#(It is good. It’s just also complicated. as everything is!! I’m slowly learning how to deal when the women I love find men in their lives)

[itspileofgoodthings]

do y’all wanna know something funny. when I was in England I accidentally stumbled into finding my sister a boyfriend via @ilovevanillatea and her husband and it is something that has been so funny and good.

[tiedsh0es]

Ok Silver. I feel like people just write him off as mean and don’t get how well-written he is, and how actually crazy a character like him staying till the FINAL 4 is. He never, ever would have gotten that far, never ever would have grown as much as he did if viewer voting was still in. That said, it’s because of this that I’m even more heartbroken that he didn’t get much of a sendoff in the finale.

Silver is such a complicated character, while his personality never changes he himself does change a little. He’s egotistical, and puts the show above everything else. But there are also moments where he shows he does try to make connections with people. I remember in episode 4, after he gets OJ voted out. He’s pretty proud of this! And tries to get the others in his team to join in on his enthusiasm, when they don’t take it in a good way Silver sort of shuts down. Crosses his arms and stands away from the group. He never really shows emotion; he just goes to the sideline and ignores things. He doesn’t really have the best social etiquette and because of his abrasive personality people don’t really want to try with him. But Candle actually involves him in things, even when he messes up with OJ she takes his hand and includes him into the group.

And in his speech he knows people don’t actually like him. He has to cross his fingers and hope he can sweet-talk his way out of it.

But Candle is there and he’s been practicing his powers for her, so he tries to show off his powers not realizing how much of an insult this is- and when Candle shuts him down there is a moment where he looks genuinely hurt before he- in silver fashion- shakes it off literally saying out loud to Cabby none of that! He’s never learned to actually show the vulnerable side of him. There is no proper communication here.

-

And the first part of the finale made me so- so hopeful!! The inner flame is such an important part to Silver and Candle’s character. It’s been mentioned and talked about since episode four, it’s what got them to first stick together. 

When the inner-flame takes over- and.. I saw a lot of people didn’t understand that Silver was NOT in control here, it was his inner-flame- it reveals the feelings he’s always hiding, he trusted that Candle believed in him, and “right when I finally felt like more than nothing” he feels betrayed. For a character that acts so egotistical to say that, he’s basically admitting he puts on an affront because he knows he’s unlikable and hard to get along with.

The inner flame is something he’s worked on, and gotten better at for candle. But he misunderstands the true meaning of it. And in his muddled up emotions he ends up hurting candle with it- the one person who has ever actually shown to care about him but not change him. He looks genuinely HORRIFIED that he’s done this. Finally his rash personality has real consequences. 

The first part of the finale was so good.. It put up so many stakes… it made me think I was going to get the silver send-off I’ve been wanting for like… actually a year 😭but then… Silver doesn’t really get to do anything. We never ever really get to hear Candle’s side of things, she just immediately forgives him… 

And they write off Candle as fine, as if she never got hurt in the first place as if her literal inner flame going out has no consequence. Silver mentions how he messed up but doesn’t really do anything besides that… He NEVER even got to conquer his inner flame!! That’s just a loose thread we never get to see! It would have been SO MUCH MORE impactful if Silver used his inner flame for another person, instead of using it for himself. If he mastered it to try and save Candle or even Springy or literally anyone!! But Silver didn’t get to do any of that!! All the consequences, all the episodes of him slowly learning he has an inner-flame for nothing?? Actually for nothing?? I’m actually devastated. He was so clever, so well-written, so complicated and this is how they ended his character?? I’m just so so sad.

I think the final episodes had a sort of writers-conflict, did they not  talk about how they wanted it to end?? Both episodes have very different stakes and feelings. It’s very sad that this is how they decided to end the final ep. I’m not happy with it. I have other complaints but Silver was what I was most disappointed with. Because even if there is a season 4 and he comes back for some reason they’ll never have the opportunity to show how clever he is, and let him grow as naturally as he did in invitational. (ok just realised both episodes had the same writer WHAT HAPPENED??????)

[maccreadysbaby]

A Hundred Ways to Become a Wayne

batfamily + oc insert

tw: angst?

wanna read more? here’s the table of contents!

want to read the first fic in the hundred days series so you understand what’s going on here? here it is!

YOU GUYYYSSSS

part forty

❝ THE BEGINNING OF THE END ❞

THURSDAY — SEPTEMBER 10 — 3:47 PM

WITHIN TWO DAYS, DR. KEENE HAD BEEN ARRESTED, AND JOHN WHITTAKER WAS MOVED INTO ARKHAM.

And two days after that, no plan b had been set into motion. The Secret Keeper hadn’t been seen, and neither had any metahumans or missing children. It was like time froze; like they were all hunkering in the labs no one knew the location of. Stalking. Waiting for something. A signal. A word.

Bentley had been spending most of his time recovering. He couldn’t remember a thing from his sickness, not a second of it, but he sure could feel it for a few days. His whole body was sore and he slept a ton. Life was largely… still sort of normal. Apart from the newly acquired superpowers, which Bentley was slowly getting the hang of. The hard part wasn’t controlling the water, it was controlling his emotions so the water didn’t, like, kill people. Which had been going pretty okay.

Asten and Nico were doing good. Both were healthy and at home, living their own lives. Turned out, Asten hadn’t been so pissed about Nico taking him to the Manor. What he had been pissed about, however, was Bentley spilling the entire truth to Bruce, which he had confessed to them over text. Nico was fine with it; he probably would’ve done it already. And he knew Bruce was Batman, which made it better. (It had also slipped that Nico knew everyone’s superhero identities, which went strangely, strangely well.) Asten, however, promptly stopped texting Bentley and hadn’t since. (Queue a spiral of Asten hates me thoughts at a family dinner that ended with most of the table's drinks levitating. But, on the bright side, Bentley got them all back in the right glasses.)

But that was okay. Bentley was okay. Everything would be okay. 

“Check,”

Bentley looked down at the chessboard with a sigh. “I’m not very good at this.”

“You’ll get it. It’s complicated at first,” Tim replied from the other side of the table. He seemed… good. He was allowed to monitor the Batcomputer again, and looked way better. Less sick. Bentley was thankful — he’d missed Tim.

In the last three hours, he and Tim had played over a dozen mean games of checkers at the den’s board game table, and were now trying their hand at chess; a game Tim was very good at, and Bentley had little to no idea how to play. He was told it was easier to learn as you go. He didn’t think so.

Tim turned out to be freakishly good at chess, actually. He’d already beat Bentley twice and was trying his best to explain, but the poor kid just wasn’t getting it. (He was more or less moving his pieces exactly like Tim was. At least it wouldn’t be wrong!)

“Did you see anything on the computer last night?” Bentley questioned, moving one of his pieces completely randomly. Tim seemed like he wanted to correct the turn, but ended up just going with it instead. “Nope. No Secret Keeper, no metahumans. Only petty crime and gang activity.”

Bentley nodded to himself. “What about the news?”

“Nothing concerning or suspicious,”

To say Bentley was a little stressed out about the infamous plan b would be an understatement. He was told not to watch the news or Batcomputer, but he wasn’t told not to ask. Gotham burning because of him was pretty much directly his business. (And his fault. Queue a late night bathroom flood that he managed to fix before anyone else noticed just a few nights ago.)

“Here — let’s start over,” Tim suggested, moving all of his pieces back to the beginning of the game. Bentley followed suit, lining them up just like he did.

“May I take over, Drake?”

Bentley and Tim both craned their necks to glance over at the door of the den, where Damian was standing. Bentley hadn’t really seen him outside of family meals and times when everyone was together. 

He was wearing a deep green hoodie and black sweatpants, leaning against the door, and he and Tim seemed to have some kind of weird, thirty-second staring contest in which they spoke with their eyes before Tim finally stood up and made his way out of the den.

Damian made his way to the other side of the chessboard and sat down there. “Did he teach you how to play?”

Bentley glanced up at him, meeting his greenish-blue eyes for the first time in a long time. “Sort of, I guess. I’m not very good.”

Damian hummed in response, moving one of the pieces on the board. Bentley simply copied the movement with one of his.

“Father told me you ran away because of what I said, and that I should apologize,” Damian spoke up, a strange expression taking over his features, like talking that way was literally paining him. “I… did not mean for you to get so upset.”

Bentley said nothing, watching closely as Damian moved another piece on the board and trying to move one of his own correspondingly. 

“But… you did not do anything wrong to make me angry at you. I… guess I was… jealous. Of how much everybody loves you. Drake and Richard and Todd — they all flock to you. They acted like brothers to you way faster than they did for me; I still do not think Drake likes me. I understand that I am different from you, but seeing such a stark difference in my family made me… upset. After all, I am a Wayne by blood, and I felt… inferior,” He explained quietly. 

Bentley watched as Damian blinked, glancing around with a sigh. “I… am not very good at talking about this type of thing.”

“Me either,” Bentley replied honestly. “But I think you’re doing a good job.”

Damian glanced up at him, and with a exhale, moved another piece. “I guess I… I saw the way my father treated you, and… and Richard stopped spending time with me and started spending it with you instead. Watching your relationships with everybody around me flourish and become better than mine… losing the interest of my family to someone else… it hurt.”

Bentley breathed in and moved another piece on the chessboard. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“It was not your fault. Being jealous was my mistake — I have been taught better than to let it cloud my judgment, and yet, it got the better of me,” Damian moved another piece. “I have always felt like an outsider in this family, due to my upbringing and differences from everybody else. Being Robin after Drake made it worse. I have always felt like I had to work to make them love me. You went to school and had friends on the first day. I suppose… watching another child join the family and get everything I had worked so hard for handed to him made me overreact.”

Bentley said nothing, but kept watching the pieces on the board move. 

“I am sorry, Bentley. I said a lot of inappropriate things to you. The truth is, your spot in this family is not built on pity or sympathy, but something much, much more… real. And it made me feel threatened. It was not right for me to take it out on you. And I sincerely apologize for all of my behavior recently,” Damian said softly. “The truth is, I have never had a real family before this one. I had my mother, of course, but this is very different… better. And, in all honesty, thinking about losing them to someone else, to anything, it… scares me. A lot.”

At that, Bentley snickered. Damian’s head snapped up, and his gaze grew cold. “Why are you laughing?”

“Nothing bad, it’s just… we’re a lot more similar than I thought, that’s all,” Bentley explained, moving one of his chess pieces. “Losing all of this has… I guess… kind of became one of my worst fears. And I do stupid stuff, like run away, to try and keep that from happening. We’re doing the same exact thing, just… differently.”

Damian nodded slightly, taking his turn. “I suppose we are.”

A moment of silence passed.

“Perhaps we can find a way to… deal with it… jointly.”

Bentley looked up at him. “You mean, together?”

“It’s not my typical behavior, I do admit, but I believe that would be the most beneficial course of action. We have the same motives; working together to not do, quote-on-quote, stupid things, would be the ideal solution.”

Bentley nodded. “Okay.”

They both moved another piece. “And, since I am being honest… I… miss doing things with you.”

Bentley smiled slightly. “Me too.”

Damian moved a piece on the board. “I don’t expect you to forgive me, I do not deserve it; but… perhaps we can… still try and do things like we used to?” 

“I already forgave you,” Bentley said, taking his turn.

“What?”

“I already forgave you,” He repeated, glancing up at Damian. “I never blamed you. I knew you probably didn’t mean to hurt me, and that something else was going on. Plus, when anything around here goes wrong, the only person I’m trained to blame is myself,” He said, shaking his head. “I’m not upset at you, Damian. And I do miss you, too.”

A long moment of silence passed where no one said anything until Damian uttered: “Checkmate.”

Bentley snickered again. “I’m terrible at this.”

“You are pretty abysmal, yes,”

He and Damian made eye contact and started laughing, for the first time in what felt like a literal forever.

Maybe everything would be okay.

—

SATURDAY — SEPTEMBER 12 — 6:51PM

Okay, so Bentley was really loving the whole superpower thing. Not only could he make water go where he wanted, but he could also make it do what he wanted. For example, he could use a little stream of water to pick things up, like an extra hand, or break things, or cut things. (Yes, the fallen tree in the backyard was from him. It was experimental.)

Currently, though, his favorite thing to do with it was wrap the water around his own feet and use it like a skateboard. He could make it go really darn fast. It was pretty much the funnest thing he’d done in his entire life. And, when he was done, he wasn’t even wet!

Actually, that was exactly what he was doing right now, at sunset, in the backyard with Damian, Nico (who had slept over), Titus (the dog), and Ace.

Now that Bentley and Damian were friends again, life felt normal. Like actually normal, all except for the fact that Asten still wasn’t talking to him. But that was fine, he guessed. He didn’t let it bother him that much.

Nico had acquired a new power over the past few days — and it was manipulating the air beneath him so that he could fly. Straight up levitating-in-the-air fly. Which was awesome and sort of unbelievable. 

Now, the three of them were playing with the dogs, throwing toys from the sky and making the trusty Wayne canines chase their impossibly fast movements, and had been for almost an hour.

“Bentley, I am not sure this is the safest means of travel,” Damian stated. He was across the yard from Bentley, also standing on a platform of water and pretty much hating it. He was struggling to balance (which was odd considering he was Robin), and even though he literally wouldn’t hit the ground if he fell, was surprisingly unsteady.

Bentley chuckled, moving across the yard on the water seamlessly and quickly with a chew toy that Titus was chasing. “Don’t you trust me?”

“You, yes. Magical levitating water, no,”

“C’mon, we won’t let you fall!” Nico announced, dropping low to the ground and flying in a few circles around Damian. “This is the safest you’ll ever be!”

“I seriously doubt that. Although I assume I appreciate the sentiment,” Damian replied, wobbling slightly when the water lifted him up a bit higher in the air.

“Lean where you want to go like you’re on a skateboard. It’ll move when you want it to,” Bentley announced, demonstrating by taking a steady but sharp u-turn that threw Titus for a (literal) loop.

Damian scrunched his nose. “How do you know?”

“Because the water does what I tell it to,” Bentley deadpanned. “Duh.”

“I presume-“

In the distance, there was a loud, thundering crash that made everybody jump. Loud like hurricane loud. Loud like atom bomb loud.

Nico promptly landed back on the grass, and Bentley made the water seep back into the dirt and leave him and Damian on dry ground.

“What the heck was that?” Nico questioned, blue eyes wide, flicking around warily. Bentley looked around the grounds surrounding the Manor, but couldn’t come up with much.

“I don’t know,”

“It sounded like-“

“Dami!”

The three of them turned to face the porch, where Dick was standing, an urgent look spread across his face. “C’mon, we need you!”

Oh, so something really serious was happening? What was happening?

The three of them made for the house at once, and Bentley assumed it was really, really serious when Dick went straight into the cave in front of Nico with no discretion at all.

They followed him closely, and halfway down the stairs, Nico nudged Bentley’s shoulder. He had his phone in hand. “I missed four calls from Asten.”

Bentley glanced down at his pockets, patting them and then withdrawing his phone. On the lock screen, there sat Asten’s name. Four times.

“Me, too,” He muttered. Nico tapped on Asten’s name and brought it to his ear. Bentley heard it go straight to voicemail.

“That can’t be good,” Bentley muttered, and Nico shook his head.

When they made it to the cave, it seemed to be crunch time. Tim was all Red Robin-ed up, sitting at the Batcomputer, typing furiously, and Bruce was but two feet away in his full Batman gear besides the cowl. Jason was about halfway into being Red Hood, Dick ran off to get ready, Cass and Steph zoomed out of the cave on guttural sounding motorcycles, and Damian made for the locker room, where his suit was.

“Holy shit,” Nico muttered, breathless.

Bentley, amused by his cursing but not enough to crack a smile, made for the Batcomputer in record time. “What’s happening?”

In the center of the massive screen was an aerial view of Gotham from what looked like a drone. Bentley’s question was answered indisputably by a building — an entire actual building, with a bunch of floors and all — rumbling and shaking at the base, the entire thing collapsing from the bottom up with a loud crash that rumbled the sides of the cave, smoke and dust pluming up into the sky and making it hard to see. The city was indeed glowing, but not in it's normal sunset lights way. 

Gotham was burning. 

There were flames everywhere; licking out of the windows of buildings, vehicles burning on the streets, trees and plants and flower beds charred, entire multi-story buildings engulfed in flame. How many people had… how many people were…?

Bentley’s father had warned him about this, and still, he told the truth anyways. (How stupid was that? Bentley Whittaker was still on his ten year streak of doing absolutely nothing beneficial.)

“I’m trying to triangulate the epicenter of the destructive energy, but I’m struggling. It’s powerful everywhere,” Tim said, more to himself than Bruce, still furiously typing away on the computer. The keys he was pressing were showing up as lines of code in a box in the bottom left corner of the screen. The top right corner also had a little box in it, cycling through what looked like the most prevalent news channels and stories.

“I’m going to have a heart attack,” Nico whispered, drifting up next to Bentley and looking at the computer. “I’m in the Batcave.”

“Bentley, are you positive your father didn’t say anything else about this plan b? Anything at all?” Bruce questioned, moving away from the computer to a different part of the cave.

