#you are totally allowed to sent me asks about stranger things btw

[girlbosstom]

I'll just do this in one go here's my live reactions to stranger things. Season 4

Warning: Blunt

Overall the season is a solid meh for me so far but episode four did something to my mind body and soul

NOT THE HUG

I literally hate Mike btw Elle and Will are both the best characters and have the worst taste. God really does give his hardest battles to his bravest soldiers

Not fucking ARGYLE getting a better Hug than Will Mike is so homophobic DKLSGHSDGKLJDg

Mike treating Will like Chopped liver. You know that Tiktok audio that's like. "I don't care that you're a kid. I'll snap your neck like a twig." That's me with mike.

Lucas's plotline is so... blegh

Nancy is so hot to me i need y'all to know this

I love how they couldn't write a more stereotypical high school experience but also it kind of works? I feel like its because stranger things borrows from a lot of 80s film tropes so it makes sense within the world. The blonde who bullies Elle is too much tho LKDSJF

Max is so based for not talking to the cops

I hate that they're all separated BTW. They're too large of an ensemble for this

Hell yeah Roller rink. Hell yeah.

Elle saying Will doesn't come to the roller rink a lot but she does because she parties. Homophobic.

Will sadly skating DGLKJDGH

OOOH Managing Editor had a Kendall Roy car crash moment :)

EVERYONE SKATING AROUND ELLE AND LAUGHING?!?!?!? DSKGJLDSGHKDSJH STOP THATS SO STUPID

NOT HER GETTING MILKSHAKED?!?! LIKE IN GLEE?!?! LIKE WHEN THEY THREW SLUSHIES ON PEOPLE IN GLEE?!?!

THEM FINDING THE DRUG DEALER THROUGHD FKLJD MOVIES

This season has great aesthetics but it also is definitely suffering from some aesthetics over plot syndrome. I still like it as a whole? But there's a lot.

No because that bitch who got a rollerskate to the face 100% deserved it sorry violence is the answer sometimes.

Johnathan is so high im asdfjsdaf

Of fucking COURSE Mike is bitter about this! Maybe if you hit that bitch in the face with a rollerskate i'd have a slice of respect for you

Does lucas just vibe in this gross ass house now?

Honestly they are really good at writing conflict this fight between Elle and Mike

Dustin is such a rockstar I love him

Lucas has no spine oh my LORD

DID THAT BOY JUST TELL THEM HE KNOWS WHERE EDDIE IS?!!?!?!!?!?

why does nancy hate robin im gonna punch her with a rollerskate

If this thing gets max i quit

Sadie is a fantastic actress btw she really stands out

Okay I'm obsessed with nancy and robin's dynamic. Hostile affection

Yuri has russian tom wambsgans vibes no i will not explain

HOLY FUCK THEY GETTING GUNNED DOWN

I love the realness of the boys screaming and losing their minds

I dont like that this episode is called dear billy ok. I don't like where its placed in the season and that Max is a lovable side character I don't like it what if she dies

Wow i do not care about this joyce storyline At ALL

OH MY FUCK OH MY FUCK OH MY FUCK MAX MY ANGEL MY DARLING MY LOVE THE SHOT OF HER LEVITATING RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER BROTHERS GRAVE THE WAY SHE RUNS THE W OH MY WORD?!?!?! OH

Not the end of episode four making me cry that's the power of running up that hill

Okay episode five here we go i'm so on board with argyle being thrust into this world.

Oh no its a trappp who would have guessed

They should stop introducing new characters we already have way too much on our plate

Here lies Government agent man

oh my GODDDD I do not CARE about this evil basketball team

Nancy keeps choosing robin over steve LMFAO

"I've never fought in a real world scenario, okay?"

Why on earth is the music in the scene where Mike and da boys decide to go to utah so cartoonish

I really dont care about this poor framed metalhead nerd sitting in his house

my guess the demon is going to attack the guy while they're attacking the metalhead

I would be down for steve and nancy even though i dont care it doesn't make me mad you know

NOT HIM BEING GOOD AT FIGHTING

GIRL DONT SHOOT IN A PLANE

HOW ARE THEY GONNA SURVIVE IN THE WOODS

damn episode five is not doing it for me. episode four? that was cinema.

YES BB GOT HER POWERS BACK

honestly im still stuck on episode four im not gonna lie

Obsessed with this childrens game going on in susie's house?

Who the hell are you?

.......Aargghyle

no because this satanic panic shit is so scary to me i hate i hate it i haaate it

OH THE TOWN AINT BUYING IT

Oh wait.... oh no...... they're coming for them

There is so much they could have sped up this season good lord

I love it when the families get together and panic about their children

Steve my son you better be okay

STEVE NO STEVE STEVE STEVE

Do you know if these bats have rabies? DLKJGDSHGKL

"The kid wooorships you dude" I'm gonna cry.

why are they standing in the evil forest and talking about true love go get your guns

Still thinking about Max's running up that hill moment

SHE DID NOT JUST TAKE THAT COPS TIRES OUT LMFAO

Damn did they up the gore or is it just me

the mirroring of dustin and the kids and the teens is so cool

EWW THE STAINS ON THE MATTRESS

oh my god the shot of eleven and one standing in the rainbow room..... phenomenal

this villain monologue fucks actually but like. so many questions I have about the lore of it all that I know i'm not gonna get answers to.

okay the end that was wild and sporadic and a lot i need more will i need more of a lot worried because the hours this show has left are really truly not so many

its a fairly weak season for stranger things with an ambitiously massive ensemble and the covid restrictions definetly really hurt it. Episode four changed my life.

Billy is still a piece of shit though. Gonna have to tag this in the tag so people looking to weed out spoilers can do so wih me luck.

no cus you know that freak DND kid who mocked the satanic panic is gonna get framed for this

[simplybakugou]

The Way You Make Me Feel

↝ Being in a new relationship with your best friend can be scary, especially when your words make him blush.

BINGO SPACE: Pet Names

PROMPT: “You’re adorable when you’re flustered.”

⋆ PAIRING: prohero!midoriya x fem!reader ⋆ WARNINGS/TAGS: fluff, cute :) ⋆ WORD COUNT: 1635

A/N: here’s my submission for @bnhabookclub​’s Celebrating Deku event for his birthday, so this is my way of doing something for his birthday :)This is also for the bingo event that’s going on in the server. 

BTW, this is my first time writing for deku and basically any character other than bakugou so i’m sorry if this was total trash, i’m just not used to it lol. 

FULL BINGO MASTERLIST

✐posted 07.15.2020✐

The TV was blaring louder than usual as you were cooking breakfast, your head turning every now and then to pay attention to the news as well as make sure you didn’t burn your house down. But you knew you had to tune into what was going on, especially since your boyfriend was the one the reporters were talking about.

Not every girl was able to say that they were going out with the Midoriya Izuku: the number one hero and the new symbol of peace. And here you were, lucky enough to have him as your boyfriend.

Since middle school, you and Midoriya were attached to the hip. You were able to watch your quirkless best friend grow into a strong man as time flew right past the two of you. Although you had no intention of being a pro hero, you were always ecstatic to see Midoriya on TV during the U.A. sports festivals, not to mention how terrified you were whenever class A was attacked by the League of Villains.

Nevertheless, you had a relationship with Midoriya that was strictly friends only for a majority of the time you knew him. But somewhere along the way, the more you saw him and began to realize he wasn’t the timid middle school kid that constantly got picked on for his quirklessness, you developed feelings for him.

Your feelings developed gradually, something that didn’t just dawn on you one day while you were hanging out with him. But once you did have that realization, you weren’t afraid to address your feelings directly to him. Needless to say Midoriya hadn’t always been the best with confrontations concerning romance but he knew deep down he would be lying if he said he didn’t like you back.

And here you were, a month into your new relationship with your best friend. You initially were afraid of ruining your friendship that you cherished deeply, even now still having this fear in the back of your mind whenever you were with your boyfriend, but you also knew you would never be able to suppress the way you felt about Midoriya any further.

Regardless of your fears, you were happy with your decision, enjoying the way that your newly developed relationship began to blossom the more time you spent with Midoriya.

“The Hero Public Safety Commision Center is holding a strictly pro heroes only meeting at the moment concerning the issue with the newly organized villain group that attacked Jaku City last week,” the news reporter explained to the audience.

You sighed, turning the stove off and placing your breakfast onto a plate to eat. You remembered Midoriya explaining how crucial and important this meeting was as he rambled on, like he usually did, about the various kinds of pros that would be attending the conference. He was excited to meet his old classmates from U.A. who he hadn’t seen in years since he began his pro hero occupation, but was also unsettled by the numerous villain attacks that have been occurring over the past few weeks.

