#he's the only one i got a reference for. everyone else got drawn from memory and it showssss fbjfbfjfj

[avid-adoxography]

I have nothing to say to defend myself.

Just take it.

#self shipping #the thematic whiplash. the just some guy energy below vs the absolute menacing aura above. the cringe on my face. #this picture sure has everything uh jcbdfjdhc *head in hands sobbing* #back at it again with meme redraws because it's the only thing i can draw lately #better than nothing! but still... #also shout out to will ferrel for having one of the hardest faces to draw. my god. #he's the only one i got a reference for. everyone else got drawn from memory and it showssss fbjfbfjfj #buddy the elf #yeah no i ain't tagging him as a f/o. despite the uhh... well.. *vaguely gestures at the obvious red flags* #f/o: king Cornelius (the Horned King) #f/o: Ricardo #f/o: Sturm #avid-art #now if y'all excuse me I'm throwing myself in a bottomless pit. bye 🕳️🏃

[recreyo]

RECREYO - CHAN: THEORIES / THOUGHTS

As of right now, "Recreyo Chan" has had three official appearances in videos, one possible season 2 design sketch, and two off-hand references.

Aaand, with promises from Curt that the SCP arc will have actual lore, and a VC that signified that Recreyo definitely knew about the fandom's thirst for lore... I think it's safe to say that RC may have more to do with it than what was initially planned from when she was first created. Especially when her recent appearances have been.. odd, and a specific event in the official Recreyo Discord had thrown us all for a loop.

This post is to showcase my thoughts and hopefully provide some clarity on who she actually is. (And if I'm sensible, then what she also could be.)

Warning: this may be a little long.

RC's debut was on Nov 16, 2021 for an Anime NYC announcement. You can find the video here.

From this video alone, RC definitely appears more like a mascot than anything- a one-off character who would only be mentioned for two visual gags from then on, plus a drawing that Ivan did shortly after the second video.

It's important to note that one of these references were definitely coincidental, and I don't want that to be forgotten. However, I wanted to address it just in case. After all, an accidental reference could very well be spun into a lore tidbit.

( The picture below is from a video's ad I can't remember, so if you find it please lemme know )

The video that that frame is from is old, that much I know. But recently, definitely after that video was up for months, Ivan dropped a possible season 2 design for RC. (3/23/23)

And what do you know, on the 17th, only 6 days before that drawing was sent in the Discord, we saw RC again. Albiet, it was just by name, so we don't know if it was just another gag. It likely is, since the animator could've drawn it ages before we saw it uploaded, but...

Let's just keep it in mind.

( The picture below is from We Let an AI Write This Video )

After these small bits, though, we got two actual appearances from RC. Ones that actually kept her design and so we know for a fact that they are the same character. INTENTIONALLY this time, I should add.

( Picture below is from Can You Survive Dr. Stone? )

At 9:31, Curt says "Nah, I gotta progress the plot." and we see the screen glitch with this frame showing up. This is, without a doubt, RC. From the blue hair, the red tie, and even the spiral cheeks- this is the mark that she was becoming something more.

(Plot-relevant, if you will.)

Being deliberately consistent now, we can take this a little more seriously.

I wanna say that although I don't know the specific time, the video was uploaded at the latest: 2:48 PM. I know this since that was time of the earliest message about the video in the Discord.

You might think it's redundant, but I bring the time up because everyone who was in the Discord would know that something else had happened that day, and it's incredibly important that we're all aware of it.

This person, who I'll call CA, had joined at 4:12. Two whole hours after the video was released, and so a lot of people had already watched it by then and had theorized about RC's surprising return.

Everyone's lore theories were public. And although framed as a hacker, CA was all obviously a plot by Recreyo to get us riled up for the lore. We know this, since Curt himself had showed up in the general chat prior to "play dumb" about everyone's collective breakdown.

Anyway, to summarize what had happened after CA showed up:

Everyone was pinging them, flirting, etc. Basically trolling, but also publicly theorizing that they were RC's account. By the way, "c̶" also was in the video's description, almost matching CA's name.

CA had a role (shown above) that put them at the top of the member-list. They were also apparently unbannable according to the mods.

Curt got "hacked" and if memory serves right, his PFP changed to the glitching RC picture. He sent the message "c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛͛c̶̓̈a̶͛" into the announcements channel.

Den banned Curt after confirming that he was "hacked."

Curt rejoined and got his Recreyo role back. However... CA is still online as I type this.

Again, everything was obviously a stunt, and I don't need to argue about that. However, I want to take all of this seriously in the sense that it's lore-related, because if we keep on going "it's just a joke" then everything in Recreyo's lore wouldn't matter. So SHUT THE FUCK UP IF YOU'RE TYPING "IT WAS AN APRIL FOOL'S JOKE" (BECAUSE IT WASN'T EVEN APRIL FOOL'S FOR THEM!!!!)

Anyhow, I think it's obvious that CA is connected to RC. Whether they're the same person or not, the glitch theme mixed with the hacker idea is way too similar. And if you're not convinced that it's even a motif, then let's go into today's upload.

( Picture below is from Officially Announcing the New Recreyo Member )

..Yeah, so this is happening. This is real.

An interesting detail is that RC was originally Den before glitching onto the frame. And if you continued watching, you'd notice that the screen pans over and Den shows up on the other side of the picture.

So... this is where we end with our sudden appearances, and we actually begin diving into what RC could be doing here, and what her place in the lore will be.

Let's run down the thoughts that I have:

A popular idea right now is that RC is an AI gone rogue. With the theme of glitching, it definitely fits.

As an explanation for her appearances, we can also assume that she hacks into the videos itself, and what we see on screen wasn't actually what was happening. So instead of her just appearing next to Christian like when they were recording, she instead corrupts the video as it "uploads." This is my current idea, since when questioned about the Dr. Stone video, Curt said:

As for her place into the story, there's a few possible ways for her to be integrated with the current SCP arc. Maybe she's an SCP herself, maybe she's the mystery guide...

I personally believe that she's the one who caused the blackout in the sculpture scenario. In my own headcanon, I had stated that RC worked with the SCP foundation and was integrated with all of the technology. I might not fully believe that now, but I still agree with the latter half.

If she's a professional hacker due to her AI abilities, I don't think it's farfetched she'd be messing up the SCP foundation and trying to get Recreyo killed...

But why? What incentive would she have?

...Well, I've had an idea for a while. I've had RC in my own headcanon lore of Recreyo for quite a bit, and I even called the possibility of her being an AI. The malice I believe that she'd hold towards her creators involves the theme of freedom. Being a real person rather than a character. Vengeance.

I definitely doubt that The Bunker Trio would be brought back (as much as it pains me to say) but something I associate a lot with them is how much tragedy they went through.. solely because of Recreyo. Being original characters, all of their pain was directed by Curt and exploited for content, IN-UNIVERSE.

These themes I have with them are something that extends to RC. I believe that RC is intending to take over the Recreyo channel as payback for bringing her into a world just as a mascot. If she was given the blessing of intelligence, then why the hell was she only used as a mascot?

This is getting a little meta, but I want to emphasize how she was only a lifeless one-off character. I honestly believe she only has lore now because Recreyo realized how obsessed with it we are. So they dig up an old character who hasn't been touched in two years, and suddenly she's the star of the show?

RC is sick of being used as an "idol." She'll let her face haunt the videos for now, but she's going to take over one way or another.

....Or something like that. I can't tell if this even makes sense, but that's basically what I think about RC. I have other headcanons, like how I think she and Roberto work together as a duo, but those are far from what's actually happening.

But then again, I only have these stupid headcanons because I hadn't counted on her becoming a character again. I thought that she was honestly retired.

I might've originally dug a path far from the road of canon, but if it means Recreyo is finally exploring their potential of storytelling, then hell- you already know that I'll be running back.

(Also while I was typing this, CA changed their name to CAN. So.. yeah.)

#Recreyo Chan #Recreyo #Quinn's Lore Thoughts

[marshmallowprotection]

Bonus! Mother Choi and Saejoong Choi designs underneath the cut!

I’ve done plenty of art for the cowboy universe in the past. But, the most we’ve seen in full body form is for Unknown and Seven. So, I figured it was high that I showed y’all the designs for everyone in Cereus. Now, I will probably post the designs for their looks after the end of that story and onward, but for right now, this was what y’all get.

Y’all know what the twins look like in this story, so let’s talk about some of the other characters.

Some of these designs aren’t a surprise, I’m sure. But, keep in mind the story is set in the mid-1890s so Yoosung has brown hair. However, he started to do his hair like Rika after her death all the same. His eye accident came from one bad dare. He took a hard tumble from a high rock and hurt himself, seemingly ruining his future until Rika pulled him from his low slump and asked him to join the bar for the time being to get back on his feet.

I, for one, love long-haired Jihyun, so this story reflects that. He keeps his hair from his face by tucking it back into a ponytail. The most distinct part of his look in this story is that his layered clothes are hiding burn scars from the fire. See, it wasn’t possible for his mom to get him out in time without major injury. His neck and back are covered in scars.

Zen is a performer. He isn’t wearing pants, those are tights, by the way. He loves the look. A corset and an open top? This man is living his best life. Gawk at him if you want, he doesn’t mind. Though, if you stared at Rika for too long and she wanted no part of that... well, good luck after his shift if he catches you. It won’t end well. The boa he wears is actually Rika’s after her death. It helps him feel a lot closer to her again.

Speaking of Rika, this is the first time I’ve drawn her in this universe. She is the ultimate performer in Jihyun’s bar and people turn heads when she walks by in any way, shape, or form. She’s confident here, only because she knows she’s a lot safer in the bar than she is anywhere else. You would never know what she’s hiding underneath her smile.

Jaehee is meant to appear unassuming in this universe. Underneath her skirt is a set of matching guns that she’s prepared to use at any moment. She was more or less trained to be capable with a gun from a young age but nobody wanted to hire her for it. So, she wound up at the bar, where Rika assured Jumin that she’d be a wonderful assistant and bodyguard. She keeps her long hair in this story as Chairman Han is hardly around for Jumin to be paranoid enough to ask Jaehee to change to avoid his nonsense.

Jumin dresses how you think he would, the only difference being that he wears a bolo tie that Jihyun got for him when they were younger. I think it’s the about the same for Vanderwood, since there isn’t much change from the original design for both of them. Still, it felt wrong to not draw them so there’s a complete set for all the characters. By I got to that point in drawing, I knew I needed to do Saejoong and Mother Choi. There isn’t much to say about Saejoong. He’s simple and this design is overall what you expect.

Mother Choi is up to my interpretation, though. The twins inherited their hair from their mother and their eyes from their father. That’s always how I’ve seen it in my head. She has wildly long hair that whips around her body when she lashes out and the memory of fiery red curls often haunts the twins more than either of the boys want to admit. She might be poor, but I added an elegant hat to show that if she gets money, she’ll always spend on herself before the boys.

[Reference]

#cereus #cowboy unknown #cowboy seven #my art #mystic messenger #mm #mysme #mysticmessenger #mod kait #long post #andromeda #wren

[tokky231]

Has anyone thought about this?

How this is very similar to this?

Aren’t these two really similar? The second main character sacrifices themselves to safe the main protagonist from dying without knowing why and just because their bodies moved on his own.

We know that Hori said in one of his interviews that he is a fan of Kishimoto and that he is taking a lot of inspiration from Naruto and other mangas. I have seen a lot of references from other animes in BNHA. But this is heavily similar to the way Sasuke saved Naruto from dying in the hands of Haru, a tactic that he planned to drive Sasuke into his trap and get him. This is almos the same as what happened to Bakugo, even tho Shigaraki didn’t do this as bait, the stabbing and Deku asking him why he did it, it’s just as how happened with Naruto and Sasuke.

I am a big fan of Naruto, I am a SasuNaru shipper and I dread how their relationship was drawn at the end of the manga. Everyone saw chemistry and potential for those two to be a couple, but the majority of people were against them and decided for them to go with the other way. Kirishima wanted Naruto to end up with Sasuke that he even blew up his arms because the company didn’t want him to draw them holding hands. The relationship between Naruto and Sasuke is very similar to Bakudeku, even tho Sasuke never bullied Naruto like Bakugo did to Deku, they thought of each other as rivals and wanted to surpass each other at any cost. Plus Naruto has a strong will and an explosive personality, specially when it comes to Sasuke. They grew up together, but they didn’t become friends, something that both of them regret in the future.

Bakudeku were childhood friends that out of nowhere their relationship fell apart. Midoriya doesn’t even know why Bakugo changed and started bullying him. Maybe, it really came to be because he was quirkless and in the eyes of society heroes and normal people don’t mix.

There are a lot of similarities to each panel, Bakugo’s only thoughts were of Deku and himself while he was moving, just like Sasuke but instead of Sasuke being in the move, he was standing in front of Naruto. All his memories were of Naruto and himself, while they were fighting or bickering, to the accidental kiss they had in chapter 3. Funny thing is that Sasuke never knew it was an accident, he always though that Naruto kissed him out of his own will, but why did he think about the kiss in the brik of his death? For someone who was always talking about hating his brother and getting revenge by killing him, all thoughts were on Naruto and Naruto alone. There were no memories of family or his sensei or even Sakura, very odd. It’s the same as Bakugo, he didn’t think of anyone else but Deku. Specially, the time when he was wrapped in the sludge villain, a moment in his life that he hated so much because everyone will only remember him for that but it was also when Deku decided to charged forward to attack the villain to safe Bakugo. Sadly, we still don’t have a kiss scene like SasuNaru, yet.

And this is were we see how these two unleashed their hidden power, for Naruto the demon he had since he was born and for Midoriya,another quirk was triggered. This is where Shigaraki draws his conclusion that Bakugo is very closed to Deku and someone very important to him because of the way Deku only responded to Bakugo being injured. Haru drew his conclusion that both of them have a much more intimate relationship and even linked it with his relationship with Sabusa.

When I read this chapter, my only thoughts where on sasunar when Bakugo delivered those words, even tho they weren’t say out loud, Midoriya still got mad and went berserk, this has not been the only time Midoriya has gone mad when he was seen or think Bakugo is in danger or injured.

I like where the story of bakudeku is going, just like sasunaru, this is why sometimes it makes me hopeless that they will end up together at the end. It might not be because of hori, like what happened to Kishimoto, it might be because of fans’ actions and higher ups but I hope this doesn’t happen with these two. But that’s if Hori wants it to happen. I can’t wait to see how Deku reacts when he gets to know Bakugo is dead T.T

#deku x kacchan #bakudeu #bnha #manga #naruto #sasunaru #naruto uzumaki #sasuke uchiha #mha #analysis #similitude

[the-great-lightwood-bane]

obsolescence

Chapter 2/2 (Chapter 1)

Malec | Rated general | tw canon-typical violence, non-explicit reference to human experimentation

Day 11: Sloppy Bandages | Makeshift Splint

Summary: Alec & co. have escaped from the facility where they were held and experimented on by Valentine — and where everyone but Alec gained abilities beyond the usual.

But when they meet Magnus' group and discover that Alec can touch Magnus without feeling the pain Magnus' touch causes everybody else, things change. Perhaps for the better.

A/N: I'm finally catching up!!!

inspo for this chapter drawn from the @malecdiscordserver

Read it on AO3 or below the cut.

The six of them crept silently through the well-known and much-hated hallways of Valentine’s facility, careful to avoid alerting anyone to their presence. 

Simon had knocked out the cameras throughout the building, which meant at least they didn’t need to worry about that; as they’d hoped, most of the guards were elsewhere, trying to get rid of the second group — Jace, Clary, Ragnor, Izzy, Hodge, Luke, and Maia. Alec was mildly terrified for all of them, but he’d pushed that to the background for now. 

Still, there were a few guards left, and Alec took them down from a distance with the silent gun Simon and Clary had made him back at the underground bunker. The few that got close enough to do damage were taken out by Raphael and Magnus; Cat healed any injuries; Meliorn directed them towards the central control room of the facility, where the data was kept, using his ability to sense the hallways and rooms around them. 

They went on. Footsteps sounded; Alec readied his gun; two guards rounded the corner, and Alec shot them both down. 

The halls brought back unfortunate memories. Alec could recall being carted along them, or at least ones like them, while strapped to a table; more than that, he remembered the years he’d spent seeing nothing but these corridors, these rooms. After the two and a half months he’d spent outside, the return to the facility’s claustrophobic atmosphere was painful. 

He heard more footsteps, a larger number this time, and again readied the gun. It was not two or three but twenty guards who rounded the corner this time; Alec unleashed round after round into them, and many fell, but one of them managed to get her gun up and fire. The bullet thudded into Alec’s left arm. The gun dropped from his hands. 

Vaguely, he was aware of Magnus and Raphael taking care of the rest of the guards, but the pain in his arm had nearly all his attention. He’d never been shot before, and the ache was new and all the more painful for it. He’d need Cat’s help if he was to use his arm again that day. 

Her fingers were on his arm, and he forced himself not to jerk away from the fresh wave of agony the touch caused. Magnus was at his other side, holding his hand, telling him it’d be only a moment and then he’d be all right, but the pain wasn’t pausing, wasn’t changing. 

Cat’s voice sounded anxious. “It’s not working. I can’t heal him.”

“Why not?” Magnus asked, sounding terrified. “Why wouldn’t your ability— oh.” 

Alec managed to raise his head to figure out why Magnus had broken off, and saw him staring blankly at Alec. “That’s your ability — that nobody else’s abilities work on you.”

Even through the pain, puzzle pieces clicked into place in Alec’s mind. That was why he could touch Magnus; that was why he’d never shown any sign of an ability. His ability was an absence of ability, a void that stopped Cat from healing him and Magnus from hurting him. 

A useless ability in a fight, he thought to himself, and without it, his arm wouldn’t still be sending waves of pain through his body — but because of it, Magnus could touch him. 

No time to process, or to think about what that might mean. Alec forced himself to speak. “Whatever the reason, we’re going to need to take care of this the non-magical way.”

“Rubber bullet,” Cat said, examining it. “Not fully broken, but definitely fractured. You’ll need a splint and bandaging to keep it stable, but you’ll be able to move it, although that might hurt.”

Raphael promptly ripped off a strip of his shirt — easier for him thanks to his super-strength — and Cat began bandaging Alec’s arm, although slightly clumsily as she clearly wasn’t used to it. She made a makeshift splint of a floorboard Raphael pried up, and wrapped the shirt around both the arm and the board; Alec clenched his teeth to keep back the cry of pain crawling up his throat. Valentine’s experiments had increased his pain tolerance through long exposure, but to feel so much pain in the place he associated with all the pain he’d ever felt was wearing at his limits. 

Magnus hovered at his side, letting Alec squeeze his hand as tightly as he liked, until Cat stood up and the pain in Alec’s arm dulled to a throb. He forced himself to his feet, with Magnus’ help, and steadied himself against the wall with his unbroken arm. “I’m good,” he said aloud. 

Flexing his fingers, he examined his left arm. It still hurt, but he could and would ignore that; he could move it, as Cat had said. He’d lost some blood, but not enough to significantly impact his fighting ability; he picked up the gun and braced it against his left arm, testing his aim down the empty hallway. Worse, but not too bad. 

They started off again, Magnus at Alec’s side and ready to catch him if he fell. 