“No…” Bentley muttered, watching the news stories flick to pictures of charred bodies and immediately looking away. “All he said was… when the elements are against each other, fire always wins. That’s all.”

Bruce got a calculating look on his face and pulled his cowl up.

“There! Make that bigger!” Nico exclaimed, pointing at the current news story that was running in the top corner. Tim blew the tab up to twice it’s normal size and put the volume on.

On the screen was a video of a semi-truck, upside down in a deep, deep ravine, burning and smoking. The headline read: semi-truck failure in Somerset.

“-unfortunately, driver Samuel Evans was killed almost instantly in the windshield-first impact. There were no witnesses around to see exactly what caused the truck to swerve off the road-“

Samuel Evans. Where had Bentley heard that name before? 

“Oh my God,” Nico muttered, bringing his hands up to his mouth. “That’s Asten’s uncle.”

Bentley blinked, looking at the upside down semi-truck. Asten’s uncle was dead, and they’d missed all his calls.

When the elements are pitted against one another, fire always wins.

“This is it,” Bentley muttered. Nico looked over at him, furrowing his brows. 

“What?”

“The Secret Keeper showed me you finding your adoption papers. In that dream I saw a big door in your house that had the Greek gods on it. Hephaestus, god of fire, was destroying everything, and the gods of water and air were trying to save him… and… and in the videos, Dr. Keene talked about powers becoming volatile under emotional stress… The Secret Keeper could see the future, they had it all planned out…” Bentley muttered, swallowing thickly. “This is it — the end my father was talking about.”

Nico swallowed thickly, too. “And you’re saying…”

Bentley looked back at the screen, at the rapidly crumbling buildings behind an upside down semi. The drone moved to a tall building Bentley had seen before, not too long ago, in a dream, with a small figure with blue hair and orange eyes standing on top of it.

“…We have to fight Asten,”

—

dedicated to @sassenashsworld 💚

—

tag list! (If you want me to remove or add you, ask in comments!)

@fleur-alise @sarcopterygiian @flyrobinflyy @skylathescholar @gayboss-too-close-to-the-sun @xiaonothere @beatyoutothatusernameloser

[graniteknight]

Oh boy clay analysis part 2 (because I clearly have NOTHING better to do with my spare time)

I mentioned how I wanted to go more into depth with Clay and especially with the flaws and missing pieces of his main character development. which yes, I still want to kinda talk about. I get he was the main MAIN character but it feels as if it took way longer to learn about his family compared to other characters.

(I say this as we don’t even know what Aaron’s parents look like)

okay, in knights of the realm,.. we learn about why the 5 of them were at the academy, and the reason they became knights. But it didn’t really give us enough to fully understand the characters. (Which sucks, I genuinely love the two episodes sm, but I can’t not point out some flaws here and there)

When I say Clay has flaws I mean it, his character is overall focused on him being a good, strong knight, and not the character he is when he isn’t doing all of that. (I know this is the case for all 5 of them, but hear me out)

His character development is definitely interesting (the change from ep4 to ep29 when it comes to helping macy saving her parents etc) it just feels like we barely have him NOT being a stuck up stubborn asshole. (politely)

When I mentioned other things I also wanted to mention involvement of his family, especially since we don’t know what happened between the disappearance of his family and being taken in by Merlok.

This is where the moorington analysis comes in (off topic from the Clay analysis but everything I said yesterday can really just be slammed here)

We know that Fletch and Clay either slowly forgot eachother over time or never actually met eachother, which understandably makes sense depending which way you see it.

but because of the incredibly messy nature of the canon timeline, it’s hard to put things together and actually have them make sense., especially with Wanda being turned to stone by merlok and the aftermath on her sons.

Clay and fletcher couldn’t have actually met eachother when they were younger, and I know this sounds complicated but for the actual timeline to work, they couldn’t actually have met eachother.

The only way I’m assuming it’s going to work is Wanda disappearing after Fletcher was actually born, as Fletcher was placed in the orphanage without Clay. and I doubt they would just.. ignore Clay when they initially took Fletcher in. Merlok is incredibly important to the Moorington timeline, as he was with Wanda as she began turning evil, initially he was the one to turn her to stone, in hopes of finding a spell to help her.

Now understand I am NOT blaming Merlok for taking 5 years to find Clay, because that’s wasn’t his fault. At this time he had also lost his sister, and the entire wizard’s council. I doubt looking for a child was really at the top of his priorities at that time.

Understand that it makes sense for merlok to take so long, while yes it didn’t take long for the initial search. The village that Clay was initially located in is off the maps of knighton as a whole, there’s a reason it’s “the dullest village in all of knighton” because barely any fucker knows it actually exists, I doubt it would be the first place Merlok would reasonably look.

Wanda makes this much more of an interesting case, because wouldn’t merlok have some sort of knowledge about his own nephews? perhaps he slowly forgot over time, whatever the case is, it barely makes any sort of sense.

We know Clay was influenced from a young age to become a knight, before Merlok even found him. which leaves the question as to if he was influenced by his father, just before said father disappeared?

* Understanding the reason that Merlok lied to Clay about his magic makes sense, to him, Clay is the he only alive family member he has left, and he didn’t want whatever happened to his sister to happen to his nephew too.

I apologise to every fucking nk fan for me absolutely overthinking this wacky family, but somebody gotta be the insane one here.

[cassieuncaged]

WIP Wednesday on a Monday

Hey everyone! So I’m officially back from my hiatus and decided to start a WIP tag chain early since I’ve got some new/different things I’m working on (including old stories I’ve neglected for more than year). Anyways, my current focus is on Baldur’s Gate, Fallout 4, Far Cry 4, and Mortal Kombat.

Also, thanks for the tag, @bardic-inspo , to share some of my writing 🤗

No pressure tags: @emotionalcadaver, @socially-awkward-skeleton, @captastra, @firstaidspray, @snowyarts, @reriart, @elfinbloodbag, @euryalex @adelaidedrubman, @chadillacboseman, @inafieldofdaisies, @carlosoliveiraa, @spacestephh, @galaxycunt, @unholymilf, @quantum-lover, @voidika, @illiana-mystery, @imwithyoutiltheendofthelinebucky and anyone else who wants to share writing, drawing etc. If it’s not your thing please ignore, but I wanted to go on a tagging spree since I’ve finally returned to this hellsite! Honestly really excited to see what everyone is working on :)

King of War - Chapter 2 (Pagan Min x OC)

TW: dictators, mentions of war, non-explicit injuries, language, etc.

Her head throbs as eyes slowly open, the blur of the vibrant world quickly coming into view. A flamboyant man sits across from her, picking at food she doesn’t recognize. Though the stranger in his teal suit isn’t what captivates her. No, it’s the panoramic view of the Himalayas, seemingly stretching to the ends of the planet from wherever they’re nestled.

“Good!” a booming baritone startles her, heavily accented as the man addresses her. Meg knows all too well who he is but hopes that it’s an intricate illusion or this whole ordeal is a dream. “You’re awake.”

“Barely,” she’s groggy, trying to ignore the pain radiating at the back of her skull and reaching for the knife kept holstered in her boots. Instead, he eyes widen to saucers as she realizes that her clothing has been changed as she sports a silk cheongsam dress with matching shoes. She nods bitterly. “You’ve taken my things.”

“Sorry,” he examines his finger nails before meeting her gaze, “I don’t like the idea of my guests being armed.”

“What decent dictator would?” she forces out a dark chuckle, hoping he’ll bury a bullet in her brain and end this nightmare. Instead, a brow arches quizzically.”

“King,” Pagan corrects her tersely, “It’ll do you well to remember that, Meg.”

“How do-”

“Please,” he laughs deeply, genuinely entertained by her confusion, “One of the biggest tech innovators from Silicon Valley disappears and just happens to reappear in my country. You think I wouldn’t know who you were?”

“What do you want?” she spits with all the vitriol she can muster, feeling the tension of sore muscles in her face. Nothing is said as he steeples his hands, mouth splitting into a mischievous grin, but he doesn’t need to say it because she already knows.

Everything.

Exploration - Chapter 1 of 2 (Astarion x OC)

TW: slightly suggestive, allusions to past trauma, dissociation, language, etc.

Memories were complicated, often tainting how one viewed many facets of present life.

At least that was how Astarion regarded his own. Two hundred years had soured his outlook on many things as life was slowly reclaimed. Autonomy, individuality, sex. All were concepts he’d attempted to relearn in the months after the brain fell yet struggled with greatly.

He was grateful to not navigate the unknowns alone, his sorceress lover still firmly planted by his side. Ilwyn was understanding in many ways others wouldn’t be, a flower emerging from the muddiness of her own past trauma. Not to mention how young she was for an elf, still learning many things about herself.

“I’ll be right here, my sweet star.”

She’d cooed into his ear one night after a particularly bad nightmare had destroyed his trance. Her body was warm, the scent of honeysuckle permeating her skin and bed clothes after a soothing bath. No one had ever held him like that, soothing and sweet until his rigid body began to relax against her. To be loved was to be seen, or so he had learned.

Wynnie was endlessly patient and understanding, allowing him to make choices for himself and to allow space when it was needed. Sometimes, the vampire spawn needed to clear his head, to feel the cool kiss of night tickle his cheeks and tousle his curls. If blood still pulsed beneath his skin. He was positive he’d be red as the fruit of a sun melon. How their innocent touches quickly became heated, motions filled with unbridled passion. How he felt himself drift away as Ilwyn lay spread out in nothing but slinky small clothes, her hand drifting to his breeches…

He deigned to be filled thoughts of his lover, to drown in her visage for hours, molding her body against in his own in a passionate exchange, kissing and licking and nipping. Yet, the young elf carefully rolled them over so he lay with his back upon the down feathered mattress. Dismounting herself, Wynnie rubbed firm circles into a broad shoulder as Astarion’s ashen brows knit in confusion.

They were together, melding into one another so naturally and deliciously. Yet allowing ruby eyes to shutter once had transported him into the hallows of the Szarr palace, stretched across crushed satin as sure lips collided with curve of a stranger’s neck. A blonde woman, a man with bronzed skin, it never mattered who was shared that damned bed.

Sex was a means to an end. Always.

Ghoulish Intentions - Chapter 1 (John Hancock x OC)

TW: none! (other than radiation i suppose!)

A gnarled arm stretches across the mattress as the ghoul wakes. Sunlight spills into the room, Daphne’s room. Though Hancock is shocked to find she isn’t plastered to his side, likely having awoken early to tend to mutfruit and tato sapling’s. Sanctuary is teeming with residents now, cul-de-sac walled in like a cookie cutter Goodneighbor. Yet, she enjoys playing her part in all sanctions of the town: agriculture, defense, even entrepreneurship.

But he’s happy that his mayoral duties are paused momentarily, enjoying life after the Institute’s fall. Besides, he rather likes watching his other half scuttle about under the sun that gently freckles soft skin beneath the fumes of radiation that never completely dissipate. Then he hears the rattle of an old storm door, booted feet clomping forward as he begins to dress.

“Hey, handsome.” Blonde hair hidden by the trifold hat that matches his own, Daphne rests her head against the doorjamb. “Nick’s back with a new job. Sounds like we’ve got a job playing detective again.”

“Taking names and kicking some ass involved?” he rasps out a chuckle, enjoying how the loving gaze that falls upon him like a spotlight.

“Likely, at least with Piper and Cait tagging along with us and the gumshoe.” She stifles a yawn, adjusting her general’s garb.

“Well how and the hell could I say no to that?” a grin spreads across his scarred face, inky eyes sparkling beneath dawn’s light. “When do we leave?”

Uneasy Alliance - Chapter 3 (Cassie Cage x OC)

TW: rampant sexual tension, language, etc.

“A truce?” Lavender eyes are unblinking, sharp jaw set hard as steel. “What the hell are talking about?”

Blue eyes rolled dramatically as Commander Cage strode into the meager set up. Her mouth, however, was shut for the longest amount of time since they’d met. Of course, when the turncoat actually wanted to hear the proposition. Instead, the blonde turned gracefully on the toe of her boot, not unlike a ballerina.

Under the right circumstances, Nyx could even imagine herself slipping her a phone number hastily scrawled across a sticky note. Right now, she had to resist the urge to cave Cassie’s skull in.

“Nice place you got here,” a quick nod of her head sent those pink aviators gracefully falling upon that round little nose, “Suppose you’ll be plastering some Echo and the Bunnymen posters up while you watch Eraserhead.”

“What’s your dorm look like, Barbie? Bubblegum pink with a closet full of Betsey Johnson rejects?” Nyx shot back without missing a beat, enjoying how Cage junior was bristling beneath the quick retort. It was clearly a long time since she’d had someone to engage in verbal sparring.

“Point taken,” Cassie grits, arms crossed tightly across her uniform. “You want to hear what I’ve got up my sleeve or not.”

Mirroring her stance, the pallid woman responded with a sharp:

“I’m listening.”

[chainelunaire]

random lov headcanons pt.2

(bc @ermnmika with their post reminded me i have some unfinished business so thank you for that and for credit!)

(i’m gonna do the rest + hawks in the next post)

pt. 1

toga

- she is highly interested in fashion. she has no money for a laptop or even a decent phone, and it’s dangerous anyway because they might get tracked down. so it’s only stolen magazines she learns from. she’s always two steps behind, but her imagination is what is truly inspiring.

- very organized. has a very strict schedule. hates it when it’s noisy in a hideout and she needs to go to bed. toga is a morning person. literally everybody in the league is not, so they hate her for it, but it’s not her fault they stay till like 4 in the night. 

- her room is second cleanest of all members, first one being kurogiri’s room.

- is very athlethic. one of the most physically strong members of the league, even if it doesn’t look like it. not only is she flexible, she also has great stamina.

- toga hates coffee. not a fan of tea either, but coffee is like her personal enemy. she hates the taste of it with passion, and she finds the smell sickening. repeats often how unhealthy it is, usually to dabi or compress, who consume it in a truly unhealthy amount, so she’s kinda right. she likes juices though, pomegrante one is her favourite.

- she’s not at all bubbly and optimistic. quite the opposite: she’s very calculated, realistic and vindictive. if you do something bad to her, she’ll wait until it’s just the right time to get her revenge. she’s like that because her life on the streets before league was not easy to say the least. she had pretty bad childhood and she’s in her teens now. it’s not that she only pretends to be that smiley happy girl. she now often is happy. she wants to smile not because of the excitement or to intimidate somebody, but because she kind of really wants to.

- she can make injections. it’s sort of obvious, but she’s really the best when someone needs some meds for a fever. compress can do them too, any of them can if needed, but she’s just the quickest and does them painlessly. she’s also good in medicating others. like she knows a lot, and it’s usually her who takes care of a sick member.

- very patient. to an enormous degree. because of her past on the streets, when she needed to be as cool headed as possible, she stays calm even when others are freaking out or want to go berserk. she needs a lot to get truly angry. so if she gets angry, there’s no way to escape. there will be blооd, and she doesn’t care if it’s midorya, stain or even shigaraki himself. like, don’t piss her off. just don’t.

- her love languages are gift giving and quality time. she likes to make small gifts and hand them to members for no reason. she can also like just sit near somebody silently and it won’t feel awkward. she has very calming presence and she likes to spend her time with her loved ones. she bonds through doing little stupid thing, like painting shigaraki’s nails or reading to twice. it’s very meaningful to her.

- she plays guitar. she’s very good at it actually, but she thinks she has no voice, and is very shy to sing. she can do even the most complicated chords, because of the constant training. together with dabi they work very well, with him singing and her accompanying. 

- despite her young age, she was kurogiri’s right hand, when he was still with the league and in charge. she’s that dependable and organized. shigaraki values her opinions on missions a lot too.

- hates flowers. not great with plants, everything dies slowly and painfully. animals are scared of her too. she always says it doesn’t offend her. it does.

- she’s surprisingly not touchy, at all. if you try to hug her, she’ll probably dodge and will ghost you for the rest of the day. she has huge trust issues, even though they might be not so obvious. you need to be her friend for her to trust you fully. she’s fine with hugging lov members or dreaming about hugging izuku or ochako. otherwise, she doesn’t like it. don’t touch her.

twice

- that one “movie nights!” enthusiast. literally everybody except him hate those stupid movies, pointing even the smallest mistakes (dabi) whining about how it’s all a lie (spinner) or just straight up leaving (shigaraki). toga, hawks and compress are the ones who usually stay.

- enjoys going out, but does not drink, ever. dabi, toga and shigaraki know why and never press. that one time when he relapsed was right after magne’s death, and he was not a fan. so they even help him when he thinks he wants to. they’re usually near to stop him.

- you can’t gaslight him because his memory span is as long as of a goldfish. he’ll agree with anything. he has low expectations of himself anyway. 

- wants to learn how to play drums. he sort of does, using his doubles, but the result is disasterous. sometimes he jokes they could form a band, consisting of toga, compress and dabi, and this being their sort of lawful life. literally nobody laughs.

- after his fuck-up with overhaul he asked shigaraki to dust his body if he dies. it’s sort of his last wish, to be close to those who he loved.

