#//and refuses to give into his grief because Theyre Not Dead :)

[aftonrobotiics]

new year new william. leaning into the mad scientist vibe. it's what he deserves.

[can-of-w0rmz]

Volume III Chapter IV/V of the original 1818 text of Frankenstein lives in my brain rent free. I need to rant about Clerval’s death or I’ll loose it. (It’s late and I’m exhausted rn so my ass is NOT as coherent and structured as it could be but fuck it we ball)

“He appeared to be a handsome young man, about five and twenty years of age.” MY PRECIOUS BOY

“(…) having brought the body into her house; it was not cold. They put it into a bed, and rubbed it; and Daniel went to the town for an apothecary, but life was quite gone.” HE MIGHTN’T HAVE BEEN DEAD WHEN THEY FOUND HIM BUT IT WAS TOO LATE

“I saw the lifeless form of Henry Clerval stretched before me. I gasped for breath; and, throwing myself on the body, I exclaimed, “Have my murderous machinations deprived you also, my dearest Henry, of life? Two I have already destroyed; other victims await their destiny: but you, Clerval, my friend, my benefactor”——

The human frame could no longer support the agonizing suffering that I endured, and I was carried out of the room in strong convulsions.

A fever succeeded to this. I lay for two months on the point of death (…)” THE WAY VICTOR REACTS TO AND SPIRALS FROM CLERVAL’S DEATH IS SO MUCH MORE SEVERE THAN ANYTHING ELSE THAT HAPPENS TO HIM and it’s also an extremely interesting character study to see what happens when the only person he ever really seemed to have a mutual loving and healthy relationship with gets cut out of the picture – Victor’s had his fevers, he’s wallowed, but he always had Clerval to draw him from his wallowing and to nurse him back to health. So what happens when Clerval’s death is the cause of that anguish? THE DRAMA THE ANGST I love these silly little gothic losers to death but watching Frankenstein grieve over the passing of who was pretty much essentially his lover is fascinating to me and it SHOWS how much Frankenstein adores Clerval through the latter’s death. THE MAGNITUDE OF HIS GRIEF IS A TESTAMENT TO THEIR LOVE oml i can’t rn frfr THEYRE SO GAY AND SO GOTHIC I CAN NOT

“Why did I not die? More miserable than man ever was before, why did I not sink into forgetfulness and rest?” “I thank you; but all that you mention is nothing to me: on the whole earth there is no comfort which I am capable of receiving.” “(…)surely I should have died on the coffin of Henry.” AGAIN Victor’s absolute grief tearing himself up over it

“As my sickness quitted me, I was absorbed by a gloomy and black melancholy, that nothing could dissipate. The image of Clerval was for ever before me, ghastly and murdered.” “Sometimes they were the expressive eyes of Henry, languishing in death, the dark orbs nearly covered by the lids, and the long black lashes that fringed them.” Again what I said about his grief being a testament to their love bro, REMINISCING ABOUT HIS DEAD LOVER AND HIS BEAUTY EVEN IN DEATH WHILE GRIEVING HIM I CANT BRO

“Ah! my father, do not remain in this wretched country; take me where I may forget myself, my existence, and all the world.” HERE’S THE START OF HIM PUSHING AWAY THE MEMORY AND TRYING TO SUPPRESS IT BECAUSE THE GRIEF IS TOO SEVERE and that is SO interesting for how he shifts his tone with Elizabeth and puts up that fake demeanour of wanting to marry her because he thinks it’ll make HER happy even though both of them describe dreading the wedding, also possibly another argument for the legitimacy of reading Clerval and Frankenstein’s relationship as romantic – in order to forget him, he assigns himself to the role given to him as a child by marrying Elizabeth and gives up whatever he hope he had (possibly discouraged from Clerval being murdered as a response to Victor refusing to finish the Bride and subject her to the same fate as him and Elizabeth to the Creature, a pact made without her knowledge or consent, an arranged marriage. Where has spiting that tradition led him? Where has him standing up to the shroud of his mother’s dying wishes, hanging over him the entire novel thus far, led him, by refusing to force the Bride into an arranged marriage with the Creature, as he was with Elizabeth? To the death of the one man he truly loved. So fuck it, right? He can at least “make his dear cousin happy” and not die spiting the one thing he was meant to do – make his mother proud from beyond the grave by marrying Elizabeth.)

“the wind that blew me from the detested shore of Ireland(…)” sorry my country traumatised you bro (I mentioned to one of my teachers while explaining the plot of Frankenstein to them, as you do, that this chapter takes place in Ireland and the “god damn ok” face was priceless)

“I was deceived by no vision, and that Clerval, my friend and dearest companion, had fallen a victim to me and the monster of my creation. I repassed, in my memory, my whole life; my quiet happiness while residing with my family in Geneva, the death of my mother, and my departure for Ingolstadt. I remembered shuddering at the mad enthusiasm that hurried me on to the creation of my hideous enemy, and I called to mind the night during which he first lived. I was unable to pursue the train of thought; a thousand feelings pressed upon me, and I wept bitterly.” HE’S TRYING SO DESPERATELY TO LEAVE IT BEHIND AND TO REPRESS IT but now he’s left Ireland and he’s no longer feverish, the clarity washes over him and he can’t do anything except just lie there and cry over everything that’s happened AND MY POOR LAD HE CANT EVEN CONTINUE BEYOND THE POINT OF THE CREATURES REANIMATION BECAUSE THOSE FEELINGS PRESS DOWN ON HIM AND CROWD HIM AND OVERWHELM HIM AND HE JUST BREAKS INTO SOBS

And what happens after “the night during which he first lived”?

He’s saved from his own downward spiral by Clerval.

What’s he doing now?

Going on a downward spiral.

Where’s Clerval?

Dead.

“Ever since my recovery from the fever I had been in the custom of taking every night a small quantity of laudanum; for it was by means of this drug only that I was enabled to gain the rest necessary for the preservation of life. Oppressed by the recollection of my various misfortunes, I now took a double dose, and soon slept profoundly. But sleep did not afford me respite from thought and misery; my dreams presented a thousand objects that scared me.” And Christ above THIS LINE, not only can he now physically not sleep at night after what happened, but he’s gotten into the habit of drug use over it – which wouldn’t have been too bizarre by Victorian standards, but in the 18th century, laudanum wasn’t administered nearly as liberally and was mostly used for surgery, from what I can find, anyway. Not to mention that fact that he starts double dosing on it as the memories come back to him – his grief starts getting to the point where he’s using drug use in order to cope, but it hardly matters as his torment follows him to sleep.

“We had resolved not to go to London, but to cross the country to Portsmouth, and thence to embark for Havre. I preferred this plan principally because I dreaded to see again those places in which I had enjoyed a few moments of tranquillity with my beloved Clerval. I thought with horror of seeing again those persons whom we had been accustomed to visit together, and who might make inquiries concerning an event, the very remembrance of which made me again feel the pang I endured when I gazed on his lifeless form in the inn at ——.” THIS LINE LIVES IN MY BRAIN. RENT FREE. HOW COULD SHELLEY HAVE CUT THIS OUT OF THE 1831 PUBLICATION THIS IS SO GOLDEN DEAR LORD I ADORE THEM.

“MY BELOVED CLERVAL”

BUT ALSO AGAIN we’ve got Frankenstein trying SO desperately to forget everything, and he knows that he can’t face the people who knew Clerval or he’d break down. And I love the way this version continues on his grief to the next chapter – it’s not done and dropped, its ongoing and it plagues him, and it will plague him as long as he lives. I wonder what would happen if he did go through London, if he did meet those people again. Would things have turned out differently? Would he finally have been given a sense of comfort and clarity through mutual grief, as nobody so far since Henry’s death and for the rest of the book, except the creature, ironically, has grieved for Clerval except for Frankenstein. If he met people who took as fondly to Clerval as he did, at least on meeting him briefly, who would have sympathy towards Victor – would he finally have that space to grieve for him in a healthy way, to be comforted by people who at least vaguely understand a fraction of his anguish?

The way Victor Frankenstein BREAKS after the death of Henry Clerval is one of the most fascinating and endearing parts of the novel that completely lives in my head rent free. He spirals, he becomes ill, he becomes deeply suicidal and depressed, he begins drug misuse – and adaptations have the sheer balls to cut Clerval out of the story altogether.

…..”My beloved Clerval” HELP ME HE ACTUALLY SAID IT I LOVE THEM SO MUCH

[formula-fun]

hiii its me again,,,,

with more prose that makes me insane

"Tragedy takes and takes, for both of them. Max is trying to learn how to grow older; softer. He’s trying to dream of slower things, but it won’t stop people from poking at what he tries to forget—romanticizing all the bad bits and gilding them into their history right alongside the worst days of Charles’ life. People love a tragedy.

Not this, though. This isn’t for the history books. He won’t have people rewatch the podiums where Charles wouldn’t even look Max in the eye and know it was because something horrible happened, and Max didn’t know what to do; didn’t know how to ask for comfort or answers. And Charles—people already remember him in mourning before they remember anything else, and that’s already unfair. They like to treat his life like a play, spilling onto the stage in perfectly romanticized pain. Max won’t have this spilling across it too; won’t have Charles’ grief, his guilt, his self-flagellation, Max’s uselessness to make it right, the two of them ripping themselves apart and beating themselves bloody against each other’s ramparts, their dream of something gentle dead between their feet—he won’t have it added to the list below Max’s shitty childhood and Charles’ monthly visits to the Monaco Cemetery."

I just.

your ability to seamlessly switch between narration of events like races and sex and then just almost a poem of the characters thoughts in that moment is just insane

I think max's refusal to let charles' grief be commodified ( i hope that's the right word) or used to generate clicks like how almost anything that occurs today is used by f1 'journalists' feels rlly organic?

I won't say in character bc idk any of these men but I feel like this determination to keep what's between them, between them is very sjdnsjdb I don't have the words I hope you understand my incoherent rambling sorry

Another line that really stood out to me was when charles says that max understands that 'he enjoys podiums, not pedestals'

just. FERAL. Jsbbdnxbxj

the whole il predestinato title is beautiful and romantic and I will forever be unwell ab it but I wonder at the deification of ferrari bc like. wow. red god whom you love with every fiber of your being, who loves you back but. akdnbxjdnd BUT.

anyway sorry, I hope you don't mind that I'm doing these excerpt dissecting thingies I'm. very insane.

☀️

no no no never apologize!!!!! i love this so much <3333

this is all so on point honestly! what you said about being in character...i dont know these people at all and completely made this read up, but that's 100% what this fic is getting at?? they grew up racing and giving interviews and crashing out and they can be really rational about all of that because its just in their nature. they can sacrifice whatever they need to and behave however they need to for their teams and their success, and they don't question it because it's just who they are. in a way there's even solace in recognizing that it's a trait they share and they're not alone in it. theyre like the scorpion and the frog except they're both the scorpion which is an idea that keeps me up at night because not to be fake deep and pretentious but i feel like scorpions probably have a very different understanding of that story than frogs do. i might be insane

ANYWAY what that all means is it's really new to build something together that's just for them and that isn't about racing or expectations or even about gender roles, it's about love and honesty and trust. it's really new and scary but it's also really freeing. dont ask me how the a/b/o porny fic became about that, but the whole point of it is them finding new ways to see themselves based on the stability they've found with each other. or something. and that's why max is protective of their real actual vulnerabilities and why both of them kind of treat il predestinato/the inevitable mythos as a fun story but ultimately not a very serious one

the bit you quoted is sooo highly ranked for me <3 it relates very directly to telescope by boy & bear which became such a max song for this fic, especially "i've adjusted all my dreams for something slow // and it's a softening that age has taught me well // for the things i cannot change i must let go" like hhh its HIM

anyway thank you for thiiis i always love discussing my fic <3333

[those-weird-twolegs]

CrowHawkAsh

ok hey hear me out. all three malefail bastard bitch ass fuckwad men of tnp get together.

It has potential drama, angst, acquaintances to lovers to enemies to lovers, everything you could need.

First of all: These three are a NIGHTMARE at gatherings. Anything a clan leader says is heckled and mocked by one of them, ESPECIALLY Blackstar. It got to the point that the leaders have to coordinate who they're bringing to the gathering this month.

Second of all: Hawkleaf and Crowleaf tried to happen at different times and they fought over her and fell out in their early relationship bc hawkash was crow's rebound from leaf at first. However, ashfur is too manipulate mansplain malewife to let his boyfriends hate one another so he smooths it over between them and a few moons later they're all kissing again. they fight a lot, too, but always make up in the end.

Third: When hawk dies, Ash is so upset he refuses to go to the gatherings for MOONS, to the point Crow finds out one gathering because of rumors and whispers around him. Crow is annoyed enough that he stops caring that Hawk is dead and starts caring that his other boyfriend hasn't left his nest for more than water, food, and the dirtplace in literal moons. So he sneaks out next gathering he's assigned, and literally drags Ashfur out, with Bramble's blessing, in front of EVERYONE (even the baby jayhollylion litter bc theyre old enough to be out and about in camp by now) to force him to the gathering. So Ashfur is kicking, screaming, wailing and crying as he's dragged to the gathering by Crow. Leaf is fucking bamboozled enough that she tells Squirrel that her baby daddy is crow, and squirrel is pissed until she further elaborates that crow wasn't even looking at ash until after she dated him. (She hasn't told squirrel about her brief fling with hawk, but squirrel is suspicious because leaf seemed sad about the news of hawk's death) Anyways, at the gathering, Crow is cuddling and grooming ash rigorously to get the nastiness built up out of his fur, and eventually ash returns the favor. It's the first gathering in a year or so that the leaders hope crow and ash can be together at one, but half a moon later crow dumps ash because of "personal reasons"

Fourth: Those personal reasons are actually his internalized homophobia. Crow is afraid of being gay so as soon as it becomes an idea in his head that Maybe he doesn't like girls? he freaks out and dumps ash. so ash is now angry and depressed, and he's focusing this anger back onto squirrelflight because he doesn't want to hold resentment for the man he loves. (Note: Ash is bi, Hawk is pan, and Crow is gay). This culminates in the fire scene and his death like a year later.

