t know,” you admit quietly, still not looking at him. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out, I guess.”

To your right, you observe your captain as he steps up to the wall then turns his back to lean on it. He folds his arms and watches you, his gaze softening in a way you have never seen directed at you. You can’t stop yourself from staring back into those enchanting blue-grey orbs. “Petra would say that that would be easier to figure out if you were with us,” he remarked and gave a tiny shrug of his narrow shoulders. 

You manage a weak, crooked smile. “Yeah she would. But I… I don’t really want a group chat right now.”

“You should talk to someone.”

“I don’t think so. It won’t change anything,” you admit and you mentally curse yourself for letting slip even that much. 

“So you do know what’s bugging you.”

You sigh, feeling your patience begin to bleed out and you close your eyes. You remind yourself where you are and who you’re talking to. If this were one of your friends, you’d have snapped at them to leave you alone right now. But you can’t exactly do that with Levi, can you? But at the same time, you can feel this unpleasant feeling creeping over you. A feeling of edge, of broken glass, like you’ll go shooting off into a hundred sharp pieces if this feeling completes itself. Who knows what you might say or do if he doesn’t leave you be? What you might say if this feeling gets to take hold completely. You fix your eyes on the horizon, determined to avoid Levi’s gaze. Maybe if you stay quiet, he’ll just go away. He’s not the most sociable man. He’s not someone who seems all that comfortable with heavy displays or emotion or tolerance for awkward situations. Give it long enough and he might just leave you to it. 

You hear your name being spoken and you close your eyes. You love the sound of those syllables in his baritone voice. You hate that you like it so much. 

“Sir.” Once again you sound fragmented. “Please just leave me be.”

“No.” Levi’s quick answer surprises you and you turn your head slightly but not enough to look him fully in the eye. “Do I look stupid enough to just leave my comrade to it when they look like they’re about to jump off this fucking roof?”

Your eyes are blown wide as you finally meet his again then look to the horizon and then back to him in a rapid string of disbelief. “You think…” you begin to say then push yourself away from the edge and shake your head. “This isn’t…. It isn’t that. I’m not… I’m not depressed, Captain.” Your voice sounds strong, at least, as the words tumble out of you. “God, I don’t… I don’t feel like that. I… I wouldn’t be having this conversation with you if I wanted to…” You don’t even try and finish the sentence, wrapping your arms around yourself as you begin to walk around the rooftop. 

His footsteps barely sound against the stone as he follows you. “Then what’s going on?”

“It’s personal, sir. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“When personal gets shitty, it gets in the way of work.” Levi argues, “and then that shit puts your life in danger out in the field.”

You release a breath in a huff, tightening your arms around yourself as you feel your temper shooting up to the surface, burning its way through your nerves. Your self-reminders of who Levi is and of behaving yourself are falling quieter by comparison now. 

“You… can talk to me… if you want. Whatever helps you keep your head and keeps you alive.”

You should be appreciative of his words, of the discomfort you can hear when he delivers them. You don’t want to feel agitated with him. You wish you could swallow down your feelings and leave them be. Your captain is not a comforting man. He’s not someone whose natural instinct it is to mollycoddle and reassure. Yet he is trying to get through to you right now. The way he can. He has his own ways of getting through to people. But right now those ways are not what you need or want. But how do you tell him that without sounding like an ass?

He says your name again and your impatience and your temper spill over into each other. 

“It’s too painful, captain!” You snap at him as you turn on him. Your voice echoes across the rooftop as tears burn in the corners of your eyes. “It’s too painful to talk to you about this,” you spit out. As soon as the words escape you, you can feel your chest deflate even as the horror of what you’ve just said fills your cheeks and warms them up.

Fuck. 

Beat after beat of silence follow and with each second, you can feel your throat constricting with the burn of your admission. Regret pours through your veins like rain washes over leaves. It drenches you and the words hover in your mind, painful and clear. 

“Why?” Levi only speaks one word but the heaviness of it hangs in the air between you. He doesn’t need to elaborate and your original intention of bullshitting your way out of this is rapidly disappearing. With your admission out in the open, you can feel more rising up from your chest. You may as well keep going, you tell yourself. It’s got to come out now.

