#the scariest thing about some mad shit is when it actually makes SENSE! it has REASONING!

[katyspersonal]

A potential of ANOTHER ideological conflict in Bloodborne

I've been thinking back about the concept that what Bloody Crow is doing would be considered a "blasphemy" for Hunter of Hunters traditions and mindset and discussion on it with @heraldofcrow ( x ), but it got me thinking of an AU/sequel/whatever regarding the concept?

Like, imagine if after Eileen retires, Bloody Crow would instead take the mantle of Hunter of Hunters for good and repurpose the agenda and the tradition of a covenant? Instead of tradition of the Sky Burial, it WOULD now align with search of the Blood Dregs within blood-drunk hunters, officially and deliberately. Instead of letting the birds eat the body of a blood-drunk hunter and thus deliver their soul into "Heaven, or maybe Hunter's Dream"? Now the agenda is, "Even if they've fallen morally, they can still be reborn into something good".

Not a secret that Blood Dregs look like bloody sperm cells, but also seem to have "faces" like Messengers', or even Flora's. They are 'blood echoes', souls of those a hunter killed! So, Bloody Crow could make a believable point that letting the fallen "atone" this way, by becoming a material for creation of a 'bigger' being, is a solid strategy too! When this 'child of blood' is born, they might be a beginning of a better era for humans, after all!

And the coolest part? I could see even remaining Old Hunters see some meaning in it. Both "strategies" deal with superstition - but at the same time in Bloodborne lore, any superstition can be an absolutely real thing. There ARE magic and gods!

Furthermore, the 'Dream', and Nightmare (Winter Lanterns' heads are made of melted Messengers) deal with the Moon Presence by association. And it very well could be that Pthumeru Ihyll, and as follows, Vilebloods are "opposing" force to it! Imposter Iosefka (who is implied to be a Cainhurst noble too) and Annalise can both recognise the "scent of Moon" from Paleblood Hunter, Pthumeru Ihyll like Loran are said to have incurred wrath and curse of the Great Ones, Healing Church has Moon simps (Laurence and Ludwig namely) that went against Cainhurst the way they did... All that!

So, traditional ways of Hunters of Hunters, carried on until Eileen are more 'Team Moon', and Crow's new ways would be more 'Team Curse/Blood' hahahah! Maybe he'd even slightly alter uniform too, making it instead resemble black wings, bloodied ones too. Hahah... living up to his nickname.....

#bloodborne #bloody crow of cainhurst #bloodborne headcanons #eileen the crow #there is more to this train of thought... #like the whole mess with the idea that deaths of viola and gascoigne's insanity were crow's plot all along! #because puppeteer Crow is great! #and i was imagining Henriett who was friends with the family confronting him about it #but eventually getting gaslighted into accepting what happened! #because 'gascoigne already was going insane on his own and abusive towards her and- #-it would not be long until he'd go at her and even the girls on his own so i just accelerated it' #the worst part? it makes SENSE #the scariest thing about some mad shit is when it actually makes SENSE! it has REASONING! #but it was just not the point of the post so in the tags ranting i go

[lyraeon]

I cannot exaggerate the number of my problems in the last decade (possibly longer!) that have stemmed from me being entirely certain that someone is mad at me, if not outright hates me - not out of any fault or actual feeling of their own but because my anxiety has me assured that if I am not perfect forever then they all rightfully should - and treating them with mistrust or outright avoiding them out of shame and to hide from backlash that I saw as inevitable and deserved.

and naturally, when you do that to people long enough, they snap and actually do go off on you, or they decide you must not like them because you avoid them and move on, or they argue with you about why the hell you keep screwing things up for them, when in your mind you're just trying to cause as few problems as possible.

or you start trying to anticipate what will help them so you can "redeem yourself" but it's all just so in the way because it's not what they need, because you didn't ask what they need because you think they won't tell you (because you won't tell them, because you can't make them feel obligated because oh my god guilt is the worst emotion get it out get it out) or that they'll feel bad that you're doing it because they'll feel like they made you feel obligated, but you've guessed wrong and made things worse now.

that kind of bullshit. that's the shit that's been ruining my life, is the utter certainty that everyone hates me, and the pain it puts people who care about me through because it paints them as liars and manipulative and because they get stuck with help or gifts that don't actually benefit them, and the fact I can't drag myself out of it far enough to be emotionally available to others in the way that I still see as a core piece of who I am.

and I am working on it. I am pushing through and learning because I'm finally fucking aware, FINALLY, that this is something going on, that the ire I sense towards me from friends is by large a fitment of my imagination and/or trauma. I have therapy and medication and revised diagnoses and a support structure that feels too small because I am used to spreading myself out across 30+ people so no one person "has to deal with me for too long", which makes a small back of people who earnestly make me feel like they want me around the scariest goddamn thing some days.

and the hardest part is not just defeating the entire point by getting consumed by guilt and thinking I'm a horrible person for having gotten here to begin with. not to say there aren't things I earnestly do and should regret, but when opening the microwave at 1am or sending someone three messages in a row feels like it merits the same punishment as something extreme like gambling away the rent money would, it's pretty safe to say something's fucked in those priorities.

and I post this publicly for the same reason I do so many other stories about my life: as a cautionary tale in hopes someone may see themselves in my experiences and learn sooner and easier than I did.

#don't mind me just journaling in public #self-esteem #guilt #ptsd #mental health

[bokettochild]

Everyone in the chain can be intimidating, but there's a ranking for who is the scariest:

Wind: He is a child, a smallish one at that. He might be able to wield big weapons, but his battle face is actually kinda cute at the moment. When he grows up he probably gets more intimidating, but for now he's just a little kid with a big hammer.

Hyrule: Kid can shapeshift and control lightning, but when you get down to it he's really just a cinnamon roll who's fighting to defend. When angry he can be a bit intimidating, but not as much as the others on the list.

Wild: This kid is batshit insane and can kill you in a variety of ways. His downside is that he's freaking adorable and can't look scary for the life of him. He just looks like a bean with oversized armor and weapons, not a scary dude. He can be scary when he bombs stuff and does dumb shit, but the scary part is more that he'll get hurt than that he'll hurt anyone else (except monsters).

Legend: Physically, he's not intimidating, not at all. He's the third shortest and he doesn't even have Wind's sturdy build. Kid is a twig. Why does he rank higher than the others though? His abilities and a glare that could level a field. Seriously, he's descended from Hylia, his eyes glint gold when he's furious or using his abilities, and it's scary as heck. Also, Din may have rubbed off on him enough that the grass literally withers beneath his feet when he's upset. He's like a contained storm when mad, ready at any second to unleash his fury on someone.

Twilight: Wolf man is tall and buff. He has the sweetest personality and not a lot of scary powers (except the wolf thing) but he's big, and the fact that he could probably crush anyone who makes him mad is enough to put him higher than the shortstacks of the group. No powers means nothing, he's like a mountain of a man.

Time: Two words- Dad Glare. We've seen Scary Time before, we've seen him mad and we have a good idea how he would be if he ever lashed out. His fear factor comes both from his big presence, big frame and the sense of not quite being Hylian that his masks and fae upbringing gave him. But when you get down to it he's just another powerful mortal

Warriors: There's a rumor is Castletown that General Link isn't even a Hylian. Some people are convinced he's some sort of god of war or something. He's the tallest of the chain, and while not as built as Time or Twilight (or Sky) his height more than makes up for it, along with the sparkling armor and the way his eyes almost glow when he's angry. Artemis describes it as the flames of the goddesses burning in his soul when he gets mad.

Four: He is small. He is shorter than everyone and unfortunately less built than even Wind, but Four's smirks are terrifying. No holy light or powers needed, his purple eyes just scream doom and you could swear his shadow is twisting behind him like a snake coiled to strike. Where the others tremble with light forces, Four ekes darkness in a way that is frequently abused to scare off cats.

Sky: He killed a god, and no one would doubt that if they saw him mad. He has the presence of a king, regal, fierce and cold when he's angered. He still looks the same, but it's like watching a lion tensed to pounce instead of seeing it laying about sleepily with it's pack. Sky could make anyone shit themselves with a single look.

#lu wind #lu hyrule #lu wild #lu legend #lu twilight #lu time #lu warriors #lu four #lu sky #linked universe #linkeduniverse #ketto's brainfarts

[angelvibezluv]

Astro Observations 6💜

Whew this was very long but hope you enjoy it and actually read it. These are just my experiences,observations and what I've learned about the signs recently/ already knew.

🌌I'v noticed opposite rising signs have a very strong attraction. Those are usually the relationships that have a mutual give and take, you do this I do that. The two will obviously see life from a different point of view but they will still have respect for one another. It's a very beneficial relationship.

💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

But sometimes the two can end up seeing things too differently depending on other aspects and cause major disagreements.

🌌For example a Cancer rising and a Capricorn rising. The Capricorn rising has the ability to bring stability and practicality into the Cancer risings life. The Cancer rising has the ability to bring out the creative and emotional side of the Capricorn rising. They both can help eachother with the things they struggle with.

🌌Cancers actually enjoy going through emotional experiences. It's almost fun to them. Since Jupiter is exalted in Cancer and Jupiter rules experiences it would make sense as to why they enjoy "emotional" "experiences". They enjoy learning from those experiences and most likely cherish them.

🌌Capricorn moons are business women point blank.😐

🌌But for real capricorn moons like to spend there time developing and improving whatever they're working on. To the point where they sometimes might neglect their family and friends because they can become so focused on it.

🌌Capricorn moons also go through the most trial and tribulations in life. It's the hard knock life for REALZ. Annie was probably a cap moon. Sabrina from Chilling Adventures of Sabrina was probably a cap moon too. At a young age they're usually told not to cry or to suck it up or they're being too emotional. Now that I think about it, they end up becoming a parent figure to their friends and sometimes even people older than them because their level of maturity is so high regardless of the sun sign.

🌌Pisces moons DO know they can be too nice and easily manipulated at times. They're completely aware trust me. They just cant help themselves they really care alot for people but can be blinded in the moment to the point where they let people use them. They appreciate when others know that aswell and dont use that against them. They'll love you forever for that.💜

🌌You know your talking to an Aqaurius👽 moon when they stare into nothing, or dont even seem like they're engaged in the conversation. It's like they're not there.. somewhere else in their mind. They also say random shit all the time, like out of pocket shit :/ just to see how everyone reacts.

🌌Libra placements talks a lot, like a lot. The letter a and lot. Alot. But I enjoy it, you guys can keep a conversation going for ages with literally one topic.

🌌Not sure if I'v done this one already or not but Pisces really do escape one way or another from this reality, and it's not necessarily a bad thing because they can use art and music to create their own world. The adults/young adults 9 times out of 10 smoke weed, or have their secret stash.

🌌Pisces Mars usually have some kind of artistic skill or creative outlet. It helps them to release the tension they hold in all the time. It's good for us 💜.

🌌Cancers can be VERY aggressive. The scariest people that went to my school were Cancers, mostly the girls. Idk what it is about them. I think they have this mentality of I have to protect myself I cant be seen as weak and soft. You dont want to fight or argue with these people they might kill you🥴 no.. seriously 😐

🌌But then noticed that they always wonder why people think they're so mean because they know they're super sweet it's just the way they come off.. kind of defensive and aggressive.

Same goes for Capricorn Risings and 8th house stelliums. Maybe even pluto in first.

🌌Scorpio risings = intensified eye contact and never ending do you really know me game.

🌌I'm sorry but Scorpios swear they're the baddest and hardest mfs ever.... sorry to break it to ya Scorpio your not your actually the so sweet just hug me back damn😭

🌌Ok but for real Scorpios will pretend they dont care but deep deep down I you know you do Scorpio I can see it. They're just slowly plotting against you, waiting for your downfall, waiting for you to make a mistake so they can laugh. I imagine the typical villain laugh or the hysterical "Haha stupid bitch" or the "why would I be mad :)". The embodiment of Karma. This is for suns not too sure about moons, I dont really know many but let me know scorpio moons if this how you feel too.

This was not scorpio slander. I absolutely love scorpios. Please dont hurt me scorpios. I am just a virgo with glasses.

#astrology #zodiac #zodiacsigns #cancer #capricorn #rising sign #pisces moon #pisces #aquarius moon #aquarius #scorpio #i love scorpios #libra #sunsign #moonsign #pisces mars #AstroObservation #astronotes

[spencstan]

Six of Crows re-read

(i also did this for the shadow and bone trilogy so read that if you want to)

spoiler alert obiously

i'm SO EXCITED FOR THIS this is my comfort book (with crooked kingdom of course)

JOOST HI

oo fun fact this was my first grishaverse book and i read it with no context whatsoever except that the mc is an emo boy and morally grey

so IMAGINE my pure confusion when JOOST appeared

i was like ?????? weird take on morally grey character but ok

joost trying to figure out how to flirt with a girl is a mood

anyone wanna teach us how to???

i kinda wanna skip this part so i can see the crows..

but i won't don't worry

(won't I?

"I think Yuri may be quarantined"

aaaand?

so are we you are not special

i feel like it's very important for me to mention that i read this book in spanish first

and then i got into the fandom and i was like who the fuck is the wraith? i only know El Espectro

Heartender who??? ooo you mean Cardio

Tidemakers? nope, i only know Maremotores

for real i was so confused i had to re-read it in english (not that i mind tho)

say whatever you want about the spanish version but we have to agree that this design is pretty af

another one yay: "Retvenko was a Squaller" vs. "Retvenk era un Impulsor"

(should i also say that in my pfd english version the book is 294 pages long and in my pdf spanish version its 532????) (i think it's because in the english one the speces are way less like the lines are so close together wtf

i've decided that i'm bored so i'll be skiping this chapter

anya is super badass tho

skdgfalsdgfliaysvfascvhjl yesssssss inej

Kaz Brekker didn't need a reason.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

KAZ

INEJ

I MISSED THEM

omg now i can picture amita and freddy SDJGKASKGLASG THIS IS AMAZING

we interrupt our regularly scheduled program to watch the shadow and bone trailer once again to hear freddy's beautiful voice

ok moving on!

now hear me out i'm giving you all permission to make fun of kaz for this one: Dirtyhands = Manos Sucias

hello i am Kaz Manos Sucias. nice to meet you!

AAAAA

AAAAAAAAAA

JESPER FAHEY

JESPER LOVE HI

SJDGHFKAHSGDLAJSDFSJ,AHFLHDSGF

I MISSED HIM OMG

OMG NOW I CAN PICTURE HIM AS KIT

can you tell jesper is one of my favourite characters?

i really love the fact that kaz is pissed about the murder of that ambassador ONLY because he can´t figure out how it happen

he´s such a nerd

i can't believe one of the firts things we hear jesper say is threathen to kill someone by writing "forgive me" with bullets

AND HE CALLS HIS GUNS "BABIES" OMG

picture saying hi baby and wylan thinkin he's talking to him but actually jesper's talking to one of his guns

Jesper rolled his eyes. "It's about sending a message. What's the point of a dead guy with forg written on his chest?."

"Compromise," Kaz said. "I'm sorry does the trick and uses fewer bullets."

ooo thank god we have kaz to come up with creative solutions /j /s

honestly i love how they talk about kaz's cane like it's the scariest weapon ever (which it kind of is)

nothing will ever disappoint me more than finding out that in english their gang name is "the Dregs". like i don't even know for sure what that means

in spanish is "Los Indeseables" (the undesirables?) which sounds a lot more badass

no hate tho i like the dregs

but i was confused af bc i expected it to be sometihng like "the undesirables" or"the unwanted" or whatever

and it said "the dregs"

which in the translator means something like shit or something

anways moving on:

If he'd (kaz) ever been a little boy

i love how lowkey all the crows think he was just born exactly like he is now

imagine a baby kaz all dressed in black and threatening people

cute

"No mourners," Jesper said as he tossed his rifle to Rotty

"No funerals," the rest of the Dregs murmured in reply. Among them, it passed for "good luck".

YES

YESSS

i wonder what wylan's doing right now :))

i can't wait for the next book where he has a pov

the first time i read this book i literally looked at the title of every chapter to see if he ever got one (i was disappointed to say the least :((((

Besides, she was the Wraith - the only law that applied to her was gravity, and some days she defied that, too.

ma'am

marry me please

i'm gonna cry so hard once the show is out and we get to see inej omg

me simp

That Kaz had chosen Jesper to be one of his seconds was no surprise. Twitchy as Jepser was, with or without his revolvers, he was at his best in a fight, and she knew he'd do anything for Kaz.

idk why but i just love it every time kaz implies or shows that he cares or trusts jesper

it makes me soft

But every one of Inej's senses told her that was not how this was going to play out. Her father would have said the shadows were about their business tonight. Something bad was going to happen here.

underrated saying from Inej's father right there

"I'm a business man," he told her."No more, no less"

"You're a thief, Kaz."

"Isn't that what I just said?"

i-

i see no lies here

not to be annoying but i hc jesper as adhd (i mean is pretty much as canon as wylan's dyslexia) so i'm gonna write here every time i see evidence :)

jesper with adhd part 1: impulsivity

Jesper snorted. "Stomach, spine. What's next, spleen?"

"Shut it" Oomen snarled. The rules of parley dictated that only the lieutenants could speak once negotiations had begun. Jesper mouthed "sorry" and elaboratedly pantomimed locking his lips shut.

he know he couldn't speak but couldn't stop himself from making a comment (i relate way too much to that lmao)

hoestly poor jesper he had to watch hid friend get shot and kaz do nothing about it

i would've been mad too

"I like it when men beg," she said. "But this isn't the time for it"

KAHGFAHLGSFGASFLGSAFS

this is one of the best quotes in the book by far

YASSS KAZ POV

Kaz could have tol Jesper that he knew he wasn't dirty, reminded him that he'd trusted him eough to make him his only real second in a fight that could have gone badly wrong tonight.

cute

but kaz is petty af

he didn't even have a reason not to tell jesper that!

i love that kaz knows inej is following him but doesn't say anything because he wants to wait until she's ready

i LOVE the scene where kaz in in the van eck mantion /srs

idk why but it's so good

And, of course, there was the mystery of Van Eck's son.

wonder what that could be!!! /s

He grinned at her (...)

"Hmm." she said noncommittally, pretending to examine one of her knives, determined to ignore that grin.

KANEJ YESS

HE'S BASICALLY SHOWERING IN FRONT OF HER OMG

this is so funny poor inej is getting flustered

"And I'll need Wylan waiting at the Crow Club tomorrow night."

YES WYLAN OMG

One minute he made her blush and the next he made her want to commit murder

happens to the best of us :/

"Please, my darling Inej. treasure of my heart won't you do me the honor of acquiring me a new hat?"

if kaz doesn't say this on the show we riot

agreed?

it's so amazing how nina found a way to use her powers to get money instead of having to like steal and murder like the rest in the gang

NINA'S POV YESSS HIII

nina and inej omg

their friendship is just perfect

POOR MATTHIAS HE HAS TO FIGHT THE WOLVES

i would straight up cry

Matthias was dreaming again. Dreaming of her

i'm gonna cry damn it

this is the enemies-to-lovers we all needed

jesper has adhd part 2:

"Jesper was supposed to wait until three bells." said the pale boy

"It is three bells, Kaz." replied a small girl (...)

"Since when is Jesper punctual?" the boy complained with a glance at his watch

the time blindness come one

(btw i love the fact that kaz plans around jesper's time blindness instead of like threatening him to be on time)

i really love how every one feels the need to take the time to say/think that the masks are ugly

its so unnecessary lmao

yessss inej is a badass that kills monster we stan

and matthias is lowkey impressed lmao

as he should

"Thank you, Jesper," said Nina

"You're very welcome, gorgeous. See, Kaz? That's how the civilised folk do"

THESE TWO OMG

JESPER IS THE LOML

INEJ OMG LOOK:

She stepped aside as if she's known he was coming, languidly hooking her heel behind his ankle. Matthias let out a loud grunt as he landed on the stones

(...) "Clumsy, this one," the bronze girl said impassively.

i-

that's what happen when you underestimate her bitch

AAAAAAA

PEOPLE

PEOPLE

TIME TO FREAK OUT

WYLAN IS HERE

AND HE'S DOODLING STOP IT'S SO CUTE

ok jesper has adhd part 3 i think:

"Just how crazy is he?" asked Jesper, fingers drumming on the pearl handles of his revolvers.

ok first of all: stimming

second of all: hyperactivity

i rest my case

ok 2 or 3 things here

"I believe you know Nina," Brekker continued. "The lovely girl freeing you is Inej. (...) and this is Wylan, the best demolitions expert in the Barrel"

"Raske is better," Inej said

The boy looked up, ruddy gold hair flopping in his eyes, and spoke for the first time. "He's not better. He's reckless"

"He knows his trade"

"So do I"

ok 1: kaz calling inej lovely omg kanej

2: YES WYLAN STANDING UP FOR HIMSELF

2.5: kaz calling him the best cute af

3: honestly why do people think wylan is like an innocent soft boy or whatever. he's in a room full of murderers and thieves and the first thing he does is correct them and stand up for himself

like i wish i could do that

i would be crying like a bitch

AAAAAAAA

"Meet Wylan Van Eck"

KHDSGFALSGFIASGFAL

HI WYLAN BABY

YESSS JESPER'S POV NOW

I'M SO HAPPY also look at this it's the first thing in his pov

Jesper stared at Wylan

do i sense some wesper?????

ok everyone is being so mean to him right now

they are aclling him useless and an idiot and other shit

poor boy honestly he had to deal with this + taking part of a heist he is definetly not ready for + he has to hide the fact that he can't write or read

it so distrubing that kaz is literally the nicest one to wylan right now

"See that? Hidden depths." (...)"He's good enough at demo, and he's got a fine hand for sketching, thanks to all those pricey tutors."

(...)

"There you have it," Kaz said to Jesper. "Marketable skills. Wylan is watching you, Helvar"

GET READY

ARE Y'ALL READY?

OK THEN:

"Scheming face," Jesper whispered to Inej.

She nodded. "Definetly."

THEIR FRIENDSHIP OMG

AND THIS QUOTE

I NEED IT ON THE SHOW THEY BETTER GIVE IT TO US

"Who's Mark" damn wylan (but pretty good comeback to jesper tho)

"What's the easiest way to steal a man's wallet?

"Knife to the throat?" asked Inej.

"Gun to the back?" said Jesper.

"Poison in his cup?" suggested Nina.

"You're all horrible," said Matthias.

tag yourself i'm jesper

KJSFGAL kaz just told wylan to tell him everything he know about his dad's company

and he said he doesn't know and kaz was like "and you never looked trough his documents????