- he hates the cold weather and rains and such. he’s suffering from migraines, since they depend highly on weather. he’s not available on those days. 

- likes to hear shigaraki or toga read to him. he actually has huge problems with reading, it’s just hard for him. he also likes to listen to their voices. it relaxes him.

- every one of them has nightmares, but his are arguably the worst, because he has troubles with distinguishing them from reality. few times he attacked shigaraki and dabi, because he thought he was still dreaming and they wanted to erase him. he’s very afraid they all hate him (they do not) so it translates straight into his nightmares.

- because of his doubles, he’s usually the one who cleans the whole hideout, under dabi’s command.

- he never was on a date. unlike others, he sort of wants to. he wants this parts of “normal” life he never had. it stings, that there were never a person that truly liked him for being him. he’s very afraid of being alone and dying alone. 

- his favourite people to spend time with are toga and hawks. separately, because toga does not like hawks, even though she hides it very well. 

spinner

- he can understand english and even speak a bit, because of how many games he played. his vocabulary is rather poor. and from 2000s.

- doesn’t believe in medicine in his department. he thinks because of his lizard quirk his body should be able to heal on it’s own. in reality, it’s just his one huge insecurity, being that he was told not only his quirck is useless, but he’s also ugly. he pisses toga off to no end with this, not letting her checking on him. he really wants to be as cool and edgy as dabi and shigaraki, so he does this sort of thing.

- he adores warmth, so he’d be near dabi’s side constantly, if not for his death wishes. so he stole a heater and is still pissed about it.

- literally every one of them except dabi stole that heater from his room at least once.

- he’s the best with any electronic devices. he can repair anything with a fork. if you ask him how he did that, he won’t answer. he himself doesn’t know. it just kinda works.

- he can smell with his tongue.

- if he’s not in his room, he’s probably in shigaraki’s room. if he’s not in shigaraki’s room, he’s on a hunch for new games to play wih shigaraki. he spends most of his time in his room, even though they like different kinds of games they always play together.

- his room is second messiest, next to shigaraki’s room. kurogiri often told them to clean it. they didn’t listen. then it's dabi’s turn, and after he’d almost burned their shit alltogether, they usually clean together too.

- he can live with no water bc of his lizard anatomy. well, he still needs it, it’s just that unlike others he can go without it for months while being completely fine. 

- he dislikes music in itself, it’s too hard on his ears. he likes the singing parts tho.

- he is kinda the cook of the group, so no surprise he knows who loves what. he knows about the allergies too. he tries his best, but they hate his dishes anyway. when he says and he’s done, do yourselves, they start to whine. it’s hilarious. 

- he too asked shigaraki to dust his body if he dies. shigaraki is honestly so done with them by this point.

- he can sort of breath under water. he likes water and sand and summer in general. he also swims very fast, like very.

[pics-and-fanfics]

Alr time for me to relay the weird ass dream I woke up from today. Sorry for how long this is, but I’m trying to share every detail with yall.

My mom got a weird invite to a thing where she’d learn how to fix what was wrong with her car. There was no letter, just a ticket that would allow her to enter the place.

She dragged me with her, obviously.

So we get there, and figure out how to get to the 3 below ground levels (idk how I knew there were below ground levels)

We get to the below ground levels, and get caught after a few minutes, and return above ground, which had somehow morphed into a huge shopping center.

Some of my friends were there too, for some reason.

So we start shopping (???) and eventually catch wind of a rumor of every villain in Gotham (how’d we get teleported to Gotham, along with the store and everyone inside?) working together. (I realized it sounded a lot like “Shutterbug” by @goldkirk and knew we needed to get out.)

I beg my mom to let us leave, I want to go home, I don’t feel good. I used about every excuse in the book.

Well, everyone starts screaming out of nowhere a bit later, and slightly colored gas starts filling the air. Everyone is stampeding, trying to get to the above ground levels and leave. Oh yeah, we’d gone back downstairs, which were also turned into a huge supermarket for some reason.

Then Batman and Superman appear, and they start fighting like crazy, and Superman is slowly getting weaker from whatever was in the gas.

Me and my mom try to work towards the center of the store, where the escalators to escape were. People are still screaming, hallucinating whatever their worst fear is. Mine doesn’t manifest for some reason, but I was glad for it, being able to just ignore the feeling of being scared.

We have to fight our way through big groups of people, and for some reason I know how to do flips and complicated gymnastics moves out of the blue to try to get away faster. (Was I Robin?)

Me and my mom get to the escalators, thank god the power stayed on, and see the only one that wasn’t working had nobody on it. So me and my mom go up the empty escalator, and people start slowly following us, and the escalator starts moving.

I’m falling as I try to move up the escalator to get on solid ground faster, eventually giving up and just waiting until the escalator ends. We run to the elevator that was right there, right on the wall a few dozen yards in front of us.

People are already here, so we run to the one we took to get to the below ground levels originally, and open the elevator with the ticket my mom got.

Everything turns even more chaotic as people start getting eaten by those things that are people who made sound in “The Silence” on Netflix.

I scream, I’ll die. I did both.

The dream changes to this dude trying to explain why chickens were descended from leprechauns based on their tail and wing feathers.

A chicken off to the side clucks, and the dude turns away from his camera, and I (somewhere above the scene bc I’m dead) watch as the chicken does the famous velociraptor scratch thing with its foot before the chicken bites his ankle.

The lady who owns the farm runs out into the road, following the dude who’d stumbled into the road after being bit.

They go back and forth, the lady trying to warn the dude, and him being confused (wtf happened to all his memories?).

The dude gets hit by a car.

I, still dead, remember that I have a model of his death.

I wake up.

[shhhsoftnwet]

Evilive gang rivalry AU

I really wished I can write but I can’t be good at everything now can I? All I can offer are short bulletpoint ideas I’m sorry 😔

Premise: What’ll happen if DYDS never broke up after getting rid of Moon Sangguk? Well, a decade later Doyoung became a business tycoon and Dongsoo became the new Minister of Justice of course. Eventually they managed to shed away their criminal lives behind, but not without a few painful sacrifices of course. Upon finding out what Dongsoo has done to achieve his goals, his family completely disappeared from his life and it took Doyoung 2 years waiting patiently for Dongsoo to get over the loss and reciprocate his feelings.

Life is very good for Seo Doyoung. He’s been running the Shinnam Ferry and Marine Casino well, his wealth in abundance, got his trophy husband of his dreams, even opened a baseball club for the youth…… yet everything feels so stagnant. Achieving his goals has given Doyoung midlife crisis. During dinner, they reminisced their past and how far they’ve become. Doyoung sorta missed the thrill and violence…

He decided to rebuild his criminal empire in secret, concealing his true identity as the boss to protect his current reputation, as well as to not worry Dongsoo and risk losing him. A decade hiatus is long enough for a new predator to rule over the underbelly of Shinnam. Feeling extremely competitive, Doyoung is determined to create havoc and overthrow his rival.

Doyoung’s new gang quickly gains notoriety and a violent turf war and sabotaging soon began. Doyoung learns that his rival’s modus operandi is very structured and their boss’ identity is also closely guarded, but after much spying and digging, he found out that most of the members used to be the now disbanded Family gang and Bae Jongha is their leader.

Doyoung and a few of his trusted men cornered Bae Jongha. Surprised by this unfavourable yet funny turn of events, Bae Jongha resentfully revealed that he’s just a puppet and refused to reveal his boss’ true identity to Doyoung out of spite. Feeling extremely irritated that he couldn’t get an answer from Bae Jongha, he rid him off.

It’s later revealed that…. /dramatic drumrolls/…. HAN DONGSOO IS THE TRUE BOSS OF THE RIVAL GANG!!! (I want it to be dramatic ok like Doyoung trying to vent under the pretence that he’s concerned about the rising turf wars in the news, and then Dongsoo tried to assure Doyoung that he’ll do something about it. Then after that he got a phone call informing him that they found Bae Jongha dead in a ditch!!)

At this point, the audience are left questioning whether Dongsoo knew that Doyoung is his rival and if he has any ulterior motives/grudges. However it is later revealed that he truly doesn’t know that his husband is his opp.

Bae Jongha’s death became a catalyst for both gangs to start hunting for the bosses’ true identities. Lotsa spy cams and trackers going on. At some point Doyoung got the scare of his life thinking his rival found his identity and tried to infiltrate his house and harm Dongsoo. He warned Dongsoo of the intruders, but Dongsoo managed to bluff his way out (apparently he’s not supposed to be home at the time), thinking that his rival gang ALSO found out about his true identity. (TLDR: they both thought their identities are uncovered while still unaware that they’re each other’s opps. Bae Jongha cry laughing in his grave at this comedy)

At some point however, Doyoung slowly realised that Dongsoo is the boss based on a tiny slip up/minor injury(?). Doyoung unravels his complicated feelings during their sexy time (with Dongsoo being dominant and choking him 👹👹) A part of him is thrilled of this diabolical and corrupted side of Dongsoo, a side of him that he sorely missed a decade ago. Yet a part of him is also extremely sick with paranoia, unsure of who is this man before him and wondered if this is Dongsoo’s plan to get rid of him after all.

Doyoung decided to hold an emergency meeting with his gang to plan their next move, only to receive a surprise ambush from Dongsoo’s gang. A lot of bloodshed happened, Doyoung solo fights a bunch of guys. Dongsoo is shocked to see his husband is his enemy, but Doyoung is too enraged by the entire situation to think properly.

They had an emotional one on one knife + fist fight and somehow managed to clear up their misunderstandings. They shed some tears, they makeout, maaaayyybbee being freaky while covered in blood idk, it’s gross and unhinged but beautifully poetic in a blood pact way. Now that the couple has come clean with each other of their wants and worries, their love is renewed with fiery passion. And maybe soon they’ll rebuild their criminal empire once more, together this time.

THE END

Yeah this is all I have…. If you wanna adopt it, go ahead like I can’t write proper sentences beautifully for shit. Just lemme know so I can read it 😭😭🙏

Anyways some things to elaborate on character motivations and why they choose to conceal their actions from their partners:

HDS: Dongsoo have always wanted to rule the criminal empire ever since they got rid of Moon Sangguk. However, upon spending some time listening to Doyoung’s experiences and understanding why he wanted to leave the criminal life behind him, as well as feeling grateful of Doyoung’s support during his difficult time accepting that his family had left him and paving a way for his current career, he decided to lead a double life to protect their peace and reputation.

SDY: Doyoung realises that achieving his goals is never going to fill the void and hunger in his heart. Doyoung missed the good old days, but he doesn’t want to bring anymore pain to Dongsoo’s life, not after seeing how broken he was after losing his family. The last thing Doyoung wanted is to lose him too. But Seo Doyoung is a selfish man, he will get the best of both worlds no matter what.

[bicheetopuff]

Dynamight and All Mights Character Arcs

⚠️MHA Manga spoilers⚠️⚠️Discussion of ch362⚠️

Okay… this is the only serious post I’m making regarding Katsuki’s death scare. I’ll answer any asks about it but other than that I’m not gonna make anymore posts about this particular topic. Mha isn’t within any of our control and predictions are just that… predictions. In reality, this is Horikoshis story and if he decides to truly break all of our hearts then so be it.

Also I’m not gonna talk about OFA theories and more so their characters themselves. Mainly cuz OFA is complicated and it’s difficult to pinpoint what might actually be happening to it or what it’s doing. I’m just going on based on what would make sense as their arc resolutions and why I think so. Anyways…

Contents:

I: Unfinished business

II: Katsuki’s Stubbornness

III: All Mights incomplete arc and Nighteyes vision

IV: Horikoshi’s writing style

V: Quirk Society

VI: Some Parallels

I: Unfinished Business

So I’m pretty sure we all came to the conclusion that Katsuki’s arc is incomplete and this supposed “death” feels abrupt, rushed, and unsatisfying. Not that if he died at another point it’d be satisfying but with how Horikoshi has written other deaths (which I’ll bring up again later) it’d be very out of character of Hori to present the second male lead with a death that feels so incomplete and tragic.

I’m gonna cut straight to the point: Katsuki has been reflecting on himself for almost 250 chapters. Slowly accepting that he’s in fact, not the best. Thinking about what he did to Izuku when they were younger and finding ways to atone for it. Learning that showing you care about someone isn’t a sign of weakness. Overall trying to be less of an asshole. And most important (in my opinion) learning how to accept help from others. I wanna talk about this point specifically.

Izuku is “win to save” right? His thing is about helping people even when they don’t ask for it, and at the beginning that’s what bothered Katsuki the most about Izuku. Izuku tried to help him when Katsuki didn’t need it and Katsuki thought it was offensive because why would a kid who is good at everything with an amazing quirk need help from a quirkless loser?

This development is what stemmed the “if I can’t save myself, I’d rather not be saved” attitude that he has at the beginning because having to be saved makes him feel just as—if not more—inferior as losing.

(Is this picture recycled from another meta I posted? Yea… yea it is. But the highlighted parts still apply)

It took him a while to be even somewhat okay with accepting help from someone else and the first example was Kirishima in the hideout raid. Y’know, that time where Izuku let someone else be the one to reach out to him no matter how much he wanted it to be him. He said it had to be Kirishima because he knew that Katsuki wouldn’t have accepted his hand. Because he never has. And still hasn’t (no, heroes rising doesn’t count until proven otherwise).

After DvK2 Katsuki became almost hyper-fixated on the fact that he’s been misunderstanding Izuku for damn near 12 years. But also after DvK2, Katsuki hasn’t been given another chance to accept Izukus hand. And yea it’s pretty sappy but it’s an important part of their relationship and Katsukis development that theoretically can happen in the vestige world but wouldn’t make sense in terms of an actual resolution (in my opinion).

II: Katsuki’s Stubbornness

Katsuki is persistent and always has been. Aizawa and All Might have pointed it out several times. He’s grownup being good at everything and at UA is when he starts to be told there’s things he can’t do. He starts to get a taste of failure and tries his best to do what he’s told his incapable of anyway. The earliest example I can think of is during the sports fest when Tsuburaba tried to block Katsuki with his solid air and Monoma’s team is like “heh he can’t break through that.”

And he did anyway.

Or final exams when he was determined to try to beat All Might. Even though he didn’t he still tried his damnedest which I think is the best example despite not winning the way he wanted to. It’s also the first time he accepts Izukus help no matter how much he doesn’t like it. (The amount of parallels from this fight to 362 is crazy when you look at it closely)(we also get a taste of the actual frustration he feels when someone tells him he can’t do something).

“We had no hope of beating you without taking a few risks.”

“Even if it messes me up, I chose this path to victory.”

(…and we call Izuku the self sacrificial one)

Seem familiar? This quotes seem oddly relevant in light of 360-362. He’ll break himself if it means he tries his best for the outcome he wants and…

Meaning: as long as he’s able, he’ll fight to win. It’s apart of his character to not go down easily. He’s simply too stubborn to and it’d be extremely unfulfilling to go down mid-fight and not get back up. Yea, he didn’t get up a second time in his final exam because he passed out but, Izuku still made sure he claimed a victory even if it wasn’t the way he wanted. Plus he didn’t need to get up a second time. Katsuki deserves a victory to actually go his way this time, not for the victory itself but to prove his own expectations of his strength. He wants to be the strongest, right?

Who is Katsuki Bakugou if not someone that lives up to their own word?

If not for himself then for Izuku. To be the person Izuku looks up to.

III: All Mights incomplete arc and Nighteyes vision

So All Might has always been one to keep secrets from most people. When Izuku found out that All Might kept the fact that Nighteye knew about OFA and didn’t like him before they even met, he was offended, remember? And offended by the fact that Mirio was supposed to be the successor that All Might was settling with. Emphasis on settling.

Nighteye made it clear that he thinks Izuku is a lousy choice in a successor because he thinks “the burning desire to help people” isn’t enough to be a suitable candidate despite the fact that that’s how All Might was metaphorically born. And he still believes that despite Izuku’s quick improvement (up until his dying moments at least, but that’s beside the point).

So theory time:

I’ve actually been thinking about this for a while I just didn’t think Katsuki would have to get so hurt for it.

Some of Nighteyes dying words was about how Izuku proved that the future can be changed but during the Chisaki battle Uraraka and Izuku also proved that it takes will and conviction to change the future. To change fate. However, All Might has already secretly accepted that he is going to die which is why he never told the foresight to Izuku.

However…

He’s fighting to live for Izukus sake. Not his own. From this point in the story, yea Izuku needs him and All Might knows that. But later, after endeavors agency arc All Mihht starts to slowly believe that Izuku doesn’t need him anymore and in Izuku’s vigilante arc, All Might starts to see his thoughts being proven correct.

“You won’t need to look back to me.”

All Might began to realize that he’s not someone Izuku needs anymore, as harsh as that sounds. He became someone Izuku sought out to protect rather than the other way around and being aware of that is frustrating for him.

The panel of All Mights response was small and on the next page so I didn’t add it but all he said was “thank you.” He didn’t go on some kind of tangent about continuing to fight to live.