~

Their group of six arrived at the command room without much trouble. Banks of computer screens lined the walls, which would usually show the camera feeds but were now blank; there were only three or four guards, which they dispatched without much trouble. 

Another door led into an office, presumably Valentine’s, and Simon sat down at the computer immediately and began calling up data files. Alec stood watch just outside the office, leaning against the wall with Magnus beside him, while Simon worked and the others searched the paper archives. 

Simon plugged a thumb-drive into the computer and began downloading data only moments before footsteps could be heard outside. Alec raised his gun, but it was their friends, all seven of them spilling into the command room — with more guards behind them. Chaos descended; everyone but Simon and Cat left the office to fight, but there were more guards than Alec had thought, and his friends only barely managed to keep them at bay. 

He managed to down several, and then began using the gun as a battering ram, slamming it into the guards’ heads. Magnus fought with his usual grace; all of them put their training to good use, and the guards’ numbers were falling when an explosion went off in their midst. 

It wasn’t from a bomb Clary had set off, but something of the guards’, and Alec felt his ears ring as he was thrown back into a desk which held a computer screen; it toppled, and he crashed to the ground behind it, his injured arm mercifully escaping the worst of the fall. 

Through the haze that had risen in the air, Alec saw Valentine Morgenstern step into the room amidst the corpses of his guards, another man following behind. “Well, well, well,” he said cooly. “What have we here?”

From his hidden position behind the table, Alec assessed the situation. He couldn’t see Magnus, which had panic crawling up his spine, and Clary appeared to be unconscious; the door to the office was open and Simon was nowhere to be seen. Alec didn’t know if the thumb drive was still in the computer, or if Simon had had time to unplug it and had it on him. Jace had been thrown back against a wall but was staggering to his feet; Izzy was on the ground, chest rising and falling but not getting up; Raphael was struggling out from underneath a desk; Luke and Maia were both in their wolf forms, growling. Cat was trying to heal Ragnor, who was on the ground with a lump on his head. Meliorn was nowhere to be seen. 

He knew Valentine’s power, that ability to read and control minds; it was entirely possible that the man beside him had an ability as well. He was perhaps a few years older than Valentine; as Alec watched, he turned, looking around the room, Alec caught a glimpse of unmistakeable green-gold eyes in a face that held traces of Magnus in it, but was set harder and crueler than Magnus could ever be. That must be Asmodeus Bane. 

Valentine raised his hands, and everyone froze except the three of them — Cat stopped healing Ragnor, Jace paused mid-lunge at Valentine’s throat, Raphael stopped struggling. A twitch of Valentine’s fingers, and they all climbed to their feet, faces eerily blank. 

Alec had seen Valentine’s ability in action before, once or twice, but only on one or two people. Now, there were six, moving in sync to Valentine’s will: Cat, Jace, Meliorn, Ragnor, Luke, and Maia. Everyone else was unconscious, trapped like Raphael, or out of sight. Only Alec was both awake and capable of movement, protected by his newfound ability. 

Alec… and Hodge. 

The older man stood up of his own volition, out of time with everyone else. “Valentine. I’ve done as you asked.”

“Indeed you have,” Valentine observed cooly. “You’ve betrayed them well. I might never have caught them all without your assistance.”

Alec’s mind had gone black with shock and betrayal. He thought of the ease with which Valentine had found them, of Hodge’s ability to communicate with animals and send them as messengers. He didn’t want the pieces to make sense, but there was no denying the fact that Hodge was easily conversing with Valentine. 

“I want what you promised me,” Hodge said to Valentine. “You promised—”

Valentine held up a hand and he fell silent, although Alec wasn’t sure whether the obedience was voluntary or not. “Of course. I promised to relieve you of your ability, didn’t I?”

“Please,” Hodge said, a note of desperation in his voice. “Listening to them — all their voices in my head, all the time—” He cut off, and Alec marvelled at all the things he hadn’t known. He’d never realised that Hodge was tormented by his ability, that he was anything but glad to have it — that he would sell them all to Valentine to get rid of it. 

“You’ll be free of them soon enough,” Valentine agreed, and Hodge smiled — until Valentine twisted his fingers, and Hodge’s hand pulled a knife from his side while Hodge stared in surprise. Valentine slit Hodge’s throat with his own hand, and Alec’s once-mentor collapsed to the ground, blood gurguling from his throat. 

“Now,” Valentine said, stepping back to avoid the pooling blood. “You’ll all return to your cages, and you’ll never get out again.” He smiled. 

Alec felt desperation rising in his throat. He could not go back to the labs, to the experiments, nor could he let anyone else be shut up again like that. 

Valentine hadn’t noticed him yet; he likely couldn’t feel Alec’s mind. Everyone else was under Valentine’s control, dead, or unable to help. It was up to Alec to do something. 

There was a gun a few feet away. Quietly, carefully, Alec reached out for it, ignoring his aching head and broken arm, ignoring his worry for Magnus and the confusion and betrayal and grief still spinning around Hodge’s body where it lay on the ground. He couldn’t make a noise, or Valentine would hear, and realise that somebody was awake who he didn’t have under his control; if he moved too slowly, Valentine would finish his speech before Alec could reach the gun. 

Asmodeus was looking bored, when Alec glanced over there, and was clearly looking down at his watch; Valentine was talking, still, about what he’d do, the experiments he’d run. Six of Alec’s friends were still standing unnaturally silent and unmoving at Valentine’s command. 

Alec’s fingers closed on the gun. He raised it to his shoulder and fired the bullet directly through Valentine’s head. 

Valentine Morgenstern died like any other man, brains and blood splattering the floor. His body dropped like Hodge’s had, a few minutes earlier. Six people gasped sharply and lost their unnatural stillness. 

Asmodeus turned, and Alec fired again, but the gun clicked rather than going off — out of ammunition. Before he could try to find more ammunition or reload, Asmodeus splayed a hand, and flames rushed out, cloaking half the room. 

The heat rose immediately. Alec wasn’t sure what was burning, if anything was burning or if it was some other type of flame, but the room heated up immediately, smoke adding to the dust in the air. Alec had no idea what was happening on the other side of the room, on the other side of the barrier of flames; everyone Valentine had controlled was on that side, leaving only Alec and Asmodeus on this one. Alec ducked another blast of flame, but felt his shirt catch fire; he didn’t have time to put it out because Asmodeus was advancing again, and he threw himself to the ground to dodge the next burst of fire. 

Alec’s ability might have cancelled out Valentine’s, but Asmodeus’ ability wasn’t directly affecting Alec — he was simply igniting the air around Alec, which would kill him all the same. Alec couldn’t get close enough to land a blow, and he was being pressed back against a flaming wall, the heat growing unbearable, smoke clogging his lungs. Flames were licking up his back, his side, his legs; he tried to dodge but Asmodeus was getting smarter and he smelled burning flesh through the haze of smoke. The pain was too much, and he tried to scream, but his throat was raw and he couldn’t breathe and then more fire was encasing him, killing him, breaking him. 

Through a blur of tears and heat and burning, Alec saw a figure moving behind Asmodeus — a figure who stumbled slightly, but stood, a figure with green-gold eyes and a well-loved face. 

Magnus fired a gun into Asmodeus’ head at point-blank range. The flames died, and Alec collapsed to the ground. 

~

He was only unconscious for a few minutes. When he opened his eyes, there were people gathered around him — Magnus, Jace, Ragnor, Raphael, Luke, Maia… Alec coughed out the smoke that’d accumulated in his lungs and forced himself up. 

“Careful,” Magnus yelped, an arm underneath his shoulderblades, gentle as he helped Alec sit. His whole body felt like one big burn, and he didn’t want to know what he looked like, but he was alive. 

“Thanks,” he told Magnus. “You saved me.” And killed his own father to do it. 

Magnus huffed and kissed him, gently, barely more than a brush of lips. “Anything for you, darling.”

“How is everybody?” Alec asked, glancing around. 

“All alive, except Hodge,” Magnus replied, and Alec exhaled, relieved. “Simon, Meliorn, Clary, Izzy, and I were knocked out in the blast, but I’m the only one who’s awake yet; Cat’s working on healing them. Raphael’s legs were crushed, but Cat’s fixed him up; no other serious injuries.”

Alec let some of the tension seep from his shoulders at the news that everyone was, or would be, alright. “And the data? Did Simon find what he needed?”

“He’s got the thumb drive in his pocket,” Magnus replied. “Once we’re out of here, we can release the data, and—”

“Oh, but you won’t be getting out of here,” a cold voice said, just as a dart flew into Magnus’ arm. 

Magnus yanked it out, but whatever had been inside was now in his bloodstream; it didn’t seem to have had any adverse affects yet, though, and he fell into a fighting posture in front of Alec. 

In the doorway was a man, perhaps Alec’s age, with white-blond hair and a cruel smile, what looked like a tranquiliser gun in his hands. He fired a few more times, hitting Cat, Ragnor, Raphael, Luke, and Maia. Jace attacked, and the man shot him in the chest with a dart; Jace ripped it out and kept going. 

But when he was within striking distance, the man swung the gun into his head, and Jace collapsed to the ground with a bruise swiftly forming on the side of his head. 

That should not have been possible. 

Magnus attacked, Raphael at his side, but Raphael was moving slower than he should be and Magnus’ touch did nothing to him. The man threw them both back to the ground with ease. 

Cat was trying to heal Izzy, still, but she was frowning at her hands like she had been while healing Alec. Ragnor thrust a hand out at the man, but nothing happened. Luke and Maia usually shifted into their wolf forms to fight, but neither did so now. 

The man smiled. “Valentine’s been working on this serum for years. It’s good to know it works.” 

“What have you done?” Luke hissed, staring at him. 

“It’s only temporary, I assure you,” the man told him. “I’ve removed your abilities. Once Valentine realised the dangers posed by having a bunch of superpowered people who hated his guts, he started working on it. Too bad he didn’t live to see it work.” The man’s eyes flicked to Valentine’s body on the ground. “But first, introductions. My name is Jonathan Morgenstern, and my ability is the same as that one’s.” He tilted his head in Jace’s direction. “I was Valentine’s first successful experiment, and unlike you, I was smart enough to work with him rather than running away.”

Jonathan Morgenstern. Valentine’s son — Clary’s brother, with an ability like Jace’s, except that he’d removed Jace’s ability. 

“You don’t need to introduce yourselves,” he went on. “Valentine told me about you, and your abilities — or lack of an ability, as the case may be,” he added, glancing at Alec. “No need to waste this serum on somebody who’s already useless.”

The words stung, because even though Alec did have an ability, it was still useless in this situation. Alec had seen Jace take on tens of people and win; their battered, broken group, ability-less, would have no shot against Jonathan. Luke and Maia and Ragnor attacked together, but Jonathan fended them off with ease, throwing the two no-longer-shifters into a wall and knocking Ragnor out with a blow to the head. 

“It’s really too bad you killed Valentine and Asmodeus,” Jonathan went on, musingly, scarcely out of breath. “I inherit the facility from Valentine, of course, but it’ll take a while to properly settle the Bane Industries estate — I’ll need to prove that Asmodeus’ son is dead, first of all, and then fake a will leaving everything to Valentine, and therefore to me.” He sighed. “You’ve set my plans back by a solid year, although at least you got rid of my father for me.”

Alec’s brain had stalled on the words prove that Asmodeus’ son is dead. Jonathan was going to kill Magnus. 

Magnus, who was on the ground where he’d fallen, injured and not able to defend himself with his ability. Magnus, who Alec knew now that he loved more than he’d thought possible. Magnus, with his bright eyes and laughter and sheer vivacity despite all he’d been through. Magnus. 

Nobody else could help, and Jonathan was striding towards Magnus with a blade in his hand. Alec threw himself forward, ignoring the pain that screamed through him at the abrupt movement, and slammed into Jonathan, sending him stumbling sideways. The gun with which Jonathan had hit the others with his serum flew from his hands and landed across the room; Alec reared back and slammed a fist into Jonathan’s face. 

His nose broke with a sharp crack, and Jonathan stared at Alec in perplexity. 

Alec didn’t give him time to figure it out. If his ability could counter Jonathan’s, then he was the only one with a shot at taking him down, and there was no option but to do so. 

The last two weeks of training came in handy as Alec slammed a knee into Jonathan’s side, ducked an uncoordinated punch, attacked again. Without his ability, Jonathan had little training and less natural skill, and under normal circumstances, Alec could’ve defeated him with ease. But now Alec was exhausted, with one arm still in the makeshift, sloppily-bandaged splint; burns covered half his body, making every motion hurt, and his lungs still felt full of smoke. 

Jonathan drew a knife, but Alec sent it spinning away with a well-placed blow to his wrist. The bone cracked, and Jonathan yelled; Alec had the feeling he hadn’t experienced pain very often, thanks to the impenetrable skin he shared with Jace. Taking advantage of that, Alec twisted Jonathan’s arm behind his back, and knocked him to the ground. But now Jonathan had pulled another knife from a hidden sheath with his other hand, and Alec needed to twist his body sideways to dodge a strike, making his nerves cry out with the pain of it. 

The momentary distraction cost Alec. Jonathan managed to roll them over, and Alec did his best to breathe through the pain of having his burned back pressed to the ground. He reached up and caught Jonathan’s unbroken wrist in his right hand, stopping the descent of the knife towards his chest. Jonathan growled, and Alec drew on reserves of strength he hadn’t known he had to roll the two of them over again, with Alec on top, now, and he twisted Jonathan’s wrist to take the knife from him. 

He plunged it down into Jonathan’s neck. 

Blood spurted, and Jonathan Morgenstern was still. 

~

Alec passed out after that, at least mostly, as the adrenaline left him weak and exhausted. The serum didn’t last long; with her healing returned, Cat kept them all alive until they were stumbling out of the facility, back to their underground bunker. Alec recalled only flashes of that time, of struggling to stay on his feet as he stumbled after her, of being carried when he went under. 

He woke up properly a day later, in Magnus’ bed. The data on the thumb drive, which Simon had retained, had been released onto the internet; the press had caught wind and an investigation was ongoing. Their identities hadn’t been revealed, nor had their location, but once the investigation had borne fruit, Magnus would likely inherit whatever was left of Asmodeus’ empire and Valentine’s business would be destroyed. 

Simon, with some help from Jace, had hunted down and destroyed all of Valentine’s records on how, exactly, he’d done the experiments, as well as all the data he’d gathered. The only thing he kept was the formula for the serum to cancel out abilities; they had three shots from Jonathan’s gun, still, having used one so that Catarina could heal Alec, but they’d run through that fairly quickly. 

Thanks to Catarina’s help while Alec’s abilities were suppressed, his arm was in one piece, and his burns were no longer so painful. But Cat hadn’t been able to remove the burn scars that covered one leg and most of Alec’s back, creeping around his side; that was permanent. 

Alec spent most of the first four days after the fight sleeping. Catarina told him his body needed to recharge, but it was still slightly frustrating that he couldn’t seem to stay awake for more than half an hour at a time. Somebody was always next to him, often Magnus, but they hadn’t really talked in that time. 

Now, Alec could stay awake for longer, and he could get up and walk around on his own, which was a definite improvement. But the longer waking hours had left him more time to think — and his thoughts always drifted back to Magnus. 

Once they’d figured out how to make more of the serum, Magnus would be able to touch whoever he liked, whenever he liked, however much he liked; the ability that had loomed over him since he was a child was gone. And Alec was glad for that; he wanted Magnus to have all he wanted, because Magnus’ happiness had somehow become the most important thing for Alec. 

But. But. 

If Magnus could touch whoever he liked… there was no reason for him to be with Alec anymore. 

Alec had known all along that Magnus was dating him as a sort of last resort, because Alec was the only one with whom it was possible. It wasn’t Magnus’ fault, of course; that was simply the way it was. It certainly wasn’t Magnus’ fault that Alec had fallen head-over-heels in love with him, despite knowing perfectly well the limitations of why Magnus was dating him. Their relationship had always been a bit one-sided, Alec’s too-heavy love dragging him down while Magnus floated easily above, beautiful and bright and everything Alec could never truly have. 

But Magnus had still been dating him; Alec had still been able to close his eyes and imagine that Magnus felt the same way, that Magnus cared for him as much as he cared for Magnus. 

Now — now, why would Magnus stick around? 

He hadn’t officially broken up with Alec yet, likely because Alec had still been healing and he felt bad, but Alec knew it was coming, and he tried to ward his heart against the coming pain. He was braced for it, he could take it, he would gather up the shattered fragments of his heart and move on. 

~

Alec tried to think about other things. His ability, for instance. He’d spent so long believing he was somehow defective, useless, broken — that his lack of an ability was a fault to hide away. But now, he had an ability, and it had unequivocally saved the lives of everyone he loved. 

(He pushed away more thoughts of Magnus.)

Having an ability was more complicated, now, though. A few weeks ago, he would’ve been over the moon, would’ve tied all his self-worth to his having an ability — but now he could see that having an ability wasn’t everything. 

Hodge had betrayed them all to get rid of his ability. (Alec pushed away his mixed feelings about Hodge, too.) And Magnus (don’t think about it, don’t think about it) had said that he’d rather not have an ability. 

Perhaps Alec’s worth wasn’t about whether his abilities were superhuman or merely human. Perhaps it was about something else — something intrinsic to himself, something more about him than about what he could do. 

It was Magnus who’d helped him realise that, though, and now he was thinking again about his probably-soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend, who had no reason to be with him except pity. 

~

Alec brought it up himself the next day, because Magnus still hadn’t said anything, and the lie of it all was grating on him. Magnus didn’t want to hurt him, especially during his recovery, but Alec knew what was coming; waiting wasn’t going to make it any better. 

He seized his chance when Magnus came in to check on him, as he had every day, spending hours at Alec’s side from some sense of obligation. Alec would miss him when he stopped coming, of course, and he’d miss the comfort of Magnus’ bed when he had to move elsewhere, and he’d hate the awkwardness that would ensue, and his heart would be broken, once and for all — but at least they wouldn’t be in this in-between state any longer. 

“You don’t need to stay,” Alec said, probably too abruptly, only a few moments after Magnus had seated himself. 

“What?” Magnus blinked at him. “Do you — do you want me to leave?”

Alec swallowed down the instinctive, desperate no that rose to his throat. No need to make Magnus feel any worse about all this than necessary. “You can touch anyone you want, now,” he said instead. 

Magnus flinched, which wasn’t what Alec had been expecting. “You’re breaking up with me, then.”

Shoving down what he wanted to say, Alec steeled himself to the coming heartbreak. “You can be with whoever you like.” 

Magnus was supposed to be relieved. Instead, he looked heartbroken — eyes wide, lips parted slightly, like Alec had reached into his chest and yanked out his heart. “I thought — I hoped — I wanted it to be real,” he said softly. “But you — you were just dating me out of — of pity, or something, and I was foolish enough to fall in love with you.” 

Alec sat stunned, frozen, as Magnus closed his eyes in pain — the same pain that Alec had just been trying to ward his heart against. Foolish enough to fall in love with you. 

With a sigh, Magnus stood up, shoulders slightly bowed, and Alec realised that he was going to leave — leave, because Alec had told him to, because he thought Alec didn’t love him. 