AND THEN HE GOT SAD AND SAID HE HADN'T (and kaz believed him this is sad)

AND NOW JESPER CALLED HIIM USELESS

ok you know i love you jes but if you keep this up

idk i can't do anything you're a sharpshooter

but stiiiiiil

LMAO MATTHIAS ACTUALLY THOUGHT HE COULD BEAT KAZ

nice try

demjin

*insert spongebob voice* demjin

WE'RE GONNA TAKE A MOMENT NOW TO APPRECIATE INEJ GAHFA

BECAUSE KAZ DOESN'T

The heart is an arrow. It demands aim to land true.

*ugly crying*

Many boys will bring you flowers. But some day you'll meet a boy who will learn your favourite flower, your favourite song, your favourite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won't matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart.

*uglier crying*

TANTE HELLEN IF YOU DON'T GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE

SOMEONE PLEASE STAB HER FOR ME

jesper has adhd part ?? (i have dyscalculia you can't expect me to remember the number):

That sound - the swift, shocking report of gunfire - called the scattered, irascible, permanently seeking part of his mind into focus like nothing else.

do i really need to explain this?

ok just in case.. an adhd brain doesn't actually have a deficit of attention(the name just sucks) it's problem with controling that attention. the brain is always looking for new sources of dopamine which is why it shifts its focus so much

i love that jes thinks of matthias as "tha giant"

like sir

have you seen yourself?

you're tall af

HE GOT SHOT

WHY DID I FORGET JESPER GETS SHOT IN THE LEG HERE

"Close your eyes!"

"You can't kiss me from down there, Wylan"

"Just do it!"

i love the energy BUT NOW IT'S NOT THE TIME JES

YESS WYLAN SHOW THEM THEY WERE WRONG CALLING YOU USELESS

inej just stabed some guy int the d

good for her!

KAZ YESSSS HI

AWWW SHE'S WORRIED HE DOESN'T HAVE HIS CANE

KANEJ FOR LIFE

oh no wylan got shot too???? (just barely but stilllll por baby)

my Wraith omggg

ok 3 things about this:

Without another word, he tipped Oomen into the sea.

"No!" Wylan shouted, leaning over the railing, his face pale, stunned eyes tracking Oomen in the waves. (...)

Jesper set his hand on Wylan's shoulder. "Let it go."

"It's not right-"

"Wylan," Jesper said, giving him a little shake."Maybe your tutors didn't cover this lesson, but you do not argue with a man covered in blook and a knife up his sleeve"

1. wesper yasssss

2. wylan just argued with a mant hat had just tacken the eye out of someone. he literally called him out for being an asshole. like damn wylan is brave af i love him

3. do you think seeing kaz trow the guy out of the boat reminded wylan of when the same thing happened to him???? this makes me sad

he's brave and a good person and i just-

"Man with a knife, remember?" he said over his shoulder.

"Man with a gun!" Jesper called after him

this had no right being so funny

AND THEN KAZ GAVE HIM THE MIDDLE FINGER STOP I CAN'T

nina is the biggest kanej shiper no one can tell me i'm wrong

unrelated but if jesper had gone to the Little Palace and had studied there with nina they 100% would've had a crush on Zoya and bonded over it

like you can't tell me those two bisexual disaster wouldn't be absolutely in love with Zoya

jesper has adhd part ??:

Jesper scrubbed the back of his neck, touched his hands to his gunds, returned to his neck. He always seemed to be in motions

hyperactivity right there

and restlessness

"Do you know the best way to find Grisha who don't want to be found?" (...)

"Seems to be if they don't want to be found, you should just let them be" (jesper says this)

this conversation must be so stressful to him omg

LMAO JESPER CUT MATTHIAS HAIR THIS IS SO FUNNY

AND HE SHAVED HIM

ok you all know i love all of them but they can be sooo stupid

like wylan wrote no names on the drawing and he's excuse is that he doesn't know fjerdan?

AND THAT'S NOT EVEN TRUE he literally said he learned school fjerdan which means he should know how to write it too (we know why he can't but the tohers don't)

and even then like the excuse doesn't make any sense. why would having the original name be usefull if no one can fucking read it????

the worst part tho? NO ONE QUESTIONED HIM

THEY WERE LIKE "yup makes sense" AND WENT ON WITH THEIR DAY

i wondered how they didn't figure wylan's secret sooner but now i now

it's because theya re idiots

"I'm just doing my job. Stop glaring at me"

wylan baby let's not make the gigant mad

Jesper knocked his head against the hull and cast his eyes heavenward. "Fine. But if Pekka Rollins kills us all, I'm going to get Wylan's ghost to teach my ghost how to play the flute just so that I can annoy the hell out of your ghost."

Brekker's lips quirked. "I'll just hire Matthias ghost to kick your ghost's ass."

"My ghost won't associate with your ghost," Matthias said primply, and then wondered if the sea air was rotting his brain.

i had to put this here i don't want to get murdered by the fandom

jesper, inej and nina have the BEST friendship

I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE JES AND INEJ TOGETHER ON NETFLIX

"I know some people don't understand, but Kaz told me ... he said it was my choice, that he wouldn't be the one to mark me again."

i love this because it happen when they had just met

he did it because he understands her trauma and he respects her not because he loves her (i doubt he did at the time)

Kaz had been impressed with the sketches. (...)

"Just learn to take a compliment. Kaz doesn't hand them out often."

I'M SO PROUD OF WYLAN

and yess kaz only compliments wylan (and inej but that's sarcastic so it doesn't count) because he's a proud dad

"And you don't belong here, either."

"I beg your pardon, merchiling?"

"We don't need a sharpshooter for Kaz's plan, so what's your job - other than stalking around making everyone angsty?"

He shrugged. "Kaz trusts me."

Wylan snorted and picked up his pen. "Sure about that?"

DAMN WYLAN DESTROYED HIM

also

"If you aren't born with every advantage, you learn to take your chances."

"I wasn't-" Wylan left off and set down his pen. (...)

aww cute neurodivergent boyfriends bonding

Wylan had turned back to his work, his disappointment obvious. For some reason, Jesper felt disappointed, too.

ajgflasjgfjagslfiuusgflgdfsgdflasdgfsd

wesper

aww jes checks on inej every morning and every night i love him

"Thank you for keeping me in this world when fate seemed determined to drag me to the next. I owe you a life debt."

Nina blushed deeply. "I was teasing, Inej"

LJFGALKGFALGA another cute friendship right there

(and i can see why people ship them romantically)

STOP INEJ AND JES ARE BONDING SO MUCH (page 127 so i can go back and read it lmao)

Van Eck writes to Wylan every week, and Wylan doesn't even open the letters

"They just said the same thing again and again: If you're reading this, the you know how much I wish to have you home. Or I pray that you read these words and think of all you've left behind."

should i kill him? anyone want to join me?

Inej bumped her shoulder against his."Then at least we're both the same kind of stupid." (...)

"You're too good for him, you know?"

"I know. So are you"

jes and her bonding over their stupid crush on a white boy

Because I've been looking for an excuse to talk to you for two days.

jfsfdajdhmgkfutdjrgsg ok i can't blame them for having a crush on him anymore

this chapter is full of kanej i love it

"What do you want, then"

You, Inej. You forever.

jksdgfoagsdfgsdgfklasgdflaghsldfgksdgfkahgsdfghjlkf

kaz's backstory makes me sad

"When we get our money, you can burn kruge to keep you warm," said Kaz. (...)

"I´m gonna pay someone to burn my kruge for me."

Kaz fell into step beside him. "Why don't you pay someone else to pay someone to burn your kruge for you? That's what big players do."

"You know what the really big bosses do? They pay someone to pay someone ...". Their voices trailed off as they tomped ahead, and Matthias and the others followed.

JES AND KAZ HAVE THE BEST CONVERSATIONS

i can't believe we get to see nina and matthias meet and their whole backstory in less than a month omg

"It's not natural for women to fight."

"It's not natural for someone to be as stupid as he is tall, and yet there you stand."

QUEEN

YOU TELL HIM

oh no the dead grisha

this part breaks my heart every time

"Do you have a different name for killing when you wear a uniform to do it?"

.....i'm just gonna leave this quote right here

anyways acab

stop nina tried to kill the survivor so they wouldn't suffer but she couldn't do it

and jesper did it for her without hesitation i wanna cry

and inej didn't want to do it either i want to hug them

"Because our crime is existing. Our crime is what we are"

..........

i'm gonna leave this here again

do with it what you will

"Don't mock what you don't understand."

"My mockery offends you? My people would welcome you laughter in place of this barbarity"

i- this conversation is so important

AAAAA JES AND WY ARE A GREAT TEAM I LOVE THEM

WYLAN TROWS BOMBS TOGIVE JESPER TIME TO GET READY TO SHOOT

INEJ AND KAZ ARE A GREAT TEAM TOO

THEY LITERALLY DID THE SCENE LIKE IN THE AVENGERS (but without the shield WHICH MAKES IT BETTER)

Jesper shouldered his rifle. "Wylan earned his keep."

Wylan gave a little jump at the sound of his name. "I did?"

YES BABY YOU DID GREAT

kaz getting self-conscious for his hair is pure comedy

but nina how can you say that have you see his hair on the show???? it's perfect

"Remeber our friend Mark?"

HELP I CAN'T

"Any other impossible feats you'd like us to accomplish?"

The bearest smile flikered over Kaz's lips. "I'll make you a list."

once again jesper and kaz being besties

unrelated but nikolai and jesper would love each other

the amount of sass they have between them it's unparalleled

"Mmm," Inej murmured, taking a sip from her mug. "Maybe you're just not enough."

DAMN

ma'am marry me please

kaz fainted damn poor boy

unrelated unce again but this is so much betetr than shadow and bone

like you can tell leigh improved so much

her characters are better and their arcs are better developed

the writing itself it's better

or maybe i'm just biased because i love soc so much but i think she definetly improved

INEJ IS TRYING TO GIVE HIM SPACE EVEN WHEN SHE'S TRAPPED AND LOCKED ON THE WAGON

I JUST - THEY KNOW EACH OTHER SO MUCH

Though he'd trusted her with his life countless times, it felt much more frightening to trust her with his shame.

Inej had once offered to teach him how to fall. "The trick is not getting knocked down," he'd told her with a laugh. "No, Kaz," she's said, "the trick is in getting back up"

inej is smart af

Kaz was usually unshakeable during a job, but now he was on edge, and Jesper didn't know why. Part of him wanted to ask, though he knew that was the stupid part, the hopeful farmboy who picked the worst possible person to care about, who searched for signs in things that he knew deep down meant nothing - when kaz chose him for a job, when Kaz played along with one of his jokes. He could have kicked himself. He's finally seen the infamous Kaz Brekker without a stich of clothing, and he'd been too worried about ending up on a pike to pay proper attention.

ok i got a couple of things to say about this part

first of all it makes me so sad that jes cares so much for someone who dosn't deserve him. because no hate to kaz but they would never work as a couple and kaz already treats him like shit most of the time

i think this part shows who a lot about who jesper really is. a boy that grew up having to hide parts of himself, who thinks he's worth nothing but it's smart and capable, who's loyal and brave and caring but doesn't even know it himself. he's someone who feels he doesn't deserve good things and thinks he's not good enough, and that's why he unds up in all the wrong places with the wrong people. he left uni bc he fell in with the gangs, because he didn't think he was smart enough or even prepared to be in studying in the university. jesper is constantly hiding behind a mask or running from things because he's scared of not being enough

an kaz is everything jes in a way wishes he could be. kaz is secure in himself (at least on the outside), he's stable, he's smart, he's "unshakeable". and most of all, he doesn't care about others (we know that's not true but that's how he presents himself)

and that's the thing that causes jesper all his problems. because he's insecure because he thinks he's not good enough for the poeple or things he cares about. and he's always trying to do what's best for his loved ones: he went to the ice court to pay his debt for his father, he follows kaz everywhere beacause he cares about him, he offered to read to wylan (knowing it wouldn't be easy for him to be still that long).

and yeah it often doesn't work out becuase he's messy and he has problems but he tries. and he hates that. he hates that he cares so much about people because at the end of the day, that's what makes him feel like he's not good enough

one more thing and i'm done i promise

unpopular opinion but i love that leigh made jesper have a crush on kaz. 1 beacuse it's refreshing to see someone not get otgether with his first crush. and 2 because i love that it shows that we sometimes get attached to people that are not good for us, but that we can learn to move on. jesper ended with wylan who respects him and values him, unlike kaz

ok i'm sorry that was probably all bs

oo one more thing, jesper definetly has rsd (rejection sensitive disphoria), which is something most poeple with adhd have

"My father used to take me everywhere with him"

this is so sad. bc they probably had a good relationship when he was little. and then they figured he coudln't read and now his father treats him like shit

it's even worse than if he haf been horrible from the beginning because wylan knows he can be a good father. and so he thinks it's his fault and he deserves to be treated like that. i hate van eck

"You're cuter when you're smart"

(...)

"Definitely cuter when you're smart"

wesper yesssss

i love them so much

ok but why do people think jesper is stupid. like the boy just made a bunch of criminals pass out by mixing some chemicals

and he was going to the university at like 15

AAAAND NOW THEY KNOW HE'S A FABRIKATOR

amazing plot twist

also:

Wylan coughed. Flirting with him might actually be more fun that annoying him, but it was a close call.

oooo come on jesper we all know you just love getitng him to blush

and you love him

who said that? definitely not me, nope

awwww jesper misses being around animals that's cute

imagine him coming home to wylan one day with a puppy because he just couldn't resist

cute

Better terrible truths than kind lies

just leaving here more of inej's wisdom

ok this may be a reach but jesper has adhd part ???

Yellow Protocol? Red Protocol? He couldn't remember which was which. (...)

"The alarm was Yellow Protocol, a sector disturbance."

Jesper pushed at his temples. "I don't remember what that means"

a bad working memory? sounds familiar

kaz loves puzzles

it's canon

"I love puzzles. Trickery is just my native tongue."

this part where wylan and jesper see the banner made with grisha's kefta kills me every time

I would have worn purple, Jesper thought, if I'd joined the Second Army. (...) He'd beenwilling, even eager to risk capture and execution as a thief and hired gun. Why was it worse to think about being hunted as a Grisha?

this makes me want to cry so much

another thing super sad: the fact that since his father is Kaelish and had some supersititons towards grisha, jesper grew up wondering if his own father was scared of him. he had to hide his powers and he was almost taught to be afraid of them

"Is it safe to leave them, you know-"

"Alive? I'm not big on killing unconscious men."

"We could wake them up"

WYLAN

NO

damn the boy needs therapy

it's amazing how nothing went like they planned

not a single thing

PEOPLE GET READY

ARE YOU READY?

NEITHER AM I BUT WHO CARES

"What do you like?"

"Music. Numbers. Equations. They are not like words. They...they don't get mixed up."

ok dude the clues are right there he's basically saying it

"If only you could talk to girls in equations."

There was a long silence, and then, eyes trained on the notch they'd created in the link, Wylan said, "Just girls?"

Jesper restrained a grin. "No. Not just girls." It really was a shame they were all probably going to die tonight.

wylan really said a straight man?? couldn't be me

this is the definition of bi panic "jesper restrained a grin" bitch we saw that

btw i love the slow burn

like they hint something here but they don't actually start liking each other until much later and they don't get together until almost the end of ck

i also love that the fact that they both like guys is like out in the open now. bc i'm not a fan of when queer characters have a crush and there's the whole thing of "are they queer too or not?"

like they both know htey are queer. but they don't get together right away bc they have to start liking each other before. they don't get together bc they are the only queer mlm characters

matthias fake betrayal killed me

i tought it was real

I have been made to protect you. Only in death will I be kept fom this oath.

this is just-

also foreshadowing?

YAYY KUWEI HI

There was no part of him that was not broken, that had not healed wrong, and there was no part of him that was not stronger for having been broken.

She's laughed, and if he could have bottled the sound and got drunk on it every night, he would have. It terrified him.

if i ever have a s/o and they don't tell me this at least once i don't want it

He needed to tell her... what? That she was lovely and brave and better than anything he deserved. That he was twisted, crooked, wrong, but not so broken that he couldn't pull himslef together into some smeblance of a man for her

THIS

THIS IS LOVE RIGHT THERE

they are the only straight couple that matters

everyone else go home

Wylan had scratches all over his cheeks and neck. He was beaming. Inej grabbed his hands and sqeezed.

so cute omg

"You can explain why our illustrious Shu scientist looks like one of Wylan's school pals along the way"

KAZ

i mean it's true but you didn't have to say it

KAZ IS SMILING OMG

EVERYONE FREAK OUT WITH ME

HE'S "grinning like and idiot" STOP I LOVE HIM

"We are all someone's mosnter, Nina"

"I will have you without armour, Kaz Brekker. Or I will not have you at all"

this part breaks my heart and i love it

"Stay," she oanted. Tears leaked from her eyes. "Stay till the end"

"And after," he said. "And always."

i just- helnik is perfect

AWWW JESPER MISSES WYLAN

my daily dosis of wesper :)

ok but in like 2 pages jesper tought of wylan like 10 times bc he's sad wy isn't with him

Jesper scanned the empty deck. He's assumed Wylan would come up to see them off. (...)

Jesper knew he was being selfish and stupid, but some petty part of him wondered if Wylan had deliberately kept away from him on the journey back. Maybe now that the job was complete and he was on his way to his share of the haul, Wylan was done slumming with criminals.

*charles boyle's insinuating voice* and why do you care so much???

btw YOU ARE WRONG. HE'S LITERALLY GOING OUT OF HIS WAY TO BE WITH YOU EVEN THOUGH HE CAN'T SPEAK

this scene where we find out the truth about wylan hurts so much but it's one of my favourites idk why

I LOVE THAT EVERYONE IS AS MAD AS I AM ABOUT THE LETTERS NOW

"Your're a fool," Jesper snarled. "He smarter than most of us put together, and he deserves a better father than you."

YES TELL HIM

the fact that wylan just heard him say that omg

"Deserved" amended Van Eck. He blew the whislte twice.

SOMEONE BETTER GRAB ME BEFORE I KILL HIM MYSLEF

THAT IDIOT

I HATE HIM SO MUCH

I'M GONNA CRY CAN SOMEONE KILL HIM FOR ME

Jesper screamed in rage and raised his guns.

YES EXACLTY WHAT I MEANT

JUST KILL HIM RIGHT NOW

"I'm not big on bludding, am I Inej?"

"Not as a rule"

Van Eck's lip curled. "And why is that?"

"Because he'd rather cheat," said the boy who was not Kuwei Yul-Bo in perfect, unaccented Kerch.

THIS WAS PERFECT

THE BEST WAY TO REVEAL THAT

(...), and Jesper flinched

baby he recognized wylan's voice

The Shu boy held out a hand. "Pay up, Kaz"

BITCH THIS IS AMAZING

THIS BOY MADE A BET WITH A CRIMINAL THAT HIS OWN FATHER WAS GOING TO TRY TO KILL HIM

AND HE WON THE BET

A nearly perfect replica of Kuwei Yul-Bo stood before them, but he had Wylan's voice, his mannerisms, and - though Kaz could see the fear and hurt in his golden eyes - Wylan's surprising courage, too.

i love it when they compliment him

my boy deserves all the compliments ever

AND KAZ IS PROUD OF HIS SON WE ALL KNOW THIS

Wylan cuold draw a perfectt elevation. He's made a drill that could cut throu Grisha glass from parts of a gate and scavenged bits of jewellery. So what if he couldn't read

this is taking me to some real places

i may cry you've been warned

WYLAN DIDN'T CARE THAT HE MAY BE STUCKED LOOKING LIKE KUWEI

this is making me cry

"A fool would have been waiting to be smashed to bits on that ship. And as for "traitor", you've called me worse in the last few minutes alone."

EXACTLY

YOU TELL HIM WYLAN

Instead, in that moment of threat, when he should have thought only of the fight, he looked at Inej.

BABY

i would've done the same tho she's pretty

amita is sooo pretty i'm gonna die when the show comes out

Jesper was staring at Wylan, his eyes roving over the black hair, the golden eyes. "Why?" he said at last. "Why would you do this?"

nothing to say here except: wesper

You... how many times was it you standing beside me on the deck at night when I tought it was Kuwei?"

"Every time."

i want to cry so bad

"Why does it matter?"

"I don't know!" Jesper said angrily. "Maybe I liked your stupid face."

a very staright and platonic thing to say of course

i know jes we all liked his stupid face

"Jesper made a mistake," said Wylan. "A stupid mistake, but he didn't set out to betray anyone."

YES WYLAN DEFEND YOUR BOYFRIEND

And maybe he'd kept him in the dark about Wyllan because he wanted to punish him a little

even kaz know they like each other come on

Jesper sat with elbows on knees, head in hands. Wylan deside him wearing th face of a stranger.

wylan give him a hug fro me please

he needs it

"Scheming face," murmured Jesper.

"Definitely," agreed Wylan.

i miss inej already

And I'm going to get my girl. Inej could never be his, not really, but he would find a way to give her the freedom he´d promised her so long ago.

i'm ugly crying and so what?

and now we're done....

i want to read this book again omg this is unhealthy

#shadow and bone #s&b #six of crows #jesper fahey #wylan van eck #kaz brekker #grishaverse #inej gahfa #matthias helvar #nina zenik #freddy carter #kit young #amita suman #soc #helnik #kanej #wesper

[freddieslater]

could i be sending this on instagram? yes. am i sending it on here anyway for fun? also yes

currently on the season 5 finale and wow i forgot how much i hate the dumblebys. i’ve never wanted to murder a fictional character more. it’s bloody annoying that that shit goes on in real life too. fuck capitalism

tee implying candi-rose reminds her of carmen? iconic. those two deserved more screen time together… actually i really hope that the finale of this show, whenever it eventually ends, features every kid who ever lived in the dg since at least the start of tbr, plus mike, tracy, cam… everyone. if the finale is just 2 full hours of everyone swapping stories and reminiscing i will be happy

ok but actually i’m very upset about mission totally possible, i’d missed it in previous rewatches so my dumb ass watched that mindfuck of an episode for the first time ever at 2am and i think i lost braincells from it

honestly most of the latter half of s5 is very disorienting and oddly done. did anything between the wardrobe and where you belong even happen. i mean i know most of it did because charlie moved in but the tone is so odd and wrong. i’m very confused

i forget how much i love adult elektra, in both s5 and s8 she is i c o n i c. she really just said fuck the system huh. and got frank involved? beautiful.

the amount of scheming occurring this episode is absolutely astounding. i’m amazed liam isn’t involved

ryan being protective over all the younger kids is my new religion thank you and goodbye. you can just tell he would’ve been such a good brother to chloe if things had gone differently

floss may be a capitalist but apparently she’s also a feminist, honestly i can’t wait to see what she does when she leaves the dg (that’ll only be in a few years?? mad. she joined this show when she was six)

alex really thought he can steal roman relics from a museum alone, with about an hour of planning and wearing distinct clothes? fool. he could never get away with a heist as clean as the money one, im amazed anyone fell for dumbleby’s lie

wait hold on. why can’t they just move from house to house like they did from elm tree to ashdene?? that seems like b i g plot hole

oh god oh fuck i’m on season 6 oh no

I'm happy you're still sending your rambles on here because it means we get to force other people to see TDG content.