He recognizes that he’s not keeping the promise he made to Inko. He’s supposed to be the one protecting and teaching Izuku but the table turned (in a more obvious way since Izuku has been the one protecting and teaching All Might in the first place). But in the same way that he recognizes himself as not being someone Izuku needs anymore, he recognizes the people that Izuku does need. I think when it comes down to protecting himself or protecting someone he knows that Izuku still needs in his life, he’d choose the latter because he’s dedicated the rest of his life to doing things for Izuku’s sake. Not his own. And who’s the person that’s been most recognizable to All Might as the most important person in Izuku’s life?

I think All Might is gonna see Katsuki on the ground and be prepared to die for him just as Katsuki was prepared to die for Izuku (ch285). It would come full circle from when he was unwilling to try to save Katsuki in chapter one until he saw Izuku go for him first.

This is where I’ll start to sound desperate but it’s a legitimate thought I’ve had for a while. All Might can still go into his muscle form. And there’s no proof that OFA is completely gone other than ‘a feeling’ All Might had in his fight in Kamino. The original theory about why All Mights vestige is still ghostly was because he’s still alive but, what if it’s because he still has shreds of OFA and since he still has it, he hasn’t become a true vestige yet? This is something I thought of way before 362 because something just never felt right about it? Why would Nighteyes vision take place after All Mights retirement?

Nighteye didn’t say he’d encounter AFO again, assuming he knows what AFO looked like and what state he was in after All Might “beat” him 6 years ago. Just like All Might was able to recognize AFO immediately, Nighteye would too.

Do you remember his run in with stain? How stain threatened to kill him for talking down on himself? Stain showed All Might that despite feeling useless, there’s still people that believe in him. And he hit him with this:

A hero only exists for the sake of others…

That’s what he’s been doing, hasn’t it? Except in the state he’s in, he can’t be a real hero anymore can he? He’s felt useless. Like a Deku.

OFA is a power all about will and love. Katsukis in trouble and Katsuki means something to Izuku so… he’ll pull through despite thinking he can’t. Just like he did here:

Yes, it’s sad. But in my brain it makes sense and it’d complete All Mights character nicely. I think he’s being brought up to often in this fight for him to sit there and continue to just watch.

I’m sure Katsuki isn’t the only person that’s realized this about Izuku and has been inspired by it. And I think All Might being able to use OFA immediately with no drawback when he got it adds a tinge of irony there.

Do I think he’ll be the one to save Katsuki? No. But I think he’s gonna “face that other villain” while someone else heals Katsuki and OFA does whatever it does. And hopefully Izuku will be there eventually to lend a hand that Katsuki can finally accept.

Also I’d like to point this out before moving on:

Beginning of the story, rain started. The beginning of this shitshow.

Right after Izuku was found by Katsuki and brought home by his classmates. All Might letting someone else protect and raise him because he knows he can’t do anything that he considers meaningful for him anymore. The rain stops. When All Mights attitude changes after Stains lecture.

Weather has a sudden change again and it’s about to rain. What if it’s All Might heading to the battle field? He accidentally caused the rain before when he protected Katsuki (ch1). So what do you think will stop the rain once it’s started? I personally think it’ll be All Might accepting his unfortunate fate and dying happy doing something he always loved doing again. Being a hero and dying a hero. Not dying as some retiree.

Anyways…

These next two points are a little more logistical.

IV: Horikoshis Writing Style

There haven’t been very many deaths in mha. But each time they died with someone they cared about around or someone that cares about them (minus midnight).

-Twice saving Toga and compress and giving back Togas Handkerchief

-not a death scene but Mirio and Tamaki using each other as crutches when they were both really injured.

-Nighteye dying in the presence of All Might, his sidekick, disciple, and the kid that changed his negative attitude about his foresight (Izuku changing the future but not dying to Chisaki).

-again not a death scene but Kirishima sacrificing himself for Mina when Gigantomachia tried to grab her.

-not a death scene again but Katsuki sacrificing himself for Izuku.

A sudden change in that pattern just wouldn’t make sense in my opinion. Katsuki taking a senseless beating and dying is inconsistent writing to me so he’s gonna get back up cuz I say so.

V: Quirk Society

There’s not much to this so I’ll get straight to the point:

Recovery Girls existence

Best Jeanist survived a massive hole in his abdomen from AFO despite not being able to be healed for damn near half an hour (and we didn’t know he was still alive for like 150 chapters). Izuku gets his shattered bones healed in minutes despite it taking months to heal that kind of injury naturally. Katsukis injury seems healable when you take the verses medical care into consideration.

In terms of strategy when it comes to this fight I think it’d be dumb to not have Recovery Girl and a medical team on standby in AFO or ShigAFOs battlefields. I’m sure there’s medical and rescue on standby at the other battle fields too for after fights but it’d be dumb not to have at least someone at the fight against the biggest threat.

VI: Parallels

This is just stuff I haven’t already pointed out

heh yea…

Half-assed Conclusion

Katsuki accepting Izukus help and Izuku potentially saving his life isn’t him being a damsel. It’s a resolution to his character and is purely his own. I don’t think any other conclusion to his character arc would be satisfying until he accepts help from Izuku. Will it kinda be a test of Izuku’s control over his heart? Maybe. Will Izuku probably go ballistic? Probably. But whatever happens with Katsuki is Katsuki’s development only (and some all might).

Idk this may be me being in denial and desperate but this last chapter kinda screwed me up and made me think about the story a lot and how weird and out of place this chapter feels. It makes me feel better to word dump and put my thoughts somewhere that isn’t my brain so. This post probably doesn’t make much sense cuz I wrote it pretty quickly. Sorry in advance I guess lmao.

I’m not talking about this anymore and I’m probably gonna take a little break from mha for a bit. I’ll still be updating my fic for anyone that’s keeping up with that but other than that I’ll be avoiding the manga for a bit which is why I won’t be talking about this subject for a while.

[pryce0]

Hi hi!! Hope you're having a great day!

You're so right we need more John Marston content! This is a bit of a lengthy ask so if you want to ignore it or any aspects of it feel free.

But what about some fluff w John and a gn!reader that slowly warm up to each other, always teasing and joking together but reader is hesitant to do anything bc they think John is still in a complicated situation w Abigail. But that has already been solved even before reader joins the gang and now they're just co-parenting Jack

Pls and thank you <3

Complicated (John Marston x GN!Reader)

gif by: deactivated :-(

a/n; lease let me know what you think, and i’m intending to do a part two if anyone is interested! also this is my first time ever writing for mr. marston here, so if i apologize if he’s OOC! readers pov :-)

word count; 3,026

last part: here

masterlist: here

——————

John fucking Marston.

That dry humored, angry, dense yet soft man. He could tell a joke, grumble about how no one got it, then call your humor terrible. He’s fast, somehow smart, and a great shot. He’s terrible compared to Arthur, but if you’re betting then Sean at shooting, you’re great. John is remarkably quick to pick up on everything to do with violence, he reminds me of a deer every time he picks up on something I do not. John will put a hand out in front of me to stop me in my tracks as he freezes alongside me. I eventually learned to shut up after a few times this happened, and listen with him. Sometimes, I don’t pick up on it, but other times I can hear it so faintly.

I’ve asked him so many times how he is able to hear it, especially after being around guns for so long, there has to be some hearing loss, right? Somehow, he’s avoided all of that. His hearing couldn’t be more perfect. I’ve learned to trust John’s intuition, as he’s right… most of the time, anyway.

I’m thinking about this while prepping some traps for hunting, and I feel a heat rise to my cheeks. No doubt I’m visibly blushing, which just makes my face more red as I’m embarrassed. I pat my cheeks in an attempt to get ahold of myself and then I grab a rope, and begin to tie it to a new net Arthur bought with the camp money. To my understanding, it’s supposed to be one of those traps you tie to a tree, make a lever system, and hide the net in the leaves. Leave some bait on the net, too. I’ve tried to tie this knot about six different fucking times, and I’m usually great at it, but John’s got me all distracted. From what I understand, I got picked up by the gang a few days after they left the mountains, left this place called Colter. I met them after I was having a lot of run in’s with this other gang.

“The O’Drsicolls,” I remember Dutch sneering. There was clearly some personal business between the two gangs, but at the time, I wasn’t too interested. That’s the first time I met John. Long brown hair with a puffy, stitched up face. The scars I know today were just stitches. The two deep gashes running along his cheek, sported by a less deep gash across his chapped lips, part of his eyebrow was nicked off, a stitched up gash across his nose, and a healing cut across his other cheek. His eyes were particularly striking, they hold a secret that seems to be dying to be let out. Dutch and the others didn’t automatically accept me into the gang, nor invited me at first. It took a couple of run in’s, and one conversation I remember very well got me on Dutch’s good side.

It was with John, it was maybe about the fourth time they’d shown up where I was near O’Driscolls. It wasn’t like I was purposely going after them, but the O’Driscolls were coming after me hard for killing a bunch of them already. After the last one dropped dead, I met up with the familiar faces in the midst of the camp, avoiding stepping on the dead bodies. “Funny seeing you here,” I remember Dutch remarking. It was Dutch, Arthur, Micah and John all together. I didn’t know John or Micah’s name, but I knew Dutch and Arthur. “This is like the fourth time, c'mon guys!” I remember joking around with them as I wiped the blood off of my face. “We run into you way too often.” John’s voice came out low and hoarse, a permanent grit to his tone. He seemed annoyed. It was something I would never forget. “Nice to see you too, Scarface. I’d like to think it’s a coincidence, but maybe you’re just following me.” I smile as I remember John rolling his eyes. “I don’t remember seeing you do much action in this situation, saw you come from the back all the way over there.” Arthur stepped up and motioned towards John’s face. “We was in the mountains and he got attacked by wolves.” Arthur offered an explanation, and I feigned a faux-sympathetic expression. Honestly, it’s hard to be sympathetic towards people I don’t know, but I didn’t want to come off as weird. “Seems like they didn’t get only your face, but your brains, too.” That earned me a howling laugh from Dutch and a smile from Arthur. It’s been a good few months since then.

In the middle of my struggle, someone places their hands on the table, next to where I’m attempting to make the trap. I don’t even have to look up because I know who it is. “Damn, how are you struggling this much when you tied Kieran up perfectly?” John mutters, watching me pathetically fail another knot. I look up at the man with furrowed eyebrows, yet it’s clear that my words are lighthearted. “Hey! This is different from tying knots to prevent a person from getting away. This is a net, not a person.” I retort, feeling the stinging frustration building up inside of me. “Well, in that case..” He says, examining where and how I’m attempting to tie it. “Think of the net as a uh, real skinny person. Or.. somethin’.”

I pause and blink at him a few times. “I’m not too sure they stitched you up right from that wolf attack, because your brains are larkin’ all over the place, Marston.” I joke, a smile appearing on my face. His jaw drops and he shoves my shoulder lightly, but I can see the amusement, yet frustration on his face. “Hey!” John complains, grumbling. “I was going to offer to tie it for you, but not now.” I perk up and before he can leave the table, I grab his wrist. “No! Tie it for me before leaving, I gotta get some hunting done today so I can take the load off of Arthur. He’s got enough on his plate, as it is.” I complain, shoving the rope and net into his hand. “Don’t we all,” He mumbles under his breath, but he takes a seat next to me anyhow. John places the door and the net on the table, and within seconds he’s got the perfect type of knot for the net. “Why don’t I just go hunting with you? Make sure you don’t step in the trap.” John retorts, leaving the trap on the table. I blink in awe for a moment before looking at John. I make eye contact, and I feel all warm. He’s such a nice thing to look at. His eyes, his features, his jawline, his hair.. He makes me wanna run my fingers through his hair. “Sure.” I answer quickly before looking away, feeling that heat spread from my stomach to my face.

“Alright, I’ll meet you on the edge of camp. Hosea showed me a lil’ place to hunt.” John says as he stands up, grabbing the rope trap. I quickly snatch it from him, narrowing my eyes playfully. “My trap,” I hum. “I’ll meet you out there soon.”

John sighs and shakes his head, walking towards the horse’s area. I get up from the bench and quickly jog over to my tent, grabbing my hunting satchel along with a rifle I haven’t tied to my horse yet. I sprint halfway to the horses before I hear Hosea’s voice. “No running in camp, you know that!” He shouts lightheartedly. I grumble and settle for a power walk pace. I look around for my horse, but I don’t see him anymore. Before I call out to John, I see him on the edge of Camp on his own horse, Old Boy, and holding the reins of my horse. I sigh in relief and I make my way over there. I tie the rifle to my horse, put the satchel on, and swing my leg over, mounting my horse. “Thought Seer ran off again.” I say quietly, patting the side of my horse’s neck. “He only runs off because you own him.” John says with a smile, clicking his tongue to lead his horse into a trot. I do the same and keep a consistent pace next to him as we go down the path. “Oh, shut up.” I say under my breath, leaning down and looping the trap onto my saddle. “The place is a bit away from here. We don’t have to ride hard, but we wanna be there at a reasonable time.” John says as he looks over at me, taking a turn down the road. I follow him on my horse and nod. “Just don’t get us lost, hm?”

————————

It didn’t take us too long to arrive. From my understanding from the route we took, we’re close to Grizzlies East. It made me nervous but John assured me that we’re staying in the part near the deer and rabbits. “We can hitch here.” John mutters, stopping at a tree with a low branch where you could tie your reins to. I pull my horse up next to his, my horse huffing and flicking his ears. “Oh, you’ll get an apple in just a secondX you impatient buffoon.” I grumble as I dismount my horse, unlooping the net trap. I toss it onto my shoulder and open the bag attached to my saddle, roaming my hand inside for an apple. I hear John doing his own thing for a bit, rustling around and I can hear him making sure he has enough ammo. As my hand grabs an apple, John speaks. “It might be best to use a bow and arrow, I don't want you to come and shoot me when you get angry.” John expresses with a tone of amusement. I scoff and pull out the apple, holding it out to my horse who happily munches on it, core and all. “Oh, how dare you! I might aim for you anyhow, now.” I retort as I wipe my hand off of apple juice. I sigh and look at the rifle I brought. “So no rifle?” I question, a bit sad. I was kinda looking forward to using it. “Uh.. Bring the rifle anyway, we are in bear country, after all.” John reminds me. Right. I pull the rifle from the saddle and sling the strap over my shoulder, then I grab my arrow pack, sling that over my shoulder as well, and I grab the bow and arrow Charles had gifted me as a ‘welcome into the gang’ present.

I pause for a moment as John’s words ring through my ears. Just thinking about his voice makes me feel butterflies. I shake it off by patting my cheek, looking at John. “Did you bring any scent lotion?” I ask, looking at him. “As a matter of a fact, I did.” John replies, and quickly takes a can out. We’re both wearing long sleeves and pants, but we need to get some dinner as soon as possible. “Put it on my body.” I say in a weird tone, laughing as I’m joking. He shakes his head and opens the tin, holding it out to me. I dip my hand in and take out a glob, putting it on my face, my neck, my hands, anything that’s left exposed. I’m careful to not get it in my eyes as I rub it into my skin. I glance over at John who is doing the same, holding the tin between his knees as there’s no surface to place it down on. “I got some bait, bought it fresh the other day.” I say to fill the silence. I grab it from my hunting satchel, and the seal is still covering the tin. “I think mine went bad last week or somethin’. Bet it would still work, though.” John grumbles as he puts the lid back onto the lotion tin and puts it away. I chuckle as John grabs a rifle and a bow and arrow as well, slugging the rifle and arrow pack over his shoulder like I did. “Vultures, maybe.” I say, walking a bit away from the horses and John. “They are only in New Austin,” John reminds me, as I said the exact same thing when I first joined the gang. It embarrassed me immensely. I wave him off as he catches up to me and walks side by side. “Don’t matter.” I mumble, my face heating up with embarrassment as John laughs at my misery. We walk a bit in silence before we find a good area with a tree and a rock nearby. “Here will do just fine.” John says, grabbing the net trap from me without asking. My mouth drops, putting a hand on my hip. “John Marston, rude as ever.” I joke, watching him move leaves from a spot. “Yeah, yeah, who cares.” He says with a sigh, crouching down and placing the net trap. John looks up and jumps a bit as he tosses the rope over with a grunt, the rope falling over onto the other side. “Come place leaves and that bait here.” John calls for me. I nod and walk over bending down and I push the leaves back onto the net. After it’s hidden, I open the tin of bait and sprinkle pieces all over the area where the net rests. After a bit, I put the lid back on. “That should be enough. We should go hide by that rock, now.” I murmur, standing up. I walk over to the rock, and John follows. He’s holding the rope that’s resting over the branch, and the rope is long enough that we can both be behind the rock.

“We should be out of sight for now, until we hear an animal.” John says quietly, rasp filling every word. I only nod and sit behind the rock, my back pressed up against the surface. John does the same, but the rock is on the small side, so our shoulders are pressed against each other. I feel my heart skip a beat when I feel his warmth deep into my sleeve. He looks at me, strands of hair falling out in front of his face. “I’m strong, but I ain’t Arthur. We’re gonna hafta pull the rope together.” John whispers to me, and we’re so close I can feel his breath on me. I say nothing and just nod, grabbing onto the rope. My hands rest between his, nearly touching. I slow my breathing to make less noise, and the next ten minutes are excruciatingly slow. We can’t talk, or even make faces or else we won’t get this.