Fifth: Crow is so distraught that his last living loverman is dead that he becomes a nest hermit, and nightcloud, who is stuck raising breezepelt now, is angry as she realizes Crow never loved her. He only loved his "stupid thunderclan and riverclan boytoys!" and was with her for the looks. She knew it was weird he was immediately pushing to have kits when they got together but not that it was because he didn't want to face his feelings. She yelled at him during the dumping of him, telling him if he had admitted and faced his emotions that he wouldn't be so pathetic and unlovable now, which she later regrets telling him as, even trying to fall in love again keeps going wrong for crow until eventually he gives up on loving again. (note: this is to expand upon how grief works, NOT to make crow sympathetic. He is still a horrible, neglectful father and shit partner in this au, but at least nightcloud dumps him early.)

Sixth: Heathertail, who is secretly in a mutual loveship with Cinderheart and Hollyleaf, but also trying to break apart from her lover to escape the codebreaking problems, is the one who helps Crow out of his rut. She shows him how to have at least solace in a world without Ash or Hawk, and he eventually tells her she should pursue Cinder so that she doesn't wind up like him, sad, alone, and gay. (Heather is gay, Holly is aroace but comfortable with romance, and cinder is omni. Cinderlion is a genuine love here but not as genuine as cinderheather, as lion is cinder's rebound)

Seventh: Cinder, Holly, and Heather join up in a mutual QPR. Holly remains functionally single otherwise, Cinder stays with Lion outside of the QPR, and Heather gets with breezepelt.

(heather is not onestar's kit in this au.)

mod soda

[pauein]

Ugh. my horrible sibling bribed me with Frivolous Snack Purchases to post this godawful string of discord messages i wrote regarding whether or not the Boyfriends from webtoons Boyfriends would survive the House on ash tree lane, going off half-forgotten memories of when i read boyfriends as a joke in 2022. SIGH.

"Ok. Fine. For starters. They all move into this house together and when stuff starts getting weird (likely as a result of the shaky foundation their relationship is built upon plus the weirdness with prep and goth) they all decide to investigate it together after some hesitation

Things seem to go mostly okay at first however they all get separated at some point- goth and prep find each other again and soon jock as well but they cant find nerd. Unfortunately continued search efforts have no avail at the moment, so they decide to call upon the Girlfriends (canonically more competent than them) to help out. Girl goth also had like an occult club or something iirc so thats probably the first one they called and she brought the rest of her polycule

However their assessment pretty much ends up being "you guys gotta gtfo" but they refuse to leave without nerd so they continue searching

I honestly dont know much about the girlfriends since they were a later introduction so i cant effectively wrap up their part here but i imagine the tensions between the two preps definitely does not help the condition of the house

Meanwhile nerd is still alive but barely and going insane. Through no fault of his own his sheer dependency on the other boyfriends is leading him into an untimely demise, a labriynth with no escape as he feels there Cant be an escape without the rest of his polycule

Also side note but about the earlier exploration before nerd went missing. Goth was one of the most eager to explore this first because dark and spooky shit but they Nearly got separated the first time, leaving him hesitant the second exploration. However the others still wanted to go back in out of curiosity, nerd in particular. Prep encouraged goth by pointing out that goth is the spooky things guy and its the opposite of going out in the sun. they all vow to protect each other but its a hollow promise against a threat they havent truly come face to face with. And they have already failed through this push to go back in.

Anyway so they go back in , girl nerd maybe stays behind with jock to keep track of things with the radio. The added hope of having the girlfriends along leads them to nerd, but hes clearly already in his death throes. However he attempts to kill goth and prep so they wont be apart. He fails, (might accidentally take out a few of the gfs, idk,) and when he realizes jock isnt even there he gives up, dying tragically, surrounded but alone. he never even finds out jock was keeping tabs on the radio

Goth and prep are stuck figuring out how to get back now, especially what to do about the dead bodies. Unfortunately on their own bringing back the bodies proves to be a very difficult task (girl jock was one of the ones who died and goth and prep are canon wimps strengthwise) and supplies are running low. But they refuse to leave the others behind

Love got them into this mess and theyre going to get out with love in tact, they think.

They just barely manage to reach the escape, however, just as they are, doubt sets in. The corpses they carry and the reality that things will never return to the way they are again stretches the corridor, pulling the door farther, and farther away. Can they truly say they escaped with their love? Like this?

Suddenly, behind them the hall feels like its collapsing, from above, below, all around. Prep panics, theyre both so out of their depth, and now theyre doomed to sink with the ship. However, goth thinks just quickly enough. Almost. He stages his last stand, shoving Prep through the door- sacrificing himself in the process. The bodies also do not make it.

The weight of this grief also collapses the house itself, foundation and walls not sturdy enough to support it. The survivors all escape unharmed, but can they say they really escaped in one piece?

It is unknown where the remaining GFs relationship ends up after this. However, Jock and Prep end up breaking up on despairing but amicable terms, believing nothing can be done to bridge the gap in their hearts. The last shot is of prep, more alone than he ever was, but just as alone as he thought he was before the polycule began.

Fuck you man"

I am not caught up with current Boyfriends lore and i do not plan to be so if i got anything wrong or inaccurate i am not sorry and in fact you should probably be the one whos sorry.

[flamingredanon]

Au where reginald, right, and terrence were friends. The three were the chief, second and third of the clan and they were close. When reginald told terrence to plan more for raids the other actually listened. They were a team that was steadily leading the clan into greatness just like wilford.

At least until terrence fell.

They were watching the stars on the balcony. Right was just pointing out Orion when the night pilot turned the airship sharply to avoid a flock of birds. Right and reginald were fine they were both behind the rail but terrence? Terrence was leaning slightly over to get a better look.

They didn't catch him in time.

Theyre were whispers of course that it wasn't an accident, but all it would take was one look at the pure grief on reginald's face or the distant stare right would give terrence's hat (the only thing that didn't go over) to stop them. From there the two were changed.

Reginald became more focused on rules and planning refusing to allow any heists to take place unless run by him first detail for detail. Carrying a sword with him everywhere and quick with it should you surprise him. His tone less charming than before more stoic and dead. (Sometimes the newer recruits catch him in the vault staring at a pushed aside ruby with a single hat atop it quietly pleading for forgiveness from someone.)

Right becomes quiet. Never speaking silent as the grave just seemingly existing on the airship as ghost. Talking to him is difficult because his mind is often elsewhere. On heists he comes back injured always from taking someone else's hit. Never letting anyone get hurt but him. (There are days where he goes to the balcony and only reginald can bring him back inside as he just stares at the ground below.)

As time goes on things get better but the signs of grief are still there. Until one day a theif with a familiar face is caught by right running towards the records room.

Right couldn't believe eyes, this thief was almost the spitting image of his dear friend. Those same blue eyes, that eyebrow scar across his right eye, even the same tooth gap. But despite everything, this thief claims to be someone named Henry Stickmin, not knowing anything of a Terrence Suave. Right had thrown the thief in the brig for now as he talked with Reginald.

As soon as Reginald heard, he was down to the brig to take a look at the thief. He was the spitting image of Terrence, but continue to claim that he was just some thief named Henry blackmailed by the Government. Reginald could even hear Terrence in the man's voice, prompting him to ask if he had suffered any injuries or memory loss.

Henry explains he woke up in some forest, with a pretty torn up black suit and not a lick of memories to help him. He wandered around a few days before finding some house in the forest. The person who owned the house, an odd fellow named Gadget Gabe, took him in and claimed he was an assistant of his named Henry Stickmin. Gabe seemed trusting enough and with nothing else to go on, Henry went with it.

Reginald made a mental note to visit this "Gadget Gabe" one day and have a "talk" for exploiting someone with amnesia. Reginald let Henry out of the brig and escorted him to the medical ward to get a good look over and more importantly, see how bad the memory loss is. Right made a quick detour to shoo off the Government dogs following them.

Henry found it weird that despite not remembering this Airship, he knew where everything almost was and he swore he knew some of the doctors. Scans after scans, tests after tests, blood drawn, questions asked and dna samples collected, Henry and Reginald waited patiently for the results.

The Toppat doctor called Henry and Reginald to his office and explained that indeed, Henry Stickmin was really Terrence Suave. He also explained that with time and exposure to familiar surroundings and familiar people, Henry should start to remember himself.

So Reginald and Right now watch over Henry, sometimes getting a tad overprotective, while he slowly heals, he slowly remembers who is really is. Reginald and Right weren't going to lose their friend again.

[acaciapines]

@mallowstep

woulda sent this as an ask but uh. moth ghost au wont leave my head and this got. long. hope ya dont mind i think about hawkfrost and mothwing A Lot.

under a cut bc. again. long.

bc see the thing is. if i were to do a moth ghost au. the kids are all young when she dies (at least, i think? idk their timeline, i’m assuming they’re like, 3-4 months, so, youngish), so it’s like...ghost sister? ghost sister. sasha cant see her because it’s no fun if she can, so we get hawk and tadpole, both who feel like they’ve killed their sister, both who are kids and cant deal with that grief. but like...moth is right there! she’s right there! she’s still their sister even if shes a ghost and as they get bigger and lose their kit-fluff she stays the same. she’s their sister.

but sasha....sasha just lost one of her kittens, nearly lost the other two, and now the remaining ones are talking to moth as though she’s still there? cats dont leave ghosts behind--cats aren’t trapped like that. humans are, sasha was a housecat and she’s seen how humans pace around their houses, but cats are sneaky lil guys. cats arent trapped to the earth like people are. cats die and leap into the sky and become the world.

moth isn’t stuck, moth is the world. so sasha tells her sons that their sister isn’t a ghost with them, but she’s the world around them--the prey and wind and sky.

hawk and tadpole look at each other, at their very-much-there ghost sister, and are like....yeah sure mom.

so we get a hawk and tadpole who refuse to let moth go. it’s hawk who clings to her the most, i think--he acts as though nothing happened, as though nobody drowned. tadpole is...starting to listen to their mom, a bit. he knows moth is there, but...should she be? nobody should be trapped like this. her spirit deserves to move on.

“we should help her,” tadpole says.

“she’s fine,” hawk says, “she’s right here, and she’s fine, and i’m not going to let you kill her again just because you have something against ghosts.”

and tadpole doesn’t ask again. he was the first one out out that basement.

eventually the kits end up in riverclan, and tadpole doesnt really talk about moth to anybody. like, he still acknowledges her, but only when they’re alone or it’s just hawk. hawk, on the other hand, doesn’t care! sure he’s like, 6 moons old, and moth is still stuck at 4, but! who! cares! and so while the clan teaches them their clan ways, teaches them about starclan, tadpole listens and he’s able to find some comfort in the idea. that theres a place his sister can go, can move on to. he’s always liked the stars. moth will, too.

but hawk...

well, the thing is, hawk’s not a clan cat. he’s got a clan name, now, he’s down a mother and he’s a very young kid staring up at these riverclan cats, but he’s nothing if not stubborn, and he’s clung to his sister thus far and he’s not about to give her up.

the clans dont think much of other religions. they tell hawk and tadpole that there’s no such thing as ghosts. dead cats go to starclan, and only clan cats, at that--your sister isn’t there, why would she be? she died a loner. but dont worry, now you’re here, in the clans, and when you die, you’ll be together in starclan.

“it’s stupid,” hawk says, to moth, alone in their den, “who cares about starclan? thats not mine, and its not yours. if you’re going anywhere it’s the wind, not the stars.”

“did you see that one thunderclan med cat apprentice at the gathering?” asks moth. “i thought she was pretty.”