“Wait — Magnus—” Alec jerked into motion, grabbing for Magnus’ hand. Magnus didn’t pull away, but he didn’t turn back either. Alec spoke, letting the words bubble out of him as they’d been trying to do for days. “Magnus, I never dated you because I pitied you. I thought you were dating me because I was the only option, because you couldn’t touch anyone else. I dated you because you’re kind and brilliant and funny and beautiful, and I don’t want you to leave, not unless you want to, because I love you.”

Magnus had turned back to him, eyes wide with a good surprise this time, and pulled Alec into a kiss. 

“I love you, too,” he said when they separated, and Alec smiled.

#whumptober2022 #no.11 #sloppy bandages #makeshift splint #tsc #the shadowhunter chronicles #canon typical violence #discussion of human experimentation #magnus x alec #alec lightwood #malec #alec lightwood bane #magnus lightwood bane #magnus bane #alec x magnus

[nastybuckybarnes]

Deep End  -  Five

Pairing: Dark!Steve Rogers X Reader

Summary: He’s back. After all your best efforts at getting away, he’s found you again. And this time, he’s not letting you go so easily. He’s determined to do whatever it takes to get you to be his. Forever.

Warnings: Dark Themes, Language, Angst, Manipulation, Injuries, 

Word Count: 3.2K

A/n: here we are, folks. What if I ended it like this lol that would be kinda gangsta of me LMAO

Deep End Masterlist

THIS IS A DARK FIC WITH SEXUAL AND TRIGGERING CONTENT!!! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!! 18+ ONLY!!!

~*~

You push open the front door with a heavy sigh, setting the paper grocery bags down on the counter then resting a hand on your growing belly.

There’s a tiny flutter under your hand and you can’t help yourself from smiling.

The smile vanishes, however, when a hand grabs at your shoulder and forces you to turn around.

“Where the Hell were you?” Steve’s angry voice demands.

You look up at him in shock and confusion, looking over at the groceries.

“I-I just went to the store.”

He shakes his head, grabbing your face with one hand and stepping closer. You take a step back with each one he takes towards you, and soon enough he’s got you pinned against the wall.

His grip on your face tightens and you wince, fear overwhelming your body, making your heart race.

“Bucky said he saw you talking to someone. A man. Who was he?”

You shake your head, tears welling up in your eyes.

“H-He was just asking me about my pregnancy. When I'm due, if I know what I’m having.”

It’s nothing but the truth.

“I give you freedom and this is what you do? You go and flirt with other guys? You’re my property. Don’t forget that.”

Your tears fall down your cheeks and into his hand, but he doesn't let go. Even as your chest heaves and sobs bubble out of you, he stays glaring at you.

“Please, Steve, stop. Y-You’re hurting me!”

His jaw flexes and he slowly lets go, only to cage you against the wall, slamming his fist against it in the process.  

Your heart hammers in your chest, terror gripping you and freezing you in place as you remember what he did to Nat and her baby.

“I-I came home, didn’t I? I could’ve asked for help! Could’ve said something, but I didn’t. I’m here, again, even though I could’ve run away. I’m here. You have me! You have me.”

You slide down the wall, knees drawn up to your chest as you sob, the reality of your words and the fear doing a number on your emotions.

Steve’s anger slowly melts away, replaced with concern as he sees nothing but terror on your face.

“I-I didn’t mean to yell, honey. It’s okay, shh, come here.”

You don’t fight him as he pulls you into his arms and brings you upstairs into your bedroom, sitting you gently on the bed and pushing your hair away from your face.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, sweetheart I just... You gotta understand how nervous it makes me when you leave the house like that.”

You sniffle then slowly look up at him, your eyes bloodshot and tear-filled.

“Then why give me the freedom to leave?”

Your voice cracks and it makes his heart hurt.

“I... I want to trust you. That’s why.”

You take a few deep breaths, your eyes focused on your trembling hands as your heart starts to slow back to its normal rhythm.

“Ever since that night when Nat and Buck came over you’ve... you’ve been off. I’m worried about you, honey. I just wanna make sure that everything’s okay.”

He wants to know what Nat told you. What she said to have you acting like this.

Your eyes meet his, wet and full of fear as you whisper three words.

“Is it true?”

He has an idea what you’re referring to, and his heart picks up speed.

“Did...did you do it?”

He swallows hard and avoids your eyes, but that’s answer enough.

Some strange mixture of a gasp and a sob bubbles out of you, and you bring your hands up to cover your face as your shoulders start shaking again.

“I didn’t... I guess I did.” You sniffle and look up at him through your tears.

“If you want me to trust you... if you ever want any hope at having some semblance of normalcy, you’re gonna need to elaborate. I’m trying to play your little game but I just... I’m scared you’re gonna kill my baby too. That you’re gonna hurt Sarah.”

He shakes his head immediately, grabbing your hands and holding them softly in his.

“I would never hurt Sarah, or our new baby, okay? Natasha... she was becoming a liability. That being said, I didn’t go into it with the intention of hurting her baby but... I knew it could be a consequence.”

You wait for him to continue, your heart pounding loudly in your ears.

“When you burned the book... that wasn’t the only copy. Fury made sure there was at least one more, in case we ever needed it. Had his own group working on it, creating a new version of it. Natasha became a test subject long before I met you. Before I... took you.”

He drops his eyes and huffs out a sigh.

“We didn’t need to wipe her memory, we just... needed a way to make her more complacent. To make her realize that she can’t go off on her own and keep secrets like that. Especially when they involve you.”

Your chest heaves as you glare at him, your anger growing by the second.

“Did you kill her baby?”

The words are harsh like the crack of a whip, and he has to stop himself from flinching.

“It wasn’t my intention... but it was worth it.”

You choke on another sob, yanking your hands out of his grip.

“I didn’t know what the tea would do to her baby. It was just a mild sedative so we could get her to the facility and do the procedure. Get her to tell us where you were, where Sarah was. But then she... she started bleeding. I didn’t... I thought maybe it was just a side effect but then the doctors told us... (Y/n), you’ve gotta believe me. You need to know that I didn’t mean to...” he trails off and shakes his head, thinking about the niece or nephew that he could’ve had.

The son or daughter that he stripped Bucky of. The pain he inflicted upon Natasha. But he has you, so in the end, it was worth it.

You slowly look up at him, shaking your head.

“Why? You’ve done nothing but lie to me and hurt me. Why should I believe a word you’re saying?”

He swallows hard, reaching for your hand again only for you to yank it away once more.

“You want the truth? Fine. You’re not the first person that we’ve... taken. And I doubt you’ll be the last. Bucky... he had someone. Someone to help him control the soldier. But she turned out to be worse than him. We had to terminate her because she became a liability.”

He looks down at his hands, remembering how innocent she seemed. And then she snapped. Tried killing Nat and Bucky. Turned the redhead against them until Fury stepped in.

“Nat didn’t... agree with what we did. So we changed her mind.”

Your brows draw together in confusion.

He can’t mean... can he?

As if sensing your confusion, he elaborates.

“We didn’t do exactly the same procedure. But it... its function was the same. We needed her to forget certain things. To be our friend again while still remembering other things about the situation. And it worked. All I wanted to do this time was open her up to us again. Tell me where you and Sarah were. I never meant to hurt her baby.”

You shake your head furiously, tears dripping down your cheeks. “You’re a murderer. A disgusting monster. I hate you.” Your words are venomous and acidic, and Steve almost flinches at them, shaking his head.

“That’s not true, (Y/n). I love you.”

You laugh, the sound manic and for a moment Steve’s concerned.

“This isn’t love, Steve, this is obsession! It’s unhealthy! You’ve got me trapped here against my will! Y-You’ve hurt me and raped me and now I’m supposed to pretend everything’s okay? I’m supposed to play the good little housewife while you go around kidnapping and killing women? Killing other people’s children?! No!”

You stand up and try to move past him but he grabs hold of your forearm, rising to his feet with you.

“You’re not going anywhere.” His eyes are fiery as he glares at you, but you’re not nearly as afraid as you once were. No. You’re just angry.

You glare at him, rage burning through your body as you yank free from his grip and walk out of the room.

“You leave this house and I won’t hesitate to drag your ass right back!” He shouts.

But you don’t plan on leaving.

Oh no.

Why does he deserve his happy ending so much more than everyone else?

You turn to face him once you reach the top of the stairs, your heart in your throat at what you’re about to do. The damage it could cause.

At least it’ll get your point across.

“Why do you deserve a baby so much more than Natasha?” He furrows his brows, trying to figure out what your next move is going to be.

“I’ve given my life over and over for this stupid pathetic world. I’ve sacrificed my happiness time and time again. Do I not deserve something good?”

You take a deep breath and shrug.

“Maybe you do. But not like this.”

With that, you turn around and let yourself fall down the stairs.

Steve tries to grab you, he really does, but he’s just not fast enough.

He watches you fall, tumble down the stairs then lay still at the bottom, and for a moment all he can do is stare.

Memories fill his mind. Of you falling down the stairs. Then bleeding. So much blood. And your baby... gone.

He nearly falls down the stairs himself in his haste to get to you, two fingers pressing first to your pulse, then his hand is pressed against your belly, trying desperately to feel for the fluttering kicks you told him about.

It takes a minute, maybe two, and then he feels a small press against his hand.

He lets out a breath of relief then grabs his phone, calling the doctor.

~*~

When the doctor assures him that both you and the baby are okay, he’s relieved. But that only lasts for a moment before anger takes hold, powerful and persistent.

You can feel the anger rolling off of him when you wake up, and for a moment you’re afraid.

But hopefully, you got your point across.

He doesn’t deserve another baby. Not if that’s what he wants. He’s a terrible human being. And bringing a baby into the world with him as the father should be a crime.

“Where’s Sarah?” You ask, hoping to keep him as calm as possible.

“She’s having a sleepover with Morgan over at Tony and Pepper’s.”

You nod, your stomach dropping as you realize you’re alone in the house with him and he’s beyond pissed off.

Your mind races back to all the times he’s punished you in the past, and you almost throw up with the anxiety coursing through your veins.

“You ever do anything like that again and I swear I’ll make you regret it. I won’t kill you, no. My baby needs his mommy, but I’ll make you hurt. You’re lucky I’m not doing anything to you now.”

You swallow hard and look away from him in disgust, only for him to grab your jaw and force you to look at him.

“You need to stop acting out like this. I told you what happened to the last asset who became a liability. Fury shot her point-blank. A clean shot between her pretty eyes. Then he left her to bleed out on the bedroom floor while he fixed Nat’s memory. S’why she’s even still here and with Bucky. If she remembered what he did to that poor girl... she’d have killed him herself by now. But he needs to outlet to keep the soldier at bay. And he deserves her. Deserves some happiness in his fucked up life.”

You shake your head, disagreeing strongly with every word he’s spoken.

They're monsters. Natasha less so. A victim, like you, maybe. But the two soldiers? Monsters. Monsters who don’t deserve any happiness. They deserve nothing but a slow painful death and an eternity in the fiery pits of Hell.

“I told you, (Y/n), I didn’t mean to hurt her baby. If I’d wanted to, I’d be rubbing it in her face more. Showing off your pregnancy more. And if you think I’m gonna hurt our baby, you’re wrong. I would never hurt my babies. It kills me that you think I’d ever do something like that.”

“Can you blame me? You’ve already killed at least one baby.”

A muscle in his jaw ticks and you regret your words.

“You know what? I think you really need a reminder of your place, sweetheart. You’re mine. Maybe not my wife, yet, but soon enough. Until then, you need to know that you belong to me.”

His grip on your face is painful, but you don’t make a single sound.

No, he’s not going to win.

He doesn’t want to hurt the baby or cause unnecessary strain, so he can’t have you on your stomach like he usually would.

So he makes the most of you lying on your back.

He grabs your wrists and binds them above your head, hooking them to the ring on the headboard despite your struggles.

“Steve, no! Please! I-I... Don’t hurt me, please!”

He cocks his head to the side, watching you wriggle and strain.

“You’re mine, (Y/n). You belong to me. There’s no one in this entire world who’ll help you. You’re my property. It’s time you realized that.”

A sick smile spreads across his face as he remembers what made you obedient last time.

“You know, I think I know exactly what you need.”

He climbs off the bed and drops to his knees, rooting under it until he finds his special black box.

You wriggle away furiously, trying to break free before he can hurt you, but deep down you know it’s all for not.

You squeeze your eyes shut as he sits back down on the bed, worming his way between your thighs and flipping your dress up over your extended stomach.

“Please don't,” you whimper uselessly.

He strokes your inner thighs gently, then leans down to spit on your centre.

You flinch away, tears leaking from your eyes as you realize what he’s going to do.

“Please don’t,” you repeat, only to be silenced by him pushing something far too big inside of you.

You cry out, your back arching and sending shoots of pain up to your scalp. The added weight of your baby makes everything ten times more painful, and you can't stop yourself from sobbing as he forces every last inch of the thick dildo into your unprepared cunt.

It burns. Fire spreads from between your legs up your spine and the tears don’t stop.

“Stop! Please! I’ll be good!” He knows you won’t. Or, he just doesn't believe you. You want the pain to stop but you’re not actually willing to change your behaviour for it. Not yet. But you will.

When the dildo is finally fully inside you, he climbs off the bed and shoves the box back underneath it. He adjusts his pants then walks to the door, pausing to look at your trembling figure on the bed.

Your shoulders shake with sobs, and he feels pride swell inside of him.

Good. Now you’ll finally learn.

“You’re gonna stay here until you learn your place. I don’t care how long it takes. When you’re ready to apologize and be a good girl, then we’ll talk. But until then...” He shuts off the light and pulls the door closed behind him, leaving you alone, in pain, and in the dark.

Memories of the last time this happened stab at your brain, and you quickly start hyperventilating.

What’s worse than that, though, is the tiny voice in your head telling you to get off your back. That it’s not good for the baby if you stay like this.

But no matter how much you scream or cry for him, Steve doesn’t come to the door once.

~*~

He leaves you there for hours, or maybe days. It’s so hard to tell.

The room is soundproof, so no one can hear your cries and you can’t hear anything outside.

Even if people could hear you, it doesn’t really matter now.

You’ve been on your back for so long that you’re starting to get dizzy.

During your first pregnancy, you learned only that it’s bad for the baby to sleep on your back. You didn’t think you’d be feeling the effects of it, too.

But here you are, covered in a thin sheen of sweat, mind spinning and lungs struggling to pull in enough air to satisfy you.

It must’ve been several hours ago that Steve left if you’re feeling such strong effects of it. You’re not sure what the technical term is, but you know that you probably don’t have much time left. Your baby has even less.

Your heart aches. Each beat makes sadness bloom in your soul and you can’t stop it.

New tears fall down your cheeks, and all you want is to reach down and caress your belly, apologize to the life growing inside of you.

Apologize for hurting them, for who their father is. For the life you’re bringing them into.

Nobody deserves that.

But now... now you might not have to worry.

Every passing second sends the walls around you spinning faster and faster and faster until all you can do is let your eyes fall closed.

Sleeping will probably make it better anyway, right?

As the darkness creeps up, seeps into your limbs and chases the pain away, you pray.

You’ve never really prayed much before, but you do today.

You send a prayer to any and all Gods, the old ones and the new, and you ask for forgiveness.

You pray for the safety of your unborn child, and for that of Sarah.

A deep part of your brain knows that you may never open your eyes, and you want your daughter to know that you love her. That she means the world to you and you’ll do all that you can to protect her.

Thinking about Sarah brings a wave of strength seemingly out of nowhere, and for a moment you wonder if the Gods heard you. If this is them sending their aid.

You take a few deep breaths, building up as much strength as you can, and try your luck one last time.

“I’m sorry.”

Your voice isn’t nearly as loud as it should be, and the room is so thickly padded that there’s no way he can hear you.

Hopelessness floods your body and you fall into it.

Your sorrow distracts you from the darkness until it takes hold of you and pulls you down, away from the world of pain that you’ve been trapped in.

And you feel peace.

#Dark Series #dark!fic #dark!au #dark!steve #dark!fanfiction #dark!steve x reader #dark!steve rogers #dark!steve x you #dark Steve rogers #dark steve #dark steve rogers #dark steve x reader #Steve Rogers x reader dark fic #steve x reader dark fic #Steve rogers x reader dark fic

[demonslayedher]

Dream Analysis of Mugen Ressha

Spoilers for the movie, while it does not depart from the plot of the manga, they made adaptational choices which I may refer to within.

While Enmu has control over what kind of dream his victims see, ultimately, he would have no way of knowing all of the details of his victims' lives, so we can assume that he is prompting his victims to fill in a lot of the details themselves. These are the worlds they surround themselves with consciously, but their untouchable unconscious spaces say just as much.

I've said some of this before, but these dream sequences give us so much to say about Inosuke, Zenitsu, Kyojuro, and Tanjiro.

Into the dream: Did that "Rengoku-aniki" thing really happen???? It's animated like a fever dream (or drawn like a typical Gotouge-being-Gotouge panel), but both the movie and the manga leave this inconclusive. It can be interpreted two ways: 1. The two other demons were there all along as decoys, set to appear only when Enmu's blood technique slowly started to take effect so that they'd let their guard down. In this way, we'd know that the boys had a true way of witnessing Kyojuro's prowess and a true bonding moment, thereby making his death hit all the harder later. This would also mean that one of the cars was totally unusable for passengers, and many of the passengers were already thoroughly spooked before falling into sleep. It would also imply that they were all super excited, thoroughly relieved, returned to their seats, and then just passed out.

2. The moment the tickets were clipped, Enmu's very, very, very realistic dreams took immediate effect, but he still needed time before it took effect enough that their guards would go down. If this is the case, then it implies the following: 1. Enmu's illusions can be shared 2. Everyone syncs extremely well together to have all been sucked in by the same illusion (it's possible it was only Tanjiro's, but since we get in everyone's heads a little in this part, I believe they all experienced the same thing). Reacting in ways so true to how they would in waking like, they learned as much about each other as truthfully as they would have if they were fighting while awake. 3. The "Rengoku-aniki" thing is the moment they're falling into a deeper stage of sleep, when any bizarre thing will make sense. They've lost any sense of holding back and are embracing the emotions as they hit them. Even if that was all a dream, the bond formed was very real. But then, as they fall deep, they fall into their own headspaces. Inosuke: I love how bombastic this dream is. It moves at a very fast pace, and everything revolves around Inosuke. He is physically much larger than Ponjiro, Chuuitsu, and Pyonko, who clearly follow him as their leader, the most powerful person in this cave exploring world full of wonder and excitement. True to life, these underlings can at times be frustrating or stupid, but there is no one else Inosuke would rather have at his side to take on a hugely impressive foe. It's a relatively simplistic world, what Inosuke really cares about is his place in it, and who is there.

Taking it a step deeper, he should not be able to manifest in his self-conscious space, but Gotouge attributes his and Zenitsu's ability to do this and protect their cores from intruders to their strong senses of self. What's telling is that his subconscious space is practically identical to his conscious dream space; like there is no breakage between one stage of reality and the next. In its Zen-like simplicity Inosuke's mind is never at odds with itself, its interpretation of reality is fluid and seamless. However, being at this deeper state brings us to a deeper state of self actualization, with Inosuke manifesting closer to the ideal beast he views himself as.