I manage to zone out, thinking about John. I will admit, I like him more than friends like their friends. Over these days of spending time with the gang, with John, I’ve warmed up to him. At first, we weren’t great friends. We teased each other, but John tends to have a short temper so he would sulk if I said something a bit too mean. He’s been a bit of a standoffish guy, awkward and headstrong, but fun to be around. He’s such a looker, too. He’s so handsome, I see why he and Abigail are together.

“Now.” John suddenly whispers, and pulls the rope. I’m startled out of my thoughts and mindlessly pull the rope with him, and we are met with heavy resistance. I grunt and we both stand up, pulling the rope to tie it around this other tree. I glance over and we caught a pretty hefty sized doe. “Harder!” John rasps out as he guides me around the tree. “I’m trying!” I call out, grinding my feet into the ground as we make our way around the tree a couple of times. I can hear the doe shrieking and struggling as we tie the rope, leaving us slightly panting. “God..” I say quietly, pulling out my knife. I begin to walk over to the deer “I got it.” I call out.

“Wait, [Name], don’t!-“ John shouts. I furrow my eyebrows and I start to look back at him, until I’m frozen, staring at a huge buck who is currently charging at me. I hear a loud boom, a gunshot maybe, but I’m not sure because I closed my eyes from the sound. I hear the sound of a deer wailing in pain before falling over with a thump. I open my eyes, and the buck lays only a foot away from me. I release my breath, which I didn’t even know I was holding. I look over at John who is holding his rifle. He looks panicked as he slings it back over his shoulder and runs over to me, grabbing my shoulder. “Are you alright?? He didn’t get you, did he?” He questions me, looking over my body. I blink as he touches my shoulder. “No, he didn’t.. Thanks for that. Didn’t think about how her mate might’ve been around..” I murmur with a smile, finding it impossible to stop. John lets out a sigh of relief and shakes my shoulder, not yet letting go. “Don’t ever do that again, you hear me?” He scolds me, with a… serious tone, John has never done that before. “Were you worried?” I ask as I turn from him, grabbing onto the net and shoving my knife into the doe’s neck without a second thought. “I, ‘course I was! Why wouldn't I be?” He asks me as he lets go of my shoulder. The doe cries out, but she stops struggling as she dies. I shrug, smiling lightly with this newfound information. “I dunno, I just expected it to be hard for you to care about new people, with your family and your lifestyle.” I respond as I cut the rope with my knife, the doe and the net thumping to the ground. John sighs and responds with, “Let’s just get to camp, we can talk there.”

[naughtyneganjdm]

Arcadia - Chapter 13

Summary: After learning about Y/N's pregnancy, both Joel and Negan seem tense about the idea of who the father is. It also draws tension from Negan's son who is upset at the idea of a new baby leading Negan to take him out for a day with dad to only come face-to-face with someone from his past.

Characters: Negan, the reader (OC), Joel, Lucy, Nolan, etc.

Warnings: Swearing, angst, etc.

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29577489/chapters/111565753

“This is insane,” Negan looked over the ultrasound machine that they were going to be using. Even though he knew that Arcadia was more advanced than the world that was around them, it still took some getting used to. These were things of the past and Negan was surprised how good the doctors in Arcadia were doing. This still felt like how things were over thirteen years ago before the world started falling to shit. “I really don’t understand how you all pulled this together. When I was with you both all those years ago, I never pictured the two of you being able to pull together a whole community. One that could be ran like this.”

“It took a lot of work,” Joel announced from where he was seated at the other side of the bed where he was holding Y/N’s hand. They had already prepared Y/N to be ready for the ultrasound, the doctor was just gathering things while they waited. Joel’s ass was kicked to say the least. When the children went to school, the three of them had walked together to the medical pavilion for this ultrasound. Joel was insistent on walking himself with the help of his cane which meant it was a long, slow walk, but Negan and Y/N didn’t make a big deal of it. The only thing that Joel kept thinking about was how the hell he was going to make it back up to their home. They lived on a big hill and his body was already drained from the walk there. “All of this wasn’t built overnight Negan. For it to get where it is, I’d say it’s only been about three years where everything has been together like this. It was a lot of building and coming together.”

“And it wasn’t just us that were doing it,” Y/N squeezed her fingers around Joel’s noticing that he was very pale. Outstretching her free hand, she reached out to caress over the side of Joel’s face watching him half-smile before leaning into her touch. “We just did what we could to bring people together. You have to understand we aren’t miracle workers.”

“Yes you are, you’re both just incredibly humble,” Negan rumbled, letting out a wince when he knocked something over. The doctor in the corner shot Negan a glare and he slowly lowered back down into the seat that was at the side of the bed beside Y/N. With angry eyes on him, Negan lifted his hand slightly and gave a cheesy smile wiggling his fingers around. “My bad man.”

“God,” Y/N couldn’t help but laugh hearing Negan snort in response. “You’re still so very much Negan.”

“I’m curious,” Negan shrugged his shoulders reaching for Y/N’s other hand to hold onto it. “You can’t blame a man for being curious.”

“Okay, so I have everything,” the doctor announced making Joel’s head perk up. The doctor gazed between all three of them and he cleared his throat when he moved in beside Joel who adjusted his seat so the doctor had more room. “Now which one is the father?”

“I am,” both Negan and Joel announced at the same time making Y/N gaze between the both of them when the doctor let out an uncomfortable sound.

“We both are,” Negan corrected what he said, making Joel’s jaw flex and when the doctor looked to him, Joel nodded as if in agreement with Negan.

“I forgot the three of you had a thing going on,” the doctor announced showing that he may not be someone that completely agreed with what they had going on, but Y/N truthfully didn’t give a shit about what he thought about things. “Are you trying to determine who the father is by how far along you are in your pregnancy?”

“Doc, let’s not make this complicated, okay?” Joel grumbled under his breath, his eyebrows furrowing when he gazed over the man beside him. “We’re a family. We don’t want to know who the father is.”

“It would be pretty hard to determine who the father was regardless right now,” the doctor informed them, his eyes trying to focus on all three of them that were there. “When the baby is born, we have the capability of checking who the father is if you’re interested…”

“We’re not,” Y/N pushed further making the doctor clear his throat and nod his head. That was something that she wanted to make clear. Knowing who the biological father was would just breed jealousy and that was not something that she wanted to even focus on right now considering how they both responded to the answer of who was the father. “They both agreed that no matter what, they were both the fathers and they weren’t going to care which one was the biological father.”

Y/N saying that was almost like a reminder for the both of them. The way in which they both claimed the baby surprised Y/N since they were both the ones in the past that said if she ever did end up getting pregnant that they wouldn’t care who the father was. Neither guy said anything, Negan just moved closer to the side of the bed and started to stroke over the back of her hand with his fingertips.

“Listen, I know that our relationship isn’t normal, but I’m not asking anyone to accept it. We’re a family and no one has to agree with it, but it is the way it is. We love each other and this is how our life is,” Y/N blurt out making the doctor panic when he reached for the gel that he was going to use. “The three of us loving each other doesn’t change things.”

“Of course not! I’m not making anything negative out of it, I promise you,” the doctor assured her with a simple tip of his head. “I’m used to things being you and Joel, but I’m not conservative, I promise you that. It’s nothing against you Negan, it’s just going to be a while before I get used to this whole thing. You have to understand that people have been avoiding even looking at Y/N a specific way because they are terrified that Joel would rip them apart.”

“I’m not that mean,” Joel huffed, his eyebrows furrowing when the doctor looked to Joel with an amused expression. “What?”

“When it comes to your wife and children, you’re terrifying,” the doctor explained making Y/N laugh when she saw Joel’s face twisting with confusion. “You are potentially the nicest man here. You and Roy are great leaders of this community because you’re good men. But there is not a person here that would fuck with you or your family.”

“Yeah, he is a bit of a badass,” Negan acknowledged with a half laugh seeing the way that Joel gazed over at him.

“We all know what happened when Nolan was taken. You’re a force to be reckoned with,” the doctor smiled squirting some of the gel out over Y/N’s abdomen making her let out a surprised breath. “No one here would be dumb enough to fuck with you.”

“I was a force to be reckoned with,” Joel nodded over toward his cane that was resting against the wall. “Now I’m disabled. I’m as useless as a paperweight.”

“I don’t believe that. If anyone is capable of overcoming this thing, it’s you. I watched you fight harder than any man I’ve ever known. Even before this whole shit show started. In my career, I’ve never seen someone get as injured as you have and live,” the doctor explained gazing Joel over before shaking his head. “I’m not even sure if you’re human. You might be like some kind of super soldier. You should be dead Joel. Twice over and you’re not. So again, you’re a force to be reckoned with. Not even God wants to take you because he knows you’ll kick his ass.”

It was an immediate response, but that comment made both Y/N and Negan laugh, but Joel looked sad when the doctor actually said that to him. It was something that Y/N would have thought would have amused him, but it had the reverse reaction.

“Here we go,” the doctor spoke up before Y/N could talk to Joel. “If you watch the screen, you’re going to see your little one…”

Negan was eager to turn to the screen that was behind him to look at the picture that was slowly being revealed to them, “I’d say you’re at least over four months by the development of the fetus.”

“Sounds right,” Joel acknowledged knowing the timeline of how things played out. His eyes were hooked on the screen as well before he lowered down to press a kiss over the back of Y/N’s hand. Negan was in awe while he stared out at the screen. “Does everything look okay? I mean she has a belly, but it’s not as big as she was when she was pregnant with Nolan and Lucille.”

Hearing Joel refer to Lucy as Lucille took Negan’s breath away. He was so used to them calling her Lucy that sometimes he forgot that they named their daughter after his late wife. It also made his chest hurt because of all that he missed. By the timeline of things in the past he realized that he could have been around for Nolan’s four-month ultrasound, but instead he had done what he did in pushing Y/N away. Joel had been there for both pregnancies and he knew more about things than Negan ever would.

Gazing back at Joel, Negan felt his chest ache. Truthfully? He wanted this baby to be his. It wasn’t anything against Joel because heaven knows he loved the hell out of him, but Joel got to experience what it was like to be a father from the start. Both with Nolan and Lucy. It would have just been nice to know how it felt to be a father fully for the first time. He knew that Nolan was his biologically, but Joel would always be more Nolan’s father than he ever would be. There was a sense of hope inside of him that this baby was his so he could be a father to the fullest this time.

“It looks healthy. It looks how it should,” the doctor explained looking at the screen while he continued the ultrasound. “It’s never a hundred percent, but would you like to know the gender of the baby? I’m fairly confident I can tell what the gender is.”

“I want it to be a surprise,” Y/N blurt out before Negan or Joel could acknowledge the question. Both men gazed at her and she shrugged her shoulders. “We don’t have a lot of good surprises in our life. I want this one to be a surprise. Please.”

“Okay,” Joel didn’t fight what she wanted, his green-hazel eyes gazing over her abdomen. “We want it to be a surprise.”

Swallowing down the lump in his throat, Negan accepted that answer, but there was part of him that desperately wanted to know the gender, “If it’s a girl, we know that it belongs to Joel since he makes little girls.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” the doctor teased Negan who originally had tried to make it sound like a joke, but it didn’t really seem like anyone found it amusing. “Both you and Joel have very strong genes.”

“What does that mean?” Y/N snickered making the doctor shrug his shoulders.

“It means your son looks exactly like him,” the doctor pointed at Negan making him smile brightly and bob his head about, his dimples very obvious with that smile. “Before I met Negan, he looked a lot like Joel, but when Negan came here, there is no doubting that boy belongs to that man. And your daughter took on a lot of Joel’s traits. She has his eye color and the same color hair he had when I met him.”

“Are you calling me old?” Joel grunted making the doctor smirk.

“I’m saying you have gray in your hair now. Both you and Negan have certain looks. Your daughter and your son look like they could belong to either one of you, but it’s the eyes that give it away,” the doctor scoot forward looking between Negan and Joel. “You both have textbook definition hazel eyes and they are both green with brown in them, but Joel’s eyes are a lighter version of green. It would be easy to miss in a quick glance, but Lucille has the bright green hazel eyes and Nolan’s are the darker green.”

“So it’s my turn for the baby to take on more of my features,” Y/N snickered making Joel smirk and nod his head slowly. “I think it’s only fair.”

“There you go,” Negan squeezed her hand again before looking back at the screen. “So she’s about halfway through?”

“Yeah, or a little over,” the doctor answered, finishing up with things. When he was done, he printed out two photos and handed one to both Joel and Negan. “Congratulations to all three of you. You have a healthy fetus that should be here in about four and a half months or sooner.”

“Doc,” Joel cleared his throat, looking to the doctor after gazing over the print for a long moment. “Do you think it’s possible for me to get the feeling back in my leg in that amount of time? Do you think I can be healed?”

“Joel, I think it’s completely possible for you to get the feeling back in your leg, but I’m going to be honest with you…” the doctor began making Y/N’s chest ache when the doctor started his statement like that. “Even if you get the feeling back in your leg, you’re probably going to have a significant limp for the rest of your life. You were really hurt. I do although think if anyone could make the most of what happened to you, it’s you.”

“Oh,” Joel responded, his head lowering and Y/N could see that Joel was disappointed with that answer. That wasn’t the answer that he wanted. “Thanks doc.”

“You got this champ. You’re already doing much better than I think anyone else in your position would be doing,” the doctor reached out to pat Joel on the shoulder making him feign a smirk. Bringing Joel’s hand up, Y/N placed a kiss over it before looking to Negan who was still hooked on the photo that he was given.

“This is incredible,” Negan admitted with a big smile, holding up the photo over toward Joel. “This is our baby.”

“It is,” Joel nodded his head and gave Negan a wink. With a hesitant breath, Joel reached for the towel that the doctor had set on the bed to wipe off the gel that was left over Y/N’s abdomen. Joel stood with a pained sound, before helping Y/N sit up and get ready to leave. Bracing himself on the bed, Joel looked between Negan and Y/N before letting out a disappointed breath. “I’m going to need help getting back. I’m sorry.”

“It’s no worries, I got both of my babies. Well all three,” Negan bounced up from the seat that he was in to finish helping Y/N get up. When they finished things up with the doctor, Negan stood between Joel and Y/N allowing Joel to put his weight on him so he could help Joel walk back to the farm. This walk was longer this time and they both understood Joel could only do what he was capable of. When they got back to the house, Joel excused himself to the office and Negan decided to go to the kitchen with Y/N to help make lunch for everyone. It seemed like something was heavy on Y/N’s mind while they worked together to make their family something to eat. “Y/N? What’s wrong?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she waved her hand about and Negan stopped cutting the food that he was working on to turn to her. Clutching her face in his large hands, Negan caressed over the sides of Y/N’s face before forcing her to look at him with a nudging motion. “I don’t want to upset you.”

“You won’t. Nothing can bring me down from what we’ve seen today,” Negan reached down to pat his pocket where he had put the photo of their baby. “So talk to me. I don’t like seeing the people I love hurt or upset.”

“Come here,” she led him away from the counter and over toward the corner of the kitchen to sit down with her at the table. Negan pulled the chair in closer to her, his hazel eyes hooked on her showing that she had his full attention. “I’m trying to be as positive as possible about this pregnancy Negan, but…”

“But?” there was apprehension in Negan’s features, his head tipping to the side when she took a moment of silence. The sound of her swallowing down hard was heard and he reached for her hands again to give her his support. When she met his stare once more, her eyes were damp. “Sweetheart? What is it?”

“I’m scared. For so many reasons,” she explained with a broken sound feeling Negan’s fingers squeezing around hers. “Both of the pregnancies were hard on me. After the postpartum depression that I experienced after having Nolan, I get worried. I wasn’t a good mom to Nolan for the first two years of his life. I’m prone to having severe depression. I don’t want to lie about that. I’ve had a lot of issues with my mental health. And to be honest with you, I don’t even know if I was a good mom with Lucy. Joel is the better parent. We both know that. We both see it. Those kids love Joel more than anything because he was the parent that delivered on everything. Joel was the best father. Joel was our rock. He’s the reason this family is the way it is, but now…”

“We’re going to help Joel. I’m not giving up on him Y/N. Joel will be here for the children and he will be just as good as a father as he was before. And I’m here too. I’m so excited to be a father. You see how I am with the kids, I won’t abandon you and them. I promise you that. I’m happy that I get to experience what it’s like to have children. I love the hell out of Nolan and Lucy. And I’m going to love this baby just as much. My whole life, all I ever wanted was to be a father. Now I get to experience what it’s like overall,” Negan whispered, his hazel eyes visibly getting emotional himself. “Nolan is the best gift I’ve ever been given. Once I knew about Nolan, I knew there was a reason that I was still alive and here. I never understood what kept me going, but it was that boy. And with Lucy, I love the shit outta that little girl. She’s the best of both you and Joel. I’m the luckiest man in the world. I get to share my love with the two hottest people I’ve ever known and I get to have a family with all of you.”