“never change,” hawk says, fondly.

but he starts to think. as he starts to spend more and more time alone, with only moth for company. and moth is moth but she is...a ghost. she’s trapped. she doesn’t grow and change like a living cat does--at this point she doesnt even know why she’s still around. something about...drowning, maybe? it happened so long ago. she’s just happy to have her brother with her.

tadpole worries. hawk pushes him away. tadpole tells him they have to let their sister go. that they have to move on--that he loves moth too, and he misses her every day, but they’re clan cats, now. they have to be the best they can be, so nobody else is ever hurt again.

so i dont hurt anyone again, he doesnt say.

because tadpole doesn’t think moth’s ghost is around, either. he’s stopped seeing her. maybe he never did. maybe he was just a kid who lost his sister, who killed his sister, even if on accident. maybe he never was able to cope with that.

he wont see his sister in starclan. he probably wont see his mother, either. he doenst know what happens to loners. sasha told them, once. the wind and the sky and the leaves. becoming a part of the world, again. energy that can never truly die, just change shape.

but that was so long ago. he’s nearly a warrior, now. who remembers the stories they were told as kids?

anyways.

hawkpaw becomes the medicine cat.

he’s got two sets of beliefs rattling around in his head--starclan, everything the clans are telling him, and half-remembered stories from his mother, that moth remembers best of them all, forever trapped as a 4 moon old kit. and somewhere along the line these have been mashed together, into one big: starclan isnt letting moth in, because she died a loner. starclan wont ever let moth in but they’re going to take me when i die and i wont let them. i wont let them tear us apart.

it’s not easy. riverclan says he’d need a sign to become a medicine cat, but since when have the dead done that? they’re dead. moth is a ghost at his side, and she watches the flowers, and the bees, and remarks about thunderclan medicine cats that hawk can’t help but be begrudgingly fond of, if only for her. 

but he can do this. he has to.

hawkpaw fakes a sign. hawkpaw becomes medicine cat.

hawkpaw goes to the moonpool, and the stars tell him the same thing the clans do: there is no place for your sister here. our heavens are for worthy clan cats only.

hawk is still the villain here, just...in a different way. if this were a warriors book he’d be a villain flat-out, a med cat turning his back on starclan, who lied and cheated his way into this role, who never cared about anybody but his dead sister. but this isn’t a warriors book.

tadpole is the hero. hawk looks at the stars and tells them to their faces if you wont let my sister in, then i’ll make you regret it. i’ll show everyone that you’re nothing. that they worship cats that arent even ghosts. cats that are trapped. maybe youre wrong. maybe moth isnt the one youre keeping out. maybe shes the free one.

hawk plays the long game, though. gets his full name. learns medicines, how to heal.

how to harm.

moth watches him from the shadows. tells him kit-stories about rebirth.

the clans dont believe in that. hawk doesnt know what he is. he doesnt either.

theyre all trapped. thats what he believes.

he sets a trap for mudfur. a fox-trap down by the lake. then he, hawkfrost, will be the only link riverclan has to the stars, and he won’t listen to a word they say.

tadpole is the one to find out, to intervene before mudfur dies. to say hawk, you betrayed us all!

you betrayed me first, says hawk. me and moth both.

moth is dead! says tadpole. you can’t let her go!

you follow the words of the dead, says hawk in return, thats all the clans do. all mudfur did. he didnt want me to be his apprentice. he needed the dead to tell him what to do. what kind of life is that? and if you agree with what he did, how is it any different than me and moth? at least i know she’s real. that she’s our sister. the clans would let her die.

and so tadpole kills his brother with a stake through the heart.

he thinks he can see moth for a second. a flash against the blood.

hawk dies. he doesnt die a clan cat.

was it worth it? tadpole asks.

im going to be with moth, hawk says. youre going to go to starclan.

why dont you answer that question?

...

yeah thats my moth ghost au. is this anything? who knows! its certainly not in any way fleshed out, just the barest bones of an idea. i want leafpool to still get her ‘blood will spill blood’ prophecy--maybe she and hawk become friends, somewhere in there. who knows.

ghost moth man. fun to think about.

[many-gay-magpies]

@honeyseungz @loabivey so that uh. that mini au that you had like a very small rb thread about yesterday (well over a few days ago now that im posting this). well uh. um . actually you know what im just gonna let you read it yourselves

so. heeseung, jay, and sunoo are all brothers. wether its actual brothers or just "brothers" by blood bond or whatever idk. but, regardless, they're brothers. im thinking that like, at first they aren't vampires, theyre just regular dudes yknow? (and just a forewarning, a lot of this isnt gonna be as compliant with the enhaverse theorizing we've done so far, it's just a little brain worm i wanted to play around with, throwing a little bit of enhaverse crumbs in here and there)

but anyway. they're not vampires, im thinking theyre just like... adopted/found family brothers, probably orphans or something. regardless they love each other a lot and its great. personality-wise everything is super different, but just for plot conveniences, heeseung, jay, and sunoo are the yunmeng trio (heeseung as wwx, jay as jc, and sunoo as jyl respectively), and jungwon is lwj.

the three brothers meet jungwon, probably brought together by this Big Fantasy Evil, maybe something involving the vampire queen as a character? idk. there's some big evil shit going down, and the three brothers somehow end up with jungwon and HIS big bro, who im imagining is jake (basically the lan xichen in this situation—very soft, kind, gentle; the vibes are right). both of them are vampires, not that our three orphan bois know that. they get caught up in the danger, and vampire bros jake and jungwon coms to the rescue.

now, a little bit of personality-mapping here: jay is outwardly very loud, fun, temperamental, and sarcastic, generally very much like he is irl; but inside, he's intensely loyal, protective, and loving, with a HUGE soft spot for the people closest to him. sunoo is very sweet, sensitive, and kind—the walking hug of the three brothers, who is certainly not without his bite and wont hesitate to talk back to anyone who hurts them. aggressively and without mercy. also he makes them soup for comfort and is generally best boy. heeseung is very goofy, playful, free-spirited, and bright, but insecure and sensitive underneath it all; generally a loud annoying mess of a boy. pure chaotic neutral and a gremlin if there ever was one. jungwon, on the other hand, is... not. he's nervous, quiet, cautious to a fault and intensely righteous, always standing up for what's right and refusing to waver from his chosen path. very lawful good vibes. he, naturally, is more than a little put off when jay, sunoo, and heeseung's chaotic ass come crashing into he and his brother jake's once-peaceful (ish) lives. and it doesn't help that heeseung is a... huge flirt, and apparently deadset on making jungwon his friend. fuck.

jungwon... doesn't know what to do. and it would all be so much easier if heeseung were dumb or stupid or unattractive or just a total asshole—but he isnt any of those things. he's beautiful, smart, insanely witty with a brain faster than any jungwon's ever seen—he can't help but admire him. but on top of that, he's wreckless as hell, unpredictable, and pushy, and gives jungwon heart attacks way too much for his liking. he doesn't even have a heartbeat. he's fucking dead.

it eventually comes out that jake and jungwon are vampires; the brothers are surprisingly cool with it. not the craziest thing that's happened to them.

the five boys get closer, staying together as they fight their foe (which im becoming increasingly inclined to make the werewolves), and through a series of convoluted events, jungwon learns that heeseung is not only gorgeous, smart, talented, and funny as all get-out, but also sensitive, caring, insecure, and thoughtful... and heeseung, who's only goal had been to break through the nervous and straightforward outer shell of his young dongsaeng, does just that. and jungwon, naturally, starts to fall in love.

somewhere along the line, though, things go wrong—as they were bound to do in an au loosely based off of the untamed. something happens to heeseung; he's fatally wounded after saving jay's life, and disappears, nowhere to be found. his brothers eventually assume the worse; that he's gone forever. but the queen finds him, takes care of him, nurses him back to health. turns him.

when he comes back, nothing's the same. the war is still going, and his brothers thought he was dead—but he isn't. but he's... different. jungwon and jake are quick to realize that he's been turned, how, they dont know—but they talk to him, teach him, try to help him, jungwon especially. of course he does; he's in love. heeseung, of course, is dismissive; doesn't take it seriously. ill be fine, whats so bad about this? or, perhaps, he doesn't let on just how hard he's taking it; fearing vulnerability more than he fears being a vampire.

inevitably, though, heeseung's wrecklessness leads to doom—he lets his bloodlust overtake him, relishes in it, no matter how much jungwon had warned him against it, pleaded with him to take caution. he says it's usefull—says he can help them take out enemies, help them win this war. jungwon warns him that he could end up getting more than he bargained for. heeseung doesn't listen.

heeseung helps them win the war; practically wins it for them. hes happy, bitterly, until he isnt. he's happy, until he sees his brother—sees sunoo. blood-covered, pale-skinned, drained.

no.

heeseung is broken. jay even moreso. jay yells at him; yells and yells and yells and yells. curses him out, tells him he hates him, tells him he's nothing but cruel evil—he doesn't mean it, of course, but no one knows it then, not even him. now he is only angry; so, so angry. heeseung, wrought with guilt and shame and grief, flees—hides himself somewhere secluded, does the closest thing a vampire can possibly do to death, the equivalent of a thousand-year hibernation. none can find him, he's made sure of that. in his guilt and shame and anger he stews, asleep, for hundreds, thousands of years.

after the anger passes, jay is more than anything in mourning—for heeseung as well as for sunoo. he has a realization, that being that, when, inevitably, heeseung comes back, he doesn't want him to be alone: even if he'll have jungwon and jake, it won't be the same as having his brother. so jay pleads, cries, begs for jungwon to turn him—so that they can search for heeseung together, so that when heeseung comes back, he'll have jay waiting for him, too. so, reluctantly, jungwon gives in and turns jay—after which he helps him deal with his newfound immortality and vampiric status—helping him handle his bloodlust and helping him learn how to feed. over the centuries that heeseung is gone, jay, jungwon, and jake grow even closer (j line eyyy), inseparable as they search for heeseung and even outside of that. jungwon and jay are the closest, jay growing a colossal soft spot for the boy and not hesitating to take him under his wing and protect him with all he has (initially, sort of as a replacement for protecting heeseung, but eventually jay's affection for jungwon grows into something all it's own). to be clear, no love triangle bullshit here, only sickening-sweet platonic soulmates jaywon and a jungwon that is still achingly in love with heeseung.

(okay for anyone thats actually watched cql/read mdzs, yes i KNOW lwj and jc did not get along at all and kind of hated each other but. this is my au i do what i want, and if i want to add soft jaywon into the mix then im fucking going to, goddamnit)

OKAY TIME FOR SOME WACKY SIDE-PLOT MADNESS

so. sunghoon. how does he fit into all this? how does he end up being the one to trigger heeseung's "resurrection"? how does heeseung GET resurrected in the first place? well, not to worry, you're about to find out! and i am too because i'm just figuring this out as i go along baybyyyy

sunghoon, im thinking, is a friend of jake's (lets throw some jakehoon in here too bcs why not), either from before everything went to shit and heeseung went and isolated himself, or sometime during the numerous centuries jakewon spent looking for heeseung with jay. either way, sunghoon is this boy who jake is friends with and cares about a lot, and is also maybe kind of in love with. while jaywon spend most of their time looking for heeseung, jake spends his with sunghoon—finding himself often alone, now that his little bother is going off on his own adventures.

in a situation quite similar to heeseung's, sunghoon probably gets fatally injured somehow and is near death, but jake, not wanting him to die, decides to turn him instead. niki is also involved, and it's a sort of package deal, because before meeting jakewon, heeseung, and everyone, they were their own little thing; not unlike jay, heeseung, and sunoo's brother's triad. they were both probably orphans, niki being the much younger one, and as such sunghoon took him under his wing and never looked back. when jake turned sunghoon, niki was basically like "m8 what the fuck" and demanded he be turned too, not wanting his sunghoon-hyung to live on forever while he grew old and died. jake, also having a soft spot for niki, was like "fine alright" and turned him too. so, now their little vampire coven numbered five, and all was (moderately) well.

or not.

the thing was, jake hadn't anticipated how powerful sunghoon would be—there's nothing in life that anyone's found yet that would indicate a person's level of power once turned, so jake had... pretty much no way to see this coming. but, anyway, sunghoon was... really, really powerful. like, insanely powerful. all the abilities vampires were said to have in legends, the likes of which were previously reserved for just legends, he had them; flawless teleportation, mind control, shape-shifting, the whole bit. and on top of that, he was controlled—insanely good at monitoring himself and keeping tabs on his own instincts. one of the most self-sufficient, well-mannered vampires jake had ever seen. it was... frankly insane.

the problem? the queen. this is where she comes in, because she's played a part in all the boys' transformations, albeit indirectly—when jake and jungwon first turned, it was she who turned them. she could sense sunghoon's power, and she wanted it for herself. jake and jungwon had done well at avoiding her, even forgetting about her for a while; but what she wanted, she took, and take she did. it was sunghoon she took: luring him to her in small increments and then all at once, taking control of him, turning him into a mindless puppet. sunghoon had always prided himself in control, and without it, havoc wreaked: bodies dropping left and right, people being killed seemingly at random, their only purpose being to instill fear and paranoia.

now, niki had heard tales, before, from his hyungs but also from regular townspeople to whom the legend had gotten passed down, of heeseung, and how great and terrible he was. heeseung, the townspeoples' folktales said, had been insane, unstoppable: a mad genius far too gone for redemption. niki also knew from his hyungs' fond stories that heeseung, more than evil, was kind and caring; he was loyal, and powerful in his loyalty, and niki thought that if anyone could save his sunghoon-hyung, it was heeseung.

so niki went on a journey. without telling jaywon or anyone else (and thus causing quite the panic), he spent years searching for heeseung, everywhere jaywon had thought to look and everywhere they hadn't, and twice more for good measure. and, by some stroke of luck, either due to his own sheer force of will of something else entirely, niki found him: locked away in an old castle that never quite seemed to stay put, constantly phasing in between realities. it made sense why no one had found him before then—he didn't want to be found. desperately, in fact.

but niki, too, was desperate. he enacted a ritual that was said (by jake, so of course it was to be trusted) to wake any vampire that had gone into hibernation, and, miracles continuing to work for the bitter young boy, it worked. heeseung awoke—startled to find himself staring into the face of a very teary, very angry (visibly) sixteen-year-old.