As you sat yourself on your sofa in front of the TV and ate breakfast, you glanced curiously at a yellow folder sitting on the edge of the table. You reached over and grabbed it, examining the contents of the mysterious folder.

“That idiot,” you muttered as you read the papers. One of them read “Notes for the Hero Commission Meeting” and you shook your head, surprised that Midoriya, who was always neat and organized especially since he’s constantly writing something down, forgot such important papers for the meeting.

Standing to your feet with the folder in hand, you grabbed your keys and your coat, wanting to make sure your boyfriend would be well prepared for his meeting by getting the file to him immediately.

***

Saying that the Commission Center building was ginormous would be an understatement. Fortunately you managed to find your way to the center since its giant stature made it so easy to locate. You pushed open the huge doors to the building, approaching one of the receptionists at the front desk. “Hi, I’m looking for Deku, he left this and it’s crucial that he gets this for the meeting today.”

The woman shook her head, giving you a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry, m’am, but I believe the meeting has just started and I can’t interrupt them right now.”

“Ah, I understand. Thank you.” You turned around, gripping the file in hand.

Before you could mentally scold your boyfriend for forgetting something so important, you turned your head, seeing Midoriya down the hall outside the conference room, looking outwardly distraught.

“Babe!” You called out, cupping a hand around your mouth so that he would be able to hear you.

Midoriya whipped his head towards you, his whole face burning into a bright crimson shade as you approached him. “Y-Y/N? What’re you doing here?”

You extended your arm out, handing the file to him. “You forgot this at my place. Be careful next time, I know how big this meeting is.”

Midoriya blinked rapidly, a sheen of sweat forming on his forehead as he nodded his head a few times. “R-Right, thanks for this. I, uh, need to head in now.”

You nodded, giving him a small smile. “Good luck!”

Midoriya sent a nervous smile back to you, proceeding inside the conference room. You turned around towards the lobby, sitting down in the waiting room as you asked the receptionists if you could wait until the meeting was over for Midoriya. They allowed you to do so and you sat yourself down.

You glanced towards the conference room every now and then, the image of Midoriya’s uneasiness when you spoke with him popping up in your mind. That meeting must be making him anxious, you thought to yourself. It was the only thing that made sense to you to explain how on edge he was.

You waited around for about thirty minutes, deciding to get up and get coffee for you and Midoriya as sitting down for such a long time was getting boring. Peering over through the window of the coffee shop, you saw a few pro heroes exit the Commission Center, a newly formed crowd of reporters greeting them. You even recognized your old classmate from middle school and fated rival of Midoriya, Bakugou amongst the pros. 

You grabbed your coffees and exited the cafe, waiting just outside of the crowd for Midoriya. Finally you spotted him, maneuvering the coffees into your arm to grab your phone to send him a text. You didn't want to call him out in front of so many reporters, especially since the media had always been so nosy and intrusive in the personal lives of pros. The last thing Midoriya needed was for strangers with cameras to flash their devices at the sight of his girlfriend waiting for him, not to mention your relationship was still so fresh and new.

Midoriya sent you a response, agreeing to meet up at his house since it was closer than your place and he didn’t want the probing crowd to follow him and figure out where you lived. Nonetheless you walked down the street, annoyed as you could hear Midoriya try and ease the crowd from prying into confidential matters. But you knew you would only cause him more trouble if you directly confronted the reporters to ask them to leave him alone so you held back your tongue and somehow managed to reach his house.

Midoriya took a shortcut, using his quirk to lose the reporters and you went through the side door just in case any lurking reporters caught you waiting at his front door step.

Midoriya let out a sigh as he slipped in his home, successfully avoiding the crowd. He smiled at you, hoping he hadn’t kept you waiting too long.

“Sorry about that. Those news reporters can be a hassle to deal with.”

You shook your head, handing him his coffee as he thanked you. “It’s fine. It’s not your fault you’re so popular that those assholes want to know everything about you.” Midoriya laughed, taking a sip from his drink. 

“Did everything go well in the meeting, baby?” You asked, leaning on a table in the living room.

Midoriya nearly choked on his coffee, his eyes widening and his body stiffening. His face began to heat up, his cheeks ablaze a deep pink hue once again. You raised a concerned brow at him, setting your coffee down and placing a hand on his shoulder. The action and your touch only made him feel even more rigid. “Are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah, I-I’m f-fine,” he managed to sputter out.

“Are you still nervous from the meeting?”

Midoriya gave you a confused look. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you were acting the same way before the meeting so I thought you’re still nervous ‘cause of the meeting,” you explained.

Midoriya let out a small chuckle, rubbing the nape of his neck as he thought about how to elucidate this to you. “Um, it’s not because of the meeting that I’m… acting like this. I’m just not used to hearing you call me b-baby.”

You laughed for a moment, surprised you hadn’t figured it out earlier, especially since you’ve known him for so long. You rose your hands to his face, cupping his cheeks which only made him blush furiously. “Izuku, you’re adorable when you’re flustered.”

You stood on the balls of your feet, planting a peck on his lips, which nearly caused him to short circuit on the spot. 

No matter how your relationship developed or how long you would be with him, Midoriya could never get used to your cute pet names for him… not that he minded.

If you’d like to be added to my taglist, please join here!

Taglist:  @pinkcowgirleggpanda​ @xtsundere-princess​ @wesparklebitch​​ @hot-pocket01​​ @iamthe-leaf​ @ahrinine​ @kirisclementine​ @lmaobroccoli​

[strangerays]

Nothing in Particular Update #1

Hello, hello!! It’s been a really long time since I’ve written an update for this story! (this is a real update btw, forget the “first” one I had) To be honest, I haven’t been able to work on this story as much as I would like, being busy with classes and... well just life in general. (what I mean by this is that Shadow and Bone was released on Netflix) But! I do have some excerpts I wanted to put out there as well as some overall changes to the story.

Before I start: here’s the actual link to the story synopsis/characters!

TAGLIST (ask to be +/-): @wannabeauthorzofija @a-completely-normal-girl @baguettethebooklover @corkytheguar @writeherewaiting​ @raenawrites

STORY CHANGES/IDEAS:

First off: I had to rewrite 30,000 words and basically turn it into 10,000. The first draft was icky, but I turned it into something I really enjoy! This is a sign that writing is always worth it!!

I added in a couple of characters! I was starting to feel like the story might not have been balanced enough. Luckily, the muse struck me and I created Mars and Theo! Mars is a lovely (and enigmatic) older woman that Ray meets at a bird sanctuary and Theo is a new friend of Lonan’s.

There wasn’t much action in the beginning of the story, so I wrote a confrontation between Jude’s friends and another person that Ray spies on. This is how she meets Jude, and I am in lovvve.

The timeline for the entire story might be a little bit longer than I intended! I went into this project thinking it might only take place over a month, but in order for Ray’s mental health journey to be realistic, I’m going to shoot for an entire school year (around six-seven months). Honestly, I’m just happy I get to write a Halloween scene. As for the word count total HAHA I have no clue what that will look like.

I think Lonan will be a bit of a back-burner character! At first, I was a little wary of this decision since he’s my favorite, but I think it would be very exciting to have Ray hype him up before he ever appears in the story. That way, the reader sort of starts to think about him in one way, yet he might be completely different when he finally shows up...??

Chapter titles are one of my favorite things about this story. Also! I am a huge fan of short chapters! They move the story right along.

I prefer to write slower and use other projects to balance out this one when I get a little tired of it. Over the last month or so, I’ve gotten really into short story writing again! This has been really helpful in working on my specificity and pretty prose. Even though the short stories don’t contribute to Nothing in Particular, I’ve been taking a lot of what I’m learning and applying it!

EXCERPTS (UNDER THE CUT)

CHAPTER ONE: THE SPY

#1

During the summer between my sophomore and junior year, Lonan Herrings packed me into his Dad’s repainted Chevrolet, left his name sharp on his mother’s tongue, and drove to New York City at six in the morning. For the first time since we’d become friends, jealousy weighed our silence. He buzzed across the highway, even though we knew his mother had no intention of finding us.

#2

“Which animal would I be,” he asked, “if I left tomorrow and lived in the forest?”

“Why would you want to do that?” I smiled even though I knew he was probably serious.

His shoulders squared and he looked out his window. Two men in the next car shouted at each other, their windows down. Something about a mortgage. “You would come with me, of course.” He turned to me. “Which animal gets along best with a doe?”