The dumbleby's really are some of the worst characters in TDG. Not badly written, but written well enough to make us despise them. And yeah, it really does suck that this is just real life, like, people fully will not care about disrupting these kids lives and giving them further trauma just to make some money.

I was so happy that Tee implied Candi-Rose reminds her of Carmen because they really are quite similar! You are galaxy-brained, that is exactly the finale we need. I don't even want a plot. I want raw emotion of all of these characters reminiscing and giving the actors a chance to show their love for each other and the show through their characters. I want to see characters that just missed each other finally interact. The older ones from the very start marvelling over how big the little ones who were there at their time now are, and how they've taken over their roles to the younger ones. I even want, if possible, a few cameos from TSOTB characters, specifically Crash, Jackie, Justine, and most unlikely, Ben. The finale better at least be more than a half hour, because I will never be satisfied with that.

I will give you that, mission totally impossible was... weird. I mean, it's one of my favourite episodes because it's mostly Jody centric, and has Jody/Tyler AND Ryan/Tyler content, so I really can't complain about that. But the actual plot was.... something else.

On that note, I really do not like most of season 5. Like you said, it's disorienting, all of the episodes feel like fillers but not in a good way - especially the wardrobe episode, I hate that one specifically with a passion because it's just so weird and feels completely wrong from the tone of the rest of the show. Season 5 was not one of their better seasons. Glad they've moved away from whatever they were trying to do there.

Adult Elektra! Iconic really is the only word to describe her. She's the same but more mature, with a better sense of what she wants and what she's doing, and a bit more responsibility, and I really love that look on her. And yes, her getting Frank involved was the cherry on top; she really can't stop roping him into her schemes, just like her first episode. I desperately wanted Liam to be involved in those episodes because he would have been a very useful and welcome addition to the scheme team, and he was still living with Frank, as far as I'm aware? We deserved adult Elektra/Frank/Liam team up. We need the scheme team back together!!

Ryan is my villain origin story and it's only strengthened when he interacts with the younger ones. That boy would have been the best big brother.

Floss being a feminist does make sense to me. And I love that for her! It's about the only thing I do love for her lmoafkajsksjhd but yeah, I actually kinda do wanna know what she plans to do when she leaves the dg, because we haven't heard much about that? She had an interest in dance and acting and some other things, and she's been quite determined recently to do whatever she can to make money, so I definitely see her being an entrepreneur of some sort. Either that or the scariest business woman alive.

Look, Alex is trying his best, okay? That boy has about two brain cells. And that's being generous. But I love his effort, at least. No thought and no plan, but A+ for effort.

Honestly, that is a big plot hole. The change in building from Elm Tree to Ashdene Ridge in general is a bit of a plot hole because they never actually discuss it within the show? Obviously at the wedding, Tracy says she knew the old one better, which at least kind of acknowledges that it's definitely not the same house, but it's so weird that they never even tried to explain within the show why they had to move and change the name. So, the fact that they made a big deal of possibly having to move building this time was definitely odd. Like... we KNOW they've already done it. They COULD do it again, potentially, if they had the money or whatever they need. I think the plot was just for the Drama and the Angst of nearly being separated, which I can appreciate, at least.

Oh no. Good luck to you, season 6 will destroy you again. It always kills me. That's why it's one of my favourites.

#ds-umbrella-manufacturing-co #ask away earthlings! #tdg #the dumping ground #candi-rose #carmen howle #tee taylor #elektra perkins #frank matthews #liam o'donovan #elektra x frank x liam #alex walker #ryan reeves

[catboymingi]

wish

navi/masterlist

pairing: hongjoong x reader

genre: some angst if you try really hard, fluff

word count: 4k

warnings: mingi being bad at halloween (this is FLUFF and fluff ONLY)

a/n: would you believe this, something that’s not mingi... who would’ve thought this day would ever come

six years and three months have passed since you last talked to hongjoong. five years and ten months have passed since you moved in with mingi. five years and seven months have passed since you gave birth to your daughter. not even a day has passed since you last missed the man that had once been your everything.

this was your first halloween with your daughter, and it had been neither your nor her idea to celebrate, actually. instead, ‘the best uncle on earth’ (as mingi commonly called himself) had insisted that she now was big enough and that she deserved the candy. you knew, though, that he wanted to dress up more than her, and that he’d most definitely steal your candy, at least. he had a massive sweet spot for your child, so her candy might be safe. might. or you might just have to lock it away. 

you couldn’t be mad at him, though - he was the only one that had been there for you when you got pregnant, that had been there when you’d given birth, that had made it possible, through rigid scheduling and his parents’ money, for you to finish your degree even though you had a daughter at home. it was weird because you hadn’t even really been close before your world came crashing down, but he proved himself to be the biggest help you could ever have asked for. so maybe, he was actually the best uncle on earth.

“are you ready?” of course it was mingi screaming, not your daughter. you’d insisted that she wouldn’t get to go trick-or-treating until she was five, because you knew not everyone was sensible enough to remember that there were small children outside that would get deadly scared at the kind of decoration some people found to be appropriate, and you wanted to prevent her from getting traumatised by random severed hands. but that had also meant that mingi had had to wait for five years to get to have a good excuse for why he got dressed up and excited like this.

“you look ridiculous”, you laughed at the tall man who had proudly told you he’d be a werewolf but looked more like a werepuppy.

“i don’t need your approval when i have toive’s!”, he told you, sticking his tongue out at you despite being 27 years of age. “and she said i look very scary and that she trusts me to protect her from all the bad and evil vampires! now get ready, we want to go!”

you smiled contentedly as you put on your black lipstick, the last little touch needed for your witch costume. you really were glad to have mingi, to have someone that could at least somewhat fill in the role of toive’s father. he made sure that your daughter never lacked anything and, admittedly, spoiled her a little much sometimes, but it was okay because it was done with love.

“done. let’s go?” both the werepuppy and the little piratess that barely reached up to mingi’s waist nodded enthusiastically, and you grabbed the big plastic bags that you’d spent the day painting to look more halloween-y and less grocery store-y.

going trick-or-treating was more fun than you’d expected it to be, your daughter scoring more candy than mingi and you combined by threatening every single person on whose doorbell you rang with having them go on the plank if they didn’t hand over all their candy.

“it’s unfair”, your best friend whined out when toive had once more scored twice the amount of candy as him and you combined, “when she threatens people it’s cute but if i threaten people i bet they’d call the police!”

“that’s because you’re a giant that could break my arm without effort”, you explained to him, laughing at his exasperation. it was just candy, but you knew he had a sweet tooth - she’d probably gotten it from him, even though they weren’t even related. bad influence. but it was cute, too, how happy and excited they both were, the excitement carrying over to you even though you’d insisted you weren’t a fan of halloween at all. but how could you not get excited when both of them were near vibrating with joy? your two favourite people were having so much fun and seeing them happy was all you needed to be happy yourself.

that happiness didn’t last long, however, when you rang on another doorbell, not thinking much of the surname ‘kim’ - near half of south korea’s population was called kim, so it didn’t even occur to you that it might be a very specific kim, a kim whose condom had ripped six years ago and had subsequently caused you not only the hardest time in your life but also more happiness than you’d ever thought possible once your little darling was born. a kim whom you’d never even told, because he’d had to move away before you even found out you were pregnant, and whom you didn’t want to hold back from his dream, so you just broke things off with him instead, claiming you were going back to finland. but it was this very specific kim, it was kim hong joong who opened the door for you and sent your heart into a frenzy.

“shit!”, you cursed out as soon as you saw his face, recognised him even behind his eye patch and fake beard, momentarily forgetting that your daughter very much should not be hearing curses yet, but luckily mingi got your back.

“shiny lights!”, he chimed in as soon as he heard the first few letters of the inappropriate word leaving your lips, successfully distracting toive from the fact that you were incredibly out of it, pointing to all the little lanterns in hongjoong’s garden. her eyes lit up, admiring the pumpkins he’d carved, and you were grateful that he’d put so much effort into decorating his lawn because it distracted her enough for you to have a few moments to collect yourself.

“y/n?” of course he’d recognised you, too, it would’ve been too good to be true if he hadn’t. and then his eyes went to mingi and toive, and you started panicking. he couldn’t accurately guess how old she was, but your reaction and the way you’d broken things off without ever even having hinted at you wanting to go back to europe back then made him suspect that she was his.

“your daughter?”, he asked, and you thanked the heavens that he had enough common sense to be silent so she’d not hear. you just nodded, not trusting your voice right now, and his next question sent even more panic jolting through your body.

“mine?”

now you had to talk, because she was here and mingi wouldn’t be able to distract her forever, and you couldn’t sort all this now. you couldn’t.

“not now. i’ll give you my number and you can text me, and we’ll meet tomorrow or something, but please, for her, not now.” and because he was still as kind and understanding as he’d always been he nodded, getting out his phone and saving your contact before getting your darling’s attention, pretending he didn’t have any kind of connection to you or her.

“hey, little pirate! have you found a treasure yet?” she turned around with so much energy that she’d have landed on her butt if mingi hadn’t caught her, then she came back to where you were still standing at the door.

“you’re a pirate, too!” she admired his big hat and the plastic sword dangling from his side, and he nodded.

“the scariest pirate in all of the seven seas. i have so many treasures i don’t even know what to do with them all. would you do me a favour and take a little gold from me, mate?” and he leaned down with a smile, holding the bowl filled with chocolate gold coins out to her.

“can i?” she looked up at you with the biggest puppy eyes and you couldn’t help the smile spreading on your face. and hongjoong noticed it, too, noticed the fond expression and his heart hurt a little at the thought that this precious little gem might be his daughter, and at the memory of the heartbreak he’d gone through back then.

“but you need to ask the captain how much you can take”, you told her and her little head bobbed up and down as she nodded enthusiastically.

“captain, sir, how much gold may i take?” and she was so precious that he was about to just hand her the entire bowl. but the last little bit of reason left in him told him that then he’d not have anything for the other kids that would inevitably come, so he had to restrain himself.

“how about you two swordfight and the winner decides?”, mingi suggested, mainly just wanting to buy you some time to check up on you. he knew that hongjoong was the father, of course he knew, and he knew that the man didn’t know. so this situation had to be really hard on you.

he didn’t know if it was because hongjoong sensed what he wanted to do or if he really just wanted to play more with toive, but he immediately agreed, getting out his sword to fight the little piratess, ‘arg’s and ‘urg’s to be heard from them while mingi put his hand on your shoulder before pulling you into a hug.

“you okay?”, he asked quietly, and you nodded, even though you weren’t sure if you actually were.

“he didn’t make me talk it out now, so that’s all i could ask for. i’ll probably have to tell him tomorrow”, you all but whispered into his shoulder, holding his biceps tightly to ground yourself a little as you felt the panic hit you again.

“you know he’s nice. and if he isn’t, i’ll beat his ass.” and had it been anyone else you’d thought this threat was just to make you feel better, but because you’d lived with this man for so long now you knew that he absolutely would.

“thanks”, you said before disattaching yourself, walking back to where the two pirates were still fighting. but when hongjoong saw you come back he took the final blow, sinking to the ground as if he’d received a deadly hit.

“you were a worthy opponent, little pirate. now it is up to you how much gold you will take from me.” and toive’s eyes shone brighter than the lamps surrounding you and the fake gold in his bowl as she put both her little hands in and grabbed as much as she could take - which, admittedly, wasn’t much, so mingi decided to help out because his hands were about as big as your head.

“you won, you deserve the reward”, he told your daughter as he scooped an entire handfull into her bag. he glared at hongjoong as he did so, a warning to not fuck up, and suddenly he did look like a werewolf rather than an adorable werepuppy. but his expression softened as soon as he looked at your darling that was his darling just as much, and the other man could tell that he cared. so at least the girl hadn’t had to miss out on anything.

you left for the next house soon after, your daughter and her costume twin ‘arrr mate’ing at each other, and again the tall man proved to be your hero as he pointed at another decoration to get her attention away from you and your ex-love for a little so you could decently say goodbye, because he could tell you needed that.

“i’ll text you soon”, hongjoong told you, and you nodded.

“thank you.” he knew for what. for not causing a scene even though he had all right to, technically, because your daughter didn’t have to see that. shouldn’t have to see that. and then you left, again, and he felt his heart break just a little as your form disappeared.

it was thanks to the werewolf that the night continued to go smoothly until it was time to head home, and he tucked toive into bed while you took a moment to yourself in the bathroom, wiping off your makeup as you tried to calm your rapid heartbeat. then you joined the two of them in her room, pressing a little kiss onto her forehead and promising that you’d hexed all the bad dreams so they couldn’t haunt her, and mingi promised her that he’d bite any vampire that tried to come close.

once she’d fallen asleep you left for the living room, him staying by your side as you grabbed your phone, knuckles white from the force you used as you gripped it. he put a hand on your leg in comfort as you unlocked it, and of course hongjoong had already messaged.

[unknown]: this is hongjoong

[unknown]: tomorrow, 10am, playground?

[unknown]: /location/

you sighed, then replied.

[y/n]: you know im not bringing toive

and his message appeared almost immediately after, as if he’d been staring at his phone ever since he first texted you.

[unknown]: yeah

[unknown]: but i remember you liked them. said they were calm

he was right. even before your daughter had lit up the playground with her bright smile you’d loved spending time there, sitting on the swings and staring up at the sky whenever you had something to talk about. that feeling had never left, even though you now had yet another reason to love playgrounds.

[y/n]: ill be there

and even though hongjoong wanted nothing more in that moment than to tell you that he missed you he knew he shouldn’t, so he left you on read instead, though both his thoughts and his heart were racing.

while he hadn’t been able to await the next day it came all too soon for you, and mingi once more promised that if hongjoong pulled any shit he’d beat his ass into next week. he was babysitting toive today, had promised her a movie and candy day so she wouldn’t miss you, and you couldn’t be more grateful to have him. maybe she didn’t have a father, and you didn’t have a partner, but the two of you had him, and he more than made up for it, even though it had cost him several dates. you were his priority, and you loved him for that.

the man was already waiting at the playground when you arrived, early as always and beautiful as always. he wasn’t wearing the pirate costume today, but neither were you dressed up as a witch, both of you looking casual but differently so. he looked purposefully casual, while you looked like you’d rolled out of bed and just put on whatever, dressed just to not be naked. and that was a pretty good representation of your emotional state - you just came here completely unprepared, you came because you had to. and you were scared.

“hey”, he greeted you quietly, but instead of greeting back you just burst out: “she’s yours.”

there was a moment of tense silence before he replied.

“i already guessed so. from the way you were acting.” you nodded; there wasn’t really anything to say to that, anyway.

“you’re doing alright? mingi’s taking care of you?” of course he remembered mingi, the goofy tall guy that you’d spent quite some time with, but he knew you hadn’t been as close to him back then as you obviously were now. he got an explanation though when you began talking.

“yeah, he’s been there ever since i found out. big scary guy, threatening aura, keeping me from the worst when i couldn’t really hide it anymore. he let me move in right away and he’s basically like a dad for toive now.”

it was a lot of information to take in at once, so he tried to find something small to focus on.

“her name’s toive?”

“it means ‘wish’”, you elaborated. “i was horrified as shit the entire pregnancy, so i hadn’t even come up with a name yet when i delivered. but as soon as i saw her i knew she was a wish come true. so i just called her that.”

“it’s a beautiful name.” you knew it was. it reminded you of the home you’d left behind to build yourself a new one, and it reminded you that sometimes the most unexpected things could be what your heart wished for. it reminded you to keep going, because you wanted to make her every wish come true. it was a very fitting name.

“she’s a beautiful girl.”

you saw him smile at that, smile at the memory of the little piratess he’d fought with the night before. but then he asked the question you’d dreaded most.

“why didn’t you ever tell me? you know i would’ve been there for you.”

a sigh left your lips, because of course you knew. and that was exactly why you hadn’t told him.

“when i found out you’d already moved. you were thriving and i couldn’t bring myself to hold you back like this. you deserved to live your life as you wanted to without having to worry about a family you never asked for.”

“did you ask for it?”, he asked you, and you shook your head. as much as you loved the little family you’d built with mingi, you hadn’t asked for this to happen.

“and would you want to go back to change this?” you shook your head again, and he grabbed your hand.

“so why do you think i would’ve regretted it? would’ve not wanted to know?”

you had no answer to that. maybe because back then you’d still been convinced the pregnancy would ruin your life, so it didn’t occur to you that he might not feel the same way. that he genuinely might want to be there.

“can i be there now?”

“you can get to know her, if you want to. but she doesn’t know you, doesn’t know who you are, and i’ll have to figure out how to tell her. so you can’t be there as her dad, not yet and maybe never, if she doesn’t want you in her life. if you can’t accept that, if you can’t put her first, i don’t want you there.”

he took in your words and nodded. he’d last seen you six years ago, so obviously she’d spent quite some time without knowing about him at all, and he knew he couldn’t just barge in and act like he’d been there all her life. he was a stranger, even though that hurt a little.

“does she have a dad?” and even though his phrasing was a little weird you understood what he meant. he wanted to know if mingi was her father, if not legally or physically then emotionally.

“she has an uncle that would lay down the world for her. and that won’t hesitate to break a few bones if she gets hurt, just so you know.” but you were smiling, finally starting to relax a little.

“i don’t doubt it for a second”, he chuckled, “he seemed about ready to kill me at the door. he really cares about you two, doesn’t he?”

you nodded, smile growing bigger at the mention of the taller man, and hongjoong felt a small sting when you told him how you’d never want to miss him, how mingi was as much a part of your life as toive was, how it was so clear that you belonged together.

“do you love him?” he didn’t know why he asked. he didn’t know why he hoped you’d say no. he didn’t know why he cared and he didn’t know why the thought of you being with mingi made his chest feel tight. he hadn’t seen or talked to you in years, so why did he hope that he still held a place in your heart? why did you still hold a place in his?

“i do, of course i do”, you told him, at least as surprised at his question as he was. “he’s like a brother, he’s been there all this time and it’s only thanks to him that i’m where i am today. but i don’t love him the way i loved you, if that’s what you meant.”

“you loved me?”

you didn’t understand why he sounded so startled about that. the two of you had gotten together pretty much right after you started university, and you’d been together for more than a year when he moved, planning to stay together for many more until life decided that it had other plans. of course you’d loved him. part of you still did.

“you were the first person i ever wanted a future with like that. of course i loved you. you meant everything to me.”

“i wish you’d never left.” his voice was very quiet, pained, made you want to hold him and apologise, but you didn’t know if that’d be okay with him.

“i missed you everyday. even yesterday, i still missed you. it’s dumb, but even though it’s been six years i still hoped you’d somehow come back into my life. and here you are, so maybe it’s not that dumb.”

now there was no stopping your arms from going around his waist, your face pressed to that one spot between his neck and his shoulder that had always felt like it was made for this purpose only, as you quietly told him you’d missed him too.

“it was so hard to watch toive grow up to be more and more like you but not having you there to see it, too. when she’d start asking about her dad and i could only tell her stories even though i knew she wanted a real dad, like all the other kids. and all the stories i told, they kept me from ever getting over you, but i knew it wouldn’t be fair to keep even that from her just because i was hurting.”

hongjoong was holding you tightly, a hand in your hair and the other pressing you against his chest because he didn’t want you to go again.

“let me be a dad. and let me be there for you too.”

his words made you look up at him in surprise, because they sounded so soft and gentle and full of an emotion you didn’t think you’d ever get from him again, not directed towards you, at least.

“for me?”

and he was looking at you, eyes wandering from your forehead to your chin, not leaving out a single detail. you’d matured, but you were still just as beautiful.

“i didn’t stop loving you. still haven’t.”

his words surprised you, even though you hadn’t stopped loving him either. you didn’t know what to make of them, what he wanted you to do now. what he’d expected to happen now that he’d said this.

“can i kiss you?” of course he asked. he was still the same hongjoong, the same gentleman, the same man that always made sure whatever he was doing was okay with you before he tried, and he still caused the same butterflies to fly around in your stomach. but now you had someone else to put first, you couldn’t risk falling back in love with him, hopelessly so, only for it to end badly. you couldn’t risk that when you had a child.

“only if you mean it. and not just now, but every single day. only if you can promise that you won’t hurt me and, most importantly, that whatever happens between us won’t ever hurt my daughter. our daughter. can you promise that?”

“i promise.” and he’d never been more sure of anything.

“then kiss me.”

he did. he kissed you like you were the most precious thing in the world and he kissed you as if he wanted to prove that he meant it, that he loved you and had already fallen in love with his daughter and that he’d even learn to love mingi as part of his family. he kissed you as if to make up for the past six years when he couldn’t, and you kissed him back as if to make up for every moment you’d kept his daughter from him. you kissed each other like you were in love, and you were.

and finally, you got the happy ending you’d been wishing for ever since you first saw the positive pregnancy test. finally, you got a family with the love of your life. and finally, he got to stay with you.

#ateez #ateez x reader #hongjoong #kim hongjoong #hongjoong x reader #kim hongjoong x reader #ateez x atiny #ateez au #ateez fluff #ateez angst #ateez fanfiction #ateez imagines #ateez reactions #ateez crack #ateez timestamps #ateez content #hongjoong au #hongjoong fluff #hongjoong angst #hongjoong fanfiction #hongjoong imagines #hongjoong crack #hongjoong timestamps #seonghwa #yunho #yeosang #san #mingi #wooyoung #jongho

[rocket-remmy]

A Tale of Two Nadias || Nadia, Notia, and Remmy

TIMING: Current PARTIES: @humanmoodring​ and @whatsin-yourhead​ SUMMARY: Remmy talks to Nadia. And Nadia. They come to a somber revelation.

People had to sleep. People with heartbeats, even faint ones, had to sleep, and Nadia was no such person, even if she was able to, occasionally, hang out with them. Regan had to sleep, Blanche had to sleep, and Sammy was kind, and sweet, but sometimes, sometimes, Nadia needed to be alone. Even like this, she was an introvert. But she liked being in places where there was life and light and noise. Even when she was younger and at home, she liked to take walks by herself, exploring the neighborhood where she lived. There was always light, always evidence of life. White Crest wasn’t Phoenix, though. Sometimes, the streets were just dead. But she wandered them anyway, trying to keep herself tethered in the moment. One foot, then another. She made sure her feet didn’t slip into the sidewalk, made sure that she avoided fire hydrants and light poles and cracks. If she didn’t pay attention, if she wasn’t careful, she’d end up blinking and it would be morning or mid afternoon. Losing time was the scariest. She didn’t know where she went, and she was so worried that one day she wouldn’t make it back. She moved her boot out of a weed that grew up through a crack in the concrete, concentrating more on her steps than where she was actually going.

