#i also did this without any references and from memory so PLEASE TELL ME WHAT I DID WRONG

[fabronics]

Sova as Disney's Alice from Alice in Wonderland. For @grimryoper I hope you see more of Sova as Alice! Have a good one.

[lamentationsofalonelypotato]

Chapter 23: Extreme Makeover Backyard Edition

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV, Soldier Boy POV

Summary: When the reader left Payback 40 years ago after a falling out with her childhood best friend she never looked back, but when two men show up to her apartment and start asking her questions about the past, the reader begins to think those things can’t stay hidden and starts to question what’s real and what’s fantasy.  This is a re-telling of The Boys Season 3, where the reader is a supe who's known Soldier Boy since 1927. The chapters will fluctuate between past and present. This is chapter twenty three of my "You Call It Madness But I Call It Love" series. (I'm so bad at summaries please forgive me!)

Word Count: 9.1K

Warnings: I'm going to label this one 18+ because it handles some heavy subjects!  Angst, Cursing, Nudity, Mentions of Abuse (sort of- it's more the reader being used without knowledge of it and I'm not sure what to call that), Numbness, Depression, Mental Health, Brief mentions of graphic death, Brief mentions of graphic torture, Mention of gore, Mention of death, Mentions of character going through some HEAVY EMOTIONS and INTERNAL TRAUMA, Fluff, Sexual References, Family Problems. Soldier Boy might be, is, really, absolutely, completely a little OOC. Soldier Boy is really all you need as a warning.

Note: This is told from the Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. Reader is described as "curvy" occasionally. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal Monologue is in first person and is in italics

Series Masterlist

Masterlist

Reader POV

You fall on your hands and knees in the soft grass of Legend's front yard, falling from the sky like a comet as it's glow fades and burns for the last time before striking the earth. You don't remember how you left Stan's apartment, don't remember flying here, don't feel anything, not the humidity that comes with the rising sun, not the cold kiss of dew against your skin, all you feel is the cold creeping numbness that trickles through your veins.

The memories of what you did come in flashes, but they do nothing. They do not evoke remorse nor pain, they haunt you, but do not bring tears to your eyes.

You open and close your hands, letting the blades of grass crush beneath your fingertips, but you don’t completely comprehend where you are, or how the hell you got here. All you feel is weakness tugging at your every muscle, threatening to drag you under the rising tide. You felt electrified, but so tied at the same time, everything and nothing. What happened seemed centuries ago and also seconds ago.

There was no anger, no remorse, no pain, no horror, no shock, there was nothing, only the chill that clung to your skin on the warm summer morning. You could see Stan’s death in your mind, watch his body collapse in on itself under your power and yet it did nothing to you.

You're not sure of anything anymore. Who you are, who Rosemary is- everything you knew is gone and you're not sure what's left behind, not sure what will come crawling out of the shell you were now. You knew you should be afraid, but another voice in your ear whispered so should they.

Someone grabs you by the shoulders, hauls you up off the ground, raising your gaze from the wet grass.

Ben looks furious, mind you, he always seemed to be angry when it came to you. You wondered if that was because he loved you or if it was because the two of you were fated to kill each other one day.

Or maybe it's a healthy combination of both.

He's wearing his jeans again, his dark hair falling forward into his eyes that burn with the force of his rage, but as soon as he sees the dried blood coating your cheeks, hair, and body, you watch worry begin to spark behind his glowing green eyes.

You register that deep down his anger and worry comes from a place that he'd hidden from you for eighty years, his love for you, the love that he was no longer hiding. But the chill still rose in your chest like the first frost of winter.

"Fuck." Ben mutters, moving his hands along your body, boldly looking for injuries, but he doesn't find any. "What the fuck happened? Why did you leave?"

You don't answer him, instead you take in a shallow breath, filled with the smell of fresh cut grass and Ben's musk. You're trying to find your voice, but it's difficult for you.

"Y/n are you alright?" He asks it, firmly gripping you by the shoulders, trying to shake you back into reality. You can hear the way the anger in his voice has shifted to something else.

"It's not mine Ben." Your voice is no more than a whisper as you stare blankly at him.

"Whose is it?"

You can't answer him, the only thing in your mind is Stan's words to you, the secrets he kept for forty years coming to light, the terrible things that he and Vogelbaum did. You want to tell him, tell him about what you know, but you can't find the words, can't find the thoughts to follow them.

"Sweetheart?" Ben furrows his eyebrows together, tilting your face to look at him. His hand softly strokes against your cheeks not understanding why you’re acting like this. “Are you alright?” 

His voices sound like you’re underwater, a murmur, a buzz, just a shadow of the deep rumble you love so much, the voice you thought you'd never hear every again.

Ben says your name again, with such urgency that it snaps you out of it for only a moment. The smoke clears, but what’s left barely has the strength to cling to him as you collapse into his chest. Your body shakes uncontrollably, tears soaking through his thin t-shirt, unable to do anything else, but clutch him tighter against you.

"He's our son Ben. They stole my-" You can't find the words, can't find your voice, it sounds hollow. "Stan he and Vogel-." But your voice breaks again and you shudder against Ben's chest, the numbness coming back to drag you under.

Ben doesn't hesitate, he picks you up as if you weigh nothing, tucking your head under his chin as he goes and turns back towards the house. You barely register his picking you up, can’t seem to focus on anything, breath coming in shallow gasps, body still shaking. Ben tightens his arms around you as if trying to comfort you as he walks through the front doors.

“Is she alright?” Rosemary’s voice is close, but you don't raise your head from Ben's body.

“Fuck, there’s so much blood.“ Hughie adds and you can imagine him standing beside her, his eyes wide.

Guess that means he survived Mindstorm.

Your only hope was that Lou was already in bed, that she wasn't watching Ben carry you soaked in blood through Legend's house.

“It’s not hers.” Ben replies gruffly, still moving towards the staircase. He wasn't stopping and you were thankful for that, you didn’t want to talk to anyone and didn’t want to have it out with Rosemary. You were so tired, tired of fighting and of trying. You didn’t want to yell at her, didn’t want her to yell at you, all you wanted was to slip deeper into the darkness.

"Shit, she's just as fucking unhinged as Soldier Boy is." Butcher mutters under his breath wherever it is he's standing.

“Wait mom talk to me-“ Rosemary tries again.

“No.” You murmur into Ben’s neck. Stan’s revelation rings in your ears once more, betrayal momentarily clawing its way from the pit before the cold feeling comes back to drag you under.

Because it felt like she had betrayed you. All these years you thought that Vought left the two of you alone, but no, it was a lie. And if she'd done that, what else had she done to ensure your freedom?

“Please-“ She sounds broken, and it strikes something inside, because she's never sounded like that before. Rosemary was strong, stronger than you ever were.

But then the word makes the memory of Stan’s body snapping and twisting beneath your control come roaring back, his pleas for the mercy he didn’t deserve exhaled on his dying breath, as you turned him into nothing more than a lump of flesh.

You gasp, another shudder shaking through your body and you don’t answer and don't raise your head.

"Wait Ben-" She says his name, but Ben doesn't stop.

"She doesn't want to talk right now." Ben's tone is controlled, but you can hear the trickle of his rage just on the edge of his inflection. "And I'm not going to make her." He continues walking down the stairs and Rosemary does not follow.

Ben doesn’t put you down on the bed, instead he takes you to the adjoining bathroom. It’s bigger than your bedroom back at your apartment with a walk in shower big enough for five people to stand in, a giant vanity with two sinks, a jacuzzi, and a bathtub big enough for three. Legend never spared any expense when it came to that sort of thing.

Ben slowly places you on the vanity but when he pulls back you grab the front of his shirt. “No.” You breathe suddenly terrified. The terror of Ben leaving cuts through it all, followed by a wave of horror and fear.

If he leaves they’ll come for me again. They’ll come take me or Lou.

You were afraid to be alone, didn’t want him to go, not after everything that happened.

“Shhh.” Ben soothes you, brushing your hair back, “It’s alright sweetheart I’m just getting a washcloth.”

You relent, hand unfurling from his shirt, and he comes back with it, wetting it with warm water before he begins to drag it over your face as gently as possible. His eyebrows are furrowed with concentration, but you don’t move, you only stare at a point over his left shoulder not really comprehending what’s happening.

What happened to Stan comes back in flashes, black and white photographs followed by the bits of conversation that unmade you, the revelations that would haunt you for the rest of your life.

Ben sighs. “Well. I don’t think this is helping at all.” He throws the washcloth into the sink and gently cups your chin, turning your gaze on him.

You blink a few times to focus your eyes.

“Look sweetheart I know you don’t want me to leave, but you gotta get in the shower. I can’t get it all with this washcloth and the last thing I want is to put you in bed covered in blood.” He searches your gaze trying to make you understand what he was asking but you don’t respond.

He leans his forehead against yours. “Honey please you gotta say something. You’re scaring me.” Ben’s eyes meet yours, wide and for the first time in years you see genuine fear.

You let out a shallow breath, but don’t say anything. You can’t find your voice. Instead you gently touch his chest just over his heart. It’s a small gesture, but it’s enough for Ben.

Ben closes his eyes for a minute as if trying to make sense of it all. “Okay.” He breathes, opening his eyes again to look at you, care and concern charging the air between the two of you. “Can I take off your clothes?”

You nod once, eyes still focused on the white tiled wall behind him.

“Okay.” Ben gently pushes the leather jacket back from your body. It falls back on the counter in a bloody heap, staining the white countertops with flecks of dried reddish-black blood. “I need you to stand up for me sweetheart.” Ben says, holding you firmly by the waist and pulling you off the counter.

You stand there for a moment, unsteady on your feet, staring blankly ahead of you.

“Arms up.” Ben whispers.

You raise them above you head and Ben removes your shirt and bra before moving to your pants. “Hold on to me.” He places your arms around his shoulders as you step out of your shoes, pants, and panties.

If you’d been in your right mind maybe you would have worried about this moment, worried about Ben seeing you naked again after all these years. He’d only ever seen you the one time, but somewhere deep down registered that this was different. It wasn’t sexual. There weren't any expectations and there was nothing to be embarrassed about. This was Ben keeping his promise and taking care of you the way that he always had.

He steps over to the bathtub, running his hand under the stream of water to check the temperature.

"Come on.” Ben gently leads you over, your small hand in his and helps you step over the side of the tub and into the warm water.

Steam rises around your body, but the water feels lukewarm. Your gaze levels at the water that streams from the spout on the edge of the tub, not looking up at Ben as he switches the water to the handheld shower head.

"Tilt your head back for me honey." Ben murmurs, touching your chin with your free hand to tilt it back. "Eyes closed."

You do as he says and feel the water trickle through your hair and down your back, followed by the gentle scrub of Ben beginning to work shampoo through the strands. He works quietly, catching the suds that threaten to fall into your eyes. Your hands are folded in your lap, eyes still closed, feeling the steady way he cleans your hair and then your face.

As you sit there the memory of everything that happened with Stan begins to trickle in, causing an uncontrollable shudder to shake through your body. Ben's ministrations were doing little to make the cold feeling dissipate, if anything you could feel it sinking into your bones.

"It's alright sweetheart, I'm almost done." Ben says, and you feel his thumb stroke against your cheek for a moment before he continues to wash your hair.

"Sit here for a second. I'm going to go get you some clean clothes."

You open your eyes and watch him go. The water in the tub is red now, the last remnants of Stan's blood scrubbed clean from your body.

The fire would destroy any evidence that you'd been there and washing the clothes that you killed him in should take care of any other problems.

When you're dried off and in your own clothes, you stand in the bathroom and catch a glance of yourself in the mirror. You look hollow, broken, eyes miles away, skin a little paler than normal. You don't look like yourself, but you also don't feel like yourself.

"Come on, let's get you to bed." Ben says and you feel him pick you up again, carrying you to the bed as if you weigh nothing.

You mechanically go through the motions of getting under the covers, pulling them up almost over your head as you curl in on yourself, making yourself as small as possible. You shut your eyes to try and make the images of what happened go away, but you can't fight the ebbing darkness that comes to welcome you home. It's familiar. The same one that you fell into when Ben broke your heart and you thought he died. The pit was opening beneath your feet once again, and you wondered if you'd be able to pull yourself out this time.

Ben changes into a pair of faded sweatpants, before he crawls into the bed behind you under the covers, putting his arm up over your waist to pull you into him. You turn in his arms so that you're chest to chest and can bury your face into his shirt, inhaling the familiar scent, trying to rid yourself of the images and of the things you learned a few hours ago.

"It's alright Sweetheart, I'm right here." You can feel the rumble of Ben's voice in the palms of your hands where they curl against his soft shirt. The weight of his arm over your waist is familiar as is the heat of his body, the warmth you expected to wipe away the cold feeling that crept along your spine drowning everything else out of your head.

It's quiet for a few moments. Ben's hand is gently trailing up and down your spine, but sleep is miles away for you.

"I'm trying real hard not to be mad at you Sweetheart, especially when you're like this but-" Ben sighs, rubbing his hand up and down your back. "You lied to me. What were you thinking going off alone and-" His tone has shifted into more of a growl, the one he gets when he's about to yell at you.

If he had yelled at you, you wouldn't have reacted, you were just so tired of everything, couldn't focus on anything.

Ben's body tenses. It was as If he was physically trying to hold himself back from being upset, but you couldn't answer him. It had seemed like a good idea when you went, seemed right, but now you weren't sure.

What you had learned changed you, and you weren't sure if you'd ever be able to go back to the way you were.

He's quiet for a minute, before finally he presses a kiss to your forehead, and you bury yourself further into his chest. "I love you." He murmurs. "I promise I'm not going to go anywhere."

But you barely hear him, the only thing you hear is the low buzz of fluorescent lights and Vogelbaum's voice telling his staff to keep you quiet.