You turned your back on him and stare up at the stars again, your eyes seeking the comforting presence of those beautiful lights. 

A hand touches your arm, fingers cupping your elbow. It’s not a firm grip. You could pull away from him if you wanted to. But the intention is clear. Don’t run away. 

Yet even as you resign yourself to the confession, your body moves of its own accord. You step back, pulling your arm out of Levi’s reach. You turn further away from him, your torso twisting faster than your feet. The sudden turn and lack of coordination catches up with you in a second, and you overbalance. You land on your side, your hip taking the brunt of the fall. You curse quietly, scrunching up your face as pain and irritation battle across it. 

“Tch,” the captain’s voice is surprisingly tender as he kneels down beside you, lifting both of his thin eyebrows. “It’s a good thing you don’t get nervous on the battlefield,” he observes, “otherwise you’d be titan chow by now.”

You stare at him for a moment and then a small laugh bubbles out of you. Your nerves have always made you clumsy and it was something you were worried would stop you progressing in the Scouts. Yet here you are. 

“Yeah, a good thing,” you mutter and bow your head. You wish you could wake up from this. Somehow even burying these feelings seems like a better option than continuing this scene and yet there’s no avoiding it now. What needs to be said, must be said. You both have to move forward. Rip the bandage off, your mother would say if she was here. 

“What’s going on?” Levi asks, firmness entering his voice now. “Just say it, whatever it is. Then it’s done. You can’t hold onto it now. Not without it screwing you up.” 

You take it in with a deep breath. His words are surprisingly insightful and, in a way, they do make the prospect seem easier. But then you think about how you could be throwing this away, the ability to talk with your captain with a reasonable lack of awkwardness. Now there will be this thing hanging in the air above you, always. But maybe it’s a weight that can finally come away from your shoulders. You’ve begun to walk down this path and now you have to continue. 

“I…” the words jam in your throat and you scowl into the space next to Levi as frustration rattles your insides. Why can’t you just say it? You close your eyes and try and focus yourself. It’s some advice that one of your fellow cadets gave you years ago when you used to lose your temper over little matters. She taught you how to rein in some of your intensity. But thinking of her just reminds you of the last time you saw her, in the jaws of a 9-metre titan.

Levi says your name again and you’re pulled from your memory. It’s a relief, compared to the image that was taking clear form in your mind’s eye again. Compared to what Katya endured, you realize that you have to be able to say these words, to put to good use what she taught you. 

“I’m in love with you.” The jam in your throat fades and the words slip out as quickly as water. You even manage to raise your eyes to look into Levi’s. You stare into them once you do, caught off guard by what you see. 

You can see the surprise in his ever-so-slightly widened eyes and the barely noticeable slack in his jaw. But what really surprises you is the lack of judgment in his eyes. He doesn’t give you the look he normally gives you when he’s seriously considering your decisions - such as attempting to showcase your standard of cleaning as acceptable when he can still see dust on his bookshelves, when he eyes your lamentable folding and when there are still patches of dirt on the newly mopped floor. The you’re-killing-his soul narrowed eyes and thin, disapproving line of a mouth. You don’t see any of that. 

Instead he stares at you like you just appeared right in front of him, like you came out of nothing and he’s trying to wrap his head around how that’s possible. He looks beautiful like that, caught in wonder. You feel yourself begin to smile despite the surprise in your own chest filtering into a clawing sense of dread. 

Now for the rejection… the reprimand. 

Where you should stay quiet and delay the arrival of either of those things, you now find your voice returning to you. As though your brain has decided for you. To hell with this. I’m going to throw it out there. You swallow and you plant the tips of your fingers on the cold stone beneath you. 

“I know it’s unprofessional. You’re my commanding officer. We serve in the same team. It makes things awkward.” Your cheeks are searing with heat now. “I’m sorry for it but you’re right. I had to get it out. It’s eating away at me. I can’t afford to keep this to myself anymore. I-I’ll take whatever you say. I just… had to get it out.”