Now, with Inosuke being so fully invested in what he sees as reality, he's still got a carry-over effect from dream after waking up, which one could interpret as not having fully shaken the effects of Enmu's blood technique. After all, Zenitsu simply never broke out of it, Tanjiro had to kill himself in his dreams each time to fully snap out of it, and Kyojuro was the only one powerful enough to have broken through its effects through his own willpower. When Tanjiro says the train is a demon, he buzzes with "I was right!" (a conviction that only got stronger in his dream), and Inosuke's declarations of being the boss and Tanjiro being his underling are indignantly plentiful and he fully believes what he is saying every time he brings it up, even if he's aware that he's no longer in the cave exploring dream. But, given that Inosuke is so at peace with his own version of reality, it's also just as likely that his conviction of being The Boss was also only compounded by the dream, and all that dream did was give him a more fun setting in which to play around in. But, what was so fun about the dream, what made him sleep-giggle with pleasure, was that everyone else was finally getting with the program and recognizing him as the boss, as they should. Finally. It's so frustrating in real life that he has to keep reminding them to get it right. Get it, Santaro?? GOOD. Zenitsu: What I love here is the contrast between subconscious and conscious space. Both of them have the same theme melody, but played in very, very different ways. They also both play with the same core desire in very different ways as well. Is it so much to ask that he can just spend some time alone with the girl he loves?? If we jump straight to the pitch black unconscious space, he specifies to the intruder that only Nezuko is allowed there. Not just girls in general, not a close friend like Tanjiro, only the one girl he loves, and even then, you'd have to love someone a lot to invite them into the deepest, darkest corners of your soul. And it is a very, very, very, very dark corner. Zenitsu's spent most of his life building that dark, pessimistic personality, compounded by the treatment he's always received throughout his life and what he believes about himself at his core. He's ugly and depraved there, and very defensive. Because he holds himself in such darkness, that makes him desire the bright, happy, completely idealistic world of his conscious dream world. It's rich with detail and warm and he knows it well, that places is the first place he ever felt someone have hope for him; it's Jiichan's home, that sunny place with delicious peaches and full of clovers and lush greenery and a charming stream. Of course he'd want to show it all to Nezuko, she deserves to see such a happy, pretty place! And, while the world is idealized and happy, Nezuko is e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y cute and actually wants to hang out with him too. She's willing no hold his hand, none of the girls who dated (read: used) Zenitsu in the past were ever willing to hold his hand. He even gets to show her that he can be cool, and she likes it!! She looks him in the eyes and is totally honest about enjoying his company!!

He just wants someone to want him back. He wants to belong in the sunshine too. So, even if he had it in him to wake up from Enmu's blood technique, who can blame him for staying there? (You know, besides Tanjiro, who has been desperately screaming for them all to wake up and help him protect the passengers. Zzzzz, five more minutes, Tanjiro, zzzzzzz----) Kyojuro: This... isn't really a happy dream. Kyojuro has accepted a lot of sad parts of his reality so wholeheartedly that he doesn't seek the comfort of a dream in which his mother is still alive, or a dream in which his father is proud of him. Instead, what Kyojuro was looking for was the chance to go back and say more to Senjuro. This implies that on the real day he knelt in that room, while his father faced away and read the book* while Kyojuro told him all about how he defeated Lower Moon Two and became a Pillar, and was met with his father's heartbreakingly unenthusiastic reply, he later went outside and...

...didn't say any words of comfort to Senjuro.

This regret, that he didn't do more for his brother whom he knew was hurting in his own silent ways this whole time, was what sat most bothersomely in Kyojuro's otherwise peacefully self-assured psyche (or fired-up psyche, if you go by his subconscious space) . It makes sense that in his dying wishes, the first thing he requests is that Tanjiro do this in his stead. *Speaking of that book, Kyojuro had forgotten about it until his memories pulled together to create the details of the dream, which was why he thought to mention it to Tanjiro later. This shows that Enmu is not an architect of people's dreams, he only sets them in motion. How believable they are depends on each victim. (Totally unrelated, I love the design of the Rengoku estate's garden??? It's primarily evergreen and unflowering trees, meaning it stays relatively steadfast throughout the year, a garden designed in samurai villa taste. Plus the details of the house also fit really well, I think??? Would need to review research of buke-yashiki architecture to say more.) Tanjiro: ...*deep breath* This boy really, really wants to go home. Like, the climax of the movie is amazing and all, but it's the scenes with Tanjiro's family that make me cry. Ugh, where do I start. Enmu probably just grabs on to whatever thread of a desire a person has, and then he just tugs on it and says "this way, let's go really far in this direction, show me where it goes, hmm, okay, nice, lovely. Have fun here, I've now seen enough to write my own angsty version for later." So... so I'm just going to work backwards a moment. Enmu screwed up here, thinking he could really read the depth of Tanjiro's family and his feelings for them. He thought he could make a convincing version of these "characters" cry and shove Tanjiro around and speak meanly to him and make him feel shame. And the cut to that dream, OH MY GOSH, truly horrific sound and color change. But Tanjiro's sees through it so fast that he wakes up immediately and uses that anger at how Enmu wrote them to cut off his "head." You screwed up, Enmu, you blew it, maybe other people would very so blown down by the shock that they wouldn't question how unreal that dream sequence is, but Tanjiro has honed his fighting spirit so much that it's been nagging him even throughout his happy dream. And he really, really, really wants to stay in that happy dream. Like, even though he's on guard at the beginning, so much so that he only focuses on the familiar feeling of a demon being around and does not notice the familiar landscape AT ALL. But the moment Hanako and Shigeru step in, convincingly made from Tanjiro's memories and unedited by Enmu, Tanjiro throws that all away in an instant. As he says when he's trying, after trying and trying and trying to rip himself away from the dream, he was never even supposed to had left this world. He was never supposed to had touched anything like a sword, they were all supposed to stay there together, living their simple life. If things hadn't gone wrong that one night. Tanjiro cares deeply about his mission, he's adopted his training deeply, he has serious desire to improve, which is why his subconsciously keeps trying to call himself back to reality, but it's so hard, because this is where he wants to be, and it's even harder because it feels so real. It's a little peeve of mine when families with lots of little siblings are written to be too angelic and idealistic, and there is some of that with the "let's make sembei, yaaaay" scene, but... but that's actually pretty true. I'm giving myself away with how close this hits to home, but it's a dynamic in a lot of large families, especially large families pretty happy to stay to themselves and people who live the same sort of conservative, traditional lifestyle, to foster in the older siblings some pride in taking care of the little ones and helping create that happy world for them, even if taking care of little kids can be rough. It's not to say that things are always happy and fluffy, they're not, and that's not to say even

happy kids don't resent being in a large family sometimes. But there's plenty of moments in daily life, especially in the presence of small children, that you get swept up into a sillier, happy, caretaker side of yourself, and since you all grow up with these silly moments together, you're going to naturally fall into into some silly, scripted-feeling moments of "then I'll be in charge of eating the sembei!" "no faaaaair!". So, I'll give the sembei scene a pass because that IS a moment that happens in years of moments with the same posse of kiddos around you all the time. But it's also so striking to me how each of Tanjiro's siblings, however idealized, has their own personality. The traits are so subtle but consistent and Tanjiro knows all of them. They pick up on things about each other, they grow realistically annoyed and surprised and concerned and scared like they would if they were real instead of only Tanjiro's memories of them. Those kids feel so real to me, even if they are annoyingly overidealized in some parts as Tanjiro is letting himself get swept away. And just when he's managing to part from it to go face reality, Enmu makes more attack: he brings in Nezuko, trying to make it feel like there's no point in Tanjiro running at all. She's fine. There's nothing left for him to fight for. Everything's fine. And all over again, Tanjiro just stops. He KNOWS it's not real, but he's hurting so much to hear her voice again that he just sto-o-o-o-ps. And his desire to stay with the others catches up to him all over again, and he's tempted all over again to stay, EVEN KNOWING IT'S NOT REAL and there are very, very, very pressing matters to attend to. Even if it was all a little happy and idealized, more than anything, it felt like life always did. It's telling that when Tanjiro finally, FINALLY pulls away from that that time, he doesn't look back, and the family stops chasing him. This is Tanjiro accepting reality, however much it hurts. He's already had a couple years to accept this, but it was all overwhelming to get such a vivid taste of it again.

Tanjiro wants to do well to his organization and honor Urokodaki's training and avenge the fallen and prevent anyone else from being hurt and see an end to Kibutsuji Muzan and make Nezuko human again, but more than anything, he wants that simple life. And it's so, so heartwarming that at the end of the manga, he gets it.

It's not the same. It'll never be the same.

He never wanted a life with a sword, but he's been working so hard at it anyway.

#my heart is broken and it's Kamado Tanjiro's fault #KnY Fandom Theories and Meta #Mugen Ressha Hen #Kamado Tanjiro #Kamado Tanjirou #Agatsuma Zenitsu #Hashibira Inosuke #Rengoku Kyoujurou #Rengoku Kyojuro

[peablesart]

Eyepatch and Vision: More Diluc and Kaeya Thoughts

Hello it’s me again, here to dump more bittersweet brainrot headcanons for my two favorite Genshin Boys.

I have drawn a lot of art relating to Kaeya’s Vision acquistion, and thought for many unreasonable hours about what lies under his eyepatch, since his story is as real as Venti’s vision. This post is jus a hopefully coherent conflation of those ideas. 

If you want to see my deliciously angsty art for these headcanons, you can find them here, here, and here (TW // blood for the art)! I also have a cute little Ragnvindr family thing for relief that you can find here <3

DISCLAIMER : I see Diluc and Kaeya as siblings and this will not change, so anything I post about them is purely familial and platonic. If you ship kaeluc please do NOT interact with this post. 

When Crepus first finds Kaeya, he does not wear an eyepatch. The two different iris colors look like simple heterochromia, and while Crepus notes the strange star shape of his pupils, this doesn't startle him all that much. after all, there are many types of people in Teyvat (Hu Tao's flower pupils and how the royal Mondstadt clans have eccentric hair are prime examples). Also, he - like almost everyone else in Teyvat - cannot remember the extinction of Khaneri'ah, and therefore has no real reference for what their people look like.

As Kaeya grew older, however, his right eye started to corrupt. The iris would glow when his emotions ran high, and his sclera started developing dark purple veins. When it started getting more noticeable, Crepus gave him his first eyepatch. He told Kaeya that he didn't have to tell him anything about his part of his condition, but to lean on him when he needed help and that he'd be there for him when he was ready.

Kaeya fabricated a story for the eye patch, saying that it was his grandfather's that he'd found on one of his travels with the Ragnvindrs. He put an air of sentimentality to the accessory in the hopes that no one would ever ask him to remove it. At the same time, the corruption got worse, and by the time of Crepus' death, his sclera was completely black and his right eye was a swirl of gold and purple that shimmered in black light.

The sad part was that after Diluc's birthday, Kaeya had planned to come clean to both of them. he had decided to choose Mondstadt and risk exile for the family he had found. But he was too late. He did grieve for Crepus but decided that Diluc had to know, or he would be doing his adoptive father an injustice by withholding truths. He had planned to wait to tell him his secret, but Diluc's grief was hotter than he'd thought it would be. His brother’s flames had started to burn at ever memory in the mansion, and so Kaeya decided to create a schism between him and the person he considered his closest friend.

He chose to take the brunt of Diluc's anger and resentment, and that's why he was given his Vision. Even at his best, his skills had not been a match for Diluc., and in his brothers frenzy, he was broken down. Blooming from his broken form, the his Vision started to heal him. He saw Diluc stay his hand in that final fatal blow, and watched him walk away. He didn't see him again for four years, and when he returned, the both of them had changed so much that the chasm between them had only grown wider.

When Diluc sees him again after his travel, he sees the eyepatch and is filed instantly with fury. But the look in Kaeya's eye that simply screams guilt and sorrow is what keeps Diluc from acting on his anger. He tolerates Kaeya for the sake of his father, but finds that even though he had burned what they once had, Kaeya would still be his brother, the boy he shared all his secrets with. 

I personally feel that as they are right now, it’s clear that they still have a lot of tension to work through, but that both of them would go to any lengths for the other (as long as the other doesn’t know). This is clear, cause we know that Diluc knows Kaeya’s truth, that despite all the masks and the facades, he is the only person in Mondstadt (bar Albedo and Alice, perhaps) who knows him completely. And this truth that Diluc keeps is a secret that is an inherent detriment to his goal of protecting Mondstadt.

That alone makes me think that his four-year journey wasn’t just a search for truths. Yes during that time he learned about Delusions and their origins, but I feel like a part of it was to atone for what he likely thinks are his two biggest sins: not saving his father, and casting his brother out. Because let’s be honest, if Kaeya had confessed on any other day, at any other moment, Diluc would have given him his unwavering support, putting aside his goals to become Grandmaster to keep Kaeya safe. But the compounding anger from losing his father to the Knight’s betrayal caused him to lash out, and Kaeya’s eyepatch and Vision remain a stark reminder of this.

That’s probably why Diluc can’t get himself to mend the relationship he can have with Kaeya: there is tangible evidence of the destruction he wrought on someone he cherished. In a similar vein, I feel like Kaeya’s reluctance stems from uncertainty. He still considers Diluc family and the way he jabs at him is so fond and familar (he pesters him the same way I bother my sibling and cousins), yet he hesitates because he has not exactly been welcomed back.

Either way, I feel like Kaeya’s eyepatch and his Vision are important to both his and Diluc’s story. They still consider each other family, but cannot go back to the way things were simply because the two have changed so much. Yet there is still space for them to make amends and grow to trust each other again.

#gensin impact #genshin lore #character study #genshin character #diluc #genshin diluc #diluc ragnvindr #kaeya #genshin kaeya #kaeya alberich #diluc character study #kaeya character study #genshin angst #kaeya angst #diluc angst #genshin hc #genshin headcanons #peables-art #peables-hc #peables-tldr #pb stop talking about these two for FIVE MINUTES challenge

[vaalthus]

Remthalas Theory/Sort of Analysis: The All-Seeing Idiot God, The Dreaming Chaos, The Path of Omniscience. Oh and like potential Lore Spoilers maybe.

With the conclusion of the Reckoning War, and having bared witnessed to Remthalas’ actions, I believe we have a better idea of what our aquatic Dreamfarer desires and intends not only for themselves but for the inhabitants of Lore as well.

We already know that Remthalas believes that the only way to achieve freedom, to dream, is to not be shackled. To not live out the dreams or whims of others. Unfortunately, this boils down to the lesson Remthalas got out of the idea is that people should not tie themselves down by basic laws or morals people tend to follow. Otherwise, the endless possibilities provided by true freedom are not possible.

This a concept that he has clearly taken to his very core given how angrily or impulsively he’ll react should he feel someone is ordering him around or someone else shirking their freedom in his point of view as demonstrated when he rebuked Notha twice for commanding him and when he killed Mr. Nameless/Twinkles.

So that’s it then, right? Remthalas is just an anarchist drunk on freedom? Wanting all of Lore to break their shackles and live out their own dreams never minding once of those around them, right? Well yes, but there is I think a bit more going on here.

I found a few things concerning about Remthalas in our fight with either Notha or Uaanta. One, is that he found the Avatars more interesting in their reduced orb state. Secondly, he didn’t appear to want to destroy them. Thirdly, is that regardless of who we chose to side with, Rem finds us interesting either way. Fourth, and most concerning is that he only found Uaanta truly fascinating if she merged with the Avatars. Lastly, and most revealing was his desire to see all the events unfold regardless of what the outcome was and then simply bounce when a conclusion was reached.

The reason why I find him being able to see Uaanta as a truly fascinating player in this conflict is to be some cause for concern is that being ‘interesting’ to Remthalas seems to, at first, amount to being someone that can bring about his idea of freedom, freedom from the balance the Avatars imposed. Characters like the Hero and I imagine Notha when he first met her and was introduced to her ideology. However, if this is the case, why find Uaanta interesting? She after all plans to shepherd away the very entities responsible for the very concept that resulted in his abandonment and have shackled so many others and their dreams. Why find someone who still intends to be devoted to the Avatars to be a person of interest then? Are they not still choosing to wear their shackles? To ignore their own dreams in the favor of the dreams of others.

 The answer I think is simple. In the end, it was just less about Remthalas serving his ultimate plan and Remthalas wanting a show. Remthalas has always long been aware of our capacity to come out on top over our opponents, including his own fellow members. Why would he suspect there was any possibility we would lose to our dear friend or even Notha? He didn’t because he knew we would win, but how can he enjoy the play if all the actors aren’t putting in effort for their roles. After all, are you satisfied by the just the ending of a movie or the passionate performances that it took to get there?

You see I believe Remthalas revealed what he plans for us and Lore all the way back when we first met in the Ex Somniis Fabula or The Story of Dreams quest. In his introduction, Remthalas posits the question of whether he’d be able to alter reality if the entities only referred to as “They” dreamed instead of just slumbering. With quite the determined, if not a bit demented, expression on his face I might add. There’s also one other feature to this and it’s the fact that Remthalas points out that we’re in his dream, or perhaps more accurately his dream space, and that it’s basically just a blank white box. (There are also the blue glowing circles on his robes that could symbolize having multiple eyes to see which are only visible when he’s in his dream form, but it could also just represent Kathool’s eyes so who knows) This is ultimately his domain and by the looks of it he can bring anyone into it and determine what is experienced within this tiny space. What the viewer sees could amount to anything but what they ultimately stand is just the box, the blank canvas. Here, Remthalas controls reality, what goes on in the ‘bigger picture’ so to speak. Here, Remthalas is as close to a god as anyone else that can control their own dreams.

 What I’m getting at here is that Remthalas doesn’t just want freedom he wants to see possibilities and the process it takes to getting to an outcome. What he wants is to dream and for everyone else to be the actors in his never-ending play of entertainment. To see the big picture change from one point to the other. These are details that I think were touched on when he mentioned that he enjoyed the dreams of children because of their ability to imagine possibilities to fill in gaps left behind by a world they are still very new to. Or when he appeared genuinely disheartened at the idea that he was not at rest. Or when he finds dreams to be not interesting enough when pointing out that Voyna can only ever dream of dragons due to her trauma with them. Or even when we fought him in the dream to save Sally and he noted that our dream was “Fierce, but one dimensional” Or the rather basic nature, in comparison to whatever else he wanted to show us, of Notha’s backstory and memories.

 What he wants is for Lore to be his dream. To fit all of existence in that little box of his and to watch things go wild. Which is why I called him ‘Idiot God’ because if true then Remthalas is basically trying to become Azathoth, the Blind-Idiot God from the Lovecraftian Mythos who created the entire universe in that series by simply dreaming, and who will kill it if he ever wakes up. A character/concept I still believe was being referenced when Remthalas asked what would happen if “they” woke up and questioned if the world would stop existing if “they” did. However, unlike Azathoth, Remthalas intends to be aware of all that happens when he finally dreams.

Azathoth is not the only eldritch god that Rem appears to share similarities with and to be honest it the one that makes him perhaps the most untrustworthy. The god I’m referring to of course is Nyarlathotep: The Crawling Chaos, The Dweller in Darkness, The Haunter of the Dark. These are just a few titles of Nyarlathotep, but I believe they would fit Remthalas for the similarities they share with the Outer God. For one thing is how both Remthalas and Nyarlathotep communicate through dreams to any of their unaware victims and pass on information that might shatter their world view. Furthermore, much like Nyarlathotep, Remthalas seems take more enjoyment in the dreams of others being messed with in a way that is typically nightmarish in nature. The most important similarity here of course is that both entities are more driven by spreading chaos and madness through people as opposed to their utter annihilation like other eldritch gods such as Cthulu. The reason for this is because in the case of both characters, I believe in Rem’s case anyway, their enemies isn’t so much other people but rather boredom, in addition to their own stagnation.