Soldier Boy POV

He didn’t know what to do. In all the years he’d known you, Ben had never seen you like this. He’d seen you upset, angry, sad, but never this.

It had been three days since you came back covered in blood, three days of you laying in bed refusing to speak, curled up into his chest.

Ben had tried to get you to eat something, but when you wouldn’t do it by yourself he had to spoon feed it to you, as if you couldn’t remember how to eat.

It scared him.

Ben hadn’t ever felt fear like this before in his entire life, but now, seeing you so distant and cold, he was terrified. He worried that you’d never come back.

Mindstorm had told him the truth about Homelander and as angry as Ben was about that, he couldn’t understand how Homelander was also your son. He’d never heard you say anything about them taking something from you for genetic testing, never spoken about willingly giving up your genetic material.

So then how the fuck did they get it?

There was something sinister that danced on the edge of his mind, something that seemed too horrible to consider, something that meant that Ben had failed to protect you, had failed to keep the promise he made eighty years ago.

But deep down Ben wondered if it was true, because as much as he knew you hated killing people, this seemed different than you usual reaction.

He held you closer to him, curving his body around your back as you slept soundlessly. You were holding on to his hand while you did, fingers entwined with his, holding it against your chest while you found some peace.

Ben was honestly waiting for another nightmare. Each time you’d fallen asleep over the past three days you’d woken up gasping for air, shaking uncontrollably, with tears rolling down your cheeks. Ben did what he could, brought you into his lap and held you tight, reassuring you that it was okay, that it was only a dream.

He was trying not to be angry, but he was. He was furious when he got back to Legend’s two days ago and discovered that you were gone, that you’d left to go off and do God knows what with Homelander flying around. Rosemary refused to tell him where you were only told him that you left but that you’d be back. Ben hated that you made him wait around like a fucking woman waiting for her husband to come home.

He had intended on yelling at you, at making sure you knew how pissed off he was that you did the one thing he told you not to do, but then he saw you land in Legend’s front yard looking like you had taken a shower in someone’s blood and he couldn’t. Not when he feared that the blood was yours and not when he saw how broken you were.

Ben had loved you for a long time, understood you, saw how strong you were, saw that you always spoke your mind no matter what, and to see you like this was… petrifying. He didn’t know what had happened, didn’t understand how something you learned could effect you this much.

He too was still reeling from the revelation that Homelander was his son, felt an even greater sense of betrayal because Vought should have let him give the team to his son, pass it off like a king giving up his throne. And after the night that he had spent with you all those years ago, Ben was ready to give it up, to walk away and give you the life that you always wanted away from the spotlight.

Ben figured that Stan had told you Homelander was your son, and maybe that’s what this was. Ben had been dreading the conversation with you when he got back to Legends, the conversation in which he was going to have to tell you that Homelander was your son too. He didn’t want to hurt you all over again with news like that.

I guess I don’t have to.

Ben thinks to himself listening to the soft beat of your heart, pushing his face further into your hair where it hangs over your shoulders. But he's not sure that this is better.

When he wakes the bed is empty.

“Sweetheart?” Ben says looking around the bedroom. He strains his hearing to see if you’re in the bathroom or upstairs but he doesn’t hear you. Fear grips his heart.

Fuck. Where did she go?

Thunder shakes the house, rattling the windows as Ben looks around the room, brief flashes of lightning illuminates the vintage furniture, but you aren't sitting on anything. The sliding glass doors on the back wall of the bedroom are open, allowing rain to sweep through onto the carpets, water flooding towards your now cold side of the bed.

Shit.

Ben all but jumps out of the bed and rushes to the sliding glass doors, looking beyond into the darkness of Legend’s backyard. Lightning skates across the night flashing bright white, and catching where you stand in the grass. You’re looking up at the sky, soaked to the bone, but seemingly unnerved by the weather.

“Sweetheart?” Ben shouts over the sound of the thunder, but you don’t move. “Are you okay? Did you have another nightmare?”

“It’s not a nightmare.” You murmur into the storm, your eyes still focused on the sky, looking up at something that he can't see.

“What do you mean?” Ben gets closer to you, his feet sinking into the wet grass, rain saturating his clothes every second he stands out there with you. Ben was trying to understand, was trying his best to do what you needed, but he was worried that he was failing, that maybe he needed to take you to a hospital. He wasn't sure how to explain that to anyone if he did take you to one.

If anything he thought that you'd want to talk things out with Rosemary, but you hadn't wanted anything to do with her at all. That was the most surprising, that you didn't want to speak to her, didn't want her around. She had tried to come down to the bedroom, but you hadn't looked at her, you'd only clung tighter to Ben and said no. He wanted to know why, what Stan had told you to make you not want anything to do with her.

He was happy that Lou hadn't come down with her, he didn't want Lou to see you like this, didn't want it to haunt her the same way it was haunting him. He had heard Lou ask about you when he was laying in the basement beside you, and she had found him in the kitchen getting you something to eat and had hugged him tight and asked where you were. There were tears in her eyes when she did so and Ben told her that you weren't feeling well, but that he was taking care of you. There was a hand-drawn card on your bedside table from her filled with a picture of Lou holding out a bouquet of lavender to you that she asked him to give you.

“It really happened.” You close your eyes, head tilted up at the sky.

Lightning crackles across it, striking close to where you're standing, but you don't move an inch.

Ben stops mid-step. Your words sink into his soul, burn against his ribcage, anger surging up to replace the chill of the rain that clings to his skin. Because it meant he failed. It meant that the promise Ben made to you all those years ago was worthless, that he'd failed to protect you.

He thinks about all the time he wasted with other women, chasing after them, ignoring you. He thinks about all the moments he should have spent with you instead.

Maybe I would have figured it out if I wasn't so damn selfish. If I hadn't fucking cared about those stupid movies, or commercials, or the shitty interviews. I failed because I didn't put her first and I allowed this to happen.

“Stan told me.” You continue. "I wasn’t supposed to remember, but my mind knew. It was trying to tell me all these years but I just ignored it. Fucking pushed it away because I thought my mind was messed up from living this long. But it really happened."

“When?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that he said they did it when you were on location shooting a film. That they were too afraid to take me when you were still there.”  You're still not quite looking at him.

Ben felt the words like a punch to the gut. Why did I ever shoot any of those stupid films? Why didn't I take her with me? Why didn't I make up some stupid reason why I needed her there with me? Why didn't I tell her sooner how much she meant to me?

Ben remembered the first time you had the nightmare in front of him, he had just gotten back from shooting a film overseas, one that he could barely remember only that he literally had sand in every crevice of his body after each day of shooting. He remembered how happy he was to see you when you answered the door of your small apartment, how you smiled at him, but you seemed more tired than usual. Ben had missed you more than he knew, he had tried to call while he was away, but you hadn't picked up. He remember thinking that was odd. You always picked up the phone or at least always called him back, but you hadn't.

“They knew I’d say no. Knew that I wouldn’t want to raise a child under Vought’s watchful eye and instead of respecting that, they-" You stop mid sentence, your body has begun to glow bright purple, not just your eyes, there's a thin film of purple radiating out from your body, tracing your outline with a heavy hand, glowing brighter than the lightning that flashes across the sky. "Stan wasn't even ashamed. He was proud of what they made. Proud of what they did to our son."

As soon as you utter the word 'son', the ground begins to shake under Ben's feet, grass shreds in the air all around him, and the storm grows worse by the second. There's a terrible cracking sound and the trees on the edge of Legend's property snap, loosing their limbs to flashes of purple energy that wash away into the darkness with the force of your power.

Ben could feel the same power trying to push him back from you, push him inside the house, but he fought it, continuing to take more steps towards you.

“After all these years he wasn’t afraid of me. He was afraid that you would show up and make him pay.” Ben can see your body shake. “Everyone was always just afraid of you. All those years I worked so hard to make sure you didn’t kill anyone and for what? So they could take advantage of me?”

Your body begins to rise off the ground, glowing brighter and brighter. Until Ben almost has to look away, his body still being forced backwards. In all his years of watching you use your powers, he's never seen you do anything remotely like this. This didn't seem like just telekinesis and Ben wondered who else had killed you over the years, if it had happened before and you just hadn't cared to tell him, or if it had happened in the years he'd been away.

"Sweetheart please." Ben tries to say again, but it's swallowed up in the howling of the wind.

"All those years I gave Vought everything. I let them dress me, tell me what to say, inject me with that shit. I was everything they wanted me to be, and they used me just like I was a fucking doll for them to play with!" Ben can hear your teeth clenching together in rage, your powers spiking again so that now there is shredded earth, grass, and trees, whirling around the two of you swirling together in a vortex that flashes with purple energy. "But no more. They're all going to pay."

"Y/n-"

You were still rising off the ground getting further and further from Ben's reach and he was scared. He'd never seen you like this before, never seen you lose control or seen you this angry. Sure he pissed you off and you'd occasionally throw a couch around the room, but this was almost insane.

Fuck I should stop pissing her off.

Ben could feel his own rage surging in his chest when he understood exactly what Vought took away from you, when he understood exactly what Vogelbaum had done. But at the same time he was ashamed that he hadn't been there for you, that he hadn't been able to protect you from them, and that he hadn't known the first time you had that fucking nightmare and woke up screaming when he was in bed beside you.

"Sweetheart!" Ben finally shouts, grabbing your hand. As soon as his skin touches yours he feels like he's stuck his finger in an electrical socket,  as if the energy from your body jumping into his is almost painful, but he doesn't let go. He couldn't lose you to this, whatever the hell this was, wouldn't allow himself to lose you again.

Your glowing purple eyes flick to his. "Are you going to tell me that I shouldn't do that?" Your voice is cold. "That my revenge isn't as important as yours?"

"No." Ben shakes his head. "It's important. It's justified. I hate that they did that to you, that I wasn't there to stop them. That I didn't understand until now."

"It's not your fault what happened to me." You shout back, eyes flashing bright purple. "This isn't about you. This isn't your fight!" The vortex swirls faster around the two of you now, blurring everything beyond. "This is about what I need to do!"

"Yes it is!" His hand tightens in yours. "It is my fight if it involves you. I love you and that's what it means. It means us working together-"

"I don't need you to protect me! I am strong enough to do this on my own. I am so sick of people underestimating me and what I can do."

"Y/n please, listen to me!" Ben pleads. He could feel you slipping away and it scared him more than anything he'd been through in his entire life. He wasn't afraid to admit that. The look on your face and the display of power was so different than the person he knew.

You watch him silently, body glowing brightly in the night, floating off the ground as you stare down at him.

"I don't want you to do this alone." Ben says. The storm was still raging, thunder shaking the ground, lightning surging all around him. "I'm asking you to let me help you. Please."

"What?"

"You say that I hide what I'm really feeling, but you do too. You still hide things away from me. You think that you have to be perfect, controlled, some version of yourself that has everything together all the time, but you don't." Ben gently tries to pull you down an inch from the sky. "You've done that since we were kids, always done what you think is expected of you. That's why you almost married that asshole, because you were afraid to just let it go. So I'm asking you to do that now, to let go of all of it, because I promise that I will be right here for through every step of it."

"But-"

"I know I made promises when you chose me, and I'm sorry I let you down, I'm sorry that I let this happen, that I wasn't able to protect you from them." Ben's voice breaks and for a moment he sees a flash of the two of you in your bedroom the night that he asked you to come with him, how young and innocent you were, how much you cared for him reflected in your eyes. "So I'm promising you this now. That I will protect you, that I won't let anything happen to you and that you never have to be alone ever again. Because I love you. So please, just let go and let me in.

The whirlwind slows around the two of you, still ripping up the ground and the grass in the backyard.

"I have to be in control." You say in almost whisper.

"Why?" Ben asks.

"Because if I'm not I don't know what will happen!" You snap. "Someone dies, or you leave again, or they come to take Rosie or Lou away and I can't-" You shake your head, the glow on your body fading for a moment. "I'm not strong enough-"

"Sweetheart, you don't have to be." Ben says, and this time he pulls you from the air so that your bare feet swish in the grass again. His hand falls under your chin to raise your face to his. "That's why I'm here. You don't have to do this alone anymore, you don't have to carry this all on your shoulders. I am here and I am not going anywhere."

"But-"

"Please. I'm asking you to give me your pain, your anger, your burdens, your sorrows. Give me all of you. It's not going to scare me away." Ben whispers, taking your face between his hands. "I know that in the past I haven't been as dependable, but nothing is going to scare me away. I love all of you, even the pieces of yourself you keep from me, that you think you have to, to keep me here with you."

Fuck I sound like a pussy, but it's true. She's all I have and all I've ever wanted. And why shouldn't I say this to her? It's what she says to me. It's what she tells me and I believe her. I believe her when she says that I can rely on her, that I don't have to be strong all the time, that I can break.

He searches your face, brushes his thumbs across your rain soaked cheeks. I just want her to know that she can too and trust that I'll be here for her.

The vortex stops, the pieces of earth, trees, and grass falling to earth, the purple fading from your eyes as they do. You're no longer glowing, no longer a beacon in the night, you're just you, the woman that Ben loves more than life itself, and the woman that he thought he would never have ever again.

"I love you too." You whisper leaning into him, wrapping your arms around the back of his neck to lean your forehead against his.

He can feel the curves of your body against him, your wet clothes sticking like a second skin, hair stuck to your head, but you're just as beautiful as you always have been. And Ben understands that this time, he's not going anywhere, that he's going to stay with you for the rest of his life, and nothing can keep him away.

Reader POV

"Mindstorm told me." Ben says dragging his hand up your arm. You were laying on his chest in the bedroom, hair still wet, but now wearing dry clothes.

The residual thrum from your use of power was still charging through your cells, but lessened. Honestly you didn't remember going outside, didn’t remember standing in the storm, didn't know how long you were out there before Ben came out.