 Remmy needed to find Nadia, and they needed to find her fast. She was going to do something stupid, or hurt someone, or someone was going to hurt her, and Remmy needed to help. They had to help. They’d failed Lydia, they couldn’t help Deirdre, and Constance was seeming more and more like a lost cause. There had to be at least someone they could help, right? There just had to be. Their feet pounded the pavement as they ran around town. They didn’t know where they were going, or what they were looking for, but they just needed to keep going. To find her. She had to be somewhere, but she was probably good at hiding. She was a criminal, after all. She’d hurt people, just like Lydia, just like Deirdre. So why did Remmy care so much? Was she really lying the entire time? They couldn’t decide. They just needed to see her, find her. They need to-- “Nadia?” They skidded to a stop. There she was, across the road, except-- she was see through. “Wait-- real Nadia?” They crossed the street quickly, dodging a car on their way. “I thought you were with Blanche? And-- oh, shit, sorry. Uh, I’m Remmy. Blanche’s friend. Are you-- what are you doing out here?”

 Looking up at the sound of her name, Nadia locked eyes with the stranger as they walked towards her, a bit surprised that someone could see her. Was this a stranger? They clearly knew her far better than she knew them and-- and they looked familiar. Like someone from a dream. “Real Nadi-- I mean, yeah, sort of?” She was, she was, she was. She was real. “Yes, I’m real.” She looked around, made sure that they wouldn’t be overheard. The street was pretty dead, aside from the two of them aside from the car that almost hit this person, causing Nadia to flinch and reach out like it’d do something. Though, maybe that meant that it was still quite dead. At least on her end. She was a bit confused. “I, uh, I’m staying with Blanche, I, like, bounce between her apartment and a friend’s cabin. But they sleep, you know, and I don’t, so sometimes I just… walk.” Remmy. It took her a second to process. Remmy. Nadia’s eyes widened, and she imagined she’d feel sick if she actually had a stomach. “Oh, god, fuck, you’re-- I’m so sorry, and we’ve-- I almost fucking killed you.” She put a hand over her mouth, and then she just stared at them. The way they’d started talking to her didn’t make sense. Why did they differentiate her as the real Nadia? “You… You weren’t looking for me, were you?” she asked quietly.

 “Shit, s-sorry, I didn’t mean like--” Remmy started, but immediately stopped, because they didn’t know what they did mean. “I meant you’re actually Nadia. Not...Cordelia Nadia.” It still felt strange saying the name and attributing it to someone who had asked to be called a different name. But Remmy supposed it wasn’t fair to Naida, either, to have her name stolen like that.  “What? Oh, n-no, you don’t have to apologize for that! It wasn’t you. It was, you know, other you,” a beat, “Cordelia.” They looked around the street, wondering if she was somehow nearby, “I-- no,” they admitted quietly, bouncing on the balls of their toes. “Sorry. I just-- I think she’s going to do something stupid again. And I--” how did they explain to Nadia that they might actually care about the person possessing her body? That they didn’t want her to suffer anymore than she needed to? Would Nadia hate them? They swallowed. “Is everything okay? I-- I mean of course it’s not okay okay, you lost your body, but I just mean…you look kinda lost.”

 “Hey, no, don’t apologize, seriously,” Nadia said, feeling bad for the way Remmy stumbled over their words. “But, yeah, I’m just Nadia.” It was a struggle, to imagine that someone thought of her and Cordelia as a… the same. Maybe the same was too strong of a word, but having the same face, the same voice. It reminded her, just a bit, about the fact that for awhile after everything with Kaden and Regan in the cabin, she hadn’t been able to tell where she ended and Cordelia began. “I was there, though. I remember… flashes. It might as well have-- I was there.” She sighed, running a hand through her hair. “You know, I didn’t know her name until pretty recently. You can-- I mean, she’s Nadia, to you. You can call her that.” She frowned, torn between anger and absolute fear at the thought that Cordelia could be doing something awful. “Of course, of course she’s doing something stupid. I mean, she doesn’t have anyone to stop her, and she’s spiralling.” Nadia looked away. “Not, like, that I was good at stopping her.” Did she really look lost? She looked around the street. She was lost. “I mean, it’s going? I’m, uh, it’s totally going. You? I mean, it’s been-- How long has it been? Since-- since. Are you okay?”

 “Well, I mean…” Remmy started, rubbing the back of their head, “even if you were there, I-I don’t blame you. Or her, really, but that’s...complicated…” they muttered, glancing down. They knew everyone else thought Cordelia was bad and nothing but, but Remmy had seen a side of her they supposed she hadn’t shown anyone else here. There was a lost, scared girl inside of all the rage and anger and loneliness, and Remmy just wanted to reach her. Just once. Remmy wanted to try and save her. “No, no,” Remmy said, shaking their head, “she’s Cordelia. She’s just...confused, I think. She died really young, and that’s-- well, I think anyone would be desperate for a second chance if they got it, like that. And I-- I wanna stop her. I wanna help her. I know she’s done some real bad shit and you don’t have to agree with me or even like me, but I--” they swallowed, “I think she deserves a chance to go peacefully.” Nadia’s next words struck Remmy a little painfully in the chest. They looked away. “I’m fine, really. I-- got over it, obviously. It, um-- there was a way to stop the poison, I guess. My friend helped me. So, really, I’m okay.”

 “Uh, thanks. Thanks,” Nadia said quietly. She didn’t know how they couldn’t blame her, or Cordelia. Cordelia had poisoned them. Cordelia had robbed people. Cordelia had killed people. There were a lot of things for her to be blamed for, a lot of things that Nadia would be blamed for. “Confused is… a word for her, yeah.” But she personally didn’t think that Cordelia was confused at all. “I was a lot younger than her when she possessed me for the first time,”  she muttered. Twenty-one, actually, in comparison to Cordelia’s mid-thirties or whatever. Not even out of college, not having lived her life. At least Cordelia had gotten to have a dazzling career. She frowned, though, but she wasn’t mad. If anything, she understood what Remmy was saying. “I’m not, like, upset that you want to help her. I mean, you know more about her than I do, you probably got to see a side of her that I’m probably not even capable of seeing in her. I don’t-- I don’t want her to suffer. She should get to move on.” She paused and looked at her feet. “I just don’t think that’s possible.” She sighed in relief. “I’m glad your friend was there. Morgan, right? She figured everything out pretty quick, you know. I, like, vaguely remember her. She cares a lot about you.”

 “And I was a lot younger than her when I died,” Remmy pointed out, “that doesn’t mean it wasn’t…” But they didn’t finish. Justifying Cordelia to Nadia didn’t seem quite like the right move. They shook their head. “All I mean is...it’s not meant to be comparable. And I-- I’m so sorry,” they deflated, “that that happened to you. I can’t even...imagine what it’s like, to have your life stolen.” Well, they could a little. Not in the same way as Nadia, sure, but their life had been stolen from them the second they signed those recruitment papers. And now, almost fifteen years later, they were finally getting it back. “Maybe it’s not possible anymore, but I-- I can’t just give up without trying. And if-- if she’s doing something stupid or bad, I might be the only person who can stop her. So I have to try.” It was that simple, really. They just had to try. “Morgan? Oh, um--” they looked around, then back at Nadia, “Y-yeah, she’s...yeah. I know.” Even if she hated their guts right now. Even if she looked at them like they were just as bad as Constance right now. They looked back at Nadia. “I-- I don’t want to like, leave you if you need help or anything, but I-- I really should go find Cordelia. You can um, come with if you want? She can’t see you, right?”

 “Wait, dead? You’re… That’s why you can see me, isn’t it? I’m--” Nadia laughed a bit anxiously “I think you probably know me better than I know you.” She didn’t think she was going to get used to someone knowing about her because of Cordelia, recognizing her even when she’d never met them before in her life. “I get what you mean,” she said. “I do. I really do. It’s not comparable, and she was-- is a person.” And people sometimes ruin lives. It was a thing. Cordelia was a piece of shit, but… Nadia would have felt bad, saying that in front of Remmy. “Hey, no, don’t apologize. You don’t have to-- It really could be a lot worse. At least I can actually try to return to my body.” That was more than Nadia could say for Cordelia. She did feel bad for the ghost. She did, she really did. But that didn’t change that Nadia knew she was going to have to be destroyed. “You’re a good person for trying, you know? You really are.” She watched Remmy for a bit, wishing she hadn’t said something that made them stutter like that. But when they asked if she wanted to join them, she just shook her head. “No, I can’t come with you. I don’t… She’ll know I’m there. I’ve been able to sense ghosts since the first exorcism, and she-- I think she’d recognize me.” The thought of that would have made her sick if she’d been able. She smiled softly instead. “I think I’m just gonna walk around for a bit more. It’s a nice night. But… I hope you find her, and I hope that you still recognize in her the person that you care so much about. You deserve that, Remmy.” She didn’t have to be an empath to see how kind they were. They deserved kindness in return.

 “Oh, um-- yeah,” Remmy stuttered, forgetting that being undead wasn’t really common knowledge, “I thought maybe you knew since...she knew.” Cordelia knew what Remmy was and she hadn’t told another soul, but she still wanted Remmy to believe she didn’t-- or couldn’t-- care about them. It was contradictory, really. “It’s-- yeah.” Complicated was the only word that came to mind, but it was more than that. “I-- I’m sorry she did all that to you. No one deserves that…” they shuffled a little on the sidewalk, looking at her as she explained why she wouldn’t come with. It made sense, of course she didn’t want to come with. Remmy suddenly felt bad for ever asking. “S-sorry, no, I-- sorry…” They back peddled a little, rubbing the nape of their neck. “It’s, um-- yeah. Thanks, I-- I hope she is, too. Just-- take care of yourself until you can get your body back, okay, Nadia? You-- a lot of people care about you.” 

 “We didn’t really communicate that much, surprisingly. Most of the things I know about her are from her feelings, or other people.” Or the things she’d done. Nadia almost didn’t know what to do with this situation, seeing the way someone actually viewed Cordelia in something other than a negative light. “Thanks,” she said, and she meant it. Remmy seemed so kind. She worried, for a moment, that Cordelia would do something to take that from them, but she had to hope that Remmy’s kindness was stronger than any bullshit that Cordelia could throw their way. “You don’t have to apologize, I swear. I even appreciate that you asked. I just… can’t face her. Not right now.” She would, soon, and she wasn’t quite ready to deal with that, yet. “I’ll do my best. And, uh, thanks. Take care of yourself, too, Remmy.” She paused, wanted to say more, to warn them, but she didn’t think they’d appreciate it. Instead she waved and walked off, and she hoped they found what-- who-- they were looking for.

 Remmy watched Nadia go for a moment, wondering if what they were doing was really right, or good. But they weren’t sure, either, that they had time to linger on that thought. After every other failure they’d been through, they felt as if they had to put everything they had left into this. Into helping at least one person. Into proving that they could be better than Lydia. That they could stand their ground on their convictions. Once Nadia was out of sight, they turned, and started back on their search. They had to find Cordelia, they just had to. They spent almost the whole night looking, they were worried dawn was going to break before they could find her. It was a good thing zombies couldn’t get tired. They spotted her, finally, coming out of a bar, and once Remmy stopped, they realized that a zombie could get tired, just not physically. Their heart felt heavy. “Nadia?” they called out, keeping a distance from her. She wouldn’t have known they were coming, she couldn’t feel their emotions. “I-It’s Remmy.”

 Honestly, Nadia couldn’t tell if her head was fuzzy because she’d drank too much or from the overpowering scent of someone else’s perfume. Or maybe it was from the heady feeling of being surrounded by so many people, so many emotions. But it was very fuzzy by the time she walked out of the bar. She didn’t even realize someone was calling her name until she looked up. She saw Remmy and smiled, momentarily excited to see a face that she knew liked her. Before she remembered that it wasn’t so certain that they liked her at all. The smile quickly faded, though she took a step forward, legs steady despite being pretty fucking drunk and in heels. “Heya, Remmy,” she said, putting a smile back in place. She was briefly reminded of the first time she’d met them; they’d found her in the middle of the night, then, too. She wondered if this was something they just did, wandering around in search of damsels in distress. “How’s it going?”

 Cordelia was drunk, Remmy could tell that much. They almost felt a hiccup of hope when she smiled at them, but it was washed away when the smile faded and her eyes turned sharp. They paused, unsure if they should approach. She wasn’t trying to shoot them or stab them, yet, so that was nice. Did she know how to kill a zombie? Would she try and kill them? They took a tentative step forward. “I was looking for you,” they said in lieu of answering her question. They were sure that wasn’t really what she meant when she asked it. “I just want to talk,” they said, taking another step, trying to not scare her off. If she ran, they supposed they could run faster and probably catch her, but chasing her down wasn’t really something they felt like doing at the moment. Or ever. “Can we go somewhere?”

 “Looking for me?” Nadia asked, and a smirk worked its way onto her features, cool and not at all kind. “Well, cutie, you found me.” Maybe the night was salvageable. She wasn’t going to kill Remmy-- after the first failed attempt, she didn’t even think she could. But she could still have fun with them, if they behaved. If they didn’t try to turn her in to that fucking medium. “Talking’s no fun.” She pouted, just a bit, as she walked towards them. Hopefully, she wouldn’t startle them away. She wished she could tell what they were feeling, even if they did wear their heart on their sleeve. Seeing wasn’t the same as knowing. She was close to them, almost close enough to touch. “Where do you wanna go?” she asked, voice practically a purr. “What do you wanna do?” She hoped this wasn’t some redemption bullshit, though she figured it probably was, unfortunately. As long as they didn’t try anything foolish, though, she wouldn’t have to fuck ‘em up. 

 Remmy could feel their throat beginning to close as Cordelia came closer. But they stood their ground, didn’t move. Swallowed the lump in their throat and looked at her with steady eyes. “I just said,” they pointed out, “I just wanna talk. And, I dunno-- make sure you’re not doing something stupid. You...kinda seemed like you were going to do something stupid.” Whatever that meant, Remmy wasn’t sure. They knew that Cordelia wasn’t a good person-- in life or death-- and that she was no a poltergeist, but something in them just wouldn’t let go of her. Something in them so desperately held on to the idea that they could do something to save her from herself. From the pain that she would surely endure if she tried to hang on to Nadia’s body. And maybe that was just it, maybe Remmy already ached so much for her knowing the pain they’d both gone through, and not wanting her to have to feel that again. “We can go to the park,” they offered quietly, “there’s some secluded benches.”

 “Well, damn.” Nadia said, but she wasn’t particularly surprised. “Like I said, talking’s no fun.” She narrowed her eyes, feeling indignant rage bubbling under the surface. “Something stupid? Like what? Be specific, Remmy. What kind of stupid things would I be doing?” She hadn’t killed anyone tonight, that wasn’t stupid. It wouldn’t have even been stupid if she’d killed someone; it’d have been thrilling. She almost regretted not going home with someone, especially with the way this conversation was going. She gritted her teeth, though, counted to ten, and then let out a sigh. “I wasn’t gonna fuckin’ do anything stupid. But, yeah, alright. Yeah. Park sound’s nice.” Fuck. She bent down, taking off her heels and losing a couple of inches. She looked Remmy in the eyes, motioning them forward with the hand that had her shoes dangling from her fingers. “After you, then.”

 “I dunno, getting yourself hurt,” Remmy said immediately, wondering where the bite in their voice came from. Wondering why they were still so concerned with someone who clearly didn’t want to be saved. “Falling out of more windows, maybe?” They waited a moment for her, wondering if she would even go with them, or if she’d turn and walk the other way the second they walked by. But they sighed and trudged forward, and motioned for her to follow, leading them down the street from the bar to the Common. It was always so eerily quiet here at night, like a bubble existed around the area that tried its hardest to keep out all the shit from the town. Remmy led them to a bench and sat down, hoping Cordelia would join them. “Are you...how are you?” they asked, suddenly realizing even after all their searching and all their worry, they had no idea what they actually wanted to say to her. 

 A look of mock hurt worked its way onto Nadia’s features. “That was one time. You ever gonna let that one go?” Truth be told, the sharpness in their tone wasn’t something that she expected or really liked. She knew Remmy was pissed at her. Like, it was a fucking given after the hurt their medium pal. But she’d hoped that they still saw enough of a person in her to not to express their anger. She stewed on that as they walked, Remmy’s back to her, briefly. She could’ve just walked away. She probably should have. But she’d liked them, once upon a time, before they’d hurt her. She wanted them to still like her, too. She sat beside them, angling her knees to brush against theirs. “Me? Oh, I’m doing fucking fantastic. New place to sleep, new jobs. I go out every night, have a ton of fun. I’m really living my best life, I think.” She’d killed four people, watched the life fade from their eyes. It was like she was adding more life to herself, everytime she did it. “What about you, cutie? You making it?”

 “No,” Remmy said with a shrug, “probably not.” They knew Cordelia wasn’t a good person-- she hurt people. She hurt Blanche on purpose. She was a poltergeist. She had probably killed people at this point. But Remmy couldn’t let go of the want, the need, to try and get through to her somehow. They were done watching people suffer. They just wanted one person to hold onto. Their eyes fell to their touching knees and Remmy swallowed. Once upon a time, they’d have liked this. Sitting here, talking to her. Being near her. Once upon a time, Remmy thought they might have actually liked her in a way more than friends. “So you’re happy?” they asked, looking back up at her. “I’m-- kind of struggling. Surprised you care to ask, though. I thought you hated me.”

 Rolling her eyes, Nadia snorted. “Of course you won’t.” Had she even thought, for a moment, that they would? No, Remmy didn’t seem like the kind of person to let anything go, even when it’d end up better for them. Hell, they’d seemed so sure that they could still help her move on, even when they both knew she was passed that point. Moving on wasn’t an option anymore. “Happy?” she asked, rolling the word over on her tongue. Was she? Depended on what qualified as happy. Killing, stealing, and just fucking destroying things gave her a major sense of satisfaction, but she didn’t know if that qualified as happy. Still, she gave them a large grin. “Babe, I’m ecstatic with the way my life’s going right now.” She let it shift off of her features just as quickly as it came, though, sighing sharply through her nose. “Should I not have asked? I don’t hate you, Remmy. You upset me, and I wanted you to fuck off, but I don’t hate you. I hate a lot of people and things and even places, but you’re not one of ‘em.” She actually didn’t know what she thought of them. She really didn’t hate them, but she was more lukewarm to them than she had been. She could still act like she cared, though. What she was hadn’t ripped her off all abilities to be a damn good actress. “I’m sorry you’re struggling. Seriously, you don’t deserve to.”

 The hesitation was all it took for Remmy to know Cordelia was lying. But they weren’t going to point that out. Blanche had said she was a poltergeist, she was beyond saving-- but here she was, sitting here, talking to them. Normally. She wasn’t hurting anyone right now, was she? Would she hurt someone else if Remmy let her go? Had she already hurt people tonight? They looked away. Lydia was unsaveable now, dead and gone and irredeemable. But Cordelia was still here. She still had a chance to change and do the right thing, poltergeist or not. Right? “That’s just life though, isn’t it? A struggle.” They looked back over at her, into her eyes. As if pleading with her to hear them out. “You really don’t hate me? I mean, I’m glad you don’t,” they sighed, “I’m not sure I’d be able to handle it, if you did. So many things have changed, so many people have hurt me. I don’t why I’m trying so hard for you, Cor-- er, Nadia…” They rubbed their head again. “Sorry.” Sometimes it felt like they didn’t know anything, anymore. They were losing so much, letting go of someone else, however cruel they might be, felt too painful.

 “I mean, sure, life’s a struggle, but it’s not supposed to be all the time.” Nadia would stand by that, especially now. “Sometimes it’s gotta be fun, you know?” Things had been mostly fun for her, lately. Or, least, boring, with brief flashes of fun that she chased like a hungry hound after a rabbit. She couldn’t handle boredom like she could before. She chalked it up to… not quite missing Nadia Diaz, but not being used to her not being there. Even when Nadia had been asleep, she’d still been a presence in the back of Nadia’s mind, and it was odd not to have her there. She had to fill the emptiness somehow. Dancing, fucking, killing. She had to fill it somehow. “No, I really don’t hate you. You haven’t really done anything hate worthy.” And they hadn’t, seriously. Hating them would be so easy; it was pretty fucking easy to hate everything, but she didn’t want to. Hating them would take time outta hating other things. She felt a muscle in her jaw twitch at their words, though, and she looked away. “I’m-- that’s shitty. I don’t know why you’re trying so hard for me, either, though. I mean, I’m hot, totally.” She sighed. “Cordelia Gregory is dead. Her body? Worm food. But Nadia Diaz’s heart’s still beating, and I’m the one that’s making it beat. Until I stop it, I’m Nadia. Okay?”

 Remmy was quiet for a long time. They didn’t quite understand why Cordelia wanted so badly to be Nadia. Not just in name, but in body, too, it seems. If she had loved her life so much, then why was she trying so hard to leave it behind. Remmy let out a long breath. They knew what they had to say was only going to anger or upset Cordelia, but they knew, at this point, it needed to be said. “But she isn’t dead,” they finally stated, turning a tentative eye to look over at her sat beside them on the bench, “she’s you.” They reached up, slowly, and put a hand on her chest, over her heart. “You might have Nadia’s body, but you’re still Cordelia, you know. It’s the spirit, the mind, that makes someone a person. Not the body. Not the fingerprints or the hair or the eyes. Cordelia Gregory’s body might be worm food, but she doesn’t have to be.” They looked into her eyes squarely, “You don’t have to suffer.”

 “Yeah, well, outside of this body, I’m pretty fucking dead.” Nadia looked down at where Remmy’s hand pressed against her chest, Nadia Diaz’s frantic heart beating in her chest. Because it was her heart, she’d won it fair and square but… it also wasn’t, and there was little she could do to change that. She leaned away, though she gave them a savage grin. “Cordelia’s dead, Remmy. You wouldn’t have liked her, anyway. Or maybe you would’ve, if your taste in people’s as shitty as it seems.” She couldn’t do this. Nadia looked away from Remmy, standing. “I’ve got nothing waiting for me but suffering, babe. I wracked up enough of it when I was Cordelia. Forgive me for trying to outrun it while I can.” Actually, all she had waiting for her was nothing. That’s all she had left for herself. “But, hey, I like being like this. I wanted this. Can’t complain for getting what I wanted.” Nadia gave them a wink. “It’s been fun, cutie, but I’ve got thing to do. I’ll walk you home if you don’t try and save my soul.” 