An interesting contrast I just thought about between them however is how Nyarlathotep and Remthalas spread chaos. As mentioned, Nyarlathotep does so through dreams by revealing, in typical Lovecraftian cosmic horror fashion, how utterly pointless the lives of his victims are in the face of the sheer overwhelming forces at play in the infinite and unknown universe and how they should just succumb to madness and/or become one of his followers, to amuse himself. Remthalas kind of does something similar when he suggests that morals and the lives people are currently living don’t hold much weight in the face of the grander schemes and roles of the Avatars. 

However, unlike Nyarla, Remthalas would do this so that others cast off their rules, still to amuse himself with the chaos that would thrive from that but in his view, they’d be getting something out of it. A sort of “You and everything you’ve known don’t matter so succumb to despair and madness and entertain me” vs “You and everything you’ve known don’t really matter so do what you want and entertain me” Chaos vs Chaos but different philosophies on how to get it.

The connections that can be drawn to other well known eldritch entities does make me wonder if when we see Remthalas next he might be trying to elevate his power on the material plane to that of the Primordials (Kathool, Uthuluc (probably not Uthuluc out of all of them to be honest), The Witness, Sciuridaehotep, the latter of which is just a Nyarlathotep reference) or is somehow going to get them involved in some way when his plans really start to get under way. If he does somehow involve Kathool in what he intends to pull off I imagine we might see Aquella again given that she’s supposed to overwatch his bedtime and I think it would fit to have a water take on another that was devoted to Kathool. I’d suspect she, or potentially another water elf, could reveal more of in-depth info on Remthalas’ servitude to the Avatars and later Kathool.

This brings us to the question of course of how exactly Rem plans to pull this all off. Obviously, we fit into those plans. However, with what just happened with the Avatars now being out of the picture and Myalos also being out of commission, what’s the next step? Where does he take us from there? The answer goes back to those “They” entities being referenced. Remthalas has brought them up, but he wasn’t the only one I believe. Celeritas mentioned them once when Sinnoncence made his move. I believe, I’m certain, that our dear Big Daddy named dropped them for us a long time ago. 

The one and only Aequilibria, the true gods of existence who are said to be slumbering even now. How Remthalas intends on exerting power over these beings is unknowable, but it would appear the best time to do so before they awake once more.

Which brings us to the Hero and the interest Rem has taken in them. It is clear the main reason that Remthalas has taken an interest in us is because of how capable we were in comparison to Uaanta at the time he was scouting us both out. We are an invested tool…and yet. I cannot help but wonder if Remthalas continued engrossment of us isn’t just because he knows we’ll be useful to his plans but also because Remthalas is straight up looking for a plus one when his plan would be theoretically completed. He did offer us to see where the currents of existence could take us.

  After all, why look at and enjoy multiple paintings in a vacuum or go to the movies by yourself when you can have someone watch it all with you. Then again, as I mentioned earlier, he could simply be viewing us as just another tool to pull off his plans and that is join the others later once everything falls in place

All of what I stated is more speculation than anything but if any of it’s true then we are in for a ride.

#dragonfable #Remthalas #primordials #Aequilibria #Watch everything I just said be uber wrong #Blind idiot God #Crawling Chaos #Lovecraft parallels #Was MrNameless trapping everyone in a tiny dimension he controlled foreshadowing to what Remthalas plans? #Dreamfarer #The never ending dream #If Remthalas does attempt to use the Aequilibria then perhaps we won't even see him again for awhile. #The eyes Mason what do they mean!?!?!?!? #It's made of fear and nightmares y'all #What if Remthalas tries to do his thing and Sciuridaehotep straight up tells him No #Boom crisis averted #Remthalas is our villian #But he couldn't care at all about using Draco #What forces are at work here #More to a prophecy #He refuses to respect Lock and Key because they can not entertain his dreams #Tools can only follow a patter in his eyes #And that's boring #Same thing with Myalos #Uaanta did something new #Aquella return? #The dreams were dark #df lore #df spoilers #I am now imagining Remthalas sitting on a couch and watching people run around screaming through a window because he moved a stone

[canyouimaginethatstory]

I Need You (Lucifer X Reader)

A/N: This was written for a friend that was inspired by an edit they made of Lucifer. I kinda tweeked history a bit but I think i worked. ENJOY!

Lucifer was sitting on the porch of a small little cabin that was hidden away. It was a cabin he himself had designed. True the devil didn't really need a house. He could go wherever he wanted. But after whats happened he couldn't bring himself to go anywhere else. But he also couldn't stand to go inside. The small building held good memories. It also held memories that crushed the celestial being every time he stepped inside. Especially since those events had happened just two days ago. The memories caused more pain to the fallen angel than even his punishment from his father. The day he lost the one being he had come to truly love. And to top it off she was human. Her name was Y/N and Lucifer knew for the rest of his existence he'd never love another. Lucifer snapped his fingers and a bottle of liquor appeared in his hand.

He downed a drink full as memories of her played in his mind. The archangel had met her shortly after returning from the alternate world. she was a hunter from that world. Lucifer couldn't explain it. The minute he spotted her standing in the bunker library he felt drawn to her. He remembered how confused and scared she looked. Over time Lucifer would come up with small things to say to her. To his shock unlike everyone else who glared at him or avoided him she didn't. Y/N always replied back. Always offered him a warm smile. He often found himself smiling back. Not his usual cocky, menacing smile. But a genuine smile. As time went on they spent more together. Lucifer found himself growing very fond of her.

Unknown to Y/N when she would go on hunts Lucifer always stayed close to her. She never saw him but he was determined to make sure she always returned safe and sound. During one hunt a wendigo managed to corner her. Before it could hurt her she watched as it poofed away into dust. Y/N was confused until she sensed someone standing beside her. She looked over to see Lucifer looking at her. She swore she saw worry in his eyes. He wasted no time making sure she was ok. Lucifer took notice that she was looking up at him kind of weird. He was starting to worry again when she gently grabbed his face and pulled him down enough to place a small, soft kiss on his lips. He gently wrapped his arms around her and happily kissed back. And that's when their romance was born.

In his eons of existence no one of any kind of being made him feel like Y/N did. Loved, wanted. Around Y/N Lucifer felt more like an angel than the monster most other humans and beings saw him as. He truly loved her. Every time that fact hit him he would chuckle. He had despised the human race and yet he fell hard for one of them. And this fall he enjoyed. Not to say that the relationship didn't come with worry. Y/N was a hunter after all. Lucifer knew she wouldn't give up the life. So every hunt he was secretly there with her. He smiled remembering how she always referred to him as her guardian angel. He loved how it sounded. She has had currently been on a hunt. Tracking what seemed to be a goddess of some kind. That had Lucifer on high alert. If he were to pick a being that annoyed him more than humanity it would be gods and goddesses. Y/N was slowly scoping the rundown house her lead had brought her to. When she rounded the something grabbed her and pinned her against the wall. She looked and noticed it was vines.

"Well what do we have here?" she heard a strong female voice say as a figure walked out of the shadows. The woman had long red hair with back roses braided into it and she was wearing a flowing black gown.

"Who are you?" Y/N asked.

"I go by many names," she said, "but I think your kind mostly knows me as Persephone,".

"The goddess?" she asked a little shocked. The goddess nodded.

"Why are you hurting people?" Y/N asked, "aren't you suppose to be good,".

"Oh I was," she said, "but then I was taken to hell. To be the dark princes' queen," Lucifer shuddered from the shadows he hid in. "Who knew I would actually fall in love with Hades,".

"Hades?" Y/N asked. Then her eyes widened, "You mean Lucifer?". Again the goddess nodded.

"I was given a special spell to enter his cage," she said, "but then one day he decided I needed to return to my family. I begged him to let me stay. I loved him. But he said he didn't love me,".

"So all of this for an eons broken heart?" Y/N asked.

"Oh no," Persephone stated walking closer to her, "it was to Lure you here Y/N Y/LN,".

"Why me?" Y/N asked.

"Because your the one he wants," she said coldly, "and I want my prince back,". Soon Persphone's hand was around Y/N's throat.

"Let her go Persephone," Lucifer ordered suddenly appearing.

"I will only spare her if you let her go," she said, "you belong with me Hades,".

"The hades you know is long gone," Lucifer said, "First to all of any kind Hades was a god. But I'm not a god. You gods and goddesses are lesser creatures than I. I am an archangel. We were only a thing because of one of my father's failed attempts at storytelling," Lucifer's eyes glew red, "Now let her go!".

"Fine," Persephone said, "but if I can't have you back. Have my throne in the underworld back. Then neither can she," Suddenly a bolt of light flew from her palm and hit Y/N full force. The pain through her body was so intense she couldn't even scream.

"No!" Lucifer screamed and raised the goddess up in the air by her neck. Anger fueled the angel as he slowly drained the life out of the goddess. And just let her lifeless body turn to ash in his hand. He snapped out of the state of red he was seeing when he heard Y/N gasping. Like she couldn't breathe. "It's gonna be ok," he said kneeling down beside her. He placed his hands on her and started letting his grace flow. But something was wrong. It's was like his grace was blocked. Y/N saw the fear in his eyes. He couldn't heal her. "No no come on," he muttered to himself. Trying so hard to get his angelic powers to work. "come on!" he yelled as he kept trying to heal her. Y/N gently grabbed his hands.

"Lucifer," she said to get his attention, "Just take me home,". Lucifer still determined to heal her gently picked her up in his arms and zapped to the little cabin. When things got serious between Y/N and himself he had conjured the small house so they could have a place to hide away together whenever they felt like it. He gently laid her on the bed in the small building.

"I'm gonna heal you just hold on Y/N," he assured her kissing her forehead. Again trying to get his grace to work.

"Lucifer," she said gently touching his cheek. The sadness and fear playing in his blues eyes broke her heart, but she knew for her this was it, "just sit here with me,".

"Y/N please," he tried to plead.

"There's no curing me," she said right before a small coughing fit hit, "whatever she did to me is stronger than your grace. And I can't fight it,".

"Y/N please let me try," he said. Tears clearly forming, "please hold on. I need you,".

"My guardian angel," she said placing her hand on his chest where his heart was, "you'll always have me. Right here,".

"I won't have a heart if I lose you Y/N," he said. She reached up and wiped a tear from his cheek as it slid down.

"Yes you will," she said taking a big breath of air. It was becoming harder to breathe, "I want you to do me a favor Lucifer,". He nodded. Clearly trying to hold himself together. "Don't let yourself be the monster other beings think you are," she gasped again, "be the angel I know you are,". He leaned down and kissed her softly.

"I love you," he said as he gently held her close to him.

"I love you too Lucifer," she said softly as she closed her eyes. And he knew. She was gone. She didn't witness the full blown angel meltdown. With tears freely flowing Lucifer took out his hurt and anger on the inside of the small cabin. Breaking and smashing anything in his path while letting a pain filled inhuman screech escape. And now he was sitting on the porch of that same cabin. it felt like years had passed by but had only been days since he lost her. He didn't know what to do. He wanted to give her the goodbye she deserved but what was it? Then a thought came to him. She was a hunter. Was. That word sent a bolt of fresh pain through the archangel as it reminded him that his true love was gone. Really gone. He finished the bottle of liquor and smashed it on the ground next to the countless others that he had downed before it as he stood up. He walked up the small pebble path that lead from the house to the road. And just stared at the place that for short while felt like a home. But it only felt that because he had her.

"I'm sorry," was all he whispered as he waved his hand and the cabin was soon engulfed in flames.

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#lucifer supernatural #luciferspn #lucifer x y/n #lucifer x you #lucifer x reader #lucifer spn imagines #lucifer supernatural imagines #supernatural lucifer x reader #mark pellegrino

[blonde-in-charge]

Wildcard, Chapter One

** Hello everyone! My name is Kat, and this is the first imagine I have ever posted! I am still really new to the posting process so please stick with me. Anyways, I hope you enjoy **

Summary: Steve Rogers found you on the side of the road after a mission involving Hydra and convinced the Avengers to take you in. You have no name, no memories, and no idea of what you are capable of. All you know is that you are a super soldier with more hidden abilities than you care to admit. The first step to finding answers was to train you. Nobody, including you, knows what is up your sleeve. 

Characters: No Pairings(yet) Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Natasha Romanoff, Tony Stark, Sam Wilson

Warnings: Tiny bit of cursing, Loss of memory, Mentions of blood/violence, Scars

Words: 3.3k

Waking with a start, you groaned at the action of shifting your legs between the scratchy sheets. Your legs tightened and strained from the previous day, making you unable to move comfortably. Sitting up, you hiss as you strained to throw your legs ofthe side of the bed. It was quiet, for once, in the tower. On any other normal day, you would hear the group you lived with from down the hallway, chatting loudly over breakfast and laughing. You glared over at the angry red numbers projecting themselves into the air. 

4:45am

Shit.

Pulling your arms up over your head, you stretched your aching muscles until you heard the satisfying popping noise come from one of your elbows. You pushed yourself off of the bed and sighed as your legs took on the weight of your body. You ached like never before even just standing still. You felt up your nightstand in the dark, knocking over random half drunk water bottles in the attempt to find your glasses. Satisfied when your fingertips took hold of the lenses, uncaring of the fingerprints you knew would bother you later. The door automatically slid open as you walked towards it, slowly and not picking up your feet. One of the perks of living with Tony Stark was that you never had to open a door on your own, the downside was you had the misfortune of walking into non automatic doors on the rare occasion you left the tower.  

The halls were silent in the tower, making the shuffling of your feet seem louder than they should have been. As you walked past the doors of your colleagues you could hear soft snoring from one of the rooms and louder snoring from further down the hallway. You smiled to yourself, knowing your friends were getting what you couldn't, sleep. It wasn't like you tried to get less hours of sleep than everyone else, your mind and body have not let you rest since you have joined the team. 

-Eight Months Ago- 

You sobbed, curling yourself as tightly into a ball as you could, holding your hands to your chest as your hair whipped through the air. You had secluded yourself into the corner of an abandoned gas station in god knows where. You had no idea where you were, how you got there, what was happening, or even who you were. You had woken up on a cold metal table in a concrete room wearing nothing but a sports bra and tight training pants that stopped at your ankles. You don’t remember how but you broke the cuffs holding down your wrists and ankles, leaving bloody gashes in their wake. 

Your attention was drawn to the sound of heavy footsteps nearing you as you pushed yourself into the wall, begging to just disappear through it, “Please don’t take me back” you sobbed, hot tears rolling down your face, “I don’t know anything just let me go!”

Uncovering your face you looked up into a man's face. He looked relatively young with his blonde hair but the worry lines he was sporting upon looking at you aged him. 

He knelt down in front of you keeping his distance, “Shhh, I’m not here to hurt you, I’m here to help you. What's your name, kid?” He studied your face with kind blue eyes, his gaze felt instantly calming.

“I- I don’t- I don’t know,” you stared at him in disbelief, how could you not know your own name? The man looked at you and nodded before looking behind him and speaking so someone you could not see

“Guys, I found a girl about 10 miles out from the compound, she is in pretty rough shape. Have the quinjet meet at my coordinates ASAP,” He spoke softly around you but in a commanding tone until he nodded, apparently getting answers from the voices you could not hear. His eyes trailed back to your eyes, searching you. His eyes then trailed down to your hands clutched at your chest and they filled with worry. 

You looked down at your own hands stretching them in front of you, there were deep cuts on either one of your wrist running all the way around until they met in a circle, and they were bleeding profusely onto your exposed stomach. You looked back up at the man, suddenly extremely light headed and you watched his figure fade away into darkness as you passed out. 

-

The coffee maker trickled the dark liquid slowly into the pot, a sound that soothes your nerves every early morning. You wished you could go back to sleep but everyone would be getting up soon anyways, and coffee was calling your name. Whatever that was. The minutes ticked by as the coffee pot filled up and you realized you had stood there unmoving, staring at a whisk while trapped in your own mind. You reached up into the cabinet for your favorite mug and hissed as your muscles protested the sudden movement. You felt the presence of someone behind you as you poured the fragrant liquid into the mug. 

“Didn't we have that talk with you about announcing your presence in rooms when you entered, Buck?” You held the mug in both hands and turned around to lean against the countertop.

The brooding soldier stood before you with his resident scowl on his face and long brunette hair sticking up in every direction. Your eyes scanned over the man sporting black tee shirt and sweatpants, the circles under his eyes matching his outfit. He looked as if he slept as well as you did. He studied you for a second, his eyes questioning why you were awake.

You watched him carefully, “Bad dream,” was all you offered to him before he gave a knowing nod before looking away from you, his actions told you he was up for the same reason. He took a seat at the island in the middle of the vast kitchen and rubbed his hands up over his face as you made him a mug of coffee. Bucky took his coffee black, with one sugar, while your coffee had to be the color of your sheets with at least four sugars. Like the bad ass you were. He gripped the mug with his flesh hand, allowing himself to feel the heat of it before he sipped it. You two sat together in a comfortable silence that was familiar with the both of you. Your relationship with Bucky was the strongest of any relationships in the group (besides yours with Steve) despite your lack of communication. Both of you had seen the same hell and understood each other on the deepest level. Bucky never looked at you longer than necessary, even when speaking he kept his head down, he only ever looked at you when you weren't looking, to study you. Everyone in the tower treated him as a time bomb, except for you because you understood the trauma he has experienced. You had been in the tower long before Bucky had joined. The reason you were found was because they were looking for Bucky. 

A new set of footsteps caught your attention and pulled you out of your thoughts of the dark soldier. The familiar and heavy footsteps rounded the corner and met your face with a refreshed smile. You gave him a half smile, “Morning Capt.” 

Steve smiled at you over his shoulder as he opened the fridge, “Good morning, kid. Good morning, Buck,” He started pulling out different ingredients for the breakfast he was planning on making, but every morning you take over that process because Steve hasn't cooked ever in his life. As he pulled foods out, you pulled out pans and made your way over to the stove

You busied yourself with making scrambled eggs and bacon while letting your mind wander. Your relationship with Steve was strong, you had been inseparable since he brought you to the tower because of the sense of comfort he gave you. Steve had been extremely protective of you when it came to the other team members, he was always worried you would get over-stimulated or someone would cross a line with you. He was the best friend who let you sleep in his bed when you had nightmares but also would hold you down when your line of sanity breaks. That was another thing you and Bucky had in common, everyone was waiting for you to snap. If the power went out in the tower, your room and Bucky’s room would be the only two doors that lock and stay locked. You were also suspicious that Tony’s interface, Friday, sends Steve notifications of when you leave your room at night or if your heart rate elevates unexpectedly, because Steve always was there out of pure chance. 

“She's doing that thing again,” The voice snapped you out of your deep thought and you looked up into the face of Sam, “Mornin, Hot Stuff,” He grinned at you, the stupid grin that he did when he referred to you as one of your ever changing nicknames, “How did you sleep?” 

You finished plating the mountain of bacon you had made while distracted and ignored the question, “Would you like a cup of coffee, Sammy?” you asked as you turned around to face him and place the food on the island as the rest of the Avengers seemed to file in. 