You were glad he did. You weren't in your right mind when you were out there, and if he hadn't come out you were sure that you were going to charge Vought yourself, tear it down and send it to hell where it belonged. You still wanted to, but you wanted Ben to do it with you. He was right, you didn't have to do it alone, and you didn't want to.

You nestled further into him, remembering what he shouted outside, remember how he held your face with the storm raging around him. He looked so afraid. You had only seen him look scared a handful of times in your life, but out there in the storm was different. It shocked you back into reality, brought you back from the pit, made you feel like you again for the first time in days.

And what he said hauled you further out of the darkness. You had said it to him countless times since he came back, that he didn't have to hide away what he was feeling from you, but for him to say it to you meant that he was listening. To you, Ben saying that made all of this more real, that he really wanted every part of you, that he loved you as much as he said.

The storm still raged outside, thunder occasionally shaking the windows, and lightning flashing behind the closed curtains, but you stayed curled up against Ben. Your head was tucked under his chin, arm wrapped over his bare chest. He hadn't put a shirt back on after the two of you changed, but you weren't complaining about that, there wasn't anything to complain about when it came to that. He was just so wonderfully warm, that you didn’t think you would get used to it. You also hoped that you didn't turn radioactive because of him, but you being here with him, laying on his warm chest made it worth it.

"Did he know about what Vogelbaum did?" You whisper.

Ben's muscles tense beneath your body when you ask that question. You knew that it hurt him, that it made him feel like he'd failed to protect you, but you didn't blame him for that. Even if he had been around, you knew that Vogelbaum would have figured out a way to do it, to get around him. And you didn't like it when Ben felt like he failed, it made you think about all the terrible things that his father used to yell at him when he was a kid. Ben had told you bits and pieces, over the years, and it was enough to make you want to travel back in time and kill his father yourself.

Honestly, you thought about killing him all the time when you weren't a supe as well.

"No. He didn't know that. All he knew was that Homelander was our son." When Ben says the word son he hesitates as if it's difficult for him.

It was also difficult for you, understanding that you had another kid and one that you didn't have anything to do with for forty years was hard. You suddenly understood how Ben felt about Rosemary.

"I should have known." You mutter into his chest.

"What do you mean?"

You sigh loudly. "At the premiere, Vogelbaum was pushing for me to come to the lab, said he was working on raising the "next generation of heroes" or whatever. And then Stan tried to come by and get me to do the same thing after you died, but I broke his nose."

"I remember." Ben mutters.

"What do you mean you remember?" You sit up to stare at him.

Ben raises an eyebrow. "I might have been there with Countess, but do you really think I wasn't listening to everything that was happening around you? He was dancing with you, I was making sure that everything was okay." Ben clears his throat awkwardly. "I mean I know that there was a lot happening that night, but I still wanted to make sure that you were okay."

"I wasn't."

"Yeah I-um- I know." His eyes flick away in shame.

"Ben?"

"Yeah?" He murmurs.

You gently turn his face back to look at you, fingertips under his chin. His green eyes are downcast, brows furrowed, lips pulled down into a frown. You knew how much he was still beating himself up for everything that happened in the past, and it was difficult for you to pretend that you didn't still feel the sting. But you knew he wasn't going to do it again, you believed that.

"It's okay. We're starting over. Just you and me." You brush your thumb over his bearded cheek. "No one else. This time what we're doing, it's different, it all feels different. Don't you think so? I mean I still love you just as much as I always have, but I-" You could feel yourself blush just a little, you weren't sure if Ben could feel that too.

"I know. It does." Ben whispers gazing at you. His fingers push back the strands of your hair that have fallen forward into your face. The way he's looking at you is the same way he did the morning you woke up on his chest after you slept together for the firs time. "I love you too Sweetheart." His lips find yours, gently pulling you up further on his chest so he can kiss you deeply, show you how much you mean to him, and you can’t help but smile into his mouth, feeling warm and happy for the first time in ages. His love dragging you out of the darkness that loomed over you and consumed your heart when Stan told you the truth about Homelander's heritage. 

You sit up, folding your legs beneath you, pulling Ben's right hand into your lap, gently tracing the lines with a finger tip, noting the rough callouses that he'd developed over the years. You weren't really sure what to say next.

Ben sits up so that he's leaning towards you. "Are you feeling better?"

"A little." You continue to trace the lines. His hands were so much bigger than yours, everything about Ben was big, but you liked his hands, mostly because how small yours were when you held his. "I think destroying Legend's backyard was just the right amount of therapy."

"That was a little much, but I'm glad you're feeling better. I was-" Ben swallows. "I was really worried about you."

"I know." You whisper. "It's never been that bad before. The last time I got close was-" You stop mid-sentence.

"Forty years ago?" Ben asks quietly.

You nod.

"I figured." Ben scoots closer towards you so that his thigh is brushing against yours. "I'm-"

"No." You squeeze his cheeks, eyes narrowing. "No more saying sorry. Not again."

"Okay." Ben's gaze is still apologetic. He waits for a minute, watching you in the silence. "What are we going to do about Homelander?"

"I don't know."

It was the truth, you had no idea what to do with your supposed son. You had seen the coldness in his eyes, heard about the horrible things that he was doing to other people, the horrible things he had threatened to do, and you'd seen the way he didn’t seem to care about human life.

Then again maybe I can't judge him, not after what I did to Stan. You think, your frown deepening. Stan deserved what I did to him and my only wish is that Vogelbaum somehow survived getting his head fucking blown off so I can make him pay.

"Do you think we should try to talk to him?" Ben asks.

"I don't think that's possible."

"Why not? He's our son, somewhere deep down he's got to be willing to do that." Ben's voice rumbles up through his chest. "Maybe they brainwashed him into the person we saw at Herogasm, maybe he's just being controlled and told what to do just like we were."

"I don't think that’s possible."

"Why not?" There's an urgency in his eyes that is unfamiliar to you, almost as if he's pleading for you to understand.

But why? Yes he's our son by blood but we don't know anything about him. We haven’t been in his life for forty years, we don't have any connections to him.

"You saw how he was at Herogasm. How he was almost happy to kill Butcher, how he was happy when he tried to kill you and me. I don't know what kind of person is okay with that. I mean you and I have killed people and we feel remorse after, or there's some kind of justification, but there was something in his eyes, it's almost not human. It's predatory, it's-" You shake your head trying to comprehend it. "I don't know what the fuck Vogelbaum did to him, but there's something inside Homelander that's not able to be saved."

"You don't know that."

"Ben, do you think that I want to believe that? To believe that our son is not a good person?" You drop his hand from your lap. "It's taking everything I am not to go to him, not to try and work this out. I keep trying to tell myself that maybe all he needs is family, but I don't know."

"My old man said that blood mattered. That it was the only thing that defined family-"

"Now you want to listen to your dad?" You sigh looking at Ben who is frowning at you. "We both know that he's not exactly the best role model."

"Well neither am I okay?" Ben snaps, his eyes flashing. "Maybe he just needed someone and there was no one there. I mean I wasn't there for Rosemary, but she had you and she turned out fine!"

"That's not your fault Ben. It's not your fault that you weren't there. You can't forget that they sent you to Russia to replace you with him."

"I'm not forgetting I'm just saying that they did the same fucking thing to me!"

Your next thought fizzes to a stop in your brain. What is he talking about?

"What are you talking about?" You try to reach for him, but he pulls back from your touch.

"They force fed him all that shit about what it was to be an American, they made him a supe, they brainwashed him with all my old fucking films." He spits. "But in the lab when we got the serum the first time, they did the same thing to me. They told me that I was going to be a god, that I was going to be the symbol that America needed to get through the war, that I was everything that would save America from destruction."

"Ben." You say again, this time taking his hands and he doesn't pull away. "Ben listen to me. You were older when you became a supe, we both were. You knew what reality was, you knew what the world was like when the scientists started spouting all their crap. You were old enough to understand. Homelander was raised in a lab, he didn't have a family, he didn't have friends. He was told that he was a god every day and he's not. He was raised to believe that he was something more than human, something unbeatable."

"But-"

"They told me that too." You push his hair back out of his eyes, trailing your fingers against his forehead. "That I was a god, that everyone would want me, would look at me and understand that I was beyond human. And at the beginning maybe I believed it for a few years, but that doesn't make him anything like you or like me. He's twisted, his mind is gone, any semblance of humanity he had has been warped away into something dark. He never had any light to begin with."

"You don't know that."

"I do. I can see it in his eyes. I saw it when I fought him at the Herogasm. There's nothing left to save. He's done terrible things."

"I have too." Ben mutters.

"No. You lost control, we all do. It's unrealistic to think that it won't happen, especially not for people like us who have lived this long, but him? He did those things of his own volition, because he believed that he should or maybe it was because he believed that no one could stop him." You cup his cheek, pulling his face forward into the space between the two of you. "The things you've done you feel remorse for. I was there for you every time you messed up. I saw what it did to you, saw how broken you were when you hurt someone."

"Because I'm a hero." Ben sighs. 

"Messing up once or twice does not make you less of a hero Ben, it makes you human." You lean your forehead against his, cupping his cheeks with your palms, feeling the way his beard tickles against your skin. "But Homelander, I don't think that there's anything human left."

Ben's hand comes up to hold on to your left wrist. "Then what do we do?"

"I don't know." You sigh. "I wish I did. If you really want to try to talk to him, we can, but I don't think that it's a good idea."

"He's still our son."

"He's our blood, but I don't think that makes him our son." You murmur.

You really didn't know how to deal with any of this. You wanted to believe that there was some semblance of humanity left in Homelander, but you didn't think that there was. You hated that Ben believed that he was like his son. Maybe that was some weird misogynist thing and Ben kept thinking like father like son in his head, but there wasn't any way that Homelander could be anything like Ben. Ben wasn't around for him, wasn't in his life, but maybe.

Ben pulls you back down on his chest once more, and you nestle into him once more, your head directly over his heart, the warmth of his skin comforting against your cheek.

"I think Noir knew." You breathe, tracing your hand over Ben's right pec.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Stan kinda hinted that he did, said that Noir was obsessed with me after I saved his life-"

"When did you save his- oh." Ben sighs.

"I think I should have seen that coming, given how much he kept showing up to my sparring sessions, the interviews, even some of the commercial shoots I had he seemed to always be around." You frown with a sigh. "I can't believe that I didn't know he was stalking me."

"What?"

"Stan said he kept breaking in to my apartment when I wasn't there, that he stole my necklace, you know? The one my dad got me for my birthday-"

Ben sits back so he can look you in the eye. "You're shitting me right?"

"No. That's what Stan said." You shrug. "Might have been just Stan trying to take some of the heat off, but that's what he said."

"That piece of shit." Ben almost growls. You can see the flash of jealousy and possession in his eyes that makes your heart thud a little faster in your chest. He clears his throat. "You-um- you never liked him right?"

"What?"

"The two of you were never that close?"

"Why are you asking me that?"

"Well you did save his life."

"Ben I've saved plenty of people from your temper. But no, I never liked him that way. Irving was sweet, but he was always so eager to prove himself to Stan it was just sad."

"Good."

"Why?" You sit up further, smirking at him. "Does that make you jealous? For you to think that Noir and I were together?"

Ben's eyes darken. "Watch it Sweetheart."

"Watch what?" You bat your eyes innocently. "I'm just asking a simple question."

"You keep poking the bear and you're not gonna like what happens."

"Poking the bear?" You snort sitting up and poke him in the ribs. "Are you the bear in that scenario?" You poke him again with a wicked smirk.

"Yes."

"Hmm. Well I think you're all talk. Because I have definitely poked you several-"

You're on your back in a second with Ben hovering over you, his green eyes shining as he flashes a roughish grin at you. One of his hands is pressed into the pillow next to your head, the other is at your waist, slipping beneath your t-shirt to rub circles over your hip bone with his thumb. "You were saying?" His voice is the low rumble that makes it hard for you to think.

You clear your throat. "I was saying that," You thread your hands behind the back of his head, working your fingers into his hair. "You have nothing to be jealous about."

"Really?"

"Mhhmm." You smile sheepishly. "Because it's always been you. No one else. Not Howard, Not Noir, just you." His hair is soft between your fingertips, his gaze unbreakable.

Ben returns your smile and collapses on top of you. You gasp out a breath, in a loud 'oof' sound as he does. His arms go around your waist and he buries his head in your chest breathing deeply. "I like it when you say that." He murmurs, turning his head so he can look up at you from your chest, with a smile that catches you in your heart.

"I know." You continue to scratch your fingertips through his hair.

"Sweetheart?"

"Yeah?" You breathe as you close your eyes, comforted by the weight of his body on top of yours. It was familiar, almost like he was a weighted blanket that took all your anxiety away. You felt safe with his arms wrapped around your waist, as if no one could touch you. You needed that now, needed that after you learned that without Ben someone had taken you from your home.

"I know that I can't say that there hasn't been anyone else." He whispers. "But you're the only one who mattered. You're the only woman that I've ever loved, and I swear that as long as I live I'll never love anyone else. You are all I've ever wanted and everything I thought I'd never have."

"You have me Ben." You whisper, beginning to fall asleep. "You always have, you always will."

And with those words you drift into the first fulfilling sleep you'd had in days, wrapped in the warm cocoon of Ben's love, allowing it to send you under into oblivion.