confusion passed, things and motives were explained, and heeseung (although bitter at having been woken up, and still riddled with enough guilt to last 1500 lifetimes) attempted to patiently tell niki that he had no fucking idea how to help sunghoon whatsoever. niki pretty much said "well you better fucking find a way because you're not going back to sleep now, the world's about to fucking end. also jay and jungwon-hyung have been looking for you for literal centuries, do you know how pissed theyd be if i went out looking for you, found you, then came back empty-handed? really fucking pissed is how much. also sad. did i mention sad?" and heeseung, notoriously weak and also kind of (read: very) in love, is just like "...jungwon? jay?"

so niki brings heeseung back to the others, the return journey taking a long enough time that the two become significantly close to each other, heeseung's long-forgotten big brother instincts (tm) kicking in around the younger vampire. niki has to basically drag heeseung out of the castle by his teeth, because as much as he misses his brother and jungwon, he's still so incredibly guilty, and completely convinced that he isnt worth love or life whatsoever and that jay still hates his guts. and, jungwon... he doesn't even want to think about jungwon. how he failed him. how he let him down. but, niki slowly works through the insecurities, bit by bit: assuring heeseung that, no, even though jay will definitely rip him a new one once he sees him again, he'll also cry and hug him for at least 24 hours because he misses him like hell and heeseungie hyung you have no idea.

they weather a lot together. storms, mental breakdowns, bouts of blood-starvation so severe heeseung thinks he'll lose it again: but they're there for each other. they hunt, talk, keep each other warm, and in it, form an unbreakable bond. niki had heard tales of the legendary lee heeseung, who wiped out entire armies in two seconds flat and comforted his friends when they were sad and annoyed jay to the very ends of the earth: but what he's faced with is a man with more insecurities than niki has hairs on his head—and he has a lot of hairs on his head.

by the time they make it back to the coven's home, heeseung has grown sufficiently attached to the enigma that is niki, and has almost completely but it out of his mind that he's here for his old friends, too. he's only doing this for niki: it's a fact he's comfortable with. so when they reach the front steps he just... freezes.

i have a very clear image of it in my head—jungwon, jay, and jake sense niki's presence, in some weird vampire-y way. it's been around 10, 15 years since he left at this point, so of course they rush out to greet him, ready with scoldings and lashings about how stupid he had been (after, of course, making sure he's unharmed and alright)—but it all dies on their tongues as soon as they see who's with him.

frozen. everything is frozen.

i imagine it's a lot like lulu and artzyy's post. jungwon is the first to move, stepping forward and whimpering out a broken "hyung", and all heeseung's guilt and avoidance is forgotten in favor of cradling jungwon to his chest, holding him close and whispering reassurances into the crown of his head, wonnie, im so sorry, hyung's so sorry; i didn't mean to leave you for so long, i'm here now, its okay. and of course then jay comes in, crying and screaming about how the fuck is it okay, how can it ever be okay, how could you just not mean to leave us alone for 1500 years?! how the fuck do you just expect to waltz back into our lives like nothing ever happened and pretend its all okay?!? and then he hits him, and hurts him, tries to make him feel even an inkling of the hurt he was made to feel for the past fifteen hundred years—but then punching him turns into fisting hands into the back of his shirt and sobbing into his neck and holding him so tight he wouldn't be able to breath if he had the need to and please, please don't leave, why would you leave, you asshole, why did you leave?

so yeah. things happen. reunions are had, tears are shed. some indirect heewon love confessions probably happen later on in the form of very intense devotions of life and self and all that. "walking on the single-log bridge in the dark really isnt so bad" you know the whole shbang. meanwhile jay salty in the background just like "cant you just say you love each other like normal human beings jesus fucking christ"

jayseung's relationship (or the reigniting of it) is, well, rocky. they're both conflicted—jay even more than heeseung. because, the thing is, heeseung killed sunoo. as regretful as he is, that doesn't make it any easier to forget. but he's back, and alive, and in one piece, and he isn't leaving, and jay knows it wasn't really his fault, he wasn't in control—but he killed him. he killed their brother. and it WAS his own stupid fault for losing control in the first place, for not listening to jungwon, so what the hell is jay supposed to think? he flip-flops between being intensely grateful that heeseung is back and okay and finally with them again, and then remembering what he's done, giving him the cold shoulder and not speaking to him for hours on end. and all the while, heeseung is riddled with guilt, and shame, and grief he'd suppressed for far too long; niki's stubbornness combined with jungwon's unwavering support being the only things keeping him from bolting into oblivion all over again. all in all, it's a difficult time—but they get there. eventually.

naturally, they save sunghoon. what else is there to do? they defeat the queen, break her control over their friend—and then jakehoon have their own teary reunion, not unlike heewon's, and sungki have theirs, not unlike jayseung's (although with a... considerable decrease in cursing and conflicted emotions, and a lot more immediate sobbing). they're a mess—sunghoon is traumatized, heeseung is traumatized, jay and niki are traumatized, they're all just fucking traumatized. jayseung will probably take a long time to get back to the way they once were, if it's even possible—there'll always be an empty space there, something gone, something missing, and it's one that can't be filled. jungwon barely lets heeseung out of sight or touch alike, and heeseung isn't much better off. jay's always been the more touchy one out of the three of them; but after years of missing, of longing, there's plenty of time to be made up, and heeseung is just... so, so soft, and warm, and being held by him is the loveliest thing jungwon's ever known.

AND NOW A SUNOO THING, BECAUSE THE IDEA OF ENHA LIVING HAPPILY EVER AFTER AS OT6 WITH SUNOO JUST FUCKING DEAD DOES. NOT WORK FOR ME

so like. sunoo isn't dead, or he doesn't stay dead, or not the soulless-unmoving kind of dead anyway. you know how necromancy and fierce corpses exist in donghua and shit? well they exist here too because fuck you and also i said so. i made myself sad and now im making it happy again goddamnit.

anyway. after he dies, sunoo gets found by the queen, too, and because she's all-powerful and whatnot she fucking necromances him—figures he'll be useful later. as he is, though, he's basically nothing more than a puppet; like wen ning and song lan were when they were being controlled. his soul isn't... gone exactly, just imprisoned, prevented from being able to come forward and command his body.

so. sunoo is still partially alive, and the boys (jay, jake, jungwon, sunghoon, niki, and whatnot)... don't know that. i imagine that for pretty much the entirety of the centuries that heeseung is gone, sunoo's status as a necromanced fierce corpse goes entirely unknown to them, and it's only after heeseung is brought back by niki that he starts to resurface. i imagine they realize it in a sort of tense, action-filled scenario: the boys have gone to investigate another attack, thinking it's sunghoon, but as it turns out the queen has had TWO undead corpses running around doing her dirty work instead of one. and one of them is sunoo.

heeseung and jay, of course, are stunned. they cant believe it's real; it isn't real, it can't be—and yet.

a lot of angsty plot stuff happens—i dont have the energy or enough shits to give to figure out what. the thing is, the queen only kept sunoo this long and brought him out as a tactic to lure heeseung, make him weaker; and it probably worked. in the midst of both fighting against sunghoon and fighting to SAVE sunghoon, heeseung is bent on saving sunoo as well, and there's probably a lot of very angsty talk wherein there are disagreements about who's life, really, is more important in this situation, and if heeseung is just trying to make up for what he did to sunoo. regardless, heeseung ends up saving sunoo and bringing his soul back to the surface. what he doesn't expect is for sunoo to forgive him—fully and wholeheartedly. and it feels wrong, because no, you should be angry with me, you should hate me and want to hurt me like i hurt you; but sunoo is just... happy. happy that he's back, happy that heeseung is back, happy that they're all together again. and its conflicting, to say the least. even moreso because sunoo isnt stupid—he didnt just act like heeseung was an innocent who did no wrong; he knew he had been wreckless, knew he was at fault, and he forgave him still. loved him still. that was something heeseung... hadn't been prepared for.

like i said in the last part, they save sunghoon; how, im not sure, but they save him, probably with a fair bit of sunoo's help, and they're together again. only the tiny difference here is that sunoo is with them too. sunoo is back, and the gang has yet another undead bestie to teach the ropes of being a vampire to. things are awkward, obviously, especially between the original brother's trio of heeseung, sunoo, and jay; because sunoo is his usual sweet and kind self while jay believes that he should be more angry at heeseung for killing him, heeseung agrees, and jay has some very conflicted feelings about how self-depricating his hyung is being (because like... yeah you killed sunoo and im supposed to hate you but you're not supposed to hate yourself, you idiot, what the fuck?)

(also like. if we're gonna take some more crumbs from cql canon here im gonna go ahead and say sunoo's death was at least somewhat self-sacrificial, even if it was heeseung that ended up causing it in the end)

(i kind of love how jiang cheng-y i made enhaverse jay here to be honest)

(okay this has been in my drafts WAY too long because ive been waiting for some miraculous Other Detail i need to add to pop up in my mind, but honestly i can just add anything else i think of in a reblog afterwards, this bitch just needs to see the light of day)

[dead-ghouls]

Theres no way that i could ask for a break down of what you see in his ftes in ask format is is there?? I already love korekiyo, but I'm really curious about what you have to say.

I can do that! The only thing is that most of what he says I’ll be quoting from memory, but direct quotes can be found in his FTEs and in-game dialogue on wiki. I’ll do my best to provide as many screenshots as I can, but I doubt I will be able to find all, it’s a very long process and I dont have the whole day.V3 spoilers below, ofc. Also TW various types of abuse, you know the drill if you played the game. Long post!Let’s start from what we know about Korekiyo. What makes him Korekiyo, what makes him stand out, what’s special about him. 

- Unique outfit- Long hair- His deep knowledge of anthropology- His interest in occult/speaking to the dead- His deep relationship with death, grief and how he looks at it- His love for ropes- Being a serial killer

Now let’s break down every trait he has and where it comes from.

Unique outfit

FTE 3, he tells us his sister made it for him to suit her tastes, claiming his school uniform doesnt suit him.

Long hairI don’t remember if it was mentioned in-game, but it was mentioned in V3 manga anthology, that his long hair is a memento to his sister, since she had long hair, so he refuses to cut it. It is stated that events of manga obviously not canon, but I dont think this claim was outside of his canon characterisation. 

His deep knowledge of anthropology

In the same FTE he mentions that Sister was the one who “pushed him to research as much as he could”

His interest in occult/speaking to the dead + his relationship with death and griefI dont think i gotta find proof for that, he mentioned travelling looking to speak to the dead, the whole ch 3 with Caged Child + he mentioned having near-death experience after a seanse (see next bullet point), and that’s how his Sister came to him.He speaks about human mortality and coming to terms with it, but he himself cant do that. 

He doesnt fear death, maybe he even seeks it - to reunite with his Sister [cut to him enduring his execution and seeing his spirit happy and free, ready to meet her] but no way he could properly cope with human mortality and his own grief. That’s where all the occult stuff comes in - him telling how he tried so many things and how nothing worked (?). He says it during ch3 investigation, if you wanna look for a direct quote. Him being into occult, speaking with the dead, being possessed by his Sister - all of it is just his ways of coping with loss. He was very dependant on her (I’ll talk about it more below) and couldnt stand being alone.

His love for ropesOf course it can be a kinky thing but also look closely at this exchange:

This incident with ropes is what actually ended up “reuniting” him with his Sister. Of course he’d hold a special interest to this kind of activity after. 

Being a serial killerWell this one is obvious. Who did he kill? Girls. Why did he do it? To bring friends to his Sister. Simple as that.

Now look back at every bullet point and tell me: do you see a pattern? Yep, every aspect of his life, likes, personality, experiences, even his looks - it all traces back to his Sister. Controlling what he wears, what he does, what he likes; even after her death he is deeply affected and is devoted to doing everything in her name. Now try to recall one single thing about Korekiyo that wasn’t his Sister influence. Something he likes maybe? Something he enjoys on his own free time? Even his official dislike is a reference to a gift you might give in-game, an air refreshener that exorcises ghosts [He believes that he is possesed]. All I can think of is him telling he prefers green tea over black in one of FTEs. Korekiyo that we see and interact with in game isn’t his own person, just a reflection of grief, his Sister wants and needs. His whole existence is just a devotion to his late Sister, and it was the same way when she was alive.

Sister’s personality

From what I mentioned you should already hear the faint bells ringing in your head. “Pushed me to study” “Told me my uniform doesnt suit me” “I will kill people because her spirit told me to”He respected her, depended on her a lot. No shit, Sherlock - he was his Older Sibling. A side note, he never mentioned anyone else from his family, only said that they “had to hide their relationship from others” once. Sadly, I cant remember where it was said. No matter if he had any family present or not (having no family would worsen the case, but with family present its still fucked up) he still depended on her a lot, maybe considered her a parental figure, or at the very least - a role model. Korekiyo’s analysis on youtube brings up a very valid point - anthropology couldve been her passion as well, she just couldnt actually fullfill it because of the sickness. Explains her “pushing” him to research it.Basically we have an older sibling holding power over a younger sibling, presumably, from a younger age. More of her personality and influence can be seen in his trial. “You mustnt lose composure, you mustnt become flustered, you mustnt waver”Im linking this bit, but I strongly recommend rewatching the full version where his Sister appears. She appears to be his guardian, keeping him in check, making him act right. Telling him what to do and how to act. She appears in moments of distress when he needs comfort. He depends on her, he listens, he does everything she tells him to. Im not gonna get into the whole tulpa thing, so if youre not on board with it, I recommend reading into it more, even wiki has a brief explanation. Basically this possession is just his mind, but it does hold her true personality. So Sister is: assertive, calm, plays a role of guardian, has power over Korekiyo due her age, his respect and dependance on her, probably her being his parental figure. 