#3

I shut my eyes to snap the cold. It might have been the fact that, most times, his gentle voice pulled ragged words from his throat, as if he had just stepped out of the rain after standing in it for hours. It might have been the way he cupped the rim of a camera with humble demure. I was never afraid to tell him anything in the patience that bled from him. His eyes were milky blue and he wore an olive jacket covered in pins that kept strangers interested. Since he seemed like he felt out of place most times, I never did. We were a grade apart; our friendship bloomed late. So long as I had a friend at all, I didn’t care how we’d met.

“You would be a blue jay,” I decided. For only a second, I’d been worried that I offended him, until his mouth curved to one side and he laughed softly, as though he wasn’t sure he was allowed. His head hovered over the steering wheel. A patch of freckles absently creeped over the bridge of his nose like winter weeds.

This first chapter is a flashback to exactly a year before the second chapter takes place! After an argument with his mom, Lonan drives out of state with Ray. I plan for it to be all we see of Lonan (in the present) up until the halfway point of the story.

CHAPTER TWO: I WAS QUIET

#1

I was a firm believer that the best art was created when the artist was alone, angry, or depressed.

After Lonan secured his train ticket to New York, I was surprised to find that I became none of these things. We buried a time capsule, painted his walls cerulean, and drove two-hundred miles without a word to anyone. Some of my most colorful memories were unplanned in the beginning.

#2

Katherine Herrings’ bakery loitered over the coast of town, sheltered in pitch crags and shallow tide pools congested with cigarettes. I often ate lunch on the deck on my break. She was the only person I knew who – after everything her nephew had said – didn’t make him the first topic of our conversations.

An indie rock song that I recognized buzzed from a radio below me. I pulled my tablet screen down and pushed my chair out so the plastic legs kicked up and scratched the backs of my legs.  Slowly, I peered between my ankles, through the patio boards, and into the boat lodge below. Pumpkin-red hair plastered to my forehead in the heat that clung to the late days of September. Waves bubbled and crashed, peanut oil dripped from hot dog buns, and muffled gossip chirped like a family of cicadas. I bit my tongue at the bitter smoke that warped the wind.

#3

Jude laughed then, and her shoulders tipped, haughty. Waves hissed in her silence as the lights in the kitchen behind Katherine flickered. Her mouth opened slightly at the ring of dishes and laughter that danced with each other inside. A moment passed before she took a wide step back.

Together, her accomplices waltzed after her as she ran down the pavement, flecking sand until the night’s blue air gulped their outlines. Katherine beat a towel against the patio leg, then she slid and locked the door. Frogs jeered in the silence that pervaded the sea.

I whispered the name back to myself so I wouldn’t forget it. Jude Ahuja. I took a sip of ginger ale, and she buzzed on my lips.

The story cuts to Ray’s senior year of high school. Summer has just ended, Lonan has left for college, and her camera is broken. Jude is a bit like a character out of a film to her, and she wishes she could know more about her after witnessing a loud argument with Katherine Herrings, Lonan’s aunt.

CHAPTER THREE: PEOPLE-WATCHING

#1

Early into our friendship, I’d learned this patience. The first time he brought me to Sugarfell, he told me that all of the paths led back to the same place. As long as you played the game, you were guaranteed a prize. He didn’t speak much, but I knew he wasn’t a very good liar.

Less than an hour passed when I was met with silence. I crept up and down the same path four times. Each step sent a shock through my legs to my chest. The sun hadn’t risen to the highest point in the sky, still glimmering through tree branches in golden fractals, pulling on static darkness.

#2

“Are you crying?” he asked.

I shook my head fast. “No.” My voice barely reached a whisper. It was a lot deeper than normal.

He puckered his lips as though I had offended him. “But you were about to.”

“You said that all the paths lead back to one another.” I stood up from the jagged stump and shuffled through the leaves until the tips of our shoes were inches apart. “I knew you’d come back. And you did.”

#3

When I turned back, sore curiosity teased the emerald in Lonan’s eyes.

“Do you ever people-watch?” he asked softly.

This chapter is another really short chapter that I’m ultimately not sure I’m going to keep! I sort of included it by accident while Ray was riding her bike to the forest, but I ended up really liking it as a bridge into the next scene. Hopefully, I find I way to make it fit!!

CHAPTER FOUR: SUGAR-COATED

#1

Years with Lonan had prepared me for being alone. If you spend any long amount of time with someone, you’ll become a thief to their behaviors. Lonan observed too much. If I stared long enough, trees began to replace all of the people we’d ever seen. Oaks with roots that serpentined the ground like children splashing in the bay, pines with needles like spindly old hands, maples with hollows like watchful eyes.

#2

I did remember, but I couldn’t then. Blood gushed too close to his eyelid and dripped down his cheek like tears. There was a grace period in my life – likely when I was a newborn – when I couldn’t picture what my blood would look like on the light side of my skin.

And this is where I’ll leave off on the excerpts for now! I’ve been really focused on taking my time and setting things up before the next chapter, which is going to have lots more action in it. Things are going to start picking up again, so I’m really excited for that!

Thanks for reading if you made it this far :)

[rheaitis]

DVD commentary for matrvat?

The thing to know going into this story is that @parlegee is the absolute greatest for giving me open-ended prompts because I feel lost when there’s no prompt and sometimes constrained if it’s too specific, and there’s zero chance i’d have come up with this story in either case. Now, onwards.

---

Who is an opinionated teenager who can’t really allow adults their weaknesses? Krishna is!

“I thought he was a great king,” Krishna says disconsolately one morning as the sun drenches golden every wall of Rohini’s favourite room in Vasudev’s palace. The garden outside is fragrant with a dozen bushes of champaka flowers reaching for the light, and resounding with the laughing voices of Vrishni children and youths.

On such a day in Gokul, in Vrindavan, Krishna would be dancing through fields at the head of the pack, creating mischief and music in equal part. He used to come home along moonlit paths and worry Yashoda, whose heart was more tender than Rohini’s hard-shelled own.

In the ordered gardens of Mathura he skulks into the council-chambers of kings and nobles who have survived Kamsa’s scourge, and sulks in Rohini’s chambers.

If Krishna was even 10% less sunny than he is, he’d be in screaming fits the whole time. Rohini doesn’t really know it yet, but she’s aware of the general shape of it.

Rohini, who has missed Mathura’s high towers for longer than he has been alive, understands his longing only too well. Among the laughing children in the garden are the sons and daughters of women she befriended as a young bride, children who have never known her, who regard her sons with awed suspicion.

“King Ugrasena,” she asks now, careful to keep weariness from her voice. “He was, years ago when we were young and he was in his prime. But he had a grown son who kept him imprisoned, and deprived him of the joys of consorting with his grandchildren.”

He’s aware of the more visible wounds on the others, but he’s still. He’s sixteen; he’s a kid; and he hasn’t really learnt to accept that a lot of people just are weak.

“I meant my pitamaha King Shurasena,” Krishna says, and urgently adds, “I would not trivialise my matamaha’s suffering, or that of my parents, nor their resilience.”

I’m very proud of this association, ngl.

“No,” Rohini assures him. “I misspoke. You have been kind to them as to a day-old calf.”

That is praise he understands, and Krishna’s face blooms with joy. Her wild, wicked youngest. Her poor boy, whom they have transplanted into such strange soil.

“Will you say of pitamaha too, that he has suffered much, and is an aged man to whom I ought be kinder?”

He says it as though he knows the answer already, and comes quietly to sit at Rohini’s feet when she beckons him. If it is all so unfamiliar now to her, the floors of white stone, the fittings of brass, the plenitude of silver and gold, how much stranger must it be to him?

This is all canonical, btw, and I totally did a quick skim of Harivamsham for this fic, which may have been a bad idea, but anyway.

“We heard his praises, when I was a child,” she begins. “That he had been a great warrior in his youth, and was favoured by the gods. And it is true that he has had his own sorrows, with his queen dead from grief for your father, and with his eldest daughter sent to fill the nursery of a friend. Then too, without his son at home he gave your aunts in marriage to kingdoms that have not prized them as they ought be, and it is a great burden to any parent to know their children unhappy without hope of rescue or redressal.”

“However?” Krishna puts in, and grins wide and wicked. If she hadn’t known him since Yashoda brought him to her house to play with Balabhadra, she would think him sincere.

This is still going to take a very different strength.

Well, he has been battling monsters since he was a suckling babe.

“When I was a handful of months older than your brother is now, and there was first talk of me wedding your father, my uncle spoke to me of the household I was to enter. Your pitamaha is an amiable man, you’ve seen this already. He is chief among the Vrishni, who are not the most peaceful of the Yadavas. You are too clever, surely, to not know how a man of sweet temper might become chief of such rowdy princes?”