“I know the both of us have been through so much Negan, but I’m being honest when I tell you that I believe you,” she pulled her right hand from his and reached out to caress in over the side of Negan’s face. “I see that you are happy. I know you mean what you say and I don’t question it. I just, I know how I’ve been during both pregnancies and I know everything I went through. It’s not you I doubt.”

“I understand and your feelings are completely fucking valid,” Negan was attempting to show how supportive he was being for her with what she was going through. “I promise you though, no matter what happens, I’m always going to be here for you. Through everything. The hard times, the good times. Everything. You mean the world to me and I don’t want to miss out on any of this.”

A shuddering breath fell from her throat when Negan reached out to place his large palm in over her abdomen. Closing her eyes, she knew that when she was young and pregnant with Nolan, this was all she ever wanted from Negan. If she could have had this back then, she wondered if she would have turned out as messed up as she did. Then again, that thought truly made her feel bad because she had someone perfect in Joel taking care of her and the baby. It was a messy thought to think about the past and everything that had happened.

“It’s just the world is so unpredictable and it scares me still,” she lowered her hand to press it in over his. The way Negan’s lips parted when her hand touched his made her heart skip a beat. “I told you that if the world wanted me pregnant, well, it was going to happen and here we are.”

“Y/N,” Negan breathed out, his bottom lip quivering when she saw that he was getting emotional the longer that he had his hand over her stomach. “I am so fucking sorry.”

“About what?” she wasn’t sure why he was getting upset, but when his teary eyes met hers, she felt her chest aching at the sight. “What’s wrong?”

“I should have been here for this the first time,” Negan maintained, his voice raspier than normal. With a shake of his head, he felt himself caught up in his words that went with his emotions and just shrugged. “I put you through so much shit and it was because of me that the world was so heavy on you. You loved me so much and I just…I was such an asshole. I should have been there to take care of you when you were pregnant with Nolan. I should have been there when he was born. I should have been the one he called dad. I know that Joel is a great dad, but that was something I should have been there for. I left you hanging and for that, I’m so sorry. I wish I could go back and change the way things were, but…I can’t and knowing that destroys me every fucking day.”

“Well, the world is giving you your second chance here Negan,” she used her free hand to reach out to brush it through his graying hair making Negan let out a whimper when he gazed down at her stomach. “Don’t fuck it up.”

“I won’t,” he promised with a wink, his throat flexing when he slid in closer to her. Raising his hand, he curled his fingers around the back of her neck and brought her to him so he could kiss her passionately hoping to show her the love that he did have for her. “I promise you, I know I’m old, but I’m going to be the best father possible to this baby. I promise I will do everything fucking possible to take care of you, Joel and the kids.”

“I know,” she breathed against his lips tasting his tears against his flesh while she stroked her fingers through his hair. “I love you so much.”

“I know,” Negan gave her a wink seeing the way she rolled her eyes before moving in to kiss him. “That was something I’ve never doubted in my life. I know you have always loved me and I hope you know that I love you so much too. I’ve fucked up a lot, but I will always be here for you. From here on out. I will show up as much as I possibly can.”

“I think you give more than you are even capable of sometimes,” she acknowledged knowing that Negan was trying. “Since Joel has been hurt, you’ve been this family’s rock. I don’t know what we would have done without you Negan. We all need you.”

“And I need all of you,” Negan whispered, pulling back enough to drag his thumb across her bottom lip. “This family is it for me. It’s everything and more.”

“Negan,” she breathed, looking down at her abdomen thinking back to the appointment. “There is going to be a problem with you and Joel when the baby is born.”

“No,” Negan shook his head, a confused sound falling from his lips. “We’re going to be just fine.”

“You’re not. I can see it already. You both insisted that you would be okay with me being pregnant. That you didn’t care who the father was, but you both do. With the way you responded today when the doctor asked who the father was, you both care a lot,” she insisted making a shuddering breath fall from Negan’s throat. Well, she wasn’t wrong there. “You want this baby to be yours and he wants this baby to be his. It’s going to cause tension. I hope the two of you can figure it out before the baby is born. This was another reason that I was scared to get pregnant. I have a son with you and I have a daughter with him. I thought having a third child would just breed jealousy and I know it’s going to. That’s why I thought having another baby was a bad thing.”

“Listen…” Negan heard what she said and took a moment to think about it. “Yeah, I really want this baby to be mine.”

“I know you do,” she whispered, reaching up to place her hand in over the side of his face making him let out an anxious breath. “And you both mean so much to me, but I can’t have a dispute between the two of you over this. I’m with the both of you. I was with the both of you that week. It doesn’t matter who the father is because you are both here.”

“I know, it’s just…” Negan licked at his lips knowing that he would have to tiptoe around the conversation because he didn’t want to sound like a dick. “You know how much I love Joel. I don’t think there is a question about that.”

“Obviously,” she threw her hand up in the air knowing that Joel and Negan were exceedingly close. “We know how close the two of you are. At this point, I think a lot of the people in the town think I’m the third wheel for the two of you.”

“That’s not true,” Negan hushed her, rolling his eyes at the idea. “We’re the three of us and I know that. We all love each other and I like this relationship because it has an incredible amount of advantages. I would never ask either of you to pick me over the other. That’s not what this is.”

“I know that Negan,” she could see that he was getting even more emotional about the whole thing the more he talked about it.

“It’s just, Joel was here for both Nolan and Lucy’s birth. We both know that Joel is more Nolan’s father than I am. There is a bond between him and Nolan that I will never have with Nolan. It doesn’t make me love Nolan any less, but he’s Joel’s boy,” Negan kept his voice down, his eyebrows furrowing and he swallowed down hard. “I just, I want it to be mine because for once, I want to be able to experience what it’s like to be a dad for once. Joel’s had it twice. And I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve this child to be his because he’s a better father than I could ever be, but…”

“It is yours. But this baby is his too,” she moved forward to cup the sides of his face making Negan focus on her. Tipping in, she claimed his lips in a sweet, tender caress that took his breath away. The way she touched his face made him let out a shuddering breath when they parted. “You’re going to know what it's like to be a father from the start whether it is your DNA growing inside of me or not.”

“I’m not going to be any different toward Joel, you or that baby,” Negan assured her, his voice breaking while he spoke up. “But it does matter to me whether I’m the biological father or not. I know I said what I did, but I just want to be a father so bad. You know you’re the mother. I just, I kind of want to know if I’m the father. I know that you don’t want that and I will respect your opinion because I love you. I really do. It will take some time to get over, but I promise you I will. It’s just something that is lingering in the back of my mind right now.”

“Okay,” she knew that she couldn’t fight him on it because it was his own personal feelings. It just made things feel more uncomfortable because she wanted them all to be on equal grounds with things. “I appreciate you even saying that Negan. It means a lot. It shows you have grown a lot as a person and it means so much to me.”

“Of course,” Negan gave a weak smile, reaching out to hook his arm around her shoulders to pull her into a big hug. It was an extended one and he could feel a lump in his throat. It was a big deal to him and he knew that she wouldn’t understand it, but he was just going to have to do his best to get over it. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” she whispered, closing her eyes when Negan turned his head to press a kiss over the side of her face. She just hoped that things would get better from here on out. Everyone was doing their best, but there was still a lot going on that was making this so much harder.

Right now she knew that being pregnant was the wrong time. It wasn’t good to add another stressor onto the family right now, but she didn’t get to decide when she was going to be pregnant or not. It just happened and they were going to have to find a way to make it work.

After they had lunch, Negan had taken the kids out to go play for a while and while part of her wanted to go with them just to witness Negan being a good father, she knew that Joel was heavily on her mind. Seeing Negan being a good father to both Nolan and Lucy helped calm her mind. It made things feel easier because she knew that Negan would be there for her no matter what when it came to this pregnancy, but there was something different with Joel and while he may have feigned being happy, she knew better.

Heading to the office that Joel was in, she saw that Joel was sitting on the couch with his legs stretched out. The picture the doctor had given Joel of the ultrasound was in his hand and he was eyeing it over closely making her let out a nervous breath. The sound made Joel lift his head and he swiftly pushed the photo back into the pocket that was on his button-down shirt.

“Hey you,” she moved into the room after closing the door behind her and Joel gave a small smirk. Taking a seat beside him on the couch, she reached out to brush her fingers over the small of his neck. “What’s going on?”

“Just thinking,” his thick southern drawl responded, his eyes gazing over at her. It was typical Joel. Take the attention off him and not give much of an answer even if he was feeling bad about things. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” she waved her hand about in the air before looking him over. Of course he tried to put the attention on her and not him. That was something he always did. He didn’t find importance in himself. “I’m worried about you though. You’ve been my husband for a very long time and I know when something isn’t right. And don’t try to tell me it’s just about your leg because I know you better than that.”

“Yes ma’am,” Joel stammered with a weak smile, reaching up to brush his fingers through his hair and he let out a long sigh. “I just...I keep thinking about when this baby was made. You know? How many times did you sleep with Negan while I was gone? I know you said that you slept with the both of us…”

“Joel,” she frowned knowing where this was headed and it made her feel bad that both of them had this kind of response to the baby. Joel was desperate for an answer and she lowered her head. “A few times.”

With a nod, Joel simply cleared his throat and nodded, “Joel, I had sex with you first.”

“Yeah, but I know this is Negan’s baby,” Joel surprised her when he said it making her lower her hand from the back of his neck to slide it down in over his shoulder. “You slept with me once. And you slept with him multiple times. It’s more likely to be his.”

“You don’t know that,” she stuck to her guns making Joel shrug his shoulders and clear his throat. “It could belong to either one of you. I was with you first Joel. It’s every much as possible that it is yours,” she declared knowing that Joel was depressed over it. Hearing both Negan and Joel’s reaction to things about who the father was made her uneasy. This wasn’t how she thought things would be because of what they promised her in the past. “I thought you both didn’t care about who the baby belonged to and you both very much do.”

“I’m sorry Y/N,” Joel apologized, a saddened breath falling from his throat when he gazed over at her. With a shrug of his shoulders, Joel leaned further back on the couch and cleared his throat. “I don’t want to upset you because you’re already stressed enough. I promise you I won’t talk about it. Okay?”

“Joel,” she felt bad hearing him say that when she saw his cheeks flush over with red. Well, that was vastly different than her discussion with Negan. “Please talk to me. What’s going on? I’ll be okay. Me worrying about you is worse than whatever you tell me.”

“I just don’t want you to feel bad,” Joel stammered, letting out a shuddering breath when her fingers hooked with his. “It has nothing to do with you, the kids or Negan. I love you all so much, but Y/N…I’m really depressed. I’m not even half the man that I used to be. It really breaks me down to know that I couldn’t protect all of you if I tried.”

“Joel,” she frowned, stroking her fingers through his hair hearing his voice getting emotional, tears in his eyes while he tried to explain things to her. Joel was never like this. He was always the positive one holding her together, so to hear him say that he was depressed really hit her hard. Joel was always her rock and she never saw him falling like this. “You got hurt. You heard the doctor. Most people wouldn’t live through what you did.”

“I wish hearing things like that would make me feel better, but I don’t. I should be out there playing with the kids…and I can’t,” Joel lifted his hand, placing it over the center of his chest. There were tears sliding down his face while his hand shook and Y/N could feel herself getting emotional from his reaction. “I sit here every day because I can’t even make it down the stairs on my own. I’m used to doing things. I’m used to keeping busy and I just sit here…doing nothing. I’m a good father and I feel like being like this has made me a horrible father because I can’t do things for the kids. I can’t pick up Nolan or Lucy without sitting. I can’t give them piggyback rides, I can’t play sports with them because I can’t move Y/N.”

“They don’t care about that stuff Joel,” she tried to assure him, stroking down over the side of his face. “They are just happy to have their dad here. They love you.”

“But do you know how much it breaks my heart to hear them laughing and having fun outside while I’m stuck in here?” Joel cried, the lump in his throat growing while he tried to explain how he was feeling. “I’ve never been someone to just sit back and let the world pass me by and for four months that’s all I’ve been able to do. When this baby comes, how can I be a good father to it if I can’t even move?”

“Being disabled isn’t the end of the world Joel. You’re still a good father, regardless of how your leg is. You still sit down with them and help them with their homework. They still lay with you at night and you hold them in your arms. Even if you can’t take down a horse right now doesn’t mean that they don’t count on you and feel safe with you because they do. They love you, so that’s all that matters. Your leg will get better. You just have to give it time.”

“We don’t know that though,” Joel explained with a heavy sigh. “And with this whole baby thing, I don’t know, it just depresses me knowing that it’s likely not mine. I know it upsets you that it is something that is on my mind, but…”

“It’s on Negan’s mind too and obviously, I don’t understand because I thought you two said it would be okay. I insisted that it wouldn’t be, but you both told me otherwise,” she reminded Joel of the past seeing him reaching up to brush at his tears. Her hand stroked over his shoulder and she took some time to gather her thoughts. “You need to go into this thinking that this baby is yours. No matter who is the biological father. This can’t be something that depresses you, Joel. You already have enough going on in your mind. You need to believe that this baby is one hundred percent yours if you want to even think of getting better.”

“What?” Joel’s face scrunched up and he saw her take in a deep breath while she thought over what she was about to say.

“Negan isn’t wrong. Your family is what gives you strength,” she thought back on what Negan told her when he was going through his physical therapy to help Joel the other day. It took a minute for her to gather her thoughts. “This baby needs you. So you need to believe that they are your child. Stop saying it isn’t. This baby needs you. I need you. Please use that to force yourself to get better.”

“But what if I can’t?” Joel questioned, tears still sliding down his face. Joel pointed to his leg that was stretched out. He was barefooted and had on a pair of sweatpants.  “If I don’t get better, I let you down. I let the baby down.”

“Listen to me,” she reached for his face to cup it firmly in her hands. Stroking over the sides of his face with her thumbs, she could see the sadness in his green-hazel eyes. “You have never in my entire time of knowing you, let me down. You are the strongest man I know. You are everything to me and I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. You never gave up on me. Never. And you should have. You should have taken Nolan and you should have left, but you never once gave on me. So I will never give up on you, do you understand that? I don’t care what’s happened. I don’t care what you had to do in order to get back here. You are the foundation of this family. We all need you. I will never be let down by you. I am so proud of the man you are. Do you understand that?”

“Yes ma’am,” Joel muttered with a nod of his head letting out a shuddering breath. Leaning forward she pressed a kiss over his forehead before wrapping him up in her arms. Stroking her fingers through his hair, she let out a surprised breath when he lowered his head down and caressed the side of his face against her abdomen making a breath catch in her throat. The motion was so entirely sweet and when she felt Joel’s fingers stretching out against her stomach to caress over it, she knew that Joel was finally taking that time to connect with the idea of the baby growing inside of her. “I promise I’ll try.”

“That’s all we need of you. Is to try,” she whispered, allowing him to cuddle carefully in next to her abdomen and she stroked her fingers over his shoulders. “We all need you, Joel. We always have and we always will.”

----

Laying stretched out in the big bed that Negan shared with both Y/N and Joel, Negan took in a long breath while he flipped to the next page of the story that he was reading. Today Joel and Y/N had a meeting with the town early and Negan had stayed home to be with the children. While they were still sleeping, he took the quiet time to read a book. He had been so busy lately that he hadn’t really taken the time to himself to be able to relax and just read a book which had become one of his favorite things to do during his time in Alexandria. Adjusting the thick, black framed glasses over his face Negan heard the sound of the bedroom door being pushed open and it made him look up from the book.

“Hey buddy!” Negan smiled brightly when he saw Nolan standing at the door, holding onto the doorknob as if waiting for permission to come in. Closing up the book and setting it aside, Negan pat the bed next to him. With a hesitant smile, Nolan entered the bedroom and closed the door behind him. A groan followed by a laugh escaped Negan’s throat when Nolan took a running dive to jump onto the bed beside him. Nolan’s giggles continued when Negan pulled Nolan into his arms and started tickling at his sides.

“I give! I give!” Nolan laughed out loud, his face turning a bright shade of red in the midst of all his giggling. The sound of Nolan’s laughter was enough to bring a happy smile to Negan’s face. That kind of laughter was contagious and it was something that made everything feel worth it. “Dad!”

“What?” Negan continued to tickle Nolan for a moment more letting up with a chuckle himself. Pressing a kiss over the top of Nolan’s head, Negan knew that he had never truly felt happiness like this before. Being with his son brought out the purest amount of joy and happiness he had ever felt in his life. “What’s up little man?”

“What? I can’t just want to spend time with my dad?” Nolan lifted his head, his hazel eyes locking with his father’s making Negan smirk.

“You are usually attached at my hip when you’re awake,” Negan brushed his fingers through Nolan’s hair, messing it up a bit. He found amusement in the fact that Nolan asked Negan to give him the same haircut, but he thought it was pretty cute. “You have a point there.”

“I just want to spend time with you,” Nolan acknowledged with a sigh, resting his head in over the center of Negan’s chest. It seemed like Nolan was trying to listen to the beating of his heart and it made Negan smile. “You can’t blame a kid for that.”

“Nope, I certainly can’t,” Negan agreed while brushing his fingers through Nolan’s hair, enjoying just having his son laying with him. “I love you so much, you know that?”