More silence. As the seconds pass, your stomach twists. You gaze expectantly into your captain’s face. Despite the open surprise, he’s still somewhat unreadable. You can’t see traces of anger, embarrassment or irritation in his expression. It gives you a flutter of hope that maybe this could be a bit less painful than you had expected it to be. 

“Huh,” Levi says after another minute or two. He lowers his gaze and you feel your stomach plummet along with it. 

“I’m sorry-” you begin to say just as he speaks. 

“So, I’m not the only idiot then.”

It’s your turn to look surprised. “What?” you squint and lean forwards a little.

Levi sighs and takes your elbows. He rises to his feet, taking you with him. You wobble a little when upright, just for a moment but he keeps a firm grip until you’re steady then he lets go. “I said I’m not the only idiot.”

“Why… why you be an idiot?” you repeat. Your brain feels too fogged up in confusion to pick out the meaning behind his words. It was so far from what you expected him to say. All the imaginary reprimands and rejections are still hovering around although they are retreating a little. 

He tilts his head, a slight smirk curving up one corner of his mouth. “Figure it out,” he answers and there’s an almost playful edge there. 

It takes an embarrassing number of seconds for the fog to lift and suddenly the impossible seems to manifest in front of you all at once. You feel your own jaw dropping and a tingling feeling sweep through your body at once. “You… feel the same?” you ask, not hiding the disbelief from your voice. “I don’t understand,” you admit.

Now Levi’s lips press together into that familiar frown that you were expecting before. “I do.” He answers as he folds his arms. “What’s hard to understand?”

“How can you return my feelings when you dislike me so much?” You blurt out. “It just…. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Come again?” comes the dry response. Levi’s brows knot together. “Who the fuck said I dislike you?”

“No one needed to!” you fire back, annoyed. “It’s pretty obvious that I annoy you. You seem to regret choosing me for your squad. You seem to hate me being close to you.” The instances roll through your head on a loop, firing up your words. It clouds over the part of you that is telling yourself to be careful of what you say to him. Because right now you have to get through this conversation, or rather, at this point, make sense of it.

Levi closes his eyes and brings a hand up to pinch between his brows. “And people tell me that I’m shit at reading people.”

You’ve always known that Levi has an audacious tongue but even so, you falter. “Excuse me?”

He lowers his hands to his hips and frowns at you although there is a softness to his eyes. “I don’t dislike you. I never have,” he admits. “Look, your cleaning is inconsistent and needs work at best, you never leave a tea to brew long enough before you start drinking it, you always get drawn into arguments with people especially Oluo, and you worry too much about shit that’s just not that important,” he tells you brusquely. “You’re shit at asking for help and you always take too much crap from other people.” 

You frown deeply and shake your head. “Where are you going with this-?”

“You’re also one of the best team players I’ve ever seen. You make sure a job gets done even if it’s not your turn. You back up your comrades in and out of missions. You’re a capable and talented soldier yet you don’t get cocky about it. You don’t whinge about this job. You give your heart to the Scouts.”

You can feel the blush in your cheeks spreading over your face. “That’s what we all have to do.”

“Not everyone does it. People are shitty and selfish.” Levi tells you. “But not you. You do your damn job and you take what comes. Why the fuck would you think I’d dislike that?”

You fidget from one foot to the other. “But you always act like… like I’m a pest.”

Levi looks away from you, his eyes rising up to the starry canvas above him. “I’m not Hange. I don’t wear everything on my fucking sleeve. I’m not Erwin either. I’m not someone who dazzles people with eloquence. But more importantly,” and his eyes shift back to you, “I’m your superior officer. Coming on to you… I’d look like a fucking creep.”

You bite your lip and step forward. “I wouldn’t think that. I would have… you know… I would have admitted it too.”

“And if you hadn’t returned my feelings?” Levi questions. “You could have reported me. You could have requested a transfer. I would have lost a very capable soldier from my squad,” he explains. “You said that I didn’t act like I liked you. You’re pretty damn capable of concealing things yourself.”

You step forward a little and a smile crosses your face, small and sheepish. “Okay, that’s fair. I-I could have maybe hinted or something but I really didn’t want to be reprimanded or embarrassed.”