A/N: I know this one was mostly fluff and talking, but I thought that the reader deserved that after everything with Stan, and also after she well -you know- made a tornado in Legend's backyard. We're going to pretend that no one else heard it. 😂

As always thank you so much for reading! If you'd like to be added to my taglist please let me know :)

And if you'd like to read something a little more bantery then try my series: Take A Chance On Me

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[bradshawed]

Rafe cameron request!! So i was thinking about criminal minds evolution right and the entire Voit storyline currently in season 18 so hear me out now, reader works for the BAU and Rafe cameron is their biggest target rn and he experiences amnesia like voit & reader has to keep interviewing him and they fall for each other along the way??? (idk if this sounds good but i just saw the last episode of penelope falling asleep in his room and it made me think of this😭)

hi pretty, thank u so much for requesting!!!!! i haven't seen criminal minds: evolution 🫣 butttt i did speed read through voit's cm wiki page so please ignore any inaccuracies. i also made a few changes to the request since i'm not a fan of falling for a criminal considering what voit's character did esp to rossi, so i hope this is alright xx

warnings — fem!reader, use of y/n, pet names, 18+, swearing, criminal minds themes, reader x luke alvez undertones, mentions of abduction, torture and murder, references to psychopaths, and some inaccuracies

masterlist, sleeping beauty

...

"You're joking. What the-" Luke pulled you into a vacant room, closing the door behind you. "Luke, come on, a fucking coma?" The brunette didn't say a word, lips tight as his eyes followed you as you proceeded to curse up a storm under your breath, burning a hole in the floor.

"Y/N. Y/N! Cariño!" You paused, glancing up at his pretty eyes to ground you. "How did this happen?"

Luke gestured for you to sit down, handing you a coffee you hadn't realised he'd been holding, "Cameron was jumped by two inmates in the laundry room. He's currently in a coma in a room down the hall. The MRI shows brain scarring from the traumatic brain injury." You clenched your fists, "and the other two inmates?" Luke sighed, "in the morgue, he stabbed them in self-defence".

You closed your eyes listening to Luke explain that there will be guards posted around the clock, with a sensor under his wrist to alert them if and when he comes around. "The lucky son of a bitch."

...

Months later and Sleeping Beauty was awake but there was a slight hiccup. Retrograde amnesia. That [insert colourful language here] couldn't remember a single fucking thing. He couldn't recognise his own name or pictures of his sister or Rossi, thinking the latter was his father which would've been funny if it wasn't for the circumstances.

So here you were sitting across from the man who had abducted two of your colleagues, not to mention the countless others he abducted, tortured and killed, and it was your job to try and recover his memories (and your case against him) without waking up the sleeping killer inside. Lucky you.

...

"You planning on staring me down like that the whole time sweetheart?" You tried to suppress the urge to shiver, "Sorry princess, forgot only your boyfriend was allowed to call you that." Your stare hardened at the mention of Luke, with visible disgust at his new pet name of choice.

"So, Rafe..." You pulled out a photograph of a fire at a family home that resembled a mansion, placing it in front of him. The blonde reached out, his handcuffs clinking against the metal table as he traced the image with a fondness you hadn't seen before. "Can you tell me what happened here?"

"You know I can't."

"Try."

Rafe pushed the photo away, his patience wavering. You pushed it back. "Stop! Just- just stop. I've already told you, I don't remember." Maybe this anger is what you needed, "you could if you tried hard enough but you've never tried for a day in your life, raised on a silver platter, no need to prove anything to anyone so you grew up weak and-" Rafe slammed his fists into the table, the sound echoing through the interrogation room, but you didn't flinch.

"You're trying to piss me off, to bait me into revealing something I can't remember. It's not working and it won't work. Give up agent." His voice was like ice, cold, calm and calculated. You stood up calmly leaving the room with a smirk on your face. He might not remember anything but he was in there and you weren't about to give up.

[retromotherfuckers]

Violet Eyes, Red

Pairing:

rhysand x reader (pretty sure it's gender neutral - there might be a "she" i missed while referring to you from the original draft bc second person pov is not how i write)

Summary:

you and your mate reunite after feyre defeats amarantha and this is the fallout of what the bitch did to him.

Warnings:

aftermath of SA - i can't really tell if it's graphic which tells me it is, loose description of a panic attack, PTSD, please let me know if I missed anything. guys, please, if these topics are triggering for you, don't read this fic. i am not responsible for your media consumption, but i also don't want to throw you headfirst into your trauma.

Word Count:

2,140

A/N:

literally broke my own damn heart with this one. rhys' trauma is so ignored and that needed to be rectified. rhys might be my second favorite bat boy, but he's still a lil baby who needs to be protected

dividers by @strangergraphics

The human girl had beaten her - the woman of his nightmares - once and for all. At the first moment he could, Rhysand winnowed. After fifty years, he knew there was only one place he could go. After all, it was the last Sunday of the month, and that Sunday was the day he and his mate reserved just for themselves. The High Lord and Lady would not conduct any business on that day.

You'd spend most of your day on the balcony. You'd serenade him with the piano. You'd fly around Velaris - creating patterns in the air. You'd cradle each other in your arms. He'd sketch out a new drawing - trying and failing, in his opinion, to encapsulate your true beauty.

One day, he broke that promise, that vow you had made, and went to what he thought was a simple trade meeting. That morning was the last day he saw you, and he still couldn't live with himself.

Those memories alone kept him breathing at times. When Amarantha stole his bed, his body, his hope.

Then the human girl showed up, and he tried to help her. Wanted to give her what she needed to beat the beast he didn't think he'd ever escape. But he had lost the will to pray for it. To the cauldron, to the Mother Above. Despite his pessimism, she persevered. The girl had won. And then he was free.

He was on the balcony before he could even think about it. After a quick glance around, he realized it was empty. At first, he felt a pulse of disappointment, but with the realization of how long it'd been, he breathed deeply. How could he expect you to keep up the tradition? Fifty years of solitude on those Sundays would have made him mad if your roles were reversed.

At the thought, he allowed himself to feel the mating bond. It had gone cold the moment he winnowed away all those years ago, but now it was as beautiful as he remembered. The pull of another person at the end of a tether, forever binding them in the purest forms of fate.

But he heard your thoughts, and he almost broke down in sobs at the sound of your voice in his head. Please come home, my love. I don't know how to do this anymore. Please. The last word, you were begging. Your inner voice, the one he had to get used to living without, was broken. Pleading for him to return - despite everything you'd probably heard.

And with that, he took action, winnowing to every room in the house so he would find you as soon as possible. He knew you were close; your scent wasn't stale. It was fresh, clinging to every piece of furniture you owned together.

It was the last room he checked, his office, where he found you. You sat in his desk chair; the leather more worn than he remembered. But the sight of you stopped him from rushing to you. Nursing a bottle of wine, you slouched on your elbows, hands in your hair, as more thoughts streamed through the bond.

I'm losing myself, Rhys. I don't know how much more of this I can take. I can't let myself believe you won't come back because that- that will ruin me. What she's doing to you, what she's making you do. I don't even know a fraction of it, but I can't stop it. I- I can't protect you. And I hate myself for it. 

He was watching you as you sent the words down the bond, the bond that had been desolate for half a century. You run your hands down your face, not looking up from your wine, the third of many you planned to drown in.

Just get through it. Please just- just survive. Do what you have to do to come home. I'll be here. I love you. My mate.

You'd only allowed yourself to talk to him once a month. Initially, you would try to send him something every day. Thoughts, images, songs you'd learned, prayers for him. You never heard anything back, and it slowly started eating away at you. It shattered your hope every time you didn't get a response.

You'd heard the rumors, Amarantha's whore, he'd been called. Every time you heard it, it ate away at you more and more. As if he would choose that - choose to warm the bed of another when you were waiting for him at home. You knew him better than that, and you winced at the thought. He wouldn't choose it, but would she force him? Was she that much of a monster? 

You had to shake that thought away for the thousandth time that night, downing the rest of the glass. As you reach for the bottle, nearly empty at that point, a hand wraps around your wrist. The touch is gentle but firm - stopping you from drinking more, but not rough enough to hurt. Instead of startling at it, the wine slows your instincts. You can only stare. The tattoos on the dorsal side interweave into vines under the sleeve. Vines you know, vines that you've held, vines that have and will continue to have free rein of your body.

Faster than you thought you were capable of, your eyes flew to its owner's eyes. Violet. The most ravishing violet. Violet you'd feared you were forgetting.

With a new urgency, you pulled yourself to your feet, your hands flying up to his face without thinking. One on his cheek, the other on his neck, pushing, pulling, grabbing, unsure if it was your mind playing tricks on you.

In your desperate touch, you missed the way he flinched.

His hands. Mother Above, his beautiful hands were on your neck too, placed at the sides. When your mind would play you for a fool, it would never let you touch him, let alone allow him to reach you. But there he was, and you could feel him. You tugged at the bond, finally noticing it was warm and delicate and sweet and serene and everything you wished you knew how to describe. 

He breathed your name, barely a whisper. "I'm home, my darling. I'm home."

"You're here." The words barely escaped you, and you couldn't stop the tears. He didn't hesitate a moment, pulling you in for a frustratingly rare and fierce embrace. You clung to each other for dear life, tighter and tighter and tighter, like he'd disappear if you let him go. Frankly, you weren't convinced he wouldn't. "You're really here."

You stood like that for a while, holding each other, when he ultimately pulled away first. "Rh-Rhys, don't go-"

"I'm not," he promised, his voice raw, kissing your forehead. He took in every inch of your face. "I just wanted to look at you. My mate."

Since Rhys had been freed by the human girl, nothing had been normal. Not that you expected it to be, but you didn't anticipate just how awful a recovery for him would be. He couldn't share your bed, and you didn't mean that in a sexual manner. He couldn't sleep with anyone else in his room - if he had even been sleeping at all. He could barely stand to be touched. You knew he wanted to be able to let you, but every time you seemed to blink, he would flinch.

You had suspicions about what went on under the mountain, but you had no idea it would be so evil.

He stood before a cabinet, staring blankly into it, lost in a memory - a memory he'd been refusing to share. You understood why, but something in you told you that you needed to see. Not just for curiosity's sake but to know how to help him. Even if it was past your pay grade.

"Rhys," You called quietly for the second time. You didn't want to touch him, shock him back to reality. The fear of that setting him off more held you back. With a harsh and sudden breath, he fearfully glanced at you and around the room, forgetting where he was for a moment. "You're at home, Rhys. You came home."

"I'm sorry," He rasped, ignoring your words. His hands pulled at his hair, and you were nervous he'd start ripping it out. He backed away from you, so far away he was caught by the wall. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Your own formed at the sight of his tears, but you couldn't conjure up what he'd have to apologize for. "It's okay, honey, you're safe. It's okay."

"I didn't- I didn't want it. I swear on my life, I didn't want to."

You shook your head, not understanding. But you knew asking what he was apologizing for was the wrong thing to do. You could see it, the shame, the regret, the blame. "I know you didn't."

He squeezed his eyes shut, buried his face in his hands, and sank to the floor. He kept murmuring apologies, pleading for your forgiveness. "I betrayed you, you have to- you have to leave me."

His words shocked you, and now you were the one that flinched. "Rhysand, look at me." He visibly shrunk at the command, pulling his hands away from his face. "As far as I'm concerned, anything that happened...there...is the furthest thing from your fault. I know there are things you can't tell me, and that's okay. I'll be here when you're ready-"

"I can't!" He bellowed. "You'll never forgive-"

"Show me the memory." You demanded, your voice quiet but assertive. But you wouldn't push too hard if he was adamant about keeping you out. You knew. You knew. Based on the way he had been acting, what had happened. But you also knew he needed to show you. So someone, fucking someone, would tell him it was out of his control. He couldn't govern everything, even if he was the High Lord of the Night Court. The words hurt as they left your lips. "Because I can promise you that I will."

You weren't a daemati, but you could see him battling with himself. Debating, if showing you what really happened, would bury him deeper under the surface or pull him back up for air.

Eventually, he released a rare sob and a barely audible "Okay."

He showed you the first time, how he just laid there like a statue as her hands took everything for herself. Then, the fifth time, when she started demanding he respond, pretend he wanted it. Then, the eleventh time, when his body started reacting. Then, by the next time, he had stopped keeping count.

He showed you, whether he meant to or not, how he prayed for it to end, prayed for someone to rescue him.

How he had been praying for you.

With the confirmation of your theory, you squeezed your eyes shut, trying and failing to hold back the tears. The angry tears, wishing you could've been the one to rip her throat out. Tears that enraged you because that was not Tamlin's kill. Furious tears because that wasn't even your kill. Devastating tears because your mate not only had to play a character for so long, but he had to endure being called her whore. Like he had any fucking say. 

Overwhelming tears because your mate was in pain and there was shit all you could do about it.

"Can I touch you?" The question shocks him, but he nods without thinking, confused at the request. You slowly lift your hands to his cheeks, brushing away his tears with your thumbs. "There is nothing for me to forgive you for. I know you didn't want to do any of it."

"But I-"

"Bodies respond to stimulation whether it's wanted or not. It's how we work." You explained slowly and carefully, keeping direct eye contact. "You forget, sweetheart. I can hear your thoughts when you show me a memory."

"I've-" His voice caught, putting his hands on your wrists, rubbing them up and down your arms until they got hot. "I've been so scared. That it's still happening. That all of this is going to go away, that she's not really gone, that I'm not really here, and this is just another tactic-"

You shake your head, finally pulling yourself together to say what you've wanted to say for weeks. "I swear on my life that I will never let anyone hurt you like that again. I will spend eternity protecting you from her and anyone like her. And if you forget that this is real, just ask me. I'll tell you."

His eyes darted between yours, furiously blinking. Violet eyes, red. Pleading craving begging praying.

"Is it?"

[ringmaster-pixie]

pixie’s oc sheet! (Ooc post)

(Childhood pixie and normal pixie)

Ringmaster Pixie’s

Character bio

Name: Pixie [REDACTED]

Age: 13- but im mature!.. enough!!

Birthday: 1/24

Quote: “Im practically an adult. And I bet I make more money than you anyways so ZIP IT! Anyways time to go sing wicked! HUUAAHAAOAOA-🎶”

Job: PFC’s ringmaster, [REDACTED]

VC: Spinel (or me)

Theme Song: My ordinary life / Fine

Note: Her vision is… odd. (Ever played regretevator? The static mode on the spectator view is how she sees the world!)