 Remmy looked at Nadia-- at Cordelia-- and felt the words digging deep into their chest. She was right-- she was dead. As dead as Remmy. Technically more. If they could trade places with her, they would. But she didn’t think she wanted that. There was something about Nadia’s body that Cordelia had become obsessed with. Her words were a painful reminder of all the friends they’d lost along the way, and how they’re heart craved to hold on to something to someone. But this-- this was wrong. This wasn’t it, was it? Remmy watched Cordelia stand and looked up at her. They stood up, stiffly, and gave a sigh. “I’m sorry, Cordelia,” they muttered, but motioned for her to lead. “I won’t try to save you anymore.” Because, sometimes, people just couldn’t be saved.

#chatzy #wickedswriting #chatzy: nadia #chatzy: notia #a tale of two nadias #notia #nadia

[captain-mcdavid]

word count: 2.9k

smut: yes | no

warnings: swearing, angst, angst, and more angst, alcohol

You’re frantically searching the bar for Emma, but you’re coming up empty amidst your panic. All you can think about is getting the hell out of here but you can’t leave without her. You’re about to pull out your phone when a gentle hand lands on your arm, and you flip to find Seth behind you. 

“Are you okay?” He asks, and you shake your head. 

“I need to get out of here, but I can’t find Emma.” You tell him, and he nods, rubbing his hand over your back while he looks around. 

“Why don’t we go outside and you can phone her from out there, yeah? It’s quieter.” He says, and you nod following him through the crowd. The cold air hits you like a brick wall, and you pull your phone out again, clicking on Emma’s contact for the fourth time while you raise the phone to your ear. 

Seth waits patiently while you wait for her to pick up, but once again, nothing. With an annoyed sigh you shove it back into your pocket. “I don’t know where she is,” You whisper, biting the inside of your cheek with annoyance. The last thing in the world that you want is to go back in there and look for her. 

“I can give you a ride home if you want?” Seth offers, and your first instinct is to say no, but you just want to leave, so you nod, and he smiles gently, leading you to his car. 

He pulls out of the parking lot and you rest your head against the window, happy to be off your feet. The ride is silent for the first few minutes, but then Seth is looking over at you with concerned eyes. 

“What’d he do in there?” He asks, and you look the other way, not wanting him to notice how choked up you are. “Do I wanna know? Or is it just gonna make me wanna knock him out?” 

“Probably the latter,” You mumble and Seth groans. 

“Fuck, I’m sorry.” He sounds exasperated and you meet his eyes.

“Seth don’t apologize,” You state, words strong. “You have nothing to be sorry for, it’s my fault. I dragged you into all of this, I’m the reason he punched you.” 

He chuckles, surprisingly enough. “To be honest, the punch didn’t really hurt.” 

You raise your eyebrows with disbelief and Seth grins, “I think he was holding back. I’ve seen him wind up for a big hit before, and it wasn’t anything like that. I literally think he flinched before he did it,” This has you both laughing, grinning like idiots at each other because it sounds so unrealistic. “Believe me, I saw his fist go up and I was fully prepared to go through concussion protocol, but after it was done I was kinda just thinking like, ‘really? is that it?’” 

When your laughter dies down you look over at the sweet guy sitting next to you, and you quietly whisper, “He still shouldn’t have done it.” 

The light hearted feeling goes away almost instantly and Seth shrugs. “It’s whatever, it’s in the past.”  The half smile he gives you so Seth that you almost melt. He legitimately doesn’t care that his best friend punched him, or that you dragged him in to this thing in the first place, because all of it is past tense to him. You find yourself wishing for that ability that he has, the ability to let things go, because neither Josh nor you seem to be able to do that. 

His phone rings in the cup holder and like the gentleman he is, he apologizes to you quickly before picking it up and holding it to his ear. Ironically enough, a few seconds later your phone starts to ring as well. 

Laura, one of your friends that was also out with you tonight, is popping up on the screen and you answer quickly, trying to stay somewhat quiet so you don’t interrupt Seth. “Laura? Hey, everything alright?” 

“Y/N, thank god,” The voice that responds isn’t Laura though, and you find yourself breathing out a sigh of relief. 

“Em, where have you been? I called you hundreds of times.” You scold, but you’re not really mad, you’re just glad she’s okay. 

“I”m sorry, I lost my phone, I’ve looked everywhere but I can’t find it.”She explains, “Where are you?”

“Seth is taking me home,” You tell her, “I’m sorry I thought you left without me, I can come back and we can go together?” You suggest, but she’s already hushing you. 

“No, no. You needed to get out of here, I understand it’s okay. I’ll go home with Laura,” She insists, and you smile, murmuring a thank you. 

“Are you alright though? Do you wanna talk about it?” She asks quietly, and you shake your head even though she can’t see you. 

“Can I call you in the morning? I just need some time to process,” 

“Of course,” She says, “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, I love you,” 

“Get home safe, I love you too.” Ending the call with a sigh, you turn to Seth, “Good news,” You chirp, “Emma’s alive, she just lost her phone.”

Seth doesn't respond, looking less than pleased while he forces out a response, “That’s great, I have some not so great news though.” 

His words send your stomach down to the ground and you feel your skin go pale. From the severity of Seth’s reaction, you know this is bad. 

“What?” You ask, but you’re not sure if you really want him to answer. “What happened?”

“Boone just phoned, Josh saw us leave together apparently, and he’s pissed.”

Your head falls into your hands, endless curses running through your mind while you try to think of what that could possibly mean. “We have to talk to him,” You say, and Seth nods. 

“Yeah, we can’t let him think that something is going on again,” He agrees, “Cause if he does he might not hold back on that punch this time,” 

You snort a little, but Seth’s cute jokes aren’t enough to lighten the mood. “Boone said he went home, should we just meet him there?” 

You nod, and the closer you get to their building, the more nervous you get. You’ve dealt with so many different sides to Josh, but you never got the same reaction twice, so you honestly have no idea what’s to come, and that’s the scariest part of all. 

Seth parks the car, and you barely have the guts to get out, and it’s like Seth can sense your nerves, cause he smiles gently and says, “I’ll go with you. I feel like maybe we should both talk to him,” 

“Yeah, that might be a good idea.” You give him a soft smile, before you both get out of the car and head up, stomachs churning with nerves when you make it to his door. 

You decide to just rip off the band-aid, knocking quickly, head spinning when you hear movement on the other side. But when someone you’re not expecting opens the door, your blood runs cold. 

“Oh, god. Seriously?” She starts, “Is this still a thing?” 

“Lindsay, what the fuck are you doing here?” The animosity in your voice surprises even you, and she raises her brows with a cocky smirk. 

“Do you actually have to ask?” She says the words just as Josh appears from behind the door, jaw clenching when he locks eyes with you.

“You called her?” You ask, and Josh just shrugs. “I can’t believe you,” You say incredulously. 

“Oh, thought you two would be busy.” He chirps, and you’re about to say something back when Seth jumps in. 

“Are you fucking serious, dude?”  

“Stay-” Josh starts but Seth is venomously cutting him off. 

“No, I’m not gonna stay out of it. I did that before but I’m not gonna stand around and watch while you treat her like shit.” 

“Dude, you literally have no idea what’s going on,” Josh tries, but Seth is scoffing sarcastically.

“I know exactly what’s going on cause you two dragged me into the middle of it!” You’ve never seen Seth like this, even on the ice he always looks so calm, but this is a different side to him, one that would put up a fight against the angry Josh that punched him months ago. “And I know that you’re hiding a shit ton of stuff, including the way that you feel about her.” Seth points to you as he says it, pausing while Josh’s jaw clenches. 

“Stop fucking with each others heads and just admit what everyone knows,” They have a stare down for a moment, Seth looking at Josh like he knows something the rest of you don’t. Josh shakes his head quickly but Seth ignores him, “You heard her message, you know how she feels, all you gotta do is say it back.” 

Your heart stops and Josh’s eyes fall the the ground. You had completely forgotten about the message you left on his answering machine the night he went home. The one where you told him you loved him... You honestly didn’t think he’d ever hear it, but according to Seth, he had. 

Why didn’t he say anything?

An immediate feeling of dread sets in when you think that question over. Why wouldn’t he say something? Because obviously he doesn’t feel the same way you do. 

On the phone, at the bar... He’s said it so many times but you ignored it every time, you fought it, you believed he felt something back but it’s clear now that he doesn’t, and that he never has. 

And suddenly you feel like you’re back at square one. When this whole thing started your main goal was to be the player, not the played. And you’re standing here, looking like a fool again, because you fell for his tricks, and you fell for Lindsay’s tricks. Both of them are here, realizing how much of an idiot you are, and your whole body is burning with embarrassment. 

You continue to stare at Josh, tears welling in your eyes, and when he finally looks up at you, you feel completely broken. He rubs at the back of his neck and looks sheepishly at Seth. 

“I’m gonna go. And let you guys figure your shit out. And Josh, unless you want me to return that right hook, you better step the fuck up.” 

But you can’t be left alone with the two of them, you don’t even want to be alone with Josh, You want to leave and go home and cry and then move on. You just want out. 

“Take me home, Seth.”

All eyes in the room are on you now, but your gaze remains trained on the floor. 

“Y/N,” Josh says, but you just shake your head, reaching for Seth’s arm while you try to contain your emotions. You’re already embarrassed enough, they don’t need to see you cry too. 

“Seth please,” You beg, “I want to go home,”

He takes a step closer to you, tone softening while he whispers, speaking only to you in a hushed, careful tone, “Are you sure you don’t wanna stay and talk things out?”

You shake your head, sucking in a shaky breath, biting your lips like it’ll help keep the tears at bay. 

“Y/N,” Josh says again, but you step in this time. 

“I’m so tired of being hurt,” Your voice flutters, but you managed to actually get it out. “I can’t do this anymore.”

Josh opens his mouth like he wants to say something else, but you just shake your head. “I’m done, Josh.”

The words are final, and you take one last look at him before turning to Seth. He just nods once, and then ushers you away. He wraps a strong arm around you, and you wish it was enough to hold together your shattered heart, but it’s not even close. 

[yutaya]

Iron Fist Rewatch 1x04: Eight Diagram Dragon Palm

Danny, struggling to pull himself onto that light post thing with his probably now bruised chest: "I dedicate myself to the service of all beings of K'un Lun-" *falls* So is this a recitation they do in training - is he trying to use that mindset to help him climb this beam? Is he doing some sort of traditional ask-the-gods-to-bless-me-with-strength thing?

Lol somehow I had remembered it as Danny crawling up again anyway after the initial push. I forgot they actually went and collected him. Guess that makes them look more favorable to him than my own recall though...

On the coffee table directly facing Danny when he wakes up, probably meant to be a sign to him about where he is and who has so kindly rescued and tended to him after his unfortunate tumble off a building: the formal pic of Harold and children, another photo hard to make out - my first thought was the vacation photo of the 6 of them but it's very sepia, could be something else. Maybe if I look back at other photos we've seen before I could match it.

Danny: "What happened to me? Last I remember I was climbing up-" Ward: "Yeah, like goddamn Daredevil." LOL

UGH THIS WHOLE HAROLD INTRO SCENE UGH Danny mad at Ward one second and then Harold appears and it's like the breath is punched out of him. Looking at Ward and Ward just calmly looking back because he clearly knows what's going on and Danny doesn't - it's as if they're bringing him into their confidence on something. This is a form of offering Danny something he wants - to be a part of something with the only family he thought he had left, not to mention the miracle of one of his parent-figures being alive again. (Wow, what a journey. From finding out Harold is dead and then Ward and Joy both quite clearly rejecting him and denying him a place in their lives to Joy actually doing something to indicate maybe at least she still wants him around after all? To wait, Ward and Harold bringing me in on something too? It's like the dream he clung to in K'un Lun got snatched away and now seems to be trickling back, and - UGH.) "You see him too?" because Danny thought he was seeing things that night at the hospital but this- this is real? Ward's sad, small nod because he knows so much more about Harold than Danny does, and he's seeing this innocent joy (word choice intended) while knowing himself to be wary and that this is almost definitely another manipulation (but what if it's not? What if-? But Harold is still dangerous, he can't help it, there's a reason Ward wants to protect Joy from him even while knowing that Harold favors her so dearly, because there are other ways to hurt your children-)

Harold calmly walking forward while wearing a black suit and confirming "I did die," followed by Danny's "You look the same age as when I last saw you..." - Vampire AU??? (Ugh but why did it have to be Harold? Not a fan of monsters as the bad guys.... need a non-evil vamp to balance him out....)

The way Ward just keeps looking silently between the both of them, like a witness, like - UGH.

"You're home now," GOD DAMMIT and Danny's relief and gratitude and Ward's somber look down I -

Cancer lasted 3 years

Ward: "Dad, are you sure you should be saying this?" Harold: "It's ok. Danny needs to know this." Casting Ward in the opposition role

Ward sits down in the chair adjacent to the couch Danny is on. Harold crosses over from where he was standing near the left side of the couch to sit on the farther right side instead - specifically sitting in between Danny and Ward.

Harold: "I still remember my last breath. Scariest shit I've ever experienced." Ward looks up and away, taking a breath, before turning back again. Combo of eye-roll at dramatics and genuine pain at the thought because that's his dad and Ward remembers those years of pain and decay and - ?

I forgot Danny originally thought of the Hand more like a fable than a reality - and finding out they're a real, present threat combines with being told it's not K'un Lun that they're threatening, but that this whole time, they've actually been digging their claws into his home?

Ward rolling his eyes with his whole body when Harold encourages Danny to think about this as ~embracing his destiny~ hahaha

Ward: No offense, but Danny has zero idea how to do business and therefore maybe shouldn't be running a company with again, absolutely zero training??? Harold: Don't mind Ward being a petulant brat who wants to keep you from your rightful place in our family, Danny. I need you. :)

Harold to Danny: "We've needed a fighter like you back in the family." - right in front of Ward, yet another small "unlike you, who are weak" jab. In line with the whole "Joy can close the deal, you, Ward, can not do anything" lines in the previous episode.

Ward warning Danny about Harold!! But not really doing it great so it could be taken as another 'othering' where Danny could hear 'Harold's not YOUR dad' instead of Ward's intended 'Harold's not your DAD' - made much better by his clarification that Harold only cares about Harold and helping to show he meant 'not a good supportive dad you can lean blindly on' than if he had just. left it at that. I'm glad for Ward's continuing with that line and for Danny's long, considering look at nothing afterward. Gives the sense that Danny feels that something is off, even if he's not sure what.

Colleeeeeeeeeeeeen and her shame and her truly believing in honoring the code of bushido and her teaching these children to get them "the scholarship" to help them in a legitimate, meaningful, honorable way (SOB) and believing that their skills should be about the code and not be about flashiness or showing off or being able to lord their power and ability over others or money -

Code of Bushido (Includes eight virtues, and this episode title is Eight Diagram Dragon Palm. Coincidence???)

1. Rectitude or Justice (refers to PERSONAL rectitude - “one’s power to decide upon a course of conduct in accordance with reason, without wavering” “the bone that gives firmness and stature...without Rectitude neither talent nor learning can make the human frame into a samurai.”)

2. Courage (Bushido distinguishes between bravery and courage - “Courage is doing what is right”)

3. Benevolence or Mercy (“Love, magnanimity, affection for others, sympathy and pity, are traits of Benevolence, the highest attribute of the human soul”)

4. Politeness (Courtesy is rooted in benevolence - “Politeness should be the expression of a benevolent regard for the feelings of others; it’s a poor virtue if it’s motivated only by a fear of offending good taste. In its highest form Politeness approaches love”)

5. Honesty and Sincerity (interestingly, rather than what *I* personally think of when I hear the words “honesty and sincerity”, the info in the Bushido code text about this virtue mostly centers around the idea of disdaining money and riches - probably what Colleen is talking about with her whole “fighting for money breaks the bushido code” thing)

6. Honor (referring to non-martial behavior)

7. Loyalty (bushido text about this seems mostly in context of loyalty to a superior, to your leader, to people you are indebted to. Applies tragically to Colleen and her personal experience with Hand culture. To me, of course, I am more interested in the idea of those leaders deserving your love and your loyalty hand-in-hand with it. Given the other virtues, this IS probably what the code meant to include, but from a modern standpoint it seems like one of those things where especially paramilitary organizations or cults like the Hand could twist the letter of it into an expectation of blindly following orders, even perhaps against your personal devotion to the other virtues)

8. Character and Self-Control (“Bushido teaches that men should behave according to an absolute moral standard, one that transcends logic. What’s right is right, and what’s wrong is wrong. The difference between good and bad and between right and wrong are givens, not arguments subject to discussion or justification, and a man should know the difference.” I get the ideal of this, but something about the wording sits weirdly with me... maybe the implication that they can’t make a mistake?)

Ageless qualities of manliness: choosing compassion over confrontation, and benevolence over belligerence <3

“The tie might be a touch effeminate” Shut UP Ward

Danny, at a press conference: *waves at Jeri* “Hey.” Jeri: *shakes her head*

Danny: “Yes, I was in a mental hospital.” Joy, despairingly: “Oh, Danny”

Jeri smiling. Maybe she worked with Danny on how to handle the press conference and likely questions he would face? My headcanon from this anyway. Ward and Joy looking at each other, seems like in surprise at Danny’s answers and spin?

“Kindness is the eternal law”

The way Danny slips in to this conversation with Joy about the Red Hook property for his Hand investigation is very well done. Reminds me of watching the Netflix trailer and thinking that it made IF look like a show where Danny was some form of government agent going undercover as himself for an investigation.

SO CUTE how Danny goes “woah, I have a first appointment of the day? Who is it?” and then he turns around and it’s his friend Jeri! Hahaha. Danny: “J-money!!” *goes in for a hug* Jeri: “Woah, we don’t do that.”

Jeri: “Your father’s office. Even found his old desk.” Meaning she was the one working on this - Ward is the one who had to set Danny up there after his sarcastic remarks in the penthouse, but Jeri brought in the sentimentality. (Jeri, directly after basically admitting to putting a bunch of effort into a very sentimental gesture here: “Now don’t get all weepy on me.”) Jeri in IF is so soft I love it

Danny: “I pretty much had to raise the dead.” *smirks to himself at his own inside joke*

Jeri, trying to give Danny advice: “For most of these people, you are a hostile takeover.” Me: JERI, HE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND THE NUANCES OF YOUR CORPORATE SPEAK.

Jeri asks if Danny wants the door open or closed. He chooses open. Open to Megan, open to all his new coworkers and employees. Danny is, at his core, for people.

LOL Did Danny just steal Ward’s chair?

Danny: *forces half the board to move so he can sit next to Joy* Me: DANNY

If these guys really wanted to persuade Danny to their point of view on the sell-at-cost thing, they should have emphasized the “funding new research” part of it instead of just repeating “this is just business” ad nauseam. Obviously Ward is actually trying to do the opposite right now and get Danny driven out, but idk what the rest of these people are thinking. Danny acknowledges that they can still make profits elsewhere, which is his side offering a dialogue to meet them. Their counter is that the WHO will be buying it from them and subsidizing it from other people. If they wanted to meet or even just appear to be meeting Danny partway, they could have suggested an initiative to work with the WHO on a program for that? Although since none of them want to actually do that and don’t really care what Danny thinks about it, I know why they didn’t.

Joy raising her eyebrow at Ward’s declaring that they’ll go to market at cost like “I see you Ward and how many times have I told you to leave the maneuvering to me you are unsubtle and unskilled”

Danny looking back at Ward significantly on his way to his discussion with Joy about the pier deal

Ward taking The Drugs before he has to answer Harold’s late night phone call

Harold: You did a great job today. Ward: *baffled expression* Harold: Now, son, this isn’t the time to point fingers, it’s the time for solutions. Ward: There it is. Harold: Also, you screwed up in the meeting and you need to make it up. Ward: *sigh*

Danny: white sneakers with the suit

Joy casually placing the monks and their traditional robes in a lower class position to them and their white collar formal business attire

Time for Joy to play the angle on Danny, curb his at-cost behavior for the future

The ringmaster choosing the second fighter for Colleen followed by that “look, you guys know all the rules” line - I like this guy. He probably remembers how the last dude Colleen fought was a rule-breaker and wants to keep all his fighters safe as possible in an already dangerous 2-on-1 fight like this.

Again with the camera slowing and the noise fading and the blood splattering camera work giving the “losing control” vibe

“The problem was, I never thought through WHY I wanted this job. I mistook my stubborn will for a sense of... destiny, or something.” (Danny, earlier: “My shifu would have called this destiny.”)

“Every moment was a struggle. Failure... led to a beating. Victory... led to another fighting style. To the next lesson.”

Joy flat out calls it abuse and Danny doesn’t deny it.

Vodka and tonic, light on the tonic.

Danny clearly still shaken by the borderline flashbacks to his life at K’un Lun.

Is this the first time the Hatchets appear? Just storming the apartment and punching Joy in the face? Danny and Joy must both be like “WHAT IS HAPPENING”

Joy tries punching one of them. Good for you, Joy.

Ah yes, Ward flat out telling one of the more shark-like reporters that the drug is a huge deal that would save millions of lives and that Rand was of course planning to really boost the price to make a “huge” profit. “That is a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars [that our one company wanted to make off of the millions of people who needed this drug to save their lives]. He’s worse than those bleeding-heart-liberal-trust-fund hipsters wandering around Williamsburg.” (Note: Williamsburg: hip neighborhood that draws the young and fashionable. Boutiques, cafes, street art, outdoor concerts and food markets. Dance clubs, bars, music halls. East Williamsburg is ranked one of the 5 most LGBTQ+ friendly neighborhoods in Brooklyn.)

“Ellison, don’t give the front page to Karen”

Ward just looks at her retreating back and rubs his hands together like “Ah yes, a job well done.” Biggest question for the viewers in this scene is probably: Did Ward tank this on purpose or is he really that far removed from the reality of the non-Elite?

Colleen: still bloody from her illegal cage fighting and hears noise outside her door. Last time she heard noise, it was attackers breaking in for what probably seemed to her like retaliation. Then it’s Danny and she has the relieved exasperation, but - oh ho, Joy Meachum?

“Wasn’t he stalking you?” “It was a misunderstanding.” “Right. I guess being a millionaire covers a multitude of sins.” (Danny: “Billionaire.” Colleen in the background: *disbelieving huff+head shake*)

TRIADS. Time for my triad rant: Every drama show ever to involve Asian-Americans - even just in one-episode specials - includes triads. I’m so sick of it. I know organized crime is a real problem that actually exists, but - why are the Asians always evil? It’s like having the mafia be a plotline every time an Italian character exists on screen. Plz diversify. Media colors perception.