“How much?” Nolan lifted his head making a grin tug at Negan’s features.

“More than there are stars in the sky,” Negan winked making Nolan smirk before reaching up to grab the glasses that were over Negan’s face. When Nolan put them on, he let out a surprised breath and laughed. “I’m a bit blind when it comes to reading.”

“No kidding,” Nolan’s laughter filled the air when he reached for the book that Negan was reading to look at the type on it. “How do I look with the glasses? Do I look like you?”

“You know you look like me,” Negan responded with a wink, “we just need you to grow out the facial hair and then you are going to look just like me.”

“Well, minus the gray,” Nolan snapped making Negan let out an offended breath before starting to tickle at his son’s sides. It made Nolan drop the book and the glasses fell from his face while he tried to push at Negan’s hands. “I can’t help that you’re old!”

“Old?” Negan found amusement in his son’s sharp attitude knowing that Joel and Y/N always made it clear that Nolan had some of that witty, smartass personality that made it obvious he belonged to Negan. “You are something else.”

“I’m yours,” Nolan pointed out, reaching for the glasses that had fallen from his face to put them carefully back on Negan’s face. There was a silence that fell between them when Nolan cuddled in beside Negan to be held by Negan. It seemed like there was something heavy on Nolan’s mind, when he went to say something, but then stopped before bobbing his head about. “Hey dad, am I gay?”

“What?” Negan blurt out, surprised to hear that come from his son’s mouth. “Where…why…why are you asking me that?”

“Well, since you’ve been here…sometimes the older kids and adults give me a hard time. They say some mean things about you and my other dad,” Nolan admitted making Negan scoff out loud. There was no doubt that there would be people here that would have a problem with the kind of relationship that he had with Joel, but he didn’t think they would bother his twelve-year-old son. “Recently, this one kid who is a real jerk keeps calling me a…I don’t want to say it. But he says I’m gay because you and dad are gay. And it made me think, I don’t really have a crush on anyone so maybe I am. Lots of people talk about having crushes, but I don’t.”

“First of all, you need to let one of us know when you’re being bullied. Especially by the adults because I will knock them on their ass,” Negan grunted making Nolan laugh at his response and Negan shook his head slowly. Yes, his son found amusement in that statement, but he meant it. He wasn’t afraid of knocking someone on their ass for giving a child a hard time. “Second of all, me and your dad aren’t gay. Your dad and I like men and women. Which means we’re bisexual. Not gay. But me and your dad being that way doesn’t mean you are going to be like us. You’re twelve years old Nolan. You’re way too young to be thinking about this kind of stuff. As you get older, you’ll know how you feel. Some people like men. Some people like women. Some people like both. And there are those that really don’t like either. And there is nothing wrong with any of those things.”

“So it’s normal not to have a crush on anyone?” Nolan pushed making Negan immediately nod his head. “I don’t have girls or boys that I like in that way, but I just…I don’t know. The idea of kissing someone grosses me out. But with them making fun of me, it made me start thinking…”

“You need to let what they say just roll right off you kiddo. They are trying to get a rise out of you. You just need to ignore them. They are so miserable with their own lives that they want to take the attention off of them. No matter what, no matter how you feel when you grow up, you’re perfect just the way you are and I will always be proud of you,” Negan assured his son with a wrinkle of his nose. “It’s been thirteen years since the end of the world and somehow homophobia still exists in the world. It’s un-fucking-believable.”

“What does that mean?” Nolan watched Negan’s face twist with discomfort.

“It means that people hate someone for being attracted to the same gender,” Negan explained further to his son feeling the lump in his throat growing. Deep down he felt like Nolan was too young for this whole thing, so it pissed him off that he had to go into this discussion. “A lot of people get angry about the idea of two men or two women together. And the relationship that your other dad and your mother have with me is one that people won’t begin to understand. It would have been something that would have never been allowed before the world became what it is. Your mom would have to be married to one of us. And if people found out about the other one, they would be very judgmental about it. If I was to marry your dad in the past, it would enrage a whole lot of people.”

“But why? I don’t understand that. Don’t they want someone to be happy?” Nolan inquired, his young features confused. “I know my other dad talked to me about this in the past, but I never understood it. If someone is happy and they love someone, isn’t that enough?”

“It should be, but some people just like being miserable and they want the rest of the world to be that way too,” Negan answered his son with a disappointed breath. “If there is one thing I want you to be while you grow is kind Nolan. There isn’t enough of that in the world. Don’t judge someone by their size, who they love, their looks…”

“I know that. I don’t. I would never do that. Dad taught me that early on. Always be kind to someone until they give you a reason not to be,” Nolan repeated what Joel had told him a long time ago. “I know the way they are acting toward me is wrong, I just…I don’t know. I was curious. I just don’t like girls that way. And I don’t like boys that way either.”

“And there is nothing wrong with that. You’re still a baby. I don’t want you to even think about that stuff any time soon,” Negan let out a disgusted exhale making Nolan giggle that he was so upset with the idea of it. “You’re just my little dude.”

“Lucy already has a crush on a boy,” Nolan informed Negan with a firm nod of his head making Negan’s nose wrinkle. “Yeah! She does and he’s two years older too.”

“Well, I’m going to have to have a discussion with your other dad because we need to deal with that,” Negan asserted making Nolan’s laughter return and it made Negan smirk. “She shouldn’t be crushing on anyone until she’s at least twenty.”

“Dad, how did you know that you were attracted to other guys?” Nolan questioned making Negan take in a long shallow breath. “How old were you?”

“I just realized that I found beauty in pretty much everyone. Women, men…I thought they were good looking. I realized that when I was maybe fifteen, but I started too young myself too,” Negan informed his son with a long sigh. “I went through a phase where my father wasn’t very accepting of me liking other men. So I let him bully me into being a certain way.”

“You would never do that to me,” Nolan replied making Negan immediately nod his head, biting down on his bottom lip. “What was wrong with your dad? Why did he bully you into being a certain way?”

“My dad loved me as much as he could buddy, he just…he came from a day in age where men liking other men was very frowned upon. Your grandfather found me…cuddling with another boy from my baseball team when I was sixteen,” Negan explained in the purest of ways possible knowing that it was a bit more than that, but he didn’t want to push things with Nolan since he was still so young. “He got really mad at me. Called me a lot of names and was upset. He wouldn’t talk to me for days and when he finally calmed down, he apologized, but asked me to push those feelings aside because he wasn’t proud of me. So…I did. I know I’ve told you about Lucille, she was my high school sweetheart. We stayed together and ended up getting married. Your other dad is the first time I finally opened myself to loving another man since my dad tried to force me away from having those feelings. I was such a jerk to Joel and he still showed me nothing, but kindness. Even when he should have hated me, he was helping me. He just wanted me to be the best version of myself.”

“Your dad should have been proud of you no matter what,” Nolan exclaimed making Negan weakly smile before nodding his head.

“My dad used to tell me all the time when he was trying to explain things to me…Negan, your life…it’s not your own once you have kids. It’s never the same,” Negan recalled his father’s voice in his head finding himself lost in a moment while he sat with Nolan. “And he was right. The moment I found out that you were here, everything changed for me. I just think my dad didn’t understand what he was saying. Because to me, that means being there for your kid when they need you. It means supporting them. Telling them that you love them every day. Just showing up and being a good dad.”

“You are,” Nolan reached for Negan’s hand and gave it a small squeeze realizing that Negan may be a bit sad about talking about his father. “Can I be honest with you about something?”

“Always,” Negan tried to push aside his thoughts about his past seeing the way that Nolan frowned and sighed. “What is it?”

“I know we’re supposed to be happy about mom being pregnant, but I’m actually…I’m not sure I am,” Nolan admitted, his young features twisting with confusion. “You haven’t been here that long. I’m only just getting to start this bond with you and with the baby coming around I’m scared that you will be too excited about the baby to spend time with me.”

“Hey,” Negan spoke up seeing that Nolan was genuinely upset about the idea of it. “No, that would…that would never happen Nolan. We’re just making room for the baby, right? My love for you will not change and I will want to spend as much time with you as possible. The baby just means we’re going to have more love in our hearts to give, right? I’m gonna need you with me all the time anyways because I’m going to need your help.”

“Do you promise?” Nolan whispered, his eyebrows furrowing when Negan pulled himself up into a seated position. Wrapping Nolan up in his arms, Negan squeezed him tightly and pressed a kiss over the top of his head.

“I promise. You are the best thing I’ve ever done in my whole life buddy. Look at you,” Negan reached out to squeeze at his son’s jaw seeing the smile that expanded over his features. “You know what? How about when your other dad and your mom get back, you and I can go fishing. Just the two of us. Would you like that? We can have a fish feast if we catch anything.”

“I’d like that!” Nolan agreed with Negan, laying back down on the bed with Negan. While they waited, Negan read some of the book that he was reading out loud to Nolan. By the time that Joel and Y/N got back, Joel was nervous at the idea of Negan taking Nolan out after everything that went down with The Empty. But Negan had promised that he would only go on the route that they had taken to go to their small cabin by the water. Negan had brought a handgun and rifle with him just in case, but he felt comfortable enough to go with Nolan. While they were by the water setting up, Nolan had kept asking Negan random questions about his past and Negan was trying to be as honest as possible. “So when did you meet mom for the first time?”

With a coughing sound, Negan looked back over his shoulder at Nolan and saw the way his son’s face twisted, “You avoid that question all the time. Why?”

“Uhm,” Negan swallowed down hard, his eyebrows bouncing up. “Your mother’s parents had her kind of young. They were twenty when they had her. I was really good friends with your grandparents. Particularly your grandfather. We had been good friends most of our lives.”

“I know that there is a big age difference with both you and dad when it comes to mom. Mom is thirty-two and you’re…what?” Nolan pushed for an answer while he got his fishing pole ready making Negan’s face flush over.

“I’m fifty-two,” Negan was honest with his son, giving him a tip of his head.

“Okay, you and my other dad are a year apart. So why does it make you so nervous every time?” Nolan giggled making Negan groan out before tossing his line out.

“Well, your other dad met your mother when she was eighteen,” Negan tipped his head about hating to be open with his son, but one day Nolan was going to learn things anyways and it made sense to be honest with him now. “They didn’t get together until she was nineteen. He was her professor, so they tried to keep things…normal between the two of them.”

“I know how they met,” Nolan reminded Negan watching his father’s face flush over more. “Dad?”

“I’m not going to lie Nolan, it creeps me out and I want to forget it,” Negan explained making Nolan snort. “I like to pretend that I met your mother when she was eighteen.”

“So you were around when she was a baby, huh?” Nolan almost teased Negan making Negan groan out loudly. “Yeah, you’re right, that’s pretty creepy, but you were her father’s best friend so I guess that makes sense.”

“Yes, thank you for confirming that, Nolan. I feel disgusting when thinking about it, but your mother and I didn’t start having a relationship until she was close to nineteen,” Negan pushed further making Nolan shake his head before going back to get his fishing pole ready. “Your other dad and I have a significant age gap with your mother. That’s another thing that people would look down on. Your mother just likes…older men.”

“No kidding,” Nolan snorted still adding a sense of sarcasm to the way he was talking before Nolan rolled his eyes. “What about dad? When did you meet dad for the first time?”

“I was a jerk to your dad the first time I met him. I thought he was trying to steal your mom from me so I gave him a lot of attitude,” Negan explained to Nolan seeing the amusement that Nolan got from hearing that. “The more time I spent with your dad though, the more I liked him. Actually your dad and I were spending a lot of time together hanging out without your mom.”

“What was it about dad that made you fall in love with him?” Nolan muttered letting out an excited breath when he caught something. Negan worked to help Nolan catch the fish to put in the bucket before casting out the line again.

“Your dad had the biggest heart of anyone I ever knew. He never put himself first. He wanted to see those that he loved happy and it was incredible to see. Your father is one of the most selfless people I’ve ever known,” Negan thought back on when he had started to fall in love with Joel back in the day. “Like my father, Joel’s father would have been very upset with him for getting with another man. Joel was from Texas and his father was very…”

“Homophobic?” Nolan used the word that Negan had taught him earlier making Negan nod. “Well I’m glad you and dad found each other because you would be able to prove both of your fathers wrong. That two men being together is okay because love is love.”

“You’re right,” Negan winked at Nolan letting out a long sigh. “I’ve been lucky enough to be in love with three people in my life. Not many people get to experience that. I’d do anything for your mother and your father. They mean everything to me. You all do.”

“You mean everything to us,” Nolan insisted with a weak smile before they continued to fish. They had caught quite a few and Negan thought it would be enough for them to take back.

Negan asked Nolan to go grab something while Negan finished up. Negan was knelt down packing a few things up when he heard the sound of branches crunching behind him, “Did you grab it buddy?”

Holding out his hand behind him, Negan waited noticing that Nolan wasn’t handing anything to him and he looked over his shoulder. A nervous breath fell from his throat when he realized that the barrel of a shotgun was in his face. Standing up, Negan let out a shuddering breath when he met the stare of the familiar green eyes before him, “Shit.”

Surveying the area around him, Negan didn’t see Nolan anywhere and he felt a rush of panic flood his body, “Hey Maggie.”

“I’ve been looking for you,” Maggie whispered keeping the barrel of the shot gun pointed at Negan’s face. “You’ve been missing for a long time. When they came to the house and saw that you were gone, I knew that you were trouble.”

“Maggie…” Negan held his hands up in the air finding himself less worried about the shotgun pointed at his face compared to the fear he had of where Nolan was.

“Shut up!” she demanded making Negan’s jaw clench and he swallowed down hard. “There’s been a group a few of us have dealt with on the road. They call themselves The Empty. Interesting how I find you not too far from the areas that they attacked our people.”

“The Empty?” Negan repeated feeling a lump growing inside of his throat as he lowered his hands down. “I’m not part of The Empty Maggie. I left that small home you guys left me in to starve in order to find some food. I was lonely and I…I found someone else. A group. People I knew before the apocalypse started Maggie. I’m an Arcadian.”

“A what?” her southern drawl surrounded him when Negan tried looking beyond her for Nolan, but she moved forward to shove the barrel of her gun into the center of his chest making him grunt.

“I’m living in a place called Arcadia. It’s not too far from here. If you give me a chance, I can take you there. I just have to find my…” a grunt fell from his throat when he felt Maggie hitting him in the face with the gun making him fall to ground. “I’m not one of them!”

“I don’t care,” she screamed back at him making Negan hiss out when he looked up at her with anger in his hazel eyes. “We never settled things between us.”

“I left so you and your boy could be happy at Alexandria. I thought it was settled long ago,” Negan reasoned with Maggie, a hiss falling from his throat. “I don’t want to keep bothering you anymore Maggie. I made a mistake. A big one. One that you will never forgive me for and you never should. What I did was wrong and it was awful, but I’m a different person now.”

“No you aren’t. You are always going to be the manipulative asshole that you’ve always been,” her finger etched over the trigger making Negan growl out angrily. “Knowing that you are still so close just living out here doing who knows what makes me uncomfortable. You don’t deserve it.”

A clicking sound filled the air making Maggie tense up immediately when Negan saw Nolan stepping out from behind one of the trees with the rifle that he had brought in his arms. Maggie gazed over to see Nolan holding the rifle at her and Negan felt an immediate amount of panic flooding his body, “Nolan! No!”

“Leave my dad alone,” Nolan demanded with an angered breath making Negan attempt to go to his son, but Maggie made sure to show that she was willing to pull the trigger more now than ever. “Put your shotgun down or I swear I will shoot you.”

[capricioussun]

what is fell papyrus' biggest obstacle in becoming the best version of himself?

His inability to self assess, without a doubt.

This is a problem consistent with all Papyruses imo, but it’s quite possibly the worst/most difficult to deal with for UF Papyrus. He struggles a lot with a personal sense of self, and isn’t really even aware enough to realize that, which causes, as I’m sure you can imagine, a lot of conflict when he‘s influenced by two (or possibly more) contradictory “goals”.

In general, I hc all Papyri as being…impressionable, of their surroundings and the people they care for, and due to…a lot of things that happened in his past/early childhood, UF Papyrus specifically wound up with an overactive sense of responsibility. He feels overly responsible for…like, everything, and constantly assumes the role of “problem solver” any time he comes across a problem he feels could impact him/the people he cares about (which…is most problems).

Aside from obvious reasons why this is unhealthy on its own, it becomes especially counterproductive when partnered with the fact that, despite how “malleable” his personality can be, at his core, there are some traits that are inherent, most of which are…rather “good” or “innocent” things, like his desire for companionship, his compassion for others, the genuine belief in the greater good. While those things can, and are impacted by his surroundings, it’s very difficult to fully and truly uproot or damage them. So in a world like underfell, he has essentially been raised and influenced by ideals that are the polar opposite of things lying at his core.

And that’s only just the first inception layer of complicated for him. The lines only get muddier and muddier as time goes on and his pool of people he cares for grows. Yes, there are tiers, for example, he would choose his brother over Undyne and Undyne over the Dogi, etc if pushed to it, but overall, he becomes influenced by all the people in his life. This causes a considerable amount of internal conflict, since he desperately tries to be…what he thinks he needs to be by everyone else(that he cares about)‘s standards.