You weren't surprised to see Bucky had already escaped the kitchen quietly, he never sat in one place for too long. Steve had watched you with concerned eyes, which made you realize he caught the part where you ignored Sam’s question. You shrugged to yourself, I can survive on two hours, I’ll be fine. Natasha came and touched your shoulder, “Gym in an hour, resuming our session from yesterday.”

You sighed, you were still so sore from yesterday's training. You could barely sit in a chair without your muscles locking up so how did she expect you to train again? Yesterday consisted of 100 weighted squats, but your weight was Steve Rogers. Nat really liked to make you work on the thing you struggle with the most, your strength. When you first came to the tower, you had broken the bathroom door, actually you didn't break it, when you tried opening it, you basically threw it across the room and broke a lamp. Your current favorite mug is the 12th favorite mug since you have been here and Sam refuses to give you a fist bump because you broke his hand the last time, you cringed at the memory. You made your way to your bedroom and pulled out a sports bra and leggings. Most of the clothes you owned were either Natasha's or free Avengers merchandise. You made your way to the bathroom and removed your glasses to put your contacts in, you wondered if you had always had trouble seeing distances, not that you could remember. You looked at yourself in the mirror, the (y/e/c) eyes staring back at you looked so tired and unfamiliar. You brushed down the wild mane that was your hair and pulled it into a tight braid. You opted to wear a long sleeve tee shirt to cover the nasty scars that littered your body from your rescue, you knew no one cared but you did not need a reminder. 

-

Natasha was ready before the hour was up and you knew it. You always met her early in hopes of ending the session early, but that never happened. The training room was located three floors down from you and it took up the entire floor. Nat was standing in the sparring ring in the center of the room with Tony and Steve.

“Do I have to squat both of you?” the whine was evident in your voice and Steve chuckled

“No, we are going to help you learn to control your powers,” He gave you a slight smile and you could sense the anxiety in his voice

“Which ones?” You raised an eyebrow at him and he looked at Tony

Tony cracked his neck, “The ones we know of, hopefully those are the only ones but you have been known to surprise us,” Tony sounded slightly annoyed, you knew he was not your biggest fan, “but I came prepared.” He slapped the fire extinguisher at his side like a new car 

Natasha looked at you sensing your discomfort at the situation, “where do you want to start?”

-Eight Months Ago-

You woke up with a start, one second you were in front of this man and the next in a bright room. You blinked rapidly to adjust your eyes to the light as you sat up to take in your surroundings. You were in a small room of glass that separated you from a larger room that looked like a medical office from the future. You felt your arms and looked down to see deep white set scars that circled both of your wrists. You looked up and made eye contact with the man that saved you before as he made his way to your room and stepped in. He had a soft smile on his face as he glanced at you, “Mind if I sit?” he asked, gesturing to the chair at your left you didn't even realize was there. You nodded at him silently and he took his seat while watching you examine your scars, “I hope you got some rest, you have been through a lot the last couple of hours.”

Your head shot up as you looked at him, you opened your mouth to speak and let out a barely audible, “Hours?” You remember the slices in your wrist, they were so deep, how could this heal in hours? You looked at the man for some sort of explanation but he offered none

“My name is Steve, I was the one that found you last night. Do you remember that?” You nodded your head once again, “That's good, do you remember how you got where you were when I found you?”  

You were a million miles away trying to remember anything. You remember the room you woke up in, the way you tore yourself off of the table, the blood, and then all you could remember was fire and the howling of the wind in your ears as you ran. As if he read your mind, Steve nodded at you and combed his fingers through his hair. He stood up and left the glass cubicle for a second to speak to a woman outside. The woman then followed him in and started to unhook you from the various monitors around you before she stepped out of the room. Steve looked at you questionably before offering his hand and asking, “Do you think you can walk?” You nodded and slid your legs over the side of the bed and pushed yourself up onto your feet, holding Steve's hand for balance. He watched you take a couple of steps before he was confident you would be okay, “Follow me.”

-

You huffed out a breath that made the hair hanging in front of your face jump. Your body was screaming at you to let it rest but Natasha’s training was resilient. Tony had resorted to putting on one of his iron suits to protect himself from you. You looked at Nat and she simply nodded, “Again.” You sighed loudly and used all of your might to focus on the suit in front of you. Fire suddenly engulfed your hands and reached up to your elbows as well as your feet up until your knees. Your eyes had turned into flames that flickered out of the socket as you made a fist and punched Tony’s suit in the center of the chest, where his power source was. The lights in the suit flickered out as well as the flames engulfing your body. You looked over at Nat expectantly and she nodded in approval. You huffed out a sigh of exhaustion and doubled over with your hands on your knees. Your vision was spotty from the amount of power you put into the set but Natasha and Tony were relentless. “Stand up, we are moving onto the next set.”

“I’m fucking tired,” You hissed as you stood up straight, “Give me a second.”

Natashas stone look reamined, “You won't have a second if Hydra comes after you again.”

You flinched at the name, Hydra. No one has spoken that word around you since you joined the tower and rightfully so, the name burned through you and you felt your body start to heat with anxiety before Tony cleared his throat, “Look power puff, lets just get the next set finished and you can go back to hating the world after, yeah?” He clapped his hands together and faced you while ignoring Nat’s glare from the corner. 

You pushed the hair back from your sweaty forehead, “Fine, which set?” You took your stance across from the suit with your hands out in front of you, ready to wield whatever he asked for. 

You could hear the smirk in his voice, “Surprise me.” You shut your eyes to concentrate, then you felt the power creep up your skin from a dark place within you, causing goosebumps to rise. Your eyes opened and locked with the target in front of you. You swirled your hands around watching as frost covered the floor, creeping its way towards Tony before it encapsulated the feet of the suit with thick blocks of ice. The suit itself did not completely freeze over on the outside, you were forcing your abilities inside the suit, trying to force the millionaire out. The suit cracked in some spots and opened as a safety precaution to a worried Tony Stark, who was shivering enough to shake the ring. You barely hear Natashas voice as you watch the ice creep slowly up Tony’s body, his wide eyes staring at you with fear. 

“y/n!”

Your name snapped you out of the trance you had been in and you focused on the situation. Tony was almost completely trapped in a frozen block and Natasha’s feet were frozen to the floor of the ring, both of them staring at you with wide eyes. You turned around to face Steve as he stared at you with concern written all over his face. Your words caught in your throat, “I didn't mean- I’m- “ You turned back towards Natasha and Tony and forced the ice to creep back from them. Tony fell out of the suit onto his knees with a gasp, holding his arms and shivering violently. 

“Tony, I am so sorry, I don't know what-” Tony held a shaking hand up to you and you looked down at your feet.

“S-save it, k-kid.” He looked at you and leaned back to sit on the ground, “This is what I get for helping train th-the new kid.” He sighed and closed his eyes before laying back against the ground, “No hard feelings, Frozone. Just give me a minute and take the day off.”  

You watched him with worried eyes and turned back to Steve, who was mirroring your expression but not for Tony. You shrugged your shoulders and walked over to him, hanging your head low. He reached out to touch your shoulder but you flinched at the sudden movement. Steve stopped his hand and then dropped it, letting it hang limply at his side while studying you. You gave him an apologetic look before walking away towards the elevator. 

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x avenger!reader #steve x reader #steve rogers x female reader #steve rogers x reader #bucky barns imagine #steve rogers imagine #marvel imagine #Wildcard Series

[thefirstknife]

Sorry for the long ask, but as somebody who's recently been enjoying the tries revamp and the accessibility it gives to middling pvp players, I've been getting into the lore on the trials gear, and there's a lot of entries so I'm having trouble keeping track. I've mostly been interested in Sola, who only seems to come up a few times? She ends up torturing a guardian in the trials, looking for 'something inside them like in her.' It's interesting though, because the power she wields, (and seemingly seeks when Aunor catches her tracking an anomaly in arrivals) isn't described as darkness or stasis, but some kind of corrupted void light? I can't find mention of anything else like this, and I feel like there's lore entries I'm missing?

Anyways, Trestin, another trials guardian, gets killed unnecessarily viciously by Sola (I think, that lore entry mentions they're competing against Crimiq-5, who is on Sola's fire time, so this seems right) and later goes on to become obsessed with stasis, torture house salvation refugees as well as her own fireteam, and gets put down by Aunor as well. Is this a coincidence? Does Sola do what she does to Trestin because she sees the same temptation towards corruption? Or is it more direct? It almost seems like she passes it on, virulently, and I'm mainly wondering if that's something that has any other evidence when it comes to corrupted guardians. I figure you might know, I'm having trouble searching since some of it is trials gear, some isn't, and they don't all mention everyone's name

Took me a while to get the full info on this because I wanted to put all of the lore entries in order and they're kinda scattered around!

Okay, so, this story is told on Trials weapons lore. First batch was released in Season of the Worthy and then the sort of conclusion in Season of the Chosen. There's a minor update in Season of Arrivals on non-Trials gear (Temptation's Hook). The first batch of lore details a single Trials match between two fireteams.

One fireteam consists of Trestin, Yara and Sadhij. The other fireteam is Sola, Crimiq-5 and Katake. Roughly in some semblance of order, the lore on items is as follows:

The Summoner - This seems to be the start as it shows Trestin meeting up with her fireteam and going into the match. The one important thing to note here is that Trestin was apparently deeply affected by what happened on the Moon (during Shadowkeep and the discovery of the Pyramid) and seems to be resigned that the end is coming and that there's nothing anyone can do about it. It appears she was somewhat influenced by the Pyramid into despair and losing hope.

Astral Horizon - This is somewhere at the start of the match. Sadhij tells his teammates Trestin and Yara that he's going for one of the enemies (Katake). He charges with a shotgun and uses Thundercrash which completely obliterates Katake. No surprise there. However, at the end, there is a rifle shot and then silence.

Exile's Curse - This details the start of the match from the other team's perspective. We see the same event of Katake being Thundercrashed by Sadhij from the eyes of his teammate Crimiq-5 who warns Katake about being out of line of sight. Crimiq-5 witnesses Katake being obliterated.

Eye of Sol - Again from Crimiq's POV, he is standing in the back with a sniper rifle and he watches Sola attacking Trestin. He seems to be very distraught about this:

Sola had ripped through their previous opponents with off-putting ferocity, and Crimiq was ready for this to be their last match of the day. He looked over her through his scope. Sola's silhouette marinated in an eerie shimmer that distorted the air as she moved.

He shoots a warning shot at her position to keep the third opponent (Yara) in cover. Then he hears Katake's cry for help against the Thundercrash and aims there, killing Sadhij. That's the rifle shot at the end of Astral Horizon lore.

The Scholar - This moves us to Sola's POV, where it's described that she's torturing Trestin and telling her that she can feel "it" in her too. I assume that both Sola and Trestin were deeply affected by the Lunar Pyramid and were both in the early stages of corruption by it. Sola felt it in Trestin.

"So…" Sola's intent bit deeper, malleable claws that flexed against her prey's Light. They probed through blood and muscle to an umbral center. "…it's within you too."

After the torture incident, Saint steps in to end the match and reprimand Sola. He also reprimands Crimiq, but Crimiq says he doesn't want anything to do with Sola. This further angers Sola and she leaves, telling everyone they're "as good as dead anyway." Note the same kind of despair and loss of hope that Trestin exhibited even before she was attacked by Sola.

Tomorrow's Answer - This brings us a bit back to the final person who has a POV which is Yara who witnesses what Sola did to Trestin:

A violet shockwave pushed away the dust. Trestin knelt a few paces away, beaten. The Warlock bent her glowing hand into Trestin's chest plate, lodging a vortex grenade into her armor. Yara met her eyes and saw the Void overtake her. She did not hear the scream, or the splitting armor. She only saw flickers of Trestin break apart and scatter as the vortex ate away at her.

Sola lodged an entire vortex grenade into Trestin. Horrible way to die. Yara yells at Sola about Trestin not deserving that and Sola snaps back:

"None of us 'deserve.' It's about what you can get." The Warlock smiled and raised a hand of gnarled Void. "Brace yourself."

This shows how far gone Sola was. Definitely far more corrupted than Trestin. Presumably, Sola also finished off Yara in the match before it ended.

In Season of Arrivals, there's an update about this on Temptation's Hook. It's shown that Sola has been captured by the Praxic Order. The Praxics lead by Aunor know that Sola took another Guardian "to the outer system" and that they did not return with Sola.

I assume "the outer system" means Europa, but that's only because now we have additional information from Season of the Chosen. Since this is from Season of the Worthy, it could also mean that Sola and Trestin went out further into the outer system and met with the Black Fleet (the Black Fleet lurking at the edges of the system is mentioned in this lore). Sola also says some strange things:

"I learned the secret. The one your hounds have hidden away in that quaint little vault." Sola smiles red through split lips. "You're on the losing side."

"Do you think you have nothing to lose, or that I wouldn't take it from you? You're sorely, and soon to be regretfully, mistaken."

Sola spits in Aunor's face. "You have limits. You have masters." A twisted Light shimmers in Sola's hand as she moves to attack. "Enjoy hanging to death in your strings!"

This is probably referring to the presence of Darkness on Europa to which Sola and Trestin were either directly exposed OR they may have been told about it during their visit to the Black Fleet (depending on where they went exactly). It appears her Ghost was also exposed. Both Sola and her Ghost are contained by the Praxic Order: Sola killed and her Ghost disabled from resurrecting her.

The next, roughly chronologically would be The Messenger. Some time has passed. Aunor meets with Ikora about the problem of another corrupted Guardian who tortured Eliksni civilians, asking them about Eramis and how she accessed Darkness, as well as torturing her own teammates. It's revealed that the Guardian in question is still located on Europa and trying to access Darkness as well as that the Guardian's name is Trestin.

That leaves us with the final entry which is Sola's Scar. In it, we follow Trestin on Europa as she's nearing the Darkness obelisk, eager to get its power. She details how she betrayed her fireteam and what was driving her:

Over the radio, Lord Saladin's voice grew staticky: "Cabal incursion… Vex… up ahead." Without a word, Trestin's Ghost switched it off. There were others nearby to carry out the Iron Lord's orders. He wouldn't miss them.

She doubted anyone would—her ex-teammates least of all. She had betrayed them, or so Sadhij had screamed: "We're supposed to be the thin line drawn before the Darkness, you traitor!"

|| Thin indeed. So why not step over it? ||

Because they didn't have it in them. She checked. Cracked them both open and dug deep, just to be extra sure. But it wasn't there. That hunger, immense and buried, like the ocean under Europa's glacial crust. A riptide, undetectable from the surface, yet unrelenting in its pull. She never meant to betray anyone. She just wanted release.

|| Soon, you will have it. Soon, you will be freed. ||

She has brief memories of her fireteam, namely one of Yara's jokes. Darkness makes sure to tell her that such attachment is weakness. Just before Trestin reaches the obelisk, Aunor catches up to her and asks her to come quietly. Trestin disobeys and Aunor strikes her down with a sword.

I assume the name of the weapon where this lore is written, Sola's Scar, refers to the "scar" that Sola left in Trestin when she tortured her during the Trials match. Both Sola and Trestin seem to have been deeply affected by the Lunar Pyramid and it drove them to extremes which eventually led to both of them becoming corrupted and betraying the Light. It's interesting that in Sola's case, there's no Stasis involved: her Light was corrupted. Specifically her Void.

Not sure about Trestin and if she ever got Stasis and which other power and/or knowledge she was seeking from the Darkness, but either way the corruption of both of these Guardians came from the same source, entwined them together and eventually led to both of them being taken down by Aunor.

It's a really tragic story and the reason why I really like this type of lore about just some other Guardians and how they're experiencing the events we go through with in the game. Especially how it highlights just how much of an outlier the Young Wolf is and how things we do are really difficult or downright impossible for other Guardians to deal with. Both Sola and Trestin were victims of powers they could not handle.

#destiny 2 #sola #trestin #darkness #pyramid #lore vibing #long post #ask #there are so many cool stories like these in the background #also i think that's all of their lore but if i missed some feel free to add it on #hope it helps with understanding this story

[bloodfromthethorn]

Sleep is the Best Cure

“Jack? What-” Mac blinked a few times, trying to clear his vision even as he automatically relaxed into his partner’s hold, trusting him to keep him up while he struggled his way back to the surface.

“Pretty sure you’re going on about 72 hours without sleep and you’ve had, what? Three? Separate traumatic situations in that time? Not much of a surprise you’re about to crash hard.”

Tag to 2x11 and 2x12. Also on AO3. 

..

Mac’s eyes surveyed the wreck of his living room with a building sense of dread. The last few days felt like little more than a blur in his memory and he didn’t think he’d had a chance to pause for breath during any of it. Now that he had a moment to himself, he couldn’t help but worry that the world was about to come crashing down yet again, with him standing right in the middle of it. 

Charlie’s attention had been drawn away by one of the team responsible for lifting the barrels out from beneath the floor, while all around them Phoenix personnel were cataloguing every item they could find just in case one of them might grant a clue as to the Ghost’s whereabouts. Mac considered moving to help them - or perhaps back Charlie up in what looked as though it might be descending into some kind of argument about proper procedure - but the instant he took a step to do so, sharp, blinding pain struck him right between the eyes like a lightning bolt. 

It was there and gone in a flash, but it left him so startled he staggered back a step in surprise. A hand snatched at his arm before he could do more than sway, tugging him carefully against a supportive warm body. “Easy there bud.”

“Jack? What-” Mac blinked a few times, trying to clear his vision even as he automatically relaxed into his partner’s hold, trusting him to keep him up while he struggled his way back to the surface. 

“Pretty sure you’re going on about 72 hours without sleep and you’ve had, what? Three? Separate traumatic situations in that time? Not much of a surprise you’re about to crash hard.”

“I’m- I’m okay.”

“Yeah man, ‘course you are. But maybe we should get you some sleep, yeah?”

Mac’s head still felt like it was floating some way above the rest of his body, foggy and distant, but he was still able to feel himself frown as the suggestion stuck a chime wrong somewhere. “Can’t,” he managed. “House is in clean up.”

“Matty’s got it covered,” Jack said, sure and steady. “And while she’s getting everything here sorted, you can crash at my place.”

That did admittedly sound amazing, but Mac forced himself to mumble a negative and reclaim some of his own weight, shaking his head in a vain attempt at clearing out the cobwebs taking root. “No, I need to help Charlie,” he said stubbornly. 

The arm Jack had around his shoulders turned to steel, not letting him move away. “Charlie is doing just fine. He knows what he’s doing and he’s not the one dead on his feet right now. It’s okay man, it’s over. You can hand the reins over to someone else for a bit.”

With his vision steadily clearing, Mac could finally make out Jack’s worried face at his shoulder, watching him closely for any sign he was about to take another nosedive. Beyond the concern though, it was clear as day that Jack was starting to flag just as badly as Mac was, with pale skin and deepening crow’s feet emphasising the slight squint he’d picked up to combat the dryness of his eyes. “You’ve not slept either,” he pointed out unnecessarily. 

Jack huffed something that might have been a laugh if he’d had the energy for it. “True enough, but I also wasn’t arrested and I haven’t spent the last twenty hours working on defusing two bombs simultaneously.” He gestured vaguely around the wreck of Mac’s living room with his free hand as though to encompass everything that had happened. “I’m good to drive us both back to mine and then I’m planning on passing out until at least tomorrow. That plan sound good with you?”