Danny: literally just walks into a restaurant and says he needs to speak to the head of the crime gang. AND THEN NONE OF THEM EVEN BOTHER TRYING TO DENY IT. The Hatchets literally just open the door to their backroom where you can clearly see their illegal activity and come out to talk to Danny. What if he was working with the cops, guys?

It’s so scary how the Yangshi Gonsi react to the mention of the Hand. Well done, IF.

“Joke around the house was that Danny and I were pledged to be married.” (“In another life, this would have been romantic.”) (THIS CREEPS ME OUT THOUGH in a very personally specific triggering way as someone who spent their childhood running around with a boy that I found out later people thought was gonna “knock me up someday.” #BARF)

Colleen has a billionaire in her dojo learning how to punch on a dummy held together with duct tape because she can’t afford to fix it. (Also: Colleen's dojo is also for self-defense classes. Joy was just attacked by hatchet-wielders.)

Danny: "The hatchets won’t be a problem anymore." and then doesn’t elaborate. DANNY THAT SOUNDS SO SHADY. YOU LOOK SO SHADY RIGHT NOW.

Danny: *reaches out and touches Colleen’s hand* Colleen: *flinches back* What are you doing? DANNY. DANNY, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. You seriously have no idea how you come across. Joy is watching all this like “wow....ok.”

Danny used to fight in illegal fight clubs on his way back from K’un Lun. Along with his obtaining an illegal fake ID. New headcanon: Danny is actually super connected to the criminal underground worldwide. Mob bosses everywhere have a soft spot for him. He’s somewhere on a mission with Ward/Colleen/Defenders/HfH and acting like he knows the area, someone recognizes him and he starts chatting cheerfully with them, suddenly they’re being greeted and helped out by people deep in the black market scene while Danny bear hugs someone that most people clearly fear and his companions look on with wide eyes.

Danny, a literal billionaire: Remember how I offered to pay you six months rent for helping me out? Colleen, broke as hell: My denial stands.

Danny: So how are we gonna tell Ward? (framing them - all three of them - as a team) Joy: lmao, are we thinking about the same Ward? You want to tell the most overprotective big brother in the world that men with hatchets attacked his sister? Do you remember what he did to those bullies when we were 8?

Gao: *black bags Harold, refuses to tell him where they’re taking him, doesn’t reveal that this particular instance is him landing on the ‘good’ side of the scale until the last possible second.*

Ugh, he just puts that sword back in the scabbard with all the blood still on it? Improper blade care

Oh yeah, I guess this is the audience’s first scene showing that Harold is capable of cold-blooded murder

I notice that this article may be the front page of the business section, but is NOT the front of the newspaper. Sorry, Jennifer.

[I had initially transcribed the article here, but have made it it's own post which can be found here. Notes on the article, though: Jennifer was very kind to the Meachums in it, given what Ward was actually saying. Also, which Bulletin employee fell down on grammar checking that thing?]

Danny’s Jeri-given apartment doesn’t have a number on the door, but does have some sort of cherry blossom branches etching in the plate?

The Hatchet box!!! (congrats again @Sholio LOL) Yang Hai-Qing wants Danny to get rid of the Hand too. He wasn’t gonna mess with them, explained they didn’t know about the Hand's involvement when they went after Joy, and apologized, but then the Hand came to his restaurant and killed one of his men anyway.

Ah yes, the great tattoo reveal. Also, is that a bullet’s pucker scar on Danny’s left shoulder?

#Iron Fist #iron fist rewatch #eight diagram dragon palm #my stuff #the immortal iron fist #i am lagging so badly on this rewatch!! #but this episode literally took me all day

[treatian]

The Chronicles of the Dark One:  Breaking the Curse

Chapter 23: On the Outside

As of this morning, there were still no answers to the dozens of questions that he had for the strange sight he'd encountered last night. But he had even fewer answers to the questions that had arisen after he'd arrived home, and Dove had sent him a message that stated Emma and Sidney had broken into the Mayor's office and left together shortly after Regina arrived. He didn't know why they'd done it, he didn't know why they were working together, he didn't know what Regina was up to, but he felt certain it was more than a secret playground that looked an awful lot like a castle Regina had once inhabited. But the scariest thing of all, he had no idea why Emma and Sidney were present at the Town Council Meeting.

There they were. Before he even arrived, it appeared they'd gotten in and taken some seats. They had a file folder or binder of some sort with them, and though they did occasionally turn to whisper to one another, they were mostly quiet. Still, for him, the most disturbing detail was the look in their eyes. They had a sort of fire in their gaze, a determination that he didn't like because he hadn't a clue what it meant. This was driving him mad. For centuries nothing had ever happened in this town or the Enchanted Forest that he didn't know about. He didn't like not being on the inside. He didn't like not having any control. He didn't like being less powerful than Regina Mills.

At precisely one, the moment the clock was done chiming, Regina, who sat at the table in front of the room, banged her gavel. "This session of the Storybrooke City Council will come to order," she stated, just like she did every time the council met. She seemed unphased by Miss Swan's presence. That was a sure sign she expected it. Now how would she have known she'd be here, he pondered, glancing over at Sidney. "We will begin by reading the minutes from our last meeting."

"Uh, excuse me, um, Madam Mayor!"

And just like that, everyone was staring at Sidney. The quiet and meek reporter, Regina's puppet, rose to his feet just as he raised his voice. The folder he'd seen earlier was in his hand.

He stayed seated and tried to plaster the right expression of cool uncertainty on his face but what he felt inside was annoyance. These meetings were dull at best and hell at worst, but add Sidney and Emma into the equation, and suddenly he felt anger begin to boil. What the hell was going on? Sidney had reported on these meetings for years, he knew how they went as well as the appropriate time to talk. Now wasn't it. Which meant he was going for dramatics. Why? To rile up Emma? Now, why would he want to do that?

He glanced suspiciously at Regina as Sidney went on.

"I have something I'd like to bring to the council's attention.?"

"This is not an open forum, Sidney. And no one on this council's interested in hearing the boozy complaints of a disgraced reporter. Now sit down."

"He's not the only one who has something to say!"

Now Emma was out of her seat, grabbing ahold of the files that Sidney had been holding a second ago. If he'd been trying to rile her up, he'd succeeded. The question of "why" remained. Could this get any worse?

"Miss Swan, this meeting is to discuss issues facing Storybrooke."

"Like the Mayor stealing thousands of dollars from the city to build herself a second home?"

There were gasps from the audience as everyone turned to their neighbor for gossip. The gentleman next to him attempted to do the same but stopped when he realized who he was sitting beside. It was a good thing too, the only thing keeping his temper under control right now was the grip he had on his cane. Regina stealing money for a secret home…shit. He had a feeling he was beginning to connect the dots, and for once, he hoped he was wrong. Because if he was right, Emma was about to find herself in a lot of trouble not only with Regina but with the entire town.

Regina banged her gavel once more, silencing the crowd poorly but enough to raise her voice. "Miss Swan, you will sit down immediately or so help me-"

"What? You'll punish me? You'll bully me like everyone else in this town? No. Not today…" Emma turned and looked out over the small crowd before her as she held up a piece of paper. It was difficult to see details from a distance, but he recognized enough of what he saw to identify what it was. The playground she'd shown him the night before. Shit. "In my hand, I am holding documents proving that this woman, your mayor, stole funds from the city to build herself a lavish home in the woods. And this disgraced reporter, you want to know why he was really fired? Because he stood up to her. Because he questioned her. We all know what happens to people who question the Mayor." Emma turned again, looked back in Regina's direction.

Regina was glaring, but she wasn't threatened. No, he knew what it looked like when Regina felt threatened, and that face wasn't it. In fact, she was a little too calm considering what was happening. He had theories galore at the moment, but none that solved this problem or could help Emma.

"You claim that you act in the best interest of all of us, but that isn't the truth, is it? The truth is, you are a thug that doesn't care about anyone or anything but yourself. That is who you really are. And it is time for the people of Storybrooke to know that."

There was a pause, a brief period of silence in which every single eye in the room was fixed on Regina Mills. Those were all very serious accusations to make against the Mayor, and she would have found herself in a lot of trouble…if they were true. But he knew, and Regina knew…they weren't true at all. But still, upset as she looked, he could see through its façade. She'd wanted this. She'd planned for this and was prepared for it. But how? He glanced across the way to Sidney…

Regina's puppet indeed. She'd played him, and in turn, he'd played Emma. They'd set her up for failure. They'd set her up for this very moment…so she could publicly crash and burn. Regina was going to win this particular battle. Fuck.

"You are right, Miss Swan," Regina commented, calling his attention forward. "I am building a house…a playhouse."

Regina rose from her seat and pulled a small remote from her pocket, the remote to the projector. With one click, the playground that he'd shown her appeared on the screen in front of them all, and this time the gasps of disgraced were replaced with sounds of awe and wonder. Regina…smelling like roses while the Savior stunk like last week's trash. How convenient.

"The accusations are true. I did take city funds. I wanted to build a playground so my son, Henry, and all the children of Storybrooke, could have a special place to play. Safely. As for the sketch in your hands, it was inspired by a drawing I found in one of my son's books. So…there you have it, Miss Swan. You've exposed me for who I really am. I hope you're satisfied." Looking utterly baffled and confused, Emma looked back at Sidney, who was making a good show looking upset. Emma took her seat as Regina did, and the pair lowered their stunned gazes, whispered one more thing to one another, and then remained quiet. After a satisfactory amount of time for awkward, punishing silence, Regina banged her gavel once more.

"Now…shall we continue without the theatrics…the minutes…" She continued with the meeting as though nothing had happened, and somehow he managed to as well. But it was a struggle.

Theatrics…theatrics, indeed. Theatrics that had no doubt been planned by Regina herself. No wonder Dove hadn't found anything. There was nothing to find! Regina had been secretly working with Sidney, and she knew enough not to include anyone else in her scheme. The only way he'd have found out was if Regina or Sidney had given the plan to someone else, and Regina was too smart for that while Sidney…Sidney was naught but her faithful puppy dog. A plaything in a way that Graham wasn't. The problem was that he knew Sidney would have loved to take Graham's place in Regina's heart and her bed. No doubt that was how she used him, just as she'd used him to kill her first husband. In manipulating those around her, treating them like chess pieces on a board, his student had taken a page out of his own fucking book. Damn him for not seeing it sooner!

Emma and Sidney had the good sense to wait for the end of the meeting to leave. They were humiliated enough they didn't need to walk out angry and make it worse. But the second the meeting was adjourned…they took off like bats out of hell. He'd expected that. It was the reason he'd dismissed himself early to use the restroom and waited outside…all to see this view: Emma and Sidney practically running away from the scene of the crime. Not that he could blame them. Once upon a time, he'd have wanted to do the same thing. And this situation in particular…Emma had tried to take down Regina, but she'd gone about it the wrong way. He knew that the consequences would be bad he just had no idea how bad they would be or how long they would last, or the effect it would ultimately have on the Curse being broken.

But suddenly, as he stood there waiting for an opportune time to inform her of her mistrust in Sidney Glass, Emma stopped walking and turned. She looked back at Regina, and he had the distinct feeling that she was about to turn and go talk to her, but he wasn't sure if that would be a good idea or a bad idea given her mental standing. He needed her to beat Regina, but not in this way. She'd just failed miserably, and he had a suspicion of why, but no actual proof. He needed to take his power back.

"Look at her," he stated, sidling up to the pair of them. "Queen of the castle. You know, what you did in there was commendable, Miss Swan. But if you really want to bring her down, you're going to need a strong ally."

"Like yourself?" she practically spat out at him. "Thanks, but I'm still not interested."

He smiled. She had no idea just how long he'd been planning all this, the things he'd seen in his head, the things he'd done to put himself in the perfect spot to be exactly what she didn't want but needed so desperately. The Seer was never wrong. One day she'd need him, one day she'd take him up on his offer, and when that day came, he needed to be prepared.

Across the way, he saw Regina glance at the three of them, say good-bye to the man she was talking to, and set her sights on Emma. He knew that gaze. He felt a lecture coming on. He'd be damned if he was going to sit through it from a former student.

"Oh…one can wish," he grinned before turning away and leaving Miss Swan and her new best friend to stare down their enemy. Or was she really "their" enemy.

Back in his car, he watched them chat. He idled nearly as long as his own thoughts did. He wanted so badly to put someone on Regina, to watch her just as he was watching David and Emma, on the off chance she kept trying this, but he knew he couldn't do it. Regina was too smart and might catch on. If she caught on, then he was close to his secret being revealed, and he wasn't ready to play that particular card just yet. However, he was smart enough to know that he didn't need to have Regina followed to keep an eye on her, just a new friend Emma seemed to have made. He didn't have proof, but he'd bet his last good ankle that the one who had arranged all of this was none other than that magic mirror of hers…still a genie at heart he was, determined to make all her wishes come true.

It was a good thing Regina had just made him a rich man. He was going to need another of Dove's cousins to follow Sidney around until he could confirm his suspicions. For his own sake, he couldn't wait for the day that Emma accepted she needed him as her ally and he could get his magic back. Magic was power, and power was information. Until he had his magic back, money was the best substitute and information…it didn't come cheap.

#Rumbelle #Rumple #Rumpelstiltskin #Dark One #mr Gold #Regina Mills #Evil Queen #Emma Swan #Sidney glass #Magic Mirror #ouat #ouat fanfiction #fanfic

[ellinights]

seungsik as your father (or mom)

we all can hereby agree that, seungsik is he best mom victon could ever have :”) wipes tears. his caring nature towards the members is just simply heartwarming. let me just say, if he becomes a father one day, his child is a lucky one. i’m not surprised if he took the mom role as well to let his significant other rest or not do anything. (such a sweet guy i’m in love, okok)

okAy seungsik as a dad wHoO

let me start if saying, THE MOST CARING PARENT THAT WILL EVER EXIST will be this human version of shiba inu once he’s an actual dad

let me just start off with taking care of the child

one word: SWEET watch me repeat sweet a million times in this post

wakes the kids up with a kiss and in a soft manner, unlike barging in the door with the pot and spoon ready to make a scene, no no that’s not him

“sweetie baby, time to wake up for school” or “sunshine, it’s time to get ready for school”

he’ll whisper softly towards his child’s ear while caressing their heads, slowly tryna wake them up

once the kids wake up, he won’t hesitate to start getting them dressed into their school uniform

seungmom (coUghs) will know that the kids dreaded school, so he’ll try his best to cheer them up so the kids won’t feel like shit when going to school

by making them their favourite breakfast, making terrible ass jokes (jsjsjsjs) to make them laugh etc.

if he could handle 6 grown ass men who acts like kids, he could handle the actual kids much better than he thought

brings them to school, and never forgets to kiss them goodbye and watches them walk into the school building safely before he drives off

when he picks them up from school, he’ll carry out some of his kids favourite snacks while waiting for them to finish school

he’ll definitely go “good job kiddos! you guys did well in school!” while giving them a high five. then proceeds to give them their snacks as a reward uwu

he’s seems like a great listener to me, he’ll listen to every story his kids tell him attentively, like he’s actually interested in knowing what’s his kids doing in school

he’s basically fond of hearing his kids talk basically about anything, cause he feels it’s adorable to see his children that way

cooks lunch for them after school, as usual cooking the kids favourite meals. what a great father :”)

watching the kids eat already makes him full so he don’t even bother to make lunch for himself

somehow, i thought of seungsik teaching his kids their homework. it just comes to me in a sense that he’ll do that

buT noT maTh aHa

also would play with the kids during their free time, he would sacrifice his own privacy to be with the kids

i feel he has this mindset of making sure he sees his kids develop as much as he can cause time doesn’t wait for you

even though he could be sweet, he’s also firm and strict

i can imagine him sitting down the kids and telling them the rules of the house that they need to follow

oh and if the kids don’t follow....

aHa they’re in trouble

he’s not a typical tiger parent. but when the kids disobey, he’ll warn them first

it’s more like he’ll say it nicely to the kids that they shouldn’t do it, but the aura surrounding him will say “you two lil shizz yall better don’t break the rules again or else no more snacks in the future”

yeah... and the kids could sense the terror of his aura and wouldn’t dare to break the rules again

when the kids don’t admit to their faults... *sweats intensifies*

....he’ll be like this: “oh, someone broke the rules today. i wonder who it is huh? i guess i gotta take their toys away for a week”

oh when he disciplines his child when they didn’t follow his rules

okay can i just say i would feel seungsik is the scariest when he gets mad

so he’ll lowkey look at them in the eye and stated firmly that he doesn’t want his child to do this or this again and so on

his intonation is not pure screaming or whatever, it sounds calm but scary doos that makes sense sjjss. his voice won’t sound sweet or cheerful but more dark?

it’ll scare the child cause seungsik rarely gets mad with them, he’s a patient boi but not as patient as seungwoo imo lolol

and also his kids wouldn’t be naughty cause seungsik already teaches them to be good and stuffs

99.9% chance the kids will cry, and as much as seungsik’s heart would break into pieces to see his kids cry, he knows he needed to put his child in place, he has no choice.

after that, when the kids calmed down he’ll go to them and give comfort and say sorry for being like this, and explained that he needed to do so that they would never do something like that again

o h. how he’ll comfort his kids when they’re sad, will be the sweetest thing you’ll ever see

when the kids are feeling down, he’ll notice it right away. i feel seungsik could read body languages fast

he won’t ever hesitate to ask the kids what’s wrong. the aura that he emits is more of like a comforting, trustworthy kind of atmosphere

so the kids wouldn’t feel afraid to let their feelings out cause they know that their father is a trustable man and could keep their secrets or feelings in him

seungsik will do anything better to make his kids feel happy again. from hugging them tight, rubbing their backs while the kids cry into his chest, whispering sweet words to make them feel better or some sort.

the worst he could do, crack up a damm joke i’m the middle of it to see you laugh, which surprisingly works sjjsjs. would wipe their tears away and cover them up with a blanket until they feel better

i’m already tearing up while imagining this guys help

give them ice cream, or buy them their favourite street food while they’re sad, WATCH HIM DO THAT HHHH

he’s such an understanding father that’s for sure

now when it comes at nighttime, he’ll tuck the kids into bed without fail

probably forces his kids to sleep at 9:30 everyday oops.

even when his kids are 30, watch seungmom still tucking them into bed HAHAHAHHA

he won’t read them stories i feel, he’ll just look deeply into his kids’ eyes, sharing this connection with his loved ones while caressing their heads

it’ll be in comfortable silence, just seungmom patting the kids to sleep.

even after the kids fall asleep, he’ll still be with them, maybe he’ll slip into emo phase and tell the kids his hopes and dreams for them while they’re deep in slumber

obviously, and seungsik will do this no matter what, if he starts the day with giving a kiss to his children, he’ll end the day with it as well.

GOD KANG SEUNGSIK YOUDONT NEED TO BE THAT SWEET GOSH

repeat after me, seungsik, bestest boi ever.

oh it really will warm my heart to see him take care of kids one day. he’s such a sweet caring potato i cRy— hope yall enjoyed this!

i’m writing this because yesterday’s bulleted scenario was too sinful so i decided to write a fluff one today oops.

imma yeet byE. requests are open, and do refer the pinned post and read up the groups that i write in order to request!

#victon imagines #victon seungsik #victon #victon kang seungsik #kang seungsik #seungsik #victon seungsik imagines #kang seungsik imagines #seungsik imagines #this is so cute i can’t

[jhaernyl]

Kiri meta (and a little bit about Suna)

 Me: I had an idea about Kiri and their death toll of shinobi. 

(Which is, if you ask me, another piece of bs from Kishi that is actually an unsustainable practice in any kind of society)

@shetanshadowwolf: Absolutely

Me: So I was thinking that while literal deaths do happen, what usually happens is one of the various levels of 'death'.

Which can be a damnatio memoriae of traitors (Roman Empire practice were convicted criminals/traitors of the state were removed from all official documents and any likenesses of them were destroyed, effectively striking them out of existence by excising their memory) or it can be that by being beaten by someone else you ended up in the other person's position in the rankings or even at the bottom of the rankings (depending on the differences between two people's rankings and the kind of duel and the stipulations in place beforehand) and so the operative you were before 'dies' and the one who beat you takes on your title and job or it can be a way to terminate a specific identity and either go back to your life or start your life anew.

It can also be a death of the person that you were before and then you have to abandon all previous ties, friendships, favors owned, debts incurred, etc. and you have to start your life anew as a new person and the old you is considered dead to the world or you it can be the death of the person that you were and then not only you have to abandon all previous ties / friendships / favors owned / debts incurred / etc. but you also have given your life over to the one who won the spar / showed how much superior to you they are to do whatever they want to it (which fits with Zabuza taking in Haku as his Tool and it turns that sorta-adoption into a cultural Kiri practice).

So when a Kiri shinobi says that someone else 'died' it can mean a lot of things that depend on the context of the 'death' and while sometimes it is a literal cessation of life even within Kiri, usually the literal cessation of life part happens when dealing with enemies.

But it also makes a great fear-based propaganda tool to wave at outsiders, to make it sound like Kiri kills their own indiscriminately and without any kind of logical sense to it.

@shetanshadowwolf: The second one sounds a bit like what the. Fuck. Brain. The whole "I was the sole survivor of my team/ class" stuffs. Like. If they put four chuunin-ready teams to pit each other and one ones who make it out are down to just one or two operatives. If you really wanna strike fear you brag that the rest died

Maybe they didn't really- they could be broken down in ranks y made to wait longer, etc

But I always felt that kiri shouldn't have, in practicality, been literally chumming thru their genin

Me: Or you can always dump a whole class of graduates down to get re-taught because what the fuck was that, you are not even close to the standards we want you to meet, except you Zabuza, you did great.

And then you reward Zabuza with the 'Monster of the Mist' title because Zabuza should have been way the fuck scarier than he was in the manga/anime (but he was basically the first main antagonist and I know Kishi hadn't even planned or wanted to do that arc so I can see why Zabuza, and hell even Kakashi in that arc, doesn't hold up to other big antagonists in retrospective) and surely had a fuckton of promise and bloodthirst.

@shetanshadowwolf: Yuuup

And an "if you're gonna have a reputation, kid. Make one that makes your opponents flee the battlefield. Short of that, make them fight with fear in their hearts"

Tho admittedly I think a lot of the continuity issues / hey why are things keep getting worse" is just a bad mix of how long everything got and backfill on things end up twisting into mad BS

Me: Oh I absolutely agree on that point, I just have fun with filling in the plot holes and colouring the lines.