Species: Human? Why is this even a question :p

Scent: popcorn and chocolate. Also somehow she smells like pure joy? Don’t question it.

Catchphrase: “Okily-Dokily!” or “HOWDY!”

Nicknames: Pix, pixie dustie, beaver, pixie dustie justin beaver, circus lady

Pinterest board: click me!! :3

[REDACTED]: Gina Dystru Morley (deceased)

Father: Archibald “Archie” Morley (deceased)

Little Brother: Joseph “Joey” Morley (deceased)

[RELATIONSHIP SECTION BEING REWORKED]

From a young age, pixie was always… different. She had a wild imagination, much like any other child, but to her, imagination was reality. She believed this made up world in her head was true, and that she was ▉t▉▉d. 

Behavior like this OBVIOUSLY concerned her parents, so they hired a therapist. He prescribed an orange drink of medicine, which would get rid of her hallucinations and daydreams. But she wouldn’t let that happen. 

While Pixie was dealing with being forced to take the medication, her mom was seeing the therapist too… but in a different way. She had already hated the both of them enough, but this had done it. She told her dad, who didn’t know how to react. But her mom knew how. She filed for divorce against him, and won custody over Pixie and her little brother. The one adult pixie trusted, gone. 

Every day, despite the medicine, her visions and beliefs grew stronger. Her mother was enraged. She made sure Pixie would know what to truly believe in, one way or another. This wasn’t fair. She wouldn’t drink the medicine, she wouldn’t live without her dad, she wouldn’t believe what she was told, and she wouldn’t do this anymore. She couldn’t. 

Something had changed within her. She felt different. Possessed by anger. Something was not the same. And it never would be again. (Please get the reference)

In a fit of rage, she ▉▉▉ the glass medicine jar on ▉▉▉▉s h▉d, knocking her unconscious. Then she m▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉e same way she did. Broken. But right as she was done, she was caught red-han▉▉▉▉▉▉▉oy in red. There cou▉▉▉▉▉▉nesses. Nor ▉▉▉ of her ▉▉. And no o▉▉▉▉▉d either bod▉ she made sure of it. 

Her the▉▉▉ was next. She sho▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉hroat by th▉▉▉le, around 42. By the e▉▉▉▉o no one’s avail, he didn’t ma▉▉▉▉▉▉▉t he got for taking away her ▉. 

▉▉▉▉▉. Why didn’t he ▉▉? Why di▉▉▉▉ry harder? Why w▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉ixie’s memory? And even if he’s done no▉▉▉▉▉▉e deserves to be put out ▉▉▉▉isery. Or so she th▉ght. But finally. It w▉▉▉▉▉stice. 

As she wa▉p▉▉▉▉▉ody in a field behind her ▉▉▉, she jump▉▉▉▉▉▉nd of a ▉▉ barkin▉▉▉▉▉iliar voice telling▉▉▉er best friend.

She coul▉▉▉▉▉uldn’t! Sh▉ shouldn’t… 

But she had to.

▉▉▉one. Her whole li▉▉▉▉▉der, and now miles away. After she took ca▉▉▉▉ so-called ”▉▉▉”, she ra▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉r and further an▉▉▉er into the woods. Setti▉▉▉▉▉▉blaze, with fire ma▉▉▉▉▉ure rage. They m▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉nothing, so sh▉▉de them becom▉▉▉▉. The smoke ▉▉▉▉▉▉▉p to her, but i▉▉sn’t long befor▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉p▉▉andoned c▉us. 

A circus she’d claim as her own.

It was right out of her imagination. It was perfect. It’s almost like her dreams were coming true.

OOC: Thank you for reading! Her lore will be made into games soon once I get a computer!… and learn how to code. I already have the basic ideas down and I kinda know how to code so it won’t be THAT hard… right? Haha. Ha. Anyways I hope you enjoy!! If you have any questions feel free to ask me and let me know! My main blog is @p1x13p1x13p1x13

fun fact! Most things have double/deeper meanings ;]

also there’s a hidden message woah

updated 1/17/25

MORE CHARACTERS INFO:

NON-RELATED OCS/OTHER IMPORTANT STUFF:

[acanth3]

The Sound Of The Stars English Translation

EPISODE 3/8

Mika: Fuuu…what a relief the landlord arrived and Oshi-san regained his sanity ♪ 

Shu: How rude, I didn’t lose my mind.

However, it is true I caused problems for the owner of the flat, it wasn’t like me and I apologised for causing a fuss.

I was too absorbed in reading and now that you’ve interrupted me I can reflect on my actions.

Mika: The book that Oshi-san is readin’ looks creepy, whatcha doin’?

Shu: Didn’t I tell you before? I won't explain it twice to someone not listening.

Mika: Well, as I said earlier, why are you studyin’ about the universe?

Shu: I’m working on a piece related to space as its theme.

I’ve worked on many different art categories but I’m not as familiar with astronomy. 

I’m studying all types of literature from ancient times to modern history, all about the universe, its creation, the Earth, extraterrestrial beings, all as reference.

Mika: I see… that explains the books about aliens……

Wait, huh~!?

Shu: Non! Don’t raise your voice so suddenly while I haven’t had any sleep it’s uncomfortable! It’s echoing through my head.

Mika: I forgot why I even came here in the first place

I’m here to question you Oshi-san, why’d you send me to space travel without askin’ me?

Shu: W-what? Why are you so angry Kagehira?

Mika: Of course I can get angry! It’s not like in the past where I was a miserable doll!

Oshi-san never learns, does he? I’ve told you before Oshi-san, don’t do to others what you don’t like!

When I say I would do anythin’ for Oshi-san, there are obviously limits as to what I’d do!

If you were asked to go to space without bein’ told before, even Oshi-san wouldn’t agree with it, would you?

Shu: Ugh…that’s true, however…

This was a gift for Kagehira, and I wanted to do it secretly

Mika: Present…..?

Shu: Do you remember that movie we saw? 

Mika: Of course, it was hosted by your grandfather

Shu: My grandfather loved that performance very much, didn’t he? 

As an addition for the winning prize there was a choice if we wanted something else. 

Mika: Wow~ Even though your inheritance is already a large amount and considered as a reward, your grandfather is generous too, isn’t he?

Shu: That’s why it’s also important to my grandfather. 

After figuring out the truth surrounding my grandfather, I stored those memories away.

I figure my grandfather was more pleased with what we did than I thought. 

Mika: So that’s why it was an additional reward, and you chose the story about me going to space?

Shu: That’s why I asked my grandfather and no one else, right?

If this is considered an additional reward, I’ll have no idea what to do when I get my grandfather’s inheritance.

So that’s why I told my grandfather I wanted to use the reward to make Kagehira happy. 

Mika: …Yeah? No, wait, why did you choose space travel as a gift?

When I never asked for somethin’ like that?

Shu: You don't have to be so shy, Kagehira. I remember how you used to talk in your sleep.

Mika: What~...I dont remember that at all!,

…..Oh! You remembered what I said durin’ the festival?

It’s true that I told Oshi-san “I want to be star~” but…

Shu: How could I forget? I don’t make empty mistakes

That was during the festival when ‘Fine’ defeated us and we lost everything then failed. 

Mika: …..?

Shu: No way, you really can’t remember!? That night you told me the dream you wished for in the future while watching the night sky, yes?

Mika: Nope, can’t remember it.

But it’s true my childhood dream was to go to space, it’s not strange the word might have gotten around…

Shu: Oh, is that right? Well, even now that dream hasn’t changed.

Mika: Um well…now my dream is to be an artist who can stand side by side together with Oshi-san. 

Until now, I forgot all about my dream of goin’ to space. 

Shu: N-no way..!?

So, what you're saying is I initiated too quickly without even thinking!?

For Kagehira’s dream, all my effort I worked hard on has been in vain…..?

Because my grandfather’s money wasn’t enough for travelling into space, I thought of all other types of plans to fund money…

Mika: Nghh, dont look so sad, Oshi-san! I’m happy you thought of me and got a present ready

When I was little, sure I had a dream to go to space, but now…

Shu: I don’t need your comfort! It’ll only bring out more of my salvation and misery .

Now, I’m the stupid man! As if I’m on a solo comedy stage!

Mika: Noo~! Don’t be so discouraged Oshi-san!

Ah, it’s noisy again, the landlord is back!?

Shu: “I’m sorry for creating noise again.”

Nagisa: …..Bonjour. Valkyrie’s so innocent, it makes me smile like a baby ♪ 

Jun: I heard loud voices outside, I thought it was a rave~?

Mika: Huh, Ran-senpai and Jun-kun?

[1moreff-creator]

hii!! so idk if you saw, but i recently posted a theory abt how xander and eden were survivors from a previous killing game.

you’re super cool and smart so i was wondering what you thought of it lol

(this sounds like free promo for my theory but i promise it isn’t)

(i just want opinions on it bc i can’t tell if i did a good job or not)

Hey there! Yeah, I saw it, and I think it’s a pretty good theory! I enjoyed reading it, your writing style is fun. Below are my full thoughts on it. For anyone else, please read the original first, this is going to be incomprehensible otherwise.

Also don’t worry about looking like you’re “promoting” your theory. It’s Tumblr, no one gains anything here, we all just lose. What would you even use the promotion for lol.

Also also you people have gotta stop giving me so many compliments it’s feeding my god complex /j

CW: Violence and blood, death, Danganronpa V3 Spoilers

[Background]

Admittedly, I don’t know how literally connected V3 is supposed to be to this whole situation, given the difference in the settings and the like. Especially since Teruko’s only mentioned remembering “that other killing game”, implying she doesn’t know about the 50 others despite vaguely knowing about the THH one. However, it is perfectly valid to bring up V3 as a meta point (which I think is what you’re doing?); the idea exists, so DRDTdev could have certainly taken it for DRDT. In any case, it sure is an interesting premise!

[The Survivors]

[Xander Matthews]

“[Post]: he has the personality for self-sacrifice.” True!

[For the sake of clarity, I refer to this scene as “the pre-prologue scene”, given that we see it before the Prologue title card appears]

““Them” could be the other people in the killing game. [...]

And, most of all, he says that he has to end the killing game. How the hell would he end a killing game without having been in one? (don’t answer that)”

I mean, solid reasoning! The idea that Xander was actively in a killing game while this scene happened has been thrown around, such as in my “original killing game” theory that we don’t talk about ‘cuz it was insane, because it’s a pretty reasonable conclusion to draw from the dialogue, as you said. For a while now I’ve sorta assumed that Xander was speaking of ending the killing game before it began, but there’s both semantic arguments to argue your theory and that one. The way Xander speaks in pre-prologue seems to imply the killing game is already underway, which is a point to you, but the secret David received mentions “The killing game is all your fault,” potentially implying there’s only ever been one modern killing game (“modern” as in, after THH). I think the idea of Xander actively being in a killing game in pre-prologue is stronger, though, I’m only bringing this up to account for all possibilities.

And “them” could be whoever so :p

[Xander Picture]

“When was this?

Why would he be in the same outfit, while having both eyes?

It makes sense if he was in a previous killing game, doesn't it?”

Well I mean. It could be. It could also just be from the time the cast (or most of it at least) was in the same Hope’s Peak class. Keep in mind all the outfits the characters were using at the start of the prologue are the same as the outfits they first went to Hope’s Peak with, as otherwise they’d have pointed out that their clothes changed between the moment they “lost consciousness” (the last moment of their memories, which is going to Hope’s Peak) and their appearance in the killing game place.

So, I propose that, seeing as it originated from LGI, this image could just be the first time David actually met Xander in person, or some other notable memory between the two of them. Of course, I have no evidence for this as much as there’s no great evidence for your take either. Basically I’m just saying this isn’t a very strong point in my books, but it’s not like I know any better than you what’s going on here :v

[Eden Tobisa]

“First of all, there’s the similarities between her handwriting and the handwriting of the note that Xander received. [...]

The T’s are the same, the E’s are the same, the A’s are the same. Don’t deny that it’s a strong, and the most likely, possibility.”

Uh… I don’t agree :v

I’ll give you the i’s and maybe the capital T’s, but I think the e’s and the a’s are too different for me to really consider it a possibility. It’s hard to explain this, so I’ll try to make some Paint diagrams to exaggerate the differences to get my point across.

-The T’s are pretty similar, but Eden’s have a slight curve towards the bottom, which the other note’s T’s seem to lack. In the diagram, you’ll find the recreation of Eden’s letters to the left, and the recreation of the “kill Teruko” note’s letters on the right.

-The e’s in Eden’s handwriting have a circular head, while the other note’s is almost triangular.

-Similarly, Eden’s a’s are a bit more circular than the note’s, which are sharper and triangular.

This all leads me to believe that the dev explicitly used different fonts for the two (assuming they dev used a text writing tool and didn’t draw the notes by hand, which I feel is a reasonable assumption). When coupled with the fact that Eden could potentially have been defending Teruko in pre-prologue (unless there’s more context we’re missing, Xander wanted to kill Teruko & Eden attacked Xander -> Eden didn’t want Teruko to die), I don’t think Eden wrote that note. Sorry :v

[Eden CG]

Now this is evidence of Eden being in the same killing game as Xander (of course, assuming Xander even was in a killing game in pre-prologue in the first place, which is as of yet unconfirmed). The CG itself heavily implies Xander and Eden were in the same place when the whole eye-fork situation happened, being that Eden is the person who hurt Xander before the pre-prologue scene (pre-pre-prologue?). If that happened in a killing game, then clearly, Eden was there!

“Why would the two of them have images of their past selves wearing the exact same outfits?

Oh, wait a second.