“He was the man all could agree upon,” Krishna says on a sigh, and she rewards him with a hand smoothing over his hair. He wears it still in a mass of curls barely restrained by a fillet, but it is of bronze silk now, and not the undyed ribbons he had used to steal from unwary girls. Good, he's learning; to take aught from a Vrishni girl unawares rarely bodes well. 

The Vrishni and larger Yadava politics are fascinating, and also this is bb!Krishna’s first lesson in politics and manipulation.

“He was given to pleasing men and creating compromises that nobody else could. It is a necessary skill, and your father had it also. Perchance he still does.”

“Do you doubt it?”

IDK about Rohini’s mother, but mine firmly believes everyone has a quota in everything. Also I wanted to introduce her longing for her own parents early on, both for the parallel to Krishna’s longing for his childhood and also to balance out the payoff at the end of the story.

“My mother used to say when I had climbed too high in a tree or gorged myself on mangoes in summer heat, that we have a share in the world’s joys and might spend it too soon and find ourselves in sorrow’s shadow.” It is strange now to think of herself as a child, when her mother’s hair has turned grey, silver, white with age and yearning in distant Bahlika without Rohini around to care for her, when she had been given in marriage to Shurasena’s son because the Vrishni let their wives travel often and her mother could not bear to part from her for long. In the first five years of her marriage she had visited often, rarely in the seven unhappy years that followed, and never in the seventeen that have since lapsed.

“You’ve said it to us often enough,” Krishna points out, and when Rohini looks down she finds that he has turned his head under her hand and is fixing her with a stern eye. “Do you think it is the same for a skill?”

... not that Krishna is ever going to hit hard limits on his own capacity for anything, be it love or war or politics but the rest of us aren’t a shard/iteration of the God who Keeps.

“They tell me skill in war increases with every battle. I know little of war, and even your father never won Devaki with his own prowess. But a singer can sing herself hoarse, and a callous herder milk a cow dry. Your father kept himself alive while helpless, and kept your mother alive while she posed a great threat to your uncle, and he kept them together when solitude would have driven them wild.”

“You think him brave!”

And again, [wonder woman baby.gif] Krishna is going to become someone who understands bravery beyond the physical wonderfully well, and his Mom’s here to guide his first steps down that path.

He is so young, Krishna, for all his valour and all his wit. So young, even though it seems most days that he knows all the things there are to know, that they are alive only by his grace. But he is sixteen, scarcely, and she is near fifty years of age. He has hardly seen anything of the world.

“I think him clever,” Rohini says. “Valiant, too, but not in the way of warriors who gain great renown in battle. He crossed the Yamuna in full flood for you, dearest, and then returned to Kamsa’s prison where he saw every day for sixteen years the spot where six of his sons had had the life smeared from them.”

This is Krishna & Yudhishtira’s one great similarity, in my head: the wish for more brothers to hide behind. They deal with it differently, but it’s there for both.

“I might have had brothers,” he says, and flashes her an apologetic smile. “I know I have one, but even that knowledge is new to me. I never thought I could love him more dearly than I did all my life, but in this I am happy to be proven wrong. But I might have had more.”

All these lives gone to suit a fearful man’s cruel paranoia.

“Kirttimat would have been twenty-five,” Rohini says, more to herself than him. “We would have been hunting out a bride for him. Then Sushena and Udayin and Bhadrasena, what strength they would have lent us in council, perhaps in war if they more closely resembled your matamaha than your father. Rijudasa and Bhadradeha would have still been in the care of their preceptor, and Balarama preparing to take Rijudasa’s place. And then you, youngest and most indulged.”

... let’s not think about the knives in Yashoda’s heart right now.

“Aren’t I so still?” Krishna laughs, and she thinks that this would not fool anyone who knows it well, that it would knife through Yashoda’s tender heart were she to hear it.

Vrishnis gossip. It’s what they do.

“You are the jewel of Mathura, best-beloved of an entire city,” she assures him. If there are rumours, they will be quieted soon. Of course there are rumours. Rohini has not lived in the city in years, but she knows still too well how the bees buzz in their hives, how gossip sings through the streets on the fleet wings of the mynah.

“You might have had more sons as well,” Krishna says, as though he likes the thought of being rendered insignificant by a horde of elder siblings, of being safely the infant of the family instead of the lauded hero who has battled demons and killed grown men.

Look, I never said I was a nice person.

“I would have liked a daughter,” she tells him, trading truth for truth. In Vraj she had looked at lissome young Radha and thought, if only Vasudeva had given me a child the year we were first wed. She had delighted in Radha’s friendship with Krishna, her amused tolerance of the boy following her around and sharing her chores: rare forbearance from a woman fifteen years his senior but oh, understandable.

He got away with so so much. In the song listing out Krishna’s hundred and eight names it says, “Ayaan Ghosh dubbed him Rage Douser.” Ayaan Ghosh is Radha’s husband and Krishna’s uncle, and knows about their affair, fwiw.

How could anyone resist Krishna’s laughter and his tricks and his charm? Yashoda and Nanda had never disciplined him; Rohini herself, who could rain recriminations upon stolid Balarama while the sun ran from morning to noon, faltered before she could devise a punishment for Krishna.

“You might still,” Krishna offers. “I should like a sister.”

Older people falling in love again is My Fave. Look, I read R/S fic at a formative age.

“If the gods will it,” she says repressively, as much to ward off her own blushes as his impudence. She has missed love, and Vasudeva’s arms around her are still the best home she has had, even though they are grey, even though imprisonment has sapped his vitality.

Ohohoho, just you wait, Rohini, he’s going to find every use possible for it and then some.

“You missed him, all these years,” Krishna says, because he has always been far too perceptive. When he was a child he had mostly used the knowledge to ferret out butter and ghee that had been stored out of sight; what uses he will find for it in a squabbling nest of nobles hardly bears thinking of.

“I’ve known Vasudeva since I was a girl climbing into womanhood and he was a boy proud of his first beard who could persuade a roaring council-hall into acquiescence. We were wed for years before Sini won him your mother’s hand,” she tells him. “Of course I did. But I had Balabhadra, and I had a share in you, and I had my duty before me.”

“Duty,” Krishna says, desolate again, and younger in his silk and gold than she’s ever seen him in torn cotton and mud. “And now I must do mine, when so many have given their lives for mine.”

“So many have had their lives won by you,” Rohini corrects, and stoops to press a kiss into his curls.

Dearest and loveliest of boys.

He smiles up at her as she straightens, but it is still a wan little thing and melts her heart as none of his sulking ever has.

“Come,” she says, “you have months yet till you must go to your preceptor. It does you no good to intrude on your elders' councils.”

“What would you bid me do instead? I can hardly herd cattle in this fine city, and there seem no demons about for me to defeat.”  He looks so quietly unhappy, her heroic son, her child who has lost the mother who raised him and cannot yet love the woman who bore him.

“You might have had more brothers if the gods had not wished them away,” she says instead of offering platitudes he would only despise, “and it is your right to mourn them. But you have cousins you might grow to love, who will be your allies as all of you grow to take your part in grihasthashram.”

He hones right in on his eventual favourites, but alas, there’s obstacles incoming.

“I thought they were in exile,” Krishna says, but now at last something is sparking to life behind his eyes. “My aunt Pritha and her children, I thought they were wandering in forests with King Pandu.”

Of course he thinks first of the ones deprived of their rightful homes, the ones who might be discomfited by palaces as he is himself.

“You have other aunts,” Rohini says in lieu of laughter. “Your pitamahi Bhojya had many children, and though King Shurasena was generous in giving them to such of his friends and cousins who—childless—were fated to roast in the hell, Puta, yet he kept his eldest son your father, and he kept his daughters Shrutadeva and Shrutashrava.”

“Their marriages are unhappy, you said.”

“And yet not childless,” Rohini says carefully. “Your aunt Shrutashrava has borne Prince Damaghosha of Chedi an heir, and I must visit if your mother cannot. We may travel without too large an escort of guards.”

“You would have me come with you?”

I just want to share the fact that family trees which start tracing lineages from the Sun and Moon still don’t show what family Rohini comes from and I had to read the Harivamsam to find out. I resent this fact.

“Only if you wish it as well. Then, too, Bahlika does not lie so very far from Chedi, and... Krishna, as you are in part my son, so too can I offer you a share in another matamaha and matamahi. My parents are old, and shall soon proceed into sannyasashram, but they are hale and they have always been happy. King Ugrasena is a great man, but...”