I also think that Kiri could have a communal society that is not structured the way the land villages are.

From the maps I've found online, Whirpool (if it's placed on a map at all) was probably costal to the Land of Fire but Mist is his own island surrounded by other islands.

So, to blow some dust off that old theory of mine about ninja making deals to get kekkei genkai, the Mist people probably made deals with water spirits/gods.

Which explains why so many of them have sharp, shark-like teeth and the Hozuki can turn into water and the Yuki clan was basically a cross between ice spirits and ninjas and it explains a lot about Kisame.

So this is the map I'm going off of (mostly because it has Whirpool in it in a position that makes sense to me) and the thing about Mist is that they could have easily not become a village, just remained a set of Clans with their own land, away from the mainland and the squabbles of the other newly founded villages, right? They are away from there, they have the sea in between them and the rest of it, why would they have banded together to form a village of their own?

And what my brain threw at me (which doesn't have to be in contrast with anyone else's idea, this is just my own headcanon) is "Trade and Fear of Raiding."

Hidden Mist is clearly self-sufficient, they can afford to survive in their islands, but they have to have some materials/production that nobody else has because what you find on the coast is not the same kind of things that you get from the deeper sea and so they have stuff that they can trade but that can also be taken by them and while I would headcanon that they had trade with Whirpool, the moment Whirlpool went into a marriage alliance with the newborn Leaf, who is a village of ninja clans that falls under the command of the Daimyo of the Land of Fire, the Mist Clans probably looked at each and went well, fuck.

Because now their trade partners not only are a smaller village full of badass seal masters who can pop chains out of their bodies but now they also have the support of the Clan of A Thousand Skills, aka the Senju, and the scariest motherfuckers around, aka the Uchiha, and they are collecting other powerful clans, like those noble assholes who were all cozy with the various Daimyo's and could see through most shit, aka the Hyuga, and the scary as fuck Nara and their merchant buddies the Akimichi and those scary rip-your-brain-out Yamanaka, as if they are prizes at a fair.

That's ... that's fucking scary is what it is.

@shetanshadowwolf: When presented that way, yes

Me: And then other Villages start to form, including Cloud at their north (which I headcanon other villages formed exactly because the newborn Konoha was a huge threat to all other Clans and also because some Clans were shafted because their rivals joined first and they weren't allowed to and what are they going to do, play sitting ducks for their enemy clans? Fuck no, let's talk with others and make our own village and that's how we get to rival villages) and okay, hold your fucking horses, do we all agree that we are sitting ducks here? I mean, we are the toughest, nastiest motherfuckers around, we have done our deals with the spirits of the wind and sea, we are strong, yes but we are also one isolated, large island with smaller islands around and no way to easily decamp, not that we would if we could. This is our land and fucks everyone else if they try to take it from us.

[For an example of 'potential a clan who wanted to join Konoha but was not allowed' see the wasp people who have a beef with the Aburame and who apparently had the first Tsuchikage as a clan member. Those two clans reciprocally look down on each other and are bitter enemies and it would come to no surprise to me if the Aburame joined as long as those assholes don't. Not everyone is Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara and is either mutually willing or mutually able to convince their clan to bury the feud and so of course they ran and so the other Clan Head went 'fuck you all, I'll make my own damn village and it will be better structured and truer to our ideals than yours could ever be' and that's how we get Iwa being founded.]

So, being faced with the various land Daimyo's getting their own militias and with the chakra-wielding Clans thinking they were faced with the threat of other Clans banding together and being able to overcome them and either assimilate them or steal their trade/islands/people the Mist Clans probably met together and a deal was made for a Hidden Mist Village to be founded (possibly with someone playing as a puppet Daimyo so they could argue for political sovereignty over their own territory and nobody could use a lack of Daimyo as an excuse to invade or 'bring them to heel' or whatever shitty propaganda reason would be found).

@shetanshadowwolf: ... Valid points. (And had not zoomed out to note that some of the country to country rivalries might be as strongly tied to the previously vicious clan rivalries)

Me: They are pretty isolated.

So what they know is that some time ago, how much time ago differs from person to person, the Senju and the Uchiha buried their differences and founded a village and other Clans joined them and then some more Clans formed their own villages and now every Daimyo has a village and here they are, isolated from everyone else, behind on information, surrounded by potential enemies, with probably some pretty good trades.

Kiri is the place the Seven Swordsmen hail from that means that they have to have figured out how to make the Seven Swords which means swordsmanship and swordsmithing and probably good smiths in general on top of precious, luxury materials like mother of pearl, pearls, corals, healing methods/productions that are based on either product of the sea or things they could grow on their island etc.

A bunch of Clans working with each other and making mixed Clan teams and teaching chakra-wielding civilians how to pull off techniques and working for their Daimyo? That's a fucking problem.

@shetanshadowwolf: Yuuuup

Me: Kiri's people were hard, to begin with, because life out at sea, even on a big island, is a pretty isolated and self-sufficiency-requiring kind of system and they were probably close-knit, to begin with, a community that supported each other and because they were comparatively small and had less access to the resources of the other Villages they made themselves harder still.

Balls to the wall, we are the scariest, nastiest motherfuckers you will ever meet and you have better leg it before I chop your legs off and sink my teeth into your throat.

(Which is not to say that Kiri is necessarily nice or soft or home to a lot of sane ninja. Ninja as a general bunch are pretty insane people and Kiri was hard, to begin with, and got harder as they made deals with ice spirits and sea spirits and got even harder as a Village but it's not the outright let's throw together a bunch of scary tropes without rhyme or reason because they look cool bs I got from the canon)

@shetanshadowwolf: Kiri is not soft

Me: Not at all.

They are pretty much feral whenever someone Not One Of Us is around and they are hard as hell but tight-knit too when it's Just Us.

At least until Madara came around and screw them up and over and fucked with the Clans by destroying them and basically did everything he could to stoke them into becoming the hell pit every outsider thought they were, pushing them into being what Obito had grown up hearing about.

@shetanshadowwolf: On the scale of "we are our element/affinity" sand and kiri are some the baddest bitches, per se

Sand with its puppetry and poisons and the desert WILL devour you

And Kiri with its mist and feralness

Me: And, I would argue, water as well.

Zabuza did a few water attacks on top of the swordsmanship as did Hoshigaki Kisame.

So Sand is puppetry and poisons and the desert WILL devour you and Kiri is mist and feralness and swordsmanship and the sea WILL swallow you up

@shetanshadowwolf: Yes. Desert dehydration and water's all-powerful consumption

Two different sides of a brutal coin

Me: And since Suna is considered one of the weaker villages, big enough to be one of the 'Big Powers' but also inferior to Konoha / Iwa / Kumo I would say that Suna, like Kiri, was a village founded in direct reaction to the Big Three founding themselves.

Desert is not welcoming, like Kiri it's an isolated kind of living and I could see their Clans initially being nomadic, except that with those encroaching powers (especially highly militaristic Iwa at the north with two unnamed regions between them on the left side of the map that do not seem to have enough importance to be labelled or have a village that could be crossed by the Iwa people to spill over Suna) they also felt they should pull together and form their own village.

Consolidate their territory, make sure they can support each other and defend themselves in the face of outsiders and probably under pressure from their own Daimyo, since we know that there is a Daimyo of Wind that was turning his back on Suna and outsourcing missions to Konoha in Naruto's time.

What politician would want to be the one of the Four Great Lands (Five once Kiri declared itself a sovereign territory of their own) without its own standing militia? Especially with an aggressively militarized neighbour at the North and someone in the East who can not only capture and hand out Bijus but has also managed to entice both of the all-seeing eyes clans and has the sealing masters on their side.

#Jhae's original material #words words words #9th April 2020 #Naruto meta #Naruto #Kirigakure meta #Sunagakure meta #my meta #world building meta #long post #long post without a cut #hello new tags

[lavrapalmers]

various storms and saints / chapter 3

summary: allie pressman knows it’s a betrayal to have a crush on harry bingham, but she can’t help it

word count: 3.9k

read on ao3 HERE

the chaos came quicker than any of them thought it would, so quick and so sudden and so rough, it was as if the people in the streets weren’t themselves. as if the rain falling had poisoned them, made them creatures of the night, only able to cause trouble.

allie knew this wasn’t the truth, but she wishes it was, wishes there was some excuse for the way they acted. it was better than just accepting that these people she had known her entire life were not what they seemed, that they were darker, more cruel then she could ever have hoped for. it was animalistic, like their innate desire to wreak havoc could no longer be contained and it threatened to topple and take them all done.

it was good of cassandra to call this meeting for the girls, smart of her, yet a selfish part of allie wondered if there was another side to it all. a hidden meaning, directed just for her, a personal warning to stay away from harry. she hadn’t told cassandra anything but she saw them come to the flame together, the way they huddled under the hoodie and stayed close even after. she knew her sister was suspecting, but she knew she wouldn’t ask anything about it either. not until she knew for sure, not until there was something really there to ask about. 

and sometimes allie’s mind still lurks on that night, when there isn’t anything to keep her occupied (though there always is). helping cassandra with the meeting, helping her come up with jobs, get everyone together in the church to announce the new rules and the way things are gonna go. 

she feels a sense of shame at his hesitation in agreeing to it, her eyes planted on him as she waits for his hand to go up, her stomach turning when he’s the last one to do it. she knows she isn’t responsible for his mistakes, she knows what they had was for a night and nothing more, and yet it hurts to see it. it hurts because it makes her question herself, her judgement, and that the image in her head is so different from the way he is in this room that she questions which one is real. the boy from that night or the boy here, the one that contradicted cassandra and was so painfully selfish?

she couldn’t admit to herself that he might be both.

he raises his hand begrudgingly, and only then does she look away from him, and tries to forget it all.

- 

she thought that once she got him out of her system her crush would leave with it, like reality would hit her and say you got your moment, you lived it, time to move on. that’d she’d realize it wasn’t that great, it wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be and she’d move on.

but she can’t move on, as much as she’d like to, the same way she can’t move on from the pain of cassandra not including her on the committee. it bites and hurts in a way she could never imagine, because it feels like where her loyalties lie do not lie back with her, and even her own sister sees her as nothing but her double.

and she’s screaming and crying at her sister and she doesn’t even seem to care, and allie hates this world so much because for as much as it gives it takes away even more because she’s never hated her sister but lately she’s starting to think she might. just a tiny bit, just for this day.

allie wants to run off and find harry, kiss him in the street and let everyone know just for it to go back to her sister, so she can feel that betrayal and find out from someone else like she did. know what it’s like to feel left out, hurt and manipulated, and like you don’t mean as much to the other as they do to you.

she’s smart though, she wouldn’t do that, because she may be mad now and she may be crying and hating cassandra but she knows things will be fixed soon. she can’t ruin their relationship, not here in this twisted place, not now when she needs her most.

and she never thought she’d be more excited to go to work than she is now, because it beats being home while they fight and being left to her own devices. leaving her mind blank and allowed to flow with the worst, because even if she’s in a god awful hairnet and glaring at will’s back for making it on the committee when she doesn’t, she’d rather be counting plates and covering bread in garlic than thinking of all the shit that has managed to happen in such a short amount of time.

she wakes up early for her shift and rushes there before cassandra or any of her friends can stop her, and when she goes home she immediately takes a nap. she wants to avoid the world and the way it hurts, and the fact that the only one who seems to truly see her is herself.

and then there’s him, walking out like a god send to throw off her tireless week that’s starting to feel like groundhog day. he comes like the devil and angel on her shoulder, representing too much for someone who should mean so little. but that night he claimed to see her, to know she isn’t cassandra, and right now she needs someone like that.

“hey.” he calls out to her, greeting her with a smile and a laugh, almost like he’s actually glad to see her. he saunters over to her quickly, and she can’t believe how naturally the smile on her face appears but this time she doesn’t fight it. “looking good.”

“i dressed up just for you.” she exclaims, hand on her chest as a fake testament to her love for him, and he stops close enough to mean something but not close enough for anyone who walks by to notice. it’s all very strategic, very sly. 

“i’ll look like you soon enough.” he pushes her shoulder gently and his eyes are warm and kind, so different from that morning in the church with cassandra, and she doesn’t understand how he can be that way. so cruel to her sister, cold eyes almost dead, and so warm with her, so kind and alive. 

she strips herself of the hairnet, flipping her blonde curls from under it and handing it over to him. they’ve shared a bed, a hair net is nothing in comparison to that. “oh, well, then you should take this.”

he puts it on with a bow, a tuft of those black curls sticking out, and somehow even with that he’s so handsome. harry bingham looks like the type that can do no wrong but also is all wrong, an angel and devil in one, the forbidden fruit she has already taken a bite out of. 

“i’ve never wanted you more.” and while her voice reflects that it’s a joke only she knows it’s not, because more than ever she wants him to take her home and wrap her in his arms, kiss her until she forgets who she is and the troubles she has, make her not regret liking him the way she does. “are you going to prom?”

he shrugs in response, and she sees the pain flicker in his eyes but he keeps his smile to her, and she’s glad she’s at least worth pretending. “not sure yet. don’t really have a date anymore.”

“you don’t need a date to go to prom.” she argues, it is the twenty first century after all.

“do you have one?” he asks with the tilt of his head, and she wonders what game he is playing while he flirts with her but still longs for kelly.

she shakes her head and scrunches her nose as she replies, “no, no one i’m really interested. plus this guy i slept with didn’t even think about asking me.”

his smile quirks up more, grows wider, even for a second as he laughs. the way he bounces into the rhythm of her joke so quickly proves her point that she could fall in love with him, the way he just gets her immediately, the way he plays along. “did you want him to?”

it’s her turn to shrug, look around the area as if she’s thinking, and part of her is. she truly is conflicted in her answer, because no matter what she knows the answer she’ll give him won’t be the truth but she doesn’t even know the truth herself. in some ideal world she’d love for him to take her, to slow dance in the middle of the dance floor and kiss at the climax of the song, but in the real world she knows dancing with harry bingham would shift too much in her life. too much has changed all ready, she can’t handle anything more despite how bad she wants it.

“not really.” it comes out in a teasing tone, hinting at him that a part of her wouldn’t be opposed, but it’d be best not to. 

“well maybe he’ll save her a dance.” his hands are in his pockets and he leans forward to almost whisper it to her, and she looks up at him with his hairnet on as he says it and gives him a look that says too much about how she sees it, how she feels.

and she exposes too much unintentionally, three words shifting it all. “i’d like that.” no longer following their joke, their hidden meanings, and the scariest part is that she thinks he’d go running but he doesn’t. his face says something too and it’s like a book she’s too afraid to read.

and for a second she thinks maybe her feelings aren’t one sided, not completely at least, because the way he looks at her runs a chill up her spine and the way he smiles makes her almost choke on her feelings and how strong they are. how badly they overwhelm her, and she sees his lips moving to say something she’s too afraid to hear so she runs. 

“i should go, um...” and she can’t even continue her sentence because she has no real excuse and she wants to take it back the minute she sees his face and the way it falls, the disappointment of her leaving. his begging eyes yearning her to stay, his fiddling hands reflecting that nervous boy she saw when he tried to kiss her, and for a second she worries it might be her who ends up breaking his heart and not the other way around.

she gives him her bullshit excuse of needing a nap and walks away as she says it, not being able to handle it, knowing if she sees him look at her like that she’ll give up and stay there for too long and reveal too much.

and she doesn’t miss the way he huffs away and rips the hairnet off, how his posture tilts into a defeated state as he walks away and she knows something is wrong. this new world is affecting all of them in such different ways, and she doesn’t know what weight is being held on harry’s shoulders but it looks like a heavy one.

but that’s no excuse, there’s a weight on everyone’s back, and they all just have to learn how to live with it now.

-

she really tries to have fun at prom, and she does for awhile, but things just seem to refuse to go her way. her friends trickle out or find dates, and she’s still reeling from her fight with cassandra that has had no resolution in sight, and she hates feeling so alone in a room with almost everyone she knows. 

all she needs is a drink, and she rushes to the table before she even sees who is there, too blinded by her own pain to even see him. but she had seen him all night, the longing look towards kelly as she danced with will, the pained expression and dejected features. that’s the girl he wants, she never expected to erase three years worth of a relationship for him, and yet it still hurts watching him watch her.

“you came.” is all she can say as she pours herself a drink, her mood almost as bitter and harsh as the whiskey sliding down her throat.

“so did you.” he seems to be in the same mood as her, for entirely different reasons, and she has a feeling that is no coincidence. 

harry chuckles as he watches her down her drink with a scrunched expression of disgust, and offers her his own. she takes it and knows she should walk away and leave it as is, but she holds her place next to him because she’d rather wallow with someone else than alone.

“so...” he starts off, bringing her attention back to him and his monotone voice. “wanna dance?”

“it’s probably simpler in the long run if we don’t.” and that might be the best decision she’s made in awhile concerning harry, because he would lead her nothing but trouble. she let herself be his rebound girl for one night but she can’t do that to herself again, not when the pain he feels seems so much more deep, not when her and cassandra are already fighting. “and i’m not really in the mood.”

“yeah. me neither.” everything about him seems so off, his tone of voice and aura, and she’s too busy with her own load to try and carry part of his.

she leaves him in the dust because she doesn’t know what else to do, she’s trying to find an adequate distraction but nothing is working. she drowns herself in her drink and in the crafts, and even dances with will but it doesn’t matter because one dance is done and she’s left alone again watching all the couples kiss.

she doesn’t care about that, she doesn’t want a relationship, not in this chaotic world they now are being forced to call home. she just hates feeling so alone, feeling so unseen and invisible. she’s gotten too good at that, and she isn’t sure what she wants because she wants to be seen but she doesn’t want the limelight. she wants to keep her place but she also wants more, and she doesn’t want to be here a second longer. 

allie knows she has to let things go, forgive cassandra and move on with her life. it’ll be easier then without all that rage, because she knows her sister is good to her and she knows she means no harm, and she swears that tomorrow morning they’ll talk and work it all out. allie will tell her she wants to be seen and cassandra will listen and maybe something will change but even if they don’t she really won’t mind, because she’s lived seventeen years like this and she can live some more, because right now isn’t a time to be selfish and she needs her sister now more than ever.

but she’s going to be selfish for one last night, she’s going to be mad and she’s going to make bad decisions because she deserves at least that, the freedom to do so. tomorrow is a new day but tonight is still today, and today she can be as mad as she wants and she plans to be until it burns out.

harry is sitting alone at his table with that solemn look on his face that she’s so tired of seeing and she doesn’t hesitate to walk right up to him as fast as she can. “get up, we’re going.”

he looks up at her, eyes distant and look so confused, something she can’t really blame him for. he has no idea what is going on in her head the same way she has no idea what’s going on in his, but she has an idea. she doesn’t care though because tonight she’s thinking of herself, and she knows he wouldn’t mind some company much either. 

“what are you talking about?”

her face doesn’t change, doesn’t shift with a smile or a smirk as she responds. “i want you to take me back to your place before any of your new roommates get back to see you take me there.”

he knows what that means and she sees him think it over in his mind, but it doesn’t take long for him to get up and put his hand on the small of her back, leading her out the doors into the darkness where the two reside in the hollow of their mind, but at least tonight they will reside there together.

“we never had our dance.” he whispers in her ear as they walk out.

“we can have this instead.” she turns her head and whispers back, getting in his car as he speeds back home, and for once she doesn’t mind how reckless it all is. she finally takes a good look at him as he drives, his hair slicked back all the way, trying to tame his loose curls to fit in one place the same way cassandra is trying to change him to fit in with their rules. a part of her feels bad for him, that he has to shift everything he’s ever known, but a bigger part of her knows he has to get over it because it’s what’s right.

an even bigger part of thinks more of how she wants to make a mess of his hair with her hands carded through it while he has his way with her.

when they get inside neither of them turns on a light, and the house is empty and quiet and all theirs, and it’s nothing like their first time together. their kisses are frantic and sloppy as they walk up the stairs, bumping into the wall as they try to strip him of his jacket and unzip her dress. this time both are using each other in a more desperate way, hoping the others kiss will erase all their problems and pain but with the knowledge that it won’t.

they’re holding each other in a tight embrace as they fall on his bed together, fighting to fully crawl on while still pressing breathy kisses to any part of the others skin. she can’t believe she’s doing this again, and even with her clothes stripped and his lips pressing kisses against her chest her mind is racing wondering if he thinks it’s kelly, wishes it’s kelly, and she pulls him up to kiss her on the lips before her mind can continue its brutal attack and make her cry.

and it’s different than their first time again for a reason she can’t understand, because he’s on top and inside of her and caressing her face and looking at her with a stare she can’t read and her mouth is agape with muffled gasps because this is the one thing she didn’t expect. she doesn’t expect him to hold her so close and to press gentle kisses against her skin and look her right in the eye and take care of her properly. it’s like something has changed in these few days and she doesn’t know what, but she puts her hand on his face and holds him close too because she wants to treat him as good as he’s treating her.

when they’re done she gets up and slips into her dress, but he slips his hand into hers and gives it a gentle pull. “stay.”

she doesn’t expect that either, and she turns around to see him looking like a god with his hair back to it’s natural curls and his body calling her to cradle in his warmth. and his eyes seem so young, younger than she’s ever seen before, and she wonders if she’s ever seen him so vulnerable before.

she’s no idiot though, and she won’t let things get too far. “you don’t have to pretend, harry.”

his thumb is rubbing the inside of her palm and he’s laying his head on his pillow, looking up at her with the eyes of a confused babe. “what do you mean?”

“that this is something more than it is. that we are. that you aren’t wishing kelly had been with you tonight.” it’s too late to play games, and they’re too old for it now. 

his hand in hers goes limp, and she can’t look to see his reaction because she knows a part of her hurt him, and she doesn’t want to feel that guilt.

she looks forward at the blank wall, their hands limp but still together, barely touching but still searching for each others warmth. “it’s more complicated than that...you don’t get it. i like your company.”

it’s like he twisted the knife in her heart and pushed it forward, and she doesn’t know why but she starts to tear up. he doesn’t mean to hurt her, and she doesn’t know what she should expect, and she hates not being able to understand her own feelings. “i��ve got to go.” she chokes out, trying to keep her voice steady, trying not to let him hear it crack.

“stay...please.” his voice is a silent beg, but all she can do is grasp his hand and give it one last squeeze before sitting up and letting it go again.