In V3, we see Rantaro’s past self. He was wearing the same outfit that he did in the killing game. And he was a member of a past game too.

And it’s not like we haven’t seen them in other outfits. Xander has been seen in another outfit in his bonus episode.”

I mean. As I mentioned, the characters probably just frequent these outfits, given they were wearing them when they first went to Hope’s Peak. The Eden thing is a bit more notable because, unlike Xander’s which could just be from any point of Hope’s Peak time, that image has to be from the pre-prologue situation. But the idea that she was wearing that because it’s just an outfit she wears often isn’t too far fetched to me. This isn’t a point against your theory, I just don’t personally find the outfits to be the most convincing point of evidence for it.

[Eden’s secret]

“Why is this secret so mundane? (At least in comparison to the others)

Wouldn’t it make more sense to say something about what she did to Xander?

Of course, that could just be because they didn’t want her to know about something she did during the missing year.

But it could also be because it happened during the last killing game.

That one’s a stretch but I just thought I’d put it out there.”

Well, you recognize it’s a stretch, and I agree. If Eden doesn’t remember the Xander thing, then the secret which would be most effective for her would be something different, and apparently she doesn’t really have many serious secrets outside of her sexuality. Keep in mind these secrets don’t necessarily have to be the worst thing the person in question did, as stated by Veronika in 2-13.

“Why specifically these two?

Dev didn’t have to post the colored picture of Xander.

It’s clearly important.

Same for Eden.”

Also not a point for Xander imo. Dev posts a lot of stuff that isn’t necessarily important, such as the Veronico Christmas comic or the “long hair style” images. That is to say, dev posting it isn’t sufficient evidence of something’s importance, you gotta find something important in the content itself to claim that.

And even if the image is important, it could be important in a different way. There is the whole “why does someone turn their back on who they’re talking to” caption or whatever, which could for example be trying to draw a connection between David and Xander in this scene and Mai and Teruko in the 1-6 dream sequence, among other interpretations.

But that’s Xander. I will agree with you that the Eden one is important because it appears in the main series and has a clear connection to the pre-prologue, though.

“Why would he say this?

Unless he knew Teruko in the past, of course.

My guess is that Teruko was named the mastermind during his game. Whether or not she actually appeared, who knows. But she was to blame (supposedly) (to his knowledge) for the killing game. And apparently, killer her would do something important.

This ties in to the note that told Xander to kill Teruko as well!”

I would actually argue that Xander in the pre-prologue doesn’t think Teruko is the mastermind, because “ending the killing game” and “killing Teruko” are two separate goals. If you assume that killing the mastermind ends the killing game (which is a fair assumption I think), and Xander believes Teruko is the mastermind, then what he says is “I have to end the killing game. And even if I can’t do that, I have to end the killing game a different way.” Doesn’t really track does it?

But “ending the killing game” and “killing Teruko” do seem to be aligned goals, at least, so it makes sense to think that Xander believed she had some sort of involvement in it, which is sufficient for your theory I think. Of course, this is very speculative, we don’t know a lot about why exactly Xander wanted to kill the girl.

Btw, what is Teruko’s deal in your theory? Is she another “sacrifice”, a recycled mastermind or traitor of some kind, or someone who was known to the participants of the previous killing game but didn’t participate until the one seen in DRDT? I feel like that ended up a bit unclear lol.

“Who do we think were the survivors of their game?

My first guess was maybe a couple of the AltDRDT characters, but I’m not sure.”

I mean yeah, there’s kinda no one else we can really point to lol. As you said, it’s a guess, so I’m not gonna bother you about the lack of evidence, but yeah. That is a lot of survivors, though, so I’m gonna guess that if this theory is right, the survivors of the old killing game are other people who are probably unknown as of yet.

Overall, a really neat read, and a fun theory! Pretty plausible, too, at least the idea of the pre-prologue killing game and Xander and Eden (and Teruko?) being in it. I disagreed on some points, but that’s only natural with highly speculative things like this. I thought the post itself was well written with a pretty unique style, easy to understand (even if I feel some points could have used a bit more elaboration, but that might just be me), so there’s that. Hope this was enough, thanks for the ask!

[fandomfantasyy]

MASSIVE WARNING FOR II 17 SPOILERS ++ INANIMATE INSANITY THEORY ++ ADAM KATZ TWITTER CODE SOLVING !!

i am holding onto way more hope than i should, however, this is a stray theory of mine that im holding onto for said hopes sake.

to those who haven't watched ii 17 yet, PLEASE keep scrolling. i mention just about everything that happened in the episode, and im basically reviewing it at the start. the episode is so much better without any spoilers!!

so, inanimate insanity 17. if you don't wanna hear me blabber on and on about the episode, scroll to the other big text. otherwise i am RANTING i need an outlet. 3:

inanimate insanity 17 was a rodeo. me and my partner had a few straggling theories before we watched it, and a few of them were true. knife did indeed punch cobs, they really did fight, everyone that heard was disappointed to find out they were made by mephone 4.

starting with the majority of the opening sequence, going from memory here, knife's desperation? ow. suitcase's new found paranoia? OW. them doing everything to find out what was wrong was so bittersweet, because you can just tell that they don't know how to stop it and are holding onto to random theories and hope.

nearing more of the middle section, i completely forgot that bow could possess people. made me giggle a bit tbh….. besides that, I HATE COBS HE MANIPULATED MY BABY, TOILET. ☹️ the admission of guilt from mephone 4, only to realize his apology could never speak loud enough almost killed me. lightbulb, fan, and test tube, all dead. the bright lights poly. when toilet told mepad that he understood it wasn't a competition anymore? and when cobs pulled off toilet and begun killing everyone? jesus christ dude (also im a little sad at the lack of extra pronunciation on "your" when paper yelled at salt saying "hes not your boyfriend" as a payjay shipper but....)

more on the end side, the fight convinced me for a damn while. it doesn't make sense to me how one single throw got knife extremely scuffed and chipped, but it's finneee, it's show logic!! :3 anygays. the main painful time. the pull of the plug, prompting toilet to call himself "the best assistant", the way knife put his hand on suitcase to comfort her, the way cobs SACRIFICED MEPHONE X??? dude this show is gonna make me go bonkers.

last but not least, "the show is over," and mephone 4 has no choice but to go back "home" with cobs. ow.

there are still so many questions. the eggs helped power everything, but were they fake? how did mephone 4 find the land he built inanimate insanity on? obviously it isn't fake, he's still sitting on it at the end of the episode. where's 3gs? what about mepad? was mepad made up? too much to answer with too little information.

overall, what a painful episode. it seems like the end, right? wrong.

inanimate insanity is not over. we are getting ii18.

at least, thats my theory. average movie length spans 1½ hours to 2½ hours. us inanimate insanity fans were told that this finale would be as long as a movie. right now, we are only at an hour. i dont remember the last time i watched a movie that was only an hour. they're out there, yes, but i doubt the creators would pray on very short movies to support their angst.

adam katz's teasing on twitter / x, saying that mephone x was after him, only for his account to be seemingly gone or empty? there's no way adam simply quit twitter because he ended his line of work. it's a thing that happens, but i dont think this is that. most of adam's characters in the show died before the plug was pulled. is that a direct reference? i don't know.

as of october 15th, adam seemingly returned to twitter, but instead as the robot from ii17. why would they bring him back suddenly, why would they make this teaser? there's no real, legitimate explanation in my eyes... other than them maybe just wanting to torture us. that, however, is not the point.

continuing on adam robot twitter thing, on his twitter / x profile / status, (idk what it's called i don't use twitter / x,) it says, "Loading a large amount of files... / Estimated wait tim: 2880 minutes, 0 seconds". that directly translates to two days. we're heavily likely to get the true final episode or the trailer of such of ii2 in 2 days.

update for the above. on october 18th, around 3pm EST, a code to decipher was posted. someone in the comments of the twitter / x post said that it was "you seek to know the true reason for such a tragic second season if you decide you want to show more there may be something to restore see .com/insert code". we, the viewers might be bringing the show back.

season one and season three's final episodes ended with a "the end". ii17 did not have this end card. this seems like a very crucial thing that they couldn't just "leave out". after all, why on the most important finale of all of the finales so far, would they leave out saying "the end"? if it's truly the end, they wouldn't leave it with a black screen and a sobbing community. (the last part, maybe, but not the first part.....)

both season one ended with 18 episodes, and season three ended with 19 episodes. season two seems to almost be ending on episode 17. this could go either way, with season two ending with a pattern of 17-18-19, OR, if we're really lucky, 18-19-20. (or we just get an extra 18 or smth idk)

there is a reason why this is only a stray theory of mine. only 6 days before the release of ii17, adam katz and brian koch were saying their thank you's and goodbye's to the inanimate insanity community. it feels like the end of this show is near, if not sadly over now.

overall, i still have hope. but this wont be clear until we either see a ii18 trailer or we dont. i will regularly update this with new information as it gets found by me and my partner. goodbye for now, inanimate insanity community, and good luck.

robot adam's twitter saga.

adam katz's teasing on twitter / x, saying that mephone x was after him, only for his account to be seemingly gone or empty? there's no way adam simply quit twitter because he ended his line of work. it's a thing that happens, but i dont think this is that. most of adam's characters in the show died before the plug was pulled. is that a direct reference? i don't know.

as of october 15th, adam seemingly returned to twitter, but instead as the robot from ii17. why would they bring him back suddenly, why would they make this teaser? there's no real, legitimate explanation in my eyes... other than them maybe just wanting to torture us. that, however, is not the point.

continuing on adam robot twitter thing, on his twitter / x profile / status, (idk what it's called i don't use twitter / x,) it says, "Loading a large amount of files... / Estimated wait tim: 2880 minutes, 0 seconds". that directly translates to two days. we're heavily likely to get the true final episode or the trailer of such of ii2 in 2 days.

update for the above. on october 18th, around 3pm EST, a code to decipher was posted. someone in the comments of the twitter / x post said that it was "you seek to know the true reason for such a tragic second season if you decide you want to show more there may be something to restore see .com/insert code". (credits to @\NickleBFDIA2012 on twitter/x !!) we, the viewers might be bringing the show back.

connecting to that, more hints have already been found. there was a code on cabby's wiki that is decoded to “You want the second key word? These pages are your answer. Next, go to the three time player with the lowest average placement." (credits to @\MeesterTweester on twitter/x !!) this brought the fandom to nickel (i believe), and im not quite sure what it says.

however, i do know one thing. it's been solved, and my theory was proven true.

we will be getting episode 18 of inanimate insanity by late november.

[tf2heritageposts]

Q AND A for our pinned post so people stop asking us these things

q. why do you use we/us? are there multiple mods?

a. no there is only one person who runs this account and it’s a person with did. we do not take quesrions. sometimes alters will post and do sign offs

q. why do you use i/me when talking about tfc heavy?

a. because i’m a cheavy fictive deal with it. look up what a fictive is yourself im tired of explaining

q. do you hate medic?

a. not even remotely, i actually love the character and the alter of him in our head quite a lot

q. you mention having a gi bill and talking with the va sometimes. are you in the military?

a. christ no. we’re a military dependent, which means we get the benifets of it without being in the military from our estranged family

q. why are you estranged from your family?

a. if you look at this blog long enough you’ll find out why

q. what’s the deal with your ex?

a. check the tag #the delilah situation and never talk to me about this, any asks will be deleted and i don’t take questions

q. i want details on x trauma

a. no

q. why do you have beef with x person? what’s the deal with you and x?

a. it most likely happened when we were 16-17 and even if it didn’t i don’t take negative questions regarding other people on this blog. i try to be positive. also, somehow this isn’t obvious i guess, don’t harass or even talk to people who you think i have beef with(i might not even know them stop assuming everything), and don’t tell me their every move. are you insane?

q. do you reaaaallly have did?

a. yes and we’re not faking and if you post us to any form of ableist cringe subreddit we will be taking legal action. find out if we’re joking

q. can you diagnose me with x?

a. we are not a medical professional and not taking psychology to become a therapist, we cannot diagnose any condition you may or may not have. we can give advice to the best of our ability but we don’t know you probably so

q. how should i use your pronouns?

a.

when referring to us as a collective, use they/it plural and call us the teufort dozen

eg:

they’re on their way to the store and they’re going to pick up wood to make themselves shelves for their apartment. the teufort dozen doesn’t care about security deposits because their rabbit already chewed up the carpet

when talking about me specifically, you can call me cheavy or tf2heritageposts and nothing else unless i’m friends with you, and use he/it NO THEY

eg:

cheavy really walks a lot, i’m surprised he doesn’t break his legs more. he really loves the bus

q. who do you main in tf2?

a. heavy and sometimes i play every other class except medic

q. this blog isn’t a heritage blog anymore

a. you’re an idiot and the queue has been going on since this blog has started. filter #not a heritage post dumbass

q. you should lose weight

a. i am actively trying to gain weight

q. what color is your hair

a. i don’t know

q. can i ask you questions specifically towards a specific alter?

a. yes you can! but please be aware that we’re not roleplaying and they can in fact get mad at you or decide not to respond to you

q. can i ask you about your source (memories)?

a. sure!

q. i am contacting you on behalf of someone else who you used to know

a. leave me alone

q. are you safe?

a. yes we’re very safe, we have many knives and we will kick a bitch

q. have you seen weird al’s albuquerque the movie

a. i watched it today for the 30th time as of writing

q. what’s your major?

a. currently getting my associates in general psych

q. are you aware you’re kind of stupid

a. yeah

[what-aboutno]

Making a part 2 to this post since people on twitter really didn't understand the post and I'm feeling petty

(I have to emphasise I am not saying you can't refer to earlier cOwen as maze Owen to explain cOwen at different periods of his life. I'm saying when we really look at it, maze Owen doesn't exist since they're the same person)

'maze' Owen doesn't exist bc it's a way that cOwen has come up with to justifying to himself how he could have cared for demons without shattering his ideals.