Now tell me, how this power dynamic could be healthy, consensual and (a very popular opinion in the fandom) this relationship was started from Korekiyo’s advances? How a younger sibling, that was so dependant and devoted could be in a consensual relationship with his older sibling that always tells him what to do?Korekiyo was groomed, he’s a victim. Most people in fandom hate him for being creepy and a sister-banging freak, because he doesn’t fit your cookie-cutter perseption of abuse victims. Everyone thinks that abuse victims only come in “i hate my abuser, i am currently away from them and i am healing” package. Korekiyo was never given a chance to realize it was wrong, he never got a chance to heal. He was groomed, abused, used and forced into relationship. Told that it was secret and sacred, that theyre breaking the boundaries, that’s why he mustnt tell anyone about it. Of course he believed her - its his Sister. She convinced him that his love and dependance on her was romantic/sexual love.

The same analysis brings up a good point of his Sister guilt tripping him because of her illness. Never getting a chance for romantic love, never getting a chance to make friends.

What breaks my heart is that after all of this, after devoting his life to his Sister, studying what she wanted, wearing what she wanted, killing for her sake and even being executed because of her - he says that he wasn’t enough.

TLDR - Their power dynamic is very obvious from his FTEs and the trial, he was clearly groomed and abused, never got to recover from her manipulations. And fandom either fetishisizes their relationship, excusing their nasty kinks by saying it was consensual, or hates him because they never took the time to analyze the content. He was abused, he was manipulated, god knows what else was done to him when she was alive, and he died driven to insanity, full of grief devoted to his Sister and blaming himself for not being enough. As a side-note: it is completely okay being uncomfortable with his character/everything that happened in ch3. You dont owe anyone interacting with the piece of media depicting such topics. Your comfort and safety comes first. Kodaka is a shitty fucking writer. What is not okay is hating a character for being a victim. 

I probably missed a lot, my brain is very disorganized, so feel free to ask more questions/add your own opinion. 

[vrronica-sawyer]

Hi! Sorry to bother you but I was wondering if you could tell me where to find a like. Plot synopsis/layout for the beetlejuice musical? I tried looking online but I couldn’t find anything, and I thought if anyone would know it would be you! Thanks!

I can give it a shot!!! 

Also heads up to anyone that usually avoids musical spoilers but figures they don’t need to for this because theyve seen the movie, the plots very different! 

Quick Summary first for anyone who doesnt want spoilers but wants to know if it’s smth they’d be interested in: 

A demon invisible to everyone but other ghosts schemes to become visible to humans by first manipulating a newlydead couple, and then the living daughter of the family who moves into the deceased couple’s home.

(i’ll include song names so you can have an idea of where you are in the plot when listening to the album)Basically, the story starts with Lydia Deetz at her mother’s funeral, singing a short song Invisible about how she feels invisible and abandoned in her grief. After she leaves Beetlejuice comes, sings a song The Whole Being Dead Thing that’s basically introducing the show to the audience and warning that it will be unapologetically about death, and then after the song explains to the audience that he is a demon caught between the world of the living and the dead. He can’t interact with humans, unlike ghosts who while invisible can still do ghost-y things to them like possession, moving things, etc, and wants to change that (in a cut part of this scene that was somewhere between previews and the final frozen version of the show for broadway he explains that he scared too many humans to death and that’s why he’s stuck like this as a sort of punishment, and he wants to change it so he can go back to doing that). He explains that if someone says his name three times he’ll be able to be seen by and interact with the living, and that he has a plan. 

He then goes to the home of Adam and Barbara Maitland, a couple he informs the audience is about to die. They sing the song Ready Set Not Yet, which is about how they want to have a kid and are at the stage in their 10 year life plan where they would have a kid, but they’re worried theyre not ready so they keep putting it off. At the end of the song they decide theyre CLOSE to being ready but still have some stuff they want to do beforehand, and then step on a weak part of their floor, falling into the basement and dying. Beetlejuice is there for all of this, unseen because theyre alive, and addresses the audience once more explaining that for his plan to work he needs to keep the Maitlands trapped in their home, throwing out the Handbook For The Recently Deceased that appears for them while theyre still in the basement as it would tell them that they need to proceed directly to the Netherworld. They then climb back up, realize theyre dead, and are greeted by Beetlejuice which makes them freak the hell out. So he sings The Whole Being Dead Thing Reprise telling them that he’s their guide to being a ghost. Then he tells them that time moves differently when you’re dead so while it seems like it’s only been a few minutes, someone’s already bought their house and they’ll need to scare that family out of the house if they want it to stay as it is, while he says this movers begin to come in and throw out their belongings. They agree and head up to the attic.This is when the new family comes in, Charles Deetz, his daughter Lydia that you met at the start, and Delia, the life coach Charles has hired to help Lydia move on from the loss of her mother. While Lydia is offstage it’s revealed that Charles and Delia have a romantic relationship but that they’re keeping it a secret from Lydia. When you meet the family it’s immediately clear that Lydia and her father’s relationship is rocky after the loss of her mother, Charles not wanting to talk about it and to act like everything’s fine while Lydia has developed an obsession with death, begun to dress in black, and refers to her mother as “Dead Mom”. Charles reveals to Lydia that they’re moving into this house which is upsetting to her as she wants to stay in the house they lived in with her mother, Delia fails at life coaching her, then the two adults leave her alone downstairs where she sings Dead Mom, a song to her mother essentially talking about how frustrated she is with her father for his refusal to talk about her mom and how lonely she feels without her mother as she was the person who understood her best.  From there we head back up to the attic, where Barbara and Adam are getting a lesson on scaring people from Beetlejuice. It’s clear that theyre very boring and timid people who aren’t good at this in the slightest to his annoyance. They sing Fright Of Their Lives led by Beetlejuice, basically going over several methods of being scary which the two fail at, and Beetlejuice lamenting that he needs them to get the family to say his name three times to free them but that first they need to scare them and, clearly that won’t happen. ( i think this is all because humans won’t notice ghosts unless theyre forced to via unexplainable haunting type happenings, so only then can they make the humans say his name). After the song he says they won’t be able to do it and gives up, leaving, but Barbara insists that they have to and she and Adam hype themselves up singing a quick Ready, Set Reprise before throwing some bedsheets on and making ghost noises, leaving the attic.  

We then see Delia and Lydia in Lydia’s new room, Lydia still miserable as Delia continues to try to “Life coach” her and cheer her up to no avail. Charles is planning a dinner party with an investor as they’ve moved here because Charles plans to set up an area of houses for rich people, and he wants Lydia to stop acting like this before then. Delia sings No Reason, a song about how great life is and why Lydia should think more positively and how everything happens for a reason, which Lydia continually derails. It also offers some insight into Delia’s character, talking about how her husband left her and she’s had a rough go of it up till now. After the song Delia leaves, and Adam and Barbara appear in the room still wearing sheets and acting like ghosts. Lydia is unfazed, merely excited at the sight thinking that they’re a sign from her mother. Barbara and Adam are thrown off and run away back to the attic, but are followed by Lydia.

 The three talk and bond, Lydia finally being able to talk about her mother without being told to stop, and excited thinking that if ghosts are real then her mother must be back haunting their old home. She agrees to help them scare her dad since the Deetzes leaving is what all three of them want, and suggests that if they aren’t good enough at being scary then they should just take advantage of the fact that her father can’t see them, having her act like theyre scarier than they are. She runs into her father’s room followed by the Maitlands and screaming about ghosts, only to catch him with Delia in his bed. She learns that not only are they together, but her father has just asked Delia to marry him. He tells her that she needs a mother and they all need to be a family, to which she tells him that she wishes she was dead and runs away. We then find Beetlejuice on the roof, crying and singing a joke-y reprise of Lydia’s opening song Invisible about how much it sucks to be him. He’s interrupted by Lydia coming onto the roof with a suicide note, planning to jump. As she’s reading her note aloud and gets to a part about feeling invisible Beetlejuice agrees, used to humans not being able to see him, but Lydia does and is understandably confused as to who he is. He is VERY excited that she can see him, and asks her to say his name three times. Here we get to Say My Name, a song where Lydia and Beetlejuice go back and forth as he tries to convince her to say his name three times, but she’s understandably wary. Adam and Barbara come to the roof looking for her after she got upset and try to warn her to stay away from Beetlejuice but he possesses them in order to make them give him praise and insist he can help Lydia deal with the whole situation with her father. This just convinces Lydia further that she doesnt need him after he tells her all ghosts can possess people, pushing him off the roof and ending the song by suggesting she and the maitlands use possession to scare her father during the dinner party, turning the tables by declaring she’s gonna make her father say her name. After this we go back downstairs to Delia and Charles who are setting up for the dinner party, deciding to just carry on without Lydia as there’s no sign of her and the investor is arriving soon. After the investor arrives and they’re all sitting down for dinner Lydia comes downstairs, acting sickly sweet and wearing a yellow dress Delia bought her to Charles and Delia’s delight. She suggests Delia give a toast before dinner and she does so, however Adam and Barbara possess her mid speech, making her sing The Banana Boat Song, and soon everyone except Lydia has joined in on a very chaotic number of Day-O (The Banana Boat Song) with a reanimated roasted pig, ghostly hands made of plates of shrimp, and scariest of all, choreography. Lydia is delighted until the investor exclaims that this is good news and that they’ll make a ton of money from a haunted house, and without any other ideas, she decides to summon Beetlejuice despite the Maitlands’ protests. After his name is called three times the scene gets even more chaotic, Beetlejuice shoots fire at people, the roasted pig brandishing a knife and chasing Barbara off stage as Adam follows, and a gigantic floating Beetlejuice head and hands attacking people until everyone has ran off but Beetlejuice and Lydia. Lydia’s horror quickly dissolves as she realizes her dad has left and Beetlejuice declares that it’s their house now, and that’s how Act 1 ends.

Act 2 opens with the song Girl Scout, as a young girl scout with heart arrhythmia is wandering the neighborhood selling cookies. She explains that because of her heart condition she could die from being too scared, and then knocks on the Deetz’s door. Lydia answers and invites her in, and then Lydia and Beetlejuice scare her. This continues as more people come to the door and Lydia and Beetlejuice take turns frightening them and singing That Beautiful Sound, a song about how fun frightening people is and how glad Lydia is now that there aren’t any grown ups around. After the song, Beetlejuice states that it’s been three days since they scared everyone away and since then they’ve been running a haunted house, Lydia playing honorary ghost. He gives her a tote bag that all dead people supposedly get, and in it she finds The Handbook For The Recently Deceased. He tries to convince her she doesn’t need it because she’s not technically dead but she gets excited thinking that she could use it to bring her mom back, leaving to go find the Maitlands after realizing only dead people can open this. Beetlejuice is hurt that she abandoned him and that she would rather be with her mom and announces that even after making it so he can be seen by humans he’s still alone, so he now wants to go a step further and become human. He says that in order to do this he needs to trick Lydia into marrying him, quickly explaining it’s “just a green card thing” and he’s not actually out here trying to get with a 15 year old girl. Meanwhile Lydia has arrived at the attic where Barbara and Adam have been hiding out the last three days frightened of Beetlejuice. When she arrives theyve been talking about how to get rid of Beetlejuice as it’s not a safe situation for Lydia and they’re worried. She shows them the handbook and they open it, reading that all ghosts are supposed to go to the netherworld. They look through it but don’t see anything about bringing a ghost back from the dead, however they do read that to get to the netherworld you draw a door on the wall and then knock three times, Adam doing so with some chalk. A door opens where he drew it, leading to a mysterious foggy place with green lighting, and Adam enters a hypnotic state at the sight, beginning to head towards it. Barbara gets scared and closes both the door and the book, telling Lydia she needs to stop all this and that they’re scared for her. Lydia gets mad and says theyre scared of everything and that’s why they’ll always be trapped in the attic, then leaves. 

Barbara is upset and thinks Lydia has a point, singing Barbara 2.0 (rip Children We Didn’t Have u~u) about how she and Adam are caught up in the past and how when they were alive they were pathetic and afraid of everything but now they need to toughen up and take charge of their afterlives, especially now when Lydia needs them. 

At this point Charles and Delia have returned to the house to rescue Lydia! They’re accompanied by Delia’s Guru Otho who claims he has created a way to trap ghosts. Lydia and Beetlejuice see this and hide from them, Beetlejuice claiming he can help Lydia bring her mom back. He opens the book for her and tells her what spell to use, however when she uses it it’s revealed that it’s actually a spell to exorcise Barbara. He tells her the only way he can save Barbara is if she agrees to marry him, again explaining it’s just a green card thing, and she agrees having no other choice. However as he opens up the Netherworld to send the Maitlands away Lydia jumps in instead, her father running in after her before it closes. 

Lydia and Charles arrive in the Netherworld and are greeted by Miss Argentina, Lydia telling her she wants to find her mother and revealing that they’re alive. At this Miss Argentina sings If I Knew What I Know Now, or as I like to call it Movie References, The Song, about how she regrets her suicide and Lydia should cherish life, other dead people chiming in with the lessons theyve learned from death (mostly telling her to avoid the dumb ways they died like smoking in bed or getting kicked by a horse, but still.) Immediately after the demon Juno arrives who is in charge of everything. She ushers the Deetzes through but an alarm goes off because they’re alive, to which she tells some dead football players to kill them, and they all run off. 