“Mother,” Krishna says, snatching up her hands and covering them with quick, fervent kisses. “You give me the sweetest gifts.”

[bulletandsophia]

One Night, One Morning

For the Jonsa fic prompt sent via @jonsa-creatives. :) I have totally and carelessly indulged in this (and slightly veered away) so it became a 3k+ fic. So this is also available in AO3 for those more comfy in reading long form fics there. Read it here. 

Btw, this is not quite D*ny-friendly, so if that is not your thing, scroll up and ignore. :)

Jonsa prompt:  idk who to give this prompt to but pls share! sansa can't understand why jon doesn't treat her the way he used to before he left dragonstone. he's cold and distant and sansa just wants her jon back, the one who smiled warmly at her and took care of her in little ways... he's home but she still misses him. jon has his reasons... he's protecting sansa from the jealous dragon queen. he can't let danielle know how he truly feels about sansa...

i.

It was not supposed to be this way.

There should have been some sort of resonance in this small victory—the feeling of a new-found hope underneath the loud screeches of the two dragons nestling just beyond the Wolfswood. It should have been a warm homecoming with arms wide open to welcome the returned; with soft smiles to share and impart—a kiss even, to be stolen. But Winterfell’s gates creaked in agony as the hoard of foreign men settle inside the courtyard looking tired and displeased yet still carried deep within their bones that flair of such untoward Southern arrogance that made the common folks take a step back and cram themselves to the sides.

Her people. Disregarded in their own home.

Sansa knows in her heart it should not have been this way.

Where the chair her father once sat upon now sits a woman with pale, silvery hair; where the grumbles and the low but familiar voices of her northern lords are silenced in slight disbelief and perhaps, even fear—of the unknown forces, of their foreign languages, and also, of their undeniable strength.

Ruthless, Sansa thinks. To have them—this Dragon Queen—take it all away just because she can.

Just because she wants to.

Foolishly, Sansa thought of the one reprieve in this disaster that dwells upon their kingdom. Glancing up from her seat at one of the Great Hall’s long table, and there just beside the pale queen on the newly built dais, frowning and aimlessly knifing at the rare meat on their plate, is the man whom she once, thousands of years ago, thought of as a stranger.

Forgive me.

There’s nothing to forgive.

In her mind, Sansa urges him to look at her. To help her see light at this sudden and suffocating shift; as if like a labyrinth that intends to trap her there.

Jon.

She calls in her head, eyes never leaving the sight of him.

I am here.

But he doesn’t budge.

He only moves when the Dragon Queen whispers something in his ear, pointing at a group of Dothrakis roaring with laughter at the other end of the hall.

He smiles then and it renders Sansa to a jolt. The pain, although quiet, is unexpected.

She grips her fork tightly, taking one last glance at his face and compelling herself to remember him, the real him before all of this chaos. So instead, she forces herself to look away only to avoid any other trivialities growing in her chest. But evidently (and how idiotic of her), she’s truly unable to not look back, thoughts still seeping with hope that she could get to see the man she has missed.

She wills for him to look at her once more. And for a fleeting moment, he finally does. But beyond the fur cloak she’s made, Sansa realizes, he only looks like a stranger once more.

ii.

The gray of her skirt flutters as she walks silently away from the Great Hall.

He notices, of course. He always does.

But the notion of not letting anyone else see this side of him brimming with the one weakness that floods his mind day and night is the only thing that remains emboldened in his consciousness.

No one can know.

Jon cannot remember how many times he has convinced himself of that thought. The ambiguity of it reduces him into feeling like a child reprimanded by Ser Rodrik in the training yard because, what truly can no one know? His misplaced and forced loyalty to the dragon crown? The sudden and painful throbbing in his chest as he was welcomed not by angry Northerners as he expected but worse: a disheartened and disappointed men? That it sill jars him to his core because is this what he has made of them, after exchanging their independence for an alliance? An alliance already hanging by a fine, thin, and unpredictable thread?

Or is it, simply, if honesty is his weapon, about that certain restriction this politics has forced him to partake; that while he came back home with some semblance of hope in defeating the White Walkers, he still can’t have the one he wants the most; the one he’s most longed for?

The one with fire in her hair and winter in her eyes.  

His memories of Sansa, those that they only truly share together after their reunion, after the hardships of battling the Boltons, after all the heated conversations with the Northern lords wherein, as soon as the hall’s door closes, it leaves them alone and at peace with the warmth of the hearth crackling that he has made a fearful and yet certain discovery not only about her, but importantly, about himself and his wants and his needs of her—those memories, those he kept close to his heart are now the ones hidden in the far corner of his consciousness for if he allows himself to even think of what could have been, if he had not left for Dragonstone, Jon simply knows that he would break.

We never should have left Winterfell.

The truth faintly echoes in his head once more.

Bran and Arya sit quietly at the high table at his side. A peculiar setup, truly, for another Stark is not placed with them. He ignores the side glances of Lady Mormont or the disgruntled and almost angry frown of Lady Brienne and Podrick. But this scenario, where the hall is thick with false acceptance and revelries, where Bran and Arya sit closely by his side simply because he refused to sit anywhere without them, is something Jon had already foreseen the moment Sansa refused to bend the knee.

Sansa seated at the high table can only magnify her unending influence over the kingdom he had just given away. So, she belongs to the low tables instead, like some bastard. Like him. Disposed easily by the queen because she has not heeded to her demands.

Bend the knee or burn, Lady Stark.

Jon grips the stem of his goblet tighter for the unfairness of it all.

“More wine?” the queen asks him.

Jon shakes his head and feels the need to get away, to find some solace; search for Sansa and appease himself from this grave but desperate mistake. The more he stays in the hall and only to be surrounded by strange cackling and stranger crowds, the more he’d also now rather face the Night King instead.

To get this all over with.

He moves ever so slightly to finally stand but the queen is sharp and immediate with her words.

“Don’t leave.”

He looks at her, challenging and yet knowing. Her expression tells more than what he had allowed himself to comprehend all those moons ago in Dragonstone.

They will see you for who you truly are.

She wants me. Jon knows now for sure. And only she shall have me.

This strength of the silver-haired queen should have been incomparable, admirable. But this strength only also begs to be challenged, to be questioned, for power should not show itself only in the moments of terror and indecisions. True power, Jon knows, is the ability to not even wield, ask, and beg for it; it must form itself from the natural thrust of anything and everything that surrounds it. It is the calling that creeps in the shadow before it howls. Like some old innocent love story or song that eventually lashes to fight for a bitter, cruel end.

Sansa is this power.

And the queen knows this too.

For she is neither a rose nor a lion, not a kraken nor a dragon. No, she’s a wolf—the wolf that has led her pack with as much grace and intelligence Jon only regrets to never have witnessed such beauty every single day. So how else can a foreign queen destroy the pack but to keep them all apart? By asking the most foolish one to leave and join her side of fire and blood? All for the sake of dawn, perhaps. All for the sake of another tomorrow.

But how worthy, Jon laments, is another tomorrow without Sansa by his side?

Beside him, Jon feels Arya reach for her sword, reading too much too unto the vague threat of the queen. He settles back then only to stop her, reaching her small shaking hands.

Not now, little sister.

He wonders, how much longer can they—can he—endure this all?

iii.

The snow is gently falling into the godswood and Sansa welcomes the familiar silence.

The small feast is still not over but she knows only those who came from the south are enjoying much of the warmth Winterfell offers.

Patience, she asked of her lords. Patience until the war for dawn is over. Patience until we fight for our independence again.

Patience.

But the waiting, for sure, is pure agony.

She sits by the large boulder just underneath the branches where her father also used to rest. Perhaps, Sansa thinks, this seat can become the new northern throne rather than the wooden one in the hall. The godswood is no place for any southerner anyhow. In here, perhaps no fire can survive.

She is almost pulled into a sweet, sweet calm and lethargy when she hears the crunching of boots on the snow and her heart leaps in another round of desperate and foolish hopes because, as always, the first in her thoughts, has he finally followed her?

“I am so very sorry to interrupt, my lady.”

Sansa turns to the voice, surprised to find this other familiar man approaching, not denying that while it deflates her not to see Jon, Tyrion Lannister still carries with him the kindness he has shown her in King’s Landing.

She urges him to come. He smiles at her, unsure, but settles just the same on a low white branch.

“I thought the godswood would be empty tonight.” he says, opening the leather flask he carries. “Someone once told me, it’s the only place where one can never be bothered.”

Sansa smiles at that, relieved that at least someone remembers what it has been like for her too.

How long has it truly been?