This is confused with cOwen have distinct personalities and missing how his character hasn't changed from the start with his idea of protecting everyone.

In his final moments he says a few important things to note. The first being "I was a tool. I was trained. Should I have... I should have." And then right after "I can't think in my head it's split in two"

It seems some takes this as 'maze' Owen coming back and fighting with cOwen on should he have killed cApo and the others. However rather than 'maze' Owen coming back it's this internal conflict he has with himself and his ideals.

Before he says this he's getting flashbacks to the early maze days where he showed kindness to demons. Something he would never let himself do in the past outside the maze. And something he would never do after remember it all.

Then he says to the voices "Is that who people trust? Old Owen" while those memories are playing. The voices respond saying they miss that Owen and he replies "Yes? That wasn't me" this is possibly where it further adds to the whole 'maze' Owen is a different person thing.

But what people miss is he's trying to seperate those memories as a different person. Rather than facing the fact his ideals fall apart as soon as he accepts that demons are not these creatures that betray and kill you at any moment.

His thinking comes from the manipulation and propaganda he's been feed. In his final episode we get these quotes which show just how much his thinking revolves around protection and also showing what years of training did to him.

He understands he was a tool that was used. He's well aware everything he is doing may not have a purpose and get he still plays this part. He can't break away from that thinking because if he lets himself he has to face the fact that his whole life had no true meaning and he was as he realised a tool. This is where we get these lines from him though.

"I did what I had to do I served my country and this is the thanks I get"

"I don't understand I was meant to..."

"I can't think... They trusted him but not me"

They're such interesting lines from him because he still feels like he has this duty to protect everyone. And then he can't understand why they would trust the Owen that was so easily fooled and trusted than himself right now who is still trying to protect them and has seen the dangers as what they really are.

While he has this internal conflict with himself the main reason we have this 'maze' Owen thing is from the scene when cMagic comes to see him.

And I think when you have this much context it doesn't make sense that this is a seperate persona? Identity? He has.

Right before it we are shown how conflicted he feels about a part of himself he'd rather seperate than accept is him. So he tells cMagic "I hurt my best friends please" and "it wasn't me I'm sorry"

He's still seperating his own actions to two people because he can only accept he did these things if it wasn't him. The idea that has to be a different Owen who cared for a demon because it really does make him face everything he's done.

So when people seperate cOwen into these two parts it's just falling for the lies he tells himself because this maze owen never existed.

Who he is after the reunion is still the same person as before. But what changes is this dramatic shift in those ideals we've seen from him since the start. Because now demons are not included and since the beginning of the series cOwen has been close to a lot demons, it triggers memories and he enjoys their company. So when he starts killing the people closest to him automatically we believe he has changed a lot. And yes he has! But you can't miss that he does these things to protect everyone else in the clearing.

When he remembers everything in his mind he doesn't need to protect demons. Since they are a threat. There are moments people try to argue where 'maze' Owen peaks through such as his hesitation before chasing after cApo in the reunion. But it's really cOwen understanding his hatred towards demons may have been nothing. Was he really going to throw away everything for the past? And so he doesn't change. He continues this path he can never return from.

Everything he has worked for doesn't matter anymore. And cOwen cannot accept that so he once again he plays the role to exterminate them. But by doing so he has to seperate his old self so it doesn't conflict with what he desperately wants to be true.

Which is his whole life had a purpose.

[shih-coulda-had-it]

WHUMPTOBER | Search Party | wc: ~800

a/n: homebrewed fantasy AU inspired first from @/boss-the-goofball's fantasy isekai AU; this is purely an aesthetic thing now, i think, and also me enjoying OFA interactions

//

The paladins of One for All rarely gathered in the same area. Not only because it was impossible to ensure everyone had the means and free time to travel on a schedule, but also because their souls were already shared with one another. The connections rendered physical meetings moot since they could tap into the mental space and hold a conversation from, say, a cave system below sea-level (Banjo) to the highest peak in the land (Shinomori) without strain. 

Kudou referred to the network as ‘Yoichi’s heart’ just the once before clamming up about the identity of their divine patron, but Nana thought the term was apt.

It wasn’t just words they shared. It was feelings, too.

ALL FOR ONE WANTS SORAHIKO TO BE HIS CHAMPION, Nana yelled, and she couldn’t tell whether the pure lightning streak of terror was hers, or En’s, or even Shinomori’s. They reached for her. She shoved the hastily-scrawled note to the forefront of her mind, just as she shoved her socked feet into her boots and tightened the buckle of her sword belt.

‘I have to go. Sorry.’

Burned into the wooden floorboards, a complex spell circle taunted Nana with her lack of understanding. 

Where is he? said Kudou, said Bruce, said every other wielder of One for All’s power. A dizzying array of locales flashed before Nana’s eyes: a tavern, a marsh, a gray coastal cove. They were six individuals in total, but their movements echoed up and down a chain.

I don’t know. It was possible Sorahiko didn’t know where he was headed either.

Nana had personally plastered the bloody sword with talismans. She had verified Sorahiko’s lack of possession using techniques only Kudou and Bruce still recalled, invasive ones that made Sorahiko actually complain (even though he still agreed to them). How did All for One ensnare him? Or had Nana been tricked from the start?

No. No, that was paranoia speaking. Nana knew Sorahiko. She pinned her cape into place and scoured their room at the inn with a practiced eye. He’d taken his traveling pack. Her own was apparently untouched, so Sorahiko’s priority wasn’t to sabotage Nana. She shouldered it on.

En mused, All for One’s castle?

Kudou and Bruce destroyed that years ago, Banjo disagreed. A sense-memory: Banjo’s footsteps, pressed into ash, slowly disappearing as a cold wind picked up. Nana tasted the absence of life and grimaced. She had her own memories of the unofficial pilgrimage site; she didn’t need Banjo to hammer the point in.

Shinomori said, Show me the summoning circle again, please.

She obliged, but she didn’t dare to step into it. The markings were a script, jagged in style, and interlocked. It smelled strongly of blood. Maybe Sorahiko’s, but just as equally likely, Nana was going to venture outside the inn to see a mob wanting justice, or trip over a fresh pale corpse.

We need a direction, Kudou said testily.

The fourth paladin to pledge an oath to One for All was silent for a second more, and then Shinomori answered, The circle was not written with cardinal directions in mind. Shimura, are you certain of Sorahiko’s allegiance?

He wouldn’t swear to All for One, Nana declared.

He didn’t care for One for All either, Bruce reminded her. 

Nana bristled, but before she could defend (what could she even say? Sorahiko didn’t think highly of any divinity, nor was he a lover of material wealth; his loyalty was selfish in motive, selfless in effect) her friend, Shinomori intervened: The dead volcano on the southern coast. There is likely a port town.

You deciphered that? Kudou’s incredulity filtered through the network, but they caught a flash of him wheeling his horse about-face, heedless of any cursing pedestrian. Lucky him. Nana was still trying to decide if she wanted to leave through the front door, or toss herself out the window.

No, Shinomori said, patiently. The script’s vocabulary is not so specific. The summoning is flexible in its target, because the desired location is meant to be a center of unrest and fear. Shimura mentioned that the last locale she and Sorahiko visited received them… poorly.

She felt her ears burn with embarrassment. Yeah. Not her greatest moment as a paladin of One for All, needing to haul Sorahiko’s revenant-attracting ass out of a revenant-infested pit nearly every local witnessed him (sleep)walking into. 

He’s not All for One’s, Nana said.

Yet, Banjo quipped. Who’s closest? 

En signaled a wordless acknowledgment, too distracted with a conscious verbal transaction to commune with One for All. After him, it was Shinomori. Nana was third-closest, followed by Banjo, Kudou, and lastly Bruce, who was somewhat stranded in the north. She wrenched the window’s shutters open and leapt into the sky, Floating high to avoid any vigilant watchmen. 

The net had been thrown. Now it was a question of who would catch Sorahiko first.

[theyre-in-love]

Love is a Losing Game - Chapter Nine

to the tune of Just Like Me by Paul Revere & The Raiders

in my heart of hearts I've been associating this song with that scene since May

It is quite spoiler-y, so PLEASE read the fic first!! (also, fair warning, without the fic it may or may not make sense)

inspired by Love is a Losing Game by @cha-melodius

lyrics and analysis below the cut💕

LYRICS:

It's just like me It's just like me I act the fool That's how I'll be

But it's just like you To say goodnight And leave me all Alone to cry, waaa

-

QUOTES:

“We are all disappointed sometimes” 

“Goodbye, Napoleon” 

“He tries to tell himself he knew that this was coming, that it always had an expiration date, that it wasn’t meant to be anything real."

"None of that makes it hurt any less.”

-

ANALYSIS:

had to use all the hallway bug-throwing scenes to kinda sorta emulate Illya showing up at Napoleon's hotel room (yes i KNOW it's napoleon showing up to bother illya here, shhhh)

obviously Illya playing chess is a no-brainer hehe i love that part

also, deciding where to put in the quotes? I had no idea how to fit them in LOL but I just knew that I *had to* so I found a way. I did it with just like you because it would be just like Illya to say something like that to Napoleon before telling him goodbye (and it also comes right before the say goodbye/goodnight part so I'd say a job well done lol)

and surely the I act the fool with the part where he gets the bug, because in the fic he's talking about searching the room for bugs bc of the Russian's reputation (I think that's what it was my memory is a little clouded lol it's been awhile since I've read it) because he's acting the fool by searching for them, but then also haha silly cuz in the movie they actually ARE THERE !!!!

Yeah and the bathroom fight scene cuz Sara gave them their own bathroom fight scene. <3

AND THE ENDINGGGGGG yes I did reverse the clip where Napoleon opens the door what about it

and then pretend that when it cuts after that it's Napoleon walking away from the door. you know for more angst and things

ALSOOOOO yes I had to put in the quotes here they just added so much CRONCH to it okay (at least I think they did LOL)

end note: I really love this fic so much and I love how it captures the way Napoleon is the first to fall and how he falls so hard and how it's just like him to confess to Illya and tell him how much he cares. Also, telling him that it's real and that it's not a front (haha just like me reference go wild) but Illya still leaving him regardless because well 1) he kinda has to and 2) they're both convinced the other has no feelings.

INCOHERENT SCREAMING Sara I love this au so much

[thatonepotatosystem]

🥀 USSR 🫀 - [He/him]

I need to vent, it's a pretty big Trigger Warning btw.

Please, I beg you not to keep reading if you are a sensitive person. If you aren't, this probably feels like nothing to you, but there are some people out there whose minds are simply less tolerant of these kinds of things, so please be respectful and kind.

+ And again, I DO NOT REPRESENT ANY POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES. I am just a character (from Countryhumans) we're pretty obsessed with, it's not a bigger deal.

TW: insults, sexist and homophobic words (not insulting anyone but me and my father), serious topics (abuse, s*xual topics...), blood

I hate being minding my own fucking business and suddenly, BOOM, ALTER TRAUMA

It's like, what the fuck, man? I just want to live my own fucking life and then I get a fucking memory of my father fucking my guts out of me. WHAT THE FUCK, BRAIN?

It's actually pretty sad because whenever I'm just trying to spend time with my partner (another alter, I will sometimes refer to him as Pookie) and I'm doing great, I get one of these flashbacks and he has to take care of me because I get triggered. Like man, mind your own fucking business and leave Pookie fucking alone, you're a fucking pussy. I can't even deal with it alone because I'm not tough enough.

I just feel weak every time I can't deal with my own bullshit, I just start whimpering and annoying him with my stuff, and he doesn't say anything about it, but I know he's bothered by that.

And then I have to see my fucking father standing next to me because YEAHHH, HE HAD TO INTROJECT HIMSELF INTO THE SYSTEM TOO, SUCK MY FUCKING DICK

WHAT THE FUCK MANNN

I know he actually does 🍇 me while I'm asleep even though I'm a fucking grown ass man, but when I sleep it's hard as fuck to get me to wake up, so he takes advantage of that.

I recently found out that he enters my house while I'm sleeping with my partner and does stuff to me, I know he has been playing with my body a lot lately, and I can't even wake up and notice when he crawls from the window all the way to my bed.

For context: No, I'm not stupid. I would stay up until he came to our room, but I always go to bed with Pookie and not tell him anything because I don't want him to worry or to bother him. So I end up falling asleep next to him because I'm exhausted from working almost all day, and when I finally wake up, I end up crying silently like a fucking cunt.

I know he uses my ass and mouth, but something that's hilarious but also creepy as fuck is that he uses the place where my missing eye should be, I mean, he ripped my eye out when I was a child, and he uses the fucking hole to put his nasty ass dick. I know that because I wake up without my eye patch, my eye hole hurting and with cum all over my face. That is fucking gross.

I don't know if he has ever touched Pookie, but if I find out he did, he is not gonna dare to come to my fucking house again.

Even more tw

I'm going to rip his fucking head off slowly so he feels his fucking skin peeling and breaking, then if there's anything left of him alive I'm going to burn him apart, so he'll regret ever touching my boyfriend.

But he'll revive, so it won't do much good. He won't touch Pookie again anyway, so I don't really care.