“I wouldn’t punish you for having feelings,” Levi insists. “But they’d have to be kept in check especially on missions.”

“I know. I’ve seen them get people killed,” you assure him. “I guess we both decided it’d be safer to say nothing.”

“But something changed for you today,” Levi takes half a step towards you. “What happened?”

“Nothing in particular,” you admit, returning your attention to the horizon and wrapping your arms around yourself as you return to your spot by the wall. “But it’s tiring playing pretend.” You rest your arms on the wall and lean your chin on them with a heavy sigh. “I just had to let myself stop for a moment.”

Levi’s footsteps approach you but you don’t look around. The confession and this entire conversation is taking it out of you. On the one hand it’s going so much better than you expected and on the other hand, you feel like you’re walking on unknown territory, on ice where you don’t know if it’s stable or not. Trying to think over what that means is unsettling.

“What does this mean?” You decide to take the initiative. “We both had our reasons for keeping quiet. Now we’re here, I don’t know what happens now.”

“You think I do?” Levi steps up next to you and leaned his back against the wall. “I can’t offer you a safe life.” He tells you quietly. “I’m not going to quit the Survey Corps and go be a farmer or work in a shop. I’m not going to stop fighting the titans.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to,” you answer, turning your face and leaning your cheek on your arms. “I’m not walking away from this life, either. I’m good at what I do. Humanity needs you to fight for them. They need us to fight for them. I didn’t train for three years and witness all this death just to walk away and play it safe.”

Levi’s mouth twitched into a smile. “So we’re both sticking with this shitty life in the shitty military.”

You smile back at him. “Looks like it, captain.”

He turns around, leaning against the wall with his front and partway mirroring your folded arms on the wall. His gaze lingers on your face and you stare up at him. This time the silence is comfortable, filled with an unspoken agreement that things will be different now. The path ahead is no longer clouded with uncertainty and assumptions. You can see Levi clearly and he can see you. You know what you mean to each other now and your heart feels lighter for it. 

“I don’t know if I’m capable of being what you want,” he muses quietly but he’s leaning in towards you. 

You’re lifting your head towards his, your eyes dropping to his lips as you whisper back. “You’re already what I want. You always have been.”

“So are you,” he murmurs back and then his lips touch yours. It’s a soft press and for a few moments nothing happens. Uncertainty returns between the two of you. That and inexperienced curiosity. Your lips move first, against his and his match on instinct. You both slip into it as instinct takes over. 

Moonlight and starlight fall around you but for now those beautiful sights are relegated to being the background for something new and wonderful and unknown. Something that will bind you and your captain even closer together.

[green-apple-juice]

Lúthien x Thuringwethil, Modern AU, part 1

Actually, it’s kind of a spin-off from my angbang story, where Melkor is a rock star and Mairon is a jeweler—but now I want to talk about the girls. Beren’s here too, so I guess you could call it a polycule, though he and Thuringwethil only bond platonically over their love for Lúthien.

Firstly, I’ll start with my headcanons about who these characters could be in a modern world.

Thuringwethil is 25 years old and plays bass in Melkor's band, "Utumno." She wasn’t in the band from the start but was found by Gothmog, their manager, when they needed a replacement for their bassist. She's a big fan of rock music and started learning to play in high school, but wasn’t sure if she wanted to focus on a musical career. At one point, she even considered becoming an actress. That idea didn’t pan out, so she started working as a session musician for other artists.

She has trouble writing her own songs, which makes her feel insecure about dedicating her whole life to music. But when Gothmog found her—crossing paths in the studio—he immediately decided she’d be a perfect addition to Utumno’s lineup. She's beautiful, charismatic, and very stylish — like the cherry on top. And he was right. Fans noticed her and started to love her, not just for her beauty but also for how she behaves during concerts—how unhinged she can become, adding even more energy and magic to the chaos created by the guys, mostly Melkor, of course.