“How are you my lord?”

Tyrion shrugs. “It does not matter, should it? What are the weight of our little mishaps when the rest of the world faces the bigger threats of war and death?”

Sansa looks away, feeling like a child once more for he speaks true. How can she be selfishly thinking of her wants when there are more bigger things that matter? All of her hopes and childish dreams do not belong to their world that stenches of death.

Patience, she reiterates again.

“But,” Tyrion exhales, as if sensing his mistake at her sudden and painful silence. He drinks from his flask before continuing. “As we are the only two people in this frozen woods, I dare say our mishaps matter most here.”

She looks at him wistfully then. “What troubles you then, my lord?”

He chuckles. “Everything, my lady Sansa. Everything.”

She takes a deep breath and leans on the trunk of the heart tree.

“I am troubled that the queen has come to Westeros and all for naught,” Tyrion starts to speak again. “I am troubled that it is getting harder and harder to place sense into her. I am troubled that her certain greed to rule could one day be her end. I am troubled that this madness is already overcoming the goodness of her heart.”

“You do not believe in her anymore?”

Tyrion eyes her carefully. “I have not said that.”

But you didn’t have to, Sansa thinks.

He takes another swig from the flask. “Jon, your king, helps make her see sense.”

Sansa ignores the pain again. She does not want to hear more of it but if this is the only way to understand all these sudden shifts and loyalties, and then yes, she will listen to Tyrion Lannister all night.

“The queen loves him. Or at least, she is fond of him.” Tyrion simply states. “And what do they say about people smitten with other people? Some fools.”

“Jon is no fool.” Sansa almost says passionately. At least that’s what I know of him.

Tyrion quirks an eyebrow. “Perhaps.”

She sighs, leaning forward and resting her arms on her lap. “This can’t be all of it, my lord. I refuse to believe that we have endured all that we have endured only to see an end where we remain to be the forgotten. My sister said this to me once, that when the god of death comes, we only have one thing to say.”

“And what is it?”

“Not today.”

Tyrion lifts his flask as a toast before gulping more wine.

“If the dead comes, I sure hope you are safe in the south, my lady. Go to your uncle in the Riverlands. Let the queen and Jon Snow face the army of the dead. Her dragons—”

“No.” Sansa stubbornly cut him off and forcefully exclaims, “I will never abandon my home. Not again.”

He nods. “I wish your father could see you now.”

“I wish that too.”

“To House Stark?” he lifts the wine again.

“To House Stark.”

Tyrion passes the flask and Sansa takes a sip then hands it back to Tyrion’s waiting hands. He takes another drink.

“What happens after, Lord Tyrion?” she asks then as she feels the wine settles. “After the dawn comes again, what happens?”

He looks thoughtful even if his gaze is faraway and into the darkened, snowy woods around. “If the war is won against the dead, then the war against the living begins. Do you think my sister will hand the Iron Throne simply because the dragon queen saved humanity? No, Cersei will not care for that. Because for what it’s worth, humanity remains to be humanity’s greatest enemy. No Night King can become the greatest villain.”

“I will never pledge the North to a Lannister.”

“It’s not yours to pledge anymore, my lady. Jon has—“

“Jon needs to do what he needs to do.” Sansa still despairingly believes. “It’s the White Walkers he’s more worried about. But ask him about the politics of the South and see if he cares. And your dragon queen, she does not own the North either. We bow to no southerner anymore.”

“Sansa,” Tyrion whispers as if in warning. “The queen will take what is hers with fire and blood. The North is hers by succession. Jon is—”

“Jon is not hers.” she almost spats. “He is of the North and the North is mine. He is mine.”

Then the realization of what she had just uttered dawns a little too late. The horror creeps up slowly while the silence consumes the godswood. Sansa is terrified to look now at her once-husband. Her words are fleeting and few but she knows they weigh more than all the snow in the world.

“I am afraid I do not have enough wine for this.” Tyrion teases after a lengthy and knowing pause but offers a kind, understanding smile.

Sansa sighs and reaches for his extended hand and takes the leather flask. She drinks, the wine filling her mouth and lining her throat as she gulps.

It tastes bitter and it tastes sweet.

iv.

Jon pushes the window open.

He does not like the warmth of the room—or of how it still smells of lavender and lemon, of how it looks so much just like her; with the newly woven tapestry of direwolves hanging by the wall, the feel of the softest fur on his fingertips, the dresses behind the thin wooden divider he dares not to look and admire, the array of brushes she use for her fiery hair, the parchment and ledgers on her desks filled with her words, her writings, her wisdom, her, her, her..

Why is he in her room? Why are they in her room?

The Lady of Winterfell’s chambers belong to the Lady of Winterfell. Yet here he is, in his small clothes; brooding in the wrong room with the wrong bed and with the wrong woman to placate.

The thud and guilt in his chest amplify. Jon did more than once have actually considered wanting this—truly wanting this; this scenario where the queen waits for him, anticipates his kisses, his pleasures, his longing and yet, every time he tries to do so, to look at her lilac eyes and bask in her undeniable beauty, something remains amiss. Something still does not sit right.

Jon knows how easy it is to succumb to the sins of the body, countless times he’s heard his brothers at the Wall crave for it especially on cold and lonely nights. And him, wanting this with the queen could begin and end everything—simplify it. He could love her and this would erase his fears of her abandoning his cause; removing her own doubts that he’d place his loyalty with the Lannisters.

But loving her, no matter how easy it could be, would not be real.

“Jon?”

He takes a sideway glance, looking at the faint silhouette of her and her silvery hair as she stirs then sits on the bed.

“Are you not cold there?” she asks softly.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

No, I am of the North. I could never be cold.

The gnawing sensation at the back of his neck returns for here, relentlessly, he could never be at peace. This invasion of the dragon queen and her retinue runs deep not only within the walls of the keep but even within the veins of his consciousness and his thoughts.

Simply, Jon does not want to be bothered by her. And he does not care much for her intrusion and concern now.

“Tell me what worries you.”

He opens his eyes. “Nothing.”

She fills the silence again, “I thought it was a lovely feast your siblings prepared.”

That Sansa prepared.

“I knew I had fair warning about how stubborn the northerners are.” she continues. “But your sister, Sansa, reminds me so much of you.”

It takes all of Jon’s will to not glare and reprimand her for she does not know Sansa. She does not know the North. She does not know Arya or Bran or little Lady Mormont. She should not speak of those she does not know. Is it not enough that she already has the north to rule for her to even take this quiet intimacy away from him? He wills her in his head to stop talking, to go back to sleep and let him endure the pain in peace.

“Do you love her—your Sansa?”

Jon stills. He turns for the suddenness and the randomness of the question and then meets her judging and challenging gaze.

“That’s what you whispered,” she says now, not backing down her stare. “As you made love to me, you whispered her name. Sansa.”

Shame momentarily erupts in his chest for he knows, in a moment of weakness and lapse, he did so. Always as he closes his eyes during their coupling, the remorse eats him up for he is betraying Sansa again and again. But this shame now is only instantly replaced with fury for only she, the dragon queen, with her disdainful and still challenging expression, could dare and question such devotion as if Sansa does not deserve his admiration, his love; for only a queen like her can be served with the truth—see it, hear of it, and be betrayed by it and yet still render the reality as if insignificant, as if something she must trample with her feet.

“Well, do you?” she repeats again.

And so, he dives for it and tells her of what she wants to know. If only to keep her quiet. And if this confession kills him, then let it be so.

I’m tired of fighting.

And if in his second death where it would deliver him back into the darkness, he knows he left this world fighting with Sansa’s name as the last that his lips mumbled.

“What kind of a question is that?” he stares back then pointedly. “Of course, I love her.”

Jon revels at the slight twitch on her features—perhaps in shock for the truth in his words are raw and palpable enough to be touched, to be burned, to be showered in blood.

Let it simmer in you, he thinks. Let it be excruciating. Let it be ruthless, just like you are with her.

Because I love her.

I love her. I love her.

He loves Sansa more than enough to fight again for life, fight again for the life that has been unfair to him since the beginning of time.

The queen does not move only for the swift way she pulls the furs further up her torso, her expression tumbling between sorrowful and angry for she knows, he does not lie.

But this, exactly this disposition of the dragon queen, exactly this impulsive behavior as she now suddenly stands, naked and emboldened with her strides and only to pull his head down to meet hers, for her to kiss him deeply, harshly—this endless, selfish strife to fulfill her wants prompts Jon to utter the next words that darkly resonates, forever.

He turns away for the bitterness in this other truth is something the queen will take joy in and he does not want to see it.