“i’ll see you around.” she wants to say they can talk then, but what is there to talk about? she’s overthinking it, looking too far into something that isn’t there. two nights mean nothing, not to him, he doesn’t know what he’s saying. she doesn’t know what he’s saying, and that’s the scariest part.

she grabs her shoes and leaves before he can say anything else, trying to sneak out of the full house undetected and into the dark street where she can not be seen. and she’s scared because she’s had a realization about herself, and she thinks it ruins everything she once thought.

because she’s tried so hard to get into his head, rationalize him, see and feel what he’s thinking to the point where she knew what he was thinking. or at least she thought she did, but she was so wrong, and she doesn’t mind being wrong but she hates the not knowing. she hates not knowing what is in his head and what he’s thinking when he holds her in his arms and she hates that everything she once thought might be wrong because it means she has to continue on blind and she doesn’t know how to do that.

stray tears drop down her face and her body shakes in the cold of the night when she reaches her house, not a light left on, and she tip toes to her room so as not to wake anyone and worry them with the red on her eyes and the blush on her cheeks.

she changes into her pajamas and curls in an almost fetal position on her bed, wanting to go back to simpler times and sleep everything up, wake up and these past few weeks were nothing but a dream. 

she pulls the blanket up and wipes her tears away, and thinks she’ll tell cassandra about harry tomorrow. she can’t continue on with secrets, and she can’t continue on with the not knowing.

and most of all, she can’t continue on without her sister, but she might have to learn how to.

#the society #harry bingham #allie pressman #harry x allie #allie x harry #my writing

[birdsy-purplefishes]

I have MANY thoughts and feelings about Midsommar.

Okay I saw Midsommar last night and it was an experience. So this post is probably going to be long and rambling and it is definitely 100% for-sure going to contain some spoilers. I’m gonna put a whole lot of it behind a Read More.

First, though, I want to say that while I thought this film was great it is definitely one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen. I went into it knowing almost nothing--and honestly I wouldn’t have been prepared even if I had read spoilers--and that was the ideal way to see it for me but there are many triggering things and some very problematic things in this film. I’m gonna try to be vague as possible but you might not not to watch this one if anything from the following list is something you can’t handle. That said: I am very easily disturbed by a lot of things and I found that this film was so bizarre that I never really felt like I couldn’t finish it. It’s... kind of weirdly selective about which gruesome stuff it shows and what it doesn’t. The most terrifying things to me were implied things and I didn’t realize them until after it had ended. Somehow... miraculously... this film didn’t come across as gore/torture-p*rn to me. So Trigger Warning / Content Warnings for this movie: Violence, blood, gore, horrible suffering. Sex, nudity. Mental illness and stigmatization/perpetuation of harmful myths about mentally ill people. Suicide. Ableism. Racism. A rape scene that I think most people didn’t even realize was a rape scene because it’s bizarre and left somewhat ambiguous. Emetophobia triggers. Body horror. A whole lot of drugs. Squicky grossout stuff. Emotional, psychological, and religious abuse. 

There’s probably other stuff I forgot. Basically everything horrible is in this movie. It was definitely worth it but it’s a hard watch.

Okay, now for spoilery stuff.

The backstory shown in the first few minutes is incredibly disturbing. Dani’s bipolar sister murders their parents and kills herself. It’s graphic. It’s disturbing. It definitely portrays suicide in a negative light, which is pretty much good, but: can horror movies stop perpetuating myths about mentally ill people?! This stuff is damaging! It makes mentally ill people out to be monsters and then ignorant people treat them worse. It makes mentally ill people feel like there isn’t any hope for them! This part sucked a lot. The only interpretation of this that isn’t awful is the fan theory that there are clues in the background that suggest that the cult may have actually framed Dani’s sister but that’s kind of a stretch. None of the other foreshadowing in the film is as subtle as the supposed hints that the cult fabricated the whole thing so I doubt it.

The foreshadowing is actually super obvious. It’s the typical horror film where the characters have no idea what’s going on & you’re like “DUDE GET OUT OF THERE!” the whole time. People on the subreddit are pointing out all kinds of foreshadowing and even the tapestry at the beginning shows you who all of the characters are and like 90% of the story.

Dani’s boyfriend, Christian, sucks. His friends suck. There’s a lot of macho bullshit and they’re just cold and dismissive. And the boyfriend’s a manipulative little leech. You hate him so much! I found myself hoping that she’d kill them all except maybe the cute friendly Swede. Basically the entire movie he’s gaslighting and dismissing her and his friends talk shit about her constantly. It’s the typical “oh, women are irrational and over sensitive” macho bullshit. Like to the extent that all of them know about the murder-suicide of her entire family but none of them try to fucking shield her from seeing the suicide ritual. Not even the guys who know damn well what it is going into it!

The fact that they’re all anthropology majors and they go into it with a sense of cold detachment and an insistence on cultural relativism (or utter obliviousness) and it makes them total assholes wasn’t lost on me and I’m glad that someone went into detail: https://slate.com/culture/2019/07/midsommar-graduate-students-villains-ari-aster.html 

The bros say something about him dumping her and finding somebody who “actually likes sex” and there’s a lot of interpretations to that, none of which are less than horrible. Like does he try to pressure her into doing stuff she doesn’t want to? Probably! Like whether she has emotional or physical sexual dysfunction isn’t discussed and that’s kind of brilliant because even if she does have issues it’s not her fault at all and the dudes are g a r b a g e for even suggesting it.

The cute friendly Swedish dude (Pelle) who was the only one to be kind to Dani at all was actually the worst manipulator of all! He’s totally luring her in! He’s love-bombing and manipulating her! He literally “draws” her in. He does some forced-teaming shared-trauma bullshit. I gotta say though: I fell for it! I wanted her to dump the guy for him! I’m almost surprised that she didn’t fall for it. I think it’s more due to the fact that she’s traumatized and grieving than anything.

The most disturbing thing about the guy, though, is that I can’t decide if he does all of this because he’s evil or because he’s genuinely a true believer and believes with all his heart that he’s doing good things. That will haunt me forever tbh. Just... always watch out for guys who want to “save” you. They are the scariest fucking abusers.

The whole cult is love-bombing her, actually. The whole film is like Cult Tactics 101. They find a vulnerable young woman who’s lost everything. She doesn’t feel a sense of love and belonging anywhere. She has no support system unless you count her garbage basically-sociopathic-but-aloof boyfriend who really doesn’t count. Pelle hand-selected her because she’s the ideal cult brainwashing candidate. He’s seen firsthand just how much shit she takes from Christian and how she’s constantly falling for his gaslighting and tolerating him mistreating her. I was actually kind of disturbed at how many women I saw online reacting to the cult saying it was empowering or matriarchal. It’s not at all! The first elder we see leading things is female but the ones handling the book and enforcing the rules are men. I can only recall two women elders who do much of anything and they’re both just prominent parts of ceremonies. They’re announcers/performers. They’re definitely complicit but the men are behind the scenes controlling it. And look at the sex ritual! There’s no real emphasis on female pleasure and it’s all being a good little brood mare. It’s a performance. And small babies are kept away from their mothers to be raised communally. They send the mothers away from their babies! Even the May Queen role sucks if you think about it for even a second. The whole “we’re a family” thing is just creepy as hell. There’s even a lot of foreshadowing to it that I missed, like the guy who greets her shaking the mens’ hands but saying “welcome home” to her. Said guy also calls his traditional garb “girly” when Dani compliments it, btw! And of course the division of labor is patriarchal. The clothing is patriarchal too.

The mental health ableism stuff is bad but there’s ableism based on physical disability as well. Arguably it’s supposed to condemn the cult for fetishizing disabled people and promoting incest to deliberately create disabled people but... it still comes across as “look at this deformed kid” and it’s fucked up.

I can’t tell if the movie is trying to show us that the cult is racist or if the movie itself is racist. They kill off the three non-white outsiders pretty quick. Was that classic horror movie “the black guy dies first” bullshit or was that supposed to be like “look, these seemingly peaceful and loving people are xenophobic and racist and there’s a reason why all of them are super duper white despite bringing in outsiders”. Like I came out of the film definitely convinced that it’s no coincidence that the blue-eyed blonde chick gets singled out as special by these people.

It made me really uncomfortable to realize that the sex ritual is technically a rape scene. We get clues that Christian goes into it voluntarily to some extent, sure. When he knows that girl (and she does look like a young girl!) is trying to seduce him we don’t really see his reaction but he doesn’t seem to refuse outright. He seems ambivalent until he's offered the drugs but then he hears that they’ll make him lose his inhibitions, looks at the girl, and gulps the liquid. He saw it as an excuse to get away with cheating and he took it. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s drugged when he actually agrees to the sex. He’s tripping the whole time. He’s being pressured and prodded and even literally physically manipulated. He’s out of it. The girl seems kind of out of it too. It’s really fucked up. But like it’s so weird and you’re so mad at him for everything shitty he’s done to Dani that you’re just like what?! But when you think about the fact that he’s drugged and you see the way he’s horrified after he realizes what he’s done... it’s horrific. He was violated.

I like that we see just how viscerally traumatic it is to be cheated on. Dani vomits, collapses and wails. And our sympathies are with her.

The cultists imitation of their members’ suffering is actually deeply disturbing and a huge aspect of the love-bombing thing, especially for Dani. She goes from being barely held by her expressionless piece-of-shit boyfriend while she wails to having a whole bunch of women replicate and act out her suffering. They do this too at the botched suicide and the final scene. They even kind of do it when she fails to eat the fish. It kind of looks communal and empathetic but it’s a feigned empathy. It’s another way that people in the cult lose their own personal identities. Nothing is yours there! Not even your suffering is yours.

To be honest... I went to see this film ‘cause a lot of the reactions to it were women gleefully enjoying seeing a shitty boyfriend suffer a horrible fate. I’m always down for misandry and cinematography! BUT... this was just excessive. The boyfriend is a total bastard. He did kinda need to die tbh. But he basically gets tortured to death. It’s made pretty explicitly clear that it’s horrific. They make no effort to mercy kill him like they did to the elderly guy whose jump failed to kill him. And like... the actor even gets it. The guy’s a scumbag and he doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. He even backstabs Chidi From The Good Place! But what happened to him is just awful.

The director and the lead actor actually disagree about the ending! Ari Aster says that Dani knows what she’s doing when she condemns Christian to die. Florence Pugh says she’s out of it.

I say it doesn’t actually matter whether Dani chose to kill Christian or not or what her motive was. Honestly it might have been a mercy killing given the state that he was in! Like maybe it was revenge for her and maybe the cult did it to make her feel empowered but it sucks being forced to choose who lives and dies. It sucks that some creepy cultist basically stole her man. It’s the whole “a pedestal is the same as a cage” thing for sure.

Last thing I can think of for now: I’m very surprised and more than a little distressed at all the people--especially women--who see this as a happy ending for Dani. Sure, it’s kind of a dark fairy tale revenge fantasy. But she’s objectively worse off than she is at the beginning of the film! She’s brainwashed and trapped! Like... I forgot where I read this now but basically Aster says that she goes from with one gaslighter to being with an entire cult of gaslighters! What do you think is gonna happen to her in the future?! She’s gonna have to live with her dead boyfriend’s baby that he had with some rando chick if that fertility ritual worked! She’s gonna have to live in a shitty commune. She’s gonna have PTSD 5ever from everything that happened. It’s honestly a tragic and horrible ending.

I’m... still processing this. I know I’m gonna end up adding to this. Feel free to chime in and discuss it with me! This movie was just Intense. BONUS LINKSPAM: Good Takes And Shit!

https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2474518/jordan-peele-says-midsommar-has-the-most-atrociously-disturbing-imagery-hes-ever-seen

https://themuse.jezebel.com/boy-problems-whos-got-em-midsommar-does-1835878652

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alisonwillmore/midsommar-ari-aster-florence-pugh

https://www.vulture.com/2019/07/the-end-of-midsommar-ari-asters-last-minutes-explained.html

https://www.vulture.com/2019/07/the-end-of-midsommar-ari-asters-last-minutes-explained.html

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/03/738422258/midsommar-shines-a-solstice-nightmare-unfolds-in-broad-daylight

EDIT: Also!!! This film?! Somehow is a comedy! It’s funny as fuck and I’m definitely going to hell for laughing!

#midsommar #horror movies #horror

[dontshootmespence]

Supernatural AU: Episode 4 - Devoid

Part 2

It took a full two days of little food, few stops for gas and even less sleep for them to make it to Hardin, Montana. “Cops, nap, research,” Dean said, pulling off the exit ramp. 

“No, research, cops, nap,” Bobbie replied. They needed to get ahead of whatever this was.

Sam barely even opened his eyes in the backseat, but he was insistent. “Both wrong. We’re all about to pass out. Let’s grab a motel room and power nap for 30 or 40 minutes, then we can go to the cops and gather the information we need so the research we do doesn’t get influenced in any way. It makes the most sense…and I’m too tired for this shit.”

She wanted to fight it, but Sam was right. They were all exhausted – physically and emotionally. No matter how mad she was at their father, if he felt there was a job here, there probably was – and she wanted to get to it. But they’d booked it here so fast that the need for sleep was outweighing everything else, so the second Dean saw a motel in Hardin he pulled into a parking lot, they gave their fake credit cards in for a room and crapped out. It was nearly an hour and a half later than Bobbie woke up in a cold sweat.

She screamed so loud that Sam and Dean shot up from the bed and the couch. “What the hell was that?” Sam asked.

Dean replied while his sister tried to catch a breath. “Nightmare. She always has one of two. One is about the night mom died and the other she won’t tell me.”

Sam glanced her way expectantly. “You always tell us you want us to be open about this kind of shit and then you keep that inside?”

Bobbie wiped her forehead, the sweat cool to the touch and clammy. “I’ll make you a deal, Sammy. You tell me what’s been keeping you up at night lately, and give me more than ‘nightmares about Jessica’ and I’ll give you a peek into my fucked up brain.”

Without missing a beat, Sam spat out that he blamed himself for what happened with Jess – not that he could’ve stopped it considering they didn’t know what it was – but he did have the dreams and said nothing and had accompanied Dean and herself, leaving Jessica all alone. “It was not your fault and you know it.”

“And undoubtedly whatever is going on in your head isn’t your fault either, but you’re blaming yourself, huh?” Sam was determined to get something out of her, even though opening himself up so candidly had taken even him off guard. “So what are you blaming yourself for Bobbie?”

“Nothing,” she replied, grabbing a glass of water and gulping it down in three or four big sips. “Yet. The other dream I have, besides Mom, is always about you two.”

“What?” Dean’s head left his hands and turned toward her. “What about us?”

“It’s always the same. I’m not getting deep into it now because we have work to do, but it always involves you two fighting in the Impala, me mediating and then you Dean, crashing the car. It spins out and we all end up in a lake. You’re both stuck in your seatbelts and I can’t get you out. I live. You die. There’s a voice telling me ‘it’s all your fault, you’ve failed me’ and then I wake up,” she said quickly, her voice shaking with each word. She didn’t want to recount this again. She didn’t want to think about it. With her eyes open, neither Dean nor Sammy could reach out for her as they took their last breath – not if she had anything to say about it. “Let’s get going, okay?”

“Bobbie, you have to-“ Sam started, but she cut him off with the flick of her hand.

“There’s nothing I can do about it, so let’s stop talking about it and focus on some people that need our help.”

Dean wasn’t about to let it go and neither was Sam, but they knew better than to test her right now.  “Okay, let’s go.”

-

After introducing themselves to the local police as Agents Acer, Vanir and Laird, Dean asked Chief Goldstein if he could tell them anything about the child suicides in the area. “Anything you can tell us would be helpful.”

“Is this even in your jurisdiction?” He asked.

“Believe it or not yes,” Sam replied quickly. “The FBI sometimes conducts what we call an equivocal death investigation, which basically means the case has lingering questions. We can end up classifying the deaths as homicides, suicides, natural causes, accidents or something unknown. This fits that perfectly considering the kids were all so young and so well adjusted.”

With his question answered, Goldstein pulled out the files on the three children that had died over the course of the past six weeks. “Mia Thomas was seven and drowned in a lake. Her parents claim she was a fantastic swimmer. Nathan Cope was eight years old and found hanging in his closet and Otis Wickens jumped out the window of his doctor’s office building.”

Sam shivered at the image of the latest child jumping out of a building. What could possibly have been so horrible that he would not only take his life, but take it in such a way?

“And none of them had any issues at school? No bullies? Family life okay?” Bobbie questioned. The most likely reason for child suicide would’ve been bullying if she had to put money on it. Either that or issues at home. If it wasn’t that, something supernatural was her next best guess. “Nothing out of the ordinary?”

He repeated himself, saying nothing was wrong with any of the children. Otis had gone first, he was also eight. Nathan next and Mia last. “Otis and Nathan were in the same class,” he said. “So maybe you want to start there.”

“Okay, thanks Chief,” Dean said. “We’ll keep you updated.”

Outside the station, Bobbie, Dean and Sam decided to head over to the Wickens’ house first to see if they could interview the grieving parents. The loss of a child had to be the scariest thing Bobbie could think of. “So what do we think this is?” Sam asked. “If it is something supernatural.”

“Maybe a witch,” Dean said. “The parents are being targeted by way of their kids.”

Bobbie was off in her own world in Baby’s passenger seat. “Possibly, but wouldn’t a witch make it look like an accident or natural so it wouldn’t raise any questions?”

“Could be a dumb witch?” Dean replied, grasping at straws. “The fact that it’s suicide is what you’re hung up on, right?”

“Yea, it’s just…” Her head was pounding, flashes from her ever-present nightmare sporadically running in and out of her brain. “Something’s up.”

-

Stepping up to the Wickens’ home was like stepping toward an open grave. At a closed grave, someone could leave flowers, say a few words, apologize for wrongdoings if there were anyway, but the death was done, smoothed over like the grass that grew on the ground above. At an open grave, death wasn’t real yet, it was like there was still a ray of hope in the air, but a ray of hope that could never actually be fulfilled. It was still too raw to be fully comprehended. It was a ray of hope purely for the sake of pain. The family’s next door neighbors, the entire street seemed like it was at a standstill so that the Wickens could grieve and eventually shovel the dirt into the grave, allowing them all to ‘get back to normal.’ “Let me,” Bobbie said, knocking lightly on the door. “Mr. and Mrs. Wickens? I’m Agent Acer, these are Vanir and Laird. We’re from the FBI.”

“You’re here about Otis?” His mother said, a tear falling from the corner of her eye. “Do we have to go over this again?”

Bobbie was about to reply when Dean chimed in. “Mrs. Wickens, we’re here because the same thing happened to two other children in the area. We’re trying to see if there’s a connection.” His voice was soft and Bobbie could see that he was looking at her in his periphery. “There might be something that could explain why things happened the way they did. Give you some kind of relief.”

A hint of gratitude could be seen, but nothing would bring back her child and that was all she wanted. “I don’t think that’s possible. But please, come in.”

Mr. Wickens came to join her on the couch, fingers intertwined and clinging to each other like they were alone in an open sea. “Can you tell us exactly what happened?” Sam started. “Not at the doctor’s office,” he clarified. “Beforehand. How did his personality change? When did it change?”

“Otis was the happiest boy in the world,” Mr. Wickens began. “He loved soccer and science. Was convinced he was going to be the world’s first professional soccer playing scientist when he got older so he could do it all and then his mood turned sour.”

“When?” Dean asked.

“About three weeks ago?”

Over the next three weeks Otis got worse and worse until that day at the doctor’s office. “Did anything out of the ordinary happen around the time the mood change happened?” Bobbie asked, catching a glimpse of a picture of the happy family and hating how anyone, any deity, could let something so awful happen to another.

“For a couple of weeks he had nightmares,” his father answered. “About a fire in the house. He never really had nightmares, but that was it in terms of anything out of the ordinary.”

They asked a few more questions, getting it from the source that nothing was happening in school or at home. Brian and Tina Wickens were happily married. They’d had no issues at either of their jobs, so money was secure and Otis had been excelling in school, both intellectually and socially. “Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Wickens,” Sam said before they made their way out.

Back in the Impala, Dean asked if they had any ideas. “Because I’m more confused than ever.”

“Me too,” Sam replied.

Bobbie had no idea either. “We still have too little information. Let’s interview the Thomas’ and the Cope family first.”

-

Back at the room later that night, the three siblings poured over the information they had. “All three kids were popular, smart, happy kids, their moods went south and then they ended it all,” Dean said exasperatedly as he paced the floor in front of the two beds. It was taking everything in him not to grab another beer, but he needed to think straight right now. “At seven and eight years old. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“What if this isn’t supernatural?” Sam asked.

Of course it was a possibility, but what else could it be? “It’s not homicide because none of them had any other DNA on them other then their own,” Bobbie started, glancing at the papers that Sam had been able to find by hacking the county’s medical system. “The Thomas girl’s drowning could be considered an accident, save for the fact that the parents insist she was a great swimmer. But accidents wouldn’t account for either of the boys’ deaths, because the manners in which they died were far too deliberate. Natural causes could mean it’s some kind of medical issue, but if that were the case, it’s pretty likely that more children would be affected. That leaves us with suicide and unknown cause of death.”

Sam shook his head, his hands clasped in front of his face. “So either, these kids were hiding feelings so tortured that there parents didn’t know and then suffered alone until they killed themselves, or it’s something supernatural that causes suicidal thoughts?”

Dean and Bobbie nodded sadly. Silence hung in the air for a moment until Sam’s eyes went wide. “Wait…”

“What is it?” Dean watched his brother sprint across the room to the bag that held John’s journal. “You think Dad has the answer in there?”

“Possibly,” he said, licking the tips of his fingers as he quickly flipped through the pages. “Here! ‘Bobby and Rufus came across one once apparently, but I still never have. I’m glad I haven’t because I’m not positive I’d know how to kill it.’”

When he turned the journal toward them, the older Winchesters saw a picture of a chimera-looking thing – a monster made up of various animals’ body parts. “A chimera?” Dean asked.

Sam shook his head. “Kind of, but not exactly. A Baku.”

@remember-me-forever-silent-angel @gaylemonshark  @marveldivergentouatdctvfangirl @lalirang @averagekansan @addsomesalt @stusbunker @sebba-hiddles @fanfictionrecommendations-com @hoppy519 @thatwrestlingfan91 @extremeobsessions101 @spence-imagines @bettercallsabs @whaaatthefuuuuck @letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked @your-imagination-runs-wild @cryinglots @steggy01 @gigilame @sedulous-mind @a-unique-girls-heaven @just-antiyou @rmmalta @original-criminal-fanfics @ties-n-suits @veroinnumera @eurusholmmes @fanficienjoyedreading @astridstark13​ @ties-n-suits​ @demonlover87​ @kennybud​ @shittyafblogwnopoint​ @pleasantlyfadingpeace​ @bulldozed88 @a-gir1-has-n0-name​

#supernatural #supernatural au #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural fanfic #supernatural fic #dean winchester #sam winchester #bobbie deanna winchester #born to fire #devoid #dontshootmespence #s1ep4