Other members welcomed Thuringwethil just fine; only Melkor thought she might feel out of place because of how she dresses: the first thing that comes to mind when you see her is vampire movies from the 2000s, or Dracula's brides. He thought it wasn't exactly what he wanted to see in "Utumno", because his band played a mix of heavy, thrash, and viking metal, famous for heaviness, brutality, and pathos. But he decided to trust Gothmog, whom he secretly considered smarter than himself. He didn’t regret it, because Thuringwethil wasn’t troublesome, especially when it came to professionalism.

Thuringwethil is a lesbian, and she's very touch-starved and can be clingy when she seeks comfort through physical contact. It might sound strange, but she usually chooses the guys to touch and cuddle with because she doesn’t see it as inherently sexual or romantic, just a way to bond with friends. This sometimes gets her into trouble if guys misinterpret her actions, but she knows how to defend herself if someone doesn’t understand the word "no." Over time, she formed a circle of friends who understood her well and didn’t try anything inappropriate.

When she joined "Utumno", Melkor became the main object of her "affections" because he’s big, tall, and buff, reminding her of a gigantic plush toy. She never says this out loud, and Melkor assumes she’s just trying to get on his nerves by following him around. But he’s not rude to her, and they could be considered a strange pair of friends.

One time, she unintentionally made Mairon jealous. He didn’t know anything about her and thought she was Melkor’s ex when he saw her clinging to him. That misunderstanding was cleared up quickly, but Mairon still decided he didn’t like her—though that changed over time as they met a few more times.

She had dated Ungoliant in the past, a tattoo artist she found absolutely charming, and was happy with her. Other people didn’t share the same sentiment, especially Melkor, because Ungoliant loved bringing spiders with her and leaving them in the most unexpected places, which scared him half to death every time. Thuringwethil broke up with her—not because she wanted to, but because Ungoliant had a serious problem with alcohol addiction and an eating disorder. It got so bad she nearly died and was forced to leave the city to return to her parents in a small town. Since then, Thuringwethil has been heartbroken and hasn’t been able to fully move on to start a new relationship, only having one-night stands.

Lúthien is 27 years old and comes from a very rich family. Her parents love her and would buy her the whole world—or at least part of it—if they want to. But despite that, she always wanted to gain some autonomy and try her hand at different things. She studied at university, where she met Mairon—who wanted to become a jeweler, and she studied art. They were very close; their friendship started because she noticed he was one of the few guys who didn’t try to hit on her and wasn’t annoying to be around. Later, she discovered it was because he’s gay and not interested in any woman at all, no matter how beautiful.

They also worked together as models, though Lúthien started first out of curiosity and a desire to meet interesting people. Later, she offered this job to Mairon because she knew he needed money, after moving to the big city from a small town and nearly overworking himself juggling multiple jobs. She’s also a very good singer, but she never wanted to work in show business and mostly sees it as a hobby that makes her happy.

She’s a kind and sincere girl, but she had to toughen up and learn how to be strong—partly because it was the only way to deal with an overprotective father, and partly because her beauty often brought trouble, forcing her to constantly reject unwanted advances from men.

Despite her charming and tender appearance, she could be compared to a sleeping volcano. She’s usually calm, but when provoked, her temper is something to be feared—especially if someone tries to hurt the people she loves.

She met Beren shortly after graduating from university. He’s a former war correspondent who was injured in the line of duty, losing one of his hands. He’s struggling with that loss, trying to find his place after everything he’s endured, and now works as an investigative journalist. He’s still driven by a need to expose the truth and make the world better, but he’s also dealing with trauma and adjusting to his new reality. They met at a charity dinner organized by one of Lúthien’s friends, who asked her to sing at the event. Beren fell in love with her immediately—not just because of her beauty, but because of her voice, too. He approached her, feeling like it was impossible to stay away or risk losing the chance to say even a few words. At first, Lúthien wasn’t really interested, but since he wasn’t rude or demanding, they stayed in contact and eventually fell in love.

Her parents weren’t happy when they found out their daughter had chosen a poor, disabled man who, in their eyes, couldn’t take care of her. They didn’t approve this relationship, but Lúthien had always been stubborn. She would rather live without their money than leave the person she loves.