Agonizingly, he whispers into the night, “She’s my sister.”

v.

Mornings are supposed to present a new sense of hope and a renewed kind of energy. But after breaking her fast alone in her old childhood chambers, Sansa has already foregone the notion of keeping play with the politics today.

Rest. Perhaps today I shall rest my heart.

But she is not well within her slumber when she hears a knock on her door. She allows the visitor entry and watches as Lady Brienne enters soundly.

“My lady,” she starts. “Your brother asks of you.”

“My brother?”

Which one?

“Bran.” Brienne clarifies.

Sansa pulls herself up and fastens her robes and cloak. She could and would give time for Bran. Always.

She enters Bran’s chambers only to be rendered to a jolt once more for they are not alone. In the armchair sits Samwell Tarly, on the bed lays Arya playing with her dagger, and right in front of the hearth, staring at the flames, stands Jon with the cloak she’s made secure on his back.

“Close the door, Sansa,” Bran tells her. “There is much to discuss.”

She does not want to look nor give Jon a gaze but Jon turns to meet her eyes the moment Bran mentions her name. Then, she does not see him at first and only when he nudges his head to her hand does Sansa feel Ghost standing just right beside her too. But then quickly, she ignores this and followed Bran’s lead instead. Latching the door close, Sansa turns to face her family again with the view of the open window in the background, giving her a peculiar scene of a dragon perched on top a snowy hill from a far.

Then, as she sits beside Arya and faraway from Jon, Bran falls into some sort of trance and begins to speak.

[this--love-is-treacherous]