Lydia runs around the Netherworld alone crying out for her mother until she finally collapses. She starts to realize this is hopeless and wonders if it’s what she should be doing. She then sings Home, about her feeling torn between her house back in the real world where she has family and a life but where she’ll never feel completely home without her mother, or here in this empty world where she might, maybe, find her. Mid song her father finds her and they have an emotional confrontation about him not letting her talk about her mother and showing no emotions regarding all of it, while in his mind he’s just doing what he has to in order to help both of them move on because the loss was so great if they dwell in it he doesn’t think they’ll ever stop. He talks about his last days with his wife and says her name for the first time in the show, presumably for the first time since she died, and Lydia makes him promised that they can talk about her as she’s terrified that she’ll forget her. She agrees to go home, her father reminding her that Beetlejuice is waiting for them. She says she feels bad for Beetlejuice because he’s so lonely but then says that they can use that to beat him. She says she has a plan thats really weird but it’ll work if he goes along with it, and her father leaves to go open the door to go back. At this Lydia concludes the song saying she’s gonna go back and that Adam, Barbara, Delia, and her father are her home. We go back to the house to see a game show set up with Adam, and Barbara as the contestants (they all have the name cards but Adam’s just says “sexy”) and Otho attached to a big spinning wheel. There’s an audience of skeletons that have such cool designs!! I thought they were puppets for a sec but no theyre ensemble!!! Beetlejuice costume designer was robbed at the Tonys. But I digress. 

The game shows basically a fun set up before Beetlejuice kills everyone, and Otho’s up first. I guess he dies??? Beetlejuice spins the wheel and then it goes off stage and there’s a big crashing noise and u never see him again, so? They cut all those deaths from DC but they were like “I draw the line at Otho though this bitch CANNOT live.” and honestly? Valid. ANYWAY right after that Lydia and Charles return, Lydia wearing her red wedding dress from the movie. She pretends to actually want to marry Beetlejuice, that she left to get her dad’s blessing, and Beetlejuice doesn’t buy it. (”I mean you literally jumped into Hell to get away from me.”) Adam interjects to say that he’s also in love with Beetlejuice, going over and kissing him. Then Barbara slaps Adam and says she’s in love with him as well, leaning into kiss him but getting too grossed out and backing away. Then she says they’re ALL in love with Beetlejuice to which they all agree. They then start to sing Creepy Old Guy, basically summarized by “Beetlejuice x Lydia Shippers Have No Rights”. It starts out with Lydia Barbara and Delia sarcastically singing about how much they love when they get catcalled by old dudes and that Lydia getting to marry a guy just like that is the dream, which is p much what the rest of the song is talking about. They then both say “I Do”, technically being married, and Beetlejuice becomes alive. He has a Journey Through All The Human Emotions (check out an audio clip of it here bc its v funny) that ends in anger, so he decides to still kill everyone. Lydia then stabs him with one of Delia’s statues, revealing her plan all along was to make him human so he’d be killable. He then wakes up as a ghost, Adam opening a door to the Netherworld so he’ll enter the same trance Adam did that first time and enter. He’s stopped however by Juno entering, looking for Lydia. It’s revealed that she’s Beetlejuice’s mother and she hates him. She says no one’s allowed to go to the Netherworld and then come back so Lydia has to die, but everyone’s against this including Beetlejuice. She throws Beetlejuice into the Netherworld and heads towards Lydia, but she says she finally wants to be alive and isn’t going anywhere, and the rest of them have her back. Juno then says she’ll just kill all of them, but Beetlejuice crashes in at this point RIDING a sandworm, which eats Juno, leaving only her leg behind. Beetlejuice picks it up and says “Hey look Lydia now we both have dead moms!”, and then starts to say goodbye to everyone, giving Adam his mom’s leg, lydia the cowboy hat (Oh yeah he rode in on the sandworm now wearing a cowboy hat), and says he’ll miss her the most. Then he leaves. Lydia asks the Maitlands if they can all live there together, and Delia sadly begins to leave until Lydia asks her to stay. They all begin to clean up the house, singing along to her dead mother’s favorite song Jump In The Line, Lydia reprising Dead Mom in the middle while the others continue to sing a medley of Jump In The Line and Day-O, singing about how she’s found her home. 

[gutsybitsies]

Bullet fic

scifi au, kinda: Bitty was kidnapped by a group for superpower experimentation, and presumed dead by everyone, including his husband. When he finally manages to escape, Jack’s moved on without him. Warnings for human experimentation (not very graphic), and presumed character death. This turned out to be very, very long. 

It’s years after Bitty graduated and he and Jack are married. As in, jack proposed and they got their marriage license immediately afterwards. they’re planning on jack coming out soon and holding a huge wedding reception after. 

jack’s signed a no trade clause and bought this nice, huge house a few blocks away from marty’s place. there’s a yard. jack built bitty a patio, and he built a swing set “for the kids in the future”

one day bitty’s invited to a fancy party with some other college alumns, and faulty wiring and a gas leak in the building blows everything up and theyre all pronounced dead or missing. bitty was one of the missing bc they couldn’t find anything in there that identified as him. 

but they weren’t actually dead or caught in the explosion: they were taken by a group who needed human bodies to experiment powers and run tests on. while bitty’s being strapped to a gurney and reliving his worst nightmare of being trapped, jack’s suffering a panic attack because he just got news that his husband died in a freak accident

it gets long loll. 

bitty doesnt remember most of the experimentation, because they have him under anaesthesia and hypnosis and a number of other drugs. he does notice that the group of scientists were trying to create humans with superpowers, and most of the test experiments react badly and die. 

the alumn group do well, as in most of them don’t die when injected with the drugs. some even exhibit powers, such as super strength, etc. 

nothing happens with bitty. he’s poked and prodded and injected and nothing happens to him. it’s painful, but he doesn’t die, but he also doesnt exhibit any kind of ability. 

that’s weird, so the scientists decide to basically freeze him away until further notice, and he’s begging and crying for them not to put him in the small and cramped cryo-unit, but of course there’s no recourse. 

the next thing he knows, the door is opening and someone from somewhere called “samwell”, a government agency, is rescuing him from this hellhole. 

they take him to a private hospital, and he sees himself in the mirror for the first time in a while. and he’s hideous. his face was riddled with scars, and his eyes look dead and sunken. 

the samwell agency has already sent out notifications to his family that he’s been found, because he’s been missing around five years, so technically there was an ongoing search for him and he wasn’t pronounced dead yet. 

and meanwhile bitty catches up to the world. and he finds out that jack zimmermann has a public fianceè. 

jack had come out as bisexual, had created a foundation in the name of eric bittle for lgbt youth, and had moved on from him apparently.

jack did all the right things. he grieved, and he grieved. he gave himself time for the loss, he dedicated time and energy to making sure eric bittle was remembered, he stayed in contact with friends and family, he joined support groups and did grief counseling and got better. 

and he met someone, and fell in love again, and is planning on a life together with Katy. bitty’s heart broke as he scrolled through happy instagram and twitter posts by Katy about her beautiful boyfriend jack zimmermann who was an over the top romantic, who bored her with history channel, and let her wear his jerseys. they were two beautiful people leading beautiful lives, and bitty’s can only look at his own weak limbs and face and think about how he’ll never deserve jack again.

jack’s one of the people to receive a notification that bitty was alive and found, because technically he was still married to bitty (he and kate had decided to wait until the date passed that bitty was officially pronounced dead, bc jack couldn’t bear to speed the process up). 

all bitty had wanted was to run home to providence and into the arms of his husband, but instead he called his parents. They were ecstatic that he was alive, and he prepared for the trip back to georgia. bitty doesn’t want to look at jack’s happy life and ruin it, and he doesn’t want jack to see him with his scarred face. but he does call jack, because he knows he owes jack that.

“Sweetpea?” He involuntarily called out, then berating himself because Jack has someone else now. 

“Bitty?” Jack’s heart thumped as he finally heard the voice he’d been missing for so many years. Katy was holding his hand, and his grip tightens. 

“Jack, I-I’m back.” Bitty cried, and Jack could almost hear the tears rolling down his face. He remembered how easily Bitty cried. “I can’t believe Beyonce released two new albums since I was out!” And it was as if Bitty never left. 

“Where are you? You should come back home.” Before Jack realized that he sold the house they lived in together, when he decided that it was too painful to live there alone. 

“I’m back in Madison. I saw the news, about Katy. I don’t want to intrude.”

“You’re not intruding, I’ll book-,” Jack began to say, but Katy was looking blank and scared and he realized that she was afraid that he was going to dump her. And Jack doesn’t fucking know what to do. 

“I’m so glad you’re alive,” Jack finally said, breaking down as Bitty continued to sob into the phone. “I’m just so happy you’re alive.” 

so one of the logistical problems that happens is that jack is technically still married to bitty. but he’s engaged to another person. and jack’s lawyer is raring to go. 

“don’t you worry, mr. zimmermann. i’ll take care of this in a jiffy so you can go ahead and marry your beautiful Katy. and don’t worry about alimony, i’ll make sure he takes nothing away from this marriage, even if there was no prenup.”

bitty, selfless as ever, comes up north to solve the problem himself. he’s willing to file for divorce papers with jack, and doesn’t request any alimony. 

jack, on the phone as bitty’s in the airport: “you don’t have to do this, you just escaped from that terrible place, you have to rest yourself before you do anything.” 

bitty: “oh sweetp- jack. it must’ve been so hard for you to move on, i dont want you to suffer anymore. you’ve built up a life without me, and if i saunter back in anytime later i’ll ruin everything. it’s better to do everything now.” before bitty regrets it. 

part of the reason jack didn’t drop everything and run to bitty is bc jack is very all or nothing. it hasn’t hit home yet that bitty was back. but when he and the rest of bitty’s friend are there in the airport seeing bitty walk in, jack finally felt it. 

grief counseling helped jack a lot, but there was always a piece of him missing, and even though he accepted it and his counselor said it was normal, it was only when he saw bitty again that he felt that missing piece return inside him. 

bitty had sent pictures to his friends to warn them about how he looked, but he didn’t send one to jack because he can’t bear jack seeing him scarred up like that. and he wore sunglasses and a cold mask on after exiting the plane because he wanted to avoid the moment of jack seeing his face for a bit longer. 

and when bitty sees his friends waving at him he runs over and instinctually hugs jack first. his sunglasses were knocked off and his mask was askew in the collision and jack’s expression when he saw bitty’s face was terrible. 

“bitty, what did they do to you?” cupped bitty’s face gently, still looking at bitty with love. bitty moves in closer and cupped jack’s hands, but he felt the engagement ring, and then backed off to say hello to everyone else. 

katy, jack’s fianceé, is conflicted. on the one hand, she’s really really happy that jack’s husband is alive, because she knows that jack has been grieving him for ages and had finally walked out of grief. on the other, she’s so in love with jack, and she’s deathly afraid that bitty being back meant that jack was going to leave her.

when she saw bitty at the small gathering held in his honor and saw all his scars, she horrified herself by being glad that he was disfigured. “How can I be this disgusting that I’m happy for his misfortune?? But I can’t help it, GAH!!” 

so the next day, bitty’s meeting with jack and katy, and their lawyers. jack and katy’s lawyer Smith, and bitty’s lawyer Shitty (bitty was like, i dont need a lawyer, and shitty was like, BRAH). 

Smith: “How much alimony do you want? My client,” looks down disdainfully at his paper, “is prepared to offer you half his estate.” 

Katy, “what the FUCK jack you didn’t tell me that! half of your estate? jack that’s crazy! we’re getting married i should know!” 

“I’m really sorry, it was a last minute arrangement. Bitty needs it.” 

Bitty’s really touched, he really is. But he refuses the alimony because “the whole reason i’m here is because i don’t want to cause any more trouble, jack. you can’t just give me half of what you have. you dont have to give me anything.”

katy, “that’s nonsense, you should still receive something. and you should also have your belongings from the storage unit, too.” 

when jack sold the house and moved into a smaller place, he placed some of bitty’s stuff into a storage unit. when he started dating katy, he moved the rest bitty’s stuff into storage. 

Shitty: “Bits, I know you don’t want to bother Jack more, but you’ve just gone through a really traumatic experience. You kind of need the support Jack’s offering you to get you back on your track with ease.” They agree to an amount that bitty’s comfortable with. 

Bitty, suddenly near the end, realizing that he was about to divorce the man who he still loves very, very much: “I cant do this today. I’m sorry, you were right, jack. I need to leave now. I can’t. I’m so sorry. I’m going.” And he leaves, with jack chasing after him. he waved off shitty and katy, told them to stay while he took care of it.  

“Bitty, Bits! Wait up,” he caught up to Bitty, and convinced him to come sit in Jack’s car. “Hey bud.” He sat next to bitty, who is trying not to cry in public. “Do you want me to take you back home?” 

“Home’s gone, Jack.” Bitty said softly. 

Jack’s throat tightened, because it was the same for him, too. The home that he’d made with Bitty was gone. And while he was able to build a new one, Bitty came back to nothing. 

Jack reached into the backpack that he was carrying around, and pulled out señor bun. “I’m sorry, this is the only thing I can think of that would make you feel better. I meant to give him back to you at the beginning of the talk, but it felt weird to take him out in front of everyone.” 

Bitty cried softly into señor bun, while Jack held him. 