So…when left to his own devices, like, for example, on the surface, after everything slowly becomes lower stakes for them, as the people he’s tasked himself with being caretaker/loyal to start “needing” him less, well, it can be a very difficult balancing act for him. Without a solid influence (be it good or bad) in his life, Papyrus struggles to understand what he “needs” to do. What his purpose is. And…I supposed “relapses” into simply looking to be as “useful” as possible in whatever ways he thinks he needs to be.

This is why being ambassador or something similar would be such a double edged sword for him - while it would be good for him to feel important and have a lot to do to keep him busy, it would be all too easy for him to slip into a sort of…unhealthily codependent relationship with his work.

At the end of the day, he always assumes if something in his life isn’t working out the way it should be, it’s somehow some fault of his own, to varying degrees, and if he wants to fix it, he has to fix “himself” in whatever ways this applies. This is a very unhealthy and even dangerous mindset, especially for someone as genuinely kindhearted as Papyrus, as he could so very easily forget about his own health and wellbeing for the sake of others’ (or a cause he’d believe worthy of it).

His lacking self awareness is the biggest roadblock in meeting his own goals, ironically, considering his main goals are…essentially always meeting his own goals. But, as the saying goes, you cannot feed others from an empty basket, and since he also doesn’t ask for help (it’s his responsibility, he can’t burden others with this), he can’t really see or learn how to identify this flaw in his own thinking. It’s one of his biggest fatal flaws, and can lead to even heavily self destructive behaviors in extreme enough circumstances (and unintentionally hurting/“burdening” those he’s trying not to in the process).

[seyaryminamoto]

What I’m trying to say is that I think there would always be tension between Zuko and Azula. But it doesn’t mean Zuko wouldn’t try to help her. And it doesn’t mean she’s incapable of caring for her brother.

Now this we can certainly be in full agreement about. Zuko doesn't try to help her in this story at all, like I've explained many times now, because he's absolutely stuck on a very toxic mindset that he refuses to break. It's a concept that I wanted to explore because of how often I've seen people reiterating that he's "allowed" to resent her and never forgive her and have nothing else to do with her.

I'm not even that harsh with Zuko in that story, I'd say (bet a bunch of you thought I'd have another Sokka-punch straight to Zuko's face if they came face-to-face in this one, huh? X'D), I refused to write him wanting her executed because, while certain fans HAVE said that, I don't think I want to write a Zuko who spirals to THAT extent. But of course, I wanted to show through the story what it means for some people, unlike yourself, to believe that Zuko can't possibly help her, that he shouldn't, that it's even unethical to expect him to do it, and just... why? Why would this be the hill you want to die on? Why would you want this traumatized boy to never learn to work through his trauma and never learn to see more than his own pain? It was a lot of pain, nobody needs to hide that... but for a character who's constantly touted for being such a symbol of empathy, it makes very little sense that some of those fans, the very ones who talk about him being all about empathy, would demand that he shows none towards his sister.

So... yeah. This particular AU is a rarity for me because I really don't want to explore Zuko in this direction. I mean, nothing good would come from it, either: if I went any further, he'd likely wind up losing everything if he keeps clinging to this mindset. One of the ironies of Zuko's behavior in this story is that, in clinging to resentment, he ends up effectively reversing the situation that led to Azula's breakdown in canon: first, Sokka picked Azula over Zuko. Then, Katara and Aang do it too. Toph, as well, by helping them when she does. Iroh did, too, by harboring Azula when he did. Slowly and surely, Zuko ends up resenting ALL these people he loved for not choosing to support him on his "Azula cannot be forgiven!" crusade, and he takes it as a betrayal, just as Mai and Ty Lee betrayed Azula for his sake. And if the fact that Zuko could spiral into a situation that mirrors Azula's breakdown doesn't feel like a massive red flag about this headcanon, I don't know what will. But I do believe that nobody who loves this guy should ever want him to wind up in a position like this one.

As for Azula, I absolutely agree, though I also believe that her way of caring about Zuko isn't what most people want it to be. I don't think Azula could ever become someone who coddles him and treats him reverently... but I do think she could look after him in tough-love sort of ways. I do think she could want to protect him if harm comes his way. Theirs would likely be a complicated relationship, I suppose... but I guess that's why people say that there's no set way to love a person. Love comes in many shapes and forms, and not everyone can love others the same way someone else does. I don't think Azula can love Zuko the way he wants to be loved by a sibling... just as I don't think Zuko can do that for Azula, either. But if they learn to accept each other, to truly understand one another, I do believe they could reach a level of respect and, who knows, even lowkey admiration for each other in the best of cases, and accept each other's care and affection in whatever form it comes, provided it's genuine, of course. As long as they learn to see each other with clearer eyes, I don't think their relationship could ever lose all hope. It could work... it just has to be done thoroughly, and the work to amend it NEEDS to come from both sides. Zuko making all the efforts for an unresponsive and ungrateful Azula would be just as unreasonable as Azula making all the efforts for an unresponsive and ungrateful Zuko. So, provided they both grow up a lot, individually, I believe they can grow as siblings...

... Which is something I have been doing for them in a certain other massive AU in which I may or may not have written my most wholesome and positive version of their bond, unintentionally :'D

I do think that it's possible these two could learn to let go of the spite and resentment, to be honest. It can be done, provided that they're handled by writers who know how to guide the characters in the direction necessary to achieve that goal. And I say this because I feel like I've done it pretty organically in Gladiator, obviously some people might disagree, but I actually feel good about the place where I've taken their sibling bond there. So I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibilities for these two to heal. Their bond can be better, but it takes mutual understanding, then mutual forgiveness, to make sure they can become better siblings for each other. It would take time too, yes... but when you're talking to someone who's spent a decade writing a fic, being told that developing something like this "takes time" almost comes off as a joke to me. Of course it would: that's no reason not to put in the work to make it pay off if you want it to. Otherwise, I would have given up on Gladiator in like 20 chapters, upon realizing it was going to be my biggest venture in this fandom and that I wouldn't possibly know how much time it was going to take me to finish it :')

[alaffy]

Riverdale, Ep. 6x20 - Return to Rivervale (spoilers)

Wow. Ok, so instead of slowly letting information out over several episodes; we decided to have everything in one. And it's a lot, but still there are things that don't make sense or don't add up. I'm not going to give as much of a synopsis as more of a breakdown of what we learned and some important moments that may or may not lead back to something. Also, talk about a few things that I feel don't quite mesh with what we've been told (probably on purpose).

So, the group find out from Jason the reason why Percival is creating the ghost train and that they know they need to blow up the tracks. Also, Pop's was apparently built on a Hellmouth. However, they aren't able to do it for most of the episode because they find out Percival has Kevin, Reggie, and Reggie's dad.

Betty reunites with Polly and, at first, it seems like a sweet moment. In fact, Polly does seem to be telling Betty what Betty should have been told for years. But then there's a couple of things. One minor issue is that Polly says the kiss between Betty and Archie happened because Betty fell out of love with Jughead. But that's not true. No matter what Betty feels now (and we have never heard her say how she feels), at the time she makes it clear that she does love Jughead. Still, Polly wasn't around during that incident, so it could be just something she assumed.

However, then we get to the moment where Polly washes Betty's genes away. No, let's backtrack. Betty sees a gold aura around Polly (which she's never seen a good aura before). And after Polly washes Betty's feet, Betty sees it around her too. I'm sorry, the fact that there's suddenly this magical cure for Betty's "darkness" and the fact that Sabrina warned about bringing back people who could end up twisted, I don't think Polly is doing good here.

The biggest part of the story is that Jughead admits to Tabitha that he hears voices from another Universe. Also, that his powers can create a door to that universe. So, Tabitha and Jughead go to that universe and meet the Jughead trapped in the bunker. At the same time, we also have Percival telling his story to Alice. Ok, this is complicated. Percival came with the decedents of Archie, Betty, Cheryl, and Jughead to the new world in 1580. Percival was a witch and was caught trying to sacrifice a person to the devil. He was tried by the village and sentenced to death. But the devil saves him and Percival wonders the world for several centuries is order to become immortal and, basically, get the power to make sure the Devil cannot claim his soul. However, it was not our world; but the world of Rivervale. That's right, the reason there's no record of him is because he's the one who slipped between universes and it happens at the time of the bomb, because of one little change that was made (more in a minute).

He notices that Riverdale isn't as magically inclined as Rivervale (note, he didn't say there isn't magic; just that it's not as much as Rivervale). And so, Percival decides this is the perfect place to put his plan in motion to become immortal as the Rivervale devil won't find him here. Meanwhile, in Rivervale the former Narrator Jughead turned normal Jughead has become a famous comic book writer...because he sold his soul to the devil. He writes a comic book about Super Teens based on his friends who fight a person called Percival the Perverse. However, the deal with the devil means he must write more tragic stories and that the Super Teens will die in the end. How is this important? Well, the two universes are bleeding into each other. More specifically, it looks like the magic of Rivervale is affecting the less magic of Riverdale. And the powers the group received in Riverdale, those are the powers the Super Teens have in the comic. So, basically, the real life story of Percival and the comic story of Jughead are being influenced by magic (and the Divine?) and are the cause of what's going on in Riverdale. Try not to think too hard about it.

But the question is, why are their still cracks at all. Well, Ethel (who is extremely abusive in this episode) figures it out. It seems as though, before the universe fully separated, the Jughead who's eternally trapped in the bunker called Betty and told her there's a bomb. Ethel is furious and tells Jughead that the universes are still connected because he called Betty. Furthermore, she also says he did it because he's still in love with Betty. Tabitha and Jughead decide this is the time to leave.

They go back to meet up with the rest of the people and find out about Kevin and Reggie. No problem, as Jughead can magically open a door into where they're held and free them. Then, Archie blows the tracks. In retaliation, Percival kills Alice, Tom, and Frank. They will not be missed.

So, going back to briefly talk about the Betty/Jughead content in this episode. No, Betty did not say that she fell out of love with Jughead. No, just because the other Jughead loves Betty that it means Riverdale Jughead still feels the same. And I fully expect Jughead to tell Tabitha he's with her in the next episode; which is a trope that drama shows do (I don't love this person, I'm with you...a few moments later). Hell, the literally did that with the kiss in 4x17 and with Veronica and Reggie at the end of season 3. That being said, that also doesn't mean that they absolutely will break up the couples either. What this means is that....they have a seventh season and endgames aren't going to be revealed now. Besides, there's some things here that don't add up and may affect where we go in the next season.

First off, this episode made it seem like the bomb going off was an important deal as to how all of this played out. However, Tabitha said the bomb isn't a set point in time. Second, as I mentioned, Percival said there was less magic here; but he didn't say there wasn't any. And, realistically, there has to be some; otherwise, how did the kiss, the bomb, and the Palladium create Rivervale in the first place? Especially, as it happened after Cheryl cursed the trio. My guess is this, in the next episode they'll defeat Percival and things will seemingly go back to normal. Except, in episode 6x22, they realize that the universes are too connected to just be separated anymore and that the only way to save Riverdale is do what they were going to do in the first place and destroy Rivervale. Except, in this case, they realize that they have to kind of reset things in order to make sure Rivervale doesn't exist. Which is why the bomb isn't set in stone because they will reset things so that the bomb never goes off.

Where that will leave us and where the characters (and couples) will be at that point, who knows. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the ending of the season; with them resetting things but not letting us know how they are reset.

[zhuhongs]

ah, well today was better than yesterday by far but damn. I don’t really know how to fully put my thoughts in words but I really feel like I’m a pathetic person in front of others. Two of my classmates are leave Taiwan this weekend so they invited us out to eat with them and I just. felt really useless. Like I kept having to wait for people to ask me things before doing anything and i don’t really think it was a big deal, I’m just disappointed in myself bc I can pull my weight and do things on my own, I’m just so sick of always doing this alone so that now when I’m with others I just want to relish in the comfort in not having to decide on anything. But the lack of any desire at all makes everything so much more difficult and I just... yea. I felt strange. But i think it’s.. alright. when its all said and done we will all forget about this. It was overall a good experience. There was a portion where they were asking me what the Japanese students in our class are always talking about and I uh.. maybe said too much and I just really hope they don’t go and say “hey so sage said ....” like most of them are leaving Taiwan this week anyways so none of it really matters. And if all else fails I can play the dumb card and be like “do you really think I listen into your conversations. I listen to Japanese conversations from my roommates ALLL day and I don’t understand it half the time I want to puke, i’m so fucking sick of listening to Japanese, when yall talk I tune it out.” and tbh i think that would be very convincing. but jesussss idk. I wish i could pace myself better. I feel like I’m always spilling out of the crack and I never do things in a graceful way. I’m not used to living my life. oh also one of my classmates, he kept asking me if I have been to places and idk if he was trying to imply we should go to together, he also wanted me to my dorm and it was just, i felt so strange. I’m sooo sorry man. I just. yea. I always feel so weird with like any attention from guys bc like I don’t want to assume they like me, but I also feel a weird sense of relief if they might just because it proves that i’m not undesirable but I also don’t like men and i just. its all so complicated and I feel so strange about it always and the point is, I never put myself out there and learned how to be normal around others and I just have to keep trying and failing and figure it out and eventually someone will be able to meet a version of me that i don’t feel embarrassed about showing but regardless its okay. I’m  glad I went out, no matter how awkward I am. I may look desperate and indecisive and well, just a bit useless but that’s okay. It def beats going straight home and decomposing in my room. Next semester will be better but I can still become someone better slowly in these last few days of the first semester. yea.

[bigboobyhalo]

obviously disregard this if you want etc etc you dont need me to tell you. but as someone who fell out of dsmp a while ago but still loves c!sam as a character. can you briefly sum up what happened or at least why it was so terrible?

okay okay let me see if I can try. I couldn’t do it last time cuz I was so pissed off about it and knew that my bias would drag it wayyy down but. well I’m still gonna be really really biased against it cuz it sucked but maybe it will be more coherent ? I’ll probably miss some stuff too cuz I have actually been trying my hardest to NOT remember this stream

basically c!sam and c!philza were friends way back in the day, which is already really confusing and weird and unnecessary and ultimately kind of stupid, and sam showed phil that he made a way to create multiple bodies (yep the alternate bodies lore is the focus here) n that it could maybe be used to cheat death and phil was like “nope. fuck that. death is awesome and I’m not you’re friend anymore” and flew away and then they were never friends again. which like. what was the point ?

then there was a way-too-long recap of the egg lore finale which contained lots of stuff that was completely unnecessary for understanding the events of this stream (honestly this isn’t even crit on the content of the lore itself, it’s just like … we didn’t need it!)

and THEN this is where it gets REALLY BAD. boomer is at his house and then he gets visions of the egg and some frog statues and a castle and he’s so so so scared or something that he runs away and he runs for literal years and years and years and then he reaches the castle from his visions and he goes thru a cave under the tunnel and finds a secret laboratory where sam’s body is floating in a tube and he breaks it and sam is like “ahhh boomer ?? what happened???” and sam slowly starts remembering everything and it turns out that he’s been in that tube for years ever since ponk killed him in the egg finale which means this is a fucking timeskip to YEARS in the future and apparently there’s been a fucking eggpocalypse that we literally don’t get to see or learn anything about and maybe everyone is dead but we don’t fucking know !! absolutely fucking ABYSMAL way to reveal that an eggpocalypse happened it pisses me off sooo much. we had just reached the climax of the crimson storyline. something that has been gradually built up for nearly TWO YEARS NOW. the egg LITERALLY JUST HATCHED. and now we’re skipping SEVERAL YEARS INTO THE FUTURE ?? thru POVs of characters who are now COMPLETELY DETACHED FROM THE EGGPOCALYPSE ITSELF ??? and THAT’S HOW THEY WANNA REVEAL THAT AN EGGPOCALYPSE HAPPENED ????? LIKE ?? HELLOOO ??? THIS SUCKS. IT WASTES ALL OF THAT WONDERFUL CLIMACTIC BUILDUP THAT THE EGG HAD GOING ON. THE EGG FINALE HAD BEEN SO FUCKING GOOD AND THEN THIS SHITSHOW COMES ALONG AND FUCKS IT ALL UP !!!!

and as if it couldn’t get any worse, CC!boomer apparently said that this is actually an alternate timeline and up to interpretation or whatever. which initially sounds like it makes it a lot better because oh well it’s just an alternate timeline it’s not necessarily canon to other storylines but then you realize that these motherfuckers just introduced ALTERNATE GOD DAMN TIMELINES into the ALREADY RIDICULOUSLY COMPLICATED STORY that is the DSMP. like what the actual fuck is WRONG with you ?? also, since the eggpocalypse happening is apparently an “alternate timeline” thing, then it probably won’t happen in the actual canon timeline or whatever the fuck. it’s just completely garbage

some other shit happened after boomer broke sam out of the tube or whatever. they went to a swamp and boomer jumped in a hole or something but I honestly could not even be bothered to care at that point. the best outcome here is that this convoluted, nonsensical garbage gets retconned and no one ever speaks of it again. UGH.