okay i know no one is going to read this, but i just want to put it out there and i don’t know maybe someone actually will take the time to read this and i don’t know maybe help me??? or understand me??? idk, but here it goes lately i’ve been feeling all kinds of emotions and being extra sentimental and, honestly, feeling like shit. And here goes why : a boy. WHAT A CLICHE AND TEENAGER THING TO DO, i know and trust me my head is just like “stop this” but… i can’t. So my story with this guy begins over a year ago, april (i think???) of 2016, i went to a friend’s surprise birthday party and he was going to be there, at that time i don’t even know who he was like i have only heard his name once and because one of my friends (kinda) made out with him. The thing is before meeting him (or any of the other guests) i hung out with a friend to buy a present and go together where the party was, so, anyway, my friend told me that she wanted something with him because they have been texting for like two days?? maybe?? and he seemed really nice and he was handsome and he seemed interested in her and she wanted some action lmao so, i asked her if she had asked Lucie (i’m gonna use names bc it’s gonna get really confusing. Rachel is the one who wanted to make a move on him and Lucie is the one who has already made out with him okay leT’S CONTINUE) if she was okay with that bc you know, obvious reasons, Rachel told me that they have an agreement and i was "okay which is??" she told me that none of them wanted something serious so the one he payed more attention or you know, were more flirty with, will me the one “allowed” to make a move on him. NOW flash forward to the birthday party, when i first met him he was sO NICE and i felt so comfortable??? which happens never with strangers??? i was shook. Anyway, so he starts being flirty with me, paying attention to me, and talking to me, laughing with me,… and little to nothing with the others , i flirted back but because i was comfortable and you know, flirting is kinda funny and you know at the time i saw it like innocent flirtation??? after we left all my friends started like ohmygod you two should make out, you were so cute, he definitely wants something with you….. like that and i was like no????? i’m not gonna see him, like, ever again????? and at the time it was true (little did i know) , i didn’t even had his phone so there wasn’t much that i could do so i just kinda forgot about him, he was just the guy i flirted with and that made me feel “"special”“ somehow bc he payed attention to me and not my hot friends so it was nice. One month later we happen to be in the same birthday party of anOTHER friend lol and as the time before we flirt and we laugh and he still pays attention to me so by this time i start to wonder "what if???” and after this birthday he follows me in instagram and somehow he got my snapchat as well, neither of us talk to each other but he is in the back of my mind and i start to think of him as my crush (i mostly blame my friends for this bc they were so like “you two are so cute!!!1!!”) and one day, out of the blue, he sends me a snapchat and i was like boy??????? anD here comes the ????? part : it was a photo of him about to go in the shower (NO NUDES DONT WORRY lmao) so i was like wtf and i “texted” him back with “cool background, your shower, nice place to take photos lmao” and he answers me “ well it’s obvious you’re new to my snapchat, i do this all the time” and i go to his snapchat story and the same photo was there so i was like okay he just sent me this by mistake cool no problem excEPT the next day he does exactly the same thing, not with a shower photo but you know a mirror photo, idk, unimportant really, he sent me the photo but the photo was also in his story so i start doing the same thing. We go on for like three days, doing that, not talking, not answering the snaps, just sending photos that everyone is seeing lmao, anyways, so by the third day we get the streak and i think we both panicked (at least i know i did, lol it was getting real??? i don’t know if that makes sense, but) and we stopped sending anything like, at all (btw i never EVER told my friends about this because a) they were gonna make this a big deal when i knew it wasn’t and b) i somehow wanted to keep this between us??? idk ) . Anyway, near a year goes by, and during all this time i do not see him or talk to him or anything of the sort but he somehow still is in my head??????? i don’t know why and i know it’s stupid but no matter what i do (or who i do….) i can’t get him out of my head, just with the hope that i would see him again and finally ALMOST A YEAR LATER i do. It was honestly so unexpected, i was at a local festivity called San Isidro in Madrid (which is where i live btw) and we just bumped into each other (not literally but i was not there to see him, i just went so say hi to a friend and there he was!!) so i’m like “hey!!??” , he says hi as well and we talk, small talk, for about 20 minutes and he actually remembers me!! (again, unexpected) and he says “long time no see, i missed you” (okay, let me just say that this guy is VERY FLIRTY with everyone like you could say he is a fuckboy and he just has one of those personalities, in Spain we say ‘tirafichas’ lol) and i was like dying on the inside!! but in the outside sonehow i managed to stay cool and be flirty like ohmygod really? and what did you missed most about me? and he just says “you make me laugh” and yes, you guessed it, i almost died like imagine your crush!!amazing!! so, after this we get separated, he goes home and i don’t see him again that night. THE NEXT NIGHT i see him again and this night we talk more and he spent together more time, with other people most of the time, but sometimes only the two of us in the conversation and he asks me what do i want to study i ask him how his grades are doing, things like that, nothing to serious and we still are flirty with each other and, at one point of the night, one of my friends who was drunk af see us talking and asks us “are you two dating???” AND I WAS SO MORTIFIED LIKE I WANTED THE EARTH TO JUST SWALLOW ME , FOR REAL!! the funny thing is that this friend, Gabby, she haven’t met him and i haven’t told her about him, ever!! So after that i think we were moth so “embarrassed” that we go in separate ways until a few hours later when i was talking to one of the friends we got in common and he joined us and he starts talking about the last girl she had made out with and how he “"kept”“ a list of all the girls he had made out with and i was so??? disgusted??? but not only for the fact that he was my crush cause, after all, i didn’t had a reason to be mad at him just because i had a crush on him didn’t mean that he couldn’t live his life, it was for the fact that he kept a list??? like women were trophies??? so i tell him like "ohmygod that is so lame and honestly so??? wrong???” and he just looks embarrassed and says “well it’s not like i write them down is just, i like to keep count, not for anything in particular, not to brag or anything, i never told the number of girls i made out with to anyone, i’m so sorry if it looked sexist to you it’s just a thing i do” so kinda calm down after this cause he sounded so sincere??? and for what i have talked to him he seemed not that kind of guy??? like, yes, he was a fuckboy but not in a bad way?? idk if that makes sense… so, one thing led to another and we end up talking about virginity lmao (we were more than the two of us in that conversation just so you know) and as the virgin ass bitch i am i just shut up and i hear the others talk about their first time and my crush (which i think you deserve to know his name if you made it this far lmao) whose name is Charles (IT SOUNDS MUCH NICER IN SPANISH : CARLOS , everybody calls him by his last name anyway which is Rayo , translated to english it means lightning lol) ANYWAY he says “i only fucked once and it was because i liked this girl and i was comfortable with her, i don’t just fuck with anyone just so you guys know” and….. my heart eyes came back with those words and beSIDES he was looking at me most of the time he was saying that!! like!! what are you trying to do!! Anyway, the night ends, nothing happens, of course and we don’t see each other for 10 days i think????? ACTUALLY something really funny and strange happened in these 10 days, i left a comment in a friend’s photo on instagram and two hours later i see he has left a comment in the same photo!! and i was so shocked cause this friend is from a totally different circle than all my other friends, she is a year older and i only know her because she is in my volleyball team so for me there was no way these two knew each other so i texted her asking why the hell did she knew him and she tells me a) their parents know each other so they’re like cousins and b) he has asked the exact same question. You must know that by this time my crush was increasing and increasing and increasing…….so, back to the story, we run into each other again at a mutual friend’s bday (ACTUALLY the same friend bday party we first met) and again, we talk we laugh we flirt… but he also flirts with other guest who he has made out with before, i knew her she was at my school but you know we weren’t friends of anything and i don’t take this personally cause as i said before he was my anything and he obviously could do his life and honestly it hurt but like not really??? i think because i basically assumed that nothing was gonna happen that he was flirting with me and i’ll take that because i liked the feeling but i was okay with nothing happening i assumed that this feeling, whatever it was, it’ll go away, eventually. So that night we were at my friend’s house and some of us (including him and me) went to buy some alcohol (it was pretty late by then, like midnight probably???) so in this ….walk??? we ended up alone (like not alone ALONE, but like with some distance between us and the others) and he asked me about my love-life and i said like well i have a plan A but idk i don’t think it’s gonna work out (i was referring to him, of course) and he said “well, do you like this guy?? or this girl cause you know i don’t want to assume things” (I ALMOST DIED RIGHT THERE CAUSE I NEVER EVER EVER HAD KNOWN ANYONE OUTSIDE THE COMUNITY WHO HAS SAID THIS WITHOUT KNOWING MY SEXUALITY) so i answered “well i’m bisexual, but this one is a guy and no i don’t really like him it’s just ugh idk” by that time i wouldn’t admit that i liked him so i didn’t say lmao to what he said “nice, on the bisexuality thing. And you know if you don’t really like this guy then search for a plan B?” and i replied “Well, if I just could, but idk it’s just weird. But enough about me, what about you, how many plans do you have?” and he said with so!!much!!honesty!! (at least it seemed) “well i’ve been lying to you if i said i don’t have a few plans here and there but like lately everytime i make out with someone it’s just so ?? idk void?? and i’m not saying i want a girlfriend because let’s be honest i am not the relationship type but idk lately i’ve been in a down mood in my love life” so i told him i understood him completely and he was about to say something when the bday girl interrupted us (I LOVE HER BUT!!!! girl!!!! although in her defense she didn’t know that he was my crush if that i had weird feelings towards him so..) and said to him that she noticed him kinda sad and that he had to cheer up (i didn’t know him that well to know if he was sad but he has always been a cheerful guy around me that this broke my heart a little) and then she said like “don’t worry soon we’ll get you some girl so you can cheer up” (as i said he is quite a fuckboy and he has that game iand all his friends kind mess around with him because of it) but this time he said “okay you can quit with that already” and even his/my friend was a little shook tbh and from that conversation and forward he wouldn’t even talk to me like yeah if we were in the same group talking we would like say something to me but never too much, he totally changed how he behaved around me, he would talk and laugh and flirt with the others and when he maybe before looked for me he literally just moved if i came near him , idk it was weird. The night finally ended and despite the fact that i never said anything to my friends about how i felt for them rayo was just like “if it happens, it happens, but i’m not going to force it” when it really was “please please please let this happen i want it really bad” one of my friends that night kept insisting me that i made a move on him (which i didn’t obviously). After that night i was sure this was over, the flirtation the hopes, everything, over and i was ready to assume that and besides my most important exams where about to begins so i spent less time thinking about him, only when i listened to certain songs or when i saw his photo on instagram but i never let myself think about him too much on those days and honestly i was thankful for the distraction. Unfortunately, the distraction came to an end and my exams finished so everyone went out to party and GUESS WHO I FOUND (again, it was kinda of a festivity that we do when everyone finished these specific exams and we do it in the most known madrid university campus and we just drink, basically. It’s a little weird when i describe it but it’s typical spanish lmao) so i saw him and i was a little drunk, he was too, and he said hi and he acted normal again with me and again he flirted and he messed with me, and i did with him and we were back at it and i was so drunk that i didn’t even had time to think what this was going to do with my brain. And it was like the other times except this time he was being much more physical like other times maybe he grabbed my hand or “punched” me but it was platonic, but this time he hugged me and grabbed my hand x1000 times than usual and rest his head on my shoulder when we were sitting…. things like that and even one time he put his arm around me and our faces were INCHES away and he said “we’re quite a pair” (he didn’t literally said that but there’s not literal translation for what he said to me, this is the most alike i think) and since i was really drunk and he was too i was going to make a move and you know, blame it on the alcohol if it didn’t work but esforcé i could do anything he STEPPED AWAY. We continued talking, he took my alcohol away (by one my friend’s order lmao) and before i realised he was gone like, gone gone. Yes, he said goodbye, but you know my goal that night was to make a move on him and i couldn’t and when he left the alcohol hit me like a bitch and i was really sad (not only bc of him but other stuff too) so after crying for like 30 minutes??? i went home and in the way back my drunk ass texted him “heyyy! you kept my alcohol. not cool.” and after i sent it i showed to one of my friends like what the hell did i just do (AGAIN i must remind you my friends were clueless about my feelings for all they knew that night was just another opportunity for me to make out with him, and they totally thought i was crying about something else cause not once no matter how drunk i was i told them i was bothered for what had happened that night and they even didn’t know what happened after the next day when i told them) anYWAY back to the text, after sending that and not having an answer for like 15 minutes??? he texted me back saying “right, sorry ❤️” and i just replied with a “hahaha” (SMOOTH, RACHEL lol) sO THE NEXT DAY i pretended like i didn’t remember the conversation and said “lol i don’t remember texting you i guess i was really drunk yesterday. Tbh i’m kinda glad you took my alcohol, god knows where i had ended, well, at least i do know that i didn’t do anything i could have regretted today” (the last one was like a indirect??? don’t know if he got it) anyway he texted back and we kept talking for the rest of the day and he seemed interested in keeping the conversation so i was happy until the end of the day when he just let it die, like literally, it was SO EASY to continue the conversation cause i just had asked a question so after his reply it was enough for him to say “what about you?” but hE DID NOT so after that day (this was june already) we don’t talk again cause you know he let it die so i’m not gonna crawl back i’m sorry i still have my pride and after a few days i find out that he has been talking to this girl which was also at my school and being so obvious at her and just telling her that they should meet and that she was really pretty and you know just throwing himself at her, again i wasn’t jealous but this time it was really clear that he did not want anything with me cause if he did then he would’ve been as obvious with me as he was being with this girl so I FINALLY FINALLY accepted it, it hurt and it wasn’t easy i still had these feelings which were just getting stronger everytime i saw him and talked to him but i thought i have learnt my lesson. Then a week ago i saw him again and THE MOST CONFUSING THING happened, i run into him with some friends who he already knew and so he said hi and greeted (that exists????) with two kisses in the cheek (again, typical spanish) then he comes to me and instead giving me two kisses as he had done with everyone else and this includes two of his best friends he hUGS ME like literally put his arms around me!! and i’m like wtf!! so i put my arms around him too you know to, be nice?? and after 3 seconds?? i remove them cause i don’t want it to be awkward bUT he does not remove it and he says “come on, it’s you and me we deserve a hug” AND AGAIN I WAS SHOOK AF !! so after 20 seconds, easily???? he pulls back and goes to say hi to the rest of the people (again with the normal greeting of two kisses on the cheeks) and i am left standing there shook and my friend tells me “what the hell was that” and i’m like “no idea ” . So during the whole time he was there h e is AGAIN FLIRTING WITH ME AND BEING SUPER PHYSICAL and yes i relapsed because he is so cute!! and i am so comfortable around him!! and then he leaves and says “well, see you around” AND THAT’S IT BUT IM HONESTLY SO CONFUSED BY THIS GUY AND MY FRIENDS BASED ON THE THINGS THEY KNOW TELL ME THAT HE LIKES ME AND I DON’T WANT TO HAVE HIGH HOPES BUT I’D BE LYING IF I TOLD YOU THAT ONE SMALL PART OF ME DOESN’T THINK SO AS WELL BUT ITHER PART TELLS ME THAT HE DOESN’T WANT ANYTHING AND MAYBE HE IS MOCKING ME BECAUSE HE THINKS I LIKE HIM IR MAYBE HE WANTS TO BE FRIENDS OR??????? idk this is really stressful so if anyone made it this far, probably no lmao, a) any advice????? b) im sorry for my grammar or typos it’s really late and i’m just pouring my thoughts so i’m not really thinking straight and c) thank you??? i guess??? for listening???