Honestly, now that Mac was aware of his own fatigue, the exhaustion felt like a physical weight on his body and the very thought of handing over his safety to Jack and drifting off for a couple of hours sounded like heaven, but he knew his job. Once an EOD tech, always an EOD tech, and there was still a lot of explosive material in his house that needed dealing with before anyone in a mile’s radius would be safe. He had work to do. 

The sentiment must have shown on his face, because Jack went right back to frowning. “No, man, cut that out. Even if there wasn’t a perfectly capable bomb tech right over there, you’re in no state to be handling explosives. You’re shaking.”

Mac glanced at his own hands to confirm that yes, his whole body was indeed wracked by fine tremors that he couldn’t seem to stop. That… didn’t seem right. Since joining the army he’d had countless sleepless nights, both intentional and unavoidable, and while he knew he must be getting close to his limit of endurance, he was usually steady handed. Sort of an occupational requirement, really. 

“Something’s wrong,” he murmured to himself, still looking at his trembling fingers. 

With a heavy sigh, Jack tugged on him until he was pushed, unresisting, onto one of the bar stools and propped up by Jack’s warm palms on both of his shoulders. “What’s wrong is that you’ve been running on nothing but adrenaline and coffee for two whole days. Just ‘cause you’ve not been dodging bullets doesn’t mean you haven’t been going through the wringer. You’re exhausted. That’s all it is, bud, promise.”

Well, if Jack promised then Mac would believe him. Jack would never lie to him and he always seemed to know Mac’s hurts even before the man himself did. Something about it still didn’t sit right with him though. “Was dodging bullets,” he corrected, slightly petulantly, as he remembered handcuffs around his wrists and the desperation of trying to find a solution using nothing but a bullet and a ballpoint pen. 

One of Jack’s hands drifted up his shoulder to cup the back of his head comfortingly in a move that Jack liked to use when he wanted to check Mac’s pulse without him knowing. “I’m okay,” he mumbled again in protest, but didn’t pull away. 

“Yeah, I know you are. You’re pretty out of it though bud. Reckon you’re not going to remember this conversation tomorrow, huh?”

That was probably a fair assessment, honestly. With no witty retort lined up and thoroughly lacking the energy to search for one, Mac just hummed agreeably, blinking at him as his vision went wobbly again. 

Jack sighed. “Okay, I’m calling it. I know you want to help out here, but you need rest and you’re not going to get it while there’s a Phoenix clean-up op happening in your living room. And since I’m not letting you out of my sight just yet, you’re coming home with me, yes? Good.”

He finally broke his attention off from Mac to cast a glance around the room at large and caught Matty’s eyes, gesturing to his semi-conscious partner with a small head tilt. “I’m taking this one home.” He didn’t leave any room in his tone for argument, but softened it by adding, “If you need us, call me.”

Thankfully, as much as Matty might be a hardass when her job needed her to be, she was also one of the most observant people Jack had ever met. Her eyes took them both in with a single look and recognised the exhaustion staring back at her. She nodded with a soft smile. “Take as long as you need. We’ve got this.”

He spared enough time to shoot her a deeply grateful look before his entire attention turned back to Mac, who appeared to have been trying unsuccessfully to use the brief pause to rally himself. Unfortunately for him, he was long since out of any reserves to draw off; the best his attempts got him was some slightly more aggressive blinking. 

“Okay hoss, think you can stand up for me?” From the way Jack was having to keep him steady, it was obvious that Mac’s balance had completely gone to shit, but he obediently pushed himself upright and managed to at least keep his knees locked to take his weight. “Alright man, you’re doing great. Let’s get outside and get you sitting down again, yeah?”

Getting Mac outside and into the car turned out to be an exercise in extreme patience. Out of it as he was, he seemed to consistently forget where they were going and why, and made several attempts to turn himself around to go and help Charlie even though he could not more obviously be beyond that particular task. Each time Jack would nudge him back in the right direction with a soft push and a string of gentle words that seemed to more or less do the trick. By the time Mac was carefully folding himself into the passenger seat, the kid was scarcely still conscious. 

“That’s right, you just sit there and let Jack get you home, yeah?”

That Mac didn’t even groan in protest at Jack referring to himself in third person said a lot for his mental state. Chuckling to himself, Jack rounded the car and nodded at Bozer who had appeared at the front door to see them off. 

“I’ll get the house sorted as soon as I can,” he promised. “Make sure everything’s nice and clean when he gets back.”

“Appreciate that. But make sure you get some rest yourself, okay?” He said sternly, sending him a steady look. “Today’s been a long day for everyone, you included.”

“We’re good Jack. Matty will take good care of me and Riley. You just worry about Mac.”

Jack snorted, momentarily letting his bone-deep exhaustion show on his face. “As if I ever do anything else.”

Mac was thoroughly dead to the world when Jack slid into the driver’s seat beside him, his head tilted awkwardly against the window and his arms wrapped tight around his middle. It looked wildly uncomfortable, but the journey was only short and now that he was actually out for the count, Jack was loath to disturb him until he had to. Instead, he jammed his keys in the ignition and headed for home without another word. 

Tired as he was, Jack drove more carefully than he was usually of a mind to and as a result ended up taking a full half-hour to make it to his apartment. Mac didn’t so much as stir the entire time. If it hadn’t been for his breath fogging against the glass of the window, Jack might have resorted to feeling for the pulse in his wrist just to be certain that he really was still there, still in one piece. After everything he’d been through in the last three days, the fact that the worst physical damage he would have to deal with would be a few scrapes and a hefty dose of exhaustion was something of a miracle - and Jack would still trade almost anything for the chance to go back and spare him of all of it. Mac had never deserved the shit that got thrown at him day in and day out, but it rarely came so thick and fast. 

And physical condition aside, Jack knew that Mac wasn’t getting away from any of it without some new mental baggage. 

But that was a problem for tomorrow, at the earliest. Right now all he had to worry about was getting 6 foot of mostly-catatonic secret agent up several flights of stairs, preferably without drawing any attention. Easy. 

Mac did make a valiant attempt at consciousness after a few gentle shakes from Jack, but it was clear the window of opportunity for his ability to hold his own weight had closed some time ago. In the end, it was left to Jack to duck under his shoulder and do his best to balance them both as they hobbled unsteadily up the fire escape. The lobby would have granted them an elevator, but with them both on their last legs, Jack didn’t want the attention.

No doubt they must have looked comical - or perhaps just drunk - but they made it in the end, and without anyone falling down the stairs to boot. Jack was going to count that as a win. 

“Mac, you still with me brother?”

There was a vaguely attentive hum. Mac’s eyes didn’t open. 

“You happy to share the bed or are you gonna make me sleep on the couch?”

Another hum that Jack chose to take as ambivalence. In truth the question was somewhat redundant - the pair of them had shared far closer quarters than a king-sized bed before, and Mac would never turf Jack out of his own room, especially when he was just as desperately in need of rest. Asking was more of a formality than anything. 

There was a second brief deliberation when Jack managed to get them both into the bedroom as he tried to weigh up the chances of him being able to bully Mac into changing into some borrowed sleepwear. In the end, he figured it wasn’t worth the hassle and just calmly battled him out of his jeans and his dust-covered henley before tipping him beneath the covers. With his consciousness waning once more, Mac offered little more than a sleepy grumble as he burrowed down beneath the blanket and went still once more. 

With a weary chuckle of genuine relief, Jack ran through his own preparations as quickly as his tired body was capable of before finally, finally folding himself into the other side of the bed. After everything, the sensation was heavenly. 

There was a long stretch of motionless silence, broken only by their steady breathing, and Jack felt the fiercely alert, wary section of his brain finally start to cede control to the comforting embrace of sleep. It was over; Mac was safe, the bomb was defused, no one was in prison, and Cage would be just fine after a bit of recovery time. Jack was free to let his guard down at long last. 

It wasn’t an easy task. For the next five minutes he struggled with slipping into light dozes that broke off suddenly when his adrenaline spiked, bracing himself against some new danger. He knew that he needed the rest and for once it was legitimately safe to do so, but he had too many years of forcing his body through every possible hardship for it to give up the fight so easily. 

Then, as he always managed to do, Mac provided the solution. After the fifth or so time Jack jolted awake, Mac let out a low, displeased huff and wriggled until he was able to reach out a hand and wrap long fingers around Jack’s wrist in a gentle reassurance of his presence. He didn’t even look as though he was awake as he did it - he’d just sensed that Jack needed his help, and had offered it without thought. Lost in his own exhaustion, Jack thought it was almost poetic. 

Not that he would know, of course. 

Safe at long last, and tangibly aware of Mac’s steady presence at his side, Jack finally let himself sleep.

#i'm sure there were a lot of fics exactly like this when those episodes came out #but im new #let me indulge #macgyver #mac #jack dalton #exhaustion #god i miss jack so much you guys #respect to eads' choices but the show is just not as good without him #still shouldnt have been cancelled though #fuck that

[cyraclove]

“I hit you with my car and was the only one to visit you in the hospital” with modern BotW Zelink would be amazing :') (you can choose who gets hit and who visits! it works very well both ways)

Link stared into the windows of the flower display, his eyes traversing the plethora of multicolored blooms for the hundredth time. He’d been standing there for a solid ten or fifteen minutes, the tinny muzak of the hospital’s gift shop threatening to drive him out of his mind. The furled petals of a bouquet of yellow roses shook softly as the refrigerated case’s motor kicked on, looking almost as though they were laughing at him.

He decided against those.

Swallowing hard, he absentmindedly rubbed his palms together as he took stock of his ribbon-bound options yet again.

Sweaty. Why was he so sweaty?

Just pick some, you idiot, barked a voice in his head.

“Excuse me, sir,” said a foreign female voice that startled him from his thoughts, “Do you need some help?”

He turned to see an older, brunette woman with the roundest eyeglasses he had ever seen smiling pleasantly at him, her hands clasped behind her back. ‘Alma’, her nametag read.

He shook his head, scrambling for words. “Oh, uh…no, ma’am,” he stammered, attempting a sorry excuse for a smile, “I’m just…browsing.”

“Are you looking for something specific?” She asked, peering into the cooler. “We have flowers for just about any occasion. Flowers can say a lot just on their own, you know.”

How about some that say, ‘Sorry that I hit you with my car, complete stranger,’ he thought to himself. Link chuckled uncomfortably, knowing that he was definitely going to have to lie to this woman. “I’m here to visit my, er, friend. She was…in a car accident.”

Read on AO3

Alma nodded solemnly, clucking her tongue. “Oh, how terrible. I’m very sorry to hear that. People really can be such careless drivers these days, can’t they?”

“Yes,” he said through his teeth, “they certainly can be.” His eyes were drawn to a bunch of sickeningly pink ‘It’s A Girl!’ balloons, a nearby oscillating fan causing them to bob violently every minute or so. The screech of the colliding mylar made his stomach churn, and he silently wished for death.

“Well,” Alma began, a cool burst of air escaping the display when she opened the door, “I’m sure that we can pick something perfectly lovely that’ll have your friend feeling better in no time.”

The woman pursed her lips as she surveyed the case, humming thoughtfully. She eventually gathered up a bouquet of light blue lilies, their pointed petals tipped with white.

“What do you think of these?” she asked, “We just got them in from Necluda. This variety is called the ‘Silent Princess’, I believe.”

Before he could answer, Link’s phone began to ring, the shrill tone making him jump a bit. He grinned sheepishly at Alma as he fished it from his pocket, groaning inwardly as soon as he glimpsed the screen. Tapping his thumb on the red ‘ignore’ button, he tucked it away.

“Those are great,” he replied, “I’ll take them.”  

Alma smiled brightly, motioning for him to follow her the checkout counter. “Excellent,” she chimed, “Can I put them in a vase for you?”

His phone rang again. Link felt his eye twitch.

“Uh, sure. I mean, yes, please.”

“Would you like to add anything else? We have these precious sand seal plushies that would be just ador—”

“Just the flowers will be fine, thank you,” he said, more hurriedly than he’d intended. Snatching his phone from his pocket, he turned away from the counter and held the cell to his ear.

“What do you want?” He hissed.

A jovial cackle came from the other end of the line.

“Well, if it isn’t CHU’s resident asshole.”  

Link pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger as he inhaled deeply. This was, decidedly, the last thing he needed right now.

“You called me, Revali,” he snapped, “Do you actually need something, or did you just want to be a dick?”

“You wound me, Link,” the other young man drawled, “Oh, no—wait. I’m not the one who’s wounded, am I?”

Link clenched his jaw, the snip of Alma’s scissors on the flowers’ stems suddenly and inordinately loud. He glanced up at the woman only to have her swiftly look away, feigning focus on her task.

“You’re quite the hot topic on campus,” he heard Revali sigh, “I’m almost envious, what with the way everyone’s got your name in their mouths.”

“Who’s talking about it?”

“Who isn’t talking about it? Link, you hit a woman with your car. In the quad, for the love of Hylia. How’d you even manage that, anyway?”

“Okay, look,” he nearly seethed, “It was not in the quad, it was the intersection next to the quad. And it was an accident! I had the right of way, I didn’t see her, and the—the walk sign wasn’t even on!”

“Was she on the crosswalk?”

Link balked as he conjured up the memory from the other day. It had all happened so fast; one minute he was putting on his turn signal, and the next a young blonde woman was sprawled out on the road in front of his car. “I mean…well, yeah, she was on the crosswalk.”

“Then she had the right of way. Pedestrians always have the right of way, genius.”

“I’m hanging up now,” he muttered, disconnecting the call to the sound of Revali’s raucous laughter in the background. His near equal on the university archery team, Revali and Link were self-proclaimed rivals; well-known ‘frenemies’ to the rest of their teammates. While Link undeniably respected him for his skill, he could also be a real pain in the ass.

Releasing a weighty sigh, he faced the counter again, only to be met with a piercing glare of disapproval from the woman standing behind it. His blood ran cold as he and Alma locked eyes, hers narrowed in wordless acknowledgment of his sin. Approaching the register, Link flipped his wallet open and removed his credit card before sliding it toward her across the grey acrylic.

“Ring up the seal.”

-

The ride up the elevator was gruelingly slow, the jarring ding! of the door opening on what seemed like every damned floor made Link’s head throb. The air inside the garishly carpeted box was stuffy and stagnant, the scent of antiseptic stinging his lungs with each inhale. He looked down at the overpriced stuffed animal in his arms and frowned, its judgmental button eyes boring into him. The sluggish chug of the ancient machinery as it whined to a stop was nauseating, jostling him just enough to make him dizzy.

He finally stepped off and onto the tenth floor, referring to the clumsy, smeared numbers written on his palm in red pen. Link wandered down a white linoleum hallway, the idle hum of incandescent lights buzzing overhead as he peered at room numbers; the water in the vase sloshed softly as he went. With the plush tucked under one arm and the flowers cradled in the other, he raised his fist to knock tentatively on a door marked 1003.  

“Come in,” responded a quiet voice from the other side. Link instinctively held his breath as he pressed down on the door handle, inching it open.

The room was cold and clinical, painted and furnished in subtle greens and dull blues. Aside from several dim wall sconces, a large westward-facing window adorned with heavy curtains was the only source of light. Pushed up against the center of the back wall was a slim hospital bed, and in it sat a woman that Link had seen only once before—unconscious on the asphalt in front of his sedan. Her eyes flickered up toward him as he entered, darkening with realization mere seconds afterward.

“What are you doing here?”

Link froze, his thoughts scrambling as both his legs and tongue refused to move. All he could do was stare at her, eyes trained on the clunky, neon-green cast that enveloped her left arm. A purply-green bruise around the size of golf ball sat just below one of her eyes, swallowing the tiny freckles that peppered her cheeks. Her bottom lip puffed out, an angry cut splitting it vertically down the middle.

She looked awful.

And she had somehow managed to be strikingly beautiful at the exact same time.

“Well, I came to, uh,” he started, his words leaving his mouth before he had time to appropriately process them, “I came to see…how you were feeling.”

The young woman scoffed, turning her head towards the window. It was then that Link noticed the sutures running along the underside of her collarbone. Guilt roiled in his stomach for the millionth time that day as she began to speak.

“Let’s see; I’ve got bruised ribs, a couple of chipped teeth, and a concussion. Oh—and my arm is broken,” she replied in a biting tone, “So, I’m not great. Thanks.”

After a moment, he took a few tentative steps nearer to her bedside. He watched her gaze gradually slide in his direction, meticulously studying his movement. Link sighed, looking down at his feet with a shake of his head. His chest felt suffocatingly tight, as though someone had his lungs trapped in an ever-tightening vise.

“Look, I know that nothing I say right now is going to make any of this less shitty,” he told her, “and I’m sure that I’m the last person that you wanted to see today. That being said, it would’ve been even shittier of me to not at least try and come apologize to you. Because I messed up, big time, and I’m really, really sorry.”

The young woman said nothing in response, absentmindedly picking at her fingernails as she considered his repentant declaration. Her brows knitted above her sea-like eyes, consternation marring her delicate features. Link’s resolve just about shattered when he saw the impending tears brimming at her waterline.

“And I brought you this seal,” he blurted out, placing the patchwork creature on the bed near her legs, “You just seemed like, uh…a seal person.”

To Link’s relieved surprise, the corner of her mouth quirked up as she looked at the stuffed animal. Picking it up and setting on her lap, a watery giggle burbled from her chest as tears slid down her cheeks. The chuckle soon morphed into a full-on laugh, a bright, contagious sound that filled the room. Unable to help himself, Link smiled, and was soon laughing with her despite not entirely knowing why.

“It’s cute,” she sniffled, wiping at her eyes.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, it’s really cute. Thank you.”

They smiled through the remnants of their laughter as it faded out, leaving the two in silence again. The setting sun bathed the room in rosy amber and cast fractured, pinkish shadows on the walls. Unsure of what else to do, Link set the bouquet on her curiously empty bedside table. It was then that he paused to take stock of the rest of the room, realizing that it did not resemble what he imagined the hospital room of someone who’d just been hit by a car to look like.

It was devoid of any other flowers save the ones that he had brought, and missing were cards and balloons from well-wishing friends. He furrowed his brow, and his heart sank when the most likely reason for the lack of gifts dawned on him. She must be in Central for school, he thought, and all of her friends and family were wherever home was. Or, even worse—they were around, but couldn’t be bothered to come and pay her a visit. Turning back to face her, he gestured to her plaster-clad arm.

“No one’s signed your cast,” he noted.

She gave him a queer look. “What do you mean?”

“Uh, that’s the thing to do isn’t it? Have your friends write their names on your cast? And put, uh, I don’t know…stickers on it.”

She shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never broken an arm before,” she replied, shooting him a sly look. “I haven’t got many friends, either, I guess,” she added under her breath, face falling.

“Do you have a Sharpie?”

“Oh, um, I think I have a few in my backpack. It’s just over there, on that chair. Should be in the little side pocket.”

Link made his way over to a grey pleather armchair and unzipped the pocket in question, reaching inside to pull out several permanent markers. Returning to the bedside, he held them out to the blonde, presenting her with her choice of color; black, red, or blue. She looked up at him from beneath delicate lashes, grinning as she selected the blue one. She extended her arm, and he sat on the edge on the bed as he gingerly braced it with his free hand. After popping the cap off with his teeth, he scrawled his name on the lime-colored cast as gently as possible.