“I’m so sorry, sweet-I mean, Jack. I didn’t want to burden you. I didn’t want to show up with my ugly, terrible, face to disgust you and all this baggage and bother you. I just wanted you to be happy, and now I’m messing it all up.” 

Jack smoothed over Bitty’s tears and thumbed the scar tissue on his face. He never, ever felt disgusted. Bitty was the same Bitty, only hurt a lot more. He was still kind, still self sacrificing, still everything that Jack fell in love with years ago. And Jack still thought he was beautiful. 

“Let’s go to a place where it still feels like home, okay?” He texted Shitty and Katy to let them know that he’s canceling today’s meeting and they’ll discuss the matter later, and he drove Bitty to the storage unit that held all of Bitty’s stuff.

“It was really hard putting these away in boxes, it felt like finally saying goodbye to you. ” Jack said, letting Bitty and himself inside. “I had our friends and family help, because then it felt like we were remembering you and all the good that you brought us, instead of like we were boxing you away.”

All the boxes were meticulously labelled, some in Jack’s handwriting, some in Lardo’s, mish mashes of Bitty’s friends and family coming together. Bitty picked up a small box that wasn’t labelled, and opened it. 

“Sweetheart,” he breathed out. “You kept my post it notes.”

Bitty opened a box labeled Clothes Bitty stole from me, “First of all, your stuff looked darn good on me-oh. This was your favorite game day hoodie, Jack. You should’ve just kept it instead of boxing it away.” 

“You loved to wear it, too. So I couldn’t bear looking at it.”  

“These were the salt and pepper shakers we bought at the flea market.” 

“Oh, you kept the kitchenaid gathering dust here? At least use it, Jack.” 

“My Ivy Park collection! But there’s more clothes here than I remember having bought.” 

“It was a bad phase where I went on a shopping spree and bought a lot of that brand online. It felt like I was buying them for you. You should definitely wear them, you’ll look great.”

Jack continued to show Bitty the boxes. “And this is weird, but these are the planks from the swing set in our backyard. I took it apart for some reason, and I couldn’t do anything with it…I put your socks here with your underwear and color coded everything…the scrapbooks that we made together isn’t here, I gave those to Suzanne…the recipe book you were writing up I gave to my maman…our souvenirs from our trip to Venice is in this box, the duck I carved you during that terrible woodwork workshop is also in here…”

Bitty touched his cheeks, and found that they were wet again. He looked at Jack, whose cheeks was also wet with tears as he explained every box that contained their life together. 

“What are we doing, Jack?” He asked. “I don’t even know why I thought this was a good idea, seeing you again. I thought this was the best way, to let you live your life without me. But now all I am is a selfish ol’ fool who’s begging you to-” he sobs, “-begging you to bring our old life back.”

And Jack has that moment of clarity again, where everything finally slotted together in his mind and in his life. 

“I want that,” Jack said, taking Bitty’s hand. “I want our life back together again. How could I have been so slow? You’re back, and I still love you, no matter what happened.” 

Katy was understandably distraught when Jack had that difficult conversation with her. She tried to persuade Jack otherwise, but gave up and wished him luck when she saw that stubborn look in Jack’s eyes. She actually thinks its very touching that jack’s still in love with someone who he thought died years ago, but thinks that its just her bad fucking luck that she had to be the person who’s abandoned. Bitty bakes her a guilt pie and she’s shameless enough to ask him for more, and he’s happy enough that she’s taking his guilt pie to bake her more. 

like i want to make it clear here that katy’s not a villain or an antagonist or anything, she’s just a person at the wrong place at the wrong time having pretty normal reactions and ultimately not doing any harm. 

and jack and bitty finally hold that wedding reception that they’ve been waiting for for years. there’s still a lot of problems, like bitty has really severe ptsd, but jack’s nearing retirement and has a lot more time to brainstorm with bitty and his therapists on how to deal with it. 

and of course when bitty accidentally cut off his finger and saw it grow back, there were more questions regarding what exactly did the organization do to him. 

but those were things he and jack faced together. 

[adelaideattractions]

Three-letter code every hostie dreads

Many a hostie will tell you with a glint in their eye theyve seen it all in the skies. Theres a great horror story from a New Years Eve flight on an unnamed airline. Twin Americans boarded with cannabis gummies in their system and promptly took turns to green out, becoming very paranoid and unwell. The flight attendant said as soon as one of them was manageable, the second brother lost his mind too. From rogue body fluids to gruesome cargo items to privileged passengers these anonymous stories show why the coveted job of flight attendant isnt always the most glamorous. So strap in and prepare for a bumpy ride as cabin crew take to the internet to share their war stories, courtesy of the New Zealand Herald. SOME OF YALL ARE RATHER ENTITLED Reddit user and hostie Zlinerlabs relates a story of sky-high entitlement. Every so often we get the odd straggler who boards last who finds a vacant seat in first or business thinking that we wont know that they are from coach, they said. Spoiler: This doesnt work.

media_cameraThere is so, so much more to the job than simply this. Picture: iStock User Notweirdthrowaway had this to say. Not an attendant but was on a flight with really bad turbulence. It went on for about 10 minutes then the old lady next to me reaches up and presses her button. Attendant walks over to see if the woman is okay, the woman begins to yell at the attendant for the rough flight and that shes been flying her whole life and clearly the pilot has no idea what hes doing. The stewardess just walked away. Another person on the social media platform had a blood-boiler to tell. I remember flying into SFO (San Francisco airport) and going through the final walk-through asking everyone to wake up, buckle up, headrests forward, tray tables up and collect trash, they said. Halfway through, the pilot said, Flight attendants, be seated immediately which indicates a lot of upcoming turbulence. So I quickly started to trot through with my trash bag to my jump seat when a man yelled HEY! I was a few rows past him and he had his cup and wet napkin in his hand. I quickly said, I have to sit down and turned back towards the back galley. I then felt something hit me. I looked back and he had thrown his trash at me and was staring at me like the little (expletive) he was. I heard a few people gasp and everyone in the last eight rows or so was tuned in to the drama.

media_cameraFlight attendants put up with a lot of bad behaviour. DONT TRY TO SWAP YOUR WAY INTO AN UPGRADE User ConstableBlimeyChips is an attendant and this is their pet peeve. A type of behaviour Ive unfortunately seen too much of: Couple will book separate seats, the man in a premium economy seat with extra leg room, the woman in a normal economy seat, they explained. The woman will then play the sad sack and ask another passenger to give up their comfy seat so they can sit together. If the other passenger refuses (usually because they paid extra and literally dont fit in a regular seat), some will even complain to the crew. And all this to save a few bucks on the second premium seat. Doc_Choc added: I never understand the logic of this and how it works on anyone. Ive been the random person in a premium seat a few times, and when asked I decline and tell them theyd probably have more luck if the person in the premium seat traded theirs away. They always act like they hadnt thought of that and then move on to someone they hope is an easier mark. I cant imagine how Id react if someone tried to get the staff to move me. User I_got_em_coach reckons you might just have to play dead. Sir were are going to need you to move. Passenger, clearly reading a book, immediately goes completely limp in seat.

media_cameraWed keep those bare feet off the floor too, kid. IF YOU KNEW, YOUD LEAVE YOUR SHOES ON Please do not ever walk into a toilet with bare feet. I promise you, 9 times out of 10, that is not water on the floor, writes Reddit user HausofDarling. The toilets are often absolutely disgusting and get deep cleaned only at the end of a route For us this could be from one side of the world to the other imagine how lovely they are at the end of a 12 hour flight with 200 people using them. Seeyou_never adds: So many incidents occur on the plane that everyday passengers dont see or consider. My last flight an elderly man accidentally sh*t on the floor, stepped in it, and walked on like it was nothing. Pee and poop happens, all over. I feel like I witness an accident regularly; in their seat or in the lav. People get nose bleeds or their wounds open. Obviously, when we land, it is thoroughly cleaned. But in-flight our resources are limited. DONT CHANGE YOUR BABYS DIAPER ON THE TRAY TABLE. This also happens all the time. Its unsanitary and people use the tray table to eat! DEAD ON DEPARTURE As the crew members continued to list the horrors unknown to plane passengers, things took a dark turn. There is more often than not a lot of horrific things in the cargo, HausofDarling wrote. As flying is the quickest way to transport cargo, passengers may be unwittingly sharing their flight with some unusual items. Usually, the only people who know are the flight deck (pilots) and the manager/senior crew member. Dead bodies, organs, blood are obvious ones, but we also carry everything right up to Formula One car parts, exotic animals, marble tables, oversized televisions everything. HUM is the code for human remains and the cargo most aircrew dread, said user Rosiulia who worked in the booking department of a long-haul airline.

media_cameraDont think it doesnt happen. While there is need for speed when transporting these shipments, the same urgency is not always met when the cargo arrives on the ground. When we have these kind of shipments we need to contact the family to make them aware when the plane lands and when to come to pick up the body, explained Rosiulia. And guess what. The body arrived in Shanghai in time, and no one picked it up for days. Legion3382 has the grimmest of news. Im not a flight attendant but I work the ramp, they said. We do send full bodies on planes a lot. Some in caskets some not. Twice in the seven years Ive been doing this has fluid leaked out of the boxes the bodies are in and got all over the luggage. HORRIBLE LITTLE GOBLINS (YES, US) Sadly for hosties, it their living passengers give them the most grief. The items left behind are perhaps the most unpleasant things kept secret from passengers. People are generally disgusting on planes, acknowledged ex-attendant Boopboopster. People frequently do disgusting things on their tray tables (Ive seen people change diapers, clip toenails and wipe boogers to name a few). However, these discoveries pale in comparison to human faeces under a seat. Nodealreddit chipped in, having dated a flight attendant. One common story was about the Delta miracles. Passengers in wheelchairs would board the plane before everyone else, but they had to wait for everyone else to disembark before they could get rolled out. It is apparently common for people to be healed during mid-flight and no longer need assistance when they reach their destination.

media_cameraIts a tough job. Picture: iStock THANK GOODNESS FOR AUTOPILOT? Giftofnarwhals had this genuinely terrifying tale. I used to work with elderly people, and one of my clients was a former pilot that finally quit when he realised in the middle of a flight his dementia had progressed, and he couldnt remember where he was supposed to be flying to. Meaning he had been flying for a commercial airline with dementia for quite some time before that. A FINAL NOTE Lets hand the final word to Seeyou_never. It is NOT the responsibility of a flight attendant to lift your bag, they said. There are multiple injuries caused from flight attendants lifting heavy bags to be friendly, and then theyre out of the job for months to a year (on average). If you pack it, you lift it. If its too heavy for you, its too heavy for us. On your next flight, spare a thought for your crew and try to chill out on your next adventure. And cross your fingers for a mentally sound pilot and no corpse juice. What are the odds, right? This article originally appeared on the New Zealand Herald and was reproduced with permission Originally published as Three-letter code every hostie dreads https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/travel/travel-advice/flight-attendants-spill-secrets-including-the-sinister-meaning-of-the-code-hum/news-story/90af5f08c90674a44b7cf505c6cca2a4?from=htc_rss

[dragscore]

Rina: 3, 9, 10, 14, 20, 22, 23, 25 and for Klaus: 2, 6, 9, 13, 15, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24 ,25

nnn this is gonna be a long one boys ; )

3. their greatest achievement

rina’s achievements don’t rank high to her, since most of the time it feels like the bare fucking minimum. but a personal one thats far off rn is realizing what she wants to... do in life, which is join the ministry. like after that she actually picks up the pace, personally asking randolph to let her stay for an additional two(?) years, and feels the motivation and drive to get somewhere in her life. like just having a fucking ideal for her future is big enough to her to stand out as an achievement as it is

9. their theme

nnn okay so initially: rabbits. its in her design in a few ways, like the prominent side pieces of her hair (far more obvious when its long), her slightly emphasized front teeth, her nose and how i draw it so its like.. the little triangle nose buns have. it has a different meaning to her in some things where she doesnt appreciate being called a bunny/bunnyhead because to her it makes her feel insignificant, but she sort of takes it and finds it comforting later on. 

stars too mostly because of what they mean to me, but its also special to me that theyre important in klaus’ first bday event. i always see her like, describing herself as a star thats part of no constellation. not connecting to anyone or anything, and feeling like an aimless piece. and then you have klaus over here who describes her as the brightest star in his sky (”see that star? it reminds me of you in my life”), which is... incredibly gay. anyway. i also want to say that i think when she first got to gedonelune, seeing the starry sky thats said to be one of its most distinctive features really... stuck out to her.

10. their fashion sense

thottie

... ok no

she wears a lot of tight clothing, but appreciates sweater paws... id say comfy stuff. like if shes not trying to get anyones attention towards her ass, typically shes a leggings/stockings as pants + sweater kind of girl (so like... me lmfao)

14. how they react to burning their tongue on food

“OH GOD IT HURTS SO GOOD” continues to devour said food

20. their reaction to a mystery love letter

honestly shed just take it as a joke, if anything. her reputation on campus isnt great, and shed just set it aside for later. probably actually look at it in the dead of night and cry like a bitch though. 

also make a joke that maybe its from ay and tease her about it, but thatd be it 

22. what they’re like on 2 hours of sleep

honestly shed just space out a lot, be really giggly and easy to distract. end up just not fucking blinking

///

for klausie boy ; )

2. their smile

typically very condescending and shit eating, like that one his sprite has thats just... ugh. punchable. he smiles like he just reminded you that you cant fucking fly cause youre a bitch ass as he shits in your cereal and demands you eat it. just. the worst.

but he has a nice genuine smile that reaches his eyes, its very warm to look at its healing as hell. that kind of smile you get from him when hes complimented you on your hard work, when he genuinely wants you to know you did good.