[valdeznation]

we're all gonna die (valgrace)

valgrace week prompt 1: soulmates

jason shifts in leo’s hold, breaths deep and even, his cheek pressed against his husband’s warm chest.  leo’s own heart thuds below his, the sound so similar to the stuffed cat with a beating toy heart his mother got him for his second birthday weeks before she left.  he wants to speak.  he wants to silence the thoughts he can hear grinding in leo’s mind like the gears he so often gets his fingers caught in at work, wants to toss a stick in and make them stop.

“do you think i’m going to die?” he whispers after a few minutes, arms tightening around leo’s waist as he exhales shakily, knowing and dreading the answer.  jason is used to death, has even been able to accept leo’s – just not his own. 

leo, for his part, doesn’t react.  there’s no tension in his body, only love and tenderness that presses around jason in the form of strong thighs bracketing his hips, stronger hands weaving through jason’s curls, twirling, braiding, silent above him for what feels like hours.  “yes,” he says finally, words almost lost in the mass of golden hair he’s got his wonderfully soft lips pressed against, the vibration of his voice trickling down jason’s spine, equal amounts kind and horribly cruel.  it’s a gentle confirmation of his mortality, and jason knows he’s right.  leo has never been one to sugarcoat, opting instead to gently lower the thousand-tonne truth onto the shaking shoulders he is now soothing with warm hands, hands that have created innumerable things but failed at crafting his lover a longer life.  it is and forever will be his biggest regret.

if he were stronger, if he hadn’t been sick for so long, if his muscles weren’t eaten away and dying, he would kneel before leo and beg for a lie, but his hands, which once slew titans, can’t hold a mug of coffee, much less change the course of the river of his husband’s nature.  jason has heard worse, borne worse, survived worse than this, and yet, and yet, and yet.  

“please don’t give up on me,” he breathes, shoulderblades twitching under leo’s fingers as he manouvres his chin to rest on leo’s chest, faded blue eyes framed by a halo of blonde lashes twitching as they meet the fire swirling behind amber-stained brown.  maybe in another life he was the sky, cold atmosphere reflecting infinite shades of beauty for everyone to see but never getting to see it for himself, a decoration.  maybe in another life leo was the earth, rich soil replete with life, drinking in rain and sunlight and summer air and making with it everything worth seeing, trees and birds and the tinkling laughs of children.  maybe that was what they were.  maybe that was why they were not allowed to have each other, hold each other, till death did them part.  maybe they were made to be apart.  

“i couldn’t,” leo breathes back, the mint-and-coffee breath curling around his cheek tugging jason from his thoughts.  hands rake through his hair again, shaking now.  everything under him shakes, even the single tear on leo’s thick lower lashes.  his voice is catching in his chest, jason can feel it, a tremor shooting through his ribs as his adam’s apple bobs up and down.  “i couldn’t, jace.  not even if i wanted to.  not even if i tried.”

he wants to reply, wants to say something sweet and grateful and smile and sit up to kiss his other half, wants to feel whole in his arms and slot their noses together and feel leo’s stubble scratch against his, but any hope of speaking dies the second the tear falls, leaving a barely-visible track that glitters on his bronze skin in the dim lighting of their bedroom.  he hasn’t seen leo cry since they were sixteen.  he hates that it’s his fault.  

“i couldn’t,” he says again, mumbling like the words hurt to get out, like the same chronic ache that’s settled in jason’s body is starting to infect him, too.  “even after you… a-after…” his voice fades and falters, whatever peace he had displayed earlier about this situation quickly dissipating into tangible pain thickening the air around them, and jason is the sky, and he reflects this, so it is all they can both see.  all they can both feel.  “even after you die, i won’t give up.”  a gentle thumb traces his lower lip, callouses catching on chapped skin, easily-soothed pain taking edge off of the all-encompassing agony.  

everything is shaking and leo is the earth, soaking in anguish and morphing it into pixie dust that decorates his cheeks as more tears fall.  “i’ll look into every doorway and wait for you to walk through it,” he whispers, a terrible sadness in his eyes.  it is heavy, so much so that it settles easily into the grooves that were cut out for it in leo’s bones so many years ago.  “i could watch you die in my arms tonight and still hope you would be in the kitchen burning waffles come morning.”