“Link,” she murmured when he’d finished, “I just realized that I didn’t even know your name until now.”

It was true. He knew her name, simply because he’d had to ask for it at the front desk, but they had never been properly introduced. Not surprising, considering the circumstances under which they came to know one another in the first place. He’d never seen her around campus before the other day, leading him to assume that they must not run in the same circles. That had to be the case, because hers was not a face that he would’ve forgotten.

“My name is Zelda,” she said, “Even though you probably know that already.”

“I do,” he admitted, “but it’s nice to officially meet you. Zelda.”

Her eyes crinkled at their corners when he reached out to lightly shake her fingers that poked out of the cast. He stood up from the bed, shooting her a quick smile before crossing the room to return the markers to her bag.

“Thank you for the flowers,” he heard her say from behind him, “Oh, and for my seal.”

“It’s the least I could do, I think,” he responded, “I mean, considering.”

“Still,” Zelda went on, “It was kind of you to come. I just…I appreciate the company. It was getting a bit lonely here.”

Link stilled at that. So, she really was alone. He almost didn’t want to believe that not even her own parents had bothered to stop by, that not a single friend had sent a card. It had to be a mistake; there was no way that such an enchanting person had no one to call on.

“The, uh, food here must not be very good, huh?” He tried.

She cocked a brow at him. “What?”

“Hospital food. It’s notoriously bad,” he clarified, attempting to mentally signal to her that he was, in fact, going somewhere with this. “If you want, I could bring you something. Later, I mean, for dinner. I think I probably owe you that, don’t you?”

It could have been the sunset, but Link swore that a blush darkened her cheeks ever so slightly when she smiled at him, nodding. “That sounds great, actually.”

“Alright, it’s a date, then,” he announced without thinking, wincing immediately afterward, “I mean, uh, sounds like a plan.”

“Here, let me put my number in your phone,” she offered, holding out her good hand. He fished it from his pocket and handed it to her, watching as she tapped in her contact info with her only her index finger. After a short discussion about what kind of food she’d like to have, they said their goodbyes with the promise of seeing one another later that evening. Link closed to door carefully behind him, glancing back into the narrow window to see Zelda admiring her flowers.

He shuffled into the elevator, wedging himself in between a group of nurses and weary-looking man with a fussy toddler on his hip. It was humid and it was loud, and anyone else might have wanted nothing more than to go home and go to bed. Link stared at Zelda’s name in his phone as the elevator made its agonizingly long descent back down to the lobby, already counting the minutes until he’d get to ride back up again.

-

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I adored this prompt so much, I made it its own thing on AO3. Thank you for the ask! This was so much fun!

#zelink #zelink fic #zelink fanfiction #botw fanart #botw fanfiction #botw au #botw prompt #tloz botw #tloz fanfic #tloz fanart #link/zelda #legend of zelda #legend of zelda fanfiction #writers on tumblr #archive of our own #cyraclove #cyraclove writes #fanfiction #ao3 link

[dailytomlinson]

While many artists would jump at the chance to tell you how lockdown has been a fruitful opportunity for self-improvement, full of pseudo self-help books and pompous podcasts, former One Directioner Louis Tomlinson is adamant that he has done, well, nothing.

“I’ve just watched loads of s___ TV,” he says after a long pause. “The Undoing is decent, isn’t it?”

Twenty-eight--year-old Tomlinson from Doncaster was always the down-to-earth Directioner, frequently describing himself as fringe member who spent more time analysing the band’s contracts than singing solos, known for chain-smoking his way through several packs of cigarettes a day and swearing like a trooper. A rarity, these days, among millennials who’d rather suck on a stem of kale and tweet about their #blessings.

He's getting ready to rehearse an exciting one-off gig that will be live-streamed from a secret London location on December 12, announced today exclusively via the Telegraph. The proceeds of the night will be split across four charities: The Stagehand Covid-19 Crew Relief Fund and Crew Nation, Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice and Marcus Rashford’s charity FareShare, to help end child poverty.

The gig means a great deal to Tomlinson, whose first ever tour as a solo artist, to promote his debut solo album WALLS, was cut short back in March after just two concerts in Spain and Mexico. It was an album he’d spent five years working on: a guitar-led project that ruptured with the preppy pop anthems of One Direction, inspired instead by Tomlinson’s love for Britpop.

No doubt he was anxious to get it right following a decade “grown in test tubes”, as Harry Styles once described the band’s formation on the X Factor, where they came third before going on to make a reported $280,000 a day as the most successful band in the world. The pressure, too, was intense: all four bandmates had already released their own solo debuts.

Was he left reeling, I ask, unable to perform at such a crucial moment?

“The thing that I always enjoyed the most about One Direction was playing the shows, so my master plan, when I realised I was going to do a solo career, was always my first tour. It’s something I’ve been looking forward to for the best part of five years now. I got so close, I got a taste for it, and it’s affected me like everyone else, but I’m forever an optimist,” he says down the phone, with what I can only imagine to be a rather phlegmatic shrug.

Sure, I say, but the last year can’t have been easy. Didn’t he feel like his purpose had popped?

“You know what,” he says, reflecting, “maybe because I’ve had real dark moments in my life, they’ve given me scope for optimism. In the grand scheme of things, of what I’ve experienced, these everyday problems...they don’t seem so bad.”

Tomlinson is referring to losing his 43-year-old mother, a midwife, to leukemia in 2016, and his 18-year-old sister Felicite, a model, to an accidental drug overdose in 2018. The double tragedy is something he has been open about on his own terms, dedicating his single, Two of Us, from WALLS, to his mother Johannah, while often checking in with fans who have lost members of their own family.

It’s not unusual for Tomlinson to ask his 34.9 million followers if they’re doing alright, receiving hundreds of thousands of personal replies. It’s not something he will discuss in interviews, however, after he slammed BBC Breakfast for shamelessly probing his trauma in February this year. “Never going back there again,” he tweeted after coming off the show.

“Social media is a ruthless, toxic place, so I don’t like to spend much time there,” says Tomlinson, “but because of experiencing such light and shade all while I was famous, I have a very deep connection with my fans. They’ve always been there for me.”

In return, Tomlinson is good to them. Last month he even promised some new music, saying that he’d written four songs in four days. Does this mean that a second album is on the way?

“Yeah, definitely,” he says. “I’m very, very excited. I had basically penciled down a plan before corona took over our lives. And now it's kind of given me a little bit of time to really get into what I want to say and what I want things to sound like. Because, you know, I was really proud of my first record, but there were moments that I felt were truer to me than others. I think that there were some songs where I took slightly more risk and owned what I love, saying, ‘This is who I want to be’. So I want to take a leaf out of their book.”

Fans might think he’s referring to writing more heartfelt autobiographical content such as Two of Us, but in fact, he’s referring specifically to rock-inspired Kill My Mind, he says, the first song on WALLS. “There’s a certain energy in that song, in its delivery, in its attitude, that I want to recreate. People are struggling at the moment, so I want to create a raucous, exciting atmosphere in my live show, not a somber, thoughtful one.”

He sighs, trying to articulate something that’s clearly been playing on his mind for a while. “You know, because of my story, my album was a little heavy at times and a little somber. And as I'm sure you're aware, from talking to me, now, that isn't who I am.”

It must be draining, I say, the weight of expectation in both the media and across his fanbase, to be a spokesperson for grief and hardship. To have tragedy prelude everything he does and says.

“Honestly, it’s part of being from Doncaster as well, I don’t like people feeling sorry for me. That’s the last thing I want.”

Too many incredible memories to mention but not a day goes by that I don't think about how amazing it was. @NiallOfficial @Harry_Styles @LiamPayne @zaynmalik . So proud of you all individually.

The problem is, says Tomlinson, he doesn’t have the best imagination. “I have interesting things to say musically, but what’s challenging from a writing perspective is that I write from the heart, and I can’t really get into someone else’s story. And right now, being stuck at home, you have so little experience to draw from. It’s actually quite hard to write these positive, uplifting songs, because actually, the experiences that you're going through on a day to day basis, you know, you they don't have that same flavour.”

There is something that’s helping, though: a secret spot near Los Angeles, where he divides his time. “It’s remote and kind of weird, and I’m going to go there for three days and write. I don’t know why I’m so drawn to it. I found it via a YouTube video. It’s got some very interesting locals who live there, it’s sort of backwards when it comes to technology. It feels like you’re going back in time when you’re there. But I don’t want to give it away.”

Another source of inspiration for his second album is the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ back catalogue. “I grew up on their album Bytheway. And during lockdown I've been knee deep in their stuff. I’ve watched every documentary, every video. And I find their lead guitarist John Frusciante just fascinating.”

Has he spoken to Frusicante?

“I f______ wish,” snorts Tomlinson.

Surely someone as well-known as Tomlinson could easily get in touch?

“No, honestly, I think he’s too cool for that. He’s not into that kind of thing.”

Tomlinson’s passion for all things rock is also spurring on a side hustle he picked up as a judge on the X Factor in 2018: managing an all-female rock band via his own imprint on Simon Cowell’s Syco label. While the group disbanded before releasing their first single, and Tomlinson split from Syco earlier this year, the singer is keen to nurture some more talent.

“I'm not gonna lie, my process with my imprint through Syco, it became challenging and it became frustrating at times,” Tomlinson says a little wearily. “The kind of artists that I was interested in developing – because I genuinely feel through my experience in One Direction, you know, one of the biggest f______ bands, I feel like I've learned a lot about the industry – they weren’t ready-made. So I had lots of artists that I took through the door that were rough and ready, but major labels want to see something that works straight away. I found that a little bit demotivating. I love her and she's an incredible artist, but not everyone is a Taylor Swift.”

Tomlinson spends much of his free time scouting new talent either on YouTube, Reddit or BBC Introducing – he’s currently a huge fan of indie Brighton band, Fickle Friends. His dream is to manage an all-female band playing instruments. “Because there's no one in that space. And I know eventually if I don't do it, someone else will!”

Before he drives off to rehearsals, we chatter about how much he's been practising his guitar playing, and how he can't wait to take the whole team working at his favourite grassroots venue, The Dome in Doncaster, out ice-skating after he performs there on his rescheduled tour. “Because I've got skills,” he says, and I can hear his chest puff.

And then I ask the question every retired member of One Direction has been batting off ever since they broke up in 2015, after Zayn Malik quit. Rumours that his bandmates saw him as a Judas went wild after some eagle eyes fans noticed they’d unfollowed him on Instagram. Payne, Tomlinson, Horan and Styles have barely mentioned him since. Recently, however, they re-followed him, and Payne has teased that a One Direction reunion is on the cards.

So: might 2021 be the year of resurrection?

“I thought you were going to ask something juicier!” say Tomlinson witheringly. “Look, I f______ love One Direction. I'm sure we're going to come back together one day, and I'll be doing a couple of One Direction songs in my gig. I always do that, so that's not alluding to any reunion or anything. But, I mean, look, I'm sure one day we'll get back together, because, you know, we were f______ great.”

#telegraph uk #press #louis tomlinson #241120 #its FULL of stunts as telegraph usually goes #stunt mention #Eleanor Halls

[blu-joons]

DATING BTOB A⇴Z HEADCANON ⇴ Im Hyunsik

A ⇴ AFFECTION

Hyunsik loves to use his shoulders to make you feel tiny in his hold, he’s always nice and tight with his hugs, and will use his long chest to be able to stretch around and often press a kiss against your cheek as well.

B ⇴ BEFORE DATING

When a figure stood beside you at the bar, you instantly tensed up, especially so when they asked what you were drinking. Your eyes nervously looked across, drawn to the smile that he wore and the offer of a drink on him as he pulled his wallet in exchange for being able to get your number from you to put in his phone.

C ⇴ CONFESSION

Hyunsik’s confession ended up being a slightly tipsy one during an evening with the boys. Although he professed to being a good drinker, even this was slightly too much for him, letting his mouth run away with him. You thought when he first said it that it was a bit of a joke, but when Eunkwang told you that that really was how he felt about you, you calmed him down by letting you know you’d talk about it more in the morning.

D ⇴ DATES

The two of you did just about anything when it came to your dates, you both were up for trying new things, however simple or crazy they might have been. Hyunsik had two very different sides to him when it came to dates with you, whilst he could do the gentlemanly act and take you to dinner, he could also turn into someone very competitive, especially if your date was sporty, and do whatever it took to make sure that he won. Either side, you adored, and always had a great time whenever you were on a date with him.

E ⇴ EXPERIENCE

He’s very aware of how observant his fans are, having been caught up in a rather strange incident previously, and so he’s very cautious about how he handles your relationship to make sure not too many hints are dropped that the fans might pick up on. He doesn’t want to put you into any harm, and so he makes sure to avoid your social medias and workplace so that no one can trace him back to you. He’s learnt from seeing how other relationships have unfolded to make sure the same doesn’t happen to your own.

F ⇴ FIGHTING

If there’s one thing that frustrates you about Hyungsik, it’s that he often switches off and doesn’t listen to the things that you’re saying to him. You’ll often call out his name to get his attention again, trying to keep yourself calm and not get too frustrated that he didn’t pay attention to what you were saying to him. Arguing with you is not something Hyungsik enjoys either, he’s got a lot of pride, and the last thing he wants is for someone else especially, to see that his relationship isn’t as perfect as he portrays it. He works hard on making your relationship seem good, and so arguments are always kept for at home.

G ⇴ GETTING TO KNOW HIS FAMILY

He’s a gentleman, and incredibly patient too, so Hyungsik will wait only until when you’re ready to introduce you to his family. He’s in no rush, he doesn’t see you going anywhere and so once you’re settled and confident that you can make the best first impression, then he’ll take you across to meet all of them.

H ⇴ HOME

When Hyungsik is working until the late hours, you’ll often invite him over to your place so that he can rest as it’s a lot closer to the studio than his place is. Although neither of you are yet to officially move in, you tend to spend most nights either at your place, or his, depending on how the situation is unfolding.

I ⇴ “I LOVE YOU”

Hyungsik was the first one of the two of you to say those three special words when you went out to dinner one evening. He was determined to make it a romantic occasion, slightly different from most of your other dates. In fact, the whole evening took your breath away, but that was most definitely the icing on top of the cake.

J ⇴ JEALOUSY

He had a tendency to jump to conclusions a little which often let him a little jealous over certain situations. Although he was a confident guy, there was still an element of doubt that often crept in when he saw other people a little too close to you. Pride often got in the way of his jealousy too, Hyungsik couldn’t help but step in and pull you away when he was feeling jealous, only to usually realise that he’d gotten the wrong end of the stick or interrupted a rather important conversation for you.

K ⇴ KIDS

Although the future was something that Hyungsik didn’t worry about too much, he was open minded when it came to talking about it and imagining how things may be for the two of you. He never put a number on how many kids you’d had and didn’t want to pinpoint exactly how he’d be as a father, instead he wanted to look forward to when it happened and picture all sorts of scenarios that might unfold.

L ⇴ LAUGHTER

Hyungsik was confident that he could put a smile on your face in almost any situation, he knew exactly how to make you laugh, using his time in the band to learn how happy people were around him. He’s incredibly positive, which will often leave you smiling, even when you’re thinking the worse, Hyungsik is there to remind you that good things could happen and that there’s no reason to dwell on things. Serious environments are not for him, and so when things feel a little down, he’ll pick it straight back up and make plenty of jokes until everyone’s got smiles back on their faces once again.

M ⇴ MISSING

He’s not someone that will switch off when he misses you, instead Hyungsik will do things that keep you in mind, which can keep him happy too. He’ll often look over old photos and videos, laughing away to himself backstage as he remembered the memories you’d made. For you, he’d often send you gifts or voice notes to make sure that you were thinking of him too and doing so with a smile on your face rather than getting upset over how much you missed him. He could never just forget about you on tour, his only job was to make sure that he remembered, but that he did so with happy memories in mind.

N ⇴ NICKNAMES

You’ll love to tease him, often referring to him as a ‘show off,’ for how confident he was. If you beat him at a game, that would definitely be when you’d use the nickname to rub it in his face that you were the winner.

O ⇴ OBSESSION

He was obsessed with your hold; he loves feeling your arms wrap around him whenever he’s coming from behind or the side to pull you into his chest.

P ⇴ PDA

More than anything else, Hyungsik is aware with his affection, adapting quickly to most situations. If you need to be protected, he’ll do it in a heartbeat, but if you’re more relaxed and just want to hold onto his hand, he’ll extend it out and swing your arms around, always pushing the boundaries and making you laugh.

Q ⇴ QUESTIONS

You’re forever having to ask Hyungsik if he’s really listening to you when he switches out of a conversation. Most of the time he doesn’t realise he’s doing it until an object flies across the room and wakes him back up again.

R ⇴ RANDOM FACTS

Hyungsik is well known for his tattoos, but he’ll have another that no one knows about, except for you. His tattoos get plenty of attention from the fans but hidden at the top of his leg will be another small tattoo, that no one would ever be able to see on stage, dedicated to you. He loves that no one knows about it, and that it’s with him always, without having to answer any questions or explain the meaning behind it.

S ⇴ SEX

You never quite know what to expect from Hyungsik during intimacy, some evenings he can be a complete gentleman, romantic and loving with his touch. Other times, if his confidence is feeling high, he’ll be a little rougher and dominate with you, letting you know that he’s in charge. Either way, he always makes sure to take care of you, and if you’re not happy at any point, he’ll change what he’s doing instantly.

T ⇴ TEXTS

He’ll often text you little surprises, letting you know he’s waiting to pick you up from work, or to unlock the door because he’s bringing food round. He’ll always pop up with a text, waiting to spend time with you.

U ⇴ UNIVERSE

The two of you were very much a team, your relationship was one that many people would watch in awe of how sweet the two of you were. Not only did it do Hyungsik’s pride the world of good, but it made you feel very secure too.

V ⇴ VACATION

Wintertime had always been Hyungsik’s favourite time of year, so with a chill in the air and plenty of snowfall, he loved to go away with you and have fun. He loves the cold, and even though you aren’t the biggest fan of it, seeing how happy it makes Hyungsik will make it at least bearable for you to be out in it.

W ⇴ WHINING

There are definitely times when Hyungsik will whine at you, but you love to pretend that you’re not listening to get back at him for all the times that he doesn’t.

X ⇴ XXXXX

He’s always very powerful with his kisses, Hyungsik isn’t someone that will pepper kisses or be particularly delicate with his touch, instead he’ll be quite bold and linger with many of his kisses. He’s not someone that’s for quick kisses that can often be left without meaning, instead he’ll make sure that each kiss is filled with meaning, and love, and make sure you’re never left wanting more from him.

Y ⇴ YOU

You were the one that kept him grounded, and always made him feel at home.

Z ⇴ ZZZ

He sleeps a tremendous lot, you’ll often find him napping around the house at various points throughout the day, but he can never sleep as well as he does when you’re there for him to lay upon and relax with.

---

Masterlist

#btob #btob imagine #hyunsik #hyunsik imagine #im hyunsik #im hyunsik imagine #btob reaction #btob scenario #btob hyunsik #btob drabble #btob one shot #btob fluff #hyunsik reaction #hyunsik scenario #hyunsik one shot #hyunsik drabble #hyunsik fluff #btob headcanon #kpop #kpop imagine