6. how they deal with grief

locks himself in, typically has a worse temper as he tries to mull it over. he ends up growing out his facial hair by sheer... ignoring his own needs? its typically like how his depressive episodes go. but he just sort of internalizes it on his own and refuses to speak about it.

9. their theme

i associate him greatly with stars and lions

stars for obvious reasons - but i just LOVE the idea that klaus really sees stargazing as a comfort. a sort of thing that centers him when he isnt feeling like himself. i mean, he loves them so much he gives a star shaped lantern (which i hc is the one he used to capture the image of the stars on his tenth bday) to mc, like... its just so sweet? 

with lions theyve mostly just addressed him as one in the past - but i like the idea mostly because of his king/emperor theme! not to mention i mean, this bitch is gold and shit. he is a fuckin lion. thats his fursona.

13. their embarrassing memory from years ago

i mean this is mostly a headcanon but 

during the summer he spent with sigurd, he tried to catch a frog and it panicked, tangling itself in his hair. he ran to sigurd crying and begged him to cut it out, so sig came back with scissors and /destroyed his hair/ to get it out. theres pictures where he has ridiculously short hair after that happened

15. how they react to a brainfreeze

this motherfucker would eat cold stuff too fast. hed just try to bear thru it by closing his eyes and cringing hard

18. how they sleep

light. hes constantly anxious and stressed, so i imagine his sleep pattern is royally fucked. he tries to rest his head but then hes like “FUCK I HAVE TO GO DO THIS PAPERWORK” and then you have him stressing over something new. hes easy to wake up that way.

20. their reaction to a mystery love letter

because i hc this mf got teased a lot growing up, i think he just ignores it. who cares, its probably some dumb person trying to get his hopes up/get under his skin. hed just throw it away and be mildly annoyed.

22. what they’re like on 2 hours of sleep

fucking ANGRY AS HELL. dont even talk to him. hes not hearing it. not to mention hed have sensory issues then too.

23. how they act when they’re sick

he’d just keep pushing to do stuff, hes used to it. he mostly just gets himself a tea suitable for the situation and keep going. not so healthy methinks

24. what motivates them

mostly that desire to succeed and be perfect at absolutely everything, but i feel like deep down he just has this sense of justice and the wish to see things just be... different. klaus wants to make an impact on the world hes in, and to him that means he has to pretty much make something new of himself. thats pretty big in his story.

25. why you enjoy them

...

uhhhh get ready

idk hes a big comfort. i like his sense of confidence crafted just because... he /needs/ that for himself. i like how he keeps pushing to be something different, because even with the provided materials you still need to be new. not to mention him just... actually /changing/ and growing through all the canon material means so much to me. because he knows hes fucked up, and he accepts that he has to be different, so he does what he can to get over that. and i think honestly, at this current moment in canon, he really has matured, and that means a lot to me as someone who always found comfort in him lmfao

[authenticaussie]

Ahhhh, so I was told that you like Marvel stuff and that I was supposed to send you my Marvel AU asks. This is the only one that I can actually ever remember sending anyone, but M/S/A Marvel AU where those three are effectively Coulson, Clint and Natasha. Also Lunarshores said you like my stuff and I honestly cannot even cause I'm just like meep. Anyways, I hope you have an awesome rest of your day cause you deserve to! Also have fun with that thought. Also, what are your thoughts on Budapest?

Commissions! || Ko-fi! 

Welcome too: this ask is literally so old that it existed before we Became Friends. 

ANYWAY FUN TIME HEADCANONS BELOW THE CUT BC I CAN’T THINK OF FIC.

Sabo as the Coulson equivalent (SHIELD spy) and Ace as Widow and Marco is Hawkeye

Marco grew up in the Whitebeard circus and they were super close and really good and supported each other and were a b i t out there, just like performing people are wont to be, but they also….lived a good hundred years ago.

And Marco….just kept living. As his family started dying around him, as the years passed and he just stayed-

Marco can get hurt and has the scars to prove it, but he….he can’t die by anything like old age or sickness, and so he just keeps living. Keeps living as the circus starts to wither into obscurity, keeps living as the last traces of his family vanish like pieces of sand, keeps living and gaining skills and getting stronger and smarter but he can’t ever forget the feeling of watching his family die.  

He was a freelance head hunter/bounty hunter before SHIELD picked him up, and was bored and didn’t know what else to do, so just sighed and agreed to join them. They have a better pay rate, at least, and the healthcare is a nice bonus 

Sabo and Ace used to know each other as kids!! 

But Sabo forgot ;n; Sabo vanished and then Ace was found sneaking out of the facility that was training him and kept under better security. But one of Ace’s missions takes him to Luffy and he doesn’t look back. Grabs the kid he used to call brother and runs. 

And Sabo was the one who brought in Marco and got sent to tail Ace and see if they could convince him to join, because they were close in age, and Ace had killed almost everyone else who’d come after him and Luffy, but then this was Sabo, and he-

He hesitates (he’s never hesitated, before, in his line of work you can’t but this was-)

Ace being so cautious and quiet at first bc they bought in him and Luffy and Ace was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, for them to threaten Luffy to make Ace do something, but that just-

it doesn’t happen. 

It ends up making him Really Jumpy and Fidgety all the time until Marco starts Super Casually refusing orders and giving Ace outs and the ability to choose without any sort of punishments threatening him and letting Ace adjust to SHIELD at his own rate. 

Sabo has retrograde amnesia, and everything close to the explosion the red room (Ace’s institute) organised to kill him is basically gone, but he does have a few scattered memories of Luffy and some bits of Ace that are super blurred. They come back a bit, but that’s mainly because Luffy + Ace fill in the parts he’s missing

Sabo talks Ace through a lot of missions and Marco gets jealous (and denies it ofc, he doesn’t get jealous he’s an adult)

And he ends up casually bringing it up in conversation with Sabo and Sabo gets really startled because he didn’t think anyone had noticed, and then goes really quiet

“Ace- never had anyone on the comms. When he did- missions, before- no-one was there, helping him. I dunno, I guess I just- I just want him to know I’m there. That I won’t leave him to do it alone.”

And everyone thinks sabo will do a bad job because he’s so young, right? But he’s so tactical, he fights so hard to learn because he won’t ever let anyone else die under his command, he won’t let them get hurt, he’s lost people before because he was overconfident and arrogant and rude and he just wants to prove himself!!!

ALSO LOOK I KNOW IT’S A WEIRD SHIP BUT COBY IS CAPTAIN AMERICA AND I WAS THINKING ABOUT SABO AS COULSON WITH HIS Big Gay Crush AND IT’S KIND OF SUPER FUCKING ADORABLE WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT BECAUSE COBY IS JUST SO NOBLE AND HEROIC AND KIND AND SABO’S IN THE BACKGROUND LIKE DYING AND ALSO LIKE “ACE, MARCO, IF YOU TRY AND SET ME UP WITH HIM ONE MORE TIME I AM GOING TO KILL YOU BOTH. I DON’T CARE HOW HIGHLY TRAINED YOU ARE, I’M GOING TO SLAUGHTER YOU.”

But Sab!!!!!!!! Also gets SUPER FUCKING FLUSTERED around Coby, because Coby was basically the original fucking revolutionary 

Basically it’s a Good Fucking Time okay ;u;

(P.S everyone Totally Flirts With Coby because he gets flustered super easily and is like 100% the stereotypes of Dorky Captain America ;u;)

Ace Totally huffs about it and fidgets a lot and is baaaaaaaasically a little envious of all the attention Sabo gives Coby by accident, but they eventually get over that when they’re dealing w/ Ace’s issues w/ self-confidence and it basically turns into the biggest running joke, and !!! Ace befriends Coby because COBY IS SO USELESS AROUND LUFFY!!!! AND ACE THINKS IT’S HILARIOUS!!! BECAUSE LUFFY IS OBLIVIOUS AS FUCK!!! 

MARCO GETS CONTROLLED BY LOKI

and his one rule, his one stipend to working with SHIELD is that he will never ever shoot someone with his bow and he requests missions where killing is avoided at all costs or if unavoidable than only against those of the worst calibre/situations of extreme danger, and Loki makes him break that

Robin (Director Fury) questions Marco’s loyalty for a moment when Marco turns on them and Sabo grabs the table so hard that it almost breaks in his hands and Ace doesn’t even say a word, just leaves. Koala has to quietly explain to her about Marco’s code, and how he’d never do this unless influenced by something else. 

Ace who loves the fact that Marco chose that. Marco chose to never kill, and SHIELD respects that, and Ace knows he doesn’t ever have to be forced to kill - to hurt - ever again. 

Ace talking to Loki to try and find out his plan / where Marco is and Loki only smiles and promises that Ace will find out where Marco is when Marco shoots him through the throat-

And Ace can’t help the fraction of a second where fear almost overwhelms him, because that-

That’s one of his greatest fears. 

That Marco is going to realise how awful Ace is, and  get rid of him. Clear out the mistake he made. 

Ace hiding the fear he feels because he’s been trained and he knows how to do this, he has to figure out what Loki’s plan (he has to save Marco. He has to prove that he was worth it)

ACE LOVING MARCO SO MUCH BUT REFUSING TO SAY IT????? NOT EVEN REALLY REALISING WHAT HE FEELS IS LOVE BUT KNOWING HE’D LAY DOWN EVERYTHING FOR MARCO, IF MARCO NEEDED IT. IF MARCO ASKED IT OF HIM.

When they’re fighting, when Marco’s still under Loki’s control, Marco just whispers so carefully, so pleadingly, for Ace to stop and he almost does because this is Marco-

And then the to-vibrant blue of Marco’s usually dark eyes gives him away and Ace knocks him out and has to swallow the nausea that caused him

(And least Marco will be okay, he thinks, but can’t drive away the thought of Marco’s pleading expression, Marco begging him to stop)

Ace refusing to say that he loves either Sabo or Marco because he’s just- 

He doesn’t think he is in love with them, Love is bright and vibrant and fluttery, messy, nervous feelings, he just feels-

Comfortable. Around them he just feels comfortable 

(That’s not love, right? That’s not-)

and look okay you know what isn’t a good time???

Sabo dying

(or, at least, mar+ace thinking he’s dead ala Coulson)

Ace regretting that he’d never told Sabo how important he was, never telling Sabo how much he meant, and when they get a spare moment he pulls Marco aside and tells Marco that he loves the fuck out of him and Marco’s his best friend and he’d basically do anything??? for Marco???

And it helps Marco as well because he’s suffering some serious trauma from being forced to fucking kill people when he didn’t want to, from being forced to kill innocent men and women who were trying to protect others, from having to fight and manipulate Ace……

whispers marco and ace not. doing anything abt ace’s confession, tho. it’s there, and they both know it, but Marco wants to get better first, and Ace wants time to mourn the fact that for the second time in his life he’s lost his best friend.

And theyre toooootally not dating

even though they move all of marco’s stuff into ace’s room. and have date nights. and marco presses kisses to ace’s forehead whenever ace leans on him (which is often). and ace curls up into marco’s side when they’re sitting on the couch. and they defs don’t hold hands, or press quick kisses to each other’s cheeks just before one of them has to leave on a mission without the other

Totally not dating.

Totally

Not

Dating

And then just when they think everything is going back to normal, when there’s been two years of dealing with grief and pain and growing closer and supporting each other even more intimately than before-

Ace thinks he sees Sabo. For a fraction of a second, on one of their missions, and he barely believes that it is him-

But there’s a moment of surprise and regret on the stranger’s face, and Ace knows it’s him.

SHIELD fixed Sabo with some of Captain America/Coby’s blood and he’s alive but he’s different now. He’s stronger and faster and he just-

notices things. 

Notices how Marco’s fingertips linger on Ace’s hand but Ace doesn’t act like anything is out of the ordinary. Notices how Marco looks like he’s about to kiss Ace before a mission but aborts it at the last second and hides his promise to return in the crook of Ace’s neck. 

Sabo who goes on solo missions because no-one thinks he’s alive and he’s highly-trained and now he’s got super soldier serum in his veins…But he’s there the moment they need him but he’s unable to look at marco and ace 

Looking at how close they are and just realising what he’s missed. Quietly letting them he supported them and cared about them and was sorry in as many ways as he could - through cards, through care, through always having their backs, through trying constantly to protect them, because he could now, in real life instead of just directing them while he sat behind a computer screen. 

(#tfw you can’t figure out who is who in a marvel au bc all the charas are assholes/morally grey)

Carrot is Thor!!!! and Detective Fury is Robin and Maria Hill is Koala

Ace gets confused by language metaphors sometimes!!! But he won’t say it because he hates being seen as weak, or that anything needs to be explained to him. He has to be perfect and in control and mysterious all the time, no-one can know that puns confuse him. 

(Sabo+Marco totally figure it out and always casually explain the joke/idiom so that Ace isn’t left out of the loop, and even when he figures out they’re doing it he can’t ask them to stop.)

They both know how much he hates feeling/looking weak or stupid, and they do!!! everything they can to make sure he doesn’t feel like that,,,,,,,,,,