I'm here imagining stuff and I don't even know if he did anything to Pookie already :P

I don't know how I changed the subject so much throughout the text LMAO

Anyway bye 🙈

[Additional details: USSR's purpose is to protect us physically and mentally and hold our trauma and anger, etc. But we don't think he should be holding that much trauma from his "past life". We talked to a few people about it, they're not professionals, but they know pretty much about it and told us it's not normal. Plus he is a subsystem (but prefers to be treated as a singular person). Can someone please help us know what's wrong with us/him? - Nora]

[doctorofmagic]

Relating to the other post about Clea's current character changes (Tumblr wouldn't allow me to put all this in one comment, so I thought this was a better format): I've been constantly thinking about Clea and how having her memories wiped of Stephen may have effected her ever since we saw her re-appear in TDODS. Nothing I say here is a fact based on info Marvel gave us. As far as I've been able to tell, unless I've missed some non-main title run appearance or mention, no comic has covered what exactly happened to Clea like where she went or what she went to do. Her wiki only mentions her getting her memories back "shortly after" she loses them. If I missed something that gives context, please do correct me so I can fill myself in! As for why I think she is the way she is now in the current run, my brains just been connecting it to her lost memories. That could be that due to the lost memories she went somewhere or did something that made her darker overall, maybe being manipulated without memories of being taught and guided by Stephen (I know that she wasn't kind and caring because of him, but due to how her family is and the state of the Dark Dimension at the time, he definitely kept her on track to a degree). If we think of it this way, depending on how the whole memory erasing thing worked, would she have gotten to keep memories that involved him, such as the Defenders, or would those be gone too because he was there? In this route, could she have felt her attempts at being kinder and more caring than her later-discovered family may have been futile? Without acquaintances like her friends she met from meeting Stephen, she may feel as though no one was there to encourage her to continue trying things this way. She doesn't remain on the throne once getting it, so maybe she feels she has to turn in a new direction to protect herself and/or her people? Does the memory erasing mean he's just kind of a blur or a stranger in memories he is in? Or does it mean that her life took on a different path maybe in the Dark Dimension, as it clearly effected her in the past too. (This way would assume Clea at all points in time forgot Stephen, which could lead her down a different road. If this is the case, her memories of one lifetime could be clashing with the memories of her new lifetime so to say. I don't know if any of that made sense, I struggle to put it in words sometimes). It could also be that she's never fully recovered from losing those memories emotionally. We know she's been pretty upset since getting them back, first in a grieving/saddened manner, then in a more anger based way because she regained them only to lose the man they were about. She's gotten him back now, but that's not going to make it like things never happened, so she could still be on that anger based stage and she doesn't even realize she's becoming the way she is (I know this was referred to as "Blaming" grief in the last post, but depending on how truly "short" that timeframe between losing her memories and regaining them was there could be a lot more we really don't know. This could also be her struggling with grief, as we quickly see her go to the anger stage of it. She likely often dealt with grief in a war setting during the rebellion, which could make it harder for her to process?) Overall not knowing what happened to her and not having that covered has generally been a nitpick of mine since we got partway into this story, as I can see why it hasn't yet been tackled but the upcoming books don't make it sound like we'd be getting that information anytime soon either. (Again this is if I didn't miss something previously). Sorry again for things not making sense potentially, and for the wall of text. Again I'm not saying this is for sure whats happening, just how my mind tries to explain what we haven't yet had explained.

Nauuur, you're absolutely right!

Little is known to Clea's time in the Dark Dimension, even before her memories were wiped out. In fact, there's a HUGE gap between their "breakup" and her appearance in v5, when she helps Stephen with the whole Galactus situation.

There's this book (Sisters of Sorcery) that follows the Defenders/The Order storyline and highlights Clea as the protagonist, but you can't quite consider it canon in comics. Besides, it wouldn't explain her characterization in Strange v3 and DS v6.

The thing about erasing Clea's memories is that, as you pointed out, we do not know if it's just *Stephen's figure* or every other connection she did outside the Dark Dimension. We tend to forget that Clea often felt lonely in the Sanctum, and escaped this loneliness through her bonds with the Defenders (Patsy and Valkyrie being her closest friends). I know we hate *that* Defenders run, but it happened as well. She connected to other heroes in that meantime.

I do have the impression that Stephen was indeed her first contact with kindness, since she grew up under both Umar's and Dormammu's influences. Also his father SUCKS. In a cold world, she found warm in Stephen. So is this feeling still there when her memories of him were taken? We don't know, and this is why we need a flashback of her moments in the Dark Dimension. We don't know how she became the Sorceress Supreme, we don't know how the rebellion went, we don't know how she survived the Empirikul on her own. All we know is that she looked for Stephen the moment The Peregrine Child threatened her dimension. And here's my only reservation about this theory.

Clea's characterization in DODS. She appears to be vulnerable and sweet, especially in Lee's art.

What I *think* it could trigger her fierce side and justifies her angrier characterization is the fact that she lost Stephen twice in front of her very own eyes, and three times in the span of a week. Maybe something broke in her heart, and the fact that she had to keep proving to everyone that she was capable of carrying the mantle of the Sorcerer Supreme could have shifted the balance of her heart. Let's not forget that few heroes were kind and empathetic enought to her grief (which explains why she befriended Moon Knight so quickly). Only Wong and Bats were facing the same levels of grief and they were all dealing with it in their own ways.

With that being said, we don't know if it's Jed's choice to portray her in such aggressive manner as to oppose her melancholic self in DODS or it's all part of a larger scenario where he'll exploit her characterization in order for her to find her balance once more. We don't have answers for that and it's very frustrating, especially for Clea fans, but I still have hope that we'll see something about it soon enough. I often trust Jed so I'm patiently waiting haha As the saying goes, "it is what it is".

Also, no worries!! I appreciate your long text and your sharing your thoughts and theories with us!! Thank you so much for passing by, I hope our concerns are addressed soon enough!

[genshinemblem564]

Chapter 9: Answers

Spoilers for Liyue archon quest and Zhongli's story quest and massive spoilers for Fire Emblem Fates Revelations and the Heirs of Fate dlc

Once back at the Order of Heroes castle, you and Aether sat down and had a chat.

Aether: I have to ask, why didn't you use that power of yours, you know, the one you used to defeat the imposter?

(Y/N): That's because... I... don't know how to use it.

Paimon: What!?

(Y/N): It was just sort of dumb luck that it happened when it did.

Aether: Do you want me to teach you?

(Y/N): You can do that?

Aether: I can try. After all, it is similar to how I can command the elements without a vision.

(Y/N): Then yes, please teach me all you can

Meanwhile

Most of the archons were gathered at the goddess's gathering hall, watching you from an orb Nahida had made with help from said goddess.

Ei: I'm glad they're finally learning to wield electro, but why couldn't I have taught them that? (sigh) At least they have a dependable teacher in the Traveler.

(S/N): Yes, the Traveler is quite skilled in using the elements. They couldn't ask for a better teacher, at least for average elemental use.

Venti: What do you mean?

(S/N): Well, can the Traveler summon gales that allow even humans to fly or call a meteor from th heavens?

Venti: Hmm. Fair point. Speaking of meteors, where's Morax?

Nahida: Let's see.

Nahida concentrates on Zhongli until she finds him.

Nahida: Eh?

Back at the castle, you were now practicing combat techniques when you hear a familiar voice.

Zhongli: Ah, there you are.

You, Aether, and Paimon turn to face the former geo archon.

Paimon: Ah. Zhongli! What are you doing here?

Zhongli: I came to ask our friend here something. Would you two care to hear it?

Paimon: Sure.

Aether: Of course.

Zhongli: I've heard about your device, so you probably already know this, but I'd still like to formally introduce myself. I am Rex Lapis, the now former geo archon. Others refer to me as Morax. I have come in search of an answer, and considering I was told you have intimate knowledge of the realms connected to Askr, I thought it more efficient to ask you directly. Simply put, is there any world that has a cure for erosion?

Aether and Paimon were left speechless, not only by Zhongli's question, but the fact that he trusts you enough to reveal his identity.

(Y/N): This is about Azhdaha, isn't it?

Zhongli: Yes.

(Y/N): There is one and only one world where erosion or something similar was successfully combated. In this world, a dragon by the name of Anankos isolated himself from humanity because he feared his minds deterioration, but when it finally did deteriorate, he flew into a rage. Believing that he was abandoned by the same kingdom that once sung his praise, he destroyed it and severed it from the mortal world entirely. Before he succumbed to erosion, he wrote a song, a song that, when sung whilst possessing his dragon stone, would weaken him, and in the main timeline of this world, it was used to kill him. However, in another timeline, several people willingly gave up some of their own memories to ensure the singer's safety as otherwisehe'dhave endured sufferingfor the rest of his life. I can not tell you what altered his fate in this timeline, the memories sacrificed, the souls of the departed returning to aid the living, or just pure happenstance, but it does work. Whether or not this is a permanent solution, I also do not know

Zhongli: I see. Thank you, but might I ask? Azhdaha doesn't have a dragon stone. What do I use for him?

(Y/N): Dragonfall. It doesn't need to be a dragon stone, just something close to Azdaha's heart, and considering that's what got through to him last time it might work.

Zhongli: And the song?

(Y/N): Oh! That might have been what altered Anankos's fate. Azura sings the song, but she's only ever sung three of the four verses. Her son, Shigure sang that final verse. Oh, but you'll have to wait if you're thinking about asking for their help, we're kind of going through something here ourselves.

Zhongli: I see. One more thing, do the lyrics matter?

(Y/N): Um. I'll have to ask Azura, but probably not considering how similar Anankos's and Azhdaha's situations are.

Zhongli: Understood, thank you. I shall await word of your duty's completion and lady Azura's answer. I'm afraid I can not assist you with whatever troubles your land, as I have my own duties to attend to.

(Y/N): Understood, have a safe trip back Zhongli.

As Zhongli departs, you turn back around to see Paimon and Aether holding their heads in confusion.

Paimon: Ugh, Paimon's head is spinning. What was all that about. Um, spirit dragons I think.

Aether: Don't ask me.

You were about to try and get their attention when Anna burst in.

Anna: Summoner, Traveler, that woman we rescued is waking up.

The four of you rush to the infirmary.

___________________________________________

Sorry for being absent. My hyper focus was jumping all over the place recently.

[itzynation]

240810 twitter: itzyofficial

🖤: Last stop ⁉ I can't believe it 😮 我地今日玩得開心啲 !

🖤: Guys, I'm going to rehearsal soon!! If you're going to run, you have to eat! And drink lots of water!! See you at the concert hall later 🖤😎

👤: I’m gonna cheer from my room for today’s concert, have fun!!

🖤: Is that me..? (referring the video what op added. The video is yeji dancing from the latest itzy? itzy! ep)

👤: Hello, big cat

🖤: I got caught..!

👤: Have a nice time, Yejin! And drink lots of water 😤

🖤: Water input.

👤: Yeji, take lots of selfies today too ♥️🖤♥️🖤

🖤: Cancer Cancer 😉

👤: Yejidang!!!! Are you going to sleep??? Are you going to eat?!?!! 😻😻 Today is the last day, fighting!

🖤: Wow, sleep well and don't eat yet!!! I'll eat soon, fighting 🔥✊🏻

👤: It's already the last one 🥺 Let's enjoy the stage until the end and finish it happily!! Thanks to you, I had a lot of happy memories during the BontuB tour!! Thank you ~~

🖤: It's too bad, but let's finish it well!! I was happy thanks to you too, thank you 🖤

👤: It feels like the Seoul concert was just the day before yesterday, but it's already the last one..!! Time flies, doesn't it? You've worked really hard running nonstop (pat pat) I hope they show their best until the end and let's end it beautifully 😎 And I want to see the five of them on stage soon 🖤🤭 I love you today too 🖤

🖤: I didn't realize how much time had passed while having fun, but thank you for telling me that I worked hard. I believe you worked hard too ㅎㅎ (pat pat) I'll finish it off well and come back to see you in full, I love you 🖤

👤: Yeji, I promise to always be your number one fan! I will be Blackheart forever, no matter what happens, and I will be by your side for the rest of your life. Yeji, check it out 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

🖤: I'm going to check it out too 🖤🌼

👤: Will there ever come a day when Yeji notices me? Please Yeji, I've been waiting since day 1 >< 😭

🖤: I like poker.

👤: I can't stop this love for Yeji~! The time has finally come for the end. My first and last, Yeji, thank you for letting me spend time with you 🖤 I'm sure you'll tear up the stage today too, but I trust you and do well today too 🖤🖤 Thank you today tooᰔᰔ

🖤: is 🙏😊

👤: Hey, Yeji~ What's your favorite outfit from the crown on my head stage? 🤩🖤 1-2-3 ?

🖤: They're all so pretty, but personally, number 1? ㅎㅎ

👤: Hey, Yejin~!! The B2B tour is finally coming to an end. Time flies so fast… Thank you so much for always showing great performances and giving me so much love and happiness. I hope today's performance will be fun, full of love and happiness without any injuries 🍀✨ I'll be cheering you on from afar! Fighting 🖤 I believe~!

🖤: I was always happy because of you guys. Thank you always. I'll do well today too!! I believe 🌼

👤: It was so nice to see you again yesterday 🥹 See you later! Fighting today too! 🖤🖤

🖤: Oh my, let's see later 🖤

👤: Yeji unnie~ I've been your fan for 5 years! I'm so happy to be your MIDZY. Thank you for the precious memories. The concert was so much fun, please come soon! I love you. let's be happy! i love you yeji!

🖤: Thank you so much for being with me for such a long time. It feels great 🖤 I'll go again soon ~!~ !

👤: Today is the last day of the world tour! 🔥 Thank you for your hard work during the 30-show tour over 168 days 🖤 Thank you for giving great memories to fans from all over the world... … Let's heat up the Hong Kong stage tonight too! 🔥 Hwang Ye-ji is the best! 💪🏻🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

🖤: I am so grateful. Let's shine together tonight too ✨

👤: It's the last performance, so I'm sad but also happy. Let's have some fun ~~ !!

🖤: Let's run together 😎

👤: Yeji 😍 This is the last concert 🔥 It was nice to meet you in the US 🇺🇸 Eat well and drink water 💧

🖤: Water input 2.

👤: Did you have bubble tea too?

🖤: It was so delicious that I drink it all.

👤: Do your best today and shine on stage!

🖤: Let's go ✊🏻🔥